Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: Stocks Soar to Record Highs; Plus, Adobe Earnings & Ramp CEO on IPO Prospects 9/11/25

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

JP Morgan Chief US Economist Mike Feroli breaks down the CPI reaction as markets hit fresh record highs. CFRA Research Chief Investment Strategist Sam Stovall analyzes the historic market momentum while Adobe headlines earnings. Oppenheimer's Brian Schwartz breaks down the results.  Ramp CEO Eric Glyman discusses the company's billion-dollar annualized revenue milestone, $22 billion valuation, and potential IPO timeline as the next major tech offering in the pipeline. 

That bell marks the end of regulation. Angel ring in the closing down to New York Stock Exchange. Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC Group during the honors at the NASDAQ. And stocks moving higher with the three major averages hitting all-time highs yet again. Investors shrugging off today is hotter than expected consumer inflation data. The NASDAQ and S&P posted their 24th record close of the year. The Dow closing above 46,000 for the first time. Materials in health care, the leaders, energy lag, bonds, getting the spotlight.

today with the 10-year yield breaking below 4% for the first time since April. Remember April? Crude and Brent falling today as concerns over softening U.S. demand and oversupply offset geopolitical threats to supply. And some of today's biggest movers, Warner Brothers Discovery, having its best day ever. You can see it there up nearly 30% on reports Paramount Skydance preparing a nearly all-cash-deal for the company. And Oracle giving back some of yesterday's massive gain down about 5% micron with a nice pop following positive comments from city ahead of its earnings next week and centine leading the s and p after saying it will maintain its previous earnings guidance that's the score caught on wall street but winter stay late welcome to closing bell

overtime i'm john fort morgan brennan is off today coming up on overtime earnings from adobe that stocks down 20% this year sitting out the rally rh also reporting on the furniture side likely to offer a on the impact of tariffs, and we've seen lots of companies hit the public markets recently. Could ramp be next? The fintech company recently passed a billion dollars in revenue, and we're going to talk to the CEO. But we begin with more record highs for the major averages. The 10-year breaking 4 percent, as this morning's inflation data likely gives the Fed room to cut rates next week. Mike Santoli joins me on set.

Rick Santelli is at the NASDAQ. Mike, is it okay? to shrug off the CPI because of softer PPI. If we're thinking about tariffs, which is an unusual way to approach inflation, but not this year. I think it's okay in the sense that I understand why it's happening, right? First of all, if you go back through history, a 3% CPI is not in itself something that says we have an economic crisis or the stock market can't swallow it or it requires some kind of radical tightening by the Fed.

I do think it's looking on the bright side of things. it's definitely considering things half full that we're going to probably recede from here that there are disinflationary forces. Maybe we're kind of over extrapolating the softness in some of the jobs data that we've seen to the overall economy, which maybe is going to make it seem as if inflation is not going to remain a little bit of a concern. But stocks are okay with, you know, relatively higher nominal growth. They are kind of to some degree inflationary assets.

But it's also happening, of course, when yields are staying low. So it feels as if, you know, it's like the end of, you know, Willie Wonka, Gene Wilder says, you hear what happened to the boy who got everything you ever wanted? He lived happily ever after. You know, it's kind of like you're supposed to think that it can't be this good. The stock market's willing to bet that it can for a little while. Uh-oh. Okay.

Well, Rick Santelli, the last time we had this kind of a move on the 10-year below 4%, different trajectory, but people were very concerned. What's different this time? Well, I think there's a lot different this time. You know, Mike is looking at the expectations with regard to today's much warmer CPI, in my opinion. So 0.4, 0.3, 2.9, 3.1. Those are the month over the month, year over year. And basically, they were all as expected. But here's the problem. Okay. All of them except for the 3.1 year over year core were sequentially higher.

