Closing Bell - Closing Bell: 11/10/25

Episode Date: November 10, 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.

Welcome to Closing Bell. I'm Scott Wobner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker breakout begins with the NASDAQ's rebound following that turbulent week for AI stocks. Let's show you the scorecard with 60 to go in regulation. It looks pretty good. To say the least, look at the NASDAQ, up 2.5% highs of the day, as tech is the big winner today. And that has definitely led to the outperformance overall. Invita, Meta, Amazon, all leading that comeback. So are chips like AMD, Micron, and Broadcom. They are all. all doing quite well as you see. Bank stocks, they're strong, led by Morgan Stanley today, but they're all having a pretty good

day. We're watching the airlines, too, on word of that breakthrough in the government shutdown fight. And that takes us to our talk of the tape, big tech's big comeback, and whether the most popular trade in the market is in fact back. We'll get to that in a moment with FundStrat's Tom Lee. First, though, Emily Wilkins in Washington, the very latest on the reopening, M. Hey, Scott. Well, yeah, after last night's breakthrough, we're really.

really just waiting right now for the Senate to announce when their next votes are going to be. They have a few more to go before it passes. And then, of course, it does have to go to the House. Speaker Mike Johnson has told his members that they will tentatively vote on Wednesday. Of course, that depends on the Senate, getting all 100 senators to agree on something. They want to speed it up, get it done this week. And it seems likely that the shutdown will be done before the end of this week. That means that federal workers will be heading back to work, plus getting that back pay, plus the agreement that they came to here in the Senate, it reverses those firings that were in place at the start of the shutdown

and would prevent the Trump administration from firing more federal employees until the end of January. But the next hurdle for Congress is really going to be whether they can get anything done on extending the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Remember, that's what Democrats take this entire shutdown on. And there are Republicans who are out there who are willing to work with Democrats to at least partially extend the credits, likely with some income caps and some measures to root out fraud. But while Senate Majority Leader John Thune has promised Democrats a vote in the House, Johnson has avoided making any commitments on a vote. And while some House Republicans do want to see those tax credits

extended, remember, many do not want to take any vote in support of Obamacare. So a difficult path forward there, but certainly something we're going to be following for the rest of the year. Scott? Emily, thank you so much for the very latest. That's Emily Wilkins. Let's welcome in now, CNBC contributor, Bunstratt's Tom Lee. It's good to have you. Welcome back. Yeah, thanks, Scott. Good to see you. So the market obviously assumes that this is all going to happen. The government's going to reopen and we're just going to get back on our merry way in the stock market. That's certainly what the trade says today. Am I right? Yeah, I think there's a certain measure of relief because the shutdown robbed us of visibility on the macro data. And of course, there's economic hit

and they're suffering because, you know, air traffic is selling. So I think for many reasons, I think this shutdown was a problem for investors. So what about now between, you know, now and the end of the year? It's the AI trade that really seems to be debated. How do you feel about it heading into this final stretch? I think it's still in really good shape fundamentally. We know there's a lot of visibility for AI spending, and we know there's still innovation and gain of function taking place with the models.

So to me, it makes sense that there's still a payoff coming. I think one of the issues that investors are going to grapple with is even though they may say AI stocks are expensive, NVIDIA still only trades at 29 times forward earnings. I mean, it's still cheaper than Costco, so it's hardly a bubble valuation. No, but I don't think when they talk about the valuation of AI stocks, they're necessarily talking about NVIDI. I think you would agree with me on that. They're more so talking about names like Pallentier and some others where you could easily say, yes, the earnings have been great and the story is incredible, but at some point you're only willing

to pay X for a stock and maybe that one's gotten a little bit too rich, using that as an example of the kind of names they're talking about. Yeah, I mean, I think Palantir is an example of what they call like an N equals one company. You know, you've got a founder-lend business developing products that really seem like magic for the companies that adopted. So, you know, Should this just be getting a softer multiple? I don't think so. And, you know, Palantir is opening up so many markets. And if it was a venture capital firm, they'd be getting, you know, potential carry for how they transform businesses.

So to me, I think that this is still a market discovering, you know, how to define the valuation model for Palantir. But to me, that doesn't mean it's a bubble. You know, people would have said that about Tesla in 2018 because it looked incredibly expensive. And the stock in Tesla has been a huge performer since then. But what was last week about then, do you think, at its heart? Well, I think at the heart is the market wobbles, and so when the market wobbles, people, two things, you know, one is they start to take shots at the leaders, right? Because they try to take down the leaders thinking that's what leads us down.

