Closing Bell - Closing Bell 9/24/25

Episode Date: September 24, 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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right, thanks very much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wapner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This make-a-break hour begins with new questions about this record setting and incredibly resilient rally. Whether it's taken some stocks up too far too fast as the promise of AI gold is simply too hard to pass up. Stocks including some of the more speculative ones surging lately. We'll ask our experts over this final stretch, what's to make of all that? Here's a look at the scorecard with 60 to go in regulation. Red across the board. today, definitely more of a defensive tone. Utilities and staples doing well, energy's outperforming. Most of the mega caps, with the exception of Tesla, are lower today. And it is a, well, now we've gotten Microsoft into the green as well. There's J.P. Morgan, another record high for those shares. And how about gold? Another new record there as well as the march towards 4,000 continues. We're at 3755. It does take us to our talk of the tape. Whether this market frothy or not is still poised for a run into years end. Let's ask Liz Thomas. SoFi's head of investment strategy with me

here at Post 9. Welcome back. It's nice to see you. Thank you. When you look at this market, what do you see? Well, it's interesting. What I wrote about this week was, again, the comparisons to the 90s, and are we following the same path? And if we are, how much time is left? Because we have obsessed over, we're too high, it's too expensive, it's gone on too long, and then there's that quote that we hear all the time, bull markets don't die of old age, right? Just because it's been a long time doesn't mean it has to be over. So what do I see? I see a market that has continued to be excited about this AI, we'll call it a revolution, hat tip to Dan Ives on that one. Deservidly so. Yes, this AI revolution, and that maybe it's still pretty young in that

life cycle. Now, is there more room for it to run over a long-term period? Yes, absolutely. I think there's more room for it to run. Along that path, though, there will continue to be minor periods of, let's call them a breakdown in beta, which a lot of times we refer to as momentum reversing, some of those high-risk names, giving a bunch back. Well, those are, they're not giving a bunch back now. Right. Right. That's actually raising some concerns in certain corners that a lot of those types of stocks have surged over the past couple of months into unhealthy territory. A basket of unprofitable tech companies tracked by UBS has jumped 21% since the end of July, compared with a 2.1% advance for profitable tech, and the NASDAQ 100 up almost 6%.

So that is emblematic of speculation. It's emblematic of what I've been talking about as investors basically changing their risk appetite because of what's happening in the rally. And that's not the way that that sequence should go. Your risk appetite stays what your risk appetite is and the rally may happen, but you have to still do what's right for your portfolio. Is it emblematic of froth? Is it a sign of, well, maybe things are getting a little crazy in certain parts of the market, not the whole thing? How would you address it? Yes. Well, right now, I mean, it's been pretty much everything's gone up, right? At different speeds, but there's going to be froth, I think, consistently in those same popular pockets, the darlings, the things that

we're just talking about now. Tech will continue to be a darling. Communications, likely to continue to be a darling. Even some of the consumer discretionary stocks continue to be darlings. We're going to have periods, even if this is a rally that goes on for a while, we're going to have periods where we get to extend it. It feels too speculative. Maybe something triggers it like an end-of-quarter rebalance where you get some of that steam to come out and then it redistributes. But what you always want to watch is when that redistribution takes place, does it stay in equities or does it come out of the equity market entirely? Lately, it's stayed in risk assets, just moved to different parts of equities.

What do you make of the Fed chair yesterday saying that stocks appear, quote, fairly highly valued, to which Ed Yardini today said that was Powell's irrational exuberance moment, trying to make the analogy to a Greenspan four years ahead of the dot-com bust? Does ring it all similar to those moments, not the end, but the run-up? Absolutely. It will be different, even if it does follow. that path. It'll be for different reasons. If you look into 2026, the bull case here is, yes, stocks are fairly richly valued, but the multiple that we're looking at is what we're talking about.

We're in the 95th percentile evaluations for the S&P. You've got the Buffett indicator at all-time highs. We all know these stats. If the earnings number rises... Which earnings have been good. Right. If they stay good and growth in earnings is stronger than growth in price, then the multiple actually doesn't get that much higher. Because you're not getting everything from multiple expansion. You're getting it from earnings growth. Exactly. And frankly, we don't want it all for multiple expansion. That's where a lot of it has come from. And when you have those little beta breakdowns, that's what goes first. Hang on just one second. We have a news alert out of Washington. Amen Javis has the story for us. What are we learning here, Amin? Scott White House Press

