Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Apple’s Tim Cook Head to the White House

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

Tim Cook – CEO of Apple – is visiting the White House this afternoon. We discuss what is at stake for the company with Wedbush’s Dan Ives and CNBC’s Steve Kovach. Plus, Ashley MacNeill from Vista Equity Partners weighs in on the state of the IPO market. And, top technician Jonathan Krinsky of BTIG is flagging a downturn ahead. He tells us why. 

All right, guys, 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 Apple's big breakout, and whether today's move is, in fact, the beginning of an even larger jump in the months ahead. We'll ask our experts today, including star analyst Dan Ives. He'll join me in just a bit. In the meantime, Apple Search today is helping the overall market.

Let's show you the scorecard here with 60 to go in regulation. Green for the majors. Internally, though, the action's been pretty evenly split between advancing and declining stocks. Let's talk about some individual movers. Disney shares are lowing, lower following the earnings report. So too for AMD. Target, Walmart, and Costco shares are rising in what's a pretty good discretionary tape today, which does take us to our talk of the tape. The Road Ahead for Apple, CEO Tim Cook, heading to the White House this afternoon in just a little bit. We'll begin there with Megan Cassella. What should we be looking out for today, Megan?

Hey, Scott. So a lot for these two men to talk about when we expect them in the Oval office later this afternoon. We do expect Tim Cook could be arriving potentially this hour. That meeting in the Oval is set to begin at 4.30 p.m. According to the official White House schedule, and it comes as Apple is making those fresh investment commitments today. So if you top line details, it's an extra $100 billion coming from Apple now, bringing their total investment commitment over the next four years to $600 billion. dollars. Apple says part of this will be a new American manufacturing program program to bring more Apple manufacturing and more of its supply chain to the U.S. And Scott, one thing we know about this president and this administration, especially this term, is that investment commitments like this one are one of the things that most quickly gets the president's attention. This is exactly

what he wants to see from companies as well as from foreign countries. And so this is a big turnaround for Apple, which after as recently as May, the president was talking about finding new ways to use tariffs to punish Apple specifically to try to get them to bring more manufacturing to the U.S. So this is exactly what Apple would need to do to get into the president's good graces. And I would say even today with the other trade news being that announcement of tariffs against India increasing up to 50 percent, White House officials tell me that because it's written in such a way that maintains exemptions for all semiconductors as well as derivative products, Apple is going to be largely shielded from any impacts of those increases in India tariffs.

So we can't say there's a direct connection between the investment connection, investment commitment, I should say, and the fresh tariffs. We do know that on the same day the investment commitment is coming, Apple's not going to be impacted here by these major new tariffs. Big day for the stock, obviously. Megan, thanks. Megan Casella at the White House for us now here to discuss star Wed Bush analyst Dan Ives and CNBC tech correspondent. Steve Kovac, it's good to have you both with us. Dan, you first. Best day for the stock since May. Is this, in fact, the start of something bigger? I mean, it removes clearly a big overhang in terms of the view Apple and Cook were on the wrong side of Trump, right? I mean, they were on the bad side relative to over the last few months. So it's taken that sort of lift here, you know, in terms of tariff exemptions, you play nice in the sandbox.

This is going to be a good press conference. And I think that removes that overhang. But I think the bigger issue continues to be the elephant in the room in terms of AI and that's missing. And also, everyone understands that they will not. not be producing smartphones, iPhones in the U.S. This is more about AI. It's a fairytale that they'll produce smartphones in the U.S. So the relationship was bad, as you suggest, so money can buy me love. It can, in fact, buy me love. Tim Cook just has to spend a little more money up his commitment, and now everything's just rosy again? Look, I think the initial reaction

is the big worry here is what was going to happen with India. And obviously, you talk about tariffs, given what's happened in China. I mean, right now, it's moving gold pose for Apple. They're trying to figure out iPhone 17, where they actually produced that. And it's clearly, the first buddy, it's been Jensen and Vidia. Cook's sort of been iced out. I mean, he's really been on the outside looking in. He needed to do something to get into the good graces of Trump. It's a first step. But where it gets tougher is the reality that this is more initial AI investments in some of those initiatives. It's not going to be a bad. about iPhones. iPhones, in our opinion, will not ever be produced in the U.S. because you'd be

talking about $3,500-hour iPhones. Steve Kovac, you want to take us through the anthology of this relationship because it has had its ups and downs. We have wondered more recently whether these two men were on the outs. Jensen Wong went to the Middle East. Tim Cook did not. He got called out in a sense during that visit, if you recall. But now maybe all is well when you write a big check. It could be. And by the way, this is not the first big check this year. Tim Cook has written, including $1 million of his own personal money towards Donald Trump's inauguration events. So there's, you know, there's plenty of money going around here, Scott.

