The Rundown - Nvidia Acquires Synthetic Data Startup, Tesla Recalls 46K Cybertrucks

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Stock market update for March 20, 2025.

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in five minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Thursday, March 20th. In today's episode, we recap yesterday's Fed meeting and why comments from Jerome Powell is injecting some confidence back into the markets. We also tell you about Nvidia's latest acquisition and some bad news coming out of Tesla regarding their cyber trucks. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out how much money gets bet

during March Madness. A lot of money riding on college kids playing hoops. Got a great show for you today. Let's go. The stock market got a boost yesterday thanks to our boy Jerome Powell. The S&P 500 was up 1% and the NASDAG jumped of 1.4%. The Fed meeting yesterday was exactly what the markets needed. Now before we get into Jerome Powell's comment to the press conference,

let's talk about the actual numbers coming from the Fed. For one, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates the same at 4.2.2. to 4.5%. That was expected. On top of that, the Fed still plans to cut rates twice this year, so no change there as far as future policy. Now, the Fed does expect economic growth to slow down a bit this year. Their latest economic growth projections for 2025 went from 2.1% down to 1.7%. They also expect unemployment rate to rise to 4.4% by the end of the year. Their previous estimate was 4.3%. So they tweaked their projections a bit, but nothing dressed. As for inflation, while Jerome Powell did admit that inflation is starting to tick back up a bit,

and tariffs could be playing a role in that. But Powell also said the inflation bump from tariffs would be transitory. Now, I don't know about you guys that when he used the word transitory, it gave me some PTSD because the last time the Fed said inflation was transitory was post-COVID. And boy, were they wrong. Overall, though, yeah, there are some concerns from the Fed about the economy, but Powell tried to project confidence. He said that recession odds aren't high, and the hard data indicates the economy is healthy.

In fact, he said that a couple of times. So I think hearing that from Jerome Powell was a confidence booster for investors, so we'll see at this end of sparking a broader rally. You know, we haven't had a three-day win streak in a long time. And for those of you guys wondering, Jerome Powell will still rocking the purple tie. I thought he might switch it up, but nope, I think he's going to stick with purple moving forward. Let's run through some headlines. And we're starting with NVIDIA.

Again, Nvidia is reportedly acquiring a synthetic data startup called Gretel in a nine-figure deal. Synthetic data is artificially generated data that mimics real-world data and it's been viewed as a solution to the data scarcity problem that AI is running into because we're running out of data

to train these AI models. So, Nvidia has been rolling out synthetic data tools to enable developers to train AI models, so this deal would beef up that offering for the company's customers. Now, Nvidia has been offering synthetic data for several years. In fact, back in 2022, they launched an Omniverse replicator, which lets developers create custom synthetic 3D data. And then last year,

they rolled out another suite of models for developers. So acquiring Gretel does make a lot of sense. By the way, the company was founded back in 2019, and they were most recently valued at $320 million. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised in a few years that every AI model is only trained on synthetic data, because we just don't have enough real data to train models anymore. We're just going to have simulations of real world conversations and Reddit posts and whatnot going into training these AI models. You know what, I'm not sure if I should be excited about the future or not. Speaking of something that looks like it's from the future, let's talk about the cyber truck. Tesla is recalling more than 46,000 cyber trucks because an exterior piece of the car has the potential to fall off and increase the risk of a crash.

This recall pretty much affects all of the cyber trucks in the U.S. Tesla says it's received 151 warranty claims so far related to the issue, but there hasn't been any reported injuries or crashes yet. Now, if you're feeling some deja vu from this headline, it's because Tesla leads the league and vehicle recalls by a lot. Last year, Tesla recalled 5.1 million vehicles in the U.S. more than any other brand. Now, to be fair, most of these problems are fixed by over-the-air software upgrades, which is nice. Like, you don't have to physically take the car to a Tesla dealership. This cyber-trial. truck though, you are going to have to physically go to the dealership to get it fixed.

