Good Afternoon. The world is clearly moving in one direction: more electricity, more AI, and more rewiring of old systems. From Netflix turning your TV into a game console to the IEA declaring the “Age of Electricity,” today’s stories all point to one thing, the future isn’t waiting for anyone. Let’s get into it.

—Rosie, Wyatt, Evan & Conor

🔥 What’s Hot: 🔥

🥶 What’s Not: 🥶

1. Tech Stocks Sink as Nasdaq Leads Market Selloff

The News: Markets slumped Thursday, with the Nasdaq dropping more than 2% as tech names continue to take a beating. Nvidia and Broadcom slid, Tesla tumbled !6%, and Disney sank ~8% after missing revenue expectations. The Dow fell roughly 750 points as losses accelerated. Investors are growing nervous that the Federal Reserve may not cut rates in December—rate-cut odds have fallen from 70% a week ago to about 50% today. Elsewhere, Cisco rallied toward its first record high in 25 years, Verizon ticked up on layoff reports, and silver cooled after a record close.

Why It Matters: The tech-led selloff shows how fragile sentiment has become just weeks before the Fed’s final policy decision of the year. With key data missing, markets are flying partly blind and rate expectations are shifting by the day. Add in weak earnings from a market heavyweight like Disney, and suddenly a November that was supposed to be defined by relief from the shutdown looks shaky again.

What to Watch: If investors think some names are oversold and start piling back in and Whether the Fed cuts rates or pulls a "we’ll decide when the data decides," which is tough when the data… doesn’t exist.
Source: wsj.com

2. GM Tells Suppliers: Cut China Out by 2027

The News: General Motors has ordered thousands of suppliers to eliminate Chinese-made parts from its supply chain by 2027, Reuters reports. The directive affects components for North American production and for operations in other restricted markets like Russia and Venezuela. GM began pushing select suppliers in 2024, but the effort accelerated in 2025 as U.S.-China tensions intensified and China restricted exports of key materials, including rare earths. The shift won’t be easy: many auto parts—from electronics to lighting—have been sourced from China for decades, forcing suppliers to scramble for pricier, more complex alternatives.

Why It Matters: This is one of the most aggressive decoupling timelines yet from a major automaker. If GM pulls it off, it could reshape global auto supply chains, raise near-term costs, and influence where future factories and suppliers are located. If suppliers stumble, expect production delays, higher prices, and more supply-chain headlines than car buyers ever wanted.

What to Watch: Whether GM’s suppliers can unwind 20+ years of China dependency in just two. Imagine trying to move out of a house you’ve lived in since 2003, except you have two weeks to do it.
Source: reuters.com

3. Netflix Brings Gaming to Your TV (and to Your Phone)

The News: Netflix is taking its gaming ambitions beyond mobile with the launch of TV-based games that use your phone as the controller — no console required. The first wave includes party staples like Pictionary: Game Night, Boggle Party, Party Crashers, and Tetris Time Warp, with a Knives Out–themed social deduction game coming soon. At the same time, Netflix is beefing up its mobile catalog with titles like Red Dead Redemption, WWE 2K25: Netflix Edition, and kid-friendly staples from Lego, Barbie, Paw Patrol, and Toca Boca.

Why It Matters: Netflix isn’t dipping its toe into gaming — it’s building a full ecosystem designed to keep users inside the app for everything from streaming to puzzles to AAA titles. TV-based play with zero hardware lowers the barrier dramatically, and positioning Red Dead Redemption as a mobile title signals Netflix wants to challenge Apple Arcade and traditional mobile publishers at the same time.

What to Watch: Whether Netflix can convert passive streamers into active players, how smooth the phone-as-controller setup feels in living rooms, and if Red Dead on mobile takes off or rides into the quiet sunset.
Source: polygon.com

4. Verizon Plans Up to 15,000 Job Cuts as New CEO Dan Schulman Launches Major Overhaul

The News: Verizon is preparing to lay off as many as 15,000 employees — largely in non-union roles — as soon as next week, part of new CEO Dan Schulman’s sweeping cost-cutting push. Schulman, the former PayPal chief who took the helm in October, has told investors he plans to make Verizon “simpler, leaner, and scrappier” to better compete with AT&T and T-Mobile. The reductions will help fund investments in marketing, customer experience, and subscriber growth, areas where Verizon has lagged.

Why It Matters: This is one of Verizon’s largest restructuring moves in years — and a sign of how intense the wireless price war has become. With subscriber growth slowing across the industry, carriers have leaned on promotions and churn management to defend market share. Schulman’s playbook signals a cultural reset at Verizon: less dependence on pricing power, more focus on service, and a willingness to make deep structural cuts to get there.

What to Watch: Whether Schulman can actually reverse Verizon’s subscriber slump without sparking internal turmoil and if “simpler, leaner, scrappier” actually ends up meaning “everyone’s doing two jobs now.”
Source: foxbusiness.com

5. IEA Says the ‘Age of Electricity’ Has Arrived

The News: The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2025 says electricity—not oil—is now the center of the global energy system. Power demand is rising faster than overall energy use in every scenario the IEA models, driven by AI, data centers, EVs, and industrial electrification. Investment reflects the shift: of $3.3T in global energy spending this year, two-thirds is going to clean energy. And for the first time ever, global spending on data centers ($580B) will surpass investment in oil supply ($540B). Solar is set to quadruple by 2035, oil demand is expected to peak before 2030, and coal has already plateaued.