But we can even rewind to the first term because it was Tim Cook, Scott, who actually wrote the playbook with how to handle Trump. If we rewind all the way back to 2019 when he gave Trump that big tour of that factory in Texas that was already pre-existing and already making Max, just a few weeks later, they got those tariff exemptions from that President Trump in his first term. Now we're seeing this all play out again, just an extra $100 billion in commitment towards the United States. And it appears, at least as Megyn Casilla just said, that the payoff here is that relief in India, which just got its tariffs doubled. I do want to dig into what the $600 billion actually means, though. This does not mean, Scott, that Apple's going

to start building $600 billion worth of stuff and factories. And so, forth here in the United States. A lot of this spending was likely already baked in. They're counting just about everything they can count saying they're supporting the American economy, whether that's paying app developers selling their software in the app store or whether that means paying suppliers like Corning and Qualcomm to use their products within Apple devices. So there's a lot of ways to measure this. We know the president wants to see stuff being built here. I don't know if he's necessarily going to get that. So it's going to be really interesting to see I'm expecting about hours time for more details out of Apple. How this $100 billion is it actually

going to be spent? Is it going to be spent on manufacturing or investing in the supply chain here in the United States? Or is it more of that nebulous stuff that we can't really track? We know what the president wants, but we also know that the president likes to be flattered by big headline numbers and he got one today. That might be enough of cook the politician playing the game with Trump and getting what he needs out of the president this time. Right, Dan. It's almost like how the money is spent is irrelevant. If nothing else, this just removes the tension, which was one of the overhangs on Apple stock. But it doesn't erase what the big overhang continues to be.

It's certainly one of them. And that's China. I know the results were better in the most recent earnings report there. But that's a significant issue that this money can't buy its way out of. Yeah, look, I mean, the reality is Cook is 10% politician, 90% CEO. But the big issues, it's China. And China did obviously rebound from an iPhone perspective. But think about the logistics going into iPhone 17, as well as some of the demand environment.

And that continues to be something that's a work in progress. But the bigger issue, this is what every investor is focused on. It's the AI revolution. And Apple right now is Cook. They're on a park bench drinking lemonade, watching the AI revolution and F1 style go past them. And that's the worry right now. And this is not moving that needle today. Look, there's a lot of challenges for Cook.

This will define his legacy in terms of how he handles this, AI, China, and speaks to some of the challenges ahead. I mean, if you look Steve Kovac at that year-to-date chart, which we just head up, of course, off the April bottom rebound, the stock's been sideways for the single reason that Dan Ives just said, because the perception is that they missed the AI boat. Where are they in getting that back when it comes? comes to spending money, people still speculate that Apple's going to spend a lot of money, they're not going to spend it by building stuff here, as you said. They're going to spend it by maybe doing their biggest deal ever. That's where the conversation has gone. Yeah, and when I

talked to Tim Cook last week, I was out in Cupertino talking about the earnings results with them, and he told me they're going to significantly increase investment. Didn't give a hard number like we heard from so many of those hyperscalers, you know, $100 billion a year and so forth. I don't think we're going to see anything like that, and that kind of shows up in those numbers of this announcement. So what can be done here? I mean, we've talked about this so many times, Scott, and part of it, one way to do it in a cheaper fashion is to partner or license as opposed to build it yourself. We know it's enormously expensive to build artificial intelligence, frontier models yourself. Apple's way behind on that. It clearly didn't work the first time. So we should

expect either an acquisition, which again, Cook said he was open to, and two, potentially a partnership with one of these leading LLM makers, taking that technology and pulling a perplexity and building on top of that, building an Apple flavor, if you will, on top of either opening eyes, largely in a bottle or Anthropic or Mistral or one of those other ones. So it's going to be until next year that we see that. In the meantime, to Dan's Point, it's about China. It's about moving those iPhone 17 units. What can they show us there that's going to get people excited to upgrade?

I do want to say one thing on China, though, because there is a huge caveat there, Scott. Because, yes, it did show growth, but that was a lot of it due to those subsidies from the Chinese government on some of those iPhone models, plus that big shopping holiday from JD.com, major discounts for Apple devices did help drive that growth. No doubt. But any little bit is a positive thing, of course, given all the problems there. Mr. Colvac and I, thank you very much. Thank you. We'll see you soon. Appreciate you both. Big day today for Fed Speak. Steve Leesman joins us with more. We had some this morning, of course, on this very network. We're going to have some. in just a little bit. And I feel like Steve, we're at a dovish inflection point. I think that's right, Scott. I think what you're hearing the officials say is that they are

cognizant, aware of, otherwise concerned about the recent down draft and jobs. It causes them to perhaps shift their opinion, put aside their inflation concerns because it seems like from what we're hearing so far, and there's not many who have spoken. In fact, Collins had took just talk, did not really talk about their outlook for rates. But they seem to be like, okay, we'll put this aside. It's an interesting moment, Scott, because the inflation problem, the inflation concerns aren't going away. And I'm really interested in further talk.

