Closing Bell - Closing Bell Overtime: The Jackson 5: Wells Fargo on the Fed; America's Biotech Boom 8/21/25

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Wells Fargo Senior Economist Sarah House leads "The Jackson 5" analysis of key economic indicators ahead of the Fed symposium. Wedbush's Matt Bryson explains his Nvidia price target hike this week ahead of earnings. Brooke May from Evans May Wealth charts the market's next move. Plus, an exclusive look inside one of America's largest biologic drug manufacturing plants as Fujifilm's North Carolina facility prepares to produce drugs for Johnson & Johnson and Regeneron. Tom Rogers, former NBC Cable President and Versant Board senior advisor, breaks down the streaming wars as ESPN launches its new standalone app. 

Well, that's the end of regulation. Cummins ringing the closing bell. The New York Stock Exchange, ESPN, doing the honors at the NASDAQ, stops ending the day in the red. But off the lows, the S&P 500 down for the fifth straight day. It's the longest daily losing streak since January for that index. It's the worst three-day stretch for the NASDAQ, too, since April. Most of the losses in the Dow were caused by the drop in Walmart. Energy and materials were the outperforming sectors today.

Staples discretionary and utilities lagged, oil rallying for a second straight day on continued signs of strong demand and uncertainty about Russia-Ukraine peace talks, and in a reversal from yesterday's big gains, Bitcoin and Ether falling today, either now off by more than 7% over the past week. Treasury's weaker across the curve with yields up ahead of Powell at Jackson Hole tomorrow. This following some huckish Fed speak from the Cleveland and Kansas City Fed Chiefs earlier today. that is the scorecard on Wall Street. Welcome to closing bell overtime. I'm Morgan Brennan. John Fort is off today. The Jackson 5. It's a maker break moment for the markets tomorrow. As Fed Chair Powell gets set to deliver his Jackson whole speech, will he steer away from teeing up a September cut or will use the opportunity to ensure investors that the Fed and the market are on the same page. Plus, Powell may be the event of the week, but NVIDIA will dominate next week. It has earnings on deck. stock has had five price target hikes in eight days. Why is the street so bullish ahead of results? We're going to ask one of those analysts next. And a new $3 billion drug manufacturing plant is getting ready to open in North Carolina, perhaps at the perfect time as the president announces pharmaceutical tariffs. We're live at the plant with an inside look. But first,

let's turn back to the markets as the heavy rotation out from the momentum trade continues. Christina Parts-Nevilis is here with more. She's in student. Christina. Yeah, once a week I come here. Retail traders, though, are doing something they haven't done since June, selling tech stocks. That's why we continue to see the information technology sector fall down 3% this week. Data compiled by JPMorgan. Strategists showed mom and pop investors were net sellers, they're calling it that, of tech to the tune of $140 million just over the past week. That breaks a two-month long daily buying streak in which retail traders, on average, bought more than a billion dollars per day. It's also why we can continue to see so many of the popular AI darlings like AMD, super micro, on semi, for example, maybe not necessarily an AI darling, but still negative for their sixth straight session. Palantir, though, we're going to throw that up on the screen as just higher today after six straight losses, losing more than 16% over that period. Palantir was also one of the most traded stocks among retail investors just in the past two days.

You can really see a lot of volume in this name. Check out CNBC. Or CBC Pro for more actually on that trend. But I want to point out they aren't getting out of the markets all together. The buy the dip mentality is still in play. But the focus is really on broad-based market ETFs like the Vanek Oil Services ETF. That's up 1.3% for the week. And the I shares healthcare providers ETF also up 1.3% and it's helping those respective sectors, Morgan. All right. Christina Parts and Avelas, thank you. Thanks. As we mentioned, some movement in the bond market today following some mixed economic data and some Fed speak that was tilting slightly hawkish. Rick Santelli is live at the CMU with more. Hi,

Hi, Morgan. Indeed. Today was the one-two punch in the treasury markets. Let's look at a two-year. Now, as you look at it, realize at 830 Eastern, we saw 11,000 pop up in claims. Now, it's still well under 250,000, but up 11,000 with Jackson Hole starting tomorrow, made the market a bit nervous. So what happened? Well, we saw that yields at 730 made their lows at the two-year. Why? Claims moving, up, well, that most likely means that we are not going to see as much easing, and that makes sense. But look what happened at 945 when you had a strong set of PMIs. Boom, yields moved higher. Now, maybe the most interesting story considering Jackson Hall is in earnest starting tomorrow with the big Fed speak and Jay Powell. Well, let's look at a week today to Fed Fund futures for D's. You see the way they moved down today. When they moved down,

