Closing Bell - Closing Bell 4/21/25

Episode Date: April 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 Wobbler live from Post9 right here at the New York Stock Exchange. This make or break out begins with yet another major sell off as this final stretch gets underway today. Let's show you the picture with 60 to go in regulation. Red all over the place on more concerns about the president's trade war, his escalating attacks on Fed Share Pal, all of it making the markets uneasy yet again. Bonds selling off, the dollar hitting its lowest level in some three years. Gold and Bitcoin are up. not much else is though. It does take us to our talk of the tape.

What might end what some say is a buyer strike of U.S. assets. First let's go to the White House and get the very latest from Megan Casella. Megan. Hey, Scott, a number of moving pieces at the White House here today. The most notable being that we are expecting executives from four top retail companies, that's Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and Lowe's, all here this afternoon for a meeting with the president. Now, White House officials have confirmed

the meeting this afternoon, but they would not say exactly what officials will be discussing. We can, of course, expect that tariffs are on the agenda, all four companies dependent to varying degrees on imports from abroad. Now the meeting does come as the president has said that he would be willing to talk

with companies about these tariffs. And it comes just after he posted on social media over the weekend that businessmen who criticize his tariffs are not only bad at business, he says, they're also bad at politics. Two other topics this afternoon, Scott. On trade generally, I am told that negotiations are still ongoing of course with a number of nations and that a couple of those maybe one or two are close to being done but not finalized just yet. The White House does believe though that those first announcements once they come could bring sort of a domino effect that they believe

will boost the markets but a lot of wait and see as we wait to see how much more we get potentially this week, maybe next. And finally, the president once again, going after Fed Chair Jerome Powell earlier today, pressuring him to lower rates, calling him both Mr. Too Late and a quote major loser. And Scott, I've been told by an official here not to read this post as an escalation, but rather a continuation of the president airing his grievances as he did last week. This official told me the president is studying the idea of firing Powell, not going further than that at this point.

Scott. All right, Megan, thank you for that. Megan Casella at the White House. Well, the president's persistent pounding on Chair Powell continues to weigh on sentiment. Our senior economics correspondent, Steve Leaseman, is here with more. So it's good to see you. You heard Megan's reporting. They're studying the idea of potentially firing Powell. It's the sentiment alone, not necessarily, I think, Steve, that people think that they'll go through with it. But the mere talk of it is definitely impacting sentiment, it seems.

is definitely impacting sentiment, it seems. Well, it seems as if, Scott, that you have to, as an investor in this market, put some probability on the possibility that the president will replace Chair Powell before his term is up. I don't know what that probability is. We had Larry Lindsay on, who says he's not gonna happen at all.

At the same time, you look at the trade and you look at the commentary of somebody like Krishna Guha from Evercore ISI, and he says, this market is what happens when you toy with the idea. So Kevin Hassett, not quite sure what to do with that remark of his. He may have just been saying it because he had to say it.

That's Larry Lindsay's take on it, that he can't say we're not studying it because the president seems to be interested in it. But Scott, I guess I would offer the following. The president has shown that there is no conventional wisdom or conventional legal interpretation that he is unwilling to rethink. So he will rethink all of those things in a new and different and novel way that we perhaps haven't thought of them before if it comes to the Supreme Court, when it comes to firing federal government

employees, when it comes to tariffs. So why not also with the Federal Reserve? I don't know what the probability is of that. I just think you cannot trade in this market without putting some percentage chance on it. How, I'm just wondering what you also think about this idea of the so-called sell America trade, where people look at what's going on, they're unnerved by the trade war,

they're unnerved by what they hear from the president regarding the Fed chair and how direct it is and how escalated it's all become. And they're selling stocks, they're selling bonds, they're selling dollars. And how you think that's playing within the halls of the Fed? Well, I think that it's not,

it's not, it shouldn't be taken that far, Scott. I think if you're a money manager anywhere in the world, you still need to be putting money into the United States It's still going to be a number one destination That said we know that global trade patterns are being Disrupted and will be disrupted by the tariff situation. So what does that mean? It means that some amount of money is not going to China and is not going to come back into our bond market of money is not going to China and is not going to come back into our bond market. There's some possibility China will be reducing its flows or reducing

its holdings of those bonds or US dollar assets as well as other countries that did a robust trade with this country. And that comes at a time when it does not appear on the other side that the budget from the Trump administration or the one being discussed in Congress right now will reduce the deficit. So there is no change in the need for us to finance our deficit. At the same time, we're foreclosing an option that was available to us from overseas. How much is that? Nobody really knows.

