Power Lunch - Megacap Tech Earnings in Focus 10/30/25

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

We discuss Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet earnings and preview Apple and Amazon. Sunrun CEO Mary Powell joins the show to discuss the energy outlook.  And what do the latest developments in negotiations between the U.S. and China mean? It's all here on Power Lunch.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The NASDAQ with a rare down day as meta share sinking about 10%. Welcome to Power Lunch, everybody. I am Brian Kelly. We're back in December, and we are here in America's AI capital, San Francisco. I mean, look at that. Bringing you on the ground inside and exclusive interviews you will not get anywhere else, including with the CEO of one of the hottest stocks in America the last few months, and it is not a Mag 7 name.

Even as Metup melts just a bit, Apple and Alphabet both shine, Highs being hit. Investors waiting for earnings in just two hours. We're live here and also down at Apple HQ. Just down the road south of San Francisco. The Dow, by the way, is higher today. We have all that plus an exclusive sit down with San Francisco mayor. Daniel Lurie is this city comes back from a rough last few years and the AI money keeps flowing in. We'll make it a national conversation about all of it. Plus, President Trump wrapping up a critical face-to-face meeting with China's president, we wrap that up and show you any market impact from it. Thanks for joining us, everybody. It is a big day out here. I hope you're having a great Thursday.

The trade of the day, the trade of the month, and really the trade of the year is tech. So it is a perfect time to be here in America's tech capital. And we have got earnings out from meta. That stock sinking. We're also waiting on two more huge names in just about two hours time, Apple and Amazon. We'll get more on Apple in just a bit, but let's start with Amazon, because the entire market will pay close attention. Amazon, a big tell on both the consumer and technology spending. Amazon's had pretty much a no-good, very bad, terrible rough couple weeks as Amazon Web Services went down impacting many websites and really entire parts of the technology infrastructure. McKenzie Segal was joining us now with what is writing on tonight's release,

tonight's guidance as well. McKenzie, welcome. What is maybe the one or two things that you're going to focus on the most tonight from Amazon? Everyone is looking at their cloud business. And now they still have 30% share of the market, but Microsoft is coming from them.

They're 20% market share at this point. And with Amazon, the real question is, what is that year-over-year growth number going to be? Because if they don't get between 18 and a half to 19%, that stock is very likely going down. And this is really a reflection of the fact that some of these underdog names in the cloud race, like Google, for example, has been winning workloads away from Amazon, most notably a contract with Anthropic to the tune of tens of billions of dollars signs just last week.

Hold on. Hold on. We're going to get more in alphabet, Google, in just a second, with Michael Nathanson. Is Google really an underdog? I mean, can we say that in AI? We can say that in the context of the cloud wars, because they are a distant third in terms of market share, but they're showing, what, an 80% boost in backlog, meaning that their upcoming revenue pipeline is looking really strong. And that's something where Amazon is tepid. compared to Microsoft and Oracle. Let me ask probably a dumb question. And I referenced at the intro. Is Amazon more of a retail company now or is it more of a technology and cloud and AI company? Well, it's technology and AI cloud business is helping to offset, you know. Whatever happens in buying a backpack or paper towels.

E-commerce is not where they're getting their profitability from. It's from their cloud business. But what I will say is that their ad business is a very high margin segment for them. And it is booming right now, and that's directly tied to their consumer business, their e-commerce side of the equation. I know you guys, you have a big piece out on, by the way, on Amazon. Go check it out on CBC. Not right now, but go check it out. It's a long look into a new data center of their building in Indiana. Great stuff there.

Very quickly back to it, this web services outage. A lot of parts of the tech infrastructure are still kind of feeling that impact. Is anybody talking about how this might be a larger story, or is it just kind of a short-term annoyance? around Amazon. It's an ongoing question. What is going on with their East Coast Hub? This is legacy infrastructure that didn't use to serve these AI customers, but those Gen AI clients are asking a lot. These workloads are different to what they are used to servicing. So there is a question of, are they going to bring new compute online? You pointed to that Indiana data center, like, and they're looking to do this buildout. And I will say that's the big thing here that we're going to be looking

for is CAPEX, because their chief rival in cloud is Microsoft. Their run rate now for CAPEX spend is 140 billion. Amazon's is at around 100 billion for the fiscal year. We're going to see if they up their commitment to spend more. Well, I've heard of Gen X. I've heard of Gen Z. I've never heard of Gen A.I until right now. So I love coming out because I learn stuff and we'll check out that big piece on CBC.com. McKenzie, thank you very much. All right, so let's stay there on the theme of the market, big tech and big earnings. It is likely more important than maybe even the Federal Reserve or monetary policy because tuck valuations are, if not price to perfection, they're pretty darn close.

