Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: Chip Stocks Remain Parabolic 5/8/26

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Chip stocks extended their recent strength: Nvidia, Micron, Intel, Sandisk and more hit record highs. Tech also caught a bid. iCapital’s Sonali Basak breaks down the market action. Fairlead’s Katie Stockton on why she is calling for a breakout in Tesla. Apollo’s Torsten Slok breaks down the AI impact on the labor market – and what it means for inflation. Plus, what’s causing the recent rally in bitcoin with Pantera Capital’s Cosmo Jiang. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The bell is bringing in end to the trading day at the NYSC, enhanced ringing the closing bell. And at the NASAC is a minister of finance of Chile. Welcome to closing bell over time. We're live from studio be at the NASDAQ market site. I'm Melissa Lee along with Mike Santoli. Tech taking off today has chips rebound strongly. The Dow, the lagger, closing near the flat line,

the S&P 500 up nearly 1%. The NASAC leading the way with a gain of 1.7% more on the market straight ahead. On our radar at the close, AI's impact on jobs. We've heard several companies cutting back, but will AI actually increase employment? Plus signs of stress in the consumer. They're ordering cheaper steaks, skipping toppings on pizza. We'll dig into what we learned from restaurant results this week.

And is Tesla's move higher this week assigned a bigger things to come? We'll get a technician's take on that. And of course, this wraps up another winning week for the markets. That is six in a row for both the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ. And Mike, no coincidence, also six weeks in a row. Very strong performance by the chip sector. Absolutely. Again, is the leadership here.

It's the locomotive. The rest of the train is actually almost getting longer because it's kind of falling further behind. It's pretty remarkable. I mean, you have to say it's overbought, but that doesn't mean it's over yet. I think that's always what you have to remind yourself. The NASDAQ 100, it was up 2% today at one point, closed a little bit below that level. But it's been up about a percent and a half on average the last four Fridays. It just feels as if there's this grasp for exposure to the leading themes in this market as we get closer. I'll just observe, you know, some signs that we're running hot, right? Put call ratios super low. RSI for the NASDAQ 100 RELA Strength Index is pretty much as high as it's been since mid-20204. So you shouldn't be surprised if we come in just a little bit.

And then again, consumer financials, just not keeping pace. And so you have to ask if that divergence is healthy. Yeah. What is sort of a good sign this week is that software didn't get crushed. Absolutely. That's right. Software also found a bid. So it's not the same narrative that software is,

winning, AI's winning in the hardware side. That's going to crush software. Maybe we're over that. We did see a couple of days where Microsoft did peak its head up. Sure. So I don't know, maybe that expands. The software chart looks better. It looks like it's maybe kind of made some, you know, kind of put some distance between itself and the lows. It was down a little bit earlier today, but I do think that is true. So broadening out beyond tech, Apple will talk about that, got a bit as well. That's not really core AI as well. So you can say that it's kind of bullish in general. general, but Vicks higher on a Friday before a weekend when the market's at a new high. So it feels like there's a hedging instinct out there. Let's get some more stats on that chip rally,

Nvidia hitting an all-time high today, extending that market cap well above the $5 trillion mark. Speaking of market caps, Broadcom's gains this week, sending it above $2 trillion. That is bigger than both meta and Tesla. And it was another huge day for the memory stock, Sandisk and Micron, among the top performers in the S&P 500. If you go out 12 months, those two names, plus Western Digital and Seagate are four of the top five in that index, and 700% gain is a smallest among those four. Intel also a big chip winner. It has doubled in the past month, the latest leg of its rally coming thanks to Apple. Christina Parts and Nebula has more on that deal. Christina. Well, Apple and Intel have reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture some of Apple's chips.

This, according to the Wall Street Journal. Investors, though, have been expecting Apple as one of Intel's new foundry customers for almost a year now. And most likely for Mac chips, even though neither company has confirmed we've reached out. An iPhone chip, though, would be a huge win for Intel and a much bigger deal because that's been Taiwan Semiconductor's territory for a long time. The key issue is capacity. TSM's advanced nodes are effectively sold out because AI chips are taking priority. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, has flagged chip shortages on the last two earnings call. If Intel can take even a small slice, it would be a major credibility boost for Intel's foundry business, also why you see the stock continuing

to jump just within the last month. And for TSMC, not necessarily bad news either. Apple is a massive customer, no doubt, but one of the lowest margins at scale. If Apple shifts even just a slice of that volume elsewhere, TSM can redirect that capacity towards higher paying AI customers. For Intel, this is the biggest validation yet of CEO Liputan's Foundry Strategy at the NVIDIA partnership, the Must TerraFab deal, and a U.S. government that converted $9 billion in CHPSAC grant into Intel stock. That is why the stock is up 111% in one month. What is the most likely product chip? Mac chips. Matt, you're right. It has to be a lower-end sort of chip. Yeah, it's on 18 AP if we're going to get really technical, so there's various advanced

