Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: Musk’s Twitter Takeover, Market Rebound 4/25/22

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

Twitter’s board of directors accepts Elon Musk’s offer to buy the company. Closing Bell Overtime panelists Kantrowitz from Big Technology, Casey Newton from Platformer, Josh Brown from Ritholtz Wealth Management, and Dan Ives give their reaction and analysis. Plus, stocks stage a major comeback in late-day trade. Is it enough to tip the market into rally mode? Tom Lee from Fundstrat Global Advisors explains who he’s navigating the market. And, Michael Santoli’s “Last Word” is “Rare Stakes.” He talks about why this week could be pivotal for stocks.

Welcome to Overtime. I'm Scott Watney. You just heard the bells. We're, of course, getting started here at Post 9. In just a few minutes, I'll be joined by Tom Lee on weather stocks, which, as Sarah said, staged a major reversal today, are now poised for a bigger jump, as some are suggesting, or more pain as the VIX rises, energy falls, and big tech starts reporting earnings in just 24 hours from now. We do begin, though, with our talk of the tape? The Twitter takeover by Elon Musk, the deal sealed today after the board unanimously agreed to Mr. Musk's original offer. Let's welcome in now our experts, big technology founder Alex Kantrowitz and platformer editor Casey Newton, both are CNBC contributors. It's good to have you both with us. Josh Brown from Halftime will be on in just a minute. Alex, I'll begin with you because you didn't think we'd see this day, did you? I did not. And I'll say it, mea culpa. I underestimated Elon Musk. You know, my doubt

came from the fact that he didn't have the financing lined up. That was clear in the initial filings. And he put in what was a record for an individual in terms of making an acquisition offer, you know, tens of billions of dollars, betting the health of Tesla on this. It's an extraordinary move for an out of the ordinary individual. And I take it back. Elon pulled it off. And it's pretty unbelievable to actually say today that we're sitting here with him having a deal for Twitter in place. Yep. Casey, your reaction? I mean, the whole thing really did change when he he showed his hand and he happened to have a flush. That's right. I mean, in a lot of ways, this was a fairly normal process. He made an offer. The board didn't believe him. They wanted him to show that he had the funding.

He did it. They kicked the tires and decided it was the best deal. So as an extraordinary of a day as this is, in a lot of ways, it does look kind of ordinary. The best deal or the only deal, Casey? That's really what it comes down to, doesn't it? Yeah. And look, I think if Twitter thought it could get a better deal, it would have held out for longer. And in fact, you know, the fact that they reached this decision as quickly as they did and announced it before they had to report earnings suggests to me that they were looking at a really bleak road ahead for these next six months. So I have a feeling things may have been worse inside Twitter than we know. You know, Alex, it's an interesting point that Casey makes. And Eric Jackson, the investor who's going to join us

a little bit later in our program, tweeted the following. I want your reaction to it as well. Snap, Facebook and Pinterest down an average of 19 percent since March 28th would have put Twitter at thirty one dollars today absent an Elon offer. That's what the board will argue. Their earnings for Q1 must be horrible. Do you have that same conclusion? Yeah, I mean, look, sometimes in this sector, it happens that everybody falls and the individual company earnings doesn't matter. But with Twitter, they are heading into some of the same headwinds like they're an advertising business. And we've talked on the program before about how Apple has been twisting the screws on tracking in that matter.

So it could be difficult for them. Yeah. But ultimately, Elon made it impossible for the board to walk away at this point. If he pulled his investment, what would Twitter have left? You'd have an unsettled employee base. You'd have a stock cratering. And of course, looped in with all these other companies that are having issues. So, you know, it became a point where the board couldn't say no once the funding was there. And Elon brought the funding and here we are.

Why is there no white knight? I mean, when you look at Twitter and you kick the tires, you open the hood and you look in there, what do you see? I mean, this company's way was, you know, Elon paid a lot of money for this company. You know, it's bringing in $5 billion a year, you know, to pay $46 billion, somewhere in that range, is a massive multiple, especially if he's talking about, you know, changing the ad product. Ultimately, you know, to own Twitter, you need to be able to deal with the headaches, right? Musk is willing to.

Most companies are not. Disney was not. Salesforce was not. And he paid a lot of money for it. So it's a pretty unique situation. Nobody else was going to come in and play that game. But Elon was willing to. So, Casey, what does he do, though, right?

Alex alludes to the advertising model in which Twitter has. What does Musk do? What does it look like under him? This is the many billion dollar question. The ad model has not been working out well for Twitter. It doesn't seem like Elon is all that fond of ads. What does that leave you with, though? You have a subscription business, which would make Twitter much smaller, I think, potentially, certainly if you had to have a paid subscription to participate. There's also, though, this interesting idea of could you sell access to the API? Could you sort of grant that firehose access to businesses who are willing to pay a lot of money for the privilege, build a variety of different experiences around Twitter? If I have a better idea than advertising, I think it's that one.

