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There's the closing bell on Wall Street, and now it's market domination overtime sponsored by Tasty trade. Let's talk about where the major averages ended the session. I'm here still with Dave Maza of Round Hill Investments, and we're looking at the Dow that did finish the day higher, up by 418 points or so, about 1.2%. The S&P 500 up by 1. 2/3, and the Nasdaq up by 2.5%. But just to focus on the S&P for a moment, and this is what we've been talking about all day here. We did finish well off the.session, but still a rally on any whisper of a hint of a possibility that maybe this trade war is not unending, right, that there is eventually as it may be some kind of room for negotiation.

I think even this one day chart kind of tells you what the market's been telling us, maybe not all year, but at least since Liberation Day. Markets want deals, right? I think people accepted the fact that we're going to have aBig Bang moment. Put everything on the table, but we haven't seen much progress yet. And when we get kind of people coming out and saying, well, hold your horses on this, you know, then you're going to see sentiment kind of taper off, right?

And even I mean I guess you know we keep saying the market hates uncertainty, but at some point even uncertainty would get priced in, right, even these various scenarios. So the market is obviously in a very ugly process right now of figuring out what that is, what the correct valuation is.

Correct, I mean, of course, down 8.6% is a lot better than down nearly 20%, right? Uh, we almost hit that kind of proper bear market, um, but we're in the midst of a correction, right? Days like today are actually very common, uh, in bear markets. We, we see the sort of worst days and the best days paired together, and I think, uh, earnings are what many people are hoping for to kind of, uh, almost take us away from the tariffs, but because it's in the news and we're all glued to our phones and social media, uh, it's it's really hard for kind of the fun.to cut through that noise.

Yeah, well, and all these companies that are reporting their earnings are talking about the tariffs on their earnings calls as we talked about. I'm going back to the sectors here, we did end up seeing tech and consumer discretionary winning today as we talked about. If you dig into the Dow movers on the day, it's really big cap tech that was helping things out. You still see weakness and guess what, companies that are going to be tariffs like a Procter and Gamble, for example, Johnson Johnson Mercks showing some weakness among some of the of the pharmacy.companies and 3M, which reported yesterday and talked about tariffs down 0.25% today after an early day recovery.

Yeah, today kind of again it's great to see the mega captech, the mag 7 lead the way, which the markets become accustomed to them doing. Their outperformance is massive compared to sort of the rest of the market. But when you kind of look at the reality of a company, particularly like 3M, they're telling us they're going to be impacted by tariffs.Don't know how much because they don't know how much the tariffs are going to be and to your point, really hard for investors to say, well, I'm going to assign this X multiple on this earnings because I don't know if it's actually going to be ABC earnings, right?

Well, so let me ask you this, Dave, where do you see opportunity in the market right now? Do you think there are places that people can still be going?

Well, it's interesting. So heading into this earnings season, I actually think there's probably going to be a bit of a relief rally like we're seeing particularly in some of the most beaten down names.I don't think earnings are going to be as bad, particularly for the mega cap tech names because they're not as impacted by tariffs. With that being said, I'm still pretty cautious, really like many, probably for the first time in some time because of the heightened levels of uncertainty, and it's really hard to model where there's opportunities going to be. So I do think we're going to probably see some renewed quote unquote leadership out of the mag 7 for this kind of short period of time and then from there people are gonna.Their attention and what's the Federal Reserve going to do with all of this, particularly as more information and more data comes out

May 7th, the next Federal Reserve decision day. Well, for more on today's markets moves, let's welcome in Robert Shine, the chief investment officer at Blank Shine Wealth Management. So Robert, you heard the discussion we were just happening, having about what has been happening today. Um, were you, how were you encouraged by the rally that we saw today? Did you also find it kind of a little bit lackluster?

