Closing Bell - Closing Bell: 5/11/26

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

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Welcome to Closing Bell. I'm John Ford in for Scott Wapner, and this make or break hour starts with another run at records. NASDAQ and S&P 500, both touching all-time highs as we head toward this close. We're also seeing some major moves in the chip stocks again today with names like Micron, Qualcomm, Western Digital, all sharply higher. We're going to have more on that stock surge coming right up. Elsewhere, oil is higher on renewed tensions with Iran. And retail names are coming under pressure today with Target, raw stores, and TJX. all trading in the red. And that takes us to our talk on the tape,

how you should position your portfolio with stocks hitting fresh highs. Let's ask our panel, CNBC contributor, High Tower, Stephanie Link, New Edge Welts, Cameron Dawson, and Wells Fargo's Scott Wren. Everybody, welcome. Stephanie, what a run here.

I mean, you were rightly thinking beyond in video on this AI stuff early. But who saw, I mean, I know I gave you a hard time now. You did. But who saw Western Digital sea gate, like that derivative play. It started to emerge at beginning of the year with that crunch, but boy, is it booming now. It's booming across the board, and I say you stick with them all,

the semiconductor trade, but I also think you want to stick with the industrials as well that are building out the infrastructure. They're just as big beneficiaries, and they're not up as much as the semiconductor space is. But, I mean, the moves have been enormous. I don't think you want to definitely chase them. You want to hold them. But look, I think the AI CAPX cycle, We're in the second inning. I mean, we're going to go. We're going to see about $800 billion this year, a trillion next year. They're not slowing down.

And so you want to own what I call the food chain. And the food chain is what we're talking about. It's the data center infrastructure. It's the chemicals and commodities. It's the great. It's power. And then, of course, it's also these other companies in terms of this semiconductor space that used to be very cyclical, but they're not as much now.

Tamin, I think you were early on those industrials. How are you treating them? because, I mean, tech, you can sort of have this long range, airy-fairy, perhaps, dream vision of what they'll become. That's harder with those industrial gains. Yeah, it is fascinating. You used to cover the industrials and never did I ever think that I would see cat trading at today's valuation on peak earnings. Usually you only see those kinds of valuations on earnings that are severely depressed. And I think part of that is a function is that you are getting a lot more line of sight into the backlogs of these businesses.

I think the question is how much duration is there behind this AI Cappex trade? We came into the year thinking that we were going to get 30% growth on Cappex on a year-over-year basis. Now that's looking closer to 80%. So the strength in this infrastructure trade makes a lot of sense. How much more upside is there to those numbers in order to propel these stocks in their next leg higher? And the duration of it as well as we look to 27 numbers that are nearly a trillion dollars in Cappex from these hyperscalers. But did you ever think like someone like a vertive would have 89%? earnings growth or quanta services and 50% earnings growth. These numbers are astronomical and it's

all about the backlog because that gives you the visibility for the next couple of years. And Scott Wren, I want to bring you in, even though you're not literally here sitting with us, how long can this data center derived trade separate from everything else, including a consumer that seems increasingly stretched with this energy shock that won't go away? I think it could go for a while, John. You know, we, five weeks ago or so, when we went underweight energy and we went overweight tech, never in my wildest dreams. I think we're going to have the kind of run that we've had in this short of an amount of time. I thought we were going to get here, but I thought it was going to take a lot longer.

And, you know, Cameron mentioned, you know, industrials. We really like industrials. You know, I can't tell you how many times over the last 30-plus years, we played the buy-cat at 60, sell it at 120 kind of range. And here we are, you know, $900 plus. And so I think that these old school, you know, you look at industrials, we like utilities. You know, those have some legs on this AI trade. They're not as cyclical as they used to be, not nearly. So I think you have to kind of go with the momentum and go with the flow.

As a good friend of mine, this is a portfolio manager said, this is a Y-Sk-Y market. Earnings are coming through. If we can get the straight opened up, I think that, you know, we would probably have yet another surge that it takes us a little bit higher than this. Why ask why? That reminds you those commercials from a couple decades ago, Stephanie. But when things start going down, inevitably, people will be shaking their fists at the sky saying why. And it seems like every move higher is deserved, every move lower is a theft. How should investors think about the exposure right now that the market has to sentiment through valuation? Well, I think you want to be careful. You don't want to chase, for sure. But as long