But I don't know how Elon feels about it. And, of course, on stage at TED the other day, he said he had no economic interest in Twitter at all. So it really is an open question what he is about to do with this company. Well, let me ask you this, Casey, because I tweeted tweeted this earlier and I truly believe it, that no one person, no one CEO, no board is going to decide whether this company is able to grow and thrive. Users are going to make that decision. So at the end of the day, the product has to deliver the experience that users would want out of it. If it doesn't, then it's not going to succeed. Isn't it really as simple as that?

It is, although, you know, you could argue argue that Twitter's users really do love the product, and Twitter itself has never been able to capture the value that they create. The most influential people in the world, for the most part, are using this product, and yet Twitter still isn't a very good business. So I don't know what else you would really want from the user-based perspective. The challenge isn't just building a giant business with software margins around it. Well, maybe I just wouldn't, Alex, want to be in a sewer every day when I want to go on Twitter and have an experience of listening and sharing, etc., what people consider that they would want

to do in a town square, quote unquote. That's right. That impacts the experience. You don't want to be in the sewer. Most Twitter users don't want to be in the sewer. But in the direction that Elon's going, it's going to look more like a sewer than it did before. And you can make a discussion about whether the free speech tradeoffs are worth one way or the other. But Elon has to make money from this product. He put a lot of his own money towards this deal and he's going to have to figure it out. And that's going to be the most interesting tension to watch with Twitter as we move forward

is can Elon make that money back? And does he compromise with some of the principles he's coming in with today? I mean, Casey, he made a point. I think it was in the TED talk of saying, you know, I don't care about the economics. But now that people are lending money into this deal, he has no choice but to care about the economics because they're going to want to make their money back. Yeah, that would certainly be the rational thing. But Elon seems to be playing by a different set of rules. It is true he is going to have to pay back those loans. And if he's not able to get Twitter to generate that sort of revenue, then he is going to have to sell off some of his Tesla stock. I mean, maybe he doesn't want to do that.

So, you know, all of these things are true. But again, you know, Elon really is kind of a trickster god figure. He doesn't play by the same rules that you and I do. And so I really have no idea what's about to happen. Yeah, guys, we'll leave it there. You've been right next to us on the road. It's been a short road as M&A deals go, but nonetheless, you've been right riding shotgun with us. I appreciate that.

It's Alex Cantu. It's Casey Newton. I know we'll talk to you again soon. Let's bring in Josh Brown right now. Of course, investment committee member from Halftime, the CEO of Ritholtz Wealth. So, Josh, I don't know if you thought we'd get to this day or not, but what do you think now that we did? You know, you forgot one of my other superlatives, greatest tweeter of all time.

Listen, I'll tell you what I think is going to happen. I'll get to that. One time. One time greatest tweeter. And that says a lot. And that says a lot. Yeah. No, I'm now really into fitness.

I'm just at the gym. I don't have that much time to tweet. Listen, what I think is going to go on, which is what should go on, hopefully we don't have a few weeks of score settling and doxing. Hopefully what happens is they're serious about authenticating people, letting people have pseudonyms and tweet secretly, but at least somehow authenticate that they're an actual person and not a bot. Musk has said that that is one of the biggest problems with user experience.

I think he's right. I think most reasonable people would agree. The second thing that I think should happen immediately, anybody involved in the board of Twitter should be fired. It's not really a board. Most of the people involved don't even tweet. I think there should be some sort of advisory panel engaged, people that are power users who have big followings, who are seen as good stewards of their followership,

so to speak. People like Mark Cuban should be brought in, people that have business experience but also love the product and use it effectively. I don't know if that's eight people, 25 people, whatever it is. You've got to get the people who create all the content to be part of a governing body of some sort, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that. And then the third thing, I think open up the algorithms and let us see how the sausage is made in terms of what content is being moderated, why is it being moderated. And I'm not saying that we'll all like

the results, you know, but it's democratic in that if they reopen the spigot, so to speak, and all the Nazis come back, then you can leave. And a lot of people will leave. If, however, they reopen it to freedom of speech and you don't like everything you see there, but you have a way to tailor your experience so that you can limit your exposure to that, I think the platform will be okay. So I'm trying to be optimistic about it. I don't think that anyone should look at this and say oh no the world's coming to an end so i've got i've got three quick things i want to get um to you with um number one you used to be a shareholder should shareholders be happy today well they're out so yes you weren't getting no no no no should they be happy with the fundamentals should they be should they be happy with the price they got yes this is Yes. This is the only human being

