welcome to "power lunch." she's leslie picker. i'm dominic chu, and stocks are in rally mode. bond yields falling as the jobs number comes in short of estimates, and the employment rate rises, but markets seem to be going with bad news is good news if you want to call it bad news, leslie. >> exactly. and two stocks accounting for a big portion of the dow's gains.

angen soaring and comments on its version of an obesity drug, and apple hires and focuses on that record buyback. is the company using $110 billion to wallpaper over some weakness or were the results not as bad as feared? steve covac covering apple for us from sfans. hey, steve. >> so look. last quarter revenue was down 4%, iphone sales down 10%, but no one really seems to care because apple gave its shareholders the biggest stock buyback in corporate history. that's $110 billion, increased the dividend, 4% to $0.25 and went towards modest growth which was expected as some have been trimming their estimates. china sales were down 12%, and

in an interview yesterday, i was told iphone sales in mainland china grew. that's countering the narrative we have been hearing over the last few months. i also asked cook about his recent visit to china just a few weeks ago. he told me, quote, i feel great that in an extraordinary, competitive environment, that we grew iphone sales in mainland china last quarter. that may come as a surprise to c some people, and i feel good about china more than i do the long-term or next week. the services business seems to be over its post-pandemic slump beating expectations and posts an all-time record of $23.9 billion in sales. that's up about 14% from the year ago quarter. we heard on the earnings call last night to expect similar growth in services for the june quarter. as for artificial intelligence, big lingering question. not much material to share there. i tried to squeeze fresh details out of cook, but he wouldn't budge, only teasing there's going to be an announcement on

generative a.i. soon which we're of course, expecting at wwdc on june 10th, guys. >> steve, thank you. that's a great breakdown. it's been a busy days for you. if you doen't mind hanging aroud right there, let's get to the senior analyst at bernstein. he upgraded apple to market perform. he has $195 price target. maybe still a little bit of upside from these levels, but they've certainly made you look quite prush i can't. what gave you the idea to give you that stock at that point in time? there's still significant room to run from here. >> good afternoon, leslie, and thanks for having me on. i think, you know, our sense was that expectations were quite low going into the quarter. investors were fearful about china being weak, and that even if apple did, you know, guide

below expectations, that is widely anticipated, and once this guidance was passed, investors would feel comfortable with new offerings. new ipads are being announced next week, new iphones in september which we think will have a.i. capabilities, and then likely new macs and air pods as well in the second half of the year. so our contention really was that expectations were low, and once we got past this quarter, almost good or bad, the stock could be poised to run up given that it underperformed by 20% year to date and was trading at, you know, below its recent average multiple levels. >> and steve, i wanted to ask you about china in particular, and if you could help us kind of make the distinction between mainland china and the greater china because mainland -- i thought the whole narrative surrounding the slowdown there

was this idea that the chinese economy was slowing down and therefore, you know, some iphone sale s were declining and also t was favor relative of the home to hometown brands in that area, but if tim cook is saying that mainland is growing, where are they seeing the pocket of weakness that bring down kind of the greater china sales as a whole? >> yeah. they didn't really talk too much ar about that yesterday, but there are things beyond just the iphone. first of all, services were up. that kind of helped things too, but also keep in mind it's bsine the fall of 2022 that apple last released an ipad. that could have been some of the weakness we saw in china last quarter, so take that into account. they also said expect double-digit growth return to the ipad because as toni just mentioned, we'll get those new mo models next week, so that should

give them reason to buy an ipad. mainland china is countering that narrative. we had reports of idc that sent the stock down on these fears that, you know, counterpoint saying iphone sales were down 19%. well, apple -- that's not what they were necessarily showing yesterday, and of course, like i said, tim cook told me iphone is showing momentum and growth out there. so, you know, i'm looking a little bit more skeptical of these reports we have been hearing out of china. not sure where they're exactly getting the data, and it's clear that there's a huge disconnect between what the third parties are saying and then what apple actually reports out there in china and leslie. >> toni, it's dom. $110 billion buyback is nothing to, you know, sneeze at right here. it's a lot of money. i know that apple generates a ton of cash, and that the buyback stories are a big part of the investment thesis for apple, but what happens if they