And the 3.1 core equal last look. That's a three handle. So even though we look at what the market's doing and we try to look at the data, make the two work together. In my opinion, expectations are always the first line of defense on a day of important data, like CPI. But ultimately, the reality of being so far away from the 2% objective of the Fed, I think, is a big deal. And I also think there's more to the inflation story than tariffs. I do think that we're going to see warmer inflation. I don't think we're going to see the 2%. And I think the equities put the equities off on their own. You know, fear of missing out, look at all these huge institutional trading entities that have missed their

bogey. They were half empty in early April. They didn't jump in. Retail did to some extent. And where are they now? They're looking at the end of the year, the fourth quarter, seasonally is strong. So they need to jump in. And I think that all the sideline T-Bill money has the stock market on a technical rampage. But I think interest rates, and especially the 10-year, are going to remain sticky. If I was a trader in the pits like the old days, I would not look for a lot of action under 4%. But as all good traders know, you can't fall in love with your strategy. You have to be flexible. A close, any close this week, below 3.96, in my opinion, give it a little fudge factor under 4%. I would reverse. But otherwise, I don't think we're

going to challenge the low yield close of the year on 4.425 at 3.999. All right. Rick, thanks. Mike, if it's not mainly about tariffs, the inflation picture, then the whole transitory question about tariffs off the table, then maybe this is a bit more concerning given what Rick just said about the month over month. Yeah, there's a little bit of an eye of the beholder thing here. There has been some stickiness in services inflation, which you wouldn't think would necessarily be tariff-related. But if you look at some of the items like some of the core goods items, like clothing, I saw a good chart of electronics of the type that are not exempted, like smartphones, they're pretty much to the upside. So it does seem as if you have

some tariff effects that are in an uneven way, working their way into the system. I think it's much more about do we try to project ahead for whether, you know, we do we do have disinflation forces that are going to exert enough gravity on inflation down the road. I really do think that, you know, yeah, we're way far away from the target. By the way, the target's PCE. It's more like 2.6 these days. And I feel as if the market's willing to give it a little bit of room here. Maybe that's a convenient way of looking at it.

But I think the reason that the stock market was mostly sensitive to the inflation story because they were worried about how the Fed was going to react to it, not because of the inflation number itself. And right now, we have a Fed that is essentially saying for now, they're going to bet that they can stay lucky. And maybe this is going to be a passing phase of inflation. All right. Mike, see you again in just a bit. Now, let's dig into this morning's inflation data.

Well, stock soaring to record highs today after this morning's data. As we mentioned, the annual rate for CPI came in line with estimates with the monthly rate saw its biggest gain since January. Meantime, weekly jobless claims posted a surprise. increase of 263,000. That's the highest level since October. It's almost October again. Both numbers coming after a weaker wholesale inflation number in PPI. So if you put it all together, what's the data telling us about the state of the economy? Joining us now is Michael Faroly, chief U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan and Sam Stovall, CFRA Research Chief Investment Strategist. Guys, welcome. Mike, how do you read this CPI and this CPI? And

the market's reaction to it. I wonder if we're being perhaps overly sanguine about it, whereas perhaps in April the other direction. Yeah, it's going in the wrong direction, that's for sure. I do think we're seeing some tariff price pass-through. Core goods inflation has accelerated over the past couple months, which is where you would expect to see that tariff price pass-through. So, you know, it does look like, as was mentioned earlier, the core PCE number, is what the Fed focuses on. That's going to hang out pretty close to 3% we think when we look at both the CPI and the PPI together. So that's not a great story. On the other hand, I think there's clear evidence that the labor market is weakening, and that seems to be taking precedence

in the Fed's thinking here. I'm not so worried about this morning's claims number. It seemed to be a lot concentrated in Texas, looked a little fluky. But last Friday, we did see an ongoing rise in the unemployment rate. And I think that's going to be, you know, the real story here, Because if that really continues, of course, then the downward pressure on wages presumably would halt any worries we're going to have about inflation in, you know, six, 12 months from now. Okay, guys, hold tight. Adobe earnings are out, and the stock is heading higher by about 6%. Haven't said that in a while, Mackenzie Sagalos with the numbers, Mack? Hey, John, that 6% bump up coming after a beat across the board.

We've got adjusted EPS of $5.31.5.18 is what the street had been looking for. on revenue coming in at 5.99 billion versus 5.91 billion expected. We've got a Q3 ARR for the digital media business. This includes its creative cloud subscriptions that came in at 18.59 billion during the period. That is above the consensus of 18.56 billion. And then we're seeing a beat on guidance for Q4. So looking at EPS, it's in the range of 5.35 to $5.40 versus $5.34 expected. Q4 Revenue Guide, also coming in above estimates at $608 to $6.13 billion.

One other number I want to pull out here for you because this weighed down on the stock last quarter. It's full year 20, 2025 ARR guidance. That's coming in at 11.3%, slightly above the outlook of 11%. And we've got the call coming up at 5 p.m. I'm going to be listening in to see what CEO. Sean Tenoon, Ryan, has to say. Back to you, John. Those shares still up around 6%.

