Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Can Stocks Move Beyond the War? 4/13/26

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Professor Jeremy Siegel from the Wharton School tells us where he thinks stocks are headed. Plus, star retail analyst Matt Boss maps out his playbook for the space. And, Alger’s Ankur Crawford tells us if she thinks tech’s recent comeback is durable. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to closing bell. Thanks, Brian. I'm Scott Wobner live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This Maker Break Hour begins with this very resilient stock market. Take a look at the majors here with 60 to go in regulation. I gather it's a better looking picture than what many expected with that blockade going into effect at 10 a.m. this morning. The majors all positive. In fact, we've been adding steadily just before we are coming on the air here at 3 o'clock in the East technology. It's battled back lately. A strong day. NASDAQ, in fact, going for its ninth. consecutive gain today looks like it's going to notch that. It's up almost 1%. You got 190, 190 points for the NASDAQ. And for a change, would you believe it? It's software leading the way. That's right. Leaders include Microsoft and Oracle, Salesforce, Snowflake Service Now. They're all having strong days today. So are IBM and Intel. The cyber names are nicely green. I haven't seen all that in a while. How about the private credit stocks? They are solid as. as well. Take a look across the board. KKR is up 7% leading the way. Apollo's good for five. And then there's Goldman Sachs. Those shares, they've been lower today. The firm kicking off

earnings season, strong equity trading, strong deal making, those were the bright spots. The stock, let's be honest, had a nice move into the print, too, and that's probably taking effect as well. It does take us to our talk of the tape, whether stocks can continue to move beyond the war and trade higher. We will ask the Wharton School's Jeremy Siegel. That key question. in just a moment. First, though, Amon Jabbers has the very latest for us from Washington. The president addressing reporters a little bit earlier this afternoon, and Amon has more for us, as you see at the White House.

Hi, Amon. Hey there, Scott. We are now five hours into the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, and to our knowledge at least, the blockade has not been tested, and the U.S. Navy has not interdicted any ships at sea. I asked the White House what legal authority the U.S. Navy would have to seize third-party vessels. and for an explanation of why such a seizure wouldn't be, in fact, a crime.

A White House official promised a written response but cited Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which, among other things, makes the president the commander-in-chief of the American military. Now, separately, the Chinese embassy in Washington sent a statement on the blockade to CNBC a short time ago, saying, in part, the root cause of the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz is the military conflict. To solve the issue, the conflict must stop, as soon as, possible. All parties need to remain calm and exercise restraint. China, they say, will continue playing a constructive role. Now, President Trump, as you mentioned, Scott, told reporters today that although no other countries have announced a willingness yet to participate in the blockade,

he believes that they will. Take a listen. Yeah, other countries are going to also. We don't need other countries, frankly, but they've offered the services. We'll let it be known probably tomorrow. And Scott, from what we know from U.S. Central Command, the blockade will involve all Iranian ports and will be enforced impartially, they say, against vessels of all nations. Back over to you. Okay, amen, I appreciate that. Thank you. That's Amon Javers at the White House, as you see. So let's talk more oil. Let's talk the blockade as well. Pippa Stevens is following that for us this hour. What do we know here, Pippa? Hey Scott, so oil is higher, but well off the best levels of the session, following reports of continued engagement between the U.S. and Iran. WTI earlier hitting a high of 105-63 with the blockade beginning,

although data from tanker trackers shows vessels still loading at and departing from Iranian terminals. Now, since the ceasefire began 18 tankers carrying oil, refined products and chemicals have crossed the waterway, according to Kepler, with 10 laden and 8 empty. Now, the only non-Iranian VLCCs went to China. and Thailand. The firm saying supply loss now totaling 430 million barrels with Saudi Arabia's production falling to 6 million barrels per day. The International Energy Agency head Fatibiral reportedly saying the agency stands ready to act, that's according to Reuters, should market

conditions warrant, that follows the group's historic 400 million barrel release back in March. Got? Okay, Pippa, thank you very much for that. Appreciate you. Now let's welcome in the Wharton School's Professor of Finance Jeremy Siegel, also Wisdom Trees, chief economist. Welcome back. It's nice to see you. Happy to be here, Scott. Man, this is one incredibly resilient market, isn't it? This is a market that really wants to go up.

