Skip to main content

tv   Power Lunch  CNBC  March 21, 2024 2:00pm-3:00pm EDT

2:00 pm
personalized financial advice from ameriprise can do more than help you reach your goals. i can make this work. it can help you reach them with confidence. no wonder more than 9 out of 10 of our clients are likely to recommend us. ameriprise financial. advice worth talking about. good afternoon, everybody. welcome to "power lunch" alongside contessa brewer i'm tyler mathisen. glad you could join us. coming up, doj taking aim at apple. worst day stock since august. more on this in a minute. >> plus, ftc, long-awaited supply chain affecting walmart, amazon kroger and others.
2:01 pm
we'll have that for you. >> first a quick check on markets. moving higher today following yesterday's fed decision. record highs now across the board. dow up 312 points at 39,824. almost at 40,000. s&p 500 up 24 about a half percentage point there and nasdaq higher by also about a half percentage point at 16,440. >> as for the s&p now, a quick power check on the positive side. micron surging on a big beat on negative side darden restaurants missing on revenue. look at that. darden off by 6 1/3. we have more on both of those names still ahead today. >> all right. begin, however, with reddit. exciting day for that company marking the first social media ipo since all of way back in 2019. five years ago. shares opening at $47 apiece. beyond social media a lot of discussion around its role in the a.i. area.
2:02 pm
listen to what the ceo had to say about that. >> the value of our data is growing. in a world where more and more content on the internet is created by artificial intelligence. the premium on actual intelligence, what reddit is, continues to grow. >> here to discuss, our own deidre bosa along with deepwater asset management's doug clinton, and good to have you. deidre, turn it over to you to ask the first questions here. >> okay. i guess, doug, ask you a question. what do you make of this reddit pop? of course still early. has to settle. 50%, pretty good. not as good as yesterday's ipo. 70% pop. do you think that reddit is more a.i.-adjacent, or kind of like an a.i. company trying to present itself throughout the road show and in the s1? >> deeds idre, tells us ipo win
2:03 pm
for tech, if you have a a.i. story is wide open. reddit itself, i don't think their a.i. story is as clear as a lab story. i say that still majority of reddit's business and majority, i think, of the future in terms how the stock reacts will be dependant upon their ability to convince advisers to spend more on the platform. in terms of a.i. a great deal with google. about a $60 million a year contract for google to use reddit data to train its llms over three years. i think that shows there is certainly value of the data. the challenge we have is, there's not that many big buyers who are creating these foundation large language models who can come in and spend $60 million a year and saw with inflection having changes amongst their founders going to microsoft. there may not be that many companies that actually survive that can afford to buy this expensive data. >> it's a great point.
2:04 pm
you know, right now reddit gets most, nearly all of its revenue, from that advertising model and competes with much, much bigger platforms and why i think that licensing data, the fee it got from google, which was $66 million, represents about 6% or 7% of its expected revenue this year. i wonder, doug, how sustainable is this? is it a real business model for them? even sam altman trying to play down use of that saying they would draw from many sources talking about the "new york times" lawsuit and saying that openai is drawing on their data without their permission. how sustainable do you think is really is? >> sustainable in at least the near term. so as we have this a.i. arms race, we have huge competitors, openai, google and fropic building models against each other to get to artificial general intelligence, the reddit data is important for that because they are in ways these
2:05 pm
communities, 100,000 active communities sort of like expert networks on niche and useful topics. i think over the longer run as the models get towards more artificial general intelligence there's a cap probably to that data from reddit. >> how important is profitability, and how soon for reddit? in other words, nice revenues but no profits so far? >> profits are tough in social media for all of the companies that really don't have scale like meta. social and advertising in general online. it's really a scale game. if you have the scale of a meta, an instagram, you can drive incredible profitability. look at a company like snap in that second tier, i would argue, with a reddit, with pinterest and you see profitability dynamics are a little different. that's one of the key stories, i think in terms of reddit over the next couple year, tyler. can they get to profitability?
