Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: Microsoft’s New Commercial CEO & USA Rare Earth CEO On Potential Government Stake 10/2/25

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Wharton’s Jeremy Siegel joins to weigh in on markets, jobs data, the Fed, and how the government shutdown could dent GDP. Former Tesla exec Jon McNeill break down EV delivery numbers. Microsoft’s new commercial CEO Judson Althoff talks changes at the tech giant. Plus, USA Rare Earth CEO Barbara Humpton explains what government stakes in rare earth companies could mean for critical supply chains. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, that's standard regulation. Phoenix Energy ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange, K-Tech Solutions during the honors at the NASDAQ. Record closes for the Dow, the S&P, and today the NASDAQ. Stocks moving higher today as investors shook off concerns about the government shutdown. Materials and technology were the sector leaders, energy and consumer discretionary lagged. Golds falling slightly after closing at record highs in yesterday's trading. Copper on the move today as well. Touching the highest level since July and oil hitting a four-month low, falling another 2%. Bitcoin crossing $120,000 for the first time since mid-August. Ether, also higher, hitting its highest level since late September. Plus, the dollar. That's in focus. Again today, as the government shutdown continues, it closed the day slightly higher, ending a four-day slide. That is the scorecard on Wall Street. Welcome to Closing Bell Overtime.

I'm Morgan Brennan. John Ford is off today. While government shutdown worries about a stretched AI trade and jobs slowdown are not enough to stop this market as we hit all time highs. Can it last? We're going to ask Jeremy Siegel. Plus, as the government continues to take stakes in companies, Wall Street is trying to gauge who could be next. One name on the list, USA Rare Earth. We're going to talk to the brand new CEO with that stock up 52% in a month. It's up double digits again today. But first, let's get to Christina Parts Nevelas for what you look at today's big market themes. Christina. It seems like the catalyst driving tech again today is sustained

AI spending enthusiasm. I say that because Microsoft provided more detail. about its $19 billion deal with Neal Cloud Company Nebius. That's why you saw shares of Nebius close at least 6% higher today. And OpenAI announcing a partnership with Samsung and SK Hynix to secure advanced memory chips, build more data centers, all of this, really driving chip stocks back into the spotlight. The sector has really outperformed software just over the last three months if you use the IGV versus the SMH, which is ETFs. Seven chip names hitting 52-week highs at some point today, applied materials, ASML, Intel, KLA, LAM research, Micron,

Nvidia, the list continues. On the technical side, though, the SMH relative strengthening index crossed over 80 yesterday just for the first time in more than a year, signaling that chips overall are now in overbought territory, something to keep in mind.

And then the risk appetite, we are seeing extend to quantum computing stocks as well. Raghetti, D-Wave, I&Q, you can see Raghetti closing over 19% higher, just double digits across the board. But today's gains are actually a little bit more broad-based.

We often refer to the S&P 500 equal-weighted ETF, which hit an all-time high this morning. It's first time since 2011. And last but not least, Bitcoin crossing over $120,000 for the first time since mid-August, helping, of course, drive Coinbase about eight, almost 8% higher today. That's five straight winning days, the longest streak since November 2024. Risk on, Morgan. Sure seems like it. Christina Pratt's Navalis. Thank you.

Thanks. Well, the bond market relatively quiet today. as investors face what's essentially an economic data blackout. Rick Santelli is at the CME, and he has more. Hi, Rick. Hi, you nailed it, Morgan. It wasn't necessarily volume quiet. It was a decent amount of volume, but it was range quiet. If you look at a two-year, and let's look at it one week, we just talked about, Morgan, you brought it up. The four-day slide in the dollar ended today.

Well, it looks like the four-day slide in two-year, no eels may end today as well, even though it's a close call. We're virtually unchecked. but we are up about three quarters, three quarters of base point, not even a full basis point, and the range, a little over three basis points. And if you look at a 10-year, 10-year's range is four basis points. But there was a decent amount of volume, and for the most part, even though the two-year might be breaking its four-day streak of lower yields, for the most part, the dynamic in the market is lower yields. And the 10-year, for the next several days, want to pay especially close attention. The year today chart says it all. We are flirting,

getting close to testing that 4% low yield close of the year from the fourth day of April. And if that occurs, there may be lots of resting orders for new technically driven buy orders should that occur. Morgan, back to you. Rick Santelli, thank you. On major averages closing with record highs today, even as investors continue to weigh any impact from the government shutdown, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC this morning that the shutdown could hit GDP and growth. Well, joining me now is Wharton School Professor of Finance and Wisdom Tree Chief Economist, Jeremy Siegel. Jeremy, it's great to have you on this show. Welcome. Good to see you, Morgan.

