Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Navigating the Dow’s Big Drop 3/5/26

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

The Dow sank nearly 2% in today’s trade. We drill down on that big move with our all-star panel Solus’ Dan Greenhaus, Partners’ Group Anastasia Amoroso & Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank’s Chris Hyzy. Plus, BTIG’s Jonathan Krinsky dropped a new note saying the market can’t afford to lose semis. He explains why. And, Kevin Simpson from Capital Wealth Planning tells us what trades he’s making in this pullback. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right, guys, thanks so much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wapner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker breakout begins, of course, with the sell-off. Take a look at the markets here with 60 to go in regulation, weakness in many different places within this market today. Almost all S&P sectors are red with the exception of energy. And that is because oil has moved higher. WTI is now above $80 a barrel.

Brent is as well. And the market obviously does not like that move. Small caps are weak too. Look at the Russell 2000. It's the worst of the majors down two and two thirds percent today. Inside the market, industrials and health care are dragging down the Dow. Look at that. I mean, each down more than two and a half percent. Merck, J&J, Amgen. They've been lower all day long. Bank stocks are in the red as well. They haven't traded well lately. We'll continue to watch that. Look at Goldman Sachs down more than 5%. All that is weighing on the Dow. That's why you have a Dow Jones industrial average that is pushing an 1100 point. Klein. We are of course watching the events in the Middle East. Let's begin in Washington with our own Aman Javers. He has the very latest and the fallout. Amen? Yeah, Scott, one of the things that markets really have to wrestle with here is some expectation of how long this is going to last, right? You know, you see this oil price spike today and you say, well, if this is another couple of days, a couple of weeks, that might be something that markets can process, a global economy

can process. If it's not, that's an entirely different picture in terms of what your expectations are economically. And part of the confusion has come from the messaging that we've seen from the administration on what their intent here is in terms of a long-term engagement with Iran. I want to play what Pete Hegsef, Secretary of War, said earlier this week in terms of expectations for how long this would last. Take a listen. This is not Iraq. This is not endless. I was there for both. Our generation knows better, and so does this president. He called the last 20 years of nation building wars dumb.

And he's right. This is the opposite. This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission. So the secretary is saying this is not endless. Then you see President Trump on social media saying this, talking about munitions. The U.S. munitions stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better, as was stated to me today, we have a virtually unlimited supply of those. weapons, wars can be fought forever and very successfully using just these supplies, which are better

than other countries' finest arms. The president going on to say at the highest end, we have a good supply but are not where we want to be. Much additional high-grade weaponry is stored for us in outlying countries. So the president's suggesting there, the United States can fight more or less forever. So the question for markets, Scott, as we go into heading in toward the weekend here, a week into this conflict now, will be, which is it? No question. I mean, there was also some political reporting, Amon, which I'm sure you saw as well in the last 24 hours or so that suggested at least internally conversations with different parts of the government are being had about maybe going for months, even into the fall potentially. Yeah, right. So the question then is, what is the administration going to be able to do to sort of mitigate some of the pain in the oil markets? Is it the strategic petroleum reserves? What other way? can they try to keep inflation from bleeding into the economy from this oil price spike that we're seeing

certainly here in the short term. And they're hamstrung by the fact, Scott, that no administration, you know, Democratic administration, Republican administration in any conflict would be able to tell you the date on which that conflict is going to end. In fact, it would be, you know, irresponsible to say that. So they're sort of hamstrung by reality and tactics of not telegraphing exactly when they want to wrap this up, even as they want to convey some assurances to the market. So it's just a very difficult position. And the messaging has been, you know, in a lot of different places during the course of this week. We've seen estimates of a varying number of weeks throughout the week coming from the administration. So it's if you're a market participant watching all this, it's just very hard to get your arms around right now.

Yeah, no question. The inconsistencies of that have certainly left investors guessing a bit. Amen, thanks so much for the update. Amon Javors, as you see in our bureau down. in Washington. We mentioned top of the program. Oil being watched very closely. As always, Pippa Stevens does that for us. Hi, Pippa. Hey, Scott, WTI crossing 81 for the first time since 24, now of 21 percent on the week and pacing for the best week since March of 2022 as conflict in the Middle East widens. Now, traffic in the Strait of Hormuz is still at a standstill and storage

capacity is running out with Iraq shutting in some facilities because there is nowhere for the oil to go. Now, the street is also key for refined products as well. Gasoline future is jumping 6% to a nearly two-year high with heating oil, tracking for its best week in four years. And gas oil, that's European diesel, up 42% in four days, its best week on record. Now, the only stocks hitting multi-year highs in the S&P today are energy names EOG and Phillips 66 at the highest in at least a year with refiners, Marathon Petroleum and Valero, touching. new records. Scott? Pippa, thank you. Pippa Stevens.

