Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: Tech Earnings & Synopsys CEO; Tech Stock Slide 2/27/25

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Barbara Doran of BD8 Capital and Schwab’s Kevin Gordon join to break down the late-day slide in tech stocks, along with earnings from Autodesk, Duolingo, NetApp, Dell, HP, and Archer Aviation. Market insight from Neuberger Berman’s Joseph Amato, and Synopsys CEO Sassine Ghazi talks AI demand. Later, hear from Snowflake & C3.ai CEOs, and Julia Boorstin sits down with Paris Hilton.

Well, that bell marks the end of regulation. GFL Environmental ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Longview Research Partners doing the honors at the Nasdaq in a late-session sell-off as more tariff jitters shake investors and NVIDIA pulls back sharply the day after earnings. The Dow swinging more than 550 points. The Nasdaq falling more than 2.5%. S&P 500 now negative for the year. That's the scorecard on Wall Street.

But winners stay late. Welcome to Closing Bell Overtime. I'm John Fort. Morgan Brennan is off today. Well, we'll talk about this pullback throughout the hour, including with Neuberger Berman President Joe Amato. We'll get his take on this bout of volatility ahead of tomorrow's inflation print. And also ahead this hour, earnings results from Dell, HP, NetApp, Duolingo and more. Plus, conversations with the CEOs of earnings movers from the regular session,

including Snowflake, C3 AI and Synopsys. We begin, though, with the market and the midday turned lower for the major averages. The Dow giving up a more than 450 point gain. The Nasdaq had been up nearly one% at the highs. And the stock story of the day is NVIDIA sinking more than 8% after last night's earnings with selling pressure picking up throughout the day. I spoke with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang after the results came out about some of the concerns around the ramp of its Blackwell chips and platform and his outlook for next quarter. It was logical to be concerned about the ramping of Blackwell, but we have now successfully ramped

Blackwell. The other concern that people had was the Hopper-Blackwell transition. It might create a pocket, an air pocket. And I think we're now well successfully behind the air pocket. We're going to have a good quarter this quarter. We had a great quarter. We're going to have a good quarter next quarter. Joining us now to talk more about this NVIDIA move and the broader sell-off, BD8 Capital Partners CEO Barbara Duran and Charles Schwab, Senior Investment Strategist Kevin Gordon. Good afternoon, guys. Barb, I know NVIDIA is one of your faves here. What did we learn from these results and maybe from sentiment and the way it responded today? Well, I think NVIDIA has been caught up in this momentum selling that started last Friday and I think has continued all week. I mean,

you saw NVIDIA was actually up this morning and then got caught up in the broader sell-off. I think the news was very good. I mean, what the CEO said was that the need, we talked about deep seek and what that does in the area, but that it could actually create so much more demand because the power needs, you know, computing needs could be 10 times, 100 times, you know, greater. So longer run, it looks like they have a much more sustainable path because that's obviously been the question, is this sort of a few quarters, but it looks like they've a much more sustainable path because that's obviously been the question. Is this sort of a few quarters? But it looks like they've got a few more years here.

And I think once this sell-off settles down, which I'm not sure when that is, I think this stock will regain its momentum and continue higher. So I think this is really a function of what's going on in the market, which is great uncertainty, which seems to be being caused by certain administrative pronouncements, you know, from the administration about tariffs and the uncertainty that's creating among investors and corporations and individuals. You think it's really the tariff talk that's doing this with the markets? I mean, because the supposition had been, well, that this is a negotiating tactic versus something that the president plans to do long term. And there was some relief when the Mexico and Canada stuff was was put on pause before. Do we think it's real now? Well, look what happened today. I mean, people have been assuming it's, you know, it's more bark than bite. But he came out today and he doubled the tariffs on China. He said March

4th for Canada and Mexico. And then he talked about slapping 25 percent on Europe. So it seems that he's not backing off. And that's what really triggered the sell off today. I think the market was trying to regain its footing from the from the volatility of the last week. And I think what happens with all this uncertainty, you're not sure. Bark versus biting companies that may be planning to do X, Y, Z and other countries have to wait and see how are they going to be affected. And certainly you've seen this. There's been enough publicity, I think, about, you know, immigrants and the deportation, what that will do to labor and construction and agriculture. Restauranteurs are worried. And so you saw reflected in two important consumer confidence reports in the last week.

