Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: S&P 500 Has Best Day of Year; Trading Volatility With Skylar Capital’s Bill Perkins 8/8/24

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

S&P 500 posted its best day of the year as markets claw back from Monday’s drop. Another earnings parade with Dropbox, Expedia, Gilead, Paramount, Take-Two, Capri, Unity and e.l.f. LightShed’s Brandon Ross breaks down the outlook for video games. Skylar Capital’s Bill Perkins on the energy trade, volatility and how traders are reacting to geopolitical strife. Plus, Waystar CEO Matthew Hawkins on the latest quarter and AI in health care. 

That bell marks the end of regulation. EQV Ventures Acquisition Corp. ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange. And USA Gymnastics, including Paris Olympics gold medalist Jordan Childs, doing the honors at the NASDAQ. And stocks going for gold today, erasing much of the week's losses after today's jobless claims number tempered fears of an economic slowdown. The tech sector leading the S&P's gains. That is the scorecard on Wall Street, but winners stay late. Welcome to Closing Bell Overtime. I'm John Fort with Morgan Brennan.

Well, coming up this hour, breaking earnings results with crucial signals on the consumer when Expedia, Capri, ELF, Take-Two, and Unity Software report earnings, along with Paramount, Gilead, Dropbox, and many more. Plus, the CEO of healthcare software company and recent IPO Waystar joins us to break down that company's quarter as the stock makes a sizable move higher. As we await those earnings, let's bring in our panel, Victoria Hernandez of Crossmark Global Investments and Charlie Bobrinskoy of Ariel Investments, a longtime shareholder of Paramount. Good to see you guys, Victoria. So what do you make of this rally after the drop? Do you buy the resurgence or have you changed anything as your

strategy as a result of what you've seen over the last week? I'll tell you, John, we have not changed our strategy. We have thought all along that we were in this weakening economy, and it wasn't just the nonfarm payrolls number that made us feel like that. That might be when the market reacted, but you've had a long line of elements before that, especially in the JOLTS report telling you that. Job openings are stagnating. The quits rate is at a cycle low, actually at a rate that is equivalent to a 5.5% unemployment rate, which is typically a recession period. We've seen lots of elements, time to rehire slowing down. And we saw continuing claims today actually move higher as well.

So I think there's a lot of elements that say the labor market is still weakening. Yes, we had a poor number. Today was a better number. I do think we had a poor number. Today was a better number. I do think we have to be careful. Some of those numbers were affected by the Hurricane Feral in Texas. Now we have Hurricane Debbie. So I think we need to be careful. We probably haven't hit a bottom yet. Okay, hold tight. Paramount Global earnings are out. Julia Boorstin has those numbers. Julia. That's right. Paramount's revenue is falling short of estimates 6.8 billion

dollars versus the 7.2 billion estimated adjusted earnings of 54 cents per share beating estimates of 12 cents per share but that excludes a six billion dollar impairment charge that paramount global took on the value of its cable networks now paramount's earnings beat was driven by better than expected streaming performance the direct direct-to-consumer streaming division hitting profitability for the first time, even as it lost 2.8 million subscribers to end the quarter with 68 million subscribers. Now, the company continues to be dragged down by its linear business. Paramount's TV division's revenues fell 17%, largely on a decline of licensing revenue, but also seeing a decline in ad revenue as well.

The stock is pretty much flat right now. Morgan, back over to you. All right. Julia Boorstin, thank you. Charlie, got to go to you on this one since I know you're a shareholder here. It kind of reminds me a little bit of Warner Brothers Discovery in the sense that we're getting an impairment charge on the legacy business, but direct-to-consumer streaming is definitely doing a little bit better here. I realize Paramount's getting sold, but your thoughts?

The streaming is the future, and they are ahead of schedule in building that streaming business. Disney's streaming business was great. Warner Brothers was great. The business is growing, and that's the future. Linear TV is kind of the past. When you're talking about Paramount, you're talking about a library of spectacular titles, The Godfather, Mission Impossible, Maverick, all the rest, and a great future business. And so we think if they operate this properly, where they use their IP with an arms dealer mentality of

selling it and renting it to other strong streaming players, this can be a very profitable business. And they are profitable really ahead of schedule here. A write-down is a non-cash item. That's an accounting charge. That's the accountants doing a discounted cash flow and coming up with a lower number than they had previously come up with. That's not news.

