Closing Bell - Closing Bell 5/8/26

Episode Date: May 8, 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, Jon Fortt, Morgan Brennan 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.

Oh, Kelly, thanks so much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wagner live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker break hour begins with the S&P and the NASDAQ at record highs. Yet again, this relentless AI trade continuing to run on chips, software, the mega caps all driving the NASDAQ higher yet again today. We're going to have more on that in just a moment. I do want to show you the broader scorecard with 60 to go in regulation, the Dow going negative in the last few moments. But really, this. The story's been the S&P and the NASDAQ. It's really a tech story yet again today. Elsewhere, staples and materials, they're in the green as well as we get set to head for the weekend. Some gains there. We do begin with our talk of the tape. What else? Chips gone wild or better put chips going wild because they continue to do just that.

Micron shares go meme-like and surge again. So is that a sign of froth or just how powerful and durable this AI rally truce? truly is. Let's begin there with our Christina, parts of nevolo. You watch these stocks every day, I'm sure, with the same amazement as everybody else. If only we could invest in these individual names, we'd be winning. But take your pick in these semiconductor names. This has been a broad -based chip rally to your point, Scott, with every single name in the SMH ETF up year-to-date. And the move really accelerated off that March 30th low. Micron, you mentioned, but also AMD, have more than doubled since then, with Micro now on track for its best weekly gains since

2008 and briefly actually pushing its market cap above $800 billion today. And Qualcomm's 70% rally to, too, for March lows. We're tied to its push into data center chips and with the stock jumping on reports that shipping custom silicon to a major hyperscaler later this year. But the standout story here is Intel. Shares are up nearly 200, 190% from that low, driven by a wave of headlines around potential foundry customers, names like Nvidia, TerraFab, and even speculation around Apple. None of it confirmed today, but clearly enough to send the stock to an all-time high just today. And then lastly, there's Nvidia.

Also, hitting an intraday record today, though interestingly, it's only up about 28% since that March low, so lagging some of the higher beta names in this rally, Scott. All right, good look for us because there are a lot of stocks going up quite a bit. Christina, thanks, Christina, parts of nevelas. Now to our panel. Solace's Dan Greenhouse, Robin Hood's Stephanie Gild. Both are here at Post Night. It's good to have you here.

Dan, I mean, the kind of moves that we are seeing in a Micron or an Intel, those used to, like on a daily basis, used to be because of something special. They go up this much. Now it's just another day. Yeah, it's really remarkable what's been going on here. But admittedly, we've been talking about this for weeks and months and quarters now. the idea that the AI story was not just the main chips. It's not just brought on VINVITA. It's broader than that.

It's G.E. Vranova. It's Vistra. It's Verte, et cetera. And I brought a table of, if we can throw it up on the screen, if someone, anyone was listening to what I'm saying, of five companies that I think most viewers have probably never heard of, that admittedly, before we have a viral moment, there we go. Before we have a viral moment, and you ask me what they do, and I have to lie and tell you my microphone isn't working.

I don't know what any of these companies do, but I know that they are AI-related, semi-cap equipment, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, meaningful-sized companies, $16 billion for DigitalOcean, $70 billion for Lumentum, which we've mentioned occasionally. Look at those year-to-date performances. Those moves have all come, basically year-to-date or since the fourth quarter of last year. So what I'm getting at is we've moved beyond even the AI derivatives that I've been talking about, like GEVernova, et cetera, into the derivatives of the derivatives.

And I think that's really, if you're going to say, hey, Dan, are you starting to get worried, if you will? When names that I've never heard of are moving to this degree, maybe you should start paying a little bit more. Okay, point well taken. Is that a warning sign for you? I mean, I like some of the names that are kind of winning, the picks and shovels besides the large cap chips. So I don't know if it's so much a warning sign is that these are names that are a little harder to discover. And you need to kind of do a decent amount of homework to understand what's. they do. And, you know, you can see the ones like Lumenum, but actually today is not everything

is up. Like, coherent is a competitor of Lumentum, and that's actually down today post-earnings. So you're actually seeing like this feels more like a large-cap hardware rally right now, at least the last couple of weeks. Are we in a healthy market? How would you answer that? Well, I guess it depends on how you define healthy. That's why I ask it. I just ask it straight up. I think it's going to the head, I think it's pretty healthy. I mean, tech is, doing a lot of the heavy lifting here. There's no doubt about that. But there's still a broad, listen, eight sectors or seven sectors are beating the index this year. So it's not just tech and comm services. The earning story we've talked about ad nauseum, but it bears