Yeah, up a little higher. McKenzie, thank you. Important to hear how the Firefly and other AI efforts are coming along with monetization. Sam Stovall back to the broader market and the economy a bit here. What's your take on how durable this excitement in the market is, especially given perhaps a little bit of a baton handoff between the likes of Nvidia and Oracle this week? Well, John, I do think that this euphoria, or at least the bullish sentiment, is likely to continue. Certainly, we have seen that with the inflation numbers today, the Fed is probably not

going to be cutting rates by 50 basis points in September. However, it did add another rate cut this year to three rather than our earlier expectation of two. So I think that would be an encouragement. Also, when you look at the fact that we are seeing new all-time highs, not just here in the U.S., but also overseas, that is a confirming factor that tends to improve the average price performance three months out, as well as the frequency of advance to the point where I think investors really are trying to find reasons to sell socks when, in fact, that's probably what's going to continue to support and maybe even propel them. Michael Faroley, I'm curious about the impact of these conditions on the working class consumer in Q4, which is going to be critical,

and also the levels of inventory that might still be hanging around from the rush to get goods into the U.S. ahead of the expected tariffs. How do you expect that to play out? Yeah, so I guess just picking up on the AI theme, I mean, we do expect that that's going to add about a half point to GDP growth just through all the CAPEX that's happening because of that. How much that supports consumers? It depends. I mean, you mentioned working class consumers. You're going to tend to see, obviously, some of the wealth gains that we saw again this morning in the flow of funds report. That's going to really accrue to upper income consumers, not so much to lower income consumers. And then finally, I guess in inventories, we actually didn't see as much of a build in inventories as one might have expected, right? So a lot of that was really concentrated in pharma, that Russia had in the spring of inventory building. So it's possible that as we go into the holiday shopping season, some of these price pressures that we saw this morning will persist because of tighter inventories, you know, thanks in part to what we're seeing with the tariffs. Sam Stovall in R.H. We're going to get a little bit of a take, not certainly on the working class consumer with the furniture that expensive, but perhaps on the durability of the higher end consumer. How important is that segment of the economy to keeping the economy rolling and thus the market as well?

Well, I think it is important. The driver in that group has been Wayfair, but R.H, as well as William Sonoma, make up the home furnishings sub-industry within the S&P 1500. It has been a very strong performer over the last several weeks. And I think the indications are that with lower rates, with people remaining at home, they're looking to upgrade the inside, not the outside. And it looks like we're getting some news on that. Just as you were speaking, RH, the stock dipped about 13, 14 percent. Sam Stovall, Mike Faroley, thank you. Thanks. Well, as I mentioned, RH earnings, well, they're out. Courtney Reagan has the numbers.

Court. Yeah, hi there, John. Sorry, we're just going through this. It's a pretty long release that you usually end up seeing here. We are, it looks like R.H. is reporting $2.93 adjusted. It's unclear if that is comparable to estimates, but the revenues of $899 million are shy of what the street was looking for, $905 million. And then when we are looking at the tariff impact here, they are going through fairly detailed information in the outlook. And they're calling out a $30 million hit. They're

also talking about how President Trump has said he's going to launch an additional investigation into the furniture makers and the steel and the aluminum. And so they're kind of working through that. They're also delaying a number of things, some of the spring look books here. So you can These shares are down by about 15% as the company is going into an awful lot of detail about the tariff impact, even though they've been reducing their reliance on China. They've moved more specifically to North Carolina. We'll get through the rest of the release, John, and bring you anything else of note. But I think the gist of it is the outlook gets a little bit murky with all of these new tariffs

that are potentially in play in the investigation from the Trump administration. Yeah, as you were calling that out, Courtney, I was looking at what they're calling out, including those 50% tariffs on India and the... The impact on hand-knotted rugs. Got to get really into the details. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot to read there. A lot. Courtney, thank you.

Thanks. Well, Warner Brothers Discovery, soaring to an all-time high today on reports. Paramount Skydance is preparing to make a bid for the company. Much more on this potential media merger next when overtime comes right back. Welcome back to overtime. Buy now. Sell later. Shares of Klarna trading lower on its second day as a public company.

