Closing Bell - Closing Bell: 3/13/26

Episode Date: March 13, 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.

All right, guys, thanks so much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wobner, live from Post 9, here at the New York Stock Exchange. This make-a-break moment hour begins with another volatile stretch for the markets. As the second week of war comes to a close, there's the scorecard with 60 to go in regulation. Didn't look like that at the open today. It was a strong open. Oil had been coming down, stocks had been rising, but that started to reverse.

Oil creeping hires. You see, WTI back about 98. Brent, above 100. We're going to have the latest on crude coming up in just a minute. Some of the banks have gone green. That has definitely helped. JPM, Goldman Sachs, helping the Dow, Morgan Stanley City. They're positive as well.

Meta, though, that's an interesting story today. A big loser on a new report about its AI model. Julia Borsden is following that course. You'll hear from her in just a moment as well. It does take us to our talk to the tape. The Road Ahead for the Markets. And let's bring in CNBC contributor. High Tower, Stephanie Link, and JPMorgan.

Stephanie Aliaga. The Steffs. Welcome. It's good to have both you guys on. Stephanie Link. I mean, okay, as goes oil, so goes stocks. It's not that complicated, is it? Well, there's a lot we don't know, and I think the markets are going to be in a trading range until we get some certainty. It's all about her moves, right? We're all talking about it. We're all becoming experts at it or we kind of hope to be. If you wait for certainty, Scott, you're going to miss a lot of opportunity. Because as we've talked about the S&P 500, is down about 3% year to date. But so many stocks and so many sectors are down so much more than that. And I think you have to be looking for bargains if you have a long-term time horizon.

We all know that Trump administration does not want oil prices higher, especially into the midterm elections. And so I kind of take it as work. They got them now. I mean, four to six weeks is what he was what the Trump administration has said. I think that's what we have to expect. If it's much longer than that, they lose both houses, both chambers in the midterms. And I don't think that's what they want. So you're not getting negative on the market yet because of that.

That's right. If it's longer than that, yeah, then we have a problem. But currently where oil prices are, they're basically where we were in 2022 and 2023. And what's important about that, though, is it wasn't demand destruction back then. And you've heard me say this a lot, and I know you push back on it, but the economy is on better footing, at least at this moment in time, to handle these higher prices. And, by the way, in the GDP report today, consumption at 2%, not horrible, not falling off a cliff. Also, savings, the savings rate was better than expected. So to me, I think that the economy is doing really well because of

the consumer, but also because of this whole AI. We talk about the food chain of AI and how powerful that is. That's not going away. The question is whether we get cracks and all that, right? If you have a prolonged period of elevated oil than gas prices. I saw a report yesterday that tax refunds are below where the market expected them to be. So maybe that as a larger stimulus doesn't happen the way people thought. How do you see things right now? We're almost two weeks into the war as we end the trade today. Yeah. You can't dismiss the potential headwinds for growth here, particularly if higher oil prices persist. I think the real concern is less inflation, but what this does to consumption. But I have to really really,

echo Stephanie here. I mean, markets live in a world of long summers and short winters. Maybe not us in New York, but definitely my sense of California. And investors should not optimize portfolios around these short winters because every winter that comes, every different storm has a different flavor to it. And you want to make sure that your portfolio is built to capitalize on those long summers. And once we get some clarity on the studio political resolution, which obviously you don't have right now, we hope for a quick resolution, there's a number of structural underpinnings that suggests to us the market is biased upwards. I mean, look, we've had a resilient market.

There's just no way to argue against that. Almost every downturn over the last year has been a V-shaped recovery. All the way back to, you know, Liberation Day, so-called, almost a year ago, now you had a V-shaped bounce in every moment. Now, with that said, is this different? Because it's war. War brings all sorts of unknowns and complications as we are learning by the day. Goldman's Tony Pascarillo says if there's an asymmetry to the S&P, it likely skews to the downside.

I don't think anybody's arguing that. However, that's part of the battle between that perspective and those who think that you have a Trump put, which is why it's hard to be short, to your point earlier, but it's also a little hard to get all long into the weekend. especially not knowing where this oil situation and the straight-of-war moves effectively being shut off. Well, absolutely this weekend, you can see the volatility just today in oil prices. So absolutely we're going to wonder, because if you believe it's a four to six-week time horizon, then we could get some information this weekend or as early as next week, that it does die down, that it doesn't escalate.

We don't know, Scott, but the point is, you made it precisely. and what I've been telling our advisors and clients and what I'm doing myself is if you sold on Liberation Day, you missed 34% move. If you sold on COVID, you miss a 250% move. If you even sold on Silicon Valley Bank, you miss a 78% move off the low. Deep seek.

