Closing Bell - Closing Bell 12/15/25

Episode Date: December 15, 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 Wapner, live from Post 9. Here at the New York Stock Exchange, this make-or-break hour begins with stocks near new highs, but questions about where they go from here and whether the AI trade really takes a backseat to a bigger, broader move. We'll ask our experts over this final stretch. First, though, let's take a look at the scorecard with 60 to go in regulation, mostly red, as you see for the majors. But internally, there are some interesting things going on, consumer discretionary, hitting its first new highs since September. That's notable. Tesla's a good part of that with its robo-taxie news today, but it's more substantial than that, too. Hotels and cruise lines, restaurants, and some retailers doing well today as well.

How about service now? Shares lower on a report that it's in talks to buy the cyber startup, Armus for $7 billion. Shares also getting a downgrade today, put it all together, down 11%. How about Zillow down sharply today as Google reportedly tests real estate listings directly in search? Takes us to our talk of the tape. The markets over this final stretch of the year and beyond. We welcome our panel in in just a moment. But first, you may notice right there. A new logo. It's our new logo on the screen today. As part of our evolution, we have removed the NBC Peacock to embrace a distinct identity that aligns with our future as a brand. A small visual update as we continue to deliver the same trusted coverage of markets, business, and the economy. you with us to do that. Let's welcome in our panel, Solis Alternative Asset Management's Dan Greenhouse, JPMorgan Asset Management's Mirra Pandit, and Stratigus Research Partners, Chris

Farone. It's great to have everybody here. So let's turn to this market, right? The big broadening story. That is the story. Does it remain the story? Well, listen, I think there's an important point to make here that I don't think we've talked about enough. As someone who was repeatedly, for lack of a better word, badmouthed the small caps over the last couple of years, I do want to note that since the broad market bottomed in late 22, the Russell is up roughly the same as the equal weight S&P 500, roughly the same as midcaps. There hasn't been over this cycle any broad lagging outside of those large tech names which have lifted the entire stock market. So listen, do I think this, so to speak, the broadening continues? Probably.

in the sense that there's clearly some investor fatigue, if you will, with those largest names. But to repeat the main point, this AI story goes well beyond those largest names. And so you might just be broadening out into alternative AI type ways. Are you mentioning the Russell because you've come around to the idea that they're going to be a leadership group? By the way, are you bringing that up because they're up 6% over the past one month, which pretty much trounces everything else? No, I'm certainly not a convert to, let me state this. Solace, as I've mentioned a couple times, invest in quite a few smaller and mid-cap companies. So we are disproportionately interested in the space.

So that would be fantastic. Woo-hoo if they start to outperform. I think the problem is, again, the AI story is so dominant in any number of industries and sectors, but it is so dominant among larger cap companies, obviously, industrials, utilities, some financials, and obviously tech-income services. that it's just not, it just doesn't have that exposure in the, in the smaller cap company. So I just, I don't see how, unless that changes, I don't see how they can really outperform. If you have a what some call Mira, a run-it-hot economy, you're going to have a run-at-hot stock market in the areas that play into that, aren't you?

Cyclical areas. Banks, industrials, materials, small caps, discretionary, all the areas that have picked up post-fed. Is that the story? I would say it's somewhat of a tactical run it hot, because if you think about the economic growth running hot in the first half of next year, a lot of that is due to the increase in tax refunds that many consumers are going to see. But we know from the U.S. consumer, a penny earned is a penny spent. So that's likely to cool off in the second half of the year. So I would agree if we think about areas like small cap, yes, you may have a little bit of a tactical bounce there, but we're not going to see a protracted rate cutting cycle from here. In fact, maybe one or two cuts next year, if that, few and far between. And when we think about economic growth, a momentary boost, but probably just a fading back into trend or softer growth. So in that environment, when we think about cyclicals, it's not that I'm anti-cyclical,

but I would say very much focus on the profit growth next year as opposed to this tactical bounce in the economic growth landscape. How do you see it? Scott, I think it's more than tactical. I think when you look at the last year, remember, we're coming off a year of easing around the world. This handoff from, I think, what I would call the speculative economy to the real economy, You see it in KRE, you see it in transports, you see it in small caps, you see an equal weight S&P. I mean, don't have a lot of sympathy for all the alarmness about breath when you have equal weight S&P and Russell II making all-time highs, when you have 21 of 24 global markets

we track basically at the high. So I think this has been and remains broader than a lot of people give it credit for. That's fair. Is it the beginning of something bigger? You know, I think it is certainly on a relative perspective. It's not lost on me that cap-weight tech is making three-month relative lows today. That's a bit of a change. in character. You see Russell 2 versus triple Q's. You see the basic resource stocks versus the triple Q's all carving out, I think,

