Oracle's stock dropped after its fiscal Q2 2025 report because while its Remaining Performance Obligations (RPOs) (future booked revenue) soared (to a massive $523B), actual revenue and earnings slightly missed Wall Street's high expectations, particularly with Cloud Infrastructure revenue just under forecasts, despite big wins with companies like Meta and NVIDIA, showing strong future potential but short-term execution gaps that disappointed investors.
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Fed's biggest decision this week could have nothing to do with interest rates
Any hints of Fed plans for asset purchases could boost the rally in stocks and other risk assets
A third rate cut this year may be a foregone conclusion but any clues about its plans for its balance sheet will be crucial.
The stock market finished on the cusp of record highs on Friday, led higher as the odds of another Federal Reserve rate cut looked like a foregone conclusion.
Yet beyond an expected third Fed rate cut for 2025, the bull run in stocks and other risk assets could be due for a different kind of boost when the Fed wraps up its Dec. 9-10 policy meeting.
"Right now, the interest-rate side of monetary policy is clearly restrictive," said Michael Kelly, global head of multiasset at PineBridge Investments, a global investment firm with $215.1 billion in assets under management. "But it's not mattering."
At least not when looking at the S&P 500 index SPX, which rose to 6,870.40 in the past week, ending only 0.3% off its October record, according to Dow Jones Market Data. It was 16.8% higher on the year through Friday, poised for another stellar year of gains.
In that regard, there have been two U.S. monetary policies at play, in Kelly's view. There's balance-sheet monetary policy for the "asset rich" that's been adding to the "wealth effect," fueling spending and helping keep the economy afloat- and interest rates for the rest.
Related: This week's Fed meeting will highlight the central bank's challenge: Preventing a recession while tackling inflation
Higher rates have taken a toll on small businesses, where layoffs are happening. They've also put stress on the bottom-rung of households in the "K-shaped" economy, whereas you can argue there has been an improvement for the upper-rung, Kelly said.
Recent credit-card data tells a similar story. Lower-income consumers more often carry credit-card balances, and risk bumping up against their credit limits, wrote Grace Zwemmer, an associate economist at Oxford Economics, in a Friday note. But "upper-income consumers, who are less likely to carry balances on their credit cards, have been driving consumer spending."
The two economies make anything the Fed might say about its $6.5 trillion balance sheet crucial for markets, Kelly said. "Are they going to hold it flat or start growing it?"
Stock-market boom
Despite patches of weakness in a tumultuous year under President Donald Trump's second term, the stock market looks poised to soon recapture record highs.
This comes during a stunning 73% advance for the S&P 500 over the past three years, according to FactSet.
The boom speaks to enthusiasm over artificial intelligence plays and to how little the Fed's higher rates have dampened the bullish stock-market sentiment.
Equally important, credit spreads remain near historic lows, signaling little worry by investors about looming defaults.
What the Fed could do
The favorable backdrop for assets comes as the U.S. central bank already reduced its roughly $9 trillion peak pandemic balance sheet by about $2.5 trillion. It then stopped shrinking it on Dec. 1 after pressures cropped up in overnight funding markets.
That's important because the Fed has been vocal about wanting to avoid a repeat of the 2019 repo crisis. A rates strategy team at BofA Global on Friday said they expect the Fed next week to announce "reserve management purchases" of Treasury bills that mature in a year or less, starting in January at $45 billion monthly pace.
"We are out of consensus early and in size," the team led by Mark Cabana wrote, in a client note. That would result in an estimated Fed buying of at least $20 billion a month "for natural balance sheet growth purposes" and another $25 billion a month "to reverse the reserve over drain, for at least the first 6 months," the team wrote.
Others think it could take more time, and for the Fed to do less to keep markets functioning smoothly.
"If you zoom out, the Fed naturally will start bill purchases next year as part of a reverses management operation," said Roger Hallam, Vanguard fixed-income group's global head of rates. "Because as the economy's demand for reserves expands, the Fed naturally will meet that."
Hallam expects the Fed to start purchasing Treasury bills at a $15 billion to $20 billion monthly pace around the end of the first quarter, or early in in the second quarter.
"That's normal central bank reserves operations, there's not a monetary policy signal within that," he told MarketWatch. "That's just the normal course of business for what the Fed should be doing to ensure there's liquidity in the system."
"It's to keep funding rates stable," Hallam said.