But the second, it really highlights the grim reality that we're about to have a third year of double-digit gains. The S&P's up 80% over the past three years, and funds are measured on three-year performance. only 21% of fund managers are beating 80% over that three-year period. It is one of the worst-ever periods for fund managers. And so they'd rather see the market fall so that it falls to their performance level. I think what's more likely, of course, is the market follows a seasonal pattern, which means there's going to be a lot of chasing into year-end. Don't you have any concern at all about the level of money that these companies are spending on their build-out?

And now the new wrinkle of tapping the debt market, rather substantially to help do it? I mean, Scott, yes and no. I mean, AI is proving to be a scale game. You know, it's not like you and I could start a garage and make a model competitive with Open AI. You know, we need to have scale and a lot of chips. That's really the model that was required

for telecom infrastructure and for energy infrastructure and, of course, for internet infrastructure and even fiber. So it makes sense that a handful of players are really playing a big role. And just like in the energy system, there's eight majors. Everybody spends money on the eight majors, and the eight majors pay a smaller ecosystem.

So I think it makes sense that that's what's developing in the U.S. And, of course, it's leaving other countries in the dust. Are we back to having Bitcoin correlated with the NASDAQ? If you look at what happened last week, you had $2 billion pulled from Bitcoin. Now the NASDAQ's ripping, and Bitcoin's back higher. There was a time where those were highly core. related. NASDAQ went up, Bitcoin went up. Nasdaq went down, Bitcoin did. What about now?

Yeah, I mean, I think that they have a correlation in the sense that monetary liquidity was being drained. You know, as you know, with the shutdown, the Treasury wasn't dispersing money, and the Treasury was building up cash reserves, which is draining liquidity. And now that the government's open, I think liquidity's improving. And of course, we have a monetary policy decision in December. it's going to affect both stocks and crypto because that's a risk on measure. But as you know, the odds favor are cut, and that cut will help inject confidence. So I think it's another reason to expect stocks and crypto to do well until your end. All right. Stay with me, Tom.

Let's expand the conversation bringing Schwab's Kevin Gordon, along with CNBC contributor Capital Area Planning Groups, Malcolm Ether. It's good to have you both with us. Kevin, I'll hit you first because you're here. Now what? After last week? We shook out some stuff. Now what? I actually think, you know, part of the relief that we're feeling today in addition to the shutdown is actually related to some of the compression last week that you saw in the high flyers, whether you think of it as the Mag 7 or, you know, the hyperscalers within the S&P and then a relative catch up.

Jim Laybenthal is making that argument on halftime, and I was somewhat skeptical of that. Well, now Tom Lee's bringing it up and so are you? Well, I think that, but the positive aspect of this broader, and if you extend it out maybe the past month or the past two months, you know, we've been in this broader consolidation if you want to think about it. it that way for the market. What has gotten hit the hardest have been the more highly speculative non-profital parts of the market, which have completely outperformed. You know, I'm talking triple-digit percentage points since the April 8th lows. They've definitely outperformed year-to-date. But they've been the ones that have been shouldering a lot of the, a lot of the blame and have been taking a lot of the hits, especially relative to what we think

of as traditional markets like the S&P 500. So I think that when you look at what's been concentrated in terms of selling pressure, actually the overlay to 2021 is pretty similar, where the broader indexes are still doing relatively well. It's just more of the speculative and junkier parts of the market that have been getting hit a lot more, which admittedly they've had solid runs. But I think that's all L-SQL, a healthier setup because the market is still favoring quality and having a bias towards that. Malcolm, do you think that the financial mechanics, so to speak, of the shutdown played a bigger role last week than some are willing to admit? I do not.

It probably won't surprise you that I have a little bit more of a contrarian take on this. But I really think this is completely attributable to Sam Altman's comments to Brad Gersner. I think it's attributable to Sarah Fry's comments about a backstop from the federal government, comments about maybe we won't see an IPO in 2026. I think that investors have been paying very close attention to what Open AI is doing, even though it's a private company, and extrapolating out how much of the growth that we've been experiencing in the markets, the last, call it six months, really just since Liberation Day, how much of that growth is directly attributable to one company making all of these big pronouncements, $1.4 trillion in spending expected. And so those comments have obviously been walked back over the weekend. They've tried to put it right.