Can you believe it? We are less than 2% away from all-time highs on the S&P 500, you know, in the middle of a war. But, you know, I like the blockade. I mean, I think, I mean, there's some military experts actually said we may, I mean, should have started with the blockade and kept the airstrikes in the, their pocket if they acted against us. But notwithstanding, the blockade, I think, is a positive development. Also, positive development we've heard from Axios and other sources that there were a lot of points of agreement between Iran and the United States. Closer than I actually thought they

might come. And has not, you know, fired any missiles. The question will be if ships, if ships go through and they fire missiles, that will be a signal. We will say they broke the ceasefire. We'll go back to bombing them. Do they want that or do they want to go that extra foot to make a deal? If there's a deal, there's all-time highs. If there's bombing again, we'll have some sinking back. But how many missiles do they have left? How much more pain can they inflict on the Gulf? That's the big question mark. And that now is only the worst case scenario. There are a lot of better case scenarios out there. I thought it was interesting.

At the end of the show before us, they had a poll which said from 57% to 24 that the most important issue for the market was oil and the war. I would submit to you that the reason the market has been as resilient as it is, is because the market's been looking through oil and the war to earnings, which are still expected to be really strong. So I'm not sure the voters in that poll are necessarily matching what the participants in the market are actually doing with their hands and feet. Because this market, if it was overly concerned with what they said it was, we wouldn't be but 2% from a new high on the S&P, would we?

Well, I think, you know, I think Tom Lee said it really well in the last session. There's where the tail risks are. I mean, again, if Iran tries to bomb those going through and then starts inflicting major damage on the ports, on the oil facilities, then you're going to go to 150 and you're going to go back to the lows of March. Again, a worst case to know. That's the tale. The good tale, of course, is Trump says we have a deal. They were going to all-time high. So in terms of what's going to move the market in the big way, it is Iran. Secondly, remember, earnings are first quarter. And, yeah, you know, part of March was with rising oil prices. I think what most interesting is what the CEO say in terms of their forecast, given the rising price of oil. But again, you know, if we don't get much above, you know, 425 if we stay in that region, the amount of extra money that consumers pay is not as much as a stimulus we've provided or the stimulus that the war itself is provided through increased purchases by the Defense Department.

So in a way, you know, we've got a strong economy, you know, going on. I want to see what the outlook is by the CEOs more than I want to have them talk about what happened in January and February and March. But nonetheless, the tail risks are Iran and there's good tail risks as well as bad ones. Yeah, there's no question about that. I feel like the proverbial herd is now kind of heading in the same direction on this. Ed Yardini sticks with 7,700. Mike Wilson says the disruption, private credit, AI, et cetera. Risks have already taken place that's already in the market.

J.P. Morgan's, one of their strategists, says, yeah, we could have more weakness, but if your time frame is 3, 6, 12 months, then you should buy any of the dips. RBC says, I get it. It's fragile. It's foggy. But the bottom is in, too. You feel like you're part of that growing camp? Well, the dip was bought.

We're virtually to the point, certainly, but then we were, you know, before the bombing started and we were 2% away from the all-time high. So we are back there with everyone saying, hey, you know what? All right, we're going to have a bit higher oil prices for six months, maybe a year. But there are so many other good things going on in this economy that I'm still going to buy. Remember a fundamental principle. You know, I taught finance for almost 50 years is only 5% of a value of a stock that's selling 20 times earnings is due to the earnings in the next 12 months. It is the far out future that gives the value to the stock market. And when people think of AI, again, I'm one of the people that are very positive on it.

I know there's a negative group, but on AI and productivity growth, you know, that outweighs. a disruption that might take place in the next three to six months as a result of higher oil prices. Yeah, I mean, Professor, let's be honest. You've forgotten more things about the market than most people will know in their lifetime. You've seen everything. So you understand how to take events like this because it's not your first rodeo, obviously. I look at things within the market, and I have to say, I almost do like a triple take. the fact that the Russell is up 7% year to date, that in and of itself, to me, speaks to where the