So what's news is the streaming business is more profitable than expected. All right. Hang on to that. Expedia earnings are out, or Seema Modi has those numbers. Seema. John, these are the second quarter numbers for Expedia, which came in well above suite expectations. 3.51 adjusted on its bottom line versus a 3.06 estimate. 3.56 billion for sales, which is ahead

of what Wall Street was anticipating. CEO Ariane Gorin, this is the first quarter under her leadership. She says that these results came in at the high end of our expectations, gross bookings, revenue. We're pleased with our momentum and the sequential improvement in our consumer brands. However, in July, we have seen a more challenging macro economic environment and a softening in travel demand. We are therefore adjusting our expectations for the rest of the year. Those numbers on guidance will come out likely during the earnings call, which begins at 4.30 p.m. Eastern. This, of course, comes amid a flurry of reports from the travel sector, citing softness in North America and in the consumer in general.

Shares are down about 3% here in overtime. Arianne Gorin, the new CEO of Expedia, will join me first on early next week. Back to you guys. All right. Looking forward to that and certainly a pattern here. Seema Modi, thank you. Gilead earnings are out. Angelica Peebles has those numbers. Angelica. Hey, Morgan. Gilead beating on the top and bottom line. It's adjusted EPS coming in at 201 versus the 160 that analysts were looking for. They're also narrowing its full year guidance for the rest of the year. They now see adjusted EPS between 360 and 390 and analysts are looking for 375. In the quarter we saw Biktarvi beat but we're seeing a little bit of weakness in the rest of their HIV portfolio. In cancer, Yaskarta coming ahead of expectations, but Tridelvi missing. And I talked to Gilead executives just before getting on air, and they're pointing to cost management helping

with that EPS in the quarter. And they see that continuing for the rest of this year, saying that they are focusing on expenses, but they are also pleased with what they're seeing on revenue. So we'll listen to that call and get back with anything else. Morgan. All right. I'll take it. Thank you, Angelica. Dropbox earnings are out as well.

It's popping. It looks like Kate Rooney has the numbers. Kate. Hey, John. It was a beat here for Dropbox. Let's start with that EPS number. A beat by 8 cents at 60 cents on the EPS number. That was on revenue of $635 million.

Revenue was up 1.9 percent year over year. Operating margins of 20 percent for Dropbox. And then we've got a statement here from CEO Drew Houston. Talks about navigating some of the pressure of being a more mature software business. Does say they're investing and focusing on AI. Looks like average revenue per user, $139 or so, paying users of 18.2 million. Shares, though, up more than 3% here after hours. Guys, back to you. All right. Kate, thank you. ELF beauty earnings are out. Pippa Stevens has those numbers. Pippa. Hey, Morgan, is it top and bottom line beat for ELF in Q1? EPS coming in at 110 adjusted. That was 26 cents ahead of estimate revenue at $324 million, also ahead of expectations. Now, this was their Q1, and they did raise their full-year guidance,

although on the revenue front, the high end of $1.3 billion is what Wall Street was already expecting, so maybe a little bit light there from the streets perspective, and full-year EPS numbers also coming in a bit soft. So it seems to be that guidance that is sending the stock down 10 percent here. Back to you. Well, it looks a lot more disappointing on the chart than it sounds. Pippa, thank you. Victoria, I want to go back to you with ELF. I'm used to calling it ELF and being wrong, but ELF and also let's see how the consumer name we just got, Expedia. On these guides, both disappointing in different ways for different reasons,

but how much does this raise the specter of what are we really in for as we head toward Q4 with the consumer? Well, look, we know that the consumer has been pulling back some, and originally we thought it was just the low-income and middle-income consumer. But as of late, we've heard from CEOs on earnings calls that the high-income consumer is pulling back as well. Luxury items are down. Big-ticket items are down. So the guidance is going to be key here in these companies determining how they're going to get earnings next quarter. Now, obviously, you look at ELF. You look at a makeup company. Maybe they're not hit quite as hard because there are those of us that aren't going to do without that. We will cut back on other discretionary spending before we do that.