And investors seem to be a little bit more at ease now with what they're seeing from Sam Altman et al. I also think Michael Burry's short on Palantir, which is a widely held retail name. I think also NVIDIA is a widely held retail name. I think those two specifically rocked our confidence a little bit as investors, but I definitely think it had a lot more to do with that than it did with anything related to the government shutdown. That seems reasonable to me, Tom, no? I mean, yes and no. I'd say investors don't like stocks that go up a lot.

They tend to get very nervous and people want to take profits. But, you know, do I think Open AI is the only reason the S&P's gone up this year? I mean, that's really a real bold proclamation. I mean, I don't necessarily think that that's exactly what Malcolm is to. No. But when you have a, you know, people from that company come out and they're talking about potential backstops and bailouts, it makes people wonder. When you have someone like Burry come out and talk about shorts on stocks like that, it makes people wonder. When meta comes out and talks about the level of spending that they're doing during their earnings report and people think

about what the end game is, it makes you wonder. All those are real things that were at play. Yeah, but Scott, just keep in mind a couple of things. One, there's been doubts on AI for the last three years. Every time there's a speed bump, someone points to a headline or a story and cites that exact fact, like, you know, is the spending unrealistic? So I would say that that's a consensus statement I've heard time and again. On Michael Burry, he's a well-respected guy that does this homework, and so I do think people pay attention to it, but then again, his track record is not 100%.

So I think he might be a sobering voice in the room. Who's this? Tom, I mean, who's is? Yours isn't? I mean, mine isn't, and no one's is. Yeah, but then we shouldn't treat his proclamations as if this is destiny. But I think he is raising good points that we should think about. But to tell me that that's the reason stocks go down, again, that's people attributing news to market moves. That's, you know, I'm not sure I actually could answer that. I could say there's a million things affecting stocks.

But to me, does Michael Burry change Palantir's growth trajectory? Probably not. Is he making investors wonder if there is the right risk premium? Maybe. But again, markets will resolve that in the next few months. But, go ahead, Malcolm. Scott, if I may, very specifically, Palantir is up over 150% on the year, and it's widely held by retail investors. So anything out there that comes from someone with as big a name as we just agreed, Michael Burry is,

that spooks investors and shakes their confidence a little bit. And so the very first reaction is sell first and then ask questions later. I think we could make the same case for a number of the other names that are tangentially related, at least to Open AI, with these large spending commitments that their share prices have run up a tremendous amount based on promises made by OpenAI specifically. So the question of where are you going to get the revenue to justify the spend that you've committed to is a legitimate one. And for investors to say, I don't really like the answer from the CEO that I heard.

So I'm going to shoot first and ask questions later. I think that that's reasonable to assume that that is what spooked confidence last week. When you consider the NASDAQ fell almost 1,000 points. and it's the first time since Liberation Day that we've seen such a move. So tech moves the market. Tech is the market right now. I know that everyone's out there calling

for this broadening trade right now and it's just not happening, right? The equal weight S&P is at like 8% year to date. The cap-weighted S&Ps up over 16% year-to-date. So you can fight tech if you want to, but you'll be one of those managers that Tom was just talking about that is underperforming the index.

And so I think we have to call it what it is. Investors are looking for a reason to get spooked on AI. and last week gave it to him. Kev, is tech going to be, is it going to remain the trade, the thing that matters the most for the remainder of the year? Are you one of these calling for the broadening in the market? Well, I think what's funny, well, first of all,

broadening of the market really just depends on whatever time frame you pick. So, I mean, if you look over the past three months, healthcare is the best performer. It's not tech. So it really is just a matter of perception. But I mean, I think that you can use that as an argument, or to support the argument, actually, there have been broader gains for the And that certainly showed up in earnings debt that we've seen in the third quarter.

So I'm not fully on board with the fact that the rally hasn't broadened out. I think that there have actually been positive aspects, the fact that you haven't seen, you know, sub-50% so far in this post-liberation day rally for the percentage of companies that are above their 200-day moving average. I mean, you could go down the list of ways that the market has remained relatively resilient, relatively healthy. I think just the last thing on tech, you know, there's so much focus on that being a top performer. For a good chunk of this year, it was not. Second of all, from an AI perspective, I mean, that theme is really starting to creep into basically every sector in the market. So I get a lot of, you know, a lot of the focus.

