Good Afternoon. AI is quietly becoming the new front door for shopping and Apple is trying to be the new landlord for creators. Meanwhile, inflation cooled just enough to keep the Fed in “wait and see” mode. Let’s get into it.

—Rosie, Wyatt, Evan & Conor

🔥 What’s Hot: 🔥

🥶 What’s Not: 🥶

1. Dow Steps Back From Records

The News: U.S. stocks retreated with the Dow down as JPMorgan Chase slid after earnings, even as inflation data came in a touch friendlier. JPMorgan said Q4 profit fell 7% to $13B, weighed by a $2.2B credit-loss charge tied to its Apple Card deal, and shares dropped about 4%.

Why It Matters: For markets, the day was a reminder that index moves can be very “one-stock-ish” when heavyweight names fall: JPM and Visa (down about 4.3%) dragged on the Dow, and Visa’s drop also reflects rising policy noise around credit-card economics. Meanwhile, oil’s pop adds a potential inflation aftertaste if it sticks.

What to Watch: Two catalysts are now doing the driving: earnings season, starting with big banks (watch whether “one-time” items keep showing up as recurring surprises), and the Fed’s next meeting, where softer core inflation supports a pause but doesn’t guarantee a near-term cut.
Source: wsj.com

2. Inflation Cooled a Touch, Rent Didn’t Get the Message

The News: The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Dec. 2025 CPI rose +0.3% m/m and +2.7% y/y, matching expectations, while core CPI (ex-food/energy) rose +0.2% m/m and +2.6% y/y, a bit softer than forecasts. Shelter climbed +0.4% m/m and was the biggest driver; food jumped +0.7% m/m (largest since Oct. 2022), with food away from home +0.7% even as eggs fell -8.2% m/m. Airline fares popped +5.2% m/m, while used cars fell -1.1%.

Why It Matters: For households, the “inflation is cooling” story still runs through rent and dinner: shelter is up +3.2% y/y, and restaurant prices are rising faster than overall CPI, which keeps budgets feeling tighter than the headline number suggests. For borrowers and markets, a softer CPI supports the case for eventual cuts, but not an immediate one, traders still largely expect the Fed to hold rates at the Jan. 27–28, 2026 meeting (CME FedWatch hold odds around 97%, per Argus).

What to Watch: The next two dates matter more than the hot takes: the Fed’s Jan. 27–28, 2026 decision, and the next CPI release on Feb. 11, 2026 (for Jan. 2026 data). Also watch for a seasonal speed bump, economists flagged that January core CPI has often come in +0.4% or higher in recent years, which could complicate the “all clear” narrative even if the trend is easing. Inflation is slowing, but the parts you pay every month still hurt.
Source: cnbc.com

3. Apple’s $13 Creator Bundle Puts Adobe’s Pricing at Risk

The News: Apple unveiled Apple Creator Studio on Jan. 13, 2026, a subscription bundle that launches Jan. 28, 2026 at $12.99/month or $129/year, with a $2.99/month student-and-educator tier. The package includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, and MainStage, with several apps available on both Mac and iPad, plus added “premium content” in Apple’s iWork apps. That undercuts Adobe’s Creative Cloud Pro at $69.99/month (and $779.99/year prepaid), helping send Adobe shares lower and adding to a wave of analyst caution, including an Oppenheimer downgrade on Jan. 13 and a Goldman Sachs cut to Sell with a $290 target.

Why It Matters: For consumers, especially students and newer creators, Apple just made “good enough” pro tools dramatically cheaper, ~81% less per month than Adobe’s flagship bundle and easier to justify as a recurring bill. Family Sharing lets up to six people share one subscription, which makes the per-seat math painful for small studios deciding what to standardize on. For Adobe, the risk isn’t that Hollywood editors dump Premiere overnight; it’s that the next generation never develops the habit, which can pressure long-term pricing power and increase churn at the low-to-mid end, exactly where analysts say competition is rising.

