The Rundown - Nvidia Sees Huge Demand in China, Warren Buffett Calls It a Career

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

Market update for Wednesday December 31, 2025Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode:Nvidia prepares to ramp H200 chip production as demand from China explodesWarner Bros. Discovery plans to reject Paramount’s revised takeover offerNike stock jumps on insider buying as Rivian slides on CEO stock salesWarren Buffett officially steps down after one of the greatest investing runs ever

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Wednesday, December 31st. In today's episode, we'll tell you why 2026 could be a big year for Nvidia. We also discuss the latest development in the WBD Paramount saga. Then stick around to the end of the show to learn about Warren Buffett's insane track record as an investor. We got a great show for you today. Let's go.

Stocks moved lower on Tuesday. The S&P 500 was down 0.1% while the NASDAQ dropped 0.2%. You know, we're in that low volume end of the year stretch where most traders have mentally checked out, except for apparently people trading silver. The silver roller coaster continued this week. Yesterday, the price of silver jumped from $71 up to $77 before drop. dropping back down again to $71 this morning. So we're still seeing some unusual volatility in silver.

We're going to be talking more about this shiny rock on this weekend's deep dive episode. So stay tuned for that. Now, today is the final trading day of 2025. And what a absolutely wild year it's been? I mean, we've experienced pretty much everything this year. The markets crash earlier in the year because of tariffs. Then we had an epic comeback led by the AI trade. We got three Fed cuts this year.

And after all of that, stocks are on track for their 3. third straight year of double digit gains. So it was a big year for the markets, but also a big one for this podcast. I know, I feel like we really leveled things up this year. We started doing video episodes. We started doing more interviews and we really invested in this show. And none of that would have happened without your support. So if you've ever left us a five star rating or dropped a comment on Spotify or YouTube or shared the show or even just listened quietly in the background, thank you so much. You know, the support and engagement really does make a difference. And we're all really fired up to keep building this thing in 2026.

Fun fact about the rundown, the stock market has only experienced double-digit gains since we started the show in January of 2024. So I think for the good of the bull market, we just got to keep this thing going. Now, as a reminder, the stock market will be closed tomorrow for New Year's Day, so no show from us, but we'll be back here on Friday to recap the final numbers for 2025 and kick off 2026. Let's run through some headlines. starting with Nvidia.

Nvidia is already seeing huge demand out of China for their H-200 AI chips, and that's before the Chinese government has officially approved the imports of these chips. According to a report in Reuters, Chinese tech companies have already placed orders for more than 2 million H-200 chips for 2026. That is significantly more than the 700,000 chips that Nvidia has on hand. So in order to fill that gap, Nvidia has asked their manufacturer, TSM, to ramp up production. and that's expected to begin in Q2 of 2026. So despite the Chinese government still deciding on whether to allow the imports of these Nvidia H-200 chips into China, Nvidia and Chinese tech

giants are preparing as if they'll get the green light. Chinese tech giants really want to get their hands on these H-200 chips because these chips are roughly six times more powerful than the older H-20 chips that were previously allowed into China. They're also much more powerful than whatever domestic chip makers like Huawei are able to currently make. Now on top of that, Reuters reports that Nvidia plans to price the H-200 chips at around $27,000 per chip, which is about a 15% discount compared to the gray market alternatives. So when you combine the massive increase in performance and the cheaper price, I mean, yeah, this is going to be a big hit in China.

Now, one of the biggest expected buyers in China is ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. BightDance is reportedly planning to spend 100 billion won on Nvidia chips in 2026. That's more than $14 billion US, and it's up from the 85 billion yuan. year. So it could be a big boost for Nvidia's revenues in 2026. And don't forget, the US government would also get a 25% cut of the revenue from the sales of Nvidia's chips to China. Now, there's still the heated debate in the US over the national security implications of exporting top-tier AI chips to China. And then on the Chinese side, officials over there are weighing whether allowing

these H-200 chips could slow down the development of their domestic chip makers. So I think this is going to be a key story to watch in 26. If Nvidia does get the green light to sell their chips in China again, I mean, we could be in for another big year for their stock. Let's shift gears and talk about Warner Brothers Discovery. Whoever ends up buying WBD is going to be a dominant non-AI-related storyline of 2026. Now, quick recap here. In early December, Netflix agreed to pay $72 billion to buy Warner's studio and streaming businesses.

