Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: Earnings Explosion: Dell, Affirm & Retail Results; Developing Crisis at CDC? 8/28/25

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Kestra Investment Management CIO Kara Murphy and G Squared’s Victoria Greene lead market analysis as earnings season roll on with major results from Dell, Affirm, Ulta, and Autodesk. Telsey Advisory Group CEO Dana Telsey breaks down retail earnings including Gap and Ulta's performance in the challenging consumer landscape. Bob Keiser, Co-CIO and Senior Market Strategist at Aspire Strategic Portfolios, weighs in on market direction while Fast Money's Dan Nathan provides his first look at key movers. Angelica Peebles reports on breaking CDC crisis news as White House fires new CDC Director Susan Monarez amid standoff with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Piper Sandler Chief Market Technician Craig Johnson closes with technical analysis and charts for the week ahead, including a bull case for small caps. 

That bell marks the end of regulation. Why Texas ringing the closing bell to New York Stock Exchange? Array technology is doing the honors at the NASDAQ, and it is another record day on Wall Street. Major averages all close at new highs, and it was a rare day this week where small caps underperform. Communication services driving the rally today, Trade Desk and Alphabet to the big winners,

Alphabet continuing its huge week to close in uncharted territory, and investors digesting a mixed bag of retail earnings, Burlington stores and five below, higher on earnings beats, Bath and Body Works, Urban Outfitters, and Best Buy, all under pressure after their reports. And that's the scorecard on Wall Street, but winners stay late. Welcome to closing about overtime. I'm John Ford.

Morgan Brennan is off today. Ahead on overtime, we've got more retail and tech earnings as we get set to break down numbers from GAAP, ALTA, Dell, Affirm, and Marvell technology. Plus, we'll get the trade on software stocks, which have been surging this week after underperforming the overall tech sector this year. But let's get to Christina Parks and Nevels now at the NASDAQ with a closer look at some of the themes driving today's rally.

Christina. I would say Nvidia earnings didn't deliver fireworks, but with stocks at all-time highs, no major sell-up is basically a win. Tech showed impressive breathdrow. 70% of the S&P information technology stocks actually closed higher compared to just 40% for the broader index. We're seeing some of that concentration again. Cloud names led the charge snowflakes surging on better than expected earnings of closing, what, almost, or 20%? 20% higher. MongoDB also rallied 7.5% after posting its best day on record yesterday on an improved earnings outlook. Software infrastructure, like you talked about, John, is just making a comeback. And then Nvidia barely closed in the red, but the stock's still up 45% over six months. Very impressive. The semiconductor SMH ETF closed higher, driven by Micron. Micron did close, what, 3.5%. There was improved PC market comments coming from HPQ. and then reports saying that it could steal mobile share from Samsung coming specifically from

Digitimes in Asia. And then you've got Broadcom jumping about 3% after Oppenheimer raised its price target ahead of earnings next week. And lastly, you've got Corleave climbing after management said in a Deutsche Bank conference, they've signed expansion contracts with both hyperscalor customers over the past eight weeks. I wanted to mention that because that is why you're seeing the stock close 6% higher today and it didn't really get any airtime today. All right, Christina, thank you, and mentioned earnings auto desk has crossed.

We are going through it. Stocks popping more than 7% at the moment, so keeping our eye on that. Also, a little correction here. The NASDAG dipped at the close just enough to not be at a record. All right, enough about stocks for now. Let's get to the bond market where longer-term yields are falling today. Rick Santelli is at the CME in Chicago. Hey, Rick.

Yeah, John, a very unusual day. Let's start out at the top. The data this morning, well, solid GDP. We had a couple of tens stronger look at the second quarter than our first look. Consumption was solid. Initial jobless claims at 229,000, we have not been above 250,000 in 10 months. That's a four-year chart. You know what I call that?

Well-behaved. Now, if you look at twos and tens together, something strange happened right after the 830 Eastern data. Wow, the tens went in one direction and the twos went in another direction. We took out almost six basis points of the recent steepening in twos to tens. Just consider, we touch 60 today, 60 base points separating twos and tens. We touched 60 yesterday. We touched 60 today before. This time, traders use it to reverse some of the steepening we've seen on a variety of curves

in front of the holiday weekend coming up after the big numbers tomorrow at 830, some of the Fed's favorites. Let's look at that two-year. Yesterday, that two-year closed at a four-month high, but its yields moved higher today. If you look at the 10-year, it's on pace for a three-week low yield close today, as John pointed out. Twos and threes yields basically been subtly higher all session, where the rest of the curve just keeps moving lower, lower and lower. I do think much of this is reversing some of the recent activity. We'll see a lot of action at 8.30 tomorrow, but many traders are preparing to control their risk. in front of the three-day holiday weekend. John, back to you. Looking forward to that. Rick,

