Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: Rare Interview with Sony Entertainment CEO; Latest Read on AI Demand From SMCI & CRWV 8/11/26

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Sonali Basak, Chief Investment Strategist at iCapital, assesses the broader market setup and where investors can find opportunity as valuations and macro risks compete for attention. Super Micro and CoreWeave puts the AI infrastructure trade back in focus. Brent Thill of Jefferies reacts to CoreWeave results and explains what they reveal about demand for compute, AI spending and the economics behind the buildout. Our Julia Boorstin has a rare interview with Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Ravi Ahuja on the state of the media industry, the evolving economics of Hollywood and the power of franchises like Spider-Man. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The bell is bringing an end to the trading day at the NYC, Greater Houston Women's Chamber of Commerce doing the honors and at the NASDAQ, People's Bankrupt of North Carolina ringing the bell. Welcome to close to bell overtime, live from Studio B at the NASDAQ market site. I'm Mike Santoli. Melissa Lee is off today. Stocks ending the day modestly lower as investors await tomorrow's inflation data. The Dow off about 200 points. The S&P down about 0.3%. The NASDAQ, the underperformer, again on the day, down about 160 points.

2000, eking out small gains. This was the first set of back-to-back losses for the Dow in more than three weeks. Communication services and discretionary were the laggards. Utilities and energy led to the upside. Communication services now down more than 10% from its 52-week high. We're going to have more on the markets ahead. We're awaiting earnings from CoreWeave. There are high stakes for the company with investors looking for triple-digit sales growth. Plus, we'll hear from Supermicro and Kava. Let's now send it over to Christina Parts-Mev. for a look at some of today's big movers. Christina?

Well, Mike, dare I say to a relatively quiet session, at least at the index level. So stocks finished, like you said, modestly lower with persistently high oil prices and uncertainty around the war, putting even more focus on tomorrow's CPI report. Crew turned higher again as optimism faded just around the reopening of the straight of her moves, energy, utility, top two S&P sectors. But for tech, it was a mixed day. InVIDIA just hovered around flat as well, as Wall Street really digested its plan to help mobilize more than $500 billion.

and third-party capital for AI infrastructure. Yet, Kathy Wood's Ark bought the dip yesterday. And then you had financing partners like Apollo, Blackstone, KKR, among the biggest S&P winners today. So just on the flip side of that deal. Alphabet remained under pressure following last week's AI leadership shakeup, while Intel was barely positive, despite upsizing its stock offering to $20 billion from $15 billion.

App Loving was among the worst in the S&P 500, after Bank of America downgraded it to neutral, saying it just needs more evidence that company can actually deliver on its long-term growth target. SpaceX also falling. I'm not all in the red, but yeah, we're focusing on some of the laggers right now

and giving back some of its three-day rally as investors really took profit ahead of the August 20 lockup expiration. And then we have Trump Media. I wanted to mention that one, because the stock dropped dramatically about 4%, oh, 5%. Quarterly loss, widened sharply,

just on the crypto slump. That's what they're blaming on. Speaking of crypto, Bitcoin held just above 63,000. It's been around there for the last, this month so far. Yeah, actually, he was trading there about two years ago as well. Christina, thank you very much. Thanks. Oil rising above $83 a barrel today with no breakthroughs and talks between the U.S. and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz.

Pippa Stevens has a rundown for us. Pippa. Well, Mike, oil did rise as the market doubts that a deal between the U.S. and Iran is imminent. Pakistan's defense minister telling Bloomberg earlier that things, are shaping up in favor of a peace arrangement ordeal, which did briefly have crude in the red, but then oil moved higher, as an Iranian official said Hormuz cannot reopen until the country's conditions are met by the U.S. Now, this pattern keeps repeating, with the market remaining very headline-driven, but ING saying the current rhetoric suggests any potential deal is still

some way off, meaning risks do remain skewed to the upside for oil prices. The EIA saying today in its monthly report that crude and liquid flows through the strait of Hormuz averaged 4.9 million barrels per day in the second quarter. That was down from 21.6 million barrels per day in the fourth quarter of 2025 just prior to the war breaking out. Now, the agency expects the majority of oil production to return to roughly pre-conflict averages early next year, but expects about 600,000 barrels per day to be impacted through the end of next year thanks to the war. Mike? Right. So obviously no real quick restoration of normalcy expected PIPA.