We can see that in the moves in meta and alphabet today. Google's parent company Alphabet, look at that. It's up 3%. That, my friends, a new record high. In the meantime, meta melting down. Over 10% right now, Mark Zuckerberg laying out an ambitious AI spending plan on the company's earnings call Wednesday last night. Most accounts, the meta earnings and guidance were pretty good,

but good is not just good enough right now. your first guest today raising Alphabet's price target while slightly trimming his target for meta. Joining us now with more, Michael Nathanson, founding partner, senior research analyst at Moffat Nathanson. Michael, thank you very much for joining us. You have argued, I believe, on this very program and in your research, that Alphabet should be the most valuable company in the world. Why? Thanks for having me. It's an AI winner, right?

And I think what people are starting to wake up to is that their infrastructure advantage lets them invest in AI more efficiently than almost any other company, right? Brian, so you're seeing the results of their investment in cloud, in search, Waymo. And our view is if this keeps going, and because they own the infrastructure TPUs, they don't have to pay in VITA the same, you know, up, you know, up, you know, margin upside, you know, that anybody is demanding to invest in AI, right? So our view is, you know, search, and this has been a big, you know, kind of debate. Search actually gets better with AI as to the other parts of business of Google. So all I hear about, Michael,

is that AI is going to kill search and Open AI now has its own browser, Anthropic, has its own app. Why are you so confident that those things will not severely damage Alphabet's core business. Because Alphabet's core business is selling advertising as part of search, right? And if you look at you get the challenges of other people trying to build really valuable, competitive, performance-based marketing, it's just really, really hard. Alphabet has that these others don't. They have a great view of who you are, either from Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail, search, right? They know it's you, Brian, and not me. They have the best ability to drive, you know, performance, advertising to a better return on sales than anyone else. So our feeling is, yeah, you're watching the traffic,

the traffic change, but as more people deliver, you know, ask queries that give you more or more targeted answers, the value of that answer goes up in the eyes of advertisers, right? But don't they have to do that question, that search, that query from an alphabet, from a Google product? Yes, but, you know, look at the growth. they've had, you know, fair enough, they stumbled right in the beginning with Bard and their earliest, you know, competitive actions versus Chat CheapT. Look at the growth of Gemini now. It's 250 million people. They added 200 million people in a quarter, right? They have all the surfaces that we use. Their job is to get us to use, you know, either AI mode in search or Gemini, and that's starting to work, right? So,

So no doubt that chat chief deal, even to their share of queries, but our view is that they can monetize those queries better than anyone else. Yeah, we like the bullish view on Alphabet because we've just heard so much on the other side, how, you know, Google's dead and Open AI is going to kill it. Guess what? Record high today. That stock up 3%. All Alphabet keeps doing is winning.

Michael Natheson, founding partner and senior research analyst at Moffa Natheson, Michael. Thank you. Have a great day. Thanks. All right, on deck, San Francisco, of course, the capital of AI in this city, back on the upswing. We'll talk about why and maybe what lessons the rest of America can learn with San Francisco mayor, Daniel Lurie. Next. All right, welcome back.

San Francisco, where we are right now, back in a big way. Unlike our 2023 visit where I sent out a lot of videos, the city seemed mostly empty. People are out and they are about. Streets and restaurants are crowded this week. one of the largest hedge fund and crypto weeks in America, with a number of different conferences and events all happening at the same time. It feels alive. Certainly a huge change from just two years ago.

San Francisco, critical to California. California, critical to the entire American and really global economy. So let's talk about it with Daniel Lurie. He is the mayor of this city, along with Kate Rogers, covers restaurants and small business. Oh, and by the way, lives here. I do not. Kate, this is a critical interview in many different ways because it's a national This city is so important. We talk about AI, Mr. Mayor, every day on this very fine network.

