The Rundown
Weight Loss Drugmakers Hit with Antitrust Lawsuit, Trump’s Plan Brings Down Energy Stocks
16 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What market trends are emerging as of January 16, 2026?
Public.com presents The Rundown, your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zaid Admani, and today is Friday, January 16th. In today's episode, I'll tell you what I told the Wall Street Journal about Jerome Powell. We'll also discuss the latest lawsuit that Eli Lilly and Nova Nordisk are facing regarding their GLP-1 dominance.
Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why it's not a great time to be a Wall Street banker despite record trading revenues. We got a great show for you today. Let's go. After two straight days of losses, the markets were finally back in the green on Thursday. The S&P 500 rose 0.3%, while the NASDAQ added roughly 0.2%. The markets actually started out much stronger than that.
Both indices were up more than 1% at their high points yesterday before giving back some of those gains at the close. The bigger story that investors are watching right now is the Supreme Court. Supreme Court is expected to rule any day on the legality of Trump's tariffs.
Some of the tariffs that President Trump issued last year were under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which are meant to be used in times of emergencies. There's been multiple lawsuits claiming the president overreached his presidential powers. So now it's in the hands of the Supreme Court to decide.
If the court rules against these tariffs, it could require the federal government to refund some of the tariffs that were collected.
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Chapter 2: What is the antitrust lawsuit against Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk about?
So that could get really messy. Don't be surprised if this decision leads to more market volatility. So yeah, it's a very interesting moment in the markets right now. We'll see how things play out over the next few weeks as investors wait for the Supreme Court ruling and as more companies start reporting earnings.
Now, I'm really looking forward to the big tech earnings because the tech sector has been a weak spot so far this year, and we'll see if that bounces back if these big tech giants post strong earnings. Oh, and don't forget, we also got the beef between President Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
Now, speaking of the Fed, our deep dive for tomorrow is going to be about the history of the Federal Reserve. We're going to talk about why it was formed, some of the failures the Fed has had in the past, and why an independent Fed is so important. So if you want to learn more about the Federal Reserve, keep an eye on your podcast feed for that.
Also, I have to mention, this is kind of crazy, but I was actually quoted in an article in the Wall Street Journal this week about Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The reporter who wrote the article, Hannah Aaron Lang, she did a great job on the piece. She asked me why I thought that Powell gets memes so much on the internet. And I said, it's because he has aura.
Now, I said a bunch of other stuff, too, but they ran with the aura quote, which I think is just great. We even got a mention on The Wall Street Journal's Instagram page as well. So, yeah, that was a pretty surreal moment getting quoted in The Wall Street Journal. We'll put a link to the article in the description if you guys want to check that out.
Let's run through some headlines, starting with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are being sued over their GLP-1 duopoly. This lawsuit was filed by a compounding pharmacy called Strive Specialties, which alleges the two pharma giants are illegally blocking consumers from getting low-cost versions of their weight loss drugs.
Now here's where it gets a little technical, but stick with me here. Compounding pharmacies are allowed to make copycat versions of drugs when there's a shortage. And for a long time, that was the case for GLP-1s, demand massively outpaced supply.
But now that Eli Lilly and Nova Nordisk have ramped up production, there is no more shortage, so these compounding pharmacies are supposed to stop mass producing the copies. But there is an exception for a very limited case, like customized patient-specific doses. And it's this gray area where all the fighting is happening right now.
Strive feels like they should be allowed to make these patient-specific GLP-1s. But late last year, Eli Lilly actually sued Strive, accusing the pharmacy of falsely marketing its compound drugs as personalized. bad blood there, and now it's escalating into a full-blown antitrust lawsuit. Now, one thing that you got to keep in mind is that the patent for these drugs don't last forever.
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