Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: Markets Extend Recent Winning Streak 4/9/26

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

Markets try to refocus on fundamentals despite continued geopolitical uncertainty. Stephen Parker of JPMorgan Private Bank joins explains why markets could shift back to earnings and fundamentals if a ceasefire holds and oil prices stabilize. Gregory Daco, Chief Economist at EY-Parthenon, assesses the outlook for growth and what it means for the Federal Reserve. Stifel’s Brian Gardner on the latest updates from Washington and the evolving ceasefire narrative. In tech Kate Rooney breaks down Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s latest letter and what it signals about AI spending and investment trends. Andrea Auerbach examines a wave of new IPOs and what it means for market liquidity and investor appetite. John Kolovos of Macro Risk Advisors walks through key technical levels shaping the market’s next move. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The bell is bringing an end to the trading day at the NYSC Mountain ringing the bell, and at the NASDAQ, Suncrete, is doing the honors. Welcome to closing bell overtime live from Studio B at the NASDAQ market side. I'm Mike Santoli, Melissa Lee, is off today. Stocks building on yesterday's relief rally, the Dow adding about 300 points, more than half a percent each upside for the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ. Today's gain bringing the S&P to within a percent of where it was when the Iran war began and extending its winning streak to seven sessions.

We have not had a longer streak of gains since last April's tariff rebound. And a familiar theme once again playing out today, semis versus software. The software slumped continuing while chip names move higher. Let's bring in Christina Parks and Nevels for more on today's big movers. Christina. And I'll definitely hit those chip names. But stocks, like you said, extending their winning street for a second day, even as oil prices did push higher, energy names the big losers.

Texas Pacific Lent plunged about 15 percent or 15 and a half. after a board member, Marie Stahl passed away. His firm Horizon Kinetics is TPL's biggest shareholder. That's raising concerns they might sell part of their stake. Now to Mike's point about chip stocks, they did shine today, Susquehanna, talking up semi-equipment, saying higher pricing should help margins

at applied material in Lamb Research. Barkley's boosting Marvell to a price target of $150. And then you had Sandusk jumping roughly 9% from a target price high. from Cantor Fitzgerald. And then Intel did close higher after Google said it would continue to use future generations of Intel chips. Though like the TerraFab deal that we had earlier this week, there was no dollar amount, no timeline provided in this deal. Corweave, another big name popping more than 3% on a massive $21 billion cloud deal with meta.

Blume Energy, Renova, Eaton, Carrier, all up as data center power demand remains hot. And then finally, Disney, edging just a little bit higher after sources told CNBC, the company plans to lay off roughly 1,000 workers just days after Josh DeMaro took over as CEO. Thank you very much. Well, now for the software side of the story as the IGV ETF falls 4% on the day. Seema Modi watching knows name for us. Seema. Given the broader market move, AI displacement fears continue to send these stocks lower.

Myca Anthropic attempting to ease those concerns around its latest mythos AI model by giving 50 tech companies in early look, the list including software giant Microsoft, Nvidia, cybersecurity companies, CrowdStrike, Paula Alto Networks. The announcement initially boost sentiment on this notion that the large language models are working with the incumbents. But today, investors, we speak to, say

there's still concern that the latest AI models can only be fixed by the LLMs themselves, a claim that both CrowdStrike and Paula Alto Network's dispute. Adding to concerns, the reveal of META's new AI model dubbed MewSpark. Not seen as robust as OpenAI or Anthropic, but it does introduce the

idea of more competition that software companies now face. The price action has been significant, service now, Intuit, Workday. I was just looking at my screen now down double digits just this week as investors to continue to pour over Anthropics' latest numbers that do show customers spending over $1 million in annual recurring revenue doubling in less than two months, which for them is a bullish sign, Mike. Oh, for sure. Yeah, see, I mean, the IGV, the ETF is basically on its lows. We've hit them a couple months ago. We hit them even, a few times in the last two years. And it seems as if as much as the companies and analysts can come out and kind of refute the specifics of whatever new release comes from Claude or

elsewhere, investors must just feel as if it's the next one that could get them. In other words, these new versions keep coming out and it feels like every one of them hunts software in one way or another. Absolutely. The rapid adoption and evolving nature of these new products that are coming to market as such a fast speed, that's really what's keeping a lot of investors on guard. And what's also hard for a lot of these software publicly listed names is they usually wait about three months to provide some type of update and not only on financials but new product releases. Whereas if you're on the private side, you're able to release this type of information on a much faster level, which is allowing them to, in a way, dominate the narrative. No, for sure. Really fascinating. Seema, thank you very much. Well, despite the ongoing uncertainty in the Middle East, investor attention could begin to turn back to fundamentals as we get up

earning season starting next week. And our next guest says that should be a positive for equities. Joining me now here at the NASDAQ is Stephen Parker. He is co-head of Global Investment Strategy at JPMorgan Private Bank. Good to see you. Good to be here. I guess quite literally nobody knows exactly how things will proceed from here in terms of oil, the Iran crisis. But I guess you have to have a working assumption or a baseline view, how it's going to feed into the economy and the market. So where does your stand? Yeah, one of the things that we tried to do, having the humility to know that these things are very difficult to predict, is not to think about one specific path, or rather to think about a variety of scenarios.

