Closing Bell - Closing Bell 7/15/25

Episode Date: July 15, 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.

Welcome to Closing Bell. I'm Sarah Ithan and today for Scott Wapner, the make or break hour starts with another record run on Wall Street. The Nasdaq and S&P both touching fresh all-time highs in today's session as bank earnings roll in. We're off that for the S&P. NVIDIA gets the green light to sell AI chips in China. That's moving the market. Here's the scorecard with 60 minutes to go until the bells take a look. We've got the Dow down almost a percent. The S&P 500 about a quarter of a percent lower. The only sector that's higher right now is information technology. It is fueled by the chips. That's Nvidia, AMD. All the other sectors are lower. Hardest hit materials, healthcare and financials. Our talk of the tape. Should you lean into this record rally or is it time to take some chips off the table? Let's ask Chris Heise, Merrill and Bank of America private bank CIO. So what do you think?

I do think it's time to lean in. I know we're close to all-time highs. If not, we touched them today. We look at the trend lines that are going on. Sure, we're going to get some weakness, right? We have to reliquify the treasury general account. You're gonna see some liquidity come out on the market. Those are buying opportunities. If you look out over the next six or seven years, Sarah, and we just kind of pause for a second on the next week or two weeks, the greatest CapEx boom that we are going to witness

is yet to come. It's just now beginning. And that touches- Are you talking about the AI spending? The AI spending. And that touches more than just one sector. It feels like it's begun already. It is. It's a now beginning. And that touches the AI spending. And that touches more than just one sector. It feels like it's begun already. It is.

It's a lot of spending. And we've got trillions yet to go. So there's billions that have been deployed in terms of what has been announced. But in terms of actual input into the actual infrastructure, the digital infrastructure space, it's just beginning. Therefore, weakness in financials, industrials, utilities, information technology, those areas

are buying opportunities, even though we're at all-time highs. And not worried about that offsets tariff pressure, potential margin pressure if the companies have to eat that. And we saw an inflation, some of it's getting passed on, but not that much. No, it's really not. And if it does get passed on, we know it's kind of limited to a certain degree because you have to constantly have that to continue to pass it on. So what we like to say is these are turnstiles in terms of these worries.

You go through them, you don't come back the other way. You can't. So once you go through them and if there's weakness, those are buying opportunities. So you feel comfortable recommending people lean in after already we've seen a what? More than I'm trying to look off the lows, almost 30% rally off the lows for the S&P 500. For the NASDAQ, it's been 40% off the lows. If this business cycle is just going and we have six to seven years left of a true profit cycle, which is our opinion, you could potentially be looking at another double in the S&P, which is not a lot of heavy lifting, because that matches the

return that we've seen in markets over the last six, seven, eight decades. So I get the buying on all of the spending frenzy over AI. The question is return on investment and whether that will match just how much this is costing. You know, by default, if you have a catalyst as large as the data center build out is to create and match the infrastructure needed for the demand that's there, when you spend billions and ultimately trillions,

the ROI compounds on itself and lends itself to a full profit cycle. So if you have generative artificial intelligence hitting at the cost line, it helps margins expand, it creates greater profitability, and then the ROI is there, not just in the public space, but also the private market. And that extends to sectors like banks, for instance? I mean, they're a little bit weaker on today's earnings. Are you a buyer? We're buyers of the financial sector. Somebody needs an asset manager, somebody needs an

advisor, somebody needs a wealth manager, somebody needs to lend into the space, and then ultimately you kind of put that out into. That's always been the case, but they haven't always been great stocks to hold. But the lending itself that's going on, given what we talked about for the infrastructure rebuild, it's across the board.

And that just also extends itself to the asset management community. Last time I checked, more people are going to need to retire, more people are going to need to actually invest more people are going to need to actually invest. Because if, let's just say this, if Social Security and retirement isn't there in the cases it is today, in the future, then you're going to need to start to invest a lot early.

And we're already seeing that happen. What does it all mean for valuations? What do you think is fair at this point? We have this theory that there's an asset light era going on right now. The more asset light you are, the less fixed cost you are, particularly to labor. If that's the case and they have the cash and they have the strong balance sheets, then multiple should stay higher than what we're all used to relative to history. You know, whether that's 18, 19, 20 times, 21 times, whatever.

We'll let the market decide that. But multiple sticky at current levels makes sense to us. Okay, Chris, hang on. We are getting some more breaking news out of Washington on the key crypto bill. Emily Wilkins has a story. So what's happening, Emily? Hey, Sarah. So just a little bit ago, we saw a key procedural vote go down after about a dozen Republicans voted against it.

