Closing Bell - Closing Bell 2/6/26

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

From the open to the close, “Closing Bell” and “Closing Bell: Overtime” have you covered. From what’s driving market moves to how investors are reacting, Scott Wapner, Jon Fortt, Morgan Brennan and Michael Santoli guide listeners through each trading session and bring to you some of the biggest names in business. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We appreciate it. Closing Bell starts right now. All right guys, thanks so much. Welcome to Closing Bell of Scott Wapner live from Santa Clara, a site of Super Bowl 60. And speaking of big round numbers, the Dow, hitting 50,000 for the very first time ever. We're going to track it over this final stretch. Can we close above there as well? Well, we shall see, which means you can't go anywhere.

We're also going to speak live to the CEO of Levi's, the company's brand taking center stage this weekend. We look very much forward to that. and the mayor of San Francisco. Daniel Lurie, he'll join me, his city in the spotlight over the next few days. Lots to discuss. We, of course, though, we begin with the markets. As stocks are surging back today, how about the equal weight S&P 500?

Also hitting a new record high today. And that's a very, very big part of this market story. So is Amazon. It's lower. It's AI spending plans. Well, they blew past expectations. And that's where we begin today. History on Wall Street.

the Dow hitting 50,000 for the very first time ever. Let's bring in our panel, the Wharton School, Professor Finance, Wisdom Tree, Chief Economist, Jeremy Siegel, CNBC contributors, High Tower, Stephanie Link, and requisite capitals, Bryn Talkington. So good to have everybody with us. Professor, I'm going to you first on this. 50K for the first time ever. Yeah, I mean, we set this up about three weeks ago, and who would have dreamed that this is 50K? I mean, I remember 10K in 1999, and, you know, it was 25K in 2008. So, you know, in 2018, so in eight years, we've actually doubled the Dow.

And as you know, the Dow is underweight technology. So it's more of the value stocks, more of the older stocks. It does have a couple, certainly tech stocks in it. But for that to hit a new high like this, I mean, it shows the fundamental, despite what we see this rotation, there's a lot of fundamental strength in this economy. Yes, Steph, it shows the durability of the story. The bullish backdrop and the narrative that has allowed the market to get to this level, in some respects without technology taking it there. I mentioned in the intro, the equal weight S&P hitting a record high in its own right, and that part of this story needs to be focused on heavily. Well, 100%. And I think the reason you are seeing the equal weight doing better is because you are seeing the broadening out, and that is tied directly to the economy growing 4 to 5%. And we haven't even had the impacts from the one big, beautiful bill yet, but we know we're getting fiscal monetary policy accommodation likely. We have deep.

regulation. We may or may not get housing. That would be icing on the cake. But I think the reason the markets are rallying substantially today and have been so resilient is because we are seeing that CAP-X spend from the hyperscalers. And I'm sure we're going to get into all of that in a bit. But they're going to spend the big seven are going to spend $700 billion, up 75% year over year, up from the $450 billion they spent last year. That is a tailwind for the economy, 100% and because we've talked about the food chain, all of the various different industries that are going to benefit, the power companies, data center, grid, the financials, and the consumer.

So I think this really feels good, and I'm so glad that we're finally seeing a broadening out, and that's, by the way, tying back to very good earnings as well. What a difference of a couple of days makes, too, Bryn. You know, the last couple of days obviously have been dominated by questions over all of this AI spending and whether all the angst over it is justified or not. I asked that question to NVIDIA CEO Jensen Wong, who joined me earlier right here. Listen. Demand is sky high, and there's a fundamental reason for that. We're in the once-in-a-generation infrastructure build-out. This is the largest infrastructure build-out in human history, and there's

a fundamental reason for that. Artificial intelligence is going to fundamentally change how we compute everything. Everything from database processing, the way we do search, the way we do recommend her systems that you shot the way you watch movies so brin what do you make of that commentary i mean it it certainly helps soothe i think all of the concerns that are out there about these tremendously large numbers that we keep hearing right and i think those part of those tremendously large numbers are why we see the dowell doing well why rsp is breaking out because we have so much spend into the economy and so you know GDP is picking up and so you know gdp is picking up and And so when the OBBB actually gets put in, you know, we feel that this is part of why you're getting

that broadening because, you know, these data centers, the grids, those are workers, electricians, those are components that are actually being built out largely in the U.S. And so I think you're going to continue to see this broadening out. You know, we added the equal weight RSP in January of 2024 expecting a broadening out. So two years early, but nice to see that. happening. I think you're going to continue to see that, but I do think you're going to see individual names in tech. I mean, Apple's done very well, and they're clearly the one company that doesn't have the CAP-X, but has the high free cash flow. Professor, you know,

