Closing Bell - Closing Bell 8/14/25

Episode Date: August 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.

Brian, thanks so much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wobner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker breakout begins with cut questions. After a much hotter than expected inflation report, muddies the outlook for the Fed and maybe for investors alike. The scorecard with 60 to go and regulation looks like this. We've been lower ever since the PPI print showed the largest monthly jump in wholesale costs in some three years. We're off the worst levels of the day, as Brian was just saying. The broadening trade stopped in its tracks for the most part. The Russell 2000 followed. the most today as that has been the biggest beneficiary of rate cut expectations. Home builders too, they're falling. Many mega caps are higher today. Money flowing back into that area of the market and we'll follow that into the close. It does take us to our talk of the tape, this record setting run for stocks and how dependent it now is on the Fed cutting interest rates this fall. Let's ask Tom Stratt's head of research, also the Bitmine chairman. He's here with us at Postnights. Good to see you. Great to see you, Scott. How about that question?

I mean, it's on a couple of fronts. Like, we came in to this week, what you said was going to be the start of a pretty good rally, which it kind of looked like it was. Now what? I think that the arguments and elements for a rally to continue are in place, because even today, with a hot PPI print, the stock market is basically flat.

So we had a down open. I think investors bought that dip. Part of it is I don't think that the PPI is sending a message that inflation is soaring. there are some things to sort of sort of cut out of that number. Sure. I agree. And people have, you know, said that throughout much of the day. But it seems to have changed the conversation, if nothing else, about the amount of rate cut we might get in September. Is that fair?

Yes, it's very fair. That is correct. But if, you know, as we think about the rest of this year and next year, I think that the thing that's the worst case for investors is Fed hiking. If the Fed does nothing between now and your end, I think some would actually argue that's half full because the economy can handle these higher rates. But if the Fed does 25 or 50 between now and your end, really to normalize real interest rates, that's actually positive for stock. So I think unless this was going to bring in the odds of a hike, I think that's why markets had a muted reaction. Well, what if they don't do anything? I mean, Steve Leesman, who's going to join us in a minute, made the argument earlier today that this changes the conversation. from, you know, 25 or 50 to 25 or nothing.

What happens if we go on the side of nothing? Can this market stand up under that? Yes. I mean, because number one, and I'm sure Steve's going to talk about this, that the economy doesn't seem to be suffering under the weight of these current interest rates, even though the Fed is much higher than the rest of the world on policy rates. And the second part of that is, of course,

that if the Fed does 25, it's still a dovish move. Well, it could be a hawkish cut. And Leasman's thrown out that too, right? If they cut 25 and leave us with the feeling like, all right, you got your little lollipop here, everybody, and now we're going to wait and see. Yeah. I think the market reaction, of course,

is really how people are positioned. And we, at Fundstra, we're finding a lot of investors are positioned as if we're going to see a pickup and inflation. So to them, they were expecting a really hot PPI number, thought this was going to start a decline in stocks. And that's why I think markets didn't fall as much because I think many people have been positioned for sort of a hot set of pPI numbers. So Steve Leesman, I'll just bring him in now. I can only mention them so many times without actually bringing him into the conversation. He's our senior economics correspondent.

I like how you framed everything up today of how the narrative has changed. We continue to hear from Fed speakers, too, including one that you spoke with earlier on our air, Muslim. Barkin also speaking within the last hour, what are we learning about what this print today really means that investors need to hang on the most, you think? Well, you know, Scott, it's just a split out there. You know, the market is kind of hell-bent on the freight train of a September rate cut. And the Fed is simply not, certainly not a majority of speakers so far. Muslim was right down the middle. The PPI rising 09 for the fastest gain since the pandemic,

take out food and energy and trade, and it's still pretty strong 06. J.P. Morgan writing, the fact that there is upward pressure across all recent inflation reports, basically it's going to give Fed officials some pause, is what they say. And then Musilum sounding like one of those guys who's saying, look, I'm in the pause camp here. So it's a big deal.

Scott, I want to just show you real quickly the two-year note. Take a look at the two-year, and you can see the push-me pull year, the tug of war going on with what's happening in the market. You see the two-year, it declined after that inflation CPI report. Now it's back up here. Now take a look at probabilities. You can see what's happened.

