Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: Palantir Earnings, Disney Stock Under Pressure & Bitcoin Reality Check Podcast Description 2/2/26

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Earnings season rolls on with key reactions and market-moving insights. Key reads on the AI trade with Palantir and NXPI both reporting. Kate Moore, Citigroup Wealth CIO, on why earnings growth and forward revisions are critical for stocks to push higher. Louie DePalma, Senior Research Analyst at William Blair, reacts to Palantir earnings after upgrading the stock this morning. Disney’s stock slide and leadership questions with Jim Stewart, Business Reporter at The New York Times; a reset in global currencies with Kathy Lien, Managing Director of FX Strategy at BK Asset Management; and a look at Bitcoin’s slide with Mark Palmer, Senior Analyst at StoneX. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

bringing an end to the trading day at the NYSC. NYSC partnership day, ringing the bell and at the Nazak, the parent company of the Saudi stock exchange doing the honors. Welcome to closing bell overtime. Live from Studio B at the NASDAQ market site. I'm Melissa Lee along with Mike Santoli. Sox jumping today. The Dow up 500 points.

The S&P 500 very close to an all-time closing high. We'll see how the numbers settle out there. The NASAC also in the green, but rustle up just about 1%. Consumer staples the top sector as Walmart and Target lead the way in the first day under the new CEOs. That, by the way, an all-time high for Walmart. Energy, the worst group as oil and that gas tumble, much more in those markets straight ahead. Our reporters all over today's big movers in stocks, crypto and commodities, plus what's behind Disney's big drop.

And we're just moments away from results out of Palantir. But let's start with Christina Parts Nevelos and today's Megacat movers. Christina. The figure was, quote, never a commitment. And NVIDIA's filing confirmed. We're obviously having a difficulty with Christina's mic. Sorry, Christina. I know.

We'll start you guys on that in the meantime. But Christina was just mentioning this plan, yeah, this effort to raise between $45 to $50 billion equally between equity as well as debt. Yeah, initially it was taken as a bit of a reason for relief, and the stock was up for much of the day. And it was partly because the equity raise was allowing the balance sheet to improve or at least not be as bad as people had feared with more debt. Obviously, the stock gave back some.

There's a little bit on AI investors' minds about. about just the whole open AI ecosystem, and in fact, whether a lot of that investment's going to come true. I don't know what your reaction was when you heard the news last night. I was actually surprised the stock was up at all, seeing that free cash flow would be negative. This is not going to be the last equity rates that they're going to have. They're going to have to raise money again in 2027. It's not. I think it was in a very narrow sense that stocks down already 50% off the highs,

and they did have a state of commitment to maintain their investment-grade credit rating. So clearly there was some part of the equity investor base that thought maybe that was at risk. And so, you know, it came back a little bit, but did sag lower as the overall market did also come in off the highs in the late part of the day. Right. Well, let's get to Bitcoin now, which turned higher today after a big drop over the weekend. Mackenzie Sagalos joins us now with a look at those moves. Hey, McKenzie. Hey, Mel. So this is crypto getting repriced on the Fed story. After President Trump tapped Kevin Warsh, the market shifted into a tighter liquidity mindset, and Bitcoin broke down with it. The drop was amplified by forced de-leveraging over the weekend, its largest single-day liquidation event in months. Now, the other key tell is the ETF wrapper.

We're now on a record streak of 10 straight days of outflows. And CoinChair's head of research says the year-to-date redemptions point to a clear erosion in investor appetite for the asset class. You can see the spillover in the public market proxies. Coinbase is down nine straight sessions, and Robin Hood is near a seven-month low. strategy down about 60% over the past year. And on Cali, traders are marking down the BTC range for this year. The contract for Bitcoin's 2026 lows around $59,000 well below where it was trading just two weeks ago. Guys?

Mack, thank you. On the commodities front, silver, similar to Bitcoin, firming up a bit after a huge decline. Also saw some big moves in energy today as well. Pippa Stevens covering all that for us. Hi, Pippa. Hey, Max. We saw a pretty calm day for medals after Friday's historic drop. Silver's 31% plunge, bringing it down to just above its 50-day moving average.

