Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testifies during the House Financial Services Committee hearing (Tom Williams/Getty Images)

Gold and silver spike to record highs after Powell says DOJ subpoenas are latest Trump attempt to influence monetary policy

Luke Kawa

1/12/26 5:01AM

Precious metals are proving their mettle as a store of value, up big in early trading on Monday after the head of the Federal Reserve explicitly said that the executive branch is attempting to use judicial tools to interfere with the conduct of monetary policy.

Gold reached $4,599 while silver traded as high as $84.60, both records for the shiny stuff, as they continue their sensational runs.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that the US central bank had been served with grand jury subpoenas by the US Department of Justice, “threatening a criminal indictment” pertaining to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, which touched on the contentious renovation plans of the Fed’s facilities. President Trump and critics of the chair have mused about firing Powell for cause over alleged cost overruns related to the project.

“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president,” Powell said in a video message. “This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions — or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.”

Typically, countries in which central bank policy is judged to be subordinated to political whims face weakness in their domestic currencies and higher borrowing costs. This can increase the appeal of safe haven assets such as precious metals. Since 7 p.m. E.T yesterday evening, the US Dollar Index has shed about ~0.4%, weakening against a basket of major currencies including the euro, yen, and pound sterling.

The iShares Silver Trust and SPDR Gold Shares ETF are the top two trending tickers on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit over the past 12 hours, per SwaggyStocks.

SwaggyStocks SLV GLD — Source: SwaggyStocks

Trump has suggested that the Federal Reserve’s policy rate (currently in a range of 3.5% to 3.75%) should be “1% and maybe lower than that” this year, in part to help reduce the cost of financing government debt. The president is expected to announce his pick to succeed Powell as the top US monetary policymaker imminently.

Interestingly, news of these subpoenas did not see prediction markets meaningfully curb the odds of the “insider” candidate to assume this position, current Fed Governor Christopher Waller. He remains at roughly 10%. Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, retook a narrow lead over former Fed Governor Kevin Walsh as the most likely pick for chair, per prediction markets, with both at around 40% or higher as of 4 a.m. ET on Monday.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

Luke Kawa1h

POET Technologies nears multiyear high on strong call demand after flagship product wins award

POET Technologies is surging on heavy volumes and high call demand after announcing that it won a Product Innovation Award at China’s Infostone awards.

The honor went to the optical communications company’s flagship product, the Teralight, which uses light to move data between chips.

“Unveiled less than a year ago at the 2025 OFC Conference, POET Teralight has driven commercial interest in the Company because of its highly integrated design and complete optical system-on-chip architecture that simplifies module development,” per the press release.

This award may be the latest excuse to buy the stock, which is up over 40% year to date.

Call activity is elevated, with nearly 37,000 having changed hands as of 10:55 a.m. ET, well above the 20-day average of 28,030 for a full session. Shares are approaching their multi-year high of $9.41.

Matt Phillips2h

Intel bucks market slump after Wall Street upgrades

While the market slid early Tuesday, Intel soared as the American chipmaker received a pair of upgrades:

HSBC analysts lifted their rating on the stock to “hold” — essentially “neutral” — from “reduce,” Wall Street-speak for “sell.” The analysts nearly doubled their price target for the shares to $50 from $26. (That’s essentially where the stock is currently trading.)
Seaport Global also boosted its rating to “buy” from “neutral,” with a $65 price target.

Improving demand for CPUs — Intel’s bread-and-butter processors — is behind HSBC’s newfound enthusiasm for the shares. Analysts at the bank wrote:

“We had been cautious on Intel mainly given overall uncertainty on customer pipeline and execution headwinds in their foundry business while the core business was also lacking visibility on growth drivers. However, we now turn more positive as we expect the traditional servers (DCAI) to get back on a growth trajectory. We expect there is an overwhelmingly increasing demand for server CPUs driven by rising agentic AI... While the stock has moved up 19% YTD (vs S&P 500 up 1%), we believe there is further [data center and AI group] upside still not fully priced in. Hence, we upgrade Intel from Reduce to Hold.”

