Closing Bell - Closing Bell: 4/6/26

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

From the open to the close, “Closing Bell” and “Closing Bell: Overtime” have you covered. From what’s driving market moves to how investors are reacting, Scott Wapner, Melissa Lee 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.

Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Walker live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker breakout begins with, of course, the markets. They're hanging in there today. Let's show you the scorecard with 60 to go in regulation. We are green across the board. It really does feel like a wait and see ahead of the president's Tuesday night deadline for Iran to open the straight-up more moves. We'll watch the market, of course. It's every tick. Oil is stable. Yields are as well. That's helping the overall vibe too in the markets today. Sectors mostly mixed. We've got to show you Tesla. It is one of the stocks to watch today.

J.P. Morgan re-ups its bearish call on that name today. We'll have a report coming up on where they see where they see the stock sliding from here. Here's a hint. Nowhere close to where it's currently trading. So we'll get you that in just a moment. We do want to begin in Washington, though, with the very latest on the war. And the president's just wrapped up news conference this afternoon. Megan Cassella has that for us.

Hi there. Hey, Scott. We heard from the president for almost an hour and a half this afternoon, taking questions from reporters on the latest in Iran. And what we heard was the president mostly vacillating between vowing to escalate the war, obliterate some power plants and bridges, some civilian infrastructure in Iran,

while also leaving the door open to diplomacy saying he would rather find some sort of a deal. Take a listen to some of these comments. We have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o'clock. tomorrow night where every power plant in Iran will be out of business burning exploding and never to be used again I mean complete demolition by 12 o'clock

and it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to we don't want that to happen so you can hear the two sides they're saying there is a plan for total decimation but that we don't want that to happen now he was asked by some reporters about this sort of mixed rhetoric on one hand the president says It's partly because he can't reveal his plans to the media, but it's also, he says, because it's up to the Iranians as for the path forward. He was asked point blank, are you winding this down? And he replied, quote, I don't know, I can't tell. It depends what they do. And this is a critical period. He went on to say that they are negotiating on the other side. And he says he thinks in good faith.

And finally, Scott, we got a couple, just a couple of details about what some sort of a deal could look like for a ceasefire or something like it. He said a deal would have to include free traffic of oil and everything else. So emphasizing there that reopening the straight of formulas remains a priority suggesting he wouldn't agree to any sort of a deal unless that happens. Scott. Okay. Megan, thank you. Megan Kasella, North Lawn of the White House for us. Now let's bring in our panel. Humolous investments, Brian Belski, Robin Hoods, Stephanie Gild, C-IBC's Chris Harvey. Good to have everybody here. Belski, I'll begin with you. I mean, Megan really set it up well. I mean, the rhetoric spent all over the place. Good luck trading on that. But is the

The 8 p.m. deadline tomorrow, this thing that's going to decide where this market goes from here? Well, it sure looks like it because, you know, we've used the term compartmentalize. Investors have been compartmentalizing this entire thing solely focused on what's happened during the war. And it's let the market kind of do what the market does in terms of delineate between earnings and companies. And actually, I think that's actually quite positive. But this two shall pass. We're going to have to get through this. but I don't like any kind of deadline stuff,

and I don't like any kind of lack of information. That adds to the volatility. But I think overarching, let's take two steps back, Scott. You use the term resilient. By the way, I want to pay a compliment. You've done amazing in this show, in the noon show, talking about... Go ahead. Stop it some more.

Stop it some more. Go ahead. You like that, Kev? Talking about earnings. Earnings matter. Fundamentals matter. As we transition into an earnings-driven fundamental market, this is really good that we've got to get past this stuff and move on. And I think the message that you've been giving viewers and investors has been amazing.

And oh, by the way, the companies that have thrown off earnings during this malaise have actually been rewarded, and the ones that have issues have not. And so I think we're getting back into fundamental investing, and that's very good. All right. Thank you. You're nice to say all that. But the reason that people, Steph, are remaining positive on the market is, is because of earnings, then expectations haven't come down at all.

I mean, the numbers are the numbers. It's like 14.5% earnings growth. Until that changes, why would anybody get materially more negative? I understand that the noise and fog of war and all of that, but until the fundamental story changes, why should anybody else's view of the market change, as you suggest that you're reviewing your 7,500 target on the S&P for this year? Because we don't know how long this will last, and the uncertainty to me can actually change management decisions in the short term.