It's not all bad news for the cyber truck today, though. There are reports from the information that Tesla plans to soon introduce a long-awaited battery innovation in the cyber truck that the company says would dramatically decrease battery manufacturing costs. Tesla has previously said this method could save a billion dollars a year. So that's nice to see. I'm still not a big fan of the design, you know? But maybe that's just me.

Let me know in the comments what you think about the cyber truck. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Shares of five below are jumping after the discount store beat earnings for the quarter. Five Below management says the company was emphasizing the addition of new trending products in its stores for the holiday season and improving the in-store experience. Shares of five below are up around 8% on this news. So I guess the revamped strategy seems to have worked. I gotta say five below kind of a dangerous place to take your kids because they got toys everywhere. And the next thing you know, you spent like $23 on toys that your kids probably going to play with twice at the most.

Trust me, I know from experience. Another stock having a good morning today is Darden Restaurants. Shares of the parent company of Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse are up, despite the company missing on revenue estimates for the quarter. In fact, both Olive Garden and Longhorn chains reported lower than expected same source sales growth, while Ruth Chris Steakhouse and Capital Gil, Gil, while Ruth Chris Steakhouse and Capital Grill experience declines. Now, there was a silver lining, which was the sales boost from their acquisition of Chewy's

Tex-Mex chain. Now, what's funny is the stock initially fell after the earnings came out, but Wall Street must have liked something on the earnings call because shares are now up nearly 2% this morning. Now, on the flip side, Pin Duo Duo, the Chinese e-commerce giant behind Timu is having a tough morning after posting their slowest revenue growth since early 2022. Pinduoduo has been warning that a slowdown was coming, highlighting competition, and external problems as headwinds. Timo is one of the most downloaded apps on the App Store last year, and the way they're

able to sell so much cheap stuff to the U.S. is by taking advantage of an import tax loophole called the de minimis exception. This allows cheap Chinese goods to come into the U.S. without paying any taxes or fees, keeping prices on TEMU very low compared to products on Amazon or Walmart or other retailers in the U.S. Now, the Trump administration has threatened to remove the de minimis loophole. They actually did remove it back in February, but then they reversed that decision to give shipping companies more time to adapt. That's why TEMU has been focusing on selling local products in the U.S., putting the e-commerce platform against Amazon and other major internet retailers. But that doesn't seem to be working out so far, and shares of Pinduo, duo, ticker symbol, PDD, are down around 5% today.

Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. March Madness starts today, and according to the American Gambling Association, Americans are expected to legally wager $3.1 billion on the men's and women's March Madness tournament. That's a 15% jump from last year. And the key word there is legally, because that 3.1.4.5.5.5.5. $1 billion number doesn't include all the office pools and the bracket challenges and all the side bets in the group chat. So the total overall money bet on March Madness is probably way higher. March Madness is perfect for casual sports fans.

You don't have to be watching college basketball all season to enjoy it. Like something about filling out a bracket and going through all the numbers and projections, even though I don't know half the schools playing or any of the players, it's just really fun. I'm going to be locked in over the next four days hoping some 19 year old can sink his free throws so I can win a $100 bracket pool. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. Hope you guys enjoyed the next

four days of March Madness for all my sports fans out there. If anyone has any legit picks for March Madness, let us know in the comments. And while you're there, don't forget to give us a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. Vote in today's Spotify poll. 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. This is the rundown, your real-time resource for news events and trends in the markets. All views presented in the show reflect the opinions of the guests. You should not take any mention of a publicly traded security as recommendation to buy, sell or hold that security. Run-down guests are not financial advisors and are not affiliated with public holdings or subsidiaries.

You should make your own financial and investment decisions or consult. Respect to professionals. Learn more at public.com disclosures. In partnership with Zayidmani, brokerage services for U.S. listed, registered securities are offered by open to the public investing incorporated, member FINRA and SIPC.