And now only a few dollars above where it priced. ahead of its IPO. Figure technology going public today and soaring in its debut, the blockchain lending company priced at $25 a share, opened at 36, and closed right in between. Now, Warner Brothers Discovery soaring today, as our David Favor confirms Paramount Skydance is preparing a bid for the company. Adding to the intrigue here is David Ellison is the CEO of Paramount. Also the son of Larry Ellison, you may have heard, made a lot of money this week, briefly the richest man on the planet. Let's bring in Julia Borsden for more on the story.

Julia. So that's right, John. As early as next week, Paramount Skydance is preparing to make a majority cash bid for all of Warner Brothers Discovery. People familiar with the situation sharing this timing with my colleague David Faber. Now, Paramount Skydance shares finish the day up about 15%. Warner Brothers Discovery shares up almost 29%. Both companies telling us no.

comment. Now, shares first spiked on a report from the Wall Street Journal that this deal or this offer was in the works. Now, sources tell CNBC that Paramount Skydance is currently working with an investment bank and that the expected bid would be notable in that Warner Brothers discovery is preparing to split both its streaming and studio business off from its global TV networks business. Now, this comes just over a month after the final closing of the Paramount Skydance merger. Just this morning, Wells, Fargo raises price target on Warner Bros. Discovery based on the probability of a deal, but just for the streaming and studios part of the business, not for the entire business.

Now, sources have told me a lot about David Ellison's ambitions to grow Paramount Skydance into a global streaming and entertainment behemoth. And this kind of mega deal would certainly help him get here, but this kind of deal also faces major regulatory challenges. But he and his father, Larry Ellison, must feel confident in their relationship with the Trump administration, or they would feel confident if they make this offer next week. Back over to you, John. Well, they have reason to feel confident.

Larry Ellison, I recall, was standing near President Trump talking about AI not too long ago. I wonder if you think in this deal that Paramount Skydance, David Ellison, really wants all of Warner Brothers Discovery to keep or just wants to decide how to break off the pieces he doesn't want, perhaps sell them in pieces to other potential bidders out there? Yeah, that's a really good question. And I think there was a lot of speculation I've heard from various sources that it would make a lot of sense for Paramount Skydance to buy half of Warner Brothers Discovery as it doesn't split.

The idea of buying all of Warner Brothers Discovery and doing it now before the split is completed could show that David Ellison and his team are looking to acquire all those assets and then figure out which ones are the better fit. And also, perhaps because they think they'll get a better deal doing this now as opposed to after the split is completed. So, yes, maybe they could try to pick off certain assets. There's been a lot of talk about, you know, which different buyers might be a good fit for half of the company.

But by buying the whole thing, assuming they could get that approved from a regulatory standpoint, that would enable them to figure out which assets are the best fit. And there's a lot of value in here. I mean, if you talk about the Warner Brothers of the studio, which is a massive studio, you have CNN, which may be problematic from a regulatory perspective, maybe not, but certainly has perhaps appeal in a streaming landscape for David Ellison trying to build the assets for Paramount Plus and that streaming giant. And just, John, remember that one of the advantages of discovery is its international reach. So that could be advantageous for David Ellison as he looks to build the kind of streaming and global behemoth that he's ambitious to do. So we'll see how it all shakes out and waiting for that bid to come in. Potential to sell networks like Lucy's here and make a little extra on the side, I suppose. But then also, maybe this speaks to what David Solomon, Goldman Sachs CEO, was saying here on overtime to our Morgan Brennan yesterday about the shift in the regulatory environment.

and how that's encouraging companies to think bigger. Yeah, encouraging them to think bigger. And you're absolutely right. If David Ellison were to buy and be able to buy all of Warner Brothers Discovery, then if some of those assets don't fit, then you can imagine other companies might be interested buyers. He could potentially see a buyer in Versant, CNBC's parent company, which is completing its spin at the end of this year,

or even NBC Universal as they work to build up. Peacock. And then, of course, you have to look at the fact that Netflix and Amazon are also potential buyers here. I mean, it's notable that the Wells Fargo note this morning that was looking at the potential of a sale of just the streaming and studios business said that Netflix would be perhaps the best buyer. But here we see that Warner's Discovery has the ambition and also perhaps the cash. Yeah, you'll be busy for a while. Excuse me, Paramount Skydance. Paramount Skydance, yes. Paramount Skydance has the ambition and the cash to go after Warner. discovery. Lots of cash. Julia, thank you. It's going to keep you busy for a while.