processes, and that's not even in full production. So we can trade this stock on these headlines, but does it actually translate into revenue within the next six to 12 months? unlikely, right? Yeah, I mean, and I guess more broadly, there still is that overlay of skepticism about Intel's foundry, right, in terms of customers, whether it can actually be operated in a competitive way. Especially when the CEO and you have the CFO on the earnings call just still speak to how the yields need to improve. They're still not there yet. They're going to be signing maybe these external customers for the foundry business, but haven't announced it yet. So there's still a lot of, like, what ifs and yes, it's coming, but we don't really know, but yet the stock doesn't trade

that way. The optics, though, with this, I mean, you can't stop to think that the administration has had a hand in this coming to fruition, right? I mean, this had been rumored for so long. The report says that they were in talks for about a year prior to this being announced. This happens the week before President Trump has a summit with President Xi. I don't know. It's a lot of coincidence. Well, President Trump has even written that Tim Cook should talk to Intel in the past. Howard Lutnik has communicated not only with Tim Cook, but Elon Musk as well. of course they have a hand. And for the audience that wants to know, they got in at $20.47. So a lot of upside, paper upside. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if the fact that the government took the stake in Intel made giving business to Intel a pretty palatable way of pleasing the administration if you're another CEO. In other words, you don't have to do anything that's outside your realm, right? I mean, you can do something you have to at some point get done anyway with some relationship. Getting backstop by the government. Great thing, right? In America?

Yeah. Christina thanks. Christina parts. Nevelas. We've got a news alert from the Federal Reserve. The Central Bank just releasing its financial stability report, which showed the Iran War and high oil prices are the top risks to stability. Respondents also expressed concerns that AI will raise equity valuations and weaken the labor market. Private credit was also widely cited as a potential financial risk. And the reports that investors are worried that the Central Bank will have to raise interest rates to control inflation. On the consumer side, the report showed household balance sheets are, quote, strong. Credit scores are rising and mortgage delinquencies are low. When markets closing out the week with gains,

albeit with some bumps along the way, and while the S&P's path toward higher, remains higher, it is time to start hedging. Is it time to start hedging for more volatility ahead? Joining us now, Shanali Basik from iCap. Shinali, great to have you with us. And you say yes, you think the markets are going to go higher, but it is time to hedge. Yeah, we definitely think it's time to manage downside protection, given what we've seen in the markets. We do think we can go higher from here. So we're looking at now about 7,500 to 78. 800 based on fair value. We know earnings are growing. We don't think you can get that much more multiple expansion. We also think that, listen, the second half of the year is really uncertain.

There are a lot of sources of liquidity that we had really helping drive us for the first half that we think could start to have fading ramifications here for the second half. So we don't think that the path forward is linear. And we think that there are a lot of investors vulnerable to drawdowns in different parts of the market. And I guess hedging could take many forms. Obviously, you could just do outside by downside protection. but some have made the case, look, if you bought exposure to energy, it actually acts as a counterweight to most of what's been working now. Right, especially when you see the cross-asset moves not working for you. When we talk to our clients, they're pretty upset about the dynamic in the 60-40,

right? The fact that bonds have not really been working, the fact that commodities have been challenged and not getting back a lift. For our clients, they look at structured investments as well. So buying into areas like software where we've already seen a meaningful retracement this year, but still a lot of uncertainties, so single names there. But even in the broader indices, you do see meaningful hedging. The backdrop to this broader market move higher, though, is rates will be higher, too. I mean, you've moved up your forecast for the range on the 10-year as well. So do you also see oil price, energy prices remain higher for longer?

Energy prices and just an overall strong backdrop. You think about what we're seeing, Red Book retail sales, still the highest level since 2022. So really strong consumer impulse here. You saw it in the GDP data for the first quarter. despite what we're seeing in the broader market here, if you are worried about oil prices hitting your wallet, you're not seeing that flowing through to spending today, but those tax refund benefits are starting to wane also. And so, yes, we don't think the impulse will be as strong. It doesn't need to necessarily fall off a cliff. But with that said, you know, if you

don't see the economy falling off, then certainly, in addition to the oil prices, contributing to further inflation, you also still have that against the backdrop of a fairly strong economy. You cited some sources of liquidity that maybe are waning. And I'm just wondering what that looks like. There's obviously voracious demand for capital for the CAPEX story, the AI CAPEX story. You know, private credit is lining up or raising new rounds of equity in terms of open AI. And the government's still borrowing what it's borrowing. And I'm just wondering if there's other things you're watching at this point because we're going to have some big IPOs. And it's going to offset a lot of what we've come to know as heavy buyback activity. Yeah, I'm sure you guys know. Everybody is talking on the street about,

what these IPOs mean for the market, is our investors going to really have to meaningfully rebalance their exposure into some of the other high flyers into these big names. Will they perform well? At what point do the AI, CAPX vigilantes show up? That's the question we're starting to ask. Remember, if you have money flowing into public bond markets and then flowing in from private credit markets, those spreads compress. And therefore, you might have investors starting to say, am I getting the return that I want with so much competition for capital, let alone the companies themselves not returning that? Just really quickly, Melissa, on our updating the range for the bond market here, 4 to 4.8% is what we're looking at the 10 year. 4 to 4.5, fine, the market can absorb it.

