Closing Bell - Closing Bell 12/23/25

Episode Date: December 23, 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.

Telly, thanks so much. Welcome to closing bell. Scott Wobder live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker breakout begins with another banner year for stocks. And what lies ahead for 2026? We will discuss. We will debate with our experts coming up. In the meantime, let's show you the scorecard here with 60 to go in regulation. Stocks are higher after that better than expected GDP report. In fact, we are heading for another record close on the S&P 500. Rates ticking up today. It's weighing a little bit. bit on the small caps. It is why the Russell 2000 is the underperformer today. Mega Cap Tech largely higher, several record highs from the financial space today that we are watching. City among the names that have been absolutely crushing it lately. How about that big pop today for Novo Nordisk shares today as the S&P approves the first weight loss pill. We're following that story. We will right into the close up six and a half percent. All of it takes us to our talk to the tape, the road ahead for this full market. It's welcome in our panel for some answers.

Trivariates, Adam Parker, New Edge Wealth's Cameron Dawson and Requisite Capitals, Bryn-Talkington, both Adam and Brin are CNBC contributors. It's great to have everybody with us. As I said, Bryn, we are heading for another record close on the S&P 500. How do you feel about things as this end of year approaches? We're going to put another great year in for stocks, and we look ahead to a new one. Yeah, I mean, who would have thought? back in the dark days of April, that we would be where we are today. So I think investors who sat still through that period of time have been rewarded. And I think going into next year, I mean, we still have strong earnings, not only in the 493, but also in the MAG 7. I think

rates are coming down a little bit more. Globally, things are doing well. And so I think, unless we get an exogenous event, like the Supreme Court saying we can't do tariffs, which would be a mess, we'll say to undo that. I think we will have some volatility next year, but it looks like you have to stay invested and buy risk. Okay. I mean, that's a pretty clear story. Adam Parker. Does it make sense? Yeah. Hi, guys. Great to see everyone. Yeah, look, I think growth is going to be pretty good. And I think, like Bryn pointed out, the gigacap stocks, the trillion in the above club, they're all going to grow pretty strongly. So if you're negative, I think it comes down to maybe a view that the multiples can't expand much.

And I think next year is going to be that transition in my mind where we saw a lot of multiple expansion previously and now we need to see the earnings come through. So I don't think there'll be quite as much upside as we've seen the last three years, but I still think the risk reward is skewed to the positive for equities. Does it have to Adam be an exogenous event that wrecks the bull story? That's the picture that Bryn paints. What do you think? I don't know if it has to be exogenous.

I think the issue, I guess I feel like the Fed part's a little wobblier than I did a year ago. Look, I mean, we've talked about it before, but the polymarket and, you know, the probabilities sort of look like maybe they're going to cut one more time. I think most people I talk to think it'll be two or three more, but no matter what, they're kind of closer to being done than not on the front end. So I think the argument really comes down to, well, multiples continue. to be supported because of balance sheet expansion or because of fiscal stimulus or taxed up. All that's pretty well. Yeah, but on the, on the multiple side. Yeah, I think about the market as price to earnings, you know, ratio times the earnings.

So I think the growth side looks pretty good. That's why we're up today, GDP, et cetera. I think you'll see productivity from AI. I think the multiple side's trickier. That's why I think there's a little bit less upside for the overall market. Cameron, is the story pretty clean as we go into 26? Well, I think that the multiple side of things is very important because that was very clear as we look at where we started this year at about 22 and a half times forward.

And we're ending this year at about 22 and a half times forward. So it's all been driven at least for this S&P 500 by this earnings growth. And there is high expectations for earnings growth going into 2026. If you break down consensus, it's sitting at about 14% growth for next year. And it has 200 basis points of margin expansion. already baked in, as well as an acceleration of revenue growth. So it's not something that we necessarily want to bet against. We are optimistic that there's going to be efficiency gains in this economy,

but to argue that the bar is low is really hard to do. So we think how this translates is that when you have a high bar for expectations and high valuations, it just makes you more susceptible to volatility as you move through the year, simply because there's less room to absorb those kinds of exogenous shows. Yeah. I mean, anybody worried about higher rates for longer like Brin, some are talking about today, Apollos, Torsten-Slock says long-term interest rates will remain higher for longer and investors should plan accordingly. Deutsche Bank sort of in the same note says ratchet hire for yields is a significant story. Are we taking into that, are we taking that into account enough?