Lackluster at best to, to gap up um is never a good thing on the indices from a technical perspective, and that's what markets did obviously on the heels of positive news, very welcome news, but you're, you're seeing the market just fade into the close, um, but you know, it's kind of disappointing because yesterday we had a great day, uh, the advanced declines are extremely positive, it's a really.Good sign. Fundamentally speaking, if we're actually here, you know, on the bottom area, sort of kind of, you know, making our way through, uh, all this trading right now. But no, to see it, it, uh, fade at the close wasn't the most welcome sign.

So we know bottoms are a process, right? Everybody wants to call the, call the bottom and sort of, uh, get famous for that. But what are you looking for some at least maybe some signs of positivity that investors can kind of, uh, like hang their hats on?

Yeah, it's a good question. Um, and we do anticipate it's possible for us to retest the bottom. It doesn't mean we're gonna close below the, the 20% which would signal a bull market or a bear market going from the bull to the bear, uh, but we could test it intraday. I, I do see that playing out, uh, but that would be a double bottom, if you will. That would be a positive sign as you were asking moving forward another.Positive sign is just the breadth of the market that we need to see internally. You know, markets have sort of advanced decline, so majority 95%, 96% of the stock market, you know, participants up that day, but, but accelerate to the end of the market close is always a positive. And obviously you always want to see the weekends. Going to a Friday, uh, good or bad news, you still want to see.Solid, you know, market closes, um, based upon that. We could have, you know, I think what markets are doing is pricing in all the unknowns, which we don't know. They're pricing in all the negative news. And as we saw yesterday, it could take a tweet, it could take a handshake. Things could change, and we could be up another, you know, 12 to 5 to 10% overnight. I don't know if that's healthy, but that's where we are.

Uh, it's hard to, yeah. Although then you heard Scott Besson saying stuff like, it's going to take 2 to 3 years to negotiate.Um, something with China, so who the heck knows. But in any case, when you're looking at this kind of backdrop, um, I, I wanna talk about some of the stocks that you like. You are the second person to come on today to be focusing on Amazon, although the other one was a very short, uh, term trade looking at potential downside around earnings. Amazon's actually a stock that you like here, um, as we are looking at a potential lower spending environment, why do you think Amazon will be able to navigate that?

Amazon has turned their business around 34 years ago. Uh, the AWS turnaround is now in full gear. Uh, obviously they're the e-commerce giant. That's what your previous cast was worried about is the sensitivity to the consumer. There, there is always that, but let's not forget all the investment in the AI upside. Uh, they've really turned their business around and they're really geared to scale for the future. And oh by the way, the forward PE on a evaluation standpoint for Amazon takes us back to 2000.9. So right now, Amazon, historically speaking, based upon their earnings and where they're situated, uh, is looking very attractive. Obviously, we could have earnings, you know, in a gap down here and there. Uh, but dollar cost average your way in the Amazon and you have a long-term perspective and you'll be happy camper.

I know one of the other names you're also looking at is, uh, Berkshire Hathaway. Is it just because of that massive war chest that Warren Buffett has built up over the years? They're sitting a lot prettier than many other companies with all that cash on the balance sheet.

Yeah, you, you're right. The war chest of cash is king, uh, and Warren Buffett is always the most patient investor that we've ever seen. And, you know, some, you know, over the course of his career, the market just keeps, keeps coming to him. He doesn't chase it. And oh, by the way, uh, one of the top picks that, uh, Warren Buffett just invested in was Amazon. So if you want, uh, you know, for investors right now, if they're, if they're curious as to what to do.This market, I would say pick up some Berkshire Hathaway. Let Warren Buffett do the investing for you. He's had the history of success, and he's got cash to basically make the deals happen. So, you know, you don't know where the direction the market's gonna go, uh, but you're not invested in the market. You have a long-term view, have Uncle Warren lead the wayfor you.

All right. How about Netflix? Uh, do you think they're gonna hit that $1 trillion number that they were talking about?