And we don't know, like, if companies that actually take in things like aluminum and natural gas and around the world and helium, and those costs go up, they either can pass them on and maintain their margins or not. And that's where I think, I'm not sure what will happen with that. So we've been investing a little bit in the three buckets that we think can reflect the various three outcomes that can actually happen, which is not great, somewhere in the middle, and this all ends very soon. Okay. So Chris Harvey, Mike Wilson over Morgan Stanley says we're still in a bull market, okay? UBS today says investors should remain positioned for medium term upside. Yardinney says good value now in the stock market, right? We've had the multiple come in on the S&P. we've had multiple compression on the mega caps.

Where do you come down? Because you have a pretty big target, too, of 7450. So I don't know if I call that a big target. I think we're below consensus at this point in time. Well, I'm saying relative to, I think, where the... We started out. Certainly where we are now. Yeah.

And where the current mood is, I think 7450, if you told people we're going to get to 7450, they'd say, thank you. Can I take you out to dinner? Because that sounds amazing. Certainly. Yeah. So we do think there's double-digit upside. And I think you're right. The earnings numbers are fine. The thing that we're starting to move away from at the beginning of the year, there's all this talk about rotation, cyclicals. That's just harder to stomach at this point in time. High quality, growth to your companies at the right price, pause momentum. Those work for us. Those can work in multiple environments. If you look at the credit markets, the credit markets are still funding risky endeavors, buyback. M&A activity, your day-to-day property plant equipment.

And so what we're seeing here is still okay, but we're a little bit more on the growth side than we are on the rotation side. Well, there's good stuff in the marketplace today about that very topic. In fact, the Wall Street Journal had a good piece today. The Russell 1,000 values up 2.4% this year, beating the Russell 1,000 growth, which is down 9.1%. the largest margin since 22. But because of what's happening with the war, it's kind of hard to figure that value stocks are going to continue this underperformance in this environment. I mean, how's that going to happen if we're going to have this prolonged growth scare conversation, and you've sort of seen the money come back into growth, right? Correct. But if you think about

the makeup of the Russell 1000 value, you've got a lot of health care stocks that people were massively under exposed last year, so they've come back into, especially the farm at number one. Number two, Chris brings up the point about quality and growth at a reasonable price. Well, guess what? If you screen, like many of us strategists, love to screen, the highest quality attributes on a fundamental basis in the United States stock market, they're predominantly tech stocks. And now that you've seen the massive pullback in the valuation, their growth at a reasonable price. But on the value side, wait for it, financials, financials have been an area we think that could ultimately buoy Russell 1,000 value performance the second half of the year,

especially if we don't have the growth scare, we get back into consistent earnings, we have an earnings-driven-type market, the financials are going to be in the marketplace, and we're going to see some M&A and less regulation. But, I mean, we are kind of having a growth scare now, right, to some extent, because we're worried about oil prices remaining elevated, gas prices remaining elevated, and ultimately that hitting not only consumer, but, you know, the way that large corporations do business. Yeah, I mean, you're not really seeing, I'd say, any big changes from the consumer yet, because, yes, it may start to hit their pocketbook, but I don't think you're necessarily seeing that yet. And so that's why I think you're seeing stocks like Gap up today because you are seeing micro stories there. But also, for having a growth scare, it does keep a lid on interest rates, which can help with valuations and goes against the inflationary pressures. Well, okay, so that's another good point altogether, because Jamie Diamond talking a lot about partly.

that and partly a number of the other risks that are out there. He did mention many in his annual letter to shareholders. Dominic Chu has that for us. Tom, tell us more about what Mr. Diamond was saying in that letter. Sure, Scott, so I want to tell you everything, but the reality is Jamie Diamond's annual shareholder letter has 48 pages worth of content in there and charts and everything included. But one of the main overarching themes is a rededication to American ideals in this, the 250th anniversary of America's founding. So Diamond also tackles some of the major challenges, as you're, to your point here, that the world is facing, including the more recent war in Iran, the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, the threat of terrorism and the

geopolitical tensions with China. Now, alongside mentions of those things, he also mentioned the headwinds, right, the threat of persistent inflation, private market stresses, more onerous regulatory constructs. And he says that geopolitical tensions make up the primary risk, facing J.P. Morgan Chase at this stage, and that the trade battles that are being waged are clearly not over, and then it will be hard to figure out what the longer-term effects of those policies will be. With regard to private credit, big hot topic these days, he says the asset class isn't prone to transparency or more rigorous scrutiny evaluations like you get in the public markets, which could lead people to sell if they think things will get worse, even if actual

