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China Inflation Bounces Back

China’s inflation climbed to a 34-month high, driven by food prices.

Author

Ankit Sinha
January 09, 2026

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🎯 In this issue:

  • Banana Bits: Finance headlines that actually matter

  • Market Summary: Tech stocks are down while defense stocks rip

  • What’s Ripe / Rotten: The tastiest and most disgusting stocks

  • Technical Trip: Interview Question with Jane Street

  • Lesson from the Library: Build PE-grade LBO models and understand how leverage drives returns.

  • Deal Dispatch: M&A, IPOs, and other transactions

  • The Daily Poll: See how you stack up

Market Snapshot

📉 Banana Bits

Market Recap

Tech Stocks Down while Defense Rips

Investors' appetite shifted as the year began, with last year’s technology winners sold off and investors dove into energy producers, consumer companies, and small caps. An advance in global bonds stalled.

The Nasdaq 100 slid 0.6%, ending a three-day advance as tech behemoths Nvidia Corp. and Apple Inc. slumped while the S&P 500 was little changed. Defense shares jumped on President Donald Trump’s plan to ramp up military spending, while a gauge of small-cap stocks surged to a record as investors continued to rotate out of tech.

The Russell 2000 has outperformed the Nasdaq 100 by approximately 4 percentage points in the first five sessions of 2026, the second-best start to a year on record.

Friday’s trading is a critical day for investors, as the December employment report is due. Analysts expect the U.S. labor market to likely show modest improvement in December.

Nonfarm payrolls likely rose by 73,000 last month while the unemployment rate edged lower to 4.5%, according to the Dow Jones consensus for a report to be released Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Heading into 2026, most economists see a labor market far from stellar but at least stable.

What's Ripe

​​Neogen Corp. (NEOG) 31.4%

  • The food-and animal-safety company guided for fiscal-year revenue of between $845 million and $855 million, up from a previous range of $820 million to $840 million.

  • Neogen also posted fiscal second-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that beat analysts’ forecasts.

Bloom Energy Corp. (BE) 12.8%

  • BE jumped 13% after American Electric Power, one of the nation’s largest generators of electricity, confirmed a nearly $2.7 billion agreement to buy Bloom’s solid oxide fuel cells. Shares of American Electric Power were up 2%.

What's Rotten

Teleflex Incorporated (TFX) 13.1%

  • TFX’s shares slumped after the company cut its 2025 revenue outlook and announced a leadership shake-up, naming board member Stuart Randle as interim president and CEO following the departure of Liam Kelly, who stepped down as chairman, president, and CEO.

  • Dr. Stephen Klasko, the board’s lead director, was appointed chairman, and the company said it has hired Spencer Stuart to conduct a search for a permanent chief executive. Teleflex now expects FY2025 revenue of $3.27B–$3.278B, down from its prior $3.305B–$3.32B forecast.

Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (JEF) 5.6%

  • JEF slid 5.6% even as the investment bank reported higher revenue over the fourth quarter, thanks to a robust mergers and acquisitions market.

  • Jefferies reported a $30 million loss tied to the collapse of auto-parts supplier First Brands, and its profit for the period fell 7% to $191 million.

🧠 Technical Trip

Interview Q&A from Jane Street

👉 Want 1-on-1 recruiting help from Jane Street bankers & 2,000+ top mentors? Apply to WSO Academy

📚 Lesson from the Library

🎥 LBO Modeling Course: Engineer Returns Like a PE Pro

Build PE-grade LBO models and understand how leverage drives returns.

🌟 WSO Academy Q4 Update

🌍 Region-Specific Networking Guides

The most common theme among students is this: networking is challenging and uncomfortable. That’s why we’re continuing to build on our region-specific networking playbooks to help them tailor their approach. These templates can be found in the student resource folder.

This quarter, we’ve added new regions: Singapore and the Middle East. We’ll continue releasing market-focused networking playbooks to help them tailor their outreach.

As a reminder, we now have a 4-hour intensive networking bootcamp, which occurs monthly. Make sure they sign up! Additionally, we cover networking during Sunday office hours. They can find the office hours links (for gcals and other cals) bookmarked in the #General channel in Slack and under Events on their WSO Academy Dashboard. Many of their questions can likely be answered through the Networking Mastery Course.

🦈 Deal Dispatch

📊The Daily Poll

Food-driven inflation tends to spill into:

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Previous Poll:

Traders lining up for Venezuelan oil tells you:

Sanctions are softening: 15.8% // Supply matters more: 26.3% // Energy pragmatism wins: 23.7% // This ends messy: 34.2%

Student Success Corner

👉 Are you next? Find out with WSO Academy

Banana Brain Teaser

Previous

Xavier, Yvonne, and Zelda each try independently to solve a problem. If their individual probabilities for success are 1/4, 1/2, and 5/8, respectively, what is the probability that Xavier and Yvonne, but not Zelda, will solve the problem?

Answer: 3/64

Today

In an electric circuit, two resistors with resistances x and y are connected in parallel. In this case, if r is the combined resistance of these two resistors, then the reciprocal of r is equal to the sum of the reciprocals of x and y. What is r in terms of x and y?

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Charlie Munger

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Chris, Vyom, Ankit, Mitchell, Fernanda, & Patrick