It, it's definitely possible, um, again, we, we like all the businesses that we're talking about because they're leaders in their own respective industries. Um, it's describable growth is their pricing power evolution, advertising, you know, it's interesting. The last earnings call is 55% of the new subs that were added were choosing the advertising model. So that's just another revenue generator to the bottom line, uh, that could help them get to that 1 trillion sooner than later.

Robert, thanks very much. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

We want to get to IBM earnings just crossing the wire right now. The company's first quarter earnings per share at 160 cents. That is 18 cents better than the average analysts estimate. Revenue coming in at 14.54 billion, 14.4 billion is what analysts had been predicting here, and the company is reaffirming its full year forecast. Second quarter revenue seen at 16.4% to $16.75 billion. That is above that whole.Ranges above the around 16.3% that analysts had been anticipating. So if we're looking at sort of the commentary around this, one of the concerns around IBM was as a consulting giant and also as a government contractor that some of the federal cost cuts imposed by the so-called Doge might have an effect and it looks like that there was some effect here, but I'm going to keep on looking in here to see what kind of effects they have. It looks like the CEO is saying.About 15% reportedly of its contracts with the federal government had been canceled or paused. That's about $100 million in future payments here. But again, even putting that aside, the numbers look like beating estimates here bookings for AI consulting and software, um, up from $6 billion since mid 2023, um, and about 80% of those bookings come from.Consulting the rest coming from software so still seeing some strength, um at this uh at this point in some of those, uh, in some of those numbers, um, and Dave Maza is still with me here um so it looks like, you know, you were just talking about maybe some of this isn't mag 7 obviously, but you know, a little bit of maybe optimism coming out from some of these numbers. You know,

I think it's actually really it looks like at the highest glance I'm looking.For digging into it, but really positive uh numbers out of IBM, um, nice looks beats on the top and bottom and and what's interesting is sort of the commentary that you just mentioned on the AI side, right? So IBM, a stock that was left for dead, great turnaround story here, and much of it is that as companies sort of implement um the power of AI, particularly of AI, most are gonna need some help doing that and sort of IBM seemingly is ready to sort of help lead the way on that.

Yeah, it does seem that way. I'm still trying to dig through and look for the release here, um, but it looks like those shares as you can see, are higher right now in reaction to this, and this is, um, also on the back of about a 2% gain in the shares today. So not a huge gain but a gain nonetheless, but you know, as we've seen recently, we'll have to see what the commentary looks like on the conference call. Um, will they talk about tariffs probably will they talk.About consumer government spending, excuse me, probably, and so we could see some kind of change potentially based upon that, you know, it's interesting looking into this report because I feel like that government spending portion of IBM is an underappreciated aspect of the company.

Well, yeah, it's interesting. IBM is sort of a company that I think many investors sort of view still under that kind of old school lens, but they're a consulting firm right?Kind of almost first and foremost, and yeah, if we think about where those doge cuts could come, it's probably gonna first I'd be first and foremost looking at do I need this consultant here or this contractor here and of course I think they're going to face some pressure from that maybe less impacted from the tariff side of course than a manufacturer um but still like anything, a lot of question marks. I think it's positive. It seems as though they've reaffirmed their guidance, which is interesting again as some previous guests have said.See how much guidance really matters, but if they're confident enough and kind of coming out and saying that, particularly as they look out into this uncertainty, I think this is a positive, particularly as we kind of head into sort of the meat of more tech earnings to come.

Yeah, and also that that second quarter guidance came in above estimates, although maybe that implies that them reaffirming the guidance the second half of the year maybe will be a little wobblier, but again, we'll have to see what kind of commentary we get from the call. I don't want to read too much into it.Let's also get to Chipotle. Chipotle's first quarter results hitting the wire. Yahoo Finance's Brooke Palma joining us now on set with the latest. Those shares moving down. Brooke,