Daly's talking again at 4, but she's already told us that she's kind of shifted over to the concern about jobs. Where we're at, Scott, right now is the Fed has to hope that what's happening in the job market, the slowdown in the economy, is something that ends up being disinflationary. and offsets what inflation we might get from the tariffs. The Fed also right here, Scott, is going to be spending some of its inflation-fighting credibility and hope, like heck, that the bond market accepts the currency. The issue, too, is how do they view the distinction between a slowdown and actual job creation

versus layoffs, which we just haven't seen, which is why the unemployment rate is where it is? Yeah. And as Powell talked about at the press conference, Scott, you have changes to both sides of the fraction with the labor force also coming down because of the immigration issues and deportation. So that's another issue that's out there that we may be resetting. Another broader question, Scott, is what has happened to potential growth in this country if we're going to put these tariffs on and if we're going to be reducing immigration? At the same time, What's fascinating is I heard the tail end of your AI conversation. That's what Boston Fed President Susan Collins and Governor Lisa Cook were really talking about. They spent probably half of their hour discussing the potential impact of AI and whether it ends up disinflationary. With Cook bringing up the interesting point, is it disinflationary in time? Can you rely on the disinflation from AI to happen at a time when it will bring down inflation and offset other sources of inflation in the economy.

And increase productivity, of course. Big questions. We'll see if we get more answers this afternoon. Steve, thanks as always. That's Steve Leesman, our senior economics correspondent. Let's bring in Dan Greenhouse now of Solis, a CNBC contributor, High Tower, Stephanie Link. It's great to have you both with us. You're less enthusiastic about this market.

Yeah, I've been less enthusiastic for a month or two now, and I think there are a couple of reasons why the tariff story was part of it, that now that we had gotten back to previous highs, I think we have a little more of a handle on how difficult some of the tariffs are going to be. But I also don't buy into the everything's blue skies and unicorns because we haven't seen it yet. And I'm sure we are going to see tariff impacts down the road. But also, I felt like we had a huge run up into earnings. And so it seemed unlikely to me that we were going to have a huge performance during earnings season

when stocks did so well into earnings season. So together I said, you know what, let's, I think we're probably going to take a bit of a breather. Now, mind you, very quickly, the market is higher, but I don't, I don't love it. It's higher on low quality stocks, on short covering. The AI theme for sure is still playing out through the market. But beyond that, I don't love the few percentage points higher that the market has put together. Do you want to take issue with that? A little bit.

So I think that somehow I knew that. I think, I think August and September could be trading range bound, right? And a little more volatility because we got Jackson Hall and we've got inflation and tariffs and the Fed and everything else. But I think the setup for the fourth quarter, Scott, is really strong. You have a lot of cash still on sidelines. We just had a record number of buybacks announced. Last month, we've almost a billion dollars worth of buybacks, which will add to a nice tailwind, along with we talk about earnings all the time.

And earnings have actually been better than expected. I feel like every day I give you a new update because the numbers keep changing for the better. 5.5% revenue growth so far, 8.9% earnings growth. So, and we had 10.9% earnings growth last quarter, so it's not like you have easy compares. I'll come back to you in a second. We're getting some news out of the White House. Christina Parsonevolos has that for us. What are we learning here? Scott, I'm learning right now from a source that CEO of NVIDIA, Jensen Wong, did visit the White House and did meet with President Trump. I do not know the contents of the meeting, but it does show a very tech-heavy day for President Trump, given he's going to speak with CEO Tim Cook later on.

that Jensen Wong has visited President Trump many times before in the past, most recently just about four weeks ago ahead of NVIDIA's trip or the CEO's trip to China. Perhaps the conversation revolved around any type of investments here in the United States, but maybe we'll hear more later on this afternoon. Maybe so. Maybe Mr. Wong's front running, Mr. Cook. Or they're working together on that Foxcon plant in Houston. That's my assumption, but it's only assumptions. All right, you'll let us know when we have more information. But anyway, it's a big day as we know at the White House and we'll update you as we learn more there too. You are, you're buying the pullback in names that have sold off on earnings, which has been a little

concerning the way some stocks have reacted, no? Yeah, I mean, I don't like the reactions. No one likes the reactions to good numbers, but I think it is an opportunity, especially we're talking about AI every single minute of the day and data center and grid and power. And Rockwell today reported it was at one point it was down 10% today, which is ridiculous. But actually, they beat and they raised, and they raised core earnings by 55 cents. And no one is giving them credit for that because they didn't beat enough, and they didn't raise enough. And I think that's ridiculous.

