At its annual virtual reality conference, Meta unveiled a slate of new products and features, but the real highlight? The bloopers, including Live AI’s terrible instructions when a celebrity chef requested a recipe for a Korean-inspired steak sauce, or when CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s attempt to take a video call from CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth failed five times, which you can watch here.

The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 all posted fresh closing highs on Thursday.

The benchmark US stock index ended 0.5% higher, the Nasdaq 100 rallied 1%, and the Russell 2000 far outperformed with a 2.5% advance. Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel, and small-cap stocks love Federal Reserve rate cuts.

The record close for the small-cap Russell 2000 was its first since November 2021, which means it’s also the first time in nearly four years that all three major indexes closed at fresh peaks on the same day.

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The chipmaker Intel has successfully hitched its wagon to the biggest star in the semiconductor space: Nvidia. In a joint press release, the two companies announced “a collaboration to jointly develop multiple generations of custom data center and PC products that accelerate applications and workloads across hyperscale, enterprise and consumer markets” — and it will also see Nvidia purchase $5 billion in Intel stock at a price of $23.28 per share.

The deal seems primarily focused on developing new semiconductor products that should improve Intel’s access to the fast-growing AI market, rather than on making Nvidia a customer for Intel’s troubled contract manufacturing business, or “foundry,” where it produces chips for others. 

As Wedbush Securities put it, “This is a game changer deal for Intel as it now brings them front and center into the AI game. Along with the recent US Government investment for 10% this has been a golden few weeks for Intel after years of pain and frustration for investors.”

Wednesday evening, ABC announced it was yanking Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show off the air. An ABC spokesperson said that “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” would be “preempted indefinitely” following comments Kimmel made on his show Monday around the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

The decision — which was strongly condemned by some Democratic lawmakers, entertainment unions, and actors — came after a fierce pressure campaign from FCC Chair Brendan Carr as well as two of the country’s largest TV broadcasting groups, Nexstar and Sinclair Inc., which each own several ABC affiliate stations across the US.

Both companies significantly expanded their market share in Trump’s first term through multibillion-dollar acquisitions, and one is currently looking to get even bigger: Nexstar announced a $6.2 billion merger agreement with rival Tegna, which owns 64 US stations.

The upcoming merger has many critics noting parallels to the cancellation of CBS’s top-rated “Late Night with Stephen Colbert” in July, which came amid the merger of Paramount Skydance. At the time, Paramount called it a “financial decision,” but it was also a move that pleased Trump, who celebrated Colbert’s cancellation in a post on Truth Social, writing, “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next.” And Wednesday night, he lauded Kimmel’s suspension as “great news for America.” When you’re in the middle of a merger deal that could raise regulatory scrutiny, as Nexstar is, it’s good business to have the president on your side.

Call us petty, but sometimes we just enjoy sipping the tea as execs feud online. While Spirit Airlines’ bankruptcy filing sparked some of the social ribbing one would expect (see: jokes about its planes becoming Spirit Halloween stores), you don’t often see the CEO of a rival airline piling on, but United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby sure has, and also brought the CEO of Frontier into the feud. It’s no Drake-Kendrick-level beef, but it’s still fun to follow.

The Winning Formula is a Nasdaq original series spotlighting conversations at the intersection of business and sports.  

Featuring notable athletes, entrepreneurs, and sports executives, the show — hosted by Nasdaq’s Joel Kolani and Poppy Shen — uncovers what drives performance, leadership, and innovation on and off the field. 

Dive into the series on Nasdaq.

NASA’s exoplanet count has passed 6,000, but none are just like Earth.

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