Transcripts For CNBC Power 20240703

Rtx in the mix up 7 due in large part to a 10 billion Stock Buy Back Program overall. The former raytheon, of course, higher after those results now. We are going to hear from those ceos and get the traders take on some of those names, specifically those names coming up in our three stock lunch. Now, we are also looking ahead to some key results after the closing bell today. Namely, tech giants. Microsoft and alphabet, i guess technically its communications services. Still, though, you get the point. Two companies with immense influence on the overall market. And by the way, shares of trance union hit a sixyear low, right now on pace for its worst day ever. Trans union stock the company gets its guidance cut due to weakening macro environments saying lenders are tightening lending. Right now transunion shares lost roughly a quarter of their value just so far intraday today. That feels like a pertinent number for the markets. Trouble developing for meta. More than 40 attorney generals, meta designed its products to be addictive to younger users and misled the public about those dangers. With us now is attorney general for washington, d. C. Thank you for joining us. Welcome. Appreciate you having me. What does the success of this lawsuit hinge on . Well, the lawsuit that we filed in the d. C. Superior court here in washington, d. C. Alleges deceptive and unfair trade practices under our Consumer Protection act. We are seeking to hold meta accountable for engaging in deceptive and dangerous business practices. Putting out an addictive product designed to hook young people into spending more time on their screens and creating massive amounts of harm. Our lawsuit will seek monetary redress as well as injunctive relief to make sure that meta changes its practices that are otherwise causing great harm to residents here in the district of columbia and across the country. Meth ta would i dont know what they would say, but there are a number of social media apps, parents are concerned about, where they see these behaviors. Why not go after apple the iphone seems to be the portal to everything . Look, we have a tremendous amount of evidence and information thats been developed that shows that meta knowingly has designed its products in a way to maximize its ad revenue by addicting young teenagers on to its product. It wants to keep eyeballs on its platforms for longer periods of time. And it does that in a variety of addictive ways. And all of that is in furtherance of putting profits over people. And because we have the evidence to demonstrate that metha has done this we have filed lawsuits to hold meta accountable. Brian, its dom here. I wonder meta has said that it has taken steps, it has put remedies in place around i think they said 30 of them. Applicationtype adjustments or alterations that are there to help save guard against those things that you are suing over. In your mind, what exactly would be success on your front and the other attorneys general about this . What would meta have to do other than what they claim they have already done to protect younger adults and teenagers . Well, we know that meta for many, many years has known full well what type of averse impacts its social media platform, ads have had on young people and has exploited the addictive nature of those apps to generate additional profits. And so, part of what meta is going to have to do is going to have to compensate for the harms its behavior, its knowing behavior has created. More importantly, though, is the injunctive relief were seeking. We need meta to change the way its rolling out an addictive product to young people who are particularly susceptible, the teenage brain develops as it is particularly susceptible to addiction. And we hear time and time again that teenagers wish they could get off of their screens. They wish they could get off the social media platform. But like an addiction they cant. The algorithms are designed to keep them on for as long as possible. And when theyre off to lure them back as quickly as possible. And we need that type of behavior to change. Do you think a successful defense could be one that says, you know, yes, we designed our products for maximum engagement, but its ultimately up to the parents or to the individual to, you know, self regulate . I dont think thats going to be a successful defense. We have seen how dangerous addictive products in the course of our country have been ultimately regulated. And made sort of obsolete by virtue of the fact that lawsuits sometimes and regulation puts those dangerous products out of business or makes them much more difficult for people to use. And you can think about whether its juul and vaping or cigarettes. We know that addictive products by themselves hook people. And its not always about young people or their parents being able to keep them away from the addictive enticement of social media platforms. And if what would satisfy the harms done here . Could this be a financial settlement of some kind that is paid out for Mental Services and support and that kind of thing . Do you want changes to the product . Do you want differences in the age of people who can access it and how thats verified . What are the remedies youre seeking here . So, we are certainly seeking monetary remedies to redress the harms that have been caused, but most importantly, were seeking injunctive relief to cause meta to change its Business Model that preys upon young people through addictive technologies, and that can be through a variety