I understand it and a lot of the emphasis and concern over, you know, single stock risk and maybe single sector risk. And it was certainly a, you know, a big topic at our Impact Conference last week. Well, I want to ask you about that. But that I think is important to focus on how you think retail is feeling after the week that was. Based on, you know, I talked a lot about the retail investor at your conference. Yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, you are who you are. As Schwab, I mean, what do you think the psyche of the retail investor is right now?

You know, the psyche is still, I would say, generally optimistic for the broader market, but tech has really been that main focus. And I was doing, you know, outside of impact, I was doing client events last week in the Denver area, looking at, you know, what are the most, what are the biggest concerns that people have with the market in particular in the U.S. Most of it is really just focused on the tech sector. There isn't a broader concern outside of that. So if anything, it was this desire and it was this question around how do I diversify outside of this, but still stay invested broadly in the market.

And I think that's sort of where we were and where we landed on in the general sentiment at impact was concern over some of the circular financing and vendor financing that now exists. But again, there are ways to diversify out of that and you can find yourself in a pretty healthy spot. Even year-to-date, utilities are still doing quite well. Communication services is doing quite well.

Healthcare is now starting to pick back up. So if you were diversified across mostly all 11 sectors, then you've been sort of managing the hits relatively well, especially last week. Yeah. All right, good stuff. Kevin, thank you. Malcolm, thanks, Tom. Always thanks to you as well. We'll see all of you soon. Now to another developing story, we have been following, as you know, flight disruptions across the country,

worsening as the shutdown drags on. Phil LeBow joins us now with the very latest. We heard top of the show that it looks like this could be coming to an end. Will the cancellations and delays? When it's over, they'll come to an end. But that's the question. Scott, we don't know when this will be finalized on Capitol Hill and then signed by the president. Until that comes through, the cancellations and the progression of the flights canceled per day, that continues. Around the country today, it doesn't help that we've had bad weather here in Chicago, the northeast. Parts of the southeast have also had bad weather as a result.

Cancellations today, almost 2,000 flights, according to flight aware. We've seen more than 5,500 that have been delayed. So the bottom line is this. You're looking at a lot of people, if they did make it to the airport. They're waiting a long time and then perhaps they're still being canceled. Midway, O'Hare, LaGuardia, San Diego. Look at this. This is the percentage of their schedules and the flights canceled today. As you take a look at the airline stocks since October 1st. The reason we're showing you the airline stocks is that we're going back to October 1st. This is what they've done since the government shutdown has begun. And with the exception of Alaska, and that's sort of separate issues came out of their earnings. They haven't really done much, although you can make.

make an argument they are slightly higher in some cases there. Thanksgiving week bookings according to Syrian, which tracks all of the booking activity of the airlines, they are seeing the rate of booking, Scott, relative to last year, slow down. It was up 2.2% compared to last year. The latest look at those bookings is now up 1%. So you could make an argument that some people are saying, do I want to take that trip? Am I sure I'm going to be making it to wherever we're going for Thanksgiving, maybe not. I hear you on that. I mean, how could you not? Bill thanks.

Bill above with the latest on those flight disruptions. To Christina Parts of Nevelos now for the biggest names moving into this close. Hi, Christina. Hi, Scott. Well, let's start with Diageo shares. They're jumping after an appointed former Tesco head, Dave Lewis, as its new CEO. The Guinness and Johnny Walker maker has been on a months-long search for a leader, as it really deals with changing drinking habits, as well as a cautious consumer spending

environment. Shares you can see are up 5% on the news today, but still down about 25% this year. Shares of MP materials also in the green on an upgrade to buy from hold at Deutsche Bank. The firm says the rare earth miner has a clear growth path ahead of them, driven primarily by elevated pricing support from the government. Shares up over 11%. And lastly, shares of Monday.com. They're sinking about 12% almost 13% after the software maker reported a weaker than expected of revenue outlook for the current quarter. They did post and earnings and revenue beat for Q3, but that still wasn't enough.

It's all about guidance, and that's why shares are down, almost 13. Scott. They have a case of the Mondays, obviously. I mean, I was waiting for you to do that. I don't joke on Mondays. I'm serious. I save my jokes for Friday because I'm not sure you can handle it every day. So disappointed.

