Closing Bell - Closing Bell: 7/14/25

Episode Date: July 14, 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 am Courtney Reagan. In today for Scott Wapner. Now this make or break hour starts with another record run on Wall Street as investors shrug off a new round of terror threats coming out of the White House. Right now, the NASDAQ is on pace for an all time closing high with the S&P 500 just a stone's throw away from the same. Plus Bitcoin soaring above the $120,000 mark for the first time ever, and the banks are front and center with earnings season kicking off tomorrow, which brings us to our talk of the tape.

What's at stake this earnings season? Let's discuss with Sol's alternative asset management, Dan Greenhouse. Dan, you come here on a point right where we're getting ready to kick off the earnings season with the banks. As we just mentioned, more market complacency with some tariff threats coming out of Washington. As we look ahead to earnings, is that what the market is waiting to move on? Yeah, listen, the near term concern is certainly tariffs.

I would take issue with the idea that the market is complacent. Fair, because? I think complacency is the type of adjective that we've used over the last 10 years for any time, and I'm not saying you're doing this, any time the market goes up when I think it should not, because I'm concerned about X, whether it's sequestration or the Chinese devaluation, all the way up to obviously today. I think the market's well aware. I think there is certainly a portion of the market that recognizes that some portion of tariffs will be higher today than we thought.

And I think my own view is that we should probably have a little breather here for the next couple of weeks as we determine exactly what those rates will be, if higher at all, on August 1st. So a breather because we just don't know? Yeah. Well, listen, I think when the original tariff headlines occurred on Liberation Day, there was a sense of shock and awe that, oh my god, these numbers are astronomical. If they were to come to pass, the universe is going to implode on itself. My argument was that's not going to come to pass, and so the universe will not implode

on itself. As that view became more mainstream, the market rallied back up. We had a bit of a pause in terms of the rhetoric. Scott Besson started speaking more, was more more prominent and people like Peter Navarro who the market was more skeptical of took a step back now you're at the point where the president is talking again about higher tariff rates that's going to take the effective US tariff rate up even higher than we currently anticipate it to be so so my argument would be while we determine exactly what that level is

going to be after a truly historic rally off the lows, some breather is in order. And just to frame this for the viewers at home, top to bottom from the post-liberation day lows, the U.S. stock market was up 26% over whatever period of days that was. That's the type of rally that you see off the 2009 low, off the 1974 low, off long-term capital management low

26% or so in that shorter duration of time is Really really rapid and really really strong and so all I'm effectively arguing is after what is effectively a historic rally Some digestion of that rally while some of these headlines come to pass Where do you feel about where valuations are sitting going into learning more about these companies and earnings season? The market is expensive relative to its own history, that's for sure, but I think there are complicating factors for that overriding argument, one of which of course is the strength of the MAG-7,

which trades at a higher valuation, deservedly so, I think everyone would agree, which drags up the broad market index. So there's two other ways you could look at it, the median stock in the index or the other sectors. And the truth of the matter is the other sectors are expensive, but not nearly to the degree that one might argue the technology is. And again, that's because of the growth rates that you're experiencing in those other sectors.

And I would add, the market's not really, I think it's hard pressed to look at any spot in the market right now and say, oh, that's clearly a bubble. Now you can argue that in the CapEx expenditures and Mag-7 AI, et cetera, at some point it may indeed prove to be a bubble. But I think with the way that spending is going right now, investor sentiment, at least in that framework, is entirely justified. It wasn't that long ago that every CPI report that came out

had everyone holding their breath. We're gonna get another one this week. Is it still as important? I think so. The reason why the market can sit at the highs at which it currently finds itself is because the evidence of the tariff bleed through has not shown itself in the macro data.

Companies have spoken of the various ways that they've had to adjust to this. Obviously, the importers bearing some of this, the consumers bearing some of it, the exporter is as well. But it hasn't shown through in something like the CPI or the PCE where the broad market can say, aha, tariffs are crimping purchasing power. And so the number tomorrow, if it comes in at 0.4 or heaven forbid 0.5, that's going to be a much different story., if it comes in at.4 or heaven forbid.5, that's going to be a much different story. But if it comes in at.2 or.3, I think the narrative that exists right now will continue

at least for another month or two. Is that different story that it moves the Fed off of where it currently sits or just implores them, hey, September really is on the table? Yeah,.4 or.5 will certainly complicate that story. If it comes in at.2 or.3, which is my and the consensus expectations, then I think a September rate cut becomes a real live probability because the larger conversation right now is whether tariffs are inflationary or tariffs are a tax. And I think the argument that the legitimate criticism of the Federal Reserve, if you will, rests on the idea that they shouldn't be holding back otherwise warranted rate reductions because taxes are raising the prices of goods.