That means there is less easing and the time they moved down was the strong PMIs Now if you open it up to August 1st, you can clearly see the entire month has drifted a bit lower Putting in a little less easing But here's the key if you just took in two more days in front of August 1st and you look at the job job jobs Report well yields or the Fed funds rallied up when you rally up you were definitely putting in more easing so that That last chart really says it all, okay? We haven't gotten back all the run-up we had on the weak jobs report. But the trend and the way we're looking at higher interest rates today,

there's a bit nervousness that hawkishness is going to remain the stable despite some of the dissenting on the board. Morgan, back to you. Rick Santelli, the dollar, what has it been signaling? We had one strategist on the exchange earlier today, and one of the things he pointed out is that you've seen the dollar weekend every time President Trump has sort of called into question. question the policy of the Fed.

Well, what does the president and the administration want? They want lower interest rates. The dollar's never falling in love with lower interest rates. As a matter of fact, even though the dollar is up today, if you look at the dollar since the jobs report, you'll see a lot of info there as well because it dropped rather dramatically when you had a weak jobs report because that also implies more easing. So yes, the dollar at the moment, its last big. closed was right at 100, and it failed. So I would have to say the dollar index would not be on my buy list.

Okay. Rick Santelli, thank you. Well, speaking of the Fed, Steve Leesman, sitting down with Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmidt this morning, ahead of the annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Schmidt, a FMC voting member expressing doubt about a rate cut next month, one the market had previously assumed was all but certain. So here's what he said to Steve on Squawk Box. I think we've got a lot of data to harvest between now and September, and I think we'll something will emerge where I think we'll start to see a little bit more definitive move one way. The markets seem to be in good shape, spreads. So I just, I think we're in a really good spot, and I think we really have to have very definitive data to be moving that policy rate right now. But, yeah, I think there's a lot to be said between now and September. So will Powell give the markets what it wants, or will he try to be?

to take the focus off of rate cuts. Our next guest thinks the latter in our new piece titled the Jackson 5. Joining me now is Sarah House, Wells Fargo Senior Economist. Sarah, it's great to have you on. Welcome. Thanks, Morgan, for having me. So what do you think? We have a lot more data here and it's not decided? We do. So we have, of course, another month of inflation data and of course another jobs report. And so I think when we hear Powell tomorrow, I think he's going to be reluctant to pre-commit to any sort of move for September. I think he's going to keep that door open, understanding that the data could tilt in that direction.

But I think he really wants to keep the committee's options open, in part because there is not a clear consensus among committee members, and so he can't speak for the committee in that regard. So as you combed through the data, do you think a shift towards more focus on the labor market is warranted given the fact that we've seen some softening there, or no, too soon to tell? I think we are moving that way.

So we've been concerned about the overall strength of the jobs market, where it still remains in balance if you're looking at things like the unemployment rate, the openings ratio per unemployed worker. But I think the loss of momentum in hiring, and especially that I don't think this is all just from merely slower growth in the labor supply coming from immigration. So if you look at the breadth of hiring, that's been extremely narrow. We can't rely completely on health care hiring to buoy all employment. So I think we are a little bit more nervous about the overall strength of the jobs market. And that leads us to expect that our base case is still that we will get a September rate cut followed by two more 25 basis point cuts before the year is out. But it really hinges on that labor market continuing to show further loss of momentum.

Okay. You talk about the Jackson 5 in your note. What does that mean? Right. So we are five years on from the Fed's last policy framework review. We know they're getting close to announcing the results of. of their latest review, so we saw that hinted at in the minutes. And so we're actually thinking that Powell's going to use his stage tomorrow to talk about

these changes to the policy framework. So this is pretty much going to, you know, we're pretty certain this is going to be his last as Fed chair. So using the stage to walk through his eight-year tenor, talk about how the macro environment has changed dramatically from where the Fed was concerned about the zero lower bound, persistently low inflation to really the opposite. And so we think he's going to walk through why we need to have a more robust framework focusing more on symmetry in terms of misses from both the inflation and labor market sides of its mandate, given just the wild ride we've been on over the past five years, where we're now an environment where we're still worried about too high inflation. Interesting. So would you say that that marks a bit of a reversal then?