Shares of GameStop, that was the original meme stock, jumping 10% this week after its results, but that gain is tame compared with the meme stocks, the meme coins and the meme stocks that are investing in meme coins as the money once again chases big gains. Is this speculation, sign of a top for the markets? Stay with us. Welcome back to overtime. Shares of home reseller. Open Door soaring 80% today, gaining throughout the session as the company names a new CEO. The new boss was formerly the chief operating officer at Shopify. The real estate tech company has become a social media darling, and the stock is up 1,900% since the beginning of July.

Well, Open Door is just one example of a speculative trade that's become more prominent in the markets recently. Let's bring in Senior Markets commentator Mike Santoli with more on that. Yeah, John, so obviously a little bit of an aggressive term. in investor behavior here, pretty consistent with a long rolling bull market. What we have here is kind of the order of priorities that investors are displaying right now. So on top there, the best performer up 29.5% is the S&P high beta sub segment. So basically the most aggressive, most volatile stocks, that's going to be a kind of category of stock that's going to run on a day like when Micron is up several percent. It's up 25 percent this month. That's the kind of stuff in there.

Then you have the S&P 500. Below that is the high quality, basket within the S&P, and then pulling up the rear, low volatility, stability, safety, boring. Market doesn't want boring right now. Market wants exciting. They want leverage to the fastest moving trends and sometimes financial leverage. So it's good until it's not. We can't really call when that is.

Now, take a look here at another manifestation of this chase. And this is the PE, forward PE ratios of selected AI play. So you have Oracle and Broadcom both going just vertical. You can't really see that Broadcoms also raced up. along with Oracle to the mid-40s in terms of a forward multiple. And that's where Nvidia used to be, right? You go back a year and a half or so ago, and now Nvidia is trended down. Why? Because the base of earnings on Nvidia is so massive right now.

Its growth rate is slowing down from amazing to just pretty damn good. And the rest of them, people are trying to bet that the earnings trajectory is racing ahead. But it's just this kind of behavior, John. If it's looking for the next kind of lottery play that's going to all of a sudden have a step function burst higher. That's a really good visual of how you've got Oracle literally standing in front of Broadcom in the shot this week. They're having such a good time. Now, back to that previous chart, though, it's interesting that the divergence starts right as the summers. I mean, they're all kind of closer together at the end of May, and then there's this branching apart.

So does that suggest that we shouldn't expect this to continue, or if we're looking back at the beginning of the year, the lineup is about the same, though the distribution is different. What should we make of that? I think that is essentially when you got that lift off when the market started to round into the idea that we were going to get fed rate cuts into an economy that's still okay. That's been the theme for a couple of months right now, and you see a lot of these indicators that did turn right in that direction. So as long as that's the operating premise, you know, you could probably say that this type of trend would stay in place. Nothing magic about these exact gaps and these performance on a relative basis. Obviously, they can kind of go back and forth a little bit. But to me, that was the decisive move.

First of all, you were like three or four months off the low from April. And everyone said, okay, we're not thinking about downside anymore. We're thinking about upside. And it took hold. I'm a visual learner. So I like this with you with you. All right. Time for our CNBC News Update with Julia Borson.

Julia. John, Utah officials postponed a briefing about the shooting of Charlie Kirk that was supposed to start this afternoon. The Department of Public Safety said it's been delayed, quote, due to the rapid developments in the investigation. FBI director, Cash Patel, is on his way to Utah, and he is expected to hold a news conference when he arrives. Brazil's Supreme Court convicted former President Jayor Bolosarno of all charges, Bolsonaro of all charges against him, for allegedly plotting a coup to remain in power after he was voted out of office in 2022. Today's ruling by a majority of the five judges makes Bolsonaro, the country's first former president to be convicted of attempting a coup. Bolsonaro's

lawyers said they will appeal the verdict to the full Supreme Court of 11 justices. And in his first comment since last week's immigration raid at an EV battery plant in Georgia where 475 workers were detained, Hyundai CEO Jose Munoz said today the Georgia facility faces a startup delay of at least two to three months. The plant, which is part of a joint venture between Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, was set to come online later this year. Back over to you, John. Julia Borsden, thank you. While shares of Adobe still higher in overtime by just over 4% after reporting results, the stock had been left behind in this year's AI rally.

Now the company is touting its AI revenue numbers. Is the stock ready to play catch-up? That's next on overtime. Welcome back to overtime. Another big day for all three major averages, all closing at record highs. Some around numbers here. First close above $46,000 for the Dow. The NASDAX's first time above $22,000.