take that money or even a fraction of it and plow it into things like artificial intelligence hypothetically? wouldn't it move the needle? >> good afternoon, dom. so the buyback is a very large number, $110 billion. they have been upping their buyback last year, it was $90 billion. this quarter they bought back, you know, i think $25 billion worth of shares. so they're on pace to buy back about $100 billion worth of shares per year. that helps the growth by about 3% or 4% per year. so that is an important part of apple's model. i think in terms of a.i. investments, you know, many companies are raising their cap. a lot of it is for compute for a.i. apple has a kind of a hypermodel where it uses some of its own compute, but increasingly it's increasing the data centers for other places like microsoft, and

it's paying for that. it's not a capital expenditure, and so as a result, apple's capital expenditures are relatively low. they're only about $10 billion a year. you're hearing about some of the other magnificent seven, you know, spending $40 billion, $50 billion, $60 billion a year on that, in part for a.i. apple is saying, you know, we don't need to lay out that cash in terms of the capital expense. what we'll do is just pay for ongoing use of third party compute services for us to do our work on a.i. >> steve, in terms of this buyback that we're talking about, is the sense from wall street that it is kind of the main driver of today's stock move or do you think that the results on a fundamental basis were strong enough to contribute to the gains that we're seeing today? >> probably the main driver, yes. the buyback. that was the immediate reaction as soon as we got those numbers

at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. that seems to be what's driving, you know, the revenue came in a little bit on the top and bottom lines, but yeah. that seems to be the bulk of it. plus the guidance. you know, tim cook told me before the call even started, he gave me a little guidance and said, low single-digit growth for the june quarter, and that seemed to be enough to drive it a little bit higher. it's up 7% now. that's about what it was after hours as well. i also want to add onto something that toni was just talking about. there's also spending in what they're doing on artificial intelligence on device. i talked to cook about this too in our interview and talking about what's call these neuroprocessing units. you'll hear about this a lot as microsoft talks about a.i. devices in the coming weeks as well. those are the kind of chips that apple has been chipping since 2020, and that allows for more a.i. activity to happen on device. now of course, apple devices

don't necessarily run generative a.i. things right now, but it helps with image processing and other stuff kind of under the hood. they have a lot of experience on the hardware side and have been making investments in those kind of technologies to enable a.i. and again, we're waiting for that big announcement next month to see exactly how they unleash that in a -- on the software level. >> wwdc. it's going to be all about that. toni and steve, thank you very much for the apple conversation. have a nice weekend, guys. >> thanks. even forbefore this announcement, apple was the leader on the street in re-purchasing its own stock. we're joined now with eye-popping numbers and i've seen hints of them about just how much apple will have bought become in its own stock in terms of market value over the course of its campaign and it's staggering, bob. >> and it's been doing this for a long time, dom. so apple's $110 billion stock buyback announcement is very large, but apple is already the

largest buyback company in the s&p 500 in dollar terms and by a large amount. in the last 12 months, apple's bought back $84 billion in stock. that is far above anybody else in the s&p 500. so to give you an idea, alphabet is a distant second. they only bought back $62 billion, and meta, microsoft, exxonmobil, they're in the top five but they're way down there compared to apple. apple's been doing this for a really long time and consistently. they have been aggressively buying back its stock and reducing the share count too since 2013, 11 years now. the share count has gone from 26 billion shares in 2023 to 15.3 billion today. that's quite remarkable. apple not only dominates buybacks, but it dominates the largest quarterly buybacks ever done. the 12 largest quarterly buybacks ever done in all history, all in the $20 billion range were all done by apple. everybody else is way down the

list. so in recent years, the buybacks in general have become the preferred method returning cash to shareholders, even over dividends because it's harder to take back dividends. who's next? not surprisingly, companies with very large cash flow in the tech space. they've tended to be the companies that are buying back the most stock and reducing their share count. that includes, for example, meta, microsoft, texas instruments, and alphabet. they're the other ones besides apple, but there are a few surprises outside of tech. i'll give you an example. home depot, and the home-builder polte have been reducing their share count in the last few years as well. i'll give you an idea of apple's priorities. they bought back $14 billion in dividends, and $18 billion in buybacks. think about that. that's a priority for them.