as the economy is growing above trend, which it is, the Atlanta Fed tracker is at 3.5. And underneath the surface, the labor market is good. We got pretty good data last week across the spectrum in jobs. Of course, this Kepp-back cycle. And the consumer, yeah, I do worry for sure, but it's K-shaped. We've all been talking about that for a long time. It's always K-shaped, John, right? So if you have these three and more pieces to the economy and add in productivity and above-trend growth and you see above-trend earnings, that stocks follow profits on the way up and on the way down. And that's what they're doing right now. Analysts are revising numbers higher. And I think, again, watch the economy. It feeds into earnings. And the most important thing to me

during earnings, margins. Margins are actually on an equal weight basis at 14.3%. They're much stronger than what people think. The old highs was 14.5. I think margins continue to work higher, especially if commodity prices can come down. And again, a lot depends on the war and the timing. Yeah, Cameron, I mean, that margin exposure, if you think about costs that could move through the chain, from energy, from plastics, from, I don't know, what the tariff follow through is, maybe there'll be some refunds coming eventually. How are you treating that margin issue coming up, coming down the pike? Lest we forget, memory costs. All these surging costs in the AI supply chain is certainly pushing up prices that will likely see in durable goods. I think the challenge we have with margins,

if you look at them on a cap-weighted basis, they have surged higher because of semiconductors. So semiconductors are now the largest industry group in the S&P 500. Ten years ago, they were a 2% weight. Today, there is 16% weight. And in the last nine months alone, they've added 14 percentage points to their margin line. And that's because you're seeing big fixed cost absorption. These are more cyclical businesses with fixed costs. So as sales go up, margins expand.

And the question is, is that margin sustainable? Is it durable? And we think that the end result, if we were to look past five years from now, We'll look back and say that the S&P 500 did become a bit more cyclical because semiconductors are such a bigger weight in the index today. Yeah, this is like she's all that. These are the supposedly doubly semis that are sexy today. Hey, never write them off, I guess. Stick with me.

Let's get more on that surge in the underestimated semis from Christina Parks and Nebelis who's tracking the action. Christina. I've never had a She's All That reference right before going live. But you guys said it out perfectly because the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is now roughly 60% above its 200. moving average. That's a level we just haven't seen since March 2000 and July 1995. And just when you thought chips couldn't run any higher, they squeeze out more gains. And today, a lot of it is actually news-driven. Start with memory. You were just talking about it. The complex is climbing after Samsung's union set a strike window from May 21st through June 7th. Jeff Freeze estimates a walkout

could take out almost 3% of global memory production offline. So that's the reason why you're seeing so many of these memory names higher. Intel higher on two fronts. CEO Liputan on the weekend said the company is working with NVIDIA on, quote, exciting new products in a post on X. And then also there are reports set up Asia saying SK. Hynix is testing Intel's advanced packaging technology as an alternative to TSM. So that is the big driver for Intel. And we just talked about Nvidia.

It's also moving higher. On other reports, it has accelerated the rollout of Vera Rubin with first shipments now expected in July. This is the next generation AI platform. And then you've got Qualcomm up roughly. last I checked almost 8% after CEO Cristiano Amman said the company is working with pretty much all major AI players on next generation

wearables naming open AI and meta. This is over the weekend. The company also confirming the CEO will be attending the trip in China with President Trump. And then you've got Lumenum surging roughly 16% after being named to the NASDAQ 100, replacing co-star group May 18th.

Last but not least, Texas Instruments, NXPI, these are analog names, or reportedly preparing another round of price increases for this summer, June and July, and that's driving the complex a little bit higher. John. All right. Christina, thank you. Scott Wren, nice glow up here for the semiconductors.

You and I never went through an awkward phase, I'm sure. But what does all of this say for the potential for M&A in this economy? Even from some of these names that suddenly have some valuations to spend or just driven by these other factors of, hey, software is cheap? Yeah, John, I tell you, I think we're going to see. a lot of M&A. You know, we've been trying to do some bottom fishing here in financials. We like that. Part of it's because we think the curve's going to steepen. We think there's going to be a lot of M&A. There's going to be a lot of IPOs. And, you know, there's going to be more demand for loans because I think the economy is going to be better. And of course, you know, John, you have to

make an assumption here that's hopefully an educated assumption. And that's that the straight is going to open relatively soon. I think, you know, everything we're doing largely hinges on that. I think, the market's anticipating correctly that we aren't going to be closed for an extended period of time. And then you can go from there because, you know, you can do a lot of statistical analysis, do a lot of statistical modeling. But when something like the straight closes and the war starts, you know, you've got to make an assumption about that. And that's our assumption and that's what we're basing a lot of our outlook on. Okay. Stephanie, often in times like this, I think, when there's something really huge

and attention grabbing happening in the market like semiconductors, AI Mag 7, et cetera. There are things that maybe investors take their eyes off of where later you go, oh, if I had seen how cheap that was, or it just sort of makes sense. Are you seeing any areas like that that are historically off, not in this, oh, wow, look how expensive it is way, but the opposite?