We're now hearing that their main concerns, remember, there are three crypto crypto bills one of them is supposed to go to Trump's desk this week Trump said he wanted it But those members are pushing back saying that all three of them need to go together And they're worried that if the one bill on stable coin goes ahead to Trump's desk another bigger bill on market structure around digital Assets when is it a security when's a commodity, won't be able to get done. So it seems like there might be a little bit of disagreement about exactly how these bills should be passed. What we know is that Republican leadership right now, they're regrouping, they're talking with members. And so we expect to see potentially another vote as soon as later this afternoon. Remember, this is supposed to be crypto week on Capitol Hill, a big week for the industry, a big week for lawmakers pushing this. And there is concern that if

they can't figure out how to go forward on this procedural vote, they won't be able to do the actual votes on the bill later this week and could hold up progress. So a bit of a scramble here on Capitol Hill right now, trying to salvage these crypto bills. We'll keep you updated as we hear more. Sarah? Is this a surprise? I think David Sacks from the White House was telling us earlier, he expects these bills to all pass in the House. And as you said,

be on the president's desk for signing this week. It is a surprise, Sarah. I mean, I've been talking with folks in the crypto industry as well as lawmakers all this week. Everyone thought that the big discussion was going to be about what happened in the Senate on one of these bills, but one of them had already passed the Senate

and the White House was already making plans for a bill signing ceremony on Friday. So definitely a surprise that this has come up, a surprise that these members are so strongly pushing for these bills to move together. And remember, if these bills wind up being moved into a package, that means the one stable coin bill that could have has already cleared the Senate and could

have gone to the White House this week is now going to be held up until a much broader and more complex bill on market structure gets decided on. So politics going on on Capitol Hill. And so it's going to be see if these members can be swayed to let all these bills go individually so Trump can get the bill signing that he wants and then potentially see that larger market structure bill move, perhaps potentially later this fall. All right. A bit of a twist there in crypto week. We'll see what the next vote holds.

Thank you very much, Emily Wilkin. Circle, by the way, down 5%. It's had a tremendous run in anticipation of these types of bills. Chris, what about, are you leaning into crypto-related stocks as well, since you like everything? We kind of push that off to the side, Sarah. We're focused more on private markets, on the alternative investment space, as well as the public side of the equation. And we'll let all of that flesh itself out.

But certainly what's going to be needed is blockchain management as we go forward for a variety of reasons. And for that you like financial services? Pretty much the information technology area. Financial services is another area that's untapped in that regard. And then as we move forward, if you really think about where consumer discretion is going to go, particularly the larger retailers, If you do have a global business, whether it's remittances,

whether it's moving supply chains, et cetera, everything is moving to digital infrastructure. It's funny, you know, as we speak, I'm looking month to date, best performing sectors are information technology and energy. Yeah. And the two sort of go hand in hand. Yeah, and they do now.

Our mid-year report is called the Asset Light Era Meets Innovative Infrastructure, specifically because that area of demand power needs is matched with where the money is. So if you follow the money, you usually follow the ROI. With that in mind, Chris, hang tight. We'll get to Deirdre Bosa now who's tracking the big move for shares of Nvidia, talking about all this spending on AI, Deirdre. Yeah, so it's a relief rally, but it's also a strategic reset for Nvidia,

the company confirming it will resume sales of its H20 AI chips to China, and that is billions of dollars in revenue coming back into the pipeline. It's also remarkable how Jensen Huang pulled this off. Now, he tied Nvidia's fate to a strategic interest essential in the AI arms race and key to keeping Huawei from building a truly independent AI ecosystem that could threaten US leadership in the long term.

Now that message appears to have landed in Washington. And so that is why you see Wall Street backing this move, not just for the near term upside, but for what it signals about Nvidia's position in the geopolitical AI ecosystem. We talked about this earlier, Sarah. The real winner here is CUDA. That's Nvidia software ecosystem that everyone from Alibaba to DeepSeek builds on. So with those H20 licenses granted, Nvidia gets to keep selling just enough, even though they're not high performing chips, just enough to stay relevant and keep CUDA locked in as

the default. Quickly, Deirdre, AMD is advancing even more than Nvidia today. Does it also get a pass now to sell to China? I think that's the assumption. And also, I mean, if you take a look at sort of the more performant chips, one of its chips is actually better performing than an H20. So that could open up the field for them to sell more into China.

Got it. Deirdre Bosa, thank you. Earlier today, I mentioned that I was talking to White House AI and crypto czar David Sachs. And I asked him about why we are relaxing some of these rules around allowing chip sales, the H20s, in China. Here's what he said. We shouldn't be selling our best and latest, greatest

advanced semiconductors to China. But the H20 is a deprecated chip. It's not anywhere close to the state of the art. And that's why the Biden administration allowed the H20 chip to be sold to China. So this is a continuation of the art. And that's why the Biden administration allowed the H-20 chip to be sold to China. So this is a continuation of that policy. Not as good chips. With more reaction, let's bring in

Kestra Investment Management's Kara Murphy and HSBC's Matt Kentner. Chris Heise is still with us. So Kara, I mean, just when you think the chips have been, you know, big leaders, huge gains, maybe take some profits, you get new catalysts, like today, what do you do with these stocks? So we think actually for looking out multiple years from now,

the biggest impact of AI is going to be in other industries where you start to see companies really innovate, use the new technology, think about how it supercharges their businesses. And I think there's a good argument to be made that this can start to help smaller companies as you go. So for now it's been very focused on the really big names in the market. There's been huge concentration in those names. They've gotten all the valuation. They've seen all the earnings. But over

in the next couple of years as we start to see companies in a lot of different sectors and industries think about how they can use that AI to automate different processes, lower risk. I think that becomes a huge productivity driver for the US economy. Yeah, I mean, it's similar, Chris, to what you were saying, but just in Nvidia in particular, I think today's move highlights

just how well Jensen Huang has navigated the political situation and the geopolitical situation where he is able to now sell chips to China that were banned where we still don't want them to have our most advanced chips. What does that say about the stock? I think what it says about the entire vertical stack, if you have a vertical stack versus a horizontal stack you're going to protect a lot of it and what it says about in terms of national security, what it says about protecting your innovation, that screams loudly.