>> bob, i'm just curious, kind of given what we've seen apple has, you know, not necessarily seen some of the gains as the other companies that you've mentioned as being big share count reducers, but how does kind of performance play into this calculus as well as the tech environment as it pertains to antitrust in that maybe the capital they're using their buybacks can't be used for things like acquisitions because they have regulators on the case about potential or at least alleged anti-monopolistic behavior? >> yeah. i think recently, that has become a real issue, particularly over in europe. i don't think it was in the past though. i think apple is speaking volumes that they don't -- the fact that they put so much money into buybacks and a little bit into dividends indicates to me that returning money to shareholders is a bigger priority even than over investing in and like looking at

cars for example, which they decided to get out of. the important thing here, leslie, is not just buying back the stock, but at the same time, reducing the share count. there are companies that buy back stock, but add options and they don't reduce the share count. apple does. in 2013, they have 40% less shares outstanding than they did in 2013. what that means is everything else on the income statement is the same. everything else is the same. the earnings are 40% higher than they would have been without that because the share count's been reduced by 40%. so that's materially very, very significant. a good part of apple's gains clearly are due to that share count reduction. >> eye-popping numbers. bob, thank you very much. we'll see you later on. coming up on the show, beyond apple, we'll break down the other big moves in the dow. amgen playing an even bigger role in the dow, along with the jobs report. that's all coming up next.

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♪ welcome back to "power lunch." apple is not the only stock contributing to today's stock market gains. in fact, amgen is responsible for probably at this point, more than half of this. angelica peoples is here on why this is surging and let me take a stab. it has something to do with obesity. >> you're exactly right, dom. amgen is soaring after the company says it will experiment with its obesity drug in clinical trials. the look at the phase two data was encouraging and they'll move forward with this drug. we won't have the full results from those -- that phase two trial until the end of this year, but executives say they're not seeing many people dropping out of the study, and the side effects have been a problem across the board, so amgen is

trying to ensure investors this is not an issue here. they're investing in manufacturing so it can ramp up manufacturing when the time comes. this would compete with what goe sorry and zepbound. amgen is also saying it will scrap an experimental pill. it's going all in on this drug and earlier drugs in the pipeline. >> i'll pick it up from here. thank you very much for breaking it down for us. appreciate it. let's turn to the bond market now when yields took a sharp dip lower on the jobs data. let's get to rick santelli with that data. rick? >> yes. not only do i have a special gu guest, but today's jobs number was less than expected. the interest rates along the curve went lower, but they have since borm bottomed and the reason they bottomed is my guest. jim bianco. we haven't had a live interview

with over four years. welcome back. what are your thoughts about the jobs market? >> good to be back. the jobs market were good for the market. it showed that, you know, the restraint that everybody thought backed off -- we've got jobs, but not too many jobs. probably the best part of the report was labor costs fell two-tenths up and on a year over year basis, they're down 4%. the market got what it wanted. it got growth and backing off with inflation, and that's why you saw a rally. >> that's the first time we are under 4% since mid-june of 2021 on the year over year average hourly earnings, and something else happened at 10:00 eastern, right? >> that's right. we got the ism services prices paid. that's their measure at 59. this follows the 69 we got at manufacturing this week. this is more high-frequency, inflation is saying that purchasing managers are still paying up to get stuff, and that

puts the bottom in yields today because this is what we're worried about. we're worried about inflation and we've got another number that i wouldn't go problematic, but it's not going in the right direction. >> right. so jobs put it lower. we traded under 4 1/2, and under 480, and we're now both hovering. that number did put a bottom in on rates. all right. now let me ask you a question, okay? where do you think we are on the inflation front, and did you see some of the q&a with the chairman of the fed? what were your thoughts on anything that you found interesting? >> on the inflation front, two things can be true at once. we had a transitory element coming out of covid. we went to 9%, back to 3%, but when that transitory element dissipated, we're now finding that sub-2% inflation world we were in, is more like 3%, 3.5%. we have higher inflation, and that's why interest rates are still 4.5%, and nowhere where

