Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: 9/10/25

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

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, Jon Fortt, Morgan Brennan and Michael Santoli guide listeners through each trading session and bring to you some of the biggest names in business.

That bell marks the end of regulation. Access Financial ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange, 9-11 day, doing the honors at the NASDAQ. Stocks mixed today with the Dow, the only index closing lower. S&P and NASDAQ closing at record highs. Utilities and energy were the leaders today, consumer discretionary and health care lag. Treasury yields falling today after a softer than expected inflation report, a strong 10-year auction midday.

Crude and Brent in the green, as Poland says, It shot down Russian drones in its airspace. The crypto space is higher. Bitcoin up nearly a little over 2%. The Renaissance IPO, ETF, meanwhile, hitting a three-year high with another big name hitting the tape today. That's Klarna. Klarna opening at $52 a share after pricing at 40.

Investors buying now. It closed up around 17%. That's a score cut on Wall Street, but winter stay late. Welcome to closing about overtime. I'm John Fort in Washington. And I'm Morgan Brennan in San Francisco at the Goldman Sachs Communicopia and Technology Conference. And we have got a big interview coming up later this hour, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, a number of bank CEOs saying this week on CNBC that the economy is weakening.

Does he agree? We're going to talk about that and so much more straight ahead. Plus, we're watching a big debut for another IPO. As I mentioned, Karna ending the day higher, the stock just one. of the several new offerings this week and is dive into the state of the IPO market coming up but the big market story of the day it's got to be oracle having its best day maybe ever certainly since 1992 following its earnings last night not optimism spilling over into the entire oracle ecosystem let's bring in christina parts in neblis for more on that christina

yeah you talked about the blowout numbers the unprecedented in unprecedented guidance through fiscal 2029 really delivered uncommon visibility that validates the entire AI infrastructure ecosystem. The market's really reading this as a rising tide versus a zero-sum AI store with Oracle's contracted backlog, really signaling real demand backing these projections. And so that's why you're seeing so many names higher.

Like GPU as a service players like Corweave, that company closed at least 16% higher today. You also had Corrieve Management, keep in mind, also just reported another demand inflection over the last four to six weeks. They're saying clients requesting hundreds of thousands to millions of GPUs, or I should say millions of GPUs, not just thousands.

And then you have data center reeds like Vertive and Digital Realty Trust climbing today, over 8% for Vertive and Digital Realty up close 6%. Then you got chip names, Broadcom and Vida, both climbing higher on this AI infrastructure play. Broadcom also getting an extra boost from its CEO, new AI tied pay package, and that's why it closed 9% higher.

And then you have Oracle's ecosystem partners caught the wave to software-provoking provider, Palantir, AMD, hardware supplier, Arista, all of them have deals with Oracle, all closing in the green. And so when Oracle really commits to five years of AI infrastructure growth, it's not just betting on itself, it's validating this entire buildout

that the AI Bulls say are just getting started. So this adds to that. Yeah, for sure, Christina. Yeah, stick with us here. Oracle's results seeming to suggest, at least for now, AI spending is live and well. Let's bring in CNBC senior markets commentator Mike Santoli. Mike, I don't remember ever seeing anything quite like this where actually the top

and bottom line numbers from Oracle, if you were to just see those, were not all that. It was the guidance and not just the guidance for the next quarter, but way out that really caught the streets attention, not just for this stock, but for others. How much is there to prove here and how much does this clarify the questions about what kind of an impact AI is having now? though? It's extremely rare to have an already large company say that over the next five years give relatively firm guidance on the revenue line for the transformation of the company that will basically harness the fastest moving trend in technology in the economy. So yeah, I would say this is a rare event. Look, I think to the idea of whether it's new demand,

incremental demand, anticipatory demand, or, you know, as opposed to a zero or something, I agree with all that. Now, a lot of things have to happen, which means the customers have to raise the money. It would appear over time or, you know, have the money from somewhere else. You're going to have to have the power. A lot of things have to fall into place. But I think it was at least a little bit of reassurance as we were doing this ongoing rethink of exactly where we are on that growth curve on AI.

