Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Debating the Market’s Next Move 8/28/25

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Where does the market go from here – following the Nvidia clearing event? We discuss with Ed Yardeni from Yardeni Research and JP Morgan Asset Management’s Gabriela Santos. Plus, star analyst Stacy Rasgon gives us his first take on Nvidia’s earnings report – and the stock’s lackluster response. And, retailing legend Mickey Drexler gives us a pulse check on the consumer space. 

Brian, thanks so much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wobner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker breakout begins with the day after. So what is the biggest takeaway from Nvidia's earnings report? We'll ask super analyst Stacey Raskon when he joins us with his first reaction to that print. That's coming up in just a little bit. In the meantime, here's the scorecard with 60 to go in regulation.

Invidia, not given the majors, a ton of lift today. They're doing okay on their own, even with Nvidia down just a smidge. We're going to get a record high. We're right there on the S&P again, tracking one for the Dow as well. So we'll watch all that closely. Broadcom, Micron, AMD, getting a boost. Apple shares are higher today along with Meta and Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet. Elsewhere, CrowdStrike is shaking off a post-earning slide and reversing higher this hour.

We'll continue to watch that name. There it is, up near 4%. How about Snowflake? New high for that stock, too, to say the least. Up more than 20% after its own. earnings. It does take us to our talk of the tape. Where does this market go from here following the NVIDIA clearing event? Let's ask Ed Yardinney, the president of Yardini Research, and Gabriela Santos of JPMorgan asset management, both, as you see, very clearly, are with me

at Post-9. It's nice to see you both. All right, Ed, so we've gotten it all out of the way, right? We've got all the mega-caps, and now we got NVIDIA. What do you make of the way the market's now sort of reacting, digesting, and feeling? Well, it's feeling like a slowly. slow motion meltup, right? I mean, it just keeps going higher and higher, making new highs. And the earnings story has been great. I mean, in the first quarter, we had a much better beat than was expected. And the same thing happened in the second quarter, which is remarkable when you think about all the uncertainty, all the turmoil from tariffs, and yet earnings have been great. And so, you know, I've been talking about the roaring 2020s since 19, not since 19.

2020. It's 2020. We're making the comparison to the 1920s. And so far so good. I think the market is discounting a technology-led productivity boom and with better growth, inflation staying down, better profitability and real wages going up. And rate cuts. And possibly rate cuts. I don't know. I mean, it's not a done deal yet, right? I mean, it seems like everybody's anticipating it'll happen. Well, the market just don't break the markets hard at. I mean, because the market has moved on, thinking that this is a given. Yeah, the market loves Fed put. So if we could get a Fed put and maybe the economy really doesn't need it, I guess we'll get

a further meltup. But look, I think that the outlook is that we're in a bull market, a tremendous amount of buying power, lots of buying on the dips. And so I think it continues. I'm using $6,600 now by year end and $7,700 by the end of next year, and $10,000. by 2029, not 19, not, yeah, don't start talking about that. No, we don't want to go there. Yeah, Gabrielle, is this match up with how you think about things right now?

Yeah, we very much think for the rest of the year, next year, more all-time highs, normal upward climb of the market. I think what's been interesting from this summer has really been the rotation within the market. So clearly these mega-cap tech companies are doing very, very well, incredible earnings. is just the magnitude of the earnings beats have been decelerating. And so you're seeing a nice rotation within the AI theme to also include software infrastructure and, of course, to include physical infrastructure, including utilities, industrials. So it's already moved on to that new, new phase of the theme, which is really encouraging.

One of the things we ask ourselves about the fall is whether this other rotation, this one from tech to six, particles continues, and that's where we say, probably not. It's much more of a sugar rush than an actual protein boost like you're seeing elsewhere. Ed just went down the list of the menu, and it sounds like you're going to be eating a lot of protein in the months ahead. Why is it just a sugar rush? I think it makes sense to have a bounce off the lows, low expectations for the group, a lot of doom and gloom, especially in April. But if you think about it, Next year, we personally just expect a re-acceleration due to tax rebates from the fiscal bill, but then a deceleration again to settle around normal growth patterns.