in the world that could have done this deal and would have done this deal at this price. And he claims it's not about the money. He claims that some element of why he's doing this is because he thinks it's important for freedom of speech. Let's take that at face value. This was the only way you were getting 5420 for the stock right now. Next issue, and I joked about it when I brought you in your own experience, right? You're somebody who was prolific on Twitter a few years ago. You surpassed a million followers and then you stopped owning the stock for all intents and purposes. You stopped tweeting. You changed your handle. What does that say about the overall experience that somebody who was prolific like you saw value in it and then at some point decided there was no value to be had

for at least you and your experience? The experience used to be great. I was part of like, let's say, the first 10 people on there that were talking about finance on Twitter. And that's probably why I got so many followers. I'm not that great. I just was there early. So let's, you know, let's be honest about that. But something happens with real, so I'm not an actual celebrity, but like real celebrities like the Kardashians and famous ballplayers, and they all eventually leave or they have their assistants start engaging on Twitter for them. Or they delete their account. And the paradox of Twitter is the bigger your account gets,

the worse the experience is going to be for you to actually be there. And a lot of that is just straight-up harassment, bullying, et cetera. I don't think any of that's going to be addressed because there is a class of celebrity who are like, bring it. I don't think any of that's going to be addressed because there is a class of celebrity who are like, bring it, I don't care. I have a skin as thick as a rhino. And I think Elon's in that category. Like there's almost nothing somebody could say to him that, you know, would get him to delete his account, right? I think Trump is like that. And I think there are people on the left that are like that,

where they're almost like inviting controversy. For that person, they don't care. But for a normal, regular person who doesn't want to open up the app and see 50 horrible things said about them, I don't know how you get those people back. How do you get the Kardashians to come back and bring their fan base with them? You probably can't. So I think that's been one of the things that's stunted Twitter's growth. I think it's one of the things that's allowed for Instagram to become what it has.

And I'm not sure that anything really is going to change that. I'll ask you just to speculate because obviously nobody knows. What should Jack Dorsey's role be, if any? What do you think it might be? Oh, I don't know. Part of me feels like it would break his heart to see other forces gain control of this thing and him not have a voice. But if he gets invited back for some reason, If it looks like his expertise in the ills and the positives internally is sought by the new group that runs this thing, it'd be very interesting.

I don't know that anyone's like, oh, man, if only Jack were back, because he had a long time at the head of this and he decided he'd rather focus on payments and Bitcoin. So I don't know that anyone's like we got to get him back into the conversation. But what do I know? We'll see. I had to have your insight and your opinion here, Josh. So thank you for calling in. I'll see you on the Halftime Report. I'll see you later. All right, you get back on that treadmill.

All right, that's Josh Brown joining us there. Let's bring in now Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities. Good to have you on as well. I wanted your opinion too. If you're a shareholder today, are you happy with this price? Are you surprised that the first offer was, in fact, the best and final? I mean, I think you're popping the champagne if you're a Twitter shareholder, because without Musk, you're looking at a low $30 stock. And it just shows, as you talked about, they were looking for white knights. The poison pill gave them time.

No P.E.s looked at this. And that's why ultimately at the altar, they had to come and walk it down with Musk. And I think for shareholders, it's I'll call it a Cinderella ending to what could have been some dark days, especially if this happened on Thursday night. Why no white night, though? As I asked the two gentlemen who were with me prior, why do all these other parties look at this and say, no, thank you, give them the Heisman and walk away? It's a disaster private equity candidate because of the cash flow, because of the lack of the subscription model. The challenges are there. And as Josh said, I mean, that's why Musk knew in this game of high stakes poker, he was really the only one that could get this done. They obviously went out and tried to get that white knight.

But once he detailed the financing late last week, that's where, in my opinion, the clock struck 12 for the board. They need to come ultimately to a deal with Musk. And obviously that's what we saw today. Does the timing of this today, the price that they agreed to, as I said, the first, best and final, does it insinuate to you that earnings that are coming this week are going to be ugly? Oh, I think that could be a Friday the 13th, you know, pick your horror movie in terms of later this week. And I think that's why the timing. Ford knew they needed to get this done quick.

Another white night was not coming. And ultimately, look, if they decide not to, then the hostile tender offer would have started. Earnings come out Thursday, lackluster, not smiles and roses. And then you could have had a hostile tender offer. And arguably then, instead of 54, you could be looking at 48, 49. So I think that's why right now this is ultimately Game of Thrones. And, you know, Musk ends up with Twitter. But I think the board obviously made a smart decision in terms of sitting down with him negotiating. Let's just speculate because it's fun to do so. Twitter is obviously going to become a privately held company.