Here in overtime, RH down big following its results. It missed on revenue, and as our Courtney Reagan was just telling us new comments on tariff impacts, companies saying it's seeing a $30 million impact in the second half of the year, also saying it expects $40 million of revenue to shift from this year into the first quarter of 2026 as it delays its fall source book because it needed more time to finalize prices. Other home goods players, William Sonoma and Wayfair falling in overtime in sympathy. with R.H. On the other side of things, shares of Adobe moving higher by 4% on the back of earnings

and a revenue beat. The company also guiding slightly above estimates. It's been a rough go for Adobe for a couple years now. Hasn't participated in the AI-driven tech rally. Stock's down 20% this year coming into today's print. Now trades at its lowest valuation in more than a decade. Joining me now is Oppenheimer senior analyst Brian Schwartz. Has an outperform rating on the stock. Brian, this is very different from the cloud transition, which is really CEO, Shantanu Narayan's claim to fame here when he came in and figured that out. But is it too late for Adobe to really make its name in AI, or is it just a matter of them transitioning, figuring out the right ways to monetize? John, thank you very much for having me on the show. It's good to see you again.

It's not too late for Adobe, but it's going to take a while. for them to get over this technology transition to AI. So specifically with Adobe, the AI is threatening two parts of their business, and they both relate to its competitive mode. First, it's being threatened competitively from newer upstart AI, LLM providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, that are able to increase the velocity

of content creation, both through text and through video, at a much faster rate in scale than we you've ever seen before. So that is commoditizing the pricing around content creation tools. It's also decreasing the number of people that are needed to create content. And that was the sweet spot for Adobe. The second challenge facing Adobe is with its pricing model. Adobe has primarily a head count based model. And we know we've seen the employment reports that AI is having and effect through its productivity gains of decreasing headcount. So those two factors are weakening Adobe's moat, and we don't see an impact from AI being

able to move the needle for Adobe for several years. The head count thing, Brian, isn't unique to Adobe. This shift from seats, right, people using the software to agentic AI, software actually operating software is going to affect the whole business. It's interesting you talk about OpenAI, Anthropic, et cetera. I've noticed Adobe through Firefly has started to integrate more of those external models into the flow, arguably helping customers to do more. But a big threat, it seems to me, are Canva at the lower end with the kids and mainstream consumers

and then Figma at the higher end with developers and the enterprise. Does Adobe have enough strength to fend off those rivals? They do over time, in the higher end of the market, what enterprise organizations can care about. They care about compliance. They compare about governance. And they care about having a platform ecosystem of partners. And they're willing to pay more and not rip out existing vendors to have all three of those items. That's what Adobe has.

So the higher end of Adobe's business is defensible through, AI transition. The challenge for them is the lower end of the business. As you pointed out, John, they're being attacked by these AI upstarts. They're being attacked by Canvot. And when you see that you could create a campaign in the past where you would spend millions of dollars to advertising agencies and using Adobe tools, now you can do that within thousands of dollars. It's very detrimental towards Adobe's growth. And if I give you a number, if we looked year to date, Adobe's key metric, the Net New Digital Media, ARR, its bookings metric, it's growing 5%. Its top line is growing 11%. That's telling us that in the future here, Adobe's going to continue to

slow, and that goes right towards its multiple and what you're willing to pay for the stock. Got to hear more of what they say about that on the call. Thanks for getting us set. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Well, is FinTech Ramp planning to follow in the footsteps of Klarna and others figure by going public? Coming up, we're going to hear exclusively from the company's CEO about his IPO timeline and hitting a big revenue milestone. Plus, why investors are grounding shares of Delta today, even as the major averages soared to new closing highs. We'll be right back. Welcome back to overtime. Delta is one of the few S&P 500 stocks in the red today. The airline raising its third quarter sales guidance, noting it sees strength in corporate travel,

but the stock's under pressure because the carrier is warning of soft demand for economy class seats. Well, self-driving technology is in the news this week, with Amazon launching its Zook's Robo Taxi Service in Las Vegas and Lyft launching autonomous rides on its app in Atlanta. So today let's take time out with the CEO behind the tech in Lyft's Midtown Atlanta rides. Edwin Olson is co-founder and CEO of May Mobility. It's a Chicago-based company that has outfitted Toyota Sienna minivans with real-time decision-making technology. He tried an academic career, but the real-world impact of business kept calling, Olson.

