Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Another Year of Strength Ahead? 1/5/26

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

Can stocks post a fourth-consecutive strong year? We discuss with Solus’ Dan Greenhaus, NewEdge’s Cameron Dawson and iCapital’s Sonali Basak. Plus, we discuss what’s at stake for the oil markets following the removal and arrest of Venezuela’s President Maduro with Bryn Talkington from Requisite Capital. And, Bill Miller IV from Miller Value Partners breaks out his 2026 crypto playbook.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right, Tom, thanks so much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wapner, live from Post 9, here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker breakout begins with a record high for the Dow. Here's a look at the scorecard with 60 to go. In regulation, most risk assets like stocks and Bitcoin are higher today. As investors assess the impact of the Venezuela news over the weekend. Gold, higher as well, oil names.

Well, they are mixed today. Valero is a standout from the refinery space. We're watching the whole complex, though, closely. It's been a big day as well for the banks. Several of the large financial stocks are hitting new highs today, and we're keeping an eye as well on NVIDIA. As Don was just telling you, Jensen Wong, the CEO, taking the stage at CES for his keynote in just about an hour's time. He'll also appear on CNBC for an exclusive interview at 5.30 p.m. Eastern, and Dan Ives will join us in just a bit for his take on that highly anticipated event. It does take us to our talk of the tape. Ken Stocks post a fourth consecutive strong year. Well, let's ask our panel.

Solace is Dan Greenhouse, New Edge, Welts, Cameron Dawson, Icapitals, Chenali Bassick. Great to have everybody with us. Dan, you first. How are we set up for this new year? I think we're set up pretty well. The trends in place at the end of last year, stronger earnings growth, the AI story remaining intact, and the Fed being accommodative rather than restrictive, plus the purchases, some of the reserve purchases that they'll be doing, continues, I think, the sort of macro tailwind that's been driving markets higher and probably

does for the immediate future. So we finish the year with a little bit of a whimper. We're watching the tape, as I said closely today, we're at 6901. Jonathan Krinsky of BTIG says that we need to close today above 6909.79 to avoid a negative Santa Claus rally. The last two years were also negative, and there's never been three straight negative Santa Claus rally periods. Put any credence in that?

I love John Krinsky. So what? So it's never happened before. So what if it happens? So what? Means nothing for how any part of the early year will trade? I don't think it matters one bit of it. Why do you think we were a little weak into the end of the end?

Yeah, I mean, listen, I thought we were going to get to $7,000 to end the year. Okay, why didn't we? Well, we've had the AI rotation story, which sort of hampered, which not sort of hampered, hampered some of the larger cap names, which put a little bit of downward pressure on the market. And while there was a rotation, we know that banks in health care picked up some of the slack. I think that probably mathematically held back the market a little more than, than I expected and other people expected. But again, I don't know that I would read too much into that.

And again, getting back to John's point, yeah, I mean, obviously I would rather a positive Santa Claus rally than a negative one. But I also don't think it really necessarily matters, given some of those aforementioned tailwinds I mentioned. I don't feel like Shinali you're expecting that much out of this year in a stock market. Single digit, albeit mid-to-high single-digit returns. Not to say we can't outperform that. We think it's a constructive year.

There's a positive backdrop, but we think it'll be choppy, Scott. You look at this year, why didn't the market perform at the tail end of last year? A few things. The selectivity in the AI theme, we've been talking about it for a while. We can keep talking about it, but also rate sensitivity. When you look at it, the 10 years up a quarter of a percentage point from the lows of October, and we think that there's more upside risk here to longer-term yields, regardless of what you see of rate cuts throughout the course of the year.

Your fair value range is 72 to 7,400. Dan painted a pretty positive picture. This sounds like a little bit cautious. What say you? I think that what a lower return year translates into is effectively that valuations stay where they are and the best we get is earnings growth. But what's fascinating is that's effectively what happened in 2025. We started the year at 22 times.

We ended the year at 22 times. And the earnings upside is what drove all of the gains in the market. And what that means, though, is that if you don't have a lot of room to absorb a higher multiple or more multiple expansion, it just, suggest that you can see some volatility along the way. I think a key difference versus last year is that for the last six months, we've been raising earnings estimates. For the six months going into 2025, you were actually cutting earnings estimates. So you had a lower bar. Now you're sitting at $310 a share, 15% growth for this year. It's a pretty high bar to jump over. So not surprising.