But I think it's going to be critical to see how the price points are related to specific customers and what that looks like going forward. We know from the retail earnings we've gotten so far, the consumer is struggling and we've seen real wages come down as well. So I think we'll have to be listening carefully to see what their outlook is for next quarter. Okay. We got more earnings to bring you. Take two interactive. Those are out. Steve Kovac has those numbers. Steve. Hey there, Morgan. Yeah. Take two showing here a loss per share of $1.52. They were not comparing that to estimates and revenue was a slight miss here at $1.52. They were not comparing that to estimates. And revenue was a slight miss here at $1.22 billion. Street was looking for $1.25 billion. And I'll also note they are reiterating the launch window for Grand Theft Auto 6. That's all anyone, investors are looking for when that's going to

launch. That is still going to launch, they say, in the fall of 2025. It looks like shares are down about a little more than 1%. I'll send it back over to you. All right. Steve, thank you. Charlie, want to get your action to some of the earnings we just heard, maybe starting with some of these consumer names, because September is a live meeting for the Fed. Everybody's expecting a rate cut.

The question now is going to be 25 or 50. And what does that trajectory look like behind that? How much of this now hinges on the consumer? Because, yes, economy is slowing. And whether it's a soft landing or a hard landing, it's still a landing. It's still going to be somewhat bumpy, somewhat painful. So the economy is not necessarily slowing. It may be growing at a slightly lower rate. That's the second derivative, which shouldn't be confused with the first derivative. We are not in a downturn for the economy.

The actual last GDP number came in actually ahead of expectations. So what has happened? The lower end, it is clear, of the consumer is softening a little bit, have gone through a lot of their benefits. It is not clear that the middle class and the upper ends of the middle class are softening. We're hearing different things from different CEOs. The people at Royal Caribbean were very positive on the behavior of the consumer. So I do think this was a situation that was more caused by the end of the yen carry trade than it was by bad economic statistics.

The unemployment numbers that we got today were very solid. So I think we should not assume that we're in a slowing economy that is being too negative here. OK, Charlie and Victoria, thank you both for joining us. Thanks for having us. All right. With all the major averages finishing near the highs of the session, it's time now to bring in CNBC's senior markets commentator, Mike Santoli, with a look at how riskier parts of the market have fared recently. Mike. Yeah, Morgan, a pretty good comeback today for some of the more aggressive stocks in the market. But that comes after a very severe gut check in that segment of the tape. Take a look here at the low volatility parts of the S&P 500. These are the more stable defensive stocks in the market. And this is high beta. So that's obviously the more volatile, more aggressive. This is goes back to the middle of last year. And you see very much tortoise in the hair type of

chart right there. You had the high beta racing away as the market bottomed in October of last year and took off. But this is a pretty severe drop. I mean, things like semis, you can imagine, are pretty heavily represented in the high beta basket, but really just coming into parity. And today, up like three and a half percent for the SPHB, up about 80 basis points for low volatility. So it sort of continues to be a little bit of a three-legged race with these parts of the market, but inklings anyway, that a more defensive tone with things like utilities and other rate-sensitive areas doing better. Now, take a look at valuations. J.P. Morgan making the case that defensive stocks, their forward P.E. relative to cyclical stocks, looks kind of attractive.

What you'll see here is the shaded areas are recessions. So over the course of an economic cycle, what tends to happen is a premium builds up in more defensive stocks. Why is that? Cyclical earnings go up faster. The market does not put as generous a multiple on those higher earnings because we know they're cyclical. And then in recessions, cyclical earnings crash. And so their P.E.s go up. And so you've seen right now either you could argue we're not really late cycle because this hasn't happened yet or we're just

at a moment where it seems as if you're getting decent value in some of the less cyclical parts of the market. So that's at least J.P. Morgan's presentation of this dynamic. It's really fascinating. I want to take a step back and get your thoughts on another dynamic that we've seen in the markets more broadly in recent days. And that is the fact that as equities have traded higher, so have Treasury yields. Does it speak to a shift in the correlation between the two markets? We've definitely seen a shift back to what we might expect, which is an offset. In other words, bond prices go up when stock prices go down. Therefore, yields go down when stock prices go down. So bonds are acting as that portfolio buffer, as they didn't before.

