Google Ruled a Monopoly… Again? & Netflix Takes Closer Step to $1T

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0:28Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, President Trump said Jerome Powell's termination can't come soon enough. But can he fire the Fed chair? Then Netflix is looking like the calm within the tariff storm. It just reported some tasty first quarter earnings. It's Friday, April 18th. Let's ride.

0:50Good Friday morning, everyone. And I mean that literally because today is Good Friday. That means the markets are closed for the holiday and many of you are looking ahead to the Easter weekend. If there's one thing clouding Easter celebrations this year, it's the price of eggs, which are up about 60 % compared to a year ago. Some companies are offering less budget-busting alternatives. Jet-puffed marshmallows released a color dyeing kit as a festive, mess-free twist on egg decoration for$2, which includes six colors, decorating pens, and of course, a 24-ounce bag of marshmallows. Toby, what would you draw on a marshmallow?

1:27I would draw an impression of the roof of my mouth because I am eating those things, Neil. Definitely a two to one ratios of marshmallows decorated to marshmallows consumed. But this trend of finding ways to have some Easter fun without eggs is a fun one. Some moms in a Facebook group were dying potatoes and passing them off as eggs. Not as delicious, but also cost effective. Also rocks, literal rocks. definitely not as fun to eat as marshmallows but still most of the appeal of dying eggs is just the tradition of it and that you do it with your family so as long as you keep that going doesn't matter if it's actually an egg or a rock or a marshmallow and now a word from our sponsor planet out neil you know how some actors just own every scene they're in oh yeah it doesn't matter if it's a rom-com or a court root drama they walk on screen and boom you're just locked in That's what Planet Oat does for your breakfast or your coffee or your smoothie.

2:22It steps in and suddenly everything becomes richer, smoother, more sophisticated. Planet Oat was born to be in the spotlight. Just its velvety texture alone shows its A-lister material. Heck, even the unsweetened version with zero grams of sugar still tastes like a leading role. And it's dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free, all the good stuff with none of the drama. If your morning routine needs a little star power, Planet Oat is sitting in hair and makeup waiting for its big screen moment. Get your hands on the oat milk that has it all. Visit planetoat.com for more. Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void?

3:01But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers, a network of 130 million of them, in fact. You can even target buyers by job title, industry, company, seniority, skills, and did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started at LinkedIn.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. Call me a monopoly once. Shame on you. Call me a monopoly twice. Well, that just makes me Google. For the second time in less than a year, Google has been deemed a monopoly in court after a district judge ruled that Google acquired and maintained an uncompetitive advantage in the market for ad technology.

3:43It's another victory for the DOJ in its crusade against big tech's power and another stinging defeat for Google, which could see large aspects of its businesses hived off or impeded. Google was already found to monopolize the search market last year. The case decided yesterday concerned the largely invisible but incredibly important ad tech tools that power the Internet, essentially the inner workings behind why you see an ad on a Web page. The DOJ accused Google of monopolizing three separate markets within ad tech, which allowed it to collect monopoly profits from publishers and advertisers who had no alternative while ultimately harming end consumers.

4:22The judge agreed on two out of the three markets. Yes, monopoly on publisher ad servers, which is how publishers sell ad space on their sites. Yes, on the market for ad exchanges, which facilitate ad buyers and sellers, but no monopoly on the ad networks used by marketers. A little in the weeds for sure, but TLDR, Google is not feeling lucky. Yeah, let's just dive into the weeds a little bit because it is confusing. This case is about how Google dominates online ad sales. So it's not the ads that you see in Google search. It's the ones you see just across the rest of the internet, really. It focuses specifically on its role in this digital display ad market and the behind-the-scenes tech that powers those things.

