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Vince McMahon attends a press conference to announce that WWE Wrestlemania 29 will be held at MetLife Stadium in 2013 at MetLife Stadium on February 16, 2012 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Michael N. Todaro | Getty Images

World Wrestling Entertainment is defying broader market trends this year.

The company’s stock is up more than 50% in 2022, hitting a 52-week high Monday, and trading at levels it hasn’t seen since summer 2019. The S&P 500, by comparison, is down more than 20% this year.

The stock’s strong performance this year occurred WWE’s live wrestling-events business came roaring back after months of Covid restrictions and the company increasingly became the subject of sale talks. The stock continued to do well after the company’s longtime leader and biggest shareholder, Vince McMahon, retired from the company over the summer in a cloud of scandal.

Shares of the company were effectively flat Monday after hitting $76.90. WWE’s market capitalization is over $5.6 billion.

Industry insiders believe WWE could be an acquisition target. A deal could come before the company’s next U.S. TV rights renewal — likely to be announced in mid-2023. WWE’s current U.S. streaming deal with NBCUniversal’s Peacock expires in 2026.

Analyst John Healy of Northcoast Research, who covers WWE, sees the stock’s success a confluence of successful ratings, upcoming media deal opportunities, and the speculation of a possible acquisition.

“That speculation has been going on for a long time, and I think will always be around this company given the unique asset that it is and the ownership structure,” Healy told CNBC on Monday.

He also noted that WWE is relatively insulated from consumer trends, saying that “two thirds of the revenue is coming from locked-in relationships” with media companies. Given a highly saturated media market, Healy expects high bidding for the rights to “Raw” and “Smackdown,” which are set to be renegotiated in the coming year.

WWE has also had to deal with McMahon’s controversies. He retired in July after it was revealed that he had paid nearly $20 million in previously unrecorded expenses.

Of those payments, almost $15 million went to settle sexual misconduct allegations from four women against McMahon over the last 16 years, and $5 million went to Donald Trump’s foundation from donations made in 2007 and 2009.

WWE has hinted that the hush payments to alleged victims, already the subject of an ongoing independent review overseen by the company’s board, are under investigation by other entities.

Still, WWE stayed in the family. Stephanie McMahon, McMahon’s daughter, took over as chairwoman and co-CEO alongside Nick Khan, the company’s former president. Stephanie’s husband and longtime wrestler Paul “Triple H” Levesque has taken over as the company’s top creative executive, the role the elder McMahon had before he retired.

Vince McMahon, 77, remains the largest stakeholder in the company, holding about 32% of shares.

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

–CNBC’s Chris Hayes contributed to this report.

Correction: This story was updated to correctly characterize Nick Khan’s role in WWE.

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Nvidia down 30% from high as tech-led sell-off hits ‘Magnificent Seven’

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Nvidia down 30% from high as tech-led sell-off hits 'Magnificent Seven'

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gives a keynote address at CES 2025, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas on Jan. 6, 2025.

Steve Marcus | Reuters

Nvidia has lost nearly a third of its value just two months after notching a fresh high.

The leading chipmaker slumped about 5% on Monday, building on last week’s losses as heavy selling continued across the tech sector. The popular artificial intelligence stock has shed about a fifth of its market cap since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The stock hit an intraday high of $153.13 on Jan. 7.

Tariff fears and growth concerns have rocked technology stocks, including Nvidia, over the past week, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropping more than 4%. The Nasdaq traded at a six-month low on Monday.

Many technology companies rely on parts and manufacturing overseas and new levies could push up prices. That has also sparked worries of a U.S. recession, which Trump did not rule out over the weekend.

Tesla led the declines among the “Magnificent Seven” names, plummeting more than 13%. The Elon Musk-backed electric vehicle company has plunged 16% over the past week and shed nearly 44% since Trump took office in January. The stock is also coming off its longest weekly losing streak in history as a public company.

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Elon Musk’s X suffers multiple outages

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Elon Musk’s X suffers multiple outages

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Elon Musk’s social media platform X experienced several outages on Monday morning, leaving some users unable to load the site.

Nearly 40,000 users reported problems with the platform around 10 a.m. ET,  according to the analytics platform Downdetector, which gathers data from users who spot glitches and report them to the service. Around 28,000 people were experiencing issues as of 11:30 a.m. ET.

When X resumed loading for users Monday afternoon, Musk said the company had suffered a “massive cyberattack.” Musk did not provide any evidence, and CNBC could not independently verify that a cyberattack took place.

“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” Musk wrote in a post. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”

X did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Musk acquired X, formerly known as Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022. The Tesla CEO slashed the company’s headcount by about 80% from 7,500 employees to 1,300 workers, and just 550 full-time engineers, by January 2023.

X has experienced several large-scale outages since Musk’s takeover. Users reported problems with the platform in December 2022 and with the site’s desktop app in July 2023, for instance.

The timing of the X outage couldn’t have been worse for NFL fans, who rely on the service for news updates. The first day of the NFL’s free agency tampering window began at 12 p.m. ET with the service down, sending fans searching for other options such as linear TV and Bluesky to get their news on player signings.

— CNBC’s Alex Sherman contributed reporting.

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Watch: Elon Musk on X subscriptions: ‘Free speech isn’t exactly free it costs a little bit’

Elon Musk on X subscriptions: 'Free speech isn't exactly free it costs a little bit'

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Bitcoin falls to November low under $80,000 on heightened recession fears

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Bitcoin falls to November low under ,000 on heightened recession fears

CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Bitcoin dropped under the $80,000 level Monday, dragged by the continued selling pressure in the equities market.

The price of the flagship cryptocurrency was last lower by 5% at $78,714.96, its lowest level since November, according to Coin Metrics.

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Bitcoin in the past day

Shares of companies linked to the crypto space also slid. Coinbase fell roughly 14%. Robinhood lost 17%, and bitcoin proxy play Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, declined 16%.

Bitcoin ETFs are coming off their fourth week in a row of outflows. They logged $867 million of outflows last week, bringing the four-week total to $4.75 billion, according to CoinShares. Continued bearishness pushed crypto prices even lower over the weekend, with bitcoin dropping sharply on Sunday evening to the $80,000 level for the first time since Feb. 28.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a U.S. bitcoin reserve and a digital asset stockpile late last week, disappointing some investors. However, macro uncertainty was the key driver of the accelerated downward move Monday, after Trump over the weekend didn’t rule out the possibility of a recession in the U.S.

Absent a crypto-specific catalyst, macro concerns are likely to continue weighing on cryptocurrency prices in the near term. This week, the market will be watching for key economic indicators, including the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) Tuesday, the consumer price index on Wednesday and the producer price index slated for Thursday.

Although investors expect cryptocurrency prices are likely to pull back even more before making a run for a new record, their positive outlook on the year driven by regulatory tailwinds is still intact.

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