Don't touch that dial—two of the biggest cable providers in the country are joining forces to form a TV & internet provider powerhouse.

Charter Communications has agreed to buy privately-owned Cox Communications in a $34.5 billion deal. This combined colossus will change its name to Cox Communications, while Charter’s Spectrum will become the consumer-facing brand, offering cable, broadband, mobile, and other services.

The megadeal, if and when it closes, will bring together two sizable customer bases: Charter boasts 31.4 million broadband users and 12.7 million cable TV subscribers across 41 states, while Cox has 6.5 million broadband clients in 18 states.

News of this potential cable tie-up caused Charter’s stock to pop by 1.83%—a welcome surge at a time when seemingly every company on the planet is rolling out a streaming service. In such a cutthroat environment, deals like these have become critical for survival: It’s merge, or die.

Cable is consolidating

It wasn’t very long ago that cable TV was the only game in town. But now, cord cutting has become commonplace, forcing Charter and Cox into an uncomfortable self-reckoning.

“Charter’s core market of cable television is seeing declining subscriber growth,” wrote managing director at global consultancy Stax Palash Misra. “The goal of the merger is presumably to broaden its portfolio to better compete against wireless carriers offering 5G home internet services and streaming platforms that are eroding traditional cable TV viewership.”

This merger comes on the heels of Charter’s acquisition of Liberty Broadband in an all-stock deal. Charter expects there will be about $500 million in annualized cost synergies within three years of closing, further strengthening Charter’s position in a crowded field.

While streaming has stolen plenty of cable customers, that's not the only problem companies like Cox and Charter are facing. Wireless services are eroding the broadband approach to delivering high speed internet to customers, with new competitors like Starlink eating into the incumbents’ market share. But Charter can offer higher speeds at lower costs than these startups thanks to the economies of scale, and today’s deal with Cox was likely designed to underscore those slim advantages.

“Cable is a scale business; added size should help Charter compete better with the larger telcos, tech companies, and Starlink,” explained Co-CIO of Value at Gabelli Funds Chris Marangi.

Don’t forget: Today’s deal will likely test how tough President Trump’s administration will be with antitrust cases. Charter is already lobbying hard for regulatory approval: Its press release talks about “putting America first” by bringing its overseas customer-service jobs back to the US.

Considering the FCC didn’t approve Verizon’s acquisition of Frontier until the company “committed to ending its DEI practices,” that certainly sounds like the right way to woo regulators.—JD

🟢 What’s up

• Nvidia climbed 0.42% on reports that the US and United Arab Emirates are nearing a deal that would allow the UAE to import 500,000 chips per year. But shares lost some ground after the company denied reports that it will build a new R&D center in Shanghai.
• Galaxy Digital made its long-awaited debut on the Nasdaq today, with the crypto/data center company climbing 4.06%. The company is reportedly in conversation with the SEC to tokenize its stock.
• Virgin Galactic rocketed 43.28% higher on the space tourism company’s announcement that it will restart commercial spaceflights.
• Coinbase climbed 9.01% after Oppenheimer analysts said the market’s reaction to recent news of a hack and an SEC probe were “overblown.”
• CoreWeave soared 22.09% after Nvidia disclosed a larger stake in the data center provider than expected.
• Quantum computing stocks popped on news that the company Quantum Computing has finished laying the groundwork for a quantum chip foundry. Shares of Quantum Computing rose 39.29%, while D-Wave Quantum gained 11.06%.
• Archer Aviation soared 9.11% after being named the Official Air Taxi Provider of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Games, which sounds made up but is apparently very impressive.
• Vistra Corp popped 3.06% on the news that it has acquired seven natural gas facilities from Lotus Infrastructure Partners for $1.9 billion.

What’s down

• Novo Nordisk slipped 2.69% on the news that its CEO is stepping down after eight years at the helm, due to the pharma giant’s recent challenges.
• Applied Materials sank 5.25% after the semiconductor maker’s revenue last quarter came in under analyst estimates.
• Cava crumbled 2.27% thanks to financial forecasts of slower growth for the salad bowl chain in the coming year.
• Take-Two Interactive Software lost 2.41% due to weaker-than-expected projections for net bookings this quarter and this year.
• Doximity plunged 10.08% after the healthcare platform issued fiscal guidance for the current quarter and full year that came in below analyst expectations.

The Portland Trail Blazers are for sale if you’ve got a couple billion dollars lying around.

The estate of the Trail Blazers’ late owner Paul Allen announced earlier this week that proceeds of the NBA team’s sale would be donated to philanthropic causes. That may end up being a mighty big check: ESPN reported that the team was recently valued at $3.6 billion.

The NBA was already rocked by the sale of the Boston Celtics for a record $6.1 billion earlier this year to private equity exec Bill Chisholm, and you can expect other PE outfits to have a keen interest in buying the Trail Blazers. Sports franchises come with some serious money-making opportunities for investors, including everything from lucrative media rights deals to concession sales, and lately PE firms have been pouring money into various professional leagues.