those shares moving down because they missed the mark on both revenue and same sort of sales growth here. In addition to that, they did lower expectations for 2025. They now expect sales to increase in the low single digit range versus the previous guidance that they had set forward of a low to mid single digit range. Take a closer look at the numbers. Adjusted earnings per year did beat ever so slightly by 1 cent.Coming in at 29 cents versus expectations 28 cents, revenue came in lower than expectations at $2.88 billion. We saw this number same source sales growth that declined for the first time since Q2 of 2020, of course, when COVID caused sources to shutter, same sort of sales growth came in at a decrease of 0.4%. That's compared to what Wall Street expected of 1.74%. We also saw lower than expected average check.Growth as well as transactions falling 2.3%. That was the first decline for transactions since 2022. So certainly a bleak report here and investors certainly reacting to that shares down about 4%.

Do we know why, Brooke, they saw this? I mean, Chipotle has been pretty remarkably consistent, right? So do we know what potentially was behind this? Yeah,

so during the quarter there was inclement weather. In addition to that, there was also this, of course, keyword here, uncertainty among consumers that really caused them.To try to save money, cause them to go to Chipotle less, cause them to be a little bit more frugal about where

exactly maybe they didn'tget the extra guac.

They didn't. Well, the sides are still doing well for them. People are still getting the sides, but maybe they're not going as frequently as what they were before. And Chipotle loves to say that there's still this value proposition, but certainly this environment, it's a really tough market to compete in. Yeah, Dave, are you

a

Chipotle

guy? I do like

Chipotle. Are you getting the

guac? I will get the.if I go, but I think what's interesting is you, as you pointed the same store sales. I mean that's really tough. This is a name that I think Wall Street has come for to expect sort of consistency and sort of not a great read into the consumer

here. Yeah, what we're hearing largely is that consumers are going to fast food. They know fast food is this value play, and they know that they're really gonna get a lot of food from maybe not as much as what they used to, but for a little amount, and Chipotle is really trying to push that there's still costs about $10 a bowl, but at the same exact time the Chipotle.Consumer is clearly challenged between cooking at home, eating at a fast food joint, or going to Chipotle, and that's what's really causing the same sort of sales growth to lower. They do expect a pick up in the second half. Many, uh, you know, analysts that I speak to on Wall Street are excited about potential throughput, that speed of service to get consumers to come in the door, but that value proposition is certainly in questionright now.

Brooke, thank you so much and stay tuned because we're gonna have Brooke's conversation with Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright on the other side of the break. Don't go anywhere.

Chipotle mixed expectations in its first quarter results as the chain navigated lower consumer confidence and President Trump's trade war. Joining me now is Chipotle CEO Scott Boatright. Scott, thanks so much for coming on.

Hi Brooke and thanks for having us on today.

Scott, let's just set the scene here. The conference board's consumer confidence Index showed that consumers' expectations about the economy hit a 12-year low. The IMF lowered its expectations for US growth, and all major indices are down roughly 2% this month, if not more. Is all this noise what led to a major slowdown in same sort of sales growth for Chipotle?

We certainly think so, Brooke, in large part we saw the, the underlying kind of trend step down around the February time frame that continued into March for us, uh, as we look at our consumer visitation study and we talked to consumers broadly about what is causing them to be on the sideline in this economy, it's really trying to save money.Um, uncertainty around what's going on with the global economy, um, certainly, you know, concerns around, you know, eating out more or eating at home more often versus eating out, um, as we dig into specifically what's going on with the Chipotle consumer, uh, we're not seeing a loss of customers. What we are seeing is a convenience challenge, meaning we need to build more restaurants as quickly as we can to get to our 7000 restaurants in North America.

Now Goldman Sachs wrote in a note this week that as tariffs go into effect and consumers start to see prices rise on everyday goods, that it now expects growth to slow down from there. A bowl with guacamole might go to order half premium. It costs about $15 here in New York. How does Chipotle compete in this sort of environment as more consumers are turning to fast food?

