Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: BlackRock's Spring Outlook; Top Opportunities Abroad with Mark Mobius 4/28/25

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

As the market navigates a fragile stretch, Scott Wren of Wells Fargo and Dana D’Auria of Envestnet join the panel to break down investor sentiment and strategy amid earnings season.Key earnings movers include Cadence Design, F5 Networks, NXP Semi, and Nucor--and we hear from F5 CEO François Locoh-Donou on the company's tailwinds right now. Bernstein's Stacy Rasgon offers analysis on NXP results, while Gargi Chaudhuri of BlackRock breaks down her fresh spring outlook on handling market volatility.Later, Eunice Yoon reports from China, highlighting BYD's rapid growth, followed by emerging markets insight from investing legend Mark Mobius.

That bell marks the end of regulation. Goldman Sachs asset management winning the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Pioneer doing the honors at the Nasdaq. And a late session rally pushing the major averages higher after spending much of the day modestly in the red. The Nasdaq had been down nearly 1.5% of the lows. That's the scorecard on Wall Street. But winners stay late. Welcome to Closing Bell Overtime. I'm John Ford with Morgan Brennan. Well, it's the biggest week of earnings season and overtime results get underway this hour with the numbers from NXP, semiconductors, cadence design systems, F5 and Nucor. We will bring you all of the headlines and an interview with F5 CEO ahead of the call. And also ahead, emerging markets expert Mark Mobius tells us where he's finding opportunity in the world right now. And Black Rock's Gargi Chowdhury just published her spring

outlook. She will join us with her expectations for equities, fixed income, gold, and much more. Let's talk markets though. Joining us now is Scott Wren of Wells Fargo Investment Institute and Dana D'Aria of Investnet. Guys welcome. Dana, we got a big week of earnings this week, but also a big week of data. At this point, which do you expect to give you more insight into how to position the micro or the macro? Well, I certainly think from an earnings report perspective, anyone who's willing to actually do a forecast,

that's gonna be pretty illustrative, right? I think a lot of these corporate planners are not going to want to give forecasts because of course the landscape can change literally as they're speaking. I think a lot of these corporate planners are not going to want to give forecasts because of course the landscape can change literally as they're speaking. But to the extent, if you're looking at what happened in Q1, we all know that's kind of old news. It reflects probably pull forward.

It reflects a totally different dynamic. So it's really about how much forecast information. On the macro front, of course, if we see jobs come in and continue to be strong, it's going to be difficult to expect the Fed to be lowering rates anytime soon. And notwithstanding, you know, the tiff, obviously, with the Trump administration, I don't expect May.

June is, you know, something of a toss-up. So I think, you know, it really depends on what we hear out of the earnings landscape coming this week. Scott, it feels to me like we went from a market plunge on high tariffs and that this isn't a negotiation message to the market rebounding on this level of China tariffs isn't sustainable and we have hundreds of negotiations in progress.

Between these extremes, have you been able to sift out any truths worth banking on? Well, John, you know, I think, you know, we've obviously had a decent bounce off these recent lows. And so what we've been trying to do and talk to our clients about, and this is difficult for retail clients is, you know, they have cash in their accounts, they want to buy stocks with it, they've been hesitant to get in. And, you know, when stocks are down 10 or 20%, you want to act on that. So, you know, in our opinion, you're going to see some better economic growth, not only from the

US, but probably abroad in the second half of this year. And so, really, we've been looking for cyclical exposure. We like industrials, we like energy, we like communication services, we like technology. And on the up days, those are the sectors that outperform, and on the down days, it's all staples and healthcare and a bunch of defensive. So what we're trying to do is try to get a fix on what the economic outlook's going to be.

Dana's right, you know, I mean, earnings, that's what happened in the past. You'd like to think you'd get some decent guidance, and certainly our individual company analysts think that some of these companies are going to give us some good guidance. overall you know just these calls it's like the word cautious or caution or uncertain I mean those are going to be used hundreds if not thousands of times here over this earnings season and so I think I think you have to look ahead try to figure

out what the macro environment is going to be we think it's going to be more cyclical as we move through the second half of the year and in 2026 and position for that. Okay. I'd add mitigation to the list of repeat words. We've got our first earnings report to bring you. Cadence design results are out and Christina Parts-Nevelis has the numbers. We have a mixed report. So EPS earnings per share beat of $1.57 higher than the street anticipated on revenues of 1.24 Billion which we'll say is roughly in line up 23% year-over-year for full-year guidance is slightly better This would be full-year guidance of five point one five to a range of five point two three billion

Non-gap gross margins also a little bit higher for q1 at forty one point seven gross margins also a little bit higher for Q1 at 41.7. One quote actually stands out to me in this release from the CEO saying quote, we haven't seen any changes in customer behaviors at this time as they continue investing in R&D for their next generation designs. Our resilient software business model, strong backlog and AI driven product innovations position us well. So this is another company that's saying they haven't seen any changes in customer behavior, both TSMC as well as STM also had the same sentence, I would say, in their reports as well.