You think it's too high? Because a lot of this is built on the idea, okay, you're not going to get multiple expansion, that you need earnings growth to justify where the market currently trades, or if it's going to trade higher from here. You think that's in doubt? I think it would be foolish to bet against the great American might of finding ways to expand margins. Look at this past year. Nobody expected big margin expansion.

That's certainly what you got. There's already 200 basis points of that priced in to this year's estimates. And I think the other point is that you're starting to have this expectation of a big rotation and catch-up trade of the 493. You've been in a world where Mag 7 kept surprising to the outside, 493 surprised to the downside. that's not expected to happen this year. And so that would be the other place for a high bar.

What about the tailwinds that you just talked about, though? Listen, I think to the point Cameron was articulating, a lot of the people, I think, I don't know about Chenali's estimates, so I apologize, but a lot of the people who were more reserved for this year think you're going to see multiple compression for a number of different reasons. I'm not so sure that's the case. I've been told that we're going to have multiple compression for several years now when we keep growing larger and larger and larger,

and whether we're 21 or 22 times forward earnings is largely irrelevant, And if the tailwinds that I believe are going to continue do indeed continue, then to Cameron's point, why wouldn't I just hold the multiple constant? And if you're going to get the type of earnings growth that we're talking about, then that's going to drive the market higher than some of those more reserve price. We're at 21 times forward 12 months. Yeah. By the way, no one thinks we're going back to 16, 17, 20 times earnings.

But I think there's a hesitancy, and there has been a hesitancy among the strategist community to be, for lack of a better word, unabashedly bullish. And not that I've been on the Bachelorsley Bulls, but I've been closer to that than constructively optimistic or something. Ed Yardinney comes in today and says there's AI fatigue mounting. And he recommends a lot of other areas of the market instead, such as financials, industrials, and health care. The biggest story of the last two months has been the pro cyclical risk on bent of this market. Look at banks. Look at industrials. Consumers discretionary outperforming stables. Look at industrial metals. They've rallied 15% in the last two months.

is a market that is expecting a global reacceleration and growth. So maybe the contrast is last year, the narrative going into the year was America first. America is going to do great. This year, the narrative is global reacceloration. And I think it's fascinating to see a big rally on a day of industrial commodities when you have a PMI print that's at 47. So not certain if we're getting the data yet, but of course the market will always anticipate the data to come. We said that we're coming off of a third straight, really strong year. Global stock markets, the world outperformed the U.S. by the widest margins since, like, 08. We're still getting asked a lot about international markets.

And I would agree that even within the U.S. market, there are some opportunities outside of big tech, and there's still opportunities within tech that have sold off the last couple of months. But yes, it's certainly the international story is interesting. I would say with some of the geopolitical risks that's entering, you know, you've got to watch really closely. Are we feeling better about the prospects of where the AI trade is? Are we asking ourselves more questions than we were before? I mean, it's not that we finished the year all that great. So I think we're questioning some of the metrics around some of the deals and some of the debt and a bunch of other stuff, some of the demand, some of the ROI of that.

I don't think we're questioning the demand. I haven't heard from any company as of yet that demand is an issue. But I think a lot of the issues that you just articulated and mentioned, which we've all discussed ad nauseum on this panel. When I say demand, I'm talking about, like, we're racing to build data centers, you know, hand over fist. Like, is there going to be enough demand to satisfy the big buildup? That's what I'm talking about. That's surely going to blow up. But those questions are going to continue to be asked throughout this year, right?

Yeah, we can ask the entire bull market, when is this going to end? And then eventually it will end, my favorite saying, every new high is to be bought except the last one. And at some point, we will be at the last new high. I don't have any idea when that is right now. Every single company from Invidia and Broadcom on down to Amphanol and Eaton tells me that demand exceeds supply and we've got to continue building, et cetera, et cetera, the CAPX, et cetera, et cetera. So as long as that's ongoing, I feel every bit as comfortable with that story until something comes along, a profit warning, a cancellation, a demand slowdown, something to tell me that that trend is not continuing. Is the news of the weekend regarding Venezuela a wake-up call of geopolitics for people? Well, I mean, the market doesn't seem to be all that concerned about it.

