Closing Bell - Closing Bell 3/26/26

Episode Date: March 26, 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 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.

Brian, thanks so much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wapner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker breakout begins with the tech takedown. It's weighing heavily on stocks as this final stretch gets underway today. Let's show you the scorecard here with 60 to go in regulation. You will see exactly what I'm talking about. There's the NASDAQ. It's down almost 2%. So the S&P, many of the stocks, obviously, there too, down almost 1.5%. So it's gotten a little ugly. And it's caused the NASDAQ now 21,500. We'll watch if that holds over this last hour. Oils moved higher again today, too. That's been a bit of a problem for the overall market. We're back below 95 on WTI. We're still over 105 on Brent. So we need to watch all of that because, as you know, it's had a dramatic impact on the stock market.

Yields are up two. And that's another big story to follow on yet another disappointing treasury auction. This one, a seven year. Take a look at the 10 year. It's above 440 now. So it's moving closer to 4.5%. Need to watch all of that. Expectations of a possible rate hike this year, believe it or not.

Yep, they continue to increase as well. We begin with our talk of the tape, this suddenly miserable seven. Called that today by Barron's as the meltdown from Meta and Microsoft continues to weigh on this once loved and very heavily owned group. We'll start there with Meta down sharply the worst day since October of last year. McKenzie Segalos is tracking that for us. What do we see here? So, Scott, meta shares are down more than 8% as investors digest back-to-back courtroom losses this week, with juries in New Mexico and L.A., finding that META failed to protect children on its platforms.

Now, the financial penalties here are relatively minor given meta's $60 billion in annual net profit, but the verdicts are being called a watershed moment, particularly with a wave of similar social media safety and addiction trials ahead, including a federal case in Northern California this summer. And legal experts are warning that these cases could ultimately force Congress to revisit Section 230. And then the second phase of the New Mexico trial this May could result in court-ordered product changes, potentially banning features like endless scroll or encrypted messaging for minors, which would have major implications for engagement and ultimately add revenue.

Still, META appears undeterred, even amid the legal setbacks and hundreds of additional layoffs announced just yesterday, the company is rolling out aggressive new stock incentives for top executives that only pay off if META's valuation climbs as high as $9 trillion over the next five years. Yeah, Mack, thank you. That's a stunning decline. You just don't see it that often, as I said, almost six months since you've had a move in that stock down as much as it is now of some 8%. And by the way, what Mac was talking about, you make changes to Section 230. That's a game changer. Long way off, obviously, but the stock is not looking good at all. Down 11% over a year, down 8% today. That takes us to Microsoft, its own slide, more prolonged, even uglier.

Dear Jabosa following that move for us today, what do we see here? So, Scott, the question now is whether Microsoft can get back on track, or this is more of a structural problem, because you said it. Look at the timeline. It's ugly. The stock hit. It's all-time high. And then it's been a slow bleed ever since from $4 trillion in market cap to under three now.

So the bare case, it's pretty straightforward. And it starts with co-pilot. This was supposed to be the killer app. AI baked into every office product on the planet. But after just a few years on the market, only about 15 million paid seats out of a 450 million install base. That is a 3% conversion rate. Not good. Instead, the enterprise market has really gone to Anthropic and Open AI.

And that is an irony that is not lost on most investors. Now we are getting signals that more belt tightening is happening, which feels like an admission that things have gone downhill. The information reporting that Microsoft is freezing hiring in its major cloud and sales groups that comes on top of earlier layoffs, a co-pilot reorg recently, and decelerating Azure. That's cloud growth, all while AI spending is going up. We've been talking about this forever. And investors, they continue to wonder when that starts showing up in the, the numbers, especially when you have all of these other things going on. And as you called it,

Scott, prolonged and ugly declined, as you can see here on this graphic. Yeah, there is that wall that shows you the major moments, the milestones, and then the melt. Dee, thank you. That's George Robosa. Now let's bring in Doug Clinton. He's the founder and CEO of Intelligent Alpha. I know you don't own either Meadow or Microsoft directly, but you've got to be concerned by the direction of both of these stocks, no? I wouldn't say overly concerned, Scott. And the reason is if you think about both of these cases, I think you can explain why both stocks haven't really done so well in the recent past. For Microsoft, as D. Mention, pete kind of in October, I think that corresponds with some of the issues that OpenAI had. Was the leader in AI then? Then it was Google. Now we're

talking about Anthropic as probably the leader. Microsoft is most tightly coupled to OpenA.I. Now, though, I think we have this question about AI agents and really what do they mean in Enterprise and what will Microsoft's role be in a world where if three, five, seven years from now, most of the work is done by agents. I think that's the problem for Microsoft. I mean, it's been a pretty stunning move lower. You have any indication or feel that it's going to reverse anytime soon? The questions that you're talking about can't be answered anytime soon.