And you can see shares jumping over 2% right now, Morgan. Okay, Christina Parts-Neveles, thank you. Dana, I'm not gonna ask you to comment on cadence specifically, but just this idea that some of these tech companies, some of the tech companies, some of the software companies, some of the R&D sort of early design phase, like a cadence companies, would be saying no changes to customer demand here despite that macro uncertainty. What does it signal about tech in this environment?

And especially as we are going into four of the MAG 7s reporting later this week. Yeah, well, so it's been interesting. You know, and I would echo some of the earlier comments. I think we had for a few years there a situation where tech, big tech in particular, had taken on sort of this defensive property where, you know, when it was a risky environment, you know, and it was a risk-off kind of mood in the market, tech would get the assets because it was, risky environment, and it was a risk off kind of mood in the market, tech would

get the assets because you had just good cash returners and kind of companies that could weather something like a COVID. We have such a different landscape year to date where now there's more of a realization, look, these big tech companies and all the surrounding satellite companies are huge capex investors, making a big bet on AI, something that's unproven in market yet. And they come into the year with very high valuations. Now, obviously, some of that has come off, but there's still relatively high valuation, still a lot of concentration in the index.

And then rather than getting this pro-growth, pro-business sort of a landscape, they've kind of run smack into jarring amount of volatility. And so I think we've moved back to tech being more of a risk-done kind of a play, and that doesn't, that's not to say it's not the right play, but it certainly has shifted in terms of what the market is expecting from these companies. Okay, hang tight, we got some more results. F5 earnings are out for fiscal Q2 and it is a beat on the top and bottom lines. F5 reporting revenue of $731 million versus $719 expected. A non-GAAP EPS coming in at $3.42 adjusted versus $3.10 expected. I'll also mention the Q2 non-GAAP gross margin

came in above expectations at 83.1% versus 82.8 expected. On the guidance, the range on the top line is well above expectations. 840 to 800, sorry, is 740 to 760 million, that's 750 at the midpoint, versus 739 million expected. On the EPS, the range is actually below the expectation. They're targeting an EPS range of $3.41

to $3.53 versus $3.54 expected. I did speak with CEO Francois Locodano, we're gonna hear more from him a little later this hour, about the quarter. He pointed out they did also raise their full year revenue growth outlook and EPS growth outlook as well. So he stays confident in the trajectory and in the guide here, Morgan,

just being a little cautious as well. But we're gonna hear more from him on what's behind the quarter. Looking forward to that, especially as the stock jumps 3% right now Scott I want to go back to the chart of the day from bespoke which was published just a short while ago and in which they Say that after that April is on pace to be one of the biggest upside reversal months in the stock markets history That if the SMP can rally another 2.3 percent here before the end of the month This will be the first time ever that the index has reversed a 10% plus intramonth decline to close higher.

Has the move we've seen given all of the tumult, especially where trade and tariffs is concerned, has it surprised you? Does it change your investing thesis here, especially as you have been really all in on US stocks? Yeah, I think Morgan, you know, the fall and how quickly, you know, we were down 20% there briefly in the S&P 500.

The fall is what caught me a little bit off guard. I think the bounce higher, you know, makes a lot of sense, but also, you know, and I look at charts all the time and you can make a pretty good argument that, you know, we could bounce higher from here, but I still think there's a lot of risks out there. Certainly this tariff situation is a very fluid thing. When you talk about the EU or China,

I mean, these negotiations are not gonna happen overnight. And we may see a lot of smaller trading partners come. We may have conclusive deals, which I think the market would like. But then, you know, think about the month of May, House Speaker Johnson wants to have a bill on the president's desk by Memorial Day for him to sign on the budget.

