CNBC Business News Update - Market Midday: Stocks Higher, Meta Job Cuts, Netflix Reports Earnings This Afternoon 10/17/24

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

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 Ettinger, CNBC. We've got record highs for the S&P 500 index and the Dow today. Wall Street's in the green this afternoon. The major average is all higher. The Dow up 141 points, three-tenths of a percent being led higher by shares of Travelers, the insurance company, popping 7% this afternoon. The S&P 500 index is up 24 points. The Nasdaq is up 132 points. Companies whose shares have hit fresh all-time highs today include a lot of the travel names,

Expedia, Hilton, Marriott, plus T-Mobile, Allstate, American Express, and MasterCard, and NVIDIA hitting a record high. Overall retail sales popped four-tenths of one percent last month. That was way more than expected and the most since last March. Now let's strip out autos and gas, up seven-tenths of a percent. That's the best since June. And the control number, when you synthesize everything, you come up with a core. It's up another whopping seven-tenths. That's pretty powerful. Cumulatively, pretty strong. CNBC's Rick Santelli. Fewer people applied for unemployment benefits last week than expected as the job market remains strong,

falling by the most in three months. Meantime, there are job cuts out there. Facebook parent Meta is starting some as companies begin to shed staff in the fourth quarter as the year gets set to close out. Meta's laying off people. Yeah, WhatsApp, Instagram and Reality Labs, according to people familiar with the matter, is what The Verge is citing. We are sort of beginning to track some year-end headcount reductions. Nokia of some in Europe and China. Deere, a few hundred. Of course, Boeing is the big one. Yeah, $17,000.

CNBC's Jim Cramer, Carl Quintanilla, and David Faber. Investors are waiting for a big quarterly earnings report coming this afternoon from Netflix. Elevents health shares are plunging today. It's been losing on Medicaid, it says. Yum! Brands-owned KFC restaurants are adding original recipe chicken tenders to menus. They were tested in Cincinnati last year and in several other markets this year, according to Brand Eating. The chain once offered original recipe chicken strips a long time ago, but they haven't been on menus for a while. No Powerball

winner last night. Saturday night's jackpot inches toward a half billion dollars. Now at 437 million. Jessica Ettinger, CNBC. Earnings season. When the CEOs have a big announcement, they come here first. A wild hour of earnings. Earnings season. Special coverage all this month on CNBC.