The Wrap Up..

Wall Street just threw itself a hyperactive, (presumably cocaine-fueled) party of self-congratulation—and for once, it wasn’t because everyone was slurping some of AI’s special juice. In short, stocks went berserk today as the Dow popped 703 points, the S&P swaggered it’s way to a 1.83% jump, while the Nasdaq roared 2.5%. The reason? Inflation decided to stop raw-dogging everyone's mood for half a second, while the big banks dropped a healthy start to earnings season. 

For starters, December’s consumer price index (CPI) showed core inflation rose 3.2% year-over-year. That’s a tick lower than the 3.3% economists had penciled in, and way less stressful than what the market expected. Headline inflation clocked in at 2.9%, right on target, which was enough to give traders a massive sigh of relief.

This also had Wall Street’s growth darlings moonshotting with Nvidia jumping 3.44%, Meta nailing a 3.85% day, and Tesla stealing the show with an 8.04% rise. And then, there were the banks. JPMorgan’s strong fixed-income trading and investment banking results pushed its stock up nearly 2%. Goldman Sachs flexed with a top- and bottom-line beat, sending shares 6% higher. Meanwhile, Citigroup and Wells Fargo weren’t about to be left out of the party, each spiking 7% after reporting better-than-expected earnings and dropping some bullish guidance. Love to see it. 

And just when you thought the market couldn’t get any weirder, quantum stocks decided to pull a Lazarus effect after Jensen Huang KILLED the entire sector last week. Why? Well because, Microsoft declared 2025 the “year to get quantum-ready” (whatever that means), and suddenly D-Wave Quantum and Rigetti Computing popped 34% and 27%, respectively.

Elsewhere, Beacon Roofing Supply hit a 52-week high after QXO offered $124.25 per share in cash to acquire the company, valuing it at $11 billion. QXO, however, took one for the team, dropping 2% because, well, someone has to pay for all that roofing.

In the end, the big takeaway here is that inflation’s cooling off, the banks are making it rain, and quantum stocks are living in 2050 while the rest of us are just trying to figure out how to survive 2025. If this is how the market wants to kick off the year, we’ll take it. Just don’t forget—this rally’s built on vibes and soft inflation data, so maybe… Don’t YOLO your mortgage just yet? Just a thought. 

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.

 

 

Traders Stunned After Rental Giant Drops $5 Billion Acquisition, Triggers Juicy 100%+ Surge...

H&E Equipment Services woke up Tuesday and chose violence—the good kind, if you’re a shareholder. The stock more than doubled in value after United Rentals decided to whip out its checkbook and drop $4.8 billion to acquire the industrial equipment rental company. That’s $92 per share in glorious, cold, hard cash—over 100% higher than H&E’s Monday close. Bigly.

In short, United Rentals, the biggest name in equipment rental (think forklifts, earthmovers, and just about anything else you need to destroy and rebuild your neighborhood), called dibs on all of H&E’s outstanding shares via a tender offer expected to wrap up by January 28. After that, it’ll mop up any stragglers through a second-step merger at the same price. By the time the ink dries in Q1 of 2025, United Rentals will have officially leveled up its fleet game by adding nearly 64,000 shiny new units with an original cost of $2.9 billion.

For those keeping tabs, this deal means H&E is getting slapped with a fat 6.9x adjusted EBITDA tag from the last 12 months—yeah, 6.9, go ahead and giggle if your brain’s still in middle school. The reason for the eye-watering value is due to the fact that H&E raked in a filthy $696 million of EBITDA on top of $1.5 billion in revenue as of September 30, 2024. And if you’re sitting there scratching your head, wondering how on earth United Rentals is justifying this massive pile of cash, here’s why...

