Closing Bell - Closing Bell: 1/20/26

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

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 renewed tariff talking this now very unsettled market. The scorecard with 60 to go in regulation looks like this. Cut to the chase worth of lows. Stocks have been down from the jump today as President Trump escalates his trade war with Europe, this time over Greenland, the S&P falling below its 50-day moving average for the first time since late last year, down 2% as we speak. so it's given up 6,800 there.

The Dow is off near 2%. NASDAQ is off a little bit more than that. Yield's shooting higher today, along with gold and silver, the dollar falling, and the VIX rising above 20. Tech is the biggest loser as most of the mega-cap names fall today. Not all names are lower, though, standouts including, and you heard Brian talking about this a moment ago, Sandisk is a big winner today. Intel's up, and so is arm holdings. All of that takes us to our talk of the tape.

What now? for a market that was off to a very good start to the year and seemingly poised to continue this record rally. Let's ask our panel, CNBC contributor, Trivariates Adam Parker, New Edge Welts, Cameron Dawson, and PNC's young Yuma. It's good to have one and all with us today on what is turning out to be a pretty big and somewhat bleak day in the market. What do you do about it? Well, I mean, I'm not surprised, right? You know, we did this dinner with eight risk officers last week, and I couldn't get anyone to say anything bearish. about anything at all.

And we've learned that panicking about geopolitical risk or these macro things is just prevented you from making money for forever. So it just didn't seem like complacency was at peak, to be honest with you. So I'm not surprised we're getting a little bit of a pullback. Ultimately, I don't think you'd do anything because I think earning season is gonna be fine.

The guidance for April will probably be reasonable. And usually we don't implement the most extreme policies we articulate out of Washington. So probably risk awards skewed to the positive first short-term trade. In other words, Cameron, you take everything that Adam said and you say, best strategy, cut out the noise, focus on the fundamentals. And as Adam said, the reason why people are so bullish because the fundamentals seem to be great, ex-social media, Greenland, Powell.

I could go on, but why? So the fundamentals have been great, and that is what powered the market higher all through 2025, is because you were revising up earnings estimates. But what's interesting is that over the past month, the market has stalled, but so have earnings estimate revisions. And I think the reaction to the first week of earnings last week was interesting. Banks came out and they reported strong numbers, and the stocks went down. And the stocks went down because there were high bars, high expectations, high valuations,

everything that we know. The other thing that happened is that analysts have responded to that first week of earnings by actually cutting their first quarter earnings estimates. just slightly at the margin, we're starting to see people remove a little bit of the optimism out of 2026 earnings, thus the volatility that we're seeing. Okay, so yield shooting higher today, Young You, and that has obviously made the stock market a little nervous. It's one reason why tech is down the way it is. I raised that issue because just before we came on the air, Black Rock's Rick Reeder posted on social media the following. Of course, Black Rock is the world's largest asset manager. He is

CIO of global fixed income. He's head of the global allocation team. If I remember his title correctly, a title that may one day include FedShare, who knows. He posted this in which he says, quote, CIO chart of the week. A reminder amid all the daily noise that the U.S. tenure has spent more than two years oscillating around a remarkably stable center. While headlines jump, markets react, and every data point feels pivotal since touching 4% in October. of 22, the U.S. 10 year has averaged 4.13% with a median of 4.17. Noise moves fast, but fundamentals move slower. This to me sounds like what others have said

today. All of this other stuff is simply noise. If you would have bought stocks on the other bouts of noise, you've done pretty well. Do we do the same thing today? Thanks, Scott. It's great to be here. I think there is a lot of noise in there, but we can't ignore the idea that tail risk has increased a bit. Is it still tail risk? Yes, it's tail risk. But if we're thinking of the uncertainties that are being heaped on the market here, risk sentiment does matter, at least in the short term. So yes, I do think it's right. You let this play out. We're not likely to have the most damaging scenarios come to pass, and there could be better buying opportunities. But that doesn't mean we're not in for a bumpy ride here until we get

more clarity. Did you think that was the case before the issue of Greenland and these new tariffs cropped up? I thought when the previous instance, when there was discussion about what's going to happen with the Fed chair, that was starting to layer on another level of uncertainty that the market is having a little bit of difficulty bearing and pushing through. And when you just have more and more uncertainty, it just makes that struggle to the next level for the market a little bit more challenging. But I mean, it's interesting. In the face of all of the noise around the attacks on Chair Powell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was still closer at a point. to 50,000 than it was to 49.

