Market Beats | Major Winter Storm Snarls New York Monday Morning Commute; Nvidia Launches Open-Source Earth-2 AI Models; Growing Number of Republicans Call for Investigation into Minneapolis Shooting; US Durable Goods Orders Surge in November on Aircraft and Equipment Demand; Fed Expected to Hold Rates Steady This Week; Dollar Sinks to Four-Month Low as Gold Tops $5,100; Microsoft Unveils Second-Gen Maia 200 AI Chip to Drive Efficiency and Rival Nvidia

—— Major Winter Storm Snarls New York Monday Morning Commute; Nvidia Launches Open-Source Earth-2 AI Models; Growing Number of Republicans Call for Investigation into Minneapolis Shooting; US Durable Goods Orders Surge in November on Aircraft and Equipment Demand; Fed Expected to Hold Rates Steady This Week; Dollar Sinks to Four-Month Low as Gold Tops $5,100; Microsoft Unveils Second-Gen Maia 200 AI Chip to Drive Efficiency and Rival Nvidia

1. Major Winter Storm Snarls New York Monday Morning Commute

The heaviest winter storm in years has dumped mounds of snow on New York City, creating a messy and difficult Monday morning commute for those venturing out. Commuter lines operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) are running on modified schedules today. Private operators, such as Boxcar—which many New Jersey commuters rely on—have suspended services entirely due to the hazardous conditions.

NJ Transit, which halted all bus, light rail, and train services on Sunday, is resuming operations in phases. While the system’s three light rail lines started running for the morning commute, bus service is not expected to begin on its 21 main routes until 10:00 am local time. According to the MTA, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) is currently operating on a weekend schedule, and Metro-North is utilizing an “enhanced Saturday schedule,” with reduced options on the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven lines.

Although the New York City subway and bus networks are largely attempting to follow normal schedules, multiple lines reported significant delays throughout Monday morning.

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2. Nvidia Launches Open-Source Earth-2 AI Models

Nvidia Corp. unveiled new open-source software and models for its Earth-2 digital twin platform on Monday, aimed at helping governments and enterprises build their own high-resolution AI weather forecasting systems. By releasing these tools, the world’s most valuable publicly traded company seeks to remove technical roadblocks, allowing the broader economy to leverage AI for climate resilience and operational efficiency.

The updated Earth-2 platform introduces two pivotal AI models: Earth-2 Medium Range (powered by Atlas architecture) and Earth-2 Nowcasting (powered by StormScope). These are designed to generate high-accuracy 15-day global forecasts and ultra-short-term “nowcasts” that predict local storm impacts up to six hours in advance.

Additionally, the platform features HealDA, a new data assimilation model that computes “initial conditions”—essential atmospheric snapshots like wind and pressure—in seconds using GPUs, a process that typically takes hours on traditional supercomputers.

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3. Growing Number of Republicans Call for Investigation into Minneapolis Shooting

A growing number of Republicans are calling for a full investigation following the fatal shooting of a protester by federal agents in Minneapolis, signaling internal party unease regarding the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration tactics. These demands—coming from GOP lawmakers, governors, and prominent voices within the MAGA base—highlight the political risks facing the party as the U.S. approaches the November midterm elections.

The incident has triggered a new threat from Democrats to shut down the government. The victim, Alex Pretti, was an intensive care nurse who was shot and killed by agents while subdued on his knees. Evidence and video footage suggest that although Pretti was a licensed gun owner, he was holding a cellphone when shot, and agents had already removed his firearm moments earlier. While the administration claims self-defense, Republicans such as retiring Senator Thom Tillis and Representative Thomas Massie have issued sharp criticisms.

Representative Michael McCaul of Texas emphasized the need for a thorough investigation to maintain public confidence in the justice system, as the GOP grapples with the fallout of the crackdown.

