CNBC Business News Update - Market Close: Stocks Lower Friday But Notch A Winning January, Trump Nominates Warsh As Next Fed Chair, Silver Plunges 26% 1/30/26

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

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I'm Jessica Eddinger. CNBC, Wall Street opens Monday morning with a winning January in the books for stocks. A losing day on Friday, though, for the major averages, the Dow falling 179 points. Verizon led it lower. Its shares were down 3%. The S&P 500 indexed down 30 points. The NASDAQ fell 223 points, just about 1%. Shares of Nvidia down 3 quarters percent on Friday down to $191.91, a share. share. Companies who shares hit fresh all-time highs on Friday include Coca-Cola, FedEx, and Micron. If confirmed by lawmakers, Kevin Warsh will be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve taking over from

Jay Powell at the end of his term this spring. He was almost appointed chair in Trump's first term, and now here we are. What he brings to the table, deep ties on Wall Street. He's been at the Fed before. He helped manage through the crisis with Ben Bernankees' chair. He is well known to Trump's circles. So the loyalty box gets checked tied to the wealthy Lauder family. He knows Trump. He galls. He's going to go in with the president's trust. That's Thompson Reuters Fed correspondent Howard Schneider on CNBC. CNBC's senior economics reporter Steve Leesman asked the Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic about the choice. One of the abiding concerns throughout this whole process of looking for a Fed chair has been the independence of the Federal Reserve and actual facts. The

president has challenged the independence of the Fed. Criminal Investors, against Powell firing Lisa Cook. How much concern with this nomination would you have for the Independence of the Federal Reserve? I think the independence of the Fed is always a concern and it's always something that we need to protect. And we'll just have to see how Mr. Warsh is in the role. Silver, the trade unwound on Friday. Silver fell 26%. It had run up so much. You certainly saw mania phase reached when trading on silver options, surpass trading on NASDAQ option. I don't know that we've ever seen that in the past. When you have activity like that, it's an indicator of mania. That's New Age wealth's Rob Sechin on CNBC. Inflation rose at the wholesale level in December the most since

September. When producers pay more for inputs, consumers can then have to pay more down the line. Apple did close slightly higher on Friday, but investors are saying, where's the rally after blowout quarterly results? Great earnings. What else you want to say? They had staggering iPhone demand. iPhone revenues were up 23% year-on-year-on-year new record high.

Services revenue up 14% to a new record high. Sounds to me like a blowout quarter. And yet the stock's reaction is that. Why? Did I say the word AI? I didn't. There's no great AI story yet to tell. CNBC's Scott Wapner. It's the first weekend for the new Southwest Airlines, no longer low cost.

Open seating is gone. It's charging for bags and seat location. The money's rolling in. Here's CNBC's Phil LeBoe with Southwest CEO Bob Jordan. The move to assigned seating, it just sets up terrific momentum for 2026. People will pay up a little bit for that, but also for baggage fees. These are the kind of things that your competitors have been doing for some time. Because this is a change to the business model, offering them different products,

and they can buy up. And obviously, you can buy a seat location. And we have fairs that have bag fees and no back fees. On the coming week's watch list, it's the busiest week of earnings season. We're going to hear from Amazon and Google Parent Alphabet. Monday is Groundhog Day. And Super Bowl Week begins. Jessica Eddinger, CNBC. live ambitiously.