Yes, gold is higher today, but more risk assets are stealing the headlines, really, than that move. Yeah, the simple rule that we use for geopolitics is, does it affect earnings? And if the answer is no, then it can be just a short-term hit to valuations. If the answer is, yes, it's likely through the energy price channel. And so with downward pressure on oil prices, potentially, I know they're up today, but they're in a very distinct downtrend. And we probably shouldn't underappreciate the fact that over the last three years, gasoline prices for U.S. consumers have been steadily declining. You've been negative year over a year, which has effectively acted as a tax cut for consumers. So I think your point on geopolitics is important, but it has to show up in oil prices for this to be something that could impact U.S. markets and the economy.

Chanel, I could be the last word on that. Do you agree? I think it's a big deal in the long term for one big reason that probably defense spending is probably not baked into the fiscal impulse when it comes to longer term yields. I think people are not talking about that. They're focused so much today on oil prices. And this isn't really just about oil prices. It's about access of power. And that's where we have to consider what this plays out like when we think about China and Iran throughout the course of the year.

I know you gave her the last word. That's okay. That's all right. Hard being for me to. I haven't watched the network much today. So I apologize. I'm sure this point has been made repeat. This country is nowhere near, like they're, let's just call it 800,000 barrels of production right now, which are exporting mostly to China.

They can get back to 1-2, 1-3 somewhat quickly, call it a year or something, but the amount of investment, time and investment, and confidence and comfort that's going to be needed on the part of Exxon and Chevron and Conoco, to go back in there and commit, by many accounts, $150 billion worth of cap-X, because it's not just the oil. The pipes are clogged. There's no replacement parts. there's no one there to work the rigs. The electricity lines, the power lines that go to the rigs don't exist or broken. Well, that's probably why an initial move lower was reversed, because it's a lot more complicated than some of the initial statements. And hyperbole would have you believe it might be.

You see these headlines that they're sitting on 300, the largest oil reserves, 300 plus billion. There are some numbers that are larger than that. I believe the U.S. at one point estimated 450 billion barrels. That is not readily accessible by any means. at all. All right, we'll leave it there, since you took the last word that I gave Chanel. You can tell me. I'll take it back another day. We're going to continue the conversation. Everybody, thank you. Dan Cameron and Chenali. We'll talk to all of you soon,

of course. Let's get more now on the oil markets, which are being closely watched following the removal and arrest of Venezuela's President Maduro. He was in court today in Lower Manhattan to face four criminal counts. That country's oil supply now a key question with investors watching stocks in that space, and that includes Bryn Talkington of Requisite Capital. joins us now. of course. Good to see you. How are you assessing this news? How are you thinking about investing around it, if at all? Yeah, well, when I was putting a note for the team this weekend, really it was clear that Chevron is a strategic tactical winner. Their boots on the ground. But to Dan's point about the disarray of the infrastructure, that's why Halliburton and Schlumberge are up each about

10 percent, because they would be the companies that would go and rebuild that infrastructure. And then Valero Marathon are up today equally around 10% because, as we know, Venezuela has heavy and that's why we would need the Valeros and the marathons to go refine that. So I think that when it comes down to it, the market is priced in with these specific basket of companies that I just walked through, a very optimistic outcome. And I think we are very, very early days when you have a dictator that was there since 2013 that's completely just destroyed the GDP, the freedom, just all of those things of this country. And so I think it's early days. So I would, I'd be more fading those names. I would be

fading those names versus taking new positions in those specific names I mentioned. Would you be adding to anything that's weaker? It's not a one size fits all story, so to speak. It's not like everything in the complex is up. You throw up diamond back, which you own, which I think, you know, Joe Taranova was talking about today on half time suggesting not good news for a name like Fang, and here it is down three and a half percent. How are you thinking about those kinds of stocks? I think if you play it out, I mean, it's not good news. If they bring their, let's say, one billion of oil online to one and a half or two. But those are like, that's in the future, may if, when, then come. And I think companies like, you know, Diamondback, Viper Energy,

which is a subsidiary of Dimeback, which I own, which does mineral rights and royalties. I think ultimately, if you had all this glut of Venezuelan oil, sure, that would be negative for energy prices in general. But I think we're still early days. Let's see what Russia does. I think China will be more benign on this. We have Cuba. So I would be more, I'm going to be looking at like a viper energy transfer, some of the names

I own that are down today to see if there's some follow-through and maybe adding on that weakness because I do feel that there's never typically a geopolitical event of this size that just ends and then the construction begins because let's be clear the military there are so many people under Maduro that want to keep their own fiefdoms I think this probably gets messier before it gets cleaner but if you think that this move will ultimately mean lower energy prices and then that would mean lower inflation you know rates are down today yeah you don't believe that story I mean I was going to say, is the market activity today, the price action in any way related to that? And that's why risk assets are doing well today.

