Be in the know. 20 key reads for Friday…

  1. Margin Debt Hits Record High. Investors Are Amping Up Risk. (barrons)
  2. PayPal Needs Help From Its Oldest Friends—Consumers (wsj)
  3. European Stocks Are Still on Sale. Where to Shop Now. (barrons)
  4. Humanoid Robots Finally Get Real Jobs (wsj)
  5. Chinese Investor Buying Fuels Bullishness for Hong Kong Stocks (bloomberg)
  6. Trump’s Tariff Threats Revive Interest in $44 Billion Alaska Gas Project (nytimes)
  7. Mortgage Rates in US Slip to Lowest Since Middle of December (bloomberg)
  8. Chinese Stocks Are Beating U.S. Stocks. Where to Find the Bargains. (barrons)
  9. Dividend stocks are soaring in 2025, as investors adopt a defensive strategy amid market selloff (marketwatch)
  10. Investors See ‘2017-Like’ Rally in the Making for Emerging-Market Currencies (bloomberg)
  11. Venu is done. Here’s how Fox, Disney and WBD plan to go it alone in sports streaming (cnbc)
  12. Trump Says Canada, Mexico Tariffs to Take Effect, Adds New China Duty (bloomberg)
  13. UK firms turn more hopeful on economy, plan to hire more, Lloyds says (reuters)
  14. Why the US exceptionalism trade is faltering (reuters)
  15. China tech startups race to capitalise on DeepSeek fever, Xi’s meeting (reuters)
  16. Alibaba CEO Wu meets Chongqing party secretary for possible AI partnerships (scmp)
  17. Mainland Investors Buy Alibaba in Size (chinalastnight)
  18. Nvidia bounced from the $3 trillion market cap club after shares fall more than 8% (cnbc) 
  19. Hormel’s stock boosted by revenue beat, though challenges lie ahead with turkeys and nuts (marketwatch)
  20. Extremely fearful stock-market sentiment shows investors scare easily right now (marketwatch)