I mean, the market was interesting, though, and how it sort of, you know, rewarded the areas that are directly in the way of this expected spending flow, but didn't really broaden it beyond that, right? I mean, Amazon down, and maybe you have some net losers on the whole day. So maybe that's a rational response, but it did show you that I think the market is in a little bit of a show-me mode to prove that this is something that we want to be putting multiples on today. Christina, we've seen this really interesting market, certainly in semiconductors over the last couple of years where it's halves and have-nots led by Nvidia. If you have AI and a real

AI story to tell, the stock has really responded. And then there's everybody else. else, right, in the semiconductor space. And we've got people like Broadcom and occasionally AMD following suit. Oracle just got a big shot of the halves when it comes to software and infrastructure here. Are we seeing more names kind of joining that AI cohort? And you have a sense of who's not joined yet or getting left behind? One name that stands out to me is AMD that is constantly mentioned in terms of just the new GPUs that they're going to be offering and how so.

many, I guess, customers want AMD to thrive and the quality and the price point. So I do believe that that is a name that we'll hear a lot more about in the near turn. The same thing for Cisco and just their integration into Nvidia's platforms, the SpectrumX. And also, Cisco helps with all the various security levels within an AI infrastructure system, not just the hardware. So I think that's a big player. You both were just talking about how we haven't seen anything like this. I'm seeing comparisons to Nvidia's blowout quarter two years ago. You know, and that was a show me kind of moment. And so here you have Oracle doing the same, you know,

with this guide five years out, something we haven't really seen from any other tech name in quite some time. And could get the ball rolling the momentum, especially with Broadcom signing that $10 billion customer, most notably Open AI. Brockham also, you know, giving Hawk 10, $120 billion pay package over the next five years. So you want to just bet on that. The pay package itself probably signals that he doesn't need to work. The guy's super rich. Why is he staying on board? The same thing with Intel CEO, too.

So I think these are, I guess, the bulls are grasping at these as examples as to why the momentum is going to continue for quite some time. I just wonder about the other players like Marvell, the analog players that have just, you know, still facing the cyclical nature of the chips world. Yeah. Big day for Larry Allison as well. So I see the little guys win once in a while. Oh. I even said, who needs 400. million dollars. Sure, why not? While AI optimism is booming, though, there are some concerns

about the broader economy. J.P. Morgan's Jamie Diamond told our Leslie Picker, the latest jobs data confirms that the economy is weakening, as he put it. That comes as investors turn their attention to a key inflation report tomorrow morning. Joining us now is Paulson Perspectives author, Jim Paulson. Jim, we did get another inflation report, though, producer price index, suggesting that wholesale prices not surging as much as people feared. So what now is the question about CPI and how does that put, maybe not the September cut from the Fed, but the next two on the table? Well, I think it does add to it because, you know, PPI tends to lead CPI in terms of the pressure shows up there first. You know, generally it's commodity prices, PPI, and then CPI.

So it does say, maybe doesn't say as much about tomorrow's report, John, as it does say the next month or the month thereafter, that there just isn't a lot in the pipeline on this tariff story. But I just think, you know, real GDP year-to-date now through the first two quarters is growing at 1.3% in real terms annualized. And job creation, non-farm payroll points growing at a half a percent. And that's before the big revisions that are going to come. And with growth that's slow, I just, I think it's very difficult for the Fed to stay focused on inflation when inflation in CPI terms and PPI terms is running only about 2.5% 2.7 on CPI. I think they're going to have to shift to easing and protecting the growth rate of the economy. And Jim, that's some of what I meant. I think you alluded to there at the top is even if the CPI is a little aggressive, maybe even a little hot, does this PPI?

report suggests that maybe it doesn't stay hot and therefore the Fed has to have more of a bias toward cutting versus the bias that they seem to have had up to this point toward waiting. I think so. I think the story on tariffs is getting long in the tooth every month that goes by and it's not showing up. And you know, you look at commodity prices that have been pretty well controlled. Now you look at the PPI, which is staying relatively benign. There's not a lot of stuff in the pipeline, suggesting that the CPI is going to get out of control any time soon. And meanwhile, the job market's going directly south and real GDP growth is pretty weak. And real retail sales are flat year-to-date.

