Hey Snackers,
Estée Lauder has found a way to cash in on people who shop for perfume online by debuting an “AI Scent Advisor,” developed with Google Cloud for Jo Malone. Using chatbot conversations to attempt to capture the intangible experience of scent, the parent company of fragrance brands like Tom Ford, Frederic Malle, Le Labo, and Kilian hopes the model can convince online shoppers to spend north of $100 on fragrances they’ve never actually smelled before.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 rose again on Friday, while the Russell 2000 retreated after notching a new record close Thursday. All three indexes posted weekly gains. The S&P 500 came within striking distance of its all-time highest close Friday morning before losing steam. It’s been a great run for the benchmark index, which has risen nine out of the last 10 trading sessions.
A reading of September’s personal consumption expenditures, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, was in line with expectations, maintaining investors’ hope of a rate cut at the Fed meeting this week.
🎥 Trivia time… Test how well you know flicks, kicks, chips, and more with our Snacks Seven Quiz. Here’s the first question:
Which movie had the highest-grossing debut of 2025 globally?
Technology giants sure don’t look like they used to, as the asset-light era fades
As the viral posts on social media might tell you: Airbnb owns no hotels, Uber doesn’t have any cars (still true-ish), and DoorDash doesn’t have ovens to make a pizza or woks to whip up a pad thai. Spend a little to make a lot. Spin up a website; throw a few bucks at a server; buy some Facebook ads; get a million downloads for your app; and then kick back and enjoy the fruits of the super-lean business model.
So much for that asset-light era in the tech industry.
Big Tech’s AI infrastructure build-out is so enormous that some of America’s most valuable tech companies, like Oracle and Meta, now screen more like energy companies when you look at the intensity of their capital expenditure.
Consult a list of the most capital-intensive companies in the S&P 500 Index, ranked by Wall Street’s estimates for their sales divided by their capex, and you’ll find it’s lousy with utilities. This makes sense: the core of their business model is that those companies spend a lot of money to build infrastructure.
But crashing the list is Oracle (with 56% capex intensity, between the utilities PPL and Dominion Energy) and Meta (with 45% capex intensity, among utilities like PG&E, Duke Energy, and DTE Energy).
Oracle is the most startling name here, with Wall Street anticipating that the company will spend $56 on capex for every $100 it makes in revenue over the next 12 months, as it looks to the debt markets to fund its remarkable binge. Meta isn’t far behind Oracle: the Street expects that $45 out of every $100 that comes through its doors will be spent on chips, servers, data centers, and more.
The Takeaway
OpenAI, which — for now — remains a private company, would be completely off the deep end of that table, considering it’s signed something north of $1 trillion worth of infrastructure deals. Even the firms categorized as real estate companies on the list, Digital Realty and Equinix, are in the data center business. That means that of the top 25 most capital-intensive businesses in the S&P 500, 100% of them are either utilities or are focused on building out data centers.
The Story We’re Watching
NetflixMAX: On Friday, it seemed that the battle for Warner Bros. Discovery was over, with the largest global streamer, Netflix, announcing an $83 billion deal for WBD’s streaming and studio businesses, at $27.75 per share. This may seem like an absurd amount of money, but let’s put it in perspective:
Since the end of 2019, Netflix has spent over $87 billion to add content assets to its vast library. So for $4 billion less, Netflix could now add all the original series ever produced by HBO as well as the 100-year-plus portfolio of Warner Bros. films.
That’ll probably entail higher subscription costs for Netflix users; what the net cost for those who subscribe to both services ends up being is one of many things that are very much up in the air.
Speaking of “Up in the Air,” a movie that you can stream on rival Paramount+, the parent company of that streaming service, newly created giant Paramount Skydance (which seemed very much ahead in the early stages of this acquisition race) has already cried foul on the deal, questioning the “fairness and adequacy” of the bidding process.
And it’s not the only one: the Netflix-Warner Bros. deal now faces a wall of opposition from theater owners, the WGA, film producers, and Congress, all of which had something negative to say about the merger.
This is all to say it’s too early to utter Bugs Bunny’s farewell of “That’s all, folks!” But even if the deal is terminated on antitrust grounds, Netflix will owe Warner Bros. $5.8 billion in cash, so we remain bullish on calling WBD the winner no matter how this series ends.
The Best Thing We Read Today
Charlie Kirk’s Wikipedia page was the top English-language article on the site in 2025
Like with most other years, Wikipedia’s top entries of the year reflected the fact that millions flock to the platform to learn more about political figures, films, and tragic fatalities, such as Charlie Kirk’s. This year’s top three articles have amassed 118.6 million views between them — more than the 101.3 million tally clocked by the leaders from last year’s chart.
Snacks Shots
🏈 NFL: Tonight the Philadelphia Eagles take on the Los Angeles Chargers in what’s anticipated to be a tight contest. Philly’s the favorite, with the visiting team trading at a 58% chance to win at SoFi Stadium.
🎬 Movies: This morning we’ll get the nominees for the Golden Globes, and so far it’s still an open race in both the Drama and the Musical/Comedy categories of Best Motion Picture. On Friday we got the Critics Choice nominations, with “Sinners” leading the nominations with 17, followed by “One Battle After Another” with 14 and a bit of a surprise overperformance of “Sentimental Value,” indicating that the Oscars race is still wide open.
🍎 CEO: Silicon Valley insiders — including Apple executives — increasingly believe longtime CEO Tim Cook may be nearing the end of his tenure, and the current succession race looks likely to come down to a few key men. John Ternus, Apple’s hardware chief, is leading with a 56% chance on Polymarket and an even higher 74% chance on Kalshi of heading the iPhone maker next, though there are others in the running.
*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.
What Else We're Snackin'
Meta reignited its on-again, off-again relationship with news organizations with multiple AI content licensing deals
Meanwhile, both The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune filed lawsuits against AI search startup Perplexity
You look Marvell-less: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to shift its custom chip business to Broadcom from Marvell
Are you overlooking the middle?
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Snack Fact Of The Day
The 43-day government shutdown cost Southwest Airlines between $100 million and $300 million.
This Week's Earnings
Earnings expected from Toll Brothers
Earnings expected from Lands’ End, Campbell’s, AutoZone, Cracker Barrel, GameStop, Dave & Buster’s, and Casey’s General Stores
OMC interest rate decision and Fed chair press conference; earnings expected from Chewy, Vail Resorts, Oracle, Planet Labs, and Adobe
Initial Jobless Claims; earnings expected from Lululemon, Costco, RH, and Broadcom
Earnings expected from Rent the Runway
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