CNBC Business News Update - Market Open: Stocks Mixed, Warner Brothers Discovery Publicly Says Its For Sale, GM's Tariff Impact Less Than Previously Thought As White House Helps 10/21/25

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

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I'm Jessica Eddinger, CNBC. Wall Street's mixed out of the gate this morning. The Dow is in the green, up 31 points, being helped by shares of General Motors this morning. The S&P 500 index down for the NASDAQ is down 61 points in early trading. Apple shares coming off a fresh record high yesterday on surprisingly good sales for the iPhone 17 in the U.S. and China. Warner Brothers Discovery shares are jumping today. The story we've been following closely, of course, has been Paramount's interest in trying to buy all of Warner Brothers discovery. But here's the news.

Warner Brothers is putting itself up for sale, saying that it will evaluate a broad range and strategic options that obviously will include selling the entire company. It doesn't mean they're abandoning the plan to split the company. That, of course, has been the plan that's been in place for quite some time. The company has said that it will initiate a review of strategic alternatives to, of course, what they always say, a shareholder value. Now, they already have in hand a bid from Paramount. I reported previously, but now this will become a sort of a public story, if you will. CNBC's David Faber. General Motor shares higher. It not only beat earnings estimates for the last quarter, but GM also issued a rosy forecast after GM worked with the White House. It says it's planning on a smaller tariff impact than

previously thought. Just to be clear, you're still seeing an impact from tariffs. It's down from previous expectations. How much will some of the offsets that were just announced by the Trump administration help you to further limit the costs of tariffs? Well, the announcements that the administration made on Friday are incredibly helpful. And what they allow us to do is to make sure that U.S. manufacturing remains competitive going forward.

So the MSRP offset that they had previously announced, they've now kept it at 3.75. It won't scale down in future years, but also expanded the range of parts that are being imported that we can apply that to. So that gives us a little bit of easing on the tariff burden for the year. That's General Motors CFO, Paul Jacobson, with CNBC's Phil LeBoe. Coca-Cola out with strong quarterly results today, but it does say demand for drinks is still soft. It's sticking with its original full-year forecast, though. Airbnb adding direct messaging and new social features. to its newly redesigned app.

Users can opt in to direct messaging with other guests nearby attending experiences. The Mega Millions Jackpot tonight, $650 million. The NBA begins its regular season tonight with a double header. Jessica Eddinger, CNBC. Week nights. This is a very challenging moment for discipline investors who are trying to invest long-term. I wish all stocks just coexist at once without the speculative stocks knocking everything. Now Mad Money, weeknight six Eastern and streaming on CNBC Plus.