Closing Bell - Closing Bell 10/2/25

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

From the open to the close, “Closing Bell” and “Closing Bell: Overtime” have you covered. From what’s driving market moves to how investors are reacting, Scott Wapner, Jon Fortt, Morgan Brennan and Michael Santoli guide listeners through each trading session and bring to you some of the biggest names in business. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And welcome to closing bell. I'm Contessa Brewer. In for Scott Wapner today. This is a make or break hour and it starts with a race for records with the S&P 500 on pace for another all-time closing high. Here is your scorecard with just 60 minutes to go in the session. Trading right now, you can see the NASDAQ is up almost half a percent. Dow Industrials up a quarter percent. The S&P 500 up about a tenth of a percent. And we're keeping a close eye to see whether we can smash more records. As for the sectors, you've got materials, tech, and industrials leading the way here, materials up by almost a percent the leader there. Energy, the worst performing sector today, taking a look there, and we can see energy is down by almost a full percentage point as well, which takes us to our talk of the tape. Should you continue to lean into this record run in tech, let's ask Al Jers, Encore Crawford. It's nice to see you today, Encore. When we're looking at this massive run up, do you feel like there is still some full? fuel in the tank? I do. And in part because if you look at the demand for AI and the token demand, and you can track how much intelligence is being pulled from AI using these tokens,

you know, token growth on a month-over-month basis is up 50%. Google recently talked about how their token growth doubled in four months. Microsoft, last night Kevin Scott was in an article talking about how, you know, capacity shortages are a massive understatement. So when you think about us just starting this kind of industrial revolution, and we're just in the beginning stages of it, and we're so capacity constrained, I think we're, you know, we have to remind ourselves we're just beginning. So the capacity informs more of your view about where we're going than, say, the effectiveness of applications?

Well, I think capacity is a read on the applications, right? Because the capacity is how much are you pulling? How much intelligence are you pulling? How much AI are you using? And that's really what your tokens are. You have App Loven in your portfolio, and we were talking about its incredible growth over the last year and a half or so,

like valuations 10 times higher. Where would valuations have to be for you to think, okay, we've reached the limit where I'm comfortable right now. Yeah, so one of the things, Applovin has gone up tenfold in the last year and a half. However, the numbers have also gone up, maybe not tenfold, but probably seven to eightfold. And in part because they are using AI as a backbone by which to change their business and to make their business more efficient. So, you know, we have to be careful about just looking at the stock prices and saying, well, you know what, the stocks are up, therefore we should sell.

You have to look in conjunction with where the stocks are versus how much the numbers have come up. So these are not kind of, you have to deconvolve the two and to understand how much the multiples have gone on. Where do you see pitfalls? Where do you see possibilities that the run can be derailed? So one of the things that I'm getting a little bit more worried about, and this isn't really something that's going to impact 2025 or 2026, perhaps in 27, is I do foresee that the hyperscalers, whether it's Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, I believe they will use all of their free cash flow and deploy it into CAPX, and even maybe potentially dip into debt or do off-balance sheet financing. for growing their their CAP-X budgets. So, you know, will that, will it derail anything? No, but I think it will give some people pause because these tech leaders have been massive cash flow generators,

which has allowed them to spend the way they're spending. Let's talk a little bit about some of the, you call them picks and shovels in this space. For instance, Nebius, which is an AI infrastructure, up more than 8% on the day today. Tell me why you think these companies that are supporting the overall growth are interesting places to invest right now. Well, I mean, we just talked about how we don't have enough supply of tokens or enough supply of GPUs and infrastructure to support the current demand. So where you want to be positioned is where, you know, in those companies that are supplying, what is short?

You have QXO, which is the construction and building materials, Tallinn, which is energy, infrastructure, and consolation energy and energy supplier here. How important is the power factor in the sector's growth? Oh, incredibly important. I mean, my belief is that if we are going to be rate limited by a single factor, that will be power. And again, it's more towards the end of the decade. And so, again, the IPPs are going to be net beneficiaries of a tighter power market because, you know, they're not price setters in the market. Are you changing your investment thesis at all, given the massive run-up in some of these stocks? I mean, you went in, you put your money to work in Apple Levin.

