Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: Interactive Brokers’ Thomas Peterffy on earnings, surging customer activity and margin loans; Consumer activity clues with alternative data 10/16/25

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

HSBC’s Jose Rasco breaks down today’s market action. Interactive Brokers Chairman Thomas Petterfy discusses his company’s latest quarter and why consumers are at record-high levels of margin loans on his platform. Bank of America senior economist Stephen Juneau talks consumer insights from his latest credit card data as government data continues to be in a blackout during the shutdown. Our Alex Sherman on what Apple’s Eddie Cue told him about the tech giant’s live sports strategy. Plus, OutcomesAI founder Kuldeep Singh Rajput discusses anxiety around AI’s impact on the labor market—and what jobs will stick around. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

That bell marks the end of regulation front office sports bringing the closing bell with the New York Stock Exchange. Aptara Motors doing the honors at the NASDAQ and stock sliding through most of the session. All the major averages down more than half a percent. The Russell down more than 2 percent and a big move in bonds. The 10-year yield falling to the lowest level since April. That was the last time trade tensions flared up and hurt the markets. Much more on this from Rick Santelli in just a minute. We're also watching big declines in regional banks.

Zions and Western Alliance both down on concerns about certain borrowers. The KRE Regional Bank Index having its worst day since, yep, April again, and Oracle with a big intraday move higher, holding an analyst day at its AI World Event, comments about AI infrastructure growth, boosting that stock once again. That's a score caught on Wall Street. Welcome to Clothes and about overtime, where a winner stay late. I'm John Ford. Morgan Brennan is off today. Well, shares of Nestle on a sugar high jumping nearly 10% today, the company announcing it'll cut 16,000 jobs. And the LinkedIn post CEO mentioned automation.

Does that mean AI is killing jobs or something else? Well, we'll ask an AI founder where this new technology will create jobs versus kill them. And we're waiting for earnings. Railroad operator CSX, set to report. So is interactive brokers. And once results cross, we will break them down with Interactive Brokers Chairman Thomas Petrophy. But we begin with the big move in yields. Rick Santelli, joining us now from Chicago.

Rick. Yes, John, it's an exciting day. Some may think exciting doesn't feel so good. And maybe they're right. Let's look at twos and tens on a six-hour chart. And you should notice that 10s really led today. Rates were already going down long before 12.15 Eastern. They were moving lower.

But when that 10-year started to slice through 4%, that's when everything started to heat up. And if you look at the chart of one-year chart of tens, even though we may have traded intraday at these levels in April, it's all about the close. Right now, we're on pace to change the 2025 low-yield close from its current 3.9999 to wherever we're at, but we are now through 4%.

And that is significant. But why is this going on? Harkin back. What's been the recent news? The Fed's balance sheet, the drainage, the fact that they are going to stop letting the securities run off, well, that takes liquidity out of the system. There's a rate that replaced LIBOR. It's called SOFR.

SOFR. It's the secured overnight funding rate. It is now widening against the effective overnight Fed funds rate. Maybe the Fed's balance sheet contributed to it. We have a couple regional banks. Think about it this way. When you replace LIBOR, this rate is what businesses that have variable or floating rates price to.

Now, as you look at the year-to-day chart, see the way it shot up, it shot down when the Fed eased in September, and it shot up here. And that is the oil in the gears of the funding market on that chart. So there's a bit of liquidity issue out there. It doesn't mean it has to last forever. Doesn't mean it's going to be the issue that pulls out the floor under equities, but it is something to deal with with market closures,

geopolitics, and the Fed's balance sheet all contributing, and this is going to push crypto down, push gold up, and even though the dollar index is down, at the end of the funding issue is a shortage of dollars. And remember, if you're along the dollar index, it doesn't put more dollars in your pocket. It is a contract where 50-something percent is the euro. So we want to pay attention to all these moving parts, John.

