CNBC Business News Update - Market Close: Stocks Modestly Lower, Nasdaq Snaps 13 Session Winning Streak, Senate Hearing For Fed Chair Pick Begins Tuesday 4/20/26

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

CNBC Business News Update with Jessica Ettinger - market numbers and news featuring CNBC expert analysis and sound from top business names. Visit https://www.cnbc.com/ for more. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I'm Jessica Eddinger, CNBC. Wall Street opens Tuesday morning after modest losses for the major averages. Following last Friday's record highs and rally, investors are closely watching the expiration of the U.S. Iran ceasefire, which is Tuesday. The NASDAQ's 13-session winning streak has been snapped. Let's start with the Dow for Monday, down just four points. The S&P 500 index down 16 points. It's still above 7.5. 7100. The NASDAQ down 64 points to start the week. 13 steps forward and a half step back because that's basically what we've done, 13% and 13 days. When the market has one of these extraordinarily fast comebacks, when you do see the persistence of a gain, you have to respect it.

You can't dismiss it as a fluke or as a head fake. CNBC's Mike Santoli. Companies who shares hit fresh all-time highs on Monday include Ralph Lauren, Ross, Dress for Less, eBay, Cummins, FedEx, J.B. Hunt Transport. Analog devices, AMD, Dell, Jabil, Texas instruments, steel dynamics, and Freeport, Mac Moran. Investors swinging from rallying when President Trump says the conflict and the Middle East is winding down and then pulling back for stocks when that really doesn't happen. Rapid and Energy CEO, Scott Modell, has been warning the market. We're always a little bit surprised about how quick the market is to react to rosy statements coming out of the administration that The conflict is over and there's nothing more to see here.

We're on the verge of an off ramp. We're really far apart. There's a lot of underestimating of Iran. I think I'm not even sure the Iranians are going to show up to talks this week. As long as there is a blockade in place and their ships are not allowed to move, the Iranians are saying that's a showstopper for us. So there are certain fundamental realities that have not shifted and they suggest that a deal is going to be really, really difficult to get.

Walmart, Target and many more big names want the tariff money. They paid the government back. So the tariff refund system has launched on Monday. About $160 billion was taken in by the Trump administration under a scheme ruled illegal by the Supreme Court. The White House is using a different tariff system now. A Senate Banking Committee hearing begins Tuesday on a new Fed chairman, President Trump's pick Kevin Warsh. Former Boston Fed chairman Eric Rosengrintell, CNBC, what he'd like to hear out of Walsh on Tuesday. The first thing I want to hear about is his views on Fed Independence. He's been very clear publicly that he supports the idea of Fed independence,

but obviously the nomination process highlighted that this administration wants to have a fairly strong hand on what Federal Reserve policy will be. American Airlines and United Airlines shares each fell after Americans said no to a merger. And former A.G. Eric Cantor was in office when the JetBlue and Spirit merger was shut down. And he said American and United, that merger would never go through anyway. The idea of American. and United merging is like Coke and Pepsi merging, just patently undoable. We've been dealing with consolidation now in the airline industry for 25 years.

Interestingly, United, when it merged with Continental, was about the same size that JetBlue is today. And what we kept hearing merger after merger was that consolidation was necessary to fix the industry. But during that same period, the industry has deteriorated. The customer experience of flying is terrible. lucky if you have two options from any airport. On Tuesday's watch list, earnings are coming from 3M, Home Builder D.R. Horton,

G.E. Aerospace, Northrop Grumman, R.TX.R.theon, United Health, Chubb, United Airlines, and Capital One. We also get retail sales for March. Jessica Eddinger, CNBC. CNBC, live ambitiously.