what do you know about well-behaved? I appreciate it. Rick Santell. Not very much. Well, Autodesk earnings are out. As I mentioned, Julia Borsden's ready with the numbers. Julia. Hey, John, Autodesk meeting on the top and bottom line with a particularly large beat in terms of EPS that sent the stock higher by nearly 10 percent, reporting $2.62 an adjusted earnings per share versus an estimate of $2.45. Revenues of $1.76 billion coming in far ahead of estimates, just ahead of estimates of $1.73 billion, non-gap operating margin, 39% ahead of estimates. Also want to point out here that the company is raising its full year guidance, saying that the macroeconomic assumptions are unchanged, but they are now reflecting the underlying

strength of the business in the first half of the year and an additional foreign exchange tailwinds. The company now guiding to Q3, a job, adjusted EBS of 248 to 251 ahead of estimates of 239, guiding to Q3 revenue of $1.8 to $1.81 billion ahead of estimates of $1.77. Also revenues guiding to a range for the full year ahead of estimates. They do say that the government investigations have closed, so that might be another factor now driving the stock up 11 plus percent. Back over to you. That is a lot of relatively good news, Julia Borson. Thank you. for Autodesk. For more on this record market day now, let's bring in Kestra Investment Managing

Chief Investment Officer, Kara Murphy, and G-square Private Wealth, Chief Investment Officer and CNBC contributor, Victoria Green. Welcome to both of you. Let's see. Where should we start? Kara, in Everything Rally, is a fair description of what we've had so far. How long can it continue? That's a good question. And we've been able to sort of consume and digest and move beyond. a lot of negative information over the last couple of months. You know, it's hard to remember just a few short months ago. We were essentially in the middle of a bare market. Since then, stocks have incredibly rallied,

and we've seen a fairly wide dispersion in types of names that have been able to rally on that news. Now, much of the earnings and much of the strength has remained concentrated within this, you know, mega-cap growth story, but we've seen other names be able to follow through, such that things like the advanced decline line is at highs that we've seen over the last couple of years,

And really what we're seeing is this incredible resilience in both earnings and the broader economy. And as long as that can continue, then I think the market can continue. But as soon as we start to see chinks in that armor of earnings power of individual companies, then I think people will start to call his rally into question. Well, let's take a break here for Dell's results. At first popped and now it's falling down about 3%. Christina Parts of Nevelas has the numbers. Christina.

Yeah, Dell did beat Q3 expectations with $2.32 earnings per share on revenue. of 29.8 billion, both above estimates. However, the company saw weakness in its PC segment, which really represents at least 50% of its exposure. As well, there was also some weakness in storage. The bright spot, though, was AI servers. Dell's COO noted in the release, they've, quote, shipped $10 billion of AI solutions

in the first half of fiscal 2026, surpassing all shipments in fiscal 2025, with demand remaining, quote, exceptional. The company did raise its AI server guidance to $20 billion for fiscal 2026. But despite that, the outlook, you had a week Q3, Dell issued, week Q3, but they did issue strong full year EPS guidance,

signaling a lot of strength in the fourth quarter. And this really reflects seasonal patterns for Dell in their storage business, which typically performs well at year end, plus Dell's IP intellectual property portfolio, also driving higher margins. So it's a little bit of a mixture bag, but AI is doing a lot better.

And you see the shares are turning around. Yeah, I mean, they're turning around and around and around, up and down. It's a lot of one. People don't know. Well, what do they prefer? The PC market or the AI server comments? Well, yeah, and people, of course, placed their bets ahead of time. So lots of tugging in either direction. Victoria Green, what do you make of the not only Nvidia earnings that we had last night,

but then potential software turnaround? We saw some pretty strong results out of Autodesk just now, guidance as well. That's one that had been a little bit mired in some other operational issues that seem to be clearing up. And then there are a number of other names in the software space that have popped lately after a difficult start to the year. Yeah, we've lacked the software space beyond Palantir because Hugh hasn't liked them, right? They've been the leadership in that space. It's great to see these other names participate, yet anything from Snow to Autodesk. And we're seeing now that people need to implement AI.

And that should be a nice tailwind to all of these software. because suddenly they're going to be the ones potentially picking up more, picking up more add-ons, maybe sharing some more modules across their enterprise base and selling a little bit more. So we are bullish on the software sector. We like to see it expand beyond Palantir because some of these guys have really been lagging relative to their peers in the AI trade. We think chips still have a place, but software is going to be kind of the next stage as you look to implement that you have your infrastructure.

