Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Navigating New Highs 8/13/25

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

The story continues to be the broadening as tech takes a slight breather today. Plus, another booming IPO could be a big signal for the overall outlook for stocks. We discuss with Trivariate’s Adam Parker, Charles Schwab’s Kevin Gordon and Mike Rode from American Century Investments. BTIG’s top technician out with a fresh note on small caps today. He joins us with what’s behind his call. Lo Toney from Plexo Capital tells us how he is navigating the tech space with the Nasdaq at new highs. And, Anastasia Amoroso from Partners Group tells us whether she thinks this is really one of the best environments we’ve seen in some time for investing in stocks and bonds. 

All right, Brian. Thanks so much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wobner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker breakout begins with this record-setting market, another booming IPO, and what it says about the overall outlook for stocks. We'll ask our experts over this final stretch. We'll show you the scorecard here. The majors with 60 to go in regulation. Once again, the story continues to be the broadening of this market. Tech is taking a bit of a breather this afternoon, and the Russell is outperforming once again. Small caps continue to get that bit. higher on hopes of coming rate cuts. Some standouts in the market stay bad and good. Kava crushed on its earnings. Brinker just crushing it after its own results. Its Chili's restaurant chain is on fire and that stock reflects that. It takes us to our talk of the tape. This high powered market, yet another surging IPO, bullish, booming on its first day of trade here at the New York Stock Exchange. Pricing at 37. That was above the range. The stock's been halted multiple times. And It is currently, as you see, surging up better than 131%. For more, let's bring in our panel.

Trivariate Research is Adam Parker, Charles Schwab's Kevin Gordon, American Century Investments, Mike Road. Adam's a CNBC contributor. It's good to have everybody with us. Adam, I bring up the IPO right off the bat because it speaks to the feeling in this market. Now, especially if you're in the right place, at the right time, but there is a lot of enthusiasm. feels like now about stocks is it warranted um yeah look the IPO market was dormant for so long that we've seen a lot in the last two three months we've seen some more rumors about and some actual M&A so I think that part percolating

was what we were all dreaming of last November when we had the red sweep we saw all the alternative asset managers go up a ton so yeah I mean I guess look traditional bull cell signals haven't mattered this cycle like if I told you uh... you know two months ago that my office dormant asked me if he should buy palatier ten years ago i would have said that's like the sell signal right then and there and now like the stocks up forty percent is the guy asked me and i told him not to you know i think he's like old school ride strength

and now and now this a lot of hedge funds are saying okay when i see that you know that squeeze i get long it instead of let it hurt me like the mean stuff so the behavior changes people predicted and so uh... you know some things feel frothed me and some don't i think you know some things feel frothed me and some I'm doing. I think we're sitting on, you know, the reality of pretty good earnings growth in 2026 and 2027 is you get all this AI productivity. So why would you have short stocks if you think earnings can grow 10% next year? As I think where people's heads are. Yeah. I mean,

some volatility notwithstanding and the very near term, who knows, conversation yesterday I think resonated with a lot of people that I had with Rick Reeder on this very set. He sat in this chair and he declared this to be the best investing environment, maybe ever. And here's why. Listen, and we can discuss on the other side. But there's a couple of things that play that are pretty extraordinary. First of all, you take the equity side. First of the technicals and equities are crazy.

I know we've talked about it before. Amount of cash on the sideline, the amount of buybacks relative to the IPO calendar, i.e. the demand versus supply is pretty extraordinary. And these companies, you know, we've talked about on the show, the multiple is not that attractive. These companies are thrown off these earnings, the earnings growth. Then you take the other side of it is you've got an income and fixed income. You're getting yield levels.

I think the Fed can cut rates. But until then, you've got yield levels. You can create portfolios, six and a half, seven percent yield. That's pretty good. That's the kind of view that gets you on the short list to be the Fed chair. That's what he said. And then we had the news. Well, reported by our Steve Leasman, of course, that now there are 11,

and he's one of them, is Rick Reeder. What about his thought, Kevin Gordon? I mean, yeah, I think definitely with fixed income, I mean, our team would agree broadly with the backdrop having improved, not just this year, but I mean, you know, we've been in now in this sort of newer normal for fixed income being relatively attractive because of the coupon portion being so strong, which, you know, by the way, over the many decades you look back even in the 70s and the 80s when rates were surging, most of the total return

