Sometimes, you can have too much of a good thing. Investors clearly don’t buy into that idea as they continue to pile into stocks ahead of the third anniversary of the current bull market.
Bank of America’s monthly poll of global fund managers sums up the mood. The net share who said they are overweight on stocks doubled to a seven-month high, even as the percentage who believe global equity markets are
overvalued climbed to a record.
The survey shows that while professional investors think stocks look a little expensive, they still see this as a time to buy. It’s tough to argue with them. Two obvious catalysts could continue to drive markets higher, at least for the rest of 2025.
The first is the potential end of the trade war between the U.S. and China, with the world’s two largest economies seemingly on the brink of finalizing a deal to save TikTok. If that paves the way for a permanent trade
agreement, it could put investors’ lingering fears about tariffs to bed. A report that China has banned the country’s companies from using Nvidia’s chips could complicate that picture,
though.
The second is looming interest-rate cuts. As the Federal Reserve makes its latest rate decision today, traders right now are betting on 75 basis points of reductions by the end of the year, according to the CME FedWatch tool.
Looser monetary policy ought to keep stocks chugging higher, although inflation is still running nearly a full percentage point above the Fed’s target, which could make it harder for the central bank to cut aggressively.
Perhaps the only scenario that could spoil the party would be an unexpected recession, but there’s not much to suggest that right now: Retail sales data published on Tuesday came in well above expectations, signaling that American consumers are still dipping into their pockets despite worries about a weak labor market.
With trade fears easing and rates set to fall, the bull market looks set to charge into a fourth year and
beyond.
—George Glover
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New Fed Gov. Stephen Miran’s First Challenge: Economic Projections
Economists and central bank watchers are wondering whether newly
minted Fed Gov. Stephen Miran, who joined the policymaking committee with record speed after his Senate confirmation, will contribute to the Fed’s closely watched Summary of Economic Projections scheduled for release today.
- Federal Open Market Committee members release their anonymized projections of economic growth, unemployment, inflation, and interest rates after the March, June, September, and December meetings. It includes the closely watched “dot plot” and helps anchor long-term expectations.
- Most Fed officials use staff economists to help assemble data and analysis, but Miran may not yet have a staff. The projections are due Friday before the meeting begins but can be updated until the morning of the meeting’s second day. Miran was sworn in on Tuesday.
- Former
Fed Chair Ben Bernanke once said that Fed policymakers have a responsibility to give people “a full and compelling rationale” for their decisions to ensure that central banks maintain the “democratic legitimacy and independence” essential to sound monetary policymaking.
- Bank of America’s closely tracked Fund Manager Survey found that 26% of global investors surveyed are increasingly concerned about Trump’s relentless political pressure on the Fed. That percentage is up from less than 10% in August. It didn’t register as a concern in previous polls.
What’s Next: Whether Miran files
his forecasts or decides to sit out the decision, like former Gov. Lael Brainard did in 2014, his first meeting highlights the Summary of Economic Projections’ central role in the present-day Fed and how indispensable it has become for investors trying to gauge the economy’s direction.
—Nicole Goodkind, Martin Baccardax, and Janet H. Cho
TikTok’s U.S. Future Emerges as It Gets a New Deadline
The details of TikTok’s plan to continue operating its popular video sharing platform in the U.S. beyond today are emerging, and one striking feature is that the U.S. government will name a person to the newly formed, American-dominated board, The Wall Street Journal reported.
- An investor consortium for TikTok’s U.S. business includes Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz, with Oracle handling user data at its Texas operation, Journal reported. The new entity for U.S. TikTok will have 80% American investor ownership, while China’s ByteDance will have 20%.
- Oracle has already been working with U.S. TikTok, hosting user data here amid lawmaker concerns about national security. Those concerns led Congress and former President Joe Biden to force ByteDance to divest the app or face its ban from U.S. app stores.
- Current American investors, including Susquehanna International, KKR, and General Atlantic, will remain as part of the ownership group, the Journal reported.
- Current U.S. users would be asked to shift to a new app, which TikTok has built and is testing, the report said. When it comes to the algorithm that drives the platform, TikTok engineers would re-create a set of content-recommendation algorithms, using tech licensed from ByteDance.
What’s Next: President Trump, who has already extended the threat to ban the app in the U.S. three times, has pushed it out again while the new investor consortium finalizes the deal.
The new deadline is Dec. 16.
—Angela
Palumbo and Liz Moyer
StubHub IPO Values Ticket Platform at $8.6 Billion
StubHub’s initial public offering, which priced at the midpoint of its intended range late Tuesday, doesn’t follow the pattern of a recent spate of stock debuts, many of which priced well above their ranges and popped when they began trading the next day. Wall Street was hoping for a hot ticket.