economic optimism must be, because otherwise you couldn't have that. Yeah. And by the way, a lot of people thought with the higher oil prices, because a lot of the Russell are more cyclically oriented and higher gasoline, they're not going to go shopping, or, you know, they're not going to drive and all that and all that. But the rotation was on before. We've had a big rotation. As many said, Nvidia is almost selling for less than the average S&P. I mean, we're having unbelievable prices on these stocks. Yes, there are risks because technology is just going so fast. We don't know who the next one will say, oh, my God, you've been one-up and your product is no longer profitable. I mean, those are those reasons why I think those stocks have come down from their all-time

highs, but it doesn't slow down what technology is doing to the U.S. market and the U.S. economy. I learn so much every time we speak, and I certainly hope our viewers do as well. Thank you, Professor. We'll see you soon. Thank you, Charlie Siegel, down in the Wharton School. Speaking of technology, we did mention the outperformance of software today. The real question is, can it last?

Let's welcome in BTIG's chief technician Jonathan Krenski. It's good to have you back as well. I mean, you've been looking at what's been taking place within the market, too. Are you now becoming a believer as well that software may have bought them? Because the price action today is crazy. Yes, Scott. So, you know, we started looking closely last week when there was a couple of things that happened. So on the IGV, which is the broad-based software ATF, $77 had been a major support level going back several years.

it tested it seven times as of last week. And, you know, as it was breaking below 77, what we notice is that the typical correlation between software and crypto or Bitcoin, which had been a very tight correlation of the last couple years, started to break down. If you recall, Bitcoin bottomed in early February. And despite software is continually lower, Bitcoin did not make new lows. And so I think that was the early signs of a bullish tell. And what we needed to see was then price confirmation from the software.

group itself. And what we said was if you get, you know, a break below 77 and then you recover 77, you probably don't want to be short software because there's an old saying from fast, from false moves come fast moves in the opposite direction. And I think that's what we're seeing in software. And, you know, again, it started with crypto and the crypto miners, which are actually the IG, I think a lot of people don't realize this, the IGV has crypto miners in it as well. So it's not just pure SaaS or software names. So there's, there was some both diversions. We're getting that price confirmation today. So yeah, I think I think A bottom is certainly warranted here. Wow. So you don't need, let's say, a couple of closes above 77 just for some degree of confirmation at this point?

I mean, I think what you want to do now is, you know, just like we were using 77 as kind of the downside fulcrum, I think you can, you know, be constructive on the group now as long as Friday is low as hold, right? And, you know, the best, the best moves come right away. So we should not, you know, we shouldn't linger here. We shouldn't, you know, kind of fade back down. Like, that was such a meaningful break and reversal that, you know, if it is a real bottom, we should kind of, you know, move higher pretty quickly from here. So I think you'll know in the next couple days.

But yeah. Yeah, I mean, speaking of the first moves, I mean, if these aren't the best moves, I don't know what it is. Oracle's up 11%. And some were suggesting, I didn't really hear that much today from this event. But nonetheless, these stocks seem like coiled springs, perhaps. compared to where they were. Jonathan, thank you. I appreciate your time very much.

You set us up well for our next conversation. Now let's bring in our panel, Solace's Dan Greenhouse, along with CNBC contributor capital area planning's Malcolm. It's good to have you. Malcolm, I'll come to you first. I mean, you may have been a little early, but you've been thinking that software, some of these bargains, if you want to call it that, are values, were too good to pass up.

Yeah, I think you're right. I got in trouble for saying you basically can't fall off of the floor and then the floor fell some more. But I think that the professor's comments pair greatly with Krenski in the sense that it's creating this setup where the market really just wants to go higher and it's finding opportunities within any conversation or comment coming out of the White House that doesn't say tensions are going to escalate from here. It's taking that to be good news that things are getting constructive.

They're winding down there and we can get back to business as usual. And so what that means is we've got to now go bargain hunting and find the opportunities within the market that we kind of turned our backs on or started turning our backs on as early as October of last year. Hence the reason why tech is leading the way each time we get these days with these really big swings where it looks like good news is coming. And I think specifically within software, it's obvious that that's where the biggest bargains are as long as you're convinced that this existential crisis is not going to wipe out the entire sector as a whole. And it's just some companies that are going to get taken out and others that are already large will probably just

