Traders work on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) floor in New York City.
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This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.
What you need to know today
Clock restarted for TikTok
TikTok said in a statement on X that it’s restoring service in the U.S. after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump wrote on his social media app Truth Social he would “issue an executive order on Monday” to delay a ban on TikTok. On Saturday, Perplexity AI submitted a bid to TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to create a new merged entity combining Perplexity, TikTok U.S. and new capital partners, CNBC learned.
First winning week for U.S. stocks in 2025
Markets in the U.S. rose on Friday to end the week higher for the first time in 2025. The pan-European Stoxx 600 index climbed 0.69%. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 rose 1.35% to close at a record high. The index was lifted by mining stocks, which advanced on the news that Glencore reportedly considered a merger with Rio Tinto although talks are no longer active.
TSMC confident of continued funding under Trump
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co expects that it’ll continue to receive the $6.6 billion it was promised under the Biden administration’s CHIPS and Science Act even after Trump takes office, TSMC Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang told CNBC in an exclusive interview. On the campaign trail, Trump criticized the CHIPS Act and accused Taiwan of stealing the chip business from U.S.
Hamas and Israel exchange hostages and prisoners
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on Sunday. Hamas released three women to Israel, its first batch of hostages, in exchange for Palestinians prisoners to be set free by Israel. The process will continue over the next weeks, during which, Hamas will release 33 of the 98 Israeli and foreign hostages as Israel returns Palestinian prisoners.
[PRO] Trump to determine direction of markets
The inauguration of Trump will happen later Monday. Investors will want to keep an eye on what executive orders Trump will sign beginning from the first day of his presidency, especially as they relate to tariffs and corporate policies. Those orders could chart the direction of stocks for much longer than just the near term.
The bottom line
The S&P 500 surged above the shiny 6,000 level following Trump’s election victory but has largely erased all its gains and reverted to its pre-election level in the past few weeks. As Trump prepares to enter the White House, however, it seems like investors are gearing up to play the market based on his agenda again.
Stocks finally ended the week on a positive note, their first weekly gain for the year. For the week, the S&P 500 advanced 2.9% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 3.7%, their best weekly performance since the week of the U.S. presidential election in November. The Nasdaq Composite added 2.5%, its best week since early December.
Banks largely contributed to the bump in the indexes as better-than-expected earnings reports from big banks lifted their shares higher. Shares of Goldman Sachs popped around 12% on the week and JPMorgan Chase climbed 8% in the same period. Overall, the financial sector rallied more than 6% last week, outperforming the S&P.
Trump’s term as president might provide more forward momentum for bank stocks. Rising business and consumer confidence, an extension of tax cuts, and deregulation of the finance industry are potential drivers of the sector, according to Chris Senyek, chief investment strategist at Wolfe Research.
“We still see Financials as the biggest sectoral winner under the Trump administration,” Senyek wrote in a note on Friday.
That said, apart from anticipation of Trump sitting in the Oval Office, muted back-to-back inflation readings for December also buoyed animal spirits in the markets: All sectors of the market ended the week in the green.
The better-than-expected economic data earlier this week has helped “revive the goldilocks narrative for equities, and likely prompted some re-risking,” Barclays strategist Emmanuel Cau wrote in a Friday note.
Typically, any change involves increased risks. That’s true with Trump 2.0 — but as the number “two” suggests, a change we’ve seen before might mitigate a tiny bit of that uncertainty.
— CNBC’s Alex Harring, Hakyung Kim and Sarah Min contributed to this report.