- Good morning for Daily Show, I'm Neil Fryman. - And I'm Toby Howell. - Today Halloween Candy Prices this year are Downright Ghoulish. - Then Google is on the verge of its biggest stock wipeout ever. It's Thursday, October 29th, let's ride. (upbeat music) - You got it right today, Toby. Daylight Saving Time ends on Sunday, November 1st. And you know what also ends that day? Your chance to buy discounted pre-sale tickets for our live holiday spectacular coming up later in December. So by my count, you have three more full days to round up a group of your friends and snag your spot to the show, which based on our planning is going to be an extremely fun night out. Toby, think we should wear tuxedos like we did last year, I don't know if mine still fits. - I don't want to spoil anything from anyone, but there are two ways to get a discount to this amazing holiday show. You can use code MBD pre-sale at checkout and get $10 off. That code expires on November 1st. So get your tickets now. Or, and I haven't even really run this by the team yet. If you and a friend dress up as new in Toby for Halloween and tag us on Instagram, we will also reserve a discounted ticket for you. We did this call out once before and saw some hilarious interpretations of what people think, Neil and I look like. So if you need a last minute costume idea and you want $10 off to, what many are considering are the, is the greatest holiday show of all time? Dress up happy Halloween and happy discounts everybody. And now a word from our sponsor, Liberty Mutual, Neil. I'd always stay entertained on a long road trip. - You mean doing something other than driving? - Uh, yeah. - Because you should definitely just be driving. - I could listen to a true crime podcast or an audiobook, got a research, some stuff. - Well, since you'll be on the road for six hours, you should probably sort out your car insurance. - I heard Liberty Mutual customizes your car and home insurance to save you money. They go above and beyond to make sure you're not overpaying. - Well, if I started out now, then what am I gonna do on my drive? - Focus on the road. Start your quote at LibertyMutual.com. That's LibertyMutual.com. - Every time big tech reports earnings, they step out onto a tightrope. To get to the other side unscathed, they need to report strong revenue growth and sensible AI spending. Yesterday, Google took a deep breath, inched out onto the wire, and immediately plummeted to the ground below. The stock fell 10% after hours as investors grappled with the fact that Google's search, one of the greatest money printing businesses of all time is losing its fastball. The culprit is AI mode. While execs, saying its praises for driving the fastest growth in search queries in five years, they also said that those same queries are being monetized at a lower rate than traditional search. Also in a decidedly un-google-esque turn of events, the company's cashflow dipped further into negative territory, coming in at negative 9.1 billion as the cost of the AI buildout continues to pile up. In total, Google spent $51 billion on CAPEX this quarter after spending $44 billion last quarter. The reason why Google stock took a nose dive as that investors are not at all pleased with how well that investment is paying off. This quarter feels like a moment of truth for Alphabet, Thomas Monteiro, a senior analyst at investing.com told Bloomberg, either Pichai and his team fixed the way the company monetizes AI or the giant risk losing its leadership in several of its core businesses in the near future. You got to spend money to make money, but like an apto to Don, it feels like Google forgot about the back half of that phrase, Neil. - Good. - Nail that pronunciation. - No, we were working on that before the show. Google is really leaning into spooky season here. So right now it's down 10%. And if that holds throughout the day, that share price chop would be the equivalent of $395 billion wiped out from its market value, which would be its biggest ever market value wiped out in Google's long and storied history on the public markets. This was the fear ever since Chatchy B.T. was released in 2020 to Google declared a code red because the threat was that all of us would start querying AI or Claude or Chatchy B.T. Or even Google's own AI instead of doing the traditional thing like Google search and seeing all of the hyperlinks laid out and all of the sponsored stuff at the top and will scroll past that. But either way, Google could sell that for a lot of money. Now, four years later, it looks like that's manifesting and it couldn't come at a worse time because now they are losing or the growth is slowing on that search business. While they're plowing even more money into AI, the same thing that's eating its own search business. - Still, there are many bright spots in this business. One, if you look at the progress they've made on the front tier of AI models, they feel pretty good about that. Gemini 4, Argan, came out last month which improved Google's performance in coding which they had followed way behind in. They also announced an updated version of the model yesterday, Gemini 4, Carbon. They touted its cyber abilities. They showed that the model has a significant leap in vulnerability detection. Obviously, that's been the topic tajor in the AI community recently. It's cloud business too, which is serving capacity to