So where do we go from here with stocks? Well, as I've been saying for a long time, make the trend your friend. The trend is on. But Mike Cento is right. It's been a long time since we've had any reaction. But at this point, I don't see anything immediately that is derailing the trend that we're seeing, and not even the government shutdown. It seems like the betting markets thinks it could go anywhere from 10 days to two weeks.

I think anything longer than that could really weigh on sentiment. We did get a little nick on consumer sentiment in the last confidence level reading. what I'm really looking for this quarter, I mean, certainly we're going to get earnings for the third quarter, I'm looking for any reaction to tariff hikes that I think are going to be more prominent in the fourth quarter than we've seen all this year. As Christmas and retail spending, come on,

is there really going to be resistance at the low end? And, you know, we might not see that for a couple weeks, but I think that that's really going to be the big story here in the fourth quarter. However, with that ADP report, it still looks to me. I'm still saying the Fed on October 29th, it's probably going to go down another 25 basis points and one final cut in December. Okay. I guess given the idea that maybe coming into the fourth quarter,

you start to see more impact from tariffs, is it transitory? Because that's just as important when you talk about the Fed's next moves, right? Yeah. I mean, listen, what I've been saying all along, it's like a tax that has put on all imported goods. We will have a bump in prices. It's a one-time bump. And I've always recommended that the Fed look through that and not tighten or delay in loosening credit as a result of that. And it will give some shock to downward on consumption. However, nothing that approaches what I think is a recession. And with everything else positive going on in terms of capital spending, AI spending, and all the rest, I mean, that's just producing the earnings that it's more than offsetting what slowdown there could be in the consumer in the fourth quarter. Amid the government shutdown, you do have this data desert, if you will, at least in terms of the federally generated data around things like jobs report and jobless claims.

But we were having this conversation with Steve Leesman here yesterday on the show. show and this idea that maybe this is an opportunity for economists and investors and analysts to get off the data-dependent hamster wheel and sort of pull in more inputs in terms of their analysis. How do you see it? Well, and I heard Steve say that, and I think there's a lot of truth to that. I mean, we get so hooked on each of these reports. We see all the errors in this report. Listen, here's a real case for the private sector to step up, and we do not have private sector sources. I mean, we had ADP, and that definitely influenced the bond market a couple days ago. So we do have private sources. I would like to see a lot more private sources

so we don't only have to rely on the government for their statistics. So I think you're going to see a boom in private source data as a result of this slowdown. I think that's good. And remember, You know, stocks depend on earnings. There's going to be no hesitation on earnings reports that are coming out, no slowdown there, and interest rates. And, you know, the bond market reacts to an awful lot more than just, you know, what those reports are coming out. There's a lot of flows of credit on and off. And so interest rates and earnings, that's what makes for the stock market. Our markets can still continue without so much reliance on the government.

government data. The narrowness of the stock market, the concentration among the largest cap companies, I guess, and perhaps earnings is key to this, does that broaden out? Does it continue to broaden out? Does that broadening out hinge on better earnings from the other 493 in the S&P? Well, I think, if I'm right, that actually in the third quarter, the Russell 2000 beat the NASDAQ. Yes. And that has not something that has happened very often in recent quarters. So we have seen some broadening out there. However, the trend, you know, for gross stocks versus value stocks, for that AI, I mean, at this particular point, those big stocks, among the big stocks, those are the stocks that are still, you know, outperforming with the AI boom.

And, you know, until something really dense the AI boom, hey, we're not being able to, you know, produces much revenue or profits or savings or productivity from them in a convincing way. I mean, it seems to me that those will continue to outperform among the big caps. Professor Siegel, great to have you on overtime. Thanks for kicking off the hour with me. With all the major averages higher today, actually closing at record highs, ahead shares of USA Rare Earth. Soaring 23% today as investors look for the next potential target for a government investment.