And I think the Fed's going to have to respond to growth rather than inflation. And I do think the market's starting to pick that up. In some odd way, is perhaps this Oracle move today and what it represents really the demand that Oracle expects from all these AI servers? Is that a reason to cut? I mean, we're talking about these things almost as if they're disconnected, but if the software is going to start doing that much more of the work that people perhaps were doing, does that suggest a weaker job market, at least in the near term, until companies and people figure out

how to adjust to what this productivity software can do? I think it's a great point, John. If you look at the information processing industry, the employment of that industry, it's been flat to down for years. and if anything, the downside's been accelerating as those companies are growing faster and faster. What's happening in the tech industry is they're almost becoming too productive for their own labor forces. And I think that's bleeding out into other areas. It's good what it really says.

If Oracle really thinks it's going to grow that fast the next five years, to me, that just exudes a disinflationary, deflationary force in the economy overall. And sort of, again, I think is a catalyst. to focus more on saving the job market right here than on inflation when it's already 2.7%. I point out that in the 1990s, I think the inflation rate averaged, CPI averaged 2.6% per annum during the decade of the 90s, which most people would say was Nirvana.

And today we have essentially the same inflation rate over the last couple of years, and it's still a problem for the Federal Reserve. So I think they've got to move off that pretty soon. We'll see what they do. Jim Paulson. Thank you. Thanks, John. Well, sticking with the markets, NASDAQ rising to another all-time high today as Oracle drives optimism that AI spending is still very strong. Up next, I will be joined by Goldman Sachs tech analyst Eric Sheridan on whether this trade

can last and who the beneficiaries could be. Overtime's back in two. Welcome back to Overtime. While Oracle had its best day since at least 1992, synopsis had its worst day ever, dating back to its IPO in 1992. Earnings came in well below what analysts were looking for. The big problem was in its IP division, which was hurt by a temporary export ban to China. Morgan? Well, the AI race is intensifying.

Oracle issuing dramatic cloud growth projections for the next five years, competing with tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. Also has been benefiting from them. But will that demand last, or are Wall Street's expectations too left? Do you joining me now, Goldman Sachs' tech analytics? Eric Sheridan. It's great to be here with you at the Communicopia and Technology Conference, Eric. And I realize you don't cover Oracle per se, but I do want to get your thoughts on how it speaks to what we're seeing across this AI ecosystem. Well, what it says, and this has been a dominant

theme here at the conference, where we've been super happy to have over 250 companies or 3,000 attendees. And thank you for coming as well. What we've heard is generally everyone in the AI supply chain remains capacity constrained. So if you look back at other computers, There's always been demand built ahead of capacity. All of these companies are struggling with keeping up with the demand for AI services across both the consumer and the enterprise. So you were seeing companies announce deals with each other for compute services, for chips, that you wouldn't have envisioned 12 or 18 months ago because everyone finds themselves that capacity constraint. Yeah, and we've seen a flurry of these deals announced just in the last couple of days,

some of them even from here. What's the thing? Because you've been spending a lot of time on stage and a lot of time interviewing a lot of executives a lot of executives across a lot of different companies the last couple of days. So what's the thing that's been surprising you the most? Number one, the demand for AI continues. So I know there's a healthy debate in the market about the return from AI. That is going to remain an investor debate because it's a very long-dated theme.

But companies have made two points to us. The demand for AI services across both consumers and enterprises is sustained. And keeping up with that is a struggle. And second, a number of CFOs have said that they've deployed AI internally in a way that is driving real productivity gains. I've not been on stage with one management member this week who has said they can't hold or increase margins because of AI alone in the coming years.

So those are some of the two recurring themes that I think do center around these sort of recurring investor debates about where is the return profile from AI. So if we look across your coverage universe, who stands to benefit based on the conversations you've had this week? We are still in the infrastructure phase. So while an open AI has 700 million weekly active, of users, only a small portion of those on the consumer side are monetized to say.

Same thing with Google Gemini. So this is still primarily how is it being built and how is it being deployed. That typically works towards infrastructure players. So the semiconductor industry, the cloud computing companies, Google Cloud, which is a segment of Alpha that was here today, made a very constructive presentation followed by some Q&A and highlighted that they have a revenue backlog number that could convert to almost double their revenue over the next two years. And that's where business that's already at a $50 billion run rate of revenue. One of the other things that's coming out of this, I think, too,

