The Rundown - Protesters Lash Out at Musk & Tesla, Novo Nordisk Faces Setback with New Obesity Drug

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Stock market update for March 10, 2025.

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in five minutes. My name is Zadmani, and today is Monday, March 10th. In today's episode, we get you ready for another roller coaster week. We got a big inflation report coming up. We also discussed Tesla's big slide this year, and if Elon Musk's involvement in the government is to blame. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why a Zillow competitor is up 70% today, and which companies are being added to the S&P 500.

All right, let's go. Well, guys, markets are coming off a tough week. Despite stocks having a nice bounce back on Friday, it was still the worst week for the stock market in six months. Last week, the S&P and NASDAQ dropped more than 3% because of the uncertainty around Trump's tariff policy. Trump constantly flip-flopped on his tariff policies against Canada, Mexico, in China, which caused a whiplash, and many people,

panic in the markets. Ultimately, some tariffs were paused, but there's still a lot of confusion, and there's supposed to be more tariffs going into effect starting April 2nd. Now, amongst all the chaos, Jerome Powell, of all people, tried to bring some calm and confidence back in the markets. On Friday, he said the economy is still in a good place, despite the uncertainty. Now, he did add that he and the Fed are waiting on greater clarity from Trump before making a decision on interest rates. So even Jerome Powell is trying to make sense of all of this. We're actually going to hear more from Jerome Powell next week during the Fed meeting, which is on March 19th. Right now, the markets don't expect the Fed to change interest rates.

The CME Fed watch tool is only pricing in a 3% chance of a rate cut. But the most interesting thing from the Fed meeting should be the press conference. Hopefully we'll get more color from Jerome Powell on what he thinks about the economic situation right now. People are starting to throw around the recession word already. In fact, Trump himself didn't rule out a potential recession. during an interview over the weekend? Are you expecting a recession this year? I hate to predict things like that.

There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America. That's a big thing. And there are always periods of, it takes a little time. It takes a little time. So yeah, I expect more chaos and volatility this week,

especially with a CPI inflation report dropping on Wednesday, morning. As always, we'll be covering this economic roller coaster every day here on the rundown, so make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines. Protest are breaking out against Elon Musk and Tesla facilities are the target. Since Donald Trump took office, more than a dozen violent or destructive acts have been directed at Tesla facilities, according to the Washington Post. That includes Tesla superchargers that were set on fire in Massachusetts earlier this month, and then a Tesla dealership in Oregon suffered $500,000 in damages

when a man launched a Molotov cocktail inside. And even this past weekend in New York City, protesters swarmed a Tesla showroom chanting their dissatisfaction with Elon Musk. It looks like these protesters are unhappy with Elon's involvement in the government. And now these protests are going global. On Sunday, dozens of protesters in Portugal gathered at a Tesla showroom to protest Musk's support

of far-right parties in Europe. And all of this has Tesla employees and investors worried about how Elon Musk's political involvement may hurt the Tesla brand, which is already under pressure from competitors in many key markets. I mean, Tesla's stock has been taking a beating. It's dropped every week since Trump's inauguration, losing more than 35% in the process.

Remember, Tesla stock saw a huge run-up after the election in November because investors thought that the bromance between Trump and Musk would be a major win for Tesla, but that doesn't seem to be the case so far. In fact, Tesla has given back all of its value that it gained from the post-election rally, and Elon has lost nearly $100 billion in net worth. So with all this going on, I wonder if Elon is going to take a step back from his Doge duties and go back to focusing on Tesla. We'll have to see.

I mean, the market is definitely sending a clear signal. Let's shift gears and talk about Novo Nordisk. The Alpharmat giant is facing some setbacks for their new weight loss, drug, Kagrisema. The drug, which is in clinical trials right now, missed expectations for total weight loss in recent trials. Kagrisema was supposed to help people lose 25% of their weight, but recent tests only showed a 15.7% decrease in weight for patients. An earlier test in December showed a weight loss of 22.7%. So that's not great for Novo Nortis since Kagrisema is supposed to be a more effective weight loss treatment than WeGovie. But right now, they're seeing

declining data. The company still plans to seek FDA approval this drug in 2026, but it looks like they have a lot of work to do. And the market wasn't so happy with this recent trial data. You know, they are expecting Kagrisema to be the dark night, but instead, right now, it looks like they're getting Batman and Robin. Hopefully some people got that reference. Shares of Novo Nordisk are down around 7% today on this news. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Redfin shares are skyrocketing this morning after the Zillow competitor agreed to a buyout offer from Rocket Companies. Rocket Company owns Rocket Mortgage, which provides financing for home purchases.

So it looks like Rocket Companies wants to get in front of more home buyers via Redfin. Rocket Companies is acquiring Redfin for $12.50 a share, valuing them at $1.75 billion. And because of that, shares of Redfin are up nearly 70% on this news. Redfin's currently training around $10 a share. The market is a little uncertain if this deal will go through all the way. Also, the markets didn't like this deal for rocket companies because their shares are down around 10% this morning. Another company in the red this morning is Nvidia.

Their stock continues to slide because of recession fears. Nvidia's shares are down around 3% this morning, and their stock overall is down 18% since the start of the year. Now, we haven't seen any actual signs of a slowdown in the demand for AI and AI-related chips. In fact, Broadcom reported strong earnings last week, thanks in large part to a strong demand for AI chips. And during Nvidia's earnings reports a couple weeks ago, they also provided an upbeat outlook, especially for Blackwell, which is their next generation AI chip. But the markets don't seem to be buying in, and Nvidia's stock continues to slide.

Nvidia has lost over a trillion dollars in market cap from their recent highs this year. Let's wrap the show with the fun fact. Four new companies are joining the S&P 500, DoorDash, T-K-O, William Sonoma, and Expand Energy. These companies will be replacing some relatively unknown companies in the index, such as Teleflex, Borgwarmer, Selenese, and FMC. Those companies are being kicked out. And, you know, this quarterly rebalancing of the S&P 500 index is a major reason why it's such a popular investment.

Because it's the most exclusive club in the world. Only 500 of the best companies in the U.S. are allowed in. And every quarter, the underperforming companies are kicked out and replaced with better companies. Usually between 20 to 25 constituents are changed every year in the S&P 500. So for everyone that owns an S&P 500 index fund, you're soon going to own a small piece of DoorDash, TKO, William Sonoma, and Expand Energy. By the way, similar to an All-Star team, there were some notable snubs, the most notable being Coinbase. Some people thought they were a lot to get into the S&P 500, but it didn't happen. Probably doesn't help that crypto hasn't had a great few weeks.

I wonder if that went into the decision. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. We should have another big week coming up. I don't know if this week is going to be as crazy as last week, but you never know. We do have a big report coming up, the February CPI report, which comes out Wednesday morning. That'll tell us how inflation is doing. So we'll be recapping that on Wednesday's show. And there are still a couple notable earnings left out there, like Oracle and Adobe.

They're all reporting this week. And again, who knows what news comes out of the White House. So we'll be covering all of it here on the rundown. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And 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. 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. 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.

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