Closing Bell - Closing Bell: 5/9/25

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

From the open to the close, “Closing Bell” and “Closing Bell: Overtime” have you covered. From what’s driving market moves to how investors are reacting, Scott Wapner, Jon Fortt, Morgan Brennan and Michael Santoli guide listeners through each trading session and bring to you some of the biggest names in business.

And welcome to Closing Bell. I'm Melissa Lee. And today for Scott Waffner, we are live from Post9 at the New York Stock Exchange. This Make or Break Hour begins with unsteady stocks, investors looking for direction as we await those much anticipated trade talks this weekend between U.S. and Chinese officials. The president hinting more trade deals are coming while floating a cut to U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports. Here's how things are looking with 60 minutes to go into the trading session. We are up red just barely on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. We're pretty much flat here across the board on the S&P as well as the NASDAQ. Energy stocks though proving to be a bright spot in today's session.

That group is the top performing sector today. Crypto continuing its run. We'll have more on that later this hour. And shares of Tesla, they are higher once again. That stock heading for its third straight weekly gain. That takes us to the talk of the tape and what this weekend's trade talks will mean for the market and for your money Aiman Javers is at the White House with more on what we can expect out of Switzerland this weekend Aiman And Melissa everybody's watching those trade talks in Geneva as Treasury Secretary Scott Besson's arrives in Switzerland For those talks with the Chinese side and The president got a lot of attention earlier today when he threw out on social media the

idea of dialing back the tariffs from 145 percent all the way back to 80 percent. He said, that seems like a good idea to me. He said it's up to Scott Bee, by which he meant the Treasury secretary. Of course, ultimately in the end, it is going to be up to the president. And that's why I think folks were really focused on what Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary said here just a couple of hours ago when she was asked about that comment. Here's what she said. The president still remains with his position that he is not going to unilaterally bring

down tariffs on China. We need to see concessions from them as well. And again, that's part of the reason that Secretary Besant is going to talk to his Chinese counterparts this weekend to start those discussions in person. As for the 80% number, that was a number the president threw out there and we'll see what happens this weekend. So Levitt's saying there the 80% number is just a number that the president threw out there and we'll see what happens. So not clear if that's an offer to the Chinese or just sort of establishing some expectations by the president or just him floating some ideas.

But at this point, we're waiting to see what comes out of the negotiations in Switzerland. And Melissa, I should say also that I did ask Stephen Miller, the White House advisor here a short time ago, whether the administration has any plans for aid or assistance to port workers and truckers who might be displaced by tariffs and lack of trade on west coast ports coming up over the next couple of weeks.

He did not say that they are, but he did point out that in his view, the media is much more focused on that than they were focused on all the workers who lost their jobs from deindustrialization and globalization over the past 25 years, Melissa know that 80% number is very interesting because the journal was running a story side by side with the story about the president floating that 80% number saying that the US side is getting set to possibly cut tariffs to below 60% so it's sort of like I don't know what to believe. Yeah I mean it's a really good question this feels like an administration that is ready to dial back those tariffs, but obviously

they don't want to do that unilaterally, as you heard Levitt just say there. The president said in the Oval Office yesterday, I was in there with him, he said, look, 145 percent is too high. It needs to come down. The question is, what does it need to come down to? When does it need to come down? Is that before or after any concessions from the Chinese? And then ultimately, if it comes down to 80 percent, is that a number at which American importers

can make money, right? Because if it's not a number at which importers can make money, they won't import. And the political impact of that will be the same, which is empty shelves and consumers getting very grumpy with the White House about those empty shelves. Yeah, very good point there. Eamon, thank you. Eamon Javers from the White House. Let's bring in our panel for the hour. Investgo's Brian Levitt, Wells Fargo's Scott Wren, and American Century's Mike Rowe. Gentlemen, welcome to you all on this Friday.

Brian, I'll start off with you since you're here right next to me. What do you count this recent market rally, basically since the end of April, April 21st or so, to now. Is it the anticipation that something will happen this weekend and so therefore it's a sell the news event? How are we positioned going in? Yeah, it's a little bit of incrementally better news.

So we had a correction heading up to Liberation Day, driven by policy uncertainty. And then we kind of moved from correction into more of a crisis mode when it didn't seem like the administration had a pain point To your point April 21st more of a stagflation feel because we're gonna fire Jerome Powell and since then the market has responded based on incrementally better news not necessarily clarity not necessarily tariffs at rates that are supportive for the economy, but we're back at a 10% downturn in markets because we've basically priced out crisis. Now we've got to see where we go from here with regards to what policy looks like.