Well, I mean, rates are, I'm actually worried one of my risk factors is higher rates, but not in the U.S., but in Japan. And so obviously, you know, Japan stocks have been amazing this year, and they've been able to go from negative 10-year JGBs to, what, 75 basis points, and it looks like they're going to raise a few more times. That country, those, had negative rates for 20-plus years and have been in deflation. And so that has been just so much leverage has been built on this yen carry trade, which, has not had an impact so far. But I do think that as we're cutting rates, Japan is raising rates, there's a lot of liquidity between the two currencies. I do think that's a risk out there if Japan can like effectively land the plane.

I think in the U.S., rates have come down, and I agree with Adam about, I think we're closer to the end. Maybe we get one or two in the U.S., but I think that is going to be, if you think rates are going to go, you know, down to 2 percent, and that's part of your thesis, I don't think that's correct. So I think that we are closer to the end, like Adam said. But I think rates rising in Japan is something that investors do have to think through and the potential impact from what would occur if they've just raised too much too quickly.

I mean, the Fed no doubt has even more to consider. And especially so, perhaps after the GDP report today. And questions about the labor market and the strength of the consumer, et cetera, et cetera. Our senior economics reporter, Steve Leesman, joins us now because this print today and this post on social media from the president today both play right into your focus today on how you're thinking about the big picture and maybe using history in some respects as a guide to what the Fed could and should do. Can I tell you a little reporter's notebook here, Scott, which is that Alan Greenspan's first word to me when I met him the first time was productivity. That's what he said. It's almost three decades now since Fed Chair Greenspan made a tough call. His colleagues wanted to raise rates, but he decided all of the investment in technology

meant he could run the economy hot with higher growth and little fear of inflation. Among his colleagues, Janet Yellen on your right there, Alan Blinder on your left, they wanted Greenspan the hike rates, classical economics, but Greenspan ended up being right. Inflation plunge, he held the line on rates for three years. Fast forward 30 years and the current Fed Chair and the next one are going to face a similar call. Will the AI investment create a surge in productivity that means lower rates for longer and stronger growth without inflation? New York Fed President John Williams, he told me last week he sees potential for the AI boom to contribute to the continued productivity

growth we've seen. That's above average growth anyway over the past few years and it's already informing his view of monetary policy. But hold on because there's risks on the other side. The administration's immigration policy means the labor force could be closer to full employment, potentially closer to generating inflation in a hot economy. Tariffs and high inflation raise the risk. Growth could run too hot. Most important, though, green spent eventually had to ratchet up rates. And that is, boy, that's the Fed's job.

Don't stop the punch from being served, but take away the punch bowl before things get out of hand, Scott. And there's dancing on the table and people taking their shirts off and that kind of crazy stuff, which sometimes you look at the market, it looks a little bit like that. Well, i.e. 1999, right? They started to dance on the table. Exactly. Which is why Greenspan made this decision in 96. Now, it did inflate one of the greatest

bubbles in the history of the stock market. However, it was three years down the road. Now, maybe they were late to react on the backside, but they did the right thing on the front side, and he turned out to be correct in the impact of productivity and what rates would do. There's a lot in what you said. You could already make the argument that we are seeing productivity gains that are only going to go greater from here, and that Fed Chair Powell should stop worrying about being the next Arthur Burns and start thinking more about being Greens and make the same move. Yeah, it's a risky bet, Scott. I get what you're saying. I think there's a point of view on that coming from among other places, the White House that want the current Fed Chair to do

a Greenspan 2.0. But I think that Powell is a little more cautious. I think the Fed in general, central bankers, are a little more cautious. They're not quite ready to take a flyer on the productivity until they see it. And one of the problems with that is that it takes a while sometimes, for example, in a lot of the 90s and the reason why Greenspan had to battle Yellen and Blinder is because the numbers were not in the productivity data. It was out there. Greenspan said, wait a second. All these people are spending all this money. on this stuff. It has to have some kind of positive impact out there in the economy. And I guess, well, what would you do? And that really becomes the question. Right now,

the market is trading December 26th, the Fed Fund Futures Market, around 3.1. So does that mean you think maybe they could bring it down a little more, say, below the neutral rate? It's a question you could ask, but I think what's going to happen is the Fed will sort of feel its way there. Cut, wait, cut, wait. And I think, this idea of this morning's GDP report saying, you know what, it makes the pause more definitive in January a little more circumstant, a little more possible that they pause again in March or April. I think that's the right call here. The feds, and I think any Fed official should probably do it that way. The question for the market is, is the Trump nominee going to do that be cautious or

