Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: 7/8/26

Episode Date: July 8, 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's bringing in to the training day at the NYSC First Eagle Investments, ringing the bell in the closing here at the NASAC, Madera Food Processing. Welcome to closing bell overtime. We're live from studio be at the NASDAQ market site. I'm Melissa Lee, along with Mike Santoli. Sox lower as a ceasefire with Iran collapses. The Dow loses about 600 points, but the SMB 500 down about a third of a percent. The NASDAQ closing in the green.

The Russell, however, similar to the Dow falling nearly 1%. Our team is covering all aspects of today's market reaction. Christina Parks Nevelis on stocks. Stevens on oil, Rick Santelli, watching yields move a bit higher. And Megan Kassel has got the latest from President Trump as he departs the NATO summit in Turkey. Interesting market action. We did have a turnaround in technology. It felt like investors didn't want to get too far from the markets, despite all of these headlines and the risk may be involved here.

It's exactly been the rule, really. I mean, the market for four months has arguably sort of underreacted to some of the headlines in the Middle East. And this has been a very rotational market. And today, kind of in a twist, it was the old busted momentum stocks in semiconductors that did manage to limit the damage. You still saw the impact in the broader list of stocks. Consumer cyclicals down 2% because of what oil did. You saw more broadly, economically sensitive stuff get hit. Banks were down.

But it's more of a wait and see in a market that's really kind of in this tightening range trying to hold its uptrend while we maybe get into earning season. Yeah, to your point in terms of the broader damage, equal weight, which I know you like to look at, really underperforming the broader indices, and that really goes to show you, you know, the 4% declines, for instance, in the likes of a target. That's right. And that sort of impact we saw lower down the food chain. It is a remit. Exactly.

And it is a reminder that this whole idea of a broadening trade is very macro dependent. So you have to have yields cooperate. You have to have people think that the economy is going to hang in there. You're not going to have geopolitical disruptions and all the rest of it. And today, at least you had reason to rethink some of those things. Let's get to Christina Parts and Avalis. now for more of the stocks moving the markets today. Christina. Well, you guys talked about a relatively rough day for the major averages after President

Trump declared the ceasefire with Iran over, and that sent oil sharply higher and energy along with it. Now actually the best performing sector weak to date, Valero, Baker Hughes, marathon really led the gains, though, today. On the flip side of higher crude, you got possible fears of rising fuel costs, and that hit travel names. Delta, carnival, Expedia, all examples of companies that were lower. though, was the best-performing S&P sector on the day, as NVIDIA and Micron did bounce back. Bank of America reiterated a buy rating on NVIDIA, and Broadcom announced a $30 billion deal to supply custom U.S. made chips to Apple.

Among individual movers, Target, you guys spoke about it briefly, rose for a second straight session, you know, possibly winning over the back-to-school crowd. While Moderna fell for a second straight day, snapping a six-day wind streak, there was a positive Morgan Stanley note, but the analyst also said its COVID vaccine, does have limited near-term upside. So that wait on shares. Last but not least, Zillow and Rockets Redfin also closed lower. The two are headed to trial next month after a federal job denied the FTC's bid for an early ruling on their apartment listing partnership. And that's why they were down.

All right, Christina, thank you. Now let's get to the latest out of Washington. President Trump speaking at the NATO summit earlier this afternoon. Megan Kisela follows all that for us. Hi, Megan. Guys, tension flaring between the U.S. and Iran today after President Trump, declared the ceasefire over and warned the U.S. might be attacking Iran again tonight. The president revived threats to target Iran's infrastructure and suggested the U.S. could even take Karg Island, Iran's oil export hub, but he also said he doesn't see the two sides returning to full-blown war. The president says anything that happens is going to be over very

quickly. As for negotiations, though, the president casting doubt on the idea that a diplomatic solution is even still possible. He called Iran's leaders kuku and scum, and then he said this. I'm not sure I want to make a deal with them. We can play games, but I'm not sure I want to make a deal. Let's just finish the job. Guys, the upshot here is it's not at all clear where things are going next. It may not be a return to all-out war, but the ceasefire is off. Sanctions are back on.

The region is bracing for more strikes, and Iran is warning now in state media that any new attacks will lead them to shut down the strait of Hormuz. Guys. Megan, thank you, Megan Kassella. Well, on that oil rose about 5%. Let's bring in Pippa Stevens for more in this. Pippa. So oil did bounce on the latest escalation with the curve back-to-backwardation after briefly moving into contango on fears of an oversupplied market. Now, we had started to see ships re-entering the Persian Gulf, but this latest round of attacks could slow that pace while also increasing insurance and shipping costs.