of changes to the Business Model. Certainly needs to be better, clearer disclosure to consumers about the risk and harms that meta has known about. But there are also changes to what is essentially an unfair business practice of hooking teenagers, a very valuable market, on to their social media platforms simply to generate more longterm ad revenue. And before we let you go, there is a fine line competitively speaking. We know that the Chinese Communist party is dealing with the same kind of issues with their social media companies. Were dealing with similar issues here, but in the end, we have a Competitive Landscape to navigate as well. So how exactly then do you tow that line between Holding Firms accountable yet making sure that they maintain their Competitive Edge in a global marketplace especially in technology . Well, i believe that Great Companies can do well, can make money and employ lots of people without putting teenagers at risk. And successful Business Models do not depend upon preying and seizing upon the vulnerabilities of young people to addict them to your product. So, im confident that companies can remain competitive and follow the law and all companies that are taking advantage of consumers should be on notice that i, as the attorney general in the district of columbia, and a lot of my colleagues will keep an eye on them. Does that include, snap, tiktok . I dont want to divulge on going investigations, anyone who is relying on a Business Plan that causes people to be addicted and that doesnt fully disclose the risks associated with their product should be on notice that that type of behavior is not acceptable. So not ruling it out. Mr. Attorney general, brian shwab from washington, d. C. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. Appreciate your time meta said its committed to providing teens with safe, positive experiences online. Were disappointed instead of working productively to create clear, age appropriate standards for many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path. Check on bonds right now. Yields are holding relatively steady after yesterdays wild price action. The 10year note yield dropped topped 5 yesterday and but then pulled back sharply. Some attribute to a tweeted from bill ackman. Right now, the 10year note yield currently you can see here ticking slightly higher to 4. 85 or just shy of that level. So bond prices falling. The 2year note yield, remember, we just had an option around 1 00 p. M. Eastern today, ticking higher to 5. 09 . Again, lower prices. Higher yields. And we have a flood of strong earnings pushing stocks higher today as the treasury yield seemed to stabilize. Our next guest is blaming the uncertainly of effectiveness of fed policy and is finding opportunities in stocks. So, lets bring in david smith, chief Investment Officer with rockland trust. David, this has been a tough environment to navigate because so many investors on both the bond and the stock side feel like were in this no mans land that could go up or down dramatically. So how exactly do you find value in that kind of environment . Well, its challenging. Good afternoon, don. Its been very challenging to fis figure out the direction of the markets with the volatility and Interest Rate rise unprecedented in many respects. And the interesting shape of the yield curve and its the volatility of that shape over the last couple years has also been remarkable. So its a little challenging to see a pathway forward for either the stock or the bond market given all that change. If thats the case, there are certain places that you say are better positioned from a longerterm perspective and that would be worth kind of getting into, maybe legging into position by position what types of names go on that type of Shopping List . So rockland trust, were big investors in really high Quality Companies. One of the companies that sort of is focal point for us today is exxonmobil. The recent deal announcement cost the stock to fall back a little bit. We feel very constructive about the transaction and the outlook for oil prices over the coming quarters and years. We think the commodity is going to be in demand for a long time to come. This particular deal gives them real focus on one of the premier basins and we think its a fantastic deal. Really compelling. Cash flow is in the future and very attractive dividend yield at 3. 3 right now. We like that one a great deal. In addition to that we like a couple growthoriented companies. Highlighting visa today is a Great Company with a price earnings multiple looks a little rich on its core but compare to itself over history its actually reasonably compelling relative to its historical multiple. The other one is viva technologies. A company that creates software for the healthcare space. Full suite of products helping primarily in the drug and medical device discovery areas. Its a really interesting growth trajectory and a multiple thats high. Looks compelling relative to where its traded historically. Kind of out of favor at the moment. We like the potential of both of those last two companies to have multiple expansion and Solid Earnings growth. Go back to transunion, big drop in that stock as theyre talking about consumer weakness, correct me if im wrong, dom, labor market weakness as well. Absolutely, yep. David, if were heading into a more challenged macro environment, i could actually see the case for Growth Stocks in that kind of period. You have to go to where the growth is. But were also heading into one with high Interest