You still have plenty of legs, in my opinion, on the AI infrastructure play, but maybe also be looking at software because that's the next stage and actually implementing it and selling it across enterprises. So we're bullish on that. We love the broadening out. You know, Autodesk should have been up because, you know, we know construction is huge with all of this AI spending, data centers, all of this build out. We are extremely pleased that they did as well and guide as well as they did, and they should be following the construction trend. So that one was part for the course. Dell's a bit of a surprise. We were hoping the PC market didn't bite it the way it did. We were were hoping for stability in that sector, maybe a little growth. And I guess that was a bit

too rosy of an expectation. But they're a huge beneficiary of Navidio. And Navidia to me, if you listen to the commentary from the CEO, you know, the Blackwell system is going to continue to sell as many as they can produce, maybe some regulatory risk, but they should be able to sell now in China. And their expectations included zero China revenue. So for those saying, well, Navidio beat a bar and their guidance and their raise was right where it should be, I think they left themselves room to beat in the second half of the year. Okay. Marvell looks to be out. We're

going through that one. It was down 7%. But Alta Beauty is ready right now. Melissa Repco has those numbers for us. Melissa? Hey, John. So shares of Alta are rising after it raised its full year outlook for both sales and for earnings. It reported revenue of $2.79 billion

compared to Wall Street's expectations of $2.67 billion. And on the earnings side, it reported earnings per share of $5. 78 cents. It's not clear yet if that is comparable, John. But same store sales were up 6.7% and that was more than double the street was expecting. It's also worth noting here that Ulta is a stock that investors have been paying attention to and liking because it doesn't have as much tariff exposure. Last quarter, they spoke about how only 1% of their merchandise they sold last year was directly imported. So that's an interesting detail to note, John,

and it makes them stand out from other retailers. Melissa, thank you. Let's find out what's going on with Marvell technology. Those stocks under pressure. Christina Parts and Nevelas, how do the earnings numbers look? It has to do with the revenue line. So earnings per share came in at 67 cents adjusted, which was a one cent beat compared to estimates. And this is a company that makes custom chips primarily. The revenues for the quarter came in line with estimates, but it's the Q3 revenue guide at 2.06 billing, which was slightly less than what street analysts wanted. We have to keep in mind, too, that the company did post a sale of their auto-eternet business that actually just closed in the quarters, so it doesn't necessarily mean a clean guide. And there has been some worry about share loss with Amazon, one of their

customers, too. But you can see shares dropping dramatically 8%, most likely on that Q3 revenue guide that was weaker. All right, you can hear more about that. Christina Parts-Nevelis, thank you. Kara, Murphy, back to you. We don't have any more earnings lined up in ready, do we? Can we go back to Kara Murphy? I can't. All right, Kara, speaking of broadening out, we were talking about that earlier, industrials. How did those look for you after the earnings season we've had so far? I think it was very interesting to see those earnings coming through after the second quarter.

You know, there's been so much focus on, you know, AI earnings generation. But this was really the first quarter where we started to see industrial companies talk about higher demand, backlogs, many of which is related to kind of AI. but it's starting to see those impacts move out beyond the companies that are sort of directly impacted to others that support the infrastructure around AI. And I think over the next couple of quarters, again, to this theme of being able to continue to support this rally, we have to see this AI productivity miracle start to show up in other sectors of the economy and ultimately to companies bottom line. All right. Thank you for that. Well, looking at a firm, it looks like it has just crossed. We are going through those numbers. This is not moving too much yet, but Victoria, I wonder what you think about the consumer right here and talks to some stretch credit.

And there have been a bunch of people who have equated buy now, pay later with irresponsibility. I wonder if, in fact, as the thesis of these companies, these buy now pay later companies, argues that they might have some better math and some better technology for figuring out creditworthiness, are we going to get more. detail and insight into whether that's the case from these reports? I think so. I think there is a stigma of buy now, pay later. But this is much different than like paunting your ring to pay a bill, right? This is basically a different type of credit card. So obviously people never like change in competition. So you're established your visas, your mask cards, your Amexes are saying, oh, this is terrible. People shouldn't be using this to buy thing. How is that different than putting it on your visa? And so I look at this and I love

a firm strategy. I'll be interested to look under the hood, see what happened here, how shares aren't reacting. Expectations were high. They were expected to slow growth a little bit year over year, but they had their new Affirm card. You know, maybe it's the Walmart tag. But, you know, they have their other strong partnerships. They're now in Google wallet, Apple Pay. You know, they make it very easy now to utilize their platform. And so maybe I'll have to see how they missed. Was it gross merchandise value a little bit low? You know, it'll be extremely interesting. But the consumer itself does seem healthy. I mean, look at Ulta. We've had some strong retail resorts. You had Dick's sporting goods this morning. People are still spending on sports. People are

still spending on makeup, they're just being pickier about how they spend. And so I think that's hurt some retailers and helped others. And so this is no longer a rising tide lifting all retail boats. It's you have to have a product somebody wants to buy. You have to have an offering. People want to come visit. They go to T.J. Max now instead of Target. You know, and so for Alto, they picked up while Estee Lauder lost a little bit. And that's been part for the course across this earning season. Yeah, between Dix and Alto, the consumer's healthy and pretty. Victoria, Kara, thanks to you both. Well, a firm earnings. As I mentioned, are out. Let's figure out what's going on with these numbers.