Well, there's a lot, because this has been a pretty narrow rally in the market as a whole. So I like Scott's financials call a lot, especially because the companies, when they reported, talked about how the consumer was resilient. Credit quality actually is improving, like delinquencies are going down and that kind of thing. And they are, in fact, lending. In fact, loan growth on average for the Big Six was up about 9 to 10 percent. And so that's a group that's buying back a ton of stock, has a lot of excess capital. And it's kind of, they reported, they kind of moved up a little bit, and now they're right back down.

And so that's an area. I'm very tempted on discretionary, again, because I think the valuations are very attractive. If you do get an end to the war, oil prices come down. These stocks, even as a trade, they can actually work higher. And there are some special situations within consumer, Starbucks, Pepsi, Target, that I all think the valuations make a lot of sense here. Cameron, what do the high net worth folks do well to look at during this period, whether it's, you know, people are scared about private credit and maybe some things like that.

What do you think of the opportunities? Well, I think that we stay very disciplined around quality. It's very easy to chase into some of these high-flying names. And one of the things we were looking at today within SmidCaps is that a lot of the areas that have led the market have been areas that don't have any earnings or any profitability. So for us, it's about staying disciplined through the cycle. And we think that that allows us to not chase the hot dot higher because that's typically where you see the sharpest crash on the other side. And that's really important for tax-sensitive investors, where you really do want to be able to compound value through cycles. Scott ran finally earnings season. Stephanie Lake called out margins is something she's watching. What are you watching?

Well, you have to watch margins, John, especially when you've seen these kind of earnings numbers. And so, you know, for us, we want to see these cyclical companies largely tied to AI in the industrial sector continue to really come in with strong earnings. And of course, you've got to have the tech companies coming in because the expectations are very high. They've knocked the cover off the ball this quarter. And we think that's going to continue. The hyperscale bar is high indeed. Scott, thank you. Stephanie, Cameron, thanks to you as well for kicking off the hour. Now, can the rest of the tech trade catch up with the chip rally? A long way to go.

My next guest thinks a catch down is more likely. Joining me now is Jonathan Krenski, BTIG chief market technician. Why a catch down? I mean, software certainly has a just a little bouch would go a long way. Hey, John. So, yeah, I think the conversation to this point has been, you know, how extreme the move in tech AI semis have been. But I think the conversation really needs to be shifting on, you know, not only when will

that rally exhaust itself, but why can't the rest of the market do anything as AI has been moving up? And, you know, to put a couple of statistics around this, the S&P, as of say, is 8% above above its 50-day moving average, yet there's only 49% of S&P 500 components above their own 50-day moving averages. That is the fewest number of stocks above the 50 day with the S&P that far above its 50 day

in history, back 30 years of data that we have. The next closest period you have, you have to go to the late 90s where you had about 60%. And so there's a lot of stocks that are really not participating. And there's a difference between when tech's leading and everything's moving up in Texas moving up at a faster pace, and when semis are doing what they're doing, and the average stock is actually moving sideways or lower.

Another stat here, the S&B hit a 52-week high on Friday. Actually, that's a 52-high today, and 8% of the actual S&P names are at a 52-week low. That ties the all-time record in late 1999. So, again, it's not just that names aren't participating. They're actually moving lower at this point. Yes, which is a situation that would seem, to cry out for diversification, except that if you had done that earlier,

maybe in too extreme a way, you're feeling dumb right now because, you know, look at how Microsoft and Amazon and Google did during earnings, look at how concentrated this move higher is, as you were just saying. So as an investor trying to be disciplined,

what are the trucks telling you? How do you do it? You know, that's a good question. I mean, again, if you look at, of the 11 S&P 500 sectors, the only sectors to exceed their spring high of late have been technology, of course, reeds, which are a very small part of the market, and energy, which kind of has that inverse correlation in the market. So, you know, there's different pockets you can kind of try to get a

little cue with, but the reality is the factor trading going on right now is so extreme that this is very difficult to get out of the either tech AI or non-tech AI. And if it's not tech AI, it's really not working. And I think we've gone long enough. You know, we're now several weeks into this new all-time eye for the S&P 500, and the equate S&P 500 still can't make a new high. So I think the reality is we're kind of in the later innings of the semi-AI trade, and we're likely to see a swift reversion lower. And then we'll see it.