What would be, Scott, in your view, incrementally positive for the markets? Is it dialing back the tariffs to 80%? I mean, to Amon's point, going from 145 to 80 seems like enormous progress, but when it comes down to it, that is still a prohibitive tariff level, which should do business. It is, Melissa. But I tell you, I really, I'm going to take the president at his word here. I mean, I think that, you know, to get down to 80%, something needs to happen.

There has to be some Chinese concessions here. And I think really the market rally, there's a couple of things going on. One is that the market was counting on some deals, not one with China, not one with the EU right away, but for example, UK or India or some other smaller Southeast Asian trading partners. So I think the market was counting on that.

Plus really, earnings, I wasn't expecting much out of guidance at all, but guidance was better than expected and a lot of companies, they held steady on their guidance and some of them raised. That was a lot better guidance than what I thought because I didn't think you're gonna get much value out of it at all. So I think there's a couple of things going on,

but certainly the tariffs are the thing leading the charge. And I just don't think you can expect much going on this weekend other than agreeing to talk again, something like that. Okay. Well, that's positive. I'll take that. Mike, you know, let me ask you this. Have we seen peak tariff? Uncertainly, have we seen the worst when it comes to tariffs? Because to the president's point, 145 percent is too high. It's only got to come down at this point. Kevin Hassett today saying that there are 24 deals close to resolution. We're at a point now where we are expecting deals to come, and they will probably come in the next few months.

Yeah, I think China is definitely the elephant in the room, if you will, and the most important trade partner that we need to have a deal with. Maybe in terms of the number, you know, 145, maybe we've seen the peak there, down to 80. But you have to remember, even 80% is higher than the 60% that Trump had been talking about when he was campaigning. So 80% is a really high number. The other thing is that, you know, the trade deal with the Chinese is going to take a really long time.

So I think any expectations that we're going to come out and say, kumbaya, everything is great on Monday, it's pretty unrealistic. And you have to look at the market over the last month. S&P is up well over 11%. Really, I think what's driven the market up is that AI spending has kind of came in much better than feared. And AI stocks are up, related stocks are up 40%.

Bitcoin's up 40%, Bitcoin related stocks, meme stocks up 40%. So it feels like there's a lot of froth in the market over the last month, a lot of expectation kind of built in ahead of this weekend. So it's hard to see that we're going to see a big relief rally on Monday because we've feels like we've already had it. Is there froth in the market at this point, Brian?

Do you think up 10 percent since April 21, the level which you said that was peak stagflation being priced into the market? I wouldn't necessarily call it fraud. I mean, when people say the market is overvalued, they're largely looking at the S&P 500, which is heavily weighted to a handful of names and investors are paying up for growth potential in those names. So it's always sort of I've always sort of taken a step back when people have said equities are overvalued because most markets aren't. If you took the same 500 names and equal

weighted them the valuations are actually at average. So it's the market cap that's a bit extended. If you look at mid cap, small cap, Europe, emerging markets, value stocks, all of that is not trading above its long-term average. So one of the things that we've been saying to investors, perhaps gives them some optionality in this environment. If you can bring down the valuations of your portfolio, you're likely to do better relatively if we have an economic downturn and we need to adjust valuations of your portfolio, you're likely to do better relatively

if we have an economic downturn and we need to adjust valuations. But if we get a better outcome on trade, things like value, Europe should do well in more of a recovery field. So, you know, a little bit of a way to navigate this. All right, well, Brian, Scott, and Michael, stick with us.

So we want to get to a Fed official speaking today, ahead of a very big week of economic data next week. So let's send it over to our CNBC Senior Economics reporter, Steve Leesman, who's got more on all this. Steve. Hey, Melissa, thanks. Yeah, a handful of Fed officials offering their first comments after that Wednesday

statement where the Fed warned they faced a higher risk of both inflation and unemployment. Probably the most important comments coming from Fed Governor Michael Barr. He's spoken very little about tariffs but today he was sort of pointed in worrying that higher tariffs could lead to quote persistent upward pressure on inflation. So not a maybe a big fan of the idea of the one-time pass through of these tariffs and he says this may come as a result of supply disruptions like during the pandemic. Atlanta Fed President Rafael Bostic backed up the Fed's policy saying I don't think it's prudent to adjust monetary policy with so little visibility of the path ahead. Tom Barker from Richmond somewhat less concerned about inflation saying it's not a given that companies can pass those tariffs along. Well we might see some data on this

