The Rundown - Meta Wins Big in Court, Google Launches Gemini 3 and Target Sales Slump

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Market update for November 19, 2025:Meta wins antitrust case against the FTC , Google launches Gemini 3, and Target sales fall again. Plus: Nvidia earnings preview and a look at Lowe’s Follow us on Instagram @therundowndaily for bonus content and instant reactionsThis 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, November 19th. In today's episode, we'll tell you what the market is expecting from Nvidia's earnings tonight. We'll also tell you about META's huge win in court yesterday and Google's launching of Gemini 3. Then stick around to the end of the show for an earnings recap of Target and Lowe's and Sweet Greens, to win back producer Mike. We got a great show for you today.

Let's go. Stocks were down for the fourth straight day yesterday, with the S&P 500 losing 0.8%, and the NASDAQ dropped 1.2%. And once again, tech stocks were the biggest losers despite some big AI headlines. Yesterday, Microsoft and Nvidia announced an investment in Anthropic, which is the maker of the Claude Chatbot,

and Google launched Gemini 3, which we're going to talk about in a bit. You know, a month ago, headlines like these would send us stock soaring, but all these companies had a down day yesterday. So there's definitely a big vibe shift happening. And it seems like it's all going to come down to Nvidia's earnings tonight. The AI trade has lost a lot of steam over the last couple of weeks. It feels like the AI bubble pop is just inevitable. And the only company that can stop that from happening is Nvidia.

Or I guess they could also send the markets into a bigger panic, depending on what they say tonight. You know, I think Nvidia has to absolutely. crush earnings expectations and deliver a monster guidance to keep their stock and the rest of the market for that matter from tanking. I think if they have just a slight beat or mediocre guidance, that's going to send their stock lower. Either way, it's expected to be pretty volatile. The options market is pricing in an 8% swing in Nvidia stock up or down following the earnings report, which is massive for a $4.4 trillion company. So yeah, guys, we got a big day coming up.

As always, we're going to be watching it closely. In fact, I might be. even do an instant reaction on Instagram following Invidia's earnings, so go follow us there. And make sure you guys tune in tomorrow for the full breakdown. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with Meta. Meta just won a huge antitrust case yesterday against the FTC. A federal judge ruled that Meta did not violate antitrust law when they bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014.

See, the FTC had sued Meta back in 2020, claiming that those are not. deals stifled competition and made meta, Facebook back then, into a social media monopoly. And the FTC wanted meta to basically break off Instagram and WhatsApp to unwind those deals. But a federal judge ruled that the FTC failed to make a strong enough case to force the breakup. The judge pointed to a changing landscape in 2025 compared to 2020. The emergence of TikTok alone has been a clear competitor to meta. Mehta also points to the existence of YouTube, Netflix, Reddit, Pinterest, Snapchat, literally every at fighting for your attention as their competition. And honestly, I think that's fair. You know,

I think you could have made a case in 2020 that meta was a monopoly. But today, Instagram and Facebook aren't the only game in town when it comes to social media and consuming content. TikTok and YouTube offers similar experiences. So Meadow won this case and they can breathe a sigh of relief that they don't have to break off Instagram and WhatsApp, which I'm not even sure how that would have worked. Now, what I worry about, though, is if the government will stop going after big tech altogether, because they've taken a lot of losses. in court lately. Just a couple years ago, the FTC lost their case to block Microsoft from buying Activision. The DOJ also lost their court case against Google over the search monopoly earlier this

year, and now this lost against meta. The government still has pending cases against Apple and Amazon, and I think those cases are pretty legit, but I wonder if the government will keep trying, or are they going to just throw in the towel after losing so many cases? And are big tech company going to see that as an opportunity to consolidate and actually become a monopoly? So yeah, definitely something to keep an eye on. Let me know in the comments of what you guys. thought about this court case, do you think that meta should have been broken up or do you agree that they have a decent number of competition these days? Let's shift gears and talk about Google because they just dropped Gemini 3, their latest and greatest AI model, and they also took a direct shot at

