Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Can the Record Run Continue? 9/30/25

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

What is the road ahead for stocks? We discuss with Trivariate’s Adam Parker, Courtney Garcia from Payne Capital and Bank of America Merrill Private Bank’s Chris Hyzy tell us what they think. Plus, FirstMark’s Rick Heitzmann tells us if he thinks an AI bubble is brewing. And, Richard Saperstein from Treasury Partners tells us what he thinks is the best strategy for your portfolio.  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. I'm Scott Wobner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker breakout begins with a good quarter for stocks nearly in the books, and to look ahead to what is next. We'll ask our experts whether this record-setting rally will continue into the end of the year. In the meantime, we'll show you the scorecard here with 60 to go in regulation, tech and health care, as you probably know by now, or the very big stories today, Nvidia hitting a new record high, becoming the first company to ever hit $4.5 trillion in market cap. Other chip names are on the move as well today. We're watching Corweave 2.

It inks a $14 billion deal with META. You can see that stock up here, 12% on that news. And about health care, Pfizer shares. They're higher today. The company says it's cutting prices on some drugs. In a new agreement with the White House, we'll have the very latest and what might come next. And who could be next?

It takes us to our talk of the tape. The road ahead for these markets as we end a quarter and head into a new one. Will stocks keep on running? We'll ask our experts that question. Adam Parker, Trivariates founder and CEO. He's a CNBC contributor. So is Courtney Garcia.

She's with Payne Capital. And Chris Heise is CIO of Bank of America Merrill, the private bank. Everyone here with me as you see it post-night. It's good to have everybody. Court, you first. It has been a good quarter. S&P up 7%. NASDAQ up 10.5.

The Dow, 4.5%. The Russell up 11. Does that continue? You know, I think it does, and we finish the summer and really everyone's saying, okay, well, wait for September because September historically is not a good month in the markets, but we've had a really good month in September to end this quarter. And I think people are just so worried about the markets falling off the cliff because they're saying, okay, the economy is not on good footing. The labor market is weakening. But other than the labor market, we just continue to see that GDP is growing. That was just revised upwards. Consumer spending is still very healthy.

The consumer, generally speaking, is on good footing, as we've seen when the banks have reported earnings. I think all of this is really leading up to the fact that we're likely heading into a good end of the year. At the end of the year, historically, is one of the best quarters in the markets. And especially when you have a big run-up like this year, a majority of the time you are going to see the market's higher. And I think everything is really positioning us well to end the year here. Agree? Yeah. Yeah, I do.

I mean, we studied 98 years of S-O-P returns. When the market's up 10% or more, first three-quarters of the year, how does it do in the fourth quarter? Better than average with lower volatility than average. So if history's a guide, yeah, she's right. You know, Q4, people don't lock it in and try to just lock in this return for the year. They try to chase it higher. I think it's a little bit of a different question, a little bit early. I'm sure we'll talk about it 10 times routine now and then about is there a rotation in January and other stuff?

Because when you do look at 3-5 and 10-year returns and they're as strong as they've been for the S&P, there isn't a ton of precedent that that keeps rolling at the rate it did. But I think, you know, so we titled our note the double-breaking putt this week of, you know, probably going higher in the near term, and then we'll see if it breaks another way later. But I think there's a lot of momentum right now. I agree, yeah. This guy's a golfer at the end of the table. I mean, for investors, is it a double breaker heading into the end of the year or is it relatively

straight? I've never used that. That's fantastic. It was the Ryder Cup, too, so I was trying to bring it all in. Absolutely. You know, we're going to use an analogy of climbing the mountain. We're not yet at Pike's Peak. We're still hitting the different ridges up there.

There's a lot to be worried about. There always is. And as Adam and Courtney said, the momentum's. still in front of us. We've had some momentum. But until earnings momentum starts to go the other way, you're going to see momentum institutional positioning stay there. And then on the private client's side, they're very guarded, but there's still that fear of missing out. And did you say before, Scott, that Russell actually outperformed the NASDAQ? Wow. Yeah. In the quarter, I mean, that says a lot. Russell's up 11%. Now, it could end up being like right there by the end of the day,

obviously, but the point is regardless of that, I mean, the Russell's done well. So is the NASDAQ. But does that continue? Well, you know, it's following the rate relief right now. Now it needs to see that rate relief transition over to better margins. Small caps need better margins overall. And still most of the index is underwater. But if you're looking at active management, it's a really good opportunity set. That's one. Number two, if you're starting to see this rotation filter into more cyclical areas, some of the, which we've seen, But if it stays, you're talking about a mini meltup. And that's what we expect.