You know, Chipotle today, the average cost of a chicken burrito or a chicken bowl is still under $10 nationally, Brooke, which we think is still an extraordinary value compared to our peer group. We are a 10 to 20% discount to QSR today and oftentimes a 10 to 20% discount to our fast casual, um, peer group. So we think about value differently and we think about value is really high quality ingredients delivered with great culinary classic culinary techniques.In abundance and that affordability and a price point that is unmatched.

But we did see foot traffic drop 2.3%. That was the first decline since 2022. Is that enough to get consumers back in the door here?

We believe so, Brooks, and so we're going against some really tough compares this quarter, as, as, as you probably well know, weather has been a challenge for us in the first quarter. The shift of Easter moving 3 weeks later in the year is a challenge for us. Typically we see the boom or the boost of burrito season happens right after the Easter holiday, which we did see a nice pop in our business on Monday following, uh, the Easter holiday. So it gives us a lot of confidence that our strategy is working. We're meeting the consumer where we are.Given, um, we took a look at our brand tracker which measures how we compare against our peer group in 20 to 25 different percept perceptual drivers. I'm happy to report we hit a record 15 top three categories this year, which shows us that we're improving in a lot of brand metrics. Two that I'm most excited about is cares a lot about the customer and great customer service. We showed up in the top 3 of those categories for the first time.

Scott, are consumers pulling back on ordering sides?

No, we're not seeing side attachment per se drop. What we are seeing is the frequency drop. Uh, so consumers are still spending, they're still getting their favorite sides or add-ons, whether that's lock or delicious queso, uh, or chips, you know, our chips are made handmade every day in the restaurant. They're still, uh, an incredible value as we see them. So we're not.Seeing attachment slip. We're just seeing frequency of our customers again. We don't have a customer issue. We have a frequency challenge.

I do want to talk about that guacamole. We did see food costs increase during this quarter for Chipotle due to inflation. We know that about 50% of Chipotle's avocados are sourced from Mexico, of course, exempt right now with the USMCA agreement, but there's so much uncertainty day to day. Will consumers see higher prices for guacamole?

Not anytime in the near future, Brooke. Our position today as it stands, I said this earlier in the year, is that we are not going to take price in this, in this environment given where the consumer is, uh, until we understand what's actually happening with tariffs. We need to understand which components of the tariff today or tariffs today will be transitory, which will be permanent, and we'll take a pricing action when it's right and appropriate, um, Brooke, but it is not in our purview today and not on our radar anytime in the near future.

your CFO did tell investors last quarter that if there was a permanent hit to the business this year in the form of inflation that you guys would consider pricing. It sounds like potential pricing is still on the table if these tariffs stay into effect and stay in effect, is this a permanent hit on the business and do you raise prices from there?

You know, we would have to evaluate where we sit when that actually happens and we understand the tariff impact. Once we have that understanding, we'll take a hard look at where the consumer sits today. We have pricing power at Chipotle that I believe is unparalleled, and we view that pricing power as an asset, and we can choose to spin that asset when we want to.Given the strength of our balance sheet and the strength of our economic model that gives us the opportunity to be patient, do what's right for the consumer, do what's right for the brand, and make those decisions at that moment. So

Scott, to be clear, even though you did see same sort of sales decline, you did see foot traffic decline, you still think that Chipotle has pricing power here.

I absolutely do, especially given the value as it relates to our competitors within the space and how we think about pricing in total. I know many of the brands that are competitors within our, within our space have franchise communities that take action on pricing um at will.we, uh, being wholly owned and company owned both here and in Western Europe, control our pricing strategy. We control how we, how we create value for the consumer, uh, and we don't take that, uh, we don't take that lightly and we'll lean into the right decision and the right action for the consumer at the right time.

I do want to quickly hit on tomato. Tomato salsa is also in my go to order here. Mexican tomatoes are expected to see a roughly 21% tariff starting mid July. How much of a headwind is that for your business?

