Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Live from Schwab Impact 11/5/25

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

What is the state of the retail investor? We discuss with Mike Santoli – as well as the head of advisor services for Charles Schwab Jon Beatty and advisor Shirl Penney of Dynasty Financial. Plus, iCapital’s Sonali Basak tells us where she sees the AI trade heading from here. And, we run through all the key themes to watch from Snap and Qualcomm results in Overtime.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Brian, thank you so much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wobner, live from Schwab Impact in Denver once again. Stocks rebounding today as we begin this final stretch. Let's show you the scorecard here. The majors with 60 to go until the close. We are nicely green across the board today. ADP was better than expected. So perhaps that's helping clawback a little bit from yesterday's steep selloff. Doesn't hurt that Nvidia and meta and alphabet. They are helping along as well. Some pretty decent gains there. Alphabet's a 2% winner as is meta. to look at Micron and Intel. We flagged them as well today because they're up nice and look at Micron up near 10 percent. Intel with a good gain of its own and the airlines as well. They're trying to suss out an end of the government shut down. Maybe so. United the big winner but American and Delta no slouches either. We're watching Robin Hood today too. Ahead of that company's earnings, they come tonight in OT and a nice move ahead of all that. That leads us to our talk of the tape. What is the state of the state of the the retail investor. How do they feel about this record-setting rally? And how are they expressing

that view inside the markets today? We'll first bring in Mike Santoli. And Mike, what people say is a retail-driven rally. They've been highly engaged this whole way for the most part, and they've also, for the most part, been right. They have. I mean, look, in an uptrending market, when there's an aggressive bid to buy most of the pullbacks, they are going to net out to be winners. They've not been shaken out easily. of this market. I actually think you can dial it back starting in like 2019 when all the major brokerage firms went to zero commissions. Then you had the pandemic, the sort of social stampede into meme stocks and short squeezes, and this self-fulfilling prophecy, the short-dated options,

all these tools along the way. And all along, investors were getting more involved in. They're playing with house money. I do think there's another piece of it this time around, which is that the, let's say the median age in this country, it's like 40, right? So you have the massive millennial generation in their peak earning and investing years. They're kind of in the sweet spot the way that the baby boomers were in the 90s when we first had buy the dip come in. And then I want to make one final point, which is the professionals are to some degree chasing the amateurs. Take a look at this chart from Morgan Stanley. It shows the percentage net exposure of hedge funds coming into this week in the retail favorite stocks, the retail favorites basket.

It's well above where it was in 2020, so it shows you that professionals are very aware of this kind of erratic but strong flow into the market, and they are playing it. Obviously, they're going to buy one too many dips eventually, and it's not going to be the one to buy, and they'll probably buy them on the way down. Just take a look at AMC stock over the last five years. But right now, in terms of the overall market, I think, a key source of sponsorship of stocks. Do we need to, Mike, do you think make the differentiation? between the retail trader cohort, as I talked about earlier, with Liz Ann Saunders and the retail investor? I do. I mean, and kind of those were two different parallel strands that I was just addressing. The retail trader is the one that very tactically is very engaged. And I do think,

even on an intraday basis, you're seeing that kind of flow. By the way, we also have to talk about the global retail trader. There's been a lot of attention on South Korea, in certain terms of retail flow into U.S. stocks. They're huge owners of Nvidia, Tesla, Palantir. There's an ETF that trades in South Korea that has the 25 most popular U.S. stocks owned by Korean retail, and those three stocks are 50% of it. So I think it's just a fascinating thing where it's kind of like some people playing it as a video game, and others are playing the long game and saying, look, look at the wealth creation that's happened over this relatively short period of time. So if you just stretch out your time horizon, you probably get

even more benefits of all of that. I think you can't also separate out the experience of crypto, which has kind of redeemed the believers and has created a couple trillion in value over a few years, and pros weren't really there at the beginning. Yeah, good points you make, of course, as usual. I'll see in just a bit. Mike Santoli, thank you very much. We're joined now by the head of advisor services for Charles Schwab, John Beatty, and advisor, Cheryl Penny of Dynasty Financial. It's great to have you both here, and we're happy, of course, to be at impact once again. I mean, Mike gave us a great setup. Do you feel like this is a highly retail-engaged environment? Well, as we were talking about retail trader versus the retail

investor, this community is investors, and they think about the long-term. They're building diversified portfolios around clients, risk tolerances, their desire for capital appreciation, as well as capital preservation. Income is an important part of the portfolio for the older, more retired folks in their book of business. So we see a lot more customization of portfolios in this industry amongst the advisor base here. What does this landscape look like to you? At Dynasty, we're very active, very bullish, heavily allocated in the equity market right now.