But they also are registering that bid for safety. And that's what happened when rates plunged, when yields plunged well below 4%. So I'm viewing higher yields in the context of this massive plunge that we've seen in the last week or two as being more of a relaxation of tensions and not necessarily fears about inflation coming back

or even a reacceleration in the economy. So they're compatible right now, higher yields and recovering stock prices. All right. Mike Santoli, we'll see you again in just a bit. For now, Unity Software shares are coming apart in overtime. Kate Rooney has the results. Kate. Hey, John, that weakness you're seeing is likely has to do with the guidance here. It was a beat for the quarter, but guidance was a pretty big miss. Shares are down more than 6%.

They were down as much as 9% after the numbers came out. And then we've also got news here that the CFO is leaving the company, leaving Unity Software. Get you the numbers for the quarter. It was a beat by a penny on that EPS number, 32 cents on revenue of $449 million. That was better than expected. Revenue guidance for the current quarter, for the third quarter, weaker than expected at the midpoint of the range,

$415 million versus, yeah, it was about $458 million. EBITDA guidance significantly weaker than what the street was expecting. Likely has to do, that's likely the headline hitting shares here. And then the CFO news, I mentioned Luis Visocio, the company's executive vice president and CFO entering a mutual separation agreement, they say here. They say the departure is not related to any disagreement with the company regarding financial operations, policies or practices.

They say there is a formal search that has commenced for a permanent CFO. And in the meantime, they have a interim CFO that's the chief accounting officer stepping up to fill in a CFO in the meantime. But as I mentioned, guidance really the big headline here, down more than 6% after hours, guys. All right. Okay, thanks. We're going to have much more on today's earnings movers ahead. Up next, we'll take a closer look at the results from video game names Take-Two and, as we just mentioned, Unity Software, as both of those lag the major averages on a year-to-date basis. And later, the CEO of healthcare software company and recent IPO Waystar

joins us to break down the firm's first earnings report since going public in June. That set the stock higher by a healthy 10% today. Overtime is back in two. Welcome back to Overtime. Capri Holdings earnings are out. Pippa Stevens has those numbers for us. Pippa. Hey, Morgan.

It is a top and bottom line miss here. Four cents adjusted on EPS. That was well short of the 59 cents that Wall Street was looking for. Revenue of one point zero seven billion. Also light. That also was down 13.2 percent year over year with both Michael Kors and Versace revenues coming in below estimates. Now, the company did say that they were disappointed that they continue to be impacted by softening demand globally for fashion luxury goods. And they said they are managing their operating expenses and inventory levels carefully in light of the challenging global retail environment. This, of course, coming within the backdrop of the FTC filing in April to block the proposed acquisition with Tapestry. You see those shares down some four and a half percent.

John. All right. Thank you, Pippa. The proposed acquisition with Tapestry, you see those shares down some four and a half percent. John. All right. Thank you, Pippa. Now, shares of Unity Software, they've been all over the place. They're down as much as nine percent now, down maybe one percent or fractionally after beating on earnings, but missing Wall Street's guidance expectations and announcing the CFO is departing. Take two interactive also reporting moments ago, reporting a loss of $1.52 per share, missing on revenues. It was lower. Now it's higher by about 3%. Joining us now is LightShed Partners media and technology analyst, Brandon Ross. Brandon, what's happening across these portfolios that investors should zero in on. At the high end, there's console. At the lower end, there's apps with in-app purchase and advertising and those kinds of dynamics. And we've seen some

strength in the likes of AppLovin, which deals in that ecosystem. Yeah. So let's just level set here. The games industry right now is not a growth business. I was listening to WBD's call yesterday, and David Zasloff pointed out that they own, obviously, the Wargames studio and how that was a bright spot of growth, an industry that's actually growing. This is an industry that's basically been flat since COVID. And so what you're seeing is market share kind of shifting around between players all over the ecosystem. In the case of ad tech, Applovin is killing Unity. It's that simple. I think that Unity had a lot of missteps over time. And Applovin just continues to really innovate and has figured out that you need to utilize data. Unity never utilized the assets that they had, having 70%

market share on the build side of their business. So you're seeing winner and loser there. In terms of console games and time spent, the way we've looked at investing in these companies now is where time spent is moving, that's where you want to invest. And so in the quarter, you saw EA come out and they had NCAA football, and that took some oxygen out of the room for some of the other console players in a generally down console market. One of those may have been 2K. OK, now explain to me, though, what the long play is, because I'm old enough to remember just a couple of years back we had the big tech players across Amazon, Google and Microsoft all talking about cloud gaming streaming. Microsoft actually bought Activision Blizzard. There must be a longer play in this than just a slow growth, no growth industry.

