Stock Market Today (LIVE): Amazon’s New Chip; S&P 500 Nears 3-Week Losing Streak

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Amazon, Cerebras Team Up for AI

11:25 am — AMZN -0.3%

Amazon (AMZN 0.83%) and chip startup Cerebras Systems have partnered to challenge Nvidia (NVDA 1.02%) in the high-stakes AI inference market. By integrating Cerebras chips with Amazon’s custom Trainium3 silicon within AWS data centers, the duo plans to launch a high-speed “divide and conquer” service for chatbots and coding tools. Amazon is positioning the offering, arriving in late 2026, as a better value than Nvidia’s upcoming solutions. For investors, this move marks a significant escalation in Amazon’s effort to verticalize its AI stack and reduce reliance on expensive third-party GPUs, potentially protecting margins as AI demand scales.

• Strategic Decoupling: The partnership utilizes Cerebras’ architecture to bypass the costly high-bandwidth memory bottleneck that currently inflates Nvidia’s flagship chip prices.
• First-Mover Ambition: Amazon claims its coordinated chip rollout is just months away from production, potentially beating Nvidia’s own integrated startup solutions to market.

Today’s Take: Evolving Investing With Age

11:15 am

Standard financial advice says to get conservative as you age, but what if your “edge” is in high-growth tech? Our team is debating whether to follow the traditional retirement playbook or stick with high-conviction stocks well into their 60s.

How has your risk tolerance changed over the last decade? Are you getting more “boring” with age, or are you still hunting for the next big innovator? Members can share their thoughts in Today’s Take!

Openings Tick Up as Layoffs Ease

10:30 am

Fresh data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals a surprising spark in a cooling economy: U.S. job openings edged up to 6.9 million in January, beating economist expectations of 6.8 million. While broad market indicators like the S&P 500 have been weighed down by recent job losses, this report shows layoffs actually declined to 1.6 million. The figures offer a momentary counter-narrative to February’s bleak payroll decline, suggesting that while the “quit rate” remains low at 2%, the labor floor hasn’t collapsed yet. For investors, this stabilization provides a necessary data point for the Federal Reserve as it weighs interest rate paths against a backdrop of stagnant growth and geopolitical volatility.

• Fending Off the Downturn: Despite record-low hiring plans reported by private firms like Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the government’s data suggests established vacancies are stickier than predicted.
• The Confidence Gap: A steady 2% quits rate indicates workers are still clutching their current roles tightly, potentially capping wage-push inflation but limiting consumer mobility.

Adobe Settles Legal Fight Over Exit Fees

10:15 am — ADBE -6.4%

Adobe (ADBE 5.21%) agreed to a $75 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve allegations of predatory subscription practices. Regulators accused the software giant of hiding “hefty” termination fees and intentionally complicating the cancellation process for its “annual paid monthly” plans. While Adobe denies any wrongdoing, the company will pay $75 million in cash and provide an additional $75 million in free services to affected users. This legal resolution removes a significant regulatory overhang for the Creative Cloud provider, though it may force a permanent shift in how the company structures its high-margin recurring revenue models moving forward.

• Cleaning Up the Fine Print: The deal mandates more transparent disclosure of monthly fees, potentially lowering the barrier for users to churn during periods of economic tightening.
• Customer Restitution Costs: Beyond the cash penalty, the pledge of $75 million in free services represents a direct hit to future billings that could slightly dilute near-term revenue growth.

Today’s Change

(-5.21%) $-14.05

Current Price

$255.73

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$111B

Day’s Range

$247.20 – $256.63

52wk Range

$244.28 – $422.95

Volume

531K

Avg Vol

5.2M

Gross Margin

88.60%

Adobe’s Next Leader Faces AI Reckoning

9:40 am — ADBE -6.8%

By Andy Cross
 Motley Fool CIO

Adobe (ADBE 5.21%) CEO Shantanu Narayen, who announced yesterday that he is stepping down, has been at Adobe since 1998. He’s been the face of Adobe for almost two decades, making him one of the longest serving CEOs of a major large-cap company. And while the stock has outperformed the S&P over his tenure as CEO, it has trailed the Nasdaq 100, with special difficulty over the past five.

My reaction to Narayen’s announcement was: He’s earned it, good for him, and time to find the next leader to make Adobe as competitive as ever. But that task is increasingly challenging. Even as the company makes ever more investments into AI, and even as it’s showing genuine progress, the AI sword of Damocles hangs over its head — more specifically, the head of its high-margin business model.

Opening Bell

9:35 am

The Dow rose 301 points Friday as West Texas Intermediate crude retreated 3% to $92, offering a reprieve from recent $100 Brent peaks. While the S&P 500 is still tracking for its first three-week losing streak in a year, stocks found support from Personal Consumption Expenditures data, which showed annual inflation at 2.8% — slightly cooler than forecasted. However, the optimism is tempered by a sharp downward revision to fourth-quarter GDP, which grew at a meager 0.7% rate. Morgan Stanley analysts warn that while “AI buildouts” remain a tailwind, a sustained closure of the Strait of Hormuz remains the market’s primary threat.

This Morning’s Breakfast News

7:30 am — ADBE -7.74% in pre-market trading

Adobe (ADBE 5.21%) fell almost 8% ahead of the market open after CEO Shantanu Narayen announced he will step down as part of the broader quarterly results. Revenue and earnings beat estimates, with annualized revenue from AI-first products more than tripling.