We're going to talk exclusively to the brand new CEO about that and about the push for more rare earth production here in the U.S. And the role this company is looking to play in that. Plus, Tesla deliveries, Rivian falls short, and BID's first 2025 stumble. We're going to dive into the race to dominate the EV world. Overtime's back in two. Welcome back to overtime. Tesla's third quarter deliveries got a boost thanks to the expiring EV tax credit. Philibou is here with the numbers.

look at the rest of the EV landscape, Phil. And it was a big quarter in the third quarter for Tesla, Morgan. Take a look at these numbers. Two things stand out here. First of all, record deliveries, more than 497,000 vehicles delivered. Best quarter ever, ever in terms of vehicle deliveries. Also the best quarter ever for energy storage deployments, 12.5 gigawatt hours. They've now deployed more this year than it deployed all of last year. So the earnings focus, when the earnings are reported on the 22nd, so a little under three weeks from now, the earnings focus is going to be what happened with profit margins, specifically the operating margins, how much were they pressured because of tariffs when it comes to energy deployment, auto gross margins, how much were they

pressured, and also what's going to be happening in terms of revenue with zero emission vehicle credits going away. Meanwhile, BYD, if we take a look at those shares, the company reported September shipments down 5.5 percent. Why does that matter? It's the first time, we've seen negative monthly shipments from BYD in 18 months. Finally, take a look at Rivian deliveries. And the reason we're showing you this is the company reported deliveries of 13,201 vehicles in the third quarter. Not bad. Problem is the guidance.

The guidance was 40 to 46,000 vehicles delivered this year. They have narrowed that. It is now 415 to 435. And it's that top end there that is likely the reason why shares of Rivian under a little bit of pressure. We'll hear from Rivian in terms of their quarterly financials in early November, Morgan. All right, Phila Bow, thank you. For more in the state of the global EV market, let's bring in former Tesla president of global sales and service and a GM board member now, John McNeil. John, it's great to have you on.

Nice to see you, Morgan. How would you categorize the EV market, whether it's stateside or globally? I think this is one of the few markets where the U.S. is not ahead in technology. It's actually a step or two behind. And so we get to see kind of what's happening in other markets. And Europe, France and Germany in particular, rolled subsidies off a couple of years ago. And what happened after that, surprisingly, was the market continued to grow. Now, that's largely because the models continue to roll out from other OEMs, much like they have here.

So versus a few years ago, we now have 65 model choices of EVEs in the U.S. And when you had EVs and hybrids together, one out of every four cars sold in the U.S. is now electrified. And so what I think that means is, like, we are probably ready at this point. The market's established, and we're probably ready to have a market that can grow without subsidies. And certainly we're offering lower-priced EVs, which is definitely having to help a positive impact on this market growing. Okay, so basically a resetting of the market. The fact that those subsidies, or at least the EV tax credit, expired earlier this week, how much did that impact deliveries at the Teslas of the world that were so much stronger than

expected? Was there pull forward in demand? I think there was pull forward in demand for sure. The dealerships have been busy, and that demand pull forward definitely showed in their quarter. But it showed for everybody else, too. Like Tesla was up 7%, but GM doubled their EVs sold in the quarter versus last year. So it was a big push for everyone in the quarter. But interestingly, a lot of those sales happened again at the lower price points, which points to good things for the market going forward. I've had three of these conversations now in the past call it week with both investors and OEM executives. And that is this idea that with electric vehicles, maybe they become a power play, if you will, for generating and,

pushing energy back into the grid, basically acting almost as generators. And this idea that maybe it becomes a, you know, a temporary or a flexible source of energy. Is this something that you're looking into or that GM is looking into or that, you know, is a broader conversation happening across the industry right now? Definitely. I was getting ready to put a generator in my own house. And then I found out that the Silverado EV that sits in my driveway can power my house for two weeks. and it's bidirectional already.

And so I do think this is a, this is going to be a growing kind of feature, if you will, for consumers to get, to not only become aware of, but also to help the grid. Because the utility in my area then told me that if I agreed to allow them to have access to that battery capacity, for just 20% of the battery capacity, I could get a big break on my utility bill.

So I do think this is real. It's emerging. There are only a handful of EVs that do bi-directional today with the home and the grid. But I think we're going to see more and more of that. Do you think we see policy follow suit, either on a state level or a federal one? I think definitely on the state level, the states have been more progressive about this. And largely because our grid is decentralized, we have over 1,000 grids in the U.S. And so that makes it more of a state issue than a federal issue.