If it was going to stay public and Musk was going to be the CEO, what would your rating and target be on it, for argument's sake? I think you'd be negative on it right off the bat. I mean, look, it comes down, Scott. When you look at Twitter, and it's well-documented, I mean, it's a head-scratcher just wanting to own Twitter. That's why no one else that looked at it wanted to buy it. It's going to be Herculean-like challenges ahead. And if you look at Musk's successes, it's been PayPal, it's been Tesla, it's been SpaceX. But no doubt this is really one that, as we've talked about, I think from an investor perspective

trading in your Tesla for Twitter shares is what we'll call caviar for, you know, a dollar, two dollar slice of pizza. Wow, that says a lot. Speaking of Tesla, before I let you run, the implication, if any, for Tesla shares, we saw those down a couple of percent. Any bigger concerns that you have about that? It's more pledging those shares, not necessarily that those

shares are going to be sold. I think that's why it's not as much of a reaction here. I think the bigger worry is just that juggling all those balls between Twitter, SpaceX and Tesla. This is a time you want Musk laser focused. You don't want him focused more on Twitter. I think that's the knee jerk reaction. But clearly, as a Tesla shareholder, you did not want to see them buy Twitter. Yeah. Well, we're also assuming, and we frankly don't know exactly who's going to be running Twitter. There's no given that it's going to be Musk as the CEO. I mean, we're going to have to see how all that plays out, and then we can have a better idea on where it's all going to go. Dan Ives, I appreciate your time as well. Thank you. From Wedbush, of course.

I'll talk to you again soon. We're just getting started right here in overtime. Up next, more on this big turnaround. And it was substantial in the market today. Fundstrat's Tom Lee is pounding the table on some big tech names as we kick off a huge week of earnings here in the OT. He's going to break it all down next and later. More on this blockbuster news out of Twitter.

Elon Musk buying that company. We have more reaction to it from Eric Jackson. He will opine as well on big tech and those reports coming this week. We're back after this. Welcome back to Overtime. Stocks kicking off the week with a very big reversal today. But is it enough to tip us back into rally mode? Let's ask CNBC contributor Tom Lee.

He's the head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors. Good to see you, Tom. Welcome back. Great to see you, Scott. But the only person as bullish as you has been Jim Labenthal, who came on my halftime program today and said, quote, I made a mistake. I was too early. Have you made a mistake as well?

Have you been too bullish too soon, Tom? Well, you know, the market's been a lot worse than I expected. You know, we were expecting a treacherous first step. And yeah, I mean, I would say, you know, we do have a bit of egg in our face, but we were looking for something treacherous. It's been really tough. But then again, you know, I don't expect to be right 100 percent of the time either. I understand. But why was it worse than you thought it was going to be? What happened that you didn't anticipate? You know, I think that this year was a year where inflation really worsened relative to market expectations.

And I think the bond market got very concerned about that. And it really forced the Fed's hand. So I think in some ways, with the war and supply chain and COVID in China, it really came to a head. And I think it put equity investors in a tough spot because stocks aren't terribly expensive. But when the bond market is sort of screaming for Fed to be a bit tighter, it's tough for stocks to hold up. And I think that's what we're kind of going through now. But, you know, I don't think that means that we should be selling equities here either. But doesn't that tell you that the full extent of what the Fed is going to do isn't necessarily in the market, as others, including

you, have argued? Yeah, without question. I mean, look, if the Fed decides that we need to have 10 hikes this year, I don't think that's priced in. But I also don't think it's cast in stone. I don't think 50 basis points in May or even 50 in June is really going to rattle markets further. I think what's been concerning markets is they just want to have some sense of when this could end and i think if inflation doesn't reach some sort of apex i think that's concerning for markets but i i also don't think it's set in stone that inflation is going to continue to be a problem even in the second half so i think it's still uh forgive me tom i'm sorry it's still it's still? Well, I think it's still one of these where we

have to kind of watch how markets react to incoming data. And even the PCE report later this week is going to be important. But I think to me, the most encouraging thing to look for or signs of encouragement is just to look at the bond market. If the bond market's settling down, that's when equities can start to stabilize as well. But what does it say to you, the nature of the sell-off that we had into the close on Friday, that the Dow today was down nearly 500 and that we staged the kind of reversal that we did? Is there a signal in there? Is there comfort that you can take to investors and suggest that that's the kind of activity I look for when I'm looking for a capitulation move? How do you assess that?

