Today on Taking Stock | Hot PPI Print Fails to Derail S&P 500's Record Run

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]on the Dow. The Dow 30 components in negative territory a tenth of a percent.

[00:00:04]The New York Stock Exchange Composite Index down 2/10, but the small caps holding on to fractional gains, and I do mean fractional, up 4100ths of a percent on the day. 3M, Cisco, Johnson and Johnson, those are your Dow strongest names on the day. Your Dow lagard, Salesforce, Home Depot, and IBM. A lot of those uh home builders in negative territory for the day. Semiconductors inching mostly higher. Shares of Marll up about 7% into the close. Memory stocks moving mostly higher as well.

[00:00:32]Software stocks however taking a leg lower for the most part. Shares of into it down about 4%. Uh and uh what else?

[00:00:39]Mag 7 mostly higher. Google shares higher. Microsoft shares down fractionally. Let's bring in Jay Hatfield, friend of the show. He is the CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors.

[00:00:48]Nice to see you again.

[00:00:50]>> Thanks for having me on.

[00:00:51]>> What is driving this market rally?

[00:00:52]Another round of alltime highs as you and I look up at the big board. Uh it doesn't seem like overwhelming buyside action like Peter Tuckman was just saying, but another round of highs for the NASDAQ and the S&P.

[00:01:03]>> Well, this is a normal season for the market to stall out. It doesn't look like it's stalling out, but the equal weight market is flat over the last month. And it's purely what you just described, a huge semiconductor AI infrastructure rally that's draining capital out of the rest of the market, including from software and a lot including from financials and other old economy stocks.

[00:01:26]>> Jay, what's your take on a hotter thanex expected CPI inflation print? We got that across the wire yesterday. and then a much hotter than expected PPI wholesale inflation print earlier today.

[00:01:37]What does the Fed do with those type of numbers?

[00:01:40]>> Well, if hopefully they remain on hold.

[00:01:44]The Fed should not try to close off inflation solely caused by energy. So, we're super bearish on inflation only because of energy. But if you look at the sector where they should tighten is if housing was surging and it's not. So housing inflation as properly measured is down year-over-year. So they should stay on hold. They're already tight.

[00:02:05]They're 75 to 100 basis points too high.

[00:02:08]It would be huge mistake to try to kill a global energy shortage by putting the US economy into a recession.

[00:02:16]>> I wonder if S&P 8000 is still for the most part your year-end target. That's upside potential off this level. about another seven and a half% a lot of optimism out there to say hey despite all the gains we've had year to date you think we still have more room to run >> well strangely estimates are up 9% this year already so our upside targets 8700 >> so we actually think 8,000 is conservative >> okay >> and that's simply tech driving much higher S&P earnings so um if you just take 23 times 27 earnings >> our target goes from 8,000 to 8700 we may not If if we still have the war going on, we may not get to 23 times, but certainly upside on the 8,000 target. And you're seeing it here. We really can't get this market to go down mostly because of tech.

[00:03:03]>> Yeah, you mentioned the conflict in the Middle East. Presumably, we'll get a lot more announcements coming in the next few days as the president meets with uh Chinese President Xiinping. How realistic is it that the straight of war moves reopens fully before summer or we see oil drop back down for the most part to where we were back in February around $70 a barrel?

[00:03:22]>> We're pretty bearish on a negotiated settlement. We don't think Iran after 47 years of having the US as an enemy after we blew up their entire leadership and their family is going to suddenly get religion and try to negotiate with us.

[00:03:38]So we think we have to open it by up by force and the administration is delaying that. So we're concerned it may take even through the summer to open up the street.

[00:03:48]>> While I have you, let me get your take.

[00:03:49]Your expectations for a Kevin Worshled Federal Reserve. He just got the votes in the US Senate a few hours ago.

[00:03:56]>> We're actually optimistic about it.

[00:03:57]We've been huge critics of the Fed since the pandemic. We think he'll reform their forecasting models. He'll reform the indices which are deeply flawed particularly on shelter and after the straight reopens, start cutting rates.

[00:04:13]>> Before I let you go, a few top stock picks you have, things on your radar that maybe uh the wouldbe retail investor at home might want to take a closer look at as well.

