SOTS 2nd Hour: Intel’s Bargaining Chip, Buffett Boosts UnitedHealth, & Janus Henderson’s Top Tech Picks 8/15/25

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Carl Quintanilla (1:05)

Good Friday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Leslie Picker, Mike Santoli here at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. David and Sarah have the morning off. Busy Friday morning between some macro data, a bunch of corporate stories. Watch markets, though, got an all-time high on the S&P, and actually the Dow, thanks to UNH, which we're gonna talk about a little bit later. Treasuries, meantime, relatively well-behaved, just south of 4-3, although maybe closer to the range of the past five days or so. Coming up today, the Buffett Bounce, the Oracle of Omaha's move into UNH, sending shares, soaring today. We'll get more on how Berkshire and its portfolio is shaping up. And a government backstop for Intel. This new report says the US government is looking at taking a stake in the chip maker, but we have someone who says it would help the company's cash problem, but it's not a tech problem, he'll explain. And then running for the exits, more on why shares of Coreweave got crushed yesterday, although getting a slight bump this morning up a little more than 1%.

Leslie Picker (2:00)

But first, breaking economic data just crossing, Rick Santoli has that for us. Hey, Rick.

Rick Santoli (2:06)

Yes, let's start out with University of Michigan sentiment. Now, these are August preliminary numbers, so they'll change in a couple of weeks. I'll tell you right off the bat, they're sequentially lower. We're expecting a headline number around 62 Our last final month read was 61.7, 58.6.

58.6, that's the weakest since May when it was 52.2 and April when it was 52.2. Now, if we look at current conditions, 60.9. Our last look was 68 60.9, also the weakest since May. You remember April, May had some very low reads. These are surveys. They get affected by a lot of things. Now, if we look at expectations, what lies ahead? This is the closest to the rear view mirror. 57.2. 57.7 was our last month, July final read, and we were expecting a number around 58 and change. 57.2, that would be the weakest also since May, when it was well below that at 47.9. Maybe the most important aspect of these is the inflation numbers. They're coming back to a reality. On the one year, 4.9% follows 4.5%. 4.9 would be, well, the lowest since 4.3 in February. We had a read in May of 6.6%.

Finally, 5 to 10 year inflation, 3.9. Both these inflation numbers are higher than expectations. Both of these inflation numbers are higher than Rearview Mirror. 3.9% follows 3.4%. 3.9, well, 3.5 was in February, which was 3.5. The high water mark there was April at 4.4. Now we also have business inventories. This is a June number, always two months in arrears. Expecting up to 10s, it delivered exactly up to 10s. If we look at interest rates, Carl said it. You know, basically, it is a very, very, very well-behaved market. If you don't look at the volatility of Tuesday and Thursday, just look at from last Friday. Right now at 4.29, well, we closed at 4.28 last week in 10s. So, they're up one basis point basically at 3.72 right now. 3.71 changed 3.72. That's down five on the week, virtually unchanged on a two-year. So, yes, we've seen very well-behaved and Fed Fund Futures also very well-behaved. Carl, back to you and have a good weekend.

Carl Quintanilla (4:35)

You too, Rick. Thanks for some stellar work all week long. Now, Rick Santoli helping us understand the data today. Mike, market reaction?

Michael Santoli (4:43)

Not a lot. I mean, it did wobble a little bit. Two-year yield is kind of subdued on it. Market doesn't really grab the inflation expectation number from the survey very much and run with it anymore. Though you have seen longer-term yields leak higher relative to short-term ones. So maybe it does also reflect. I mean, look, we got the really poor payroll revisions.