Closing Bell - Closing Bell: 11/24/25

Episode Date: November 24, 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.

All right, Brian, thanks so much. Welcome to Closing Bell. Scott Wagner live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This make or break hour begins the big bounce back in stocks today. That is where we begin. And whether we're better positioned now for an end of year run, we'll ask our experts over this final stretch. Here is the scorecard now with 60 to go in regulation today.

Lots of green on the board you know by now, led by a significant bounce and probably a much needed one in tech. Chip names like Broadcom and Micron LAM Research and Marvell are surging today. And how about Alphabet hitting yet another all-time record high? Tesla's up sharply, vertiv is two, Palantir is jumping. And how about this move in the industrials from Caterpillar? It's continuing its very strong year today. Take a look at that stock up better than 2%.

And there is that run, 55% year to date. It does take us to our talk of the tape. The home stretch for your money and what it might hold. Let's welcome our panel for the answers. Solace Alternative Asset Management's Dan Greenhouse, CNBC contributor, Payne Capitalist Courtney Garcia, and JPMorgan Private Banks, Abby Yoder. Good to have everybody with us. Abby, I'll start with you. Did we shake out enough of whatever we had to shake out last week that we can regroup and start a new now?

I mean, it certainly feels that way from a positioning standpoint, right? You saw a lot of that washout. It really started at the end of October as we kind of had some liquidity that came out of the market. But within this technically technical driven move in terms of like the AI and tech related names, you still had this really solid fundamental backdrop in terms of the AI story and the AI spending story. Now, I think going forward, yes, it sets us up nicely as we head into the end of the year, but I think there's going to be a little bit more of a discerning eye on, you know, where are you getting your revenues, how backward loaded are they?

You know, are they concentrated in one vendor? Like, there's going to be a lot more, I think, distinguishing that sense. Maybe that's a good thing, right? Maybe we should be asking those questions and scrutinizing some of this a little bit more than maybe we had. Yeah, no, I totally agree. have seen that from like if you think about software versus semis this year for example but now thinking about it who is the winner within semis who is the winner within software i think will be much more of a theme going forward so things got a little more noisy dan right i mean last week it was a little

more volatile we as i as i said we had to shake out some stuff pascarello at goldman today says it's a bull market and the primary uptrend remains intact i'm a believer that liquidity is set to improve and the economy should accelerate the story may not be as pristine as it was but that interplay is still pretty favorable. You agree? I mostly agree with that. I don't think necessarily that anything is less pristine this week than it was last week. I think obviously the big issue Oracle is giving people a big problem, but it's a bit of an exception relative to the other names and the fact that they're undergoing a large investment cycle right now, whereas a lot of those other companies have done it previously. It's also the more highly levered of all those large cap

tech names. It's call it, if I'm doing my math, right, call it two and a half times levered. The other guys are are much less than one-time's levered. So it's a bit of an outlier, but I understand why that's giving people a bit of indigestion. But you have the report from all the individual AI-related companies, Amphanol and Eaton, and Vertev, as you mentioned.

And now you have NVIDIA, and they've all told us the same thing, which is the demand story, is, roughly speaking, unchanged. So I think from a narrative backdrop standpoint, you do have a strong economy, but you've got additional evidence on the part of the largest

and most important of the AI names, NVIDIA, that the story is unchanged. So I don't know why we're less pristine this week than we were last week, except the stock market fell three to five percent. You group that? Yeah, and I think what's been a really positive sign to see is that we're seeing this market breadth improving, right? So when you look at the equal weight S&P 500, it's up about half a percent today.

So still a lot of that AI trade bounceback is happening, but the broader markets are up. And we just, well, we haven't quite finished, but a majority of companies reported Q3 earnings, which are very strong. He saw 10 of the 11 S&P 500 sectors that showed increased earnings, which was even better than the eight of the 11, the previous. quarter. So you're just starting to see the general markets broadening out, which I think is a much healthier sign that the economy and the stock markets can continue this run up. Let's pause the conversation for just a minute. I have some news that I want to get to.

Steve Leesman joins us now on the phone. We are coming to the end of FedSpeak because we're going to get a blackout ahead of a meeting soon. But we have some a few moments ago from Mary Daly, and it's on the signs of the doves. Yeah, Mary Daly telling the Wall Street Journal that, she does back a December rate cut, in part because of the, largely because of her concern about the labor market. And this is going along with the line of some reporting that I've been able to do over the weekend and today about where the leadership of the Fed is. And I think it is leaning towards that rate cut because of concern over the job market. And it really starts with, boy, it was a cliffhanger.

