Closing Bell - Closing Bell 5/29/26

Episode Date: May 29, 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 Wobner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker breakout begins with what else. The surging NASDAQ up 8% in the month of May alone. It stocks from Micron to Snowflake to now Delgo Wild. We will discuss whether to keep riding that winning trade with top portfolio manager, Uncle Crawford, coming up. She told you months ago about Nebius, well, it has surged since more than 100%. Otherwise, stocks, they've been higher throughout the day-to-day on hopes for a final deal with Iran. Rates and oil falling. That's helping financials and tech. They are the best sectors.

Most others, though, they're in the red today. So we'll watch all of that as we head towards this close today. It does take us to our talk of the tape. Another new high for the NASDAQ. It tops 27,000 for the very first time today. The latest stock to surge is Dell following its earnings report, and Christina Parts of Nelos has more for us on that high. Hi, Scott.

Well, Dell shares are up wet over 25% because Wall Street got this name wrong. Analysts remodeling roughly $35 billion in revenue. Dell did almost $44 billion. On earnings per share, consensus was near $3. Dell printed just shy of $5. The bare case has been that AI demand is pulled forward and maturing, but this quarter really dismantles that.

The AI server backlog for Dell grew again to more than $51 billion. And traditional servers, this was key. were up 92% year-of-euro's enterprises built out for agentic AI workloads. Del CIO said customer conversations are now multi-year in nature, and that's why Morgan Stanley's analysts admitted they, quote, flat out got this stock wrong. Jordan Klein at Mazuho is comparing this to Nvidia's blow up back in May 20203. Remember that day? The print that kicked off the entire AI trade and says this has real legs into 2027 and

2028. Delcio also flagged shortages and memory chips. We've heard about that. Processors, you know, specifically CPUs and also hard drives, which is good news for micron, arm, even competitors HPE, super micro. You can see up over 10%. The AI demand story was supposed to be slowing. Well, Dell just spent an whole earnings call proving the opposite and that's why shares are up 30%. Wow. Yep. And a rising tide lifting many boats. Christina, thank you. Christina parts of neveless. Well, J.P. Morgan's CEO, Jamie Diamond, asked by our very own Morgan Brennan today about some of those parabolic moves

and whether things have gotten too frothy. I view the market as exuberant, you know, and I've seen this before. You know, of course, exuberance can go in a long time, and it's not bad. Sometimes, you know, earnings are up 15, 20 percent this year, and a lot of these companies have huge order books, so it may be justified. Well, let's now welcome in Alger's on Kirk Crawford.

She's with us here at Post 9. It's good to have you back. Good to be here. So what do you think about what Diamond said? Because I feel like you haven't really been very bothered either about this exuberance, if you want to call it that, within this market. Well, I think we have reason to be exuberant. We are in the middle of an incredible rate of change of technology and innovation.

So there is actually reason to be exuberant. It is, as he said, it's not bad. I know. But when you see Adele, for example, like we're looking 30% and snowfall, Blake in a day 30%, and a micron in a 30%. That doesn't give you any pause. Like, did we, we got all of these wrong? Yep.

Just that simple. I mean, Christina just said it, right? Estimates were at $35 billion. They came in at $43 or $44 billion. That is an incredible change in revenue earnings, free cash flow for a business like Dell. And so what you've been, what you saw in Dell in, you know, overnight was what's been happening for the entire AI ecosystem over the last, you know, six months. I would argue for in video over the last three years. So the numbers are just wrong. And, you know, as the stocks are going

up in lockstep with the numbers. Okay. So this is not exuberance for exuberance's sake. It's being driven really fully by the fundamentals, by the earnings power that these companies have. Can they maintain that? This stock moves, the price action, suggests yes. Does it remain to be seen? Well, look, I think that there are pauses in the market, so you might have to pause and refresh. You might get many rotations. But if you look at the long arc of time,

if you believe that compute will be essential, necessary for this industrial revolution, then yes, these stocks can hold where they're trading at today. Does that mean that you want to just stay with the tech trade more so than thinking about a end-of-war pivot to some of the other? areas that haven't participated as much? And that's where you could get small rotations in the market.

So would it surprise me if we have an end-of-war trade and consumer starts to work, rates start coming back down and that trade works while you get a little bit of risk off in the rest of tech, especially AI tech, it wouldn't surprise me. But again, I think you have to look at the long arc of time versus, you know, the next month. And it's much more clarifying when you think of it that way. Invidia hasn't traded all that well lately. What's that about, you think?

