Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Keep Riding the Record Rally? 9/9/25

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Should you continue to ride this record rally in tech or is it time to take some cover? We discuss with Solus’ Dan Greenhaus. Plus, Apple held its highly anticipated iPhone event. We break down all the highlights with Big Technology’s Alex Kantrowitz and Requisite Capital’s Bryn Talkington. And, we run through what to watch from Oracle’s report in Overtime with Capital Area Planning Group’s Malcolm Ethridge. 

Thanks, Tom. Welcome to the closing bell. I'm Carl Kingtonia in for Scott Wapner. This maker break hour begins with another run at records as the NASDAQ eyes a fresh closing high. Let's get your scorecard with 60 minutes to go in the trading session. All the major averages in the green. Looks like we might get a record close on the S&P as well at 6508. Chips are helping drive gains in the NASDAQ with shares of Micron and AMD rallying. On the flip side, Apple is moving a bit lower as that company unveils the latest iPhone. Of course, we'll get a live report from Apple HQ. coming up, which brings us to our talk of the tape. Should you continue to ride this record

valley in tech, or is it time to take some cover? Let's ask Dan Greenhouse, of course, Solis alternative asset management chief strategist here at Post 9 on this afternoon. It's good to have you, Dan. Welcome. Thank you, sir. You know, for all the talk about seasonality and September being fraught, it's not looking too bad. No, not at all. We keep making, not dramatic new eyes. We're up only 20 basis points right now. But, you know, like I like to say, my mom, 20 basis points is 20 basis points. She'll take it. What do you think is driving it? Is it about a Dovish Fed? Is it about an AI trade? Is it about, you know, fiscal tailwinds coming in the next year? I think there's enough going on that everyone can impart their own views. I know a lot of people are talking about this is a risk on rally because the Fed's about to cut rates.

Okay, but like let's not pretend that the story hasn't changed a little bit here about why they're reducing interest rates. And you've also seen a broadening out of the trade. We've talked about this on the network before. You have United Rentals performing exceedingly well. A bunch of consumer. names, Expedia, O'Reilly, AutoZone, etc. So it's not just AI that's not that it was ever just AI, but you do have a lot of other names going on here. And it's conference season. There's the Financial Services, Barclays Financial Services Conference today. All the banks say the consumer's doing well. There was the Golden Retailing Conference. Tariffs haven't really come into place yet, but thus far the consumer's doing well. So the narrative coming out of all these conferences has

been on balance pretty good as well. So I think it's a little bit of everything. Right. I think To your point about financials, the presentations today, Blackstone talking about investment booms, consumers still spending at City, really only Jamie was the one who suggested maybe there's some weakening going on. Yeah, Jamie has... Jamie being Jamie? Not to, I don't want to... I see him on the street every once in a while, so... But, you know, that's Jamie sometimes, and understandably so.

But, I mean, listen, we all listen to hundreds of conference calls, read lots of transcripts, read lots of earnings reports. To your point, things are still pretty good. Now, again, there's some stuff to worry about. I've been a little less bullish over the last couple of weeks. I don't think all the impact of tariff has been felt yet. Companies have told us over the next nine months they're going to come into play. And you have the switch in the jobs market right now, which I think somewhat complicates the picture as well. But to the point, reiterate right now, and on the AI story, good to go.

Right. On the job growth revisions, a big debate today about the birth-death model and just how bad looking at how bad the quality is of our data. Do you think as the Fed tries to look through short-term tariff inflation that it will get dicey, this notion that maybe this could be worse or longer lasting than we think? Well, yeah, one of my main talking points these days has been a lot of us come on this network and speak authoritatively about what's going on. And without putting it bluntly, nobody knows what's going on.

You've got such a unique cross-current of policy right now, particularly everyone knows about what's going on with immigration. What effect is that having on the Hispanic consumer? We've heard from a number of companies that they've seen some weakness. You also have, obviously, the tariff story. What effect is that having and going to have? And then, of course, you have just the general tone of the market, which on balance we've discussed is pretty good.

So I don't think we have a firm handle on what's going on. On balance, still pretty good. But with respect to the Federal Reserve, the jobs numbers have certainly pushed them into a position where reducing interest rates, the balance of risks favors lowering interest rates. The question you have to wrestle with now is how long are they going to do it for, how much is needed, quote, unquote. I'm trying to think of, I think it was probably B of A in the last couple of days,

saying it's not unlike most cutting cycles, they might go in September with a cut, and then skip October, which is not usually how the cutting cycles go. Yeah, well, I think the other thing is about historic cutting cycles, and this plays into how market participants should view this, is the Fed, when the Fed starts, ironically, when the Fed starts cutting, that's usually the top of the market-ish. Everyone always talks about, I've heard more times than they can count, the Fed never cuts rates with stocks at an all-time high. That's not really true at all.