Are you switching it all to say, let me see if I can find the next tech company that is going to transform the world? way we use power? You know, I think there are on the margins some companies, like in the semiconductor space, that are geared towards power efficiency, but it's a small fraction of revenues. So it wouldn't be a great expression of power efficiency in the market. But I do think that there are private companies today that are working on this power conundrum, what I call it, and, you know, they will come to market eventually. And finally, the big name in the space, Invidia, what's your view?

I love it. I mean, I know everyone's like, well, the stock has gone up so much. But I think, again, if you look at the numbers, I mean, if you just take kind of a street whisper of $7 next year, the stock trades at a 25 multiple, and that $7 is going to continue to grow as, you know, the capacity needs are going to continue to grow. Outers, Ankur Crawford, thank you so much for joining and appreciate your time today. Thank you. All right.

So when we look at the markets right now, again, we're on the lookout for breaking new records. We're going to stick with tech. The QQQETF is on track to close above its 50-day moving average for the 107th time this year. That would tie its longest streak since 2017. Joining me now to discuss Robin Hood's Stephanie Guild and Truist Keith Lerner. Keith, let's start with you. Give me your sense about the tech space in particular. Yeah, well, great to be with you. You know, it's one of those things that trend in motion is more likely to continue than to reverse. We've been bullish on tech all year long, and we think it's driven. The foundation of it is still driven by earnings that are stronger than the overall market.

I know there's a lot of discussion about all we are in a bubble, but when we look at tech on a year-over-year basis, you're up about 28%. Now, that's strong. But when you look back historically, where you really have more of a red alert is when you're up 75%, 100% on a year-over-year basis. We're not there. Valuations are rich, so expectations are high. But again, the north star of this bull market and with tech continue to be earnings, and those earnings are still moving higher. Do the earnings then overshadow whatever lack of data we're getting from the government, say, on jobs because of government shut down? Is it, are you focused more on earnings? And is that all that matters?

It's the, if you ask me for the one thing that matters the most, it is, you know, it is earnings. Now, this year, if we think about this, you know, carousel of concerns, shifting narratives, really the main, the main, you know, driver this year has been earning. So we're more focused on that. We have looked back at government shutdowns. We published a piece last week. And really, they tend to be high profile, but low impact market events. You know, we look back at the 20 shutdowns we've seen since the 19. And during the shutdown, the market has been relatively flat. Now, obviously, as if this goes on longer and so forth, it could have an impact. But, you know, when we think about two weeks from now, we're going to get in the heart of earning season and we'll have more forward guidance about what's happening. I think that will be more important than the government shutdown itself, at least from a market perspective. Stephanie, we reached your target for the S&P 500 in September. It was $6,500. Where do you think we

we could go given that you were really early in your target. And what could derail that? I mean, is the government shut down on your mind? Is it the labor market? I'm looking at earnings ahead. And obviously, like, you know, I set that target 6500 didn't change it when we had Liberation Day and everything became, who knows what's going to happen next. But now that I look ahead, you know, I'm not not bullish. I felt like September was going to be maybe a wonky month, which is why I hadn't changed it yet. But it didn't turn out to be. And then, Once we get into earnings season, we'll get information, as Keith said. But where I think it could go now is if I'm being reasonable about valuation, let's say,

and this used to not be reasonable, 2021 times, and I'm looking out to 2027 earnings expectations, which are next two years of 13% growth rates, you can get to 6,900, 7,000 easily. But the shutdown is not really on my mind for now. I mean, I think Keith said it, but there's really just not been a big deal. I think the one time it did become a big deal was in 2018, like December of 2018, but there was a lot of other things going on. You know, and the other part of this is that the tariffs have come into play. We are starting to see companies really having to pivot or adjust or pass along the cost to their customer base. What are you looking for from your customers when we look at some of the data coming in from government policies?

I think, first of all, this is 100% of market. you need to be aligned with fiscal and federal policy. And if you're doing that, then you have been investing in technology. You have been investing in starting to invest in things like infrastructure. The stuff that's just been recently announced about pharmaceuticals starting to look interesting. Like I think, and that's our customers have been well aware of that and investing alongside that. I think there's, you know, but it hasn't been as broad a market, I think, as I would have liked because I was really hoping that midcaps would start to rally a lot.