You mentioned the market remains pretty headline sensitive, but within this range, largely speaking, I guess the price must weight the probabilities in a certain fashion, right? So if you had this indefinite closing of the straight, the market didn't think we had any window to reopening it. Who knows where maybe crew goes back to the highs? I wonder what the downside is sort of presumed based on people you talk to and why we seem not to be setting off any urgent alarms in the market based on how you keep having these false starts. Well, the price floor does seem to have been lifted here. Remember, we were trading around $63 or so just prior to the war breaking out. So we did briefly get under that $70 level when the ceasefire was announced, but then we didn't stay there for very long. It does seem that it's been reset higher with a higher price floor looking forward. But also, you have to think about the fact that break evens are now higher because producers are facing inflationary costs from things like sand and steel and labor and all of those impacts.

But it does feel like we're not going to see a dramatic move to the upside for oil itself, in part because we've seen a lot of refining capacity come offline. And that means that if refiners are buying less oil, then there's more available on oil on the market. So that is keeping a lid on prices to a certain extent. But as we keep hearing, that's not the case in the fuel market where we're seeing record levels for both Arbob and as well for heating oil, specifically for diesel. And so that's really where the market is flashing the warning signs. And so we can look at this, you know, at the range that crude is trading in, but it really is those refined products that are showing the actual on the ground state of the current markets and the impact from the straight being closed.

Right. So the scarcity and the price impact is closer to the consumer rather than back at the raw material level. Pippa, thank you. Well, yields holding steady today as investors away tomorrow's key inflation reading following Friday's weaker than expected jobs report. Rick Santelli is with us from Chicago. Hello, Rick. Hi, Mike, indeed. You know, as you look at a 12-hour chart of two-year and 10-year yields today, a couple of things should jump out at you. Obviously, we are down a bit. We're down a couple of basis points in both twos and tens. But what's also noteworthy is the low yields there were made right around 9.40 Eastern this morning. Pretty much exactly the same time, oil made its low of the session, then it reversed higher. Now, even though yields didn't move above where they closed yesterday, they did.

did follow the general direction, but yields are a bit lower and that is significant. Now, the whole rub on CPI is that we had a really optimistic June read. The headline number was down four-tenths of a percent. On this chart, it starts on June 1st. It ends on the last day of July. And therein lies the rub. The left side, June. Price went down, the right side July.

They went back up. So how much of that, of course, is going to impact CPI is very critical. Many will be watching the year-over-year core, which we're looking for 2.5%. Last look was 2.6. The first two months of the year were 2.5%. We haven't been below that level since March of 2021. That's the metric many say to pay attention to. And as far as dollar yen in intervention with the U.S., well, this chart goes back to

the 3rd of August. On the left side is the lowest level of the dollar during intervention period. around 15520s. Well, look at the dollar's been moving higher, which means the end is moving lower. Something to pay attention to here as the possibility of a rate hike by the Bank of Japan and the next meeting continues to move higher. Mike, back to you. Yeah, Rick, so that chart shows, I guess, from the actual moment of known intervention, right? But the lows in the yen are more like, what, 163. So I guess there's still a little room before I guess what we're talking about new territory there. Yes, yes. The first intervention was on July 30th. The U.S. joined on the 31st. We made the low on the dollar on the third as that chart showed of August, but you're exactly right. We continue to creep a little higher in the dollar index. And yes, 164 in change is the high of the dollar, the low in the end. But many traders are feeling a bit emboldened considering we're starting to drift and lose that intervention impact.

Yeah, absolutely. Certainly worth watching. We remember. a couple years ago what went on. Rick, thank you very much. Super micro earnings are out. Christina Parks, Nellvis, back with those numbers. Yeah, Mike, this is a server assembler, very key in the AI buildout. We are seeing the stock pop 10%. Please note that just not too long ago last month they did pre-announce. So why we're seeing the stock rise higher has to do specifically with the guidance. So they posted Q4 EPS of $1.70. That was a beat on revenues of $11.12 billion. That was a slight miss. What really matters to investors right now is the Q1 EPS guide coming in and a range between $1.01 to $110 on revenues of $14.5 to $15.5 billion.

So a midpoint of $15 billion bucks the street was anticipating less than $12 billion. Also, they provided their full year revenue forecast too, and they're pitching anywhere between $65 to $72 billion, much higher than the street wanted at $52. So again, guide coming in stronger. They talked about total new orders at $60 billion, but we already got that in the pre-announcement very recently. Margins two for the quarter came in at 17.6 percent, but really the guide is driving this name higher. Yeah, that jump above 34 takes the stock back to, let's say, late June levels,

about a month and a half ago. Christina, thank you. Well, the key indexes ran to record highs in recent days as big tech earnings calmed fears around the AI Cappex story and Fed rate hike expectations cooled a bit. Is this an all-clear signal for bowls or should investors remain on alert? With me now with Shannali Bassack, I Capital Chief Investment. Just great to see you.