realized losses don't come to fruition. He also added, by the way, that actual losses right now in private credit are actually higher than they should be, given the bigger macro backdrop overall. So a lot of things discussed, but those are a handful of them, Scott. I'll send things back over to you. Those are the ones that definitely have people talking today. Dom, thank you, Dom Chu. Chris Harvey, what about these warnings and the risks that he sees as being out there?

There are risks out there. When we look at credit, right, the thing that we worry about is, is the economy slowing down? And you could argue that it is at the margin, but it's still pretty strong. And so when you have leverage, leverage really bites when the economy slows down, goes into recession. That's when your defaults go higher. Right here, that's not a real concern for us. There's idiosyncratic risk, there's manager risk, right? There's some markets or some positions that were probably mismarked.

And in addition to that, you have fear around it, which creates more fear. But at the end of the day, we don't see systemic risk. And it's also just not big enough at this point in time to create that systemic risk that a lot of people are worried about. Is the idiosyncratic risk in part interest rates starting to back up again? Because, I mean, they were. They were as of a couple weeks ago. Inflation remaining more sticky. Some are even talking about the possibility of a Fed mistake.

Yeah, it's interest rates backing up. It's the CNN effect. It's fear of fear. Again, there's not a lot of transparency here. And so now I'm worried. If I'm a retail investor and I hear all these things on TV, I start to worry, maybe I pull out. But the thing is, private equity, there are lockup fees. So it's very, very hard to create that cascading effect because of those lockups.

How do you think, Steph, how's retail hanging in? I mean, you're a good person to speak on that, obviously, given your Robin Hood. What do you see? Our customers are still net buyers of stocks. They have been adding more to broad-based S&P 500 ETFs than they had in the past. But they still look for opportunities. They are net buyers of Tesla. They're net buyers of Nike when it was down a lot after its earnings.

So, you know, and then they're sellers of NVIDIA, which I think is actually the most interesting part. But they're still in there because there are still micro-opportunities, despite what's happening at the top. There's also a thought if you move back to the institutions that they've done. de-risked a lot. They have. You know, there was some good data out today about hedge funds having, you know, de-risk an awful lot as CTAs have, too. So as some would suggest, well, I don't really believe in the market here because we

didn't have the classic, you know, capitulation and wash-out. You don't always have to have that. You don't. Especially when you're worried about reversal from the White House on whatever threat, rhetoric, you know where I'm going with that. Correct. I mean, that's always sort of hanging out there. Yeah, that's why the rush to get into cash has worked for them on the short-term basis,

and it's all about duration risk on a short-term basis getting back in. You have demand destruction if oil stays above $300 for $3 to six months. That's demand destruction on the consumer. Very highly unlikely in our belief that that's going to occur. But right now, for the institutional side of things, remember, they missed out last year. They missed out in the beginning of this year, and so they're going to be very aggressive when and if they start to feel like that duration risk is no longer there and then come back into the market. You think you're going to get, when the banks start reporting earnings soon, you think your call is going to start to work? Because it hasn't really worked, not specifically your call, but the financials haven't really worked.

No, we really do because we look at things from a thematic basis. So we like the really, really big banks for scale, asset managers for scale, brokers for scale, and the really, really small bank. for the relationship side of the business. We are continuing to be worried about that middle range of banks because they can't compete with either the big ones or the small ones. So we think financials in terms of deregulation, consolidation is a major theme.

And you remember, too, from a return on equity perspective, these companies look fantastic. What areas do you like and which do you hate right now in the market? We're not big fans of the consumer right now. And energy we would stay away from unless it's for a hedge. We're actually just looking at financials. They look like they're ready for an oversold bounce. And then what we do is we just look at the different sectors, industrials,

a lot of the AI beneficiaries are very attracted to us. Tech, as you were talking about before, tech valuations have improved. Even in the utilities, there's some AI beneficiaries and utilities that we like. You don't sound like you have a lot of conviction, though, behind the financials call. I mean, saying something's going to get an oversold bounce doesn't really sound like you agree with Brian. He's making a more fundamental case behind that group. Yeah, I think so. We just started looking at them.