4.8 looks a little messier, doesn't it? I think. Yeah, and that's the danger zone. If we start to get past 4.5 meaningfully, we think investors, are going to start to see more hiccups in broader markets. But from 4 to 4.5, we can get away with it. You're just going to have a lot of borrowers here facing dispersion because some of them will be fine in weathering those interest rates. Some of them will not make it through as easily in the equity will start. That seems like a pretty narrow margin of danger.

I mean, you know, people talk about, you know, the 1999 move when the, you know, NASDAQ tripled or whatever in a year. I mean, 10 years at 6. I know it's a different world. Yeah, it's a different world. But it had come from a different place, but it's interesting that we're now talking about below 5% could be an issue. It's interesting that you say margin error. That's another way of thinking about it. We were thinking about this as, you know, an equity market that is just looking at bigger fat tails at this point in time. And that's where the vulnerability lies. Tails on both sides. Tails on both sides, right? I mean, there's upside risks to this market too. You could have inflate, we've been living above 2% now for years.

So the question is, what breaks on the back of that? Shalini, thank you. Good to see you. All right, oil prices holding steady today, despite new missile launches from Iran into the UAE and new skirmishes in the Strait of Hormuz. Despite all this, President Trump says the ceasefire is holding. Let's get to Megan Kisela for the latest from the White House. Megan.

Hey, Mike, that's right, a second straight day of the U.S. and Iran exchanging fire amid the ceasefire. The U.S. military saying today that it struck two Iranian oil tankers in the Gulf. Gulf, a step that it said was necessary to enforce the blockade. That comes after the two sides exchanged fire on Thursday, each claiming that the other fired first. President Trump, though, described those attacks as, quote, just a love tap. But there's also a new point of friction that appears to be emerging in these negotiations. And that's Iran taking steps to formalize control over the Strait of Hormuz, potentially with a new government agency that would tax and vet vessels. But U.S. officials say that that's a red line.

That would be very problem. That would actually be unacceptable. I mean, the normalizing of their controlling of international waterway is both illegal and it's just something that's unacceptable. And the world doesn't start asking itself, what is it willing to do if Iran tries to normalize a control of an international waterway? I think that's unacceptable. Now, the United States has been expecting a response from Iran sometime today to its one-page peace proposal to end the war. Rubio said this morning he hoped it was a serious offer to push negotiations into a more serious stage, but it's late afternoon now, guys, when we continue to wait.

Is there any thought, Megan, that with President Trump heading to China, that that will help negotiations? I mean, the foreign minister did go to China to visit its foreign minister just this week on Monday, I believe, ahead of all of this. That's right. And we saw both the Iranian and the Chinese sides putting out statements after that meeting, acknowledging China's role. saying that China would continue to play a larger role in the Gulf. You have to be thinking about this China trip when you're thinking about the U.S. Iran conflict, this war that continues to be ongoing in a few different ways. One is that it seems clear the Trump administration does not want this to be an active war. They want the ceasefire to hold while the president is overseas.

We know they postponed the trip once because he didn't want to be away while the war was ongoing. So they at least seem to want the ceasefire to be intact, if not have something of a deal. The president said it would be ideal if he had an actual deal. before that trip, which kicks off just next week. The other thing, though, is what are the conversations going to be looking like in Beijing around the conflict? Is the president going to be asking President Xi Jinping to throw his weight around here and perhaps pressure Iran to accept some sort of a deal? China has been public that they would like to see this conflict end. They want negotiations to continue rather than a return to the war. That's what the public statements have looked like.

We don't know, though, what kind of deal they'll be pushing for, but you can imagine the two presidents will be discussing that next week. All right, Megan. Megan Cosella, thank you. On the one hand, it seems so paradoxical, right? You actually have these missiles flying and then both sides saying we have a ceasefire. But I think the market is actually taking that as the signal, that they basically vociferously don't want anyone to think. We're backsliding from this negotiating process and I guess take them comfort him. I mean, basically, the bar is much higher for a re-engagement of conflict, right?

