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Micron (MU) earnings take it to a new high (0:45). EV check-in with Ford (2:40). Rivian rally (4:45). Tesla quietly drifting higher (6:30). Economic data catching up after government shutdown (8:30).

Transcript

Rena Sherbill: Brian Stewart, Seeking Alpha’s Director of news. Happy Friday.

Brian Stewart: Happy Friday, great to be here.

Rena Sherbill: Always great to do a Wall Street Roundup with you. Yesterday, I did my first episode of The Cannabis Investing Podcast on Trump’s executive order, our first episode since April, but not much market movement, honestly, just to the slightly negative side.

So not top of mind, though, did want to shout out that episode for those following along that industry and that news and wanting some insight, check out The Cannabis Investing Podcast, we also posted the transcript to Investing Experts.

But Brian, what’s top of mind for you?

Brian Stewart: I think the biggest news in terms of corporate news was Micron (MU) earnings rose 10 % after its earnings and is adding another 7 % last time I checked this morning. This took it to a new high. It’s now up about 217 % year to date.

Strong results, strong guidance. I think the biggest news in terms of setting the stock much higher was the margins are projected to reach historic highs for the companies and demand for the products, especially in the AI area, they’re sold out through fiscal year 2026 for them.

This was the Q1 for 2026, the quarter that just ended. Demand is outstripping supply, so they were able to raise prices.

This is in opposition to what happened with Broadcom (AVGO) last week. So Broadcom dropped after its earnings it warned of lower margins as AI became a bigger part of its revenue mix. So the worry with Broadcom is as they’re adding the AI products, they’re actually going to see margins cut because they’re more expensive products.

But the Micron is having the opposite experience. So you’re seeing the AI trade continue to bifurcate where you’re seeing more winners and losers. This is a change from the early, early days of the AI where basically anyone who was sort of associated with AI was getting interest and from investors was moving higher.

And so I think you’re starting to sort of a more mature investor response to the situation where you’re seeing investors kind of choosing winners and losers in the sector. So this week, Micron was a winner and this is as opposed to Broadcom last week.

Rena Sherbill: What other specific stocks are you looking at this week?

Brian Stewart: I thought this was a good week to do an EV check-in. The main news hook for this is Ford (F). Ford announced a $19.5 billion write-down for its EV business. The headline coming out of that was that Ford was pivoting away from EVs.

The CEO went on CNBC and said something to the effect of EVs just aren’t selling. However, if you dig into the news a little bit, it’s a little bit more complicated than that. So they’re moving away from some EV products, but focusing on others, they are pivoting away from the F 150 lightening trucks, but they’re moving towards down market and, extended range and hybrid models.

So they’re not giving up on EVs completely. They’re just changing the mix that they’re focusing on. another interesting headline that was sort of buried in it is they are, launching a battery energy storage systems business. basically providing power for things like data centers and grid infrastructure, going after larger clients, not consumer business, but more of a business to business model.

I think this is an interesting addition of Ford. Tesla (TSLA), which we’re going to talk about in a little bit. Tesla has always sold itself as a tech company rather than just a car company. And I think Ford is kind of taking a lesson out of that playbook.

So they’re reframing their EV business less about the V part and more about the E part, especially in the world where we’re going to need lots and lots of power for these data centers that are being built out for the AI infrastructure, for it’s positioning itself to be part of that.

The other stock that comes to mind in this kind of frame was Caterpillar (CAT), which became kind of a crypto AI stock just because it was so heavily involved in the building of the data centers.

And so you see Ford trying to find its way into a similar sort of position where you’re kind of a legacy company, where you’re associated with a certain kind of business, but you have the infrastructure necessary to peek into more of the AI world, a different kind of customer than Ford is used to.

Rena Sherbill: What would you add to that EV conversation? We saw some news from some players in that space. How would you contextualize that news and add it to the Ford headlines?

Brian Stewart: So one of the big gainers recently, especially in EVs is Rivian (RIVN). They rallied last week after they had their AI and autonomy event. This is the first time they’ve had that.

They unveiled a custom chip and the stock climbed 12 % on Friday on that news. It’s gained ground again this week. It was up another 15 % on Thursday, thanks in part to some upgrades that it received. Last check as we started this podcast, it was up another 5 % on Friday.

The company is expanding its hands-free driving capacity. Back in November, the stock was kind of in the doldrums. then on November 5th, it announced, number four, actually, it announced its earnings. And then November 5th, the day after its earnings, rallied 23%. That earnings report showed the company getting closer to profitability.

