← The Rundown
The Rundown
Novo Nordisk Wins FDA Approval for Weight-Loss Pill, Alphabet Buys Clean Energy Provider
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Public.com presents the rundown, your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zaidad Mani and Today is Tuesday, December 23rd. In today's episode, we'll tell you why gold and silver are hitting record highs. We'll also tell you about a big win for Novo Nordisk and why Google just bought an energy company. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out how Waymo's caused chaos during a power outage. We got a great show for you today. Hey, let's go. Stocks are riding a three day win streak with the S P 500 adding 0.6% yesterday and the Nasdaq was up 0.5%. This was a broad based rally yesterday with 10 of the 11 sectors in the green and we are now within a half a percentage point of record highs. At this rate, it could happen before Christmas. Investors seem to be feeling pretty good right now. Before the holidays they the vix, which measures volatility and referred to as the fear index, is at 12 month lows right now. That's usually a sign that traders are calm and there isn't a ton of perceived risk in the markets right now. But what's interesting is that despite the low VIX and a strong stock market, both gold and silver continue to rally, hitting record highs this week. See typically investors buy gold and silver as a hedge against uncertainty. They're considered safe haven assets and and usually underperform during strong stock market bull runs. But that hasn't been the case this year. This year, gold and silver have had strong runs despite the stock market going up. And there are a few reasons for that. For one, investors are expecting more rate cuts in 2026, so assets like gold and silver look more attractive since they don't pay interest. Essentially, when interest rates are low, investors are more willing to buy non interest producing assets like metals. On top of that, central bankers around the world continue to buy gold aggressively, which has quietly been pushing up prices all year. And finally, and this might be the most important point, the gold rally could be a subtle signal that investors are still hedging their bets against the stock market. They're enjoying the stock market rally, but they're also investing in gold in case things get choppy in the stock market down the line. So I'm really curious to see what's going to happen to gold and silver in 2026. Is it going to continue to rally or are things finally going to cool off? Let me know in the comments on what you guys think. And as always, make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast. To stay in the loop, let's run through some headlines, starting with Novo Nordisk. Novo Nordisk just got approval from the FDA for a pill version of their weight loss drug Wegovy. This is the first ever GLP1 weight loss pill. See, until now, GLP1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, along with Eli Lilly's, Manjaro and Zepbound have all been weekly injections and they work great, but a lot of people don't take them because of needle anxiety and also because injections tend to be more expensive due to manufacturing costs. Pills, on the other hand, are a lot cheaper to produce. And that's why Novo Nordisk plans to sell these pills for a cash price of $149 a month. And it might be even cheaper with insurance. So this is a huge deal and it could significantly expand the number of people willing to use GLP1s for weight loss. These pills are expected to go on sale in early January, so in just a few weeks. And this is a much needed win for Novo Nordisk. I mean, this is the company that kicked off the GLP1 boom with Ozempic, but has recently been overtaken by Eli Lill Lilly's weight loss drugs. Zeppelin and Manjaro have taken the majority of market share in the US thanks to stronger weight loss results. And that's one reason why Novo Nordisk has lost nearly half its value this year. But it's up around 9% this morning thanks to this news. Now, Eli Lilly isn't far behind. They're also working on their own GLP1 pill that could be approved in early 2026. So this advantage for Novo Nordisk might only last a few months. Let's shift gears and talk about Google. Google's parent company Alphabet, just announced that they're acquiring a clean energy and data center developer, intersect, in a 4.75 billion dollar all cash deal. Now this is a pretty big milestone because it's the first time a major tech company has outright bought a large renewable energy and data center infrastructure provider instead of signing a long term power contract. And by buying Intersect, Google is basically locking in direct access to power generation and data center projects that are already under construction or in late stage development. Now, Google had already taken a minority stake in Intersect last year when intersect announced an $800 million interstate currently has about $15 billion in assets and they expect to have 10.8 gigawatts of power online or in development by 2028. For some perspective, here 1 gigawatt can power roughly 750,000 homes. Now, something to keep an eye on next year is the size of these data center deals. Even before this Google deal was announced, 2025 