Now, of course, we've given up 49 today, and the S&P 500 was close to 7,000. So it had managed to ignore all that because it thought that it had moved past the issue of tariffs in general. Whatever the worst case scenario was, we put that out of our minds because of the capitulation that happened in Washington. But here we are, once again, thinking about that issue. So you're telling me that this is different than before. Well, I think it's additional.

No, you know, it's nonlinear. So if you can have an element of uncertainty and multiple uncertainties that the market can bear reasonably well. But when you start heaping one on top of another, it gets to the point where the risk sentiment just starts to peel back. And the extreme scenarios, although they're unlikely, they're not far-fetched at this point. And so I think the market is recognizing that and some of that risk sentiment that, although the fundamentals are very positive, risk sentiment matters as well. And that edge is taking off in the market. The reason why all of Parker's pals at dinner were bullish is because of exactly what he articulated. If you say, well, what if the tariffs become this or what if the situation with Greenland escalates into that,

bullish people come back and say, yeah, but look at earnings. And the Fed is still has a bias towards cutting. And we're still getting all this deregulation. And we still think that, you know, early sniffs of animal spirits are going to be lasting for this. this year. And look how the market's broadened. That's telling its own story. And look how much the economy's growing more than people thought that it might. But it all starts about where you are relative to expectations. Because when we were going through the tariff fight initially back in the first and second quarter of 2025, everybody thought it'd be the worst thing in the world. GDP

would grind to a halt. You saw GDP growth estimates get revised all the way down to about 0.5%. Now we have this world where we say tariffs aren't as bad. So GDP growth estimates have been revised higher, corporate earnings estimates are 15%. The VIX was low going into this. You were trading at 22 times forward. There was not a single strategist on the street that was expecting a down year. So it all depends on whether or not

that capitulation happens in the face of what we could argue was a certain degree of complacency that we were only going to get tailwinds coming out of D.C. Why wouldn't I buy the NASDAQ today? I mean, the reason you wouldn't would only be if you think this turns into a real growth scare. If you go back to what camera's talking about, But there was a growth scare. People thought these tariffs are going to impede growth big time and maybe even have declining.

So I guess a reason, a legitimate bear case would be, you know, I was talking to a European CEO last week who was like, look, if this Greenland thing is real, we're going to have a recession in Europe. Like we're fracturing Europe from U.S. you could have a lot of different business. There could be a scare about growth in that sort of regard. It could be scared about growth here. But, I mean, the estimates I've seen are like 1% that it would impact U.S. growth. But sentiment begets, you know, you see it both directions. You're asking me to articulate something I don't believe in at the current moment, which is, could you get a negative sentiment sprawl?

I'm sure you could. And I think Cameron points spot on on bank earnings. If you look, people took JP numbers down, B of A, Wells, not more insular Goldman, but you're starting to see it's not a one-way street on estimates. Our work shows that Trivarity, the estimates in the second half year are really way too high. And hockey stick. One of the things I thought was really interesting in this whole big eight companies versus nine through five. 900, 9 through 500 are expecting massive net margin expansion in 2026, which means people have in the numbers a lot of AI productivity.

Moreover, if you're bullish on breadth, what you're saying is the market's going to totally change how it rewards stocks. It doesn't matter that the 9 through 500 have gross margins down. All that matters is net up. That's a big leap for me. So I actually think a bare case or a problem for many, you know, people who manage equities versus the S&P is going to be if today, if today's Today is a buying for tech, but not for everything else. The scare kind of removes the bread rally a little bit. I guess I'm asking is today I just picked out the NASDAQ because it's the worst of the day.

But why wouldn't today be a buy of everything else also? I mean, if you still believe that economic growth is going to be stronger than people thought, and you don't believe that the president's going to do anything at the finish line here that's going to sacrifice a good story that he has to tell about growth, Like, is he really going to try and do something to negatively impact the U.S. economy when he's thinking about the midterms already and talking about affordability and all this other stuff? Thinking about what the ramifications of that are down the road? Do you really think that he's going to follow through on the deepest of whatever the threats are? We don't think that, but we do think that we could let this play out a little bit longer.

Is today a buying opportunity? It probably is if you have some capital to deploy and you're doing it systematically. but there could be more information to come out and it could go either way. And if you're looking at where we are today, we're just down a few percent. It's not a major pullback yet. And so we do think there's possibility and a very realistic possibility for things to go perhaps a more negative turn before they get better. And that's something that investors could want to position for.

