Latest news with #VictoriaFernandez
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Market Minute 5-23-25- New Tariff Threats Upend Pre-Holiday Markets
After giving up most of their gains yesterday, stocks are slumping today amid renewed tariff threats. Crude oil is falling along with the dollar, while gold is rallying. Treasuries – for a change – are higher in price. To get a FREE copy of the complete MoneyShow 2025 Top Picks Report, click HERE.) Just when you thought the tariff turmoil had settled Trump decided to mix things up. Specifically, this morning he threatened to slap 50% tariffs on goods from the European Union (EU), saying policymakers there aren't negotiating in good faith. He also pledged to hit Apple Inc. (AAPL) with a 25% tariff on the firm's products if it continued to produce iPhones for US purchase in China or India versus the US. Markets tanked in response. Meanwhile, the global bond market is getting more attention these days – and for good reason. Faced with a glut of bond issuance from the US and other debt-burdened nations, investors are pushing back. They're demanding higher yields to buy bonds at auction and in the secondary markets. That's threatening to derail tax, spending, and borrowing plans that governments would otherwise like to pursue. The iShares 20+ Year Treasury ETF (TLT) just slipped into the red again, with a loss of about 2% year-to-date. I highly recommend checking out our latest MoneyShow MoneyMasters Podcast episode featuring Crossmark Global's Victoria Fernandez for critical intelligence on why this is happening – and what's coming next. Don't look now – but ANOTHER precious metal (besides gold) is getting in on the bullish action. This time, it's platinum! The metal just hit $1,097 an ounce in the spot market, up more than 10% on the week to a two-year high. Not only is platinum supply failing to keep up with demand, but some believe demand will rise as jewelry buyers shift to platinum products from gold ones given how expensive gold has become. The abrdn Physical Platinum Shares ETF (PPLT) is now up 18.7% year-to-date. Finally, if you're planning on traveling for the Memorial Day weekend, you might want to shut down your laptop now and hit the road. The American Automobile Association (AAA) predicts travel volume will hit an all-time record for the holiday, with more than 45 million Americans traveling at least 50 miles from home. That would represent a 1.4 million-traveller rise from last year – and top the record 44 million that hit the road, train station, or airport in 2005. See also: PBR: A Brazilian Energy Giant to Buy Amid US Debt Drama Speaking of the holiday, US markets will be closed for Memorial Day on Monday – so there will be no newsletter on May 26. We will resume publication Tuesday, May 27. Happy Memorial Day! More From Worried About Rising Rates? Then Turn to These Stocks! DVS: A Silver Miner that Keeps Growing by Acquisition MoneyMasters Podcast 5/22/25: How Bond Yields Are Reacting to China's Trade War 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
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
MoneyMasters Podcast 5-22-25- How Bond Yields Are Reacting to China's Trade War
Is the bond market flashing a warning that most investors are ignoring? In this episode of the MoneyShow MoneyMasters Podcast, Crossmark Global Investment's chief market strategist Victoria Fernandez breaks down what the Moody's downgrade of US debt really means — and how tariffs, inflation, and political uncertainty are reshaping the fixed income landscape. To get a FREE copy of the complete MoneyShow 2025 Top Picks Report, click HERE.) You'll hear how Chinese trade tensions are impacting global yields, why bond market volatility is back, and what sectors investors should be cautious — or bullish — on right now. Victoria also unpacks the disconnect between soft data and hard data in the US economy and why the labor market may be weaker than it looks. Plus, she shares actionable insights on positioning in Treasuries, corporate bonds, and stocks — and flags key tail risks for the back half of 2025. See also: Why and How to Track Sovereign Wealth Funds Amid Global Power Struggles If you're watching interest rates, trading bonds, or trying to navigate the market's next move — don't miss this one. One last thing: Victoria will be joining us at the 2025 MoneyShow Masters Symposium Las Vegas, happening July 15-17 at Caesars Palace. Click here to register. More From WMT: Why "Eat the Tariffs" Won't Work for Retailers Like Walmart PBR: A Brazilian Energy Giant to Buy Amid US Debt Drama Market Minute 5/21/25: Yield Spike Kneecaps Stocks Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
May consumer sentiment, Trump's Middle East trip, Cava CEO: Catalysts
Madison Mills and guest host, Crossmark Global Investments chief market strategist Victoria Fernandez, run down the morning's top market stories while speaking to a variety of experts on today's episode of Catalysts. Raymond James chief economist Eugenio Alemá joins the Catalysts team for a discussion on May's preliminary consumer sentiment reading and the latest inflation expectations figures. Cava (CAVA) CEO Brett Schulman also comes on the program to talk more about the Mediterranean fast-casual restaurant's latest earnings, the chain's menu prices, and where it stands in this current consumer environment. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here. Half an hour into the start of US trading, let's get you a check on the markets brought to you by Tasty Trades. So far looking like we're going to close out the week in the green again that you got your S&P up just above the flat line, your tech heavy Nasdaq up about 0.1%. We are on track for 3 weeks of gains over the past 4 weeks, certainly bucking the volatility that we've grown accustomed to following that April 2 so-called liberation Day. But let's flip the board over to here you're taking a look at yields down for the second day in a row. Some investors and analysts and notes to my inbox just now saying that there could be a bias to the downside when it comes to yields going forward as investors focus on the economic data here. We will see, of course, what Michigan consumer sentiment data brings to come. And finally, let's take a look here at Bitcoin, moving to the upside this morning and still holding above that key 100,000 level.I want to bring in my guest host for the hour. I've got Victoria Fernandez in studio. She's chief market strategist at Crossmark Global Investments. Victoria is going to help us make sense of all of the hope in the market, so I really appreciate you. Well, it's a tough moment, right, because you have the president just this morning saying he can't possibly meet with 150 trading partners, so he's going to write to them, which I think is indicative of some of the uncertainty right now, but you still have stocks