We backed away from them because we thought there was a little bit too much optimism. We're starting to look again. It feels like there's an oversawpounce. The capital market's names are places we probably start to look at a little bit more. The credit card players also look interesting to us, but we have to do a little bit more work before you get real aggressive. I feel like you shaking your head in agreement. In agreement with Arby. Yeah, I mean, we liked regional banks for a while.

We are our basis for liking them previously was because of a yield curve that was going to be helpful to them with more steep and that there would be good regulations. But it hasn't come through and we just sold out of them at being here. Guys, we'll leave it there. I appreciate the time from everybody. We'll see you all soon. Let's talk about Tesla. I mentioned the shares are falling today, now down almost 30% from the most recent high. And JP Morgan makes a call today that the stock can fall a lot further from here.

Phila Beau has those details for us. Hi, Phil. A lot further, Scott. In fact, we're going to read you a quote from Ryan Brinkman, the JP Morgan analyst in just a bit. But here are the new estimates they put out today. And this really lays out their case for the fact that shares of Tesla could move substantially lower. They cut their first quarter estimate to 30 cents per share for EPS from 43, also cut it for 26 and for 2027. In writing his note to explain his concerns about Tesla or the conclusion. concerns investors should have in Tesla. Ryan Brinkman writes, we continue to see large 60% downside to our $145 December 2026 price target and advise investors approach Tesla shares with a high degree of caution. By the way, a 60% drop from 145, which is their target, would bring the

shares down to $87 a share. Take a look at Tesla deliveries. We talked about this last week when they reported the Q1 deliveries. They were down 14.4% compared to the first quarter of last year, or excuse me, from the fourth quarter of 2025. So it was a 14.4% decline quarter over quarter. As you take a look at shares of Tesla, keep in mind that we will get the first quarter results on April 22nd. Scott, we've talked about this before. If it's not the EV business that you are going to base your belief and your faith in Tesla on, what is it that you're basing it on? And almost everybody you talk with, average investors, they say the same thing. Elon Musk.

May not have the humanoid robot, may not have autonomous vehicles yet, but they believe in Elon Musk. And that's one reason why you see the shares, at least holding up relative to what some believe it could drop down to. Phil, thank you. Good points, of course. That's Phil LeBow. Speaking of the other Elon Musk company, SpaceX, preparing to go public in what will likely be the biggest IPO ever. Our Kate Rooney joins us now with those details. Hi, Kate. Hey, Scott. Yeah, SpaceX is expected to make a record debut as early as June,

reportedly going public at a $2 trillion valuation. It would be about $75 billion floated on the market, according to reports. But that is not the only mega debut expected this year. A source close to Open AI tells me they are also preparing to list. That would be as soon as Q4, from what I'm hearing. They're actively meeting with bankers, according to this person. And then CFO, Sarah Friar. She's expected to make that call depending on market conditions later this year. So we will see on that timing. In the meantime, though, the company is pushing back aggressively on a report by the information this weekend that Sam Alman, the CEO and Sarah Fryer, the CFO, who I mentioned, are at odds over mega spending plans and then that timeline of an IPO. Put out a joint statement from those two executives saying,

in part, we are fully aligned. They talk about durable access to compute being at the core of open AI strategy. They call it a key differentiator for this company, a source close to them, and those executives telling me they are, quote, confident about an IPO in demand, especially after raising $122 billion recently in private markets. In that process, I'm told investors did not balk at the $600 billion compute spending that it's expected over the next five years or so. Open AI is also focused on retail investor demand, as Phil said, similar to SpaceX. He got the Musk factor there, but Open AI is also talking about it. Finally, and set to be the smaller of the three, but sources also tell me that is expected this year at some

point, although the government lawsuit that we've also talked about could disrupt that timeline, Scott. All right, Kate, thank you. Kate Rooney. Let's send it now to Christina Parts of Nevelos for a look at the biggest names moving into the close today. Hi. Hi, Scott. App Loven shares climbing on some love from Wall Street. BTID raising its Q1 estimates citing healthier sequential performance from non-gaming marketers.