And that was the consumers has really seen a surge in inflation expectations. And that's dangerous. You know, people start to think that it can be self-fulfilling. So I think it's the uncertainty that's doing that. And if it continues, I think what we're seeing this week is a bit of a growth scare that if corporations start to hold back. I mean, you saw equipment sales this year down are only up 3 percent versus 5 to 6 percent last year. Is that the start of corporations holding back on CapEx? Right. I don't know.

I think uncertainty can bring a lot of problems. Kevin Gordon, is your diagnosis the same of what ails this market? Is it believing that the tariffs are really going to happen and that they're going to have an economic impact that's different from what the president says? Yeah, well, I think, you know, regardless of whether they're kicked in or not, I think this action today, and not just today, but over the past week or two, is more reflective of, I think, just a general exhaustion that there is now. Even if you get another delay for tariffs for goods

coming from Canada and Mexico, there hasn't been a positive slate of economic data coming through lately. And admittedly, you know, it's more so pessimistic on the sentiment side, not as much on the actual hard data. But to the extent that we want to start to take more survey-based data a little bit more seriously now versus a couple of years ago and believe that some of the rolling over and the deterioration in these metrics, whether it's the regional Fed, you know, PMI data, and then you start digging into some of the details like the employment indicators or, you know, prices paid components starting to pick back up. You know, there's a lot more meat on the bones now, especially from company commentary around not just the tariffs themselves, but the nature of this. I just want to pause you there because Autodesk earnings are out. Steve Kovac

has the number. Steve. Hey there, John. Yeah, and shares are up quite a bit here on a bottom line beat and some strong guidance. EPS came in at $2.29 adjusted. Street wanted to see $2.14. Revenues, let's just call it mostly in line, $1.64 billion versus the 1.63 expected. Guidance is also above expectations for the first quarter. However, there is news here confirming some layoffs of 9% of their staff here.

We see shares up about 5%, though I did see them earlier up as much as 8%, John. All right, Steve Kovach, thank you. We got Christina Partsenevelis ready, I believe, with the numbers for, is it Dell? Dell, yes, Dell. So PC and server builder Dell reporting mixed results. Earnings per share of $2.68 adjusted beats estimates, but revenue of 23.9 marks the second consecutive quarter of misses. Its fast-growing ISG category, which includes AI servers, came in below estimates.

However, the COO said deals booked with XAI and others put Dell's AI server backlog at roughly $9 billion as of today. The Client Solutions Group, which contributed over about 50% of revenue and includes traditional PCs and servers, also saw sales slightly below estimates. Dell is issuing a restatement, though, for this segment after certain employees overstated the cost of goods sold by approximately $148 million in the just-completed fiscal year, as well as $200 million in the previous year. The company, though, says the impact is not material, different from what we saw with Supermicro. Guidance, mixed bag, Q1 revenue light, full-year revenue guidance in line, full-year EPS earnings per share above management, raising the annual dividend by 18%, announcing a $10 billion buyback increase.

Could be helping that stock pop. Shares up about 4%. John. All right. Christina, thank you. billion dollar buyback increase could be helping that stock pop shares up about four percent john all right christina thank you kevin gordon back to you now uh i want to go to the general market but feel free to sprinkle any thoughts that you might have uh after those two reports but uh you say if breadth in the market continues to deteriorate throughout the year it'll become a threat to the bull market's resilience but in a way even as the markets been coming down through February we've seen breadth improve right because a lot of the bigger stuff is falling more than the smaller stuff yeah and that's what you know that's a

great point even if you take it back to the S&P 500's most recent peak the the culprits are really this the three sectors that consisted there that make up the mag77. So it's communication services, consumer discretionary, and most notably tech. And even within those, the equal-weighted portions of those indexes have actually been holding up relatively well. It's certainly the cap-weighted ones that have been falling and much sort of in keeping with the price action today with a lot of the mega caps dragging the index lower. So if you continue to see that kind of churn and rotation, it does lead you to a scenario where maybe you don't get as much

excitement or upside at the cap weighted index level. But as you look below the surface and look to the other 493, so to speak, then you probably have some better action. So I do think that as long as you stay right around or above 60 percent of names in the S&P that are trading above their 200 day moving average, which was the case coming into today, you're probably in a healthier spot. you know, right around or above 60% of names in the S&P that are trading above their 200-day moving average, which was the case coming into today, you're probably in a healthier spot. It's just that you have less room to work with and there's a little bit of a higher bar to clear because last year we were upwards, you know, sort of in the low 70s to mid 70s on average for that statistic all year. So you don't have as much strength from an overall breadth perspective,