If you think about Fed cuts, we think they're very gradual and just getting back to normal from four to three. And then lastly, if you think about a lot of these cyclical sectors, consumer discretionary, small gaps, autos, still very vulnerable to margin pressure from tariffs. That story we don't think has completely played out yet. How about that? Well, look, I think that the resilience of the economy has been a big surprise to most people. In turn, that's been confirmed by the resilience and better than expected earnings we've got. So I'm actually scratching my head a little bit of wondering why these profit marchers are holding up so well.

And the only answer I can come up with is the productivity numbers might actually be stronger than expected. And we could have upward revisions in that area. We just had real GDP in the second quarter revised up from 3 to 3.3%. But on all, I'm thinking that the market is clearly rotating, as Gabriela said. And I think that we're saying also rotation into the midcaps, small and midcaps. And the earnings have been very disappointing there. But I think that to the extent that we've been recommending overweighing information technology communications, industrials, and financials, and all of those who worked very well in the large

camp area, we would start rotating into some of the midcaps and small caps in those four sectors. What, if anything, is the outlying concern that you have? Because the story can't just be all meat, nice-looking steak, and lobster, and all the protein that you consider that we're going to be eating and enjoying. Well, I like your analogy. I like your analogy of protein. Protein does kind of make you leaner and meaner and allows you to run a longer race. And I'm thinking we may not have a recession this decade. It doesn't come with a money-back guarantee, but the resilience of the economy in the face of a pandemic,

supply disruption, inflation, the Fed tightening, tariffs has been extraordinarily amazing, really. And I think we're just going to continue to be surprised by how the economy. economy continues to grow. I'm not quite sure what's going to trip it up. It could be something on the geopolitical realm, but, you know, I think that's getting to be sort of a tired concern. Are we that early mid-cycle, as Ed obviously suggests we are? I think when you think about this economy, it certainly has become less cyclical. It's become less interest rate sensitive. The expansions are getting longer. So we could say mid-cycle, but that could still mean quite a few years ahead

until you get that next eventual recession. To the question around the risks, Ed mentioned 2029, we do think also 10 years ahead. And one of the hugely positive themes for equities is AI adoption, productivity boost. But there are also two other important themes, economic nationalism and fiscal activism, that are in a way playing off of each other

and coming to a certain contrast. And that's where we see risks more around inflation uncertainty, positive stock bond correlations, more volatility on rates, and a weaker dollar. I think the bond market is an area where there should be concern, and yet the bond market is acting remarkably calm about everything going on here between the administration kind of angling to control the Fed. I mean, the longer end was moving a little bit higher as that conversation was percolating. Yeah, well, the 10 years down to 4.21% or something like that.

I mean, I'm amazed it hasn't gone up at all very much at all. And meanwhile, the body of the Japan is going up. We're seeing a debt crisis in France. We're seeing an economic crisis in the UK. So there are pockets of concerns around the world. But the U.S. seems to be back to its exceptionalism. Why aren't there more reactions in the market, if there should be? I'm asking you, I suppose, to what feels like a changing relationship between government and business,

whether investors now need to think about the variable of government, taking stakes, taking chunks, taking profits, in certain instances, and how that impacts the investment thesis around companies in the years ahead, around specific sectors that people are speculating on could be next. Government does a contract with X, Y, Z, ticker symbol, and says, we want a piece or no deal. I mean, is that a thing? Should we be thinking about it? Yeah, we've been thinking about this. You could put it in either the economic nationalism or fiscal activism bucket, really this idea that you have a rise of industrial policy.

Change in industrial policy. It would make the argument. Because before the government was here in the U.S. And in Europe was taking more of a backseat. You really had to hold laissez-faire era, let businesses do their thing. And now you're starting to see governments put their thumb on the scale around national security areas. semiconductors, renewable energy, critical minerals.

