Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Can Amazon Help the Tech Sell-Off? 2/5/26

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

It’s been another ugly day for the tech sector… but can Amazon’s earnings in Overtime help? We discuss with CNBC’s Kate Rooney and super analyst Mark Mahaney. Plus, top venture capitalists Jeff Richards of Notable Capital and Plexo Capital’s Lo Toney weigh in on the big AI boom. And, George Pyne – a pioneer in the sports investing space – weighs in on sports valuations, media rights and more. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kelly, thanks so much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wobner, live from One Market in San Francisco, where the Super Bowl is the talk of the town, and we have some special guests coming up. George Pine. He is a pioneer in sports investing. He'll join us in just a little bit. As that part of the alternatives landscape, well, it has surged. NFL team valuations. They continue to surge as well. Deal consultant, Mark Gannis, tells us how much higher they could go, and you will not believe the numbers. And speaking of the numbers, here's how. the final stretch is starting today on Wall Street. Stocks have been under pressure for much of the day. They are off the lows, but wow, tech has taken the brunt of it today. The NASDAQ touching a two and a half month low software being closely watched. Yet again, there is some heavy selling this week. Microsoft is not on that list, but it is down a lot. And some of the other mega caps are too. And that takes us to our talk of the tape. Amazon's earnings, whether it can dent this tech sell-off. We're going to get to that in just a moment, but what is happening in Bitcoin today is nothing short of extraordinary. Mackenzie Sagalus is here with this big

sell-off there. Hey, Mack. Hey, Scott. So Bitcoin's getting close to breaking below $65,000 now, having already wiped out all of its post-election gains. It's down 20% this week and 47% off the record high it hit just four months ago. Options traders on Deribit are positioning for the next leg lower, with open interest concentrated at 60,000. Deutsche Bank put it bluntly. Traditional investors are losing interest, and that is a problem for the digital asset market. The institutional bid that was supposed to put a floor under this market is gone. U.S. Bitcoin ETFs are net sellers in 26. More than $5 billion out over the past three months. Forced liquidations are accelerating $2 billion this week alone, which is helping fuel the sell-off. And the contagion, it is spreading to

crypto-pegged equities, Coinbase, down 35% year-to-date, and strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, which had been helping to prop up prices, down more than 14% today alone. And we'll watch it. Mack, thank you. That's McKenzie Segalis.

Now to those Amazon earnings, what to expect when that company reports in overtime. We're joined now by our Kate Rooney and super analyst Evercores, Mark Mahaney. It's great to talk to both of you, and thanks for coming to one market, Mark. What is Kate the most important thing we need to keep our eye on tonight?

So Scott, the AI story in general, I would say AWS, that growth rate number tends to be the number that Wall Street is watching most closely between 21 and 22 percent. Mark and I were sort of debating the exact, but I would say 21.7 is sort of the whisper number. The AI story will show up in AWS, so you're going to look at CAPEX as well. How much are they actually spending? It was $125 billion. Last year they said they're going to spend more than that in 2026. So expect to get an update. These are going to get full year results. It's also their holiday quarter. So there could be glimmers of AI showing, up elsewhere in the business. You're going to look at advertising. You're going to look at retail sales. Are you seeing any of those tailwinds actually apply to e-commerce, which is still about 40% of revenue? We talk so much about Amazon as a tech company, but there's still a retailer, competition from Walmart, Rufus as well, which I know Mark has done some work on, but are they seeing any impact from the actual AI within the business, online sales I mentioned, and then layoff? So at the same time they're spending, they're also cutting back, they're laying off workers. And if we get any color from Andy, Jassy on the cost savings there and what that actually looks like.

You sat down at this table mark not, you know, five, seven minutes ago and said, this is my number one pick. I like this company, a stock that hasn't done anything, but why? Well, why hasn't it done anything? Yeah, last year it did nothing. And now here we are again to start this year, which kind of looked promising. Now we've rolled again. Hasn't done anything for about two years. And I think it's mostly because of the AWS overhang.

AWS used to be a 30% growth business, high margin, great new secular growth story. and then growth tumbled. It got as low as very low double digits, I guess, 10 or 11%. It started to come back, but people want to see premium growth. They did it last quarter. They had this acceleration back up to 20% that surprised people. But the market wants to see it at least more, wants to see it more than once. So they need to show this acceleration this quarter.

Kate, you set it upright. They need to do, if you want to get people back in your real house and investing in Amazon, you need to do 22% plus and then do the other numbers you talked about. Double digit percent retail revenue growth, 20% plus advertising growth. Keep the AWS margins where they were, where they are, roughly mid-30s. And don't spook people about CAP-X because that's what Google did and that's what Meta did. Well, you want them to spend or you don't? I mean, how do you spook people?