That's what worries some people is that, you know, you get this meltup if you haven't had one already in a lot of stocks, which you have. That you start to get a little over your skis to the point where if you're on Chris's Mountain, you don't want to get into a role. I'm not, you know, usually like, excessively agreeable. But I agree. I'm more two for two. I totally agree with what he said. I think you could get margins going higher and stocks go up and margins go up. I think the distribution of outcomes for the Fed is skewed the dovish that probably helps risk on.

Every meeting that I do, the one thing that comes up that's sort of hard to time or know is like when are people going to worry about hyperscalor capbacks? And when is it going to get to the point where it's a problem? And we're in this game of like, you know, it's innocent until proven guilty for now. But at some point, you know, and there's some weird stuff happening. Okay, Nvidia's invest in a ton of open AI and Intel. There's some circular weirdness happening. It's a little, you know, government's getting involved. Saudi's doing stuff with the E.A.

Like, there's some non-traditional financing stuff happening that some of us would say. A couple of bankruptcies and credit that have raised some eyebrows. But I generally get. But see, that's where I generally get from people is, well, this is kind of going on here, and that looks a little uncomfortable there, but a big deal. Like, this market's still going up. Well, I think what you have to look at is what's expensive in the markets. right? Because the S&P is trading like 23 times forward earnings, and that's why you're getting a lot of people who are comparing this to the tech bubble, because it is historically higher than it is on average.

So we're still nowhere near the valuations we're at the tech bubble. People are saying it's starting to look like that. But it really is tech. Like 75% of the S&P returns since Chachibu is introduced is all from AI related companies. Like that is where everybody is focusing. But the rest of the market is not as expensive. So I think it's just a reason why you want to make sure you're broadened out. because let's say that that does pull back. Maybe it is getting frothy. It doesn't mean the entire markets are going to go down with that. So I don't think it's over yet, but absolutely look at these other areas because if it does pull back, you want to make sure you're insulated. We haven't even, I mean, six and a half minutes in, nobody has mentioned the potential

of a government shutdown and the impact of that. I want to get the latest because it is looming. Emily Wilkins is in D.C. with the very latest force. We'll come back to the conversation in just a moment. Hey, Scott. Well, yeah, right now we are speeding towards a government shutdown. It doesn't seem to be any way to pump the brakes at this point. But here is what we are expecting. A little later this afternoon, they are going to take that vote again on keeping current funding,

keeping that going until November 21st. But that vote, again, you need that 60 vote threshold. You need Democrats to come along. We're not seeing it at this point, and that is expected to fail. So then Republican Senate leaders, basically what they're planning to do is to keep on holding votes to temporarily fund the government again and again. So today, tomorrow, not Yom Kippur, but then back again on Friday into the weekend.

The idea is that some of these votes are going to be really difficult for Democrats to take, and therefore it's going to add on the pressure for them whether or not they want to keep voting to not fund the government. Now, Senate Majority Leader John Thune just spoke to reporters, and he reiterated that they are open to working

on those Affordable Care Act tax credits that Democrats have been asking for, but only after the government is temporarily funded. I've said it yesterday at the meeting in the White House. I've said it to my Democrat colleagues. We're happy to sit down and talk about these other issues that they're interested in, but it should not have anything to do

with whether or not for a seven-week period we keep the federal government open. We're also getting a better idea right now of what a shutdown is going to mean. Congressional Budget Office is out with a new estimate that 750,000 federal employees would be furloughed in the event of a shutdown. Now, it's not clear exactly how many of those would wind up being laid off. But, of course, Trump again reiterating that there will be layoffs if a shutdown occurs.

The CBO also going on to say that they expect that if a government shutdown persisted for several weeks, that some private sector entities would never recover all of the income they lost as a result of the suspension of federal activity. Remember, federal employees do get back pay, but federal contractors, that's not necessarily the case. Now, Schumer is chatting right now with reporters coming out of a two-hour meeting with Republicans. He is also sort of digging down at this point that they're going to need to see something on health care holding firm on that. And right now, guys, it's not really clear exactly how we get out of this shutdown. There's a lot of questions about how long this could last because at this point, it seems like we,

are going to be headed into one, and the question is, of course, are Republicans going to give Democrats something that they want, or Democrats eventually going to feel the pressure and wind up giving the Republicans the votes they need to at least temporarily keep the government open? Scott? All right. A good synopsis. Emily, thank you. Emily Wilkins on the Hill for us. Mark has seen this before and says to itself, I'm not going to get all worked up about it because it usually works itself out. Is this time different? So the three bare cases that come up, one we talked about a second ago, hyperscale or capax timing it.