get larger as a result. If you look at what happened following the 2008 financial crisis and the banks that no longer exist versus the ones that still do and got significantly bigger, I think that's probably more likely what we're going to see go from here. Yeah, Dan, I mean, you've got to try hard to tell me, I suppose, that software is going to have this comeback and somehow the market's going to be a negative. I mean, this is what people were waiting for, right? I agree. If you were going to get back into something it was going to be arguably the hardest hit sector, because to use the phrase, it was probably a coiled spring. You look at the valuation retracement that was done, either on an absolute basis or relative to the broader market, and it was quite substantial,

indicative of previous bottoms, although obviously you can go further or less, depending on a given scenario. So yeah, in that sense, it's not surprising. And yeah, it's going to be very difficult for the market to move higher without tech in general. I would argue you don't necessarily need many of the software names, just some of the larger names. But, I mean, listen, the broader market is basically at a high, and these names are still down significantly. So it does reinforce the idea that you don't need them. They are, however, a nice to have. I would suppose, though, Malcolm, as on Friday, for example, you had the SMH hit a 52-week high. At the same time, the IGV software was hitting a 52-week low. If you're going to, if you're going to ride a little wave here of a comeback in

software and we're suggesting, well, that's got to be great for the market, if and only if semis don't break down. I mean, you can't have that because there's such an integral part of this overall AI story to begin with, right? Yeah, I think you're spot on. I think it's dangerous if we get to a place where the semis disappoint come this earnings period, simply because three out of the 10 biggest inputs into the S&P's earnings for this year are going to be a micro, Broadcom and Nvidia. And if those three companies put up really

strong earnings, which we all imagine they will, that's even going to paper over any companies that report earnings or guidance that's less than stellar because of higher input costs related to fuel. And so I think that it's really important that the semis hold up their end of the bargain, but I think we also are in agreement

that we expect that the semis will hold up their end of the bargain. Dan, there's And Scott, that's sort of... Yeah, go ahead. I was because that's sort of my point. about the larger names, Nvidia, Micron, et cetera, being so important to earnings season. Those things, I don't want to use the phrase

dwarf for the word dwarf, but they dwarf the importance of many of the software names. Semis are far more consequential to the broader market, obviously. This newfound momentum feels real in tech. Jeffries today says, tech momentum just had its strongest

10-day move in 25 years, the best week since COVID-19 vaccine. scene was released and that happened in December of 2020. Torsten Slocke of Apollo, Dan, says tech valuations now are back to the pre-AI boom levels that we've compressed from 40 times to 20 times. People are hanging on to that as a principal part of the tech bullish story now. Yeah, and that was the point I made earlier about the valuation retracement being so substantial. I don't want to say these are value names in a lot of respects, but they certainly are far less

growthier than they used to be. But I would also add that there's a lot of sectors doing a lot of work here, not just tech, obviously the financials, a lot of the banks. The stock charts look very, very good. Obviously, Golden reported this morning down a bit, but that's not a bad looking chart. And then the big important ones like Citigroup and J.P. Morgan, et cetera. So there's a lot of stuff doing a lot of work here. But for the market to break out, those larger tech names are obviously going to be consequential. I would just note at the risk of being the party pooper, you still have a fair bit of uncertainty coming out of the Middle East and the straight. And so this isn't a done deal despite what the broader equity market seems to be saying. No, that's a fair point, quite obviously.

And Malcolm, I mentioned this on halftime today that I'm sure some had been listening to conversations that sounded overly bullish in the face of what still appears to be a large amount of unknown. and I don't know if you think there's some degree of complacency, assuming that everything is just going to work out fine, or that even if it doesn't, the earning story and the economic story here in the U.S. is just going to trump everything for the time being. Yeah, I do think we're a little bit too complacent,

we're a little bit too positive on that coiled spring and the assumption that there will be a resolution reached in the Middle East sooner than later. But I think that that also helps to tell the story for why tech is so desirable right now, Because if you're looking for a sector or one of a small number of sectors that are less impacted by oil price shocks, that are less impacted by conflict in the Middle East, is going to be tech, right? These software companies have operating leverage that doesn't depend on a ton of inputs other than just human labor, human capital. And so I think that that is also what helps to make this an attractive place to be placing your bets for if and when we do get the all clear. Gentlemen, we'll leave it there. Dan and Malcolm, we'll talk to both of you soon.