Maybe defense, who knows. Defense. And then you start adding more. And that creates, actually, quite a big cycle of fiscal spending, meeting a lot of private spending as well. So really, I think this next decade is really that combination of public private capital. And we like to think about that as a headwind, perhaps, to inflation uncertainty and bond uncertainty, but a tailwind for things like private equity, private credit, infrastructure,

maybe even real estate, as you get a big cap-ax capital boom. How do you address that? I think it's just early in this whole change towards more government intervention in the economy by directly owning stakes in the shares that seem to need help, but maybe that the government just wants to make sure that they have some say over. But for now, investors are looking at it and saying that it's hard to predict how this actually impacts earnings and profit. margins. Does it make you uncomfortable at all? It makes me very uncomfortable. I much prefer

free market capitalism to industrial policies any day. Are we reinventing the definitions traditionally of what we think free market capitalism means in this country? Well, I think it's arguably, it hasn't been completely free all the time. There's obviously been a lot of government regulation, but ironically, the Trump administration promised to reduce regulation, which So it's not like they really want the markets to be freer. And then on the other hand, they're going and sort of strong-arming these companies to give them a stake in their businesses. And I don't really like that, but it is what it is in the stock market for now is ignoring it.

If there's an area that seems to be taking or is assuming the best outcomes from deregulation, financials have been trading at a record high, right? As a result, do you like those because of that reason? Part of the thesis that financials actually have some protein behind them, even though they are geared to the economy, they are cyclical. That's an exception where we do think you're past that rising wave of regulation post-financial crisis and you're clearly on the other side and tangibly, right? So changes in the supplementary leverage ratio could free up a lot more capital.

You could see banks return to corporate lending. again. That's something tangible, real that's already being monetized rather than a general conversation about deregulation. If I said to you, Kay, last four months of the year, is the S&P going to outperform or is the equal weight, right? Are we going cap weight? Are we thinking about large-cap stocks leading the way between here and the end of the year, or do we really have a broadening out where we're doing finally? I'll pick door number two. Yeah? Yeah, I think the equal weight is going to do better. Really?

Well, I think it's time. The S&P 493 have underperformed. That doesn't mean they haven't performed well. We've had a bold market across the board. It's just that compared to the performance of the magnificent seven, everything kind of looks pungy. But yeah, I think that all this AI, all these technologies, they're going to be used by the rest of the economy to increase productivity.

And you're going to see that in the overall problem. profit margins of the U.S. companies. But I mean, at some point, even if you look at NVIDIA and how amazing the company's doing, if you just look at their data center revenue growth, you know, it's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. But the growth rate slowing. Slowing. Yeah.

Doesn't that matter? Well, so, as Gabriella said, it does matter. And we may see an underperformance of the Magnificent Seven. And that rather than people, you know, taking profits out of them, and just going liquid, they're going to go to the rest of the market. I mean, basically, it's a valuation issue, right? I mean, the Magnificent Seven are selling it 30 times forward P.E. And the rest of the market is selling at 1920.

So the rest of the market is cheaper, and I think it's got plenty of earnings potential. You agree or disagree? Very much agree. So you're seeing decelerating earnings in the MAG-7, accelerating earnings in the 493. Modestly. Modestly, but direction of travel. matters and expectations, right?

And also valuation. And, of course, the valuation. I mean, it's not like all these mega-cap stocks are, like, crazy expensive. It's hard to make an argument that Nvidia is expensive, certainly not relative to its historical price-to-earnings ratio. I mean, you look at even some of the other names in that group, you know, in the alphabets of the world, those don't scream, hey, look at me, I'm like crazy priced. No, that's absolutely true.

But as we saw at the beginning of the year, when Deep Seek came up. out of nowhere. It doesn't take much to kind of scare people out of these mega cap names. But I think the mega cap names, particularly the ones that have the data centers, the ones that are in the cloud, I think they're going to continue to perform very well because as we process more data, more cheaply, we process more data. And so the data center, the cloud names are going to continue to do well. But yeah, I think we are likely to see a broadening in the market particularly if the Fed goes ahead and lowers interest rates, when I'm not convinced that we really need to lower interest rates.

Yeah, well, the need and whether they do, I guess there are two different conversations. We'll leave it there. Ed, thanks, Gabriela, thanks to you as well. Invidia shares are seeing a lackluster response to that earnings report. Of course, the stock rallied substantially over the last few months, so maybe a breather's to be expected. The question is what happens next? Let's ask Stacey Raskan with Bernstein, his first reaction here to that earnings.

