Equities & Market Sentiment:

Tech shares drove the broader market higher as investors prepared for earnings from major industry players valued at over $10 trillion combined and awaited the Federal Reserve’s upcoming interest-rate decision.
Renewed optimism around artificial intelligence lifted a key semiconductor index by 3.6% and the Nasdaq 100 by 1.3%. Meanwhile, Meta Platforms’ $25 billion share sale was five times oversubscribed.

Corporate & Partnerships:

Visa Q4 earnings beat expectations with adjusted EPS of $3.48 (vs. $3.44 est.) on net revenue of $12.10 billion, alongside a 16% dividend increase.
Oracle expanded its partnership with OpenAI—announcing plans to offer cloud services powered by Cerebras Systems chips to challenge Nvidia—and announced plans to expand its multicloud AI database services to the US government.
Conversely, Lockheed Martin won a $694 million US Air Force contract to produce an air-launched hypersonic missile, while Boeing plunged 11% after lowering its delivery target.

Three Israeli exit polls (including Channel 12) indicate that the "Eisenkot Bloc" leads with 52 seats while the "Netanyahu Bloc" follows with 50 seats, leaving no clear majority and casting doubt on whether Prime Minister Netanyahu will return as prime minister (with his Likud party projected to win 24 of 120 seats).

The Financial Times reported that the US and Russia are considering a post-war joint venture involving American companies returning to the Russian oil market off the coast of Sakhalin, as well as potentially resuming Russian oil deliveries to Europe via the Druzhba pipeline.
Meanwhile, President Trump reiterated that oil continues to flow smoothly out of the Hormuz Strait, and US Energy Secretary Wright noted on CNBC that the war with Iran has come at an economic cost while the US ramps up LNG exports.