{"id":57217,"date":"2025-12-18T20:08:34","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T00:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/global-markets-react-to-boj-hike-trumps-defense-bill-and-oracles-rebound\/57217\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T20:08:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T00:08:34","slug":"global-markets-react-to-boj-hike-trumps-defense-bill-and-oracles-rebound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/global-markets-react-to-boj-hike-trumps-defense-bill-and-oracles-rebound\/57217\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Markets React to BoJ Hike, Trump&#8217;s Defense Bill, and Oracle&#8217;s Rebound"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Oracle (<a href=\"\/stock\/ORCL\">ORCL<\/a>) shares extended gains to 6%<\/strong> on December 18, buoyed by positive project updates and regulatory progress on its Michigan data center, despite recent investor anxiety over AI-related spending and financing challenges.<\/li>\n<li><strong>President Donald Trump officially signed the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law<\/strong>, authorizing a record <strong>$901 billion<\/strong> in military spending and including a <strong>3.8% pay raise<\/strong> for troops.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The Bank of Japan (BoJ) is set to raise its interest rates to a 30-year high of 0.75%<\/strong> on December 19, marking its second tightening move this year in response to sustained inflation above its 2% target.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Oracle Shares Rebound Amid Data Center Developments<\/h2>\n<p>Shares of <strong>Oracle (<a href=\"\/stock\/ORCL\">ORCL<\/a>)<\/strong> saw an extended gain of <strong>6%<\/strong> on December 18, reflecting a rebound and renewed investor confidence. This uptick followed a mix of positive project updates and short-term technical buying, which helped to offset recent anxieties regarding the company&#39;s significant AI-related spending and data center financing. Just the previous day, on December 17, Oracle&#39;s shares had slid by approximately <strong>6%<\/strong> after reports surfaced that talks with private capital group Blue Owl Capital to finance a planned <strong>$10 billion<\/strong> data center in Michigan had stalled.<\/p>\n<p>However, the latest developments indicate that Michigan regulators have unanimously approved utility support to power the planned data center, a substantive permitting win that reduces project execution risk. Furthermore, Oracle was named as an investor in a U.S. TikTok deal, a strategic minority investment that validates Oracle&#39;s role in large-scale tech transactions and may be seen as a vote of confidence by the market. The company&#39;s aggressive expansion in cloud infrastructure, particularly for AI workloads, remains a key driver for its stock performance, despite the substantial increase in its debt to fund these initiatives.<\/p>\n<h2>President Trump Enacts Record Defense Spending Bill<\/h2>\n<p>President Donald Trump officially signed the <strong>Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)<\/strong> into law on December 18, 2025, at the White House. The sweeping legislation authorizes a record <strong>$901 billion<\/strong> in annual military spending, exceeding President Trump\u2019s request by <strong>$8 billion<\/strong>. This comprehensive bill dictates everything from the procurement of ships, aircraft, and missile systems to troop compensation and geopolitical threat responses.<\/p>\n<p>Key provisions of the NDAA include a <strong>3.8% pay raise<\/strong> for U.S. troops and <strong>$800 million<\/strong> in new aid for Ukraine over the next two years as part of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. The act also authorizes the Baltic Security Initiative, providing <strong>$175 million<\/strong> to support the defense of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and places limits on the Department of Defense&#39;s ability to reduce U.S. forces in Europe. Notably, the legislation also codifies aspects of several of President Trump&#39;s executive orders, such as funding the Golden Dome missile defense system and eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs at the Pentagon. The bill, which passed Congress with a <strong>77-20 vote<\/strong>, also officially ends the war in Iraq by repealing the authorization for the 2003 invasion.<\/p>\n<h2>Bank of Japan Poised for 30-Year High Interest Rate Hike<\/h2>\n<p>The <strong>Bank of Japan (BoJ)<\/strong> is expected to raise its interest rates on Friday, December 19, to a <strong>three-decade high<\/strong>. This move is anticipated to be a quarter percentage point increase, bringing the policy rate to <strong>0.75%<\/strong> from its current 0.5%. This would mark the central bank&#39;s second tightening step this year, signaling its growing conviction that sustained wage gains will keep inflation durably around its <strong>2% target<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The decision comes as Japan&#39;s core consumer prices rose <strong>3.0%<\/strong> in November, remaining above the central bank&#39;s 2% target for the <strong>44th consecutive month<\/strong>. BoJ Governor Kazuo Ueda&#39;s guidance on Friday will be closely scrutinized by global markets for clues regarding the central bank&#39;s appetite for additional tightening measures in 2026. While the Japanese yen was the worst-performing major currency against the U.S. dollar in 2025 despite earlier rate hikes, further tightening could attract foreign demand for Japanese government bonds (JGBs).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Takeaways Oracle (ORCL) shares extended gains to 6% on December 18, buoyed by positive project updates and regulatory progress [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"rank_math_schema_Article":[],"rank_math_focus_keyword":[],"rank_math_description":[],"financial_data_references":[],"stock_symbols_mentioned":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[5012],"tags":[5031,98,5046,338,5127,879,5322,3703,5377,4025,7115,4222,15562,4335,15838,4545,4945],"class_list":["post-57217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","tag-us-politics","tag-stocks","tag-defense-spending","tag-orcl","tag-japan","tag-dei","tag-markets","tag-ai","tag-bank-of-japan","tag-boj","tag-oracle","tag-interest-rates","tag-ndaa","tag-donald-trump","tag-national-defense-authorization-act","tag-cloud-computing","tag-monetary-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.stockmarketwatch.com\/stock-market-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}