Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: Hot Week for IPOS; Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff 9/12/25

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Market panel featuring Courtney Garcia from Payne Capital Management and Warren Pies, Co-Founder of 3Fourteen Research, analyzes today's trading action. Deepwater Asset Management's Gene Munster weighs in on Apple and broader tech sector developments. Hot IPO action as Black Rock Coffee CEO Mark Davis discusses the first day pop and the health of the consumer. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff sounds off on Palantir and AI-driven changes to the sector. Vital Knowledge Founder Adam Crisafulli closes with next week's key market catalysts. 

Well, that's the end of regulation. Ion Q, ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Black Rock Coffee Bar doing the honors at the NASDAQ. That's CEO Mark Davis right there on your screen. He's going to join us a little later this hour. That company just went public today. Stocks mixed with the Dow ending lower. The S&P 500, it looks like, ooh, closing fractionally lower, missing a new record high just below the flat line. Nasdaq, though, closing at a new record high. Once again, every day this week, we've had a closing record high for the next. NASDA. All three major averages ending the week higher. Utilities, tech, discretionary, those were the sector leaders, materials and health care lagged, gold hovering your all-time highs

as well. As investors price in a nearly 100% chance of a rate cut next week, it was the fourth straight week of gains for that commodity. Speaking of other commodities, oil and Brent, ending the day higher. At one point, crude was up more than 2%, ending the week up about a percent, though. Some of your movers today, Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery, having another massive day as CNBC reported that Paramount Skydance was preparing an offer for Warner Brothers Discovery, potentially as soon as next week, we could hear more on that. Open Door closing lower today after surging more than 78% yesterday. Crypto Company Gemini Space Station closing higher in its debut,

Adobe closing higher in the back of strong results, and take a look at the quantum computing names, ion Q quantum computing, D-Wave Quantum, Raghetti Computing, all of those names, seeing major gains in trading today. That is the scorecard on Wall Street. Welcome to closing bell overtime. I'm Morgan Brennan. John Ford is off today. Well, coming up, Pfizer and Moderna tumbling on reports that Trump administration officials will link COVID vaccines to child's deaths. We're going to have much more on that story. Shares of Salesforce lower after its results. I talked to CEO Mark Benioff. We're going to get his thoughts on AI versus human jobs and which

tech company does he really admire. There's been a lot of debate around Enterprise Software, and the intersection of AI. But first, let's get to the bond market because bond yields bouncing back today. That's after the 10-year traded 4% yesterday. Rick Santelli predicted a rebound off that low. And he joins us now with more. Hi, Rick.

Hi, absolutely. You know, it seems as though the 263,000 jump yesterday on initial jobless claims, that was a big story, pushing yields down, weak labor. However, the sticky inflation of CPI seems to reign supreme. today as we see a reversal. Two year no yields are actually up on the week, not tens. That has fed implications. Maybe a smaller easing cycle. And there's something else important going on. We know the ECB held pat yesterday, but they're way further along in their easing cycle. It might

be over. We're just starting basically and playing a bit of catch-up. And that's reflected in the difference between their tenure and our tenure. It's now under 140 basis points. That's the closest yields have been in more than two years, Morgan, and that could affect capital flows as the big rate differentials continue to come closer and closer. Yeah, I mean, there's been so much volatility in the bond market you've been tracking at every step of the way, Rick, and not just here in the U.S., but globally as well. I mean, Fitch is set to deliver a rating update on France at some point this afternoon or evening, so we're keeping an eye out for that, but what are we seeing globally right now,

especially as we do have more central bank decisions next week in addition to the FOMC? Absolutely, whether it's the UK, the UK has issues. They need to get their economy going and the stimulation is causing their debt and deficits to increase, which means their issuance increase. And if you look at France, political issues, governments failing, how many different governments has Macron had to deal with? And in addition to that, they have the same problem as the UK, maybe even bigger. They have an economy that isn't going anywhere.

They want to use austerity, but that might not help because it's going to slow the economy. So in the grand scheme of things, our issuance, even though our servicing the debts big, still finds better demand than many of the EU countries and the UK. All right. Rick Santelli, thank you. Yeah, the past week we've seen political shakeups in France. We've seen political shakeups in Japan, also in the UK going into last weekend. It's been an interesting week, and the situation will continue to watch. But the S&P 500 finishing up almost 2% this week. It's the longest winning streak since July 28th.

Could the market keep climbing next week when the Fed is expected to cut rates, or will this be a sell-the-news event? Well, let's bring in paying capital management, senior wealth advisor and CNBC contributor, Courtney Garcia, and 314 research co-founder Warren Pyes. It's great to have you both here. Warren, I'm going to kick off with you with that question. Is next week a sell-the-news event if the market's already expecting a 25-bases point cut here?

