The Netflix logo is pictured at the company’s offices on Vine in Los Angeles, California on Dec. 5, 2025.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
“Who’s watching?” Netflix asks whenever someone accesses its site. On Friday, it was probably everyone with an interest in business, markets and television.
The key characters that had people hooked were Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery, which jointly announced that the streaming giant will acquire the latter’s film studio and streaming service, HBO Max. The equity deal value is pegged at $72 billion.
Netflix investors did not seem too jazzed about the deal, with shares dropping 2.89% on the sheer size of the transaction.
“Look, the math is going to hurt Netflix for a while. There’s no doubt,” Rich Greenfield, co-founder of LightShed Partners, told CNBC. “This is expensive,” he added.
But if one side is paying a lot, that means the other is receiving a bounty. Indeed, investors cheered the potential Warner Bros. Discovery windfall, sending the stock up 6.3% on the news.
It is not a done deal yet, and faces regulatory scrutiny. U.S. President Donald Trump said he would be involved in the decision, Reuters reported Monday, after a senior official from the Trump administration told CNBC’s Eamon Javers on Friday that they viewed the deal with “heavy scepticism.”
Despite this initial show of resistance, stranger things have happened in this administration, and the transaction might eventually go through. Should we get ready for Netflix’s next blockbuster: “The K-Pop Demon Hunters’ Song of Ice and Fire”?
What you need to know today
U.S. stocks had a positive Friday. The S&P 500 had its ninth winning session in 10 and rose 0.3% for the week. Europe’s regional Stoxx 600 closed flat. Separately, third-quarter euro zone economic growth was revised upward to 0.3%.
Netflix to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s film and streaming businesses. The total equity value of the deal is $72 billion, announced the two companies Friday. But the transaction could run into regulatory hurdles.
Core inflation in the U.S. cools down. September’s core personal consumption expenditures price index was 2.8% on an annual basis, 0.1 percentage point lower than expectations and August’s figure. Other numbers were in line with expectations.
A Ukraine peace deal is ‘really close.’ That’s according to Keith Kellogg, the U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, who reportedly said Saturday that there were two key outstanding issues: the future of Ukraine’s Donbas region and its Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
[PRO] Goldman Sachs unveils its top five global stocks. The picks are from China, Taiwan, India, Germany and the U.K. — and all offer an upside of at least 70%, according to the bank.
And finally…
The Sizewell A and B nuclear power stations, operated by Electricite de France SA (EDF), in Sizewell, UK, on Friday, Jan. 26, 2024. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The history of nuclear energy lies on British soil – does its future?
The U.K. once had more nuclear power stations than the U.S., USSR and France combined. It was a global producer until 1970 but hasn’t completed a new reactor since Sizewell B in 1995.
There is ambition to change that. Authorities want a quarter of the U.K.’s power to come from nuclear by 2050. The country is spreading its bets across tried-and-tested large nuclear projects and smaller, next-generation reactors known as small module reactors.
— Tasmin Lockwood