Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Record Levels Back on Watch 10/23/25

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Stocks jumped on the news that President Trump will be meeting with President Xi. We discuss that – and much more – will our all-star panel of Strategas Chis Verrone, JPMorgan Private Bank’s Abby Yoder and Charles Schwab’s Kevin Gordon. Plus, Notable Capital’s Jeff Richards tells us whether he is seeing signs of froth in the AI trade.  And star analyst Stacy Rasgon tells us what Intel’s results in Overtime could mean for the rest of the chip space.    Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right, Brian. Thanks so much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wobner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker breakout begins with the trade war latest, a high-stakes meeting between President Trump and China's President Xi now officially on the books a week from today. We'll have the very latest and what it means for your money coming up. That news did give the market a little bit of a boost. Let's take a look at the majors here with 60 to go in regulation. They look pretty good, led by tech and energy. Oil is higher on those Russia sanctions today. today. We're watching all of that closely. Interesting price action in Tesla as well. Rebounding after initially falling, following earnings. Take a look at the chart. Tells a pretty good story. Stocks now up 1%. IBM is also trying to claw its way back. Got a little bit more work to do, but nonetheless, it's off the mat and trying to go positive too. We're watching quantum stocks very much in the news today. Conflicting stories regarding government stakes in those companies. We'll have the latest there as well. American Airlines up on positive earnings. That's helping the group overall. Take a look at that stock up near 6%.

It does take us to our talk of the tape. What to expect from that on, off, maybe, and now scheduled meeting between President Trump and President Xi. Amon Javers joins us now with more. So what's the latest here, Amon? Hi there, Scott. Well, the White House says the meeting between President Trump

and Xi Jinping will take place on Thursday morning next week in Asia, which of course will be Wednesday evening on the U.S. East Coast. That meeting, as you say, it's been on again and off again, as President Trump threatened to cancel it in the wake of those Chinese moves to constrain rare earth exports. And then the president said it was back on. And then earlier this week, he suggested, you know, it might not happen. But for now at least, it does appear to be set on the schedule.

Yesterday, President Trump said he does expect to be able to cut a deal with the Chinese on everything from soybeans to rare earths to nuclear weapons. And remember that the White House said back in September that they had a deal in hand for the sale of Chinese own TikTok. that transaction not yet taken place. So add that to a very long list of agenda items for this meeting. But of course, there's more at stake on the president's agenda in this Asia swing than just China. An administration official tells me that the White House expects to sign as many as a dozen or more trade agreements with countries in the region beginning as soon as this weekend. President Trump leaves Washington Friday evening. He's going to arrive in Asia Sunday morning, local time.

So stay tuned for those announcements as they come. We will. Amen, thank you. Good setup for us. Amen, Javers, down in Washington. Now to our panel. Stratigas is Chris Verone, JPMorgan, Private Bank, Abby Yoder, and Schwab's Kevin Gordon. Good to have everybody here. Abby, I'll begin with you. I mean, anything incrementally positive on the China trade front is going to be well regarded by this market. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we think about, we haven't had major down moves in like 120 days, something like that. It's been a really long time. We did have that negative two and a half percent move that Friday where it was announced where this, you know, this trade tip for tat came back. And I think, you know, the market, it was viewed as, okay, this is not only

an embargo from an economic standpoint, but this is really hitting the AI trade, right, with the rare earth materials. Like, that's what was really unraveling the market. It was, this was a double whammy and that it was going to result in really hard hit to economic growth. And then also the AI trade, which has been obviously a big component of the S&P 500's return. So the market had turned its attention away kind of from Trinette, you know, until that last, until the Friday sort of blow up in the market. So it's still out there, but the market feels like it's eyeing other prizes. Good economy, good earnings, and rate cuts. Is that right? Yeah, I would say that. I mean, I think over the past couple of days, I'm sure we're going to get into this, that like you've

seen a little bit of an unwind from a momentum perspective, and that's something that I think probably has something to do with the fact that we're getting our first piece of government data in a month or so tomorrow. So I think there's some jitters around that. And I think it's Also, you know, October tends to be a little bit more difficult for the stock market. Next week, we have a ton of earnings, particularly from, you know, the large cap tech and AI-related names. And so I think there's a little bit of hesitancy to, you know, into year-end, like, maybe take some profits on what has worked and rotate into stuff that hasn't. And that's why you're seeing defensives outperform in October. What do you think?