rally how much can we trust this moment? Yeah, I think that's actually something we need to keep a very close eye on. The market really moved forward and had this huge movement off of one headline. There really isn't that they came to some great conclusion. It's that we're going to have a 90 day pause, and we know how those 90 day pauses work, right? At the end of that we could go right back to where we were. We could have another 145% tariff on there and so then we, I think we would have a huge correction once again in the market, market has taken that in. It says, yes, we're moving forward. Things are going to go well, but I do think we still need to be a little bit cautious until we have a more cemented agreement, not just with China but with Europe as well, and that's still on the back burner. And within that caution, what should investors be doing in this moment? Should they be reallocating to a little bit more of a defensive safe haven status, or should they truly just sit on their hands? I'm hoping that they have been listening to us over the past 6.9 months and have moved a little bit more defensive prior to this element we were, you know, going into staples, going into more defensive names quite a while ago and that allowed us then when the Staples did do so well this year to go in and trim some of those names and find some of the areas that have had a pullback that maybe weren't leadership at the time but were in up trends and add some money there. So that's what I think people need to do, find up trends for sectors in the market, go in and find the those sectors that have good earnings expectations where their balance sheets look good with free cash flow that's where they should be putting money to work but you know we all hate to say you have to have diversification in your portfolio. It sounds so easy, but in times like this where there's a lot of volatility, I think it's where you really need to be. And when you're looking at those up trends today, what are you looking for to signal to you not only is this like a good valuation moment to get into this name, but it's something that could have legs. Yeah, I.I think free cash flow is something we're really looking at in companies if they have cash on their balance sheets, they're able to be, um, you know, very nimble in their maneuvers and so that's what we want to see and you want to see earnings expectations that continue to be solid. We've seen 2nd, 3rd, even 4th quarter now earnings expectations really come back down. And so you want to watch and see where we still seeing some positive news there that even if the market has a little bit of a pullback after this you've still got companies that can do wellfor you, and I know two of the names that you are looking at are Walmart and Cisco. It's interesting talking about Walmart because this week myself and our executive editor were able to speak with the CFO about those price hikes and the subsequent stock drop a little bit off the back of that announcement, but you're still bullish on the stock. Yeah, we still likethe stock because what Walmart has done over the past year and a half is really going to take in a whole new share of consumer. That high income consumer that not their core audience. They're seeing sales continue to do well because they're bringing in new customers even if they're maybe getting smaller prices or checks size from the lower income consumers. So I think there's still some positive movement there and most customers at Walmart, if prices go up a little bit, it's usually not across the board. They will find certain categories to raise prices and still keep others low. So I think that will keep the consumer coming and they talked too, that sort of price diffusion before we move on, Cisco, we had the ex and incoming CFOs sitting on both my sides yesterday here and talking about how bullish they are on the AI story and customer modernization. How much do you think Cisco is an AI play investors should look at? Yeah, I think all tech names at some point have this AI connection to them, but what we want to do is look at the tech space and where can we find names that maybe haven't had as large of a run as you know, mega cap 7 names that everyone wants to look at that their earnings expectations still look good, that they have a solid return on equity and they're trading at a reasonable valuation right now and that's what you're seeing out of Cisco. You get a little bit of a dividend that you can add to that, and I think you've got a tech play that could have some AI components to it and you're not paying up as much as you would for something else. All right, Victoria, great overview. Thank you so much. We'll have you for the full hour to give us more insights like that, so really appreciate got some breaking news crossing the wire here. May. Consumer sentiment data falling to its second worst reading on record, coming in at 50.8%. Economists estimating 50 to 3.4%. Joining us now on this, we've got Eugenio Aleman, Raymond James, chief economist. Thank you so joining us, Eugenio, I, I am fascinated by the numbers here. I also just want to quickly mention expected change in median prices during the next year rising to 7.3% above the prior read of 6.5%. That's the highest since 1981. How do you characterize this print? Yeah, it, it is not good for the Fed, um, but, um, I mean, it's just one indicator, one survey, uh, other surveys of uh inflation expectations are not as high as the Michigan sentiment, uh, expectations. Uh, so I think that the Fed is going to continue to, uh, um, check all these numbers and come up with uh the decision on, on rates and when they are going to move. It not a good sign, consumer confidence is almost 30% lower than at the beginning of, of the year. Um, the, the, the positive thing about this is that in, in this case, consumer sentiment is not that uh um good of a measure becauseAs consumers expect higher prices, they will be pushing uh purchases even uh forward, even if they don't feel good about the future. Uh, so in some sense, this consumer sentiment today is not as a good measure as in previous periods of time. You have the ever evolving tariff uncertainty leading to questions about the validity of the data, but I want to go to you on that, Victoria, because obviously these inflation expectations really significant in this reading, I mean among the worst on what extent does that play through in the trade today because stocks are still up at the moment? Yeah, I think it's interesting. Eugenio talked about maybe you can't look at these as strongly as you would some other numbers, and I think that's part of this. What are these numbers actually representing? Is it because we have the pull forward effects in front of tariffs? Has that been really pushing some of the much faith can we put that these aren't just one-offs, you know, we have PPIs