Jensen Wong makes it clear that there's just too much angst and anxiety over these big numbers, that it's so justified because demand is so large and the transformation so big that it's going to take this level of spending from these hyperscalers to get us to where we need to go, I feel like at times the market just has a hard time accepting it because the numbers are so big. Yeah, I mean, and one thing he said, it struck me that demand for his older chips, you know, four, five, six years, the prices are going up. And, you know, when you think about the history of technology, you know, older technology never goes up in price. The demand is sky high. I was just floored by that, but I fully agree with him. This is probably one of the greatest

technological revolutions that we've ever experienced. It's going to change the world in many ways that we don't know, but it's going to be for the better because we can produce more and do more with less effort, which, you know, is basically what technological progress and science and progress is all about. So, I mean, I'm very excited by what he said. Of course, being ahead of NVIDIA, that would be what he would think about. I think the doubts are, is it going so fast

that we're going to see a breakthrough that could devalue some of the technology that is developed? Like we did in 2000 with the fiber. optics, the multiplexing, which really was able to put so many more signals through a fiber that all the Nortel systems, JDS Uniface, all those companies suddenly collapsed. Is there going to be some sort of surprise there, good for the consumer, but bad for some of these companies? I think that that is what is keeping some of the people on edge, but the demand is astronomical.

Yeah, we were just showing a board. of the Mega Cap names. And of course, they're still mixed because there are questions individually about some of these companies. I want to take a look at shares of Meta as well as we head through this final stretch. There's the mixed picture that I was talking about. Meta's been read for much of the day, but you'll see if you throw up an intraday chart here and you track the point of our conversation with Jensen Wong, when he said something specific about Meta, I want you to listen to this. Nobody uses AI better than meta. And so if you look at the way that they're using AI, AI went from a classical recommender system running on CPUs to now a generative AI

agenetic system that's making recommendations. Everything from the way they social media works and the way they recommend ads and help advertisers create content has fundamentally been changed. And their earnings show it. And that's the reason why they're investing so hard. Steph, you're the meta shareholder. Those comments obviously got our attention. And though the stock is red, you could see a bit of a move off the worst levels of the morning when Jensen Wong sang the praises of meta and what they're doing in this area. Well, we talk a lot about monetization. And some people are very frustrated that some of the hyperscalers are not seeing it. Some of the software companies aren't seeing it, et cetera. These guys are. Meta is seeing monetization. They just grew

revenues 23%, but they raised revenues by $3 billion more than people were expected. So they're going to go from something like 23% to something like 30% because of all of the usage and the spend on AI. And of course, the family of apps grew 24%. Impressions grew 14%. Price per ad, that is monetization's definition, and that was up 6%. It's been comfortably in the upper single digits in terms of pricing power. That's great to see. I think the stock trading at 21, 22 times forward estimates for this kind of growth is a buy. You know I own it and it's one of my biggest positions. And I'll continue to buy it because I do think over time the estimates are going higher. Now, I know the one concern is that free cash flow is coming down. It's only going to be $9 billion this year after all the spend. And that is something to watch because I'm not crazy about negative free cash flow, which is why I think Amazon is down today, why Oracle is down 60% from its highs. But I think that over time, this spend is going to lead to stronger results and stronger free cash flow. So I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So let me come back to you on that because that's the point that Jensen made when he was sitting right here, that if you're simply focused on the spend, you're missing the other part of the story. You can't say they're spending such a significant part of their free cash flow without realizing that most believe he, clearly does. The CEOs who are making the spend clearly do that if you continue to ramp that up, you're going to get higher free cash flow. You just got to wait for it, but it's going to happen. Yeah, 100%. I have no doubt. That's why I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I really don't want them going into the debt markets in a big way. Scott, that would kind of get me a little bit more, not cautious, but just not something I want to see. But if they continue to deliver

these kinds of numbers and estimates, and they keep revising estimates higher in the face of this spend. Just imagine when they can see a leveling off of the spend what the operating leverage could be for this company. You're going to have this 20 to 5 to 30 percent growth on the top line. You're going to get margin expansion, then you get operating leverage, and that really will take the stock really take off from there. But we have to wait a little bit for now. And I'm willing to do that. Yeah, clearly. Professor, we were struck just like you. on the comment that Jensen Wong made about what all of that demand is doing to the price of Nvidia chips, even the older ones. Listen to this. In fact, GPUs that we sold six years ago,

the prices are going up. It's not like it's antique. I mean, it's incredible. It's like a fine wine. The demand is so high that GPUs I sold six years ago are going up in price. And so I think the demand is just incredibly high. Let's bring in Christina Parts of Nevelos who covers this company. Obviously, as you react to this as well, you know, the professor singled it out because it certainly did catch our attention. It's not exactly the way that technology has traditionally worked. But it does echo the comments from Microsoft CEO very recently saying that they're going to be using Nvidia chips for more than just one workload.

