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CNBC
20-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
What CEOs from auto, housing, travel and ad markets are saying about tariffs, consumer spending and the economy
The outlook on consumer spending continues to get cloudier. Last week, consumer sentiment slid to its second-lowest reading on record while recent credit card data showed that many Americans are starting to cut back. Walmart, Microsoft and Subaru are just some of the companies that have warned of price increases related to tariffs, which could lead price-sensitive shoppers to pull back even more. However, there are plenty of companies and sectors that still see strong demand, especially in the wake of the broader market rebound following the Trump tariff pause, most recently extended to the steepest China import taxes. "The consumer is coming back with a vengeance," airline CEO Barry Biffle of Frontier Group said on "Money Movers" on Tuesday. At the CNBC CEO Council Summit in Arizona on Monday and Tuesday, multiple CEOs with close reads on key consumer spending areas — homebuilding, car buying, advertising and travel — shared their latest views on the state of the economy. Homebuilder and developer Taylor Morrison, which operates across 12 states including Texas, Florida and North Carolina, serves several distinct demographics, according to CEO Sheryl Palmer. This includes the younger first-time homebuyer, the upgrading slightly older buyer, and the group that she called "fifty-five and better." It's that latter group, which represents more than $114 trillion in total assets, Palmer said, where the company is seeing massive interest in new homes. "Covid really changed this group," she said. For these buyers, it's about "I want what I want, I can afford what I want, and I don't know what tomorrow brings so I want to live every day to the fullest," she added. Among this type of homebuyer, who is heavily interested in things like home upgrades and the community amenities, Palmer said she has not seen any signs of stress in their ability to buy homes, or in credit profiles. However, she noted, if the home is "a more discretionary purchase, there's just a lot more thoughtfulness, which makes sense." The first-time homebuyer is dealing with questions around cost, Palmer said. "Can I afford it? What can I afford?" she said, are the concerns among these buyers. While Palmer pointed to higher home prices and sticky interest rates as contributing to a "volatile period," — mortgages rates were back above 7% this week — she said rising prices of nearly everything from insurance to groceries are what is making younger buyers more hesitant. With concerns of potential tariff-driven price increases hitting the automotive industry hard, consumers have rushed to buy both new and used cars in recent months. Carvana has been a big recipient of that, recently reporting a 46% year-over-year sales increase, leading to record quarterly results. CEO and co-founder Ernie Garcia said at the CEO Council Summit said that when the tariffs were announced "there was some pull forward especially of new car sales" but that has started to even out. Pricing of used cars has also started to come down, especially compared to the increases seen in recent years, Garcia said. But when it comes to any signs of growing consumer weakness, Garcia said "we don't see any evidence of that; it feels very strong." Garcia said that Carvana sells vehicles to buyers across a wide range of age groups, and overall, "consumer credit looks pretty stable." "I think it always feels like credit is getting worse, but I don't think there's a lot of evidence yet that it's getting a lot worse," Garcia said. Since joining Pinterest in June 2022, CEO Bill Ready has overseen a push into Gen Z, who now make up 40% of the social media platform's userbase and who are overwhelmingly on the platform to seek help with shopping inspiration. Ready, who said that Pinterest is a platform "for intentional choices," said he is starting to see "some shifts in consumer behavior." That is coming to life through searches for "budget-related items" in areas like apparel and home goods, which are up over 200%, Ready said. "Consumers are becoming more thoughtful and planning for the potential increase in costs or are maybe starting to experience that already," he said. During and coming out of the pandemic, the overarching narrative has been that many shoppers had shifted their spending from goods to experiences, with the biggest benefits of that being the entertainment and travel industries. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Marriott International CEO Anthony Capuano, who spoke at the CNBC CEO Council Summit about their long-term partnership, said they've seen continued strength from sports fans and travel lovers. While Goodell said the demand around the NFL's recent schedule release and the more than 600,000 people who traveled to Green Bay, Wisconsin, for the NFL Draft reflects how "sports is in a different place" and is not expected to be impacted by consumer uncertainty, he acknowledged some of the challenges facing the broader entertainment industry. Capuano said that at Marriott, which operates across 144 countries, there was a strong travel boom at the start of the year, and after a slight lull in March, it has come back strong in April even as concerns over consumer confidence have grown. The desire to travel, especially among young people, Capuano said, is not showing many signs of slowing down. However, Capuano said he is monitoring job and unemployment trends more broadly, and if there continues to be strong job creation and relatively low unemployment, he will "feel reasonably good about the consumer." "The reality is this; our business thrives in times of stability and high consumer confidence," Capuano said. "Neither of those have been in ample supply in recent months."