We actually believe that we're still Scott very early in the AI super cycle. There's going to be continued significant cap-ex, not just with some of the Mag 7, but also you see it with large financial firms like Schwab. JP Morgan and others. So we're very bullish. We obviously believe, as John mentioned, in diversification across the portfolio. Our clients are moving more into private markets, alternatives, which maybe we'll talk a little bit about as well. But right now, we're, look, markets at an all-time high. There's always things that you can worry about, but we're cautiously optimistic as we move into 26. I wonder how advisors are managing clients.

expectations and desire for, you know, whatever portfolio mix makes sense in an extraordinarily top-heavy market where the most exciting story is around a small number of names. We always hear about diversification when it comes to a full portfolio or maybe the kinds of stocks that you own, yet I'm betting advisors are getting a lot of calls from their clients saying, I don't want my performance to lag the overall market and the overall market is driven by this small group of stocks? Well, I think this is where the advisors earn their money, right, in terms of the value that they deliver for clients,

keeping them their feet on the ground as it relates to expectations of the market, the risk on, risk off conversations. You look at diversifications that relates to international stocks versus domestic stocks, and for a long time, that was a bad call, and now it's looking really good. So I think the fact that these advisors

are side by side with their clients, really talking about the principles of investment, keeps these investors in the right place through the ups and downs of the market. What do you think this period of time in this market has done to the way retail sees this market? I think one of the things we have to be careful about this period of time, Scott, to that question, is not to let complacency seep in and to make sure that we're staying prudent around diversification. We do have, you know, we're managing about 100 billion for the advisors on our platform of dynasty. We do have some tactical overlays within the portfolio.

But we are very focused on staying diversified across all asset classes, whether it's, you know, alternatives with private equity, private credit, venture, gold, Bitcoin, as well as obviously stocks and bonds. And then you bring in tax loss harvesting and the short, the long, short portfolios that can manage diversification on concentrated positions. This isn't your father's Cadillac any longer in terms of the investment capabilities in this industry. I mean, it's not, it's not your father's portfolio, so to speak. speak anymore either. I mean, what was a 60-40 traditional portfolio is kind of a relic of the past. I asked Omar Aguilar run swab asset management. You know, if I walk around this floor, how much am I hearing today about things beyond 60-40? Alts are like the fastest growing place in the universe. Yes, 60-40 is getting squeezed by alts, precious metals, crypto now coming into the picture.

So the allocation isn't what it used to be. And I think the technology has allowed advisors to build highly personalized portfolios on scale for thousands of investors. Dynasty is a big player in that with their advisors. It's really out of necessity, too, Scott. When we started Dynasty 15 years ago, there were over 8,500 public companies. Today, we were talking a little bit earlier. There's less than 4,000. So from a supply and demand standpoint, there's a lot fewer public securities.

And then many companies are staying private for longer. some of the fastest growing firms, obviously now in the world of private. So we're working really hard to make those companies, those private companies available to our advisors to build out a more diversified portfolio. What about consolidation in the advisory business? I mean, you guys, which people probably don't know, also run an investment bank that's targeted to this area. So, Scott, I think we're seeing a consolidation of asset in the RA industry. We've never finished a year with fewer advisors than we started the year with. We have now close to 900 advisors on our platform that manage a billion dollars.

Seven years ago, there was 200. So there are more firms in this industry, but the assets are consolidating into fewer hands, and that will continue, I think, on in the future. Yeah, our investment bank has been incredibly active. Valuations are at an all-time high, which I think that says a lot about, in terms of where the markets are as well, in terms of valuations for REAs. But there's more and more advisors that are going independent now, And they're going independent because they want more choice, more freedom, more flexibility on how they serve clients, access to more modern technology.

But they also typically make more money and they own their business, which ultimately they can monetize down the road in very tax favorable ways. So I think it's very much a bull market on advice, but in particular, Scott, it's a bull market on fiduciary-based advice in this country. You were just telling me, I mean, we just saw the largest move away from, you know, a well-known firm into independence. Yeah, this is the biggest firm in the industry. It's based in Atlanta. It's an RIA called OpenArc. We did that deal, Dynasty did in partnership with Schwab. This is a business that was serving tens, actually close to 100 billion in assets.