In 2007, they were cutting. The S&P 500 was basically at an all-time high. What you're trying to do is arrest whatever emergent weakness is appearing. You're trying to arrest that from becoming more, from metastasizing throughout the economy. Quite often it doesn't work, but that's what the goal is. But this is not that, at least not yet. We don't have data that supports that as of yet. This is, I think we need, quote unquote, I think we need to just tweak things a little bit

to hope, to make sure that things that are clearly slowing down don't slow down more. And I think that probably entails getting the Fed funds rate from four and a half to call three and a half percent. And then again, the question for viewers at home and for investors is what do you do with that? Right. We're going to talk about tech all hour long. We're going to talk about Apple in a second, Oracle, later. in the hour. But do you think this sort of tech underperformance since, what is it, July or so, deserves some catch-up? Well, so Nvidia is down a bit off the highs. Talk, obviously, the

growth rates aren't what they once were, although you're still going to have EPS net income growth of call it 40% or whatever it is. It's largely, although not exclusively, NVIDIA and Microsoft. Right. Apple is obviously suddenly to the moon. Google after the decision to the moon. Broadcom was up 10, 12% or whatever it was after its support. And then down the line, you have a number of other companies. So I wouldn't say it's tech so much as it is the two, it's not just them, but the giants. The two giants that everyone pays the most attention to. But again, to the extent that money has come out of that trade, you have seen some improvement. I mentioned a bunch of companies earlier on the consumer side, which has been a

story I've been telling for quite some time. Home Depot and Lowe have performed very well. And so I think perhaps finally people are coming around to a story that the people like I have been talking about for some time, the consumer is doing fine, at least for now. Right. We'll keep with that in mind as we get some inflation numbers in the next couple of days, see what's happening to real wages at least. Dan, stick with us. We're going to get a quick check on shares of Apple, as we said. The company just wrapping up that big iPhone event today. Our Steve Kovac joins us live from Kupertino with some of the highlights.

Hey, Steve. Hey, there, Carl. Yeah, not unusual to see shares selling off after an Apple event. how that story goes, the selling of the news, and so to speak. But let's talk about the iPhone air, Carl, because that was the real star of the show, a brand new design, a new kind of model for the first time in five years that we've been seeing. And the question going into today, Carl, was whether or not Apple could sort of get back to basics. Can they start making these cool new designs that are really the drivers of iPhone sales? Last year, we learned it's not

artificial intelligence. And in fact, AI barely got much of a mention here today. Nothing really exclusive to these phones on the AI front. We should expect that next year. And a price increases were the other thing we're curious about going in. Not a price increase across the whole lineup, but the pro lineup did get a $100 price increase. And that iPhone Air, I was just showing you, is now $999, which is what the pro used to cost. It's $100 more than the plus model from last year it's replacing. So it's an interesting kind of pricing games here. But the base model is still sticking at 799. And then we got some cool accessories, too, to go along with it. A new Apple Watch. That thing has 5G connection now, and it can give you alerts if you have a high blood pressure,

a high hypertension moment. And then the new AirPods Pro 3 with some interesting fitness features in there for the first time, including the ability to track your heart rate. And on top of that, it has a live translation feature. So if multiple people are wearing AirPods, they can have different conversations in multiple languages with that real-time translation. That's all powered by artificial intelligence, of course. So we'll see what happens. Pre-orders start this week, goes on sale the week after that on the 19th, and we'll be filtering through those analyst notes to see what demand looks like as this pre-order start rolling in, Carl. Steve, I saw some folks counting the number of instances citing custom Apple Silicon and the implications for names like Broadcom and Qualcomm.

That's another big story here. So in that iPhone Air is telling you about Apple is using its own chipsets instead of Qualcomm for the modem. They're using their own 5G modem, which they introduced in an iPhone model earlier this year. And then for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, no longer using Broadcom, they're using their own in-house designs for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as well. Now, the pro models and the regular iPhone 17 is still going to use those previous chips, but it is more of this shift that we've seen Apple over the last several. years, take away from using third-party chips and vendors and having to pay those licensing fees to doing it all in-house to manage things like battery life and all those other stuff better. Of course, cost as well, Carl. We'll get this under our belts and we'll start looking

ahead to more perhaps information about Siri and AI in the months ahead. That's our Steve Kovac out in Cooper Tino. Thank you. Let's bring in big technologies, Alex Cantorowitz and Apple shareholder. Requisite capitals, Bryn Talkington. Brin is also, of course, a CNBC contributor, and Solace is Dan Greenhouse still with us this afternoon, guys. Good to see you all. Brain, you make the point that even though, you know, we talk about services and software a lot, this is at heart, a hardware company, and days like this are important. Very important, Carl. You know, I was skeptical going into this iPhone 17 air because you'd heard just one camera, battery life isn't great, but I thought they just delivered. I haven't touched

