Warner Bros. Discovery Rises, First Solar Rallies, Clear Water Moves Higher

On this episode of Stock Movers:
- Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) shares rallied in trading today after word that Larry Ellison is throwing his personal fortune behind Paramount Skydance Corp.’s bid for it, aiming to give his son’s company an advantage in a fiercely contested takeover battle with Netflix. Paramount has been aggressively pursuing Warner Bros. for months and Ellison was taken by surprise when the board agreed to a deal with Netflix for $82.7 billion for the streaming and studio assets. The strength of the financing for each bid has emerged as a decisive issue in the takeover battle, which unleashed two massive debt-fueled offers that rank among the largest in the past decade. Paramount took its offer of $30 a share, or $108.4 billion including debt, for the entire company directly to shareholders. Warner Bros. shares gained 3.4% in New York afternoon trading, and changed hands during the session for as much as $28.98. Paramount rose as much as 8.1% while Netflix dropped about 1%.
- First Solar (FSLR) rose as much as 7.1%, touching the highest intraday since June 2024, after news Alphabet will buy clean-energy developer Intersect Power in one of the company’s biggest deals aimed at boosting its AI-related data-center footprint. The stock was the top S&P 500 gainer with less than 10 minutes to the close. Other solar names with gains in Monday trading included: Canadian Solar up as much as 15%; Array Technologies rises as much as 10%; Nextpower +7.7%.
- Clearwater Analysts (CWAN) shares are up 8.5% on Monday, after a group of private equity firms agreed to buy the investment and accounting software company in a deal valuing it at $8.4 billion. Analysts said the deal price was lower than expected.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News, The.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Stock Movers Report, your roundup of companies making moves in
the stock market, harnessing the power of Bloomberg Data.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
I want to get a look at some stock movers here.
Holiday shortened week, a good first day here for Wall Street.
Nice Monday to kick things off. Warner Brothers Discovery though
still in the news. Norm Melnda here with a breakdown.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
Nora, Yeah, I mean we've been seeing so much action
when we look at Warner Brothers Discovery. I mean, Paramounts
Guidance has really been in focus throughout the trading day today.
We did see shares of that company ending higher. That's
ticker WBD for Warner Brothers Discovery and Peace Guy for
Paramounts Guidance. We had Larry Ellison, one of the richest
men in the world, agree to personally back with his

(00:52):
fortunes Paramounts Guidance's bid for Warner Brothers Discovery. So we've
really been seeing this tug of war Netflix on one end,
Guidance on the They're really trying to see who will actually
be able to take over aspects of this company here.
What about First Solar, what's going on that First Solar.
We've been seeing a lot of activity as well. We
did see shares higher. This is after news that Alphabet

(01:13):
will be buying clean energy developer Intersect Power. We know
that this is one of the company's biggest deals aimed
at boosting its AI related data center footprint. So you
did see for Solar rising just given the fact that
it is actually a customer there of intersect Power. So
Intersect Power has been a customer of First Solar, excuse me.
So we've definitely been seeing some activity there in the trade.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, you know, I feel like right up until the
last day of the year, there are going to be
these AI deals because again this is data center deal
right Withoutphabet, so it really is about once again powering
the AI boom. And I feel like just every other
day we're just seeing another deal. So thanks for bringing
us for Solar. Round things off here with clear Water Analytics.

(01:56):
Cwaan is the ticker.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
What's going on there right, clear Water analy We did
see a group of private equity firms agreeing to buy
this company. About eight point four billion dollars is the
deal that we're talking about here. But analysts did say
that this deal price was lower than anticipated, but if
you think about how the street was really viewing this,
we did see shares moving higher, so clearly investors are

(02:18):
buying in on this, but analysts are saying, hey, maybe
this wasn't the right price that we were looking for, so.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Maybe very quickly, Nora, as this stock market correspondent in
Bloomberg TV, was there anything that really shocked you or
excited you as you cover these individual names this year?
Maybe a favorite right talk about?

Speaker 4 (02:33):
I mean, there's been so much and as you called
out just a bit earlier, I've been looking a lot
at the tech space. I think that that's really been
doing much of the market this year and in the
more recent previous years. So it'll be interesting to see
what we end up seeing for twenty twenty six. And
a lot of the eyes more recently has been on
quantum computing stocks, which we talked a lot about today,
as investors are really trying to see what is the

(02:54):
next AI play and how can they be ahead of
the curve.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
That's interesting because the Back of America wrote in a
note recently that they don't see that the AI players
are in froth like levels yet, but quantum and nuclear
stocks may be so That's an interesting point that you bring,
and I feel like even in the ETF world, those
are the thoughts that have been popping so far in.

Speaker 4 (03:13):
Very speculative space. I mean, if you think about the
fact of financing and the revenue that they have, they're
only talking about tens of millions of dollars here versus
maybe a big tech player that brings in riks in
billions of dollars in revenue. So it really is a
bet on the future that investors are making here for
companies that haven't necessarily yet displayed the profitability that investors
are looking for.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
You know, guys, I always love the ri A D
go function on the terminals see what people are reading
most read article? Did you guy? Guys already look at
ri A D.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Don't look at it.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
I'm not going to cheat it.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
What do you think. I mean, it was on top
go all day, So I mean.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
I'm thinking Warner Brothers Discovery has to be bo bingo story.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
You got it. Ari Ellison pledges forty billion to bolster
Warner Brothers. But it's hard not to click that hard
not to want to read story because.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
They almost have to because almost every day or nearly
every day, there's a development. And again this is again
another development with Larry Ellison throwing his personal fortune behind
the Paramount. Did what could it be next week or
what could it be in the next month? I mean,
who knows. And even our guests earlier when we talked
to them, Molly Shoots and the gentleman from Stephen Flynn
Stephen Flynn, Yes, they both were great, and they also

(04:22):
didn't know because it's just really unpredictable.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, they I mean they're actually really seeing this going
well into next year. We just don't know, you know
about what was it about two weeks ago? We thought, okay,
Paramount's taking this to the shareholders, the shareholders will speak
and we're just going to move on.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
And then even Warner Brothers Discovery, I mean, they were
talking to their shareholders essentially saying, hey, guys, we already
had a deal, an initial deal with Netflix. They were
essentially kind of giving them a nudge, saying, you know,
we think that you should seek with Netflix as well.
But then you have this play by aary Larry Ellison.
So it'll be interesting to see what actually happens as materializes.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
This stock mover's report from Bloomberg Radio check back with
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