That's a problem. They won't be. And I think that's actually applicable to software broadly, Scott. I mean, if you think about what's been going on with this question about agents, and sort of what does enterprise look like in the future, we've discussed internally, we kind of called it like Schrodinger's cat, right? Schrodinger's software it is? Because is it alive or dead? When we fast forward three to five years, will these companies still be relevant in the software space? And I don't think we're going to have an answer to that question this year or next.

You own enough of these names that when I throw out what Barron's said today from Magnificent Seven to Miserable Seven. Do you have any gut feel on when this group is going to turn around? And why? By the way, rising interest rates doesn't help. Uncertainty over the war doesn't help, right? That's right. Well, at Intelligent Alpha, we use AI to do our stock picking. Our models, Scott, have really focused on, I would say, the leaders within this space. Some of the problems for Microsoft, not really leading in AI, meta, not leading an AI in terms of their frontier models, but Nvidia is a name we own, Google is a name we own, and Amazon's a name we own. I think you can say they've all shown some leadership characteristics in what they've done and those stocks have actually

performed better year to date. I mean, you can see Google down today and, you know, some are citing this news about Apple that, you know, McKenzie was talking about at the end of the last hour. There's just so much happening. These companies just want to crush each other in many respects. What your customer is your competitor almost in the same light now, almost for everybody. It is, and well, you have Open AI and Anthropic in that mix, too. I mean, there's really probably 10 companies that are sort of vying here. And at some point, I think we will see a world where some of these investments don't pay off. I'll point to Meta from the top. If you look at Meta several years ago, they really invested heavily tens of billions of dollars in the Metaverse. That didn't pay off. They've been kind of pairing that back now. Now they're investing hundreds of billions in AI. We're going to see some of these companies invest a lot in AI. and not have much to show for it. I do think, though, Google, Amazon, they still are two companies that have a good path to monetize the bestness.

When you say we're going to see companies invest all this in AI and not have anything to show for it, are you talking about the Mag 7? Or are you talking at like second and third tier names for lack of a better description just because of how large these are? I think it could be both. And I mean, again, with meta, we're not investors there. And there's a reason for that,

which is I think they're spending a lot of money still thinking about what they could do in the frontier model space. It feels like they're going to have a hard time competing there. And so I don't know if they're going to show much on that front, even though their investments internally actually monetizing AI have been great. What's wrong with Invidia? You know, it's... You ask it simple. I mean, well, the stock has not acted well. Some believe it's going to go

back above 200 in the near future. But what's your take? We still own it. We've actually paired it back a little bit over the last couple of weeks. Why? Our models have moved out of Invidia a little bit. I think they're seeing more exciting areas in other spaces in hardware to invest in. So we've recently taken a position in Marvell, right? So we're kind of getting into more of the custom silicon space. And I think the broader investment community is probably thinking about the world the same way. Invidia, everybody already owns a ton of it. We're looking for other kind of contrarian or alternative ideas, at least.

Marvell's one that we just bought in. Credo is another one that we're interested in as well. We'll talk to you again soon. Doug, thanks for being here. It's Doug Clinton with us right here post nine. Now let's get to the latest on the war. The administration trying hard to soothe markets, not working so well today, though. Amen Jabr is live at the White House with more. Tell us what happened today in this cabinet meeting because we watched as long as the, you know, as long as that went on, the stock market didn't exactly feel soothed. Yeah, it's interesting, Scott, because the president's message in that cabinet meeting was all about, you know, this is why we had to do the Iran war. It's also not hurting the stock market as much as

I thought it would. It was not hurting oil prices as much as I thought it would, the president said. And he was at pains to suggest that all of this is going to be wrapped up very, very soon. Take a listen. We had to take a little detour. It won't be long. It's going to end soon. We had to take a little detour, go to Iran, and we had to put out a fire. Very dangerous fire that could have blown up big portions of the world. So you hear the president there saying, you know, this is just a little detail, detour, it's going to be over soon. The president very much focused on the economic success that he felt that he had at the beginning of this year,

and contrasting that to where we are now and sort of offering that message of reassurance to markets and people who are concerned about the economy. Look, this is going to end soon. When is it going to end? Well, that the president, of course, would not say. And he says it at a time, Scott, that we know the U.S. also has additional. troops on the way to the region, elements of the 82nd airborne and marine expeditionary unit, ground troops who could participate in operations as soon we are told as this weekend to take territory in Iran or in the region. So we don't know which way the president's going to go.