It echoes the comments from Corweave CEO at their latest earnings. call where he said that they have almost sold out of H-100 chips, which were released about four years ago. Two comments that really stood out in your conversation, Scott, too, is the sustainability of the spending just over the next seven to eight years. That's literally the time frame that Jensen Wong provided. And there was one particular note that stood out that is relevant to this conversation. Bank of America calculated the CAPEX spending for Oracle, Microsoft, meta, Amazon, and Google

from 2024 to 2030. up that chart, they adjusted for inflation, they say it's going to be roughly $2 trillion of spending here in the United States. That is more than all of the spending in NASA. That is more than the spending for the U.S. highway across the United States, but a little bit less than the bailout in 2009 for the great financial crisis and, of course, a little bit less, too, than what we spent during COVID. But it really puts into context just how much spending is going to continue to happen and the peripheral in the data center, how many of these other companies will benefit beyond just Nvidia, AMD, and the ones we always talk about.

Yeah, and you just get the feeling, Christina, and you certainly know this better than most because you cover it every day. It just doesn't sound like, I know the professor said, well, Jensen's the CEO of Nvidia. Well, what is he going to say? But it feels like there is true belief all across the industry. that demand isn't slowing down anytime soon. And it's not just going to be Nvidia that's the beneficiary. There are many other companies in your orbit that are poised to win from all of this.

You could pick memory makers, optical providers, data center infrastructure providers like iron, nebias, core weave. There are many names that have climbed high just over the last little while. You brought up the doubt that is in the market and why we saw so many of these AI names fall off, or Microsoft Post earnings, AMD, even though they guided hire. And Brad Gersoner brought up a good example of when Jeff Bezos in early 2000, he brought a, you know, he wanted to move forward with AWS. And I'm hoping our team has the tweet. I pulled out this old tweet from Jeff Bezos,

stating that he framed a Businessweek article from 2006, speaking to Wall Street, doubting his risky bet. And so you could see the photo on the screen there. That's him, you know, back in the day, 2006, wanting to move forward to the AWS, and the market completely doubted him. And of course, now we know the positive outcome of that bet and how many people were wrong. So perhaps that is another scenario that could be, you know, moving forward or, I guess, happening again today. That's great insight. Christina, thanks for it.

That's Christina Parts of Navalos. Bryn, I'll turn to you as our Nvidia shareholder. Yeah, I think what's so amazing is we're all listening from Jensen, Christina, et cetera, their earnings don't come out until the end of this month. We're looking for 65% revenue and 70% earnings growth, but the stock can't get above 200. And so if you look at all of the like the big mag 7, Nvidia is by far the cheapest. You look at price to sales, margins, revenue earnings growth, but there is such skepticism because they can't get over 200. And I think that we're in this moment where, you know, people are saying, well, this is already priced in. But I think

it's not. And ultimately, I do believe it will break above that 200 because when you're consistently getting these massive revenue and earnings growth and these hyperscalers are going to spend, and VDIA continues to be, you know, one of the core companies that should be in portfolios to capitalize on this historic spend that we're seeing with the hyperscalers. Professor, I'll give you the last word, excuse me, in our panel conversation. Again, as we're focused so heavily on Dow 50K, and we've been so fixated. on everything going on in tech. I know there's a lot of belief that this is just a blip

what's been happening in the market, and sooner rather than later, money's going to start flowing back to these names. Do you believe that, too? I certainly do, but we can't underestimate, you know, as you pointed out, the equal-weighted S&P surging. What is so remarkable is that almost 80% of the firms say they're in the very early stages of,

of implementing AI to improve their own productivity, which means improving their own margin, which means profits, earnings, and increased prices. And I think the market is sensing that. While all the providers and producers and the MAG-7 are in advanced stages of producing it, doesn't mean they can't keep on rolling. The very early stages are those companies that have not used AI full. And all the surveys say there's a long way to go there. And that's why I think this broadening out is just the beginning.