I don't think the other names necessarily have to go down a lot following that, but I don't think you're necessarily going to get a lot of upside as we see the online happen. History, any help? Is there any period these trucks remind you off? Well, again, there's a lot of analogies to the, the late 90s, of course. And I think from a pure price perspective that you have to, you have to at least appreciate, you know, some of these, we did a note last week looking at the top 10 performing NASDAQ 100

names and the average move over last year has actually exceeded the average move of the top 10 names into both the end of 1999 and the all-time high in March of 2000. So, you know, you certainly have that set up. Part of what's different, right, is that right now, it's company's huge, companies like your Open AIs, Anthropics that are still private, that are driving a lot of the animal spirits in the market, it seems. Whereas, you know, back in the day, it was public companies with crazy valuations back in the late 90s, maybe a little bit into 2000 that were driving that. Is that functionally any different? Or because the companies that are moving so much

higher have real revenue and earnings, or does the fact that it's startups, private companies driving that still make the public markets that much more exposed? No, I think that's a good point. You know, look, markets are never exactly the same over any two periods. I think what we've been saying is that given the, you know, the fundamental backdrop is arguably better now. That likely means just on the tail end of this, it's not going to be anything like we saw them, right? I mean, the NASDAQ and the Semic and the Semiconductor index from 2003 went down 85, 90%. So I don't think we're looking at anything like that.

But, you know, just for perspective, just to get back to the, you know, the 50-day moving average, for instance, on the Sox, you're looking at a 25. percent drawdown. So I think that's a very realistic possibility, even if the fundamentals are still quite strong here. That would be a real kick in the shins. John Krincki, thank you. Thank you. Well, let's get back to Christina Parts and Nebula. For a look at the biggest names moving into the close, Christina. Let's start with Corning shares, because they're higher after Bank of America added the glass and optical fiber company to its U.S. one list of top investment ideas. Shares are our pace for a six-day wind streak. Remember just last week after Nvidia said it would invest up to $3.2 billion in the company, and that's why shares are up 10.5% today.

Applied opto electronics, also getting a huge price increase from Rosenblatt to $220 from $140. These analyst calls are really helping the entire networking space specifically with an optical, including Lumentum shares. Those are up also on news. The optical networking giant is set to join the NASDAQ 100. Shares are up 23% today and have run up more than 180% this year, of course, amid the AI day. a center boom. Meantime, shares of Trade Desk lower on a downgrade to reduce from hold at HSBC.

Several firms are really downgraded the advertising tech stock since its last earnings report just last week actually missed expectations. shares down 7% today. John? All right. Christina, thank you. And we are just getting started. Up next, Microsoft CEO, Sautianadella, taking the stand today in the Musk v.

Altman trial. We're going to take you live outside the courtroom after this break. And we are live from the New York Stock Exchange right now, and you're watching closing bell. on CNBC. Welcome back to closing bell. Microsoft CEO Sachi Nadella taking the stand in the Elon Musk versus Sam Altman trial. Let's bring in our Kate Rune, who's live outside the courtroom with the latest. Hey, John.

So Satsy Nadella wrapped up his testimony. He really today tried to frame Microsoft as a neutral player in this entire Open AI versus Elon Musk drama. It does come back to Microsoft's early investment in the company. Nadella says he was, quote, very proud that Microsoft. Microsoft took the risk to invest in OpenAI. He says when no one else was willing to, what started as a $1 billion check for Microsoft, initially is now a 27% stake in Open AI. That's worth more than $200 billion at this point.

Nadella also said that Musk never reached out with any sort of issue about that initial investment. Microsoft denies any role in what Musk now says was Open AI's alleged breach of a charitable trust. Open AI also denies that. Nadella did talk about an effort to compete at the time. with Google. And then the major challenge that we still talk about today of computing power, Nadella says that partnership was out of a, quote, realization that this was going to require significant capital and a significant capital infusion, therefore made sense to actually create a for-profit entity. Sam Altman's firing from the Open AI board and from the company

back in 2023. If we remember that, that has been a key topic. Nadella described that weekend as chaotic. He called that board crisis, Amateur City, his words. We do, expect to hear from Sam Altman as well as soon as tomorrow, John. Back over to you. That is fire coming from Satya Nadella, an executive who I would describe as measured more than many others. Like, he makes all his free throws. There's a lot of subtext here, I think. Microsoft had an early investment in Facebook that they probably cashed out of too early. Satina Della saved Sam Altman's bacon during that period when he was kicked out by planning to hire him and take defectors from OpenAI, sort of forcing the board's hand. Is it interesting,