The stock's up 18% into the print, and then eaten yesterday was a joke. You have electricals globally is 80% of their profits. And you had data center sales of 50% and orders of 55%. And the stock sold off at one point also down about 500%. Why do you say it's ridiculous? I mean, if a stock is up 18% into the print, then it has a lot to prove. So if it doesn't meet the bar, maybe it should sell off. I think people aren't looking at the numbers because I think the fundamentals are amazing.

I also want to talk a little bit about quantum services. Quantum services have better earnings year-over-year earnings growth than Amazon and META. And Microsoft, by the way, as well, year-over-year earnings growth. And that's what I think these stocks ran into the prints, but I think the fundamentals are very supportive over the long term. Am I going to be right, like August, September? Probably not. But I think you're going to get a cyclical rally in the fourth quarter, especially if the Fed does what we think they're going to do. And that's why you're going to be buying a little bit here, and I'll keep adding. I just want to say, Steph mostly agreed with what I had to say to start.

And I agree with most of what, and I agree with... Are you suggesting I set you up? I think there was a little bit of an ambush here. And I agree with a lot of what Steph had to say. The reaction to earnings has not been great, but the earnings themselves, in the case. of the number of companies that Steph mentioned have been terrific. And again, there's this whole narrative, listen, a lot is not working, but look at tapestry. Look at William Sonoma. A number of companies are still doing very well. Earnings have done very well. A couple of companies have

responded enormously well to earnings, particularly the homebuilders, Pulte, D.R. Horton, those have been responding to rates coming down. You're trawling in the house. I mean, okay. So 10 years 420, so it's not. not really that much lower. I think a lot of that has to do with sentiment. And to the point that we're talking about with respect to Eaton and Quanta, et cetera, expectations matters, obviously an enormous amount in the stock market. Have earnings been good? You said earnings have been terrific. Have they been terrific for 22 and a half times the valuation of the stock market? So the market is saying no, because I think we're people. However, I reject the valuation

argument in general because I was told pre-COVID that 18 times was too expensive. And, in the middle of the last decade, I was told 15, 16 times was too expensive. The valuation argument, and you're not making it, but there are people who have made it for the better part of 10 or 15 years, have always argued that stocks are too expensive for them to go up. And here we are, and stocks are, depending on your time frame, 20, 30, 50, 100 times, 100 percentage points higher. Valuation has never been a constraint. When something goes wrong, valuation is going to be a problem for a lot of companies. But in the meantime, for a lot of companies, particularly in the AI and AI derivative play that Steph and I've been talking about

forever. Earnings have been well, and valuations should expand in that type of an environment. What about, as we were talking with Leasman, this inflection point, which it does feel like we're on the cusp of one, or we're in the throes of it now, of more dovish talk. And I feel like Jackson Hole is, Cherapel gets the dishes out, and he gets the silverware, he folds a napkin, he sets the table for September, don't you think? I hope so. If he doesn't, I think the market will not like that. Well, you thought they should have cut last time. I did because I do think, yes, we are slowing, but growth is still okay.

And the labor market is slowing, but still okay. They just don't need to be restrictive. And he said it a couple of times. Powell did that they would have already cut by now if we didn't know about tariffs. But by the way, I don't even think we're going to know a lot about tariffs for quarters to come, Scott. So I think they should just do it. They don't need to be this tight. And maybe it's 50 basis points, not 50 in September.

in September or 25. I know, but you always make the argument that the economy is so strong that the consumer's hanging in there. Yeah, it is. But then in the other side, you say they need to cut rates. Well, I just don't think they need to have rates here. Do they need to cut by 100, 200, 300, 300 basis points? Absolutely not. I just, I think they can do 25 to 50.

But by the way, what does that really do? What is 25 basis points? Do you listen to Brian Moynihan yesterday on this network? Of course. I always watched this network. It was pretty positive, wasn't they? Positive on consumer. They say no cuts coming this year.