So our base case is one where energy prices continue to gradually move lower over the next three to six months. We take a little bit of a hit to growth, a little bit of a pickup in inflation. But overall, that's still a very constructive environment for equities, particularly as we get into earnings season, which we think will be really positive. At the same time, we need to think about scenarios where energy prices stay higher and potentially move even higher. And we do think the markets, that's a less likely outcome, but recession risks have picked up a bit on the margin.

Yeah, and I wonder how that risk, the recession risk, is distributed throughout the world, and what does that mean as an investor? Yeah, I think what we've seen, and this has been reflected in the movement in equity markets, parts of the world that are more exposed and more energy reliant on the Middle East, think places like Europe, think parts of Asia, have taken bigger hits in their equity markets because there is greater concerns about the potential impact on growth. The U.S. has been relatively insulated in that trade, although, you know, concerns are higher. We are subject to these higher global energy prices, but it has been more regionally specific. And then in terms of just how the market has tried to weigh the probabilities here in the last

couple of weeks, does it seem rational to you, right? The S&P's up 8%. We're still at levels we first got to in October. So there had been this long sideways period where I guess, you know, earnings were kind of growing into valuations. But it's a feel as if the market is taking an optimistic view, a kind of plausible view, or are we still kind of focused on the negatives? I think markets are somewhat cautiously optimistic. The size of the drawdown that we've seen in equity markets, particularly in the U.S., probably doesn't feel big enough relative to the move and the shock that we saw in energy markets. But I think that's reflective of a view that energy prices are likely to come down. And importantly, the entire move that we're seeing in equity markets is sentiment-driven.

It's all valuation compression. Earnings revisions keep moving higher. And if markets start to refocus on those fundamentals and we can see some stability in the economic. energy market, that should set us up for a nice finish into the back. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly supportive to see what's happening with earnings forecasts, I guess. A couple of notes on that. One is it still seems pretty skewed to kind of the AI trade orbit, the KAPX cycle there, as well as energy earnings going up. The other one is, I wonder if you can be comfortable with this idea that, you know, everything dramatic has

happened in the final month of a quarter. Companies haven't been giving updates. Analysts maybe are not up to date on revising. their views. So I wonder what we're in for for reporting season. You know, I do think that what we were seeing at the beginning of the year before the escalation, which was this rotation away from technology into more cyclical parts of the market, was healthy. There was a lot of concern that this was a very concentrated market. It was all about tech. It was all about AI. And I think before the spike in energy, we were seeing a healthy rotation and a broader cyclical recovery. To your question about whether we're going to see some of the headwinds from the higher energy prices in this reporting season,

probably not as much in the numbers, but what we're going to be watching is the commentary and what we hear from management. I mean, if you think back to last year, we had a similar situation with the surprise on the tariff and the trade front. Companies were very resilient and very flexible in terms of adapting to that environment. We think that's probably the case here as well. Even if the economy can sustain, you know, pretty decent expansion with oil around these levels, it seems likely to be the case for now. Did it cost us potential Fed rate cuts, and is that going to matter? You know, we were more cautious around the rate cut outlook coming into this year.

We thought we were going to see one cut in 26. Markets were pricing two to two and a half. You know, that's now gone away, and we think that the Fed is probably on hold. I think markets can digest that. What I think markets would be more concerned about is if we started to see a sign that perhaps the Fed was going to have to start hiking rates. And there's a couple of reasons why we don't think that's going to be. going to be the case, specifically because you've already seen financial conditions tighten. Two, labor markets are not as tight as they were in 2022. And three, the long-term inflation

expectations haven't moved nearly as much as some of the short-term. Sure. And in theory, they ought to be kind of looking through the short-term oil effects, ideally. Stephen, good to see it. Good to see it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Stephen Parker, J.P. Morgan. All right, lots of economic data out this morning. Let's get to Rick Santelli in Chicago to bundle it together and get us the bond market reaction. Rick. Absolutely, Mike. You know, I was rather surprised we continue to see sticky inflation. And pretty much today's data, February on the PCE, is pretty much all pre-conflict. And if you looked at up four-tenths, month over month on PCE, if you looked at core also up four-tenths, go to year-over-year, and you see the chart there.

