The Rundown - Bitcoin Rises on Strategic Reserve Optimism, Apple Plans Foldable iPhone

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Stock market update for December 16, 2024.

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in five minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Monday, December 16th. In today's episode, we preview this upcoming week, including a Fed meeting. We also tell you about the latest rumors coming out of Apple. They might be working on a foldable phone. Then stick around to the end of the show to find why micro strategy stock is on the move again, and why obesity rates in the U.S. are falling, and investors are taking notice. All right, let's go. Stocks are coming off a mixed week.

Last week, the S&P 500 dropped 0.6%. The NASDAQ was able to squeeze out a gain, though, of 0.3% thanks to a big week from tech giants. Microsoft, Amazon, Google, meta, and Tesla all hit all-time highs at one point last week. And we might need to add Broadcom to that list because Broadcom had a huge week. Their stock jumped 25% on Friday. and the company now has a market cap of over $1 trillion. So we now have nine companies worth over $1 trillion in the U.S.

Walmart and Eli Lilly are on the outside looking in with a market cap of around $700 billion. We're going to talk more about Eli Lilly in a bit. By the way, Bitcoin continues its hot run this year. Its price hit all-time highs earlier this morning surpassing $106,000. The new highs were probably driven by comments from President-elect Donald Trump. He suggested a plan to create a U.S. Bitcoin strategy. Reserve, which obviously has crypto investors pretty excited. By the way, the U.S. government already owns around $27,000 Bitcoin, which is worth around $22 billion based on Bitcoin's new all-time high price.

But if the U.S. government starts buying up more Bitcoin to build up the Bitcoin Reserve, I'd assume that would be a good thing for the price. Either way, Bitcoin is probably going to have a very interesting year next year as Trump takes over office on January 20th. Now, as for this week, all the attention is going to be on the Fed. Jerome Powell and the Fed gang will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday and make a decision on what to do with interest rates. Right now, the markets are pricing a 97% chance of a 25 basis point cut per the CME Fed watch tool. So a pretty much guarantee at this point. But I'm still going to be tuning in for the meeting, especially Jerome Powell's press conference.

Remember the last press conference got a little heated when reporters asked Jerome Powell if he would step down if Trump asked him to. And he pretty much did the Wolf of Wall Street, I'm not leaving meme. So who knows? maybe we'll get some fireworks this time too. The Fed will make their decision on interest rates, followed by the Jerome Powell Press Conference on Wednesday afternoon. So we'll be recapping all of that on Thursday's show, including any interesting sound bites if there are any.

So if you guys haven't subscribed to the podcast yet, get subscribed and make sure you guys are tuning in. I wonder what color tie Jerome Powell is going to wear because he's worn purple for every meeting this year, but maybe he'll switch it up to red for the holidays. Something to watch out for. Let's run through some headlines. And let's start with Apple,

because there are rumors that Apple is working on a foldable iPhone. This is according to the reporting from the Wall Street Journal. In fact, according to the report, Apple is working on two foldable devices over the next few years. One is going to be a jumbo-sized 19-inch screen, which is like the size of a laptop at this point. And they're also working on a foldable iPhone, which is going to have a larger screen than the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Apparently Apple has been working on these devices for years now, but they still can't quite nail down the design and meet their high standards. For Apple fans like me, I mean, I've been looking forward to a new groundbreaking Apple device for years now because I feel like we haven't had anything good, especially when it comes to their phones.

Like their latest major upgrade was this camera control button that nobody uses. So Apple really needs to innovate on the iPhone here. And their business kind of needs it too. Apple's revenue has been flat for the last few quarters. Apple's revenues only grew by 1% in the company's fiscal year. So a foldable iPhone will probably help with revenue growth. And I got a feeling the price of these foldable iPhones is going to be a lot more than a normal. normal iPhone, maybe even like double the price. I wouldn't be surprised. We are going to have to wait

a couple years for the foldable iPhone. It's not expected to be released until 2026. But Apple is planning to release a super thin iPhone next year. So I guess there's something to look forward to for 2025. Let's shift gears and talk about Donald Trump. There are reports that the Trump transition team is recommending rolling back federal support for electric vehicles and charging stations in addition to ramping up policy to block imports of EV-related parts from China. This is all according to reporting from Reuters. One of the cutbacks could mean eliminating the $7,500 tax credit for consumers to buy electric vehicles. The team is also proposing imposing tariffs on all battery materials globally in an effort to boost U.S. production.