Look, I think one of the issues for Nvidia is that there is bottlenecks in the ecosystem that are beyond the GPU. So the bottlenecks are now memory. It's in the optical space. It's how to get information on and off chip onto the GPU. So really it's the bottleneck plays, whether it's storage memory optics, that are working. and Nvidia is no longer that bottleneck. So, look, it's incredibly cheap.

I think it will eventually work. But for now it doesn't. The microns of the world, you look at that, and the memory trade's gone crazy, obviously. And you think these stocks are still attractive here? I've been asking this week, especially to our panelists, thinking about our viewers, if you don't own the name yet, can you?

I think you have to just be patient. and wait. It will give you opportunities. I mean, I remember at the end of March, Micron was at $350 because there was a Google article about KV Cash and what they're going to do for memory. And the stock went from 500 to 350. Well, today it's at 900. And so you had to have the wherewithal to actually buy the stock when it pulled in instead of getting scared out of it. And I think that's the key in this market is understanding the essential technology. And so when there's fud in the market, you actually lean into it if you believe. So maybe this time is different in that respect. You look at moves like these charts, these parabolic moves would make many fearful that

there's no way I could buy into this now. It feels so late. What you suggest and what obviously the analysts suggest and what the earnings are proving out to be is that the runway feels like it's long for the earnings power that's justifying these moves in the first place. Right. And one more thing I I would like to highlight, especially for the entire AI supply chain, is we spent the last 20 years consolidating every aspect of this supply chain for semiconductors, semi-equipment optics. And so when you have basically one, two, or three players that address every single part of the supply chain and you get this kind of demand pole, this is what happens. You have shortages. You get pricing. you get margin improvement.

And that's what's happening everywhere, including for Micron. And so then the question is, what is the duration of the shortage period? And how fast can we add capacity throughout the supply chain? Let's finish on Nebius, because it came up, you know, the move that it had yesterday just reminded us of your call on this program. I suppose it was three months ago. It feels like it was longer than that. But nonetheless, what you've witnessed in that name,

How does that, you know, how does that shape your view moving forward for a stock that's already moved as much as it has? Again, I think if you look at the long arc of time, Nebius this year, you know, probably earns $3 to $4 billion in 2026. They have promised the market to have five gigawatts of capacity by 2030. If you assume $15 billion per gigawatt, they will make $75 billion in revenue at a, call it 50% EBITDA margin. That's $25 billion in EBITDA margin. The market count for the stock today is like $56 billion. It doesn't even account for the fact that they own Clickhouse. Or they own 30% of Clickhouse.

So I don't know. I mean, to me, as long as they're executing, and if you keep it. that vision and mind of where they're going, a company that's going to earn, you know, $40 billion in EBITDA or more, does it deserve to trade at that kind of valuation? How long have you owned it, remind us? Can you tell us that kind of stuff? Yeah, I think two years and a half years. Oh, you've learned for a long time. Okay, so you've captured all of this and then some. Well, it's good to catch up with you. Thanks for coming by. Good to see you, Scott. That's Anker Crawford from Alder. Let's welcome in our panel now.

CNBC contributor, Trivari, it's Adam Parker, Solis is Dan Greenhouse. Good to have you both with us. You know, it's another day, another parabolic move. It sounds like a broken record, and maybe people are getting tired of hearing it, but it's the tune that's going to keep playing, apparently. What's going on here? You know, it's funny. A few months ago, when the stocks were way lower, people were saying it's not trading on fundamentals, it's all, you know, kind of speculation, and now it's pretty clear that the market was right that they are trading at fundamentals. I mean, tech estimates are up about the same amount. The tech sector's up this year. The S&P's up about the same amount estimates are up this year. The worst performing sectors,

discretionary financials, estimates are down. Like, actually, the change in estimates in the fundamentals are pretty darn correlated years. Has it surprised you, the earnings power of what this appears to be? A little bit. I mean, I think the lack of earnings power in health care, surprise me a little. We've been recommending healthcare. Obviously, we're overweight tech. We like semis over software. That part has been less surprising. I think the question of tactically, if you get, if somebody besides Trump says the whore moose thing is solved, I think you will get a junk consumer trade because they are kind of, you know, going to, you know, suppressed and probably will benefit as well, you know, slowly comes down. So there could be some mini moves in there, but I still think the North Star