I mean, like I said, if you trace it back, you're right. You're right. There's no arguing against that. It's just a matter of whether a spike in gasoline prices and oil prices is the difference maker, this time around, that the impacts to the global economy are way more substantial than any of the events that you just mentioned. We could see a slowdown for sure globally if this lasts longer than what we expect. So that's totally understandable. And I would think that if we do see a global

slowdown, we would see Central Bankers Act mighty quickly. Yeah, but again, it's complicated too by the elevated price of oil. It's all about your time frame. You've got to have a little bit longer time frame. Yeah. No, that's part of the reason why I actually think some of the best buying opportunities are internationally right now. Of course, there is a risk there if this thing persists for longer, but the swiftness and the move that we've seen in European and particularly Asian markets has been severe. So you know that good quality companies, plenty of which are exposed to this long-term structural AI buildout, have also been sold out indiscriminately. And I think long-term investors can perhaps tap in there. Let's come back to you guys in just a second,

but I want to get to Pippa Stevens, who has the very latest for us on the oil picture. And whether at this point, Pippa, the administration can do anything in the immediate future to make a difference and reopen the Strait of Ormuse. Hey, Scott, so oil is wrapping up another wild week, as you've been talking about with Brent holding at 102 here, WTI now about 9750, up about 48 percent since the war began. And retail traders are getting in on this action. Vanda saying that crude has now become a meme theme. Buying in pure play oil ETFs topped $210 million yesterday surpassing the prior high set in May of 2020 with the U.S.O specifically seeing its third biggest day

of retail buying on record. Now, energy is the best sector on the week by a wide margin, posting its 12th straight week of gains. That's a new record. And the gains this week have been led by drillers like Occidental and APA, which have direct exposure to those higher crude prices. And refiners are also names to watch here,

since they benefit from the higher fuel product prices, Marathon Petroleum, Phillips 66, and Valero, all hitting record highs this week. But Scott, to your point about what the administration can do to open the straight, it seems like a kind of a consortium of a military escort is really what's going to help here, because without that, it seems like no tankers really want to transit the waterway.

And even with such, how long it could take for crude to begin flowing, so to speak, normally yet again. Pippet, thank you for the update. That's Pippa Stevens. There's another big story we've been following. All of you have. Many of the private credit related names are positive today, even as questions continue to swirl around that space. Leslie Picker following it as always for us. Hi, Les. Hey, Scott. Yeah, we're seeing a bit of a rebound in alternative asset manager stocks today. Aries and Blackstone leading the way with shares up more than 5% for Aries, 4% for Blackstone.

But the majority have lost about a fifth of their value as investors yanked their capital or at least tried to. from the biggest semi-liquid private credit funds. A new report from B of A this morning showing that amid a survey of 50 independent financial advisors in March, 40% said they have seen increased client demand for private credit, while 48% have seen no change in demand over the last 12 months.

And Scott, this is somewhat surprising given the surge in redemptions that we've seen. And I think the disconnect can be attributed to the opacity of the fundamentals. As you have been talking about, defaults are rising among private credit borrowers, but they're still well below crisis level. We talked earlier in the week about J.P. Morgan, revaluing some of its collateral based on software, but didn't take any losses there, and there weren't any significant margin calls either.

So one thing to keep an eye on is the so-called payment-in-kind loans, which borrowers pay interest by taking on more debt. And that has been rising across private credit portfolio. So this implies that there may be a little bit more. stress under the surface, but that can is essentially getting kicked down the road, Scott. Yeah. Two things. I mean, people are still going to talk about it, which is in some respects adding to the problem, right? Yep. We're going to keep following it. I know you will, but it's part of what Josh Brown and you, I think, were discussing yesterday, this feedback loop. Oh, yes. Concerns about it begets more, you know, withdrawals, begets more gating. You know, the whole thing is

is like this circular issue. Yeah, and it's kind of a prisoner's dilemma in a way because if you think, if you see the headlines and you're invested in one of these things and you need a little bit of liquidity, you're going to put in for a lot more liquidity to expect to get cut back. And so if you feel like there's this group think mentality

and everybody else is redeeming at the same time, you need to redeem maybe even just a little bit, you're going to put in for more and that's going to increase the redemption rate and increase the amount that is ultimately cut back or gated by, the manager. So it's absolutely this feedback loop. And that's something that a lot of people are expecting to carry over into the second quarter numbers and maybe even beyond. All right. Leslie,

thank you so much. It's Leslie Pickers. Stocks reacting obviously better today. Financials, by the way, are set for their third straight down week. It's the first time since October. I bring the steps back in. Stephanie Aliyaga, as long as the financials remain challenged in this market, how much of a headwind is that overall? I think there's that much. I mean, I think there's a lot of inertia here. for this broader broadening out in the market. I mean, let's not forget, before this geopolitical conflict got started, 60% of the underlying components of the S&P 500 were outperforming the broad market. There's still this resilience in broadening out and earnings growth underway.

Maybe we take a little bit off of financials, but there's still a lot of quality in industrials and utilities and health care. And beyond the private credit woes, we are still looking for a year, a pretty constructiveness when it comes to dealmaking. We're going to have some big IPO. potentially hitting the year this year. So we think those catalysts are really still there. Bank of America, Wells, you own those, right? I mean, this space has been challenged lately, in part because of worries about the economy and then credit issues too. What do you think?

