Navigating the Noise: Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Teamwork
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Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
This CEO explains how the trade war upends global supply chains
Tariff uncertainty has companies doubling down on supply chains. Eric Clark, CEO and president of supply-chain technology provider Manhattan Associates (MANH), joins Market Catalysts to discuss how companies are leaning into supply chain technology to navigate uncertainty and maintain strategic operations. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Catalysts here. Supply chain technology provider Manhattan Associates reporting second quarter results earlier this week boosted by demand for its cloud services. Joining me now is Eric Clark, Manhattan Associate CEO and president. Good to see you, Eric. Thank you for joining us. Before I sort of dive into your numbers, I do want to talk about tariffs and the trade war because obviously, your clients are sitting at the intersection of all of those cross currents. What are you hearing from clients right now as to sort of how they're navigating the tariffs? Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks for having me. And what we're seeing is early days when these tariffs were announced right after Liberation day, lots of customers maybe went into a little bit of a pause mode to try to predict what was going to happen or to try to understand the uncertainty. Since then, I think people have understood that this isn't going to be quick, and some of these deadlines are going to move. And it's going to take some time. So the forward leaning companies are really getting back to their strategies and executing their strategies. And I think it's not too dissimilar to what we've seen with other supply chain disruptions like COVID and bridge collapses, et cetera. While there's a little bit of a pause in the beginning, I think it very quickly confirms the fact that supply chain is mission critical software. And this is not an area that companies are going to pause or delay for a long time. This is an area that they consider not only mission critical, but strategic. At the beginning of the year, we were also seeing not just some contracts being paused, but the opposite in some cases, right? Orders coming in to try to sort of front run the tariffs to build up inventory. Is that inventory now? Has it been worked down? Are we how, in other words, I guess right now, how would flows compare to normal conditions? Yeah, it varies across industry, and, you know, what we're seeing from our customers is they're trying to be prepared for whatever might come next. And from a software perspective, that's what we do. You know, we can help them be prepared and make sure that they can react and have their correct strategies and agility so that they can do the things that they need to do in real time. And so when it comes to your business, I know that a lot of the contracts that you all sign are sort of longer term contracts, right? Have you seen any disruption to that? Have you seen any of your customers sort of pulling back on spending amidst all of this? You know, it's interesting, as you mentioned, we announced earnings earlier this week, and we had a strong Q2 and a strong first half. It was a beaten raised quarter, and with really strong margin expansion. And when you look at, you know, the difficult and uncertain macroeconomic environment, the past three quarters at Manhattan have been our strongest bookings, sales quarters in the history of the company. So you can argue that all three of those quarters were, if not challenging, at least changing macro environment, and we continue to do well from a bookings performance. And not only that, but new logo bookings has been the strength of our bookings performance. So we're able to actually go out there and take market share from our competitors. And you know, that also gives us opportunity to continue to expand and cross-sell into those customers in the future. So we're feeling really good about the commitments that our customers are making and that customers in the supply chain space are making with their supply chain software. And Eric, would you say I think sort of during the pandemic, we all paid a lot more attention to supply chains than we ever had, of course, because they were affecting us directly. But there was also a lot of discussion about how antiquated the systems were, both the actual physical infrastructure, but also sort of the things that you help people do now, right? That that stuff was sort of obsolete in many cases. Where are we now? And how much further does supply chain modernization need to go? Well, I think we're in the early days of supply chain modernization. And at Manhattan, I think we're rated a leader across our product portfolio, and I think we're really the only true cloud-based SAS provider across the supply chain space. And that's why we continue to have high win rates in the market, and that's why we continue to drive that expansion with these strong bookings quarters. Again, I point to with this uncertainty in the market, it is confirming the fact that this is mission critical software and confirming the fact that this needs to be part of the strategy. And that's why people are really leaning into the modern technology that we can offer. Eric, thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. Related Videos BlackRock's Rick Rieder: I Think Rates Can Come Down Elon Musk's 'master plan': Is Tesla an EV maker or AI play? How meme stock mania is a 'sign of the times' 'We ask for more data' than FICO: VantageScore CEO Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Uncertainty is 'here to stay': What that means for markets