Does it matter if, as the UBS CEO was talking about today in a CNBC interview out in Davos, he said, quote, I don't see any path of normalization in the near future. Now, he was talking about lower volatility and more stability. Does it matter if he's correct? So what if there's no clear path to whatever he thinks a normalization is of volatility? Does that matter to how we should see the markets? Oh, well, we've been in such a low volatility world that that has allowed what we can see with things like leverage within FINRA margin loan balances rising by 40% over the last. six months, a really important statistic to show how much risk appetite that there has been.

You've seen a lot of people put a lot of money into very risky parts of the market. Look at the Russell 2,500. The top 10 contributors to the upside this year have been driven by names that are up on average by 47 percent, and two of those names have no earnings, and the other eight are trading at some like 80 times earnings, which is showing you that there's still this risk-off or risk-on kind of bid to the market. So if you were to go into a more volatile period, could that suggest that maybe some of the good things that have driven the U.S. economy, which has been a lot portion of the equity market, could that challenge the ability for consumers to look through some of the volatility? All right. So the Dow was just down 900 points. And it was pretty much at the lows when we had come on the air today at 3 o'clock in the east, and we'll track it right to the finish.

But this point real quick and last to you. To Cameron's point, you know, money going towards perceived riskier parts of the market, a lot of unprofitable stocks within the S&P, within the Russell, excuse me. Right. Russell's up 6.5% year-to-date. The NASDAQ's negative year-to-date. The S&P is now negative year-to-date. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is barely holding on to positive territory year-to-date.

And there it is down a little more than 900 points. Is there some come-uppance here for the Russell? I think so. I think what Cameron was saying is if financial conditions tighten in a way. that's bad for risk-taking and it should take the air out of some of the junkier stocks that, you know, overpopulate the small cap on a relative basis. So that's why I kind of made that comment. I think the grade 8, mag-7, whatever, could outperform a little bit,

and that could hurt people on a relative basis. Just because when financial positions tighten, you're not really worried about the viability of those businesses. And a lot of these things, you know, are impaired when they tighten. So I think volatility, higher could mean tighter conditions, harder to borrow money, hard to borrow at a good rate. and that shouldn't be good for whatever, what, Goldman's profitless basket was up 14% year-to-date or something last week or that kind of stuff.

I mean, that's where the air in the market is, I think, and I'd probably sell that and buy some of the higher quality U.S. larger caps as a relative trade. Yeah, I haven't seen a day like this, obviously, in a little while. It feels weird, right? We're off to a pretty good star, yeah. It feels weird to have. You go to dinner and everybody's talking about,

hey, we're going to have a great year in the market again. Right, right. We'll see. Adam, thanks, Cameron. Thanks, thank you. We'll see all of you soon. We are counting down as well to Netflix earnings. They are after the bell tonight. The company revising its offer as well today for Warner Brothers Discovery to an all-cash bid.

Julia Borson joining us now with those details. Hi, Julia. Well, Scott, perhaps even more important than what Netflix's quarterly numbers are is what it says about its Warner Brothers Discovery deal, which it just amended to be all cash as of this morning. Now, that eliminates market-based volatility and offers more certainty, along with a smoother path to a stockholder vote in April. But Netflix shares are down 15% since it announced the Warner Brothers deal back on December 5th. So the question is, what does this deal reveal about the challenges that Netflix faces? HSBC saying Netflix's bid to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery is, quote, driven in our view, by an operating environment that has grown more challenging, as reflected in recent stagnant engagement.

And engagement will be in focus for investors. They're looking for growth of Netflix's ad tier, which Netflix said had 190. million global monthly active viewers. Now, Netflix no longer reports subscribers. So because of that, the key number to watch is revenue growth. The question is whether the growth rate can accelerate from the third quarter. It's currently projected to slow just slightly. Back over to you. All right, Julia, thanks for that setup. That is Julia Borson. Now let's bring in Netflix shareholder, Jason Snype in Big Technologies, Alex Kanchowitz, both are CNBC contributors, and it's great to have

both of you with us. Jason Snype, you first. You are the shareholder. And I thought Julia laid it out perfectly. As much as you'd like to talk about, hey, what are the earnings going to be? What did the last quarter delivered? Everything seems to be overshadowed by the deal, the deal, and the deal. There's no doubt about that, Scott. It's obviously taking all the oxygen and what's going to happen with this Warner Brothers deal. And here's my story. I think this is obviously a compelling offer, all-cash deal to accelerate the shareholder vote, as Julia explained in April. I think the concern for the market is, one, Netflix has always been an organic player, right?

