SOTS 2nd Hour: Consumer Warnings Grow, Tough Time For Big Tech, and Former CFPB Head Rohit Chopra 03/14/25

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Carl Quintanilla (0:44)

Market insight and analysis.

Mike Santoli (0:45)

You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

Carl Quintanilla (0:56)

Good Friday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Melissa Lee, Mike Santoli, live at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. David and Sarah are on assignment. Market trying to make something of a losing week so far. We are just retesting now yesterday's intraday high of $55.97. All sectors green at the moment, VIX back below $24. We'll see if this one holds.

Melissa Lee (1:17)

Yep, 30 minutes into the trading session right now here. The three movers are watching for you. Ulta Beauty, a top gainer on the S&P 500 after a top and bottom line beat, the full year guidance was below estimates. Executives on the call forecasting continued category growth ahead. Meantime, check out Tesla higher today, but not enough to overcome another tough week. The stock is on track for an eighth week of losses, its longest weekly losing streak ever. And we are watching Apple on pace for its worst weekly performance since 2020 More on the Apple trade a little bit later on this hour.

Mike Santoli (1:47)

All right, consumer sentiment data out just moments ago. Rick Santoli has the numbers. Hi, Rick.

Rick Santoli (1:53)

Hi, boy, these numbers, once again, remember, a month ago, soft sentiment from Michigan was one of the reasons the markets moved. It continues. These are preliminary March read, University of Michigan, expecting the number 63, 63 and a half, 57.9. That's the weakest month over month headline sentiment going back to November of 22, last month was going back to November of 23 And if we look at current conditions, 63.5, weakest since September of 24 Expectations, 54.2, weakest since July of 22 And I thought the jump last week in one-year inflation at 4.3 from 3.3 was a misprint. It continues to move higher, 4.9, 4.9. You have to go into the way back machine to find a higher number, and that would be 5% in November of 22 5 to 10-year inflation? Well, if we look at last month, it went from 3.2 to 3.5. That was the highest since the ease of 93 It continues to move higher, 3.9%.

3.9. To find a higher number, I'm really going back. You have to go back to, get this, February of 1993, 1993, to find a higher number than 3.9%. Now, given, surveys are squishy, and many are debating whether there's any political bias to Michigan surveys. But having said all that, I've been monitoring this for years. These are some of the biggest month over month changes to the downside I've seen in a while. Interest rates haven't moved a lot. Many suspected we continue to see this. Why? Because, whether it's sentiment or the nervousness in equities, in many ways, they co-feed off each other. And the volatility in equities have continued, so does the downdraft on these surveys, that in many ways are focused on some of the negative aspects of equity training. Back to you.

Carl Quintanilla (3:55)

Rick Santoli, thank you very much. We watched the market reaction to that here. S&P is closing, of course, and is now in correction territory, down more than 10% from the February 19th record high. Nasdaq's on track for its worst week in about six months. Mike, thoughts on the UMISH. I mean, again, as we've been assembling lots of sentiment data.

Mike Santoli (4:14)

Without a doubt. And I think that we did have a quick fade on the headline number, and I think it's a good test of whether the market's going to look at this and say, yeah, no kidding, we know this. This is what the last few weeks have been about. This is why consumer services stocks have been weak. So if we're no longer going to be sensitive to the soft survey data, then I think that's one step in this process. The bounce by some measures have been kind of overdue. You kind of have to get more and more stretched each day. So we're now just bouncing up to levels that are below where we were hope would hold as the floor earlier in this week. So you have to scrutinize every little element of it. Rick's talking about bond yields not really coming in. So it's not some kind of buy treasuries as a as a risk trade because the recession's here, we're sort of caught in between. I do think after a 10% down move, you start to have to see tangible hard data on the economy weaken to have a lot more downside in the near term.