Where is the strategic value here that investors should be thinking about as these stocks, this industry in general, goes to a rough patch? Look, I think that your 3D interactive will, over time, return to a growth business as there's better interactive experiences that are available to a broader swath. So you brought up cloud gaming there. That should help unlock both, you know, sort of the proliferation of console type gaming and also new formats. But that is a little further away than all of us had hoped, especially Microsoft. And you've seen Microsoft backpedal in cutting jobs, et cetera, since they made the activision acquisition subscription hasn't played out the way they hoped streaming hasn't played out the way they hoped and that's further

away in the meantime you want to own companies like take two who has gta 6 coming out and is probably going to take um a significant amount of play time away from everybody else when that game comes out and they move into a new version of GTA Online. So Brandon, are we talking about companies that are acquisitive here then in the meantime, especially if there's so much onus on the pipeline? I actually, I don't think you're going to see the type of consolidation that you saw the last couple of years, to be honest with you. And the reason is a lot of that acquisition activity simply didn't work out. Again, like the Microsoft Activision deal, TBD, but so far doesn't seem so good.

Right. You saw Sony acquired Bungie and you saw what this week that they're cutting 17% of Bungie jobs. So I, I, I don't know if we're in the stage right now where you, where you're going to see a ton of acquisition activity over time. Does it make sense for a take two and an ea you know doj willing to to potentially get together um yeah that that would be the dream but um i i don't see anything in the near term brandon thank you appreciate it take care we've got more earnings to bring you this time it's rocket lab earnings those are out and uh it looks like a beat on the top and bottom lines. Rocket Labs loss was eight cents per share. That was two cents narrower than estimates for a loss of 10 cents per share. Revenue also coming in better than expected. One hundred and six point three million dollars, which represented growth year on year of 71 percent.

That was a record revenue for the space launch and satellite supplier. Also saying here that their first successful hot fire test of the Archimedes engine for the new neutron rocket. This is Rocket Lab's new heavy medium lift, excuse me, rocket that's under development, that that has transpired. A few other updates here regarding that new rocket that is under development, saying that they've signed 17 new launch contracts year to date. However, looking at guidance, it looks like Q3 revenues of $100 to $105 million is a little bit shy of the $108 million that analysts had been anticipating. Nonetheless, you can see, well, shares are flitting back and forth between positive and negative right now. But a space name that is publicly traded and had a strong quarter. After the break, noted energy trader Bill Perkins on

the big swings in the commodities market and how developments unfolding in the Middle East and in the Russian-Ukraine war could impact prices. And as we head to break, it wasn't just equities. Check out the big bounce back for crypto and some crypto-related stocks today. Over time, we'll be right back. Welcome back. Pretty sweet reaction to sweet green earnings. Second quarter results just crossing and the stock is jumping up more than 19.5%. Earnings actually missed. A loss of 13 cents per share versus estimates of a loss of 10 cents. Revenues beat by $4 million at $185 million. Comps were up 9%. That's well above fact set estimates. And full year revenue guidance topped estimates at the upper

end of the range. I guess the consumer's eating greens. Salad. Salad is salacious. Alright. Well, meantime, check out the move in natural gas. Spiking more than 8% this weekend. More than 14% in Europe as traders digest reports of a Ukraine offensive into

southwestern Russia. The energy markets are also closely watching developments in the Middle East, threats of retaliation against Israel by Iran. Joining us now, Bill Perkins, founder and managing partner of Skylar Capital. Bill, it's great to have you back on the show. Great to be here. There's a lot I want to get to with you, but first I think we've got to start with geopolitics. I mean, here in the U.S., nat gas is pacing for the best week since June 7th.