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Stephen A. Smith Will Not Be President
Speaking at The Wall Street Journal's annual CEO Council Summit in December, Virginia Senator Mark Warner neatly summed up the problem his party faced as it prepared for the onslaught of Donald Trump's second term. 'I think, frankly, the Democratic brand stinks,' Warner said. In the subsequent five months, poll after poll has only bolstered Warner's diagnosis. The Democrats are deeply unpopular, with both the general public and their own voters. Early primary polling, meanwhile, suggests no clear front-runner for the party's 2028 nomination or, for that matter, any ideological direction whatsoever. Only three candidates have polled over 10 percent: Kamala Harris, who just lost an election, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has maintained that she has no desire to run, and Pete Buttigieg, who rarely—and then only barely—squeaks into double digits. With the party in such disarray, one possible conclusion is that it's rife for hijacking in a similar way to the GOP in 2015—by a charismatic populist from outside the establishment. There's just one problem: Where to find the right charismatic outsider for an insurgent campaign? In recent months, attention has quickly coalesced around one man: Stephen A. Smith. Perhaps the most controversial sports personality in the country, the former newspaper reporter and columnist has spent the last two decades ranting and raving on sports TV. Now he's quickly remade himself as a political commentator, diagnosing the many ills of the Democratic Party and regularly sparring with right-wing pundits like Fox News's Sean Hannity. In Smith, the media has found what it's looking for: an outsider candidate who is always eager to talk. But has anyone else? There are, to be fair, a few signs that his campaign might have legs. On April 4, the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast conducted a 1,021-person Rasmussen poll of likely voters that pitted Smith against other potential 2028 presidential candidates in primary and general election matchups. The results were eyebrow-raising, to say the least. In a multicandidate primary race, Stephen A. came in second only to Harris, polling at 24 percent to her 45 percent. A head-to-head primary matchup with Ocasio-Cortez saw him at 28 percent to her 32. He trailed California Governor Gavin Newsom by just three points, and in a general election contest against JD Vance, he scored a robust 34 percent to Vance's 38 percent, whom he led by 28 points ahead among Black respondents. (One—typically unspoken—assumption behind the media's elevation of Smith is that he will help reverse recent Democratic struggles with Black men because he is a Black man who many other Black men are already familiar with because of his prominence as a sports pundit and cultural figure.) This development is easy to scoff at—the 2028 primary is still a long way away, and Smith has zero political experience. Not only that, he is a deeply unserious figure whose rise in the world of punditry was made possible by his willingness to dispense with sincere or thoughtful analysis in favor of treating the sports and athletes he covers as the fodder for outrageous commentary and hot takes. He doesn't do x's and o's, he does viral clips and quotables. He called Lamar Odom a 'crackhead' and threatened Kevin Durant not to 'make an enemy' out of him, has most recently engaged in a very public feud with Lebron James, in which he claimed he would have 'immediately swung' on the six-foot-nine, 250-pound NBA all-time scoring leader if he found himself in his vicinity. His non-sports commentary is arguably even worse—in 2009, he argued that the actress Maggie Gyllenhaal 'wasn't attractive enough' to star in The Dark Knight. These actions are miles away from what we consider to be 'presidential,' but one reason he has become a fixation in the media class is because they are unmistakenly Trumpian. He is arguably the dominant force in a hot-take environment because he truly excels at one thing more than anything else: drawing attention to himself. It is unsurprising, then, that Smith has gleefully encouraged speculation about a potential presidential run. For weeks now, he's been on the exact kind of 'I'm not running for president' media tour that everyone who ends up running for president does. Recently he's been everywhere from the center (ABC's This Week) to the right (he hosted right-wing debate-shrew Ben Shapiro on his podcast), to the mainstream liberal (Pod Save America)—and he increasingly comes across as someone who really does seem interested in running for president. Indeed, when asked by This Week's Jon Karl about the growing speculation, Smith said he had 'no choice' but to consider a run. 