Prince, good to see you, and I appreciate you doing this on our program. you bet you bet yeah the stocks you raise a target so you must be happy right you raised a price target yeah we took our target up we took our estimates up we rolled our valuation horizon forward a little bit i i think it's fine um the the quarter was was fine you may have like missed like sort of the the whisper numbers by a little bit but this was a bit of a transition quarter this is the quarter where china came off and this is the quarter where the gb 300 started to take over from the gb 200 And if you look at what's implied in the guidance, it implies, in my opinion, a very sharp acceleration in Vindivida's Blackwell sales into next quarter.

You're probably growing, I think Blackwell grew up 17% in Q2. I suspect it's probably growing 25 to 30% sequentially into Q3. And it's driving, that ramp is driving the bulk of the sequential growth of the company into next quarter, which was very strong. So I'm not too worried about it. It's just on an absolute basis was a little bit messy with China. everything else and the stock side. It's down a point.

It's not even very much. I think if you're sort of digging in, there was nothing really thesis changing one way the other bowl or bear this time. If you sort of clear away the China noise, it was actually reasonably quiet underneath the surface. Well, let me ask you more about the China noise because I feel like it's getting noisier in some respects around the issue of Blackwell. This idea that they're going to be able at some point to sell it there.

Number one, do you believe that? And number two, at what price? At what price? I don't mean literal price. I mean, the cost of doing business there is going to be what? If, in fact, they're even able to do it with Blackwell. What do you think? So right now, you know, the guidance and the court of the guidance don't include any sales into China,

either of Hopper or Blackwell. I actually suspect that the issues right now with them selling, at least Hopper into China, is not really from the U.S. government side. I think it's from the China side. there's been a fair amount of speculation about the Chinese government wanting to halt purchases of Nvidia parts I actually think that's probably true and that's what so maybe Jensen needs to get on another plane to Beijing in terms of Blackwell

like we'll see what the Trump administration has to say we'll see what China has to say where I keep coming back to this I'm very confident there there is demand for these parts in China whether they're Hopper or whether they're Blackwell I just don't think there is enough local capacity of locally sourced parts to support the local demand for AI. I think the customers want NVIDIA's parts. We'll see if NVIDIA's allowed to sell them or not, but I think the demand is there. You know, one of the issues that we've been kicking around today is the tremendous

concentration that exists for NVIDIA with its customer base. It's very small, highly reliant on a very, very, very select few, a very, very large buyers. I had Brad Gerser, on earlier from Altimeter. Invidius is his number two position. I asked him to question, and I want you to listen to his response, and then we can react on the other side, on the idea of is there too much concentration in the customer base?

It's kind of like saying the United States exports are dependent upon Europe, India, and Southeast Asia, right? The fact of the matter is these companies are as biggest countries. They are the biggest buyers in the world. They're the only ones with the balance sheet and the free cash flow. that can scale up compute at this level.

It's a huge national advantage. I don't view that as a problem. In fact, I view that as an asset. Do you? Look, I mean, he's right. Those are the companies with the money, right, first of all, as well as the business models that over time can help on it these investments. And they can, I mean, they can afford it, too.

I mean, I can't even remember what the operating cash flow of like the big four CSPs, but it's hundreds of billions of dollars a year. And they're spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year in CAP-X. And these companies, they're not idiots. They're not spending this money with no visibility like for a return or profitability. I think we're already starting to see adoption and returns on AI. And you have to remember also for some of these guys, it's also existential, right? The idea is if we don't continue to invest in this, the world is going this way. Like, we may be out of business if we don't. And so, I think they keep spending.

And the only thing we've seen so far this year is cap-ex budgets from these guys continue to march ever, ever higher. And again, I don't think that they're spending to no purpose. They all have a reason. But I'm not surprised that the concentration is there. Again, these, you know, Brad is right. Like, these are the companies with the money and with the business models to deploy the stuff. The other issue. Okay.

The other, I wonder, you know, how you feel about the government taking a piece of the pie from companies like this. Now, it's a different perspective. An investor may have a different perspective than somebody else. You're trying to model out what the numbers are going to be moving forward. And now I'm wondering in the back of your mind if you're having to work into your estimates on, well, okay, I think they're going to do this number. But then the government might take a piece of that. I want you to listen to what Gersner told me about that as well on what the shareholder base thinks about this. As a shareholder, of course, I don't want them to have to pay a 15% incremental tax to the government, right?