He left his hanging right there. It really starts with, we'll try and get Steve back. But it starts with the fact, if I can continue, that the labor market has become maybe a little bit more concerning. Yes, so let me. Because of, you know, yes, we've had a somewhat of a blackout on data, but the September jobs report, we have the unemployment rate going up, which was concerning to some. Mary Daly says in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, and I'll quote, on the labor market, I don't feel as confident we can get ahead of it. So we had always thought that, based on their statements, too, that they were going to err on the side of a deteriorating labor market over a little bit sticky inflation. They could deal with one.

They can't handle a labor market that starts to get kind of ugly. Yeah, so the point I've been making on air is if you're the Federal Reserve, you can tolerate is two and a half or three percent inflation. You cannot tolerate a deterioration in the job market. Congress is going to be much more adamant about bringing you in, hauling you up to the hill to testify, et cetera, et cetera. And so when the odds drifted lower to call it 2080, odds that I thought were justified on the part of what the Fed officials were telling us, I thought they were making a mistake. The labor market is deteriorating. It's not falling off a cliff by any means, but it is slowing down. And I have been surprised at the degree to which those probabilities have reversed. First, with respect to John Williams and now Mary Daly, among others, we're now up to called 75% odds of Waller.

I mean, the reason, Abby, that you, if you went down your list of why you think the market can do well next year, your bull case is $8,000, $8,200. Deutsche says $8,000 we could do next year. Goldman's pro-risk into the year. This is one of those that's on the checklist. Yeah. Easier fed. Rate cuts, right? And that's, you know, very important for the $4.93, let's call it, right?

The more cyclical parts of the market that have not really participated from a fundamental or price action standpoint. relative to the Mag 7 over the last two to three years. You're seeing a little bit of that come through in three Q earnings where you have seen a really substantial beat rate, a doubling in the growth rate for the 493 relative to the start of the quarter. But yeah, that's a huge component of it, right? That you have not just like rates coming down. We have them around where they are, you know, for the 10-year,

but you have financial conditions easing, right, which is very important from an economic growth standpoint. I think we have Steve Leesman back, who, Steve, you dropped out. You said the most important thing is, and it was just dead silence. So I'm glad we got you back. We were talking on the desk. This is just at least, I think, in Mary Daly's mind, confirmation of the view that she and others are going to side wholeheartedly on the labor market falling apart, more so than inflation remaining a little sticky at 3%. Yeah, and she makes the point in the interview with the Wall Street Journal that putting the pieces of the labor market back together end up being harder.

and there's more concern there than fighting on the inflation side. Look, there's a lot of people on the other side. Daley's not a voter this year, and those people are concerned about the Fed losing the 2% target or the sense that the market would lose the sense that they, hey, we're not going for 2% anymore, that we're happy and satisfied with three. But there's a bit of a hope and a wish here that the tariff inflation works its way through the system, and the Fed is in a better place next year.

I will say, Scott, to the Fed does cut in December, it's likely to be couched in somewhat more hawkish terms that the Fed will end up on the north side, I think I would call it of its general median for the neutral rate and probably, you know, forecast one, maybe two cuts for next year. But if they're going to cut in December, they probably set up January as a pause. And even Waller this morning in interview talked about this idea of going meeting by meeting come January. I think that will be fine, though, don't you think, for the market, Steve, in the sense that the market's concerned with the Fed making a mistake. The mistake would potentially be not doing anything in December as the labor market continues to deteriorate.

And by the time you come around to cutting rates, you might actually be so far behind the curve. You can't do anything about it. And that's, I think, what Mary Daley is alluding to. You've made the case that, you know, they don't, he doesn't have the votes, right? he being Powell, and I'm wondering if that most recent jobs report and the unemployment rate going up means he might actually have the votes by the time the meeting comes. Yeah, look, I mean, one thing I've learned over the time covering Powell has never underestimate his ability to forge a consensus.

