The Rundown - Cracker Barrel Brings Back Old Logo, Apple Sends Invites for iPhone Event

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Stock market update for August 27, 2025.This video is for informational purposes only and reflects the views of the host and guest, not Public Holdings or its subsidiaries. Mentions of assets are not recommendations. Investing involves risk, including loss. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For full disclosures, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Public.com/disclosures⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Wednesday, August 27th. In today's episode, we'll get you ready for NVIDIA's earnings and why it could set the tone for the rest of the year. We'll also preview Apple's iPhone event and discuss the disagreement amongst Apple executives on their AI strategy. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out about the economic impact of a Taylor Swift wedding. We got a great show for you today. Let's go. The stock market was back in the green on Tuesday, thanks to a late afternoon rally.

Both the S&P and NASDAQ were up 0.4% for the day. And a shout out to the Russell 2000. That's the index that tracks 2,000 small cap stocks. It was up 0.8% yesterday. You know, the Russell 2000 doesn't get much love, but it's up over 6,000. 6% in August, while the S&P and NASDAQ are up only 2% for the month. So for everyone saying that the market's just being carried by mega-cap big tech companies, it turns out that small-cap socks are quietly having a moment right now as well.

Now, speaking of mega-caps, the company with the largest market cap in the world is Nvidia, and they are reporting earnings today after the market closed. Invidia is the most important company in the world right now, so all of their earnings reports are crucial, but I feel like there's just even more at stake for this report. V-Vidia is quite literally powering the AI boom that's been propping up the stock market over the last couple of years. So investors will be listening closely for any cracks in the AI story. Now, lately, we've been starting to hear a lot more chatter and concerns about an AI bubble. So today's numbers and what Nvidia's guidance for future earnings could either put those fears to rest or send everyone into a full-on panic mode.

We're going to be doing a full breakdown of Nvidia's results on tomorrow's episode. So you definitely don't want to miss that one. maybe even hit the notification bell on Spotify so you're notified as soon as the episode goes up. And if you want an instant reaction to Nvidia's earnings, follow us on Instagram. We're going to try to post an instant reaction to the earnings as soon as they drop this afternoon. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with Apple. September is right around the corner, which means that it's iPhone season,

and Apple just sent out invites for the iPhone 17 event. The event is happening on Tuesday, September 9th, and the Tats, The tagline for this year is awe-dropping, which I'm not sure is a subtle hint that prices might go up for this year's iPhones. Because the prices are already odd-dropping, if you know what I mean. Now, here's what we're expecting for the event. Apple will roll out the usual lineup, a base iPhone 17 that'll look pretty identical to the iPhone 16. Apple will also have the iPhone 17 Pro and the Pro Max with redesigned backs and bigger camera bumps. Now the exciting news here is that Apple is expected to launch a new variant of the iPhone called the iPhone Air.

The rumors say it's going to be the thinnest iPhone ever and their first actual redesign in years, but the phone will have less battery life and only one camera in the back. Personally, I don't really care too much about how thin my phone is anymore. I think I'd rather have it be a bit thicker and have better battery life. So yeah, for all the Apple haters out there, you're going to have a lot to work with this year again. Now Apple is hoping to quiet some of the haters next year, though, because according to Bloomberg's Mark German, Apple will be launching their first foldable phone. I mean, I am so bullish on foldable phones.

If I wasn't married to the Apple ecosystem, I probably would have gotten one of the Samsung ones by now. So I'm likely going to be getting the foldable iPhone next year. I might need to sell a kidney in the process, though, in order to afford one. So yeah, Apple is trying to innovate and shut up some of the haters. Now, the other thing to watch out for in this year's event is for a potential surprise announcement of an AI deal. Apple has gotten a ton of hate for lacking an AI strategy compared to other big tech rivals like Google. And according to the information,

that Apple, like Eddie Q, have been pushing for Tim Cook to buy a major AI startup like perplexity or Mistral. But Tim Cook is famously cautious about doing big acquisitions and prefers to do a licensing deal. And there have been rumors of Apple kicking the tires on an AI deal with Google. So we'll see if anything is announced at the Apple event. I think if Apple does announce a major AI move, whether it's an acquisition or a licensing deal, don't be surprised that the stock rips higher. I do wonder, though, if Apple was ever going to become the most valuable. company in the world again? Because right now, Nvidia is the most valuable company worth 4.4 trillion, while Apple is at 3.4 trillion.