Their numbers are going to be huge. If you look at what everybody has already pledged to spend on this quarter, if not the entire calendar year of 26, I mean, the numbers are extraordinary. $550 billion in CAPEX, if you add up Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta. We're going through a free cash flow desert this year because of all of that cap-back spending. I think what's going to come out of it, though, I think we're seeing great R-O-A-I. You know, you and I talked last week about META. What did META do? They're going 30 percent, their ad revenue growth.

They haven't seen that growth in years, and it's because of AI, largely because of AI. Google search revenue is accelerating to the fastest growth rate in four years. That's because of AI. Google Cloud, 50 percent year every year because of AI. And if Amazon can show that they, too, are derivative off of AI, I think people will step in. And maybe not right away. Maybe they'll be scared off, spooked by the KAPX spend. But at some point in the middle of this year, people are going to realize there's an R-O-A-I,

and I want to get in because I think you're going to have real inflection going into next year. Is your number on spending $140, $140 billion for $26? Cap-X, that sounds about right. 170 for $20. Yeah. Throw these numbers around like they're pocket change. But, I mean, these are massive numbers. They are.

And I think we're really looking for is the incremental change. So what Google did is they said, we're going to double our KAPX this year. 90 to 180 billion. What Meta said was, we're going to take it up 50 billion, from whatever, up to 135 billion. I think the market wants to make sure that it wants to see whether Amazon's going to do something of that magnitude. I think what the context is Amazon actually started

its major Cappex cycle two years ago. I think the market's kind of forgotten that. So the timing is actually a little bit preferential for Amazon. What about the competition in the cloud? I know this is all about AWS. And I mean, the last time I was out here, I think I interviewed the AWS CEO about how big that is going to be with competition from Google Cloud, from Azure at Microsoft. Always a debate. I think with Google's results yesterday, they're seeing a lot of strength in cloud.

Amazon has sort of been able to fend that off. It feels like it's been a boogeyman in the past, and they have been able to show since that, you know, they dipped to that 10% level. Mark mentioned they have been able to show consistent growth. I think if they missed on the cloud growth, that's when you start to worry. Investors start to worry about competition there. Something interesting Mark said, too, about meta. I think Zuckerberg kind of set up Jassy well for proving that AI can work within the business. Advertising would be a huge area where they could say, hey, we're actually able to target our customers better. It's starting to show up in the business and on the bottom line. That I think investors would reward Amazon for.

You've mentioned Rufus. I know I've done some research there. But I think coming off of meta, especially interesting to look at that. But the stock is really getting hit ahead of earnings. So expectations. I think the other thing, just the context here of the software sell-off and how many jitters there are out there, just in the tech community. I think investors are looking for a glimmer of hope from Amazon. The bar has just been raised in the last week.

Yeah, there's no question. All right. We will see what happens. I know we'll talk to you both on the backside of that. Mark, thank you. And, of course, Kate always thanks to you. Now, Kate mentioned it. Nowhere has the selling in tech been more substantial, more acute than in software.

Our Sima Modi is tracking that force today and joins us with these details. They're tough to look at these stocks. It really is, Scott, the eighth straight day of losses for the software ETF. And in fact, new analysis from Melius Research shows that Anthropics' private market valuation and roughly $350 billion. That tracks the loss in market cap of the top software-as-a-service companies, including Salesforce, Adobe, Intuit and Service Now. Since January 25th, yesterday we spoke about two prominent hedge funds,

shorting software names. I asked them what it would take to change their stance. And they did say to keep an eye on buybacks, If we start to see companies take advantage of the drop in their stocks and buyback shares, that would be a vote of confidence. Case in point is Tyler Technologies announcing a $1 billion buyback yesterday. Today, the company's sitting at the application layer, Asana, HubSpot, Atlassian, the call center company, 59, which DA Davidson highlights as a company that is vulnerable to AI's advancements,

continue their downward move today. You'll see 5 now down another 7%. The question is whether earnings can change that story. Pallentier, remember, it delivered a solid beat. Down again today, the market now counting down to Dada Dog and Fortinette, Scott. Now, I wonder if part of the tell, too, was if you remember, Palantir had a great report, and the stock, the price action, it wasn't that great. And some said, hmm, keep your eye on that, because while it was higher,

it wasn't as high as some thought it deserved to be. And then, of course, Cima, we had all the pain and all of these other names. And now we have Atlassian and Fortin Network set to report. These are mid-cap software names. They're seen as potentially vulnerable to the advancement of AI. Scott. They're set to report tonight next week. We get Monday.com.