Been a tough week, as you know, for the transports, especially airline stocks today, no exception. Phila Bow following that angle for us, as always. Hi, Phil. Hi, Scott, and it's not surprising that we see the airlines under pressure once again. Remember, the second largest cost for an airline after labor is jet fuel, and jet fuel prices are rising. That's the reason you see. We're just showing you the four largest U.S. airlines all down between basically five and seven percent today. And here. Here's the reason why. Jet fuel prices. They're now back at levels that we saw in November, and they're moving higher every single day, it seems like. In fact, spot jet fuel prices up 40%

in the last week. Cancellations in the Middle East, that's a bigger impact for the European airlines today. More cancellations. There are some flights that are getting announced and some repatriation flights. Not many. Total more than almost, what, 3,300 flights today, 43% of the schedule for Mid-East airports. Since Saturday, almost 25,000 flights to and from those airports in the Middle East have been canceled. Quickly want to show you

the European airline stocks. You think it's bad for the U.S. Airlines? Take a look what these guys have gone through in the last week. Bottom line is this, Scott. You are looking at Jeff Fuel Prices that continue to move higher and 40% spot fuel price jump in the last week. That says it all.

Scott, back to you. Certainly does. Appreciate that, Phil. Thank you. Phil LeBoe. Caterpillar and other industrial names are dragging big time today. Frank Holland watching that complex for us. Hi, Frank. Hey there, Scott. Also looking at UPS.

Now, UPS down more than 5% today seemingly bearing the biggest impact, at least in the transports of investor concerns about consumer spending and confidence due to a higher fuel cost. That's weighing even more broadly on the transports, other big decliners. Kind of the same story, very much ties to the consumer. We're talking names like Knight Swift, the biggest full truckload carrier used by just about every big box storage, J.B. Hunt, the biggest container carrier. containers are used to import most consumer goods, and C.H. Robinson, largest carrier on the Asia to

U.S. lane. These are also some of the biggest year-to-date winners on investor confidence. They're going to benefit from a strong economy. Now very clearly, that narrative is at least in some question. Then at the same time, there is a tailwind for transports with air freight or air freight brokerage businesses. FedEx upgraded today by Bernstein, as analysts see a major tail win for their signature express delivery with the conflict in the Middle East, grounding just about 13 percent of global air capacity. Scott? All right, Frank. Thank you. That's Frank Holland. For more on all of this, let's bring in our panel. Solace's, Dan Greenhouse, Partners Group, Anastasia Amaroso, Maryland Bank of America, Private Banks. Chris Heise,

good to have one and all with it. Chris, I'll just go to you first, just because your note jumps out to me so much. Your headline, we're buyers on weakness. Yeah. Why? Well, because we're thinking past not just 26. We're looking into 27, 28. We're focused on the trend lines. I know it's really hard to do, look away from the headlines, but the way we're looking at this is very simple. When you look at the demonstration, of the U.S. and the globe. And you look at how every region of the globe is trying to create a private sector growth engine. You have to ask yourself what dense that story looking through terrible times and tough weakness and tough volatility like that.

And then you look at valuation and you say, we got frothy in some areas. It was price momentum, earnings momentum, and news momentum. And now you've got the news momentum going against you, price momentum going against you, but earnings momentum over the next two, three years is not. And that creates a backdrop of where you can buy on weakness. History says to do exactly what he suggests, doesn't it? Right. I guess it depends a little bit on what kind of history.

If you look at before 1980s, some of the big disruptions in the Middle East during the oil embargoes certainly were not near-term constructive for equities. But if you look at recent history and if you look at the spikes of oil that we had of 10% or more, we do typically seize the stocks recover up 6%, three months, six months after. and up 12 months after that. And that is also, Scott, our view, is that the disruption that we're seeing right now, you know, the regime change, we don't know when that's going to happen if it's going to happen, but the disruption is finite.

If you think about the military optics and the military equipment is likely finite in Iran, there is a race against time to destroy some of the missile capabilities there and destroy the missile launchers. So I do think over the course of the next couple of weeks, we'll likely see a very different situation where Iran does not have the capabilities as they do today. The straight of Hormuz is probably not blocked. Therefore, the prices of oil not spiking and stocks have a chance. That most important chart in the market right now, is that it on the screen, guys? Put it back up for me, please. WTI. I think it's the picture of us.