Thanks for the time. getting started here. Coming up next, the star retail analyst. Matt Boss is back at Post 9 to reveal his top picks in the space. We're live at the New York Stock Exchange. We're green across the board. We're back after this break. We're back on closing bell. Another downgrade for Nike today as HSBC doesn't believe a turnaround will happen anytime soon. Our next guest doesn't sound like much of a believer either. Matthew Boss is with J.P. Morgan. He's a star analyst there. He joins us now. It's good to have you back. Great to be back, Scott. So I wanted to lead with Nike because I wanted to start there relative to the downgrade, the issues, and the fact that, as you were just telling me,

Elliott Hill, the new CEO addressed the street for the first time at the event that you just had where you took the pulse of the whole industry. That's right. So we had our retail round up last week, 25 companies from across consumer. We hosted the Nike team, both CEO and CFO. And it was the first meetings, as you said, with CEO Elliott Hill. Desperate Times call for desperate measures, I suspect on their part. What was the takeaway from your perspective? Look, the tone was it's going to be a heavy lift from here. So you have excess inventory in both China and in Europe. You have same store sales that are down high teens in Europe. They're down 20% in China.

And sell through globally is missing plan. And that missing plan is really tied to sportswear. So one of the things that CEO Hill said is if he had the opportunity to go back, he would have acted faster with a sportswear space, meaning that's the lifestyle side, that's the Air Force Ones, that's the Jordans. He would have cut, and he would have focused more on accelerating the sport, the functional, and the performance. So what they slated was spring of 2007, that's now the line in the sand. That's when they see the innovation from the new organization to hit the street.

Wow, so the rest of this year is pretty much a wash. Basically a one-year time frame to get to the ability to launch the new product into what they believe could be a clean market. You know how the street works and how investors think? Is it so bad that it's good at this point to get ahead of what you tell me you believe that Mr. Hill can do to turn this around? Look, I think it will be a good company again. I think it will be a great company again. I think from a stock perspective, the struggle is you have great companies that are trading at similar multiples with twice the margin profile and at or better than revenue growth that Nike's whole. hoping to achieve, meaning revenues are down right now. And this market that they are in is basically

growing low to mid-single digits, according to most industry forecasts. You have a tapestry that has twice the margins growing at double digits, trading it 20 times. Ralph Lauren that's trading in the high teens. Nike's at or higher valuation than that today. Wow. So it sounds like more compression is needed before it gets the point where someone like you would look at it and say It's just too attractive at this point. So even an upgrade based on valuation alone can get you somewhere. You're not even ready to do that. Three or four regions, as I said, really have a heavy lift on tap.

And it's really running within the North America marketplace that's working. So there's a green shoot, but right now it's just too small to move the needle. How are you processing the rise in gas prices at what point you start to get, you know, demand destruction, then becomes consumption destruction. Yeah. On some of the brands that you follow. Look, it's perfect timing because, as I said, we had 25 companies literally in our flagship in Midtown in the last couple of days. And the tone was the U.S. consumers resilient.

Really, I'd say across the board, if earnings was today, you would have 90% of my companies meet or exceed consensus estimates. The U.S. consumer is not showing signs of softening right now. And that's because tax refunds and some of the stimulus from the bill is more than offsetting higher gas prices. I think the math is $4.50 gas at a national level would need to retain there for the course of the entire year to just be awash with the stimulus and the one big beautiful bill. So you're in the green right now in terms of dollars to the consumer, and that's showing up in the U.S. Now, Europe picture is a little bit different. We are starting to hear of some signs of softening, particularly with companies exposed to Eastern Europe. You have two conflicts, as we know that's happening over there. And just closer to the epicenter right now.

Off price discount is still where you want to lean in? That's the epicenter, I think, of where you want to be. I mean, it's the intersection of value convenience, product improvement. So your TjX, your raw stores, Burlington, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, five below. I think they're all winners in this environment. Is there a price that the CEO said if, you know, gas prices get to and stay over, that a little bit of this dynamic starts to change? Because it can happen fast.

Well, so it's interesting. At $4 plus, the dollar stores were saying they actually become net beneficiaries. So you have consolidation of trip, people staying closer to home, and then you have trade down. So all of those names that I just mentioned, consumers going to have their continued needs, their food, the consumables, as well as apparel, where they can find it for value. And if you're offering brands, particularly better product year over year, it's this discount space. And then it's best in-class brands where, in my opinion, I think the backdrop we're in where you have 50 trillion of consumer wealth since 2019. That's what we've been talking about.

