Chapter 1: What impact did Amazon's AI spending have on its stock and the market?
Investors punish Amazon for its AI spending plans and send tech stocks tumbling around the world. Plus, President Trump debuts a government-run drug-buying site in a bid to tackle high prices. You're going to see numbers that you're not going to believe. And we'll go behind the off-field drama ahead of Sunday's Super Bowl. It's Friday, February 6th.
I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. Amazon stock is down more than 7% off hours after the company announced a nearly 60% jump in its planned AI spending, far higher than Wall Street had been expecting.
At the same time, year over year, cloud computing growth of 24% came in below Microsoft's 39% and Alphabet's 48%. Amazon has said that growth rates don't fully capture its standing in the industry. And CFO Brian Olsavsky tried to convince investors that AI spending would pay off.
Chapter 2: What is TrumpRx and how does it aim to address drug prices?
This isn't some sort of quixotic top line grab. You know, we have confidence that that these investments will yield strong returns and invest in capital. We've done that with our core AWS business, and I think that will very much be true here as well.
But that hasn't satisfied investors, as AI spending concerns feed a wider downturn in European and Asian markets this morning. Korea's tech-heavy index even halted trading at one point as stocks slumped. That follows another sell-off in U.S. software stocks yesterday after Anthropic released a new AI model with upgraded data analysis, coding, and product management functions.
Meanwhile, shares of Jeepmaker Stellantis are plunging today to lows not seen since the start of the pandemic. To blame, an announced $26 billion in written-off investments after the company overestimated demand for EVs in the U.S.
Chapter 3: What are the implications of the U.S. preparing for a potential strike on Iran?
Those charges exceed similar recent write-downs by Ford and GM. And so much for Jobs Friday. Thanks to the latest government shutdown that ended on Tuesday, investors won't be getting a look at January's jobs report today as scheduled. Instead, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish the data on Wednesday, shifting the release of January inflation data to next Friday instead.
According to Journal Economics reporter Matt Grossman, investors may need to come to terms with delays to official data, given that four of the last five jobs reports have been delayed in some fashion.
In a broader sense, these numbers have started to look a lot less dependable than they used to. You know, we seem to be in a world now where occasional government shutdown is the rule rather than the exception. And it just gives investors another thing they have to keep on their minds, not just what are the reports going to say, but when are they going to come?
Well, who better to provide insights on the job market than you, our listeners? Whether you're hiring, firing, happily or worriedly employed, looking for a promotion or a new job altogether, we'd love to hear your impressions of the labor market or help to track down an answer to a question on your mind.
Chapter 4: How is Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show controversial?
To weigh in, email us a voice memo to WNPOD at WSJ.com. And make sure to include your full name and location so we can use your comments on the show. The White House has launched its new drug-buying website, TrumpRx, in an effort to bring down health care costs for Americans. Roughly 40 drugs are available, from infertility treatments to obesity medicines such as Wegovi and Zepbound.
During a press conference Thursday, Dr. Mehmet Oz touted how prices on the site are generally lower than the sticker price.
You should not be buying drugs anymore going forward without at least checking to see if those medications are available at these discounted prices on TrumpRx.gov.
While the site won't change much for insured Americans, it's more likely to benefit the roughly 27 million people without coverage. High-stakes talks between Iran and the U.S. over Tehran's nuclear program have ended after just 90 minutes. The U.S.
Chapter 5: What backlash did Bad Bunny face for his comments on immigration?
has amassed air and naval forces near Iran, with President Trump threatening strikes on the country over the mass killing of protesters last month. That crackdown initially stifled opposition to the regime, but journal reporter Margarita Stancati says there are now signs that public anger is rising once again.
So we're beginning to see big and small shows of defiance against the government, despite the continuing crackdown. For example, mourning families are shouting anti-regime slogans at funerals and memorials. We spoke to a student in Tehran who said that in her high school, Students are refusing to sing the national anthem.