And then Datadog, which is seen as an AI winner, it works with the large language models. It synthesizes complex data sets for OpenAI. Can this company articulate its growth story to investors and how will the market respond? We'll be watching that one closely. All right, we will. And it's a great setup for us.

Seema. Thank you for that. That's Sima Modi. So far, software's pain. Well, it's been chip stock. gain, but some are now wondering whether those names could be vulnerable. Christina Partsenevolos joining us more with that side of the story. Hi there. Hi, Scott. Well, to your point, chips are the clear winners this year compared to software.

The SMH, which represents chips, is up 6% year-to-date, while software's IGV is down roughly almost 24%. That's a 30-point gap, the biggest in their history going back to 2001. But today, to your point, the chip group is also split in two, names like Broadcom, equipment makers, ASML, KLA. You can see on your screen. in the green, partially driven by Google's massive Caffex bump that we got yesterday. Broadcom supplies Google's custom chips. But the SMH, though, as a whole today, is barely positive. The other side is getting hit by memory shortages. Qualcomm's CEO said their lower guide was, quote, 100% related to memory, as AI infrastructure really pulls supply away from smartphones.

Shares on your screen down almost 8% among the worst performers in the chip group. That warning initially dragged Armed down about 8% yesterday, but now it's the best performer as investors realize arms royalty revenues are growing across AI, data center, smartphones, so they're not being hit in the same direction as Qualcomm. Memory makers like Micron, SK Hynix, Sandisk continue to be, well, minus SK Hynix at the moment, to be the, I guess, the high flyers in that group. But to your point, definitely seeing a little bit of a rotation out of chips today. Yeah.

Hard to find green on the screen, but if you look here, certainly in the chip space, you can find some. Christina, thanks for that. Christina Parts of Nevelos. For more now on what is happening in the tech space, let's bring in a pair of leading venture capital investors, notable capitals, Jeff Richards, and CNBC contributor Plexo Capital's Lotoni. Guys, it's great to have you here. Great time to be here to really take the pulse of what's happening when, I don't know, the pulse feels a little faint. Either that or it's beating way too fast. Either way, it's not good.

What's going? What's going 70 degrees? I know. It is gorgeous. Everybody in tech and sports is here. It's a great time to be here. What is going on here? So I think, you know, Lowe and I were just chatting, a lot of what's happening is a rotation

out of momentum that people were betting on in the AI trade. You know, Scott, one thing I'd highlight is you've got companies like C.H. Robinson, which came out in their last earnings and said, hey, we are benefiting from AI. Companies' revenues flat year over year, but the stock's up 100%. So to me, part of what's happening is you had a big bet on the AI winners last year. The AI trade was the tech companies. I think some of them might what happened this year is you're going to be betting on the companies that are benefiting from AI. So that's the S&P 500.

That's industrials. It's retail. It's logistics. It's manufacturing. I think you're going to see more companies follow their lead and come out and talk about what AI is doing for them in 2026. I mean, that's why, frankly, the equal weight S&P 500 has done so well relative to the market cap weighted one, which is all hogged up at the top by these companies. From your perspective, what's going on in software? I mean, this was the critical question that's been asked for the last few years. Is AI going to kill software? Are these the first major blows?

Well, we definitely are seeing big sell-off because people are filling the pressure. I think historically, when you look at the venture capital model for software, it was an increasing returns model. So I build this software and I incur the cost up front. And then I can just sell it to as many people as I can, possibly at near zero. marginal cost and they can use it unmetered. AI has flipped that because now intelligence shows up in cost of goods sold. So if you have a model where the meter is just run as much as you can, that's going to hurt your margins.

So we're going to move from, especially in enterprise software, which is getting most beat up, we're going to move from per seat to outcome-based. And then we also have to either have the ability for these companies to shift to a metered-based model for intelligence, get the cost of intelligence down the cost per token, and then at the same time, you'll see some folks that just have such massive revenue and margins like a Microsoft with co-pilot where they can offer unmetered because they'll subsidize that cost to lock in as many customers as possible. Both of you guys are investors in Anthropic, right?

Correct. That's why you came in with big smiles on their faces, even though the software sell-off is so bad. partly anthropic, it feels like, from the news flow that's causing this in some respects, from this update and now even a further one today. Yeah, it's not just anthropic, Scott. It's a whole bunch of private companies. It's entropic.

It's open the eye. It's data bricks. Companies like Versel and handshake companies, some of the public market investors haven't even heard of. But if you look at our industry, venture capital, about $100 billion last year went into early-stage venture capital. $250 billion went into late stage. So that's $250 billion in 25 and 24 that didn't go into small and mid-cap public stocks. And so where you're seeing all the growth is in these private companies. These emerging private companies that are doing hundreds of millions, in some cases, billions of revenue.