is, and I'm looking at your notes here, it's the state of the global digital consumer, and also perhaps just as importantly, the state of the digital advertising market here as well. Well, you guys have been nice enough to have me on a couple times when I've talked about digital advertising. We believe digital advertising is one of the industries that can be the most disrupted by AI. We believe over time the creation, placement, and measurement, and measurement of ads will be done more by AI systems than human beings. That creates upwards of a $300 billion profit pool that could shift from legacy advertising systems into the digital advertising ecosystem. So you heard from meta and other companies this week that they are

seeing momentum sustain in terms of revenue growth, especially against some of what we think the growth could be over the medium to long term. So advertising is an area where you are getting proof points in real time. You heard it from Pinterest, you heard it from App Loven, you heard it from meta on stage this week, we think that would be a centralized case that you can point to on the AI theme. Okay. Eric Sheridan of Goldman Sachs. It's great to have you here. Thanks for having me. And coming up, Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO, David Solomon, joining me exclusively wide-ranging

discussion on the economy, the Fed. We're going to talk about AI investment so much more. It's just a few moments away, John. Well, it's going to be big. And coming up, while U.S. markets keep rallying to record highs. global markets now joining in on the party. We're going to go around the world with Mike Santoli coming up on overtime. Welcome back to overtime. It's not just the U.S. stocks are breaking out across the globe, but with some markets looking stretched, the question is, are we seeing global confirmation or signs the U.S. is due for a pause? Well, let's ask senior markets commentator Mike Santoli, who's back taking a closer look at the trend. Mike? Yeah, John.

So the first thing is that the straight observation is it's positive when all world markets are moving in roughly the same direction. We've had a huge breakout in China, multi-year. You've had all-time highs in areas like Korea just broke out as well as parts of Europe. So here you have the All-Country World Index ETF, very, very steady uptrend since that spring sell-off. You see that angle we're going on here. Now, over the course of the year to date, the rest of the world is actually outperforming the U.S. by a decent margin. As you can see here, the ACWX,

so that's all the world markets aside from the S&P 500 from the U.S. is now about doubling the year to date on the S&P 500. However, this is really just a modest, partial catch-up to multiple years of underperformance by the rest of the world, and that you can see here.

So this chart is the S&P 500 relative to the rest of the world going back five years. So you might look at that and say, okay, we got a little bit to an exuberance, It was basically the U.S. stealing all the oxygen in here coming into 2025, and we've gotten some corrective to that. The question is whether this is confirming that you should be globally diversified and maybe you can get some further catch up from the rest of the world, or does it basically just mean this is

a rest, it's resetting the trend, and we're going to go higher. Obviously, the big NASDAQ stocks, which are pretty much an American phenomenon, are the key to whether it goes one way or the other, John. Yeah, I wonder if that's a problem in a way. We talk so much about AI. We're talking a lot about Oracle as part of that today. It's not as if we're talking about so many companies based outside of the U.S. that are joining that trend.

So how much farther could they run if they aren't part of one of the bigger narratives? It's very difficult to say. Basically, it would probably have to coincide with a rotation toward value and other non-tech-type leadership in the U.S. market. as well. However, I wouldn't say that the rest of the world is not geared to this trend because I mentioned the Korea market. I mean, that's Samsung and Heinex moving. Obviously, Taiwan semi, it's like a massive percentage of the emerging markets indexes. So I don't think it's about all or nothing, U.S. versus the rest of the world on the AI trade. But you're right. The absolute predominance of market cap in this market here that's geared to that theme

is pretty stunning. And it probably is make or break for whether the U.S. continues to outperform. Now, Mike, outside of the U.S. market, what other markets are looking stretched, do you think? I mean, we're talking about the run that India had had apart from the rest of the world for a while. But that sort of cooled off, relatively speaking, some other markets have run. Yes, for sure. I mean, I would just, I'm going to again mention Korea, not because it's so far, it's run so far on a multi-year basis, but it's been a vertical move recently. So that's one where you'd say it's a very concentrated market.

it's when you might have to step back a little bit from. So I don't think it's necessarily sending very, very bright warning signals. It's a little bit more about just be careful extrapolating the trend. In fact, you know, European markets had a really nice run at the beginning of this, you know, this rally we got off of the April lows. Even before that, you know, when we essentially were talking about the end of the U.S. exceptionalism trade. And that's cooled off a little bit as well.