Consumer in a good place, they'll figure out a way to find the coach bag or the Ralph Lauren Apparel. They'll subsidize it with potentially some on the experience side, something you don't need, or something that's caught in the middle, a middle-class brand. Are they the ones that I was going to ask you, who's killing it at the top of the K? It's coach and Ralph? Off of the K, it's coach, it's Ralph, it's Amher Sports, which is Arcterics. And then you're seeing on the experiential side, consumer gravitating to experience, but at the same time value.

And that's actually where cruise lines, they have the headwind from fuel, and that's impacting the stocks. But in terms of market share, the cruise lines continue to take share. Interesting. Good conversation. I appreciate you coming by again. Always great. It's Matt Boss, JPM. Still ahead, Alder's Uncle Crawford. She'll tell us how she is now playing the tech turnaround. The NASDAQ eyes its ninth straight up day.

Bell back after this. Back NASDAQ going for nine straight up days, a nice and needed comeback for the tech space. Question now, is it durable? Let's ask Ankara Crawford. She runs a tech-focused portfolio at Alger back here at Post-9. As you see, many funds, as a matter of fact, what's up with tech, do you think,

nine days in a row for the NASDAQ? Is this, once again, the place to focus on? Well, I think in part what's happening with tech is it got sold off because of fears of the war. And there was some perturbation around the AI trade. Tech is the biggest beneficiary of the AI trade right now. And what you're seeing is it's all coming back. I mean, I would say, like, in tech you can also not all of tech has done well, i.e. software has done very poorly. And other parts of tech have been better.

The last time you were here, I asked you about software and whether you thought it had bottomed and you said no. that you didn't think so. Now it's reacted pretty amazingly, you know, today, for one thing, and Jonathan Krenski, one of the technicians who follows it so closely, says, don't bet against it now. Right. What do you think? I think he's not wrong. I think the question is, do you put the next incremental dollar of investment into software or into some other place in the market? Sounds like you say the latter. Well, I'm not quite sure, right? And in part because, again, these have become trades and not investments. That said, they've gotten to a point of maximum negativity where they're trading at 10 times cash flow. Mind you, however, that the cash

flow that people quote oftentimes has stock-based compensation in it. So the true cash flow is not really as hefty as it seems to be on paper. But I don't know. I think there probably is a trade in here. But see, that's the key. That's exactly where I was going to follow up. You use the word trade. You're not convinced that, that I use the word durable in the intro. You don't think that this bounce is durable in software. They're just tactical places to trade around. But you have Microsoft in so many of the different funds. Is that, is that different? Microsoft is a little bit of a different beast. Because it hasn't traded well. It hasn't, it's traded alongside the rest of the rest of software, but so has app love in.

And so as many of the software, like Palantir and Cloudflare, they've traded off on the software trade, even though they are going to cross the chasm. So there are bits and pieces of software that will be durable. A large swath is likely, I think, mid-small-cap software, likely a trade. And then hardware semis are just more interesting. And you don't have any concern of a reversal where you had great. Great divergence, semis record high, you know, software record low. Now software is waking up. It's not going to be at the expense of semis, right?

It might be. I think you may get a mini-reversion, but the fact of the matter is, like, even in the semiconductor space, the valuations are not egregious today. When Nvidia trades at 18, 19, 20-type multiple, you know, these are not valuations that you should be running from. and Nvidia, too, hasn't really been like a fantastic stock. It's kind of flat. I mean, picking Nvidia as the one to say, well, valuations aren't egregious is convenient

in some respects because obviously it's like, what is it, like 20-something times? So what about, for example, like the memory? Yeah, well, memory trades it like three times or four times. It's like even after seeing this move, the memory stocks are trading at kind of four times. like the quarterly run rate, the peak quarterly run rate. It's not an egregious multiple. Now, one can argue that they shouldn't trade at six, eight, nine, and ten times because they're pure cyclicals. And what I would say is they're growth cyclicals? And you know what? Three times, four times is not egregious either. Is the best current case for the mega caps,

because we're not going to hear from them for a little bit until earnings season really gets going, is the valuation compression? Like we always, we always, everything else is no, we know that the earnings growth is going to be good. We know what the spend is going to be. We know about all the optimism around AI, but now the cherry on top of that is the valuation compression almost across the board. How compelling is that for you? I mean, look, I think there's a lot of interesting opportunities in this market in some of the MAG-7s and outside of the MAG-7s because the market, to some extent, dislocated, right? And so are some of the Max 7's interesting. Yeah. So META put out their new model. It seems like they're going to catch up.

