The Rundown - Unemployment Climbs to 4-Year High, Ford Hits the Brakes on EVs

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Market update for Tuesday, December 16, 2025Follow us on Instagram (⁠@TheRundownDaily⁠) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode:Jobs data signals a cooling labor marketFord takes a $19.5B hit and resets its EV strategyPayPal applies to become a bankNasdaq pushing for 23hr trading

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Tuesday, December 16th. In today's episode, we'll break down the latest jobs report and what economists are saying about the current economic environment. We'll also tell you why Ford is getting out of the EV business and why PayPal is trying to get into the banking business. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why the NASDAX stock.

Stock Exchange wants to expand trading to 23 hours a day. We got a great show for you today. Let's go. Stocks were in the red to start the week with the S&P 500 down 0.2%. Well, the NASDAG dropped 0.6%. Yesterday was one of those days where more than half the stocks in the S&P were in the green, but the sell-off in tech stocks dragged down the index into the red. A couple notably losers yesterday include Broadcom, which was down 5%.

Oracle was down 2% and Service Now was down more than 11%. Now one notable exception yesterday was Tesla, which jumped 5% and closed at the highest level of 2025. After CEO Elon Musk confirmed the company is now testing fully driverless robotaxies in Austin with no safety drivers in the vehicle. Tesla has been operating robo taxis in Austin since the summer, but those cars still had a safety driver on board. But it looks like Tesla is ready to go full driverless. Now, they still have a long way to go before they catch Waymo, but investors clearly like the progress. Speaking of Elon, his net worth has now crossed over $600 billion, the first person in history to hit that milestone, thanks to the recent surge in Tesla stock, but also SpaceX's valuation jumping to $800 billion.

And there's a real possibility that Elon Musk becomes the world's first trillionaire when and if SpaceX IPOs. Now, let's talk some macroeconomics here. we just got some jobs data for the Bureau of Labor Statistics for both October and November, and the numbers were a mixed bag. October's numbers weren't great. 105,000 jobs were lost in October, and a lot of that was due to cuts in government jobs from earlier this year, finally showing up in the data.

November did see a bounce back, 64,000 jobs were added, which was more than expected, but the unemployment rate now sits at 4.6%, which is the highest level in four years. Labor market conditions are very weird right now. Economists describe them as a low-fire, low-hire environment. Basically, companies aren't doing mass layoffs, but they're also not hiring people either. AI is probably one reason for that.

Now, we're going to learn more about the health of the economy later this week because the latest CPI report will be released on Thursday morning, so we'll see where inflation is at. We'll break it all down later this week, so make sure you guys are subscribe to the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, starting with Ford. Ford just announced that they are taking a $19.5 billion charge tied to its EV business. That's one of the biggest write downs in history. Now, a quick explainer here, when a company writes something down,

they're basically admitting that assets that they spent money on are now worth far less than they expected. So in this case, all the investments that Ford made on EVs, including building factories, assembly lines, they're now going to be taking a loss on that. And it's a sign that Ford is actually pivoting away from EVs entirely and focusing on gas powered and hybrid cars, which the company says has a stronger demand and better margins in the U.S. market. As a part of that shifts, Ford is halting the production of all their electric F-150 lightning trucks. Now, a big chunk of this write-down from Ford, about $6 billion, comes from a failed joint venture to build a massive EV battery complex in Kentucky. Ford says the facility will now be repurposed to produce

stationary batteries for utilities and AI data centers instead of vehicle batteries. By the way, Ford isn't the only U.S. car maker to pivot out of EVs. GM recently took a $1.6 billion EV-related charge, and they warned that more write-downs could be coming. It's clear that U.S. automakers overestimated the demand for EVs, and because of high prices and range anxiety and lackluster charging infrastructure, not to mention the ending of the EV tax credits, all of that has resulted in significantly less demand for EVs. So personally speaking, I have to be a lot of the cost of money.

