CNBC Business News Update - Market Open: Stocks Higher, The Nasdaq Builds On Record High, Southwest Announces Assigned Seating Date 7/21/25

Episode Date: July 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 Eddinger, CNBC. Gains on Wall Street accelerating this morning. The Nasdaq building on the record high it opened with. Let's start with the Dow. It's up 133 points now, 3 tenths of a percent. Verizon shares leading at higher. They're up more than 3 percent. The S&P 500 index up 32 points. That's a half percent. The Nasdaq up 157 points, three quarters percent. Nvidia shares have turned positive.

They're up one tenth of one percent. I do look at the stocks that are trading up in the morning and half of them are S&P and half of them are totally speculative. I think it's two markets. If you blend those two together, it's a mistake. They're just two markets and it's just, one of is GameStop, but better companies and the rest of it is the S&P. CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer. Investors are bracing for more earnings

reports this week. We're going to get quarterly results from about 20% of the S&P 500 index companies, including Tesla on Wednesday and Google Parent Alphabet. Southwest Airlines says tickets with seat assignments will go on sale one week from tomorrow, with its Hallmark open seating policy ending on January 27th of next year. That's when the airline will start boarding passengers by groups, and there will be eight boarding groups for Southwest. Verizon out with better than expected quarterly results. that's why it's leading the Dow higher. Its customer base is holding up, except for all the Doge employees who lost their jobs and their phones.

We have a very good market share in the public sector. So of course we have now seen efficiency work happening in the government. So we had an outpour of customers there this quarter and even the first quarter. Probably going to continue a little bit into the second half. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg on CNBC. Investors keeping an eye on the back and forth concerning whether President Trump tries to make a change at the top of the Fed by replacing Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The Treasury Secretary told CNBC this morning he'd like to see a change at the top of the Fed by replacing Fed Chair Jerome Powell, the Treasury Secretary told CNBC this morning he'd like to see a review of the entire Federal Reserve.

What we need to do is examine the entire Federal Reserve institution and whether they have been successful. We should think, has the organization succeeded in its mission? If this were the FAA and we were having this many mistakes, we would go back and look at why has this happened?

Treasury Secretary Scott Besant on CNBC. The US playing hardball on tariffs as the deadline approaches and the European unions reportedly battling for a deal. Over the weekend, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick warned the deadline for a baseline 30 percent tariff of August 1st will not change. Warner Brothers Superman won the weekend box office for the second weekend in a row, now surpassing $400 million globally.

Jessica Edinger, CNBC.