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Quest Means Business
Tech Stocks Slide During Whipsaw Day of Trading; U.S. Economy Adds 119K Jobs in September; Trump Signs Bill Ordering Release of DOJ's Epstein Documents. Walmart Turns to OpenAI to Further Online Sales; Tech Stocks Slide During Whipsaw Day of Trading; U.K. Government to Ban Resale of Ticket for Profit. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired November 20, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:16]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": Closing bell. There you have it. It is ringing on Wall Street. What a weird sort of
day it has been on the market. If you look at the Dow, we then -- we start off very bullish on the back of the NVIDIA earnings, that drifts down and
then we bounce over the latter part of the session right the way through and I am sorry -- yes, I think so, that's a very suitable gavel for what --
a tepid gavel for a rather miserable day.
Those are the markets and the events. It started with a bit of greed and now fear as the strong NVIDIA earnings rally fades off into the distance.
Ukraine's President Zelenskyy's meeting with the U.S. delegation as Washington is trying to sell its peace proposal and the British government
is planning to ban concert ticket resales if they're above their original price. The member of Parliament behind the legislation.
We are in New York and we are live, and it is Thursday. It is November the 20th. I am Richard Quest and I mean business.
Good evening.
The relief rally that wasn't an extraordinary 1,000 point swing for the Dow after investors rethought NVIDIA's earnings and U.S. job growth, put it
into new perspective. Now, when they arrived this morning on Thursday morning, it was all very celebratory. The Dow opened higher in response to
last night's NVIDIA's numbers. We gave you them. You saw them.
They were good. They were optimistic. But the optimism evaporated and the markets have finished into the red. NVIDIA was up 5.5 percent as it started
the day, and yet hang on, by the close it's off three percent.
If you complicate the picture the September Jobs Report finally arrived nearly seven weeks late. The U.S. economy added 119,000 jobs. It was more
than expected. The unemployment rate ticked up to four-year high, and tonight, Verizon has become the latest U.S. company announcing mass
layoffs. Verizon is cutting 13,000 jobs -- that's a lot -- as part of its restructuring plans.
Here to help me make me sense of it all, Aditya Bhave, the senior U.S. economist at Bank of America Securities. What do you think was the drive --
I mean, I know any given day the market could be fickle, but what do you think is driving sentiment? Is it A.I. worries or is it about the fed now?
ADITYA BHAVE, SENIOR U.S. ECONOMIST, BANK OF AMERICA SECURITIES: Good evening, Richard. Thank you for having me on.
Today's jobs market -- job market report was really interesting and I think that's probably what drove a lot of what happened in markets today. It was
a Rorschach test for investors for precisely the reason that you cited. On the one hand, you had a pretty significant beat in job growth, even of some
downward revisions, but on the other hand, the unemployment rate, as you said ticked up to a several year high.
So what do you make of that? I think what the markets made of that on net is that a December rate cut is still not the base case, but it is a little
more likely than it was at 8:29 A.M. this morning.
QUEST: Okay, now, but here is the problem, the difference between the job growth and the unemployment number is often it is highly technical. It has
all to do with the different ways the surveys are done and it is extremely difficult for the layman to understand that nuance that you can have
stronger job growth, but still have rising unemployment.
BHAVE: Correct. They are basically numbers that are derived from two different surveys. In the larger scheme of things, they tend to move
together, but month-over-month, they can move in different directions and that's what happened this month. It is confusing I agree.
QUEST: Right, but if you then take the month over month over the trend over the last four or five months, what is it showing you?
BHAVE: What its showing us is that private sector job growth, particularly in services, is still holding on. It is running around 50 or so thousand
per month, definitely a slowdown. Some of that is obviously related to changes in immigration policy, and then you have more weakness in good
sectors where the tariff uncertainty is taking a toll, and then obviously in government, because of changes to policy.
QUEST: Right. You see, I've always believed that there is a difference between weakness where we can see the reason and it is either a one-off
such as tariffs such as immigration. Yes, it may have systemic ramifications -- or it may have roller coaster ramifications, but at least
we can see the reason for it. Can we see an economy slowing down? And that slowing down is justified?
[16:05:08]
BHAVE: I think there are signs of slowing down in the labor market. It is not that sort of non-linear slowing that you typically see at the start of
a downturn, but at the same time, take a look at consumer spending.
The consumer is holding on very, very well and from our read of what has happened during the shutdown, based on our internal card data, credit and
debit card spending by Bank of America consumers, that looks to have continued over the course of the shutdown and if anything, holiday spending
is actually picking up pretty well.
QUEST: Now, when -- I was just asking before we came on air, when does the U.S. consumer say, I've had enough. I am worried about my job. I am worried
about higher debt. I am worried about X, Y, Z employment costs. I am worried about health care costs and I am not going to spend.
When does that happen? Or does it not?