So that's a good thing for the markets overall. Take a look there. That's a closing bell at the CBO in Chicago ending the regular day. for options. Coming up, a record day for stocks, Apple jumping to another record high. The stock has been a tech laggard at times, so what does it mean once it catches up? Plus, Tesla popping this week, but still down for the year. What are the charts saying about where this one goes next? You're watching closing bell overtime, live from the NASAC market site. Welcome back to overtime. Chairs of Apple, hitting new highs today and up more than 4% this week. The stock has been on an upswing since delivering

better than expected earnings last month and is up nearly 50% in the last. year. Goldman Sachs writing on Apple, we're inclined to think it's a bounce in non-AI infrastructure stocks feels like after a red-hot run in momentum. Some of the large-cap names are offering more ballast until the dust settles on momentum, especially given Apple's catalyst path, a healthy two-way debate on this one into WWDC, something Goldman's citing as well. You know, Apple has the, it does operate on a different energy source than the pure AI trade. It goes by its own kind of rhythms. I have noticed that sometimes when it makes a real run to a new high, it's sometimes at a mature phase of a tech rally. So if you look at a two-year chart of Apple versus the S&P, it gets these aggressive peaks.

And then after that, sometimes the overall market is kind of flattening out a little bit. It doesn't mean it's an ultimate decline to come. But it just sort of has this lag impact or kind of just going on its own rhythms. Yeah. It's hard to believe, though, that Apple hitting a new high this week is going to mean that, for instance, a stock like AMD, which is up $20. 25% this week is going to start slowing down at this point. But in terms of that, you know, there's no AI, a lot of analysts think there's no AI built into Apple. And Wed Bush's Dan Nives saying, you know, during the earnings release, $75 to $100 of premium could be added per share of Apple

if there were AI premium in there. And it just hasn't participated in it. It is true. I mean, I guess I could see where you say there's no AI identifiably in there, like in the earnings estimates. I do think that valuation fully builds in this idea that Apple will figure something out or that the phone is going to continue to be the conduit for whatever AI becomes on the consumer side. So I guess you could play it both ways. It's no longer the cheap, cheap stock it used to be. Right. Turning to another big cap seeing a turnaround, Tesla posting its best week since mid-April. The company is saying it's sold nearly 80,000 vehicles from its Shanghai plant in April. That's up 36% year-over-year. The stock is still down 5% in 2026 below its 52-week high of nearly $500 hit in late December.

So far off there. But, you know, with SpaceX ramping up its cap-ex plans of this tariffab, you know, Tesla's a beneficiary here too. It is. And again, it had been kind of a laggard, right? I mean, this is a stock that also has its massive streaks and runs higher and always has heavy kind of speculative activity behind it. But it did seem to sort of firm up and kind of quietly while nobody was. looking. That's right. And everybody thought it was going to be a net loser when people anticipated

SpaceX and maneuvering for that. So, you know, I do think that you have to pay attention when it starts to get a bid like this. Yeah. Well, let's ask if the Tesla move here is a real breakout at this point or could become one. Joining us now is Katie Stockton, founder and managing partner at Fairlead Strategies, a CNBC contributor as well. Katie, good to see you. So you've been watching closely here. What does this move tell you in Tesla? Well, we have been watching and waiting for it to do something. in the way of a positive catalyst. And finally, we do now have one on our charts. It's a great example of the cloud model, which people can access themselves. You'll see on the daily bar chart of Tesla that it now has a confirmed breakout above resistance from that cloud model. The cloud had previously

acted as support for more than a year, so it's definitely a relevant threshold. And whenever we see breakouts like this, especially in this environment, we do want to believe. them, they usually showed not only positive short-term momentum, but improved intermediate-term momentum. And indeed, if you look at the weekly chart of Tesla, not only did it actually hold cloud-based support there too as it came down, but now seems to be on the verge of its first intermediate-term momentum by signal or MACD-by-signal this year. So nice turnaround. Does it look like it's a path to $4.98, which is its previous high? You know, that's really the next and final resistance on the chart. It's around 490 because we have to go back to that 24 high,

which was tested unsuccessfully last year. But to us, that is the threshold that is really the proving ground for Tesla. If you zoom out, you'll see there's a big ascending triangle formation. And if that were to see a breakout, so new all-time highs for Tesla, that would be probably a secular bull indication. Katie, when you say that you want to trust a breakout like this, especially in this environment? What particularly is it about this environment that says you have to give the benefit of the doubt here? Well, we usually rely in breakouts as one of the most informational things that can happen on a chart. It means that the resistance is removed. So when we see breakouts, we believe them, especially if they're

confirmed, meaning you spend more than just a day there, but actually confirm it in time or price. And in this environment with the momentum, especially behind tech, the breakouts have been working really well. So we have already the proof point that investors are willing to buy stocks into strength. And of course, the semiconductor sector is probably the best example of that. But when you see the breakouts, they're generally seeing pretty immediate upside follow-through. Sometimes we'll see cell signals associated with them, and that might, you know, mitigate their implications. But in the case of Tesla, for one, because it's more of a turnaround, we don't have any of those signs of upside exhaustion. You're seeing some trouble in the church,