I mean, that's a tall task, and we're gonna hear a lot of news about that in coming weeks. That's a risk. People are still gonna be concerned about growth. I think this data that's out this week, whether it's you know, PCE or orders for durable goods or the ISMs or the labor report on Friday, I mean these are all critical reports that are going to help people gauge what's going on with growth and

what we can expect from these corporate earnings because certainly there's going to be a haircut relative relatively where you thought earnings were at the beginning of the year, and it's just a matter of how much. So, you know, what we think is, you know, you're gonna see a slow quarter or two here, but, you know, a reasonable, not a great bounce back, but reasonable activity that people are gonna be

more optimistic about as we move through the second half of the year. That's what we wanna position for. Okay, of course we get something like 40% of S&P companies reporting this week. So peak earnings week for us to sink our teeth into. Scott Wren, Dana Dioria, thank you both for kicking off the hour with us.

It was a mixed day, four stocks in Nasdaq, finishing fractionally lower. The S&P fractionally higher, 55.28 is where it looks like we've settled here. Now let's bring in CNBC's senior markets commentator, Mike Santoli, for a look at the market's attempt at this rebound this month. Mike.

Yeah, Morgan, made up a lot of ground and actually the low end stocks for the S&P 500 somewhat coincided with a bit of a peak in that whole sell America theme that was pressuring bonds like treasuries as well as the dollar. And so here I wanted to plot the U.S. stock market, obviously in orange, the S&P 500

It's a six-month chart against all the countries in the world outside the US the All country world index ex-us and you see the angle of recovery is somewhat similar But you see the the rest of the world much closer to its highs and still holding this out performance So, you know, usually they're going to move more in line than not, at least in direction, if not in magnitude. But it is definitely interesting that the non-U.S. outperformance has persisted, and in fact, I don't show up on a one-year basis, neck-and-neck, even after the U.S. was way ahead during the Mag-7 boom.

Take a look here at another little intermarket relationship, gold versus the NASDAQ 100. Now this is a one year, you see they were more or less aligned until a couple of months ago. A massive jump in gold, we know that, it was like the one diversifier trade that was working, a lot of panic about policy, but this is what's more interesting to me,

is the reversal to the downside in gold, coinciding with this bounce we've seen in the NASDAQ 100 stocks, tells me two things two things one the risk off trade maybe overshot a little bit but also they can come closer together without it necessarily being a trend change because they gapped out so much so I think there's a pretty decent burden of proof still on the mega cap US tech stock recovery here that it's anything more than a reflex rebound guys I'd be curious to see how Bitcoin fits into that last chart you're showing because we've heard the comparisons.

It's pretty close to gold. There you go. I was going to say because we hear it compared to Nasdaq and we hear it compared more recently to gold too. That's right. So yeah, the dual nature of Bitcoin is a digital gold or is it just a tech proxy? It has over a one year, six month month basis it's actually now caught up to gold it was lagging for a couple of

months there and is now sort of popped back up there and that maybe is more consistent with the reawakening of risk appetites we've seen in stocks as well. Market commentary has highlighted 50 percent

retracement of down of the down move from the February peak. We've got an S&P just below that 2 percent from the liberation day We've got an S&P just below that 2% from the Liberation Day tariff announcement. An S&P back above 20 times price to earnings. We've got multiple asset classes that are not close to pricing in a recession. And we've got hedge funds selling

versus retail dip buying resilience. What is this market signaling at the end of April and what has changed so much since the beginning when we did have those initial tariff announcements. I mean, most of what it's telling you is that we obviously had a very disorderly complete stampede out of risk assets in the very early part of this month that culminated April 7th. And we've we've kind of unwound some of that.

So just in terms of the basic kind of physics of the market, you get a big major low. The market was down 20% in seven weeks. That's an unusually fast decline. So the fact that we recovered and essentially said, okay, we're no longer gonna price in the worst case scenario for tariffs, but at this level of valuation,

at this level of the index relative to where its trend is, it probably takes a little bit more affirmative, reassuring news as opposed to just the absence of the worst case scenario to probably takes a little bit more affirmative reassuring news as opposed to just the absence of the worst case scenario to get us a little bit further. But a lot of the things about this rally have been very constructive. It's been really broad and it did clear a couple of hurdles on the way to that 50% recovery as you mentioned. Okay.