Like, who would want that? I think it's unconventional, but the fact of the matter is, this White House is doing deals around the world that are unconventional. They know some of them are going to work great. Some of them won't work as great. So that's how I would steal man it. I don't think that some big boogeyman or Jensen wouldn't have made the deal to begin with. What do you think? Yeah, look, so I think I've even said this on the, on.

the show like I'll take it like 85% is better than zero I don't have to like it and and I don't like it but but it is what it is I guess to what Brad said um we're also assuming also and by the I don't have to worry about it right now I have no china in my my numbers so I mean it's not really an issue right now but to the extent that that comes back you know I'd rather have them have 85% than nothing this is also making the assumption by the way that they can't like take up price in order to offset some of that so that's also a possibility as well it doesn't necessarily have to all go away. But I don't like the general precedence that it sets. I mean, for sure, I don't know where, I don't know what comes next. I don't know where

it ends. I don't really like these, what do you call it, unconventional, you know, methodologies by the administration. I don't like them. I don't have to like them. But that is the world that we're playing in right now. I mean, you got to sort of play the game by whatever the rules are. Trump administration is going to rewrite the rules. I mean, we'll have to deal with that as it comes. And just real quick, because I did mention that you raised your price target on the stock. I don't have the number in front of me. Would you go to 225? Is that what it was?

I remember? Yeah, we went to 225. Yeah, and numbers went out. We're halfway through the year. We're all year old valuation arising for it a little bit. So that's what it counts for. But we're at 225. Stace, we'll see you soon.

Thanks. Appreciate it. Stacey Raskon. To Christina Parts of Nevelis now for a look at the biggest names moving into this close. Hi there. Hi. Well, let's start with a few huge movers on earnings. Cloud-based storage firm Snowflake on pace for its best day since November after

it beat an already higher bar, and that's after competitor MongoDB's strong earnings yesterday. Mizugo writing today, though, this is just more proof that Snowflake is an AI winner and supports the strengthening view that you can own parts of software, which has taken a hit. Snowflake up 21%. Pure Storage, also on pace for its best day ever, a record closed, possibly too, after it beat earnings expectations in Q2. This is a data storage platform in the CISO. said on closing bell overtime yesterday afternoon that despite cautious guidance earlier in the year due to macro uncertainty, the company was seen, quote, strong buying signals into the end of the year. Shears up almost 31%. And then you've got Cooper companies, completely different firm.

It's one of the S&P's largest laggers right now, a Q3 revenue guidance of this medical devices from weighing on the stock. It came in below estimates not only for the quarter, but also the fiscal year. And that led to you. city analysts to downgrade the name from buy to neutral shares down almost 13% Scott. All right, back to in a little bit. Christina, thank you very much. We're just getting started here on the closing bell. Up next, retailing legend, Mickey Drexler, he's back with us. We'll get his take on the earnings season. What is really going on in retail right now and how should you be investing? The legend will tell you next.

retail stocks seem to be mixed a mixed bag lately depending on what you sell and who you sell it to not to mention the challenge of having to deal with tariffs for more on the state of the business we welcome in retailing legend micky drexler he is the former gap and j crew's CEO he is now the chairman of alex mill always stylish and he is here in person at post nice to see you you too scott um is that that's how it is right it depends on what you sell and who you sell it to do we have like a bifurcated retail landscape now you mean what you sell a buy yeah i mean if you're selling like clothes versus goods and if you sell to the high end or the low end it feels like we're in that universe it's hard to answer the question because you know

everything's lots of things are discounted uh if you look especially this weekend the high end for labor day weekend yeah and the high end is extreme highly high end. And I think people where, you know, less expensive, if it goes, cool and more expensive. I mean, when you look at the results, let's just say this has been a big week for retail earnings. Five below, they beat. Stocks at a 52-week high. Dollar general, they raise their guidance. It's like a theme, right? The lower end seems to be doing 100%. better than the higher end. Well, I don't know the earnings, but lower prices are the vogue for a number of years now because you can always get a deal even with the higher price

players. And is that the way it's just going to be? I mean, especially in an environment where now you have people who do jobs that you used to do thinking about how you deal with tariffs and margins and pricing. It's impossible. There's, uh, we, have not seen the last of the towers. China's not announced yet. We're flying blind. And how do you run a business without knowing the controllable costs? And, you know, I don't think the worst has come yet, in my opinion, because the retailers don't think to be as high as they might be. And I know Walmart warned and a lot of people, Target warned about retail. It's a very a difficult, challenging environment because of all the variables.