I think what's happening now, Scott, is not necessarily the selling wholesale of U.S. assets, but it's a reduction in the status of U.S. assets from the primacy that they've held, but not really coming off the top the way it has been in the past. I appreciate your insight on that, Steve. Thank you. Steve Leesman, our senior economics correspondent. All of this adding up to a perfect storm of pessimism lately about US stocks.

For more on that, let's bring in Adam Parker. He is the founder and CEO of Trivariate Research and a CNBC contributor. It's good to see you. I mean, you've been making the point that you've been feeling sort of worse and worse about the position of US stocks. You'd like that to change, but it just hasn't.

Yeah, I think, look, there's nothing better than if you can be a contrarian bull and then be right. You and I have talked about that in the past, but it's really hard when there's this much uncertainty, when the earnings estimates are way too high. They're always too high, but they're way too high. And we haven't seen any of that behavior yet where stocks that are missing aren't going down.

You asked Lisa a question I can actually give a factual answer to her. The polymarket has 20 cents, so 20% chance that Trump gets rid of Powell this year. So for whatever that's worth, I think that's what you got to factor into your distribution of outcomes. You can buy it for 21 or so, or 81 cents right now. You and I were together election night when we learned the point market was right a lot. But do you think I mean how much do you think the escalating

tension on that issue is weighing on stocks in concert with all the other things that we're worried about. I do I think that's part of today's reasoning I think. It's got to be part of today's factor it's just more

uncertainty and we know that they don't have a great relationship. Part of what I struggle with, and I think we talked about this last week, is if there's a recovery on the other side of this, it's got to include the tax extension, less regulation, maybe some AI-approved cases, et cetera. But there's also a belief that investors here in the US have been programmed to believe that recoveries are V-shaped. And I think the reason they've been programmed to believe that is because you've always had monetary and fiscal stimulus simultaneously in most of their investment lifetimes. And what if this time the Fed isn't expanding the balance sheet and they aren't cutting

a ton and there isn't fiscal incremental fiscal stimulus then maybe the upside isn't You know v-shape, but it's kind of more of a slow grind higher And that's what we're incorporating on our earnings outlook now is that what I thought was 2026 earnings before I now think it's 2027 earnings I think we've lost a whole year earnings growth because the policy does all policies have already happened The further we go out on the, I guess I would call it the negativity curve. Does it lessen the chances for a quick snap on a perceived positive social media post?

You know, I would have said that, but 12 days ago you got, what was it? 10% S&P in one hour. And you know, if you and I went to school, they would tell us there's 10% returns in a year. So they're certainly buying power. If we start believing that we can resolve this spat with China in a kind way, the market will rip higher in a very short term on that news. And I think that's what people like me and investors I talk to struggle with the most.

What historical period do I use to evaluate and then assume that's the current regime? I don't have one. There really wasn't a terrible war. And that's why when I look back at like, what happens when the dollar weakened? The playbook's been totally different. Or what do I do? So I find that even though I want to be defensively positioned, I know I have to own some offense because if we get some tweet or whatever, the market can be up 10% in one hour. So I have to figure out, is it bombed out alternative asset managers where I take a shot? Is it semiconductors where a lot of them are down 30%, 50% from highs?

And that's about an average semiconductor correction and maybe the fundamentals are bad, maybe China's a problem, maybe inventory is high, but I know it grows above GDP long term and I know they're going to rip higher when he makes the positive tweet. So people are struggling with how to barbell it, that's what everyone always calls it, how to find some offense and defense in this sort of current regime. It's just a strange period, I guess, because it feels like to some degree there's almost willingness by the administration to let the market get worse and let the economy get worse. But on the other hand, you're like, well, but I've got to believe that that Trump put still exists at some point, and they do care about the stock market and the economy,

dot, dot, dot, don't they? Yeah, I mean, I think we learned that the Trump put was at a different level than we thought at, you know, the consensus thought at the election. I, yeah, you know, but I, look, one thing I'm really confident in is the multiple, the price of order is you pay for stocks is really correlated to the margins. And the thing that appears to be the case is tariffs are bad for the margins for a lot of companies.