BHAVE: We think the consumer might stumble, but the consumer will not fall. It is very, very hard to bet against the U.S. consumer. I wouldn't do it.
QUEST: You see, I agree with you. History shows that to be the case, but when the consumer does, because its two-thirds of the economy, when the
consumer does falter, the effect is so dramatic, much more so than, say, any fiscal changes.
BHAVE: If the consumer falters, then the economy falters. There is no doubt about that. As you said, it is two-thirds of the economy, so it almost has
to be the case. But our view is that the consumer will hold on.
QUEST: Really glad to have had you talking about this. You and I will talk many more times as we parse this. Thank you for coming in, sir. Thank you.
I am grateful.
BHAVE: Thank you.
QUEST: Back to those NVIDIA earnings. The chief exec says his company sees no sign of an A.I. bubble. With every passing quarter, the potential
winners and losers of the A.I. revolution are becoming clearer. And indeed, they fall into -- you'll be pleased to know, two distinct categories. We
have the profitable and the unprofitable.
But the question is, will this lot eventually come in to this lot? So let's look at the big ones first of all. Let's look at the ones that we know
about.
Well, you've got Microsoft. You've got Amazon, you've got Meta and you've got Alphabet. They are all clearly and absolutely -- they have high
exposure. They are extremely profitable even if they're making the bulk of their profits from cloud elsewhere.
Then you have the chip makers. Now they are also profitable. I mean thank you. And AMD absolutely, they are powering the gold rush. And so far demand
is absolutely holding up.
But the real question are this lot all right. All right, you've got -- they are unprofitable, but they are massive players in their own right. So you
have OpenAI at the moment. It is unprofitable. You have Accordion, a small startup, unprofitable; Data Bricks, unprofitable. You have CoreWeave,
unprofitable.
So joining me, Clare Duffy because the issue, Clare, is how many of this lot will in time head into that lot.
CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: That is absolutely the question, Richard. Look NVIDIA tried so hard on its earnings call last night to say everyone
relax, everyone chill out. The A.I. bubble is not bursting. In fact, demand continues to grow and that is showing up in NVIDIA's earnings, but I do
think the question is, and the reason why we are seeing NVIDIA shares trading lower today is investors have real concerns, this fundamental
question about whether many of NVIDIA's customers, especially a company like OpenAI that is not yet profitable, whether they can maintain these
massive spending plans and will continue to buy A.I. chips, or if they will pull back.
Basically, what I am hearing from investors and analysts is that they have just punted this concern down the road. You know, the A.I. bubble isn't
bursting this quarter, that doesn't mean we might not see signs of that next quarter. And so I think that's the real concern here going forward is
how many of those unprofitable companies move over, how many don't, and will we see those bigger profitable companies? The Metas, the Microsofts.
Will they start to pull back on their spending if an OpenAI fails?
QUEST: So in many ways it is tempting to talk about bubbles and this, that and the other, but we are really talking about good old fashioned market
pricing and a stock price is the reflection of future earnings stream. Therefore, at these higher frothy values, if the future earnings stream is
not robust, the stock price will fall. That is a much more normal way of looking at it.
DUFFY: That's exactly right, and the reason why this is so important right now is this year's whole market rally has really been driven by this A.I.
boom. There are a lot of researchers who have said if the A.I. boom was not happening this year, the economy would be in a much different place because
they are driving this stock market rally.
[16:10:11 ]
NVIDIA, of course, is very much at the heart of that and NVIDIA comprises about eight percent of the total value of the S&P 500. So all investors,
all 401(k) holders, almost everybody is going to be impacted by what happens to this company and that is why the stakes are so high here.
QUEST: Okay. From your experience. And you follow this much more closely than I do. Is there anything that we are seeing that suggests that this
weakness in demand on chips, on A.I. is going to get bigger? It is going to burst out?
DUFFY: I mean, I think the big question here is surrounding these sort of circular funding deals that you and I have talked about before. We've seen
NVIDIA invest in companies like OpenAI and Anthropic that then in return are buying its chips. And I think there are a lot of analysts who are
questioning are those genuine equity investments that are going to pay off for NVIDIA at some point, or is it investing in these companies so they can
buy its chips? But if they don't figure out their business model, then that sort of funding circle is going to fall apart. I think that is the real
concern and the real question here going forward.
QUEST: And I think you've explained it beautifully. I am grateful to you. Thank you very much, Clare Duffy. Thank you.
President Trump has signed that bill demanding and forcing the release of the Epstein files. So when are we likely to see them? And when we do? What
are we likely to get? How much will be left out for one reason or other?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: President Trump has signed the bill and now it is law. The Justice Department must release its Epstein files within 30 days. The files make up
more than 300 gigabytes of data gathered by the FBI during two investigations into Epstein. What new information, if any, is contained in
that data is unclear, and we may get all sorts of shenanigans. Redacting some information, names to protect victims, documents not being released
because they are part of investigations could be prejudicing.
