SOTS 2nd Hour: The Inflation Debate, Malone On The Record, & The Private Market Push 11/13/25

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Sara Eisen (0:52)

Good Thursday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Sara Eisen with Carl Quintanilla and David Faber. We are live from Post 9, as always, at the New York Stock Exchange. Today, does the end of the shutdown signal a market rally into year end? We'll hear the case for an S&P 500 rally to 7,000 by the end of December, even as stocks pull back this morning. Plus, more from David's conversation with media titan John Malone, including thoughts on the fate of Warner Brothers discovery as the M&A and the media business heats up. And then speaking of media, Disney shares under pressure after posting a mixed quarter. Much more on that move straight ahead. But guys, today was supposed to be CPI Day, and doesn't look like we're going to get October CPI. Carolyn Levitt said may not happen. So I've got a great alternative data set for you. This comes from Consumer Eds Research, which I've trusted and looked at a long time. They get every data point on the consumer. This is food prices that they have been tracking.

They look at inputs all from credit cards into grocery stores. It's data through November 9th, so it's super up to date. Here's what they're showing. Basically since the end of September, which you see on the chart, the year over year growth in food prices has moved up by 40 basis points. So basically from 2.8% to 3.2%, which is where you see it right now. And in the latest four weeks, it's showing that over half of the food categories are having 3% or more inflation, which is actually up substantially from the 40% of the food prices that were doing that for most of the year. So there is an acceleration in the last few weeks in food prices. It's something, as we talked about Carl yesterday, that the administration is on top of and aware of. That's why the Treasury Secretary and the president himself have been teasing some relief on tariff on food, for instance, things like coffee and bananas that we don't produce here. But this is the problem, the affordability issue that the administration is a little bit worried about right now. This is evidence, at least, that these food prices are moving higher and something's happened in the last few weeks, I mean, likely tariff related. As far as what companies are saying right now about the consumer, it's kind of a mixed bag. Disney, I don't think was too bearish on the consumer when it comes to parks, what we heard. I wouldn't characterize it as light. It basically came in line with our expectations. If anything, it seemed to be, in fact, impacting the rest of the competition down in Florida more than it's impacting us from a consumer perspective. We certainly feel good about it in terms of demand for crews. Very, very strong despite the fact that we've added as much capacity as we have. You know, David, this could be an issue for holiday spend, the whole inflation ramping up thing for everyday goods.

David Faber (3:31)

It could be.

Sara Eisen (3:33)

Could be.

David Faber (3:33)

Yeah, without a doubt. You know, I want to come back to, I mean, it's funny, you were talking about the administration. The president has been out there saying there's no inflation. As of, I think, it was, what, November 5th. There's no inflation in food prices and gas prices. Obviously, gas, that's true, actually. Pharmaceutical on and on.

Sara Eisen (3:49)

But he told Laura Ingraham, we're going to get some relief, maybe, on things like coffee or bananas, you know, because we don't want people. Look, I think that there was a message taken from the elections.

David Faber (3:59)

Everything is way down, he said.

Sara Eisen (4:01)

Well, first of all, that's true. Everything is way down from the Biden era, 9% inflation at the highs. It had already come down toward the end of the Biden administration. But we're still at 3%.