I think this might be his worst meeting in terms of dissents that he's ever had in his tenure. He's had no more than three dissents. He may get three or four this time around, so it won't look great, But I think if you look at the graphic we put together, I don't know if you have that graphic with the yellow folks, the folks who are talking about going more cautiously and slowly, I think there's a bunch there that can be convinced. I think the unemployment rate helped a bit in terms of that ticking up. I think you look at another factor, which is the idea that people who are losing jobs are not

finding them so quickly. There's an indicator there about those who are unemployed for 27 weeks or longer. And there's a string of things that say, hey, we should worry more about the jobs report than that. I thought he didn't have the votes before. Well, Williams spoke, especially the leadership spoke, and before the unemployment rate came out, and that ticked up a bit hotter than they had expected. I think they'd be fine without a rate cut doing it in January. But if there's concern enough about the job market, then Powell will probably get enough votes to make it happen. All right, Steve, thanks for jumping back on the phone with us. That's Steve Leesman

reacting to these headlines from Mary Daley. What happens, court, if the Fed doesn't go in December? Does the market get annoyed? Does it get upset? Does it have a new bout of volatility? You know, I don't think so. And I think what you're looking at is when you look at the market's expectations of a rate cut in December that has come down significantly over the last several weeks here. But rate cuts for early next year are still, you know, close to 100 percent there. They're in like 90s right now. So I think the question is, if it comes in December or comes early next year, does it matter? Or if rates are generally coming down, which it looks like they are, is that a positive and supportive for the markets? And that, I would say, is actually the stronger case there. AI trade, does it have to remain the leadership part to get you to an 8,000 on the S&P next year

or the bullish, you know, a bullcase 8 to 82 like Abby has? Is it going to be led by this same trade? Mathematically, I think it has to. They're too big and too important. To be clear, it's not the only thing going on. If you look over court. Well, hey, I mentioned like Caterpillars up, but they all kind of play into the story, though. Well, there's a lot of derivatives. Caterpillar is one of them, they sell gas turbines, but court brought up the equal weight index. The equal weight index has been flat for basically six months. So if we look over the last three or six months, Google is really the only one of the large cap tech names that's among the leading performers.

There are AI derivatives, AMD, Amphanol, I mentioned earlier. Look at them today. Broadcom's ripping today. A lot of these chip stocks are up today. A lot of lab research is on there. So there's a lot of AI derivatives, but there's also Wonder Brothers Discovery. There's also a host. But that's an event-driven stock.

Fine, but not Las Vegas Sands, which is on the list. Also, best-performing names over the last three or six, a whole bunch of health care stocks are on that list. So there's other things going on in the market, but again, mathematically, they're just too big. And this is sort of the Adam Parker argument for some time now. If your benchmark is the S&P, you kind of have to be exposed to these names because mathematically, your ability to outperform without them is going to be de minimis. Well, you want to be exposed to them because they are the ones. where the action is like today. Breaking news right now, in fact, on Amazon. Mackenzie Segalos joins us now. And what's been a very busy day of newsmaking for this

company, what's this? Yes, it has been, Scott. Third announcement of the day, Amazon investing another $15 billion into northern Indiana to build an AI data center campus. Now, this will serve multiple customers, and a source tells me it's not directly tied to that new open AI contract. But what we do know is that the project adds 2.4 gigawatts of capacity enough to power 1.8 million homes, and it comes on top of that $11 billion anthropic campus already underway in the area. Since 2010, Amazon has invested more than $31 billion into the state. And a big piece of this is energy. Indiana is rapidly becoming an AI infrastructure hub thanks to an abundance of nuclear and coal power, plus generous local incentives, part of why you're seeing companies like GM and

Samsung build plants just down the road from Amazon. For this new buildout, though, Amazon is struck in agreement with the local utility NIPSCO, where the company will finance new generation and transmission lines without raising rates for residents. And Scott, this is actually Amazon's second data center announcement of the day. The company also unveiled a $50 billion plan to build AI and supercomputing infrastructure for the U.S. government. Yeah. It says it all where we are. You need multiple announcements in a single day to get all of your AI news out. Mack, thank you, McKenzie Segalis. This really does, you know, underscore the the moment where we are. There was an interesting story in the journal today. A flood of AI

bonds adds to pressure on the markets. I'm wondering how you think the market's going to continue to react to news like this, not that the financing terms were released, but since the start of September, the hypers like Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Oracle, have issued nearly $90 billion of investment-grade bonds, more than they had sold over the previous 40 months. Well, I think, so I think $90 billion in issuance is important to keep in context in terms of their market cap, right? They're $8 to $10 trillion in market cap. In total. $90 billion of debt issuance when you don't have any debt on your balance sheet is like not terribly concerning for us at the moment.

