WSJ What’s News - How Nvidia Is Powering the Market Turnaround

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

A.M. Edition for Nov. 20. Nvidia's highly-anticipated earnings report did not disappoint with soaring profits soothing investor jitters over the AI boom. Seema Shah from Principal Asset Management explores what this all means for markets going forward. Plus, the White House drafts a peace plan for ending the war in Ukraine, featuring major concessions from Kyiv. And with bids for Warner Bros. Discovery due today, WSJ entertainment reporter Joe Flint looks at the potential buyers and who’s the likely frontrunner. Caitlin McCabe hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

President Trump signs legislation to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. Plus, the White House drafts a peace plan for ending the war in Ukraine with major concessions from Kiev. And we unpack whether NVIDIA's earnings are enough to soothe investors' recent jitters. NVIDIA has really delivered. It continues to feed the beast, but it's important to say that the stakes keep rising. As we look forward to the next couple of months, I would expect these kind of potholes. to persist where the market just keeps leading to hear that these companies can continue

to deliver on these very, very high expectations. It's Thursday, November 20th. I'm Caitlin McCabe for The Wall Street Journal, and here's the AM edition of What's News. The top headlines and business stories moving your world today. We begin in Washington, where President Trump announced on social media that he said, sign the bill to release the Epstein files. Now that the legislation is signed, Attorney General Pam Bondi has 30 days to make the unclassified documents available. And while Focus will now shift to the release of the files, the fallout from emails already released continues. Last night,

former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers announced that he is taking leave from teaching at Harvard. Earlier this week, Summers told his students, including Lola Diacentis, who filmed him, that he would step back from public commitments, but would complete teaching for the current semester. Some of you will have seen my statement of regret expressing my shame with respect to what I did in communication with Mr. Epstein and that I've said that I'm going to step back. I'll look at it very new, but for a time, but I think he's very important to fulfill my teaching obligations. But a university representative confirmed yesterday that Summers will not complete the semester. Harvard is also conducting a review of individuals included in the newly released Epstein documents. President Trump has said he'll meet with New York mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani at the White House tomorrow, at Momdani's request.

Mamdani discussed the White House meeting on MS now with Chris Hayes. after Trump posted about the request on social media yesterday. We did reach out to the White House, and my team reached out because of a commitment that I made to New Yorkers, that I would be willing to meet with anyone and everyone so long as it was to the benefit of 8.5 million people who call the city home and their struggle to afford the most expensive city in the United States of America. Trump has repeatedly criticized the Democratic Socialist

threatening to cut off federal funding to the city if Mamdani was elected. Mamdani is set to take office as New York mayor on January 1st. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention webpage that previously made the case that vaccines don't cause autism now says they might. During his confirmation hearing, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had reassured Senator Bill Cassidy that the CDC would not remove such statements from their website. But the revised webpage now says studies haven't ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism and that studies supporting a link have been ignored. by health authorities. More than 25 peer-reviewed scientific articles have shown no link between autism and the MMR vaccine. And earlier this year, a Danish study of more than 1.2 million children found no link between aluminum in vaccines and neurodevelopmental harm, including autism.

The Trump administration has drafted a 28-point peace plan that calls for Ukraine to make major territorial concessions to Russia and drop demands for a peacekeeping force. The plan resurfaces ideas that Kiev has already rejected. And as Lawrence Norman, our Deputy Brussels Bureau Chief explains, it's considered a non-starter for European allies too. European foreign ministers are meeting this morning. And it's very clear that they see this plan as some form of Ukrainian capitulation. Now, it should be said that the Europeans have not been briefed.

on this plan yet. So they're going to some extent on what we and others are writing about this, but there is a real pushback. There is no doubt what President Trump wants. He's made it very, very clear on many occasions. I want this war to end. The question is, how does it end? And there doesn't seem to have been any real clear clarity from the administration on what they believe should happen and shouldn't. While Putin's spokesperson said Moscow wasn't a aware of any plan, we understand it came about in talks between Trump aides and Kremlin confidant Kirol Demetriev. The peace plan marks a shift in the White House's position since September when the president mused publicly about providing long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine

and said that Kiev was in a position to win back all of its lost territory. Coming up, are NVIDIA's blockbuster results last night enough to turn a recent market sell-off around? We explore that question and more. after the break. Wall Street investors are breathing a sigh of relief today after better than expected earnings from Nvidia last night. The chip giant said sales in its latest quarter grew 62% from a year earlier to a record $57 billion while also increasing its guidance for the latest quarter.

