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It's up about 18% year to date. Let's check in with Jen Bartash as she covers all the retailers for Bloomberg Intelligence. So Jen, what did you hear from Wal Mart with their earnings release? Yeah, it's you know, Walmart had another good quarter and I think that it's very easy to attribute a lot of their success to just the value seeking behavior of consumers in this environment. But I think that would also be overlooking a lot of the investments they've made in things like convenience that is really spurring the e commerce growth. And that was really a notable takeaway from today's earnings release. Yeah, the that e commerce aspect helps draw in higher Income shoppers. So it's a larger pool of customers that Wal Mart now has access to. And in our Bloomberg News reporting we indicate that the digital offerings now include luxury items like pre owned Chanel bags. I had no idea that that kind of stuff was available on Walmart.com well, you know, Wal Mart has done a lot to really expand its marketplace and that includes bringing in items that will appeal to that higher income consumer. You know, and the tactic behind all of this is that the more people are integrated with E commerce in going to stores, they become sticky and they become loyal customers. So that when the macroeconomic backdrop fades, it really increases Walmart's ability to hang on to these customers going forward and, and that just drives future growth. So it's a really interesting play out of, of how they're applying that tactic. John, I also want to get your take on Wal Mart transferring its listing to the Nasdaq. That's going to happen on December 9 and that of course is to reflect its focus on being a tech forward company. But I'm wondering, I mean, how much of this is really just about being included in the NASDAQ 100 and therefore the QQQ ETF. Oh yeah, there's certainly part of that Scarlet, where, you know, that's, that's probably part of the motivation. I think that there is, you know, obviously there's a perception with regards to being perceived more as a tech company, which Walmart in all truthfulness has evolved into a tech company, especially amongst other retailers by being listed at Nasdaq. You know, long term maybe it helps their valuation, you know, just in terms of having that perception of being more in, you know, aligned with peers. You know, Amazon is listed on Nasdaq, things like that. So I think that there's a lot of those components together combined are really behind the move. Jen, nobody arguably has a better finger on the pulse of the consumer than Wal Mart. What are they saying these days? Actually they seem relatively optimistic. You know, they talk about, you know, spending holding steady for kind of that middle income consumer. High end consumers seem to be spending pretty freely. A little bit of concern about some of the lower end consumer, but it does seem to be sort of evening out. And so when they were looking forward to the holiday season, which is the most important thing with regards to the retailers that I cover, they seem cautiously optimistic that there will be a pretty good holiday season this year. We do think that people will prioritize spending on kids. That's usually what happens first if they're holding back in other parts of their budget. But all indicators right now seem that we're headed towards a reasonably solid holiday season. You know, Jen, we tend to look at Wal Mart as a shortcut for the consumer. But if this strong performance is really more a result of strategy and execution over the longer term, how much of a read does it really provide on the state of consumer spending beyond the fact that Walmart has become this exceptionally well run tech forward company? I mean, you just look at Target for instance, which has a lower outlook. No, it's a good point, Scarlett. I mean, I think the thing is that nearly every household has some sort of interaction with Wal Mart during the course of a year, you know, whether it's in terms of frequency or not. And so Walmart is, has really evolved their ability to capture data about the customers that are spending in stores even though they don't have a formal loyalty program. And so they really do have that insight into sort of the motivations behind customers, where they stand. You know, I think one of the interesting things with regards to just focus and discipline. Walmart talked today about apparel sales and, and their comparable sales for Apparel was up 5% every month of the third quarter. And when you contrast that to Target who reported yesterday, they're still struggling with some of their, their discretionary categories. So it seems to be a story of execution and not only the consumer spending right where they are. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this. What is actual investing? We believe that it's a real world task to deliver thoughtful capital deployment. It's not about speculating over the short term. It's about understanding the long term opportunities for companies through technological progress or new business models. So we seek out those exploring big new ideas that will change the world. Then we back them to give those ideas time to flourish. Bailey Gifford Actual Investors Find out more@baileygifford.com the world is buzzing with AI tools. But instead of making things easier, they've made things overwhelming. There's a better way. Meet Superhuman, the AI productivity suite that gives you superpowers so you can outsmart the word chaos with Grammarly mail and coda. Working together, you get proactive help across your workflow. No matter how you work experience AI that meets you right where you are. Learn more@superhuman.com podcast that's superhuman.com podcast. Managing multiple accounts and logins for your marketing needs is like managing multiple announcers for one ad. Confusing, but with mailchimp's new SMS features, you can reach all your customers in over 10 countries, all from one account, giving you more time, driving more conversions and improving campaign performance. One platform, many audiences, endless possibilities. That's how you mailchimp your marketing with sms. Tap the banner to learn more. You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10am Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. Let's get back to this Nvidia story. Certainly a big, big player in this story in the market. Kunjan Sobhani joins us. He's a senior analyst. He covers the semiconductor companies for Bloomberg Intelligence. He's based out there in San Francisco. Kujan, I'm sure you've had the opportunity to not only look at the numbers, listen to the conference call, but talk to institutional investor clients. What's the narrative coming out of this earnings release? Yeah, this was one of the more bullish earnings we have seen from this name in a while. Not just on the numbers of the 3Q 4Q guide which they blew past even the loftiest buy side targets, but just beyond that, the long term, the 26 sort of and going into 27 demand signals that they showed, namely the half a trillion of the pipeline which we think now is a conservative number given the number of deals they have announced. If supply keeps on coming up as it has and if their customers continue executing on these bills without any missteps, we think there's significant upside to the current state numbers. Yeah, just looking through the numbers, clearly a beaten raise report. But you know, the scale at which it can beat and raise is impressive. Although within the third quarter numbers I did see that chips used in gaming PCs missed analysts estimates and I know that that's a shrinking part of the business or at least it's not as big a part of the business given that the data center is is where the growth is really at. Are there any flaws in this earnings report? Kanjan? Not really. I mean look, the gaming is becoming so unimportant for analysts that the reliability of the predictability of those numbers against which we are comparing the beat and miss for gaming is no longer as reliable. So no real flaws to really point out. We did see their supply commitments go up quarter over quarter and inventories rising. I don't think that's a negative. While it might seem on the face, that's just them gearing up and getting ready for that next wave to supply the chips in the next year. Kujan, what's the latest from Jensen Huang about how he views China going forward. Nothing has changed on the China side. They still don't assume any revenues when it comes to data center AI China GPUs or the H20 has been shipped into. They do have the clearance licenses, so they could but it seems because of the geopolitical issues, China has basically been shut down for American GPU providers or ASIC providers to be able to ship in the country. There is, to be honest, no demand. So it seems. You know, because of geopolitical issues, the customers in China are not just readying and getting up to buy Nvidia chips right now. Jensen Huang said that he from his vantage point does not see anything like an AI bubble. We see something very different and he says competitive pressures remain fairly low because this is a company with more than 90% of the market for those high end super fast AI chips. Who is the closest competitor if there is one, to Nvidia? Yeah, in terms of the size of the markets, the next closest competitor would be the ASIC chips. So Broadcom is one of the biggest providers of ASIC chips, namely the TPU that Google uses. Another example would be Amazon's Trainium chips which are different AI ASIC designer supplies. So in terms of revenues or units, in terms of the market, those are the next closest competitors within Nvidia's realm, which it sells merchant GPUs. AMD would be the second closest competitor in that. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this. Managing multiple accounts and logins for your marketing needs is like managing multiple announcers for one ad. Confusing but with mailchimp's new SMS features you can reach all your customers in over 10 countries, all from one account, giving you more time, driving more conversions and improving campaign performance. One platform, many audiences, endless possibilities. That's how you MailChimp your marketing with SMS. Tap the banner to learn more. 