Kelly at PineBridge expects the Fed to cut rates by another 25 basis points on Dec. 10, which would bring its policy rate to a 3.5% to 3.75% range and a step closer to the roughly 3% historical "neutral rate" designed to keep the economy on an even keel.
Still, longer-duration Treasury yields rose sharply in the past week despite the expected looming rate cut. The 10-year yield BX:TMUBMUSD10Y hit 4.14%, signaling that borrowing costs may remain higher for households, businesses and U.S. government even as short-term are lowered.
Kelly said he's "pretty optimistic about most markets for next year," even if the central bank were to talk only about starting to grow its balance sheet in the new year to get back to a more "normal liquidity" backdrop.
"I don't know why the Fed is so eager to grow its balance sheet, but stingy to cut interest rates," Kelly said. "I would be doing it the other way."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA is up 12.7% on the year so far, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP is 22.1% higher, but the liquidity-sensitive bitcoin (BTCUSD) is down 2% in 2025, after plunging into a bear market last month.
Oppenheimer upgrades Dyne Therapeutics to Outperform, raises target to $40
Oppenheimer analyst Kostas Biliouris upgraded Dyne Therapeutics (DYN) to Outperform from Perform with a price target of $40, up from $11. The firm notes Dyne has been trading at a discount compared to closest competitor Avidity, mainly due to investor concerns around the myotonic dystrophy type 1 program’s timeline, Phase III powering, and accelerated approval possibility. Although appreciating investor concerns around DM1, Oppenheimer believes that the biggest catalyst for Dyne moving forward is the read-through from competitor Avidity’s Phase III readout in the second half of 2026, expected to be positive and with the potential to drive upside of about 50%-plus in the stock. Recall, Avidity’s recent acquisition news drove more than 40% upside in Dyne.
Phase I Anixa Vaccine Trial Shows Promise for Preventing Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
At the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), investigators reported final phase I results of an alpha-lactalbumin (aLA) vaccine designed to help prevent triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), particularly among women at elevated genetic risk.
In this exclusive video, Justin Johnson, PhD, of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, discusses the study and next steps toward phase II testing.
Following is a transcript of his remarks:
So, my mentor, Dr. Vincent Tuohy, who I trained under and worked for for 30 years originally conceived of this idea of a preventative breast cancer vaccine based on alpha-lactalbumin, which is a normal lactation protein made by healthy breasts during nursing. And when you're not nursing, that protein completely goes away. It shouldn't be there.
But what Dr. Tuohy discovered is that certain tumors, especially triple-negative, or TNBC tumors, often most of the time actually express alpha-lactalbumin, and that makes them a potential target for this vaccine while sparing normal healthy tissue. So the idea is we immunize with alpha-lactalbumin and then a woman is protected from getting this type of cancer.
When we originally published these findings in Nature Medicine in 2010, Dr. Tuohy was determined to launch a phase I clinical trial to help develop this vaccine, ensure that it's safe, and bring it to the women who need it. So, actually, the findings we presented today represent the fruits of those labors, 15 years of work, getting the vaccine through our preclinical studies, and then a clinical phase I study that we conducted at Cleveland Clinic.
So, a phase I study is only looking at safety and determining what dose works best. Those are the primary endpoints that we want to address for a phase I. And the good news that we presented today is that we met all study primary endpoints. So, we found a safe and effective dose that we hope will demonstrate efficacy and protection against TNBC breast cancer.
So, the results of phase I will inform the design of phase II, which is being conducted as a partnership between Cleveland Clinic and a biotech company called Anixa Biosciences. And in phase II, we hope to determine the efficacy of this vaccine in breast cancer.
We hope that it continues to be safe and show efficacy and get through phase II and phase III, so we have a road ahead. But if successful, this vaccine will not only help prevent breast cancer in women especially at risk for triple-negative breast cancer -- so, if they carry genetic markers such as BRCA1 or 2, or PALB2, they would want to get vaccinated after menopause and before the time when these breast cancers most likely occur.
And so, not only could we potentially prevent these breast cancers in these women, but the design of this vaccine could be applied to other types of breast cancer and other types of cancer in general. So, we're already working on an ovarian cancer vaccine that's based along the same principles.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/sabcs-vp-earlybrca/118929
Utah Eyes First-Ever PE Deal for College Football
College sports' rapid transformation from amateur endeavor to professional industry has taken another leap forward in the wake of Tuesday's news: private equity has officially arrived on campus.