other AI companies. It's growing like a weed. It's surpassed analyst expectations at $30.7 billion. It's selling its own home grow and chips now, TPU. So that's a new business line that it's spinning up. And Google still just makes so much money. Sooner or PTI said the company is now on a half a trillion dollar revenue run rate. Like this company still prints money. It's just investors have that queasy feeling when they look at the spending because it's pretty gross. There are total future liabilities when you take in all future purchase commitments and pre commencement leases, obligations, all these things that go into building out these data centers. That brings future total liabilities to well over $1 trillion. So that's why you see this indigestion from the market. Yeah, there's three numbers I want to highlight. In the first quarter, search advertising revenue grew at 19%. In the second quarter, search avenue advertising grew 17%. And in this past quarter, that grew 12%. So they need to turn on the money spigot when you do all your AI overviews. Because right now, when I do an AI overview, and look, I appreciate it, because I don't want to have to click into a blue hyperlink. And they just tell me the answer right there. I'm not looking at any ads. So they have to figure that out. It's what they've been working on for years. And it still continues to be a high risk for this company. And you couldn't help but contrast Google's results down 10% with Microsoft. It was another big hyperscaler that reported earnings yesterday afternoon. And it's doing it really well. People view this as what a responsible approach to spending on AI is. They actually lowered their cap exes something that you don't hear that often. Its stock is up 3% to 4%. And it just continues a good run for Microsoft. Because remember back in July, they reported earnings. Their stocks, search 16%. They added 450 billion. That was the best one day gain in market cap in history. So it looks like these two companies are going in the opposite direction. Microsoft is figuring out a way to monetize its AI and reduce its spending. Meanwhile, Google is just doing the inverse of that. Moving on, like the students at East High School, the Federal Reserve chose to stick to the status quo. In its meeting yesterday, Chair Kevin Warsh and his central bankers are the round table, declined to raise interest rates, saying more information was needed before hiking borrowing costs for the second time this year. Well, not all central bankers, two members of the committee dissented voting in favor of a rate hike, including Lisa Cook, the Fed governor who President Trump is trying to fire. A rate increase would have been a major shock. It's unusual for the Fed to tweak rates right before an election. And we've got one just five days away. The last time that happened wasn't 2022, but it was widely signaled ahead of time. So the market wasn't caught unprepared. But that was a Jerome Powell signature move. The current Chair, Kevin Warsh, doesn't like to tip his hand ahead of time. And was characteristically tight-lipped about what the Fed might do at its next and final meeting of the year in December. Warsh acknowledged that inflation was still running too hot and emphasized the Fed is on the case to bring it down. Still, he noted that ultimately data will be his Sherpa pointing to the deluge of economic reports that will arrive between this meeting and next December 8th. The period right in front of us is information rich, he said. In other words, stick to the stuff, you know. Warsh did change something. It's not interest rates, but he did change something about the way the Fed is going to operate going forward. So typically, the Fed has eight regularly scheduled policy meetings that happen every single year. That's what it's been doing since the 1980s. But going forward, he wants to keep eight meetings. But only seven will actually include votes on interest rates. And then by 2028, he wants to drop that down to six rate decisions. And the reason he is doing this is that he wants to have more time to take in that information. He loves information. And he hates the fact that people and investors and so much of the market kind of hinges on every word of what the Fed says. So he truly thinks, he's putting his money where his mouth, he wants the Fed to consider the big picture more than these short term changes in economic data, to make rate decisions. So that was the big thing that changed even if interest rates remained in the exact same place. >> Yeah, he basically wants to have two offsights where you know, basically like there's no action items at the end, they don't change just interest rates. But what they do is just kind of talk about macroeconomic policy, which, I don't know, for some of you know, that might sound very interesting for some of you might sound extremely boring. The pushback on that is that you, the Fed may not be able to react as fast to changes. Maybe there's a really hot inflation report and you need, or there's something that happens. I don't know, another pandemic comes and you need to react more quickly. But by reducing the number of rate decisions from eight to six, then you aren't able to do that. Yes, there is more lag time, but you can't react as quickly. And I would say overall analysts looking at Kevin, I almost said Jerome Pal, Kevin Worcester's press conference.