Now this is a bigger argument, and there are legitimate arguments on the other side of this, but I actually subscribe to that view, that if tariffs are pushing up broader inflation measures by call it.5,.6 over otherwise non-tariff levels, should the Fed really withhold rate reductions, even if I can argue that those tariffs are gonna crimp purchasing power and maybe reduce household wealth and ultimately weigh on stock indices, then you could argue that it's even more justified

to reduce rates. It's a complicated story, but I think when it boils right down to it, 0.2, 0.3 keeps the Fed on track, I think, for a rate cut in September. And so obviously the bank stocks kick all of this off when we're talking about earnings season. We always pay a lot of attention, particularly to when Jamie Dimon speaks in his commentary in the earnings call. And otherwise, what are you expecting or hoping to hear out of the financials? Maybe

also as it pertains to M&A activity regulation or deregulation, we're still sort of waiting for those catalysts to really kick in Yeah, well some of those are longer lived items there doubt about that But in the short term listen the banks are always a myriad of issues You've got the trading oriented banks like Morgan Stanley and Goldman, which don't tell you much about the broader environment But the consumer focused banks BAML City group Wells Fargo, etc always have very good things to say about the consumer,

and the health of the consumer remains the focus of nearly everybody in the market, and deservedly so. And so what they have to say about a broad range of issues, obviously, NIMS and margins and M&A activity, etc., is important, but if you're Wells Fargo, I want to hear from you on mortgage demand and availability. Citigroup and BAML have real touch points with the consumer through their retail banking arm.

I would expect most of that commentary to be pretty healthy. I don't think that anything has occurred thus far to complicate that story, but it'll be a boost for the market if you can hear yet again that the banks are telling you the consumer from their standpoint looks okay. That's right. Yeah, they obviously have a lot of things to talk about depending on where their focus lies because the banks are so big and have so many different silos. They can give us some insights on.

Dan, stick with me because we also want to bring in high tarot advisors and CNBC contributor Stephanie Link along with Investgo's Brian Levitt. Stephanie, I will start with you. Ladies first, I know that you are interested in housing and the housing trade and Dan just sort of brought up loan growth and what we may or may not hear from the banks. What do you think you are expecting to hear from the banks in that vein and then what it may or may not tell you about that broader housing market trade? Well, first and foremost, I think that earnings for the quarter as a whole are going to beat

expectations. Expectations have been coming down at about 5% growth year over year. I think you're going to see 10% easily because in a 2.5% GDP world, you're going to grow mid single digits on revenues, but I think you're going to see margin expansion. I don't think a lot of people are talking that, and I don't think a lot of people are expecting that. So I think you're going to see a better than expected overall earnings report for the bank specifically.

We'll hear a bit about deregulation, and we did get positive stress tests just a couple of weeks ago. And then of course you heard the banks increase dividends by increasing their buybacks and that sort of thing. We still have other regulations to get through, like the SLR and IPO costs, et cetera. So to me, I think we're just at the beginning of deregulation. And what I expect to happen is certainly buybacks

and dividends, but also activity, loan growth. That's what we want. That's what Jamie Dimon has been talking about since 2008 that he wants to have excess capital so that he can lend to small and medium-sized businesses and so I think you're gonna start to see that as well. In addition, M&A as a whole we know the pipelines are very very strong and so that will be positive in capital markets as well. And then one last thing on the banks, net interest income and net interest margins, I expect them to positively surprise to the upside. And I think that is one of the reasons why all of this stuff added together.

I think this is why the valuations are where they are and why I think you can see expansion. As for housing, they're just down and out, absolutely hated. And all you need to do is get one rate cut in sometime in the fall, whether it's September, October, whenever it is, and these stocks are going to take off. They trade at eight to ten times forward estimates. Numbers have come down, so I think they've been de-risked. And the bottom line is that we're five million homes short in this country and have five million Millennials that are wanting to buy a first-time home, which is why I own DR Horton,

because 57% of their revenues are tied to that cohort. Fascinating stuff, Stephanie. Hit on a bunch of things for us to check off the boxes on, Brian, but I saw you nodding with both Stephanie and with Dan. I'd love to actually get your thoughts to start before we go down in more specifics about the fact that the last time you were on

of both of these two guests, we were in the middle of what you called an everything rally. What do you think is going to both of these two guests, we were in the middle of what you called an everything rally. What do you think is going to happen going forward? Yeah, we were sitting here, we were discussing small caps, we were discussing deeper value names, we're more, this whole idea of broadening, which everybody's been waiting for for a while.