I think so. So in many ways, this quote, new framework will look very much like the old framework, so the one prior to, to two. 2020 where the Fed was taking a more symmetric approach to its inflation target. So remember we move to flexible average inflation targeting with the 2020 framework where the Fed was saying we're okay with overshoots if it's come after periods of undershoots, but not vice versa. Well, now we think they're going to move back to look, we're aiming for 2% as close to that as possible at any given point. We will let bygones be bygones. And then also just in terms of the jobs market. So with the reminder that you can have an overheated jobs market contribute to too high inflation, we think the Fed's going to move away from focusing on shortfalls

for maximum employment and move back to that focus on deviations in either direction. Okay. Should we pay more attention to the Fed's balance sheet, especially given what we've been seeing in the bond market with treasury yields and treasury issuance? Yeah, so I think the Fed is still looking to de-emphasize that as a tool. I think at some point the framework will will need to address how the Fed uses that as a tool, where really it's been in many ways kind of a last-minute adjustment, as we saw in 2020. But I don't think that we'll hear much on that front tomorrow, as I think the Fed is really just kind of trying to keep that quiet. They're, of course, still letting assets mature and roll off. And so still looking to normalize

that a bit further and not making that a focal point right now. I mean, we've been talking about Powell is almost like the peak of the next couple of days. in this symposium out in Jackson Hole, but we are hearing from a number of Fed speakers, including we just mentioned Schmidt earlier, who is a voting member, a number of others to the next couple of days, and even some international central bank heads as well, like Christine Lagarde, how closely are you going to be monitoring all of those, since it really isn't just the Fed that investors are focused on with a potential rate-cutting cycle, but also other central banks that have either made cuts of their own or poised to do so.

Right. So that's the beauty of the Jackson Hole Symposium. It's this gap. It's a powerhouse in terms of central bankers and researchers. So while Powell will be the limelight, he'll get that central spot. But it really is more that you're going to hear from lots of different central bankers and also a lot of good research. So the focus this year is the labor market into figuring out how that's changing and I think also inform how the Fed should be reading a lot of these labor market indicators given the transition that the jobs market and our demographic population is going through right now.

Okay, Sarah House, Wells Fargo Senior Economist. Thanks for joining me. Thanks. Well, coming up, the street is staying, quote, extremely bullish into Nvidia's print next week. But the stock has started to see a reversal recently. And the company continues to get caught in the crosshairs between the administration and China. Are the expectations too high? And Mike Santoli joins to chart Big Tech's fear of heights. Why this chart could be telling the most important story in the market. That's next. Overtime is back in two. Walmart falling today despite a revenue beat and raising its full-year earnings and sales guidance. The retailer warns of tariff headwinds on the horizon, CFO John David Rainey, telling CNBC that the company is working hard to keep prices low, including by speeding up overseas imports, but that, quote, tariff-impacted costs are continuing to drift upwards.

Now, on the bright side, Rainey said Walmart hasn't seen a change in. consumer spending, and the retailer has seen its advertising business boom. It's grown 46% globally year over year. Well, another stock that was lower today is NVIDIA. That's despite a recent slew of price target increases from the street. Morgan Stanley, Cantra Fitzgerald, Key Bank, Susquehanna, UBS. That's all in the last week. And today, Webbush joins in on the fund, going to $210 per share from $175 ahead of next week's earnings. Part of the reason an expected rebound in revenue from the Chinese market. So joining me now is the analyst behind that call.

Matt Bryson, Webbush Equity Research Analyst. Matt, it's great to have you back on the show. And let's start right there. Why the hike to the price target? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a couple of reasons. You mentioned one of them. Certainly there should be some revenue from China and we can debate whether it's a billion or $8 billion.

I think I've been relatively concerned there. But the other pieces are, look, my checks throughout the quarter, been positive, hearing good things about Blackwell Ultra. You look at the CSPs. They're lifting spend. They've been the single largest market for NVIDIA. So you've had a bunch of good news. Invidia tends to leave a little bit on the table when they give guidance. And so I just don't see any reason that we don't get another beat. And then another strong guide for fiscal Q3. So the fact that the stock has sold off in these last couple of days is that a buying opportunity ahead of the print then?

I think that everything looks good for Invidia. It's always hard to tell exactly how it will trade around the print. But I think the concerns kind of this week have more to do with macro, maybe a bit about the future of AI, given that MIT paper that says something like only 5% of enterprises are really getting value from generative of AI. but I think that there is plenty of spend ahead, not only the CSPs, but sovereigns. And so I think Nvidia is looking good through 2026 at least. Okay.