generated was actually positive on average because of the strong coupon you were getting. So we very much feel, of course, not we're in a similar environment to the 70s and the 80s in terms of rates, but the dynamic now is definitely flipped relative to pre-pandemic. So I definitely agree with that point. The one thing I think, and I don't necessarily need that, I don't necessarily think that the cash on the sidelines argument is something that needs to be sort of a pillar for powering a bull market. The one, I guess, point of disagreement I would have is that cash has a percentage of overall

market cap for something like the S&P 500 is still pretty compressed relative to history. So yes, the absolute level of, you know, money market fund assets is at or near and all-time high depending on the day you're looking at it. But I think that as a percentage and as a share, how much that can be powered into the market is still relatively small. But I also don't view that as a really strong reason that an equity bull market needs to go higher necessarily. Is this one of the best investing environments that we've seen? For AI stocks? For everything. No, no. I would say there's two markets happening. You got AI stocks, which AI leaders are up 70% this year, earnings grow through the roof. And then you have everything else,

S&P 493, mid-caps, small-caps, where there has not been the earnings growth. You're going to see zero to three percent earnings growth in those areas this year. Hence, those stocks haven't kept up with the big AI leaders. I think the market is now looking to next year when you have several catalysts coming that could help stimulate GDP, accelerate GDP, and start to see earnings growth and acceleration in those other areas, kind of taking some areas like construction, trucking, have been in almost recessionary environments.

So if you get some acceleration coming from a lot of the levers that the Trump administration is pulling, you'll see it real broadening out, and then you'll have a potential upside. Some would say, just keep focusing on the area where the most fuel is for the reason that the fuel is there. That the biggest stocks in the market, so what if the market's top heavy?

This is where you're getting the earnings growth. The multiples are justified. The AI story is so powerful, generationally that those who are trying to use that as a potential negative for the strength of the overall market or missing the boat. That's fair. I think you have to think about what are you paying for the earnings growth and when does that earnings growth start to decelerate?

We've had pure acceleration in AI-related growth for the last two or three years. Next year, CAPEX growth this year is 50%. Next year is going to 20%. What does 27 look like? I'm not arguing to sell your AI stocks. The argument is make sure you're diversified and you have exposure to areas that haven't kept up where you can see acceleration and earnings.

I hear you, but the reason why people pick at this market and I don't feel like there's universal bullishness is for some of the very reasons that might suggest. You look at the makeup of this market and you look down the cap space and you're like, man, there are too many stocks that are underperforming. This is all a one band. show and that band's great and they play great music but eventually they run out of

songs and they don't produce the greatest hits for a while like they did before yeah anything to that well it's funny I I made a friend on your show a couple years ago when he talked about breadth being an indicator and I sort of crapped on him saying that's not a actual predictive indicator of anything because everyone was and then I called him said sorry I should have phrased that better and now I'm friends with him Keith Lerner and and from truest. And I, you know, I don't think breadth is necessarily bad or good for subsequent returns.

If you show me the breadth metrics that people use and say, can you predict subsequent one or three-month equity returns, they have no predicted value. So it could be true. It might not be. I tend to think that the beneficiaries will trickle down cap a little bit. What we saw in the first wave clearly was the revenue beneficiaries. Plot Nvidia's revenue. It looks like somebody made a mistake in Excel.

I mean, it literally just goes like crazy. So it's not surprising the stock's been good. I think the harder part that we'll start seeing next year and the year after is which companies benefit really on the productivity side as they deploy and predict their customer behavior and their employee behavior and they drive out costs or they grow the revenue while hiring. You could see a bit of a bimodal thing where the winners keep winning and some of the smaller ones work and then the guys in between that can't spend enough to keep up and get squeezed out. So there could be some more margin expansion down the line. But it makes sense to me the big ones have worked in this recovery. I mean, for the reasons we're, you know, with the pending rate cuts, which the market is now banking. on almost 100% in the market for September.

The Russell's up 4.5% this week alone. It's been the place to be. It's directly correlated, it feels like, with the idea of rate cuts. The question is, is it lasting? Does it have staying power? Jonathan Krenski of BTIG joins us now because that was the focus of your note, which dropped during halftime today.

And it got us thinking about whether this is finally the moment. Now, I probably have asked you and others that question 50 times within the last year? Is this the moment? But is this really it? Scott, you know, it's deja vu all over again. If you go back 13 months ago, July of 2024, small caps were hanging around flat year-to-date while the NASDAQ was ripping. We got a better unexpected CPI report. Small caps, you know, went pretty parabolic to the upside on as the market started to price in a September rate cut. And here we have, are against. Small caps came into this week, pretty much flat year date. Nasdaq was doing quite well.