Look, look, we're bullish on the market. $6,800 price target. It's tough to fade the market with this much strength. But if I had to guess, I would say we have a lot of positives priced in next week. And there's more room for the Fed to disappoint from my perspective. And just one thing I would look at, everybody knows we're going to get a 25 basis point cut next week. That's basically baked in. I think what we're going to look at is the SEP. So it's the summary of economic projections. And where the committee sees these guiding rates for the end of 2026. Right now, there's about a 70 basis point or three full cuts difference between the rates market, the sofer market at that point in time and the

current SEP. I think you need to see that number, those convergence. That's what the market's looking for. And if we don't get that, you can see some disappointment. Maybe rates spike up a little bit and equity sell off. And so I think there's some room for disappointment next week. Yes. Okay. Courtney, you want to get your thoughts on this. And also the fact that in trading today, despite the fact that we had a mixed day and maybe on the top line, not major moves for the major averages. I mean, breath was negative. Index performance really held up here, especially the S&P by big tech. Is that where you continue to park your capital or do you look elsewhere, given a more broadening market in recent weeks overall? Yeah, you definitely want to look to broaden out here. We absolutely want to own tech. I don't think that trade is over. I mean, if anything, I think you could start to see that. even increase. As rates come down, you start to see people rethink having all their money and money markets and putting it into the markets as much as we're saying you want to broaden out and I do think that's what you should be doing. You get a lot of investors who get this FOMO and they're

saying, oh, I just want to be in this tech trade that's doing really well. And that really could leave that higher as interest rates continue to come down if in fact that happens, which is widely expected next week. But yes, I think with those extra dollars, you want to think of things like small caps, which have more floating rate and short-term debt. And they're really set to benefit from rates coming down, plus things like less regulation, more M&A. I mean, that's a space that really has had been talked about, hasn't had the run people expected to. And there's a lot of other great areas, like energy, international. I mean, plenty of places to add your money. So I don't think tech's over, but I don't think you want to overlook these other areas of the market either.

Warren, what do you think looking across asset classes? I see 6,800 target for you for the S&P through your end. That's right. We're still bullish on the market. We had that target coming end of the year. We didn't ever dial it down. We kind of expected H1 volatility. And so we're still there. I think if you're going to get a pullback, I mean, we're in that season. The second half of September is the weakest point of the market. I think it makes sense if you're going to be in the equity market here to offset that with a big bond position, duration. And I know that's kind of not a popular thing right now. Everybody's looking at debt and deficits. But I think the defining characteristic of the macro right now, which is what we look at, is ultimately a weak

labor market, and everybody wants to write it off as immigration and a supply factor. But I think that the signs of true weakening in the labor market are starting to build up. So what that means is the risk to the equity market is ultimately on the growth side. And that means you need to have a bond position, which is kind of an out of consensus thing for a lot of investors here who've been worried more about inflation for a while. Okay. Courtney, want to get your thoughts on small caps? Yeah, I mean, I think this is a really good area that you want to look at right now, mainly because if interest rates come down, this is one of the categories that is set to benefit from that. I think this is really something that you want to look at here because if the economy continues to stay on good footing,

and I do think it is. There are questions about the labor market, which Warren brings up. There are a lot of other data points, whether you're looking at GDP growth, you're looking at companies' earnings, you're looking at how the consumer's holding up. I think we're going to continue to be in a strong economy. And if you're in a strong economy with rates coming down, I think that's one of the places that's going to keep you really well positioned. So I'm not overweaving it, but I find that a lot of people are underweight that area and even a lot of our clients because large caps doing so well are a little under exposed there. So that's absolutely one of the areas that we're looking at right now. And Warren, just to dig a little deeper into your thoughts about the bond market right now, I mean, you say expect the tenure to break below 4%. What drives that, especially since it would be considered a more contrarian view when there is so much,

focus on debt and deficits right now? Yeah, I mean, so I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding the bond market. Everybody goes back to last year when the Fed started cutting rates and they're like, well, the bonds sold off, yield spiked. That was, and many people said, hey, this was a Fed policy mistake, but you have to recognize what I call initial conditions coming into the cuts last year. So last year, yield curve was really inverted, more inverted than we've ever seen at the start of a cut cycle. And so that told me that the bond market was seized up and really, expecting a recession going forward. And that's not the case right now. As Rick pointed out, we have a positively sloping yield curve now, 2s, 50 basis points below tens. And so this setup

tells me, as the Fed starts this rate cutting cycle, we should expect to see rates across the curve start to come down. That's what happens normally. Didn't happen last year. Recy bias has a lot of people tripped up. And so I think the curve steepens modestly, but ultimately yields across the curve come down, and you're going to see that all-important 10-year break below 4%. There are going to be a lot of surprised people when that happens. Okay. Warren Pison, Courtney Garcia. Thanks for kicking off the hour with me.