Deliveries are up 32%. Revenue was up 78%. So with the recent upside for that stock, the stock is now up 71 % since the announcement of those November earnings.

So another example of a company that is nominally EV, mean, Ford is more than EV company, but you know, if you just take Rivian as sort of part of the overall, you know, the EV part of Ford, you see a company that the focus is on EVs, but they’re trying to frame themselves as more than an EV company. So you see them talking more about the AI chips that they’ve developed for their cars, which could also theoretically be a product in itself.

You see them talking more about autonomous technology. So it’s more than just sort of selling the E part of it. It’s the entire package of the technology that goes into these vehicles, which brings us to Tesla, which we haven’t talked about much lately, but has quietly been drifting higher, it reached a new high this week.

It was the first time it’s hit a new high in nearly a year. Back in May, Elon Musk stepped away from DOGE. And at that point, the bulls were saying, okay, Elon Musk was part of this contentious presidential administration. It generated bad headlines for him, bad headlines for the company. was brand damage that was done. It took Musk’s attention away from Tesla. The stock was down based on that.

But the bulls were saying at the time, okay, now Musk is going to go back to the company. You’re to see it get back into the swing of things. Now that this distraction is over and so far it looks like those bulls were correct. This, the stock is up 44 % since he announced that he was leaving DOGE and moving back to Tesla full time.

The upside for this being driven by Robotaxi optimism. So again, Tesla has always sold itself as more of a technology company and less of a car company. And you see that kind of hope getting priced back into the stock now that the distraction of DOGE is over. Bears will say valuation is just getting worse when you look at where Tesla stock is. Like as it gets higher, it just gets more overvalued.

Bears will also say that a lot of the areas that Tesla is operating in, EVs, autonomous vehicles, there’s a lot of competition growing. But I think that the bet the Bulls are making is just that Elon Musk has already shown that he can kind of steer the company, kind of draw in investor interests. And they’re hoping that now that he’s been back for several months that the company’s back on track.

Rena Sherbill: What else you got for us?

Brian Stewart: The other thing to look at for this week is the economic data. The release schedule has been maybe a little capricious compared to what we’re used to. We got jobs data this week. Still a little late, but we’re starting to finally catch up after the government shutdown. Added 64,000 jobs in November, which is pretty anemic, but that was above the expectation of 40,000 jobs.

October was a decline, 105,000 jobs lost in October, but part of that, there was 162,000 government employment reduction during that period of time. So that was during the shutdown when you had, um, know, part of that was layoffs that were announced. So a large chunk of the October decline was related to the government shutdown.

An anemic job market is certainly not something that anyone would be proud of, but also not recessionary, at least not at this point. I think in the more upsetting category would be the unemployment rate rose to 4.6%. It’s the highest level since September of 2021. 2021 obviously is when we’re coming out of the pandemic.

So at that point it was 4.6% headed the other direction, getting better as people started to get back to work from the pandemic. Now we’re at 4.6 going up. So I think create some worry, especially there’s other signs that consumer spending is off during the holiday season. So people are starting to feel it. On the good news front, you had CPI come out, showed annual growth rate in terms of inflation of 2.7% core CPI was 2.6%.

Both of those were down from the previous months. It had been hovering sort of around 3 % for a while. If you want to kind of take the bright side of that, inflation starting to moderate a little bit from that 3 % mark, get a little bit closer to that 2 % mark though there’s still a lot of work to be done in that area even while the job market is getting a little tougher, there’s signs that the prices might not be pushing as high as fast as they were.

Rena Sherbill: What else belongs in this week’s conversation?

Brian Stewart: It’s been kind of a slow news week and it’s only going to get worse next week. Obviously, Christmas is going to have the markets closed and then Christmas Eve. It’s a half day.

There’s really no earnings to speak of coming out next week. There’s a few economic reports, very much clustered in the beginning of the week. So we have GDP, we have housing starts, we have durable goods orders, nothing that’s likely to be too market moving.

So you’re going to see a low news, low volume market next week, which can open itself up to kind of unexpected swings. But overall, most people are going to be away from their desks and focus on the holidays.

Rena Sherbill: Absolutely, we will be off next week in that vein. Happy holidays to everyone. Happy New Year. Talk to you in 2026, Brian.

Brian Stewart: Yeah, sounds great. Have a great new year and see you when things open up again.