What are you guys doing at Alex Mill? You don't run the business, but you're chairman. Are you eating the cost of higher goods? Are you passing it on? How do you deal with it? How do we deal with it? You know, use our judgment, our intuition, our gut, which are three important characteristics.

Here's what we're doing. We're looking at what tax. Harris have kicked in. We're evaluating what prices are worth. We're known as a very fair priced brand. A lot of brands are much more expensive. And my whole career has been style, value, quality, and not clothes that go out of style. No, but you have to make very hard decisions. Yeah, you do. You come into the business and you say, I'm a hardliner on fair price. Yep.

And now my wholesale costs have increased dramatically. Your microphone just fell right down there. If you want to get it right there, yeah. If you say I'm a hard line price guy, but now my wholesale costs have increased dramatically. Well, some's got to give. So what happened on the way here, I visited a big department store. And I looked at out. You know what?

I did this for one guest before, and I'm just going to do it again. and I don't care that it's live television because we're going to make it work because I want to hear what you have to say, okay? Well, I called the office on the way here because I was reading some things about prices. Our number one sweater, for example, we only raised the price $3 because we negotiated a good deal.

So I called the team, I used to get a little pissed off, you're upset. I said, is that we raise a price? And then they answered the right way. It's styled by style, and it's, I wish I knew the cost of our goods. How do you run a business where you can't control the controllables? Is this okay, by the way? Yeah, it's all right.

I mean, well, if you can hold on to it. I'll hold on. Sometimes it's tough. I mean, it is what it is. Live television sometimes isn't easy, Mickey, but what can I tell you? That's fine. No one cares. They'd rather hear from you.

It doesn't matter. Let me ask you this. The controversies that have been playing out, lately, Sidney Sweeney. Retailers make decisions on who they want to advertise with and the kinds of messages they want to impart on their customer base. You said, you weighed in on this, which I found, you said on a podcast that American Eagle, quote,

screwed up and should have apologized for the ad, which was highly criticized. Well, half the population right now is like, apologized for what? They didn't do anything. Well, they didn't. The other half is like, well, I'm offended. Right. As a CEO.

Oh, shoot, what's going on here? Don't worry about that. Okay. As the CEO of a company that's trying to advertise in that environment, why did you weigh in? Well, I was on a podcast, I guess, that day. Why I weighed in? First of all, Gen 4. called me last night, not about, she's the president, and we talked about Sidney Sweeney.

It became a big news thing, and it wasn't worth it. And I felt that if they apologized quickly, it would be fine. At the end of the day, it doesn't mean a damn thing to their business, that they did that, in my opinion. But maybe they didn't think they had anything to apologize for. That's like what the whole controversy has become. And I don't even, I don't ask you this to kind of relitigate the issue, but if you're the CEO of a business making decisions in what is a highly polarized environment that we live in, do you think twice? Do you, how do you deal with that? I always say, and I got a debate regularly relative to AI, judgment and instinct and intuition on everything, even goods, that calls the day. So I thought about it, if they apologized, who cares of right or wrong?

The world likes gossip, stuff like that, a total overreaction, and then they said she, it was gender wrong. No, I think it disappears. That was, it's gone forever. Do you hesitate in this environment to change a logo? Or crack or a bear, we saw that. I mean, do you hesitate to do anything that could cause a storm on one side of the police? I thought, I don't know anything about crack a barrel. When I read that article yesterday, I said, first of all, the new logo's ugly. The old logo was homie and it's their definition of

who they are. You know, just willy-nilly. And you know who probably changed the logo. Some consultant was paid a million dollars. They drew a logo. And all that relates to the vision of every business. What should it look like? MSNBC I don't know what names they rejected to call MSNBC it's not emotional it's not connective and you know it's look I had fights in my old company about Old Navy which I named after a bar in Paris as I was driving by I said to Maggie we didn't have a name they said that's the name old Navy now the board didn't like two consultants and $5 million later with the worst names and it opened up Gap