some pretty important relative lows. And importantly, what has been the constant throughout all this is the financials are still very much involved. I mean, Bank of America did something last week. It hasn't done in 20 years. It made a new high. November 2006 was the last high in BAC. Wells has done it. Goldman has done it. I think we're in this

financial, real economy-driven world. To that point real quick, I'm sorry. No, please. The charts of Bank of American Wells Far you mentioned. But even when you go down a little bit, city as well, the super regionals, like PNC and U.S. Bank Corp. Insurance stocks have woken up. The insurance stocks are doing great, Lincoln Financial, etc. So there's, even in retail, Ralph Lauren and Tapestry we've mentioned in the past, there's a lot of stuff going on here. And it gets back to the point about the market cap versus the cap-weighted versus the equal-weighted index. The equal-weighted index is up 10% for the year. The market cap is up

16. So for 16% gain for the year, only about 135 S&P 500 stocks are doing better than that. That is historically very low. But if you look at the equal weighted index, up again about 10% for the year, about half the index is up more and about half the index is less. That is a perfectly normal development that you would see at the end of the year. I'd add on to that. I mean, again, to the point about the banks, that's where you're seeing a lot of that earnings growth. When you look at the third quarter results, when we look at earnings, had all of the subsectors within financials having positive earnings growth. Big upside surprises in terms of where that overall upward revision to the indexes earnings growth came from. So I do

see some value in some of these more cyclical sectors, but again, as long as it is underpinned by that profit growth story. So we have a bit more runway here. I mean, you're seeing a lot of different areas, as we said, the upgrades today that you got in the retail space, excuse me, the travel space. Contessa Brewer is following that story. these are the stocks that play right into the so-called run-at-hot economy. Yeah, you're exactly right to point that out. You're seeing those cruise stocks just sailing today up almost four and a half percent. All of them, Caribbean, Royal Caribbean, Viking, Carnival, Norwegian, all up on that day.

In fact, Viking got an upgrade from Jeffries to buy on its pricing and position and luxury. It's really that high-end traveler that just continues to book and to spend. Viking is up more than 60 percent this year. And the luxury customer, Scott, is the reason Marriott got an upgrade to buy from Goldman Sachs. Plus, you've got international travel just booming group and leisure bookings looking strong for 2026. We've heard that from the casinos in Las Vegas, too. Hyatt and Hilton shares also up nearly 3% on the day. And then Goldman upgraded Las Vegas stands to buy saying it looks like the momentum is going to continue in Macau.

It's up a little more than 2%, but sands on a tear with buybacks as well. We've seen wind resorts also hire Melco and to a lesser degree because it's less exposed there, MGM resorts as well. What it looks like to me is in all of these companies, experience is still winning out. They still are appealing to those luxury buyers, but they're doing so with experience. Yeah, good stuff. Contessa, thank you. Contessa Brewer. Do you think also that we have a two-haves market next year, first half, you run it hot, you know, you try and run it hot as you get close. through to the midterms, then depending on what happens in the midterms, you know, so you get three quarters run at hot, and then you'll see what happened, and then kind of all bets are off.

You know, Scott, I'll worry about the second half of 2026 when I have to worry about the second half of 2020s. I think for the next four or five, six months, there is some runway here when you look at the real economy corners of the market. You know, go back, really what's been a month ago now. Everyone remembers that big Nvidia reversal day on November 20th. If you look at every sector, which percent of the issues are already above that day's high? 85% of discretionary, 85% of financials, the groups that I think are starting to inflect here have shown us that. Where have we seen the new high expansion? Industrials, financials, discretionary, materials. There's a very real economy field of this. I think the harder

question, Scott, into 2026 is number one, does this wake up bond yields to a degree of which it short-circuit some of the cyclical momentum? And then secondly, when does the bar of expectations via sentiment just get raised too high? about the AI trade. I mean, you have enough questions about valuation. You have enough questions about debt levels. You have enough questions about the spend. Are the questions going to grow louder as you get into 26? And that only pushes more people into this area of the market. I mean, the questions are probably going to go up until it ends. But the, you know, the famous saying is every new high should be bought except for the last one. And I can't emphasize

there's enough. Chris and I were talking about it before we came on air. Just how long it's where people have latched on to every negative development as the end of the trade. And in the case of Oracle with the debt levels and the CDS, yes, it's worth mentioning, it's worth watching, but it's also worth mentioning. Oracle's got a debt-to-ebit-a ratio of call it four. The other guys are basically at zero net debt to EBITA. It's also late to the CAP-X game, whereas everyone else has been spending it for a while. There's clearly an issue with investor concern around meta's CAP-X spend, given the fact that