And, you know, you have to think about it from an investment perspective. Investors are sitting there saying, okay, you're spending 50% of your free cash flow on CAPX now. Does that make sense from a balance sheet perspective, right? So if you have the capacity to rebuild your, you know, some of your debt, then maybe take that on, right? Particularly given when you think about some of these deals being six times oversubscribed and going $3 billion over what they were originally asking, that's a pretty attractive setup for these companies. You know, Cort, it's hard to get people to focus on moving away from these names for the reasons that McKenzie just brought us from the news and the movement in the stock that happens on these types of announcements, as you see with Amazon right here. What was it? two and a half percent, two and two thirds percent on this news, along with the other announcements

they've made earlier today. And you want to be in these names, right? I mean, I think the question where people are saying, is AI getting too expensive, is this trade overdone, is different than being out of the trade, right? Because there's one thing where it's in a bubble and it actually has some sort of crash, or maybe it just doesn't outperform to the same kind of magnitude that it has been, because there's plenty of other categories that are more tracked evaluations, their earnings growth is expected to be higher, maybe pay a higher dividend.

You brought up health care, but health care is actually a good example of that, actually has all of those characteristics. So we absolutely want to own AI. We find as a lot of people have been very complacent and they're very happy that it's done so well, haven't made any changes that now you're so over-allocated to it that if it does have a downturn, it's going to affect your portfolio so much more.

So I think you want to look at other areas, but still own it. It's not like, you know, there's a lot of nervousness still in the market. I mean, if you, Oracle, yes, it's up today, but the stock of late doesn't look good at all. CDS, Oracle CDS, spiking to the highest since, October of 2022. Simomodi's sitting next to me here to talk more about this because you've been on the story every day for good reason. It's taken every day to stay on top of what's

been happening here and how the market's thinking about it. It's one chart that I think is being used as a gauge as we try to understand just the debt that all these hyperscalers are taking on. So we look at the five-year credit default swap for Oracle. It went from a two-year high about 10 days ago to a three-year high, a considerable move in a short period of time. What this tells us is that bond investors are taking on more insurance, more protection on this idea that cash flow is no longer the only funding mechanism for this AI buildout. What sets Oracle apart from the other hypers, not just negative free cash flow, a triple B credit rating which is lower than its peers in the hyperscalor space. It's also a latecomer to this whole

cloud computing business, whereas Amazon and Microsoft had a head start, and therefore the expectation that Oracle will need to spend a significant amount and will rely more. on the debt market in the coming eight to 12 months to remain competitive in this space. That, of course, is a concern that it will put pressure on its balance sheet. We talked about the credit rating and how more bond investors are becoming discerning on the types of loans and debt that these companies are taking out, whether it's an off-balance sheet facility or debt that's going to be put on their balance sheet. Add to that, I just want to bring up those comments from Salesforce CEO,

Mark Beniof, saying that Google's Gemini 3 is better than OpenEye's chat GPT. Those comments went viral, and I think when we talk about Oracle, why that could be significant is because Oracle's main customer right now is Open AI. It was September 10th when that $300 billion five-year deal with Open AI came out and what lit the fire on stock by 35%. And as you pointed out, Scott, it's giving back those gains and more since then. Yeah, thank you so much. Seema, you know what else? I mean, you look at Oracle today in what's a huge day for the NASDAQ, stock's up two-thirds of one percent. There's a reason why Seema is doing a special block here on Oracle CDS and not Microsoft CDS.