The second is we run at a massive deficit, wartime deficit for a decade if we ever decide not to, you know, how would that impact companies? And all of us have learned that we've got to ignore that. Or if we positioned for it in the past, we just prevented ourselves from making money. So I think the lazy answer to your question is, yeah, we ignore it. We ignore it and we just worry, we wait and see if a real company tells us this is a problem. But the interim, how do I change my positioning for something that ultimately has to solve itself? one way or the other. Probably it's annoying at TSA at LaGuardia this weekend, or there's going to be some side effects, but I don't know if it's going to make stocks get killed. You might not get a

CPI, you might not get a jobs report. We still have a Fed meeting looming, but the market... Shouldn't change the outcome. But that's the key. That's what people said, sorry. No outcome is suggested to be changed other than the political bickering that the market's already used to anyway. Is that why there's basically no reaction in the stock market? Yeah, pretty much. We had a little bit of weakness early on before. You've got certain sectors selling off right now. Financials are taking it at the low end right now, which is a big buying opportunity as far as we're concerned. But to Adam's point, you ignore the event, but you actually take action on what's happening in the capital markets because of it. And if you do have something that does last a little bit more than people want,

they'll start to run the numbers like we all do and say how much does this impact to the overall economy and what we've seen before. I would say this, though, what's interesting this time around is We did have a comment that talked about some equity valuation about a week ago that is equivalent to what happened in 1996. What are you talking about from the Fed chair when he was speaking in Rhode Island? Right. I mean, look, he was asked a question about the equity market. He said they're fairly highly valued or however he answered. He didn't go out of his way to offer it, but he answered the question.

Some suggested it was his irrational exuberance moment. That's where I was going to. And I was going that that's see another headline taking. things a little bit too far and then overreaction to it. And then that becomes an opportunity. In 1995, when we shut down in November and December, you know, I think it was five days and then 21 days. And then 12 months later, we had a pretty powerful move. And it was also the middle stages of the building of the Internet. So there's a lot of things that rhyme right now, but ignore the event, but take action on it. I thought something that you said earlier was interesting

where you say, well, when you've, looking back in 95 years of the markets, when you've, when you've done as well as this, you do fine in the fourth quarter, you have lower volatility. And when you said lower volatility, I'm like, huh, I don't know. What about this time? Really? I mean, you've got inflation still has to be tame. You've got other issues on the table that maybe it's not as sanguine as people expected to be, and it could be a little more choppy. For sure, it could be. I was just measuring history, just saying, hey, the 39 times we were up in the first three quarters of the year, the subsequent three months were up more than average with lower vol. Look, I think the bare case we talked to, is it hyper-scale cap-ex? I don't think it's

a problem yet. I think there's some consensus here that the government shut down for now isn't a problem. The third thing, which I think is even longer term, is AI so awesome. You just get unemployment that's a problem. I hear that in my meetings too, and I'm pretty dismissive that also. I actually asked ChatGBT, what I thought of that, and it had a perfect answer, which was, you know, generally you just redeploy people to different jobs. They told you your finish. Yeah, that would be, that would be, you know, I'll listen to it if it does. If it says that.

But that is a key, redeployed versus replace. Yeah. Yeah, so I think the answer for the biggest couple hundred companies is margins are likely to go up. Productivity is still in front of us. I think the broadening court's talking about is going to be more companies in 26 and 27 saying they're benefiting on the margin side because they don't have to hire at the rate they used to. And so the bulk case for equities, the two strongest pillars are, distribution of Fed, doveish, margins going up for a lot of companies because of productivity. And it's really hard, even if everyone loves it, to disagree at the current moment. Good quarter for many of the mega caps, not all, but many.

And we mentioned the top of the program today, Invidia, hitting a major milestone today, $4.5 trillion in market cap. It's the first company to ever reach those heights. Steve Kovac joining us now with what could be next, not only for that name, but for these other hyperscalers, which, as I said, performed reasonably well, most. Yeah, for the most part, Scott, is a really great quarter for all these names. But let's start with NVIDIA. That's the darling, of course. Over this last quarter, we just saw so much activity, even in just the past couple weeks, investing $5 billion in Intel and $100 billion into Open AI, also spending $900 million to hire the CEO of AI chip company in Fabrica and licensed its technology, and just so many more. I don't have time to tell you everything they've been up to this quarter. And it's at the center of just about every AI deal we talk about, whether as an investor, a direct beneficiary, or in many cases, both of those. And the result, it's the first company, like you said, to reach that