That chart goes back three years. Year-over-year-over-year stuck at three percent, even though it is down one-tenth of a percent. And GDP, our third time around the block on fourth quarter GDP, and it moved from seven-tenths to half a percent. We lost a couple of tens. So these are important things to monitor, trying to get a baseline. So after the conflict, and when we start factoring in some of the big, beautiful bill stimulus, we can get a better view of what the future looks like. Look at a 12-hour chart of twos and tens. Initially, they followed oil down, but they're coming back, as you see, close to unchanged. And if you take those twos and tens to the beginning of the month, month to date,

one thing should jump out at you, how steady they've been given all the volatility in other markets. Mike, back to you. All right, Rick, so we're like 24 hours away from another weekly close. So what do you fixated on in terms of those yield levels? Every time a two-year closes and stays under 380, I remain a bit bullish. Maybe we can get back down in the 361 to 362 range on. a 10-year, 430 on a closing basis. Below that, I'd say 417's your next area. But if either those maturities close above those on a Friday close, I'd be cautious. All right, we'll be watching,

Rick. Thanks so much. Let's get more on the economy in today's inflation numbers. Our next guest says the Middle East conflict will exacerbate economic headwinds, making the outlook for the year a bit less favorable. Joining me now is Gregory Do you now is Gregory Doakow. He is chief economist at E.I. Parthenon. Great to see you, Greg. And I guess arguably you've seen this stagnationary wind to kind of blow through the economy. At least we expect it to have that effect. What does it mean do you think we're going to settle out

in terms of a growth rate and in terms of an inflation pace? Well, I think as your prior guest was saying, we have to be very cautious about the underlying assumptions as to how the Middle East conflict will evolve. But I think it's important to remind everyone that we are in this multidimensional shock environment. where it's not just about one particular supply shock, but it's really the confluence of supply shocks, from the trade shock and the tariff shock to the immigration shock, to the positive AI shock,

and now this Middle East conflict that are all affecting the U.S. economy. And if we look out over the rest of the year, we're anticipating U.S. growth to actually decelerate to around 1.5 percent by year end, which would be a fairly slow pace of growth, with inflation rising towards 4 percent and ending the year around 3 percent. So we're going to be in an environment that feels somewhat more stagnationary. It's not outright stagflation, but it is an opening to a potential further downside shock in terms of economic activity. Yeah, I was going to say 5% plus nominal GDP when, you know, almost four percentage points

of it is coming from inflation is sort of a less comfortable way to get there than we've become used to. What does that mean for policy in your view for the Fed? Well, I think generally speaking, we've heard from many Fed, policymakers that it's prudent to await more information as to how the Middle East conflict will affect economic activity and inflation. The minutes from the March FOMC meeting had a bit of a hawkish tilt to them with essentially this focus on the fact that inflation remains above the desired 2% target and that there will likely be further inflationary pressure.

So I don't think we should expect any type of move from the Fed over the coming months, because we are in this environment where inflation is likely to move in the wrong direction, and most Fed policy makers appear content with what they call a balanced labor market. I would tend to view the downside risk to the labor market as being dominant, but the dominating view right now amongst Fed policy makers is that downside risks to the labor market are not as present as some may believe. So we're likely to see a hold when it comes to the Fed for the foreseeable future. How would you characterize the fortunes of the consumer right now in aggregate?

Because we did see a decent personal spending number. Obviously, people have been talking about the tax refund bump we're getting in the first part of this year. On the other hand, kind of real income growth has been lagging to some degree. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, the headline numbers this morning in terms of February consumer spending, even adjusted for inflation, were relatively healthy. But make no mistakes. Increasingly, we're seeing consumers running on fume. We're seeing an environment where if you look at real disposable income growth, it's trending around 1% while consumer spending is trending around 2.5%.