be a little bit more like, you know what? I'm all in. Maybe, you know what, I'm all in, but at the end of the day, it's one person's vote. And we keep falling back on that. If it was just the one person who made the decision, maybe the alarm bells would be going off. But it's much greater than that. And the situation come next summer may look far different than it does now. So, Scott, I'd push back a little bit on that. And by the way, the 96 example is instructive now. The chair is definitely a first among equals. And I think what that means is if the current, if the Trump nominee comes in and starts talking crazy talk about going down to 1%, he'll get pushback from the committee. But if the notion is a close call and it means going down another quarter or perhaps another

half, then the chair and how dovish that person is is going to matter. And that person will take a flyer on their own reputation, but they will leave the committee, I think, on a close call, whereas the committee, I think, would stop and be a break on a chair that's going to go off the reservation. Well, I mean, that's the way I guess it should be. I mean, when you look at today's GDP report, do you say it's every bit as strong as the number would suggest, or do you look at it and say, well, if you look at the top line of expenditure and you say, look at that massive move in health care, there's much.

more that meets the story here. Well, I'll tell you that that is true. The health care number is very interesting to me. The idea that incomes were flat, but spending was up, and I think I just said this on the prior show, which is that people who spend more than their income are either really confident or really stretching. And either one of those two things could be true, right? You have people on the bottom end of the income spectrum that are stretching to keep their lifestyle and they're spending up amid difficult times, whereas people who are wealthier, and see those stock gains could be spending and reducing their savings

because they're stock portfolios or so. You could have both things going on at the same time in the U.S. economy. So I'm a little circumstance. I want to get back to the normal routine of the data coming out. I want to see the November day to the September data,

see what's happening in jobs. Some of the high-frequency jobs data, Scott, looks like it's doing a little bit better. So on the ADP weekly stuff that I've been following. So I want to get back there. I am not in a position, Scott. I feel really love watching you talk to the panelists there

because they're clearly more confident than I am and making a call what's going to happen with this economy in 2026. I think there's some potentially really good things that could happen. I'm just interested right now in the shape of the consumer. Yeah. All right, Steve, I appreciate you. Thank you. It's a great look and something to think about for certain

as we turn the calendar, Steve Leesman. We go back to the panel. I go to you, Adam Parker, on the notion that this plays into, in some respects, the broadening story, what works, what doesn't. Maybe housing stocks are going to have a hard problem if you're going to have this hot economy but higher for longer rates. You can't get rates down so the housing market can't move. It's no secret today that small caps are in the red. Not that much red on the board. Small caps are red. Why? Because rates are up. Rates up, small caps down.

You know, I was listening to Leasman and I was thinking, you know, there are times where the Fed view really matters and times where it doesn't. And I guess what I'm I'm thinking is maybe the Fed view matters a little bit less for the next six months, meaning if Bryn and I are direction right, Cameron, if we're directly right that more of the Fed kind of accommodation is behind us than in front of us, then it is going to be about earnings growth, as you said. It is going to be about which companies benefit from AI productivity and where, as Cameron pointed out, where it's not all in the price rate. I mean, we wrote a note about Walmart and Costco today saying, hey, these are great businesses, but once you get the 40

times forward earnings, you know, the probability you succeed after one or two years from those levels is really low. So I think you have to look, where is the productivity in the price? Where could it be productivity in predicting your employee behaviors? 2026 of the year where we have to see more of the benefits from AI productivity from the company. So the earnings come up. And I think we won't see as much multiple expansion. So I don't really care about what the September data or November data was. I don't have a confident view of the economy. I don't care. Economists don't even know what already happened, forget what's going to happen. So I think you've got to focus more at the stock level.

Who's got margin expansion in front of them based on labor, productivity, pricing power, et cetera, and then that'll help you figure out where the estimates are more achievable. And I think there'll be a good stock picking year in 26 just because there's going to be disparate fortunes based on who's able to implement the productivity sooner. I mean, Cameron, if you think that AI is going to have such a transformative impact on almost every company and the way that they're able to do business, to Adam's point, maybe if you throw your line into the into the ocean and you get bites almost anywhere. Yeah, we think that the application of AI trade is effectively just a shrouded broadening out trade.