And we all sat here and basically said, in order for this to continue, you're gonna need an improved policy mix. You're gonna need to see the administration continue to show incremental improvements with regards to tariffs and trade deals. And ultimately, you would need to see the Federal Reserve step forward with rate cuts.

So we're in a, I agree with Dan, we're in a little bit of a period right here where we're going to need to see further evidence of that transpiring. And basically what you've had over the last few days is We're going to need to see further evidence of that transpiring. And basically what you've had over the last few days is inflation expectations up modestly, interest rates up modestly. So it's a move right now that tends to not favor the everything rally, tends to be a little bit more back towards lower volatility, quality, growth stocks from where

we were just a couple of weeks ago when we thought policy would get incrementally better. Dan, Stephanie looks like she has a rosier outlook on what may happen overall earnings season. Does Agree agree? No, I don't think she's, well, she has a rosy outlook. I don't know that it's necessarily rosier than mine, although I'll have to discuss with Stephanie after this. Listen, I think U.S. companies have shown themselves over decades able to manage through

the most difficult environments. This is not the easiest environment, but it's certainly not the most difficult. To Stephanie's point about margin expansion, I wouldn't be surprised to see margin expansion this quarter either. Again, U.S. companies just are so resilient and profitable in the worst of environments, and I don't know why they're not going to be able to figure out this environment. I would also echo something Stephanie said about rate reductions. We can lament and criticize how the president might be going about doing it, but the argument

that the economy and the stock market would be incredibly boosted, if you will, by a series of rate reductions is an entirely inaccurate statement. I think the economy's doing pretty well right now. It's weathering the initial tariff storm, if you will. And if you were able to get 50, 75, again, heaven forbid, 100 basis points of rate reductions over the next year,

that would be incredibly beneficial, and especially the home builders, but to banks, to consumer-oriented stocks, et cetera, et cetera. That would be some kind of, I hate to banks, to consumer-oriented stocks, et cetera, et cetera. That would be some kind of... I hate to quote the president and say rocket fuel, but we'll go with rocket fuel for simple terms.

Okay, fair enough. Stephanie, we had been discussing with Dan about the CPI report expected out tomorrow and how so many of us hung on sort of that with bated breath for so long. It's still important. Do you think it's as important, even though we know it's somewhat backward looking? We know Jerome Powell obviously is going to be paying attention and the White House likely too. What do you expect?

Well, certainly it's important. It is a very important number, but I think if you have to step back for just a minute and look at where we've come from, two and a half years ago, we were at 9.1% headline. And last month we were at 2.1% headline and last month we were at 2.1% year-over-year headline. And I know everyone likes to look at the core numbers and core PCs and all that. I look at real inflation, everyday real

inflation and we have made substantial progress and that is one of the reasons why I do think the Fed should start to ease. We don't need the Fed funds rate at this high given where we are. That being said I would rather take above average GDP growth which is what we have at two and a half to three percent and a little bit higher inflation any day rather than the reverse than the opposite because that because I think a little bit better growth a little bit higher inflation gets is a good thing actually for earnings and that's what we care about ultimately in the stock market.

Stocks follow profits on the way up and on the way down. And that's why I am very encouraged that we will see, we have very low expectations for this quarter and I think you're going to see better numbers and I think a higher market. Yeah, maybe we have to get through August and September seasonally, but I think into the end of the year we're going to be higher. And if we turn the conversation to Brian real quick, Stephanie just mentioned something about tariffs and inflation.

She agreed that the Fed should be reducing interest rates. Do you think about the inflation rate, ex tariffs over the next 12 months? The point I made originally is at some point later this year, you might have core CPI, core PC, somewhere in the threes. But if you were to ex out the most tariff-implicated goods and sectors, you're, somewhere in the threes. But if you were to X out the most tariff implicated goods and sectors, you're probably somewhere in the twos. Is that a fair argument? You're probably more stable.