M&A has not been their game, and they're obviously entering into a newsfeer with this move. And I think the other piece is, from a regulatory perspective, antitrust, what does this mean for the industry if they were to acquire these assets, which I do believe will be accretive. It's Netflix's game to lose.

They are the clear winner already in the streaming business from my vantage point. So I'm going to be patient here. I think tactically it could continue to be, dead money, but you want to be on the other side. If there is news that this deal is going to go through and they're able to jump over this hurdle from a regulatory standpoint, you know how the market reacts. It reacts before the move actually happened. So you want to be a part of that price action on the swing upwards. Hey, Kay, how do you see this? I mean, if to Jason's point,

you just have a sea change in the way that Netflix sees its business from When Ted Sarando said, you know, we're builders, we're not buyers. And then obviously that changed because they'd like to be buyers of WBD. And as Julia laid out, no matter what is overhanging this name in terms of the numbers, everybody wants to know about the deal. And whether they think it could be accepted, whether they think the regulators could approve it, and when all of this could happen, and when it could matter to the bottom line. Well, I think your builders, not buyers, until a once-in-a-time buying opportunity comes on your plate.

And I think that's exactly what's happening with Netflix. Netflix has to go out and buy Warner Brothers Discovery to the point where it's deciding to change the fundamentals of its business because the other side of this is you let your competitors run away with Warner Brothers Discovery. And remember the position that Netflix is in. It is the unopposed streaming leader, not unopposed, but certainly unrivaled streaming leader at this point. if Warner Brothers Discovery were to go to a competitor, let's say it would go to Amazon or Paramount, then all of a sudden there's two giants, not just one,

and you can't let that happen if you're Netflix, just from a business standpoint, and obviously there are regulatory concerns here. And so I don't think the stock should be being hit because it's going after it. The one thing the stock will waver on is the uncertainty, and that's what Netflix is trying to take care of with this all-cash bid.

Do they, Jason, give any more certainty to you as a shareholder based on the number they deliver on the ad tier, for example, which seems to be where all of the focus is. They don't give big sub numbers anymore. But Julia just said the ad tier has 190 million monthly active. It seems to be that's where the action is. There's no doubt about it. I mean, the ad business is a billion dollar business. I think the ad-supported tier numbers will be strong. I think revenue numbers, we're expecting around $12 billion of revenue, EPS, up around 30% expected, 55% per share. So I think the numbers, like the core numbers away from the saga that's going on with this deal will be productive. I think the content slate

was very rich through the fourth quarter. We saw some really interesting live sports, you know, with the NFL games, the Anthony Joshua, Jake Paul fight, I think was very productive. So I think the core numbers will be positive, and I think that's why I continue to appreciate the fundamentals of this stock away from obviously what's going on with the deal. And to Alex's point, I think they have to make this bid. I think that it's important for the streaming business for them as a stock and a company going forward. Alex, you're focused on the ad data as well. Yeah, I think it's extremely important for Netflix. Obviously, you know, they stop reporting subscriber numbers, but advertising numbers,

are a good proxy for growth. We know a lot of the growth is happening on the ad tier. And especially if there are good numbers on advertising for Netflix, the stock really looks like a good buying opportunity. They're down 30% from the last quarter from October. Despite reporting great numbers then, obviously there are these overhangs, the uncertainty. But if Netflix does turn in a good report, if advertising looks good, I don't see any reason to stay away from that stock right now. Alex, last to you and quick if you could. What happens if Netflix does not get done? WBD. It becomes much more difficult for the company to dominate over time.

And like, I'm going to talk strictly from a competitive perspective here. If Netflix were to bring Warner Brothers Discovery and it ends up having pricing power, a content library that would be very difficult to rival. I'm just going to throw a company out of left field. Let's say Amazon decides to acquire them. Then you put Prime Video together with the WBD assets and all of a sudden people are going to make a decision. Do I want Netflix or do I want this, you know, mega Prime bundle? That is a decision that they wouldn't have to make if Netflix does make the acquisition. That's why Netflix is trying to make it.

And I think it'll be much better for Netflix if it actually is able to push it through, then allow it to go to somebody else. As we'll leave it there. Appreciate the conversation very much. That's Alex and Jason. We'll talk to both of you soon. We're just getting started here on this closing bell and a nasty one in the markets for sure. About 900 is the decline for the Dow today, just off the lows, but not by much.