Yeah, I think we're at a moment where it's not a surprise that there's a buyer strike. There's a lot of surveys out. I think the Goldman positioning data is really instructive because institutional investors are essentially a zero percentile exposure to equities. And so you have a buyer strike. You might have margin calls. It's not a great setup to see selling Thursday and Friday. And I think people were thinking today would be a big washout day in liquidation. And we had that in the morning and we reversed. I think one of the keys that we're watching, though, is at the front end of this has been big cap tech, the FANG trade. They rolled over really, actually, much of them struggled since mid last year, down over 25%. And this is

25% of the market. So they've gotten so beat up that they almost look like. I think that there's a good chance that Facebook becomes part of the value index. Oh, interesting. So let me do this before I let you go. The importance of the tech reports this week to make or break the market, you can make arguments both ways. If you think that we have a bottom in and that you can get that jump higher, you would think that maybe those reports are the catalyst to help take you there. If you think we're going to break down, then maybe a miss from an Apple could be the thing to do it. An Alphabet, an Amazon, a Microsoft, et cetera. What do you think about that? Oh, yeah, that's right. I mean, these stocks are the cornerstone of the equity market.

I would probably say the risk reward is pretty good because, you know, you got Google and Facebook with 10% cash and, you know, Facebook trading at 11 PE and 11% free cash yield and Google 16 times earnings. I mean, these are not multiples you expect for what you'd call expensive stocks. You know, they've become, you know, 10 multiple point discount to the S&P. And if they're still growing 25%, I just think investors are going to reassess and say, well, maybe their multiples have come in too hard. Tom, I'm going to leave it there. I appreciate it very much.

I don't know where you've zoomed in from today, but it looks like there's some interesting stuff over your right-hand shoulder. So it's probably happy hour somewhere. You enjoy yourself. We'll talk to you again soon. That's Fun Strats' Tom Lee. Let's get to our Twitter question of the day now. We're asking which FANG stock trades most like a value stock? Well, you just heard what Tom Lee said about Facebook. Is it Meta, Amazon, Netflix? Got a lot cheaper. Or Alphabet. You can head to at CNBC overtime to weigh in. We'll bring you the results later on in our program.

Up next, more on this bombshell news out of Twitter. Elon Musk is buying that company. We're going to break it all down with closely followed tech investor Eric Jackson. He's going to give you the trades on some of the big tech names as well ahead of their earnings. And they begin in less than 24 hours right here in the OT. And later, we drill down on today's energy sell-off. Should you buy that dip? Someone on Halftime Today said you should.

We'll debate it in Overtime, coming up. Welcome back to Overtime. It's time for a CNBC News Update with Leslie Picker. Hey, Les. Hey, Scott. From the news on CNBC, here's what's happening. Execution delayed this Wednesday. Texas will not be putting to death a mother convicted of murdering her two-year-old daughter.

Lawyers for Melissa Lucio were granted a stay so a court can review new evidence. Evidence, they say, shows the daughter died after falling down a staircase. In Florida, a judge has ordered the restart of jury selection for the sentencing of Nicholas Cruz, the man who pleaded guilty to murdering 17 people at a high school. The judge blames her own mistake during questioning. The jurors will decide whether Cruz is sentenced to death or life in prison. And in Turkey, civil rights activist Osman Kavala has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for trying to overthrow the government. The verdict is likely to put a stress on relations with Western allies. A top European court has called for Kavala's release. And drinking greenhouse gases one shot at a time.

How a company is turning CO2 emissions into vodka. Just a tasty gimmick or something more? Find out on the news with Shepard Smith right after Jim Cramer, 7 Eastern, here on CNBC. Pretty sure that still constitutes happy hour. Scott. Yes, absolutely. Leslie, thank you. That's Leslie Picker joining us with the news. All right. Twitter shares, they're ticking higher, as you saw, in overtime. Let's bring in Eric Jackson. He's the president and portfolio manager at EMJ Capital for more on Musk's deal to buy the social media company. Eric, welcome. I'm glad you called in. I reached out to you because I saw a tweet which I referenced earlier, which you said snapped

Facebook and Pinterest down an average 19 percent since March 28th, would have put Twitter at $31 today, absent an Elon offer. That's what the board will argue. Their earnings for Q1 must be horrible. So you believe they took this deal and did it now at this price because they were going to drop a bomb later in the week? I do, because they said when they came out with the release that they are not going to do a call. They're going to release the numbers on Thursday now, but there's no need to do a call. And I think that just smells like they were the happiest clamps that they don't have to come and answer questions for you know what the numbers of what will be we will will take will see what's uh... let's revisit on thursday when they when they put the

numbers out but i think they they they took the cash rent snap face book interest as you referenced along with twitter you don't you don't own any of those right and why not? I just think there's just way too much, you know, fuzz on most of these stocks. There's just a lot of uncertainty.

