Final Tally: Shorts EAT GOOD After Worst Layoffs Since ’03… Trump Turns Pharma Influencer

Hope you didn’t go all-in on 0DTE AI calls today… unless, of course, you enjoy donating money to market makers.

The Dow dropped nearly 500 points (-0.6%), the S&P 500 shed 0.7%, and the Nasdaq got kicked straight in the control panel, sliding 1.2%.

You can thank Challenger, Gray & Christmas for the misery… they announced October was the worst month for layoffs in 21 years. Needless to say, if you work in tech and your company Slack starts acting “quiet,” maybe don’t volunteer for new projects.

Qualcomm did everything short of walking on water (crushed earnings, raised guidance, and promised growth) and Wall Street still said, “Yawn.” You know the market’s cooked when you post a triple whammy winner and everyone’s first instinct is to sell.

Speaking of chips… Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom all got smoked after Trump’s newly minted “AI and Crypto Czar” David Sacks said there’d be “no federal bailout” for the AI industry. (Translation: Silicon Valley, you’re on your own. Try selling GPUs on Facebook Marketplace.)

Over in Austin, things are getting pretty weird. Tesla bros are freaking out ahead of the shareholder meeting where Elon’s trillion-dollar pay package is on the line. He’s already hinted he’ll “walk away” if it doesn’t pass… which might explain why the stock fell another 5%. A Tesla without Musk would be like Trump without a smartphone… technically possible, but nowhere near as entertaining. Love him or hate him, the man is Tesla.

Despite what your brokerage account might say… not everything was a sh*tstorm. Brighthouse Financial moon-launched 26% after Aquarian Capital agreed to put a ring on it for $70 per share in cash… a clean $4.1 billion deal. 

Golden Entertainment, meanwhile, hit the jackpot… soaring 36% after the casino operator agreed to be taken private for $30 a share. The deal, led by its longtime CEO and majority shareholder, values the company at about $1.8 billion and includes a sweet 41% premium for investors. In other words, the house always wins… especially when the house buys itself.

Lastly, while Donnie Politics tariffs continue facing the stand in the Supreme Court, Trump unveiled deals with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to cut prices on GLP-1 weight loss drugs for Medicare and Medicaid users starting in 2026. 

He’s even launching TrumpRx.gov… where every purchase probably gets you loyalty points that you can only use to buy MelaniaCoin, a Truth Social verification badge, and an autographed pill organizer. Lilly popped 1% on the news, while Novo Nordisk gave up its gains and ended down 1%.

Normally, this is the time of year when the market throws on a Santa hat and starts a holiday rally… but not this week. The past few sessions have tested that theory. Days like these, all you can really do is grit your teeth, mutter a prayer to Jerome Powell, and BTFD.

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.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Meta as mentioned in the article.