And BTIG is Jonathan Krinsky saying that while prices could move between 80 and 100, he expects further downside to the primary breakout level near 55. Now, Friday's drop also following a relentless run higher in silver shorts have lost 286 million this year, that's according to S3 partners, after prices did briefly break above 120. And moving over to oil, shutting about 5% amid a de-escalation in U.S. Iran, relations, which is easing worries about a potential supply loss. But net gas is the big mover today plunging some 25 percent as forecast for March turned warmer and production comes back

online faster than expected following the deep freeze. Now that commodity weakness is hitting energy stocks, the worst sector on the day, although still the best group so far this year. And Devin is finishing a little bit higher here after announcing it will buy rival driller Kotera for 26 billion. That's according to Inveris. And that would be the fourth largest upstream deal since 2020. Mike? Pippa, thank you, yeah, showing how much event risk was in the oil and gas prices, apparently going into the weekend. On the metals move, obviously a little bit of calm, at least relative to what we've seen before, although it shows you how agitated things are that the SLV silver

ETF was down 4% in the regular session. It's actually kind of loosened up its connection to the underlying spot silver price. It just sort of shows, I guess, how much leverage money and how much, you know, potential positioning pain that there is in there. It was a little bit less volume in the SLV today, so maybe volatility can start to drain out of that market. All right. All right. Pallenture earnings are out right now. Let's get to Morgan Brennan, who's got the numbers there. Morgan. Hey, Mel, that's right. So Pallantir results. It was another beat and raise for the company. EPS of 25 cents suggested. This is on revenue of $1.4 billion, both better than expected. And U.S. revenues of 93% year-on-year, topping a billion dollars for the

first time for a quarter. U.S. commercial revenue of 137% both Q1 and full-year revenue forecasts, blowing past estimates. $7.2 billion is what's expected for 2026. U.S. commercial to grow by at least 115%. CEO Alex Karp telling me, quote, it's the U.S. and not Canada, Western Europe thinks they're going to magically catch up. But these are escape velocities. numbers, the catch-up function that we've been warning people, does not exist now. Demand for Palantir products, he says, is, quote, so large that the company is not even engaging with some allied countries on new products now. It's really all about America. On the AI landscape, CARP adding, quote, we are very focused on Palantir, but what does it mean for other companies

when Palantir is forecasting 61% growth off of a massive base with 93% growth in the U.S. And a rule of 127. Guys, rule 40 score of 120%. 27%. You really just don't see that anywhere but Pallantir results. We're doing this with a small and declining sales force two according to Alex Karp. He also had some comments on ICE and some other things for the quarter. Go to CnBC.com for more of that conversation. In the meantime, if you take a look at shares of Pallantirer, we're up about 5.5% here in overtime on these results. All right. Morgan, thank you. Morgan Brennan, Morgan Highlanded the commercial number in terms of the percent growth year on year. That was a blowout number and that had to, you know, match what analysts

were expecting. Morgan said that it exceeded expectations. So that's going to be a key driver. I think the question here is, can it be immune from that slump hanging over the software stack? Exactly, yeah. So comparable software valuations have gone down a lot faster than Palantiers has, even though that stock has been weak as well. We'll see how much of this topic can hold. Yep. Let's turn back to equities in general right now. It is turning out to be a very bullish earnings season, according to fact that this is the fifth straight quarter of double-digit earnings growth. The growth rate is now near 12%, up from the 8.3% expected at the end of the quarter. Our next guest says she expects earnings momentum to continue. Joining us now is Kate Moore,

City Wealth Chief Investment Officer. Kate, great to have you with us. Hey, Melissa, that's great to see you. So how much of this great earnings season that you're expecting is already priced into the S&P 500, which is, you know, a matter of maybe less than a point away from a new high at this point? Yeah, I don't think it's all priced in. And I'll tell you what, because the skepticism in the market feels still very high. We saw a lot of people get nervous and sort of doubt the sustainability of the tech, the AI ecosystem, the spend cycle at the end of the fourth quarter.

And I feel like that sentiment has overhung January and into this sort of middle part now of the first quarter. So, you know, people are watching these numbers. Tech is putting up numbers that are twice out of the overall S&P. We expect that earnings growth momentum to sustain through the rest of this reporting season. And very importantly, what we just saw, you guys were talking about, a company that just reported. We're getting not just beats, but also raises in terms of guidance on revenues and capbacks. I don't think that the optimism in tech is as high as it was in the middle part of last year. And so I think there's more room for the market to go higher.

Yeah, we want to point out the Palantir is the after our session highs right now higher by about 8%. So we're going to see what the earnings call brings us. But, Kay, just to continue on to this, you know, with this tech theme, we have software, and we see Palantir sort of defying the general movement of the sector for the past month plus, few months, tonight at least. But do you buy into that narrative that software is going to be basically eaten by AI? I mean, what do you think about all these sort of AI narratives in the market now driving broad trades. Yeah, look, the spread here between the hardware and the software has been,

you know, quite extreme. And as I, this is a sentiment peak, I think, in terms of the hardware relative to software. Look, there are some software products and new ones, frankly, that are even not on the market that are going to be incredibly important to the overall AI ecosystem. And it does feel like this spread, this divergence is a little bit overdone in the near term. I watched last week in particular to different companies, raise their guys, between two and a half and three and a half percent on their AI and AI related spend. And then one trade up, you know, that was meta, 10 percent. And the other trade down 10 percent, which is Microsoft, a very high quality company.