Yeah, I mean, I think risk assets are doing well is a great sign that, you know, Venezuela has a population of about $28 million. They have a GDP per capita around $3,000 per person. So I think the market is saying the Americans did a great job of grabbing him, bringing him back, no lives lost. That being said on your inflation front, let's talk about the Venezuelan impact with their heavy crude in about a year and a half. And then we'll actually have any type of insight on what actually has happened. Otherwise, it's just like speculative fever. And so that's where I think those basket of names are great companies.

But I think three or six months from now, you're not going to see continued follow through because of Venezuela on the chevrons, the Halliburton's, and the Valeros. because there's just too much unknowns. And this is not going to go to any of their bottom lines any time soon. I knew you're the right person to talk to. I'm glad we got you. Bryn, thanks. Bryn Talkington, joining us today on this news and reacting to the stocks that are moving. The other big story in the markets today, of course, the bank, several names are hitting new highs today.

Our Leslie Picker is here with more on that. So they added a lot of market cap in calendar year 2025, and they're just adding even more today because a lot of these names, as I said, are hitting new highs. Yeah, it feels like nothing can stop this. train. Scott, J.P. Morgan and Goldman having their best days since April. Big contributors to the move in the Dow today. And then today's gains, as you mentioned, adding to a banner 2025. The big six U.S. Bank stocks added a combined $584 billion worth of market cap the most ever for a year. On average, they gained 42 percent. So now the question is whether these

stocks have more room to run or if many of the tailwinds are already priced in. Well, Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo saying in a note today that the bank run-up is only one-third of the way done on fundamentals and increases price targets by an average of 10%. Mayo says next week's earnings will show the first full year of positive earnings growth in four years, thanks to improving investment banking backlogs, loanmaking margins expanding, stable credit, and excess capital from deregulation. Now, of course, Scott, much of the bank story is depending on the macro and rates backdrop, which has been very conducive to these stocks, but obviously that's something that's a bit out of their control for 2026. Yeah, Leslie, thank you. Perfect segue, too, because Mike Mayo is

joining us right now. He's the analyst, of course, with Wells Fargo Securities. He did put out that note today. Earning's about 10 days away. It's good to talk to you. You're on the CNBC newsline, so you tell Leslie, or you put out in your note that the move is only one-third of the way done. So what accounts for the next two-thirds of it? Well, thanks for having me on, Scott. Look, you have the first up earnings year in 2025 after three down years, and we think there's three more up years to go. We estimate 15% earnings growth last year and at least another 30% over the next three years, so you're only one third done. And don't forget, you have generational deregulation. You've had one year of deregulation, and you have two more to go.

So once again, only one-third done. And this is like the mid-to-late 1990s when the bank group re-rated. We think that re-rating is only halfway done. So I'd say we're in the third or fourth inning of this bank stock rally. There's more to go. Yeah, I mean, you made a great call on City, which is kind of. coming off of a great year, obviously. It's up 70 plus percent over the last 12 months. It's your number one pick for the second year in a row. That's curious to me after an incredible

year that the stock has had. Why not look for something else at this point that can have maybe the same type of year that City did? Well, I don't agree with your tense, Scott, when you said you've made a great fall, like in the past tense. I would say the present and the future tents, there's still a lot more to go with Citigroup. And I think the most important point is, I think 2026 is the year when Citigroup gets out of regulatory purgatory. I think Citigroup gets out of the regulatory penalty box. I think their consent order gets lifted. And the reason I say that has zero to do with anything that City has ever said, city's just doing the best they can do, they're going to move forward. But what city has remaining is only, in my view, regulatory box

checking. Meanwhile, the regulators have said they are focused on safety and soundness, substance versus form. So the city has completed the substance, and regulators are focused on the substance, then I think 2026 is city's year. And once that consent order gets lifted, I think it is night and day different. Instead of city's board spending over half its time on regulatory matters, they can spend time on running the bank. The other thing, and we released a big, new, in-depth report today, and we said, you know, they only have 8% returns, which is worst in class. This is not best in class.

This is a worst-class bank that's getting back in the game. It's like City has been on the injured reserve all decade, and now they're getting back in the game. But if you take that 8% return and you adjust for the abnormal expenses and abnormal costs and abnormal capital, the current returns be 14%. But it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, I think city gets to these much higher returns.