5:04So what is being challenged here is their dominance in the publisher side ad tools. What's not being challenged is their search advertising business, which accounts for, you know, 90 percent of its overall revenue. Still, that is a sizable revenue chunk that is up for, you know, debate here. It accounted for 10 percent of its revenue last year, you know,$10 billion worth. So it's not nothing, but it's not necessarily this existential thing. But yeah, when you add up the two latest monopoly rulings, Google is feeling like, God, we can't catch a break here for at least initially speaking. Yeah. I mean, they said they are going to appeal the half of the or the third of the ruling that they lost.

5:48Google spokesperson said, we disagree with the court's decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective, just like their argument in the search case where, you know, the vast majority of people use Google search. Their argument was sorry for being good. And the other accusation of the DOJ here was that not only do they have these, you know, very powerful ad tech tools, but they warp them together into an ecosystem that entraps people and publishers and advertisers and doesn't allow them to leave the ecosystem.

6:24So it's this integration that regulators were also after. Again, Google pushes back and says that all this integration leads to more affordability, more usability. Obviously, those arguments fell on deaf ears. Yeah, specifically what you're describing there is it breaks antitrust law by engaging to practice called tying, which is forcing customers to use one Google product in order to get access to the other. And so that was one of the things that set off warning bells and caused the judge to rule like they did. So looking ahead here, how does Google kind of navigate these rocky waters? Like most of big tech, Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, has been kind of going on this charm offensive with President Trump.

7:05He attended his inauguration. And then And just last week, Trump told reporters, I love Google. So it does seem like there is a little bit of, you know, love coming from the White House. So that may potentially influence how this case happens. But still, second time in eight months that the company has been deemed a monopoly in court. The next big thing to look out for on Google's calendar is not your actual Google calendar. This is Google's actual calendar. They are a case for the remedies of that initial monopoly case begins on Monday next week. So we'll probably give you an update on what is at stake there.

7:43That could mean shaving off Google Chrome, which is a big part of its business. So, yes, a very crowded calendar when it comes to monopoly cases, if you are Google. Jerome Powell and President Trump's beef reached new levels yesterday as Trump explicitly called out the Fed chair in a post on Truth Social. Trump wrote, Powell's termination cannot come fast enough, explaining that Powell is always too late and wrong when it comes to cutting interest rates. What set off Trump's tirade? A speech given by Powell in Chicago the day before, where he warned that the size and scope of the trade agenda Trump was pursuing could lead to higher inflation and slower growth than initially expected.

8:21It's left the Fed in what Powell called a challenging scenario. If the Fed leaves rates where they are to restrain inflation, it could worsen the job market. The same goes for vice versa. If it tries to stimulate the economy with a rate cut, it could send inflation skyrocketing again. Of course, the subtext to the tension between Trump and Powell is an upcoming Supreme Court case that could pave the way to the Fed losing its political independence, a longtime crusade of Trump who thinks the president should have more say on rate decisions. The case challenges a little-known ruling from 1935 that prevents the president from firing federal agency officials for political reasons.

8:59If the Supreme Court rules in the White House's favor, it could bring the Fed under Trump's thumb. So, Neil, this war of words is also heading to the courts with the fate of Fed independence on the line. Economists across the board, both on the right and the left, warn that reducing the Fed independence could send markets tumbling even more volatile than they are now because the Fed is supposed to be independent, so it can think long term. People in political office have these four-year terms. They need to, they think in a very short-term scenario. So yes, President Trump, like many other presidents, probably want lower rates because that causes the economy to go faster.

9:39But if you're Jerome Powell, you are looking over the long term. You are not elected by anyone. So you can keep rates higher because of the inflation threat of what happens when you lower interest rates, which is why Politico reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, he said he's been working behind the scenes cautioning President Trump and White House officials to say, look, this is something you don't want to mess with. He has previously said publicly the Fed independence is the jewel box that has got to be preserved. So he's pushing back on this within the administration, saying this is just a line you can't cross or else investors will lose faith in the entire system.