I realize we're still pretty low in terms of the levels. We've seen some more movement in Europe. How much is geopolitical tension factoring in here? And what does that mean in terms of the possibility for moves? I think in Europe, it's all geopolitical tensions. They're worried about disruptions to flows through the Persian Gulf, moving LNG tankers. And then we're also the last bit of Russian supply that transit through Ukraine. People are worried about that as well.

Europe is completely dependent on imports. I'm not aware of any production aside from Norway that imports it into the EU. I should say the EU. And so any kind of risk going on in the world converts into traders' minds as supply risk. And so prices like to jump around when that happens. Bill, on the demand side, we saw a lot of energy jump today as jobless claims were down lower than people expected. How much is that, the demand question, driving the narrative? Well, I think in the longer term, you know, even in a recession, a mild recession or a slowdown, you have incremental, brutal demand growth. And then, of course, with natural gas and power demand, we have the reindustrialization of America. And we also have, you know, all the

talk about AI and data centers. And so the utilities have revised upward their load growth. So there's a kind of a macro play on people want to be longer energy out the curve. Whether renewables or solar beat that, you know, beat the demand growth remains to be seen. And we've been talking a lot about the VIX, which spiked to 65 earlier in the week. And the fact that yen carry trade, we saw that unwind. But also you've seen this unwind in some of the volatility trades that were out there, too. I can't think of a person better to speak to volatility than a natural gas trader. Yeah, we don't know what people were crying about that day.

It's like 3 percent, 4 percent, 5 percent. We call that Tuesday and Thursday in natural gas land. So, you know, markets are fluid. Infrastructure is, you know, breaking, coming online. We have weather issues on a weekly basis, whether it's hot or a tornado or a storm. So, like, we're used to that type of volatility. We don't understand the equity guys crying when things drop 3 percent. All right. Bill Perkins, great to have you on. Thank you. Great to be on. Well, time for a CNBC News update with Bertha Coombs. Bertha. John, Donald Trump says he wants to face Vice President Kamala Harris in three debates in September. At a news conference this afternoon,

the former president said he has accepted invitations from NBC, Fox and ABC. A competitor in the CrossFit Games died earlier today during a swimming event on a lake in Texas. Fort Worth fire officials said search and rescue was not at the scene when the initial call was made and the athlete, whose name has not been released, was found an hour later. CrossFit CEO Don Fall said they were deeply saddened by the athlete's death and were working with authorities to investigate. And COVID fell to the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. last year, down from fourth in 2022. In a report released today, the CDC found COVID was the underlying or contributing cause of over 76,000 deaths in 2023. That's less than 2%. But the report noted while deaths decreased across all ages and racial ethnic groups,

Americans age 85 and over had the highest share. Meantime, we've got athletes at the Olympics are winning medals with COVID, running and winning a medal with COVID. Unbelievable. Indeed. Bertha Coombs, thank you. After the break, Mike Santoli returns with an investor sentiment check after the wild volatility in the market over the past week. And later, shares of Palantir adding to solid gains on the week on news of a partnership with one tech giant to sell AI to intelligence agencies. We've got those details when Overtime returns. Welcome back. Healthcare payment software company Waystar releasing its first earnings report as a public company after the bell yesterday beating on the top and bottom lines. Shares popping 10 percent today.

The company made its debut on the Nasdaq back in June. Joining us now in an exclusive interview is Waystar CEO Matt Hawkins. Matt, welcome to the show CEO Matt Hawkins. Matt, welcome to the show. Hi, Morgan. Hi, John. Nice to see you. Grateful to be here. So you posted strong results. Investors liked it today. Canaccord out with a note saying the largest component of upside was attributed to rapid onboarding of new clients following the UnitedHealthChange cyber event that contributed $9 million to Q2 revenue. You're taking market share. Why does the momentum continue? And does the momentum continue?