Mackenzie Sagalos has them. McKenzie. Hey there, John. So a firm share is down about 1% in after hours trading, despite beating on both the top and bottom line. You've got EPS coming in at 20 cents. The street was looking for 11 cents. Revenue at $876 million, up 33% from a year earlier. The street consensus was $837 million. We're also seeing a beat on GMV for the quarter. That's a key metric looking at the total value of transit. actions coming in at 10.4 billion versus the 9.61 billion expected. What might be weighing down on sentiment a little bit here, although I'm seeing shares reverse course to the upside of 2%.

We're looking at an implied revenue guide of 3.86 billion, which is roughly in line with estimates. But I'll keep going through this and we've got the call starting in about 40 minutes, John. Indeed. Another one that's moving a lot. Mack, thank you. Now gap earnings are out. Courtney Reagan has those numbers. Court? Hi, John. Yeah. So gap earnings. are out and it does look like shares are moving all over the place here. So for the quarter, gap putting up an earnings beat of 57 cents. The street was looking for 55 cents. So that's a beat. Revenue's missing slightly at 3.7.3 billion. The street was looking for 3.74 billion. Comparable sales, they did grow 1%, but that is about half of what the street was looking for.

If you break down by brand, Banana Republic very strong, much more than expected at 4%. The street was looking for that to be flat. Athleta is down 9%. Now, it's their small. business. And there is weaker than expected gross margin at 41.2%. The street was looking for 41.9%. Looking at the full year outlook, the company is reaffirming its full year net sales growth outlook. And then they're giving us some details about operating income and sort of the hit that tariffs will have there. And I think it's worth explaining that I spoke with CFO, Katrina O'Connell. And she said that the new operating income guidance does assume a 150 million to 175 million dollar negative tariff impact or basically what it's not able to mitigate. That is up from

May's assumption of $100 million to $150 million. And as a part of its mitigation strategy, Gap did bring in some inventory early, which she says is partly why you see that number up about 9% year over year. And I also spoke with Gap CEO Richard Dixon, who said that it is expanding its manufacturing in areas like Guatemala, Mexico, and Haiti again to help offer. set some of that tariff impact. And when it comes to pricing, Dixon said they're making targeted adjustments with pricing, as we always do, but also said that as our brands get more relevant, it is increasing our price elasticity. We're driving higher sell-throughs at full price. We do have less discounting as a result. So shares bouncing all around as we wait for more

color from the call for shares of the gap. John, back over to you. Yeah, it looks like mostly a drop here, Cord. Is your interpretation thus far? Of course, we have to listen to the call and to an interview coming up on CNBC that this reaction has to do with that tariff impact surprise, perhaps? I think so. And look, I think we all know. We know that it is a fluid situation, but we also know that earlier in the year, companies were having to make some assumptions when they were going out on a limb and putting out these guidance forecasts. And while China is still holding at 30 percent right now, and that was what was assumed in May for many of these retailers and what they're still assuming. when it comes to the rest of the world rate, that one is what's different.

For example, Victoria's Secret this morning said that one had been an assumed rate at 10% and now it's at 20%. And I think that's also what we're looking at here for the gap. It's sort of that outside China area that is a little bit higher than it was before. The good news, though, for Gap, like most other retailers, is a lot of it is being able to be mitigated, but of course, not all of it, which is why I think it was important to give you some of those detailed numbers from the CFO. Got it. Courtney, thank you. Speaking of, don't miss Jim Kramer's exclusive interview with GAAP CEO. That's coming up 6 p.m. Eastern on Mad Money. And we're going to have much more on GAP's results next with the top analyst. Elastic shares, meanwhile, popping higher after an earnings beat. We're going to hear from the CEO coming up as that's up 17.5%. Plus, with the S&P 500, closing at yet another record, we're going to break down which sectors could win big if this rally broadens out. Overtimes back in two.