This reassurance message could be sort of a head fake ahead of some additional military action or it could be really where the president's head actually is on the timeline. No real substance either from these apparent talks or whether they're simply talks about having talks. I think the market would like to see some sort of clarity around that critical question as well. Well, what we got from the president's top negotiator, Steve Whitkoff, in the cabinet meeting, was at least confirmation that conversations are happening. They're happening. He said through Pakistani mediators, so not direct conversations between the United States and the Iranians,

but messages being passed by both sides through the mediation team in Pakistan. But, you know, what we've seen is the White House flatly rejecting the Iranian proposals, the Iranians earlier this morning sending another message out through a senior official talking to Reuters that the U.S. proposal simply isn't serious in their views. So at least if you're looking at this as a traditional negotiation, you know, the first offers are wildly off the map. And you kind of have to dispense with those before you can get down to the real haggling. Maybe if you want to look at this in an optimistic way, sort of maybe that's where we are. Both sides have made their unrealistic first offers, and now they can get down to talking in some substance.

We'll see if that happens. Yep, we will. Appreciate the update, as always. You're reporting as well. Amen, thank you on the North Lone of the White House is Aman Javers for us. Let's now bring in the Wharton School, Professor of Finance Wisdom Trees, Chief Economist, Jeremy Siegel and CBC contributor, Trivary. It's Adam. It's great to have you both with us.

Adam, I'll give you the first shot here. I mean, just sort of, you heard Amon's reporting. You see what's happening in tech today. oil's up, yields you're getting a little uncomfortable too. Put it all under perspective for me. Yeah, you know, I just was thinking back to the beginning of the year, wherever one is universally bullish. They love financials. They love small caps, love tech. And it just reminds me of like doing the opposite of what the consensus is can really have some merits. You know, our call was, we think the probably the multiple contracts

is higher than expands. We're down five to up 10 year, not up to the 20. I still think that's right. I had no idea about the war, and I have no idea how it's going to be resolved. I think most investors I'm talking to you today said, I'm a little worried that I'm positioned negatively. We get some news, and everything's up 5% of two days, and I miss out on the recovery. And so I'm relatively outperforming little now, but I may fall behind with one comment from the president. And so people are worried about where and how to get exposure in front of that. Professor, that sums it up so well.

And it also underscores why many are having trouble getting too negative. even in the fog of war, both from a tactical standpoint in the region and here as we assess it as investors. Because all it takes is we learned pre-market on Monday is one social media post, and there you go. Absolutely. If Trump just posts, we got a deal. Wow. I mean, the market's probably up 1,500 points. You don't want to be short in that market. But there's a lot of risk out there. I mean, the Iranian government, government, you know, killed, as we know, tens of thousands of its own citizens at its top leadership knocked off by bombing and makes a set of totally unrealistic demands on the United States. I mean, taking over the Straits of Haramuz, those are international waterways.

I mean, that would be absolutely unprecedented. movement. You know, Amon said this is the first come-around, but actually, the first come-around is now, you know, almost 48 hours old. So, you know, we have troops in that area. I'm, you know, I'm thinking that maybe we have to put in a discount for much stronger military action on the part of the U.S. and, therefore, in the short run, higher oil piraces. And maybe that's what the market is trying to come to grips with in part today. I mean, again, people don't want to be too short because, as I say, that tweet, we got a deal. You know, but, you know, I'm really, I mean, I think everyone is surprised on how long the Straits of Harmuz have been closed with no hope of opening.

There's still missiles being fired. and the top leadership, whatever that leadership is, is putting out a set of demands that are as strong as they would have been, let's say, even before the bombing began. So the side are very far apart. I think it's fair that the tactical calculus here may have changed to or may be different from what the initial expectation was, that you go in strong, you get this civil uprising,

and then that helps with the regime change. You don't get to the point where the Strait of Hormuz even gets closed, no less closed for as long as it has been, and now who knows how long it's going to remain that way. But Adam, let me ask you this. So you got oil prices, which play into the strait, obviously, and that seems to be the dominant conversation. Oil goes up, stocks go down.

