Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: 2/9/26

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

From the open to the close, “Closing Bell” and “Closing Bell: Overtime” have you covered. From what’s driving market moves to how investors are reacting, Scott Wapner, Melissa Lee and Michael Santoli guide listeners through each trading session and bring to you some of the biggest names in business. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The bell is bringing end to the trading day at the NYSE, FloTech Industries, and at the NASAC Zillow Group, to win the honors. Welcome to closing bell overtime live from Studio B at the NASDAQ market site. I'm Melissa Lee along with Mike Santoli. Stocks adding to Friday's gains without padding its record high slightly, but the NASDAQ once again, the strongest with a 1% gain, more in the market straight ahead. Our team is all over today's big movers,

including a big jump in silver and the expanding metals momentum, plus the move higher in the semi-stocks is on semiconductor, to report. But let's start with Sima Modi on the tech follow-through to the upside. Seema. Hey, Mike, a sustainable rebound in tech that was held up throughout the day. Invidia shares clawing back following Goldman Sachs saying the chipmaker could deliver a $2 billion revenue surprise when the company reports earnings on the 25th of February. Oracle, though, seeing its best day of the year following Open AI comments on re-accelerating

growth, that big upgrade from D.A. Davidson on hopes that with OpenAI's latest fundraise, it will be able to pay for the data center commitments that it's made to Oracle. Software breaking its long losing street, closing higher by 3%. Software as a service companies like Salesforce, Service Now, higher. And then we saw Palantir rebound Microsoft, despite an analyst downgrade, all rebounding. The one outlier was Israeli software company Monday.com trading sharply lower on a more conservative guide. The market now counting down to earnings from Datadog, Clavio, Twilio, an important gut check for the entire sector. Finally, guys, the rotation into consumer staples stalling today with the exception of Kroger following news that it's

being a former Walmart executive as its new CEO. Guys? All right, Seema, thank you. Seema Modi. It was an interesting day. I thought the bouncing software was really interesting to watch. We had two downgrades in Microsoft. One last week, one today from Ben Rice and Sommelius Research.

And that sock still bounced. And IGV volume was very heavy. It was very heavy. I mean, and there was a lot of work. You could have said it going back three, four, five days that it was washed out. The outflows from ETS was very severe. And yes, and kind of an orderly recovery today. In other words, it wasn't some kind of a short covering lunge or anything like that.

So it seems as if money is trying to find its way back into those familiar areas that, you know, had been reliable for a long time. I will still say today was the 12th day of the last 23 trading sessions when the S&P 500's intraday high was above 6,950 and we've never closed at 7,000. We are just kind of wearing out this area. So I don't know if to say the market is just kind of capped here or it's just kind of working its way knocking on the door as the majority of stocks does. better, and you still have this global reflation stream.

Non-U.S. Stocks did better than U.S. stocks, dollar down eight-tenths of a percent today. I mean, if you're a glass-half-fold kind of person, I think, oh, we've been through mega-cap tech earnings. They weren't all good. They didn't deliver just, you know, gangbusters results across the board, and we did see outsized reaction to the downside, and yet we are still here at these levels. And I think that's totally fair and plausible. And in fact, you could say the equal-weight S&P is up five and a half percent year-to-date. The NASDAQ-100 has been dead money.

We thought this market couldn't work without that leadership. I guess the question is, can you have a broader market that's also one that has a lot of upside momentum for those index fund holders? Yeah, that's the question. Golden silver, meantime rising today along with stocks. It's not just golden silver. The metals momentum is spreading. Pippa Stevens joins us with more. Hey, Pippa.

Hey, Melissa. Well, Golden Silver's roller coaster ride has sparked interest in other metals, notably lithium and uranium. Although analysts say the fundamental reason for those moves is more apparent. Lithium surging 60% this year, according to benchmark mineral intelligence. inventory has been drawn down after a period of low prices. Some capacity also went offline, and there can be a lag between when demand signals return versus when the upstream can respond. Batteries for grid-scale storage, a major driver on the demand side.

Urania, meantime, topping $100 for the first time in two years, according to UXC. The firm's Jonathan Hinsie noting reactor restarts and new builds are bullish for demand, with a Sprott physical fund also raising cash and buying more spot pounds. Utilities are also returning to the market. We've seen big moves in uranium stocks this year, also appoints a favorite for the retail crowd. Melissa? All right, PIPA, thanks, Pippa Stevens. Well, major averages extended their gains from Friday with tech leading the gains.