All right, Rick Santelli. Thank you. I want to mention CSX and Interactive Brokers earnings both out. Both of them trying to move higher. Looks like CSX pushing up maybe above two and a half percent at the moment. Interactive brokers was up more than three at one point. But now settling back down, we're going to have those results for you in just a moment. Meantime, President Trump today speaking with Russia's Vladimir Putin for details of that conversation, or at least the buzz around it. Everything out of the White House today. Let's get to Amon Jabbers in Chicago. Amen. and Washington. Amen. There, John. Yeah, that's right. President Trump issued a readout of his call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on social media this afternoon, revealing the key U.S. and Russian officials,

including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, will hold a high-level meeting at a location still to be determined next week. He said he and Putin will also meet in Budapest, Hungary after that, in an effort to bring the Russia-Ukraine war to a conclusion. Trump was also looking ahead to a post-war economic future, saying we also spent a great deal of time talking about trade between Russia and the United States when the war with Ukraine is over. The president said he believes great progress was made during today's call, which lasted about two hours and comes ahead of Trump's meeting with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky tomorrow at the White House. The Ukrainians have been pushing the U.S. for more access to sophisticated weaponry, including the U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile system. which would be able to hit targets in Moscow from launch points in Ukraine. Now, it's not clear what, if anything, Putin offered in terms of concessions during this conversation. But shortly after the meeting was announced, Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban posted on social media in English,

saying that he had just spoken to Trump and calling the next meeting a USA-Russia Peace Summit. John, back over to you. Amen Jabbers in Washington, thank you. Meantime, CSX earnings, as I mentioned, are out. Stock is up 2.5%. Frank Holley, has the numbers. Frank? Hey, John, as you mentioned,

stocks moving higher right now after revenues that were in line but a beat on EPS. The estimate was 42 cents a share. It came out at 44 cents a share. We're looking deeper in the report, though. When you look at the company's merchandise segment, that's where they generate almost two-thirds of revenue, the revenues there were essentially flat. The company had promised volume growth throughout the year.

We actually saw the volume in the merchandise segment flat again, but overall volumes for the company were down 2%. That's going to be something very important for the new CEO to deal with in this company. He actually put out a statement saying that the company saw some strength in its intermodal volume. That was something that we actually talked about just a short time ago on closing bell.

The fact that the company expected to see strength intermodal following its partnership with BNSF, a West Coast rail, also expected to get some volumes from J.B. Hunt that's also moving much higher right now. But again, shares of CSX up about 2.5% after revenues there were in line and a beat on EPS. The strength really came from its container shipping business. It's merchandise business where it generates about two-thirds of revenue,

shipping commodities like agricultural commodities and chemicals, flat with revenues down very slightly. Back over to you. Frank Holland, thank you. Well, now let's get back to the market and this volatile session on Wall Street. All the major averages down, the VIX hitting the highest level since May, and the 10-year yield dipping below 4%. Russell 2000 down about 2% on concerns about bad loans in the banking industry. This, as trade tensions persist and the government shut down drags into its third week. Break it all down with our next guest, HSBC chief investment officer of the Americas, Jose Rasko.

Jose, start with these regional banks. How concerned are you? Well, I mean, look, we have liquidity problems clearly and not large, but there are liquidity problems. And the Fed's been running QT for a while now. So there is a concern around that whole part of the economy. But at the end of the day, we think the Fed is going to have to come to the rescue and we think they're going to ease in October and December. That's going to help. And the other side of that is what's going on with the real economy. And what we see with the real economy was pretty good growth in Q2. Third quarter looks pretty healthy. Now, the government shutdown is going to cut the fourth quarter number already by probably about a quarter of a point. But as we can see from some of these earnings numbers, it looks like the economy's fairly robust in the second half of the year as well. We may see some balance sheet issues with some of the small and regional banks, but hopefully the Fed will come to the table as it has in the past by setting up the proper facilities to provide the liquidity if needed. Is it just a matter of readjusting that? I mean, with all the talk about private credit recently, things perhaps happening off balance sheet, the opaque nature of some of the borrowing lately, I just wonder if this is something that we need to keep an eye on.