They're growing at 50 to 100 plus percent per year. And the only company in the public market is growing north of 50 percent is Palantir. And obviously trades at a very rich premium. So I think when we get some of these companies that I just mentioned to go public, you'll see a level of excitement in the public markets with software that we just don't have right now because there's nobody other than Pallantir growing over 30% a year. Speaking of going public, what do you make low of the perceived race between Anthropic and Open AI to go public?

It's really interesting. It's fun to watch. And I was asking, Kate, I want to read your book in five years when you come back and look at this. Because we are seeing something that we haven't had this much excitement in both the public and the private markets in quite some time. And I think there is a little bit of a risk potentially more to Open AI as opposed to anthropic, just because Anthropic has carved itself squarely within the enterprise market, and I think people have a fairly good understanding of what their model is and how they're making

money, where I would say there could be a little more risk if Open AI goes out second. So I think that's why you're seeing that race. You know, it's kind of like who's going to suck all the air out of the room by getting public first? I do think it matters. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You agree? Look, I think an IPO in our mind is a capital-raising event, and companies prove that.

out the worth of the business over the next five to ten years once they're public. It's going to be one heck of a capital rate. It's going to be a hell of a capital raise. And if you add in SpaceX, right, which may go out this year as well, you're talking about trillions of dollars of market value, sucking up hundreds of billions of capital. So another thing you might be seeing right now, and I'm not a public market investor, but maybe people are putting capital on the sidelines to wait for those so they can be buyers of those growth names and not investing it in today's small and mid-cap software company.

Lastly, as we count down top of the hour, we're obviously going to get Amazon. the way that the market has reacted to these incredibly large spending numbers, the likes of which we just have never really seen before. How long does that take for the market's nerves maybe to settle about those huge numbers, do you think? Because you're going to probably get big numbers from Amazon. I mean, we know we are. And I think what you, if you're a long-term investor, this is phenomenal, because you're basically laying the groundwork, planting the seeds for revenue and profits

that is going to come in 27 and 28 and 29. So right now, to me, the dichotomy is between the short-term investors who don't like the CAPEX and the long-term investors who say, oh, man, there must be a lot of good stuff coming down the road. Remember, they all keep saying we are supply-constrained. We cannot serve our customers. We cannot build enough product to serve our customers. And I can tell you from our portfolio companies on the private markets, they can't get enough GPUs. They barely can get enough compute. It is very much a supply-constrained market, and they're telling us that.

So it kind of depends on whether you're a short-term investor. I don't like CAP-X. I'm a long-term investor. I love it because I'm planting the seeds for a lot of future growth. Last and quick to you. Same thing. Yeah, I think a look towards who can most efficiently execute on that KAPX spend. So I look at companies like Alphabet where they've got the great infrastructure that's vertically integrated all the way from the chips, all the way up to these massive businesses that have billions of people. And then I contrast that with something like meta, where I think they're seeing great results on the ability to increase their,

ad performance and optimization. I question whether or not an attention-based or an ad-based model can support Mark's vision for where he wants to take personal agents, because again, we're going back to that metered use, and I don't think ads support that. Loved having this conversation with you guys. Thanks for coming by. All right. Thanks for having us. Yeah, JR and Lowe. We'll see you again soon, and we're waiting top of the hour for Amazon. We're just getting started here, though. Up next, the Super Bowl is in town. Bruin Capital's George Pine. He's a pioneer in sports investing. He joins us next ahead of the big game.

at One Market in San Francisco. You're watching closing bell on CNBC. Welcome back. Investing in sports is one of the hottest areas of alternatives. And while that might be surprising to some, it is definitely not to our next guest. George Pine is considered a pioneer in the space, his Bruin Capital, considered the first private equity firm focused specifically on sports. George is here at One Market and joins me on the desk. It's good to see you. Good to be here, Scott. Thanks for having me. So you're riding high these days. I mean, you raised a new fund, billion dollars. What are you going to do? be looking at to invest in?

Well, we look at the companies that are the backbone of the industry. What it might call picks and shovels, but we've kind of dressed it up a little bit and call it second level enablers. Think about we're the water cooling companies that power AI. So we're powering the new economy in sports. You have a very diverse portfolio. It's sports, it's entertainment, it's media, it's betting, it's technology, it's athlete representation. Are there untapped areas that you have your eye on that you'd like to focus on?

Well, we're international. So 75% of our invested capital is headquartered outside the United States. Things we like are technology changing your life and changing products like full swing. You know, we have a simulator at product with Tiger Woods. And someday I'm going to be able to play you and your garage. I'm going to be in mine. We're going to be able to bet. So things that are different, right?