They lit $77 billion, apparently on fire developing the Metaverse. And with respect to Oracle, given its already higher debt burden and its higher leverage to open AI. So those two companies have some idiosyncratic issues. But for the AI trade, I keep coming back to, the earnings reports from Broadcom, obviously may be a little disappointing relative to investor expectations, hence the 14% or 15% sell-off. But fundamentally, still pretty good. Backlog's still growing. The Invidio report, no one's told me demand is slowing down.

and that there's one thing that any of us that were there in the late 90s know, it's that it didn't end until you started to get profit warnings and the demand slowdown, and you haven't seen that yet. What about the idea of an everything rally? We're talking about the market as being binary. This is going to work and then that's not. Or that is and that's not. Why can't everything work under the environment that we're talking about?

What we saw in November was a pretty good example of why everything can't work. When you start to see some of those market anxieties, what you start to see is that not every stock can protect. Everything can rally across the market, across the board, everyone's enthusiastic. As soon as some of those investor anxieties start to creep in, that's when you see some large corrections there in different parts of the market. And you notice areas that have really underperformed this year, like quality, did hold up better during that three-week period in November when you saw that harsh correction relative to some of the more speculative pockets that had similar declines as we might have seen during the pandemic. So we have to make sure

that we're sidestepping some of those pockets in the market because while the highs feel high, when that starts to burn out a little bit like we saw in November, then you're left a bit hung to dry. Is there enough money to go around for an everything rally? Well, this is the big question, because for a long time, I think all the excess liquidity out there was really soaked up by the speculative economy. Our big call for 26 is the excess liquidity is being soaked up by the real economy. And what's been telling us that, Bitcoin's been telling us that for four or five months now,

when you look at some of the real speculative darlings over the last six months, the Aklos, the Bloom energies and the Robin Hoods. I mean, those really haven't participated at all in this rally. So I think the market has moved on from beta. I think it's moved on from the real speculative corners of the tape. And it really is getting in gear with these real economy type names. Well, I'm wondering what retail's role in that is, right? Those are hot, hot money retail names. I wonder to what degree the retail investor continues to be strong into 26 and what that means for this market. Listen, I'm no expert in retail sentiment, but to the extent that I don't think you have to be. I think you can just simply look at different pockets of the market

and know what's happening. Well, yeah, what I was going to say is to the extent that in January and February, things, the economy, wages, et cetera, et cetera, the broad market sentiment is roughly unchanged with, let's say, November or December, then presumably those trades are going to remain in place. I mean, retail is very, as we know, headline driven. And while they've taken up a larger share of trading activity, they are faster, if you will, in terms of chasing the headlines. And so, again, if Acklo and Coinbase and Robin Hood remain the most topical issues on CNBC.com, for instance, then I don't see why investors aren't going to stay with them. And I would add, we keep talking about the Mag 7.

Robin Hood is the second best performing stock over the last one or two years, let's say, up there with Sandisk and WDC. I guess part of my point is, like, is Pallenteers, like a stock like that suddenly going to going to fall out of favor within that cohort. Why can't you have the so-called pros and the so-called average Joe's doing their thing? Tech remains a place to be, and then all of these other stocks, the $493, so to speak, get enough capital going towards them. And that's the makings of a pretty strong market rally, isn't it? I mean, it's not dissimilar from what's happening right here. I mean, last week, 35% of the S&P made a new high, 45% of the Russell 2000 made

a new high. Those are the best readings that we've seen in four or five months. I mean, one place I might push back, Dan, is the idea that we'll get profit warnings or we'll see weakness in Big Ten. I didn't say we would. I said that on the, I'm just reminded of the kind of the old rule that governs my side of the business, that, you know, things top on good news, not on bad news. So I do wonder if this will be more subtle than the very overt acknowledgement that business is slowing. That's fair. What I would argue is in the 2000s, everything was great. We were worried about a bubble. The whole run-up, people think that no one worried about it, but like I've got articles from 95, 96, 97. In 2000, you got Lucent and