though, for alphabet, Katie? You know, I would say some indications that it's tiring out, the demarc indicators flashed a minor countertrend signal yesterday. And so that has us paying attention. In general, with alphabet or anything that has broken out to new highs, we don't advocate counter trend trading that. But if somebody were to be interested in adding exposure to the stock, when you see these signals and you see also there's been a series of gaps higher and it's looking a bit overstretched, usually it's wise to just wait for that initial pullback or consolidation phase to allow alphabet and others like it to digest their gain. So with support levels now a little uncomfortably far below, just in general, I think it's probably wise to wait if you don't already

have that exposure. All right. Yeah, don't be surprised, I guess, once that pullback might come. Katie, thank you. Katie, stop. Of course. Honeywell-backed Quantum Computing Company, Quantum, or is it, Quantinuum, excuse me, announced its public offering in an S-1 that was just released. The company says it'll list on the NASDAQ, QNT, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley, were the lead banks on the deal. It joins other quantum companies that have gone public, including IONQ, D-Wave, Raghetti, and Quantum. computing some of those companies, I think, SPACs and some of them are renamed from other businesses.

So it's a pretty kinetic little subsector. Another record day on Wall Street closing highs for the S&P 500 and the NASAC. It's first closed about 26,000. So how are investors feeling about these records near the top or room to run? That is next on overtime. A powerhouse lineup of stock setting all-time highs today. We already mentioned Google, Apple, Nvidia, and Micron on the list. Also, microchip technology, Corning, F5, and Dell.

Dell actually getting a boost, and President Trump suggested that people go out and buy Dell computers to support the domestic industry. So as these stocks hit highs and lead indices to records, too, are investors feeling tap out or are they riding the rally? So what are you charting here? Positioning, right? That's always the question. When we're at the lows in March, it seemed like a lot of folks were very defensively positioned. That's always the way it is at the low of a correction. Here is Bank of America's wealth management clients.

their equity exposure in aggregate. It's pretty helpful. It goes back more than 20 years. Pretty high on the list, right, on the chart. 65% or so right now, equity exposure, percentage of assets under management. 66% is the recent high. That was from late 2021. That was kind of the end of that real aggressive tech run post-pandemic or during the pandemic.

So it's one of those things where it doesn't say the market's got to go down from here. There's nobody left to buy. The market itself has gotten the exposure up here. But it just means there's no real reason for, wealthy investors to kind of rebalance into stocks, if anything, there's going to be a headwind. Take a look at this measure from the NAAIM. This is a group of active investment managers, basically tactical professional investors. And this exposure for equities is up above 90%. And again, upper end of the range, it can go above 100%. These are market timers who take on leverage

sometimes. And historically, it doesn't really mean it's a sell signal up here, but once again, it says a lot of people are fully exposed. We don't necessarily have that many eager buyers who have a need to get in. Right. They're already gotten there. I would love to know how much is hedged. Yeah. Because volatility being so, I mean, we were just talking the other day, I think,

about how during this whole conflict, the VIX never went above, what, 38 or so. Yeah, it's true. So, I mean, you can really hedge and belong here. You can. And arguably, even those hedges would probably have, I wouldn't say they've all rolled off, but a lot of them are shorter term. Right. And so this would be a net number.

So I do still think that people are exposed right here, even though it's not at extreme extremes based on history. Time now for a CNBC News update. Let's get to Brandon Gomez. Brandon. Hey, Melissa, that's right. The Trump administration is nearing an agreement with TikTok to resolve an ongoing lawsuit

over alleged child privacy violations. Now, as part of that deal, sources familiar with the discussions told ABC News that the social media company will pay $400 million, which will be used for the administration, beautification projects in Washington, D.C., and that a board vote to finalize the agreement could happen as soon as today. Meantime, two people in New Jersey are being monitored for possible hanta virus infections. They were not passengers on the cruise ship that was hit with the

deadly outbreak of the disease, but they may have been exposed to an infected passenger on a flight. Currently, none of the nine people in the U.S. who are being monitored for the virus are showing signs of illness. And in the fitness world, Woop announced several new features for its popular fitness wearable, including on-demand access to licensed clinicians for users in the U.S. Many of the new features will be included in its membership fee, but the live video consultations will cost extra. The company says more details on pricing will be announced when the features launch later this summer.