2:06 pm
spent more than 50% revenue on r & d last year. 2345 is partly because still subscale relative to other pla platforms. if they can find good leverage in their model and continue to get ad dollars to come on their platform that could help the story a lot. >> meanwhile, deidre, we learned that in a prospectus for this ipo reddit said the ftc is investigating its data licensing practices. how much of a hurdle is that? >> we don't know very many details. it raises a tricky issue of, how do you actually value that data in this age of a.i.? how much is it worth? the "washington post" did an interesting analysis. got ahold of a google data set where it showed the weightings of different websites. you look at a "new york times" and it had something called 100 million tokens versus 8 million for reddit. so when you looked through he's different sources for these large language models, there's
2:07 pm
also going toing discrepancy between them and then you layer on regulators concerns. do companies have the right to even sell this data? kind of tells us we're early and it's not exactly clear how it's going to be valued and how they're even going to be ale to get to that. >> does it mean redditors are not using the language the "new york times" righters are? >> quality. a good point. haven't talked about the quality of that data. heard from steve huffman earlier today. i was laughing when david faber was talking about nsfw. not safe for work a term he only just heard of, but what a lot of reddit revolves you. you wonder, is that the data that people are going to -- data scientists will want to pay for, versus sort of prestige journalism of the "new york times"? jo i don't know. not making a statement either way. >> thank you both. deidre bosa and doug clinton. the other big headlines
2:08 pm
follows in the tech world, doj along with 16 states filing an antitrust case against apple the iphone monopoly. the alleged monopoly. stock down nearly 4%. actually a little more than 4% in realtime. listen to what attorney general merrick garland alleges. >> today apple's share of the u.s. performance smartphone market exceeds 70%. and its share of the entire u.s. smartphone market exceeds 65%. apple charges as much as nearly $1,600 for an iphone. as our complaint alleges, apple has maintained monopoly power in the smartphone market not simply by staying ahead of the competition on merits but by swr violating antitrust law. >> steve kovach is covering the story and internet law professor at george mason and's a former
2:09 pm
ftic advisor. steve, begin with you. what's the response from apple about the lawsuits? >> lengthy. let me put it that way. first of all, they're going to fight this. going to fight it in court and say this lawsuit is fighting against their innovation and hamper their ability to make great products people like and point out, talk about global market share a little bit. interesting. this is a u.s. case, but basically trying to make the case we're small. just 20% of the whole smartphone market. android is this global behemoth beyond us. again, u.s. case, as merrick garland just said and also just talking how so many of these allegations throughout the lawsuit basically says, look. you know, everything they are accused of, they have a reason for. all comes back to privacy, security, best experience. that is basically the argument they're making. >> although -- i'm not a lawyer and i really don't even play one on tv. i will say that when you look at
2:10 pm
the defense that gets made in antitrust cases, having an excuse for it has not worked in the past. it's not enough to just have a reason for it. maurice, you worked for the ftc under president biden and you know that this is an administration that has been laser focused on breaking up the potential for monopolies and antitrust practices here. what do you make of the case we heard from merrick garland? >> it looks like -- what -- tr is not like with the epic lawsuit against apple. not anti-competitive and complying to one area. but, really, a concerted effort by apple to prevent disruptive innovation from threatening its monopoly and the way it did so is by degrading quality, reducing inoperability. you can offer a justification for something that might be
2:11 pm
arguably pro-competitive. but harder for courts to swallow doing something that degrades the quality and performance for apple iphone users. >> professor, respond to maurice there. i take it you view this allegation, these lawsuit allegations as deficient on the law and the facts. specifically with respect to protecting consumers from harm? >> yeah. absolutely. look, this is march madness. this is a baseless claim predicated on the simple fact that consumers are not being harmed. now, my colleague over there was saying how the devices have not continued to improve. that just doesn't match reality. seems like every ore day i'm getting a new function or feature pushed to my phone by apple as part of an ios update. they are constantly innovating. look at competition in the marketplace. there's apple and android. the department of justice is actually suing google, maker of
2:12 pm