I know. Well, the consumer is hanging in there, and it is because that the labor market still is okay. I know the non-farm payroll numbers are ugly revisions and all that. Weekly claims, they've been coming down, Scott. That's more important to me. So before I get to the Fed real quick, just on the consumer, the consumer's doing fine, on balance. However, I will say the casinos, Caesar's MGM that still have properties in Vegas, Some of the hotels, they've highlighted some problem on business travel and government travel, which, of course, and the airlines obviously had mentioned that there was clearly some sort of a soft pocket. All three of them have noted that we're probably coming out of that, but I think there are some indications that maybe the consumer was under a bit of stress more than normal over the last couple of months, but I think we're coming out of that. And on balance, the consumer is doing fine.

This is, again, a multi-year argument people make that the consumer is about, it's been false and it's continuing. continues to be false. About the Fed, I think we're playing a game here. They're cutting in September. He's a good, that President Trump is appointing someone this week, if you believe him, to be the third, what I assume will be the third dissent at the September Fed meeting. There's already a legitimate, non-political, non-partisan, non-Trumpie argument for reducing interest rates. Steph made the case. Plenty of economists on the street have made the case that rates should be lower. I have been arguing that rate should. should be on the way down. So you're going to get probably a third dissent, which means that

you're on the verge of something serious in terms of a shift in terms of a cut. And I think the odds are at this point overwhelming that they've reduced rates in September. And I feel like we're playing rhetorical games. Not that you're doing that, of course, but the narrative in the market. I didn't want this to be your last appearance on this show. Thank you. The viewers demand more Dan. Just on the consumer, I think back to school is going to be a home run. I think back to school is going to be a home run. All right, we'll see. Thank you. All right, Steph and Dan.

Christina Parts of Nevelos has a look at the biggest names moving into the close. Hi there. I'm back. McDonald's shares in the green today on the heels of an earnings beat and a jump in same store sales. McDonald's actually largest jump in nearly two years. Management is saying that their focus on low-income consumers with deals and promotions really help drive the boost.

That's why you can see shares up almost 4%, but really struggling to stay at that 310 level. Moving on, Snap shares continuing to dive after a discipline. pointing earnings report. The company reported a slowdown in advertising revenue growth. Due to a technical issue with its ad buying tools, the glitch actually allowed marketers to buy ads at reduced prices. This is a big day, though, for Snapdown, 18% right now. And last but not least, Arista Networks continues to ride in earnings high, gaining about 18% just in the past few days, a beat across the board on and higher guidance, helping to drive the stock past record highs. This is a networking company falls into My World, the Chip World,

up almost 18% opposite of SNAP. Scott. All right. Thank you. We'll come back to you in a little bit for seeing the parts of Nevelos. We're just getting started here up next. Vista Equity Partners, Ashley McNeil is back.

We'll talk to her about new signs of life in the IPO market and more. We're live at the New York Stock Exchange. You're watching Closing Bell on CNBC. We are back, the IPO market showing some new signs of life lately, leading some to suggest the activity will continue to pick up in the months ahead. It's welcome in, Ashley McNeil, head of Equity Capital Markets for Vista Equity Partners. Good to see you again. You too.

Are we at that precipice now of some good things happening? I think we are. We're coming off one of the busiest months in IPOs that we've seen in years. I mean, July had what, 10 IPOs for 4.3 billion. performance on average has been quite strong. So it does feel like we've hit that tipping point that you and I've been talking about for ages now, where the IPO market is starting to reopen in a very healthy manner. I mean, some see the overall capital markets business and everywhere reopening. I want you to listen to what Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America had to say on

this network yesterday. We'll talk on the other side. The pipelines have been full. After the election with enthusiasm of a new regime and a less better regulatory regime, which is still coming ahead of us a more robust thing, getting the tax law. So the pipelines have really been full now for six months or so. I'm going to take the cap off the pipeline, so to speak, and start letting the things flow. I mean, we have 150 IPOs in the backlog right now. And we are starting to see signs of companies that really have attributes that are investable by this market. We are finally in a very pro-growth-focused environment. And we're having IPOs show real metrics, people can invest in. You mean because we've gotten past a lot of the tariff stuff? So now we're

focused on the deregulation and the tax cuts being extended so we can start thinking about things that are going to grow the economy rather than stall it? So I think we're transitioning from a predictable volatile environment to an opportunistic volatile environment, i.e., we have corporations and investors alike taking advantage of moments of reprieve of all of the things you talked about the macro uncertainty, to deploy capital and to find real places to invest. So let's talk about those places, because you suggest that the real action in terms of where the value is, is with the Gen AI user, your wheelhouse at Vista, right? Software. Software. Moving from the GenA.I. Enabler, the hyperscalers. A lot of money's gone there

