Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Make-or-Break Moment for Nvidia 11/19/25

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

All eyes are on Nvidia today. What should investors expect from the report, the guidance, and the conference call? We discuss with Kristina Partsinevelos, Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon and Capital Area Planning Group’s Malcolm Ethridge. Plus, Sherry Paul from Morgan Stanley tells us what’s at stake for the AI trade on the back of those critical earnings. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wapner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker breakout begins with what else, the countdown to Nvidia. It's highly anticipated earnings report. We do have a team of experts at the ready, including star analyst Stacey Raskan. They'll all tell us what to watch most of all. Here's how we look now with 60 to go from that release, a fairly muted day on the street today, given what's at stake in overtime. No big surprise there. NASDAQ is the big winner, but it's led by a continued burst in alphabet. Unbelievable story for those shares. Take a look up again today, almost 4%. And that chart over a longer period of time just looks amazing. Elsewhere, target shares not so much. They were lower today on a revenue missed from their earnings report. Stock is down more than 3%. How about Bitcoin? It's below 90K again, volatile to say the least down another 4% at 88,000 and change. Let's get right to our talk of the tape today. All eyes on Nvidia, the report, the guidance, the conference call, We're setting you up for all of it. Joining us now are ace reporter, Christina Partsenevolo, shareholder, Malcolm Etheridge,

and star analyst Stacey Raskon of Bernstein. It's good to have everybody with us. Stace, I'll begin with you. I want to know more than anything else what we need to know and pay attention to tonight. Yeah, you bet. I think people are already expecting a pretty strong quarter and died. I mean, Jensen at the GTC event a few weeks ago, effectively said numbers next year look way too low. We talked about a $500 billion order trajectory cumulative, like through 25 and 26, which

if you parse it out, is quite a bit higher where where current numbers sits. I think people are already expecting, you know, good numbers. I think it's more around like tone, you know, like the whole AI space has been fairly weak, like in recent weeks. People have been, you know, bubble fears and, you know, entities raising debt and all kinds of stuff that have had people worried. And I think what we're looking for hopefully is. for Jensen to be able to come out and calm some of those fears and talk about some of the

visibility, hopefully that they do have as we go forward and sustainability of demand and everything else. But if he can sort of calm things down a little bit and maybe give people a little bit more to grasp onto, I think that's mostly what we're looking for, because the numbers themselves, I think should be pretty good. Yeah, exactly. That's why I didn't even ask you about the numbers, because people expect the numbers to be good. But Christine, I feel like that's dead on, right? We need, we being the investor community that's felt a little off lately about this trade needs Jensen Wong to hold our collective hands and say, no, it's not a bubble. Y'all can relax. Today's interaction between Jensen Wong and Elon Musk on stage, the fact that they were able to laugh

over the Elon Musk saying trillions and bazillions of dollars pretty much is emblematic of where we are in the market right now. The fact that they could just throw out these huge numbers and people don't seem to care. They just laugh about it. I think that is adding to the anxiety. Finally, we're questioning, where is this money coming from? How long is it going to take for us to actually see a return? And so for Nvidia, specifically, in terms of numbers, $64 billion, that's the buy side for Q4 revenue. That seems to be the consensus. So that number needs to be hit. Gross margins, there's concern about memory prices, other inputs that could potentially hurt margins, because remember the company promised it would exit the year at 75%. So we'll be looking for

those two particular. But then to Stacey's point, of course, demand sustainability. Where is Open AI going to come into this? How are they going to finance the deal for Open AI? How are the hyperscalers doing? What about sovereign AI? You talked about Saudi Arabia today. What's going on over there? And so these are factors that are definitely going up on the fall call. Malcolm, what are you going to be watching more than anything else? Yeah, I think you guys are putting it perfectly. We're not so worried about the previous quarter so much as we are going forward. I think that Jensen Wong is pretty much going to have to pull an Elon Musk-style rabbit out of the hat here and start talking about the next generation of where Nvidia GPUs are going

to be important, where he sees future demand coming from. He's already released breadcrumbs in the past about things like autonomous driving, robotics, things like that. And so I think, yes, the guidance is what's really going to drive this, where we've already heard from the hypers, just how much demand there is for today's generation of GPUs. We're really interested in hearing about the future now from Jensen Wong. That's a thing, Stacey, you know, and Christina mentions that perfectly, and she uses the words of the moment, I think, demand sustainability. The question, though, we know already that the Cappex ramp is in its early stages still.

