GoAI Market Wrap - 18th Dec

Stock Market  

On Wednesday Eastern Time, the three major U.S. indices all closed lower, with the Nasdaq down nearly 2% as investors continued pulling money from artificial intelligence (AI) concept stocks. Reports that a major investor backed out of an Oracle data center project reignited market concerns.  

 

(Intraday charts of the three major indices, source: TradingView)  

 

At the close, the Dow Jones Index fell 0.47% to 47,885.97 points; the S&P 500 Index fell 1.16% to 6,721.43 points; the Nasdaq Index fell 1.81% to 22,693.32 points.  

 

Oracle dropped 5.4%. Reports said Blue Owl Capital had planned to finance the company’s $10 billion data center project in Michigan but ultimately withdrew due to concerns over Oracle’s debt levels and spending scale.  

 

Oracle denied the report, saying the project is still proceeding. But the statement failed to reverse market sentiment.  

 

Other AI-related stocks also fell sharply Wednesday. Chipmaker Broadcom — one of the recent laggards in tech rotation — dropped over 4%; Nvidia fell nearly 4%; AMD down over 5%; Google down over 3%.  

 

Zacks Investment Management portfolio manager Brian Mulberry said: “We’re seeing a pretty clear rotation from large-cap growth to large-cap value. In fact, I think investors are positioning more defensively for what might happen next year. The core question now is, ‘Who can actually monetize these massive AI investments?’”  

 

Since December, Oracle, Broadcom, and other AI names have pulled back noticeably, with investors shifting to value-oriented sectors like financials. Oracle and Broadcom are down over 11% and ~19% this month, respectively.  

 

Mulberry expects the trend of outflows from high-valuation stocks toward “more reasonably valued sectors” to continue into 2026. Combined with monetary policy uncertainty, this could bring some volatility.  

 

He said: “At this stage, watching key metrics to gauge when and where AI profitability inflection points emerge will be critical — like free cash flow. Balance sheets can be fudged, but free cash flow can’t. What was once the biggest driver of market returns is now the biggest risk.”  

 

Medical supplies giant Medline surged over 41% on its Wednesday debut, raising $6.26 billion — the largest U.S. IPO since 2021.  

Global Hotspots  

Insiders say U.S. and Russia to hold talks in Miami this weekend  

 

Two sources said on December 17 local time that U.S. and Russian officials are expected to meet in Miami this weekend. Plans are still being finalized.

 

One source said the Russian delegation is expected to include RDIF CEO Dmitriev, while the U.S. side will include Middle East envoy Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Kushner.  

 

Guterres calls for restraint between U.S. and Venezuela  

 

UN Secretary-General Guterres called for restraint between the U.S. and Venezuela and immediate de-escalation. Guterres urged all parties to abide by international law obligations, including the UN Charter, to maintain regional peace.  

 

President Trump posted on social media on the 16th that Venezuela’s current government has been designated a “foreign terrorist organization” and he ordered a blockade of all sanctioned tankers entering or leaving Venezuela.  

 

U.S. Senate passes $901 billion defense authorization bill  

 

The U.S. Senate passed a $901 billion defense authorization bill by 77-20. The bill will now go to the White House for President’s signature.  

 

EU Commission President: Europe must take responsibility for its own security  

 

EU Commission President von der Leyen said on the 17th in Strasbourg, France, that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has sounded the alarm for Europe — Europe must take responsibility for its own security.

 

Speaking at the European Parliament plenary, von der Leyen said the current situation means Europeans must protect themselves and rely on themselves — “this is no longer a choice but a necessity.” Von der Leyen said the world order has profoundly changed and Europe must focus on its own strategy.  

Corporate News  

Google reportedly partnering with Meta to improve TPU support for PyTorch – challenging Nvidia  

 

Sources say Google is advancing a plan to make its AI chips perform better on PyTorch (the world’s most widely used AI software framework) to challenge Nvidia’s long dominance in AI chips.  

 

The internal project is called “TorchTPU” and aims to remove a key barrier to TPU adoption by making TPU fully compatible and developer-friendly for customers already built on PyTorch.  

 

Sources also say Google is working closely with Meta — PyTorch’s creator and main maintainer — to accelerate development. The two tech giants are discussing deals for Meta to get more TPU resources.  

 

Amazon reorganizes AI teams, integrates chip and model R&D under AWS veteran  

 

On Wednesday local time (Dec 17), Amazon announced reorganization of its AI-related project teams and appointed a senior executive from its cloud computing unit to lead a new business unit.  

 

CEO Andy Jassy said in an internal memo Wednesday (also posted on the company blog) that Peter DeSantis will lead the new team.  

 

The new organization combines Amazon’s AGI team — responsible for Nova brand AI models and Alexa’s “digital brain” — with the chip R&D and quantum computing research teams.  

 

DeSantis has been at Amazon nearly 30 years, previously leading AWS infrastructure and utility computing, overseeing global data centers and core cloud services. He also led Amazon’s 2015 acquisition of Annapurna Labs.  

 

Micron delivers strong outlook, up over 8% after-hours  

 

Micron Q1 adjusted revenue $13.64B (consensus $12.95B); adjusted net income $5.482B vs $3.469B last year. Q2 revenue guidance $18.3B–$19.1B (consensus $14.3B).  

 

Micron rose over 8% after-hours.  

 

Novartis and Roche reportedly close to drug pricing deal with U.S. government  

 

Sources say the White House is set to announce drug pricing agreements with pharma giants Novartis and Roche Holdings, possibly as early as Friday — further easing U.S.-Switzerland trade tensions after the tariff impasse.

 

Sources say other pharma firms may be included, with details still under discussion. Pfizer, AstraZeneca and others have recently reached agreements with the Trump administration to lower prices in some cases in exchange for tariff relief.  

 

OpenAI, Anthropic discussing data deals with biotech and other companies  

 

Reports say OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are seeking specialized data to train AI models and discussing licensing genomics and other datasets with startups and public companies.

 

In recent months, OpenAI employees have talked with life sciences diagnostics firm Revvity, accounting software company Xero, and biotech, consumer health, software, and financial services firms about licensing data or other partnerships.  

Forex & Commodities  

WTI crude futures closed up 1.21% at $55.94 per barrel; Brent crude futures up 1.29% at $59.68 per barrel.  

 

COMEX gold futures up 0.9% at $4,371.4 per ounce; COMEX silver futures up 4.92% at $66.44 per ounce.  

Key Events  

Venezuela’s largest refinery restarts production  

 

Venezuela’s largest refinery, Amuay — part of PDVSA’s Paraguana Refining Center with 645K b/d capacity — has restarted production after a power outage. Operational stability is critical for domestic fuel supply and oil exports.  

Cryptocurrency  

Bitcoin 24h −1.66% to $85,876.36.  

 

Ethereum −4.48% to $2,822.17.  

 

XRP −3.70%, BNB −3.57%, Solana −4.58%.  

 

Dogecoin −4.58%, Cardano −5.58%.  

Key Events  

“Old hands” selling, “new money” shrinking – Bitcoin struggling to find support  

 

On-chain data shows long-term holders (“OGs”) are cashing out at the fastest pace in years — the past 30 days one of the most intense selling periods in over five years. Previously, such selling was absorbed by new ETFs and institutional demand. But now that demand has faded.

 

ETF flows turned negative, derivatives volume down, retail participation low — market absorption capacity sharply weakened.