$4.5 trillion market cap today. And it's up about 17 percent or so quarter today. Actually, even more, 23. And now let's go over to Apple here. It's iPhone 17 lineup is showing a surprisingly strong demand. And we also saw this quarter CEO Tim Cook appeasing Trump with the promise of more U.S. investments to get some tariff relief. And shares, they are finally in the green scot after being down double-digit percentage points, much of the year and lagging its big tech peers. And then Oracle, just a huge quarter for them as well. There's that Stargate deal with Open AI. The first data center in Texas is on the cusp of opening. Also, an ownership stake in the TikTok deal announced last week. It is up about 27 percent

so far this quarter. And then Alphabet just got a huge reprieve with that DOJ antitrust punishment, largely resulting in the status quo, no-for spin-offs of Chrome or Android and search deals. And soon, intelligence deals will remain intact. It's up about 37% for the quarter. And then Microsoft announced it's on pace to spend $100 billion on AI capital expenditures over the fiscal year, kind of lagging behind the others. It's only up about 4% so far this quarter. And then the two worst performers, both slightly negative quarter to date. You got Amazon, actually now it's flat. It announced a slew of new artificial intelligence devices today for its Alexa Plus service. and then meta, which was on a tear for the beginning of the year, down just a hair so far this

quarter. New AI glasses launched the other day, plus that AI hiring spree over the summer and promises to spend tens of billions of dollars each quarter on all that AI infrastructure, Scott. All right, Steve, thank you, Steve Kovac. Good from you there. Thank you for that. Court, do we really think that investors are going to get off that trade and think of other areas in this market where they may be decide there are better returns to be had over the final stretch here. I mean, investor behavior is probably that they're going to keep going into that trade. You get this fear of missing out, and especially if the Fed continues to cut interest rates. There is a lot of money that is sitting in cash right now, which people are going to start

to rethink. And that's happening on both the institutional and the retail level, where they're going to start to need to redeploy that. So where should they be deploying their money versus where are they going to, is the question. And I think you are going to see a lot of that money continue to go into your technology firms and your Bitcoins and you're like higher risk assets. But I do want to caution investors don't have too much your money concentrated there because when it turns, it can turn quickly. So I don't think that trades over, but I also don't think it negates the fact that you should be broadening out. NASDAX up 5% in a month. I mean, you know, there was a sort of a moment of slumber for some of those names and then they woke

right back up. Maybe this quarter you're going to get reminded why. What I'm worried about a little bit. You know, we do a lot of risk work for people at Trivarit. And when I see their portfolios, they own stuff that's not in tech that's still really correlated to AI semis. I mean, it's obvious with power, with Consolation Vistur G. Vernova. But it's actually Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, KKR, Blackstone, Apollo that are kind of a little bit of an AI trade, eaten in some of the industrial. So I think the problem is the way a lot of long-only money gets run is, and those bubble up to the PM's the top idea, and yet they're all really correlated. So when you do get a sell off, it won't just be in Nvidia, it'll be in things across multiple sectors.

So we're trying to find things, you know, just on the margin that, you know, are up this year that aren't at all correlated to the AI trade. There's some specific stuff in, in health care, in, you know, stuff we've been recommending like drug distribution, some stuff in defense, just try to find some names that aren't just the trade, just in case we do get a bit of a reset, even if it is higher ultimately, you know, if we get that typical curve. So I think investors are trying to figure that out because the biggest risk are just everything's correlated, you know. Yeah, I know Adam's done some great work around that, and I was going to mention that before, just in general, how you think about it, because the knee jerk reaction is to let me own something that could insulate me from my overexposure in one area.

And then the other knee jerk jerk reaction is to ask someone, well, are they going to continue to buy this mega growth area? The short-term momentum, systematic funds will likely do that. In terms of private clients, they have a hard time capturing gains if they can't match it up against losses. So you hold on to that. And then as you're building a portfolio from there, you know, what we try to do, Scott, and this is an overuse phrase, but you have to diversify to where the value is too. It could be overseas in some cases. But building dividend equity portfolios right now that offer you some good yield as cash rates come down,

as well as earnings growth coming through and free cash flow, that's kind of an insulation. We'll leave it there. Chris, Courtney, Adam, thank you so much. We'll see all of you again. We have breaking news on the housing front now. Diana Olock with the details. Hey, Dai. Hey, Sky. Yeah, the Federal Trade Commission just announced it is suing Zillow and Redfin over what it alleges is an unlawful agreement that eliminates Redfin as a competitor in the market for advertising rental homes on Internet listing services. That's ILSS. That's like the MLS for rentals as opposed for home buying. The website's renters used to find listings. Now, Redfin and Zillow operate two of the largest rental ILS networks by traffic and revenue,

including sites like Zillow Rentals, Rentacom, and Apartmentguide.com. The complaint alleges that in February of this year, Zillow and Repfin entered into an illegal agreement to dismantle Redfin as a competitor in the ILS advertising market for multifamily rental properties In exchange for a $100 million payment, it alleges, and other compensation from Zillow, the complaint says Redfin agreed to end its contracts with advertising customers and help Zillow take over that business. Now, I've reached out to Redfin's CEO, Glenn Kelman, as well as to Zillow. Zillow stock is down 4% on this. So far, no comment from the two of those.

