Roblox rallies on a Jefferies price target hike and positive sentiments from Morgan Stanley

Gaming platform Roblox is in the green on Tuesday, following a price target hike from Jefferies to $130 from $126. That target is about 5% below where Roblox is currently trading.

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley maintained its higher $170 target on the company — one of gaming’s biggest “black holes.” Morgan Stanley called Roblox a clear leader in next-gen entertainment, with parallels to YouTube given its strong position in user-generated content.

In recent months, Roblox has seen booming player counts through updates and events in its most popular titles, including “Grow a Garden” and “Steal a Brainrot.” According to third-party tracking firm RoMonitor, “Steal a Brainrot” had more than 25 million concurrent players on Saturday, when a Halloween update was added to the game.

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Tasha Matsumoto, Luke Kawa

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Stocks lose steam after trade tensions reignite

Tech dragged down the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100, but the Russell 2000 posted a new record high close.

Toronto Zoo born giant panda cub in its enclosure for the first time in the day.

J. Edward Moreno55m

Grindr confirms it’s in talks to go private for no less than $15 a share

Grindr said its largest shareholders have “engaged financial and legal advisers” to explore the possibility of taking the company private, according to a Tuesday regulatory filing.

The filing confirms a Monday report from Semafor and adds a tiny bit of clarity: The price for a take-private deal hasn’t yet been determined, the filing said, but it would be no less than $15 a share. Shares of the company, which had surged after the Monday report, pulled back some in Tuesday afternoon trading, to around $12.50.

James Lu and Raymond Zage, the shareholders who together own more than 60% of the gay dating app, have received a preliminary and conditional debt financing proposal of as much as $1 billion, per the filing.

While Grindr has generally performed better than its peers, it is still down about 30% for the year.

The move is being discussed, Semafor reported, as Zage and Lu had pledged nearly all of their Grindr stock for personal loans. Their lender seized some shares and sold them last week after the loans became undercollateralized following the stock's recent slide.

Max Knoblauch3h

US airlines take off as oil prices sink amid trade tensions between the US and China

Oil prices are falling on Tuesday as trade tensions between the US and China ripple across markets and the International Energy Agency warned of a large supply glut that could last into next year. Crude oil contracts were trading at a five month low on Tuesday.

But what’s bad for crude is good for airlines, which stand to benefit from lower fuel costs. Shares of US carriers including JetBlue, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and Southwest’s were all up at least 4% on Tuesday afternoon.

Matt Phillips4h

Data center stocks knocked back amid China stress

The buy-everything-data-center-related trade is having a rough ride Tuesday, with Goldman Sachs’ themed basket of AI data center stocks dropping 1.5% in early trading after soaring more than 3.5% to start the week.

That’s partially because some suppliers of bits and bobs needed to fit out the hangar-like concrete structures selling computing power for AI are still exposed to risks of the China-US trade war, which seems to be flaring anew.

For instance, while most of the switches and routers Arista Networks sells are made in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Mexico, it also gets some products directly from China. The company is also reliant on supplies of some critical metals, exports of which China is clamping down on.

Such actions, the company has previously warned, could lead to disruptions to supplies of components it needs, manufacturing delays, and inventory shortages.

Other related stocks slumped in early trading, including hard disk data storage makers Seagate Technology Holdings and Western Digital — also exposed to Asian supply chains — and server maker Dell.

Chip giants Nvidia and Broadcom were also down more than 3% each after Advanced Micro Devices announced a new deal to deploy its chips in Oracle data centers.

While previous announcements to that effect lifted the AI sector as a whole, the AMD deal wasn’t enough offset the pall cast by the renewed China stress.

J. Edward Moreno6h

OpenAI to offer Walmart products for sale through ChatGPT

Walmart is partnering with OpenAI to enable shoppers to purchase products directly through ChatGPT, an executive for the retail giant told Bloomberg.

Soon, ChatGPT users will be able to look up Walmart products (minus fresh foods) and simply click “buy.” OpenAI previously announced similar partnerships with Etsy and Shopify last month.

Walmart Partners With OpenAI to Offer Shopping on ChatGPT

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