00:17:34 · Ed Elson, Tom Lee
[00:17:34] S4: Just before we wrap here, midterm results will be in when this airs. You mentioned that there might be concerns that if we have a democratic sweep, then that would... Might mean a wave of anti AI or anti data center legislation. Talk a little bit more about that, but also what are your expectations for after the midterms? Because your prediction assumes that investors will actually feel pretty good coming out of this election. [00:18:01] S5: I'm gonna lean on that prediction markets and the polls show a democratic sweep. So let's let's say that that is the outcome. That's actually very favorable for markets. In the instances where the Republicans lose and the Democrats take the Senate after midterm elections, we've actually seen some of the biggest stock market rallies. For instance, in 1954, the S and P rallied 13% into the end of the year and 33% over the next twelve months. But a 100% of the time, markets have rallied after midterms over the next twelve months. So I think markets are gonna be in relief mode. The reason I think Democrats will support data centers subsequently is, one, that the big tech companies are gonna court Democratic senators and house and governors to really make data centers good for a community and for the state economics. And I think they're gonna shift into supporting that outcome. So I think AI will grow, but it's because the tech industry basically is courting the Democratic Party, which probably we should all properly expect to be taking over the Senate and the House.
00:19:19 · Ed Elson
[00:19:19] S4: Tom Lee is cofounder, managing partner, and head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors. Tom, we appreciate your time. After the break, Apple earnings disappoint. And for even more markets insights, you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter, simply put, at edward elson dot substack dot com. Support for the show comes from Vanta. When you run security for a company that's scaling fast, the stakes just keep climbing. More compliance frameworks, more vendors, more risk, and a board that wants to see it all in one place. But in actuality, your compliance data is all over the place. Controls in one tool, vendor risk in another, and customer commitments buried in contracts. Your team has to spend more time stitching it together and less time running the program. And every quarter, you're basing decisions on last quarter's data. That's why Vanta connects it all. Its market leading agentic trust platform is built for enterprise scale. With more than 400 integrations and continuous monitoring, Vanta automates evidence collection, surfaces the risks that matter, and organizes your audit around your auditor's requirements. The numbers back it up. Vanta delivers a 526% ROI over three years and pays for itself in three months. And it's trusted by more than 16,000 companies, including Snowflake, Atlassian, and Ramp. Learn more at vanta.com/markets. That's spelled vanta.com/markets.
00:21:03 · S6
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00:22:07 · S7
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00:23:15 · Ed Elson
[00:23:15] S4: We're back with Prof G Markets. Apple just reported its first earnings with John Ternus as CEO. Revenue rose 12% from a year ago to a $115,000,000,000, a record for the September quarter and ahead of analysts' estimates. Apple expects revenue to grow seven to 10% in the holiday quarter, better than Wall Street expected, but it also forecast lower profit margins. And on the call, turn us side stepped questions about how the company was handling AI and personalized agents. Meanwhile, the iPhone Duo rollout is off to a rocky start. Customers have reported that the $1,999 foldable phone cracked within hours or days of use. Apple is also struggling to make enough of them. The Duo went on sale on October 23 after the quarter ended, so its sales won't show up until next quarter's report. Apple shares are down more than 2% since earnings. Joining us to discuss Apple's earnings, the cracking duo, and how the company fits into the AI arms race, we're speaking with Patrick McGee, award winning journalist and author of Apple in China. Patrick, thank you for joining us. Let's start with the earnings themselves. Revenue was up 12% year over year, beat estimates pretty pretty good. What stood out to you in the report?
00:24:38 · Patrick McGee
[00:24:38] S8: Yeah. I don't think there was much to dislike about the quarter looking backward. I mean, this is a company that now has, what, $479,000,000,000 over the last twelve months. That's really remarkable. And you think the iPhone is, what, almost twenty years into its existence, and this is still the product driving more than half of revenue. And yet it's not the only game in town because you still have services growing by double digits. And the more the AI boom takes off, the more people are gonna be subscribing to services like ChatGPT or Claude through their iPhone. Right? And so Apple's still collecting quite a fee, despite being behind in its own software development, its own AI development. So, you know, I think these were pretty, wild... Well, not not... Sorry. I shouldn't say wild results. Just very respectable results for a company that's 50 years old, and, you know, I think has more than doubled its stock price in the last five years, and this is up something like 22% this year. For a company of that size and age, this is pretty remarkable, I would say.