So I think there's a lot of discomfort, a lot of itchiness in the investor base at this point. But it does feel this extreme differentiation between software and the rest of tech, you know, is reaching kind of peak levels. Does that mean I'm overly bullish on software? Not necessarily. I think it's going to be a case-by-case basis. But when we're looking at the overall tech ecosystem, we're getting ourselves pretty encouraged by the amount and breadth of spending that's going to happen in 2026. Again, we're expecting more CAPEX guide raises through the balance of earning season.

And, Kate, I guess a big reason that the overall market has been able to withstand some of that weakness in tech is you've got this run-it-hot narrative about the economy. It's actually coming through in terms of the numbers. You look at the economic surprises. We're at like a two-year high for the U.S. How does that work out as we move along when it comes to the interplay with where treasury yields go, what we expect from the Fed? I mean, the dollar is up a couple percent in just four or five trading days as well. Yeah, Mike, we've been really encouraged actually by the macro data released so far in 2026

and expect that future releases, including the payrolls data this Friday, is going to continue to signal that the U.S. economy is on strong footing. Now, I think the second half of 2026 might be a bit of a different story. But when we think about what's going to be driving earnings, the profitability of companies and what's driving the overall macro backdrop, there's very few areas of significant weakness we see. We have the fiscal firing, we think monetary policy, particularly the cuts that took place in the second half of last year, now filtering through the real economy, also supporting economic growth. And frankly, you know, very strong profitability and very strong free cash generation from the tech

side, all kind of powering the market and the economy higher in the first half the year. But I do want to note, you know, we're kind of reserving our view on the second half of 2026, you know, at the time being, for the time being, because there may be some more challenges underway as some of these fiscal monetary and tech spending tailwinds fade a little bit. So when that happens, Kay, what's your view on what happens to the broadening, to both the tech trade, which sounds like you think it's going to be under pressure because the spending might not be there, but also the broadening trade that we've seen, industrial is doing well today and in recent months, as well. well as some of the other sectors, financials, for instance. Well, actually, I think tech will hold up pretty well. Listen, I'll say this because we actually have more of a secular growth story there. It's not just the, you know, fiscal and monetary policy stimulus kind of driving things higher. I think when we get to the second half the year, the calls for kind of broadening out and for people getting excited about more rate-sensitive areas will fade a little bit and they'll be really

focused on the cash flows, on the earnings, and the companies that can continue to deliver through a more moderate economic climate. And, you know, that tends to. to be these parts of the thematic secular growth. And I think tech and AI relate to that. All right, Kate, thanks. Kate Moore of City. We got some breaking news on two of Elon Musk's companies. Morgan Brennan has the details. Morgan. Hi, Melissa. I'm back. That's right. So we now have a report, this one from Bloomberg, that Elon Musk is planning to, in fact, merge SpaceX with XAI. This is according to people familiar with the matter in a deal that has been apparently announced in a memo, although that information is not public yet here. We've been getting increasing

reports and speculation that this could be coming and coming as soon as this week. Now apparently a report that a memo internally has gone out suggesting this. I've reached out to SpaceX. I will let you know if and when and how I hear back here on this potential deal. But of course, it puts another big AI player in this case, XAI, into the spotlight. with this idea of AI infrastructure spending in a day where we're already talking about it, whether it's Nvidia and Open AI or Oracle, raising more capital to build out its cloud. And of course, it comes on the heels of just a couple of days ago, SpaceX filing with the FCC for the ability to build out and launch as many as a million satellites to space for a space cloud as it builds out or considers building out, works to build out, AI data centers from space. All right, let's up bring in McKenzie Segalis into the conversation.

Morgan, stay right there. A big part of this, obviously, is the fact that XAI, McKenzie burns a lot of cash. I mean, this is straight from the Elon Musk playbook of take a company that is burning a lot of cash and merge it with a company that is a little bit more stable and put them together, and it provides ballast to that, you know, up-and-coming company, which would be in this case, X-A-I. Oh, precisely. And you have X-A-I paired up with Colosses.

which is this massive data center build in Tennessee. And so, you know, you pair that with the fact that it hasn't really struck accord with enterprise customers. It's struggling to gain appeal with commercial buyers or retail commercial buyers as well. And so this is a way to offset the spend there, especially with like SpaceX valuation at $800 billion. X-AI just closed its round last month, a $230 billion valuation there. Bloomberg reporting a combined value of these two companies of $1.25 billion.