And then markets that we can open. So we operate in 71 countries. We have people in the ground in 24. So we take these companies and bring them into markets. It's interesting that you have such a large portion of the portfolio outside the U.S. There are better values there relative to here? What else is it? The secret for us was taking great European companies to America and then building out the American business.

And now we go both ways. So we work really with every major club or federation in the world. You're celebrating 10 years just recently. And as I said at the very top, you're the first PE firm really focused on sports as an asset class. What did you see 10 years ago that led you to this day that people have obviously caught up on? Yeah, so when I was at IMG ran that for nine years, we started to see that investments in capital could create new opportunities, create new value. And so this was an extension, really, of what I was doing at IMG. But you're right. When I went and did this, everyone thought I was crazy.

They didn't know what I was doing. And now, of course, there are many, many people in the ecosystem. It is crowded. Does that in any way mean that you've got a lot of the same people chasing a lot of the same deal? deals and opportunities? We're quite different though. Most of the action is on investing in teams and leagues. We're investing in companies, so high cash flow, low cap-capex, we add real value.

Despite a great football lineage, I'm not going to add value to the New York Giants, but these companies that we transform, we can add a lot of value in terms of new markets and operational expertise and also certain liquidity. So more of a traditional private equity mode than necessarily investing in a great asset like a team. I'm sure you consider all of the investments that you've made and all of the portfolio companies that you have. They're all your babies. But is there one that sticks out? Like if I said, what's the best investment that Bruins ever made? Is it automatically obvious to you? Well, we've made a lot of good investments and we're proud of them all. But of course, we had one, a data company

that connected fans to leagues and clubs and federations called Two Circles, based in London. They had an incredible client base. We built them here in the U.S. and really, proud of the management team and the exit we had. How do you see as we sit here quite literally in the hotbed of AI and where this technological revolution is happening? How is this going to impact opportunities that lie ahead for you? Well, you have to look at it carefully. They're going to accelerate some businesses, decelerate others. So every time you make an investment, you have to understand, is this an opportunity or is this a threat? You know, as it relates to sports itself, I think on the product side, it's going to reinvent with data. Think about coaches staying up night.

looking at film, they're going to have to watch a lot less film, chart a lot less. You're going to have the data right there to be able to assess players, predict what might happen. I think the data will make the competition side. It's a transformation. It's interesting. I guess you look at the, there's a product side, there's a consumption side. How do you think the consumption of sports is going to change and evolve in the years ahead? Are we going to watch and pay attention to sports in the same manner in which we had for the last decades?

Yes, I think sports can't be commoditized. Unfortunately, entertainment is commoditized, right? And so streaming really is commoditized entertainment. Streaming has like embraced sports. 90 million people a month now reviewing sports through streaming. And eventually that's going to be where the state of play is. Sports will drive big audiences. Sports will deliver in advertising.

And the other thing that sports have the lifetime value of the consumer, that one-to-one relationship. So sports, because you never know what the outcome is going to be really strong in the future. So then media rights. rights are just going to continue to go to the moon? Well, that's, you know, I was talking to someone today. I used to work at Nassau. There was a Bill France senior. I used to go and say, Bill, we're in a bubble. He goes, George, they've been talking about a bubble for 30 years.

Something doesn't grow forever because it's been growing forever. However, the value of sports right now, never been more. Look, the Olympics, 100 new advertisers sold out. NBC sold out the Super Bowl. I mean, the TV ratings for the NFL best in 30 years. College football, strong, baseball World Series strong. Sports is strong because it's separating itself from entertainment that's being commoditized through technology. And actually, because it isn't commoditized, technology can accelerate the opportunities for sports.

So the future right now for sports looks strong. What about valuation? Speaking of something that people say just can't grow to the sky, but they sure as heck seem to be on their way there. There's no slowing down. Yeah. On the valuation side, remember, the cap stack in sports and why I think a lot of people have invested is still pretty. primitive. I mean, the leagues have been very conservative in terms of debt and who can own a team. And if that loosens up over time, those values can still rise. And also, there's a scarcity of

assets. I mean, there's only one Chelsea. There's only one Liverpool. There's only one 49ers. So there's a very scarce amount of inventory out there. We'll leave it with talking a bit of ball for a second. I don't know if your accent's giving it away or not. People know where you're from. Do you have a favorite? How do you think Sunday is going to play out? Well, you're talking to the son of a former Boston Patriot. My dad was the first 300-pound linemen for the Patriots. I used to be a kid. I'd save up my paper route money to buy tickets for the Patriots.

So look, Mike Vrable, Drake May, they've done an amazing job. That Seattle defense is tough, but I'm for the Patriots. All right, it works it out because Montana and Thaisman earlier said Seattle, so it's good to have a Patriots fan. Exactly. It's great to have you here. Thanks for spending time. Appreciate it.