How much is AI and the spending that goes along with it playing a role in San Francisco's economy? This is the innovation ecosystem of the globe right now with AI. I talk to mayors and leaders across the planet, across the country, of course, and they would die to have one of the companies. We got data bricks, anthropic, open AI, which just recommitted and said they're staying in San Francisco, staying in California long term. It's having a huge impact, but what we're trying to build here is a broad-based recovery. At City Hall, our job is to create the conditions so that not only these companies can succeed, but our restaurants can succeed. We're stripping away red tape. We're telling everybody that we're open for business. We want you here. And we want you to

be part of the community. And it all starts, Brian, with what you said in your selfie video, like clean and safe streets. Public safety is my number one priority. Crime is down in San Francisco 30%. Crime downtown is down 40%. Our SFPD is doing incredible work each and every day. And Mayor Lurie, we've talked about this over the last several months. But as you mentioned, do you want to build an ecosystem that, you know, draws on all of this tech talent, but doesn't over index to tech. So how are you making that happen and making it sustainable for this recovery to really last? I mean, I think that's, we want everybody here. And so you start with public safety. You address the behavioral health crisis on our streets. We still have people struggling. We get them off

the street. And then we strip away all of that red tape that has been built up over decades. We got more restaurants opening. We got retailers coming back to Union Square. Zara is opening a 40,000 square foot space. We launched the downtown development. Corporation, which you and I have talked about. We just announced, or we're announcing on today that we've reached. On CNBC, actually. It's breaking news right now. Now I'm interested.

Now you're paying attention. I saw you falling asleep over there for a second. Now we're at $50 million in the downtown development corporation is about making sure we have ambassadors out that we're activating public spaces around Union Square and down to Moscone, power washing, doing all the things that bring people back downtown. Downtown used to account for close to 60% of our tax base when downtown does well. San Francisco does well. It went down to 40%.

It's not perfect. There's still work to be done. I think we'd all agree on that. You live here, so please chime in with what you see every day. But I don't just ride around in limos. I walk around. And I've spent the time walking around market and Soma and Union Square. And the difference.

And just like, to your point, the feeling of just public safety is so, as a big dude, I'm not particularly worried about it. But it's an issue. And I think you and your team, and we see police cars, sort of in positions. How much is corporate America also playing a role in this? I know the partnership this morning announced, I believe, corporations are saying, okay, Mr. Mayor, you do this. We'll kick into.

Yeah, we have a new entity also called the partnership for San Francisco modeled after what New York City did in the 1970s and still has a big impact in New York City today. So the partnership has 30, 35 CEOs that are all committed to San Francisco's comeback. They've played huge dividends already. They are making sure to invest in things like the Downtown Development Corporation. And they are helping us think through, okay, what do we want to be as a city going forward? And it can't just be about AI. But we also have UCSF.

We have health care. We have it all. Our arts and culture will be any city in the country. Our restaurants will be any city in the world. We were talking off air about some of our great restaurants. This city, the hope, the optimism, it's back, and we welcome the world. And Mayor Lurie, I'd love to kind of hear your thoughts about some of the tech heavyweights that came to San Francisco's defense last week. You know, we heard Sam Altman, Jensen Wong, Mark Benioff reverse his stance.

Now you have the national spotlight and attention on the city. How do you build on that momentum and is there pressure to make sure that this really goes right? Well, there's pressure every day to deliver clean and safe streets. So I felt that pressure in January. I feel it today. I think they understand, and you said it before, when San Francisco is strong, America is strong. And we have a lot of competition out there in the world. And we are on the rise.

Anything that would have hindered that rise is something that we don't need. And when we talk about the statistics, they're all heading in the right direction. more space being leased than vacated. We have the builders of the Salesforce tower. They want to build a bigger tower. Like, real estate is booming. Conventions are coming back. We got Super Bowl 60.

We have World Cup. Everything is heading in the right direction. Because we talked about it. I mean, I'll admit it, I was, it's hard to say. I was wrong. I feel very cleansed saying that now. I feel like I've really gotten to know you today. Well, it's two years ago.

We were talking about commercial. loan defaults and this commercial loan sort of apocalypse, trillions of dollars in commercial real estate debt that may go bad because so many people were leaving the city. People say, well, why do I care about San Francisco? I don't live there. Well, because maybe the bank that you bank at has a bunch of money that's lent to companies that are based here and they don't want to see the skyscraper go bust because then they get five cents on the dollar. So it sounds like that fear factor on commercial loans and defaults is not over, but it's easing off a lot. Is fair statement? I think that's a fair statement, although you're the business guy. So we had Blackstone.

