SOTS 2nd Hour: Apple’s AI Investment, Doge Demand Pushback, Largest Crypto Heist Ever 2/24/25

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Sara Eisen (1:00)

Good Monday morning. Welcome to another hour of Squawk on the Street. I'm Sara Eisen with Carl Quintanilla and David Faber live at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Take a look at stocks after ugly session Friday and last week. We've just turned lower on the day. We started higher for the S&P 500, down two tenths now. So that was a little tentative. We're seeing the Dow still higher by 22 points. As for Treasuries, again, the move has been to buy Treasuries, putting pressure on yields. The 10-year lower again today, 4.41. The two-year just holding steady at 4.2. We're 30 minutes here into the trading session. Here are some of the big movers we're watching. Shares of Robinhood under pressure despite some positive news. The trading platform says the SEC has dismissed an investigation into its crypto unit, the latest sign of easing regulations for that industry. Stocks down, though, 3.37%. It's been a big winner. Shares of Domino's Pizza sliding after Q4 revenue and earnings missed expectations. Same store sales grew just 4 tenths of a percent. Domino's up against stiff competition from fast food rivals like McDonald's and Burger King, which stretched their value meal promotions to fuel demand. And then watching Palantir under pressure again on pace for a fourth straight day of losses. Now down more than 20% in that time, giving back some of the enormous gains we've seen over the past year. Again, the stock is still up 20% this year and a few hundred over the last year or so. But guys, it's another big week of catalysts. We have earnings to watch, including the mother of all earnings, Nvidia, in the middle of the week. Some retail earnings. The big economic report of the week is going to come on Friday with PCE, which is the Fed's preferred inflation measure. Amid some questions about stickier inflation and what the Fed is going to do next, I'll also be watching Carefully Consumer Confidence, which comes out tomorrow from the conference board.

Because we start the week concerned a little bit about the economy, wobbles, potentially in the consumer. Look, the Walmart earnings, whenever Walmart sells off like this, whether it was positioning or just everybody had been on the side of the trade.

Carl Quintanilla (3:02)

It was the guidance, really, not the earnings themselves.

Sara Eisen (3:04)

Yeah, and the stock was up 80% in earnings on the year. But just, I wanted to highlight one of the comments because I think this is starting to work through company's minds and psyches and potentially investment. We're not going to be completely immune to this. We're talking tariffs, according to the CFO. We've lived in a tariff environment for the last seven or eight years and we'll do what we know how to do. We'll work with suppliers. We'll lean into our private brand, he said, and we'll ship supply where necessary to try to take advantage of lower costs that we can pass on to consumers. So not really a huge red flag for the consumer, although you do always wonder what it means when Walmart takes share from every income category, whether that's a good sign or a bad sign for the consumer. They didn't warn that the consumer is weakening or anything like that. But I did note the Domino's CEO on consumer spending said, as we look into 2025, we believe the combination of pressured consumer spending and a value-driven QSR marketplace will continue referring to what the industry is seeing overall. And then just the Friday report on consumer sentiment, lower than expected on Michigan, University of Michigan. Yes, we know this varies based on your political views, but it was worse than expected. It capped off a week where people were just getting a little more concerned, I think, about the state of the consumer. Because remember, the economy had been good. We were worried about inflation being too high. So now you don't want to worry about inflation being stubbornly sticky and the economy weakening.