Well, it does. We're pleased with our results in Q2. We posted 20 percent revenue growth, 12 percent EBITDA growth, and had strong free cash flow in the quarter. We did have the phenomenon where there was a cyber attack on Change Healthcare. We were grateful to be in a position to help over 30,000 providers move rapidly to the Waystar software platform. It's a cloud-based platform, so it allows for that. And they needed it. Many of them many of them were down, their systems, they just needed a way to restore business operations and we were thrilled to be in a position to help them. And we believe that we've established enduring relationships with those new clients

and we'll have the opportunity to continue to expand our relationships with them over time. Okay, and what does that expansion look like? You mentioned cloud-based. You're also investing into AI applications and beginning to start to pilot some of those as well. How will that factor in? Sure, the Waystar software platform

is a cloud-based software platform. It's end-to-end in nature. And we utilize AI pervasively across the software platform today. It basically mirrors closely to all of the billing, insurance interactions, and then the collection work that a provider has to go through every day as they serve patients. They're constantly worried about the administrative side of their care. So given the fact that we've been longtime deployers of artificial intelligence, we're processing over 5 billion insurance transactions a year on our platform, serving over a million providers. We feel like we're well positioned to help those providers begin to harness the power of generative AI. And we've identified several use cases.

We have announced a partnership with Google Cloud. We really like their large language model specific to the medical terminology. And so we're well underway at working on three of them. We would characterize as we work to serve incredible clients that thematically what we're working on as we harness the power of generative AI are things like automation, the reduction of errors, and bringing operating efficiency to these providers as they work to care for patients so that ultimately they spend a lot more time caring for patients and less time worried about the administrative side of how they get paid. Matt zooming out a bit we had Massimo CEO Joe Chiani on yesterday.

He was talking about how hospital census was up and growing from pre-COVID levels finally. To what degree are those trends also driving demand for your software? Well, we see that, you know, in this environment where some people are talking about a potential recession, we sense that healthcare is not recession-proof. It's definitely recession-resistant. People need access to care. As we talk to decision-makers, what we notice is they're constantly focusing on ways they can more efficiently operate their provider organizations, their hospitals, for example. We help them do that as we deploy our cloud-based software and bring all sorts of demonstrable efficiency

and return on investment to them. We see that they're also focused on utilizing cyber secure applications that are essential to their organization. So we see investments in cyber security and we're grateful to be in a position where we help attest for cybersecurity given our cloud-based software platform.

So we like the opportunity that we see in the market. We think there's momentum. We've helped thousands of new providers join Waystar, and we've been able to do so rapidly. So we think that that momentum will continue. All right. Well, Matt Hawkins, CEO of Waystar and we've been able to do so rapidly. So we think that that momentum will continue. All right. Well, Matt Hawkins, CEO of Waystar, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Shares finishing up 10.5% today.

Yeah. And now we got some new details from Paramount, which just reported this hour. Let's get back to our Julia Boorstin. Julia? Paramount on its earnings call just now announcing it's cutting its workforce by 15%, saying the layoffs will take place in the coming weeks and will largely be completed by the end of this year. They say they're focused on cutting redundant functions within marketing and communications and streamlining corporate headcount in finance, legal, tech and other support functions. Now, this is part of the 500 million dollars in annualized cost cutting, which they've been talking about for a couple of months here. And that is part of the two billion dollars in synergies and cost cuts that were identified by skydance as part of that merger deal shares of paramount now up about six percent back over to you all right a big move for a legacy

media company julia borson thank you well palantir is stock getting a big pop following a new new deal uh top executive at the company is calling a game changer. We've got those details straight ahead. Plus, all the overtime earnings movers that need to be on your radar as more analyst calls get set to kick off at the top of the aisle. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Overtime. Let's check in on some earnings movers. The Trade Desk moving higher by about 5% after topping estimates on earnings and revenue with strong third quarter revenue guidance as well.

Akamai also beating on the top and bottom lines, giving strong earnings guidance. It's high by about 4.5%. And Archer Aviation is moving lower by 9% after reporting results. The company also unveiling plans for an LA air taxi network by as early as 2026. Yeah, everybody's racing to get their transportation in place for the Olympics. The next Olympics. Shares of Palantir in the meantime jumping today, adding to big gains for the week. The data analytics firm striking a deal with Microsoft to bring its software and AI applications to Azure's cloud

and combine it with language models for classified operations and national security work. First of its kind partnership catered to the Defense Department, intelligence community, and Palantir's CTO, Shyam Sankar, telling me this will be a, quote, game changer, that, quote, the U.S. commercial market has been so dynamic, we're now at a point where the real issue is the bottleneck between prototype and production. But in many ways,

USG, so U.S. government, is like a whole year behind because they haven't even been able to experiment in any meaningful way. Now, this could change that. For example, foreign disclosure process to share intelligence with allies. There's a PDF classification guide and the raw intelligence. What this deal would enable is the ability to automatically rewrite that intelligence so it's releasable. So for the U.S. military CENTCOM in the Middle East, for example, according to Sankar, a three-day process shrinks to three hours. Worth noting, Palantir is the exclusive industry partner to build these AI applications on Azure in a classified environment. But Palantir will and can work with other cloud providers.

