← The Rundown
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Public.com presents the rundown, your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zaydadmani and today is Tuesday, October 28th. In today's episode, we'll tell you about Amazon's plans to cut thousands of jobs because of AI. We'll also recap the two major announcements coming out of OpenAI, then stick around to the end of the show to find out why Halo is is coming to the PlayStation. We got a great show for you today. Let's go. Stocks got off to a hot start this week with the S&P 500 jumping 1.2% and the Nasdaq was up 1.9%, both hitting record highs and building on the momentum from last week. I sound like a broken record at this point, but big tech stocks carried the day again, especially Qualcomm. The mobile chip maker was up more than 11% on Monday after the company announced they were releasing an AI chip next year to compete with the likes of Nvidia and amd. You know, Qualcomm is known for their mobile Snapdragon chips that are in the high end Android phones and now they're coming for the AI market with Saudi Arabia's AI startup Humane lined up as their first customer and just zooming out. I mean the vibes are great on Wall street right now thanks to a strong start to earnings season, the easing trade tensions with China and the rate cut which is expected this week from the Fed meeting. So it's easy to see why a lot of people are bullish right now. I'm trying to keep my enthusiasm in check though, because the last time I was this hyped up, I jinxed the markets and they tagged. We are staying on top of all the major stories this week, so it's a good time to be subscribed to the podcast to stay in the loop, maybe even hit that notification bell wherever you listen to your podcast so you're notified as soon as an episode is posted every morning. Let's run through some headlines, starting with Amazon. Amazon just announced that they're laying off 14,000 corporate employees, which is about 4% of its white collar workforce, affecting teams within logistics, video games, cloud computing and payments. They made this announcement in a blog post and this is the largest corporate downsizing in Amazon's history and it might just be round one because according to a report from Reuters and Amazon is planning to cut as many as 30,000 corporate jobs total, which would be nearly 10% of its corporate staff. CEO Andy Jassy said the goal is to make the company leaner, more efficient, and better positioned to invest in its biggest bets, which right now is AI. Amazon is spending roughly $118 billion this year on cloud infrastructure and AI development. And these layoffs are part of the broader effect to automate as much of their operations as possible. And while right now the layoffs are mostly in the corporate staff, Amazon is also working to replace their warehouse staff as well. Internal documents reviewed by the New York Times show that Amazon is aiming to replace up to a half a million warehouse jobs with robotics and AI over time, and eventually make 75% of its logistics network fully autonomous. You know, Amazon is one of the largest employers in the world. They employ over 1.5 million people worldwide, most of them working in warehouses. So these layoffs might be the first sign that AI is about to have a meaningful impact on both white collar and blue collar jobs. Now, I should point out that Amazon has been the worst performing Max 7 stock this year. The stock has pretty much been flat for the year. So this move by Amazon's management is probably being made to win over investors. But the reality is that job cuts are happening at other companies too. Last night, the online education platform Chegg said that it's laying off 45% of its staff, citing the new realities of AI, which has completely destroyed their business. The students are turning to chatgpt instead of going on check.com so I think we're just starting to see the impacts that AI is having on the economy. Now, sticking with the AI theme here, let's talk about OpenAI, because the company just announced two major deals. Let's start with the partnership with PayPal. PayPal just became the first digital wallet to be integrated directly into ChatGPT, which is meaning users will be able to buy products right inside the chatbot and check out via PayPal. For example, if you're chatting with ChatGPT and it recommends a pair of sneakers or some gadgets that you want to buy, you'll soon be able to hit the buy with PayPal button and check out instantly. And on the other side, PayPal merchants will be able to list and sell their products directly inside ChatGPT and get access to the 800 million weekly active users. So very big deal for PayPal that sent their stock up more than 10% this morning. This integration will go live next year and it's part of of OpenAI's push into E commerce and becoming a bigger part of people's lives. Company already has a deal with Shopify, Etsy and Walmart, but that wasn't the only big OpenAI news from this morning. OpenAI also finalized a new agreement with Microsoft which will give Microsoft a 27% stake in OpenAI worth about $135 billion. Now remember, Microsoft was one of the earliest investors in OpenAI, but the relationship had kind of gotten a bit sour. But it seems like the two sides might have patched things. This deal will give Microsoft exclusive access to OpenAI's models, including any that reach artificial general intelligence through 2032. It also clears the way for OpenAI to complete its transition into a for profit company. Microsoft stock is up nearly 4% this morning on this news, pushing its market cap to over $4 trillion for the first time ever. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. A company called Qorvo Stock is popping this morning after from the information revealed that skyworks Solution has held talks to buy the company. Now both Skyworks and Qorvo are Apple suppliers. They make radio frequency chips for iPhones and Apple is the biggest customer for both companies. And that's where the problem lies. Both companies are seeing less orders come from Apple these days. Skyworks warned earlier this year that its shares of Apple orders could drop by as much as 25%, while Qorvo said that its sales to Apple would be flat to modestly higher. So a merger here would make sense. It would create a stronger challenge to chip giants like Broadcom and Qualcomm and possibly help Skyworks claw back some lost ground. Qorvo has a market cap of $8 billion and the stock popped more than 10% this morning on the takeover buzz. Now on the flip side, gold and gold mining companies continue to fall. This morning the price of gold dropped to under $4,000 an ounce after hitting over $4,300 an ounce earlier this month. And look, when the price of gold falls, so does the stock price of gold miners. Shares of major miners including Newmont Barrick and Agnico Eagle are all down between 3 to 6% this morning. You know, gold is trading so unpredictably right now. You would think with inflation still hovering around 3% and some economic uncertainties that gold wouldn't see a sudden drop like this. But the prices have gone up so fast lately that I think that gold traders are finally starting to take profit. And it might take another tariff shock by Trump or some unpredictable economic event for gold to see a pop again. But I am definitely keeping an eye on it. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Halo is coming to PlayStation in 2026. Now, I briefly mentioned this on yesterday's show, but I wanted to talk more about it today because this is a pretty big deal. Microsoft announced that the original Halo game is being remade and launched next year to celebrate its 25th anniversary. And it's coming to the Xbox, PC and PlayStation. Now look, as someone who's been an Xbox guy for most of my life, this news was just shocking. This is like Mickey Mouse showing up to Universal Studios or something because Master Chief is the mascot of the entire Xbox platform. The first couple Halo games was the main reason anyone bought an Xbox in the first place. So it's just crazy to see that Halo is now going to be going to the PlayStation. But this is a business story. It's a clear sign that Microsoft is giving up on Xbox as a platform. In fact, according to a report from Bloomberg, Microsoft is pushing the Xbox division to increase profit margins. And and as part of that new strategy, they're going to be bringing all of their games to as many paying customers as possible. That's why Halo joins a growing list of once exclusive Xbox games like Gears of War and Forza that are now on PlayStation. On top of that, Microsoft recently raised the price of their Xbox game Pass streaming service. I think Microsoft might have a little bit of regret on their 60 plus billion acquisition of Activision a couple years ago. So now they're trying to squeeze as much money as they can to make up for that disastrous acquisition. And look, I don't even game that much any anymore. I still have an Xbox, but I barely play it. And I think this might be a sign that I need to just be done with the Xbox. At this point, at least I'll have all the memories of playing Halo 3 with my college roommates at 3 o' clock in the morning. If anyone listening is a hardcore gamer, let me know in the comments on how you guys feel about halo coming to PlayStation. And if you agree that Microsoft is just giving up on Xbox at this point, well, all right guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did and you have like 5 extra seconds, consider giving us a 5 star rating on Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you are listening on Spotify, don't forget to vote in today's Spotify poll. Leave us a comment on Spotify. All that engagement really does help us out and it helps other people find the show. Thank you guys so much for listening, watching and commenting. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes, and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.