Day. Its been up closer to two thirds on 1 ago led by ai chip leaders brought, and nvidia, the ai winners and consumer and financial names celebrating the j Paul Press Conference yesterday. Potential soft laughing landing. Index will be higher still if not for the drag from apple. That takes us to our top take. Antitrust threat to apple, the real thing. How might you change the equation more broadly . It protects market leadership at our tech correspondent stephen apple shareholder are here to stop that. Lets turn to steve for the details of the case and, steve, its a broad one. Thats why we are seeing the reaction to shares that we are seeing today because, look, this covers just about everything apple makes. Talk about imessage, sera, apple tv plus, the advertising business on and on and on, they make a case, the deal date does that just about everything apple does is designed to keep people locked into the ecosystem and upgrading their iphones and hindering competition whether that is from other apps or with competing services or other hardware like accessories for the iphone that can include bluetooth, headphones or other smart watches that arent the apple watch. Huge, broad case. Apple is denying all of the allegations and saying so much of the behavior that is described in this lawsuit is mostly done to keep, you know, the product is pristine as it can be. To keep users safe and secure, protect privacy, all of those arguments that they keep talking about. At the same time, there is evidence mentioned in here and im sure we will get more whenever this eventually comes to trial that shows, you know, that apple privately, executives among themselves, were making these decisions in order to keep people locked into the ecosystem. Imessage is a perfect example. Theres an apple executive quoted in an email from years ago talking about how they do not want to put imessage on android, for example, because i would encourage people to just switch to a cheaper android phone. All of this to say they have to prove consumer harm in some way or harm against the app developers. That is the barrier here. Apple will fight it until the very end. Steve, how does the dispute with epic games about the app store and the terms under which you were able to have an app in the app store and where the payments flowed through and all of the rest of it, how does that bear on some of the allegations . Yes, that s something apple points to. That case against epic games, the Supreme Court denied hearing it. Apple largely won the case. Theres one minor count the got ruled against them. At the same time, they are saying, look, this already went through the courts and decided that our model is okay. Its not an antitrust thing. However, google, with a similar case against epic and that was a jury trial and not a court trial and google lost that. Theres also that side of the equation too. Its just going to be really interesting to see how they argue against the court and what further evidence we will see that the doj has that backs up these allegations of competitive behavior. Interesting. A little complicated. You know, sometimes the market shrugs off these things even if it is an actual lawsuit from the Justice Department. In this case, 4 decline, you know, i would read a couple of things into this. One, a little bit of fragile psychology around apple in the first place in terms of exactly how much they have during the right spot with ai but also the Services Business is, obviously, 25 of revenue but more than that in the evaluation, most likely, because its a higher multiple piece. Its broken momentum. We know that. The momentum that apple has been broken for the better part of 2024. Its below the critical moving averages and in and on way this news presents an opportunity for you to find if there is really going to be technical strength in the 165, 168 area, 168 is somewhere around there. 165 sixmonth low and go back one year its 155 as well. We will test those support levels for sure as long as we have nvidia and the ability for nvidia and metato offset the weakness that we have seen in tesla and apple. Ultimately we are going to be okay. If youre an investor and your hearing the news and youre saying okay, im going to move away from apple shares just on the merit of this lawsuit you are making a tremendous mistake. If youre making a big mistake because, understand, alpha and alphabet are going to be the continued target from regulatory bodies. You will continue to hear about a 1 billion fine that is paid or a 2 billion find that is paid and at the end of the day, the ability for these regulatory bodies to prove that the Consumer Experience is not a good one for Consumer Base that continues to grow to be able to prove that from a pricing standpoint that apples competitors are not raising prices as well, that there hasnt been an impact from supply Chain Disruption or inflationary pressures and to believe that they can take the apple product and make it something different, skinny it down so my hockey tickets, my baseball tickets, my car reservation, my membership, all of that is no longer aggregated in the apple wallet. Its in an individual app. I think it is completely false. What about, joe, there could be business practice changes. Who knows if that will be the case but, you know, if they either take a lower share of App Store Revenue or, if they permit the direct charging of internet purchases, things like, in other words, maybe that will move the needle very much but it raises the question why are we doing it this way in the first place. Apple is prepared for that. Theyve indicated a willingness. Theyve done that in the case of the eu already. There has been a willingness on the part of apple to be accommodated from that standpoint. Back towards messaging and the