Neal Freyman (2:34)

Oh man. I didn't know this was the direction we were going to go in. All right, hit it.

Toby Howell (2:38)

You are the Neil to my Toby. Yes, exactly. All right, let's keep going. You are the Planet Oat extra creamy oat milk to my iced coffee. You are the Planet Oat barista lovers Oat milk to my latte. You are the Planet Oat French vanilla.

Neal Freyman (2:50)

Oat milk creamer to my French roast hot coffee. While Planet Oat really does pair well.

Toby Howell (2:55)

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Neal Freyman (3:01)

The perfect way to start your day no matter what you're pairing it with. Like you being the Toby to my Neil.

Toby Howell (3:06)

Let's ride. Get your hands on the oat milk that has it all. Visit planeto.com for more.

Neal Freyman (3:12)

Did you hit an Apple store for a new iPhone before tariffs kicked in? That wasn't very original. Apple reported its highest revenue for a March quarter in over two years as Americans appeared to scoop up more of its products, fearing they'd get a price hike due to higher import costs. Overall, Apple sales rose 5% for the quarter, beating expectations driven by higher iPhone revenue that analysts attributed not only to incoming tariffs but the debut of its lower priced phone, the 16e. It has been a crazy few months for Apple. Tim Cook can't have been getting much sleep, the face of the trade war. Apple's stock tumbled more than 20% in just four days after President Trump announced 145% tariffs on China, where 80% of its iPhones are made. But then it had its best one day gain since 1998 after Trump said that smartphones and other Apple products would be exempted from those super steep tariffs. Despite the big sales beat, it's still stormy steez out there for the world's most valuable company. Ominously, China revenue fell 2.3%, a bad sign in its second biggest market, where it's competing with fast growing homegrown rivals and its fast growing service division. Think subscriptions like Icloud and Apple Music didn't grow as fast as expected last quarter. Toby this Apple doesn't quite have that loud crunch when you bite into it, it's a bit more mealy.

Toby Howell (4:32)

Yeah, Tim Cook hadn't really spoken about tariffs since January of this year, and even then he said Apple is just monitoring the situation. But now he said that Apple could see a $900 million cost related to tariffs in the next quarter it was interesting though, what he said about, you know, Apple retail stores being flooded by new people trying to beat the tariffs and buy new iPhones. He actually says that those sales wouldn't show up in the March quarter, even though that a lot of analysts were like, no, they definitely showed up in the March quarter. You saw this boost in iPhone sales. And he said that it's mostly going to be in the next quarter coming up. So he's unsure of the impact on the current period. So who knows if that was just CEO speak or if it really was that, hey, we didn't actually see as much demand pulled forward as maybe analysts are expecting. The other thing that they did touch on too is the company's AI strategy, which has been much maligned because Apple intelligence really hasn't been what a lot of people expected it to be. And an analyst straight up asked Cook, he's like, hey, do you think you're doing well? Like, what's going on with Siri? Why did we delay that? And Cook kind of sidestep the question again, saying that we just want the features to meet Apple's high quality bar. So that's another question mark down the line of if Apple can figure out its AI strategy, because right now it's.

Neal Freyman (5:47)

Not really working and that's really hurting it in China, where consumers do expect AI integrations with their phones. Maybe here in America we're fine just having, you know, a normal smartphone, but over there, they really do care about having the latest whiz bang technology in their phones. And China is a super critical market for Apple. And that's why shares fell more than 2% after hours, was because of this. Ms. This fall in growth in China, it's lost ground to those local phone brands like Huawei. Show me it doesn't have, you know, it's not matching those companies when it comes to technology. And this is just such a critical market for Apple. Get like, don't even think about the tariffs, but they make phones there, but they also sell phones there. 19% of their revenue comes from China. 43%. 57% of the revenue comes from outside the Americas. So it's these foreign markets that are faltering. For Apple, it did well in North America, 8% sales growth. But outside of America is where these warning signs are really popping up. And it doesn't even have anything to do with tariffs.

