SOTS 2nd Hour: A Trade War or NOT A Trade War? Plus: BNY CEO, United Earnings, & More 10/16/25

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Introducing Fidelity Trader Plus, the next generation of advanced trading from Fidelity. Customize your tools and charts, and access them seamlessly across desktop, web, and mobile. For faster trades, anywhere you go. Try the all new Fidelity Trader Plus. Learn more about our most powerful trading platform yet at fidelity.com/traderplus. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC. Member NYSE, SIPC.

SPEAKER_2 (0:31)

Huge savings on Dell AI PCs with Intel Core Ultra processors are here. And they are newly designed to help you do more faster. They can generate code, edit images, multitask without lag, draft emails, summarize documents, create live translations, and even extend your battery life. That's the power of Dell AI with Intel inside. Upgrade today by visiting dell.com/aidashpc.

Sara Eisen (1:07)

Good Thursday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Sara Eisen with Carl Quintanilla and David Faber. We are live, as always, for Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Coming up on today's show, the CEO of $75 billion financial services firm BNY, fresh off his latest earnings, with his read on capital markets and what he's seeing from customers right now. Plus, former United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz will be with us on the back of that company's results. We'll talk airline demand and how the shutdown is impacting travel. And Salesforce jumping this morning, giving a boost to the Dow. We'll talk about what's driving the company's new upbeat guidance.

Carl Quintanilla (1:41)

First, those are breaking housing data this morning. For that, we'll turn to Dom Chiu. Morning, Dom.

Dom Chu (1:45)

Morning, Carl. Good morning, Sara. So builder sentiment in the single family housing market rose five points to the level of 37 in October. That's the NAHB Housing Market Index. The street was looking for just a one point gain there. Now, October's reading is the highest since April. The builders decide a slight drop in mortgage rates overall in early October and the actions by the Fed itself. NAHB Chairman Buddy Hughes said, Combined with anticipated further easing by the Fed, builders expect a slightly improving sales environment, albeit one in which persistent supply side cost factors remain a challenge. Now of the indices, three components, the one measuring future sales expectations shot up by nine points to 54, crossing that 50 point break even mark for positivity for the first time since last January, but in a sign of on going challenges and issues, builders are citing cutting prices. The builders also noted that with government shutdowns still continuing, the expectation is that September census housing construction data will not be released this week. So we'll keep it on the Home Builder stocks right now, just down fractionally. Sara, I'll send things back over to you.

Sara Eisen (2:55)

Okay, we'll take what we can get as far as data. Thank you, Tom. Tom Chu on Home Builder sentiment. You know, in the absence of data and what's happening on in the underlying demand, I did have a chance to hear from a number of CEOs in Washington, DC this week across different industries about what they're seeing from the consumer and what they're seeing as far as demand. And since we don't have the data, listen to the color that you're getting from the ground from these CEOs.

Carl Quintanilla (3:22)

We're seeing loan growth in the past two quarters that we hadn't seen for quite an extended period of time. And part of it is people talking about what they need to do to reestablish supply chains here in the United States. But it also relates to just the strength of the economy that we see, which is very, very broad.

SPEAKER_7 (3:46)

We serve mostly middle-income Americans and they seem to be doing fine. We do our own research and 8 out of 10 of middle-income Americans are up to date on their payments and 7 out of 10 feel good about their jobs. Lower-income Americans are beginning to feel the stress.

SPEAKER_8 (4:04)

Customers are spending at a healthy rate. Our back-to-school started strong. So we're seeing a consumer that we've described now for a couple of years is very resilient.

SPEAKER_3 (4:15)

We don't see any imminent signs of inflation. And what we can influence, we have been doing our part.

Sara Eisen (4:24)

So overall, guys, pretty bullish, especially Walmart US had saying that back-to-school has been strong. And then Santander also notable to talk about the resilience because she is a giant auto lender. And you're always looking for signs of stress when it comes to being able to pay loans back on auto delinquencies. We've seen mixed data on that front. But she said, actually, it's been pretty good.

Carl Quintanilla (4:47)