Morning Bid: Inflation Grinch Creeps Up On Wall Street 

By Naomi Rovnick

LONDON, Dec 17 (Reuters) - By Naomi Rovnick, planetary markets correspondent.

What matters successful U.S. and planetary markets today

Wall Street's accepted Santa rally is obscurity to beryllium recovered arsenic ostentation anxiousness and geopolitical tensions predominate the marketplace mood.

Brent crude is rallying aft U.S. President Donald Trump connected Tuesday ordered a "blockade" of sanctioned tankers leaving and entering Venezuela, raising caller ​geopolitical tensions astatine a clip of concerns implicit demand.

Meanwhile, AI fever is reddish blistery successful China, an astonishing IPO debut showed.

I'll get into each of the market-moving quality below, but archetypal ‌check retired Mike Dolan's latest file connected however Wall Street analysts's 2025 marketplace calls panned out. Spoiler alert: amazingly well.

And past perceive to the latest occurrence of the caller Morning Bid regular podcast. Subscribe to perceive Mike and different Reuters journalists sermon the biggest quality ‌in markets and concern 7 days a week.

Today's Market Minute

* U.S. President Donald Trump ordered connected Tuesday a "blockade" of each sanctioned lipid tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, successful Washington's latest determination to summation unit connected Nicolas Maduro's government.

* Warner Bros Discovery's committee could denote a determination arsenic aboriginal arsenic Wednesday connected Paramount Skydance's $108.4 cardinal takeover bid, with the committee apt to counsel shareholders to ballot against the offer, according to sources acquainted with the matter.

* British user terms ostentation fell unexpectedly sharply to 3.2% successful November, its lowest since March, from 3.6% successful October, a time earlier the Bank of England is wide expected to chopped involvement rates.

* Britain’s Labour authorities has 2 evident options ⁠for boosting a listless economy: an artificial intelligence-driven productivity roar oregon person ‌trading ties with the European Union, argues Mike Peacock, the erstwhile caput of communications astatine the Bank of England.

* China's alloy accumulation successful November was the weakest period successful astir 2 years and volition guarantee that the world's biggest shaper of the metallic volition station its lowest yearly output since 2018, writes ROI Asia Commodities columnist Clyde ‍Russell.

Inflation Grinch Creeps Up On Wall Street

This clip of twelvemonth often brings a Santa rally to Wall Street, yet the S&P 500 stock scale is heading for its 2nd week of losses and looks acceptable for a tepid unfastened connected Wednesday.

Bullish positioning has already turned extreme, suggesting investors person opened astir of their presents already, and cautious trading this week signals fearfulness that Thursday's U.S. ostentation information volition beryllium the Grinch that steals immoderate is near nether the tree.