repeating. The S&P, X tech and XCOM services was going to have somewhere in the mid-single digits worth of earnings growth this year. Now you're talking mid-teens. So call it instead of 5%, 15%. That's X-Tech, X-Com services. So earnings have been pretty good. Again, we know that. Performance has been pretty good. It's not just tech. It's not just energy. There are some other sectors doing well. And on the M&A side of things, you have Sirius and I heart, you've got some M&A in the gaming space. IPOs have been okay. So I think that, listen, the financing markets are open right now. The Federal Reserve is for now not hiking rates. And I think people are comfortable with the idea that the economy is doing okay. And we've alluded to this before. If not for what was going on in Iran, while the economy is not doing phenomenal, we might be talking about a boom, if you will.

in the broader stock market, not, is this healthy? Well, on that note, it's like the equal weight is getting blown out by the S&P, because this has been a market cap story. The stories this week about five stocks, essentially, and they're among the MAG 7 are accounting for like half of the S&P. But that's how big, because they're so big. Yeah, well, they can continue to grow bigger. That's part of the point, too.

Sure. But I think there's also been, like, profit taking in some of the mid- and small-cap names that were running before. Like, you saw Bloom Energy, kind of blow up yesterday. That leads in the small cap index. That's why small cap was down yesterday and large caps were up. So I do think there's like a little bit of a mini rotation happening where everyone just decided to buy chips this week, or maybe it was last week. But that's why you're seeing. I think the NASDAQ is beating the SMP since I think

it's April 6 by 7%, which is a meaningful difference and they aren't usually that far apart. I mean, we're in a how long can it last kind of market, right? We're having that conversation. Well, we're always in the how long can it live? Yeah, but this feels like everybody is thinking about, man, this is incredible. I've never seen anything like this, or if I have, it harkens back to the period that people don't want it to be rhyming with. Well, hold on. 2013 was a relentlessly higher market. I think 2017 was relentlessly higher as well.

So we've seen a more. With like a handful of stocks that are leading the way, and that was different. But getting back to the math, they're so big, mathematically, they are going to. When we say, well, two stocks are 50% of the gains, five stocks are 40% of the income. So, I mean, mathematically, they're going to be doing the heavy lifting no matter what. But I will say, we've talked about this before, but it bears repeating as we compare this to the 90s. If we just use Chatchip T Nove 22 compared to Netscape Aug 95. We've done this before, but let's do it again.

Aug 95, the market rally didn't end until, let's say, the end of 2000. That's four and a half years. again, this is not how it works, but let's have some fun. No, 22 is when Chats GPT came out. That puts, if you were the last duration-wise, equivalent to what happened last time, well into 2027, four and a half years plus a little bit. Which is why Paul Tudor Jones, who was on Squawk Box yesterday morning. This may be the analysis he did.

Says, well, I think it's the analog that everybody kind of has in their mind, that he suggests, well, you could have another year or two. The point is that even those who look at these remarkable gains don't think the runway ends next week. No, I mean. But I do think you have something a little bit unique here and that you have fiscal policy that is supporting some of the, like, market that is not tech,

that is supporting the industrial sector and the energy sector. I do think the one thing that, you know, I just came back from Milken, and the one thing that people were worried about was the energy sector and the impact of commodity prices. And it feels like the market is completely ignoring it still. And that's the one part I'm worried about. Don't you think that the market is kind of just ignoring anything

because it feels like anything else is just noise. The wars noise, oil prices are noise, interest rates are noise. The Fed may hike noise. That's all noise to people who are bullish on this AI story. For the crowd that says nothing ever happened. I don't know if I would call it noise. I think it's said another way. The AI story is so dominant.

It's relegating everything else to a distance, second, and third. Even look, like, so RBC lifts their target to 7,900 on the optimism around AI. I said on halftime earlier that, like, even the technicians who love to find anything to pick at or say, God, this is so ridiculously overbought, it's going to, it's in major danger of rolling over. Mark Newton at Fundstra. It says the equity trends remain technically constructive on price. holding above these steep uptrends, and until you get a break in price from trend, it's not going to, it doesn't pay to focus on how much of a breakdown you could have just yet.