People are still really, really angry, and I think it will be really difficult for the government to overcome this. I think, you know, the reason people took to the streets in the first place in late December was over economic problems. People are saying it's very likely we'll see more mass protests, but this time the trigger will be the mass killings that happened in January.
And for more on U.S.
Chapter 6: How are celebrities influencing public opinion on immigration issues?
military readiness for a strike on Iran, check out the link we've left in our show notes. Coming up ahead of a weekend ostensibly about sports, we'll look at how politics is edging its way into the Winter Olympics and Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show. That's after the break. The Super Bowl is this weekend. Seahawks fans and Patriots fans, myself included, will be glued to their screens.
So will ad lovers, sports bettors, and fans of the most streamed musical artist in the world last year on Spotify, Bad Bunny. Journal reporter Sabrina Rodriguez has been keeping an eye on the run-up to what's become one of the most controversial and hotly anticipated halftime shows in years, and she joins me now with more.
Sabrina, you are a politics reporter, we should be clear, not a music reporter. So why then are you on the bad bunny beat, if you will?
I fell into the bad bunny beat back in September when he was first announced to be the Super Bowl halftime headliner.
Chapter 7: What challenges do Democrats face regarding immigration policies?
You know, at the time, it triggered backlash among MAGA influencers and folks in conservative circles, in part because of his opposition to Trump's immigration agenda that he's been very public about. Folks had other complaints about, you know, his exclusive Spanish language lyrics, his gender fluid fashion choices. So it prompted all this backlash at the time.
And then fast forward, the Grammys, one week out from the Super Bowl, and we saw Bad Bunny take the stage, his acceptance speech for the best Música Urbana album. And he used that as an opportunity to say ice out. And that's a phrase that we've seen in protests of the Trump administration's immigration agenda. And now we kind of see that backlash reigniting again.
We are. And we should point out, in addition to speaking out last year, Bad Bunny held the highest grossing concert tour in the world and avoided the mainland U.S. on that tour.
Chapter 8: What can we expect from the upcoming Winter Olympics?
saying that he was concerned that law enforcement would be targeting his fans at those events, so instead had a big residency in Puerto Rico. You mentioned the backlash that his comments have generated. Let's play a clip here from White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt.
I think it's very ironic and frankly sad to see celebrities who live in gated communities with private security, with millions of dollars to spend protecting themselves, trying to just demonize, again, law enforcement, public servants who work for the United States government to enforce our nation's laws.
Sabrina, I'm curious what you make of that, what that might tell us about the impact these comments are having and frankly, whether this is a political stance from a celebrity that could actually matter compared to, shall we say, the many that through the years kind of have not.
Yeah, I mean, I think that the White House press secretary taps into that. a reality of celebrities speaking out. We do see that celebrities are raising public awareness of what's happening. And Bad Bunny's comments at the Grammys sort of reflect the shift that's happening in public opinion right now.
Polls show that a majority of Americans feel that ICE has gone too far and people are souring on how Trump is handling immigration. So it is a moment of showing sort of that shift. However, is it something that's going to cause other people to shift their views on this. That's not necessarily what's going to happen.
And finally, Sabrina, I'm curious what the reaction has been on the other side of the aisle to this from Democrats. We've reported that Democratic lawmakers, for instance, have been far from united on whether they embrace calls to abolish ICE. I'm wondering if there's sort of a similar conundrum for them here.
Yes, this has been a challenge for Democrats. You know, we saw in the 2024 election cycle that immigration was very much one of President Trump's strongest issues. And it's one that he really harnessed and focused in on to bring in voters. Obviously, he was successful in that as he won the presidency. So Democrats have had a hard time navigating the politics of immigration, how to talk about it.
They want to have a humane policy while at the same time enforcing immigration laws or navigating border security. So There's a lot of conversations in Washington right now about reforming ICE. But what the scope of that looks like really varies from Democrat to Democrat. And I think they do not want to fall into what led to Trump being able to harness the issue in the first place.
I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal politics reporter Sabrina Rodriguez. Sabrina, thank you so much.
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