John Gray came and visited San Francisco, I believe, in January or February. And we met, it was, I think, the first time he had been in City Hall. And after that meeting, they started buying real estate in San Francisco. And I think that sent a signal to the market. And we have, you know, real estate firms in New York and in Texas and in Florida buying some of those assets that you referred to before. Everybody understands that this is a good time to be investing in San Francisco. It's always a bad bet to bet against our city. Now we're proven that out. Well, listen, fourth biggest economy in the world, one in what six Americans lives in this fine state. By the way, native New Jersey and now living here, I'm a native...

I'm a native Californian who now lives in New Jersey. So... You know, we'll forgive you for that. We'll take Kate. We're honored to have her here. Well, so are we. So are we. Mayor Lurie, really appreciate your time. Kate, we'll see in a bit to talk food. Chipotle. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you both. Well, as you can see this week, we're bringing you more exclusive content than just what you see on Power Lunch. Behind the scenes on CNBC.com. We also identified some of the hottest stocks here in San Francisco, not Silicon Valley. It's a different place. Here in the city, it might be off your radar. Companies that have made investors, a lot of money the last few months. We're doing interviews with a number of these CEOs. You can check them out. Go to Powerlunch.c.c.com. by scanning that QR code. Fancy stuff on the corner of your screen. Here's a clip from one of these exclusive interviews, the president and CFO of Planet Labs. This is an industry that's been around for a while,

but is really focused on what I would call point and click. So if you know where you want to look, you want a high-resolution image that someone's going to look at and tell you what's in that photo. That is not what we do. We've been really shifting the paradigm in Earth observation to really thinking, what can a machine understand? stand from an image. So this includes being able to look at vast quantities of historical data,

but also things that aren't visible to the human eye. That's just one of the five or six interviews that we are doing with CEOs of red hot stocks, companies based right here in San Francisco City. Again, go to cnbc.com or the power lunch website to check out more. All right. Is there more room to run in this high flying mystery stock? That's the chart. Also based right here, it's a name you probably know. Talk more about. coming up. All right, welcome back to Power Lunch. Time out for your market navigator. Let's talk. The Hood, Robin Hood, shares up nearly 300% this year. That's it. They report third quarter results next week. They have posted back-to-back earnings beats. They've showed momentum in not only stock

trading, but crypto options and now even sort of prediction markets as well. The market really kind of zeroing in on two key questions. Can Robin Hood sustain that growth trajectory? and will it offer guidance beyond all this optimism? Joining us now is David Miller. He is co-founder and chief investment officer at Catalyst Funds. David, welcome. I guess Robin Hood aside specifically, the stock's up 300% this year. People have made a lot of money in it.

I hope you have and your clients have as well. Do you think there's more money to be made in it? Yeah, absolutely. When you look at the stock, certainly it's been up quite a bit, but it started off relatively cheap and you've seen 100% earnings growth. over the past year, along with the addition of you can get 3% on your credit card now via Robin Hood. They're seeing an incredible traction with Robin Hood gold, free trading. There's been tremendous inflows.

I can't really see Gen X and millennials going to the Fidelity and Schwabs of the world when you look at the user interface that you're getting with Robin Hood. So I was wondering, is there a buyout premium in the stock, David? because to your point, if you're one of the bigger names that you just mentioned, maybe you just buy Robin Hood, eliminate them as competition. Oh, and by the way, acquire their asset base at the same time. I think that would have been a great move for the bigger players, say, a year ago. At this point, it would be a little bit too much for them to bite off all in one shot

for one of the larger players to acquire Robin Hood at this point. All right, so what do you then worry about Robin Hood? I mean, if the market's turned down, if some of the buzz comes out of crypto or the predictions of markets, what would be the bare case if there is one, David? Yeah, so when you think about it, a low volatility, relatively low interest rate environment is very good for Robin Hood. Certainly a slow protracted bear market would not be good for Robin Hood. So if you think that's in store, this wouldn't be the company you'd want to own. But if you think we're going to have relatively high volatility, if you think crypto's here to stay, if you think people appreciate it, getting, you know, 3% back on their credit cards and, you know, zero fee trading and a