If you get to these much higher returns, then I think they get valued still a little bit below the average bank in sky. The number you get in a few years is $200 stock. Mike, it's good to talk. I appreciate it. Yeah. Still more to go. Bye, Citigree.

All right. Well, you made a good call, and you still think it's going to continue. So I'm going to stick with that. Mike Mayo, thanks for joining us. We're just getting started here on Closing Bill. Up next, the star analyst Dan Ives. He joins us live from CES.

We'll get his outlook on the AI trade, what he's expected to hear this evening from Jensen Wong's keynote speech. That beginning in about 40 minutes or so. We're live with the New York Stock Exchange, and you're watching Closing Bell on CNBC. All right, welcome back in less than one hour. InVIDIA CEO Jensen Wong takes the stage at CES for his closely watched keynote address. Wed Bush's Dan Ives joins us now with what we might hear. It's good to see you. You are there as one would expect you to be.

What's you going to say today? Look, I mean, there's only one godfather of AI, right? And it's Jensen. I think he's going to lay out specifically around robotics, autonomy. This is the next chapter of AI that I think Jensen's going to talk about. And obviously, I think he's also going to hit on the demand that he's seeing and then one has a better vantage point. And Scott, I think really what it does, this kicks off the next sort of layer of the AI revolution

when it comes to robotics, autonomous. And I think that's something that is not factored into Nvidia stock, and I don't think it's factored in to why these other tech teams Qualcomm, among others. So he's ready to move on, you think, to AI. 2.0, if you will, where we move past all of the talk specifically about that company's chips and about how they can better be utilized in the areas that you're talking about? Yeah, I think this is really him planting the flag, showing that Nvidia, it's not just about chips, the 12 to one demand that we see and obviously

fueling the AI revolution, it's showing that they're going to be end-to-end when it comes to robotics. They're going to be such a huge play when it comes to autonomous. And like we've talked about, like for Tesla, this is the year of autonomous. It's a year of robotics. And I think it all starts with Jensen, because no one has a better vantage point. And I think what he weighs out here is really going to dictate strategically what we see on the consumer AI revolution that hasn't even started yet. Now, why has the stock been a sideways trader of late if everything is so bullish from even here forward?

Yeah. I think it's investors thinking that you know numbers will beat the street but not buy a lot what's the excitement you know has it all sort of been the rear view mirror I sky think this is this is 250 dollar stock like to me the demand and what they're going to show in their next quarter we could we talk about 12 to 1 demand supply what when you think about the autonomous and robotics revolution what that's going to meet the nVIDia I think that alone's going to add 40 to 50 dollars a share and I I think this is one where investors, they're kind of yawning at what

Nvidia stock's doing right here. And I think we sit here six, nine months from now. I think it's going to be, it's a table pounder opportunity to own Nvidia to own Microsoft, to obviously own names like Oracle as well. Well, hold on one second, because I'll get to some of these other names, but you raise an interesting question or maybe a problem in some respects. how high is the bar now, and is the bar now viewed to be increasingly high, arguably to the point where they can't meet whatever expectations we now have for this company,

and that ultimately is going to cause some sort of correction even further in the stock? Yeah, it's a great point. I think at 225, 230, maybe I'd say that. Here, I actually disagree. I think investors are underestimating what the demand is going to look like for NVIDIA in terms of the next year. I think, look, I think street numbers are underestimated by 15, 20 percent next 12 to 18 months. And I think it's the ripple effect.

For every dollar spent on Nvidia chip, there's an $8 to $10 multiplier across the rest of tech. That's why we've said. I mean, it's top of the third inning in a nine inning game, one out in terms of where we say. That's why this tech bull market's going to continue to play out. It all starts with the godfather right now. now. What's wrong with Microsoft? Why has the stock been sort of ho-hum? I mean, over the last 12 months, not terrific. It's underperform the market, obviously. What's the deal? I think there's a view that, okay, Amazon, obviously, Jassy's done a great job, that, you know, everything

