The Rundown - BlackRock Buys Panama Canal Ports, Novo Nordisk Launches DTC Pharmacy for Weight-Loss Drug

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Stock market update for March 5, 2025.Follow us on IG @TheRundownDaily

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in five minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Wednesday, March 5th. In today's episode, we look at the market's reaction to Trump's tariffs and why the trade war might soon be over. We also tell you why BlackRock just bought two ports in the Panama Canal and some new product announcements from Apple that has some people disappointed. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out about a new menu item at Sweet Green,

that might actually get me to go try it. All right, let's go. Well, markets continue to slide on Tuesday as Trump's tariffs against Mexico, Canada, and China officially went into effect. The S&P 500 was down more than 1.2% and the NASDAQ lost 0.3%. Now, yesterday got a little weird because the S&P actually turned green for a few minutes in the afternoon.

I guess a lot of people started buying the dip, but as soon as it turned green, it dived again to finish deep into the red. Honestly, it's a pretty drastic move. You should pull up a chart of the S&P 500 on the public app to see it yourself. Now, to add to the tariff drama, the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnik,

went on Fox business after the markets closed yesterday and hinted that President Trump may announce a deal that rolls back the tariffs against Mexico and Canada as soon as today. And I think this tariff whiplash is the problem. You know, the back and forth of tariffs, no tariffs, the tariffs, then no tariffs, makes it hard for businesses to do

any sort of long-term planning, and it leads to uncertainty which investors don't like. And that's why the markets are acting the way they are, especially over the last few weeks. It seems so long ago, but the S&P 500 actually hit all-time hives just two weeks ago, and since then it's dropped

around 6%. So we'll see if the markets rally in the second half of the week, and if Trump actually rolls back these tariffs today. But yeah, it's been a roller coaster, to say the least. And speaking of roller coasters, Bitcoin has been on a wild ride as well over the last five days. The price of Bitcoin is back above $90,000 as of this morning. Remember, Bitcoin dropped under $80,000 last week,

then jumped all the way to $94,000 on Sunday when Trump announced the Crypto Strategic Reserve and then tanked again on Monday on the tariff news, and now it's back up again. I know that Bitcoin is known to being volatile, but I don't think we've seen this kind of movement in Bitcoin in a while. So yeah, there's volatility everywhere in the markets right now. If I'm being honest, I kind of don't mind it. Getting some volatility once in a while, it gets to blood pump it again. Let's run through some headlines.

Starting with BlackRock. BlackRock is buying two major ports in the Panama Canal in what will be the largest infrastructure deal ever. An investor group led by BlackRock will purchase a total of 43 ports, including one at each end of the Panama Canal, for $22.8 billion from the Hong Kong. based company, C.K. Hutchinson. Now, just to be clear, Black Rock is buying the ports at the Panama Canal. They're not actually buying the Panama Canal itself. The Panama Canal is owned by the Panamanian government, and it operates the canal through the Panama Canal authority. But the Panama Canal had become a political issue over the last few months. In fact, Donald Trump went as far as taking aim at the Panama Canal in his inauguration address and said that

China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn't give it to China. Those are his quotes. So after the political pressure started being ramped up, the deal started to come together at an extremely quick pace. But C.K. Hutchinson made sure to emphasize in a press release that the deal was purely commercial in nature. Yeah, I'm sure everybody believes that. Let's shift gears and talk about Apple. Apple released some new products this week. And I got to say, kind of underwhelming. Apple released an updated iPad air with an M4 chip.

They also announced a MacBook Air with an M4 chip and a new Mac Studio. I think out of all those, the MacBook Air seems to be most appealing because they actually did a price cut on those. They're going to sell them for $9.99. But the thing is, these products look the exact same as the previous versions, but just with a newer chip. And no, people have high expectations from Apple. They want nice-looking upgrades from Apple, and we're not getting that anymore. The designs look the same. There's no innovation, especially when it comes to their software.

Apple made no major announcement when it comes to AI while their competitors continue to innovate. In fact, there was a report from Bloomberg that any major. major AI upgrades to Siri have been delayed to 2027. We're two years away before Apple does anything cool with Siri. So it looks like Apple is taking a wait and see approach when it comes to AI, which might end of being a genius move or such a bad decision that Apple just gets completely left behind. Personally, I'm a big Apple fan that are a major part of my portfolio. I love their products.

But these days, it's hard to get excited, you know? Their revenue is starting to flatline and their software just has not been great. I mean, this updated photos app just gives me rage every time I use it. But hey, Apple, still the most valuable company in the world. Buy a pretty significant margin at this point. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of the automaker GM are on the rise this morning after reports that Trump might scale back the tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

Canada and Mexico are critical elements in the auto manufacturing supply chain. We know we mentioned on yesterday's show that cars and auto parts are some of the biggest exports from Canada and Mexico into the U.S. So these tariffs were going to have a big impact on automakers like GM. But with tariffs potentially being rolled back, investors are buying up GM stock again, which shares up around 4% this morning. Another stock having a good morning is Novo Nordisk.

The pharmaceutical company, best known for their weight loss drugs, is planning to offer WeGovie at half price through a new DTC pharmacy. The online pharmacy is called NovoCare and they're going to sell WeGovie for 490s. $99 a month, that's much cheaper than the $1,300 listing price. Now, this $500 a month is going to be the cash price.

And that's important because it opens up access to the drug for people who can't get it through their insurance coverage. A lot of insurance companies don't cover weight loss drugs. So investors are expecting this to be pretty popular. Shares of Novo Nortes, which is ticker symbol NVO, is up around 4% this morning. While one of their competitors, Hymns, which sells copycat versions of weight loss drugs, is down around 7%. Hymns is having a tough stretch right now. Another stock having a tough morning is Abercrombie and Fitch. The retailer reported earnings last night.

They beat on estimates for sales and earnings for the recent quarter, but the stock is still dropping due to weak guidance for the full year. Abercrombie warned that weak consumer spending and tariffs would put a dent in sales growth and squeeze their margins. Abercrombie expects their sales growth to be between 3% to 5% this year, which is well below the previous expectations for 6.8% growth. As for the impact of tariffs, Abercrombie imports about 5% to 6% of its goods from China, and they don't have any significant exposure in Mexico, according to executives, in a November

earnings call. But still, investors seem to be nervous about Abercrombie, and the stock is down around 15% this morning. You know, I think we're going to hear a lot more CEOs blaming tariffs for any weakness they have in their business, whether it's legit or not. Tariffs might end up becoming a convenient excuse. Let's wrap the show with the fun fact. Sweet Green is going to start. start selling French fries.

The salad chain is adding ripple fries to its menu, claiming to be the first brand to offer fries that are air-fried and made without seed oils. The fries will be made with just five ingredients, including avocado oil. Sweet Green is pitching the snack as a guilt-free side made with healthier cooking methods that you typically wouldn't get from a fast food company. I think it's a bold move. I kind of like it. Personally, I'm not someone who would spend $18 for a salad, but I kind of want to try these fries.

I mean, as soon as Ramadan is over, man, I might be headed to a sweet green. Now, I don't know what the Venn diagram is of people that want to eat fries with their salad. But you know what? Shout out to Sweet Green for trying something new. I mean, their stock is down 30% this year, but maybe these fries will be a catalyst, you know? We're all going to be spending 30 bucks on lunch at some point, aren't we? Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode.

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