Axios Closer

October 06, 2025
Monday ✅.
Today's newsletter is 792 words, a 3-minute read.
📈 The dashboard: The S&P 500 closed up 0.4%.
🔥 Today's stock spotlight: Tesla (+5.5%) rose after the company teased a product announcement tomorrow possibly involving a long-awaited new version of the Roadster sports car.
1 big thing: OpenAI's golden touch
There's a new Midas in the stock market, and its name is OpenAI.
- 👑 The ChatGPT creator is becoming a powerful kingmaker in the AI economy, with investors heaping rewards on anyone who partners with it.
Driving the news: Advanced Micro Devices shares soared 24% today after the chip designer announced a deal to deliver the data processing power for 6 gigawatts in computing capacity for OpenAI.
- OpenAI will also take up to a 10% share of the company.
- 💥 AMD's stock jumped to a level seen just twice in a single session over the past 40 years, Bespoke Investment Group noted.
🗣️ OpenAI's blessing signaled to the market that AMD is keeping pace in the AI revolution and gives it a major platform to monetize it, Wedbush Securities analyst and tech bull Dan Ives writes.
⚡️ Catch up quick: The AMD spike came after OpenAI last week gave a jolt to shares of Shopify and Etsy after announcing an "instant checkout" feature.
- "Such market-moving sway, usually reserved for behemoths like Apple Inc. or Nvidia, is the latest sign of OpenAI's rising influence on a wide variety of stocks," Bloomberg reported. It's "made OpenAI's announcements and events ... critical for traders."
The bottom line: OpenAI announcements have become must-see TV.
2. Regional bank shake-up
Fifth Third announced a deal to acquire Comerica for $10.9 billion in stock, a combination that would create the nation's ninth-largest bank, Axios' Jeffrey Cane reports.
- Zoom in: The acquisition would give Fifth Third, which has a strong franchise in the Midwest, a bigger presence in the Southeast, as well as a major foothold in Texas.
- The combined entity would also be significantly stronger in payments and wealth and asset management, per Fifth Third.
🏦 Yes, but: While Fifth Third and Comerica are huge institutions, they remain in the shadow of banking behemoths like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, which dominate the lending and consumer businesses.
- 💰 The five biggest banks have more than a 40% share of deposits in the U.S., and analysts and investors have long called for more mergers among the second tier of U.S. banks.
The big picture: This merger could be the start of a long-anticipated consolidation among the bigger regional banks.
- 🏛️ It also reflects an expectation that the Trump administration will look more favorably on such deals.
3. Other happenings
💊 Rite Aid closed its remaining stores last week. The drugstore chain filed for its second Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May and sold more than 1,000 locations to rivals CVS, Walgreens, Albertsons and Kroger. (CNN)
🤳 Verizon named former PayPal CEO Dan Schulman as its new CEO. He replaces Hans Vestberg, who will remain with Verizon for a year to help complete the company's acquisition of Frontier Communications. (Bloomberg)
🤑 Galaxy Digital shares spiked after the digital assets investment firm revealed a new trading platform that would compete with Robinhood. (CNBC)
📺 Paramount Skydance has acquired The Free Press, a digital media outlet founded by former New York Times writer and editor Bari Weiss. She will become editor-in-chief of CBS News. (Axios)
4. 🥩 1 food thing: Steak nuggets
Arby's is turning steak into a finger food with its nationwide debut of Steak Nuggets — "hand-cut, bite-sized morsels of steak," Axios' Kelly Tyko writes.
- 🔪 Dig in: The Atlanta-based chain known for "the meats" is attempting to carve out a new niche in the chicken-nugget-and-tender-dominated world of quick bites.
⏳ The new seasoned nuggets are now available at restaurants nationwide for a limited time.
- They come in a 5- or 9-count, as a Steak Nugget Sandwich and a Steak Nugget Bowl over white cheddar mac and cheese.
🥩 Kelly's taste test: I tried the new Steak Nuggets today and caught a whiff of steak before even opening the container.
- The pieces were pink inside and had a lot of flavor — especially dipped in Arby's barbecue sauce (though ketchup worked too).
🗓️ On this day in 1893, the struggling Diamond Flour Mill in Grand Forks, North Dakota, sent a few experimental cases of a homemade breakfast porridge to its New York flour brokers — it was an instant hit. The Cream of Wheat Company was born, fueled by a massive national ad campaign. It listed on the NYSE in 1929 and was acquired by Nabisco in 1961.
📺 Bestselling self-help author and podcaster Mel Robbins explains to Axios CEO Jim VandeHei how people can keep their sanity in a world of chaos. Watch the clip
- Catch the full interview, out tomorrow. Subscribe to our YouTub
Today's newsletter was edited by Pete Gannon and copy edited by Sheryl Miller.
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