but you're also not deteriorating at a worrisome rate right now. One more day in a rough month for the market. Kevin, Barb, thank you. Thank you. Well, let's get to Mike Santoli now with more on the uncertainty in the market and a big bearish swing in sentiment among investors. Mike? Yeah, John, trying to pull apart some of the nuances here. So a lot of folks talking today about the American Association of Individual Investors weekly survey. It's been around since 1987 or so. And it's one of the highest bearishness readings, about 60 percent in history. Only a handful of times have you seen that. So what this bottom measure shows is the net percentage of people saying they're bullish.

And so that's the number of bulls minus the bears and the neutrals and really extreme lows right here. This goes back to 2019. But you can see, you know, there wasn't even time for sentiment to get that bearish at the low in 2020 for one. And usually what you're seeing is when the market's near a high, it sort of takes a while for sentiment to roll over. Now, usually there's a contrarian implication here, right? So many people are already bearish. Usually that's part of the setup for when you're going to get a market rebound. That's the kind of thing you would have seen here. Now, this is a bear market in general, as opposed to just being in an uptrend. So you had stubbornly bearish readings there. So I don't want to kind of take it fully at face value because a lot of the

mood indicators out there like consumer confidence have shown a lot of wear and tear this is an older investor base uh and it's you know they sort of read headlines let's put it that way and so let's look at some positioning data though because it doesn't seem as if investors collectively are as negative on stocks as those folks are saying that they are. Because if you see here, this is another weekly exposure reading, equity exposure reading, National Association of Active Investment Managers. They're market timers. They're professionals. And you see we're up around, you know, 80 percent net long. It's not skyscraping, but it's definitely above neutral. And you're seeing something similar in options dynamics in terms of put versus call.

You're seeing something similar in ETF flows. People are involved. They're exposed to this market. It's just not that they're not quite at the high. So I think maybe that's something that has to be reconciled here as we go ahead. We're only in a 4% to 5% pullback. This is still routine stuff at the moment. Is one of these a lagging indicator? Because the first chart you showed me, I was struck by how quickly we went from a relatively very high level to a relatively very low one. The trajectory that we've been on looks like the steepest that I saw on that chart. They're pretty coincident. I mean, look, I say this all the time. It's like a voluntary survey. It's a couple of hundred people. You got to remember to register your opinion. So I don't want to say it's not worth it because at extremes, usually it has been.

It's more coincident. But now it's not coincident with what the market has been doing as much as it seems to be with just the general noise level in the, you know, in the economy. Like I said, consumer confidence, CEO confidence. Nobody likes this sort of feeling, perhaps, of policy flux that's out there, and it's causing them to say that they're feeling worse about the market than their actual portfolios would suggest that they ought to be. Yeah, maybe also retail versus professionals. Mike, thanks. See you again in just a bit. We've got a news alert on Meta. Steve Kovach back with that. Steve? Hey there, John. Yeah, Meta is going to be

launching its own standalone AI chatbot app. This is coming from CNBC.com reporter Jonathan Vanian. This app, he reports, is going to launch sometime in the second quarter, so late spring, early summer time frame. And it also, you know, comes as we've seen the Grok app launch and so many others launch. Meta already says, by the way, John, they have 700 million users of Meta AI, which is baked into Instagram and Facebook and WhatsApp already, though you've got to kind of suspect some of that is just those inadvertent searches you're doing there. It kind of kicks in the AI automatically. So it's going to be interesting to see how this standalone chatbot app stacks up to ChatGPT,

which we recently learned has 400 million users, plus all the others from Microsoft and Amazon and so many other companies. Everyone has a chat bot now and Meta is getting into a standalone app as well, John. Talking Llama. Look forward to seeing that. There we go. That would be a great name. Yeah. Steve Kovac, thanks. Coming up, much more on this market uncertainty when we're joined by Neuberger Berman president Joe Amato, who says the stage is actually set for a broadening out of equity performance.

Well, that could cut both ways. We'll find out where he's putting money to work next. And much more ahead on all of today's After Hours action, including results from NetApp, Duolingo, and Elastic. Overtime's back in two. Welcome back to Overtime. Some more earnings results just crossing. NetApp shares are plunging down about 12% after the data infrastructure company missed revenue estimates, reporting a $1.64 billion versus the $1.69 billion expected.