Toby Howell (6:47)

And then the final aspect of Apple's business that did all right is services, which is, you know, App store revenue, Apple TV plus, that sort of thing that grew 12% that was right in line with expectations. But that business is under threat from a few areas. Namely there is this App Store ruling that is poised to hurt the platform's revenue. And let's talk about that ruling because Apple took this major l at the hands of Epic Games this week after a judge ruled that the so called 30% Apple tax on app transactions is dead. The backstory here is that the Fortnite maker Epic Games took Apple to court to fight against what it saw as anti competitive practices like charging developers a 30% fee on in app purchases. Back in 2021, a US District Judge Gonzalez Rogers sided with Epic and ordered Apple to give developers more leeway on payments. Apple took the fight to the Supreme Court, but whiffed and then turned around and created a new system that forced apps with external sales to pay a 27% fee. Epic Games saw this and said whoa, whoa, whoa, you are blatantly violating the court's orders by continuing to oppose those fees. And Judge Gonzalez Rogers agreed. She said in an 80 page ruling released this week that Apple was failing to comply with her prior orders and even called out execs by name saying Cook chose poorly and Apple's VP of finance outright lied under oath to gain an anti competitive advantage. So this has felt like this never ending battle between these two companies. But against all odds it looks like.

Neal Freyman (8:16)

Apple has been defeated this judge ruling. I mean this was more cringy to watch than the roast of Tom Brady. I mean she laid into Apple executives saying they lied under oath. She referred them to be investigated for criminal contempt so things could get serious. I was looking at Apple stock price after this ruling came out. It didn't budge so much. So investors maybe aren't so worried about the hit to the App Store, but there could be consequences because Apple gets tens of billions of dollars in revenue from its App store from that 30% commission that it charges developers. So we'll see whether this is the ruling that finally cracks open that closed garden of the App Store that that developers like Epic Games have been trying to claw back for so long.

Toby Howell (9:01)

And Epic Games was obviously maybe the sacrificial lamb here. They took the fight to Apple, but other apps have been in. Other companies have been very closely monitoring the situation because Spotify just submitted yesterday an app update that includes an ability to link out to the web for the payment which finally escapes that closed garden that you're speaking about. So other companies were sitting and waiting on this moment because they're like, hey, we don't want to pay the piper 30%. Every time you buy something within our app, we should be able to handle that payment ourselves. So it wasn't just an Epic versus Apple thing. It was really an Epic versus Apple versus the entire App Store sort of thing. Take off your glasses and clear the sleep from your eyes. Because Sam Altman's iris scanning crypto project, World is coming to the United States after spending years dutifully scanning eyeballs outside US Borders, the regulatory environment under Trump's crypto friendly administration made it possible for Altman and co to unveil both its physical orbs and its crypto token inside US borders. The stated goal of A World is to make world ID the primary method for verifying humans online. If that sounds like the arsonist putting out the fire, it kind of is. Altman's role in advancing artificial intelligence at OpenAI is part of the reason why Altman feels like there needs to be a system for distinguishing real humans from computers. World thinks that the way to do this is to gather biometric data on millions of people via scans of their eyeballs, then assign each one a digital ID that lives on the block chain. To incentivize this more than slightly black mirror concept. Volunteers receive 16 world coins, the crypto aspect of the project that Altman thinks can act as a universal basic income for millions. If that all sounds like something you want to try, you can hit up a world space location around Atlanta, Louisiana, Miami, Nashville or San Francisco, Cisco to get your ID into the system. And if that sounds like something you don't want to try, just close your eyes, Neil.

Neal Freyman (10:58)

I mean, this company has kind of trotted all around the world for the past couple of years trying to scan people's eyeballs in various countries. They say they've got 12 million people signed up across 100 countries, but pretty much everywhere they went, they've received pushback. Brazil and Hong Kong have banned World Coin. Kenya, Portugal and Spain all instituted temporary restrictions after World hopped into town. And that's because they are worried about this one particular company collecting reams of biometric data and all of the security and privacy concerns that come with it. So we'll see what happens. Certainly the regulatory environment has changed the United States from the Biden's more crackdown on crypto to the to the Trump administration's more laissez faire approach to crypto. So they decided now is time to come to the United States and see how many eyeballs they can scan. But truly this. You know, when you take a step back and think about the Implications of why this company exists is to verify humans versus bots. And that's because Sam Altman, you know, has been labeled as the person who popularized AI and there's going to be so much spam and bots out there that eventually we won't be able to distinguish between humans and bots. So we need our irises scanned. I mean, it's all a little crazy to think about.

Toby Howell (12:11)

It's crazy, but it is where we are heading. And Tools for Humanity, which is the parent company of World, is signing Real World Partnerships to put this into action. They signed the announced this partnership with Match Group to provide age verification for Tinder users, specifically in Japan. So that is Real World utility right there. A lot of people have pushed back against this though and say, hey, this is a problem that needs to be solving, but this probably isn't the way to do it. Some crypto people on Twitter were saying that it's much better to have a continual verification system because if you just scan in once and you have the id, then you have this very valuable data set of quote real people that you could buy, that you could steal, that you could hack and use for nefarious purposes. So maybe a continuous re enrollment system is better than a one time verification system.

