The Rundown - Nvidia Pushes Into Robotaxis, Meta Can’t Make Enough Glasses

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

Market update for Tuesday January 6, 2026Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode:Energy and defense stocks rally as markets react to Venezuela developmentsNvidia unveils new AI chips and lays out its plan to power robotaxi fleetsMeta delays the global rollout of its Ray-Ban smart glasses due to supply constraintsZeta Global jumps after announcing a partnership with OpenAINatural gas prices slide as warm weather pressures demandCondo prices see their biggest decline in over a decade — and you can now bet on housing prices

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadmani, and today is Tuesday, January 6th. In today's episode, we'll tell you about the stock seeing the biggest gains after the events in Venezuela. We'll also break down the major announcements from NVIDIA at CES yesterday, including one that is going under the radar. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why condo prices are collapsing. We get a great show for you today.

Let's go. Stocks got off to a nice start this week. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ were both up about 0.6% and hovering near record highs. The Dow actually did hit a record high, jumping more than 1% yesterday, but nobody cares about the Dow. So energy companies were some of the big winners yesterday as the market starts to price in on who could benefit from the regime change in Venezuela. Chevron, which is currently the only. only major U.S. oil company operating in Venezuela today was up 5% on Monday. Oil refinery companies did even better.

Valero was up 9% while Marathon Oil was up nearly 6%. The thinking here is if Venezuelan oil production ramps back up, these refineries could start processing more of that heavy crude. Oh, and I should mention defense companies were also winners yesterday. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin were up more than 30%. That's pretty typical. I mean, whenever there's geopolitical tension flare ups, defense stocks tend to catch a bit. Now, zooming out, though, the big picture really hasn't changed.

Investors are still optimistic that this bull market continues into 2026. Even a dramatic headline, like the capture of a dictator, isn't enough to change the story. But what could change the story is if there's a continued slowdown in the labor market. You know, we've started to see cracks form in the labor market. The unemployment rate has been creeping up over the last few months. But we'll get more information on Friday when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the December jobs report. And then next week, earnings. season kicks off. So we're about to get hit with a ton of info. It's a great time to get

subscribed for the podcast if you haven't already and tuning in every morning to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, starting with Nvidia. Invitya had their keynote address at CES in Vegas yesterday and CEO Jensen Huang put on a show. Invidia showed off its next generation AI chip called Vera Rubin. And these chips are more powerful and more energy efficient than Nvidia's current Blackwell chips. NVIDIA says that companies can train massive AI models using about one quarter of the number of chips compared to the Blackwell chips.

And when it comes to inference where demand is expected to explode, these Verarubin chips can deliver results at roughly one-tenth the cost of the Blackwell chips. So these veraubin chips are a big step up from Blackwell. And the big shocker is that Nvidia expects to ship them in the second half of this year, which is sooner than expected. So Jensen reminded everyone in Vegas that Nvidia is still the king of AI, despite all the hype around AMD and Google's TPUs. Now, the other big news to come from the keynote was

Nvidia's work in Robotaxies. The company is working with autonomous vehicle operators to deploy level four self-driving cars, which are cars with no human drivers in them, in mapped out areas. Just for some contexts, Waymost currently operate at level four autonomy. Now, what Nvidia is doing is offering a full-stack solution to car

makers. They're offering the chips to power the cars, the AI software to drive the cars, and simulation tools to train the cars. And they've made a ton of progress. In fact, they've partnered with Mercedes-Benz, which plans to ship a car later this year using Nvidia's self-driving tech that will drive itself in cities like San Francisco.

So this could be huge for Nvidia. It could end up being a growth engine for the company. No pun intended. See, right now, the automotive and robotic sector makes up just 1% of total revenue. But Jensen Wong wants Nvidia's chips and software to power millions of self-driving cars in the future. You know, I feel like Nvidia's robo-taxy efforts

aren't getting a lot of hype. I mean, all the Robotaxie headlines are dominated by Waymo and Tesla. But keep an eye out for Nvidia because they're quietly making moves. Now, sticking with CES, let's talk about META because they also have a big presence at CES this year showing off their smart glasses. Now, Meta did announce that they're delaying the global rollout of their new Rayban display glasses, not because of a lack of demand internationally, but because the demand in the U.S. is so strong that META can't make enough of these glasses. The company originally had planned to expand into markets like the UK, France, Italy, and Canada

