the pros are trying to convince themselves as much as they're trying to con vis you that, hey, at some point, the market's going to crash and at some point, you know, this is going to happen and that's going to happen. guess what? it will. but until that happens, i think you have to do your own work if you can, follow the markets when you can and just make sure you watch "making money" with charles payne because i got it for you. i've got the best with guests. we do real thorough, in-depth analysis, and essentially we've got with your back so you don't have to play the world series of poker unless you want to. it would be a luxury, not something you do instead of working a job. have a fantastic weekend. in the meantime, my colleague cheryl casone, she's in for liz claman. clerls cheryl markets aren't going anywhere, i'm going to make five days in a day, watch with it right now. charles, thank you very much. we have got a fox business alert for you right now. you are looking at live pictures from coast to coast of picket

lines that have gathered here in new york city's times square and in front of the netflix headquarters building in los angeles. after the actors union, sag-actra, unanimously voted to strike starting today. the hollywood actors have joined the writers in protests for the first industry-wide walkout in over 60 years. twin strikeses have forced all studios to hut down production after negotiations for pay, streaming and artificial intelligence regulations fell through. all the major film and tv studio stocks are taking a hit on the double strike today. as you can see, netflix, disney, paramowrnghts warner brothers, fox corporate, all of these stocks are lore. kelly o'grady is live outside of netflix headquarters where protests have been going on all day. we are really at a hollywood stand the still. what does this all mean now for the box office, kelly? >> reporter: well, that's right.

you know, this isn't going to impact things in the immediate future. we, you know, you might see what these next few summer releases, you might have folks not come to the movies necessarily because they want to support. but one thing that i will point out that i thought was interesting, if you're an actor with the union, you can't actually promote the movies. we even found that the folks at the oppenheimer premiere in london, they left the premiere early in solidarity. now, i do want to point out, let's think about the future. what does this mean? you're going to see huge delays of the releases of the movies you're excited about. you don't have any scripts being written, and you don't have actors to perform it. so that could mean shows you're excited to see might be delayed. now let's zoom out, right? i just talked about the impact to the industry specifically, but southern california, some of the other areas where a lot of filming will happen, those industries, the economies of those areas will be impacted as well.

i'll give you a stat from the 2007 writers' strike. that had an economic loss for southern california of $2.1 billion. now, what are they looking for? this could go on for a couple of months -- rather, it could go on for analysts are saying another 30 days now that the actors have joined in. they do think -- the writers think they'll have a lot more negotiating power now that they do have the actors onboard, but they're focus on better pay, right? they want better pay when their content is licensed to streamers, and they also want to make sure that they get in their contract that artificial intelligence, right, that there are regulations around how studios can use that. you could be in a situation where a voiceover actor or a writer might have a script written by chatgpt. that's one of the big concerns here. and, cheryl, i was able to fran drescher, might know her from the nanny, and she shared with me her concerns about artificial

intelligence. >> it's critically important, it's -- you know, if we don't throw a saddle on this wild horse and pull in the reins right here and now, everybody's a livelihoods are going to be threatened. not just ours. that's why the eyes of america and workers around the world are watching. >> reporter: so listen, streamers are caught between a rock and a hard place, you know? we have seen earnings report after earnings report that's focused on profitability, they want to get their costs down. but what happens when your content is delayed and subscribers like you and me say, hey, maybe we won't subscribe because our favorite content center there anymore? this is putting a lot of pressure on the streamers. i'll send it back to you. cheryl: it really is. and, obviously, their headquarters are a bit of a mess as you can see in those live pictures. kelly o'grady, thank you for that live report from los angeles. we'll keep, of course, following this story. now we want to take a look at the markets right now. pretty mixed picture, but don't let these numbers deceive you.