10:16Right. And this goes back to the 1970s, actually, because the Fed has guarded its monetary policy since then, because at the time, President Richard Nixon privately was pressuring his Fed chairman, Arthur Burns, to ease policy ahead of his election because you're right, these political people think in terms of election years. And that pushed the U.S. into this punishing recession. And the early 1980s were just kind of a disaster. And so the Fed and a lot of central banks around the world kind of pushed for their operational autonomy, gaining the independence that they now have today. And a lot of investors look at Fed independence as a key ingredient to creating this environment to foster lower inflation and less risk to bring investment into the country.

11:03It is the stabilizing force when it comes to U.S. markets. And so if that comes under much more fickle political power, then you don't have any of those benefits that an independent Fed has granted you. Meanwhile, Powell is just in a pickle here. I mean, it's a really tough job he has here because he, you know, in that speech on Wednesday, he warned that the tariffs were much greater than the worst case scenario that anybody at the Fed projected. So tariffs, he expects, will lead to higher than expected inflation and lower growth. And like, as you mentioned, I mean, that is just those are clashing priorities because the feds has two mandates, which is to keep inflation low and employment high.

11:48Those are now clashing. He can't raise interest rates because that would send the economy into a recession. He can't lower them because he's also worried about the inflation. So there are these two competing priorities. He's not sure exactly which ones to prioritize. So we're in this moment of stasis where the Fed held interest rates at their current level for the first two meetings. And it looks like we're just in this wait and see approach because when you move one lever, it affects the other in a bad way. Same vice versa. So Powell's just in this in the state of paralysis. Powell's in a pickle.

12:19I like it. Netflix reported earnings yesterday, and it turns out you can't tariff. Love is blind. The biggest streamer in the world had another blowout quarter, posting a major earnings beat as revenue grew 13 % in Q1 and surpassed$10.5 billion. As tariffs throw other sectors into turmoil, the streaming giant is looking like the calm in the macroeconomic storm. There's been no material change to our overall business outlook, the company said in a statement yesterday. Netflix is seen as well-positioned to ride out market turmoil thanks to minimal exposure to tariffs and an ad business that's driving steady growth.

12:55On top of that, analysts believe subscriptions to the service are among the last thing consumers would cut in a downturn because what's a recession without a little black mirror to calm the nerves? A slight wrinkle to yesterday's report, after ending last year with over 300 million subscribers, yesterday was the first quarter that Netflix did not report subscriber numbers. Netflix ditched the once important metric to focus on revenue and other financial metrics as performance indicators. So investors were happy to see its revenue and other financial metrics indicated very strong performance this quarter.

13:27Netflix certainly has some swagger to it right now. Executives shared the ambitious goal to reach a$1 trillion market cap and double its revenue by 2030. And$1 trillion sounds like a lot for a streaming company, but yesterday was a step in the right direction, Neil. Netflix is coming off a record year last year. Revenue growth was 16%. Operating margins were up 27%. They got more subscribers last year than during COVID. 41 million compared to 36.6 million in 2020. So yes, the streaming wars are effectively over. Netflix has won. It's just this next act. That is an open question. A lot of it involves this ad tier, right?

14:1243 % of all new Netflix subscribers in February signed up to this lower priced ad tier, which is at$7.99 a month. And Netflix thinks that much of its subscriber growth and much of its revenue growth can come from advertising. You said it was recession proof, but the ad market is not immune to a recession. Moffitt Nathanson projected that if a recession were to come, U.S. advertising spending could drop 5.8 percent this year. It had previously projected ad spending to grow 5.8 percent. So that's a huge shift from a big, big growth to, you know, a big loss. So we'll see if Netflix manages to weather the storm should have come.

14:51It does think it's pretty well insulated when it comes to tariffs and a downturn. They, even at a March meeting, Netflix executives acknowledged the fact that the U.S. could enter an economic downturn. But they said that streaming could be less affected because people stay home. And instead of going out to the movies, they just post up on their couch and watch adolescents, watch these big Netflix shows. Also, Netflix saw this was a different circumstance, but rapid growth during the COVID-19 pandemic recession. That was literally because we couldn't leave our homes. But it is a little bit of a data point.