So we're not really going to be able to answer that question about demand sustainability today. We're not even going to be able to answer it tomorrow. So how do we deal with something that we're not going to have an answer to for some time? Yeah, I mean, that's always been the worry. with the stock ever since it all started, you know, a few years ago was the numbers have gotten so big, so quickly that people just worry that they, that they, it just can't happen like that. And I think we've been proven wrong time and time again as we went along. You know, as I look at it right now, you know, the only ones that are really worried about

the demandance of similar right now, at least are the investors. The companies are actually spending the money don't really seem that worried. And if you sort of look at where things are coming, you know, worries about air pockets. It's, in terms of the spending, it's clearly not this year. It certainly doesn't look like it's next year. And you start talking about Open AI, you know, they're ramping a ton. Their stuff doesn't even start to ramp until the end of 26.

So it's probably not 2027 either in terms of the spending outlook. We'll see what the stocks do. I mean, again, they tend to anticipate things. But in terms of the overall spending environment and CAPEX cycles and everything, I still think that we're early. Malcolm, the whole point here is

it brings you back to 96. It brings you back to green spend. The whole reason why it took four years for the internet bubble to burst is because when Alan Greenspan made his warning about irrational exuberance, that was just looking at activity in the stock market that looked like it may be getting a little ahead of itself. You didn't actually know that it was until four years later, which might play out very much the same way this time because the spend has to lead somewhere and the spend is only starting. But I think, Scott, we might be showing that there is a little bit more rationalism among investors right now, where you see folks parsing between the different companies and trying to make a bit of a distinction between CapEx that has an end to it versus CapEx that's a little bit of a bottomless pit, right? So we've seen the reaction to meta as an example in comparison to like an Amazon or Microsoft. We're not so worried as we started this conversation talking about Nvidia's numbers necessarily, but we see them more as a bellwether for the entire tech sector, specifically the hyperscalers.

Because this is a company that's representative of what, 7, 8% of the S&P 500 right now, something like 20% of all the positive gain in the S&P has been attributable to NVIDIA. And I think over the last three years, we've seen roughly 1,000% return for NVIDIA. So it's a bellwether for the entire ecosystem, but I think we have to be a little bit more targeted at what companies we look at and question whether the CAPEX actually has some into it and whether it has the ability to deliver some return versus dollars that are just being thrown at these investments for no real tangible reason. I mean, Christina, you already mentioned, you know, Jensen Wong and Musk today in D.C.

at the Saudi U.S. forum where they were very jovial and all that. But Jensen Wong did give you a little hint on what he may say on the call where he said, said of this, you know, huge ramp from CPU to GPU, from old way to new way, is justified. He used the word justified. You feel like we'll get more on that angle. And then I've got another thought about these so-called circular deals, which I'm sure he's going to be asked about on that call by the analyst community as well. Yeah.

For the, you're pretty much asking about the total addressable market that Jensen Wong has spoken about saying that all of this old hardware that's out there needs to be updated. And he's seeing it as a three to four trillion dollar opportunity over the next few years. So to your point, I'm sure he will speak to that. I don't think he would raise that total addressable market number anytime soon. But there is an opportunity for these companies to update it. For the circular narrative, if you look at Corey's results, they talked about real demand. They're saying that they're sold out of even just the hoppers, the A-100s, an even older model.

If you look at the GP rental spot price market, that has climbed just over the last little while. So there seems to be continued demand even for the older chips, and that shows that people are still spending, still buying. And even if Nvidia happens to be funding CoreWeave and paying into OpenAI and paying into working with Microsoft and they're all buying those chips, the money is eventually supposed to come back to Nvidia, right? So if anything, NVIDIA is just playing their cards right by investing absolutely everywhere, including Anthropic, right? Move up the scale, focus on the next leg of customers, large language models, those that are going to be really invested in those models. So it's smart on their part. Free cash flow.

I think it was $400 billion over the next two and a half years. They have the money if they don't do buybacks. Stacey, how are you thinking about the circular deals? Do you need more information? Are you dying to know more? We actually know a lot about what they're doing, right? But when you think about it, again, they're going to be, see if the numbers are right, but they should be generating hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars

of free cash flow over the next several years. So what can they do with that? They can't do big M&A, nobody will let them. They have a buyback and a dividend, but given their market cap, it's hard for those to be really, really meaningful. So, I mean, I'll be honest, I'm hard for us to come up with a better use of their cash at this point rather than using it to help grow and support the AI ecosystem. and certainly grow it and support it around their own products.

Like, why is that a bad use of their cash at this point? It's, what else could they do with it? They could be better. I hear you, but it's like, you know, they're doing whatever they're doing with their cash, and then the person they're giving their cash to is doing this with that cash, and then you've got to complete the circle all the way around. It's like everybody's dependent on one another. Yeah, but if there's a slip-up, then you have a problem for multiple parties.