One of the largest stock plan teams covering institutional clients in addition to ultra-high net worth, private clients as well. 10 years ago would have been unfathomable to think that a team like that would go independent, but now because of technology, because of scaled partners and players in the space, because of availability of capital, they can do that. And without question, we think it's going to excite more advisors, larger teams, to do the same thing. I can't think of a better place, really, to take the pulse of the retail investor than on this floor with 5,000 people here. And as we said earlier, some 2,800 financial advisors.

There's got to go. Thank you so much. Both of you for being here. John and Cheryl, we'll see you soon. Thank you, Scott. Meantime, the big question over the past week or so in the markets is whether we've hit an inflection point over how AI spending and valuations will be scrutinized going forward. McKenzie Sagalos joins us now with more. Hey, Mac. Hey, Scott. So names like Oracle, Broadcom, AMD, and Nvidia have all surged in the past few months off the back of Open AI partnerships. But now the focus is on who is turning those headlines into real revenue. Only AMD is reported so far. And while it did beat on earnings and guidance, the AI upside is still missing, with the Q4 guide coming in light of the whisper number, despite AMD handing over 10% equity to open AI virtually for free in order to land their business. And that brings us to the hyperscalers, where we're seeing two very different categories of AI winners. So Amazon and Alphabet, they were both rewarded for their AI infrastructure spent.

Shares in the two companies hit record highs after showing strong cloud growth boosted by their own custom chips, helping to offset that invidia tax. Now, Google also has the added upside of Gemini, its in-house model that's reportedly set to power a revamped Siri in a deal with Apple worth $1 billion a year. Now, Microsoft and Meta, on the other hand, they have sold off since reporting. Microsoft lost right of first refusal on OpenAIs compute deals. and meta, it reported a soft Q4 guide, and it's spending like a hyperscaler without a cloud business to justify the outlay. Scott? All right, McKenzie, thank you for that. McKenzie Segalis, another big story.

We, of course, are following tomorrow's Tesla shareholder meeting where Elon Musk's trillion-dollar pay package on the ballot. I asked Schwab's head of asset management, Omar Aguilar, whether pressure from some influential retail investors played a role in his vote. He said it did not that the decision was already made more than a week ago, so they will be voting. In fact, they have voted yes. Phil LeBoe joining us now with more on tomorrow's high-stakes shareholder meeting. So there are some yeses. We know of some noes.

Phil, this is going to play out very interestingly. Yeah, and Scott, a little over 24 hours from now is when we'll find out whether or not Elon Musk will get the pay package that has been proposed by the Tesla Board of Directors. Here's, we're not going to go into all of the details about the proposed package. Yes, you hear a lot of people say, well, it's almost a trillion dollars. Potential value is $878 billion. Performance metrics must be met over the next 10 years for him to get all of that money. And it would raise his stake in the company above 25%. Frankly, I think it's going to be a little over 28%.

So it raises the question, who's voting for it and who's voting against it. At least those who have publicly staked their position so far. You talked about Schwab earlier, Ark Invest, no surprise there, Bering Capital. They've long been supporters of Elon Musk and what he's done at Tesla. In fact, Ron Barron took the X to basically say, let's not fool around here. If we don't give it to him, Elon Musk may leave. And don't think that he's going to leave to go to the beach. In fact, he wrote, if Elon ever leaves Tesla, we believe it's certainly not to sit on a beach somewhere drinking Maitai cocktails.

On Mars, maybe. But a beach in the Caribbean? No way. Left on set in there. And frankly, he did come out and frankly say it was, you want him to leave? Vote no. That's not a chance that you want to take if you're a testless shareholder, according to Ron Barron. And again, Scott, we'll get the results. The meeting technically starts at 4 p.m. Shortly after that is when we should get the answer in terms of how many people voted for it. By the way, it only needs to be a majority, just over 50% in order for it to go. And there's also a vote on whether or not, to do an investment from Tesla into X-A-I. Yeah. All right, Phil.

We'll obviously be watching the Schwab move, of course, an important one, and we'll pay attention to that, too. That's Phil LeBoe, joining us now on the CNBC newsline. Is Big Technologies, Alex Kanchoits, he is a CNBC contributor as well. It's so good to have you on multiple fronts, AK, but your first reaction to this news that moved late yesterday, that Schwab's a yes, and they defended that. decision with me earlier today. What do you think?