JDSU and a bunch of warnings from Intel and those types of companies which told you this might be coming to an end. And in 2007, the housing bubble had peaked three or four years earlier, financials had peaked six months earlier. It wasn't until you started to get more of an economic downturn in the first half of the year that everybody started to say, okay, well, now I'm going to take note of what's been obvious for some time, and that's the downturn in the housing market. You also had bond yields go bananas in the final part of 99 to 2000. I think the 10-year yield went 4 to about 7 that final year. And go back 10 years earlier, Niki in 1989, into the December 89 high in the Niki, Japanese yields went four to

eight. So there's typically a bond element. And bond yields didn't help in 07 either. Well, believe me, we'll be watching bond yields, especially after what the Fed said last week when the so-called run-it hot trade really started picking up steam. Our senior economics correspondent, Steve Leesman, joins us now on that. And as we also try and game out, who this next Fed share is going to be, Steve. Yeah, it's an interesting game. Scott, the candidacy of Kevin Hass at the NAC director to become Fed, getting some resistance from high-level people close to the president, according to multiple sources. Ironically, the pushback comes from concern he's too close

to the president, which had been thought to be among the leading reasons he was the favorite. But a Fed chair, too, beholden to a president who wants low rates, could undermine Fed credibility and result in more inflation and higher rates, not lower. The pushback could help explain What we've seen is this back and forth on interviews and comments from the president. On November 30th on Air Force One, he told reporters, I know who I'm going to pick, leading to a huge increase in the probabilities of being HACID. And then some of those Fed candidate interviews were canceled or postponed. And then December 10th, they were back on.

And maybe that pushback happened. Our understanding is in that December, 2 to December 10 period. On the 11th, Jamie Diamond, signal that some support for Warsh as well as HACET. And then Trump, an interview with the Walsh's Journal, said the two Kevins are great. That's where we are right now. Looking at the odds or the probabilities on Kausie, you can see now Warsh ahead of Hassett. That's a big change from today, in fact, this big reversal here, where Warsh now leads Kevin Hassen. The pushback has taken on the form of promoting Warsh, but also some criticism has it.

CBC has confirmed that J.P. Morgan's CEO, Jamie Diamond, last week. He spoke favorably of both, but spent some extra time complimenting some of Worsh's writing. on the Fed, Scott? Let's go back to the idea of the run-at-hot trade. For our purposes, that's what we're talking about, obviously, in the market, and what seems to be a belief among investors that that's, in fact, what the Fed is willing to do. And that's what the commentary last week all but told you,

that they'll look through wherever inflation is right now above their 2% target. They're more concerned about something developing within the labor market, and thus they will let the economy. economy run hot if they have to. And then ultimately, that's good for the stock market. You know, Scott, I don't really buy that characterization of what the Fed is saying right now. I could see how some in the market either want it to be that way or walked away with that impression. But I don't think this Fed under Powell is a run it hot. I think they're willing to

take a little bit more risk on the hot side because of concern over the labor market. But that could redirect tomorrow. We get a lot of jobs dated tomorrow. We're going to be back on track with actual jobs data coming up, and we're going to get real inflation data. I'm hearing a lot of Fed officials still express concern about the inflation data, and I don't think they're abandoning their inflation target. I think they're giving it a little extra time to work out weakness in the job market. But look, the stock market always going to be like, hey, I wanted to run hot, and I'm happy it's running hot, but then you look to the bond market and maybe a little bit more

concern about that, where, I mean, that same notion. It may be that there's another Fed chair with another regime who will run things hot, but I'm not sure this one will. All right. Well, I'll just push back for a moment. They upgraded their growth forecast, didn't they? They did. Inflation is at 3%.

It's not at 2%. Right. And they cut rates. Didn't they, don't their actions speak louder than whatever words we're trying to inject? Fair enough. But there's one word you're missing, which, according to my favorite southern economist is pronounced productivity. And that's the thing that is when I, I remember if you, I don't know if you remember, but I asked Powell that exact question that you're asking me right now, and the answer was

productivity. And the reason is because that's why they don't have the unemployment rate falling very much. They have higher growth and they have lower inflation. And I think they're beginning, Scott. And in this sense, I'm going to end up agreeing with you. If you think run it hot in anticipation of lower inflation and higher productivity, then I would agree with you. I don't think it's run it hot and accept forever higher inflation. I think that's where the mistake would be. Yeah, that's fair.