It depends what you have to say. You haven't answered my question now. Now you put all the pressure on yourself to say something thoughtful and smart, intelligent. Go. Good thing I always do. Go. Yes, no, I think crude is clearly the most important chart in the market right now, more than anything with private credit, more than anything with software. I obviously am not on the ground in Iran. I have no inside information. And that's part of the issue here that we really have no idea how long this is going to take. Are we doing full regime change?

Are we not? How long is it going to take to fully degrade the missiles, et cetera, et cetera? That level of uncertainty and the issues in, as Anastasia mentioned, the issues in the Strait of Hormuz really raise some concerns in markets. And it's why oil is not 60, it's now 80. Obviously, if this were to get worse, if you were to hit a nuclear facility in Israel, where another refiner or another or perhaps Carg Island, you could see oil at $100, and obviously that would be a problem for the markets in the short term.

Although, to echo Chris's point, you are supposed to buy these sort of what appear to be contained momentary geopolitical issues, at least history suggests that's the case. That's sort of what Jonathan Krenski was saying the other day, and not to be glib about it, But his note said when the missiles fly, it's time to buy. Those are not my words. It's the title of his note. But that's the way a lot of people think. And that's sort of what Chris alludes to.

Keep your eye on the big picture of what's been happening here. A good economy, strong earnings, a tremendous buildout of AI infrastructure. The Fed is likely to be your friend, business activity picking up. Now, of course, as Annis Jays said. A spike in the chart we suggested was the most important chart in this market right now, puts all of those things on potential ice. In the short term, for sure, but not to say anything about Krenski, but that's just another way of saying buy when there's blood in the street.

I would just note we're having this conversation. The broad indices are all less than 5% off their highs. Clearly there's been a lot of issues beneath the surface, but at least from a market broad standpoint, the indices are at their highs. But again, we're all waiting on two dudes in the Iranian drone room to just turn the drones around and bomb someone else. And if that decides, two guys decide to do that, this is going to be over a lot faster than we anticipate. And to Chris's point, we'll be right back to the highs. But there's just another quick point I want to make on the oil fundamentals.

So, you know, it would be one thing if we came into this with a massive oil deficit. And that's not the case. We came into this with an oil surplus that was expected for the year. we came into this with the oil inventory buffers and actually oil inventories for the first time since 2020 being above those five-year inventory levels. China has $1.2 billion in reserves. So yes, we can talk about the rate of Hormuz disruption that is impacting financial markets, but it's not necessarily yet impacting the physical realities. It's important to keep things into really clear perspective at times like this. It's easy to feel unsettled and to get caught up with a lot of reds. on the board and every headline that you end up hanging on.

But let's just sit back and remember that the S&P year-to-date is not even down 1%. Now, it's been a lot of running in place, and that hasn't looked pretty at times either. But we're back to where we started. We haven't fallen that much out of bed in this market. And when we have, we've been resilient and we've been able to recover quick. We are expecting that we can do that again. Yeah, investing is not about real-time satisfaction. Unfortunately, that's what it kind of is nowadays,

where you automatically look at a price of oil spike and you feed it directly into not just short-term inflation, but there's a signal that says it's all of a sudden long-term inflation. What we're trying to say is zoom out. Just exactly what you said, Scott. Don't zoom in. If you want to see a very good piece of art, you don't zoom into it.

You actually step back and you enjoy it, And that's what we're trying to do here with clients is to understand where actually is the most important thing going two, three, four years out. And that's margins and profits. But the problem with some of that is, you know, when you look at all the things that are being thrown at the market, it's not just the war. There's worries about an AI overspend. There are worries about job losses and losses that grow to an unsustainable and unfathomable kind of a place. Morgan Stanley, 2,500 employees across all divisions. They don't say, well, we're doing that because of AI. But if you put it in total with a lot of other things, Oracle plans thousands of job cuts in the face of AI cash crunch. That's according to one of the other headlines out there. I mean, these are things to think about that certainly have the market a bit nervous.

