The Rundown - Buffett to Step Down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO, Trump Threatens 100% Tariffs on Foreign Movies

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

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Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in five minutes. My name is Adad Mani, and today is Monday, May 5th. In today's episode, we'll get you ready for another action-packed week. We're getting earnings from fan favorites like Palantir and also hearing from Jerome Powell. We're also discussing the shocking news over the weekend regarding Warren Buffett and why the goat is stepping down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why

Marvel movies might be making a comeback and why foreign films might be tariffs soon. We get a great show for you today. Let's go. The stock market is on an absolute heater these days. The S&P 500 has gone up for nine straight days in a row, the longest winning streak since 2004, you know, back when Netflix still mailed you DVDs. And I'll be honest with you guys, I am shocked by this market rally. I mean, the S&P 500 has now erased all of its loss. is from Liberation Day. It's up nearly 15% since the lows set back on April 8th. Now, some people are calling this a bear market rally

while others think the worst is over, and we're headed for new all-time highs soon. Now, I'm not complaining because it's nice to open up the public app and not get blasted with a sea of red, but we'll see how long this rally can keep going. I think this week might play a pivotal role in the vibe moving forward because we have another loaded week in front of us. We're still in the thick of earnings season.

This week we are hearing from some fan favorites, like Pallantir and Hymns, which both report today after the bell. AMD is reporting on Tuesday night. We have Uber and Disney reporting on Wednesday morning. And then Coinbase is reporting on Thursday after the market closed. So a lot of earnings to look forward to. But the main event this week is the Fed meeting. The Federal Reserve kicks off their two-day meeting on Tuesday.

It wraps up on Wednesday afternoon with a Jerome Powell press conference. And the Fed's going to decide on what to do with interest rates. Now, President Trump has been cyberbullying Jerome Powell. over the last few weeks to cut interest rates. But the markets don't think that's going to happen. According to the CME Fed Watch tool, there's only a 5% chance of a rate cut this week. But still, investors are going to be watching this meeting very closely,

especially what Jerome Powell says in the press conference to get a hint at when the next rate cut might come. And to see what the Fed thinks about the overall health of the economy. That press conference should be a good one. I'm sure the press is going to ask Jerome Powell a ton of questions about Donald Trump. So we're going to be tuning in for that. The Fed's decision on interest rates will be announced on Wednesday at 2 p.m. Eastern, followed by the press conference, which is going to be at 2.30 Eastern.

So I can't wait to hear what Jerome Powell has to say, I'm going to be watching that press conference, watching the market's reaction. We'll recap all that for you on Thursday's episode. So make sure you guys tune in. This is just one of those weeks where you don't want to miss a single episode because there's a lot going on right now. In fact, we even got some breaking news over the weekend. So let's get into it. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett shocked the investment. world on Saturday by announcing that he's stepping down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of this year. He made this announcement to a stadium full of investors at the Berkshire Hathaway annual

shareholder meeting in Omaha. The 94-year-old goat is hanging it up after leading Berkshire for the last 60 years. And Buffett's resume might be untouchable when it comes to investing. From 1964 to 2024, Berkshire stock returned 5.5 million percent, which is nearly 20 percent a year, double what the S&P 500 did over the same time period. He bought multiple companies throughout his investing career, some of the notable ones being Coca-Cola and American Express. Now, it did take him a while to invest in tech companies, but he did ultimately make a $1 billion investment in Apple back in 2016,

which arguably is his greatest investment ever. And you know what I really liked about Warren Buffett's retirement announcement was that it came as a legit shock. Nobody seemed to know this was happening. There was no leaks to the press or hints about it. I mean, even the guy taking over for Warren Buffett, Greg Abel, didn't know that Warren Buffett was going to make this announcement. And speaking of Greg Abel, we should talk about him for a bit because he had huge shoes to fill. Now, everyone knew that he was going to be next in line at

CEO of Berkshire. He was named as successor back in 2021. He's been at Berkshire since the year 2000. And he's quietly been running most of the operations behind the scenes anyways. But he's officially going to be given the CEO title at the start of next year. And he's going to get the keys to Berkshire and its record $348 billion cash pile. And again, it's a tough act to follow Warren Buffett. You know, it's kind of like following Michael Jordan. It's hard to fill those shoes, especially because the company has all that cash. So Greg Abel is about to get a bright spotlight on him, and we'll see how he performs.

