Earnings Call Updates, Weekly Wages, and Driving Demand
- A for Apple – Apple reported its first quarter earnings of fiscal year 2026, citing a record $85.3 billion in iPhone revenue. Similarly, Apple announced the $2 billion acquisition of startup Q.AI, a company that specializes in technology that reads facial skin micro-movements (source: Yahoo Finance).
- Weekly Wages – During 2025, the median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers were $1,204, which is up from $1,159 in 2024. Women had a weekly median earnings of $1,089, while men had weekly median earnings of $1,326 (source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
- Turbulent Tesla – Tesla announced its Q4 and full-year 2025 financial results, citing an 10% decrease in automotive revenue from 2024. However, energy generation and storage revenue grew by 27% between 2024 and 2025, while services and other revenue jumped by 19%. Despite these increases, GAAP net income was down 46% from 2024 (source: Tesla).
- Star-Studded SpaceX – While Elon Musk’s Tesla had a turbulent year, SpaceX generated $8 billion in profit, leading to an estimated $1.5 trillion valuation. The main revenue generator, Starlink, accounts for more than half of SpaceX’s revenue. The company is expected to go public in 2026 (source: Reuters).
- Driving Demand – The December 2025 Producer Price Index for final demand increased by 0.5%, following a 0.2% increase in November 2025 and a 0.1% increase in October 2025. In 2025, the final demand index rose by 3.0%, which is slightly below 2024’s increase of 3.5% (source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
- Plant Production – Eli Lilly announced plans to build a $3.5 billion Pennsylvania plant to produce its injectable weight-loss medications in the U.S. Other drug makers, including Pfizer and Merck, have also announced plans to invest in U.S. manufacturing plants to avoid import tariffs (source: Reuters).
- Doubling Deficit – The U.S. international trade deficit was $56.8 billion in November 2025, which is a $27.6 billion increase from $29.2 billion in October 2025. November 2025 exports were $292.1 billion, while imports were $348.9 billion (source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis).
- Peloton Layoffs - Peloton announced it will cut 11% of its staff in widespread layoffs, looking to reduce costs after a nearly 30% stock price decline in 2025. These cuts mainly impact engineers working on technology (source: Reuters).
- Swift’s Songs – Taylor Swift becomes the second-youngest songwriter to ever be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame at age 36, following Stevie Wonder, who was 33 (source: Reuters).
- America’s Obesity – The share of U.S. adults considered obese has decreased from 42.4% between 2017 and 2018 to 40.3% between 2021 and 2023. At the same time, 53% of Americans agree that they hear or read about Ozempic, Wegovy, and similar weight loss drugs extremely or very often (source: Pew Research Center).
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