HSBC seems to be slightly understating the extent of the gains for the stock so far in 2026, as its share price has risen nearly 30% since the end of last year. But the gains are even more impressive if you date them to the partial nationalization of the ailing American chip giant, which was announced on August 22. Almost a month later, Nvidia announced a strategic partnership with the company, giving it a massive shot in the arm. Since then the stock is up more than 90%.

Luke Kawa2h

ImmunityBio surge continues on sign its drug may be approved to treat a broader range of bladder cancers

Once you start squeezing, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Shares of ImmnuityBio are flying higher once again, up more than 30% in early trading Tuesday after having been down as much as 10% in the premarket. A little more than half an hour into the regular trading day, more than 46 million shares have changed hands, more than 3x the 20-day average for this point in the session.

Last week, we discussed how a number of positive press releases from the company touting the progress of its treatments helped send shares skyward, making the heavily shorted company a hot topic of discussion on the r/ShortSqueeze subreddit.

The positive press parade continues this morning, with ImmunityBio announcing that the FDA asked for more information about the ability of its ANKTIVA drug to treat a certain type of bladder cancer, though it doesn’t need to do any new clinical trials. Management said they would provide this information within 30 days.

Share are up nearly 200% over the past six sessions.

On Monday, the company published a podcast appearance by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder, executive chairman, and global chief medical and technology officer, on “The Sean Spicer Show,” which was provocatively titled, “Is the FDA BLOCKING Life Saving Cancer Treatments?”

Luke Kawa4h

AppLovin craters after report from CapitalWatch alleges it’s a money-laundering operation for “transnational criminal kingpins”

AppLovin is tumbling in premarket trading on Tuesday after financial research agency CapitalWatch published a report on Monday calling the company “the ultimate monument to 21st-century new-type transnational financial crime.”

“AppLovin serves as the ultimate exit for asset laundering/diversion by transnational criminal kingpins,” the authors wrote, alleging that the growth of its advertising business comes in part from illicit cryptocurrency funds routed through its platform.

AppLovin did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Sherwood News.

This is far from the first report to question AppLovin’s business practices.

Fuzzy Panda Research and Culper Research announced short positions in the ad tech firm last February in research reports alleging that AppLovin’s operating performance was a function of “systematic exploitation of app permissions” as well as taking data and gaming the ad platforms of other tech giants, particularly Meta. In October, reports surfaced that the SEC was investigating AppLovin’s data collection practices, as were a number of state regulators.

The allegations raised by CapitalWatch are a whole different kettle of illegal fish.

Anything is possible. But if I were hypothetically trying to launder a bunch of money, I likely would not try to do so through a publicly traded entity domiciled in the United States that’s subject to much more regulatory oversight and scrutiny than the average global firm.

Luke Kawa5h

Ives: Greenland tariff talk pushing markets into the red is “an opportunity to own the tech winners for 2026 and beyond”

When markets are reacting to negative news, sometimes traders just sell the things that have gone up the most — whether or not this new catalyst disproportionately hurts those companies or not.

That’s something we saw in the run-up to last year’s tariff announcements, and Wedbush Securities’ global head of tech research, Dan Ives, reckons we’re in for more of the same as US President Donald Trump threatens escalating tariffs on a host of European countries unless they agree to let America purchase Greenland.

“Being here at Davos this week on the ground... the tariff scuffle is clearly an overhang on the conference as Trump gets here tomorrow to speak to tech leaders and various world leaders,” Ives wrote. “Our view is just like over the last year the bark will be worse than the bite on this issue and tariff threats as negotiations take place and tensions ultimately calm down between Trump and EU leaders.”

Every member of the Dan IVES Wedbush AI Revolution ETF, a fund that holds the analyst’s favorite AI stocks, is trading to the downside as of 7:35 a.m. ET. Ives highlighted Nvidia, Microsoft, Palantir, CrowdStrike, Nebius, Palo Alto Networks, Google, and Tesla as names to buy on weakness.

“Tech stocks will be hit as the ‘risk off dynamic’ hits AI names front and center but ultimately we view this as an opportunity to own the tech winners for 2026 and beyond,” he concluded.

Buying the dip in general (and buying the dip in megacap AI stocks in particular) were massive contributors to retail traders’ success in 2025.