CNBC Business News Update - Market Midday: Stocks Lower, Walmart Reported First Earnings Miss In 3 Years On Tariffs, ESPN Streaming Launch 8/21/25

Episode Date: August 21, 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. It's a down day on Wall Street. Major averages all in the red this afternoon. Some investors are waiting to hear what Fed Chair J Powell has to say about interest rates in a speech tomorrow at Jackson Hole. And some believe rates will not be cut at the Fed's September meeting. The Dow is down 186 points a half percent. Walmart shares leading it lower. They're down more than 4 percent on disappointing quarterly results. The S&P 500 indexed down 25 points, almost a half percent. The NASDAQ down 81 points, almost four-tenths of 1%. InVIDIA shares have turned negative this afternoon, down three-tenths of 1%. More people applied for unemployment benefits last week than forecast. Initial jobless claims for the week of August 16th comes in a little bit high, $235,000. the biggest level going back to the third week of June. CNBC's Rick Santelli continuing claims jumped to 1.97 million, very close to 2 million now.

The highest in two and a half years. These are people who are still collecting unemployment checks over time, and it suggests it's getting harder to find that next job. Walmart says its tariff costs are rising. It's out with second quarter results that weren't great, but it's still increasing its full-year outlook, bargain hunting consumers stick with the retailer. Walmart is winning on the back of value consumers and value consumers are across the board now from the top of the economic chain down to the bottom. People love what Walmart's offering in terms of service, technology. They've built the ecosystem that Target has it. Five new digitals, Michael's Accor, on CNBC. And Jeffrey's Corey Tarlow told CNBC,

while Walmart is known for low prices and beat Target on price for back to school, Overall, prices at Walmart are higher. What we've seen in our data is that their pricing basket versus Target because we did a back-to-school survey is about 8% cheaper at Walmart than what you find at Target. So their prices are on the back-to-school items. There's about several thousand back-to-school items where they just kept prices flat. Okay.

On a like-for-like basis, though, across their entire box in the U.S., pricing's up about 3%. Disney's new ESPN streaming service has just launched today, $30,000, a month. It's a bundle with Disney Plus and Hulu. Here's Disney CEO Bob Iger and CNBC's David Faber. I wanted to go to pricing because $29.99 is where you're starting. Bob, you and I sat together. I think it was the fall of 2019. I might have it wrong in terms of exactly when when you launched Disney Plus and it was $6.99. And now it's $15.99 for no ads. So I do wonder what kind of trajectory on pricing do you see here for this product? We don't really know, David. It's too early.

out with, particularly with what we call the trio bundle with Disney Plus and with Hulu for $299.99 is just an incredible value to consumers. We really haven't predicted or projected what the pricing will be or what the pricing can be. Sony passing tariffs along to consumers for its PlayStation 5 consoles in the U.S. The entry level price for a PlayStation 5 digital edition goes up $50 to $500. Jessica Eddinger, CNBC. Breaking earnings news. This week on CNBC and streaming on CNBC Plus.