The company has $80 billion in net debt, something like that called $90 billion in total debt, $10 billion in cash. So they've got $80 billion. They're levered two and a half times. The other guys are not very levered to the point we brought up earlier on the paddle. They have strong cash flow. In the case of Oracle, they're going from basically cash flow break-even this year. They're probably going to be negative considerably next year on free cash flow because of the amount of cap-ex that they're going to have

endure. So their CDS and their debt is emblematic of the story, but I would argue it's the story for Oracle. Okay, so that's my next thing is I'm going to pivot to whether, you know, you have to be really careful now and just judge things idiosyncratically rather than just say, okay, Oracle's representative of a whole bunch of other stocks that now you need to be more wary of. Yeah, and I do think that is something you want to take a look at, because we look at portfolios, you want to be diversified, we want to own a little bit of all of these things, but there are going to be companies that are going to hit a lot more than others. And I think you're seeing this in the markets where investors are really showing their

risk-off behavior right now. I think you're seeing that with the cryptocurrencies, you're seeing that with the credit spreads on bonds for some of these AI companies. But people really are starting to question the actual fundamentals of these companies. So I think you are going to want to look at this company by company. Open AI is a really good example, which isn't publicly traded, but you have a lot of these companies which are not profitable. They're not expected to be profitable for several years in the future and people are starting to come around that idea. So I want to be in the eye trade, but yes, you want to look at these strategically. No, I mean, I think that's totally right. I think there is much more, this isn't a beta trade anymore. I think you really have to be, you know,

discerning in terms of where your exposure is. And again, thinking about where revenues are really concentrated, maybe in one vendor, how far out are they? Right, are they in the 2030s, for example, for certain companies, I think is very important for investors. We have the highs of the day. We should note here across the board. I'm not sure whether it's Mary Daley and the interview with the Wall Street Journal about a December cut leaning that way. Guys, let's show the S&P or the NASDAQ because that's really where the strength is today, not on the Dow, which is up half of a percent. The NASDAQ's pushing a 600 point gain today.

That's better than 2 and 2 thirds percent. That gives you a better picture on what's happening right now at this moment. There's the NASDAQ. The Russell's getting a lift, the 10 years down. That always helps. Talk about rate cuts. Small caps are a place you want to be. By the way, what do you think about the small caps?

We're relatively neutral on market cap basis, just because we haven't seen the positive earnings revisions from the small caps that we want to see to get more positive relative to large caps. Again, like going back to what is driving markets at the moment, it's still tech, right? And small caps don't have that exposure in terms of, you know, the market cap from a market cap perspective or a fundamental perspective. So until we start to see that earnings breadth, revisions improve for small caps, we're pretty neutral. You want your big broadening story, you know, get some rate cuts in the mix. Yeah. Otherwise, it's really hard. I mean, I know what you're talking about, but you're talking at the higher end on the cap space.

We're not talking about a pure broadening of the market that you might get better of if you're going to get into a better growth and rate cut environment. Maybe inflation starts to cooperate even further as well. My problem with small caps in general, and I say this, again, as someone solace invests in a decent number of small companies for some of the information asymmetries that you can find there. But the broadening trade is, I would argue and have argued, isn't necessarily about large cap into small cap. Why can't it be super large cap into smaller large cap or even to... Let's already bend that. Yes, I would argue it can continue doing that. I just, I don't view and have never viewed, well, if the Russell's underperforming, then the market is not broadening out.

I've argued and believed that you can have a broadening out that goes beyond the mega cap. And to my earlier point about the performance over the last three and six months, it's Cummins, its insight. It's Las Vegas Sands, I mentioned. Yeah, I know what you're talking about, but it's not restaurants and it's not retail. No, there are idiosyncratic stories within that, but discretionary stinks this year. Yes, most of the names. Pure broadening is like, okay, let's get some discretionary participation. Let's talk about that.

That's a very specific aspect. It's a big part of the economy. Fine, but you know what else is health care? Why can't I argue that now the XLV is basically at a 52-week high? We've broadened out into health care. So I agree with you that, listen, we have. earnings from Abercrombie, from Walmart, from Gap, etc. They've all said the consumer's doing fine. I'm on air a hundred times saying the consumer's doing fine. I see no reason to change that.