And that's already in a lot of forecasts. If you look at the consensus estimates for the equal weight SMP 500, it has revenue growth going from 1.5% this year to 5% next year. So there's already a lot of banking on this idea that you're going to get a big broadening out. we could say the same thing for small caps. Small cap earnings estimates are already at 60% growth next year. And one of the things that we've been talking a lot about is to not take consensus necessarily at face value, mostly for small caps, because that's an area that is very prone to downward revisions. You're getting about 3% growth for small cap EPS this year. And at the

start of this year, we had 50% growth expectations. So it's just good to remember that when you start with high bars, that's usually where the volatility starts to come in. Yeah. You know, the other thing I think we need to watch is the fact that gone are the days of the mega cap monolith, right, that these stocks are just not going to trade as the large group that they once did. And maybe that's one of the key messages from the tech trade in 2025. How does that play out in the new year?

Gerja Bosa joins us now looking at that. Because as the year progressed and got later, the trade got more diverse. and the ones that worked and the ones that didn't really do all that much. It basically turned into Google versus everyone else, right? Scott, so the question going forward into next year is whether this fragmentation accelerates in. Who's actually positioned to gain or lose as the spending and as the expectations, both those things rise? As I mentioned, alphabet separating from the pack this year, investors rewarding its vertical integration. More of that could bode well next year, too, if cost control becomes as important as scale. I'm

personally excited to see what happens with those TPUs and if they find wider adoption. Now, in a broader sense as well, the AI trade in 2026 could also see the market appreciate model usage over model quality. The benchmark race, it is closer than ever. So you could start to see distribution matter more and that could be where we see enterprise wins or it could even be where Apple comes back into the picture. Upside being if it can capture value without that massive model or training costs that its rivals have been focused on. On the flip, side of that, Scott, Open AI, likely to continue to be the biggest wildcard questions around circular financing, rising compute costs, power needs. There's a whole universe behind the

startup that the market is still very much trying to figure out how to price. And I don't think we're going to get the answer to that any time too soon. Yeah, which I guess makes it more interesting. Dee, thank you. That's Georgia Boses. So, Bryn, as I turn back to the panel, I mean, open AI is going to be the North Star, so to speak, of all things. things AI. But how these different companies compete with it and interact with it and do business with it and away from it will have a lot to say about how the stocks do. You suggest that Google will outperform both Microsoft and Meta in 2026, correct? Yeah, I think that, well, first of all, you know, Google, without a doubt, has always been the most vertically integrated of these

companies. To me, and the reason why I hadn't owned it before, it was so. bureaucratic and they were so afraid to make a misstep. But I believe as Sergei's back, working incredibly closely with Sundar, they have really like woken up and saying, and then with Demasasas Abbas from DeepMind, it's like they're in pole position from a consumer perspective. They obviously have YouTube from a streaming perspective, all of the other verticals. And then if they announce a partnership with Apple, I think that's going to be huge, right? If they do, if Apple says, yes, we want you to be Gemini and part of Siri. And so I, I still think that these LLMs, at the end of the day, all converge to be the same thing.

And I think they've become a commodity. And so for me, Google gives you so many other revenue streams outside of this, you know, Open AI, which will continue to hemorrhage much. Everyone talks about the revenue, but what about like the expenses, that expenses and revenues are equal? And so to me, I think Google's where you want to be. They have all of the And I think Apple, Apple number two, especially if they announce a partnership with the Gemini, is going to allow Apple to go higher. Yeah. Cam, how does this trade play out, do you think, in 26? Well, I think we're going to be questioning if we could continue to see this massive margin expansion that we had over the course of the last three years. It's really good to appreciate that Mag 7 has grown their margins by 10 percentage points since 2022.

And a lot of this has been on the back of the AI infrastructure, but a lot of it has also been just the fact that these are legacy monopoly businesses that have raised their prices and cut costs, and thus you get margin expansion. But if Bryn is right that these LLMs will turn into a commoditized business, it means that we will be looking at them throwing a ton of money at commoditized, very competitive businesses, which just suggests lower return on invested capital. So it may not be the fact that there is a bubble in the valuations. We might look back instead and say that there's a bubble in some of these margins as we're seeing these businesses eat up more capital, become more capital intensive, and simply be more competitive. AP, another year of chips over software as the last word here? I just, I'll say that the big eight companies get bigger before they get smaller. I'll make that call. I think they'll outperform the S&P before the S&P before.

they underperform just because the fundamental momentum is strong. And I think it'll be hard to pick stocks because whenever I think Google is going to be the best, it ends up being the worst. And everything, Tesla's the worst. It's the best. So I just want to be at least market weight all eight of them because they think they're all going to be pretty good stocks. I appreciate everybody. Adam Cameron, Bryn. We'll see you soon. Thank you. Happy holidays, everyone. Need as well. Let's send it now to Christina Parts of Nevelos for a look at the biggest names moving into the close today. Hi, Christina. Hi. Well, let's start with shares of Novo Nordisk. up about roughly 7% today after its oral pill version of weight loss drug.