Look, let's talk to Jeff Swarz, former Miami-Dade County Court Judge, who is a veritable expert in the shenanigans that lawyers can do.
Look, if they want to want to withhold something, they can. What would you expect to see here?
[16:15:04]
JEFF SWARZ, FORMER MIAMI-DADE COUNTY COURT JUDGE: I really expect that you're not going to get much more than has already been released by
Epstein's estate. Documents that, you know, that really don't mean a whole lot. You're not going to see transcripts of interviews. You are not going
to see FBI 302s. Those are all going to be withheld, simply because there are ongoing investigations that Mr. Trump has asked the Department of
Justice to start, and as long as they are going on, they cannot furnish FBI 302s or interview transcripts, and that's what we really want to see and we
are not going to see them.
QUEST: Do you think I am just being -- just put it on the table. Do you think some of those investigations were started purely for the purposes of
scuppering this action?
SWARZ: I don't normally give this short of an answer, but yes --
QUEST: Well, I hope we are not paying you by the word. Or rather, I hope we are paying you by the word, I should say.
SWARZ: Yes, something like that. Yes.
QUEST: Yes, I mean, the speed with which the Attorney General accepted the investigation does suggest you are right, but here is the next bit, will we
be told what they are not releasing?
SWARZ: It would be pretty easy to figure out what it is, because I know that Congress or others are going to ask for the FBI 302s. They are going
to ask for those interviews. They are going to ask to see the hard evidence. They are going to ask to see the warrants and the other things
that were obtained as a result of that and the Department of Justice is going to have to say no, because technically, this all falls under the
Freedom of Information Act now, and that's about the only way they are going to get around giving it to everyone.
So he accepted this because this was all pre-planned when he knew he was going to lose, he decided, let's open these things up and the minute he put
it out on X or whatever else, Truth Social, she answered it within minutes. It was all very pre-planned.
QUEST: So a whole waste of time.
SWARZ: Sort of. I don't think it is really a waste of time. Politically, it is certainly was not a waste.
QUEST: So all right, let me rephrase --
SWARZ: Realistically, it is.
QUEST: Realistically. Well, let me rephrase it. Would there have been a way to phrase this law that would have overridden the law being supreme, that
would have overridden the Justice Department to hold it back?
You can actually say, look, we recognize it is going to -- it is going to taint these investigations, but anyway, we still think it is important.
SWARZ: There is a way to do it in the law. All they had to do was say basically new investigations or pending investigations notwithstanding, all
of these documents will be released and then they're going to have to deal with if they charge other people, the taint that courts will have to deal
with.
But right now, all they had to do was say, notwithstanding, it all gets out.
QUEST: All right, I am going to go for a twofer here, Judge, getting my money's worth. Just from all you've heard over the course of the week,
does the Comey indictment stand either because of the procedural issue or because they used evidence from a previous search that had not been
authorized?
SWARZ: The procedural issue does have a statutory problem that I think is solved by the last paragraph in the statute, so I think it will fall as a
result of that. But dismissing it as a matter of the things that were said by Trump, the way that it was done, the notorious way that it was sought, I
think all of those things taint the prosecution to the extent that that is also a basis.
I think it falls on any one of three different ways. It doesn't matter which one, it is going to fall.
QUEST: I am grateful to you, sir. Thank you. Send the bill to the usual place.
As we continue --
SWARZ: Okay.
QUEST: The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has met the U.S. delegation in Kyiv. They are discussing Trump administration's plan to end
Russia's war.
The proposal, apparently there are 27, I can't confirm it. There are 27 or something different bullet points. It requires Ukraine to cede large parts
of land in the Donbas and substantially reduce its military. In return, Ukraine will get an all-important security guarantee from Washington. The
framework so far appears weighted towards Moscow's demand. I beg your pardon. A conclusion that The White House denies.
Kevin Liptak is in.
[16:20:00]
Kevin, I am going to say what makes you think -- I mean the administration, because obviously, normally you're at The White House. What makes them
think them this is going to fly with Zelenskyy? I mean, let's face it, would you really want a security guarantee from Donald Trump with his
mercurial change of mind?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: I am not sure that I would accept that just based on the President's word here nor would if I were the
Ukrainians and I were reflecting what they have been saying for the last, you know, ten months, I am not sure I would reflect the provisions that are
included in this plan, at least as they've been described to us by people who have seen it.
You know, giving up the entire Donbas region where they still hold territory, it would essentially require them giving Russia territory that
it hasn't yet taken, ensuring that there is a cap on their military, giving up some of these long range weapons capabilities that they have been
provided over this course of this war.