So there's a trillion-dollar gap between the two, and it might get even bigger if Nvidia crushes earnings today. Let's shift gears and talk about coals. The struggling retailer just pulled off a much-needed win in their latest earnings. The company beat earnings expectations on revenue and profits for Q2, and the stock is booming this morning. Now, to be fair, revenues are still falling. Comparable sales drop 4.2% year over year, but that's not as bad as what Wall Street was expecting. And to add to the good news, the company expects sales to decline by just 5 to 6% the rest of the year, which is better than the 7% they had previously expected. So the company expects the bleeding to slow down. Now, Coles is trying to turn around the company,

and it seems like some of their turnaround efforts are starting to pay off. Coals has been cutting costs and slimming down inventory. They're also trying to win back customers with more promotions and coal cash and also having bigger Sephora shops in the stores and new categories like fine jewelry and makeup. And what's wild is all this is happening at Coles despite the company C-suite being a total mess. The company has turned through three CEOs in the last three years and the last CEO got fired after giving a sweetheart deal to a vendor, which was owned by his girlfriend. So yeah, Coles is dealing with it all. Corporate scandals in the C-suite and declining sales. Right now the company is being led by an interim CEO, Michael Bender, who has been a member of Cole's board since 2019.

And they're still looking for a permanent person to take over the role. For now, investors are happy to see some progress in the turnaround. Cole's stock is up more than 20% this morning in reaction to the earnings report. It's a nice bounce back after the company stock lost 30% of its value in the past year before today's jump. You know, I haven't been to Coles in a few years now, but when I got my first corporate job about a decade ago, I was hitting up Coles all the time. Now, buying dress shirts and dress pants, and the Coles cash came in pretty handy. These days, I'm just pretty much wearing the same thing.

So don't really need to go to Coles anymore. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Cracker Barrel's shares are jumping this morning after the restaurant chain announced that it's bringing back their old logo. Cracker Barrel had announced a rebrand of their logo and their restaurants, and that set off a social media fire show. People said that they were ditching their country roots. It got very political just like everything these days. I mean, don't get me wrong, the redesign was pretty bad, but the backlash was way worse.

So Cracker Barrel is fully reversing course. The company released a statement yesterday that they were going to keep their old country brand intact by keeping the classic logo and the rocking chairs and the gift shop experience, the fireplaces, and even the fun games on the table. That has investors excited. Cracker Barrel stock is up more than 4% this morning. I do think the company will probably see a boost in traffic over the next few weeks. Now, a company not getting a boost today is PayPal.

Their stock is down this morning after multiple German banks that I'm not going to try to pronounce began blocking payments on the platform due to a malfunction of its fraud detection system. German Reddit users confirmed their payments were being denied, and PayPal says it's working on a fix, but they don't have a timeline just yet. PayPal stock is down more than 2% this morning on this news. Man, PayPal stock has been such a disappointment this year. it's down 18% so far. PayPal even has a stable coin,

but yet they're not able to capture the hype like other stable coin companies are. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey got engaged. The couple broke the news on Instagram yesterday afternoon, which blew up all the group chats, and what kind of podcast would we be if we didn't talk about it, you know? Now, I do have some fun stats to share.

Taylor Swift continues to break records. Her appearance on her fiance's podcast, New Heights a couple weeks ago, broke the world record for most concurrent live viewers of 1.2 million. Taylor, if you're watching this, would love to have you on for a quick 20-minute chat for the rundown. You know, we do interviews on this podcast now. I know you're busy, so just let me know your schedule. I'll work around your times. Now, the diamond ring that Taylor Swift got from Travis is estimated to be worth about a million dollars. And what's interesting is that shares of Cignaut jewelers, which owns Zales and Jared, saw a noticeable jump in their stock price

after the engagement post yesterday. I guess investors are expecting Taylor Swift to kick off a wave of engagements and ring buying. So yeah, if you thought that the Nvidia earnings was going to be the most important economic news of the week, I think it pales in comparison to the GDP boost from Taylor Swift's engagement and upcoming wedding. Also, I don't think I'm going to be drafting Travis Kelsey

for my fantasy football team this year. I mean, the guy's going to be way too distracted with all the wedding planning, right? Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. Tomorrow's episode is a must listen. We're going to be breaking down Nvidia's earnings,

the market reaction, what it means. So action-packed episode coming up, make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast to stay in the loop. And again, follow us on Instagram because we're going to be doing an instant reaction to Nvidia's earnings reports this afternoon.

By the way, if you guys enjoy our show and have like six extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you are listening on Spotify, don't forget to vote in today's Spotify poll. Leave us a comment on Spotify.

All that engagement. It really does 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 work behind the scenes. I will see you guys back here tomorrow.