All right. We're going to make that the last word. Thanks, everybody. Professor, we'll talk to you soon. And Brennan, Steph, I know we will as well. All right. It's been an ugly week, a no good, very bad week for crypto. Bitcoin is bouncing a bit today, but it is very much in focus,

especially for McKenzie Segalos, who covers that for us. Hi, Mack. Hey, Scott. So Bitcoin trading back at that $70,000 level up about 17% from the overnight low, but this is still a damage control market. With the rest of the complex, still far off their highs. Ether, XRP, and Solana are down as much as 70% from their recent peaks. And you can see how tied this is to the Treasury trade. Strategy, 24% higher going into the close, even after a brutal quarter. It posted a $12.4 billion, Q4,9%. net loss on an unrealized hit to its digital asset holdings, the company needs Bitcoin to add another 6K just to get back to break even on its position. And on institutional flows, around 40%

of spot Bitcoin ETF holders are underwater. We have seen roughly $1.3 billion in net outflows in the last three days. Meanwhile, the bear case is getting louder. Michael Burry is warning that this kind of drop could trigger a death spiral among corporate holders. It echoes what Jim Chanos has argued for a while now that packaging non-earning exposure with leverage can end badly when the unwind starts, Scott. Yeah, Mac, thank you very much for that in-depth look for us, too. Let's bring in CNBC contributor FundStraitz, Tom Lee, who's so timely to speak with not only for Dow 50K and the jump back in tech, but also as the chairman of BitMine, Tom.

I know you're watching what's taking place in crypto. We're talking about a seven-month low for the stock, a bitmine. The Ethereum paper losses, $8 billion. Is this in jeopardy of going into a pretty dark place? Hi, Scott. Thanks for having me. You know, Bitmine is designed to be a vehicle that tracks Ethereum prices, but on the upswing, because we're adding Ethereum, will outperform.

So Ethereum is a drawdown. Bitmine's going to be in this drawdown, Scott. Bitmine has no leverage. It has roughly 4.3 million Ethereum that earns 3% annually, and we have $600 million of cash earning about 4% in money markets. So the company is making about a million dollars a day. So there is no risk, no need for the company to actually raise money because it's debt-free and actually generates about $300.

60 million a year net income. I think crypto sentiment is rock bottom because it has been a terrible drawdown. I mean, just the past 10 days, Ethereum's down 40%. And that's triggered, I think, with a lot of concerns about whether crypto is even viable. But, you know, all of those statements that I just heard from just a minute ago, I heard the same thing in November 2022 after FTX. that's the reality that crypto is sort of characterized by hyper volatility and big drawdowns. And just in the last eight years, Ethereum's had seven drawdowns of 60% or more.

The good news is seven of seven those were all V-shaped recoveries. So we had a waterfall decline. If crypto's bottoming now, which it kind of looks like it is, especially given micro-stratage's 25% move, the recover is V-shaped. So we recover as quickly as we've fallen. Just want to follow up on that. What you suggest there's no risk to the company, is that assumption that Ethereum has stopped going down,

that this is a bottom? If there is what some have predicted to be a coming, quote-unquote, death spiral for certain cryptocurrencies, if the situation with Ethereum gets worse, what happens here? Well, yeah, I mean, it's a fair question. I think we can look at metrics, for instance. If you look at the number of active addresses on Ethereum, it's up 117% versus a year ago.

In fact, in just the last three months, that's actually gone up parabolicly. As you know, coming out of Davos, what was the big story around what Wall Street plans to do? It's tokenization, which is moving a lot of their financial infrastructure onto the blockchain, Scott. That's not going to change just because crypto prices have fallen. But what is the blockchain that is evident, you know, listed, named by whether it's UBS,

standard charter or fidelity, whether tokenizing products, it's on Ethereum. So Ethereum is not in a death spiral because the utility is going up. The price, of course, has been awful. Unfortunately, you know, crypto prices are volatile. So it's not like earnings estimates change for Ethereum. In fact, network usage is up 80% in just the last six months. But it does mean prices move a lot. I mean, it's sort of a feature of crypto itself.

Tom, we'll talk to you soon. I appreciate you joining us. It's a very big day in the markets, and this has many investors focus on what's happening in crypto. We're just getting started here on Closing Bell Live in Santa Clara today. Up next, the Levi-Strauss CEO, Michelle Gash. She joins me right here outside. Levi Stadium ahead of the big game. We're live in Santa Clara, as I said, for the closing bell.

And we're back right after this. Super Bowl 60 taking place in Levi's Stadium behind me. Our next guest, that company's CEO, Michelle Gass, joins us live right here. Welcome. Thanks, Scott. Thrilled to be here. What do you think? It looks pretty good, doesn't it? It looks phenomenal. Yes. We're ready. Big game on Sunday. Speaking of phenomenal, the market looks pretty phenomenal today. Your stock's obviously having a good day. Just your general thought on this milestone of Dow 50,000 today and just what's happening in the markets? You know, I think we're seeing some optimism today, and I love that it's coming together with a big moment for the country. The Super Bowl is always such a big cultural moment.