And, you know, you started seeing a little bit of it in the small cap side, but not much yet. I think the one thing that will help that is falling rates. And if the jobs data continues to be weak, we had challengers, jobs, layoffs, that was higher. And that will be helpful. The interesting thing about jobs data, too, is that there are some sectors that are desperate for labor, that they want to be hiring, and they don't have the people in place. and it's one place where the immigration policy may be coming into play.

It's also regional too. And regional. I think that's a great point. Keith, when you're looking at some of the lower demographics, we're hearing it in some of the fast, casual restaurants, and I'm certainly hearing it from some of the travel and leisure companies that I cover, that there's a wide swath of Americans

that fuel consumerism, and they are just holding back and sitting and they're not spending the way that they were at this time last year? Yeah, that's right. We're calling a two-speed economy. And as you mentioned, at the top end, you know, a lot of folks are benefiting from these all-time highs in stock markets.

They're benefiting from the housing market moving up. On the low end, you're starting to see, you know, wages slowed down. That inflationary hit is still there as well. So that is correct. I mean, that's why we have this kind of muddle through two-speed economy. When you think about the overall stock market, though, and why is the S&P 500 making a new high today? It's because of tech and tech plus, which is almost 50% of the overall market. I think to see really some follow-through on some of like the what was mentioned on the small caps and mid-caps, we need to see a bit of a pickup.

You know, the rate cuts on the margin is somewhat helpful. But as you said, it's not a gangbusses economy, but it's enough where we kind of muddle through and have some rate cuts. And I think there's one big, beautiful bill, is a positive for some of these smaller companies that are more leveraged as well. Well, so how are you feeling then about the small caps and the big run-up they've seen and whether there's more room there? Yeah. So I want to stay focused at the dominant theme of this bull market is AI and tech. So we're still overweight large caps. We're still overweight tech and communication services. In August, we did upgrade our view of small caps from less attractive to more neutral because also when money flows into that area, it moves quickly. So we want to participate. The positive that I've seen in small caps

and why we at least upgraded on the margin is the earning trends have turned positive after being negative for some time. You also have a place where expectations are still relatively depressed, right? We had, earlier this year, we had the most aggressive outflows of small caps, ETFs that we've seen

over the last decade. That also that one big, beautiful bill is a positive. So I would at least participate. Is it leadership yet? No, but I would at least have some allocation to that space. Stephanie, what about you? Are you changing your tactical positioning at all, given what we're seeing happening in Washington, D.C.A., what we're beginning to hear from earnings? Not really. For a while now, we've had, we run Robin Hood strategies, and in that, we have been focused on GARP.

So what that means is some of the cheaper tech names that, this phrase has been used a lot lately, but picks and shovels part of the AI trade. We've been, we like defense, particularly defense tech, and that really hasn't changed. think that has a lot of room to run. And then we like financials, but more of regional banks because they should benefit from a yield curve that should steepen. Like, I actually think rates will come down more now than I thought before. Well, I mean, we're certainly seeing cracks in the labor market that might encourage that. Stephanie, thank you. Keith, thank you. Appreciate your time and your perspective. Let's get to my friend Christina Pertzinevelas for a look at some of the biggest names moving into the close. Hi, Christina. Hi, Contessa. Well, shares of Humana are popping right now

about almost 4% after the company said it has about 20% of its members currently enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans rated four stars in above for 2026. That's based on preliminary data, but the total is roughly 1.2 million members. So that is adding to the stock gain that we are seeing today. Meantime, Occidental Petroleum. Let's talk about them one of the worst performers in the S&P 500 today after Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway announced a $9.7 billion acquisition of Occidental's petrochemical unit. It's Berkshire's biggest since 2022's purchase of insurance company that they had, and that's why you're seeing shares down about 7%.

Last but not least, Starbucks, higher today after it announced a small increase in dividend payouts. The Coffee Giant approved an increase in its quarterly cash dividend from 61 cents to 62 cents, not that much per share, but yet the stock, you can see, climbing about 3% just on that little rise. Contessa? Christina, thank you very much. And we are just getting started here on closing bell up next.