Good to see, Mike. Obviously, earnings did enough, right? They did their part, especially with the hyperscalers. Okay, maybe we're getting a return here. You have yields somewhat in check. And I guess we're at the moment where we have to see if relief gives way to belief, where we actually think that this is sustainable. Listen, I would actually argue with the idea that yields are in check because we're at 4.7%, the high end of our...

At the upper edges, yeah. Yeah, it's kind of dangerously close to that 4.8% level where we were at the beginning of last year, and we know how the market behaved at that level. Now, with that said, we don't think that this is necessarily going to upset risk appetite entirely, but it might get harder from here. What are our clients doing? We're seeing a little bit more of a conservative approach. So while about a month ago, you saw a lot of single stock exposure.

You're seeing a lot of index level exposure now. So people staying invested, but maybe not chasing the crowd as much. Interesting. And I guess it's inevitable. You have to have some sort of theory of how things play out with the whole AI, CAPX boom, the capital raising. We obviously got all that news yesterday on this. And whenever you hear the companies talk, they say we're responding to real demand signals.

There's a scarcity of computing power. We're just serving that. Now, all the efforts are here to take care of that scarcity. and build more capacity. And so you have to have an idea of what happens to pricing along the way if, in fact, you serve that demand. The pricing's changing and both in terms of how the end consumer is getting in. We did a big analysis on tokenomics recently, how that $1 of token spend would flow through

the ecosystem. We have been saying that the hyperscalers are relatively insulated, but how do the frontier labs behave in the face of these IPOs around the corner? That's one major question. Neoclouds, less economics than the hypers tend to get. closer and closer to the trade, we think, you know, power, energy, power in particular, still remains attractive because it's insulated just from the AI trade. You just have a lot of AI in there.

Listen, it's not that we think that there's going to be this massive hiccup, right? But we have to be cognizant that the world was a wash in liquidity for the first half of 2026, and some of those tailwinds are fading for the second half. And when you talk about how your clients are maybe adapting here, What does it suggest for the appetite to provide all the capital for these trades? I mean, some of the concerns around exactly where the debt was trading for some of these companies that raised a lot of money, and maybe this is one of the motivations for Nvidia to kind of line up third-party finances. You know, it's fascinating because on one hand, we see the money very much there.

It is going to be more expensive. You see that through the spreads. But, you know, one example of this that I think is fascinating conversation with the infrastructure investor yesterday, What's going to happen? As hyperscalers build data centers across the U.S. that is very politically unfavorable, you might see a desire there for those hyperscalers to start to spend also to protect the cost of the ecosystem, the power needs in any given jurisdiction. So there's a lot of things that can make this more expensive. Money's there. Just the cost of that financing is going to get tougher. For sure. And speaking of neoclouds, we actually do have results from Corweave out. Christina is back with the details.

Yes, so we want to compare for EPS earnings per share. We're just going to tell you the gap loss was $1.14. The revenue was slightly above at $2.58 billion. They're going to provide the guide on the call. Initially, shares dropped could be because of the revenue backlog. So they said the revenue backlog was $104 billion. I had seen some sell-side research that said anywhere like around closer to 107, 110. The company did have a small asterisk saying that it does not include $204,000.

$25 billion of net new customers added already early in this quarter, so could be a bullish sign. For the non-gap operating margin, it did climb and was higher than what the street anticipated at 5%. So more almost double what the street wanted. So that's a sign of strength. And there's even a quote that speaks to that core. We've reached an important inflection point this quarter as our scale began to translate into expanding operating leverage. Just last quarter, they said it was a trough, and now they're starting to see an up. tick because they had to spend so much money up front to build. And now you get to see and reap

the benefits of said build out. And so you can see people digesting this report and now shares are moving higher. All right. Yep. Up 2% right there. We'll see how things evolve through the call. Thank you very much, Christina. So I guess as we talk and you mentioned you did this whole deep dive on exactly how the token pricing and supply and demand works. As we all obsess about how this whole AI story is going to play out. Are there things being neglected in your view? Other asset classes, other parts of equities where, you know, because nobody cares or is paying much attention to doing the work, there's stuff to do? Utilities, you look at it from a historical perspective, for example. Yes, it's above where historical evaluations have been, but way less than what you're

seeing in terms of the run-ups in the AI trade. There's still room to run in mid-caps, for example. There's still room to run in financials. Financials have not traded up uniformly. the alt players have been left behind. That big announcement yesterday, the people who are providing the financing at that return, clearly something is not hitting yet in terms of the broader public, in terms of what the opportunity is there

to finance the trade in other ways than just equities. Private capital is going to play a huge role in that. The banks have been relatively left behind as well, and really they're even a cleaner trade. They're just taking fees along the way. So certainly things have been left behind. Yeah, they actually had a little bounce today, but they have been weak in the last little while.

