Good morning, you're listening to Markets Desk.
Qualcomm surged twelve percent Monday on reports the chipmaker is partnering with OpenAI to develop a dedicated smartphone artificial intelligence chip, working alongside MediaTek on design and Luxshare on manufacturing. The move signals OpenAI's ambition to own the hardware layer beneath its software, a strategic shift that rattled and excited the semiconductor space in equal measure.
Shifting to the skies, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby is defending his now-paused pursuit of a merger with American Airlines, acknowledging those talks have ended for now but stopping short of ruling them out entirely. Kirby's willingness to go public with the rationale suggests he's playing a longer game, keeping consolidation pressure alive even as American pushes back.
And on the consumer side, Adidas is entering the performance footwear conversation in a serious way. Kenyan runner Sabastian Sawe wore the Adizero Pro Evo three to smash the London Marathon world record with a time of one hour fifty nine minutes and thirty seconds. The five-hundred-dollar supershoe goes on sale today, and the performance data behind it will make that price point a hard argument to dismiss.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