it has been a great week for the stock market. the dow right now is higher by 100 points. we're off of session highs. s&p is down by 8 and change. nasdaq is down by 47 points and change. strong results though from the big financials floating stocks upwards for most of the session today. jpmorgan, wells fargo and citi all beat expectations before the bell today. there was disappointing results really coming in from citi. they saw profits drop 36% in the last year. but from crisis comes reward at least for jpmorgan. this is -- what a storied today. the financial giant reported a jump in profit tied to its purchase of distressed bank first republic. seeing a huge boost to its interest income. that, of course, is a big precursor for how the stock is going to get a reaction are from traders and, of course, from shareholders. and here you go, stock is up by .30%. the other bright spot in earnings this morning,

unitedhealth. they posted better than expected results and raised their yacht look -- outlook despite rising medical costs. on maybe it was because, who who's to say, right? bitcoin is back under $31,000 after shooting past that benchmark on thursday. yesterday's jump happened right after a breakthrough ruling from the sec on ripple coin xrp. a judge said that ripple did not break federal security ises laws by selling xrp tokens on exchanges and through alps, but they did -- algorithms. this ruling coming amid a slew of sec litigation all over the crypto space including against major player coinbase, a stock one with of our familiar show traders says has had a major hand in positioning him up 142% this year. let's go to the floor show and our traders, and they've got some other picks as well. carnivore trading ceo dutch masters and the fitzgerald grou,

keith fitz-gerald. dutch, back to you on coin. this has been a beleaguered, battered stock until now thanks to this sec decision. >> right. we, a couple of weeks ago saw the sec make the bitcoin ruling allowing really -- clearing the path really for bitcoin to kind of move into more constitutional type accounts. that was immediately followed by a lot of applications to the sec from big people like blackrock to create etf where now, you know, everybody on the planet can actually get exposed to or will be able to get exposed to bitcoin through these etfs including institutions. and these institution ises have come out and named -- institutions have come out and named coinbase as really who is going to handle the management of these etfs for the institutions and for other

actions. they have the technology to handle institutional-sized transactions. and then we have this crazy xrp case come out where, with ripple, and the sec loses its case there saying that the coin didn't violate these things, as you said, and coinbase took off like 25% yesterday because they handle a lot of ark lt-coin -- at-coin business as well -- alt-coin business as well. yesterday they had about 40% of our funds in that one stock, and when it went up like it did, you know, it just took our returns through the roof. we're pretty aggressive, and we're very growth-oriented. but we also triggered a buy on mara which turned out really well which is a bitcoin miner. and, of course, i'm talking to you from the las vegas carnivore mansion here. we're in the catacombs, and i

couldn't -- we're here in the catacombs because we're exploring the opportunity of mined bitcoin ourselves underneath the mansion. of course i'm joking. cheryl: okay, i know. i was also going to say maybe you're in the basement because you're trying to hide from 115-degree heat in las vegas. thought that as well for a moment there. fitzgerald, let's pivot back to banks -- keith fitz-gerald, let's pivot back to banks. jpmorgan, again, was the star of the show. that was predicted. i discussed that yesterday on our morning program. keith, what did you make of the results, and would you buy jpmorgan right now? >> you bet i would. i love what i see. i think jamie dimon is as sharp as they come, probably the top tier when it comes to this. so, you know, the high prices don't bother me. i think the bank's got a long road in front of it, but it does clearly distinguish between something like a jpmorgan and a citigroup. within the biggies, there's still going to be the best and not the rest are. cheryl: keith, real quick,

nvidia just hit an all-time high. a lot of naysayers on nvidia. it's overvalued, it's overpriced finish. [laughter] who's laughing now, i guess. >> golly, i tell you what, if i had a dollar for every time somebody told me nvidia wasn't going to go any higher, i'd be on jeff besews' yacht right now. -- jeff bezos' yacht right now. anybody who's tried to short it has come up on the wrong side of the stick. could it fall here? yeah, there's going to be some short-term profit taking. minute's got to power everything, be at the front of the class, i think the stock maybe has a split in front of it, certainly a bright future. cheryl: all right. dutch masters, broad question for you here. we saw consumer sentiment today spike, 72.6. i'm not seeing a recession here. are you? >> you know, i'll tell you, every time that we hear about it, we see something like that happen. i've got to tell you, we have