Could there be a trade for meta here? Yes. Just coming off the best week in like two years? That's right. But I mean, there's probably, it's still, the valuation has not really caught up where it probably should be. What's your favorite name right now that not enough people are talking about? Esterallabs. Still? Still. Because you picked, that was, you had that on March 19th. And still, you thought it was undervalued then. And you still think it's now. It still think it's, I mean, it peaked at something like 260. currently it just went to 95 and is at 160 I think today and if you look at the opportunity for Astera Labs I think it's dislocated from its fundamentals I mean this is a company that's going to grow 4x over four years I mean there's relatively few companies with this kind of profile with this kind

of quality of management team that trades at wow that's that that's quite a day oh that is quite a 10 and a half percent? Yeah, so this is a, it's dislocated in part because people think that they're a copper play and they'll get left out in the optical transition. I think that's a complete misnomer because they actually own kind of like what I think of as the Central's train station for data on chip. And regardless of if you have optical or if you have copper, all the bits have to actually go through an astera chip.

So, you know, I just think it's misunderstood. Market likes the story you're telling. We'll see you soon. Always fun. It's Anka Crawford of Alger right here post nine. Up next, we track the biggest movers into the close today. Christina Parts of Nebulos is standing by. With that, hi there.

Hi, Scott. Well, luxury giant feeling the impact of the war. A CEO shake-up at a packaged food company and an industrial name getting squeezed on margins. All of those stock movers next. All right, we're about 10 from the bell. Let's get back to Christina now for the stocks that she's watching. what you see? Let's start with shares of Canaga brands down about 5% after the company said a

former executive of J.M. Smucker would take over as new CEO on June 1st. The company which owns brands like Slim Jim and Hunts lowered its annual profit forecast just less than a month ago, citing uncertainty tied to global trade tensions. The current CEO, Sean Connolly, has served for the past 11 years. The stock is down over 40% though in the past year. LVMH shares falling about 4% after its quarterly sales missed expectations. It also said the war in the Middle East and had a negative impact of roughly 1% on organic growth for the quarter due to lower spending specifically in the Gulf region, along with fewer tourists in Europe. And then shares of fast in all, the industrial and construction supply distributor sliding

7%. Quarterly earnings did meet expectations, but gross margins just slipped due to pricing pressures, especially transportation costs. Got it. All righty. Thank you. Christina Parts de Nelvelas. Coming up next, Oracle's on pace for its best day of the year.

year. We're going to tell you what's behind the bounce on your screen of some 12% in the market zone, which is next. Welcome back. We're now in the closing bell market zone. Wilmington Trust Megan Shoe here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day, plus Sima Modi's covering that big move. We showed you in Oracle. Angelica Peoples tracking the action in Revolution Medicine, speaking of a big market move. Leslie Pickers watching the banks for it. Seema, start with you. Why is Oracle up like this? Yeah, Scott, a couple of catalysts here. We're told by a source that Blue Owl is raising $400 million in a debt offering, which could potentially be good news for Oracle, given that Blue Owl is one of its key data center backers. Separately,

at an event today, Oracle releasing a suite of AI tools for utility customers that it says will help reduce costs. At that, analyst at Sell Side Shop Stevens, upping its price target on the stock from $164 to $254 a share. Those moves really follow comments from Corey's CEO to CBC last Friday, who really dismissed the risk of GPUs depreciating or losing value over time, which, if proven right, could put Oracle as well in a good position, Scott. Okay, Seema, thank you. Angelica, speaking of big moves, as we said, what's going on here? Yeah, Scott, a really big move today, and that's because a pancreatic cancer drug from Revolution medicines succeeded in a highly anticipated phase three trial. Now, RevMed's daily pill, called Diraxon Rassib, kept people alive twice

as long as chemo extending survival by about six and a half months. And I know, Scott, that might not sound that impressive, but this is a disease where just 13% of people are alive after five years, and that's the lowest rate of any major cancer. One doctor I talked to said that he's been involved in many failed trials over the years, and even the successful ones have only extended survival by about a couple of weeks or months. So RevMed now is planning to seek FDA approval using this new voucher that grants a one to two month review, so this drug could be available And like you said, Scott, big move today up about 40%. And this company has also been seen as an acquisition target.

