- The Peel
- Posts
- Powell Stays on Cut Track
Powell Stays on Cut Track
Powell remains on course for a Fed rate cut despite internal dissent.
Ankit Sinha
December 08, 2025
Silver banana goes to…
Your Daily Dose of Market & Career Clarity
📬 Delivered to 150,000+ ambitious readers
🎯 In this issue:
Banana Bits: Finance headlines that actually matter
Market Summary: Rally stalls as investors await Fed decision
What’s Ripe / Rotten: The tastiest and most disgusting stocks
Technical Trip: Interview Question with Jane Street
Deal Dispatch: M&A, IPOs, and other transactions
The Daily Poll: See how you stack up
Market Snapshot
📉 Banana Bits
China’s Politburo signaled that boosting the domestic market will be a top priority in 2026.
China’s trade surplus hit a record $1T as November exports rebounded.
Powell remains on course for a Fed rate cut despite internal dissent.
India’s RBI governor pushed back against speculation of an exchange-rate policy tweak.
Bessent expects the U.S. to close out the year with 3% GDP growth.
China’s exports to the U.S. kept sliding, dropping 29% in November.
Market News
Fed Countdown Caused a Pause in Market Rally
The market rally hit a brake after investors were worried about making risky bets ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate cut decision next week.
Treasuries notched their worst week since June, with the U.S.10-Year yield rising the most in a week since April. The S&P 500 notched small gains and remains within a whisker of October’s all-time high. The Nasdaq 100 advanced 1% this week while the Russell 2000 gauge of smaller companies pulled back from Thursday’s closing record.
On the other hand, economists are expecting the core personal consumption expenditures price index, a measure that excludes food and energy, to rise 0.2% in September, in line with economists' expectations for a third-straight 0.2% increase in the Fed’s favored core index.
That would keep the year-over-year figure hovering a little below 3%, a sign that inflationary pressures are stable, yet sticky.
What's Ripe
Rubrik Inc. (RBRK) 22.5%
RBRK surged 22% after the cybersecurity company posted a surprise profit in the third quarter.
Adjusted earnings per share of 10 cents beat Wall Street estimates for a loss of 17 cents.
Victoria's Secret & Co. (VSCO) 18.0%
VSCO jumped 18% as its latest financial report indicated its turnaround effort was bearing fruit.
The lingerie retailer posted an adjusted quarterly loss of 27 cents a share, while analysts expected 59 cents.
What's Rotten
DocuSign Inc. (DOCU) 7.7%
DOCU tumbled 7.7%, even after the software company beat analysts’ calls for third-quarter earnings and revenue.
The company expects fourth-quarter revenue of $825 million to $829 million, below Wall Street’s $825.9 million estimate.
SoFi Technologies Inc. (SOFI) 6.2%
SOFI declined 6.2%. The fintech unveiled an offering of $1.5 billion worth of common shares after the bell on Thursday, saying it plans to use the net proceeds for general corporate purposes.
🧠 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
🎥 Private Equity Secondaries: The Market Behind the Market
Understand why investors buy and sell private equity stakes — and how secondaries power liquidity in the PE world.
🌟 WSO Academy Q4 Update
Automatic Session Notes + Key Takeaways Emails
When a student’s mentor uploads a session recording, they’ll now receive a short follow-up email summarizing:
✅ Key takeaways from the session
✅ Action items / next steps
✅ Links to any resources mentioned
👉 Check out WSO Academy
🦈 Deal Dispatch
M&A, IPOs, And Other Notable Transactions
Jingdong Industrials is set to price its Hong Kong IPO in the middle of the marketed range.
Robinhood is entering Indonesia by acquiring a brokerage and cr*pto platform.
Trump warned that a Netflix–Warner deal could raise antitrust concerns.
Netflix’s breakup fee for Warner, at $5.8B, is among the largest ever.
KKR is in talks to acquire sports-investment firm Arctos Partners.
SoftBank is in talks to buy data-center investor DigitalBridge.
📊The Daily Poll
One shareholder vote could make Elon a trillionaire or jobless. You betting on: |
Previous Poll:
The U.S. wants bigger stakes in minerals companies. Do you think it is a smart move?
Yes, secure supply chains: 55.6% // Risky nationalization vibes: 33.3% // Too little, too late: 11.1%
Banana Brain Teaser
Previous
John has 10 pairs of matched socks. If he loses 7 individual socks, what is the greatest number of pairs of matched socks he can have left?
Answer: 3.
Today
How many minutes does it take John to type y words if he types at the rate of x words per minute?
The stock market is a story of human over-reaction in both directions.
How Would You Rate Today's Peel?
Happy Investing,
Chris, Vyom, Ankit, Mitchell, Fernanda, & Patrick