Neal Freyman (12:59)

This company is huge. This is one of the biggest crypto projects anywhere in the world. They raised, they've raised $240 million from Andreessen Horowitz and you know who else who thought it was a good idea? Sam Bankman Fried. He was an investor before he went to jail.

Toby Howell (13:12)

Well, it's Friday, which means it's st of the week dog of the week time where we bring you one stock that cooked its pasta perfectly al dente and one stock that left it in too long and made some mush. Despite the market's many run, the past few days, S&P 500 has finished up eight straight days. It still had its fair share of mush. So we're bringing you to dogs of the week. And since I won the pre show game of golf, yes, just golf. I'm up first and my dog of the week is Amazon. Amazon reported earnings yesterday and actually beat expectations, bringing in $155 billion in revenue. But it was the softer than expected guidance that caused its stock to slip as much as 5% after hours. Its revenue and income forecasts weren't way outside of what analysts were expecting. But it was the mention of some tariff uncertainty and recession fears that spooked investors. Another potential warning sign was that its important Amazon Web Services unit missed expectations for the third straight quarter, but still grew at a 17% clip. CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon is well positioned to weather any tariff headwinds because it has such a diverse seller base. They can probably dodge and weave some costs being passed on to consumers and could emerge from all of this stronger, much like it did after the pandemic. It really is the unpredictable tariffs ahead that make planning more difficult, which is probably why we saw this negative reaction from investors despite the relatively strong report. And this morning, Amazon is only down about 2% in premarket trading. So I'm calling this a baby dog of the week, a puppy of the week, if you will.

Neal Freyman (14:43)

Feel, yeah, I mean, we talked about Apple being, you know, uniquely exposed to tariffs, but Amazon is Probably if Apple's 1a, Amazon is 1b, it imports roughly a quarter of items it sells from China. The third party vendors from China are so critical to populating its marketplace. And it also has a fast growing ad business, which is number three after Metta and Google. And that is also exposed to potentially drawbacks in ad spending from Chinese E commerce companies that are looking at these tariffs and say, I don't want to really spend money advertising to American consumers anymore because it's going to be so expensive. So maybe, you know, Amazon is facing these particular challenges, but you're right, it has an insane scale and logistics operation and diversification of suppliers that might help it weather the storm. And what you're seeing with these tariffs is the biggest companies like Apple and Amazon are sounding pretty confident saying that they can weather them. Meanwhile, it's the small businesses that are, that don't have the scale that will have to raise prices that are getting whacked.

Toby Howell (15:46)

One final E commerce headwind that we have to mention is that this major loophole that let you get all those cheap, fast fashion items directly from China actually closed one minute past midnight last night. That is the day day minimus exemption which allows shipments of goods worth under $800 to come into the US duty free. This is what led to the rise of Temu, the, what led to the rise of Xi'an. So there was just this huge volume of packages coming into the country. But now that loophole is officially closed. So if you haven't felt the bite in the sting of tariff rises in prices, you might start feeling it now because she and Tamo definitely have to raise prices if that exemption is closed, which it just was as of midnight. Up next, we got Neil's dog of the week.

Neal Freyman (16:31)

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Neal Freyman (18:16)

Dog of the week is McDonald's because when you're feeling a bit nauseous, the last thing you want to guzzle down is a double quarter pounder with cheese. McDonald's reported yesterday that economic uncertainty and a more cautious consumer caused same store sales to drop 3.6% in the United States last quarter. That's its steepest fall since the spring of 2020, when no one was leaving their house. Globally, same store sales fell for the second straight quarter and shares dropped nearly 2% on the earnings call. Exactly said in most of our major markets, we're seeing a similar story in regards to the challenging industry environment and softening consumer sentiment. Let's deal with those one by one. A challenging industry environment McDonald's is the face of the fast food industry that's seeing traffic dry up right now. Just this week, Domino's, Starbucks, Pizza Hut and KFC all warned that business was slowing down in the United States now, softening consumer sentiment. McDonald's CEO blamed this one on geopolitical tensions, aka the trade war that added to uncertainty and dampened consumer sentiment more than we expected. Toby the Drive Thru Lane is not exactly a party right now, but McDonald's may have a few cards up its sleeve that it thinks will bring it back to growth.