is, is compute works. What about what, what do you make of what Diamond said, Jamie? At the top of the program, we played you the sound. I view the market as exuberant, which I've seen this before, can go on for a long time. It's not bad. Earnings are up a bunch. It may be justified. What do you think? It's hard to argue that there is an exuberance, but I would echo a point I've made repeatedly

and we're discussing right now, which is the fundamentals are changing. And I remember changing for the positive, obviously. And I'm always reminded of the Facebook quarter from 2013, I think, at once. was when they figured out mobile. And the stock was up 30%. You were on air. I think I remember that too. The stock was up 30% and everyone was like, well, you know, we should wait and see. And the stock never looked back and has been higher ever since. And so not that that's exactly the same, but from an investment standpoint, if you have something in memory or storage, where you're going, and Adam can obviously correct me if you think

I'm wrong, where you're going from commodity cyclicality to long-term agreements with prepayments and price floors, et cetera, warranting a higher valuation, higher multiples, etc., etc., you have to, as an investor, you have to assess that regime change, and that's what appears to be happening. Can two things be true at the same time?

This can be fundamentally driven, and you can still be inflating a big bubble that's not going to end well on the other side? Definitely, definitely, and I think it's all timing. It is scary when you read about the double-long high-enix ETF and the DRAM ETF, the amount of flow is going in there. It does feel worrisome.

But that's gambling. That's not investing. Yeah, but I think most people don't care. You know, what's in your checking you out the beginning and the end, you know? I think the part that's probably a little squishy is we all know memory is a commodity in terms of pricing. And so once we do get demand growth and supply growths converging, all the excess, it'll be crushed on pricing. People are trying to figure out cheaper DRAMs.

etc. So, you know, all the advice we're giving is, okay, there are different kinds of AI revenue. You know, our advice has been let's be market weight of the memory complex, because we're not smart enough to time when gout, we're participating, but it's not helping or hurting us, but what other parts of the chain? So I agree with the bottleneck comments. We're trying to recommend that, and then we're trying to recommend other things that's working that's not super correlated to AI semis in case we get a pullback. The question, whether two things can be true at the same time. This can be fundamentally driven, but you can be inflating a giant bubble that's going to pop and it's not going to be pretty

when that happens. There are those who say, when you ask on the questions about correlation between now and the late 90s and people who use that analog, one of the first things they say is like, no, this, like, unlike then, is fundamentally driven. But we've just established that you can have a fundamentally driven and inflated bubble like what might be occurring in some of the more euphoric-looking moves. According to some who look at that and say, I don't know that even as fundamentally sound as the story is,

that this can go on much further to the degree that it has. So let's unpack that for a minute, because I'm one of those people who have bespoke also does a lot of what, just like, what is the 90s? Because that's, I think, the analog for today in terms of a large technology-driven investment. cycle, just from a performance standpoint to quantify what we're talking about, if we compare the release of CHAPT as the start of this rally to the Netscape IPO as the start of that

rally, we are at this moment in February 99, time-wise. The market was going up at about, the NASDAQ was going up at about a 27 or 26% annualized rate then through this moment. Today, through this moment, we're going up at a 206. percent annualized rate. So thus far, performance-wise, the NASDAQ is basically doing exactly what it did then. Mind you, there were plenty of calls for the market to be in a bubble then. What's important to underscore? Well, the most famous being Greenspans in 96, that's right, of irrational exuberance, which took another four years to play out. If you juxtapose that against the diamond exuberance and it's okay because it's earnings-driven, how do you reconcile

the two thoughts. The point I was going to make is while the performance is virtually at this point, virtually identical, the NASDAQ, or let's say the NDX at that point was trading at 60 times trailing earnings. Today you're at 30. Today we're, the NASDAQ, the NDX then was trading at something like 40, 42 times forward. Today we're like 25 times, not cheap, but the level of valuation excesses that we saw then, which were already building, widespread wise, are not really seen today.

I think that's an important differential. Now, that said, the Dell report is incredibly. You read through that conference call, you listen to that call. That's as good a sounding call as you can get. Demand from all verticals, from all geographies, AI servers, and connectivity, everything. You're in a huge investment cycle. And I think the problem we have is humans are anchored to familiarity and comfort. And when there is a regime change.