Welcome back. Mind the Gap. Shares the retailer lower after an earnings beat, but revenue miss. Let's bring in Dana Telsey, CEO of Telsey Advisory Group. Dana, this seems like a dramatic reaction. This has to do with the revised tariff expectations. That's what it is due, too, because when you take a look at the earnings, as you mentioned, they came in a little bit better than the consensus numbers. You did see the store sales weakened down 1%. Online was stronger up 3%. But the weaker gross margin, with the merchandise margin impact. In the call, the discussion about tariffs

will be front and center, along with hearing about the momentum of each of the brands. The Banana Republic brand was the positive surprise while both Old Navy and Gap continued as expected. Now, it's $25 million worse, potentially,

than the downside that they had given initially. Now, to me, at home, that's a lot of money, but to a company the size of Gap, is it that significant? How should investors think about whether this reaction is a buying opportunity or no? I think you've got to hear the call, and you want to hear about, is the momentum of sales continuing,

what are they seeing in terms of the complexion of store sales and online? When you think of is that the buying opportunity, the big brands of Old Navy and Gap still got their same sales numbers, and they should be benefiting from the marketing initiatives that they put in place, the denim campaigns that seem to be working, and frankly, the ability for them, they're capturing more consumers. The resonance of Banana Republic is something that's new. We all know about Athleta's been weak. They just brought in new leadership for the Athleta Division. We'll have to see there.

But the tariff headwinds, it's been hitting every single company. Tariff impacts are greater than expected in the third quarter and for the year. And pricing remains to be seen how the consumer will respond. Well, Daniel, let me ask you about Alta Beauty. It's looking better than expected with raised guidance, I believe. what do you want to hear from the company about how much we can expect these effects to continue. I think Alta Beauty, the word for that quarter, it was a beautiful quarter. That's the synonym for Alta Beauty. The quarter basically beat on sales, beat on the fact

of traffic, beat on transactions, and raise the guidance. I think what you want to see is the reader crosses. Look what you've heard from others. Sephora was positive in the United States. I want to hear from Alta Beauty. Look at some of the new initiatives, whether it's buying space NK, expanding internationally. I want to hear about the category growth. And they said they gained market share. Each of the categories grew sets them up very well for holiday 2025.

All right, Dana Telsie, thank you. Thank you. Well, Newtonics under a lot of pressure on Wall Street today after annualized recurring revenue questions about the guidance. We're going to hear from the company's CEO answering some of those perhaps next. And later, fast money's Dan Nathan on how to trade Tesla,

Following a 40% plunge in European sales last month, Overtime, we'll be right back. Welcome back to Overtime Pure Storage, posting its best day ever after recognizing its first revenues from a meta-partnership earlier than expected. Overtime viewers heard that first here yesterday in a CNBC exclusive before the earnings call with the CEO. We started developing a business that's targeted very much

at the hypers. We actually received, we actually were able to recognize, our first revenue into a hyperscale environment just last quarter. And we believe that will continue to scale in the years ahead. And right now and over time, Elastic is up 18 and a half percent after results in guidance that beat consensus on the top and bottom lines. I spoke with CEO Ash Kalkarni about the quarter taking share and a guide that he described as prudent.

We beat what we had guided by about 18 million, and we raised more than that. We raised more than that for the full year. So it's a clear signal that we feel really good about the rest of the year. Now, a very interesting thing for us was this quarter, over a third of our security business came from deals where we displaced an incumbent vendor. And that's because people are trying to consolidate into fewer platforms in cybersecurity. And we are one of the very clear winners as we've taken this, you know,

security is a data problem approach, which people are now really coming around to. Elsewhere in enterprise software, Newtonic shares closed down five. percent today after reporting a beat in overtime yesterday. But some analysts were concerned that the recurring revenue growth seemed to slow in the guide. And I spoke with CEO Rajiv Ramoswami today. He said shifting deal sizes make the ARR numbers look slower, but the underlying demand and growth potential are steady. But the underlying business hasn't really changed. We added 2,700 customers. We continue to expect to add new customers this year at a good clip of the 2,700 customers that we added over the last year, more, you know,

more than 50 of them were global 2,000 customers. That means the biggest to the biggest. And with all those customers, we have a lot of headroom for future expansion. We'll get something to compare that to when we get broadcoms numbers as it owns competitor VMware. Well, it's time for a CNBC News Update with Kate Rogers. Kate. Hi, John.

A judge has set a hearing for tomorrow morning on Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook's request to keep President Trump from firing her. Earlier today, Cook sued the president challenging his attempt to fire her from the Board of Governors over mortgage fraud allegations. The Fed said it would abide by court rulings with the case likely to end up before the Supreme Court. The FAA says a grounding order for Newark Liberty International Airport has been lifted after equipment issues led to a grounding for flights into the New York Area Airport earlier today. The FAA said the issues interfered with some radio frequencies for air traffic controllers, and this, comes just ahead of the Labor Day weekend, one of the busiest travel periods of the year. And New York needs more millionaires in the tax base.