That means that consumers are increasingly dipping into their savings, using credit, and using wealth as a means to finance their outlays. Those are not infinite measures to sustain economic activity. And I'll tell you one more thing that I think is quite telling. When it comes to tax refunds, on average, for every family across the U.S., you're going to see tax refunds. funds around $300 per household. In terms of the energy shock that has already occurred from the Middle East conflict, you're going to see a hit of about $350. Greg. One second. Sorry about that. Just stay right there. We are looking at marketing agency,

Jack Morton, ringing the closing bell at CBO in Chicago. That ends the regular trading day for options. Apologies, Greg. You were just talking about how essentially the energy cost increases is going to offset that tax refund effect? That's right. We are going to see essentially the energy shock from the oil price increase and gas price increase more than offset the increase in tax refunds from the one big, beautiful bill. So we should be very cautious about any significant tailwind coming from these larger tax refunds. And I guess what is when you talked about your projections for the year, the 1.5% real and then inflation going higher, what does that bake in in terms of where oil prices go from here? Well, essentially our baseline case is that we see average oil prices on a Brent measure that slide down to around $85 in the third quarter and then further down towards $80 by

year end, which would still be about $15 higher than they were pre-conflict. So that is a baseline assumption. But let's not forget a couple of days ago, oil prices were trading around $110 per barrel. So there could very well be a downside risk where inflation rises towards four and a half, maybe 5%, and where growth actually falls below 1% in that type of scenario. And then just, I mean, I guess you can kind of go a couple of moves down the board on that in terms of yields remaining a little bit elevated, at least relative to where people were hoping they'd be, mortgage rates following, and the housing market getting a little bit stuck in there.

Yeah, that's really the key issue in this environment is that what we're seeing in terms of interest rates is unusual. Usually when you have a geopolitical conflict, you tend to see downward pressure on long-term yields as there is a safe haven flow into treasuries. That has not occurred this time around. We've seen pricing of fewer rate cuts by the Fed lead to upward pressure on long-term rates. We've seen higher inflation expectations push higher long-term rates. And we've also seen questions around fiscal sustainability and Fed influence pressure long-term rates higher. So the confluence of higher inflation and higher interest rates is going to continue eroding growth momentum and lead to slower growth as we navigate through the rest of 2026.

All right, yeah, a little bit of a different picture than many thought we'd be seeing coming into this year. Greg, really appreciate time today. Thank you, Greg. Pleasure. All right, stocks rising once again today, but oil also higher as the straight of Hormuz is still closed. Coming up, we'll look at the pressure on both sides to make this ceasefire last. You're watching Closing Bell Overtime live from the NASDAQ market. Stocks rising today, despite oil bouncing back a bit after yesterday's historic drop, But the big question remains whether tankers can resume use of the Strait of Hormuz. Pippa Stevens has the latest for us. Pippa.

Hey, Mike, traffic through the waterway remains all but at a standstill with just a few ships transiting today. And Sparta commodities, noting the ones that have crossed have connections to Iran or passed under other deals, meaning it is very much not back to normal. Or as Abu Dhabi National Oil Company's CEO said today, quote, let's be clear, the strait of Hormuz is not open, access is being restricted, conditioned, and controlled. WTI adding about 4% today, but off the best levels of the session, which saw across 102. Brent is right around 9678. Now dated Brent, which is indicative of what buyers are paying for immediate delivery, pricing at 131.97 today, that's according to Platz. So about a

$35 or so premium. Now, with Middle East barrels in short supply, U.S. oil is looking increasingly attractive. Take a look at this chart from Kepler, which shows the number of empty VLCCs, or very large crude carriers that are bound for the U.S. currently above 70. So, Mike, no doubt the market will be watching the import, export data very closely going forward. Yeah, for sure. You know, it's kind of amazing. A bit of a leap of fake that crude is $20 off. It's high, I suppose, given what's happening on the waters.

Pippa, thank you. Sticking now with oil and Iran, our next guest says there's a reasonable chance a ceasefire extends beyond the initial two weeks as both sides of incentives to de-escalate. But any signs of a new conflict could quickly pressure equities and, of course, push oil prices higher. Joining me now is Brian Gardner. He is Stiefel, Chief Washington Policy Strategist. Brian, look, the market today, it took some heart in a couple of headlines and managed to make some progress when it said the president had urged Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the offensive in Lebanon. And then that Israel, in fact, would be discussing a ceasefire with Lebanon.

So market seems to think there's a good faith process, under. way to try to find some agreements here. Is it correct? Yes, there's a question about how durable this is. And I think the markets, and I think all of us want to expect the best and hope for the best, I do think there is a chance that it can, that it can last beyond two weeks, that we kind of we get into a kick the can down the road scenario where neither side really wants to resume the hostilities that we've seen over the past five weeks. But it's a precarious ceasefire. And I think we've seen that over the first day or so. So I think there is a good chance that it could last beyond two weeks, and then we can get into several weeks of extensions of whatever deadlines we start

to face. But it's not a guarantee. I mean, there are real risks to this that it could collapse, and we're back to where we were, you know, earlier this week before the ceasefire was announced. Yeah, it seems, as you mentioned, I mean, the incentives are there for either side to essentially find some way beyond this. Although Iran also would seem to have some incentives to try to exert authority over traffic through the Strait of Ormuz for a while or at least get something out of that as a leverage point. So how does that play out?

