About two minutes away from the end of
the trading day, Bonnie Quinn and
Carolyn Hyde. And here to help take us
through the closing bell, a global
simalcast. We're joined also by Tim
Stanbec and Nora Melinda in for Carol
Masser, bringing together our Bloomberg
television, radio, and YouTube audiences
worldwide to parse through the most
crucial moments of the trading day. And
what a trading day it was team.
Incredible, right?
Yeah. I mean, I think if we're talking
about crucial moments, there was one
moment and that was Fed Chair J.
Powell's speech. And since then, we've
seen stocks firmly in the green. A lot
of people obviously focused on the major
indices, the tech stocks and the S&P
500. But it's the Russell 2000 that is
the real outlier today. Really since
around 11:00 when it seems like traders
fully digested those comments from the
Fed chair, it's been firmly hovering
just around 4% higher today. Nora,
absolutely. I mean, we were just
chatting about how there's so much
that's really happened this week, but
it's been such a flurry here on this
Friday. Crazy to think that we even
talking about earnings earlier in the
week, but all eyes are really on
dissecting what we heard from Pal
earlier today, especially as it relates
to the dual mandate and what that looks
like for the Federal Reserve and what
they can do about the economy moving
forward.
Well, at the moment, stocks near
all-time highs. We question all of the
week running into PAL valuations
particularly on the generative AI front,
particularly on the Palanteer front for
once they actually catch a bit of a bid.
For me, one of the most key moments of
the day as well was Intel. we finally
get that focus that we are going to have
a 10% stake by the United States
government. That would be extraordinary
news on any other day if it hadn't been
Jackson Hole day. And don't forget
Canada taking off some of those USMCA
goods tariffs as well. There was so much
going on today and we we'll see, you
know, what else gets resolved through
next week. All right, we are going to
wait for these closing bells. Everybody
very happy at the exchanges because we
were finishing in the green. Let's take
a look at those numbers as we wrap up
this trading day.
All right, we have the Dow Jones
Industrial Average just so close to a
record which we haven't seen since
December, but up 1.9% 846 points there
at 45 631. The S&P 500 up one and a
half%. So well off its highs of the day,
but nevertheless a nice gain to end the
week at 6466 and the Nasdaq of course up
1.9%. Those techs just continue to fly
again. You say broad-based on a day like
today and then there's broad-based. This
is a day that is broad-based. 428 stocks
in the S&P 500 moved to the upside
today. Only 75 in the S&P 500 moved
lower.
Let's just check in on industry groups
and more broadly what we've seen across
the board because oh just consumer
staples in the red. Everything else is
in the green for once we have breadth.
But look, it technology still on for a
good run 1.3%. The NASDAQ is still down
on the week, but we're up on the day.
Energy up 2%. Industrials, it really
feels as though that's the air that gets
powered by the hint of rate cuts.
Look at all that green on the screen.
Scarlet Fu would call that a spinach
pizza pie.
I feel bad for whoever had to do
decliners today. That would be Nora.
Melinda. Nora, thanks for doing
You left me with the
the hard work. I did. I'm sorry about
that. Hey, um, look at the KBW bank
index up 3.2%. Interest rate sensitive
stocks surging today. Uh this is the
highest close first record going all the
way back to 2022.
First record for the KBW bank index up
3.2% going back to 2022. All because of
what we heard from Jay Powell. Traders
happy that he signaled a willingness to
cut rates next month pointing to risks
rising risks to the labor market even as
worries over inflation remain. Also
Caroline you mentioned Intel. This was
certainly on my radar today for a
gainer. Intel shares absolutely surging
on the day. This after uh we learned
that the president said that Intel had
agreed to give the US government a 10%
equity stake uh in the company. The
president casting the agreement as one
that would revitalize Intel saying the
company would quote has been left behind
compared to competitors in the chipm
industry. Intel shares were up as much
as 6% earlier in the session and today
uh up by 5.6%.
Uh also on the day today, Apple shares
uh hitting session highs this after
Bloomberg's Mark German reported
exclusively that Apple's in early
discussions about using Google Gemini to
power a revamped version of Siri voice
assistant. It's a key potential step
toward outsourcing more of its AI
technology. Talk about strange bed
fellows. I mean,
it's a world of fremies, Tim. It's a lot
of frenemies.
Can you believe that? I emailed Mark
German. It reminds me of that moment,
Caroline, like 10 years ago when there
was a demo. I think it was an iPad or an
iPhone demo and they invited Microsoft
to come on the stage to and and everyone
was like, "What are you? This is Apple
and Microsoft. These are two companies
to Apple all the time to be able to be
the number one search destination on
their phones. That's the one that has
been quibbled with by the government
thus far." There it is. Frennemies, I
think, is the best way to describe that.
All right, Nora, you have the hard job.
Take it away.
Here we go.
