← The Rundown
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Public.com presents the rundown, your daily market update in 10 minutes. My name is Zaydad Mani and Today is Friday, May 15th. In today's episode, we'll tell you why OpenAI is preparing to take legal action against Apple. We'll also explain how Ford suddenly became an AI stock and an earnings recap of Figma and Applied Materials. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out how I went from a civil engineer to to hosting a finance podcast. We got a great show for you today. Let's go. Thursday was another record setting day on Wall Street. All three indices rose about 0.8% and set record highs in the process. In fact, we hit some new milestones as well. The S&P 500 crossed 7,500 for the first time ever and the Dow climbed back to above 50,000 for the first time in three months. Still don't care about the Dow Tech was once again the best performing sector, led by Cisco, which jumped 13% after they reported blowout earnings yesterday. We recapped those earnings on yesterday's show, so go check that out if you missed it. And then you had Cerebras, the AI chip company that went public yesterday. The stock popped 68% on day one and the company now has a market cap of nearly a hundred billion dollars. So chip stocks are hot, the IPO market is hot, and the bull market continues. Now the other big story this week has been President Trump's meeting with President Xi in Beijing that actually wrapped up today, and the overall tone coming from that summit was positive. Both sides agreed to a framework for strategic stability over the next three years. President Trump also invited President Xi to visit the US In September, which is key because that's right before the trade truce between the two sides expires. Remember, the US And China agreed to a trade truce last October, and while there were no details on tariffs at this meeting, the door now stays open for more trade deals later this year. Now, President Trump did say that China has agreed to order 200 planes from Boeing and potentially buy oil from the US as well. What's interesting is that oil prices are actually climbing this morning because I think the market was hoping to hear some sort of resolution announced by the US And China when it comes to the Iran war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, but nothing concrete came from these meetings and I think that has oil traders nervous again. This is also freaking out the bond market because prolonged elevated oil prices could force the Fed to hike interest rates soon to curb inflation. Bond Yields from the US To Japan to the UK are spiking right now, and traders are now pricing in a near 50% chance that the Fed hikes interest rates before the end of the year. So, yeah, I feel like this inflation story is flying under the radar. The stock market is mostly ignoring it, but the bond market is starting to pay attention. Now. We're going to continue to keep an eye on the inflation story along with everything else happening in the market. So make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, starting with OpenAI and Apple. OpenAI and Apple are beefing right now. According to a report from Bloomberg, OpenAI is preparing possible legal actions against Apple because of a breach of contract. Now, here's a quick Backstory. Back in 2024, Apple and OpenAI announced this big partnership to integrate ChatGPT into the iPhone. I remember when they announced it, the idea was that ChatGPT would be woven into Siri, and honestly, I was really excited about it. But as we all know, the integration was pretty bad. So OpenAI is now blaming Apple, saying that they buried the integration and that Apple didn't make an honest effort to promote the CHAT GPT integration. So OpenAI is now calling their lawyers. Now, they haven't filed a lawsuit just yet, and they reportedly want to resolve this issue without going to court. But the threat is real. And Apple, for their part, have kind of moved on from OpenAI. They announced a deal with Google last year to integrate Jack Gemini into an updated version of Siri, which is supposed to come out sometime this year. We'll see if that ends up happening. Apple is also testing integrations with Anthropic's Cloth. Apple also seems to be upset with OpenAI for poaching their best hardware engineers for whatever hardware device OpenAI is working on. So OpenAI could be a hardware competitor for Apple down the line. So yeah, this is going to be a story to watch. I imagine OpenAI's lawyers are raking in the fees these days. Don't forget OpenAI is currently on trial with Elon Musk. That trial actually wrapped up closing arguments yesterday in Oakland. And. And the jury will start deliberating on Monday. Elon is suing OpenAI and Sam Altman for allegedly going back on their commitment to keep OpenAI a nonprofit, and he's asking for up to $134 billion in damages. So we'll see how the jury rules there. We'll keep you guys updated on that next week. Let's shift gears and talk about Ford. Ford stock has been on a tear this week, up nearly 20% because of AI. Hear me out. See, Ford launched a new subsidiary this week called Ford Energy, which is like a battery storage business. So what they're doing is taking their existing EV battery factory in Kentucky, which wasn't being utilized anymore because of the EV slowdown, and they're planning to retool it to build giant battery storage systems for utilities and AI data centers. And investors are eating this up. Ford stock jumped 13% on Wednesday and it was up another 7.7percent on Thursday. Ford plans to produce up to 20 gigawatt hours of battery capacity a year, with deliveries beginning in 2027. To put this into context, Tesla is currently the leading US