{"id":358270,"date":"2025-12-19T15:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T15:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/358270\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T15:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T15:40:09","slug":"quad-witching-nike-slides-weed-rules-and-more-in-morning-squawk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/358270\/","title":{"rendered":"Quad witching, Nike slides, weed rules and more in Morning Squawk"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is CNBC’s Morning Squawk newsletter.\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a>\u00a0to receive future editions in your inbox.<\/p>\n

Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:<\/p>\n

1. Witching hour<\/p>\n

A trader works at his desk on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) after the opening bell in New York on December 3, 2025. <\/p>\n

Timothy A. Clary | Afp | Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wall Street could be in for a wild trading day<\/a> when options on four types of securities expire: index options, single stock options, index futures and index futures options. “Quadruple witching” day happens just four times a year and this one’s set to be a monster.<\/p>\n

Here’s what to know:<\/p>\n

Stock futures were little changed in premarket trading, a day after the S&P 500<\/a> and Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a> snapped a four-day losing streak after a softer-than-expected inflation report<\/a>, though with caveats<\/a>.Goldman Sachs says today will be a record with more than $7.1 trillion in notional options exposure set to expire, including $5 trillion tied to the\u00a0S&P 500<\/a>\u00a0index and $880 billion linked to single stocks. December options expirations are usually the year’s biggest, but this one eclipses all records, Goldman said.This week, the S&P 500 and 30-stock Dow are down about 0.8% and 1%, respectively. The Nasdaq is down 0.8% week to date.Meanwhile, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told employees<\/a> that the company’s U.S. operations will be housed in a new joint venture.Follow live market updates here.<\/a>2. Nike’s obstacle course<\/p>\n

The Nike Inc. logo is displayed at the entrance to the company’s store in the East Nanjing Road shopping area of Shanghai, China.<\/p>\n

Tomohiro Ohsumi | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n

Nike<\/a> shares were down sharply in premarket trading after the sportswear giant warned sales<\/a> would fall in the current quarter and executives pointed to continued challenges in China.<\/p>\n

Nike said it expects fiscal third-quarter revenue to drop by a low single-digit percentage, with modest growth in North America, and forecast gross margins will shrink 1.75 to 2.25 percentage points, including a 3.15 percentage point hit from tariffs.<\/p>\n

Investors were hoping for more but it wasn’t all bad news out of Nike. Strong North America sales helped offset the plunge in China and results came in ahead of Wall Street’s expectations. CEO Elliott Hill called it the company’s “middle inning of our comeback.”<\/p>\n

3. Trump shifts on marijuana<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump sits in the Oval Office to sign executive orders, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., Dec. 18, 2025. <\/p>\n

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump<\/a> signed an executive order yesterday that directs federal agencies to\u00a0reclassify marijuana<\/a>, loosening long-standing\u00a0restrictions on the drug<\/a>\u00a0and marking the most consequential shift in U.S. cannabis policy in more than half a century.<\/p>\n

Once finalized by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the order moves cannabis out of Schedule I classification \u2014 the most restrictive category under the Controlled Substances Act, alongside heroin and LSD \u2014 to a Schedule III classification: substances with accepted medical use and a lower potential for abuse, such as ketamine and Tylenol with codeine.<\/p>\n

Shares of cannabis companies fell following the announcement, likely from worries of new competition.<\/p>\n

Separately, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she was suspending the diversity visa program<\/a>, saying the man suspected<\/a> of killing two students at Brown University had been granted one.<\/p>\n

4. Let’s maybe make a deal?<\/p>\n

A Norfolk Southern Corp. engine car moves through the Lamberts Point coal transloading facility in Norfolk, Virginia, on Wednesday, March 17, 2010.<\/p>\n

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images<\/p>\n

5. The most valuable college sports program is…?<\/p>\n

Tight End Michael Trigg #1 of the Baylor Bears runs with the ball after a reception for a touchdown during the college football game between Baylor Bears and Arizona State Sun Devils on Sept. 20, 2025, at McLane Stadium in Waco, TX.<\/p>\n

David Buono | Icon Sportswire | Getty Images<\/p>\n

There’s a new leader in college sports \u2014 the University of Texas at Austin. The school’s athletic program topped CNBC’s valuation rankings and is now worth $1.48 billion, 16% more than last year.<\/p>\n

In fiscal 2024, the program generated aggregate revenue of $332 million, more than any other school and 23% more than in the previous year, according to figures from the Knight-Newhouse College Athletics Database at Syracuse University, up 53% from 2023.<\/p>\n

Last year’s most valuable athletic program, Ohio State University, fell to No. 2 with a value of $1.35 billion, 2% more than a year ago. Read the full 75-school ranking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Daily Dividend<\/p>\n

Here are some stories we’d recommend making time for this weekend:<\/p>\n

\u2014 CNBC’s Laya Neelakandan, Chloe Taylor, Lillian Rizzo, Pia Singh, Luke Fountain, Yun Li, Brandon Gomez, Michael Ozanian, Elsa Ohlen, Jonathan Vanian and Julia Boorstin contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is CNBC’s Morning Squawk newsletter.\u00a0Subscribe here\u00a0to receive future editions in your inbox. Here are five key things…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[38080,21993,28,122,177354,93533,5237,1072,12,120,101,111240,113,3319,112,109722,2914,5846,17000,2474,117,14003,17001,21,31723],"class_list":["post-358270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-alphabet-class-a","tag-boeing-co","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-dan-bongino","tag-darden-restaurants-inc","tag-delta-air-lines-inc","tag-donald-j-trump","tag-donald-trump","tag-dow-jones-industrial-average","tag-economy","tag-electronic-arts-inc","tag-investment-strategy","tag-joe-biden","tag-markets","tag-moore-threads-technology","tag-netflix-inc","tag-nike-inc","tag-norfolk-southern-corp","tag-oracle-corp","tag-sp-500-index","tag-trump-media-and-technology-group-equty-warrants-exp-25th-mar-2029","tag-union-pacific-corp","tag-united-states","tag-warner-bros-discovery-inc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}