Closing Bell - Closing Bell 3/21/25

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

From the open to the close, “Closing Bell” and “Closing Bell: Overtime” have you covered. From what’s driving market moves to how investors are reacting, Scott Wapner, Jon Fortt, Morgan Brennan and Michael Santoli guide listeners through each trading session and bring to you some of the biggest names in business.

Welcome to Closing Bell. I'm Scott Wapner live from Post9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This make or break out begins with tariff twists and turns yet again. And the headline today that moved the market midday. We'll have the latest in just a moment and what it means of course for investors. I'll ask Tom Lee that question coming up. First let's check out the majors with 60 minutes to go in regulation this week. Way off the lows as President Trump addresses tariffs from the White House today and that looming April 2nd deadline. I do want to start there because it was significant. Our Megan Casella is on the North Lawn with the very latest in that market moving story. Megan? Absolutely Scott. This coming as President Trump was speaking around noon with reporters in the Oval Office and he

appeared to soften his stance on those forthcoming tariffs. He was asked specifically whether he would be offering any exemptions or any exceptions for any products or any industries and he said quote, there will be flexibility on the tariffs. He went on to emphasize they would still be reciprocal as he's always said but opening the door there for some negotiations. He was also asked twice specifically about China and whether there was anything that

Beijing could do to try to either avoid additional tariffs or reduce the tariffs they've seen so far that are now at additional 20 percent. And both times he said, we'll talk. And then he said he'll be speaking with Chinese President Xi Jinping. So again, sort of leaving room there for discussions and potentially for relenting at least somewhat on those tariffs that we're expecting on April 2nd. And finally, Scott, I just want to flag, I was speaking with a White House official earlier this week about the total impact of the goods that will be hit with tariffs on April 2nd. This official told me that it could be in the trillions of dollars, but they also emphasized

that nothing is going to be final until that plan is released. So again, it just underscores there just how big the impact could be. We're two weeks out, less than two weeks out from that deadline. But again, just how much remains in flux as we get closer to April 2nd. Scott. Yeah, about 10 days. Megan, thanks so much for that update. Megan Casella at the White House as you see. Now let's bring in FundStrat's managing partner and head of research, Tom Lee, a CNBC contributor. It's good to have you. What do you make of this report? I mean, you know, part of the uncertainty of all of this has been the, you know, Iron Fist, maybe Olive Branch.

Back to the Iron Fist, maybe an Olive Branch. What do you make of it? Well, I think it's, on markets, should interpret it positively because I think when we talk to our clients, many are viewing tariffs as punitive, potentially protectionist and driving several economies into recession. This sounds like that we could actually have a positive case scenario with these tariffs, one that's either mutually agreed upon or if it's reciprocal, but maybe a good deal for businesses.

And I think it would stage set the stage for a much bigger recovery rally than we expect. Afterwards, right? I mean, the problem is, is the paralysis, if you will, between now and then. What are we supposed to do over the next 10 days? I mean, that's. Afterwards, right? Yes, after. The problem is the paralysis, if you will, between now and then. What are we supposed to do over the next 10 days? I mean, that's the dilemma, right? Because we still have eight trading days till April 2nd. Most investors are getting just nauseous from the volatility, so they want to throw in the towel.

But we also know that markets will bottom, or have historically bottomed before the event actually happens know the best example is the Cuban Missile Crisis. 1962 that was a 12-day crisis. The stock market bottomed seven days into that crisis. Recovered two-thirds of the losses before the resolution. So I I think that's a decent template for today. What about the economy? I mean listen to Nike, FedEx, put that on top of what we've already heard. Are you concerned about where the economy is going? I mean it's been pretty shocking how quickly sentiment deteriorated. I can understand for consumers because the president's very divisive but for CEOs that's been a

shock. You know CEO confidence has fallen and and they've kind of been sitting on their hands so we know there's a an impulse of a growth shock underway but if if this is something that doesn't last months then it's very been sitting on their hands. So we know there's an impulse of a growth shock underway. But if this is something that doesn't last months, then it's very temporary. I mean, it depends to what degree consumers remain skittish. CEOs are paralyzed in their own right because they can't really make any moves. They're not sure what's going to happen. And ultimately, whether a growth scare spirals

into something else, which Jeffrey Gunlock gave me his view yesterday right here on Closing Bell. Listen. I do think the chance of recession is higher than most people believe. I actually think it's higher than 50% coming in the next few quarters. 50, 60%? that coming in the next few quarters. 50, 60%. I mean, if he's right, what does that mean for the stock market?