And so if the average company's margins go lower, the average company's multiples going to go lower. And that's the bear case. You know, to me, if you want to be contrarian, here's the consensus trades. One, US stock market is not as good as non-US. I've seen 1,000 reports on the end of US exceptionalism. Two, the dollar weakens. Everybody believes that.

Three, that the Fed will ultimately be accommodative. And so if you want to be contrived, what you say is, I like US equities more than non-US at some point, and I don't think the dollar's going to weaken. I'm consensus right now, because I think in the really short term window, it's hard to see what breaks this. But medium to long term, I still like US equities more than non-US equities because I think the main growth themes that drive GDP globally, the US stocks over index toward, whether that's AI semis or AI software or life sciences

or electrification industrials or all those big broad themes with stocks we love, the US just has better companies. So I think the US will ultimately land at trading at a premium and ultimately outperform, but you could be in a three month to six month period here where that's not the case. But I mean, some are trying to get ahead of it now.

For example, UBS today upgrades U.S. equities to attractive from neutral. While downside risks do remain, we believe the risk of a more severe economic downturn is now more limited. We see U.S. equities as attractive and note that periods of stress have historically offered long-term rewards for diversified investors who look through near-term volatility. In other words, see the forest through the trees. If you're a long-term investor, why not now? That seems to be the summation of what they and some others are at least trying to suggest.

Yeah, I don't think that that's the consensus view personally. Oh, it's definitely not. That's part of the point, right? The consensus view is easy to be negative. It's definitely not. Yeah, I agree. That might be a good call. I tend to believe that's correct in a six-month to five-year view.

I'm a little more tormented in the next six months just because I could see the case where we still have some things we got to deal with, the budget deficit, the dollar, the tariffs, China, et cetera. And I think if you're a CEO of a big company, damage has already been done. I think the only thing that we're trying to figure out is how big is the lagged effect between the damage that's done and when it hits earnings. I was surprised, I think we talked about it last week down at the stock exchange, that

the bank earnings were better than I thought. I didn't think we really saw anything, oh, 98 delinquencies are getting worse, or we've seen a slowdown. They kind of said things were OK. And that made me think either there's a bigger lag effect than we thought, or maybe Q2 earnings aren't the trough. Maybe it's Q3. And if Q3 earnings end up being the trough, the market's got a big leg lower still, and

I don't want to get too aggressive yet. Let's bring in Malcolm Etheridge now of Capital Area Planning Group. Abby Yoder as well of JP Morgan Private Bank. Malcolm's a CNBC contributor. It's great to have you both. Welcome here to Post 9. What do you make of what you heard, and how does it mix, if at all, with your own view? I mean, so there was a lot that went on there that we just talked about.

But I think the last point on having this contrarian U.S. view resonates at least with me. Like, I think everything that we've just heard about what could hurt U.S. corporates, right, like uncertainty, that's not a U.S.-centric thing. This is a global phenomenon that's going on in terms of this trade war. So uncertainty in the US doesn't mean that there's no uncertainty in Europe, and there's no uncertainty in Japan

when these CEOs are making calls too. And I also think it's important, when you look at actual month-to-date returns across the board, Europe and Japan are outperforming, but it's all currency. It's not because the actual, and that would suggest, you know, the fundamentals there are not any better than in the U.S., right? They're like performing exactly the same.

So I think, I think when you, I do think the bets have all gotten way too bearish on the U.S. and isolating this because it's emanating from the U.S., but this is a global phenomenon and companies around the world will feel the pain from this trade. I'm looking at an opinion piece in front of me that someone just sent me from Bloomberg. Markets are discovering the real Trump trade is quote, sell America. I mean, from where we came into the year thinking,

well this is gonna be kind of a layup, because we have somebody and an administration who's all in on this market and the economy, whatever. Or so we thought. Well, but that's my point. And now you're back to the other free throw line, having to hit a three quarter court shot for the prize. We didn't think it was gonna be that tough.