Melissa, that'll be an interesting one to follow. Maybe a disruptor to some of these telehealth companies. Yep. Brandon, thanks. Brandon Gomez. Shares a cloud flare down big today. The company says it is cutting 1,100 jobs blaming its increased usage of AI. But up next, we'll talk to some of the first.

who says AI will be a job creator in the long run. You're watching Closing Bell Overtime. Welcome back to Closing Bell Overtime, live from the NASDAQ market site. Another day, another record for the S&P in NASDAQ today. The NASDAQ closing out the week with gains of more than 4%. That's at six straight winning week. Same streak for the S&P 500. Semis in memory, the standouts once again, Micron, up 15%. It's now got a market cap of $800 billion. Qualcomm also a big gainer, but still not back to its record from June 2024. KLA, also a gainer, announcing a 10-for-1 split as it approaches $2,000 a share. And Broadcom closing above the $2 billion market cap level.

Energy meantime is a laggard with nearly every stock in the S&P 500 energy sector with losses this week. This as crude falls to $95 a barrel. Well, April's employment report came in well above expectations, adding 115,000 non-farm payroll jobs, while growth was driven higher by sectors like health care, transportation, retail, and information services. But companies like Block, Snap, and Meta continue to announce layoffs with some citing AI as a factor. So what's the real state of the jobs market? Joining us now is Apollo Global Management, Chief economist, Torsten Slok. Torsten, it's good to see you.

You know, we've had technology employment, and this chart was making the rounds today, as a percentage of total employment is pretty much at a multi-decade low and at least give some ammunition to those who say maybe AI is going to displace jobs like that. What's your view on how that's going to? going to play out. Yeah, this is very important, Mike, and this is a very critical debate because it is likely true, especially in software, that we will see some displacement, because there's a number of things, the number of tasks that can be done by Claude, by ChatGBTBT, T, that will replace workers to some degree in the technology sector. But the key issue here is that when tasks become cheaper, the demand for those tasks start to grow. And that is the infamous Jevon's paradox that gets so much

attention at the moment in that when the price or something goes down, you should expect to see demand go up. So that's why in aggregate, it is quite telling that the headline number for non-farm payrolls was, of course, quite strong. And while yes, there are some issues in IT and technology in particular, basically the rest of the economy is beginning to see the gains coming across because of AI being such a revolutionary technology. How long does it take for Javins to take a fact, Torsten. I'm just wondering what that sort of handoff period is like and how much pain the economy could feel during that period. That's of course a good question, Melissa, because it could be that it potentially could take some time. But we should really simply think of this as tasks can be replaced

by AI, but jobs cannot be replaced by AI. We all have tasks that we do in our jobs where we basically see some parts of this, well, this could be done maybe more efficiently. But the overall picture of what is a job, or that consists of 10, 20 different tasks, it's going to be very difficult to replace all jobs because there are not many jobs in the US economy today that only consists of one task. They were already automated a long time ago. So that's why the answer to your question is now that AI is getting implemented,

we will begin to see over the next several quarters more and more evidence that this is going to indeed make workers more effective, certainly in particular, of course, in the technology sector, but also across the board elsewhere, we should begin to see more signs of productivity going up, and ultimately, we should also begin to see job growth go up. The prime example of this is radiologists. Ten years ago, it was predicted that scanning of x-rays

would be very, very simple, and radiologists were no longer needed. But today, the average wage for radiologists is $500,000 a year, and we have a continuous increase in the number of radiologists. So employment also continues to go up. So the simple conclusion is, when the price of something goes down, demand starts to go up, and AI is the prime example of that, of course, at the moment. Torsten, on one level, it's almost as if companies are going to be spending $700 billion this year, trillion dollars next year, and it's not going to displace large amounts of jobs,

or at least have some radical effects on how we consume things and produce things in this economy. Kind of what's the point? We had a guess. Ben writes, he likes to talk about how the total addressable market for AI is labor, right? I mean, obviously that's an exaggeration, but I do wonder what it means for this level of investment if it's not quickly going to displace workers. Yeah, this is true. And that's also why, Mike, today the employment report is quite interesting because, again,

it was pretty good. It was really a Goldilocks report. We had strong employment, not too hot, not too cold. And at the same time, we had wage inflation that was starting to moderate a bit more, also not too hot, not too cold. So in aggregate, what's really interesting about your question is that we would all expect that when AI ultimately is implemented, that it is disinflationary. It makes things cheaper.

It makes us more productive. But the process of getting there requires that we hire people to implement AI. So we're likely going to see initially an increase in growth in employment and therefore likely also to going to see an increase in even growth in inflation before we ultimately begin to get the grains ultimately of AI. So to Melissa's question, the path that we should be expecting is higher job growth and higher inflation in the next several quarters. And then once it becomes implemented,

and we no longer need all the workers and the efficiency gains begin to show up, we may begin to see some leveling out of employment. But initially, all the people that are getting hired to implement AI at the moment is good for employment. And I do think that on top of that, business creation because of AI is also going to be good for employment. So overall, it really is a true revolutionary technology that both will help productivity and, in my view, also ultimately will help employment. You know, it's funny, Torsan, you mentioned the example of the radiologist, and I immediately thought, I've had a lot of, not a lot.