This proposal, at least the way that we've heard it, does seem pretty heavily weighted towards Moscow. But I will say, you know, after we
reported some of these details, I did get a phone call from a pretty senior American official who did try and make the point that this document is
still a work in progress. A lot of it is still in flux.
Yes, as it has been described, it does seem like it is a Russian wish list, but the Ukrainians will have a chance to weigh in here. But I do think it
is pretty clear at this point that the President is going to apply a lot of pressure on Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians to sign off on something like
this.
QUEST: What is driving it? Is it the administration? Is it Trump's personal wish to sort of curry favor with Moscow? Or perhaps more likely, Trump just
wants this war over and if this is the route to it, he will sign on to that.
LIPTAK: I think it is very much the latter. I think there are two things here. One, the President seems to think that he had a successful formula
for getting the war in Gaza over with, this multi-point plan that he presents to both sides, and then applies all kinds of pressure to get them
to agree to it.
The second thing is what is happening in Ukraine right now. There is an ongoing corruption investigation that is creeping closer and closer to
President Zelenskyy's inner circle and I think the viewpoint among American officials is that this could potentially create a vulnerability for him
that leads him to agree to this deal.
There are other American officials who think that the opposite could be true, that it causes him to entrench even further into the positions that
he stated over the course of this war. But clearly, the President thinks there is an opening here and that he is trying to exploit it.
QUEST: Kevin, I am glad you're warm inside thankfully. I thought you're going to be stuck on that lawn in that weather, it looks pretty awful out
there tonight.
LIPTAK: It is a little wet and drizzly.
QUEST: Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
Now, amid this diplomatic push that we've just been talking about, Russia is becoming more daring in those attacks on Ukraine and its behavior indeed
towards Europe itself.
CNN's Clare Sebastian reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Russia's provocations against the West are becoming bolder. A deadly drone and missile attack on
Western Ukraine, causing NATO to deploy jets, a Russian spy ship in British waters, a Polish rail track funneling aid to Ukraine attacked.
RADOSLAW SIKORSKI, POLISH FOREIGN MINISTER: The intention was clearly to kill Polish citizens.
SEBASTIAN (voice over): Russia is escalating far beyond the front lines. Cruise missiles hitting residential buildings Wednesday, killing more than
two dozen people and causing Poland and Romania to scramble jets.
This Russian intelligence ship sailed to the edge of British waters this week, the U.K. says, and directed lasers at Air Force pilots sent to track
it.
JOHN HEALEY, BRITISH DEFENSE SECRETARY: So my message to Russia and to Putin is this, we see you, we know what you're doing.
SEBASTIAN (on camera): The Kremlin refused to comment and says it had nothing to do with the Polish train line attack. But why now? Why hasn't
recent U.S. pressure, the shelving of a planned leaders' summit in Budapest --
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I am not going to be wasting my time.
SEBASTIAN: Sanctions on Russia's oil giants, Ukraine openly using U.S.-made ATACMS missiles on Russia this week. Why hasn't all that deterred Moscow?
Well, perhaps Russia wants to show what it is capable of before international pressure steps up again. But U.S. and Russian sources told
CNN this week that high level talks have continued behind the scenes, keeping Russian hopes of improved bilateral relations alive and perhaps
giving Moscow the confidence it can still persuade the U.S. the war will end quickest on Russia's terms.
Clare Sebastian, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: In a moment, Walmart says its online sales soared in the past quarter. So we will talk about that and the partnership with OpenAI. Is it
all A.I.? A.I. in a moment? A.I.?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:27:54]
QUEST: How good it is to be together this Thursday night! There is more QUEST MEANS BUSINESS as you and I continue, Walmart and its outlook, as it
has a larger share for the retailer of wealthier shoppers, and U.K. is moving to ban the resale of concert tickets pretty much above their
original price. I will talk to the MP behind the effort. Well, I will get to all of it after the headlines, because here, this is CNN and here the
news comes first.
Qatar, a key mediator of the Gaza ceasefire says Israeli airstrikes are threatening the fragile truce. The Israeli Defense Forces says it struck
Hamas targets after its soldiers came under fire.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says the strikes killed at least 32 people in Gaza, including 12 children. Qatar is calling the operation brutal.
Ukraine says its received a U.S. draft proposal to end the war with Russia. The President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll in
Kyiv on Thursday. The proposal calls for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia and then substantially reduce the size of its military. In return,
it includes from the U.S. Security guarantees.
Officials from both sides of the aisle gathered for the funeral of the former Vice President, Dick Cheney. The former President, George W. Bush,
remembered his former V.P. as a true man of the west. A source says President Trump and Vice President Pence weren't invited.
Cheney, a staunch conservative was deeply unpopular when he left office in 2009 for his role in the Iraq War. Dick Cheney died earlier this month. He
was 84 years old.
Walmart, one of the few blue chips that spent the day entirely in the green and it closed the day up six percent. The same store sales were up more
than four percent. It just had a very good time.