And these results bring that possibility front and center. So I expect that we will hear much more about that. Okay, good stuff. Angelica, thank you. All right, Leslie Goldman. Okay, so the stock is down a bit. But it was up pretty much into this print. It's up 14% in a month.

Maybe that's the culprit here more than anything else? That certainly could be. There's a lot of geopolitical risk out there. a lot of private credit concerns, as you and I have talked about a lot, Scott. But Goldman shares, of course, today lower on a substantial miss in the firm's fixed-fick. That's fixed-income currencies and commodities trading division. The downside surprise driven by trading products in things like rates and credit and mortgages, despite some gains in commodities and currencies.

However, the firm's global banking and markets division did post a record in terms of revenue in the first quarter, driven by its advisory business, as well as its equity. trading. So the volatility that stemmed from the Iran War was a boon to that division. Of the firms that report tomorrow, J.P. Morgan and Citigroup are expected to actually generate more revenue from that fixed income side, then their equity side. So we'll see if they're able to close the gap with what the street expects. But clearly this is a quarter where, you know, those firms that are tilted more toward equities have been certainly benefited from that, Scott. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking A lot of the names have had nice runs of late.

So they may be, Leslie, a little bit of an overhang as we hear from these other companies. Could be. I mean, year to date, a lot of them have actually, you know, been pretty negative. Oh, yeah. And that's due to everything we've seen with the geopolitical environment. Concerns about stagflation. Concerns about private credit, really front and center. And Goldman really plays into that from a variety of different angles they've been affected.

And so, you know, taking all of those together, plus the AI intermediation concerns. What that means for credit quality? All of those have been a big sentiment killer for the bank. So some analysts have said that it's the fundamentals that should turn things around. Goldman out of the gate, not necessarily doing that today, but we'll see what tomorrow brings. Okay, yes, we will. You'll let us know less. Thank you.

That's Leslie Picker. Megan, we're at the highs of the day. This market is resilient. Are you surprised? I am surprised. Yeah. The market has been very surprising based on the headlines. I think at the end of the day,

they talks over the weekend were perhaps a little bit more constructive than maybe the initial headlines alluded to when we just heard that talks had failed and the negotiations had failed. I think maybe the markets are expecting that this is going to be an ongoing process that will take more than 24 hours to resolve, but ultimately will be resolved without a significant and sustainable damage to the consumer. Because at the end of the day, when we look at oil prices, we are still at about $100 a barrel pretty far from historic levels on an inflation-adjusted basis that have caused recessions in the past. Are we doing this because the other stories outside of war and the price of oil are just too compelling to ignore?

and we believe that the war and the oil rise is going to end sooner rather than later. So it's prudent to just focus on all of the other things around earnings and the economy. Well, I do think we have gotten some constructive data from the economy in the past few weeks. ISM services and manufacturing were constructive. The labor market data has also shown signs of potentially bottoming and re-accelerating from here. But I don't think it's a gangbusters economy by any means. We've got about a little more than 1% GDP growth priced in for this year. I think it's more just that investors realize this is so difficult to predict and trade around

that you have to almost take it out. And then we're left with earnings season, which is very constructive for the first quarter and expected to be for 20.26. How would you answer the question of whether software is bottomed or not? Look, Microsoft's having a big day. Oracle's having a huge day. Palo Alto and CrowdStrike are having huge days. As is Dell, they're all outsized gains. Is this something to build on now?

I think for long-term investors, we for a while thought that the pessimism around software and tech is really overdone, and valuations are very compelling on a long-term basis. So I think this is an opportunity to be adding in to some of the parts of the market that have displayed really weak price action. people are doing just that Megan too thank you talk you soon going green across the board in fact we'll finish at the highs of the day I'll see tomorrow linda over time with Melissa Lee