Market Beats | Paramount Skydance Makes Public Bid for Warner Bros.; JPMorgan Hires Berkshire Hathaway’s Todd Combs; Strategy Inc. Shares Rise After Company Buys $962.7 Million in Bitcoin; Trump Administration to Unveil $12 Billion Farm Aid Package; China’s Annual Trade Surplus Tops $1 Trillion for First Time; IBM to Buy Confluent for About $9.3 Billion; Google to Develop Two Types of AI Smart Glasses

—— Paramount Skydance Makes Public Bid for Warner Bros.; JPMorgan Hires Berkshire Hathaway’s Todd Combs; Strategy Inc. Shares Rise After Company Buys $962.7 Million in Bitcoin; Trump Administration to Unveil $12 Billion Farm Aid Package; China’s Annual Trade Surplus Tops $1 Trillion for First Time; IBM to Buy Confluent for About $9.3 Billion; Google to Develop Two Types of AI Smart Glasses

1. Paramount Skydance Makes Public Bid for Warner Bros.

Paramount Skydance Corp. went public with its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., offering $30 a share in cash just days after the company agreed to a deal with Netflix Inc.

The new bid exceeds Netflix’s offer of $27.75 in cash and stock. Paramount’s offer is for the entirety of Warner Bros., whereas Netflix is only interested in the Hollywood studios and the streaming business.

The hostile move by Paramount — a rival film and television company controlled by the Ellison family — indicates that the battle over one of Hollywood’s most storied studios is far from over.

“WBD shareholders deserve an opportunity to consider our superior all-cash offer for their shares in the entire company,” Paramount CEO David Ellison said in a statement Monday. “Our public offer, which is on the same terms we provided to the Warner Bros. Discovery Board of Directors in private, provides superior value and a more certain and quicker path to completion.”

Paramount, the parent company of CBS, MTV and other media assets, initiated the bidding war several months ago after making multiple offers for Warner Bros. The company put itself up for sale in October and, after multiple rounds of offers from Netflix and Comcast Corp., ultimately agreed to enter exclusive talks with Netflix.

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2. JPMorgan Hires Berkshire Hathaway’s Todd Combs

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has hired Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Todd Combs for a broad role that includes advising Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon and his senior leadership team on strategic matters.

Combs — one of only two investment managers under Warren Buffett — will also oversee JPMorgan’s commitment to invest $10 billion in companies that strengthen US economic security through direct equity stakes, according to a statement Monday. As part of the initiative, the bank created a new council that includes Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos and Ford Motor Co. CEO Jim Farley.

A former hedge fund manager, the 54-year-old Combs already has deep ties to JPMorgan. He joined the bank’s board in 2016 after impressing Dimon during a visit to Omaha. He also played a key role in the healthcare joint venture launched by JPMorgan, Amazon and Berkshire in 2018, though the project was ultimately shut down three years later.

Combs’ departure from Berkshire leaves the $1 trillion conglomerate short one investment manager just as Buffett prepares to pass the CEO role to Greg Abel. In addition to helping oversee the company’s $283 billion equity portfolio with Buffett and Ted Weschler, Combs also served as CEO of insurer Geico.

“JPMorgan, as usually is the case, has made a good decision,” Buffett said in a separate statement.

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3. Strategy Inc. Shares Rise After Company Buys $962.7 Million in Bitcoin

Strategy Inc. shares rose as much as 2.8% in premarket trading Monday after the digital asset treasury company said it bought $962.7 million worth of Bitcoin from Dec. 1 to Dec. 7, marking its largest acquisition since July.

The Michael Saylor–founded Bitcoin treasury company acquired 10,624 tokens at an average purchase price of $90,615, below current market levels. The firm also announced that it sold about 5.1 million common shares during the same period for net proceeds of $928 million, and sold perpetual preferred stock with net proceeds of $34.9 million. Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings are now worth more than $60 billion, but the company’s premium to its token holdings has continued to shrink. Once valued at more than 2.5 times its Bitcoin holdings, Strategy’s enterprise value has now fallen to a multiple of 1.1.

Amid the declining premium, the Tysons Corner, Virginia-based firm announced last week that it was creating a $1.4 billion reserve fund to cover future dividend and interest payments. Chief Executive Officer Phong Le said on a podcast in November that the company could begin selling Bitcoin if its premium fell below 1.

Analysts have also lowered expectations for Strategy. Cantor Fitzgerald cut its price target on the stock by 59% last week, while Bernstein reduced its target by 25% on Monday. Both cited weaker Bitcoin prices, with the original cryptocurrency down more than 25% from its October peak.

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4. Trump Administration to Unveil $12 Billion Farm Aid Package

The Trump administration on Monday plans to unveil a long-awaited farm aid package, according to administration officials, offering $12 billion in assistance to a key base of support hit hard by low crop prices and the impact of the president’s tariff policies.

The aid will include up to $11 billion in one-time payments to crop farmers under the Department of Agriculture’s newly designed Farmer Bridge Assistance (FBA) program, while the remaining funds are reserved for crops not covered under the FBA. Farmers with an adjusted gross income average below $900,000 for the 2022–2024 tax years are eligible and will have until Dec. 19 to submit acreage reporting data to determine their payment amount. Rates will be released by the end of the month. The administration expects to distribute the assistance no later than the end of February 2026, though it could come earlier.