So in light of that, what do you think of that MIT paper? And then I know there was also like there was the Sam Altman AI bubble commentary, which was arguably taken a little bit out of context as well. What do you make of all of that and what it means for the future of spending on AI? Yeah. So I think part of it is simply figuring out how to use the time. tech. And to some extent, it's a positive that 5% of enterprises are getting real value out of this, right? That suggests that it's not useful to another 95% of enterprises, but also, but rather that

they just need to figure out how to use generative AI. I think that there's a ton of consumer devices coming out in 26, 27 that are aimed at trying to enable AI for the consumer. So again, something else that will use data center resources and the tough things to figure out exactly when you see that that viral application, if you will. But having said that, because we have all the sovereign spend that gets layered on top of the CSP spend, I think there's 18 months for that event to happen before we have to worry that, oh, maybe spend on data center falls short of expectations. I want to go back to the China piece for NVIDIA specifically, because if I'm recalling correctly in the last couple of quarters, they basically de-risked the China business. And a lot of that was pulled out of the forecast and the guidance. So do you expect that to be layered back in now, given what we're seeing with these H-20

chips, even if there is a 15% cut of sales going back to the U.S. government? Yeah, so I think there's going to be some revenue from China. I think the real question is, look, Nvidia was set to do $8 billion in Q2, or at least That's what management thought that we're going to do. What's the real level right now? You've got headwinds from that, that 15%, the export tariff, if you will. You have the Chinese government pushing its companies not to use the H20. But Nvidia is still going to see some revenue from China.

And the real question is, is it $2 billion, is it $4 billion? I've been relatively conservative in layering it in, so I only have a billion, $2 billion. or in the next couple quarters, a little more than that next year when you start to get the blackwell parts out. But I think it's still a benefit versus where we'd been a quarter ago when it looked like China was going to be a zero. Okay, Matt Bryson. Thank you. Well, still ahead. Is Big Tech about to see a real downturn? Mike Santoli has a theory. He's betting that one key chart is telling the market's most important story right now. And after what's been a brutal year for the stock. United Health has seen a reversal of fortune lately. It's up 22% this

month. We're going to speak to one money manager who says now is the time to buy because the balance is more than just about Buffett's stake. Stay with us. Welcome back. Take a look at Cracker Barrel. The stock tumbling 7% today after debuting a new text-only logo as part of a larger brand refresh. The company is about a year into a three-year, $700 million plan to modernize the business and lure in new diners. The chain has also been remodeling at 660-plus restaurants. The new logo, as you can see right there on your screen, it's attracted some blowback with many social media users, especially in conservative circles, CEO Julie Messino, saying this morning, though, that feedback to the changes have been, quote, overwhelmingly positive. Well, now let's bring in senior markets commentator Mike Santoli for a look at how. stretch the tech sector is with the NASDAQ now pacing for its worst week since May. Mike.

Yeah, we had a pretty good head of steam in tech, as you know, Morgan, over the last few months. Here's the tech sector ETF of the S&P 500 over the last three years with its 50-day moving average. You see this pullback? It's just a little over 4% from the high, not really a major pullback at this point. And we're just above that 50-day moving average. Now, when we've had these periods, when it's been above that trend line for long, period of time or has been well above the trend line. It hasn't always just backed off and bounced off the level. You see sometimes it's got to chop around in there for a bit around that 50-day average if in fact it's going to rebuild and refresh for a new run higher. So that's just

something to keep in mind what would qualify as a routine setback is still probably a little bit down from where we are right now. Now just here to quantify exactly how strong the four-month run was off of the August lows into, off the, excuse me, April lows into August, pretty much one of the best ever. So this is the four-month rolling returns of the tech sector of the S&P 500. It got above 50%. It's only done that a few times, as you can see, including once during the pandemic rebound. This, of course, is the ultimate peak back in late 90s into the year 2000. We're not close to that. It's above 70%. But again, it suggests that there's some kind of a logical reset you might expect this to have, even if it's just going sideways to bring this

number down for a little while, Morgan. Now, I realize the S&P tech sector is probably more skewed to things like Apple and semiconductors specifically. But if we're looking at, say, the MAG 7, I mean, Goldman Sachs earlier this week at David Koston over there, basically saying that the other magnificence grew their earnings, X NVIDIA, which we get next week, grew their earnings for share by 26 percent year on year in the second quarter, which is well ahead of expectation. So, yes, I realize we're long in the tooth, maybe overbought here, and you're starting to see some of that selling. But is the earnings piece of the picture one that's still so strong that the expectation is they're still going to power the S&P higher? Yeah, it's absolutely holding up its side of the bargain.