interesting here, hearing him describe his position as neutral in this particular battle? Yeah, you're right, John. I think knowing Satina Della, and you've obviously interviewed him and gotten to know him over the years, Amateur City, I would say, is probably about as fire as he would get. That board crisis that we talked about, that's been a huge topic of conversation. Muscleers have tried to frame Nadella's participation in that as some sort of control and trying to control the outcome. He has said, I just didn't. want them to go to a competitor. I didn't want them to go off to Google or Amazon. I wanted them to either stay at Microsoft or stay at OpenAI. So it has come up a lot in the context of

competition. I would say the last thing as we talk about the early days of Open AI and Microsoft, they were so reliant on each other as partners. Here we are today at a time when Open AI has now partnered more with Amazon and Microsoft has partnered with Anthroping in a different way. So it's interesting to see how the landscape is actually transformed from the time. It looks like we're really talking about this time capsule when it was. really just these two companies, the landscape has changed dramatically since then, John. And Microsoft has learned so much from that dot-com period when it made so many misses, certainly hitting all of the singles this time and some home runs as well. Kate, thanks.

Still ahead, top retail plays for your portfolio, analyst Simeon Siegel standing by with the names where he sees strength right now. And later, we'll tell you what's behind the big bounce in circles. Stop and closing bell comes right back. News out of Washington. Megan Kassela has the details, Megan. John, the Trump administration is ramping up its economic pressure on Iran. This time with a new set of sanctions just released that cracked down on the sale of Iranian oil to China. So there are a dozen individuals and entities being targeted here, including some Hong Kong and Dubai-based shipping companies. The Treasury Department says all of them have played a role in enabling Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps selling oil to China.

So this adds to what has been an aggressive push by the Treasury to cripple Iran's economy in the hopes that that would get them to cave to some U.S. demands. Treasury has already sanctioned some Chinese refineries who purchased the oil, so now the target is on more individuals on the Iranian side. And as for the timing here, John, as you know, this comes just ahead of President Trump's trip to Beijing, where we do expect Chinese purchases of Iranian oil to be among the topics discussed. China is the largest purchaser by far of Iran's oil. The Trump administration has for weeks now been pressuring them to stop buying. John. All right, maybe sanctions replacing some tariffs as potential leverage there. Megan, thank you. And still ahead, your big earnings setup. Closing the bell. Be right back. We are getting some news on Draft Kings. Contessa Brewer has that for us. Contessa. John, if you'd like a little parlay with your prediction markets,

Draft Kings would like to offer that up, only they're not calling them parlays. They're calling them combos, where you can stack multiple bets onto each other. Draft Kings is rather late to the prediction party, Kalshi, Polymarket, and others got there first. And when Kalshi started offering what it called combos, we saw the stock of Draft Kings and Flutter and other sports betting stocks just sort of take this long, slow slide down. And they haven't really recovered in the eight, nine months since then. So today, you have Draft Kings launching the combos in the 18 states where it offers prediction markets or event contracts on sports. In the other states, where it offers sports gambling. Parleys are fueling the profits, but Draft Kings has opted not to offer

predictions on sports in those states because it doesn't want to jeopardize its gaming licenses in the fight by states against prediction platforms as well. Calci and CNBC, of course, do have a commercial relationship, and so we want to disclose that. But this is a big new chapter in the whole mono-a-mono with the sports books and the prediction markets and who's going to win, especially John in California, Florida and Texas, those big population states. I'm just gobsmacked that that's where we are. Yeah. This is a big market now.

Contessa, thank you. Fair. Well, it's moved to retail. Those retail stocks under pressure again today, the XRT retail ETA, coming off its third straight week of losses. We'll get a good read on the consumer next week when a number of retailers report earnings and Guggenheim's Simian Siegel joins me now to break down what to expect. Simeon, who's doing well in this market?

I mean, a lot of these big brands, I know you're waiting for a turnaround for, they're taking a while to turn. You know, it's amazing, so good to be here, good to see you. So there's a difference between who's doing well in the stock market and who's doing well in the market from a consumer perspective. So we've had a handful of companies report already.

We'll have a lot more come up. Revenues are great. Like, great, great. You're seeing acceleration. You're seeing high single digits, which I know we're not talking about hyperscalers here, but for retail, that's pretty great. Margins are okay.