All right, thank you. I'll see you in a little bit. Christina Parts Nevelos. We're just getting started here. Up next, AI stocks bouncing back to Will the rally hold? We'll ask Light Street Capitals, Glenn Cacher. He joins us next. Welcome back. A big rebound for AI stocks today as the NASDAQ surges. The question is, was last week just a momentary blip or something more serious? Let's ask Glenn Cacher, Light Street

Capitals, founder, and CIO. Welcome back. It's good to see you. Good to see you, too. So is this trade intact or not? I think absolutely. I mean, you look at the usage and growth of revenues for AI, and it's still incredibly stunning. We're seeing revenue growth at Open AI tripling for the third year in a row. Anthropic is growing 8 or 9x year every year. Google AI products revenue, they announced recently on the call, is tripling year over year. Google's Gemini AI search overview coverage has gone from zero searches over 50% in the last year, API calls on Google Gemini are up 14X over the last 16 months. Absolutely, the AI power is there. The question is, right, how quickly we can make profits from it, these

companies. And by the laws of accounting, gross profit must eventually exceed OPEX and depreciation from CAPEX in order to be profitable. And at the current price being charged, anywhere from free to $20 a month, demand for AI is greatly exceeding supply. But revenue is not yet exceeding, exceeding costs. So we are on a path to profitability, but we have to see that has to be proven out over the next one to three years. Well, we seem to be scrutinizing that more heavily, starting with META's earnings report, right? I mean, that's what it felt like in the market, because I don't think anybody would disagree with the fundamental cases that you just laid out, one by one for the stocks that you like and the ones that you own. But the market last week

anyway, seemed to be fixated on numbers like $100 billion and $80 billion and $75 billion. The money that these companies are spending to try and get to where you think they will get to. Yeah, I mean, you look at it, if you add up the Mag 7, X, Invidia, of course, they're spending around 73% of next year's operating cash flow on CAPX. But there's still a lot of capacity there. You know, they're able to borrow. They're able to raise equity financing if they want to. That will cause some people to ask questions, right?

But I think as we move through the year, we're going to see those prices that they're charging for these AI services go up. Do you have any issue with the level of debt that these companies are raising to fund the infrastructure buildouts? Well, I think it's a question of how they're financial. financing everything. I think there are companies in much better shape than others. I mean, if you look at the neoclouds, for instance, we're not touching those. We don't like the way they're being financed. We don't like the contracts that they have with their customers. So we're staying away from those. But we look at a company like Google where, you know, it's arguably positioned better than Open AI for capturing the AI.

demand out there. And we want to own that stock. Are you short some of those names in the so-called Neo Cloud? I mean, there are ones that are well known to our audience. Like, I guess you would put a core weave in there, wouldn't you? Well, you know, I think you have to be really careful shorting what I think are somewhat meme stocks. And we have to, you know, it's kind of scary to me right now when I look at the conversations going on around investing and what happens on the internet and what consumers are doing. I recently was on X and I saw someone saying it's their son's 21st birthday. Should they give them a Robin Hood account to day trade stocks or should they give them a fidelity account to be a long-term investor? I mean, that's like asking whether

or not you should take your son to the bar and get them a beer for the 21st birthday or take them to sort of drug dealer. I think we've got to stay away from that. I think people have to be reasonably have to look for returns on capital. And I think there's a whole lot of names that have exposure, especially in the semiconductor sector, that have exposure to real profitable business models and real demand coming from AI usage. So you own meta, for example. I mean, that's the one I mentioned, because that's the one that seemed to be at the center of the market storm since its earnings and the spend and wondering what the end result is going to be. Do you have some of those same questions yourself?

We sold Mehta. You sold it? Yeah, we did. We sold it in pieces over the course of the year, but the final sale was a couple months ago. Oh, wow. Why did you do that? It's not exactly. You know, Meta's done a good job of utilizing AI to increase their engagement with customers,

matching both content and ads to those customers, and that's done a great thing for their profitability and growth of revenues as well. But we saw this, what we think is over-exuberant investing there and without a clear path to knowing what products they're going to use. I mean, I mentioned Google. Let's use that as a comparison. I mean, Google really, they have the entire stack of what they need to compete for AI customers. They have compute infrastructure with Google Cloud, including the TPU processors that they make with Broadcom. They have their own models in Gemini and the video and the image models, Nanobanana and Vio. They have data from Gmail, from Maps, from YouTube, from their search index, and they have distribution

with Android. They have their Google apps. They have Chrome. They have their entire customer base for traffic in search like Apple. And now they're talking about Apple utilizing Gemini for their AI services to consumers. So we see the full stack of products and data and semiconductors and and a cloud, cloud services division. And, you know, meta really doesn't have most of that. Interesting. I'm glad you mentioned Apple because I did want to end that, end with that. Has that stock turned a corner? Do you feel better today about their AI prospects, assuming you still own the stock? Because, I mean, now I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think they've got just such a hold on their user base. I think they can

