Closing Bell - Closing Bell 10/7/25

Episode Date: October 7, 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 Scott Wobner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This make a breakout begins with AI anxiety. New questions today about whether the billions, the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent will actually pay off. We'll ask our experts over this final stretch. In the meantime, we'll show you the majors here with 60 to go in regulation. We got some work to do this hour because we're read across the board. It was right around midday when Oracle shares began falling. The NASDAQ as well on a new report from the information. We'll have more details on that coming up in just a bit. Sectors are mixed with utilities. The winner, staples have been green. So a defensive tone today, no doubt.

It takes us to our talk of the tape, the state of stocks, and what to make of gold's big move, Bitcoin's resurgence, and of course those questions and concerns around a tech bubble. Let's welcome in. Liz Thomas, SOFI's head of investment strategy. She's with me here at Post 9, as you see. Welcome back. Thank you.

All right. So that's the kind of market we're in right now, where you've gotten a lot of commentary from a lot of different people about where we are, whether we have a bubble. How do you feel about things? I saw a tweet on my way here that said there's a bubble in people talking about bubbles. Yeah, that was what Andrew Ardenny said yesterday. There's a bubble in bubble talk. Yes, and I think that is accurate. So right now, I mean, of course, we've had a long rally. Everything feels extended. It feels exciting. It feels euphoric. In reality, I still think that the euphoria can get even more euphoric before something has to actually

Oh, so you're in the Paul Tudor Jones camp. This is, yes. It's like, you know, it's starting to feel like 99, but it's more like October of 99 before you had the rollover in the spring of 2000, and the NASDAQ was like a double from that period on because you entered such a period of euphoria, as he said yesterday on Squabbox, that that's what this feels like to him too. But that implies that there's a lot more upside to this market, right? Two sides of this story.

It implies that there's more upside. It also, and I want to be careful, I'm not going to call. a time in the 90s because that also implies that it would be over in March, right? So I don't want to say that. I think that we are in a different market. We're in a different monetary policy regime and we're in a different economy than we were in the 90s. So this could actually go on even longer, especially because we've got companies with real

earnings, we've got companies with real cash in order to spend. We've got companies with a lot stronger balance sheets and competitive positions. So I think that could lengthen it out. I do think it will get to a point where it makes even less sense than it might now to some investors, particularly value investors, eventually, yes. But this continues to be a friendly environment for a rally. We've got some speculative positioning that's net bearish, so there's still room to squeeze out. Where do you think the next leg of this rally is going to come from? Well, I think it has to come from some of that broadening out trade, which we've already seen, you know, lights of.

I think that's important. It has to come from some of the smaller cap names. It has to come from some of the sectors that haven't led up until this point. Healthcare finally just perked up, and I think that's a good spot. If all the activity is around AI and you, like PTJ, think that there's still a lot of upside left a tremendous amount, really, before things might go bad, isn't that the area that you want to ride up as it's going to have this accelerant from here? Sure. if we're talking about people putting new money to work or trying to add money right now, first of all, this is not a time when you abandon your winners.

So I don't think we should be trying to take profits selling out, taking a ton of risk off the table, but make sure that you're balanced. And I think that's what investors are already trying to do is balance out their exposure and try to diversify even within some of those baskets. So that's why I've been talking about health care for so long, diversify that growth out into biotech, into pharma. So you think that that area, which, Jonathan Krinsky, BTIG, by the way, you know, this week, which we mentioned, I think, yesterday, finally said this looks legit.

Yeah. Like, this turn looks different this time. You agree? I do agree. Why so? But I've been, health care, to be honest, was in my outlook for the full year. So I've been pounding the table on health care for a while and have been wrong for most of the year until now. All right.

