Welcome back to Squawkbox. OpenAI is reportedly looking to raise as much as a hundred billion dollars for its expansion plans, which could value the company as high as, you ready for this. 830 billion.So, we're getting close to the trillion dollar mark. The Wall Street Journal saying that the earliest fundraising round would be completed at the end of the first quarter of this coming year. Then, opening eye expected to draw in financing from sovereign wealth funds as well.Earlier in the week, the informatio ...

Christmas is less than a week away and joining us right now with some tips on what to serve on the table this year is Ray Isle, our old friend who's here from executive, he's the executive wine editor at Food and Wine. And uh Ray, you do this for us every year. >> I love doing this. This is great. Thanks for having me. I'm trying to get us, you know, a little tipsy at 6:20 in the morning. >> It's my job. It's what I It's what I do do for the world. >> I was actually thinking about it. How do you do your job ...

Five things to know ahead of the opening bell this morning. Japan's central bank raising its short-term interest rates to a three decade high of 75% that helped lift the country's 10-year Treasury yield past 2%. And the Bank of Japan also signaling readiness to tighten further.Meanwhile, data center deals hitting a record $61 billion in 2025. That's according to the S&P Global. European Union leaders agreeing to loan Ukraine more than hundred billion dollars to help the country defend itself from Russia for ...

This flag has been popping up at protests around the world. It's the Straw Hat Pirates Jolly Rodger. The flag has appeared this year at Gen Zed le demos, including in Indonesia, Nepal, and at Mexico's recent protests, too.The image comes from One Piece, one of Japan's most successful, longestr running manga series. At a time of political discord and social distress, young people have embraced it and the story of Monkey Duffy, One Piece's teenage hero, too. In the cartoon, Luffy sails the globe with his crew ...

Warner Bros. Discovery sent a clear message to its shareholders on December 17. Trust us, the best buyer of the storied Hollywood company is Netflix, not Paramount.Paramount is led by the billionaire son of Oracle's founder, David Ellison. He put forward a hostile 108 billion bid last week to buy Warner Bros. , but the Warner board called that offer inferior and too risky for investors.Why. They're telling Warner investors that the Ellison family, the second richest in America, can't be trusted to back the ...

Tik Tok reaching a deal to keep operating in the United States. That's according to a memo from the company's CEO. Tik Tok's US algorithm is going to be retrained on American user data.Joining us right now to discuss this, Doug Clinton, founder and CEO of Intelligent Alpha. Good morning to you. We've been waiting for this moment for quite some time.I think the big questions around this is how has this fundamentally changed uh the dynamic. Is it actually more secure. >> Yeah, Andrew, it's been 5 years in the ...

All right. So, give us a sense. Uh, we have the the data through Q3.What are we seeing in Q4 and what's the outlook for 2026. Are you expecting it to be another busy year for activist investors. >> Yeah, we do.Well, well, it's been it's been busy. Um, we expect there to be even busy in 2026. uh as as investors stop pouring money into Max 7 stocks like they have been which has been slowing down and they start looking for value and and frankly value stocks um we we we see activism a lot of good activist oppor ...

Let's get into it. Your word of the day is breath. What are you looking at.>> Well, you know, we've seen almost three years now where markets have been led primarily by mag 7, hyperscalers, big tech, and throughout the past few months, we've starting to see the market broaden out a little bit. And I really want to see that take place in 2026. >> We've seen financials, industrials, and and some AI adjacent starting to get involved in the game a little bit.>> All right. So, you're you're looking at for the ma ...

Geopolitical & Economic Policy - US President considers potential actions regarding Venezuela, including possible oil tanker seizures, while remaining ambiguous about the ultimate goal concerning President Maduro [1] - US President asserts that tariffs are a permanent aspect of trade policy [2] Monetary Policy & Interest Rates - Bank of Japan (BOJ) increased short-term interest rates by 0.25 percentage points, reaching the highest level since 1995 [2] - The BOJ's move resulted in the country's 10-year benchmark bond exceeding 2% for the first time since 1999 [2] - BOJ anticipates that real interest rates will remain significantly negative [3] Technology & AI - US government is reviewing NVIDIA's H200 AI chips, potentially impacting shipments to Beijing; Commerce, State, Energy, and Defense departments have 30 days to provide input [3] - OpenAI is reportedly discussing a new $100 billion funding round, potentially valuing the company as high as $830 billion [5] - Meta Platforms is reportedly developing a new image and video AI model named Mango, with a planned release in the first half of next year [5] Financial Regulation & Market Activity - US House leadership considers a vote on a bill banning congressional stock trading as early as next year [4] - President Trump supports a ban on congressional stock trading but excludes the executive branch [4] - Coinbase is suing Michigan, Illinois, and Connecticut over their attempts to regulate prediction markets, arguing that Congress has already granted the CFTC authority [6]

And today is the deadline for the Justice Department to release its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The record shared today could hold the most detailed look yet at two decades worth of government investigations into Epstein's sexual abuse of young women and underage girls. Yesterday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released another batch of photos obtained from the Epstein estate, including images of lines from the novel Lolita written on a person's body, various travel document ...