This is a ride the train, kind of a market, until it crashes into something. I don't know what it is. I do think margins could be impacted, and I don't think we've necessarily seen that yet. Like you have seen people who are companies, I should say, that have taken their earnings and said, like, we're raising them. And the market hasn't like that. There, you know, like there has been some companies where expectations they got higher. But I do think that the cost from commodities has not been seen in any of the expectations.

And you saw, like, the New York supply stress chain index. I think that's what New York Fed's survey. It's at the same level as it was in July of 2022. And that's like, that's, again, that's the one part that I think you have to watch really closely. I'll push back on that for a second and just say, yes, obviously. But for most companies, labor costs are going to matter much more than commodity costs. And so while obviously one may beget the other, fairly healthy wage growth in the low single digits doesn't concern me. If you start to see commodity costs bleed through into wage demands, which is harder today with lower unionization rates compared to, say, the 70s.

But that's where I would pivot and say that would be. But a lot of the inputs from the energy sector like helium go into chips, right? And then you also have the fact that if costs for the everyday person is going up, then maybe they're not feeling so wealthy. And then you start to see some other things roll over. Well, cost has been going up, and people don't feel great right now. All the sentiment surveys bear this out. Well, top of the cave sounds feels great. They're looking at their stock market returns and where they're position and they're feeling good.

For those that invest. I don't know, man. What? I listen to all these companies. Who's telling me, yeah, the lower-end consumer wingstop gave me a little bit of a warning. but most companies are telling me. No, McDonald's wasn't good. You also just had a wave of out, you know, layoffs that were just announced in last week.

Nah, from who, block? For more than that. Famous last, famous last words. We'll see you guys soon. Thanks for being here, Stephanie and Dan. All right. Well, Kevin Simpson is playing right into the tech momentum that we are talking about quite literally. He's got some new moves, and that's why you see his face on the camera.

So tell us what you've done in these chip stocks of yours. I mean, what a week, Scott. You covered trade school today at half time, and the conversation was, what do you do? I mean, we look at some of these companies, Intel. It's up over 200% year-to-date. Micron, up over 150%. Heck, it's up 100% in about a month. So the question to the trader, to the investor is, like, what do we do here?

When do we sell? A second ago, you said it works and it runs, and the train keeps going until it crashes. And I'm not suggesting or forecasting a crash, but sound money management, fiscal responsive. These are things that I try to bring to the table as a professional money manager. And what we've done this week is we've written covered calls on a portion of our Intel and a portion of our micron. And Intel is a stock that you and I've talked about for the past two weeks. And we've benefited so much by sitting on the sideline, watching this thing run.

We bought it for $40 back in December and it's tripled. So earlier this week when it was training at 110, granted, it's 125 now. we wrote a 121 call and brought in about $3.5.00. Now, already, we've blown through that, so it's a question of, you know, do we take profits here and feel good about it? Do we have sellers' remorse if it gets called away? And to me, it's about just really position sizing here. So if we lose half of our intel here after a triple, we're still sitting on half of it. Micron, in a very similar fashion, we covered a third of it. Scott, literally, this was yesterday. We wrote a 660 call. We brought in over $32. Stocks up over $740 now. So we're effectively out of those shares around $693, $700,

and look where it's gone since then. And the cap are on this whole trade, both of them, they expire in one week. So for us, it's looking at this, and someone way smarter than me once said, you never lose money taking a profit. So if we lose a third of it at 700, if we lose half of our intel around 124, we've got a lot of dry powder, we're still riding the wave, but we're not exposing ourselves entirely 100% to the risk of the market. I love it. Love hearing from you, too, on these trades. Kevin, thank you very much. That's Kevin Simpson. How about Apple today hitting a new high in its own right? Wed Bush is Dan Ives. He's here at Post 9 because he just raised his price target on the stock

to a street high $400. That's why you've come by up from 350. What's got you even more bullish about a name? You're pretty bullish always on. Sure. But I think it's the setup here. I mean, if you look from an iPhone perspective, services, now obviously the baton's been handled to turn us, but it's about AI. I mean, I think when we go to WWDC... One month from today, by the way, we're going to be live there. You'll be with us on site as for our annual trip for that event. Yeah, and I think to some extent, now the golden age begins in Cupertino, because it's my view from a Gemini perspective in terms of what they're going to announce from partnership. But it really starts what's going to be the foundation for consumers.