next week when we get the CPI, it'll be scrutinized for any initial tariff impacts, though it could be too soon. The core rate scene rising zero three to a year over year rate of 2.8%. That's even with the March level. But also watch that retail sales number on Thursday, expect it to be up zero three X autos for any sign that the foul consumer sentiment out there is impacting spending. Once again, we're waiting, Melissa, to see if the hard data match or continues to defy the downdraft we've seen in the soft data. Steve, it's widely expected that the tariff pass-through will be seen in the May print

for CPI. Is that correct? I think May for all of this data. I mean, I must admit to being surprised that the jobless claims data has held up so well. Because what you're hearing from business sentiment, what you're hearing even from consumers, the surveys of consumers that have been out suggested that people are finding it more difficult to find jobs or they're more afraid of losing their jobs. But that's not shown up in the jobless claim data. That's where you would expect to see it first. And we had a pretty robust CNBC, NRF retail sales,

retail monitor this week that was not too bad. Neither was the Bank of America credit card data. So I'm thinking it's May and maybe it's June and Melissa, it may not all be sequenced perfectly. You could have a situation where, for example, the inflation data is later, the jobs weakening comes first. So this could be a multi-month, even multi-quarter process

that we're ahead of here. Yeah, especially if one data point doesn't make the trend, right? If they want to see two, this is going to be a drawn out process. Steve, thank you. Have a great weekend. Yeah.

Steve Leesman. Brian, Scott, and Mike are still with us. So Scott, I'll go thank you. Have a great weekend. Yeah. Steve Leesman. Brian, Scott and Mike are still with us. So Scott, I'll go to you. How are we set up ahead of a CPI? I mean, as Steve points out, it's not likely, it's not anticipated that a lot of the tariff impact will be seen in next week's data. But boy, if there is a little hint of it, it's going to be a doozy for the markets. Now, we have a couple, we definitely have a couple of reports next week, Melissa. CPI being one. I don't know, the University of Michigan confidence stat, I'm not sure how

much the market's paying attention to that anymore. But certainly anything that has to do with inflation and consumer spending, that retail sales number Steve mentioned, I mean, those are going to be the important things going forward because right now, even though sentiment is low, and you guys know this, is in past cycles, what consumers say and what they do are two different things and oftentimes two different things.

And when Americans are employed and they've got money in their pocket, they're gonna spend it. And I don't think it's gonna be different this time. Now, spending's gonna slow, unemployment's gonna go up a little bit, but the question is how much and where's that red line for the Fed to start cutting rates based on unemployment?

It's higher than probably 4.4, 4.5 maybe. Yeah, Mike, in terms of your portfolio, because you specialize more in the smaller cap range, they are small and mids. And so I'm wondering what you see as the best outcome here and how that size business, that size company is dealing with tariffs. We see the impact even harder in this segment because they don't have as much ability to pass on to the consumer. Yeah, some hopefully the companies we own do. But I would say the outcome, there's a pretty bad outcome already priced into small cap and mid cap.

Small cap value, for example, is trading 20% below average on a PE basis. Now we know the P, we don't know the E, right? How hard will the economic slowdown hit earnings? But again, the group's down 25% from the peak in November. It has not rallied along with the rest of the market over the last month or so. So depending on what's gonna happen, you have a pretty bad outcome already priced into the group.

Firms calling for, we see a 35% chance of recession over the next six months. Really hard to say again, it's gonna come down to employment. And employers are basically on pause, right? They're not hiring, but they're also not firing, waiting to see what type of guidance and resolution we get on the trade front.

But we would recommend clients go really where bad news is already priced in and stick with higher quality companies that are attractively valued. And so no matter what's gonna happen, investors should already have baked in some bad news. And historically, a year after recession, small and mid caps are up almost 40%. That's almost twice as much as large caps. So it's a pretty decent starting point where we are here no matter what happens.

Right. Not knowing what the E is, is a pretty big challenge. I mean, a lot of the companies out there who've gone through reporting season, they pulled guidance. They say they just have no idea what the macro is gonna be. They've given ranges as wide as you can drive a truck through. So Brian, when you hear that the S&P 500 earnings estimates

for the year have come down to 265, from about 273, the beginning of the year. That's a nice revision lower, but we really don't know how much further that would need to be marked down. How do you see value in an environment where we don't know what that E should be? Yeah, I mean, the first thing I would say

is the market doesn't seem to be telling us, at least the bond market doesn't seem to be telling us a recession is coming. You see high-y yield spreads relatively contained, the yield curve not deeply inverted. So you wanna be careful at how much you bring down those earnings expectations. But yeah, we're looking for more visibility,

the market's looking for more visibility. The problem that investors have is that these things are gonna move quickly as you start to get visibility. So it's gonna be very, very difficult to try and time these things are going to move quickly as you start to get visibility. So it's going to be very, very difficult to try and time these things. I would say if you can look out beyond a few weeks, look out a year or two, and think about where you would expect us to be. Do you think we will have gone through this period?