one, but I'm definitely going to be ordering one. I think that this design, it's so sleek. It's titanium. It'll come in four different models. It's four times more crack resistance. They're putting that same crack resistance on the front, on the back as well. And so the camera is going to be very powerful. They talked about the N1 that you and Steve were just talking about. That N1 chip, once again, another Apple chip they just introduced into these phones

that's going to allow for better connectivity, whether it's an airdrop or to your watch. And so I think going back to their basics, this is a really slick phone, I think they're going to be lines on this one. And that's what we'll get, that's what will get the stock higher. I think if you've heard me over the long term, I have not been positive as an Apple shareholder, really all of last year. And I just think the 17 air is so slick that you're going to get people to go upgrade their 13 and 14s into this new air. Yeah, it's generally a sell the news day when they have their events. Alex, you think this is going to drive at least some early adopters to drum up enthusiasm? It's great that you mentioned early adopters because,

For me, that's the biggest question about the air is, does it fit for the early adopters? Early adopters typically want the most powerful phone with the best camera and the best battery life. Is the iPhone air that? It's not. And so if you're someone who's operating on a pro model, do you want to trade that in? You have three cameras on the back. You might be able to get this new selfie camera that they're talking about. 18 megapixel, that's not bad. That's great.

So are you going to say, I don't want that, and instead I'll take the air? and in which case, you know, are you then going to be pushed to upgrade at all because maybe you wait for the next generation? The next generation might be a fold. I think a lot of people are going to wait for the fold. But when it comes to the air, it doesn't have the specs as everything else does. And by the way, it's price lower than the pro. So does Apple even want all of its enthusiasts and all of its early adopters to come in and buy the air?

I think what's going to happen here is this is a setup event. Next year is the big event. It's going to be the fold according to all the rumors. and the iPhone error will kind of settle in into an in-between region and eventually maybe even fade out of the product lineup altogether. That being said, I think Apple needed to do something on phones. Again, we've been looking at these phones every year and what's been the difference between the 10 until today,

so they finally have something new. But is this an early adopter prize possession? I don't think so. I don't know how up to speed you are, Dan, on the pricing, but I wonder if you expected them maybe to pull a couple more levers on price. Yeah, I think everybody thought that pricing would be given tariffs, that pricing would be substantial for them. I think I'll just piggyback off of both what Alex and Bryn said and take the other side of it for fun of discussion and say Alex's point about what's the difference between this phone and 60 phones ago is, yeah, early adapters are going to go out and get the new phone because that's what they do. But that's not what we're talking about.

If you're going to sell millions of these phones, you're going to have to convince the average person that there's some reason to go out there and upgrade. And they haven't done that for years, which begs the larger question, which Alex and I were talking about backstage to throw everybody under the bus here. Tim Cook, known for being an operator, phenomenal operator, supply chain, been at the company forever. I think clearly not a visionary. And I think they're... From a product standpoint. From a product standpoint. And I think I'll defer to Alex and Bryn, and I'd love to get their opinion on it.

Is Tim Cook the man for the moment? when you're looking for something from Apple, we know the story about the growth rates. Obviously, the stock has done very well lately, and they have a huge installed base. But if you're looking at the next version of Apple, is Tim Cook the person? And maybe I'm the only person wondering this,

but is Tim Cook the person to lead them into whatever this new era might be? Bryn, let me get you in on that one, especially given the fact that you do have Johnny Ive, right? Now on the other side of the fence, and we'll see next year what kind of competing offerings he might have. have? Yeah, well, I mean, I highly recommend the book Apple Inc. I forget who wrote it. It's pretty new. I mean, Johnny Ive obviously was the product innovator along with Steve Jobs. Yet, Johnny Ive's first iPad was translucent, and they couldn't actually make it. And so I think with this reality

that phones are not going to be made in America, not. There's too many parts. We don't have the ability to do it. I think you need that operating prowess that Tim Cook has, that history that Tim Cook has, Because Johnny Ivan, Sam Altman, can do all they want. Where are they going to make whatever product? And I still say after watching this today with the 17 Air, whether people upgrade or not on a slower, faster cycle, I still believe the iPhone will be the product of choice, period and stop. And so I think there's going to be a lot of speculation about Ivan Altman. I think it's going to be a nothing burger, and the iPhone will still remain in pole position of the device we use over the next five to six years.

