The Rundown - Meta Buys AI Startup Manus, Copper Hits Record Highs

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

Market update for Tuesday December 30, 2025Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode:Silver and gold see wild swings as metals trade like meme assetsMeta buys AI startup Manus for more than $2 billionTesla deliveries expected to drop for 2nd year in a row Copper prices surge to record highs as AI data centers fuel demandFun fact: International stocks outperformed U.S. stocks by the widest margin since 2009

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zaid Admani, and today is Tuesday, December 30th. In today's episode, we'll recap the wild 48 hours for silver and explain why copper is hitting record highs as well. We'll also discuss meta's latest AI acquisition and what to expect from Tesla in 2026. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why intermed. national stocks have outperformed U.S. stocks this year. We got a great show for you today.

Let's go. The Santa Claus rally took a bit of a stumble on Monday as the S&P 500 dropped 0.3% while the NASDAQ was down 0.5%. Tech stocks dragged down the indices, Nvidia was down over 1%, and Tesla fell more than 3%. Now, investors are probably just taking some profit before the year end. Now, the real action continues to be in the metals market, especially silver. I mentioned on yesterday's show that silver was starting to trade like a meme stock, and the last couple of days have only proven that point. The price of silver has rallied 30% since the start of December, hitting a peak of $80 an ounce over the weekend, but then on Monday, the price dropped over $8% to $71 an ounce, which was the biggest one-day drop in five years. Now, some people were saying that that would be the end of the

silver bull run. Well, silver prices are bouncing back today. They're up more than 6% than nearly $75 an ounce. So in the span of 48 hours, we saw a record high, a historic crash, and a massive rebound. You know, for a metal that's supposed to be boring, that's some pretty serious price action right there. Gold also saw some volatility. It was down more than 4% on Monday, but it's up more than 2% this morning. So you know what? Shout out to the metals traders for keeping things interesting this week. I was worried that things would be pretty boring. It is pretty funny that old school commodities like gold and silver are experiencing greater volatility than crypto.

Like Bitcoin and Ethereum are barely moving these days. I think we might need to do a full deep dive on the metal space because gold, silver, copper, and others have had a huge year. So keep an eye on your podcast feed for that. And as always, make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with Meta.

Meta is buying the AI startup Manus for more than $2 billion, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Now, what's crazy is that Manus first launched their product in March of this year, and it got a ton of hype. Their AI agents can do deep research, write detailed reports, and even build custom websites with minimal human input. Now, I haven't really used Manus much, but I know some people that use it and they love it. If you're a Manus user, let me know in the comments, your thoughts, and if it's worth

checking out. But yeah, in a short amount of time, Manus was able to acquire millions of users, and the company recently said they hit $100 million in annual reoccurring revenue. So this isn't some pre-revenue AI startup. Mena saw them as an attractive target, and they're buying them for $2 billion, which seems like such a small amount when compared to all the other AI deals announced this year. What makes this deal even more interesting is that Manus is a Singapore-based company with Chinese founders, which makes this one of the highest profile examples of a major U.S. tech company

buying an AI product developed in Asia. Now, Meta plans to keep Manas at a standalone product while also integrating its tech across their ecosystem. So we'll see how they plan to do that. Maybe Manus's AI agents will improve Meta's ad product. I don't know. What I do know is that Meta stock is down more than 15% from its highs as investors are starting to get worried

about all the spending that Zuck is doing on AI without seeing a meaningful ROI on that investment so far. I do think that Zuck is being a little bit more careful when it comes to the wild spending. I mean, he's spending $2 billion to buy an AI startup, whereas over the summer there was rumors that he was given out billion dollars salaries to AI engineers. You don't really see those much headlines anymore, do you?