Sure. Of all the things to be nervous about, listen, I've made this case on air with you repeatedly, and I will do it again. The idea, and now I actually have a data point to which I can point to back up what. what I'm about to say, which is the idea that the government is going to sit by and watch tens of millions of jobs evaporate to a computer in short order is a farcical. And today I saw a headline coming in that the New York State Legislature, I think it is, is introducing a bill, which probably won't pass, but conceptually is important, is introducing a bill to ban AI chatbots from answering questions, addressing, to oversimplify legal

and doctor-type questions, medical questions. Obviously, the threat is to the legal and medical professions, and so you're already starting to see some push from the institutions that are threatened to try to prevent some of this from happening. Now, I don't think that's going to happen in the long term. It'll be very difficult to really pass that type of piece of legislation. However, again, the people telling you that tens of millions of people are going to lose their job over the next two or three years, disproportionately to me to seem to be the type of people that are selling the items that are going to do it. You know, the other issue that we've been, I think, trying to get our arms around is to what degree is private credit a problem? If not today, maybe tomorrow.

Are there canaries in the coal mine today? There are other headlines that have people talking today, one of which is BlackRock, slashing another private loan value from 100 to zero in just three weeks. Leslie Picker is following this story for us. Hi, Leslie. Hey, Scott. Yeah, these are the right questions to be. asking, this is the second time we've seen BlackRock do something like this, marking a loan to zero somewhat unexpectedly. And this gets to the broader concerns around the private credit space about the true health of the loans and whether investors can trust what's reported. In this latest

case, though, it's a bit more nuanced. BlackRock had already restructured its exposure to infinite commerce holdings. That's what we're talking about here. It's an aggregator of Amazon sellers, which was mostly marked down in September, but then the business got worse, and it was recently marked down to zero. So the BDC with exposure known as BlackRock TCP capital slashed its value, as you mentioned, which was part of that 19% write down of net asset value that the firm disclosed in January. BlackRock declined to comment today to CNBC. Still the headlines about infinite commerce and the broader sentiment about private credit appear to be impacting both the BDC. You can see they're down about 3.5% as well as BlackRock itself. That TCP, that BDC, BlackRock

TCP has lost half of its value over the last year. And Black Rock, underperforming many of its peers today down more than, or down about 2%, but outperforming year-to-date, Scott. All right. Good context there, Les. Thank you. As you continue to follow a story we all keep talking about, and you think, I think talk about too much.

No, it's not that I don't think about it too much. And I want to hear what Anastasia has to say about it. The only point I would make on this is there are, that story, totally correct. Leslie did a great job, is about one company running. down one loan. There are thousands of loans in either the, what we call the broadly syndicated loan market, the BSL market, and the private credit market. There are thousands of loans to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of companies. They default and get written down all the time. And obviously, we're in a moment of heightened sensitivity, but let's just keep a perspective here. It's one loan

to one company. That's right. That's right. I think it's really important to use Chris's words, to zoom out and to actually look what the default rate is for the industry as, as all. whole, the default rate, including selective defaults, is about 5% today. It's ticked up a little bit, but it's broadly saying staying stable. For sponsor-backed private credit, the default rate is closer to 1%. So there's a big divergence there. And then, Scott, the other big thing why private credit, despite the growth that's happened in the industry is not all that risky, is you look at, first of all, at the leverage metrics, and they have declined substantially since the financial crisis. because the leverage ratios for those private equity-backed private credit loans are the lowest level since 2009.

If you look at the equity cushions, how much equity was in it when the loan was underwritten, that has risen to about 50%. So the stock, the enterprise value would have to go down a lot, and we're not seeing those sort of equity declines. We're not in that type of risk environment. How much are you guys watching that? Oh, very closely. It's one of the top. Are you more nervous about it than either of these guys sound? No, I go back to exactly what both Dan and Anastasia said is we have to, again, put this in perspective here.

There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of loans, number one. Number two, looking at the overall default rate, and a precedent is a powerful thing, Scott. If you've seen something before and something looks like it now, you automatically go right to the worst-case scenario, which we all remember when. Well, you think we have PTSD around the financial crisis, which is why when we start sniffing around this, we get extra nervous? I wouldn't say we do, but I certainly say some of the head-laws do. I'm saying we as a collective, you know, people who think about and listen to

and talk to people about the markets all the time. People like to go and see where the next issue is. And if you just kind of just really think about what private credit is, these are making private loans to good business models. and in some cases, business models that don't make it. But overall, when growth is going up, rates stay relatively consistent, notwithstanding what's going on right now, you have a very good understanding of potentially that free cash flow

is actually going to go up, not down. Well, this is not a today problem. The market isn't doing what it's doing because it's worried about these software companies today and the loans that were made to them today. You're projecting five to ten years, maybe less than that, down the road. What are the implications of all of this technology going to be on some of these companies that are going to get disintermediated?

