Apple CEO speaks out on antitrust regulation, Shiba Inu soars, Starbucks shares under pressure

Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke publicly about antitrust regulation, Shibu Inu stock is up after being added to Robinhood's platform, and Starbucks is under pressure after being downgraded by Citi.

Video Transcript

- Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live, everyone. It is time for our triple play, the three tickers that we're watching today that caught our eye for one reason or another. So we're going to start with me. My pick is Shiba Inu. The ticker symbol SHIB-USD. Now, this meme crypto token was soaring this afternoon before dialing back slightly, as you can see. It's still up about 10% at the moment.

Now, this was after it was included as one of as one of four new cryptocurrencies on Robinhood's platform. And that was along with Solana, Polygon's Matic, and Compound's COMP Comp. Now, Shiba is yet another example of a meme coin which typically does tend to appeal to retail consumers. But as we saw the rise of Dogecoin, once you get the blessing from someone like an Elon Musk, that does get taken more seriously. A lot of people are wondering if that might be the difference here with Robinhood.

Now, obviously, Shiba was still down year to date, though. But Robinhood shares also got a bump today on that news. While more broadly, other cryptos, except for Bitcoin, seeing some green today. But still a little bit on the struggle bus as well.

- Yeah. And this is the key for any new coin that gets added to some of the major exchanges, whether it be Coinbase, whether it be Robinhood and the amount of sales that we do see, or at least the new players that decide to get into the crypto space, either via Robinhood or one of the other platforms that I mentioned a moment ago, is for these coins, it just adds more of the viability for them. If they're getting picked up by a major exchange, then, ultimately, you see this type of price action on that day of the announcement.

Interesting to note, though, that Shiba still well off of some of the highs that it had seen in late 2021. So we'll see if it gets back to those levels. But as of right now, this no doubt a good move, not just for the price action, but additionally for having more of that viability as a coin. And we'll see exactly how that creates even more demand for more coins to be added as well through Robinhood's platform.

Also, another ticker symbol that I'm tracking here on the day is AAPL. It's a very common one for our viewers here. And this is as Tim Cook spoke today in Washington, DC with the International Association of Privacy Professionals and really reiterated the Apple App Store privacy pillar here or pitch that they've continued to go out to consumers with over the past several years, saying that Apple is deeply concerned about app stores that essentially would quote, unquote, "circumvent the Apple App Store."

And they're afraid that there would be potential risk or exposure that users would see because of some of the hungry companies that are trying to get their data. And that is something that Apple has created a entire marketing engine out of is the privacy play, and asking for regulation, but asking it to be regulation that, to no surprise, also benefits them at the end of the day.

So it'll be interesting to see where Washington and some of the broader tech lash and looking under the hood with regard to the antitrust and the monopolies that some of these companies seemingly hold over consumer data, where that continues to kind of break up the availability for Apple to just sell further into that install base and also kind of be a detractor for some of those other smaller players that are looking to monetize those users via the App Store as well.

- Yeah. As usual, I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Certainly, he's right about privacy concerns. And they have been leaders on that front, as you know, Brad. I mean, put their money where their mouth is late last year and really hurt the ad revenue over there at Facebook making those changes in particular to the iPhone. But I think those app developers have a great point. If they met somewhere in the middle, that 30% fee for people like Epic Games is going to continue to be a thorn.

And it's going to continue to focus that lawsuit. So it sounds like the UK, they're going to get a deal. The US is where they have all eyes. And they need some sort of middle ground to help out those app developers so they don't take that side door. My play is Starbucks. SBUX. Citi downgrading the stock to a neutral buy, citing several concerns. Analyst John Tower said broader inflation, management issues, China COVID lockdowns, and of course, the unionization push is the reason for that downgrade to neutral rating on Tuesday.

Speaking of the unionization drive, in Boston, two Boston stores became the first two in Massachusetts to unionize. And they are batting near 1.000 right now. 18 of 19 when that has come up for a vote at last check. As for the stock, it is down just a bit. About 1% on the day. Year to date it's been hammered. Down 31%. And guys, I want to get your take on some reporting from the "New York Post" that Howard Schultz at a California store that was attempting to unionize reportedly said to a store worker, if you hate Starbucks so much, why don't you go somewhere else?

Now, context, this comes from a very pro-union news site. More perfect union. Schultz responded. He's the interim now current CEO. He's back again. He offered a statement, but didn't really explain whether or not he said that. I think it's rather inconsequential whether he said it or not. If he did, it seems relatively on brand and innocuous. Not sure how you feel about it, Brad.

- It's interesting because Howard Schultz coming back to Starbucks at a time where this is a very different green siren than the one that he left and turned over to Kevin Johnson previously. And so as of right now, with all of the labor shortages and labor issues that they are confronting, both on the union side, but also in just being able to retain employees in the face of hourly employment that can be-- they can see payment far better at other places.

It all depends upon how they're working with that existing labor and workforce and those team members that they have done so much over the years to try and create this compelling and competitive positioning to be employed at Starbucks versus other places through some of the benefits as well. And so now if you have an intermediary on one case that you have to continue to interface with on the union side, how does that change up some of the benefits in other places that they're able to offer as well?

But I think for Howard Schultz, it also comes with the recognition that at the end of the day, you have to know some of the headwinds that you're facing as a company. And of course, he does know that. But this just doesn't sound great on headline, of course, right now in that interfacing, in this interaction at least. But we'll continue to track shares of SBUX going into the end of the trading session.