android for being a "mono"monop and now android. pick one. which is it? finally what is the purpose behind this? the complaint is, well, iphones are really expensive. yeah! they are. that's accurate, but the thing is, if people don't want to pay a premium price for a premium product they can always go out and buy an android phone or another different device, and that's competition in the marketplace. it's like complaining th ing th n nos speakers are expensive. they are. they're a premium product. it's absurd our department of justice is fighting to decide whether we see green bubbles or blue bubbles on our phones or complaining that the apple watch only works with apple devices. come on. this is not a legitimate complaint. everything's being done for security, safety and improving the ecosystem and experience on the phones. >> steve, address the point
2:13 pm
there. and to his point, you sure don't hear a lot of customers complaining about apple -- >> exactly. >> keep on buying more apple. >> you just keep doing it. this works. >> that's also merrick garland's point. it works, you're happy, because they've made it -- you don't know what you're missing. this is merrick garland's argument. maybe not using a garmin watch in a fully functional way -- i'm serious. just -- >> i get it. i get it. >> for people who are in this apple ecosystem. you can see those in the android system, right. break it up. it would give me more options. >> exactly. >> make what i have work better. but in interesting talking about the wallet and apple is insisting taking a share of personal data
2:14 pm
that belongs to my bank because i want to use tap and paper through more my phone. it hadn't occurred to me, privacy being concerned. maurice, relevant points to be made are you doing the best thing for the consumers? or are you keeping everyone in this ecosystem and creating modes that don't have to. >> raising prices on phones every couple years was another part of it where consumer harm comes in, they say. >> so privacy is going to be a key co-competitive business justification, but the complaint alleges, and it's actually true, that if apple were really concerned about privacy, it would actually take steps to improve it. the reason that it's getting billions of dollars from apple, rather, from google, for google to be the preferred search engine on all of the apple devices is not because it promotes privacy. far from it. in fact, incentives of contrary, but the more fundamental point
2:15 pm
here is that apple protects privacy when it suits its purpose. and when it doesn't it will undermine privs with respect to texting, for example. one of the examples given in the complaint. i mean, to say that, oh, apple users aren't complaining. well -- it's hard to have a counterprofessional saying what if apple users could have, for example, more app stores available? what if, you know, an, and epic pointed this out. having to pay 30% for in-app revenues to play say 10%? and pass that along to consumers. consumers would be better off as well. so i mean, i can understand why industry participants would be rapidly criticizing the complaint. but having represented microsoft back in the day in the original
2:16 pm
case, the courts will scrutinize the justifications given by apple and when it comes to degrading performance for other services, the courts generally are not very sympathetic to those business justifications. so apple will have a rough road ahead. >> running a little short on time. professor, tie it off here and make your final point and then we have to tie it up. >> yeah. absolutely. quite simply -- americans love these devices, because they just work. the fact i can't install apps that i don't know who made them or where they came from on to my phone, on to my apple phone makes my device more safe, more secure less spyware than on our computers. everything we've seen has been pro-consumer and end of the day, this doesn't pass the smell test, because the market is highly competitive as people continue to buy not only apple devices but android devices. right there you have competition
2:17 pm
in the marketplace and, yeah, prices are going up. that's a lot more to do with inflation, supply chains and government red tape than it does some sort of broken marketplace. >> interesting argument. i'm sure we'll revisit this. thank you for making your points clearly. colonel and maurice, and steve. thank you. coming up, two heavy hitters in the athletic retail space reporting results after the bell. one would be nike. the other would be lululemon. which is the better bet for investors? we'll have a bull fight. a bull fight. further ahead. stocks soaring following the fed decision. we discuss the market, the economy and more with blackrock, next.
2:18 pm
rylee! from rylee's realty! hi! this listing sounds incredible. let's check it out. says here it gets plenty of light. and this must be the ocean view? of aruba? huh. this listing is misleading. well, when at&t says we give businesses get our best deal, on the iphone 15 pro made with titanium. we mean it. amazing. all my agents want it. says here...“inviting pool”. come on over! too inviting. only at&t gives businesses our best deals on any iphone. get iphone 15 pro on us. (♪♪)
2:19 pm
personalized financial advice from ameriprise can do more than help you reach your goals. -you can make this work. -we can make this work. it can help you reach them with confidence. no wonder more than 9 out of 10 of our clients are likely to recommend us. ameriprise financial. advice worth talking about.