We got a CPI report that kind of ignited them the last two days. We're now fully priced in for September rate cut. And so, I mean, look, the breakout at this point, I think you have to give it some benefit of the doubt. The issue is, is it something sustainable more than just kind of a momentum unwind like we saw last July? And by the way, we saw a similar situation right after the election where small cap's got a little surge, a little bit online, and then the market kind of petered out. So, you know, look, I think we're giving some respect to the breakout, but, you know, we've been here before, and it's got to kind of hold this breakout for more than, you know, a day or two. Okay, stay with me. You're, you don't, you're not buying this.

First of all, Chris, you're nice to meet you. A couple weeks ago, you asked me if I knew him, and I said no, when we texted each other offline. So you did. Another one that he insulted on the air and had to reach out to you off air. I did not. I did not. I did. did not insult him. I said he just didn't know who he was, which was true. So when you get, when you get Mike here who's like six, eight who's going to push small caps. I always feel a little, maybe he'll tighten them up every inch. But I don't really think the small caps that fundamentally work unless you really believe in an accelerating an economy. I think you're spot on the way you set it up. It's about the Fed, right? So they get that boost early

because they benefit more from lower rates. I think the fundamentals accelerating margin expansion. That's what you really need to believe to say I'm a risk on tape. Historically, they worked three months before a recession when you anticipated fiscal stimulus, monetary policy, and all that kind of stuff. And so it feels to me a little bit on the wrong side of the cycle in terms of the consumer is in good shape, but slowing a little. It's not about to accelerate. So I'm not buying it as a, I want to be big, overweight small cap versus large.

You'll get a different argument in a second, which will be smart. I just think you probably want to pay somebody to pick small cap stocks for you, and I'm sure you would agree with that. So I don't like the asset class, but I think you probably can generate more alpha there is how I address it. We use it as a mechanism to talk about the broadening. We just focus on an area that has so lagged and seems to be the most or certainly one of the most direct beneficiaries

of a rate-cutting environment that if it starts in September, ain't going to be the last one they do. Yeah, I think, I mean, it's a bigger beneficiary, though, after you go into recession. When you, when you, I mean, the times that you get the most severe, acute outperformance from small caps, especially if you're using a proxy, the Russell 2000 is a proxy relative to the S&P 500.

Those moments when you get that significant outperformance is after you go through a bear market that's associated with the recession. And you can sort of back it up to 2022. And when we ended that bear, started the new bowl, that was actually a year after that. It was the first time, not only was it the weakest full year for small caps for the Russell 2000 in history, it was the only time that the Russell 2000 was actually down in the first year of a bull market when the S&P 500 started it. So we've sort of been stuck in this permanent late cycle mode for the past four and a half years,

which has clearly accrued to the benefit of large caps and probably is going to be the case still because you have a significant portion of the Russell that has no earnings on a trailing 12-month basis. You've got a significant portion that are just struggling to see forward earnings growth to really pick up. So I agree with Adam's point about if you're going to go into that universe, be more specific in terms of stock picking or industry picking because there are components of small caps that have worked really well. It's just not going to necessarily float up to the index to necessarily carry you higher. I mean, small caps are unchanged over the past four years. You made this contrarian call in the face of like Gale Force winds blowing it yet, and it hasn't worked.

Do you feel like this at the moment? If not now, when? You know, you have, so we talked about recession. A lot of the economy has been borderline in recession. Like I said, construction, housing has been almost in recession. So when you add on, A, you have very cheap stocks, okay? They're under-owned. You have not just rate cuts, which are very important.

You have reshoring, right? There's been $2 trillion in announcements by tech companies that are going to be investing here in the U.S. Small caps are the beneficiary from that. They should be. And then you have the tax bill with that accelerated depreciation of equipment. That's going to help drive CAPEX, which is the real driver for GDP. And really, Adams right, you have to see the earnings growth.

We didn't see it this year. expected. Next year, there's expectations for 19% earnings growth for small caps. Probably won't be that. But you know what? The stocks haven't reflected it. So the bar is really low at this point. So we'll see. But it feels like given the catalyst, given the valuation, and given how little investors really have moved money there, it feels like a pretty good setup. Jonathan, before I let you go, is there a level that we need to pay attention to? We're at 23 and change. 2300 in change on the Russell. The high 52 week is 2460. Yeah, look, I think the just the recent highs of the trading range the last few weeks, which we did clear this morning.

And so I think the thought here is you can take a stab again, but again, we've been here before and to your other guest's point, I don't know that anything has changed. And I don't know that this setup is any different than what we saw 13 months ago. So you can play it, but keep a tight stop. I'd also say that, you know, the other talking point we've been looking at is health care. You know, since the end of 2022, health care is down 4% versus the S&P is up about 65%. So just a massive spread. Now, big part of health care is biotech, which is also a big part of small caps. So keep an eye on biotech.