Rates or at least higher than we had during the 2010s. Where else what other kinds of stocks do you think social landscape would favor . Well, i think you really have to focus on companies that are Quality Companies that generate cash flow at the end of the day to us thats the most important thing. It gives you the staying power to ride the volatility embedded in an environment like the one were in at the moment where its not really clear the pathway out. I say all the time to our clients, this had been one of the most forecasted recessions that never happened, at least hasnt happened so far. Its unclear the trajectory of the economy. A period like that you want to have a rock solid Balance Sheet. You have to have companies that understand the debt structure they have on the Balance Sheet that are not exposed to a nearterm refunding thats going to cause a lot of pain from their cash flows perspective. If you do that, you can ride through these challenging times and come out the other side in a really strong position. All right. David smith at rockland trust, thank you very much, sir. Well see you soon. Thank you for having me, dom. Coming up, oneway wall street. Analysts coffering some of the big names this week seem to be in step with each other, whether its collectively bullish or bearish. Its hard to find a contrarian but thats what were looking for this week. Anyone who is trading against the tide. We he e ea lta about snap next. Here in ts and all of our stuff where we want to go. But, our cars cant take us e with unpaid tolls. Vehicles with overdue, unpaid tolls may not be able to renew their registration until outstanding balances are paid. Payment assistance is available. Visit bayareafastrak. Org ase so go pay your unpaid tolls y and keep your wheels on the welcome back to power lunch. Its time now for our contrarian call of the day. And were taking a closer look at snap. The snapchat parent up about 3 ahead of its Third Quarter earnings which will be out in just a couple hours. Company was hit hard by declining ad budgets, lost 80 of its value in the past two years and hasnt seen the recovery witnessed at larger peers like, yes, meta this year. The street not too optimistic about its performance either 24 analysts rated a hold, 5 a cell and just 3 a buy, according to fact set. Our next guest is among the few bullish on the stock. He sees 40 upside from here. Rob sanderson, senior internet analyst at luke Capital Markets. Rob, welcome. Hi, thanks for having me. I always kind of chuckle a little calling bulls contrarian because were so used to its harder to find people bearish on these stocks. Not in the case of snap. They lost struggles. Theyve been underperforming in terms of ad monetization. Much of this has to do with changes that theyve been forced to make through their Advertising Technology stack in response to the user tracking changes that apple implemented late last year. They really struggled to get back on track here. Its been quite disappointing. Management offered very bullish outlook before we hit started entering this period of elevated inflation and that proved to be, you know, really misguided and credibility is an issue. So theres a lot of reasons why people are skeptical about where the companys position is. Yeah. And thats where we lie with the stock. Youre not among them or maybe you are but see more value here. You have a 14 price target. We were just speaking to the attorney general of washington, d. C. , i dont know if you caught that, about how theyre going after meta for addictive apps for children now. I asked if snap would be next and he didnt rule out the possibility. Yeah. I know its something we spent a lot of time digging into behind the top line, headlines on that issue. Its not something i can offer much of an opinion on unfortunately. Always something to watch. Regulators have a responsibility to keep people safe and something that should be expected with the entire space. Is this rob, its dom here. Rob, is this a situation where snap is the in your opinion, the best one to capitalize on this . You mentioned kind of the macro trends. I remember earlier this week analysts had upgraded pinterest to a buy from a kind of hold rating. One of the things they cited was this better macro environment for digital advertising. So, is it just that snap is going to be better positioned from a valuation perspective or from an execution one or a little bit of both . Its more of a turn around, dom. So theyve been like i said, struggling for some time. But in you look at social media networks, the life blood, the thing that really keeps them going is user engagement. And user growth. At snap, these appear to be very solid. In the recent internal letter they offered for employees and the company understands that these things are going to get into the public domain, you know, they offered pretty robust outlook for user growth. We have to infer from that that trends continue. Now, the Advertising Technology is something that can be fixed. You can improve monetization. It might take a little longer than investors are hoping for. But its a lot more difficult to turn around engagement. Thats the life blood. Thats what that keeps us interested in the stock and thats really whats going to lead a turn around is building off a base of highly engaged users and proving monetization and improving technology stack. So thats what you would be listening for as they report, rob . What would be kind of the entry point obviously sounds like maybe now is that one, but also the fundamentals