15:24And then you can go all the way back to the European Union's recession in 2012. International subscriber additions grew at a more rapid pace during that downturn. So there are some data points that do show that, yes, Netflix was a different business back then. It didn't have its advertising tier, that it's driving a lot of growth today. But there's something about just posting up on your couch, tossing on the TV when times are hard outside of your home that Netflix seems to benefit from. Up next, let's do our Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week.

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17:03EbGliss can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EbGliss. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EpGliss. Before starting EpGliss, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Searching for real relief? Ask your doctor about EpGliss and visit epgliss.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. Welcome to my favorite segment of the show, Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week, because it means it's Friday at long last.

17:35Toby and I will pick one stock that soared to space like Katy Perry and another that tumbled back to Earth, also like Katy Perry 11 minutes later. I won the pre-show who cried more after Rory McIlroy won the Masters contest, so I get to go first. And my stock of the week is Hertz because Bill Ackman just made a big bet on the yellow rental car company and investors are loving it. The stock surged 56 % on Wednesday after Ackman's Pershing Square hedge fund took a$46 million stake, equivalent to about 4 % of Hertz's outstanding shares. Then yesterday, the stock added another 44%. Ackman is now the company's third largest shareholder.

18:14So what does he see in Hertz? The potential to upgrade from compact to full size, likely because of the auto tariffs. Trump's 25 % tariffs on foreign cars are expected to raise prices for not only new cars, but used cars as well, since the two typically rise in tandem. That would increase the value of Hertz's vast fleet of used vehicles, which it could sell at a higher price point than before to reap the rewards. Of course, that's the bull case. There are plenty of haters of the stock, which is why nearly half of its flow is sold short. Hertz has had a rough time finding stability after emerging from bankruptcy in 2021, when a huge investment in Tesla's flopped hard and a recession would probably kill demand for rentals.

18:56Toby, is Ackman a genius or out of his mind? I guess we'll see. Basically, anything Hertz does is better than their decisions they made coming out of 2021, because this decision to go all in on electric vehicles was not the right choice. They placed an order for 100 ,000 Teslas. They wanted to remake their image. We're not a gas-guzzling rental fleet company anymore. We are this forward-looking, modern, environmentally friendly, tech-forward company. But the issue was renters kind of hate renting electric vehicles. One, it's that range anxiety. They don't know if they'll be able to fill them up.

19:29And then two, they were just difficult to maintain and didn't really hold their resale value that much. So it's very interesting, too, though, that they got bailed out by this very unlikely source of, you know, President Trump's tariffs jacking up car prices. So I think that is what Ackman is seeing down the line. Is this a more healthy business now than it was, you know, a few years ago? Maybe now that they're rolling back that electric vehicle pursuit. So just seeing the stock movement, though, that it's still got a little bit of that meme stock culture to it, because, I mean, this thing went straight up the past few days.

20:02So definitely some remnants of that, of the heyday of its mean stock heights. My dog of the week is United Health Group, which sent shockwaves through the insurance industry with a gloomy annual forecast and its first earnings miss in over 10 years yesterday. The company said it was hit with some unforeseen rises in medical costs, which caused them to tear up their forecast they made just three months ago. Markets did not like the sound of that, and the company fell as much as 20 % when markets opened, its biggest drop since 1999. UnitedHealth is the largest seller of Medicare health plans, which left it especially vulnerable to both an increased amount of care activity from people using those plans, as well as some payment changes the U.S.

20:46government made to crack down on some of the tactics insurers use to boost their profits. The disappointing results also stand from Optum Health, the company's clinic, surgery center, and home care division, which had previously been its fastest growing profit engine. UnitedHealth cut its 2025 revenue forecast for its once cash cow by around$10 billion. So Neil, a historically bad day for UnitedHealth, one that also dragged down the rest of the Dow with it. Right. A very curious outcome in the stock market too. You might've checked your stocks yesterday or the major indexes and saw that the Dow was down over percent, 1.3 percent, while the S &P 500 was up 0.1 percent.