So why now? So patience pays off. Well, why now? First of all, we've watched this rally run so far. So if you're anybody who's looking at valuations, trying to find a more attractive place to put your money, you have to look at the sectors that haven't run with it. Healthcare obviously is at the top of that list. Secondly, as I mentioned before, this is a growth market. I think it will continue to be a growth market. Overvalue. You mean growth overvalue? Right. And investors are

going to continue to want growth, not value. So they're looking for opportunities and where to find that. And I think that health care is a great opportunity of where to find that. And if you compare it even to the late 90s, health care is one of the best sectors back then, too. People don't talk about that very much, but we could have a repeat of that sort of theme. Okay. So what do you think about gold's move? Like I said at the very top, right, Bitcoin has been surging. Gold has been obviously one of the big stories in the markets, above 4,000 for the very first time. Some say that's a bad thing. Now, it may continue to go up. From here, it may not be telling the greatest story as to why it's going up, but do you think

it continues to go up? When you have like Ray Dalio saying, well, you should have 15% of your portfolio in gold and Gunlock told me like a month ago, you should have 25% in gold. I mean, those have been good calls if you want to see an appreciation of an asset class. Yeah. So I want to separate gold miners from gold, right? There are gold ETFs, which is what the retail market typically invest in. And then there's gold miners, which are very volatile and have done even better. Let's talk about like the gold, like the GLD.

I mean, if you're going to invest in gold, you're buying the GLD. So first question, do I think there's more room for it to go up? Absolutely. I think that there is already a ton of appetite from central banks that isn't going anywhere, and now retail is chasing it, because there really hasn't been as much of an appetite in those gold ETFs. And it's not even back to levels that it's been in the last few years. So I think retail continues to chase that up and drive the price higher. I think there's also opportunity there because people are trying to look for where do I put my money in an era of policy uncertainty this high, in currency volatility this high, and a time when things like weaponization of the dollar continues, and we've got question marks about which direction central banks are moving. So gold will continue to catch a bit. That's part of the reason why Ken Griffin continues to talk about gold as, you know, the move is concerning to him because it's a representation of a view about the dollar that has people going into gold in ways that they used to go into the dollar. You know what I mean?

Right. So if we're looking at gold as purely a defensive asset or a safe haven, then you could look at this and say this is a signal of something ominous to come. I don't know that that's really the case right now. And I don't necessarily think that it's people just hating the dollar and flooding into gold. I think it's another option in an era where currency volatility continues to be really, really high. And central banks don't want to put all of their money into the dollar basket and be victim to that. So I don't necessarily think that it's a purely defensive signal. I think that it's an asset that investors have not held in the portfolio for a very long time, and now we're getting to a point where we're trying to reignite that

appetite and get people right-sized. What worries you, if anything? I mean, there's talk that the labor market is much weaker than people want to believe that it is. Carlisle Group had this proprietary survey where they showed if there was a jobs report that had come out, which didn't because of the government shutdown, that it would have shown pretty big weakness. on the labor front. But then when I say that, I'm like, well, the Fed's cutting, which is what someone would say. Well, okay, but the Fed is cutting rates to try and get ahead of all that. Is that powerful enough to leave any concerns that you would even have about where the economy might be going? My biggest concern would be the labor market. And that's something that once it

turns, if it does turn to the negative side, it hits escape velocity very quickly. It's difficult to catch. And then the Fed is in reactive mode. I think the second, concern that I would have is that the Fed actually cuts too much in this cycle. And the economy stays strong, which is not a concern. But if the Fed cuts too much into a strong economy, it reignites. And then that's where the problem actually lies. Well, we got a long way to go. I mean, they've only cut one time. Perhaps. Perhaps. And they're like mixed reads on where the economy is. I mean, that feels like an outlier concern. They're going to cut too much into a strong economy? I don't think it's an outlier in 26. I think in 25 it's an outlier. This year, I

honestly think we might only get one more cut. But in 26, when a lot of these Fed seats change and you get new people voting and a new chair, that could be the beginning of a really doveish era. And if they cut too aggressively and reignite some things in a strong economy, then you have to reverse course. And this happened in the 90s too. And look, the Fed started to hike again as the economy reheated. And the market did just fine through a lot of those hikes. And then it hit a point where it had heated too much and the hikes really took hold. All right. We'll leave it there. Liz, good to see you. Thank you.

As Liz Thomas, SoFi, joining us back on closing bell right here at Post 9. Now to that report by the information today, sending Oracle shares and some others lower as well today. Christina Parts of Nevelos is here with that. Tell us more. Well, Scott, you mentioned Oracle, the software giant falling more than 3%. Leading reversal in tech stocks. You're seeing it on the NASDAQ after this report came out, specifically about margins on the cloud business being weaker than analysts currently estimate and that it's losing money on some of its Nvidia chip deal. So Oracle declined to comment, but it does raise some concerns about profitability of these expensive processors and the challenges for the GPU rental business.