But now I've got rates going up because oil goes up and this could lead to more entrenched inflation. So that's a problem to deal with, too. Yeah, look, I can almost back up and say if Professor Siegel and Scott Wobner and Adam Parker are using the word Hormuz, that's out of our comfort zone. Like, you know, we're supposed to talk about earnings and margins and multiples and the Fed. And so all of this means I should pay lower multiples because it's an uncertain world. And so I still think that the risk is the estimates are too high for the market, that margins are going to struggle with higher oil and input costs, and that the Fed is going to be less accommodative than people thought at the beginning of the year.

That's not a great cocktail. That's why we've been cautious on equities in the U.S. And so I think you have to find things where you think the estimates are more achievable. One of my main observations, Scott, is the companies that are missing estimates, the penalty for missing has been so much harsher than the reward for beating. You mentioned in the last segment, hey, tell me what's going on with InVideo. Look across the whole memory complex. I mean, Mike Ron is horrific this week.

Horrific, and the earnings went from $50 to $90 next year. So people are obviously worried about cyclical peaks. So that's the issue. I hear you, but earnings, multiples, margins, if I think that this is not going to last that long, if I truly believe that it's not going to be as protracted as some of the news headlines and the rhetoric would have you believe, why shouldn't I stay with that story? That's a good story. I think the median company, we said this at the beginning of the years before any of this,

the median companies margins are not going to go up this year, gross margins. I think earnings are going to grow 10. The street's got 15. 10's still pretty good. Double digits. Okay. All right. That doesn't tell me to sell stocks, I'll tell you that.

It doesn't, but the penalty for missing has been so harsh. So what I need is the opposite of what the micron trade is. I need a company to miss and not go down, not to blow out earnings and not go up. So we need a little bit, and maybe we'll get that in Q2. I think we'll probably see some July earnings that turn out to be way too high. We'll see if that's the point where, all right, I get the clear signal. Professor, they're now called, again, by some. the miserable seven.

We don't, can you have miserable seven and stocks go up in the same sentence? Yeah, if you have the rotation going on, you know, I've been talking a long time on, you know, Anthropica, you know, a month ago put out this chart that said that only about 10 to 15% of the firms are using AI as effectively as they could to increase their margins. and profits. This is outside of the MAG 7, outside of the tech industry. You know, if we get some clarity on oil, the outcome of

Iran, and the implementation comes through, that would be a rotation. And as you said earlier, Scott, you said, are they just banging each other? I mean, technological change is happening so fast. Can we

make sure, can we be sure that their margins are going to stay at 60%, 70%, 70%, Are those moats going to remain? I think that's the only reason why, you know, NVIDIA is selling, you know, in the very low 20s given its outlook, because those threats are still there. I'd say not really to that, meaning like if round numbers, you're 40%, I call it the grade eight because Brock comes big than a couple of the other put them in there.

If they're around 40% in the market, it's like 36%. And they're down 10. Let's say that's miserable. They're down 10. That's 3.6%. But the market to be up in that environment. But the other 60 has to be up 20% plus. I think it's very unlikely.

Well, I'm just saying like, what I also mean here is that they're miserable. These stocks are acting miserably. Right. Right. And the other stocks can't do anything because we're worried about inflation rates, the war, rate hikes, like that whole thing. So where do you go? Well, I think you have to find Esmachiavili. We still love health care.

I still think you could find some, you know, demand that's steady there. You know, I think the challenge, Scott, is you can't tell me you're going to pay a higher multiple when things are uncertain. So I don't want to take a ton of risk. Semi's price action is telling you that it's been terrible. Yeah. Jonathan Prynski suggests it's terrible. And I know who he is. Yeah, I know now you do. And the price action is, um, and I think, you know, if analytical skill is going to zero because of AI, investment skill is not. And everyone as investors says, I don't like it when companies bought earnings and the stocks don't go up. That means something's coming that I don't like.

So I think that price action is worrisome. And I think we're headed lower in the medium term until we get some more certainty. I am worried about the tweet. But on the other side of that, I still have challenge margin, higher input costs, estimates they're too high, harsh penalty for missing. So I think you've got to be cautious here and not take a ton of risk in the near term. You and Krinsky, Sympatico. Semis look extremely vulnerable. That was his note today.