'I've had folks who are pundits come up to me. I've had folks that got a lot of money, billionaires and others, have talked to me about exploratory committees and things of that nature,' Smith said. What would a Stephen A. campaign actually look like? He has presented himself as a clear-eyed outsider who embraces common sense while dispensing with recent excesses—particularly when it comes to 'wokism' and 'cancel culture.' Aside from that, though, he's all over the place. 'I'm a registered independent, I'm not a Democrat. I'll vote for a Republican in a heartbeat. I might not have voted for Trump, but I'm not averse to all conservative policies. I have some conservative policies I support, I have a lot of liberal policies I support,' said Smith to Pod Save America's Tommy Vietor in March, hitting the political positions of millions of median American voters in seconds. 'I don't like high taxes, I don't like open borders.' Smith's depiction of himself as an outsider guided by common sense and a willingness to shirk political pieties certainly sounds similar to the man who came down that elevator in 2015. Like Trump, it's Stephen A.'s audacity, his absolute lack of filter, his ability to 'tell it like it is' that's gotten him this far. It may be substanceless, but this performance is exactly what Trump's base absolutely adores about him. For a party struggling with that authenticity and communication, Smith checks a lot of boxes. He also sounds a lot like what many moderate Democrats claim they need: someone willing to tell the party's left to shut the hell up, someone who can connect with an audience without stiff, over-rehearsed, focus-grouped talking points. Indeed, when Smith lambastes the party for embracing trans rights while ignoring the situation at the border—something he does regularly—he also sounds a lot like the hypothetical candidate that party Brahmins like James Carville have touted as its future: moderate on social issues, tough on immigration, no 'wokeness' allowed whatsoever. (In practice, this type of candidate sounds a lot like the politician Smith most strongly resembles: embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams.) It's easy to see why the media has embraced Smith. For one thing, he's great at talking and generating attention—any interview with him will inevitably include at least one viral moment, if not several. Not only that, he fills a vacuum. If you're looking for a Trumpian outsider poised to take over the Democratic Party—and many in the media are—there's really nowhere else to turn. Oprah isn't running. Mark Cuban isn't showing any interest in a presidential campaign. It's really just Smith. And therein lies the problem. Recent polling suggests a serious problem for a Stephen A. Smith presidential campaign: A lot of voters simply do not like him—an inevitability, perhaps, of a long career spent screaming at people on television. A more recent Wednesday Zeteo poll of potential Democratic presidential candidates found he was one of only two of the nearly 20 candidates surveyed with a negative net favorability among potential primary voters. His -18 favorability rating, moreover, was 15 points worse than Shawn Fain, who came in second to last at -3. (Cory Booker, meanwhile, currently boasts a net favorability rating of +68.) Stephen A. may scratch an itch for a media class desperate for a 'Democratic Trump,' but it turns out Democratic voters want an actual Democrat. While Smith's presidential chances may be phony, the present Democratic leadership vacuum they highlight is very real. There's no seasoned elder statesman coming from the wings to save them like Biden in 2020. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the most exciting young Democrat, but it's hard to label her a front-runner at this early juncture. California Governor Gavin Newsom is hosting Steve Bannon on his podcast, while Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was most recently spotted trying to hide behind a folder after meeting with Trump at the White House. The Democratic base is fired up, but only a handful of the party's politicians—Ocasio-Cortez and Booker are two, to be fair—are answering the call. In a group as ideologically top-heavy as the Democratic Party, an 'outsider' is often just a fringe insider. Bernie Sanders, the consummate Democratic outsider, has been in Congress for longer than I've been alive, and then some. What the Zeteo polling confirms (other than that Stephen A. Smith should probably keep his day job) is that Democratic voters still want to vote for a politician—as long as that politician has some realness to them.