And that's a whole other argument. That takes it, I think, to a third dimension, if you will. I'll give you one other thought, Scott, which is the thing to think about here, and this is what I'm thinking a lot about, is this notion of what was, in my opinion, Green Span's great call, which was the one in 96, when he pushed back against Hawks on his committee, that I'm not raising rates because something wonderful is happening in the economy

and he kept rates the same to ride that productivity boom which ended up being correct and allowed the economy to actually run hotter than it otherwise would have with lower inflation. Yeah, good stuff. Thank you, Steve. Appreciate you. That's Steve Leesman, our senior economics correspondent. Let's kick

this quickly on the desk. What are your thoughts on that? A couple things to unpack. I say, number one, I think we should all be alert to the idea that 30-year yields are now above where they were when Powell was speaking last week. So there's been a move here in bond yields. I think it's more about growth and term premium. And I say that because cyclicals have outperformed along with that. I get more worried when it rates up and cyclicals weakening. And then just on the second front, on the Fed front, I mean, the two-year

yield's been basically $3.50 for the better part of the last six months. That's where policy is going. I always deferred to the market rate over the policy rate. The market rate's been pretty stable. The gunlock perspective. That's the biggest clue. Just look at the two here. You'll see where the Fed goes. Mira? Look, I mean, I think one of the things that was interesting that Powell had noted on the labor market weakening was, well, by many measures, it's actually probably negative job growth, which is a consensus thing that he had noted. But I'm not sure that that was, you know, everybody is on board with that type of labor market weakening. It was interesting to hear his comments that he sounded relatively sanguine over all when thinking about the balance of risk out there. But look, again, look no further than the summary of economic protections, 2.3% growth, relatively steady unemployment, and inflation,

that doesn't reach 2.0 until 2028, having not really been there since before the pandemic. So clearly this is a Fed that is perhaps taking some time to get back to its target. Last and quick. To Mira's point, she mentions inflation is not getting back to 2.0 until 2028. They told me four years ago that it wasn't getting back to 2.0 until 2026. They have not been willing to do what's necessary to bring inflation back to 2. They don't want to do what's necessary to bring inflation back to 2. And as an investor, that is positive.

All right, we'll leave it there. Guys, thank you. Thanks to everybody, Dan Mirror and Chris. Let's send it now to Christina Parts in Nevelos for the biggest stocks moving into the close. Hi. Hi, Scott. Well, shares of Alibaba and Baidu right now are singing between roughly 3 and 5% bydo down almost 5. After new data showed an economic slowdown in China, which did hurt some e-commerce and internet service firms in the country.

Retail as well as industrial production, both missing estimates in that report. Still, if you look on the bright side, Alibaba is up about 78%. and by due up 41% so far just this year. Shares of Tilbury brands dipping 7% following last week's rally after news that President Trump would instruct federal agencies to lower cannabis's drug classification, just to be less stringent. Other cannabis stocks, though, are dropping as well today. Finally, shares of strategy, sinking about 6% after disclosing a purchase

of just under $1 billion worth of Bitcoin. The stock has been struggling this year down about 43% seen as a proxy for Bitcoin. and we see it drop as Bitcoin price has been trending lower, Scott. All right, Christina, thank you. Christina, Parts and Oblos. We're just getting started here on the bell. Coming up next, will SpaceX blast off the IPO market in the new year?

Flexo Capital's low, Tony, standing by. He will tell you next. We're live at the New York Stock Exchange. You're watching closing bell on CNBC. We are back. SpaceX, reportedly preparing to go public in the new year in what could be the biggest IPO ever likely would be. joining me now to discuss CNBC contributor Plexo Capital's Low, Tony. It's good to see you.

Good to see you as well. I think it's going to happen in the new year. It's going to happen. Biggest ever? Yeah, I think so. $800 billion valuation today. Yes. Man, what does that make you think about when you think about a name and a valuation and a raise that big? It's big, and I think it's one that everyone's been waiting for because this is one of the top five most valuable private companies, and everyone's been waiting for whether it's strives. Now open AI Anthropic, data bricks coming up.

I mean, so that one may be a little bit of an indicator. But, yeah, this is massive. Does it open the floodgates to some others, or is it still highly selective? I think it will continue to be highly selective, but it will at least open the floodgate up so you can be selective. How about that? So when we think about the business model, it's not exactly an AI, although with Elon talking about building out data centers in space, who knows, Maybe there's an AI play in there. I feel like everything kind of is, especially as it revolves around him, AI, robotics, and whatever else.

You guys were in Anthropic. You're an anthropic early, right? Yes, Series D. How are you guys thinking about that? You as an investor, as a venture capitalist? Yeah, you know, we love the business model and the fact that Dario had two insights early on while he was at OpenA.I. He had the insight around making models more efficient so that they would require less compute. and then less data, and then also constitutional AI, which placed some guardrails around AI.