I think it points to exactly where this is going to go, which is that Elon Musk is going to get this past. And just like his last pay package, it's extremely ambitious. For those that are balking at the trillion-dollar price tag, you see that he has to get the company to $8.5 trillion in valuation and ship, and I think it's even more important, one million optimist humanoid robots in order to get it. So basically the bet here is that if Elon is going to get that compensation, he's going to effectively create an entirely new and more valuable company out of Tesla than the one that he has today. So I think he's going to get it. It's probably smart to give it to him, keep him there, and see what happens. What do you make, though, of this

uprising, if you want to even call it that, among the, you know, part of the retail cohort, which got pretty public about its threats to leave the Schwab platform, for example, if this firm didn't vote in favor. As I mentioned, Schwab says the decision was already made, that it had no influence, but it does point to some level of influence that retail thinks it has, even with big firms like this when it comes to a company like Tesla. Well, I think it just points to the fact that CEO pay in general is out of whack with where it should be, and we're seeing movements against that. We have seen movements against that. If Elon hits this milestone, he'll be paid more handsomely than any CEO ever to walk the planet.

And if you're a retail investor and you're reading the headlines and just the headlines, you'd be mad. But I think when you go a level deeper, you see that if Elon reaches these milestones, he's going to have done something historic. And, you know, it's a win-win. If he hits the milestone, he gets paid and shareholders get rewarded. And if he doesn't, he doesn't get paid that way. So I understand the reticence to give it to him, but ultimately he's going to get it,

and it's probably for the best for him in Tesla. I mean, it's far from a layup, too, that as we look at the award plan on the wall, we show that again. It's far from a layup that he's going to reach these high targets. I mean, you know, people focus on the trillion dollars. What you don't necessarily focus on is that he's got to get Tesla. to an $8.5 trillion market cap, which would be two times NVIDIA to get there.

So it's worth the perspective of this wall that we're showing our viewers now, just to give you a sense of what actually needs to happen. The other story I wanted to talk to you about was what feels like an inflection point, aka on how AI spending and how the valuation of some of these companies are going to be scrutinized in the weeks, months,

and maybe even years ahead. It was meta on earning, and then Palantir, and some are pointing to some other names, too, on the back of what seemed to be decent reports, and the stocks went lower. Well, it's about time that we saw a little bit of scrutiny, a minuscule amount of scrutiny around these AI names, because it just seems like Sam Altman has been waving a magic wand, and all of a sudden your market cap doubles, and that doesn't seem healthy to me. Ultimately, this is a real technology.

The economics behind it are all bets that it turns into something very special, very fast. And my opinion is that it's going to be something that's going to be a little bit more bumpy. There was this MIT study that showed that 95% of organizations with an AI pilot weren't getting a return on their investment, but a Wharton study just came out that said 74% are. And what that suggests to me is it's very uneven at this point. Maybe some smaller companies are seeing better returns because they're able to adapt fester and bigger companies aren't. And all this points to the fact that anybody who's looking for instant ROI on the AI, moment, it's not going to happen. I mean, opening I is supposed to lose $120 billion by

2029, even then, with 800 million weekly active users of chat chipped. So it's going to be bumpy. It's not this miracle technology, which all of a sudden, you know, cures all economic ills. And that's just something investors are going to need to be patient with. I appreciate the perspective. Alex, thank you. Alex Cantrellowitz, big technology and a CNBC contributor. Let's send it now to Steve Kovac for a look at the biggest names moving into this close. Hi, Steve. Hey, there, Scott. Yeah, SolarEd. shares, they are surging today after beating top and bottom line expectations in the third quarter. Solar Edge also announced a collaboration with semiconductor manufacturer in Finian around the development of its solid state transformers for the use in AI data centers. Other solar stocks, they're up in sympathy. Check out first solar up around 6.5% and sunrun up north of 10%. Meantime, shares of insurance company Lemonade are on pace for their best day in about two years after beating expectations in Q3 and rating. raising top and bottom line guidance for the current quarter and full gear. Lemonade cited growth

in its car division for that beat. And Pinterest shares, they're plummeting today after it posted a profit miss in Q3 and weak current quarter revenue guidance. One bright spot for the social media platform, though, monthly active users did come in above estimates. Pinterest is on pace for its worst day since May of 22, down 22 to almost 23 percent, Scott. All right, Steve, thank you for that. Steve, Kovak, we're just getting started from Schwab Impact. Coming up next, Icapitals, Sinali Bashik. She is breaking out her year-end tech playbook.

Tell us where she sees the AI trade heading from here and so much more. We'll be back right after this. All right, welcome back to Denver today. Stocks rebounding in what's been a choppy week. on what the final two months could hold for the markets. I'm joined now by Sinali Bassick. I Capital's Chief Investment Stratis. It's so fun to see you out here.