Thank you. Adam. Professor, we'll talk to you soon. Thanks very much. We're getting some interesting news on SpaceX and this coming IPO. Christina Partinavolo has that for us. Tell us more. Well, Elon Musk is shaking up the traditional IPO playbook, specifically with SpaceX.

According to Reuters, this report just now, Musk is looking to allocate as much as 30% of the IPO offering to retail investors. That's at least three times more than what individual investors usually get in a public listing. So the plan also includes a so-called lane structure for the banks, so assigning firms to specific investor pools in geographies, rather than letting them compete broadly just across the deal. So according to the report, Bank of America's focus on high net worth and family office distribution domestically. Morgan Stanley handling smaller ticket retail through e-trade. UBS is going to be marketing to international investors. But the bet is that Elon must loyal follow, many of whom have tracked SpaceX for years in the private markets,

will be less likely to flip shares immediately after they debut. The company could go public at evaluation as high as $1.75 trillion, which could make it one of the largest IPOs in history. There's been a lot of speculation as SpaceX would file. It's IPO perspectives this week. And so that's why you initially saw Space Mobile, Rocket Labs, Firefly, Aerospace, all of those names surge. But you can see today, hopefully you can bring those names up.

They're completely reversing course plunging or falling anywhere between 5% and 9%. Scott. Yeah, it's an interesting story. We'll obviously follow that. Christina, thanks. We'll come back in a bit. Christina Parts of Nelves. We're just getting started here.

Up next, the big AI warning. CEO sounding the alarm. on future jobs, the author and thought leader, Walter Isaacson, weighs in next. I think it's very natural to be concerned about jobs. I think young people coming out of university today is like 9% unemployment. I think it could easily go into the mid-30s in the next couple of years. The mid-30s? I do. That was stunning. It was service now CEO, Bill McDermott, with a warning of what lies ahead for this country's college graduates in the age of AI. Stunning, as we say, declaration, and he's not the only business leader talking about that.

For more, let's welcome in Walter Isaacson. He's Tulane University professor, Porella Weinberg, advisory partner as well, the author of bestselling books on Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, also a CNBC contributor, a long way of saying, welcome back. Good to have you. Good to be back, Scott. What do you make of what Bill McDermott had to say? I think it's tough sometimes with people in the 2025 age group. But now, I think AI has created about 1.2 million new jobs in the past couple years. It's going to create more jobs and it destroys. There'll be some disruption, of course. There's 600,000 new jobs being created right now in data centers and building and construction. And as you saw, Jeff Bezos is putting a billion dollar fund together. So I think the main

place that you see job loss due to AI is in the press releases that companies are putting out or in some of the analysts that come out and say, oh, it's going to be Armageddon. It'll increase productivity. And boy, there are a whole lot new jobs coming out now. I think people say technological revolutions like the one we're undergoing now never really result in massive job loss. So you would agree with that. This time is not different. Well, you know, we've had throughout history technological advances. The Luddites, like the Luddites attacking AI today, were the followers of Ned Ludd who attacked the weaving loom being automated in England in the 1840s, saying it was going to put weavers out of work. You had more than 10 times a number of people in the

fabric industry 20 or 30 years later. It created new jobs. So productivity, by definition, increases the total amount of wealth. Unless we run out of things people could possibly want, there'll be new jobs to fulfill things. I know, but even, you know, Mr. Bezos, as you cite, as he seeks apparently according to these reports, to raise this fund, is going to have these manufacturing facilities and automate them with AI and robotics. He automated Amazon facilities a whole lot, but there's still more Amazon workers and still more workers in the retail business than they were before Amazon came along. When automation increases productivity, businesses get to expand, and yeah, it could be disruptive. I think it is, as your previous analyst said, there is a problem for those entry-level jobs in white-collar work if you're not trained in AI.