Tesla shares tumble. After announcing its latest delivery numbers, and they were good. Reaction from Tesla shareholder, Bryn Talkington, right after this break. Welcome back to closing bell. We're watching Tesla shares falling down almost four percent. now, despite a jump in deliveries. Phil LeBoe joins us. What do you see, Phil? I'm not surprised, Kentessa. We've seen this before where there's a nice run-up, then the delivery numbers come. Often, if they're better than expected, it doesn't matter. The stock falls

off because it's been such a huge run-up, and that's really what we've seen over the last three months. Two big numbers in the Q3 report from Tesla. First of all, deliveries of vehicles, a record for any quarter, 497,099 vehicle, well above the estimate. And then energy storage deployments. It doesn't get a lot of attention, but it's a growing part of the Tesla business, 12.5 gigawatt hours. The estimate was for 10.9 gigawatt hours. And I talk about this being a growing part of the business. In the first three quarters of this year, if you take a look at them and compare them with recent years, they have now deployed 32.1 gigawatt hours. That is more than what they had in all of last year. So what happens in the Q3 financials? Margins may be pressured.

That's one reason some people are concerned about what we'll hear in a few weeks from Tesla. Also, the emissions credit revenue. They made a billion in the first half of the year off of those credits. That's going to be dropping considerably how much remains to be seen. And how much were sales pulled forward? A couple of analysts notes out today. This gives you a sense of where the street is on this. Not all analysts are a sell or a buy rating, I should say, on Tesla.

CFRA reiterated its sell rating today, raising some of the traditional questions that we've heard over to year in terms of how great is the growth for Tesla? And then you've got Baird. It still is optimistic about the future for Tesla. It calls Tesla the leader in physical AI. Bottom line is this, Contessa, great report in terms of deliveries and energy storage deployment. Now the question becomes, what does Elon Musk say to investors three weeks from now, October 22nd after the bell? Okay, we'll be watching for that. Phil, thank you for that. Joining me is Tesla shareholder. of requisite capital management, also a CNBC contributor. When you're looking at the stock move today,

is that something that you identify with? Or can you understand why somebody might be in a position to sell and want to sell? Sure. I mean, you always want to ask what's already priced in. And for weeks and weeks and weeks, Tesla shareholders fill, we've all known that the EV credits in the U.S. were going to go away. So there was going to be a pull forward, how much of a pool forward we didn't know. And so, yeah, they had record sales.

So I think it's actually healthy that what was already priced in is now recognized. And so I think it's on to the next point. I do think in Tessa, it's really important with Phil talked about about energy storage. So when I think about power storage and generation, last quarter, Elon talked about that segment had year-of-year gross profits of over $800 million. And if you think about this capacity, electricity-constrained, you know, environment we're in. Once again, Tesla has this, I think, you know, Trojan horse, this sleeping giant of power generation. They're just continuing to have very high margins on and continue to grow. Do you think that that outweighs the worries over margin pressure when it comes to the EVs?

Well, investors have been willing to look through and say, because if you look at Tesla on a fundamental base, you would say over the last year and a half, sales are down, earnings have declined. To your point, margins have come down. And so how is the stock continuing to do, you know, very well approaching that, or it's over that December 2024 high. It's because investors are saying this is still a high growth company. Elon is back. He's locked in and focused. And I think that when you see robo-taxies, when you see AI, when you see FSD, when, you know, when these other verticals, which are not monetizing at this point are out there on the horizon. Investor's going to say, I'm never going to discount Elon, and I will give this company this super high valuation and look past the eroding

fundamentals of the business that you have today, which is EVs. Right now, the stock is at 443. You seem like you're pretty optimistic about the verticals that they have. You said the power generation. You've talked before about your interest in the robotaxy business. Are you adding to your at this level? No, definitely not. I mean, I added it 290 when he announced the American Party and everyone, you know, had a hissy fit on the stock. I did some more at 320.

I love to sell calls on the name. It gives me the ability, I think, to have an outsized position. Today, some of those positions have been called away because I had sold calls. I wouldn't be adding here. If you look at the stock chart, it blew past 360, which was prior resistance, that actually also has to be, happens to be the 50-day moving average. I don't think it gets back to 360, but I do think at 440. And if you look at the chart, it's too vertical for me. So I'll let it settle back in here, wait for a headline to add to more positions. All right. And talk to me

a little bit about the Robotaxie, because we've seen the big hooplaw over the launch of that. Do you still like what you see? Love it. I mean, I'm based here in Texas. So a couple things. If you think about from a profitability perspective, I believe about it. about six waymos cost the same as 30 robo taxis. So from a, from a profitability, you know, they're able to put so many more cars on the road. The geo fence, which is where the robo taxis allowed to drive in Austin, continues to like exponentially increase.

