Hey there, player. Today we’ve got Mickey Mouse burying the hatchet with Sam Altman, Larry Ellison running a cloud-growth romance scam on shareholders, and Trump comparing sizes with Jerome Powell.

If you stick around for the whole ride, give yourself a pat on the back… that’s 2 minutes of focus most couldn’t muster on their best day.

Stay rowdy (within reason),

-Will

Altman Gets the Castle Keys

Bob Iger has that dog in him…

Disney (+1.2%) just hit us all with a “never let them know your next move” type beat: a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI, effectively handing Mickey Mouse the keys to the entire generative content universe.

As part of the deal, OpenAI’s Sora users will soon be able to generate videos featuring Mickey, Ariel, Cinderella, Iron Man, Darth Vader, probably even that weirdly jacked version of Goofy that lives in the meme economy.

Meaning, next holiday season, your niece is going to open her iPad and type: “Elsa teaching Darth Vader how to ice skate at an East Coast mall.” …and Sora will say, “Already rendered, want it in 4K?”

How big of a deal are we talking? Let’s just say over (checks notes) 200 characters across Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars are about to be unleashed into the wild imagination of the internet. Civilization has peaked.

But Iger didn’t stop at letting his characters loose in the AI gladiator arena. The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is also rolling out ChatGPT to employees, building new tools with OpenAI’s tech, and securing warrants to buy up even more equity down the line. 

Bob Iger all but said: “We’d be irresponsible not to double down on this.”

All of this makes the pivot even funnier when you remember Disney spent the last year suing every AI startup that accidentally drew Pluto with the wrong number of fingers. 

They fired off a copyright missile at Google, hit Midjourney with a lawsuit, warned Character.AI to back up their IP… and pretty much signaled to all of Silicon Valley, “Use our characters again and we will delete your family tree.”

And now? They’re signing a three-year love contract with OpenAI like nothing ever happened. It’s giving Dana White finally teaming up with Paramount after realizing half the UFC was getting streamed for free on reddit anyway. 

Sometimes you stop fighting the pirates and start selling them tickets.

Hollywood unions are understandably losing their sh*t. Fans, meanwhile, are losing their minds over the fact they’ll soon be able to spin up instant chaos like, “Elsa hosting a breakup podcast with Darth Vader as her co-host.” 

Sure, OpenAI might mute the trauma dumping, but it’ll happily generate the podcast set.

Sam Altman, meanwhile, is floating on cloud nine after pulling off quite a heist. Not only does he dodge a fresh wave of lawsuits, he also gets paid to splash Disney’s characters across every corner of the AI universe.

And in my opinion? He’s right to celebrate… this is the biggest IP bragging right the AI world has seen yet and it stacks yet another major partner behind OpenAI ahead of their eventual IPO moment.

Market Gossip

-Some weeks you’re the lion. This week, the Ellisons are the gazelle.

Luke Combs once famously sang (read with southern accent), “when it rains, it pours…” And let me tell you, it’s raining cats and dogs on the Ellison household.

A few days after his nepobaby son lost him out on acquiring Netflix, Larry Ellison is now taking a clean kick to the nuts as Oracle’s (-11%) cloud results show up looking like a Wish version of AWS. And I don’t think Donnie Politics is gonna be able to help him out with this one.

So what happened?

Well, Oracle told Wall Street: “Good news! Cloud revenue rose 34% to $7.98B!” Wall Street replied, “Yeah, but you promised it would rise more.”

And sure, infrastructure revenue popped 68% to $4.08B, but still missed expectations, giving the whole performance big “close but no cigar, just secondhand smoke” feelings.

Then came the numbers that made investors’ souls exit their bodies: capex jumping to $12B when everyone expected $8.25B… free cash flow swan-diving to -$10B… and total debt hitting $106B. Now they’re forecasting $50B in capex through FY26… $15B more than last quarter’s estimate.

Translation: Oracle is building AI data centers at the speed and scale of a mid-tier dictatorship, but the revenue is moving at such a glacial pace investors are wondering: “when will this translate into money?” 

Oracle responded: “Trust the process.” 

Investors: “We watched the 76ers do that. We’re not falling for it again.”

Meanwhile, we’ve got Sam Altman channeling Michael Scott and declaring Threat Level Midnight. Google’s Gemini 3 is gaining ground, Anthropic is accelerating, and Sam’s message is basically: “Stop the side projects… upgrade ChatGPT now.”

Analysts are now asking, “What happens if OpenAI coughs and Oracle catches covid?” Evercore’s Kirk Materne wants to know how Oracle adjusts spending if demand slows… because right now it looks like they’re building a luxury resort without checking whether guests are actually coming.

Yes, Oracle keeps insisting their data centers are “highly automated,” “cost-efficient,” and “revenue generating,” but that last phrase is doing most of the heavy lifting… and looking a little wobbly under the bar.