That's George Pine, Bruin Capital. Still ahead. Mark Gannis. He's the founder and CEO of the sports advisory firm, SportsCorp. He'll tell us where, man, when he tells you the number where he thinks valuations are going from here, it's going to blow your mind. He'll do it next. If there's a professional sports franchise to be sold or a stadium deal to be made, chances are our next guest is in the middle of that action, a place he's been for the past couple decades. Mark Gannis is the founder and CEO of SportsCorp.

It's a sports advisory firm. He's with us here, as you see, at one market. It's good to have you here. Great to be here, Scott. So the big news, at least in part this week, was the commissioner saying that the Seahawks are going to be sold sometime soon from the Paul Allen estate. So the commanders go for almost 6.1. Right. What's this one going to go for?

At least $8 billion. Yes. At least $8 billion. And if they can get people with the resources who can appreciate where the NFL is going, this could approach $10 billion. Holy cow. People. Bezos? Balmer? Well, those are qualified people. Those are the kind of people. It doesn't necessarily have to just be within the U.S. though. This is the type of team that could attract foreign money, especially Asian money, because it's right on the West Coast. It's on the border with Canada. It's close to Japan. And there's tremendous amount of wealth among other people, other families in other parts of the world. And this is likely to be the only team in the NFL that gets sold in the

foreseeable future. How competitive do you think the process will be? Are we talking like a bidding war kind of thing? They should be trying to create a bidding war. The value of the team without a bidding war is between $7 and $8 billion. With a bidding war among qualified parties, this team should go well north of $8 billion. That's why I say we could see it conceivably breaking double-digit billions. Okay, so the average valuation of an NFL franchise, according to the tabulations that we've done at CNBC's about $6.5 billion. I've been teasing throughout the day, the numbers that you suggest valuations could go to in the next five to 10 years are astounding.

The number? We're going to go to $15 to $20 billion. And that's because of the business of the NFL. It's because it is such a strong business and the growth, and I've seen what the plans are for the future, globally are extraordinary. Who pays that? Who can afford that? Well, now you get to a different question.

The NFL has the most restrictive rules of all of the major sports leagues in the world for ownership. As the NFL increases the aperture, allowing private equity to come in for 10%, allowing debt limits to increase a bit, when you see is capital absolutely flooding into the NFL within a slightly larger aperture. The NBA has done this and very effectively. So the NFL will still keep its control in a single person, try and be family owned for control. But as time goes on, you will see the NFL very thoughtfully continue to increase the universe of potential investors. Sovereign wealth funds? That sounds to me where you're going.

That's not the only place. Pension funds coming in directly, other institutional capital. There are ways of opening the aperture. and sovereign wealth is only one group, but ways of opening the aperture to allow a larger universe to come in to NFL ownership. What this tells me, too, is that the price of a media rights deal is going to follow right where the valuations are going to go because one really plays into what the other does.

No wonder the NFL wants to speed up its renegotiation years earlier. Absolutely. And by the way, the networks want to also because they want the certainty that they're going to have the NFL for at least the 10 years or longer. So it's actually in best interest of both the NFL and the networks to open this up sooner. And now you also see the NFL has four new games that they just took back as part of the ESPN deal, where they can now market those games. And you can expect streamers are going to be major players. Well, let's talk about that for a second.

Because if you're telling me that valuations of teams over the next five to ten years are going to go $15 to $20 billion, if not higher, and thus the media rights deals are going to continue to escalate at an enormous pace, and we know the challenges around the linear broadcast business in industry. But yet the NFL needs to keep games on linear television, on broadcast television. How is it all going to work? Well, right now, 88% of the NFL games are on linear television, broadcast television. It doesn't have to necessarily be 88%. There'll be a blend. I expect that blend will find its right balance. Right now, it's very skewed towards linear television. So you might have a little more of a balance that goes to where the people are, which is streaming.

Also, direct-to-consumer is a big part of the NFL's future, globally and then potentially within North America as well. But you talked to George a little while ago about AI. AI is going to change broadcast. and viewership of games, and it's going to be a very big part of international broadcasting. It's going to be really interesting to see how the NFL takes advantage of that as we go forward. Can any of the other major sports leagues even come close to what's happening with the NFL? I mean, it's like the king of the hill, and the hill just keeps getting bigger, and the others feel like they're just getting pushed further down it.

Well, the NBA did a great job with its most recent TV deals. So I don't put the NBA in a category of getting pushed down. But what's great about for the NFL of the NBA deals is that that becomes a marker, meaning when Roger Goodell goes back to Brian Roberts at NBC and says, you know how much money you just gave to the NBA? We get eight times the ratings. I think you should add a few shekels to our deal. And it makes sense for them to do so.