been very bullish all year. started in december. we tried to do a little short on the stocks back when there was a euphoric spike in the a.i., you know, nasdaq -- i mean, with nvidia and all that. and just as keith said, it really ripped our faces off. is so we got out of that short very quickly. this is a market that wants to go up, and it -- we can all point to 20 or 30 different things in the world that could go wrong, and that's fine. but the market is just -- we're traders. we have to make money every month, and we look at what the tape is telling us, and the tape telling us that this market wants to run. it's not going to be a straight line, it never is, but the strength has been really phenomenal. cheryl: real quick -- >> and with the financial, with the financials coming through today the way they did, this

market's even better. cheryl: people are spending, you know, we've got am-exx coming out next week,s they are spending, they are traveling, they are charging,s personal interest rates are going down. keith, before you go, speaking of considers and sentiment, pepsico. >> i know. wasn't that cool? so great results. that tells me the consumer is really -- has really got a lot of strength here. and to dutch's point, you know, the market -- path of least resistance is very much hire, and as long as you've got great companies putting up great numbers, my contention is we're actually exiting a recession even though it's never been called that. cheryl: gentlemen, thank you so much. dutch, stay safe out there. >> thanks, cheryl. it's real hot. cheryl: i know. [laughter] guys, thank you. all right, we are going to be talking much more about the banks, actually. we're going to turn our attention to the regional level. coming up next, the ceo of ocean first financial will give us some insight into the regionals as those smaller names start to

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companies, whether that was to target accounts, to target users, this kind of goes back into the pandemic days and covid misinformation. but again, this is a loss, again, better biden administration -- for the biden administration that put in this appeal on monday, and they have just been ruled against. this is late breaking news as we move into the close of business today. well, we already told you about results from wells fargo, citi and the blockbuster numbers we got from jpmorgan, but wait, there's going to be more. what about the regional banks in the sector's been under pressure since the collapse of silicon valley bank, signature and first republic in the spring. there's been some warn warnings there's going to be more fail offs to come, but nobody knows where -- failures. the ishares u.s. regional index, down about 15%. this is one regional bank of the northeast scheduled to report after the bell on thursday, joining us now is the ceo, christopher lawrence. great to have you here, sir e.

>> great to be here, cheryl. cheryl: it is a bit of a rocky time still to be in the business. how are things going? >> it was quite a spring, right? [laughter] cheryl: it was. >> we go back a couple months, obviously, a lot of concerns about the sector. i think they were overblown at the time, and we're seeing that kind of come through where it was really a couple of individual institutions that were really exposed, and the rest of us quite strong. the system is really strong, and our customers have been terrific. you know, markets look great, the economy looks strong, credit looks good. so there's a lot of positives in this economy. cheryl: house's -- howe's business --house -- how's business lending going for you? all those resets have made the markets very nervous. because of interest rates rising. >> yeah. sure. when rates go up, you're going to have a little bit of a pullback in demand. we're lending every day. we're out there open for business. but, certainly, you've got certain segments of the economy where rates have come up enough that it's very difficult to

finance net new projects, commercial real estate would be one of those areas. but we're actively lending in the right projects, on the industrial side, residential side, so congress is moving -- commerce is moving, our clients are doing well, and there are opportunities. this idea of a soft landing is very possible. cheryl: how is the consumer side of the business for you right now? you know, one of the things that can be kind of tough for a bank, and that was a little bit of the nervous chatter going into the financials today, this morning with jpmorgan and citi is, look, when minute's got a money markey market account with you and you're paying them 5-6 on that, that eats into your profits. >> it sure does. we went through a liquidity crisis earlier in the year. our clients stuck with us, the bad thing is you've got to make sure you pay a market rate, so you've got to be able to do that. but if you've positioned your organization properly, you should be seeing both sides of the balance sheet adjust. they don't adjust in unison, but your loan rates come up over