We're not Steph Curry, where it's like easy. Well, and I don't know that I would say that investors are necessarily abandoning the US. I don't think you're seeing that in terms of portfolio positioning. I think it's a wait and see mode to see what happens. And to your point, the relative starting positions matter, right? Coming into the year, like you said, it was consensus to be overweight the US. And if an investor hadn't changed their asset allocation and let portfolio drift happen over the last couple of years.

They were markedly overweight the U.S. So you've gotten like a little bit of this correction, which would help those portfolios for an international diversification standpoint. But I don't think it's an actual fling. I think it's a wait and see to see what happens, particularly with earnings. Malcolm, what are we supposed to do with all of this? Batten down the hatches a little bit more, believe UBS, and say, okay, we understand risk. We understand all of that, but we think, over the longer period of time,

that this is attractive now. Yeah, I won't necessarily say that carte blanche across the entire stock market, but I will say at least with the NASDAQ being down 20 plus percent firmly at this point from our February highs, I as a person who loves to invest in software companies can look at this and say there has been this washout within the tech sector that maybe we still get a little bit more downward pressure from here.

We lose a few percentage points, but we can say at least that that sector specifically has taken its medicine already. And it does look like a good time to start buying some companies that have been attractive to you for a while, but you've gotten caught up in the argument about valuations and everything else knowing that these are still quality companies. I think the rest of the S&P, maybe, say for maybe real estate, you could make the argument that still has some way to go. We haven't gotten all the way to that firm 20 percent level that we'd like to see.

But I do think that there are places, if you pick your spots, especially here in earnings season, where we're expecting CEOs to come out and give guidance, where they're either making revisions or pulling guidance altogether. The companies that still reaffirm their guidance and have confidence in their annual projections and reaffirm that, they're going to be rewarded for that. We saw it happen with American Express last week. I know they're giving a little bit of that back today. We saw it happen with Prologis, right?

It was a little bit of a surprise and they reaffirmed guidance and they were rewarded for that guidance with a 5 percent pop immediately after earnings. I think that those kinds of cherry-picked stories will exist throughout earnings season. Abby, the other thing I mean you mentioned you know earnings and valuation may be more relevant today than at any time in the past couple of years. Like we could we could justify higher than historical PEs on certain stocks based on what was to come in terms of AI trade especially related to the mag-7. Now we don't really know where we're going. We suspect the economy is going to get worse from here. We think the probability

of recessions higher than it's been in the last handful of years, certainly post-COVID. So how can we justify where valuations are today if we don't know where the end game is but potentially it's much worse economically than now? Well, look, markets are forward-looking mechanisms. And I think April 2nd was peak uncertainty in our view and so you what we got down to 18 times which is you know historically where you see trailing 12-month earning and multiples trough when you're in this type of market

environment even recession though yeah it's right on a trailing basis right so and let's say on a forward basis it was 18 18 and a half which is in line with the 10-year average for the S&P and given the changing constituency and the fact that we really do still believe in this AI trade that's going on, that does garner higher multiples, just given the change in the makeup of the index. I mean, I think to your point,

the way we're reflecting that and the way that we're thinking about our outlook is the range of outcomes has gotten wider. We've heard this from a couple of companies when they've reported too, right? Like you're just in an environment where the range gets up. Like United gives two outlooks. I mean, when have you ever seen that?

I know, but look, these companies are being rewarded for being honest. Like there's an element of like, okay, we are uncertain acknowledging that environment, I think is being rewarded in terms of the outlook for these companies. And so that's the range of valuations. Like we were coming into this year thinking

that we were going to see compression and valuations anyhow. This maybe widens that range. We were thinking 21 times, say at 19 to 21 times, depending on our, our number. You know, Malcolm, the other thing, if you look at what's happening within tech, there, there seems to be a view, and there certainly has been that this trend is so durable that barring some really unforeseen economic turnaround or turn back, that the amount of money that the hyperscalers are spending on,

you know, Nvidia's products and data center is not really gonna slow. Maybe there was a little call into question about that a week or so ago with Microsoft, and now there's a note out midday from Wells Fargo talking about data centers and AWS from Amazon going on pause that's the headline of their note not to current spending but to new data center investments does that give you any level of pause as to where we might be going as it relates to that I think it

