The Nasdaq 100 climbed 1.9% to a new record as the Magnificent Seven once again find themselves in pole position. Wall Street’s optimism surrounding the industry and its AI dreams has seemingly proven enduring. So much so that US inflation’s decision to take a breather on the way down wasn’t enough to dampen investor spirits Wednesday. The consumer price index rose 0.3% in November for the fourth-straight month, while core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, rose by the same amount. To Skyler Weinand, chief investment officer at Regan Capital, the CPI report “gives the Federal Reserve the green light for a 25 basis point rate cut at the December meeting, as it helps to confirm that we are still making progress on inflation even though it remains sticky.” —David E. Rovella

What You Need to Know Today

The main owner of US chocolate maker Hershey is said to have rejected a preliminary takeover offer from Mondelez International, potentially ending a deal that would have created a food giant with combined sales of almost $50 billion. Turning the offer down as too low was Hershey Trust Co., which has roughly 80% of the voting power at the company and has nixed proposed unions in the past. In 2016, Mondelez walked away from discussions about a potential takeover after seeing its then-$23 billion bid rejected by the chocolate maker.

Brazil’s central bank increased the benchmark interest rate by a full percentage point and promised to deliver two hikes of the same size in the next two meetings as it rushes to recover investor confidence and tame inflation expectations. Policymakers boosted the Selic to 12.25% late Wednesday, as expected by only 14 of 35 economists in a Bloomberg survey. Twenty others forecast a hike of 75 basis points, while one projected an even smaller, half-point increase. Across Brazil, household spending is running hot due to record low unemployment and expanded welfare benefits. 

Eli Lilly will begin offering vials of its best-selling weight-loss drug Zepbound through Ro’s telehealth platform, giving patients another way to access a more affordable version of the shot. Patients could previously only get vials of Zepbound, typically sold in an autoinjector pen, through Lilly’s direct-to-consumer site. To bolster supplies of the wildly popular medicines and offer a more affordable option to patients whose insurance plans don’t cover them, the company launched the vials in August. Patients have flocked to telehealth companies to get prescriptions for popular weight-loss shots. Ro, a startup valued at $7 billion, offers name-brand versions as well as copycats made by compounding pharmacies for a fraction of the price.

Americans spend more of their years in poor health than any other country, a new study shows. People in the US live with illness for 12.4 years on average—up from 10.9 years in 2000, according to a study published by the American Medical Association Wednesday. The US offers the starkest illustration of a so-called healthspan-lifespan gap that is widening around the world, as chronic illnesses take up larger portions of people’s lives. While life expectancy has long been a standard measure of public health, researchers are increasingly focused on health-adjusted life expectancy, which tracks the number of years people live in good health.

Adobe gave a disappointing annual sales outlook, underscoring anxieties that the creative software giant could be disrupted by emerging artificial intelligence-based startups. Adobe, known for its software for creative professionals, has been adding generative AI features to its applications, such as embedding its proprietary model, Firefly, into products like Photoshop. Adobe unveiled an AI tool to create videos during its annual user conference in October, which has been integrated into editing app Premiere and is slowly rolling out to the wider public.

Postcard-sized country flags affixed to each forecaster’s desk—ultramarine and gold for Barbados, the red-white-and-blue bars of Paraguay—stand out among the drab workstations at a US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration complex outside Washington DC. They represent just some of the dozens of nations that have sent their scientists to be trained by American experts since NOAA started its International Desks in 1988. Today, the program is a crucial source of American soft power, providing free data and expertise to countries desperate for high-quality forecasts as climate change brings the weather to new extremes. But NOAA’s influence and funding are under threat as Donald Trump prepares to return to office, creating an opening for this country to be the new global weather leader. 

What You’ll Need to Know Tomorrow

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