The Rundown - Producer Prices Jump, Fisker Preps for Bankruptcy

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

Stock market update for March 14, 2024. Get started with Public: ⁠Click Here⁠ The content of the podcast is for general and informational purposes only. All views presented in this show reflect the opinions of the guest and the host. You should not take a mention of any asset, be it cryptocurrency or a publicly traded security as a recommendation to buy, sell or hold that cryptocurrency or security. Guests and hosts are not affiliated with or endorsed by Public Holdings or its subsidiaries. You should make your own financial and investment decisions or consult respective professionals. Full disclosures are in the channel description. Learn more at Public.com/disclosures. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. There is a possibility of loss with any investment. Historical or hypothetical performance results, if mentioned, are presented for illustrative purposes only. Do not infer or assume that any securities, sectors or markets described in the videos were or will be profitable. Any statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements are strictly based on the current views, opinion, or assumptions of the person presenting them, and should not be taken as an indicator of performance nor should be relied upon as an investment advice.The content of the podcast is for general and informational purposes only. All views presented in this show reflect the opinions of the guest and the host. You should not take a mention of any asset, be it cryptocurrency or a publicly traded security as a recommendation to buy, sell or hold that cryptocurrency or security. Guests and hosts are not affiliated with or endorsed by Public Holdings or its subsidiaries. You should make your own financial and investment decisions or consult respective professionals. Full disclosures are in the channel description. Learn more at Public.com/disclosures. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. There is a possibility of loss with any investment. Historical or hypothetical performance results, if mentioned, are presented for illustrative purposes only. Do not infer or assume that any securities, sectors or markets described in the videos were or will be profitable. Any statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements are strictly based on the current views, opinion, or assumptions of the person presenting them, and should not be taken as an indicator of performance nor should be relied upon as an investment advice.

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in five minutes. My name is Zadmani, and today is Thursday, March 14. In today's episode, we go over some major economic data that just dropped this morning, and we're going to see how the markets are reacting to it. We also discuss an EV company that's on the verge of bankruptcy after a negative YouTube review. There's also an update on the TikTok ban. Congress took some major steps yesterday, and then we end the show highlighting some stocks, making moves today. And in honor of Pye Day, we share a fun fact about the most popular pie in America. And I'm not going to lie, I was kind of surprised by the results. All right, let's get into it. Let's start with a quick recap of the stock market yesterday.

Kind of a mixed day. The S&P and NASDAQ both finished lower on Thursday while the Dow squeezed out again. But you know, the Dow Jones is kind of irrelevant at this point, so who cares? Trading volumes were lower than normal yesterday. I think investors were waiting for more macroeconomics to come out this morning before making any major moves. And oh boy, did we get some major news this morning. The PPI report and the retail sales data just came out this morning. So let's talk about them. Let's start with the PPI report. Just to set the table here, PPI stands for producer price index. Some people refer it to as wholesale inflation because it measures price changes at the wholesale level among producers of products before that product reaches consumers. Well, the PPI

report for February just came out and wow did it come in hot. The PPI in February was a 0.6% month over month. That is way more than the 0.3% that was expected by economists. So that is back-to-back reports this week showing that inflation is still sticking around. The CPI report earlier this week came in hot. The PPI report came in hot. I mean, this is not the best news. We also got retail sales data come out this morning. Retail sales in February were up 0.6%. That number is also below expectations. Experts were expecting an increase of 0.8%. So inflation is hotter than expected, retail sales lower than expected. With all this data, you would expect the market to kind of freak out a bit, you know? That's not what's happening right now. I'm recording this

right before the market opens. Stock indexes are flashing green right now, which indicates a higher open. So, you know, maybe none of this matters anymore. Maybe inflation reports and retail data is just not as relevant. I mean, I'm not going to complain about the stock market going up, but I'm a little confused right now. At least our portfolios are going up, you know? All right, let's run through some headlines. Starting with EVs, guys, I think it's safe to say the EVMA has come to an end. We keep getting bad news from the EV industry. Like, according to the Wall Street Journal, EVV Maker Fisker, is planning to file for bankruptcy. The company reported last month that it only did $273 million in sales last year, and it has over a billion