actually gives me confidence more than anything else and what I mean by that is I've been making the argument since so-called Liberation Day that what we really need to do is look beyond all of the noise and through all of the chaos to find companies that are of high quality that we were willing to pay the prices for them four weeks ago and we should be willing to pay these discounted prices 20 25 25, 35 percent down now and that spending that you're talking about within AWS I'm basically getting an e-commerce giant with a cloud computing juggernaut and also a

digital advertising just soon-to-be juggernaut thrown in for free at these prices looking at how much Amazon has come down to use your example. So I think that within there we have to consider the spending that they're committed to making on these growth plans in the AI revolution. They're going to pay off one way or another, but I don't have to pay up for that growth anymore. I had to worry about that two months ago. I don't have to worry about that buying into these companies now. And so I think we have to look a little bit further than just the next two weeks or two tweets and really focus on do I want to own this company a year from now based on what I know that they're

developing under the hood. Adam, I'll give you the last word on that. You know, Nvidia is down a bunch of the other chips. You have the Huawei news today as it relates to their own chips and China, what that means in the bigger picture. How do you see it from here? I think if the market goes up, I'm very, very sure semis will work. So if people wanna take risk

and they want offensive side of the barbell, they should just buy semiconductors. The stocks are down a ton and the longterm, you know, Malcolm's comment resonates. The long-term view of compute and what that means is pretty good, AI, et cetera. And so if you think the market's going to rally, if you think there's a tweet coming, or if you're just really defensively positioned and you feel like you've been right here recently, then I think you'd buy semis. I think that'll get you the offense you need.

Tech has worked 19 in the last 20 times in the three-month period after the market was you've been right here recently, then I think you'd buy semis. I think that'll get you the offense you need. Tech has worked 19 in the last 20 times in the three month period after market was down 10%. On average, it was the best performing sector. And then within tech, semis will participate. So Malcolm likes software, I like semis, whatever. But I think tech will work, and I think semis will work if you want offense. You want to just give me a quick thought on tech?

I mean, not just remind everybody NASDAq's down 500 points more than 3% well I mean the mag 7 straightening it at the cheapest valuation that it has in like 5 to 10 years and when we're talking about this spend and whether or not it gets pulled back like I Think the other way that you can think about it is if that does happen the free cash flow profiles of these companies becomes much More attractive as well right there's a ton of cash that these companies have how they're spending it they've already invested a lot in terms of innovation r&d i think that's something to keep in mind in terms of in terms of the pull back and spend as well we will leave it there that'd be thanks adam thank you malcolm we'll see you

soon as well to christina parts and novelist now for a look at the biggest names moving into this us now for a look at the biggest names moving into this ugly looking clothes in front of me. Christina. True. And I'm going to continue on that theme. TD Count just cut Kava Group's price target amid the broader fast casual dining slump. But don't count them up just yet. Despite trading at premium valuations, analysts still see substantial upside for the Mediterranean chain with its impressive, impressive, I should say 24% projected revenue growth for the coming year, but shares are down over 6.5%. Uber in hot water with the FTC, which filed a lawsuit today, accusing the company of misleading customers about its Uber One subscription.

The agency claims Uber didn't just make it hard for users to cancel the memberships, but also charge them without proper consent. Shares are down almost 4%, Scott. Okay. Christina, thanks. Christina Partsanevalos. We're just getting started here up next. The former Deputy Treasury Secretary, Roger Altman, he's standing by with his take on

the Fed tariffs and how it could all impact your money. He's here at Post 9 right after the break. The so-called sell America trade in full effect today with stocks lower along with bonds and the dollar. The market also uneasy with the president ramping up his attacks on Fed chair Powell. For more on all of that let's bring in Roger Altman now Evercore founder and senior chairman. Also the former deputy U.S. Treasury secretary. Nice to see you in post nine. Hey Scott.

Is that what this is, do you think, a quote-unquote sell America? Wall Street Journal today writing about that, saying that that trade is the worst since 2008. What do you think? Well, I think there's some beginning evidence of that, but too soon to say it's a sweeping trend. What evidence is there?