And PTSD. Also PTSD. There's not a lot of people on Wall Street. have that. The next major, you know, crisis is always the next 08. The next major, you know, euphoric moment or exuberant looking moment must be the next 99. And maybe it isn't. Maybe this is legitimate and justified. If you're saying, based on your experiences, where are we in the bubble? Isn't it close to the end? The answer is no way. Like, you want to run to the party still not go home. Based on prior performance, valuation,

We can go way higher. There could be a blow off top that's another 50, 75% higher on this. Because we're not, like, we've laid all the railroad track, but we haven't built all the rail cars. Look, only 9% of the top 3,000 U.S. equities are getting meaningful AI revenue today. Only 18% are actually talking about cost savings from AI productivity. So there's going to be a lot more earnings in front of us. I mean, Micron's a really interesting case study. We wasted a lot of time at Trivariad for searching this.

Two years ago, the sales day analysts thought they were going to do in 26 and 27, $2 billion in cumulative free cash flow. It looks like $150 billion now. Like the order of magnitude that these companies are earning relative to expectations is just, you know, is mind-boggling. So compute's going to grow way above GDP. You want exposure to that. A lot of that's in the tape, and it's in the tape in other sectors. So you got to have that and some other stuff that's not correlated.

So we're recommending, you know, a very diversified approach. So if you still want to be at the party, I mean, that's why I ask about the broadening. It sounds like you don't necessarily think it's worth trying to dance on the periphery. Like, stay in the middle of the dance floor. Yeah, the bottleneck parts have worked. I don't see why you can't own still Sienna and Corning. The numbers are going to come way up. I don't, you know, all that kind of stuff.

I do think what's weird about the market, I like that two things can be true. At one's thing, not that many stocks are outperforming the market, but the ones that are outperforming are outperforming by a lot, right? Only 40% of techs beating the S&P, 36 out of that 40s beating by 30% or more. So you've got to run diversified, so you're in the ones that work. Otherwise, if you're, you know, it's just too risky to not be involved. You know, real quick, I brought a chart. Last and quick. Okay, yeah.

I brought a chart. Before we get out of here, just to underscore that point of how much work tech is doing, there is a publicly traded ETF. ProShares has an ETF, the S&B 500, X Tech, which is this chart right here in orange, and the S&B 500 in blue. And for the last two months, as Micron's been up 90% and crowd strikes been up 90% or whatever the percentages are, the rest of the market, to Adam's point, has largely flatlined for two months.

Tech is doing an enormous amount of work right now. And so just to put a fine point on what you just said, it's really hard outside of tech to find names that are going to outperform the index. And a point Adam has made for years, dare I say now, is if you're a money, like we're a hedge fund. We're an absolute return for lack of a better word. But if you're a money manager, you've got to beat that index. And it's very hard to do it when, without overwading all of those names. If you're underweight tech, you can't. You're a mess.

All right, guys, good stuff. Have a good weekend. I like the conversation very much. And you as well. We are just getting started here on the bell. Up next, the AI arms race hits a new milestone. And where the money is flowing may tell the real story. Our Kate Rooney following that money along with venture capitalist Rick Heitzman.

They're at Post 9 next. Welcome back, Anthropic topping Open AI in valuation for the first time as those two companies race towards an IPO. Either way, the investment community is betting that both will be big winners. Kate Rooney following that money for us and joins us. It usually doesn't work out this way. Yes, Scott. We try and pick a winner in advance. That's right.

But this is like, okay, win, win, win. Win. There can be more than one winner, apparently. And that's kind of what the investment community, at least venture capital is telling us with this round. So a lot of crossover, as we mentioned, between these Anthropic Open Eye investors. In this latest round, it was a $65 billion finance.

He puts Anthropic at almost a trillion-dollar price tag, $965 billion dollar valuation. post money. So we did had reported that this round was in the works and there are some big name investors leading this one. You have Sequoia, Altimeter, Dragonier, notably led this round, but at the same time have invested in rival Open AI. Some of the hyperscalers also invested in this round was $15 billion from some of the big mega cap names. Amazon, for example, the $5 billion check into Anthropic at this point. The news also makes Anthropic the most valuable private AI company in the valley, topping Open AI for the first time. Some major highlights that

release too. The big one was Anthropics revenue run rate. Forty-seven billion dollars. When you look at the run rate, that was up from $30 billion just in April. Annual revenue, if you look at last year, for the entire year was about $10 billion. There's a lot of venture betting on all three of SpaceX, Open AI, and obviously Anthropic. And that is so unique as well. Yes, definitely. And one thing to point out, too, is the stage that these companies are at. The fact that they have gotten to the almost trillion dollar price tag investors I would talking to this morning and say you can almost compared to public companies. That it's less taboo to cross over and invest in both if you're going to be the late stage name. And I also have heard that Anthropic was looking for these long-only, long-term holders.