2:20 pm
welcome back. a news alert now on boeing. troubling signs there for the company's ceo perhaps.
2:21 pm
phil lebeau has details. phil? >> tyler look at shares of boeing. trading lower today. trending lower. slightly negative a few minutes ago. amid reports that the boeing board specifically chairman larry kelner and some board members are planning on doing a listening tour next week. going and visiting some of boeing's largest customers here in the united states, talking with executives at those airlines without ceo dave calhoun and without stan diehl, president of boeing commercial airplanes. so what you're looking at here is, we have confirmed that these meetings will be taking place. it will be chairman larry kelner from the boeing board along with at least one board member visiting a number of their top customers here in the united states potentially might be visiting some of their largest international customers after that, and this is essentially a chance for kelner and board members to hear straight from the customers what's not working at boeing and how frustrated
2:22 pm
those customers are. we do know from talking with people familiar with these discussions that the airlines initially reached out to boeing and said, look. can we meet with you? can the airlines ceos, largest customers come and meet with you? boeing came back said why don't we have larry kelner at least one board member come and visit each airline as opposed to all airline ceos coming together at once. we point out we've reached out to boeing for a comment on this. nothing official at this point aside from saying dave calhoun and stan diehl are supportive of any meetings between kelner and board members and customers to discuss how boeing can do a better job. that's the story what we can expect happening next week as part of a listening tour with larry kelner, chairman of boeing's board and board members and boeing's top customers. >> thank you.
2:23 pm
take it from here. interesting in the share price for today, still hanging on in the green. major averages rallying fourth straight day following the fed's plans to stick with its forecast of three rate cuts by end of this year. here we reaction, cio of global fixed income at blackrock. good to see you. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> when can we expect the fed to make the first cut? >> i think the market consensus going into the fed was june. i don't think we learned much different around that. you know, a couple comments yesterday that when the chair talked about, we're trying to hit the inflation target. actually said we are going to hit the target over time. we're still running above trend and inflation. yesterday was interesting. fed upgraded growth forecast, upgraded inflationary forecast and still gave indication we can start middle of the year and quite frankly still get three cuts in. i don't know. i thought it was, the market's reaction to it, better than
2:24 pm
could have been the case, and i thought an interest -- chair did a very good job thinking through, we think the data will give a better chance over the next months and we only have to see it. that's for sure. >> you and i were both attending a conference at emory university this week where you were addressing some of the inflation data points that you're monitoring. as diverse as and a big hit with business students, diverse as prices paid for taylor swift tickets to insurance. can you set the thesis about where we are with goods and services inflation and how the fed needs to change its monitoring of those? >> yeah. so i mean, think about it. never seen this in my career. doing this a long time. actually a dynamic, dichotomy between goods and services inflation is extraordinary. look at three-month moving average goods. one year. six months. moving average. actually deflation, disinflation
2:25 pm
in goods. services, three-month moving average in services still 6%. why is this happening? parts of the economy, i talked about it. people paying not just for taylor swift tickets, for f1 events but forring super bowl et cetera but it's a microcosm of the fact experiences. people are paying. a cull ctural dynamic paying fo services and price of goods came down. more disposable income to spend on services. a wild dynamic as play that will continue. parts of the fed's interest rate tool that does not affect the heavy levels. health care costs education costs insurance. there's the dynamic and part of what why i think is fed is trite s right to say bringing down service inflation is hard. more cyclical i.e. goods inflation is negative. time to start moving that rate
2:26 pm
down. >> and seeing seinfeld. inflation in the ticket prices. made me laugh about how much i paid. curious here. you made the case in my note that services inflation is the kind of inflation that is the least resistant to the blunt force tool that the fed has. which is interest rates. explain why that is, and, therefore, why it may be a little harder to get down to that 2% target that the fed has when they're using a tool that may not work as well in that category of inflation as it does with goods? >> so it's a long story. you go back, why i think thanal in '80s and '90s. an economy driven by, think about it, energy costs, driven by hard assets. they're financed. insurance is not financed. health care most of it is not financed. education's not financed.