That's according to a report today from Watchdog Group, the Citizens Budget Commission, which says New York's number of millionaires is shrinking faster than states such as Florida, and that that is costing the state billions in tax revenue. John, back over to you. I wonder why that is. All right, Kate Rogers, thank you. Well, tech stocks have been significantly outperforming the broader market since the beginning of April. Up next, we'll look at whether tech is ready to take a backseat, perhaps, to some sectors that have underperformed, and later, a shake-up at the Centers for Disease Control, where one official who has just resigned is accusing the White House of weaponizing public health.

The latest details on this CDC crisis coming up. Welcome back to overtime stocks, closing in the green again with the S&P 500, closing at its 20th new high of the year. Let's get a quick check on some of the biggest overtime movers. Dell falling down 4% despite a beat across the board. Marvell lower by about 8.5% after reporting weaker than expected Q3 revenue guidance. Petco popping up 13% after raising its earnings outlook. Autodesk popping as well up 10 following a beat on the top and bottom lines. And Sentinel 1 is up almost 6%.

Those results are mixed bag. But we will speak exclusively with the CEO of Sentinel 1 right here on overtime tomorrow. Let's turn now to the broader markets. 61% of NYSC stocks are above their 200-day moving average. That's just about a year-to-date high, according to Goldman Sachs. So how should you be playing this rotation in your portfolio? Well, joining me now is Bob Kaiser, co-CIO and senior market strategist at Aspire. Bob, you say you can stick with large-cap core and growth here?

We have been bullish for two years. We've expressed that mostly through large-cap core exposure and also growth stocks as well. And the reason for that is that is where the earnings growth has been and continues to be. An interest rate cut won't change that? It'll definitely help the macro story. But a lot of, you know, the Fed funds rate, for instance, are predicting over an 80% chance of a September cut,

two cuts by the end of this year. So it's not going to move the macro needle that much, but it certainly helps. We've been talking for a couple of years about how much certain large technology stocks are just overrepresented, and they're waiting in the S&P 500. Is that just a new normal? Should we get used to it? Is big just fine? We've had to get used to it.

The top 10 stocks in the S&P are like 40% of the market cap. But technology and growth, the growth slice of the S&P 500, it's the only sector this year that's going to post four quarters of double-digit earnings growth on four quarters of double-digit last year. And next year we're looking for another year of four consecutive quarters, consensus expectations. So there is a fundamental reason why investors have embraced these stocks, and they're certainly being rewarded for it. As much as I love talking about tech, there is more to the market. So tell me about industrials and materials here and whether we should

be paying more attention. That's the interesting thing. If you look ahead to 2026, S&P, global market intelligence data, foreshadowing $300 a share, and we're going to see somewhat of a broadening out according to consensus expectations. Instead of double-digit, earnings growth being driven by just one or two sectors, technology, principally. We're also looking for double-digit earnings growth for the four quarters next year, from tech, of course, but also industrials, materials, and even the financials, if you exclude the second quarter of next year, according to expectations, they're also looking at the possibility of double-digit earnings growth.

So from a fundamental earnings perspective, there is reason to think of a broadening out, which I think we're going to need if the S&P is going to earn $300 a share, which is consensus expectations. Any particular areas within financials? No, we don't go the far. We invest our client's money, basically, growth versus value, core, and of course in the fixed income sleeves. If the consumer weakens, how much does it change your feelings about that? You know, it's an interesting time right now because the July employment report was so shockingly weak that to me, I'm kind of thinking maybe it's an anomaly. Maybe it's a response by hiring managers to the Independence Day tariff announcements. They were very big. They sent

the S&P down. Remember, 12% in just four trading days. That could have been a little bit of a shock that went through hiring managers' minds, waiting for the dust to settle. Hopefully a week from tomorrow when we get the August employment report, we're back, you know, above 100,000. But if we're into a period now of consistent weakness on payrolls, we will have to rethink a lot of our assumptions because we've been bullish for over two years, predominantly based on the strength of the U.S. labor market. The entire post-COVID expansion has been defined by very strong labor demand, exceptional non-farm payroll growth, tight labor markets, wages, which boost consumer confidence and household spending. So it's potentially a game changer, but we have

a week to wait yet to get to that point. Well, we're looking forward to it. Bob, thank you. Yep, Bob Kaiser. Well, software stocks staging a big comeback this week and making up ground. against semiconductor stocks. Up next, fast money's Dan Nathan on whether they're still time to buy beaten down software names. Plus, the Russell 2000 doubling the gains of the S&P 500 this week. We're going to break down the charts to see if the small caps will keep delivering big returns for investors that's coming up on overtime. In video lower today, after beating on the top and bottom lines, data center revenue came in below estimates for the second straight quarter. Is this a buying opportunity? Let's ask risk reversal advisors,

There's Dan Nathan, also a fast money trader and a CNBC contributor. Dan, what do you say? Hey, John, how are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me. Listen, you know, the reaction to Nvidia's earnings today probably was warranted. I mean, when you think about it, I believe the expectations were not particularly high, the way they have been over the last few quarters.