Well, there's no question. The growth of credit in non-traditional markets has been expansive in the past 10 years, right? And don't forget, John, we're just at the beginning of digital markets. You're talking about private credit. That's an established market. If you look at digital markets and non-traditional sources of lending, not just here, but around the world, that is expanding at a rapid rate. And that's one of the reasons that gold has been bid up, right? It's being used as collateral in digital markets. And we continue to see that expand rapidly. So I think it's definitely, something to keep an eye on, but it should help provide more liquidity, not create more constraints. So from the concern meter, it's not on that side of the equation, right? So we think it's more of an opportunity than a concern that other sources of credit are popping up. How do you practice caution in your portfolio with so many different types of assets at high valuations? Well, and that's why, look, we're diversified. And so one of the things we're focused on is alternatives. We like the alternatives market. We've been positive on gold for a while, and we think it's going to do well, but it's probably more range bound from here,

but it's going to be a higher range than people thought, right? And then secondly, we like hedge funds. I think if you look at, we like the private markets as well, and private credits, certainly, as you mentioned. But hedge funds make a lot of sense at this point in the business cycle when the economy is probably slowing. And if the Fed does come to the rescue, that's great. If you remember, when the Fed starts easing after a prolonged pause, bonds do very well. They're up about 7% in the next 12 months. and equities are up on average of 23%. Okay.

But for cautious investors, look to alternatives. You say outside the U.S., you like China, Singapore, and the UAE? Why China? Well, China were really focused. Number one, we were focused on the closing of that multiple spread, right? Whenever that multiple spread between the U.S. and China gets really large, which it did last spring, you always see the Chinese market rebound. So that was a good call.

And then secondly is what the amount of money they're putting into, the technology sector. We're really more focused on the tech sector where they're very adept at creating new technologies and scientific breakthroughs. And we think there's opportunity there. You know, on the margin, there's some definite upside for the Chinese economy and Chinese markets in the tech sector for sure. All right. Jose Rasko. Thank you, HSBC. Thank you. Well, we just got results from interactive brokers, as I mentioned. The stock up a couple percent in overtime. The company beating on earnings and revenue, commission revenue, was higher with trading volume in stocks jumping 67% net interest income also higher.

Customers carrying larger margin loan balances. We're going to talk to the company's executive chairman, Thomas Petterfee, after this break. Overtime, we'll be right back in two. Welcome back to overtime. Shares of Kenview falling 13% to an all-time low. You're looking at interactive brokers, though, but Kenvue's down. That's up. It's falling to an all-time low, dating to its spinoff from Johnson and Johnson, two and a half.

years ago. Today is also Kenvue's worst ever, worse than the day in September when it tanked on word the Trump administration would link Tylenol to autism. The latest bad news for the company, it's named in a lawsuit filed in the UK over talc baby powder. Johnson Johnson is facing thousands of similar suits in the U.S. It has stopped selling talc-based baby powder in both countries. Now, turning back to interactive brokers, which you were just looking at, shares of that are higher in overtime after beating on the top and bottom lines. Commission revenue grew 23% customer accounts up 32% versus last year. Joining us now first on CNBC before the earnings call is Interactive Brokers, executive chairman, Thomas Petterfee.

Thomas, good to see you. Folks trading on your platform are having a good time. I mean, what do you like in this period to? Great to see you too. We had a fantastic third quarter. We are announcing revenues of $1.6 billion and gap earnings of $0.59, 57 cents, is adjusted. Both ways earnings are up 40% from a year ago quarter. As you said, funded accounts, customer credits and debits and margin loans,

were all up 32 to 40%. So it's been a fantastic quarter in addition to serving individual investors. Interactive brokers is ever more often recognized by institutional investors as an excellent alternative for prime brokerage services. And this is especially true for frequently trading quantitative investors who are concerned with execution quality and first rate stock borrowing and lending services. So the commercials for alcohol products say, please drink responsibly. Are people trading responsibly with the margin levels that you're seeing is the risk appetite at what you would consider a healthy point? Yes. So let me tell you

this. For the year, 85% of our customers are up for the year. And nine percent of them are up more than 60%. So investors are doing very well so far this year. Right, but how does that reflect the level of risk you see them take? I mean,

people often get emboldened when the risk they're taking are working. And are there any concerns for you in those levels? Several quarters ago, you raised something that stuck in my head about the levels of risk that you saw people taking, perhaps

reflected in a margin activity, and I wonder how you see it now? Well, margin loans, as I said, margin loans are up around $80 billion, and, well, to tell you, frankly, that's an all-time high, but so is every other metric, so. At this point, it's just the way it is, and, you know, it's working, so why argue with it? Right, absolutely. Okay. Therefore, what new or different types of products do you see investors demanding?