But at the same time, it still opens up a market for other parts of that stack to be sold into. And that's why you're seeing a lot of fervor come back again into the space. And again, it's easy to get overly excited about all of this, but the total addressable market is just beginning. We haven't untapped the last phaseable market is just beginning. We haven't untapped the last phase, we're just going into the second phase. Max, what about

you as a multi-asset strategist? How do you factor AI into the different assets you cover? Yeah, look, actually going into the Q2 reporting season, it's pretty bullish because of course when we look at earnings expectations, they've been slashed not only for the overall market but in particular also for tech. So you look at S. and P. earnings expectations. For the tech sector they're bottom up

consensus actually saying. That earnings are going to remain flat quarter over quarter even though you guys were talking just about. A. I capex and I. A. I. spending. Not only did that in Q1 meet expectations. And not only did it

defy any sort of concerns around DeepSeek that we had in January and February, it actually surpassed expectations. And now we've got that additional benefit from the weaker dollar and the additional benefit from very, very steep cuts in expectations. So I do think the next couple of weeks, particularly for the tech and for the I.A.I. sector particularly for the mega caps is going to be absolutely crushing I think really people are. Way way way too bearish in particular when you look at you know some of the some of the numbers already coming out where really we don't see much of an impact of the of the tariff noise yet on the overall earnings numbers. Although, I mean, the SharePoint's performance has been very strong. And the lesson from the banks today is that when you have a strong run up, it's a tough setup for a good reaction to earnings.

I mean, the bank earnings were fine. Yeah, they were fine, but also expectations were higher going into it. Whereas, you know, you look at the tech sector, in fact, we've seen these big, big cuts there. And I do think that people are still perhaps a little bit worried around some of that AI capex spending, if that can really hold up,

where I am much, much less concerned. And even when you look at it from a bit of a broader sense, we see in particular when we compare US versus Europe, particularly in the US, the use of AI, the practical use, the definitive use of AI of things like data science, machine learning, LLM models, but also generative AI. We see that much more widespread when we look at earnings calls within the S&P 500 and compare that to Europe. We have almost around 100 examples where really in the Q1 reporting season, where really companies are very practically already using AI and very

definitively already reporting either cost benefits or benefits to margins. Very, very different from Europe. And again, that puts not only the tech sector, but also the US overall in a much better position. And this gets to your point a little bit, Kara, because if you're worried that AI has already been factored into the US market, well, guess what? The S&P is up 6% this year. The German DAX is up 20%. And you just heard Max spell out how much more ahead in advance the U.S. companies are

when it comes to implementing it. I think the other important piece of that equation is expectations, right? So as we look at U.S. market valuations, very, very strong. And obviously, that's where the earnings growth has been, looking backward. Looking forward, I think we see much, much lower valuations in Germany and other European countries, and sort of that differential of earnings growth is starting to narrow a little bit, and you have these massive valuation spreads, and you have, you know, weakness in the dollar and people looking for other

alternatives. I think that means that we could see some legs to this non-US equity rally elsewhere. So again, it doesn't mean that earnings necessarily have to turn down in the US, but simply that differential starts to narrow. Where do you think the expectations are most mismatched in the market right now? So I think broadly between Europe overall,

relative to the US, I think those earnings start to narrow. France and Germany in particular, I think we start to see a pickup there. We have a lot of infrastructure spending coming online there, and that can help drive that going forward. What about within the US market, Chris? Any expectations, mismatch, just reading into some of the, for instance, reaction to the bank earnings today, where things got a little hopeful?

Yeah, there was a little bit of a run-up there for the last few months. There's a lot of mix going on in the financials earnings right now, but I think the industrial sector, that's the guts. Kara was talking about different parts that will benefit from generative artificial intelligence build out. There is exposure, high exposure non-dollar assets in engineering and construction and industrials as well, but if you think about defense and aerospace and the build out of these data centers and the guts needed, I think you're seeing a revaluation in the industrial sector that's just getting going. What about Max, the impact of tariffs on earnings? I mean, is that why you think

expectations are low? I think so. You know, when we look at earnings cuts and earnings expectations cuts for the second quarter, actually they've been the steepest cuts and earnings expectations in about three and a half years. And, you know, we look at corporates themselves. That, I think, is the funny thing that normally what you are seeing ahead of an earnings season is that corporates are rushing to lower their guidance. Right. We get these pre announcements where they're trying to guide expectations from analysts lower and lower just to lower the bar to be just to so we get this sort of 70 75 percent

beat rate in the end right now actually you know on average historically you get around three negative pre-announcements relative to one right now that ratio is almost one to one so corporates themselves are looking at this and are saying you know what yeah tariffs and uncertainty tariffs and uncertainty, we kind of get it, but let's be honest, actually, you guys have been downgrading all the expectations so much already, we're kind of happy with that, we don't even need to guide you lower. So I do think that really people are a little bit too bearish

when it comes to tariffs and when it comes to looking at Q2 and sort of, I feel it's almost desperately being like, okay, so, you know, there's gonna be this sector and that sector and those names where we're gonna feel the first margin impact. And people really forget about how steep those earnings expectation cuts have been, number one. And number two, how much of a tailwind the weaker dollar,

even in an equity market like the S&P 500, where, you know, 40% of sales are coming from non-US based. And, you know, you look at the first 20 names, it's about half of the revenues that come from non-US sources. So the weaker dollar really, really is a fantastic tailwind. I mean, you're all very bullish. So Max, what's the biggest risk to your second half call here? Look, I do think it's yields.