kind of more compared it to his first wobbly one than the one where he may be assured investors the last time strategist at TD security said was did not clearly lay out why the committee preferred to wait until December to raise rates. Then Mark Cabana, who's the head of U.S. rate strategy at Bank of America said was his answers were neither clear nor convincing because inflation still running hot four percent core inflation the last inflation report we got it's been over five it's been over two percent which is the target for five years running analysts did not think worse laid out the proper case as to say what exactly are the signs we are looking for that we will hike rates again then again they do think that the Fed will do that on December 8th. Let's move on the WNBA forgot to double check its calendar and as a result are playing a finals game at a time when one teams fan base will be eating breakfast WNBA finals have been spectacular from a hoops perspective with the Golden State Valkyries leading an exciting matchup against the angel resled Atlanta dream three to two but it's both themes suit up for game six today a scheduling controversy has been the dominant storyline the game tips off at 12 30 p.m. Eastern 9 30 a.m. Pacific about as far from the typical 8 p.m. prime time slot as I am from dunking throughout the playoffs the dream have moved from their regular home Gateway Center arena which seats 3500 people into state farm arena which seats 17000 in his home to the NBA's Atlanta Hawks but here's the issue the Hawks already have a home game scheduled for tonight which means the arena is taken after exploring a range of options including rescheduling the game or moving it back to the smaller venue the league decided to host the game in an earlier time slot the dream understandably are peeved they said that they raised concerns months ago about what would happen if playoff dates overlapped with Hawks games now playing at 12 30 p.m. is not what we fought for but perhaps the real cost is to fans who are going to be at work when the critical contest is played they have jobs and won't be able to make it dream coach Carl Smesco said when asked about the lunchtime tip now listen I get it I've double booked myself before but usually for a dentist appointment and a meeting at work not a finals game you know it's pretty nuts that the league didn't have the foresight to figure this out before we got two game six this really encapsulates the WNBA season right product on the court really good the fans are foaming at the mouth to buy tickets watch their favorite players and the league the keeps stepping on a rake and there was just a total pig pile on the WNBA from the media the Wall Street Journal wrote a well organized league doesn't schedule a possible clinching game for a cross continental marquee series at an hour when the east coast fan base will be ordering sad office lunch and the west coast fan base will be returning from sunrise yoga then you have the athletics saying inexcusably obtuse planning astoundingly bad optics and most of all a wildly crappy thing to do to the people who consume your product all during the biggest showcase of the sport a time for celebration now tagged with a punchline we've seen this over the course of the season which has been mired in controversy that has been so off the court things like whatever Sophie Cunningham is saying and not not having to do with the amazing athletic achievements we're seeing on the court and eventually if the WNBA keeps doing this they are going to be blowing all their goodwill with the fans the fans that they need that have sword viewership to record highs and attendance to record highs this year there's so much enthusiasm around this particular league but management is just getting in its own way the problem actually dates back to september after the first round the playoffs the w a already knew that either games three four in six of the finals would be played in either brooklyn or atlanta brooklyn actually has the same issue as atlanta does in the sense that the new york liberty and the brooklyn nets have play in the same arena so they were going to have to you know maneuver around the mba schedule if brooklyn ended up winning that series or the new york liberty ended up winning that series but the nets and the liberty have the same owners the side family and they even though they say share the same arena they have shown that they could accommodate liberty games via past playoff runs and lana is owned by a separate ownership group they are not overlapping with the hawks at all so the dream actually have no control over state farm arena so the mwmba knew this risk and yet they didn't actually make any plans for it and people are not actually pinning this on the hawks because again they are their own organization they actually already moved one of their games later to accommodate game four so no one is really saying like the hawks should be in charge of scheduling games for the wmba it goes back