This Week in Barrons: 12.14.2025

Learn to like Precious Metals ...

Author

R.F. Culbertson
December 14, 2025

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  • Have yourself a merry little rate cut, let your longs be right.

  • Skild AI, a Carnegie Mellon spinout … founded in 2023 by Deepak Pathak and Abhinav Gupta, is building a universal, hardware-agnostic “robot brain” to control everything from robot arms to humanoids. SoftBank and Nvidia are leading a round that would triple its valuation to ~$14B.

  • Solar-powered data centers in orbit … could run 24/7, generate ~8X Earth-based solar output, and radiate heat directly into space. The race is underway: Starcloud has already launched a Nvidia H100 and trained the first LLM in orbit, while Blue Origin, Starlink, and Google are close behind – now it’s about who gets there first.

The Markets:

  • Everything’s expensive, QE is back, and growth is strong. The Fed just restarted QE with $40B in Treasury purchases (historically bullish), but (per Charlie Bilello) stocks now trade at ~26× peak earnings, the highest since 2000 and >50% above average (vs. 16.8× a decade ago). Meanwhile, Atlanta Fed Q3 GDP is 3.6%, government purchases are flat YTD, and officials believe that real GDP can run as high as 4 – 6% fueled by lower rates and energy.

  • China’s annual trade surplus hit a record >$1T … even as U.S. exports fell for the eighth straight month to -29% in November.  China just sold more to the EU and Africa.

 

Things I Read…  Money helps me understand areas like Insurance … Try-it-Here … R.F. Culbertson

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You may have heard the myth that red cars cost more to insure, often with varying reasons why. The truth is, the color of your car has nothing to do with your premium. Insurance companies are more interested in your vehicle’s make, model, age, safety features, and your driving history. What’s not a myth, though — is that people really can save a ton of money by switching insurers. Check out Money’s car insurance tool to see if you could, too.

Info-Bits…  

  • Only Alphabet and Nvidia have beaten the 2025 Tech Index … Tesla, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, and Amazon are lagging.

  • Apple’s AI brain drain … continues as its head of AI and much of the modeling team, including a senior AI scientist, are leaving for Meta or OpenAI.  This is after Apple opted to outsource AI to Google.

  • Poetiq, a six-person startup … topped a leading reasoning benchmark—beating DeepMind and OpenAI at roughly half the cost.

  • SpaceX is lining up banks for a potential mid-2026 IPO … targeting a valuation near $1.5T and a raise north of $25B.

  • ChatGPT now supports in-chat grocery shopping … via Instacart, from browsing to checkout.

  • Gold demand in Thailand is so strong … that gold-trading revenues now exceed the government’s entire FY2026 budget.

Crypto & AI-Bytes:

  • Nous Research open-sourced Nomos-1 … a 30B-parameter reasoning model that scored 87/120 on the 2025 Putnam—proof that small, open models now rival elite systems on hard math.

  • Michael Saylor’s BTC purchases this year … exceed the cost of every NFL stadium combined.

  • DeepSeek is training its next model … on thousands of Nvidia Blackwell chips smuggled into China.

  • Disney took a $1B stake in OpenAI … granting three-year rights to use 200+ Disney characters in ChatGPT and Soran – giving OpenAI rare IP leverage.

  • GPT-5.2 marks OpenAI’s shift … from “assistant” to true knowledge-work partner, with major gains in reliability, context retention, and visual reasoning.

Things I Read… Money helps me take advantage of bull markets … give ‘em a try … R.F Culbertson.

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Morgan Moment(s):

  • Powell says payrolls are overstated by ~60k/month … implying that we’ve been seeing net job losses of ~20k/month since May 2025.  Layoffs are ~1.2M YTD (the highest since 2020), hiring is at post-financial crisis low, and November data from ADP and Challenger weakened even further.  It’s simple, job growth isn’t keeping up with labor force gains.