We'll have much more on the sell-off coming up. discretionary the hardest hit sector right now and we've got star retail analyst matthew boss standing by where are there opportunities if anywhere in this pullback and later we'll debate if right now could be the best time to be a retail investor we'll explain we're live at the new york stock exchange exchange you're watching closing bell on cnbc we are back with the dow still down about 900 points discretionary is the worst sector of the day big question Now, how long can the consumer keep spending? It might be the most important question hanging over the economy. Our next guest is the top-ranked retail analyst on Wall Street.

joins us now with his take and the names to own and avoid. He is Matthew Boss, and he is with J.P. Morgan. It's great to have you here. Great to be back. So it's been maybe the biggest story of the entire bull market, the consumer's ability to hang in there. I know AI is a big deal. But if we had a collapse of the consumer, I don't think the stock market would look the way it does. Despite all of that, how long can they hang in? I'd agree with you, Scott. The thing is the consumer is really strong. I think we're coming off the best holiday in five years by our measure. Consumer spending is up mid-single digits. That's almost double the annual pace pre-pandemic. And what we're seeing, it's across the board, meaning you have 60 trillion of wealth creation at the high end. You have a middle-income consumer that continues to spend because the job picture has been robust.

And the low-income consumer, I think, is going to be the recipient of higher tax refunds and stimulus to kick off here into the front half of the year. So do you scoff at what feels now like a cliche of the K-shaped economy? Is that real? So we see it a little bit different. I think what you're seeing is robust spending across the board, meaning I think it's more that you're seeing resilience at the lower income. You're seeing a selective consumer at the high income, meaning nobody out there is just frivolously spending, and that's benefiting what I would

call value retail. That's why off-pricers are showing results that we haven't seen in years. I think you're seeing dollar and discount stores doing really well. And I think the last piece in there is best-in-class brands, meaning the brands that have spent, the Ralph Lawrence, the coach brands, the brands that have actually spent on top of funnel marketing. So I think you're seeing what I would call a selective consumer and a concentrated consumer. It's not a rising tide. I think that's what has thrown people a little bit off track, is thinking consumer good, we can invest in all in retail. It really hasn't been that case. It's been a lot more selective. Winners versus losers. If you make the case that the consumer is very strong, and even at the low end, resilient,

I think is the word that you use. Has that forced you to rethink the names that you like, perhaps thinking that you weren't going to like those names or they weren't going to do well if the consumer, especially towards the bottom, was collapsing in a way more dramatically than they otherwise might be now? I think more so what we're looking for is cornerstone portfolio, multi-year compounders. And so TJX is a great example of that. Every single twist and turn of the economy, TJX has come out stronger. I think on the other side of this as we move 26 and into 27, I think you're going to see that bucket expand. Ross Stores is an opportunity, in my opinion, also within that off-price world.

Dollar General, Dollar Tree, five below, Ollie's. And like I said, I think it's not going to be as much of a swing, big hit, and then see the other side of it, as much as I think it's going to be companies that can gain size and scale, continue to invest in take share. And I think that's where I was pointing before on a Ralph Lauren or on a tapestry or on some of these other, class brands, um, or sports that I think can actually grow, but grow for a multi-year period. All right. Let's finish on Lulu, okay, which you remain neutral on. Yeah. Which is embroiled in this CEO change. You have the founder with the proxy fight and so forth. What happens this company? And how does it, you know, form your view on what happens in the future with the stock?

Yeah, Scott, so there's a lot of noise out there right now. I think in the end, this all comes down to execution and driving growth again within North America. We have a note out actually this morning on Lulu and a second note actually walking through some of our field work. They're not off to a great start. They actually are recalling a product line as we speak, given the sheer nature of some of the fabrication. They've had these issues in the past. I think what you really need is as they've laid it out, 35% newness by spring. But I think what they're really walking through is that this is going to be an evolution. It's not going to be an overnight switch. And there's a lot of competition. When you look at Allo and Viori, there's a lot of competition in that space. And if anything, I think for a multi-year period,

Lulu Lemon over-earned coming out of the pandemic when we had the stay at home, when we had the comfort and we had the lounge, really, as the number one appeal. That doesn't sound like somebody who literally just raised their price target, the 209 from 203. Well, I think you could argue the worst is potentially behind them. And that actually was over the last couple years where you had the softening, the coming off of the Kegger Math in China, international, which was also at the same time as the abrupt change in the U.S. And that led to heavy excess markdowns. I think that part of it you can make the argument is in the rearview mirror. Mid-teens multiple for a 20 percent margin profile that is growing revenues still in the high single digits. To me, that's appropriate. That's $209.