Toby Howell (19:29)

Yeah, in Q1 they had this revamped value menu that was supposed to drive traffic, but actually what ended up driving a lot of traffic was this meal promotion with a Minecraft movie. It was probably the most successful aspect of getting people back into McDonald's. So one they're going to lean further into that partnership and partnerships like that in the future. But also the shift in focus is to next week's release of the new chicken strips coming out of McDonald's because they have been fans have been clamoring for this item to return. Obviously, chicken is the hottest new thing in fast food. There's the chicken Big Mac that it rolled out. There's the chicken sandwich wars. Everyone loves chicken, so it's really leaning on chicken to try to get it out of its slump. And then also the beloved snack wrap is rumored to return. We don't know exactly when it will return, but I personally am very excited for that. And then the final thing outside of chicken, because I can't say chicken anymore, is that the chain is testing out these new customizable drinks with some franchisee later this year. And that comes from Learning from Cosmics, which is its Dutch Bros. Esque drive Thru coffee and drink purveyor that it's been testing out over the last few years. So it's got a few things that it's cooking up to try to, you know, bring those people back. Say we're still the McDonald's, you know, and love and a lot of them, you know, have to do with chicken.

Neal Freyman (20:47)

Well, at some point they're just going to have Grimace throw out the first pitch at a Mets game and, you know, everyone's going to go crazy and we'll see same store sales rise 10%. So if, if none of this chicken stuff works, they'll just, you know, toss them out at Citi Field. Okay, let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines and a crossover episode of Corporate America meets Bravo. Kohl's has fired its CEO Ashley Buchanan after they found he directed the department store to strike a quote, highly unusual multimillion dollar business deal involving a woman he was having a romantic relationship with. A board investigation found two instances in which Buchanan violated the company's code of conduct, though they did not name the individual he had a relationship with. The Wall Street Journal, citing internal sources, said the woman Buchanan was funneling business to was Chandra Holt, the former CEO of Bed Bath and Beyond, who met Buchanan while they were both working at Walmart. As if Kohl's didn't have enough problems while it tries to turn around a struggling business with a revolving door of CEOs. Buchanan was on the job for just about 100 days, and now they must look for their fifth chief executive in the last three years.

Toby Howell (21:53)

And the worst part is, is that Kohl's shares kind of soared yesterday on this news. They were up as much 8 as 8% at one point, which just shows how much that maybe he wasn't doing that great of a job. So even though that the market said, okay, let's get a new CEO in here because Buchanan wasn't the guy, it does kind of analysts were saying that this does show that it gives the impression that Kohl's is in this perpetual state of chaos because you have so many people coming through who are trying to lead the company. So just raises a lot of questions about the due diligence of the process and why the stock jumped 8% after it just wasn't a good hire in the first place. So tough because you're right, they have been dealing with competition from, you know, online E commerce, high inflation, this pullback in consumer spending, this economic uncertainty, and now uncertainty around the CEO position as well. Microsoft is once again the biggest company in the world after an earnings beat, and they didn't get there by making things cheaper. Yesterday, the tech giant raised prices across its Xbox lineup from soup to nuts, jacking up the price of consoles, controllers, and some new games. The reason for the price hikes, according to Microsoft, is market conditions and rising development costs. And while it did not explicitly mention tariffs, it did acknowledge that its reliance on overseas manufacturing has led to some uncertainty. It all adds up to an Xbox X series that now costs $599. While a base controller will set you back nearly 70 bucks. It ain't cheap being a gamer these days.

Neal Freyman (23:23)

Now it's not. And everyone's looking forward to not looking forward to maybe bracing for the holiday season because, you know, the Xbox and controllers and gaming hardware is a very popular item to have. We'll see how this competes with the price hikes against the new Switch 2 that is coming out, that is $450. Nintendo opted to not raise the price there. But you know, I think this bodes a little ominously for how expensive it's going to be to buy gifts all the way in November. I mean, even earlier this week, President Trump kind of acknowledged that toy shortages and price hikes were going to be possible. He said, well, maybe the children will have $2 instead of $30 and maybe the $2 will cost a couple of bucks more. It's a comment that raised a little bit of eyebrows, but you're already seeing price hikes from Xbox and it's probably not going to be the last, you know, toy or gaming company that's jacking up prices because of quote unquote market conditions, aka tariffs.