I think what's critical is the expectations for inflation. So if you start to see inflation going up, which we all suspect it will, right? Somebody's gotta pay the cost of the tariff. So likely you're gonna see some prices go up. The question is whether long-term inflation expectations start to become unanchored. That's a very different picture. Which there's no evidence for right now. There's no evidence. I mean you're starting to see the

five-year break even move up to two and a half or somewhere in that vicinity. That's okay. If you start to break meaningfully above that, then you may start to have some challenge in markets. So that's not my forecast. We saw this in 2018. The price of tariff goods went up and then faded. Everything else largely stayed fairly stable. So I agree with your assessment. I don't think the market is gonna overreact to bad inflation news unless you start to see the expectations for inflation become unanchored. Earlier in the conversation when I asked Dan if the market had become complacent, he thought maybe that wasn't the right word to use. How do you feel about it when you were just talking there about how the market sort of

is settled enough for right now and where we are? Yeah, to me it's more a question about what leadership looks like. So just knowing that the market is at an all-time high doesn't really give you a lot of information. Markets historically are at all-time highs 15 to 20 percent of the time and you do better investing on all-time highs than just random days. So that's not a lot of information. It's rather what parts of the market winning. And so you know again when when you have a broadening market it feels healthier the expectation is a better policy mix and better growth for

everyone when you're when you're in my camp where you think we may start to navigate back towards higher quality lower volatility for a point here it suggests to me that we likely need better policy and that better policy could come in Fed rate cuts. I agree with Stephanie, the Fed funds rate is too high. It would be lower if it weren't for the threat of tariffs. And we need to have more clarity with regards to trade. To the point about the broadening market

and getting back to the original question about complacency, if you look at the percentage of S&P 500 stocks that are above their 50-day moving average, it's about 55,60% right now. The last time we had a rally of this strength was off the COVID low. And at this point in the rally, roughly 80-85% of the stock market was above its 50-day moving average, implying a broader, stronger trend. If you wanted to argue the market was complacent, you'd point to that moment and say,

oh, everything's going up, nobody cares, they're buying everything. Whereas today, a larger percentage called 20 percentage points worth of the market is not above its 50-day moving average, meaning there is some idiosyncratic stories playing out. Yes, Live Nation is a high, yes, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, et cetera, highs, but there are any number of companies that are not doing nearly as well for many idiosyncratic reasons. And again, the stock market's up 7% year to date. This is not 20% year to date on its way to being up 40%. When you look at it relative to the previous high, we're up about 3%, 4%, 5% or something like that.

Over that timeframe, not a particularly egregious amount of gains so I think this again getting back to the original point the complacent story is more about the markets doing something I don't like. Fair enough and interestingly Live Nation is up about three percent today so look at that. Well everyone stay with me for just one moment as earnings season gets underway we do have a key factor for investors and that's of course dividends and buybacks Pippa Stevens has a look at where things stand and this is a very interesting one, Pippa. Hey Courtney, so the S&P 500's dividend yield is now 1.25 percent, which is within just

20 basis points of the all-time low of 1.12 percent, hit during the first quarter of 2000, according to S&P Global. Now this follows years of companies favoring buybacks over dividends, given the former is more flexible. Share repurchases had a record $293.5 billion during the first quarter, according to S&P Global. And part of this is a growth over income mindset, notes Deutsche Bank, with many high growth tech companies

retaining earnings to reinvest rather than distributing them to shareholders in the form of dividends. But that also means that in a downturn, buybacks can stop far more quickly, potentially pulling away a key pillar of market support, the firm said. Now, so far this year, the financial sector leads with buybacks at over 240 billion, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, followed by the tech sector. And when it comes to dividends, the energy and real estate sectors have the highest yields at 3.4%,

followed by utilities at 3%. Technology is the lowest at 0.6%, but of course, it's also possible dividends are increasing, but the index price itself is rising even faster, dragging down that yield. Courtney. Thank you very much. That's some interesting analysis there, Pippa.

Stephanie, I want to grab your comment on the back of Pippa's report about the dividends versus buybacks as we head into this earnings season. I like to see both, to be honest with you, a combination. I don't think companies are all that great at buying back their stock in terms of the timing, but I do like the fact that they have the conviction to buy back their stocks.

In terms of yields, yields are down because the stock prices are higher. Actually look at something when the market's correct, I actually look at something called accidentally high yields. Jim Cramer and I actually talked about this when I worked for him back in the day. When a stock, when a great company and their stock price goes down and their yield goes higher, that is when you actually want to buy, right? Something like 4%.