This comes as investors await another big week of earnings reports this week and two key pieces of economic data, including the January jobs and the consumer price index. Joining us now with a look at what will be the key drivers this week are Sam Soval. He is a chief investment strategist at CFRA and Tim Seymour from Seymour Asset Management and, of course, a fast money trader. see you both, gentlemen. Tim, I will start it off with you. What is the event that you're watching very closely? We were just commenting about how the S&B seems sort of stalled at these levels here. Won't break down, won't break higher either. I think it's, I'm going to look out to NVIDIA, but, you know, payrolls this week is important. I just feel as if the job market is that

leading dynamic, and this won't be a leading indicator, but it is the sense that the market is trying to feel out whether labor could be in trouble in this country because of all the obvious secular trends. I just think the economy is. better. This call it barbell approach to investing right now, which is you've just talked about, semis are outperforming once again, but also health care energy really works. And it works as long as there are jobs out there. So I think payrolls are important, at least to set the tone. Sam, as much as it seems like treasury yields, maybe the dollar have been sensitive to some maybe slowdown talks today from Kevin Hassett saying maybe labor is going to be weak. And, you know,

even the weaker secondary job reports last week, the equity market is assertively suggesting that we have kind of liftoff in the global economy. So how are you thinking about that and how do you think that the behavior of the market tells us what's to come? Well, Michael, I think that because we had such a snapback on Friday and some pretty good follow through today, that essentially because of the expectation that Q4 GDP could be as much as 5.4% according to the Atlanta Fed, GDP now, also looking at the possibility that if we do end up with, you know, possibly a weak payroll number at 55,000, which is what the street is expecting, and then also seeing a decline in year-over-year numbers, both headline and core for CPI on Friday. I think the expectation is that we probably could see a

cut at the June meeting, all of which I think would help to support and propel share prices. Well, the Atlanta Fed, by the way, revised it down to 4-2 last week, even though the president wanted to grab that 5.4 number over the weekend. But Sam, I mean, we've been talking just recently about the broadening of the market. You do have most stocks outperforming the S&P and whether that, in fact, is something that can be sustainable and compatible with the overall index, you know, making new highs. Well, we do, we have been seeing an increase in the percent of sub-industries in the S&P 1500. There are 155 of them. And we have seen upticks in the 50-day, 200-day, as well as both.

In fact, last week, 30 of these sub-industries moved back above both their 50 and 200-day moving averages. And you had areas such as diversified metals, such as globalized. global banks and technology hardware that did move back up. So that implied that investors were certainly looking at the 8% discount that tech had been trading versus its five-year average. Tim, I wonder if you think software saw its flush. And this is on a day when Microsoft bounced higher by 3% despite the mealyus downgrade. And the reasons in the mealyus downgrade I thought were really interesting in terms of

Microsoft might have to actually just give co-pilot away. Yeah. You know, it can't charge. I mean, it's only got 15 million seats at a 400 plus out there for 365. Well, look, we are at a 14-90 hours. I said the traders told you on Thursday, intraday, that it was absolutely oversold. I think the jury is still out. But I would get back to both what Sam is talking about and what we're set in the table for.

If you told me a year ago that outside of software is pulled back, that you're getting this market broadening, that mega-cap tech wasn't falling apart, but was just losing some air. This would have been the best setup for markets, the macro backdrop, the fact that industrials have been up all year and we're leading last year, the fact that energy is actually finding some legs. So I'm not going to tell you that the call it the existential concerns around software aren't still going to be things we test over and over again. But I love the fact that semiconductors continue to make relative highs. This is the most important part of the market right now at the same time these other things are. I don't need to own Microsoft today and some of the other mega caps. Google's going to price a $20 billion bond offering and starting to become a dynamic investors

have gotten comfortable with on the debt side. Do you feel better about the overall markets health, Tim, today versus three weeks ago before the start of running season? I think the volatility that we've seen in Bitcoin and silver and somewhat gold and obviously software are things that if we remove those, yes, I feel better. I think most professional investors will grudgeonly admit they didn't expect this impact from the fallout of Bitcoin, and I think that has a lot to do with what's going on. Sam, in addition to some of that kind of cross-asset volatility and whether the equity market can

absorb it on a continuing basis, there's a thing in people's minds that know history, right, which is the supposed new Fed chair gets tested in some fashion. It's a midterm election year. It's the fourth year of a bull market. And so how do we use those things to set our expectations for the remainder of the year? Well, I think what it does, is it basically says that this could be a good year but not a great year and certainly a very volatile one. In the second year of rate reduction cycles since 1990, the market was up just a shade more than 6% on average, so a good year. Fourth year bull markets end up offering a sigh of relief that once we have celebrated that third year, which is typically the most challenging,