[00:04:22]>> Well, even uh we've been recommending Marll for 100%. We still see upside to that up to 210. We recommend at Amazon at 200 it's at 270 but our targets 370 because of the chip business gives you extra upside both those companies we're carrying above consensus estimates so we estimate have our own proprietary estimates and particularly in the case of Amazon's not as risky a stock pretty stable has the retail trades at a much lower multiple than Walmart trades at 45 Amazon about 25 >> so great way to play both the retail and the infrastructure side >> J Atfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Adviserss. Nice to see you again. Thanks for joining us.

[00:05:01]>> Thanks for having me on.

[00:05:02]>> All right, come back anytime, Skyler.

[00:05:03]Grab your microphone. Todd, we'll head this way. We'll bring our viewers the top analyst calls that move the tape on Wall Street early this morning. First up, Bank of America reiterating Micron as a buy, lifting its price target from 500 all the way up to $950 a share.

[00:05:16]Analysts expecting to see memory demand continue to outpace supply. Shares of Micron up 170% since the start of January. That's not a typo. Next up, DAW. Hello. downgrading AMD to outperform from buy on valuation concerns given how strong earnings were.

[00:05:31]AMD shares up 100% since the start of the year. Finally, Oppenheimer reiterating Nvidia has outperformed ahead of their quarterly results called next week. 265 for the price target.

[00:05:42]Shares of Nvidia up about 18% so far year to date. To take a look at one New York Stock Exchange notable company that calls the big board its home at shares of Under Armour. Wow, this was a nice surge here into the close because this was only up fractionally like an hour ago. Up about 1.6% despite a steifold downgrade to hold from buy. Steifel analysts saying we see an elongated turnaround for the apparel giant 12-month price target $6 a share under armor up on the day but shares about flat so far in 2026. Earlier on today, the New York Stock Exchange's very own Ashley Mastardi sat down with Global Medical Response CEO Nick Lopicro after he rang the opening bell here at the big board. Take a look.

[00:06:25]>> Joining me now is Nick Loicaro. He is Global Medical Responses chairman and CEO. Nick, you just rang the opening bell the day your company is about to make its public debut. How are you feeling?

[00:06:36]>> Uh, awesome. This is amazing to have the privilege to do this on behalf of 34,000 of our teammates uh who deserve this recognition. Um you I said to the team this morning, going public allows us to make what we do more public so people understand what our teams deliver every day in the field, responding to 911 emergencies, and bringing care to the communities that we serve. And in a field that is so unpredictable from the day-to-day, how do you manage your logistics and operations to serve the community the best way that you can?

[00:07:13]>> Look, part of it is that's the way we're wired. We're wired for emergencies, right? And you think about the years of experience our teams and the learnings.

[00:07:21]We touched over five and a half million patients last year. Five and a half million patient encounters. That's over 15,000 a day. And we study every one of those encounters. We iterate on all of them so we know where we need to be posted, what potentially is going to happen in a certain environment seasonally. You know, we kind of plan around it so that we can respond in those vital nine minutes that you need us.

[00:07:44]>> You have 34,000 employees. 24,000 of them are clinicians. What is your direct message to them today on IPO day? to the 24,000 clinicians first, our field teams. Uh I always say we don't have our hands on patients. They do, but we're extensions of those hands and those arms. And the support teams, the logistics you mentioned earlier, we're phenomenal. I mean, you look at that equipment you saw outside the stock exchange today. Our teams take great pride in making sure that the field teams have what they need to take care of patients. So, we have your backs. And as I mentioned in the show earlier, those ambulances, I understand they were designed, customd designed with feedback from your first responders down to the seat belts, down to the door handles, down to the cabinets. How important is it to receive feedback from those first responders out in the field when designing um your vehicles?

[00:08:43]>> It's amazing, right? This speaks to our size and scale and our ability to invest. years ago, we started a refurbishing outfit for our ambulances, our ground ambulance. They took that knowledge and said, "You know what? We think we can build our own, and we're going to build it based on the people using them every day." So, we brought our field forces in and we designed that ambulance with their inputs, which goes back to we've got to do our utmost to make sure that those clinicians have everything they need so we can best respond to the patients we take care of and make sure that our our ultimate goal is to make sure our clinicians have hands-on patients and we take care of the rest for them.