Secretary Caroline Levitt confirms to me that there will be a signing at the White House tomorrow of this TikTok deal that's been in the works now for about a week. No details. from Caroline Levitt in terms of what's in the deal. NBC News separately has spoken to a senior White House official who offers some details of what it is exactly. They're going to be signing tomorrow. One new item that hasn't been reported before, which is interesting, this coming from a senior White House official to NBC News, that ByteDance, the former then-parent company of TikTok, would choose only one director of the seven-seat board and will be excluded from the company's security committee. The other details here.

here that have been offered up by the White House to NBC are similar to what's been reported so far. TikTok's U.S. operations will be run by a new joint venture company. BiteDance would hold less than 20% of the stock as required under the law that was passed earlier this year. The new company would be majority owned by American investors and operated in the United States by a board of directors with national security and cybersecurity credentials. Oracle will be TikTok's trusted security provider in the partnership.

with the U.S. government. The White House has said that the U.S. government will not take a board seat. That had been reported earlier. Officials at the White House earlier this week said that is not the case, Scott. So a little bit more detail here and now a sense that there will be a signing tomorrow at the White House. No indication of who's going to be there. And we don't yet have a full list of the investors who are participating in this deal. So a lot of names still to come out in this transaction, Scott. Yeah, but we do know, Amon, of certain big name investors. If you want to recap that a bit for our viewers as we potentially learn of some new ones. They are in all names that have been released thus far, very familiar to our audience.

Yeah, I mean, the key player here is Oracle, obviously serving as the trusted security partner, as the White House puts it, and Larry Ellison, clearly somebody's got a personal relationship with President Trump, but we've also seen a number of investors who are politically active. We've got venture capital folks in this deal. others, and we'll wait for that full list, but we don't have all of the names. And I think a lot of folks will be curious to see who's going to own this, given that TikTok is obviously one of the fastest growing and most influential media entities on the American landscape right now. Yeah. Interesting report. Amen, thanks. We'll look for that big event, which is likely

to be just that at the White House tomorrow, according to that reporting. Let's bring in Leslie Picker now for a look at some of the big moves in financials today as we add to our conversation. And J.P. Morgan, another new high. It's like a broken record trade, if you will. Private equity, not so much. What's happening here in this space today? Yeah, you're right. The financial sector pretty complex because broadly it's moving more in sync with the broader markets. But if you zoom in on some of those alternatives firms, you see some outsized moves largely to the downside today. Carlis, Ares, TPG, KKR, and Blue Owl, each down more than 5%. You can see Blue Owl down about 6.5%. today. No clear drivers other than maybe a few headlines in the F.T. There's a piece about how bad default rates can get, another in Bloomberg highlighting what it said were, quote, some PE firms doomed to fail as the industry struggles to exit assets and payback investors. Much of the industry

has been in the red, though, year to date, particularly those firms more exposed to private credit. So if rates decline, but spreads remain tight, that can cause yields for lenders to also slip. And then on the flip side, it does lower default risk because it decreases the debt burden for some of the borrower. So kind of a push-pull dynamic as rates decline without a recession, but definitely a space to watch, especially as it pertains to some of the publicly traded firms. Scott. It's fair to say, just quickly, Leslie, back to the private equity conversation in all of this, that these stocks have not traded nearly as well as I think many people assumed they would, given the environment that we think we're going to find ourselves in, and the administration

with deregulation and all the look towards M&A, you know, Apollo's down 16% year to date. Aries is red, KKR's red on the year. That's a bit of a surprise. They traded well in 2024, but still, you're right, Scott, this whole prospect of putting more alternatives into 401Ks. I mean, that theoretically opens up a $13 trillion marketplace for them, although a lot would say there's a long way to go before we actually see more ubiquitous activity in that realm. And then you have stock markets at or near record highs. That bodes well for the marks in the private portfolios as well, because usually they're assessed relative to kind of what you're seeing in the public markets.

So all of those seem like they would be pretty decent tailwinds for the alternatives managers, and yet we're seeing declines, not to mention also buyout activity and financing costs, potentially going down with a rate cutting cycle. So it is kind of different than what you would anticipate regarding kind of where we are in the macro backdrop and what the public firms are doing in this current environment. Yeah, Leslie, thank you. Good stuff. Leslie Picker. Shares of Alibaba meantime, they're soaring in today's session. Christina Partsenevolos is here with what's behind that breakout has all to do, I guess, with AI like everything else.