That had two big implications. First, we now know that Anthropic is projected to reach cash flow break even first. And that's what we saw that was really enticing to us, was the fact that Dario was interested in making the model efficient, not going after video, and then with constitutional AI, really setting the stage to be really credible with the enterprise market, which now we're seeing Anthropic is doing extremely well in driving great revenue as a result. How are you viewing the arms race, which has had some new developments, whereas we thought Alphabet was sort of left on the side of the road, all of a sudden we feel like they're not

only like maybe, I don't know if it's in the driver's seat, but they feel like they're right there. They're like riding shotgun if they're not driving it. Without question. And as an ex-Gougler, I always thought that there was going to be something that Google was going to be able to do, the question was, were they going to be able to balance that importance between the innovator's dilemma of not cannibalizing their search engine and all the revenues that that drives with this new approach to being able to almost somewhat

replace or in Google's case enhanced search? But when you combine that with the fact that, you know, 350 billion in revenues, about 85 to 90 billion in free cash flow, they're going to build out about 90 billion in CAPX. Now, they could choose to finance that completely with cash flow. But they've decided to issue $25 billion in some cheaper debt so that a portion of that will refinance existing debt and a portion will be used to finance the CAPX because they want to continue to pay out dividends, do stock buybacks. So, I mean, they're in a really good position. That coupled with the vertical integration, their use of their custom application-specific integrated circuits, the TPUs, which live alongside the GPUs, but more and more that workload is

shifting to TPUs. Last week, Sam Altman was on this network as part of an exclusive interview around the Disney announcement, and he was asked about Gemini 3 and the impact that it was having on Open AI, and he said something to the effect of it's not having an impact on the metric, our metrics, as much as we had feared. I think those are the words he used, as much as we had feared. You think that there's more fear inside that building, so to speak, than they want to let on about what Gemini 3 seems to be?

Here's what I would say. I would say a lot of people want to make this question about, well, is it Gemini? Is it chat GPT that's better? I don't think that's the right question. In fact, the way that I think about it, the better question is, okay, which business model and balance sheet is going to deliver on the promise of AI?

And when you look at Google, to go back to that, they've got the balance sheet. But don't count Open AI out. Just like I said, don't count Google out. Don't count Open AI out. Once Open AI really opens the floodgates on going after the ad market, I think that's what is going to take to be able to finance some of this. They should not try and go head to head against Google and replicate that model. It's just too expensive.

They don't have the resources. They need to do, Open AI needs to do what it does best. the users on this new behavior, and we've seen many instances where consumer behavior translates over onto business behavior as well. But what they need to do is they need to monetize it with ads, because that's ultimately what Google got right, is the aggregation of all of these 800 million users in the case of OpenAI, and they can monetize that with ads. You've been thinking about and you've been writing about what the market is thinking about

when it comes to Oracle, which obviously has not had a good trade. If we could throw up a, gosh, you know, a three-month if you want. It tells the story. Almost every day tells the story, right? The stock goes down. The CDS goes up. The market's concerned with the leverage on the balance sheet. That's right.

Overly so, much to do about nothing. What's your take? I believe it, well, we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, But what this could be is the canary in the coal mine in a referendum on whether or not the ability to monetize AI is there for a player like Oracle. When we think, again, I go back to Google, Google has so many services to amortize that cost across in a very efficient way. Folks like Google, players like Google, excuse me, like Oracle, they don't have that. And so that's the question that everyone keeps asking. And then when you start to look at just the massive amount of debt, the debt as well,

a portion or a percentage of revenue. That's what makes people nervous. Yeah, well, they are. I mean, there's, they're the charts. They tell the story. We'll continue to talk to you about more. Low, thanks. Absolutely. That's low Tony right here at Post 9 coming up. Delta hitting a fresh 52-week high in today's session. We'll tell you what's driving that rally. Closing bells coming right back. Welcome back. The final full trading week of 2025, off to a bit of a lackluster start, but hopes are high for another strong year of returns. Chris Toomey, with Morgan Stanley Private Wealth joins us here at Post 9. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. Do you have high hopes for 26 and strong returns like this year?

We do. We do expect it to be a good year next year. You do? Why so? What's going to carry it? I mean, look, I think there's a lot of secular tailwinds. You talked about it earlier on the show. You've got a situation where earnings look very promising. You've got breath improving. You're in a situation where you actually have fiscal policy starting to kick in with big, beautiful bill. And then the monetary policy has also been very accretive. You throw in some deregulation, additional M&A, animal spirits start coming in. It looks pretty promising.

Wow. All right. So that's a run-at-hot rally. Is that an everything rally? You know, look, I think you're going to have winners and losers here, and I think you're bound to see a fair amount of volatility increase. I don't think that this is a situation where there aren't risks, but I do think this is a situation where you could see some leadership changes.