Earnings matched estimates at $1.91 per share. Adjusted earnings guidance was soft as well. Duolingo reporting a revenue beat, topping estimates by $5 million at $210 million. No earnings per share figure was provided by the company, but that stock's up about 2.5%. And Elastic delivering a beat on the top and bottom lines, a beat on guidance and announcement of a new chief financial officer. You can see that stock up 18%. Elastic fiscal Q3 2025 revenue is, let's see, $382 million versus $369 million. Consensus, non-GAAP earnings per share, $0.63 versus $0.47 expected.

On the guide, $380 million at the midpoint, plus or minus a million. And the low end easily beats consensus, which was at $374 million. Guided EPS of $0 or thirty seven cents beats thirty one expected. The full year guides are also above. The CFO is Nivam Welahinda. That was also in a separate release, a new CFO in who's a veteran of IBM and HashiCorp. I spoke with the CEO of Elastic, Ashkel Carney, about these results. He said customers are using the technology that Elastic provides for more AI tasks, which fueled the Confident Guide. They're using our models more and more. And so using us as a complete runtime platform for building these generative AI applications.

And it's also leading us to drive more consolidation onto our platform in the other areas that we operate in. So observability and security. And now we are monitoring the markets and obviously the macro environment very, very carefully. As you know, when it comes to public sector, there are a lot of things happening there. We monitor that very carefully. But as we see it right now, you know, the demand remains very consistent. And our focus is on just executing right now. And you can see that stock up now 17 percent. Well, HP earnings are out.

Seema Modi has the number. Seema. John, quarterly earnings from HP came in line with estimates at 74 cents adjusted while revenue beats tweet expectations. Here's where it gets interesting guidance for the full year is at the midpoint of the range. The company says its outlook does factor in the added cost of U.S. tariff increases on China. HP adds that by the end of fiscal year 2025, more than 90% of HP products sold in North America will be built outside of China. Worth noting, the company has been adding production sites in Thailand, Mexico, India as well. I did catch up with CEO Enrique Lores, who says AI PC market is showing remarkable momentum

with its EliteBook Ultra, named the best laptop at the Consumer Electronics Show. On the whole topic of the PC refresh, John, he says companies are realizing that they do need to upgrade their install base, and that is reflected in the growth that they're seeing on the commercial side. On DeepSeek, the CEO adds that the Chinese AI model, he says it's confirmation that simpler models will be able to deliver a lot of value. So he's under the impression that DeepSeek bodes well for the broader software sector. Let's take a look at the stock. You see it was up about 1% in overtime, John. All right. Sima Modi, thank you. It's just about flat at the moment, but there's a lot of overtime left to play. Let's turn back now to the broader market and the sharp turn lower late in the day as uncertainty around tariffs and inflation weighs on investors' minds. Joining me now is Neuberger Berman president and CIO Joe Amato.

Joe, help me out here. Give some perspective to a somewhat precipitous market move. Is this about tariffs? Has the thesis fundamentally changed here or do we stick to the plan? Look, our long-term thesis has not changed. I think we feel we're moving into a period of higher nominal growth, and I think that should lead to a broadening out in the equity markets, which includes value and small cap. I mean, I think we are going through a bit of a soft patch. I mean, we've seen this over the last couple of years that there's some softness early in the calendar year. So I think we get through that. And obviously, policy here can be tricky in the next- quarter or two and tariffs obviously being a important

part of- of the dialogue. You know we think that's going to be. More narrowly implemented and is not necessarily a broad base concern for the longer term. Couple different ways for things to broaden out. You know the smaller stocks can go up

faster than the bigger ones or they can just go down slower. Do we have to be prepared for the latter? I think small caps in particular have underperformed, certainly over the last couple of years. We think there is a setup here where that broadening out is going to be important as the earnings comparisons start to get better for the Russell 2 and the mid caps versus the large caps. I think you're going

to see better relative performance there. And I don't think it's going to be about going down less. I think it's going to be going up more than the overall market. Are there levels that you're watching here when it relates to sentiment? I mean, I'm looking at a chart of the S&P and I'm, you know, no strategist, no chartist, but, you know, 5,800, 5,700, if we're zooming out over, say, the past six months to a year, look like somewhat interesting levels. But I don't know. Maybe it's watching what happens from the levels of that Election Day bounce. I think I would suggest, you know, folks use these opportunities to add a level of risk in the equity markets because I think there is still a constructive long-term argument. I think directionally, we see inflation moving lower.