Good to see you. Are you as optimistic as I think the consensus seems to be? You know, it's interesting. We're looking at a market that's around fair value for where we thought this year would end. And so what does that mean? That we could see upside from here, certainly, but it could be choppy on the way there.

And you think about that just through the context of data releases alone, how choppy the end of the year could get because of the data collection issues that we might have with the government data as far as the next couple of releases, not September, but October and maybe even November at this point could be compromised in terms of the breadth of data collection

to get on jobs. And as investors read through that, will there be some nervousness? We have the brunt of earnings, and the NVIDIA moment is two weeks from today. But we've already seen what we're seeing kind of as a pre-announcement, right? When Jensen Wong comes out and says

there's gonna be $500 billion worth of orders, you've seen that big jump. Can that see, Can you see just as big of a jump when you get into that earning cycle? The lack of data, I guess, plays, you know, directly into what the Fed may do between now and the end of the year, what they feel comfortable doing based on the limited amount of data they have. Do you think December's at risk? We think December's live, let's put it that way.

We do still think the balance of risks is more towards the labor market and supporting labor market. And part of the reason we feel that way is when you looked at even the last SEP, you did see the Fed baking in, elevated inflation. They didn't expect 2% PCE until 2028 anyways. So when you think about the labor market, we're seeing promising data from ADP and other alternative data sources. With that said, we do believe the Fed will want to step up and support that labor market that has been in this low-fire, low-hire state right now. You heard about some of the conversation that we've already had on the show today about, you know, whether there's been an inflection point to the degree where we're just going to be more

scrutinizing of spending and where some of these stocks are. And do you think that's true? And what impact might that have on performance of those names between now and the end of the year? You know, it's so funny. A few weeks ago, I heard you voice some concern around the debt ladenness of this AI boom. And a few weeks ago, I disagreed with you, actually. You look today and you see the story starting to change after earnings. Meta, for example, you had seen them being among the biggest drags on

EPS in what's otherwise a very healthy environment for earnings growth for much of the S&P 500. When you look at META, a day later, they turned around and raise money in the debt market, which draws the question, are there other ways to access the AI theme without that stock market volatility at the valuations that we are at today? Now, one interesting statistic, you look through the end of the year, and the CAPEX to free cash flow, the ratios like 70%, we think that could grow to 75 to 80%, and you have others worrying whether you're going to start to see negative-free cash flow for some of these firms. So we do think that how that Capax boom is finance is going to be a big story going into 2026.

I mean, you mentioned Ambidia. Is there any reason to believe that whatever happens in two weeks is going to somehow be construed as a negative? You hear from all the hypers of what they're spending directly going into what NVIDIA is reporting. And as you said, Jensen Wong, we keep hearing from him talk about how positive their business continues to be. I mean, it'll be a market-moving event, I guess, because it always is, but is there any reason to think that it's going to be something negative? No, that's not even where I'm really going with this. It's more that will it be that catalyst that investors are looking for into year-end?

Like I said, we do still see upside from here, but will Nvidia be that catalyst? I think one thing that's really interesting, Scott, is the composition of the Magnificent 7. We would urge investors to look at how the individual components, are performing. And the rotation you've actually seen in the last couple of weeks to some of the laggards now catching up, but some of the highest performers now falling behind because of how that cap-x story is changing. What about that? What about all these other parts of the market? Like, is there a surprise out there between now and the end of the year? I mean, health care's picked up a lot. That's no longer a surprise. Now people are sort of thing, okay, the trend's legit.

I believe in that. What else? You don't think it's a surprise that some of the greatest performing sectors right now on an earnings basis are falling behind. I think it's really interesting that you see financials, a theme that we've loved all year, still down, you know, relative to the S&P 500 more broadly, it's trading 13% below. And so wouldn't there then be room for more growth there for a sector that has seen 20% EPS growth? It's interesting to us that we're not seeing investors yet really flock to quality and still trade on vibes. Well, there does seem to be, though, maybe a little bit of a reversal in, you know, the higher beta, lower quality stock. So maybe what you're talking about is going to come to fruition.