Investors may be worried other cloud providers that specifically rent GPUs as a service like CoreWeave. Nebius could face similar risk with most of their revenue concentrated in a small number of customers. That's why you're seeing those two names, Corweave down about 3%. Nebias, 4.5%. Nebius, though, seeing a bigger pullback compared to Core, given the stock, has really seen a lot of momentum over the last three months, over 100. 40% higher, much more than Cori, which I think is actually negative during that time frame. The SMH, chip ETF, we often refer to it as a barometer. It's down about one and a half percent, but it's primarily driven down by chip equipment names like ASML, Lam, and KLA, less to do with the Oracle story.

But I want to point out, Oracle spent billions of dollars up front on racks for Nvidia chips, power networking, before the revenue actually fully kicks in. And so those costs do hit the books immediately while customer use. usage ramp does take some time, and so there could be some pressure on near-term margins. That's why Goldman Sachs and Missouho are saying that this pullback that you're seeing in Oracle shares is a buying opportunity today. Oracle 2, keep in mind, is hosting an AI World Day next Tuesday and a financial analyst day on Thursday. So I would 100% expect them to speak directly to this margin issue and the impact of buying

more expensive Nvidia chips, Scott. All right, Christina, thank you very much for that. Christina Partsenevolos, joining me now to discuss Ashley McNeil, this to Equity Partners, head of equity capital markets. Welcome back. Thank you. It's such a good time to have you because there are so many different opinions about this whole AI bubble or not. You say that you remain, quote, responsibly bullish on the market. So what does that mean? Like, friends don't let friends buy AI stocks at these levels. Like, what is that? Yeah, no, it means being measured about your approach, recognizing that, yeah, we're probably in a bubble.

We've had multiple people talk about it, even on your show, about being in a bubble. But that is okay, and that looking and recognizing the tailwinds that are at the market right now. So think about, you know, Fed cutting, you see retail inflows, you see AI innovation. And we're about to enter into an earnings cycle, which is, by all accounts, going to be relatively strong, particularly if we're using the last earning cycle as a barometer. So one of those people who, and there have been many, who are speaking out on the network, over the last handful of days about whether we're in a bubble or not was Paul Tudor Jones, right? This was yesterday morning on Squackbox.

I want you to listen to what he said, and we can talk about it on the other side. Here's P.T.J. Feels exactly like 1999. I don't know whether we'll actually replay it exactly, but I think all the ingredients are in place. And certainly from a trading standpoint, you have to position yourself like it's October 99. I don't see why you would do anything but that. And remember, the NASDAQ doubled between the first week of October, 99, and March of 2000. So if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably not a chicken, right?

All right, so maybe the market's quacking a bit. But his point is an interesting one in that even if you believe that this is a bubble, and even if you believe that it's going to end badly, you don't want to make. miss out on, and it feels like you're kind of saying almost the same thing. You don't want to miss out on which could be this tremendously powerful blow off top for lack of a better way to describe it. I think you have to kind of frame it, though, what kind of bubble are we actually in? We've heard a lot of descriptors, you know, industrial bubble, baby bubble. Bezos said that, right? Industrial bubble. CapEx bubble. Is this a bubble that's going to burst like it did in

1999, or is this more like a balloon, where we're going to see it inflate and deflate as we kind of go through the cycles? Given the longevity of this technology and given the fact that this is waves that is going to adopt this technology, I'm more inclined to think that we aren't bursting, but rather we're going to inflate and deflate as this technology ebbs and flows. Now listen to what Orlando Bravo had to say, okay? Now, Toma Bravo makes their living in enterprise software very much like the company that you were firm you work for correct this equity partners i want you to listen to what he said about valuation and we can talk about that sure valuations in AI are at a bubble you cannot both you cannot value a 50 million dollar air our company

at 10 billion dollars think about how public investors and great investors think about companies that company is going to have to produce a billion dollars in free cash flow to double an investor's money ultimately. Even if the product is right, even if the market's right, that's a tall order managerially. Okay, that's Orlando Bravo, Toma Bravo. You think valuations are in a bubble? I think we have seen valuations pull forward and growth expectations pull for well over a year. I don't think this is a unique situation that we're in. And I think that that's really been met by very strong growth by the MAG7.