to the league and trying to figure out how the heck do you not plan ahead for this exact scenario meanwhile the players are taking in stride and I think they have the best attitude about all of this the dreams Alicia Gray said it's the finals we just got to do what we got to do we are locked in on winning game six whether it's 8 a.m. 10 p.m. or midnight by the way the the game did sell out even at 12 30 so it just shows how you know the fan support is there it sounds pretty fun to play hooky actually for work and go to a wmba game not saying that this is the best thing for tv but at least fans in the lana are saying you know what screw work I got a little cough developing right now I'm going to the dream game all right we're going to take a quick break and come back with niels numbers right after this niel you know how I'm always watching docuseries yes and I keep telling you you're watching scripted sitcoms well rising stars is real it's a docuseries that follows small business owners as they create their businesses face real challenges and scale their brands with help from amazon ads from building awareness to driving sales they document how amazon ads helped hydrojug reach relevant audiences and scale from just a few thousand dollars to numbers you won't believe you'll want to see this one watch now at advertising dot amazon dot com slash rising dash stars that's advertising dot amazon dot com slash rising dash stars to be where would you go with one thousand five hundred dollars to spend on airfare first class roundfib to my favorite place on earth blooming to minnesota baby well with mastercard black card you can earn up to seventy five thousand bonus points after qualifying account activity with their limited time offer that's worth up to fifteen hundred dollars when redeemed toward airfare with no blackout dates or seat restrictions they're going to have to drag me out of the ball of america visit luxury card dot com slash brew for more details that's luxury card dot com slash brew offer and soon terms and conditions apply we all love connecting over a video call a quick text or that group chat that never ever stops pinging with AT&T you can get the new iphone 18 pro for zero dollars with eligible trade-in it has the most advanced iphone camera ever and a big leap in battery life so you can turn this deal into a long lasting connection connecting changes everything requires trade-in of two hundred thirty dollars or more in eligible plan terms and restrictions apply subject to change visit an AT&T store for details welcome to kneels numbers the segment where i share three steps in the weeks news that will have you doing the rodand thinker pose my first number is the scariest thing about the upcoming halloween the candy prices as you might have experienced on a recent Costco run candy and chocolate specifically has gotten absurdly expensive this year an analysis of seventeen popular halloween candy varieties by finance buzz found that prices jumped fifteen percent this year from last when you extend the time horizon it gets even more shocking a one hundred piece bag of candy has spiked seventy one percent since twenty twenty one going for seventeen bucks with candy inflation far outpacing overall inflation some say that being a generous host of trick or treaters is now costing them hundreds of dollars but no one wants to be the lame stop on the street so what to do many are hunting for deals google searches for cheap halloween candy bulk and where to buy cheap halloween candy have increased more than five thousand percent year over year others are supplementing the classic chocolate treats with sour candies and gummies which are cheaper and young people may prefer anyway but in some if you're a trick or treater listening to this first of all you might be a little old and second of all maybe don't expect too many king size bars come in your way Saturday night the funniest part is people who are coming up with different things to hand out rather than candy because candy is so expensive so here times talk to a couple people one Angie Vassy from Illinois has switched from candy to handing out ramen ramen packets imagine rolling up to a door you get a ten cent ramen packet but that doesn't even hold a candle to Megan pillar from Indiana and she's buying one bag twenty five dollar bag of candy but then she's supplementing it with bowls of homemade beef and bean chili from her husband so that could actually be electric you show up you get a little bowl of chili from your neighborhood trick or treat pass route or so very funny to see how people are adapting to these rising at candy prices ramen and chili my next number is the fastest growing youth sports in America but before I tell you got to grab a colored shirt because the answer is tennis and golf according to a new report from the Aspen Institute tennis participation among kids six to 12 is up 72% since 2019 while golf has jumped 55% both interestingly enough are solo non-contact sports that you can play throughout your life whether you're 15 or 85 for tennis's rise the report points to health benefits tennis's role in pop culture and the desire to be a part of community golf meanwhile saw surge during the covid pandemic that hasn't tied down particularly among girls girls now represent 35% of junior golfers according to the PGA compared to