they can somewhat afford to be late with AI. It's kind of the pattern of the company that they have proceeded with for years and years, get there later, but come with a great product, and they're doing it again here in AI, and you have to be patient as a customer and wait for that. I think the most exciting thing maybe about Apple on top of AI will be the foldable iPhone that is being discussed coming for next year. We haven't seen a form factor increase since we went from kind of the small original screen size phones to the larger phones. That touched off massive cycles for iPhones. The foldable iPhone could be a reason for lots more people to upgrade it all at once next year. So that could be an exciting stock in the coming year. Good to see again.

We'll talk to you soon, Glenn. Thanks. Absolutely. Thanks. Glenn Cacher, back on closing bell. Up next, poison pills usually associated with companies trying to fend off hostile takeovers. Now, though, there's one rocking the sports world. Interesting story. Details just ahead. Welcome back in sports business news today. A recent blockbuster trade in the National Football League, getting more attention this weekend, thanks to a provision typically used on Wall Street's activist investors. Alex Sherman joins us now on the poison pill. heard round the NFL. I heard about this, and I was like, I've never heard about anything like that in a sports trade. Yeah, I hadn't either, Scott. I mean, maybe the closest thing that you can think of

that comes to this in modern professional sports is in the NBA with restricted free agents when one team signs another player to an offer sheet, and then that team kind of automatically gets the right of first refusal. But this is really even a level beyond that. The news here is that baked into the trade from the Dallas Cowboys of Michael Parsons over to the Green Bay Packers, which happened at the beginning of the year, there's a clause, a provision in that deal, that if Green Bay were to turn around and trade Michael Parsons to an NFC East team, so that's the Washington commanders, the New York Giants, or the Philadelphia Eagles, that Green Bay would then owe Dallas another first round draft pick. So Green Bay traded Dallas to first-round draft picks, 2026 and 2027, to get Parsons. If they then flipped Parsons to an NFC East team, they'd owe Dallas a third first-round draft pick.

In essence, making that a moot point. So it's almost as if it's impossible now for Green Bay to flip him. Not that they'd want to. Michael Parsons is a phenomenal player. But it is a bizarre provision in a trade that, like you said, I had never heard before. Yeah. You know, the other thing is the NFL family, certainly reacting to the passing of former commissioner of Paul Tagliabu. Can you shed some insight on just how important he was to the league during his tenure?

Very important in the growth of the NFL. He took over in 1989 and was commissioner until 2006. That was really the beginning of the boom times for the NFL that, of course, has really skyrocketed under. current commissioner Roger Goodell in terms of team valuation, in terms of media rights. I think one of the most important things Paul Tagliabu did was institute an NFL salary cap, which I think has made the league become, in essence, America's pastime by making the league, the parity in the league so dramatic. In other words, to the point that every year, almost any team can feel like they have a shot

at winning the Super Bowl because all teams spend the same amount. of money every year. That was not the case until 1994 when a salary cap was put in at the time around, oh, $35 million or so per team. Of course, that salary cap now is about $280 million per team, emphasizing the growth of the league. But it really redefined NFL football by putting all of these teams on an equal playing field every single year. And while we have had dynasties in the league, I do think in many ways it has become the most fair league out of all leagues because you just can't get above that salary cap number like you can in other American sports. Yeah, I mean, the value of the league's franchises increased tremendously under his

leadership. We just had the New York Giants, for example, sell a stake valued at, I think, $10.5 billion, which leads me to news regarding the Giants today as well. Brian Dable, head coach out. Yep, Brian Dable's out. Obviously, New York Giants fans know that. This has been a rumor over the past couple of years. They've stuck with him. They seem to make some progress this year with Jackson Dart looking good. But ultimately, the Giants just losing too many games. And Mike Kafka becoming the interim Giants coach.