We think the Fed is still going to cut rates more in the second half of the year. Earnings have held up relatively well, and we'll see a broadening out of that earnings as I referenced. So I think that's a good long-term setup. And I think you use these periods of volatility when market participants get a little anxious about things like tariffs that helps you add risk and enhance your return over the long term. What about international, particularly Europe and China, which have done a bit better, certainly in 2025. What are you watching to determine whether that continues or halts? Well, we've been constructive on Japan. So

outside the U.S., that's been the market we've been most bullish on. I think there's real secular change going on there and a better focus on improving shareholder returns. I think Europe's been an area of real focus, as you said. It's outperformed so far this year. It's only been, of course, a couple of months. I think there you're seeing some green shoots of the manufacturing sector starting to pick up because European economy and economies outside the U.S. are more cyclical. So if you see that pickup in manufacturing, that's going to help. If you see a cessation of activities in Eastern Europe in terms of the Russia-Ukraine situation, that can improve the tone and psychology of the markets

in Europe. And if you see lower energy prices, I think you're going to need to see that for improvement in European returns. All right. Joe Amato from Neuberger Berman, thank you. Thanks for having me. When we come back, $70 billion tech company synopsis pulling back along with the NASDAQ today after last night's results. We'll talk to the company's CEO about the firm's earnings and its work with NVIDIA. And later, don't miss our exclusive interview with Paris Hilton, who's just named to CNBC's Changemakers list. We'll hear the latest on her beauty and entertainment brands and how she's helping women run businesses recover from the L.A. wildfires. Be right back.

Welcome back to Overtime. Synopsys shares initially higher today after the company gave second quarter guidance that beat the streets expectations before turning lower, along with much of tech in today's slide. Joining me now is CEO Sassine Ghazi. Sassine, good to see you. Please put the quarter into context for me, but also China, right? You made some comments about this on the call and with all of the commentary today around tariffs increasing in China, which probably isn't going to be great for the economic situation over there. I'll bet you that didn't help the stock. But tell me about the business and then just how the China piece fits into that. Hey, John, great to see you. So as you said, we reported a strong Q1 in line with guidance,

actually, on the revenue. It's toward the upper range of guidance for EPS. We did beat and we reaffirmed our double-digit revenue growth for FY25. We factored in further deceleration in China, driven really by two factors. The first one is the cumulative impact of entity list and further technology restrictions in China. And two, the macro economy inside China remains weak, facing quite a bit of headwind and challenges. So with that, we continued our pragmatic view on China while reaffirming the year. I spoke with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang last night after their earnings, and something he said about startup adoption of AI also made me think of Synopsys. Take a listen. There's some really, really fantastic startups that have come out as a result of new reasoning AI capabilities and artificial general intelligence capabilities that they have breakthroughs in.

And several of them, there's several of them that are related to agentic AIs, really exciting companies, and there's several of them related to physical AIs. You know, there's just handfuls of each one of them, and each one of them needs additional compute. As these companies work and need additional compute, sometimes they also need their own custom silicon or at least environments for modeling. To what extent are you seeing that type of company also as a customer in a way that you didn't before? We absolutely are. Actually, as AI or intelligence in general become more pervasive, you need to make it better, cheaper. And at the end of the day, the way you measure it, is it changing the way you work? And these startups that Jensen is referring to, some of them are creating their own silicon.

Some of them are customizing silicon through an ASIC supplier, and some of them are just buying silicon from either NVIDIA or other suppliers. For us, all three categories are a great opportunity for Synopsys because we enable that silicon development and the system level. And you and I have talked often about the silicon-to-system design solution where we offer. And ANSYS is an important part of that. How far are we from you being able to fully realize that combination? We continue on anticipating, John, that we close the ANSYS acquisition the first half of this year. We're making very good progress with the various regulators, and we're looking forward to start integration of the technology once it's approved. All right. Sassin Ghazi, CEO of Synopsys, thanks for joining me here on Overtime.

Great to see you, John. Great to see you. Now, folks, be sure to scan the QR code that's appearing right now on your screen. You can watch my full interview with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang on CNBC Pro from there. Well, time now for a CNBC News update with Pippa Stevens. Pippa. Hey, John. Negotiations between Israel and Hamas on the next phase of the ceasefire in Gaza are underway.