First of all, the 50 cut is out. And that 93 there is 93, not because there's 7 percentage points as there was yesterday in a 50. There's seven or so in the Fed pausing. October's almost gone, you know? And so really we have one rate cut only fully, in for this year. That's sort of the hawkish cut trade right now that maybe, maybe not in October and better probably not in December. That's where we're at right now when it comes to, Scott,

the Fed funds trade and how they're all reacting to this. I think zero or no cut is a possibility for September, but it's all going to hinge on that December, sorry, September data of inflation and jobs. Hang with us as we go back to Tom. You made the argument. that this market was not just going to start this next leg of the rally this week, but it could potentially be a sizable one. Yes. That I think you told me we could go $6,600, if not higher, this month. Yeah.

And this doesn't change that at all? No, it doesn't. You know, last week we said the breakaway move would be S&P 65, $6,600. So I think that's still intact. I don't think that one data point is enough to change. a thesis around the trajectory of inflation. And our base case remains that this is going to be ultimately viewed as transitory by the markets. But we have this tension that exists.

Labor market looks like it's weakening. And now the inflation market looks like it's at best just kind of staying where it is, if not getting a little bit more sticky. I mean, that is a real tension that the Fed has to deal with and may ultimately have to make a decision on one side or the other. We think we know which way they'd lean, but we're not entirely clear. I'm not sure the market is either. Yeah.

Well, I guess this is the challenge for the Fed because they're having to make a decision where there's no equilibrium, right? Because the market's tension around whether there's weakness and deviation from the job side versus inflation, it is really the Fed trying to manage expectations and keeping inflation expectations anchored. So a lot of data between now and the next meeting may not be inflation related, but it's really how the market is perceiving these inflation prints. And if we shift towards viewing it's transitory, it makes it easier for the Fed to move forward.

Steve, you have Goolsby tomorrow morning, don't you? I can almost assume that we know what he's going to say because he's been noncommittal and everything leading up to this interview tomorrow, right? Yeah, he's one of the ones who has already said that he's not convinced it's a one-time price increase. but I do want to echo something Tom said because Jeff Schmidt, who's a voter this year from the Kansas City Fed, he'll be our host next week in Jackson Hole.

He said specifically that he looks around and goes, hey, I don't see that we're so tight. He looks at the stock market, looks at the bond market. Which parts of the economy would you look at and say, okay, we could be doing a lot better here? Tom also said something that I want to make more confusing and more technical than Tom said it, which is that there's stuff happening on the equilibrium

on both sides of the Fed's mandate. You tell me what the right equilibrium rate is for the employment market, given what's happening with immigration and deportation, then tell me what the right equilibrium is for inflation, given what's happening with tariffs. Both of these things are in constant flux every day with a tweet from the president, other things going on trying to figure it out. That's a reason, I think, some Fed officials would say, hey, I'm waiting to figure out what's going on here before I do anything. I mean, with all due respect to President Schmidt, I still want you to get a good room assignment in Jackson Hole, Steve. I mean, the housing market is horrible. If he wants to look at one really important place that maybe carries a lot more weight than other areas, it's terrible. And cutting rates, many believe, would help at least give a little bit of medicine to that. Yeah,

I'm not sure, Scott, that cutting interest rates wouldn't mean that. the money you save on the interest rate wouldn't go right into the asking price for the home. So that's not clear to me that it's an interest rate problem as much as it's a supply problem. So I agree that lower interest rates would help some people into the home, especially the hardest hit out there, the first time home buyers that have to struggle and stretch to get into a home. I agree with that. But right now, when you have a limited supply, what would happen was a rate cut would end up increasing the price of the home, not necessarily in the saving for the buyer.

And by the way, if that's the problem, and I'm going to talk heresy here, nothing stops the Treasury, the administration, or the Congress, from providing further assistance to the mortgage market if that's what they want to do. Treasury can go out and buy and buy mortgages and drive down the rate if they think that's a problem. The Fed's trying to make a single interest rate for the entire economy, and right now the way they see it, they're a little bit above neutral, a little bit restrictive, Not 150 the way Scott Besson says, and we just had David Zervos on, one of the potential candidates for Fed chair, who said the Fed should cut 50 and they're leaving millions of jobs on the table. That's Zervos's point of view.