When a 4% yield happens and occurs, that's a buy point to me. So I know that the point of this article and the commentary was all about yields. I'm not alarmed at all. And I think a lot of that is because we've seen such great action in the overall market. Free cash flow is the most important thing to keep an eye on at any given time and if it's still strong and yet the yields are low I don't worry they'll find uses for that cash. Very interesting and that's another bookmark for us accidentally high yield I'm gonna start looking for

that one. Dan, Stephanie, Brian thank you all for being here with us today very much. Let's get on back to Pippa Stevens this time for a look at the biggest names moving into the close. Pippa, what you got? Is jumping as the company is reportedly no longer pursuing an acquisition of fellow software maker PTC, that's according to Bloomberg in the filing today. The company said it remains focused on allocating capital to organic investment targeted and tuckin acquisitions, those shares up nearly 6%. And Synopsys shares are lower after China conditionally approved the chip designer's $35 billion

takeover of engineering design firm Ansys. Conditions include Synopsys continuing to honor existing contracts with Chinese clients and not refusing renewal requests. Ansys is higher on the deal up about 3%. Courtney? Thank you very much, Pippa. I appreciate that for both of those reports. We are just getting started here.

Up next, the best bank bets on earnings season, as that of course gets underway here this week. One top analyst is standing by with his top picks for you. We are live from the New York Stock Exchange, and you're watching Closing Bell on CNBC. Welcome back. The big banks are getting set to report results kicking off tomorrow. Our Leslie Vicker joins us now with more. Hi Leslie, what can we expect for these? Hey, Courtney. Yeah, the biggest six U.S. banks are up 33% on average just over the last three months. So the street is asking whether valuations are getting a bit stretched here or whether the new numbers and commentary will catalyze further to the upside.

On average, this cohort is trading at a 27 percent premium to its 10-year average. And with tariff inflation, lower income consumer health questions, and rate uncertainty, there are still some pretty prevalent macro risks circling. On the flip side, we've seen a dramatic shift on the regulatory front with reforms expected to loosen capital requirements. Banks are expected to deploy what's now excess capital in the form of buybacks or M&A or additional loan growth if the demand for loans are there. Additionally, global M&A volume is higher by 25% in the first half of the year driven

by larger deals. IPO volume up 14%. Equity trading is also expected to have another banner quarter and analysts are expecting net interest income to help bolster the bottom line this quarter thanks to loan growth that we've seen in some of the Fed data.

Now the key question is how much of these tailwinds are already priced in court or are there additional numbers, things that the executives say on the call that could bolster the stocks even higher from here? Yeah, absolutely. And of course we listened very close to those calls, especially those biggies, the big six.

And Leslie posed some good questions for us to be able to talk about further with our guest, our guest research, Steven Bigger. Steve Bigger, thanks for joining us. Steve, what are you expecting, I guess, when it comes to the big banks? Who do you think could see the biggest upside from here? If a big question, as Leslie sort of posed to us, the valuations are at least considered stretched by some already.

Yeah. Hi, Courtney. As far as the bank's reporting tomorrow in particular, I think, yeah, looking for some pretty good results. You know, to the April quarter, and things were in a much different position. We had, we're in the throes of the tariffs, the Liberation Day conversations had stopped, essentially, with regard to advisory, IPO activity. And three months later, we've had a terrific rebound. And I think the upward rerating in the stocks has been justified, not only from the improved macro environment or at least from the depths of those days in April, but much more constructive conversations.

As Leslie mentioned, the deregulatory environment, we've got a decent loan growth here, environment about 3% for both commercial, industrial and consumer. A bit muted, given where interest rates have stayed elevated, but at the same time, higher for longer has resulted in some upward repricing on securities on the balance sheet for these banks. So deposit pressures, which were a problem when rates were peaking, that has abated. And so with a little bit of net interest margin improvement here, I think they can turn 3% loan growth into 5 or 6% net interest income growth. And still no concerns on the loan loss provision side either. Unemployment has been healthy throughout.

That's an enormous determinant for delinquencies, charge-offs and therefore loan loss provisions. So looking good almost across the board. determinant for delinquencies, charge-offs, and therefore loan loss provisions. So looking good almost across the board. And you mentioned sort of the impact of tariffs has somewhat been minimal after we had the announcement in April from the White House. We were all a little worried about what was going to play out. Of course, we've seen those deadlines move and many other things become fluid there,

but you believe that businesses that are involved with banks looking for loan or capital expenditures have sort of taken their hands off the wheel when it comes to pause, and maybe they're deploying some capital now because at least we know a little bit more, perhaps? Well, I think the shock factor on tariffs has abated quite a bit. You know, we hear new announcements practically, you know, weekly if not daily,

and it's having much less of an impact. So I think companies are trying to find a way around tariffs to live in that tariff environment, whether that's on the cost side, the revenue side, moving production, and you know, and also there's this theme of tariffs coming on and then being pulled back before they actually go into effect. So I think yes the uncertainty remains and that certainly could be resulting in some more moderate loan growth some pause on expansion plans and the like. For banks there's trade finance might be impacted negatively.