15% 20 years ago. There are a bunch of other interesting nuggets we're sharing from this report. The third fastest growing sport behind tennis and golf is flag football, which posted a six year jump of 26% among kids six to 12. All tackle football declined 7%. The biggest decliner's over that time span, wrestling down 42% lacrosse, down 23% and basketball down 18%. Aspen also called out the substantial decline in adults who coach active youth sports coaches for kids 14 and under drop from 8.4 million in 2022 to 6.9 million last year. The third consecutive year of decline. Parents grab a whistle and some cones and get out there. When I see the rise of golf and tennis, I actually think about AI, believe it or not. So Walter Isaacson is a biographer. You started a YouTube channel and he recently just interviewed Peter Teele about what humans can uniquely do in the AI era. And Teele's answer was we're very relational. These relational dimensions will become more important and specifically called out that when knowledge trends towards being worth zero dollars, the only career skills that actually matter are networking persuasion and then literally called out like golfing with clients or the equivalent of golfing with clients. So potentially that is why we're seeing I mean that's a little of a six year old. That's what all the seats roll love, but it is fascinating to see like these sports specifically are rising at this moment in time because maybe there is something about like the fact that it does serve you for life and there is interpersonal relationships that are bred from those specific kind of country club-esque sports that you are seeing them jump up right now or maybe they just like playing those sports. One of the two. My last number is a freshman course at Harvard that's almost as difficult to get into as the college itself. Humanities 10 known as Hume 10 is absolutely blowing up. According to the Wall Street Journal, applications that involve essays mind you were up 40% this fall and 180 students competed for just 90 slots. And even if you get in, it's not exactly an easy A. The course requires you to read a massive complex book every week and write about it. There's no pass-fail option and attendance is taken. So why would you ever want to enroll in Hume 10? Students in course alumni told the journal, it's a breath of fresh air to engross yourself in the classic works and actually use your brain in an era where you can offer so much to artificial intelligence. The curriculum starts with the Odyssey ends with the Iliad and visits Plato, Dante, Joyce and Shakespeare in between. And then there's the absolute geniuses you're learning from. Hume 10 rotates a cast of professors to teach the books, all of them world-class scholars. As one student set of English professors Stephen Greenblatt, being able to read Hamlet with Greenblatt is like being able to cook with Julia Child. Toby, I never thought I'd say this, but I think I want to go back to school to take this class. I don't know if you could get into the class, let alone get into Harvard, but I like where your head's at. Apparently the thing that gives this class the secret sauce is peer pressure and the culture of the class. One student who graduated in 2025 said it's the only class that took it Harvard where people would call each other out for not having done the reading, which again is especially unique in the AI area where you can chat the books as the kids are saying, I don't even know that was a term, but in this article they were saying, yeah, everyone's chatting the books. Anyway, you actually have to read the books to be able to participate in this conversation and also just give respect to the class and the teachers up there. One teacher gave a lecture and the class burst into applause at the end of it. That's how blown away they were. So it really is the culture of pressuring your peers to do the same work that you are doing and that's why it makes for an awesome class. Did you have a class similar to that at Marin that everyone wanted to get into? Yeah, I mean, I was going to say there's a lot. Yes, there was one like on world religions that everyone wanted to get into because of the professor was like a rotating class, but I went into that or I managed a way to find to find that class even though you doubt me. And that was great, but I just overall loved my English classes and my history courses where basically was this. It was like a very intense seminar where you read a book and it's like a pretty weighty book once a week and then you go in and talk about it in class. I mean, you're an English major. You probably did then. I don't know. That