They're going to be using AI when it comes from an iPhone perspective. This is going to be the consumer AI revolution, what ultimately will be subscription services, apps. And as they get a piece of the pie, that's going to be an incremental, $10, $12, $15 billion annually on the services side. I think this finally starts now the AI chapter at Apple. You don't feel like you need to actually see some results before you do something like bump your price target up by 50 bucks? I mean, the stock's already had a nice run as well. Why not sit back and wait to see if they deliver on all of these things with all the superlatives that you deliver? It's a great question.

If I look at this next iOS and everything from a developer perspective that looks like it's going to be in there, this is finally it. In terms of Apple intelligence, Siri AI, they're now going to have the ability, whether it's Gemini, whether it's ChatGBT, whether it's Claude. This will now be the foundational piece. it's very important because I think when investors are underestimating is this will now start will be an AI enabled device probably in 2007 but they're gonna that Apple will be they're essentially going to be thing about them like on this highway they're going to be the toll collector for consumers on AI okay so I want to talk about meta before I let you go

because we've been doing segments on the fact and there was a hurt on the street article this week that I thought set the argument up pretty, pretty well. You've got a stock, I think it's like 18 times. Is that an opportunity or is it a warning sign? And I think you could fill both of those answers out almost equally. The market doesn't seem to be convinced that that stock is an opportunity so much as there's now risk that you need to keep your eye on. How would you address why meta from the March Lowe certainly has underperformed these other names? I think it just comes down to like the cap-x that they're spending, you haven't seen it yet. And if you look at this last

call, it was the most underwhelming in terms of Mag 7. But it speaks to my view, like, they're making the right investments. Because the reality is for them to monetize on the advertising side, the billions of users, it's what they need to do. But look, the next few quarters, they need to show it. Because when you look at Google, when you look at Amazon, when you look at a lot of the other big tech players, everything in semis, as a portfolio right now, as a manager, you want to invest in the names that are showing it. Meta's not shown up. We're still strong believers, you know, in terms of where I believe they'll be able to turn this right. Well, I mean, they obviously, look, Jensen Wong told me straight up before the Super Bowl, nobody does AI better than meta. I think

people would essentially agree with that as related to the advertising business, right? But they, not to call them a one-trick pony, because they obviously have other businesses. but they don't have cloud. That was one of the focuses of this story, right? Amazon's got cloud. Google's got cloud. Microsoft's got cloud. Meta doesn't have cloud.

But look, you could say, like, look at Oracle. They're transforming themselves into a hyperscale. But it takes a lot of money to actually do that. I think when it comes down to meta, call them a one-trick pony, but you have billions of users they're going to monetize. When it comes to- user growth is slowing, right? Sequentially.

Sequential. Haven't seen that. in forever. That's not a problem? It was a problem this quarter, but I believe the next few quarters, I think it's a one-off. I do not think subscriber growth stops here. I think they're going to be able to actually accelerate that, start to monetize AI spending, and then when it comes from a cap-ex perspective, actually maybe soften that a bit as we go in the second half of the year.

As you execute, but then it goes back to a year ago, the narrative on alphabet, no one went on that. It will look how negative it was. They proved it and look where they are today. So when Meadow was spending all this money in the metaverse a few years ago, you didn't have a problem with it then, right? You were supportive of it, and then they had to pivot because the stock went into the toilet. And then they pivoted, and then the stock rebounded. And now here we have a stock with serious questions about it,

but you're justifying the spending again. Well, you justified it the last time. Yeah. But that was also the view that Zuckerberg was going to be able to turn around, the efficiency star to come and the pivot from Metaverse to AI was obviously that was the smart strategy they made. I just, it keeps coming down to no different

than our bullishness in Apple. I look at install base. I look at opportunity to monetize. There could definitely be, look, there could be flies in the ointment in terms of quarters, but I'm a better on meta that they're going to be able to turn this around.