that would make you feel confident in this buy rating . Yeah. Its got to turn into accelerated revenue growth. It doesnt sound like the near term is all that robust to be honest. So, it sounds like theyre still having some issues. Theyre maybe making some progress, but its not as quickly as some may have hoped at the beginning of the year. There are some grade shoots under. How have they been responding on direct response. Thats the core issue. There are other interesting components. The subscription service, snapchat plus, they reportedly passed 5 million users in september. This is incremental to adver advertising revenue. Their ai service is interesting implementation of genai. Users seem to like it. Engagement is growing on that product. Also their leadership in augmented reality, theyve been very far ahead of the industry. Its sort of the problem because advertisers dont get the reach or scale in that ad medium on just snapchat alone. Now both meta and apple seem to be making more of a focus on ar as ahead of their longerterm ambitions in vr. A lot of things seem to be coming together in the longer term perspective, maybe this isnt the quarter where it becomes more clearer, more obvious. But it feels like a number of items are building and progress is moving in the right direction. Rob, a single ding it stock price like snap lends you to think there might be way more upside there. But you mentioned size and scale. When i think size and scale in Digital Commerce and marketing, theres one name that pops into my mind and thats alphabet and google. Theyre due to report their results. What are the thoughts there . Are they going to be the bell weather for this entire tail wind that could be there for social media . Yeah. Combine that with the report from meta tomorrow and those are obviously the one and two in the advertising internet advertising space. I think it sounds like Google Search is solid once again this quarter. Youtube sounds actually very strong this quarter. A lot of that is related to the nfl. But google is likely to report a pretty decent advertising revenue quarter to kick us off. So thats what were looking forward to google tonight. Meta similar tomorrow. I think meta is probably a little better than google even. And, yeah, should be a good start to the earnings season from the internet advertising stall warts here. When we initiated this morning. This is a very interesting longterm story. Theres a great need i think for an intermediary in this advertising sector. We talked about google and meta and amazon and you can throw tiktok or a few other massive platforms in there. They take about 85 of the revenue from the internet advertising sector. But only Something Like a third of the total time spent. So, it really serves that remaining sort of quadrant or two thirds, more than a qu quadrant. I think theres a great need for this. Its sort of like data targeting and ai to those that dont have the spending capacity of the googles and the amazons and metas of the world. I think its a very intriguing story. The top pick. Rob, thanks so much for all your time today. We appreciate it. Thank you. Rob sanderson. Every time i think trade desk i think of Capital Markets but its digital advertising. I think of architects. Coming up on the show, california is suspending permits for some driverless robo taxis. We have details in tech check coming up when you come back after this break. Exciting music. [mud splat. ] [bird squawk. ] and thats why i never drive those guys. The partys over big guy were tired of hearing i dont wanna get my truck dirty. with weathertech lasermeasured floorliners front and rear. A seat protector. And full bed protection. Trucks are totally covered. You just got weatherteched. Yeah, buddy. Lets get dirty. [bikes in mud. ] drive worry free with these American Made products at weathertech. Com. Ah, these bills are crazy. She has no idea shes sitting on a goldmine. Well she doesnt know that if she owns a Life Insurance policy of 100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. Even a term policy. Even a term policy . Even a term policy find out if youre sitting on a goldmine. Call Coventry Direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect. Com. Welcome back to the show. As you can see there, oil is down another 2 today. Down 8 just so far this month in october. Pippa stevens is here with more on that price action. And kelly and i were talking about this, we thought that crude oil had a ph. D. In Global Economics like copper did back in the day. But is that the case . Are we telling a story in crude oil prices right now . Well, it feels like the war risk premium has certainly evaporated from the story. It is about 2 higher since october 7th. But as we discussed neither israel or gaza is a major oil producer. Traders are now saying unless this extends to the broader middle east, its really not going to have any sort of disruption on production. Also today, we got weak data out of the eurozone and china is looking better but you do have to look under the hood because their property sector is still a little under pressure and also just because china is looking better doesnt necessarily mean were going to see a huge jump in imports. When prices were lower they imported a lot so they can now, two movers the highlight today. The first being hall burton, they reported earnings. They are under pressure with slightly missing results on the top line. But, the ceo was, of course, asked what the exxon chevron deal means for his business. The thought being if theres