I think it's not tariffs. It is, in fact fact I think the labor market when we go into you know the second half now I do think that in fact we could be seeing perhaps another retightening of the labor market which of course would be very very unwelcome news that is clearly a risk I think what is a risk also is that you know around tariffs we've seen it today with CPI, some good sectors in the CPI, some goods items, furniture, appliances already starting to pick up. If we do see more evidence of goods prices picking up, and that's spilling over into other categories as well, perhaps the market says, you know what, the Fed's not going to be able to cut at all over the next 12 months.

And that, of course, would bring us thoroughly into what we call that danger zone, what we call the zone where really all risk assets take a hit on valuations from higher yields. We're not quite at that level yet. I don't think 4.5% is that level yet. I think it's more towards 470, 480, but that is a key risk. Yeah, 10-year yield just below 450.

I'll give you the final word, Kara. What would be the risk that you see? Is it higher yields and the Fed can't cut? I think that is certainly one of the risks. We also have very concentrated market, high valuations, and still policy uncertainty. I think the market has digested the tariff uncertainty. Today we're at a higher average weighted tariff expectation

than we were in early April, and the market has completely blown it off. So from here, a new policy uncertainty that would really hit the market has to blown it off. So from here a new policy uncertainty that would really hit the market has to be a new type of uncertainty, not tariffs, has to come out of nowhere. Yeah, because we're cool with tariffs now. We're good. We're good. I mean, they're not proving that inflationary. So it feels like that's maybe

that was a big risk. And I think companies have had time to be able to digest, right? CEOs understand what the impact is. They've diversified their manufacturing sources. Investors understand it. That time has worked in our favor. All right, well, great discussion. Thank you all for joining me today. Kara, Max, and Chris. We'll send it over to Pippa Stevens now

for a look at the biggest names to watch here moving into the close. Pippa. Hey, Sarah, well, CoreWeave is jumping after the company announced the $6 billion AI data center project in Pennsylvania. The commitment includes an initial 100-megawatt data center with the ability to upsize. Now shares have more than tripled since Coreweave's March IPO.

And for more on that announcement, tune in next hour for an interview with CEO Michael Intrader. Meantime, MP materials surging 25% after signing a $500 million deal with Apple to supply the tech giant with rare earth magnets as part of the deal. The two companies will launch a new recycling and processing facility. The deal of course comes after MP announced last week that the Pentagon was purchasing a direct equity stake

to stock up more than 80% this month. Sarah? Yeah, those rare earth magnets and very much in demand. Thank you, Pippa. We are just getting started here. Up next, Apollo's Torsten Slak on today's CPI print, what it means for the Fed. We are live from the New York Stock Exchange.

You're watching Closing Bell on CNBC. Welcome back. Consumer prices picked up slightly in June but largely in line with expectations. Joining me now to discuss is Apollo Global Management Chief Economist Torsten Slot. It's good to have you, Torsten. You have been one of the economists warning that tariffs are going to be inflationary. Just not seeing it yet. Well, hold on. This report does mark the lift off in inflation.

If you look at the subcomponents for tools, for toys, for apparel, for furniture, it's very clear that you're now beginning to see the effects of inflation in the goods part of the CPI index. So what's very clear is that companies built inventories going into the trade war and those inventories are now being run down. And we're getting to a point where companies are now taking the new goods that they have imported with tariffs and passing that on to consumers. So this is, in my view, exactly what Jay Powell has been talking about, that he expects a meaningful rise in inflation.

And I do think that this report today is exactly the start of that process. For sure you can see it in furnishings. And what you said, I highlighted some men's shirts, saw a nice tick up on the month. You see it in very specific areas, but the headline number, it's not there. And that's in part because services, and we are a services economy more than a goods economy is showing a slowdown

in price increases. Shelter is such a major component of our cost of living and that's coming down too. So when I say it's just not showing up yet, what I mean is in the headline number that would need the Fed to have to stay pat or raise rates. No, you're right. I mean, there are other moving parts than of course what's going on with service. And you're absolutely right, Sarah, of course, that we are a services economy. But the fear, of course, that you can have here and which I think is very important in this discussion is that there is so much momentum coming now on tariffs. And if we have the situation where companies are reporting that they're running down the

inventories of goods that were at old prices, then now the new prices that we're seeing exactly includes tariffs and with tariffs, of course, having gone up and now we're approaching the level of April 2nd tariffs again, then that might mean that over the next several months, and this is again what Jay Pal has been emphasizing, that we should expect to see a rise in inflation overall because we will have the goods part overwhelming the declines that we are seeing on the services side. So the conclusion at least still in my, is that it makes complete sense what markets are pricing today, that rates are going to stay higher for longer. Two year rates have gone up a lot on the back of this report because the fear is that this

is indeed the start of the process of inflation beginning to move higher. I could see it both ways. I feel like if you're one of those on the Fed that is itching to cut rates sooner than later, i.e. Bowman and Waller and that camp, you look at this overall, you look at the super core over the last three months, up only 2% and you say things are contained and the price increases are happening just not on a widespread level and they're not going to be sustained. You're right. There is a healthy debate on the FOMC about this, but the fact that core goods excluding autos were up 0.6% footwear up 0.7%.