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4. US Durable Goods Orders Surge in November on Aircraft and Equipment Demand

US orders for durable goods increased in November by 5.3%, the most in six months, driven by a surge in bookings for commercial aircraft and capital equipment. According to the Commerce Department report released Monday—delayed by the recent federal shutdown—the figure marks a sharp reversal from October’s revised 2.1% decline. Bookings for commercial aircraft, a notoriously volatile category, jumped nearly 98% as Boeing reported 164 orders for the month, up from just 15 in October. Additionally, core capital goods orders, a key proxy for business investment that excludes aircraft and military hardware, rose 0.7%, beating economist forecasts of 0.4%.

The report also showed that core capital goods shipments increased by 0.4%. Economists prioritize this shipment metric to gauge underlying business investment, as it tracks actual delivery rather than future intent.

While the data suggests corporate America remains willing to invest in machinery and technology, analysts caution that the manufacturing sector faces headwinds in early 2026 from sustained high borrowing costs and potential shifts in trade policy under the Trump administration.

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5. Fed Expected to Hold Rates Steady This Week

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to halt its interest-rate-cutting cycle during this week’s meeting, as a stabilizing job market helps restore a degree of consensus among central bankers after months of internal division. According to the CME FedWatch tool, there is a over 97% probability that the FOMC will keep the benchmark rate at its current range of 3.50% to 3.75% following Wednesday’s deliberations.

Several officials have signaled that after three consecutive quarter-point cuts in late 2025, rates are now within the “neutral zone,” allowing the Fed to pause and assess the impact on both employment and inflation. However, this expected hold is likely to intensify friction with the White House. President Donald Trump has consistently pushed for deeper cuts to stimulate growth, even as the Fed faces unprecedented political and legal challenges, including a Supreme Court case regarding the President’s authority to fire Fed governors and reports of a Justice Department probe into Chair Jerome Powell.

The meeting provides Powell a critical platform to steer focus back to the Fed’s dual mandate while reinforcing the institution’s independence amid ongoing executive pressure.

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6. Dollar Sinks to Four-Month Low as Gold Tops $5,100

The US dollar tumbled to a four-month low on Monday, while gold prices surged past $5,100 per troy ounce for the first time in history. The decline was fueled by growing speculation that US and Japanese authorities are preparing a coordinated market intervention to support the yen. The Japanese currency climbed 1% to ¥154 per dollar, extending gains from Friday’s volatile session triggered by a “rate check” conducted by US officials. The dollar index fell 0.4% against a basket of major currencies, continuing a downward trend sparked by last week’s Greenland crisis, which marked the greenback’s worst weekly performance since May.

Analysts at MUFG noted that speculation regarding the first coordinated intervention since 2011 has “reinforced the dollar sell-off,” signaling that the Trump administration may favor a weaker currency. The dollar also slumped 0.3% against the Swiss franc, reaching its weakest level since 2015. Amid a backdrop of erratic US policymaking and a softening dollar, investors scrambled for haven assets, pushing gold up more than 2% to set a new record high.

The confluence of geopolitical uncertainty and potential central bank actions has fundamentally shifted momentum in the global foreign exchange and commodities markets.

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7. Microsoft Unveils Second-Gen Maia 200 AI Chip to Drive Efficiency and Rival Nvidia

Microsoft Corp. launched its second-generation in-house AI accelerator, the Maia 200, on Monday, marking a significant step in its push to provide a cost-effective alternative to Nvidia Corp. hardware. Manufactured by TSMC using its advanced 3-nanometer process, the chip features over 140 billion transistors and is designed specifically for large-scale AI inference. Initial deployments have begun in Microsoft’s Iowa data centers, with Phoenix-area facilities next in line.

The Maia 200 serves as the backbone for Microsoft’s internal “Superintelligence team,” where it is used to generate synthetic data for training future AI models. It will also power the Copilot assistant and OpenAI’s latest models hosted on Azure. According to Scott Guthrie, Executive VP of Cloud + AI, the Maia 200 delivers 30% better performance-per-dollar than current industry hardware and outpaces comparable offerings from Google and AWS in specific inference tasks.

While Nvidia remains a key partner, Microsoft’s aggressive roadmap—including the already-in-development Maia 300 and a strategic partnership with OpenAI for custom silicon IP—signals a long-term strategy to own the full stack of AI infrastructure.

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