Amazon (AMZN) news that moved the stock

What happened

Amazon recently blocked Meta Platforms' Muse AI agent from making purchases on its site, saying it wasn't informed of Meta's plans to give it access to the platform. Entrepreneur and Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham wrote in an X post overnight on Wednesday that 'Amazon banning agents is the first opportunity I've seen since Amazon was founded for a start-up to create an Amazon competitor,' arguing people will want agents to buy things for them and won't want to use an Amazon-supplied agent to do it. Amazon shares fell 1.9% to $255.05 Thursday afternoon. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What happened

ESPN announced Wednesday that Super Bowl LXI (February 14, 2027, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood) will simulcast on Disney+ alongside ESPN, ABC and ESPN Deportes, in both English and Spanish and across 55 international markets including Brazil, Latin America, South Africa and Australia. It will be the first Super Bowl on Disney+ and the first ever produced by ESPN (Joe Buck and Troy Aikman calling, with ESPN's first Super Bowl since ABC last aired it in 2006). Disney+ will also carry two Monday Night Football games this season, starting with Cowboys-Eagles on October 26, as a trial run. Separately, the Television Academy and Amazon announced the Emmys will move to Prime Video starting in 2027 under a six-year exclusive global streaming deal, free to all viewers in 240+ countries, reportedly worth $20-25 million per year. Disney said Super Bowl ad inventory sold out in August — the earliest sellout by any network in history, with 58 brands across 34 categories.

What happened

Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives, the longtime prominent tech bull, initiated coverage on 49 names across the tech landscape on Wednesday with Outperform ratings across the board, including: Apple (AAPL) $400 and Alphabet (GOOGL) $400 price targets, Amazon (AMZN) $300, Meta (META) $900, Microsoft (MSFT) $615, Nvidia (NVDA) $300, Tesla (TSLA) $500, plus SpaceX at $225. SoftBank was initiated at Outperform with a $290 target and CrowdStrike (CRWD) at Outperform with a $335 target. Ives' thesis centers on the infrastructure layer staying supply-constrained 'through at least 2027,' with companies owning scarce compute, memory, and power capturing growth; enterprise software has recovered, cybersecurity takes a growing share of IT budgets, and 'physical AI' is the newest front. The initiation comes a month after Ives launched the Ives Ultra AI Opportunities closed-end fund (IVAI) targeting late-stage private AI companies.

What happened

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday, October 7, 2026 that the European Commission is working on ways to capture more revenue from large U.S. tech groups — including Apple (AAPL), Meta (META) and Google (GOOGL) — through a broad levy on large corporations, in a bid to raise EU revenue while avoiding backlash from the Trump administration. Brussels is considering changes to its 'Corporate Resource for Europe' (CORE) proposal that would require all companies operating in the EU with revenue of more than €100 million ($112 million) a year to pay an annual lump-sum tax contribution, currently set at between €100,000 and €750,000 per company. The reporting cites six EU officials with knowledge of the discussions. Reuters could not immediately verify the report, and the Commission, CCIA, Apple, Google and Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside regular business hours.

What happened

Paramount Skydance announced Tuesday, Oct 6, it has completed its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, forming one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. The combined company becomes Skydance Corporation and its Class B shares begin trading on the NYSE under the ticker SKYD (replacing PSKY on Nasdaq) today. David Ellison remains chairman and CEO; Ynon Kreiz, the former Mattel chairman/CEO, joins as co-CEO to run day-to-day operations and lead integration. The merged entity owns Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. studios, streaming platforms Paramount+ and HBO Max, networks including CBS, CNN, MTV, TBS, Comedy Central and Food Network, and franchises like the DC Universe, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and Yellowstone. The company carries a projected debt load north of $80 billion and has committed to $6 billion in cost savings within three years.

What happened

Pedram Rezaei, a nearly 20-year Microsoft veteran who was most recently a corporate vice president on Microsoft's Superintelligence team and previously served as Copilot chief technology officer, started Monday (Oct 5) as a distinguished engineer at Amazon Web Services, per an internal AWS memo from Swami Sivasubramanian reported Monday. Rezaei joins the AWS Agentic AI and Emerging Technologies organization and will work initially on Kiro, AWS's AI coding tool, and Quick, Amazon's AI workplace assistant. Sivasubramanian described him as 'a hands-on engineer who is still in the code every day,' and Rezaei's first plan is to 'meet people, learn how things work here, and ship something real.' The hire comes as Amazon and Microsoft compete directly in AI developer and productivity tools, and Rezaei is the latest Microsoft executive to move to AWS this year.

What happened

The seven mega-cap companies — Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Tesla — ended Monday's trading with a combined market capitalization of $24.836 trillion, a new record, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Nvidia, the largest company by market cap, finished the day with a record-high stock price, closing at $237.58 (+2.1%) for a market capitalization of roughly $5.76 trillion. Microsoft rose 1.5%, ending at its highest level since last October and moving back toward a $4 trillion market cap. The record aggregate is larger than the nominal GDP of every country in the world except the United States.