You have some pretty dramatic increases in a number of categories where you wonder, is this just a one-time shock or is this the beginning of a much more substantial adjustment? And for the Fed, you're right. This is the debate as you look at the moment at pricing. There is literally a 50-50 chance of a cut coming in September. But it's very clear that July is no longer happening. So that's why, of course, as we get more prints and as we continue to see this

process play out, I do expect that the Fed's own forecast for inflation moving higher will continue to be one that will be playing out. There's my graphic from earlier. Men's shirts and sweaters, 4% increase on the month. That was high. Women's dresses, cookware and tableware, appliances, and toys. So there's no question that certain categories are feeling it more than others towards them. But I guess the mistake would be if the Fed was worried about the impact of this and waiting and waiting to see it show up

in the headline numbers, would they miss then weakness in the economy that they could have gotten out in front of? Yeah, and that is absolutely correct. As you know, of course, also well, the good news is that the labor market is still relatively good, but the slowdown you've seen in private payrolls is certainly pointing in the direction

of the other side of the dual mandate, namely the employment side, beginning to look a bit more weak. So you're right, this is the debate on the FMC, namely how much weight should they put on this worry that inflation may be higher on the good side, which would of course be saying that they should stay higher for longer, and how much weight should they be putting on the fact that the labor market could still be weakening, which of course would be arguing for the fact that they should be cutting. So that's why the dual mandate

is creating this very uncomfortable debate in markets, Naomi. Do they like apples? Do they like oranges? And at the moment, today, the data point at least points in the direction of rates still being higher for longer. So given everything you just said,

what you believe and also what you believe Fed Chair Powell and the committee believes, what is your expectation for what we'll get this year? So, I only think that they will cut in December because I think that the momentum of inflation is very strong. I do think that the labor market will also continue to be

reasonably tight. But to your previous discussions here, I think some of the bullishness when it comes to the overall S&P, it is the case that inflation is about to go up. And let's not also forget that

the dollar has been going down 10%, which in the Fed's model of the U.S. economy would lift inflation on about to go up. And let's not also forget that the dollar has been going down 10%, which in the Fed's model of the US economy would lift inflation on its own by 0.3%. So it's not only about tariffs putting upward pressure on inflation, it's also the decline in the dollar that's putting upward pressure.

And I think that makes it very difficult for the Fed to cut rates before we get to the end of the year. But you have to be even surprised as an economist that we have had such a remarkable decline in the US dollar and such a dramatic increase in effective tariff rates. And so far, we're still getting 0.3% increases monthly on inflation. You are absolutely right. I am surprised by that. I think the Fed is surprised by that. And I think the consensus is surprised by that. So the good news, the bull case for the S&P and the bull case for markets is certainly that inflation continues to be relatively muted.

And the bull case is certainly also what you said here in the beginning, namely that if services inflation continues to slow down because of a slowing economy, then goods inflation on its own could be putting some upward pressure alone, which would not be enough to lift inflation meaningfully. But get again, Jay Powell said on three different instances, he said in Cintra in Portugal, he said at the congressional hearings, he said at the press conference that he expects a meaningful rise in inflation over the next several months. That's a very, very strong statement from a Fed chair and I think the market should pay a lot of respect to that. What about the impact of the the big beautiful bill now that

it has passed? When do you when do you expect that to start showing up in the data at all? Yeah, so I do think that this is only going to have a very limited impact on GDP because the one big beautiful bill was mainly an extension of tax cuts. So our marginal tax rate last year was 37 percent. Next year it will also be 37 percent. So that means that there is no tax cut coming to consumers. Corporate taxes, 21 percent last year, 21 percent next year. There's no incremental increase in spending by companies, no incremental increase in spending for consumers. So the impact on GDP is only going to be a limited 0.3% positive. So yes, although that is also still a positive, I don't expect that to be much lift to inflation overall.

It is of course a big hit of course to the overall outlook for the budget and for the debt level, but it is not going to mean much because it's just increasing the level of debt without really doing much to tax rates. They will be exactly what they were last year, and that's exact same level also that we see next year. Great to talk with you, great to debate with you. Always Korsan Slak, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you.

Chief Economist at Apollo, down 350 or so on the Dow, Home Depot, Goldman Sachs, and American Express shaving the most off the Dow, though the NASDAQ remains higher, thanks mostly to chips. Up next, a trip to 7,100 for the S&P 500 by one top technician says the market's bull run shows no sign of slowing down. We'll also take you live to Pennsylvania

where we are expecting to hear from the president this hour. We'll be right back. You are looking right now at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where we are waiting. There he is, President Trump. He's about to speak at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit. He's there alongside the senator, the host of the summit, David McCormick. We'll take you there live as soon as we hear from the president, but they are there to tout the president's energy and innovation agendas, talking AI and energy all day long. In the meantime, speaking of AI, it is continuing to fuel this market with the NASDAQ record

highs. The S&P giving some back. Also, sort of not far from record highs here. Our next guest is bullish macro risk advisors John Kolobus says the charts are pointing to even more gains ahead. Joining me now is John. So you're gonna throw out a 7100 number. Oh 7100 for next year for sure. I think the window is open for a move to 7100 early next year. That has a lot to do with how we have recovered off of the April lows. Those April lows, self-inflicted bear market, lots of breath thrusts off of it, a lot of surge of momentum.

