Closing Bell: NRG Soars, Trump Talks With Apple's Cook, CVS Falls

On this episode of Stock Movers: 

Listen for comprehensive cross-platform coverage of the US market close as heard on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio, and YouTube with Romaine Bostick, Alix Steel, Scarlet Fu, Carol Massar and Matt Miller. 

- NRG Energy (NRG) shares soared 25%, the most intraday since 2017 to a record high, as Wall Street praised its deal that Jefferies says is “transforming” the company and doubling its power generation capacity, while the power producer also reported better-than-expected adjusted Ebitda for the first quarter. 

- Apple (AAPL) shares rose after US President Donald Trump said he spoke with CEO Tim Cook earlier on Monday, just as the iPhone maker was reported to be considering price increases later this year. Apple is weighing whether to raise prices for an iPhone lineup coming in the fall, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter whom it didn’t identify. The company is exploring whether to “couple” price increases with new features and designs, while trying to avoid the perception that any hikes are tied to US tariffs, the Journal reported. Apple didn’t respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment. 

- CVS (CVS) shares, along with other major US health-care companies that own pharmacy-benefit management units closed lower after President Donald Trump proposed a plan to “cut out” the drug-industry middlemen as a way to reduce drug costs. Trump aims to do so by bringing drugmakers to the negotiating table. He signed an executive order today asking them to lower prices voluntarily or else face regulatory measures. Pharmaceutical companies had expected — and feared — action on drug prices. However, the order was far weaker than they’d anticipated. Shares of major drugmakers initially fell after Trump teased drug-price action on social media Sunday night, then rose as details on the order emerged throughout Monday morning.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts Radio News.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is a closing bell on the Stock Movers podcast
the companies making moves at the close of US trading
with Carol Mass, Tim Stenoback, Romain Bostik, and Scarlett Food.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Let's get to the number one gainer in the S
and P five hundred. We're talking about Energy Energy Man.
That name is up about twenty six percent, so pretty
much holding on to all of its gains of the day.
This is after agreeing to acquire the net gas fired
powered assets from Ellis Power Equity Advisors. That was about
a twelve billion dollars deal including debt, so really some
outperformance there. Microchip. We saw the semiconductor space up overall,

(00:45):
but Microchip up about ten percent. Here also a top
gainer in the NASDAQ one hundred, City raising the firm's
price target on Microchip to fifty five from fifty and
keeping a buy rating on the share, saying the company
posted a decent quarter but guided revenue up eight percent
quarter zero over quarterba's the highest revenue growth in this sector. Again,
the analyst over at City putting out a note Apple
I mentioned the mag seven as a whole rallying in

(01:08):
today's session, Apple up about six percent. This is after
the Wall Street Journal came out and said the companies
considering raising iPhone prices, so that was certainly a catalyst,
and Shopify just had to mention up almost fourteen percent.
This is after the NASDAK announced late Friday after the
close that the company would replace Mango dB in the
Nasdaq one hundred prior to market open on May nineteenth.

(01:29):
So a bunch of gainers here. Over to Matthew Miller.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
I'm looking at the losers today, and for much of
the day, Newmont Mining was at the bottom of the
list of the S and P five hundred. I don't
think it closed as the biggest loser, but with Gold
down in the last three trading sessions about two hundred dollars,
you could see why Newmont would sell off. Signa and
CBS are both owners of PBM's pharmacy benefit Managers, which

(01:56):
means they are the middleman that Donald Trump was talking
about this morning. He said he wants to cut out
the drug industry middleman as a way to reduce drug costs,
and as a result, those shares getting sold off pretty hard.
They were at varying points signa certainly the biggest loser
of the day on the S and P five hundred
and then Kroger I saw it was a big loser today.

(02:18):
In fact, the grocer sold off the most in two
years at one point. Today they don't own a PBM anymore.
They have in the past owned their own PBM and
partnered up with PBM. You can still get pharmacceuticals at Kroger.
They still have a pharmacy there. But in general, President
Trump has been talking about bringing down the price of groceries,

(02:40):
and I love the way he says that groceries and
Kroger was not a beneficiary of that today.

Speaker 5 (02:46):
How does one otherwise say it?

Speaker 4 (02:47):
He just enunciates each and every syllable groceries, and I
just appreciate it. I don't know if it's a New
York thing. Is that a normal thing for New yorkers?

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Groceries groceries?

Speaker 5 (02:58):
I don't know, I say groceries. I grew up in
New York. Anyway, AnyWho, to the ball market we go.
You're seeing it sell off pretty.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
Much all across the curve.

Speaker 5 (03:04):
That two year yield is up by eleven basis points,
closing right at that four percent level. Here's kind of
the why is we re rate the FED cuts. You're
looking at swaps tracking the upcoming Central Bank meeting showing
just fifty six basis points of easing by December, and
that's down a whopping seventy five basis points from last week.
So we've taken out about almost one full cut. But again,

(03:26):
it all feels like it's TBD. That front end is
very much where all the whippy action is going to be, guys,
And this gets.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
So an idea whether the market rally, the equity market
rally is also a bit of TVD. We talk about
this idea of a new bowl market sort of taking
a foot at least for the Nasdaq one hundred. And
you look at what rose today, a seven percent gain
in the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. But at the same time
you had that seven percent gain in now Transport, So
you had a lot of sectors today that at least

(03:51):
invest in the eyes of investors, seem to be getting
more of a long term reprieve, whether it's chip stocks,
whether it's in the travel space or in the consumer
durable space.

Speaker 6 (03:59):
Absolutely, there's there's still a lot of uncertainty. Right I
was thinking about what David Bonson just told alex and
Romain about how before when you had one hundred and
forty five percent tariffs on Chinese imports, that was basically
a trade embargo. Now you have some trade, it's not
back to what it was. So something is better than nothing,
but there's still a lot of question marks, and it's
not like companies are going to be rushing to offer
new updated guidance.

Speaker 4 (04:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Well, in terms of guidance, we're going to get some
reads on inflation this week's CPI and PPI, and so
we'll see whether or not the Fed's going to be
in a little bit of a trickier situation because even
if the tariffs aren't as onerous as it seems to
be going, especially when we look at what's going on
between US and China, we are going to be in
a higher tariff environment. And so what does that mean
overall for inflation longer term.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
I'm just curious though, too. I mean, we're also going
to get some earnings reports this week, including from Walmart.
I think we get a lot more in terms of
the retail space the following week, but you do get
some companies that are going to have some insights into
what's going on with trade and whether they were impacted
like a Walmart, like a Cisco, and a few others
said I'm forgetting I think Berkinstacken's and they're oh dear,
that's the one.

Speaker 6 (04:59):
I was thinking up.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Welcome the Stockmovers podcast from Bloomberg Radio. Check back with
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