The aid comes amid rising frustration among farmers over the slow pace of Chinese purchases, which Beijing restricted earlier this year in retaliation for Trump’s escalating tariff actions.

President Donald Trump plans to announce the package around 2 p.m. in Washington during an event with corn, cotton, sorghum, soybean, rice, cattle, wheat and potato farmers, alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.

The action echoes support Trump offered during his first term, when the US and China were also locked in a trade war, and comes amid mounting frustration from lawmakers in Trump’s own party over the economic pain farmers are experiencing and growing calls to address the issue ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Farming communities, which voted overwhelmingly for Trump in the 2024 election, have seen export markets for many crops dry up, particularly soybeans as Chinese purchases stalled earlier this year. While the administration has scaled back federal safety-net programs in the president’s second term, it included fresh funds for farmers in Trump’s signature government spending bill earlier this year.

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5. China’s Annual Trade Surplus Tops $1 Trillion for First Time

China’s annual trade surplus exceeded $1 trillion for the first time despite a deepening plunge in shipments to the US, risking a backlash from markets flooded by goods from the world’s biggest manufacturing nation.

Exports returned to growth in November after an unexpected drop the previous month, rising 5.9% from a year earlier and far outpacing a 1.9% gain in imports, according to data published by China’s General Administration of Customs on Monday. The November surplus came in at $112 billion, the third-largest ever accumulated by China in a single month and far more than forecast by economists.

As China navigated the trade war and growing economic protectionism around the world, the country amassed a surplus of $1.1 trillion in the first 11 months of the year, surpassing the full-year record set in 2024.

While shipments to the US plummeted 29% in November — the eighth month of double-digit declines and the biggest since August — strong growth in sales to regions like the European Union and Africa more than offset the slump.

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6. IBM to Buy Confluent for About $9.3 Billion

International Business Machines Corp. is buying the data-streaming platform Confluent Inc. for about $9.3 billion, marking one of its largest takeovers yet and a major bet on the kind of enterprise software that artificial intelligence tools need to perform tasks in real time.

IBM will pay $31 a share, according to a statement issued Monday. The enterprise value, which includes debt, is $11 billion. The companies expect the deal to close by the middle of 2026.

If the transaction fails or is terminated, IBM will pay Confluent a breakup fee of $453.6 million, according to a regulatory filing.

Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Anurag Rana and Andrew Girard said the acquisition “could significantly improve IBM’s AI portfolio, and subsequently its software unit’s sales growth.” Confluent shares rose as much as 29% to $29.86, while IBM shares climbed as much as 2.4%.

The AI boom has driven billions of dollars in deals across data centers, software platforms, generative AI tools and data management firms. Confluent’s platform lets companies stream and analyze data in real time — a key requirement for modern AI systems. Manufacturers like Michelin use Confluent to optimize inventories. Instacart uses it for real-time fraud detection and product availability tracking. Increasingly, AI relies on immediate data flows to operate effectively.

IBM, a pioneer in mainframe computing, has been repositioning itself around AI. Under CEO Arvind Krishna, the company has acquired multiple software firms and expanded its generative AI services for enterprise clients. Software now accounts for nearly half of IBM’s revenue and continues to grow. The Confluent deal will be IBM’s largest acquisition since buying Red Hat for about $34 billion in 2019.

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7. Google to Develop Two Types of AI Smart Glasses

Alphabet Inc.’s Google said it’s working to create two different categories of artificial intelligence-powered smart glasses to compete next year with existing models from Meta Platforms Inc.: one with screens, and another that’s audio-focused.

The first AI glasses Google is collaborating on will arrive sometime in 2026, according to a blog post Monday. Early hardware partners include Samsung Electronics Co., Warby Parker, and Gentle Monster, though none have unveiled final designs. Google also previewed several software improvements coming to Samsung’s Galaxy XR headset, including a travel mode that will enable the mixed-reality device to be used in cars and on planes.

Competition is heating up in the emerging category of AI and augmented reality (AR) glasses. Meta has been the most aggressive, selling affordable Ray-Ban and Oakley-branded models that have received strong reviews, and more recently releasing a higher-end version with a built-in display. Snap’s first consumer AR glasses are expected next year, and Apple is plotting its entry around the same time.

For Google, these new devices — along with the Android XR operating system — represent a more refined and calculated approach to smart glasses compared with Google Glass, the ahead-of-its-time product that flopped a decade ago due to its awkward design, short battery life, and privacy concerns.

Like Meta’s Ray-Bans, most of these glasses connect wirelessly to a smartphone and rely on it for processing requests — whether asking Google’s Gemini AI assistant to play a song from YouTube Music or identifying ingredients and generating a recipe. Offloading computation to the phone allows the glasses to remain slim and lightweight enough to resemble regular eyewear.

During a demo at Google’s New York City offices, I tested several prototype AI glasses as well as an early sample developed with Xreal, codenamed Project Aura.

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