time, and you should be able to manage through that. rates seem very high today. by historical comparison, this is much more close to the normal environment that you would have seen 10, 15 years ago. cheryl: i was going to say the early '80s when you saw mortgages for 13, 14, 15% -- i'm sure you remember the early '80s, i know i do. old enough to remember that decade. [laughter] let's talk about the future, the next six months. what is the outlook for you? >> i think it's pretty positive. we saw some pretty good numbers this week around the economy showing that it's cooling down but remains strong. so i think as long as a employment holds in and the consumer keeps spending, and we're seeing signs of that. we've got consumers who bank with us, their spending is constant. of we have folks involved in all industries including hospitality, so you can see what they're spending over the summer. we are active in residential mortgage lending. people are still buying houses ands they're paying decent prices for those. there's a lot of strength. i think over the next decision months we want to make sure that we're focused on inflation

getting under control. cheryl: so ocean first, you're in good shape, the bank is in good shape. but to my question at the beginning of the interview, are there some potential more failures to come? are we out of the woods or not? >> i think we're largely out of the woods. there are thousands of banks in the country, so this is probably maybe a small number of banks that are having you have tougher time than normal. but i think this idea that there would be a contagion or that things would roll down or snowball, that's clearly not the case. the system is strong. capital levels are high. and what we see in the economy means the credit is not a flare -- near-term concern. that bodes well for banks. cheryl: credit is not. but i'm assuming lending standards even for you, you had to make that decision. >> yeah, you have to be very thoughtful, but you have to have your standards? good finals -- in good times and bad. you've got to keep enforcing them. we've seen a remarkably good performance among all of our client segments, so residential, commercial real estate as well

as industrial. cheryl: christopher, thank you for being here. we'll look forward to those numbers when they cross. >> all right. cheryl: all right. well, with all the hand-wringing over the actors and writers' strike, credit suisse says one streamer may not only survive is, but thrive. which one? find out next in pop stocks. again, looking at live pictures here, new york city. and taking a look at your markets right now, dow up 142. so markets are holding in here. remember, we're up more than 2 percent for the -- 2% for the week for all three of these indexes, so don't let these numbers shake you at all. dow down 42, nasdaq -- dow up 142, nasdaq slightly lower. we'll be right back. ♪ the biggest ideas inspire new ones. 30 years ago, state street created an etf that inspired the world to invest differently.

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cheryl: want to give you a fox business market alert on this friday. as we move into the close, about 3 minutes to go -- 33 minutes. the dow is up 130. at one point we were up 197. still, a strong closeout. unitedhealth, the big story for the dow in particular. s&p 500, as you can see, we're down almost 6 points. we were down about 4 earlier, so session lows. nasdaq is down 45 and change, so we're actually hitting session lows for the nasdaq as well. well, regulators in the u.k. have extend their deadline to rule on moth's acquisition -- microsoft's acquisition of activision blizzard until august 29th. here in the united states the ftc asked an appeals court to

stop the sale just hours after a federal judge refused a similar request. ubs upgraded the stock from neutral to buy and raised its price target from 345 to 400. at&t dropping after jpmorgan lored the stock's rating from overweight to neutral. bank says liabilities from the discovery of the telecom's toxic-led cables will have a long-term impact. a blockbuster report from "the wall street journal,"s a series of reports on this issue. obviously, this was uncovered by the "wall street journal" in a very long investigation. stock is on pace for its lowest close since 1994 when it closed at $14.58. all right, leslie's is cutting its annual sales and profit forecast. the swimming pool chemical maker attributes it to cost-conscious consumers. morgan stanley cut its price target from 13 to #.

looking at latham, that stock is, as you can see, is in the red by more than 6.5%. hayward, as you can see, is also in the red. and pool corporation, that tock is down about 4.5%. stock. finally, netflix may benefit from the strike of hollywood's actors and writers, that's according to credit suisse. the investment bank raised its price target from 3 # 31 to 370. seriously, 331 to 370, that's a big jump. credit suisse believes the strike is going to accelerate viewers switching from cable to streaming. in addition, netflix has a large library of upcoming shows and films that will help carry them for a while. they call that something already in the can in the business. all right. avomation is coming, the mention -- mexican fast food company has a machine that is cut and core avocados. we have chipotle's ceo and