At Tulane, you know, instead of saying, hey, be afraid of AI, I make my students all use three different versions of AI on every project and show the work they've done using AI because somebody who is very versatile at using AI is going to be far more likely to get a job. That's exactly where I wanted to go next is what colleges and universities need to do. What obligation or responsibility do they now have? Do they need en masse to change parts of their curriculum to meet the need of where these students are going to have to get jobs? Yeah, I was just at the University of Miami a couple of days ago. Of course, I'm at Tulane now soon as spring break ends. And what we're both doing is saying it's the people who are going to connect AI to other industries. So when I'm talking to the people doing biotech or the people doing medicine or the people doing law at Tulane, we look at the different ways, whether Claude or Chad GPT or Google Gemini, especially the notebook versions, exactly how you would use each of these tools for each of the problems you want now.

Secondly, you have to, at a university, have people remain curious and remain flexible and perhaps try to know as something about everything. knowable, just so you can connect the pattern. Somebody who drills down and says, I just want to learn how to code, they're the ones who are going to get crushed by Claude. Do you see the angst on the face and the demeanor of the faces and the demeanors of the students in which you teach, the ones who walk the halls at Tulane and are around campus and places like that? Yeah, I think you're having a problem with recent college graduates, or people graduating from college, not just from AI, but you don't have the big old corporate jobs with procter and gamble and others setting up tables at college campuses.

That notion of starting with some big firm and having a safe and secure job, that got wiped away 10, 15 years ago. And you have seen a 13 or 14 percent increase in the unemployment for people in the 20 to 25. age group. So yes, that's where it's hitting first, but it's not hitting the people who have really leaned forward on AI and say, I'm going to be a lawyer, but I am AI savvy, or I'm going to be a doctor, but I'm creating an app to go through patients' data and do things. People are creating really great tools at Tulane, and those are the ones who I think are going to succeed. What responsibility do you think CEOs have here, Walter? That's where I'll take the conversation, I think, to wrap it up.

Is it to their employees, to their communities, or simply to their, as it's, I think, always been, to their share in stakeholders in that they are going to do whatever maximizes profits, and that at the end of the day is going to supersede whatever. additional training, and whatever else they feel their own employees need to meet this moment. Well, sure. Corporations who do what's in the best interest, mainly of their shareholders, but that includes doing their employees and stakeholders as well. And if you're going to really use AI in a company, you're going to want to make sure everybody

knows how to use it. The biggest growing job growth are people who are applied AI engineers going into companies. any CEO who wants to use AI is going to be growing that person's company, not shrinking the employment. Walter, can't thank you enough. I always enjoy our conversations and your great insights. Thank you. That's Walter Isaacson joining us once again here on closing bell. Coming up next, we're back in the big leagues.

It is opening day today. There are several major issues looming over Major League Baseball. We are live at City Field next. Plus, Tom Brady, making news today. with our very own Alex Sherman. Say exactly what he said next. Getting breaking news out of Washington, Emily Wilkins has that for us.

Hi, M. Hey, Scott. Well, the headline is that the House has passed funding to fund the Department of Homeland Security. But the real underlying news to this is that just like we saw a few weeks ago, before we saw these big TSA lines, there weren't that many Democrats

who joined Republicans in this funding, only a few. And the fact of the matter is that The play for this continues in the Senate. The Senate's the one that's got to figure it out, and they really do remain stuck on this. We have yet to see a proposal that is yet to get a lot of Democratic support. We are now seeing reports from the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post that the White House is actually considering alternative ways to be able to pay TSA agents to get them out of that line. It's just not clear at this point if Congress is going to wind up

going on a two-week recess without having this resolved. Certainly House members can, saying, hey, we just passed a bill and go home for two weeks. But for the Senate, they need to decide whether or not they're going to try and stay for more days to try and get this done, whether the White House is going to step in here, or whether they are going to be able to pull up some final solution at the 11th hour. But at this point, it looks like this DHS shutdown and the TSA lines are going to continue for a while longer. All right. All right, Emily, thank you. That's Emily Wilkins with an update from the Hill. We're closing bell after this break. It's opening day at ballparks around the country.

While fans are interested in the action on the diamond, it is off the field where several significant issues are looming large. Our Alex Sherman live at City Field, home of the New York Mets with more. Hi, Alex. Hey, Scott. Yeah, it's a beautiful day here in Queens. Everybody's happy. Mets are winning, opening day, but there are potential storms on the horizon in Major League Baseball. The biggest one being that the collective bargaining agreement ends after this season.