Yeah, but if there's a slip-up, we're all screwed anyways, right? Like, if you think about most of the bare cases, and they're literally, legitimate bear cases, but most of them, in my mind, collapsed down to one thing. Demand is not as sustainable as we think. If the demand for compute rolls over, then there's going to be a whole host of problems, whether or not, you know, there's cross-talk among the different players in the ecosystem or not. So I don't really worry too much about it. The question of my mind is, is the demand sustainable or is it not?

If it's sustainable, everything's fine. If it's not, like we're going to have problems regardless, I think. All right. I think it's a good way of putting it. We'll leave it there. Guys, thank you so much. We'll see what happens with this report. Christina Malcolm and Stacey, I know we'll see all of you soon.

So what is at stake for the market tonight? Because of this report, let's ask Solis Alternative Asset Management's Dan Greenhouse and New York Life Investments, Lauren Goodwin, both as you see are here at post-9. You want to take that first? What's really at stake for the market as we thought we were going to head into this period and we were going to run into the end of the year? I think so a lot's at stake. And I think that first of all, let me just say, Stacey, Razgon is just very very. phenomenal at articulating, putting him on a panel with anybody else, does it disservice to everybody else? Because he's just super knowledgeable and really gets to the heart of the matter.

I would suggest that the other two people on the panel just absolutely lived up to whatever. I'm not saying there's anything wrong. I'm just saying Stacey is very good. Okay, that's great. Just answer my question. So I agree with a lot of what he said. I think this is obviously very important. It is the biggest name. But I will say for all the worry that we have, We have earnings reports from every one of the other hyperscalers and mega-cap tech companies, from Eaton, from Vertive, from Quanta, from all the AI derivative plays, from power, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And every one of them talked about demand exceeding supply, the no letdown, and you see this across the ecosystem. So it's hard for me to believe, especially in the wake of the comments from GTC the other day,

it's hard for me to believe that this is going to be a disappointing report. The only question is in terms of the fourth quarter guidance, whether it's just going to be $62 billion, or it's going to be more, say, $63 billion? I just go back to what I said about the Greenspan thing. There's a reason why it took that long, because you couldn't know whether it was true irrational exuberance that was going to explode

or if it was just a moment in time. It turned out to be something that was going to explode. We just didn't know it for four years. Yeah, I love that you brought up the Greenspan moment because it's something I've been thinking a lot about not only from the interplay of monetary policy and the financing of this AI CAPEX, but also something that I think is a major difference between then and now, which is the geopolitical

backdrop. I think this actually plays into a little bit of stability of the AI trade in the next couple of years because in this environment, we have not only the corporate and consumer demand for these products, but an arms race on who's going to be able to secure these supply chains. That's spending, that's racing for the CAPEX with sort of a new oomph, an extra power, no pun intended, that I think is really important in underlying this trade. It has different tradeoffs when comes to monetary policy, et cetera. But when it comes to just really supporting NVIDIA's story, it's an important uplift. I mean, as you say that, I'm writing down, yeah, but you could also spend that and say the whole world has leveraged this. I completely agree. I think the

setup for that leverage has a little time behind it. I mean, if you look at what's happening right now, the Fed is cutting into an economy that's doing pretty well. The big labor market question that they're facing actually has more to do with the technology that's being rolled out than anything else. And you have more and more of this backdrop being financed over the next couple of years with debt. More parts of the economy, including power, data centers, etc., moving into this trade. So I see that setup over the next few years, but I do think we have a few years for the demand story to iron out. Since we're talking about the Greenspan moment from so long ago, it's interesting in the Fed minutes today. All that's old is new again. In some of the

because you have a quote here that I want to read to you and you react to it. Quote, some participants commented on stretch asset valuations in financial markets, with several of these participants highlighting the possibility of a disorderly fall in equity prices, especially in the event of an abrupt reassessment of the possibilities of AI-related technology. You wrote, while you're smiling, you're rolling your eyes. I'm smiling because it, first of all, it's an opinion, and we know the saying about opinions. Secondly, the Federal Reserve Board, these are like the last people that I would go to about market advice. And we're talking about the Greenspan thing? Fine.

How about Janet Yellen and the Fed in 2015, I think it was, releasing a report saying equity valuations were stressed? If I remember correctly, it was biotech they were talking about. I don't remember. And then I think when she was leaving the Fed in 2018, she made a comment, surprise, surprise, equity valuations were stretched. I'm talking about this right now. I'm going to relitigate like 20 years of? You brought up something 25 years ago. It's relevant to this.