Here's the problem with that. Because I think you're right. You know, the incentives and the interests in some ways are aligned to have that kick the can down the road scenario. The problem is that the Iranians are a radical, theocratic government, and they don't think always in the rational terms that we as Westerners do. And you have an American president, and I don't mean to sound as overly critical, but he's adopted a madman theory, right? That, you know, if he acts and speaks in chaotic terms, that a rational actor will come to their senses and try and avoid that conflict. Well, the problem is the party on the other side doesn't think that way.

So I think that's the biggest risk to how durable this situation is going to be, how durable the ceasefire is going to be. There would seem, though, to be on the part of the president and the White House in general to try and come to something that's a little more stable before terribly long. There starts to become these time imperatives, whatever else you want to make your priority from here to the midterm elections. the president has a summit meeting with Chinese President Xi. So a lot of things come in there, and I wonder if that's going to hasten some kind of activity as well. And we have the midterm elections later this year. Republicans are going into a two-month period where they're going to try and pass a reconciliation bill to fund DHS and maybe have some other items in there.

In order to do that, it's going to be a Republican-only bill because it's reconciliation. How do you keep your team united when it's a fractured team to start with? you don't have the same levers that you did with one big beautiful bill. If the situation with Iran deteriorates, then you're at risk of losing part of that Republican coalition up on Capitol Hill. So, yeah, I think the interests are as much, probably more so on the American side to extend a ceasefire than it is on the Iranian side. Because like I said, they don't think in the same logical and rational terms that I think a lot of Westerners think. Now, six, seven months, is that enough time to sort of change the storyline, you know, when it comes to people worried about affordability and now you have gasoline prices doing what they're doing?

And this has not been, by most polls, a popular conflict. It hasn't been, especially among independents. To me, that's the group you have to look at. I mean, Republicans have stuck with the president, and they're going to stick with the president. You know, I think the challenge for the White House over the next six, seven months, is one, to turn the narrative around among independence, and two, to keep Republicans united and energized, which they don't have a lot of. There's not a lot of enthusiasm among Republicans right now. How do you change that? It's not a lot of time. And really, at this point, you're probably

trying to minimize your losses. So you keep house losses to a minimum in the 15-seat range, and you keep the Senate. Because if it deteriorates, then Republicans, are looking at a Democratic Senate, and that's even more problematic for the administration in its last two years. For sure. Brian, thanks very much. Good to catch up. Thank you, Mike. Brian Gardner from Stiefel. Shares of Amazon gaining 5% today, turning positive on the year. CEO Andy Jassy defending the company's AI spending, we'll have that story after this break. Aries Management has lost a third of its value this year in the private credit meltdown, caused largely due to concerns about investments in software.

Today, the firm making a deal in retail real estate. It's buying Whitestone REIT for $19 a share. That's nearly $2 billion in total. White Stone owns and operates outdoor shopping centers in Texas and Arizona. And speaking of spending, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, defending his company's AI spending in his annual letter, Kate Rooney has details. Hey, Kate.

Hey, Mike. So CEO Andy Jassy really making the case at Amazon's mega AI spending is going to be paying off his annual sharehold. letter dropped this morning. He says in that that we are not going to be conservative in how we play this. Speaking about AI, Amazon's $200 billion cap-ex plans have been a drag on the stock this year. It's stock turning positive on the year today, though. He does expect that much of that is going to be monetized in 2027 and 2028. According to Jassy, he goes on in that letter to say, they're not just spending on a hunch. And he says he has never seen a technology more quickly

adopted than AI argues Amazon is smack in the middle of what he calls a land rush. But all of this, Mike, is expected to result in negative free cash flow for Amazon. Jassy calls it, though, a time of very high growth. He says they're willing to endure some of the short-term headwinds for what he calls substantial medium to long-term surplus in revenue. This really does rhyme with the first big AWS growth wave that investors did like when it comes to those results. Also disclosed for the first time that AI cloud revenue hit $15 billion in terms of the world. that run rate. Finally, very optimistic as well on Amazon's customs semiconductor business to compete with Nvidia. Jassy says that business is on fire. He does expect custom chips to save Amazon,