Yep. I should just throw it back to you. But Alibaba just up massively as investors really chase the same growth opportunities as U.S. technology. at cheaper valuations. Why do I say that? The Chinese tech giant just pledged roughly $53 billion US over three years for AI infrastructure and models. Chinese tech giants are reportedly spending over $32 billion on AI next year alone, double that of 2020, three levels. And this comes even when China, Beijing is banning Nvidia chip sales domestically really to boost their homegrown alternatives. The political signal, too, is quite clear. China's premiered toward Alibaba's

facilities just within the last week and was shown their new, in-house chip reportedly outperforming NVIDIA's H-20, which is lower on the tier in terms of specs on a lot of metrics. But these choreograph visits really signal top-level confidence in competing without foreign chips like NVIDIA. Shares, though, you can see hitting a four-year high on this 8% rally showing that AI money is hunting for value

wherever it can find it. For U.S. investors, this China tech surge means more pressure in American companies to really justify their premium valuations and more urgency. around securing chip supply chains as the AI arms race intensifies. So you are right, Scott. It's about AI. Christina, thanks. Back to in a bit. Let's bring in Icapitals, Shanali Basick and CNBC contributor Malcolm Etheridge of Capital Area Planning Group. Liz Thomas, of course, is still with us. Shanali, I'll ask you first. Just back to where we

were in this conversation about too highly valued, too frothy, or just fine justified, because earnings have justified it. It's really easy to see why investors would get anxious around these levels. But back to the irrational exuberance comment, you guys were making a little earlier. Ed Yardinian, that same note, made this great observation that back in the dot-com bubble, the S&P 500, the peak was 25 times earnings. And there were less earnings then than there are now. So we like what we see in the AI trade. But of course, in the next couple of weeks, there are reasons to see a little anxiety in the markets based on the macro and the run-up to earning season where expectations headed into this season are higher than where there were last

season. Malcolm, whenever we talk about valuation and you say, well, the market's too rich, it's always couched by those who want to make the counter argument by saying, well, that's only if you look at what's happened with the AI-related stocks, the Mag 7, because the equal weight is at a much more reasonable valuation, they suggest, than the S&P 500, so stop saying that the market is so richly priced because it's all due to seven or so stocks. Well, I think that it's impossible to talk about the market without focusing so much, not necessarily on the Mag 7

because I want to include Oracle and Broadcom into the conversation, but it's AI or nothing right now. So it's not unrealistic that the conversation would be so heavily dominated on the airwaves today, yesterday, and the days before, with this AI revolution. But I think deservedly so, right? When we just think about the fact that Oracle, Nvidia, and Open AI, even though it's still a private company, if it would have come public today, would be a mega-cap tech company immediately. So I'll throw it in there.

All of those companies dominate the conversation, and they also dominate the space. If you just consider all the deals that have been announced this quarter alone with all the different investments in AI data centers and everything else, it only involves three or four companies. And so it's almost impossible for us to really consider a world like Liz was talking about at the onset where a fizzling out of the markets takes out a little bit of the irrational exuberance and then those dollars kind of spread even weight like you were just describing. I would have a feeling that those dollars would immediately rush back into the top 10 names

that all are tangentially aligned with this AI tech trade. Malcolm, if you didn't own Apple and Amazon and Microsoft and Nvidia and Oracle, Would you buy them today? I would say yes to all of those save for Oracle. I think that all of the news as it relates to Oracle near-term has to be fully baked into this story, which is probably why even as we hear the story, the announcement and Sam Malton's out doing the road show right now, all the great things that are happening with Oracle, including the announcement with the TikTok deal potentially tomorrow. I think that all the good news is already out near-term, and this is probably a good place.

If you've been in that name for quite some time, for you to be taking some profits and ringing the register a little bit. But for all of those other names you mentioned, I still think this is a good place to be adding to those positions, not necessarily worried that just because we've gone hot recently means that we can't continue to roll on through the end of this year. We have a lot of large numbers coming. I mean, this week was a perfect reminder with the Nvidia announcement and then OpenAI and then Jensen and Sam Altman, respectively, on the network, talking about these numbers.

is it's probably why it's making people nervous, to which Sam Altman even tells us, I understand why people are nervous. Should they be about all the spending that they're seeing and what it might mean for the stocks down the road if they don't produce the return on that investment? What's down the road, right? Is it the end of this year or is it well into next year?

Because there are reasons to be maybe nervous this year for some reasons, but something I would love to see. And tell me if I'm wrong here, how much of this have we actually seen flow through the rest of corporate America? And how much have we seen margins come down because of their use of AI? That marginal client, when you talk to these large companies, they tell you that there's two, three years before you even start to see the real benefits.

And you have the sell side starting to bake in. And I think this is an amazing statistic that AI is already accounting today for between 0.5 to 1% of GDP growth. It's already showing, in theory, in the numbers of growth today. Now, how do you pair that with a weakening labor market? I think that's where the story gets a little more confusing. Where's all that productivity coming from? AI is not explaining all of it. And so as the labor market weakens and the economy seems to weaken for a lot of people,

the question is, can that growth keep coming from an AI? And what are the broader implications for that? Yeah, I mean, it does play into the Fed chair. And I guess a little bit lost yesterday in the download of the comments that he made, which were so focused on, you know, my earlier program, even here to some degree the fairly highly valued comment about the stock market. But Chair Paladin seemed like he was running to hit the button for the next rate cut until he sees more data, right?