It gets hard for the feds to put policies. in place around this, but the states definitely are. And I can speak to my state. They've got aggressive incentives around this at the state level, really to help the utilities keep electricity costs as low as possible, given all the demand from AI data centers and that continued demand curve, but also to help them with generation. And finally, I guess just to go back to this idea that there's dozens of different EV models on the market, I mean, do you expect that we're going to see some sort of shake out here. Do we sort of already have a sense of who the winners and losers are?

I don't think we do yet in the U.S. because so many of these models are just brand new. But I do think you're going to see an emergence of demand moving towards the best product. And in that sense, Tesla's a bit challenged. They haven't had a new model since 2020. And I think that shows in terms of their market share. They've lost almost half of their market share in the past year, year and a half. So I think you're going to see a change in market share, and that market share is going to move to people who have great product at the right price point. Okay. John McNeil, great to speak with you. Thank you. Nice to talk to you, too. Coming up, will the government shutdown put a damper on what's been a stellar year so far for IPOs?

We'll crunch the numbers and get one power player's take on that market next. And City raising its targets on Bitcoin and Ether into your end. What's got them so bullish? The panelists behind that call is going to break it down for us and join us ahead. Welcome back to overtime. So far, 2025 has been a great year for IPOs. At the close of third quarter this week, there were 160 IPOs this year. That was up almost 50% from the same period last year. According to Renaissance Capital, total proceeds raised came to $30.8 billion. That was nearly 17% higher than last year. There were also 100 SPAC mergers. This was the highest level since 2020. Now, I got a chance to speak with John Stevens. He is co-CEO of investment banking and advisory firm Stevens, Inc. And I asked about what he's seeing in the IPO market this year.

We're seeing that kind of number of transactions go up and volume of transactions go up in terms of dollars raised. But in 2020 and 2021, that cohort of kind of IPOs, only 25% or less than 25% of those are trading at their offering price today. whereas I think the 2025 IPO cohort, which has been a strong year for markets in general, the average trading price is now 30% above the offering price. So it just feels like fundamentals are more important than they were back then. And we're a traditional sort of value investor group ourselves. And we try to stick to those fundamentals when we advise our clients. And so for us, it feels good.

Now he added that it's the strongest year for the firm since 2020, 2020, 2021. although he did also note that it's a much healthier market right now. You can watch the entire interview on CNBC.com. We talk about all kinds of things, including, by the way, M&A and more. But it's time now for a CNBC news update with Angelica Pupils. Hi, Angelica. Hey, Morgan. President Trump has reportedly declared drug cartels operating in the Caribbean as unlawful combatants

and that the U.S. is now in a, quote, armed conflict. That's according to the New York Times, which says congressional committees were notified of the designation yesterday. Last month, the U.S. carried out three known deadly strikes against alleged drug smugglers. Google and our parent company NBCUniversal have reached a multi-year deal today to keep NBC's programming on YouTube TV. The companies had agreed to a short-term contract extension yesterday to avoid a blackout of NBC's programming on the service while negotiations continued.

According to Nielsen, YouTube TV now has the largest share of TV viewing in the U.S. surpassing Netflix and Disney. And Bloomberg reports the Trump administration is close to easing tariffs on Scotch whiskey. The change comes after UK Prime Minister, Kare Starmar, raised the issue with President Trump during his state visit last month. The industry currently faces a 10% baseline tariff, so good news for whiskey drinkers out there. Morgan, I wonder if they come to a deal over a round of golf on that one. Angelica Peebles, thank you.

Coming up, an exclusive interview with one of Microsoft's newly appointed. CEOs, the head of the company's commercial business on Microsoft's newest AI product launch, the outlook for co-pilot, and more. Plus, shares of Snowflake moving higher today after that company announced a suite of AI products of its own for the financial services industry that will allow them to bring their entire AI ecosystem under one roof. Now, John got a chance to speak with the CEO about why they chose this industry for their new AI push. financial services has always been at the forefront of data because it translates into tangible revenue so quickly just like advertising for example that I worked on for a very long time was always data driven

especially online because the tie from that to auto i return on investment is always very clear so we have customers like blackrock like the new york stock exchange smp global jp morgan Morgan Stanley. These were always at the forefront of how they use data. Now they're at the forefront of what does AI mean. What can it unlock with this data? Welcome back. Microsoft's naming a new CEO to its roster to run its commercial business in an effort to let Satyana Della focus more on the tech side of the business as the tech giant looks to make further gains in AI. So joining us now is Steve Kovak along with Judson-Altoff, Microsoft's new CEO of commercial business. Steve, take it away.

