Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ Finpresso.
In today's newsletter:
⚖️ Google avoids forced breakup of ad tech business
🍔 Delivery Hero backs Uber's $15B takeover
☁️ Microsoft finally unveils Azure's true scale
📉 Broadcom shares drop 5% on weak guidance
📈 Snowflake soars 22% on AI coding growth
Plus: 🌍 11 macro news, 🏢 9 corporate news, and 📑 6 research & reports.
| ⚖️ Google avoids forced breakup of ad tech business LINK |
- A federal judge spared Google from breaking up its advertising technology arm, rejecting the Justice Department's bid to force a sale of its AdX exchange, the marketplace linking publishers selling online ad space to advertisers.
- Judge Leonie Brinkema also declined to make Google open-source or divest DoubleClick for Publishers, instead accepting mostly behavioral fixes, the specifics of which remain sealed, after last year's finding that the company illegally monopolized ad tech.
- The ruling marks a partial win for Google following the DOJ's 2023 lawsuit, mirroring its search case where the company was found to hold an illegal monopoly in August 2024 but avoided being forced to sell off its Chrome browser.
| 🍔 Delivery Hero backs Uber's $15B takeover LINK |
- Delivery Hero's board has endorsed Uber's $15 billion takeover, urging shareholders to approve a deal that would create one of the world's largest on-demand food delivery platforms outside China.
- Uber, already Delivery Hero's biggest shareholder, needs acceptances of 50% plus one share; fellow major holder Prosus has agreed to sell its 17% stake, and the boards called the price "fair and adequate."
- The deal would double Uber's global footprint and strengthen its hand against DoorDash and Just Eat Takeaway, extending a wave of delivery consolidation that includes DoorDash's $3.87 billion purchase of the UK's Deliveroo.
| ☁️ Microsoft finally unveils Azure's true scale LINK |
- Microsoft will disclose Azure's actual quarterly revenue for the first time, giving investors a clearer view of the cloud unit that competes with Amazon's AWS and Google Cloud, as it cuts its reporting segments from three to two.
- Under the new structure, Azure revenue grew 42% to $29.42 billion in the June quarter, nearly a third of Microsoft's total sales, with management guiding to 44% to 45% growth this quarter, stripped of GitHub, security and healthcare cloud products.
- The AI boom has fueled Azure, with Stifel estimating in July that about half of its 2026 growth came from OpenAI, while paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats topped 30 million, up from more than 20 million in April.
| 📉 Broadcom shares drop 5% on weak guidance LINK |
- Broadcom shares fell more than 5% in after-hours trading, to about $361.74 from a $367.24 close, even after posting record quarterly revenue of $29.59 billion, up 86%, with adjusted earnings of $3.32 beating estimates.
- The disappointment centered on guidance: Q4 revenue of roughly $34.8 billion trailed the $35.03 billion consensus, and while AI chip revenue jumped 221% to $16.7 billion, analysts said the roughly $300 million beat looked small against Nvidia's surprises.
- Management raised its fiscal 2027 AI chip revenue target to about $115 billion from $100 billion, still short of some investor forecasts above $150 billion, as reports that Google is expanding chip work with rival Marvell stoke competition worries.
| 📈 Snowflake soars 22% on AI coding growth LINK |
- Snowflake shares jumped 22% in extended trading yesterday after the data analytics firm posted quarterly results and raised its outlook, driven partly by momentum in its AI coding tools.
- Revenue climbed 35% from a year earlier in the quarter ended July 31, while the net loss narrowed to $191.7 million, or 55 cents a share, from $297.9 million, or 89 cents, a year ago.
- Snowflake raised its full-year product revenue forecast to $6.07 billion from $5.84 billion in May, and pointed to its CoCo AI coding agent, which added over 2,000 accounts in the quarter to reach 9,100.
🌍 Macro News
- South Korea's chip exports jumped 209% year-over-year to a record $46.65 billion in August… LINK
- U.S. private employers added just 38,000 jobs in August… LINK
- The Bank of Canada left its benchmark overnight rate at 2.25 per cent… LINK
- The Dutch central bank has moved roughly 86 tons of gold… LINK
- US stocks recovered from earlier losses to close higher on Wednesday after New York Fed President… LINK
- A worldwide bond sell-off has pushed borrowing costs to multiyear highs… LINK
- Qatar and the UAE resorted to transferring three LNG cargoes ship-to-ship outside the Strait of Hormuz… LINK
- India raised $127 billion through special deposits from Indians living abroad… LINK
- Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs disclosed a further $20 billion in planned US investment from Taiwanese… LINK
- New Jersey has asked the US Supreme Court to settle who controls sports betting on prediction… LINK
- The CFTC has asked a Washington federal court to dismiss CME Group's lawsuit over its approval… LINK
🏢 Corporate News
- Alphabet's Google plans to release a coding-focused AI model… LINK
- Uber said today it will cut 10% of its workforce… LINK
- Hewlett Packard Enterprise beat expectations and raised its fiscal 2026 forecast… LINK
- The Trump administration filed a 20-page brief backing OpenAI in The New York Times' lawsuit… LINK
- Wonderful, an Israeli-Dutch AI startup, raised $550 million in a Series C round that values it… LINK
- TabaPay, a payment-processing platform, will acquire Colorado's Transact Bank and rebrand it as TabaBank… LINK
- Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken… LINK
- Félix, a WhatsApp-based money-transfer service for Latinos in the US… LINK
- Two Thai businessmen, Nutthawat Rukthammachalern and Natthawat Kasamvilas… LINK
📈 Stocks
| ▲ Biggest winners |
| CF Industries Holdings rose 3% after Q2 sales of $2.22 billion and Blue Point One groundbreaking. LINK |
| CNH Industrial rose 9% after Q2 revenue of $4.80 billion topped Wall Street estimates. LINK |
| Exelixis rose 3% after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld three patents covering CABOMETYX through January 15, 2030. LINK |
| ▼ Biggest losers |
| Credo Technology Group Holding fell 20% after GAAP gross margin declined to 64.5% from 68.2%. LINK |
| Pershing Square fell 5% after Bill Ackman blamed retail investors for the fund's poor performance. LINK |
| Pacific Gas & Electric fell 5% after California lawmakers rejected Governor Newsom's $6 billion wildfire liability cap legislation. LINK |
📑 Research & Reports
- The dollar's slide to 56% of global central-bank reserves in 2025 from 64% in 2015 is… LINK
- AI systems that act autonomously could lift the accuracy of corporate cash-flow forecasts over 30… LINK
- The Fed's Beige Book, published yesterday… LINK
- The AI boom is straining tech firms' climate goals… LINK
- EMVCo, the standards body behind global card payments… LINK
- Bernstein started SpaceX at Outperform with a $248 price target… LINK