And what then is the fallout in the loan market regarding all of that? That's what's happening here. Before Anastasia and I get hung two years from now first being a... I'll let you take the first stab at it. And then we've got to go. There's clearly a problem in software lending. It's depending on where you want to look, it's 15, 25% of lending in private credit. There's a huge chunk of those companies are going to get wiped out.

There are losses to be taken for sure. And investors in private credit BDCs and funds, et cetera, are going to take losses. What I think Anastasia and I would argue is private credit as an asset class is going to survive this. And to the 2008 PTSD argument, I think there is among equity investors that disproportionately populate CNBC and other media. there is an uncertainty and unfamiliarity with private credit that breeds suspicion. And I think that's why people who are more familiar with it are a little more sanguine. All right. We're going to leave it there because we've got to move. I have some more news coming up. Thank you, everybody. Really appreciate you being here on a very, very busy news day.

We do have some news out of Washington yet again. Emily Wilkins has this one for us. Hi, hi, M. Hey, Scott. Well, with a secretary, Noam now out and Senator Mark Wayne Mullen being nominated for the position, We're going to see a change. A block that was put in place by a single senator on a number of Trump's nominees is now going to be lifted. Senator Tom Tillis said earlier this week after a rough hearing with Secretary Nome that he was going to block any of Trump's nominees that he could. He sits on the banking committee, the finance committee. So a lot of folks that are in that finance universe. But now he says that Nome is out. He still wants to find this data on deportations that he's asking for. but he is going to be lifting his hold on a number of nominees. He said he will vote for Mullen to be the next chair or sorry,

next secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. But we have to put a huge asterisk on this because if you remember, Tillis also said that he would not be voting for any nominee to the Fed until the investigation on Powell is lifted. And I've confirmed with his office that that is still the case. He still needs that investigation to be lifted before he votes for Warsh or anyone else to get to the Fed. but all other holes are lifted at this point. Scott?

We can understand why you had the chair of the Federal Reserve on your mind as you're reporting out this story. Of course, that's what everybody is going to be laser focused on. Emily, thank you so much. Emily Wilkins in Washington. We're just getting started here up next. Much more on this afternoon sell-off. Top technician Jonathan Krenski just put a new note out

about one key part of the market. He said you can't lose. You just can't lose it. I'll tell you what it is next. We're back in video shares down a bit on a report today. the U.S. government might severely restrict how AI companies can export their computing power around the world. Our Christina Parts de Nelblos following that story all day long since it broke a few hours ago joins us now with more. What do we know? So specifically the Trump administration

is potentially drafting rules that, like you said, we require U.S. government approval for nearly all AI chip exports worldwide. So Bloomberg is reporting this. So rather than banning sales right, it sets Washington up as a gatekeeper. So small orders get a simple review, but the biggest deployments would require host governments, let's say, I don't know, the UK, for example, to negotiate directly with the United States and make matching investments in American AI. This framework, though, could replace president or former President Biden's diffusion rule, which aimed to cap how much computing power most countries could import from U.S. companies. The thing is, President Trump scrapped that in May for being too restrictive,

making these new draft rules somewhat of a contradiction. Meanwhile, China's Huawei is aggressively expanding its AI chip business globally, and any bureaucratic delays would effectively hand those markets just over to China. Expects significant pushback, though, Scott, from American tech companies on such draft rules, which aren't even necessarily real rules thus far. Often rules get passed around that people test things out. They see what's out there, but it's not necessarily anything that's actually going to be followed through.

Yeah, we'll see. You'll let us know. I know that. Christina, thank you. Christina Parts of Nevelos. Now let's bring in BTIG's Jonathan Krenski. He is the one who put out that note today. It said the market just cannot lose the semis or you may have a bigger problem. What has you laser focused on this today? Hey, Scott. So yeah, I mean, look, our base case still, as we discussed with you earlier this week, is that, you know, we're forming a bottom broadly in the market, kind of around that 6,700 level where we bottomed on Tuesday. I think if there's a risk to that thesis, it is that we see a further deterioration in a semiconductor group.

That's the largest industry group within the market. And it's still up significantly. It's up about 8% on the year after three amazing years, the last three years. You know, when we are seeing cracks, right, the memory names, Korea, we've seen kind of a parabolic blowoff with some of those names that are tied to the chip space. So we're seeing some cracks. I don't know if it's enough to make, you know, the outright bearish call on the group yet, but we think if you are making a bearish case for the S&P to make a leg lower, let's say towards the 200A around 6500, I think that's going to be led by the semi.

