When Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage at Apple’s annual developers conference, WWDC, in Cupertino today, he was obscured by the shadow of a tough era for the tech giant

Apple stock is down over 17% year to date, its highly anticipated Apple Intelligence software announced at last year’s WWDC turned out to be lacking the smarts, and the company has been on the front lines of President Trump’s trade war.

So, what futuristic tech did the company unveil this time in its signature awkward employee presentation?

Besides a celebrity cameo-filled F1 commercial for its upcoming Brad Pitt movie, not that much that would make your jaw drop. Instead of focusing on a new flashy product or feature like Apple did in 2022 with its M2 chip, 2023 with the Vision Pro, and last year with Apple Intelligence, this year’s presentation was focused on core product updates.

• New operating systems loading: Apple will now align its naming conventions with the next calendar year, starting with iOS 26, macOS 26, iPadOS 26, and tvOS26.
• Apple unveiled its “Liquid Glass” interface, which looks like, well, glass.
• AI, who? Apple kicked off the conference by admitting Apple Intelligence wasn’t quite up to its high “quality bar” while announcing a new foundation model for developers.
• The company also announced a range of new product features including adding backgrounds and polls to iMessage, a new “workout buddy,” and Visual Intelligence, an AI companion that can find similar products from a screenshot.

But investors weren’t wowed: Shares fell 1.21% after the keynote presentation at 1pm ET.

Can Apple catch up in AI?

Right now, Apple is seriously lagging in the race to become humanity’s technocratic overlord advance AI. But investors are hoping that Apple will turn out to be the tortoise, and the rest of the tech industry the hare. After all, we aren’t yet at the point where everyone and their mom is using AI every day, buying the company some time to come up with something more impactful than those iMessage notification summaries.

And Apple still has obvious advantages over competitors like Google and OpenAI: “Of course, Apple is late to AI, but they are essentially a toll collector on its unmatched global ecosystem as any AI app to consumers will ultimately go through Cupertino as we saw firsthand with DeepSeek earlier this year,” wrote Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. “This continues to be the major piece of the Apple AI strategy that investors are missing...it’s less about the killer app/LLM from Apple itself and more around being a foundation for consumer AI agnostic of the LLM.”

Overall, Apple has an “overweight” consensus rating from analysts covering the stock and an average price target of $228, tk% higher than the stock trades today.

But if you have more questions, you might have better luck asking ChatGPT than Siri. —LB

🟢 What’s up

• The trading platform eToro rose 10.58% and touched a record high after analysts began coverage of the stock. They generally had nice things to say.
• Aviation startups like Archer (+10.50%), Joby (+13.67%), Vertical Aerospace (+15.24%), and Blade Air Mobility (+11.58%) all popped after President Trump signed an executive order on Friday intended to spur drone manufacturing.
• Stablecoin issuer Circle can’t stop won’t stop after its IPO last week, popping another 7.24% for its third straight day of gains.
• Topgolf Callaway jumped nearly 15% after a board member bought ~$2.5 million worth of shares last week. Just in time for the US Open.

What’s down

• Robinhood (-1.98%) and AppLovin (-8.21%) fell after S&P Dow Jones Indices decided not to include them—or anyone else—in the S&P 500 index.
• Intuitive Surgical sank 5.55% after getting its first “sell” rating on the Street from Deutsche Bank analyst Imron Zafar, who argued that the medtech company is going to face some cutthroat competition over the next few years.
• EchoStar, a satellite and wireless company, dropped 8.52% after the WSJ reported it was considering filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy.
• The Children’s Place tumbled 32.22% after a rough earnings report for the kids’ clothing store: It posted a quarterly loss nearly 3x projections and revenue decreased 10% year over year.

Since President Trump’s re-election in November, popular stocks in the crypto and tech sector are lapping those of smaller businesses he promised to support.

That’s the finding of a new report from a team at BofA Global Research, which dubbed the crypto and tech stocks the “Bro Billionaire” basket after the billionaire bros who lead them. The BofA team found that Bro Billionaire stocks have spiked 45% since Trump’s re-election, compared to a 7% decline in the Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks.

• The Bro Billionaire group is an equal-weighted average of a basket of stocks including Meta, Nvidia, Tesla, Coinbase, Apollo, ARK Innovation’s flagship ETF, and more.

Bottom line: Smaller companies are navigating stormier waters than their megacap peers. They’re disproportionately impacted by the trade war, since they have fewer resources on hand to combat the added costs from tariffs. Plus, smaller companies have to frequently borrow money, which is bad news at a time when the jittery bond market has sent yields (and borrowing costs) higher.

Turns out changing Max back to HBO Max wasn’t the biggest pivot Warner Bros. Discovery had in store for us this spring.

The entertainment giant said this morning it will split up into two standalone, publicly traded companies, in the hopes they’ll be more attractive to investors apart than together.

• Global Networks: This company will house Warner’s cable channels TBS, TNT, CNN, Discovery, and more. It will also include the television rights to US sporting events like March Madness and content production.
• Streaming & Studios: Max—er, HBO Max—will live here, as will the company’s movie studios (DC, for example) and prodigious film and TV library.

This wasn’t a shock

CEO David Zaslav had been making moves signaling a breakup was coming since late last year.

Still, it’s a stark acknowledgement that the blockbuster 2022 merger between Warner Media and Discovery was a total flop—operationally, and on the stock market. Shares of WBD have fallen more than 60% (and another 3% yesterday) since the deal was completed, showing that investors were never sold on a Frankenstein mashup of a media company whose programming ranged from 90 Day Fiancé to The Last of Us. And shareholders made their displeasure with leadership known: In a symbolic vote, more than 59% rejected Zaslav’s $51.9 million compensation package.

A growing trend

Entertainment companies are purging their declining traditional TV businesses to focus investors on higher-growth streaming units that don’t include the cable baggage. Comcast did this last year when it announced plans to spin off most of its cable TV business into a new unit named Versant.

With Warner Bros. Discovery putting two options on the menu, investors could bet on a pure-play streaming option (like they would a Netflix) or take their chances on traditional TV sticking around longer than anticipated. After all, the cable networks still generate more revenue and cash flow for Warner Bros. Discovery than the properties being folded into the new streaming company.

But keep an eye on debt. Warner Bros. Discovery borrowed a lot of money to complete the merger and must divvy up $37 billion in debt between the two new companies. According to the WSJ, most of it will be foisted on the balance sheet of the cable business. The breakup is expected to be completed by the middle of next year.—NF

• Waymo suspended service in downtown LA after at least five of its vehicles were set on fire during anti-deportation protests.
• Meta is considering investing more than $10 billion in the startup Scale AI, which would be among the largest private company funding events in history, per Bloomberg.
• It’s a brutal job market for women executives.
• China’s exports to the US plunged 34.4% last month due to the trade war, the steepest drop since the onset of Covid in February 2020.
• Precious metals traders on Wall Street had their best quarter in five years in Q1 thanks to gold prices spiking amid tariff panic.
• Gemini, the crypto firm founded by the Winklevoss twins, filed confidentially to go public.

Tuesday brings us the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index, but that’s just an hors d’oeuvres platter ahead of the main course on Wednesday, the Consumer Price Index inflation report for May.

After the close

• GameStop earnings could offer more clarity on the company’s swan dive into crypto. Last month, GameStop said it would buy 4,710 bitcoin worth over $500 million, mimicking the corporate cash scheme pioneered by MicroStrategy (now known as Strategy). $GME is roughly flat for the year.
• Consensus: Adjusted earnings of $0.04 per share and revenue declining 14.5% to $754.2 million.

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