tens of billions of dollars of CAPX per year going forward, Mike. It's so much residence, Kate, here, not just because he's reiterating this kind of cultural view at Amazon, you have to invest big to earn big down the road. But I viewed this whole mode of CEOs wanting to make grant statements through their shareholder letter. It almost all harkens back to Jeff Bezos in the IPO in the IPO perspective for Amazon initially, where it was like, look, this is who we are, this is how we're going to behave,

and you've got to understand that to own the stock. In the letter, Mike, at the bottom of it, they do this every year. You have the original shareholder letter from Jeff Bezos. And there was a lot that rhymed in Jassy's letter this year, including he used the word pillar, which I think investors really like to focus on, the pillars within Amazon,

that at one point did not make sense, and this could be one example, whether it's AI spending or chips. He uses some examples and goes back to one of the board members early on. He doesn't name names, but says they didn't understand why we did AWS and look at us now. It's $142 billion run rate in terms of what that company or that side of the company is providing. He is really trying to draw parallels and say that this isn't going to be a linear path. It's going to be a little bumpy along the way. But trust us, and that has paid off before they've seen these massive cap-exec. cycles and investors that believed in it, you know, it paid off in the long run. So they're really

trying to reiterate that and say, if you trust us with this, it's going to work out. But again, the numbers in this cycle are just so much bigger. The numbers are much bigger. And they certainly hope that they don't have to sustain an 80% plus drop in the stock has happened one time, you know, after the 2000 peak. So, Kate, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thanks, right. Time for a CBC News update with Pippa Stevens. Hi, Heather. Hey, Mike, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine will soon be in place. The pause in fighting will coincide with Orthodox Easter. It will go from 4 p.m. local time on April 11th through the end of the day on April 12th.

It has been more than four years since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Consulting firm McKinsey has agreed to contribute $125 million to Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy settlement. According to a new filing, the payment resolves McKinsey from any legal claims over advice it gave to Purdue on how to turbocharge sale. of addictive painkillers. The money will be used to pay creditors who accuse the company of fueling the U.S. opioid epidemic through its aggressive sales tactics.

And First Lady Melania Trump is denouncing what she describes as false claims about her and notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In a speech, the First Lady called out numerous fake images and statements linking her in Epstein, saying, I have never been friends with Epstein,

I have never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, Jelaine Maxwell. Mike, back to you. All right, Pippa, thank you. Well, 2026 is expected to be a huge year for IPOs, SpaceX leading the way, along with Anthropic and Open AI. So what will all that money mean for the private and the public markets? That's next on overtime. Welcome back to closing bell overtime, live from the NASDAQ market site.

Stock's moving higher once again today, seven-day winning streets for both the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ. The NASDAQ's close of 22-822 is higher than where it closed on February 27th. before the Iran War started. Today, the NASDAQ getting a boost from chip names, the SMH ETF, now up nearly 20 percent so far this year. The second best performer in that ETF this year is Intel, which also has been higher for seven straight days, the stock up 50 percent over that span. The latest gain coming on the back of news is expanding its partnership with Google. Well, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are among the highly anticipated blockbuster IPOs of the year, with market values approaching or even exceeding a trillion dollar.

raising concerns among some investors over how the market will absorb these high valuation IPOs, but promising a bonanza to the early private investors in these companies. Let's bring in Cambridge Associates, Global Head of Private Investments, Andrea Auerbach. Andrew, it's great to see you. Pretty extraordinary, I guess, moment here for both sides. The private investment space, given the size of these companies at this point, unprecedented scale, are the investments as concentrated, among private investors as they at some point got, like in the S&P 500, is there a MAG3 that's

been dictating how these portfolios behave? Mike, it's a great question. And keep in mind that across the venture capital ecosystem and landscape, there are tens of thousands of venture-backed companies out there sitting in private investor portfolios. And so when you roll it all the way up, even with the substantial valuations of some of these companies that are in line to go public, the actual market concentration in venture isn't what you would see in the public markets. In fact, the top 10 holdings in our venture capital benchmark only comprise 14% of that benchmark. And so we're not seeing the same level of concentration. And the tens of thousands of VC investments mean individual investor portfolios may have different levels of concentration, but not at this level that we're talking about.