in debt. Yikes. Also, it probably doesn't help that mega- YouTuber Marquez Brownlee, aka MKBHG, Goat Tech YouTuber, reviewed one of Fisker's cars last month and called it the worst car he's ever reviewed. That video has over 3 million views right now. So, yeah, it's not going to help you sell more cars. Fisker's stock price has dropped more than 97% since it went public back in 2020 via SPAC. But zooming out a little bit, the whole industry just broadly, it's facing a bit of a reality check, you know? Like back in 2021, every car company was pivoting to EVs because there seemed to be this huge pent-up demand for EVs. Well, the demand just hasn't been as strong as everyone thought. So these automakers are having to tone down their expectations. And even EV-Darlings,

like Tesla and Rivian are seeing their stocks get absolutely crushed. Go open up the public app and look up Tesla and Rivian stock. It's not pretty. And just to give you some perspective here, Tesla stock is down more than Boeing this year. And Boeing can't seem to make a functioning plane right now. Investors are just not excited about the space anymore. Now, this could just be a temporary dip and maybe EVs will make a comeback. But I don't know.

What do you guys think? I mean, I personally am pretty down on the EV space myself. But if you had to pick between, say, the EV industry or like, say, sports betting, to invest in over the next, say, five years, which one are you picking? Let's make that the Spotify poll of the day. So if you're listening to this episode on Spotify, tap this episode and you'll see a poll pop up and place your vote. EVs or sports betting?

I am really curious to see what the results for this poll is going to be. But yeah, the vibes around the EV industry just not great right now. Speaking of bad vibes, we have an update regarding the possible TikTok ban. Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would require TikTok to be sold or face being banned. And the bill was pretty popular, passing 352 to 6.000. The next steps are the bill will go to the Senate where the path doesn't seem to be as clear cut. But if this bill passes the Senate and ends up on President Biden's desk, the president has already said that he plans to sign the bill. So yeah, this might be the closest that TikTok has ever come to placing a ban in the U.S.

So now all the attention turns to the Senate. We'll keep you in the loop. And this news just broke as I'm recording this episode. Former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said this morning that he plans to put together an investor group to try to buy TikTok if this bill goes through. So even if this bill does go through, TikTok might just end up being sold instead of actually being banned in the U.S. That's if China Let's Bite Dance sell TikTok. So there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of things up in the air right now. Again, we'll keep you in the loop as things start becoming more clear.

And if TikTok does get banned, man, I hope this podcast thing really works out for me. So five-star ratings on Spotify and Apple would really help right now. All right, let's wrap up the show highlighting some stocks making moves today. Starting with Dollar General. Dollar General stock is up more than 5% after reporting better than expected. did Q4 earnings. Same store sales increased by 0.7%. And the outlook for this upcoming quarter are positive as well. Company estimates that same source sales to increase around 1.5 to 2%. Dollar General stock is having a nice bounce back after a brutal year in 2023 where their stock dropped 45%.

But they're starting to turn things around after their current CEO came out of retirement back in October to lead the company. He originally led the company from 2015 to 22. Now on the flip side, Under Armour is not doing so good right now. Their stock dropped more than 4% today. After some shakeup in their leadership. The current CEO, Stephanie Lenards, is stepping down and the founder of the company, Kevin Plank is coming back as CEO. Kevin Plank founded the company back in 1996 and stepped down as CEO back in 2019. And ever since he stepped down, things haven't been so great. The stock has dropped more than 50% since he left and it's down more than 85% from all-time highs back in 2015. Remember, 2015 was like the heyday of Under Armour. Some people thought they were

going to be the next Nike because they had a lot of momentum. Steph Curry was their main athlete and he had just had his breakout season. But things just haven't really worked out that well. It could also be because their shoes aren't that great. But that's just my opinion. All right, now it's time to wrap the show with a fun fact. In honor of Pie Day, today's fun fact is about pies. According to Instacart, the most bought pie in America is Cherry Pie.

Now, they also broke this down by state, and the type of pies that are popular is very regional. Like, for example, in Texas, where I'm from, the most bought pie was Pecan Pie. Or Pecan Pie, depending on how you say it. But can we all agree that pie? pies are extremely overrated. Like, that's not a controversial opinion, right? I mean, there are a dozen other desserts that I would pick before picking a pie. But maybe that's just me.

Maybe we should have made that to Spotify poll today. Our pies overrated. All right, guys. That's all I got for you guys today. Another fantastic episode. Remember, don't forget to rate this podcast five stars on Spotify and Apple Podcast. We got one more show this week. Thank you guys again for listening.

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 this 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. Rundown guests are not financial advisors and are not affiliated with public holdings or its subsidiaries. You should make your own financial and investment decisions or consult. Respective professionals. Learn more at public.com disclosures.

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