That is a big deal because the Players Association leader, Bruce Meyer has already said he feels like a lockout is all but guaranteed as owners push for a potential salary cap. There are another a bunch of issues on the horizon even beyond the CBA. Major League Baseball will likely pick new media partners after the 2028 season. Commissioner Rob Medford has already talked about two potential expansion teams by the time his contract is up in 2029. That could even lead to league realignment, which could eliminate the American and national league. by, let's say, five years from now or so when those expansion teams come in. All of these are hypotheticals at this point, but it is certainly potential that Major League

Baseball is in a deep period of transition. This year could be kind of the last year of baseball as we know it. Scott. I'll switch gears if I could to your conversation with Tom Brady. I don't know if he intended to do this, but he made headlines today that were picked up everywhere. Tell us more about this exclusive conversation you had and what he told you. Yeah. Yeah, look, I asked Tom, I said, look, I'm not going to ask you if you're going to come back. I saw you in that flag football game a week ago. You look pretty good. Have you at least

looked into the possibility of what the NFL league rules are of a minority owner coming back for, say, a late playoff run? Take a listen to what he told me. Funny enough, you ask, I actually have inquired. And they don't like that idea very much. So I'm going to leave it at that. We explored a lot of different things. And I'm very happily retired. Let me just say that too. So I loved being out there playing in the flag game. I love not getting hit. I've got a lot of really fun things I'm involved in. And it's never going to be old, you know, and get old thrown passes to incredible athletes on the football field. But if anything, that game reconfirmed to me that I'm very happy in my retirement.

Of course, Tom is a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders. He has been working in tandem with the team's general manager in putting that team together. He's 48 years old, but look, when you watch that guy, there's a lot of zip still on those passes. I had to ask. I mean, you never know what answer a good question is going to get. And you got rewarded today for certain. As I said, Alex, thank you, Alex Sherman.

And for more, head over to cnbc.com slash sport. You can see more, of course, of that conversation. Up next, the biggest movers as we head into the close. Christina Parts of Nevelos is standing by with that. Tell us more. Scott, we're seeing a social media stock actually gets slams on an EU child safety probe, a retailer rallying on buyout buzz and a server maker sliding on a class action lawsuit. Those stock movers next.

All right, about 10 from the bell. Let's get back now to Christina, who's watching these stocks that we need to take a look at. What's going on here? We're going to start with Netflix. Bad news for maybe net subscribers. Shares are up about 1% after announcing it will raise prices for the second time in a year. Prices for its ad-supported tier are rising to $8.99 per month up from $7.99. Both its standard and premium plans are increasing by $2 a month. Snap, sinking roughly 11% right now after the European Union said it was investigating Snapchat

for allegedly not doing enough to prevent child grooming and the sale of illegal goods. The European Commission suspects Snapchat doesn't have enough safeguards to prevent children from being contacted by users looking to exploit them. And shares of Super Micro Computer also down about 8% after investor filed a class action lawsuit against the chipmaker. This is a server maker and its two top executives. The complaint accuses the company of failing to disclose server sales to Chinese-based companies, which were illegal. Super Micro's co-founder was indicted just last week for smuggling Nvidia AI chips to China. Scott. All right, Christina, thanks.

Up next, all over this market. Renaissance macros, Jeff DeGraph. He joins us. The market zone's coming up next. We're now in the closing bell market zone. Mike Santoli and Renaissance macros, Jeff DeGraph, are here to break down these crucial moments of this trading day. Michael, I'll come to you first.

It's pretty clear. We're at the stage now, I think, of let's see some substance. We don't, the headlines about getting some oil and the comments about this or that are great, but we need some substance here to make. make us believe that this is really coming to an end sooner rather than later. Right. We knew there was suspense perhaps could build over the course of this week if you didn't see consequential progress.

And I think that's where we are. I mean, there's an interesting wrinkle today as you're seeing some of the same market actions such as financial conditions tightening in the form of higher treasury yield, significantly higher actually on the day. And then, of course, oil getting another bump. But also just the kind of give up trade in parts of tech that's been going on, whether it's Mehta or some of the chip names. So you're kind of faltering on different fronts. It's not to me just about, oh, what might happen this weekend. It's that we did do enough damage to the trend.