Like, you're actually seeing businesses that are okay. it's not a Q1 conversation, but you look at some of these stocks, you look today, you hear about Iran, you hear about macro, you hear about gas, and you say, okay, well, are we towards the end of it? And so I think it's going to be interesting. This is going to be a very backwards looking quarter. And I don't know that the stocks are going to move based on this quarter because I think generally speaking, this quarter should be good. And I think generally speaking, healthily or not, the U.S. consumer is opening the wallet. Is it all TJXs and Walmarts to lose in this market? They seem to be well positioned both in terms of how they do. discounting and how they've been picking up some of the higher end consumer that wants a good deal? So I would say the easy answer should be yes, right? I mean, these are businesses that are absolutely dominating. They're businesses that are absolutely growing. But, and again, smaller business, but a company like Revolve, which sells fashion apparel, put a double-digit revenue growth. I mean, like there are companies that are doing this. Coach, right, Tapestry, the owner of coach and Kate Spade, just put up remarkable revenue growth. And so I think we're seeing it across

the board. I know it's so easy to just fall back on the K-shaped economy. And to be very clear, I know obviously the high-versible income dynamic is absolutely real. So I'm not trying to diminish that. But I think what's important is there are people spending at every level. And you brought up TJ. I mean, like, by all accounts, TJ is actually not selling cheap clothing. They're selling expensive clothing cheap. It's surprising who their demographic actually is. And so I think right now, if you give a consumer something that they want to pay for, on the discretionary side, at least, ironically, counterintuitively, they're finding a way to spend. Milk, gap, that might be different. But if someone is buying something on something they want, if they've

committed to buying something they want, tariff-induced price hikes have been absorbed to a shocking degree by the U.S. consumer. Where does China fit into this equation? I was interested to see that Apple actually did pretty well in China this last quarter that had been some problems over there. And I wonder how much that, whatever affected is, translates to the Nikes of the world that are exposed over there and have been seeing some struggle. And whether there's any follow-through impact to this Trump-she meeting some things they might say or tweak that end up affecting retail stocks. So what's really interesting is this quarter, listen, I'd love to say it's going to end this quarter, but I'm not going to go there. I'm not smart enough to make that comment.

But the Middle East has taken over as the China conversation right now in terms of the region to be most concerned about for very obvious reasons. And so that's pivoting to Europe, right? Because the interesting dynamic about China is it's predominantly, but you've had a lot of tourism dynamics. And so when we're seeing people talk about Europe, a lot of the dynamic is who's not coming, right? So you have Middle Eastern tourists that are not spending there. China in it of itself, Nike told us there's a problem, but Nike actually gave us less bad results. People aren't looking at it because they guided Q4 to be down 20, but the quarter that they actually reported was less bad. And so China may be an interesting region to watch.

Oddly enough, it's taking a backseat right now when people are thinking about the non-U.S. regions. I was asking earlier in the show, Stephanie, Lake, Cameron, Dawson, Scott Wren, what are areas where perhaps when there's this big thing happening in the market, hyperscalers, AI, data center spend, you take your eye off the ball and don't realize that there's a bargain emerging on some things that you could really bet on. Do you see those things in retail? What are the top two or three if you do? So I love that.

It's a great question. Before any of this stuff, it was AI, right? So AI took kind of like, who's a really good retailer, you know, who doesn't use a lot of technology, TJX, which you mentioned. So I think there's a lot in there. So I think you can have, from what we're looking at, there's two ways to think about this, right? I'm a self-side analyst. I'm supposed to say the word barbell otherwise, like I didn't do my job. So my barbell. So on the quality expensive for reason side, my team just did a lot of work taking into Ross stores. Normally you and I have talked about TJX. I'm going to shift us a little bit and talk about

its cousin Ross stores, dress for less. You got it. What's fascinating about Ross. I looked back in my research a decade ago, which is not normally a sentence. You see. say because that's just not a cool sentence to say, but I did. And what I found was 10 years ago, Ross was the better company. T.J. was sometimes the better stock. Over the last 10 years, that pivoted to T.J. was the better company and sometimes Ross is the better stock. If you go back and look, what did T.J. do differently. We knew once we found five different items. Looks like Ross is starting to do them. And if that's the case, what that means is you have a multi-year story where you and I start talking about Ross stores a lot more the same way we talked about

T. So we're looking at Ross, not a cheat multiple, down today with everything else. I would take a look at Ross. And then on the other side, the one that's just hard to not talk about is last week Planet Fitness took their earnings down 10%. Okay. Their stock dropped 30. When you have a mismatch like that, it's not to say that it's going to be clean. It's going to be hairy. There's a lot of nuance. But you have to take a look when the stock goes down that far versus earnings. Simian Siegel, thank you. Great to see you. All right. Well, up next, we are tracking the biggest movers as we head into the close. Christina Poncenevola is standing by with that. Christina. I've got a chip deal setting one stock to its best day in over a year.

plus a fast food name and an appliance maker getting hit with downgrades. Those movers next. 14 minutes to the closing bell. Let's get back to Christina Parks on Elvis for a look at the key stocks to watch. Christina. Let's start with U.S. listed shares of Sony. They're on pace for their best day in more than a year after it announced a joint venture with Taiwan Semi to develop and manufacture image sensors.