Shalanii, great to see. Thanks so much. We actually have results, I believe, from Kava. Brandon Gomez. Has those numbers? Hey there, Mike. Yeah, that's right. Shares are actually moving higher right now, up about a percent and a half. EPS was a beat, as well as revenue. EPS coming in a penny, heavy, I'm sorry, a head of expectations. $368 million versus the $361 million that was expected in terms of revenue. Now, same store sales are up about 9 percent ahead of estimates for 7.2%.

Now, this is the second straight quarter of over nine percent. growth with traffic up 5.3%. Still, Kava, though, just reaffirming its prior fiscal year guide despite a strong Q2. Now, I did speak to the company's CFO earlier today. She said that maintained guide is largely due to macro and geopolitical uncertainty and uncertainty about the duration of cyclosporiasis impact. Now, while Kava is not linked, she did confirm foot traffic declined around the incident in the current quarter, but that most recent weeks have seen sales bounce back to the mid-single-digit range. I asked about any other consumer color. She said, we're seeing significant strength in the lower median household income markets,

and they're performing better than all of our other channels. She also said the company had also previously struggled with younger consumers, but she said the company has started to see a rebound in that 25 to 34-year-old demographic cohort. So a strong Q2 here, but no raise as the company assesses the macro environment, Mike. All right, Brandon, appreciate it. Good color there. Well, let's turn back to CoreWeave. The stock initially trading lower, moving higher right now, after reporting better than

expected revenue. Company saying that customer demand is accelerating. Let's bring in Jeffrey's analyst, Brent Dill. Actually, the stock jumping up 9% right now. Brent, so what's initially on this reflex the market reacting to? Well, the backlog was really good. When you look at the current quarter, it's only up five. They said they signed 25 after the quarter, so that means it's up over 30, which gives you a really good indication that demand is very healthy. The Capix was a lot higher up being we're hearing from Google, Amazon, the rest of the hyper-scalers. So the AI trade still alive and well. We think the revenue beat and bottom line were okay.

We have to hear on the call that this management team has stopped their selling plan on their 10B5 and a constructive outlook on can they make money, which they've indicated that is very back-end loaded to Q4. So we need to hear more on that. But kind of the surface level metrics, CAPEX higher backlog, you know, again, they ended with 99 billion, Wayne Gretzky, and they got close to 130 billion, including the backlog they signed already in this current quarter. So that is a good indication when you have backlog going close to 130 billion up from 99. That gives you a good sense that demand is still there, and CAPX is going higher. So overall, good.

And stocks had a decent move up 26% year-to-date. So we think that there's still one of the primary vendors that's going to build the infrastructure for this AI movement. Yeah, I mean, obviously been pretty wild ride. I mean, it's still 40% off the high. So this is kind of at the whip end of people's sentiments around how this is all going to play out. I guess the news of yesterday with NVIDIA kind of putting this group together to stand by to provide half a trillion in financing potentially. over time. Does it have any bearing on Corweave in particular or the overall food chain? Yeah, I mean, remember, Invidia and Corweave are great partners.

They're obviously Nvidia as partnering with anyone that's building critical infrastructure. And I think we've said, among the hyperscalers, you've got the big three, and then you've got the outsiders, which are Oracle, Corweave, and a few others. And there's only going to be five that build, really, we think, the foundational technologies. CoreWeave is building that for Meta. They're building it for Microsoft. They're building it for the who's who of AI. So remember, CoreWeave is the primary contractor.

If Microsoft or Meta can't do it on their own, they go to CoreWeave. And that tells you how good they are at what they do. And so we continue to believe that we're in a constrained environment. We don't have a lot of supply. The demand customers are screaming for more demand. And so all indications are things remain good. It's just the question, can Corveave be profitable? And secondarily, can Corweave in the next three years transition to a software-enabled platform

rather than we're just assembling other people's products? And I think that is kind of key. I don't think we're going to hear too much about that in the near term in terms of their software business. But that is kind of critical to us for the longevity. of the story. So the short term looks good. We'll get more details on the call. But overall, I'd say, you know, some of the metrics that we're seeing so far look pretty good, and a little bit above consensus, it wasn't a blowout. It was stable, steady. Yeah. I mean, obviously, I guess ultimately the debate's going to come down, as you suggest,

you know, where the economics are going to settle out for that layer of a provider and then, you know, after financing costs, if they can make a proper return. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's, again, the big question on the margin side. And that's, you know, they keep pushing off the expenses. And it's, as we know, it's becoming more expensive to build. And no one big this in a year ago, the magnitude of the cost creep. So this is going to be critical. And again, we have to hear more about this, these insider sales. They've sold three billion on the inside. It's got to stop. This is, this is, this is craziness, in my opinion. Excellent. Well, it's a, it's a key thing to listen for. In a little bit, Brent, thanks so much. The stock up now, just around 6%. Brent, Dale from Jeffries. Don't miss Corwee's CEO.