So you see again today, and this is alarming, the combination of falling equity prices, falling bond prices and therefore higher yields, and a weaker dollar. Because normally when yields rise, the dollar rises because people get paid more to hold it. So you have to conclude that investors are now desiring a higher risk premium to own U.S. assets and you have to think there's some capital outflow going on with a greater preference at the margin for foreign assets and gold as compared to U.S. assets because you see an all-time high in gold and you see a three-year low in dollar euro, for example. Every Treasury Department is obviously different.

As part of your intro, we introduce you as a former Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary. What do you think is happening within the most important offices in the Treasury Department as this is taking place. I mean, how do you feel this is being digested with an apparent flight from assets here? Bonds, the dollar, etc. I mean, especially the dollar. Well, first of all, you have to be concerned. And you have to feel that it's not good. Second of all, if you have any sense of the history of the country and the economic history of the country, you say to yourself, the United States has benefited from an independent Federal

Reserve system for over 110 years. And investors, businesses, consumers can count on the Fed to objectively pursue its twin mandate of stable prices and maximum employment. And imagine if we hadn't had a fully independent fed in 2008, 2009, or when COVID first erupted, when the fed stepped in and essentially saved the system, both those times. And as Austin Gulsby said on this network earlier this morning, look at countries that don't have an independent central bank. You could pick Turkey, you could pick any number of others. Typically inflation is higher, growth is slower, and employment is lower.

And there's a real clear history there. And if you're in the treasury, you're cognizant of it. You use a word that I want to come back at you at for a moment. You said objective when talking about the Fed. Independence and objectivity are two different things. There are some who suggest that this Fed hasn't been objective at times, that they've been political. And that's one of the criticisms that the president has had

against Jay Powell, I think, including in today's social media post. How would you respond to that? Well, I myself have not noticed or detected a political element to the Fed as long as Jay Powell has been the chairman. Has the Fed been perfect? No, when inflation first surged

following the eruption of COVID, he described it as transitory and it turned out to be anything but transitory. And then the Fed had to catch up as we all know, we're all familiar with that mistake they made. So the Fed isn't perfect. I mean, anybody including them can make bad judgments, but I haven't noticed

the Fed during his tenure. Cutting close to the election? To be political. I really haven't. You don't think cutting close to the election this time sort of got you into you know a little bit of an area of concern? I mean that's what some some critics have suggested. I understand but if you go back and read the research on the Fed last year, for example, Krishna Guha, fortunately, is at Evercore, and I think he's the best Fed watcher there is. And if you were to go back and read his commentary in 2024, including at the beginning of the

year, you see what he predicted, and that last cut of the year was consistent with what he was seeing in the early part of the year. It wasn't a last minute political thing. Now, has the Fed ever considered politics in its 113 year history? Probably has. I can remember when I was first in the Treasury Arthur Burns was then the Fed chairman and a lot of people were critical of Burns for being too political. So maybe there have been moments when the Fed has tilted

politically but I don't think they've been egregious and I think most people would say over its history the Fed has been pretty has lived up to its independence. Do you worry about the president actually trying to fire? I do. I do worry about it because President Trump is a decisive guy and often people don't take him seriously when he threatens certain things and often he turns out to follow through and do them. The Tariff War being a good example of that. So I do worry that he might do that. What do you think the market reaction would be? Extremely negative. Extremely negative.

And today tells you that because even the threat has investors fleeing for the hills. Powell has been asked multiple times obviously whether he would leave if the president tried to fire him. He said emphatically no. You think that's true? I do, but I would... With a level of hesitation, I sense. I don't know J. Powell well enough personally. I shouldn't say I don't. I don't know J. Powell.

So I really don't know how he would act in that, at that moment. But I suspect he would be good to his word to resist it, because he would be thinking about the history of the Fed, and he would want that to go to the courts, and have the courts hopefully rule that the president doesn't have the legal right to do so. So I would strongly suspect he would follow through and resist. How close are you watching that Supreme Court case, then, which is really all about the ability of the president to fire the heads of, quote-unquote, independent agencies? Well, a lot of these controversies, whether it's this one involving the Fed and other

independent agencies, whether it's the president's ability to impound money that's already been authorized and appropriated by the Congress or whatever else it is, are going to end up in the lap of the Supreme Court. And some of these cases, like the one I just mentioned on impoundment, are going to be monumental cases. I mean, really historic.