Why It Matters: Energy economics are being rewritten around electricity. AI and cloud infrastructure are becoming structural drivers of demand, making grid capacity as important as oil supply once was. Companies face rising pressure to electrify operations, secure mineral supply chains, and prepare for tighter grid constraints. Yet despite record clean-energy investment, emissions are still not falling fast enough, leaving the world short of climate goals and exposed to new chokepoints.

What to Watch: Diversification investments by large oil companies into other energy markets, consolidation in the sector and whether this new electric era powers a boom or trips the breakers.
Source: etedge-insights.com

1. Baidu Unveils New AI Chips for 2026–27 as China Races for Semiconductor Self-Sufficiency

The News: At its Baidu World conference in Beijing, Baidu rolled out two new in-house AI chips — the Kunlun M100 and Kunlun M300 — part of its push to lessen dependence on U.S. semiconductor technology. The M100 is built for large-scale inference and will debut in early 2026, while the more advanced M300 targets ultra-large multimodal model training and arrives in 2027. Baidu says the chips will deliver “powerful, low-cost and controllable” AI compute as Beijing tightens restrictions on foreign hardware. With U.S. export controls blocking Nvidia’s China-specific chips and China ordering state-funded data centers to stop using foreign AI processors, Baidu is positioning itself as the domestic alternative.

Why It Matters: China’s AI sector is being forced to build from within — and Baidu is emerging as the national champion. Its current Kunlun P800 already handles the majority of Baidu’s inference workloads, powering multimodal training on tens of thousands of cards. Kunlun chips are spreading across China’s tech, finance, energy and telecom sectors, including a $139 million order from China Mobile. The new roadmap suggests Beijing now expects domestic models — like Baidu’s newly upgraded 2.4-trillion-parameter Ernie 5.0 — to run on fully Chinese silicon. The race isn’t just technological; it’s geopolitical.

What to Watch: Whether Baidu’s 2026–27 chips can truly match Nvidia-class performance or whether Beijing ends up with a national AI stack that runs more like a Prius towing a boat.
Source: reuters.com

2. Czech Central Bank Becomes First Central Bank to Put Bitcoin on Its Balance Sheet

The News: The Czech National Bank just became the first central bank in the world to formally buy bitcoin, announcing a $1 million “test portfolio” of digital assets that includes BTC, a USD stablecoin, and a tokenized deposit. Approved in late October, the pilot is intended to give the bank real hands-on experience with custody, settlement, risk management, and governance for blockchain-based assets — all outside its traditional reserve frameworks. Governor Aleš Michl first floated the idea in January, drawing skepticism from ECB President Christine Lagarde, but the Czech Republic’s non-euro status gives its central bank room to experiment. The CNB says the portfolio won’t grow but will serve as a multi-year learning exercise as it evaluates whether decentralized assets have a role in future reserves.

Why It Matters: This is a milestone moment for Bitcoin’s institutional legitimacy. For years, financial regulators have warned against crypto risk; now a central bank is openly testing BTC for potential reserve diversification. Even though the dollar amount is small, the symbolism is enormous — especially coming from an EU member state. It signals that digital assets may be too systemically important for regulators to understand only from the sidelines. It also raises the stakes for central banks globally, many of which are studying tokenized deposits, stablecoins, and CBDCs but have avoided touching bitcoin directly.

What to Watch: How bitcoin traders react to the news and if other central banks follow suit or whether the ECB sends a sternly worded memo labeled “please don’t do this again.”
Source: coindesk.com

3. China Shifts Back to Brazil Soybeans as U.S. Purchases Stall Despite Truce

The News: China’s promised buying spree of U.S. soybeans appears to have fizzled almost as soon as it began. After a short burst of U.S. orders in late October — touted by Washington as proof of a breakthrough trade truce — traders say China hasn’t booked new American cargoes in nearly two weeks. Beijing hasn’t confirmed the 12-million-ton year-end purchase commitment the Trump administration continues to cite, and analysts say the pledge looks more like a diplomatic gesture than a binding trade deal. The stall isn’t purely political. China is dealing with a historic soybean glut after months of record imports from South America.

Why It Matters: Soybeans are the symbolic centerpiece of U.S.–China agricultural trade. Washington says China will buy 12 million tons of American beans this year and 25 million annually for the next three, but the underlying fundamentals tell a different story. China’s crushers are losing money, soymeal prices have slumped more than 20% from their peak, and port stockpiles hit an all-time high in November. Even with tariff relief, China may simply not need more U.S. soy in the near term. For U.S. farmers, especially in the Midwest, the divergence between diplomatic optimism and market reality could deepen pressure heading into 2026.

What to Watch: Whether Beijing starts buying American beans again or whether “trade truce” starts to look more like “thanks, but we’re full.”
Source: farmpolicynews.illinois.edu

Q: What kind of music do mummies listen to?

A: Wrap

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