and valuations are stretched by some measures. Well, you're definitely seeing. in this earning cycle, and I think at this point in the innovation cycle, value starting to accrue to those Gen AI users, not just the enablers. And in fact, I would even say, if you listen to the earnings transcript of Mag 7, they actually talk about how they've become Gen AI users and how that is adding both top line revenue contributions, but also Ibadah efficiencies. When you see the extraordinarily large numbers that the hypers, since we're talking about them in part, are continuing to spend tens of billions of dollars they keep increasing their overall output buy. What do you think? Well, I think that the CAPEX discussion is one that's going to continue

to enter the picture. But as we've seen this market shift more to growth, I think it's really going to be about looking at the attributes, particularly in this earning cycle, around how are you growing and is that growth durable? What is the metric you're using to quantify the return you're getting on that invested capital. And then specifically, what financial metric are you using to quantify your generative AI contribution, whether it's top line or whether it's your margin efficiency line? How do you feel about the market overall? I mean, we obviously came a long way from the April bottom, but people use the word exhaustion, stalled, maybe a pullback of some magnitude is coming. How do you see things? So I think we're coming into a very robust earning

season. We're about two-thirds of the way through, and we've had, what, 80% of the company's report of meat or beat on top line. We've had the most robust IPO month we've had in years, and yes, we've had some mixed economic data, but despite that, we're continuing to sort of push through. Look, historically, you've had a lot of guests come on and talk about how August and September are difficult months for broader market, but I think from a tech perspective and from a pro-growth perspective, we are entering a very exciting time, not just for dealing. making, but also for the broader market. So if we have a little bit of a pullback, I'm okay with that. I think I'm in your buy-on-the-dip type crew. Are you surprised at all by the negative reaction

to some earnings reports in tech, especially? It's not like everything is reported and just took another leg higher. Look, I think there's bound to be in any earnings cycle, some choppiness. I had actually gone into Q2 with expectations that it was going to be a very challenged earnings quarter, and I'm proving to be very wrong because the market is showing a resiliency, particularly in tech, and that resiliency is being driven by generative AI and the ability for generative AI to actually contribute to the top line growth. Ashley, we'll see you soon. Thanks for spending time with this again.

Ashley McNeil, Vista Equity Partners. Up next, top technician Jonathan Krinsky, he's looking at the charts, so what do they tell him about where this market's heading? He'll tell you next. It's a CEO parade at the White House today. Megan Cassella with another sighting. Who do we see now? Absolutely, Scott.

This one we can pull up on video for you guys, but we have just seen some banking CEOs in the vicinity of the White House. Citigroup CEO right here in the pink, that's Jane Frazier, just leaving White House grounds outside the Southwest Gate just a few minutes ago. And that one comes just shortly after a Bank of America, CEO Brian Moynihan was also spotted just in the vicinity.

And of course, Scott, I know you guys have been talking about NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang was here earlier today as well. And the reason CNBC has a camera out there and we were able to catch Frazier is because we've been waiting, of course, for Apple CEO Tim Cook. So no word from the White House on any of these meetings. We can't confirm whether these bank CEOs were meeting with the president or exactly what they were doing here.

But I will flag this meeting, or this at least appearance, does come just a day after the president was on CNBC talking about debanking in this idea of some major Wall Street banks. not allowing conservatives to bank with them after that Wall Street Journal report saying that he's considering an executive order stamping out that debanking, possibly a topic of conversation here at the White House today. All right, fortuitous camera movements today from the producers. Well done. Megan, thank you, Megan Pacella. Stocks, they've been choppy lately, suggesting to some that a pullback might be coming. Jonathan Krinsky is Chief Market Technician with BTIG,

joins us now with what the charts are saying. Is that your call that the charts say we're going to have some kind of pullback? Hey, Scott. Look, I think, you know, if you think about the structure of the market this year, the S&P peaked in February around 6,100 before the plunge into April. We broke through 6,100. And typically when you break through resistance, you do get a checkback to kind of retest that support. And so we do think that's coming, you know, into this August-September period. Again, that would only be a 5% pullback from highs, not to, nothing too substantial. But, yeah, We think you'll get an opportunity to buy around 6,100.

I mean, the commentary would suggest that it would be a quickly bought dip, right? Almost everybody who comes on says, well, I feel a little cautious, maybe. Maybe we'll get a pullback, but I'd buy it. Yeah, I mean, that's always the assumption is that, you know, support holds, but you have to obviously, you know, see how markets would react into that point. But, yeah, I mean, I think that's your assumption at this point is that 6,100 would be a viable dip initially. What leads us to 6,100? Something needs to break down, obviously, to maybe start a broader move lower. What is it? Well, so you're seeing some signs, you know, some cracks under the surface. You know, it's kind of what we've been seeing all along in this bull market.