Online sales, this is worthy of a bell, up 28 percent and it is hoping to further online sales by partnering with OpenAI. Walmart will be able to
make purchases through their shoppers through ChatGPT. It is part of a broader trend of e-commerce adopting A.I. tools.
Brad Jashinsky is the director analyst at Gartner. Good to see, Brad. All right, now look, on this program. We have followed the various tortured
machinations of Walmart's online shopping forays. They seem to finally have got heft on moving forward.
[16:30:37]
BRAD JASHINSKY, DIRECTOR ANALYST, GARTNER: Definitely. I'm very impressed with Walmart's performance. They have exactly what consumers are looking
for right now, and their team has done an incredible job over the last decade and especially the last couple of years of executing their e-
commerce strategy.
QUEST: OK, so let's take myself, for example. Here I am in New York. You know, if I'm buying something, yes, I tend to go to Amazon. I've tried
Walmart's e-commerce. It never works. I mean, it's more difficult. Can Walmart e-commerce threaten Amazon?
JASHINSKY: Yes. Walmart has done a really great job in especially the last year of increasing fulfillment speeds. And that's critical to be able to
compete with Amazon, because that's an advantage that Amazon has had for a really long time. And so between the launch of Walmart Plus to compete with
Amazon Prime a few years ago and the continued growth of fulfillment speeds, I think Walmart has a great, a great strategy to compete against
Amazon and more importantly against a lot of the other retailers out there as well.
QUEST: Right. But then where does this A.I. component, the ChatGPT? All right. So, I mean, big deal, I can buy through ChatGPT. I could just as
easily go to the Walmart app. Why is it significant?
JASHINSKY: Yes. So we're in the early stages right now of A.I. no matter whether you're Amazon, Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and a lot of these
other retailers that are further ahead. It's still early days with A.I., for A.I. shopping, and it's going to take a while for customer behavior to
change. So I don't expect and we don't expect at Gartner any huge short- term advantages that A.I. is going to have.
But as A.I. shopping continues to get better and becomes, you know, more ingrained in shopping behavior, it's going to make reorders faster. It's
going to make that grocery trip that maybe took 15, 20 minutes on Walmart's app or on Amazon's Web site, it's going to make that happen automatically.
QUEST: Right.
JASHINSKY: So there's a lot of advantages, but it's early stages right now.
QUEST: OK. So if we look at the way it's performing, Walmart's new CEO, many changes at the top of the company itself, but it's not really, is it?
I mean, these are all -- these are all leaders who've been there and they know the thing through and through. And yet I read about Target, of course,
closing more stores. I mean, is it just a question of time for Target?
JASHINSKY: Target is in a tough place right now. They have a great brand. They have a great set of private label products. So I wouldn't write them
out yet, but they do have a long ways to go with their turnaround strategy. And as they mentioned in their earnings call, they understand that. And
they have a lot of seasoned executive leadership that can help with that.
QUEST: Right.
JASHINSKY: But it's going to take -- it's going to take a while.
QUEST: Right.
JASHINSKY: It's not a -- it's not a quick fix. And at the same time they're having to balance investments in A.I. as well.
QUEST: OK. So final thoughts. Bricks and mortar. And that's relevant to Target of course which has opened numerous stores here in Manhattan which
seem to be doing quite popular actually. You wouldn't have thought so. But they are. They're doing very popular. I do my weekly grocery shopping there
as well. But between bricks and mortar and e-commerce, there is a trend back to bricks and mortar in some cases, at the same time as e-commerce
rules the -- how do you balance it off?
JASHINSKY: You have to do both. The name of the game is omnichannel for most retailers. You know, there's some exceptions with grocery here and
there, but omnichannel is where it's been at, and that's one of the many reasons Walmart has been able to be so successful over the last few years
is they've been able to combine a great e-commerce experience with a great brick and mortar experience, and really take advantage of that omnichannel
advantage that they have.
QUEST: I'm grateful to you, sir. Thank you for joining us. We will watch this very carefully, particularly as Christmas comes along. And we'll get
you to analyze how they're all doing. Thank you, sir.
JASHINSKY: Thank you.
QUEST: Now the wild swings on the U.S. stocks took place at pivotal 24-hour period. There were strong results. And Nvidia of course starts the whole
thing off. A delayed September jobs report came in better than expected.
Please, Jonathan Corpina, who manages the trading desk at Meridian Equity.
[16:35:00]
Good to see you, sir. It's been way too long since you and I have chewed over the markets. But, Jonathan, please tell me, why are you -- why is the
market unhappy today? What drove it down?
JONATHAN CORPINA, SENIOR MANAGING PARTNER, MERIDIAN EQUITY PARTNERS: Yes, Richard. Nice to speak to you, too. I think there's a couple of things that
are going on here. I think from, you know, a high level, big picture thing, if you look at where we are from the April lows to where we are now, market
has moved, has had a very significant move to the upside. Up close to 40 percent off those lows.