Well, Wedbroider has outperforming on the stock, they see App Loving's generative AI advertising suite as an upcoming catalyst. That's why you're seeing shares up almost 7% right now. Paramount shares also hire on a Wall Street Journal report that three Gulf sovereign wealth funds agreed to back the company's takeover of Warner Brothers Discovery. Saudi Arabia's public investment fund agreed to provide roughly $10 billion of the nearly $24 billion commitment. This according to people familiar with the matter, shares are up over 3%.

Last but not least, Invesco shares. They're in the red right now after BlackRock, filed for a NASDAQ 100 fund that would directly compete with Investco's QQQETF. Black Cross fund will trade under the ticker IQQ if approved. And that's why you're seeing Investco shares down over 5% right now, Scott. I'll come back to a little bit. Christina, thank you. Christina Parts of Nevelos.

We're just getting started here on the bell. Former Dallas Fed President, Robert Kaplan, on the key question facing the market in the days and weeks ahead. He'll join us next. All right, welcome back. A key question for the markets in the weeks and months ahead is how. will the Fed react if oil prices remain elevated and inflation actually moves up from here? For some insights, let's welcome in the former Dallas Fed President, Robert Kaplan, now Goldman Sachs, Vice Chairman. It's nice to see you. Welcome back. Good to see you, Scott.

Is the Fed right to look through these higher oil prices for now? For now, yes. And mainly because we don't know how long this is going to last. the forward curve on oil is in the 70s. In other words, the oil markets, the futures are assuming that oil is going to come down, not to where it was, but not that much above it. And we're in the phase of this situation where you've got to understand what this is. How long is this going to go on? And if it gets settled soon and the repair period, the healing period,

begins, you would hope that oil may start to drift down back to what the forward curve indicates. We don't know that yet. So I think they're right to be noncommittal right now and keep watching the situation. But how long can they afford to do that? They can do it for a while in that there's two things that you're trying to gauge. What's the impact on demand and what's the impact on prices. And right now, you know, they're in the process of assessing both. They can certainly, they'll take up one meeting at a time. The next meetings may. They're highly unlikely to do anything in May. And then after that meeting, they'll look at June and they'll keep looking one meeting at time. And if they don't have a firm grip, they'll keep kicking the can.

They must be feeling better about the current state of their mandates, I would think, after the jobs report. Like, I can picture a scenario in which, you know, obviously they're a little concerned about inflation and the most recent reads and it remaining sticky, et cetera. However, if that jobs report would have been pretty ugly and the unemployment rate would have ticked up, I'd imagine there'd be some sweat on the faces of those central bankers. because that mandate would be in some severe tension at that point. It would be, but I will tell you, if the job report had been very weak, that would have surprised me.

And why do I say that? Again, going back 40 days ago, we had tax incentives, tax refunds, accelerated depreciation. We had regulatory reform. We had the AI data center compute infrastructure boom. it made sense that a pre-war, we had a very solid economy. And so I think it will take more than what's happened so far to put a dent in it. It may take some of the wind out of the sales. But I would say a solid jobs report was probably consistent with what they expected.

It's what I would have expected. Are you sympathetic in any way to the arguments made by some, you know, whether it's a dissenter like Meyer, or somebody like Rick Reeder of BlackRock who makes the argument that they have room to cut now and that the gains that we're already seeing and the ones that will continue to see in productivity are going to more than offset whatever fears there are about inflation ticking higher or remaining as sticky as maybe it appears to be now. Do you have any sympathy for that? I do, but it's over the horizon. So I do believe that AI adoption will ultimately be disinflationary. I also believe that Chinese manufacturing

overcapacity hasn't gone away. That will be disinflationary. Here's the issue. The question is when. And right now in 2026, we're in a year where we've got before this war a number of tailwinds that would strengthen GDP growth and the jobs market cyclically. And our problem at the moment is prices are sticky. So the issue is there'll be a time to start taking advantage of that disinflation, but not yet. And so the debate will be, do you anticipate it or do you assess what's going on now? And I think that's the debate in this situation. I would rather wait.

If you start seeing the disinflationary impact, then act. You have time to act. But again, you don't want to act when inflation is running a two and three quarters headline. And the risk is it's going to be stickier or back up a little bit. I think you don't want to act yet. When someone would ask you, do you see a cut coming next or a hike? I mean, is that like a no-brainer answer to you? And you're like, well, of course, a cut.

