Trade Tracker: Jim Lebenthal sells MP Materials
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CNBC
5 minutes ago
- CNBC
Santoli's Tuesday market wrap-up: CPI report was the market signal to play more aggressively
(These are the market notes on today's action by Mike Santoli, CNBC's Senior Markets Commentator. See today's video update from Mike above.) The market took a better-than-feared CPI report as a signal that it's free to play looser and more aggressively. Given the magnitude of the downside shock in the Aug. 1 payroll report , CPI would have had to come in piping hot to undermine the Street's conviction that the window is wide open for the Fed to resume rate cuts in September. The modest upside to core CPI fell well short of that threshold. The result was a tension-release rally in a market that wasn't all that clenched-up to begin with. Rate-sensitive stocks are flying as traders execute the Fed-easing playbook – small-caps, transports, homebuilders, retailers. The First Trust Nasdaq Community Bank ETF (QABA) is up 3.9% on the day. Economists will, and should, point out that CPI inflation remains sticky and well above the Fed's 2% target, but markets, politics and Fed rhetoric are forcing a view that rates have room to fall to make them "less restrictive." The market sees CPI as the last known potential catalyst that could have truly upended the bullish case until Labor Day, even though we'll get retail sales, some consumer earnings and a lot of Fed rhetoric in coming weeks. The VIX dropping appreciably below 15 for the first time in six months shows this collective relaxation. Are we calling off the August hurricane watch? Treasury yield curve steepening a bit, longer-term yields holding up as short-term yields slip to price in somewhat more certainty about imminent rate cuts. The rally to new highs in the S & P 500 and Nasdaq came after a couple weeks of internal consolidation when the majority of stocks were in pullback/digestion mode while the elite AI-propelled mega-cap tech names held the indexes aloft. Today was a bit more of an inclusive push higher rather than a rotation, Big Tech participating fully while cyclical stuff regained some pep. Around the edges, the frisky, gamy stocks are bubbling up again. AST SpaceMobile up 8.3% on a quarterly miss. The recent IPO ETF (ticker FPX) was up 1.4% at a new high. The BUZZ meme-stock proxy ahead by 1.8%. None of this amounts to broad, worrisome euphoria. The two-week rally pause allowed optimism to cool and, according to Goldman Sachs institutional positioning remains near neutral. Still, this meltup-type action suggests risk-aversion is being penalized, the valuation-based margin of safety is getting further compressed and the expected rate cut(s) could end up being used recreationally rather than medicinally to heal an ailing real economy. Or, perhaps, it could do some of both.
CNBC
35 minutes ago
- CNBC
CNBC TechCheck Evening Edition: August 12, 2025
CNBC's TechCheck brings you the latest in tech news from CNBC's 1 Market in the heart of San Francisco.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
AI Startup Perplexity Bids $34.5 Billion to Acquire Google Chrome
Artificial intelligence startup company Perplexity AI has offered to purchase Google web browser Google Chrome for $34.5 billion. The bid came after the U.S. Department of Justice advised Google to sell off its internet browser as part of the antitrust lawsuit it lost last year, which found the company of having a monopoly on internet search. As first reported by The Wall Street Journal and later confirmed by other outlets including CNBC, several investors, including large venture capital funds, have stepped in to back Perplexity's bid for Google Chrome, which has an estimated value of between $20 billion and $50 billion. Perplexity's value is $16.5 billion shy of the money its offering to put up for Chrome. More from TheWrap AI Startup Perplexity Bids $34.5 Billion to Acquire Google Chrome Trump Says Intel CEO 'Must Resign, Immediately' Over Alleged China Ties Apple to Invest Additional $100 Billion in US Production Amazon Surges to $168 Billion in 2nd Quarter Sales as CEO Andy Jassy Says AI 'Will Change Every Customer Experience' Perplexity's bid is the latest in Google's legal battle with the DOJ, which sued the tech giant in October 2020 over alleged antitrust violations, claiming it held a monopoly over fair competition in the search and advertising markets. In November 2024, after finding that Google did in fact break antitrust laws in an effort to maintain a monopoly on web searches that same year, the DOJ pushed for a federal judge to dismantle Google to boost competition. 'The playing field is not level because of Google's conduct, and Google's quality reflects the ill-gotten gains of an advantage illegally acquired,' DOJ lawyers wrote in a filing with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. 'The remedy must close this gap and deprive Google of these advantages.' The DOJ tasked Judge Amit Mehta, who sided with the department in August 2024, with prohibiting Google from making deals with Apple and Samsung. Google, the department claimed, pays Apple $20 billion per year to be the default search engine on iPhones. In April 2025, a U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema found that Google again violated antitrust law by maintaining a monopoly over online advertising technology that 'substantially harmed' its customers and stifled competition. The DOJ, over the course of a three-week trial, has 'proven that Google has willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising,' the ruling read. Judge Mehta, according to WSJ, may decide this month on how competition should be restored, which could involve forcing Google to sell Chrome — and that's where Perplexity comes in. The WSJ report said that Perplexity wrote a letter to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai with an offer to buy Chrome, framing the plan as one 'designed to satisfy an antitrust remedy in highest public interest by placing Chrome with a capable, independent operator.'The post AI Startup Perplexity Bids $34.5 Billion to Acquire Google Chrome appeared first on TheWrap. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