PIMCO chief investment officer core strategies Mohit Mittal joins Market Domination with Josh Lipton and Hennion & Walsh chief investment officer Kevin Mahn to discuss President Trump's upcoming August 1 tariff deadline, the uncertainty that comes with it, and why "the balance of risk" is shifting to the downside. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Domination here. Joining us now is Mohit Mittal, he's chief investment officer, core strategies at Pimco. That firm has more than two trillion dollars in assets under management. Mohit, it is great to see you on the show. Maybe start, Mohit, with what we were just talking about there: trade tensions, tariffs. We have August 1st that is circled on our calendars. As investors we're all waiting for it. I'm curious to think about how are you thinking through that deadline? As a CIO, what are you telling clients? Thanks for having me, Josh. Yes, so, I think the way we are thinking about this, even if we take a step back from that one immediate deadline, what we are observing is a broad, somewhat slowdown in the data. Add to it the incredible amount of uncertainty that is being created by these broad tariff policies. And those uncertainties are not going to go away on August 1st. Meaning that there might be some extensions, there might be some deals, but those uncertainties are here to stay. And what that means is that that uncertainty feeds into corporate sentiment. That uncertainty feeds into consumer sentiment. Which means that, you know, as we go forward towards the end of the year or next year, growth continues to slow down towards, say, 1%. And then add to it the context around earnings expectations. So when you look at the earnings expectations for this year, they are in the high single digits, same for next year. So the balance of risk in our mind, given kind of these uncertainties and in the context of expectations which are quite optimistic, the balance of risk seems to be towards kind of under-delivering relative to expectations. So is your point, and I'm just looking at the popular average here, we are, you know, agreeing across the board. Again, Mohit, is your point that you think investors are being a bit complacent here? Absolutely. I think that's kind of the view here that investors are being complacent in, say for example, kind of the equity markets, even in lower quality segments of the credit markets where valuations are near historic types. And when we contrast that to higher quality fixed income where investors can get, call it, six percent yield in a very, very high quality manner. That looks like a very attractive alternative in this kind of environment of elevated uncertainty and ongoing complacency. Kevin, bring you in here as well. Mohit's point is well taken. To the extent, Kevin, I wonder whether you get nervous when nobody else seems to be nervous. Absolutely, and I think what we need to understand is that we're pretty far along this bull market run. Through the first 73 trading days of 2025, the S&P 500 was down 10.2%, the fifth worst start in history. Now we've seen a significant move higher since day 74. How much longer can that run last? So I would anticipate some more short-term bouts of volatility ahead, whether it's due to the lack of trade agreements being announced, perhaps tariffs being more severe than when originally anticipated, or the Fed staying on pause for even longer than many are currently forecasting right now. That could all create more volatility. But I think each part of that volatility brings more investors back into the market. Mohit, what do you say to those folks who come on the show and they're, they're bulled up, they're more constructive. And honestly, Mohit, I think they basically tell me, 'Listen, Josh, just don't overthink this. The reason the market's higher is because the fundamentals look good: solid earnings, solid economic data, and a Fed that seems to want to cut later in the year.' What is your response to that? I think there's a lot of merit to that and that certainly can hold that we can continue to see, you know, equity markets do well. We continue to see credit markets do well. But I think what is also interesting is that in the last, call it, 15, 17 years, post the GFC, generally buying the dip has always worked out. And I think many factors have been behind it, but one of the factors continues to be around ongoing large fiscal deficits, as well as a strong monetary policy support through quantitative easings. Whenever there has been a big stress, you have seen both the fiscal authorities as well as monetary authorities come to the rescue. I think where we are, as we think about kind of where we are, we recognize that because of high debt to GDP for the US federal government, you have some