more consolidation there are fewer parties for him to work with. And so thats not good. However, he said that he ultimately thinks its better and will bring stability to the north american market. It also highlights the importance of fossil fuels. Then, next era energy partners, both of those are up today as well. Of course, these have been massive underber formers but are surging after earnings. They pointed to strong deal origination meaning they can still bill these projects even if rates are high. Still both sharply lower this month. Its been a really rough match for them. Even more rate relief than we have seen so far. Pippa, thanks. Lets get to Bertha Coombs for a cnbc news update. The u. N. Secretary general is getting criticism from israel this afternoon after he said during todays u. N. Security Council Meeting that the hamas terror attack in israel did not happen in a vacuum. Israels foreign minister cancelled the meeting with Antonio Gutierrez roughly an hour after the comments saying theres no place for a balanced approach in this conflict. And a group formed to represent the hostages and missing people from the attack called his statements outrageous. Donald trumps former Attorney Michael Cohen has taken the the stand in trumps 250 million civil fraud trial in manhattan. Cohen accused the former president of arbitrarily setting his net worth numbers and said he left it up to cohen and the former cfo of the Trump Organization to make the numbers work. The off duty Alaska Airlines pilot accused of trying to cut the engines on a jet mid flight may have been taking psychedelic mushrooms for the first time. According to a new federal court filing. In addition to state charges that include 83 counts of attempted murder, Joseph Emerson now faces a federal court charge of interference with the flight crew. Kelly . I think this makes the case for keeping two pilots in the cockpit. I think theyre talking about going to one. Maybe not. Maybe not. No. No. Berthat, thank you. We appreciate it. Ceos are sndg f daouinoftoy on krcnbc. Were back after this. when the day that lies ahead of me seems impossible to face a lovely day lovely day lovely day lovely day a bank that knows your business grows your business. Bmo. This thing, its making me get an ice bath again. What do you mean . These straps are mindblowing they collect hundreds of data points like hrv and rem sleep, so you know all you need for recovery. And you are . Im an investor. In invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to. Nasdaq 100 innovations like. Wearable training optimization tech. Uh, how long are you. Im done. Im okay. This is Spring Semester at over 13,000 us school districts, which have become top targets for Ransomware Attacks. But theres never been a reported Ransomware Attack on a chromebook. Which is why thousands of schools like the fairfieldsuisun Unified School District switched to google tools for education. So they can focus on teaching and 22,000 students can focus on learning, knowing that their data is secure. nice footwork. Knoman, youre lucky,ta watching live sports never used to be this easy. Now you can stream all your games like its nothing. Yes [ cheers ] yeah woho running up and down that field looks tough. Its a pitch. Get way more into what youre into when you stream on the xfinity 10g network. Welcome back. Time for todays three stock lunch. Were looking at some of the movers of the day. All reporting earnings before the opening bell and what the ceos had to say on the record on our air. First up, you have rtx, the Company Formerly known as rait onor united technologies. After posting a quarterly beat and announcing a 10 billion stock buyback program, that stock is up 7 . So here is what rtx Ceo Greg Hayes said earlier about what the current state of the world means for his company. The geopolitical landscape is as muddled as i can remember in the last 30 years. The fact is there is Unprecedented Demand for ammunitions and for defense spending just generally speaking. We have seen that already in our business as we ended the quarter with a backlog in our defense business of about 75 billion. And we know theres more to come. So here with the trade is sylvia, the ceo and chief Investment Officer of defiance etfs. So sylvia, whats the take on rtx . Hi, dom. Great to see you. Well, rtx i think is positioned to be a buy. Very much interested in this stock. I just think theres sort of a tail wind here because a lot of the geopolitical issues that were seeing you heard the crow unprecedented, historical demand because of israel, hamas, russia, ukraine and the company is poised to compete there. Its very much a value play. They beat on earnings. Came in about 3 higher than expected, 19 billion of revenue. And arrow defense business grew to 903 million. Between the space missiles, the spacecrafts and the avionics, i think the company is poised to do well in the coming companies for unfortunate reasons. Theres a link that some people make for rtx with somebody like boeing that the aerospace and the defense side could be big drivers of their business. But in defense, is there another alternative or do we think that rtx is the one that out performs . Yeah. I think that rtx in terps of potential Price Movement can outperform. Theres a projected annual growth rate of 13 there. Of course you have all the Major Players in the space. You have lockheed and boeing. They will be the top five performers in this space here. Lets move on to cocacola, sylvia, higher after it beat street estimates on the top and