Part of the consumer is doing fine. That's fair. That's a longer segment. But there are clearly weakness isn't. Oh, we'll finish. Go ahead. I've got to go. We're depriving the audience of these. No, they know. They know already like what part of the consumer is doing well and what is it. We don't need to have a longer conversation about it. In fact, we're going to wrap it right now. Let's wrap up. Thank you very much. Court. Abby, thank you. All right. We're just getting started here. Up next, the amazing alphabet. That stock hitting another record high today. Up now more than 13%, excuse me,

since Gemini 3 launched just last week. Deepwater's Gene Munster. He stands by next to tell us more about that breakout. We're live at the New York Stock Exchange. You're watching Closing Fell on CBC. Welcome back. Alphabet hitting another record high today, now up 11%. Judd says the launch of its latest AI model, Gemini 3, last Tuesday. Our next guest says Alphabet will be the best Mag 7 stock for the next year. Deepwater's Gene Munster joins us now. That's a bold, bold, bold statement. Why? Scott, it's for two reasons. Number one is that this bear case, around them being able to compete and navigate, generative AI, taken away from search. That bear case has been essentially addressed

by them accelerating search from the June quarter, then again, comfortably beating by 300 basis points, the growth for the street in the September quarter, giving expectations that show that we're in a good place. Essentially, they're capturing all this renewed interest that people have in finding out information and tunneling that into search revenue. And the second piece,

is that this gets by what to why the stock is up today is that this Gemini showing that they in fact have the chops to compete toe to toe from a large language model perspective against open AI is encouraging for investors that the company's culture has been reignited to compete and so what that's important is that over the next year you're going to see more distribution that's what the playbook's going to change for next year around these these chatbots keep in mind that it's only about 20% of the Google population uses a chatbot daily. Big opportunity, and I think as they expand that, the multiple go up. So why wouldn't I assume that chat GPT will get more distribution and pull it away from whatever you think Gemini 3 is going to deliver? And then

the stock alphabet has already had an amazing run. So isn't a lot of what you're suggesting already in the stock? Well, let me take the second part first, is as of right now, it's trading at 28 times the next 12-month earnings, and that's in line with the rest of, I'll call it the MAG6. TEPAsel aside here, it trades at 170 multiple, so take that out of it. So yes, it has moved up, but essentially it's that regain on that first part that we talked about, competing in search, has kind of allowed the multiple to kind of get back on par. And so I think that that is understandable.

And then the second on the distribution question, if we look at what opening eyes done such a good job, they've been great at building the brand. Of course, they are the brand when it comes to chatbots. The good job part is them using Apple's distribution. That has not worked for them to date. They'll get another crack at that, of course,

next spring when the new Siri comes out. But if you think about Google's distribution, it's just habitual. At the end of the day, there's two and a half billion people use Google search daily. And that compares to my estimates of about 500 million daily chat GPT users. They give a metric of 800 million weeks. But I know one is young. One is incredibly mature. You would, of course, you would expect those numbers from a search engine that's been around for forever relative to open AI. The other thing is 30 times forward for alphabet must be

significantly ahead of their historical average. It is. If you look at the historical average, it's 20 over the past five years. It's a 23 multiple, so it is measurably above that. But I wouldn't put it in the category of egregious, and I think there is, I mentioned the multiple expansion, but there is upside to earnings as well. But I want to get back to this point about the old versus the new. I think that's really important just in terms of the brand piece to this. Indeed, is Open AI, Chat, GPDT, is the new generation i mean it's it is uh google is kind of has this kind of dusty kind of brand but at the end of the day again that google is a habit for people and so as they can convert and you're seeing it as

they're kind of encouraging AI mode when you you get an AI overviews with a typical search and then it gives you a problem it gives you a button for AI mode but if they start to steer some of that traffic into a peer Gemini mode you can see them building a big $20 month business that's 80% of open AIS business today is the consumer side of chat GBT. And so I think that there is, agree the brand is old, but I also think that it's also a habit. And I think that that's an opportunity for Google. All right. We'll see. Gene, I enjoyed the conversation. Thanks so much. That's Gene Munster. Thank you. Still ahead. What to watch for from Zoom when it reports earnings in overtime tonight. Closing bills back after this.

Joe DeGraph is back. Find out why he thinks a year-end bull run could be in jeopardy unless one sector in particular steps up big. Details when we come back. Let's send it now to Christina Parts of Novelos for a look at the biggest names moving into the close today. Hi, Christina. Hi, Scott. Well, let's start with shares of major cruise lines, including Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian. You can see on your screen, they're all trading lower. Carnival, for example, down 6%.

No immediate catalyst just yet, but these moves are notable. We'll keep an eye and get back to you on any type of headlines. Switching to shares of Novo Nordisk, sinking up to the company's trial for Alzheimer's, failed to actually meet its key target of actually slowing the disease's progression. Analysts had previously called the trial a long shot, but shares still hit a four-year low following the results and now are lower by almost 6%. And Alibaba shares popping right now after the Chinese e-commerce company said its new AI app, Quinn, had reached 10 million downloads within its first week of launching.