come down because um gasoline or CPIs come down because of gasoline prices. I think you have to maybe take a step back and look at a couple months together and that's why maybe the market is saying let's just take a pause and get a little bit more data, and I think it the Fed in a very difficult position at this point, giving us more uncertainty into where thatgoes. Yeah, and Eugenia, I want to bring you back into the conversation here. We had the Fed's Rafael Bostic this morning saying he only sees one rate cut this year. What would this soft data have to convert into in terms of the hard data to equate to more Fed rate cuts this year? So yeah, so I mean soft data is very soft, uh, uh, just, um, playing with the words here, but, uh, hard data is still not, uh, soft, um, so they have to watch the hard data as it comes sometimes it's very late on the game. Uh, but, you know, before the tariffs, before April 2nd, uh, uh, Liberation Day, we were thinking of three rate cuts because inflation was coming down, um, and the underlying inflation, uh, was still disinflationary. We still have not seen little of, of tariffs effect on, on prices. Um, so,Right now they are waiting to see how the economy evolves, uh, with all this uncertainty. And either way, whether inflation continues to go down and or if there is a recession in the they will have to move lower on rates. How many rate cards, still not sure, but we still have 3 rate cards, but it, it, it is going to be, uh, dependent on what happens to economic activity. Hi Eugenio, this is Victoria. I have a question for you in regards to that kind of soft data and hard data that you were talking about um, what do you think the Fed is truly watching to make that decision when they talk about the labor market? Do you think maybe there's actually more weakness underlying the labor market than what the hard data is showing and does that affect your expectations of how many rate cuts we'll see? Yeah, I think that this is a very, very different um uh environment for the Fed. Typically, the Fed tries to be proactive or, or go ahead of the, of the incoming news. Today, they cannot do that because um unless there is a recession, a recession will take care of inflation, so they will not be concerned about inflation if there is a today, they still don't know if, if a recession is in the pipeline, so they are going to be very, very careful. But as soon as employment numbers start to uh come down, uh,Uh, something that we still don't have on our, on our forecast. But as soon as uh employment numbers start to weaken considerably, then the story is going to be very, very different. They are no longer going to be concerned about inflation because inflation is going to be taken care of, uh, by a potential recession. So, um, they are not going to be preemptive, uh, with rate cuts uh right now as it would have normally been in the past. Eugenio, thank you so much for joining us appreciate it Victoria. Thank you for joining the conversation. You'll be sticking with us, of course, as well. We've got all of your markets action ahead, so keep you here for more. You're watching Catalyst. The Nasdaq 100 just hit the gas, surging over 6% in three of the last 6 weeks. But is it speed too far, too fast? Is this market overbought? I'm Jared Blicker, host of Stocks in Translation. First, what is an overbought market? It's pretty simple. It means prices might have moved or rallied too far, too fast, and this sets up for a possible pullback. Now technically we can measure this with the relative strength index, or RSI. That's a momentum gauge that we've discussed before.70 is considered overbought and below 30 is oversold. So let's test it out. Since 1985, if you bought the Nasdaq 100 on any random day, you are up a whopping 0.1% after one day, after about 0.5% after a week and a solid 17% after a year with an 81% hit rate. That is your baseline. So stocks tend to go up, right. Now let's look at what happens specifically when the index RSI goes overbought. That's.70 the way it is right now. That has happened 94 times since '85 and the first few days are unremarkable modest gains at best. But fast forward one year and you are still up an impressive 15% with an even better win rate of 83%. Not exactly a big warning sign here, but here's where things get really interesting right now we have a breath blast on top of that RSI signal. Just one month ago, only 11% of the Nasdaq 100 stocks were above their 2%.100 day moving averages. That's a key technical level. Today that number has exploded from 11% to 57%, and that too is overbought on the RSI. So we've only seen this dynamic combo six times since 2011, and guess what? Short term things can get a little choppy, but longer term, 3 months out, you are up 7% and after a year, an average gain of 26% with a perfect track record. Every single instance ended you stack them all side by side, and the story is clear when price momentum and market breadth bolt signal overbought, that has been a set up for long-term outsized returns. It's not an instant green light, but the odds are firmly in your favor over the long haul. So bottom line, Nasdaq's rally might stall or stutter in the short term, but if history is any guide, this kind of overbought condition usually marks a launch pad and not a ceiling. So if you're betting on a sustained reversal, you might think tuned for talks and translation for more jargon busting deep dives, new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday on Yahoo Finance's website or wherever you find your podcast. All right, Jared, thanks so now time for some of today's trending tickers. We are watching Applied materials, Apple, and Nvidia. First up, applied materials, missing revenue estimates and issuing a disappointing outlook, sending shares lower today. The company feeling the pain of export controls to China, which is applied materials' largest overseas market. I'm still joined by Victoria Fernandez, Crossmark Global Investment's chief market strategist for more in Victoria, I wonder, this is the question people want to know is how Ama may be a signal for Nvidia going forward extent do you think that some of the pressure AA felt is singular to them versus a broaderconcern? Well, we know that the semiconductor system space is really the largest component of revenue for AMAT. So I can see why when they are concerned about export controls, why that's going to be a big hit for them and especially when you look at China. I mean, we look last quarter it was what, over 40% of their revenue was from China. You look at the earnings that we just got from them and you're seeing down to around 20 25%. So a big hit for them.I think you can say that that would translate into Nvidia into other um semiconductor names as well but to the extent you I just don't know because of the revenue component there how is that going to go forward