So it's not necessarily exclusive in that way, or at least in that direction. You can see shares of Palantir, though, up 11 percent. And, John, this comes after earnings just earlier this week, which included a reacceleration in U.S. government work as well, even before this deal. Yeah, another big move. Shares of Grindr now grounding higher on strong earnings. That's after a big drop for fellow dating app Bumble on the back of results in overtime yesterday. Up next, find out what Grindr's CEO is saying about the quarter. Be right back. welcome back shares of lgbtq dating app grinder are popping after reporting its latest earnings that's after dating app bumble fell by nearly 30 percent today our brandon gomez just spoke

with grinder ceo joins us with the highlights. Brandon, not just Bumble, but Match 2. The chart looks ugly. Grindr looks very different. Yeah. Hey, John, turning in the opposite direction, I guess you could say. Grindr reporting a solid quarter. Total revenues increasing 34% year over year to $82 million, raising guidance for the 2024 revenue growth of 27%. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 42%. Look, the company now reporting over 14 million monthly active users. Average paying users increasing 14% year over year. Average revenue per paid user up 16%. Look, it's a significant departure, as you said, from what Bumble reported yesterday.

It gave a weaker forecast for the current quarter, citing weak consumer spending. Shares saw their worst day on record today. So what's Grindr doing that's working? Well, I asked the CEO, George Arison, how he's getting users to spend money on the app. He said, we've been doing tests to increase the value of paid tiers, like testing a travel feature called Roam in certain markets. He said, when you have a good consumer-focused product, users will see the value. He also said they're not increasing expenses right now, but rather putting money back into EBITDA. Worth noting, guys, paid

members, including any one-time purchase as well, not just subs, which anecdotally the CEO says those who tend to make those one-time app purchases do also have subs. Guys? So he's really, it sounds like, Brandon, focusing on the quality of the product and the macro environment is not necessarily an issue, at least as it stands right now. The quality of the product and the longevity of the product too, right? The CEO really emphasizes the fact that users aren't deleting this app once they make that connection. They're still using it socially. That's what their Roam travel feature is meant to do. It's meant for people who are LGBTQ to perhaps go virtually visit a city using AI software that they're generating to then find safe spaces for the LGBTQ community while they're traveling.

So versus a Bumble or a Match, or maybe you make that connection, you delete the app, Grindr folks are still holding onto it on their phones. Can't help but wonder if Grindr's clientele is also wealthier, perhaps, than some of these mainstream apps. If that has anything to do with it, as we see this bifurcation across some of the consumer. I don't know if you have any sense of that, Brandon. No, I mean, it's interesting to note that the CEO does say, again, anecdotally, that folks who have subscriptions are the ones who are also making those one-time purchases, right? So they're doubling down on their investment in the app, perhaps indicates what you're pointing to, John,

which is that it's a more affluent user base. All right. Brandon Gomez giving us more than booze and biceps. I appreciate that. That's his beat, right, Morgan? Because he covers alcohol and fitness. It certainly doesn't hurt if you do it in moderation. The booze and the biceps can help you.

If I recall, it's been a long time since I was on the market, not stock-wise, but relationship-wise. Same. I don't know. Maybe that's also why you're seeing the big pop in sweet green as well, which is one of those names within the restaurant space that certainly seems to be outperforming and catching some of those consumer dollars. Booze, biceps, and salad? That's a different beat. Yeah. But speaking of salad, it is green and so are the markets today. What a volatile week we have had. One more day in it. But who knows what will happen next? Well, who knows what will happen next? Although it is interesting. S&P finishing at 53.19 and the Nasdaq 100 actually finishing up 3 percent. A strong day for the Russell 2002. Does it hold into the final day of trading tomorrow? That remains to be seen.

Going to do it for us here at Overtime, though.