Russia also announcing today that it is banning diesel exports, sending heating oil futures up more than 12 percent, the biggest daily gain in four years, since this will further tighten a market that was already. feeling the strain. That move comes as Ukraine steps up its attacks on Russian oil infrastructure, including the country's largest refinery. We did get the latest inventory report today, showing that U.S. product exports hit a record high of 8.7 million barrels per day last week. That's more than 20 percent higher than a year ago. A bulk of that was an increase in propane exports, thanks to natural gas production, but distillate exports did jump to 1.68 million barrels per day, while distillate inventories in the U.S. declined by 5 million barrels. They're now about 12 percent below the five-year average for this time of year.

Mike? All right, Pippa, thank you. So how seriously should investors take President Trump's statement that the ceasefire is over and he doesn't even want to make a deal with Iran? Joining us now is Michael Frommon, counsel on foreign relations. President, Michael, good to see you. Welcome. Thanks for having me.

I guess even before today, it was a little bit of a messy, ambiguous stance. off situation without full resolution. What did today's comments add to that? Well, you don't know whether him calling the MOU over is a negotiating tactic or a realization that a lot of the underlying difficult issues between the U.S. and Iran were never really resolved. They were kicked down the road. If you remember, with a war broke out in February, it was all about weapons of mass destruction. And now we're talking about, as one analyst has called it, weapons of mass disruption. It's about the straight-of-farm. Kormuz and trying to reopen it and get oil and other products back through there.

The Iranians have realized they have a great source of leverage there, that they can, with relatively few mines, missiles, and drones wreck havoc on the global economy. And they're now exercising that right and want to make sure that they have control over the straight going forward. Michael, the president talked about, you know, bombing or attacking Karg, which would be the oil facilities in Iran. And I'm wondering if that changes the equation, if you actually sort of, you know,

knock them out at the knees in terms of their ability to even produce crude. Well, there are a lot of things the US could do to really shut in oil production in Iran, including the maintaining the blockade, which has now been lifted over a period of time. They would have to shut down and shut in some of that production. And as you know, that gets expensive

and takes time to reopen, attacking infrastructure. as well. It takes time to rebuild that infrastructure. I think right now a lot of the countries in the region are looking to find ways to get their products out of the region without having to rely on the streets, including building more pipelines and finding other ways of getting product out of the region. And the buyers are looking to diversify so that they're not so reliant on product coming out of there as well. But, you know, the most likely case here is that the issues don't get resolved in the near term. and they were likely to see escalation and de-escalation. And at times, Iran will let ships through, and the U.S. will let ships through.

And other times, when there's tension back and forth, there will be a toll imposed by Iran. There'll be selective enforcement. They'll let some ships through, but not ships of other countries get through. And the U.S. could potentially blockade or prevent ships from getting through as well. So it's likely to be sort of ongoing escalation and de-escalation for the near term anyway. I suppose if that's the case, we would have to probably take our cue from the energy markets themselves to see if there's going to be any kind of a forcing mechanism there that would catalyse maybe a greater effort to come to some deal. I mean, do you think you mentioned Iran kind of flexing its ability to disrupt in the area?

Do you think what they're actually playing for is just, I guess, an acknowledgement that they do. and can assert control over the strait? Look, as one of my colleagues, Ray Tekeh is fond of saying, there's a reason it's called the Persian Gulf. You know, it's not the Omani Gulf. Iran believes it has the right to control the straits, and this most recent conflict has given it the opportunity to exercise those rights. It bombed some of those, attacked some of those ships in recent days and weeks

because they were going through the Omani channel and avoiding some of the controls that Iran, itself wanted to put on the Strait of Hormuz. And so it is asserting it's muscular, its muscularity and its capacity to impose its toll. Other countries are cutting deals. They're quietly paying off the Iranians to let their ships through. And I think the long-term prospect is either Iran is going to control the Strait of Hormuz or the United States is going to control it. And that's going to require a much more significant commitment of military resources over a long period of time, which is something the administration and the American public is reluctant to do.