You could see this rally kind of broadening out. And while tech will certainly do well, I don't know necessarily that it's going to lead the way that it has the last three years. So what has been happening more recently, you think, is a template for what next year could look like? Potentially, look, I think you're in a situation right now where, you know, there's a reason why markets have been concentrated. The line share of the earnings growth has come from those types of companies. We're starting to see a situation where, in addition to some of these tailwinds affecting these other companies that have been kind of overlooked, that you should start to see them starting to do well on pretty low expectations. I don't know about expectations being so low.

I mean, the Russell, for example, is up 6% in a month. It's had a good year. It's up almost 14%. Yep. You look at a lot of other sectors within this market, industrial's up 18. Financial's up almost 14. There actually is a lot of broadening that's happened in this market. It's happening.

But I think expectations for next year are relatively lower versus the MAG-7. So I think in our minds, that's going to continue to play itself out. You're in a situation where earnings will be a lot easier to overcome in some of these sectors, and you've got that secular tail one that should be a beneficial, too. You mentioned it's not like there aren't any risks. What are the principal risks, do you think? Look, I think there's the big risk, I think, in our minds are kind of twofold. One is around inflation. I think part of the reason why we've had such a good year this year is you had a lot of front loading with regards to some of that supply and inventory build up in anticipation of the tariffs with regards to Trump

as that inventory burns off, are we going to be in a situation where prices have to be higher that companies can't not necessarily pass them over to the consumers, and you're in a situation where inflation ticks up. The other is a concern with the amount of debt that we're issuing. You're talking about a situation where the feds cut three times this year, and you look at the 10-year, and it's basically flat for the year. So there's something going on in the middle and the back end of the curve with regards to term premium. Is it a concern with regards to inflation? Is it a concern with regards to the amount of debt that's outstanding? That could be a concern that maybe it's all the above, but I mean a little bit. But if growth is strong

enough, I mean, there is a belief in some corners that you can just grow your way out of a lot of this. Maybe not fully out of it, but you can grow your way out of it enough to stop the market's fixation on it. Totally. And I think the fact that everyone's talking about it is a good thing. And I think we're in such an embryotic piece with regards to this build-out within AI that it's probably still too early for us to get too far ahead of ourselves. I think from our standpoint, you know, there is so much demand and the supply is yet to get online that we still have a fair amount of runway before that becomes a real issue. You still think we're in the early innings of this whole AI story? I think we are. Like, I think if you look at it, there's a combination of things that we're dealing with. One is just the gradual adaptation and then the demand with regards to compute and the ability to get it.

And I think that's why you're seeing so much money flowing into areas around this because I think it is going to be a situation where it could be a winner take-all strategy. And so everyone wants to be prepared in order to take on each other. Well, that's the problem I have. It's like if you and a lot of other people believe that we're in the early innings, then why would that trade fall out of favor? if the fundamental metrics of it prove that you and others are correct. Price, price, right? So the market could get too far ahead of itself. You could have a situation like you mentioned the Oracle before,

not necessarily that I'm talking about them specifically. Right. You saw the market immediately race up high and pull back pretty gradually. So if prices run, if you get too much speculation, you could see a pullback. But you don't think we're there yet. No, no. I think you stay the course. I think, you know, the other concerns that we would be looking at is

areas within the credit markets. You've got a lot of supply going in. Spreads are tight. You want to diversify out some of that risk. But our biggest call, as you know, is probably in the private markets. You guys were just talking about probably one of the largest IPOs coming forward. That's going to create an additional amount of liquidity coming back into the system. We think all of that's very healthy. All right, good stuff. Good to catch your point of view. That's Chris Toomey. Thanks. Thanks for having me. All right. Coming up next, we track the biggest movers as we head into this close. We'll be right back after this. 10 from the bell. Let's get back now to Christina Parts of Novelos for the stocks that she's

watching. Tell us. Let's start with shares of service now because they're tumbling about 10% after Bloomberg reported that the software platform is in talks by a cybersecurity firm Armis for $7 billion. At the same time, you had analysts at Key Bank downgrading the stock, citing AI as a threat to its software-as-a-service business. Zillow and Co-Star Group also tumbling after a report that Google is integrating real estate listings to appear directly in search results providing functions very similar to those offered through Zillow and Kostar's subsidiaries, which would be Apartments.com and Homes.com. Scott.