I'm not worried about the economy, as you know. I'm not worried about credit for the big six, especially the big six. Their capital levels are enormous because of the regulation since 2008, the great financial crisis, where they seated. control and market share to the private markets companies because they weren't allowed to lend out aggressively. And they didn't. And the private market companies did. And now it's coming home to roost in some instances in the private markets area. I expect redemptions to continue for the next several quarters, but I don't think it's catastrophic. And I think it's very important to know that the big six banks and many of the banks are very diversified in their business

mix and in fact this week alone at RBC they had a conference this week Bank of America reiterated every metric and it was actually pretty good and they said out of the gate for the first quarter is was loan growth and actually that was better than expected and NII net interest income expected to be up 7% for this coming quarter and that capital markets are still very active and healthy so I understand things can change on a dime Scott but the fundamentals of these big banks are better than they ever have been and the valuations have come to down substantially. All right. Another big story today that I feel is a little flying under the

radar is the move in meta shares. They are sharply lower. They have been all day long on a new report that suggests their AI model has shown disappointing results. Julia Borsten joins us now with more. Now, on a day where we weren't talking about the rise in crude oil and the war that's going on in Iran, we may have led with a story like this because it is potential. so significant, and the stock is down a lot. Julia, what's going on? Yeah, quite a move for meta shares here. Now, Mark Zuckerberg said back in January that meta's new AI model would ship in coming months, but meta doesn't yet have a launch date for its high stakes large language model called avocado, according to a source. Now, this comes despite the company ramping up to

$135 billion in CAPEX this year. Meta's playing catch-up. as its AI division has undergone upheaval, including new leadership and scale AIs, Alex Wang, a strategy shift from building open source tools to building its own consumer-facing AI, and also some hiring drama, reports of resentment over new engineering hires paid hundreds of millions of dollars. Now, meta is saying, quote, our next model will be good, but more importantly, show the rapid trajectory we're on, and then we'll steadily push the frontier over the course of the year. Baird says that the success of META's new model is less about competing with other general LLMs and more about its ability to boost META's business.

Scott? Okay. We'll follow it. It's a big move in the stock. Don't often see it. Julia, thank you. That's Julia Borson. One more big story in Tech and Vida holding its annual GTC event this Monday.

It certainly can be a stock moving event, as we've learned in the past. Christina Partsenevolos joining us now with a preview of what to expect. Hi. Hi, Scott. Well, you know it. Shares have been relatively stuck in a holding pattern, despite hyperscalers pledging to grow AI spending and the company's order backlog topping $500 billion, but the question really isn't demand. It's about when those orders are going to show up in earnings beyond 2026. At the conference on Monday, Jensen Wong, the CEO, is expected to unveil a new inference

chip built on grok technology. This is an open source technology specifically for memory. Second part we're expecting is an open source AI agent platform and then maybe a greater push into CPUs. But those are products, right? And the products aren't necessarily what Wall Street is watching. Options markets are pricing in just a 4% move in either direction, which is pretty modest by NVIDIA standards. The real catalyst would be a new revenue forecast. That $500 billion number pipeline figure was actually from five months ago. So if the CEO updates it to maybe 600 billion or beyond and gives visibility into 2027, that's what's going to move the share price got. I feel like any time Jensen Wong says anything for that matter.

The stock's going to move one way or the other. So we'll see. You'll be out there. We'll look forward to seeing you. It's Christina Parts and Nublos. Yeah, well, that's true. Always a good point you make. Christina Parts and Navolos joining us there.

We do have some breaking news. We'll get back to this conversation, but it is regarding the Fed and the investigation into Chair Powell. Amon Javers has that force. Amin, what are we learning here? Scott, we're learning that a federal judge had squashed the subpoenas in this investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia into J. Powell and the Fed's longtime renovation project. A federal judge here is Judge Boasberg for the District of Columbia, the District of the District of Columbia, this opinion just in a couple of moments ago. I am told that the U.S.

Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia intends to appeal this. So in terms of the question about whether Kevin Warsh can be confirmed by the Senate, this does not resolve. that because remember we had Senator Tom Tillis up on Capitol Hill who says that he won't vote to push Warsh through up on Capitol Hill unless the investigation is dropped. The investigation, my understanding is, Scott, is ongoing. Even though the federal judge here is saying he's going to quash these subpoenas, the U.S. Attorney's Office intends to appeal that decision. So that means we have an ongoing investigation. And I'm just turning here now, the pages to the conclusion of this opinion because it is a remarkable opinion, and I want to get to

some of the details of it, Scott, but the conclusion is from Judge Bospurg. A mountain of evidence suggests that the government served these subpoenas on the board to pressure its chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning. On the other side of the scale, the government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime. Indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the court can only conclude that they are pretextual. The court therefore finds the subpoenas were issued for an improper purpose and will quash them. It will also unseal redacted versions of the motion to quash related briefing and this opinion. So the opinion here, Scott, I've never seen this.

It begins with a copy of a truth social post from President Trump. The memorandum opinion here from the federal judge begins with one of Trump's statements. It says, Jerome Too Late Powell has done it again. He is too late and actually too angry, too stupid and too political to have the job of Fed share. He is costing our country trillions of dollars. Put another way, too late is a total loser and our country is paying the price. The judge writes here, that is one of at least 100 statements that the president or his deputies have made attacking the chair of the Federal Reserve and pressuring him to lower interest rates.

