WEDNESDAY MARKET UPDATE
Welcome back to Profits & Insights.
Tesla $TSLA ( â–² 0.59% ) has always been a battleground stock, but the narrative has shifted decisively in the last few weeks. After a brutal start to the year, the stock has hit a new record. The catalyst? Elon Musk's renewed focus on full autonomy.
By pivoting the story from "slowing EV sales" to "Robotaxi fleet," Musk has successfully re-rated the company. Investors are now pricing in a future revenue stream that doesn't exist yet, rather than the car sales that are slowing down today. It is a classic reminder that in growth investing, the story often matters more than the current fundamentals.
In the broader market, stocks were mixed as crude oil broke below $55, signaling potential demand weakness globally.
- 📈 | Activist Action: Comcast $CMCSA ( ▲ 0.1% ) jumped over 5% on rumors of activist interest - a sign that legacy media assets are seen as deeply undervalued.
- 📉 | Pharma Pain: Pfizer $PFE ( ▼ 3.41% ) dropped nearly 4% after issuing disappointing guidance for 2026, continuing its post-COVID struggles…
-Nathan Reed
MARKET SNAPSHOT
Market Movers
INSIDER BUYING AND CRYPTO ADOPTION
Estée Lauder $EL ( ▲ 1.1% ) Bank of America named it a top pick for 2026, betting on a rebound in the Asian travel retail market.
Elanco Animal Health $ELAN ( â–² 0.4% ) The stock rose after the CEO and CFO bought shares on the open market - always a strong vote of confidence.
Energy Weakness. Halliburton $HAL ( â–² 1.31% ) and APA Energy $APA ( â–² 1.21% ) slid as oil prices hit multi-year lows.
Circle Internet Group $CRCL ( ▼ 0.36% ) A major validation for crypto utility: Visa $V ( ▼ 0.02% ) will allow partners to settle transactions using Circle’s USDC stablecoin.
Southwest Airlines $LUV ( â–² 0.9% ) Shares hit a 52-week high following a Barclays upgrade, suggesting the turnaround plan is gaining traction.
For real-time data, I recommend monitoring Finviz.
Investment Deep Dive
HOW TO PLAY THE $1.5 TRILLION SpaceX IPO
The Setup
SpaceX is expected to go public next year at a valuation north of $1.5 trillion. Since you cannot buy shares directly yet, the market is already bidding up anything with a tangential connection to the space economy.
The Proxy Trade
- Private Funds: The biggest winners are already in via funds like Baron Partners or ARK Venture.
- Public Proxies: EchoStar $SATS ( â–¼ 0.65% ) has rallied because it holds a legacy equity stake in SpaceX. It is an imperfect proxy, but in a scarcity environment, investors will pay for any exposure.
- Sector Lift: A massive IPO tends to re-rate the entire sector. Rocket Lab $RKLB ( â–¼ 1.44% ) is the purest public play on launch services. While it lacks SpaceX's scale, it benefits from the "rising tide" narrative.
The Strategy
Don't chase the proxies blindly. The real opportunity will likely be in the infrastructure players - companies like Planet Labs $PL ( â–¼ 0.64% ) - that provide the data services these rockets enable. The launch is just the transport; the data is the product.
WHAT ELSE IS MOVING MARKETS
Labor Market: The U.S. added 64K jobs in November, beating low expectations, but unemployment ticked up to 4.6%.
Social TV: Meta $META ( â–² 0.16% ) is testing an Instagram TV app for Amazon Fire, trying to capture long-form viewing time.
AI Creativity: OpenAI released new image generation tools, putting direct pressure on Adobe $ADBE ( â–² 0.75% ).
Executive Shuffle: Kraft Heinz $KHC ( â–² 0.34% ) has tapped the former CEO of Kellanova to lead its turnaround.
EV Reality: Ford $F ( â–² 0.15% ) is taking a massive $19.5B charge as it scales back its EV ambitions - a sign of how much capital has been destroyed in the sector.