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like your workplace benefits and retirement savings. with voya, considering all your financial choices together can help you make smarter decisions. voya. well planned. well invested. well protected. cheryl: chipotle has a new employee. fast casual chain testing a machine that peels and digs out all the fresh avocado, hoping to cut guacamole prep time in half at the restaurants. the kitchen bought -- can hold up to 25 pounds of avocados to be cut, cored and peeled fresh for employees to turn into guac. will the mood ripen profits at cmg? joining me now is the chipotle chief customer and technology officer, kurt garner, who is going to correct my pronunciation. hi, kurt. >> hi, cheryl. [laughter] cheryl: so -- >> i love the puns, by the way.

[laughter] cheryl: so what are we calling this? your new employee -- >> we are calling here autocado. cheryl: got it. let's talk about this. first up, the big breaking news, you can do this right here, right on fox business. does this mean that guacamole's going to be free now on the side? >> oh, our back mole arely's worth it. [laughter] -- guacamole. no plans to change that. cheryl: okay. i had to ask. all right. so how does this pork? this is a machine, you're testing it in california. what i thought was interesting is you actually asked your with employees if they would be open to a machine like this, and it seems like the response was yes. >> yeah, overwhelmingly. chipotle is not a franchise restaurant company, so we've got a direct relationship with all of our restaurant team. and what they tell us time and time again is they love the art of cooking. they love culinary arts, preparing fresh food every day for our guests. it's not -- there's not the same amount of joy in all the prep

that occurs every morning to get ready to create those recipes. our teams get in at 5:30 and 6:00 in the morning to be ready for business at 10:30. so listening to our employees, looking at the places where they're spending the most time, frankly, getting ready to create those recipes was the burt place of autocado -- birthplace. cheryl: from what i can see here, it cuts prep time by, what, in half for these employees? to make guacamole? >> it certainly could. so the machine looks like a prep table, and our team members just need to put a case of avocados in. they set the machine, can come back, and in about 20 minutes all of the avenued caddos have been cored, peeled, and they're ready for hand mashing, for the rest of our ingredients and seasoning to taste right on top of the table. cheryl: so i have to ask you, is this -- would you cut jobs if this became something that you,

you know, deployed at 3200 chipotles across the country, or would those employees just be freed up to do other things, maybe serve customers, be in the front part of the tore? >> certainly -- of the store? >> certainly be freed up to do other things. this isn't being developed to cut employees at all. and, frankly, one of the problems we're trying to solve is when a chipotle restaurant has a really great day, we often run out of food around dinner time. and if it takes an hour or more to be able to prep and to create guacamole as an example, that's a really tough time for our crews, and it's very disappointing to our guests. so we're also trying to make sure that we can shorten the time it takes to recover some of our most popular items like chips and guac. cheryl: so you're testing this out, but you're actually -- i mean, it's a machine, but you're using a.i. learning to monitor the machine so that it can get better at doing its job. is that a fair characterization? >> yeah, absolutely. a.i.'s going to play a role and

is playing a role in understanding what the demand is for guac now. certainly, after caddos are different sizes in different seasons -- avocados, so we think there's things to learn around accuracy and making sure we're getting all of the delicious fruit from the avocado every time we peel it. cheryl: okay. and also you're testing out chippy. so you're looking at an automated way to make tortilla chips? is that correct? >> yes. so same story really. in talking to our crews, every morning a crew member spends several hours hand frying all of our chips daily for our guests. and one of the most tedious parts of that process is standing at a fryer and shaking a basket every 45 seconds. and chippy has been designed to be able to automate the process of frying our chips. you know, everything from putting the chips into the fryer to applying the perfect recipe with seasoning. cheryl: well, we do have some of the chips and guacamole on our

