SOTS 2nd Hour: Nvidia GTC Conference, Fed on Deck, NBC National Poll: Trump & The Economy 3/17/25

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Sara Eisen (1:02)

Good Monday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Sara Eisen with David Faber and Mike Santoli. Today live, as always, from Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Stocks are coming back a little bit after another tough week for the markets. The S&P is up 0.4% of a percent, NASDAQ up 0.2%, so it's lagging. And the Dow is up 170 points or so. Take a look at Treasuries, and we find ourselves with higher yields, at least on the short end, the 2-year yield above 4%, the 5-year yield higher as well. The 10-year yield, though, steady at 4.3. We are 30 minutes here into the trading session. Here are three big movers we're watching. Affirm shares under real pressure. Rival Klarna taking over as the exclusive provider of buy now, pay later loans for Walmart. Klarna also has filed to go public with evaluation of around $15 billion. Norwegian Cruise, top gainer in the S&P right now after an upgrade to buy at JP. Morgan. Analysts citing comments from the company's CFO. The demand remains strong for cruising. And then Netflix shares are also rallying the stock upgraded to buy over at Moffitt-Nathanson. The firm increasing its price target to $1,100 from $850, saying, quote, Netflix has won the streaming wars. Case closed.

David Faber (2:15)

May want to do that 700 points ago, but I guess it's better than nothing.

Sara Eisen (2:20)

So they missed the big rally?

David Faber (2:21)

They missed everything. Yeah, they had a neutral on it. Let's get some economic data just crossing the tape. Santoli is here. He's got the numbers for us.

SPEAKER_5 (2:28)

Rick?

Rick Santelli (2:30)

Yes, David. We're looking at business inventories' January number expecting up three-tenths, and it delivered exactly up three-tenths. That's the biggest month-over-month positive change in business inventories since May of 24, May of 24 So a pretty good number. What's unique here is many are looking at trying to get ahead of tariffs affecting inventories. I don't see it in business inventories. As a matter of fact, all the bills in business inventory were between May and August of 24 Over the last couple months, there has not been a build. This is a big positive number, so we'll have to pay very close attention. Most of the big builds actually were in 2023 Now, let's move over to the housing market, shall we? National Association of Home Builders' market index is out for the month of March, but for that, we go to Diana Olek. Diana?

Diana Olick (3:22)

Home builders' sentiment dropped three points in March to 39 on the NIHB index. That's the lowest level in seven months, and it came after a five-point drop in February. Anything below 50 is considered negative. Last March, it was 51 The builders cite economic uncertainty, the threat of tariffs and elevated construction costs, even as they expect, easing regulations. Now, of the index's three components, gauging sick current, sales conditions fell three points to 43, its lowest point since December of 2023 Buyer traffic dropped five points to 24, and sales expectations in the next six months was unchanged at 47 Now, this, all as mortgage rates stayed in a relatively low range. Builders in the survey estimated, though, that the typical cost effect from recent tariffs actions was $9,200 in addition per home.

Now, 29 percent of builders cut home prices in March. That is up from 26 percent in February. Builder sentiment fell across the nation, but it was lowest in the West, which is where home prices are the highest. Tomorrow, we get housing starts and building permits, Sarah. So, we'll see how this factors into that.

Sara Eisen (4:29)

Okay, Diana, thank you very much. Diana Olek, adding to the stew of economic data we've already had this morning, retail sales I wanted to hit because there have been increasing concerns about the US consumer and spending. And I guess the headline on retail sales is it could have been worse, right? I mean, 0.2% on retail sales. It wasn't as bad as January, which was revised even lower. But under the hood, there are some not great internals to look at. For instance, most of the groups, the categories of goods where retail, where people spend at retail, was lower. I mean, the two standout performers were online shopping and then healthcare spending. Services, there's not a lot of services in here, just restaurants, and that was actually a decline. So you take out autos and the number looks better because autos saw a big drop. And interestingly, the control group, which is what actually feeds into GDP, was very strong, up 1%.