So if you pair it with the IPO story, it really, I mean, in the same way that X was tied into XAI, that synergy there is, as you said, Mel straight out of the playbook that Musk really likes to tie his empire together. SpaceX and Tesla also investors in XAI. Yeah, Morgan, I guess, I mean, maybe not immediately, but if this becomes a public entity, I think it's going to be a lot of eyes on the SpaceX financials. The reports are, you know, most of the business in terms of revenue is the, you know, Starlink, obviously, and it's got some government links all over the world, and now you have maybe an AI company connected in with it, which is also a defense contractor. It gets a lot of overlapping interests here. That's right. It certainly does. And as McKenzie just mentioned, SpaceX has recently invested $2 billion into XAI, just as Tesla has as well. both of these companies, SpaceX and XAI, already contract with the government. And don't forget the Starship piece of this, which is largely not baked into the valuation on SpaceX. They've got another Starship test flight as soon as next month.

When that becomes fully operational and goes online, a little bit of pun intended here, but, you know, sky is the limit in terms of what you can launch to space and how quickly you can build it out. Don't forget the idea of AI data centers and SpaceX is not the only one who is focused on There are a number of companies working on this actively as we speak. SpaceX, though, of course, given its track record, getting a lot of attention here. But the idea of unlimited power through solar and cold, cold temperatures in space. So you need to be able to fortify the hardware and actually test the technology and make sure it works. But you're looking at potentially, and Musk has talked about this maybe a couple years away fully,

to have this whole data infrastructure from space. So perhaps why not do this ahead of an IPO that could be, the largest ever on record as soon as this summer, a $1.5 trillion dollar SpaceX hitting the market. All right, guys. Thank you. Morgan Brennan, as well as McKenzie Segalos. You've got to get to NXPI.

The earnings are out right now. Christina Parks and Neville. It's got those. Christina. We are seeing a beat on the top and bottom line. Adjusting EPS of $3.35. A little bit higher than what the street anticipated on revenues of $3.34 billion. This is a company that is heavily exposed to the auto industry for that quarter,

Q4. They did come in roughly in line with what the street was anticipating. In the earnings report, I should say, they did reference that the first half of the year was challenging and that the company remains committed to disciplined investment, margin expansion, portfolio optimization. For the actual margins, though, going into Q1, the current quarter were in. Q1 margins, sorry, I should say, are coming in at 57%, which is straight in line with what the street was anticipating. Q1 EPS guide. The midpoint was $2.97 for the EPS. It's slightly higher than the street anticipated on Q1 Revenue Guide of $3.15 billion. So slightly higher.

But if you look at the full year picture, revenue actually felt 3% year every year. So automotive in line, margins in line too. So perhaps that's why you're seeing the stock down about 3% guys. All right. Christina, thanks. Christina Parts and Nevelas. Coming up in overtime, we'll get instant reaction to Palantir's earnings with an analyst who upgraded the stock this morning ahead of results.

Risky, but I guess it paid off, at least for now. Palantir is almost at after-hour session highs up 7%. And we'll dig deeper into what caused Disney's big drop down, 7% with COS succession, also hanging over the stock much more ahead on closing bell overtime, live from the NASDAQ market site. Disney, the worst performing stock on the Dow today, falling despite beating on the top and the bottom lines this morning. The company warned of headwinds from international travel,

travelers attending domestic parks. And as Disney's search for a successor continues, your next guest wonders, if the board might be thinking that it's time to look outside of Disney. Let's bring in New York Times columnist and CNBC contributor James Stewart. Jim, great to see you. Nice to see you. Outside, the two people mentioned in every reporter, are insiders. Well, they've said all along they were going to look outside, and they had the initially four internal candidates and when pretty much thinks it's two. The problem with the two, both of whom people speak very highly of, is that they don't have experience across the company lines.

