The Rundown - Tech Selloff Hits Wall Street, Google Loses Two AI Stars

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Market update for Tuesday June 23rdCheck out the Public app for incredible investing tools and to support the show (LINK)Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) and YouTube for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode, Zaid covers:Why tech stocks are selling offGoogle just had the worst day in its history after losing two of its top AI minds to rivalsWhy Meta is going all-in on $299 smart glassesIBM rises after getting an upgrade from JPMQualcomm drops despite a $4B AI dealFun Fact: Amazon spent $40 million on a Sam Altman movie… and then buried it

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in 10 minutes. My name is Zad Admani, and today is Tuesday, June 23rd. In today's episode, we'll tell you why tech and AI stocks are selling off. We'll also break down why Google stock just had its worst day in over a year. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why Amazon is abandoning its movie about Sam Altman. We got a great show for you today. Let's go.

Stocks were off to a rough start this week with the S&P 500 dropping 0.4% while the NASDAQ fell 1.3%. What's interesting, though, is that the Dow was up 0.3% yesterday, still don't care about the Dow, and the small cap Russell 2000 index actually hit a record high. So despite the major indices being in the red, under the surface, most of the market was actually doing just fine. But it was the tech names that dragged down the overall index. Google fell around 5%. Oracle was down 5%. Microsoft and Meadow were also lower, and SpaceX got absolutely smoked, dropping about 16% for its third straight day of losses. SpaceX is now below where it finished in its first day of trading. And while SpaceX doesn't impact the overall index because it's not part of

the S&P 500 or NASDAQ just yet, it is a poster child for what investors are worried about right now when it comes to the AI trade. You know, this company just raised more than $85 billion in the biggest IPO ever, and now it's already prepping to sell more than $20 billion in bonds and load up on debt. We actually covered this in more detail on yesterday's show, so go check that out if you missed it. But yeah, I think Wall Street is starting to get nervous that the AI buildout is starting to get increasingly funded by debt, which is historically how bubbles go burst and how markets get in trouble. So things are starting to get shaky again when it comes to the AI trade,

and this sell-off is getting worse as of this morning with a ton of red in pre-market trading, especially across chips, memory stocks, and AI-related names. But look, the fact that small caps are making record highs is a good sign. It means that investors aren't just selling everything. They're rotating out of the tech names and into other parts of the market. And as I've said over the last couple weeks, that is a healthy rotation. You don't want the entire stock market depending on a handful of AI companies and Elon Musk. We'll have to see what happens over the next couple weeks.

The market is in a weird period right now with the SpaceX IPO behind us. The Fed meeting is behind us and we're still getting daily news coming from the Iran negotiations that can move markets at any moment. We'll continue to stay on top of everything. So if you're new here, make sure you guys are locked into the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, starting with Google. Google had its worst day in the stock market.

market in over a year on Monday, and it's because they keep losing AI talent. Over the past week, Google lost two of its biggest AI brains to his two biggest rivals. First was Noam Shazir. He left for Open AI. He was the co-lead of Google's Gemini models. And then on Friday of last week, John Jumper, a Nobel Prize winner who co-created Alpha Fold, which is the AI that basically cracked protein folding, he announced that he was leaving Google's Deep Mine Lab for Anthropic. So Wall Street is kind of freaking out about these departures and Google stock fell more than 5% on Monday, wiping out $225 billion in market cap. And the stock is in the red again this morning.

You know, I feel like the vibe in the AI race have shifted again. If you guys remember last year, Google had a ton of momentum. Their Gemini models were the state of the art in the industry. They were getting a ton of great reviews. Their nano-banana AI image editing was also the best out there. And that helped push Google stock to record high. But now it feels like Anthropic and Open AI are back in the lead. Anthropic continues to have the best models out there when it comes to coding.

And OpenAI has made a ton of progress on their AI image generation capabilities. Not to mention Open AI and Anthropic are leaning into AI agents, which I feel like Gemini is very far behind on. So you take all that and add in the fact that Google is losing all their top AI talent and they're spending all their free cash flow on building AI data centers, you can kind of see why investors are nervous. But to be fair, this might just be a sure. short-term overreaction. Google continues to say they can't keep up with all the AI demand,

which is why they signed a deal with SpaceX for more AI computing power. Plus, Google's Gemini models will power the revamp Siri when Apple rolls that out later this year. But the market is taking a more cautious approach to Google and AI in general, shares of Google are down around 10% over the last month. Let's shift gears and talk about meta. Meta is doubling down on smart glasses by launching a new cheaper line of glasses starting at $299. Long time listeners know I'm a big fan of meta's Rayban smart glasses that originally came out in 2023. I use mine all the time to take videos and pictures of my kids. They came in very handy when I was in California last week. And you know, with these latest glasses, meta is actually dropping the Rayban branding and just calling them meta glasses.