Do you think we'll have greater clarity? Do you think businesses will be able to provide better guidance I suspect we will I suspect this is not the end of American exceptionalism or at least you know America not being a very nice place to live work and invest so I wouldn't get overly concerned here maybe a little bit defensive in the short term or bring down the value of the portfolio in the short term but but don't value of the portfolio in the short term, but don't deviate meaningfully from a long-term plan because we will ultimately get better clarity here.

All right, Scott, I'm gonna go to you for the prediction. As we sit here looking at the SB 500 on a Friday afternoon, virtually exactly flat at this point. Monday afternoon at this time, we will have heard what had come out of Switzerland, maybe what has not come out of Switzerland. Where will we be, do you think? How are we positioned going into these talks?

What's going to be the result on Monday? Melissa, on Monday, I think we will hear that China and the U.S. have agreed to talk further, but I think there's a reasonable chance next week that we see maybe another trade deal Announced which that's going to help the market So I just can't think that there's going to be something very substantive out of this weekend And the thing is the markets not expecting it either I don't think there's much expectation at all built into what's gonna happen over this weekend All right gentlemen great to speak with you. Thank you Brian Scott and Mike all right Let's send it over now to Christina parts and elbows for a look at the biggest names moving into the close Christina All right, gentlemen, great to speak with you. Thank you, Brian, Scott, and Mike. All right.

Let's send it over now to Christina Parts-Nebulous for a look at the biggest names moving into the close. Christina. Melissa, thank you. Lift shares soaring after increasing its share buyback plan and posting better than expected gross bookings, which is an important metric for the company. The ride shares, company CEO boosting the stock further after saying on the call they aren't seeing anything to worry about amid widespread macro uncertainty and shares are up 28% right now.

And quite the quarterly turnaround for Trade Desk. This is a digital marketing firm. They posted strong earnings and a guidance beat and this follows a dramatic revenue miss in its December quarter. They posted their last earnings report February 12th. Shares fell about 30% within that 24 hour period So this time around you can see shares are up almost 18% on ease concerns about growth slowdown Morgan Stanley joining the optimism With analysts upping their stock the stocks price target trade desk right now is on pace for its best day since February

2020 2023 well Christina thanks Christina partsopoulos. We're getting some news out of Washington that's got some of the energy names moving. Pippa Stevens has that for us. Pippa? Hey, Melissa, we're seeing a bounce here in nuclear stocks after a report from the New York Times that the Trump administration is considering several executive orders aimed

at speeding up construction of nuclear power plants in order to meet rising electricity demands. As part of that report, the administration is apparently looking to quadruple the size of the U.S.'s nuclear fleet to 400 gigawatts by 2050. Of course, there is a lot of buzz around nuclear right now, but right now there are no commercial scale reactors under construction in the U.S. after Vogel III and IV came online. But you see here, Chemico, Oklo, and New Scale, some of the names that are moving on this. Melissa?

Pippa, thanks. Pippa Stephens. And we are just getting started here on Closing Bell. It's been a volatile week for pharma stocks and biotech stocks. Up next, StemPoint Capitals. Michelle Ross tells us how she's navigating the space right now. She'll join us at Post 9 after this break. We're live from the New York Stock Exchange.

You're watching Closing Bell on CNBC. Health care the worst performing sector this week. Those stocks rattled by worries over FDA leadership and what a potential executive order on pricing next week could mean for their outlook. For how she's positioning in this space. Let's bring in Michelle Ross, CIO of Sempoint Capital, biotech and healthcare focused investment firm.

Michelle, great to have you with us. Very nice to be here, thank you. So this is something that President Trump tried in his first term. It didn't work. Most favored nation tying drug prices to lower prices abroad effectively. You think that it has a chance this time around?