Then Paramount, led by David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison, fifth richest man in the world. He launched a hostile takeover for a $30 a share cash bid to buy. all of Warner Brothers Discovery. Well, the WBD Board rejected the original offer because they didn't think that Paramount actually had the money. So Paramount went back, sweetened the offer with Larry Ellison personally guaranteeing more than $40 billion in equity financing to back the deal. But the WBD Board is still planning to reject this deal because Paramount didn't raise the price of the bid. They wanted more money from Paramount. Warner's believes that the Paramount offer is still not as good as the Netflix its deal, especially when you factor in the risk. So now the ball is back in the Ellison's court

on it they want to increase their bid to get the WBD board on board. No but intended. You know, I love the media space. So this story is extra interesting to me. And honestly, the future of Hollywood and streaming and entertainment could heavily be impacted depending on who ends up taking over Warner Brothers. Right now, I'm leaning towards Netflix, ultimately buying Warner Brothers, but it's still up in the air. So I expect to talk a lot more about this in 2026. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Nike stock is getting a bump up this morning after new filing showed that the CEO, Elliott Hill, bought a million dollars worth of stock on December 29th.

This follow report last week where Nike board member and Apple CEO Tim Cook bought $3 million worth of Nike stock. As a result, Nike stock is up about 2% this morning in pre-market trading. Zooming out, though, 2025 was another rough year for Nike. their stock fell 15%. But, hey, insider buying like this sends a pretty clear message that management thinks the worst might be behind them, and maybe 2026 is the comeback year for Nike. Now, on the flip side, Rivian stock is dropping

because of insider selling. The founder and CEO of the EV company, R.J. Scarange, disclosed that he sold over 17,000 shares earlier this week in a transaction worth roughly $375,000, depending on the price. This was the CEO's 15th stock sale of 2025 bring his total sale for the year to around $11 million. Now, to be fair, I don't really freak out too much about insider selling because many of these sales are done under a pre-planned trading program. But markets still tend to view repeated insider selling, especially by the founder

and CEO as a red flag. And as a result, Rivian stock dropped by more than 5% in yesterday trading and it continues to drop in pre-market today. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Today is Warren Buffett's last day as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. The 95-year-old legendary investor is retiring and turning over the CEO chair to Greg Abel. So I just wanted to take a second to appreciate the insane returns that Warren Buffett oversaw as CEO when he took over Berkshire in 1965. When Warren Buffett took over the company, the stock price was around $19 a share. Today, Berkshire stock trades at $750,000 a share. So that's like a what, 4 million percent return in the last 60 years.

Now, if those numbers are too large to make sense, then a better way to think about it is that since 1965, the compounded annual gain for Berkshire is nearly 20%. That is double the performance of the S&P 500, which has gone up about 10% a year in that time period. So Warren Buffett has essentially doubled the S&P 500. performance, which is absolutely insane. Now, to be fair, most of Berkshire's outperformance against the S&P came before the 21st century when it was a lot easier to beat the S&P, but that's a conversation for another day. So yeah, Warren Buffett is stepping down as CEO. Now, he's still going to be the chairman of the board for Berkshire, so I'm sure he's going to have a lot of influence, but the new

CEO, Greg Abel has big shoes to fill. Today, Berkshire is a $1.1 trillion-dollar conglomerate, and it'll be interesting to see what happens to this company moving forward. I wonder what Warren Buffett is going to do with all his free time now that he's retired. Like, maybe he should launch a podcast or maybe he should start writing a substack. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. That was the last episode of 2025. What an incredible year for the stock market. And I'm incredibly grateful that I was able to talk about it with you guys here on the podcast every day. Whether you're a new listener or you've been listening for the last two years, your support means the world to us. If you guys enjoy this show and

gave value from it and want to help us out, 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 the 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.

And of course, I got to give a shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes. Happy New Year, everybody, and we'll see you guys back here in 2026.