So, let's take a look at some of the
decliners that we saw today. I'm going
to start out with the biggest decliner
in the S&P 500 today, and that was into
it. This has really been a stock that
has been in focus after uh the software,
the tax software company delivered a
tepid forecast, and this completely
overshadowed an otherwise strong fourth
quarter report. But we do have some
commentary out from Morgan Stanley. The
analysts over there saying that given
solid progress on core growth
initiatives and a history of
conservative guides, they would be a
buyer on weakness here. But of course,
we did see that the stock still ended
lower today, down about 5.1% for this
185 billion company. Shares are up about
5.4% year to date. Let's move over to
Workday Shares. This is a company that's
also been in focus. Investors were left
disappointed that the HR software
company left its subscription revenue
guidance unchanged, completely flat
here. Apart from a small boost that they
did have from the Paradox acquisition,
analysts on Wall Street are really
flagging concerns around AI displacement
continuing to linger here. Uh Barclays
is saying that the quarter was solid in
the slight beats uh on a couple things
like subscription revenue alongside with
meaningful outperformance on
profitability and cash flow would
usually warrant a positive response
here. But of course, we know this is one
of the decliners. So, here in the red on
this Friday afternoon, shares of Workday
are down about 14% so far this year. And
lastly, let's take a look at CSSX
of keeping an eye on a lot of those rail
stocks here. I'm looking at S15 Rail.
That index is down just a touch down
3/10en of a percent today. But this is
after we did hear that uh CSX and BNSF
announced a new intermodal service
products to ship between the western and
eastern US. A lot of people were really
looking for some sort of M&A here in the
space for the railroad industry. But
we're just seeing a partnership here. So
you are seeing that reflected in terms
of Wall Street sentiment here for this
stock.
Some lonely sliders there today. Well,
you know what else was down, guys?
Yields were down. Look at that. It looks
green, but actually that is the buying
of treasuries, the dropping of yields,
and that 10-year dropped like a stone
after the Fed chair's speech was
released down more than 10 basis points
to finish the day at 369. The across the
curve, you could see there was lower,
but obviously towards the back end, not
the huge moves that we saw at the front
end. In fact, the 30-year yield there,
finishing the session at 48776 and that
tenure glued to the 425 mark, 42537.
But I do want to point out one thing.
Anna Wong from Bloomberg Economics is
out with a note suggesting that perhaps
markets are being a little bit too
sanguin here. That the speech was
actually peppered with hawkishness in
her words. She's saying he talked a lot
about labor market cooling. He didn't
signal the need for urgent action. So
maybe watch the space. Maybe we've all
sort of written off September as a month
where the rate cycle starts, the rate
cutting cycle, and maybe in the end it
doesn't happen, which would make for a
big reversal, I imagine. Yeah, actually
Nora Norah brought this up on our
program earlier. Is it going to be if
there is a cut in September, is it going
to be a hawkish cut or a dovish cut? And
uh yeah, I guess we we'll have to wait
and see. And there's plenty for us to
sort of digest between now and then on a
lot of data that comes between now and
then that could change the narrative and
and change the picture. Uh it's back to
school time, everybody. So, make sure to
go get the backpack and
the pencils,
pack up for the dorm rooms because it's
time to drop the kids off at college or
wherever they're going. What we're
learning now about this year in
university is it's quite a bit different
than previous years as a result of the
pressure that some of these universities
are feeling for a few different reasons.
uh one over the finances that have been
hit as a result of federal grants that
have gone away, but also the question
about who's coming from around the world
to universities that are traditionally
uh filled with students from many
different countries as a result of uh
the way they've grown in recent years.
That's a big question given the pressure
that the Trump administration has put on
these universities and also immigration
changes. Now, some of these colleges,
Nora, are actually tapping their weight
lists to fill spots before classes even
begin.
Absolutely. It's a really interesting
way that they're really trying to
grapple with a lot of these financial
pressures. Some of the top universities
that we're discussing here, Stamford
University, Duke, they're sending
acceptances to weight listed students
just weeks before. Of course, we know a
lot of these students are going to be
trickling into the classrooms here. So,
an interesting creative pivot, if you
will, as to what to do here in terms of
the financial landscape.
Not just sending acceptance letters all
of a sudden, but also a little money
oftentimes to sweeten the deal or to pay
them back if they've already given some
money to another college or also
emotional reasons apparently. You know,
you can get emotionally attached to the
college you're going to. So,
well, talking of sending money and
creative pivots, the weekend, it is the
weekend upon us. And can we talk about
the weekend? The artist a billion
dollars in financing backed by his music
rights. That's apparently what's being
negotiated at the moment. Lyric Capital
Group going out there saying, "No, maybe
we could with your using collateral of
your music rights, of your master
records, $500 million in senior debt,
$250 million of junior debt, maybe a
little bit of $250 million in equity."
So interesting. Taylor Swift is buying
back all of these things. He's busy
trying to perhaps use it as collateral.
I want to know what he's going to spend
it on.
I That's what my question is. Like, does
he does he need the money?
Is he going to make another idol with
Sam Levenson? I'm just so curious when
he's gonna go by because I mean what
he's switching his name to Abel, right?
That's his actual name. He's not going
to be called The Weekend anymore. So,
I'm curious when this is gonna come into
play here.
But I was fascinated because if you look
at other artists that have sold their
cataloges like Bruce Springsteen, 550
million, Bob Dylan, 300 million, 1
billion for the weekend, but he is the
most streamed artist on Spotify. In
fact, he's 25 songs with a billion
streams. And that's at least seven or
eight more than Drake and Taylor Swift.
He's shaking up Atlanta right now. He's
out on the road. He's doing his thing.
Have another lesson.