gamified user interface, then they should be able to continue to grow. David Miller, really appreciate the look there. Robin Hood. I said based here, they're based down the road in Menlo Park, sort of here-ish. David, thanks very much. Take care. Thank you. All right, coming up, call it the handshake heard round the world. China's president finally meeting with President Trump what we learn, what we still need to learn. Coming up. It was the handshake heard around the world. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meeting face-to-face for the first time in this new administration. It was the first in-person meeting between the two men in six years. The good news, two coming to a temporary trade

truce. America agreeing to lower tariffs and China promising to ease exports of rare earth and critical minerals. But that was not the only headline. Minutes before this meeting, President Trump's prizing many by saying that America will resume testing nuclear weapons. That is something we have not done in 33 years. Here is President Trump on Air Force One shortly after the meeting was she. It had to do with others. They seem to all be nuclear testing. We have more nuclear weapons than anybody. We don't do testing. We've halted it years, many years ago. But we're not, we With others doing testing, I think it's appropriate that we do also. And the details around the testing center, like where or when?

It will be announced. China's last known nuclear weapons test was back in 1996. Russia's latest weapons test did not detonate a nuclear warhead, although Russia is testing a nuclear-powered torpedo. And, of course, we can't know exactly what the two countries may be doing out of sight of our satellites. But let's talk about the meeting and more. Joining us, Michael O'Hanlon, Director of Foreign Policy, recent. at the Brookings Institution. Michael, good to see you again. We can dither on what was given,

what was received, what was taken, what was asked, but how much should we just take from the fact that the two men met in person at all? That would seem to be a critical first step. Yeah, I agree with you. I am still worried, as are the markets and all the strategists I know about the future of U.S.-China relations. But I think that as long as Xi Jinping and Donald Trump are talking, there is a message, a sense that we need to prevent this relationship from falling completely apart. And that's somewhat reassuring, at least in the scheme of things compared to where this could go at a time when many people think that the United States and China may be headed for war. So I'll take a small win, but I think that's all it was. Yeah, and on the flip side of that,

I would say that President Trump also obviously met recently with Vladimir Putin, And that relationship seems to have soured even more than it was prior to that meeting. So we can't just automatically take away. It's a positive. But at least there was a handshake. And I assume some sort of now more direct communication between the two. What would you like to see happen now? Yeah, I don't know how to read where we are with Trump and Putin.

You know, the Alaska Summit was a risky gamble. I was, a lot of people felt like it was just way too much to offer to a guy who's got the blood of several hundred thousand people. on his hands or actually more than a million casualties in the Russia-Ukraine war. If it had delivered a more positive diplomatic environment for negotiations, I would have been willing to support it, but it's really led nowhere. Putin seems bent on continuing this fight. He seems to think time is on his side. He seems indifferent to casualties, whether Ukrainian or even Russian. And I'm afraid that the relationship is not working. I think President Trump has come a long way in understanding the cause of this war and the obstacle to peace. And that's Vladimir Putin,

of course, not anybody else. But we haven't yet found a way to put enough pressure on Russia collectively to get this thing to a ceasefire. So that's going to be a big task ahead. On the China economics side, a lot of debate is sort of made of who has more leverage. China owns a lot of U.S. bonds, treasury bonds as well. But they don't buy that much stuff from us. What they buy is sort of equivalent, effectively to the GDP of the U.S. state of Maryland. We obviously acquire a lot of stuff from them, including some critical aspects of rare earth minerals, but also pharmaceuticals. They control critical chains. In your mind, Michael, who has the real leverage economically in the U.S.-China relationship?

You know, that's a great question. Either one of us could blow up the world economy by sufficiently austere and severe economic warfare measures. So in that sense, we both got our hands sort of metaphorically around the other's throat. And I don't know that either one could really plausibly survive without the other at the moment. I'd like to see us reduce some of our strong dependencies on things like pharmaceuticals in order to make sure that if China really went to the mat and cut everything off, or if there were a Taiwan war that led to a complete end in U.S.-China economic interaction, that we could survive better than they could. But I'm not sure we know right now who would cry on the first.

We don't, but it's critical, Michael, and I'm sorry to jump in, because when people talk about war, war, actual military war, they're building a lot of aircraft carriers in China, building out their military showing strength on the naval side, probably to threaten Taiwan a little bit, this idea that, yeah, we need some of their stuff, but they also need us. They need fuel.