Yeah. He has always valued flexibility and always paired back the market's expectations. The market has been telling the Fed for a long time now that it wants more cuts. And I think that they continue to be concerned about inflation, not necessarily because they suddenly think tariffs are going to be a lasting issue and drive it higher, but because they don't want to cut too aggressively. And there's a lot of rhetoric out there about aggressive cuts, depending on who ends up in some of these open Fed seats.

If they cut too aggressively and stoke inflation, we've got a much bigger problem on the other side, and then they're hiking. So I think that's the flexibility and the tone that he wants to take. I still think we're going to get at least another cut this year. I don't know that we're going to get as many next year as everybody expects unless the labor market continues to weaken. is a tipping point though where as the labor market weakens if it gets too weak those cuts are not coming because the fed can anymore and then we're in a different era well i mean Malcolm that's

why you know this whole risks to both sides comment that he goes out of his way the fed chair to make sure people understand that this isn't 100% certain that they are going to make the right decisions based on what they see now sounded to me yesterday that while he's willing to go ahead now and write down, okay, the inflation caused by tariffs is going to cause one-time price increases. But the one-time price increases may not be today and they might not be tomorrow. We might not see it for a while. It could be uneven in when they actually take hold and filter into the economy, which makes their job even more difficult. Yeah, I think if nothing else, we saw the Fed trying to throw some cold water on those animal

spirits we started the conversation with, right? They're trying to make sure that we at least have a trap door so that if October 29 comes along and they decide to hit the pause button, markets don't overreact and say, oh, my God, they decided to reverse course. That must mean something negative and now a sell-off bruise. I think that more realistically, we can expect at least one cut to happen this year. The Fed wants to give itself some wiggle room in case no more than that actually happens. And I think this was really just messaging to make sure that the markets don't fall apart if we get to the end of October and we're a little bit dissatisfied with what we see.

Yeah, Malcolm, when you see Christina do the reporting on Baba's big breakout today and then the fact that a lot of these stocks have done well, is it make you want to buy China tech names for the first time in an awfully long time, if ever? I would have a hard time deciding that it's a good time to invest in China tech names, just considering all of the rhetoric, the souring relationship between the U.S. and the CCP and everything else. But I would say that it's a good sign that it's time to be looking international if you haven't already. because we've been owning and dominating the AI tech trade since 2022 and ChatGPT first hit the scene. But it's unrealistic to expect that we were going to be able to maintain that and keep that genie in the bottle here in the U.S. forever. And so it is a good time to be looking at where the opportunities are coming in Europe, for example, in Latin America and other parts of Asia.

Because those companies also don't have the ability to stay private as long as our companies do in the United States because they just don't have the venture capital dollars to keep them afloat. And so they're going to be coming out to those exchanges looking for opportunities for liquidity, which gives investors like us the ability to be in there and realize a lot more of that gain. Shanali, how do you assess that? The China versus. Which was like deemed to be uninvestable not that long ago. But now that these stocks are off to the races, and China is not, you know, as Malcolm was talking about, they're not going to just cede the whole thing to the U.S. when it comes to AI.

Listen, I think you have to look at how the globe is playing AI too, because in theory, sovereigns. and demand from other countries could be a huge set of demand for the U.S. players. However, if China starts to take some of that away, I think that's what the context is here. You have to see where that money ends up going at the end of the day and how the race plays out. All right. We'll leave it there. Malcolm, thanks, Anali. Thanks. Liz. We'll see you soon. All right, back to Christina now for look at the biggest names. Moving into the close today, Christina. I have a few chip names. Let's start with Micron, because we know they beat Q4 earnings estimates with a 46% revenue growth, yet shares are down 3% today.

So what happened? Mizzuho Jordan Klein told me why. Quote, at this valuation with guidance out there, those daily bullish headlines just aren't moving the needle anymore. It needs to pull back before it can really run higher. I'm interpreting that as investors already priced in perfection. Intel, seemingly getting a boost from Micron's report as well. On the earnings call, Micron CEO, increased the company's outlook on traditional servers and PC unit shipments.