All right. Well, we shall see, and it's always great to talk to you, Matt. Thanks. Great to be back. All right, that is Matt Boss. We are at 3.30, exactly, on the East Coast. The Dow is now down 840 points. The S&P is off by more than 2%. We are watching that closely. It is not just Netflix reporting in OT. We'll run you through what to watch for when United Airlines reports at the top of the hour as well. The bell is back right after this. Well, we are back on the bell. It is a down day on Wall Street, but a big, day in the state of Indiana. Because some are calling Indiana's improbable run to winning college football's national championship, the greatest turnaround story in the history of sports. But what does the win mean for the football program's long-term value? CNBC, senior sports reporter Mike O'Zanian joins us now with more. I mean, I know everybody is throwing out words like a credible, amazing, but it truly is. Scott, it really is. And I have to tell you, full disclosure, my friend,

My daughter's a freshman at Indiana, so I just want to put that out there. That's fair game. I don't know if she went to the game or not, but she is a happy student. A happy student. We valued the school in our last college athletic program valuations at $775 million. And I have to tell you, my friend, this win, along with last season's great run, is going to propel Indiana's athletic program, I suspect, into the top 15 into next year or so. This is going to drive NIL money, which is name, image, and likeness.

It's going to drive money from donors. I'm sure you're aware that Mark Cuban, who went to Indiana, has put a lot of money into the school. So this is really going to propel the school's athletic program forward. Let me ask you this. I'm looking at the official college sports valuations for 2025 that you yourself obviously did. Texas is number one, Ohio State is number two. The last three national champions in college football are now Indiana, Ohio State, and Michigan. So why is Texas still able to keep that top spot?

Tremendous amount of revenue, particularly from donors. And this is what Indiana is looking to increase going forward. If you go back over the last five years, on Indiana football, spending has almost tripled to $62 million. dollars. So they really have ramped up what they're putting into the football program. Coach Signetti himself got a new contract a couple of months ago. It's making him one of the highest paid coaches in all of college football. He's going to get about $4 million in bonuses from this championship run on top of a salary that pays over $11 million a year. So the school's commitment to football has tremendously grown over the last couple of years. This was predominantly

for decades of basketball school, as you know, Bobby Knight and all of that. And they've really shifted. The school itself has money that it also puts into football, you know, what they call institutional money that has also ramped up over the last couple of years to support not just the coach, but his whole coaching staff. So they're behind us 110%. I can't help but think, though, that the success as remarkable as it is, and it may, in fact, have an impact. impact on the finances of the program can also be fleeting for a program like this. I mean, Fernando Mendoza is leaving. He, obviously, a Heisman trophy winner and a remarkable athlete and quarterback, but it's

not easy necessarily for a school like this to back it up and to remain a player for years to come, even though it was these last two. Great, great points, Scott. And I think what you just said, a lot of people have missed. And I think, though, that's one of the reasons why they're paying the coach so much money. He's almost, you know, they have the portal now, right? So you've got all these players every year in college football that are constantly changing schools. This is something new over the last few years.

So the coach's ability to recognize talent that some of the wealthier or more schools that have more money that they miss, that he picks up and brings over. It's almost like moneyball, except for college football, if you will. And his ability to do that has really propelled the football program. He's already brought in some players to replace Mendoza. He's got a new quarterback. He's got some offensive wide receivers. So he's already been working on that even before the championship game. Yeah.

Well, he is a – well, because you can't – there's no time to waste, obviously. And he is a great, great coach, and that was a great, great win. Mike, thanks. Thanks, Scott. All right, that's Mike Ozanian. Coming up next, here's a question for you. is right now the best time ever for retail investors. The new headline that got us asking that question today.

Kate Rooney following the money for us. Plus, we're all over, obviously, just pullback in the market. 860 is the decline on the Dow. We're back after this. We are back on the bell. Here's a provocative question. Has there ever been a better time to be a retail investor? From talk of 24-hour trading to the proliferation of prediction markets,

the so-called average Joe has more options than ever to be involved in the market. are Kate Rooney following that money for us today and joins us with more. Hi, Kate. Scott, you're absolutely right. There have never been more options out there. We are seeing more products pop up to cater to retail investors. So just this week, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange announced a venue for 24-7 trading of what they call tokenized stocks. That's essentially a digital token that represents ownership of an asset. It's traded on a blockchain. Proponents say it's more efficient, settles instantly, and all of this was inspired by crypto markets. So it's a part of a broad.