So is this. Too late Jerome Powell is costing our country hundreds of billions of dollars. He is truly one of the dumbest and most destructive people in government, too late's, an American disgrace. So the judge here using the president's social media posts against him in the sense that he's saying the president's motive here is obvious. He's posting it on social media. Therefore, this is pretextual. Therefore, the subpoenas are being quashed. Like I said, my understanding is that the U.S. Attorney's Office intends to appeal this decision by Judge Bozberg. And I think you can expect some angry words from the president about the judge.

the judge momentarily on truth social as well as soon as he is informed about this decision. And so the question of whether or not Kevin Warsh gets on to the board of the Federal Reserve, gets to be chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve, that's still unresolved because we're going to have to wait for what Tom Tillis decides to do up on Capitol Hill. Scott. The irony, of course, is that the president was as recently as yesterday suggesting on social media again that the chair should do an emergency rate cut, even though the meeting is next week. And is it accurate then to say, while this doesn't end the case, because as your reporting

suggests, there's going to be an appeal, it weakens it substantially? Substantially, substantially. I mean, this is a, I mean, just the language here is pretty strident from the judge. And so that's going to be a lot to overcome for the U.S. Attorney's Office on Appeal. Now, I should say, we are expecting, in mere moments, a press conference from Janine Piro. She's the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. I'm looking right now at a screen, Scott, where I can see a reporter scrambling into the room. They gave almost no notice. I mean, minutes notice for this press conference at the Department of Justice at the U.S. Attorney's

Office for the District of Columbia. They are setting up now. Camera's shaking. Reporters are scrambling, so it's going to be a couple minutes before they're ready to go. But we will hear from Janine Piro in terms of how she responds to these subpoenas being quashed and what her plan is next. And we will hear that live from her on television in a couple of moments, depending on how this setup goes. I'll bring you something else that just moved literally within the last moment or two for you to react to. And it is a post from Senator Tillis himself who is reacting to all of this news as you're breaking it live. This ruling, he says, confirms, quote, just how weak and frivolous. the criminal investigation of Chair Powell is, and it is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed

independence. We all know how this is going to end, and the DC U.S. Attorney's Office should save itself further embarrassment and move on. Appealing the ruling will only delay the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed Chair. The obvious implication here is that until this is fully resolved, as Senator Tillis had suggested from the outset, he's not going to move on the nomination of Worse. Yeah, I mean, that confirms it, right? The question is, you know, would this quashing of the subpoenas open up Tillis to move ahead

with Warsh? And his answer, they're pretty definitive, Scott. He's saying he's not going to do that until this thing goes away entirely. And we'll see what Janine Piro has to say in a couple of moments. The president, you know, has been adamant that J. Powell needs to go. And this was one of his pieces of leverage on Pazirsch, to get him to move either off the board or to take the action that the president wants him to take. We'll see what the president has to say about this, but his legal options have just gotten, you know,

significantly narrower, although not eliminated. Amon, I appreciate your reporting very much. Thank you. That's our Amon Javers from our Bureau in Washington. Let's bring in Steve Leesman again, our senior economics correspondent. Would love your reaction and what we've learned also, I think, Steve, the toll that this investigation had been taking on the ordinary business of the Fed, because I think I read yesterday that Chair Powell wasn't going to give his semi-annual testimony on the Hill because he was preoccupied.

The report said with this investigation to which Senator Scott, who chairs the banking committee, suggested he hopes it would, quote, go away. Yeah, and Senator Scott also said he did not think that Fed Chair Powell did anything wrong. Scott, I want to show you just how sweeping this loss is for the Attorney General's office in Washington for Gene Piro. There's a quote that I pulled from here in which the judge writes, did prosecutors issue those subpoenas for a proper purpose? The court finds they did not. There's abundant evidence that the subpoenas dominant, if not sole purpose,

is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the president or to, resign and make way for a Fed chair, a different Fed chair, of course. And what's also interesting about this opinion is it goes further than just talking about these Powell subpoenas. It talks about the idea that there's a pattern at the DOJ of prosecuting the enemies of the president. There's another line here, Scott says, consistent with this pattern, the GOJ has now set its sights on Powell. And the point here is that not only did the judge dismiss these subpoenas, but he went further, and he cited this pattern by the DOJ. I don't know if Amon is still there and has a comment, but that kind of language that I read first,

I don't know if you bring that to the Bar Association, but that's the kind of move by a prosecutor that the judge is saying is improper and inappropriate. Now, whether or not this clears the way for Kevin Warsh to be approved, I think that what Senator Tillis is saying is that an appeal by the Washington Attorney General will not work in this regard in terms of clearing the way for Tillis remove his objections to Warsh getting a hearing. I mean, the judge obviously referring to the investigations of the former FBI director, among others. Let me ask you this.

As somebody who covers the Fed and how important the... semi-annual appearances are on the hill, though, you know, we often suggest that some of the questions being asked are questionable in and of themselves. The importance of being able to hear from a sitting Fed share at times like these and not being able to do that because, allegedly, of this ongoing investigation. Comment on that? Yeah, it's very important, Scott. And Chair Powell has made it very clear that it's a priority of his to communicate with the public, that he feels that the Fed's responsibilities to be accountable to the public are very important. And he has done a lot in that regard, I would say.

He's the one to move up the press conferences to every meeting. I think he's increased transparency at the Fed. Folks that the Fed understand they have enormous power, and they understand that that enormous power comes with accountability and a democracy. And so the idea that that February 20th thing, I've been. sort of following that very closely for a long time. It was very surprised. It didn't happen.

It usually happens even early, mid-February. It didn't happen. And it was also interesting that Senator Scott said he was not going to push the chair on this. He said he understood why the chair was not appearing. So the idea that that interrupted the process of the Fed communicating with Congress, fulfilling its responsibilities to testify before Congress, I think it was a pretty big deal. All right. I appreciate you coming to the camera, helping us understand this better.