21:26Usually those indexes go pretty much in lockstep with each other. So it's curious to see such a massive divergence. And that is, you know, specifically because of UnitedHealth. UnitedHealth is the highest weighted stock in the Dow. And we talked about this a lot. The Dow is a index of 30 companies that is not representative of the stock market because it is weighted by share price, not by market value. UnitedHealth has a share price of more than$400 per share, which means it is weighted more in the Dow than much more valuable companies like Apple or Nvidia. So whatever UnitedHealth does on any given day, that's typically what the Dow is going to do.

22:08So UnitedHealth dropping as much as 20%, dragged down the Dow 527 points, which was more than it dropped in 1987 on Black Monday. So that is sort of the divergence you saw between the Dow and S &P. Blame UnitedHealth for this truly shocking earnings report. Investors were absolutely floored. The CEO said, I don't even know what's going on. We issue very conservative expectations and guidance going forward, and we completely whiffed on that, like a huge executional misstep. Finally, introducing a new segment to take you into the weekend. We're calling Fast Food Fridays. This week, a number of chains introduced Ortiz new menu items that you simply must know about if you're a patriotic American.

22:50So here we go. First up, Chili's, which cannot stop itself from trolling McDonald's. On Tuesday, the chain rolled out a new burger called the Big QP, which is essentially a blatant ripoff of McDonald's Quarter Pounder. It has the exact same toppings, two slices of American cheese, pickles, ketchup, and diced onions, but says it has 85 % more beef. Chili's is leaning into the comparison with its marketing campaign, noting in a press release that its$10.99 burger deal is less expensive than the same one at McDonald's and in a new TV ad called the Quarter Pounder Tiny. Bashing McDonald's while copying its menu items is a recipe that's been working really well for Chili's.

23:32In the most recent quarter, sales surged 31%, the third straight quarter of double-digit growth. It's not the first McDonald's-inspired burger to even come out of Chili's recently, too. The big QP is the second one. The first one was this Big Mac-esque burger called the Big Smasher that also kind of rolled out with this very pointed ad campaign that called out the Big Mac. So it is not shying away from these comparisons whatsoever. And the reason why Chili's feels emboldened to do this is, remember, McDonald's prices kind of have creeped upwards over the last few years as inflation started to impact consumers.

24:07And it actually has hurt McDonald's a lot because now you're competing with someone like Chili's, someone like Chipotle, getting into that fast, casual realm because your prices are no longer low enough that you feel like you're getting a good value. So it's very astute of Chili's to realize that, hey, this market leader is very vulnerable right now. Let's get after it. Let's release burgers called the big QPU. Let's put the exact same toppings on that McDonald's does and let's, you know, call them out. And Chili's is just absolutely crushing it right now. The 31 percent growth. Its parent company, Brinker International, has seen its stock go up 200 percent over the past year.

24:45So Chili's is just undefeated right now. I'm feeling love in this Chili's tonight. Even while getting stuffed into a marketing locker by Chili's, McDonald's is still going on offense. the fast food giant teased the long-awaited return of the snack wrap, a cult favorite menu item that hasn't been sold in the U.S. in nine years. On Tuesday, the official McDonald's X account posted, quote, snack wraps 0x.14.2025, implying that the snack wraps would return on the 14th day of a month. That's still TBD. They sound like Gandalf. But it'll probably be before October, given the zero as the first digit of the month.

25:22This isn't a total surprise because execs had previously said that the snack wrap would be coming back this year, but it's getting realer than ever. The snack wrap is one of those weird menu items that has a massive cult following. I mean, we were speaking about it. We just have good memories of it. I used to eat 10 of them after soccer practice, but it was discontinued all the way back in 2016, which is wild to think about at this point because it was just very time consuming to prepare. You had to steam the tortilla. You had to assemble multiple ingredients, which slowed down service times. And then also, despite what revisionist history might say, snack wraps didn't meet sales expectations at the time.