Yeah, Steve, thank you very much. Steve Leasman. Look for in the morning with Goulsby, our senior economics correspondent. Alicia Levine joins us now to BNY Wealth, Head of Investment Strategy, and Equities. Good to see you. Great to see you. If nothing else, since we're talking about housing, the housing trade, which had been going gangbusters for a handful of days, seems to be now in question as a direct result of the conversation that we've just had with Tom and Steve.

Well, it's completely lever to what's happening with the probability on rates. I'll say this, that I, like my friend Tom Lee here, think that there's asymmetric risk to the upside in risk assets because everybody is waiting for the sky to fall. whether it's a looming recession or whether it's sky-high inflation. We're waiting for the stagflationary moment, and people are positioned as such, and they're underfunded, and in the end, when the data come in, such as CPI earlier this week, on target, on the screws, essentially allows for a rally. Today was a surprise to the upside on inflation, but it's a point. It's not a trend.

And I'd say that there is going to be more data, but ultimately, I believe that if there is a choice between choosing the inflation side of the mandate or the employment side of the mandate in a world where the equilibrium is now between, let's call, a 40 to 70,000 jobs as an equilibrium rate to keep this low 4% or more or less unemployment rate, the Fed's going to be very aware of that. Well, that's why I said earlier I wasn't trying to be cagey about it. I think we know which side that they would lean on. They're going to lean on the unemployment side.

And if, you know, if the Fed starts to cut in September at 25, it is rarely a one-time cut. It's never the lollipop. Let me ask you this. You get a couple of lollipops. You use the word underfunded, and I want to make sure I understand what you mean. We're at record highs, right? Are you saying that there's still too much cash on the sideline from non-believers? Yes.

Yes. And let's just say it. There has been a political undercurrent to all of this on the policies. and the fear of the policies and sort of the investor sentiment being at rock bottom in March and April has not fully wound out of the market yet and you have a lot of hedge portfolios

and you have a lot of investors, what are we, at $7.5 trillion in cash on the sidelines simply waiting for something to change. In the meantime, the S&P's rallied 28%. NASDAX rallied 40%. The U.S. has trounced the rest of the world. Remember fleeing the U.S. and U.S. exceptionalism is dead, By the way, the U.S. outperform the rest of world by 10% since April 8th.

So, you know, all that has really come in the face of people not believing in it. The investor sentiment is not overheated. And that's why we still think there's asymmetric risk to the upside. Understanding the Fed has the worst of dilemmas here. I think you agree with almost everything that Alicia said, right? That's not that interesting. That's right. I just would say ditto.

But I think one of the points, Steve, I would have made as a counter to Steve, mortgage rates is that there's still an excess spread of the 10-year versus the 30-year mortgage. And I think if the Fed resumes cutting, that spread, which is historically 165 basis points, it's currently over 300. So we could see a disproportionate decline in housing costs. That's a lot of relief to a lot of Americans, especially when Powell talks about the pain of inflation. Almost every single call, every single time, about any single start to the broadening trade has been wrong. It's lasted and then it's petered out because there just wasn't enough stimulus behind it to keep it going. We just, have we had another one of those moments? Are we

in the penalty box again? Because what was maybe 50 is now 25 or none and these kinds of stocks just cannot work in that environment? I think small cap has a challenge because of the earnings picture for small cap. Like the best companies have been picked off by private equity. and you're really left with a difficult basket of stocks. Having said that, mid-cap is very interesting here because it's filled with industrials and financials. The deregulatory agenda and the one big, beautiful bill, is actually very beneficial for these companies,

and they're going to see an earnings boost and margin boost from this. So I'm going to separate my mid-cap from my small-cap here and say we do think there's an opportunity. In mid-cap, you know, I think the small-cap trade when it comes is literally that. It's a tactical trade as you push through the excitement. And if there's a Fed cut, like, you know, we don't try to time the market, but I think it's got a time horizon on it. I hear you, but, I mean, this has largely been a large cap rally from the bottom in April.