And it's a very financials and staples heavy. market over there in in europe you see it's sort of backing off the highs to some degree well keeping in asia for a moment are you surprised mike that the china market isn't doing worse and given we talk a lot on overtime in part through china lens about the deflationary issues over there the oversupply the waiting demand i mean and then we've been talking a lot about tariffs yeah all year china actually you know overall considering seems to be holding up they absolutely are holding up even china exports right they're just kind of sending it else not to the U.S. directly, and that is held up.

I mean, I think a lot of times you have to allow for the idea that stimulative activity, sort of an allowance by Chinese authorities for people to kind of speculate and get rich is part of the story. China Tech, too. I mean, this idea of kind of disengagement from the rest of the world has probably caused a little bit of a second look at domestic production in that area, too. So I would say it's definitely surprising. And by the way, definitely surprised the consensus, too, because I can remember a few months ago, you know, even late last year, people saying, okay, maybe China's bottoming.

And it was mostly falling on deaf ears. And now the markets up huge. All right. There it goes. Mike Santoli. Thank you. Well, Klarna is the latest company to go public this year, but closing in between where it priced last night and where it opened this morning. It's part of a flood of IPOs, 144 of them so far this year. That's the most since 2021. And we've got. more coming soon. We're going to talk about the IPO pipeline next on Overtime. Welcome back to overtime. Let's get to Megan Casella here in Washington with the latest on the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Megan. John Charlie Kirk was shot in the neck this afternoon while speaking during an event at Utah Valley University. That's according to a university

spokeswoman who spoke with Reuters. Kirk's exact condition at this point. We do not know. It's unknown at this moment. Reuter citing the university spokesperson says Kirk has been in surgery following the shooting after he was taken to the hospital by private security. The university also told CNBC that Kirk was hit by a single shot from a rifle about 200 yards away. Meanwhile, the Utah Valley University campus is shut down. A spokesperson had initially said there was a suspect in custody, but now says they do not have a suspect in custody. The University posted on social media, UVU campus is closed. Classes canceled. Those on campus secure in place until police officers can escort you safely off campus. We ask for your patience

throughout this process. We are providing updates as best as possible. This is an ongoing and unfolding event. John Kirk is 31 years old. He's a father of two, a longtime conservative activist. He's a close ally of the presidents, and best known as the co-founder of Turning Points USA. It tours college campuses to engage with young conservative voters. There'll be more closing about overtime after this. Welcome back to overtime. The Dow closing lower today and the Russell, but the S&P and the NASDAQ both closing at record highs, though the NASDAQ by only the narrowest of margins. Oracle, of course, the big gainer. Its biggest one-day gain in more than 30 years, the company gained $244 billion in market cap, and that had a big impact.

throughout tech. Invidia, broadcom, core weave, among the beneficiaries, and all that AI build out is going to require a lot of power. We saw big gains in utilities such as Vistra and Constellation Energy. It was also a big day for the IPO market after Karna made its NYSC debut today, opening at $52 a share. It closed at 45 in change, but still higher than what those shares were originally priced. And other companies getting ready to follow. We're expecting debuts from stable coin issuer figure technologies, and on Friday, we'll get Legends, Gemini, BlackRock, coffee, bar, and via transportation. Joining us now is Brian Lynch, head of Market Insight at Equities, N, an online platform where you can invest in pre-IPO companies. Brian, welcome.

So we've been waiting for quite a while for the market to seem hospitable to software companies. Even though we were at record levels, companies were hesitant to go. it just didn't seem like it was worth it. What changed? That's exactly right. I think what we've seen is the IPOs that happened earlier in the year really set the tone for others to follow and showed that there is investor interest. And there is certainly interest in these fast-growing innovative technology companies that have been private for 10, 15, 20 years where the average investor just hasn't had access. So that's pent-up demand, has been really fueling successful IPOs for some of these companies. And how much of a role?

is the retail investor playing. The mindset where retail has been buying these dips has really believed in this market despite the numerous scares we've seen throughout the year. We certainly saw that with both Figma and Circles IPO where that roadshow really didn't do a great job at encapsulating what retail demand was like for those stocks. You could see them trading up 100, 200 percent.

