Apple & Amazon Ease Megatech Nerves; Trump Says GOP Should Ditch Filibuster

On today's podcast:

1) The mood in US stock markets has been lifted again by strong earnings from Apple and Amazon to round up the week of mega-cap results. Futures for both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 were higher after both indexes sunk on Thursday. Apple forecast a major surge in sales for the holiday season to provide assurance to investors that the iPhone remains a growth driver, while Amazon’s cloud division notched its best quarterly growth in almost three years. That’s smoothed out the setback in the big tech and AI narrative from the mixed reception to results from Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Alphabet.

2) Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang still hopes to sell chips from the company’s Blackwell lineup to customers in China, though he has no current plans to do so, he told reporters Friday. Blackwell is Nvidia’s latest generation of artificial intelligence semiconductors, figuring prominently as a potential bargaining chip in trade talks between the US and China. Licensing the sale of those products did not figure in the discussion between President Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping this week, with the US leader saying Nvidia and the Chinese government will have to keep talking about the $5 trillion company’s access to the Asian nation’s market.

3) President Trump called on Senate Republicans to vote to get rid of the filibuster in the upper chamber, amid a government shutdown that has lasted nearly a month. Because of the filibuster rule in the US Senate, most legislation needs 60 votes to pass. While a majority of lawmakers could revise those rules, both parties have largely resisted doing so to preserve their ability to shape legislation when outside of the majority. During the recent funding showdown, Democrats have refused to support a Republican bill offering stopgap funding unless the GOP agrees to extend healthcare subsidies.

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