and I think the problem is that these export controls, it changes weekly, right? You get a new headline every few days around what that's going to look like. We had the diffusion component, right? Then they're saying, well, wait, we're gonna put new controls on starting week, um, but you look at someone like a lambear who can be a competitor of AMA, and they're actually up double digits this year. So I think we need to watch the space and see how it flows through to other companies, but it's obviously going to be a roadblock for a lot of companies when it comes to China and export controls. Yeah, and certainly a reminder to really watch those policies as they continue to unfold. But next up, let's talk about Nvidia looking to build a research and development center in Shanghai curbs hit sales. That's according to Financial Times reports. Nvidia CEO Jenson Juan reportedly discussing plans of Shanghai's mayor in a meeting when he visited China last month. The stock is up about 0.7%, but it's interesting, Victoria. This comes after Jensen Juan was just in Saudi Arabia, obviously talking about building the biggest data center outside of the US in Abu Dhabi. Is this a signal of Jensen diversifying his portfolio globally when it comes to?Opportunities, what does it tell you? Justlike we were talking about how clients need to diversify their portfolios. I think it makes sense for a company to do the same thing as well, and you're looking at China that's 13% of Nvidia's revenue, and he's saying, how do I still have a presence here? What can I do to still generate that revenue that we need from there? It's a huge market for them. So if you put a research and development center there, which they're saying, um, you know, will be different things. It'll be that they're working on autonomous cars, different things like that, and it will not be anything related to IP coming from the US. We'll see if that works out. They already have 2000 employees in Shanghai as it is, so they have a presence there, but he needs to figure out a way to keep his presence in China, and I think this is one way he's going about doing it, hoping at the same time the things that we're seeing in the Middle East will please the current administration, and he'll continue to have some progress there. Yeah, a lot of chess movement when it comes to the geopolitical space at the moment. But finally, here, let's get to Epic Games, extremely popular mobile game Fortnite. It's now unavailable on Apple devices worldwide. Apple blocking the company's bid to reinstate the game in the App Store. reminder Fortnite, it was originally pulled from the App Store in 2020 after it attempted to skirt Apple's 30% fee for in-app purchases. Epic Games submitted Fortnite to Apple's US App Store last week ruled that Apple could not charge commission on those purchases. You've got Apple off just about 2.2%, but it's fascinating. It makes me think, of course, about the broader regulatory challenges that Apple is facing at the moment. Yeah, I feel like my son should be here to answer the questions on this gaming correspondent, right, exactly. But I mean, you're looking at $350 million in revenue that Apple is going to lose from this component, and they are under a lot of pressure. I mean we've had Trump a few comments about Apple this week talking about they don't want a building in India and Apple is trying to put more money to work in the US, but the regulatory effects are going to be large. We've seen it in the stock price. We've seen it in the earnings that are coming out and so I think Apple is going to continue to struggle a little bit and they're going to have to find ways to work with these companies in order to keep some revenue generation coming, but at the same know they're gonna have to work within the regulatory confinesthat they have. Yeah, 300 million plus, it may not be a ton for a company like Apple, but it's just another headwind. They don't have to deal with. Victoria, thank you so much. I appreciate it.13F filings, which are quarterly disclosures required by the SEC for institutional investors, are revealing where Wall Street's biggest names are putting their money to work. Let's look at Michael Burry, the investor who bet against the housing market in 2008. He was made famous by the film The Big Short. He is now betting against Nvidia. Burry purchased put options, which profit from price declines on the chip maker. He also bought puts on China stocks like Alibaba, Baidu, and then liquidated the his portfolio not required in the disclosure is the why behind the move. So we don't know why he's selling Nvidia. But when it comes to China stocks, he was previously a buyer and has slowly been unwinding his positions as those stocks have outperformed in the first quarter, perhaps a little profit trimming there. And his firm Scion only has one remaining equity stake, and it's in Estee Lauder. The shares up about 0.7% at the moment, but we saw a huge pop off the back of that news from Michael Burry's firm speaking of Nvidia, speaking of Nvidia, the company reportedly increasing its stake in a core, the AI infrastructure stocks surging on the news. You can see here those shares up nearly 19%. Of course, Nvidia already having a stake in the company previously. Let's talk a little bit more about this Nvidia reporting this stake in the cloud computing provider to over 24 million shares. Again, that's 7% of outstanding disclosure was made in a 13G filing where companies have to report their holdings to the SEC, Nvidia was expected to have a little over a 5% stake in the company after Coreweave's IPO. This was shown in a prospectus that was out on March 301, Nvidia did anchor Coweave's IPO back towards the end of March with an order of about $250 million worth of shares. That was roughly 17% of the deal, and that is from the company Bloomberg News, but you've got a huge pop in the stock off the back of this news of Nvidia again increasing its stake in core those shares are up 19%. They had a strong earnings result this quarter in terms of revenue. There were questions about the company's debt load, which did put a little bit more pressure on the stock, but that's certainly being ignored in in a focus instead on Nvidia reporting an increased stake in quarter weave coming up, Cava is bucking the restaurant slowdown trend. CEO Brett Schulman is here with more on the company's first quarter results and what's next for the popular chain. Stick around for that conversation next on first quarter estimates of same store sales climbed nearly 11%, bucking the slowdown that other restaurant chains have reported. Here with me now, Brett Schulman, Cava's CEO, and our very own Brooke De Palma. Brett, great to have you here. The stock, as you just saw, under a bit of pressure, even though you did have a great quarter, but the concern, as you know, is guidance. Walk me