Certainly has still had an impact on IPO and M&A activity, which I think would be much stronger in the absence of any tariff conversation. But certainly a bright spot there in terms of the potential for rebound in capital markets generally. And there was some news today about a deal in the regional banking space with Huntington Bank buying Veritex. I know you don't trade or have a position at all with your advice when it comes to Huntington

or those names, but generally when you can talk about the divergence between the big banks and the regional banks, what do you expect going forward? Well, first to the merger story, no surprise here, right? Just look back to 2020. We had 5,000 FDIC-insured banks, and now we have 4,500. We've been losing about 100 banks a year, and a lot of reasons for that. Technology spending, all this AI spending, you hear about legal compliance, fraud detection,

prevention. that's a lot of costs that can be taken out. The large banks have that, and it's much easier to spread those costs over a much larger asset base as they do. They really are much more efficient than the small banks and even most regional banks. I think they'll have certainly an know, certainly an easier time getting through the Trump administration in terms of the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, you know, easier activity through there. So I think we'll see more M&A in that space in the next few

years. Steve Biggar, thank you very much for joining us ahead of the bank earnings season kicking off. Thank you. Well, coming up, Bitcoin breaking out to new all-time highs and one top technician says this rally is more room to run. Katie Stockton tells us the key levels that she's watching. Closing bell, we'll be back after this break. Bitcoin's big breakout showing no signs of slowing as the crypto cracks above $123,000 earlier today.

Fair lead strategies Katie Stockton is digging into the charts and joins us now. I mean, Katie, when you look at this chart, at least just most recently, it just seems like it's going only one direction. Does the chart action and the technical analysis show you that we are going to continue going up and to the right? Well, it's easy to forget that before this big breakout, we did have maybe seven, eight weeks of consolidation. So it feels like it's ancient history right now. But the breakout did follow a pause that obviously refreshed the uptrend.

We saw that 108,300 level that we've been citing cleared, and that happened obviously very decisively. We are able with the breakouts to sort of generate these measured move projections, which essentially they're assuming the trajectory of the prevailing trend ahead of the corrective phase is maintaining itself. And that puts Bitcoin around 135,000 as an intermediate term or maybe a quarter long type of objective. It seemed pretty aggressive a few days ago, maybe now a little bit less so, but we are impressed by the breakout. Wow, 135,000. That's quite a number. When you look at other stocks that track cryptocurrencies or Bitcoin most specifically, most closely of Coinbase or MicroStrategy, are you expecting similar action there? We are, and they're acting well, of course, alongside Bitcoin and also the altcoins.

We saw Ether break out from a consolidation phase, clearing its 200-day moving average. So there is positive action really across the universe of cryptocurrencies. Ripple we highlight today as having advanced from a triangle formation. So from a technical perspective, we are seeing some pretty actionable breakouts and some are major breakouts, some are minor breakouts. The individual stocks that tend to perform alongside these cryptocurrencies have really benefited. Coinbase for one has cleared resistance that defined what looks like the upper boundary of a big cup and handle formation.

This is a very long term setup from a technical perspective that shows that a corrective phase that followed a big rounded base has now culminated in a breakout. Micro strategy, which is, of course, very highly volatile, but still has maintained a long term uptrend with higher lows and now has a short term breakout of its own. So there does seem to be positive action across the board. We also noticed there's a propensity for this space to kind of skyrocket like it is doing right now, but then it takes a prolonged pause.

So these pauses or plateaus in the price of Bitcoin in particular can be a bit frustrating for investors, but I think if they can kind of keep in mind the prevailing secular uptrend, they'll be well served by that. Yeah, that's very interesting, the pause. And obviously, I know we're focusing here on the technicals, but there have been some other maybe more fundamental headlines that have been surrounding Bitcoin with what's going on in Washington, DC and the Genius Act. Were those at all, do you believe some sort of a source of a catalyst before this pause?