It's clear in the 200-day moving average for the first time in a while. But I think health care is a good contrarian trade. I think broadly, health care makes more sense to us than just small caps. Okay. We'll talk to you soon. Jonathan, thanks. Jonathan Krenski, BTIG, speaking of, but you like that call. You continue to make it.

I mean, you guys have been wrong. Are you going to be right? Oh, I mean, people ask me, like, why you're recommending health care, and now I've just changed my answer to it because I'm stupid. You know what I mean? You know, because it's not valuation. It's really, when I screen for companies that I think can benefit on productivity, there's just so many businesses that have a lot of employees, low margins, and a lot of revenue.

You know, we were highlighting for a long time, and this part has worked McKesson, Cardinals, Cora. or they, you know, Quest, there has been some stocks that have worked. But, you know, I think broadly there's going to be, I think S&P 500 health care earnings have grown every year, 30 years in a row. So there's a lot of old people that demand services, tools, diagnostics, managed care, hospitals, et cetera. So I think estimate cheap ability is above average, but, you know, the drug, the drug sector's been awful, hasn't really created a lot of value. And UNH has really changed, you know, been another, you know, kind of broken leg of the story.

All right. Well, I mean, back to the Fed idea. Yeah. And, you know, look, the Russell's up one and two-thirds percent today. It loves that story. The question is, is the story going to have a happy ending or not for those who believe that that trade can work? CNBC senior economics correspondent Steve Leesman joins us now with more on what we're going to get, I guess, in Jackson Hole and then maybe in September. And I like the way you framed it earlier based on the Fed speak that we've gotten and the views that we seem to have. have, it looks like we almost have a tie. The question is, with a baseball analogy thrown in, does a tie go to the cutter instead of the runner? And are we going to get a cut?

That's a good one, Scott. We'll have to start scoring in a little bit. Yeah, there you go. Look, Fed, I had another metaphor I was going to use here, that Fed officials are starting to show their feathers on the issue of his temper Fed Ray cut, and we're finding and Hawks and we're finding doves. And today it was some of the Hawks. Gehryorfer, President Austin Goolsby would not commit to his temper cut, though he said it was a live meeting and he hadn't decided yet. But he's a voter this year.

He said he wasn't convinced tariffs would be just one-time price increases. He called them stagflationary. Tariffs, in my view, are a stagflationary shock. It makes both sides of the mandate go bad at the same time. And that's the worst position that a central bank could be in. So he went on to say he was concerned about the rise in services inflation in yesterday's CPI. He joins Kansas City Fed President Jeff Smith. He talked yesterday, more specifically against the idea of cutting rates.

Look at the market. The stock and the bottom market said he didn't see a reason why it looked like the Fed was very restrictive. Meanwhile, Atlanta Fed President Rafael Bostick, he's playing for time, saying the Fed has the luxury today to wait to change. policy because the labor market remains strong. All of this comes with two Fed governors, Bowman and Waller, sounded pretty doveish in their calls for rate cuts. Of course, they dissented in July and want rate cuts in September. Markets, they side with the doves, a 93% chance of a 25% basis point cut.

The reason I say 93 is because you've got to add in the 7% chance now trading for 50 in September with three cuts total priced in for this year. tomorrow on squawak on the street, I'm going to be talking to St. Louis, Fed President Alberto Musilam, an exclusive conversation from St. Louis. Both sides in the debate, they get ammunition tomorrow in the data. Import prices will tell if its exporters are absorbing tariffs and wholesale prices in wholesale prices, and we're telling us, again, if you'll have the PPI, will tell us if it's being absorbed in margins. Scott.

All right, good stuff. A lot to look forward to, Steve. Thank you very much. That's Steve Leesman, our senior economics correspondent. Are you guys thinking, Kevin, about cuts? I've asked the question in the last few days, not whether you think we'll get them or how many we might or where they might start, but does the market need them or not? I still side with no, and I think that even if you look at everything that's happened year-to-date up until even today, we're still in a situation where the Fed has not moved. They haven't really indicated, unless something changes next week, they haven't indicated that they're about to move.

and yet the stock market's up 10, 11% year-to-date. Multiples for the S&PR right back to where they were before Liberation Day, right back to their cycle highs. So that sort of set of statistics and evidence is suggestive that this is not a market that's been screaming for a cut. Maybe a different case for areas like small caps, but that's, as we just discussed,

it's been a little bit of an isolated situation. The two-year yield would act like it's screaming for a cut. Maybe the market moving to these new record highs is its way of screaming. for cuts saying we're only here because we expect. And if we don't expect, the chart's going to look different. I will say, though, I mean, if you look at the two-year yield versus the Fed funds rate over the past four to five years, the two-year yields is the one that's been the most wrong.