Over the last actually a couple years or so, we already got CAPEX expectations from their largest customers. They have large customer concentration, as you know. So the idea that they were going to come in and blow. out, you know, their numbers here, it just wasn't something that I was expecting and the fact that the stock closed unchanged. So your question is, is it a buy here? It really depends on what you think the course of KAPX is, what you think the adoption of AI is, what you think growth at the hyperscalers. Obviously, it's Amazon and it's Microsoft Azure and it's Google Cloud, that sort

of thing. And, you know, when I think about the market's expectations right here, I think they're probably getting a little bit excited or overexcited right now. So I don't think, think Nvidia is a buy here. I've thought that for a bit. The stock obviously has continued to go higher. One of the things that I'm actually kind of keying on as we exit earnings season right here is that, you know, Microsoft had that big beat and the stock actually closed very poorly after a huge gap and really has barely seen an uptick over the last couple of weeks. Palantir had a beat. The stock has not performed well since its earnings. Taiwan semi, which makes 85% of those high-end GPUs that are invidias hasn't really traded particularly well either since you're

So I think there's going to, well, what? You mentioned a couple of software names in there, so I got to ask about software. I don't know if you're dabbling at all in Autodesk or Elastic. Both of those are up big right now. What about those smaller software names? Can you buy them? Well, I'd be more, I don't know anything about this. I'd be more focused on, you know, a Salesforce that reports Wednesday after the close.

I mean, this is a stock that has not participated in the excitement in and around generative AI, despite the fact that the CEO, Mark Beniof, has been talking about agentic AI for a couple of years now. So when they report next Wednesday, I think it's going to be really interesting to see what they're talking about their own productivity, the way that agents are working within that company, and then the uptake that they're seeing from a lot of their customers. The other one I'd say is interesting Wednesday after the closes Figma. We know this stock just went public a few weeks ago. I want to sneak something else in, though. I want to hear what you. We have to have you back to talk about Figma. I got to ask about agents who can

drive, Tesla. The company's Europe sales plunged, seven straight month of declines there, Chinese rivals, BYD, jumping. Stock's been under pressure on Tesla. People want to know about Tesla. What do you got to tell us, Dan? Well, I'll tell you that the best days for their EV business are behind them. This is going to be the third consecutive years of negative units here. And BYD is a company that's not only taking huge amounts of market share in China, but it's also, as you just mentioned, in Europe too. Elon Musk, he knows this. About a year and a half ago, said, if we do not put up trade barriers to Chinese EVs, that the U.S. makers, that's predominantly him, they're going to get, I think the word he used is demolished. So when I think about Tesla,

if you were valuing this as an auto company, you've heard this a thousand times over the last year on CNBC. You're probably doing it wrong because Elon doesn't want you to look there. He wants you to look at Robotax, and he wants you to look at Optimist robots. And to me, I think you take it over when those things are going to be meaningful revenue contributors to this company. So right now the fundamentals of Tesla and their EV business have never been worse. And the competition, B-YD, they are kicking, you know, they're kicking their butts right now. All right. You sanitized it for us.

And you know where people should really look, Dan, Nathan, especially if they want to hear your thoughts on Figma and everything else. Fast money. It's coming up right after overtime, 5 p.m. Eastern. Dan, thanks. Thanks, bud. Up next, what's behind a major shakeup at the Centers for Disease Control? And what could it mean for your health and investments? We'll tell you, and we'll come right back.

Welcome back to overtime. There is a full-blown crisis at the Centers for Disease Control, charged with protecting the nation from health threats. The White House is attempting to fire the agency's director for other top officials just resigned. Angelica Peebles, messy. It has certainly been a messy 24 hours at the CDC, and the White House says that President Trump has fired CDC director,

Susan Menares, after only about a month on the job. But her lawyers are saying that she hasn't legally been fired. So that's still a question. But like you said, John, four other CDC officials also resigning this week. Their responsibilities ranging from chief medical officer to overseeing the office that works on vaccines and respiratory diseases. And based on everything we know at this point, it appears that vaccines are really at the center of this crisis. Now, we've seen a number of changes to vaccine policy during HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s tenure. Remember, earlier this year, he fired all the members of CDC's vaccine advisory committee and installed his

own members to that committee, which recommends who should get which vaccines and win. Now, that panel is supposed to meet again in mid-September, and they're supposed to take up the latest COVID boosters, routine immunizations, like one for measles. And that's according to a draft agenda that we saw posted today. So much more to come, John. Angelica, if there's a disease outbreak anywhere in the world, you know, what I learned from COVID and I guess from a lot of movies, is the CDC assesses the danger to America. Is there the risk that with so many officials no longer in place, the response might be somehow affected?