Wagovi was approved by the FDA. The drug was previously only available through injection, and the pill should really give patients a, quote, new convenient treatment option, this according to Novo's CEO, of course. Meantime, Service Now is in the red after it announced the acquisition of cybersecurity firm Armis for nearly $8 billion in cash, just the latest acquisition for the software maker, who has also acquired MoveWorks and Vezu this just this past year. Service now expects the transaction to close in the second half of 2026 and will finance the deal through a combination of cash on hand and debt.

And rounding out with a check on the major banks, like a J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, with the exception of just hovering in the red right now. But all three have hit all-time highs at some point today. They've also outpaced the S&P 500's year-to-date gain of about 17 percent, Scott. All right, Christina, Christina, thanks. Back to in a bit. We're just getting started here. Up next, five-star stock advice for 2026. Capital Wealth Planning is Kevin Simpson. He'll give you his playbook for the new year. The S&P 500, as we said, tracking towards yet another record close, about six points or so above that. Don't go anywhere. We'll track it right to the end.

What is a five-star stock picker looking at as the new year approaches? Well, let's ask one. Kevin Simpson, is the founder and CIO of Capital Wealth Planning, joins us. Now, we just had a long and substantive conversation about the markets. It seems to be bulls are abound. Are you? Yeah, it's hard not to be. I mean, we had a great conversation to start the show. I look at next year, Scott, and I try to think, can the markets continue if we take away

two of our big headwinds? And you touched on it in both cases. If we lose the AI trade where it's a rising tide, lifting all tech trade. And if you lose a dubbish fed, can the stock market move high? And I think it can. I mean, I think if the growth holds up, which it should, and if earnings are solid, that we can still have a good year with a little breath to the market. Yeah. I mean, first of all, I don't know who thinks we're going to lose the AI trade. Well, like, what's, what are the prospects of that? And you really believe that if we somehow lose that and there would be a reason why

we would quite, quite clearly, that the market would be able to overcome that? Yeah, let me be, a little bit more clear. I don't think we're going to lose the AI trade. I think we're going to lose the all-in AI trade. I'll give you two examples. One, we took a position in Micron last week before the print. And that stock, I mean, yeah, thank you. I mean, it couldn't have been better. And the opposite end of that spectrum from our portfolio specifically, we've been liquidating Oracle over the past month because it's been like a little bit of a tail of two different markets. And what it means to me is, and Adam said this, it's a stock pickers market. So I don't think anyone watching the show should think when we talk about breath or a broadening market, in no way

shape or form, does that mean you want to abandon tech and think that the trade's going to be a pure value play? I say that humbly as a value manager. I just think that there's opportunities that we need to be a little bit more selective, as we always are, across the board in 2026. Sure. I'm glad you mentioned, Mike Ron, because there's a note out today that I thought was really interesting that basically says earnings expectations in everything away from tech are pretty elevated. Now, would you place your bet on those expectations being realized? Or did Micron just prove to you that the best earnings growth is and will continue to be in tech? Okay, I think it's still going to be in tech. As much as I want these other things to come up, as much as I love the

RSP versus SPY, and we're seeing it outperform in December. We have not seen that trade stick. Like, we run into that direction, and then everybody just abands it and goes back to the Mag 7, 8, 910. So you want the heavy lifting to be done by the right tech stocks. People will always pay up for innovation. How could they not when we look at the AI landscape? But I think that there's other trades out there that are going to be very profitable, like we saw this year in financials, industrials, maybe next year it continues to be consumer discretion and materials kind of thrown into that mix to at least help do the heavy lifting. But I know that there's lots of talk about is the AI trade over? Do we need to go elsewhere? And I don't think that should be the

conversation, nor should it be the expectation. You continue to believe in gold and you added to AEM yesterday. Tell me quickly more before I let you go. Yeah, real fast. I mean, look at this stock. It's up 130% year-to-date. It's been one of our top picks. We still believe in the momentum trade for gold moving forward. This way you can own a miner instead of the commodity. Great margins, a little bit of a dividend, and very, very amazing free cash flow here in this name. We're up huge on it, and we still believe in the trade so much so that we're adding to it.