A landmark deal: The University of Utah is finalizing a first-of-its-kind agreement with PE firm Otro Capital to create a for-profit entity that will operate the university's athletics business and is expected to generate upwards of $500 million in capital.
The venture is centered around the creation of Utah Brands & Entertainment LLC — a private, independent offshoot of the athletic department whose primary goal is to generate more revenue across areas including ticketing, concessions, corporate sales and sponsorships.
In a fascinating wrinkle, the university — which retains majority ownership of the new entity — is allowing prominent donors to purchase a stake, essentially formalizing their status as boosters. Indeed, the $500 million figure includes both Otro's nine-figure cash infusion and commitments from donors.
The big picture: The early NIL era was heralded as the culmination of a decades-long fight against the myth of amateurism. Turns out it was just the beginning, with schools now set to share revenue directly with athletes and enlist outside capital partners — like Utah is doing — to help navigate this brave new world.
Looking ahead: There are only so many more ways to continue closing the gap between college and pro sports, and one of the biggest — collective bargaining — may be on its way. Athletes.Org released a detailed framework on Monday for what a college sports CBA could look like, and dozens of athletic directors are meeting this week at an annual conference in Las Vegas where collective bargaining will be a main topic of conversation.
Ukrainians file lawsuits against Intel, AMD and Texas Instruments: report
Microchip manufacturers Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc. were accused in a series of lawsuits of failing to keep their technology out of Russian-made weapons used to kill and wound civilians in Ukraine.
Those companies – along with a company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. – demonstrated “willful ignorance” as third parties resold restricted chips to Russia to power drones and missiles in violation of US sanctions, according to one of the five suits, filed Wednesday in state court in Texas.
The lawsuits, filed on the behalf of dozens of Ukrainian civilians by Mikal Watts and prominent law firm Baker & Hostetler, cite five attacks between 2023 and 2025 that killed dozens of people. One attack allegedly involved Iranian-made drones with components associated with Intel and AMD, while the others involved Russian-made KH-101 cruise missiles and Iskander ballistic missiles.
“These companies know their chip technology is making its way into Russia,” Watts, a veteran US mass-tort lawyer, said at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday morning.
Texas Instruments, AMD and Intel didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. In the past, they have said they fully comply with sanctions requirements, ceased business in Russia when the war broke out and have stringent policies to monitor compliance.
In congressional testimony last year, Shannon Thompson, the assistant general counsel at Texas Instruments, said the company “strongly opposes the use of our chips in Russian military equipment” and any such shipments “are illicit and unauthorized.”
One suit accused the companies of “domestic corporate negligence” over alleged failures in their export control and diversion-prevention systems. The suits were filed in Dallas by Watts on behalf of Ukrainian citizens. On Wednesday, he called the US companies “merchants of death” that were making a “farce” of US sanctions law.
The companies allegedly “allowed Defendants’ semiconductor components to be illegally diverted, including by foreseeable third parties, to Russia and Iran and incorporated into precision-guided munitions and drones deployed against civilians,” one of the lawsuits claimed.
“These defendants knew this diversion was going on but they have done nothing to stop it,” said Dustin Dow, a lawyer with Baker & Hostetler, which has more than 1,000 lawyers across more than a dozen US offices. “It is intentional disregard.”
Robert Julian, another lawyer with Baker & Hostetler, which has recovered billions for investors defrauded by ponzi-scheme figure Bernard Madoff, said “my firm considers this case every bit as worthy and significant as recoveries that we’ve had for the Madoff investors” as well as a $13.5 billion settlement for fire victims following the bankruptcy of California utility PG&E.
A Bloomberg News investigation last year showed that long-standing sanctions and export controls have failed to keep chips from AMD, Intel, Texas Instruments and others out of the hands of Russia’s military companies. The resold chips are the brains of drones, glide bombs, precision communication systems and the Iskander missiles that Moscow uses to hammer Ukraine’s cities, Bloomberg has reported.
The US government has repeatedly warned chipmakers that they need to do more to stop the flow of chips. Last year, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said the companies are “objectively and consciously failing to prevent Russia from benefiting from the use of their technology.”