push we're seeing towards round the clock trading, capitalizing on demand from individuals to trade on weekends and then overseas demand for U.S. equities. Nasdaq also recently moved to all-day trading. You got Schwab, Robin Hood, CBOE, Interactive brokers also moving in this direction. Robin Hood has been all over both of those trends with both 24-7 trading and tokenized equities, even if you remember this, attempting to offer private shares, which did see some pushback from the companies, including OpenAI. Finally, there has been this rush you mentioned, a slice of the booming predictions market. So according to Dune, notional volume there, you can see on the chart topping $6 billion and a report from one research firm Eilers

and Kregich predicts these markets could have hit a trillion dollars in volume just by the end of the decade. Almost half of that, they say, it's going to be sports related. All right. Kate, thank you. That's Kay Rooney. Thanks, Scott. Still ahead. We are tracking the biggest movers as we head into this close today. Pippa Stevens is standing by forth with that. Hi, Pippa. Hey, Scott. Well, one group of stocks is bucking the sell-off and digging into some gains. The names to watch when closing bell return. We are less than 15 from the closing bell. Let's get back now to Pippa Stevens for the stocks as

she's watching. Tell us what you see, Pips. Well, it's got 3M shares are sinking, despite a slight beat beat on the top and bottom line for the industrial giant. Now, the midpoint of the company's full-year profit outlook coming in below Wall Street estimates amid lingering macroeconomic and demand uncertainty, those shares down 7%. And IT hardware stocks are also falling after Morgan Stanley downgraded the sector, amid a pullback in spending and rising component costs, Netapp, one of the hardest hit down about 9%. Logitech and HPE also lower. And gold miners are surging after the metal hit another record high,

up 9% for the year amid rising geopolitical tensions. Investors are focusing on the safety trade and seeking out those hard assets. That's pushing the GDX to a record with Newman-Agnacow, Wheaton precious metals, and Fresnillo all at multi-year highs. Scott? Pippa, thank you.

Pippa Stevens. up next. We're getting you set up for Netflix. Once again, top of the hour. Those earnings come out. That and much more in the market zone. All right, we're in the closing bell market zone. CNBC senior markets commentator, Mike Santoli. And J.P. Morgan's Tom Kennedy are here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus, we are on earnings watch, Phil LeBow standing by ahead of United Airlines numbers. And Julia Borson, of course, with a final look at Netflix. Mike, I was thinking about your big show coming up at 4. We're all excited for it.

I know you are as well. And I know you're going to be all over with Mel, of course, this market selloff today. For sure. Yeah, we're going to surround it from a bunch of angles, Scott. Also, really get into maybe why we continue to melt since we spoke in the noon hour there. And also across a bunch of asset classes, because it really has been pretty much encompassing everything here. So aside from just the basic stock market move, we do have Krishna-Guha, of Everkore. who's going to talk about whether, in fact, this Sell America trade might stick,

as opposed to being just a hiccup. Also going to look at this monster moving natural gas, what it might mean for some of the energy stocks as we get into this cold snap. The metals trade. That's been really the only escape valve for people looking for a haven. It's been gold and silver. So obviously going to try to catch hold of that one as well, Scott. All right, good stuff.

We'll see you get after it at 4 o'clock with Melissa Lee, Mike. All right, thank you. All right. to Phil A beau, United Airlines, a big one, especially after what we heard from Delta a week or so ago, Phil. Scott, let me give you a few numbers to focus on when we get the United numbers after the bell. First of all, there's pre-tax and operating margins. This has been a strength for Scott Kirby since he's been CEO of United Airlines. What were they in the fourth quarter?

Also, premium and international demand. Talk about an area where United has been making a, that's been a huge area of strength. And is there a tariff headwained potentially in the first quarter as this Greenland situation heats up tensions between the United States and Europe? That's one of the things we'll be talking with Scott Kirby about. As you take a look at shares of United Airlines, keep in mind the number to look for in terms of earnings per share. The street's expecting 294. And we will be talking with Scott Kirby exclusively coming up on fast money, not only about the fourth quarter, but more importantly, what is he expecting for 2026? Scott, we'll send it back to you.

I'm still so struck, Phil, by the Delta numbers. The growth at the very front of the cabin versus everything else was pretty remarkable. The K economy. And look, premium and international, when you look at the airlines, that's where Delta and United have pulled away from the rest of the domestic airlines. They are growing much faster than their competitors here in the United States. We'll see what the fourth quarter was like for United Airlines. We already know what it was for Delta.