And so now we've got that information and we're going to sit tight here. Well, the chart won't answer that. I won't tell you why something's happening, but it's interesting to see that Bitcoin is kind of pulling away from the price of gold. Gold is still consolidating within its long term uptrend, whereas Bitcoin has pulled away. So there probably is something there to make of. And I would say with gold, we still are honoring that long term uptrend, but certainly we don't have a new upside catalyst there. So we're watching support to just like determine if that long-term uptrend is losing steam in a meaningful way so we

have our eyes on Bic or gold in addition to Bitcoin and Bitcoin right now is the one that has that catalyst and seems to have the tailwind. Well as we sit here we're getting close to potentially closing at all-time highs for two of these indices can you look for us at say the S&P 500 chart, what that tells you about where we may be going when you're looking through this at a technical analysis? Yeah, for sure. So we saw breakouts in both the SPYders and the Triple Qs. So these are the major indices. It was largely driven by the mega caps and large cap tech, which were the source of leadership off of the April low. I think the rally extended itself far greater than many expected, including us.

But now that we have the breakouts, we do wanna respect them. They tend to not only relieve the charts of resistance, but they tend to generate additional upside momentum. So we wanna respect the breakout and we're encouraged by the fact that there is good breath. Or participation alongside it we saw over the- past two weeks.

The advanced decline line reached a new high. In confirmation of those new highs in the major indices. And what we do is it really the same methodology as we use for Bitcoin. To arrive at an objective for the S. and P.

five hundred. And that for us is pretty impressive. It's around 6880 and that would be a long-term objective that brings us out into potentially early to mid-2026. It's just a guideline, but it does tell us to respect the breakout. It doesn't mean we have to chase this up move from a short-term perspective.

Some digestion does seem likely because we have overbought conditions, especially from those mega caps, but we are encouraged by it. You ran us through a lot. Katie Stockton, thank you very much for that. And if you want to check out more of Katie's thoughts on Bitcoin, head to CNBC.com backslash pro. Well, coming up next, we are tracking the biggest movers as we head into the close. Pippa Stevens standing by with that.

Hi, Pippa. Hey Courtney Guggenheim is hitting the brakes on one EV player sending those shares lower. You've got the name to watch coming up next. 15 minutes until the closing bell. Let's get back to Pippa Stevens for a look at the key stocks to watch. Hi Pippa. Take a look at shares key stocks to watch. Hi Pippa. Take a look at shares of Rivian because they are under pressure after Guggenheim downgraded the company to neutral,

pointing to softer long-term sales assumptions. For the EV companies, R2 and R3 vehicles, the firm adding the One Big Beautiful Bill Act introduces fundamental and narrative risks that cannot be ignored. And lab equipment maker Waters Core, also in the red after announcing it will combine with Bechtin Dickinson's Biosciences

and Diagnostic Solutions Unit. Waters shareholders will own about 60% of the new company, while Bechtin's will own 40%. Waters is pacing for its worst day in six years, down 13%. Courtney. Thank you very much, FIPPA. Well, coming up, a bearish call in the restaurant space. As Starbucks shares falling today, we'll tell you why one firm is turning negative on the

coffee chain. Closing bell back up for the break. We are now in the closing bell market zone. Meta is on the move as the company announces plans to invest hundreds of billions in AI data centers. Deirdre Boza has the details. Plus, Gay Rogers on what's put pressure on Starbucks shares today. And Wells Fargo Investment Institute's Scott Wren breaks down the crucial final minutes of the trading day.

We are going to kick off with Dee. More spending. More spending. More spending, a lot of it. In fact, Meta says it will invest hundreds of billions of dollars in a compute build out, and that is unprecedented. Multiple mega, multiple multi gigawatt clusters in the works with the first Prometheus coming online in 2026, and Hyperion that Zuckerberg says will scale

to five gigawatts over several years. He also says this will give Meta the highest compute per researcher in the industry. This puts Metta in direct competition with OpenAI and Oracle's project Stargate, possibly ahead of hyperscalers, Microsoft and Amazon on raw model training capacity if it executes the potential bottleneck, though. Energy permitting, these are power hungry super clusters. The 5 gigawatt deployment, Courtney, would require more energy than some countries consume. It's really hard to get your head around the energy that's required for some of this. This is fascinating stuff. Deirdre, thank you so much. We are going to move to Kate and Starbucks

because my gosh, I need some caffeine. Kate, what do you got for us? Why are the shares on the move today? Hey, Courtney. So Amelia said it is initiating coverage on both Starbucks and McDonald's today, saying the restaurant industry is structurally attractive for investors, but defending traffic is harder than ever. On Starbucks, it's a sell with a price target of $80. The firm's saying it remains a global coffee leader,

but the road to, quote, operational consistency and brand revitalization is longer and harder than consensus expects, adding a turnaround is underway, but not yet proven and execution risk is high. It also notes operations in the US are stabilizing, but China, of course, its second home market facing much steeper local competition. As you mentioned, court Starbucks lower today just under 2% also had that back to office announcement earlier in the day, four days a week, up from three.