I view it as an opportunity, just like I viewed Alphabet as an opportunity the year. And just like me and you have talked for many times with Apple, we've gone through ebbs and flows. Many thought Apple's best days are behind it. But I believe we now go into a golden Asian Cooper Tina. Okay. We'll leave it there. Dan, thank you. Great. Thanks. That's Dan Ives. We'll see you soon. As we said, he'll be with us out in Cooper Tina for WWDC a month from now. Let's send it now to Christina Partsenablos once again because she's got to look at the biggest mover movers into the close. Hi there. It's Friday. It's okay. Rocket Lab announced an

agreement with a confidential customer yesterday, sending its backlog to a record $2.2.2 billion. The rocket manufacturer also gave strong second quarter guidance just yesterday and announced it will acquire space robotics firm MoTV space systems for an undisclosed sum. Shares are up almost 31%. Software logistics company, JFrog, is another big winner today after beating estimates and raising its outlook on the back of strong cloud revenue growth up about 43% year-over-year. management sent on the call that the security business is also growing as the number of supply chain attacks actually increases. Shares up 23%. And weaker current quarter profit guidance is weighing on toast as it looks to expand its AI buildout.

The consumer payments platform did raise its full year guidance, but that was also still below estimates just at the midpoint. Toast shares are on pace for their worst days since 2023 down about 15%. Scott? Apparently when you put names and movers together. together, you get neighbors. That's where that came from. It is Friday, but thank you for understanding. Christina Ports and have a lot. Everyone understands. We're just getting started. Up next, once allies in the AI arms race, now Musk and Altman, well, they're in week two of their legal face off. We have the latest from that courtroom showdown. We'll do it next. Plus,

we're sitting down for a butcher's feast today with famed Michelin-starred restaurateur Simon Kim. Everybody's trying to get a table at Coat, and now they have another one here in New York City. We'll talk about this growing empire coming up. All right, welcome back to closing bell. Week two of the Altman Musk trial wrapping up. Musk helped start Open AI and alleges he was tricked by executives when they pivoted to a for-profit. We have some new details about Sam Altman's leadership style and the personal wealth of some of the key players in this story. K. Rooney joining us now with more intrigue. from the courtroom. Hi, there. Hi, Scott. So that was some of the details that came out this

week. We had Greg Brockman taking the stand earlier in the week. He is opening eyes president and one of the co-founders. His stake, we found out, it's worth about $30 billion, despite not donating to that original nonprofit lawyers for Elon Musk grilled him about his personal wealth, his ambition, including a journal entry that was in discovery asking, financially, what will it take, what will take me, rather, to $1 billion? Musk's lawyers have tried to frame that as a motive, to turn Open AI into a for-profit. But Open Eye on the other side has said they needed to raise money because, as we know, this is so expensive to run this technology.

It just did not work as a nonprofit. And they say at certain points, Musk actually supported that decision, especially early on. Sam Altman's ability to lead Open AI has been a key factor and debate in this case in the courtroom. One of the remedies that Musk is actually seeking is to remove Altman from leadership. Yvonne Zillis take the stand as well.

Close advisor of Musk. She testified that he actually offered Sam Altman, a board seat at Tesla, indicating that Musk did have faith in Altman at certain points and then tried to poach talent from OpenAI, which does contradict some of what Musk had said earlier on the stand. Other testimony included Mira Murati. She was the CTO of OpenAI, called his leadership into question, Altman's leadership into question, saying that he did undermine her and others at certain points. One interesting detail we did get during one of the testimonies was the management upheaval when that was happening, OpenAIs Board

apparently considered merging Anthropic and OpenAI and would make Dario Amade, the CEO of both of those companies that of course did not go through, but it does come at a time when Altman is really trying to win the trust of Wall Street as this company, from what we're hearing, is preparing to go public. We are expecting to get Sam Altman, as well as Microsoft CEO Satin Della, testifying next week and then closing arguments as well. Scott, back to you.

Wow, that's such an interesting nugget that came out about Anthropical. and Amaday. I mean, there are people who now, in the irony, of course, is that they feel like Anthropic has just raced past Open AI and as these companies prepare to go public. Can you imagine the AI monopoly we would have, Scott, if that did actually happen. And also if Anthropic was not able to win that slice of the enterprise business and grow as it has, if we've seen, you know, they said, Dariamide said this week, ADX in terms of their growth. So if you didn't have, you know, the competition in this space, it would like. look completely different than it does today. And obviously that path did not go through and they're now rivals.

It's just fascinating. More drama starting on Monday, I suppose, and you'll bring it to us. Kate, thank you. That's Kate Rooney. Joining us with the latest on that still developing story. Coming up from Michelin Star barbecue to the hottest table in Manhattan, restaurateur Simon Kim. He's built an empire and he's joining me right here at Post 9.