AWS is doing, what Currian and Google have done as well, you're starting to see them narrow, has Microsoft has it played out. I act to some extent similar like as we talk about with Nvidia. Like I've said, I think this is stock that has a six in front of it in 2026. I think it's one where it comes to the enterprise as more and more moved to the AI revolution on the enterprise. The first call goes to the Dell and Redmond. And I think it's one where as this plays out, especially at the end of January and throughout the year, I think Microsoft's going to be viewed that this was a golden buying opportunity. It is not the time where Microsoft's ending this, I think they're still, I think in the early part of this AI

piece from Microsoft. I understand that, but what is the market trying to figure out? Like, what has caused the stock to trade as it has? Show up another one-year chart that we had up a moment ago. I mean, it's a sideways move. I mean, it's like plateaued at that number. What happened? Like, what is the issue? Not all the hyperbole about, what you think is this that the other I want to know why has the stock basically gone nowhere yeah I think it's the sky things to view that as you're in terms of the growth rates are ultimately going to come down that that you're going to see more and more companies pocket prices and conversion rates on deals have piqued

I think fundamentally that's real when I talk to investors that's really the biggest concern but I just go back to like the last month we've had 20, 25% of the deals from Microsoft accelerate in terms of our checks. So I think this is sort of a prove-me year. Obviously, the stock, you know, you said it's sort of languish on the treadmill. Yeah. Yeah. I see it's a golden year from Microsoft.

2025 was, I think, the setup year to 26 being, which I think going to be a hall of fame year from the Dell and Microsoft. All right. We'll talk to you. Dan, thank you for joining us from out there as we await Jensen Wong. Again, top of the hour, don't miss the exclusive, by the way, with him. That's at 5.30 p.m. tonight on Fast Money after he finishes giving that keynote. So it'll be a pertinent time to talk to him. By the way, fresh reaction tomorrow on halftime from Altimeter Capitals, Brad Gersner, big shareholder, big advocate,

and we'll get his views as well on the whole trade, for that matter. Still ahead, Bill Miller, the fourth, he is standing by with his outlook for the crypto space in 2026. Nice move of late. Can it last? The bell's back right after this. Welcome back. It's been a dicey few months for crypto, which is getting a bounce today along with other risk assets. McKenzie Segalo is tracking that action for us. Hey, Mac. Hey, Scott. So Bitcoin pushing toward 95K, but it's actually all coin XRP that is the real standout, surging more than 26% in the past week. Now the third biggest token by market cap. Crypto-linked equities also rebounding after months of sluggish moves. Digital asset treasury names like strategy and Bitminers.

immersion. Tom Lee's Ether Treasury are trading higher. And Coinbase is rallying after Goldman Sacks upgraded the stock from neutral to buy and lifted its price target to $303. That's 20% above current levels. That comes after the exchange launched prediction markets and equities trading. Now analysts, they are chalking the overall crypto market runup, at least in part, to the Venezuela headlines, calling it a potentially disinflationary event, which is positive for risk assets. The technicals are reinforcing the move higher. You've got big. Bitcoin back above its 50-day moving average for the first time since October's washout. Clearing short positions over the weekend and perpetual funding rates, they are at their

highest since October showing leveraged longs are paying up to stay in the trade, Scott. Mack, thank you, Mackenzie Segalis. Let's now bring in Miller Value partners Bill Miller the 4th. It's good to talk to you. Welcome. Thanks for having me, Scott. Happy New Year. You as well.

What do you make of the move today, first and foremost, that we're seeing in crypto? So I find it interesting that if it's being attributed to a disinflationary event like Venezuela, oil isn't really reflecting that. So why would Bitcoin be? Well, I think Venezuela is going to be a blip on the radar in the long run. You know, disinflation has been the story of economic history for 800 years, which is why Bitcoin's a particularly interesting asset to own. What's really interesting is we're a big inflection point right now for digital assets, Bitcoin especially. If you look at the regulatory clarity that's coming to the system over the past year, it's a whole new ballgame.

Head of the SEC, you said a couple weeks ago that capital markets are all moving on chain. Jamie Diamond has reversed course. They're now building on blockchain. So all of this is massively positive for Bitcoin, which looks like it's put in a higher base than it did in the spring of 25. The technicals are really starting to line up, and it looks like it's ready to go again. I personally expect it to break out to a higher high than it's all-time high from the fall. Why has it traded so poorly over the last, as we said, a few months?