Way too expensive. Well, the S&P had a 40%, sorry, 10% drawdown. That's already priced 40% chance of a recession. I'd say the markets aren't agreeing necessarily with his view because China, Europe, Canada, Mexico have been massively outperforming the U.S. since February 18th. Those economies should be tumbling into recession if we have punitive tariffs. So I think markets are actually more paralyzed than necessarily pessimistic.

And I'm sorry, finish your thought. But because the market is the economy, I think to the extent that stocks rebound sharply after April 2, if they do, I think it really staves off future economic weakness. Is the market the real economy? I think it's a very, these days to me, I think it's a really good snapshot of actual sentiment and actually even CEO decisions. Because as you know, when stocks fall, companies lose confidence and as stocks recover CEOs gain confidence. What about the idea that Gunlock also put forth that the in his words unintended consequences of all of the rhetoric from the president is making people think twice especially overseas about investing in the US and the view that

Europe is just a better value and offers even less risk than before. How do you play that? I mean, we hear a lot of folks talking about that, but as you know, Europe tends to be single stock concentrated indices. So if you're buying Europe, you're basically buying industrials and financials. If you're buying Korea, you're buying Samsung.

So I think if someone is looking for the best companies, they're still gonna end up buying the U.S. One of the things that we have to keep in mind is this trade deal, if it's acceptable, could actually basically sort of blunt this whole issue of trade in the future and it would actually make the US more attractive again. I want you to stick around.

Those warnings from Nike and FedEx doing little to quell fears, as we're just talking about, of a slowing economy. Fed officials weighing in today on that outlook as well. That's why we'll bring in Steve Leesman, our senior economics correspondent. I guess I would look at these additional warnings, if you will, Steve, from the likes of Nike and FedEx,

and go back to midweek and the Fed chair, when he basically said, look, surveys are one thing, actions are another. So if they're somewhat dismissive of the surveys, which have shown consumer weakness, do they pay attention more to actual CEO commentary? I think that's a part of it, Scott. I think what they're looking for is the extent to which the soft data in

Fed speak bleeds into or ends up affecting the hard data and the soft data are those sentiments and we've seen situations and Powell talked about this I've written quite extensively about this where people get depressed and the sentiment is down But they end up spending and and it depends on the price that's out there. That's a big part of it. And it hasn't really necessarily happened yet, but these comments from CEOs that suggest it should or could show up in the hard data. You talked about, Gulsby said, you know, we just need more time to figure this out. It was a big part of what he said today, Scott.

And just don't, you can't expect the Fed to say right now that what we're going to do later on. He said he's seen a decided turn in anxiety, and that's by the way, including just businesses and consumers. But the Fed's just going to have to wait through this bumpy patch. That was essentially the message of Gulsby today. What do you make of what Gunnlok told me yesterday? 50 to 60 percent chance in his mind that we're going to have a recession. You know this is what everybody is doing and probably nobody does it better than Jeff which is you have two potential outcomes and you need to put probabilities on those outcomes and those probabilities will be the ones that instruct your investment, right?

So I am listening carefully to every Fed official to hear which side, which part of the mandate are they more concerned about, the growth side or the inflation side? I think maybe the reason why the market took some heart from what Powell said on Wednesday was they heard him siding or being more concerned about the growth side. I don't remember the question I asked him. I said, what do you do when you have lower growth, lower growth forecasts and a higher inflation forecast? And what we look at how far each one is from the mandate.

And then we see which way the outlook suggests they're both going. What I'm hearing, and this is not definitive because they've not made up their mind yet, Scott, a little more concern about the growth side and that 50% probability from Gunlock, maybe it's a little higher than the average Fed official and on the street, but it's within 10 or 20 points. No, I think you're exactly right to focus on that. And I mean, I thought that the way that our colleague Mike Santoli gave his view of the Fed meeting and Powell's commentary as well played into that, an acknowledgement, at least softly, that they're willing to tolerate a little bit higher inflation, but they're not willing to tolerate a labor market deteriorating in any significant

way, especially after the job they think they've done in holding it together. Yeah, so that's really the rub right there is what is their tolerance for higher inflation. And so that's why you listen to and that's why I do it, Scott. So the average viewer at home doesn't have to listen to what they say about inflation expectations and the extent to which they believe those medium and long-term expectations are anchored Williams talked today about the Michigan index. He thinks that's a bit of an outlier He likes his own index which shows that they're a little bit more contained You look at the market surveys of inflation inflation expectations. They're a little bit more contained