And they had said, Elon had said on the last call that they're hoping to be unmanned, because they're still manned because it has to be safety first, unmanned in Austin and maybe San Francisco as well by the end of the year, that to me will be a next catalyst of this new vertical, if they're able to get those robotaxies fully unmanned and then start to compete against the Waymo. Because if you've written in one of those, they're a fraction of the cost of a lift or an Uber. And so I think this is going to be where

people are going to start paying attention to this new vertical as the years progress. Well, I haven't tried a Robotaxy, but I did try a Waymo. And you know what? I was impressed with its ability to avoid the potholes, which not all human drivers, do and its ability to back up and let a truck turn into a lane that was a you know an autonomous vehicle doing that i thought it was impressive brand nice to see you thanks contesta up next the new eye popping valuation for open a i we run you through some big numbers that's coming up closing bell will be right back Breaking news now coming to us from the White House.

Amon Javers joins us with more on this. Amon, what do you have? Contessa, we've got new reporting here from the Wall Street Journal just within the past couple of moments. Putting a number now on that aid to farmers that President Trump has been talking about all week to basically bail out the farm sector from some of the damage that they've had

from the retaliatory actions from China as part of the trade war. The Wall Street Journal reporting that the total package the Trump administration is considering now is between 10. 10 and 14 billion dollars in aid to American farmers. They caution that that is still maybe a bit of a moving target. Discussions are ongoing, and they're sourcing here people familiar with the conversations.

We saw Treasury Secretary Scott Besson on CNBC this morning saying a bailout package for farmers could come as early as Tuesday, not clear whether that is a set in stone date for that bailout package, but clearly the details now taking shape behind closed doors in the Wall Street Journal reporting that's a total dollar value here could be between 10 and 14 billion. Remember, some of those farmers have been really hard hit here because the Chinese have not ordered any soybeans at all from American farmers this year. That would normally be billions of dollars a year in transactions that those farmers are going without so far. So pretty dramatic impact on that second. How does the shutdown factor into that? I mean, well, it's a good

question yeah i mean one of the things that they would have to be doing here is repurposing tariff revenue that's coming in uh at at ports and you know to the customs of border protection uh and sending that out to farmers so presumably that would require government officials yeah they've said that they're going to continue to have the customs people processing shipments coming in and collecting the tariffs so maybe they don't need congress for that but interesting nevertheless amen yeah thank you You bet. Open AI hitting a new eye-popping valuation. Mackenzie Segalos joins us with those details, McKenzie.

Hey, Contessa, so OpenAI has closed a $6.6 billion secondary share sale, cementing its place as the most valuable private company in the world just edging past SpaceX. Now, this gave employees and alumni who have held stock for at least two years a chance to cash out. But a big chunk of shares went unsold. Internally, it is being read as a show of confidence, workers hanging on to their equity, even at record valuations, while investors like Thrive, SoftBank, Dragonere, and Abu Dhabi's MGX rushed to buy whatever was available, even at a valuation, nearly double where it was just a few months ago.

It's OpenAI's second major tender in less than a year, part of a broader trend of private companies rewarding staff and keeping talent without going public. But keep in mind, Contessa, OpenAI still has to close that $40 billion soft bank-led primary round. McKenzie, thank you for the reporting there. Appreciate that. day two of the government shutdown, all non-essential government travel on hold. What that means for the travel industry.

Closing bell will be right back. U.S. travel is keeping a kind of running tally on what the government shut down costs the travel industry. Let's show you right now. We're at $230 million since the government shut down. The industry anticipates a billion bucks loss for every week the federal government stays closed. Now, part of this is just obvious, right? All non-essential government travel is canceled, even for workers who aren't furloughed. That, of course, would have a trickle-down effect on corporate travel. If a meeting with a government agency is canceled, there's no need to, say, fly to D.C., no need for hotel, restaurant meals, etc. This is high season for some vacation rentals around national parks, Shenandoah, Smoky Mountains, Zion, among them. Skift is warning.