And just to push higher to new highs has been confirmed by an incredible amount of breath. So the structure of the market is still bullish. And with breath expanding the way things are, I think it's very possible we'll get to 7,100. So it's because of how broad this comeback has been that it's giving you confidence to make this call? Correct, that's the next leg.

So the first leg was, can we get the thrust, can we get the movement, can we break the resistance? Did you predict that we would have a comeback like this off the APU? Actually, mostly yes, I would say. We came down to a major support level, and then we recovered off of it quite nicely, but it was right off around April 9th,

on that day when we had the 10 to one advance to decline ratio, so like that's it. We're a long way from there. All right, John, sorry to cut you off, but 9th, on that day, when we had the 10 to 1 advance to client ratio. So like, that's it. We're pushing up higher. All right, John, sorry to cut you off, but we got to go to the president, who's speaking now in Pittsburgh. It's a real honor to be here. And I have to say about David and Dina,

they had the toughest race there was. I said, this is going to be a tough one. And every campaign stop that I made, we had lots of people, tens of thousands would be a tough one. In every campaign stop that I made, we had lots of people. Tens of thousands would be a small crowd. And I'd invite David, and he'd get up and do a fantastic job. And it all worked out, but he won a race that was really not doable, I think.

His opponent was here for a long time, and his father was there for about 50 years, at least total. And those people aren't easy to been, but you beat them. So I just want to congratulate you. That's amazing. And he wouldn't have done it without Dina. That I can tell you. We know Dina.

Anybody that knows Dina knows exactly what I'm saying. And you know, he mentioned Butler, but what nobody really talks too much about because they didn't see the order. But I actually looked down to the right before that thing happened, and I said, oh, there's David McCormick. He's running for the Senate. David, come on up. And there was a little – there were so many people, there was a little problem he had coming up because – I said, look, just do it up. And there was a little, there were so many people, there was a little problem he had coming up because, I said, look, just do it later. And then about a minute later, so, you know,

if you would have come up, I don't know what the hell would have happened, right? It worked out better this way, right? I don't know if he would have been around, but other than, let's take, I want to take full credit for that. I said, no, don't bother. We'll do it later. So if I didn't say that, who knows? But really great job. Exactly one year ago this week, David was at that rally in Pennsylvania. And 12 months later, look at

what we have. We have a president. We have really I mean, if you think about it, we had a country and I just left the NATO leaders, I left the Middle East, the King of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, as you know, Mir, so great, and UAE, these are three great leaders. And then we just made a deal with NATO where they pay for everything and we give them the ammunition and the missiles and we give them the ammunition and the missiles and we give them whatever they want. We got to get that war stopped. It's so bad. But every leader said, no matter where, they all said the same thing to me, some of them separately, but it's same words, just about. He said, it's amazing. One year ago, you had a dead

country. We were dead. We didn't think you could ever come back. And now today you have the hottest country anywhere in the world. It's true. It's true. So we're back in Pittsburgh to announce the largest package of investments in the history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And it's not even close. I don't imagine it's too close.

I don't think second is — I don't think second is too close. That's a big statement. This afternoon, 20 leading technology and energy companies are announcing more than $92 billion of investments in Pennsylvania. And if you want, we could probably get them up. Let's talk to them right now. But this is a really triumphant day for the people of the Commonwealth and for the United States of America. We're doing things that nobody ever thought possible.

As of about a month and a half ago, when we came back from the Middle East, we came back with $5.1 trillion of investments from the three countries that I mentioned. And they're great people, great leaders of those countries. But we came back with many, many planes that they are going to build through Boeing. They came back with a package of goods that were, you know, nobody's seen, I don't think anybody's seen, $5.1 trillion. And we are now at about 16, think of this, $16 trillion. And we're at a little bit less than six months, but really we're probably at three months because it took me a little time to get started, right?

So in three and a half, four months, let's say, we have about $16 trillion. There's never been anything like that in history. You can go for years, and they didn't have numbers like that. And if you look at the last administration, you had negative numbers. You didn't have positive numbers. You're going in the wrong direction. We have the hottest country, and we're going to keep it that way. Today's commitments are ensuring that the future is going to be designed, built, and we're going to keep it that way. Today's commitments are ensuring that the future is

going to be designed, built, and made right here in Pennsylvania and right here in Pittsburgh, and I have to say right here in the United States of America. I want to thank — we have some great talent in the administration. I want to thank and say hello to a few people that are with us. Secretaries Scott Besant, Howard Lutnick, Doug Burgum, Chris Wright. You know Chris Wright's very friendly with the people up here.

Doug, I wanted Doug for energy, I didn't know about Chris. And Doug said, no I have somebody that's much better than me. Right? Doug never said that in his life. You have to know. I said, this guy must be very good. But what a team they are. You know, we have one controls the land and one controls the energy, but it was sort of intertwined. So we put them together, right? We never even discussed who's supposed to be the leader of the PAC, but boy, you are — it was one instruction, drill, baby drill, right? And they are drilling. They are drilling.