And the court is going to be on the hot seat. I really appreciate your experience and your insight. Thanks for sharing it with us. Thanks for having me. Roger Altman of Evercore. Right here, Post 9 Up next. Tesla shares slipping again ahead of its earnings report tomorrow. We'll tell you why and what to watch for now from those numbers.

We're coming right back on the bell after this. All right, Dow still red by 1100. Screen looks a little bit different, doesn't it? We want to introduce you to CNBC's seas newest subscription streaming product CNBC plus and on your screen right now is our CNBC plus data feed which includes the latest headlines you can stream closing bell and all of your favorite CNBC shows anytime anywhere and also on demand and we hope you will. Meantime Tesla shares those are probably on your screen somewhere throughout this day of course ahead of its earnings report tomorrow, the stock selling off pretty hard today, Phil

LeBeau. What's going on here? Well, plenty of issues will be front and center tomorrow, Scott, and nobody's terribly optimistic about what they're going to hear. Let's start first off with Q1 profit margin. Will it be squeezed and by how much? That's going to be front and center in terms of the Q1 results. There's also the question of the robo taxi rollout. Still happening in June, in July. When will it happen? Will we get details there? And what is the company's guidance when it comes to 2025 deliveries? Will they be lower according to the company? Remember, Q1 deliveries were down 13% compared to the same time last year. And in the first quarter, there was no shortage of headlines and video of

protests or vandalism at Tesla galleries or at service centers. And a lot of it revolved around Elon Musk's role in the Trump administration. Which brings us to the other thing that many people will be focusing on tomorrow night. When Elon Musk is on the analyst conference call, what does he say about his commitment to continue working with the Department of Government Efficiency? Are his doge days numbered? Or is he likely to say, look, on X date,

I plan to be done with the Trump administration? All of this, as you take a look at shares of Tesla since the Trump election in November, raises the question that a lot of people are also wondering about. He talked about a lower priced vehicle coming and now there are reports that it might be delayed even further. Yet one more issue that we will be focusing on tomorrow night after the bell is when we get the number Scott and then the conference call at 530 p.m. Eastern

time. We look forward to that. Phil, thank you. Phil LeBo. Next, gold surging to another record. More on that massive move when the closing bell comes right back. All right, we're 15 from the bell. Let's get back now to Pippa Stevens for a look at the big move in gold today. Yet again, straight up into the right is what this chart pretty much looks like every day. That's right, Scott.

Gold's hitting its 24th intraday record of the year and officially crossing above its inflation-adjusted settlement high from January 1980, as the safe haven rush continues and the dollar slumps. Investors are still buying with B of A's latest flow show report showing a record eight billion inflow into gold last week, topping all other assets.

And Goldman's saying that gold is still at an attractive entry point with a year in forecast of thirty seven hundred dollars and most of the fun flows have centered on gold itself but the miners also getting a boost from gold rally with the GDX thing of thirteen year high today Agnico Wheaton Anglo gold and Kinross all up more than fifty percent this year Scott. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Still, Nvidia shares are sinking

as we head towards the close today. We break down that and how the rest of the chips are faring today when we come back. All right, coming up next, we drill down on what is driving the drop in Amazon stock today. That and much more inside the market zone. Next. All right, we're now in the closing bell market zone.

Christina Parnosanolos on the sell-off in Nvidia today in the semiconductor stocks. Kate Rooney with a downgrade for Amazon shares plus CNBC senior markets correspondent Bob Lozani breaking down these crucial moments of the trading day. Christina, we begin with you and this nasty day for Nvidia and some of these other chip stocks. Yeah, the recent drop in Nvidia stock rep price can actually be traced down to three key factors. You've got growing concerns about the tech industry's capital expenditure cuts.

You've got rising Chinese competition and then lingering fears of additional export restrictions, which are supposed to be scheduled for May 15th. That would be the AI diffusion rule. So that's weighing on tech as a whole. But Wells Fargo, you talked about it early in your show. They put out a note raising concerns or concerning signal about Amazon pausing some of its data center leases and more specifically AWS. This potential slowdown comes right after Microsoft announced last week they're slowing down their data center expansion plans and could mean reduced spending on chips and hardware across the tech sector.