I wonder in particular about gold. It's moving like crypto right now. It used to be sort of thought of as a fuddy-duddy thing, but it's shining. Yeah, but over the last five years, gold has only doubled. And, I mean, maybe up 120% say, while crypto is up almost. tenfold, right? So it's not comparable. But, you know, that's just one of the, most of the, most of the volume increase has to do with stocks and options. So this third quarter was excellent for most brokerage firms. The last three months of the year look even better. So trading volumes are hitting all time record records for both. stocks and option markets and daily revelations of huge AI investments, mixed with frequent comments about tariff and trade issues, have investors and traders spell bonds looking

at their trading screens. Are they using those options for protection more or to continue to chase the momentum that they see being so powerful in this AI transformation? Yeah, well, so what most traders do is they do vertical spreads. So you say you think that the stock is going to move up, so you buy a near market call and you sell, say, a few dollars higher strike call against it that cuts your investment, and you can't be, all you can lose is the money you put up. So these are very safe bets.

How do you see the legacy of what we've often called the meme stock revolution of a couple of years ago? This idea, I think, that came out of that as well, that retail investors, not just institutions, are starting to take on some of the tools and at least ideas that institutional investors before had seemed to more corner the market on. That idea seems to have matured. We're not seeing so much from Roaring Kitty and the like anymore. But we are seeing an embrace and the use of options, perhaps to some degree margin more than before. What's that doing in the market and for a platform as sophisticated as interactive brokers?

That's kind of, I view, on the other end of the spectrum from, say, a Robert. Well, so we don't see much of that. Our investors are very careful, and we do not have, I mean, You know, we do not have investments in crazy over-volute stocks. That's not a problem from our customers' point of view. And I do not know if even there are many of those in the market today. So I don't think so. I mean, what GameStop is about $22, I think.

Yeah. Now maybe they're buying gold. Thomas Petterfee, thank you. Big Quarter for Interactive Brofey. No, you've got to get to that call. Thank you very much. Well, shares of Nestle jumping, as I mentioned, as it announces thousands of job cuts. And the mention of automation reigniting the question of whether AI is going to be a job killer more than a job creator.

We will discuss with an AI CEO and this mystery stock nearly tripling today. We're going to give you that story in the bigger picture that's lifting its whole sector when overtime comes right back. welcome back to overtime biotech continuing its outperformance a small game for the ibb today but over the past month it is up eight percent and s and p five hundred is flat check out this huge biotech gainer today i'm going to paraphrase alan iverson you talk about the game i'm talking about praxis praxis precision medicines nearly tripling today patients who have a condition that causes uncontrollable shaking saw their tremors improve during a trial but even with With that huge gain today, the stock is still down big from where it was five years ago.

Now, as biotech's outperform, other sectors that were once hot are starting to see choppiness. Let's bring in senior markets commentator Mike Saylorley for more. Mike. Yeah, John, the last several weeks of the rally into record highs last week were somewhat uneven, a little more selective, waning momentum in some pockets. And this illustrates part of it. This is the S&P 500 over the last nearly a year, along with the ETF that tracks every everything in the S&P besides the Magnificent 7, the XMAG ETF. And you see it really, the S&P really lifted off carried by those big seven AI-driven stocks starting a couple of

months ago when everybody started to price in more Fed rate cuts and got a little bit more exuberant as the rally matured. So that's one little gap that maybe is right for a bit of convergence. Take a look here. Bitcoin, you know, it really has not had a lift or recovered after that sort of flash liquidation de-leverging event we had almost a week ago. And you see it here sort of falling away from InVIDIA, which is a stock that it has tracked really over multiple years prior to this. So whether it's a leading indicator, it's just another risk appetite tell, it's dealing with its own idiosyncratic issues. That's a good question, but I find it an interesting spot there. That's a pretty good shelf. And a lot of the technical traders,

if it really would break it, probably would chase it to the downside. Finally, Take a look here at the relationship between semiconductors and home builders. One of my favorites for years now, again, diverging from what had been a pretty close relationship. Not intuitive that they should be close, except they both are kind of cyclical bellwethers as well as secular plays on long-term scarcity of important resources. And obviously, semis were up a half a percent today. So they were not responsible for today's weakness. But you see what's going on with home builders, not really able to gain strength even with 10-year treasury yields. going down. So it's a little more of an erratic and maybe slightly more stressed market we're