the bull market tends to last another three-plus year. So that gives us six. plus in total on average. So I would tend to say that with the volatility being the greatest at midterm election year cycles up until October, and then the market tends to do very well once that uncertainty has been lifted. Sam Stovall, Tim Seymour, thank you. Appreciate it. Coming up, it can be hard to say you're sorry, but we've got two examples. First, a short seller who trashed Apple Oven, then a trader whose Amazon call went wrong. A couple of Mayaculp is coming up on Overtime, live from the NASDAQ market site. Welcome back to Overtime, shares of Apluven leading the S&P 500 today after short-seller Capital Watch issued an apology

and revised the report it released last month accusing a major Apluven shareholder of financial crimes. Apluven had demanded that Capital Watch retract what it called its defamatory and baseless report and has issued a cease and desist letter. The stock is coming off a rough stretch, though, down about 28 percent in just a month. Big tech earning season is winding down with Nvidia the last big name set to report. That's on February 25th. The tech sector down 2% in one month as investors question the scale of AI spending and its impact on the software sector. Our next guest thinks there's still plenty of money to fund the AI infrastructure buildout. Joining us now is T. Roe Price Portfolio Manager, Dom Rizzo.

Dom, great to have you. I guess maybe there's not a ton of questioning of whether the companies can afford the buildout, but whether the spending is fully wise and whether we have to start thinking about these companies differently as much more capital intensive. How do you think about those things? Well, first off, thanks for having me, guys, and congrats on the new show. Look, I think this earnings season, we learned a few things. Number one, we're going from $45 billion at AI chips in 23 to $500 billion at AI chips in 28 to a trillion dollars at AI chips in 2030.

And how are we funding that? We're funding that from the accelerating revenue growth at the hyperscalers. Look at Google Search, even though it's under assault by ChatsyBTBT, we're still growing 17% year-over-year. Meta, which is now such a big portion of the overall advertising market, is guiding Q1 growth to 30% year-over-year. So I think there's going to be plenty of revenue acceleration, not to mention the productivity and cost efficiencies that we're seeing

out in many of these companies to fund that build-out. I mean, I guess, again, the question is all that spending, right? So what are you saying? Half a trillion dollars in AI chips in three years. It seems like a pretty big nut to meet. So we know that the balance sheets can handle it. But in terms of valuation, does it change things? The market's shown not so much patience with things like Amazon's plans in particular.

Look, they're chasing digital intelligence, right? And how are we playing in our strategy? we have a very large position in semiconductors, nearly 50% of both of our strategies, semiconductors, and 70 capital equipment today. I mean, if you just take a step back and you think about what's happening, this year, these companies between the hyperscalers and the AI labs are probably to spend around $650 billion in overall CAPEX. I mean, compared that to their overall operating cash flow, it's $600 billion. So we're actually spending more in CAPX than their operating cash flow. Now, can this continue going forward? You know, I think that these guys can grow operating cash flow 20 to 30% a year.

I think the capital markets is more than happy to fund this. And yet, personally, I do think that these companies are going to get a great return on invested capital on this investment. But the race is on, and the best way to play it today remains the digital semiconductor ecosystem. How about software? I mean, you mentioned revenue creation. How about revenue destruction? When you take a look, I mean, regardless of the bounce that we've seen in software over the past couple of days, there's that existential threat.

And last week, with every release of a clawed plug-in, we saw the software stock go down exponentially. And so how do you view that? Is that just a place where you will not invest or what do you have in terms of software in your portfolio? Well, you have to pick your spots in software, right? And so in the short term, it's actually not a growth issue. Just look at Service Now. We saw 21% year-over-year growth in the quarter. The issue is the market's replacing the terminal value of many of these companies as we see two things happening.

Number one, are OpenAI and Anthropic with Claude Co-work going to aggregate all of enterprise software, right? Are all of these systems or record just going to become dumb data points into your work agent? And the other thing is, who's going to own that agenetic control plane? Is it ServiceNow? Is it Palantir? Is it Microsoft with Fabric? I mean, that really remains to be seen. And so personally, we have a lot of our software positioning and the data information. infrastructure names, either on the public side like data dog or snowflake or on the private

side like data bricks, because that's the area that we can feel more certainty today. But again, the terminal value is actually being questioned in many of these applications offer names for the first time since many of them have been public. Not to mention, we're just at a different phase of growth for many of these companies. We're seeing naturally decelerating growth rates going forward because we're just at a mature phase, which means what? means we're going to have to get our stock-based comp under control, and we're going to have to get our OPEX under control. And that could be a tough slog for many of these companies.