So, you know, we're at a tricky spot here, but definitely that's a group, that is the group that, you know, aside from crude oil that you need to be watching right now. Sure. I mean, look, memory names have gone straight up and to the right. it's hard to to pick that out and say, well, if you have a pullback there, you could have a bigger issue. Now, if you have that then coincides with the larger names in the group, the NVIDias. And look, Broadcom had a good report. And our stock was doing in many respects what NVIDIA couldn't do.

So we're not seeing a broader unraveling of that trade yet. Yeah, no, you're right. And it is bifurcated just to some extent. And Nvidia is not a bad chart. It just hasn't done anything in six or nine months, right? It's just kind of gone sideways. So, you know, I think that is probably one that, you know, you can kind of wait for the range to break on that and see which way it goes.

But I just think from a short-term perspective and sentiment perspective, you know, the memory names are probably top of mind as far as, you know, where sentiment's going. And then some of those bigger semi-names that you mentioned certainly should be watched too. Before I let you go, can you just give us how you're thinking of crude, which is we, you know, mentioned obviously a point of big weakness today as crude goes up, stocks go down. It's just the nature of what it is and will be for the foreseeable future. Yeah, I mean, look, so it's certainly headline driven, but as far as the charts go,

we're getting a little bit extended historically. I think we're about 30% above the 200 day. You know, if you look back over the last 30, 40 years, these geopolitical spikes tend to not really exceed 40%, but that is still, you know, there is still some upside if we were to get to that. But what we've been focused on are the energy equities, because oftentimes when you have a divergence between the commodity equities and the commodity itself, it's the equities that end up being right. And, you know, XOP is the oil, the EMP names are up 2% today, but the XLE is basically flat, has still not taken out its highs from Monday. And the oil service names, OAH, was down around

2%. So there's definitely some, you know, some issues going on with the energy equities that are divergent from the commodity. And that tells, that suggests to us that we're probably towards the later innings of this crude rally. It's good to have your insight, no doubt, always, but especially on days like these. Jonathan, thanks. Jonathan, Chris. Thanks. Thanks. Hey, guys, do we favor. Can we just throw up the, let's just throw up the NASDAQ for a moment. I just want to highlight markets off the lows of the session. You've had some interesting moves. By the way, remember we came on the air some 32 minutes ago? and said that the only sector that was green was energy.

Well, discretionary has gone positive. I just pick out the NASDAQ because I think it's important enough to note to you that Microsoft's positive, Amazon's positive. Obviously, if you get a move in discretionary, Amazon's such a large weighting in there that you're going to get a move like we've seen. Software names, Oracle is positive today. Crowdstrike, Palo Alto, some of the names that have been weak. Look at Salesforce and Snowflake and Ivy.

IBM and Twilio, they are all green as well. So we'll keep track of this over the next 28, 27 minutes or so. We come back. We talk to Capital Wealth Planning's Kevin Simpson about the moves that he is making in this unsettled market. All right, we are still negative, of course. We're off the worst levels. Let's now bring in Capital Wealth Planning's Kevin Simpson. See in a lot of markets.

What do you think of this one? I feel like it's a tug-of-war market. It's almost like we have a great foundation where the economics look good. The data points were all sort of Goldilocks all week. I think we're going to see a decent labor market print tomorrow. But the problem is really geopolitical when it comes down to oil. It's such an inflationary factor. You guys have done a great job covering it all day, but it's not just affecting the consumer.

The longer this stretches out, Scott, the more it bleeds into the stock market from a revenue, margin, and earnings perspective. What does somebody who does wealth planning for a living like you do tell your clients when the phone's ringing off the hook and nerves are, you know, a little afraid? Well, we like to buy when things are down and sell when things are higher. So the reality of how we're playing this is very clearly taking cash, putting it to work. Last Friday, we talked about a couple buys that we did last week, and that extended into today. But I think the message is doing it piecemeal.

It's not an all-or-sum game. So we talk a lot about dollar-cost averaging, layering in. That's what we do as professional money managers. I'm still sitting today with 10% cash, because who knows what's going to happen tomorrow next week. But any type of volatility, any type of sell-off, we'll just continue to nibble and lay around. I'll talk about some of the things you're buying more of, but is that a hard message to sell to clients at moments like this or no? I think that with the pedigree that we have, it's a little bit easier, but I would say that the emotional trigger point is very difficult.

So if you're a retail investor and you're a do-it-yourself or you're newer to the business, it's difficult to invest when things look tumultuous. But we know through experience that that's the best time to do it. So, you know, 34 years, you get a little bit numb to it. You take a little bit of the emotion out, and you start to think of it like a math equation, and it certainly becomes easier, if not easy. Okay. Now, in terms of what you're doing, so you are walking the walk.