seeing in pockets here, John. But at the same time, reflecting why interactive brokers just reported such a strong quarter, the volatility is getting traded, right? Without a doubt. I mean, first of all, the volumes that fed into the interactive broker system, the secular rise in options trading, they make money off that stuff. So yes, as long as the absolute activity levels remain high and people don't get scared out of the market by prices. going down significantly. It's an issue. Now, you mentioned volatility. You had the VIX above 24. It's actually been kind of higher than you'd expect, given the magnitude of loss in the S&P. We're only 2% off the highs in the S&P. It shows you that we're kind of clenching up for

the possibility that we have a little more of a turbulent tape here ahead of us. Okay. Mike Santill. You see again just a bit. Well, it's time for a CNBC News update with Kate Rogers. Kate. Hi, John. A federal appeals court kept a block in place against the Trump administration's deployment of the National Guard in Illinois while it works its way through the courts. The administration wanted to put a hold on a federal judge's block against the deployment from earlier this month. The judge set a hearing for next week before the order expires to decide whether it should be extended. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce today sued the Trump administration over the new $100,000 fees for the H-1B visa program. The Chamber's lawsuit

seeks to block the new program fees, arguing that the President's executive order is, quote, not only misguided policy, it is plainly unlawful. The White House has yet to comment on the suit. Austin, Texas, and Salt Lake City, Utah are among the world's most affordable cities. That's according to a new study from asset management firm, DWS. The firm also found Australian cities, including Brisbane and Sydney, pay no more than 27% of their income on rent. Now, on the flip side, New York, London, and Hong Kong were among the least affordable. John.

Back over to you. Okay, thank you. Well, navigating the data desert. The government shutdown means fewer economic reports, so we're looking for other ways to stay informed. Up next, we'll look at retail sales when overtime returns. Welcome back to overtime. Stocks lower across the board today,

losses of about half a percent for all the major averages. Credit concerns starting to rattle the regional banks, Zions and Western Alliance, both down big. Both companies warning about potential issues with certain borrowers. Another down day for Jeffries. that stock has lost about a quarter of its values so far this month, blame the collapse of the auto parts company first brands. These credit concerns spreading throughout regional banks,

key corp, fifth third regions, truest, all down 5% or more. The KRE, that's an ETF, tracking regional banks, is on pace for its fourth down week in a row. Only one stock in the index was higher today. While turning over to the consumer, this morning we would have gotten retail sales report for September, but because of the government shutdown, you have to find alternative data to gauge the health of consumer. Bank of America is out with a new spending numbers, and they say it hit a small

speed bump last month. Joining me now is Stephen Juneau. He is the senior U.S. economist at Bank of America Securities. What do we learn from these numbers and what perhaps caused a speed bump? Well, first off, great to be here. And I think what we learned is just that the consumer is still fine. We've got to take a step back. Yes, we saw a decline, but we have to remember with these monthly numbers, there's volatility always. You see these kind of push and pulls, so to speak, and we had just had very strong months of retail sales spending, and now we're just seeing a little bit of mean reversion there. So it's nothing to be too concerned about. Consumption rebounded from a soft patch. What does that mean, if anything, coming into Q4 in the holiday season?

I think it sets up well. The consumer, I think, is still supported by strong balance sheets. You know, you have a healthy wealth effect overall, notwithstanding what's happened in markets recently. Consumers still have jobs. We're not really seeing unemployment rise all that much, and wage growth is still outpacing inflation. So the fundamentals are still very supportive for the holiday season and for overall spending and overall growth when it comes down to it. You say higher income spending growth is outpacing lower income.

It seems like that's what you'd expect in normal time. So to what degree is that unusual? It's a little unusual just because it's a little bit new. We see this in our data where we started to see this bifurcation. I know you've heard about the case-shaped economy, but what we hadn't seen in our own data was really that emergence over the last few years until recently. And I think that has to do with what you're seeing in kind of the dynamic between the labor market and the stock market.