Now, valuation-wise, we're now at a 20-year low relative to the semiconductor industry. The semiconductor EV to Sales is actually higher than the software EV to sales for the first time in the past 20 years. I think that's justified for many reasons between margins going up at semis and the durable growth. But the thing that you have to watch out is obviously a dead count balance in software. Right. Don, we got to let you go. Thank you. Don Thanks for having me, guys. See you soon. On semiconductor earnings, they are out. Christina Parks and Nevelas, got the numbers.

Christina. It's a mixed report for this chip name, EPS of 64 cents adjusted. That's a two cent beat on revenues that we'll say is roughly in line with estimates at $1.53 billion. Gross margins for Q4 coming in at 38.2, so slightly higher. But it's the guidance, the midpoint of the guidance range that they provided, which is slightly weaker, to 66 cents for Q&EPS on 1.44 to 1.54 billion dollars. But what stood out to me is just in this report, just one line. We remained disciplined in our execution and met expectations in the fourth quarter

as we saw increasing signs of stabilization. And this is from the CEO. Last quarter, they also said the same thing, stabilization. This company is highly exposed to the auto sector. And it seems like we're not necessarily seeing that demand turnaround if they keep using the word stabilization in their press reports. Guys? Yep, got to make you wonder what stabilization means in the dictionary of on semiconductors management. Christina, thank you. Christina Parks and the stock, by the way, is down by 6.8% right off the earnings. Amazon today, down for the fifth straight

session, losing more than 10% in that time span. Next, our chart watcher who had been bullish on the stock. We'll join us with a look at what went wrong and where it could go from here. As we head to break. Here's a look at some of the names hitting all-time highs today. Tapestry. Alta, Walmart, Exxon, and Caterpillar. Walmart did pull back a bit, but is up 15% this year. Over time, be right back. Shares of Kindrae losing more than half their value today. The company's CFO and its General Council both left the company, and its audit committee is now reviewing its accounting practices. The company missed on earnings and revenue and cut its guidance.

Kindrell is an IT services company which spun out of IBM in 2021. Well, Amazon was one of the streets' favorite breakouts into, earnings. But instead of breaking out, the stock broke down, seeing a double-digit drop from its January highs and news of its $200 billion to 2026 capital expenditures forecast. Our next guest issued a rare Mayaculpa in his new note, calling it a bad recommendation. Joining us now is Carter Braxton Worth, CEO and founder of Worth charting as well as a fast money trader. So Carter, what do you do now? What's wrong? Well, yeah, every once in a while we put out what's called coping with judgments that don't work out. And this is a classic example of that. Sometimes they just don't

do what one thought it would do. The judgment made is wrong. And so it's an instance of first loss, best loss. And that's as a great an idiom or any saying you can use in markets. But let's look at the circumstance. Before the drop in gap, which you see here, of course, this is the first mistake, meaning that was the earnings. Then it does another one. But it's always a testament to take action if you can quickly. So let's talk about the trend line's beautiful. You set up here into what is a perspective breakout. And instead, it's done the exact opposite. It is broken down.

This is nothing wrong with being wrong, but you can't stay wrong. And so now that it has done that, we were down 4% on the first day, down another 10. Today it did not undercut the low, but it's dead money here. Here's why. In order to just, it can always go lower, so there's that problem, but in order to get back up here, back up here, back up here, all these people, including myself, who like liked it here, would love to be able to get back out at 245 where it was recommended. And so that's what overhead supply is.

First loss, best loss, just walk away. There'll be another time in place for Amazon. This is not the time in place. Was it the second drop, Carter, that made you pull back on this one? Yes, and that's important, too. So stop losses are very personal things. Some people, if you use 1%, you'd never go anywhere. Stock to move on average 1%, 2%.

It's how it behaves. You can undercut a little bit, but to really start dropping and gaping and breaking trend is enough damage to warrant taking your medicine moving on. Carter, you mentioned that, okay, it's an error in judgment, but, I mean, there's a difference between process and outcome, right? I mean, you could actually have had it, you know, very much a well-founded conclusion that it should be a buy here, and yet it just doesn't worry out because it's a market. Sure, and so this is how, if you had, I mean, let's say this way, this is actually as clear as if you had 100 stocks in the United States, exactly that position sitting in the apex, 1940, 1980, 200040, when I'll be out of the business anyway and dead perhaps, that's right to play it long.

That's called a wedge. It's usually the preceding circumstance, and then the consolidation, and then you get resolved in the direction of the proceeding circumstance. So is it 70-30? Is it 60-40? It's a much higher than 50-50.