The market looks for excuses to take some profits off the table. It looks for excuses for that catalyst to make some sales, right? So we still have
the same headwinds that we've had in the market. We continue to talk about interest rates. We have our geopolitical risks and concerns that are out
there. We've got our trade wars that continue to those conversations. So I think overall, the news that we've received yesterday and today as be it
good news but not overwhelming news, right, for our markets, I think -- I think investors are looking for opportunities as we're getting closer to
the end of the year, as we're getting closer to the holiday season, to take some profits off the table.
Unfortunately, what happens is when it does happen, like we saw today, it moves fast and it moves hard. We were trading up, everything was fine this
morning. S&P futures, we opened high. We were up significant. You know plus 1 percent to 2 percent across indices. And then it switched very quickly.
And when it switches it rolls and it rolls very fast. So we saw that today.
Overall, I think our economy is fine. Our economy is strong. Our outlook is strong.
QUEST: Right.
CORPINA: It's just our markets are very fragile.
QUEST: But what I've never really understood, even after all these years of covering this stuff, is you talk about the switch turn or the switch was
flipped. I never understand what flips it. And then once it flips, how it starts to feed on itself. Is it -- is it human driven, do you think? Is it
algorithmically driven? What flips the switch?
CORPINA: I think what happened today is a combination of both. There was some talk going around about the Fed's interest -- next interest rate move.
And prior to today, the thought and the betting on that, the expectations of that was very high that the Fed was going to cut rates at their next
meeting. After what we've seen in after activity we've seen over the past few trading sessions, it seems now that the Fed might use this as an
opportunity to pivot away from a cut and to keep rates unchanged for now.
QUEST: Right.
CORPINA: I think that concept is what changed our market, and what happens is when that headline comes out, whether it's coming from a major headline
or whether it's coming from a tweet.
QUEST: Right.
CORPINA: There are some -- there are some algorithms that see that and start to trade off of that, put some sell signals into the market. And as I
said before, it's a snowball effect, right? It moves very quickly. And then the humans do get involved in it.
QUEST: Right. But today did we actually see selling or did we see marking down?
CORPINA: I think we didn't see panic selling. What we did see was lack of participation. Right?
QUEST: Yes.
CORPINA: We saw the buyers in the market who were there this morning get a little edgy and pull away. And once you -- once you get that.
QUEST: Got it.
CORPINA: Once you get that support pulling away and you do have some sells, you don't need a tremendous amount to move the market when one side of the
market isn't there.
QUEST: OK. If you were on Wall Street or in the -- in the bars in the evening afterwards, and the discussion turned into whether this market,
Nasdaq tech is a bubble, what would be the consensus over a pint?
CORPINA: I don't know if it's a bubble at this point. Let's just kind of look where we are today. Going into today, S&P was up 14 percent. Yes,
we've had a big move from those April lows to now, but I don't think overall it's a bubble. I think our economy is moving in the right
direction. Our interest rates is moving in the right direction. Our job markets are getting stronger. I think people are feeling more comfortable
with where we are right now.
Yes, do we do we get lofty levels when we get some A.I. headlines that move our markets higher? Yes. And that's the breadth of our market. That's what
moves it back and forth. But I don't think we're trading at these such inflated levels where there's a bubble that's going to burst. The A.I.
concept, the A.I. companies, the outreach of A.I. into other sectors. It's here. This is what's going to be the new norm moving forward. To me, that's
not a bubble.
QUEST: And I am grateful to you, sir, for taking time tonight. It's 4:38. Get yourself off home. You've had a long day. The day is finished. Thank
you.
CORPINA: Thank you, sir.
QUEST: Thank you, sir.
CORPINA: Good evening.
QUEST: Now, if you want to buy a ticket for a concert and you want to buy it online in a second market, the U.K. is tracking down resale sites.
Britain going to gigs could come at a lower price, but then you might not be able to find the tickets, in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:42:56]
QUEST: In Southern Africa, habitats and climate change, part of the problems, along with illegal wildlife trade. So it's not surprising, you
and I have talked many times, animal species are very much at risk. So today on "Call to Earth" we visit the vet hospital that's home to Africa's
first dedicated pangolin ward. They're a devoted team of women who work tirelessly to provide expert care to wild creatures of all kinds.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. KARIN LOURENS, HEAD VETERINARIAN, JOHANNESBURG WILDLIFE VET: Where are you going? Come here, come here. Oh, sorry. I know.
ZAIN ASHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is how every morning begins at the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital.
LOURENS: No, I don't have a treat for you. I don't. Go away.
ASHER: With Dr. Karin Lourens, greeting her patients, which today counts 110 animals from 20 different species. Since the center opened in 2017,
Karen says they've treated more than 16,000 animals from 372 indigenous species.