Well, on that point, Michael, I mean, how much do you think politics factors in at this point? I mean, the longer the war goes on and the more that, you know, oil prices and various products remain high, like gasoline, you know, the favorability of the war declines. Well, that's right. I mean, on one hand, I think, as one of your commentators noted, if oil is up a 5% today, but it's still $80 for Brent. For something that's had a war that's been going on for several months and taking tens of millions of barrels off of the market,

it's kind of remarkable that the market hasn't reacted further. People are seeing gasoline prices go up as they stand at the pump. That does add to the affordability issues that they're concerned about, the broader issues around inflation, that will have potential political ramifications potentially in October, around the election. But the president's made clear from the start, and he was quite honest about it,

that the American people, we were going to have to pay a price to solve a problem that's been out there for a very long time since 1979, and that is our tension with the Iranian regime. Michael, great to speak with you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

As stocks fell today, bond yields continued to move along with oil. Let's get to Rick Santelli in Chicago, Rick. Yeah, you know, and we also need to mention the auctions. We had a three-year auction yesterday, a 10-year auction today, and the investor demand was stellar. Both auctions I gave an A to tomorrow we clean up the trifective offering with 30-year bonds, but it shows that investors have pretty deep pockets because they're an awful lot of securities to pick from these days. And yes, look at a six-hour chart of tens of oil, and you can see, once again, the tenure is shadowboxing the oil market. And what's even more important is if you look at a week-to-day chart, we're stacking,

which means Tuesday's highs are higher than Monday's highs, today's highs are higher than yesterday's highs, and that always is a momentum builder. And these markets, interest rate markets like to trend on momentum. You know, many are scratching their heads or saying, you know, the Fed's responsible for interest rates have gone, but I will like to put up the following chart. Here's a year-to-day chart of 10-year yields, S&P, and the Dowell's. Jones Industrial average. And if you look at the percentage, year-to-gains on all three, you're basically in the 9% neighborhood. And I think that makes perfect sense. Melissa, back to you.

Rick, thank you, Rick Centelli. Major averages lower today, but the move is still contained. So with the market absorbing the Iran headlines without a big break lower, is that resilience or maybe it's just complacency with us now, Stephanie Aliyaga, global market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management. Stephanie, great to see. Which is it? He's having me. Well, look, at the end of the day, markets care about three things. Earnings, earnings, and earnings. And earnings for this upcoming season are been revised higher over this quarter.

In fact, FACSET estimates that it has been the best quarter for end year bottoms up earnings upgrades since the second quarter of 2021. And this quarter, roughly 60% of all of S&P of 100 EPS is going to come from AI infrastructure. So there's just this secular theme underway when it comes to AI, the result. have continued to be really fundamentally strong. And that doesn't mean that there is no risk when it comes to the Middle East. I think we continue to be reminded that there are some of those risks. But when weighing them at the end of the day, it seems like this AI story is still the really most prominent and important one for earnings.

One of the things the market cares about when it comes to earnings is the sustainability, right? So we want to have some sense that multiple quarters are going to continue this trend. And I think about an investor who has owned the S&P 500 through all of the. this. And if you say the AI story is fully intact, they'll say, great, I have 18% in semis, and I have 16% in the four hypers. That's a third of my portfolio. I guess I'm already there. So I don't have to buy more. I don't have to necessarily recommit. And it's an interesting setup as we've seen those two groups work against each other. No, absolutely. And I think that's the challenge. You know, right now these AI stocks are dealing with the weight of their own success.

They have just become so large an overall market cap. And that's been a challenge for anyone trying to have prudent asset allocation these days. So I agree. And I think, you know, we continue to see this pendulum swing of AI enthusiasm and AI pessimism. And I think this is healthy. The digestion that's underway. But at the end of the day, investors are going to follow the earnings growth. And we haven't really seen any signs of things inflecting anytime soon.

So we think there's more sustainability in this. But absolutely, you know, it's going to be a bumpy ride. And as investors start being a bit more risky, on the risk taking, I think you're saying that even more. I understand you want to follow earnings worth, but at the same time, we've seen stock reaction, which doesn't correspond to where the earnings growth is. We saw it with Samsung's earnings, and we also saw it with Micron, where the earnings growth was there, for sure, and the reaction was not in terms of going to going higher.

Yeah. So there's two things here. One is the fact that you have a lot of activity in these leveraged ETFs, right? And that means any upset, even the mildest, can have outsized impacts on the performance of these markets, especially. especially for a market like South Korea that doesn't tend to see this kind of trading activity, right? The other thing is, yeah, expectations are very, very high. And that is a risk that, you know, over the next year we're going to be very mindful of.

I think the challenge is now is the time for proven monetization, proven ROI. We're getting that from these companies. I think it's a question of whether investors will start feeling ready to reward that or not. On the, I guess, more macro front, I mean, you're seeing the dollar make these new highs. you see financial conditions tightening only in the sense of maybe treasury yields going higher, even as credit spreads remain contained. Is there anything we should be on alert for that's going to kind of upset this idea that as long as tech earnings remain pointed in the right direction, stocks will be fine?