Let's shift gears and talk about Tesla, because the company just did something that it's never done before. Tesla published the consensus analyst estimates for deliveries directly on its investors' page, and the numbers aren't great. For the fourth quarter, analysts are expecting about 423,000 deliveries, which would be a 15% percent. drop year over year. That would put Tesla on pace to deliver roughly 1.6 million vehicles in 2025, which would be an 8% decline from 2024. And that would mark Tesla's second straight annual

drop in deliveries. Now, looking ahead to 2026, Wall Street does expect the rebound. The current consensus is around 1.75 million deliveries next year, which would be about a 6% growth. We'll get the official numbers on Friday and we'll see how close these estimates are. But, you know, despite the slowdown in the EV business, Tesla stock recently hit all. all-time highs. Imagine telling that to someone back in Q1 when Elon was caught up on all the political stuff with Doge and then started beefing with Trump. The stock hit a 52-week low of $214 a share back in March, which was a 50% drop from where it was at the start of 2025. But since then, shares have more than doubled. The tides began to shift once Elon stepped back

from his role at the White House. On top of that, investors are now less focused on the car side of Tesla and more focused on the AI, Robotaxy, and Robotics parts. the company. So the delivery numbers are still important, but they're becoming less of a factor of the Tesla story as we head into 2026. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Copper prices are hitting record highs this morning as copper wraps up its best year since 2009 jumping more than 40% this year. The rally this year has been driven by a combo of trade-related supply constraints and a surging industrial demand. And if that sounds familiar, it should be. should because that's exactly what's happening with silver as well. Yesterday we talked about how

silver is critical for things like EVs, clean energy, and data centers. Well, copper is just as important, if not more. Copper is the backbone of electrical wiring, which means it's essential for power grids, renewable energy, and especially data centers. And as the AI boom accelerates and we build more data centers, we're going to need a lot more copper for all that wiring. And that's why analysts think that this momentum in copper prices could carry into 2026. Now, on the flip side, shares of Pop Mart are down around 5% this morning in Hong Kong trading after reports that the resale demand for its widely popular Labibu dolls is slowing down. Who could have saw that one coming? The jump in Pop Mart stock prices here has almost entirely been fueled by the

Labubu hype, and if that's starting to slow down, that is concerning. Now digging into the company's numbers, according to their latest earnings report, which was back in September, sales were up more than 200% year over year in the first half of 2025. But the stock is still down more than 25% over the past six months, showing how quickly sentiment can flip when a hot consumer trend starts to fade. Now, Pop Mart is trying to diversify beyond just Labibus with new lines like Crybaby, twinkle, twinkle, and Hirono. But investors aren't convinced that the Labubu hype can be repeated. Now, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I paid nearly $200 to buy three Labubu's at the peak height. My daughter really wanted them, so I bought them, and I don't even know where they are anymore.

And even if I was able to find them, I mean, how much are they worth these days? I'd be lucky if I can get 20 bucks for them. I think this might be a good teaching moment for my daughter. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. International stocks have outperformed U.S. stocks in 2025 at their widest margins since 2009. That might be a surprising stat to hear since U.S. stocks had a great year, but international stocks did even better. The MSCI X U.S. Index, which is basically a basket of international stocks that excludes American companies, it was up 29% this year. And emerging market ETFs were up nearly 30%. The regional breakdowns are even more impressive. South Korea's stock market soared 75% this year, driven by

tech giants like Samsung and S.K. Heinix. China's market rallied 29%. Hong Kong was up 28%. Over in Europe, Spain's index jumped 48%. And Greece was up 44. This is a pretty shocking shift because over the last decade or so, U.S. stocks had outperformed international stocks thanks to the rise of big tech giants. I think a big reason for the shift is that U.S. stocks had gotten very expensive. The S&P 500 is trading at 23 times forward earnings right now versus a historical average of 18 times. International stocks, on the other hand, are 35% cheaper. It also helps with the dollar weakened by nearly 9% this year, which makes foreign investments more valuable to U.S. investors. those are a couple reasons why investors turn to international stocks in 2025, and we'll have to see if that trend continues in 2026.

Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did, and you have like five extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you are listening on Spotify, don't forget to vote in today's Spotify poll. leave us a comment on Spotify. All that engagement really does help us out, and it helps other people find the show. Hope everyone's been having a great end of the year.

Thank you guys again for listening, watching, and commenting. Shout out to Mike and Connor. For all the work behind the scenes, and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow. Frozen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time. Let's play. Feel the fun with Play-O-Jo.

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