[00:09:22]>> And what does a typical day, if there is one, look like across global medical response? You know, there's there's no typical day in emergencies. I was sort of half getting with you earlier. No one plans they're going to have a heart attack. At 2:32 on the Tuesday, we show up. Now, that said, we touch over 250 cardiac and stroke patients daily at GMR. Back to that 15,000 patients a day and all kinds of responses. Whether that's in a stadium at an event, whether that's on a street corner, whether that's out in a rural community where no one else is there to help. There are a lot of communities in this country we're the only access to care.

[00:10:01]>> What is next after this IPO moment in our last 30 seconds together?

[00:10:05]>> You know, one awareness is getting out to the public what EMS actually does and GMR as the scaled leader of this educating and being able to offer more of a services that we have in the communities we're in and expanding to the communities we're not.

[00:10:22]>> Nick Luparo, Global Medical Responses Chair and CEO. Congratulations.

[00:10:28]Welcome to the public markets.

[00:10:30]>> Thank you, Ash.

[00:10:38]>> Let's do it. Welcome back to the show.

[00:10:40]Kyle Reedhead joins us now. Kyle is the co-owner and head of research at Milk Road. Kyle, really nice to have you here on the show today. So, Google obviously posted not long ago, massive earnings.

[00:10:50]Talk to me first and foremost about that trunch of quarterly results or overall are current valuations for a lot of these big tech names still justified at these levels.

[00:11:01]>> Yeah. Was it last week or two weeks ago now? We had four of the biggest companies in the world all do their earnings on the same day and all four of them crushed it and uh it was huge. I think it was 67% year-over-year growth on on Google Cloud, Amazon, uh Microsoft and I think it was Amazon maybe was the other one. um and and they all showed incredible numbers and so I think they are justified right now. We are seeing a boom in the AI space not just in infrastructure but in the use you know in in the use of all these things cloud being a big part of this semiis being a big part of this etc. Uh and so I think we're seeing some incredible growth in these companies and I think it is justified at some point I'm sure this is going to get way overblown and we're going to get overheated but I'm not seeing it right now. I think there's a lot of room to grow here for for many of these companies over time.

[00:11:46]I want your take on market leadership.

[00:11:48]Can chip stocks, most specifically keep up their momentum and really keep leading this market to new highs.

[00:11:55]>> I do think they will. I think there's still a lot of demand uh for for chips for memory for for all of these. And I think they're going to grow. I don't know that they're going to have as good as the year they just had or even just as good as a last few months that they as they've just had. Um but I think there is secular demand for these assets. Uh and so I don't think this stops. I think the biggest companies in the world, the biggest countries in the world, they are all um you know want more and more of this stuff. We want to convert energy into intelligence. That's basically what's happening. And we need the chips to do it. And so I think there's ongoing demand for this. We already saw I think Morgan Stanley put out we're going to have 1.1 trillion in uh in AI capex spend next year. So this is growing. It's getting much bigger.

[00:12:36]And every quarter it seems like we're guiding higher for each of this. And so that's just more capital going into these semis going into the chips. Um, and so I think this is going to continue to grow. Do I think memory memory is going to be continuously the biggest mover of them all? I think at some point that's going to change. Uh, there's going to be different bottlenecks throughout this AI infrastructure buildout. I think actually energy is probably a big thing here. And I mean energy specific to data centers. So I think we're getting a big bottleneck there as well. So I think it's it's kind of moving throughout the buildout. Um, but I think there's still plenty of room for chips uh over the coming years.

[00:13:10]Yeah, data center energy, not to be confused with energy energy, which obviously has also had an extremely strong year-to-day performance. Kyle, big tech has big earnings, but they also have big layoffs. What is your take on the current tech layoff cycle that we're seeing?

[00:13:26]>> Yeah, there's been layoffs in tech, but in tech, but at the same time, and I think it was about 70,000 or so in the in the last month uh uh that we saw. And so, it's the biggest we've seen since I think 2023. But at the same time, there's still a ton of hiring going on.

[00:13:39]I think what's happening is the world is evolving, right? Uh the way we use the internet is changing and what we need in the workplace is is becoming very much different than it used to be. Uh and so there's there's certain roles that I think we just no longer need. I own and run two companies and we've very much been recycling who we have work for us.

