SOTS 2nd Hour: Stocks still digesting Friday’s sell-off and the President’s decision to fire the head of the BLS 8/4/25

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David Faber (0:54)

Good Monday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm David Faber with Leslie Picker and Mike Santoli. We're live from Post 9 at the New York Stock Exchange. Carl and Sarah have the morning off. Let's give you a look at the market centresuries, one half hour into trading for stocks. Of course, you can see we're having quite a nice rally after a significant decline on Friday. As for treasuries, you know, again, yields had been down and we still have the 10-year yield down a bit at 4.218%. Coming up on today's show, Evercore's senior chairman Roger Altman is going to join us. We'll get his latest take on the market, evidence he sees of an economic slowdown, talk a bit of M&A. Plus Senator Elizabeth Warren will be with us right here at Post9. We'll talk about President Trump's decision to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics amongst other topics.

Leslie Picker (1:41)

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

Rick Santoli (1:48)

Yes, Leslie. Good morning. Factory orders. These are fresh June numbers. Expecting minus 4.8 and that's exactly what we get. Minus 4.8. That would be the weakest since the first month of 2024 But I do want to point out in the rearview mirror, there's a bit of history. 8.2% up for last month becomes 8.3%, which makes it the second biggest number in the history of factory orders, which dates back to 1956

So we see that the tariff issues have really created lots of big numbers. Now if we strip out transportation, it's up four-tenths, a little better than expected, following an upward revision of last month from two-tenths to three-tenths. Durable goods. Now these are final reads. All the durable good numbers we had mid-month, these will replace them. So the mid-month read at minus 9.3 becomes minus 9.4. And once again, that's rather historic because it is basically one of the biggest numbers ever. But this series only goes back to 1992 Now let's strip out transportation. It's up to tenths. So we could see how aircraft paid a huge part in that big up and down back-to-back months that we've had. And if we look at shipments, shipments down eight-tenths, down eight-tenths, that would be the biggest negative shipment, excuse me, minus eight-tenths is orders. And that would be the biggest since it was minus 1.5 percent, that was in April of this year. And of course, that's a proxy for capital spending. We want to see some positive numbers there. And it really has been trending in the wrong direction. Shipments now up three-tenths, largely as expected. We see interest rates at 421, wildly unchanged. And if we look at a two-year 369, that is also unchanged. Green inequities unchanged in the fixed income markets. It certainly seems a post-number. The market's pretty much at an equilibrium trying to figure out what comes next in the labor market and from the Fed. Leslie, back to you.

Leslie Picker (3:54)

Rick, thank you so much. Our Rick Santoli for us. Mike, it feels like everybody kind of went away for the weekend, enjoyed the good weather, took a little breather, and came back and pressed the buy button. I mean, what else is behind you think this mountain?

Michael Santoli (4:05)

Well, there has been a very active dip buying reflex in this market for a while. I do think that that was part of the story today. In other words, there was a bit of a jolt. We had to reassess recession odds and how deep the slowdown was based on the jobs number on Friday. I also think there was such an almost scripted element to first day of August, everybody knows August is weak. Market was overbought. In fact, market-based recession odds were basically at rock-bottom levels, at record lows. So, that quick adjustment, and today you come in, and by the way, it's the NASDAQ 100 again. So they did outperform on earnings, they didn't all get credit for it. The trading off of earnings was actually pretty sloppy in general, and now I think it's an excuse to get back in. Also, yields are down. Expectations for a Fed rate cut in September are up, and so the rate-sensitive parts of the market have actually gotten a bit off of that. One final point I'll mention is part of that dip buying reflex is this speculative grab for the same names, okay? Palantir reports later. Palantir is up 3% for no reason. Opendoor is up big today. Why?