Thanks for it. It was a mixed day for the markets with the S&P down fractionally and the NASDAQ at a new record high. Busy week for tech. Apple's showing off new phones, Oracle's huge AI backlog, or companies putting the pedal to the metal on autonomous cars. We're going to cover all the week's big tech news. Gene Munster. That's on the other side of this break. Overtime is back into. Welcome back to overtime. Shares of Tesla, a big winner today, finishing up more than 7%. Posted its best week since May. It was a strong week overall. The stock closing at its highest

level since January. No material news about the automaker driving it, but there has been a lot of advancement in the autonomous space overall. Amazon Zooks began testing in Las Vegas, offering free robo-taxie rides, and Lyft teamed up with May mobility on Robotaxy service in Atlanta as well. But another tech mover this week was Apple. Now, it closed higher today, but down for the week after Invalian's iPhone 17 lineup in a new iPhone air. Apple's CEO Tim Cook spoke to Mad Money's Jim Kramer about why he's excited about the new iPhone air. We've also got the air. It's so thin. It may not show up on the camera. Hold it. You can't tell us in your hand. It's so light. It's like you're holding the future in your hand.

and it's the thinnest iPhone ever. It's so incredibly light. And it's pro-performance in that smaller package. Well, you can see more of Jim Kramer's interview with Tim Cook on Mad Money tonight. That kicks up at 6 p.m. Eastern. But joining us now to talk about Apple and tech. Overall is Gene Munster from Deepwater Asset Management. Gene, it's great to have you on.

And let's start right there. Hello. Big week for Apple. What were your takeaways? Well, Morgan, I would just first at Cleptu. you just realize what a great salesperson Tim Cook is. I remember back when Steve was with us and he would just be the master and people said,

you know, Tim just could never be that salesperson, so fun to see Tim over the years evolve into that role. And today is, of course, a huge day for Apple when it comes to sales, taking those pre-orders. And this is something that over the years I've closely studied what happens with these lead times. And what we saw early in the days the lead times quickly extend out to one,

to two weeks and as of about the last half hour some of them come back in I've checked sites in the throughout the US and Europe and in Japan and I think the takeaway is that this trajectory is probably pretty consistent with kind of the initial from last year now it is very difficult of course to directly connect between what these lead times are and ultimately what the you know the demand is going to be but I think it's overall just a great a great setup for what the iPhone keep in mind new forms factor means more sales. Last time they changed the form factor, sales were up 52%. I was 10 years

ago, Morgan. It's been 10 years since we've had a big form factor change. I think that's a big potent push. And I think we're going to see kind of the fruits of that and these numbers coming forward. Yeah, I mean, a few hours before Apple unveiled this new iPhone lineup, I had sat down with the CEO of AT&T, John Stanky, and he basically had said he didn't expect anything earth-shattering from Apple that a little bit tongue-in-cheek here, but saying, you know, he wasn't expecting a super cycle. So super cycle, perhaps aside, does the fact that you have a new form drive sales and drive sales perhaps higher and more strongly than the street is expecting? That's my central takeaway here. So I put super cycle. I'd consider that about a 15% growth.

Okay. This past year, it's going to be up a couple percent for fiscal 25. The street's looking for iPhone to be up 5% in fiscal 26. I think it's going to be up closer to 10%. So I think it's kind of below that super cycle hurdle, but clearly above where the street is at. And again, I come back to that form factor change. I think that is a potent impact in terms of why people are upgrading, but also a very mundane piece to the whole equation.

Of course, this upgrade pool, if we rewind the tape a year ago, I was talking about how great fiscal 25 was gonna be based on this 2021 pool. That's the year that it increased by 36%. expected all that to have a big impact last year. We started to see it in the March and June quarter, June adjusting for tariffs.

iPhones were up 11%. It was up 2% in March. And so we started to see that acceleration. When you put the combination of a new form factor together with what's happened with this pool, it is essentially manufacturing runs and what Apple is gonna manufacture is upside over the next few quarters.

So important to remember that upgrade pool. Sounds good. I wanna move on to the next topic with you, and that's OpenAI. becoming a for-profit company, could almost become reality. That's after cutting a preliminary deal with Microsoft last night. I realize we're talking about a company that's still privately held, but it's so massive. What are your expectations for OpenAI and perhaps also with the read-through to Microsoft on this deal news as well?