Toby Howell (24:21)

MoviePass yes, that MoviePass is trying to regain its relevance by going after a more degenerate audience than even the most popular passionate of popcorn and drink throwing movie fans, sports gamblers. It just launched Mogul, a daily fantasy game where players can run virtual movie studios using real box office data to compete with one another. Just like in fantasy football, players can draft actors, directors and entire films based on how well you think they'll do at the actual box office on Rotten Tomatoes or during awards season. For now, the rewards aren't big cats prizes, just digital in game currency. But the idea is to eventually offer real money prizes down the line. Neil MoviePass is a company and brand that just won't seem to die and now it thinks fantasy gaming is its way back to your attention.

Neal Freyman (25:09)

If you told me two years ago that someone would be betting on box office results or rotten tomato scores, I would probably be like, I really don't think people care about that. They just kind of want to watch movies. But since we've seen these prediction markets come online, you have people betting on everything from, you know, the CPI report to which country the Pope's going to be from. So I see a world in which somebody bets on the, you know, on Snow White to bomb at the box office or George Clooney's new movie to rake in $80 million or F1, the upcoming F1 movie to go above or below $100 million opening. So I see what MoviePass is doing here and you're right, it just won't go away. Yeah.

Toby Howell (25:49)

And it has 400,000 users on the early access wait list. So I do think there is a demand for this. Because I do. When a movie's coming out, I'm like, I think this is going to do bad. Like Thunderbolts for instance, this new Marvel movie. That's a very polarizing movie. It's a very little known cast of characters. It could massively overperform because it's something different, or it could massively underperform. And it would be fun to set a daily fantasy lineup and actually have some stake in the outcome of how that movie does.

Neal Freyman (26:15)

Well, if you need me on Saturday afternoon, I will be three men juleps deep watching the Kentucky Derby, the start of horse racing's Triple Crown season. The Run for the Roses, as it's always been for the last 151 years, will be held at the storied Churchill Downs racetrack in Kentucky, a horse named Journalism. Yes, Journalism is the favorite, considered the best horse in the field in terms of pedigree, speed and distance. But its investigative reporting could be squashed by the return of legendary trainer Bob Baffert, who has a horse in the race after being banned by Churchill Downs for three years over a doping scandal. Toby, what are you watching for this year at Churchill Downs?

Toby Howell (26:54)

Well, number one, I'm seeing if Journalism can break the chalk curse because it enters as a 3 to 1 favorite. But no favorite has won the Derby since justified back in 2018. So it's been a little bit. But I'm also looking at the weather forecast because it looks like Louisville, Kentucky is going to get some rain, so it could favor, you know, mud runners. And one mud runner that I want you guys to look at is final gambit. 30 to 1, long shot. But he won his maiden on a rainy day, so he could fare well in those adverse money conditions. Though he has never won a run on dirt before, so that's another question mark. So, you know, don't, don't write that down.

Neal Freyman (27:32)

Come for the businesses, stay for the horse betting tips.

Toby Howell (27:35)

I know, seriously. And I got some more for you. You want them?

Neal Freyman (27:38)

I'm curious.

Toby Howell (27:39)

There's some post positions that you want to avoid. Citizen bowl drew the number one post position which hasn't produced a Derby winner since 1986. So avoid number one. And then Sandman, which is actually one of the favorites, 6 to 1 got a really unlucky drawing of post 17. That gate has never won a derby since its introduction back in 1930. So if you are superstitious or even a little stitious, avoid post number one and number 17. And then if you want some long shots as well because there have been long shot winners in the last few years. Rich strike was 80 to 1 in 2022. Mystic Dan was 18 to 1 in 2024. So again, look out for a final gambit. And finally, publisher at 20 to 1 because I'm going for publisher because publishers are more important than journalism and if you ask me to unpack or defend that, I can't. So do not ask.

Neal Freyman (28:32)

Okay, let's wrap it up there. Toby is excited for the Kentucky Derby. I mean, it always is a great event. But thanks so much for starting your morning with us. Have a wonderful Friday and an even better weekend. For any questions, comments or feedback on the show, send an email to Morning Brew daily at Morning Broadcom. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milian is our executive producer. Raymond Lu is our producer. Our associate producers are Olivia Graham and Olivia Lake. Scoop star Daris is on audio hair makeup is out getting their eyeballs scanned. Devin Emery is our president and our show is a production of Morning Brew.

Toby Howell (29:04)

Great show today, Neal. I wish you all.