Alex, Final Board, do you think in the end, the company, you need just a great logistician to make these complicated machines? I'll say this. Steve Balmer was able to lead Microsoft to incredible, profitable years, year after year, incredible profitability. And what do we call that now? We call it Microsoft's Lost Decade. So he was able to make that money just the same way Tim Cook is, and I'm not saying this is the exact same situation, but he was able to make that money until the ground shifted underneath his feet. And we went from a world that featured the desktop operating system to the browser and mobile and the cloud. And that's where Satya Nadella picked up. And he said we needed a completely different approach. And he ushered that into Microsoft. And that's where Microsoft is where it is today.

And now, how did Satya do that? He did it with a culture change. He went from a Microsoft that was siloed and had a lot of infighting and was very hierarchical into one that was featured a growth mindset. And had the silos broken down, did a hackathon instead of a pep rally. bomber used to do. And I think that is, there is a parallel there. Apple has been so great at making these phones more powerful, thinner, slimmer with a better camera every year. And we're seeing sort of the epitome of that with the air, which people are saying you can't really feel

in your pocket. I think its culture is really well suited for that. But what we're seeing right now, again, is potentially the ground shifting underneath Tim Cook's feet as we move from this era of the mobile phone to this era of AI. And of course, Johnny Ives is working on building an AI device. They need to change that culture. And if Tim Cook can do that, great, he's the right person. If he can't, time for somebody new. Apple culture is unique, as anybody who's covered it well knows. Alex, thanks to you. Appreciate it. Alec Hanswitz, Dan and Brin are going to stick with us. Meantime, we did get that big revision of the jobs number. The U.S. adding 911,000 fewer jobs over the last year. It's according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,

revised data. Now we're hearing from the White House about that, and for that we'll turn to Megan Giselle. Hi, Megan. Hey, Carl. That's exactly right. the White House really using this as justification today for some parts of what the President wants to be part of his economic agenda, including the firing last month of BLS Commissioner Erica McIntyre for White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt was talking with reporters earlier today. And she said that while the President had been ridiculed last month for calling into question the veracity of the data, now she says it turns out that he was right. Take a listen. Turns out this revision proves two things. Number one, the President was right. And this is why we need

new leadership at the Fed. And this makes it very clear that President Trump inherited a much worse economy by the Biden administration than ever reported. And it also proves that the Federal Reserve is holding our monetary policy far too restrictive. So three points there, Carl, for them, sort of a victory lap here, a triple whammy of one. One is that the president was right, as she said, that they say the Biden economy was worse than they had thought when they came into office and that this proves now that the Federal Reserve needs to cut rates. Carl? Megan Kisela at the White House, Megan, thanks. Bryn, safe to say you share some of the White House's reservations about data quality at the moment?

I mean, you've got to listen to the facts. And so I think that this is about data collection and this is an antiquated division clearly within the government. You can also look at, which I've been talking about for years, how they collect, you know, owner equivalent rents, which is a huge part of CPI. Just like the BLS, they pick up the phone and they call homeowners. and say, what do you think you can rent your house for? It's just incredibly antiquated. And so when you have companies like ADP, if you can collect more real-time data like ADP does,

but obviously we have to include government jobs, which they don't have. I think it's just this is a call to action that we have to bring these government agencies into 2025 with proper technology. I do not think there's anything nefarious going on. I think it's just very antiquated, something from the 70s and 80s.

And this is this time that I think Trump has the lens to be able, the ability to update these really important divisions so we get good data. Dan, what do we do about some of these response rates, or at least the assembling of state data? I mean, do we have to start paying people to respond? It's not usually a high priority. No, listen, far be it for me to ever defend a sclerotic government agency. And I agree with a lot of what Bryn had to say. The one point I want to make on this topic, and I think viewers at home really should take this out of the conversation. When you hear about how response rates have declined,

it's the initial response rates. By the time these surveys are done, the response rates are still in the 90 percentile range, which speaks to why revisions are as large as they are. And I would also add, again, with the caveat, far be it for me to defend a sclerotic government agency, revisions are a sign of health. Now, again, that doesn't mean we collect things

in the way they should be collected. It sounds to anybody under the age of 30 insane that you would call someone up and say, hey, did you look for a job or anything along those lines? It doesn't sound insane. Borderline isn't insane. I think what we have to wrestle with now, for E.J. and Tony and the government as a whole, is, okay, well, from a statistical reliability standpoint, can we do better? And we know we can do better, but how can we do better?