You bought more Caterpillar, which is one of the names from the Industrial Group. That's obviously having a problem today. Tell me more. Yeah, Caterpillar is selling off, and you were talking about the Dow being a weighted index, It's not the perfect way to measure the stock market. Yeah, price weighted, right? I mean, you know, a small decline in any of these stocks with a high price takes a toll on the Dow. Like, if you looked at, I'll let you finish.

I apologize for interrupting just to make sure people understand that. If you look at the health care names that are down, why does the Dow look the way it does today relative to the others? Because you have stocks like that that are down a bunch, and each dollar move is like eight, eight and a half points, something like that on the day. Dow, so it looks a lot worse than the underlying market would perhaps tell you that it truly is. Yeah, so goes UNH, so goes the Dow sometimes. Yeah. We used to look at that as a much more representative index, but your point is spot on. Hey, I'm going to interrupt you just for one second because I know people are going to wonder

what all the clapping is, and it's a tradition on the stock exchange that when any time any man or woman in uniform is here on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, that there is a round of applause as they come onto the floor. And they're going to be making their way up to the podium because we do have a reminder, quite frankly, of the sacrifice that the men and women in uniform of this great country make. The Medal of Honor Society is ringing the closing bell today. Robert Ronald Ingram, he is a veteran of the Vietnam War, a member of the United States Navy, a Medal of Honor recipient. So yet another poignant reminder, of course,

when we are quite literally at war of the sacrifices that these men and women, the great ones of this country, and they'll be honored here today at the closing bell. So forgive me for interrupting you, but I do want to highlight that because it's a great tradition here on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange

if you can clearly hear and you will see when we show you a little bit later on at about 15 minutes the actual close of trade today. Please continue. I wish everyone could see this. I mean, this isn't on it. This is fantastic. So real treat. Having to pivot to the stock market sometimes a little bit difficult. I know. I know. It's a hard turn and it's my apologies for taking us in a direction where I would put it on you to make the turn. But nonetheless, back to business if we could. Caterpillar. Caterpillar is a stock that's down 10% in six sessions. This was a stock that's $77 literally last Tuesday. We were very lucky. Sometimes it's good to be lucky, maybe even better to be lucky than

smart sometimes, but we had Caterpillar called away last week, Scott. So we were able to come back in a 10-point drop, get a name that's got $50 billion in backlogs, 23% margin, more free cash flow than they've ever had before in the history of the company, and now 30 years running of dividend increases. When we see a stock like this pullback, we certainly want to add to that name. Okay, Apple's the other one. So, you know, you're playing large in the biggest stocks within this market. Tell me more about this. We had some fun last week on Apple, specifically making that the final trade on Friday. But really, there's a lot of things happening with Apple, maybe also by accident.

They have an event this week that was pretty much blown over. We didn't really pay a lot of attention to it. But they were bringing out and introducing lower-end models. They've got MacBook neos that are coming out, $500, $600. And these are the things that coders are using for AI. So AI infrastructure, a game that they kind of sat out of, they might become the player in because everyone's using it for open claw. Everyone's using it for coding and prompting.

And I think it's just a matter of time for Siri to get it right with respect to Alphabet, Gemini, and what they're going to launch this spring. So Sleeper Company, a little bit out of favor in terms of the AI spend, but I think they may be tremendous AI beneficiaries. All right. I'm glad you're here. I appreciate you doing this for us,

helping us understand what's going on in this market. That's Kevin Simpson. Up next, we track the biggest movers into the close. We'll be right back. We're now in the market zone. Mike Santoli and Serity partners, Jim Lavinthal, breakdown the crucial moments of the trading day for us today. Marvell Costco reporting in overtime. Christina Poncelloos, Gabrielle von Ruge, are watching those names for us. Michael, you got the first word. Yeah, another save at the bottom of the range, Scott. I don't know if it was because, you know, folks took some heart in this idea that the administration might have some measures on the oil price, since we did go out at the highs pretty much on floor trading in crude. Or it's just because this market still wants to make sure they're in. position to be lucky if this ends up being more of a passing event, but very erratic, uncomfortable trading, I would say. Nobody feels like they have a lot of conviction. Again, a lot of volume in just the proxies for various sectors, not a lot of real money necessarily

flowing into some of those big names, but we'll say macro day tomorrow perhaps. All right, we'll see about five minutes or so from now and overtime. Thank you, Michael. Christina, to you on Marvell. Good time to hear from a chip company. Yeah. Well, shares are down roughly 10% year-to-day to lagging even the SMH and the NASDAQ. Sentiment is definitely cautious on this name to actually shift the narrative, though. Analysts say Marvell would need mid-to-high single-digit revenue upside versus street estimates, aka not just a small beat. The confidence, though, inside the company really comes from strong AI-chip design wins with Amazon and the anticipated ramp of a second major customer, which would be Microsoft and late fiscal 2027, 2028.