The fundamental side, the earnings trajectory, it's all working out fine. It's just a matter of exactly what the market's willing to pay for that in real time, right? Up 50% in four months? Well, guess what? Earnings didn't go up 50% in four months. So it's probably sort of a catch-up for the fundamentals to the stock prices. Got it. All right.

Mike Santoli, we'll see you later this hour. Thank you. It's time now for a CNBC News Update with Christina Parts in Avelas. Hi, Christina. Hi, Morgan. The State Department will continue to vet visa holders even after they've been admitted to enter the United States. The Department said today that more than 55 million foreigners who hold visas would continue to be vetted for any potential ineligibility, such as overstays and threatening public safety. A federal judge ruled this afternoon that acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Alina Hava,

can't prosecute two defendants who sue challenging her authority because she was not legally appointed to the role. President Trump tried to use a loophole to keep her in place after her interim status expired on July 1st. The judge stayed the ruling to allow the government time to appeal. And the California State Senate this afternoon passed a redistricting plan to advance Governor Gavin Newsom's attempt to counteract Texas's vote to add five GOP leaning seats. Unlike Texas, California's effort needs to be approved by voters because the state constitution requires that an independent nonpartisan panel draw the congressional map.

The bill faces a Friday deadline to get in on the ballot for a special election this coming November. Morgan. All right, Christina Parsnavelas, thank you. Thanks. Next up, we're diving into the markets with one of Forbes' top women financial advice. Brook May of Evans May Wealth on why she thinks a year-end rally is in store. That's next. Plus, a surprise name is getting in on pharmaceutical manufacturing as tariff threats loom. We're live from the factory right after this. Overtime is back in two.

Welcome back to Overtime. Stocks ending the day in the red. sell-off continues. The S&P posting its fifth straight losing day. Some action in the after hours, though. Let's start with Intuit falling right now. The company beating on EPS and revenue, but its consumer segment missed estimates. You see those shares are down about 5% right now. The company emphasized its recent focus on AI as a growth driver with the CEO saying that AI has helped them to grow in its credit karma business, but workday slightly lower in after hours as well. The company reporting a beat on both EPS and revenue with second quarter subscriptions meeting expectations. Workday saying it will acquire AI company paradox. Those shares are down about

5%. And finally, Ross stores. The retailer reporting an EPS beat, but a revenue miss, including in the revenue, included in the revenue number, was an 11 cent per share negative impact from tariff-related costs. Now, Ross saying that they anticipate pricing across retail will move higher as they progress through the year. And yet, those shares are popping. They're up 2% right now. So the rotation trade continues. investors pouring into some of the underperformers this year. Take United Health. It's down 40% this year still. But now one of the top winners in the Dow so far for this month. It's up 22% for August. Our next guest sees opportunity in the stock and says investors should buy. Joining us now is

Brooke May, partner at Evans May Wealth. She is also on Forbes's top women advisors list. And Brooke, it's great to have you back on the show. Welcome. Thank you, Morgan. As a former Forbes alum, here, a little slip of the tongue there. All right, let's start with United Health. Why do you think this is a buy right now? If you look to your point, it's down 40% year to date and down 50% from the all-time high. Last week, though, we heard that Warren Buffett took a five million share stake, which equates to about $1.6 billion. So we think that this is a good buying opportunity. The stock's trading at about 18 times forward earnings. And historically, it's been very well managed. So we think if you're patient, it's an area that you could make money in in the months to come.

It's interesting, too, because it isn't just United Health. Healthcare is a sector is the top-performing one in the S&P this month, and it sort of speaks to this big rotation we've been talking about. Health care's been beaten up. It hasn't been a good investment until just recently. And health care is resilient. It won't stay down forever. And so we do think that if you're selective, there are some good buying opportunities right now.

