First, there was Space Force. Now, here comes Tech Force! The Trump administration is recruiting a “US Tech Force” for two-year stints in government to “solve the federal government’s most critical technological challenges.” The government isn’t exactly known for paying the kinds of huge salaries tech workers are used to, but the program will offer participants salaries between $150,000 and $200,000. Not too shabby, but still far below what the average American reported last year would make them feel “financially successful.”

The markets had a case of the Mondays and drooped as the last full week of trading for 2025 kicked off. All three major indexes finished down on the day.

Investors went risk-off ahead of today’s release of delayed jobs and payroll data and Thursday’s CPI report, all of which will influence the odds of how many rate cuts the Federal Reserve may enact in the new year.

A growing concern around AI credit risk also weighed on stocks, with Broadcom and Oracle both continuing their declines from last week. Tech and energy S&P sector ETFs saw the biggest declines, while healthcare topped the leaderboard.

Huge news week for Tesla, and it’s only Tuesday. Hop on in — you have to push in the handle to open the door — and let’s go for a ride:

Wedbush Securities analyst and Tesla bull Dan Ives is so excited for the company’s next year that he published a series of characteristically bold predictions Monday, including aggressive Robotaxi expansion across the US in 2026, reaching 30-plus cities, and that Tesla will command about 70% of the global autonomous market over the next decade.

That’s not all from Ives, who appears to realize that Musk cannot pull off this miracle alone. He expects that federal regulatory barriers around Full Self-Driving and autonomous driving will ease significantly under President Trump, and anticipates an executive order early next year that would shift more authority to federal regulators and reduce state-level control over autonomous driving rules.

Ives says that would be pretty dang lucrative: with a current ~$1.4 trillion market cap, Tesla could reach $2 trillion within the next year, with a bull case of $3 trillion by the end of 2026.

What’s good for a video game and collectibles retailer? New and intriguing characters, apparently.

Shares of GameStop had a strong start to the week, and a few power-ups helped:

The GME bulls are back, at least for now — bullish options activity helped charge the stock up 4% on Monday, nearly matching the rally Burry inspired in November. GameStop seems to also be returning a bit to the “just have fun with it!” attitude that its retail army finds endearing, such as its December “trade in anything” event, which accepted at least two taxidermied animals. But with a meme stock like GameStop, attention is everything, and whether it’s a substack from Burry or stealing a hugely popular TikToker, the company is certainly making people notice it once again. 

2025 has been the year that AI really began calling the shots — whether we like it or not. The technology’s progress has driven the economy, powered the stock market, dictated political discourse, flamed the trade tensions between the US and China, infiltrated nearly all of our devices, and influenced the algorithms that decide what we watch, read, love, and hate. It’s also (finally) driving our cars.

Chatbot use and more, charted

Markets can be unpredictable, yet investors strive for consistent results. This leads to the ongoing challenge of balancing value and momentum. 

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