The Rundown - Palantir Sells AI-Powered System to NATO, Goldman Sachs Profit Surges

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Stock market update for April 14, 2025.

Public.com presents the rundown, your daily market update in five minutes. My name is Zaid Admani, and today is Monday, April 14th. In today's episode, we tell you about the big tariff news from over the weekend that has Apple and Nvidia investors breathing a sigh of relief. We also talk about Palantir's latest deal and try to explain what the company actually does. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out what Apple did in the final days leading up to the tariffs to try to save millions of dollars. We got a great show for you today. Let's go. We are coming off one of the craziest weeks that I can remember. The markets were going up and down

on an hourly basis. I mean, the S&P and NASDAQ were moving like meme stocks all week and ultimately had their best week in over a year. The S&P 500 jumped 5.7% and the NASDAQ was up 7.3%. Much of those games coming on Wednesday of last week when President Trump decided to pause the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days on every country except China. China's tariff rate actually went up. Chinese imports currently have a 145% tariff rate. But we did get some huge news on Friday night from the White House that many electronics will be exempt from these tariffs. So things like phones, computers, laptops, semiconductors, computer chips will not be subject to most tariffs. Now, I don't know if this was Tim Cook making a phone call,

but this was a huge sigh of relief for Apple and their shareholders. In fact, Apple stock is up more than 6% this morning. And this exemption was big for a ton of electronics companies. Dell is up 7% and Vida is up 3%. But stop me if you've heard this before. There's still uncertainty around the whole thing because it's not clear if this is a temporary exemption or a permanent one. Like over the weekend, Secretary of Commerce Howard Ludnik

said that these exemptions were temporary. And then on top of that, Trump posted on Truth Social yesterday that nobody is getting off the hook and that the electronic products coming from China are still subject to a 20% fentanyl tariff. So it looks like iPhones and other electronic products made in China will still be hit with a 20% tariff, but that's way easier to swallow than a 145% tariff. And electronic products made outside of China, so in countries like India or Vietnam, won't be subject to any tariffs at all, not even the 10% blanket tariff. So I can see what the markets are pretty excited about this, but the problem is this could change

at any time. And that's what makes it so hard for investors. You know, at this point, I've turned on notifications for Trump's truth social posts. So I'm going to stay on top of all this stuff for you guys and keep you guys in the loop every morning. I mean, there's just so much going on right now. Not just the tariff stuff, but the bond market continues to flash warning signs with yields rising.

The U.S. dollar has in a big drop in value and is now sitting at a five-year low. Gold is sitting at record highs. And then to add to all of that, earnings season has just kicked off. So if you're new here, you have joined the perfect time to start listening because the next few weeks are going to be action-packed. All right, let's talk about Palantir. They are making some big waves this morning with reports that the company is selling an AI-powered military system to NATO. The software is called a Maven Smart System and it uses generative AI and large language models to assist military personnel with warfare, intelligence analysis, and strategy. NATO says this strategy will be operational within the next 30 days.

So that's a pretty quick turnaround after closing the deal just last month. Palantir's Maven technology, which combines satellite imagery with mountains of other battlefield data, has been used by the U.S. government since 2017. In fact, the Pentagon just extended its contract for another five years and a $100 million deal. And that contract is just a drop in the bucket from the over $1.3 billion in contracts that Palantir has won from the Defense Department going all the way back to 2009. Now, Palantir has this reputation for being a mysterious company, and a lot of people still don't know what they do. But let me try to give you a quick example on something that the company has worked on.

Palantir software was used by the U.S. Army in Afghanistan to analyze scattered intel and detect roadside bomb networks. That seemed to be pretty successful, and Palantir's involvement there was a turning point that helped the company become a serious player in U.S. defense and intelligence. It's also become a very popular stock with retail investors as well, and the investors have been rewarded pretty handsomely. The stock is up more than 300% over the last 12 months, and it's up another 8% this morning. I think we'll have to do a deep dive episode on Palantir soon. We actually posted a great deep dive episode this past weekend about the U.S.-China Trade War. Highly recommend

checking that out. It might be our best deep dive episode ever. So check your podcast feeds and let us know what you guys think. All right, let's shift gears and talk about Goldman Sachs. They just reported earnings this morning, and they are cashing in on this market volatility. Goldman Sachs reported a 15% jump in profits for Q1. The bank's equity trading business reached a new all-time high, jumping by 27% to $4.2 billion as investors raced to make portfolio tweaks before the tariff blitz went into effect. Volatility tends to be profitable for these traders.

Overall, total revenue and earnings per share both beat estimates. Q1 revenue came in that $15.1 billion. It was Goldman's third highest quarterly total on record. Now, while trading was a bright spot for Goldman, the market turbulence dragged down other areas of their business, especially investment banking. Fees in that division sunk 8% as dealmaking came to a screeching halt. Wall Street was expecting Trump's return to the Oval Office

to revive deals for M&A and IPOs, but a lot of those have been put on pause. Some companies that were planning to make big moves into public markets like Calarna and Stubhub are now waiting for the markets to calm down a bit. So that's hitting Goldman's investment banking business, but they're more than making it up for it in their trading business. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Best Buy shares are rising after the Trump administration announced tariff exemptions on electronics. This is huge news for Best Buy because a ton of the electronics they sell come from China,

which would have been subject to a 145% import tax. But now with these exemptions in place, that tariff rate is coming down, and shares of Best Buy are up more than 11% this morning on this news. You know, I actually Panic bought a MacBook air from Best Buy a few days ago, thinking these tariffs were going to jack up the prices. I probably should have had more faith than Tim Cook. Now, on the flip side, shares of Pfizer are falling this morning after the pharma giant terminated its weight loss pill

after trials caused liver problems for a patient. Pfizer discontinued a twice daily weight loss pill a few years back as well, but the companies had the results of its most recent tests will help create a new weight loss pill formulation. Now, Pfizer stock is actually flat from this news, which was kind of surprising to me, but I wanted to make sure you guys were up to date on what's going on in the weight loss race.

It's definitely not getting as much attention these days because of tariffs. Let's wrap the show with the fun fact. Apple now makes 20% of its iPhones in India. The company assembled $20 billion worth of iPhones in India in the last 12 months ending in March. That's a 60% jump from a year ago. And a lot of those iPhones get shipped out of India.

Currently, Apple only has an 8% market share in India's smartphone market. Bonus fun fact, apparently Apple stuffed five cargo planes with iPhones and flew them into the US before tariffs went into effect last week. This is according to reporting from Reuters. Someone did the math and estimated that was about 1.5 million iPhones were stuffed on those five planes and brought to the US before the tariffs officially went into effect. But now I guess it doesn't really matter because. because of these exemptions going into place.

Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys are having a great start to the week. Should be a very interesting few weeks ahead. We'll see if the markets can build on the momentum from last week. As always, we'll stay on top of everything for you guys. If you guys enjoy the show, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple and Spotify. 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. Also, don't forget to check out the deep dive episode. We posted it as a video on Spotify, so go give that a watch and let us know what you guys think. Thank you guys again 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 a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold that security. Run-down guests are not financial advisors and are not affiliated with public holdings or its subsidiaries.

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