They have very few sources of oil. They're moving aggressively electric cars, not because they want to try to be environmental because they're building out coal plants, but because they don't want to rely unimported fuel to make energy. Is that economic codependence make a physical war far less likely? I don't know. I don't want to be reassuring on this point. I think we need to mitigate our vulnerabilities and our dependencies on China so that if there were a crisis, we would have a good option of going to all-out economic warfare

and not relying exclusively on military power. As you point out, the Chinese are modernizing quite a bit, and they would have the advantage of geography in any fight over Taiwan. And if they do a blockade or a short air attack, air and missile attack, it's very hard for us to prevail in that kind of a scenario. So I want the economic instruments of warfare to be even more potent than they are today, and our vulnerabilities to be less. It's well said.

I think an excellent place to leave the interview. But Michael Handlin, look forward to welcoming back on the show as well. Michael, thank you. Thank you kindly. All right. Thank you. Speaking of China, Apple, set to report its third quarter earnings tonight in just about two hours time. And we get our first real glimpse of some sales stats for the iPhone 17, not only just China, but here in America as well.

These are potentially big and potentially market moving numbers. So let's set it up for you. Steve Kovac, down the road from us here. He is at Apple HQ and Cupertino. Numbers coming out, Steve. What are you going to be watching? Yeah, Brian, I got a good stat for you here right off the bat. So this report's going to represent the end of Apple's fiscal 2025.

And analysts are expecting, Brian, for this to be the first time Apple shows sales growth in the iPhone business since 2022. We know they've been slumping quite a bit coming out of the pandemic, some competition issues in China. So that's the one thing we're looking at. And also, of course, the momentum we've been hearing about so much over the last five or six weeks since the iPhone 17 family launched. It seems to be performing a lot stronger than the 16 did a year ago, and all without artificial intelligence. Another cool stat for you here, Brian, is wrapping up this fiscal year, is the services business. That's all the digital stuff that Apple sells you, all the subscriptions and things like that. That's going to be a $100 billion annual business for the first time.

We're expecting that to pass that milestone as well. And then we're talking about China. You mentioned that in your to me. We've seen some indications of a turnaround in China last earnings report that's expected to continue here in part because of their subsidies from the Chinese government really driving some sales effectively giving customers a discount. And then we can't sleep on tariffs. Apple said to expect about a billion dollar charge related to tariffs for the September quarter. We'll see what that actually was. And you better believe that number is going to go up because the December quarter is so big. Here's what's amazing about the stock market.

and why I love it so much, Steve. We talked endlessly for months about how AI is going to kill Google. Guess what? Alphabet stock at a record high today. We've talked about how lack of an AI strategy may impact Apple. Guess what? Apple now a $4 trillion company record high for that stock today. I know you might be talking to Tim Cook.

I hope so anyway, later on tonight. Do you think we'll get any clarity on what the AI strategy might be for Apple? Yeah, Brian, that's a really good question. They have been really quiet about what the AI strategy is. There have been some hints here and there. All we know for sure is that big update to Siri that we've been expecting that was supposed to launch, rather, this spring, and they had to delay it. It's supposed to come next year. But yes, any hint that Tim Cook can give to investors either on the call or when we speak to him, whether or not he can give some kind of indication that there is progress there that they are going to launch on time this time.

people are going to be listening out for that. But this quarter that we're talking about, Brian, and through the end of this year, this calendar year, it's going to be all about the iPhone and the momentum there. It's really Apple getting back to basics, Brian, and making cool phones that people are excited to buy. That seems to be what's driving it more than artificial intelligence. Yeah.

Sell this thing, you can't see it, but I'm holding up an iPhone, Steve. You have one. Sell more of these things right here because that is really where the money is for Apple. Look forward to those numbers out about 90 minutes time. Look forward to your coverage. Steve Kovac. Thank you. All right. Let's move on now with a quick bond report. You got yields climbing a little bit today. You had comments, of course, from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell yesterday with the market move. They lowered interest rates, but the bond market, guess what it's doing? It's going back up. Ten-year treasury yields back above four percent. That's the highest level in three weeks.