Speaking of which, San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York agreed to sell 6% of the team to a couple of Silicon Valley venture capital billionaires earlier this week, pegging the value of the franchise at $8.5 billion. The Los Angeles Chargers are up next, with the owners there reportedly planning to sell an 8% stake of the team to private equity firm Arctos.

It’s no wonder that Mark Cuban and a group of fellow sports insiders just launched a $750 million private equity fund designed to acquire stakes of NFL, NBA, and MLB teams and sell them for a profit in seven to 10 years.

Sports teams are some of the hottest investments on the market these days, so expect to see more deals like these in the pipeline—and in our ongoing efforts to turn this into a sports blog without Neal noticing, we’ll be sure to cover all of them.

Happy 13F season to those who celebrate!

For the rest of you with social lives, allow us to explain. A 13F is a form that institutional investments running funds with at least $100 million in assets under management must file with the SEC 45 days after the end of a quarter.

The form details any and all equities purchases or sales the fund made during the previous quarter—and since these are all public documents, they provide regular investors like us with invaluable insight into what some of the biggest and most successful funds are buying or selling in any given quarter.

That 45-day deadline arrived yesterday, which means today we’ve got a boatload of investments to dig into. Let’s take a look at what moves the pros made last quarter.

Berkshire Hathaway

The G.O.A.T. hasn’t been put out to pasture just yet. Warren Buffett continued to trim his position in financial stocks, cutting his stake in Bank of America for a third straight quarter and selling his remaining 14.6 million shares of Citigroup to exit that position entirely. Meanwhile, he doubled down on Constellation Brands—literally, his position doubled to a total of 12 million shares of the alcohol maker, or 6.6% of the company’s outstanding shares. Perhaps most notably, Buffett left his 300 million shares of Apple alone despite the company’s recent selloff.

Appaloosa Management

David Tepper pounded the table for Chinese investments last fall, betting big on the Chinese economy’s recovery thanks to fiscal support from the government. But apparently tariffs changed Tepper’s tune: His Appaloosa Management fund cut its stake in Alibaba by 22%, PDD Holdings by 18%, JD.com by 23%, and Baidu by a whopping 49% last quarter. Instead, Tepper initiated positions in L3Harris Technologies, Deutsche Bank, and Broadcom, and bought more shares of Uber.

Pershing Square

Speaking of Uber, Bill Ackman really likes what he sees. The fund manager also kicked off a new investment in Uber, buying over 30 million shares of the rideshare company. He increased his positions in Brookfield Corp and Hertz Global Holdings, while cutting back on Hilton Worldwide, Chipotle, and Alphabet. Finally, Ackman completely sold out of his position in Nike.

Icahn Enterprises

Ackman’s old nemesis Carl Icahn decided to focus his travel investments on planes rather than cars. Icahn Enterprises doubled its stake in Jetblue Airways to nearly 37 million shares, which makes sense: Icahn ran an activist campaign against Jetblue management that resulted in Icahn gaining two new board seats at the company in February. He also bet big on biotech company Illumina, while cutting his position in natural gas company Southwest Gas.

Scion Asset Management

Michael Burry, famed for shorting the US real estate market ahead of the Great Financial Crisis, and for investing in GameStop ahead of the meme stock boom, clearly didn’t like what he saw last quarter. Burry doubled his position in Estee Lauder, bought a few bearish puts on Nvidia and several Chinese stocks, and liquidated the rest of his portfolio. That’s right, he sold everything. Either Burry knows something the rest of us don’t, or he simply decided that the only way to win the game is to not play at all.—MR

• Consumer sentiment fell to its second-lowest level ever, thanks to rising fears of higher inflation.
• Netflix plans to run generative AI ads in its shows beginning next year.
• The Apple vs Epic rivalry continues: Fortnite has been blocked on Apple’s iOS.
• The first direct peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in three years began in Turkey today.
• President Trump’s tax bill was blocked by a House committee.
• Forget investment banking: A Notre Dame lacrosse champ bailed on his BofA job to play one more season with his alma mater.

Economic reports are few and far between next week. We’ll get leading economic indicators on Monday, then Thursday delivers initial jobless claims, services and manufacturing PMIs, and existing home sales. Friday wraps the week up with new home sales.

If that feels like a letdown, there’s plenty of Fedspeak to keep you entertained. New York Fed President John Williams gives a speech on Monday and again on Thursday, while Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin, Boston Fed President Susan Collins, and St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalen are all speaking on Tuesday. There’s also a Fed Listens event on Wednesday featuring Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin and Fed Governor Michelle Bowman.

As for earnings, the calendar is starting to look mighty sparse as the season winds down, but there are still a few names worth watching:

Tuesday: The Home Depot, Billibilli, and Toll Brothers

Wednesday: Lowe’s, Baidu, TJX Companies, Snowflake, Medtronic, and Wix

Thursday: Intuit, Analog Devices, BJs Wholesale Club, TD Bank, Deckers Outdoor, and Advance Auto Parts

Here’s a map of the average hourly salary by state (nice work, DC, keep trying, Mississippi).

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