The Rundown - Nvidia Eyes Humanoid Robots, Meta Plans to Poach Major AI CEO

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

Stock market update for June 20, 2025. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@TheRundownDaily⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ on Instagram.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 Friday, June 20th. In today's episode, we'll recap the Fed meeting and tell you why Jerome Powell isn't looking to cut interest rates anytime soon. We'll also tell you about Nvidia's big investment in robotics and Mark Zuckerberg's plan to buy everyone in AI. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out how much the L.A. Lakers just sold

for. and why Laker fans are about to get a lot more insufferable. You get a great show for you today. Let's go. Markets didn't do much on Wednesday, even though it was Fed Day. The S&P 500 was basically flat, finishing the day down just 0.03%. And the NASDAQ finished with a tiny gain of 0.1%. I think investors are still on edge over the Israel-Iran situation,

especially after reports that President Trump hasn't ruled out military. action from the U.S. The latest reports are saying that Trump will decide on whether the U.S. will launch an attack on Iran in the next two weeks. Now let's talk about the Fed meeting because as expected, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged at Wednesday's meeting. And according to their dot plot, they still only see two rate cuts happening this year. Fed Chair Jerome Powell made it pretty clear in his press conference the Fed is in no rush to cut rates. Despite inflation showing signs of cooling and constant pressures from President Trump, the Fed is holding rates steady. And The thing is, the Fed can afford to wait because of the strong job market.

Remember, the Fed has two main objectives to keep inflation low and employment high. And with the job market, the way it is, the unemployment rate is just 4%. They would rather wait for inflation to continue to move lower before cutting rates. The Fed still seems to be concerned about the impact of Trump's tariffs on inflation. Jerome Powell said it might take a couple more months before we see the full impact of tariffs on prices. So the Fed is in wait and see mode right now. And as expected, President Trump was not happy with this decision. He hopped on truth social after the Fed meeting and said that too late Powell is costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars by refusing the cut rates.

And then he followed that up by calling Jerome Powell a dummy. But look, Jerome Powell doesn't seem to be phased by the constant criticism and name-calming from the president. The Fed is sticking with their plan. Now, as I was recording this episode, a Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Wallace said that the Fed could start cutting rates as early as July. Now, obviously, he's not Jerome Powell. He doesn't have as much influence as Jerome Powell, but those are some interesting comment. But still, the markets are only pricing in a 15% chance to the Fed cuts rates at the July meeting, which is on July 30th. Let's run through some headlines. Starting with Nvidia. Invita is teaming up with Foxcon

to put humanoid robots in their factories in Houston, Texas to build Nvidia and AI servers. Foxconn has been developing these robots with Nvidia. They're going to show them off at a tech event in November. They're planning to put them in their factories by Q1 of 2026. These robots have been trained to do real tasks, including assembly work, inserting cables, and picking and placing objects. And I think it's a glimpse into the future of what manufacturing will look like in the US. There's been a big push by the Trump administration to bring manufacturing back to the States, but I think a lot of it is going to be automated with robotics, including humanoid robots. In fact, this Houston factory will be the first time that Nvidia products are made with

humanoid robots on the production line. And depending on how it goes, I think we're going to see more manufacturing move in that direction. So definitely something to keep an eye on. And also, it's cool to see my hometown of Houston, Texas, become a major player in AI manufacturing. Apple is also planning to make AI servers here. So at this right, Houston's going to have to change her nickname from Space City to Chip City. Shout out to a listener of this show who recommended that nickname a few months ago. Also, I'm just going to shoot my shout here. If someone from Nvidia is listening to this podcast, I would love to get a tour of this factory in Houston, especially after all the robots are in. I promise you, I will be very nice to the robots. I always say please and thank you

to chat, GPT. But I just want to get up and close and see what these robots are doing. Let's shift gears and talk about meta, because they just poached another major AI. CEO. After throwing $14 billion into scale AI a couple weeks ago and bringing on their founder Alexander Wong to lead Meta's artificial general intelligence team, Zuck is now bringing on Daniel Gross, who is the CEO of Safe Super Intelligence, which is a $32 billion startup that was co-founded by former Open AI executive, Ilya Sutskavar. And what's crazy is that META tried to hire Ilya Sutskavar as well. In fact, Zuck offered to buy Safe Superintelligence outright for $32 billion, even though this company was founded,