Whether you're talking about mega caps or industrials or financials, that's what's gotten you here. Any reason to move off that? Well, I mean, if we look at August 1 as like a benchmark because we're halfway through the month, even with today's decline in small caps, they're up almost 4%, which is 350 basis points above the S&P. And Ethereum, which is correlated to small caps, is up 26%. So I don't think we've unwound any of the progress small caps have made following a series of data over the past two weeks.

So I think today's PPI number is not really being seen. seen as when a market's perspective is really changing anything. That's how you see it? That's how I see it as well. I still think there's a trade there to move into other asset classes. It's a bad day. I mean, just to go back to the Steve Leesman point on the housing market, you know, if there is a cut, on the margin, you'll have existing homeowners start being able to move

out as mortgages come down. Oh, of course. He's not naive to that. But you get the supply issue there because it's been frozen. People have been frozen in their house. That's been as much the freeze of people trying to buy a house. It's like if you have one in your sub three mortgage, which so many people are, it's like, why in the world would you sell and then where the heck are you going to go?

Yeah. So it cuts always. Thanks very much. Alicia, thanks, Tom Lee. Always good to catch up with both of you. Crypto Exchange Bullish. Let's check that out today. It's stretching its post IPO rally into day two.

And Miami International soaring today in its own debut. Here to break down this hot streak in the IPO market. market. Tell us if he thinks it can really continue. His first Smart Capital founder and partner, Rick Heitzman. Welcome back. It's nice to see you. Great seeing it, Scott. Thanks for having me. You see bullish and the IPO today down here, and you think what? I think the IPO window is open. I think you're seeing Bullish go out. You're seeing Miami International go out. You saw an incredible run by Figma a couple weeks ago. And so you've seen a cross-industry broad-based support for IPOs, and therefore we're advising companies we're investing in to get

ready and go public. Oh, you are? And that's give us and our viewers some perspective on what prior conversations were, say, six to 12 months ago against those now where you're sort of trying to push them out what you think is an opening door. Yeah, so I think we've talked about it for the last several years, the market was dead during 22 to 24, and it was one of the worst times for IPOs ever. And what we saw was the market opening a little bit, and we talked about it towards the beginning of the year, how there was still demand for IPOs, the coming trades of companies being more efficient and therefore more attractive to public market investors was coming along. And we've seen some of the highest quality companies go out.

when you're talking about Figma, you're talking about CoreWeave, even new technologies like Circle. And so those are the guys, the best quality companies tend to kick open the door and they make it make the market much more well conditioned for the future companies. So we're seeing, you know, call it a half dozen companies that went out in Q1, maybe another half dozen that have managed to get out over the summer. And we think there's going to be dozens that will go out in the back half of the year. Well, the one we think is coming up was a company. in which you either led the investment in or participated in a significant way as StubHub, right?

That's coming up, hopefully coming up soon in September. I actually led the investment over a decade ago before we sold to eBay. So I'm no longer, no longer a Stubhubb Investor, just a happy customer. But that's been a great company for a long time, and that's going to open up, you know, another facet of the business of consumer. And consumer's been out of favor for years. especially on the consumer marketplace side, you know, the area where the Airbnb's play, we think that part of the market is incredible. And I think when people start to really dig

into not only the growth of StubHub, but the margin structure, I think that's going to be a very exciting public financing. Well, since you're no longer involved, now you can even speak more freely, which I love. Yes. I mean, do you think this is the right time for that company? I'm trying to think, like, big picture here in really drilling down on. whether this is an inflection point in IPOs in general, or if you really have to just be in the right place at this right moment like crypto with bullish or an exchange like we saw today

or something of the like rather than just thinking some door is gonna kick open and we're gonna all rush for the rush for it. The door's not open for everybody. Even within those sub-sectors of crypto or healthcare services or financial technologies, not open for everyone. The companies have gone out, have been some of the better companies. You know, the metrics that Figma had around SaaS software were excellent and best in class. You know,