When they don't go right, it isn't necessarily a judgment as you may have to go on it. It's just like it didn't work out. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Carter, thanks. Great to see you.

Carter Braxton Worth, worth charting. Time now for a CNBC News update with Kate Rogers. Hey, Kate. Hi, Melissa. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Janine Puro, filed a motion today to dismiss the case against former Trump aide Steve Bannon on contempt charges. Bannon was convicted of defying a subpoena from the January 6th Committee. He served four months in a federal prison for refusing to cooperate.

Buckingham Palace today said King Charles will support police who are a, reports that his brother, former Prince Andrew, shared confidential trade documents with Jeffrey Epstein when he was a UK trade envoy. At the center of the controversy, a 2010 email chain between the two, which NBC News says appears to show the former prince forwarding trade reports to Epstein after visits to China, Vietnam, and Singapore. And superstar skier Lindsey Vaughn's father told the Associated Press today that her career is over if he has anything to do with it. Vaughn crashed over the weekend in the opening seconds of her first downhill run, breaking her leg and requiring surgery. Vaughn's father said, quote, she's 41 years old and this is the end of her career.

Melissa, back over to you. Wow, Kate, thank you very much. As Bitcoin plummeted to 60,000 last week down more than 50% from its all-time high, many wondered when the crypto-faithful would step in and buy. But have they all gone in search of riches elsewhere like maybe in the prediction markets? and which stocks could benefit or get hurt by this trend. That is next on over. Welcome back to closing bell overtime live from the NASAC market site. Stocks once again closing with gains, the Dow higher by 20 points,

but that's a new record closed. The NASAC, though, with a real gain nearly 1%, continuing Friday's big tech turnaround. On Sammy reporting moments ago beating on earnings 64 cents a share versus 62 expected revenue amiss, the midpoints of its guidance ranges for earnings and revenue were roughly in line with estimates the company saying it sees, increasing signs of stabilization in key markets, the stock is down 6%. Upworked shares plummeting after hours of fourth quarter numbers look fine. Earnings beat by five cents a share revenue in line,

but the guidance for the first quarter is the problem. Even the high end of the earnings range is below the current estimate. Same thing for revenue. Also, the freelancing platform had fewer active clients at the end of 2025 than it did at the end of 2024. Last week's crypto collapse raised questions about when buyers would step in. Well, they didn't until Bitcoin had lost half its value from its all-time high. So have the former crypto evangelist moved on, whether it's Bitcoin or meme stocks or sports betting and now prediction markets, seems to be an aggressive risk-taking cohort that's constantly chasing the next big thing. Joining us now to talk more about this is economics commentator and author of In This Economy, Kyla Scanlon. And Kyla, it's great

to have you on. Thank you for taking the time. And I guess I'd first start with, I mean, I know you've done a lot of work on younger people's current predilection for these sort of high-risk, high reward type activities. And I wonder if you buy into the premise that there's a sort of continuum here of assets, so to speak, and of forums that this might be operating it. Yeah, I mean, I think everybody is trying to chase a bag right now. And so prediction markets offer people a way to make some money, especially with crypto going down as much as it has, just uncertainty with the stock market

in general, the big tech sell off. It seems like people are trying to find everything they can to just make a little bit of money. And prediction markets provide a vessel for that. And I guess the other, the piece of it that's, I guess, maybe somewhat disconcerting for people who are trying to draw sharper lines between investing activities and gambling is prediction markets are pretty much built to be zero sum. There's a loser for each winner. And it's not something that will kind of accumulate value over time. So I just wonder how that fits into this thought of exactly whether it's serving as an alternative to what otherwise would be maybe more long-term productive investment activities. I mean, the prediction markets argue that their use case is allowing people to hedge against certain things happening.

So if you want to hedge against a country getting invaded, hedge against the weather, hedge against anything ever, they're going to enable you to do that. However, most of their flow is sports betting. So Kalshi, 90% of their flow is people gambling on sports. So it seems like there are these really good use cases. Like hedging against the weather is something that is inherently useful. But what people use the apps for is to bet on sports. What is it about the psyche, Kyla, do you think, that makes this generation want to do this? I mean, is it connected in any way to what we saw during the pandemic and the rise of Wall Street

bets? and this idea that the markets are rigged. I mean, are investors looking for another way to play that may seem like a better, like the odds are more in their favor? I think a lot of people are trying to find some sort of agency, some sort of autonomy right now. Like we have these two dual pillars of uncertainty, both by technology, so it's happening with AI and then with politics. And there's a lot of uncertainty with the job market for young people. There's a lot of uncertainty about what their career path is going to look like and where they can settle down. And so a lot of people do turn to things like prediction markets and sports betting, especially if they're unable to find work, because that is some way of finding agency and then some way of making hopefully a little bit of money, although it doesn't work out like that for most users.