Klarna, you know, as a counter position to that really is a stock that traded more in line with where it was expected to trade based on where it was priced. So you could see that 15% you know, closing above where it originally priced is a sign of really factoring in that retail demand. Certainly what we're seeing both in the public and the private markets is that retail investors are more interested in investing in innovative tech companies than ever before. And that's really changing the market. How are you seeing these stocks perform after that initial pop though? I mean, we saw Figma really lose a lot of steam after a huge,

huge run upward. I know companies don't love to see that kind of swing one way or the other, but is this behavior of the stocks themselves once they're in the public markets normal, or is there something different about how they're trading now? Some of these stocks that have seen huge pops are going to naturally kind of normalize and come back down to earth. And I think it's an important reminder that the IPO is day one. You know, you had the CEO of KORNA talking about this earlier. It's like the wedding day. It's the big celebration, but there's a long road of marriage of being a public company that lays ahead. So you can't really judge performance or future potential based

on that first day. There's a lot of milestones these companies will continue to hit. So while there's been a lot of exuberance, I think investors need to be wise to look longer term and invest based on what they see the long-term growth potential to be. How do the floats look, the percentage of the company that's actually publicly trading? How is that? How is that influencing you think the amount of volatility that we see in these stocks yeah historically or this year really we've seen that there's been a tighter float on these maybe hoping to dampen some of that volatility so that's certainly a factor at play and you also have to realize you know these companies aren't

necessarily going public because they're looking to raise a ton of capital in the case of clorna actually 80% of the IPO proceeds went to selling shareholders so early investors, early employees who may have sold in the private markets, but really didn't have that wide-scale liquidity event until the IPO. So that's the bigger driver, where Klarna as a company, you know, they raised $200 million, but that's not really the big reason why they chose to go public. The capital market access was not the driver. All right, Brian Lynch. Thank you. Well, the CEOs of J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo, both sounding the alarm about the state of the economy. Coming up, Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO David Solomon tells us whether he agrees with

them and that could make it more likely the Fed will cut interest rates next week. It's an exclusive interview. You cannot afford to miss it when overtime returns. Our Megan Cassella is back with an update on the condition of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Megan. John Charlie Kirk has died after being shot while speaking during an event this afternoon at Utah Valley University. The president posting on social media confirming his death, saying the great and even legendary Charlie Kirk is dead. No one understood or had the heart of the youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by all, especially me. And now he is no longer with us. Melania and my sympathies go out to his beautiful wife, Erica, and family. Charlie,

we love you. John, meanwhile, the campus is still closed. Classes are canceled while a suspect remains at large. The university is offering police escorts to students to get them safely off campus. They say this is an ongoing and unfolding event. And John, as we said before, Kirk was 31 years old. He was a father of two and a longtime conservative activist, a very close ally of the presidents he had last been at the White House just in May. He was best known as the co-founder of Turning Point USA, which tours college campuses to engage with young voters as he was doing this afternoon. Closing bell overtime will be be back right after this welcome back to overtime some prominent bank CEOs this week on cnbc

warning that cracks are starting to show in the u.s economy jp morgan's jamie diamond and morgan stanley's ted pick yesterday wals fargo ceo charlie scharf telling squawk box this morning that he quote sees more downside to the economy but joining me now exclusively here at goldman sachs communicopian technology conference in san francisco is david salomon goldman sax chairman and ceo and i do want to talk to you about that but first i think we have to talk about where we are right now, especially given how voracious the market is about AI on the heels of this monster move in Oracle, and so many, I would call them optimistic takeaways from CEOs here at this conference.

Well, first of all, thank you for being here, and thank you for having me on the show. This is a conference we started in 1991, and if you think about the changes in technology and media over that period of time, you know, email was just invented in the early 90s. nobody had it. You think about where we are with AI. You think about the interest. There are 3,000 clients here, hundreds of companies coming together. And really, of course, the theme is on how this technology is accelerating. How is it going to evolve? How is it going to create productivity? And the level of excitement and the tailwinds that that has for economic growth and investment are really, really quite strong. And so it's fascinating to be here. There's a lot

going on in the world. We can talk about the macro and some of the things that balance. But But if you're looking over the horizon, these are powerful forces that certainly are going to drive growth and productivity in very interesting ways. Do you think the exuberance and I think all the spending that's going into this, especially in the AI infrastructure piece of this right now, does that justify the excitement and the moves you are seeing in some of the stocks and whatnot? Well, the excitement is justified by the impact this technology can have over time. Whenever you have a new technology, and we've seen this, you know, over many cycles, there tends