So I spent 13 years at MIT. I got my bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. there. And if you know anything about Ph.D. programs, that's a ridiculously long time, even to get a Ph.D. And the reason that it took so long is because almost every summer I would wander off to join a startup. So I always had that sort of screw rattling around in the back of my head that was like, yeah, I want to solve hard problems. I want, you know, I want to have a bigger wrench to turn bolts that nobody else can turn. Now with Maine Mobility, he's trying to bring

cutting-edge autonomous technology not to single passenger rides, but to larger vehicles. Olson wants to work with cities to have driverless vans fill in gaps in mass transit. Safety is a huge part of this and working with OEMs to make sure that the vehicles are are super safe, that they have all of the redundancy that they need to be able to safely operate on public streets. And so we have a partnership with Toyota as well. And you'll see those Toyota Sienas with their drive-by-wire system, our sensors, and our software, working with lifts riders. So the timeout takeaway, self-driving scale across Google's Waymo and Tesla, Amazon, Mobile Eye, and others. Technology providers are ramping up their ambitions. But what if it's not

just about replacing cars, but more about replacing city buses. If Olson and May mobility are right, it could have a broader impact on city planning and on investors. Well, coming up, the CEO of Ramp, the number six company on this year's CNBC Disruptor 50 list on the outlook for the fintech industry and if an IPO could be on the horizon. Plus, Goldman Sachs initiating coverage of one of this year's busiest stocks with a buy rating got details when overtime returns. Welcome back to Overtime. time. Here's that mystery chart. Celsius Holdings, big winner today. Goldman Sachs initiating coverage of the energy drink maker with a buy rating, a $72 price target. That implies a nearly 30%

upside from yesterday's close. The analysts today are calling the company one of the best growth stories in consumer packaged goods, citing market share gains and margin expansion. Stock more than doubling so far this year. Well, it's been a big week for FinTech, Klarna and Figure IPOing this week, and we get Gemini tomorrow. Goldman's CEO, tells us, calling Morgan Brennan yesterday at the Cominicopia conference, it's set to be the bank's busiest week for public debuts since 2021. Our next guest is a fintech company that just crossed a billion dollars in annualized revenue, notched a valuation of more than 20 billion. Joining me now exclusively is Eric Glyman, co-founder and CEO of Ramp. Ramp was number six on this

year's CNVC Disruptor 50 list. Also a Fort Knox alum. Eric, good to see you. Big numbers that you guys are putting up. Explain to us, those who aren't familiar with Ramp, the kind of innovation that you're trying to bring to, say, expense reports. Yeah, of course. Well, John, it's so great to see you and thanks so much for having me on. I imagine for most people listening to this segment, probably the worst hour of your month is having to do your expenses. You know, if you use Ramp, all that is done for you. You tap your cart. Your expense policies embedded into the cart itself. We'll collect the receipt from the merchant, write the memo, automate all the accounting. And so that radical simplicity, that much better experience is really turning heads and what allowed

us to go from a company that didn't exist six and a half years ago to today, a company that is doing over a billion dollars a year in revenue, doubling revenue year over year, and frankly just helping our businesses and our customers run more efficient and more profitable companies. What happens when you take that, should I pay for this answer in software, extrapolate it out to the entire business and add in AI agents? Well, look, I think that there's a lot of excitement around AI for a lot of good reasons. I don't know that AI is smart enough to be a company's CFO, but it certainly can do your expenses. It certainly can categorize transactions. And it can also give you insights, too, about how to run your business a lot more efficiently.

I mean, I think one way to think about it is this. Ramp helps businesses, both through the automation of expenses, categorization of transactions as well showing you ways to spend less, helps the average business reduce their expenses by about 5%. And if you take an average American business that has a profit margin of 8%, mathematically, a 1% reduction in cost is equivalent to a 12% increase in revenue when you think about it. And so in some sense, every incremental dollar we're able to save is a huge flywheel on the productivity of companies. And I think that's a big deal. I think that's part of why so many businesses are coming and why we're growing so rapidly. This is a very active space in a way that a lot of public market investors might not realize. You've got names like Brex and Navon that are also trying to have an impact here when it comes to corporate expenses.