constraints at the fiscal level in order to be able to address the next crisis with larger fiscal deficits. Same thing, you know, with the Central Bank. I think the QE would be somewhat less easier to do next time around, given the prior inflation or concerns around inflation that the prior QEs may have created. So in that context, we recognize that I think certainly you could have an environment where earnings continue to deliver and equities do well, but the balance of risk seems to have shifted to the downside. And I think the last point I would highlight also is that a lot of optimism is being built around the idea that we will realize the productivity enhancements because of all the investments in AI related chips, energy, all of that. In a scenario we don't realize those productivity enhancements, I think certainly the balance of risk again shifts a little bit to the downside. Related Videos Mortgage rates steady, Trump says no capital gains on home sales Why bitcoin could hit $300,000 next year 4 advantages give Alphabet a 'strategic position' in AI race Pharma sector outlook as Trump's drug tariff deadline looms Sign in to access your portfolio
Fox News
17 minutes ago
- Fox News
Why AI is causing summer electricity bills to soar
If your electricity bill seems shockingly high, you're not imagining it. A big part of the spike is being driven by rising artificial intelligence electricity demand. PJM Interconnection, the largest power grid operator in the United States, says electricity usage is climbing sharply this summer. Some areas may see bills increase by as much as 20%. One of the main drivers behind this trend is the growing power consumption from data centers that support AI systems like ChatGPT and other generative tools. Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy ReportGet my best tech tips, urgent security alerts and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you'll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide — free when you join my PJM supplies electricity to 67 million customers across 13 states: Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia. It manages a vast and complex network of power distribution. This summer, the grid is showing signs of strain. In just the past year, data centers running AI have started using much more electricity. These centers can consume up to 30 times more power than traditional data centers. Most of them are connected to the same grid that serves homes and businesses, which means the cost of that power growth is shared by everyone. AI took off in 2023 when tools like ChatGPT became widely adopted. Since then, companies have been racing to build more infrastructure to keep up. PJM's territory now has the largest number of data centers in the world. Between 2024 and 2025, electricity demand from AI and data centers in the PJM region contributed to a $9 billion increase in power costs. PJM expects peak usage this summer to reach over 154,000 megawatts, with the potential to exceed all-time records during heat waves or emergencies. While demand is rising quickly, the power supply is not keeping up with the pace. Many fossil fuel plants are shutting down due to state regulations, aging infrastructure or market conditions. More than 9,000 megawatts of coal capacity will retire or convert to gas in 2025 alone. Clean energy options like wind and solar are often the cheapest ways to add new power, but developers are struggling with permitting delays, rising costs and a loss of federal incentives. For example, the 30% federal solar tax credit for homeowners will end after 2025. That change is already slowing down new installations. Even if you never use AI tools yourself, you are still likely paying for their growth. The cost of expanding the data center's power supply is spread across all grid users, including regular households. PJM customers have been warned to expect electric bills to increase by $25 or more per month. Commercial users may see prices climb nearly 30%. To help prevent rolling blackouts, PJM is rolling out demand response programs that pay large businesses to temporarily reduce their electricity use during periods of extreme demand. Still, if electricity usage exceeds 166,000 megawatts, some regions may not have enough reserve power to maintain reliability. Looking for ways to lower your electricity bill as prices surge? Here are some effective tips you can start using today: For more tips and expert advice, check out the 7 best ways to save money on your electricity bill AI electricity demand is growing faster than the grid can handle. As more data centers come online to power tools like ChatGPT, the strain is showing up on your utility bill. Without major upgrades to infrastructure or smarter energy policy, prices could keep climbing. The tech may be smart, but the cost of keeping it running is getting harder for everyone else to ignore. Have your electricity bills gone up recently? Let us know by writing us at Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy ReportGet my best tech tips, urgent security alerts and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you'll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide — free when you join my Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