Steve, thank you. Steve Leasman, our senior economics correspondent. The Steffs are still with us, of course. You have just a comment here? I mean, the Fed independence is obviously a big deal. I know you care about that greatly. Yeah, and if we get an appeal and we get a delay of Warsh and the confirmation, then that's going to just be more uncertainty regarding the Fed and regarding Fed independence.

I still think the Fed is going to be, they're going to remain independent. But this is a lot of noise, and it just adds another little bit of uncertainty when we just don't need. it, right? We just need to get through some of these things just to be able to focus back on fundamentals and the economy and what the Fed might or might not do. But I think ultimately Warsh does get in. It might just take longer, which is a bummer. I think. I think beyond this, you know, markets do expect that the Fed is going to maintain its independence if you just look at market expectations for interest rates. Despite Kevin

Warsh leaning more doveish, you have just one rate cut priced in for this year. And I think that really reflects the fact that whoever this new Fed chair is, the Fed is not a one-man one woman show. They need to build consensus, and each of these governors have teams and swarms of PhD economists that are running models that are talking with businesses in their district that color their economic forecasts that ultimately go to the FOMC. So whether they lean devish or not, whether the administration wants easier policy or not, it's going to have to come down to the economics. All right. Stephanie Aliyaga, Stephanie Link, thank you so much. We'll see both you soon. All right, we're just getting started here. It's been a busy first 30 minutes of the show up next.

for tech, as you know, Light Street Capitals, Glenn Cacher is back. How does his playbook now look for this space? He'll tell us next. NASDAQ's been the biggest decline over the major averages so far this year as mega-cap stocks and software names have traded poorly. Let's get the playbook now of one well-known investor in that space. Glenn Cacher, the founder and CIO of Light Street, as you see, is with us live. Welcome back.

Thank you. Appreciate you having me. Interesting times to talk about anything market-related, but what about tech? What's going on with this space right here and now? Well, I think first you've got to pay attention to what's going on in macro, right? Military action in Iran, oil prices, inflation, impact, those things that are all going to weigh on, you know, the entire market in tech. I think within tech, the playbook that we have been employing for, you know, several years now, overweight semis, still playing infrastructure software and kind of opportunistic in Internet names is the,

playbook we're still sticking with. Have you bought anything lately as, you know, I don't, software, mega caps. Have you added to key positions? Not too many on the software side. You know, in the Internet side, we actually added coupon over the last couple months. That's a specific opportunistic opportunity there where the Korean government has, you know, left out there some big threats around. fines for a cybersecurity breach that they had.

And it's a high-quality company that really dominates the Amazon of Korea. So that's one. But, you know, we still like things on the semi-side. We have been building a position in a company called MKS in the semiconductor space. And we like the trends that they're exposed to. Back to software for a moment. Do you think the space is bottomed, as we've heard from some. try to suggest this week?

Where do you come down on that question? I think we're getting closer, but it's hard to know, Scott, where we get to the bottom. I think the industry is going to have another transition to go to. I mean, you look back at the SaaS transition that the industry had to go through in the early to mid-2000s,

and I think we're going to be moving from a seat-based business model and a search and retrieve, kind of data model to a usage-based model with AI and, you know, utilizing the AI infrastructure as the architecture. And that's a double-headed transition that the industry's got to work its way through. I'm going to come back to you in a moment, Glenn. I do have breaking news. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Janine Piro, speaking about the Powell case. According to the United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, certainly higher than the court that Bozberg is on, a grand jury, every grand jury, has broad discretion to, quote, investigate merely on suspicion that the law is being violated, merely on suspicion the law is being violated.

merely on suspicion the law is being violated, or because it wants assurance that the law is not being violated. In fact, the court says a grand jury may act on tips and rumors. Right here are the cases and the citations from the highest court in the land. And yet this judge is shockingly requiring the government to show something akin to probable cause. And those are his words, probable cause, in order to justify the issuance of a grand jury subpoena. Folks, probable cause is not and never has been the standard that prosecutors in this country need. in order to go into a grand jury. This is not and has never been the law of the land.

And so this decision today by Judge Boasberg runs directly afoul of our highest court's admonition that courts and judges must not and cannot saddle grand juries with many trials and preliminary showings that impede a prosecutor's investigation and thus frustrate the public's interest in the fair and expeditious administration of justice. No one, folks, is above the law, and this outrageous decision will be appealed by the United States Department of Justice. Go ahead, sir. Do you think that your office's failure to prosecute six members of Congress? I'm not here to talk about six members of Congress. I'm here to talk about the fact that the grand jury has a job.

They look at evidence. They decide whether they want to indict. If they don't indict, so be it. And if you want to know what the judge thinks, go ask him. Next question. Can I get your reaction to statements from Senator Tom Tilley. you know it's been blocking and vowed to continue blocking. You know, honestly, I don't know and I don't care, and I'll tell you why.

I am in a legal lane. All of the rest is white noise. I don't care what they say. I have a job. I have the ability to go into a grand jury. There are questions that the American public and people in D.C. are entitled to know where a billion dollars has gone. And that's my focus.