But, Scott, you may remember earlier this year that the FTC went out for apartment landlords, alleging that they were using different motives to keep pricing in a certain level, and that that was, they actually went after Grey Star earlier this year for that. So you can see that they're looking on the payment side, as well as on the advertising side for all rental housing. All right, Diana, thanks for the update there, Diana Oleg with very important information in housing. We're seeing some big moves today, speaking of important moves in pharma, to some news out of the White House, and that's what's driven it. Angelica Peebles has the latest for us.

What do we know? Hey, Scott. Well, Pfizer's announcing a deal with the Trump administration that would lower the price of some drugs and exempt Pfizer from tariffs on pharmaceuticals for the next three years. So Pfizer will make most of its drugs available to Medicaid at prices that are closer to what other developed countries pay. And it will sell some of its medicines on its new direct-to-consumer website called Trump RX. And the president at an event earlier today praising the deal is transformative. But it's not immediately clear how much impact it will really have for Pfizer. So Medicaid already gets the lowest price. around, and the drugs of Pfizer will sell directly to consumers at that discounted rate are older drugs that aren't even broken out in the company's earnings results. Now, Pfizer's CEO Albert Borla, saying the deal gives the company certainty and that it removes two overhangs on the stock, the threat of drug pricing reform and tariffs. Like you said, you can see that stock up about 7% today. Now, Trump is teasing another deal on the horizon, the White House telling R. Amin Javers

that that company is Eli Lilly. Lillian in a statement saying that it's in active discussions with the administration. It doesn't have specific details, but it looks forward to providing an update in collaboration with the administration soon. So another one to keep an eye on, Scott. Okay. Thank you very much for that. Angelica Peebles, we'll talk to you again soon. We're just getting started here up next, NVIDIA, as we told you, a major market milestone today as a debate over an AI bubble takes center stage. First Mark's Rick Heitzman, he's here, to weigh in on that much more.

We're live with the New York Stock Exchange. You're watching Closing Bell on CNBC. Welcome back. One of the key questions following the massive run in AI stocks is whether there's a bubble in that space, one that might not burst today or tomorrow, but sometime in the not too distant future. With Nvidia becoming the first company

to hit $4.5 trillion in market cap today, Those questions will only persist. Let's bring in First Mark Capital founder and partner Rick Heitzman to hopefully provide us some answers. Good to see you. Hey, great team again. So a lot of people are asking that question, and maybe some are sick and tired of it being asked and having to talk about it. But do you see any similarities to what's happening now, to what happened then? What do you think generally?

What happened then being the dot-com bubble and how that inflated. Only then that's relevant to now, right? I think it's the most common one. I mean, you go back to the railroads is the other one that people have. of use as an analogy where you just couldn't stop the CAP-X. And there were several people who just wouldn't stop investing. I think the difference here, which would affect the timing of that bubble, is largely this capital is being coming from earnings, right?

So the hyper-scalers, the Googles, the metas are generally enough earnings to continuing doubling down, and they're not relying on the capital markets for that money the way that the telecom infrastructure and internet infrastructure guys did 25 years ago. So the CAP-X is the key. Yes. Is that how we as investors should focus on what's happening and when to determine that, okay, things have gotten the first blip of a pullback and spend? I mean, that's going to be too late.

It'll be too late. You'll always over-invest. Like, CAP-X, you don't know until it's way too late. You've already made commitments. You have a lot of money in the ground that you're expecting medium-term ROI. And by the time they see that ROI is not coming. There are trillions of dollars of bad spend behind them. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg sort of alluded to that.