And you do that across the board, ESPN, et cetera. So the NBA has done well. But baseball has got some real problems. You've got the, because they're so local in terms of their broadcasting. And you've got the bankruptcies that have occurred. Yeah, the RSN issues. The RSN issues. So baseball has got some real big issues that has to deal with.

The other thing about the NFL, global, international expansion, flag football. That's where there's a tremendous market opportunity for the NFL and why they're putting so much emphasis. All right. Appreciate the conversation. As always, Mark, Mark, thanks. It's Mark Gannis. right here at one market. Up next, we track the biggest movers into the close today. Christina Parts Nelvelos is standing by, as always, with that. What do you see?

Well, let's start with fitness equipment maker posting its worst day in two years, beauty giant falling on tariff fears and weight loss drug makers sliding on copycat competition. We'll break down those movers next. We are less than 15 from the closing bell. Back now to Christina for a look at the key stocks we need to watch. Tell us. We're going to start with Peloton shares because they're plummeting right now, 30% lower. After disappointing fourth quarter results, Peloton's new product line was meant to bring in new customers, but the company says it expects sluggish sales to continue in the current quarter.

The stock pacing for its worst date in two years. And look at it, it's trading at $4.12 cents. I was just checking its all-time intraday high, $171 during the pandemic. Switching to another decliner, Estée Lauder falling nearly 20%, let's say 19% after it said it expects a $100 million tariff hit to its full year profitability. still the company lifted its adjusted earnings outlook for the year amid its turnaround efforts, the stock pacing for its worst day on record. Again, down 19%. Last but not least, Novo Nortis and Eli Lilly shares also down.

I guess I'm sticking with all this stuff in the red. As Hems and Hers Health said it was going to launch a cheaper version of Novo's Wigovee weight loss pill. Novo said it's going to take legal action for the copycat drug. Him and hers initially popped on the news, but you can see down over 5% on the news. these guys are down way more, 8%. Yeah, I mean, it's hard not to focus there, considering we're sliding a little bit more

as we head even closer to the end of this trading day. Dow's now down more than just about 650. Christina, thank you. Thank you. Christina Parts of Navalos. Up next, we're just moments away from Amazon's earnings, which means we talked to shareholder Malcolm Etheridge. He's standing by to tell us exactly what he needs

to hear from that company. Next. We are now in the closing bell market zone. Mike Santoli here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus, we are, as you know, on earnings watch. Mackenzie Sagalus is tracking strategies numbers in overtime as Bitcoin takes a major leg lower today. Kate Rooney here, of course, with the final look at Amazon as well.

And Amazon shareholder Malcolm Etheridge is standing by. He'll tell us what he needs to see from that company. But Mike, I'll begin with you. This is just a nasty day. It is. So we kind of broke that rotational rhythm we've had for a while. There were a few intraday rallies, attempts for the stock market to separate itself from the spill in Bitcoin. but then every time Bitcoin made a new low, it was unable to get those things going.

Clearly, we're, you know, making a new low for January over the course of the day in the S&P 500. We're still above last December's low. That's 6720, but not far above that. So that's sometimes a little bit of a tripwire in the first part of a year to say, you know, be careful you might be in for something broader in terms of a correction. Although I have to say, you know, parts of the market are still managing to hang in there. You know, regional banks are okay. are hanging in there as well, parts of health care insurance.

So it's not a 100% washout, but clearly the market was unable to just absorb more of this selling in the AI disrupted trade in software and elsewhere. Give us an idea at top of the hour, you and Mel, how you think you're going to get after this, because what's happening in tech, Mike, is just plain ugly. And then, of course, Amazon's looming, and you guys will be all over that. Well, that's exactly yet. So Amazon, of course, the reaction to it is probably the most important thing in terms of dictating what might happen tomorrow, trying to be smart tactically around crypto and what it might

mean in terms of knock on effects for other assets. We are going to have a little bit of a deeper look into that. The stocks that are the worst today are the stuff that's adjacent to Bitcoin, meaning they have a lot of overlapping owners. So we'll see if there's any sign that maybe that's going to let up. All right. We'll look forward to seeing you both at the top of the hour. That's Mike Santoli. Speaking of stocks adjacent to Bitcoin, how about strategy? That company It's its earnings after the bill, too. Mac is back with us to tell us about that one. So you've got Bitcoin actually breaking below $63,000 in the last few minutes. It's down more than 25% this week, 50% off its record high that it hit just four months ago.