Is it your sense? And this, I'm kind of definitely conveying a little bit of my own bias on this, that crypto seems to like newcomers to trading or investing as not really the new thing, right? I mean, it's been around long enough and it's kind of gone through enough cycles that it feels as if it's not as exciting as it might have seemed to somebody of a similar age 10 years ago. Yeah, Joe Wisenthal over at Bloomberg wrote about that over the past few days where he says that crypto isn't the shiny new object anymore. And prediction markets definitely are because, you know, you hear these stories about people making all of this money. They're able to play in a relatively unregulated space. And crypto has won what the industry wanted, which is some element of regulation, some element of favor with the administration. And so it seems like they've kind of achieved what they set out to achieve.

And it doesn't sound very clear what the upside is in crypto anymore. Whereas prediction markets, you know, the way that they're marketing it is that it can help you pay your rent. It can help you cover grocery costs. So it seems much more appealing than crypto does right now for sure. Kyla, thank you. Great to speak with you. Kyla Scanlan. Well, the world of betting and predictions have essentially crossed over. You can bet on sports, on prediction sites, and now betting sites are creating prediction markets.

But looking at the recent stock performance, it doesn't appear that investors believe Draft Kings and Fanduil can actually catch up. Flutter, which runs Fanduel, is on an eight-week losing streak. And Draft Kings is trading at 2023 lows. Joining us now to discuss the future of the sector is Robert Fishman, senior research analyst Ed Moffitt Nathanson. Robert, great to have you with us. And I guess that's a key question. Are the likes of Draft Kings, Van Duel, are they losing out in some way to prediction markets?

Well, it's clear that, you know, Kalshi and Polly Market moved a lot quicker within this larger prediction market. But Draft Kings and Flutter really have just begun. And so they've both launched their products in December and were awaiting to get an update from them as far as how, it's gone. We have no expectations that they're going to get to the same level of success that they've gotten in the online sports betting market so far as the two dominant players within that market. But any inroads on the prediction market, I think today is still underappreciated from the investor sentiment that we hear. Censor Tower data show that Fandul and Draftings combined for their prediction market apps in December. They had a combined

download of under 100,000, and that compares to Cal She's 1.9 million downloads. If those numbers do pan out, I mean, is that the kind of progress you see for them? I mean, is there exponential growth on the horizon? Because that doesn't sound like a very good start. Right. So again, they've launched very slowly in December, and they're starting to ramp that up now, arguably a little too late, so totally understand your point. But at the same time, time, what we need to see is what the inroads on the non-legalized states, right? Because when comparing the Kalshi and the poly markets, a lot of their success has been in this non-legalized states. What investors are now trying to understand is, has prediction markets made any inroads on the

legalized states? And that's really, I would argue, the more important question for both draftings and Flutter sitting here today. But as we think about where this market, is going and the gray market that prediction markets continues to operate in, clearly more success from both draft kings and flutter is required to get investors excited about that story again. Yeah, and just to be more detailed about this gray area that they operate in, right, they're kind of regulated nationally to consider futures contracts, therefore, and even, you know, they can have, in many cases, people as young as 18, get an account as opposed to most states 21 for for sports gambling. So there are kind of these openings or loopholes that they're exploiting.

What's interesting to me is that Draft Kings and Fandul, am I right, oppose this very idea that prediction market should be able to play in this way and now they're having to join them. What's the edge that a Draft Kings or a Fandul has, you know, just as this market stays the same size, but there are more players? So both Draft Kings and Fandual plan to lean on their own technology capabilities. And they're bringing a lot of success, clearly, from the OSB market already and I-Gaming, in terms of the product and the simplicity to offer to the customers and to draw new customers in with their technology advantages that they do bring.

So I think that that is their unique advantages that they're looking to bring in. Plus, when we think about a company like Flutter, they have a lot of experience in this market outside of the U.S. that they're looking to bring in, they call it, you know, the flutter edge. So basically taking the learnings and expertise outside of the U.S. and applying that to the U.S. market. All right. Robert, great to have you. Thank you. Thank you. And all of this is really coming together in terms of public investors in Robin Hood, right? Because Robin Hood started obviously free stock trading, options crypto trading, meme stocks. It was right at the center. And then, of course, they got into prediction markets.