thirdparty messaging app, what sap is what it is today because of the iphone. So, i think apple will be more than willing. Again, look, if youre selling the shares today based on the merit of these regulatory bodies who, quite candidly, cannot keep pace with the technological innovation of these companies, you are making a mistake if you are telling me or selling because of the broken momentum. I can understand that. Steve, is there anything in the litany of allegations that maybe was surprising. Weve known this type of thing has been hovering over apple for a while. In fact, apple was conspicuous as one of the Big Tech Companies that didnt have a formal case here but is there any piece of this it seemed like, you know, we were quite prepared for . Yes, theres a big focus in the lawsuit about what they call super apps. If youre familiar with we checked, very popular in china, Still Available here. This is an idea of a nap that has many apps within it. For example, we chat lets you book a car and make payments and do other stuff. Basically, the allegations here are saying apple does not allow these apps when they do. That was an interesting thing. I will also note thatwe have got to talk about ai of it all because this is happening at the cusp of apple about to announce whatever ai product it has. We are the very early stage of what ai is. This lawsuit is all about the technology of today that may not even be around that much longer. The app store and all of these things we are talking about may not matter as much as ai comes more into play. The question then becomes and this is something im going to be watching, i feel like a lot of people will be watching, as apple works through this process and spends time and money and effort finding this case and finding the doj, do they miss out on developing ai and fall further behind or at least how they are perceived behind. We saw with microsoft, microsoft largely blames its struggles 20 years ago with missing the mobile revolution. Something to watch out for s does this make apple miss the ai revolution . Is interesting. By the time the Microsoft Case was resolved the browser wars were over. Google was around. So, yes. Good point, steve. Appreciate the color. Thank you. Lets bring in lauren of new york life investments. Lets talk about this market and what we did or did not learn yesterday, how it bears on the prospects for soft landing and, you know, whether it is supportive of risk market still. One thing is for sure, if you take what the feds showed us yesterday at face value, the growth is going to improve, inflation will be much worse, and unemployment isnt going anywhere, and we will still get three rate cuts this year, there is nothing not to like. That is risk assets all day. To be honest with you, i expect this rally can continue until the other shoe drops. What i expect the other shoe will be out of this whole fed dynamic is that the reason the fed can continue with its plan to cut rates even as inflation stays sticky is because we are starting to see cracks in the labor market. If that is not the case, then this balance doesnt work. If it is the case, then we are starting to see growth slow. Something is to give but its not giving right now. Until we see unemployment claim start to climb i think it is a full signal. Explicitly said a stronger job market would not be an impediment to rates. Seems like they are determined to trim a bit off of the top f whatever fed funds rate is right now, about 5 . Unless something really conspicuous shows up in the way of them elation. I think the fed is very, very interested in cutting rates. Theres a clear reason for that. That is how they keep financial conditions, market financial conditions loose enough to move this economy through at least the rest of the year, right . That is the closest that they get to an immaculate, soft landing. What i am seeing in the data though is that we are already seeing cracks in the labor market. Nothing existential so far but we are seeing hours worked come down. Small business hiring intentions come in. Temporary work comes in. These are signals that strong wage growth is eating at Profit Margins and typically the last domino to fall before we see broader layoffs. I think the fed is sees that and thats why they feel comfortable moving forward with this plan. The Kansas City Fed has its own labor Market Indicator that has rolled over conspicuously, i would have to say. Not a lot of mention of that if any yesterday in the meeting. Joe,market got a little bit of oomph at the open and rallied after the press conference yesterday or during it. You know, you had the maybe we will slow down the quantitative tightening soon but i guess we are starting from a high base here. This rally is already, you know, gone up 10 on the s p year to date and maybe it is not as if you had a real springboard effect going into today. Yes, i do you look at today and you dismiss the price action because it is largely attributable to what we witnessed with apple today. A very positive reaction, in my opinion. I agree with what lauren is saying. In addition to what chairman powell did he also addressed the potential liquidity concerns surrounding the reverse repo program winding down. He got ahead of that. I think the market like that. He is, obviously, in his words, consistent with other global banks, which natural banks, cutting rates, bank of england, ecb, canada, australia already to follow suit. The market today is performing well. We havent trend environment. The range is slightly below 13 to slightly above 17. Thats telling you something about the marketplace overall. Guess what . Financials are about to be the leading sector in terms of s p Sector Performance here today. Right behind it, energy, industrials, performing really