It's relevant to this conversation. But it's the same point. The idea that the Federal Reserve is a body of people from whom we should be taking market advice. I don't think we should. I don't think that was true in 96. You show up in a full suit today and you're going to treat people badly. You're going to apologize, by the way, to Christine and Malcolm before you go. So you can think about how you want to do that.

What do you make of the minutes? That comment. So with respect to the minutes themselves, it is very clear to me that the Fed is looking to move policy lower. The only sort of difference over the next six to nine months is the pace at which they do that. That's what we learn from the minutes. When it comes to the sort of specifics of equity valuations, et cetera, I'd actually point to the first half of this year, a lot of what we saw, or really post-Liberation Day, a lot of the run-up that we saw was about multiple expansion. Since September, a lot of the uptick in equity results that we've seen has been about earnings results. That's, you know, when it comes to the backdrop of this market, again, with a cutting fed, a reasonable economy, strong earnings,

we are likely to see hiccups when investors get concerned about valuations where they are. That's not necessarily unhealthy. That's not necessarily detrimental. Where I'd start to get worried, which where everyone would get worried. You see 15% down on the S&P 500. Then I start to get worried about the consumer because we've seen so much of the boost in this economy come from consumer spending in the high-income segment. Yeah, I mean the wealth effect. I mean, you know, it matters.

Can I just also say we talk about valuations as if, oh, yes, these are all super expensive stocks. They're not. Invidia, the whole market is trading a what, 21, 22, 23 times earnings or something like that? Invidia, God willing, has a good report today. Is trading it, what, 30 times? I don't think they're talking about the invidias of the world when they raise questions about the valuation. What are they talking about service now or Palantir? You don't think they are?

No, we talk about the Mag 7. What's Corweaves valuation? What's Palisiers? Correweev has no effect on the, by the way, Corweave the other day, talk about demand. Correve said the other day that three-year-old chips are getting 95% of the original rental price. So how bad could demand possibly be if that's the case? But side note, Corweave has no effect on broader markets whatsoever. And if Corweeve gets cut in half or Palantir gets cut in half,

That basically, some people are going to be hurt, and that's terrible because both of them are very good companies. I think it has a bigger impact than you want to believe it does. Whether you have a large retail component there, whether you have those being sentiment gauges in the broader AI trade, that so many different kinds of stocks have gone up in this euphoria over this transformational technology. I don't know. I mean, some of these big names are 20% off their highs. I don't see any retailer. Walmart's not going to come out and say,

oh, we're not selling a lot of pajamas today because Palantir's down 50%. I don't think that's going to happen. To Lawrence point, if the broader market were to fall 15%. If some of these big tech names, NVIDIA, META, Apple, et cetera, et cetera, were to fall 25% or 30% in unison, then maybe consumer spending might be affected,

but I refuse to believe, I'm sorry, that CoreWeave has a meaningful effect on consumer spending. Coreweave does not have an impact on consumer spending. So we agree. The bigger impact from the minutes is this idea that December's a toss-up. It's a straight-up toss-up, and there is going to be battles in the room? I would go a step further and say it's not even a toss-up. It's probably 20-80. Not going to happen. Does that matter to the market?

I don't think so. What do you think? I tend to agree. I think, again, the Fed has made it very clear that they want to get closer to neutral, and so December is more about the pace at which they do that than anything else. And as I think about the market setup as we move into the end of the year, I don't know how much it matters because we do have a constructive economic backdrop. We haven't had a ton of data. We have a Fed who can signal, hey, look, we're going to adjust things with respect to liquidity on the margin. We're moving forward with cutting.

It's just not going to happen on this pace. I'm not worried about that in terms of the health of the market on the back of a reasonable economy. Let me just add real quick. If we were to poll closing bell viewers, who I might add are the smartest group of television viewers we have in all of finance. financial television. If we were to poll them and tell them, you can have one of these two scenarios. The Fed's going to cut, and NVIDIA is going to guide to $60 billion in revenue, or the Fed's not going to cut, NVIDIA is going to guide to $63 billion in revenue and a path to $310 billion in 2020, and 76% gross margins. Which do you think they would take? I would bet you dollars to donuts

that 90% of our incredibly smart viewing audience, your incredibly smart viewing audience, would pick the NVIDIA beat and no rate cut. Well, because there's not a belief that we, quote, unquote, need a rate cut. A correct belief, I would argue. It's a cherry on top of a Sunday that already tastes good. I agree. But the importance of the AI story is so much more, in my opinion, is so much more relevant to driving forward equity gains right now

than is whether the Fed cuts or not. And I would, don't take my word for it, the odds of a December cut have gone from 100 to 20. I know. And the market overall is off by 3% or something like that. Rates are up. Yeah, a little bit. You started off very poorly.