And that's going to be a process that the government should undertake to try to update some of these models in an era of, technological advancement such that we can get much more real-time data. But just because it's real-time doesn't necessarily make it more reliable. I guess I would add two things, Bryn. One is Goldman did say today they expect this revision to be revised up a little bit, that this was a little extreme. And then again, the notion of, you know, we got a country of 163 million employed and 610 spread over 12 months isn't maybe the worst thing in the world. Can we go that far? No, it's kind of the worst thing in the world. I mean, this is the biggest,

revisions since like 2009. And so if you think about Carl, as we all talk about, as we get the jobs number, like every month, and we're saying there's 140,000 new jobs, 140,000 new jobs, month after month, but in reality, there was like 70,000 jobs. So I think it's a really big deal because it changes the whole narrative of are we in a stagflation, inflation, deflationary environment. And so I just think these numbers are really important. And to me, where I think the second order effect is next week when we go get a rate cut, most likely, is what data is the Fed and the hundreds of PhDs looking at that is better than this antiquated, or I love the sclerotic, you know, the word that Dan said, the data that these agencies are giving

the Fed, right? And so I just think this is going to be put back to Chairman Powell about his opinion about this, which would be really fascinating to hear. Yeah. You certainly don't want it to be garbage in where it comes to numbers. Dennis Garman used to joke about not being on the desk when this number came out at all. He never cared. And he's not alone. And listen, to Brin's point, the statistical unreliability of arguably one of the most important economic releases should be of concern to the government. And for the first time and perhaps ever, it is of concern. Indeed. Dan, Bryn, thank you guys. Good to see you both. Dan Greenhouse, Brin, Talkington. Let's get over to Christina Parts of Nevelos for a look

at the biggest name is moving into the close. Hey, Christina. Hi, let's start with tech resources, merging with fellow miner Anglo-American in one of the largest mining deals ever. I say the largest because this merger is slaughtered at $53 billion and comes as demand for copper really continues to grow in this tech-Eb world. You can see shares up 12% for tech. Nebius Group also surging today after announcing a deal to deliver data center capacity to Microsoft. This is a multi-year deal worth up to $19 billion to provide cloud computing power for AI workloads. and centrally renting GPU, shares of Nebius up almost 50%. Lastly, United Health Care shares also gaining today

after issuing strong estimates for Medicare enrollment next year. The insurance giant said it expects 78% of its members to be enrolled in Medicare plans next year, shoring up funding and larger payments from the government. UNH up 8%. Carl? Christina, thanks. We are just getting started.

Coming up next, we're counting it down to Oracle's results. Malcolm Malthridge will join us to talk about the stock for his clients. Tell us what he's watching for when those numbers hit the tape. We're live from the New York Stock Exchange. You are watching Closing Bell on CNBC. Shares of Oracle hire ahead of the company's Q1 results after the bell. Investors looking for more details around the company's recent cloud deal. I could add more than $30 billion annually.

Let's bring an Oracle shareholder, Malcolm Etheridge of Capital Area Planning Group. Malcolm, of course, also a CNBC contributor. Malcolm, it's great to see you. Thanks for the time this afternoon. Good to see you, Carl. We're talking about a name that is clearly found its legs in the last year or two, but you think they can meet these high expectations? Yeah, I think saying they found their legs in the last year is an understatement up over,

what, 70% I think year on year. And I think expectations for this name have gotten a little bit out of hand, but maybe rightfully so, right? You alluded to the fact that there's a $30 billion deal we expect to get a little bit more clarity on from the last earnings call, and that may be enough to move these shares in a meaningful way after the print. What do you think about this ongoing debate about software and its vulnerabilities in the new age of AI? Does Oracle fit into that would-be list of potential victims, let's say? Yeah, I know that we traditionally think of Oracle as a software provider, and I think that it is reasonable that the software names have been taking a breather

the last couple of trading weeks at least after like a four-month run that was very strong. A lot of them have become victims of their own success and expectations got a little out of whack. Now investors are a little bit concerned that AI might be coming for their lunch, so to speak. And I think realistically, it's probably more than a year, two years before AI really starts to take over some of those roles. And it's more likely that a company like a Salesforce, maybe workday, they start to buy some of these AI startups in the software space and rolling them out to their existing customers that they've already built up trust with. That's more likely than AI coming for a lot of these companies' main businesses. When you think

about the data privacy necessary in a field like health care, finance, places like that. So I think that the software selloff is a little bit overdone. But separately from that, I don't think it should impact Oracle share price that much going forward simply because they have done a pretty good job of turning themselves into a multi-cloud provider in this AI arms race. I was just going to say, I remember, you know, you think back, let's say, 10 years where I think you could arguably say they were seen as a sleepy tech company. But when they saw this wave coming and they've done an amazing job leveraging it.

Yeah, and if you think about the last earnings call where Safra Katz and Larry Ellison were downright giddy as they were discussing their earnings numbers, I think that set the expectations for investors this time that will probably get a similar print. And I think as long as they hit that $1.50 per share expectation that the street has, anything else is going to be positive and the shares will likely go on a run after the, after the numbers come out. Malcolm, sit tight for a moment. We're getting a news alert on NVIDIA-backed AI startup reflection. And for that, we'll turn back to Christina Parts in Evelos. Hey, K.K.K.