Mag 7's been growing 27% quarter over quarter. The market 9%, GDP 4%. So, yeah, we might be in a bubble. We might have pulled forward valuation. But in my mind, that's a means to end to justify the CAPEX spend required to make this transition from the AI enablers into the AI adopters. So as long as the CAPX levels remain robust and you don't have, somebody come out and say, you know what, I'm suddenly worried about where all this money is going,

are we good? Is that the most definitive sign that things in this marketplace are okay, as long as the CAPEX keeps flowing? I think if you look historically at prior bubbles, where things have kind of gone awry is when the supply has outstripped the demand. And from all intents of purposes, what I can see from all the metrics we've seen is that the demand is not being outstripped by at any time soon. And in fact, there is going to be a lot of longevity to the demand for this technology, given how ubiquitous it will be in our lives. What about if the demand, which is obviously there, is circular in nature, which is being discussed. And I know you've probably been thinking about as you've been looking at these deals that are being made like everybody

else's. I'd like the way that NBC News put it. NVIDIA plans to invest in open AI, which is buying cloud computing from Oracle, which is buying chips from NVIDIA, which has a stake in CoreWeave, which is providing AI infrastructure to open AI. Are you concerned about that at all? Well, maybe it's my background, but this reminds me a lot of the commodity super cycle in the sense that in the early 2000s, in order to meet the demand and to provide supply of these commodities, it

had to involve intensive CAP-X and partnerships. And this is about demonstrating that this technology requires a huge amount of CAP-X, but it involves a multi-year strategy and partnerships. And so does it concern me? No. Do I think we have prior examples of bringing this technology on? Yes. And so I think you can look at other cycles and draw some parallels. When you look at the overall market, we're about to have earnings season, do we come out of earning season? Before, and we haven't even gotten into it, but do we come out of it saying, you know what? This is the place to be. and the numbers that were just reported,

as you said, how powerful they are relative to almost everything else, right? Some make the argument that these tech stocks and the investment in AI is the whole economy right now. Do we come out of earning season wanting to lean in as much as we have in the past to these kinds of stocks, the hypers, or do we have a bigger broadening out in the market?

What do you think? My personal opinion is you're going to see a broadening out, and you've already started seeing that in earnest. You've seen other parts of the economy, utilities, energy, infrastructure, industrials start to benefit. And if you look at earnings and growth estimates, tech by far and away is the winner, but utilities, energy, industrials, they're all supposed to grow double digits, which is pretty unique. So I think you start seeing a broadening out and more breadth to this rally. There's almost like a circular nature in and of itself in those

kinds of stocks. Like, yes, utilities have worked because, but they're tied into the whole AI story, as are some of the industrial names as well, right? It's the AI Supercycle. This is what has to keep this technology going to move from the enablers to the adopters. I enjoyed that. Ashley, thank you. Ashley McNeil, Vista Equity Partners, back with us on closing bell. New York Stock Exchange owner, Intercontinental Exchange, says it's investing up to $2 billion in Polly Market.

Seema Modi is here with more on that story. Hey, Sima. Hey, Scott. So intercontinental investment into Polly Market does value the betting platform at around $8 billion. Keep in mind just this past summer, it was reportedly. valued at one billion. So why the hefty price tag? Why the sudden interest? AnalystA really comes down to two things, Polymarkets retail base and opportunity to tokenize digital equities on the blockchain. I spoke to Atlas Merchants, Capitals, David Seamus, who tells me that this is

another example of the traditional finance world waking up to recognize the important role that decentralized markets are using blockchain and the role they have in the future of finance. Now, Polymarkets CEO hit that exact point on Squatbox this morning. We're all on the same page that tokenization is this disruption for financial assets of all types. And a lot of the operational difficulties for traditional financial assets just go poof once you have tokenization. The infrastructure is inherently global, it's inherently fractionalized. You can go and send it anywhere instantly. Now more relaxed regulations under this administration on prediction markets,

has also helped Polly Market return to the U.S. We're looking at ice shares up about 2% of this hour, Scott. All right, Seema. Thanks, Sima Modi. We're just getting started here on the bell. Up next, Guggenheim, CIO, Ann Wall. She maps out the biggest risks she is seeing today in the market. She'll join us right here. Post-night next.

