← The Rundown
The Rundown
Uber Boosts Guidance on Bookings Strength, Disney Streaming & Parks Fuels Earnings Beat
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Public.com presents the rundown, your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zaydad Mani, and Today is Wednesday, August 6th. In today's episode, we'll tell you about the latest tariff threats from President Trump that sent the markets lower. We're also recapping earnings from Disney, Uber, AMD, and more. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out why the Chrysler Building in New York City just went up for sale. We got a great show for you today. Let's go. Stocks were back in the red on Tuesday with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq losing about half a percent. You know, the S and P has now closed in the red five out of the last six trading days. So it's, it's in a bit of a funk right now. One possible reason for yesterday's drop might be the comments that President Trump made in his CNBC interview. I think the quote that probably had the biggest impact on the markets was when President Trump said that tariffs on semiconductors and pharmaceutical imports would be announced within the next week or so. He followed that up by saying that pharmaceutical tariffs could be up to 250%. So that was a bit of a shocker. He also didn't give any updates on the trade deal with China. The two countries currently have a trade truce which expires on August 12th. And while there's chatter about a potential extension to that deadline, we've gotten zero details so far. So, yeah, it's been a rough few days for the markets and things might end up getting more volatile depending on what new tariff news comes out from the White House over the next couple weeks. So we're going to stay on top of all that. And we're still in the thick of earnings season, a lot of earnings left to talk about. So we are still locked in as we start the month of August. So make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, and we're talking earnings starting with Disney. Disney's Q2 numbers were solid across the board, and they even raised their guidance thanks to their growth in streaming and the theme park division. Disney's Overall revenues were up 2% from a year ago to 23.6 billion billion. And their net income more than doubled to $5.9 billion. The bright spot in their earnings was streaming and the theme parks. So let's start with streaming first. Profits were up 6% to $346 million, and the company expects streaming to generate $1.3 billion in operating profit for this year. I mean, you got to give it to Disney on the turnaround in streaming, because they used to lose billions of dollars a year, and now they're expected to see over a billion dollars in profit. Disney and Hulu subscribers continue to grow. They now have a combined 183 million subs. Then you have the Disney Experience division, which includes their theme parks and cruises, that saw a nice jump this summer with revenues up 8% and profits were up 13% to $2.2 billion. So it looks like people are hitting Disney World and Disneyland this summer, which is a sign that the consumer might be doing okay now. It wasn't all good news for Disney. The traditional TV division saw revenues drop fake 15% and profits dropped 28% as more and more people cut the cord and watch TV. I mean, even my boomer parents watch more YouTube these days than traditional cable TV. I think the only reason they still have their cable subscription is to watch Wheel of Fortune. And the prize is right now. The other disappointing division for Disney was their movie Studio, which lost $21 million in Q2, despite Lilo and Stitch being a huge success in making over a billion dollars. Their other movies, like Pixar's Elio and Marvel's Thunderbolts, were massive flops. But there seems to be more positive momentum for Disney these days, and CEO Bob Iger is doubling down on their streaming strategy. Disney is launching a new standalone ESPN streaming service for sports fans like me later this month for $30 a month. They also signed deals with the NFL and WWE to bring even more sports content onto their platform, which includes exclusive rights to WrestleMania starting in 2026. Let's shift gears and talk about Uber. They reported earnings this morning, and they beat revenue estimates and announced $20 billion in share buybacks. Their revenues jumped a better than expected 18% to $12.6 billion, and that was thanks to a strong demand for bookings. The number of users using their platform increased 15% to 180 million, and the number of trips on the platform jumped 18% to 3.3 billion. So those are some pretty solid numbers. And Uber expects the momentum to continue. For this current quarter, the ride hailing giant is forecasting gross bookings to be in the range of 48.25 billion to 49.75 billion, which topped Wall Street EST. Now, Uber attributes some of this growth to cross selling between rides and food. You know, you open up the Uber app for a ride, and the next thing you know, you're ordering sushi from UberEats on your Uber ride home. And according to CEO Dara Khoslashahi, 12% of all delivery bookings now come from people using the Eats tab inside the ride sharing app. That's about $10 billion worth of bookings. And Uber sees that as a potential for growth. Uber is trying to get more people to use their app and in fact, Uber says that in their top 10 markets, only 1 in 5 adults use their app monthly. Uber sees this sign that there's plenty of room for growth for their business, especially