11AM Hour: Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro, Apple's New Texas Facility & Prediction Market Headwinds Grow 8/14/26

**Kate Rooney** (0:00)
The board recommends approving...

**Carl Quintanilla** (0:01)
Regarding that seat on the committee, we're promoting...

**SPEAKER_3** (0:02)
to most quarterly earnings...

**SPEAKER_4** (0:04)
Every day, shareholders meet to discuss important matters about the companies you invest in. Now you can easily make your voice heard. Vanguard Investor Choice gives you a say in the companies you invest in. With just a few taps, you can set your proxy voting preference for your index funds. Visit vanguard.com/investorchoice to learn more. Vanguard Investors own shares of our index funds, which own shares of the companies they invest in. Available for Vanguard index funds that participate in Investor Choice. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:32)
Something amazing is happening in animation. Studios are processing data faster. That's because CDW showed them new ways to maximize their infrastructure, then built a flexible Dell Technologies data solution. More automation led to reduced maintenance times and greater efficiency. So that creativity stays the star of the show.
Dell Technologies and CDW. Make amazing happen. Learn more at cdw.com/delldatacenter.

**Carl Quintanilla** (1:06)
Good Friday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla, live at Post Night of the New York Stock Exchange with Contessa Brewer. We're a few moments away from a first on CNBC interview with Disney's Josh D'Amaro, one of the first since he took the job. We'll talk with him about the outlook for business, parks and streaming.

**Contessa Brewer** (1:22)
Plus developments in the prediction space. As the feds now probe so-called mention markets amid the recent White House, Kalsha controversy and JP Morgan reportedly debanking Polymarket over regulatory concerns.

**Carl Quintanilla** (1:35)
And as the S&P notches its 27th all time closing high of the year, we're joined by one top strategist who downgraded equities this week. You'll hear why he sees macro risks and why he thinks a Fed rate hike might be a mistake. As for the markets, it is an inside day, kind of not too surprising on a summer Friday in August, but the Dow is down about 73, still riding some gains for the S&P week to date by about 30 points. And that would be the third consecutive increase on a weekly basis for the S&P. And of course, coming off pretty strong all time highs yesterday.

**Contessa Brewer** (2:07)
We had some economic data coming in this morning on the consumer. And Steve Leesman has more details about that. Steve, what did you see?

**Steve Leesman** (2:16)
Yeah, Contessa, ending a busy data week with a big miss on retail sales, raising questions about the consumer, lowering growth projections on the street and the outlook for Fed rate hikes. Let's go through the details here. Down 0.6, we're looking for a 0.1% gain. That's after a 0.2 in the prior month. Ex-auto is down 0.3. It had been down 0.2. Retail sales year on year, though, pretty decent still, 5%.
It suggests there were some issues on the month, and year on year, ex-auto is up 5.8%. Now, economists are debating whether the number was just an evening out of reasonably strong spending from prior months, or others suggesting they saw reasons for greater concern about the consumer here. Gregory Dago from EY Parthenon writing, the composition of spending points to a more discerning consumer. Consumers are increasingly trading down, where possible, and scrutinizing purchases more carefully. The financial cushions that help sustain the strong pace of spending earlier this year are thinning. And take a look at some of the reasons that I'm out there behind the numbers. The end of the tax refund surge, of course, higher gas prices have been out there. You have this Amazon Prime Day bounce down. Stronger spending because they moved it into June from July among the standouts. Non-store retailers, that kind of proves the point down 2.2%.
That's your internet sales, and that would show a bounce down there. Autos, that's kind of strange after strong May and June numbers, though. The July numbers were pretty good, but the government having different numbers on the private sector on that. Gas station sales, you can expect that with lower prices. There's electronics being down, clothing being up 1.9%.
Good numbers also for health and personal care in restaurants and bars seeing gains. Now, all of this, several forecasters like Goldman Sachs, they lowered their GDP outlook for the third quarter while markets driving down the outlook for September rate hike now around 26% from around 31% before that number. That probability has come down this week, of course, because you had those chain inflation numbers. So the best possible explanation is that the July ends up being a breather from decent numbers earlier this year. It's a concern, but too early to say if this is reflecting broader economic weakness also reflected and you had these low wage gains and you've also had got pretty muted and even negative employment numbers, guys.