That's right. Bank got to hit the cubicles, guys. Got to get back to work. Thanks very much. Really appreciate it, Kate. Well, we've have Scott Wren here with us here today. Wells Fargo Investment Institute, senior global markets strategist. As we have just a couple of minutes heading into the close, we've got a big week here,

Scott. We're going to hear from a number of the big banks. Of course, you've got CPI, we've got PPI. We've got to keep our eyes on Washington into the close. You've got a big week here, Scott. We're gonna hear from a number of the big banks. Of course, you've got CPI, we've got PPI. We've gotta keep our eyes on Washington all the time. Through it all, and there may be a lot of turmoil. It feels that way to me, but the market, shrugging it off in large part, it looks like we're gonna close in

on some new highs here today. What should we be watching and expecting going into the rest of this week here? Well, Courtney, I think that the CPI data is going to be very important and I think that the earnings data, I mean the market's pricing in pretty much a mid single digit type of growth rate and I think that's probably what it's going to be. But we're coming down to August 1st, we're seeing some pretty big numbers thrown out there by the president as far as tariffs that will go into effect.

So we're gonna see comments from the president and probably from a number of people in his administration quite a bit. And then we're going to see that inflation data and some earnings. So I think there's a lot of things this week that can help the market. There's a lot of things this week that can hurt the market.

That's gonna be the case probably over the next month or two So you just have to kind of be ready you have to have Some confidence that the economy is going to improve probably at the end of this year and going into next year And you have to try to position yourself for that when you can so pullbacks are good We look at those as opportunities and we're doing a little trim in and let's say industrials Consumer discretionary right in here. We think those are overvalued.

So there's some things you can do, but I think you have to be patient overall. Okay, so where, you said where you're trimming, anywhere you're adding to, or catalyst that you're waiting for in order to add. Yeah, Courtney, I think, you know, we've been overweight tech for a while. We've been overweight communication services for a while. They've been, over the last three months, we've been overweight tech for a while. We've been overweight communication services for a while.

They've been, over the last three months, they've been the best performers. So we certainly continue to like those. But I think what we're really watching is the employment situation out there. And we know that initial jobless claims, which come out every Thursday, they've been really holding in there at that 230, 240 type number, something like that. Continuing claims have been working their way higher. So I think if you're watching the Fed at all, which people are doing, obviously, you want to watch what's happening in the labor market.

And we think the unemployment rate is going to go up. We've got a 4.8 number out there for year end. Certainly, if we start to inch up here, I think the fed's going to cut. We've only got one price then cut this year. And so, you know, the market's looking for two, maybe three. I think the market's going to be disappointed. That could cause some volatility. But the job list, or the job situation, consumer spending, that's very important for us going forward. You know, I would love to get your take on why you think the markets have been so resilient today or other days, frankly, when there's news out of Washington about increasing rates on tariffs. On Mexico, a very close trading

partners of ours, it seems to be some miscommunication and the understanding about what's going on with the EU. Why do you think the market is not so worried about that right now? Well, you know, I think that, you know, in my mind, you know, you look out there and, you know, tariffs in the near term, intermediate term, tariffs aren't going down, they're going up, and so, but I think the market does not believe that we're going to see the magnitude of tariffs that have been threatened out there, and that's what's allowed, that's

what's allowed the market to stay at these elevated levels. I mean, let's face it, stocks aren't cheap. And then also just the thought that the Federal Reserve is going to cut. It's just a matter of when. So I have to admit, Courtney, it's been a little surprising. We're hoping we'd have some more opportunities. In other words, stocks trading off, you know, 10%, something like that. It hasn't happened since early April.

But I do think you're going to see some downside volatility here. But I just think the market doesn't believe that the ultimate magnitude of tariffs that are going to be in place are going to be that high. Yeah. I mean, to your point, no matter if it's not as big as it once was, it is certainly a number. Dan Clifton at Strategic says in the past 10 days, Trump has added $167 billion in new tariffs. Thank you very much for joining us. Appreciate you being here. As we get very close here to this close, I think we're going to do it for the NASDAQ

composite at the very least. I think the F&T is not going to quite get there for today, but still we are seeing the major averages close in the green across the board from the Dow to the Russell. That does it for closing down. Let's send it over to Overtime with John Hort.