So if you put it all together, you say, yeah, the Fed is going to tolerate, especially if they believe the tariffs are going to end up in these one-time price hikes and not bleed into the broader indices. So you just got to listen, Skye, you just got to take in everything they're saying and do what Gunlock is doing. And everybody else I talked to, which is put probabilities on these two potential outcomes and when the president says we might have some flexibility here well that reduces the probability by the way of both because remember the Fed thinks it's restrictive and so they have a kind of predilection to be cutting here if they

can get a kind of all clear from all the dust that's been kicked up by all the policy changes. Yeah, points well made. We've leaned on your expertise a lot this week, Steve. I appreciate you being with us. That's our senior economics correspondent, Steve Leesman. Let's bring in now Cameron Dawson of New Edge Wealth into the conversation. So what's your current take on where we are in this, I say still unsettled and obviously uncertain market? I think we have to make a distinction between a correction that is more about valuations and positioning, which tends to be shorter and shallower,

tends to average around 10%, and a correction that has growth fears to it. And that is the big open question, is that we've started seeing GDP estimates come down slightly we've seen EPS estimates get cut effectively for the last six months how much more downside are is there to those those two estimates if there is more downside then we should be prepared for more volatility potentially more chop in this market so if we were at more than twenty two times. For the S. and P. before this whole thing happened right. The

unwind and the correction of some ten percent. Now we're a little less than twenty one. We're let's call twenty and a half. If earnings estimates are coming down. And uncertainty is going up. Is that multiple still too rich. I do think so that if

we're continuously cutting earnings estimates. You typically get a double whammy when you're cutting earnings you also are derating the multiple because that comes with a risk off tone and a risk off labor in the market. Now do

we need to see estimates come down more than what they have that is an interesting question because estimates still do have us going to record margins this year. Meaning that there's still an implicit idea that we're going to see more productivity, we're going to see good top-line revenue growth. Do tariffs call that into

question if companies have trouble for example passing on price increases onto their customers? Let me ask you, I mean how can you make the case if you in fact are that the market at this level is fairly priced? Well I'd argue there's a tariff discount on markets. You know in our surveys of clients for three months now they've cited Trump tariffs as the number one policy risk, then deportations and Doge. More than Fed error. Once we get a tariff resolution that discount should come off the market. I think that's multiple expanding.

I mean, it's no different than saying you're taking away one of the biggest tail events for markets. I mean, one of your big calls to me feels like, and it almost supersedes any bit of negativity, is the Fed put, which you make the argument continually that it is alive and well, and that we got more evidence of that this week.

So you're almost protected, even if there's some level of downside from here in the economy. Yes, I think there's the Fed put was, it's still alive and well. We got a reminder this past week. And as Steve says, the Fed is marginally more worried about growth,

which means that moving from tight to neutral to easy would be not many titrations. And there is still going to be a Trump put. I think once the tariffs are behind us, there is going to be an interest in Washington to sort of make sure the economy doesn't unravel, which means the Trump put is back in play after April 2nd. And of course, there's a sovereign wealth put coming as well. So I think markets have multi-dimensional downside in addition to all the cash that's been raised and the negative sentiment.

So I think this is all multiple expanding. If you think there's still a degree of so-called Trump put, why then does it feel like the administration is going out of its way in certain instances to almost telegraph, if not a recession, a bigger slowdown than we're going to have now, making the argument that it's worth it for the policies that we're putting in? Well, they've done that. I mean, Treasury secretary in this network talked about needing a detox, and he's not

the only one who has made comments of the like. The president himself has not gone out of his way to say we're not going to have a recession. Yeah well I think it's appropriate for the administration to set expectations and I think it's very inconvenient for markets to be their focus in the middle of the tariff negotiation. It's the hallmark of his policy but I think once that's behind us, we don't actually, I can't imagine an administration that wants us to have a recession.