Interesting. Yeah. I wonder, though, if given how relatively matured, these companies are at least on a valuation basis within these private portfolios. Are the investors antsy, are they eager to have them turn over a little bit and have these exits through the IPO window? Mike, absolutely. Much like there's been a bit of an IPO drought in the venture space in the private markets, there's been a distribution drought for the last several years once the IPO window started closing in late 22. And so we definitely have a lot of interest waiting to get distributed and get that capital back in private market venture capital portfolios. And keep in mind, the average age of venture-backed IPOs, those companies typically run around a decade. And so venture

investors on the private side of the market have been waiting a very long time for these moments to arrive and are definitely looking forward to getting some of that liquidity. I've been fascinated by the way the companies themselves, the investment banks and some of the index providers have been very eager to try and kind of ease these companies way into the public markets, whether it's hastening the way they can get into these indexes and ETFs and trying to manage that whole deal. I guess out of a concern that so much value has built up in private hands that it's going to be a lot for the public markets to digest. Is that something you would imagine is going to become an issue? I mean, this is where when these private companies

that have built up such substantial value or moving into the public markets, this is when the public market machinery sort of takes over and manages through getting this capital successfully out so that the share price can continue to perform on the other side of the other side of the divide between the private and the public markets. But absolutely, and I do think, Mike, investors will be carefully monitoring when they're able to get that liquidity or for other investors wanting to stay in and continue in this next phase of growth for these companies. You mentioned that, yeah, what, 10,000 or so venture capital back companies in private hands at this point. If you could characterize just exactly how important AI in one way or another

are to the new startup world, I mean, is it the prevailing theme? Absolutely. AI has definitely taken over the conversation in the venture capital space. And the vast majority of companies getting funded today have to have. some element of AI somewhere in their tech stack and in their product offering. And so we're definitely seeing that increase in terms of the amount of capital going into AI inflected businesses from the venture capital space and also creeping into the private equity space as well. AI capabilities or AI-ready platforms are the ones that are gathering the attention, both from investors and from the capital that they provide.

Andrea Auerbach, great to talk to you. Thanks so much. Good to see you, Mike. Right up next. We'll break down the charts to see whether you should be skeptical about this week's rally or if the bulls are back in charge on Wall Street. Welcome back to overtime. The S&P 500 bouncing above that key 6,800 level today. Our next guy says he's seeing growing signs the market is bottoming and is starting to lean into dip buying. Joining me now here on set is John Kolovis.

He's head of technical strategy at macro risk advisors. John, good to see you. Good see, Mike. All right. So look, it seemed pretty fragile a couple of weeks ago. The market had kind of lost the benefit of the doubt. Is it won it back here? I think so. It's starting to build that bottoming process. You know, I think there's high odds that the low is.

in, but I'd say at a minimum we're in the bottoming process. So the rally that we saw this week, I think you've got to take it very, very seriously. What is it telling you in the way it's gone up, whether it's how broad it is, whether what's leading it, whether it's the levels? That's all the above, right? Kind of thing. So what I have, I have these lists of technical green shoots that I track, right? And when the majority of them actually sprout, then the odds are that the market is put in a bottom. So what are they, right? So it would be spikes in 20-day highs, both domestically and overseas. We got that.

We also need to see an expansion and volume flows. We got that as well. We need to see risky parts of the market reverse their downtrends. We got that as well. One thing I think is super interesting off of this low preceding it is that breath has actually gotten better.

And this is something we used to talk about. I wasn't very happy about how breath was going into it. It's actually much stronger. So I would even say to folks, I'm actually very bullish on the market of stocks warming up to the stock market. Right. And so within the market then, is it just reverting to the prevailing trends from before in terms of what seems to be better positioned?

Kind of, right? Like today, yeah, you're seeing software get crushed, right? Right. I mean, those are broken charts. I think that's going to be the norm for a while. But what I think is interesting here is a little bit different is that cats and dogs are getting along. Tech, X software is doing pretty decent. And same with financials.

So if you were to look at the advanced decline line of those two groups, they're actually near new highs. So to me, that's interesting. But again, industrials look pretty strong as well. So I think on the margin, banks is what's different. And then on top of that, biotech. I think biotech looks quite interesting. Interesting, yeah. I mean, banks pretty pronounced.

I mean, even through the downturn. You know, I guess you have to kind of look at and be open-minded about how it might not go according to script here, not just because of the geopolitics, but, you know, everyone came into the midterm election. you're saying, look, a lot of times you get these nasty downside tests. We're going to get a new Fed share. People talking about that two months ago, too. Where do we stand with all that? Because, you know, is 9% enough?

Did we get a cleanse? It's close enough. I mean, going into the year, I was expecting a correction to be in the early part. We'd get to around, you know, 63, 61. We got to the top of that part. So from a price perspective, good enough, right? But what's interesting is that historically corrections that occur in midterm election years, they don't tend to bottom in the first half of the year.

They tend to bottom on the second half of the year, closer to September, October time frame. But I'm willing to kind of give the market the benefit of the doubt-ish here, given these green shoots that have sprouted and the sentiment reset that we saw. Another way to think about it, too, is like last year was so strong, it borrowed gains from this year.