I'd say for Levi's, it came off a great year. We were up 7% organic growth last year. We have momentum heading into the year, and that's why we are so excited to be here hosting the Super Bowl again. It's been 10 years, and now's the time. You're in the midst of a turnaround plan, which the street suggests is working. What's been the key to that? Yeah. So for us, I'd say there's really two big pivots.

One is, you know, we've been around for 170 years. And for most of that time, we've been known as the best pair of denim jeans on the planet, I would argue. But now we've set our aspirations for something bigger and to really evolve into a head-to-to-toe apparel brand, which we say head-toe denim lifestyle. And that's working. Our categories that are outside of denim bottoms are growing. They're outperforming things like tops and outerwear sweaters. Our women's business is on fire up 11% last year. So that's the first move.

And the second move is we're becoming a retailer, a direct-to-consumer retailer. And we've had now 15 consecutive quarters of positive conch growth. And as we look ahead, we expect that momentum to continue. And we just guided to have another mid-single-digit year coming ahead. Have you figured out how to manage through the tariffs? You know, retailers are having a hard time deciding, do you eat the higher cost or do you pass it on? You guys have taken some pricing. Yes.

And will you continue to do that? You know, really taking a comprehensive approach. And we've got a few levers that we're using. One, given the scale of tariffs, we are taking some pricing. But we've been really thoughtful about that and protecting more of those entry price points. but leaning in where we have pricing power to innovation and higher-level goods. We've been working with our vendors. I mean, we've got relationships with vendors that go pack decades, and we ourselves are tightening

our belts. So it's really across the board, but we've been able to mitigate the tariff impact this coming year. And in fact, not only are we guiding for growth in that mid-single-digit range, but we're also expecting profit our EBIT to expand as well. How difficult has it been for a chief executive over what is now almost a year since Liberation Day happened and we saw all the numbers come out and then we've been, you know, with the trials and tribulations of all of the negotiations from that. But how difficult has that been

in a business like yours to try and manage through it? Yeah. You know, I think what's key in this kind of environment is you have to say stay resilient, you have to stay focused on what you can control. And most important, I mean, you stay focused on the consumer. You know, and I think at times like this where there is uncertainty, consumers look to brands that they love, that they try. trust that are authentic, and I don't think there's any better example of that than Levi's. I mean, we've been around for 170 years, and we're known for durability and authenticity. But as a team, you know, you have to be, you know, right there responsive and have agility to navigate what comes your way.

You mentioned the consumer. We don't have Dow 50,000 without the consumer staying as resilient as it has. Are you surprised that consumers have remained as resilient as they have? And do you think it continues from here? Well, I can speak to our consumer, which clearly has been resilient, given the growth that we're seeing the momentum we have on the business. We stay very close. But it's really important that we continue to be competitive and differentiated and give them innovation.

And that's what's really fueling our business. You know, we have a ton of innovation across the business in our bottoms, in our tops, in jackets like these with the Super Bowl that we're selling. celebrating this weekend. And also, you know, for us, it's really important to stay at that center of culture. And we just came off of a fantastic campaign this last year with a very iconic superstar in Beyonce, followed by Shibuzi. And we're kicking off our global campaign on Sunday at the Super Bowl.

Right. So you have a Super Bowl ad. We do. For the first time in 20 years. Indeed. Is it simply because the stadium has your name on it, or is there something about this particular time that makes that right? I think for all the reasons that you're indicating. But when you take a step back and you see the momentum we've experienced on the business and what is working, it's really multiple things. Like I said, it's head-toe denim lifestyle.

It's being center of culture. It's DTC and it's our wholesale business. Kicking off the year and maintaining that momentum, it just felt right to start the year to launch this campaign and aligned with the time when the world is going to be looking at Levi's Stadium with the big game on Sunday. I don't even know how you would do it. How do you quantify what having your name on the stadium means or the impressions that you're going to get over the next few days and even through the game? Is there a way to do that? There's a way to pretty much measure everything these days. And we've been measuring our partnership with the 49ers, with the stadiums, since it came together.

And that was back in 2013 as the stadium opened. And we just renewed it, actually. So our partnership is now out through 2043. So we're doing this because we know it's been a part of what's driven the momentum and staying relevant as a brand. And so, of course, we look at the ROI. And for something like on Sunday, it's about the day, it's about the breath through. There will be a lot of eyeballs, but it is really about maintaining that center of culture standpoint for the Levi's brand. All right.

Well, enjoy it. It doesn't come around that often where your stadium gets to host the big game. Michelle, thank you. Thank you. Michelle Goss joining us. And forgive me for mispronounouncing. your name at the top too. That's my bad. Still ahead, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie. He joins us as the Bay Area gears up for Super Bowl 60. The bell is back live from Santa Clara after this.

