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Roblox’s new Google advertising partnership could give investors 1.2 billion reasons to smile

Morgan Stanley says the gaming giant’s immersive ads are a “highly effective new ad format,” now “incrementally bullish from here.”

Nia Warfield

Roblox shares jumped nearly 3% Wednesday morning as Wall Street continued to cheer its new ad parnership with Google. On Tuesday, the gaming giant unveiled its new rewarded video ads — 30-second clips that players can watch in exchange for in-game perks like extra lives or boosts. In the coming weeks, brands will be able to buy these ads directly or through Google’s platform, expanding Roblox’s ad business.

Morgan Stanley analysts think the partnership could be a turning point for Roblox’s advertising strategy, estimating it could generate a massive $1.2 billion in revenue in 2026. They noted that, unlike Roblox’s existing billboards and portal ads, rewarded videos have a proven track record of driving higher engagement, clearer impressions, and the ability to reuse content.

“Most of [Roblox’s] engagement is entirely unmonetized and ads are a key tool to turn that deficit into a strength,” analysts said in a note Wednesday. “We would also highlight that by giving consumers Robux to spend in experiences, these ads will not only drive developer earnings directly, but could also condition a greater proportion of users to make in-app purchases in general.” 

Roblox has 85.3 million daily active users, mostly Gen Z. Roblox’s ambitions are even bigger: last fall, CEO and cofounder David Baszucki set a target of hitting 1 billion users and 10% of all gaming content revenue worldwide.

Morgan Stanley has an “outperform” rating on Roblox and price target of $75.

Roblox shares are up 70% over the past year.

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Netflix reportedly wins Warner Bros. Discovery bidding war with ~$28 per share offer

Warner Bros. Discovery climbed as much as 7.5% in premarket trading, though it has since pared much of those gains, on reports that Netflix has emerged victorious in the bidding war for the storied media giant, with the winning offer apparently around $28 per share.

According to Deadline reporting yesterday evening, the streamer will start exclusive deal talks for the WBD’s streaming division and its HBO Max streaming service, beating out competition from Comcast and Paramount, the latter of which had been crying foul about the sales process just yesterday, having looked to secure a deal for the Warner Bros. Discovery business in whole.

Despite a recent report that an HBO Max streaming tie in wouldn’t result in a significant market share boost for Netflix, news that sent shares in the streamer tumbling on Wednesday morning, the company has agreed to a $5 billion breakup fee should the deal get halted by regulators, per Bloomberg.

While it’s still far too early to say what impact the potential deal will have on the biggest streaming business in the world, and the wider world of entertainment in general, Netflix investors haven’t seemed hugely enthused by the prospect throughout the process, with shares off another 0.5% as of 5:00 a.m. ET.

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Report: US senators plan to introduce bill blocking Nvidia from selling advanced chips to China for 30 months

US senators are on the verge of introducing a bill that would block Nvidia from selling its H200 or Blackwell chips to China for 30 months, the Financial Times reports. The H200 is Nvidia’s best chip from the Hopper generation, while the Blackwell line is its current flagship offering.

Shares of the chip designer are little changed in the wake of this report, still up more than 1% on the session. The reaction makes sense, seeing as previous positive indications on Nvidia’s ability to sell advanced chips to China failed to inspire much positive momentum in its shares.

The stock got a short-lived jolt higher (that didn’t last the day!) on November 21 after Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration had discussed the possibility of selling its H200 chips to China.

Nvidia has effectively been shut out of China’s AI market in 2025. First, export restrictions meant it could no longer sell the H20, a nerfed version of its Hopper chip, to the world’s second-largest economy. After that export ban was lifted, demand from China “never materialized,” per Nvidia CFO Colette Kress. Reports indicate that China banned its leading technology giants from purchasing these semiconductors, instead pushing them toward domestic alternatives.

President Donald Trump had mused about allowing Nvidia to sell Blackwell chips to China prior to his meeting with Chinese President Xi in late October, but failed to do so. The two leaders did not discuss the topic at that time.

Per the FT, this upcoming bill would be a bipartisan effort, being cosponsored by the leading Republican and Democrat members of the Senate Foreign Relations East Asia subcommittee.

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AI energy plays soar on an explosion of call buying

Like their quantum computing counterparts, AI-linked energy plays are benefiting from an explosion of bullish options activity on Thursday.

  • Oklo is up double digits with call volumes above 106,000 as of 2:46 p.m. ET, more than double its 20-day average for a full session, with a put/call ratio of about 0.6. Call options with a strike price of $110 that expire this Friday (which are now in-the-money thanks to today’s surge) are seeing the most activity.

  • Nuscale, another nuclear energy play, has seen nearly 140,000 call options change hands versus a 20-day average of 51,073.

  • And fuel cell company Bloom Energy has traded nearly 80,000 calls, roughly twice its 20-day average, with a put/call ratio of about 0.3.

During his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast released on Wednesday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang talked up the potential for nuclear energy, saying, “In the next six to seven years I think you are going to see a whole bunch of small nuclear reactors.”

This adds to the evidence that the speculative bid is back in a big way after smaller stocks tied to the AI boom and quantum computing cratered from mid-October through most of November as credit risk began to seep into the AI trade.

Old electronic items tossed on ground for disposal, Hudson

Technology giants don’t look like they used to, as the asset-light era fades

Oracle and Meta are now some of the most capital-intensive businesses in the S&P 500, spending more than energy giants. I guess data really is the new oil?

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