SOTS 2nd Hour: Fed Decision Breakdown, Accenture CEO, & Celtics Deal Latest 3/20/25

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Sara Eisen (1:17)

Good Thursday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Sara Eisen with David Faber and Mike Santoli live, as always, from Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Stocks started with an early morning slide and we've come back. S&P is now positive, Dow 2, up 23 points. Nasdaq as well, up two-tenths of 1 percent. As the sentiment improves here early morning, take a look at Treasuries, Post Fed. We've got a lot to talk about there, but we are seeing a bid for bonds. Yields on the 10-year, just below that 2 percent level, and the 2-year yield below 4 percent. We are 30 minutes into the trading session. Here are three earnings movers we're watching. Darden Restaurants, the company behind Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse. Higher, despite weaker than expected same-store sales. Executives on the call saying, consumers continue to spend. Shares of Discount Retailer, 5 below, rallying as well on a positive outlook. Same-store sales coming in lower, but they were better than feared. Stock up almost 6.5 percent. Accenture is on the move after a top and bottom line beat. The company also raising full-year guidance thanks to demand for AI services, but warning on the call that they are seeing a negative impact from doge government cuts. We're going to break down the numbers and that color with the CEO, Julie Sweet, later this hour.

David Faber (2:30)

All right, we've got some economic data just crossing the tape. Rick Santoli has that for us. Rick.

Rick Santelli (2:36)

Yes, leading economic indicators for the month of February. Expected down a couple of tenths of a percent, coming down three-tenths of a percent. That would have been back-to-back minus three-tenths, but we had a bit of a revision. Minus three-tenths for January moves up to minus two-tenths. Minus three-tenths equals where we were in October of last year to find a bigger negative month over month change. You're going to September of last year. Here's an interesting factoid. If you look at November, December of last year, those were back-to-back positive numbers in a sea of negative. And it was the first time since December and November of 21 that we had back-to-back positives. Leading economic indicators have been really negative for years. Now, we also have existing home sales. And for that, we're going to head east to Diana Olick. Diana?

Diana Olick (3:26)

Well, Rick, existing home sales in February rose 4.2% month-to-month to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 4.26 million units. That's a beat. The Street was looking for a 3% decline. Sales were still 1.2% lower than February of last year. Now, this count is based on closing. So it's contract signed in late December and January. That was actually when mortgage rates were rising and went into the 7% range. Inventory, though, at the end of February was 1.24 million units, up 17% year over year. Still, though, just a 3.5-month supply. Six months is considered balance between buyer and seller. That tight supply is pressuring prices. The median price of a home sold in February, $398,400.

That's up 3.8% year over year. And it is another record-high price for the month of February. All four regions of the country saw price increases. First-time buyers edged back into the market. 31% of sales up from 26% last February. Investors, though, are pulling back. Just 16% of sales down from 21% a year ago. Now, again, these sales are not indicative of what's happening now. I do have a separate survey from John Burns Real Estate, which asked agents in February about traffic. And more than half said the spring market is weaker than normal. This resale index dropped for the first time in four months and, Sara, I'll tell you, even Lawrence Yun, the chief economist for the realtors, kept saying over and over again how surprised he was by this February gain. He noted that January's pending sales, which are signed contracts, was the lowest on record.