Yeah. Look, outside of AI, there's absolutely some softness in this economy. And I think if we have a sustained, you know, reacceleration and inflation, that does definitely take some strength out of the consumer. We don't have the same cushion right now as we did it early in the year with tax refund checks. But look, this is an economy that doesn't count by heads. It counts by dollars. And you have this K-shaped nature of the economy, the upward K being upward-com consumers that are still quite resilient to these shocks.

And AI spending, which is driving overall capital investment. So that is still, I think, painting a solid picture of the economy. You have low-firing in the labor market, also helping support household incomes. But we'll just want to be mindful of any policy missteps here and, you know, absolutely the policy headline risk. Stephanie, great to see you. Thanks. Stephanie Aliyaga. Levi Strauss earnings, they are out. Let's get to Gabby Farn Rouge with the numbers. Gabrielle. Yeah, Levi Strauss reporting a top and bottom line beat and raising his full year guidance. The Dinemaker posted adjusted earnings per share of 28 cents. That's on revenue of $1.56 billion.

Finance chief, Harmeet Singh, said it's passing that entire $0.4.5.5.3. But it's also raising its top line outlook. Levi is now expecting revenue to grow between 7% and 7.5%. That's ahead of expectations of 6.6%. Just before the release, I spoke with CEO Michelle Goss, who said Levi's core consumer is proving to be resilient, even in the face of higher gas prices. She told me about two-thirds of Levi's sales growth came from units, not just higher prices, and there's strength across all consumer segments. Beyond demand, profitability is also improving, which led the company to increase its dividend by 14%. Melissa?

Just to be clear, Gabrielle, they're passing the beat in the second quarter onto the full year update because analysts were also expecting an update to the forecast to reflect the beat in the first quarter. Yeah, so that Q2 EPS beat that we saw was a 4 cent beat, that's being passed down to the full year raise, which is exactly 4 cents. But, you know, we're seeing the stock down about 5% right now. What I think that is, it was still a bit of a conservative guy. guide. Right now, the company is still planning for a 20% rest of world tariff. And that EPS guidance was a little bit light of expectations. So analysts, investors are expecting a little bit more

from the company right now, especially considering that tariff rates are still about 10%, not 20. All right. Gabby, thanks. Gabrielle von Ruge with Levi. And do not miss Jim Kramer's exclusive interview with Levi's CEO coming up 6 p.m. on Mad Money. We do have breaking news here on Iran. Straight to Megan Kosella for that. Megan. Melissa, the U.S. military is following through on President Trump's threats earlier today to carry out additional strikes against Iran. U.S. Central Command posting on Twitter saying that at the direction of the commander-in-chief, Central Command forces have started conducting additional strikes against Iran to further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States is holding Iran accountable, they say, for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway.

So guys, a second straight day now of U.S. attacks. This comes after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier today, said that the U.S. had been targeting anything Iran was using to target commercial shipping in the straight. He said if there were additional attacks, that's what they would be targeting. Now we can see President Trump's threats that the ceasefire is over are being followed through on with a second straight day of attacks, guys. All right, Megan, thank you. The Fed releasing the minutes from the first meeting with Kevin Warsh at the helm. A closer look at some changes to the Fed's outlook coming up.

You're watching closing bell overtime live from the NASDAQ market site. Welcome back, the Fed releasing the minutes from its latest meeting. Kevin Warsh's first is ahead of the Fed. Let's get to Steve Leasman in Washington for more. Steve. Hey, Melissa, a divided Fed on the rate outlook yielding a divided set of minutes from the June meeting, suggesting rates could go either way or nowhere depending upon inflation. On balance, these minutes left an impression that was maybe more hawkish about inflation

on the outlook than came from the meeting itself. The meeting specifically saying, the minutes specifically saying that upside risk to inflation was elevated and concern about weak payrolls had moderated. In the hawkish tilt to these meetings, they said concern about inflation could affect inflation expectations and wage and price decisions. A few saw a case for a hike but ultimately supported no change. There were worries that high commodity prices supply disruptions could last longer than anticipated. And it said if inflation remains elevated, almost all said, quote, some policy fair remain would likely be warranted. Now from the double side, most saw a scenario where, in fact, inflation would dissipate, return to 2 percent. And if that happens,