We have the EPA Administrator, probably — I must say this, Doug, I hate to say it, Chris and Doug and all of you guys. The most important man on the dais today is Lee Zeldin. It's called Environmental Protection because he's going to be the one that gets you a permit. He's going to get you a permit for the largest electric producing plant in the world in about a week, would you say? Now if you go nuclear, I promised him I'd give him two weeks.

Okay, nuclear we'll give him a little more time. But you know the biggest problem we've had is it takes years and years to get permits and he really is, he's a phenomenal guy. And you know his history, he's a great lawyer, great congressman in a race that was, according to most unwinnable, almost won for governor. He just missed it by a few points. And he's really fantastic. But he's essentially the environmental protection agency, the top man.

And he's got things rocking. And already they're building plants and they have their permits. These are permits that would have taken you literally 10 years to get, or I would really say 10 years before they voted against you, because that's really what was happening. And it's crazy all over the country. But we're freeing it up, and he really is going to be able to produce. And I'm looking at the numbers of China, where they're producing a lot of electric. Well, they only have one man they have to worry about. Our friend, right?

President Xi, he can do that by himself. I don't know if I can. Do I have the right to overrule you? Maybe. I don't know. Probably I do, but I won't have to. But so he has one man, and we have one man. The one man is sitting right there.

We appreciate you. You're doing an amazing job. They're building plants already. And they have — they're building plants, and they have already their permits. And I have to take — and I have to brag just for a second, because when I first heard about AI — you know, it's not my thing — although my uncle was at MIT, one of the great professors — 51 years, whatever — who was the longer-serving professor in the history of MIT, three degrees in nuclear, chemical, and math.

That's a smart man. Kaczynski was one of his students. Do you know who Kaczynski was? There's very little difference between a madman and a genius. But Kaczynski, I said, what kind of a student was he? Uncle John, Dr. John Trump. He said, what kind of a student? he, Uncle John, Dr. John Trump? He said, what kind of a student? And then he said, seriously good.

He said he'd go around correcting everybody, but it didn't work out too well for him. Didn't work out too well, but it's interesting in life. But I will say this, that we have the greatest brains, we have the greatest power, and we are going to have more electric. I said to some of the guys coming in, they wanted to hook up to the grid. I spoke to Mark and Jeff and a lot of people, and they said, well, we want to know about

the electric because I was told we'll need from David. The first one, you're the first one that told me. That's why I hired him because I said he told me something I didn't know. He said, you need double the electric of what we have right now and maybe even more than that. Remember that? And I said, what are you kidding? And that's double the electric that we have. Take everything we have and double it. And actually the number that was even low. You need more than that. And to do that, you'd have to hook up to an old grid, in many cases broken and certainly very much open to destruction from bombs and planes and from, frankly, storms. You see what happened,

that horrible situation in Texas. And you'd be subject to that. And it's fragile. But it is old, and it can't have the capacity unless you totally rebuild it. That would take decades. And I said, well, why don't we do this? Why don't we, when you build your plant, wherever you may build it, you build your own electric plant? And nobody took it seriously.

They sort of looked like, I can't really take that seriously because they didn't believe it was happening. So the smartest people, some of them on stage right now, were saying, huh. And then they'd say, well, how do we hook up to the grid? We want to hook up. They didn't believe what I was saying.

And I said, no, no, I'm really serious. I'm going to let you build, rightly, I'm going to let you build with your plant. You're going to build, we'll make you like a public utility. You're going to build your own Con Edison in New York. You're going to build your own electric factory, and you're going to make your own electricity. So this way you can have a great plant. And what you'll do is if you have excess, you can sell it back into the grid.

You'll even make money from the electric business because these guys do know how to make money. They'll end up doing things that will be shocking. And you're going to make your own plants. So when I looked at the numbers before I saw saw a board outside, and it showed how much electricity China's making. Well, we just started. But we're going to actually end up doing more than them, and it's going to be done privately, and you're going to own your own electric plants.

And they'll be powered by maybe nuclear, maybe gas, maybe coal. We brought coal back in. They won't be powered by wind, because it doesn't work. I hate to say it just doesn't work. It's rather intermittent, you know, on it. Of course, there's a lot of problems. But we have every form of fuel that you want to use for your plant. And you'll build a plant, you'll build your electric, and this way you have no excuses because I didn't want to be the one that said, listen, we're trying to build that grid in 10 years from now and you wouldn't be able to open.

You're going to build it with your own plants. And so people heard that. They couldn't believe it, and finally now they believe it because we have a couple that are already started, and they're building their electric plants along with their separate plant. And in fact, some of them are building the electric plant inside of their main building.

So it's really exciting to see. But I was very proud of that, actually. White House AI czar David Sacks. David, thank you very much. Great job. David interviewed me on his podcast about what's that now two years ago or something in San Francisco. And I said

this guy's very smart we have a I pulled this sucker off I'm going to probably hire him in some form I got to get him in but you've been doing great thank you David very much director of the Office of Science and Technology policy Michael Kratz your Michael thank you thank you Michael where's my thank you Michael good job they tell Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Michael. Good job. You tell me you're doing great. Thank you very much. As well as state Senate President Pro Tem, Kim Ward.