some of the metrics that Tom Farley had, at Bullish were best in class, what you've seen in chime in the consumer world, same thing. So I think Stubhub is probably one of the most exciting private companies. And so, you know, as these, as the window starts to open, it opens at first for the highest quality companies, and then towards the end of these market windows, the lesser companies come out. But I think what you're going to see is companies of scale, companies with good margin structures, companies with good businesses that are going to be very enticing to public market investors. How are you thinking about the conversation or the question of whether AI is either currently

or is going to kill software, so to speak, because we've seen a rollover in so many stocks. that are deemed to be software stocks and nice companies, but ones that are just not in the forefront of where all of this is going? Well, you know, we see it going back, and we've been looking at this for years, as we're, you know, early stage investors at our core and therefore understand, you know, we have to be somewhere three to five years before the puck's going.

And, you know, what we saw was people are making software better, faster, and cheaper than ever using AI. and the new AI-focused software companies are delivering a higher return on investment to their customers, both by being cheaper, but also being more effective by being able to access data

and use artificial intelligence. So companies, they're on their front foot, and you talk about Figma as they were getting ready to go public, a lot of their story was they also had all these AI tools, some of which they were just launching and were just starting to see them work,

but they have a great installed base. So the legacy software companies, which got on their front foot at AI, were able to use it to have a higher ROI for their customers and have been thinking about both the data side as well as that product management side for the last couple of years are going to be able to make that transition. But I think a lot of the companies who either feared AI or unsure what to do with AI will not transition and they'll very quickly become the legacy software companies in the last 10 years. When do you think we'll see the headliners start to go public? The open AIs, maybe the perplexities, anthropic, those types. Be in the same bucket. I think they're going to have to go probably in the next 18 months. The flip side of that, and it's similar for the most premium companies,

if you think about SpaceX or Stripe or Databricks, as other companies in different sectors who have so much demand that they're effectively just managing the liquidity for stock in the private markets. You know, Anthropic has widely been discussed as doing a round at over $180 billion and raising billions of dollars. Data bricks the same thing.

So there's no need for them to go public at this point. And the demand is so enormous with so much capital, especially out of the sovereign wealth funds, willing to fund them. I think they don't have to go public in a way a traditional company would

to be able to access that level of capital. The other side of that is, I think eventually they do have to go public. Eventually, their employees, investors, early shareholders are going to demand that level of liquidity in the public markets. And these companies are so capital-consultive, even they will eventually run out of these deep pockets. We'll leave it there. Rick, thanks, as always. Rick Heitzman, First Mark, joining us once again. You as well. To Christina Parts in Nubelos now for look at the biggest names moving into this close.

Christina? Let's start with advance auto parts. Those shares are sliding after the company cut its outlook for 2025. The CEO said he thinks tariffs are going to have a bigger impact in the second half of this year, but he's not worried since 90% of their business is essential, like oil changes and break repairs, and just customers can't delay that. So that's why you're seeing shares down about 7.5%. Deere's shares also in the red after reporting a major drop in profit for the quarter,

and this comes as weak crop prices continue, tariffs and a shift towards renting farm equipment are all weighing on deer's demand. Shares are down about 6% their worst day in more than three years. And finally, Trade Desk shares also falling on an information report that the ad tech company is in danger of losing one of its top clients. That would be Walmart. Trade Desk's new arrangement with the retailers no longer exclusive, according to a person with knowledge of the situation in that report. And that's what you're seeing shares drop dramatically, 7% midday when the information article came out. Scott.

We'll follow that, and we'll come back to you in a little bit. Christina, thank you. Christina Parts in Evilus. We're just getting started here. Up next, 13F filings are dropping. We're going to bring you a look into what the biggest names in this business are buying right now. Maybe what they're selling, too. We're live at the New York Stock Exchange.

You're watching Closing Bell on CNBC. We're back. The chip sector trading at a record high lately as another important earnings report looms. here to discuss top semiconductor analyst Tacey Raskon of Bernstein. It's good to see you. We're talking about AMAT. How should we be thinking about

the chip equipment names here? Yeah, you bet. For AMET, I think numbers will be fine. Should be fine. I suspect that you may have upside, particularly from China. We've seen that in some of the other names that have reported.