It's, you know, at times, I mean, you go back to even early 2023 when the whole crisis around SVB was happening, two-year yield plunged, but the Fed did not do at all what the bond market was suggesting two-year-old had to correct back up. So I think that, yes, it's important to look at expectations if you get close to 100% after the next slate of data for PPI, the next jobs report, the next CPI. It's still the case that the market's expecting a rate cut in September. The Fed probably doesn't want to move against that. Plus, the labor market has shown, you know, pretty meaningful signs of downshifting.

Can we go higher than $6,500, much more, you know, if we draw that line since we're almost there now, can we go higher than that without cuts starting in September? I think if there's no cut in September, watch out, right? I mean, the market is essentially priced in cuts this year, probably 50 basis points. That is what we expect, by the way. But it'll likely be more of an, I would think, a near-term phenomenon because underlying fundamentals, the economy is still pretty solid. And then you look out to next year, Powell's term is up, and there will very likely be rate cuts next year. So near-term, for sure, it would expect a lot of volatility around potentially no cuts or even less than expected cuts.

But as you look out to next year and stick with the fundamentals, that's where you want to be. What do you think about that? I mean, you know, we've been arguing with you all year that nothing was the best thing for the market. So, but nothing, you know, they have to show you, think, you know, get devilish with their commentary, but do nothing is bullish. We've seen that. I agree there's a cut in September probably in the price. But I think if they do three, which I guess is now 55% December, I think the market goes lower eventually because if they really need to do three, it's really because that stagflationary fear is growing. I think the reason the stock market is up is actually because earnings have been awesome.

Okay, if you just look at the bank earnings and you don't know anything about it, just read. They told the provision less for consumer losses. They're beating numbers. The tech stuff's, AI stuff's been great. So I think right now, everyone I talk to would love quality stocks to go down 10% so they can buy a ton for 10% or so next year. But doesn't the Fed always cut in some respects because they, quote, unquote, need to? They don't wake up and just decide, yeah, you know what? I feel like going to get a bagel and cutting rates today.

There has to be a, there always is a reason. But I think prices lead, like we know the market going up in and of itself increase the probability earnings are better than you think next year. That's data point one. Data point two, we all sweep LinkedIn job growth. And by the time the jobs report comes, we already know we have 50 better data points, right? Then we get the company earnings. Then the economics do stuff, and then the FedEx.

We know they're late, and the economy is in decent shape, but slowing. And the top couple of companies have great earnings. So I don't want to get bearish on equities almost, you know, I don't care what the Fed does. I think if they cut too much, it'll be because things really got worse. So I kind of want this Goldilocks of one cut, talk dovish. We're going to monitor. I think Mike nailed it. People were anticipating a more doveish person coming in after that.

And so, you know, maybe they'll do balance sheet expansion. There's no way you want to get bearish on equities if they expand the balance sheet. All right. We're going to leave it there. A great conversation. everybody. Thanks for being here. Thanks for him. Good to see everyone. See you again soon. We're just getting started here up next. Plexo Capitals. Tony's back with us. Find out how he's navigating the tech space. We'll get him to

weigh in on this blockbuster IPO today too. What it says about the road ahead for new offerings in this market. Dow's good for more than 450. S&P NASDAQ extending their record highs. We're back after this. Welcome back to surging IPO today of Crypto, exchange company, Bullish, the latest example of activity, finally returning to the capital markets in that sense. We're joined now by venture capitalist Lowe Tony of Plexo Capital. He's also a CNBC contributor. Good to see you. Good to see you as well. I wish you were here because it's been such a big day for this offering. When you see something like that, you, I mean, your smile is wide. What are you thinking about? Well, Bullish debut was nothing short of a milestone for

assets, oversubscribed 20 times, raising 1.1 billion and opening 140% above the IPO price. So I don't think that's hype. I believe that is a reflection of the institutional support like BlackRock, ARC, putting that capital behind a regulated, diversified platform. You know, I think you add in the Genius Act and the pro-Crypto administration removing some of the regulatory uncertainty. And you've got the clearest runway that I think we've seen for the listing exchange to scale. And I don't just think this is one IPO. I think this is kind of the starting point or maybe the starting gun for the next wave of crypto companies to go public. Oh, interesting. So if I was to ask you, is this a sign of real renewal in the overall