Hosting a Super Bowl, even if it's not right in your town, is a Herculean task. Our next guest is charged with making sure everything runs smoothly. Daniel Lurie is the 46th mayor of San Francisco where most of the pregame events are taking place, and he joins us now. Mr. Merritt's good to see you. Scott, good to be with you. You know, the city, I've been downtown. City's buzzing with activity because of the Super Bowl, some 40 miles away where I am now. How big of an undertaking has it been for you to get the city ready for this? Scott, we do big things well here in San Francisco.

As you know, this is the second time we've hosted the game in the past 10 years. We are so thrilled to welcome the world. I told the commissioner that I was in charge to just one thing and that was the weather and we're doing quite well. It's about 65, 70 degrees here in San Francisco. I know it's beautiful down where you are as well. But, you know, listen, we're telling the story of San Francisco in real time,

not the old narrative. And it's all about us being on the rise. We have clean and safe streets. Our SFPD are out, our sheriff's deputies, showing the world what we have all learned over this past year and that San Francisco is not only back, but we're going to go to heights that we haven't seen before. You know, you just alluded to it.

I mean, in many ways, you are trying to, as part of your job, rebuild the image of this city, what people think of it and the experience that they will have while they're here to decide whether they believe that this city is back on the rise. Do you feel the weight of that job? Listen, I feel the weight of that every single day. We've been going for 13 months.

Now, I was never in elected office before this, but I ran because some of those statements about our city were true. So I'm not going to deny that. But now we are showing people that we can pull off, not only big events, but 365 days a year, we are a safe American city. Crime was down here in our downtown core 40% last year. It's down 30% city wide. The economy is humming. It's fragile, but it is coming back at Union Square. We're inviting retailers back. Retailers are touring. I just did a tour this morning with a big retailer that wants to come back to San Francisco in a big way. We got so much happening in our city, our arts, our culture. Our restaurant scene is off the

charts. I hope you had a chance to partake when you were up here, Scott. I have, and I would agree with that assessment from one of the restaurant critics in town. You know, getting all of this ready is a huge endeavor, as I mentioned at the very top, but it also comes with a huge security presence. ICE is going to be here as part of the overall security apparatus. There's been some questions as to what their specific role is going to be. You've said you've heard nothing to suggest that there's going to be any increase in immigration enforcement happening here. Is there a latest there? What more do you know about that? Yeah, listen, we know that the security apparatus is the same as it was last year and the year before and frankly 10 years ago. And we have no indication

of any active ICE enforcement. What we do know is, is that we are working with our state and local and federal partners because this is, as you know, a Seer 1 event. We want to make sure that our fans are safe, our community is safe. And I say this everywhere I go, like our local law enforcement is doing incredible work. They are there to keep our residents safe

and those coming to visit, but no different news than we've reported all week. It is a standard event in terms of the security that is being set up by our federal, state, and local partners. And I want to thank our California Highway Patrol. I want to thank our police. Our police, our sheriffs have no days off for 10 straight days because we want to make sure that everybody is safe and so far, so good.

You know, the other big story out here, and it's really inescapable, when you talk to some people and certainly people in various aspects of business, is this proposed billionaire tax in the state of California. to which Governor Newsom has come out against it. Where do you stand? Yeah, I'm also against it. I've said anything that drives revenue out of our state is not helpful. We are in a fiscal crisis here in San Francisco. We have a billion dollar budget deficit over the next two years. Our economy is coming back, but it's fragile, Scott, and we need to make sure that we keep business here. I want everybody to pay their fair share.

But this, you know, unilaterally doing something and driving people out of our state is not helpful. And I'm with the governor on that. And frankly, I think everybody running for governor has said the same thing as well. Yeah. I mean, even those who aren't running for office, but are certainly involved in the debate and discussion, such as Alex Spiro, He's Elon Musk's attorney, the attorney as well for others. My colleague, David Faber, interviewed him the other day on this very topic. I want you to listen to what he said about it, and we can react on the other side.

From a policy perspective, this type of wealth tax has never been done before in this country. Every time it's been done from ancient civilization all the way through modern Europe, it's failed. They don't think it'll work. They think that it will harm jobs, harm the masses around them, harm infrastructure. And so they don't want it. They don't think it's fair. And I'm here to fight it. It's interesting, Mr. Mayor, for us to have this conversation where I'm sitting, obviously, in Silicon Valley. The risk, of course, for all of this, as this is the mecca, the ground zero of entrepreneurship and risk-taking in this country. And would you worry that that would be

diminished, that people would not want to set up their business? here or take the risks that would be required to one day become a billionaire in the state of California? Listen, absolutely. We want to make sure that we embrace our innovators, our entrepreneurs, and that's what makes California so great. It's what makes San Francisco so great. And, you know, you're sitting in Santa Clara and you say you're in the heart of Silicon Valley.