We're back. Stocks are lower today after the S&P and NASDAQ both hit record highs earlier in the session, here with Where to Invest right now. Anne Walsh, CIO of Guggenheim. Welcome, it's good to see you. Nice to see you, Scott. How broadly do you feel about the markets right now? What's your current view? We're a record highs, we'll just call it that. Right. So it seems that valuations appear stretched, and I think there is a lot of reason to be thoughtful with regard to equities. But I would say that when I look at the comparisons between now and say the dot-com era, just pick, say that, well, everybody's weighing in, so let's get your view, I suppose. So I think where we are right now is we're a little bubbly, but not bubbling at this point in time.

We're certainly not at the point in time where we saw the valuations at that time. We have room to run. I think the fundamentals are very different now. They appear very strong to me, relatively speaking, in terms of artificial intelligence and other buildouts that are happening, CAPX, and dare I say, the benefits of the tax policy with expensing of CAPX and other elements, I think that's going to be very strong, you know, for the future, for stocks. Some have said, you know, the key difference, or at least one, from that period of time, is that the money being spent today is from the biggest companies with the biggest and best balance sheets. Do you see it the same way? Does that alleviate some of the risk that might otherwise exist?

Well, I think we have a tale of two economies and a tale of two markets. So that is true that the largest companies with the most access to capital, those that are able to make those kinds of investments, those are going to be driving quite a bit of the market activity and it's very strong. There's also the smaller businesses, maybe the small caps, which have been slower to react. I mean, if you look at the performance of the Mag 7 relative to say the 493 other stocks, it's not quite the same story. But I think the fundamentals, the tailwinds are there to help both markets and both parts of the market. But at the same time, I think it's going to be more supportive of the larger companies. You make the argument that markets have fully priced in the outlook for interest rates.

What is your outlook for interest rates? So where we find ourselves today, you know, the Fed finally cut the 25 basis points after having been on pause for so long, we anticipate that there's probably two more cuts this year. And maybe we're a little bit more aggressive than some of our peers in believing that there's still two more cuts. Certainly with the shutdown, everybody's kind of looking around hoping to find some real data points that we can rely on. But I think that the market indications are there. I think the market's willing to accept that. I think the other element is that the employment numbers,

while we didn't get an employment number because of the shutdown, I think they are showing that we are slowing down, and the Fed has real reason to go ahead and continue to cut. We also think that they'll cut into 2026 as well. So the trajectory is for continued lower Fed funds rate into 2026 and a move towards what I would call the neutral rate being low, perhaps than some of our peers. How do we balance a weakening labor market?

I mentioned to my prior guest that Carlisle came out with their own study, and they estimate that just 17,000 jobs were created last month among the weakest results since the economy emerged from the recession in 2020. So I balanced that versus, well, it just means the Fed's going to cut more, which people then say, well, don't fight the Fed. So how do I think about both of those? Well, I think that the employment numbers are evidencing the slowdown in the U.S. economy. And, by the way, sort of following on some globally as well.

And so when we looked at earlier in the year tariffs and the concern that tariffs would be highly inflationary, at the time I took the perspective that I thought they were more recessionary than inflationary, that they had a slowing impact on the economy. I think that's what we've seen. I think we're coming into more of an equilibrium. At the time, we were also rather a strong GDP, and I think that what we're seeing is that this is sort of normalizing the economy into what I would call sub-2% growth going forward, but very much a steady state economy for the future, which, again, gives the Fed the opportunity to continue to lower rates, and I think a good story. You probably think way more about credit opportunities than you do equities. where are the best opportunities today? Rates are down a little bit. Are there still as

great opportunities out there in credit? Absolutely. The same tailwinds that help equities help credit even more. And so we see a lot of good value in credit, whether that's corporate credit, structured credit, any kind of spread sector today is adding value to a portfolio. Frankly, we're at nominal yields that historically remain very attractive, and we have real rates of interest, both in terms of actual treasuries and also, of course, especially in spreads. You have a view of private credit as its own sort of fast-growing asset class was like $2 trillion in and of itself. It's like mushroomed so fast. A couple of bankruptcies in the last few weeks to a month have raised concerns that, okay, maybe we're finally seeing some cracks that people have warned about what happened. if certain things turned bad or the economy went more south from here? Do you have a view? I think private credit is a very large market and growing with the growth of private equity,