Mike Santoli, thank you. We'll see you later this hour. We have much more earnings action on the way including Results from nxp semiconductor star analyst stacey rask on gives us his first reaction to those numbers next now See why it's down five percent and we will hear from the ceo cloud an application Delivery company f5 before his call with wall street analystsvertime is back in two. Welcome back to Overtime. NXP Semiconductor earnings are out. Christina Parts-Nevelis has the numbers. Christina? Well, we're seeing a beat for both earnings

and revenue. $2.64 adjusted earnings per share with revenue of $2.84 billion. Their automotive segment continues to be their powerhouse making up almost 60% of their business but revenues did come in a little bit light at $1.67 billion. Their non-GAAP gross margins also a little bit light for the quarter and interestingly for Q2 guidance EPS was in line Q2 guidance for revenue slightly higher. The big change though, the company announcing a change of management, CEO Kurt Sivers is going to retire at the end of 2025. NXP's board of directors announced that it has unanimously approved Mr. Rafael Sotomayor

to succeed as president effective April 28th, 2025. They're both going to work together to orchestrate a smooth leadership transition until mid or end of October. There's one line that stuck out to me in this release coming from the current CEO taking more of a cautious tone saying quote, ''We are operating in a very uncertain environment influenced by tariffs with volatile direct and indirect effects.'' So you've got a CEO change and then obviously

concerns about tariffs weighing on the stock right now down over 5 percent. tariffs with volatile direct and indirect effects. So you've got a CEO change and then obviously concerns about tariffs weighing on the stock right now down over 5%. Guys? All right, Christina Parts-Navalas, thank you. For more on NXP, let's bring in Bernstein Senior Analyst, Stacey Raskon. Stacey, great to have you back on the show. Let's start right there.

Your reaction, your initial reaction to NXP. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what it is. That the revenues were kind of in line-ish, although as she said, auto and actually even industrial were a little light relative to consensus. Beats on mobile and comm, which I think are less attractive. Gross margins, just a hairlight both in the quarter

and in the guide. Channel inventories actually went up a week. They're at nine weeks, so some of the revenue actually was shipping into the channel. And again, we have the CEO transition amid a period of uncertainty. It's probably not enough.

I'm not surprised the stock's down a bit. Are you surprised that the commentary here, at least that we've gotten the release, is so different than what we got from Texas Instruments last week? Well, maybe not. I mean, TI tends to call it like they see it. And like, as of right now, you have to remember,

TI has effectively 100% availability of 100% of their parts. It's very possible that there's pull forward and other things in the wake of tariffs. TI, frankly, cyclically, they were probably starting from a lower point. They are calling for upside on the back of cyclical recovery. The problem is, from the company's standpoint, they probably don't know the difference between cyclical recovery and pull forward. They wouldn't be able to see all they see

are the orders in front of their face. And to be honest, TI probably doesn't care. If they can fulfill it, they'll ship it. That's just how they run their business. NXP runs things a little bit differently. Stacey, the stock's dropping here in overtime, down about 6.5% right now. And I can't help but wonder,

A, is this an expected CEO transition? And B, might they be talking down the future a little bit more than they might otherwise? and a half percent right now. And I can't help but wonder, A, is this an expected CEO transition? And B, might they be talking down the future a little bit more than they might otherwise to ease the CEO transition? I mean, no new CEO likes to come in with the bar set too high. Yeah, this was not an expected CEO transition.

No, I'm a little surprised. Kurt, I don't think Kurt's that old, but he has been at N XP. I guess for 30 years I mean, he's pretty well liked among the investment community. So no this was it's it's kind of a surprise I don't actually know why that transition is happening. You're right clearly, you know, they like to set the bar Although to be honest, they guided revenue actually a little bit above where the street is So it's not so much in the near term that they're they're lowering the revenue bar all that much In terms of the commentary on just uncertainty're lowering the revenue bar all that much. In terms of the commentary on just uncertainty and no visibility, I think that's accurate.

I don't think anybody has any visibility, especially into the second half right now. I'll note again, the release does say Mr. Sievers' departure is purely personal decision, not related to any disagreement with the board of directors or any issues relating to the strategic or financial performance of the company. But this is a company that is strongly levered to the transformation of autos not just in self-driving but also entertainment internally just more becoming a cloud-connected computer and with the looming threat of tariffs and uncertainty over how much cars are going to cost is this well priced at this discounted

level after this overtime move? Well, I mean, it is cheaper than some of the other, say, analog names in my coverage. I wouldn't say that it's cheap, but it's cheaper than some of the other ones. The question though is gonna be, as always, everything can look cheap on price to forward earnings, but you never really know what the E is, right?

And so that's where that uncertainty comes in. I will be very interested to see what they say. We'll get more commentary directly from them in the morning when they actually have the conference call. Yeah, the counter argument to Nvidia being a high grower, but also not necessarily expensive. Stacey Raskin, heard you say that many times. Thank you.