almost all saw rates remaining on hold. Some even saw them decline. We already knew from the meeting that the Fed was sharply divided on the rate out. Look, with seven officials forecasting rates on hold, one expecting a cut, but nine forecasting, at least one, some more than one, rate hikes this year. After today's minutes, the probability of the number rate hike is mostly unchanged. Still high, though, at 67%. With a shorter statement in a Fed chair saying little at his press conference, guys,

maybe that minutes like these are going to become more and more important for the market to figure out the Fed. Mike? Yeah, and maybe it's more of data dependent that we were even before, Steve. Thank you very much. As he mentioned, this was Kevin Warsh's first meeting as Fed Chair in the dot plot. The same one Warsh is reportedly considering scrapping, took a sharp hawkish turn. Jeffrey's chief market strategist David Zervos, who was considered for the top the job Walsh eventually got, was on CNBC earlier today discussing the changes to the Fed's expectations.

It's actually outrageous what happened on the committee, and it shows not an inflation problem. It shows a political problem, Brian. We had nobody on the committee in March that saw a rate hike by the end of the year. That's March. We go to June, and now nine people see a hike by the end of the year, including one person that moved from no hikes to three hikes. I think this is one of the most disingenuous dot plots I've ever seen. So what can we expect as Kevin Warsh tries to remake the Fed?

Joining us now is former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder. He is currently an economics professor at Princeton. And Alan, it's great to have you on. Let me first get you to react to that. I mean, obviously, data change, you know, perspectives change. But is this committee through the dot plot trying to establish some kind of authority over the new Fed chair? No, I don't think so. I think that it's basically the data change. We don't want to exaggerate this. It's not like a couple of months ago people were thinking,

oh, 100 basis points down, and now they're thinking 100 basis points up. It's nothing like that. This is changing around the edges in the direction that the data are pushing. Look, I've been known for a long time as Dovish, but the data to me are looking, playing into the are playing into the argument that the hawks are making, that inflation is not coming down, if anything, it's creeping up. How should we think, Alan, about oil prices and the impact on the inflation picture in that we did see oil prices spike at the height of the Middle East conflict, but we did see them come down very sharply on the belief that the conflict,

we are at a ceasefire, we are at a good point in the conflict in terms of resolving it. They are still elevated granted. but how should we think about it because this is arguably transitory? Right. Kevin Orch didn't say so explicitly. He doesn't like to say things explicitly, apparently. But for a long time, the Fed has really been concentrating on core inflation. Core inflation leaves out oil prices and also food prices.

If you want to – now, that's – some people complain about that. People don't pay core inflation. They pay total inflation. People buy food and they buy energy. And that's true. So if you want to focus on the difference between core inflation and total inflation, energy is critical. Food, much less so lately. It has been some times in the past.

But energy has been critical. And it's gone up and down, as you say, and is very much dependent on what happens in the Middle East and narrowing down in the Straits of Hormuz. Yeah, I mean, and just to put some numbers on, I mean, in the months between the March and the June dot plots from the Fed, you know, core PCE was 3.3, 3.4 in annual rate. And we also got a big pickup in job creation, too, based on those three months. So I guess the equation may be changed. Alan, bigger picture, what's your stance and view on Warsh's stated campaign to kind of pull back Fed transparency, have it communicate less, and maybe even at some? some point do away with the dot plot? Well, I've never been a lover of the dot plot, so let's put that

aside. But transparency in general, I have been a lover of and a proponent of since the bad old days when I was on the Fed, and we said nothing, basically. You know, the word was, don't say anything, but if you do make sure it's cryptic, I would hate to go back to that. That doesn't mean you can't change it in any way. The way the Fed has become more transparent over the decades has changed, has evolved, and maybe the dot plot can go. But I would hate to see transparency go for a number of reasons, not the least of which is democratic accountability. These are not emperors on the Federal Reserve Board. They're public servants, and they owe the public an explanation of what they're doing and why?

Along the same lines in terms of where Kevin Warsh wants to reform, Alan, I'm wondering if you think there should be different data, maybe not different, but in additional data that the Fed should look at, I mean, you're making the point, for instance, people pay total inflation. Should the Fed focus more on that as opposed

to just emphasizing core, for instance? Well, in fact, its target is for total inflation. What I should have said, what I meant, is that over the years, core inflation, has been a better predictor of the near-term future of total inflation than total inflation itself. And that's why the Fed pays great attention to core inflation.

But the total inflation is the target, 2% target. And I don't see, excuse me, I don't see a case for changing that. I don't read what Kevin Warsh has said as suggesting changing that. He has emphasized looking at different data, but the Fed's, the Fed has a lot of staff, first of all, and they look at everything. It's not unknown to the Fed staff that there are a variety of private sector data producers for prices, for quantities, for jobs, et cetera. the Fed tends to focus in its discussions on the official data.