through your thinking. What was it about this quarter about the environment that prevented you from giving higher guidance? Yeah, I think it's a testament to ourLong term success when you look on a 3 year basis, because we've had really dynamic growth over the last 3 years, in the first quarter of the last 3 years we grew 41%, and we guided for the rest of the year in the high 30s. So really a small moderation when you look at it in the context of the longer term, and we're not focused on the day to day gyrations of the stock. We're focused on building the next large scale cultural cuisine category, and we've reached a really great milestone in the quarter on a trailing 12 month basis. We crossed a billion dollars in revenue, Mediterranean as that next large scale cultural cuisine category, a category that we've established a clear leadership position in. Consumer sentiment did fall for the 5th straight month. We just got that report out now this quarter was a bit slower in terms of same source sales growth than we have seen in previous quarters. Is it possible in this environment to return to previous same source sales growth that we'veseen? Well, certainly we'd like to see some certainty on some of the policy fluidity out of Washington, but we've over the course of last year where consumers have been facing increasing headwinds and so that's why we've been investing in our guests. We've underpriced CPI by 800 basis points in recent years and that's at a time when many have taken price almost double CPI in some cases and only 1.7% menu adjustment pricing earlier this year. We have no plans to take further price and really kind of be a port in that uncertainty and inflationary storm for our guests where they're becoming more selective, but they' to choose to eat at Cava. Ido want to hit a point on that. When I spoke to Scapar, Chipotle CEO last month, he said that Chipotle is about 10 to 20% less than fast casual peers. How is Cava winning in this environment even with a higher price point? I ask you every quarter, what's the average price now. Yeah, so the average price per person is around 1450, and again we look at value as a combination of multiple factors. It's the relevance of the cuisine has been the #1 ranked diet for 8 years running. It's the quality of the ingredients we're sourcing, the convenience in which you can access it in our multi-channel format, and then the experience we deliver with that Mediterranean hospitality and the bang for the buck that we're delivering, and we see that resonating. We noted that we have not seen an erosion of premium protein attachment or our fan favorite pita chips. So clearly guests are able to come in, eat a cava, and actually trade up into premium proteins and pita chips and still fit within their budget. You're income consumers come to at a time like this. How do you balance higher inflation while also sticking to that price point and not raising prices in this environment? Well, that's our job to work on behalf of that for our guests every day, and we even noted that with some of the tariff impact, which is fairly minimal to us, we quantified about 20 to 40 basis points with the current policies that have been pretty fluid that we have been able to work, whether it's with our suppliers, whether it's with operational efficiency to absorb that on behalf of our guests and full year restaurant level margin guidance at 24.8% to 25.2%. Youmentioned underpricing inflation by about 800 basis points over the past few years as inflation has been such a challenge. Can you keep doing that if tariffs drive higher inflation? I know that you're not hyper exposed. You do a lot of sourcing domestically, but there's going to be an inflationary backdrop overall. To what extent do you maintain pricing power when that is the backdrop? Yes, we don't see it on the input side as got contracting in place and some of the mitigation efforts I spoke to really looking at the consumer demand side, given the weakened in confidence numbers we've seen and so making sure that we are leaning into our guests, leaning into those great operational execution aspects and delivering that value proposition to keep them coming to cover and coming back more frequently. Whatwould make you raise prices? What tariff level might make you reconsider? I don't know that there's a tariff level today that would make us reconsider in this for the long term. We're trying to build this business for the next 10 years, not the next 10 months, and so we want to make sure that we're driving traffic and building that brand relationship over the long term. You have afew new innovations hot harissa, pita chips, and other protein. These contracts that you're speaking of that are already in existence, when are they set to expire and then with that being said, how are you hoping, are you thinking that there'll be some relief by the time these contracts expire and go up? Yeah, so those hot Harissa pita chips, uh, we just launched those recently, a fan favorite on our classic pita chips, so we've seen our highest level of pita chip incidence rates since, since, since launch, uh, and we've got a great culinary innovation pipeline, uh, coming later this year. Uh, our contracts are in for the remainder of the year and even on the CapE side, uh, we advance purchase all of our kitchen equipment and, and some other fixtures and finishes for all of our new restaurant openings so we don't see the cap backs for the remainder of 25 and even in early 206. So it remains to be seen what will happen next year, but in the current landscape, the visibility we have is that we will not have to raise prices or not have that impact cap backs. That growth plan you still are hitting or hope to hit 1000 by 2032. Some on the street are a bit concerned that with this environment that will hinder that opportunity. What are the challenges ahead to get to that 1000? Well, we actuallySee it as an opportunity that there's potentially the opportunity to get increased real estate sites or better real estate sites if there's maybe less competition for those sites because we can be unwavering in our long term strategic vision. We've got free cash flow positive again this quarter, self-funding over 18% unit growth. We've got a great ironclad balance sheet and a brand and a proposition that's clearly resonating with consumers and is giving grow at the rate we're growing, so we're just excited to get this to new communities across the country. We opened recently in Indianapolis and in the greater Miami area and couldn't believe the warm reception we received, so we're just looking to open in more communities sooner rather than later. I just want to end where we started on the guidance because I was talking to an executive coach about this on the phone last night who works with a lot of public companies and he was really frustrated. Like it's just, it's