And Judson, welcome. Thank you for joining us as well. Hey, thanks, Steve. Great to be here. Great. So this is your first time really talking about your new role. So congratulations, by the way. To start, help us kind of understand how you fit into this picture. So obviously, Stottia Nadella is running the whole organizations, your CEO of the commercial business and the consumer business. And then you have Mustafa Suleiman on AI and Ryan Roslanski on LinkedIn and some office stuff. How do you fit into this whole picture and work together with these colleagues? And what should we expect to see out of your group. Yeah.

Well, look, I think you did a good job of actually explaining it a bit yourself. But you can think of us being in multiple businesses at Microsoft. So, as you said, LinkedIn is run by Ryan Roslanski and LinkedIn really runs as an autonomous company inside of Microsoft. Phil Spencer leads our gaming organization.

So it makes sense for him to run it like a CEO. And Mustafa is really responsible for our consumer AI asset. So having him as CEO of AI makes sense. I run our commercial business at the company. It's the largest business that we have. It serves hundreds of thousands of large companies around the world all the way down to small medium in businesses and governments around the world. And mostly I am focused on bringing together the product ethos all the way through to the customer boys,

from product strategy through to marketing, roadmaps, technology development, through to how we execute in the field and deliver solutions for our customers. And this seems like an extension of what you're already doing in your previous role, just adding on a lot more responsibilities. And a lot of those responsibilities are coming from. Nadella himself. So as his memo said yesterday, so he can kind of focus on these more technical aspects, the AI infrastructure, build out, and things like that. With you taking on more of those responsibilities, should we see you as next in line behind Stottia when he decides to

step down? Well, a customer obsession is at the heart of everything we do. And I'm really focused on making sure that we make that feedback loop between the voice of the customer and our product ethos as infinitesimally small as possible. It's super critical right now in this era of AI because no technology has ever been adopted quite as fast as AI as today. And our customers demand that those experiences come to life in their businesses faster than ever before. What this free Satya up to do, though, is to go back into founder mode effectively and think about the future of AI, AI architectures, AI strategy, AI platforms from silicon to models, and how it manifests itself into the future of really where the industry is headed. Whereas I'll be more focused on delivering on our product strategy. strategy, roadmap, engineering deliverables, and making sure that our solutions do great things

for our customers. Let's talk about AI specifically. So one of the main products you've been tasked with and will increasingly be tasked with selling is co-pilot. That is your marquee AI product. It's touching so many things. You had a number of different announcements here. Can you talk a little bit about, I talk to CEOs and CTOs and the people who are making

these purchasing decisions about artificial intelligence all the time. A lot of them love co-pilot. You've had a number of great customer wins there and thousands and thousands of signups within some organizations. Other people aren't so convinced, and they tell me things like we want to build our own kind of version or bespoke version of co-pilot using large language models and things like that. When you talk to customers, what's the hang up they have that maybe they don't necessarily want to pull the triggering co-pilot and how are you trying to change that to convince them otherwise? Well, first of all, we're really excited about the progress we've made with co-pilot. Co-Pilot's the fastest growing product that we've ever had in our productivity suite of offerings, and it touches over 100 million users today.

On top of that, more than 3 million agents have been built on the co-pilot platform, so it's going incredibly well for us. Now, that's stated there are customers that want to build solutions more from a bespoke standpoint, using open-source capabilities and other models. And for that, our cloud and AI platform really delivers. We have more than 800 million people leveraging AI services on our cloud and AI platform on a monthly basis. And that spans from solutions like co-pilot to chat GPT to thousands of other services that run on the platform. So the progress that we've made really speaks to the comprehensive nature of our portfolio.