Okay. Good stuff. Kev, be well. We'll see you soon. Thanks, my friend. All right. Take care. That's Kevin Simpson.

Still ahead. Ed Yardney standing by. The S&P trying for yet another record close. The bell's coming. right back the roaring 20s are alive and well that according to our next guest ed yard denny he's the president of yard denny research he joins us now it's good to see you so we were just a little delayed on the roaring 20s maybe thanks to COVID and here we are about to regroup well I think we've been doing pretty well since since the beginning of the of the decade I mean think

of all the shocks that the economy has been hit by the pandemic, the lockdowns for two months, then the social distancing, the supply chain disruptions, inflation, the Fed tightening tariffs. And here we are at an all-time record high for real GDP, all-time record high for real consumer spending and real consumer spending per household. Pretty good. What messes up the story? I think we need to explore that, right? Sure, absolutely. I had three people, I had three people on top of the show, largely bullish. I just finished an interview with Kevin Simpson. He's bullish, makes the comments, hard to be anything but, which makes people nervous and says that's exactly a reason

maybe not to be as bullish. I agree. I agree. It's something to be concerned about. Look, I'm expecting that we'll get up, be up by 10% next year, but I am thinking that maybe in the first half of the year, it's going to be a rough, rough going as it was at the beginning of this year. And what I'm concerned about here is we've got sort of a confluence of two policies, fiscal and monetary policies that are going to be very stimulative at the beginning of the year. Monetary policy is on course to buy $40 billion per month in treasury bills through April of next year. And the fiscal authorities are about to give us some pretty substantial refunds in the April. period, reflecting the fact that the big, beautiful bill did not take the tax cut into consideration.

It was retroactive. So we're going to have some pretty substantial fiscal stimulus as well. And some pretty large deficit numbers, I would think. I mean, the money has to come from somewhere and it's going to be deficit financed. So the bond market gets spooked by all that. And the bond market really hasn't cooperated, has not been cooperating with the Fed. The Fed's lowered rates by 175 basis points since 2024, and the bond yield is still above 4%. So when you have people like Torsten Slok and others say higher for longer and investors need to adjust themselves to that idea, it sounds like you're one of them.

Yeah, I've been in that camp for a while. I've been arguing for quite some time that bond yields are kind of back to normal. they should be between four and five percent. I really don't have a problem with that whatsoever. That's where they were before the great financial crisis. I see productivity-led growth. I mean, certainly the second and third quarter numbers for GDP suggests productivity-led growth. That implies that the so-called normal interest rates

or the neutral interest rate isn't 3%. It's probably more like 4%. So I think a lot of what the Fed's doing here in terms of easing is not going to help the labor market very much because of structural problems there. But it is going to continue to fuel asset inflation, as we're seeing particularly now in precious metals. So we don't even need rate cuts at this point. But there are some who say they should just do it anyway, as we discussed with Steve Leesman. Just follow the Greenspan model from the mid-90s when there were the same concerns, or at least

similar. Sure. Today then, that there are today. But productivity saved the day. And you've been talking so much about that same thing? Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, the roaring 2020s is based on productivity-led economic growth. I think we've seen a fair amount of it. I think we'll see more of it over the rest of the decade. That will keep inflation down. But again, I think that in that kind of environment, you don't need lower interest rates.

Normal interest rates is what you need. And normal interest rates, I think, more like 4 to 5 percent in a roaring 2020 scenario. I don't want to melt-up, melt-down scenario. And Greenspan certainly gave us some of that in the late 1990s and 2000. I'll be it a few years, obviously, after he not only made the comment, but made the move on rates along with the Fed. Ed, be well. Happy holidays. We'll see you soon. Same to you. All the best. Thanks. Yep, Ed Gjardin.

Up next, we track the biggest movers into the close today. Christina Parts in Nevelas, of course, is standing by with that. Tell us what you see. Wow, I'm seeing home builders extending their losing strong. your ecosystem company tumbling on insider trading and one minor riding the commodity wave higher. Those stock movers when we come back. All with less than 15 from the close, let's get back now to Christina for the stocks that she's watching. Tell us. Let's start off with the home builders.

Toll brothers, Lenar, D.R. Horton are all lower today. The declines really come after today's strong GDP read, which could affect the odds of a rate cut come January. You can see Lenar and D.R. Horton are pacing for their six straight negative day. Lenar down 2%. Meantime, Asana shares are also falling after the company's COO disclosed a sale of more than 160,000 shares. So that's about $2.3 million. This is the worst day for the software maker since October, and shares are now down more than 33% for the year. Shares down 5% on this insider trade.