Well, let's get another check now on F5 networks. It is off the highs now, up about 1%. Just reported earnings moments ago, I spoke with CEO Francois Locodunou about these results. He pointed out the outperformance in hardware specifically and how most businesses that went all in on the public cloud a few years ago and their customers are F5 are now pivoting to hybrid which benefits F5. Hardware was up 27% year on year and part of that of course is we're seeing very strong momentum in tech refresh with customers that had not been able to refresh in the last 12

to 18 months. But if you dig deeper it's so much more than that. We're seeing strong traction in companies reinvesting in their data center, modernizing their data center, and expanding their data center capacity. We're seeing tailwinds from AI and companies getting their infrastructure to be ready for AI. And lastly, we're also seeing very strong momentum

displacing traditional competitors and continuing to gain share in the application delivery and controller market, which is our core market. A lot of companies went cloud first several years ago and moved a lot of applications to the public cloud. What we've seen over the last several years is 80% of organizations that moved applications in the cloud actually have repatriated some of these applications. I did ask him about tariffs. He said they're not seeing a tariff impact on demand right now. Also said that F5 supply chain is well diversified and position doesn't expect an impact there based on what we know and he's expecting a strong second half for the software portion of their business,

but he's still, you know, positioned the guide with some wiggle room. All right. Well, investors like it right now with the stock up 2%. When we come back, BlackRock's Gargi Chowdhury just published her spring investment outlook and she says more volatility is coming. She will break down how to navigate it next.

And global investor Mark Mobius tells us where he's finding opportunities in the world right now, how to trade China, India, and more. We'll be right back. ["The Daily Show"] ["The Daily Show"] ["The Daily Show"] ["The Daily Show"]

["The Daily Show"] ["The Daily Show"] ["The Daily Show"] ["The Daily Show"] ["The Daily Show"] ["The Daily Show"] Welcome back to Overtime. It's been a month of extreme volatility in the markets and it may not settle down anytime

soon. That's according to a new spring outlook report from the world's largest asset manager, BlackRock. Joining us here on set is the author Gargi Chowdhury, BlackRock head of iShares Investment Strategy Americas. It's so great to have you on the show. Welcome. Thank you.

It's good to be here. Long time listener, first time joiner. Well, we're happy to have you and we want to break down this report because we are talking about economic uncertainty. We are talking about very dramatic volatility across a number of asset classes. How do you navigate that going into the rest of the year? Absolutely. So a couple of things that we've been hearing from our clients and your listeners, I'm sure, is number one, if this volatility persists,

how should we think about positioning our portfolios? Should we be moving to cash? Which is the question that's topmost. And the second one is, some of my traditional hedges haven't worked. So historically, if you've used long duration bond markets as a hedge for your equity markets, you saw some periods in April where that didn't work.

So what should we do about that? So our spring investment directions is trying to answer those questions. Number one, stay invested in the markets. We saw the volatility, we saw how quickly it moves in both directions. So make sure you don't leave the market, but maybe move to some of the more, what we call the more defensive minimum volatility parts of the market that will give you a little bit better protection because of that lower volatility.

And second, think about diversifying your diversifiers. So where you might have had long duration treasuries before, maybe think of a combination of the front end of fixed income markets, focus on income, think about gold, think about liquid alternatives that are more market neutral in nature. So that's what we've been talking about with our clients.

Has the definition of what's safe haven or what's defensive, has it changed in this environment? I mean, you just talked about long duration treasuries. I mean, typically, especially if you're concerned about slowing economic growth and uncertainty, that would perform well. It hasn't. We know bond vigilantes are back in a big way right now.

So do we have to think differently about what constitutes safe in this environment? I think a little bit. I think it's a little bit more nuanced in a world where you're seeing equity markets go down at the same time as bond prices at the same time as the U.S. dollar. I think that trifecta has really surprised many investors, and I do think you have to think harder about adding an additional layer of diversification in your portfolio. So for example, we look at US investors, US advisors portfolio and what we are finding is often more than 50% of them, more than 70% of them have a huge underweight to international

markets. In a world where we might have seen some of the peaks of the US dollar, maybe it stabilizes here, maybe it continues to go lower from here. Can we get some benefits in international investing? We think so. So we're telling investors, add international here, add some European value here, we think. And another big theme that comes up a lot is the long end.