The motives, according to Reuters, are a mix of defense-related interests, protecting U.S. automakers and also boosting the production of gas-powered vehicles. But automakers in the U.S. are not happy with the idea of removing these tax credits. Back in mid-November, a major lobbying group representing Ford, GM, and Stalantis send a message to Trump urging him to keep these incentives, arguing that they kept U.S. companies competing on a global scale and also creating jobs. So we'll see what happens with some of these EV incentives. I also think the fact that Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, being best friends with Trump these days,

kind of muddies the water a bit, you know? So something to keep an eye on. next year. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of micro-strategy are up this morning on the news the company will be added to the NASDAQ 100 index. This is a pretty big deal because whenever you hear someone talk about the NASDAQ, they're talking about 100 companies that make up the NASDAQ index. And now micro-strategy stock is part of that exclusive 100 NASDAQ club. Micro Strategies acceptance into the index will put its stock in the NASDAQ ETFs, like QQQQ, which is offered. by Invesco. QQQQ is one of the most popular ETFs out there. It has more than $300 billion

in assets under management. So if you are someone that owns the ETF QQQ, your portfolio now has a small exposure to MicroStrategy. And as a result, Bitcoin, because Micro Strategy's entire business at this point is buying and holding Bitcoin. Micro Strategy stock has gone up like 600% in the past year because the company holds around 420,000 Bitcoin. And they keep adding more. Shares of micro strategy are up around 4% this morning on this news. On the flip side, shares of Ford are trading lower this morning after the investment bank Jeffries downgraded the company and cut their price target from $12 a share to $9 a share. Analyst at Jeffries noted a higher inventory levels at Ford compared to its competitors

and the carmaker has hurdles of deciding the future of the Ford European business and their EV plans. As a result, shares of Ford are down 3% this morning on this news. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Obesity rates in the U.S. dropped for the first time in more than a decade. And some people point to the popularity of weight loss drugs as the reason for this drop. According to the J.A. Health Forum, obesity rates in the U.S. dropped from 46% in 2022 to 45.6% in 2020. So it's a slight decline, but that is pretty encouraging. Over the last couple years, the popularity of these GLP 1 weight loss drugs like OZempe and Monjol,

could be the reason for this drop. And it's definitely caught the attention of investors because shares of Nova Nordus, the maker of OZempic, has gone up 50% since 2023. And Eli Lilly, the maker of Manjaro, have gone up more than 100% since 2023. We actually did a deep dive episode on this topic, including how big the weight loss industry could potentially be

and the impact it could have on the economy outside of just healthcare. We posted that episode on Sunday, so go check your podcast feed if you missed that. All right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Should have a good week coming up with the Fed meeting and whatever else pops up this week. If you guys enjoyed today's episode,

make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and give us a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast. Vote in today's Spotify poll. Leave us a comment on Spotify. All of that engagement really does help us out and it helps other people find the show. Thank you guys so much for listening.

Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the help behind the scenes and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow. This is the rundown, your real-time resource for news events and trends in the markets. All views presented in the show reflect the opinions of the guests. You should not take any mention of a publicly traded security as recommendation to buy, sell or hold that security. Run down guests are not financial advisors and are not affiliated

with public holdings or its subsidiaries. You should make your own financial and investment decisions or consult. Respected professionals. Learn more at public.com disclosures. In partnership with Zaitamani, brokerage services for U.S. listed, registered securities are offered by Open to the Public Investing Incorporated, member FINRA and SIPC.