Egypt's State Information Service said mediators from Israel, Qatar and the U.S. are in Cairo. But just hours before the talks were to begin, an Israeli official said the country would not withdraw from a strategic corridor in the Gaza Strip, which was a requirement of the previously agreed-to ceasefire. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said today the FAA will take steps to boost air traffic controller hiring after a series of recent safety incidents. Duffy also said the agency would boost starting pay for candidates who go through the agency's training academy by 30%. And it's official. San Antonio Spurs head coach Greg Popovich will not return to the team this season.

In a statement released today, Popovich said he will continue to focus on his health with the hope that he can return to coaching in the future. The 76-year-old Popovich suffered a stroke in November and hasn't coached a game since October. John, I'll send it back to you. Pippa, thank you. Well, after the break, Treasury yields ticking higher during today's market sell-off, but still hovering near the lowest levels of the year. We'll look at what the recent action in the bond market says about the state of equities and check out the biggest decliners in the Nasdaq 100 in today's sell off strategy.

NVIDIA, Axon, Marvell and Constellation Energy. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Stocks finishing the day decisively in the red with the Nasdaq falling more than two point seven five percent. The Dow swinging more than five hundred fifty points. Mike Santoli returns with a look at the defensive shift happening in the market. Mike? Yes, John, and it's coming from a position where offensive strategies had really gotten pretty stretched relative to defense. So this is the high momentum part of the S&P 500,

the momentum factor, so to speak, on a one-year basis. It really did start to accelerate relative to dividend stocks. So this is basically the core dividend large cap strategy. You see still a big performance difference on a one-year basis, but they have started to come together this month so far. Dividend stocks are kind of holding their value. Now, bonds beating stocks, especially long-term treasuries, on a year-to-date basis. But this is how different the performance is beginning, opening up in the latter part of last year. So probably some convergence there is sort of still

on the table. We'll have to see. Now, two-year Treasury yield, this is where the debate about whether we're seeing an economic growth scare really comes to the fore. It's down around just about 4 percent. And if you just sort of draw where that is, there was this trough in the fall when we really did late summer into the fall, really thought that high yields were going to crush the economy. The Fed was going to be behind the curve because remember, they hadn't yet pivoted toward easing yet. And that was really when we thought that maybe we had another recession possibility on the off. It didn't happen. Obviously, yields went back up. But if it really starts to go down, it's going to basically put the Fed on notice that the market is starting to think

they should be in easing mode. We'll see if that does develop from here, John. Mike, we just got the last huge earnings report in NVIDIA, and it looks like we're closing February pretty much to flat for the year after January was good. We're still in this range. What does that say? It's interesting, John, because if you came into the year, one plausible set of premises that I might have been saying is, look, everything looks good, but expectations are high. Everyone expects earnings to broaden out. The most concentrated, you know, big cap stocks have done great, even though their fundamentals are fine. We should broaden out and maybe expect some choppiness in the first year of a new administration, which almost always happens.

The latter part of February is off in a week. In other words, all the stuff that's happening is pretty much according to the book or at least shouldn't be very surprising. I do think that it just shows you there was room for valuation compression in the biggest stocks. But the equal weighted S&P is still up for the year. And all the S&P stocks, aside from the MAG7, are actually up even more than that. So it does say the market's trying to be selective here, even though there's some wear and tear on the on the index itself. And maybe we have to kind of pull the slingshot back further before we get the real bounce.

OK, Mike Santoli, thank you. Well, speaking of broadening out, Snowflake shares bucking the downtrend in tech today after a big fourth quarter earnings beat and guide yesterday during overtime. Up next, the company's CEO tells us exclusively about those results and what's driving a better than expected Q1 and full year forecast. And later, reality TV star turned CNBC changemaker Paris Hilton discusses her growing media empire. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Overtime. Let's get to some more big earnings movers. Online broker Redfin is sinking after the company reported a wider than expected loss per share for the fourth quarter,

gave soft guidance for Q1. You can see it down about 13 percent. Bloom Energy is surging after earnings and revenue came in above estimates. Management's saying they expect commercial momentum to continue in 2025 and beyond. It's up about eight and a quarter. And Rocket Lab is making a move lower on soft first quarter revenue guidance, down about 10 percent. Some other movers for you. Snowflake moving higher after last night's results. I spoke with CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy about net revenue retention rates at 126%, showing that existing customers are buying more from the company. Our core business in analytics and warehousing is very strong. You know, our previous three quarters numbers

for net revenue retention were 127%, 126, 126, which are pretty exceptional numbers. And we are beginning to drive adoption of new things that we are doing in data engineering, like Snowpark that you just mentioned, and also the AI products. That's part of what gives us confidence about our ability to really build on what we got done last year.