bottom line and hiked its full year outlook. We heard a lot of speculation about the popularity of weight loss drugs curbing demand for food companies. We in particular have been on a journey for those people who want to consume less calories to provide, you know, zero calorie drinks, to have innovation, take down the calories and other drinks and to have smaller package sizes. So we think in the environment where people are looking to consume less calories we can absolutely we have the portfolio that will fit for that. Thats the sort of environment. And in the end, if you want to consume less calories, you can eat less food. We believe we can provide the low calory options for those people looking for that. So we dont see at this stage, a structural issue of any large scale food and beverage industry. I dont know if you want to wade into the weight loss debate itself, sylvia, but would you buy the shares here . Yeah. The weight loss debate you only want to drink and eat is what i took from that. But, yeah, i would buy the shares. I think you can hold coke forever. The ceo does make a great point, they have had growth in coke zero and growth in sparkling waters and teas and other nonhigh calorie caffeinated beverages. The company is poised to do quite well. They pay out a nice dividend, forward yield is 3. 4 on this. Theyre kind of your steady, eddy, staple cash flow quality name. Its kind of a longterm hold. I dont think theres anything wrong with holding this in a portfolio. Maybe you get single digit growth on the equity side, another 3 on a dividend. Thats a pretty sound trade in my opinion. Lets move on to shares of 3m, up about 5 after that earnings beat and after raising their fullyear profit, forecasts saying efforts to improve performance and control costs are working. 3m ceo mike roman was talking about the recent legal settlements they reached earlier on squawk on the street. Two settlements we announced public water supplier settlement we announced in the Second Quarter and the combat arm settlement we announced in the Third Quarter, theyre important agreements to move forward. Were working with and aligned with all the parties and the courts to complete and finalize both of those agreements. Those are very important. Thats been a big thesis for many bulls and bears with 3m, sylvia. The legal hurdles, whether or not those risks are kind of done and dusted. The spinoffs and everything else. The corporate restructurings. Is 3m now well positioned Going Forward . Well, so i think they had a great quarter. This Earnings Call was a good one. They beat by 33 cents on eps and beat by about 280 million on the revenue side. They have more operating cash flow. They have done a great job cutting costs. You know, that kind of growth isnt coming organically necessarily. It is cut from cutting costs and some efficiencies there. I like that theyre going to hitch their wagon on to the a ix train. Theyre talking about investing in higher margin businesses like electrification of driving, industrial digitalization, things like this. Thats a growing business. But, the two reasons that im sort of going to just watch this stock for the next two quarters is because of these lawsuits, right . They have about 6 billion in cash, 1 billion in stock to pay off on the ear plugs lawsuit and another right after right before that, the 10 billion theyre paying for forever chemicals to the public water company. The investment in ai has to come to see the growth in revenue there. I dont know that theyre going to pay out that dividend that theyre promising. This is very much a wait and see. Im not sour on the stock. It was a great quarter for them, but its a wait and see before im going to jump in. Sylvia, before we let you go, those are three stockspecific very corporate headlinedriven stories. I wonder from an etf managers perspective, weve asked some of our other guests, is this a good place to be in the market right now . Do you see flows to some of your etfs that indicate more bullishness or general bearishness . How exactly is the fun flow shaping up for you . I think that there are enough investors on the sideline that were happy with their 5 and theyre starting to see that the fed is becoming a little more dovish, potentially we get some rate cuts next year. Perhaps they stay a little higher for longer, but it is going to go the other way. Theres a lot of political turmoil, uncertainty in the economy. And i think, you know, you think back to october, everybody ran for the hills, left the market. Then you got 20, 30 nasdaq rally. Lost a good amount of that. So we actually see a good amount of flows coming into the qqqi, the nasdaq centric techtype trade on our side, but just in general, you know, i think you were showing trade flows over the last two shows or so. You kind of see a lot of investors coming back into etfs. That fomo is real andthis is a good entry point when you have these 5 to 10 corrections on some of the big names that investors like. Thank you very much, sylvia. We appreciate it. Kelly, we havent talked about fomo in a long time. No, we havent. Have it in bitcoin today. Still ahead, following the money trail. The First Sustainable Battery Recycling facility in the u. S. Is set to open thanks to hundreds of millions of federal infrastructure funds. Well get y kedetails when power lunch returns. Theres challenges, and i love overcoming challenges. When better money habits® content first started coming out, it expanded what i could do for Special Olympics athletes with developmental needs. Thousands