And you can track things like the Chinese import data of semiconductor equipment into the country. It suggests upside. The issue is we've seen this with some of the other peers, like lamb is they had upside from china but you don't get a lot of credit for that because people are worried about sustainability and everything else um so we'll have to see how that plays out

but i think over all the numbers should be fine i think what people would like would really like to hear for them is actually some color on what equipment spending would look like next year and that's something i actually don't think we'll get amac tends to play their view on on industry outlook a little close to their chest so i think we'll i don't think we'll get anything there but i mean did you get anything from lamb that answers the same kind of question Well, Lamb had quite a bit of upside from China, both in the quarter as well as in the guide. And their outlook was actually pretty strong. You know, other names like Tokyo Electron, where Tokyo Electrician actually cut numbers.

I think the difference, though, was it Lamb and some of the others, like even with Amat, like the forward estimates are not terribly aggressive. Some of the other names out there, they were maybe a little more aggressive. And the general exposures to things are a little different across the different names. How are you thinking about NVIDIA? I'm sorry. Stace, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to talk over you. I thought you had finished your thought.

I'm looking at NVIDIA and make all roads lead there, obviously. I'm just trying to think about, you know, in the context of a NASDAQ rally, and as this stock continues to elevate into its number, do you grow more nervous as a result of that? Well, in video, actually, I think Nvidia should be fine. Like, it's, you know, the supply constraints and yield issues that they've had on on some of the GB 300 racks as they were wrapping those. Those constraints looked like they've eased.

The orders, I think, are coming through. They're shipping those racks, I think, like gangbusters. And, you know, they've got their China licenses back. Now, it looks like they may have to give some of the revenue up. Like, we'll see how that works. But nobody has any China AI in the numbers for NVIDIA right now. So I suspect that that means that there can be upside as we go through the year. And if you look at the valuations right, even on the current numbers,

Because NVIDIA is not expensive, like, relative to any of the other AI names. It's probably one of the cheaper A.I. names out there. Well, I mean, since you mentioned the deal that NVIDIA, deal in quotes, I guess, that NVIDIA seems to have made with the White House, I mean, there is the other side of it where China, and I've already read some whispers of this now, which is, yeah, that's great. You can cut whatever deal you think works for you and President Trump and the administration, but maybe we're not going to let our companies buy what you thought we would.

Yeah, well, again, what's in the numbers right now is zero. So, okay, they'll sell some. And we saw some of that news flow. It wasn't a ban from the Chinese government to the customer. It was more of a suggestion at this point. I actually do think... Is there really a difference? Is there really a difference?

They tend not to be that prescriptive, frankly. And I actually think the demand for the Nvidia ports is there. I do think that the customers in China want to buy the parts. And like I said, right now, at least in the estimates, it's effectively zero. So, I mean, anything that they get is upside, even if they wind up giving some of it off to the Trump administration, it's upside. And then we'll see what they can do, by the way, in terms of pricing and everything else, to try to offset some of that revenue haircut. What about more advanced chips? Because the age 20, obviously, is obsolete, really, at this point.

Can you ever envision a day where that happens? Were there, well, so NVIDIA supposedly was already redesigning Blackwell parts, their next generation to sell into China, although I suspect the performance of those Blackwell parts was actually probably lower than the H20. They'd haircut them. in terms of like selling the more advanced stuff look it it all depends on the trump administration like i wouldn't hold my breath although i guess trump was out there supposedly praising blackwell today we got you know the one big beautiful chip now i guess um but i i wouldn't be holding my breath for them to sell like the really high-end stuff i mean part of the way they're getting this like through everything else is to make the point which is accurate is that the h20 is an old chip it's old technology and you know it's not critical in terms of a performance relative to what else can

be obtained elsewhere in the world. But you openly wondered when this whole thing happened, and I think you called it a slippery slope in a note that you had put out. Now that you've had some time for it to marinate a little bit more, are you still thinking about, and by the way, I mean, the Treasury Secretary was asked the very question, is this going to be a template for other kinds of companies? And he didn't really walk away from it. No, he did not.