You don't need to own them now. And I don't really see a compelling need to. You know, there's, I mean, the $31 a share, that's if nothing had happened with the Elon offer. But with any of these stocks, including Facebook, you know, they come out with a bad quarter. You know, we've seen it over the last few quarters that these stocks can really get hit 15%, 20%, 30% easy. So, you know, if Twitter's numbers were really bad, I mean, they'd be that much lower, theoretically, than a $31 share price. Sure, but I don't know if you heard my conversation a few moments ago with Tom Lee, who suggests, let's say, a meta, for example, could be in the value index, now that it's come down to your point, because it got hammered so badly that now it's a value stock.

It's not attractive here to you? Well, I think we saw with the Snap numbers last week that these stocks really move on daily active users. And so to the extent that Facebook or Medic is able to show that they're actually able to grow subscribers or grow users rather than, yeah, the stock can work. But I think there's probably just an equal chance that they're going to show, you know, continued slowdowns. And then that's when people spook. I mean, that's what we saw with Netflix last week. I got to be honest with you. I was very surprised when when the production team told me that you don't own the big tech names that are reporting this week.

No Apple, no Microsoft, no Amazon, no Alphabet. Why? Well, Dave, I've been wrong not to own them over the last, whatever, it's been eight, 12 months because they've been kind of the safe harbor. I think as we've seen just in the last few weeks or a couple months, I mean, finally, you know, their supremacy is, you know, in the stock world is starting to, you know, be called into question. I think they're great companies. I love Apple. I think Apple is the fangiest of all the fangs. I think they're the ones that will continue to do well. I think Facebook's kind of most at risk out of the

remaining fangs to kind of do on Netflix. So they're good companies. But I think, you know, now some of the smaller tech names have been so oversold that, you know, I'd like to spend time looking at them because there's only so much that Apple can grow when they're a, whatever, $2 trillion, $3 trillion company. Yeah. So what do you think from a market standpoint is riding on this week? Even if you don't have so-called skin in the game here, you do have skin in the market game, right? And how important are these companies one way or another to either confirm that we can move higher from where we are

or that we're about to break down further? Oh, without a doubt. I mean, they're the linchpin. And so, you know, just like, you know, Netflix's poor numbers, you know, spooks the market and the QQQs immediately, you know, go negative in terms of the futures for the next day's trading. I mean, if we had like a drumbeat of terrible reports this week, of course it's going to be terrible for the rest of the market. So, you know, selfishly, I hope that doesn't happen.

And, you know, selfishly, I hope that doesn't happen. And, you know, but we'll we'll see. I want to add one little Twitter nugget before I let you run, because it is an interesting one by way of our own Joe Kernan, who I believe got a comment from former President Donald Trump and asked him if he was going to return to Twitter now that Elon Musk was buying it and taking it private. The quote is as follows from President Trump to Joe Kernan. No, I won't be going back to Twitter. I will be on Truth Social within the week. It's on schedule. We have a lot of people signed up. I like Elon Musk. I like him. Oh, I like him a lot. He's an excellent individual. I thought the quote was ending there.

He's an excellent individual. We thought it was ending there. He's an he's an excellent individual. We did a lot for Twitter when I was in the White House. I was disappointed by the way I was treated by Twitter. I won't be going back on Twitter. You know what? It's interesting that that President Trump, former President Trump, says, you know, we did a lot for for Twitter when I was in the White House. As many followers as the former president, Eric, has, Twitter couldn't find a real way to monetize the fact that the president of the United States was prolific on their service. No, you put that on the list of a bunch of things that Twitter management never got around to. So, I mean, I think that's why this deal is happening. I think Elon's a different kind of cat.

And I think, you know, he's proven at SpaceX and Tesla that he surrounds himself with the brightest tech people. I think this company is going to look totally different a year from now. I think they'll probably have half the number of employees as they do now. And I just, you know, I don't trust, you know, I don't believe President Trump that he won't be back on there. You know, he's friendly with Elon. I think he'll be back, especially when the service changes. And it's also where the people are. I mean, why go to Truth Social when you can be on Twitter? I mean, that's why Elon bought the company.

And I don't believe Elon when he says he you're gonna run it as a non-profit either i mean you don't spend forty four billion dollars including with all your your friendly bankers uh... took to run it at the charity so much what do people do not what they say yet i will see what the former of president's future is as well as dot twitter's e j appreciate the time so much thank you that's eric jackson joining us there on the phone still ahead sent all these last word

and a rare uh... rare stakes as we kick off a pivotal week for the market. But first, Seema Modi is tracking the big movers in the OT. Hi, Seema. Hey, Scott. It may seem like Twitter is the only news after hours, but that's not the case. We have three names moving on significant volume. We will reveal the list after this break. Back in the OT, let's get to Seema Modi, who's tracking some big movers in the OT. Hi, Seema. Hey, Scott. Let's start with Whirlpool.