You know, it's interesting. You know, you look today, for example, everybody's been asking about the retail trade. Is it petering out? A Goldman Basket of Retail Favorites is still up 2% today. Now, it's basically plateaued since the end of September. But retail interest is there. We say through our own platform, what we're seeing is a lot of individual investor interest in accessing these names with people willing to give up some of the upside to protect on the downside. So investors want to stay invested. They just maybe don't want to feel the drag of volatility that might be experienced in the next couple months. Good to see you. Shanali Basick. Thank you. We'll see you soon. All right. Still ahead. Qualcomm reporting results at top of the

hour. We're going to run you through all the key metrics to watch. The bell's coming right back. Coming up next, Schwab's Kathy Jones on the backup in Rates and her best fixed income plays right now. We are back on the bell live in Denver right after this. Welcome back to Schwab Impact here at the Colorado Convention Center. Interest rates, they've been rising since Fed Chair Palsmore hawkish comments during last week's news conference. Kathy Jones is Schwab's chief fixed income strategist and joins us now. It's good to see you. Hi, Scott.

What do you make of the backup in rates? You know, I think the market just got way over his skis and expectations for Fed easing. I'm not really sure why because the data weren't really that compelling. But now, you know, we're back to. kind of an equilibrium where we're anticipating, you know, a couple of rate cuts next year and at the long end hanging out, and it's usually 10 years hanging out about 410 where it's been for quite some time. I know, but we were below 4% on the 10 year.

We're up, you know, more than 15 basis points, and you think it's directly a result of what was unequivocally a more hawkish Powell. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think the market expected Powell to come out and say, okay, we did this cut, Now we're going to keep cutting. And that was definitely not the message. What do you think? Do you think there's any tariff Supreme Court risk in the curve?

I don't think so because the amount of tariff revenue, if you want to call it that, is pretty small relative to the size of the deficit, the size of the economy. So I don't think it's going to have a big impact that way. It seems like from what I know you like in the market, if you were going to recommend tips, for example, to an... to investors. Do you think the risk is to the upside on inflation from here? Well, part of it is the valuation tips right now. If you buy them, you have a positive real return. So part of it is just the math works out. It's indexed to inflation. You get

that positive real return. The second thing, though, is I think there is more upside risk to inflation than downside, at least for the next six to 12 months. Beyond that, we'll have to see, but I think that there's enough risk that it warrants having some exposure to tips. What do you think the Fed does into 26? I mean, are you, first of all, do you think December gets it gets another rate cut? No, I don't think so. No. And what about as we turn the calendar? Yeah, it's going to depend on if we get data, it's going to depend on how the data turn out. I think a couple of rate cuts in 2026. I think they're going to take their time, take it slow, look at how things are playing out. But there's room to cut one or two more time.

But after that, unless inflation really comes down, you're getting the policy rate and the inflation rate right on top of each other. There's not much room to maneuver. What is most exciting to you today in fixed income? You know, I guess it's exciting that it's not exciting. So there's enough excitement in all the other markets, enough volatility, enough turmoil.

We've got a very, very solid return. So you're looking at very positive returns in every sub-asset class international bonds. international bonds have produced, you know, 9.5% total return year to date has been very attractive. I don't know we can repeat it next year, but I think there's, for the first time in 15 years, there's probably an opportunity to be invested in international bonds. It's funny, there are some that I've interviewed lately who agree with that, that the international credit markets, bond markets, are more attractive than ours right now. Europe, maybe emerging

markets as well, and you agree? Yeah, I don't know, they're more attractive, but I think that there's some opportunity there. And it's been such a long stretch when it really didn't look good for a U.S. dollar-based investor. And now we have a less strong dollar. That's going to help a lot. Quickly to high yield, yes or no? Cautious. So high yield as we look at it is less junky than it used to be. I'm more worried about the leverage loan market and some of the really low quality stuff. Don't downplay the possibility for excitement and fixed income. I know it's weird asking you what's most exciting and fixed income. But hey, this is what it is. Kathy's good to see you. Thank you.

All right, it's Kathy Jones. Coming up next, we're tracking the biggest movers as we head into the close today. Steve Kovac. He is back with that. Hi, Steve. Yeah, Scott. We got one new investment from Carl Icon to sending shares of a name in the autospace soaring plus an EV player seeing a boost following its Q3 results. We'll reveal their names. The closing back comes back after this. 15 minutes before the closing bell. Let's get back to Steve Kovac now for a look at the key stocks that he is watching. What do you see?

Yeah, Scott, check out Rivian shares there on pace for their best day ever after the EV maker, top Q3 estimates and announced the launch of its R2 SUV remains on track. Rivian further said it completed construction on its Illinois manufacturing plant for the R2, which was first announced in May. Also, shares of auto repair company Monroe are also surging today after Car Icon took a roughly 15% stake in the company becoming its largest stakeholder. Shares had fallen more than 40% this year before Icon's stake was revealed. And this one just crossed a few minutes ago, Sears XM, with a late move hire after a story

from the Hollywood reporter that Netflix has approached the satellite radio company to license its video podcast. As sources confirmed the report, which also says that a deal would likely include video podcasts, which would exclusively appear on Netflix, though no deal has been reached yet, Scott. All right, that's an interesting story. Steve Kovac, thank you very much. Coming up next, we break down what to watch for from Qualcomm and Snap. Both are reporting top of the hour in OT.