Jerome Powell signaling another rate reduction in December is, quote, far from a foregone conclusion. But folks, forget about what Powell said. Something we've talked about, and you can just scroll up. I'm going to ad lit for a second. It's what we've talked about for a long time, which is Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve can do and say what it wants, but the bond market is going to do what it wants. And the bond market runs the show, not as much the Federal Reserve rate cuts, higher rates, your mortgage rate going up, frustrating and a little bit weird, I know, but the bond

market's looking at inflation and real rates less than what the Federal Reserve says. rant over. It's mystery chart time. Can you figure out this energy stock? It's been on a huge run this year, and it's based right here. Hit me up with guesses on X at Sully CNBC, the big reveal and the CEO exclusive on set. Next. All right, time now to combine two of our exclusive segments, our regular power play series, and one other big reason that we are in San Francisco this week highlighting some of the companies and stocks that have boom over the past couple of months. months. Near the top of that list is our mystery chart. It is Sun Run. Shares up over 100% this year, 90% of that coming in just the last 90 days. Sun Run's had a huge pop off the lows. Just a few

months ago, that stock was under six bucks a share. But the stock now nearing the average target price of analysts of about 21 and change, what is next for Sun Run? Please to be joined on set the Sun Run CEO, Mary Powell, for an exclusive power play interview Mary. Good to chat with you again. Good to chat with you too. Why do you think the stock market has sort of rediscovered Sun Run and the Sun Run story? Stock's tripled. A lot has happened.

I mean, Sun Run has generated cash for five quarters. We're in a really strong position. We are positioned as the nation's largest distributed power plant. So we are routinely leveraging the energy that we're deploying for Americans and for the grid. And so all of that, as well as our performance and policy certainty. So, as you know, the budget bill created a lot of uncertainty. So having that resolved this summer, again, really allowed the market, I think, to appreciate all that we've done and all that we have a head. I thought the new sort of budget plan, not to be political, but I thought some of the tax credit reductions in the inflation reduction act, whatever, we're going to kill the solar power industry.

That is not for solar stock is rocking. Your stock is rocking. Certainly not for Sun Run, because what Sun Run does is, you know, over 90% of what we do, Brian, is delivering, you know, all this great technology as almost like a subscription service. So that is a very different model than the direct consumer credit that went away as a part of the budget bill. So we very much have, we are in a very strong position relative to policy certainty over the next four to five years. We also really made a sharp pivot, as you know, to being a strong position. George first company. So we're installing every year we're installing enough solar and storage capacity to meet the equivalent of a nuclear power plant's peak capacity. We're doing that every

single year. And that was also a big part of why our model was included in the budget bill because what we are doing is so important for America's grid. And you use the term distributed energy and for the non-energy experts out there, it's a fancy term for basically saying when people overproduce with the solar panels that are on buildings, you can put that excess energy back into the grid, back into the system. And in fact, in your June earnings call for the second quarter, I believe you referenced that Sun Runs power helps save a blackout. Well, yeah, for sure.

I mean, we're doing work all across the nation and in Puerto Rico. And in Puerto Rico, in particular, it is really preventing blackouts on a routine basis when we work in a coordinated way with the utility. In California, though, we dispatched enough energy in one day to supply half of the city of San Francisco's peak energy demand. Wow. So, yes, it's wow. From the solar panels that are on buildings.

The storage. The storage. So it's really important. But you can put that back into the system. Yes. So really, our hard pivot, which is a big part of also our financial story and how we've become so strong is we made a very sharp pivot a couple of years ago to storage first. So we're installing storage about 74% of the time when we're installing on customers' homes across America.

So that has really put us in a very strong position to play a critical role. So maybe people, including this beloved news anchor, and maybe misunderstanding part of the story, because we had a company called EOS Energy on a few months ago. Stocks tripled, by the way, since then, Bloom Energy, BE, that stock assort. Those are also sort of storage stocks. So people, investors should maybe look more at Sun Run, despite the Sun in your name, as a storage company as much of or more than a sun story. Yeah, I mean, I've been passionate about this for years because, as you know, I was the CEO of a utility for a very long time. You know how they work.

I know how they work and I know how hard it is, frankly, to get generation online. You know, so again, I support, like, all of the above. Like, I support all the different things American needs. You know, we have not seen electricity demand go up this much since World War II. Okay? So we need as much energy capacity online as we can get. But utilities, as much as they want to, it's built for slow and no. It takes years to build stuff, you know, and then there's a turbine shortage.