OpenAI. Google began rolling out Gemini 3 across the entire Google ecosystem yesterday, including the Gemini app and AI mode in search. I got access yesterday afternoon, and I've been messing around with it ever since. This update that Gemini came just eight months Google launched Gemini 2.5, and Google says this version is a massive jump in reasoning and coding abilities and also image generation. Google even threw a little shade at ChatGPT, saying that Gemini 3 aims to deliver genuine insight and not cliche and flattery. So there seems to be some AI trash talking going on, and I kind of like it. So far, the early reviews have been really positive. Now, I've only used it a couple of times, so I need to mess around with it more before I give

my thoughts. But the model is crushing leaderboards for benchmarks that compared against rival models like GPT 5.1 and Claude's Sonnet 4.5 across most categories. Now, this might come as a surprise to a lot of people, but the Gemini app has 650 million monthly users, which is up from the 450 million in July. Now, that's still behind chat GPT, which leads at 800 million weekly users, but that gap is shrinking. Google has such a huge advantage when it comes to distribution. They can put their technology in front of the billion plus people that use Google every day. So it's hard not to be bullish on Google when it comes to AI. Honestly, it's been a pretty big week when it comes to AI releases. Public launched our generated assets AI tool on Monday and now Google launched Gemini 3.

Honestly, I'm not sure which is a bigger deal. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Loves is having a strong morning today after the home improvement retailer beat profit expectations and posted positive same store sales for the second straight quarter. Loves is seeing a strong growth and online sales, which was of 11% year over year, and they're also leaning into selling to professional contractors where demand continues to be steady and helps buffer the slowdown from the DIYers. Loves has been deepening its exposure to the professional contractor market. Last month, they completed their $8.8 billion acquisition of the drywall company Foundation's building materials. And that's one reason why Loves is doing better than Home Depot

right now. Home Depot is feeling the pain right now from the housing slowdown and people spending less money on big home improvement projects. We actually did a full recap of Home Depot's earnings on yesterday's episode, so go check that out if you missed it. Investors seem to be more bullish on Lowe's outlook. Their stock is up around 5% this morning in reaction to their earnings. Now, on the flip side, Target is struggling. Their stock is down after the company reported another decline in sales, and they lowered their full year profit forecast. Net sales in Q3 fell by 1.5% from a year ago to $25.3 billion, and same store sales dropped 2.7%, the third straight quarter of decline. Essentially, Target sales have basically flatlined for the past four years, and the stock has lost about two

thirds of its value since peaking back in 2021. So it's been a rough four years stretch for the company, but they're making moves to turn things around. For one, they have a new CEO taking over on February 1st. On top of that, Target is planning to spend $5 billion next year to open new locations, remodeled existing stores and refresh their merchandise. Target's also doing some cost cutting. They eliminated 1,800 jobs last month, which was their largest layoff in a decade. And finally, they're leaning into AI because of course they are. This morning Target announced a partnership with OpenAI, which will let customers buy stuff

from Target inside ChatGPT. Walmart made a similar announcement a few weeks ago, so pretty much every retailer is rushing to win the AI shopping era. I think all these moves by Target is nice, but it doesn't solve Target's course. core problem, which is that consumers just aren't buying discretionary items. The Target is known for their home good products and apparel's and seasonal items, and people are cutting back on that. I mean, I'm even finding myself spending less time in the Target pickup line. And I think until people start spending money on those items, Target is still going to have a hard time because no one's

going to Target to buy groceries. So investors are worried about Target. Their stock is down 3% this morning following the earnings, and it's down more than 35% for the year. Let's wrap the show with the fun fact. Sweet Green has officially entered their Jimbrough era. The salad chain just launched a new menu item called the Power Max Protein Bowl and it's packed with 106 grams of protein, which is an absurd amount for a salad. I guess Sweet Green heard all the criticism about skimping on the chicken and steak portions and responded by stuffing an entire rotisserie's worth of meat into a bowl. It's been a pretty bad year for Sweet Green as a business. They've seen a big, sales slowdown recently and the stock is down more than 80% this year. So maybe this could help

change that. I don't know, we'll have to see. As of right now, this bowl will only be available through the Sweet Green app and it's only available through December 15. Now, I've never had Sweet Green before. I'm not really a fan of paying 20 bucks for a salad, but producer Mike used to be a fan until recently. I think Mike needs to go get this new protein bowl and post a review on Instagram. I think if we get enough comments, Mike might even do it. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did, and you have like five extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, 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 really does help us out, and it helps other people find the show. I want to thank everyone for taking the time to wish me a happy birthday in the comments yesterday. My portfolio was in the red, but those nice comments help make up for it. Thank you guys again for listening, watching, and commenting. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow. Frozen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time.

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