with the growth of the opportunity set in credit generally. I think private credit has a lot more room to expand. It's also a catch-all term, and it can mean anything from different kinds of structured lending, also all the way to individual corporate credit lending. A few bankruptcies, does not a trend make in my view. And I believe that the underwriting opportunities, the covenant protection of private credit remains very, very healthy. And I think the opportunity is there. We just are hearing the question of whether the Fed officials believe that there is any kind of systemic risk. I think the answer is no. Now, I mean, I would only come back and say, I mean, you know, they had oversight into like Silicon Valley Bank, too, you know,

out in San Francisco. They didn't exactly see that coming either. And I know there are those who are listening to this snickering thinking themselves like, yeah, like the Fed's going to catch that before it becomes a problem. Well, I would contrast that because that was a rate story. The truth of the matter is Silicon Valley Bank was overexposed to very long duration assets with a short liability balance sheet. And so the problem is, is that they got caught in a very unfortunate interest rate increase and yield curve steepening storyline. Not necessarily a credit story line. Oh, no, no, I'm not, I don't bring it up to, it's definitely not an apples to apples thing.

I just bring it up as to if we're relying on the Fed to catch the problem before it becomes the problem, maybe we're all going to have a problem. Yeah, and I don't really think it is at this particular moment. I think the fact that private credit lacks transparency and an institution, focus makes a lot of investors curious or worried about the sector and I think a little bit unnecessarily so and I think the point what I was making about the Fed not being necessarily concerned about it being systemic is a one or two you know downturn story or an individual idiosyncrotic transactional story like

that I think doesn't spread and so it doesn't become systemic at that point in time I think it's highly contained and very limited in one one or two names. I think private credit is a great story for the future. All right. It's great to get your views. Ann, thanks. Thank you. And we'll share with us once again on closing bell. Still ahead. We'll tell you what's weighing on the builders today. There was a call you need to hear about. We're coming back after this. Coming up next, stocks pulling back from all-time highs. Today's session, we'll hear from our all-star panel coming up with how they're positioning just after the break.

The bell's coming right back. Welcome back, S&P, on track to snap a seven-day win streak after hitting a fresh all-time high earlier. Here to share how they're positioning right now empowers Marta Norton and CNBC contributor, Jason Snyder of Odyssey Capital Advisors. Nice to see you both. Marta, begin with you. What do you think about this market here? Well, we've certainly seen quite a run since April 8th. I think there's been fundamental underpinnings that justify the moves that we've seen. We've certainly seen earnings outpace what expectations were, especially after those expectations were lowered in the wake of Liberation Day, and the AI train just steams ahead.

I think the question going forward is how much good news are these valuations pricing in? And at this point, they look a bit extreme. That's not calling a bubble, but saying that they look a bit stretched at this point in the game. So what do I do if I agree with you? Well, here's kind of how I'm thinking about it. When we're taking a look at a portfolio or a market like this one, where you are seeing this run, maybe valuations are getting ahead of the good news, but the news is, in fact, good. I think it's more a time to rebalance to reposition, to take some of those winnings from those

that have run and redeploy them into areas that have been left behind. So health care, small caps, some of those areas where the sentiment isn't quite so stretched. But then, Jason, don't I risk missing out on what could be a substantial leg higher? Even if I'm a little cautious about valuations, they can go a lot higher and get a lot more stretched. from here or the earnings can just the earnings can just continue to deliver so you're not so much worried about valuation because it's not multiple expansion it's simply earnings growth yeah and i think the earnings will be really strong scott starting next week with obviously the financials but as it relates to mega cap tech i mean we've seen earnings growth above 20 percent you know in that

space but i think to martha's point i think it is prudent going into 2026 that kind of start to table shave some of those some of the some of your growers and start to rotate into some of the other cyclical areas like as she mentioned health care energy industrials is oddly done well but i think i think that's a prudent move towards the end of this year not not going into the fourth quarter which we are currently in no i understand that but i mean why would i want to rotate into cyclicals if if i think the economy is going to be a even if the fed's cutting I think the labor market's going to continue to deteriorate to a degree, and the economy's going to be a little weak. Why would I want to rotate into cyclical stocks at the end of this year?