So you have so many other things going on. So the fact that we are creating a people-powered consumer-level. led revolution to more capacity. We want to win the future on AI, and we had Interior Secretary Doug Bergam on Tuesday. And again, politics aside, because people agree to disagree, it's hard to disagree with any politician of any stripe saying we need more power, right? But we need to not just build the power. We need to be able to get the power to where it's needed. Do you feel like we're getting enough help both on a state level and a federal level to ensure that, you know, all the energy creation of the world doesn't mean anything if there's

not a power line to get it to where it needs to go. That is true. I mean, for sure we need transmission and distribution. That is not my biggest worry. My biggest worry has been much more around the fast scaling. And then to your point, with AI demand coming online, we're having conversations with utilities about how to help meet that kind of demand. Because, again, my concern when I ran a utility was I did not see once we hit this point where demand was growing how we were going to scale what we needed as fast. And what we build is so flexible. And it's distributed. So you can use, you know, you can use it in a very flexible way, unlike when I owned, you know, a paker plant in one location. It either went on or it didn't, right? So it's. Yeah. And now the Sun Run story stocked

from six to almost 20, not today, but a bit a heck of a run back. And by the way, we're going to be live at the biggest, I think, utility conference in America in about eight days. So I should just give you a call and pick your brain on that one. That's in Miami, by the way. Awesome. United Airlines, you're welcome. Mary Powell, CEO of Sun Run. Thank you very much. All right, let's now get a news update with McKenzie Seagallos. Hey there, Brian. A ruling is expected today from a federal judge on whether the Trump administration will have to keep funding federal SNAP benefits for November. The federal government says it has to suspend the program starting on Saturday because of the shutdown. But more than 20,

States are arguing the government is required to tap into emergency funds to keep the benefits flowing. The Secretary General of the United Nations blasted President Trump's announcement that the U.S. will restart testing of nuclear weapons. In a statement today, Antonio Gutierrez said current nuclear risks are already alarmingly high and nuclear testing can never be permitted. And more fallout over the government shutdown. A ground stop was briefly issued at Reagan National Airport in D.C. early this afternoon over air traffic controller staffing. Air traffic controllers missed their first paychecks earlier this week. And recent absences have led to isolated delays around the country as the FAA was already dealing with a shortage of controllers. Brian, back to

you. So basically I'm driving back to Newark. And then to Miami. And then that's a lot of driving. McKenzie Segalos. Thank you very much. We're going to take a short break. We're back right after this. It is a brutal day for investors in the home of the burrito bowl. Chipoli shares seen their worst day in 13 years. the Tex-Mex chain cutting its forecast again. Rejoining us, Kate Rogers. Kate, what's, stocks down 17%. What's wrong with Chipotle? So this is a tough one.

It was the third quarter in a row that you mentioned. The company cut its forecast for same store sales for the full year. Now expects low single-digit declines versus prior forecast of flat. I spoke to CEO Scott Boatwright yesterday, and something he mentioned that was quite interesting and potentially troubling, I would say, for the broader industry is that younger consumers making under 100K a year, ages 25 to 34, are dining at home more, he says. He doesn't believe they're going to competitors.

They're just not dining out as much. And this is one of the first major names we're going to hear from. There are nine names reporting next week, including McDonald's. So we're going to get kind of a bigger picture look. But the idea that that consumer, who's, you know, middle to upper income but younger is concerning, especially as we're talking about these white collar layoffs, the fact that younger people can't find jobs due to this AI. sweeping changes happening in the labor market.

I think this could be a troubling trend. But boat right needs to right the ship. Okay. Sorry about that, but it's true. And all I hear from people is not just Chipotle, by the way. It's expensive. Yeah. Is anybody working on the cost issue at Chipotle or any place else? So it's a great question.

I asked him yesterday, our price cuts on the table. He says, and it is true and is a reminder that in most places in the country, you can get an entree there for $10. And that's before taxes and fees. I think the perception is that. It is higher cost. It doesn't include a drink and might be the cheapest thing on the menu. But I think what he's getting at is they haven't done enough around messaging what that value proposition is.

And he told me he feels that they need to do a better job with that. So I think we'll see how that plays out. All right. Well, the show's over in 20 seconds. Kate Rogers, great to see you in person. We're going to leave here. I'm going to go to Chipotle. I'm going to see what it costs.

I know we're in downtown San Francisco. I understand that. But that's part of the story. Yeah, for sure. Kate Rogers. Thank you very much. All right, folks, that is it from San Francisco. We'll be back here for one more day and more exclusive interviews tomorrow.

But we're done. Closing Bell, wrapping up to big tech earnings. Starts right now.