You said lots of news in tech this week, and actually I think this is probably the biggest news, is this is the mechanics basically changing the partnership between Microsoft and Open-AI, allowing this, essentially the vehicle is created where they can go public. Now, from the highest level, we expected all this to happen, so in some ways it's checking a box. In other ways, it unlocks what is going to be, I think, a breathtaking move for this company as a public company. And the tender offer is going to have the valuation right around $500 billion.

And they have reported to investors that their goal by 2030 is to be $200 billion in revenue. Now, a few months ago when they reported to investors, their 20-30 goal was $175 billion. So I just want to put in a context. As they've been reporting to investors, the expectations have been going up. But if we can assume that the multiples on these are similar to what they are today,

it's an average on these big tech software is somewhere around eight to 10 times revenue. You can get to a market cap of about a trillion and a half dollars. And so we're talking about a 2-3-X move higher here. And so, you know, they have what happened with Oracle, huge endorsement in terms of Oracle's belief in Open AI. And this is just going to be a really fun company once it's public.

Yeah. And I know Cashburn is also a big focus there, too. So we'll continue to watch that. But you just mentioned it, Oracle. Saw its largest one-day rally in more than 30 years after reporting stellar first quarter results earlier this week. Gave back some of those gains after concerns popping up about growth, coming from, to your point, OpenAI. I do wonder what you think about that name right now, especially since some of this is because they're benefiting from the spillover in terms of capacity

constraints from the hyperscalers themselves. So I would somehow these two thoughts are going to be able to coexist. So stick with me. I think that I'm more cautious on Oracle and more optimistic in terms of the broader AI trade. And part of that reason, is that what Larry did when they talked about a 20-30 target, very specific numbers, $144 billion in cloud revenue. You know, in the years that I've been an analyst and investing, I've never heard a company put that kind of clarity on a target that far out. Usually we get like a quarter, sometimes a year kind of guidance.

So you need to dial it back. You need to, the street needs to kind of put that in a context. They really don't know what's going to happen that far out. Separately is that it is coming from Open Air. I'm a big believer that Open Eye is going to do that. but there is a risk that this is a is that there's customer concentration risk so from my perspective the oracle news was really important because it reminds us how early a few months ago i suggested we're in the third inning of this i now think we're after the last earnings cycle in june or

august i thought we're in the second inning and now i'm debating if we're even in the first inning and that may seem like out of touch from reality but what we saw from oracle just in terms of that endorsement from larry about where the future is going i mean that's effectively what it was I think it really just, it caused me to step up and understand better that this KAPX spend is going to last for years longer. Okay. Gene Munster. We covered a lot there.

Thank you. Thank you. While the Dow, the NASDAQ, and the S&P 500 all hit record highs this week, the Russell 2000 is still shy of its levels from December. Is this latest leg of the rally strong enough to bring the much broader market to all new highs along with Big Tech? Mike Santoli will be here when overtime. Thank you. Welcome back. Shares of Corteva jumping very late in the session. The Wall Street Journal reporting that the company is considering separating its seed and pesticide businesses into two separate companies. The company was formed as part of the merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont back in 2017. I should call this the urge to demurge that continues. Well, now let's bring in senior markets commentator Mike Santoli. He's got to look at how the recent rally is helping one part of the market, Mike. Maybe I should say the other parts.

Yeah, it's sort of the expanse of the market. It's a pretty democratic reading on the overall performance of the market. It's the equal-weighted Russell 1,000. Maybe it's like the raw popular vote. And you see it's kind of just barely gotten to a new high from the December high before. So this is obviously large in mid-cap stocks, the 1,000 largest in the market. So not purely small-cap. And we're well above the late 2021 levels, which the Russell 2000 is still playing around with that.

So that's a good thing. broader rallies tell you that there's a. at least a decent kind of fundamental impetus to all this is going on. You have financials working, cyclicals working. So a lot of the things you'd want to see are in place. Now, it has gotten us to a point where we have elevated valuations, almost any way you slice it. Now, a lot of folks want to say, that's true, but mostly it's skewed by the very largest companies, the big growth names, that have inflated the P.E. Well, take a look here that, yes, that's true.

The Mag 7 is much more expensive. Of course, their earnings are growing much faster as well. But the other $493 are pretty much a 20 times forward earnings. And this only goes back to, you know, 15 years or so. But it does show you that it's hard to find cheap pockets of the market. Doesn't mean we go down from here. Doesn't mean you can't continue going higher with earnings, with rates going down. But it is a little bit of a check on expectations for maybe longer-term investment returns.