Ramesh Ramy told me he's also focused on making sure customers are being efficient and aren't overspending on Snowflake technology, which should smooth out some of the bumping revenue cycles of the past. What we have learned over the past two years is that we need to be active partners with our customers in how we can help them spend money efficiently. Whenever I talk to our sales teams, for example, I'm very blunt about how customers spending money unwisely with Snowflake is a ticking time bomb for them and for Snowflake. And so we engage very actively in what we call value engineering, making sure that customers are getting value from us. And as far as I'm concerned, I'd like to be out of the optimization business because we get it right the first time. And there is more of an optimize as you go along, because I think these boom and bust cycles are just painful for everybody. I asked him too about the attention he's showing to Snowflake's bottom line. He said Snowflake's own AI use is helping with the savings. We've been pretty prudent in that combination of top-line growth

with increasing operating efficiency. You'll notice that we also have lowered SBC, or at least our expectation for stock-based compensation for fiscal 26, by four full percentage points, 400 basis points, which is a pretty big shift. I feel very good about where we are as a company in being able to balance between investing far and delivering the top line growth while also becoming more and more operationally efficient. In many, many ways, this is us practicing what we preach about what data and AI can do. I think in that

sense, we stand out as an example of how to do that effectively. That stock, again, up 4.5% in the regular trade. Now, elsewhere in enterprise software, C3 AI beat on the top and bottom lines in yesterday's results, but the stock was down 9.5% today. I spoke with CEO Tom Siebel about the results and the 600 potential customer engagements he said C3 has in partnership with Microsoft. I asked how many he expected will convert into sales. Oh, goodness. You know, John, I just don't know, okay? But these people are clearly highly incented to close these C3 AI transactions on Azure. The Azure salespeople are, the AWS salespeople are. I expect that we will see a, I expect we'll see about a 70% yield from pilots converting it to production work. Today, we bring these applications live in three to six months.

Volatile day for software, enterprise software, WCLD down 2 percent. Well, Paris Hilton joining the CNBC Changemakers list this year. Up next, she discusses the challenges of building her media business and how she's trying to help L.A. rebuild from recent wildfires. Coming up at the top of the hour, don't miss Fast Money Live from the NASDAQ. The traders are going to be taking questions from a live audience. I mean, Fast Money is always live, but not always a live audience. You definitely don't want to miss it. We'll be right back.

Welcome back. This week, CNBC unveiled its annual changemakers list of women leaving their mark in the business world. One of the honorees is 1111 Media founder and CEO Paris Hilton. She joins us now along with our own Julia Boorstin. Julia. John, thanks so much. And Paris, thank you so much for having us here today in your beautiful home. And congrats on being named a changemaker. Today, you're here to announce a new initiative you're working on to help women-owned businesses that were impacted by the fires here in Los Angeles.

Tell us about this initiative. It's just been so devastating to see what's happened. And that's why I wanted to do this initiative to have 11 small owned women businesses that will get $25,000 grant. And it'll be with me and gofundme.org. And I'm just really proud to support these women and their businesses. You've been really active in fire relief. I just saw some new stats saying you're the celebrity

who's most cited and has the greatest awareness when it comes to relief around the L.A. fires. You've also done a lot of other philanthropic work advocated to protect children from institutional child abuse. You helped get legislation passed in Congress. How does the latest work and all of these things fit together? How do you figure out which philanthropic initiatives to focus on? Well, with my work regarding the fires, L., LA is my hometown, my community, so I'll do anything to support. And from lived experience, what I went through as a teenager, I knew I needed

to step up and use my voice to make a difference for other children. And I'm so proud to have passed legislation and 10 state laws. And I love animals and children, so anything I can do to support and lift up women business as well. So you've been very busy in addition to your philanthropic work. You are really expanding a very diversified business. You have the shows, you have fragrances, and now you are launching a new skincare line. Skincare is such a crowded space. What makes you want to get into this business and how is this different for you? I've always been obsessed with skincare and I've partnered with Guthrie

Ranker, the leading in the beauty industry. And I've been creating this product line for the past two years. And I wanted to make products that really have real results and work and where you can be preventative. And I'm very proud just for everything, the packaging, it's all going to be ready for April. So I can't wait for that launch. Yeah. And you have an ownership stake, which I think is really important as you expand your business. The other thing that's been really notable is how you've been at the cutting edge of social media. And when it came to Roblox, you had built a presence there years ago, back in 2022, expanding in 2023.