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Company news out here Today, Verizon announced the layoffs that will shrink the company by as much as 20% of its non union workforce. That's big. And they have a big, big footprint in New Jersey from the old Bell Labs and Bell Corps days. And so a lot of Verizon employees in the state of New Jersey, so that'll be a big issue for them. John Butler joins us here, senior Telecom Analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. John, what's, what's this job cut announcement from Verizon? What does this mean for the company? What are they trying to do here? So Paul, as you may know, there's a new CEO in town at Verizon named Dan Schulman. And I believe Shulman is really he's been on the board for years. I think he's looked at the organization and believes it's a little too heavy, a little too bureaucratic. He sees room for ample cost cuts and I think his whole message to the employee base is we need to move faster. And I think it's very tough to do that with a large bureaucracy. I also think he's cutting costs in order to free up funds and give him room to promote more. I think one of the reasons that Verizon has lagged its peers in subscriber growth is they're just not matching price promotions out there in the marketplace. And I think if they do that carefully, wisely, I think if they become a little less disciplined than they've been in promoting, they're going to find that they'll drive higher volumes. And, you know, I think at the end of the day, Wall street wants to see that that really is a report card for the telcos, that that sort of quarterly net additions number that all the telcos report. And Wall street is okay with a loss in margin or an erosion of margin in order to get those numbers, those subscriber numbers, because it sounds like Verizon is getting ready to jump into participating in this price war in a more robust way than it had been. Yeah, good question, Scarlet. I think that's what these job cuts are all about. You can maintain margins if you're cutting 13% of the workforce. There's a big cost savings there. So you're getting leaner on the expense line, which gives you a little more room on the revenue line to begin to promote more and really step up and match competitors like T Mobile, which continue to be aggressive on price. And then at the lower end, of course, you've got the cable operators and their wireless brands and they have been promoting very hard on price in order to drive up their wireless installed base. John, I'm guessing if a lot of Verizon Communications investors, they're there for the dividend, it's got a yield of 6.7% here. That is just. That is a serious yield there. Talk to us about their dividend strategy, their commitment to the dividend going forward. So Schulman, when he first joined Verizon, reiterated a commitment to maintaining the dividend dividend. I think with any carrier, as their stock price drops and the effective yield goes up, that dividend yield, it becomes a target for potentially getting cut. Now, the flip side of that is any telco that's cut its dividend in the past will tell you there is a very heavy price to pay for that. You typically get a big price correction when you cut that dividend because of course, at least with the AT and T and Verizon, you're attracting a lot of investors to buying this stock based on the yield. So if you cut the yield, obviously you're going to lose some of those investors. So he's got a tightrope to walk here. Again, you're cutting 13% of the organization as a first move. I think there are other cost cuts down the road and efficiency to be efficiencies to be gained in not only network operations but customer care as well, particularly with the advent of AI. So my hope is they're going to be able to sustain free cash flow which will generate more than enough to sustain that dividend there. Okay, so in Dan Shulman's drive to make Verizon a simpler, leaner and scrappier business, how, how do its competitors, T Mobile and AT&T respond? Do they respond? They always respond. Score. You know, it's that kind of market. Wireless is a very mature business. It's a saturated market. It's a zero sum game. And so I think what we've seen from the Bit all the big three recently is they are willing to promote heavily to protect that baby. Verizon again has been the laggard there, but I think Schulman, who's very focused on subscriber volumes, is probably going to step up and play that game. So that's been the concern among investors that it can get ugly very quickly and frankly I share that concern. So we'll have to see what the change in direction is going to be at Verizon with regard to promotion. But all indications so far is that they're getting ready to promote more. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this. Managing multiple accounts and logins for your marketing needs is like managing multiple announcers for one ad. Confusing. But with mailchimp's new SMS features, you can reach all your customers in over 10 countries all from one account, giving you more time, driving more conversions and improving campaign performance. One platform, many audiences, endless possibilities. That's how you MailChimp your marketing with SMS. Tap the banner to learn more. Innovation is what gets your business to market and Wasabi is designed to give every business a shot at competition. How break free from skyrocketing storage costs and unpredictable egress fees from old and top heavy legacy providers. You know the big guys. 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You don't have to sacrifice taste or time so you can honor your cravings without compromising. Think thin, crispy cauliflower crust pizzas, all natural chicken tenders coated in cauliflower and crowd pleasing nostalgic pizza snacks. Clean ingredients, always ready in minutes, absolutely full of flavor. 