I got to tell you, though, the takeaway that I've been getting from speaking to different folks, particularly this week, is that animal spirits are alive and wild. You see it with IPO market, case in point today. David Solomon, CEO Goldman Sachs, talked to me about this earlier this week from the Communicopia conference. I heard about it from a number of CEOs and investors there on the ground, too. Even just this morning, I was meeting with a CEO of a luxury consumer company, and he was saying consumers particularly high end, they're out, they're spending.

Like uncertainty or not, they're past it, they're spending. That's right. That is very true. In fact, one of the more bullish takes is that we've gotten to this point in the market without people being fully carefree or fully. you know, looking at reward versus risk. I think that's somewhat true. I think people who are investors and are always in the market, they're pretty fully invested, but it doesn't mean that they're in the riskiest parts of the market. So I do think there's always an extra kick you can

get from that type of activity. And because private asset ownership, financial asset ownership relative to the size of the economy, has never been higher. What that means is the wealth effect is this sort of self-reinforcing thing. And it does create confidence, a high end, and aggregate spending goes up along with it. All right. Mike Santoli. Great to get your thought. Thanks. It's time now for CNBC News Update. And for that, we turn to Bertha Coombs. Hi, Bertha. Hi, Morgan. The Missouri State Senate passed a Republican-backed plan today that redraws the state's congressional map. The new map would cut into Democratic Representative Emmanuel Cleaver's district in the Kansas City area with the hope that it would lean Republican.

Missouri follows Texas, then-California's efforts at rare mid-decade. redistricting. The EPA will stop collecting data from industrial power plants nationwide, including coal-burning plants and oil refiners that track the amount of greenhouse gases. They emit into the atmosphere. The government has been tracking this data since 2010, and it's the most comprehensive way for the U.S. to track greenhouse gases. The agency's announcement today comes as the administration has been cutting funds for research on global warming. The FAA launching a pilot program today to speed up air taxi rollout. Two leading companies in the electrical vertical takeoff and landing sector, or EVTOL, said they're

participating in the program. Air taxi stocks rose on today's announcements. Wouldn't that be great to just buzz into the airport rather than sit in traffic? Yeah, I think it's coming sooner than we all realize. Bertha Coombs, thank you. A busy day of IPOs, capping off a busy week. Four new issues trading today, including Black Rock Coffee Bar. This is a rare consumer-focused IPO. The company's CEO, Mark Davis, is about to join us right here on Overtime. Stay with us.

Welcome back to Overtime. The NASDAQ hitting another all-time closing high today, but the Dow and the S&P 500 did finish fractionally lower in the red. For the week, though, all three major averages posting gains. The NASDAQ was the leader, up 2%. Oracle, the big tech and market story this week, giving back some of its gains, but still up 25% on the week. The other big market theme, IPOs. Klarna popped in its debut, but it's given up most of that and is only slightly above where it priced. Today's offerings, Gemini Space Station, legions and via transportation, all higher.

And if we stick with that theme, Goldman's CEO David Solomon telling me at the Communicopia Conference this week that it is the busiest IPO week for the bank in four years. He expects it to continue, the strength. A hot debut today was Black Rock Coffee Bar. That company ringing the closing bell at the NASDAC just earlier this hour after popping in its debut. So joining me in a first on CNBC interview from the NASDAQ is the CEO, Mark Davis. Mark, welcome to the show and congratulations on the IPO. Thank you for having me, Morgan.

I appreciate it. So let's start right there, because the offering was oversubscribed. You priced higher than the initial IPO range, and then you popped. The stock popped when it began trading and closing about, 37% higher than where we started here. Why go public now and what does it enable? So as you think about us going public, I think we look at it as a way to not only introduce people to the culture of our teams, the great guest service, but I think we also look at it

as a way to reinforce the processes that we have. And most importantly, it helps with that discipline, development growth that we're pushing towards. Yeah, same store sales grew almost 11% in the most recently. closed quarter. Does that growth continue? So we are super fortunate to have just the very best baristas in the world. And I think as we look at how they drive that experience, we believe that is long lasting and will be a great value story for years to come. 158 locations across seven states. You're expecting to open another 30 this year. I was reading, you're targeting a thousand

stores by 2035. What does that expansion plan look like? And what does that mean for Folks like myself are on the East Coast. So we're going to grow by 20% a year. We're going to do that because of our push on people. We believe that it's a great way to help our teams not only experience both their professional and personal growth. We'll grow in concentric circles. And as you think about our growth, we'll start with the seven states in the West. Again, those are the states that we're in.