But he is asking for an assurance that the investigation in Tappal has, this has ended it. Are you willing to concede? Did you hear what I just said? I just said that this decision will be appealed by the United States Department of Justice. That's the answer to your question. We're looking at 1,001 and we're also looking at a statute having to do with fraud, but it's up to the grand jury to make that decision. decision. We're a billion dollars in cost overruns. Are you kidding? A billion dollars? We're not

talking about huge buildings here. Go ahead. Kevin Marsh is Trump's pick, though, President Trump? I don't even know who he is. So isn't this just essentially holding up President Trump's pick or any forthcoming picks since Senator Till has said he will not vote? Okay. I don't know how to explain this, but I'm going to try. I've been a prosecutor, a judge, a DA, and now a United States attorney for well over three decades. Politics is not the lane I'm in right now. And I have a charge and an oath to the Constitution. And my job is to present evidence, and I can do so when I can merely on the suspicion that the law is being violated,

or even just because I want assurance that it's not. I'm not in those lanes, and I will not allow myself or my staff to be in those lanes. And that's why we brought crime down in this jurisdiction. We are focused on the law. We're focused on the people of the district. We are not focused on politics. Go ahead. Judge Boisberg, as opinion, said that you, quote, properly comply direction to prosecute Powell.

Can you just state for the public record, how did you have the idea or, you know, the impetus to start this inquiry. First of all, he's totally wrong in his assessment of the dates, and that's why we're doing a motion to reconsider, because he got his dates wrong. And as far as I'm concerned, this was something that was a public interest. It was something that the Senate Banking Committee wanted information on,

and it is something within my jurisdiction and my charge. But I want to tell you a story. When I was a young prosecutor, I was one of the first people to investigate child abuse as a crime. Everyone thought it was a social problem and not a criminal justice problem. The kids are better off with their parents. There was an organization, and that organization didn't have a very good reputation. And it was one of the societies that was out there trying to prevent cruelty to children. and I set up a relationship where they would bring me cases.

And people were outraged that I would deal with this organization. And my answer to them, 30, 40 years ago, I'll deal with the devil. I'll take a case from the devil. If you can give me information that will lead me to possibly find a crime, It doesn't matter where a case comes from. It doesn't matter. I can have a suspicion. I can read the newspaper.

I can just want to make sure he didn't commit a crime. So don't make the judge is wrong on his dates. He is wrong. That's why we're not only appealing. We're making a motion to reconsider. Okay. I want to say one more thing. And I think it's important that you guys hear this from me.

There's another way of looking at this. And that is that it's not just the public being fed up with this stuff. It's the fact that what we've got are grand jurors who are supposed to hear this. And they haven't been able to hear any of this because someone has decided that they're not entitled to hear this. Can you take this? Thanks. This process has been arbitrarily undermined by a. an activist judge. We have a process. We have been asking for information about a matter that has raised questions in many people's minds. Senate banking, the public, the papers, it doesn't matter.

So give me the information so I can assess it. Give me the information so the grand jury comprised of regular Americans would say, there's nothing here. And I'll accept it the way I accept other cases. Okay? Whatever it is, we'll abide by it. What we don't accept is a judge standing in front of the door of a grand jury blocking our access, a role that has never been envisioned, a role that will now be used by other defense attorneys around the country who's going to come in with a client and say, oh, my client is being targeted. Don't do dare go in the grand jury. A judge says, yes, the guys bathed and washed in immunity, and you can't

go after him. The process should have been allowed to run its course, and it wasn't. And shame on them. Oh, cut it out. Do you know how many convictions we've got? Cut it out. You're in one lane. We have

cleaned up this city. Yeah, historic, really? I'll tell you what's historic. What's historic is that I prosecute everything other than 10% of the cases where the United States attorney before me didn't prosecute 67% of the cases. That's what's historic. I'm willing to take a not guilty. I'm willing to take a no true bill because I'll take all the crimes and put them in. Thank you. All right, that was the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Janine Piro defending her case, as you heard there, against the Fed chair, said it could be brought merely on suspicions of a crime. Probable cause does not apply. The judge, of course, within the last hour, blocking the subpoenas with a scathing ruling that our Amon Javers read through live on television. He joins us now. Again, Amin, we'll come back to you. The district, the U.S. attorney saying this outrageous decision will be appealed by the Department of Justice. That was a rather extraordinary news event in and of itself. Yeah, Scott, I told you that she was going to say that in our preamble to that, and we just heard it there.

The U.S. attorney saying she's going to move forward with this case. She says that this is an outrageous decision by a judge, she calls an activist judge. She says Jerome Powell is now bathed in immunity. She says, this is wrong. This is a U.S. attorney who is extremely frustrated with having these grand jury subpoenas into the Fed and J. Powell be quashed by this judge. But the reality is she's going to have less and less latitude to operate now that this opinion is on the record. It is, as you say, a scathing opinion, and it leads with quotes from President Trump's own truth social media site in which the president is denouncing again and again and again, Jay Powell's. We've all been following along.

The judge here is saying that's evidence that the intent behind these subpoenas was not a legitimate law enforcement intent. It was about trying to force the Federal Reserve Chair to resign from office. And he says, perhaps it comes as no surprise that the U.S. Attorney's Office opened the criminal investigation into Powell. He says there is abundant evidence that the subpoena's dominant, if not sole purpose, is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the president or resign and make way for a Fed chair who will. So what the judge is saying is that's an unacceptable purpose and an unacceptable use of the grand

jury subpoena process. And what you heard from Piro was outrage and frustration that should. She is being blocked from something that is normally just ordinary matter, of course, to get a grand jury's subpoena. In this case, it is a remarkable thing that the judge has said no. Geneviro says this is the antithesis of American justice, and of course, the judge would disagree with that, Scott. Amen, thank you. I want to bring in Steve Leesman. Don't go anywhere quite yet, Amen.

