Tesla upgraded to Deutsche Bank's 'short-term buy' list, Uber settles disabled passenger lawsuit
Uber has settled a lawsuit over wait fees for disabled passengers, Tesla stock is up after Deutsche Bank added it to its short-term buy list, and Nvidia shares are surging on optimism over passage of the CHIPS Act in Congress.
Video Transcript
- Triple Play is on deck. So I'm going to kick us off with my pick, which is Uber. Now Uber has agreed to pay more than $2 million on waived wait fees for certain disabled passengers.
Now this stemmed from allegations that Uber violated the Americans with Disabilities Act according to the Department of Justice Monday. Now passengers, including the vision impaired or those who need more assistance with walking or wheelchairs, weren't able to make it to their rideshare within those two minutes and were charged the waiting fee. Now the bulk of the payout from Uber will go to more than 1,000 riders who complained about the charges and the rest to others who were harmed by Uber's practices. Now Uber tells Reuters it welcomes the settlement and is working to improve accessibility for all users.
It said it has a longstanding policy of refunding wait times for passengers with disabilities. The stock is up today, though, but down more than 45% year to date. [INAUDIBLE].
- Yeah, Michelle. It's not really impacting the stock much. $2 million to Uber, not a huge chunk of change. The bigger part of this story is the PR fallout from this.
I think as this issue gets more and more attention, obviously something that a lot of riders might potentially think about, especially if you are disabled if you're trying to figure out which ride sharing service to use. Something to keep in mind. You mentioned the fact that Uber has been down.
It's been a very, very tough year to date for them. Also, the past year off more than 55%. So we'll see whether or not this coming earnings season if we start to see a little bit of a shift here in some of those ride sharing companies.
All right, my play today is Tesla, another stock getting added to Deutsche Bank's short term buy list. They're bullish on the company ahead of earnings on Wednesday, writing in a note that it is, quote, "a compelling opportunity" and that Tesla could positively surprise with its margin performance for the second quarter given, quote, "good cost execution and continued pricing strength."
Earlier this month, Tesla reporting just over 254,000 deliveries for the second quarter. That was just shy of the Street's estimates and the first time in a long time that we have seen a drop in that number driven in part by COVID shutdowns in China production for the quarter, with 258,000 just over that share so far this year are off pretty tremendously. You can see that on the screen today, though. Shares barely in the green, up just 2/10 of a percent, but bucking that downward trend that we're seeing in the market, Dave.
- And there's a video game play with Tesla now because Elon Musk confirming all the rumors out there that they might test "Steam." "Steam" is a popular digital PC game. So what's going to happen is they're going to turn Tesla into essentially an arcade video game.
Elon said on Twitter that a demo could be happening as soon as next month. This is a little worrisome. I'm sure people are thrilled about this development in the video game world, but we are looking at a world of distraction in particular coming to EVs with 30 inch screens. We mentioned that a while back. Doesn't it concern you a little bit?
- Very.
- The amount of distractions we are piling on to one of the biggest issues on the road.
- Yeah, and I'm still worried about people texting. So if you add in this, it's a whole other ball game. It's very, very worrisome. Safety should be number one priority. I have a little-- some questions here about this going forward.
- Full steam ahead. Man, just-- we need that self-driving technology to speed up. My play is Nvidia, surging today on optimism regarding the Chips Act.
The chip maker also very much in the news for other reasons, though. Paul Pelosi, the husband of the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, purchased between $1 million and $5 million worth of shares, about 20,000 shares of the chip maker, on June 17, this according to public disclosures. The purchase was just weeks ahead of a vote on the Chips Act legislation that would deliver $52 billion to the US semiconductor industry. In a statement, though, Pelosi spokesperson, quote, "the Speaker does not own any stocks, as you can see from the required disclosures, which the Speaker fully cooperates. These transactions are marked SP for spouse. The Speaker has no prior knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions."
As for the stock, it has been long an issue in the House and the Senate. Can they trade stocks? Can they not?
The central question-- should spouses and family members be banned from trading stocks with businesses with business before Congress? We may never solve this. But shares of NVIDIA are down more than 40% year to date.
They were up 3 and 1/2 earlier today, and then Apple dragged everybody down. So now they're up about 2%. But Rochelle, it's been 10 years, 10 years since we passed the Stock Act.
And still, we're having this discussion. Spouses are still allowed to trade stock of companies that have business directly before Congress. What do you think of this?
- Well, see, I think if it was a case of, say, a big announcement for a company, that's one thing. But I think if it's coming up to a vote where you really don't know which way it might fall-- and especially since this Chip Act has really been going through the ringer in Congress for a while. So it's not as if you know exactly how the vote is going to come out.
Obviously, it's not a good look. It does raise a lot of questions, and we're never actually going to know the kind of conversations that came about between-- you know, between man and wife when it comes to trading. I think it's better to err on the side of caution--
- Right.
- --rather than sort of having yourself subject to these sort of things. But at the end of the day, nobody knows what really goes on behind someone's closed doors.
- Yeah, but Dave, you bring up a great point. It's been 10 years, and we're still having these types of discussions. And it feels like day in and day out-- not day in, day out.
It's a little bit of an exaggeration. But every few months, there is a member of Congress. There's a family member here that is involved in some sort of trading activity that can be tied back to some sort of legislation in Congress or some sort of idea that's being debated.
So I think you bring up a big point. I'm not too confident that we are going to see movement on this anytime soon because a lot of people within the House and within the Senate have been resisting this because they want their family members to be able to own and trade stocks. So you bring up a very good point.
The big question to this particular matter is how much did he know? How much did Speaker Pelosi share with her husband? We won't know.
- No.
- But the broader issue is what we need to talk about.
- Assuming she didn't put in an email that she already knew the result of a whip count, but this came up right prior to COVID, which was a huge story when there were several congressmen and women who were downplaying the likelihood that COVID would be a real serious pandemic and then making moves--
- Yeah.
- --with their stocks that implied they knew exactly how serious the pandemic was going to be.