I think it was last week, you know, in the if. It's like if we end up spending all this money and it doesn't pan out, well, that's going to stink. I don't think it's going to get to that point. But, I mean, it's always out there as the principal risk in this whole story. No, I think there is going to be a point where either the bubble pops or just deflates, where it's going to be very clear a lot of people. people spent way too much money on way too much infrastructure, and it'll take time to grow into it. But timing is everything. So when does that happen? And it doesn't seem like it's happening

anytime soon. The announcements that we've gotten recently from Nvidia and Open and some of these other companies have obviously been astounding, right? The numbers keep getting larger. To the point where some who watch the space are even pulling back their view on where they thought we were. I want you to listen to what Gene Munster told me the other day and we can react to it on the other side. A few months ago, I thought we're in the third inning of the AI build out, the AI trade. Now, I think we're in the second inning. And that's based on what we've heard from the big CapEx, the big spenders, hyperscalers after the June quarter. I think there still is a massive amount of investment. I think that investment will lead to these valuations going

higher. Gene knows the tech landscape as well as anybody. And you go from, well, I think we're in the third. No, now I guess we're in the second. And then tomorrow someone's going to turn around and say, we're just getting started. We're just up to bat for the first time. I think that that's an over-exaggeration. I think in terms of spend, we probably are in the third inning because you have to build out that infrastructure in hopes that both revenue and profits will come and you're going to get a return on investment on that infrastructure. And people are making commitments long-term, decades-long commitments to quarter weave and some of the infrastructure and even energy providers. But I still think you're starting to see some of those ROI's come.

I mean, you're seeing significant ROI on some of the coding applications, both co-pilot as well as the independent folks. And you're starting to see AI work. And you're seeing an inter-to-day-day life through use of chat-GPT. You're seeing it in chatbots as you interact with enterprises. So the working only fuels more and more spent. How is an incredibly successful venture capitalist looking at what's happening in the private market? So if you say that OpenAI's valuation in the private market is $500 billion, right?

And climbing. It could be bigger than that next week. Yes. Literally the way all this is going. And Anthropic has its own at 183 and XAI at some $200 billion. Now, who knows when any of these companies are going to go public? that, you know, is Open AI going to go public at a trillion-dollar valuation? I don't even think that's ridiculous to ask the question.

How do you assess whether there's a bubble in the private market? So I think if Open AI would public at a trillion-dollar market cap tomorrow, it'd be wildly oversubscribed. I think that everybody has kind of bought into this. This is going to be a fundamental company, and a couple of the companies you mentioned will be fundamental companies. So when do you know when to stop? So the private markets are even less fluid, less liquid, with a lot less information.

You know, you're seeing, though, incredible financial metrics. The Anthropic has been upping their projections every quarter. They're blowing through their projections. You're seeing some of those same dynamics in some of our companies, both on the consumer and Internet, consumer and enterprise AI sides. So as these companies continue to beat their numbers, it only fuels more and more people saying, hey, how far could this go with, you know, the bull saying this could go on for a long time. So speaking of your companies, Stubhub, you were an investor a couple decades ago?

A couple decades ago. First investor, not a current investor, but yes, no one loved the company. Okay. So the recent IPOs that have come to market have had, I'm not going to say they're one-day wonders, but they've had a lot of action on the first day. Yes. And maybe not so much on the second, third, and fourth. figuratively, not so much, literally. Goldman today had an interesting note. The average IPO returned 30% on its first day of trading. This return has only been exceeded in 1999, in 2000, in 2013, excuse me, and 2020.

72% of the 46 U.S. IPOs have delivered positive first-day returns. Make anything of that? I mean, what do you think about it? What does it mean for the other companies that may go public before this year's over? I think it's a little selective. So obviously the best companies go out first, where there is pent-up demand for them. So there's both pent-up demand for IPOs on the whole after going through, as we've talked about, an ICE age over the last three years. So there was pent-up demand for IPOs, and there was pent-up demand for specific names, what we saw in Figma, what we saw in CoreWeaf, what we've seen in some of the best performers.

And so that's going to all play itself out over the first day or so. Those companies will pop more. But as you're seeing the, you know, as the IPO market opens and there's a greater diversity of assets to buy, you're seeing those pops decrease. Quality of the companies is a little bit less. There's more opportunity to buy a range of companies. So I think that is a very selective piece of the opening of an IPO market. And as more companies are public, there's more diversification, there's more opportunities for buyers to buy. I think you're going to move back into a normalized IPO environment.

Are you feeling like you need to strike while the iron's hot, so to speak, with some of your own companies and push them into the public market maybe sooner than you thought because of the current environment? I think we are preparing a lot of companies to go public. We have a couple of companies that are either in registration or getting ready to go into registration. Those are companies that we thought were ready to go public last year, and the market just wasn't open. So there's a delayedness of getting those companies into the market.

But we feel good about the market, and we think for the best companies, that market will always be open. It will at least be open into 26. So we're hurrying, but not rushing. Yeah, okay. Great to get your insight, as always. Rick, thanks. Rick Heitzman of First Mark. Speaking of recent IPOs up next, details behind the deal that is sending CoreWeev shares surging.