You finished. I think I started great and I ended great, but that's my personal opinion. You insulted two people on the panel. You can say nice things about us. I think both of you are wonderful. All I'm saying is Stacey Razgon is great. That's all. I don't know if you fixed it or not.

I don't think so. I'll buy them drinks. All right, Lauren and Dan, thank you very much. We're getting some news on Block. Mackenzie Segalis has that for us. Hey, Mack. Hey, Scott. So Block is trying to reset the narrative after six straight quarterly revenue misses,

unveiling a three-year financial outlook and laying out bullish new targets at its first investor day since 2022. CEO Jack Dorsey making a rare appearance as the company projected gross profit to grow in the mid-teens annually through 2028, reaching $15.8 billion, and it forecast adjusted earnings per share rising the low 30% range to 550. Now, for Context blocks Q3 results earlier this month showed EPS of just 54 cents on around $6.1 billion in revenue. That was a miss on both the top and bottom lines.

Now, CFO, I'm Rita Ahuja, told me that Block is now running more efficiently after a company-wide reorg and Scott with its recent addition to the S&P 500 and a new set of multi-year targets. The company is clearly trying to shift the conversation toward growth, profitability, and long-term execution. Those shares little changed on the news, though. Well, they're halted right now, so we'll watch for that when it does reopen. Mack, thank you, Mackenzie Segalis. To Sima Modi now for look at the biggest names moving into the close. Hi, Sima. Scott, 37 minutes left in trade and the major retailers posting their quarterly earnings report,

Target slipping by 3% after posting a drop in third quarter sales and lowering its full-year profit guidance. The retailer has seen four years of stagnant sales. Target did announce a deal with OpenAI that allows consumers to shop on its app with chat GPT, but the stock is down 3% at this hour. Let's talk about TJX, moving a bit after posting a third quarter earnings that surpassed analyst's expectations, sales rising 7% for the quarter, and the CEO saying Holly Shoppings off to a very strong start as wealthier shoppers trade down. That is helping the stock gain fraction right now, but it's up about 20% this year. Finally, shares of lows popping 5% after posting a third quarter profit

that beat estimates. The retailer saw quarterly sales grow year over year, but lowered its full-year profit outlook, citing economic uncertainty stock down about 7% so far this year, Scott. All right, Seema. Thank you. Sima Modi. We're just getting started. Here up next, a breakout and a breakdown. We are tracking two parts of this market, moving in opposite directions. The details just after this break. We are back on the bell alphabet shares hitting an all-time high yet again today. Dear Jir Jibosa here tracking that breakout for us, and it has been quite a breakout that's been months in the making.

It has been no AIA anxiety for Google. And it's ironic because it comes despite the people running the company, Sennar Pichai, Demas, Sivas, sounding the alarm this week, talking about a bubble. But the attention has firmly been on this new model, Gemini 3, which jumped to the top of third-party leaderboards. And what investors should really pay attention to is how Google actually built it. It was fully trained and served on Google's custom chips, TPUs. Now, for years, TPUs have been seen as a powerful but niche tool that only Google could really use. This model, though, shows that they are capable of training and serving a true frontier system at global scale.

And that could expand its market, which already counts Anthropic and As well. Apple as customers, and it could give other model builders, Google included, alternative to Nvidia GPUs. Now, the market is certainly now appreciating that Alphabet for this next leg of the AI race, where investors are a little nervous around spending. Google has this fully integrated stack model, chips, distribution, something that its competitors like an Open AI does not have. It is now, of course, the best performing Meg 7 stock this year.

And yet, Scott, I like to point out valuation, it is still the second cheapest of the group. on a forward price to earnings basis. Yeah, good points you make, of course. Dee, thank you, Dear Joe Bose. All right, from a breakout to a breakdown, Bitcoin, that tumble continuing today. Mackenzie Segalos here with the latest. On that, tell us more, Mac.

So Scott, crypto's back in sell-off mode, even as tech stocks are rebounding. You've got Bitcoin plunging below 89K today. It's now down nearly 30% from the record high it hit just a few weeks ago. Thinning liquidity is a major driver with two of the most important buyers stepping back. Institutions now hold

around 16% of Bitcoin supply, but that trade is losing momentum. Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin down around 10% just today. Mizuho and Clear Street both cutting their price targets on that stock. Meanwhile, Black Rock's Ibit, the largest spot Bitcoin ETF, just posted its biggest single-day outflow since launch on Tuesday. A lot of those crypto-etfholders are now underwater, which is undercutting one of the core bull arguments that another wave of buyers would always be there to step in. That narrative is slipping. Then the knock-on effects hitting every category of crypto-pegged equities. The Bitcoin miners, the digital asset exchanges like Coinbase, which you'd think would benefit from sell-off-driven trading volume

all in the red. And then those digital asset treasury names firmly in sell-off mode, too. And remember, it was just Sunday that Bitcoin triggered that closely watched technical indicator known as a death cross. And we are mid-cycle in that seven-day window that could decide whether the bottom is in, or if there's more pain ahead. Scott? All right, McKenzie. Thank you very much. McKenzie Segalis. We got a nice move in the market as we are less than an hour away from Nvidia. NASDAQ, good for about eight-tenths of 1% gain there.

