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Bank Earnings Recap, CPI Growth, Tariffs, & Venmo-Uber Partnership

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On today’s episode of the Zacks Friday Finish Line, Associate Stock Strategists Ryan McQueeney and Ben Rains take on this week’s biggest stories, including the latest in Trump’s ongoing trade war with China and June’s CPI data. The hosts also discuss Venmo’s new partnership with Uber, and later, they recap Friday morning’s top bank earnings reports.

Make sure to subscribe and leave the show a rating on Apple Podcasts!

First, the hosts touched on this week’s macroeconomic headlines, including President Trump’s new tariff plan. Just a few days after implementing a controversial batch of tariffs—which primarily targeted Chinese raw materials—the White House surprisingly announced another $200 billion worth of products which could face new charges soon.

These products are primarily consumer goods, including baseball gloves, electronics, apparel, mattresses, and furniture. Of these, analysts were quick to highlight furniture makers as the most at risk companies. The majority of imported U.S. furniture is from China, and that could spell bad news for companies like Restoration Hardware (RH - Free Report) , Williams-Sonoma (WSM - Free Report) , At Home Group and Wayfair (W - Free Report) .

Ryan and Ben explain this situation and speculate as to whether these tariffs will actually come into effect. The hosts also discuss June’s CPI data, which saw its biggest monthly year-over-year uptick in about four years.

This CPI growth was above estimates and has some investors concerned that inflation might finally be here. However, as the Finish Line team explains, much of June’s growth can be attributed to higher fuel costs, and stripping out energy, things were actually relatively in line with expectations.

The hosts also touched on one of this week’s trendiest stories: Venmo’s new partnership with Uber. The PayPal (PYPL - Free Report) -owned Venmo application is immensely popular with millennials and represents a top choice in the growing mobile payments industry.

Now, Venmo users will find a “Pay With Venmo” option on the Uber application. PayPal has launched similar partnerships with the likes of Grubhub .

Finally, Ryan and Ben recapped the results of Friday’s “Big Three” financial reports. It was a mixed bag from JPMorgan (JPM - Free Report) , Citigroup (C - Free Report) , and Wells Fargo (WFC - Free Report) , but one thing is for certain: these reports did not blow investors out of the water, and they likely will not move the needle much in the sluggish bank industry.

Still, make sure to check out the show to hear what the Finish Line team had to say about these companies!

As a reminder, if you feel that we missed something, or if you want us to cover a different story, shoot us an email at podcast@zacks.com. Make sure to check out all of our other audio content at zacks.com/podcasts, and remember to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts.

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