of bank of america employees like scott spend countless hours volunteering to teach people how to reach their financial goals. It felt good. It felt like i could take on the whole world. Welcome back. A startup is turning 480 million in federal funding into the nations firstsustainable Battery Recycling plant. Its under way in kentucky. And diana ol egg is there to bring us the details. Reporter thats right. Going up behind me is nearly 1 million square feet of production facilities to recycle ev Battery Materials. Ultimately enough to power 750,000 batteries per year. Deep in Kentucky Farm country, a Green Economy is taking route. Ev Battery Recycling Company Ascend elements is investing about 1 billion building a half million square foot manufacturing plant, north americas First Sustainable battery production facility. Its urban mining in effect that were collecting batteries from the field, bringing them back in and making new Battery Materials out of them. Reporter construction started sooner than expected. When ascend received two grants totaling 480 million from the bipartisan infrastructure law. The facility will employ up to 400 people and, according to ascend, generate up to 4. 4 billion in Economic Impact to kentucky over the construction period and the first ten years. The fact that we are getting a certain amount of Government Support in building a facility like this, is really also helped cat lyse some of the investors, the private money that is coming in. Reporter last month ascend announced it raised 542 million of new funding, one of the largest u. S. Clean tech private equity raises this year. It was led by decarbon anization partners. Make no mistake, these are heavy lifts. And to finance Companies Like Ascend Elements is going to take all kinds of capital. Reporter now in addition to infrastructure funding, there is also money in the inflation reduction act. The ira that is a tax credit to automakers who use recycled batteries if theyre made in the u. S. So, guys, this is what you call technically a government funding double whammy. Big deal for automakers who want to qualify for subsidies and big deal for the surrounding area, isnt it . Reporter yeah, absolutely. I spoke with the area chamber of commerce and called this, quote, a game changer. He said not just the jobs coming in but the upgrade to area roads and utilities, childcare, et cetera. So its really going to change this whole area. I also wanted to mention that we profiled Ascend Elements in our clean start series right here on power lunch a year and a half ago. Back then it was a 95 million company. Now over a billion. It is our first clean start unicorn, kelly. Wow. Diana, thank you so much. We appreciate you bringing that to us. Diana olick. Coming up on the show, golden gate keeping. Californias dmv suspends permits for cruises, driverless li. O taxis a ve report when power lunch returns after this. Power e trades awardwinning trading app makes trading easier. With its customizable options chain, easytouse tools and paper trading to help sharpen your skills, you can stay on top of the market from wherever you are. E trade from morgan stanley. Power e trades easytouse tools make complex trading less complicated. Custom scans help you find new trading opportunities, while an earnings tool helps you plan your trades and stay on top of the market. E trade from morgan stanley. sfx stone wheel crafting the biggest ideas inspire new ones. 30 years ago, state street created an etf that inspired the world to invest differently. It still does. What can you do with spy . There is a Major Development just crossing in the last hour or so in the battle over Driverless Cars in San Francisco. And, of course, deirdre bosa has that story for todays edition of tech check. This was the holy grail for me. If they could get this down, i could go to bed in new york and wake up in washington, d. C. In my own car, but it is not going to happen anytime soon in california. Yeah, the companies will certainly tell you that there is major safety implications, this is the next technological breakthrough. But were still a ways from there. Todays major setback for cruise. The notice from the dmv says the vehicles arent safe for public operation and that cruise had misrepresented information relating to safety. And in a statement on x form areallare formerly known as twitter, cruise says it shared information with several regulatory agencies and will continue to cooperate. But this is a huge blow to cruise, which is owned by general motors. The San Francisco streets are key testing ground for Driverless Cars, but cruise vehicles have been sflofld a nu involved in a number of incidents that turned the Fire Department against them and led to more cars from Public Officials to suspend the program. Cruise is also trying to catch up with googleowned waymo in the space. The other leading player in the race to develop Autonomous Vehicle technology. Both are expanding to more cities and the suspension from californias dmv, that could have implications for cruises pilot programs elsewhere, widening the gap with waymo even further. We have been working on a larger piece about this topic here in San Francisco with our digital team. I recently rode in a driverless cruise and waymo robo taxi. Here is some footage. It didnt know what to do when another car was trying to back into a sparking spot. Youre seeing the driver got out of his car, very agitated, he spat on the vehicle and then kicked it, the steering wheel, it moved but the car didnt go anywhere. This