LOURENS: Most of these are leopard tortoises, or all of them are. The need for a wildlife hospital in Johannesburg sounds a bit strange, but because
we are one of the biggest, oldest cities in the world, we actually have a lot of wild animals living in an urban area.
ASHER: This one-week-old springbok is a recent patient.
LOURENS: Her name is Daisy and she'd been hit by a car and she broke her foreleg. So the x-ray today shows that it's still a little bit displaced
like before, but not more.
ASHER: Once she's recovered, she'll be released to join a herd of other springboks. That's the core mission for this all-woman team, to give wild
animals a second chance. From cat-like carnivores to sky-bound predators, no creature is turned away and all patients are treated for free.
LOURENS: I think, unfortunately, where the climate change is going, we cannot look at the group of animals anymore. We have to now look at an
individual saving. You actually have to save this one, because tomorrow this one might not be there.
[16:45:01]
ASHER: Many of the animals they receive are victims of the illegal wildlife trade, including one of the world's most trafficked mammals.
LOURENS: We were the first wildlife hospital to specialize in the treatment of pangolin or Temminck's pangolin, rather, because there's four species in
Africa.
ASHER: To date, they've treated over 200 pangolins alone.
LOURENS: The pangolin part of the hospital actually came about when we opened the hospital because pangolin poaching was not really well known in
South Africa. At the time it was very common in Asia. But suddenly pangolin poaching spiked in Africa and South Africa.
ASHER: Now Karin is considered a leading expert who has pioneered critical medical protocols for pangolin treatment and care in Africa.
LOURENS: Her name is Shumi. She was found in the northwest in a sting operation, and she was actually in a plastic bag, closed in a plastic bag.
ASHER: While their aim is to get animals back out there --
LOURENS: A little tongue comes out when they yawn.
ASHER: Karin and her team also work with law enforcement to help keep them from getting in here in the first place.
LOURENS: It was really a need that evolved out of having people that could speak on behalf of animals to give animals a voice in court.
WENDY WILLSON, OPERATIONS AND LEGAL LEAD, JOHANNESBURG WILDLIFE VETERINARY HOSPITAL: Who's got the shaver?
ASHER: Wendy Willson is a former police officer who joined the hospital in 2022 with extensive experience in combating animal crime.
By engaging in legal action and being able to give wildlife a voice, you get a precedent for that species of animal so that those people coming up
behind you have something to lean on into the future to also protect wildlife.
ASHER: From providing expert testimony to aiding police sting operations, Wendy says their efforts are paying off in South Africa's Gauteng Province.
WILLSON: As soon as the punishments got higher and higher in our courts, the engagement in the crime got lower and lower, and they stayed away from
Gauteng, which is the province where we got the highest convictions.
ASHER: This means not only freedom for Shumi, but justice and eventually a safe release into a protected location when she's fully recovered.
WILLSON: It's a win. We've managed to wrestle another little life from the illicit wildlife trade, and that's always something to be really happy
about.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: I want to take them all home. Let me know what you're doing to answer the call. It is the "Call to Earth" and its hashtag #CalltoEarth.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Government has had enough of ticket touts by announcing its plans to outlaw the resale of tickets for a profit.
[16:50:03]
So there's nothing new about this argument, except now something is being done about it. Let's take Radiohead's upcoming show at the O2 Arena in
London. The original price was $110. It's now on sale for about four times that amount at $476. Browsing the resale site Viagogo, a good seat can cost
up to $1,000, and if you read the fine print, it says ticket resales are prohibited for this event as, according to the band's wishes.
The British MP Sharon Hodgson has been campaigning against ticket touting and markups and now it seems, Sharon, you've got it. I mean, the government
is on it. I guess two questions when it becomes in, when they give the time to do it, and what the enforcement of it is going to be.
SHARON HODGSON, BRITISH LABOUR MP: Good afternoon, Richard. It's a pleasure to be on your show. And yes, at last, I've only been campaigning for this
since, hmm, about 2009?
QUEST: Right.
HODGSON: And actually, if I admit, Take That, their reunion tour that got me aware of this as an issue.
QUEST: But when do you hope this will fully be enforced? And what's the enforcement mechanism for those who transgress or break the law?
HODGSON: So we will have to wait for the next King's Speech, which will probably be maybe sometime early next year. So the government will announce
in the next King's Speech that it will bring forward legislation to cap the resale of tickets on the secondary market, and then it will go through the
next session of parliament after that. So -- and the enforcement mechanism is going to be a -- obviously, that bill that will come through that will
actually bring into law the fact that you can't resell a ticket for more than you paid for it.
QUEST: As long as the --
HODGSON: And the body that will enforce that will be national -- sorry?
QUEST: Sorry, Sharon, as long as I have been sort of a business journalist, this has been a bedeviling issue in a sense. It's been around a long time.