It's everything X, not everything, but a lot of things X, the tech AI trade. So if you look at a lot of the consumer focus names, you know, whether it's transports or retail or, you know, the restaurant stocks. And then I think, you know, on the tech side, a part of the market that's had a great run that I think is starting to look a little vulnerable are the semiconductors. And if you think about the seasonality aspect, we actually think software does well in August relative to semis. Over the last five years, software has beaten semis for the last five. So August tends to favor software for semis. But if you look at the semis, they look a little vulnerable to us. Obviously, you have Nvidia later this month. So that's kind of the key driver there.

But a lot of the names onto the surface are starting to look a little vulnerable. I don't know. I mean, Broadcom's been trading well. I hear you, you know, for every on semi, just to pick that out of a hat or an ASML, for example. There's an Nvidia, there's a Broadcom, there are other chip names that continue to hold up pretty well.

Also the notion that X the AI trade, I almost feel like, why should I even worry about the XAI trade? If that stuff breaks down, as long as the AI trade, the hypers don't, then we don't get a bigger pullback. Yeah, I mean, look, maybe the two days we saw Thursday, Friday is all we get. But I think, you know, one of the other things we're looking at are credit spreads. And, you know, over the last 20 years, there's a very high correlation between the ISM employment services component and credit spreads. And obviously, we know ISM's employment was the weakest since March, one of the weakest readings in the last two years.

And so if we think that credit spreads are, you know, about as tight as they can get, they probably have a little bit room to move wider. That also suggests some risk in kind of the cyclical versus defensive trade. So there's a lot of moving parts under the surface. Again, look at, you know, look at some of the transportation socks. I get at those haven't mattered for the index given the composition. But I think the final point I'll say is that, and it hasn't been too extreme yet, but, you know, the blowout earnings we saw from from Meta and Microsoft, So far haven't really been, you know, seen, we haven't seen buying enthusiasm post the print, right? Those highs were kind of the highs so far that could change.

But I think, you know, that's the risk is that we've kind of got as good as it gets from some of those mega cap earnings. And we just see a little bit of, of profit taking into the back half of the summer. I'm interested in what you just said about credit spreads, excuse me, potentially being too tight. we always worry about them widening as a worry sign. Are you suggesting it's a concern that they're too tight because there's only one way to go from there? To some extent, it's right. I think the bigger concern would be to your point if you had rising equity market and credit spreads widening significantly for several months. That's, you know, that's of course what you had in 2007 ahead of the great financial crisis. So we're not seeing anything like that. I think the tactical shakeout risk

is a function of, you know, yes, I think it's a little bit complacent. Again, when you look at the correlation between spreads and employment, as well as the correlation between spreads and that cyclical versus defensives, which, by the way, cyclicals versus defensives are flat over the last three days, even as the market's up. So, you know, that correlation suggests spreads probably do have a bit to go on the, you know, to go a bit wider here. And I think, again, And it's not a, you know, that's more consistent with the 6,100 call, not something like a 5,500 call, which would, you know, be more indicative of something bigger under the surface. I mean, financials holding up, discretionary is having a very, very strong day.

Those are positive signals and signs for the overall market, no? Yeah, just, you know, financials for sure, the banks continue to be resilient, not making a call there. I think discretionary, you have to be a little bit. careful looking at the S&P discretionary, given the big weightings in some names like Tesla and Amazon, certainly driving the discretionary sector. Again, if you look under the surface, kind of the Russell 3,000 discretionary, a lot of weak charts there, whether it's restaurants or some retail names. And again, that doesn't necessarily mean, you know, pretend death to the index. But I think, you know, you start adding up all these little signals

and maybe the consumer is not quite as resilient as, you know, the narrative might be out there. I got you. I got you. Cautious but couched a little bit, too, based on some of the activity that we've seen. Jonathan, thanks. Good to see again. Jonathan Krinsky, BTIG. Up next, we track the biggest movers as we head into the clothes today. Christina's back with that. What's at the top of your list?

We're seeing some chip names under pressure, earnings misses, cash concerns, China risk. But some retail stocks, they're surging on strong results and upbeat guidance. We'll break down all of those names next. Less than 15. Before the closing bell, let's get back to Christina now. Tell us what you're watching. Well, a few downside movers in the chip space. Server maker, super micro on a steep drop after missing earnings expectations. You can see shares down 18% cash flow, borrowing needs, all concerns. For AMD, the drop isn't as bad, down 6%, but there are definitely some red flags.