That's tomorrow at 9 a.m. on Squawk on the street. Well, Best Buy shares are up more than 20% this year, but one Wall Street firm sees even more upside, upgrading the stock to a buy, citing AI as a catalyst. The analyst behind that call joins us next. And later, a rare interview with the CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment on the back of Spider-Man Brand New Day's record box office hall and his outlook for the rapidly consolidating

media industry. You're watching Closingville Overtime live from the NASDAQ market. Shares of Swiss Shoemaker On had their worst day ever after missing second quarter sales and lowering its full year sales outlook. The company reported 850 million Swiss franc in revenue. That was lower than the 878 million that was anticipated. On is now expecting sales to grow in the low 20% range for the year. The company had previously guided for sales to grow at least 23%. Company saying it was prioritizing higher margin direct to consumer sales while intentionally limiting shipments to retailers. While a consumer name moving in the opposite direction is Best Buy, that's not getting an upgrade to a buy from Truist, saying that AI proliferation in consumer markets could result in a much longer runway. Joining us now is the author of that note. Scott Chichorelli from Truis, Scott.

It's good to see. It feels like there's kind of a near-term and then maybe longer-term component to this call. why do you lay out what you're maybe expecting to hear from Best Buy in the relatively short term? Absolutely. Thanks for having me on, Mike. But we have our own proprietary card data at TrueList, and we think they're going to deliver second quarter sales and thus most likely earnings above kind of what the guidance was, above where most of the sell side, my cell side competitors are sitting right now. And I think if we're right about that and two Q comes in better, I think the market will naturally lift back half expectations. So call this a couple quarter kind of trade on the upside. And then to your point, in terms of what could create a longer runway, we think there's actually

three factors. Number one, the further we get from the pandemic, I do think you're seeing greater replacement demand. You know, let's just think about your phones, your laptops, everything that you purchased, you know, five, six years ago, you're going to need a natural replacement. And the longer term doorables will be even longer. than that. So TVs, appliances, everything breaks over time. In addition, the companies made a bunch of operational changes that I think have helped them. But in terms of the AI, what we're seeing is proliferation of AI for a lot of different devices, right? So we're seeing upgrade requirements in phones and, you know, computing, obviously. But we're seeing home automation systems, TVs, appliances, new form factors. Think of the smart glasses, you know, being sold by meta and soon to be sold by Google and eventually Apple, etc. So, We just think there's an opportunity for a very large hardware upgrade cycle that could continue

for actually a couple of years if it plays out properly. How does the surge in memory costs, which is obviously inflating some list prices and laptops and things like that, play into Best Buy's numbers? The way a lot of people shop for things, they come in with a certain price point in their heads, right? So, like, I'm going to spend $1,000. So with the increase in cost that we've seen with, you know, memory and chips, etc., maybe what they would get today wouldn't be quite as good as what they were able to get maybe two months ago or

three months ago. But it's sure a heck of a lot better than what they purchased five or six years ago. So there may be a little bit of, you know, let's call it unit elasticity, but I don't think it's going to be overly damaging. And that's certainly not what the data would indicate, right? I think if there was a big negative inflection in their sales because of these higher costs, you know, we probably would have seen it show up in our data. And that's just not what we saw.

Just in general, it feels like the kind of a stock that you sort of have to be tactical with to some degree. If you look back several years, it's basically been between like, you know, 60 and 90-ish or 100, if you're excluding the pandemic peak. So I guess you feel like it's opportunistic and you have room for the valuation to expand a little bit from here? Yeah, I think that's fair. The simple fact is they haven't really grown their earnings in four years. So I mean, I think what we're trying to say is we now have an actual opportunity or optionality to see better sales growth, more consistent comp cadence, higher earnings growth. And I think your valuation will ultimately follow that, i.e., you know, what? Instead of being a 50%

discount to the market, maybe you become a 30% or 20%. So again, I think there's upside leverage to both the earnings as well as the valuation. And the way we structured our call is, look, this is tactical. We think this is a couple quarter phenomena with, as I said, the potential longer runway from some of the AI proliferation, as we pointed out. Obviously undergoing a CEO transition as well. We'll see how all that goes. Scott, appreciate the time. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Scott Chigorelli from Truist. Still ahead, we'll discuss the outlook for Hollywood mergers and Spider-Man's box office domination when we're joined exclusively by the CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

And be sure to check out my new weekly Market Memo newsletter, featuring analysis of key market themes, exclusive commentary from top traders and investors. You can subscribe at cnbc.com slash market memo. Closy Bell Overtime. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Closing Bell Overtime live from the NASDAQ market site. Stock's lower for a second straight day, weighed down by tech. It was the Dow's first back-to-back loss since July 23rd. Communication services was the laggard as alphabet dragged on the sector, falling nearly 4%.