And Altimiter, as you know, Dragonere, they are sort of crossover funds at this point. They invest in both. And so this is a signal that this company is pre-IPO. I'm told fourth quarter could very well be when we see this company list. Open AI looks like it's gone first. But they are very much on deck to go out this year. All right. Great stuff. And it's great to have you here. On set, post nine. Now to the Star Venture Capitalist, first marks, Rick Heitzman. He is back with us.

Good to have you back. Hey. All right. So how are you thinking about this now? It seemed to be an open AI and kind of everybody else, it's like a year ago. Yeah. And man, Anthropic is like, holy moly, the valuation of revenue growth. No one has ever seen revenue growth like this.

This is the fastest growing company ever. And you think Open AI is doing well. They're growing 30 percent. year over year, even at that scale. But Anthropics growing over 30% quarter over quarter, making it the fastest growing company ever and making people even more excited than Open AI to go public, which then creates a race to get public,

and Open AI is trying to win that race. Explain to people who may not be as seasoned, why Anthropic feels like it has all this buzz, and it's been able to surpass Open in terms of evaluation. So Anthropic was early on the enterprise. So they're selling into enterprise customers, and the enterprise customers are seeing a real ROI on having that model in place, and they can't get enough of it.

So they continue to buy more and more, and they're using the model and getting real results. OpenAI obviously started on the consumer side with CHAPT, one of the fastest growing consumer things ever, but has not been as successful in the enterprise, and obviously that is propelled, anthropic, past OpenAI, and actually made OpenAI, therefore, need to run for the IPO gates faster. Yeah, I mean, OpenAI obviously sees it. They bounce SORA, which was, you know, another consumer-based thing that they had.

And it feels like they get it. They get how powerful and how advantageous it can be to really be geared towards the enterprise, right? Yeah, they called a Code Red. They said, hey, we're not doing all these other things. We're not doing SORA on video. We're not doing all these little widget things. Hey, the enterprise is where we're seeing a real R.R.O.Y. And we've talked about that for a long time.

Where enterprises see real R.R.I. and technology, they just keep buying and buying more. And you hear about token maxing at Facebook and META trying to get as many tokens as possible, trying to get this in people's hands because they're seeing a real R.O.Y. And Anthropic leaned into that at a time where OpenAI was trying to do too many things, and it just catapulted right past them. going to do in the public market. I think, you know, we've talked about before, do you need a big IPO, which creates the buzz around the public markets and kicks open the door, open the door

for a lot of other players. I think SpaceX is going to be that IPO in just a couple weeks. You know, they're obviously targeting June 12th, put that on the calendar, and all these other companies, and it can be companies from ORA, which is completely different than space on the wearable ring, who say, okay, now the water's warm, it's cool again to go public, and we're getting everybody set to go. Well, does anybody get sort of squeezed out in terms of demand?

Like, if you're coming to market with a SpaceX, an open and an anthropic, what does it mean for everybody else, even in Aura or a data bricks or whomever else has designs on being a publicly traded company? Is there only so much demand to go around? The bankers are saying there's plenty of demand, and these are going to be some of the biggest IPOs ever. SpaceX could be $75 billion. The Anthropic Round was one of the biggest private rounds ever. The $65 billion private financing would have been one of the biggest IPOs ever.

And in fact, it is kind of an IPO with a lot of the buyers, as we just heard from Kate, that those are buyers who traditionally bought an IPO. Because the public markets were closed, the private markets have kind of filled that gap with the long-only players, into the market, but there's still a belief that there's a plenty of demand to go around for both the AI players and non-AI players in the public markets. Some are suggesting you could have, you know, ATMs of the mega caps used in some respects to be the funders of money going in here. Do you buy that? Is that real or not really?