was my favorite. Like I love that. You should have been an English major, Neil. That is. I took a bunch of English classes too, but just to read like a very complex book that maybe was too intimidating for you to read on your own and then have someone an expert lead a discussion with your other smart peers and talk about that. I don't know. That was just that was just super engrossing. My biggest kind of revelation for my English days is I did read a lot of the books because you know, ChatTBT wasn't a thing back then. We did have spark notes, but I was supposed to read Moby Dick, big book. Started listening to it on audiobook while going for runs. Is that allowed? I think so. It was just too long. Like there was a lot going on. It's what Melville would have wanted. All right, let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. Life is coming back to life. The mostly defunct legendary brand is returning to print as a quarterly magazine under the backing of Carly Klaus, the model and entrepreneur. The New York Times reported that Klaus is swinging for the fences with this resurrection attempts using the print magazine as a jumping off point for events, documentary films, and of course, short form video. There was an important cultural moment in the mid 20th century. Life probably had its fingers on it. It's renowned photojournalist captured seminal images like the sailor kissing a woman in Times Square on VJ Day in 1945. And its pages ran the first published version of Ernest Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. But circulation peaked in the 1960s and like so many other print magazines withered at the hands of television and later the internet. Still, this is something your parents will probably be very hyped about. I thought it was interesting how they're approaching advertising. There are no traditional print ads in the first issue. Instead, the entire issue is sponsored by Rivian and Figma. So maybe we're entering into a new era where you don't want to clutter up the pages of the very premium 45 dollar magazine with the normal print ads you're used to seeing. But they're just going for a more minimalist approach, more high class and trying to move upstream in terms of the quality of the media, which who knows if it will work. No one's quite figured out how to make magazines work in today's day and age. But I kind of like this approach of going more premium rather than trying to maximize the advertising space within the actual pages. Finally, the Milwaukee Brewers are world series champs defeating my Tampa Bay raise to earn their first title in franchise history. It was a true underdog versus underdog story. The Brewers play in the league's smallest media market and both the 19th highest payroll while the raise have the 28th highest payroll. Those facts will not be forgotten as the least collective bargaining agreement expires this December, setting up a labor fight over whether a salary cap should be implemented. But before the unpleasantness of negotiations takes over, shout out to all the long-suffering Wisconsin sports fans, especially one of my Groove's men, Jack Hygstrom, pull yourself a spotted cow and enjoy this one. Congrats to the Brewers and this is interesting. As a result, a Monet will be changing hands before the world series, the Milwaukee Art Museum, which apparently is amazing, right? So cool. And the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida, you've been there? I actually have not been back one. Well, let's go through a long time. Didn't know you had one. So they had this wager about whoever would win the world series. They would loan each other a Monet. So what's happening now that the Brewers one is the St. Petersburg Art Museum is going to send the Milwaukee Museum a 1904 painting, houses a Parliament effective fog London for a temporary loan. So, you know, they had this this friendly wager. It's maybe not the the sexiest wager. But if you go to the Milwaukee Art Museum over the next few months, you will see this 1904 Monet as a result of the Brewers winning the world series. I just looked up the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Pete. It is beautiful to look at, but it does not hold a candle to the Milwaukee Art Museum, which has this awesome, you know, sale or wings. It looks very cool and it's right on the water. So recommend both. Go check them out. That is all the time we have. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Thursday to share your thoughts on the episode or anything else. Send an email to
[email protected] or DM us on Instagram @andbeDailyShow. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our supervising producer. Raymond Lue is our senior producer. Our producer is Olivia Graham and our associate producer is Olivia Lake Technical Direction by Nina Miller. Her makeup is cramming for their Hume 10 exam and our show is a production of Morning
Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.
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