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FTC Unveils the 3 Companies Scamming Americans Out of Billions While “Pretending” to Lower Drug Cost

If you’ve been wondering why your prescription costs more than your monthly rent, the Federal Trade Commission just dropped a zesty little nugget that might make you want to flip a table. According to the FTC’s latest report, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs)—a.k.a. The “wolves in sheeps clothing” middlemen who are supposed to lower drug prices—have been playing the system harder than a teenager with a GameShark in 1999.

Between 2017 and 2022, the Big Three PBMs—CVS Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts, and UnitedHealth’s OptumRx—raked in $7.3 billion by marking up prices on specialty generic drugs. And we’re not talking a little padding here and there. Nah, these guys inflated prices by “hundreds or even thousands of percent” on life-saving meds for things like cancer, HIV, and heart disease. So yeah, while you’re out here rationing insulin or choosing between groceries and your Lipitor, these guys are cashing in like they’re starring in a pharmaceutical version of The Wolf of Wall Street.

Here’s how it works: PBMs are supposed to negotiate with drug companies to lower costs for patients, insurers, and employers. Instead, the FTC found that the Big Three were reimbursing their own affiliated pharmacies at jacked-up rates way higher than unaffiliated, independent ones. It’s like giving your cousin a fat raise for selling lemonade at a 500% markup while telling the neighborhood kids they’re lucky to break even. Now this isn’t just a one-off scam. The report reveals that PBMs process...

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CEO Buys $8 MILLION Near 52-Week Low...

Our "Insider Trade Tracker" recently flagged John F. Barry, CEO of Prospect Capital Corp, splurging $8.58 MILLION to scoop up 2 million shares of his own company’s stock at $4.29 per share. With PSEC trading near its 52-week low, Barry’s wallet says he’s betting big on the company’s 12.6% dividend yield and 21-year track record of payouts. Moves like this are why our tool is your ticket to tracking where the smart money flows… in real time.

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Microsoft’s Quantum Gaslighting Sparks a Sector Explosion… But Don’t Buy the Hype Just Yet

If you’re the CEO of a quantum computing company, you might want to take a seat… and maybe double-check your prescription for anxiety meds. One day, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang is basically reading your industry's obituary, calling it “30 years away from relevance,” and the next, Microsoft is in full cheerleader mode, declaring 2025 as the year businesses need to be “quantum-ready.”

And as I would expect nothing less, this announcement has triggered a stampede of Reddit traders promising to sell their entire Palantir holdings to YOLO into “these 10 quantum stocks.” Bless their diamond hands.

Microsoft’s recent blog post did way more than suggest businesses prepare for quantum… it lit a fire under quantum stocks. Shares of Rigetti Computing jumped over 16%, D-Wave Quantum surged a whopping 26%, and IonQ added nearly 10%. Even the Defiance Quantum and AI ETF got a 3% shot in the arm. Not bad for a sector that was pronounced dead a few weeks ago. The chaos stems from Microsoft’s Quantum Ready program, a corporate initiative designed to...

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Capital One Got an Upgrade And a $2 Billion Lawsuit on the Same Day... Influencers Are Outraged

Ever had one of those days…  where you win free tacos for life but then immediately chip your tooth on the first bite? (Okay, me neither) but welcome to Capital One's Tuesday…

Capital One just went through the equivalent of buying a new Tesla, only to get sideswiped the moment you pull out of the dealership (by someone without car insurance). On one hand, UBS came in strong, upgrading Capital One’s stock to “Buy” and hiking their price target from $168 to $235. Apparently, UBS sees major potential in Capital One’s merger plans with Discover, which they’re banking (get it?) could deliver for years to come. 

According to UBS (who's clearly been drinking whatever Cramer keeps in his coffee mug), the Capital One-Discover marriage could be more profitable than selling deep fried Oreos at the fair. The deal would let COF work those credit and debit networks without balance sheet risk. But, because the universe has a sense of humor, the CFPB chose this exact moment to slap Capital One with a $2 billion lawsuit...

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Stocks.News holds positions in Meta, Microsoft, and Tesla as mentioned in the article.