Earnings missed estimates, but the stock is rising at this hour after the company revealed that it's initiated a strategic review of its EMEA Europe business, where demand has been negatively impacted by the war in Ukraine here's what the CEO of Whirlpool told Jim Cramer moments ago we're looking at Europe in terms of how does it fit in our future portfolio and we are talking about looking at all options including retaining but also including changing ownership um and again it's against the question is can Europe perform against the targets which we have given ourselves and particularly in an environment where you see more and more global decoupling going on. You can catch the full interview tonight on Mad Money at 6 p.m. Eastern.

Let's turn to regional bank Zions in its earnings report it really talked about how higher operating costs were due to rising compensation levels resulting from a tight labor market and related to other inflationary pressures. We'll have to see if other companies reveal a similar trend. Lastly, OI Glass. It's a bottle manufacturer spiking about 9% in extended trade on significant volume. Strong earnings, a beat on its top and bottom line. Scott, back to you. All right, Seema Modi, thanks so much. Let's get another check on shares of Twitter right now. That stock is higher in overtime as we await the all-hands meeting at the top of the hour. Remember, CEO and one of the top board members is meeting with employees all hands on deck, top of the hour, about 15 minutes or so

from now. We'll obviously have fresh reporting out of that. Plus, is it time to buy the dip in energy? We debate that coming up. In today's Halftime Overtime, the energy sector under pressure again today, and it's down nearly 9% over the past week. But Bryn Talkington says that now is the opportunity to buy that dip.

If you want to look at companies with high cash flow, higher distributions, great earnings, good valuation, you really have to turn to the energy names. And they're still incredibly undervalued relative to the rest of the market. So we'll see what happens this week. But I would definitely this is a good area to look for buying on the dip. OK, joining us now is Halftime Investment Committee member Shannon Sekosha. Do you agree? Nice to see you, by the way. Do you agree with Bryn? I do not. I think that we're entering into a period where you're going to see meaningful profit taking in energy over the next couple of weeks, provided we continue to get some negative covid data out of China. That's really what we're seeing here. You know, I think the COVID lockdowns are going to be extended and expanded. And I think that,

I think there's a reasonable concern that that could contribute to slow down in what is already expected to be a slowing global economy. So I think that there's probably a little bit more of a washout here as we get some more profit taking. And all of those attributes that Bryn listed, there are other sectors where that's available as well. So I wouldn't be buying the dip rate just yet here. Oh, so then you must be selling EOG and Bolero then. I mean, if you're negative on the space, right? Massively, massively underweight to my peers here on the investment committee, Scott and Energy. You know that. Those are my only two energy names, and I wouldn't be adding to them here. Although I think longer term,

three or four years out, we're still in an undersupplied energy market. So you think about holding these stocks for that long? I mean, look, I only ask you, and of course, I know what you said is true. Those stocks are up a lot, right? EOG over the last year is up 62 percent. Valero is up 44. I mean, if you're kind of negative on the space, why not take the money and run? Well, because I think longer term, we're going to get some opportunities here. And, you know, these aren't big positions for me.

I actually don't know that in the next few weeks there isn't going to be another opportunity to buy energy. I just don't think it's today. I think we're going to continue to see pressure. I think there's a rotation here, Scott, that's starting, and it's going to be for the next few weeks as people are looking to reinvest their energy allocations a little bit differently over the next few weeks. You don't let me get away with anything. I know you too well, Shannon. All right, the market itself.

Friday, huge decline. Today looks like we're going to back it up, and then we have a big reversal. What's it mean? I think people are excited about tech this week. And honestly, Scott, I think people are looking for some defense. Josh said it great on Friday. Don't go out and buy staples for defense. There's good quality names and big tech. There's dividend payers out there. If you want to take shelter somewhere, I think big tech is still going to represent that over the course of the next couple of months, particularly if we see slowing and a little bit of shine off of the cyclicals. All right. Shannon Sikosha, thank you so much. See you on the Halftime Report or back here on OT or both. Coming up next, it's Santoli's last word and the rare stakes as we kick off a huge week ahead. And coming up on Fast Money,

the traders digging into Elon Musk's Twitter deal, what it means for shareholders and the social space. Overtime is back in two minutes. Time for Santoli's last word. And today it is reversal, maybe. Well, that's a good one, Scott. And, you know, I was really looking at the week as a whole and why there are some stakes involved in the trading this week. First of all, where we found ourselves at the start of the week in terms of index levels today is really the fourth time the S&P has kind of traveled down to this area, kind of bounced off of it. 4,200, 4,100 to 4,300 has been this zone where it's put in a little bit of a low each time this year. We'll see if that lasts. We're coming to month end. It's the last chance to make use of any April seasonal tailwinds, which were supposed to have helped the market this month.