Then you got Bill.com, which activists are latching onto this week that's already public trying to attack some of these problems. How do you see ramp differentiating itself from those? What do you think is the golden ring that the winner? here needs to grab. Look, I think when you really zoom out, this industry has classically been the provenance of banks and financial institutions that have been around for 100, 200 years. As much as ramp has grown, and ramp is certainly the fastest growing, and I believe the largest, by revenue of the names that you mentioned, and still the youngest of that sets, big picture, you know, in corporate cards were something like one and a half percent of the entire U.S.

That is 98.5% to go. And I think that the difference is that we're not in the business of really selling cards or making bill payments. We're in the business of helping make sure expenses are doing themselves, that books are closing themselves, that it's easier to scale and run an organization leaner. And I think that's resonating. It's not a product. It's a service and a better outcome. Does crypto matter to your customers? We're actually proud earlier this year to announce in partnership with Visa.

and Stripe, you know, what's coming is the first stable coin back cards. This is going to allow companies with international operations, multinationals, say something like a, you know, companies like a Shopify or an open door that maybe, or others that have operations around the world, let's say the subsidiaries in other countries, you know, they can go and spend in local currency and that can pull and net against, you know, stable currencies. So these companies don't need to hold funds and local currencies to pay things off. And I think that stable coins are still a small part of overall spend, but we want to be there to support companies no matter how they're spending. When's the IPO? Look, we're six and a half years old and still growing. I think we're

one of the fastest growing companies in the world. And so we're just focusing on serving more businesses. But I think great companies eventually do go public and it's the rest of their life. We hope to be there one day in the future. Okay. But it sounds like not any time particularly soon. It's, there's no set date or plans, but, you know, we're proud to serve hundreds of public companies and aspire to be one one day, too. All right. Eric Lyman, Ramp's CEO and co-founder. Thank you. Well, up next, Mike Santoli's back to break down this year's uptick in the Misery Index, which measures unemployment and inflation, and whether that's a warning sign for the market, which has been quite happy lately.

And check on this afternoon's earnings reports. Adobe is off its high, still higher by about 3%. R.H. well off of its lows down 4%. It had been down more than 12%. Be right back. Welcome back to overtime. Stock's making new highs despite a mixed bag in August consumer inflation. A lot of people newly out of work from the jobless claims number, most in nearly four years. Mike Santoli, here with me. If you got a job, money to spend on stocks, I guess you've got your own different economy. For sure. There's no doubt. I mean, you have had this sort of leak higher in the unemployment rate in jobless claims, as well as, you know, as we were talking about the CPI,

which has created this, in my mind, somewhat loose talk about stagflation. Now, yes, things are trending in a stagflationary direction, all as being equal, but to actually call it stagflation overstates the position we started in. And we have the misery index to actually refer to as what this really means. So that is just to simply the sum of the unemployment rate and the CPI. And this goes back, let's 30 years. We're basically up two levels, like 7.2% that was low for most of its history, below where it was in the early 2000s, and essentially kind of not really any kind of an economic crisis in itself. Now, obviously, you want to know where it's going. The 70s true stagflation, it was between 10 and 20%. So we're never, you know,

hopefully going back there. So I do think it makes sense that the markets are really kind of trying to fine-tune exactly what this means for how much growth we have, whether we have great risk on the employment side of the Fed's mandate or on the inflation side. But I do think right now it's a relatively comfortable spot and, you know, reflected in things like credit conditions. When I think about stagflation, I think about at the individual level, the situation where your rent's going up, your grocery bill is more expensive, but you can't get a race. That's right. But that's not happening to the economy as a whole for the wealthy. hey, the stock market has given you that raise already.

But I guess a question is, how long can that help out the entire economy when not everybody is happy? No, that exactly is the problem. First of all, that was the situation essentially of the 2010s, which was this kind of like increasing inequality. It was really a top-heavy economy. Now, the lower end and general employment was improving, but from really desperate levels. So I do think we have a little bit of a different spot here. we're coming off of pretty decent real wage growth, and now we're in a spot where we're not really sure that's going to continue. So I do think that's, it's going to be an issue for large parts of the economy in the markets.

If it remains this way, I'm really focused, too, though, on this little signs of reacceloration, and I don't know if it's really going to happen. You see the weekly spending numbers and things like that, or unless we're just being blinded by data center capax, and it seems like everything is great. Right. Well, it's hard to see. I know we's going to work at those places. Exactly. Exactly, how that data center CAPEX, how this AI is going to be great for the people who are filing those initial jobless claims this week. But maybe there's a way.

Maybe those agents can figure it out. Mike, thanks. All right. That's going to do it for us here at overtime.