[00:13:56]We're still hiring a ton because we're growing, but we're looking for people that use AI, right? We want to find superhumans, not just just normal humans. And so I think all that's happening here is sure we're getting rid of some jobs, but I think they're still hiring a ton of other people. It's just in different parts or different types of people that have different skill sets.

[00:14:12]So I'm not over concerned. We haven't seen unemployment, you know, jump too high. Uh and so I think we're we're in a product productivity boom. And so I think there's there's plenty of jobs out there still. Just might not be the jobs that you went to school for or that you want. Uh so I think people need to adapt on on where the economy is going.

[00:14:30]>> Kyle, it's I'm out of time. Please come back anytime. Kyle Reedhead, co-owner and head of research at Milk Road. Kyle, thank you. Time now for the latest headlines in the world of fintech, crypto, and artificial intelligence for your Wednesday afternoon. At this hour, the crypto majors all down. Bitcoin around 79,629.

[00:14:46]Next up, JP Morgan Chase set to launch a second tokenized money market fund directly on the Ethereum blockchain as Wall Street pushes deeper into the world of tokenized finance. Finally, Bloomberg reporting. Token sales from World Liberty Financial. The crypto project from Donald Trump and his sons have added about $660 million to the Trump's family's wealth. Coming up, the latest on JP Morgan's push into tokenization, plus an interview you do not want to miss with the CFO at Rollins. Much more taking stock coming up right after this.

[00:15:22]Heat. Heat.

[00:16:23]Happy.

[00:17:31]Welcome back to Taking Stock Live from the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Ken Krauss joins me now. He is the CFO at Rollins. Just got off the bell podium to bring about a close to today's trade. It's nice to see you here.

[00:17:42]>> Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

[00:17:43]>> You're one of the largest pest control companies in the world. Talk to me first and foremost about investor day. What can people expect and what does this signal about the next chapter for?

[00:17:52]>> Thanks for having me. It's really great to be here and to really tell the story about Rollins. You know, when I reflect on the business, it's not really about what we've done, but what we what we're doing going forward. When I think about the fact that over the last 26 years, we've performed at the 99th percentile of S&P 500 companies. So, we're better than 99% of other companies in their performance. It's not about that that gets me excited, but it's about what's ahead. We really are excited to talk about the growth opportunities we have ahead of us tomorrow at our investor day and also to include all of our teammates. Many of our teammates are here with us celebrating. We're on the podium recently, but they're really excited to talk about the opportunities we have ahead of us.

[00:18:30]>> What makes the pest control business such a strong long-term model? And is there anything in particular in that vein or part of the conversation you're most looking forward to for investor day tomorrow?

[00:18:39]>> Sure. You know, when I think about the business, the fact that we've grown a hundred straight quarters, 20 almost 25 years of consecutive annual revenue growth, it shows the resiliency in the business and how essential the businesses. We're protecting people's health. We're protecting their properties and we're also protecting their brands. And that's very resilient in terms of weathering the storm through economic cycles and downturns, whether it be the great financial crisis, the oil and the industrial slowdown in 2015 or in COVID. We were able to grow through each and every one of those really challenging periods and it's really it's just a really resilient business enabled by a really strong highly engaged team.

[00:19:18]>> How important has merger and acquisition the general M&A space been to Rollins story and Rollins's ongoing success?

[00:19:25]>> Yeah, the growth the growth we've seen through M&A has been um quite quite impressive. Uh when we think about the fact that over the last three years we've acquired a hundred companies and it's not about the companies we're acquiring but it's about the people the people we're bringing into our brands and and welcoming as part of our teammates and then following that up with the investments. There's over 30,000 competitors in the pest control market in the US alone. Not all of them are going to be uh equipped to become a Rollins company. If they have the right culture and they have the right people uh they might get a chance to become part of this family. Well, speaking about people and part of the family that you've built here at your company, customer service is really important. I know first and foremost, how does that customer service become more of a competitive advantage, not just for your work at Rollins, but really across your whole industry?

[00:20:10]>> Well, for us, it's all about servicing the customer, and it all starts with servicing the employees and the teammates that we have across our business. We have 22,000 teammates. A few of them are with me today, but it's all about investing in our teammates.

[00:20:22]And if we invest in our teammates, they'll take care of our customers. You know, we have a goal that by 2028, the end of 2028, every individual in the organization has their own tailored individual development plan. And so, that's really helping our our teammates reach their full potential. And not only that, but not only are we investing in them, they're investing in us. You know, it's interesting when I do presentations and in employee events, I ask the crowd, "How many of you own the Rollins stock?"