He did speak about AI PCs doing much better. Intel shares are up 5%. Could be that. Could be some other news on the year. Intel also up 35% thus far. Last but not at least, Freeport MacMoran shares tumbling on a lower Q3 sales outlook. There was a fatal mud rush earlier this month halting operations in Indonesia. The company expects consolidated sales to be lower from both copper and gold, and that's why shares are sinking 16% on Freeport. All right. Christina, thank you again, Christina Parts de Nevelas. We're just getting started. Up next.

valuation two ways we're talking big tech and big sports we're live at the new york stock exchange you're watching closing bell on cnbc some big news on the NFL. Let's get to Mike Ozanian, who has some more big numbers for us, Mike. Hey, Scott. How are you doing today? Yeah, I learned through some reporting that about a week ago, a 2.35% stake in the Chicago Bears was sold at a valuation of $8.9 billion. That's B is in billion, Scott, a new record for a minority stake sale in an NFL team. I mean, 8.9 billion. The reason why it's so interesting and we're playing it up as much as we are through your reporting is because it's so much more than you

valued them not that long ago, right? No, actually, in our last values, we had them at exactly $8.9 billion. You did. You did. But, you know, to be honest, I had been hearing through the pipeline that this sale was in works and there was hot bidding for it. It was sold by the McKenna estate to the two existing owners of the team, the McCaskey family, which now owns about 77% of the Bears and the Ryan family, which are so. Jones 23. But it was a competing bid. There was another offer that was right in the same

ballpark. And the upside here really is, number one, you've got to figure some point down the road, the bears are going to get a new stadium where they play now. It's an old stadium. They don't have a very good lease in terms of how much revenue they get from the stadium. And of course, as our Alex Sherman has reported, the NFL is looking to possibly get its rights fees with its media partners, a new deal done earlier than expected. There's going to be big upside there because last season, the NFL, in terms of what was shared equally among all the teams, you know, with the broadcasters, YouTube, and so forth, it shared a little over $12 billion. That's going to go up significantly. Yeah. And now you also have private equity,

which adds liquidity for these limited partner sales in the NFL, which it didn't have, you know, before a year ago. So all of this is factoring into very rich valuations. Next month, I expect a minority stake in the New York Giants, a sale of 10% to be approved to Julia Coke. And that will set yet another record, which I'm hearing is going to be 10.3 billion. Wow. What I should have said, more accurately, of course, is that it's up. The 8.9 billion, Mike, is up 39% from 2024, not according to your evaluations, of course, which are ironclad, and I'm glad you've corrected me on that point. It just goes to show you where all of this continues to go. And then if you layer on what our own Alex Sherman was reporting in his

exclusive interview with the commish, is that they might be negotiating or renegotiating a media rights deal years before many thought that would happen, which is only going to go for a very large number, which is only going to push these valuations up even higher. Yeah, I think the interesting thing, Scott, is going to be exactly what these new deals get valued at, because maybe we see something akin to what ESPN and the NFL is doing with those rights for some of the NFL's properties where the NFL is actually taking a stake in ESPN out of this because these broadcasters only have so much cash to put towards rights fees. So are they going to offer more equity? And then you can have the influx of probably

some of the newer streamers like, you know, Netflix taking a bigger piece, Google taking a bigger piece. So Amazon may be taking a bigger piece, which is Thursday night football. So what's the over under in terms of what the expectation is? Are they expecting a 40% increase, a 50% increase? I mean, I got to think at least 50% given what the NBA recently renewed its rights at, because the NBA isn't close to the NFL in terms of viewership. Mike, lastly and quickly, is this the Caleb Williams effect at all? Like the upside of a star player and a renewal, if you will, of optimism and a franchise helping to raise its valuation at the same time? I would put that towards the bottom, Scott.

I mean, I think the big upside here is, number one, a new stadium, which they've been working hard to get approved. And number two, you've got to look at it. If you're buying into a New York football team like Giants or Jets or an L.A. team, you've got a great market, but you also have more than one team, right? You've got the Chargers, the Rams, Giants, and Jets. The Chicago market is all to the Bears, and it's a huge market. And despite the fact they've been feeble on the football field in recent years, it's still a very, very powerful brand. That's for sure. There he is the guru on valuations.

Mike Ozanian, thank you. We'll see you soon. Thanks, Scott. All right, coming up next, tech under pressure again today. Intelligent Alphas, Doug Clinton, standing by. I'll map out his playbook for that space next. A big reminder this week of just how much money and hype is behind the AI trade, with both NVIDIA and Open AI announcing billions more in spending plans.

right here on CNBC. Does it mean that tech stocks are still firmly the place to be in this bull market? Let's ask Doug Clinton, intelligent alpha founder and CEO. It's good to see you. As I said, I mean, it was sort of right there in front of your face as to why there's so much excitement about what's happening here. Is that how we should take it as a reminder to stay here as an investor? I think it is a reminder.