Or is there actually some gray area in there that you're not even 100% sure of that answer? Yeah, my answer is that the next move is to do nothing. And if you told me that this war was going to get resolved somehow and the street of Hormuz was going to get reopened in the next couple of weeks, I would probably say the next move is more likely to be a cut. If you told me this could go on, and I hope this isn't the case, that this could go on for an extended period, then I would be more uncertain about that statement.

Okay. Well, you answered the question. At first I was going to say, I didn't give you that option. But you got to where I was hoping that you would get to anyway. It all leads to Kevin Warsh. I guess all roads now kind of the Fed lead to Kevin Worse, because it's so soon that he's going to theoretically be taking the helm,

assuming that we get through the confirmation hearing on some reasonable schedule to allow him to do that. How tricky then is this current environment for somebody new in the seat where there's, maybe there's less dissension now figuratively and literally in that room than maybe there was because of the spike in oil prices? Is he in for a tough road as he gets, you know, settled? I'm not sure that he is. Listen, again, 40 days ago, I think it was actually dicier. Why? We're in the midst of a strong economy. Inflation headline was sticky. And yet these disinflationary forces were in the distance. And I think if Kevin Warsh had gotten in the seat in March or May, he wouldn't have been able to convince the group to cut. And it would have been able to convince the group to cut. And it would have been. awkward. Now you have a new set of facts because of the war. You have stickier prices potentially. And I think there'll be a reason. They'll have more, there'll be more justification if when he

gets in the seat in June, he isn't able to cut. People will understand why. We had this war and you've got elevated prices for a while. So I actually think he'll be able to debate with the group, get to keep the group focused on analytically figuring out what they ought to do. But I think these new facts have given him a little bit more reason why he might not be able to cut in the first meeting is in. That might actually give him some breathing room. Yeah, interesting. We'll follow it. And I know we'll speak again. Robert, thank you. Appreciate your time as always. That's Robert, Kaplan.

Coming up next, big legal battles brewing over the future prediction markets. Our contested brewer follows that money for us next. Right over the future prediction markets heating up, the government now suing three states over their plans to regulate operators, Kalshi and Polly Market. This says the companies come under fire for some of the wagers that they continue to take. Contessa Brewer is here with more. And we got another reminder of that recently. Just this weekend, didn't we? Because Polly Market had this market up over when the pilot who had ejected from the plane would be found and was taking wagers on it.

Yeah, the U.S. Service meant, right? And a Democratic lawmakers said, this is disgusting. Polymarket yanked the market and said, we don't know how that got in there. We're investigating how it happened. It doesn't meet our standards. But it's the kind of thing that is raising the ire of lawmakers, regulators, concerned parents, people who are like, why are we gambling on the life and the well-being of one of our military people?

Of course. In the meantime, you've got the CFTC, which is this federal agency that oversees financial derivatives going in and suing Arizona, Illinois, Connecticut, and saying, basically, these states overstep the boundaries when they went to enforce their state gambling laws. Why? Because they say, it's not gambling. It's a financial derivative. And we have wide purview over these markets. In fact, I heard the CFTC chairman on Swat today say it covers a lot of different areas. And we have to go in and defend our right that this is a federal agency's right to regulate this, which is what Kalsh has been arguing all along.

Do these operators, so they don't necessarily, because I was struggling for the word to use, do they consider what they have offered as wagers? They call it bets. They do call them bets. In the election lead, in the lead up to the election, Cal She put up advertising around New York City and said the odds, the odds on Trump becoming the president, here's the betting odds. And they called it that. In their filings for patent protection, they've said it covers gaming. They said, yeah, we did it just to have this broad purview over what we're doing.

But the state regulators, the tribes, lawmakers at the state level, attorneys general say it is gambling, and we have the right to apply our gambling laws to it. I'm guessing that the sports gaming companies that you follow so closely aren't upset at all by the blowback on the prediction. Look, draft kings, fanatics, fan duels are all in the predictions business out. They're just being more quiet about it. One more thing. Just today, the Third Circuit, the appeals court in New Jersey, has sided with Kalshi, which went in and said they asked for a preliminary injunction to keep New Jersey from applying and enforcing its gambling laws.

And the court said, okay. And we have a, we have a, CNBC has a relationship with Kalshi, too. We have a commercial relationship, right. To mention that and get that out there, too. Thank you, as always. Yeah. All right, that's a contested brewer. technician, Chris Ferone. He's back. He tells us the key levels that this market needs to get to.