Rick was just mentioning that name. We'll tell you what's behind a near 12% move next. Coming up next, top rank, financial advice. Richard Saperstein. He tells us how he is advising his clients right now as we wrap up this quarter and head to the final one of the year. He'll join us post nine next. Welcome back. What's the best strategy for your portfolio as we head into the end of the year? Well, who better to ask than one of this country's top-rated financial advisors? Richard Saperstein is that person.

He's with Treasury partners. He joins us now. It's good to see again. Likewise. So we're like 42 minutes in. Not a single person on the show today said they're worried about anything. The consensus was stocks are going hot. between now and the end of the year. Is that a justified feeling? Well, by all means, the equity

market is overvalued, whether it's on 25 earnings, 26 earnings, or even 27 earnings. However, however, we're still fully invested. And I think investors have to recognize that we're up 115% in five years. Maybe their asset allocations are tilted too much to equity. So here's a position where you might trim equity and move it into fixed things. or you might take highly valued stocks that have appreciated, donate it to a donor advised funds. There are things you could do now to reduce your exposure. Well, I mean, I had some, I think it was Jeffrey Gunlock said, hey, 25% in gold. Gold's going up.

Now, I know that may be a large number to somebody like you, but the point being that you should be loading up in areas other than equities, perhaps because the reasons that you said, valuations are rich by historical standards. How do you assess that? How do you assess that? We're loading up on high-grade, long-term municipal bonds. We've been doing that. Still. Still. But within the stock market, there are great theses you can have and still have an excellent

stock portfolio. So it isn't as if you've got to exit stocks across the board, first look at the asset allocation and then find the sectors you want to be in. But you say you should rotate out of small and mid-cap stocks when some people are just saying to themselves, hey, now's the time to finally lean in. Disagree. say get out. Right. Why? Because there's been a sea change in the market cap structure. First of all, companies are waiting a lot longer as private companies before they go public. And when they go

public, they're jumping right over smid and right into large cap. Secondly, most smids are funded through floating rate debt. And so the argument now is, well, if the Fed cuts, rates are going to go down, their cost of capital will go down. I don't want to buy companies based on cost of capital. Finally, with the advent of ETFs, most investor money might go into SPY, and 40% of that is large-cap tech. So, that's where I want to be. So you still see the large-cap-tech trade as outperforming the rest of the market over the remainder this year?

For decades. And here's why we've gone... You mean for decades to come? Yeah, we've gone from the PC to the Internet, cellular, mobility. cloud and now we're in AI. These are evolutionary changes. And most investors are underweight these sectors and are not taking advantage of this type of growth. Sure, the stocks are very expensive and they'll pull back, but it's a great time to add for the long term. So you don't, when people talk about a bubble in this area, you don't pay any attention

to that? Well, naturally what was going on with NVIDIA. and the circular nature of the Oracle AI deal at first glance could look like the start of a bubble. But if you're running NVIDIA and you've got 400 billion of operating cash flow in the next four years, and you're going to reinvest in the sector you know best, which is feed your little seedlings around the country and further your business. Outside of tech, in the equity market, what's your favorite area? independent power producers, Vistra, and NRG still. Yeah.

But, I mean, that's the AI story. It is. A lot of our investments are circular around the core AI story. We also own banks, so we think the banks in a recovering economy are going to do very well and look at what's, you know, J.P. Morgan, Bank America, Wells Fargo. You don't think there's a bubble in any of the utility place? Like, these are the new growth stocks. You know what I'm saying?

Like people are treating them like the hyperscalers or big tech growth names that they would invest in before. Boring old utilities, which used to be a safety play, a proxy on yields. Now we're literally treating them like they are the new growth stocks. Let's separate between the regulated and the independent power producers. The two IPPs that I own, Vestra and NRG, have operating cash flows of 9% and 10%. Now, they're reinvesting back in their business and they're expanding their capacity. So also, they're managing their balance sheet. Vistra has retired 30% of their float since I bought it originally in 2021.

It's up 10 times since I bought it, still adding to it. But don't you think at some point the whole process power generation is going to become more efficient and you're not going to need the amount that you think you do today? day, and then that's going to be the comeuppance for these stocks? Definitely. That's the tail risk event. More efficient usage of electricity, but then we have the electrification of the world, whether it's cars, homes, appliances. So power demand is only increasing. So, again, I've owned stocks for 5, 10, 15, 20 years. These are some names that I think there's a secular opportunity based on increasing demand for power over time.