I mean, a detox is one thing, and it's a shift from private sector, from public sector to private, but that handoff, as you know, they've even backpedaled, they actually want that to be as smooth as possible. So you're assuming that they can manage it in that way, just like we assume that the Fed can manage it on its own side. Does it really matter what you say or what you think? Can you actually do it when the you-know-what starts to hit the fan? Do you believe that the Trump put,

that the Fed put, that the Fed put exists? 2018 is a really good reminder that even though we had an eventual Fed put, we were down 20% from peak to trough in that December trading, even though you did see the Fed eventually step in and reverse policy. So just because the put exists doesn't mean the strike price is where it is today. We do think that you would need to see more volatility for them to actually back off on any policies that could be volatility inducing. What do I want to do then right now in the market? What do I want to do? Do I think this

too shall pass? And then the broadening story is going to pick right back up again. There's just too much uncertainty for a lot of economically sensitive things to work. What's your advice now? I think that you have to have a two to three year forward outlook to be buying weakness today. If you're buying weakness and expecting a V-shaped recovery we don't think you're going to get it. That's very different than 23 and 24. 23-24 every time you had weakness you had a very sharp recovery and made new highs soon after. We think that there's a big potential that yes, you can buy weakness, the forward returns start to look better, but be prepared that it's going to remain choppy before we eventually

get to new highs, which could take some time. I want you guys to debate this for a minute. I go from three to four year outlook to what sounds to me from you like three to four weeks. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'd say if we look at history, when you look at drawdowns from a 52 week high, and this is the fifth fastest in 75 years, if you take the six precedent declines,

they were all V-shaped recoveries. So the speed of the decline had a symmetric recovery. I think almost everyone I talk to is so defensively positioned and so many have lost hope that they're in Cameron's camp that it's a L-shaped bounce. Every time everyone says it's an L-shaped bounce, it's always been V-shaped. So I'm in the camp, it's a V-shaped bounce.

You know who's a pretty good market historian? That lady to your left. What do you think about what he said? So the counter to that would be that we have been seeing fading momentum for the last year. Look at a weekly MACD. You've seen momentum start to fade. So if we're trying to run through this wall of overhead resistance, which we think we're going to hit around 5900, you're not doing it at full speed because momentum has been

fading for so much time. So we think that we will judge the bounce by the time that we hit that overhead resistance. If we start to roll over, then we think that you could potentially retest the prior lows that we got to on March 13th. Yeah. And maybe just another data point to add. I think we should just watch Tesla. If Tesla has an L-shaped bounce, then the market's bounce will be L shaped. But if Tesla bounces from 220

back to some major retracement, then it's a V shaped bounce. All right, we'll leave it there. Cameron and Tom, thank you. You should be on the production team of this show, Tom, because we do wanna move to Tesla right now, in fact. Chairs are hired today as CEO, Elon Musk, holds a meeting with employees.

Phil LeBeau is here with more. He's been urged to do this from some analysts who write a lot of notes and talk a lot about Tesla. Look, you know, yeah, Scott, you know the playbook here. Your company is getting beat up repeatedly. What do you do? You hold up town hall, especially if you're a CEO who rarely is talking publicly. And when I say rarely talking publicly, I'm talking about with interviews where people are putting questions at you and challenging you. So they had a town hall last night at the Gigafactory in Austin. And what did Elon Musk do? Well, he talked about how the future is bright at Tesla, which you would expect. He also addressed the fact that we have had these reports over the last several weeks of protests of Teslas, whether at service centers or people who own Teslas, those Teslas

being attacked. And here's what he had to say about that. If you read the news, it feels like, you know, Armageddon. So I was like, I can't walk past the TV without seeing a Tesla on fire. Like what's going on? You know, some people it's like, listen, I understand if you don't want to buy our product, but you don't have to burn it down. That's a bit unreasonable, you know, like, this is psycho. Stop being psycho. All comments aside,

this is a stock that is under pressure right now. And if you look at any of the metrics in order of trying to figure out what's going on with Tesla right now, they're all moving lower. Delivery estimates have been cut by a number of analysts. There's very few who have the same estimate that they had three or four months ago.

EPS estimates have been cut. Analysts are lowering their price targets. And as you take a look at shares of Tesla over the last five years, which by the way, it's essentially at the same level it was five years ago. Well, maybe it's up four years ago. It's at the same level. Morgan Stanley out with a note late yesterday. Adam Jonas cutting the Tesla price target to 410 from 430. Bottom line is this, Scott, if you are a bear or a bull when you look at Tesla, there was nothing, nothing in this town hall last night that changed your opinion.

