How Big Tech’s Debt Machine Is Powering the AI Boom
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Our earliest childhood memories can feel so visceral. I have this memory of my mother standing on the beach, you know, the wind whipping her hair and her jacket, calling into the wind with my siblings out in the lake and the dam, you know, looming in the distance. But none of these memories were true. This week on Explain It to Me from Vox, why can't I remember being a baby?
Today's number, 25. That is the percentage of ants that never do any work for the colony. Scientists have yet to figure out why these ants don't work, but they have identified one trait that they all have in common. They're all in consulting. Money markets matter. If money is evil, then that building is hell.
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Welcome to Profiteer Markets. I'm Ed Elson. It is November 19th. Let's check in on yesterday's market vitals. The major indices all declined as the tech sell-off continued. The S&P 500 fell for the fourth day in a row to its lowest close in a month. Meanwhile, the yield on 10-year treasuries slid and finally Bitcoin dipped below $90,000 before recovering marginally. Okay, what else is happening? Home Depot shares dropped after reporting third quarter earnings yesterday. Revenue slightly beat expectations, but the company missed on earnings per share. The retailer also cut its full year guidance. Earnings for 2025 are now expected to fall 5% instead of previous projections of 2%. The stock closed down 6% yesterday.
So why do we care? Well, Home Depot can tell us kind of a lot about how the American consumer is doing. Its results are also closely tied to the housing market. And on top of that, the company is relatively exposed to the tariff. So to help us break down what these earnings tell us about the broader economy, we are speaking with Joe Feldman, Senior Managing Director at Telsey Group. Joe, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Excited to chat with you. So we want to get your reactions to these earnings. Beat on revenue, missed on EPS, stock fell 6%. Take us through what happened with these Home Depot earnings. So I
think what happened was expectations were a lot higher heading into the print. Really self-induced by Home Depot. If you go back a quarter, They saw some momentum in the business. They had a better spring, early spring, summer period. And they thought the second half of the year was going to be even better. They thought there would be continued momentum. So we in the street all expected higher sales trends coming into this quarter. And then when the quarter materialized, it didn't happen. You know, basically the consumer stayed kind of stable. So their underlying business stayed stable at around a 1% growth in terms of comp. But there was some pressure because of the lack of storm activity. Usually, hurricanes are a good thing for Home Depot for Lowe's.
And when that didn't happen, it caused further pressure on sales. Then the margins started to deteriorate a little bit. And you saw some deleverage. And so the earnings came in a little bit worse. And the investor community was a little frustrated with what happened.
Can you tell us more about how hurricanes relate to profits at Home Depot? It's a strange thing in the business, but it is important.
Yeah, no, it's very important, actually, in the third quarter and sometimes in the fourth quarter, where big storms can have a big impact. Because When a hurricane comes and there is some destruction related to it or tornadoes and other storms, you know, houses need repair. Roofs might get damaged. Gutters might get damaged. And so when that happens, the consumer usually comes back in force in that region soon after the event to try to repair their homes. This time around in the third quarter of 2025, we didn't really have any major storms like that compared to two last year late in the quarter around October. And those storms had a big positive boost to Home Depot, Lowe's, Tractor Supply late in the quarter a year ago in their fourth quarter.
So now when you look ahead and you don't have any storm activity or recovery activity to happen, that's going to put some extra pressure on the sales.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–6:15
2
What are the latest Home Depot earnings and why do they matter for the U.S. economy?
6:15–10:10
3
How did Joe Feldman explain the impact of storm activity on Home Depot sales?
10:10–14:03
4
What did the discussion reveal about consumer spending trends and housing‑market pressure?
14:03–18:01
5
How are tariffs affecting Home Depot’s pricing and profit margins?
18:01–29:57
Speakers
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