saw a record high $61 billion in data center deals, slightly ahead of last year's 60.8 billion, according to S and P Global. Now, these hyperscalers like Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and even racing to build AI capacity, and they're spending billions of dollars to do it. So we'll see that Trend continues in 2026. Not just the size of the deals, but also how these deals are financed. You know, in the latter half of this year, we saw a lot more debt financing, which I think is one reason why AI stocks kind of cooled off. In the latter half of the year. Investors got worried that these companies were taking on debt. Now, another thing to watch in 2026 is going to be the political angle of all of this. Just a few days ago, Senator Bernie Sanders endorsed a moratorium on data centers, meaning that he's calling for a national pause in infrastructure development, citing the need to ensure these new technologies benefit everyone and not just billionaires. So heading into 2026, data centers are becoming more than just an investment story. They're also turning into a political, regulatory and energy story as well. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of the shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls are up after President Trump announced plans for a brand new class of battleship. Trump described the new vessels as bigger and more advanced than anything currently in the Navy's fleet. Now, just last week, the US Navy selected Huntington Ingalls to build a new generation of ships. And the company has already said it's investing a billion dollars into shipyards and infrastructure to support the next gen naval platforms. So there is a good chance they're also selected to build these new battleships. As a result, their stock jumped more than 5% yesterday and it's up another 4% this morning. Sticking with the winners here, US drone stocks are on the rise after the FCC banned foreign made drones from being sold in the US Right now the biggest consumer drone maker in the world is dgi, which is based in China. And I gotta say, they make some awesome drones. In fact, I don't know any other company that makes drones comparable to dji, at least when it comes to the consumers. Well, because of this ban, none of their new drones can be sold in the U.S. now, if you already have a DJI drone, you should be good. They will continue to work, but you can't buy any new ones. As a result, this is a big win for US drone makers and companies like AeroVironment, Red Cat and Kratos were all up big yesterday on this news. Now on the flip side, shares of Johnson and Johnson are trading lower after a jury ordered the company to pay $1.5 billion to a cancer patient who said she developed mesothelioma after decades of exposure to asbestos in the company's talcum baby powder. The jury found JJ liable for failing to warn Consum about the potential presence of asbestos, which has been linked to causing cancer. Now J and J strongly denies these claims. They say that their baby powder never contained asbestos and it does not cause cancer. The company called the verdict egregious and potentially unconstitutional and says they will appeal the decision immediately. So this will continue to drag on, but J and J Stock is down around 1% this morning. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Over the weekend, Waymo had to suspend their robo taxis in San Francisco after a major power outage knocked out traffic lights across the city. So when the traffic lights went dark, dozens of Waymo self driving cars just like stopped working the way these robot cars were in the middle of the intersection, not moving and blocking traffic. Now thankfully there was no accidents or injuries, but it did result in gridlock on the road and tow trucks spent hours moving waymos out of intersections. Waymo actually suspended service in San Francisco for a few hours to kind of clean up the chaos. And this raises some uncomfortable questions about these self driving cars. I mean these waymos are designed to handle situations like this where the traffic light isn't working, but I guess they can still glitch. And it might also mean that these waymos are relying on remote human assistance in an office somewhere, but when there's no power and potentially no Internet, those remote assistance workers weren't able to help, which resulted in these waymos just stopping in the middle of the road and blocking traffic. I guess on the bright side, it's another edge case for Waymo to learn from and hopefully the next time something like this happens, the way mos will pull over onto the side street or a parking lot instead of just stopping in the middle of the intersection and causing a lot of traffic. 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. 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. As a reminder, the stock market is closing early on Wednesday because of Christmas Eve, but we're still going to have a show tomorrow morning. Stock market will be closed on Thursdays for Christmas, so no show for us, but we'll be back on air on Friday morning. Hope you guys have been enjoying your holiday week. Thank you guys again for listening, watching and commenting. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.