Dow's now positive. S&P's up one-half a percent. Got Nvidia, which ahead of that earnings report is making a nice move of its own. It's up more than 3% now. Told you about alphabets up near 4%. Sizable gains for Broadcom, 4%. Oracle's up, Intel's up, the banks are up. So we're adding a little bit of steam here as we get closer to this earnings report.

As I said, one hour away, less than that, 30 minutes away, really. Josh Brown, he's a shareholder. He'll join us just ahead. We're just over 30 minutes away from Nvidia's earnings. Our next guest says it will have enormous influence on where the AI trade goes from here. It's welcome in Sherry Paul of Morgan Stanley Private Wealth. Good to have you back. Great to be here.

I mean, it seems obvious that it's going to have enormous. influence just because it's the, it's like the most important part of this whole trade. But what about the volatility of late? What about the questions we've been asking ourselves about this trade? Does that give it even greater significance now? I think so. I feel like we're sort of preparing for the AI state of the union. You know, it's coming on about a half hour.

I mean, it really is like, I think the most important, you know, seminal earning in the AI ecosystem. And there are a lot of other companies and earning streams reliant on what happens after the I mean, it's a company, it's 8% of the market cap of the S&P. It's bigger than the entire energy sector. And it's the front end of, you know, this industrial revolution. So it's enormously important. I mean, there's good and bad that comes with the weighting that it has, right?

Sure. I mean, a good report means a lot to a lot of different people, stocks. Yeah. A bad one has a similar effect. Well, in the volatility that you mentioned earlier, should, I think, in my opinion, be viewed more as, like, the opportunity for resets, then that we are going to see a bubble burst in any way in this. And so what we're encouraging investors to do is abandon what I'm calling black and white thinking that you're either right or wrong.

It's a form of market timing and your mentality. And instead embracing the direction of the reality of this new ecosystem that's being built out over time. You make the point that you think we're going through resets and retests, not something more significant. No, I think that we're going to go through a lot of micro-resets and retest that the frequency of them will probably increase. But the one thing I do know for sure because it happens 100% of the time every year is that at some point the market goes lower than where it started in the beginning of the year. So the framework shouldn't concern investors if we're seeing volatility in the overall market. But money placement is going to be crucial just based on the size and the market cap of the companies that are coming in for earnings. You feel pretty good about where we, let's call it six weeks to go in the year.

Yeah. We got through some seasonal. tough periods in September and October. And we figured, okay, we got through that November. Now we're going to just sail right into the end of the year. It turns out not to be the case. But what does that mean for where we go from here? Well, I think that there's a good setup coming in 2026, which is follow the CAPEX spending. I mean, I think Morgan Stanley thinks there's $3 trillion coming into the spending cycle devoted to AI spend. And half of that's coming off the cash flow. And the other half of it roughly is coming from either private equity debt or corporate debt. And so,

So it's not like it's a levered trade in terms of the wall of money that's coming into the market. Plus, we get the deregulation kicker, and we get some accelerated federal spending on the front end of the year, along with the ability for people to deduct all that cap-ex spending. So we should see an earnings expansion just based on cost savings. Will we get a lack of concentration? I'm thinking about the expansion using that word, but thinking about a broader market. We get less reliant on this concentration we've had. That would be ideal, and we have evidence of that in this current year. If the S&P's up 12, you take out the, you know, the MAG 7, I think we're still up 11,

versus the disparity that we saw last year and the year prior to that. And so we are seeing some of that broadening, but we should expect that the dominant players should continue to maintain a place in every client portfolio. The percentage is the key. Well, it's why you like large-cap tech. You like financials. You like industrials. I don't see health care on your list. Is there a reason why?

Well, the health care ties into the longevity, but there is some resistance around, you know, sort of some policy around vaccines, frankly. And so once we kind of see that lift, I think we'll go back into the health care. But right now, I think that there's better value from a growth standpoint and the clarity standpoint, especially in financials that deal. Are you not a believer in that chart that we're showing there, this tremendous move that we've seen in this sector? You know, it was sleeping for so long. It finally woke up.