set. it is friday here at fox business, so we certainly are going to enjoy a little guacamole and chips. most of us worked out today, so that's our answer. i will tell you, one thing i've said multiple times on the air and i'm going to say it again, any company that will put guacamole on a salad and cheese is okay in my opinion. [laughter] >> thank you very much. [laughter] we try to make you happy. cheryl: kurt garner, take a little bite as we go to break. kurt, thank you so much. appreciate it. we'll have some guac. i'm going to read this and take a bite. just weeks after the supreme court struck down president biden's sweeping student loan forgiveness plan, his administration today announced plans to forgive $39 billion in student debt. we've got a live report from the nation's capital next, and i'm going to have a little bite of guac here in studio as we take a break. ♪ ♪

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cheryl: president biden strikes back on student loan forgiveness. the white house just announced it will forgive $39 billion worth of student loans. this comes just who two weeks after the supreme court struck down biden's initial loan forgiveness plan which would

cost roughly $400 billion. edward lawrence is in washington with the latest on who qualifies for this loan forgiveness. >> reporter: cheryl, it's interesting, president joe biden looking for unique ways to get around that supreme court ruling, ending his student loan or forgiveness plan. the circuit court making it very clear that decisions over billions in taxpayer money rests with congress, not one man at the white house. so the administration trying to do it in pieces. now, the biden administration changed the rules on how they count the months of repayment, adding 804,000 to loan forgiveness programs. so partial payment or no payments in a month will now be counted. so students in default of their loans will also be included, so if the total month paid or or unpaid for students' loans reaches 240 or 300, it will be forgiven under the income-driven repayment plan. this amounts to, as you said, $39 billion in taxpayer money. >> i want too assure our students, our borrowers is and

families across america, our fight is not over. the president, the vice president and i have put borrowers first from day one. we refused to go with back to the way things were before the pandemic when a million borrowers defaulted each year and faced devastating financial consequences. >> reporter: the head of the job creators network sees this as vote buying. >> instead of respecting the supreme court's decision to strike down the biden administration's student loan bailout program just two weeks ago, he's committed to more government overreach in forgiving $39 billion on the backs of taxpayers. >> reporter: so beyond the announcement today, new plans for the administration will take months to get into place, putting taxpayer-funded forgiveness in the range of the next presidential election. cheryl? cheryl: you know, edward, i'm sitting here with charlie gasparino, we were just talking, i mean, the supreme court ruled. how can they do this? >> what is the legal loophole

exactly? because it makes no sense on this thing. >> reporter: what they did, charlie, is they changed the rules on another program. not the program that was challenged in the courts. it's another program which this one probably will not go and be contested in court. what's going to be contested is when they're using the higher education act of 1965. they're starting that rulemaking process right now -- >> yeah, but it's -- [inaudible conversations] >> reporter: it's going to cover hundreds of billions. >> ed edward, it's the same concept. congress can forgive loans. you've got to pass a bill. the supreme -- i still don't get it. [laughter] whatever. >> reporter: they keep trying. >> it makes no sense. cheryl: what's a few more billion dollars for the to spen- >> sounds like they need to get sued again. >> reporter: it's a mole. they stop it here, it -- whack-a-mole. cheryl: they said he were going to do it. thank you very much, edward. well, as i mentioned, charlie gasparino -- >> i still can't get over the other thing. cheryl: i know.

[laughter] the minute that the supreme court ruled, i remember the biden administration, she came out and and goes, we have got another plan in place. of course you do it's the same concept. congress can do it, you can't do it. you just can't forgive stuff. anyway -- cheryl: paramount. >> we do have breaking news. they're down. down a lot lately, right? facing financial headwinds, and here's what we know from merchandise the company. paramount, you should sew -- know, is a huge company. it owns cbs, right? it owns viacom, it owns mtv -- cheryl: it makes yellowstone. >> it owns paramount studios. i think it makes the new mission impossible, yes, right? it's owned by shari redstone, the daughter of sumner redstone. it's run day day-to-day by rob backish, a very, very good, capable ceo. it's a company that's facing real existential problems. streaming, obviously, isn't making a lot of money.