No, so look, I'll take it. like 85% is better than zero, but I don't have to like it. I don't like it. I do think it's a slippery slope. And like I don't know where it stops. Like it's in theory, if you can get away with charging 15% on China AI sales, why couldn't you charge 15% or anything you wanted on anything ultimately? I don't know where it ends. So I don't like it. I'll take it at this point for Nvidia, I guess for AMD as well. I don't have to like it and I don't. Okay. We'll talk to you soon. Stacey, thank you. Always appreciate your time. Stacey, On up next, we track the biggest movers.

As we head into the close today, Christina Parts of Nebulosa standing by with that, Christina. Well, we have a week outlook wiping out year-to-day gains for one networking play and AI infrastructure deals creating crypto mining winners, the day's biggest movers next. Just about 15 from the bell. Back to Christina now for the stock. She's watching. What's on your list? Coherent shares are plunging right now after the optical networking company posted a weak outlook for the quarter, or the current quarter, I should say. It expects a shortfall following the sale of a defense laser business for $400 million. And that's why you're seeing shares down 20% erasing all of the stocks year-to-date gains. Amcor also in the red after

the packaging company's earnings and revenue for the quarter fell short of expectations. The company We also said it conducted a review of its portfolio and is considering divesting units outside of its core portfolios, such as its North American beverage business. Shares are down more than almost 11 percent right now, their worst days since 2020. And then lastly, we have shares of Terowulf soaring after Google took a stake in the Bitcoin miner as part of an AI hosting deal. So it's a little complicated. The 10-year agreement with an AI cloud platform fluid stack includes Google guaranteeing $1.8 billion

of fluid stacks lease payments. So if the company defaults, while TerraWiff, I should say, will also deploy over 200 megawatts of power, aka, what you just need to know is that Google's going to be taking financial risk in exchange for getting a stake in Terowulf through warrants. And that's why you're seeing Terowulf up 56%.

They got the backing from Google. All right. Christina, thank you. Christina Parts in other ones. We are watching another name, Eli Lilly. Today, Angelica Peoples is here with more on that. Angelica. Hey Scott, well, Lily today saying that it will more than double the list price of its weight

loss drug in the UK. So starting in September, the highest dose of Monjaro will cost 330 pounds. That's up for 122 today. And the change will only affect people paying for the drug out of pocket. It won't apply to the UK's National Health Service. And Lilly in a statement says that it shares the Trump administration's goal of aligning drug prices in developed countries, especially Europe, and that the rebalancing may be difficult, but it means the prices for medicines in other countries need to increase in order for them to lower in the U.S. Now, Lilly did not announce any changes to prices in the U.S. where the list price for its obesity drug is about $1,000 or $500 if consumers buy directly from Lilly. So more to watch on that front, Scott. Angelica, thank you. Angelica, people still ahead. A slew of retail names feeling some serious pain today.

Talk about what's driving those stocks lower coming up. We have a news alert out of Washington. Amon Jabrers has that for us as we take a look at shares of Intel as we have this conversation, Amin. Yeah, that's right, Scott. No report immediately, no reaction, I should say, immediately from the White House to this report that just crossed from Bloomberg News. Bloomberg is reporting that the U.S. government is in talks to take a potential ownership stake in Intel and that that conversation began during the meeting between Intel CEO and President Trump. earlier this week on Monday. Now, we do know that those two had a meeting. The White House has been awfully mum about what happened during that session here at the White House on Monday

between the Intel Chief and the President of the United States. We know that the President was calling for the CEO of Intel to resign or be fired from his job before the meeting. After the meeting, the President did about a 180 in terms of his tone on the Intel Chief Lip Butan saying that, in fact, he has a great personal story. And he's looking at forward to working together with him and that the U.S. government would be getting some suggestions from Intel in the future. As I say, no reaction from the White House or the Treasury Department to this report, Bloomberg reporting that the size of the ownership stake that the U.S. government would potentially take in Intel is not being discussed here, but that those funds