I think you're seeing across the board, I talk to my institutional investors, you talk to retail investors. Everybody wants to participate in this, in this, in this. AI mega trend. And we're at the beginning of it. So you're seeing a lot of these other companies which have traded up as derivatives of this trend. But the pure plays, the open AIs, and Anthropics is what people are really waiting for. And they believe it's still early in this mega trend. All right. Always good to hear from you, Rick. Thank you. Rick Heitzman at first mark. Back here post nine with us still ahead. Big money on the pitch. CNBC's exclusive soccer

valuation list just dropped. We'll tell you which global club took the top spot. Plus, we're counting down to the World Cup with the CEO for the New York, New Jersey host committee. Alex Lazary, he'll be here at Post 9 next. Back on the bell with the World Cup, less than two weeks away, CNBC revealing today its latest team valuations list, this time in soccer. The average club now worth $2.6 billion, with Real Madrid earning the top spot at $7.5 billion. Barcelona next at 6.4, followed by publicly traded Manchester United at 6.3. check out the full list right now on cnbc.com slash sport and speaking of the world cup eight matches taking place here in the new york area alex lazery is the CEO for the new york

new jersey host committee joins us once again at post nine it's nice to have you back thank we've we checked in with you periodically over this this time and here we are can you believe we're right on the cusp of this incredible event two weeks away from the uh from the start of the world Cup, the world's biggest sporting event, going to be right here in America. We've got eight matches, including the finals right here in New York, New Jersey. We couldn't be more thrilled about what we're going, the show we're going to put on for the rest of the world. When you sat down, you said, I can't wait for people to start, you know, feeling and focusing on some of the fun. Are you implying that there's, because there have been a lot of negative stories that have

been floating around about this event, from, you know, unbooked hotel rooms to tickets that are left unsold? How are you thinking about all that? Well, in our, We're seeing extremely strong demand for tickets. We're almost sold out of all of our group stage games. We've got the biggest and brightest stars that are going to be coming here, and they're going to be on the biggest stage right here in New York, New Jersey. I think what we really want are we're just excited for the fans to get here. We want to kind of get out of the planning stage and into the execution

and letting the fans be here come to our free fan fest all across New York and New Jersey, coming to the games. This is going to be one of the most exciting summers that we've ever had in this region. Do you think ticket prices were too high from the outset? I mean, you do have the lawsuits now from the New York and New Jersey attorneys general. Against, not regarding your organization. Let's just make that clear. Not named and not a focus in any way.

But was this messed up from the beginning that ticket prices were just too high and it turned people off or excluded them based on the price? And look, the host committee has no say in how ticket prices are set, but what I can say is that in our region, and I can't speak to any others, But in our region, we've seen extremely strong demand. All of our group stage games are close to sold out right now. So, you know, from our perspective, the market has kind of said that the demand for our games are extremely strong. What our job has been, though, is how do we make this World Cup accessible and affordable to all fans,

whether you're inside or outside the stadium? And that's why working with the mayor, we've got our Five Borough Fan Fest all across New York City, free headlining at the U.S. Tennis Center and Rock Center with the Governor's Sheriff. in all across New Jersey, 34 watch parties, including our Jersey fan hub at Sports Illustrated Stadium. So a lot of action that's going to be all around the region, whether you're going to be inside or outside the stadium. You guys did have a say, though, in the transportation issue, which was another sort of hot button issue, especially here in the New York area, right? It was like, it was going to be 150 bucks to take a bus from Penn State, a train from Penn Station

to MetLife. Now it's going to be 100. People looked at that and were like, this is, this is ridiculous. Like, how am I going to be able to enjoy this sport I love and that Alex wants all of us to come out and wrap our arms around? I think there's a couple things. I mean, first of all, we are trying to put together a transit first event. There are significant security concerns for an event like this. These mega events are becoming even more and more of a security risk. So the security costs for these type of events have gone up exponentially. But when you look at us, at our event, you can either take New Jersey Transit, which we're expecting to move about 40,000 customers from to MedLife Stadium.

Or you can take the host committee bus shuttle. We partnered with Governor Hockel to ensure that we've got a $20 round-trip bus ticket. It was 80, wasn't it? And now it's $20 to be able to go round-trip from utilizing some of our best school buses to be able to get people there. So it'll be a fun, uniquely New York, New Jersey way to be able to get there. But also what we want is the experience, whether inside or outside the stadium, to be accessible and affordable. And we want our experiences outside the stadium to rival what's happening inside.

And so for us, what we wanted to do is we put together these fan fest all across the region. They're going to be free for fans. And we're expecting them, the people inside the stadium, to have FOMO for all the events that are going to be happening outside. Every host committee, I'm assuming, it's kind of obvious, wants the U.S. team to be part of their region. When you don't have that at the beginning of the tournament, how do you approach that? Do you feel like you've got to make up, you've got to create buzz about the event to make people feel like the draw is just as good, even though you're not going to see our boys here. You're still going to see some incredible soccer with some of the greatest teams in the world. I think Brazil's here, right?