So on the one hand, you have a very strong wealth effect. That obviously accrues to higher income households. On the other hand, you have job growth slowing, and that may just accrue more towards, say, lower-income households. So you're seeing this dynamic. It's not that lower-income households aren't spending, aren't seeing increased spending. It's just that the rate of change is a lot more for higher-income households. Then how do you think spending is so okay? Because there are a lot more, by definition, lower-income households than higher-income households. Well, really, it boils down to kind of spending shares, and a lot of the spending in terms of just overall

composition is concentrated among those higher-income households. It's something like 40% in the top 20%. There's different statistics there, but ballpark around there. So a lot of the spending that we see on a day-to-day basis is really concentrated in those high-income households. So when we say the consumer is doing fine, is that an aggregate sense of consumers are doing fine, or is it more that the higher end consumer is making up for any malaise or hesitancy among the mainstream? So it's a little bit of both. I mean, overall, I would say the consumers find balance sheets healthy the unemployment rates at 4.3% again we're not shedding jobs and really what you see is that unless you see jobs job loss as a crew you don't really see

consumption slow down an aggregate but then there is a difference in terms of how well the consumers are doing based on income brackets and obviously higher income households seem to be fairing a little bit better in this current environment than lower income households but again they're all spending it's just about the rate at which they're spending right now all right stevens you know from Bank of America. Thank you. Thank you. Well, up next, hear what Apple's senior vice president of services at EQ has to say about the company's sports streaming rights ambitions. Plus, check out shares of Snap-on, a big winner today, the maker of and seller of hand-and-power tools, beating earnings

expectations because of strong demand from industrial companies and auto repair shops. Be right back. We've got some breaking news now out of Washington. Amon Javers has a story. Amen. John, a senior Justice Department official, tells NBC news that former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton has been indicted. Now, you remember that John Bolton was the national security advisor who then broke with President Trump and became a sharp Trump critic. There was an investigation throughout the summer, and you might remember headlines that Bolton's house was searched by the FBI here in the

Washington, D.C. area over the summer. Bolton was being investigated at that time for allegations of improper handling of classified information, no information yet on what is in this apparent indictment of John Bolton. But that would make John now the third political rival of President Trump in recent weeks to be indicted by federal grand juries and the Trump Department of Justice. John. Back over to you. Amen Javvers. Thank you. Now, big moves could be coming to the world of motorsports. Apple might be steering the way. CNBC has learned that Apple is close to finalizing a U.S. media rights deal with form.

1, expected to be worth around $140 million a year. Our own Alex Sherman spoke with Eddie Q, Apple's Senior Vice President of Services, at the Autosport Business Exchange on Wednesday, where Q weighed in on Apple's interest in TV rights beyond racing. If we can do the kinds of things that we want to do, yes, the answer is yes, we do. If we can offer things that are unique and special that lets us really do the level of differentiation, innovation that we would like to do, then the answer is yes, but these things are, you know, they're complicated.

Alex Sherman joining me here now on set. How much are Apple and these other huge technology companies changing the business structure of sports when their livelihood doesn't depend on broadcasting this stuff? It's sort of like a nice, nice to have. Well, in many ways, you're totally right that. what any Q was just saying there was emphasizing the fact that he is totally fine with this being a nice

to have. His concern is that if they're going to spend the money to buy sports rights, they need to be done the Apple way. So I see no evidence at all based on what we talked about yesterday that he's going to jump in to all the big major sports and start buying up packages. Look at it. The NBA

deal was just on this coming into this season. Apple was not a part of that. Amazon was and the other two companies were Disney, nothing in our own parent company, at least for a few more months, NBC Universal. So why wasn't Apple a part of that? Well, based on what he's saying, the NBA kind of didn't play ball with Apple. Apple wants all the rights to a game. That's what they're getting with F1 once that deal is announced, which is imminent. They're going to get every single F1 race,

at least in the U.S. will be aired on Apple. But the big sports will never do that. They won't ever do that. But I guess what Eddie Q was saying is if they don't do that, then we're out, sort of, which probably is good news to the traditional media companies whose livelihoods depend on having sports rights. What's about Amazon jumping in there? They're different. Amazon obviously has a different strategy. Amazon is willing to just have a portion of a package.

