The clock is ticking on TikTok. Or is it? And if it is, whose hand is on the alarm setting as of this morning?

Sunday, January 19, a day before the next presidential inauguration, marks the deadline for TikTok to sell its US assets or face a ban. But while parent company ByteDance isn’t selling — at least, for now — it remains unclear if the ban will actually go into effect, or to what extent. A flurry of reporting across major outlets this week offers a glimpse into what might happen to everyone’s favorite short-form video app/hypothetical tool for Beijing geopolitical supremacy.

Can I Have an Extension?

The bill does include language that would permit a 90-day extension before a ban would go into place, but only if ByteDance presents a credible plan to divest — which it hasn’t. One Biden White House official told Bloomberg that the pre-inauguration timing left implementation of the ban solely up to the next administration, and said the Biden White House does not intend to extend the deadline nor does it believe it has the authority to do so. In oral arguments last week, TikTok asked the Supreme Court to delay the ban; as of Thursday, the court had not ruled on the case either way (though a ruling on the bill’s constitutionality is expected by Sunday). On Wednesday, a group of Democratic senators introduced the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act, which would postpone the prospective ban for 270 days. On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer backed the bill. 

Which is all just a long way of saying that enforcement of the sell-or-ban bill — which received overwhelming bipartisan support when it breezed through Congress last April — is up to Trump 2.0. The incoming president, of course, ushered in talks of a TikTok ban during his first term in 2020; now, after his campaign’s successful use of the platform, his stance appears to have softened:

• On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported Trump is weighing a (legally dubious) executive order to delay the ban by 60 or 90 days to buy time to negotiate a sale or alternative outcome. Incoming National Security Advisor Michael Waltz told Fox & Friends, “We will put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark.”
• One possible buyer considered by Chinese officials for the app: Elon Musk, sources told Bloomberg on Monday. And on inauguration day, Musk and other Silicon Valley titans are likely to be seated in the VIP section right next to TikTok CEO Shou Chew, who has been invited by Trump’s team, The New York Times reported.

Another likely outcome may be a soft ban: The app would be removed from Apple’s and Google’s respective app stores, making future downloads and updates impossible, though users with it already downloaded would — again, for now — still be able to access the platform. Sources did, however, tell Reuters that TikTok will cease US operations on Sunday, barring a reprieve.

Red Notice: As the TikTok maybe-ban looms, scores of US users have downloaded RedNote, a social media app with Chinese origins and one of several waiting in the wings to replace TikTok if and when its dance ends. RedNote has rocketed to the top of domestic app store rankings. Which means this entire news cycle may be on repeat sooner rather than later.

In pre-modern times, communities relied on mystical tools to locate underground minerals. With the way things are going today, a dowsing rod may be as good as any other tool for someone trying to figure out what’s going on with the oil market. 

West Texas Intermediate fell 1.8% to below $79 late Thursday, a day after shooting to its highest level since August. International benchmark Brent Crude slipped 0.9% after earlier topping $82 in another five-month high. 

The retreats came as markets digested mixed signals about what might happen to Russian oil as US President-elect Donald Trump seeks to end the war in Ukraine. But the flirtations with multi-month highs have also come amid conditions — Jack Frost’s idea of paradise weather and festering geopolitical tensions — that would support gains. So far, those have kept the prospect of a bearish oil market at bay in 2025.

Quarrels and Barrels

If you live in one, you’ll know that several American states and European cities are experiencing intense winter weather courtesy of the polar vortex. For obvious reasons — people turn up the heat when it’s cold — falling temperatures often mean climbing oil prices. And when lower temperatures show up in unusual places like Texas, which is on the verge of its second cold snap in as many weeks, production and refinery operations can also slow down, adding to the price of a barrel.

The International Energy Agency issued a warning Wednesday that there will be a smaller oil surplus this year, cutting its 2025 projection from 950,000 barrels a day to 725,000 barrels a day, and Citigroup and Morgan Stanley have raised their oil price forecasts. But when weather patterns return to normal, Standard Chartered analysts say the market will still have strength:

• For one, OPEC+ has mostly kept to its target quotas while non-OPEC supply has grown more slowly than expected, the bank said. OPEC+ decided last month to delay an output increase from this month until April.
• Russia was hit with enhanced US energy sanctions last week, which Standard Chartered said will triple the number of directly sanctioned Russian crude tankers and impact some 900,000 barrels per day. Citing maritime tracking data, Reuters reported earlier this week that 65 tankers had already dropped anchor, suggesting they had paused activities.

Being Diplomatic: Scott Bessent, whom President-elect Donald Trump has nominated for Treasury Secretary, told the US Senate on Thursday that he’s willing to take sanctions on Russia even further, which would in turn boost prices even higher. On the other hand, Bloomberg reported that some of Trump’s advisers said they are considering “good-faith measures” that would offer relief to Russian oil producers if the Kremlin agreed to a diplomatic accord with Ukraine, where President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion in 2022.

It’s only fitting that a firm called eToro would run into a bull market.

The retail trading platform has filed to go public in New York and is seeking a valuation over $5 billion, the Financial Times reported Thursday. It marks a potentially triumphant comeback story and an insult of sorts to the embattled stock exchange that dominates the company’s largest market.

Timing is Everything

The company planned to go public through a $10.4 billion merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in 2021 but pulled the plug in 2022 as market conditions worsened — possibly dodging a bullet, considering the long line of failures to come out of the SPAC bubble.

By 2023, eToro’s valuation had plunged to $3.5 billion in a $250 million funding round that included SoftBank, the Japanese mega investor that has placed its fair share of bad bets in recent years. But the equity market bonanza of the last two years put retail trading platforms on a solid footing — and eToro, founded in 2007, has long been friendly to cryptocurrencies, so the 94% surge in Bitcoin in 2024 was a turbocharge of sorts. If its IPO is successful, eToro will become a little sibling to its publicly traded rivals.

• Crypto exchange Coinbase has a $69 billion market cap while Robinhood, which supports the trading of stocks, exchange-traded funds, and cryptocurrencies, is valued at $40 billion by markets. Public listings have been kind to both as markets have surged: Robinhood’s share price has more than quadrupled in the last 12 months, while Coinbase is up over 110% in the same time period.
• Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, and UBS are working on eToro’s IPO plans, the FT said, and the bankers will want to pitch investors on Robinhood and its astronomical growth as the ideal comparison. Don’t pay attention to UK and European rivals like CMC Markets and Swissquote, which trade at lower relative valuations to revenue.

London Calling (But No One’s Answering): Founded in Israel, eToro’s largest market is the UK. Its decision to list in New York is the latest blow to London, where high-profile listings hit a post-financial crisis nadir last year: Fewer than 20 companies listed, the least since 2009. Meanwhile, eToro could be trading in New York as soon as the second quarter.