The Rundown - Apple Skirts Watch Ban, Google Expects More Layoffs

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

Stock market update for January 18, 2024. The content of the video is for general and informational purposes only. All views presented in this show reflect the opinions of the guest and the host. You should not take a mention of any asset, be it cryptocurrency or a publicly traded security as a recommendation to buy, sell or hold that cryptocurrency or security. Guests and hosts are not affiliated with or endorsed by Public Holdings or its subsidiaries. You should make your own financial and investment decisions or consult respective professionals. Full disclosures are in the channel description. Learn more at Public.com/disclosures. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. There is a possibility of loss with any investment. Historical or hypothetical performance results, if mentioned, are presented for illustrative purposes only. Do not infer or assume that any securities, sectors or markets described in the videos were or will be profitable. Any statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements are strictly based on the current views, opinion, or assumptions of the person presenting them, and should not be taken as an indicator of performance nor should be relied upon as an investment advice.

Welcome to The Rundown, your daily market update in under five minutes. My name is Zadmani, and today is Thursday, January 18th. In today's show, we're going to be giving you guys an update on the Apple Watch Band Saga. Explain why Google CEO is bumming everybody out, and we also have some good news to share for potential homebuyers. We also covered today's stock market winners like semiconductor stocks making all-time highs, and market losers like healthcare companies. And then we wrap the show with a fun fact where I talk about being a Netflix documentary. All right, let's get started. Let's start with a quick recap of stocks on Wednesday where things weren't so great.

Stocks were down for the second day in a row and the 10-year treasury yield climbed above 4%. The stock market seems to be on a bit of a roller coaster this year. It started off the year down, then it recovered last week, but now it's down again and headed for another down week. Stocks are a mixed bag today as the S&P and NASDAQ are in the green, but the Dow is trading lower at the time of this recording, around 1 p.m. Eastern. All right, let's run through some headlines. Starting with Apple, because there is a new update in the Apple Watch Band size. that started last month. Remember, the Apple Watch briefly got banned in December

right before the holidays because of a patent dispute that Apple had with medical device maker Massimo regarding the blood oxygen sensor in the Apple Watch. Massimo claimed that Apple was violating their patent and the ITC sided with Massimo banning the Apple Watch for a little bit. Well, the ban was temporarily lifted by a federal judge while Apple tried to defend itself,

but the ban was on the verge of being reinstated again on Thursday. Well, Apple is going to be avoiding the ban this time because they decided to remove the blood, blood oxygen sensor feature from their Apple watches. And instead, they're going to be selling a modified version of the Apple watch that doesn't allow the blood oxygen to be measured. Now, this case isn't over yet. Apple is still appealing the court's decision regarding the blood oxygen sensor patent

dispute, but that could take years to solve. So Apple decided to just modify their watches to remove that feature, which probably is a sign that not that many people were using the feature to begin with. Apple stock is up today because of this news. Sticking with the tech theme, let's talk about Google, because the CEO of Google kind to bump everybody out this morning. In a memo to employees on Thursday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that more job cuts were needed at Google, so Google could invest in areas like artificial intelligence. It's tough news to hear if you work at Google or honestly any tech company right now.

Despite the rebound in tech stocks last year, we've seen job cuts from Amazon, Discord, and Google this year already. Hopefully everyone that's impacted bounces back quickly. Let's pivot to some good news, okay? Especially if you're an aspiring homeowner. Because according to Freddie May, rates for a 30-year mortgage are now at eight month lows. The average 30-year fixed mortgage is now 6.6%. That's the lowest has been since May of 2023. Now, it's a bit of a far cry from the 3 to 4% that we had in 2021 and 2022, but it's still encouraging to see rates drop lower. Now, unfortunately, can't really say the same for housing prices. In fact, the price of houses continue to go up despite the high mortgage rates. But hopefully with mortgage rates coming down, we see some movement in the housing market, which is kind of grinded

to a halt over the last few months. All right, let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Big winners today are semiconductor stocks, starting with TSMC. TSM is a Taiwan-based semiconductor manufacturer, and the stock is up more than 7% today at the time of this recording, around 1 p.m. Eastern, after they said they expect their revenue growth this year to be at least 20%, which was higher than expected. And the good buys from TSM are spilling over into Nvidia and AMD, as those stocks are up as well. In fact, both of these stocks are at all-time highs right now. As for losers today, investors in Humana, a health insurance company, are feeling some pain today as the stock is down more than 11. at the time of this recording around 1 p.m. Eastern after they reported that medical costs were running higher than expected, and they think that these high medical costs might impact their 2024 results. This news of high medical costs also dropped the stocks of other health insurance companies like United Healthcare and CVS. All right, let's wrap up the show with a fun fact of the day where I share something that I thought was kind of interesting. Today's fun fact, film and TV production in LA County dropped by 32% last year. Honestly, it shouldn't really be that surprising given that there was a writers and actor strike last year. Now, even though both of these strikes have been resolved, we might not ever get back to peak production that we had in 2021 and 2022.

Because a couple of years ago, streaming companies were spending money like crazy to fill their streaming services with content. We're talking hundreds of news shows, and a lot of these shows never really got much traction. But these days, streaming companies have cut back on content production as these streaming companies try to make a profit. I guess that means that I might have missed my window to land a Netflix special. Actually, I take that back. I was in a Netflix documentary for like two and a half seconds. The documentary was called Eat the Rich, and that might be my peak as well. All right, that's all I got for you guys today.

Thank you guys so much for listening, and I'll see you guys back here tomorrow. This is Public Live, your real-time resource for news events and trends in the markets. All views presented in this show reflect the opinions of the guests. You should not take any mention of a publicly traded security as recommendation to buy, sell, or hold that security. Public Live hosts are not financial advisors and are not affiliated with public holdings or its subsidiaries. You should make your own financial and investment decisions or consult. Respective professionals. Learn more at public.com slash disclosures.

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