That segment can take a hit along with restaurants, shops, and tour operators. And, of course, there's widespread confusion over what's open, what's closed. Statue of Liberty open. Visitor Center for Congress closed. TSA and air traffic controllers are working. The passport officers are funded through fees, so that's still open. Amtrak is still running trains. But the trepidation over travel may be a reason why 60% of those surveyed by Ipso said they would cancel or avoid flights in a government shutdown. Several analysts I've talked to say there's already been so much damage done by Doge by the government budget cuts and the firings that took a toll. And we saw the government segment in lodging down 11% by June,

according to Calibri Lab. Worse hit, D.C., Hawaii, San Diego, down by 25%. But you look at the stock shares of Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, and Wyndham, and they have not, most of this has been baked in. You're not seeing a lot of movement on that front when it comes to the government shutdown yet. Joining me now is Mark Mahaney, Evercore's head of internet research. Mark covers a number of key travel stocks, including Airbnb and Expedia, Airbnb off today. And I mentioned some of those vacation rentals in the hotspots. Where this is high season, they would normally have 100% occupancy. But if the national parks are closed, you have to question what's the immediate impact mark? You're right, Contessa. The numbers you mentioned, especially that billion a year,

I'm sorry, a billion a week in hit to the travel industry with, you know, with the government shutdown. That'll add up. That'll start impacting some of these businesses. The companies that I look at kind of the online travel agencies, some of the advantages they have booking in particular, booking.com, booking holdings is that they're 85% of their bookings are actually outside the U.S. So it's a true global player, so they'll be less impacted. Expedia and Airbnb, both, though, are doing 50%, 50% plus of their bookings in the U.S. So over time, you know, the longer the shutdown stays in effect, the more of an impact they're likely to see. Maybe not directly because of reduction in government travel, but it will trickle into, you know, consumer sentiment and consumer uncertainty.

And then, yeah, just maybe it'd be a better time to travel when the government's back in operation. You don't have to worry about things going wrong during your flight. The interesting part of that is where there is a bigger international, let's call it a hedge in this case. We've already seen that with Marriott Hilton and Hyatt. I know that those are names that you don't cover, but just so that the audience knows, they have said, for instance, a big 10% drop in Canadian visitation earlier this year for them was highly irrelevant because those Canadians were still traveling. They were just bypassing the United States and going to Mexico or the Caribbean or other places like that.

The same goes for Airbnb. They might see the consumers in other places still traveling. regardless of whether there's a government shutdown and the like. It's interesting when we're talking about these companies because they are truly employing AI in a way that if the conventional wisdom says, oh, chat GPT could put Expedia out of business, Ariane, the CEO, sat with me and said, oh, no, not so fast. We're using AI to make our customers feel more special, to feel more connected.

And when we're focused on this B-to-B business, we think there's more opportunity because we're using AI to our advantage. Do you like what you see? I think that Arian's logic actually largely holds. Look, it's going to be dependent upon whether companies like Booking, Expedia and Airbnb deploy AI to come up with our own travel agentic commerce options. We did a study on this about two months ago. We looked at things like we looked at the Open AI project. We looked at Romi, which is the Expedia offering, and Penny, which is the price line offering. And I'm not sure any of them are really ready for prime time.

But of those three, the one I thought was most ready for prime time, was Romi, the Expedia product. Travel is a very considered purchase. I mean, people will spend three, five hours a year planning their summer vacations because they're extremely important to most families, to all families they are. And you want to make sure the flights are right, the hotel's right, the rental cars, right, et cetera. It can be a very information-intensive transaction. It's a wonderful play here for AI, and if these companies use AI to make that service better for their customers, I think they'll actually end up being big winners. There's also the other side, which is that it's not just knowing what all the hotels are in the Florida Keys, but knowing which has availability, the third week in November and at what price. And you only get that if you're wired up with those hotels, that's what the advantage that booking has in Expedia and an Airbnb would have.

And I'm not sure OpenAI wants to go in that direction. I think they'll just take the Google direction and just generate the ad revenue from those types of companies. So I think Expedia, yeah, go ahead. It's clear investors like what they see, though. Over six months here, Expedia is up almost 30%. It's way outpacing, by the way, the share increases of booking up 15% same time frame and TripAdvisor up 10%. What's interesting is Brian Chesky said at a conference I was at a couple weeks ago, AI is both an existential threat and an opportunity.