2:27 pm
you have a tool that's incredibly imprecise, but what does it impact? this is what i think the fed, why they need to move it down. pernicious effects on parts of the economy. lower income. seeing it play out in credit charges. lowered incomes during harder time. commercial real estate local banks having a hard time. talk about that a lot on the show. a tool targets parts of the economy, interest sensitive and doesn't hit the others. meanwhile, you can get the tool back. the fed think we're running 2.5% inflation. fed funds rate is 5 3/8. restrictive. even 100 basis points off it's still restrictive and so i think that's the right mode and i think the chair was very, very thoughtful how he addressed that. >> your world view. talk where you think people should put their money? very interested you talked about private credit, emerging markets. infrastructure and then, of course, you're head of fixed income.
2:28 pm
you think high-quality fixed income is a great option? >> this is a pretty important point in time. think about service level inflation. why is the fed keeping fund raid at 5 and inflation too high? means to high yield, launched an etf called mink clipping 6.5, 6.6% yield. how do you do that? risk-free rate at an elevated level you don't have to stretch to take risk and can get paid 6, 6.5%. buying things like investor grade credit. european investor grade credit. extraordinary time buy growth in equity build a lot of income in a portfolio and don't take a lot of risk. credit card companies should borrow 200 points basis points lower. they're not, service level inflation is high. pretty good environment to book. just get yield into your portfolio. seeing that play out. seeing investors go in that
2:29 pm
direction. pretty powerful. >> rick, great to see you. thank you. >> thanks for having me. appreciate it. coming up, olive garden parent disarden lower. first low since the covid pandemic. that's ahead when "power lunch" returns in two minutes. at schwa bring your trades into focus on thinkorswim desktop with robust charting and analysis tools, including over 400 technical studies. tailor the platforms to your unique needs with nearly endless customization. and track market trends with up-to-the-minute news and insights. trade brilliantly with schwab.
2:30 pm
your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire
2:31 pm
to build the electric vehicle of the future, you need partners. mining partners. technology partners. education. supply chain. energy. what if one partner could do it all? that partner is ontario, canada. with all the critical minerals to make electric vehicle batteries. 65,000 stem graduates per year. one of north america's largest i.t. clusters. a fully integrated supply chain. all powered by one of the cleanest grids in north america. ontario. your innovation partner. ( ♪♪ )
2:32 pm
welcome back, everybody. treasurys on the move today following yesterday's fed meeting. rick santelli tracking the action for us. rick? >> hi, tyler. you know, our last guest talked how restrictive fed policy is. current interest rates are set by our central bank. boy, today's data augers for a different story. look at it. current account balance smallest deficit since march of '22. philly fed business outlook, back-to-back positive. first time that's happened, tyler, since april and may of '22. initial continuing claims especially initial continue to be ultrawell behaved. s&p global pmis, a guest talked about it. service inflation stickier and
2:33 pm
much more adverse to any of the policies of the federal reserve to get at, but today's data from the pmis showed manufacturing pmi surged to a level we haven't seen since june of '22. the services pmi was actually a bit disappointing. leading economic indicators, breaks the streak of 23 consecutive negative month over month changes to the best positive level now since february of '22. existing home sales, up 9.5%. intraday ten-year yields moving higher based on the data. something else. swiss national bank, first into the easing pool. yes, cut 25 basis points. this is the dollar versus the swift. dollar surging on that surprise rate cut moving to the best levels in nearly four months. and the fed, ecb and bank of
2:34 pm
england on track based on markets to be first rate cuts in june. contessa, back to you. >> rick santelli, thank you, sir. get to courtney reagan for a cnbc news update. >> hi, contessa. u.s. officials say a landing jet that would facilitate delivery of aid to gaza could be read may 1st. pressure on after a united nations report suggested famine is eminent. the progress on the u.s. jetty comes as officials from 36 countries and several u.n. agencies met in cyscypress how get more via a sea route. donald trump's lawyers asked an appeals court to excuse him from covering his $454 million fraud bond requirement. they argue it would cause the former president irreparable harm before his appeal is decided. new york attorney general letitia james can start taking steps to collect the money starting next monday.