Coming up. All right. We're back. Some big technical tests lie ahead for these markets and could shape where stock's head from here. Chris Ferron is chief market strategist with Stratigis. He joins us now. It's good to have you back. Great to be here, Scott. I mean, it's the biggest test of all the 200 day on the S&P. Everybody seems to think that you need to get over that to recapture that to validate this market. move that we've had. Listen, I think levels are important in markets like this, but it's not the whole game. What we care, frankly, more about is what is the character of an advance? What does the leadership look like? Can some of the old leaders get back in gear, thinking about financials or industrials in particular? Oh, I thought you were going to say Mega Cap Tech, because I was to say, we kind of got that. You all, listen, I would say, like, Mega Cap Tech really hasn't been the

strongest part of this market, probably since October or November of last year. I don't think that's as essential in terms of coming back. Now, if we do start with some of the levels here, 6650 to 6,700, probably the first real test. But what I think you want to care more about is, what do the daily advanced decline data look like? You know, we've rallied off this low over the last six, seven, eight days. We really haven't seen anything too profound under the surface of this tape. We want 90% up days. We haven't gotten that. We want days where advanceers, overwhelmed decliner, we haven't seen that. So I think you've got to kind of take this day by day here. and evaluate what the character of the leadership is telling us about how the market perceives, really the economy going forward.

You're talking about the leaders of the broadening movement that we had. I thought you were talking about even before we got that because it feels like, man, how are we going to get the leaders from the broadening to have durability when we're now talking growth scare and elevated oil and all of that? I think what's interesting in moments like this is to try to identify names that have kind of, you know, elevated themselves above the noise. We put out a list last week looking at stocks that have outperformed all three phases of the year. The first phase being pre-war, the next phase being really from 227 until last week when we put that low in, and then also have outperformed since. And you get a very eclectic group of names. Is that what this list is? Like a CSX? Yeah, you get a CISX, like a Marvell, a Hilton, City. You get a very odd group of stocks that

really don't kind of satisfy one theme here. But I think it's helpful. in identifying where the puck is going and where the leadership is emerging. Transports, for example, have been very resilient through all of this. CSX, you note, look at some of the truckers. When you kind of go to the banks, city group's about to make a new relative high here. Bank of New York already has done so. You go to some tech. eBay trades great right here.

Marvell, you note, the optical name, Sienna and Nokia are all quite good. So it's kind of picking out what stocks have really overcome all the noise this year. Chris, we'll talk to you again soon. I'll cut it a little short, but I'll make it up to you. I appreciate you. It's Chris Ferone. Coming up, crypto, getting a bounce today. We'll tell you exactly what's going on there. Plus, the Netflix love story continues.

Another big upgrade for that name. Details inside the market zone, which is coming up. We're now in the closing bell market zone. CBC's Mike Santoli and Blue Line Capitals, Bill Baruch. We're here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day to day. Plus, Julia Borson is watching Netflix. It's not getting it another upgrade. Tonighta McKeel is looking at the bounce today that we've seen in Bitcoin.

Michael, I'll begin with you. Looking pretty decent today, right? Yeah, pretty benign. I mean, the market didn't find a ton in particular to react to. I mean, it could have found an excuse to do something more dramatic, but really didn't. I think we certainly have a wait-and-see situation. The markets decided to wait and see. And so it killed time doing chin-ups at the 6600 level, the S&P 500.

We crossed it like a dozen times today. Just that one threshold we first got there seven months ago. I would say is a non-committal market. which is not to say it's a highly stressed one at this point. We just kind of rose up in the S&P to its 20-day average. That's the threshold between a dead cap bounce and something else. So it's remaining open to the possibility that we get something that looks like a step toward resolution without really getting aggressive about pricing that in advance.

I mean, it's definitely banking on that, right? I mean, it has to be at this point. At some point, there's a cushion built in, but yes, I agree. Yeah. No, we can't have open-ended escalation, quagmire, oil going higher from here. No, you can't accept that and have equities hanging there. Tell me about overtime. What do you have coming up?

Well, Morgan Stanley has a huge piece about AI, what it means in terms of an innovation wave, and getting specific about what it might mean for employment. So in addition to all the Iran market stuff, we are going to have the chief economist there, Michael Gapen. All right. We'll see in a little bit, and we look forward to that. Mike, thank you. That's Mike Santoli. Julia, the love for Netflix since the deal for Warner Brothers Discovery didn't happen has been almost, gosh, it feels like every week there's a multitude of upgrades that are coming out.