All right, Christina, thank you. Coming up next, Tesla is popping today. Uber and Lyft, they're dropping. We'll tell you what's going on inside the market zone. We are now in the closing bell market zone. Deer Jarbosa with details on why shares of Tesla are surging and Uber and Lyft are falling today. Philobo has a look at the run in airline stocks and Ned David,

researches. Ed Clistle is here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. D, though, we start with you. Hey, Scott. So this is the question hanging over a ride chair these days. Do robotaxies replace them or do they run on top of them? So Musk said over the weekend that Tesla is testing robo taxis with no safety monitors up front. Those shares, they jumped to a yearly high today. But Uber and Lyft, they sold off on those fears that autonomy could just cut them out of the loop. Now, Tesla in particular, the threat, as Musk has said that he wants to build an end-to-end system from the car to the software to the rides themselves, which is different than, say, Waymo that is partnering with Uber in some places and other companies. Now, that said, as

always with Tesla, testing is not deployment, and autonomy at scale is still hard. It's a long road. And we've talked about this, Scott. Waymo is actually the scale player in the space, though. It does not get nearly as much love. All right, Dee. Thank you very much for that. All right, Philobo. Tell me about airline stocks today. They all edged a little bit higher, Scott. And this has been the trend, really, since November 19th. When you take a look at some of the airline stocks, we're talking about United Delta. Look at the airline index.

Look at the move they've had since November 19th. They're all at or near 52-week highs. A couple of things happening here at the airline stock rally. First of all, strong holiday bookings. We've seen the demand that has held up pretty well here. Limited impact from the government shutdown. A couple hundred million dollars for the large players. Nothing that's going to derail their Q4 earnings.

reports. In 2026, there's optimism that a lot of the headwinds that we saw in 25 will not be there next year. And even those players who are not at their 52-week highs, and I'm talking about, say, American or Alaska, JetBlue, they've also moved higher over the last couple of weeks. Bottom line is this, Scott, there is optimism that 26 will be what many thought 25 would be earlier this year for the airlines. All right, good stuff, Bill. Thank you. That's Phil LeBow. All right, Ed, top of your note today to our producers, we have several concerns about 2026, which is interesting because I didn't hear from a single person who was on this program yet today, or for that matter, anybody who was on halftime earlier, who has several concerns about 2026. What gives? So, first of all, I want to emphasize that these are concerns that may or may not come to fruition, but we've got to look ahead and see what might happen. And top of the list is what could go on with the Fed.

Usually the market struggles in the first six months of the new Fed share, average correction of about 15% during the first six months because the uncertainty around what that new Fed chair could mean. And we have a ready-made concern with Fed independence, and you certainly see that last few days, but not even know who the Fed chair is going to be in the back and forth horse race. And so you could see widening credit spreads. You could see higher inflation expectations as a result. And about the same time, you could see the little sugar rush from the one big, beautiful bill to better tax refunds in Q1, we're off in Q2.

And you throw on that. The really strong earnings growth this year may not be quite as strong next year. And it's just a little bit more of a difficult backdrop. So you wonder if you can have a repeat, you've had three great years for the market. can we get a fourth if that backdrop isn't nearly as strong as what it is. Man, I feel like people are looking for the exact opposite, like a pretty strong backdrop, that I hear you on the uncertainty about who the next Fed chair is going to be, but you're still going to get at least one cut.

That's positive. You're going to be cutting into a strengthening economy. That's two. You let it run hot, fine. Earnings are only telling a story that could get better, not worse. Well, if you put a consensus estimates, I start with what you said last first. Consensus estimates are calling for around 16% earnings growth for next year on average. Analyst are about 8% of points too high, so that puts you around 8%. And that's running around 13% so far this year.

So that would mean an earnings slowdown. And my concern about the Fed isn't necessary that they're going to turn extremely hawkish and restrictive. My concern is that the market may interpret the Fed as being too dovish. And while amazingly, you've seen inflation expectations contained throughout the last five years of super high inflation and staying above the Fed's target, if people are concerned about an Arthur Burns type of Fed, that may not be how the market interprets that. Now, again, I want to emphasize, this isn't where we all right now, which will still overweight stocks. But these are some concerns we have about next year

how this could come to fruition. The fact that that is not on a lot of people's radars leads me to believe that maybe we're on the right track to be concerned about it. All right, we'll leave it there. It's good to talk to you, Ed. Thank you for being with us. Ed Klessold, again, from Ned Davis.

Research, he's the chief U.S. Stratz. Still get ready to ring the bill. Obviously, we're going to ring it out red today. A little bit of nibbling, though, in the NASDAQ. Just saw Meta, I think, is green. Invidia, green as well. Otherwise, though, the last full trading week of 2025, finding the games a little hard to come by. See what tomorrow holds, and I'll see you then, into O.T with Morgan and John.