Outlook wasn't enough to meet high expectations on the AI side. There were also questions about the return of China revenue, which continue to linger. So that's what's weighing on these chip names. But for retail players, the story actually could not be better. Both Shopify and Capri beat expectations issued strong guidance. Shopify's CFO also said the tariff hit quite did not materialize and was not seeing significant price increases among its merchants. And so that's why you're seeing such a discrepancy, up 22% for Shop and Capri Holdings, 14%.

All right. Christina, thank you. Christina Parts of Neville is still ahead. Watch a watch for when Airbnb reports stop at the hour. The bell. We'll be right back. We're in the closing bell market zone. CNBC senior markets commentator.

Mike Santoli is here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus two big reports we're watching for an O.T. Mackenzie Segalo is taking a look at Airbnb, Contessa Brewer, covering Draft King's course. Michael, I'll turn to you. What stands out to you today? Market mostly holding its ground. Obviously Apple flattering the S&P 500 with that move.

The other thing that's happening inside the market is this move into momentum factor. stocks, right? The momentum ETF's up a percent and a half. What's down half a percent, beta? And it's exactly what the textbook would say you do when a rally matures and ripens. And people think maybe there's pullback potential as you go into the stuff that's proven to be a little bit more resilient on the upside. Besides that, it's a 50-50 up-down day. And we're holding in this range, okay, do you want to pay attention to oil, kind of breaking down a little bit here. You've got those headlines on maybe some talks about Russia, Ukraine. not sure if that's part of it, but it feels like otherwise Marcus is trying to hold its ground

while some of the other macro cards turn over. All right. We need some answers from earnings, too. Speaking of, Airbnb, after the bell, McKenzie, what's a watch for? So the big thing Wall Street is watching for, Scott, are signs of strength heading into peak travel season. Analysts expect high single-digit growth in nights booked with a boost from Easter travel and stronger European demand. But it's North American demand.

That remains a concern because of trade policy uncertainty. The company flagged softness last quarter and Google searches for cancel Airbnb. They hit a five-year high in July. Now, gross booking value, which measures what hosts are earning should benefit from some Forex tailwinds, thanks to that weaker U.S. dollar, but investors want more than just stable metrics. They're looking for proof that Airbnb's next act in services and experiences is gaining traction. We're going to interrupt you here because we see Tim Cook here on property at the White House.

Now, of course, the Apple CEO heading in for his business. meeting with President Trump making his way in there on what's been a big day for Apple stock, the best day since May, the big increase in investment that Apple has pledged to make. And also, as tariffs on India get bumped up, apparently Apple not going to deal with that, which is a good thing in all of that, of course, is being cheered by investors. This meeting closely watched, of course, because some have wondered what the relationship between these two men has been like over the past six months or so after we suggested several times over the past, I don't know, six years or so, certainly during Trump 1.0, that Tim Cook

had managed that relationship about as deftly as a CEO could seem to have a great relationship. Some questions about that earlier this year, of course, on that big trip out to the Middle East. Tim Cook wasn't there. Jensen Wong was. Tim Cook got called out by the president. but maybe all is well now, that a larger investment has been made, and these two men are now going to have a meeting at the White House, and we're going to bring you whatever we can find out was discussed in that room. But Tim Cook, not in the building, but close enough, of course, there he is as he heads even closer to the White House.

Mike Santoli is here with us now. Really, this stock, if we, let's show a chart, really, from the bounce back in April, after the rebound, which wasn't as strong as many of, of its mega cap cohorts. The stock has been a sideways mover. Yeah. And it's been a big underperformer relative to anything that you would consider its cohort. And look, it's a good measure the 6% move up today in Apple, a good measure of how much of a perceived overhang there was for being caught in the tariff crossfire with imports from India in particular. If this move essentially allows them to sidestep that, you know, essentially taking a little bit of the

pressure off the stock, off the fundamental story. Now, I don't even think it matters to the street exactly what the components of this pledged investment might be, if it's just going to be kind of, look, we're going to do stuff over the next few years anyway. We'll do a little more of it in the U.S., paying suppliers, paying app developers, whatever it is. If it's enough to just sort of allow them to remove the potential negative of incremental tariffs, then I think that works for everybody. And because it's been such an underperformer, there's room for it to catch up, for the story to kind of refresh itself here, even as it's been considered to be sort of out

in the cold on the AI story. I mean, a d'etan, if one was even needed, between the most powerful man on planet Earth and certainly one of the most powerful CEOs on planet Earth, good enough in some respects to just soothe the air, if you will, and let Apple have this big day for all the reasons we suggested to.

So the bell's gonna ring us out today Oh, what's been a pretty decent day, Apple's carrying a bunch of the later, of course. She was shakes out with earnings after the bell, into overtime to go.