I want to add Leasman into this conversation on what has undoubtedly been. one of the more extraordinary days in the history of the Fed that we have seen, Steve? Yeah, I'm curious, I don't know if you want to bring Amen into this right away, but my understanding is a judge has a right to quash a subpoena. That is well within the judicial system of the United States, as we understand it, to modify a subpoena, void a subpoena, quash a subpoena, what have you. So I'm a little taken aback by that statement from Gene Piro about that the judge stepped outside of his bounds.

It doesn't seem like he did that. Of course, it doesn't happen that often. But what was interesting about this was the predicate laid by the judge. As Amon correctly pointed out, Scott, this decision or opinion begins with all of the tweets of the president, and it establishes the intent, and it makes a direct line of the intent of the president to remove Fed Chair Powell to argue for lower interest rates

and this effort by the Justice Department. Department. Whether or not this had something to do with a billion dollars of cost overrun, well, it seems like only Janine Piro believes that the judge certainly did not, as did many observers of the Federal Reserve. Amon, do you want to jump in on that and respond? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, Steve is exactly right. And the question now is, you know, where does this go on appeal? Is the Justice Department, you know, with the president behind them, prepared to take this all the way to the Supreme Court? And then do we get another Supreme Court?

moment, sort of like we saw with tariffs, where the Supreme Court has to decide whether or not they want to defy the President of the United States. I mean, that would be a fascinating and wild moment in sort of constitutional history as we watch this play out. A judge overtly and disdainfully skeptical of the Department of Justice's motivations in this case, the Department of Justice vowing to continue on with the case, as the fate of the nomination of the Federal Reserve Chair has. in the balance. Senator Tillis just said, and you read that on the air, Scott, that this doesn't

change anything for him. He's going to continue to object until this investigation is dropped. You saw the tone and the body language from Janine Piro there. She does not look like a U.S. attorney who's ready to drop anything. Hey, Amin, just a quick question on process here. In that Janine Piro said a motion to reconsider, that goes back to the same judge, if I'm not mistaken and then also an appeal that would go to a second court where there are two efforts here by Janine Piro now to keep this case alive? You're asking me law school questions on live TV, Stephen. I didn't go to law school. I'm going to have to talk to some experts before I answer the process questions. If I could ask a question to you, Steve, for those who may not recall

why this whole thing started in the first place, this is about testimony that the Fed Chair gave before Congress last June, correct? About the $2.5 billion renovation, that he allegedly gave false testimony to Congress about that job. There's also important, I think, to note that the questions that were asked of the Fed Chair that day, he did provide answers to Congress in a letter a couple of weeks later, answering all of the questions that were asked of him about that project in an effort to provide as much transparency as possible, correct? Yeah, and there was an FAQ on the Fed's website. And it's worthwhile to go through that, Scott,

because as I understand it, it was a representative from the House of Representatives who brought this information to or brought this complaint about what the Fed chair said in Senate testimony. What's significant about that is something Janim Piero just said was the idea that senators wanted this thing investigated. There have been multiple senators who said they had no issue.

They said they thought that Scott thought that Powell was unprepared for the testimony. But subsequently, by the way, as you said, there was communication with the Senate in writing. There were, I believe, AIDS that went to visit the site and went to the Fed and were given information there. This did not come from the Senate. And Senator Scott himself said he didn't think that it had done anything wrong. Other Democratic senators have said that. This had nothing to do with the senators who have. heard it, it was a two-minute and I believe eight-second response in which Powell was routinely

interrupted during that process. So in terms of it being some kind of intent to deceive, and I think Amon, who didn't go to law school but has covered enough for these trials to know, proving this criminality of that kind of testimony is a very difficult thing to do. It's also, it's difficult to understand how long this now appeal may play out. But let me throw a hypothetical out to you, Steve, for no other reason. then for the purposes of this conversation, if for some reason this drags on, Powell's term ends and there's no new Fed Chair nominated, what happens? Powell would be the Fed Chair.

That's by the way, Scott, why I asked that question of Amin and why we're both going to be working this, because if it's not one but two legal processes that would be in train here, until it's insisting that both of them be dropped, though that would extend the timeline even further. As we understand it, I don't believe a hearing has been scheduled. It is possible, I suppose, for the Senate banking to schedule a hearing and then for them not to vote on it. That would be unorthodox. But it is possible to do that. But Tillis has made clear that Warsh will not get out of committee without these legal proceedings being dropped. So you're right. This could drag on. Powell would remain Fed Chair for some foreseeable period of time until this is

resolved. And Scott, I think it's important to just note here that what you heard from Janine Piro is she's prepared to lose this case. I mean, you know, federal prosecutors are often criticized for not being willing to lose cases, not being willing to take those cases where you may or may not have enough evidence, but you're convinced the guy is guilty and you push forward anyway in sort of in righteous indignation. They're often criticized as too cowardly to do that. Janine Piro is taking the opposite stance here. She's saying, I'm willing to lose this case. I want to take it all the way.