Options traders on Deribet are already positioning for the next leg lower. Downside hedging by large holders in open interest concentrated at 60,000 Deutsche Bank, putting it bluntly. Traditional investors are losing interest. And that's a problem for the digital asset market. the institutional bid that was supposed to put a floor under this market is God. U.S. Bitcoin ETFs are net sellers in 2026, more than $5 billion out over the past three months. Force liquidations are accelerating $2 billion in the last 24 hours, each wave triggering this next leg lower.

And the contagion, it is spreading to crypto-pegged equities. Coinbase down 35% in your date and come back to strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, which had been helping prop up prices, down 19% today alone. All right, how low will it go? We will watch and see at least what strategy does. Mack, thank you. Kate Rooney, of course, on Amazon, this final look before we get the actual earnings with the stock trading terribly into the print. Yeah, Scott. So AI really is going to be the key here. Cloud growth tends to tell that story. The number to watch is the AWS growth rate. Vestors are looking for about 21 percent, 21.7 percent year-over-year. Wall Street also really looking for any sort of signals of AI tailwinds within AWS CAPEX, as has been the case with other hyperscalers. Big number to look for. It was $125 billion that they forecasted last year. They did say it's expected to go higher. It is this fine line, though, of not overspending. So they've got to toe the line there. Then there's AI within the other businesses.

We talk about Amazon as a tech company, but there's advertising. There's e-commerce, which still makes up a bulk of revenue. Is it actually driving sales? That's what investors want to see. Cost cutting to the same time as they are spending big on AI. They're also laying off employees, so expect some commentary around that. Scott, you mentioned it. Stock has been down, as much as 4% heading. into the numbers, though, tuck, tuck, tack, rather, as you guys have been talking about,

has just had a really tough week, and that has raised the bar for Amazon. All right, so we'll see and we'll see you, of course, when those earnings said, all right, Malcolm, what do you want to see tonight? How much spending can you tolerate? Yeah, I think Kate hit it perfectly. It's really about them coming in somewhere between 21 and 22 percent AWS growth, because that that growth number had been sliding since about 2023, they reversed course last quarter and put up numbers of about 20% growth in AWS, which the market did appreciate. However, the CAPEX, I think, is really going to be the tail that wags the dog. So we've seen about a 4% slide throughout the day to day. I think the selling

pressure will probably continue to weigh on this company and after hours, simply because the market is showing right now, it really wants to sell first and ask questions later. I don't know why Amazon would be exempt in that. And so I will be pleasantly surprised if the market it does start to change its tune and reverse course into the print, but it's unlikely. As Mark Mahaney was talking about, it's been a tough couple of years. The stock really hasn't done anything. Why? Yeah, it's been a really tough stock to own. I think there's a lot of things to love about this name.

I also think that right now is the time that's showing why Andy Jassy was pretty adamant that the company didn't have any interest in spinning out AWS from the e-commerce or the rest of the business lines the Kate was just talking about. I think that taken together, there's a lot to love here. They're about to cross the $700 billion annualized revenue mark. And so I think it's short-sighted for investors to be only focused on the AWS numbers and not worrying as much about everything else there is to love about this. They've invested tens of billions of dollars into robotics in their fulfillment centers,

for example, over the last few years. That has to be accretive. It's expected to be about a $15 billion savings annually by the end of this decade by B of A's research team. So there's a lot to love here, but investors really don't know what to focus on when they're investing in this company. And so that's, to me, the reason it's been such a laggard. What do you make of the software sell-off, Malcolm? I think it's overblown. I understand completely why we're worried that a lot of the tech tools, Open AI, just released a new feature that looks great for enterprise

and should be competitive against the tools that Anthropic had already thrown out there that were already competitive against co-pilot from Microsoft. often. So I think that, again, it's a sell first, ask questions, later mentality right now that's driving the markets. And I think that a lot of analysts came into this year expecting a ton of volatility and compared to the last three years we've had. This is it. This is exactly what we talk about when we say. Obviously, volatility, always meaning negative volatility, this is what it looks like. Well, there's a fear. You know, the market's trying to absorb these losses in software. The fear, according to some, is that if you start to have some of the chip names, roll over, then obviously you're going to see a bigger and broader problem within the technology

orbit. Malcolm, thanks so much. We'll talk to you soon. That's Malcolm Etheridge as we approach to close today. The bells are going to ring out a nasty one, too. We're not quite at the lows, but we're not that far off either. You've got the Dow off by more than 600 points today. So the broader market is taking a bit of a hit. It's the NASDAQ, obviously most acute, the software stocks, especially selling off Microsoft down sharply, Amazon down sharply as well. But of course, the moment of truth awaits, and it doesn't take long to get that moment. I'll send you into overtime with Melissa and Mike.