Mondays in December always feel a little electric, don’t they? The weekend news pile hits the wires, traders grab an extra coffee, and suddenly the premarket board lights up like a Christmas tree. Today, December 8, 2025, is serving exactly that kind of chaos – and honestly, I love it.
We’ve got rumored mega-deals, S&P 500 reshuffles, leadership surprises at Berkshire, and even a discount retailer quietly sneaking higher on an analyst love note. If you’re the type who checks futures at 6 a.m., buckle up. Let’s walk through everything that actually matters this morning.
The Big Premarket Winners and Losers Right Now
Confluent – The One Everyone’s Talking About
Holy smokes, 27% premarket gain doesn’t happen by accident. Word on the street – well, actually straight from a very credible Sunday evening report – is that IBM is in late-stage negotiations to acquire the data-streaming powerhouse for something around $11 billion. That’s real money, even in 2025.
For context, Confluent has been the darling of the “Kafka ecosystem” crowd for years. Companies use it when they need real-time data pipelines that just don’t break. Think banks moving trades, Netflix recommending your next binge, or Uber matching riders with drivers at Uber. If IBM pulls the trigger, it instantly becomes one of the biggest cloud/software deals of the year.
In my experience, these Sunday night bombshells tend to stick more often than not. Sure, there’s always the “talks can fall apart” risk, but a 27% pop tells you the market is pricing in a pretty decent probability. Watch the volume when the bell rings – if it stays heavy into the open, someone big believes this is getting done.
Broadcom – Quietly Stealing the Show
While everyone fixates on Confluent, Broadcom is up a cool 2-3% on a much less flashy but potentially more important story. Reports say one of its largest custom-chip clients (read: a hyperscaler we all know) is thinking about moving that business from Marvell back to Broadcom.
Marvell, by the way, is down 6% on the same rumor. That’s how zero-sum the ASIC game has become. One contract shift can move billions in future revenue. Broadcom already dominates this niche with Google’s TPUs and others; adding another feather would just cement the moat. I’ve said it before – in AI infrastructure, the winners are taking all the chips (pun intended).
Carvana and CRH – Welcome to the S&P 500 Club
Friday after the close, S&P Dow Jones dropped the announcement we’d all been waiting for: Carvana and Ireland-based building materials giant CRH are joining the S&P 500 effective December 22.
Carvana specifically is the story here. From the brink of bankruptcy in 2022 to the most-shorted stock in America to… an S&P 500 constituent? That’s the kind of redemption arc movies are made of. Shares are already up almost 9% premarket, and index-fund rebalancing will force another wave of buying in two weeks.
CRH gaining 7% feels almost polite by comparison, but European ADRs joining the 500 still move the needle. Passive flows are relentless – love them or hate them.
Berkshire Hathaway – A Changing of the Guard
Maybe the most under-the-radar headline of the morning: Todd Combs – one of Warren Buffett’s two designated portfolio managers and the current CEO of Geico – is leaving to join JPMorgan in a newly created role hunting direct equity investments.
Look, I’m not here for the succession drum for years. Buffett turns 95 next year, and the plan has always been Greg Abel as CEO with Combs and Ted Weschler handling investments. Losing Combs this close to the handover feels… significant. Shares are barely budging (classic Berkshire), but it raises real questions about how smooth the post-Buffett era will actually be.
Succession risk at Berkshire has always been the elephant in the room. Losing one of the two named heirs apparent months before the transition is, frankly, a curveball most investors weren’t modeling.
CoreWeave – The AI Darling Hits a Speed Bump
Not everything is green this morning. CoreWeave, the Nvidia-backed GPU cloud provider that’s been on an absolute tear since its IPO, is down almost 6% after announcing a $2 billion convertible debt offering.
Convertibles in 2025 almost always means “we’re raising money while the stock is sky-high, thank you very much.” The market usually yawns unless the terms are punitive. Still, dilution fears are real when you’re trading at 100x sales. I’d watch the 10-day moving average – if it holds, the dip buyers will probably step in aggressively.
Five Below – An Upgrade Worth Watching
Sometimes the best premarket moves are the quiet ones. Truist just upgraded Five Below to Buy with a nice price target bump, saying the recent comp acceleration looks sustainable and earnings power is being underestimated.
Discount retail has been a minefield lately, but Five Below’s extreme-value model (nothing over $5, now $10 in some cases) is resonating again as wallets tighten. Up 2.5% premarket doesn’t sound sexy next to Confluent’s 27%, but these slow-and-steady retail turnarounds can run for months when they catch momentum.
What I’m Watching When the Bell Rings
- Confluent volume – if it trades 5x average volume in the first 30 minutes, the deal odds just went way up.
- Broadcom vs Marvell spread – could be a nice pairs trade if the rumor solidifies.
- Carvana $400 level – psychological magnet once the rebalancing narrative fully prices in.
- CoreWeave convert pricing later this week – terms will tell us how desperate (or not) they really are for cash.
- Nasdaq futures reaction to all the tech names moving – we’re still in a “good news is good news” regime for now.
Bottom line? December 8 is delivering the kind of premarket action that reminds you why we put up with the 5 a.m. alarms. Some of these moves will fade by lunch, others might define the week. Either way, the tape doesn’t lie – and right now it’s screaming opportunity if you know where to look.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some charts to stare at before the opening bell. See you on the other side.