Warehouse Old Navy and how do you it can't explain if you know you know I lived by that thing now people who know they know I don't know much about technology so I don't know if you know AI by the way I have debates with my AI friends one is on the board and I say You know, AI, and then there's arguments. It's fine. I said, AI doesn't have a motion. It won't pick best colors. It won't design the clothes. It won't negotiate with a factory. So I feel my job's pretty safe. I know what it's going to do. But every, you know, look, you read about it every day. I feel I'm not a technologist forgetting I spent many years on Apple. But, you know, it's America. We'll leave it there. It's good to catch up with you. Thanks for coming by and see you in person.

Don't leave yet. Okay. We'll have to read the teas first. That's Mickey Drexler. Up next, the vaccine makers are getting hit in today's session. We have a report on that developing story coming up. We are back. Vaccine stocks are in focus today.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to dramatically overhaul the CDC and U.S. vaccine policy in general. Angelica Peebles here with more on these moves today. today, Angelica. Hey, Scott. Well, the White House says that President Trump has fired CDC director Susan Menares, but lawyers for her are continuing to dispute that she was legally fired. So a little bit up in the air there, but a former CDC official who spoke to Monars said that she was asked to fire leaders at the agency and to rubber stamp recommendations from the CDC's Vaccine Advisory Committee that flew in the face of science. Meanwhile, four other CDC

officials resigning this week and former CDC chief medical officer telling MSNBC that that she and some colleagues had been pushing for more input on an upcoming meeting of the CDC's vaccine advisory committee. And when the CDC's director's attempts were denied, she and her colleagues decided that they couldn't stay, and that's why a few of them resigned. So that committee, the ACIP, is scheduled to meet in mid-September, and they're supposed to discuss COVID boosters and routine shots like MMR. That's, of course, the measles vaccine. And Senator Bill Cassidy is calling to postpone the meeting, given the shakeup, but it's hard to see that actually happening. in vaccine stocks are under pressure today. Take a look. All of those Merck, Pfizer,

Moderna, Sanofi, GSK, all in the red, Scott. Angelica, thank you. Angelica Peoples. Up next, we track the biggest movers into this close today. Christina Parts in Nevolos is standing by with that. Top of your list is what? A food giant having its worst day since the 80s. You remember that time well, right, Scott? Well reveal. Who, after the break? Our lesson 15 from the bell back to Christina now for the stock she's watching. Tell us. Hormel, having its worst day since 1987 after a profit miss and weak, current quarter and fiscal year of guidance. The interim CEO also cited.

high commodity costs and the profit miss and said those near-term pressures are really going to hurt the company's fourth quarter. The stock is trading at levels that we haven't seen more than 10 years down 12%. On the flip side, Datadog is the best performer on the S&P 500. It comes after strong earnings from Snowflake, who we discussed just to remember not even 20 minutes ago. It seems that the cloud security company is just rising in sympathy right now up almost 7%. And then you've got Brown Foreman, another laggard, despite a profit beat in revenue that came in line with estimates the spirits maker did reiterate its 2026 outlook, but they said that challenges still remain on the alcohol sector as a whole,

and that's because why? Consumers are shifting away from booze to healthier options. Ground Foreman CEO said in the release that the company remains confident in their ability to create long-term value for shareholders. They're still losing sales, though, down 5%. Christina, thank you very much for that. Christina Parts of Nebula is still ahead. Dell and Affirm, they reported OT.

We're gonna get you set up for the. those reports coming up. We're now in the closing bell market zone. And we're getting you set up for all the key earnings in overtime. Christina Parts of Nevelos is watching Dell. Mackenzie Sagal is covering a firm. Plus we have BTIG's Jonathan Krinsky. He's going to break down these crucial moments,

ones in which are going to be record setting. They sure look like that, Jonathan. We're on pace now for record setters for all three of the majors. S&P 500 above 6,500 for the very first time ever. Technically speaking, this market looks pretty darn good, doesn't it? Yeah, so we came into August with some pretty decent divergences between breadth and the indices, and divergences always resolve one or two ways, right?

