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Sinclair Stocks Soars after announcing strategic review
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After insider buying binge, broadcaster Sinclair soars on plans for a strategic review

The company said it would review its operations, potentially leading to mergers or divestitures, sending shares higher.

Sinclair Inc. shares surged after the third-largest US local broadcaster — and owner of the Tennis Channel — announced a strategic review of key business divisions.

In a statement, the company said it “will evaluate all value-enhancing opportunities, including acquisitions, strategic partnerships, and business combinations, with potential partners in the broadcast and the broader media and technology ecosystem.”

The stock was up 15% in early trading.

The company also announced that it would simultaneously consider a spin-off or other options for its Ventures unit, which owns real estate, private equity, and technology assets.

A few months back, we spotlighted a stock-buying binge by Sinclair’s chairman and CEO, David D. Smith, as a potential sign that perhaps some sort of dealmaking could be on the horizon.

The Trump administration — and it’s worth noting that Sinclair stations have a long track record of running pro-Trump content — has signaled that it wants to loosen regulations that have constrained dealmaking in the media business.

The market seemed to like the idea that Sinclair is getting serious about making a major change to its business. And for good reason: the stock price is down 40% over the past five years, while rival broadcaster Nexstar Media has doubled.

But an announcement is not the same thing as a deal. Further, making a public announcement that you’ll evaluate any and all ideas for turning around a core part of your business isn’t your move if the phone is ringing off the hook with buyers clamoring to pay top dollar for your assets. (The company’s most recent earnings report was not received well. The stock had its worst day in more than three years as a result, falling nearly 13%.)

“There is no assurance that the strategic review will result in any transaction or other strategic change, and Sinclair does not intend to disclose developments unless and until the Board approves a specific course of action or the Company otherwise determines that further disclosure is appropriate or required by law,” Sinclair acknowledged in its statement.

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Report: US senators plan to introduce bill blocking Nvidia from selling advanced chips to China for 30 months

US senators are on the verge of introducing a bill that would block Nvidia from selling its H200 or Blackwell chips to China for 30 months, the Financial Times reports. The H200 is Nvidia’s best chip from the Hopper generation, while the Blackwell line is its current flagship offering.

Shares of the chip designer are little changed in the wake of this report, still up more than 1% on the session. The reaction makes sense, seeing as previous positive indications on Nvidia’s ability to sell advanced chips to China failed to inspire much positive momentum in its shares.

The stock got a short-lived jolt higher (that didn’t last the day!) on November 21 after Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration had discussed the possibility of selling its H200 chips to China.

Nvidia has effectively been shut out of China’s AI market in 2025. First, export restrictions meant it could no longer sell the H20, a nerfed version of its Hopper chip, to the world’s second-largest economy. After that export ban was lifted, demand from China “never materialized,” per Nvidia CFO Colette Kress. Reports indicate that China banned its leading technology giants from purchasing these semiconductors, instead pushing them toward domestic alternatives.

President Donald Trump had mused about allowing Nvidia to sell Blackwell chips to China prior to his meeting with Chinese President Xi in late October, but failed to do so. The two leaders did not discuss the topic at that time.

Per the FT, this upcoming bill would be a bipartisan effort, being cosponsored by the leading Republican and Democrat members of the Senate Foreign Relations East Asia subcommittee.

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AI energy plays soar on an explosion of call buying

Like their quantum computing counterparts, AI-linked energy plays are benefiting from an explosion of bullish options activity on Thursday.

  • Oklo is up double digits with call volumes above 106,000 as of 2:46 p.m. ET, more than double its 20-day average for a full session, with a put/call ratio of about 0.6. Call options with a strike price of $110 that expire this Friday (which are now in-the-money thanks to today’s surge) are seeing the most activity.

  • Nuscale, another nuclear energy play, has seen nearly 140,000 call options change hands versus a 20-day average of 51,073.

  • And fuel cell company Bloom Energy has traded nearly 80,000 calls, roughly twice its 20-day average, with a put/call ratio of about 0.3.

During his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast released on Wednesday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang talked up the potential for nuclear energy, saying, “In the next six to seven years I think you are going to see a whole bunch of small nuclear reactors.”

This adds to the evidence that the speculative bid is back in a big way after smaller stocks tied to the AI boom and quantum computing cratered from mid-October through most of November as credit risk began to seep into the AI trade.

Old electronic items tossed on ground for disposal, Hudson

Technology giants don’t look like they used to, as the asset-light era fades

Oracle and Meta are now some of the most capital-intensive businesses in the S&P 500, spending more than energy giants. I guess data really is the new oil?

markets

Space stocks rip amid speculation on Altman joining race

Space stocks AST SpaceMobile, Planet Labs, and Rocket Lab all soared Thursday amid a recovery in the high-beta momentum class of shares coveted by some retail traders.

(High-beta momo stocks are basically shares that have been on a winning streak for a while, and tend to go up a lot more than the overall market on positive days. Goldman Sachs includes all three of the aforementioned space stocks in its themed basket of such shares.)

There’s little other fundamental news out there on the companies themselves.

But a Wall Street Journal report that OpenAI impresario Sam Altman has been toying with the idea of entering the space industry, potentially standing up a rival to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service, may also be contributing.

As we’ve mentioned elsewhere, sometimes these stocks seem to trade on a what’s-bad-for-the-Musk-empire-is-good-for-us-and-vice-versa vibe.

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