Sony CEO said the company has been really constrained by its manufacturing capacity to supply the sensors. And this deal with TSM should really help it meet. future demand. That's why shares are up almost 6%. Meantime, shares of Wendy's are lower after J.P. Morgan downgraded the fast food stock to underweight from neutral. The firm cited a continued decline in U.S. same store sales and just really a lack of direction around the company's future, and so that's why shares are down almost 7%. World pool, another name dropping, roughly 9, almost 9% after J.P. Morgan cut its price target on the appliance maker. This is the KitchenAid maker also blamed a weaker than expected quarter on the Supreme Court's ruling

overturning broad-based trade tariffs just a few days ago, which had helped WorldPool compete against cheaper foreign imports. The company also suspended its dividends. So just a lot of, I guess, more negative reaction from the street, and that's causing shares to slide. John? Indeed. Christina, thank you. Thanks.

Bob next, we'll run you through what to watch from Hymns and Hers report out in overtime. That and much more when you take the inside the market zone. You're right back. We are now in the closing bell market zone, are Mike Santoli and Marcy McGregor from Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank are here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus, Oliver Enic is standing by from the CBOE, CBO, I should say, global markets in Chicago tracking the action in silver. Tonight I'm McKeel watching shares of Circle. Angelica Peebles has a preview of hymns and hers,

reporting results in overtime, and Contessa Brewer, back with us for a look at the travel stops. Mike Santoli, another day in the green. I mean, S&P hanging in there above 7,400. What, if anything, is shaking this market these days? It's fascinating, John. I mean, yes, in the green, it looks like this kind of gentle up day for the broad indexes, but below the surface, a very familiar push pull, which is to say, you know, semi's consuming most of the oxygen, lots of parts of this market that are adjacent to consumer activity and actually have to notice what's going on with oil. or financial stocks are pulling the other direction. So it seems as if, as I said earlier, all the conviction is kind of flowing from most of the market into the narrow channel of the AI hardware.

Food chain, we'll see how far that can take us. You definitely have to notice a couple of other things going on today, such as Treasury yields inching higher, volatility index with an upside tilt as well. So it feels as if while it's calm on the surface, there's a lot of decisions and debates happening implicitly in the price action below. Mike, I've never seen the market do a relay race like this where the baton keeps getting passed

from one fast runner to another. I mean, we were talking for a long time about the hyperscalers. How long could they run, you know, the AI trade? Now you've got these semiconductor makers like memory makers who were never really that exciting running hard. When's the last time you saw this, you know, steady march, relatively steady march higher for overall indexes while you've got all of this. damage happening beneath the surface for targeted areas?

Yeah, I mean, we've had these markets where the escape hatch was rotation, and it did seem like it was this kind of elegant choreography of going from strong to weak and allowing some parts of the market to cool off while others got a little bit of a catch-up move. What's unusual, I think, as you get to with your question, John, is how we're going kind of down the food chain in terms of where the tech industry lies, and we're going toward those more commodity areas and these companies that have been around forever and now they're getting this new life with this wave of demand for scarce connectivity products and processors and things like that. It reminds me on some level of when, you know, plain old phone companies became internet

stocks back in the 90s, you know, or it seemed like, hey, guess what? Northern Telecom and the old AT&T networking equipment company, Lucid, were really hot for a while. I don't want to say that we're at that stage, but it does feel like that to some degree. and we'll just see if we can continue to kind of make this dance work. All right. Take note. Mike, thank you. Now let's get to Oliver Renick at Sebo Global Markets in Chicago. Oliver. John, today's big move in silver, maybe one of those batons getting past. It also might be a comeback trade after an epic 300% run last year through its high in January.

The metal's been muted throughout much of 2026, but it's waking up big time today with a 7% surge and higher highs and high. lows on the chart. Options bulls are piling back into SLV, with $300 million of options traded in that ETF today compared to $200 million in GLD. That's despite SLV being one-fifth the size of GLD. In SLV, more than twice as many calls traded than puts and call buying, dwarfed putt buying three to one. In fact, for much of the day, the ETF was one of the most active tickers measured by options volume with over 800,000 contracts traded. The most active of those, the 105 strike calls expiring June 18th, traders betting on a massive rally in the next month. If you're buying those, good luck. Those are the nosebleeds, John. Oliver, thanks. I associate silver in my head with

crypto and Bitcoin is knocking on the door of 82,000. Let's get to tonight. McKeel for a check on what's driving. Speaking of crypto, circles leg higher. Yeah, John, three things, earnings, announcements, and regulation. So an earnings beat this morning and a revenue missed, but 20% growth year on year. And what really has people talking is the ARC blockchain. This is a new blockchain from Circle, which has been in beta testing mode, and it should go live soon, but details to come on when exactly. And this network is the company's sort of declaration that it's now transforming from, you know, just a crypto trading stable coin to an operating system for the entire. a AI-driven economy.