They either you have the indices catch down to the weak breath or you have breath catch up to the indices. And we saw the latter on Friday after Jackson Hole. As of Friday's close, you had the best reading of Russell 3,000 stocks, which is essentially the entire stock market, the best reading there of the year, right? So breadth certainly caught up to the indexes. And so what we've been saying is, you know, that's kind of a level to trade against where we kind of broke out from at Jackson Hole, which is around 6,400 on the S&P 500 to keep it simple. So breadth has been improving.

As long as the S&P is above there, I think the bulls maintain the upper hand. I don't know if there's a ton of upside on the index level, but I think that's when you want to start looking below the surface at some sector uh as a sector rotations all right good tease because we'll come back to you for a play that you think could be on the verge of a breakout we'll go to christina though first del after the bell what do we think it's a tale of two businesses you've got traditional PCs that still drive roughly half of the company's revenue but that segment faces ongoing pressures from declining prices and margins there's a possible delayed upgrade cycle windows 11 and AI PCs really aren't expected to to deliver meaningful upside

this quarter. But the real story is Dell's AI server momentum. The company is winning big with key customers like XAI and Corweave. Microsoft is also ramping up orders among hyperscalers, adding fuel to the fire. You've got Dell's key manufacturing partner Wistron, who just reported May-July revenues surging 56% quarter-over-quarter and more than doubling year-over-year. So that is a good sign for Dell. Looking ahead, also recent licensing approvals for chip exports to China could actually drive demand for 300 to 500,000 additional GPUs annually for AMD and NVIDIA, and this is according to Muzuho,

chips that need Dell servers to run. So all of these signs could post to some points to some strength, I should say. All right, thank you. Thanks for everything today, too. Christina Parts of Nevelos. McKenzie, how about Affirm? So Scott, Affirm shares are heading into the print

up 28% this year and climbing again today. The street is expecting a top line of 837 million on earnings of 11 cents, which would actually mark a slowdown in revenue growth from 48% last year to 27% now. A big question this quarter is Walmart. Deutsche Bank notes it accounted for about 5% of a firm's volume before shifting to rival Klarna. Morgan Stanley says the key concern is whether that loss weighs on guidance, though they

expect the impact to be more muted than feared, in part because roughly a third of those transactions happened through a firm's own app and card, not from a firm's direct integration with Walmart. And at the same time, a firm has been gaining ground with partners like Amazon and recently expanded its integration with Google Pay, Scott. All right, McKenzie, thank you very much for that. McKenzie Segalis. Back to Jonathan Krinsky now. All right, so this broadening story, note today, poised for a breakout, energy has been one of the worst performers.

Yeah, so if you look at some of the risk ratios like cyclicals versus defensives, those ratios have broken out to year-to-date highs. that's a good sign for risk at the moment. So I think you want to avoid some of the defenses, the low volatility names. But what you want to be looking for is some of the cyclical areas. And energy really fits that bill. It is one of the worst performing sectors on the year. If we're talking about the XOE ETF, there's an unfilled gap from April around $93. So we think that gets filled.

I think it's the only sector that hasn't filled its April liberation of gap. So that would be kind of a near-term target. But I think when you're thinking about the commodity itself, crude oil. Large speculators have the smallest net long position relevant to open interest in about 15 years. So I think sentiment is pretty skewed lopsided here. And, you know, we're just starting to see breakouts and a lot of energy charts. So we look at the XLE, the XOP, those sort of names here. All right, good stuff. Jonathan, it's been good to have you. I'll let you go as we track this market here into the final stretch. It looks to be a record

setter across the board, too. And what's interesting about that is NVIDIA is not going to play much of a role at all in it. NVIDIA is down following its earnings. A lackluster response from the stock post earnings, but really a massive run into the number, so maybe that's not too big of a surprise. Elsewhere, the other mega caps are higher. It's probably why the NASDAQ is going to be the outperformer today

in what has been a really solid day. Across the board, S&P looks to close above $6,500 for the very first time ever. It's going to fight it out to the finish, too. As the bell rings us into this close, I'll see you tomorrow into overtime with John Ford.