even big blockbusters don't make what they used to make. it's free -- its free cash flow is falling precipitously, i think it's negative at point. its stock market cap cap is $10 billion. now, let's digest that, it was probably three times, four time- cheryl: $16 stock. >> -- a couple years ago. it's half the side of their nfl deal, is the market cap of paramount. so what does that mean? they know they have a problem. from what i understand from people inside, they're trying to look for fixes. they would love to sell it, from what i understand. they can't, because the biden administration wouldn't allow that even though this is $10 billion. amazon could buy it in, like, 35 seconds. that's nothing for amon. apple. -- amazon. that won't happen because of the way this administration is. so they've got to do creative financing, which is what every banker i'm talking to, and they have to do it soon. by the way, if they did go the sale route, they could do it,

challenge it, do what microsoft did with activision blizzard, but the difference is microsoft if doesn't need activision blizzard to be a big, profitable company. they have a real problem here, so they've got to do something. and if they went the sale route, it would take three years go through various doj, fcc -- lena khan would weigh in who didn't like microsoft/activision. do you think she's going to liken apple buying paramount? cheryl: she's had a lot of losses, hasn't she? >> she has, but two years you waste. they need the money. bankers are telling me look for something, maybe a spin-off of something, something that they can sort of monetize their existing assets which are pretty big, and they need to monetize. now, there is a possibility they can turn this all around, okay? cheryl: can you tell sell off a piece -- sell off a piece? it's a dumb question, but could you sell off the paramount network? could you sell off mtv -- >> yeah. we sold off to do disney, our studios -- cheryl: yeah, fox studios.

>> we didn't need the money, but we thought it was a different -- it was, we have a different model. they need the money, okay? that's the difference. they have cash flow problems. the street is mostly negative on whether they can turn this around. that's why you're hearing from bankers right now. and from what i understand, the company is, you know, in the these meetings, is apparently, you know, fessing up to this, they're talking about some sort of a deal, something to monetize their current assets to get through this issue. because, listen, this is -- i never thought i'd see this before. the sumner redstone property, sumner redstone was a multigazillionaire. he died, obviously obviously shari was left an empire. it's a $9-10 billion market cap stock. that's insane. it's so easily purchased, you've got to ask why it's not, and the reason why is probably the biden administration -- the biden administration -- cheryl: she's not executive chairwoman. how much say does she still have?

>> a lot. think how it goes, national amusements, that's the holding company. she owns the class a shares which is the controlling shares. fox has the same ownership structure where these class a shares essentially control both companies, even though they're publicly traded under para class b chairs. in the old days it was cbs and viacom, two separate companies. they merged them together. then they -- they merged them together and rename it paramount because that has the brand, the studios. it obviously hasn't helped that much because we are talking about, you know, a company that's facing what's been described to me as an existential crisis. they have to monetize themselves. cheryl: i have to correct myself. mtv studios makes yellowstone, and i watch it on paramount -- >> well, that's why. they own mtv. you're italian, right?

cheryl: i have the italian name, but i don't really walk the walk. [laughter] >> what does that mean? cheryl: i have a last name that's casone, but, you know, my italian is -- i don't speak italian -- >> neither do i. cheryl: you just seem more italian -- >> i don't speak italian either. by the way, i'm going to -- cheryl: am i getting a restaurant recommendation? >> no, that was an italian curt word. great job this week, by the way. cheryl: oh, my gosh. hey, always fun with you. have a good weekend. closing bell's going to ring, we've got about five and a half minutes to go. the dow is the only index with gains, but don't let the numbers cool you, i can't even talk. charlie, i'm a mess now. s&p 500, the nasdaq on pace to snap a 4-day winning streak and retreating from 15-month highs, but remember, the markets have had a very strong week. the weekly picture, a lot much -- a lot better. dow and s&p up more than 2%.

