December 18, 2025

Markets:

Stock futures rose on Thursday as investors awaited inflation data that could be a catalyst for the market.

Micron Technology jumped 12% in premarket trading after the semiconductor play topped Wall Street estimates on the top and bottom lines for the fiscal first quarter and offered a strong revenue forecast for the current period.

Traders are awaiting the release of November’s consumer price index reading, due Thursday morning. It will mark the first consumer inflation report issued to the public since the U.S. government shutdown ended last month. Economists polled by Dow Jones predict that headline inflation grew at a 3.1% pace on a year-over-year basis.

Stocks are coming off of a rough trading session, pressured by sharp losses in leading semiconductor names tied to the artificial intelligence trade. The S&P 500 and the 30-stock Dow closed out their fourth negative day. The Nasdaq Composite was the laggard of the three major indices, losing 1.8%.

In the regular session, Oracle slid more than 5% after the Financial Times reported that the cloud infrastructure company’s primary investor pulled out of its $10 billion Michigan data center.

Concerns about the high capital costs behind massive data center deals, such as Oracle’s, sent shivers throughout the market and led several chipmakers to decline in sympathy throughout the session. Broadcom lost 4.5%, while shares of Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices
also fell.

Portfolio:

Let’s call this what it is—the narrative being driven by the Oracle headline is one of the more extreme stretches we’ve seen in months. You have a legacy tech company attempting to spend its way into relevance in the AI race, rather than operating as a true “picks and shovels” provider like a CIEN-type name. And somehow, that storyline has morphed into a broader claim that AI is suddenly broken or dead because of Oracle’s roadmap. Think about how illogical that is.

We’ve seen this movie before. Months ago, during similar periods of choppy and frustrating price action, hedge funds were underperforming retail. That imbalance doesn’t persist into year-end. At some point—possibly sooner rather than later—institutions will press for returns, and when they do, markets tend to move with force. Beneath the surface, there has already been evidence of large, deliberate positioning for a turn. Historically, those signals have not been wrong.

The damage being inflicted on high-quality tech names right now is hard to justify, especially when it’s tied to Oracle’s attempt to buy its way into the AI conversation. The disconnect is glaring.

Now look at Micron. One of the strongest quarters a semiconductor company has delivered in years. Mark this premarket—MU has the fundamentals and forward outlook to potentially double over the next year. The setup is simply too strong to ignore.

For now, we wait on backward-looking CPI data, then refocus on what’s ahead. Patience remains the playbook. No current holdings.  We do plan to add exposure, but only after price action and flow confirm direction. Let the market define itself first—then we press.