We'll talk all things consumer, why he's calling his latest. venture, his Sistine Chapel. He's here when we come back. All right, welcome back. It's not often that a restaurateur refers to their latest project as their professional masterpiece, but that's exactly what Simon Kim calls his most ambitious project to date. The new coat, Korean steakhouse in Midtown Manhattan, and trio of high-end bars took years and many millions of dollars to build. It recently opened inside 550 Madison Avenue. Simon Kim is the founder and CEO of gracious hospitality management. He is here at Post 9. Welcome. Thank you, Scott. Such a pleasure to be here.

So your tables are the envy of so many who work down in this way. And you've called this new project, as I referred to, your Sistine Chapel. That's right. What'd you mean? I mean, basically, as a restaurateur and as an immigrant New Yorker, I work really hard, really, really hard in our business to kind of accumulate a lot of knowledge, wisdom, and most importantly, beautiful team. And I get to do this at 550 Madison, 60 feet ceiling, a true masterpiece with so many wonderful collaborators. Like the Sistine Chapel, though, this took an effort.

This was a lift to get this done, right? You started at least wanting to do this before COVID hit. Tell me more about having to go through that process, the waiting, the money, this is the whole heartache of not being able to open it when you really wanted to and having to wait until now? Absolutely. First, I want to acknowledge Ola Young Group

for giving us that opportunity and trust to bring something that's new to the neighborhood. It took about five and a half years since I first walked the property, and the vision aligned, the ownership of Ola Young Group and us, we saw a really grandiose space, but we wanted to bring something

that people can really enjoy and have an immersive and dynamic dining experience where we can really celebrate the best asset of New York City, which is our people. Okay, so you opened the first coat nine years ago. Now you have them in Miami, as I said, Vegas and Singapore. Kokoadok is a temple in its own right to Korean Fried Chicken.

What did you see nine years ago that you thought was missing when you opened the first coat in the flat iron? Because it's not like Korean barbecue didn't exist. You just elevated it. Sure. So as a Korean American, I saw the popularity of Korean barbecue. But Korean barbecue was somewhat limited. limited. No English menus, reservation system, hospitality, wine list, the cleanliness of bathroom. All of these things were limited. So we wanted to bring forth, I work for great

chefs like Jean-Georjean Thomas Keller, all those kind of a high sensibility and my genuine authentic desire to make people happy and delight them. We wanted to bring that together and bring forth something first of its kind, a Korean steakhouse. What did you learn from a business standpoint from those two? Because they've mastered the business side of this industry, most especially. Sure. So excellent chefs. What's on the plate is so important and so perfect. I think what I learned as a restaurateur is something beyond.

What can I add my layer, which is hospitality, and food is one part of the entire experience. I want to make sure that the most important thing is, of course, food, but more important is my customers. So speaking of customers, your places, as I said off the top, They're all packed all the time. They're hard to get into. So you have a pretty good read, I would assume, on the state of the consumer, the health of the economy, where inflation's going, beef prices are up, as you know, and that is at the centerpiece of your menu.

What do you see? So in a macro level, every day I wake up with a lot of concerns and thoughts and uncertainty. But what brings me back to ground is my team and our mission. And we're not in control of what happens in macro every day, but we're in control of what happens on each table with each customers. We really focus on trying to bring forth our very best version of hospitality and experience so that where the market is up, whether the market is down, you can have a good martini and a damn good steak.

Yeah, well, you said you wanted to have the best martini in the world at the new bar. Do you get a sense that the consumer is wavering in any way? I mean, Manhattan's a little bit of a bubble in a sense that, right, all of the good restaurants are always packed. The price points are high and people keep spending the money. You have any indication of a slowdown in any sense at all? We're very fortunate. I feel like as a Korean steakhouse, first of its kind, and also first fried chicken restaurant where you can have a non-seed oil, gluten-free chicken with caviar and champagne. We offer a very unique product.

So we're very fortunate that we're not seeing really any downward pattern. So we're very grateful. Are you still looking for new markets, new cities? Absolutely. Right now, I have a handful. I've been opening three restaurants in 550 Madison. In my humble opinion, that is my true love letter to the New York City. So we really need to perfect it.