they were. that's what he said -- >> about politics? >> the fed said they're not political, and then the way he answered the question was, he said i'm not partisan. okay. that's a different question. you're not partisan. you don't sit around the table deciding which candidate you want, but there's a meeting on july 31st between the republican and democrat convention. are you going to move it, that meeting? there's a meet september 18th. are you going to move at that meeting? if you move, you become the part of the election. will you wait until tend of the year? he didn't answer that question. >> that's like saying i'm not a cub fan. that doesn't mean i'm not a baseball fan. we only have a half a minute left. my final question is, do you think that stagflation is a statistical probability albeit small? >> yeah. i mean, to some extent we're in a higher inflation world, and we're not seeing weaker growth. right there, that is some version of stagflation. the problem is the word is it's a loaded term. everybody remembers the late

'70s. that's a virulant form of it. >> it could be the homecoming of stagflation. it's great to see you in person, buddy. dom, back to. >> you rick, jim, thank you very much, guys. stocks are higher as the jobs report raises expectations for a federate cut possibly despite mixed messages on policy. our next guest says earns are providing a constructive backdrop. let's bring in the chief investment officer with rockland trust. the conversation frames pretty much everything these days. they do kind of help with the earnings story. is the earnings story enough to drive the markets higher? >> i think it is, dom. at the end of the day, ultimately investors are looking at cash flow generated by companies and companies generate cash flows through earnings, and the expect tations are looking out, and we started the third-quarter earning period.

we're looking at the double-digit earnings growth for 2024 and 2025. that's a great backdrop for stocks for sure despite all the mixed messages we're getting out of the fed and in the data again. another data point where again, the labor force increased the -- the price increase in wages is very compelling, very surprised which is good news. >> does that mean that you are tilting your strategy towards more economically sensitive-type stocks or is this an environment where inflation's a problem and you have to be more defensive? what's on the shopping list? >> yeah, so we tend to look long-term, dominic, in traders and such. we're thinking of, you know, 12 to 2040, maybe even longer. we're not skewing our portfolios like the labor print today. when we think longer term, we want to have a good mix of things. you want to expose it to the rapidly growing sectors, and a.i. is a fe no, ma'am than that will be around. we have companies exposed to that, but at the same time, recognize that at some points in a market cycle, some of the more

traditional cyclical companies are going to do well, and we want to make sure we're participate whg thing when that as well. we're not skewing one way or the other, we're balanced across the categories and we're well positioned with inflation on impact on interest rate. >> how closely are you paying at attention to jobs at this point in time? do you think this morning's numbers was enough of a degradation to get a cut as soon as july? >> yeah. so i don't worry so much about the jobs numbers themselves, but the way inflation numbers are really, really important. if you think about it, we have a good amounts of goods and services in the economy, and everybody is making substantially more money. the only thing that can happen is prices rise, and that's inflation. we're looking very closely at that as an input to overall inflation. the jobs numbers themselves obviously have some impact to that. to the extent there are good, solid job growth and relatively low unemployment, and that'll put pressure on the pricing. the pricing itself, the wage

growth is really something we're v very, very focused on to understand the bigger terms for inflation. >> that came in below expectations, but growing nonetheless. david smith, really appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you for having me. further ahead, chinese stocks outperforming, benefitting from the higher for longer policy here in the u.s. we'll discuss in today's tech check.

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♪ welcome back to "power lunch." i'm kate rooney with your cnbc update. israel reportedly gave hamas a week to agree to a ceasefire deal before it pushes forward to rafah. that's according to the "wall street journal." it comes amid weekend negotiations from egypt. that could release some of the hostages. missouri became the latest state to possibly enshrine abortion access. activists submitted the required signatures today to put the question on this november's

ballot. missouri is 1 of 11 states where organizers are working to secure abortion rights via citizen-led ballot initiatives. and flooding in southern brazil has killed nearly 40 people with another 74 still missing. local officials say water levels were at their highest point in rio grande de sol since record-keeping began nearly 50 years ago. more than 120,000 people have been forced to evacuate to escape the deluge. back over to you. >> thank you. coming up, we'll look at the black-owned businesses. some seeing growth, but some seeing a major hurdle, lack of capital. megan is with that story. megan? >> i'm standing in the middle of a restaurant who's seen revenue grow 20% year after year, and yet its owner can't access the financing he needs to expand. we'll bring you that story, what it says about the business, and maybe a little barbecue after the break.