as they push hard into autonomous ride. And speaking of autonomous rides, Uber says they now have over 20 autonomous vehicle partners globally, including Waymo Baidu, and they plan to launch five more self driving deployments in the second half of this year. You know, Q2 is a busy one for them. They expanded their operating zones in Austin with Waymo. They also expanded in Abu Dhabi with Weride. And here's something interesting that the CEO said during the earnings call. He said that in Austin, the average Waymo vehicle is already doing more daily trips than 99 of human Uber drivers. Which I guess shouldn't be that surprising that a robot is out hustling a human. But this is huge for Uber because it means more revenues for the company. And that's why investors want Uber to expand these autonomous driving partnerships more aggressively all over the world. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. McDonald's shares are rising after the fast food giant ended a quarter streak of revenue declines. Their Global sales grew by 6% in Q2 and same store sales in the US increased by 2 1/2%. You know, McDonald's has been struggling to grow sales in the US for some time. Last quarter their same store sales dropped by more than 3%. And the quarter before that it dropped by more than 1%. So they're finally back into positive territory. It looks like some of their new menu items and a marketing blitz emphasizing a return to value is bringing customers back. And it probably helps that they brought back a fan favorite in the snack wrap last month. The snack wrap was discontinued nearly a decade ago, but the hype and nostalgia on social media got them to bring it back. McDonald's says they're working to add more menu items in addition to the snack wrap, including a spicy chicken nugget, McCrispy strips, and the McChicken biscuit. We'll have to see if those menu items keep the growth train going. Shares of McDonald's are up more than 3% this morning in reaction to the Earnings. Now, on the flip side, shares of AMD are down this morning after their AI chip business saw a slowdown in Q2. AMD CEO blamed the slump on export restrictions to China. Now, AMD says they made a new chip called the Mi350, which fits the US's export rule restrictions for China. The company expects to ramp up production of that chip in the second half of this year. You know, I always find It Interesting comparing AMD's business to Nvidia's. The numbers are actually pretty shocking. For example, AMD's data center business, which includes their AI chips, saw revenues grow by 14% year over year in Q2. Nvidia's data center business, on the other hand, saw sales jump by 70% in their most recent quarter. So, I mean, these two companies aren't even in the same league at this point. Nvidia is the NBA, and AMD might be like your local rec league. That might be going a little too far. Shares of AMD are down nearly 5% this morning on this news. And speaking of disappointments, let's talk about Snap. Their shares are down big after the company delivered underwhelming results for their ad business. Their total revenues grew by 9%. But the ad business, which makes up 87% of their revenue, only grew by 4%. That's in sharp contrast to companies like Meta, Google, Amazon, and even Reddit, which all posted solid ad growth numbers this past quarter. Now, one reason for the poor ad performance is because Snap made a big error in Q2. They admitted in their shareholder letter that a restructuring error led advertisers to win placements at a substantially reduced price. Basically, they accidentally sold premium ad slots at a much lower price than they should have. And the thing is, Snap can't afford to make mistakes like this, especially since their EBITDA margins are declining as well. Now, there was one silver lining for the company. Their subscription revenues grew by 63% year over year, with nearly 16 million paid subscribers. But, I mean, that wasn't enough for investors to get excited. And Snap shares are down more than 15% this morning. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. The Chrysler Building, one of New York City's most recognizable landmarks, is back on the market. And it's not as expensive as I thought it would be. But there's a big reason for that. The building owners don't actually own the land that the building sits on. The landowner is Cooper Union, and they charge $30 million a year in rent. And that rent is set to go up to $41 million by 2028. The current owners of the Chrysler Building are already $21 million behind on rent payment, which is why they decided just to sell the building. Plus, the building is super old. It was built nearly 100 years ago back in 1930, so the upkeep is pretty expensive. I also find it fascinating that the owner of the building is different than the owner of the land. Like, how does that work? Because, like, what kind of leverage do you have if you're the building owner, the landowner can just keep jacking up your rent. What are you going to do? Move? Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did and you have like 7 extra seconds, consider giving us a 5 star rating on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you are listening on Spotify, don't forget to vote in today's Spotify poll. Leave us a comment on Spotify. All that engagement really does help us out and it helps other people find the show. Thank you guys so much for listening. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes and we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.