Josh Tomorrow is big on the theme parks. It doesn't have a lot of Hollywood contacts and experience. Dana Walden, great in entertainment, knows very little about theme parks, and I'm told, isn't even all that interested in it. So you've got two people with big strengths, but also some weaknesses. But by the way, I haven't heard any evidence that they have looked outside. Not a single rumor, nobody having, you know, been spotted, slipping into Disney headquarters. I'm not sure they actually, in the end, did look. There's some, perhaps,

justification for having a theme parks person atop the company, because Disney is now more reliant on that business than they've been often in the past. Even though, you know, in some sense, they actually have what Netflix is trying to create with Warner Brothers Discovery, which is a streaming operation at scale plus

the traditional studio, but the theme parks are what's driving things. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's good news and bad news. But, you know, and you look this quarter in the theme parks are, you know, what, 75% of the operating income. I mean, that's a huge percentage. And everybody kept thinking that would go away once the kind of the J-curve of the streaming thing kicked in. But it doesn't seem to be happening. So, I mean, is Disney now essentially an experienced theme park company that just happens to also do all this other entertainment

and streaming? The problem with that is that's a pretty low multiple business. I mean, look at the cruise lines or look at the, you know, hotel chains. That's not the kind of multiple. that Disney has previously aspired to. Well, if that's the case, too, then that flywheel could be weakened or in jeopardy, right? I mean, the flywheel revolves around entertainment assets powering the visits to the theme park and hotels, no? Right. And, well, first of all, this quarter, the experience is only operating income, only went up,

single digit. It wasn't like a huge win. It's true you need that to feed the theme park interest. And then I think people are also starting to get a little impatient. You look at the declines in operating income in both traditional entertainment and especially sports, which includes ESPN, which used to be the big moneymaker for them. And I think people are starting to get worried. When is that, you know, the profit from streaming and to kick in? And, you know, they're even asking, is Disney at scale?

Is it the marginal player here? Yeah, that is a tricky piece. Although, you know, I could see being at Disney and saying, look, we had Zootopia 2. We have the Avatar movie. these are two of the biggest box office draws going. That's going to be an asset we own forever. They don't get credit for it in the market. Meanwhile, the multiple that you mentioned is down to 16.

I know. Well, you know, people are worried now about the franchise effect. And, you know, Disney is the king of the franchise. They've executed brilliantly. How long can those franchises run? Like the avatar is doing well, but it's running like a billion behind projections of the last avatar. There is a worry, at least on Wall Street, that there's a certain amount of this franchise fatigue.

setting in. How do you connect the dots between what is going on with Disney and how the stock has languished, even though it has such prize assets and prize content in its library versus what's going on in the broader media world specifically and the war for content? Well, you know, I think the problem for investors and the multiple is where is the growth going to come from? You know, I think Bob Agar has done a great job at stabilizing this, but we haven't seen any new renewed growth trajectory. Meanwhile, you see the really scale players like Netflix and Amazon cashing in here, it's looking more and more like streaming is a super-scale business, as many people thought it was going to be. And as I said, Disney's kind of the marginal player there. They're not releasing

the subscriber numbers now, so we don't know where the growth is, but I'm assuming it's kind of like flat. And there's not a lot of huge growth potential there. And in a way, you know, Disney kind of consolidated up, you know, with Fox and everything else. They kind of created. that already, they're not, they're too big really to be in play themselves. And so they're kind of sitting out this round of. Yeah, I don't think they, they don't really have the financial firepower to enter in the bidding for like Warner Brothers right now. And I, I don't think they would want to do that. But whoever succeeds Iger is facing still a very challenging environment. Is Iger's legacy permanently damaged now that he's almost at the end? No, I think people will

step back and say, look, you look at the whole trajectory of his career, he did a fantastic job there. Should he had come back when he did? Well, you know, it was a, you can argue that it was a crisis of his own making when he, you know, fumbled this succession the last time. Presumably that means he won't do it again. But I think people are going to look back at him as being, you know, a visionary leader in someone who did a great job in a very difficult. I do wonder if the sports piece, you know, that it has the potential. Now they're going to bring Fubo in there. There's going to be some exposure to, you know, betting through a lot of these franchises that they own there. And the sports ecosystem in general is not shrinking.

Sports, of course, is the great prize of the streaming era because everybody has to watch it in real time. The problem for that is the sports content creators know that. I mean, so the bidding for these assets is just, it's incredible. We saw it happen, you know, with the NBA, and I think it's going to become even more extreme as people pay up. And Disney has been, you know, kind of giving up some of this stuff. to competitors on that. So the costs are really going up. They've moved direct to consumer.

We still don't know how much money can they squeeze out of that. The cable glory days, I'm afraid, are never coming back. Well, sadly, you're right. I'm sure. Jim. Thank you very much. Great to see you. Two anchors on a cable. Exactly. All right. Good to see again. Stocks rising today, along with the dollar, strengthening after the Kevin Wurst Fed News last week. But our next guest says the dollars come back. may not last too long. We'll be right back. After a volatile January, the dollar is coming into February with a slight gain, now with losses of less than 1% for the year so far. So what factors will drive the dollar's next move? Our next guest says there are reasons for a short-term stabilization,

long-term, there are obstacles for a sustained move higher. Joining us now is Kathy Lean, managing director of FX Strategy at BK Asset Management. Kathy, it's great to see you. So what's created this bounce in the dollar, you know, U.S. dollar index up about 2% in the last week or so. And what can we expect next? There are number of factors that's driving this near-term bounce in the dollar. The first one being the better than expected data. This morning, we had really good ISM manufacturing numbers. That's setting the stage for, you know, some possible improvement in services.