• “I want to recognize Shantanu’s contributions as CEO and…for positioning Adobe for success in the AI-driven era”: Frank Calderino, the lead independent director, stated Narayen will stay on until after a successor has been appointed, with the process likely to take several months.
• “That should be our next billion-dollar business”: Narayen pointed to the AI-first product set as being a key profit driver. The company also reported a 17% increase in the number of monthly users across products including Acrobat and Firefly.

Top of the Morning: Build-a-Bear

7:00 am

By Morning Show host Alicia Alfiere
Team Rule Breakers

After nearly 13 years in the top job, Build-a-Bear‘s (BBW 0.96%) CEO Sharon Price John is handing the reins over to COO Chris Hurt. But before she leaves her job, it’s important to give a hat tip to the current CEO and the team that has led the company to new heights.

Sharon Price John was quoted by CNBC saying that: “When I first came in 2013, …the brand was strong…[but, the company had] …a broken business.” Today, it looks like that business is repaired.

During her earnings call sign off, Price John explained that there’s been a lot of change since 2019. The company expanded its addressable market and improved its financials. For example, its revenues improved by more than 50%, pre-tax margins expanded from about 0% to nearly 13%, and the company almost doubled its store contribution margins (store-level EBIT margin for all corporate stores). Build-a-Bear has also gone from a cash burn of about -$1.7 million in 2019 to consistently generating free cash flow. And that free cash flow was important too, because it helped the company return value to shareholders. Build-a-Brear reported that of the years, it paid out $170 million in dividends and repurchased over 4 million shares (which slashed its number of shares by about 25% from its peak).

Today’s Change

(-0.96%) $-0.40

Current Price

$41.17

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$538M

Day’s Range

$39.01 – $41.78

52wk Range

$32.55 – $75.85

Volume

15K

Avg Vol

365K

Gross Margin

55.80%

Dividend Yield

2.12%

Top of the Morning: AI — Bubble or Bust?

5:30 am

By Morning Show host Jim Mueller, CFA
Team Rule Breakers

There is one blogger whom I read, Ed Zitron (“Where’s Your Ed At?”), who is rather (as in very) critical of everything to do with AI. He believes, with some evidence, that companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are losing money hand over fist and that, eventually, something major and unfortunate will happen to them.

Will that lead to a bubble burst of epic proportions? Will it take down – or severely damage – other companies? He’d argue yes, it will.

On the other side is the tremendous growth of this industry and the large amounts of investments being poured in to make it happen. There is a lot of promise in AI and some very interesting and useful applications coming out of it. Companies across the economy’s spectrum are investing in it and integrating it into their own systems and products. Will this work out? A lot of people who should know say it will.

The truth, as it often is, probably lies somewhere in between these two extremes.

ICYMI: Thursday’s Scoreboard

6:45 am — NVO +0.37% in pre-market trading

Novo Nordisk (NVO 0.40%) was the subject of the latest Scoreboard video.

Apple Trims China Fees to Head Off Beijing Probe

6:00 am — AAPL unchanged in pre-market trading

Apple (AAPL 1.17%) is lowering its App Store commission fees in mainland China following intense regulatory pressure in its second-largest market. Starting Sunday, standard fees for in-app transactions will drop from 30% to 25%, while small business rates will slide from 15% to 12%. The move follows similar antitrust concessions in the EU and U.S., but carries unique weight in China, where “super apps” like Tencent‘s WeChat and ByteDance’s TikTok dominate the digital landscape. While the shift is expected to save developers over $870 million annually, it also signals a defensive posture by Apple as it attempts to stave off a formal antitrust investigation from Beijing.

• Eroding the Moat: This fee reduction directly benefits high-grossing international developers like Duolingo (DUOL +2.64%), which generates an estimated $50 million annually from Chinese users and will see an immediate boost to its local margins.
• Strategic Submission: By timing the announcement with “World Consumer Rights Day,” Apple is likely attempting to pre-empt a public shaming by state media, a tactic previously used to force corporate apologies in the region.

Today’s Change

(-1.17%) $-3.00

Current Price

$252.76

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$3.8T

Day’s Range

$251.86 – $256.32

52wk Range

$169.21 – $288.62

Volume

718K

Avg Vol

48M

Gross Margin

47.33%

Dividend Yield

0.41%

Before the Opening Bell

5:15 am

Wall Street is bracing for a volatile Friday as stock futures slide following a 700-point rout on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Geopolitical tensions reached a fever pitch with fresh strikes in Tehran and explosions in Dubai, sending Brent Crude oil prices above $100 per barrel despite a record 400-million-barrel emergency reserve release by the International Energy Agency. Investors are caught in a pincer move: an energy-supply shock that threatens to reignite inflation just as the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, is due for release. With markets already at their lowest levels of 2026, the potential for “sticky” inflation driven by $1.20-per-gallon gas price jumps has effectively priced out hopes for a spring interest rate cut.

• Energy Giants on Watch: While the broader market retreats, oil majors like ExxonMobil (XOM +1.22%) and Chevron (CVX 1.00%) are seeing heightened activity as the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz puts 20% of global oil flow at risk.
• Economic Redline: Today’s PCE reading is paired with a critical revision of Q4 GDP; if growth continues to underperform while energy costs soar, the “stagflation” narrative could become the dominant market theme for the quarter.