Okay. What do you think of tech? we like tech. We think we're in a mega trend when it comes to tech. However, in the near term, we think it's overbought. So we follow the earnings. We think tech is where the earnings growth is going to be. We think it'll lead us into 2026 with strong earnings growth. We think earnings could be up 12 percent next year. However, in the near term, it's overbought. So we're looking at other areas of the market and being a little more selective. We know we're in a very seasonally week time of year where you tend to see volatility. To your point, some of the high flying parts of the market

continue to look a little bit overbought and you're seeing some profit taking right now. If we continue to see a pullback here, is it a buying opportunity or you just sit on your hands? I would be patient. September, October tend to be volatile months in the market. And I don't know that this year will be any different. We've had a parabolic move since April. And when you look, The question is, what's the catalyst going to be for a pullback? We've seen weakening labor data in addition to higher inflation than expected. And right now, the market's pricing in about a 73% probability that we'll see a rate cut in September. And if it doesn't come to fruition, you can expect volatility to kick up.

You think we get a cut from the Fed next month, and how much does that matter? You know, I think if you look back to last few years, the market's been overly optimistic on the number of rate cuts that we would get and they haven't materialized, this year might not be any different. We might only see one or two rate cuts. If we get a rate cut in September, I don't know that we'll get another one before your end if the labor market holds up. Just recently, the majority of Fed governors have indicated that inflation is a bigger risk than the labor market right now. And so if you look at the most recent CPI rating at 3.1 percent, that's a lot higher than expected. And so I wouldn't be surprised if the labor market holds up if the Fed pauses in September.

Russell 2000 actually finished the day fractionally higher. And while it's on pace for a weekly loss like all the other major averages, it is the outperformer so far this month. Is this on Fed rate cut expectations or is something else afoot here? I think there are a lot of factors at play. Small cap has been out of favor for some time now. Those companies rely heavily on debt. And with variable rate debt being at higher rates, It cuts into their profit margins, so they need a rate cut to really stimulate their profit margin and their revenue and earnings, or their earnings growth. It might be a little too soon, though.

You know, I would be patient. We're hesitant to move into a small cap in a meaningful way right now. All right. Biggest risks to this market. The labor market. Everything hinges on the consumer right now. And if the consumers have jobs, they're going to spend. And, you know, we're seeing some softening there.

All that said, when you know, listen to CEOs in the most recent survey, 66% are keeping their projection for their workforce at least stable, if not expanding it over the next year. And when you talk to them about what they're looking for to combat higher input costs, they're leveraging technology. They're upskilling their labor force. They're looking at aggressively negotiating with their suppliers. And they're going to pass a little bit of those higher costs on to consumers. So there are 7.4 million job openings right now. However, with the upskill in labor, there isn't always a match between unemployed and the job openings. So we think we're in an environment that's slow to

hire, slow to fire. We expect the labor market to stay afloat, but we could see one or two-tenths of a point higher in unemployment. Okay. Well, watch for that. Brooke May. Great to have you on. As always, thank you. Thank you. Up next, we're inside one of the largest biolum drug manufacturing plants in the US. It's five years, $3 billion in the making. Angelica Peoples is live in Holly Spring, North Carolina. Angelica. Hey Morgan, that's right. We have been here all day getting an exclusive first look at this facility that's just weeks away from opening up here in Holly Springs, North Carolina. We'll be back in just a few to show you exactly what's going on in here.

Welcome back to overtime, solar stocks sinking today with first solar, sunrun, and solar edge all in the red, as President Trump took aim at renewables this week. He called the industry, quote, the scam of the century and said that the government will not approve wind or solar projects. Now, despite today's dip, the stocks are all still up double digits over the past three months after the Treasury Department had given solar and wind companies the chance to continue receiving tax credits. before new limits in the tax bill kick in. Meanwhile, surprising and timely, a way to thwart tariff threats on the pharmaceutical industry, Fujifilm, opening a brand new drug manufacturing plant in North Carolina. But it took five years and billions of dollars. And our Angelica Peebles is live at the center of the action to tell us more. Hi, Angelica. Hey, Morgan. Well, this hallway behind me, it's as long as three football field and it connects four buildings at Fujifilm biotechnologies's new manufacturing plant.

So the first two buildings over here, those will open in just a few weeks and they'll produce biologic drugs for regeneron and Johnson and Johnson. The second two buildings over here, those are scheduled to open in 2028. Now, by the time that this facility, you know, has, is open, it'll have the capacity to make 50 million doses of medicine a year. And the key to that production is the bioreactors. There will be six. 16 of them, and they can each fit up to 20,000 liters inside. So you use those to grow the cells that are producing the protein that will eventually power a drug.