I think he's going to try. I think that there are ways that he can start the implementation of a process like this. However, the complexity of the system, whether it's going to be specific areas within the center of Medicaid services, this part B or is it part D, we don't know the answers to many of these questions. And the kind of cumulative nature of all this uncertainty is really one of the big question marks here for investing in this space as well. Right, there are a lot of ripple effects though too. I mean if you think about, well if they're

going to peg drug prices here to lower prices abroad, drug makers can just raise prices abroad and create a new peg. So what are some of the things that we should sort of think through if this scenario goes? I think it's a little bit of what we've seen in the past, that a lot of this is very aggressive headlines and more bark than bite in nature. I think we're going to see a lot of offsets and pushback from industry. I think we're seeing so many approaches to kind of go against the idea of high drug pricing, but on the offset you have to look at innovation. And Trump has made the case that the U.S. is supporting this innovation curve for the

rest of the world. If we are paying drug prices that are three to five times higher on average than the rest of the world, where is that offset? How do we find the pushback to be able to support innovation in the country? So there's many things that are being looked at. And I think from the offset we have to understand where drug companies and innovation can be supported in all of this and IRA and other different mechanisms that have been approached for drug pricing I think are going

to be part of the conversation as well. This is just one of the negative headlines facing this group, your sector. There's also the appointment of Dr. Vinay Prasad. There is the nomination of Casey Maines, the Surgeon General. Iay Prasad. There is the nomination of Casey Maynes, the Surgeon General. I mean, the list goes on and on in terms of sort of the obstacles or potential obstacles this industry faces. So how is the sentiment of your investors these days, how do you identify value when it seems like non-fundamental issues are impacting this sector wildly? I think, you know, it's unfortunate to say that we've been here before. It's not going to be a far stretch to say,

we'll probably be here again. It's an incredibly partisan issue to look at drug pricing and to make change and to impart your own flavor to an administration. I think what's happened in this administration versus Trump, you know, in 45, was that we really did look for a playbook of how things would play out

So I think the shock the pure shock of what is happening in this term with this administration We like to see precedent We like to understand how we can make the best decisions both for investors and how we look at our investment ideas So we look to those moments in time to try to further understand and underwrite kind of a margin of safety or where our downside to upside is. Now, the prices of stocks and specifics, there's areas in the healthcare space that are giving you phenomenal ability to invest at these prices with the assumption that the risk is very well understood by certain communities. You're going to have these headlines, but I'll just give a couple quick examples. We're seeing a basic functioning of the FDA,

an approval pathway decision, or a decision that in any other market would be assumed to be a baseline expectation, be rewarded with multiple times the effect to a share price. So when we see names in the rare disease group or in the oncology group, just baseline go through a decision. It's very good to see that reward come to the investors

who have kind of stuck it out through those moments in time. What is the philosophy that will get you through this sort of very rocky time? Is it going out and identifying the smaller companies, the biotech companies that have things in the pipeline that are not approved for market yet, sort of taking the bigger swing, or going to the more tried and true pharma stocks

which have a host of other issues, including patent cliffs to deal with. It's a great question. It is the question we sit and think about all the time. And there is one area actually in the market that we look at and see one of the biggest kind of bifurcations versus any other market period where we've seen instability. And it is in that post kind of phase three,

so the latest stage pre-commercially drug can get to before the FDA stamps it with approval and lets it go on its way into the patient setting. Those specific stocks, because of this kind of burden of doubt of what the FDA is going to do, have retreated 30, 40, even 50% post their positive data. And we've never seen this type of group, call it 10 to 15 companies,

that have successfully embarked across a potentially decade-long path to get to this point be discounted so much on basically the effect that the FDA is going to function, that we're going to show the world that innovation not only matters, but it's going to reach patients. And that's an area where we feel as though we are listening to this administration, we are

very tuned in and keyed into the companies that were invested in as well and understanding their kind of dialogue with the agency and we feel like that is the singular best bet to be making this market. Secondarily, pharmaceutical companies are going to be facing a very large issue around their patent cliff that's coming up over the next five to 10 years. We estimate it's about $400 billion of actual revenue that is going to go generic over that period of time.

And the pharmaceutical complex made a decision about a decade ago that the innovation that they were looking for and the return on their capital was best found in acquiring assets in the small pharmaceutical, in the small biotech companies and bring them in-house after that innovation had really played out. And that M&A curve that we believe is going to really come back with a vengeance, mind you, we're in a very heightened time of uncertainty.

When that does come back, there is a very limited time that pharma is going to have to be able to replace those revenues So we think that's the prime spot to hit those phase two phase three Companies that have shown success in the clinic already right you said there about 15 names that are being discounted that are post phase three But before market before market. Can you give us a couple of these? Sure. Sure. There's there's a few There's two segments that we really are focused on right now. One is in the rare disease category. Between the decisions and the commentary from both RFK,

from Dr. Macri, who runs the FDA, and from Dr. Prasad, we're seeing that rare disease could be looked at quite differently. One of our favorites is a company called Scholar Rock. They're focused on a drug for SMA. It's a rare neurodegenerative disorder. Their drug passed through phase three trials successfully and is sitting at the FDA with a decision waiting to come in September.