to be some excessive exuberance about how quickly the change can be implemented in the enterprise, how quickly the productivity gains can come. And my guess is this will be no difference. So there are going to be some amazing companies that are formed. There are some amazing companies that have been formed and grow. There will be lots of companies that are formed that don't make it in the long run. And that's part of the natural cycle. But it's very good for our country to be in the middle of this innovation, as we have been

in so many other technological innovation. and, you know, I think you just have to have the lens that whenever there's a new technology, there's going to be some irrational exuberance, and this will probably not be any different. I want to get your thoughts on the other sort of big market news of the day, and that is we had Klarna's IPO. I know you're one of the bookrunners, Goldman is. We've got more IPOs before the end of the week, and you've made the comments even just earlier this week that dealmaking is strong. Does that continue? There's no question the pickup in dealmaking is really significant. You talk about the Klarna IPO. We're excited to help that that terrific.

a company go public. That's gone very, very well. This week, we will do more IPOs and have more IPO activity at Goldman Sachs than we've had since July 2021. Wow. So equity issuance this year is up about 15%, but over the last two months, it's up 40% year over year. So there continues to be an acceleration. You're certainly seen to pick up an IPO activity. And on dealmaking activity, I don't think people really appreciate this. M&A activity is up about 32% year over year. So 32% more volume. But in deals bigger than $10 billion, M&A activity is up 100%.

So the deal-making environment has really accelerated. And I think one of the reasons for this acceleration has been the regulatory environment is unleashing CEOs to think big and think strategically and think about how scale can advantage them in a relatively fast-changing world. and we're coming off a period for five years where the regulatory environment was inhibiting that. And so I think we're going to go through a pretty good run here over the course in the next 12 to 24 months

with meaningfully more MNA activity and more IPO activity. It's interesting to hear you say that because we keep hearing about uncertainty in corporate America. That doesn't sound like uncertainty. Well, you've got conflicting things, you know, going on for sure. There's a lot of optimism around technology innovation and there's certainly a strong belief on the part of CEOs that scale matters and they feel like they have an opportunity to position their businesses

for the next decade. And you don't know how the regulatory pendulum can swing, obviously. We have a, you know, we have a system where we definitely have swings back and forth. And so this is an opportunity for CEOs to be a little bit more aggressive strategically. You know, countering that or balancing that, and you know, you mentioned at the beginning of the segment that there are number of CEOs that are talking about a softening in the economy. There's no question we've seen some job data that indicates that there has been some softening. I think you have to watch that very, very closely as we look ahead. The economy is still chugging along, you know, okay. But there's no question that we're seeing more softening signals. So I think that's something to watch very

carefully. What did you think of PPI this morning? I think that, you know, the, when I think about inflation and I think about where we are, there's still more work to do. And so, you know, I think it's uncertain. I've said a number of times, I think there's going to be a stickiness around how this all settles out. And I think we're continuing to see indications that that's something to watch very closely. How do tariffs factor into that? How are you thinking about that? So trade policy is still getting negotiated. It's still getting implemented. The administration has a clear point of view, but there's uncertainty around where this all lands. And there's no question in my mind that it's having an impact on growth. That impact on growth is hard

to quantify specifically. And I think it's also very dependent on where a lot of this lands. There's obviously litigation now going on around some of the reciprocal tariffs. We have to watch that closely. There's still trade deals that have to be negotiated, particularly here in North America. So I'd say there's still uncertainty. There is an impact to growth. And we have to see where this all lands. I do have to get your response to President Trump's criticism of the bank's research a couple a week's ago. He went as far as saying in his social media post, quote, I think that David should go out and get himself a new economist, or maybe he ought to just focus on being a DJ.

Well, I like DJ. I mean, that's a lot of fun. But Jan Hatsias is an incredible economist. He has been cited numerous times for his work. And our research, our research serves our clients. Our job from a research perspective is to provide research and analysis that helps our clients make the best decisions possible. Yon has an extraordinary reputation, an extraordinary track record, and, you know, we're proud that he's a member of our team. Have you spoken to President Trump since all that happened?

I speak to the White House, you know, regularly, and, you know, I'll continue to speak to the White House and engage in the White House. Market seems to be pricing in as a foregone conclusion, given the conversation we're having here, that we get a cut next week. Do you think it could potentially be a jumbo cut or this sets us up for a flurry of cuts?