Carl, NVIDA isn't just dominating the AI chip game. It's also betting being on the startups that need those chips, with its VC arm dropping, at least $250 million into Reflection AI's massive $1 billion funding round. According to the Financial Times, I've reached out to Nvidia. They haven't responded just yet. This is a year-old coding startup founded by XOR. Google researchers, and it just saw its valuation skyrocket to 5.5 billion. That's 10 times what it was worth just six months ago.

And Nvidia clearly wants a piece of that action. It could also be seen as a smart play for this $4 trillion chip giant invest in the companies that buy Nvidia hardware, while the AI boom keeps Wall Street hitting record highs. Keep in mind, too, Nvidia has invested in Corweave and Nebius when we know Nebius just had that big deal with Microsoft, so it's making some good bets, I guess. You could say that. Christina, thank you. Christina Parts of Nevelos. Malcolm, I'll turn to you on that, to Christina's point about Invidia being kind of an amazing portfolio manager. And then the second question to you would be, of course, just what's happening in some of these private markets compared to public.

I think Christina took the words right out of my mouth. I was thinking the same thing with regard to Corwee and Nevis. It's one of those interesting things that Jensen Wong keeps finding a way to stay out in front of where the trend is going. So if you think just a week ago, maybe we were looking at the fact that NVIDIA shares were selling down. They were trading down out of fears that Broadcom was sort of coming for their core business after striking a $10 billion partnership with potentially Open AI. And I think that this just goes to show why you can't count NVIDIA out,

as Jensen 1 keeps finding a way to find the next parade and stay out in front of it. Yeah. Still trying to get back above that 50 day, which would be around 172. It's been kind of an interesting week or two of trading, as you point out. with more down days than up. Malcolm will see what Oracle gives us in a few moments. Good to see you, as always, Malcolm Etheridge. When we come back, a pair of big bank CEOs going on the record with CNBC today.

We'll talk about what they had to say about the state of the economy coming up. And don't forget, you can catch us on the go by following the closing bell podcast, of course, on your favorite podcast app. We'll be right back. Welcome back. What a day for bank coverage. Our Leslie Picker caught up with J.P. Morgan's Jamie Diamond and Morgan Stanley's Ted Pick. She joins us today with the highlights. You've been working overtime today, L.P. You too, CQ. To your point, Morgan Stanley Chairman and CEO, Ted Pick, joining us from the firm's Global Healthcare Conference here in New York today. He seemed fairly upbeat about the economy and the resurgence in the capital markets,

noting that clients he's talking to say that some of the policy headwinds have already come through, and uncertainty seems to be narrowing a bit. So, yes, there may be a little bit of a slowdown. down. There may be a hot print here and there, but today's a good example. Significant negative revision, but rates have sold off a bit and equities are fine. So what is that telling you? That's telling you that maybe some of the data is backward looking. It's also telling you we're on to the next report. Prior to the conversation with Pick, I spoke with J.P. Morgan's CEO and chairman Jamie Diamond, who was at a celebration for the firm's new building in New York. But when I asked him

about the macro environment, Diamond said the economy is weakening, noting that he doesn't know if it will ultimately turn into a recession. The consumers weakened, common's weekend, you know, corporate private is still up. And there's a lot of different factors in the economy right now. It's hard to figure out what it all means, you know, and I've always been quite skeptical of most forecasts of that reason. So we just have to wait and see. There's a lot of stimulus out there, too.

We don't know what the Fed's going to do. They'll probably reduce rates. but I don't think that's going to be consequence of the economy. Diamond said they look at government data, non-government data, and internal data, and even still trying to figure out what's going with the economy is very hard to do. Carl. You know, Leslie, I was just thinking of the themes that all these CEOs keep returning to, sort of resilient consumer spending, progress in capital markets,

not a lot of changes to net interest income estimates. And I'm trying to think of other outliers. Maybe today, Solomon's saying that he doesn't think rates are that restrictive. Yeah, that was interesting. It also kind of mirrored what we heard from Ted Pick as well in that I asked him, you know, do you think that rates coming down will be this big unlock in terms of capital markets activity? Because he spoke a bit about what the policy side will do, what the, you know, what's going on on the fiscal stimulus side and how that plays a role and how some of the tariff uncertainty seems to kind of dissipate it a bit.

And with rates, he says, you know, that's a factor, but it's not the most important factor. What's important for these companies is that it's the time for them to come together after a lot of pent-up demand and amid some of these challenges with AI and what it means for kind of the existential threat to their business in some cases and the need to scale up in others. Right. A lot of information getting processed today by the street. Leslie, appreciate it. Leslie Picker, thank you. And the Big Bank CEO interviews keep coming tomorrow. Don't miss an exclusive. on CNBC with Goldman's David Solomon. That's coming at 4 p.m. Eastern time on closing bell overtime. Coming up next, it's been one year since Starbucks CEO Brian Nicol took the helm.