Because I think the earning story is going to be positive. I think Breff is going to be like the RSP stories like that, I think are going to be good plays going into next year. Not to abandon, of course, not to abandon what has kind of taken you here. But I think that's going to be the prudent move going into next year. You like small caps too? Do I read that right? Yeah, no, I think small caps can work. Listen, I mean, the cutting cycle is underway.

There's a 92% chance that we're going to cut this month, 88% chance that will cut in December. Then we have a new regime starting in May of next year, which I think will be leaning towards continuing this cutting cycle. I think my concern is around inflation. you know, what the inflationary story will look like going forward. But I do think if that's the story, small caps can continue to work. So, Marta, what are your expectations then?

Where does the S&P likely to go, do you think, by year end? Well, I don't necessarily expect a sell-off between now and the year-end. I do think there's, you know, true strength behind the earnings. I guess my thought is how much more can we grind higher? And, of course, that rests on the performance that we see in this Q3 earnings season. Are we going to see continued upside surprises? There's room for that when we think about the cap-x spend, when we think about the deregulation trend,

and of course, just kind of the AI boom more broadly. There are some things that I think can be a little bit more of a dead weight. I see the tariffs factor as being a long-term drag, whether that really manifests itself as something that derails the earnings season that we're heading into. I don't think so, but I think it's something that we're going to have to continue to monitor. And then to your point, there are some economic questions

questions that we have to wrestle with guys we'll leave it there jason martha thanks so much we see you soon coming up next we check the biggest movers into the close today christina parts of nevillosa standing by with that hi christina hi scott a i demand driving one tech giant stock hire while a discount retailer tumbles and of course on a wall street downgrade and health care stocks jump on potential policy changes i'll explain all of that right after break about 10 away from the bell back to Christina for the stocks that she's watching please do tell I want to talk about shares of Dell because they're hired today after the company raised its long-term revenue and profit growth forecasts The shares are about 4% higher.

It said it expects annual revenue to expand because, of course, strong demand for AI infrastructure. Now to Dollar Tree, those shares are sinking lower today after Jeffries downgraded the retailer to underperform from hold, slashing their price target to, Jeffrey said, quote, operational complexity is a headwind, specifically that having more products in the $5 to $7 range has really just eroded simplicity. Shares 3% lower. And last but not least, health care stocks, including, Centine, Molina Healthcare, Oscar health are on the rise. You can see Centine, for example, 2% Malina, 2% Oscar Health, 1% after President Trump

expressed openness to a deal with Democrats to avert the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies. He told reporters he, quote, like to see a deal made, but later posted on Truth Social that the government would have to reopen first. So a little bit of backtracking there. Scott. All right, Christina, thank you. Christina Parks, the novel is coming up next. What's driving the action today and testing the stock sinking in today's session. coming up inside the market zone plus tickets still available for fast money trading the

holidays at the NASDAC December 11th is live it's in person you can scan the QR code for more information we'll be right back we're now we're now the closing bell market zone cnbc senior markets commentator mike santol He's here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus, Diana Oleg, tracking the action in the builders. Many are lower. Phil LeBoe telling us what's going on with Tesla and Ford today. Michael, I'll begin with you.

I mean, I know we're just going to continue to ask the questions and examine whether this is some bubble that is not going to end well. We can't help it because some of the best investors of all time are the ones talking about it. I agree. I guess where I come down is it's certainly not the point. peak of a mega bubble comparable to big ones we've seen before, but we also don't know that we're ever going to get there. And before the 20%, 25% drop in the NASDAQ in 2022, before we had a near 20% in 2018, we weren't at a bubble. You can have a rough market without it being

some massive deflation of a generational bull market. So I think what's interesting, even if you look today, is you do have these stutter steps in these trades. AI is having a little bit of a stumble today. We had a bit of a gut check. It's the Oracle News. It's everything else. And what does it net out to? Not very much. It's just a little bit of a wobble. The S&P is flat on the week. It's down like just over a third of a percent. However, it looks a little unwinding. High beta is down a percent and a half. The Russell's down one percent. The quantum nonsense is off. So you do see the inklings of sometimes you've got to skim the froth and then maybe get a little bit of a reset, all the storage names that ran up on the AI infrastructure trade. So I think you're

you can keep yourself in check and keep things on track if you do have these interim setbacks and then everybody feels like we refresh the move. All right. Come back to you in a minute. Diana, there was a call today on the builders and as I saw earlier, many were down substantially. Yeah, that's right. The home builders are taking a hit because Evercore ISI downgraded the stocks of six builders to in line from outperform. They also cut price targets on several sector stocks. Evercore analyst Stephen Kim took issue with the Trump administration's goal. of increasing housing production as a way to improve affordability. He said the firm believes less is more.