It is my right as a prosecutor, even if I don't have any proof, I don't need proof at this stage of the game at a grand jury subpoena level. I just need to wonder if there is a crime being committed, and then I can go to the grand jury and ask for a subpoena. I think that shows you how far out Janine Piro is on this,

in the sense that she is doing something that you rarely see with prosecutors. She is willing to take this all the way in a very aggressive posture, and she's willing to go so far as to lose the case if that's what it would come to. And Scott, just one more thing, and Amon's been doing this along with myself,

the number of times that President Trump's tweets have hobbled the cases of his own prosecutors. Yeah. It seems to happen again and again. Well, we shall see what the first response is. I don't believe there's been anything put out by the president yet on social media. You'll correct me if I'm wrong,

and I know you'll bring it to us, Amon, when in fact that does happen, but all eyes are going to be on that as well. Gentlemen, thank you. Amen and Steve. We appreciate you both. We're now in the closing bell market zone as we pivot to the final moments of the trade here,

ending really a second week of stock market activity under this new conflict in the Middle East. Mike Santoli and 314's Warren Pyes are both here to break down the crucial moments of this trading day. Michael, I'll go to you first for your thoughts as we wrap this up. Look, the market's not in any hurry, but it continues to slouch in the direction of further lows.

It feels as if we're now at that point of figuring out whether the market has taken full account here with airlines 20% off their highs. The average stock actually having gotten hit since the start of this month more deeply than the S&P 500 itself has. So heading into the weekend,

I understand probably a little bit of pressure, unwillingness to take on risk, but I do think the market is still priced for remaining in this window when we could have a relatively quick signal of resolution and maybe signs that oil prices have peaked. But nobody has high conviction in that. And I think the tape reflects that. Yeah. And you have a new variable to discuss as well in overtime tonight with these latest developments of the Powell case. Well, no, without a doubt,

obviously, I mean, it was already a pretty muddled Fed picture, given all that's going on from both directions on the mandate. And now we just don't even know when the chair transition will happen. So lots more to talk about. We'll look forward to the conversation with you and Mel and your guests this evening in just about five minutes or so. Warren Pies, as we said, is here with us, too, for the market. So it's good to have you. Just your thoughts before I get some specifics about tech generally. What about what about this market? You know, I'm concerned. You know, we downgraded stocks a month ago. I talked to you about that back in February, back from overweight to benchmark weight. I think this week has been a little bit about broader markets starting to embed

the conflict, the Iranian conflict, and the impact of that. So you look at it. So you look at it. at CPI swap rates, they've bled out of the first year. You look at the rates market, cuts are gone. You look at the crude oil curve. We've seen backwardation alleviate because farther dated contracts are coming up, suggesting a longer, more projected route, and I think equities are related to the party. Is it too simplistic to suggest, as we have been saying, as goes crude, so goes stocks? No.

I think oil is driving the whole bus right now. And I think next week, I mean, oil was where I'd say. started in this business. I think next week is crucial. If we don't have a resolution or at least are driving towards a very clear path to resolution, it's going to be problematic for stocks. But I mean, if we do have a resolution, are we a V-shape now? That's the question that I'm getting from all of my clients. So like, it's a traditional taco playbook is what everybody wants to apply here. The question, and I think earlier in the conflict, this was, the answer is more clear, which was that if we get a taco, then it's fine. We can get back to a V-shaped recovery.

But at this point, you have to ask yourself, there's another counterparty on the other end. How will the Iranians react to a taco? Can they, will they stop with harassing the straight-hormuz? And, you know, I think each day it passes, that becomes less clear. And also just the factors, the tail of all this, fertilizer, oil, LNG, all those things that are going to take time to come back online, that's a long tail and it starts hitting inflation data, the Fed, and all these other things at cascade. What kind of levels are you watching on the S&P on a day where we'll go out still above 6,600? We are, you know, draining ever closer to that level, though. Yeah, I think that that's one of the things that concerns me right now is that we're going out on the lows for the week. So 6646 was the

intraday low for Monday. And I always, I thought that was going to be an important level for us to watch as we ever went into the weekend and everyone's worried, are we going to get good news or It looks like more worries about bad news. We go into next week, I think 6555 was the November low that we had. If we breached that definitively, the odds are we continue down into something more serious. So we get GTC next week, obviously from Nvidia, a big event that can move the stock. We've learned that in the past. You're long the name?

What do you think about this event next week? And the importance, I suppose, that it now holds just relative to an unsubilee. certain and unsettled stock market? Well, I think it's taking a backseat to the things we just talked about, but I do believe if we're able to get clarity on some of those things, the one true North Star within the market is that this AI CapEx super cycle is for real. We track GPU availability at 314 research is something that's proprietary to us. We've had people in the industry reach out to us because it's very good real-time data. And that shows almost zero ability to get a GP.

right now. So demand for compute is off the chart, and I expect that to be reflected next week. Hard to go full negative on the market, as long as that remains the case, and these companies continue to invest into that incredibly strong demand. Yeah, I mean, I think to me, that story's back there, and it's going to emerge at some point, one way, shape, or form. But in the near term, with all of the confusion, the political confusion, the geopolitical confusion, you need to watch technicals. It's very similar to the playbook we designed for Liberation Day last year, which was You need to watch technicals and let that guide you. Yeah, people got real negative, and they paid for it if they got overly negative because the market had a V-shaped bounce from that.

It's been resilient in times of extreme weakness. We'll see what happens with this. If it gets to that level, will we see a similar story? We'll wait for that to unfold. No ring this out. And this week, we will be read. We will go out, as we said around the lows. That's the B's down about 42 points, two-thirds of 1%.

I'll see on the other side of the weekend in the overtime with Mel and Mike.