The numbers could but well for a longer-term effort to build a rival to OpenAIs chat GPT. shares up five and a half percent scott christina thank you christina parts of nevillus coming up next to set up on some key retail reports due out tomorrow what to watch for from best buy coals and more we'll do that inside the market zone which is coming up next we're now in the closing bell market zone cnbc senior markets commentator mike santoli and capital wealth planning's kevin simpson are here to break down these crucial moments of this trading day plus julia Justin, getting a setup for Zoom earnings out in OT. Courtney Reagan breaking down the big retail earnings, which are on deck.

Tomorrow, Michael, I begin with you. This is pretty strong bounce. It is a strong bounce. Kind of rebuilding the bull case in a sense. You're getting back the assurance of a likely December rate cut, which is gone since the October meeting. And you look at it, it's just round-tripped, the odds of getting that rate cut. And then in terms of the AI trade, I mean, I think we're sort of able to look on the bright side and say, look, we punished. meta, you know, we actually had a little bit of a gut check in the food chain stocks along

AI infrastructure, and maybe that's enough. You know, very mindful, though, of what Jeff DeGraff was somewhat saying, which is that you just barely touched the level that would say, okay, the risk reward has improved, you're oversold, it's time to recover, meaning that if this were it, we're getting off reasonably easy, but that's what happened sometimes this time a year. You made that case multiple times. I mean, I heard you think you said it on halftime. And the number of V-shaped bounces that you've had in this market is extraordinary in and of itself. It has been. I would say for the last two, three years, look, we can talk about why that might be.

But everyone's kind of looking at the same. By the way, earnings estimates are making new highs. You know, the backdrop is still okay. So it's not as if you have to overlook deteriorating fundamentals to make the bull case. You just have to make the case we reset enough with this pullback. Yeah, and I think people like Tony Pescarello doing just that in their notes over the last, you know, 72 or so hours. Borson, let's talk about Zoom and earnings in overtime. Well, Scott, Zoom's earnings will reveal how the company's investments in AI are paying off.

The likes of AI note-taking and meeting summaries. This comes after last quarter, Zoom CEO reassured investors when he said the company's AI adoption is translating into greater customer investment. Comments which helped bolster the company's stock up now nearly 10% since that last earnings report. Now, this quarter, analysts expect revenue to grow 3% and earnings to grow four per, earnings per share to grow 4%. But the stock is far underperforming the market, down 8% over the past 12 months, and off 76% from Zoom's pandemic highs. Now, with that falloff analysts are relatively bullish, 47% have a buy, 47% have hold, and just 6% have a sell. Scott?

All right, Julie, thank you. That's Julia Borson. retail on deck tomorrow, a bifurcated story to say the least. Who do we have? Absolutely. As if there's not enough going on in retail this week tomorrow, we're going to hear from Best Buy Coles, Dick Sporting Goods, Abercrombie, and Urban Outfitters. After last week's mixed messages about the consumer, to your point, Scott, executive commentary, that's going to be the focus. And with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, two of retail's biggest days of the year falling just in the next week, investors are going to want to know if any early shopping behavior can help

predict the outcome. So they're going to ask, how are things going now? With electronics, always a hot item, you know Best Buy is going to be one to watch. Coles just officially naming Michael Bender its CEO this morning. He's been interim since May. Shares are up almost 140% in that time. And the call will likely focus on his strategy beyond just the holiday. Now, today, he told me we are focused on trying to drive the business. We're still maybe heading towards the middle innings. And for me, that's a good thing. There are ideas to bring forward and challenges still to solve. Scott? All right, court, thank you. That's Courtney Reagan. Kevin Simpson, good to have you back. Are we better set up now? Is the risk reward better today than it was

last week? Yeah, I mean, I think this is a terrific way to start the week, Scott, especially after what we saw on Thursday. But I'm still thinking that post-election, it feels like a little bit more risk on than what we were seeing then. But this is great that the market's looking for breath. It's fantastic that it's being led by the tech stocks. As much as we want to talk about a bubble, we need these companies to deliver. Here, we're just talking about earnings, which is also super important. If the consumer can carry us through this holiday spending season, I think that could be a terrific setup, not just for the end of the year, but for the start of next year as well. We're the highs of the day, I mean, especially in NASDAQ is up, you know, more than