And we've got all this stuff on X. If you spend two minutes on X looking at anybody with a finance account, It feels like everybody wants to call the top valuations are frothy. They see these deals where NVIDIA is investing in ostensibly one of their biggest customers, and they say, we've seen this playbook before. This happened in the dot-com era. It has to be over. I think that's the wrong perspective, though.

I think it is a reminder that this is the biggest infrastructure build ever. And these companies like NVIDIA, like OpenAI, they're dealing with such big dollar numbers. It doesn't move the needle if they invest in some small company. Invidia needs to play big. the only way they can play big with a model builder is to invest in open AI. But I feel like as an investor, we all need to take a tremendous leap of faith. Maybe in ways that we haven't had to take in 25 years when we're assuming that these big numbers are legit, that the return on the big numbers is going to happen.

And we have to put all our faith in a kind of market where we're used to putting our faith for a six to nine month time frame, right? We make bets ahead on what's going to happen in the future in the stock market. Now we're talking about having to do that in years. Is that right? You feel that way? I think that's right. And it is uncomfortable. I won't say it's not uncomfortable. I think it's even uncomfortable for me as someone who's spent my life in tech. But I think we kind of see the writing on the wall. And I've said this before. You know, I think that this ultimately, this AI spend boom, it will culminate in a bubble bigger than the dot-com era.

I don't think we're there yet. I think we still have two to four more years. We've talked about that before here on this show. I still think that's the right time span to think about how aggressive these numbers are going to get. And on top of that, you look at what the mega-cap companies are doing. That is one thing that's different in this era versus the dot-com era is that the biggest companies in the world are, they're all in. They're spending hundreds of billions of dollars of free cash flow they're generating on these infrastructure builds. So I think that's the thing that's different where they're going to continue to put this money to work. And I think it might last longer than people think.

What about the less profitable to no profitable names that have surged a lot in the last few months? That make you nervous, cautious? Is it much to do about nothing? What do you think? They make me even more nervous. And I'll tell you what we've done at Intelligent Alpha, we use AI to do our stock picking. And our models, I think, have actually sort of noticed this and reflected this. Right now, most of our AI-related exposure in our flagship Livermore ETF is mostly mega-caps.

So we've kind of avoided a lot of these ones that might be up 100, 150%. They really don't have the backbone, the support of growing revenues to justify those valuations. I think we are kind of due for a pullback and a reset in some of those names. That does scare me. But I do think the mega cap companies can keep working despite that. All right. I've got to let you run. I've got some breaking news to get to.

Doug. Thank you. It's out of Washington. It's our Amon Javr's back with us now. Amin? Scott, this is reporting from MSNBC, who is reporting just now that, Multiple sources familiar are telling them that former FBI director James Comey is expected to be indicted within coming days. They say this is a fluid situation, but that is the current expectation is that an indictment would come out of the Eastern District of Virginia,

potentially on allegations of lying to Congress back in 2020 in testimony up on Capitol Hill. Now, you'll remember, Scott, that the Eastern District of Virginia is where President Trump recently forced out a prosecutor who, who he argued was not moving fast enough to move ahead with charges against some of the people that President Trump views as his political enemies. You saw over the weekend the president posting on social media urging his attorney general Pam Bondi to proceed with cases against James Comey and others. The president tweeting over the weekend or posting over the weekend, I should say, Pam, I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that essentially same old story, no talk, all talk, no action, is being done. What about Comey, Adam Schiff, Letitia. They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. So the president urging his attorney general to move forward with cases against those folks. Now this new reporting from MSNBC suggesting that Comey anyway is expected

to be indicted in the coming days. But of course, cautioning this is a fluid situation and that could change. But that is the reporting as of right now. Scott, back with me. Amen, thank you. Amen Jabbers. Up next, Muhammad El Airy, and he's standing by. We'll get his reaction to Fed Chair Pals' comments about the stock market, about the path ahead for interest rates. We'll do it all next. Fed Chair Powell, non-committal, on the path ahead for interest rates during his closely watched speech in Rhode Island yesterday.

He did make headlines declaring stocks are, quote, fairly highly valued when asked about the equity market. Joining us now, Alian's chief economic advisor, Mohamed Alarians. Good to see you. Welcome back. Thank you, Scott. What stood out the most to you yesterday? So I think, like you said earlier today, his statement about valuation may well be. be like what Ed Yardani told the NBC earlier, which is this moment of irrational exuberance. I was really puzzled.

You'd think that after the Greenspan experience, Fed chairs would stay away from them, especially as he added, there's no financial stability issue. So I was a little bit surprised he went there. What didn't surprise me is he tried to take the middle of the road. He tried to tell us that there's no risk-free path. He simply repeated what he said earlier and didn't operate. for the other two corner solutions that his colleagues hinted at earlier in the week. I mean, the pushback would be maybe we're searching for something that's not there.