But it looks at all of this stuff. This is not a mystery to the Fed. And I'm not worried. If Kevin Warsh urges the Fed to pay more attention to these other data sources, I'm not sure that changes behavior at all, maybe a little. Alan, thank you. Great to get your take. Alan Blinder.

Very welcome. Coming up in the last three and a half, year. Stocks have seen a huge rally. The S&P 500 is nearly doubled during that time. So could there possibly still be money sitting on the sidelines? We'll examine that old bull market axiom. Next, on closing bill over time. Welcome back. Stocks lower today, but off the lows as buyers came in midday. So it's a good time to take a look at the old cash on the sidelines argument. We often hear in bull markets. You hear it all the time, Mike. You do. And the thing is there there are cash on the sidelines, but there's reasons not to really believe that they're

about to come, cash is about to come into the market. One is a lot of corporate cash there. Two, money market funds stand in for things like bank deposits. Three, when a buyer brings cash off the sidelines and buys a stock, the seller now has cash to do something with. So it kind of gets messy. However, what's really important to me is $8 trillion right now in money market assets is an enormous sum, except when compared with the size of the overall equity market market. So Ned Davis Research keeps this calculus. Money market assets divided by total equity market cap. We're around 10%. As you can see, it's pretty low on the scale of the last 40 plus years. That's the end of the global financial crisis when cash was almost half of market

cap. If we ever get above 25 percent, again, just buy stocks. Because that's the 82 and 2002 as well. But right now, it's kind of neither here nor there. There are plenty of bullish arguments. I don't think this is a strong one. I would love to overlay what a money market account or CD pays on top of this, right? Because there are certain points in time when you're like, oh, I can get 4%. Or I can get 4%. That's not bad. That's exactly what you're getting that, right? 3 plus 4%. Exactly. Time now for CNBC News Update with Sima Modi.

Sima. Hi, Melissa. Here's what we're watching. President Trump today telling Syria's leader that the U.S. would rescind the designation of the country as a state sponsor of terrorism. The White House says it notified congressional leaders of the change and will conduct a 45-day review

before making it final. The move was expected after President Trump last month signed an executive order terminating U.S. sanctions on Damascus. Amid new sexual assault allegations, Graham Platner's campaign for a Senate seat in Maine could reportedly end tonight. The Washington Post reports that campaign staff were told Platner would speak about his future tonight and that the campaign leadership sounded resigned to the idea that the Democrats bid to defeat

Republicans Susan Collins would end. And after foreign visitors racked up millions of views with videos of their first time visiting Walmart, the world's largest retailer, will now offer VIP tours to foreign tourists. They're planning tours at stores in Miami, New Jersey, around Cupgings. Walmart says visitors will be able to explore the oversized products, iconic snack aisles, and uniquely American finds. How about that? Mike, back to you. Amazing. You know, I love Walmart being responsive to that. In France, do we go to CAREFOR and do like little videos. Yeah. Get a baguette.

Yeah, fascinating. Seema, thank you. Shares of Levi Strauss under pressure despite an earnings speed up next, analyst reaction to those numbers and what they say about the state of consumer spending. And speaking of consumer stocks, check out shares of Aldi's bargain outlet hitting a 52-week low today. JPMorgan downgrading the stock to neutral from overweight on concerns that discount retailers' increased promotional activity will weigh on same store sales and gross margins. Closing Bell overtime. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Closing Bell overtime, live from the NASDAQ market site. Stock's mostly lower today. The Dow losing 576 points. The S&P 500 off about a quarter of a percent. Nasdaq, the one bright spot, up two-tenths.

of 1%. Shares of SpaceX falling again. The stock closing at 148. That was for its second day in a row closing below its debut price on IPO day. And we just got a monthly sales number from Costco. Total sales of $29 billion, a 10% gain from last year. Gasoline sales, a driver of that increase. Let's get another check on Levi Strauss. That stock is moving lower by about 5.5%. Despite beating on the top and the bottom lines, investors may be disappointed with the conservative nature of its guidance. Levi CEO, Michelle Goss, spoke with our Jim Kramer earlier about opportunities for growth. We're starting really this, I'll call this next chapter of the company, where historically we've been a denim bottoms business sold through wholesaler. This significant

pivot to be a lifestyle apparel company. Rooted in denim, of course, we will always have that leadership, but to sell a lot more. And DTC is a great way to give the consumer the biggest expression. back to e-commerce, yes, up 17%. It's still only about 12% of our business. It should be relative to our peers a lot higher. So that just says there's a lot of upside there. You can catch the full interview on Mad Money tonight at 6 p.m. Joining us now is Tulsi Advisory Group CEO and Chief Research Officer Dana Talsy.