It did. It doesn't seem to be concerned about a vaccine debate or anything else other than, look, these stocks got in some people's minds pretty cheap and now is it a time to go in and the trend looks pretty good. You don't sound like you're a believer in that. Well, I think more than one thing can be true at the same time in terms of overweights and underweight. So this is a place that we've been equal weight. It's not that we're not participating and it's absent from the portfolio. It's just a question of what we're overweighting in terms of producing greater alpha in a time horizon in the client portfolios right now. I think there's more alpha to be gained in places outside the U.S.?

That's been a good conversation of late. I mean, if you see outperformance from emerging markets and Europe, are you tempted by any of that, or is this still the best story you've got? You know, not at this time, and the reason is you just follow where are the great ideas, where's the liquidity in the market, where's the cap-ex spending, and not a whole lot of that is originating, for example, out of Europe right now. And if you take a look at the correlations between European markets and the S&P-500 and you're paying a 20% beta premium, let's say, on the tech sector, which is outperforming the e-fee,

I would rather have investors here in the U.S. and big cap balance sheets that are giving sort of founder-like returns in the public markets. I enjoy our conversation always. Sherry, thanks. Thank you. And Sherry Paul. Coming up next, we're tracking the biggest movers as we head into this close today. Seema Modi is standing by with that. Hi, Seema. We certainly are Scott. Software, TikTok, and a 75% stock surge. The details behind today's top mover coming up next. All right, with less than 15 from the bell.

Let's get back now to Seema for the stocks that she's watching. Tell us. Scott, I want to draw your attention to shares of DoorDash, dropping about 4%. Despite an upgrade from Jeffries and a price target increase, the analysts there say they see growth in the U.S. restaurant delivery market, and that makes them bullish on the stock, given the recent underperformance. They say it's time to buy. Next up is Sem Rush, soaring 74% after Adobe announced it will buy the company that works with TikTok for $1.9 billion.

dollars. Adobe says the deal alongside its brand services will give customers a better understanding of how their brands appear in search engines. And Adobe, struggling this year down about 25%. Finally, MP Material Stock rising on a Pentagon-backed deal to develop a rare earth refinery in Saudi Arabia. Now, MP and the Pentagon will hold a 49% stake in the joint venture, and it comes amid this broader shortage of critical minerals used in the semiconductor and auto industry, Scott. All right, Seema. Thank you, Seema Modi. Coming up next, countdown is on. We're just moments away now from Nvidia's earnings report. We're going to hear from Josh Brown. He's owned that stock for a long time. Find out what he will be paying

most attention to next. We're now in the closing bell market zone. Just moments away now from Nvidia's earnings. Cnbc Senior Markets commentator Mike Santoli and Nvidia shareholder, Josh Brown, of Ridholtz Wealth Management are with me ahead of that critical print. Josh, You've owned this stock for a long time. We've talked about it so many times. How do you feel going in? I feel great. This isn't one of the quarters that I'm worried about.

I think just given the jocular nature of Jensen's appearances throughout the span of this quarter, and as you know, Judge, I've been paying close attention, just as many others have. I don't think this is a quarter where the earnings are in doubt or even the guidance for next quarter. I think the really big storylines that are worth watching for, I'll reel a few of these off and then you can cut me off when you've heard enough. But I think these are the storylines.

We need multi-quarter visibility at this stage in the game. It's an emerging technology, but it's also now a mature technology. So we can't be going quarter to quarter anymore. The stakes are too high. And so I really feel the commentary surrounding not just Blackwell, but Rubin, which is, is what we'll be talking about a year from today spoiler alert that's the next architecture that's coming we really need to get a sense of that multi-quarter outlook and how confident the company is in terms of blackwell there are analysts out there talking about 500 billion dollars

in total GPU revenues off of 20 million units sold and they've already gotten 30 percent of those shipped so like that's a very big deal obviously the entire revenue story rests on that on that Blackwell, but I really want us to start thinking further out. The market is pricing in a 7 to 10% move, which is a fairly standard thing for this stock, at least in recent quarters. And then the last thing I would say is I've come to the conclusion over the last three years in the current bull market that we're in, that when in doubt, the most hilarious outcome is probably the one that we're going to get. I ask some of the guys and gals on my research team, what's the most hilarious than that could happen. I think we pretty much all agreed. The funniest outcome is