We're the company that empowers humanity. And as humanity seeks to have AI infusing great experiences into the work they do, each and every day. It's natural to think of co-pilot in those environments. But we also want to revolutionize how people think about their business processes by having AI agents and assistance look across entire workflows, whether that be supply chain, human resources, or finance, and delivering that cloud platform that brings that all to life with many different models, but yet the same enterprise sensibility. That's what really matters. Judson, it's Morgan. It's great to have you on the show. Welcome. Just to dig a little more

deeply into that, then what does partnering with Anthropics signal about the evolution of this AI ecosystem? Well, look, what it signals is that every AI scenario is going to be met with the right model for the right solution at the right time and the right price point. We have a fantastic partnership with OpenAI. If you think about it, we invested a billion dollars in that relationship in 2019, and it's actually reshaped the industry. But models will actually evolve to have different purposes and different use cases. Anthropic is awesome for code creation, for example, and we have a strong partnership with them there on GitHub co-pilot.

But you see other models coming to life, from startups like Black Forest Labs to companies like Deepseek and many other open source entities. We have great partnerships with Meta on Lama and X for GROC. At the end of the day, models will be fit for purpose for the scenarios that they serve. And we're trying to provide a platform that delivers that enterprise-grade quality, security, and observability. Because just like you think about orchestrating across

businesses with human capital, you'll want all your AI assets to come together to solve problems and be able to observe how they're doing in your environment. The quality of their output to the efficiency they drive and the unlock on innovation and creativity that they stimulate for you and your businesses. Judson and Steve, I feel like Morgan was reading my mind because I wanted to get into this as well. I mean, do you feel like these models are becoming commoditized? We've heard some of your peers kind of hint at that. Are we kind of going towards a world where, for example, someone subscribes to a co-pilot at work and they can just choose the model that they think is better for them? Is that going to be the future of co-pilot and

your products at your son? Well, certainly in the first wave of all of these generative AI solutions, the model felt more like the product. What we're actually seeing now is that the experience itself is becoming the product. And for that, you really do need model diversity. Take it in a context that people know wildly, like health care. We're really excited about the work that we're doing there with Epic. 195 million people use Epic and MyChart to understand their health care. We're infusing AI into the way that physicians communicate with their patients so that we democratize intelligent people actually understand more about their health than ever before.

And at the same time, reduce physician fatigue and get doctors doing what they do best, which is providing cures and better outcomes than ever before. That's infusing AI into the way people innovate, create, and solve problems at scale. And that's what I think you'll see in this next wave. It'll be less about this model or that model and more about the experience and the outcome. Great. Jensen, we're going to have to leave it right there. Thank you so much for joining us, Jensen, Elthoff.

The new commercial CEO of Microsoft, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Pretty interesting there. He did dodge the question about if he's going to be successor to an address. But that was the first thing so many people thought. Well, perhaps not surprisingly. Yes, yes. Wouldn't be surprised the next couple of years seeing him growing that company.

And I think when he basically said that his job here is to bring the product ethos all the way through the customer, that's very telling and sort of gets back at what he was just saying about AI and how this ecosystem is evolving here. I found myself just earlier today having a conversation with a number of CEOs. And it does seem like there is a debate right now in corporate America about whether the rhetoric and the reality are diverging at least. right now, and this current inning we're in in AI adoption. And Microsoft leads that rhetoric, right? You know, buy co-pilot. We're going to supercharge organization to do this. It hasn't necessarily done that yet.

They're working towards it. Oh, no, here at Versa, we're migrating over to a new email system. Oh, it's so fun. It's so fun. And guess what? They did not buy co-pilot. So, you know, whoever made those decisions at our company, we're thinking a different way. But what he said about this commoditization of AI models, I think is totally true.

It's not going to matter one day what it's. which model you're using, are using Anthropic or opening eye, just that as long as it works. And I think that's also the direction Apple's going to go into it. Perhaps also signals why the opening eyes of the world are moving into different areas of business as well. All right. Steve Kovac, great stuff. Thank you. Well, coming up, Farmer Stocks on fire, the health care sector overall on Pace for its best week in more than three years. A look at what's driving the action. That's ahead. Plus, a first on CNBC interview with USA Rare Earth CEO Barbara Humpton.

She's going to join us to cap off her second day on the job as that stock soars more than 23% in trading today. Over time, we'll be right back. Welcome back. Farmer stocks pulling back a bit today, but on pace for a great week on the back of Pfizer's deal with the president to lower drug prices in exchange for tariff-free leave. Merck, Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers, Squibb, Abbey, all jumping. Pfizer seeing a gain of nearly 13%. The stocks have been beaten down over the past few years with the names trading at extremely low multiples. Pfizer, Merck, and Bristol, all below 10.