There are two oncology companies with exceptional data thus far. I mentioned before, Meris Pharmaceuticals. They have a drug for head and neck cancer. We believe the best in class that's going to show additional data in a couple of weeks. And a company called Arcelics. They have a drug for multiple myeloma. We believe they are on just the cusp of getting to market in short order, and we think they have been discounted quite unfairly given the state of affairs at the FDA currently.

Michelle, thank you. Absolutely, thank you. Michelle Ross. Up next, top technician Jonathan Krinsky tells us why he's worried about the momentum names right now. Closing bell, be right back. ["The Daily Show"]

Welcome back. After a strong run in April, my next guest says market momentum could be stalling. Let's bring in BTIG's Jonathan Krinsky. Jonathan, what do you see in the charts that makes you think that? Well, there's a couple of things we're watching, Melissa. On the overall market, we've had a pretty good rally back up towards the 200-day moving average for a lot of the major indices- and there's some definitely some overhead supply there. I was watching the momentum names the momentum

factor so may is actually the typically the third best performing month for momentum- but it really there's a bifurcation- on how it doesn't April and then the may performance and- to give an example when- April is down for momentum then May has actually been higher 10 of the last 11 years for an average of about 5% gain. So you actually want that weakness in April that sets up the May momentum but when May has been sorry when April has been positive like it was this year May performance for

momentum is actually down six of nine years for averaging more than 1% decline. So May April was positive for momentum this year. And so we think it's going to struggle a little bit in May, just kind of front loading those gains. And then the last reason is we have this widely-watched known unknown meeting this weekend between U.S. and China and trade talks. And when there's a widely anticipated event, whether it's a macro event, some sort of Fed meeting, et cetera, and the markets moving in anticipation of that event, oftentimes

you get a bit of a letdown on the other side. And we think that's the set up here. There's been a lot of positive trade talk headlines that's culminated with this rally up the lows. And we think that sets up for a bit of a buy the rumor sell the news. So when you say momentum, Jonathan, what specifically do you mean? I mean, is it Mag-7?

Is it any name that's rallied hard from the recent April 21st low? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, typically when we talk about momentum, the momentum factor, it's names that have been outperformed in the market over the last, call it nine to 12 months. So these are typically names that have strong price, price performance, you know, the last, call it nine to 12 months. So these are typically names that have strong price performance over the last 12 months. And front and center of that would be a name like Palantir, which has been an outstanding

performer and actually pulled back pretty sharply into the April lows and then rallied nearly 90% off those lows right back into its prior highs, right into earnings, and you can see it's kind of faltering a bit. So, you know, that's the type of name, I think, that presents a bit of risk here. And then can I ask you something that's off the board right now, Johnson, but I'm gonna put it on the board,

and that's Alphabet, which has really had a tough week this week, and I'm wondering what you see in the charts for this one. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's like a lot of the Mag-7 names. It's started to lose some relative strength. I would say it's certainly not the strongest name in Mag-7, and there was some fundamental catalyst behind it.

So I think there's better names elsewhere, even within Mag-7. All right. Jonathan, thank you. Jonathan Krinsky. Thank you. Up next, Bitcoin heading for another week of big gains, more in crypto, in the climb after this quick break. Closing bell, we'll be right back. 19 minutes until the closing bell rings. Bitcoin meantime continuing its climb higher.

Taneya McKeel is here with more on that big move. Taneya. Yeah, Melissa, thank you. The move really starting yesterday after Trump first teased the trade deal with the UK, but it's the greater uncertainty in the market that's been helping Bitcoin. Investors, they're starting to doubt the safe haven status of the US. They're seeking more neutral assets as they look for clarity on trade policy. So Bitcoin is still vulnerable to stock market volatility. It's not out of the woods until it reaches its all time high of about one

hundred and nine thousand dollars, which it hit in January. Analysts I talked to say it could languish here for another couple of months. Bitcoin is heading, however, for its fourth up week in a row and first four week win streak since November. Risk sentiment also bleeding into other coins, which really struggled to keep pace with Bitcoin this year. And I just want to mention Ether up again today to 28% over two days, heading for its best week since 2021. But still negative outflows in ETH ETFs, not seeing the kind of demand as Bitcoin ETFs are seeing. And the spot

price is deep in the red for the year, down 30% compared to Bitcoin's roughly 10% gain for 2025. You mentioned the risk on sentiment in the market, which has really taken hold since the end of April or so, helping Bitcoins rise. It does seem though it's sort of also playing the role of digital gold. You mentioned the uncertainty and as inflation fears pick up, you're seeing this. So it has this win in all Scenarios kind of yeah, we're really seeing the area kind of trying to prove what investors always said it could do