And some people put a lot of credence on where the market closes on a month-end basis. We'll see if we can get out of some technical trouble by that point. Of course, you've been talking about the mega-caf tech earnings. Only Apple's really held up, you know, reasonably well. The rest of them have had at least a 20 percent pullback. Maybe some of today's rally was trying to kind of get out of the way and not get too greedy on the short side with some of these stocks that have already hit some pain when we're having some results. By the way, also, see, we're talking about Whirlpool

and OI stocks trading up after not so great numbers. Cyclicals that have already been beaten up. That's worth keeping an eye on as well. But I mean, we always say that the Apples and the Microsofts and the mega cap tech are important. But I really feel this time there's some added weight just given the volatility that we've had in the market and the uncertainty to where we find ourselves literally hours before these reports start coming down the pike. I mean, you had this massive sell off on Friday. You had what looked to be a follow through today. And then we staged a reversal. So you either got to back it up or you're going to break it down. Right. I mean, it comes in the context of those, you know, the Nasdaq 100 type stocks look like on a relative basis to the overall market that they're putting

in some kind of a significant top. I mean, that's kind of what your premise should be, unless something radical comes along to reverse that trend. So, yes, they still have an outsized effect on the index. The equal weighted index continues to outperform because of that. So today's reversal, I think you say, takes some of the pressure off. Historically, something like this is not necessarily all that decisive in terms of where we go from here, but probably better than the reverse. Makes those rare stakes even higher in overtime tomorrow, 4 p.m. Eastern time when it all goes down. All right, Mike, appreciate it. That's Mike Santoli. I'll see you tomorrow. Up next, Twitter about to kick off an all hands meeting with employees. We have the setup. Do it next.

All right, we're back in overtime. Let's get the results now of our Twitter question. We asked, which FAANG stock trades most like a value stock? Most of you voting Alphabet with meta platforms closely behind. Remember, people used to make that argument. Is it Google? Is it Facebook? Which is the cheapest stock? Well, Facebook has had its issues, and we're going to find out what Google delivers this week as well. All right, you're looking live at the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco.

Executives there expected to kick off an all-hands meeting with employees in literally minutes. Let's bring in Julia Boorstin. Julia, we're less than three minutes from this meeting. What can we expect, do you think? Well, look, I've been hearing from sources that there have been meetings going on all day since this deal was announced or just the past couple of hours. This specific meeting is expected to be CEO Parag Agarwal. There have been reports that employees have been asked to submit questions. And as you can expect, there are a range of concerns about what these employees'

future is going to look like under the new ownership of Elon Musk, rather, including that question of whether Parag Agarwal will continue as CEO. Presumably, Musk has some big changes in plans. But there are also some nuts and bolts questions, like what happens to stock options, the RSAs that were granted? Will employees be able to continue to work from home, which has been something that has sort of been appreciated by many of those Twitter employees? So some sort of nuts and bolts questions like that and really a lot of concern and ambiguity about what the future might hold, Scott. Or whether you're standing outside of a Twitter headquarters in Austin, Texas or somewhere else one of these days, Julia, reporting on the status of the company because Musk doesn't want to keep in San Francisco anymore. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, we've been showing this video of Twitter headquarters, but the reality is that the majority of employees have been working from home. That is not a bustling headquarters from what I understand, I was in San Francisco last week and was hoping to have

some meetings there. But from what I could tell, most people were not actually in the office. And I think that's sort of become commonplace. So, yes, there is that question of whether not only will Musk allow employees to continue to work from home, but will he be interested in making some of those big headquarters changes as he has with his other companies. I'm sure there are, you know, there's anxiety about possible job losses, and we're certainly empathetic to that perspective. But do you really think from what you know about this company, Julia, that they thought there was going to be a so-called white knight come into the picture or not? And I've got less than 30 seconds before we got to run. I think that nobody really expected this to happen so quickly. There was a lot of skepticism that Musk's first offer was real, a lot of surprise when he came up with the financing.

And so I think there's this sense that things just happened really quickly and everyone's trying to figure out what it means. And especially these employees are trying to figure out what it means for them. Yeah. All right. Good stuff. That's our Julia Borson. She'll be following that all hands on deck meeting. Have any reporting coming up in Fast Money. I'll see you tomorrow here.