As you mentioned, the long end of fixed income markets, that hasn't worked really for some time now, but certainly in 2025, that hasn't given you the diversification. So really focus on the belly of the curve and focus on income. We tell investors to move to strategies like BINC, which gives you that income in the belly of the curve with very little interest rate risk. I want to go back to international. Within the lens of China and India, because those are those two big billion population

plus influences. And as an investor, I've for a while felt like China and India tend to be easier to invest in the demographics from a fund perspective, then say Latin America, the types of companies, et cetera. But they're each having issues. China with the demographics, India right now with a conflict and stability. How should investors approach the whole thing

with that lens? Yeah, absolutely. So we, you know, in our outlook, we talk a little bit about, you know, sort of reducing your volatility, even when you're in the EM markets and focusing on minimum volatility EM solutions. And then we talk about another area of the world, which is often overlooked in portfolios,

which is Latin America. And we think that in this bifurcated geopolitically fragmented world, can we find some opportunities, especially obviously volatility around the world goes into a recession, Latin America will not be saved. But if we stabilize for a little bit, can you find some benefits towards looking at some of those areas which may significantly benefit from the rewiring of supply chains as well as being from a valuations perspective being cheaper? So many lat-am funds that I look into are full of utilities and and stayed banks and I really wonder, can an investor get

the full economic potential benefit of some of these locales with the way these funds are constructed? Yeah, I think so. And again, being very cognizant of diversification in this environment is important. So I'm not saying take all your portfolio and move it to ILF. You're not supposed to do that or move it to Mexico, no.

But to the extent that you've had US only, and perhaps you've been considering adding some diversification, and historically you've only thought of Europe. Why not consider, in addition to Europe, why not consider a fund such as, you know, the one that I just mentioned, ILF, or even just focusing on Mexico or just Brazil?

We think that makes sense. And I also want to point out that you brought up demographics. I think there are other broader themes that are going to persist in the markets and I think we learn more this week with earnings. But AI as a theme hasn't gone away. We've talked less about it. I think we will in the weeks to come But maybe this provides an opportunity it provides a backup The backup and prices provides an opportunity for you to get back into some of those themes that will be with us for years to come All right. Well, we like to talk about AI a lot here on overtime. So Gargi Chaudhary. Thank you. Thank you Well, it's time for CNBC news update with Julia Borsten Julia

Well, it's time for CNBC News Update with Julia Borstein. Julia. John Powers returning sporadically across Spain and Portugal after a massive outage immobilized many areas, including capitals Madrid and Lisbon. Spain's grid operator said more than a fifth of the country's power was restored, while Portugal's power company said two power plants were back online.

Witnesses in Lisbon and Madrid tell Reuters that the lights are coming back in some areas. Spain's interior ministry has declared a state of emergency. The exact cause of the outage is still under investigation. Virginia Congressman Jerry Connolly announced today his cancer has returned and he's leaving the House at the end of this term. In his announcement, the eight-term Democrat who was originally diagnosed last year said he will also step down as the ranking member of the Oversight Committee. And New York City's congestion pricing toll raised $159 million

in revenue in its first three months. That's according to data from the MTA today which also showed nearly six million fewer vehicles entered the toll area. The Trump administration has claimed the toll is illegal and given the MTA until May 21st to end the program. Back over to you. Julia Borson, thank you. We've got new core earnings out and Pippa Stevens has the numbers. Hi, Pippa. Hey Morgan, top and bottom line beat here for new core during Q1. EPS coming in at 70 cents. 77 cents adjusted. That was 13 cents ahead of estimates. Revenue of 7.83 billion, also ahead of the 7.23 billion that Wall Street was looking for.

This was against lowered guidance after the company did issue preliminary results back in March. Now for Q2, no specific numbers, but the new core said that they expect earnings in the second quarter to increase across all three of their operating segments. Stock down here about 1%.

Guys? All right, Pippa, thank you. Coming up, China- based EV maker BYD Just unveiling a new piece of technology that it hopes will set it apart from Tesla We got a firsthand look at this potential game changer ahead and after the break what the swings this month in the junk bond Market can tell us about the October recession over time. we'll be right back. MUSIC Welcome back to Overtime. Mike Santoli returns with a look at whether recession fears might be fading. Yeah, they might be becoming a little more muted, John. Take a look at the Citi Economic Surprise Index.

It shows you how economic data are coming in relative to forecast. It bounced in the last two and a half, three weeks. This is around the time the US equity market started to bounce too. Right up to the zero line though. So it's not as if we're seeing acceleration or outperformance by economic data,

but a little bit better. We know the survey data had been really weak, hard data, a little better. Take a look at the junk bond market. This is the spread on high yield debt. It shot higher to a pretty alarming level. It's actually something that would have suggested a high alert for a recession.