Dana, great to see you. Were you also disappointed by the full year of guidance? The full year guidance could have been raised a little bit more, but you know what? I'd rather than beat and raise every quarter. And I think that'll help the stock over the long term. The weakness in the stock now is an opportunity. You look what they just did.

They beat the earnings. They beat on the gross margin. They beat on the sales line. They came in very solidly and strongly. And frankly, that shift to being DTC while having the wholesale happens to be encouraging. I think what you get from this is the fact that categories, channels, markets were all solid? The state of the consumer, particularly with apparel, has been resilient in reaction to the product newness that's out there. Dana, what's the sense of investor, I guess, hesitancy

or caution that you would derive from this reaction? I guess what's the skeptical case on the longer-term outlook for Levi right now? The skeptical case would be that you raised it by four cents, which is what you beat it by 146 to 152. Why don't you make it a 150 to 150 to 1.5? 55 or something like that. I think that's basically what people are saying in this instant reaction right now. I think when we move forward and let's hear what the call says when they have the call at 5 o'clock, opportunities for margin, how they're thinking about tariffs. Also, what you're seeing in terms of order trends. We definitely know that when you look at the regional breakdown, their business accelerated in the U.S. Asia was a little bit weaker. And you're seeing over, oh,

there was strength in Asia. me. It was Europe that slowed a little bit. You had strength in Asia. The U.S. accelerated also. Want to hear what they say about Europe. But I'd rather them continue to beat and raise moving forward. We just heard that soundbite in the interview with Michelle Goss, Jim Kramer. And she talked about sort of this idea of not just selling the bottoms, but also selling the tops, Dana. I'm wondering how much, I mean, that makes a lot of sense to dress the whole body instead of just the bottoms. But how much of that, in your view, is important for, in terms of that driver of growth and that concentration on newness as part of that newness also selling

tops? Yes, it is. I think you need the whole thing. You need the tops, the bottoms, dresses, skirts, you name it. And frankly, they're growing the women's business. It'll be interesting on the call what they say, what the growth was in women's, in tops, in bottoms, and we'll get that in just a few minutes, but that whole lifestyle offering, and they've been singing this song now for like two years, and frankly, you've seen it in the numbers begin to play out, along with the increases that you've seen in women's and in tops. They're getting that halo, and frankly, the fact that you're seeing apparel, that shift to more casual wear, going from active wear to casual wear, they're a beneficiary, and denim now is worn to work and to casual events on the weekends also.

So you have a broader halo of when you can buy and use and wear that denim. As much as the company is trying to diversify away, does an investor after this decent run over the last year in the stock have to believe in a very strong denim cycle? Is the stock still going to be captive to those types of concerns? Yes, I think you are still captive to those concerns, especially when you're the number one denim retailer. But overall, when you think about denim and you're thinking about what's changing out there, you are seeing newness. eye rise to low rise you're still having wide legs there's newness in the denim offering that should continue to help drive demand it's denim but denim with newness that's been very effective and i think continues to be i think what you'll hear from other companies as we move throughout calendar calendar second

quarter earnings is denim has been strong i think we're seeing that newness all right yeah it's it's newness until the next newness and you know we're going to go narrow leg and everything else Sorry, Dana. Hi, Rice. Thank you very much. And we'll see what they say on the call. Thanks for getting us set up. Up next, why Chinese stocks are rallying today as the major averages in the U.S.

turn sharply lower. Welcome back. Chinese tech stocks jumping today in bucking this month's NASDAQ underperformance here in the U.S. The K-Web up 8% on track for its best months in September. Alibaba leading the charge today up over 10% leading the likes of Baidu, J.D, and PDD higher. Street account pointing to a report in local. Chinese media that Alibaba released an earnings preview to investors that showed profit for its e-commerce business growing. Also today, Morgan Stanley reiterated Baba as a top pick going to earning

season next month, saying cloud growth momentum will likely continue in the coming quarters and that margins should remain strong. At the same time, Barron's writing today that, quote, the AI stock rally isn't over. It's just moved to China. We've seen these periods on and off before, but it is worth pointing out that Baba still trades cheaper than all the hyperscalers. Exactly. And it is kind of their version of a hyperscaler also has been similarly until now kind of out of favor and looking cheap and so it does seem as if there was a little bit of a potential for that comeback we're getting some of it jeff bezos by the way blue origin raising about 10 billion dollars in its first outside funding round valuing the company at 130 billion two billion out of the 10 billion dollars