We have Brazil, Morocco, Germany, we've got England, we've got Ecuador. I mean, I think what's awesome about, and we've got France, Senegal, Norway, one of the best strikers in the world. What makes this region so unique is the diversity in diabetes. diaspros that are here already. Yeah, for sure. And so you're going to be having games where, you know, Ecuador might feel like a home game for them because of the diaspora that's here. So that's what makes our region so unique.

I think that's what makes me so excited about this World Cup is you're going to have great watch parties to watch our boys playing on the West Coast. Hopefully we get them here for the final. But plenty of people and fans are excited to see Morocco, Senegal, Brazil, Germany. I mean, that's why our games are all pretty much sold out because of the excitement for all the teams that are coming here. Yeah, that is true. The great part about this city, the spirited fan base is that you can see anywhere in Manhattan on a, you know, and there's a friendly going on packed with whatever fans from whatever place. Yeah, I mean, I went to the South Korea-US gay game, the friendly that happened a few months ago, you know, felt like a home game for South Korea. So that's kind of one of, I think, the benefits of this region is the diversity.

and all the different ethnicities that are here. All right. Best of luck. We'll certainly be watching. That's Alex Lazzery, joining us here at Post 9. Up next, we track the biggest movers into the clothes today. Christina Ports and Nevelos is standing by with that. Hi, there.

Hi, Scott. Well, Cloud Demand sent one storage name soaring to highs not seen since the early 2000s, while two retailers went in opposite directions, one with a sales cut, the other with a fashion miss. We'll have those details next. All right, we're close to 10. from the closing bell, back to Christina now for the stocks that she is watching. What's on the top of your list?

We're going to start with net app shares because they're soaring right now, dare I say, even into the clouds up 24% after reported better than expected results as well as guidance. It comes as to the company benefits from the jump in data storage demand from AI. What else? And that's why you're seeing shares hit their highest levels going all the way back to October of 2000. In the meantime, American Eagle shares are, let's say, flying south. How many puns can I put in this? Amid falling revenue at its namesake brand, the company is saying it's seeking to reignite

its women's business and strengthen product execution as well as positioning. And so that's why shares are down almost 13% right now. Last but not least, gap shares hanging on by a thread after the retailer cut its full year sales forecast, citing weaker than expected performance, specifically at Old Navy. The company said it's summer and spring assortment just failed to resonate. with shoppers. For more, though, on that corner, tune into Mad Money at 6 p.m. Eastern Time for Jim Kramer's exclusive interview with CEO Richard Dickinson. Okay. Good stuff, Christina. Thanks so much. We're getting some headlines from Treasury Secretary

Scott Besant that we want you to know about. I'll go to Morgan Brennan. She's been out in California today covering an event where the Treasury Secretary just made some pretty interesting remarks. Morgan? Hey, Scott, that's right. I'm here at the Reagan National Economic Forum where Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent just delivered the keynote address over lunch, which just ended a few moments ago, among some of the headlines that have come out of his speech, making some comments here about the Fed and basically saying that 100% approve of the Fed getting rid of forward guidance, also saying that we're going to get back to basics on accountability and that I think we are going to see more focus. and credibility. He was asked about maintaining the dollar is reserved currency, says nothing has changed. On Iran, asked about the blockade on Iran, saying anything that is taken off will be taken off very slowly. And also said that the U.S. has seized a billion dollars in Iranian crypto assets.

Also mentioning that he thinks rates peaked the day before Warsh was sworn in. And a number of other things here, but those are really the takeaways, particularly those comments, a week into Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh, his new tenure here at the Fed. Yeah, meeting just a couple or so weeks away from now, the new Kevin Warsh Fed. Morgan, thank you so much for bringing us those headlines. That's Morgan Brennan out in California for us. Coming up next, a big week ahead for software. What matters most to investors?