IPO market, are you not so sure of that that it's not necessarily a rising tide lifting all of the boats, just the best and best looking ones? No, I think this is absolutely also a reflection of the IPO market as well. So I think we've got, you know, two things going on here, right? So one is just the overall pent-up demand for IPOs, especially those IPOs that are a reflection of some of the trends that we're seeing, getting a lot of adoption, right, things related to AI, digital assets. And I think with Bullish, what you're also seeing is I think you're seeing a reflection of the, maybe the acceptance of digital assets into global finance as well. It's competitive, this particular industry, and the way that I hear you speaking is that it's

only going to increase as such. Is that an issue down the road for any of these? Well, look, the exchange space is competitive. Bullish in particular is playing in the institutional lane. So I think their approach really focused on compliance and derivatives, the global media arm they have in CoinDes. I mean, it's, you know, a package you don't really see. But without question, there are other companies that are competitive on the horizon. And again, I think this is two things. It's a reflection of the IPO market in general, as well as digital assets. assets being accepted into the global finance mainstream. What else are you excited about that that's in front of us? Stubhub, I think, is coming soon.

If I recall what our Leslie Picker was reporting last week, are you in that one? Are you an investor in that in that? No, not an investor in stub hub, but, you know, I think we've seen a resurgence in general. You know, Figma being the most recent example that really surged both in terms of the demand. But also, I think, you know, looking at the the numbers, the numbers look pretty good. So, you know, there obviously is a list of companies that people are really excited about. One of the names, obviously, is Stripe.

I mean, that's a company. I'm invested personally. I'm very bullish on that company. I think there's going to be significant demand for that company when it gets to the public market. And then I think, you know, when you start to think about some of these AI companies, especially those that are within the LLM, the model space, the math, massive amounts of capital that are required, but then you look at the results and you see a company like Anthropic, which is one of our portfolio companies. I mean, that company has grown

10x in revenues every year, zero to 100, 100 to a billion. And at this midpoint, they're at about four and a half billion, according to a podcast. I just heard Dario speaking at. So I think when you look at the capital that's required, at some point these companies need to come to the public markets because there's only so much private capital that can be used. It's an interesting point that I want to get back to in just a moment. I do have a news alert, though. McKenzie Segalos has it, and it plays right into our wheelhouse of this conversation today, McKenzie. Hey, that's right. So you've got AI search startup perplexity, raising fresh funding at a $20 billion valuation. That's according to an email sent to prospective investors

that was seen by BI and a source of knowledge of the raise that is up from $18 billion in July and just $520 million early last year. This company, which is backed by the likes of Jeff Bezos, has quadrupled its annual recurring revenue in the past year to more than $150 million. And just yesterday reportedly made a surprise $34.5 billion bid to buy Google's Chrome browser. Back to you. All right, McKenzie, that's interesting.

Thanks so much. Mackenzie Segalis out in San Francisco, one market for us. So low, you have ESP, obviously. because you knew we were going to have that, and that's why you had pivoted to those types of companies. What do you make of this? When you see these numbers continue to get especially large? Yeah, look, and perplexity is a very special company. It's a company. I use their product personally. I think that if you wanted to think about what's on the horizon, and sometimes these things come quicker than we anticipate them, but if we want to think about some of the large tech companies and

Google in particular, and their dominance in search, I think instead of looking at open AI and looking at Anthropic as the key competitors on the consumer side in terms of Google and their search dominance, I would look at a company like a perplexity. And perplexity is just getting massive growth. And when you kind of look at the trend lines around the usage of Google search and then the usage of companies like perplexity, you know, I think we're going to see a point where it's going to become very clear that those are the types of companies that are really playing at the application layer that pose the biggest threat.

And, you know, when you also think about, and I think we've had this conversation before, you know, perplexity could slot very nicely into one of these other companies that isn't necessarily in that race with Google. You know, who knows, maybe Apple could even be a company that could acquire. require something like a perplexity, given they're a little bit late to the game and don't have the same vision that some of the other big tech companies have with AI. It's either going to be the worst kept, you know, secret ever in the valley that that name has been out there or the most predicted thing I mean, you've ever seen, because it seems

to be hand-in-hand Apple and perplexity in the way people are talking about it. Let me lastly ask you something that you, a reaction to something that you said about these companies and their need to go public because of the tremendous amount of capital that's going to be needed for what they do. It got me thinking about the need for intellectual capital and how some of these companies, Meta and others, are paying just unbelievable sums of money to get the best and the brightest in the door. And since you were talking about Anthropic, I've read some stories of late that Dario Amodi said he's not going to do that. That he's not, that's not the game that he's in. What do you make of that? No, it's not. And I think when you look at Dario and