And you'll see us continue to grow both east and south. And that'll happen in the medium to long term. This puts you in the public markets alongside other major coffee chains like Starbucks and Dutch Bros. Dutch Bros. continues to grow. Starbucks is in the midst of a turnaround plan. How do you differentiate yourself? So again, as you think about our story, we have the ability to have every store having a drive-through. We certainly lean into the order ahead in the third party, but what I would come back to is those great baristas, the experience they drive, that connection, and that obviously drives frequency of visit, which in turn is really great for our brand. What do you see in in terms of the labor market and your ability to get those baristas? And perhaps just as importantly, what are you seeing in consumer spending patterns right now?

So as you and you brought this up earlier, as you think about our same store sales, that is reflected by growing transactions. We feel that's the most responsible way to push growth, and we've been really, really great with that. I think, secondarily, when you think about our baristas, the way that we lean into the acumen that we teach them, the way that we drive the career path, and then the profit sharing has been just a giant part of our retention,

which is industry leading. Coffee futures have jumped in recent weeks, in part because of trade and tariff dynamics with the likes of Brazil. How are you navigating it? So our founders from again the beginning in 2008 have a medium roast that is generated by eight different countries. And the way that we're able to manage that is that we can navigate between the countries, keep our price neutral, which in turn drives a great value proposition, adding that great experience. And in turn, you're seeing that frequency of visit.

You know, I got to ask you because you stepped into the CEO role, what, two years ago, took over. from the founders and I always think that's a fascinating dynamic. What does it mean in terms of your ability to grow the coffee chain and to continue to uphold and grow that culture? So our founders are still involved. That's really central to who they are. Again, really solid partners for us. And I think when you look at the culture, we continue to realize that being differentiated by the experience driven by the baristas is so important. And so you'll see us double down and all the ways that we can strategically make sure that we keep them happy and retain them. Okay. Mark Davis, the CEO of Black Rock Coffee Bar. Thank you for joining me on the first day of trading.

Thank you for having me. Well, shares of Moderna and Pfizer getting hit on a new report that the White House is getting ready to link deaths of 25 children to COVID vaccines. We've got those details straight ahead. Plus, the Fed's interest rate decision will take center stage on Wall. Street next week. We will discuss whether the market will rally or sell off and what you need to know as an investor. Stay with us. Moderna and Pfizer are among the worst performers in the S&P 500 today. Now, that's on a report that the Trump administration is on the verge of linking their COVID vaccines to the deaths of 25 children. Angelica Peoples has the details. Hi, Angelica.

Hey, Morgan. Well, NBC's reporting that health officials are planning to present their findings next week at the CDC's Vaccine Advisory Committee meeting. An HHS spokesperson saying FDA and CDC staff routinely analyzed data from a federal vaccine safety database, and those reviews are being shared publicly. But until that happens, any of this should be considered pure speculation. But just last week, FDA Commissioner Marty McCarrie said the FDA was investigating reports of children who died after receiving a COVID vaccine. Now, Moderna in a statement standing by the safety of its COVID shot, saying that its safety

is rigorously monitored by the company and regulators around the world who haven't found any new or undisclosed safety concerns in children or pregnant women with more than one billion doses distributed. And Morgan, I do want to follow up on a report from last week that we talked about that said that a forthcoming report from HHS will link the use of Tylenol during pregnancy to autism. Now, Tylenol maker can view today saying that it met with HHS Secretary Robert of Kennedy Jr. to discuss the safety of that medication, which it believes does not cause autism. Morgan? Data and I guess research, scientific findings are only as good as the data that's collected and then how it's analyzed. Has that data around vaccine efficacy and safety

effects or and I guess safety risks around the COVID shots? Has that been getting collected and actually analyzed in a robust way since those vaccines rolled out? Because there's been a debate that that was not the case. Well, from everything that we've heard from FDA and CDC, they are constantly monitoring this, whether you talk to current officials or now, I guess, former officials who have since left the agency, they'll tell you that this is something that they've looked closely at since these vaccines were first rolled out in 2021. Now, of course, there's always more data that we're collecting. And I think the question to be to think about next week, if we do see this report, will be exactly how, you know, what data are they looking at and how did they analyze it? Actually, one of the CDC officials who resigned recently, he posted on X today saying, you know, if there is a new safety signal that they identify, the question to ask is, well, how did they find that? And is it replicable? Like, can we actually, you know, how can we say that this new finding is indeed reproducible? And what did they do differently this time around that we haven't done before? And then that will help us understand exactly