2:35 pm
and another best-selling video game franchise is about to get its turn at the box office. according to "variety" a film adaptation of "the sims" is in the works. "barbie" had suction is reportedly producing the film we vertigo entertainment. >> blending together. a broadway show as well then. >> there you go. exactly. nike and lululemon both reporting earnings after the bell, which gives investors the better bet for the long term debate in an old-fashioned bull fight, when "power lunch" returns.
2:36 pm
2:37 pm
municipal bonds don't usually get the media coverage the stock market does. in fact, most people don't find them all that exciting. but, if you're looking for the potential for consistent income that's federally tax-free. now is an excellent time to consider municipal bonds from hennion & walsh. if you have at least $10,000 to invest, call and talk with one of our bond specialists at 1-800-217-3217. we'll send you our exclusive bond guide, free with details about how bonds
2:38 pm
can be an important part of your portfolio. hennion & walsh has specialized in fixed income and growth solutions for 30 years, and offers high-quality municipal bonds from across the country. they provide the potential for regular income are federally tax-free and have historically low risk. call today to request your free bond guide. 1-800-217-3217. that's 1-800-217-3217. all right, everybody. welcome back to "power lunch." a bull fight brewing between two major retailers. one corner nike down about 17% over the past three months. then we have lululemon down about 6% since reporting three months ago as well. both names been in a bit of a slump. more pronounced for nike, but which is headed potentially for
2:39 pm
a turnaround? making the case for nike, senior equity analyst with wells fargo securities. $125 price target on that stock. counter, john kernen outperform on lululemon with a $553 3 pric target there. make the case for nike, indeed trouble since its december report. down 20% or thereabouts. >> sure. thanks, tyler. look, just to be frank. we don't particularly love either name internal earnings. below the street, numbers came down for both of these guys but we think nikesy a better investment. honestly, to keep it simple, because nike is a story all about roecoveries a characteristic of space and innovation and valuation. whereas the other side lulu is
2:40 pm
abstain be robust remarks. likely proving difficult in 2024 and slower growth and high multiples is always a tough bet. >> when did nike slip? >> well, honestly, take a step back a couple years i would say the strategy management laid out in 2021 to put much more focus on the direct-to-consumer channel shunned the wholesale channel has backfired and caused issues not just with pnl and profitability and revenue but in terms of innovation in general. why issues with jordan. issues with pipe line in general. i think the good news, tyler, is that we've kind of had -- first thing you have to do admit there's a problem. in december admitted there was a problem. announced restructurirestructur a closer look. where things started to fall apart. >> turn to you, john, and make the case why lulu is the better
2:41 pm
investment than nike? >> and below consensus estimates we are outperform on lulu well above consensus estimates for this year. story level and omni channel of lulu. hitting all-times high, as i said. we think it will continue in 2024. we think management will hit their 2026 targets in 2025. tyler, you said, price target's $553. that's 32 times fiscal '25 expected eps. a real balance between domestic and international growth here. we have natural up 28% this year. domestic up 15% in fiscal '24. the whole business will get a nice lift from a 53rd week we think the street is mismodeling and china a new source of high-margin growth. up 35% in fiscal '24 to $1.5 billion. china representing 15% revenue by iend of this year. >> where's lulu serving men?
2:42 pm
>> yeah. men has fallen behind the growth of women a bit recently, but it's 25% of the business. still think it's a growth market for them. there has been new entrants into the sector. fallen across the whole space. a big issue with nike. we favor disrupters like lulu. lulu also feeling pressure. newer interest in the space. >> curious, though. lulu's out there so long. has been sort of the athleisure record. now everybody else has gotten in the game. high-end guys manufacturing athleisure and teemu and others offering it for a much more young and more affordable crowd. like, how do they compete with all of the newcomers in that game? >> sure. i think lulu leads the space in innovation. certainly with biophased materials new recycled materials, emerging a.i.