They believe that the value of having sports is enough where it makes sense for them to spend a billion, $2 billion, whatever may be per year to get the big sports. There's a benefit to prime. And look, maybe there is. is a benefit to Apple making that similar investment to sell phones. But it's not as clear that this is dangerous at all for the major sports because they've got a counterparty here that doesn't need them as much. Or is it just a new big spender, big bidder in there that's going to drive up the value

for the old-fashioned folks that really do? That's what the leagues hope they want Apple to be a big giant bidder to bid up the rights for everybody else. And so that's why I say it may be good news for the traditional guys. if Apple's saying, don't count on us to be a bidder unless you're going to play by our rules because you hit the nail on the head. There's no way the NFL is going to play by their rules

and say, we're just going to give you all our rights unless Apple were to just throw out an absolutely astronomical figure five, seven years from now, whatever those rights are due. I just think the chances of that are slim to none. You can get Warren Buffett to put in a bit on your house. That's a pretty good thing. That's true. Thank you. Alex Sherman reporting there on sports. Well, business leaders have been sounding the alarm on AI killing jobs. Up next, we'll discuss whether the dream that AI will be a net job creator is becoming a nightmare for American workers, or if it's just early innings. Plus, two Wall Street firms, turning even more bullish about the prospects for this already red hot chip stock. The stock revealed when overtime returns.

Welcome back to overtime. Micron is one of the top performers in the S&P 500 today. UBS, hiking its price target on the chipmaker from 225 to 245 a share, city upping its target from 200 to 240. Both analysts say the firm should benefit from a tight supply of memory chips. Now, take a look at shares of Nestle up just about almost 10%. The CEO is saying the company will simplify its organization and automate processes so they cut 16,000 jobs.

Automation doesn't necessarily mean AI, but the comments add to the debate over whether the technology will create or destroy jobs. Fed Governor Chris Waller saying this week, quote, AI seems to be moving so fast that we'll see the job losses before we really see the new jobs. And from corporate leaders, well, Jamie Diamond this week saying AI will, quote, eliminate jobs and people should stop sticking their head in the sand. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy writing, in the next few years, we expect that generative AI will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency, gains from using AI extensively across the company. Salesforce has cut 4,000 customer support agents with CEO Mark Beniof saying the company needs fewer heads. Accenture's CEO noting last month that it's exiting workers who can't be re-skilled in AI.

And one of the first leaders to sound the alarm was Anthropics Dario Amaday, who said AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs. Well, joining me now to discuss is Koldeep Singh Ratchput. He's CEO of Outcomes AI, a company that uses AI in front of health. care visits to enable more patient care time for nurses, less time spent on rudimentary questions. Koldee, welcome. Tell me, where does AI play in the mix, depending on the industry and the demand for human labor?

Yeah, John, you know, I actually agree with, you know, most of the CEOs, what they're saying. AI will replace jobs, but the impact really depends on the nature of the world. and the pace of adoption in industries like banking and customer service, a lot of people do transactions, you know, answering questions, processing forms, executing standard workflows. And these are precisely the kind of tasks AI can automate very quickly. But when it comes to manufacturing and logistics, we have seen this story before. Automation changes job mix, but it also creates new technical and supervisory role. And the real challenge there is retaining and re-skilling, you know, people at scale.

But when you look at health care, it's the opposite problem. We don't have too many workers. You know, we have a massive shortage of nurses and physicians. And there is a projected shortage of almost a million nurses by 2031. So in health care, AI isn't replacing people. It's restoring capacity. So it seems like a part of the. divergence here is whether the industry is about touching stuff and touching people,

right, where we need somebody to do that, and it's high value to do that, or if it's about thinking about stuff, in which case maybe the thoughts you need to have or higher order, higher level, not plugging stuff into a spreadsheet, but being able to make connections? Yeah, I mean, you know, it, again, really depends on the industry. But again, you know, looking at health care, health care is very, very, personal. People expect more personalized care and nurses and physicians enjoy doing their job, which is caring for patients. And unfortunately, over the past few years, a lot of their time is