Which would go to my follow-up to you. We may not know for many, many years whether there has been irreparable damage caused to the brand from his political moves. You just can't know that in the near term. Correct. And you also don't know in the near term, Scott. A lot of people sit there and they say, well, they're going to be the leaders in AI, they're going to be leaders in robotics, they're going to have humanoid robots, they're going to have autonomous vehicles.

That's all projection at this point. Until we actually see something that we can say, aha, it's coming to fruition, at this point it's a guess more than anything else. Yeah, I mean, delays of products and price cuts and things like that don't really rise to the level of existential threats to the brand. Forget, not the company, the brand. This is perhaps something different. And we'll just have to wait and see. There's no other way. I don't know how analysts can really have a really clear view on how

to model things from here. 100% right. Nobody's entirely sure. They know that it's damaging the brand. They're not happy about it from an investor standpoint, but there's no way for them to quantify it at this point. Phil, thank you. As always, Phil LeBeau on the case. Now let's bring in a Tesla shareholder, Kevin Simpson of Capital Wealth Plannings. Good to see you. You just tell me, I mean, Phil laid it out pretty well.

We know what the issues are. What's a shareholder to do? Well, I mean, I have no enthusiasm after listening to Phil make that bare case. The fundamental story doesn't look that great. Tesla's at a pivotal juncture. I mean, everything that you're banking on down the road, the autonomous driving, that has to work. The utility of the energy sector, it has to work.

The robots, they have to come to fruition and be here functioning and being a profitable business model. And to your point, Scott, none of those things are happening tomorrow. Which is why I liked our conversation last week when we bought the shares at 236. It was purely technical.

It was just looking at trying to trade a commodity and saying, okay, this thing is down a lot. We have the ability to write calls against it we're hoping that it gets to 250 at some point next week maybe it gets there today at that point we'll initiate a covered call program on the position so this is more of a trade for us than an investment but boy is it a polarizing stock to talk about and and do you have concerns that what's gone on here is been damaged beyond repair? I don't know that it matters from our perspective long term.

I tend to think that the US, that we collectively as a society can be forgiving at times. I think what Elon Musk is trying to do in terms of uncovering some government waste is pretty good in theory and principle. And I can understand why both sides are so against maybe the method of how it's going about it. But what do you mean it's not important to you? I mean, you're buying the stock at a specific level, assuming that it's gonna go up. One could make the guess that if these issues

and the protests and whatever else friction around the brand persists that it could be a weight on the very stock that you just bought last week thinking it was a good value. Oh yeah, it could go to 150. I mean, it's an insanely overpriced car company. No doubt about it, Scott. If this thing starts to roll in the other direction, we'll have a stop loss and get out of it.

We're looking at it as a trade from the standpoint, like I said, technically looking at it as an option trader playing into the volatility that's here in massive ways so that when we write calls against this, it'll be a really nice hedge against it. But this isn't something that you're going to want to sit on to perpetuity to prove that you're right. And if this thing rolls over and drops below 200, I'm not going to be sitting here defending the Tesla case. I won't always stop.

I'm sorry, are you making in part a bit of a market call by not only this move last week, but you bought more of the Q's? And that's what's new here. That must be some kind of call. Yeah, I mean, I liked what Tom was saying earlier. We're looking at this in a very similar fashion as the Tesla trade.

We bought some of the cues in our growth strategy last week on the 13th during the pullback. We actually bought some more shares today, Scott. What we're looking at is we're saying we're not going to try to pick stocks here. Let's take a basket of these 100 names. We know people will pay up for innovation. You're down over 10% on the month. And then in exactly the same fashion, if we can get a little bit of a recovery here next week maybe this thing recovers by three or

4% I know that's a tall ask it doesn't have to be next week. But when it does will write covered calls against this as well. These are not like the calls that we talk about all the time on things like. Procter and gamble and more

boring value stocks the option premiums that you can generate on the queues are incredibly robust. Maybe not as high as Tesla but still really really good. So we're looking at this stocks the option premiums that you can generate on the queues are incredibly robust maybe not as high as Tesla but still really really good. So we're looking at this as the lens that's a little bit how can we

harvest volatility that we think is here to stay for a while. If we have a near term bottom technically and maybe we do maybe we don't. Can we get some positions in here that aren't going to roll over and fall off a cliff. And if we do

get a little bit of recovery will they give us option premium. So that we can deliver total return. of a recovery, will they give us option premium so that we can deliver total return? In the market, that's scary. I mean, people are scared because of headlines. People are scared for a lot of reasons. We still wanna be able to deliver returns,

not sit on our hands and be active managers here. All right, Kev, we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for being with us. Kevin Simpson, Capital Wealth Planning. We're just getting started here on Closing Bell Up next. A quantum leap lower. Quantum computing stocks getting crushed this week, but EMJ's Eric Jackson.

