MARKET WRAPS
STOCKS: Stocks rose amid deal activity.
TREASURYS: Treasury yields rose amid optimism about the outlook for economic growth.
FOREX: The U.S. dollar fell against rivals as traders anticipated more rate cuts.
COMMODITIES: Oil futures rose as tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela mounted.
HEADLINES
Larry Ellison Provides Personal Guarantee for Paramount's Bid for Warner
Paramount amended its offer for Warner Bros. Discovery, with billionaire Larry Ellison agreeing to personally guarantee $40.4 billion of equity financing for the deal and publish records related to the family trust that backstops it.
Paramount previously made a hostile all-cash tender offer of $77.9 billion, or $30 a share, for all of Warner, including cable channels such as CNN, TNT and Food Network. The revised offer is at the same price per share.
Warner earlier recommended shareholders reject Paramount's bid, saying it believed Netflix's proposal for its studios and HBO Max streaming service was still superior. Netflix's deal for the studio and streaming assets was $72 billion in cash and stock, or $27.75 per share.
Netflix Prepares $25 Billion in Bank Financing for Warner Deal
Netflix is laying the foundation for its deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery's studios and HBO Max streaming service, securing up to $25 billion in bank financing to fund it.
The Los Gatos, Calif., streaming company entered into a $5 billion senior unsecured revolving credit facility and two senior unsecured delayed-draw term-loan facilities totaling $20 billion, according to a Monday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Wells Fargo, BNP Paribas and HSBC are among the banks involved in the financing.
Nelson Peltz's Trian and General Catalyst to Take Janus Henderson Private
Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management and venture firm General Catalyst have agreed to buy investment firm Janus Henderson for $7.4 billion.
London-based Janus Henderson said Monday it signed a definitive agreement to sell itself to Trian, General Catalyst and their affiliated funds at $49 a share in cash, an 18% premium to the price on Oct. 24 before the pair publicly unveiled an initial approach.
It is a deal years in the making. In 2020 Trian built a large stake in Janus Henderson and announced plans to build a large asset manager. Since then its stake has grown to 20.6% of Janus Henderson's ordinary shares and Trian currently has two representatives on the company's board of directors.
Alphabet to Buy Intersect for $4.75 Billion as AI-Investment Plans Grow
Alphabet agreed to buy Intersect for $4.75 billion, a deal the Google parent said would help address the near insatiable demand for energy to power the expansion of artificial intelligence.
The company said Monday it would pay in all cash, plus debt, for Intersect's data-center projects that are in development, plus multiple gigawatts of energy and the Intersect team as part of the deal.
Alphabet said it is aiming to increase its data-center and generation capacity with the acquisition, which is set to close in the first half of 2026. Tech companies such as Alphabet have shared plans to spend hundreds of billion dollars to keep up in the race to develop AI, which requires a significant number of data centers and amounts of computing capacity.
Coty Names P&G Veteran as Interim CEO Amid Beauty Shake-Up
Cosmetics giant Coty appointed Procter & Gamble veteran Markus Strobel as interim chief executive and board chair, part of a broader leadership overhaul amid a review of its consumer-beauty strategy.
Strobel will succeed CEO Sue Nabi and board chair Peter Harf, taking the leadership positions "at a pivotal moment...with a strategic review of the Consumer Beauty business under way," Coty said Monday. The appointment will be effective Jan. 1.
Strobel spent more than three decades at P&G before retiring in 2024, and he was most recently president of its global skin- and personal-care business, Coty said. Strobel noted the potential he saw for Coty's further growth and expansion.
Trump Administration Halts All Offshore Wind Projects
The Trump administration Monday halted the construction of all U.S. offshore wind projects, a sweeping move aimed at hobbling one of the president's least favorite industries.
The Interior Department said it has paused the federal leases for five projects in the works from Massachusetts to Virginia "due to national security risks identified by the Department of War in recently completed classified reports." It is the most significant action the administration has taken thus far against the burgeoning U.S. business, which already has faced financial setbacks in recent years because of soaring costs.
"Today's action addresses emerging national security risks, including the rapid evolution of the relevant adversary technologies, and the vulnerabilities created by large-scale offshore wind projects with proximity near our East Coast population centers," Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said.
CBS News Editor Bari Weiss Defends Decision to Pull '60 Minutes' Segment
CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss addressed her controversial decision to pull a "60 Minutes" segment over the weekend, saying Monday that the story wasn't ready for publication and "we simply need to do more."
"The only newsroom that I'm interested in running is one where we are able to have contentious disagreements about the thorniest editorial matters, and do so with respect and, crucially, where we assume the best intent of our colleagues," Weiss said on the network's morning editorial call Monday, according to a recording viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
"And anything else is absolutely unacceptable to me and should be unacceptable to you," she said.
TALKING POINT Bond Markets Clear Path for Stock Rally by Ignoring a Near-Term Risk
Bond markets are doing their part to deliver a Santa Claus rally for stocks as investors up the ante on more Federal Reserve rate cuts in the new year and brush off inflation worries in the world's biggest economy.
A softer-than-expected inflation reading for the month of November, published last week, along with the expected new leadership at the Fed pushing for deeper rate cuts, have driven short-term Treasury bond yields sharply lower over the past two weeks. That's likely to support the case for a so-called Santa Claus rally, which typically occurs just after the Christmas holiday and into the first two days of January.
Further pressure has been building on shorter-term Treasury bill yields as the Fed begins its months-long effort to ease liquidity concerns in the banking sector through a program of regular monthly purchases expected to last until late spring.
Collectively, the moves have triggered a so-called "bull steepening" of the U.S. Treasury yield curve, where short-term yields fall faster than longer-dated ones. In fact, the gap between benchmark 2-year Treasury bond yields and 10-year Treasury note yields was last pegged at 68 basis points, the steepest since January 2022.
A bull steepening of the Treasury curve is typically a positive signal for stocks, as it suggests aggressive central bank action to lower interest rates and stimulate economic growth while at the same time keeping longer-term inflation expectations in check.
But it can also be an omen.
"There's a concern that the yield curve is steepening too fast, and that the increase in the 10-year yield in Japan could continue to push up yields in the long end of the curve in the U.S. and globally," said Justin Bergner, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds.
--Martin Baccardax, Barron's
Expected Major Events for Tuesday
05:00/JPN: Nov Supermarket sales
07:00/GER: Nov Foreign trade price indices
09:00/ITA: Nov Foreign Trade non-EU
13:30/US: 3Q Advance estimate GDP
13:30/US: Oct Advance Report on Durable Goods
13:30/US: 3Q Preliminary Corporate Profits
13:30/US: U.S. Weekly Export Sales
13:30/CAN: Oct GDP
13:55/US: 12/20 Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index
14:15/US: Nov Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization
15:00/US: Dec Consumer Confidence Index
15:00/US: Dec Richmond Fed Business Activity Survey
18:00/US: Nov Money Stock Measures
All times in GMT. Powered by Onclusive and Dow Jones.
Expected Earnings for Tuesday
Good Times Restaurants Inc $(GTIM)$ is expected to report for 4Q.
Loop Media Inc $(LPTVQ)$ is expected to report for 4Q.
Wilhelmina International Inc $(WHLM)$ is expected to report for 3Q.
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This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 22, 2025 16:35 ET (21:35 GMT)
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