The initial reaction by the markets aren't so great. Berkshire Hathaway stock is down more than 5% this morning at the time of this recording. And by the way, Warren Buffett still plans to stick around as chairman of the board, and he said that he still plans to go into the office. every day. So I guess he's not planning to pull a Jeff Bezos and chill on a yacht somewhere. Let's shift gears and talk about tariffs because President Trump's new tariff threat has Hollywood freaking out right now. President Trump is threatening a 100% tariff on all foreign-made films in a move that he says will stop the very fast death of Hollywood. Trump dropped the

announcement on truth social last night. He claims that foreign countries are luring away U.S. filmmakers and studios by dangling better incentives. You know, he's not totally wrong here. Studios like Disney and Netflix have been filming abroad where tax breaks are better and labor costs are cheaper. Countries like Canada and the UK have been cashing it in. According to the Film Crew Union, IATSE, about 18,000 full-time film jobs have been vanished over the past three years, most of them in California. Now, California Governor Gavin Newsom is trying to stop the bleeding. He rolled out a plan to more than double California's film tax incentive to 750.

million dollars a year. But here's the twist. A lot of the competition in California isn't coming from just overseas countries. It's also coming from other U.S. states. Georgia, for example, offers unlimited incentives and so does New York. So yes, it's true the film industry is slowing down and a lot of the behind the scenes workers are feeling it. Trump's solution to that is slapping a 100% tariff on foreign-made films. I'm not sure if that's the answer. Plus, the concept of tariffing a movie is kind of confusing to me. So we'll see how this. this all plays out, Wall Street definitely not loving this news. Shares of studios and streamers like Netflix, Paramount, Disney, and Warner Brothers Discovery are all down today. Let's talk about some

stocks making moves today. Shares of the real estate company Howard Hughes are up this morning after Bill Ackman announced that he's acquiring $900 million worth of shares. But this isn't just another real estate deal. It's actually Bill Ackman's first move in his plan to build his own version of Berkshire Hathaway. Bill Ackman wants to turn Howard Hughes into a holding company. One part real estate company, one part private equity. That's the same strategy that Buffett used when he bought Berkshire Hathaway, which fun fact was a struggling textile company when Warren Buffett took it over back in 1965.

Today, Berkshire is worth over $1 trillion. Howard Hughes is currently worth around $3 billion. So Bill Ackman has some ground to cover here. Now, another stock up this morning is Skechers. Their shares jumped by $25. this morning after the private equity firm 3G Capital announced a deal to take the company private. If this deal goes through, it would mark the end of a nearly 30-year run as a publicly traded company for Skechers. I was kind of bummed out to hear this news because I love Skechers,

and I just hope this private equity company doesn't ruin them. Now, a stock not doing so good this morning is Sunniko. Shares are down today after they announced a $9.1 billion acquisition of Parkland Corporation. If this deal does get approved, it would make Sunniko the largest fuel, provider in America. Sunocoa already has over 5,300 gas stations, and this deal adds thousands more to the portfolio. This acquisition is expected to close in the second half of 2025. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact.

Marvel movies might be making a comeback. Disney's Thunderbolts just had the third highest gross domestic opening weekend of the year, pulling in $76 million here in the U.S. And globally, the movie made more than $162 million over the weekend. That's a pretty nice bounceback for Marvel, because let's not forget, at the end of 2023, Disney dropped the Marvels, which ended up being the worst performing Marvel movie ever, only making $47 million in this opening weekend. So yeah, the success of Thunderbolts and the Captain America movie earlier this year

might be a sign that Marvel is finally finding its footing again. I'll be honest with you guys, after Endgame, I haven't watched a single Marvel movie. I don't think I'm ready to get back into it anytime soon. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. I want to apologize for my voice today. I kind of lost my voice last night after cheering for the Rockets. We lost in Game 7 against the Warriors.

I might have screamed a little too much. So having a rough voice this morning, hopefully it gets back to normal by tomorrow because we've got a pretty big week coming up. So thank you guys again for listening through my rough voice. If you guys did enjoy the show, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. Don't forget to vote in today's Spotify poll.

Leave us a comment on Spotify. All of that engagement really does have. help us out and it helps other people find the show. Thank you guys so much for listening. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the help behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.