Elon Musk willing to reverse Trump’s Twitter ban, Netflix may include ads, Bausch Health slumps

Elon Musk stated he's willing to let Donald Trump back on the Twitter platform, Netflix told employees it may shift to an ad-supported model, and Bausch Health stock slumped.

Video transcript

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live, everyone. Let's kick off our triple play with the three stocks that we're watching. I'm going to kick us off with my pick, which is Bausch Health Companies, ticker symbol, BHC. Now it fell after a surprise miss on first quarter GAAP earnings per share and revenue. The stock was down more than 30% in early trading, and as you can see, staying in that range, down about 27% there. Now we did see that the biggest decline actually came from the international business, with sales falling 20% to $244 million as volume decreased.

Now CEO Thomas Appio also announced that the company is separating its eyecare business. He said, we will operate as two companies, which enables Bausch Health to increase its focus on accelerating growth with strategic commercial investments and expanding our pipeline with innovative products that will improve the quality of life for patients around the world. Unfortunately, that did not move the stock much today because of that disappointing forward guidance still weighing on investors' mind.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, Rachelle, guidance was the big thing here, Bausch saying that they expect $8.25 billion to $8.4 billion in sales. That was slightly less than what the Street was looking for. But their CEO, Thomas Appio, he was trying to calm some of those nerves from investors that were a little bit rattled by the numbers that we saw today, saying that sales were flat despite, quote, "incremental macro pressure and a challenging supply chain environment." So he's saying that even those sales were flat, it was a very, very tough quarter for the company, so maybe not as bad as what that headline number suggests.

Let's move on to Netflix because some interesting news from the company today, ads may be coming sooner than we initially thought. So executives telling employees that a lower-priced, ad-supported tier could be available as early as before the end of the year. Now, during the company's earnings call last month, co-CEO Reed Hastings said that Netflix is still working on the model and that it wouldn't be available for another year or two. So the big question now, though, is whether an ad-supported tier, if that is going to help Netflix with its subscriber numbers, a big issue here for the company recently.

Now the streaming giant has been struggling to boost its subscriber base. And as a result, shares off more than 70% since the start of the year. Dave, I don't know-- what do you think about an ad-supported tier? It could make sense for a lot of people.

DAVE BRIGGS: I think it's long overdue. The question is, do they have the infrastructure to really implement that, right? I think it's going to help in terms of the numbers, but they're nowhere near their competitors in the space in terms of knowing how to do it and having the build to have sales. But sports, sports is what I just don't understand about the company. It's out there. All their competitors are doing it.

I understand that they can't get in the news space, but sports is the one thing that it seems like investors are pleading for, and they are staying out. So I will continue to wait for that because drive to survive has been huge for them. Sports movies have been big for them. We shall see.

My play is Twitter, TWTR, because Elon Musk said today he would reverse the Twitter ban on former President Donald Trump. Speaking virtually to the Future of the Car event, hosted by the Financial Times, the Tesla CEO saying, quote, "I think it was a morally bad decision to be clear and foolish in the extreme." For what it's worth, there was a lot of other factors. But Twitter shares were trading above 50 bucks a share when Trump was banned. It's fallen in the 47 range, as you can see. Musk pledged 54.20.

Two weeks ago, it was Trump, though, who said he would not return to Twitter, reaffirming his commitment to his own social media platform, which is Truth Social. Not many buy that. Not many have faith in the long-term prospects of Truth Social and think he will come right back to Twitter. And certainly, he'll need it if he's going to launch another presidential campaign. And Rachelle, the interesting buzz out there is that Elon Musk will lower the bid for Twitter, based on the last couple of weeks.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: Well, it's interesting because, obviously, Elon Musk gave Twitter's stock price a bump. He still has that sort of $1 billion get out of jail free card if he doesn't move forward with this. So I mean, he obviously is still on the hook for this, but it's interesting that he's now saying, you know, he would bring Trump back when Trump has really dug his heels in, as you were saying, saying, look, he wants to focus on his own platform. So it will be an interesting one to watch to see if they end up being competing platforms. Obviously, Truth Social has been struggling to try and get some traction.

And just a quick comment on Netflix, because I'm someone-- I can't stand having ads. And when you've already lost that many subscribers, I don't know if putting more ads in is really going to help. I think they probably would have a better option of perhaps for some people who sort of share their licenses and share their passwords, perhaps monetizing that. I can't stand seeing ads as it is. And I think adding that to Netflix would just be a big turnoff for me.

DAVE BRIGGS: I guess my read of that is if you're paying currently as a premium subscriber, you would not see the ad. There would be a second ad-supported subscription.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, so it would be a little bit cheaper, and I think that that could attract many of those younger users. We talk about people sharing accounts. Many of those, some of them members of my family, use my parents' account because they don't want to pay for their own. So I think this could be something that if they do crack down on account sharing, they're offering this tier, this ad-supported tier that will be less expensive. It could be the key to unlocking some growth, at least in the short-term. But we will see, and of course, questions remain about the exact timing of when that will be available.