Quite a bit of bullish sentiment. Netflix shares were a couple percentage points higher earlier today on an upgrade to buy from neutral by Goldman Sachs. Stock now up just fractionally. All of this comes ahead of the streamers' earnings next week. Goldman raising its 12-month price target. by $20 to $120 that's roughly 26% upside from current levels. Goldman's saying they see Netflix gaining momentum with the building blocks of forward revenue. Growth from its pricing power, driving growth in subscription avenue revenue per member, as well as advertising revenue growth. The firm also flagging the potential for outsized multi-year capital returns. They project a return to more normalized share buyback activity.

after that deal didn't happen. They also see an upside case for the firm for Netflix to repurchase as much as a quarter of its current market cap over the next five years. Scott? Okay, Julia, thank you very much. That's Julia Borsden. Tena, how about this bouncing Bitcoin and strategy factors into this conversation too, doesn't it? Yeah, so Bitcoin rising to $70,000 today hasn't seen that number in almost two weeks and Heath getting a bid as well. Investors reacted positively overnight it to macro headlines, Bitcoin rose that unleashed a wave of short covering that pushed the price even higher in stocks rose in tandem. So traders were leaning short into geopolitical risk. And then at the same time today, you see strategy, which buys Bitcoin up about six and a half percent.

Eathbrier bitmine also up roughly five and a half percent. And that, to me, looks like a speculative beta chase when we have crypto treasury companies leading the sector and outperforming the assets themselves. Scott. Okay. Tena, thanks. We'll watch that. All right. Bill, tell me your thoughts here on this market, which is looking pretty decent today, all things considered. Yeah, you go back to last week. You know, pessimism was peaking.

The VIX was testing 30, the spot fix above 30. And, you know, Monday night looked ugly and things turned. But we also remember on Monday, Powell talked, and he really emphasized, they're not going to look to hike rates due to an oil shock. I think the market took that at heart. I think the market was also digesting a lot of the comments around the, situation conflict in Iran, and it seemed that we were going to start to take steps forward. Since then, as a market watcher, as a trader, I traded at my commodity fund day to day and trade

S&P futures, I could feel the heartbeat of the market. It's turned from that point. This thing has wanted to go higher. There's been reasons over the past couple of trading days, obviously comments out of the White House and into some points of deterioration and deal potential deals. on the straight, this thing could have turned lower and it hasn't. But I think those, that really heartbeat of the market is important here. I think the longer we hold up, 6,600 in the future is what I'm watching, hold above there. The path is towards 6,800, which is near the 200-day moving average.

So you're a believer, it sounds like, in this move that we've had. Yeah, I'm fairly bullish here. I mean, think about it. When the VIX gets to that 30 level, institutional traders, you know, they have to start taking down the risk. There was a lot of comments at these institutional desks as well that there was no flow. There was there's really no interest in buying or selling the market. So risk was taken down, but there really wasn't liquidation yet.

So I think what we could see here is interest coming back in. And if we're one good piece of news away from, I think, you know, 300 handles in the S&P, you know, oil dropping 10 bucks. And I think that's something that could really ride into June if we get that. It could be a really interesting month of April and May. But yeah, I mean, it's really about how this headline flow is going to happen. There's really some great value out there, too. If you look at across tech, I'd like to see tech become a leader here. I mean, there's some really great names that have been beaten down in the software space,

even in the memory space. Look at Micron that's gotten smacked down from its highs. So I think there's some interesting points of leadership that I'd like to see who is outperforming, what companies are really outperforming relatively when this market begins to rally. Are you doing anything in those perceived names that you say have great, value here in tech specifically, adding to positions you have? You know, we typically in a situation like this with the geopolitical conflict, I'd like to have 8% cash that it would be buying.

Now, there's been a lot of sort of bifurcation taking place in the market that we've all discussed over the last couple of months with software getting, you know, just bludgeoned. We use some of that cash, half that cash to buy software, you know, before this conflict took place. I like names like Service Now, looking at Oracle down here, Microsoft. And I think those are some great value. from the sophomore team. All right, good stuff, Bill. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you, Bill Baruch, joining us there. We'll go out green today as you hear the bell ringing. I'll see on the other side.