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and they're all coming? those who are still with us, yes. grandpa! what's this? your wings. light 'em up! gentlemen, it's a beautiful... ...day to fly. ♪ welcome back to "power lunch." the april jobs report coming in weaker than expected.

nonform payrolls coming in 75,000 last month. that was far below wall street's estimate of 240,000. the unemployment rate ticked higher to 3.9% while it was expected to keep steady. joining us to discuss the jobs picture is mark morale, the president and ceo of the -- national urban league. he's also the former mayor of new orleans. thank you very much for being here. >> thanks very having me. >> let's get right to the economic picture because this is one that some folks will look at and say the economy is at a turning point and things are getting worse. is that the way you view today's jobs report? . >> it's always a mistake to look at jobs numbers in isolation. the important thing is to look at trends. so the unemployment rate has been below 4% for 27 straight months. the longest such period since the 1960s, and over the last several years, and your chart indicates this, there have been down months and up months.

the important thing is what does the trend line look like over a series of months? wage gains have been outpacing inflation, and maybe we're at a sustainable period of growth. maybe not as strong as we would like, but sustainable. so i think while this maybe didn't meet what the analysts forecast, many times we've seen over the last year or so that analysts have missed. they predict an aggressive month and it's a little down. they predict a down month, and it's more aggressive. we need to understand these figures in context and so the important thing is lower unemployment which is consistent, continued growth although it appears to be slowing. let's see what this looks like over the next two to three months before people jump to conclusions. >> mark, there's also a lot of context or what's being floated around as context around the next issue we want to discuss with you and that's the ongoing

protests sweeping many parts of the country here with regard to college campuses. pro-palestinian, anti-israel, a lot of these things we're seeing video of some of these campus protests right now. many mayors and police departments have now come in actively to disband some of these protests, to break things up. i want to call on you as the former mayor of a large metropolitan area to ask you, in your opinion, what is the line that is crossed or not crossed with regard to civic authorities coming in, stepping in to bring order to these kinds of environments? >> it's a very important question. let's begin by affirming that free speech and the right to protest is not only protected by the constitution. it's a time-honored american tradition.

but free speech is not hate speech. free speech does not sanction violence. cities and states and universities and others have the right to regulate time, place, and manner. when -- a protest that comes about vandalism and restricting people's access to classes and to go about their way, then it has crossed the line. i participated in a anti-book ban freedom to learn protest if you will today at the united states supreme court. free speech for those of us in the civil rights movement is also peaceful. it always involves an adherence to reasonable grounds and reasonable bounds. i think this is the difficulty. i'll tell you what concerns me, and this has been a concern of

mine for a long time, that what starts as a peaceful protest ends up being something else because of provocateurs because of people from the outside, yes, from people from the outside who do not necessarily share those view points, but they do nothing but create confusion and chaos, and as a disciple of martin luther king, i sprtrongly suppo protest. mayors are at the vortex of one of the most difficult decisions in american government and society, how to respect protest, but also where to draw the line and if you send police in to ensure that restraint, if you will, and if you will, careful handling is the order of the day. this is the difficult thing that has to be dealt with. so i would offer that.

free speech does not sanction hate speech. we draw that line. it's an important line to draw, and those who love the respect the first amendment, those who've got a tradition of leading organizations that have been involved in peaceful protest for generations understand where the line has to be drawn, and what is acceptable and what may not be acceptable. >> yeah. a lot of nuance there. mark, i want you to hang tight. there is a new report on the state of black business which finds that access to capital is one of the biggest obstacles for black sentrepreneurs trying to grow business more than any other demographic. megan costello joins us with more. >> we're here at a black-owned business in washington that just exed. ed to its second location last year, but its owner melvin hines would like to grow it even further, but he's lacking the