Of course. Well, you don't have a director. You also just lost the head of the respiratory diseases and also zoonotic diseases. These are crises. You know, and the zoonotic diseases person also oversees foodborne outbreaks. These are things that impact all of us, right? We never know when diseases are going to spring up new threats. And so having those people there, people who have been there for a long time, that institutional knowledge does help, right?

when you're in a crisis, you want the people that have been there who know what to do. And so not having that could, of course, put us a jeopardy. That's not to say that's going to happen, right? We don't know that something is on the horizon, but there is always that risk when you have these people leave. Never do know when it's on the horizon. Exactly. Thank you. Well, up next, we'll break down the charts to see if this mystery stock, which is up more than 40% this week, has even more room to rally.

But first, check out Hormel Foods, shares posting their worst. day on record down 13% after warning that profits could be lower than expected thanks to a steep increase in commodity cost. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Shares of Caterpillar falling just over 3% in overtime. This after the company stated in an SEC filing that it expects a bigger than expected tariff impact in 2025, sound familiar. The company expects its full year adjusted operating profit margin to be near the bottom of the target margin range. We just heard about tariff impact from gas. Well, it may have been a lackluster day for small caps, but the Russell 2000 is beating the major averages, not just this month, but for the quarter as well.

Our next guest says the index could hit a new all-time high before year end. Joining me now is Craig Johnson, chief market technician at Piper Sandler. Craig, this is different from an earlier guest who is sticking with the bigger name, so what convinces you exactly about the small caps? John, thanks for having me on this afternoon. What convinces me about these small and mid-cap names is when we go back into sort of, look at the advance we've seen off the lows and we started looking at these mag seven stocks that have just been kind of treading water in here john we've been calling these the lag seven stocks for the last uh call it six to nine months in here and we're just seeing a nice pickup and

improvement uh below the surface uh stocks in here like unity software you look at uh how met you look at a lot of different names below the surface and they're picking up and then specifically looking at the chart of the at the Russell 2000, you've got a very classic inverted head and shoulders pattern here. And when you get a pattern that's this well defined, and you break the neckline like we have done, you can see a measured objective that could take the index in new highs, and that would be just above 2450, but you could actually see a measured objective closer to 2,600. So again, nice outperformance. And then if we do see the Fed cut, that should be a catalyst for small mid-cap stocks to push the index even higher.

What about MongoDB? You had a big reaction after earnings? You know, Mongo had a huge downtrend reversal on a weekly chart. Certainly it was solidified by the volume that we're seeing, back through the moving averages. There's still a decent upside from here. We would measure from a technical perspective, a target, about $524, so about 67% upside from where we are now. So still pretty attractive.

Good upside. You have some thoughts about United Health? You know, United Health Care, local company, certainly not very constructive looking on the charts. The stock has already been cut in half. It's trying to rebound. Yes, we've got a lot of investors like Warren Buffett getting involved. But we've got tax loss selling coming up, which I'm sure we'll probably lean on the stock in here for a while. And from just a pure technical perspective, John, there's no reason to buy the stock here.

So I'm keeping in mind what you said about the Russell, about the small and mid-taps. Is that an anti-large-cap call or just a pro-small and mid-based on how they've been performing thus far? I think it's just a more pro-small mid-cap in terms of all performance. Investors can make a decision based upon style. Do they want to be up-cap? Do they want to be down-cap, value, growth, etc. And from our vantage point, just looking at the charts, it is definitely, you don't need to have to sell those names. But if you're looking to buy the fastest horses in the race, it's going to be in small mid-cap land.

not large cap at this point. What's the effect of that crazy move that we had in the overall markets in April? Well, I think the effect at this point in time is, I think a lot of investors have been caught off guard. And during that move, I also think a lot of investors have been fighting this tape. In fact, when I go out, John, I'm talking to our trading desk, and we have conversations, and they give me a lot of reasons why this market cannot go higher. That's not typically the language that I have heard over the last 30 years. Typically, it's language of the market's doing great. It's going to continue to go higher. But right now, they're still fighting it. And when they're fighting it, it tells me that we're climbing that proverbial

wall of worry, John, and sentiment still continues to be negative, not only from them, but the AAII names and also from the name indexes too. Craig Johnson. Thank you. Thanks, John. Great look at the charts. Well, let's get you set up with tomorrow's trade today. No earnings on the calendar, but there's a lot of economic data that needs to be on your radar, including a closely watched inflation report. July PCE price index seen increasing 2.6% year over year. Core prices, 2.9%. We'll also get July personal income and consumer spending reports, as well as the latest reading on consumer sentiment. That's it for overtime.