And a lot of this work has historically been done in Europe. That is starting to change because we are seeing more companies wanting to do that here. And you can see that in the investments in Europe. In the U.S. over the past few years, they're pretty stable. But the U.S. commitments have ramped up significantly over the last year. And they've basically ground to a halt in the EU as President Trump has threatened tariffs on pharmaceutical products. Now, North Carolina has benefited from the boom with a record $10.8 billion of life science investments pledged last year alone, Morgan. Yeah, this is super fascinating to me because obviously it takes a while and it takes a certain amount of capital to be able to stand up this type of capability on U.S. soil.

I think a lot of folks, I just learned this today, the HHS actually has a national security wing. And so we talk about this increasing intersection between industrial policy, or I'll say manufacturing, and supply chain resilience and national security, pharmaceuticals fall under that as well. We saw that with the pandemic. So I guess it raises the question, how quickly and perhaps just as importantly, will tariffs help to spur more investment here stateside? Well, that's the great debate, and it is something that the Trump administration has talked about, a national security concern. They are concerned that we make many of our drugs overseas, particularly critical medicines like antibiotics. A lot of that is happening in places around the world and not so much the US. Now biologics are a little bit

different. These are really expensive to make and they carry pretty high price tags. So you are seeing more US companies take on that risk, do that manufacturing here like what we're seeing at Fuji Film. And so that will change over time as you you start to ramp up the capacity. But again, you know, there is a little bit of a divergence between some of those generic drugs and the branded drugs. So we'll have to see how that plays out over time. Okay, Angelica Peebles with a live shot of the day.

Thank you. On deck, Disney's shaking up the streaming industry with a brand new bundle. But is it enough to wake up the house of Mouse's sleepy stock? We're going to dive into that and look at the recent wave of media consolidation. Plus, as big tech and the chips dip, defensive sectors are outperforming. Is it a seasonal trade or is it telling us something about the underlying economy? Mike Santoli is going to dig into that. Next, Overtime is back in two.

Welcome back to overtime. The long-awaited ESPN flagship streaming app launched today, offering its full sports content outside of a traditional TV bundle for the first time, will the new app give a boost to Disney? Well, CEO Bob Iger is betting on it. Look where ESPN is today with all of the competition that has emerged over the years. I actually think they're in the best position they've ever been in. And now with the use of this great technology, they have the ability to engage with sports fans on a higher level in a better way.

And so, look, we're not, we don't want to, we don't in any way want to dismiss competition at all because we're mindful of it. I think we're positioned extremely well. Well, joining us now is Tom Rogers. He is the first president of NBC cable. He's the founder of CNBC, currently an executive chairman at Claire Grid, and now a senior advisor-diversant, soon to be CNBC's parent company. He is a CNBC contributor as well.

And Tom, it's always great to speak with you. Welcome. Great to see you, Morgan. So let's start right there. Bob Iager is obviously betting on this launch of this ESPN app. How do you see this for Disney? Well, this was supposed to be D-Day for the cable industry. If ESPN ever went streaming and was available outside the cable bundle, that was supposed

to be the ultimate nightmare. And Disney being the biggest program channel group within the cable bundle, it was going to be a bad situation everywhere it went. I don't think this is a bad situation for the cable industry per se, meaning I'm I don't think it's going to catalyze a whole new level of cord cutting. And at the same time, I do think this enhances Disney's position. I don't think so much because it's going to get an enormous number of standalone ESPN subscribers. But I do think that ESPN, Disney Plus, and Hulu as a bundle, particularly at the 2999 introductory.

price for a year, really has an opportunity to establish itself as a great piece of entertainment for the family, covering sports, children's programming, adult programming, some news in there. And that may be a new catalyst for the company. Okay. I feel there's so many bundles. It's almost like cable 2.0 with all these mini bundles now. Well, that is true. And it is a way, particularly if you're willing to live through advertising, your streaming service to find some pretty interesting ways to get the cost down of packages of programming. Obviously what started the whole cable cord cutting dilemma was that cable bundle just got too bloated. It got too pricey and consumers really didn't have a way of getting pricing

down. At least in this environment, there are a number of ways to do it, including just disconnecting When you're finished with football season, you may not want ESPN anymore, and that becomes a much easier thing to do in a streaming environment than it was in the cable bundle. Our sports streaming rights still the crown drool of the future of streaming and the future of cable and anything else that can, I guess, are anyone else that can get their hands on those rights. I ask as NBC Universal, so our parent company, and MLB are reportedly nearing a three-year deal approaching $600 million. And apparently there's another deal in the works with Netflix with MLB. And some reporting there as well that ESPN will be part of that, even though baseball and ESPN walk away from each other a number of months ago. Well, it's an interesting situation because, yes, certain sports are certainly critical to both the broadcast world and the streaming world. I think 85 of the top 100 programs on broadcast and games.