if you give bad guidance, the analysts are mad at you, but then they're also mad at you if you give optimistic guidance and then you don't beat it. Can you just take me into your thinking on the guidance here and how you're handling this uncertainty as you thought through guidance for the quarter? Yeah, we were so excited to put up 7.5% traffic in the quarter when most limited service brands are slumps and that gave us the confidence and visibility to maintain guidance and as I said earlier, you know, I think it's important for us as a public company building something for the next decade and beyond, not to get caught up in the quarter to quarter gyrations and make sure we're focused on building this business sustainably and durably for the next decade and beyond. So youdon't see the stock reaction as, OK, I have to do something to increase growth. No, we're not gonna react and have knee jerk reactions to the day to day or week to week gyrations of the stock price. We wanna build brand equity and bring Mediterraneans communities across the country and build the next large scale cultural cuisine category. Well, you're doing it, Brett. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you coming on, of course, Brooke, thank you for bringing us the conversation. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. We're gonna have all your markets action ahead, so stick around. You're watching Trump wrapping up his four day Middle East trip with a number of deals secured, including multi-billion dollar investments in the US by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. AI was the big focus with Washington and Abu Dhabi entering a partnership to build the biggest data center outside of the US Chip makers also inking deals with Saudi's new AI company Humane, allowing the Gulf nation to access the most advanced chips from Nvidia and us now with more former Morocco ambassador Mark Ginsberg, who served as ambassador under the Clinton administration and as White House Middle East adviser under the Carter administration. We also have Ben Steele, senior fellow and director of international economics for the Council on Foreign Relations, and of course still with me, Victoria Fernandez, chief market strategist at Crossmark Global Investments. Thank you all for being here for the conversation, I want to start with you because I'm curious about what these deals signal for American companies going forward. I get the sense that the fact that so many CEOs were willing to follow the president to the Middle East and ink their own deals with the Middle East is a signal of maybe a framework the CEOs may want to follow moving forward if they want something from the administration. What do you think about that? Well, the rug bazaar was wide uh the fact is, is that for purposes of looking at how much, how many trillions of billions of deals were actually penned, we'll see what the bottom lines are. There's a lot of dollar signs that are being thrown around here, but the fact of the main remains is that President Trump is a great salesman, and in these three Arab states, the wealthiest of them all in the region, uh, there's no doubt that there is an more tightly tie these countries to American industry as well as to American the investments that are being made by these countries are not just purely commercial. They're also intended to secure an American umbrella of security commitment to the region, which these Arab states are, shall we say, quite wary of given Trump's administration and 1.0's reluctance to involve itself in the security of these countries, notwithstanding the Abraham Accords. And Ben, come on into the conversation for us. What do you make of the way that these deals announced in the Middle East over the course of this week have potentially signaled a reordering of global superpowers and allyship, particularly given the closeness of the US and the Middle East now versus the relationship that's ongoing with China? Sure, politically this was quite a dramatic development, as you know. The Israelis are a bit by how close, uh, the Trump administration now appears to be, uh, to the Gulf states, um, from an economic perspective, um, this is a rather remarkable shift in policy. The Biden administration, as you know, uh, was concerned to the expansion of AI infrastructure out of the United States, uh, abroad, uh, President Trump, of course, had, um, made it a centerpiece of his presidential campaign to, um, major manufacturing business and to prevent its um uh going abroad, but now we're seeing the potential for massive AI infrastructure investments abroad that really um adds a lot of uncertainty as to what the bottom line is in terms of US trade and investment policy right now. And my guest host Victoria has a question as well. It's been talking about the economic policy, looking at it through that lens, do you think that these deals that are being made or that have been made this past week allows this administration then to go harder on China again after this 90 day trial period is up? That's a very good question because of course uh the Chinese have also been trying to embed themselves politically and economically more deeply um uh in the Middle East and the um uh Gulf region. Um, I think, however, what we've learned over the last 6 weeks since Liberation Day is that Donald Trump is very um sensitive uh to market moves, and I really don't think at this he wants to be promoting, um, any, uh, negative messages with regard to the relationship with China, um, as we saw with the, the, the recent framework deal that was, um, uh, announced, Treasury Secretary Ben Ben emphasize that the United States does not want to hurt China does not want to decouple from um uh China. This is a remarkable change in rhetoric from the presidential campaign when candidate Trump said that we were quote unquote going to tariff the hell out of China. Victoria has another question for the ambassador as well. Yes, Ambassador Ginsberg, I wonder when we look at um the tariff policy as a whole and how it relates to um countries in the Middle East, we're thinking that perhaps a 10% universal tariff might be where we end up. Do you think that that's something that the economies around the globe would be able to handle? Well, it depends on each country. I mean, the problem here is that the president is making these decisions on the fly, so to speak. One day from the next, the tariff rate will be going up. If some country does something that the president doesn't like, next thing it'll go from from 10% to 20%. I mean, the uncertainty is something that is not locked in here by any stretch of the imagination, from China tothe Gulf states, to Europe, etc. So, uh, he has created a world of uncertainty that is going to be directly affecting and impacting the American consumer and in order to, in effect, harmonize this tariff structure it's