He's still bullish on one name in that space. He'll tell us which one, make his case next. All right, welcome back. Quantum computing stocks coming under pressure again this week in the wake of quantum day. That's it, NVIDIA's GTC event. Kate Rooney here with more details. Tell us more, Kate.

Hey, Scott. Yes. So Nvidia's CEO struck a really friendly tone with those quantum industry leaders on stage at GTC this week. He also walked back some of his public comments that tanked these stocks back in January. Jensen Wong had casually questioned back in January if quantum computers would be commercially viable in 15, maybe even 30 years this week, he says he was surprised that those comments moved markets. He kind of joked that he didn't know many of them were publicly traded.

That olive branch and that tone did nothing though to buoy these highly speculative stocks. They are lower today, down double digits on the week, names like IonQ, Regetti, D-Wave, there's some quantum ETFs lower as well. Huang did acknowledge he may be wrong about that 30-year timeline, but he didn't provide any sort of new estimate, and that disappointed some investors. As you can see, this technology has been touted as a game changer for everything from drug discovery to energy, but Quantum, we should say, it is not ready for prime time. A lot of this is still very theoretical.

It's happening in a lab for the most part. We've got a CNBC digital deep dive out today. It discusses all of this and what we're talking about when we even say quantum computing, quantum physics behind it, the challenges of scaling this technology. Check it out. You can see the QR code there. Scan that or go over to CNBC.com, Scott. We'll do that. Kate, thank you. That's Kate Rooney. Our next guest says a bounce could be due for those very stocks. Let's bring in Eric Jackson, EMJ Capital Founder and Portfolio Manager.

Welcome back. Great to see you. You think this was a significant enough event to save these stocks from these declines that we've seen. And at bare minimum, I mean the volatility has been head spinning. It has. These things move plus or minus 10% on a given day,

whether or not Jensen's shining a spotlight on the space or not. Taking a step back though, this is really the only corner of tech that Jensen Wong, arguably the most important CEO in the world, decided to take two hours out of his GTC conference this week and basically focus on, you know, to put together a quantum day with three panels, including, you know, folks from AWS and Microsoft Azure talking about the future of the space.

I mean, and like Kate said, you know, basically did a mea culpa for his January comment. So the fact that, you know, this is still a microscopic space in terms of the size of these companies and their market caps in relation to a $3 trillion company like Nvidia, but the fact that he's focused on this, he's setting up a research, quantum research lab in Boston, you know, this is an important area.

And that's, and when he talks about what are we going to be talking about next year in our quantum day and what evidence are we going to see and all that kind of stuff. That's very, very bullish. I mean, I hear you when you talk about the, the mea culpaa culpa. The cynic in me says, come on, you're telling me the same CEO who two months ago said of these stocks, well, this is way off into the future. Let's not get crazy excited. I'm paraphrasing, obviously. And it caused those stocks to absolutely fall out of bed.

All of a sudden now at their event, talks them up, and we should view this as some significant change in the timeline of quantum computing? I mean, come on. Well, I guess, why do it? If his goal, Scott, was to crush these guys out of existence, why do it? Why invite them up?

Why have them on? When I was chatting with you after those comments in January about it, I said it was a little curious to me because as great as NVIDIA is, it still comes from a classical computing framework, in terms of how it's developed. GPUs are obviously the most advanced version of that classical computing framework, but quantum computing is sort of the next step. So inherently it's a threat to Nvidia and that's why, you know, keep your enemies closer. I think he's

wanting to study the space. He's wanting to know kind of like how can we be involved in this in case there is this massive shift as sort of like a next generation step for AI and GPUs down the road. So if he was just wanting to put them out of existence, why bother to partner with them? Why bother to have them? I don't think he wanted to put them out of existence. I think it was a reasonably innocuous comment originally, just speaking truth.

Like, okay, this is gonna be amazing, but it's years off and the stocks plummeted. And now he is out suggesting that, well, maybe it's not gonna be so far in the future. I mean, you don't find anything interesting about that? Yeah, no, listen, I listen to his comments the way that I would listen and parse the words of a politician.