Kim. Thank you, Kim. Good job. Kim's very happy right now. State Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman. Joe, thank you. And State Senator Greg Rothman. Thank you very much, Greg. Thank you. I also want to recognize your great congressmen. These are frenzies of war. They just passed

the great, big, beautiful. See, I had the word great, I like to say, because they really were supposed to be great, big, beautiful. They go with the big beautiful. But I had great. They took the word great out. President Trump speaking in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania today, alongside Senator Dave McCormick. They are hosting a big energy and AI conference.

The president touting who's there and what was announced. 20 leading tech and energy companies announcing more than $92 billion worth of investments in the state of Pennsylvania. He's now thinking some of those around him, including a number of cabinet secretaries, Secretary Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary is there as well. We'll continue to monitor, let you know if he says anything else. In the meantime, we are tracking this market into the close.

We're down almost 400 points, but the S&P doing a little bit better and the NASDAQ is actually positive tracking for the close. We're down almost 400 points but the S&P doing a little bit better and the NASDAQ is actually positive tracking for record close. We'll be right back. We are now in the closing bell market zone Leslie Pickertrack in the action in the bank earnings. Phil LeBeau with the latest executive departure at Tesla and 314 researches Warren Pies breaks down the crucial final minutes of the trading day. Phil, let's start with you and more on what we know about this latest executive departure at Tesla. Well, Sarah, take a look at shares of Tesla today.

You're going to see a tick down early this morning when the word first came out from the Wall Street Journal that Troy Jones, who is the longtime VP of sales in North America, was leaving the company. Why is this important? Take a look at the turmoil going on at Tesla right now. He is the seventh executive to leave the company since April. This comes as the first half U.S. sales down more than 12%. Q2 global deliveries down 13.5%.

Raises a lot of questions going into next week. What's next week? Wednesday after the bell, Sarah. That is when Tesla reports its Q2 results. Sarah, back to you. Okay, thank you very much, Phil, about Leslie, tell us about the big day for the big banks. They're all down except for Citigroup

is having a nice 4% up day. Yeah, you're right, Sarah. Quite a dispersion in performance today. A lot of it has to do with what each bank reported or guided for net interest income or the profitability metric for loanmaking. Citigroup, as you mentioned, the outperformer beating estimates on NII by about $1 billion for the

quarter. Plus, the firm said it would buy back at least $4 billion in stock this quarter. The flip side is Wells Fargo, which lowered its full-year outlook for net interest income, despite getting the green light to grow assets from regulators. The firm expects NII to be unchanged from last year versus initial plans to see growth between 1 and 3 percent for NII. And JP Morgan raising its full year guidance on net interest income by about a billion dollars, but slightly missing on that metric during the quarter. So you can see those shares down about 1 percent, Sarah. Yeah, all had a healthy run up into the report as well. Thank you, Leslie. And more tomorrow. Be sure to catch David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs on our show

Money Movers 11 a.m. Eastern Time off of those results. Let's bring in 314's Warren Pies with just a few minutes to go before the close. Talk about a lopsided day. We have the Dow now down 400 points and the Nasdaq about to close at a record high. How are you positioned? Yeah, thanks for having me on. We've been overweight and pretty bullish for a while, if anyone's been following us on CNBC, but we took our risk down, our equity risk, risk down last week.

I think the seasonality's turning really officially today. Sentiment is kind of peaking. You see more people coming on, calling for 7,000 plus on the S&P 500. And the automatic flows we've been tracking, so that's things like vol control, corporate buybacks, CTAs, all that is starting to wane. So we took our risk down. We're not overly bearish, but I think the next couple of months can be choppy. And the big concern when you're thinking technically is breadth, you know,

we hit this new high and still the median stock within the S&P 500 was more than 13% away from a 52 week high. So we really need to see equal weight confirm this S&P new high and it hasn't done that and today's been really rough. Down more than 1% equal weight S&P. You think it's getting frothy? I mean, you're the first not bullish person

to be on the show. We've had, I think, four people before you, including a technician that was looking at 7,100 next year for the SMP. Yeah, I heard him. I like John. He's a buddy of mine. Yes, I do think that it's a little frothy,

with all due respect. We have our 6,800 target out to end of the year. We haven't changed that since the beginning of the year. So I wouldn't classify us as bears, but you have to know when the odds are in your favor. Right now, I think next couple months, we want to take that risk down, be at least benchmark weight. That's the way we're playing it.

Well, sorry to keep it short. We got some breaking news, including the president and the hour, but we'll leave it there. Thank you. With the setup, Warren, into the close here. As we head into the close, we are looking for another record high for the NASDAQ comp. Thank you, technology. Mostly the chips. We're talking Nvidia, Broadcom, AMD. That's what's propelling the NASDAQ to a record. At the same time, we're looking at the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ, the NASDAQ comp. Thank you technology, mostly the chips. We're talking Nvidia, Broadcom, AMD.

That's what's propelling the NASDAQ to a record. At the same time, the Dow sells off into the close. Down about 435 points. Home Depot, Goldman Sachs, American Express, the biggest weights on the Dow. The S&P closes lower by 4 tenths of 1%. That's it for me on Closing Vow. We'll send you down to overtime, which is on fourth.