What have you learned from your presence in Roblox, and how has it helped support your other businesses or even your strategy around reaching younger consumers? I love that I can connect with a younger fan base as well as really be the bridge for brands such as Hilton and L'Oreal, Levi's, many others, and built this whole world where brands can come activate in. And also, it's just so much fun. All the kids are in there. And I love that you can have digital fashion and also do charity initiatives, launch music. There's just so many different ways that you can utilize it. Now you're looking at an even younger demographic and you have an animated show, which you're working on right now. You haven't announced which platform it'll be on yet, but you also have clothes for kids and toddlers at Walmart. What do you see as the market opportunity for this much younger demographic? You've been traditionally selling things like fragrance,

you're on your 30th fragrance. So why focus on the younger demo, which is many ways about selling to moms? Everything I do in my business is authentic to me. And now being a mom of two, my one-year-old and my two-year-old, I really want to create not only products for them, but also entertainment. And I love being in the mommy and me space. And I'm very excited for Paris and Pups. It is the animated series that we're creating about my puppies. And yeah, it's just been amazing partnering with Walmart and everybody is loving the new children's and babies line.

So that's something I'm also very proud of. So many partnerships, presents everywhere from Walmart to Roblox. And you will be joining us on stage at our CNBC Changemakers Summit on April 8th here in Los Angeles. We're very excited to continue the conversation there. John, I want to send it back over to you. Wow, Julia, thanks. Kids who were born when the simple life ended are heading to college this year. Thank you, Paris Hilton, as well. Well, there's still time to join the CNBC Changemakers Summit in L.A.

that Julia mentioned, April 8th, where you can hear from this year's changemakers. You can register your invite request at cnbcevents.com slash changemakers or scan that QR code you see on the screen. Well, some more news from HP just crossing after the company reported earnings earlier this hour. Let's get back to Seema Modi. Seema. John, workforce reductions coming to HP. The company just filing an 8K in which the company says about 1,000 to 2,000 jobs will be affected as part of this amended restructuring plan. We're looking at the stock fall lower here in overtime. Following earnings that did come in line with estimates,

you'll see shares down 3.4% in overtime. More details to come. All right. Seema, thank you. Up next, what is at stake for the market and your investments when a key inflation report is released before the bell tomorrow? Be right back. Welcome back to Overtime. Sam Altman just responding to a CNBC story about Meta planning to release a standalone Meta AI app to compete with ChatGPT. Altman writing on X, okay, fine, maybe we'll do a social app. And of course,

it's coming on the same day that he announced GPT 4.5 is ready. That was just a couple of hours ago. Well, a rough day for the bulls as we look ahead to the final trading day of the month tomorrow, which is going to bring a key inflation report, the PCE price index. Mike Santoli, back with me. Mike, this is one that the Fed watches closely. It is. It's what their inflation target is based on. Of course, their target is 2%.

Now, expectations are that this comes in at a relatively benign level. Let's say core PCE 2.6, maybe 2.5. And a lot of the information we were able to infer from some of the previous inflation readings have been building into a relative level of comfort, I think, with what this report should say. I think the question is how it's going to bear on this debate about the interplay of economic growth in the first part of this year and inflation and how the Fed should react to policy or not react. The bond market, as I was just mentioning, yields have been really compressed at this point. There is a little bit of a growth scare going on in terms of the trajectory of U.S. economic growth. Not clear the Fed wants to rush to try and say they're going to respond to that. So the number maybe should shed some light. So, yeah, I mean, expectations,

meeting expectations, I guess, would be good. But I wonder, given the sell-off that we just had and this turn in the market, you know, how might a surprise be met? Yeah, I mean, a hot surprise in inflation would not be met with anything friendly likely from the market. I do think we have to keep in mind yields down should ultimately provide support for parts of the economy and for the stock market. We'll see if any of that gets some traction. Okay, Mike, thanks. And we're going to have much more on the outlook for inflation tomorrow on Overtime. We're joined exclusively by Chicago Fed President Austin Goolsbee.