600. We're pushing 3%. Do we feel like we got enough shaken out or whatever had to be dealt with last week that we're just back riding this this trade now um no i don't feel like we got enough nearly enough that we had a 5% broad market pullback and we bounced off that which is great but if you look under the surface you know i mentioned the election is kind of a catalyst there's a lot of stocks that we're trading down 20 25 30% they weren't the names that we talk about every day perhaps they were a little bit less profitable businesses so maybe from a broad perspective we think, oh, it's another V-shaped bounce. But I think there's more to it. And I think that's very healthy. A lot will depend on what the Fed does in December. That's going to be the huge

debate. Do they cut? Did they not cut? To me, Scott, I think it's a little bit less important because if they don't cut in December, they'll cut in January. If they cut in December, probably not in January. Market likes to pull forward. We all do. But I think that as much as we'll be riding on it in the short term, it may be less impactful, intermediate to long term. What's the most exciting thing you've done in the market lately? Have you used any of that weakness to add to some of the positions that you like the best? Yeah, I think the best trade we did on Friday was adding to Caterpillar. We had been stopped out of Honeywell on Thursday.

We wanted to kind of stick to the industrial theme. And believe me, I love the Honeywell story. It's not a question of us thinking that the stock is broken. It just really has to do with us getting stopped out. And look at the Pop Caterpillar had today. So certainly a nice trade there. We also added to some Microsoft on Friday, sticking with that mega AI theme. They're not issuing debt.

It's a free cash flow machine. Stock was 17% off its highs. So we talk about some of the names that I mentioned earlier in terms of being beyond the 5% pullback. Microsoft would fall into that category. Hit its 200A and we added to the position. Mike, I mean, we just put a stat up, what was that, NASDAQ, best back-to-back since November 3rd. gives you an idea of, you know, it's been a minute since the NASDAX for sure, put some good stuff together.

It is true. Although, again, you know, these big chunks happen sometimes when the market's kind of agitated, right? So we're gaining back a good piece of what we lost last week. We're up to levels on the S&P that we first got to October 1st. We are still 1% below the morning high from last Thursday. It's all to say that, you know, there's work to be done to prove that we're not just kind of flopping. around this trading range for a little while. So, you know, again, I think Bitcoin's stabilizing, net bullish. You don't have to worry about people necessarily getting margin called out in terms of risky assets. All we're getting is a bounce in some of the high beta stuff. That's a one-day

phenomenon so far until proven otherwise. And the equal-weighted S&P, it's underperforming. Got more new lows on the NASDAQ, the new highs today, new 52-week lows. So it shows you there's still a little bit of, you know, kind of flotsam and jetsam in the market kind of being left. from this little stress period right now. So I don't think it necessarily means that we're in a dangerous spot, but I don't think also you can assume that it's back to the old highs with the old assumptions. I do think it's really fascinating, Alphabet, doing what it's doing

and getting really hot to the upside at this point in terms of getting overbought. We'll see if that sparks some kind of re-rotation into the other Mag 7. Yeah, we have the two-minute warning there. Kevin Simpson, thank you for joining us. Guys, can we throw up an intraday of Bitcoin since Mike mentioned? And I was literally going to go there next to. I think it's highs of the day, up better than 5% now, $89,000.

This thing was below 80, you know, last week. And it made a lot of people really nervous. It was a sign of many different things within this market. Stabilization here, gosh, may be one of the most important or if not the most important thing to watch these days. It's important in terms of just checking off the box to say that. that we don't have big money trapped. It's not necessarily like some kind of warning signal about the liquidity environment.

And that to me is all it is. It's not so much, okay, now we're firmly risk on again. It's just as long as it's not going down every day. And as you said, over the weekend, it actually started to get a bid. And that allowed, I think, the S&P to have the half percent futures, you know, indicated open on Sunday night. That's all to the good.

So I feel like, you know, you're on more stable footing. It doesn't mean anything much has changed from here. And, you know, the equal-weighted consumer discretionary is flat today. So it's not as if everyone's picking up by the stuff that you hit the hard day. Good point. As always. Mike, thank you very much. Bell rings us out green.

Nice bounce back to start the week. I'll see tomorrow.