And Freeport, Mac Moran, is among the best performers on the S&P 500 today in tandem with move in gold, which hit a fresh record high today. Copper, also higher. Freeport is a major producer of both. The mining giant is pacing for its seventh straight, positive day, and it's ninth in 10 days. Cut. All right, tracking copper. See you next week. Yes, thank you. Take care. Christina Parsonabalos. Up next, we'll tell you how crypto stocks are faring as Bitcoin slips yet again. That and much more inside the market zone next. We're now in the closing bell market zone. CNBC senior markets commentator Mike Santoli and MetLife's Drew Mattis.

They're here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus Brandon Gomez looking at the hangover in Boo stocks this year. Mackenzie Sagal is watching crypto. Mike, I've turned to you heading for a record close on the S&P as we creep towards the end of the year. We are. It's going to say not in any hurry to do it. We're obviously playing to script in this very measured way. So there's a couple ways to look at it.

One is, there's no real momentum or urgency behind this push, but we are relaxing higher. And I do think we've gotten past a lot of these catalysts that could have derailed things. Volatility, really bleeding lower, as you would expect this time of year. Sets us up, I think, for kind of a net positive outlook, but I'm going to be alert to people getting a little complacent about how growth's going to immediately kick in as we get into the first quarter and all the rest for now. Not really today's business. Weak breath, doesn't matter. low volume, doesn't really undercut anything in the story. Invidia, plus some cyclicals are enough today.

A lot of bulls out there, man, as you heard, top the show, mid-show, late show. It's hard to find the bears. You know, look, the weight of the evidence is in their favor of the bulls. You know, we're up 70% of all years. Earnings projections is really hard to kind of find your way lower when the consensus is pretty solid on double-digit earnings growth. But there will be complications to the story. Don't know if you can prepare for them in advance, though.

A lot of bears on booze stocks, though. That is for certain. Brandon Gomez joins us. Now, this Beam news was such a shocker even in what's been a really, really rough environment. Yeah, you know, look, and especially if you're a bourbon drinker, but one of America's most iconic bourbons putting production on ice, Jim Beam owned by Japan's Suntary, shutting down its main Kentucky distillery in 2026. Now, shares are popping higher as clearly investors welcome the decision.

The company said the move comes after a sharp drop in whiskey exports to key overseas trade partners, tied to tariffs, and that's on top of already soft demand here in the U.S. Frankly, Scott, though, as you said, this doesn't come as a shock. We've been watching trade pressure build across spirits, but also consumers cutting back while inventories keep piling up. The Kentucky Distillers Association saying a record 16 million barrels are currently aging or maybe over aging in warehouses stateside. And Jim Beam isn't alone. Consolation brands Diageo Brownform in all sharply lower year to date as supply keeps flowing, but demand dries up. Maybe Jim Bean is making the right call here. Scott. Wow. It was a shocker to many people, Brandon. Thanks for the

context there. Brandon Gomez. Mack, tell us about Bitcoin. We're just showing it. There's red all over the board. Yes, there is. Scott, Bitcoin and the broader crypto market is under pressure today, breaking from the strength that we're seeing in tech equities. Bitcoin trading at that 88K level and all coins like XRP are in the red. Spot Bitcoin ETFs are net negative on the week, a sign that institutional demand is cooling for now. Analyst, they say this looks like classic year-end tax loss selling as investors lock in write-offs. And within holiday trading and a big options expiry Friday, QCP Capital says moves can be exaggerated, but they expect this to settle once January volume comes back. Now, the bigger damage is actually showing up in crypto-aligned

stocks today. Coinbase Circle, Eitoro, and Bullish are all lower, along with the digital asset treasury names, including Bitcoin proxies like strategy and 21 Capital. Ether-linked reserve plays are sliding two, including Eath Zilla and Tom Lee's Bitmine immersion. Scott, back to you. Well, I'm Mack. Thank you. Mack, thank you. Mackenzie Segal. It's Drew Mattis. Nice to have you join this conversation today. Do you match the bullish sentiment that seems to be pervasive? Well, I hate to be the grinch in the conversation, but I think, you know, one of the things that might be driving consumer spending and what we might see driving consumer spending into the end of the year is the expectation for these giant tax refunds that keep getting talked about in the early part of next year.