Wednesday’s suits identify Mansfield, Texas-based Mouser Electronics, which Berkshire acquired in 2007 when it bought Mouser’s parent company TTI Inc., as a business focused on selling and distributing semiconductor components. Mouser is accused of facilitating the transfer of chips made by Intel, Texas Instruments and others to shell companies controlled by Russian proxies. Mouser and Berkshire Hathaway didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
One suit said that Mouser’s decisions and logistics operations “were a substantial domestic component of the misconduct that foreseeably contributed to Plaintiffs’ injuries abroad.”
The cases were brought in Texas because the chip companies and Mouser are either based there or have substantial operations in the state, court filings show. The war made bringing the accusations in the Ukrainian court system unworkable, one filing said.
The cases were filed in the Circuit Court for the State of Texas (Dallas). The cases weren’t immediately visible on the court’s docket Wednesday, but an email shared by the plaintiffs’ lawyers showed that the cases had been filed. Once the court processes and accepts them, they become publicly visible.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-amd-accused-allowing-chips-160511346.html
'WSJ: Treasury’s Bank Regulation Takeover Has New Goal: Anti-Money-Laundering Rules'
The Trump administration is preparing a shake-up of anti-money-laundering rules, in an effort to overhaul a system for catching illicit transactions by drug traffickers, terrorists and other criminals that banks complain is costly and ineffective.
In a draft term sheet circulated to the nation’s banking regulators, the Treasury Department has proposed taking a more central role in the enforcement of anti-money-laundering rules.
The current system provides law-enforcement officials with some insight into the murky world of illicit finance, but it isn’t necessarily effective at stopping money laundering before it happens. The Wall Street Journal earlier this year reported how one money-laundering group in Los Angeles County was able to launder more than $50 million for the Sinaloa cartel, including by making six-figure deposits at JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America branches.
Banks have pressed for changes like the ones in the proposal and criticized regulators for being too focused on technical compliance and not the spirit of the money-laundering laws. The industry broadly has been cheering the administration’s efforts to cut regulations on everything from how much capital they hold to how much they can lend, while also reining in federal watchdogs. The Trump administration, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, think the restrictions on banks have inhibited economic growth.
The AML proposal could give the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network the ability to veto a finding by another regulator that a bank has infringed on the Bank Secrecy Act. If finalized, it could allow banks in some cases to avoid being penalized by regulators for what the Treasury views as mere technical violations of their anti-money-laundering systems.
The Treasury’s proposal could change, and the rule it envisions would undergo a public comment period before going into effect. The proposal is meant to establish a right of consultation for FinCEN and won’t necessarily lead to the agency vetoing other regulators, a person familiar with the matter said.
Early in the administration, Trump officials were seeking to combine some of the nation’s banking agencies, the Journal reported. Since then, Bessent has staked out a leading role for the Treasury Department, saying it would work to ensure regulators were operating in parallel with each other and the industry.
The latest proposal puts the Treasury Department in a similar position on AML laws. In October, Bessent had foreshadowed the change, saying future revisions would “position FinCEN as a gatekeeper” over AML enforcement.
The Bank Secrecy Act, enacted in 1970, essentially deputizes banks to act as the first line of defense against money laundering. Under the law, banks are required to screen customers and build systems for detecting activity that could represent money laundering. Suspicious transactions and large cash deposits are reported to the government, where they become a part of a database maintained by FinCEN.
Tens of millions of reports are filed each year, but few spark investigations, critics contend.
Congress has given both FinCEN and the nation’s banking regulators—the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.—authority to independently enforce parts of the Bank Secrecy Act.
Regulators conduct periodic examinations of the bank’s anti-money-laundering programs. Under the Treasury proposal, regulators would essentially have to ask FinCEN for permission to bring an enforcement action if they found a violation.
FinCEN then would take into consideration the extent to which a bank had previously provided useful information to law enforcement. Under the proposal, FinCEN would presume any suspicious-activity report to be “highly useful” if it fell under a set of priorities articulated by the agency.
Congress enacted a series of anti-money-laundering revisions in 2021, and required FinCEN to establish a list of national priorities that would allow banks to more efficiently allocate resources toward screening for higher risk threats.
Kevin Toomey, a lawyer at Arnold & Porter, said the Trump administration appears intent on giving banks a clearer picture of what constitutes an effective AML program.
“I can’t tell you how many clients spend millions of dollars on technical violations that have nothing to do with the effectiveness of the program,” he said.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/treasury-bank-regulation-takeover-goal-120000911.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)