Is there going to be a bifurcation in terms of scale about the big companies having the means to employ? I mean, Airbnb is using an internal AI engine based off of their gold standard customer interactions so that their customers feel seen, heard, and are delivered recommendations that really suit individuals, not just these bland marketing and promotions? I think there'll be a bifurcation if companies don't effectively deploy AI. This is a real opportunity for companies. They have enormous amounts of data. So if they deploy AI, use that data to create a better consumer experience,

I think they'll be AI winners. So it's really incumbent on them. It's incumbent on booking Airbnb and Expedia to deploy AI. You mentioned the outperformance in Expedia. Actually, thanks for bringing it up. Expedia is one of our top picks for the year. of a contrarian call on our part, but part of it is it's darn cheap. This thing still trades well under a market multiple, 13, 14 times earnings. You have new management in place. If they are

better executors, and you can see the growth rates between them and the industry leaders booking in Airbnb, they have been converging. If that convergence continues, the valuation convergence is going to continue to. And the best way to play that, I think, is to be long in Expedia. That's one of the reasons why it's one of our top picks. Well, by the way, as long as I'm here and I cover travel, I should mention the cruise talks, too, of 51% for Royal Caribbean over six months. You've got 26% higher for Norwegian, Vikings up 46% and carnivals up 44%.

Again, I'm just adding this in as long as we're talking about travel, Mark, I might as well make it worth the viewer's time. Thank you for your perspective and your input. Thanks, Confessa. Up next, we're tracking the biggest movers as we head into the close. Christina Parks and Neville is standing by with that.

Sometimes I just do what I want, Christina. I know. They were saying that. That sometimes you just keep going. No, no, she's joking. You do what you want? You toss to me. We're talking about a lithium miner getting downgraded after a doubling in price and a crypto exchange hitting its longest winning street in months. Those stocks and so much more when we come back. You know it.

Less than 12 minutes now until the closing bell. Let's get back to Christina Parts in Evelas for a look at the key stocks to watch here. Christina. I'm going to start with Lithium America as lowered today after Kanaqorgenuity downgraded the stock to sell from speculative. to buy. It said, the recent run-up that we've seen in the stock, we're seeing right now just about 3% lower, but the run-up is overdone and doesn't accurately reflect its valuation. The Canadian miner has more than doubled since the White House first disclosed that it wanted a stake in the miner. Next, we've got shares of AMD. They're up again today, up about 4% after earlier gains this week. The stock really gained about 7% yesterday after Semaphore reported Intel, and I should say Intel stock was up at 7% was in early

talks with AMD to manufacture chips for its boundary business. However, AMD is not commenting on rumors. So keep that in mind when looking at this story. Lastly, Coinbase on track for its best days since late June and on pace for its fifth straight positive day, the longest winning street since November 2024. And of course, this comes as Bitcoin briefly topped $120,000 for the first time in months. Coinbase, almost 8% higher. Contessa. Christina, thank you. Up next. Let's take a look at markets and we're on the watch for new records here. If we close where we currently stand, the Dow, the S&P and the NASDAQ would all set all-time closing highs. As you can see, they're all in the green right now.

The NASDAQ, the leader, up almost half a percent. We'll be right back. We are now in the closing bell market zone, CNBC senior markets commentator Mike Santoli and Wilmington trust Megan Chu here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus Diana Oleg tracking the action in FICO and Equifax. Mike, let's begin with you. And again, if we close at these levels, we hit new records on all three indices. Yes, really just the continued upward grind, Contessa.

So it's not as if, you know, this is a real broad-based exuberant move, higher. but it's just enough to keep the chains moving forward here. I would say, you know, it looks like a very placid surface of the S&P 500 up a little bit, benefiting again from this excitement in semiconductors more than anything else, but also the sort of retail trader favorites, I just can't get away from just how hyperactive they've been and how strong that part of the market is. Week to date, Robin Hood shares up 20%,

Coinbase shares up 19% in four days on top of very strong gain. So it just sort of shows you that we have this sort of high turnover kind of betting mentality, one part of the market. The rest of the market is saying, hey, we're going to get fed rate cuts. The economy still seems fine. We're okay without a government data. And I guess that's just sort of enough to keep it all together and clicking ahead. Is it a betting mentality or is it a predictions market mentality?