I mean, it's not like he explicitly went out of his way to deliver remarks in any written fashion that declared the stock market overvalued or that exuberance had become irrational. He was simply answering a question about the current state of the equity market, and that's what he offered up. That's a little different. Amia, and you called it fairly highly valued. But like the old days when Fed shares would be asked about the dollar, you simply say, you know what, I don't comment on this.

That would have been a better approach. I think the main risk we face is this balanced situation where both sides have risk, call it 55-45. If you remain data dependent, you will end up. up paralyze. You will end up doing not enough of either thing, and you may end up inadvertently fueling statflation. So the concern is that you can't solve the 55-45 looking at data. That's not going to solve it. What's going to solve it is having the courage of taking a vision of where we're going, and you and I have discussed this before.

Just back to your earlier comment, I mean, he would never comment. about the dollar because that's the purview of the Treasury Department and the Treasury Secretary. The stock market is a read, if you will, into the current state of financial conditions, which matter greatly to the Fed and whether whatever they're doing or whatever they might do could have a role on equity prices going either up or down. I mean, it all matters into the greater pie of current conditions, no? It does come, but I would add it's also a view on the future, and we are looking at the possibility of significant productivity upside in terms of AI, and we are seeing that it is tech companies that have led the rally. So he also has, he's also taking a view of the future, he's also taking a view on technicals.

We have $7.5 trillion in money market accounts. Will that be pushing the equity market? We don't know. There are a lot of issues. You know, it's about fundamentals, it's about technicals, it's about valuations, and the fundamentals are forward-looking. So, yes, he can take a backward look, but it's the backward look that gets this fed into trouble over and over again. It happened with the transitory inflation call. It happened with the framework.

So, you know, he's wired to always look back at a situation where you really have got to look forward and take a view. And the market has taken a view about what's ahead. But he is looking forward. He is, and he's concerned about the labor market of where it may go from here, and he's not 100% convinced that even though his base belief now appears to be that this is just a one-time price increase from tariffs, that it won't all happen at the same time, right? He seems to be looking forward based on those two things. So he got concerned about the labor market after the data turned. after the payroll number, after the revisions. He didn't get concerned beforehand

when many of us were saying, look at what the partial indicators are telling you. He waited and waited, and we will see whether missing the July date for cut was a mistake or not. So he didn't turn looking forward. He turned because the data turned. So that's a virtual issue.

And yes, he also has changed his view on tariffs because the CPI numbers have shown that the pass through has been very limited. So he's reacting to data, Scott. Mohamed, how could he possibly react to tariff inflation before seeing some actual numbers, which would either prove or disprove whatever his belief was? You're suggesting that he should have just moved on rates

and forget about what the numbers might show about tariff inflation. I don't get that. Those of us who talk to companies heard something very clear. If you are selling to low-income household, you have no pricing power. You are not going to pass on the tariffs because you don't want to destroy demand. We heard that loud and clear. Second, were you able to pass on tariffs increases? Walmart said they were going to pass on the cost of tariff.

I mean, who are we talking about? You're talking about people who sell to lower income. They said, ask them how much of it are you going to pass? You don't think Walmart sells to people with lower income? I would be shocked, shocked, and you can test me on that if they end up passing on more than 40 to 50%. I would be shocked. Well, I mean, that's impossible to prove at this point.

They'll tell us later on. They said they were going to pass on the cost of tariffs, at least in some part everybody will pass some portion but for it to really move the needle it has to be near 80, 90%.

If it's below 50%, it will happen gradually it will not be an inflation shock that causes pricing behavior to change going forward and that's what if you're worried about inflation you're worried about pricing behavior changing

because of the initial shock. If the initial shock is small and over time, it is less likely to change pricing behavior. Mahmah, we'll talk to you soon. Thank you, Mohamed Alarion, joining us once again on the closing bell. Still ahead, GM shares revving higher today. I'll tell you what's behind the balance coming up. We're now in the closing bell market zone, CNBC senior markets commentator. Mike Santoli's here to break down.