being spent on administrative work, repetitive tasks, and because of which, you know, you can't scale capacity. So I think that's a perfect example of where, you know, AI can be utilized. For example, if you can take that 60% of the work, nurses are doing, answering, you know, calls from patients, doing care coordination jobs, documenting, you know, data into the EHRs, those are the kinds of tasks, I believe, can be taken, you know, by AI and done by AI much more efficiently while you're giving time back to the nurses and physicians to do what they do well, which is care for. Colip, this seems less similar to me to the industrial revolution where you have people coming off of farms, doing physical work there, into factories, doing physical work there, more similar to the offshoring or outsourcing challenge of, hey, there's another workforce that can do this more efficiently or cheaper, and so you just need to develop a whole new skill set, no? Yes, I think so. I mean, you know, even if you take, you know, any example, for example, like customer support or you're taking nursing, obviously nurses have to, you know, upskill themselves to use these, you know, AI tools. And especially in healthcare, it's very important to build that trust, make sure AI is safe and you're re-skilling people. So I always think, of this as AI plus humans combined together is going to create a new industry. So soft skills, perhaps not so soft anymore in this era of being impacted by AI? Yeah, I think AI is now getting better at soft skills.

You know, when we train our AI at outcomes AI, we are calling the patients and the AI is having conversation with the patients. And the number one thing we make sure is that. AI is empathetic, has, you know, bedside manners like a nurse, and really understands the user and the patient, even if it's not doing, you know, core clinical work, but you still need to have that empathy. So, obviously, you can't replace what nurses can do and what physicians can do, which is really important. Yeah, I guess AI never has a bad day, never get stuck in traffic, so we've got to compete with that, too. Koldogs and Rajput, thank you.

from Outcomes AI. Well, up next, Mike Santoli breaks down the Trump trade and whether stocks that are viewed as favored by the White House can keep outperforming the broader market. And don't forget, you can watch us on the go, listen to us on the go, by following the closing bell overtime podcast and your favorite podcast app. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to overtime. Let's get you set up with tomorrow's trade today. Well, thanks to the government shutdown, we will not be getting data on housing starts, building permits or industrial production. But there's plenty on the earnings calendar, including Dow Component American Express, and regional banks, truest, Regents Financial, Huntington Bank shares, and Fifth Third. Now, let's get back to Mike Santoli for a look at one trade that is zooming past the broader market.

Mike. Yeah, John, and I guess multiple ways of expressing this trade. Ned Davis' research had put together what they call a Trump trade index. And this was based on early executive orders that the president had signed to show. some priorities as it relates to parts of the private sector. So it's a kind of ETF sector basket that includes things like digital assets, oil drilling, hydrogen, cannabis, just directly Bitcoin, things like that. And obviously it's back tested toward early last year, but you know, really been up at a steep angle right here. The

market kind of not overthinking it, essentially, these anointed parts of the market have been doing very well. Similar idea. Barclays has what they call the National Champions Index. This would be individual stocks where the government has either taken a stake or kind of tacitly endorsed these companies as essentially being in the national interest. And again, just zooming to the upside. I'm not sure this includes any of the companies that have been conjectured potentially to get investors from the government. But it just shows you one, I think part of the market where people have essentially decided that the, you know, the odds are lopsided in favor of speculators to feel as if that, you know, there's a finger on the scale and they're going

to go in a certain direction. Whether, in fact, they've overshot to the upside at this point, we certainly have no idea, John. Perhaps interestingly, Mike, in many of these cases, I'm thinking about Intel, Nvidia, in particular. The president seemed to be given them a hard time before he was given them a good time. I guess that causes some challenges for investors to figure out how to play that. Challenges for investors, obviously challenges. for CEOs as well. So there's no doubt about it. I mean, you know, it's sort of a, of a situation where in a general way, I remember, you know, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, it was kind of like, by what you think the government's going to bail out

next, and that was an amazing trade for a while. So you had to use a little bit of surmise to figure out, you know, what was the likely next beneficiary or target. Similar situation right here, although eventually there's not a lot of mystery is left around what the government prefers to see in the way of private sector behavior. And I guess it should go without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway, that's not a long-term trade. Well, it doesn't seem to be. No, and you sort of don't know how long these companies are going to be able to kind of be carried by the backing of the government or just policies that seem like they might move in right direction. I mean, we can just look at cannabis, for example. You might have thought that was going to be a really great trade.

It hasn't really worked longer term, even though parts of the government have decided to be a little more favorable toward it. Well, the high only lasts so long is what I hear, Mike Santoli. There you go. All right, Mike Santoli. Thank you. A day when the major averages were all lower by about a half a percent, and particularly the small caps did poorly with stress on the regional banks. That's going to do it for overtime.