CNBC Business News Update - Market Midday: Stocks Mixed, Judge Finds Google Holds Illegal Ad Tech Monopolies, United Health Plunges On Higher Medical Costs 4/17/25

Episode Date: April 17, 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 Wall Street mix this afternoon is mixed most of the day. The Dow has been in the red because of United Health Care shares down more than 20 percent. United Health is having its worst day in the history of the company. The Dow down 408 points. That's more than 1 percent. The S&P 500 index back in the green. It's been vacillating. It's up 26 points.

The NASDAQ is up nine points. NVIDIA shares are dropping. They're down 3%. NVIDIA CEO heading to China to try to shore up its business. Google inching toward being forced to break up the business. A judge has found that Google holds illegal online ad technology monopolies in markets for publisher advertising

servers and the market for ad exchanges between buyers and sellers. The Department of Justice argued that Google should have to sell off at least its ad manager business. United Health shares are having their worst day in the history of the company. The health insurer brought down its guidance by 12 percent because it's fighting patients less about seeing doctors and getting healthcare after its CEO was murdered on a New York City street.

And that's costing the company more. So I think what they're really talking about here is more utilization. They're seeing more activity in the physician and outpatient sites like surgery centers and things like that. Probably United and maybe the industry pulling back on prior authorizations on kind of the intensity of some of the activity they

do to manage utilization, which obviously causes a bunch of consumer dissatisfaction. They're pulling back on that a little bit. I suspect that what they're seeing is more utilization as a result and a lot more than they were expecting. Bernstein's Lance Wilkes on CNBC. Fewer people applied for unemployment benefits last week as the job market remains solid, but the number of people continuing to collect benefits popped higher, hinting that it's taking people longer to find the next job. President Trump posting that Fed Chair Jay Powell's termination cannot come fast enough. Powell said yesterday

the Fed's going to have to wait and see whether it can lower interest rates anymore now that the president's tariffs are set to boost U.S. inflation. Target's CEO will meet with national action network's Reverend Al Sharpton. The struggling retailer's seen sales tank since it pulled Pride merchandise last year and rolled back DEI programs. The civil rights leaders considering another boycott. Target has lost a third of its value just this year, shares down 30%. Eli Lilly's weight loss pill has some positive results. Companies saying that its weight loss pill met the company's goals in the first of seven phase three trials. Now the pill or for Glippron helped people lose almost 8% of their body weight at the highest dose.

8% of people on the highest dose dropped out of the trial because of the side effects, nausea, vomiting. Now Lily plans to seek approval for obesity by the end of this year and diabetes next year. So this would be the first small molecule pill for weight loss. And that small molecule is an important distinction because although there is an oral version of Wigovia from Novo Nordis called Rhebelsis,

it's a peptide and that's much more difficult to make. Small molecules, it's basically the pills that we all know, we think of, we have them in our medicine cabinets and you can scale those much more quickly. CNBC's Angelica Peoples. Luxury retailer Aramiz says it's increasing prices in the U.S. for its iconic luxury goods like the Birkin bag and other handbags in response to the

Trump tariffs. Jessica Ettinger CNBC. Introducing CNBC Plus, the new streaming platform from the number one source in business news. Watch live or on demand. Access any market, anytime, anywhere. Start streaming. Go to CNBC.com slash plus now.