Like I said vulnerable to the stock market volatility So day to day and even a week to week you will see it kind of follow the stock market moves a little bit You zoom out a little bit more and it does start to look a little bit more like that safe haven status. And then I think also what you've seen in the last couple of months is the demand for Bitcoin has changed since 2024 with the ETFs. A lot of the demand coming from ETFs, institutions, corporate holders like MicroStrategy and all the little MicroStrategy copies we're seeing have really supported Bitcoin's price through the recent volatility so it has been moving with stocks but Not the dramatic swings that you're used to seeing from Bitcoin over the last decade or so.

Taneya, thank you. Taneya with McKeel. So ahead, Wilmington Trust's Megan Shue standing by with the sector she is betting on right now. Closing bell, be right back. she is betting on right now. Closing bell, be right back. On June 5th, Fast Money will produce a live television event at the Nasdaq Market site. And we invite you to be there. It is an opportunity to meet the traders, me in person, enjoy a networking cocktail mixer.

Tickets are limited, so get yours right now. Makes a great Mother's Day gift, by the way. Scan the QR code on your screen with your phone or head on over to CNBCEvents.com slash fast money. Up next we'll tell you what is driving Tesla stock higher today, that and much more when we take you inside the Market Zone. We are now in the closing bell Market Zone. Tesla on track for its third straight weekly gain. Phil LaBose got more on that plus Christina Parks and Neville is on two big movers in the chip space. And Wilmington Trust's Megan Hsu will join us to break down those crucial moments of

the trading day. But Phil, we'll start with you on Tesla here. What's behind the move? Well take a look at what we are seeing for the first time in a long time, Melissa. Tesla today went above its 200 day moving average. And for many people, that is a sign, a bullish sign, that perhaps the best is yet to come. It's been on a roll and it's been on a roll

for at least a couple of weeks. Look at this, third straight weekly gain. That's what we're headed for today. Shares trading above $300. And then you've got up 26% since the company reported its Q1 earnings results. Bottom line is this, the company may have been set back after the earnings call by people saying,

are we really sure the Robo taxi is gonna come in June? Are we sure about a number of other things regarding Elon Musk and his leadership at the company? Investors are clearly looking past that right now, Melissa, because this stock is on a roll. Again, going above $300 a share for a while today, now just to share, just a tick underneath $300. Melissa, back to you.

You know, Phil, while we have you, I got to ask you about Newark Airport. I mean, almost on cue the day after, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy outlines a plan that needs billions of dollars to fund to revamp the entire system. There's another issue. Right, and you know what the problem is for the Department of Transportation billions of dollars to fund to revamp the entire system, there's another issue. Right.

And you know what? The problem is for the Department of Transportation and for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees the Newark Liberty Airport, and for the airlines that are there, most notably United Airlines, we may see other incidents like this in the days and weeks to come. There's no way of knowing. Hopefully we don't see any more incidents like what happened early this morning just before 4 a.m. where there was a brief outage only impacted radar screens and

communications for a couple of sectors relative to the air traffic control for Newark Liberty. But a couple of seconds, 90 seconds is what the estimated outage was. That's way too long any time of day and if that continues even though they're making changes Melissa this is going to be oneage was, that's way too long any time of day. And if that continues, even though they're making changes, Melissa, this is gonna be one of those issues that's really gonna have people questioning if they wanna fly into that airport. All right, Phil, thank you, Phil LeBeau.

Let's get to Christina. Christina, you've got details on microchip and Taiwan Semi's moves higher. Big, big move on microchip. Yeah, and then that's because the manager says their industry has hit, quote, a bottom, echoing similar comments from executives at Texas Instruments as well as STM just in recent weeks with their earnings report.

Microchip, for those that don't know, makes chips for appliances, sensor connectivity, auto systems, and they're seeing improved ordering patterns as many customers really work through their chip stockpiles. Essentially, they're moving from an inventory correction phase to a restocking cycle. Evercore ISI thinks Microchip could potentially double its revenues within the next 12 to 24 months, while Citi expects the company to have, quote, the strongest bounce in fundamentals once the economy recovers.