his approach, it reminds me of an old school company where the values and the importance of the mission that the employees are working on kind of exceeds their short-term financial approach to how they think about their career. And, you know, again, going back to this podcast that I listen to Dario, he has had multiple conversations with his employees. employees. And obviously, people are coming after his employees because he has recruited some of the best in the business. The amount of product development that's been able to be done by anthropic with a fraction of the capital raised by some of its competitors is nothing short of just super impressive. And I think it speaks to the quality of the employees. But if you

couple the quality of the employees with their desire to remain within the mission, that's really important because, to your point, we see some of these salaries that are being thrown out, $100 million, $250 million. I mean, those are just massive. That's, that's, you were using the baseball analogy or that's baseball player money. Yeah, no kidding. No kidding. We'll see you soon. Lo. Thanks for your insights. I appreciate it very much. Thank you. That's a low, Tony. Up next. Partners Group, Anastasia Amaroso, she'll tell us why she's betting on some more upside in this market. She'll join us next right here, close nine. Is this really one of the best environments we've seen in some time for investing in both stocks and bonds?

And Estacia Amaroso is Partners Group Chief Investment Strategist for Private Wealth and is here with us on set. Got a lot of play on this call that Rick Reeder made yesterday sitting in this very chair. Do you agree with him? I mean, I do. I think this environment has a lot of. positives to it. And, you know, coming into a couple of weeks ago, we were debating this quarter of adjustment and the fact that companies had to absorb the tariff increases. But now coming into this week, it's all about the rate cuts and maybe not just one rate cut, but a series

of rate cuts. And I think there's potentially scope for two or three this year. So that does change the narrative quite a bit because it really cushions whatever softness where we're expecting to see in the third and fourth quarter. Do you think there's better value in stocks or bonds right now? I mean, look, I think we're not that far away from neutral rate. You know, I don't think we're that far away from terminal rate. So maybe we get 75 basis points or 100 basis points of rate declines, and surely that props up the bond market. But I do, generally speaking, see more value in the equity markets, both public and private. I think you have a lot more innovation. I think you have a lot more room for earnings growth and potentially for earnings

revisions. And Scott, you know, moments like we had earlier today and also just the IPO market and generally in general this year, it's actually perking up. We're about 21% year over year in terms of IPO activity, about 30% in terms of M&A activity. So it does tell me that there's this value on lock that is likely to happen from this crossover, from private to public markets. Are there any feelings of euphoria that you would be concerned about?

When you see, you know, this has nothing to do with the merits of a company like bullish. They're obviously in the right place at the right time with a business that the market deems to be in a high growth area that's fast being deregulated. So I can see why this is up the way it is. Many of the other IPOs that have come public have done the same thing. Yeah. There are several, you know, meme-like names within the public markets that have traded crazy in the last several months. Does any of that give you pause? I mean, not on a a broad scale. And I say that because if you look at the average IPO that IPO this year over a billion dollars, it's up about 50, 60 percent, depending on the day. And I think there's

a lot of strength to those companies that have waited to go public for a long time. So there is the maturity stage of some of those companies. There's also the revenue and the earnings growth. So I wouldn't say broadly there's this degree of exuberance. I will say, Scott, that clearly there's a mispricing that's happening in the IPO market right now. And the fact that some of the companies are surging as much as they are suggests that demand is incredibly strong for some of these growth stories for both retail and institutional investors. And so I wouldn't necessarily say that's a sign of euphoria. Perhaps it is a sign of clarity. You know, if you think about, you know, why we having this success with the IPO market is finally we have clarity around

tariffs, whether we like the rate or not. Finally, we seem to be approaching clarity on what the Federal Reserve is going to do in the fall. And the U.S. economy find it slowing, but it's still growing at close to 2%. So that's a lot of certainty for those CEOs looking to take their companies public. Are you a believer in the broadening story that some are now trying to tell again? I am. I mean, look, financials, for example, is a sector that stands out to us, and that's really benefiting from all the trends that I discussed. You know, the capital market activity is picking up a lot. If you look at consumer spending, the real-time data is showing four or five percent consumer spending growth in terms of credit card spending for the month of June.

