📦 Amazon Delivery Robots

Good afternoon! Steve Ballmer isn’t just yelling courtside, he’s quietly pocketing $1 billion a year in Microsoft dividends. The former CEO owns about 333 million shares, and with Microsoft’s 2024 dividend raised to $3 per share, that works out to a cool $2.7 million per day in passive income. That’s what happens when you set it, forget it, and let Satya Nadella do the heavy lifting.

Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 as employee #30 and rode the rocket all the way up. Since stepping down in 2014, his net worth has jumped from $20 billion to $130 billion, putting him neck-and-neck with Gates and Ellison. Also unlike Gates, Ballmer hasn’t sold a thing. Now if only his Clippers could put up numbers like that.

MARKETS

• The S&P 500 closed above the 6,000 mark for the first time since February, lifted by a better-than-expected jobs report and a glimmer of hope in US-China trade talks. The Dow surged 443 points, while the Nasdaq tacked on 1.2%, with gains fueled by easing fears of an economic slowdown.

• Investors cheered the solid nonfarm payrolls print, which suggested the economy is still holding up without overheating. Meanwhile, news of potential reconciliation between Trump and China and even some cooling between Trump and Musk added just enough optimism to send stocks into rally mode ahead of the weekend.

STOCKS
Winners & Losers

What’s up 📈

• Circle Internet Group surged 29.40%, extending its IPO rally after Thursday’s explosive debut, as the stablecoin issuer gained momentum with retail and institutional investors. ($CRCL)

• Omada Health jumped 21.05% on its Nasdaq debut after pricing at $19 and opening at $23, marking another successful public listing for a digital health company. ($OMDA)

• Quanex Building Products rallied 10.59% after crushing earnings expectations with $0.60 per share vs. $0.47 forecast and revenue of $452M. ($NX)

• Rocket Lab rose 9.34% as investors speculated that Elon Musk’s feud with Trump could benefit competing aerospace firms. ($RKLB)

• Solaris Energy Infrastructure gained 10.58% after Barclays initiated coverage with an overweight rating and bullish outlook for distributed energy growth. ($SEI)

• Tesla rebounded 3.67% following a brutal selloff the previous day, as investors digested the Musk-Trump drama. ($TSLA)

• Coreweave added 3.78% as momentum continued from its recent IPO and AI-driven rally, especially after a new partnership with Applied Digital. ($CRWE)

What’s down 📉

• Petco Health plunged 23.34% after reporting a larger-than-expected quarterly loss and weak same-store sales. ($WOOF)

• Lululemon dropped 19.80% after slashing its outlook and warning of price hikes to combat rising tariffs. ($LULU)

• DocuSign fell 18.97% after cutting full-year billings guidance and disappointing on fiscal outlook. ($DOCU)

• G-III Apparel Group tumbled 18.65% following a bleak second-quarter forecast well below consensus. ($GIII)

• Braze declined 17.65% after providing weak forward guidance despite a solid earnings beat. ($BRZE)

• ABM Industries slipped 9.07% on mixed results and a muted outlook despite meeting EPS expectations. ($ABM)

• Broadcom dipped 5.00% after reporting soft free cash flow for Q2, missing analyst forecasts. ($AVGO)

• Samsara fell 4.55% after projecting slowing revenue growth both sequentially and year-over-year. ($IOT)

ROBOTICS
Amazon ‘testing humanoid robots to deliver packages’

Step aside, gig workers—your new competition doesn’t need sleep, snacks, or a salary. Amazon is reportedly training humanoid robots to hop out of Rivian vans and drop off packages like cybernetic FedEx guys.

According to The Information, Amazon is building a “humanoid park” at one of its San Francisco offices—a test zone about the size of a coffee shop where robots practice climbing out of electric vans and navigating simulated neighborhoods. Think of it like a jungle gym for bots, minus the monkey bars and plus a $16,000 robot from China-based Unitree.

From Warehouse to Your Welcome Mat

Amazon already uses a fleet of autonomous warehouse robots and recently launched a new agentic AI team to build next-gen systems that understand natural language commands like “Pick up that yellow tote.” It’s the kind of upgrade that might turn your average warehouse robot into a multitasking butler—if your butler were shaped like a crash test dummy.

Now, the company wants to bring that automation to the “last mile” of delivery. That includes testing whether a humanoid robot can leap out of a van and trot up your driveway without tripping over a kid’s scooter or getting chased by a chihuahua.