But that being said, I think my desire to expand is insatiable, as long as my team can sustain that. It's happening at what I think many would say is the right time. I mean, Korean culture feels like it's having not only a moment, but an extended period, food through, you know, restaurants like yours. Music, K-pop and BTS, entertainment, squid games, skin care. I mean, a lot of people are talking about Korean culture. Speak to me about what you see. And why do you think that is?

Sure. I feel like Korean culture as a whole, whether that is TV, food or music, is definitely having a It's golden age. And I think it's a long time coming. I think Korea went through a lot of hardship post-Korean War, and we really worked hard. I think those struggles are embedded into our DNA. So we work really hard. And when we try to put forth whatever we do, I think we do that with a lot of vigor and good work ethic.

So I think we're in a really good position. But as a person who's involved in this elevating Korean culture, I feel great. great sense of responsibility as well. Is it the end of the golden age or is the beginning of the golden age? I think it's up to the content creators and service provider. It's a big responsibility, but we're so grateful. Well, we'll keep following you and what you're doing. Thanks for spending time with us. Scott, such a pleasure. All right. That's Simon Kim. Right here, post nine. Coming up next, we track the biggest movers into the close today. Christina Parts of Nevelosa standing by with that. Hi there. Hi, well, we have a pair of consumer names that are having some monster games.

who and why after this short break. About 10 till the closing bell. Let's get back now to Christina for the stocks that she's watching on what looks to be yet another record setter here on Wall Street. Well, you set up for a high and I'm going to start with a low. Freelance Popcorn Upwork is on pace for its worst day ever after it announced layoffs of 24% of its staff. It's one of the few companies really reporting massive layoffs just today down 19%. Monster beverage, though, living up to its name bolstered by strong demand.

for energy drinks as sales grew by double digits in every region. The stocks on pace for its best day since 2014. And high beef costs aren't slowing down Texas Roadhouse on pace for its best day since 2020 as the restaurant chain decreased expectations for its cost of beef because of consumer preference for certain cuts. It's rare good news for margins. All right. Thank you. Christina Portsenevarez coming up next.

Newberger Shannon Sacocious. She is standing by as we do head for those record closes for the NASDAQ and the S&P market zones next. We are trying to get back to 7400, too. We'll see if we do again. Now, the closing bell market zone, Mike Santoli and Newburghers. Shannon Sacocha are here to break down these crucial moments of this trading day, plus Oliver Renick. He's tracking the options action and the memory chips live from Sivo Global Markets in Chicago, contested Brewer on why the travel stocks are getting hit today. Seymomodi on Moore, with more on the monster move in shares of Akamai. Mike Santoli, to you.

you first. As we head into the weekend, another interesting week, wrapping up with another record setter. Yeah, for sure, Scott. I mean, more of the same, and the question is, you know, how much is too much of the same dynamic where, you know, the one dominant theme really does carry the indexes. You know, in general, I don't get alarmed if the market's a little bit concentrated, if it seems like it's narrow leadership by the best and highest conviction companies. That's what we have right now. But there probably are limits to how much you want to see parts of this market diverge. The parts of the S&P 500 that are most connected to the consumer and even this week to banks have not really done anything. And in fact, they've been a little bit soft.

So you wonder if you want to see that underperform incrementally from here relative to the AI trade. But in general, it's hard to argue with the successive new highs we've gotten in all these indexes. Obviously, it's kind of a liftoff type phase, even though it's looking like it's getting kind of stretched in terms of just that. mega-cap tech leadership here. I mean, AMD up 26%. This week, Micron 37, Intel 25, I take it that's going to have a prominent role with you and Mel at the top of the hour in OT. Absolutely. And so it's exactly that question. Does this just reflect where the fastest moving fundamentals are improving the most, or is it getting a little bit grabby in the short term? And what do you do about that if so? Yeah, or both, all the above. We'll see you then. Look forward to that. Mike.

Thank you. Oliver, tell me more from the CBO. What do you see up in Chicago? It's been an impressive day for stocks, obviously. It's been a very impressive week and month, in addition to today for the hottest ETF in years. I'm talking about Roundhill Investments, memory ETF DRAM. It's raised more than $5 billion amid a 90% rally in price since its April 2nd debut. It's the fastest growth of any ETF since Bitcoin stormed Wall Street. Part of the reason for DRAM's popularity is its high exposure to South Korean semiconductor standouts, Samsung, and SK Hynix, which are not U.S. listed, making them inaccessible to options traders. The result has been a feeding frenzy that reached almost $100 million of options premium in today's session alone, with a heavy bias toward bullish call contracts, including one trader who bet $750,000. that DRAM could hit $65 by mid-June, 25% higher than where it is after today's 12% rip, Scott.