We'll do it in the Market Zone, which is next. We are now in the closing bell of Market Zone. CNBC Senior Markets Commentator. Mike Santoli is here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus, MJP Wealth Advisors, Brian Vending is with me from the Schwab Impact Conference as we head into these final moments of the trading day. Julia Borson with a rundown of what to watch for from Snap and McKenzie Segalos has the setup into Qualcomm earnings.

Michael, I'll begin with you. You think any of today's move is related to what's been happening and some of the commentary in the Supreme Court today regarding the Trump tariffs? The market doesn't never like the tariffs to begin with. And if you look at the Russell and small business reaction, I just wonder if there's some of that in here. I think you could look at some parts of consumer retail

tariff-exposed companies that are having very strong bounces today and definitely see that. I heard what you were talking about with Kathy Jones about whether the bond market is reacting to it. I think it's hard to isolate, but it certainly pushes in the direction of potentially higher yields. So I do think that's part of it. Also, a little bit of movement perhaps on ending the government shutdown. And you have these oversold bounces in consumer cyclicals, which I think have been a prominent sore point of this rally. they've been left behind, airlines, things like that, have been moving to the upside.

And then the other part of today's story is just a ferocious comeback in yesterday's hardest hit areas like high beta and semis. That being said, we've only regained half of what was lost yesterday on the S&P 500. So it's sort of like constructive, but not necessarily, you know, decisive in terms of whether yesterday was the start of something or not. I'll come back to you in just a minute. Julia Borson's taking a look at Snap, which is an OT. we expect. Well, Scott, after Pinterest shares plummeted on concerns about tariffs impacting

advertisers, we'll see whether SNAP echoes those concerns or whether the sponsored SNAPS format which launched last year helps accelerate revenue in the quarter. Now, SNAP's earnings are expected to fall to five cents per share from eight cents in the year ago quarter, while revenue is projected to grow 8.6%. Investors are also watching the impact of the growth of Snapchat Plus, which just top 16 million subscribers, as well as the company's plan to charge its heavy users for photo storage. Snap shares are down nearly 40% over the past year, haven't fallen 21% in just the last three months. After last quarter, average revenue per user missed expectations. And most analysts are on the sidelines. 72% have a hold, 17% have a buy, and 11% have a sell. Scott?

Okay, so we'll see what happens. Julia Borsdon, thanks so much. as we will with Qualcomm, Mac. Yes, we will. Scott, we got AI chips giving Qualcomm a long overdue escape route from smartphones. Its new accelerators mark a pivot into data centers, a move that's already been rewarded in the market, though real revenue, it's still years out and very much hinges on execution. Smartphones will continue to drive most of Qualcomm's sales for now, but that business is under pressure. And then there's China-related headwinds. Beijing just launched an antitrust probe into one of its auto-chip deal.

and nearly half of Qualcomm's revenue still comes from Chinese firms, a major risk as Beijing pushes customers toward local alternatives. Add in Apple and Samsung moving more silicon in house and Qualcomm is getting squeezed from all sides. The stock trading more than 4% higher going into the close, but it still trails peers like Nvidia and AMD, a sign that Wall Street isn't fully sold on its turnaround story just yet, Scott. Okay, McKenzie, thank you, McKenzie Segal's. We do have a news alert on financials. Software provider, One Stream. Our Steve Kovac joins us now.

What are we learning? Yeah, Scott. Rorters reporting that that company is exploring a sale now just after being public for about 18 months, talking with J.P. Morgan and a potential acquire would be Blackstone. So we see, I don't have a chart up here right now where chairs are doing, but they were popping on this news, Scott. So potential sale here short in this company. There we go, up 7.5 percent, Scott. Okay, we'll follow that as well.

