5 December 2025

Netflix acquires Warner Bros Discovery in $83 billion deal

Following exclusive talks, Netflix announced the purchase of Warner Bros Discovery on 5 December in a stock and cash transaction valued at $27.75 per share for a total value including debts of $82.7 billion.

The agreement was unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

The initial market reaction saw Netflix shares falling 3%...

5 December 2025

Stocks quiet ahead of Fed meeting, and Microsoft lowers AI quotas

US markets were in a holding pattern this week ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision on 10 December, when it is widely anticipated to deliver a quarter percentage point cut.

Prospects for further rate cuts gave impetus to the small cap Rusell 2000 index which gained more than 1% to notch up fresh all-time highs.

The technology-heavy...

3 December 2025

How weight-loss drugs are driving demand for fashion makeovers

Fast fashion retailer Boohoo, now trading as Debenhams, has just seen its shares surge more than 100% over the course of a week as investors become more hopeful about its recovery plan.

The return to profitable growth announced on 27 November was certainly a tonic for Boohoo but a longer-term potential boost to the company and other retailers such...

28 November 2025

Rate cut hopes lift markets, Dell gets AI boost: what happened on US markets

In a week foreshortened by the Thanksgiving holiday, US stocks bounced back as expectations for a pre-Christmas rate cut gathered steam.

This had looked to be off the table thanks to the impact of the US government shutdown on data releases but recent comments from Federal Reserve officials have raised hopes of a cut on 10 December. This helped...

26 November 2025

Why Alphabet’s Gemini 3 Pro is shaking up AI

Google-owner Alphabet released its latest AI chatbot Gemini 3 Pro to rave reviews on 18 November, raising the stakes in the AI race and challenging the dominance of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff took to social media to say he is never going back to ChatGPT after using Gemini for just two hours. "The leap in insane. It feels like the...

25 November 2025

Discover how Eli Lilly joined the $1 trillion club

With all the focus on AI and Nvidia’s latest quarterly earnings, it would be easy to miss Eli Lilly becoming the first healthcare company to be valued by the market at $1 trillion.

How has the company got to this point and why should it matter to investors?

The pharmaceutical business joins just a handful of technology companies and Warren Buffett...

21 November 2025

Odds of December rate cut fade as Fed division reigns

The odds of a second consecutive interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve in December have shrunk to around 30% from near certainty a month ago and a coin flip at the beginning of November, according to Bloomberg data.

Investors lowered their bets following the release of a new employment data schedule on 19 November which saw the cancellation of...

21 November 2025

Stocks slump, Nvidia and Walmart beat: what happened on US markets this week

After having seemed initially to provide US investors with the reassurance they needed, Nvidia saw a reversal in fortunes this week.

Initially surging 5% as earnings beat forecasts the shares ended the 20 November down 3% as concern about valuations and a possible AI bubble took hold once more and the Vix index of volatility surged.

Bitcoin...

18 November 2025

Big Short investor claims technology firms are inflating profits

Michael Burry shot to fame after the book The Big Short by Michael Lewis was turned into the Academy Award winning 2015 film of the same name with actor Christian Bale playing Burry’s character.

Burry was one of the first people to spot the US housing market bubble and reportedly made $800 million profit from betting against sub-prime mortgages.

Wh...