You know, and sometimes, you know, what they're not saying is how they're saying it is as important, right? Yeah, but I'm saying, I mean, if that's, you know, what you're gonna analogize it to, okay, I mean, that's a little difficult. Well, here's what I think. He was, you know, what Nvidia is really good at

is solving big, complex, multivariate problems, taking tons and tons of data and throwing at it. What quantum is good at now, and maybe it'll be different in 15 to 30 years, but quantum is really good at solving very limited focused problems. You know, you might say that's not as important, there's not as much money in that, and that's why Nvidia is a $3 trillion company. But an important limited focused narrow problem is, for example, cracking into RSA level security or SHA-256 security that protects all crypto wallets around the world.

Like we just saw with a $1.6 billion hack recently of Ethereum on one of the brokers. So that's what that's focused on. I mean, Commerce Secretary Lutnick said yesterday, the day before on the All In podcast, you know, we have to mandate post quantum security cryptography to prevent a quantum hack from a foreign nefarious person or state that's trying to crack into us. So that's a limited problem, very profitable, very important, but it's not a 15 to 20 year replicating exactly all these big problems that NVIDIA is solving.

I think that's where you can have your cake and eat it too. You can be long NVIDIA and you can be long some of these quantum names. Okay. I appreciate it, Eric. We'll continue the conversation. I got to bounce. I have breaking news that I need to get to on the IPO front. Our Leslie Picker has details for us. What do we know, Les? Hey Scott, yeah, StubHub officially filing to go public. This was a closely watched moment for the more than 20 year old company, the Marketplace for Ticket Sales, planning to list its shares on the NYSC, and I'm told by a person close to the matter that it is

targeting a debut in April. The ticker will be Stub, is targeting a debut in April, the ticker will be STUB. STUB initially planned to go public last year with a valuation around $16.5 billion, although it punted the deal amid that big dearth in offerings that we saw in 2024. Now having full year 2024 numbers may have actually been beneficial here given fourth quarter revenue of about half a billion dollars surged 60% year over year, gross merchandise sales comprising total dollar value by buyers for ticket transactions and fulfillment, those jumped 47% to $2.5 billion in Q4. Lately, the company has actually been investing in what it calls original issuance,

which means working with content rights owners, performers, a team, an artist, et cetera, rather than secondary sales, which is what the marketplace is known for. means working with content rights owners, performers, a team, an artist, etc., rather than secondary sales, which is what the marketplace is known for. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, managing the offering. Can I continue digging through this one? And I'll send it back to you in the meantime, Scott. All right, Leslie.

Thank you for that, Leslie. Pick her up next. Ed Yardeni is back with us. We get his first reaction to the Fed meeting this week, the increased market volatility, where he thinks we are going from here next. We are back. President Trump saying today, as we discussed earlier, there will be, quote, flexibility on his reciprocal tariff plan, which is set to go into effect on April 2nd.

My next guest still sees those tariffs as a big risk to the market. Let's bring in Ed Yardny of Yardenny Research. Good to have you back. Tell us more. Thank you. Well, I guess if the president's gonna be flexible, I have to be flexible. I think we all have to be flexible

on where this tariff issue is gonna take us. April 2nd is Liberation Day. It's, according to the president, it's when we're going to have all these reciprocal tariffs. And maybe after all, he is looking at the market. You know, he kind of has led us to believe that the market doesn't really matter that much to him anymore. But I think today's comment about his flexibility and reciprocal tariffs may be him kind of watching what's going on on CNBC.

Doesn't all this just add to the uncertainty though? We're asking ourselves as investors the question, does he care about the market? Does he not care? I thought he did. Well, maybe he doesn't. Are we going into a recession? I don't know. They haven't talked this out of it.

Are they telegraphing us into one? It's pretty wild. I mean, you need a neck brace to deal with this environment. But all in all, it's kind of starting to feel to me like the market may be trying to bottom out here. Sentiment is extremely bearish. And typically when sentiment is this bearish, you make a bottom. But the reason you do that is that all the reasons for bearishness lead to a Fed put.

And I think you asked, you mentioned that I might comment on the Fed here. And I think the Fed did in fact indicate that the Fed put is still very much available. It's on standby. The Fed said that again, they're in no hurry to lower interest rates. They didn't say they're in no hurry to do anything. They didn't say they're in no hurry to lower interest rates. They didn't say they're in no hurry to do anything. They didn't say they're in no hurry to raise rates. So I view their position as inherently dovish. They're looking to lower rates.