it's a great quarter. It's great guidance. He puts to bed some of this depreciation, hullabaloo, and all of a sudden, you're looking at a stock opening up tomorrow with 220, a 15, 16% move in the pre-market. Of course, it's inconceivable. It's so many, it's so many dollars in market cap to move. But because that is the most hilarious outcome, part of me feels like that's actually the most likely thing that could happen. You know, Mike, I know Josh wants us to move away from going quarter to quarter, getting a little more clarity on the bigger picture. But this overriding question of demand sustainability, we might not be able to answer in that

time frame. Maybe not to the satisfaction of all investors. I mean, look, I think Jensen did tell you beyond the next quarter that he actually sees the order book in the bag. He's the one talking about half a billion in revenue over five quarters, whatever it was. So I don't really think that there's that much of attention build up around here necessarily to the point where we really need reassurances, the underlying story. It's all about pacing, and I think we're in this mode right now where the market is in a questioning phase

about who are the winners, how sustainable are the advantages. We have Google flying here on chips not coming from Nvidia. Let's keep that in mind, right? You have Broadcom up a lot today because they did it without. They trained the model without really reliance on Nvidia. So, you know, I don't think you have to say it's either a bubble or it's not a bubble or we're going to the moon when you've already had meta go down 25% off a high. You've already seen Oracle go down 34%.

Coreweaves gotten smoked. So you've had phases where somebody's in, somebody's out. I think it's healthy. I don't think it's make or break for the overall market at all because we still have the Fed to deal with. We still have the interplay, the economy, and rates. And, you know, I think it's pretty much assumed the numbers are going to be fine right here. And it's not expensive anymore. It's going to earn seven bucks next fiscal year.

It's like 25 times, you know, it's really not about are you paying up too much for Nvidia. It's much more about the duration of the boom. Josh, you share Mike's view about this importance to the overall market. Maybe it's not what we want to make it out to be right now. Yeah, but I just, I don't think. I think that's the risk. I think the risk is boredom. They take guidance up a notch for next quarter, $62 billion versus $61, something like that. I don't think the risk is like, oh, my God, Nvidia failed to execute. They missed earnings. I mean, of course, that would be a risk. I just don't think that's the one that's on everyone's mind. One other thing that I want to bring to light is the international component to this, Judge. I heard you talking with your last panelist about the international opportunity. I think the state of international stock markets actually play a really big role into the Nvidia bull case for 2026. What we know for sure is that when stock prices are rising overseas,

there is a greater latitude for companies being more daring and spending more money. And of course, it would be nice if some of these meetings that Jensen Wang has had with China this year would bear some additional fruit. But we're not banking on that. I want you to consider of the fact that in the last 90 days, Jensen has been with the Germans. He's been with the Saudis. He's been in Korea. He's been to China. He's been to Taipei. We don't really know how strong those demand numbers will be from overseas. But just looking at technology stock prices, I mean, he's talking to Fujitsu and Deutsche Telecom, and he was on an AI panel in D.C. with the Saudis for their investment for them. Like, that's a sovereign AI is a really big part of the story. It's sort of an

unknown. We have a much better handle on the hyperscalers. But that's where that wild card upside could come from. And I wouldn't be shocked if that were a big part of the commentary tomorrow, the global nature of this sustained bull market into 26. I hear you, but when, again, as I made this point earlier, and I agree with you, I also think it introduces I'm not going to say the possibility, not the likelihood, but the just idea, Mike, of asymmetric risk in all angles. The world is levered to Invidia. Yes. The Saudis is, I mean, not the Chinese because they can't get these chips, but this trade on a global nature is levered to a small number of companies.

Yes. A misstep at any point along the way has dramatic ripple effects and ramifications far. further than our shores? It does. I don't know that we're really nearing that moment when these companies are going to have that moment of truth where they say what we think. However, the thing to think about is

can this entire boom be funneling money into the pockets only of Nvidia? Because look at the margins, look at where all the other companies free cash flow is going, and that's been the case for a while. They're collecting it, they're redistributing a little bit and trying to seed the entire garden here of AI. here of AI. But I do think that is a question. I don't know that we're going to get that

answer today. But I do think that's one of the sources of unease around the whole thing, is that, you know, the correlation among all the AI plays has really crashed because people are having to decide. It's not exactly zero-sum, but it's not everybody wins. And so we're trying to sort through all of that. Josh, I appreciate you joining us. I know you're going to be glued to what happens in about 20 minutes time. Thanks for making some time for us. out of your schedule today. I know it's busy, and we greatly appreciate that. They're going to ring the bell here as we get ever closer now to this Nvidia earnings report. So the Dow is going to go out green. We had a nice little move into the end of the day.

S&P and the NASDAQ are as well. Invidia looks pretty good going into this number. We're now going to see whether the rubber meets the road. And for that, you stay tuned to overtime.