big tech the big winner of the week, up more than 3%. the nasdaq having the best week it's had actually in four month, and the first big slew of bank earnings, investors are looking to results next week. we've got more big financials, key companies. we have netflix, we've got tesla, we've got american express on friday. our countdown closer is picking am ex ahead of those results. joining me now is hudson valley investment advisers ceo, hi, gus. it's been a while. >> yes. cheryl: people are travel traveling, they're spending money. they're using their am-ex. >> yes, they are. delta is a big supplier for them in terms of having a partnership, so we're anticipating that business for them's going to be good. plus, it's the high higher end consumer, and we don't expect you going to see a lot of bad debt. and i think that's for most of the financials on the higher end. cheryl: obviously you're thinking they're going to beat earnings estimates and revenue -- >> we like the stock.

cheryl: there you go. from am-ex to united rentals, this is interesting to me. this is a construction industry play. because what we've seen is the housing industry, i mean, we've had a bottom, you know? new home construction -- not so much existing home, but new home construction is gang busters. all the builders have finally caught up after covid, and the supply chain issues are gone. >> it's also commercial construction. we have almost 200 billion that's going in to building out manufacturing facilities, distribution centers, a host of other things. that's pretty significant in terms of capital x. and if you're a builder and you need to clear land, you don't need a bulldozer e for a couple of weeks or a couple of months. so instead of buying it, you're not tying up capital, you're using united rentals, and they're nationwide. cheryl: don't they have multiple lines of business at united rentals? >> yes. and they also sell product too. chefl cheryl okay. this one is interesting, prologis? >> yes.

cheryl: talk to me about this one. >> they're a warehouse company, but it's actually a tech company. if you're looking for productivity, you're bringing in your truck tied in logistically so they know what's coming in. a lot of the things that would happen paper-based are being uploaded in terms of technology, so you're getting basically e-mails sent. you know how much is coming in, you can get your labor more efficient in terms of these warehouses. and if you're looking at last mile, it's prologis. so if you're amazon, you're utilizing their warehouses -- cheryl: but it's a logistics play, for sure. >> yes. cheryl: by the way, consumer sentiment came out today. 72.6. that was a spike. >> yes. cheryl: the consumer is, they're spending money. they're traveling, using their am-ex, as we just discussed. they're flying delta, we learned that from ed bastian, but that plays into this recession/no recession, and you've told liz no recession. >> that's right. cheryl: this backs up your argument. >> yes. and, listen, we've been hearing for the whole year that we're going to be going into a

recession. there's just too much capital out there. people are looking at an 8% increase if you're a retiree in terms of increases for your payments in terms of social security. people are actually seeing increases in terms of their pay. and, let's face it, we've had gasoline come down, commodity prices have come down, that's really a tax break for the consumer. cheryl: real quick before you go, we've got to talk about earnings. obviously, this is day one -- >> right. cheryl: but the buzz right now is financials. regional banks, maybe. [laughter] and then, obviously, you know, the cruise lines, the airlines, etc. what else are you kind of expecting here? the buzz for you? >> well, revenues have been better than expected as we're moving into this earning period. the big thing we're keeping an eye on is margins because if we ended up having companies that went through we'll tall it -- call it a rolling recession, cuts in technology across the board with in a whole host of industries. so as revenues start to improve, excuse me, you're seeing now, all of a sudden, leverage. and you should see, actually,

operating leverage for these companies -- not just this quarter, but the following quarter. this will be the low in terms of earnings, and we should start to see improvement in the third and fourth quarters. cheryl: we were just looking at some of the energy names, but overall, look, the markets are doing very -- i mean, this is, i think it's 15-month highs for the s&p and the nasdaq, so naysayers are maybe taking a seat back. >> >> remember it's a discount mechanism and earnings look hire. cheryl: nice to see you onset. always a pleasure. there we go. we did back off of session highs on the dow. nasdaq and s&p on the red and as you can see, it was a good week. mixed for the day, green for the week. dow, s&p and nasdaq and second of the week in the last three and second quarter earnings really kick in next week. i'll be back on monday morning. liz is back on monday afternoon. that's it for me.