They were using Kalshi, and they're kind of going to do it on their own. And, of course, what they've found is that most of that volume is sports betting. And clearly, it's a lot of crossover between the customer bases. They also say about prediction markets, oh, it's almost the future of news, right? It's like polling, and it's going to, you know, tell us what people think about the future of the world. To be fair, we do. We cited ourselves when it would, the odds of the Fed chair, 3%, you know. And I think that there absolutely is value for the consumer of that aggregated information.

but what it takes to get to that information is a lot of short-term self-interested people, many of them just losing money. Right. So be careful, basically. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson blaming gold's volatility and what he calls China's unruly trading up next. We'll head live to Beijing to see how China is reacting to that accusation. Welcome back to overtime. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson blaming China for the volatile swings in gold recently. Eunice Yun is in Beijing with all the details. Hi, Eunice.

Hey, Mel. Well, Secretary Besant, as you said, was pointing at the Chinese what he described as unruly trading in gold in China for this broader volatility. But I think that the Chinese, like so many others, would add heightened political tensions as well as the expectations around the Fed's moves. But even so, the largest gold state-owned company called China National Gold, a China national gold and kind of added to its voice to the course of companies that are worried about the risks around the metals mania. The company said that it would suspend repurchasing services for weekends

and holidays due to what it described as significantly intensified fluctuations and heightened uncertainty in the global markets. And this comes after ICBC from this weekend said that it would be imposing trading limits on gold-related funds and as banks more broadly have, been concerned about the risks of what they see as a volatile trade. The Shanghai Futures Exchange had also raised its margin requirements. Now, the big swings in global prices come at a time when China is traditionally buying a lot of gold around the Lunar New Year. This is a time when people buy gold as gifts.

And then on top of that, you have a lot of Chinese seeing this as an important safe haven. guys with the price of gold high units i'm wondering if there was any sort of substitution i know you're talking about the trading volatility but in terms of the lunar new your purchases if there's any substitution for the metal with other metals there actually there has been a lot of discussion about switching over to silver but then that got kind of high too so because of that there's been more discussion about possibly giving people more money packets as opposed to using the you know buying a lot gold jewelry and bars. Of course, that is still going on right now. And a lot of people are seeing this as a longer-term bet, buying gold. Right envelopes. Little fatter these days. Unis,

thank you. That's right. Eunice, Yun. And of course, there's an article today on Bloomberg saying that China was basically saying to banks, hey, why don't you pair your holdings here? Yes. Of treasuries. Of U.S. treasuries. Yeah. Which should seem to kind of just almost intentionally kind of strike at the raw nerve that a lot of U.S. investors have about this. It really is a little bit outdated. I mean, you see there, you know, in terms of the total Chinese official treasury holdings have been in decline for a long time. And of course, it's a percentage of overall treasury debt outstanding. It's really quite small. It's less than 10%. So it's not something I don't think that they are the kind of marginal buyer or swing

factor in financing our debt anymore. Especially because the message was sent to banks as opposed It wasn't a central bank initiative to say we're going to back off here. A gesture, yeah. All right. Well, up next, we will take the pulse of the retail trader and find out which stock was the most popular by the dip winner with Schwab clients recently. Closing Bell Overtime, live from the NASDAQ market site. We'll be right back. Welcome back to overtime.

The best stock in the Dow today was Microsoft, closing 3% higher after tech stocks extended their gains from Friday. That stock is still down 14% since the start of the year. despite the underperformance, retail investors are buying the dip in Microsoft as well as in other names. Joining us now to tell us the names on retail investors radar is Joe Mazzoli. He is Charles Schwab's head of trading and derivatives strategist. Joe, good to have you. Talk about, I mean, there's so much has been made of retail investors kind of buy the dip reflex, how it's been pretty active. It's mostly been correct.

Where has that taken them most recently, according to your survey? Well, you mentioned it, Microsoft was number one on the list. So you had Microsoft, you had Netflix, Tesla. Those are the three buys. But what was interesting about Microsoft is all the buying really occurred right after the earnings announcements. You got the pullback, as you mentioned. And that Thursday and Friday, leading into the end of the week, that's when you saw really heavy activity. Net buys kind of outweighed net sales by about $1.7 billion. So a big flow of money into the same. stock, you know, looking at software as a whole, you know, Palantir's a list that would have made the top 10. You know, we only really show the top five on there, but that's another one that made the top 10. Oracle made the top 10. So they're buying the dip in software. IT, you know, led overall in terms of a sector. It's only, only five of the 11 sectors were in at buys and IT was head and shoulders above everything else. So it's interesting. That was a sector that they kind of shied away from the last couple months, kind of heading into the end of the year. But December and January,

they bought it with both hands. Yeah, as prices came in, what about overall kind of risk posture among your clients at this point? What did the headline of the index tell us? So I would say this, the overall posture is still bullish, but you kind of have to take it into the different cohorts. And I think that's important. Traders in particular, more active investors, they are very bullish. They're buying the debts. That continues. They haven't pulled back at all in terms of that.