2:43 pm
applications. use cases for personalization and inventory management very strong. gross margin is at all-time highs right now. category expansion worked very well for them and a lot of newness. they have used scale to their benefit. margins all-time highs premium player in the space. >> i find it amusing, maybe ironic, nike is criticized for see-through baseball uniforms. something lululemon had been charged with some years ago. not baseball uniforms. more yoga pants. comment on that, if you don't mind. >> yeah. i mean, that's a small piece of the pie, tyler. what i would do is go back to -- what john is saying. i agree with everything that john is saying. i think he's spot-on. maybe where we're different is rate of range on a lulu story from here is going to slow. i think that, you know, you guys will get into it. competition, covered stocks since the ipo. first time ever actually considered competition from some
2:44 pm
of the emerging concepts as really having an impact. i think some drivers of north america, over china. we worry about north america and the u.s. that's where we see in growth and capital -- >> you see lulu -- i don't see lulu doing it, but would nike buy glory? >> yeah. can't comment on that. i think that fiore, those on septembers are disrupting to extent and i think that's part of the problem. >> leave it there. thank you both. coming up, a new ftc reports claims big retailers lime amazon helped fuel higher grocery costs. details when "power lunch" returns.
2:45 pm
your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire (grandpa vo) i'm the richest guy in the world. matching your job description. hi baby! (woman 1 vo) i have inherited the best traditions. (woman 2 vo) i have a great boss... it's me. (man 1 vo) i have people, people i can count on. (man 2 vo) i have time to give (grandma vo) and a million stories to share. (grandpa vo) if that's not rich, i don't know what is. (vo) the key to being rich is knowing what counts.
2:46 pm
they're waiting for you. hey, do you have a second? they're all expecting more. more efficiency. more benefits. more growth. when you realize you can give your people everything, and more. thank you very much. [applause] ask, "now what?" here's what. you go with prudential to protect, empower and grow. with everything you need to deliver, you guessed it... more. one more thing... who's your rock? learn more at prudential.com this is our future, ma. godaddy airo.
2:47 pm
creates a logo, website, even social posts... in minutes! -how? -a.i. (impressed) ay i like it! who wants to come see the future?! get your business online in minutes with godaddy airo welcome back. a new report from the federal trade commission blames large retailers like walmart, kroger and amazon for higher grocery
2:48 pm
costs. from washington we have more. what have you learned? >> so the ftc just out with findings from a new report telling us supply chain disruptions initially caused higher grocery prices but the larger retailers made the situation worse. ftc conclusion that big grocery chains used rising costs as a chance to raise prices and boost profits they say remain elevated today. during a meeting today, the issue could warrant further inquiry. >> i have been concerned about allegations of discriminatory conduct, differential pricing we may be seeing. such that small and independent firms maying losing out to bigger firms, if we end up finding these types of practices violate any of the antitrust laws, i will be interested in making sure we take swift action. >> now, the ftc spent more than two years digging into information from walmart and amazon also from major suppliers like tyson foods and procter & gamble.
2:49 pm
the report calls out major retailers and names walmart specifically for pressuring suppliers to fulfill deliveries threatening fines, for example, for being late and allowed larger chains, this allowed larger chains to dominate over small stores which had more trouble keeping shelves stocked. ftc doesn't go as far as to label any of this illegal activity, but both the commission and lawmakers say they'll look for, looking further into this. >> lina khan says may warrant further inquiry, what does that exactly mean? >> we don't know exactly that yet, but two things here. ftc is clearly saying to lawmakers and policymakers with more authority to really look at this. look what we found. maybe you want to dig more into this too. they say sending it to capitol hill. also the ftc talked a lot about enforcing laws already on the books. fair to say they think it happened because we weren't already well-enforcing laws meant to help small and medium grocery stores compete.
2:50 pm
we could see them step up enforcement there as well. >> thank you. coming up, the trades on micron, darden and fedex after earnings in a fresh "three stock lunch." we'll be right back. ble. let's check it out. says here it gets plenty of light. and this must be the ocean view? of aruba? huh. this listing is misleading. well, when at&t says we give businesses get our best deal, on the iphone 15 pro made with titanium. we mean it. amazing. all my agents want it. says here...“inviting pool”. come on over! too inviting. only at&t gives businesses our best deals on any iphone. get iphone 15 pro on us. (♪♪) new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today.