if it's a new, a new safety signal or not. Okay. Angelica Peebles, thank you. Well, up next, Salesforce CEO, Mark Benioff, on how AI is impacting the workforce, and where he sees the next big opportunity for his company. And Barclays, downgrading beer makers, Constellation brands, and Molson Coors to equal weight and underweight, respectively, citing doubts that struggling beer sales will be able to stage a turnaround in the near future. Stay with us. Welcome back earlier this week. I sat down with Mark Beniof, CEO chairman and co-founder of Salesforce from the Goldman Sachs Communicopia and Tech Conference. Salesforce has been the second worst performer on the Dow this year. It's down some 27%. As investors question whether the enterprise

software giant can grow its AI-driven agent force fast enough to counter any perceived erosion in the core business. So I asked Benny Off whether AI is eating software. Beginning of this year, something like 6 to 8,000 customer support professionals. But we added our new agentic capability, the idea that we have now agents doing customer support and humans, all. also doing customer support. In the last nine months, a million and a half questions from our customers got answered by our AI agents. And also at the same time, a million and a half of questions got answered by our human agents.

How do they do against each other? Well, the CSAT scores are about the same, which is amazing. And yet there's a, we call an Omnichannel Supervisor, which is kind of managing them both. And you can see it going back and forth because AI agents can not do everything. We all know that. Anyone has ever worked with AI knows there's only a certain level of accuracy. Humans in some cases can't do everything, but together you have this incredible service force. And that's what we're excited. Even in sales, we're now using agents. And this is amazing. In the last 26 years, I would say that we have left somewhere between

20 and 100 million leads unanswered because we just didn't have the people to call back. we didn't have the people to really be able to say, all right, we're going to make sure that we get back to you tomorrow. But now every question is getting answered. Every customer is getting a call back. And the reason why that is is because we have agent sellers. So not only do we have 15,000 people who are calling our customers, but now we have a whole new agentic sales force also. I think what we're definitely seeing is that companies can become a lot stronger by using AI and humans together. and that's going to be a rebalancing of the workforce even in my own company

you know I think you know if you look at my numbers you know I had six to eight thousand customer support agents at the beginning this year now I kind of have four to five thousand customer support agents I've been able to reduce the customer support agents but I have three to four thousand more salespeople so the other thing that and this came up with VCs on stage here earlier this week talking about the challenges for software and that seat-based models are vulnerable consumption-based models and pricing is the future. What does that mean for Salesforce? I heard that narrative too and I

don't agree with it. So like for example, we all have chat GPT on our phone or some other large language model and so you may be paying a monthly fee. Do you pay a monthly fee for chat TPC $20 a month or something you do, right? That's a seat based model, right? You're a seat and they're paying so much per month. So that model clearly is not going away, but there's also a consumption model, which is like we send out 11 trillion email. every single year as part of our marketing cloud. And, you know, customers have always paid consumption on that. It's not a seat-based product. Does that make sense?

So now you have seats, you have consumption, and then you also have, you know, kind of data. And this idea that we have all this data out there and we have more data than ever before, that's another incredible opportunity. So you're going to have many different models all working together. So this idea that AI is disrupting the sales cycle, it's not, it's shifting it. Again, just as we talked about how AI is like reshaping the way employees are set up in a company, AI is also going to reshape, you know, what the business model is going to look like and what the technology model. But when we get into this kind of zero-sum game, well, all this is going to get wiped out or all this is going to change.

Then, you know, you're not dealing with somebody who actually runs a company because that's not the way business works. Business is incremental. It's evolutionary. It's growing. It's evolving. we don't see that kind of change. It's very, very infrequent. There also seems to be, you know, an idea out there. And you see it in the valuation of the company, Pallantir, this idea that that's the future of software. It's disrupting software, and it's doing so without a marketing team. Oh, my gosh. I am so inspired by that company. I mean, not just because they have a hundred times, you know, multiple on their revenue, which I would love to have that too.

Maybe it'll all have a thousand times on their revenue soon. But the prices that they charge to their customers. I mean, it's got to be the most expensive enterprise software I've ever seen. I've been like looking at their demos this week saying, my gosh, how do they get these prices? Because I thought I had analytics. I thought I had data management. Maybe I'm not charging enough. And you're competing with them? We compete with them. In fact, we just won a huge deal at the U.S. Army against them. Well, Beniozzi has a big opportunity to sell the governments, and he calls it a gentic government, saying that these are, quote, huge accelerators for sales source, but for the industry as a whole too. I think the big,

takeaway from Mark Benioff, that every company, and now increasingly government entity, is becoming an agentic enterprise. So the full interview, and it was a wide-ranging one, we dug deeper on all of these topics, is on CNBC.com. Check it out. Well, still ahead. Why my next guest predicts the Fed's meeting next week will be a sell-the-news event, even if J-Powl and company cut interest rates. Welcome back.