Stocks down about 9% since then. CNBC caught up with Nickel exclusively, talked about what he's planning to do to turn around, that struggling name. Closing Bell, we'll be right back. Welcome back. It's officially been one year since Starbucks CEO Brian Nicol took the helm. Our Kate Rogers caught up with him in a CNBC exclusive and joins us now with the highlights. Hi, Kate.

Hi, Carl. So over the course of the last year, Nickel put his back to Starbucks plans in place. They include things like cozier stores and the return of the condiment bar to their cafes. But there have also been some menu changes, too. The offerings have been simplified. There's no surcharges for alternative milks and an emphasis on health-forward offerings like protein cold foam and milks coming later this month to cafes. But how does price factor into those changes? Starbucks had committed to not raising prices in 2025.

Here's how Nichols says they're evaluating pricing in the current environment. Take a listen. When I look at where our pricing is right now, like brewed coffee, I think you're going to see that we are priced very competitively. And, you know, it's something that I keep an eye on, what our price gap is. You know, I do believe we are a premium brand, and I do believe you get a premium experience with the Green Apron Service model and what we're doing to our coffee house is to give people that coffee house experience again. So I think we're priced correctly right now, and I like our competitive position. Now, on the flip side, I also asked him about cutting prices, given the idea that there are so many competitors in the space. There's new entrants, including McDonald's, Dutch bros, Luckin, old players there.

That could undercut Starbucks on price, but he did maintain this is a premium experience and who really likes the value proposition as is right now. Carl, back over to you. Kate, I wonder if you would agree that one of his hallmark achievements at Chipotle was throughput. I mean, you can get in and out of a Chipotle in like 60 seconds, and whether or not that's a priority he carries over to Starbucks or whether it remains more of a third place model where that's not as important.

I think it's such a key part of this story. So they set this goal to get you that crafted beverage in four minutes or less in cafes when Nickel took over. They said that they're getting about 80% of orders at that threshold at drive-through. It's even less than four minutes. I think it's like closer to three and a half and that their mobile orders are more accurate and on time.

So they are definitely still keeping their eye on the ball in terms of throughput and getting people in and out of the cafes quickly, if that's the experience that consumers looking for. But again, if you look at the store, we're in today, this is one of the remodel cafes that's been uplifted. And the idea is that they hope people will want to stay and linger a bit, too. So I think it's a tough dance and a tough balance in trying to answer to those two goals. But that's really what they're focusing on with the whole back to Starbucks plan. And again, Carl, really pushing toward the idea of positive same store sales in the future in the U.S. in particular. Yeah, yeah. Coffee's such a

broad category. Consumers often have different priorities when they go. A really fascinating look, though, about his first year, Kay. Thank you, R. Kaye Rogers. Coming up next, we are tracking the biggest movers as we go into the close. Christina Parts of Nevilleau standing by with that. Christina. We have a major commodity sell-off hitting one sector hard. Then you have discount retailers facing new competitive pressure. And lastly, an AI investment with dollars that keep on flowing. We'll break down what's moving markets when we return. Just about 10 minutes to the closing bell. Let's get back to Christina Parts of Nevelos.

Take a look at some of the key stocks to watch here. Hey, K.P. Hi, Carl again. Let's talk about lithium giant Albert Marl. Getting crushed right now, 12% lower after reports that China is restarting a major lithium mine. More supply means lower prices, and that's hitting producers hard. Albremarl is the world's fourth largest lithium producer, and that's why it's bearing the brunt of this supply surge.

Meanwhile, discount retailers are under pressure after a Bloomberg report that TEMU is plotting an aggressive U.S. comeback with price cuts as deep as 60 percent, five below dollar tree. Other discounts change, you can see just all at least 3 percent lowers. Investors worry about increased competition. TEMU has also stopped charging import fees and ramped up advertising to lure back U.S. shoppers after months of tariff-related turbulence. Let's bring up United Healthcare again because earlier I said they expect stronger enrollment next year, but I'd like to correct that statement. They said they believe their

plans covering 70% of members will receive high ratings of four or five stars. Shares up 8%. And lastly, in AI News, cloud computing company, Corweave, just launched a venture arm to invest in AI startups. That moves signals really continued appetite for AI investments. We just saw that with Invidia. Now, as companies really just look to capitalize on the boom, shares up almost 8%, Carl. You got Nvidia investing in CoreWeave, which is itself, investing in AI. It's like those dolls. Or an incestuous circle. That's what I've been calling it. Like it's just like where does the line, there's no lines anymore, right? Fascinating, Christina. Thank you. Christina Parts of Nevelos.

