What’s News in Markets: Meaty Issues, Tech Troubles, Media Shake-Ups

Summary of What’s News in Markets: Meaty Issues, Tech Troubles, Media Shake-Ups

by The Wall Street Journal

5m•November 15, 2025
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Overview of What’s News in Markets: Meaty Issues, Tech Troubles, Media Shake-Ups

Host Francesca Fontana of The Wall Street Journal summarizes the week’s biggest market moves (week of Nov. 15), explaining what drove stocks — from food companies and a tech-led selloff to big media M&A activity — and highlighting key data points investors watched, including changing odds of a Federal Reserve rate cut.

Market snapshot — the week in brief

  • Midweek rally: The Dow topped 48,000 at Wednesday’s close as hopes of an end to the government shutdown emerged.
  • Late-week reversal: Thursday brought a sharp decline — the Dow lost nearly 800 points and U.S. stocks posted their worst day in a month.
  • Weekly performance: Dow roughly flat, S&P 500 edged slightly higher, Nasdaq down about 0.5%.
  • Fed expectations: CME Group-implied odds of a Fed rate cut next month fell to ~50% on Thursday (down from 63% on Wednesday and ~70% a week earlier), a factor weighing on markets.

Food industry highlights

  • Tyson Foods
    • Pressure from a U.S. cattle shortage: beef prices up ~17% while beef volumes fell ~8%.
    • Company cited the lowest U.S. cattle supply since the 1950s.
    • Consumer shift toward chicken (nuggets, wings) helped offset losses.
    • Stock: +2.3% on Monday; +2.5% for the week.
  • Beyond Meat
    • Quarterly results showed a wider loss and declining demand in the U.S.
    • U.S. revenue down ~21%; international sales down ~1%.
    • Stock reaction: -9% on Tuesday; down ~22% for the week.

Tech selloff — headline movers and causes

  • Notable declines on Thursday: NVIDIA -3.6%, Oracle -4.1%, Tesla -6.6%.
  • Context: elevated valuations in large tech names and worries about the AI “arms race” had pressured the sector; recent gains elsewhere had previously offset tech losses, but they weren’t enough to prevent the broad market pullback on Thursday.
  • Disney: weaker-than-expected quarterly revenue helped drag the market; Disney stock fell ~7.7%.

Media M&A and restructuring

  • Paramount/Skydance
    • Paramount rallied ~9.8% on Tuesday after reporting streaming growth in its first quarter post-merger with Skydance.
    • Paramount notched a weekly gain of ~3.8%.
  • Warner Bros. Discovery takeover interest (reported by The Wall Street Journal)
    • Paramount, Comcast and Netflix preparing bids ahead of a Nov. 20 first-offer deadline.
    • Paramount reportedly aiming to buy the whole company; Comcast and Netflix focused mainly on Warner’s movie/TV studios and HBO Max.
    • Meanwhile Warner is continuing plans to split into two companies, rolling back much of the 2022 Warner-Discovery combination.

Key takeaways and implications

  • Markets remain sensitive to shifting Fed-rate-cut expectations; rapid changes in those odds can trigger volatile sessions.
  • Sector rotation continues: consumer trends (e.g., meat demand shifts) are driving meaningful stock moves in food producers.
  • Tech valuations and AI competition keep the technology sector vulnerable to sudden selloffs, which can spill into broader indexes.
  • Media consolidation activity is resurging, with multiple bidders and strategic interest in studios and streaming assets — potential for major industry reshaping if deals proceed.

Credits and where to read more

  • Host: Francesca Fontana, The Wall Street Journal. Produced by Zoe Colkin; supervising producer Jana Heron.
  • For more market movers and stock detail, see “The Score,” Francesca Fontana’s column in the WSJ Exchange section.