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Traders Watch Venezuelan Barrels
Traders and refiners are lining up for Venezuelan oil as U.S. plans take shape.
Ankit Sinha
January 08, 2026
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: Wall Street optimism faded amid mixed economic data
What’s Ripe / Rotten: The tastiest and most disgusting stocks
Technical Trip: Interview Question with BlackRock
Lesson from the Library: Understand how firms restructure debt, stabilize operations, and recover value under stress.
Deal Dispatch: M&A, IPOs, and other transactions
The Daily Poll: See how you stack up
Market Snapshot
📉 Banana Bits
Ford hinted at robotaxis as it moves toward eyes-off-road driving tech.
Samsung’s profits tripled as AI demand reignited the memory market.
Traders and refiners are lining up for Venezuelan oil as U.S. plans take shape.
Trump’s cr*pto venture, World Liberty, applied for a banking charter.
Defense stocks got a boost as Trump pushed for a $1.5T annual defense budget.
Dow Jones struck a deal with Polymarket to add prediction data across its platforms.
Goldman sees China stocks climbing 20% in 2026.
Market News
Wall Street Optimism Faded Amid Mixed Economic Data
Investors' appetite for the market faded amid uncertain economic data and heightened geopolitical tensions, amid a flurry of social media posts from the U.S. President.
The S&P 500 Index slid 0.3% after notching its second intraday record of 2026 on Wednesday, while the Nasdaq 100 struggled to hold onto a small gain. Stocks lost their edge after posts from President Donald Trump sent homebuilders and defense contractors tumbling.
A rally in U.S. Treasuries was dampened after U.S. services activity expanded in December at the fastest pace in more than a year; however, ADP Research showed that hiring in December rose at a moderate pace, pointing to sluggish momentum heading into 2026.
What's Ripe
Ventyx Biosciences Inc (VTYX) 36.6%
VTYX surged 37% to $13.73. Eli Lilly confirmed plans to acquire the developer of pills to treat inflammatory diseases for $14 a share, or more than $1 billion. Lilly shares were 4.1% higher.
Strategy Inc. (MSTR) 2.4%
MSTR climbed 2.4%. Shares of the B*tcoin investor, formerly known as MicroStrategy, rallied after MSCI scrapped a plan to exclude so-called digital asset treasury companies from its indexes.
What's Rotten
First Solar Inc (FSLR) 10.3%
FSLR tumbled 10% to $241.11. Shares of the solar panel manufacturer were downgraded to Hold from Buy at Jefferies. The firm lowered its price target slightly, to $260 from $269, as it cautioned that expectations surrounding the stock were “richer than reality.”
Deckers Outdoor Corp. (DECK) 4.1
DECK slid 4.1% to $103.04. Piper Sandler downgraded the stock to Underweight from Neutral and lowered its price target to $85 from $100.
Baird, too, cut its rating to Neutral from Outperform and set a $125 price target, citing conservative guidance tied to the Hoka brand.
🧠 Technical Trip
Interview Q&A from BlackRock
👉 Want 1-on-1 recruiting help from BlackRock bankers & 2,000+ top mentors? Apply to WSO Academy
📚 Lesson from the Library
🎥 Corporate Restructuring Program: Fixing Businesses Under Pressure
Understand how firms restructure debt, stabilize operations, and recover value under stress.
🌟 WSO Academy Q4 Update
🎯 More Structured Technical Preparation
One of the most common questions we hear is: “What should I study first?” Next quarter, we plan on updating our curriculum to make that answer clearer and guided.
✅ Instead of just spending 5 hours per week studying, assignments will be organized by topic and sequenced in such a way that you build skills in the right order
✅ For each stage, assignments will link directly to the specific section of your course, depending on your track, so that you know exactly what to study and when
✅ This removes guesswork and ensures you’re building a strong foundation before moving to advanced topics
🦈 Deal Dispatch
M&A, IPOs, And Other Notable Transactions
OpenAI rival Zhipu had a muted Hong Kong debut after a $558M IPO.
The DOJ is digging in on competing takeover bids for Warner Bros.
A buyout wave may be coming for Japan’s drugmakers after the Hisamitsu deal.
Nike sold its NFT unit RTFKT just a year after shutting it down.
Baidu’s AI chip arm is lining up banks for a Hong Kong IPO that could raise $2B.
Discord filed confidentially for an IPO.
📊The Daily Poll
Traders lining up for Venezuelan oil tells you: |
Previous Poll:
Strong China demand for Nvidia chips tells you:
AI appetite is real: 75.0% // Controls aren’t biting: 12.5% // Supply chains adapted: 7.2% // This won’t last: 5.3%
Banana Brain Teaser
Previous
Seed mixture X is 40% ryegrass and 60% bluegrass by weight; seed mixture Y is 25% ryegrass and 75% fescue. If a mixture of X and Y contains 30% ryegrass, what % of the weight of the mixture is X?
Answer: 100/3%
Today
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?
Investing is a business where you can look silly for a long time before you are right.
How Would You Rate Today's Peel?
Happy Investing,
Chris, Vyom, Ankit, Mitchell, Fernanda, & Patrick