Now it's plunged right back down. However, we're still at last year's high. So again, we're on alert for further weakness, but right now back from the brink in terms of the most panicky fears, guys. All right, Mike Santoli. Thank you. Up next, emerging markets investor Mark Mobius and where he sees the biggest opportunities to invest around the world during this trade war. Plus, Eunice Yun looks at a potential new problem for Tesla from one of its Chinese rivals.

We'll come right back. China's BYD hopes that this will be a game changer for the EV industry, a public charger that helps you fuel up as quickly as at a gas pump. More in a few minutes. Welcome back to Overtime. A new technology is being unveiled that could be a game changer for the EV industry and it could be a game changer for the EV industry and it could be a threat to Tesla. Eunice Yoon explains.

We're at one of BYD's more than 5,000 mainland Chinese stores. The company is the market leader when it comes to EVs in China. It's known mainly for its low and mid-price cars like this one is about $10,000. But now the Tesla rival wants to press home its advantage with new advanced technologies. Like this super fast megawatt charger. He claims that with certain models like this on L you could charge up as quickly as you would filling up at a gas pump

250 miles in 5 minutes. That's faster than Tesla's 200 miles in 15 minutes. At the moment, BYD's flash charger only operates with specifically designed power systems and is available just for two of its own models in China. However, the company says 500 are already built, with plans to roll out 4,000 across the country. In addition, BYD has a new system that allows a car to use two plugs to charge up at once. The company hopes to run its competition off the road with autonomous driving, too. BYD says that it wants as many people as possible to use its self-driving technology, so it's

offering it for free. This Denza Z9 is equipped with an advanced version of BYD's D-Pilot Driver Assistance Program or God's Eye in Chinese. With a click it's capable of navigating the vehicle through China's crammed city streets on its own. The system though does require drivers keep their hands on the steering wheel and disengages if they don't. Another standard smart feature helping drivers maneuver in tight spaces. Using this screen I can angle the rear of the car to scooch in the small lane. Tesla still doesn't have its full self-driving technology approved here in China, but by

sending its own service at the value of it at zero, BYD makes it that much more difficult for Tesla or any other competitor to charge for their service. John? All right. An important wrinkle there in the market. Eunice Yoon, thank you as always. And for more on China and emerging markets, let's bring in Mark Mobius.

He is chairman of Mobius Emerging Opportunities Fund. Mark, always good to see you. So we've talked a lot about China versus India here, but the world has changed since the last time we went deep there. How do you see it? Well, India is still the story. India is doing very well and I believe India is going to be benefiting from what's happening with China and the US. How so? I mean I know we've talked about Apple and some shifts there but beyond that what do you see? A lot of

other things, a lot of manufacturing requiring high labor input would go to India obviously because India's got over 1.2 billion people. So that's one point. The other point is that India is gradually coming to an agreement with the U.S. on tariffs. I believe they will reach some agreement. And when that happens, that, of course, will be very positive for India. Do you see opportunity for Latin America? To some extent, but not as much, Latin America is for some reason has not stepped

to the plate in terms of manufacturing and in terms of coming to the table and opening up their markets. As you know, Brazil is the largest country, but it has a very closed market. So I think it'll be more difficult for Latin America to do anything in that direction. Mark, just to go back to India for a moment, the fact that tension seemed to be ramping and pretty quickly here between India and Pakistan with just this afternoon reports from the Pakistan defense minister saying that military incursion by India is imminent. How real is that risk to investing in that country right now?

And how does it speak to perhaps more broadly, the geopolitical risk that's being navigated? Well, that has been always a risk because as you know, relations between India and Pakistan have never been good. And of course, they're both nuclear powers. So this is something we have to watch carefully. But even more importantly than that is the tension between India and China

on the border in the North. So I believe these tensions will be there, but I don't think it's gonna have that much impact on India's ability to export, import and manufacture. It's too big a country to be harmed by these kinds of issues. How about China? Because we know the domestic economy there has struggled.

And I've spoken to a number of CEOs with big business there who said they're seeing green shoots. But amid this US-China trade war, tariff war, I think one of the pieces that perhaps is getting overlooked is just how much negotiations between the U.S. and other countries around trade right now are sort of aimed at ring-fencing China in. And I'll give you an example. Indonesia has apparently put forward a proposal to the USTR, and it hinges on two key points.

The first is that Indonesia will lower the trade gap with America and bolster US imports. But the second is that Jakarta will reduce imports from other countries. They import a lot from China. If we see more of these types of deals struck with the US, how great is the risk for China? I think China is in very, very bad situation because the target by the US is China.

