Closing Bell: Warner Bros Splits Up, Qualcomm Rises, Apple Slides

On this episode of Stock Movers:

Listen for comprehensive cross-platform coverage of the US market close as heard on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio, and YouTube with Romaine Bostick, Scarlet Fu, Alix Steel, Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec.

- Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) initially saw its shares rise on the word it's splitting itself in half, unshackling its fast-growing streaming business from the struggling legacy media channels and setting up two independent companies that could pursue deals on their own. The new Global Networks business will include entertainment, sports and dozens of cable television brands such as CNN, TNT and TBS and will be headed by Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels. It will hold a 20% stake in the other Streaming and Studios business, headed by Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav, and use proceeds from that entity as a way to cut debt, the company said in a statement on Monday. The move unwinds much of the 2022 merger that combined AT&T’s WarnerMedia, which houses iconic film studios and TV franchises, and Discovery Inc., home to nonfiction documentaries and reality TV. The deal created a company weighed down with debt at a time when cable TV, its largest business, was hemorrhaging viewers and advertising dollars.

- Qualcomm (QCOM) shares rose after it agreed to buy London-listed semiconductor company Alphawave IP Group Plc for about $2.4 billion in cash to expand its technology for artificial intelligence. The offer equates to about 183 pence per share for Alphawave, the companies said in a statement on Monday. That’s a 96% premium to the company’s share price on March 31, the last trading day before Alphawave and Qualcomm disclosed the talks. The deal, which is still subject to regulatory and shareholder approval, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026. Qualcomm Chief Executive Officer Cristiano Amon is looking to lessen the company’s reliance on the smartphone market, where growth has slowed, and push into new areas. Alphawave makes high-speed semiconductor and connectivity technology that can be used for data centers and AI applications, two growth areas in the chip industry that are being driven by demand for products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

- Apple (AAPL) shares fell after the keynote to the iPhone maker's Worldwide Developers Conference didn’t ease concerns about the company’s position with artificial intelligence. This was despite unveiling the most sweeping software redesign in its history, aiming to make the company’s device lineup more cohesive and useful, even while doing little to upgrade its struggling artificial intelligence platform. The new interface, called Liquid Glass, was introduced Monday at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. The approach uses transparent menus and a glassy look, transforming the software on the company’s iPhone, iPad, Mac, TV platform, smartwatches and Vision Pro headset. The changes come as part of iOS 26, watchOS 26 and visionOS 26, which have been rebranded to mark the coming year rather than a version number. Apple also retooled its iPad software to make the device feel more like a Mac, something customers have long requested.

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