[00:20:46]And undoubtedly, over 90% of the room's hands always go up. So, the ownership is held down through the organization from top to bottom. and we're investing in those folks to help them reach their full potential.

[00:20:57]>> Ken Krauss, CFO at Rollins, congratulations on doing the closing bell. Best of luck for investor day tomorrow.

[00:21:02]>> Thank you. Appreciate it.

[00:21:02]>> Nice to see you. Come back anytime.

[00:21:04]Coming up, the latest news from Anthropic and a preview of tomorrow's earnings calls you do not want to miss.

[00:21:08]A lot more taking stock coming up after this.

[00:23:21]Welcome back to the show. Time now for the latest headlines in the worlds of startups, races, and rounds. First up, Anthropic reportedly in talks to raise at least $30 billion billion with a B at a valuation above 900 billion. Next up, Citel Citadel backed blockchain company digital asset raising about $300 million at a $2 billion valuation with the team from A16Z set to raise that uh lead that round. Finally, Bloomberg reporting Africa's richest man seeking a valuation of up to 50 billion for a potential IPO of his Nigerian refinery business. Money 2020's very own Scarlett Sber is now back to explain the ways that fintech companies really make money. Take a look.

[00:24:08]I'm Scarlett Sber with Money2020 and this is how fintech companies actually make money where we talk less about shiny tech and more about whether a business model actually holds up. Today we're going to be talking about jump because wealth management has a very specific problem and it's not lack of advice, it's lack of time. Financial adviserss don't spend most of their day advising. They spend it taking notes, updating CRM, writing follow-ups, chasing context. Jump exists to fix that. Jump uses AI to automate meeting notes, summaries, follow-ups, and insights for financial adviserss so advisers can focus on guess what, their clients and not on admin. Let's talk about how Jump actually makes money though. First, Percy SAS subscription.

[00:24:49]Advisers usually pay a fee recurring either monthly or annually to use Jump across their daily workflows. This is classic and it's predictable revenue.

[00:24:56]Secondly, firmwise enterprise deployments. Larger RAAS and wealth firms roll Jump out across the entire team, turning it into a shared productivity layer rather than a single user tool. The third way is through workflow depth, not just feature count.

[00:25:11]Jump integrates deeply with our with CRM, calendars, and advisor tools. Once it becomes how meetings and follow-ups happen, it stops becoming optional. And here's why that matters. Advisors are a rare customer profile. They're time constrained and they are not price sensitive. If software gives them back hours and helps grow revenue, the ROI, well, guess what? That calculates itself. That's why Jump's traction translated into a roughly $80 million series B in February as investor as investors leaned into a simple truth.

[00:25:42]Productivity software for revenue producers scales fast and it sticks hard. So why now? Because wealth management is facing margin pressure without wanting to cheapen the client experience. Firms want growth without adding headcount. Advisers want efficiency without losing personal connection. An AI that actually removes cognitive and administrative load. That finally makes sense. So, what's the real moat here? Habit and dependency. Once advisers rely on Jump to capture meetings, generate follow-ups, and remember context. Switching feels risky, and tools that save time become invisible, which is exactly where you want to be. Jump doesn't monetize investors. It monetizes advisors scarcest asset, attention. And that is how Jump actually makes money. By turning time saved into revenue earned quarter after quarter. Not by promising to disrupt advice, but by quietly making it easier to deliver. If there's a fintech company you want us to feature, drop it in the comments below and it just might make the cut. In the meantime, back over to you.

[00:26:49]Tomorrow here on Wall Street, the latest quarterly results from names like CLA, Bullish, and Yeti. All set to report before market open. And this time tomorrow after the close, the latest quarterly results from Figma and Applied Materials, plus initial and continuing jobless claims first thing in the morning. Alltime highs for today's tale of the tape for the S&P 500 and the tech heavy NASDAQ. The broader index pushing up 6/10en of a percent, the Dow down 1/10enth, and the Russell 2000 finishing in the green fractionally. That'll do it for today's edition of Taking Stock.

[00:27:19]Thanks for watching. Have a great Wednesday night. We'll see you again tomorrow.