Hey Snackers,
We’re at the Pizza Hut. We’re at the Taco Bell. We’re wondering what will happen to the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell if this happens: private equity firm LongRange Capital may pick up the pizza purveyor from parent Yum! Brands. For years, the cheesy chain has been the laggard of its fast-food franchises, with Taco Bell leapfrogging ahead to become the company’s second-best brand.
Stocks continued to power higher on Monday, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 setting new record closing highs, though the Russell 2000 dipped. The S&P 500 has risen for its eighth straight session, its longest winning streak in over a year.
Nvidia jumps after entering laptop market with new PC “superchip”
Nvidia shares rose more than 6% Monday after the company announced its push into the PC processor market, unveiling the company’s highly anticipated RTX Spark “superchip,” a new processor designed to bring advanced AI capabilities directly to Windows laptops.
“There is no question this reinvention of the computer is as big of a deal as the reinvention of the phone into what we now know as the smartphone,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at the Computex trade show in Taipei.
Nvidia said the company is reimagining the PC “for the first time in 40 years” and the new platform is built for “agentic AI,” allowing AI models and assistants to run locally on laptops rather than relying entirely on cloud computing.
Microsoft simultaneously unveiled its Surface Laptop Ultra powered by RTX Spark, while Dell, HP, and Lenovo are expected to launch systems based on the chip later this year.
RTX Spark combines an Arm-based CPU, Nvidia’s Blackwell graphics architecture, and dedicated AI hardware into a single chip designed for AI-heavy workloads.
Shares of Intel, Qualcomm, and AMD sank after the Nvidia announcement.
The Takeaway
This move put the company into more direct competition with Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and Apple in the personal computing industry. The move also positions the RTX Spark on a collision course with the M5 from Apple, which also traded lower. Meanwhile, Arm Holdings (on whose architecture RTX Spark is built) surged.
For investors, the announcement serves as another reminder that the AI trade is increasingly expanding beyond data centers and into consumer hardware.
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Meta thinks it can save its hardware division with AI subscriptions. There are reasons to be skeptical.
Fresh after rejuvenating investors with alternate revenue streams, Meta is throwing them a curve. It believes the path to those software riches requires pushing even deeper into money-losing hardware.
While Mark Zuckerberg’s Reality Labs division continues to rack up losses at a spectacular rate — to the tune of $4 billion last quarter alone and $83 billion since the fourth quarter of 2020 — a newly leaked internal memo reported by The Information reveals Meta thinks it can use physical gadgets as the ultimate Trojan horse for AI software subscriptions.
Meta is reportedly prepping an ambitious new lineup of wearable devices, including expanding its smart glasses lineup, testing an AI-powered pendant, and targeting 10 million device sales in the second half of 2026.
But the real strategy shift isn’t about selling gadgets; it’s about monetizing the software inside them. Meta’s VP of wearables, Alex Himel, noted that to “build a sustainable business beyond hardware margins,” the company needs to push users toward paid subscriptions for its Meta AI chatbot and other apps.
Like much of the tech world, Meta is hoping to develop a cozier relationship with its users by also selling the devices on which they access its software. The thinking is that Meta will sell the hardware as the gateway, and charge monthly for the AI brains.
Wall Street, however, is deeply skeptical for a very simple reason: the math is brutal. Reality Labs lost over $19 billion last year, and Zuckerberg earlier this year said he expects 2026’s losses to be similar.
Himel’s memo says Meta aims to reach 6.8 million monthly active wearable users by the end of this year.
The Takeaway
If we assume a utopian, best-case scenario where literally every single one of those 6.8 million users ponies up for an $8-a-month Meta AI subscription ($96 a year), it would generate roughly $653 million in annual revenue. That covers 3.4% of Reality Labs’ annual operating loss.
To actually break even on an $8 monthly sub, Meta would need around 200 million paying subscribers. For context, Spotify has 293 million paying subscribers globally — and it took the streamer over a decade to get there without asking anyone to wear a camera around their neck or on their face.
Costco’s gas stations are breaking records as drivers seek cheaper fuel
The Iran war’s effects on energy prices mean Americans are feeling pain at the pump and even in the produce aisle. For Costco, though, this pain has come with a perk: soaring demand at its gas stations that broke records, week after week.
Snacks Shots
🤖 Anthropic: As Anthropic reportedly files confidentially for an IPO, its main chatbot’s dominance on the leaderboards has become tough to overstate, with Claude having a 66% chance to finish the year as the top AI on LMArena. Since overtaking Gemini at the beginning of March as the LLM expected to win the year fully, Anthropic’s competitors have failed to rattle its fans.
📊 California: It’s primary election day in California, as the largest state heads to the polls to vote on high-profile municipal races (like a hard-fought Los Angeles mayoral race) as well as the jungle primary for governor. The top two vote-getters regardless of party will advance to the general election. Democrat Xavier Becerra has a 94% chance of advancing, but all eyes will be on who snags that second spot, be it Republican Steve Hilton, with a 72% chance of advancing, or Democrat Tom Steyer, with a 36% chance of making the general.
*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.
What else we're Snackin'
Sen. Bernie Sanders proposed an “American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund” that would slap a one-time 50% tax (paid in stock) on OpenAI, Anthropic, and other major AI firms so taxpayers own half
Bitcoin closed May in the red while Strategy sold 32 bitcoin for $2.5 million — marking the first time the bitcoin on the company’s balance sheet has ever dropped
HYPE hit an all-time high, and the two treasury firms stockpiling the token are currently the only digital asset treasury companies sitting on gains
Snack Fact of the Day
Tesla’s May sales in France grew 655% year over year.
Tuesday
Premarket earnings: Victoria’s Secret and Dollar General
Postmarket earnings: Palo Alto Networks, GitLab, and Ulta Beauty
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