That is, at least the way CEO Jeremy Aller put it when I spoke with him on this. So shares up about 15%, Sean. Investor is clearly hopeful that this is going to help solve some of the concerns about stable coins being commoditized as regulation, you know, legitimizes the business. And on that note, the Clarity Act set for a markup this week. And, you know, that can only be helpful to shares, John. Todaya, thanks. Now let's send it over to Angelica Peebles for what to look for.

with Hymns and hers. Hey, John, that's right. Hymns expected to report just after the ball, so in a few minutes here, and this will be the first time that Hymns reports since that telehealth company made up with Novo. Remember, those companies were locked in a pretty fierce battle. And if you remember in March that Hymns agreed to stop advertising compounded GLP1 drugs and start selling Novo's branded GLP1s to get back in business with them, and that deal includes the newly approved Wigobi pill. And so that deal was announced basically at the end of the last quarter,

So we might not hear specifics from that partnership. They might not be fully baked into days' results, but it'll still be interesting to hear exactly how that pivot is going and what effect it's going to have on margins. That's a big focus for investors. And shares are up about 3% today ahead of these results. The stock is still down about 10%, guys. So it'll be interesting to watch.

We'll look for that in overtime. Angelica, thanks. Contessa Brewer tracking action in travel stocks. Yeah, John, Haunta Virus is grabbing the headlines here, and it's easy to look at cruise stocks today. and think, oh, yeah, I can see why. Look at Carnival, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean. That maybe investors think they're suffering from contagion worries. But you can't set aside the impact from soaring gas prices for the impact of inflation. In fact, Roth issued a warning that consumer discretionary is beginning

to drag on the portfolios. We're seeing pressure on six flags, United Parks and Resorts and Sphere entertainment. They're down around 6%, 7% today. Declines for the online travel agencies. You've got booking, Expedia, TripAdvisor. TripAdvisor is down more than 7% today. Lodging, airlines, casinos, they could all feel the pinch from an ongoing squeeze on consumer wallets, John. Contessa, thank you. Now as we head toward the bells, let's bring in Marcy McGregor. Marcy, we talked a lot of micro just now with the reporters. Give us some big picture here. You've been pretty stubbornly, well, correct, I guess. I'm sticking with U.S. equities here, even small caps. Valuations remain high for portions of the market.

market, we've talked as baton passing. Can that continue? Are you still feeling good about the markets overall? I am. And if we get weakness after this really strong recovery from the March flows, I would see it as a buying opportunity because this is a market that is being fueled by corporate profits, profits by CAPEX, and frankly by a strong labor market. So when I think about on the profit side, it's not just about the 18% growth that we saw. It's about the fact that the median stock in the S&P saw 12% earnings growth and Q2 estimates, and full year estimates are now being revised higher. When I think about the consumer, yeah, we've got to watch the consumer really closely with

these high gas prices, but we're seeing a labor market that is solid, and we're seeing faster weight growth for higher income household. So that'll help consumption. So when I think about the CAPEX is on track, it's not just about AI. I think this is also a market that is feeling a recovery of manufacturing and on the industrial side of the economy. There's a lot of reasons to be positive. There's a uniquely bifurcated trade around AI that has software names punished, still in the doghouse, and some infrastructure and equipment names, mostly infrastructure names, I should say, soaring. How should investors play the downside right now? Are there bargains, or do you have to stay away from what's depressed? I'm still a little cautious on software, and yes, they've been really

beat up, and I think ultimately we will get a buying opportunity here. But, I haven't seen real signals under the hood of the sector that we're going to get a turnaround. So we're staying cautious there. We've actually been neutral tech despite how narrow this recovery has been, because I do think you're going to continue to see this focus of the market on kind of what is next in terms of what's in AI's crosshairs. I would think about the infrastructure around AI, as you mentioned, as where the real opportunity is going forward. Yeah, certainly lots of ways to play this.

The stocks keep moving, Marcy. and we're just seconds away from the closing bell, seeing green across the stream, the Dow up approximately, the S&P, about the same amount, just over 10%. And the small capture is particularly well. That is going to do it for closing bell.