going to take, first of all, uh, discipline from this White House which it surely lacks, and secondly, a president that's not using a cudgel to punish countries that don't agree with him on issues having absolutely nothing related to trade, right, Ambassador, we've got about 60 seconds left, but talk to me about the security risks of deepening these ties with the UAE. Well, look, the United States already has deep ties with the UAE. We already have a 123 nuclear agreement. The Saudis would like the same. The president clearly has tied himself even more closely to the crown prince and to Saudi security interests. I actually, I'm all in favor of it. I mean, in terms of the Gulf states and ties to the US, these states are clearly a bulwark against the aggressive designs in the Middle East and the Saudis and the other than the Qataris, I'm I'm no fan of the Qataris, but the Emiratis and the Saudis are essentially aligned with American foreign policy in the region. Ben, we'll have to bring you back next time to get your reaction to the ambassador's comments. I really appreciate you all joining us this morning. Ambassador Ginsburg, Ben Steille, and of course Victoria Fernandez for the conversation. Appreciate you you for having me. We'll have all your markets action ahead on Yahoo Finance. Keep it here for trade tensions are easing with the US and China agreeing to a 90 day pause, levies still expected to have an impact on costs. Walmart warning customers in its latest earnings report that it will begin raising prices as soon as this month as tariff pressures begin to weigh on margins. So how can you prepare for rising prices?I want to bring in Alex Caswell. He is wealth script advisors founder and CEO for this week's FA corner brought to you by Invesco. Alex, great to have you on here. Tell me, this is something myself, all my friends and family, we just want to know what is the single best way to prepare for rising prices. You know, thank you for having me. Um, you know, for prices as they continue to increase, which they certainly will, now, we'll see what impact the tariffs will have on the increase in prices, um, you know, staying employed, uh, making sure you have the right amount of money saved, right, kind of all the basic financial tips are going to help you, uh, protect yourself from the increase in inflation, right? Um, obviously having uh investments in equities which hopefully will also increase in value as, uh, inflation all help you have that purchasing power. But, um, you know, depending on which tariffs actually stay in place and how they will be implemented and which companies will pass on those tariffs, I mean, if you are looking at, looking at a bigger purchase, uh, you know, you may want to get ahead of that. Uh, we've actually seen with companies themselves having very large imports, uh, trying to get ahead of tariffs, uh, so you as a consumer may want to get ahead and, uh, the thing that you've been holding out online. Yeah, Alex, I'm, I'm giggling to myself at your advice to stay employed because of course we would all love that but you know it's not always in our control. So for our for our savings accounts then for that emergency fund that folks are building up in case of anything drastic changing with their jobs, what's the best way to put that cash to work? Is it a high yield savings? Is it a CD? Exactly. I mean, what we've seen, uh, especially when we had inflation in 2021, the high yield savings accounts became so popular, um, and they started paying out interest rates that we haven't seen before, um, and that just made them a lot more, um, um, approachable and useful. Um, also I bonds, uh, I uh, became very popular in the headlines, um, and a lot of people rushed to buy, uh, and invest in Treasury I bonds. Um, so obviously, as inflation increases, if it does increase, um, there are going to be, um, opportunities, uh, for your cash to simply just make sure it mimics the inflation, right?Um, but also looking more long term at, uh, you know, investments in your portfolio, but usually equities stocks have some level of inflation protection to them, there will usually be some sort of a shock to them initially, but over time they sort of swallow up that inflation. So this is just all an encouragement for people to make sure that they're staying invested. They're not, you know, freaking out and panicking about potentially, uh, the inflation that has yet to showitself. Guest host Victoria has a question for you as well. Alex. Hi Alex. I'm curious, obviously we don't want to panic, uh, so I like the fact that you're saying that, but when you're talking to your clients, you said about the pull forward from companies in regards to inventories. Do you see any of your clients saying they want to pull forward maybe some of the cash withdrawals or things that they may need going forward doing that now, are they willing to actually put a little more risk in their portfolio? Which way do they seem to be leaning or are you advising them to do? Yeah, that's, that's a great question. I know, um, this, uh, market volatility and the turbulence that we have seen, uh, I would probably argue it's unlike anything we've seen before. And the reason why it's just so politically driven, right? Um, it's almost like you can really pinpoint exactly why it's happening, and depending which side of the aisle you sit on, it's going to impact how you feel about, uh, markets and whether you want to stay calm, stay invested, or whether you want to get ahead of something. Um, and I certainly have had have expressed desire to, you know, for example, they have 529 accounts, uh, their kid is about to go to college, they may say, hey, let me move it into cash because I don't know what that's gonna look like over the next 4 years, um, and I have had other clients who are, you know, looking to, uh, buy things like cars, right? Because they're worried about, you know, the tariff impact on, on automobiles, uh, but overall in terms of, you know, taking risk, um, uh, I, I always see market volatility in these as a good opportunity to reevaluate what amount of risk you're taking, right? So if you know, for instance, we have clients that may have initially started their relationship and they're invested in a 60/40 portfolio, 70/30 portfolio, and we kind of know financially they can take more risk. It it may present a good opportunity to kind of slightly increase the allocation to more stock, especially at some of those bottoms. Alex, really appreciate you joining us. Thank you so much for our FA corner brought to you by Invesco.A huge thank you to Victoria Fernandez for joining us for the hour. I really appreciate your insights, Victoria. Thank you so much for being here. Coming up, we've got wealth dedicated to all your personal finance needs. Brad Smith has you for the hour. 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