That's according to them. And so these are just encouraging signs for the stock. And while you saw it jump. Also encouraging is TSMC on your screen, the world's largest chip manufacturer. Their April revenue jumped 48% year over year. That's the highest monthly sales figure on record. TSMC puts out their monthly earnings, monthly sales every single month, but they don't really break down what drove the surge. But it's reasonable to assume, what is it? AI hardware played a significant role since they had previously indicated they expect AI-related servers and processor revenue to double in 2025. And so that's helping shares, which by the way, up over 24% just over the last year,

12 months, almost 1% higher today, though. But there is a little asterisk next to that record sales figure, right? I mean part of it is going to be pull forward or expected to be pull forward. Precisely, you and I have talked about that quite a bit with a lot of these more cyclical names are Intel warning about pull forward AMD talking about demand pull forward being a little bit less obvious and TSMC, they manufacture all of these chips. So there's no doubt there's going to be some portion of that coming forward because of

tariff concerns over the next several months. But they didn't say anything about that, did they? No, they did not. Yeah. All right. Christina, thanks. Christina Parts-Nevelis. Let's get now to Wilmington Trust's Megan Hsu ahead of what could be a very big weekend in terms of trade talks with China,

Megan. What are you expecting? Because most people aren't expecting much. And if that is the case, then maybe the markets are positioned exactly right now, which is basically flat on the day, but a nice one going in. Yeah, thanks, Melissa. I think we're definitely in a place where the market has priced a lot of the progress that we've seen in the direction of trade talks, but now it comes down to sort of the magnitude, right? We know we are deescalating. We have a trade deal in principle with the UK. We are engaging in talks with China over the weekend. but in terms of how much we are rolling back, those tariffs and just what the magnitude of those end numbers look like is really critical

because even if we are talking about a 10% tariff as being the floor, which it's seeming increasingly likely that that is the case, I think that makes it a close call for how the economy shakes out in the year ahead and we are still pretty pessimistic if that's where we end up. I think that makes it a close call for how the economy shakes out in the year ahead and we are still pretty pessimistic if that's where we end up. So I think the market's recovered quite a bit because we're seeing progress towards

more of a tact where we're looking at ongoing trade deals, but those take time and we're still looking at elevated uncertainty in the meantime. When you hear about possibly the China tariff going down to, let's say, 80% was the number that Trump threw out, 60% is the number that the Wall Street Journal cited, according to people close to the situation. It's still very high, and it still might prevent trade from China from resuming. So when you're thinking about the backdrop for stocks going into the rest of the year, does a reduction of 80% move the needle on recession odds or no recession odds? Not really. Well, I think there's two points, though. One is that as we're looking at how

things have manifested over the past few weeks, what was perhaps most alarming about April 2nd and the tariff announcements was that it wasn't just against China. It was against all of our trading partners, leaving businesses really no place to go, no place to pivot their supply chains. I think many businesses came into this administration expecting to have to further pivot away from China. So seeing progress with other trading partners and we just are getting headlines that maybe there's a list of 18 to 20 trading partners who are being fast-tracked or prioritized,

that is constructive because it at least gives businesses a place to go. And as far as it relates to China, I think we need to see that tariff come down quite a bit more than just to 80%. That would still be pretty significant and pretty detrimental to existing businesses, especially if that is not phased in. I think it takes the effective tariff rate for the US down just a couple of percent still at multi-decade highs. Yeah. Which sectors?

You're saying fully allocated to equities. I mean, there's no telling. They could announce a deal and there could be a rip to remember in the S&P 500. Which sectors are you allocated to? Is it more the growthy side of it, the lower valuations? How would you characterize it? It's a balance. So we're trying to balance growth and value here for value looking for some maybe more attractive pricing in within the banks, within payment providers, and some of those sectors that typically represent value, but still having a slight overweight to technology, where you had a great segment just before,

yeah, certainly some, perhaps some pull forward of technology purchases from businesses, but still seeing really strong demand from AI and cloud computing and expecting that to be the part of the market that sustainably leads us out of here. So I think it's about staying diversified, also not forgetting about international stocks,

which have been more than pulling their weight this year for a change, which is nice for diversified investors. Healthcare wasn't on that full screen, Megan. It's been a tough sector. There are a lot of headlines going against it these days. Where does it stand in your portfolio, if at all? We do have a slight underweight to healthcare. We're trying to look at other areas

for defensive positioning and just see it as too headline-driven, a little bit too susceptible to both on the farmer side, more successful drug trials, as well as a lot of potential news to come as we move beyond tariffs within the administration. All right, Megan, thanks so much for joining us on this Friday. Megan Shue, women's and trust. Closing bell rings here on this Friday ahead of very controversial trade talks.

And quickly, in this weekend, You'll be watching on Monday. That does it for us here on Closing Bell. Let's send it over to Overtime with Mike Santoli. Thank you.