are coming from bezos himself a billion dollars from co2 management the other four billion expected to come from large institutional investors this follows of course spacex's monster IPO last month, but those shares have had it rough this month down 14%. Other space names like Rocket Lab and Firefly have fallen in sympathy with SpaceX as well, although we're talking about such different scales, right? 130 billion value for Blue Origin. It's almost two trillion still for SpaceX. How much of that is the launch business as opposed to everything else?

We don't know. But all I do know is the venture capital industry got refreshed by this exit or potential exit of SpaceX and maybe they still want to own a piece of space. It's staggering to think this is the first funding round, outside funding route. I don't know what you call Jeff Bezos' other money in, like pre-first funding round. Just covering losses out of his own pocket, which is remarkable he's been able to do that. We were just hours away from the reveal of this year's top states for business list. And up next, Scott Cohn gives us his final diabolical hint about which state took the top ranking.

Closing Bell overtime, live from the NASAC market side. Be right back. Welcome back. Tomorrow is the big reveal of this year's CNBC top state for business rankings. Scott Cohn is in parts unknown to us anyway to reveal his final diabolical hint about this year's winner. Scott. Hi, Mike. It is almost 5 o'clock somewhere, maybe here. Maybe it's 2 o'clock here. Maybe it's noon. Anyway, I got my drink one way or the other.

It is a serious study that we do, and we will reveal the top state for business tomorrow. You'll be able to see where your state ranks as well. We rank every state in 10 categories of competitiveness through 138 metrics. The most important category this year is infrastructure, followed by economy, workforce is important, business-friendlyness, quality of life. You can read all about it at topstates.cnBC.com. So, as I luxuriate here in America's top states for business, where am I luxuriating?

The final diabolical hint is we end where we began. We end where we began. If you figure it out, we'll let you know during Squawk Box tomorrow. We end where we began. We'll reveal this top state. We will talk to this state's governor.

You'll be able to see where your state ranks because we rank all 50 states and reports throughout the day tomorrow here on CNBC and at topstates.c.c.com. Wow. I'm scared. I mean, Ohio, as a word, ends where it begins. Oh, that is so clever. And I'm trying to think if there are other states that do. The time zone is right. Can we look up what the weather is right now in Ohio if it matches up with the sunny?

We might be able to do that. We know they have deciduous trees. And by the way, is that a drone? Do we have a huge boom or somebody up on a tree? How are we should be? I would think it's a drone. A drone. It's a drone. Yeah. Excellent. Wow. Scott's noncommittal there on that. Of course. But it could be like where the country. country, you know, where the country started. Yeah. That's what I thought, but I don't think that any of the East Coast states would be. It could be Delaware or something like that.

Yeah. Maybe. All right. I mean, did you see the rest of the hints? I didn't. So I don't know what the first one is. I don't know if he literally means something referring to the list of hints. Right.

Right, because that would be diabolical. And he is diabolical. Yeah. And Hammock, is that relevant, Scott, or is that just just, just, right? representing quality of life? Well, as I said, it's 5 o'clock somewhere. Right. And maybe here, but maybe it's not here.

All right. Well, it's not even quite 5 o'clock anywhere in the country yet. So we'll see where we're going to end up. Scott, thanks very much. And we'll tune in first thing in the morning just to see how this all comes together. Really appreciate it. I think the hammock was a distraction. Right.

as most of the hints probably were. The whole thing. All right, let's get you set up with tomorrow's trade today. We will get another read on the state of consumer spending when PepsiCo reports earnings before the opening bell. And on the economic front, we'll get weekly jobless claims and June existing home sales. Of course, we have the report that there were further strikes authorized. We'll see how that impacts the markets.

And if this time there won't be that late day comeback that we saw today. Yeah, you wonder if at some point it is going to be just sort of one too many dip to buy. There's just a little bit of a twitch lower in like the equity ETFs when we got those reports that there was renewal of hostilities there. Oil, you made this point yesterday that it's up dramatically in a couple of days but off of pretty manageable levels. Exactly. And we're only going back about three or four weeks in terms of when we were here before. So nobody, no markets are jumping to grand conclusions about whether this is, you know, kind of a real re-escalation of hostilities. All right. That does it for overtime today.

Fast money begins right after this quick break. Thank you.