CNBC Business News Update - Market Open: Stocks Lower, Unemployment Rate Hits 4 year High, Ford Pivots To Hybrids 12/16/25

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

From Wall Street to Main Street, the latest on the markets and what it means for your money. Updated regularly on weekdays, featuring CNBC expert analysis and sound from top business newsmakers. Anchored and reported by CNBC's Jessica Ettinger. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I'm Jessica Eddinger, CNBC, a lackluster jobs report for November, and major averages are all in the red this morning out of the gate, the Dow, down 101 points being led lower by shares of Merck, which are down 2.5%. The S&P 500 index down 20, the NASDAQ, down 66 points. Shears of NVIDIA are down a half a percent this morning. Yes, we've seen a little bit of pullback of late. We think they may want to give a little bit of pause here as we go into the beginning of the year. We do think there's be some tailwinds as we get into Q1 and the Q2, but over the next

month or two, we think it's going to be a little bit more volatile. Regions Welts, Alan McKnight on CNBC. It was a meh jobs report for November, the U.S. creating 64,000 new positions last month. That was better than expected, but the unemployment rate higher at its highest now in more than four years. The unemployment rate, and this, of course, is what everybody's been waiting for, did indeed move up to 4.6%. 4.6% would be the hottest going back to July of 21. CNBC's Rick Santelli. Here's the Manhattan Institute's Allison Schrager on CNBC.

We keep getting these reports where you sort of have a, you know, labor market and, you know, still sort of worrying inflation. When you hear fed officials, they seem to still think that inflation is going to magically go back to 2%. And I think this is just another data point that's, just that's just not magically happening. Ford, moving away from electric vehicles and toward hybrids, which are more popular. It's clear. The market for electric vehicles is just not going to develop as quickly as many

originally thought, let's say, five years ago. Ford has got to make the pivot, and it's paying a hefty price to do this, but they're making the pivot towards more hybrids, and if you are going to have EVs, they're going to either be smaller or they're going to be extended range EVs. CNBC's Phil LeBoe. Pfizer out with a disappointing forecast for next year, lower profit than investors had hoped. Paypal shares were higher. It filed an application to create a bank, PayPal Bank. The world's richest families' 2025 list is out. Bloomberg says the Walton's lead the pack with a net worth of more than $513 billion. That's the family behind Walmart. The Powerball Jackpot keeps growing. There was no winner last night.

Tomorrow night's prize is one and a quarter billion dollars. Jessica Eddinger, CNBC. The Consumer News and Business Channel, CNBC, we're happy we have your attention, and we promise to work hard to keep it.