Marvell has also been building out its connectivity portfolio. It acquired Celestial AI very recently in Excon to strengthen its position inside the AI data center. Bring that up because both those deals could actually weigh on margins in the near term. The bigger uncertainty, though, is Marvell's grip on future custom chip contracts and whether there's a new customer announcement coming tonight, until investors actually see real numbers on both, expect them to stay cautious in this name. Thank you, Christina Bartsenevolos very much. Gabby, how about Costco? Yeah, so Costco is expected to report earnings per share of $4.56 on revenues of $69.29 billion.

Now, Costco does report its net revenue figures monthly, so some of what we'll see tonight will already be baked in, but its monthly announcements excludes membership fees. So that's going to be a key item to watch tonight. Over the last few quarters, membership renewals have been slipping. More customers have been signing up online, and those shoppers renew at a 7.000. slightly lower rate. Scott. All right, Gabrielle Fon Rouge, appreciate you very much. We'll see what happens there.

All right, Jim Labenthal, give me your thoughts on this market, which is well off of its lowest levels. It's still so unsettled, though. Yeah, unsettled. And I think Mike used the word uncomfortable. That's a good word for it. I think we need to be prepared that Fridays with this sort of news cycle are not likely to be good days because there's three days ahead where the markets will be closed and anything

can happen. So as much as we've gotten used to these intraday rallies to. be much higher at the close than in the middle of the day. I'm not so sure it's going to happen tomorrow. Now, I'm speaking in the shortest of short terms. In the long term, there's a lot of cushions in the economy and the markets, whether it's a high degree of oil inventories globally or low jobless claims, a lot of capital expenditures. So there's a lot of cushions, but tomorrow could be tricky going into the weekend. We'll see. I mean, jobs report as well. We feel pretty good about the economy, and we have every reason to do so. But I think we're a little bit nervous.

about what the employment picture is projecting to in the years ahead in this country? I think that's a very good point. I don't think the worst fears are likely to really show up in any meaningful degree tomorrow's labor report. Every indication you look at ADP, jobless claims, et cetera, looks like it should be a decent report tomorrow. But the fears will linger. You know, if you're talking about the sasspocalypse and the, you know, decline in the number of seats and just jobs in general, those fears are going to be with us for a little while. Ultimately, though, this is a strong economy, good earnings growth, good GDP growth, and we just got to get through this conflict in the Middle East without it getting worse. Yeah, I mean, it's just a lot of other stuff going on, too, even without war.

You look at software stocks, you sort of allude to it as we think about it from a jobs standpoint, but Salesforce and some of these other names, Twilio is higher, Palantir is higher, IBM is higher, the cyber names are higher. you think that that sector's been washed out enough? I think it has, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's short covering going on. There are certainly highly volatile sectors of the market, like the ones you just mentioned, software, but also the private credit names rallying today. Those two sectors rallying sort of in the face of this ongoing uncomfort, unsettledness, tells me that it might be short covering more than anything else. Yeah, what about the banks, Jimmy?

They haven't traded well. I think at the lows today, Goldman and some of these other names looked pretty awful. They've come back a bit, hence the market itself is doing just the same. But what about the group? Yeah, it's a good question. As I said, there's cushion here. But, you know, a lot of these banks were looking for a strong IPO calendar, very strong with big mega IPOs coming up in the spring and summer.

But if we continue with the volatility that we're seeing right now, if that continues for a while and you start to see that IPO window shut, that might be negative for the banks, and I think that might be what they're trading on. I mean, money going back to the mega caps, too, no surprise, quickly, right? Defensive growth. And also at very good prices. Microsoft 23 times earnings, you know, Alphabet, Amazon is at the lowest multiple we've seen in many, many years. So there's good value there. All right. Jimmy, it's good having you. I appreciate you joining us very much. So we're going to go out red across the board. Bell's going to start ringing in a moment. The Congressional

Medal of Honor Society is on the podium doing that. So I'll just I want you to just watch that and think about those great people who are helping to ring the bell today, including Medal of Honor recipients as we think about the bigger picture of why the markets have been so unsettled over the last few days. I'll see tomorrow.