Well, you know, it was down 6% in 2025 for an asset with that level of volatility over the long run. That's not a big deal. I mean, I think it's important to zoom out. You know, people freak out because gold outperformed Bitcoin by so much last year. It's all part of the bigger deep basement trade is the reality. And it's just poised to break out higher here, Scott. You know, I'm looking at your favorite ways to play this. strategy is tops on your list. Speaking of things that have traded poorly, down 58% in six months,

are you concerned about that holding at all? No, because from a valuation-focused perspective, it now trades at its net asset value, and I wouldn't expect it to go materially below that. And in fact, it's got some leverage. So if you think if you're bullish on Bitcoin, something that has positive leverage to Bitcoin should outperform Bitcoin. And also on a risk on positive Bitcoin environment. You might also expect to see some premium accretion there too. So you're likely to potentially even do better than MNAB and something like that. You know, one other name we absolutely love, which has had a big day today, we still think is extremely cheap. It's a company called Figure Technology Solutions. It's up about 20% today, breaking out to a new all-time high

on decent volume. The reason we love it. So this is the leader in real world asset tokenization. I mentioned earlier that everything's moving on chain. This is an 11 billion enterprise. price value and a trillion dollar opportunity. They've got a 75% market share, okay, in real-world asset tokenization. And what that means right now, at least, is Helax home equity lines of credit. They've done about 19 billion in originations. That is a massive market. And the reason this is so compelling is because they lower the cost of origination and servicing by banks for banks by huge amounts. And so these guys are the leaders. And again, that's a really asymmetric setup. so we love this from a long-term value investors.

You moved off strategy a little faster than I wanted to, so I'd like to come back to that if I could. Because I'm looking at a story today on the street, which says micro strategy reports 17.44 billion in unrealized loss on digital assets during the last quarter. Now, obviously, the implication is it is so tightly correlated to the move in Bitcoin. Bitcoin gets hurt. Strategy is going to get hurt. Do you have any fears of balance sheet risk at all related to this name? No, absolutely not. As you mentioned, that's just a mark-to-market situation with Bitcoin being down from its all-time high up in October. If you look at what he's done on the balance sheet side of things, it's pretty compelling from if you're really focused on risk.

He's got almost three years of dividends now for his preferred in debt sitting on the balance sheet in USD cash. Okay, so very little risk there. So it's interesting that it's trading at MNAV when effectively the risk to micro strategy or strategy shareholders from long-term perspectives is as low as it's ever been. So we're big bulls on that right now. Have you been a buyer on the weakness and strategy? We've certainly been a hoddler and, you know, it is something we're looking at adding to. You know what I'm saying?

I understand the holding on for dear life. but some would look at a pullback of some 50% plus, and if you're as big of a believer as you profess to be, I wonder if you're buying more in that environment. We have actually, you know, in our income strategy, added to our MSTR or the strategy D, which is effective, their high-yield bond. We think that's a really attractive risk-reward set up right now.

We do think micro-strategy is also an attractive setup, and I wouldn't be surprised to see us buying at all. Let me ask you, let me ask you one more. This idea of crypto treasuries are now, you know, so in vogue. Are there enough buyers for those and buying the pure play digital assets themselves? Well, at the end of the day, you know, a lot of these things are going to need to be operating businesses. But my perspective is over the long term, it may be the case that every company is a digital asset, Treasury company. No one wants to hold Fiat when they actually do their work on the governance

systems around a lot of these digital assets and the price appreciation potential relative to Eon's old technology known as Fiat. So I do think over the long term, there absolutely is the demand and we'll see that continue to materialize. Bill, we'll see you soon. Nice to visit with you. That's Bill Miller, the fourth. Up next, the biggest movers, as we head into the close today, we're back in two minutes. We are now in the closing bell market zone. CNBC senior markets commentator Mike Santoli and Matt Stuckey from Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management are here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day.

Plus, Christina Ports and Ovalos is tracking the action in CNBC parent company Burson on its first day of trading today. Mike Santoli, I turn to you. Yeah. We could get $49,000 on the Dow for the very first time ever. We peeled back a little bit. Yes. What do you make of that? I mean, new highs are never bearish.

Right. It's always good to see the market. And in a broad way, even though the Dow move is not broad, because Goldman and Caterpillar are really driving it. In general, you have most stocks up today. Transport could also hit a new high on the same day. Banks are very strong. So market still wants the cyclical trade at the same time. I feel like all the fun stuff from last year, the gamified markets in the spec areas are also moving. So we got a one-day flush of risk appetites higher. I'm waiting to see how it settles out tomorrow. But certainly, net positive as a message. Okay. Well, it is a very big and exciting day for us at CNBC. Shares of our parent company, Versant, are trading. Christina Parts de novoos joins us now with what's going on. Yeah, well, there was definitely confetti here this morning, but shares of our parent company, like you said, down about 15% in their public debut today following the spin-off from Comcast. So, Vercent, for those that don't know, houses, many of the cable and digital properties that used to be part of NBC Universal, so that includes us, CNBC. MS Now, USA Network, Golf Channel, Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, among others.