capital he needs in order to do that. after seeing his revenue grow some 20% to 30% year after year, hines applied last year for a $100,000 loan, but he received only $45,000, and that remains the only large loan he's received from a large bank. >> we're going to continue to grow, but, you know, having that capital, having that access to funds at any time, it just helps. it just -- it just helps you sleep better at night. >> now a new report out this week shows that hines is not alone in this. the alliance for entrepreneurial a equity found more than two-thirds of black business owners were either completely or partially denied. that compares to about 40% of white business owners and that's why about 2.5% owners of businesses are black-owned. it was said they need to become accustomed to hearing no and

lean on alternative forms of financing. >> there's an expectation quite fr frankly of being rejected for the loan or afforded financing opportunities, not getting that venture capital opportunity, et cetera, so when you do push through, it really is extraordinary because it's not expected. >> now for hines, just this week he's been meeting with the local initiative support corporation and he's hoping their black restaurant fund launched in partnership with uber eats is going to help him pull the money to launch a food truck this summer. >> fascinating. thank you. mark, your reaction to megan's report? i know there are reforms in place for the community reinvestment act which is aimed at helping borrowers in part in this demographic reach that access to capital. do you think that the rules in place go far enough? >> well, let me say that. i appreciate that report and for highlighting a great report.

it's not understanding the entrepr entrepreneurial, if you will, instinct and desire in black america amongst latinos, women, and other historically left out communities. access to capital remains too elusive. the community reinvestment act is an important tool, but some in the financial services have sought to stop a rewrite of the community reinvestment act by way of a federal lawsuit. so it's disconcerting that all of this pentup economic potential amongst these businesses is on the sidelines, and the capital markets from venture capitalists and others, banks and others. in some instances, they do not recognize the great potential. think of an initiative like the fearless fund which sought in a

very modest way, to create more capital access to women-owned businesses. they are being sued too. so the important thing i would hope that those in the capital markets who may be listening may understand the great potential, the emerging market, emerging markets t chance for profitability and economic growth lies within the borders of the united states of america amongst these businesses, owned by african americans, owned by latinos, owned by first-generation business owners. it's tremendous potential for the economy, and we have to recognize that while regulators have to do a better job in dealing with the continuing discrimination in the marketplace and financial services companies that made commitments in some instances after george floyd must continue those commitments. this is all about economic growth. it's about jobs. it's about those things that we all talk about here on cnbc,

growing the economy. >> yep. it's an important story indeed, one we will continue to follow. mark, thank you for being here on a variety of topics today. appreciate it. >> thank you very much for having me. on a programming note, the shareholder meeting, maybe you've heard of it, will be live on cnbc and cnbc.com tomorrow. warren buffett will take the stage at this so-called wood stock for capitalists. our own becky quick and ri ricksantoli will be live tomorrow in omaha. we'll be right back.

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♪♪ some still call it luck. let them. because you know what it's always been. inevitable. ♪♪ ♪♪ it's a beautiful... ...day to fly. wooooo! welcome back. while the u.s. averages are jumping on the hopes that the fed could start cutting interest rates sometime soon, there's another part of the world that's also seen a market rally. deirdre bosa takes a look at that tech check. d., that place iscoming off a low base. >> yes, it is, and what you are

referring to, it is china. call it the unwiending of a trae that's worked for most of the year last year. that's long a.i., long japan, short china, and it may be even the flipping of that theme that we're seeing. look at american a.i. beneficiary chip names, amd, broadcomm, and they've underperformed to over the last month, and smic is china's largest chipmaker and it's been the big chinese internet names that have led the rebound suggesting their own a.i. trade is gaining momentum and helping hong kong to take the title as world's best performing stock market in papril. it has continued to move up another 5% this week alone, almost 5% i should say. there is almost this question of whether chinese stocks are actually investable at all because you never know what

beijing is going to do. the fundamentals are building. china's a world leader from research, and from georgetown university published this week, china leads the u.s. in research in more than half of a.i.'s largest field in the machine learning. the app, another potential data point. china sales are falling, and counterpoint research says consumers are citing the major advancements in hardware and performance as a reason to refrain from buying new iphones while they made a lot of ground, and it's offering some of those features, raising the stakes for wwdc. >> deirdre, leslie and i were talking in the break. quickly as you talk about this, is the story for investing in china limited to only those big cap tech companies? >> certainly not. those are the ones that have been leading the rally, but you've got beijing talking about supporting the market so that could lift a whole lot more with it. >> excellent. deirdre, thank you very much. >> thanks. ahead, a tale of two travel stocks.