Coming up next, we'll run you through all the key metrics to watch when Oracle reports at the top of the hour. That and much more when we take you inside the market zone in a minute. We're now in the closing bell. Market Zone, our senior markets commentator, Mike Sintouly here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Julia Borsten standing by with more on the pop and AT&T and McKenzie Segalos covering Oracle earnings in just a few moments after the bell. Let's begin, though, with Mike and these closing highs, Mike here, holding comfortably about $6,500. Yes, $6,500 has been interesting. It's been kind of an anchor for a little while here, plus or minus. And, you know,

the market's doing it the way it's kind of taught us. It prefers to do it when it gets a little bit ahead of itself as it did coming into August. It just rotates around, grinds higher. It's not been one of these emphatic moves. And I think today it's also the market kind of pulling itself into a little bit more of a balanced neutral spot before we get the inflation data. That means yields after a massive decline leaking higher a little bit. It means home builders giving back some of their recent upside. And, you know, it means, you know, essentially we have enough of the strength in the banks to kind of keep the overall market together, even when the majority of stocks are down on the New York Stock Exchange. So again, it's one of these things where if, you know,

you believe the market has a way of finding its way higher, that's what's been going on today, even really without the benefit of a lot of defined catalysts. Yeah, your points will taken with some of those names in the red like Sherwin Williams and Lennox, as we did get that little tick higher in rates. Meantime, Julie's been watching the stanky interview today and this move in AT&T. Well, shares of AT&T bouncing back today after the company reaffirmed its full year guidance. This after yesterday's news of Echo Star selling $17 billion in spectrum licenses to SpaceX sent shares of AT&T and other telecom providers lower. Now it's up about 2%. C.O. John Stanky joined CNBC from Goldman's Communicopia Conference today, saying the SpaceX deal was not a surprise

and AT&T could potentially partner with SpaceX down the line. He also weighed in on Apple's iPhone event today, saying he does not expect the upgrade cycle to be earth-shattering. anticipating the infamous super cycle but who knows the customer will ultimately decide that if they find something compelling in the device that they don't have and they decide that they want to go and reinvest in them then we'll be ready to do that thank you saying that AT&T's investments in its wireless network are paying off and that tax cuts from President Trump's recent tax bill has allowed AT&T to reinvest in the business back over to you

Julie appreciate that Julia Borsten meantime as we wait for Oracle McKenzie So are you watching mostly for news about earnings, CAPEX, large contracts? Really, we're looking at the backlog number that was key for them last quarter. And heading into the print, the question is whether Oracle can keep its AI momentum going. So last quarter you had executives calling demand astronomical as that backlog number surged in cloud infrastructure revenue jumped more than 50%. Investors want to see if that pace holds as Oracle scales new data centers.

and deepens its cloud deals with Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Margins will be closely watched with heavy Cappex spend raising questions about whether it delivers another surge in booking. Also, this quarter, OpenAI, signing a $30 billion deal with Oracle tied to its Stargate project with SoftBank. Oracle execs have stressed that last quarter's blockbuster results didn't even include returns from Stargate, so investors will be listening for any sign of ROI this quarter. The stock is up more than 45% this year. really underscoring Wall Street's confidence in Oracle's AI-driven cloud bet.

Carl? Mackenzie, we'll be coming back to you in just a few moments, and we do get those Oracle numbers. Finally, Mike Santoli, I just wonder whether you think the next 48 hours could be a bit fraud as we work our way through some important inflation prints. It is interesting, Carl. I do think that the inflation surprise trend has not been particularly jarring. In other words, mostly these numbers have been coming in close to forecast. But to the degree to which you've gotten some 50s.

50 basis point cuts priced into the market or at least into people's heads going into these prints. Maybe we have to have a little bit of a reality check. PPI should give a pretty good look ahead into the PCE number. It's pretty much going to set the macro scene for what the Fed's going to be assessing next week when it does meet. It probably has most implications for what comes after next week as opposed to, you know, out of that decision. But yeah, I do think there's a chance that, you know, look, I've thought for the last four weeks there was the chance. for a little bit of volatility to kind of shake some things loose in this market. It hasn't really happened because of that really strong rotational tide and this general

confidence that we're getting rates into an economy that's still hanging together. It's going to get interesting as we try to test the market's resolve to look through perhaps a bit hotter inflation as the Fed might be doing on their way to cutting rates. Mike, thank you very much, Mike Chantoli. As we get the polls here and a fresh record closed on the S&PO. 6515. That does it. The closing bell. Let's send it into overtime with Morgan Brennan and John Ford.