A view of the water tower at Paramount Studios on Oct. 30, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.<\/p>\n
Mario Tama | Getty Images<\/p>\n
Paramount Skydance<\/a> on Monday launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a>, following Netflix’s<\/a> announcement last week that it had reached a deal to buy the HBO owner.<\/p>\n The company is “here to finish what we started,” CEO David Ellison told CNBC, upping the ante with a $30-per-share, all-cash offer compared to Netflix’s $27.75-per-share, cash-and-stock offer for WBD’s streaming and studio assets.<\/p>\n Investors were certainly pleased, sending Paramount shares 9% higher and WBD’s stock up 4.4%.<\/p>\n Another development that traders cheered was U.S. President Donald Trump permitting Nvidia<\/a> to export its more advanced H200 artificial intelligence chips<\/a> to “approved customers” in China and other countries \u2014 so long as some of that money flows back to the U.S. Nvidia shares rose about 2% in extended trading.<\/p>\n Major U.S. indexes, however, fell overnight, as investors awaited the Federal Reserve’s final rate-setting meeting of the year on Wednesday stateside. Markets are expecting a nearly 90% chance of a quarter-point cut, according to the CME FedWatch tool<\/a>. <\/p>\n Rate-cut hopes have buoyed stocks. “The market action you’ve seen the last one or two weeks is kind of essentially baking in the very high likelihood of a 25 basis point cut,” said Stephen Kolano, chief investment officer at Integrated Partners. <\/p>\n But that means a potential downside is deeper if things don’t go as expected. <\/p>\n “For some very unlikely reason, if they don’t cut, forget it. I think markets are down 2% to 3%,” Kolano added.<\/p>\n In that case, investors will be waiting, impatiently, for the Fed meeting next year \u2014 hoping for a more satisfying conclusion.<\/p>\n What you need to know todayAnd finally…<\/p>\n People walk past the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, U.S., April 4, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kylie Cooper | Reuters<\/p>\n