Let's get you set up with all the things that could impact your money next week. On the economic calendar, we will get retail sales, home builder sentiment, industrial production, and import prices on Tuesday. Then the highlight of the week will be Wednesday's interest rate decision by the Federal Reserve. We'll also get the latest housing starts and building permits data. On Thursday, the weekly jobless claims number will be released. And earnings season comes to a crawl with Dave and Busters after the bell on Monday. General Mills results on Wednesday. We'll also get numbers from FedEx, Lenar, and Darden restaurants on Thursday.

Our next guest joins us with the catalyst he thinks will be the most important for investors next week. So let's bring the vital knowledge founder, Adam, Chrisafouli. Adam, it's great to have you back on. And let's start right there. Is this all about central bank decisions? Yeah, definitely think the Fed will be the most important event of next week. And we also have a lot of other central banks, B.OJ, B.O.E, Bank of Canada. But the Fed will be the big highlight by far.

Okay. And is it really about the rate cut or is it about the dot plot and what Powell has to say? Yeah, I mean, I think a 25 basis point rate cut is very much. a foregone conclusion. That's widely expected. It's very likely to occur. I think much more important and interesting from markets going forward will be, you know, the explicit guidance so we're going to again update as supplemental with new dots, new estimates, and then the more qualitative commentary from Powell during the press conference. And I think on an absolute basis, it's going to be doveish overall. We're going to get a rate cut. You're probably going to

get a dovish move in the dots. Powell will probably be a little bit more douged than he was at Jackson Hole. But markets have already moved a pretty healthy amount in the last several weeks. And so we're now pricing in 25 basis point cuts, essentially at each of the final three meetings of this year. And I don't think they're going to be any more doveish than that. So I think the risk we're heading into this in the immediate term is a little bit on the downside. Okay. We have four big bank CEOs come on CNBC this week and basically say to varying degrees and with different contexts, depending on who you spoke to, but that the economy is softening. What is the data showing us going into this decision?

Yeah, I mean, definitely we've seen a lot of downbeat economic data, especially on the labor. which is one of the key mandates for the Fed. We had, you know, the August job report was disappointing the September jobs, the July jobs report. We've had weekly claims this week, get a huge jump. Michigan sentiment today, so a big drop in sentiment. So on the employment side, you're definitely seeing the trends reinforce expectations for the Fed to ease policy.

The problem is on inflation. So the PPI this week definitely was cooler than expected. The CPI wasn't any worse than expected, but you still have inflation running a fair degree above the Fed's target. You know, Powell has said that he's willing to look through this for the time being. You think the effective tariffs will be transitory, which is why they're going to kind of dismiss some of the inflation for now and focus on employment. But again, we're already pricing in 75 basis points of cuts this year. And I don't think the Fed's going to at this point willing to be more aggressive than that.

How closely will you be watching FedEx, which tends to be a barometer historically, not just of U.S. economic activity, at least through one lens, but also global? Yeah, definitely. I think FedEx will be one of the big, probably the single most important earnings report next week. There aren't a lot of companies, but they are the most macro. They're very sensitive to what's happening on trade, so we'll get a nice update on kind of what they're seeing with tariff flows. One of the biggest controversies in the market has been the extent to which inventory was brought forward by companies to get ahead of tariffs. So if they were to say that all that inventory is being depleted, and now companies are replenishing at post-tariff rates, and that suggests that we're going to see more inflation in the months ahead.

And that's definitely going to be a big wild car. They also have a lot of exposure to the de minimis issue as well. And so that's likely to be a headwind for them. So it's on the top line, they're facing a lot of tailwind, I'm sorry, a lot of pressure, and they're cutting costs very aggressively to kind of keep earnings steady. So that will be the most important one next week for earnings. Yeah, the closing of that de minimis loophole is actually a huge dynamic in a lot of e-commerce companies are feeling it right now very quickly.

We've got 15, 20 seconds left. But trade, China trade talks, expect anything to come out of that or just headlines? I would say just headlines. It doesn't seem like we're on the cost of any type of real major agreement. I mean, if anything, what's happening on the Russia front where there's been a lot of talk about imposing secondary tariffs on buyers of Russian oil. But I don't think anything material will really happen next week on the China front. Okay. Well, we certainly have enough to watch in general.

Adam Chris Affouly, have a great weekend. Thank you. That is it for us here at overtime.