All right, Phil, good stuff. We'll look forward to that as we are looking forward as well to Netflix. As we know, Julia, once more, get us teed up here. Well, the Netflix reports the key number to watch is revenue and whether revenue growth accelerates from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. Now, revenue is projected to grow 16.8% to nearly $12 billion. We'll see if that top line number beats expectations as well as last quarter's 17.2% growth rate. Meanwhile, earnings for share projected to grow 29%. to 55 cents per share. With Netflix shares down about 29% since the third quarter report, analysts are largely bullish. More than two-thirds of them have a buy rating on the stock.

27% have a hold. Scott? All right, Julia, thanks. We'll see you in just a bit when those numbers hit. Tom, what am I supposed to do with this? Dow's down about 900 points today. Noise or something to be more concerned about? I think it's Davos Watch 2026 here, Scott. We've got to see what comes out this week. I think the trade today is pretty obvious. It's Sell America. but I like that point that Mike's making, there's really no differentiation. It's just sell what you can. I think in the long run, this will end up being noise,

but in the short one, we've got to see what comes out of Davos. Yeah, but I mean, we've seen this movie. How many times do we need to see the same movie to try and expect a different outcome? Before, yes, there was a big sell America trade, allegedly. It turned out to be a very big buy America moment. Yeah. I think the issue that's a little bit different now

is we have the strategic initiatives from the Trump administration and the things he's been talking about are written in the United States. that document. So as we look towards Davos this week, are we going to get more on nationalism and this new one about affordability? We're talking about it with some of the earnings coming out, this K-shipped economy. It's very real. The hardest hit areas of the market today like tech, which have been laggards. Some of these names have been as the year starts. Do we lean into this

weakness or no? Yeah, I think we should. The real differentiation is happening semis versus software. It's been persistent. But the tech sector is where the earnings are happening. You look back three years, The SP500 is up 80%. Big number. 50% growth in earnings, though. And most of that is coming from the tech sector. I think we've got to stay with it. Do we close the gap at all between software and semi?

Some look at what's happened in software and say, this is getting a little absurd on both ends of the spectrum. Semis up too much, software down too much. Yeah, I do think we will close that gap in aggregate. But as you start to look at what's happening here on both sides, you have to differentiate. This is a new regime, new environment where higher inflation, there's going to be earnings growth differentiation. It's not a rising tide lifts all boat. Well, we were thinking, though, that in terms of the markets, maybe what's happening with the economy

and some of the things that are out there, earnings are going to be strong, that it would be a lift-all boat's market for this year, maybe just not as much in tech, but certainly a lot more in the so-called 493. What do you think? Yeah, I think that's right. This concept of broadening, very possible.

But again, I think we're getting sucked into what we've done for the last two decades, which is it's an all-or-nothing type of environment. when you're going to see differentiation from inflation, new regime on diversification, where correlations between assets are going to be different than what we've been used to, I think we've just got to stick to basics, which is with the earnings, where earnings is going to be the strongest. I think we're in the phase now where it's about the hardware and this tech buildout,

that will be necessary and helps industrials and utilities, and software will come. I just don't think we're quite there in the broad base yet. I got like 90 seconds left. I love that the guys in the control room put up the yield curve, the look there. Put that up again, guys, if you could. It's pretty interesting. You have, you know, the 10-year, the highest since last September, the 30-year is up, the two-year yield down, maybe figuring, okay, if this gets a little squirly for the economy, Fed's going to be forced

to cut, two-year yield goes down. Is the most important thing to watch in the market right now, that market, the bond market? The term premium market is going to differentiate for us in some degree too. Scott, in this new world of nationalism, there's three big consequences there. One is correlations between assets will be different than what we're used to. Inverse correlation stocks and bonds, unlikely to come back. Inflation will be higher. And with higher inflation, we should expect term premium. That's going to be a differentiating metric. Is this information for us? Yeah, I think it is. All right. We'll leave it there. Tom. I appreciate you being with us. This is Tom Kennedy joining us right here at Post 9 because they're ringing the bell and it's going

to go out at the lows. Certainly the Dow Jones Industrial Average. but down more than 900 points. The S&P 500 is down more than 2%. As is the NASDAQ, which is also at its lows, down about two and a half percent. So we'll see how all of this transpires overnight. Trump and Kernan, the president and Joe Kernan, speak tomorrow.

We'll have all of that into overtime with Melissa and Mike.