100%. Answering the what's for dinner? Question has never been easier. Caulipower's products are available in freezer aisles nationwide. Visit eatcaulypower.com wheretobuy to find a store near you. You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10am Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. Let's take a look at what's happening in the biotech and pharmaceutical space. There's a big, big M and A deal. Abbott Laboratories agreeing to buy the cancer screening company Exact Sciences with a total deal value of about $21 billion. Yeah, pretty, pretty large. Let's get some perspective now from Matt Henriksen, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Medtech Analysts. So Matt, I guess this is, this is a surprise given that we're looking at Exact Sciences shares moving quite a bit. This deal price represents a 51% premium to its last close. Yeah, and you know, this includes yesterday there Bloomberg News reported, you know, some of the initial rumors that there was this deal taking place. So the fact that it kind of materialized so quickly and with that type of premium is a little bit of a surprise given kind that started leaking yesterday. But when you look at it from a multiple standpoint, it's training, you know, it's the sale is about 7 times exact Sciences 2025 sales seems pretty reasonable for the growth that could be incorporated into Abbott's overall portfolio. And the bankers on the deal, Morgan Stanley exclusive financial advisor to Abbott fully funding this deal. So that's good for them. On the sell side, CenterView Partners and XMS Capital Partners advising the seller there. So again, more M and A fees there. I have no idea who Exact Sciences is and I think I speak for most of our audience here. Who is Exact Sciences, why, what do they do? And, and why does Abbott want to pay such A big price. Well, you actually might know of them because they have been doing a lot of TV commercials for their colo guard. Oh, they're the colo guard people. I was like, oh, I know. Yeah, so there we go. We. Yeah, so. Oh yeah. So it's, it's, you know, it's kind of one of those things where they're the ones that have been the pioneers in driving the force around that take home pre screening test to kind of just help, you know, the continuum of cancer screening and to provide an easier access for that pre screening before you have to go into kind of more of the invasive, you know, colonoscopies to make sure, you know, you have that, you know, colorectals cancer risk is there. That thing sat in my closet for like a year. It's like, oh my God. I know. It's one of those things you have to do, but you don't want to do. You have to do it. So, Matt, is there any reason to think that regulators may, you know, raise their hand and say, hold on, let me just take a closer look at this. I mean, I'm sure they will, you know, cross their T's and dot their I's. But just in general, with medtech acquisitions, it's usually pretty straightforward. Unless there's a clear 100% of the market may be going to one company and in this case there's enough competition where I don't think that should be a hurdle for Abbott or Exact Sciences. And for such a big deal, Abbott stock is only down about 1 1/2% today on the news. So presumably, is this a deal you think is a good deal for Abbott? Yes, I think it checks off a lot of boxes potentially for Abbott. One, it's once it becomes fully integrated and starts contributing to organic growth, it should be accretive to that organic growth that Abbott already has. I mean, they're already for a company that is, you know, 40, almost 45 billion in sales, they're generating seven and a half percent organic sales growth. Exact Sciences comes in with double digit sales growth. So that's going to be accretive for them in the long run. You can also look at the gross margin profile. Abbott is around a 56, 57% gross margin profile. Exact Sciences comes in at 72, improving to 73% based off of consensus in 2026. And then lastly, you look at the expenses that Exact Sciences has because there's still, you know, whether it's the emerging growth story. So they're still investing a lot in their smg kind of commercial profile to help generate these growths. We kind of expect Abbott to come in and be able to slash some of that SGA costs to be able to make it more profitable overall for the Abbott once it kind of gets fully integrated. This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you get. Your podcasts listen live each weekday 10am to noon Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn and the Bloomberg Business App. You can also watch us live Every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal. Enterprise AI is redefining business operations and voice technology leads this transformation. While Alexa showcases consumer applications, AWS AI delivers enterprise scale voice solutions that are reshaping customer engagement across industries. Leverage Amazon's proven AI innovation to transform your customer experience and drive operational excellence. AWS AI the Voice of Innovation Discover the Alexa story at aws.com AI our-story Ah, greetings from my bath festive friends. 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