cable TV were sports programming. Netflix has been able to build the leading streaming service with almost no sports at all, although they have begun to get into the sports business, and if they take the home run derby here from baseball, that'll be another piece. But I think baseball may be an example of the price escalation of sports rights beginning to slow down some. It's reported that the three companies they're going to do a deal with will end up with sports rights that exceed what the previous deals ESPN had. But my guess is it won't be the kind of escalation anywhere near that basketball saw in percentage terms or that football has seen. And the big one that we all have to look at is now that the Paramount deal is closed, but that change of control has the NFL. an opener to be able to renegotiate that deal, what the pricing on that is may establish yet a

whole new level of escalation in major sports. Oh, I'm glad you brought that up because I was going to ask you why Paramount Skydance has had such a huge run as of late. It's up 23% in a month. It was up, closed up 14.5% higher today alone. Is that what's driving it? Well, that may be a negative in that they were presumed to have football times. up for a while and how much more they may have to pay to hold on to it is certainly going to weigh on earnings. On the other hand, I think they demonstrated with the UFC sports deal, which they took 100% of and nobody expected one party, especially paramount, to take

the whole UFC package, and they obviously were willing to bid quite aggressively. So I think the view there is that there's a new player in town that is going to play very aggressively to build for the long term, even if short-term results are hurt. And there are a lot of people who might be willing to bet on if you're willing to play it that way, you're going to end up with something far more valuable than you have today. Okay. Tom Rogers. Thank you. Always great to get your insights. Great to be here. Thanks, Morgan. Coming up, the next great rotation. Mike Santoli's back. He's got a closer look at an emerging trend in the March amid the tech sell-off. We're right back.

Welcome back to overtime. Now let's bring back senior markets commentator Mike Santoli for a look at the recent reawakening of defensive sectors as tech stocks have continued to slip. Hi, Mike. Yeah, Morgan, well, the question is whether that part of the market continues to stay awake because there's been some false starts. Take a look at this pretty clean view of the cyclical leadership of the market that's built up over the last year. These are all equal-weighted sector indexes. So that's consumer discretionary. That's industrials. Looks very, very similar like the same chart over the past year. Huge advantage, near new highs relative to health care and staples, which have obviously been coming back a little bit in the last few weeks

and have narrowed that gap a little bit, but not necessarily in such an emphatic way that we would think that it's necessary a lasting change. So we're monitoring this. We want to make sure that the cyclical stocks don't really start to soften up to what we think it's a growth scare. I wouldn't say that's there, but maybe they've been a little more hesitant going into Jackson Hole in this seasonal part of the year. Now, take a look at this other measure of defensive leadership. This is called the Shut Index from Ned Davis Research, stands for Staples, health care utilities, telecom, traditional defenses. And this is the current path of that index in orange here over the last few years overlaid on the typical election cycle pattern for defensive

stocks. So the magnitudes are different. The right-left scales are different, but it shows you that seasonally we may be are due for a bout of outperformance by defensive stocks. That, of course, would coincide with the weak seasonal period overall for the market. So not surprising if we get a little bit more from defenses, but maybe not a trend change. I mean, that's quite a change. I mean, chart right there. It's tracking almost exactly, and to your point, maybe a little more dramatic, but almost exactly. Yeah, sometimes the cycle work does actually play out the way you think, but again, keep in mind, it's not predictive of magnitudes of moves from here. Yeah, understood. And seasonality is at play. That's sort of my big takeaway from both

these charts from you. It's still at play, as much as you think it would be arbitraged away, because everyone knows it's coming. Sometimes it also is effective. Yeah. All right, Mike Santoli, Great to get your thoughts, as always. I'll see you tomorrow. All the major averages except for the Russell 2000 finishing lower today. It was the fifth straight day of losses for the S&P 500. It's the longest daily losing streak since January 2nd. The NASDAQ is actually on track right now for its worst week since May 23rd.

And the Dow also finished lower today. We're going to keep an eye on Jackson Hole in that Fed chair Powell speech tomorrow. But right now that does it for us here at over time. Time and fast money begins right now.