The Rundown - Elon Musk Commits to Leading Tesla for Five Years, D-Wave Launches a New Quantum Computer

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Stock market update for May 20, 2025.

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Tuesday, May 20th. In today's episode, we tell you about the warning that Jamie Diamond just issued to the markets. He's worried about stackflation. We also dive into earnings from Home Depot and why they aren't worried about tariffs. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why Levi's is selling dockers. We got a great show for you today.

Let's go. The stock market was off to a pretty quiet start this week. Stocks did squeeze out a gain on Monday, but just barely. The S&P 500 was up just 0.1%, while the NASDAQ was up 0.02%. So yeah, pretty flat. The Dow Jones was actually the best performing up 0.3%, but, you know, nobody cares about the Dow. So it looks like the markets are totally brushing off the Moody's downgrade of U.S. debt. You know, we talked more about that downgrade and why,

might not be a big deal on yesterday's show, so go check that out if you missed it. Now, not everyone is back to being bullish these days. Jamie Diamond, the CEO of the largest bank in the world, J.P. Morgan Chase, he said yesterday that the markets are way too complacent. And he's worried that the combination of ballooning deficits, tariffs, and geopolitical risk could kill S&P 500 earnings growth and double the odds of stackflation, which is high inflation with a recession. It's not a great combo. So Jamie Diamond not so optimistic despite the recent market rally, but then again, it wouldn't be a Jamie Diamond headline without a little doom and gloom. But it feels like nothing can stop the market these days. Both the S&P 500 and NASDAQ are within 3% of their all-time highs. And I know we

haven't talked a lot about Bitcoin lately, but it's also very close to hitting all-time highs. It's currently trading around $105,000. So it's awfully close to the $107,000 all-time high mark. So it's possible we might see all-time highs in the stock market and the crypto. market this week. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with Home Depot. The Home Improvement Company reported earnings this morning and they beat on revenue. They missed slightly unprofit expectations, but more importantly, the company said they

aren't too worried about the impact of tariffs. Unlike other retailers like Walmart, Home Depot said they have no plans to raise prices because of tariffs. Now, it's possible they're saying this because they don't want to catch any heat from President Trump like Walmart did over the weekend. but Home Depot did say they've been diversifying their suppliers for years now to not be overly reliant on China. In fact, more than half of what the company sells comes from the U.S., and by next year, no single country outside of the U.S. will account for more than 10% of their

purchases. So they've done a good job of diversifying their suppliers, and they seem to be in good shape to deal with tariffs. Now, Home Depot still has to deal with the realities and difficulties of a frozen housing market and higher borrowing costs, which leads to less people to. doing home renovations. Home Depot's same store sales in Q1 was up just 1%. But the company executives seem to be somewhat optimistic. In fact, they think that the longer people stay in their homes, the more likely they are to do home renovations. So we'll see how that goes. A Home Depot stock is flat at the time of this recording and it's down around 2% year to date. And I know I make this joke every time I talk about Home Depot, but honestly, going there on a Saturday morning just hits different.

You know, especially as a dad, standing in the PVC fitting aisle, talking to the Home Depot rep for 20 minutes about your DIY repair. It's just peak dad life. Let's shift gears and talk about GM. The American car maker will no longer export American-made cars from the U.S. to China. Not surprising here, but the tariff escalations between the two countries is the main reason for this. It was just financially pointless to export cars made in the U.S. to China when tariffs

between the two countries jumped over 100% last month. That tariffs between the two countries have come down. U.S. goods going to China are currently tariffed at a 10%. rate during this 90-day negotiation period, but it looks like GM doesn't want to deal with a headache at all. And to be clear, this isn't going to impact GM's broader China business because almost every car that GM sold in China was built locally over there through joint ventures. These US exports were coming through a boutique initiative called Durant Guild. It was GM's attempt to sell high-end imports into China. But it never made up more than 0.1% of GM's China sales. So it was pretty

much like a rounding error, this isn't going to have a major impact on GM's bottom line. But if you're someone in China that was looking to import an American-made Chevy Tahoe, well, you're unfortunately out of luck. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. D-Wave quantum shares are skyrocketing this morning after the firm released its new quantum computer called Advantage 2. This computer is apparently 40% more energy efficient and its coherence ability has doubled, which allows the computer to come up.

with solutions much faster. The CEO of D-Wave called this new computer in engineering Marvel. So investors are eating that up this morning. D-Wave stock is up nearly 20% on this news. You know, quantum stocks have been in the spotlight ever since last year when Google announced its own quantum computing breakthrough with this new willow chip. Tesla stock is also getting a bump this morning. Shares are up around 2% after Elon Musk said that he's committed to running the company

for the next five years. And there was some rumors floating around that Elon might shift his focus to SpaceX or some new shiny project, but he's putting those rumors to rest, and he plans to be the CEO of Tesla for at least the end of the decade. And investors clearly seem to like that stability. Now, on the flip side, Viking cruise stock is underwater this morning, despite reporting some solid earnings. The company said 92% of its 2025 itineraries are already booked, and they've got nearly 40% of 2026 trips locked in as well. You know, Vikings kind of known for their European river cruises, but they're also operating in Egypt now. Viking announced a new ship on Monday,

that will operate on the Nile River, and they plan to release four more ships in Egypt in about two years. But for whatever reason, investors weren't so thrilled, and their stock is down more than 6% this morning on this news. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Levi's is selling off the Docker's brand, nearly 40 years after introducing the iconic khakis and changing business casual styles forever.

Dockers is being sold for $311 million in cash to authentic brands group. Lo-key, I was kind of surprised by the price tag. I thought that it would be a lot more. But then again, Dockers and khakis in general have kind of fallen off. You know, khakis used to dominate every middle manager in America,

but these days everyone just wears jeans to the office, or yoga pants, depending on where you work. And it seems like Levi's doesn't expect khakis to make a comeback anytime soon, so they're selling the company, cashing out, and doubling down on what works, which is denim jeans. And the company that's buying Docker's authentic brands group,

You might have heard of them. They own a bunch of washed up retail brands like Reebok, Forever 21, and Notica. I have no idea what their plans are with these brands. But it sounds like they're assembling the Avengers of companies that used to dominate malls back in the day. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did and you have like 10 extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And if you're listening on Spotify, don't forget to vote in today's Spotify poll.

leave us a comment on Spotify. All that engagement 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 help behind the scenes and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.