I would argue that the heart of Silicon Valley and the home of AI is right here in San Francisco. I don't think you would disagree with that. So I want those people here. Fair point. And by the way, I want that tax revenue here. And if you drive that tax revenue to any one of the 49 other states, that means less money going to our public schools and to our public transit and to our parks, which we have world-class parks here in San Francisco.

So I want to keep that revenue here. I want to keep the entrepreneurs and the innovators here in San Francisco. You know, I tend to really try to stay as focused on San Francisco as possible not get involved in Sacramento or what's going on nationally. But this is obviously something of concern, especially when you have everyone on the Democratic side saying this is not a good idea. Yeah. Well, you're right about downtown San Francisco. The amount of AI jobs that are moving there, Open AI, obviously, and others would back you up on that. So I'll give you that. Let's end on a topic that I discussed earlier with, I know a friend of yours, Brad Gersner,

and these Invest America Trump accounts, which he announced some years ago with me on our network and has just taken off to actually become a thing. The San Francisco Chronicle today with a headline that we're showing our viewers now, Anonymous San Francisco donor gives $3.5 million for local Trump accounts, you said. Can you give us more information on that and where you think all of this is going on a localized level? Yeah, well, we got word of this Invest America support from an anonymous donor who, you know, wants to invest in our kids. And that's what I and my administration are focused on every single day. How do we lift up our children?

We just announced last week, or two weeks ago, Scott, that we are going to be the first city in the country to provide free, early child care for any family of four making under $210,000, you're going to have free child care. And this is just another great effort that is going to help lift up families provide economic opportunity for our young people. Brad has been working hard on this, and he called us just a couple days ago and said someone wanted to give to San Francisco children. And I love it. Like anything that helps the kids and the children of San Francisco, I'm all for. We'll talk to you soon. You enjoy this weekend. The spotlight is shining brightly on your town, and we wish you well. Mayor, thank you.

Thank you, Scott. Let's go, San Francisco. All right, that's Mayor Daniel Lurie joining us here on closing bell. Coming up next, we're all over this mega rally in the market. We are heading closer to the closing bell. Will we close above Dow 50,000 for the very first time ever? We'll discuss with Mike Santoli and Intelligent Alphas, Doug Clinton next. We're less than 10 minutes from this perhaps historic closing bell. Let's get back to Christina Parts and Evolos now for a look at the key stocks that she's watching.

Tell us. I have some big movers. Let's start with shares of strategy gaining right now 25% just after plunging 70% yesterday in line with swings in Bitcoin. The company did post a roughly $12 billion Q4 net loss on an unrealized. hit to its digital asset holdings. The stock now rising after sinking after ours. A week to date, though, it's still down about roughly 11%. Malina Healthcare, though, going in the opposite direction. Shares are sinking right now 26% after posting a quarterly loss, weighed down primarily by premium adjustments in Medicaid and cost pressures in Medicare. The company's full year outlook

also fell well below analyst estimates. The stock, though, pacing for its worst week since June 2021. Last but not least, shares of Cody dropping 15% after the beauty company swung to a loss in its latest quarter and also withdrew its full year guidance, citing a complex beauty market. The company reported a 1% rise in revenue in its prestige businesses, which includes fragrances from Gucci and Mark Jacobs, while its consumer segment of drugstore brands actually declined 2%. All right, Christina, thank you very much for that. That's Christina Parts of Nevelos. We are now in the closing bell market zone. Mike Santoli and Intelligent Alphas, Doug Clinton are here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. We have a stock surge into a strong Friday finish today, gentlemen. Michael, I'll begin with you first.

Your thoughts as we try to get that 50K on the Dow, the close, for the very first time. Yeah, pretty safely there because of this little mini buying panic into the close, Scott. Obviously, I think the morning was all about trying to figure out if this sort of forced selling in Bitcoin, and the kind of mechanical de-risking activity that really had upended the tape for a few days was through. There's no way to know it until you see the market react. And once we got into the middle part of the day, when you saw snapback rallies in the most beaten-up parts of this market that got very oversold, like crypto and software, as well as, honestly, surprising to me, aggressive follow-on buying in the stuff that's already been working this year, which is the cyclicals. This is in the absence of any real data aside from a pretty firm consumer sentiment number.

So it shows you at least the market's making the case. We got a 3% pullback in the S&P. Was that enough of a shakeout to reset things? Not clear to me that that's the case. But on a day like today, you got 80% of the volume to the upside. And obviously, we're about flat for the week on the S&P. The S&P is not really done much for weeks on end. But within it, there is a sturdy bid for parts of this market.