You know, it's distinctions without differences, I think, in this case. A little gaming metaphor there. All right, stick with me, Mike. Let's send it to Diana Oleg. We have FICO up, Equifax down. What's the story here, Diana? Well, contest the stocks of the credit bureaus are all taking a massive hit today. Take a look, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion all way down on the day. Why? Because FICO, which is the credit score that is widely used by lenders to determine if you and I qualify for a mortgage and at what interest rate is now licensing its scores directly to mortgage brokers so the brokers can bypass the credit bureaus and give the scores to customers. The stock affair, Isaacs is, of course, way up on the news. FICO scores are used by 90% of lenders. FICO CEO Will Lansing said, in a statement that the change eliminates the markups.

Now, you may remember last spring, FHFA director Bill Pulte, who oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, attacked FICO and the Credit Bureau's pricing, saying he was doing a full-scale review of all credit bureaus. Pulte posted on X this morning that he was encouraging the credit bureaus to also take similar, creative and constructive actions to make our markets safer, stronger, and more competitive. Contessa.

Diana, thank you for that. We'll continue to watch those stocks. As we head to the closing bell, let's bring in. trust Megan Shue. Megan, good to talk to you. It seems as though investors are just really shrugging off any impact from the government shutdown here. Yeah, Contessa, I think that's right. And it jives with what we've seen historically. Historically, shutdowns don't have a material economic impact, especially if they stay short enough in duration. You tend to get basically a tenth to two tenths per week for every week that the government shut down. But then you get

that made back up for the most part once the government reopens. And the last few shutdowns, we've seen the S&P 500 flat to up, even for some of the longer ones. And I think that the sort of the caveats today are that we are riding a very strong wave of momentum with valuations getting a little bit stretched. So could this be enough of a catalyst if it goes on long enough to see investors take some profits? And then the labor market as well. Not only do we have less visibility with less government data. But if you see some of those furloughs turn into layoffs, that could be enough to take an already soft labor market over the edge. And yet you really like consumer discretionary, which, you know, when you're looking at the job market tightening,

sometimes people feel pinched even if they still have their own jobs. Right. And the labor market has been super interesting to follow right now. We are seeing a real slowdown in job demand, but also not really any pickup, material pickup in layoffs. So it's a bit of a stagnating job market. And I think the consumer discretionary sector, it's important to remember. It's a very differentiated sector with a lot of different opportunities within there. And when we look at that consumer overall, I would say that it's that bottom quintile that is probably the most stretched when it comes to cash and debt levels.

But the rest of the consumer cohort still looks pretty much okay. pay. And that's where we're still seeing some opportunities in consumers discretionary. Megan, thank you for joining us this Thursday. Mike, back to you here for a minute. How vulnerable do you think this market is to a correction? You know, it's always difficult to get the timing right, the magnitude right. I do think that we're overdue, if you can put it that way, for something more than just a token pullback. We haven't even had a 3% setback in the S&P since April. And if you look at the, yes, evaluations are elevated that sometimes can be sustained if you

have earnings going up in the Fed cutting rates. I am looking, though, at Tesla's action today and the downside reversal we got in the stock after it did get close to a record high is the kind of thing after a vertical move that you might have people looking at and saying, okay, maybe we've kind of gotten spent in the very short term, at least in that segment of stocks. We had one of these in December when Tesla acted like this, another one back in 2021. And it did come around the time the overall NASDAQ was finishing up a rally. So not to say that that's some kind of, you know, scientific analysis, but it feels as if, you know, we should maybe be prepared for some kind of choppiness. I could have said that three weeks ago,

though, and it hasn't come along. So markets that defy seasonal negative tendencies, you have to respect that. You have to respect the underlying trend is there. But, you know, it doesn't mean just because you haven't had one that you shouldn't at least be prepared for one. I always, you know, basically go by the idea, stay involved and keep expectations low so that maybe, you know, you don't get too disappointed or not taken by surprise if you get some adversity. The semiconductors are the outperformers today from the caps, managed care, airlines, chemicals. Interesting, the airlines are having such a great day considering the focus on travel here amid the government shutdown. Again, closing at these levels and moving that we're setting our record hours, once again, we're up to see there can be settled by all the industry on pace to barely freak out another record.

That doesn't get the closing bell. That's 40 more than in a little bit of time.