But I do wonder, how are you going to balance off the legitimate resale of tickets that one has bought and indeed the wish to sort of make a markup
versus scalping, where people are using bots and all sorts of technical stuff to actually hoover up the market?
HODGSON: Because we're going to ban the markup that you described. That will not be allowed anymore. You will only be able to sell a ticket for
what you have legitimately paid for that ticket. I don't want anyone to be out of pocket, but we've got to stop scalping. And the only way to do that,
I've always believed, is to take the profit out of buying and reselling tickets. So there'll be platforms that will facilitate this, and they'll be
allowed to charge a fee. But that fee will importantly be capped. So there'll be no way to make a markup or a profit on this selling of a ticket
that you can no longer use.
QUEST: When you say they'll be allowed to charge a fee, can they -- and there'll be a cap, you really do want the government full throttle into
this, don't you? I mean, because what's going to end up happening is you'll end up with one or two providers that will have tickets for a fee of, say,
0.50 or two pounds or 10 quid or whatever. But where's your market? Where's your market in these things? Or maybe you don't believe there should be a
market.
HODGSON: There needs to be a market because sometimes things happen. You get a new job, there's a funeral you've got to go to. I've always said I
never want anyone to be out of pocket or not be able to resell their ticket, but they have to resell it for the price they paid. And the market
can charge a reasonable fee. And we're talking in the region of 15 percent to 18 percent. That is a reasonable fee that will allow platforms to charge
for what it costs them to enable, you know, the seller to reach the buyer so that nobody is out of pocket.
QUEST: Right.
HODGSON: But it stops the scalping, and it works in other countries, Richard.
QUEST: It does indeed. But how do you stop the unofficial? You know as well as I do, you know, the Ticketmasters, the Viagogos, they'll follow the
rules. But online, in some shady Web sites, not the sort of place you or I would go to, but they do exist where people will be putting, I've got a
ticket for X, Y, Z. You can have it for -- just don't tell anybody.
HODGSON: There might be a tiny, you know, proportion of that. Tiny, tiny. It'll not be the industrial scale scalping and touting that we see now.
QUEST: Right.
HODGSON: So, you know, granted there might be a small amount of a man in a pub or somebody on Instagram or Facebook that will do that, but it will --
it will not be an industrial scale, which is what we're seeing now.
[16:55:10]
QUEST: A quick question. Did you ever get your Take That ticket?
HODGSON: We did. I managed to find some packages that had a little bit hospitality with them that were actually so much cheaper than what they
were selling on GetMeIn at the time. So yes, we did get Take That tickets. So it's all thanks to Take That that I started this campaign.
QUEST: Well, congratulations. It's very rare for a private member to get this far, to get a bill that's going to be in the Queen's -- the King's
Speech. So congratulations on that.
Thank you, Sharon, for joining us tonight. I'm grateful for your time. Thank you.
HODGSON: Thank you.
QUEST: Now I'm going to update you with the market rally. What a day. I mean, how can one make sense of a market that looks like this. It reversed
course as investors lost hope of a December track. You heard Jonathan Corpina talking about that. Nasdaq off 2 percent, the worst of the session.
Who knows what will happen tomorrow, bearing in mind where we started with Nvidia?
Tech stocks weighed down the Nasdaq. It was sharply lower. And look at the 30. There you go. I'm just going to show you the 30. You've got Nvidia,
Boeing, Cisco. Interesting selection there. All lower. Walmart at the top. Spectacular earnings, things are going well, and you've got the usuals, the
value stocks also coming up as well.
We will have a "Profitable Moment" after the break. I have no idea why I did the bell ring.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Tonight's "Profitable Moment." You know that phrase about can't teach a dog new -- old dog new tricks and elephants dancing for the
impossible. When you look at Walmart's results and you realize that this behemoth, yes, it took its time to get its e-commerce strategy in place,
and it stumbled on the way. But by jingo, it got there in the end. And as a result, we see this phenomenal results from Walmart now moving into A.I.
But it set me thinking, what does A.I. actually mean in retailing? Oh, yes, from the store's point of view, it means what you stock, how you deliver
it, how you better estimate what people are going to want. But what does A.I. mean for you and I in the retailing space? Does it mean this knowing
what I'm thinking and therefore offering up better prices? Does it says to me, oh, by the way, Richard, Chris has been looking at X, Y, Z, you might
want to get him this for Christmas?
Does it know what I want for Christmas even before I know it myself? A.I. is this phenomenally powerful. In fact, it's so powerful we don't really
know what it can do, which is why I think I'll still go shopping in the high street because I'm a bricks and mortar man when it comes to doing the
Christmas shopping.
And that's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS for tonight. I suspect you are. I'm Richard Quest. Whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, I hope it's profitable.
Just don't tell Chris what he's getting.
END