So perhaps not surprising to see them catch a bed here. Well, sticking with the theme of government partnerships, shares of U.S. rare earth companies, posting a strong week after the administration took a 5% stake in lithium Americas. It's one of the biggest movers on the back of the news has been USA Rare Earth. The stock is up 23% today. It's up 30% for the week. Joining us now in a first on CNBC interview is USA Rare Earth CEO Barbara Humpton. it is her second day in the role.

And Barbara, it's great to have you on the show. I've known you as the Siemens U.S. CEO. So maybe we start right there with why you made the transition to rare earths. Well, Morgan, first of all, it's fantastic to be with you. And I'm speaking to you from Stillwater, Oklahoma, where we are standing up this permanent magnet factory. And yes, I love my time at Siemens. But one thing is clear, there is a global imperative now to build a mind, to magnet supply chain for critical rare earth. And the board of USA rare earth has this vision

and has been making bold moves, including this week the transformative acquisition of less common metals, a UK-based metal and alloy maker that is truly going to ensure that we have the first domestic outside of China supply chain for heavy rare earth metals, all the way to permanent magnets. So what does that acquisition enable in terms of a more vertically integrated supply chain? I know you're developing a mine in Texas. Does this mean you can go from start to finish eventually? Well, certainly that is the goal. What we're doing right now is behind me, the team is assembling this first line of our permanent magnet manufacturing. In order to make permanent magnets, you've got to have stripcast, the feedstock that goes into those magnets. Turns out LCM,

is that scaled supplier outside of China, and particularly with access to additional feedstock for their own work, LCM has spent 30 years building this critical linchpin capability, the metal making, the alloy making, casting and strip casting that provides that feedstock. Now, LCM is a critical supplier as well of metals and alloys to the aerospace industry. So bringing our two organizations, together means that, first of all, yes, we can provide that key capability, but also we can serve the broader market together. So one of the arguments against, and part of this is because of what China's done to the industry overall on a global basis, has been that it's been un-economical to mine and then develop and refine these rare earths into magnets stateside. So what's the business

case here? How can USA rare earth pull that off now in this environment? Well, first of all, we all got a wake-up call this year. Yes, indeed. There has been this globalization that has driven so much manufacturing overseas. And when China decided that they would not be providing rare earths or these magnets to the United States and our trading partners, that sent a shockwave through the system. But we don't need to undercut Beijing on price. What we need to do is deliver a secure and reliable supply of the very magnet. that are needed to move the world. And everything from aerospace and defense

to automotive to the consumer electronics that we use, anything that moves is taking advantage of permanent magnets to drive that motion. So this is a space that is not only large, but growing. With the introduction of physical AI and the idea that we will have more

and more high-tech components that require this kind of support, we know that China even will be stretched to deliver, to meet the growing economic needs, now is the time to invest in this market segment and build the capability. It was just a couple months ago that MP Materials struck an unprecedented deal with a Pentagon that involves the government taking a stake in that company, also setting a price floor, helping to guarantee end market users for the magnets that they're going to be

developing and expanding capacity to develop as well. Since then, we've seen a number of other deals struck lithium America's just early. earlier this week, where funding was converted or announced to be converted into an equity stake. Are you engaged with the U.S. government in terms of dealmaking for USA Rare Earth? And would you be open to a deal yourself? Well, indeed, we are in close communication with the administration. We applaud what the Trump administration has done in order to make investments to secure that supply chain. This is a field where it will not be a zero-sum game. It's going to take a lot of players

to build out this marketplace. So we're excited about the deal that MP actually has, that lithium has. And now what we're doing is keeping the administration informed of our own plans, and we expect that partnership to continue. Barbara Humpton, USA Rare Earth CEO. Thank you for joining me. Thanks, Martin. We've got a market alert. Shares of applied materials are moving lower after the company said new export restrictions from the Commerce Department will restrict its ability to export certain products to China-based customers without a license. Now, Applied Materials expects the restrictions to hit Q4 net revenue by roughly $110 million, and that net revenue for full year 2026 will be impacted by $600 million.

You can see their shares down about 3% right now as we continue to see some of these dynamics around national security play out in the broader chip-making sector. Well, coming up, check out this name. This is one of today's biggest movers, soaring 18%. In fact, it's up 2,000% over the past 10 years, nearly 10 times better than the S&P in that time frame. We're going to reveal it and tell you why it's on the move. You've got to stay tuned, though. It's coming up next. Well, welcome back.