That's sending Nvidia shares sharply high. off hours and global stock markets are rallying too. I'm joined now by Seema Shaw, the chief global strategist at principal asset management to discuss what last night's results mean for Wall Street's AI trade. Seema, looking across markets this morning, traders seem very pleased U.S. stock futures are rallying following a pretty uncomfortable sell-off in the last week or so as fears about a possible AI bubble took hold. Will last night's results be enough? to assuage those worries? So far, I think the way that the market is responding is really encouraging that we haven't had a

pullback. There had been some concerns that coming into today, the day after the earnings result, then we would see some market disappointment start to leak back in. We are hoping that this relief does persist the way that markets have been so rattled. And Vida has really delivered. It continues to feed the beast, but it's important to say that the stakes keep rising. As we look forward to the next couple of months, I would expect these kind of potholes to persist where the market just keeps needing to hear that these companies, including Nvidia, of course, can continue to deliver on these very, very high expectations. Speaking of that, one thing that traders seem focused on this morning is Nvidia's guidance.

The company's estimating sales will reach $65 billion in the current quarter. What does this tell us about the durability of the broader AI trade? It's certainly going to be music to a lot of people's ears, that there are few concerns around the future outlook. You know, the market has become so worried in recent weeks. It's been a real buildup of concerns around evaluations and then around circularity, around debt financing, that they really needed to hear that forward guidance is positive and the company isn't expecting to come across any major hurdles. Again, it's still important to reiterate, though, that we have to continue to see things deliver. So it's great for the next three months in terms of the

forward guidance, but we need to keep hearing that every single time in order. to make sure that the market doesn't start to feel more and more negative with all the repercussions that could come with that. And Seema, do we need to be hearing that from every big chipmaker out there? Or is Nvidia kind of the only game in town right now? It's clearly the most important. But I think the market needs to hear it from all of the major ones. Maybe that wasn't the case a year ago.

But as these concerns continue to build up, it's important that all of these companies really do deliver. NNVIDIA being the most important one, of course, as I said, but ultimately really expectations across the entire industry so that guidance from the broad set of companies is going to be imperative. Seema, the AI bubble certainly isn't the only thing on investors' minds lately. Looking ahead to today, we also have the long-delayed September jobs report out this morning. What else is top of mind for you right now? I think the key things are really about trying to find a way to navigate.

the economic outlook, would have been starved of so much data in the last couple of weeks, that getting some kind of idea and how the economy is performing is going to be key. And then, of course, what the implications are for Fed easing. And now that we've got the tech results out the way, hopefully the market can return to focusing on some of the more macro fundamentals, not just for the tech sector, but for the broader economy and for broader sectors too. So, Seema, taking all of that together, where do you think stocks are headed from here? I think through to the end of the year, the market is,

going to stay quite range bound with a lot of volatility in there, a lot of noise. The good news is that 2026 does look a little bit stronger. In Q1, we're expecting to see the impact of the OBBA bill's stimulus feeding through to households to businesses. And so that should provide the market with a bit of a pickup. So for now, it's rangebound, but we do believe that 2026 is going to be a more positive story. That's Seema Shaw from principal asset management. Seema, thanks for joining us. Thanks very much. And finally, the deadline for initial bids for Warner Brothers Discovery is today, and as we've reported in recent weeks, three potential bidders have come to the four. Paramount, Netflix, and cable and entertainment company Comcast are all vying for Warner, but as media and entertainment reporter Joe Flint explains, Paramount appears to be the frontrunner.

Paramount is seen as being in the poll position because they are bidding for the entire company Warner Bros. Discovery, that's the movie studio, the TV studio, the HBO Max streaming service, cable networks including CNN, TBS, TNT. Comcast and Netflix, however, they're only interested in the movie and TV studios and HBO Max. So for the Warner Board, a significant Paramount offer would probably be more compelling than just selling half the company to either Comcast or a Netflix. Paramount has been in discussions with some Middle East sovereign wealth funds about investing in the tie-up. But Joe says the majority cash bid is also fully backed by Chief Executive David Ellison's family. Paramount's bid is going to be backed by the Ellison family, which of course includes Oracle co-founder Larry Allison, a billionaire, and private equity firm Redbird Capital Partners. But Paramount has had discussions with, Middle East sovereign funds in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, about potential post-deal financing,

which may be used to help fund debt or also just to build relationships in that region of the world. That is what some sources close to all this have told me. But when the Paramount bid goes in, the only signatures on it will be the Ellison family and Paramount. Warner Bros. is hoping to wrap up the auction process by the end of the year. And that's it for What's News for this Thursday morning. Today's show is produced by Daniel Bach, Kate Bullivant, and Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Caitlin McCabe for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with the new show. Until then, thanks for listening. Thank you.