Humans, Meet Your Rivian-Riding Replacements

If successful, these robots could eventually assist or even replace human delivery drivers—especially for repetitive, physically demanding tasks. Amazon has already rolled out Agility Robotics’ bipedal “Digit” bots in its warehouses, and it owns Zoox, a robotaxi firm, hinting at a future where the company controls every step of delivery from warehouse to doorstep… with barely a human in sight.

Labor advocates, of course, are raising eyebrows. With Amazon employing hundreds of thousands of delivery workers globally, a robot army could have massive implications for the labor market—particularly if they become cost-effective, tireless, and safe enough to scale.

Bottom Line: Amazon is betting big on bots, and they’re not just for warehouses anymore. If the humanoid park experiments succeed, your next Prime order might be hand-delivered by a walking, talking, package-toting Terminator minus the apocalypse. For now.

NEWS
Market Movements

• 🤖 Tesla’s Optimus robotics lead exits abruptly: Milan Kovac, head of engineering for Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot program, has left the company immediately—just as Elon Musk declares the company’s future hinges on autonomous vehicles and robots. Autopilot chief Ashok Elluswamy will now oversee the project. ($TSLA)

• 📊 May jobs report beats estimates but revisions disappoint: The U.S. added 139,000 jobs in May, topping forecasts of 126,000, while unemployment stayed at 4.2%. Despite weak revisions for prior months, markets rallied on the headline, pushing major indices to session highs. ($SPY, $QQQ, $IWM)

• 🐶 Petco tumbles 25% on sales miss: Petco shares dropped 23% after reporting a 1.3% decline in same-store sales—more than double the expected drop. Net sales in food and treats fell 2%, and the retailer now expects full-year sales to decline in the low single digits. ($WOOF)

• 🔫 SCOTUS shields U.S. gunmakers from Mexico lawsuit: The Supreme Court unanimously ruled to dismiss Mexico’s case against Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms, protecting gunmakers from liability over cross-border violence. ($SWBI)

• 🚁 Walmart expands drone delivery to 100 stores: Walmart will roll out drone delivery services across 100 stores in five states in a bid to speed up shipping and compete with Amazon’s growing logistics network. ($WMT)

• 📱 Apple slides 16% YTD on multiple pressures: Apple stock is down sharply this year amid tariff exposure, weak iPhone sales, delayed AI features, and legal scrutiny over App Store fees and its search deal with Google. ($AAPL)

• 🎢 Disney says parks generate $67B in economic impact: Disney revealed its U.S. theme parks contribute $67B annually to the economy and support 400,000+ jobs, highlighting their economic importance amid policy debates. ($DIS)

• 🧾 UnitedHealthcare sues The Guardian for defamation: UnitedHealthcare has filed a lawsuit alleging defamation over claims the insurer cut care to boost profits following its CEO’s murder, citing reputational damage. ($UNH)

• 📚 Amazon cuts jobs in books division: Amazon eliminated fewer than 100 roles across Kindle and Goodreads as part of its latest cost-cutting round. Shares have dropped 5.6% year-to-date. ($AMZN)

GAMING
Nintendo’s Switch 2 launch appears to be off to a solid start leading to shortages

The Switch 2 didn’t just drop — it detonated. Fans lined up in folding chairs and sleeping bags for a shot at Nintendo’s ($NTDOY) long-awaited sequel, which launched Thursday at $449.99. It's been eight years since the OG Switch became a global juggernaut, and with shares up nearly 5x since that 2017 debut, the pressure’s on to keep the streak alive.

Retailers braced for chaos. Best Buy ($BBY) called it a clean sweep, GameStop ($GME) warned of months-long shortages, and in Japan, over 2.2 million hopefuls entered a lottery just for a launch-day unit. The new console packs a bigger 1080p screen, 256GB of storage, “10x the graphics,” and controllers that moonlight as computer mice. Nintendo expects 15M in sales by March 2026 — analysts say that’s playing it safe.

Tactical Delays and Trade War Jitters

Nintendo’s supply chain shuffle is proving to be a coin toss. The 2019 move from China to Vietnam helped dodge old tariffs, but Trump’s new 46% duties on Vietnamese goods nearly blew up the launch. A late-stage backpedal spared Switch 2’s big day, but with only ~746K units landed in the U.S., tariff math could soon hit consumers like a blue shell.

Software’s the Secret Weapon

More than the hardware, it’s the games that could make or break this launch. “Mario Kart World,” a flagship $80 title, is expected to lead the charge. The original version outsold Zelda and Animal Crossing by 20M copies — and it’s doing the heavy lifting again. Higher software prices also mean Nintendo can absorb shipping and tariff bumps better than most.

