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February CPI inflation lands in line with expectations

February inflation figures are out.

The February reading of the Consumer Price Index showed that headline inflation rose 0.3% month on month, in line with economists’ estimates. On an annual basis, headline CPI was up 2.4% from the prior year.

Core inflation, which strips out food and energy prices, was up 0.2% over the course of the month, also in line with analysts’ views.

Ahead of this release, prediction markets indicated roughly 50% odds that headline CPI would rise more than 0.2% month on month.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

However, these numbers might not be of too much import right now, as the volatility in oil prices following US and Israeli strikes against Iran promises to dominate the inflation outlook in the near term.

Jon Keegan

How Oracle is de-risking its AI boom

Oracle released its third-quarter earnings yesterday, and the company is making it clear that its ambitious AI growth is grounded in reality and cold hard cash.

BATTLE ROYALE

“This is not how they got rich and happy.”

Matt Phillips

Tech giants competition with one another

Max Knoblauch4h

CarMax rises after activist investor Starboard takes $350 million stake

Online car retailer CarMax is climbing in premarket trading on Wednesday following reports that activist investor Starboard Value has taken a $350 million stake in the company.

Starboard nominated two directors to CarMax’s board, including its own CEO, Jeff Smith, and Frontdoor CEO Bill Cobb.

According to a letter sent by Starboard to CarMax, the hedge fund thinks the company can improve performance by adopting more dynamic pricing, reconditioning vehicles more efficiently, and reducing admin and other costs by more than $300 million.

Per Starboard’s letter: “If the experience is superior, CarMax does not need to be the lowest-priced provider to win. We strongly encourage you to be hyper-focused on the digital end-to-end consumer experience. We believe there is an ample amount of low hanging fruit; so much fruit that it may even be touching the ground.”

CarMax is the largest US used car retailer, but rival Carvana has closed the retail sales gap between the two companies to about 6,000 vehicles as of the two most recent comparable quarters.

Activist Starboard Is Said to Build $350 Million Stake in CarMax

CarMax is the largest US used car retailer, but rival Carvana has closed the retail sales gap between the two companies to about 6,000 vehicles as of the two most recent comparable quarters.

Max Knoblauch4h

A “Pokémon” game similar to “Animal Crossing” is selling out at US retailers, boosting Nintendo shares

“Pokémon Pokopia,” a Switch 2 exclusive game in the vein of “Animal Crossing,” has become something of a sleeper mass hit for Nintendo, sending the gaming giant’s shares climbing. The stock closed up more than 8% in Japan on Wednesday. US ADRs are up 5% in premarket trading.

Physical editions of “Pokopia” are currently out of stock on Walmart’s website, and earlier this week Amazon temporarily hiked the price of the game to $80 as demand surged.

“Pokopia” falls into a category of cozy games that have become a major industry category. “Animal Crossing” is the second-most-popular title on the original Switch and has sold more than 49 million copies. The 10-year-old “Stardew Valley” has sold more than 50 million copies across consoles and PC.

The Switch 2 is seeing a momentum boost from the “Pokémon” exclusive, Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal wrote in a recent note. That’s helping to offset investor fears around the growing issue of memory prices.

Luke Kawa5h

Nebius spikes after announcing $2 billion investment from Nvidia

Nebius is soaring in premarket trading after deepening its partnership with the world’s most valuable company.

Nvidia will invest $2 billion in the neocloud to help “develop and deploy the next generation of hyperscale cloud for the AI market, from AI natives to enterprises,” according to the press release. “To enable Nebius to deploy more than 5 gigawatts of capacity by end of 2030, NVIDIA will support Nebius’s early adoption of the latest generation of NVIDIA’s accelerated computing platform.”

The chip designer already held roughly $100 million in Nebius stock as of the end of 2025, per a filing.

Nvidia has actively sought out $2 billion equity stakes via partnerships with smaller publicly traded AI plays as of late. Earlier this month, Nvidia said it would take $2 billion positions in advanced optics firms Lumentum and Coherent. In late January, the chip designer announced an investment of the same amount in CoreWeave, the neocloud whose IPO it also anchored.