Zooming out, Oracle’s market cap is down roughly a third since September. I’m sure Larry will be fine (he’s worth $150 billion) but needless to say, it’s been a rough week for the Ellisons.

-“I didn’t choose the Diet Coke life… the Diet Coke life chose me” - Literally me every day lol 

Big news for America’s obesity drink of choice, Coca-Cola is officially changing CEOs. 

The throne is moving from James Quincey to Henrique Braun in 2026… and despite the insufferable brand-loyalists who are panic sweating the change up, it definitely checks out. 

For instance,  Quincey’s been running the show since 2017… long enough to survive bottling drama, COVID, inflation, and the great “maybe soda is bad??” existential crisis. 

Now he gets promoted to Executive Chairman, where he’ll spend his days nodding in agreement at board meetings and cashing checks that could pay off several small countries’ debt.

Braun, meanwhile, has been at Coke since 1996… back when people still thought Crystal Pepsi was the future… so this move feels less like a surprise and more like seniority finally punching its card. 

However, as hinted above, the energy is a bit mixed. Coke is still the reigning champ of the soda wars… Coke #1, Sprite just leapfrogged Pepsi for #3, and PepsiCo is punching air. That said, the treadmills are slowing a bit. 

Case in point: Unit case volume rose only 1% last quarter as lower-income shoppers are pulling back their spending. Coke is also selling shrink-flation minis like they’re collectible NFTs, all while premium brands like (Smartwater and Fairlife) are quietly printing. Heck, you’d think that America was actually… dare I say it… becoming healthy again? 

Of course, while that may be the case to some extent, the reality is that right now, the rich are still blissfully hydrated, while everyone else is choosing rent over a 20-oz.

Which means, it’s now Braun’s job to “unlock global growth opportunities”. In other words, find ways to sell people less soda for more money. Bold strategy Cotton, let’s see if it pays off for ‘em. 

As for the market’s volatile reaction… investors barely reacted to the news; mainly due to the fact of how stable Wall Street thinks KO is. Meaning, they could announce a new CEO with the name Sean Combs and the stock would still trade flat LOL. 

But alas, the changing of the guard is in motion. And while some remain clenched to see what happens next… that doesn’t change the fact that Coke’s still a $300B behemoth that outperforms Pepsi by simply existing. 

Translation: if you’re a shareholder, congrats… nothing broke. If you’re a Pepsi shareholder… well, thoughts and prayers.

-“Sorry Jerome, but size does matter…” - Trump, probably…

Yesterday was Fed day, and just as every strategist, their dog, and their dog’s Substack predicted… J-Poww did all of us a favor with another 25bps cut. Of course, we were all hoping for a bigger load (Trump would like a word)... but apparently it was enough to get the market's panties unwadded for a pre-Christmas sugar rush.

With that said, the real story wasn’t necessarily the cut, it was the Roy-type family drama behind it. In short, the Fed hasn’t thrown three “no” votes at a meeting in over a decade, and suddenly we’re out here recreating 2014 like it’s a nostalgia act. 

Hawks mad. Doves mad. Everyone tired. Even J-Poww looked like he wanted to wrap things up and get to the part of his life where he cashes a Goldman signing bonus and ghosts the group chat.

Add to the fact, #47 chined in… calling the cut “rather small,” which is probably the nicest thing he’ll ever say about Powell on record. The man has three meetings left in the chair, and you can feel the final-season energy in everything he does. 

Meanwhile, prediction markets (our modern-day oracle) have Kevin Hassett sitting at roughly a two-thirds chance to snag the gig next. Translation: the era of “transitory” is ending, and the era of “whatever the President wants” is warming up in the bullpen. 

Additionally, the dots didn’t help much either. Just one cut penciled in for 2026, another for 2027, and then the Fed supposedly glides down to 3%. A fairy tale only a central banker could love. 

Of course, inflation’s still sitting at 2.8%, but the markets didn’t care. Everybody was feeling themselves after Powell’s decision. 

Which brings me to this: Where does this circus go heading into January? If I were a betting man, I’d say Powell coasts. 

Trump sharpens the axe, and Hassett rehearses his acceptance speech. And the rest of us collectively hold our breath for the future of America’s monetary policy.

Daily Count

-The Dow jumped 663 points (+1.4%) to a fresh record high as investors shifted out of tech and into companies that stand to benefit from a strengthening U.S. economy following the Fed’s rate cut.

-Visa helped lead the charge, climbing after a Bank of America upgrade and giving the Dow some much-needed lift.

-The S&P 500 inched up 0.1%, holding steady on the day.

-The Nasdaq fell 0.4%, weighed down by tech stocks reacting to Oracle’s disappointing results.

The takeaway: Wall Street took a break from tech’s gaslighting and ran back to companies that produce, like, actual revenue.

Today’s heatmap:

Oh and one more thing…

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At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Netflix, Disney, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi as mentioned in the article.