We will see if they make another coaching move for a more well-known candidate after the season's over. Yeah, yeah, we shall. Alex, thank you. Appreciate that. Interesting news all the way around. Alex Sherman. Up next, J.P. Morgan's Abby Yoder, on whether today's rally means full steam ahead. for stocks into the end of the year. She'll also tell us the sector she's turning bullish on after

three years of underperformance. We're back on the bell after this. We are back. Stocks are rallying back today following that news out of D.C. regarding the shutdown. So does the reopening clear the way for a year-end rally. Let's ask Abby Yoder, J.P. Morgan, Private Bank, U.S. equity strategist here. Once again, once again. Good to see you. Is that what this means? So we can get this noise out of the way and we can focus on what's at hand? Well, that's what it felt like, right? Like, If you're looking at the price action last week, it wasn't like you could point at anything that changed from a fundamental perspective to suggest that we should have seen some of the drawdowns that we saw last week. There was maybe some broth coming out of certain parts of the market, but from an AI perspective, fundamentally, that, you know, still remains intact. So it just felt like, you know, this government shut down and gotten pretty long in the tooth, and everyone kind of wanted it to end, and it seems like we got that clear.

So you feel like the, yes, we were asking ourselves some questions about valuation and spending related to AI, but, that's all fundamental case is still intact and just continue to go with that trade? Yeah, I mean, look, we got, you know, the reports a few weeks ago. They were really strong, not only from like an incremental CAPX perspective, right, we've had $200 billion increase in terms of the CAPX that's expected for 2026. And obviously it's not to the same extent, but you are seeing an increase in ROI, right? Like you're seeing a positive inflection amongst the hyper-scalers, and that's what people are really focused on, right?

That's what investors want to see maybe do a larger magnitude. It does feel like we're at that inflection point, but we think it's a lot. Okay. So the sector that you recently upgraded is one that has done a lot better than it has in the last few years. It's health care. You're a believer. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's actually really outperformed over the last three months. So even prior to some of the policy overhangs that we had removed at the end of September that really got, you know, specifically the pharma industry to start working. And like when we're looking at it fundamentally, yes, you can point to the valuation say, this is really attractive. It's the lowest weight in the S&P is in 25 years. You know, on a relative valuation, it looks attractive. And, and like, when we're looking at But you're also starting to see a positive inflection in earnings revision breath, which is what we were waiting for. And that's what makes us positive going into. Low rates helping, I mean, in terms of like the smaller type biotech. Are you talking large-cap health care or just the whole thing? So large-cap health care.

And then tactically, we do like, you know, the smaller-cut biotech idea as we had into 2020. Not only driven by like, let's say, lower rates, looser financial conditions, but also this uptick in M&A. Biotech has been driving that uptick in M&A amongst, you know, the top industries that this year. That's a good point. also upgraded industrials, which had been doing well. It had been. So we were overweight recommending industrials into the first half of the year, kind of took a more neutral stance over the past three months

where it's somewhat underperformed. And now we think it's really setting up nicely, not only from a structural growth standpoint, so you've got all of the infrastructure spend and the domestic and fiscal policies that are reinvigorating that, but also from a cyclical perspective. Lastly, real quick, too. Your bulk case for next year is pretty good, 8,8,800.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, what gets you there, you get this higher, faster, in AI utilization across different enterprises. And importantly, so when we think about our base case, we have like 30 bibs of margin expansion. Consensus is closer to 60 bits. Get closer to that.

That's what gets you to that focus. Wow. All right, good catching up with you. Thanks for being here. Thanks so much. Savvy Yoder joining us here. Up next, we track the biggest movers as we head into the close. Once again, we're back on the bell after this.

We're about 10 minutes from the bell. Let's get back now to Christina Parts of Nevelos for a look at the key stock she's watching. Hey, Christina. Hi, Scott. C3 AI shares because they're climbing right now over 4% on a Reuters report that the company's exploring a sale and this comes after founder Thomas Siebel recently stepped down to see over health concerns. This is according to three people with their reporting and so that's why you're seeing shares up 4% at the moment. Barak mining shares are higher after it raised its dividend

and expanded its share buyback program after reporting results. You can see Barrack almost 6% higher and lastly Penn Entertainment shares also jumping after its CEO disclosed the purchase of more than 34,000 shares in the company. It came just after ESPN said it would end its betting partnership with Penn to team up with rival draft kings. Clearly, the CEO is doubling down on the firm. There's your pun. Scott, just for you.

All right. I knew there had to be something. I know. Christina, thank you. Christina, parts of Nelvelos. We're getting you a set up for two earnings reports coming out in OT market zones next. We're now in the closing bell market zone. CNBC senior markets commentator Mike Santoli and Vios advisors, Michael Bappas, are here to

break down these crucial. moments of the trading day. Plus, Christina Parts of Novelos looks at Corweave reporting in OT. First, though, we do have more on the fallout from the MLB gambling scandal. Contessa Brewer has that force and a very interesting development from Major League Baseball. Absolutely. MLB just put out a statement saying that all of the betting operators that it works with, which covers 98% of the legal sportsbooks in the United States, will now limit the kinds of bets that they offer on pitches. They're going to limit them the bet size to $200, which then means that you're going to restrict how much money can be made off of a pitch that is intentionally thrown as a ball or slow.