It's kind of a slow motion retest of last Friday's low. It's kind of more of a slow bleed than it is a gusher. But we are back there. And, you know, again, many have said the market didn't, including the president, the market's not down as much as maybe you might have thought. I understand why the market's been trying to stay close to the prospect of de-escalation. But that's kind of an asset that, you know, the sands go through the hourglass as the week goes on. Yeah, I mean, and at the beginning of this conflict, there were moments where these mega cap names look like their old safety trades, the safe havens, not so much now. I mean, meta is just getting, it's just too ugly to even almost look at. Invita hasn't traded well. Now Alphabet's down

a bunch today, too. And it's just Apple, which is like the standard ultra defense in that, in that group. So, I mean, if you want to maybe turn that into a final. Finally, you know, some of these former leaders are seeing a little more of a surrender. Who knows? The NASDAQ 100 is basically back to where it was July 31st of last year. So you have really gone down in price and back in time. But, you know, again, it's not like the valuation compression has drawn out a lot of high-conviction buyers yet. Give me a quick idea of what you and Miller are going to do top of the hour here.

In addition to all this, including a deeper dive on that meta move, we also have Stephen Tusa, So the industrial analyst that J.P. Morgan is going to handicap earning season, whether, in fact, some value has been created in some of the AI-related names there. Oh, that's a great kid. One of the best in the biz. There's no doubt about that. All right. We'll see you at top of the hour, Michael. Thank you. All right, Jeff. I mean, have your pick. There's so many different concern points. Oil up, yields up, tech down. You have your pick. Well, look, I think Michael hit it on the head, which is we're finally starting to see some of these momentum names lose.

Right? They were the safe haven trade. And, you know, there's, There's an old rule in this business that the bottom is not complete until you take out the generals. It's not just the foot soldiers, but you have to take out the places where everybody thought they could run and they could hide. And so I like seeing that we're going to chip away at that. We've had a modest oversawl condition. It wasn't enough for us to really do much with, but I like the fact that now it feels like there's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. If we can start getting put call ratios higher, if we can start seeing 20-day lows expand, I think that'll be a good sign that we're starting to set some type of low.

we haven't seen it yet, but at least we're incrementally moving in that direction. Well, I need to wake up now every morning and, you know, you already look at crude oil, but now it's crude in bonds and meta and these other names. What about bonds? I mean, how concerned are you and how concerned should we be about this backup in rates? So, look, it's a really good point. We put a chart out on our X account with this, which is the five-year, five-year-forward inflation expectations are running at about 212 basis points.

This breakout that we've seen in nominal yields and the 10-year yield is really about real rates. When it's about real rates going up, this is not the story of, you know, the debt to GDP and the inflation is a big problem. The Fed, given that five-year, five-year-four, it actually has a lot of credibility here, which is good news. This is all about risk premium, and it's all about concern. So that means that once that dissipates, good things should start to happen. Now, as those real yields are going higher, that obviously starts to weigh on multiples. But that said, it's not the disaster scenario of yields are on their way to six because of the inflation, the inflation call and the debt service and everything else. This is really more of that fear hitting it.

And I look at that as being, I know it's not the case right here, but I look at that as long term being better news than the alternative. And I think that that's important because the Fed is maintaining their credibility. They are, but they do have a leadership change to consider, too, which could very well, happen while this conflict is still going on? Without question. And I think one of the keys to this, right, because if inflation expectations drop to, say, 150 basis points, which is a big move, that would start to wreak of recession. And so one of the things that you have to watch here are what's happening to double B and triple B spreads, because if those stay stable as these inflation expectations come down, it means soft landing, things were okay. If we start to see those creep up,

it starts to suggest that we've got more of a recession fear on our hands. Right now, that's not the case. It's not to say that that can't happen, but that's certainly what we'll be watching. Tell that to the financials, right? I mean, down two-thirds of one percent as a sector today. They haven't traded well at all. Don't you need some stability there, too? I got 30 seconds for you. I do, but I'll tell you, the one glimmer of hope I have is the regional banks actually have been creating pretty well with this. So I'm okay as far as that's concerned. It gives me some sense that it's not systemic. But yeah, you want to see some type of stability. Again, if we can get 20-day lows, you want to see a flush. That's a good sense.

If we get 3DMLS to extend the next to the next to the next to us, we'll be helpful. All right, we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for being with us, counting us down to what's pretty nasty closed. They're going to ring the bell in a second, but we'll be negative across the board. Nasdaq's had a lot of damage today down more than 2.3%. Meadow, one of its worst days in many, many months.

Microsoft hasn't traded well, nor has NVIDIA. Tech as a group hasn't been well. S&T is down almost 1 and 3 quarters percent. We'll see on the other side into overtime.