And so a lot of what we're seeing at the end of this year might be people trying to save the holidays, and then they're going to try to basically survive until they get their tax refund check. Wow. So you don't believe the hype? I don't believe the hype. I think unemployment's going up for a reason. I think that's the one data point we know is actually been moving directionally in the wrong direction for a number of months. And I think, you know, when the Fed's cutting rates, you know, they keep pointing to that. And I think they're pointing to that for a reason, and we should take them seriously. Okay, well, let's take them seriously then. That means they'll cut more, which is still good for stocks, now?

Yeah, you know, what's bad is good and what's good is good. You know, I do think that, you know, it's very easy to look at the GDP report and be excited. You know, there's a lot of growth. It did come from the consumer, and that was in the third quarter, so that's good news. Nominal GDP went up so much that actually debt to GDP in the United States went down, right? So for all the talk about large, budget deficits, we actually kind of made some progress on the debt last quarter because of the magnitude of the growth side. And, you know, if we get some productivity gains from technology, then, you know, it could be a decent environment, even if there is some consumer slowing in the first half next year. I know, but you're saying if we do, aren't we already and aren't we likely to get a lot more? You know, I think what we're seeing now might be some of the early bits of it. I don't think we're seeing the bulk of it. I think if you look at most

past technologies has taken a while for us to figure out how to use them. And in particular, for firms to kind of adapt their entire process of how they deliver goods and services to take advantage of the tools that they have. And so I think to the extent that AI is driving productivity now, we're in very early stages of it. That means the gains that we're seeing are actually reasonably small relative to what the total future gains will be. And it's a reason to be optimistic in the long term. All right, Mike. I mean, I told you at the top. Maybe I I lied. I said bears are hard to come by. Not that he's bearish. I think in general, that's correct.

But it's also sort of in line with what I was trying to say, where I think we are, the market is taking credit for this reacceleration story in the first quarter. And I think we can identify those things. Everyone talking about, oh, $150 billion more in tax refunds. Okay, it's 0.6% of annual personal disposable income. That's what we're getting excited about, and it probably just kind of gets spent out and all the rest. So I think it's not the biggest swing factor. So I don't like to sort of outthink the market's assessment of things.

And I am encouraged by the fact that cyclical stocks are doing well. It could be the upper part of the K is going to carry us. And CAPEX is still, you know, kind of at this point funded and is going to come through. And earnings, you know, I mean, look, the S&P 500 has been able to turn slow growth into earnings leverage over time. But I do think you shouldn't be hoping for the circumstances under which the Fed gets more aggressive on the easing side. So, Drew, where do you come down on this tech trade? I mean, look, people get excited about new technology all the time.

There's often a lot of investment that takes place. A lot of that investment doesn't end up paying off for the firm that made it. And I think that, you know, history most likely is going to repeat itself. There's going to be some losers in this scenario. We're just not sure who they are. And there are going to be some winners. And I don't think we can, you know, immediately figure out exactly who those people. people are going to be either. It seems obvious right now, but I think, you know, having lived

through the dot-com experience, it's not as obvious as everyone thinks it is. You have a rather dour view of the market, it sounds like. Are you looking for a down year next year? I'm not, actually. You know, I think, you know, if we think about what's going to happen with growth and what's going to happen with rates and what we think is going to happen with the yield curve, which is a steepening, I think that's a pretty good environment, actually, for the equity market. So you'd be buying financials and things like that with the yield curve steepening? It's hard to, it's, you know, if you're worried about there might be some volatility going forward, you know, where's the hedge? The hedge is usually in financials because they can take

advantage of volatility or they can just take advantage of the spread if you're expecting the yield curve to widen, you know, or steepen. So, you know, I think financials usually tend to be a good bet in that situation. Drew will be well. We'll see you soon. Appreciate you joining us. That's Drew Mattis joining us today. A lot of people like that trade. Yeah, for sure. And the stocks are acting very, very well. I think a lot of it is the capital market side. The credit piece of it, very brief little eruptions of concern, but not too much beyond that. Very consensus. I will say that. Even beyond that, banks and semis acting pretty well, semis have not yet taken out their old high. It's something I look for.

There's still like three or four percent below. So maybe there's still a little more to prove for this rally. We've done this round trip. We got to these levels 6920 on the S&P was the high from late October, although this will be a closing high as we go out right here. Yes, it will. Mike just said it. It is going to, and thank you very much as usual, Mike Santola. So it is going to be yet another closing high on the S&P 500. 6901 was the prior. Of course, in 6910, we'll see if we get there over to overtime. Thank you.