And the sock had been trading on a when-issued basis, actually, since December 15th. That's why we're calling it the first day of publicly trading. And that's conditional trading before the official debut, which started at $55 a share. It closed at around 46.5 on Friday and is currently hovering even lower right now. So industry observers really point to at least some of the selling pressure coming from index tracking funds that may need to divest Versant shares because they just don't fit those fund mandates post-spinoff. The split could also reflect broader, or I should say the share price, broader challenges facing traditional cable networks in the streaming era. Versant, we know,

is led by CEO Mark Lazarth. And according to Comcast, in their notes, it was generating about $7 billion in annual revenue. Meanwhile, Comcast shares, you can see those are up 1.5% today, Scott. All right, Christina, thanks for that. Christina Portsnevelos, pivoting to Matt Stuckie, as I said, who joins us now as well. It's nice to see you. Welcome to our program. Why don't you give us your view on how you think this market looks as we head into this new year? Oh, good afternoon, Scott.

Thanks for having me back. Look, I mean, I think that this is a market looking ahead this year that, you know, some of the trends that we started seeing the backup of 2025 of a broadening out dynamic can continue this year. And the reason for that is really just earnings related. You know, posts kind of the low point in earnings estimates on a forward-looking base. in May of 2025. What's really led the market higher in terms of earnings growth has been small caps. And that's something somewhat new that we haven't seen in the last few years. And what's driving that is just continued cuts from the Federal Reserve. And we think that continues in

2026. And so if you kind of think about some of some additional earnings growth in the market outside of just large cap tech, which we still think can deliver strong earnings growth, We think that they're just more diversified sources of return as you look forward to 2026. Do you think there's AI fatigue, as Ed Yard Denny suggested today in one of his notes? There might be in terms of sentiment, but I don't necessarily see it in terms of fundamentals. Just year on year, if we're looking back to where we were at this point in 2025, to where we sit today, the five largest hypers are going to be spending 80% more than what we thought that they were going to be spending in 2026. And I don't necessarily think that that momentum is over in terms of the upside to estimates in terms of CAP-X plans.

If anything, as we've seen from the release of Gemini 3 as well as GPT 5.2, scaling laws remain in effect. And that provides the incentive for hyperscalists to continue to spend on Frontier LLMs. And so we expect that spending to continue to 2026. And as long as those scaling models hold, and we'll get another checkmark on that in Q1, hopefully with ChatGPT 6.0. You know, we think that incentive to continue to spend is out there. And so, you know, yeah, we'll see what happens. We will. Good to get your thoughts.

We'll talk to you again soon. Matt, thank you for joining us. I'll turn back to Mike Santoli. We're less than two minutes to go. As you said, we have this Jensen Wong keynote looming, a reminder again, 5.30 p.m. this evening, an exclusive interview with the Nvidia CEO that you don't want to miss at a time when we are questioning certain aspects of this trade and certain stocks within it. The chips were up.

Now they're down today. I think that there are these narrow channels of high conviction in the trade, but it's not enough to go around to actually have it be all-inclusive. And we've been in this spot for a while where it had to be either alphabet or meta. Obviously, Microsoft has not really been able to get a lot of traction despite if you really want to believe the Open AI valuation that owns this huge chunk of that asset. So I do think that, you know, we're going to have to just see how the market has already perceived what's already been paid for in this growth trend. I think there have been people looking ahead to CES in general and saying you don't want to necessarily be too negative ahead of that. So we'll see how that does play out. I do think we have the makings of a potential re-rotation back into mega-cap growth and tech after you've had this rebalancing out of the market.

Although, you know, everyone talking about the broadening of earnings, it's still now looking like not to the fourth quarter of 2026 that non-tech earnings are going to outgrow tech earnings on a year-over-year basis. So we keep waiting for the fundamental basis for the broadening. We're still waiting. What a day, as we said, is we are trying to get that first ever close above 49,000 on the Dow. Mike, thank you very much, of course, by the way. May not get it. We're pulling back a little bit, but really nice games today for the bank. Something to certainly keep an eye on.

I'll send it into overtime.