Market News: Japan/Greenland, Netflix, Semis, and Energy Stocks

January 21, 2026

Both of yesterday’s shocks – Japan and Greenland – are cause for relief today.  Both crises seem to be calming down.

On Japan, the global bond market is recovering after yesterday’s pullback.  Japan’s bond yields are falling by nearly the entire amount they gapped up yesterday.  As a result, bonds are cooling off across the globe.  US rates are falling a bit.  The 10yr yield is down a bit, but still up meaningfully versus last week.  This is still an issue on our radar, but the lack of further contraction is a good sign here.

On Greenland, President Trump spoke at Davos at the World Economic Forum.  He alleviated the world’s worst fears and said he would not invade the island with military force.  That’s sending a sigh of relief across the markets.  However, Trump implied that he would “not forget” if Europe did not give him Greenland.  This calls into question the level of US support for Ukraine, the status of the EU trade deal, and the strength of the NATO alliance should Russia push further.  Net-net, it’s good news for today, but long-term risks remain.

Netflix

Netflix is the 19^th largest stock in the index, and more than 2x larger than the next largest media company (Disney).  As such, they’re a big driver for the consumer discretionary sector.

Netflix reported strong earnings last night, but guidance for 1Q was a little bit weaker than the market expected.  So the stock is trading down this morning.  For the full year however, management still sees a path to double digit revenue growth and operating margin expansion. 

As a reminder, they recently changed their merger agreement for Warner Brothers Discover (WBD) to an all-cash offer.  Their prior bid was partially in stock.  This change is likely the last nail in the coffin to a competing offer from Paramount Skydance.   The merger will now go to a shareholder vote by WBD holders later this spring.  It will then go through regulatory review, which could take a year or more.

Netflix shares will trade on the strength of its core results.  But the WBD deal is a big question mark for two reasons.  First, how will it change the overall company?  The content is the obvious golden egg for Netflix watchers.  But the movie studios business is a new game for them.  Second, they’re paying a big price for these assets.  And these assets are not really growing.  It might take a few years for them to generate an acceptable return on this investment.

Semi stocks again!

In a virtual replay from yesterday, the semi stocks are rallying again.  The SOX index is up over 3% at the moment.   Nvidia, their king, is up today.  But the big moves are in Intel (+10%) and AMD (+7%) – again from analyst commentary suggesting that results will be strong when they report earnings tomorrow.   WDC (storage) and MU (flash memory) are also up 3-5%.

AMD is the the 20^th largest stock in the index and the second largest semiconductor stock in the market, behind only Nvidia.

Energy stocks

The entire energy complex – from the mega oil drillers to the US refiners – are up big this morning. The XLE energy ETF is currently +2.5%.  Usually when that happens, it’s because oil prices are spiking.  But oil is basically flat today.   The reason seems to be comments coming from Halliburton (HAL) today about Venezuela.  As a reminder, HAL is an oilfield services company.  Basically, if you need help drilling an oil well, HAL (or its main competitor Schlumberger SLB) are the folks to call.

HAL reported earnings this morning.  And on their call, they said that they see “tremendous opportunity” in Venezuela and that it can scale up quickly.  However, it needs certain issued resolved first, namely “payment certainty”.   Overall, it seems like their comments were long-term in nature.  But the energy stocks are rising nonetheless.