And a non-farm payrolls report on Friday that may be good enough. That's one of the reasons. However, the big reason is, of course, the geopolitical picture. Iran talks are intensifying a sign that a deal could be near. While the U.S. government is still shut down, it also looks like a deal could be reached soon. So these two factors that have been really plaguing and hurting the dollar, I think, is starting to ease. And the trade has gotten very crowded. We have risk reversals showing the most negative levels since 2011, which tells us that investors are heavily hedged against the dollar.

So the trade got crowded. We're seeing a bit of a squeeze on the back of all of these signs. that maybe some sort of agreement could be reached on Iran and the U.S. government shut down. Where does the talk of the last couple of weeks that there might be some intervention in the dollar yen to sort of weaken the dollar against the yen? How does that play into it? You're absolutely right. I mean, dollar yen intervention talk has injected some two-way action in dollar yen, allowing to, you know, sell off a bit. But if you take a look at the move that we've seen lately, it indicates that traders are not convinced that it's going to happen.

that even though there were talks that the Treasury checked, so U.S. Fed checked rates for Treasury, that, you know, at the end of the day, you know, we're not going necessarily going to see the coordinated intervention that Japan really needs in order to allow the yen to rise. So I don't think it's a serious of a risk-coordinated intervention than some of the bigger factors that is going to really plague the dollar in the long term. Longer term, though, Kathy, what do you think the U.S. the policy is? I mean, we heard from President Trump something different from Secretary. in just a matter of the span of two days or so.

And when it comes to whether or not the U.S. has a strong dollar policy, what is your thinking? How do you interpret those comments? I think at the end of the day, in terms the U.S. dollar, a weaker dollar helps exports, it helps the economy. And that's really what I think President Trump really needs. But in terms of the U.S. dollar direction, what matters beyond everything else is U.S. interest rate differentials. And right now, we're at a point where U.S. interest rate advantages

are going to shrink. You have many central banks, maybe even the Reserve Bank Australia, tonight possibly raising interest rates, as the Fed looks to one and even two interest rate cuts this year. One of the things that I think the market is underestimating is basically the willingness, if Kevin Marsh becomes Fed chairman, two cut interest rates more aggressively than the market is priced in. There's a very good chance that we could see to at least two interest rate cuts this year from the Fed, and that could really be the pressure that drives the dollar down. And then on top of that, you have globally the growth story is improving. A lot of these countries are engaging with trade deals with China and a lot of other nations and, you know,

excluding the U.S., and that's going to benefit them because those trade terms are more favorable. So I think those two things are the much bigger story affecting the dollar. All right. Kathy, great to see you. Thanks, Kathy Lean. Time now for CNBC News Update with Kate Rogers. Kate. Hi, Melissa. Trump ally Ed Martin is reportedly out of his role as the Justice Department's weaponizations are. and is working mainly as a pardon attorney. Three people familiar with the matter told MS now that the move comes after a longstanding feud

between Martin and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. He was named the leader of the working group last spring that is investigating prosecutors who've launched probes into President Trump. The Russian captain of a container ship that crashed into a U.S. tanker off the east coast of Britain last year was found guilty today of gross negligence manslaughter of a crew member. The Portuguese-flagged ship collided with a U.S. ship collided with a U.S. tanker off the U. the tanker last March, sparking a huge fire that burned for eight days. And Major League Baseball salary increases slowed to 1.4% last year, according to numbers from the Players Association.

Still, the league set a record average at $4.7 million up from $4.6 million last year. Those figures are based on 2025 salaries and bonuses for roughly 1,000 players. Back over to you, Melissa. Kate, thanks, Kate Rogers. Coming up on overtime, we'll get an analyst's first reaction to Palantir's results, the stock moving higher in the after-hour session, much more on Palantir in the move higher by about 7.4% when overtime continues. Welcome back to closing bell overtime line for the NASDAQ market site. The Dow jumping more than 500 points today. The S&P closing just two points short of an all-time high. The NASDAQ higher by half a percent, a 1% gain meantime for the rustle. In commodities, the action was in energy today, 4% drop for oil, big jump for Nat gas, gold, a small loss there,

silver, small gain, Bitcoin also moving higher by nearly 2%. Let's get another check on Palantir. The stock is soaring in the after-hour session up by almost 7% right now. After reporting earnings beat moments ago, some highlights. US revenue up 93% year-over-year, topping a billion dollars for the first time ever. U.S. commercial revenue, that was a key line item that analysts were watching for, up 137%. And the company also blew past estimates for the first quarter and full-year revenue estimates. Our next guest upgraded the stock to outperform this morning.

