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It's now time for some of today's trending tickers. We are watching Tesla, General Motors, and McDonald's. First up, Tesla's Board of Directors denying reports, the EV maker open to search for a new CEO. In a statement posted on X, the company slammed the report as absolutely false. Adding that the board is highly confident in Elon Musk's ability to keep leading the company. Tesla shares have fallen roughly 30% since the be the year began and analysts have blamed Doge for taking up too much of Elon Musk's time. The CEO assured investors on Tesla's recent earnings call that he would spend much less time on Doge starting in May. Shares right now are down 7/10 of a percent.

Yeah, and obviously, we have that denial from the company here. However, of course they would have this question in the room given the question mark that investors were obviously putting forward while selling this stock over the last quarter here. Having said that, it's interesting timing coming after a cabinet meeting that happened from the White House on Wednesday. President Trump thanking Elon Musk for his work with the Department of Government Efficiency and saying you are welcome as long as you would like to be here, but then saying quote, "I guess he wants to get back home to his cars." Well, next up, General Motors cutting its full-year profit forecast citing up to $5 billion of exposure to auto tariffs. CEO Mary Barra wrote in a letter to shareholders, the company will keep strong dialogue with the administration on trade policy. On Tuesday, President Trump signed an order easing some auto tariffs, though a 25% levy on all vehicles imported into the US is going to remain in place. The guidance here at the start of the year for the company, over 15 billion now in the 10 to 12.5 billion dollar range, Brad.

Yeah, exactly. And we've been monitoring extremely closely what the reaction from some of the auto manufacturers would be, especially in light of some of the tariffs, where they were looking for exemptions. But those exemptions are going to be rolled in, uh, I guess pun fully intended there, over time. And that is going to be a larger kind of implication that we have to watch closely to see how the manufacturers are looking from, looking for everything across the, the OEM and the production of those vehicles as it's really specifically targeted towards making sure that some of the vehicles or most of the vehicles have the majority of those models actually built out in the US. And that's where a lot of the exemptions would actually come into play as well.

Absolutely.

Also, we're tracking McDonald's here this morning. Uh, the shares of the golden arches, they are under pressure after the fast food chain, same store US sales slid 3.6% during the first quarter of the year over year sales drop, the worst since the COVID pandemic, as more cautious consumers temper their spending. McDonald's left its full year guidance unchanged though, and the CEO said he's confident in the company's ability to navigate tough market conditions. Shares of McDonald's, MCD, down by about 1.9% here pre-market.

Right, we're getting a lot of interesting insight into the health of the consumer through the McDonald's call here. The company talking about the mid-income consumer being hit in this economy. That is something that could potentially weigh on a lot of other names moving forward here. They're also talking about consumers not necessarily coming in for breakfast, maybe cutting back on some of that spend. Again, a narrative of a more cautious consumer. It is interesting to compare it to the likes of Yum Brands that had some strength in its Taco Bell business, uh, perhaps the pricing power of McDonald's may be overplayed just a bit as consumers are starting to struggle, but again, not struggling too much given the fact that they did reiterate that guidance for the year. Of course, depends whether or not they will able be able to meet that moving forward. And you can scan the QR code here on your screen to track the best and worst performing stocks with Yahoo Finance's trending tickers page.