We'll tell you in the market zone, which is next. Now in the closing bell market zone, Mike Santoli and Morgan Stanley's Andrew Slimin are here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. plus we're pushing ahead to some key earnings next week. Oliver Renick is live at Cibo Global Markets in Chicago with a look at Broadcom. Cima Modi has the software set up for us. Michael, I'll begin with you. Going to be another record close across the board. It will. So obviously the prevailing leadership theme and that group of stocks remains kind of unchallenged, undisturbed, supported by all the upward earnings revision. So that happy story pretty much remains intact. That said, last few days, it's very clear some of the action is getting

very manic and desperate at grabbing at those companies that maybe had not been fully exploited as beneficiaries of this trend. So we see tens of billions of dollars in market cap being piled onto Snowflake and Dell and successive stocks like that and around the edges. I think you just have to be aware that nothing happens in a straight line. And I think the big question is, are we just going to be doing for one of those cooling off periods, rotation, perfectly benign, you know, VIX stays low, or is it going to be a little bit more, you know, jumpy and a little more treacherous. Who knows? And obviously nothing says you can't go further from here to the upside. But I do think it's time to be alert to those possibilities. Okay, and we will. We'll see you at the

top of the hour in OT in less than five minutes with Melissa Lee. That's Mike Santoli. Oliver, tell us more about what you're seeing in Broadcom ahead of next week. Yeah, Scott, it might sound crazy that a stock up 25% year-to-date and 80% the past 52 weeks is lagging. But that's the reality with Broadcom who's trailing the semiconductor sector, which is up 60%. percent and 145 percent over those same time periods. What's fun as this creates a rare catch-up possibility in a group that's been scorching hot, and Options traders seem to be on board with the idea. Now, remember, Options flows in the semiconductor ETF have been skewing quite bearish, and that's still true with eight times more puts in SMH than calls today and more pots bought

than sold. But it's the exact opposite in Broadcom, where Bulls are chasing. Calls outpaced puts more than 2 to 1 in Broadcom today, and 80% of the roughly half a billion in options premium traded today was tied to calls. One standout trader spent over $1 million buying 500 of the 480 strike calls expiring July 17th, a wager that pays off if the stock rallies another 15% from here, Scott. Oliver, Oliver, thank you very much for that. That is Oliver Renick. Big week already for Seema in software. one ahead. Who's next week? All right, Scott. Well, it has been a notable rally so far in software and cloud-related names. And the analysts we spoke to today really pin it back to Snowflake.

Speaking of Snowflake, it holds its Product Summit early next week where investors will be keen to hear from CEOs, Sreyser Ramoswami, following the company's blowout earnings report and key products that help the company become a stronger partner to the likes of OpenAI. And then Paula Alto Networks in Crowdstrike reporting earnings on Tuesday and Wednesday. Following IBM's cyber offering, the street will want an update on. how these two biggest names in security are positioned amid ongoing concerns around mythos. By the way, Scott, the IGV is now outperforming the SMH ETF in May up about 20% software as a whole on pace for its seventh straight winning week.

Wow, great stat. Thanks, Seema. Appreciate that. Seema Modi. Andrew, we're going to have a record closed. Dow's tugging 51K as we speak. What are your thoughts on this market here? Well, on the surface, Scott, look, I think earnings justify it. Their earnings revisions have been unbelievably strong. Granted, it's coming in, you know, obviously A of beneficiaries is a key one, but it's across the board. And if you draw a line at the end of the year, that validates a market that's higher. But I agree with Mike that, look, it's gotten narrow, but it's not just the AI beneficiaries that scare me. It is these unprocable, very speculative tech stocks.

They're the ones that did the best in May. They're the ones that have done the best quarter to date. And that is a sign of a very kind of bubbly market. We're due to cooling off or, you know, it's going to be 2021. So, I mean, people are wondering whether they should keep riding this tech winning streak. It sounds like you're getting a little hesitant to recommend people do that. Well, look, there's two questions about. One is, does valuation justify many of these chip stocks?

And I think yes. And look, I was around the late 90s, and I had terrible gut feeling, which is, do you chase what's working and just turn a blind eye to valuation? Or do you be responsible to miss out? That's not the case today. As Adam said earlier on your show, the earnings estimates for many of these companies are up. just as much as the stocks are. And so I think that's easier to get involved in those stocks. Now, having said that, the momentum is so strong in these stocks right now

that a lot of people are buying just because of going up. And when momentum gets correlated, it usually means an unwind is coming in the near future. All right. We'll see what happens. Andrew, thank you very much. Andrew Slimman of Morgan Stanley, because the bell is going to ring out this week with even more closing highs. Now is going to get its close above 51,000.

Sure looks like it may have to settle a bit, but it looks like well enough above that level to do just that. S&P and NASDAQ as well. Another good day for tech. I'll see you on the other side of the weekend into overtime.