It made the market peak earlier than it should have. I kind of think the market's going to bottom sooner than it should. Now, ultimately, I think my base case is we're going to be range, bound for the time being. We need to see 6,800, not only broke, but sustained on pullbacks. I don't think there's enough gas in the tank for that to happen now. But then the pullbacks have to be

sustained at 6,500. Hold that 6,500, I'm dip-bying. I'm dip-dying all day, because that was the call going into this year, is to take advantage of the correction that midterm elections give you, which is the once in the four-year gift that the technical gods give us, and now we're getting it. You've pointed out

in something I kind of have mentioned once in a while, too, which is V bottoms, or something like it have seemingly become more common than the old playbook would say is likely. Yeah, yeah. You should say that would be the exception to the rule. It seems like it's happening more and more. One of my advising clients to do now is when you look at your charts, you need to look at them on a shorter-term time frame, which is blasphemous for some of my mutual fund folks.

But you can see the patterns a lot easier there. And you can see it leading into the low, there was a very apparent inverted head and shoulders bottom on the intradate charts. Projects the market to 7,000. Okay. So everything's fractal. You need your short-term patterns to line up. that leads to your longer-term pattern. So I think the V-bottom scenario is possible.

I'd say positive. It's very probable given those green shoots. But again, the key is $6,800 has to be sustained to the upside, and $65. It's worth, and I'll just tag it by mentioning. A V-bottom is often something in retrospect you call something that doesn't always look and feel. I mean, even in April of last year, it was a V, but then it kind of got a little bit hairy for a minute and then went back. John, great to see you. Good to see you, too.

Thanks a lot. John Clovis. taking a big step to become the first state to ban the building of data centers. Up next, we'll look at what's at stake for AI and the odds the bill will be signed into law. And check out some notable stocks hitting new highs today. Caterpillar touching its highest level since going public way back in 1929, State Street, Corning, TJX, and Casey's general stores also in uncharted territory. Closing bill overtime live from the NASDAQ market site. We'll be right back. Welcome back to overtime. The backlash against building

AI data centers is reaching new heights in one state. Emily Wilkins has the details. Hi, Emily. Hey, Mike. Well, look, Maine is set to become the first state to hit pause on building data centers over rising concerns on energy costs. It builds a whole construction on any data center until November of 2027. It passed the Maine State House yesterday with bipartisan support and is expected to get a vote in the Senate and pass today. Now, that bill would also create a group to propose guardrails for any incoming data centers in the state once the ban is lifted. Investment in data centers has boomed, but so has opposition in numerous states and localities. And while Maine doesn't have some of the big data centers we've seen elsewhere, it could open the door to other states

enacting delays. Right now, more than a dozen state legislatures introduce bills this year to press pause on new data centers, some for a year, some for a few years. And some of these states, Like Virginia and Georgia, they are homes to data centers being built by major companies like Meta, Google, Microsoft. The issue is also said to be a flashpoint during the upcoming midterms. In fact, Maine governor Janet Mills, who tried and failed to get a carve-out into the bill that would have allowed data centers to be built in select spots in Maine is in a very tough Democratic primary right now.

And if she does not wind up approving this bill, I've been told that could actually wind up hurting her in this primary election. guys? Yeah, fascinating, Emily. I mean, on paper, you know, Maine obviously not a very densely populated state. They have the land. I would imagine there's even some hydro power. What has been their electricity cost experience that maybe is driving this in Maine in particular? So, Mike, if you actually look at the amount that states are paying in terms of electricity, Maine is not at the top, but it's pretty close to the top. We're looking at one of the top 10 most expensive states. And that has been a concern for the folks who already live up there. I've been told from some of the

groups who support this that they're already dealing with shortages. I've spoken with businesses who say, look, we're very pro if the state wants to implement something that says if you build a data center, you need to take responsibility for increased energy costs, or if you build a data center, you need to be cognizant about supplying some more energy for the grid. We're totally fine with that. But a lot of businesses have said, if you delay this, even if it's just for a year and a half, that is going to really put Maine behind. others, and I've even been told you if enough states try and implement this stuff, the U.S. could wind up falling behind in terms of data centers and AI.

Yeah, presumably, they're not going to wait. They're going to build it somewhere. Emily, thanks so much, Emily Wilkins. Well, let's get you set up for tomorrow's trade today. The earnings calendar is empty for a second straight day, but there is some key economic data on tap. The March Consumer Price Index is what investors will be most closely watching. February factory orders and the preliminary April reading on consumer sentiment will also be released to finish up the week. That does it for overtime. Fast money begins after this quick break.