So by the way, we get retail sales later this week, and I think that should be a fairly robust number. If you think about industrials and the big, beautiful bill that was passed and the incentive that that is for industrial activity, so I do see many growth drivers. And then on top of all that, Scott, there's of course the AI Data Center story. You know, core we find it's not doing so well today, but we're big believers, a partner's group in the AI data center opportunity. If we look at some of our portfolio companies, like Edgecore, for example, it is absolutely

a platform for data center growth for hyper-scalers. And AI data centers is exactly what they're building and scaling, because that's a much faster rate of growth than what you see generally in data centers. All right, we'll leave it there. Thanks for being here. Thank you very much. Thank you. Post 9.

Up next, we track the biggest movers into this close today. Closing bell, we'll be right back. We have less than 15 from the closing bell. Let's get to Christina now for a look at the stock she's watching. What's on your list? Paramount Skydine shares, they're soaring renal, actually leading the S&P 500 just days after the media conglomerate completed its merger. You can see it's up, wow, 39%.

There's specifically for today no news on what's driving shares higher, but the company is definitely seeing bullish options action and excitement around the media rights deal had just signed with the UFC earlier this week. Now, grocery stocks tumbling following an announcement from Amazon, it's expanding same-day delivery of fresh groceries. Customers in 1,000 cities and towns across the U.S. can now benefit from the service with plans eventually from Amazon to expand to 2,300 delivery zones by year end. So that is why you're seeing like Maple Fair, which is Instacart down 13%, and Kroger down 4.

Scott? All right. Christina, thank you. Christina Parts in Nebula. Still ahead. Get your set of for Cisco results. They're out. Top of the hour. That and much more inside the market zone. We're now in the closing bell market zone. CBC senior markets commentator Mike Santoli here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. And Christina Parks and Nevelos is back to tell us what to watch for with Cisco when it reports in OT. Mike's good to have you.

I mean, take it a little bit today. Yeah, but here we go again. Yeah, not a lot to complain about inside what's going on the market. Three quarters of all stocks are up. The S&P backed off just to close yesterday's gap and then bounced. So it's pretty gentle. small caps outperforming, just taking care of some of that concentration. We'll see if PPI throws a wrench into it tomorrow.

Christina, tell us about Cisco. Well, I thought you were coming to me first. Cisco is expected to post a Q4 revenue be driven by strong enterprise spending as customers really modernized network specifically for AI, and that's where Cisco would come in. The street is looking for about a 5% growth in fiscal year, 2026 guides. So investors are going to be really focused on that Q1 guidance,

especially any fresh AI commentary. In the near term, though, the inventory digestion may still be a drag, but demand for its flagship Catalyst 9,000 Switch, refresh, what they often talk about, should actually help offset any share loss that they've seen to Arista or Juniper at HPE. Last quarter, Cisco did book $600 million in AI orders, already passed its billion-dollar annual target, but I use the word orders because they don't actually provide AI revenue figures. So when they don't provide the revenue figures, it's tough for them to get full credit as an AI winner. Lastly, the $28 billion Splunk deal could eventually help networking and security segments as well,

though the near-term impact is limited, according to Morgan Stanley. Scott's shares are trading roughly 18 times reward earnings, which is above the five-year average. So that does put some weight on the guidance tone and the AI progress to justify that premium you're seeing on your screen. Shears down 1.5%. I like to throw things at you that you might not be expecting, something that you obviously would never do. chouche a little bit, maybe. Wow, if only our audience understood what you're talking about, because I like to throw digs at you last minute.

They probably do. Oh, I thought you were going to ask me about another company or anything right now, you know, since we have two minutes left. But you have Mike next to you. No, but I'm going to go aside. I've got to go back to Mike Santoli now. Oh, that's more important. Marcus Guy.

Well, because we're going to be record closes again. So thank you very much. Christina Parts and Lovs. Whereas you just put it right on a T for me. Yeah, I've set it up right there. Where do you want to hit it down the middle? Well, look. It's, as I said, the markets are doing anything to necessarily disturb this very kind of benign view of this uptrend.

We're extending the highs and trying to stay supported and rotate around. NASDAQ 100 had this like 12 percentage point, year-to-date advantage over Russell 2000. We're just trying to pull that in a little bit. I would say I mentioned the risk appetite tells earlier, Robin Hood down. Bullish is 40% off the intraday high tick. These IPOs are getting all done at once in the first day. So it's good that they have the window open. They're raising capital.

People are excited for new names. But it feels that these stampedes just get exhausted after a very quick burst. So we'll see if that filters into the rest of the market around. Well, thank you, Mike. That's Mike Santoli. Market's still running. Doesn't look at Zsa today. We extend those record highs on the NASDAQ and the S&P 500.

They close near the highs in what's been uneven session until the later stages of it. I'll see tomorrow. Thank you.