And also, it will exclude those pitch bets from parlays. This is, they say, intended to mitigate integrity risks, because in this case, one player can manage to throw the game as opposed to if you're betting on an underwear. It's a team sport. This is one of the kinds of restrictions that I had predicted, Scott, might come into play here. And I would be surprised if you don't see that following suit in other sports as well, where these micro bets on players can be then led into parlays and lots of money to be made on that, so to speak. So far, the sports books haven't really shown much share movement on the scandals.

This one, this newest one on baseball with two pitchers indicted. but they, you know, there is a brand risk here for these sports books. Well, you made a good prediction and you've given us good insight into it as well. Contessa, thank you, contested Brewer. Christina, give us some insight on what you expect from Corweave at OT. Well, the real focus on Corrieve is the company's contracted backlog, RPO's. That's what it stands for. An analyst think that could double down to $60 billion driven primarily by just a string of major deals that were signed during the quarter.

And that's where the diversification story actually comes in. Microsoft and Open Air becoming smaller backlog contributors, as CoreWeave adds massive deals from meta, and even a backstop agreement with NVIDIA that really covers any unsold capacity. So that diversification plus strong hyperscalor KAPX spending is really reinforcing confidence in the AI buildout. Analyst, though, expect Corrieve could beat by over $100 million as Blackwell. Those are the Nvidia chips really ramp up throughout the quarter. Though profitability might disappoint as the company invests. What else? In infrastructure, ahead of revenue.

The stock, though, is down roughly about 21% month to date, 20% just the last two weeks. But Options Traders are pricing in a 16% move on the print. So very big swing, potentially, in just a few moments. All right, Christina, yes, we will. Thank you. That's Christina Parks and Nelblis. Michael Bappas, I get you first here as we go towards the closure, about two minutes, or three minutes away or so. You say there's a lot of cautious optimism in markets.

I'll give you, there's like volatility came back last week, But do you feel there's a lot of caution? Look, I think one of the key themes that we're looking at is the battle between, you know, consumer spending and consumer sentiment being down. And like you just said, strong equity markets. I mean, we're getting to more now where it's not cautious anymore.

People are just letting the markets rip. You see pretty reasonable earnings. You see pretty good job numbers. And you're seeing a lot of the companies have really strong earnings coming in, and that's driving the markets. We are also really concerned about the fourth, quarter and how consumer spending comes during the holidays. Because as we all know, it's roughly

two-thirds of GDP going into the end of the year. I don't think the market, Mike, even necessarily cares this so-called K-shaped economy. As long as the AI trade is intact, that's A, B, C, D, all the way up until K. Well, essentially, that creates the K-shaped economy, and the market reinforces it. So there's no doubt about it. Sort of asset price levels, as well as the KAPEX boom and corporate prosperity is enough for now. I think it's interesting. We've essentially in the S&P in one big bite today, more or less taking care of last week's loss. We closed on the end of October. We could go Friday at 6840. We're basically right back there. So it looks like just sort of a psychological wobble in the markets. Not as much tied to shutdown because, you know, semis led the way down,

high beta led the way down, not shut down exposed. We're going to get a reopening likely in the government. And yet you're not seeing consumers. cyclicals rally. You're not seeing industrials lead the way. Banks are fine. But I think it's fascinating. People just go when they buy a dip to the same horses that have led the race. Got 30 seconds left, Mike. I mean, just ride AI until you can't. Look, like we spoke about the last time we were on this show, technology is just driving everything. You know, from the last 30 years, you're seeing a technological boom that just keeps changing and updating. And so at this point, yeah, right the AI, because it's what's driving markets and it's driving everything about

the consumer. Yeah. I mean, you're going to hear from Nvidia in like 9. days. So we have a little bit of an air pocket of information, so to speak, but, you know, Mike, we'll get that number, and that'll help us get. We might get some Stanley Gononic numbers along the way, which the market could probably either treat us as relevant or can dismiss as lower stakes if they want. So bells want to ring, and we will have a really nice rebound after the volatility of last week. NASDAQ will be the biggest winner, as you see. It's up better than 2.5%. S&P back above 6,800 as well.