well. So, technology is only the fifth best performing sector of the s p 11 sector. So, this is positive. I think this is as optimal a Asset Allocation environment for investors as i could remember. There is so many different places that you can go beyond the mag seven and back to apple for second, it reintroduces the conversation about s p equal weight and i think thats great. Lauren, so, for fresh money right now, a lot of options and a lot of things moving in a positive direction. Yorty have credit spreads tight, you have some broadening of the market but if youre concerned that there are cracks does that mean a rotation make sense . I wonder where you feel as if you have established your hierarchy of better places to be here. Absolutely right. We are seeing an important broadening and all your we have seen a broadening and marketing activity. For investors i can be tactical, it makes sense to take advantage of the uptake we have seen in value in small gaps in the cyclical environment. I mentioned that i am concerned that the second we see unemployment start to rise that you are in a riskier environment. The type of balance we are drawing in a multiAsset Allocation is incremental money and take your equity like risks in high yield. Spreads are certainly going to widen as economic risk rise but you have an interesting carry there. I expect that if the fed is likely to cut, we think june, july, the fact of the matter is, now is the time to be moving from cash into short duration credit assets and because we dont love Duration Risk with a curve we like to balance that short duration credit with longduration municipals taking advantage of a structure infrastructure. Like joe said, theres so many interesting opportunities and a balance that investors can bring because you can get carry and yield and a fixed income. Sure. They can do its job within a portfolio periods yes. By the way, i dont want he rate cut. It will teach us this, is the best return period for the s p 500 . Go back to 95, the period from february to july, the market gave you 19 . Back to june of 06 through september of 07 you have 22 . Now look at december of 18 through the middle, i think it was august of 2019. 19 . 15 so far. A little bit more to come. Its interesting because ive had a few people say to me the minute the fed actually cuts rates, that might be the Inflection Point where you get market. That seems both plausible and a little too cute because 95 we kept barreling higher after the first. Thats a best case scenario, as i keep saying. Thank you very much. In the meantime, check out shares of red appeared stock making its market debut today. Julie is at the post with all the details. Hey, julia. Im here the post. The stock is trading up at 50 a share. It did briefly dip below its opening trading price of 47. Right now its a 47 from its price of 34 a share. The volume here is incredibly high. Nearly 41 billion shares have traded. Thats on an offering size of 22 million shares. Nearly double. Incredible volume here. I spoke to reddit market maker glenn carol. He said this is a picture perfect opening for an ipo with a ton of investor interest. Research just issued the first price target that we have seen on the stock at 54 saying that that does include a 5 discount due to overhang from the ftc inquiry into its data licensing practices. It believes reddit should trade at a premium to stall a midcap. Due to its higher use, user growth rate and emerging opportunity to license data. Now, reddit ceo steve has been telling me about the trading this afternoon that he feels immense gratitude and comical, while we celebrate today its just today and tomorrow we get back to work. Shares are now just ver 49 a share. Back over to you. Yes, the pricing conservative at 34 seems to have paid off at this point. Thank you. Send it over to rogers for a look at some other big names moving in. Hey there. Shares of papa johns lowered today as the ceo is set to take over the chief executive role at shake shack in may. Lynch took over papa johns and mentioned john there. During his tenure the company beginning in 2019, shares were 55 of the stock today having its worst day since may of 2023. Shares of darden also lowered today after the Company Reported earnings and the ceo noted that spending from consumers who earn under 75,000 and 50,000 annually fell versus ear earlier as customers behaviors continue to shift. Darden is down 7 having its worst day since may of 2022. My . Thank you. We are just getting started. Up next, weighing big risks. While everyone is focused on apples antitrust news, theres one top analyst that says theres another tech company that could get caught in the doj crosshairs. Details on that next. We are live at the New York Stock Exchange. You are watching close closing bell on cnbc. Hows the chicken . The prawns are delicious. Oh, i have a shellfish allergy. One prawn. Very good. Did i say chicken wrong . Tired of people not listening to what you want . Its truffle season ah thats okay. Never enough truffles. How much are they . Its a lot. Oh okay im good, that its like a priceless piece of art. Enjoy. Or when they sell you what they want . Yeah. The more we understand you, the better we can help you. Thats what u. S. Bank is for. Huge relief. Yeah. Hello, mia. Are you ready to meet your demise . Man, we really need to upgrade your trash talk. Nice shot. Shot. Taker. Who programmed you . ill see you tomorrow. 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Mark, youve just done a big, deep dive in general on alphabet and ask best of the business. How does the antitrust piece fit in here . It seems like its been an overhang for a while. I think it is. Its more real. Youre going to get, by the end of this year, a decision by the judge, a doj search antitrust case. This isn