They're looking for opportunities. Investors have been a little bit more cautious. So those that have a little bit less of their trading activity or who trade less, I guess is the way to put it. They've kind of waited for the market pullback to occur. We've actually seen them gravitate a little bit more towards materials and utilities, staples, so some of the more defensive names. And then even interesting, Mike, is a difference in between the different age generations, right?

Like Gen X, my generation, they've been buying pretty heavily on dips, but something like the millennials or even Gen Z, that gap between those generations have really started to widen. So they're not nearly as active as what we've seen with a little bit of the older cohort. Interesting. Maybe a little bit of a contrast to how it's been not too long in the past. Joe, appreciate it. Thanks for the update. Joe Mazzol.

Thanks, Mike. Up next, we will discuss the key levels to watch for in Bitcoin and whether a bounceback could be on the horizon. Overtime. Be right back. Welcome back to overtime. Bitcoin down a bit today, but we've seen tentative signs of buying on the dip. Mackenzie Segalis joins us here on set with more. Hey, Mac. Hey, Mel. So what we're seeing in the last few days is that there appears to be a floor at that 60K level. And that's partly because that's the cash value of what it takes to produce a Bitcoin. So you've got these miners who have really providing that marginal selling.

pressure. And under 60K, they go out of business. There's no longer that need to liquidate what they mine in order to pay the bills. And so that's part of what we're seeing with this bounce back up to 70. And you had a guest on earlier talking about how retail has really moved on to prediction markets. So what we're talking about with the crypto trade right now is very much the institutional bid, which you can think of both with respect to those ETF holders and then the corporate treasury trade, which includes the miners. It's like classic, you know, commodity analysis, right? The marginal cost of production is it dictates probably where it can trade to. I guess the question is, is the market waiting for, it seems like

it was all built up for a lot of these catalysts that are either in the books or they're not necessarily coming, such as the crypto bill being designed and passed as the industry would like to see it. That's exactly what Fed Governor Waller was saying today. The Clarity Act, the Crypto Market Infrastructure Bill has stalled out in Congress. Meanwhile, all of the euphoria around President Trump's election has faded. And at the same time, you had a lot of these institutional names, liquidating their positions, these mainstream firms, because of the washout and risk. And so that's what you're up against. The fact that there's no imminent, bullish, you know, lines to trade on. And so you turn to the fact that the store of value argument also seems

to be eroded, but you talk to a Bitcoin bull and they'd say, hey, the dollar is intentionally trying to lose 2% of its value every year. So that's not really the store of value that, you know, naysayers of the crypto trade would point to. Right. Are you getting a sense that its institutions actually buying on this dip? Do we have any color on what's going on here? Well, on Friday you saw 300 million net inflows into the spot Bitcoin trades. I talked to a couple of chief investment officers that specifically issue these spot Bitcoin ETFs. And they say that, yes, we'll get some color in like the 13F filings to see who actually is cashing out. But they're still very much this bullish interest. It's not just in the spot crypto ETFs. It's in some of the more complicated instruments where it's leveraged bets or where you have exposure to the options market. That's really where more of these savvy institutional names are trying to get

exposure to Bitcoin. All right, Mac, great to see you. Thank you. Mack, Mack, Mackenzie Segalos. And let's get you set up with the big week ahead, Coke, Ford and Robin Hood, Big Names reporting tomorrow. Cisco and McDonald's are Wednesday's highlights. Expedia, Airbnb, Coinbase, and AMAT report Thursday in Moderna and advanced auto parts. Close out the week on Friday. And on the economic front, we will get retail sales and import prices tomorrow. Consumer Price Index will be released on Wednesday, and we will get jobless claims in existing home sales on Thursday. So it is a consequential week in terms of data. Without a doubt. Yeah. I mean, I think the bond market isn't a little bit of suspense about this.

I think the big question is, can we still continue to have, you know, this sort of jobless boom? Because the markets are quite set up for that, you know, being okay with not much job growth at the same time, you know, you get 4% real GDP prints on a given quarter. It will be interesting to see what Robin Hood says about predictions markets. 100%. And how the stock trades off for that, for sure. All right, that is going to do it for overtime today. Olympic coverage begins right now.