What to Watch: The first real test is Jan. 28, 2026, when Creator Studio hits the App Store and we can see whether Apple’s bundle shows up in download charts, student adoption, and “good enough” workflow stories. The next hard catalyst for Adobe is its Q1 FY2026 earnings call on March 12, 2026, when investors will want concrete signals on retention, net new subs, and whether AI features translate into pricing leverage.
Source: theverge.com

4. A 10% APR Cap Spooked the Card Rails

The News: Visa fell ~4.3% and Mastercard dropped ~3.8% in Jan. 13, 2026 trading after President Donald Trump backed a proposed one-year 10% cap on credit-card interest rates, slated to start Jan. 20, 2026. The average credit-card rate was 20.97% in Nov. 2025, implying issuers would have to reprice risk sharply under a 10% ceiling. Banking groups warned a cap could restrict credit access; the Electronic Payments Coalition estimates 82%–88% of open accounts could be closed or severely restricted, with “nearly every” account below a 740 credit score affected.

Why It Matters: For consumers, a 10% cap sounds like instant relief, but the likely outcome is less access: issuers can respond by tightening approvals, cutting limits, and hiking annual fees or trimming rewards, moves that hit lower and middle-income households first. For markets, the uncertainty is the product: even if the cap ultimately needs Congress and never becomes law, it increases headline risk around a lucrative lending business and the transaction ecosystem around it. Visa and Mastercard don’t set APRs, but if banks pull back on credit, purchase volume growth can slow and growth is the whole point of the Visa and Mastercard’s tollbooth.

What to Watch: The near-term catalyst is Jan. 20, 2026, when the cap is supposed to begin, and whether any formal action appears or the debate shifts into Congress where analysts say it belongs. Also watch Trump’s endorsement of the Credit Card Competition Act, which would push large-bank cards toward multiple network routing options (a direct shot at Visa/Mastercard routing dominance and “swipe fee” economics). The policy may be hypothetical, but the volatility is already cash-settled.
Source: reuters.com

5. Walmart Teams up with Google

The News: Walmart and Google announced that Walmart and Sam’s Club items will surface inside Google’s Gemini experience, letting shoppers discover products via chat and then move to checkout without leaving Gemini, using Google’s new Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). Customers can link Walmart accounts so recommendations reflect past purchases and can be combined with existing Walmart/Sam’s Club carts, with delivery options highlighted (Walmart cited delivery “in under three hours” for many local items). Walmart’s stock popped to a record, as attention also built ahead of its Nasdaq-100 addition on Jan. 20, 2026.

Why It Matters: For consumers, this is the next step toward “agent-led” shopping: fewer tabs, faster reorders, and more personalized suggestions, convenient when you’re replenishing detergent, less charming when the bot decides you “also need” a $79 smart water bottle. For Walmart, embedding its catalog inside a major AI interface is a bid to capture higher-intent traffic and reduce reliance on traditional search and app installs, while keeping the sale (and the data) in its ecosystem. For Google, it’s an attempt to make Gemini sticky by making it transactional, not just conversational, with UCP positioned as the plumbing that keeps retailers as seller-of-record.

What to Watch: Watch Jan. 20, 2026, when Walmart officially joins the Nasdaq-100—index. Then watch rollout details: Google says UCP-powered checkout will “soon” appear on eligible listings in Gemini and AI surfaces in the U.S., with broader expansion “in the coming months,” plus PayPal support planned. The easiest way to win retail is still: make buying slightly lazier.
Source: corporate.walmart.com

1. China’s Offshore Wind Just Hit 20 MW

The News: China Three Gorges Corp. said it installed a 20-MW-class offshore wind turbine more than 30 km off Fujian Province on Jan. 13, 2026, using a 2,000-ton lift vessel to hoist three ~482 feet blades to a hub about ~571 feet above sea level. Once grid-connected, the single unit is projected to generate ~80 million kWh/year (roughly ~44,000 households), while cutting ~24,000 tons of coal and ~64,000 tons of CO₂ annually versus fossil generation. The install matters beyond the photo op: China’s total offshore wind capacity was about 52 GW in Q1 2025, versus ~21 GW in the EU and ~15 GW in the UK, based on satellite analysis by Germany’s aerospace center DLR.