have a Tesla, fully electric. I love the car, but I only got it because my wife has a gas-powered SUV, which we take when going on long distances or road trips. And that's why I think that plug-in hybrids are like the happy medium. You can use the battery for day-to-day driving, but you also have the flexibility of going long distances. And that's one reason why Ford is focusing on hybrids. Now Ford did say they planned to release a $30,000 EV pickup truck in 2027, but I wouldn't be surprised if they end up backtracking on that as well. Let's shift gears. and talk about PayPal. PayPal is trying to become a bank. The fintech giant has applied to U.S. regulators, including the FDIC and the Utah Department of Financial Institutions, to open a Utah

chartered industrial loan company, effectively giving PayPal a banking license. PayPal wants to become a bank to expand and improve its lending business. The company says it has already provided more than $30 billion in loans in capital since 2013, and becoming a bank would let it fund those loans more efficiently instead of relying on outside partners. And over time, PayPal also wants to roll out interest-bearing savings accounts, essentially turning their app into a full-service digital bank. You know, this makes a ton of sense for PayPal to do this. And the reason they're doing this now is because the Trump administration has been loosening regulatory reins on fintech and crypto companies that want to enter the banking system. Just last week, crypto firms like Circle,

ripple and Paxos receive preliminary approval to become banks, something that's that was extremely rare just a few years ago. So this shift in the regulatory environment has opened the door for fintech companies like PayPal to make the move into traditional banking. And we'll have to see if this helps PayPal's stock turn around. The stock has lost nearly 30% of its value this year, and it's down more than 80% from its peak back in 2021. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Roku shares are up this morning after the investment bank Morgan Stanley double-upgraded the stock from underweight to overweight. Morgan Stanley says that Roku is well positioned to benefit as advertisers continue shifting budgets away from linear TV and towards connected TV advertising.

Morgan Stanley also expects Roku's revenue growth to accelerate as the company deepens partnerships with streaming platforms and benefits from higher subscription prices. On top of that, Roku's own content strategy is gaining traction. The Roku channel is now the second most engaged app on the platform in the U.S. and accounts for roughly 6% of all U.S. US TV streaming time, according to the company's most recent quarter. That's a pretty impressive stat right there. I didn't think that many people were watching the Roku channel, but I guess I'm wrong. And that's why Morgan Stanley is raising their price target for Roku from $85 to $135.

Roku's shares are up nearly 5% in the pre-market and trading around $114. So there might be some room to run here, according to Morgan Stanley. Now, on the flip side, Zillow shares are under pressure after reports that Google is testing its own real estate listings. directly in Google search. Over the weekend, there were screenshots circulating online showing that Google was displaying home listings with photos, property details, tour requests, and direct contact options for agents,

which are features that closely resembles Zillow's core product. The concern for investors is obvious here. If Google builds out a full real estate search experience, it could eventually take traffic and lead generation from Zillow. Now, several analysts say the near-term financial impact is limited since most of Zillow's traffic comes directly through their app or their website. But I mean, longer term, if Google really pushes into the real estate listings, it could be a new competitive risk hanging over the stock.

As a result, shares of Zillow dropped more than 8% on Monday, and they're down again this morning. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. NASDAQ is planning to offer trading 23 hours a day in 2026. The exchange has asked the SEC for approval to extend from 16 hours a day trading to 23 hours. a day five days a week, Monday through Friday, with just one hour break overnight for system maintenance and settlements. And the NASDAQ isn't the only one trying to extend their trading hours. The New York Stock Exchange also announced earlier this year they were looking to extend

to 22 hours a day trading. Nasdaq says the main reason for the expanded trading hours isn't so U.S. traders can swing trade NVIDIA at 3 a.m. But instead, it's to make it easier for international investors to trade U.S. stocks. You know, U.S. stocks make up nearly two-thirds of the world's equity value, so with extended trading hours, international traders wouldn't have to wait around for the opening bell anymore. So yeah, get ready for around the clock trading for the stock market. I mean, it is kind of surprising. This isn't already a thing in the year 2025. I mean, crypto has been trading 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the last decade. Personally, though, I kind of like the fact that the stock market has a set opening in closing time. Thankfully,

that's not changing, and I still think that's where the majority of the liquidity will be. But let me know in the comments of what you guys think about the stock market being open nearly 24 hours a day. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. 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. Thank you guys so much for listening, watching, and commenting. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work

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