was i got to say, an incredibly stressful situation that made me as the rider feel like this wasnt really ready for primetime. Im just one rider and this program has been in operation for a few months now. But by contrast, i also rode in a selfdriving waymo robo taxi, a lot smoother and far less eventful and that program is still on here in San Francisco. Deirdre, what exactly is it going to take, california, arizona are arguably more at the forefront of this autonomous driver revolution. What is it going to take for these companies to demonstrate for regulators that these cars can actually be used in road worthy situations . I think put simply, it is going to take many more miles. Thats the only way that this technology improves. Thats what the Autonomous Vehicle companies will tell you is that they need to be able to test on the streets without a safety driver in real life situations in order to improve. But there is drawbacks to that as well. Some of the Public Safety agencies like the Fire Department says that we dont really want you to use our streets as a testing ground, especially after all these incidents that have come up. You had vehicles in the way of ambulances, of fire trucks, in the way of crime scenes, so the technology at least some people say is not there yet, not ready for primetime. And thats essentially what the dmv is saying now. It is a catch22. If they cant test on the streets, they cant get better. Ill say this is just here in San Francisco. As you said, theyre testing in other places like arizona, theyre looking to the streets of miami, l. A. , to do more of this. So if they can continue to test there. But certainly a setback. Deirdre bosa with the latest update on Driverless Cars. Thank you very much. Kelly, i would love to be able to, like i said, get into my car at 8 00 p. M. At night, fall asleep, wake up in pinehurst, north carolina, make a 9 00 tee time, and then get back in my car the next evening and wake up at home. No tweets from kyle from cruise, the most vocal proponent of his technology and the whole industrys. A setback for them. Coming up, dropping on a dime. Thieves trying to rob a u. S. Mint taking off with thousands of dollars but left behind tons of spare change. Well bring you the tas d deilan much more when power lunch returns. Trading at schwab is now powered by ameritrade, unlocking the power of thinkorswim, the awardwinning trading platforms. Bring your trades into focus on thinkorswim desktop with robust charting and analysis tools, including over 400 technical studies. Tailor the platforms to your unique needs with nearly endless customization. And track Market Trends with uptotheminute news and insights. Trade brilliantly with schwab. birds chirping go. And go and go and go. but what if you. Stop . You work hard, its time for a bank thatll work hard for you. Everbank brings security and a guarantee that youll earn a yield in the top 5 of competitive accounts. Going, thats what got you where you want to be. Were the partners for your next move. Everbank. Advantage, you. Is it possible to fall in love with your home. Before you even step inside . Discover the Magnolia Home james hardie collection. Available now in siding colors, styles and textures. Curated by joanna gaines. Welcome back. Two minutes left. Lets hit several more stories to know about. Bitcoin hit 35,000 today for the First Time Since last may. Shocking upward climb, up more than 100 so far this year, could be bitcoin etf hopes. It could be tom emmer who is seen as crypto supportive if he becomes house speaker. Well see. Thats a big if. Stocks in the crypto universe like coinbase seeing huge gains this week. Not just that. If you look at the way bitcoin has traded, there has been this case to be made it is trading on technicals. The chart patterns, the historical way it has done in the past. All of a sudden youre interjecting what might be fundamental catalysts, right . Regulatory type situations, legal situations, flows into mutual funds and that sort of thing. Something to keep an eye on. Absolutely. All right, auto loan defaults have risen to the highest level in 29 years as Interest Rates and borrowing costs priced Many Americans out of the market. This is a big deal. Could it be the canary in the coal mine . It is experiencing some of these the Companies Facing this segment of the market are crying uncle. The real question is how does this spread, to what degree . And at what point do the costs per car go lower because of the used car prices down 18 from the highs. A new survey from resume builder finds a third of gen z made career decisions from tiktok and 88 say those decisions made a positive impact on their life. I get this. Makes sense. I dont do career advice on tiktok or instagram. I would rather learn how to clean my kitchen with safe materials. Four men charged in the theft of 2 million dimes from the u. S. Mint in philadelphia earlier this year, if youre keeping score, thats 234,000 worth of dimes, that weighs two tons and didnt even get it all. The dimes were strewn across the parking lot. Heavy take for sure. All right, guys, thanks for watching power lunch. In quarters. Closing bell starts now. Welcome to closing bell. Im santoli. This make or break hour begins, the stocks finding some traction after five straight losing sessions with Old Industrial economy stocks bouncing on decent results. Ankur crawford owns a number of those names. Shell join us with her take coming up. Bond yields are steady. We had that ten year click up yesterday. No further real declines i