Let's bring William Blair analyst Louis De Palma. Louis, great to have you with us. Are you breathing a sigh of relief? It takes a lot to go out on the limb, upgrading a stock the day before, you know, the morning it reports. Yeah, we do that fairly often. I wouldn't necessarily say it's a sigh of relief. We have general, like, 12-month focus on where the stock should end up. And Allentier shares, they've been very volatile over the past several months.

So I was going to ask you about that because even if it's a great, even if you believe it's a great business, even if you believe that it is worth the forward PE that it's trading at, which is somewhere, I don't know, in the upper echelons of where companies are valued, maybe it's number two or number three at this point. It's still in the software sector. And that sector is really facing evaluation compression at this point, and it's indiscriminate. So how do you reconcile the two? Yes, it's interesting how you categorize. it in the software sector because I am an aerospace and defense analyst. I come from examining Palantir with a unique angle, with a focus on Department of War contracts. And what's interesting is, you know, while there's been, you know, major valuation compression for software stocks,

you know, drone stocks and missile stocks have gone through the roof in terms of their valuations. So So Palantir is a key supplier to many of the weapons systems. In our note, we highlighted how they forged a major contract with General Dynamics, electric boat to help accelerate production of Columbia-class nuclear-powered submarines. And Palantir is a beneficiary of a potential $1.5 trillion defense budget for 2027. different dynamics taking place with Palantir and the other software stocks. Louis, I guess there could be any number of explanations for why the stock has come in as hard as it has. Obviously, the sector has been weak.

But also, there's a perception out there that under a different party's administration, Palantir may not be in favor with defense budget and things like that. So is that in the stock at this point? How do you tell investors to think about that? Well, like, Palantir still did very well during the Biden administration. They grew at a mid-20% type growth rate. You know, they won the prototype contract for Maven Smart System. They won the prototype contract for the Titan battlefield system.

So Palantir will still do, you know, very well under a Democratic regime. But Palantir will do better under a Republican regime. So I think, you know, there is a balance and that is, you know, generally priced in. But, you know, investors, you know, will cross that bridge, you know, when they get there. Right now, Palantir is thriving. And, you know, they will continue to thrive over the long term regardless of the administration. It's just a matter of degrees here. All right.

So the stock is holding most of those gains up almost 8%. Back to levels from last week or so. Louis, good to talk to you. Thank you. Yes. Thanks for having me here. All right. Let's stay with tech.

Oracle, giving up early session gains after announcing AI financing plan. Sima Modi has the details. Hi, Sima. Hey, Michael. Oracle, surprising the market today by including plans to issue equity in its latest artificial intelligence financing plan. The move initially cheered. by the credit side as it signaled Oracle is relying not just on the debt market and is its commitment to investment grade credit rating. Take a look at what we saw in the five-year

credit default swap, really restoring confidence. We saw the five-year CDS plunge today by as much as 17 to 18 percent. Oracle stock and initially responded positively to this news, but by midday, shares of Oracle reversed as the street focused on those stalled discussions between Nvidia and Open AI and the implications that could have for Oracle. Keep in mind, Open AI accounts for nearly 60% of Oracle's mega backlog. Now, Oracle, guys, maybe the first hyperscaler to go back to the debt market in 2026, but it's certainly not expected to be the last. We are expecting deals from META and others in the coming weeks, but those are expected to be all debt. The one differentiation here was Oracle using equity as well, guys. Right. Yeah, once you get through these earnings

reports, you're going to see a lot of these companies file the 10Q. get those debt deals out. Seema, didn't Oracle come out and try to essentially say that the Open AI and video talks are not really relevant to its plans? You know, for the longest time, or I should say in the last three months, the company has been defending its diverse set of customers saying it's not just relying on Open AI. I think back to the last earnings report saying it's got customers like Nvidia, AMD, meta as well. But when you look at the backlog, $300 billion of its 523 billion in remaining performance obligations, that backlog is tied to open AI. But of course, the company is working to diversify and expand its roster of customers as it

focuses now on getting the capital, which, you know, through this deal, they're hoping to get about $50 billion. But now the focus turns to execution and the buildout of its data centers to serve all these customers. Seema, thanks. Sima Modi. Big moves and a couple names after ours. Terodynein, a big jump after beating on earnings and revenue estimates saying its growth is driven by strong AI demand in compute and memory. Rambits meantime sinking after meeting earnings expectations, beating on revenue by it just a slim margin.