FICO, that was the mystery chart we showed you just before the break. shares storing 18% today up 2,000% over the past 10 years, while the S&P 500 is only up 240%. FICO launched a new program for mortgage lenders weighing on transverse. Union and Equifax stocks today. And Diana Oleg joins us now with all the details. Hi, Di. Hey, Morgan. Yeah, that's right.

The FICO stock is way up, as you said, but stocks of the credit bureaus are taking a massive hit today, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion all down on the day. Why? Because FICO, which is the credit score that is widely used by lenders to determine if you and I'd qualify for a mortgage and at what interest rate is now licensing its scores directly to mortgage brokers so the brokers can bypass the credit bureaus and give the scores to their customers. Now, as he said, the stock affair, Isaac is way up, of course, on the news.

FICO scores are used by 90% of lenders. FICO CEO Will Lansing said in a statement that the change eliminated the markups by the credit bureaus. Now, how did this all happen? Well, you may remember last spring, FHFA director Bill Pulte, who oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, attacked FICO and the credit bureau's pricing, saying he was doing a full-scale review of all credit bureaus. Pulte posted on X this morning that he is encouraging the credit bureaus to also take. similar creative and constructive actions to make our market safer, stronger, and more competitive. But Morgan, clearly this is a win for what he wanted last spring.

Yeah, we'll have to see how this plays out in the housing and mortgage markets. Diana Oleg, thank you. Ahead, Bitcoin, back above $120,000 for the first time since August. Ether is up 15% in just the past week. Will the rally last? City says yes. They're going to make their case next. Welcome back.

Bitcoin crossing $120,000 for the first time since mid-August. Ether, Solana, and XRP hit their highest levels since last week. And a new note from Citi is expecting more upside for Bitcoin and Ether later this year and beyond. So joining us now is the author of that note, Alex Saunders. He is City's head of quant macro research. It's great to have you on, Alex. And let's start right there. What is the bull case for crypto?

Yeah, I mean, quite simply, the bull case is based on flows. We've seen a huge amount of flows in the last year. and we continue to expect those flows to be realized. So flows into year-end and then flows for the next 12-month. That is really the key determinant of the bull case, but even the base case for both Bitcoin and Ethereum. Where are those flows coming from? The ETF is the best proxy, the best high-frequency proxy to measure those flows.

And that's where you see pretty consistent in flows. Now, recently we've seen a pickup in flows from digital asset treasuries. Those ones potentially are not as consistent, and it depends on how far above their NAVs. The stock is trading. And so we see those premiums, if you will, decline, but they're still above one, so it still makes sense for them to be buyers as well. But primarily we see the ETF flows as being the catalysts. Whether it's Bitcoin or whether it's ether, how correlated are the moves higher in those two assets to things like the dollar or gold?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I would say one interesting thing for Bitcoin in particular is that that correlation with gold has picked up. Bitcoin is often thought of as digital gold because of its limited supply. The big difference with analog gold, if you will, is the equity beta, which doesn't provide, in my view, as much of a portfolio hedge. But we have seen a pickup in the correlations. But I will say that the primary determinant on the macro side for Bitcoin and Ethereum, they have similar exposures, is equity market still, is kind of risk appetite. So I'm looking at these 12-month forecasts. Bitcoin $181,000, ether, $5,400. What are the biggest risks? The biggest risks in our view to that case is not actually from the flows, particularly for

Bitcoin. We think they are likely to be fairly persistent because we are sort of fairly early in the adoption cycle of financial advisors and asset managers. So those are likely to maintain. The biggest risk is a change in sentiment from the macro economy and in particular downside to equity risk because we think that would number one probably reduce the amount of flows that you see but secondly because of those exposures and because Bitcoin and Ethereum are quite sentiment driven would be would drive that price down. Alex Saunders of City. Thanks for joining me. Thanks. We just want to show you shares of USA Rare Earth one more time because those are

moving higher here in after hours. The CEO just telling us a few moments ago that the company is in close communication with the administration. The rare earth sector has been rallying after the White House took a stake in lithium Americas earlier this week and then MP materials just a couple months ago. So you can see those shares are up almost 5% right now on the heels of that conversation. Tomorrow, keep an eye on September, ISM services, and the Senate, which could potentially vote again on this government shutdown. That does it for us here at overtime.