2:51 pm
2:52 pm
2:53 pm
welcome back to power lunch, everybody. today i am for today's three stock lunch. two names adjust reported quarterly results and another one with its earnings on deck. herewith are trades is a partner at wall street aligns group. let's start off, if you don't mind, with darden restaurants. the stock dropping after the company posted its first same- store sales declines as the pandemic. your take on darden? >> yes, we would stay away from darden because, you know, it seems like one of the things that is weighing on their earnings is inflation and for us, it seems like other competitors like chipotle and shake shack have been far more successful at passing on food inflation to the customers and part of that reason could be that there has been a shift in consumer taste.
2:54 pm
for example, you'd rather go to chipotle as opposed to olive garden. for that reason, we would stay away from darden. >> next up we have micron technology. the shares are jumping much higher today after the semiconductor maker made estimates on the top and bottom lines of almost 15%. it provided a strong forecast for the third quarter. are you buying here? >> yes. we do like micron. this is not for the faint of heart. be careful. especially with the drawbacks in 2022 and 2014 but we feel like, finally, the time has come for micron, right? with this era of artificial intelligence revolution we feel that a lot of companies are going to benefit from it and micron is one of them. artificial intelligence systems do require a lot of memory
2:55 pm
chips and micron is the one that provides that one of the leading providers of that. you know, the good thing is is it is not competitive. it is complementing nvidia's business. for that reason, we are on micron. >> let's move on to fat asked. -- fedex. >> fedex is a great story. they've done a great job at cutting down their costs and i think when rates get cut, the rates will improve for them and they faced a bit of a challenge there. the dividend story is great because rates coming down we feel that money will come out of the money market and investors are going to gravitate towards good quality dividend paying businesses. that have a track record of dividend growth and fedex is
2:56 pm
one such company. there dividend growth on average for the past 10 years has been about 24 1/2 percentages a year. we are constructive on fedex. >> any thoughts on how the earnings will come in? quickly. >> we think the earnings should be positive. the story will improve and they've done a good job in cutting down the costs. we like the fact that they are not heavily reliant on amazon as compared to the competitor, u.p.s. >> thank you very much. we apprecie ur te.atyoim >> more power lunch next. as we head to a break and check on reddit, below its opening price, $47 per share but still, above where they had priced and we'll be right back. easy-to, like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis, help make trading feel effortless. and its customizable scans with social sentiment help you find and unlock opportunities in the market. e*trade from morgan stanley. with powerful, easy-to-use tools, power e*trade makes complex trading easier. react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity.
2:57 pm
e*trade from morgan stanley. to build the electric vehicle of the future, you need partners. mining partners. technology partners. education. supply chain. energy. what if one partner could do it all? that partner is ontario, canada. with all the critical minerals to make electric vehicle batteries. 65,000 stem graduates per year. one of north america's largest i.t. clusters. a fully integrated supply chain. all powered by one of the cleanest grids in north america. ontario. your innovation partner. ( ♪♪ )
2:58 pm
you founded your kayak company because you love the ocean- not spreadsheets. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire
2:59 pm
a brewing scandal hanging over baseball star joe -- show had tonnie's debut. the team fired his close friend and interpreter amid allegations of illegal gambling and theft. they're not again shohei ohtani
3:00 pm
himself. at question is four and half million dollars in wire transfers. some of which apparently came from shohei ohtani's bank account to an illegal bookmaking operation. there was an interview with espn where shohei ohtani was said to have paid off his friends debts and then denied it. >> not gambling on baseball, so says the interpreter, i should say. thanks for watching power lunch, everybody. >> closing bell starts now. welcomed the closing bell. i'm mike. and for scott. this make or break our begins with apple ask -- acting as the biggest drag in a follow- through rally. apple shares off about 4% tracking for their worst day in almost eight months after the justice department sued the company for allegedly stifling competition and consumer choice in its iphone ecosystem. more than 4%, s&p 500, meantime of more than a third of 1%. not far from

74 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on