could be used to spur chip manufacturing here in the United States. And the United States government under this scenario, according to Bloomberg, would be paying for that ownership stake. It wouldn't be granted an ownership stake. So, Scott, you can put this in the category of other things that this administration has done, the golden share with U.S. steel, the 15% of Nvidia chip sales in China, and now this potential proposal as ideas for the United States to get very aggressive in terms of owning American corporations or owning revenue streams from those corporations, Scott. It really sounds extraordinary beyond the headline, even though we don't have any comment yet from the White House, the idea that at least in part, by virtue of a government

investment into a private company, you'd essentially have part of Intel's business being nationalized. Yeah, I mean, what you'd be looking at is a semi-nationalization of a major American company. And we don't know what percentages are being discussed here, what dollar amount. So all that is a little bit preliminary. But this is the kind of thing, a Republican administration of a past generation simply wouldn't have looked at. They had a very laissez-faire hands-off approach to American government. This administration does not have that. This administration believes that the president has the authority to tell companies what their HR policies should be, who their CEOs should be, how they ought to conduct their business, where they should build their

plants, et cetera, et cetera. This is an interventionist administration in American business, and the White House feels that's for the good of American business and for American voters. That's an extraordinary headline. Amen, thank you very much for your perspective on that. Saman Javras. Let us know what you learn, of course. We're now in the closing bell market zone. CNBC senior markets commentator, Mike Santoli,

here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Courtney Reagan tracking some big moves in retail. I don't know if you have a thought on that, but I was trying to get my arms around just how extraordinary a case like that would really be. Well, if you remember back to when, you know, effectively the government owned General Motors, out of bankruptcy, you know, in exchange for all that aid, and how many people thought that that was, you know, essentially keeping afloat, a losing business, and obviously you had political reasons for doing it. And this is coming in on the other end of it and essentially saying

Intel is some form of a national champion if this happens. And the U.S. government's financial capacity to backstop activity in the U.S. and, you know, help these companies and support them. It's interesting because in the Biden administration with the Chips Act, Intel was, you know, kind of anointed as one of those vehicles for which we were going to get chips capacity built in the U.S., get these foundries going, and that came in for a lot of criticism, right? You shouldn't just pick which ones. And, of course, it was financing behind that. It was authorized by Congress, but it wasn't equity ownership in the company. It was, use this money, we will help create the facilities and the economic activity around it. So obviously different ways to sort of pivot around it, but it is fascinating that it's, that, you know, clearly the president feels as if these sorts of deals, you know, sort of buying and then harvesting the profits from private businesses is within the purview of the federal government.

I just feel like, you know, we who, you know, talk about business news and markets for a living are having to, you know, in a sense, get our arms around a brave new world. of the intersection of politics and private business. Changes the job of the CEO, too, apparently. If, you know, that's in play, basically. Part of it is you want something or you want to stay out of trouble with the administration. Maybe you have to sell a piece of your company to it.

All right. I'll come back to you in a moment. If I have time, I want to get to Courtney Reagan on what's happening in retail today, Court. Yes, Scott. So Target announcing it's breaking up with Alta next August. The retailers built those Alta Shop and shops at about a third of its locations. It started in 2021.

and the idea was to provide prestige cosmetics to the Target customer, which largely only had the option of the mass market-type beauty products in its stores. But despite Target speaking really highly of this partnership to investors, it's contributed to its beauty category sales growth of 7% last year. It's gained market share. Something more must be going on here to end this. But Target won't give me any more detail at this point. Alta has not yet returned my request for comment.

But anecdotally, when you talk to customers, they call the shopping experience kind of cumbersome. It's often a roped off area of the store with a separate checkout, and the beauty products in that area can often be, at least categorically described as understocked by these anecdotal consumer stories. Separately, though, tapestry, reporting stronger than expected results for revenues, earnings and margins. Its earnings forecast did disappoint, but the premium accessory retailer detail the 60-cent hit from tariffs. All three of those stocks are worth. Scott? All right, Ford, thanks so much. We'll have a mixed day.

It's been quite a ride, even though we're not going to finish on either side of one. Most stocks down, but the market managed to hang in there. Yeah, just give a shout to Jonathan Corpina. Meridian ringing the bell today here at the exchange for their anniversary. See these men and women on the floor all the time. Just give them a shout as we send it into overtime.