these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus, Steve Kovac on Microsoft, expanding its collaboration with Anthropic and Phil LeBoh on the big upgrade today for General Motors. Mike, I'll begin with you. What stands out to you today? Mostly just fatigue, right? We have this mature rally. Two days in a row, the S&P 500 ran right up to 6699, didn't quite get over that

a round number hurdle, and you're seeing some of the well-played out, well-understood themes start to back off, not just semis and AI ecosystem. also point to the investment banks and private equity firms that are pulling back pretty significantly today. So I think it's maybe the soft patch that we have in the calendar, low level of fundamental catalyst coming at us and waiting for that PCE report. You want to do this now, guys? Yeah? We have some breaking news about Intel. Christina Parsnevles is here with that. Christina? There is a Bloomberg report stating that Intel reached out to Apple to secure them as a customer so that They are supposedly, according to this report, their sources are saying they're working closely

together. I called Intel. They would not comment. I was wondering all day as to why the stock was up over 4% throughout the day and then popping about five. Perhaps this rumor has been milling about, and I just didn't catch it. But this is really about Intel securing bigger customers now that Nvidia is an investor, the government is an investor in the company, and they really are working on improving their

14A advanced manufacturing capabilities. So if Apple signs on, this could be a big tumble of more companies signing on. So that is the latest news coming from just a Bloomberg report. Yeah, Christina, thank you for that. It's perfect, actually, that we have Steve Kovac, who is going to talk to us about Microsoft and Anthropic. But do you have a thought on this news that seems to be developing here? It's certainly causing Intel shares to pop again. Yeah, I was thinking, Scott, about the Nvidia deal and Intel that we heard about last week

and how those two were talking about partnering together. Apple and Intel, they split up many years ago. As you know, Scott, several years ago, Apple moved to its own chips and processors in Macs, and they've been actually outperforming on so many levels what Intel has been able to do. So it would be interesting and quite a political move if this actually happens. I will note this report says it's Intel asking Apple. Apple, it's unclear what Apple's response to that is, Scott. You want to then do the news of this Microsoft Anthropic thing that we're talking about?

Yeah. So here we have Open AI's biggest backer and stakeholder having a new partnership, Scott, with Open AI's biggest rival. That would be Anthropic. So it's a small start right here. So let me tell you what's going on. This is only for the commercial product. That's not the enterprise stuff. Businesses buy. This is the subscription to co-pilot that you and I can go out there and buy on our own. You get to choose what model you want to use. Do you want to use? Do you want to use? open AI with co-pilot or do you want to use anthropic sort of like you might do with perplexity when you do searches there and then also on the enterprise front the ability to use anthropic models in order to code AI agents now look Microsoft has been quite open about partnering with other AI companies besides just open AI and it hosts grok for example from Elon Musk's xAI it hosts meta's llama models and so many other rivals to open AI so it is trying to become more of an open platform. At the same time, you have Microsoft and Open AI going through these negotiations about what their relationship is going to look like going forward

with that big soft bank investment. So this could also be a little bit of a negotiating tactic. You have Satya Nadella saying things like these models are becoming commoditized. So you can kind of see this as a power play too, Scott. All right, good. Steve, thank you, Steve Kovac. With that, Phil, tell me more on General Motors. UBS with an upgrade today. They are going from neutral up to buy, raising the price target, going to $81 from $56. That's about 40% from where the stock is right now. They see a path to stronger margins.

Joe Spack writing in his note, while tariffs have added costs that GM won't pass through to the consumer, we believe GM has a number of levers at their disposal to offset the headwind. One last note is you take a look at shares of GM. Go back to April 1st when they announced the tariffs in the consumer. Rose Garden? Wow, stock has been on a tear. They also said today that they will stop production of the Accura ZDX at the plant down in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Honda's made a decision not to produce that anymore, so that will not be produced at the GM plant down there in Tennessee. Scott, back to you. All right, Phil. Thank you very much for that. We'll bring in

Mike Santoli for his last words. It's kind of market we're in, Mike, that if you're going to get a day where the mega caps aren't really going to do much, you're just going to have a tape that looks like this? Yeah, honestly, could be a whole lot worse. There is still this kind of rotational impulse in the market. You have energy up again for a second day. Some of the laggard groups are just getting a little bit of a lift. So, you know, in general, the market's staying supported. The S&P is only 1% off the record intraday high. Maybe it's got a probe a little bit more from here. Obviously, there's this ongoing reassessment of the AI trade of what it means and have we overshot, or is this just another one of these periodic gut checks?

I don't think you're going to get a verdict on that. The semis are not exactly collapsing, but Nvidia's been struggling below. It's, you know, this 180 level for a while, despite what should be positive news flow. So I do think that's why the market's a little bit noncommittal here, and not willing to kind of grab it and run to new highs, simply because, you know, you've seen a little bit of a breaking of stride. Even gold, down a percent and a half, everybody talking about how technically overstretched it was. And so maybe it is just a time for a lot of these mature trends to take a break.

All right, Mike, thank you very much. That's Mike Zantoli. We'll go red, obviously, across the board. Russell, biggest leader today, interest rates were up a bit. So all of that sort of weighing on what's happening on the street today. We'll see on the other side tomorrow. We'll go over time.