12 months ago and has $0.00 in revenue. And what might be even crazier is that Ilya Sutskivar turned down the acquisition. So Zuck went straight to the CEO of the company, Daniel Gross, and convinced him to jump ship and join meta. I mean, Zuck is on savage mode right now. I mean, that's like asking someone out, getting rejected and then dating their best friend instead. But that wasn't the only move. Zuck is also hiring former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. Zuck has gone full Nick Fury right and he's trying to assemble the AI Avengers. I mean, we'll see if it pays off, but you can't fault the guy for trying. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today.

GMS shares are rallying this morning as the online store for building materials has become a potential takeover target for both Home Depot and QXO. Both those companies are heading into a bidding war to buy this company. QXO is a company that sells roofing and other construction products. They offered $95.20 per share for GEOC.O. GMS, while Home Depot has also made a private offer for the company. As a result, investors are buying up GMS stock. It's up more than 28% in pre-market trading, and it's now trading north of $100 per share. Nothing like a good takeover offer to get the stock pumping. Shares of CarMax are also up this

morning as the used car retailer beat earnings for the quarter. Retail sales increased by 9% beating expectations. They also saw gross profits increased by more than 12%. And as a result, shares are up more than 10% this morning in reaction to the earnings. Now on the flip side, Accenture shares are down after the consulting firm reported a 6% decrease in new bookings. Bookings are the value of contracts signed with clients, so not a good sign for a consulting firm when that metric drops. Now, despite that, the company did beat earnings and revenue guidance for the quarter, but that wasn't enough for investors and shares of Accenture are down around 5% this morning on this news. Maybe Accenture should considering hiring a consulting company to help

turn things around and solve their problems. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. The Los Angeles Lakers just became the most valuable sports franchise ever sold, hitting a record $10 billion valuation. This absolutely shatters the previous record, which was $6 billion of the sale for the Boston Celtics earlier this year. Now, the guy buying the Lakers is Mark Walter, and if that name sounds familiar,

well, it's because he also owns the L.A. Dodgers. On top of that, he owns the WNBA, L.A. Sparks and a new Formula One team. So Mark is a big sports fan and now he's taken over the Lakers. And the details of this deal are pretty interesting. According to Bill Simmons, Mark first bought a 27% minority stake in the Lakers from the bus family back in 2021 for $1.3 billion. So that would give the Lakers around a $5 billion valuation. And now he's buying another 48% stake in the Lakers for $4.8 billion dollars giving the Lakers a $10 billion valuation and him a 75% controlling stake in the team. The Buss family will hang on to 18% of the team and the rest is split up among random minority

owners. Also, Jeannie Buss will continue to run the team, which is pretty interesting. But hey, Laker fans are hyped right now because Mark Walter has a reputation for spending a ton of money on his sports teams. I mean, just look at the Dodgers. They signed pretty much every big baseball free agent. So I'm sure LeBron and Luca have to be so pumped right now. now, this also means that Laker fans are about to get even more insufferable. A bonus fun fact, Jerry Buss bought the Lakers for $675 million back in 1979. Now, if he invested that money into the S&P 500 instead, it'd be worth more than $12 billion today, which is more than what the Lakers are worth.

But then again, owning the Lakers, probably way cooler than investing in the S&P 500. So I think you made the right move. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. That's the rundown for this week. I apologize for the different audio quality in today's episode. I'm recording today's episode outside of my usual home studio, but things will be back to normal on Monday. Also, we're still going to be posting our deep dive episode,

which is going to be coming out over the weekend. This one is about the impact that AI is having on Hollywood. I don't know if you guys have seen all these hyper-realistic AI-generated videos. They're going viral on social media. So we talk about the impact of AI on Hollywood and what it means for social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. So keep an eye out for that one. By the way, if you guys enjoy our show and have like 12 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 really does help us out and 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 this weekend for the deep dive.