  • Google plans AI smart glasses for 2026 … with Samsung, Warby Parker, and Gentle Monster, positioning Gemini-powered hardware as a serious rival to Meta’s Ray-Ban and Oakley success.

  • BlackRock filed for an iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF … its first staking-enabled product - further expanding its high-demand crypto lineup.

Next Week...  First Demand Shock then Supply Stress

  • Bkgd:   ORCL plans to curb AI spending until revenues rise, and Broadcom missed sales expectations, leaving the NASDAQ lagging the DOW last week.  I expect a year-end “Santa Claus rally,” but mid-2026 – tech could face a correction if AI revenues remain weak.

  • Rebound Resistance: Tech’s rebound is stalling at key resistance, and Bitcoin is still well below its highs. This shift in market mood could be a brief consolidation or signal a larger bearish turn that is certainly worth watching.

  • Rate cuts … from our FED, combined with slowing wage growth, is pushing the Fed Funds Rate below wage growth.  That is a historically bullish setup that could prolong the market run.

  • When’s the Santa Claus rally?  History shows that December often sees a stronger second half, and that supports a Santa Claus rally in the final weeks of the year.

  • Are the returns greater in Private Equity vs the S&P? Private equity returns are roughly matching the S&P, but PE investors face illiquidity and significantly higher leverage risks.  This raises questions about whether PE investors are being properly compensated for these additional risks.

     

TIPS... Learn to like Precious Metals

  • Factually: (a) Tech is faltering and Bitcoin remains near lows.  (b) The FED rate cuts are moving policy into a stock-friendly zone. (c) Rate cuts near all-time highs are historically bullish, and more cuts are likely.  (d) Mentioning AI during an earnings call is being rewarded, although prices can diverge from fundamentals.  Overall, per Callum Thomas: Last Friday’s sell-off appears to be a post-November aftershock, with some risks lingering; however, extending the FED rate cuts could prolong the stock rally.

  • Tip #1: When it comes to staying out of trouble: try not to be bearish when the trend is up, or bullish when the trend is down.  

    - Work on anticipating turning points, changes in fundamentals, and identifying risk pressures building up in the system.  As much as investing is a forecasting exercise, you still need to put one foot in front of the other and charts like the S&P 200-dma will help to keep us all out of trouble.

  • Tip #2: QBTS ($26.10) … it’s above its 20-dma / trigger = high $33 Jan ’26 Call buying … BOT the +$30 / -$35 Jan. Call Spread for $1.

  • Tip #3: ASTS ($76.70) … it’s above its 20-dma / trigger = Tesla take-over rumors … BOT the +$80 / -$90 Jan. Call Spread for $2.73.

  • Tip #4: CCJ ($91.49) … it’s above its 20-dma / trigger = high $105 Jan ’26 Call buying … BOT the +100 / -$110 Jan. Call Spread for $1.62.

  • Tip #5: TSLA ($458.96) … it’s above its 20-dma / trigger = high $550 Jan ’26 Call buying … BOT the +$470 / -$500 Jan. Call Spread for $7.00.

  • HODLs: (Hold-On for Dear Life) – Learn to like Precious Metals …

    - Reducing:

    o (-) Ethereum (ETH = 3,080 / in at $310)

    o (-) Bitcoin (BTC = $90,300 / in at $4,310)

    - Increasing:

    o (o) IBIT – Blackrock’s Bitcoin ETF ($51.2 / in at $24)

    o (+) Physical Commodities = Gold @ $4,329/oz. & Silver @ $62/oz.

    o (+) SLV (silver ETF) == ($56.1 / in at $27)

    o (+) GLD – Gold ETF ($395.4 / in at $212)

    o (+) CCJ (uranium) == ($91.4 / in at $84)

    o (+) ICSH (short term bonds = 4.65% yield == paid monthly)

    o (+) GDX (gold miners) == ($85.6 / in at $52)

     

    Please be safe out there!

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Until next week – be safe.

R.F. Culbertson