Into this close and beyond. Steve Kovac, thank you very much. for that. Let's bring in MJP Wells, Brian Bendig, who's here with me at Impact in Denver. It's good to see you. Your thoughts on this market are what? I think this market's still a buy Scott. I know people are talking about valuations and concerns, but we just go right back to earnings. And we look at earnings coming in better than expectations. Outlook for 2026, 13% EPS growth year over year. Don't make it all about growth. Focus a little bit on value in cyclicals, especially if government reopened some of these consumer plays are back in focus okay so let's go there

because you like midcaps and small caps okay uh controversial take in in this market currently some would say why make it so difficult on yourself just stay stay stay big and stay ai no for sure but you got to look at the earnings growth potential of these companies that are in that in that space and such in the fact that in the large cap space it's sort of concentrated right we have this mega cap tech story let's look outside of that let's look at area areas that are going to benefit from tax policy. They're going to benefit from, you know, Fed moving more neutral. It's a growth story, earnings growth story, participating in an economy that's really bending but not breaking. Do you think it matters that the market's so concentrated?

I think it matters to an extent because, especially from a retail investor perspective, you've so much exposure to the tech innovation. I'm not saying that that trade's dead. But I think at the end of the day, earnings drives markets, and we see a higher participation of earnings growth coming from names outside of tech over the next 12 months or so. And I think it's a good time to look at these days when the market bounces back, diversify a little bit. And you think you can go 7,000, maybe 7,100 between now and the end of the year on the S&P? I think if you take a look at history and kind of coming out of these government shutdowns and kind of where the earnings growth story is, there's probably a couple

percentage points in seasonality that we can pick up going into the end of the year. And then next year, midterm election year, you've got to look at other areas outside of some of these cyclical names. That's why I think health care is getting a bid. That's why I see some consumer staple names coming into Focus, Scott. What if we don't come out of the government shutdown? I think we will come out of the government shutdown because there is some friction that is starting to build, especially as you look at some of the new cycles today on what's going on with the amount of economic loss on a weekly basis, concerns about more traffic delays, talking about these debates that they're starting to, these conversations are starting to happen. I think we could get

some brevity on the shutdown over the next couple of weeks. All right. Well, wow, a couple of weeks. I mean, yeah, a couple weeks. First half of November. Okay. All right. I'll do that. All right. We'll see what happens. Brian. Thanks for being here. That's Brian bending. Mike, we'll finish with you. We've got a few minutes left here before this bell does ring. And look, Nvidia's looming a couple weeks from now. That's really the next big hurdle, I suppose, that this market has to get over. It definitely is in terms of kind of putting a bookend on the earning story and seeing if anything can kind of top what we've already built up in the way of expectations into next year. I do think that they're kind of investor day, raise the sites. I think it really does also underwrote the whole AI sector.

We're never going to really escape. I don't think for however long this theme lasts the questions and the debate about whether the evaluations have overdone it, whether we're over-extrapolating. the strength of the AI infrastructure boom. But the numbers keep coming through. At this point, we're looking at like a 12% aggregated year-over-year growth rate for earnings for the third quarter. Obviously, very strong, much stronger than expected. So even though stocks have not traded particularly well off of that,

I think it does kind of go into the earnings base into next year. You know, we were talking about the tariff thing. Obviously, the market probably would celebrate it if, in fact, some tariffs had to be refunded and maybe the administration had to do it more piecemeal. Although that would push against the idea that we're going to get kind of a clean 2026 where we just kind of know what we're dealing with on that front. So for now, you get some relief.

I'm looking at Mattel is trading up pretty big. Ralph Lauren is up big. The furniture makers are definitely getting a bid today. So we'll see how that goes. You're going to be watching this Tesla vote outcome? Yeah, I think to a degree, I'm not sure how much there's suspense there is. The market is certainly expressing a fair amount of confidence that the pay packages, is going to be approved and therefore it's kind of, you know, business as usual there.

I always watch Tesla as, you know, more of a risk appetite tell, the willingness to believe, along with Nvidia, along with Palantir, you know, they're right in there. So I do think it'll be fascinating to see how it breaks down once we get the actual numbers. And then the other piece of today, I guess you have to re-accentuate is the bond market move and how much of a move higher from here, from 415, 416 on the 10-year yield, we'd be comfortable with. For a while, stocks have been moving up along with yields because we've been more worried about economic growth falling away

than we have been about inflation. So we'll see if this gets any legs to it, this little sell-off in treasuries that we're seeing today. All right, good stuff, Mike. Thanks. By the way, everybody, don't forget about Robin Hood, which is going to report earnings, obviously a big retail name to keep an eye on too. So the bell is going to ring, and it's going to ring us out.

Green across the board today, a pretty good snapback from the big sell-off. Of course, not as much to get it all back, but nonetheless, a good day across the board in the market. That does a bluff here at the Colorado Convention Center. Swab impact in Denver. I'll send it into overtime.