Shares of super micro jumping right now after reporting an EPS beat as AI demand accelerates, the company saying it added several hundred enterprise and other customers in the past year over $60 billion in new orders. H&R Block also jumping after hours. The company reporting an EPS and revenue beat, earnings coming in at, 238 a share versus an estimate of 221. Company also gave better than expected full year guidance and up this dividend by 10%. Those shares higher by almost 11%.

We have a news alert on GM. Phil LeBow has the details. Phil. Hey, Mike, take a look at shares of General Motors. The automaker is creating a purchasing facility. You might be saying to yourself, what is a purchasing facility? Essentially, this is going to be set up. $4.5 billion will be how much.

it can essentially buy. The facility will be set up by J.P. Morgan, Santander, a syndicate of other banks as well, and they will essentially go and buy key components and parts from suppliers, then hold those, and then General Motors has agreed to buy future parts from that syndicate. Essentially, it allows General Motors to avoid some of the supply chain problems that have really be deviled the company from time to time over the last five years. the chip crisis is a good example of that, Mike. So this is General Motors saying, you know what?

We want to make sure that we have the facility in place to manage our supply chain in the future in case there are issues. So they are creating this purchasing facility. This way the components, Mike, the inventory is not on their books, but they are committed to buying the inventory that is secured by this syndicate of banks. I was going to say it seems like a way to fine-tune their own inventory. obligations as well. Phil, thank you. Time now for a CBC News update with Pippa Stevens. Pippa. Hey, Mike. Columbia's government said today it plans to declare an economic emergency as it responds

to yesterday's massive 7.4 magnitude earthquake. The emergency order would give the country's president the temporary authority to issue economic and tax decrees without the approval of Colombia's Congress. The quake, which hit the coffee growing region in the western part of the country, has claimed at least 250 lives. The federal judge in Washington, D.C. today ordered the Kennedy Center to pay $250,000 in legal fees to musician Chuck Red. The center sued Red after he canceled a Christmas Eve concert when President Trump put his own name on the building. The judge dismissed the case in June, citing on lawful retaliation against Red. And opening night for the Knicks at Madison Square Garden is shaping up to be an expensive ticket.

Not only will the team be presented with championship rings, but they'll also be playing LeBron James and his. his new team, the Philadelphia 76ers. According to front office sports, tickets are starting at about $2,200 on Seatkeek. You know, Mike, a pretty hot ticket there already. Oh, man. Well, it can only go higher, right? Why not get in now? The leagues have been so smart about managing these opening night things. And easy for LeBrona here. He's going to live in New York anyway. So we'll see how it goes. Thank you, Pippa. The latest Spider-Man film has been slinging into box office history since it's released two weeks ago. Up next, Next, a rare and exclusive interview with the CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment on Spidey's epic run and whether his studio is going to be a buyer or seller in this age of Hollywood consolidation.

Closing bell overtime. We'll be right back. The latest Spider-Man installment has been breaking record since it's released two weeks ago. It's the biggest domestic opening weekend of all time and the second biggest opening globally of all time. It has surpassed $1 billion worldwide in six days and it opened as the number one film in 66 markets across 80. 32 territories. Turning us now is Sony Pictures CEO Ravi Ahuja, along with CNBC's Julia Borsden, Julia. Thanks so much. And Ravi, thanks so much for joining us here, an exclusive interview and your first interview since you became CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment in January of 2025. Perfect time to sit down and be talking about your strategy for the studio, Spider-Man,

Brand New Day, breaking all of those records. What does the success of that, film say about Sony's strategy right now? Yeah, so obviously the film's done incredibly well, as you just heard, right? It's number one in so many different markets around the world. It's done incredibly well in the U.S. It's a fantastic movie, which is really our number one job, is to make market and distribute outstanding product. Our strategy over the years, I would characterize as growth through differentiation, right? We're a lot like most movie studios, but we approach our business a little bit differently in each area. So we're a lot. We're a lot, So in film, we've been decidedly theatrical, dedicated to theatrical at a time when not everyone was.

