Amazon slumps after report that early Prime Day sales are down double digits from 2024

Amazon is extending declines in early trading, down more than 2% at its lowest after Momentum Commerce said that the first four hours of sales for the hotly anticipated Prime Day were down 14% year on year.

Bloomberg reported that many companies are looking to raise prices rather than offer discounts in the face of tariffs and are staying on the sidelines this year.

In any event, I’ve yet to peruse the deals on offer and this is one of my three days of discretionary spending of the year, so readjust your estimates accordingly.

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Hyunsoo Rim24m

Nintendo beats on Switch 2 console sales, as the original Switch becomes the company’s best-selling console ever

Iconic gaming company Nintendo revealed that it sold around 7 million Switch 2 consoles in the third quarter ended December, topping analysts' average estimates for 6.5 million sales, and pushing cumulative Switch 2 sales past 17 million, making it the "fastest-selling dedicated video game platform" in Nintendo's history, according to the company.

Separately, the predecessor to the Switch 2 quietly became Nintendo’s best-selling console ever, having now sold 155.4 million units since its launch in 2017 according to The Verge, overtaking the mighty Nintendo DS, released in 2004, which sold 154 million units in total.

Heading into the print, Nintendo’s shares rose modestly in trading in Japan — gains that the stock has broadly held onto on Tuesday’s session, adding 1.8%. The ADRs, listed in the US, which have been impacted by currency volatility between USD/JPY, rose 5.7% on Monday.

For the quarter ended December, revenue came in at ¥806.3 billion ($5.2 billion), below estimates of ¥815.7 billion. Margins were also a little light, with operating income coming in at ¥155 billion, below estimates for ¥181 billion, per Bloomberg.

Nintendo maintained its full-year revenue and profit guidance, as well as its forecast of 19 million Switch 2 unit sales for the fiscal year ending March 2026.

The gaming giant's shares had hit a record high last summer following the Switch 2's launch, but are now down ~35% from that peak, with the company’s profitability weighed down by tariffs and rising memory chip costs — a key component in its consoles — as chipmakers prioritize more profitable demand from AI data centers.

Still, higher chip prices "will not have a significant impact in the third and fourth quarter performance," though a prolonged price surge could "put pressure on earnings," President Shuntaro Furukawa said on the earnings call.

Luke Kawa14h

OpenAI reportedly seeking alternatives to Nvidia chips, unhappy with inference performance

Reuters reports that OpenAI is “unsatisfied” with Nvidia’s latest AI chips and has been seeking alternatives since last year, citing a whopping eight sources familiar with the matter.

This news comes on the heels of a recent report from The Wall Street Journal that Nvidia’s plan to invest $100 billion in OpenAI had stalled.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang seemingly confirmed the WSJ reporting in comments to the press over the weekend, but still struck a positive public tone on OpenAI, indicating that the chip designer would be participating in its upcoming funding round.

Sources inside OpenAI appear to be choosing a more combative response.

Per Reuters, the specific shortcoming OpenAI sees in Nvidia’s offering involves inference, or the “thinking” being done by AI models.

Now, the idea that OpenAI is seeking alternatives to Nvidia, or at least additional sources, is well known: the ChatGPT maker struck highly publicized deals in October with Advanced Micro Devices that the chip designer said would “deliver tens of billions of dollars in revenue” as well as custom chip specialist Broadcom to develop and deploy 10 gigawatts of custom AI accelerators.

So this really has the feel of, “I dumped her, she didn’t dump me!”

Palantir beats Q4 earnings and sales expectations, stock surges

The numbers are in.

Matt Phillips15h

Tasha Matsumoto

15h

Stocks close near record highs as strong manufacturing data boosts economic outlook

Due to the partial government shutdown, this week’s expected jobs data will be delayed.

Michael Jordan #23 dribbles towards the net circa the 1990's during a game.

Luke Kawa15h

Microsoft is the biggest drag on the US stock market since Gemini 3’s launch

Microsoft is the publicly traded company that, due to its partnership with OpenAI, had a place of pride at the epicenter of the AI boom.

It doesn’t have that much to show for it.

Thanks to last week’s plunge following the release of its earnings, the tech behemoth is now trailing the SPDR S&P 500 ETF for the first time since November 30, 2022 — the day ChatGPT was released. It’s the only member of the so-called Magnificent 7 to trail the fund that tracks the benchmark US stock index over this stretch.

The OpenAI relationship has been more of a burden than a boon for the company as of late, as the ChatGPT maker’s cash burn and competitive pressures have cast a pall over its partners.

Per data from Bloomberg, Microsoft has been the biggest drag on SPY since the release of Gemini 3, shaving off 80 basis points. Alphabet, on the other hand, has been the largest driver of the ETF’s advance over this period.

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