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16-05-2025
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May consumer sentiment, Trump's Middle East trip, Cava CEO: Catalysts
Madison Mills and guest host, Crossmark Global Investments chief market strategist Victoria Fernandez, run down the morning's top market stories while speaking to a variety of experts on today's episode of Catalysts. Raymond James chief economist Eugenio Alemá joins the Catalysts team for a discussion on May's preliminary consumer sentiment reading and the latest inflation expectations figures. Cava (CAVA) CEO Brett Schulman also comes on the program to talk more about the Mediterranean fast-casual restaurant's latest earnings, the chain's menu prices, and where it stands in this current consumer environment. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here. 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
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16-05-2025
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Applied Materials, Nvidia, Apple & Fortnite: Trending Tickers
Applied Materials (AMAT) stock is under pressure after issuing a softer-than-expected outlook as chip export controls weigh on the company's sales. Nvidia (NVDA) is reportedly building a research and development center in China, according to the Financial Times. Apple (AAPL) blocks Epic Games's ( Fortnite from its operating system globally. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here. It's now time for some of today's trending tickers. We are watching Applied Materials, Apple and Nvidia. First up, Applied Materials, missing revenue estimates and issuing a disappointing outlook, sending shares lower today. The company feeling the pain of export controls to China, which is Applied Materials largest overseas market. I'm still joined by Victoria Fernandez Crossmark Global Investments Chief Market Strategist for more. Victoria, I wonder, this is the question people want to know is how Amat may be a signal for Nvidia going forward here. To what extent do you think that some of the pressure Amat felt is singular to them versus a broader concern? Well, we know that the semiconductor system space is really the largest component of revenue for Amat. So, I can see why when they are concerned about export controls, why that's going to be a big hit for them. And especially when you look at China, I mean, we look last quarter, it was what over 40% of their revenue was from China. You look at the earnings that we just got from them and you're seeing down to around 20, 25%. So a big hit for them. I think you can say that that would translate into Nvidia into other semiconductor names as well. But to the extent, I just don't know because of the revenue component there. How is that going to go forward? And I think the problem is that these export controls, it changes weekly, right? You get a new headline every few days around what that's going to look like. We had the diffusion component, right? Then they're saying, well wait, we're going to put new controls on starting next week. But you look at someone like a Lam Research who can be a competitor of Amat, and they're actually up double digits this year. So, I think we need to watch the space and see how it flows through to other companies, but it's obviously going to be a roadblock for a lot of companies when it comes to China and export controls. Yeah, and certainly a reminder to really watch those policies as they continue to unfold. The next up, let's talk about Nvidia. Looking to build a research and development center in Shanghai as export curbs hit sales. That's according to Financial Times reports. Nvidia CEO Jensen Wong reportedly discussing plans with Shanghai's mayor in a meeting when he visited China last month. The stock is up about 7/10ths of a percent, but it's interesting Victoria, this comes after Jensen Wong was just in Saudi Arabia, obviously talking about building the biggest data center outside of the US in Abu Dhabi. Is this a signal of Jensen diversifying his portfolio globally when it comes to opportunities? What does it tell you? Just like we were talking about how clients need to diversify their portfolios. I think it makes sense for a company to do the same thing as well. And you're looking at China that's 13% of Nvidia's revenue and he's saying, how do I still have a presence here? What can I do to still generate that revenue that we need from there? It's a huge market for them. So if you put a research and development center there, which they're saying, you know, will be different things. It'll be global projects that they're working on autonomous cars, different things like that, and it will not be anything related to IP coming from the US. We'll see if that works out. They already have 2,000 employees in Shanghai as it is. So they have a presence there, but he needs to figure out a way to keep his presence in China. And I think this is one way he's going about doing it, hoping at the same time the things that we're seeing in the Middle East will please the current administration and he'll continue to have some progress there. Yeah, a lot of chess movement when it comes to the geopolitical space at the moment. But finally here, let's get to Epic Games extremely popular mobile game, Fortnite. It's now unavailable on Apple devices worldwide. Apple blocking the company's bid to reinstate the game in the App Store. Reminder, Fortnite, it was originally pulled from the App Store in 2020 after it attempted to skirt Apple's 30% fee for in-app purchases. Epic Games submitted Fortnite to Apple's US App Store last week after a judge ruled that Apple could not charge commission on those purchases. You got Apple off just about two tenths of a percent, but it's fascinating and makes me think of course about the broader regulatory challenges that Apple is facing at the moment. Yeah, I feel like my son should be here to answer the questions on this gaming segment, right? Exactly. But I mean, you're looking at $350 million in revenue that Apple is going to lose from this component. And they are under a lot of pressure. I mean, we've had Trump make quite a few comments about Apple this week. I'm talking about they don't want a building in India and Apple is trying to put more money to work in the US. But the regulatory effects are going to be large. We've seen it in the stock price. We've seen it in the earnings that are coming out. And so I think Apple is going to continue to struggle a little bit and they're going to have to find ways to work with these companies in order to keep some revenue generation coming. But at the same time, you know, they're going to have to work within the the regulatory confines that they have. Yeah, 300 million plus, it may not be a ton for a company like Apple, but it's just another headwind that they don't have to deal with.