And I think it's because they're dropping the Rayban branding that's allowed them to drop the price. These glasses cost $70 less than the Rayban versions. Now, Raybans' parent company, S. Lord Laxotica, is still manufacturing these glasses just without the branding. As for the features on these glasses, they're not full AR glasses, there's no screen, you're not walking around like your Tony Stark. They're basically normal looking glasses with a camera, speakers, microphone, and meta-AI built in. So you can do things like take pictures and videos, listen to music or podcast, take phone calls, and ask meta-a-I questions about what you're looking at. But honestly, the most important feature of these glasses is they look like normal glasses. It's a stark contrast to what Snap showed off last week with their super thick and hideous and

expensive smart glasses that cost, what, $2,200? No normal person is dropping $2,000 to buy ugly glasses. But Meta has already shown that people will buy smart glasses that they look like normal glasses and their reasonably price. Meta actually currently controls 80% of the smart glasses market today. But look, competition. is coming for the space. Apple is reportedly working on their own smart glasses.

That's supposed to come out sometime in 2027. And Google is also getting back into the category. So smart glasses could be the next major hardware battle. Personally, I'm bullish on smart glasses, not as a replacement of the smartphone, but as a nice accessory. I mean, just having the glasses on so I can take videos of my kids while I'm playing with them

without having to pull out my phone. I mean, that's a fantastic feature. Let's talk about some stocks making moves. today. On a day where most of tech is down, IBM is standing out as a winner after scoring an upgrade from analysts at JP Morgan. JPMorgan lifted their rating from neutral to overweight and boosted their price target to $291 up from $270, suggesting a 15% premium from Monday's close. And the reason behind the upgrade is IBM software business, which J.P. Morgan thinks the market is overlooking right now. Software makes up about 45% percent.

percent of IBM's revenue and about two-thirds of their consolidated profit. And you know, software is a high-margin business and has better cash flows compared to IBM's traditional hardware and services business. So as IBM keeps leaning into software, it should lead to higher earnings down the line, and that's why IBM's shares are up about 5% this morning in reaction to the upgrade. Now, on the flip side, shares of Qualcomm are dropping in response to a report that the chip company is nearing a $4 billion deal, to acquire the AI startup modular. Modular was founded back in 2022 by a pair of Google employees, and the company developed software infrastructure

that helps companies build and deploy AI applications across different hardware and cloud platforms. This transaction for modular could be finalized in the coming weeks, according to Bloomberg, and if it goes through, it would be a big step up from the $1.6 billion dollar valuation that modular was valued at back in September after raising $160 million.

Now, Qualcomm stock is down around 6%. today because maybe the market thinks that Qualcomm is overpaying for the startup, and it could also be because of the overall tech sell-off today. You know, Qualcomm is mostly known for making smartphone chips, but they have been working to diversify their product portfolio by expanding into the fast-growing markets like data center processors. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Amazon spent $40 million to make a movie about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and now they're

suddenly abandoning it. This movie is called Artificial and it's about Sam Altman's chaotic firing and then rehiring at Open AI back in 2023. That was a weird time. Andrew Garfield actually plays Sam Altman and apparently this movie is very critical of Sam. Some people that have seen the movie are calling it like the social network for the AI era. On a side note, the social network is one of the best movies of the last 25 years. Now, Amazon abandoning this movie is raising some eyebrows. Some people are saying that it's because Amazon recently announced plans to invest 50,

billion dollars into open AI this year. On top of that, open AI also agreed to use Amazon's custom AI chips and their cloud computing. So, you know, Amazon is deeply in business with Sam Altman, and I imagine releasing a critical movie about him probably wouldn't go over well. And I think that played a role in shelving this movie. Amazon is now trying to sell the movie to a different studio, so we'll see if another studio steps up to buy it. Otherwise, this movie might not ever get released. By the way, since we're talking about big tech in Hollywood, But yesterday, Google announced that they were investing $75 million into the movie studio A24, which is behind movies like Backrooms and Marty Supreme.

And apparently this is a AI-related investment. Google says this partnership is about building AI tools to help movie production and also distribution. They're talking about tools that can make AI-generated storyboards and help reduce the cost of making movies. But it's not about replacing actors or writers just yet. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. I 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,

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