CNBC Business News Update - Market Midday: Stocks Lower, President Trump Tells GOP Lawmakers To Get Budget Bill Done, More Tesla Drivers Are Buying Cadillac EVs 5/20/25

Episode Date: May 20, 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 bond yields are higher. Stocks are lower this afternoon. The Dow down 121 points. Amazon shares leading the Dow lower. They're down more than 1% The S&P 500 index down 20. The Nasdaq down 67 points. Nvidia shares are down a little more than 1% this afternoon. Companies whose shares hit fresh all-time highs today include Monster Beverage, Cardinal Health, Quest Diagnostics, McKesson, IBM, Uber, and TJ Maxx and Marshall's parent, TJX Companies. President Donald Trump told Republicans on Capitol Hill today to stop messing around, don't touch Medicaid and get that budget bill done.

Well, so the bill does have about $715 billion of Medicaid cuts in it right now. I think the president's message in this meeting was to tell the conservative hardliners not to push for further cuts to Medicaid. You know, if you fully extend the expiring provisions in this bill, which I think is a reasonable expectation, it's about $3.7 trillion in addition to the deficit

relative to current law. You know, the fiscal situation's bad and getting worse, and we're seeing that in the long end of the curve. Wolf Research head of policy and politics Tobin Marcus on CNBC and the large tax cut that's in the budget bill will increase the deficit, which is why Moody's downgraded the U.S. credit rating over the weekend. Here's CNBC's Jim Cramer and Carl Quintanilla. Jim, his comments about tax cuts kind of collide with what we heard from Moody's, what, 48 hours

ago? It does, and I think everybody wants tax cuts. It's kind of universal, but we've seen interest rates, every time we hear those discussions, go up. This is one that's in our face. The idea that you, at this very moment, want to say say largest tax cut, that's our job, is to say, look, this is going to make it so rates can go up, which makes it so there's a lot of bad things that happen in the economy.

Elon Musk says he'll commit to running Tesla for the next five years. Meantime, more Tesla owners are switching to Cadillac electric vehicles. The GM brand says nearly eight out of every 10 customers buying a Cadillac EV are new to Cadillac, and about 10% are trading in their Teslas for it. Qatar's prime minister denies that the luxury jumbo jet gift to President Trump is bribery. President Trump said last week the plane will be used

as Air Force One until Boeing completes the new presidential jet which has been delayed. Levi Strauss is selling its Dockers brand to management firm Authentic Brands Group which controls Nautica and Reebok. Home Depot just reported its first quarterly earnings miss in five years, but the CFO tells CNBC they intend to generally maintain pricing levels, even with some items costing the chain more because of the Trump tariffs. Home Depot does source a lot of its cost of sales, so to say, in the United States.

OK, so that that protects them. But what's happening here is there's a lot of innovation in home improvement, introducing new, better, more innovative products. Those products are higher priced than the products they're replacing. And they can sort of say, bake the tariff in there. So I do think you're going to see some price increases at Home Depot, but I think the company's very well positioned given its domestic sourcing and frankly, the power Home Depot has over its suppliers, so the suppliers will eat more of these costs.

That's Oppenheimer's Brian Nagel on CNBC. Southwest, requiring passengers to keep portable chargers visible on flights starting next Wednesday. The goal is to stop fires from starting inside overhead bins. And that's the same day next Wednesday. Free bags on Southwest goes away. Next Tuesday is your last day to book a flight with Bags Fly Free unless you're a choice extra passenger.

That used to be called business select, or unless you're elite, A-list preferred, or a Southwest credit card holder. Jessica Ertinger, CNBC.