I think everyone's coming back around to that. But we've been that way throughout. In television, we sell to a lot of different partners. We don't have a general entertainment streaming service, like many others do, and we sell to many different partners. Those things work incredibly well. Over the last year or so, we've had 25 film or TV shows hit number one on their respective platforms, nine different streaming services or networks. So, you know, we work with many different people and our content is popular. In streaming, we have anime, right, crunchy roll, and then we're working in many

other areas like location-based entertainment. So before we get into the streaming strategy, which is quite different than your rivals, back to the theatrical business. There's a lot of hope that the theatrical business is doing better. You have your film. You also have The Odyssey, breaking all sorts of records, but there's still a lot of concern about weakness at the box office, which has not returned to 2019 levels. Is the success you've had with this film replicable? And what are you doing to get the studio to be able to keep turning out that type of hit? Yeah, I think it is replicable. I'm very encouraged by what we've seen this year. It's success in many different kinds of films. So obviously Spider-Man is franchise IP,

but there's been success with obsession, with backrooms, the Odyssey, original storytelling as well. The most encouraging thing is young audiences are coming up. Yeah. And so you have a distribution. deal with Netflix rather than having your own streamer. You mentioned Crunchyroll, which is more niche, but why does it make sense to take a totally different strategy than all the other media companies which have their own streamers and instead license your content?

Yeah, our focus has been over the last nine or ten years to not have a general entertainment streaming service because we think everyone does that really well. There are a lot of them in the United States. It's done incredibly well, so we view it is a much better strategy as to partner with others. Since we've done that, we've had double-digit, bottom line growth. As I mentioned before, our movies and TV shows do incredibly well.

So the strategy is working, and we don't see a need to change it. We think it works well. So right now is such a weird period of change for the media industry in that we're waiting a lot to happen. We're awaiting the Paramount Skydance Warner Brothers Discovery Deal, also awaiting the NBC Universal spinoff from Comcast. Where do you fit into all of this? Are you a buyer or seller? And what types of assets are you looking at? Well, for one, I think we could say that almost all of the time. It always seems like there's some deal in our business that's being worked on in some way. It's either waiting approval, waiting closed, just having closed. So I think that's normal, right? I think where we are is just how things are. Our strategy fits in very well with that because

all of these folks are our partners. In terms of whether we would buy or sell, I don't think we're a seller. We have been a buyer, but we are typically a buyer of a particular focused, like Crunchyroll for us five years ago, or IP. We bought a larger stake in Peanuts Worldwide, which is Snoopy, right, earlier this year, so now we own 80% of it. Are there any assets you're looking at right now? There's always assets we're looking at, but it always falls into that. It falls into Bolton, M&A, IP, or capability.

We're not as interested in mega-mergers. And you're not going to give me any names, which I understand. But if the Paramount and Warner Brothers deal goes through consolidating two potential buyer, would that be bad for you because you're removing one of the buyers from the market? Yeah, you know, as a seller, you never want less buyers, but probably the most important thing for us is how healthy they are. So if when the two come together, if they come together and they're healthier, that's a good thing for us.

So you support the deal? I don't have a rooting interest in the deal to tell you the truth, but if it happens, I think they can be very successful. If the deal is blocked by the state AGs, do you think that would have a chilling effect on dealmaking? Not sure. I mean, potentially, it could mean that people find it harder to get deals approved, so potentially. You've made a number of investments in the theatrical business.

You bought Alamo Draft House, some other assets as well. What is your strategy there? Again, different from the theme park business, but still in terms of real-life experiences. Again, differentiated, right? So that's what we look for. Alamo is a very different type of experience. It's dine-in. It's for film fans.

So there's no advertising, for example. and there's a pre-roll that's very focused on the film that's made for each individual film. So we think that's a very specific, unique, differentiated experience. And doing very well this year, by the way. We just entered into a lease to take over the Cinerama Dome here in Los Angeles. It's been closed for six years. Again, unique experience. Cosm, we invested in about a month or two ago.

We're a minority investor in Cosm. We're going to do a lot of things commercially. It's a unique experience for people who've seen it. It's immersive, shared reality. sports and movies. So we're also excited about that. Well, certainly lots of different bets on people getting into theaters and seeing this content in person rather than streaming it at home. Robbie Hooghut. Thank you so much for having us here on the Sony lot in Los Angeles. We appreciate it. Guys, back over to you.