Well, Bitcoin investors have been holding on for dear life lately, the cryptocurrency plunging nearly 30% over the last three months. Up next will discuss the potential headwinds that could push Bitcoin even lower. Bitcoin failed below $80,000 for the first time since April, although it has pared back some of those losses. and crypto players like Robin Hood, Coinbase, and strategy have been under pressure. Strategy in particular got hit after Bitcoin prices dipped below the company's average purchase cost of its Bitcoin reserves. Joining us now to discuss crypto and its ecosystem is Mark Palmer, analyst from Benchmark Stone X.

And Mark, it's great to have you on here. I mean, so many explanations for why we've had this pretty severe move lower in Bitcoin. What's your diagnosis? I think there are a few different factors at play here. One is the fact that there is on the table a piece of legislation in the Clarity Act, a market structure bill that would create a legislative framework for crypto for the first time. And in our view, unleash an enormous amount of institutional investment in the crypto space. and it appears to be hung up right now in the Senate. We did see the Senate Agriculture Committee

passed that bill on a party line last week, but it's now before the banking committee, and there have been some contentious conversations back and forth between the banking lobby on the one side and the crypto community on the other. Today there was a meeting at the White House. It did sound hopeful that there appeared to be a lowering of temperature, trying to find common ground on that. But in the absence of that bill,

you know, there's just a lot of uncertainty around the crypto space, which leaves it much more vulnerable to macro crosswinds, which is really what we've seen over the last number of weeks. I want to ask you about strategy, Mark, because you have, you put out a report a while ago on micro strategy when it was micro strategy. What is your thinking? Because you, you, You're saying that Bitcoin have to go a lot, lot lower in order for micro strategy to be in trouble, so to speak. Can you walk through that? Because we're nearing the level where we're going to be below their average cost of acquisition for Bitcoin. But you say 12,000 plus is a level.

That's right. You know, what it really comes down to is that the company has a very resilient capital structure. And it has been designed to withstand just this kind of downturn. So if you look at the capital structure that the company has put in place has a little more than $8 billion in convertible notes and then another $8.4 billion in what are known as perpetual preferred chairs. Now, this is the closest thing to permanent capital that you can have in capital structure. Frankly, we believe it's the ideal instrument to be funding a digital asset treasury strategy because there's no maturity. There are no triggers, no debt covenants, none of this. So what it really comes down to is the company has about $8 billion in so-called debt in terms of the converts,

which come due between 2028 and 2032. Right now, the company has something like $55 billion in Bitcoin. So the price of Bitcoin would have to drop precipitously to get to the point that the company could no longer cover its debt, which is really what the test would be with regard to the company's ability to move on. Mark, great to see you. Thank you. Mark Palmer. Up next, a look at all the big earnings on top for tomorrow and whether those results could help extend today's rally. Closing bill overtime, live from the NASDAQ market site. Be right back. Let's get you set up with tomorrow's trade today. It's a big day in the earnings calendar with Merck, Pfizer, PayPal, PepsiCo, and Capri Holdings reporting before the bell. And then after the bell, we'll break down results from AMD, Super Micro, Amgen, Chipotle, and Mondalise. And on the economic front, we'll, get January auto sales data. And we're also expecting a final vote in the House of Representatives tomorrow that could end the current partial government shutdown. But in the meantime, we do know that we won't be getting the jobs that on. Exactly. So the calendar got a little bit lighter,

although with AMD tomorrow after the close, I mean, obviously that's a pretty big mover. And then I was, you know, saying on Friday that the reaction to Palantir's numbers, maybe will have a little bit of sort of pinball effect on some other things. Take a look at Palantir relative to the shares of Robin Hood over the last year. In fact, track this for a while. they've been in lockstep for actually the better part of two years, as a matter of fact. Now, who knows if that means Robin Hood gets some relief because obviously the weakness in crypto has been one of the factors that's really been weighing it down. But it shows you that it's sort of retail trader risk appetite seem very connected to both of these stocks.

Absolutely. And take a look at the after hours, you know, move on Palantir. We're still seeing the stock hang on to those gains. It was interesting to hear about how Louis DePaulma, the analyst, who upgraded Palantir ahead of the results, viewed it as a defense company. It is a defense company, but if you're going to do that, largely, yes. The valuation is completely different in a defense company. Oh, absolutely.

They don't trade it 100 times earnings. Although, to his point, those drone companies and the space companies, maybe they do, but they're not as big. Exactly. All right. Well, that does it for overtime. Fast money begins right after this quick break.