Some of the radiologist's tasks could actually be helped or maybe displaced by AI, just the preliminary reading of a scan, and then it gets to the doctor's level to actually say, okay, that was the right interpretation of the scan. I mean, I don't know. If a person has 20 tasks and AI can take care of 10 tasks, and I can take on another 10 tasks that another person, that's fear people ultimately still. Well, if, by the radiologist's example, if we do have that, it simply becomes cheaper and more efficient and easier and faster to read a scan,

well, then the doctor has time to service even more people who can get a scan. So that's why more people are getting a scan, of course, than ever before in the US, because we now have the availability, we have the time, we have the efficiency gains. So the price of reading a scan has gone down, and as a result, the demand for scan has gone up. So it's not about only looking up your current set of customers

from an AI perspective, but once you have implemented AI, once you make your business processes more efficient, you will begin to see, well, maybe I should also open a call center. Maybe I should also, as a business, begin to think about some of these technologies that can then enhance and expand my business

and therefore ultimately also be something that could increase employment further. So that's why the pie is simply growing. And when the pie is growing, you should also ultimately see more demand and therefore more scans and therefore more employment and more jobs. Very interesting conversation. Torason, thank you. Torsten, thank you. Thank you.

We've got a news alert on Nvidia, the world's most valuable company announcing it is expanding its board of directors, adding Suzanne Nora Johnson. She is the former chairwoman of Intuit, and she spent more than two decades at Goldman Sachs. Her appointment will be effective July 13th. Well, Bitcoin has been bouncing back up 12% over the last month. Up next, we'll discuss whether investors should believe in this crypto comeback. And as we had to break, here's a check on some notable S&P 500 stocks setting 52-week lows, McDonald's, tractor supply, progressive, Abbott Labs, and Medtronic.

Closing bell overtime. Be right back. Welcome back to overtime. Bitcoin back above 80,000, up nearly 12% in the past month and over 20% since the Iran war began. Outpacing the NASAC 100, JPMorgan, pointing out in a note this week, Spot Bitcoin ETFs has seen three straight months of inflows, something that hasn't happened since last summer. So is Bitcoin starting to make a real comeback? Joining us now is Cosmo Jang. He is the general partner at Digital Asset Focused Investment

firm, Penterra Capital. Cosmo, great to have you. Hey, Melissa. Glad to be back. Do you think we go back to past highs? Do you think we see 120 again? Well, look, we've been investing in blockchain for a long time and had the privilege on behalf of our other investors. And I would say that, you know, we just went through what was a pretty severe bare market. You know, we are now coming, it looks like we're now coming out of that, coming out of that quote unquote crypto winter into hopefully what is a crypto spring. Observation is that everyone's looking around the market and they're seeing like AI is overbought,

memory was overbought in some of your earlier segments. Well, the reality is a lot of things in the market look overbought, but at the same time, blockchain actually looks oversold. And so a lot of the rally is just us coming back from that very oversold level. I think very importantly, it can keep going because the long-term trend has been so strong. And most importantly, because price is really only now starting to catch up the fundamentals. You mentioned fundamentals. I mean, I'm always interested to hear what you place in that category of actual drivers, of genuine activity that might represent, you know, an indication that value can go higher. Absolutely. I'd say what's been really exciting is that we saw two clear signs of product market fit last year in digital assets. They were, one, stable coins taking the world by storm. And then two, prediction markets. Now we're really seeing tokenization, which is the next stage of stable points, really start to take off. I was just at Milken early this week. And I could not go to any conversation. Invariably would always end with talking about tokenization and how every single large financial institution is talking about that. And then, of course, I'd be

remiss to not talk about the fact that AI and crypto are really starting to intersect, especially as people think about energetic finance future. We just believe that this intersection of AI and blockchain is being completely overlooked in something we're really excited to invest behind. How much you, I mean, you mentioned memory potentially being oversull, but how much do you look at the different pockets of the market, the hot pockets, and think, you know what, that looks more attractive. Or consumers, investors probably think that is more attractive than Bitcoin.

and so therefore it's going to be harder for Bitcoin to actually mount that run to past highs. I mean, we cited, you know, Bitcoin outperforming the NASDAQ 100 over the, you know, since the conflict. But if you take a look at Bitcoin versus memory, that's not the case. Memory is certainly outperformed. Semiconductors have certainly outperformed. How much competition is there for assets at this point? There's definitely some level of rotation that we saw. And that explains some of the pullback that Bitcoin saw through the end of last year and then to the beginning of this year.