You think those comments from Jensen Wong to me today provide any bit of soothe? to those who are anxious about all of this spending and technology and where it's all leading, Mike? Most likely, but I think the actual spending itself is what is really exciting people back into the invidias and the broadcoms, right? So it's just the absolute brute force of all of the CAPEX. We know where it's going, whether it's wisely spent or not, it's going to go to the bottom line of Nvidia and Broadcom. But I do also think that, you know, Jensen's words without a doubt, at least coming at the right time when people wanted, to have their anxieties soothed a little bit, probably didn't hurt. And I just think today was a day when, you know, people were definitely still off balance

because that's the only time you get this kind of excitable buying after a little wobble lower. And I'm sure that that did add an extra bit of torque to the move. All right, Mike. I'm going to let you run and get with Mel and get ready. You have a big, big show coming up at the top of the hour as you take all of us into the weekend and give us some really good things to think about as we head towards a new trading week. That's Mike Santoli again, overtime, top of the hour with Melissa Lee, live from the NASDAQ 4 o'clock. All right, Doug, what does this market activity today tell you?

I think it is finally a recognition from the market, Scott, about what the hyperscalers have been telling us this entire earnings period, which is that the growth in CAPEX, the aggressive spending to build into the AI boom, is here to stay. It's as strong as we thought it would be coming in. I mean, we saw the street at 34% CapEx growth for this year. Now with Google and Amazon in, I think we're looking at a number north of 50, which is what we thought would happen. And I think the market is now reacting, as we would expect, bidding up companies like Mike just said, the broadcums and the invidias of the world, it makes sense. What about the broadening story? We don't get to 50K without it, obviously. Does it continue the way it is for a little while?

You're just going to have uneven performance from the mega cap, so you can't. really bank on the cohort, but you have to be really selective? I do think you have to pick and choose. And even though Google and Amazon, unfortunately, didn't the stocks at least react well to earnings that were quite strong. The cloud numbers were incredible for both companies. I think those two can be winners going forward if we think about the Mag 7 complex. I also think Apple in that complex is a name you want to own. So I do think there is going to be some bifurcation there And in particular, there's two things that I get excited about relative to those names. One is a growing story around personal AI as we continue to go into 2026.

I think Google and Apple have the best shot at delivering a really incredible consumer product for that. And I think the stocks could react to that if they do it. And then second, on the cloud front, I mean, Google at 48% GCP growth, Amazon, AWS, 24% versus 20 last quarter. it just shows that customers are rapidly adopting AI. It's why they're investing aggressively in CAPEX, and I think they're going to continue to see those tailwinds in their cloud businesses. You know, Doug, if nothing else, Dow 50,000 underscores and emphasizes a resiliency to this market that really has been truly remarkable.

Let's not forget, we're just three weeks ago at Davos, where we're talking about tariffs again, and we're talking about Greenland, and we're talking about the relationship between the United States and Europe and the market is all upset and falls out of bed and it feels really bad. And we're watching all of these other asset classes, which we think are telling us a potentially dangerous story. And here we are at 50,000 in almost the same breath. I mean, what does that tell you about where this market feels like it wants to go? Feels like it wants to go higher, Scott. I think it's a little bit Pavlovian, too.

you think about the last, really five years since the COVID era, investors have largely been rewarded for buying these dips. Last year, when we went through the tariff concerns, if you bought the dip, if you listened to President Trump and some of his tweets and his posts on true social, you were probably pretty happy that you did that. I think the same thing, you mentioned Greenland last week. It was a little bit of a replay, kind of the same story. Very quickly, we backed off those tariff questions. And if you bought that dip, and I think if you hold through this volatile, period we just lived through, I think the market probably keeps wanting to work higher. Because you have no doubts that earnings are going to continue to deliver?

I think the economy is still strong. I think as we saw with tech, earnings were strong pretty much across the board. The question is really more about just the investments in CAPEX. And I do think that most of the other big sectors in the economy look like they're also healthy too. Yeah, I mean, I feel like Michelle Goss, the Levi CEO who sat with us a few moments ago, looking at the stadium over her shoulder really underscored that, that this is a consumer that's still hanging in and doing pretty well. And the economy feels pretty good. Doug, it's good to talk to you.

We'll see you soon as we count down and we get ever closer now to this first ever close for the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 50,000. And we're going to get it today. We can guarantee that. I mean, we're looking at a 2.5% snapback, quite a different market that we have today than we're going. we did over the last couple of days. We'll see what happens as we take it into next week.

And for that, I'll send it into overtime with Melissa and Mike, who set the scene for us.