All right, Julia. Thanks so much. Up next, the journalist who works alongside a short-selling hedge fund on why he's questioning United Wholesale Mortgage's explanation for a surprising $600 million loss that cost shareholders their dividend. Closing about overtime. We'll be right back. It has been a wild August for shareholders in United Wholesale Mortgage. The stock had its worst day on record last week after second quarter results that included suspending its dividend after a wider than expected loss. UWM also announced a $2 billion equity investment, mainly from Oak Tree Capital.

That investment was the result of a surprise $600 million hole in its books. CEO Matt Isbia said the loss was the result of hedges that, that went south because of a failed acquisition, but a new report from Hunterbrook Media alleges that the company's loss was a result of a CEO making a big wager that broke the balance sheet. In response, the company said, quote, UWM has been transparent in its public filings and communications,

and we do not view Hunterbrook as a credible or objective source for determining the facts. Joining me now, first on CNBC, is Sam Capplman, Hunterbrook Media publisher. Hunterbrook Capital took a short position in April 24 in UWM, but currently does not have a position. Sam, it's good to see you. Thanks for having me. Let's first get to, I guess, kind of the proximate cause of this sort of backstop that Oak Tree came in with this $600 million loss.

Your reporting is saying that this does not seem as if it was simply meant to hedge a pending acquisition that fell apart. That's right. A couple years ago, we wrote a big picture story about UW. Yes. The biggest mortgage lender in America founded on what we called a lie, the idea that there were these independent mortgage brokers. who were going to shop around for the best loan. And the reality was that a lot of these independent mortgage brokers were captive by UWM. They sent all of their business to UWM.

In the years since, Ishbia has essentially raided UWM for his dream of running this NBA team, the Phoenix Suns. And what we found is that he got the company to essentially the brink in recent months. And they were in a very back-again-the-wall situation. So he made a $21 billion bet on the idea that interest rates would fall. And as you know, they haven't. And that's why UWM ended up on the verge of what could have been a bankruptcy. Just to be clear, when you say he kind of rated the company, I mean, through dividends mostly, I guess, to all shareholders, which he was a big beneficiary of? He owned about 90% of the company.

So he collected billions of dollars worth of dividends. He was selling shares in UWM this year all the way down. It was a $3 stock. and he'd gone public in the first place in order to fund his purchase of the Phoenix Sons. And he did that with a margin loan against his stake in the company. And so, yes, he took billions and billions

and billions of dollars out of the company and then didn't slowly unwind his dividend. It then just stopped. And you might be thinking, how did he get away with this? His board was his brother, Justin, his dad, Jeff, and Isaiah Thomas.

Right. The NICS. NBA Hall of Fame. manager who ruined my childhood, but also clearly can't be trusted to manage it. I mean, obviously, yes, it's a kind of a closely controlled company. But just in terms of this $600 million law, so they did have this pending acquisition. Two Harbors was the name of the company. It ended up being acquired elsewhere, having an agreement to be acquired elsewhere.

And UWM has said that they were essentially hedging the interest rate exposure of that potential acquisition. Your reporting says what? It says, one, the two harbors already hedged. its book of MSRs. He was acquiring both the MSRs and the hedges. Two, Ishbius sued two harbors and claimed damages. He did not include this big loss in that lawsuit,

which I think tells you a lot. And then, fundamentally, it's just outrageous to think that he would have needed a $21 billion bet when Two Harbors itself over that same period of time barely lost any money at all on its MSR book. So it doesn't really pass the smell test. I think at this point, the burden of proof is on UWM and Matt Ishbia when they're telling people something, because for years, the truth has been a long way from what Isbia claimed.

All right. Well, you mentioned a couple of years ago. You had that initial story. It was sort of based on some other things. But that was on the stock was, I think, around $7. So clearly it's been much lower along the way here through various issues, as you detail here. Sam, it's great to have you come in. Thanks for much. Sam Capplement of Hunter Brook. A big inflation report is on tap tomorrow. find out what to expect when closing bell overtime returns.

The July consumer price index will be closely watched by investors tomorrow. Economists expecting the CPI to rise by 3.4% year over year, while the core is seen increasing by 2.5%. And Cisco is the big name on the earnings front. That is after hours tomorrow. Now let's take a quick look at some of the after hours movers. You got core weave jumping more than 11% on the back of a solid beat, with the company saying customer demand is accelerating.

Kava also up just about 7% as same store sales came in above estimates. And Super Micro, seeing a bump of 9% as sales nearly doubled in the last quarter. So you have a couple of AI food chain infrastructure names, CorreWeave and Super Micro, kind of confirming the idea that there's been a little more daylight in that area. They were some of the big leaders today, including the semi-cap companies at the top of the S&P 500 in a down day. for the index. That's going to do it for overtime. Fast money begins right after this quick break.