I think, you know, price cures price in a lot of cases, especially with momentum investors, of which we're clearly seeing a lot of momentum in the hot pockets. And I believe that once we start to see some of that rotation happen, which we are starting to see with Bitcoin really, you know, performing quite strong, I believe you'll start to get some of that momentum back. And people will remember again that digital assets are an asset class because it's so early stage has tremendous growth potential, especially from oversold levels. Cosmon, great to speak with you. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Wendy's managing to beat Wall Street's earnings estimates despite soaring beef costs. Up next, a closer look at how rising commodity prices are impacting the bottom line in the restaurant industry. Closing Bell Overtime live from the NASDAQ market side. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Overtime. It's been a big week for restaurant earnings, and we're learning a lot about which stocks are the winners and losers when it comes to dealing with rising beef and other commodity costs. Brandon Gomez has those details. Hey, Brandon. Hey, Mike. Yeah, big takeaway this week. Restaurants aren't just competing on food anymore. It's value, traffic, and who can handle higher beef costs. And you really saw that divide showing up in earnings. Today, Wendy's talking

about a more conscious lower-income consumer in the U.S. and higher beef prices. International strength, though, pulling no shares higher. Texas Roadhouse, a slightly different story. Solid traffic showing people are still willing to dine out. But an executive on the call saying within the beef category, there's been some shift to lower cost cuts. Now, it's actually rare good news for the restaurant chain, which can now decrease expectations for its cost of beef. Compare that to yesterday, Shake Shack missed expectations, citing softer traffic, also rising beef costs.

The stock got hammered. McDonald's meantime, a more stable quarter with value offerings helping hold traffic. So the story, this earning season, really isn't what consumers are spending, but that higher food costs are really separating the winners from the losers by their business strategy here. Brandon, I mean, it's interesting in the Texas Roadhouse example. I mean, it would seem as if that's not really controlling cost. It's kind of showing that customers are willing to do the switching for you. And therefore, they're kind of going there for something beyond, you know, just, you know, the same steak they've always ordered. Yeah, look, I think that's a unique case, right? They're still going. They're just trading down. You might talk about that trading down behavior between two different types of brands, say a shake shack to a McDonald's, which perhaps consumers view as a more valued deal. And so that's the conversation we have to start having is how we're consumers behaving right now in this moment? And is this going to be continuing for long term? A lot of companies saying, we're going to have to wait and see how it plays out. You're hearing that

even in the reaffirmed guidance calls. You know, from the Texas Roadhouse conference call, there was an interesting comment. I thought this was probably the most decisive forecast on commodity prices that I've heard from restaurants, but you would know better, Brandon. They said that they expect commodity prices inflation to peak in the second quarter and that to tail off in the second half of the year. Is that something we heard from other restaurant stocks as well? Yeah, we have heard that inflation this year, while it has been bad, has not been as bad as it has been in previous years, and that the expectation is that we will see this turnaround. Now, look, when you start to cover and you start to talk to the farmers who are really turning the cattle and they're starting to turn the land,

I mean, that's a different story than perhaps what they're saying. They're saying that we're going to see this long-term impact because the decisions that they're making now are going to impact food inflation prices further down the line. So perhaps maybe getting some of those corporate executives and some of the people who are actually putting those products into market together in a room might influence some of that commentary. All right. Brandon, thanks. Brandon Gomez.

Let's get you set up with next week's trade. The earnings keep on coming with Circle, Internet, Mosaic, Simon Property, and Hems and hers, health kicking things off on Monday. Under Armour is a big name on Tuesday. Wednesday brings Cisco, Alibaba, and Stubhub, and Applied Materials in Clorna are the names to watch on Thursday. And while it'll be a little light on the economic front next week, investors will want to see the April Consumer Price Index, which is on Tuesday, as well as the April producer price index on

Wednesday. We'll also get weekly jobless claims in import prices on Thursday. So tail end to the earnings, but still a couple of interesting ones. Alibaba should be interesting in terms of the commentary on the ground in China. And then also Circle, I think, in the Internet. Yeah, Circle, no doubt about it. We have actually had a little bit of a comeback there. Obviously, the legislation around crypto is big on that front. And then the macro, today's jobs number, I think kind of reassuring on the top line, didn't really disturb the market, especially the bond market, because we'd already priced away any idea of a Fed rate cut. And also, I think people were saying it was kind of soft enough below the surface that you didn't have to be concerned.

Next week, you'll get a test of whether we've already pre-panicked about inflation, because we're going to start to see it in some of those numbers. CPI and PPI. And of course, the summit in China between President Trump and President Xi expect a lot of deals to be announced. Boeing CEO is going accompany President Trump there. Jane Frazier, I think, is going to there as well. So there could be a lot of news from there. There's no doubt it's going to be going to be headline oriented. We're going to get plenty of that. Happy Mother's Day to you. Thank you. And that's going to do it for overtime.