Why It Matters: Bigger turbines can mean fewer foundations, fewer offshore trips, and lower maintenance per megawatt, which translates into a path to cheaper coastal electricity over time. For investors and operators, this is China scaling the hardest part of offshore wind, deep water logistics and industrial supply chains, while Europe and the UK expand more slowly in absolute capacity. The competitive spillover is real: larger domestic machines can push down equipment costs globally, pressure Western turbine margins, and raise the odds of more trade friction around renewable hardware.

What to Watch: The key near-term catalyst is when the turbine is actually connected to the grid and what its early performance looks like (capacity factor and downtime are where “world’s first” claims either age well or don’t).
Source: interestingengineering.com

2. World Bank’s Youth Wave Meets a Slow-Growth Wall

The News: The World Bank warned on Jan. 13, 2026 that 1.2 billion young people in developing economies will reach working age “over the next decade,” colliding with a global economy it says is drifting toward the weakest growth decade since the 1960s. In its January 2026 Global Economic Prospects, the Bank forecasts global growth at 2.6% in 2026 (vs. 2.7% in 2025) before “edging back” to 2.7% in 2027. It also flagged squeezed public finances: emerging and developing economies have public debt “at its highest level in more than half a century.”

Why It Matters: For consumers, this is a pressure cooker for wages, prices, and migration: if jobs don’t materialize, more workers compete in informal markets, incomes lag, and political instability can spill into supply chains and food/energy costs that show up everywhere, including U.S. shelves. For investors and operators, the financing math is turning harsher: developing countries paid $741B more in principal and interest than they received in new external financing in 2022–2024, and low- and middle-income countries’ external debt hit $8.9 trillion in 2024, a setup that can amplify default risk, FX volatility, and “risk-off” shocks across global credit.

What to Watch: Whether capital actually follows the warning: the World Bank is explicit that job creation hinges on productivity investment, a better business environment, and mobilizing private capital at scale. The next concrete checkpoint is the June 2026 World Bank forecast update (and any accompanying revisions to EMDE growth, inflation, and fiscal conditions). If growth stays stuck near mid-2s globally, the labor-market math doesn’t get kinder with age.
Source: cnbctv18.com

3. AstraZeneca Buys Its Way Into AI Pathology

The News: The multinational company said it will acquire Boston-based Modella AI on Jan. 13, 2026, bringing Modella’s multimodal “foundation models” and AI agents into AstraZeneca’s oncology R&D to speed clinical development and biomarker discovery; financial terms weren’t disclosed. AstraZeneca framed the deal as the first acquisition of an AI firm by a major pharmaceutical company.

Why It Matters: For patients, better “quantitative pathology” and biomarker work can mean clinical trials that match the right people faster, shortening timelines and reducing the odds you spend months in a study that was never likely to work for your tumor type. For AstraZeneca and investors, this is about raising the probability of success and lowering the cost of oncology development, where late-stage failures are brutally expensive and trial recruitment is often the bottleneck. It’s also a signal that pharma’s AI spend is shifting from partnerships to ownership, as competition intensifies for differentiated datasets and specialized models.

What to Watch: Watch for any detail on deal timing/close and how quickly Modella’s tools show up in measurable metrics, trial enrollment speed, biomarker hit rates, and whether AstraZeneca points to fewer protocol amendments or faster readouts in 2026. Also track the broader arms race coming out of JPM: Nvidia and Eli Lilly announced a plan on Jan. 12, 2026 to invest up to $1 billion over five years in an AI drug-discovery lab, raising the bar for what “AI-enabled R&D” looks like. In drug development, the software is scalable; the biology remains stubbornly analog.
Source: reuters.com

Q: What’s orange and sounds like a parrot?

A: A carrot.

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