CNBC Business News Update - Market Close: Stocks Higher, S&P 500 Index Closes At First Record High Of The Year, Netflix Gets Most Oscar Nominations 1/23/25

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

From Wall Street to Main Street, the latest on the markets and what it means for your money. Updated regularly on weekdays, featuring CNBC expert analysis and sound from top business newsmakers. Anchored by CNBC's Jessica Ettinger.

I'm Jessica Edinger, CNBC. Wall Street opens Friday morning after a winning Thursday and the S&P 500 index closing at that elusive fresh record high, its first since early December of last year. The Dow up 408 points, almost 1% led higher by shares of Caterpillar, which were up 2%. The S&P 500 index up 32.5%, closing at 6,118. The NASDAQ was higher by 44 points. It's above 20,000. Companies who shares hit fresh record highs Thursday include American Express, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Visa, Cisco, and Amazon. Just enough lift internally in the market,

especially in a handful of the big names, to get us this record. You know, we got 57 new all-time highs last year. We're sort of just continuing along that track. CNBC's Mike Santoli. The S&P 500 index is up 4% so far this month. That's the best start to a new year since 2019. Although the Federal Reserve is independent from the White House, President Trump made a demand in a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos. I'll demand that interest rates drop immediately

and likewise they should be dropping all over the world. The comments are an initial strike at Fed officials. Lower interest rates are good for business and profits. Here's CNBC senior economics reporter Steve Leisman. I think the story is that the president had been in office for three days and had not said anything about the Federal Reserve. So here he is, he's doing what I think he did fairly prominently and often in his first term, and that is making comments about interest rates and demanding lower interest rates. And I think it's something the Fed, you know, takes into account. Well, the president wants lower interest rates.

But I don't think it affects them in terms of their making a policy. Alaska Airlines shares were up on strong quarterly results after it bought Hawaiian Airlines. The CEO tells CNBC that airfares, yes, are higher and not just at his airline. Fares have gone up and, you know, one of the primary reasons fares have gone up, I think it's maybe two things. One, on the cost side, you know, since the pandemic, labor costs have gone up significantly. Airport costs have been hugely up across the entire country. And then the second component of that, what we're seeing is people buying up into the little more expensive premium seats. I think it's driving some of that fare increase. Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci on CNBC.

Amazon closing its warehouse facilities in Quebec, mostly in the Montreal region in Canada. Union leaders say the company's doing so because it has the only union location in all of Canada. Nepal, raising the fee to climb Mount Everest for the first time in 10 years to $15,000. This is a peak season climb and the country's trying to limit the number of people because the mountain's overcrowded. Netflix may have its first chance to finally win Best Picture at the Academy Awards this year with Emilia Perez. The film leads the pack with 13 total nominations. A24's The Brutalist and Universal's Wicked each had 10. Universal's a sister company to CNBC. On Friday's watch list, earnings are coming from American Express and Verizon.

We get existing home sales numbers for last month. I'm Jessica Ettinger, CNBC. CNBC's Big January continues with the World Economic Forum in Davos, plus fast money live from Miami and the first Fed decision of the year. Start the year ahead of the game. CNBC.