manufacturer of batteries for energy storage and they produce about 46 gigawatt hours a year at their facilities in California and Nevada. So this could be a big business for Ford. Morgan Stanley calls Ford Energy underappreciated and a high likelihood that Ford signs a supply deal with one of the hyperscalers in the next few months. Morgan Stanley projects this business could generate almost $600 million in operating profit by 2030. So you can kind of see why investors are hyped about this. But we should probably pump the brakes for a second pun fully intended there. This is a brand new business for Ford. They still have to retool their factory, they have to win customers, they have to scale production, and they have to compete with Tesla and other battery storage companies. Now, I do want to give Ford credit for making this pivot because their EV business has been a flop and losing billions of dollars a year. So instead of just eating those losses, they're pivoting the factory to build batteries for the hottest sector in the market. That's a smart move, but they still need to execute and we don't know what that's going to look like. So Ford stock pumping this week is just the latest example of the AI hype finding a new target. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Figma shares are jumping this morning after the design software company crushed earnings night. Revenue was up 46% to $333 million and paid customers jumped 54% to 690,000. And to me, the guidance is what really stood out. Figma raised their full year revenue outlook to about $1.4 billion, well above what Wall street was expecting. So that was a sigh of relief for Figma investors because this stock has been getting absolutely smoked this year, heading into the earnings. Figma was down 46% this year as part of the broader software meltdown. Been worried that AI tools are going to replace traditional software companies, but these results from Figma tell a totally different story. In fact, Figma is making money from AI. You know, I've always felt that AI was going to be bullish for enterprise software companies because now these software companies can upcharge their customers for AI features. And that seems to be playing out so far. Now, I wouldn't say that Figma is out of the woods just yet. Anthropic recently launched Claude Design, which lets you create visual designs with AI. Figma is also dealing with competition from tools powered by Open, OpenAI and others. But for now, Figma reminded everyone that they aren't dead yet. In fact, they're thriving and their stock is up around 10% this morning as a result. Now on the flip side, Applied Materials is down this morning even though the company posted a really strong quarter. Applied Materials is a company that makes machines that chip manufacturers use to build semiconductors, and no surprise here, that business is booming right now. Revenue was up 11% year over year to $7.9 billion. And the guidance for next quarter was even stronger, with the company expecting earnings growth of 35% year over year, topping estimates. But you know, the stock is still down around 3% this morning, probably because Applied Materials stock was up like 70% this year going into the earnings. So when the stock is that hot, you kind of have to blow earnings expectations out of the water. Also, I should mention semiconductor stocks are selling off across the board today. Let's wrap the show with a listener question. This question is from Landon McGee on Spotify. How did you get from civil engineering to hosting a podcast about the market? Seems like a pretty interesting journey. Also, my second question is any update on some merch? Unfortunately, we don't have an update on the merch just yet. The markets are keeping us busy these days, but hopefully soon. As for the question about how I went from civil engineering to hosting a podcast about the markets. It's kind of a long story, but I'll try to keep it short. So while I was working as a full time civil engineer, I started making funny videos on Instagram and TikTok about the markets. This was around 2019. You know, I've been following the market since I was 16 years old and I've been investing since I was 18. In fact, I think I opened up my brokerage account on my 18th birthday. So yeah, I just started making funny videos about the stock market and investing. And those videos caught on, and I was able to, you know, build up a following over time. So Fast forward to 2023. The good people at Public reached out to me and asked if I wanted to host a show about the markets. We launched that show in October of 2023. It was only within the Public app at the time. They eventually broke it out into a podcast feed in January of 20. And today the Rundown is one of the top business podcasts on Spotify, which is just incredible. So it's been a pretty fun journey and I want to thank everyone for the support along the way. We wouldn't be able to do this without you guys listening to the show every day. So, yeah, that's my story on how I went from civil engineering to hosting a daily podcast about the markets. Well, all right, guys. That's the Rundown for today. That's the rundown for this week. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did and you have like five extra seconds, consider giving us a five star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcast. All that engagement really does help us out, and it helps other people find the show. Also today is Connor's last day at Public. He's moving on to a new career opportunity. We wish him the very best and we appreciate everything that he's done for this show. So one last time, shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes, and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.