“I’ll just go ahead and take that as good news…”

Last time Donald Trump used the phrase “concepts of a plan” to explain how he was going to magically fix America’s healthcare system (spoiler alert: he didn’t), it instantly became an all-time meme.

So when he popped up again claiming he now has the “concept of a deal” worked out with NATO… right after announcing (via Truth Social) he wouldn’t throw tariffs on Dutch wooden shoes and France’s wine empire… I was curious how the market would react. Especially after yesterday’s surprising rebound.

Turns out? Pretty well.

I guess where things are right now, investors don’t need certainty. They just need confirmation that the can is going to get kicked down the road. And Thursday delivered exactly that. With tariffs temporarily off the table, Wall Street decided to stop spiraling and start buying again. 

The Nasdaq led the bounce, climbing about 0.9%, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones followed with roughly 0.6% gains. Obviously, not gonna give anyone wet dreams… but enough green to convince traders the sky is not actively falling.

Of course, this was less “bull market confirmed” and more “thank God Trump kept his mouth shut today.” The Greenland situation is still unresolved (Denmark remains firmly in the no, you cannot buy our country camp), but markets latched onto the word “pause” and sprinted with it.

Meanwhile, earnings season is knocking, and Intel is up first after the bell. This report matters more than Intel fans want to admit. Bulls are hoping Microsoft pulling the plug on Windows 10 forces a PC upgrade cycle that actually shows up in the numbers. 

But there’s a catch… memory supply issues are still hanging over the industry, and they could easily turn a “promising” outlook into another wait-till-next-quarter story.

Across the pond (and a few firewalls), Alibaba shares popped 4% after reports it’s prepping an IPO for its AI chip unit, T-Head. Translation: “discount Nvidia” was all AI bros needed to hear.

Meanwhile, the shutdown-delayed PCE report finally crawled out of the bunker and (surprise) it didn’t blow anything up. Inflation came in at a 2.8% annual pace in November. Jobless claims barely moved. So wtf does that mean? Not much other than, the Fed is going to do absolutely nothing at the next meeting.

And will you look at that? Tesla stole some headlines too (this time for good reasons). Shares jumped 3% after Elon posted a video on X claiming robotaxis in Austin are now driving around with no safety monitor.

(Source: CNBC)

That matters, especially with the storyline being that Tesla is losing ground to Waymo as it keeps expanding into new cities (Miami was added today). Musk also teased imminent EU and China approvals for full self-driving,  once again leaning on the power of “soon.”

If you read all of this, congrats for having a 10 second attention span (better than me). As always, here’s our heatmap for today.

Market Gossip

>Waymo launches robotaxi service in Miami, extending U.S. lead (CNBC): Don’t worry Tesla bros, the Cybertaxi will be live in 2030.

>Financial group CEO Todd Burkhalter admits to running $380M Ponzi scheme — largest in Georgia history — to fund lavish lifestyle (New York Post): Continuing to scam victims while the FBI is in your office is crazy.

>Elon Musk’s SpaceX lines up 4 banks for blockbuster IPO (Reuters): Mark my words, this IPO is gonna be bigger than Stranger Things Season 5.

>Trump’s Chronic Health Issue on Full Display at His Special Event (DNYUZ): Who’s gonna tell all the internet detectives that 79-year-old hands don’t look like a newborn baby?

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Intel, Microsoft, Tesla, and Google as mentioned in the article.