our trader says expedia and booking might be in the same travel boat, but they're heading in very different directions. we'll discuss in three stock lunch next. to start a business, you need an idea. it's a pillow with a speaker in it! that's right craig. a team that's highly competent. i'm just here for the internets. at&t it's super-fast. reliable. you locked us out?! arrggghh! ahhhh! solution-oriented. [jenna screams] and most importantly... is the internet out? don't worry, we have at&t internet back-up. the next level network. i sold a pillow!

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welcome back. time for today's three-stock lunch. here with our trace is gina sanchez, she is a cnbc contributor. up first, booking holding shares on the rise after reporting q1 results yesterday that showed growth in travel demand. that stock moving higher today. gina, what's your trade? >> so booking is one we like. we hold currently in our portfolio. and this is one that has shown strong stock growth. if you look at the general trend, there has been a ton of revenge travel that has been helping companies like booking.com and they have seen growth in both hotel bookings and airline bookings. we're probably going to see a slowdown in the next year as we go from post pandemic catch-up to just normal markets. >> all right, so, from priceline and open table and kayak to a different story for expedia,

which is airbnb, expedia hotels.com, those shares are on the decline, hitting a five-month. they blame vacation rental weakness in vrbo. what is the trade on expedia? >> this is a problem of a challenged company model which is vrbo. that is, you know, what was a great booking market for literally every other company doing bookings did not show through in expedia. and like i said, demand is now likely to slow, just from normalizing the cycle. so if they didn't catch it in the last year, there is no way that they're going to be growing in the next year. >> and finally, as we see falling rates, let's take a look at a home builder, gina, you gave us dr horton as a name you like here. shares are up almost 3% today. why do you like it? >> so, this is one where we have seen high interest rates and

everybody tends to hate home builders and high interest rates, but there is still a shortage of supply of homes. and, in fact, the high interest rates have kept people from putting their homes on the market. and so, you know, you look at dr horton and they have had a tremendous, you know, run in terms of seeing that continued bookings for home, the expectation is 90,000 by year end, that's the current guidance. and, you know, clearly there is still more demand than supply for new homes, and they are seeing the numbers. they have really strong margins. >> yeah, that certainly is an understatement there. gina sanchez, thanks so much for being here. >> thank you. >> remember, you can always hear us on our podcast. be sure to follow and listen "power lunch" on your favorite streaming service. "power lunch" in audio format. we'll be right back.

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all right, welcome back. stocks are continuing to rally on hopes the fed could cut rates sooner rather than later. the dow is up 450 points. the s&p up more than 1% as well. the nasdaq higher by maybe not surprisingly 2% given the apple outperformance. that move in the dow, thanks largely to gains in amgen in addition to apple. soaring on earnings and news that its obesity injectable is heading into phase three clinical trials. apple trying for its best day since november of 2022 on a big q2 beat and its largest ever share buyback in history. $110 billion, giving a boost to eddie george, who, remember, picked it in our cnbc stock draft. another mover, carvana, up 4% today on pace to close out the week with more than 40% gain. also up 57% since pearlman took it in last week's cnbc stock draft. and shares of paramount falling this afternoon on a variety

report that skydance's proposed deal with paramount appears to be falling apart. this is one of those interesting sagas. we in the media look at it because it is a media company. >> we need to bring back succession. this is perfect fodder for that show. >> filmed partly in our studios in englewood cliffs. thank you for watching "power lunch." >> "closing bell" starts right now. >> thank you so much. welcome to "closing bell." i'm scott wapner from post nine at the new york stock ck exchan on this friday. did the bulls get just what they needed this week? a less hawkish than feared fed and a better than expected apple. no doubt two key catalysts behind this late week surge. we'll ask our experts over the final stretch where we go from here. look at the score card with 60 minutes to go in regulation. stocks getting an immediate boost today from that employment report. fewer jobs added, a bump in the unemployment rate sending yields