Kim wrote in a note to clients this summer, the HomeBuilder stocks rallied in anticipation that falling mortgage rates would stimulate a rebound in housing demand and a bottoming in fundamentals. But so far, despite modestly improved affordability, a meaningful demand response has not yet emerged. Now, mortgage rates have moved off their recent lows, although they are much lower than they were just six months ago. Back to you.

All right, Diana, thank you. That's Diana. All right, Phil. We're going to take Tesla first. Tell me about that. I'm going about something else. Tesla has finally shown us the lower priced Model 3 and Model Y that will be going on sale. You say how much lower price? Well, they're down in the 30, under $40,000 range. Specifically, Model 3 drops down to basically $37,000. Model Y, basically $40,000. For each of them, about a $5,000 price cut compared to where they were just a couple of days ago. Why have they cut prices? Well, they have fewer features, including a smaller battery, slightly less range. Some of the automatic features are now manual features, things like air vents for the second

row. Those are the kinds of things that have been stripped out of the car. Again, decontented to a certain extent here. For the Model 3 and Model Y, they are the bread and butter of Tesla. 97% of their sales. If you look at the growth in U.S. sales from Q1 to Q3, the growth has been in Model 3 and model Y. The cyber truck, the S and the X, niche vehicles. They don't sell a whole lot of those. This is really what Tesla sells right now. And finally, to take a look at shares of Tesla, Scott, remember, we will find out what Elon Musk thinks the future holds beyond the lower price models. We get the earnings results from the company on October 22nd. Phil, tell me about this fire at this Ford supplier, because some are suggesting it's going to have

a long impact here. Well, remember, it supplies aluminum. to Ford, primarily for the F-series vehicles. The F-series is the straw that stirs the drink at Ford. It is the most popular vehicle in this country, also the most profitable for Ford. They make between $10,000 and $15,000 per truck, Scott. So if you are not going to, well, let's say that they can replace the aluminum that was at this plant. They can source it from other places, maybe from Europe, maybe from other places. It's going to cost more.

it is likely going to cut into the company's earnings. The company hasn't said exactly what the impact will be at this point, but we get their numbers on October 23rd. I wouldn't be surprised, Scott, given what I've heard from people in the industry, that you may see a substantial impact to Ford. How much remains to be seen. All right, good stuff, Phil.

Thanks for covering both of those stories for us. That's Philoble. Back to Santoli, we've got two minutes left. You just heard the sound of back. What else you're thinking about? The consumer sick of goals, I mean, Diana hit on the whole. home builders. They've been pretty weak. It looked kind of like a breakdown. And the consumer discretionary group equal weighted as in total has sort of surrendered its leadership spot. So I don't

know if that's about, you know, the market's sending up a little bit of a more sour macro message or not, but I think it's something that's getting overlooked as we kind of debate the whole AI trade. I think you have to come down on the side of it was this last phase of the rally was definitely led by lower quality, more aggressive, more speculative stuff. We got worked up to a a point where a lot of the AI infrastructure news was too good to be true. And today was a day when you said, oh, wait, is it literally too good to be true? And I think that's, we're going to go back and forth on that for a while. So nothing really decisive is broken. We still haven't had a 3% pullback in the S&P. Today's the six-month mark of the low, the intraday low from April.

We're up almost 40%. Any pullback you get from here is probably not going to make much of a dent in it. But I think you have to be on alert. I wouldn't just shrug off the action today to see if it spills into something else because we got the market wound pretty tight with a lot of volatility in single stocks, almost no volatility in the indexes. And we'll see if any of that is due for, you know,

a little bit of a bump alone. All right. Good stuff, Michael. Thank you. They are loud and they are proud here at the New York Stock Exchange today because ringing the bell, the Service Academy Women, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of President Gerald Ford signed by law.

They required our Nation Service Academies to admit women. So it's a proud day down here on the floor of the New York coffee strangers. They are here to end this market today, which has turned reds off the board into AT.