early this year. Instead, Meta is now prioritizing getting these glasses in the hands of U.S. consumers first. Now, a quick refresher, Meta launched these $800 smart glasses back in late September. These glasses have a camera and holographic display built into one of the lenses. You can also control the glasses with this wrist strap called the neural band that reads like electrical brain signals. It's all state-of-the-art really cool tech. Now, what is a bit annoying, though, is in order to buy these glasses, you have to book an in-store appointment at places like Raybans, Sunglasses Hut, or Best Buy. You know, when these glasses first came out, I tried to get an appointment in my area, but couldn't find anything for weeks, and then I kind of

forgot about the whole thing, so I haven't tried them yet. Now, Mark Zuckerberg is hoping that these smart glasses become meta's first mass market hardware hit, something closer to the iPhone than just like a niche gadget, kind of like their VR headsets are. But this delay shows that even with huge demand, production will be a challenging task. You know, hardware is different than just writing code for social media. But other than the delay news, meta did announce some new features at CES that are coming to the display glasses and the neural band. One of them is the ability to write and send messages via WhatsApp and Messenger by writing with your fingertips on any surface. And the other one is a teleprompter feature built right into the display of the glasses. Yeah, I don't know. That can be

useful for anyone looking to give a speech or make a presentation or, I don't know, impress a girl on a first date. Hop on the meta glasses and turn on the teleprompter. No one will know. If anyone listening has a pair of these meta display glasses, let me know in the comments on your experience with them so far. You know, I have the meta-rayband smart glasses that doesn't have a display. Those are great, but I don't really know if I want a display on my glasses, you know?

Like, to be honest, I'm a bit skeptical about meta saying the demand for these display glasses is like really strong. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of Zeta Global are ripping higher this morning after the company announced a collaboration with Open A-I. Zeta is a cloud marketing platform which pulls together marketing data from everywhere like Instagram ads, TikTok, Shopify, and email campaigns. And with this Open AI partnership, it will layer Open AI's conversational and agentic

AI tech onto their platform. Essentially, marketers using Zeta can now talk to their data and have the AI identify what campaigns are working and what's not working. Sounds like a lot of buzzwords, but hey, investors seem to be excited about it. Zeta stock is up more than 8% this morning on this news. Now, on the flip side, natural gas prices are getting smoked. Prices are down more than 15% over the past five days, and it's down another 2% this morning. Now, the reason that prices are falling is that U.S. natural gas production is running near record highs,

boosted by the demand from AI data centers, electric grids, and strong LNG exports overseas. But because of the warm weather this winter, there is less heating demand from homes and buildings, so prices are starting to fall. A perfect example of this is today. the high in Houston today is going to be 82 degrees. I know I'm in Texas, but it usually doesn't get this hot. I've barely had a chance to wear my Envidia hoodie this season. I wonder if some of these natural gas traders hedged their bets on prediction markets by betting on the weather. I mean, that could be an interesting use case for prediction markets. Betting on warmer weather to hedge against your natural gas investments. Let's wrap the show with the fun fact. Condo prices in the U.S. had their biggest annual decline since The demand for condos has just cooled off as more and more people move to the suburbs for more space. And in the fact that hybrid work is sticking around, there's even less incentive to live in condos which are concentrated near city centers.

But the biggest reason for the condo crash is the cost of ownership. HOA fees are getting out of control and insurance and maintenance costs continue to rise. That's pushing monthly condo fees higher and turning off buyers. Today, 25% of condos are now estimated to be worth less than, in their last sale price. So there's a big correction happening in the condo market. If there are any condo owners listening to this episode, let me know in the comments on what the cost of ownership has been like over the last few years. Now, somewhat related to this story, I saw that the prediction market platform polymarket just launched a real estate category. So you can now literally bet on where

housing prices are headed for major U.S. cities. I mean, this is such a 2026 headline because homeownership continues to be unaffordable, but at least now you can gamble on it. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did, and you have like five extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you are listening on Spotify, don't forget to vote in today's Spotify poll. Leave us a comment on Spotify.

All that engagement really does help us out, and it helps other people. find the show. I gotta say my wife saw a lot of the comments on yesterday's show vouching for Vegas and CES and I think there's a good chance you might be headed to Vegas next year to celebrate our anniversary and attend CES. So shout out to everyone in the comments for helping me out and of course shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow. Rosen lasagna medium power 15 minutes sounds like ojo time let's play Feel the fun with Play-Ojo The online casino with all the latest slot

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