Uh, it's small numbers and basic as it relates to basis points impact to margin and again something we can absorb if those tariffs go into place, uh, and something we could price against later down the road when the consumer is in a better place. We expect this year to, to have somewhere in the kind of low single digit, uh, commodity inflation.as well as labor inflation, we have said historically our pricing actions have often been only to offset inflation that we're seeing in the business, uh, not for margin capture and so we'll look for other offsets within the P&L to offset some of those margin impacts first before we lean into pricing as a lever.

Looking out, you do expect the same sort of sales growth to now come in in the low single digit range. That was lower than your previously set expectation. Why are you doing that, Scott?

Just given what we experienced in Q1, the tough compares we're seeing in Q2 today, we do have, uh, based on our forecast, we will return to positive transactions in the second half of the year. We also have several, um, uh, activities that relate as it relates to what I call the consumer flywheel, so the operations digital and marketing. We're gonna lean into the consumer in a more meaningful way this summer as it relates to marketing and digital ads spend.Uh, typically it's a month where we don't spend as much as we do in the other parts of the year, so think spring and fall, and we're trying to target our consumer to remain relevant throughout the summer months.And the summer seasonality has been a step down in the business for us for the last couple of years, so we're gonna lean into streaming channels, social media channels. We're gonna lean into this idea of using our most um influential, uh, Chipotle users and how they Chipotle on a new campaign we're bringing forward. We're gonna lean into innovation as it relates to the menu as well.So you could see a new sides or a new dip this summer as we think about how we stay relevant, visible, and loved by the consumer throughout the summer time frame. A lot, I have a lot of confidence in the back half of the years that relates to the LTO that we bring into the fall, um, so I have, I have confidence we can get back to positive transaction and positive momentum in the second half.

New LTO, new dips. These are all things we're excited for here, Scott. I do quickly want to hit on the stock price. Investors are weighing the potential risks like that exposure to avocados, the intense competition, and then this overall economic environment that we're seeing. Shares are down roughly 19% year to date. What is your message to investors here?

You know, I would tell you that the strength of the brand has never been better, Brooke. I've been here 8 years now. We are absolutely on our front foot as it relates to operational, um, as you think operational ability, if you think about culinary, we're delivering world-class culinary across across the system today. This the throughput numbers continue to improve our customer um experience numbers, all metrics we look at continue to improve. We're delivering better in.Restaurant experiences, um, the marketing calendar slated for the back half of the year and into 2026 has never been stronger. We continue to innovate, uh, in, in our digital properties as we think about customer journeys, individual personalization, and how we bring that experience in a frictionless way to the digital consumer. So I have a lot of confidence in our strategy, how we move forward as a brand, and I think there's never been a better time to be a part of the Chipotle family.

Scott Boatwright, Chipotle CEO, thanks so much for taking the time today. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Brooke. Have a great week.

Time now for what to watch Thursday, April 24th, sponsored by Tasty trade. Let's start off on the earnings front. Of course we're in the thick of earnings season. We'll get some more big names tomorrow, including Pepsi, Alphabet, and Intel. Google parent company Alphabet announcing results for the first quarter after the closing bell. Analysts expect the company's cost per click growth to drive its search business, and investors will be.Listening for any updates on its ad segment. That's after a judge ruled that Google is monopolizing the online advertising business. Taking a look at the Federal Reserve some more commentary coming our way from Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari. This comes after comments from President Trump yesterday. He said in the Oval Office that he has no intention of firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell.And switching gears to gaming, Nintendo is opening preorders in the US for its long awaited switch to console. It's coming after delaying preorders due to President Trump's tariffs. The demand has already become overwhelming for Nintendo. The company warning that a significant chunk of the 2.2 million customers who tried preordering in Japan will likely miss out. Hopefully not our producer Dan Nelson, who writes what to watch and is an avid gamer. Dan, good luck.That'll do for today's market domination over time. Be sure to come back tomorrow at 3 p.m. Eastern for all of your coverage leading up to an actual closing bell, but don't go anywhere. On the other side of the break, it's asking for a trend. Stay tuned.