There's no question that when you look at the labor numbers, you know, there's a little bit of softening. And, you know, I'm pretty confident that we'll have a 25 basis point cut. You know, whether or not we have a 50 basis point cut, I don't think that's probably in the cards. So I would expect a 25 basis point cut. And I think you could see one or two other cuts, you know, depending on how economic conditions play out from here. But there's no question we're going to see a slight change, you know, in the policy rate as we move into the fall. And I think it'll be really data dependent on how things are. involve as we go through the rest of the fall as to how that plays out. Do you think there's a real

risk that Fed Independence is in question here, or at least that the optics of Fed Independence are in question here? Well, there's a lot of, there's a lot of noise and a lot of discussion around this, but I'd make a couple of comments, you know, on this topic. First of all, I think that Central Bank independence, not just here, but around the world, has served this well. And I think it's, I think it's very, very important. I think Fed Independence is very, very important around monetary policy. I think the people who are in the Fed and make these decisions, and by the way, it's not an individual, it's a committee of people that vote. I think they take it incredibly seriously. And I think as you look forward and you look at appointments,

and by the way, we saw Stephen Murren at his, you know, at his hearing talk about the fact that he thought Fed independence on monetary policy was very, very important. So presidents and administrations throughout history have had a point of view about policy rates, and they voice them. The people that go and act on monetary policy, I think, do it to a very high standard, and I'm confident that they're going to continue to do it. But I think it's important for all of us to appreciate how well central bank independence has served us. I do want to get your thoughts, and you and I've talked about this in the past, the debt load of the U.S. spending deficits.

You were on stage with Bill McDermott from ServiceNow earlier today. One of the things he said to me here on CNBC before he got on stage with you is that the amount of adoption in government for efficiency, productivity gains through digitization, technification, if you will, that that is a dynamic that is changing government. And I wonder what that means for the future of spending by government and whether it factors into this deficit conversation, especially at a time where the bond market's really focused. I would say it's interesting.

I had Bill McDermott on stage, and I interviewed him, and I asked him the same question. And, you know, I'm encouraged by his answer, but I'd say, you know, at one level, you know, his answer is encouraging. On another level, there's a lot of work to do. I don't think that we've shown that we have an ability to decrease the growth in our fiscal spending to zero. It's a question of how much we're going to grow. And the reality of it is we've grown our debt stack very meaningfully. And we've got to think about a growth play that can allow us to have enough growth in the economy. to make up for the debt burden, the financing burden we have.

I think this is a super important issue. It's something I've talked about regularly for the last few years. I'm concerned about the pace of fiscal stimulus and our inability to pull it back, especially after the way we accelerated it during the pandemic. And I'm not saying that this is an emergency in the context of this year or next year, but this is ultimately something that will affect growth and will affect the power of our economy because you think about the growing debt stack

and what a cost to finance this debt stack over time that diverts capital from other productive uses in the economy if we have to raise more and more financing to support you know our government so this is a real issue something to watch carefully i'm concerned about it by the way it's going on and all developed economies around the world we have great advantage because of the dollar you can see what happens if you're not in that privileged position for example if you look at the UK and you look at what's going on in gilts over the course of the last couple of weeks. And so this is something we should be sensitive to, but I don't have a good answer how to slow it down because from both sides of the aisle, there's a desire to keep running this very aggressive

fiscal play. And it's something that should raise concern for all of us because we are going to have to deal with it at some point in time. Okay. We're coming up against the end of the show. So we're going to have to leave the conversation there. There's always so much to talk to you about. That's not an optimistic enough note. I mean, you know, can't we end on something a little bit more optimistic. Stocks at all-time highs. What do you think? Makes sense where we are in the investment cycle? I think there's no question that what's going on with technology and the concentration in the market is having an impact on where stocks are. If you go back to, you know, what we said, this technology is super important. It's accelerating. I think there's

a little bit of exuberance, you know, around risk-taking. But, you know, at the same point, it can go on for quite a while as we've seen in many other cycles. So, you know, I'm excited about what's going on, but also cautious. And from a little bit of the way. perspective. We always, you know, we always have our risk hat on, you know, trying to be as balanced and appropriate as we can. Okay. David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks, Morgan. John, I'll talk it back over to you. Great stuff from there. Morgan, thank you. That's going to do it for us here at overtime.