Just remarkable. Oliver, thanks so much, Oliver Renick. Now to contest the Brewer on the travel names, tell us more, please. All right, Scott, Expedia stock has just been under pressure all day. It's been down about 8%. Markets are simply ignoring the company's earnings beat, ignoring that it reaffirmed full-year guidance. Instead, they're focused on the softer second-quarter guidance and commentary. And look, the travel disruption from the Iran War is real. It's not just in the Middle East bookings and itineraries, but in cancellations across Europe and Asia. Expedia said the cancellation rates have stabilized in April that bookings are starting to re-accelerate, but it's dragging down the sector. TripAdvisor is down almost 7 percent, booking holdings down

3 percent. And look at the drag on cruises here as well. You're seeing Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, carnival, even biking down. And the hotels. are feeling the pressure as well. You've got Marriott in the green, but Hilton and Hyatt off today. Look at Airbnb, looking forward to the World Cup, and what it anticipates will be its best event ever. Scott, I'm watching that to see how much share Airbnb is taking from the hotels. All right, contested, thank you, contested Brewer.

Seema on Akamai. What's the story here? Scott, what moved Akamai stock sharply higher today was a disclosure of a $1.8 billion cloud infrastructure deal with a frontier AI provider. suggesting it's anthropic. News of the deal follows earnings in which Akamai revealed a 40% quarterly jump in its infrastructure services business. It's yet another example of Wall Street rewarding software companies involved in providing the rails, the infrastructure for AI providers. Yesterday, Datadog stole the show with two new hyperscaler customers. Overall, Scott, IGV Software

ETF now hire for four consecutive weeks. Yep, nice comeback in its own right. Seema thanks. Seema Modi. All right, Shan, so the table's set for you to take it wherever you want. We just continue to marvel at what's happening within this AI trade. I don't really know how else to put it. It is this catalyst, Scott, where we were concerned about disintermediation in February, came into March, worried about the conflict, and now we're back to AI, but on the hardware side. And I think that's an important piece here, is that there is still a significant amount of build that is required And have we pulled a little bit of that forward, perhaps. But this is just an extension of the broadening out of AI spend

and the importance of it as a tailwind for the second half of the year. You couple that with better than anticipated economic data and continued renewal in the manufacturing sector. And there's just a lot of legs of this market where you can find attractiveness. And it starts with earnings. And so I think equity investors are being rewarded for looking forward over the next six to 12 months.

and seeing that that earnings growth is going to deliver, not just an AI, but in other parts of the market as well. That's all fair. But what about what some perceived to be the memeification of some of these stocks? What do you make of that? Does it give you a pause at all, or is it just fine? No, I think it should give you some pause, Scott, that some of what's been pulled forward could potentially impede or impair bookings, as we see in the fourth quarter or the first quarter. quarter of 2027. But yet the challenge is that these deals continue to be announced and they're evidence of the demand for compute that continues to come from sectors outside of technology. And so you talked earlier about financials and consumer. You know, everyone's focused really on this barbell of AI and companies that are investing in AI and enabling AI. And then the more cyclical

parts of the economy, energy, materials. So that barbell is very pronounced. in the market right now. People are looking for that next big stock, that next Nvidia, if you will. And fortunately, there's a number of names, but some of them could have gone a little bit too far and too fast in this short period of time. But over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, there is likely to be momentum in the hardware space within the tech sector. Where are the other opportunities lurking, Shan, in the 30 seconds that we have left together? Yeah, I mean, I talked about financials, you know, low expectations. for earnings this year. There's been an overhang in terms of the private equity space.

There's probably some opportunities being created there. Consumer, we talked about travel. Contessa did a great job of summarizing that. There is a bit of a consumer overhang here, and yet there's continued economic momentum. So there's probably opportunities to get a little selective here, especially in the consumer discretionary space. And S&P and NASDAQ has never closed higher than they will. About the next 10 seconds or so, when these bells ring us out. Have a great weekend. I'll spend it into overtime.