And if we get into trouble, they'll do that. Maybe that will make the bottom. Maybe that'll be sometime in the spring. But meanwhile, my base case remains the same. I think the economy is gonna prove to be remarkably resilient. I'm expecting to see some real good bounce backs in retail sales in March and April. I think weather had a lot to do with the weakness in January especially, but also February. So I'm counting on the economy to show its strength as it has for the past three years.

All right. Good weekend, Ed. We'll see you soon. I for the past three years. All right. Good weekend, Ed. We'll see you soon. I appreciate your time as always. Thank you. Up next. We track the biggest movers into this Friday close. Pippa Stevens is standing by with that.

Hey, Scott. Well, one stock is taking flight after a vote of confidence from the U.S. government. You've got the name to watch coming up next. We're about 10 from the bell back to Pippa Stevens now for the stocks that she's watching. Tell us what you see Pippa. Well Scott Boeing is getting a big boost after beating out rival Lockheed Martin on a multi-billion dollar contract to build the next generation fighter jet for the US military. President Trump announcing the decision alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth today.

Lockheed Martin selling off on the news while Boeing shares are up 4 percent. And shares of Newcore are falling after the steelmaker forecasts lower than expected profits as a weaker steel pricing environment weighs on sales. However, the stock is moving off session lows as President Trump indicates there might be some flexibility on upcoming tariffs. Scott. All right. Thank you, Pippa Stevens.

Still ahead, Nike shares hitting a 52 week low after weak guidance today. That stock is the biggest loser in the Dow right now. We break down the details behind the move next. All right, straight ahead. The Nasdaq's gone positive and the S&P is trying to snap a four week losing streak. We count you down to the bells in the zone next. We're now in the closing bell market zone, CNBC senior markets commentator Mike Santoli is here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. And Courtney Reagan on Nike's sales warning court. We start with you, a big story today in these markets.

Yeah, of course. I mean, Nike down really notably in reaction to mainly the commentary about the time it's going to take to return to growth. And analysts are worried about sales declines in greater China more specifically though too, potentially maybe a bigger issue than previously presumed for Nike and then maybe writ large for more retail and consumer businesses there. New CEO Elliot Hill sharing some evidence in his win now strategy. He's saying it's working but it's going to take several quarters to reset the inventory,

regain margin growth, they're clearing through that with a lot of clearance sales. And while Nike is a key vendor for other retailers as a wholesale partner, like Dick's Sporting Goods and Footlocker, shares there actually higher and let's call it flat respectively for Footlocker today. And further, the XRT retail ETF, slightly higher on the session. That's outperforming the broader indices into the close here, up about 2% for the week, also better than the major indices performance over that time. So Investor Scott, I think,

seeming to read into Nike's results as more of a company specific issue. And I have to admit, I'm a little bit surprised about the reaction today to Nike shares. Even after hearing what we heard, we knew that they're going through this transformation under Elliott Hill. I don't think anyone thought that it was going to be quick.

Maybe they thought it would be quicker, but not entirely surprising from those of us that follow it more closely. Back over to you. Still a guilty before proven innocent stock, I suppose. Court, thank you very much for that. Courtney Reagan, speaking of Mike Santoli's with us. I mean, the market clearly is still that.

I'm just not sure what you do with the Nike and the FedEx versus an S&P that's already fallen 10 percent. Yeah. Look, I think the broad market didn't do anything else this week to kind of further compromise its status, its legal status so to speak. But the Nike and FedEx news and the reactions to them I do think keeps everybody on high alert. We're in the final week basically of the quarter.

It's hard to see things that are going to make you want to lift earnings estimates in the near term, but we continue to hunt for the moment of peak uncertainty, of peak policy uncertainty. Everybody knows that's the time you're supposed to buy. And maybe today's action with a little minor hint of flexibility on tariffs is activating that impulse to say, yep, we know nobody has a clear vision of how this plays out,

but we've been sort of stewing in it for so long that maybe we can figure out whether it's priced good enough. By the way, not bad that the S&P's going to go positive for the week. Five-week losing streaks are very rare and usually happen in very treacherous markets. We'll finish with a flurry. Mike, thanks. Great weekend to you. That's Mike Jansoley. NASDAQ positive by one half of one percent, making a move here into the close,

as is the FBP. Gatlin's green now too. We'll see how things settle. I'll see you on the other side of the weekend.