There's no question about that. And a lot of the practices that took place previously under the World Trade Organization were violated time and time again. And I believe at the end of the day, China is really going to be in trouble unless they're willing to come to the table and concede an awful lot. I'm afraid, given the current political structure in China, they will not be willing to do that, and that is not a very good sign. So I believe, at the end of the day, other countries like Indonesia will open up their

markets, will reach agreement with the US. Of course, the danger there is trans shipments. The US is going to watch very carefully is trans shipments. The U.S. is gonna watch very carefully any trans shipments of Chinese goods going through Vietnam, Indonesia, and all these other countries where the stability curtailed. Okay, Mark Mobius, as always, thank you. Thank you.

Well, up next, a trio of top tech executives reveal how they're using AI to help stabilize their businesses in a time of instability brought on in part by the global trade war. Be right back. As geopolitics scramble supply chains, cast revenue projections into doubt, companies are turning to technology for insight and stability. That was the subject of my recent conversation with members of CNBC's Technology Executive Council.

Glenn Allison leads Enterprise AI Platforms, a tractor supply company whose customers include rural and agricultural communities. He said AI allowed the retailer to more quickly position key resources during hurricanes Helene and Milton. Understanding weather patterns, where is there flooding? You know, where is it that we need to get generators, gas cans, tarps, other emergency supplies

into those local communities? And at a time when many other locations were closed, we were available to support the local community. And so, advanced kind of AI platforms that can enable merchandising, supply chain, marketing, store operations, tech teams to move very quickly with speed, all centered around the customer.

Darlene Williams is chief information officer at Rocket Software, whose products serve critical functions across mainframe and hybrid cloud. She said the company's AI is helping legal teams inside and outside Rocket save time, which is money. Our legal team uses that solution with AI built into it to scan contracts and find key information about contracts. That's important pricing, right? As we were thinking about pricing impacts. So our legal team at Rocket Software uses that solution

and because of it, they were able to reduce their contract review time by 80%. So that has a real meaningful impact on our business and in the way that we can deliver services. At PwC, Chief Global AI Officer Joe Atkinson says the firm has begun to advise clients to look beyond cost savings and into deeper employee empowerment as a lever technology can provide. Now you look forward and you say, what can I do differently with AI that I couldn't do before? And this point of innovation, I think, is so important.

When we talk about what you can control and what you can't control, one thing you can't really control is innovation. But you can empower it, you can encourage it, you can seed it all over the organization. And from my perspective, that is really, and this is where we're counseling clients every day, that's about bringing that up-skilling, helping people understand the power of these tools, and really unleashing them to think about

how these tools can change the way they work every day. CNBC's Technology Executive Council is a membership organization for C-level technology executives from any industry. I've started a series of tech talks to pick their brains about how they're tackling various challenges. If you'd like to apply for membership, head over to CNBCcouncils.com slash TEC.

Well, up next, all the overtime earnings movers that should be on your radar and the big reports that could move the market tomorrow. There are a number of them, including for Dow stocks. Welcome back. Let's get a check on today's overtime movers. NXP Semiconductors is falling after the company announced its CEO is retiring. Also reported light auto revenue and light gross margins. Those shares are down 7%. Now meantime, shares of American manufacturer, Leggett and Platt are jumping

after the company reaffirmed guidance saying tariffs may be a net benefit for the business. Those shares are up 15.5%. Industrial manufacturer Woodward is higher after beating on earnings and revenue, saying it's confident in its ability to mitigate the impact of tariffs as well. Those shares are at four and a half percent.

But the earnings parade, it's just getting started. It speeds up tomorrow when Dow components, Coca-Cola, Honeywell, and Sherwin-Williams report before the bell. UPS and GM are also out in the morning. And then during overtime, we will break down results from Visa, Starbucks, Mondalis, Snap, and booking holdings to name a few.

This is peak earnings week for first quarter results, John. And of course we are getting a ton of macro data this week, including jobs report, PCE, inflation numbers, GDP. I could just keep going. UPS and Coke in particular interesting to me given the concerns about how the consumer is holding up. They've got a broad look across a number of different areas. They do and we know transports, the Dow transports have been hit the hardest in terms of the

market tumult as we, a lot of questions about trade flows and what happens next. I'd also note you have some elections underway this week, including in Canada. I think we have to get past those to see what happens on the trade front in North America more broadly. That's gonna do it for us here at Overtime. Fast Money starts now.