All right, we've got to run. It's good to talk to you, as always. Richard Saperstein. Thanks. My pleasure. All right. Up next, we track the biggest movers as we headed to the close today. Simomodi is standing by with that. It's nice to see you. Nice to be back, Scott. And yes, a major leadership change at Spotify. We have more details and how that stock is trading when closing bell returns. We're less than 10 from the bell. We go back now to Sima Modi for the stocks that she's watching. What's at the top of your list? Top of the list is Instacart, also known as Maple Bear. Scott, lower today on a downgrade from BTIG from buy to neutral.

Analysts there are warning of intensifying competition as Amazon, DoorDash, Uber, expand deeper into the grocery delivery category. That stock now pacing for its fourth straight negative session down about 3.6% at this moment. Meantime, Spotify dropping today on news that CEO and founder Daniel Eck will step down and that the company's co-presidents will take over as co-CEOs. Eck founded the streaming platform in 2006 and will move to the world. role of executive chairman in January. Spotify pacing for its worst day since late July on that news. The market not liking that. And finally, Firefly Aerospace tanking after its Alpha Flight 7 rocket exploded during a test flight at its Texas facility. Firefly's debut on the NASDAQ. Remember that

last month, saw strong demand. But since then, shares have pulled back to more than 50 percent, Scott, one to watch. All right, Seema. Thanks so much. Seema Modi. Up next, we'll tell you what to watch for. when Nike reports in OT, that and much more in the zone, which is next. We're now in the closing bell market zone. CNBC senior markets commentator, Mike Santola, here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus, McKenzie Sagalos tracking what's sending CoreWeave shares surgery today. And Melissa Repco standing by with what to watch for from Nike when it reports in OT. Mack, we start with you and CoreWeave.

Scott, Corweave shares jumped as much as 13% after announcing a $14.2 billion AI cloud infrastructure deal with META. The company is in the midst of a deal-making spree as big tech and AI startups race to lock in the compute power needed to train and run those large models. Today's agreement further solidifies Corweef's position in that AI infrastructure boom, coming just days after it expanded a separate deal with OpenAI to more than $22 billion. dollars. Corwee, which is one of those so-called neocloud players, says the meta deal includes options to expand capacity through 2032. That timeline lines up with Mark Zuckerberg's plan

to bring meta's AI super clusters online. Those are its massive data centers built to power the next generation of AI models. Meta is spending tens of billions of dollars to build out that infrastructure. Those shares, Scott, trading lower today. All right, McKenzie, thank you very much. Mackenzie Segalith. Now to Melissa Repco on what to from Nike in overtime. Thanks, Scott. The Wall Street expects Nike to report a drop in quarterly sales today, but investors will be listening for signs the company is making progress with its turnaround.

The sneaker giant faces three major challenges, differ competition with brands like Hoka and On, cost pressures from tariffs and choppy consumer demand. In late June, Nike said high tariffs would add up to about a billion dollars at cost for the fiscal year. That's offset with price hikes across a wide range of items and changes to Nike's supply chain. But CFO Matt Friend said in June that Nike expects sales and profit declines to moderate in the coming quarters. He said it will keep investing in the business.

One promising area for Nike could be its new active wear line with Kim Kardashian's brand skims. That launched late last week, and Nike may give an early read on how that launch is going, Scott. Well, thank you. I was doing this because snowflakes here ringing the bell, and it's a little last. so I couldn't hear Melissa when she finished her report on Nike, but we'll see those numbers in overtime. All right, Mike Santoli. So the Dow is right now ahead of record closed territory. We need to get above 46,381, and we are currently there. It's worth noting that every sector in the quarter green but staples, your thoughts. Yeah, and just on a one-day basis, Scott, I mean, the market

did have several opportunities or excuses to really back off in a bigger way. There was definitely, I think, some quarter-end kind of noisy rebalancing stuff, like kind of leaning on the tape for a while. The majority of stocks are down all day. Financial is weak. Consumer cyclicals can't get out of their own way. Software was for sale. And in general, you have Viti up 2.5% and the rest of the market kind of was let up from underwater after a little while. So all that is in line. I do think you have to at least be aware that you can't always count on the market being rescued in a short-term basis. Big picture. Everyone's very comfortable with the premise for what got us here, as I keep saying, which is the Fed's going to lean lower in rates. The economy seems okay.

Even if the labor numbers gave a little bit of pause today, jolts and then the consumer confidence numbers. So I think you have to be aware that everyone's wanting a soft patch to get the Fed friendly, but they don't really want anything to get into the way of this re-acceleration thesis going into next year for the overall economy and earning. So it's a delicate balance. So far, it's breaking in the Bulls' favor. Thank you. Bell rings as a record close to the Dow Jones Industrial average on this final trading day of the month and the quarter, the S&T, right there, but not going to get it today. That doesn't for us into overtime.