Zoom Out

With trade policy as unpredictable as a Smash Bros. tournament final, Nintendo’s strategy is to sell hard, fast, and globally — before politics mess with its power-up. The Switch 2 is off to a roaring start, but its long-term success might hinge on whether Mario can still drift past global supply snags and tariff traps.

Calendar
On The Horizon

Next Week

Next week’s earnings lineup is looking pretty thin—only a few latecomers are stepping up to the mic. GameStop kicks things off Tuesday, with Chewy, Oracle, and Adobe rounding it out midweek. But the real action is in the economic data. We’ll get wholesale inventory figures on Monday, a read on small business sentiment Tuesday, and then things heat up with Wednesday’s CPI print, Thursday’s PPI, and Friday’s consumer sentiment check. Meanwhile, all eyes will be on Apple as it tries to convince the world it’s still in the AI race at its annual WWDC event.

NEWS
The Daily Rundown

• 📉 ECB Cuts Rates Again Amid Trade Tensions: The European Central Bank lowered its key interest rate by 0.25% to 2%, marking its eighth cut in a year. With inflation back at target but U.S. tariffs pressuring growth, ECB President Christine Lagarde said future moves will depend on trade risks and geopolitical shifts.

• 🌫 Inflation Data Under Scrutiny Due to BLS Staffing Crisis: Economists warn that U.S. inflation figures may be less reliable due to a Trump-era hiring freeze at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. With staff down 15% and data gaps in several cities, the BLS is increasingly relying on imputation—raising concerns about the accuracy of CPI data that guides Fed policy and cost-of-living adjustments.

• 🧾 “Big Beautiful” Tax Bill Could Add $2.4T to Deficit: The CBO says Trump’s sweeping tax-and-spending proposal would cut taxes by $3.75 trillion but increase the federal deficit by $2.4 trillion. The bill also risks leaving 10.9 million more people uninsured. The Trump camp claims tariffs will offset some of the costs—if they remain.

• 🚫 Trump Bans Entry from 12 Countries: President Trump signed a proclamation barring entry to citizens from countries including Iran, Libya, and Yemen, with new restrictions placed on another seven. The move echoes his first-term travel ban and is already drawing international criticism.

• 📞 Trump and Xi Talk Trade, Rare Earths: Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping held a 90-minute phone call, their first since January. The two discussed trade, with Trump claiming rare earth metals were part of the talk—though China’s readout omitted that topic. Trump described Xi as “EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!”

• 📉 Procter & Gamble to Cut 15% of Office Jobs: P&G is laying off 7,000 non-manufacturing workers in a restructuring effort. The company says it’s not cutting costs, but the decision follows slumping sales and a cautious consumer environment. P&G also plans to exit certain product categories.

• 👩‍⚖️ SCOTUS Opens Door to Reverse Discrimination Lawsuits: The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that straight or white employees can sue for discrimination without needing extra proof of bias. Legal experts say the decision may fuel more lawsuits against corporate DEI initiatives.

• 👶 Japan’s Birth Rate Falls Below 700K for First Time: Japan recorded just 686,061 births in 2024—the lowest since records began in 1899. With a fertility rate of 1.15 and a rapidly aging population, officials warn of a “silent emergency” threatening the country’s economic future.

• 💼 Kimberly-Clark Spins Off Global Tissue Division in $3.4B Deal: Kimberly-Clark sold a 51% stake in its international tissue business to Brazil’s Suzano, forming a joint venture with 22 sites across 14 countries. The move lets K-C refocus on North America and higher-margin personal care products.

• 🏀 NBA Sponsorships Hit $1.62B, Up 8%: NBA team sponsorship revenue jumped to $1.62 billion this season, led by jersey patch deals and new arenas like the Intuit Dome. The Warriors pulled in over $200 million, and rookie Jared McCain scored a record 30 brand deals.

• 🍗 Hooters Shutters 30+ Locations Amid Bankruptcy: Hooters is closing over 30 company-owned restaurants and shifting to a full franchise model after filing Chapter 11. The plan includes streamlining menus, upgrading training, and keeping 260 locations open worldwide.

• 🧤 TSA Eyes VR Pat-Downs With Haptic Tech: The TSA is testing virtual reality and haptic gloves to simulate pat-downs without touching passengers. The early-stage project aims to boost privacy and comfort at airport checkpoints and has been in development since 2022.. Fans are calling it one of his most anticipated releases yet.

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