Squawk on the Street 2nd Hour 2/24/26

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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SPEAKER_2 (0:28)

Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter?

Elizabeth Warren (0:31)

Right? And the best part? They accept Discover.

SPEAKER_2 (0:33)

Accept Discover?

SPEAKER_4 (0:35)

In a little place like this?

SPEAKER_2 (0:36)

I don't think so, Jennifer.

SPEAKER_5 (0:38)

Oh, yeah, huh.

SPEAKER_6 (0:39)

Discover is accepted where I like to shop. Come on, baby.

SPEAKER_7 (0:42)

Get with the times.

SPEAKER_2 (0:43)

Right. So we shouldn't get the parachute pants?

SPEAKER_6 (0:47)

These are making a comeback.

SPEAKER_5 (0:50)

I think.

SPEAKER_6 (0:51)

Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. Based on the February 2025 Nielsen Report.

Sara Eisen (0:58)

Good Tuesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Sara Eisen with Carl Quintanilla and David Faber. We are live as always from Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Coming up this hour, we're on Supreme Court Watch again as we await a potential decision this hour on President Trump's ability to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook. A major test of presidential power. We'll bring you the headlines as soon as we get them. Plus, Senator Elizabeth Warren will be with us to talk tariffs, private credit and a new push to limit single-family home ownership by investors. And as AI disruption fears continue to roll through parts of the market, we'll talk to AI expert Jack Hittery from SandboxAQ about whether those concerns are getting overblown.

Carl Quintanilla (1:35)

It's a decent diet of data today. ADP, Philly Fed. Let's get some Conference Board too with Rick Santelli. Hey, Rick.

Rick Santelli (1:42)

Yes, Conference Board, Richmond Fed, wholesale inventories. Let's start out with Conference Board. This is a February read expecting 87.1. Our last read was really weak. Jump, jump, 91.2. That is a big jump from 84.5, which was the original release. That was the weakest since 2014, but that was upgraded to 89 even. 91.2 would be the best, well, going back to the end of last year before the bottom fell out. And if we look at what's going on from consumer confidence, from the present situation standpoint, also a big beat, 120 120 would be the best level since December as well, when it was 123 Last month's 113, the weakest since 21, was upgraded to 121.8, which now changed the dynamic. 120 now is the weakest since last month's big upward revision. And finally, what may lie ahead, 72.0. That would be the strongest since the end of last year as well. The bottom dropped out on all three of these readings last month. The original reading, 65.1, was upgraded to 67.2. On Richmond manufacturing, minus 10, minus 10 So that means we are now, what, 10, 11 consecutive negative reads in a row. And if we look at the business confidence side, the service side, minus 10 as well. Minus 10 would be the weakest since it was minus 11 at the end of last year. And last year, we had 11 out of 12 were negative. Wholesale inventory is up 2 tenths as expected. Wholesale trade, our final number is 1%.

That's well above expectations. And it really gives us an idea of some of the volatility on the trade side. Sara, back to you.

Sara Eisen (3:30)

Okay, that was a lot, Rick. Thank you very much, Rick Santelli. Ahead of tonight's State of the Union address from the president, just wanted to take a look at the economic state of the union as consumers and everyday Americans are feeling it. You know, affordability has been a big theme. So let's take a look at some of the key charts since President Trump's second term. Mortgage rates, wanted to start there because actually there's a good story there for the Trump administration in terms of progress. At the start of his term, we were seeing mortgage rates around 7% on the 30 year mortgage. Look where they are right now today. They're below 6%.

And actually we saw that for the first time in years after his $200 billion mortgage bond purchase initiative that he put in place telling Fannie and Freddie to do that. Look, there's still affordability issues in the housing market. I think we should mention that. There's low inventory. There's high prices and prices continue to remain elevated. There's also leftover from the post-pandemic market. But here's a five year chart of the mortgage rate. And you can see it's down. I mean, it's not where it was in Trump 1, but we're coming from these elevated prices. Remember, they got, David, almost at 8% during October 2023 So this has been so far so good.