So that's weighing on it. Secondly, Nvidia is also feeling the pressure after Reuters reported Chinese tech giant, Huawei, is preparing to ship advanced AI chips as early as next month. This development follows President Trump's new export restrictions that have effectively blocked Nvidia from selling its H20 chips directly to China, creating this ironic situation, Scott,

where these restrictions may actually be boosting China's domestic chip industry. Scott? All right, Christina, thank you. Christina Partzanevalos, a downgrade also weighing on Amazon today. Kate Rooney, tell us more. Scott, yeah, that's a big part of it.

So investors are increasingly worried about Amazon's exposure to China. There is the e-commerce side of the business bank of America today describing the impact as widespread, much larger they say compared to 2018 they call it a new a potential new ball game for supply chains and cost over at Amazon there's also advertising which is what Raymond James called out today is one reason for that downgrade and the price target cut from $2.195 from $2.75 rerating to outperform that was from a strong buy on Amazon Ray J points out 30% of Amazon's online gross merchandise volume and about 15% of advertising is at this point linked to China.

There is also some chatter, as Kay Parts mentioned, around AI spending. Wells Fargo today saying there has been a pause in new deals for AWS. They cite several industry sources saying that Amazon has paused a portion at least of its leasing talks, so it may be pulling back on some of that aggressive AI spending we've seen amid all of this macro uncertainty, Scott. All right, Kate, thank you for that. That's Kate Rooney. I'll turn to Bob Pizzani.

I mean, this really, as I said at the top, has kind of been a perfect storm of pessimists between the trade war and now the escalating battle over the Fed chair. And all of it together is weighing on sentiment pretty heavily. It's exactly. Too many variables and not enough visibility. That's the simple way to look at the whole thing between foul and Fed independence tariffs and what's going on with the inflation issue. That's a real problem. You were talking great discussion there that you had with Roger Altman about the sell America

or sell US concept. This is really obvious in the ETF world right now. The one to look at is the all world XETF, XUSETF. Look at this today, this is year to date here, we're up 5%, this is the whole world outside the United States, just take out the United States, there's your blue line, there's the S&P 500 down, you see close to 12%.

So there's the outperformance, there's what Scott was talking about, the sell America trade, essentially. This dollar weakness, I don't normally get comments from stock traders about dollar weakness. Boy, it's breathtaking. A big part of the story. Big three year lows, essentially, on this is the dollar index, which is a basket of foreign currencies. But you can see what's been going on here.

Normally, this would help, the dollar weakness would help companies with big international exposure. Kate was just talking about Amazon. There's a good example. Or Alphabet. They've got more than 50% outside the United States of their revenues. But because of all this tariff chaos, it's not helping. And normally, that would help. The one thing you can see today, Scott, the ETFs that have growth in any name with the

word growth, look at these, this is very, very heavy volume today. This is not a particularly big heavy volume day in general, but anything that's got growth in it is selling off rather dramatically. iShares 400 growth, Midcap growth, Russell 2000 growth, US SP 500 growth, all these are the top of the leaderboard in terms of volume today this is telling me that a lot of hard investors here are starting to move away from that growth story and and be concerned about about the

Overall growth process we are coming off the lows a little bit There's a little bit of buying into the close here Dow was down I guess 1200 or so at the lows. It's down about 950. Yes it's still a nasty two and a half percent decline but it's not as bad as it was. The Nasdaq's interesting too. Can we look at a Nasdaq intraday guys because this was a 500 point plus decliner. I mean it's shaved a hundred off the worst levels. Trying to come up a little bit here Bob into the close. Yeah. You got Tesla, Alphabet on the earnings docket this week.

Yeah, but look what's happened here at the Dow. I mean, Salesforce, it's just a terrible time with big cap techs. A really big downgrade today for Salesforce. Right, but it's near a 10 month low, essentially. The relative strength indicators for this has just been terrible. United Health was the biggest stock in the Dow Industrial three days ago and it's dropped

nearly 25% in a couple of days on that earnings guidance. A thousand points in the Dow drop in terms of United Health in the last couple of days. Alright, Bob, thanks. That's Bob Pizzani here. So we'll go red as you know, but as I did say, not at the worst levels of the session. We'll see what tomorrow brings.