Well, listen, I think, I think when you look seasonally, we're at the point of the calendar where you actually want to lean into what has worked. When you think about what are the two big risks out there, you bring up one. of trade. I thought it was very notable two Fridays ago on the Trump tweet, what didn't move? C&H, remarkably calm. That has always been a good barometer of when there's headline risk or real risk. We see headline risk, not material risk here. And then you think about what are the domestic concerns out there. We've seen this spat of bankruptcies, but high-yield CDX is still relatively calm here. You're not seeing the real deterioration to credit markets, nor consumer stocks. If anything, consumer stocks may be re-accelerating here after taking the last six,

eight weeks off. So I'm still pretty comfortable with the view here. I do think there are some things to be mindful of the bank can start to act maybe a touch weaker, but on balance, I still think we'll lead into strength here into year end. I think Abby brings up momentum in the perfect way for us to discuss that because the unwind, there is a debate as to whether it's over or running its course. It's on track for its first negative month in the past seven. It's on pace to be down four weeks in five. You've had some pretty good declines in the names out of the MTUM. And Jeffries today asks the question, should it be bought? Morgan Stanley answers and says, well, it's only halfway there. What do you think? Well, I think what's important is in this

little four or five week momentum unwind that we've been in, the market's still up, right? So we've had this rotational move, not this outright distribution. And you look at even yesterday as a good example, there was a point yesterday where the S&P was down 50, 60, 70 handles. Breath was actually positive. for much of the day. So you haven't seen what's become a little bit of a momentum shakeout really migrate to the other corners of the market. If anything, there are pockets that are getting better. Health care has inflected in our work. Disgressionary is turning back up here. Industrials are still largely in pretty good shape. So I don't think the momentum on wine here is really infecting the broader picture. And speaking of, you know, when you look globally, China, New High, Japan New High, Europe New High, you're not seeing it infect the global markets here either. Kev, you know, I'm glad that that point was brought up about, like, health care.

Some say, well, if health care and utilities and at one point, Staples were the three leading groups over the last month, that's not exactly the most bullish sign in the near term for stocks. How would you counter that? Well, I would back it up to a little bit further, maybe over the past year or two, where utilities has really pulled away from health care and staples and not really becoming a, or being a defensive sector. It sort of shed that status, and I think a lot of that is presumably tied to anything power and AI related. So I think that to the extent you look at staples in healthcare as any kind of signal or yellow flag for the economy, I wouldn't take a month or a couple of months of some outperformance from health care, for instance, as some sort of yellow flag. I think that, you know, this whole point about momentum and the discussion about it, I think is important because this year's market so far,

if you overlay it with 2020 into 2021, there are a lot of similarities in terms of a lot of the speculative froth and behavior that's going on in certain segments and certain pockets, but it's very confined and isolated to just those. about breadth holding up relatively well, even though we've gone through some of these bumps and rotations lately, I mean, you really haven't breached durably that 60% level for the percentage of companies in the S&P above their 200-day moving average. As long as you don't get those negative divergences where the index is moving higher, but breadth is deteriorating, then you can continue and I think churn in a positive way where this really just looks more like a consolidation over the past month doesn't necessarily look as corrective. This market's had a really unique

ability, too, I think, to self-correct at times where things have gotten a little from in areas. And to your point, like, as even the momentum factor has pulled back, the market itself has hung in there because other things have worked. So there's things that pick up the slack when other things look weak. And I would add to that, you know, you bring up health care kind of in this defensive light. I might push back on that. I mean, this has been a biotech-driven move. I mean, this is rates. Look at the move in small caps. I think this is rate. So the rate-sensitive corners of the market, whether it's travel or autos, the reversal in the home-building stocks, this week was really impressive. So I think this is more about lower rates catalyzing the real

cyclical corners of the market as opposed to some big message from the momentum sell-off. And Scott, think about where the real blow-off is. I don't think it sucks. It frankly might be gold here. I mean, when you look at what's happened in gold over the last four or five, six weeks, that became a very unordery move. It's not equities where the risk is, I think it's gold. How do you think about that? equities relative to gold. I mean, I think there's definitely, I think the gold move and the more speculative parts of the market that you were just talking about are somewhat similar that the froth had built up. And I would say, it hasn't been all year, right? Like, it's not like that's

been the case all year. It's really been, ever since the Fed started really messaging that they were going to cut rates and that became more solidified is when you start to see the more frothy parts of the market start to take off. And I think, again, going back to maybe why some of that's in reversal this week is, okay, if inflation comes a little bit hot, and you have to take Fed rate cuts off the table, what be one or two, then that's going to be bad for those rate-sensitive parts of the market. But, I mean, are we still focusing, as I said, I mean, is the primary idea to just look at earnings that are going to be good? The economy's hanging in there. Fed's going to cut rates.

The market thinks 100% in next week and then 100% in the next meeting and then like 60-something percent at the beginning of 26. I mean, those are prizes to keep your eye on in the face of what otherwise feels like. like noise. The private credit thing got a lot of attention, and we talked about it a lot on both of the programs that I do, but you've had a number of people very highly regarded and well-respected people come out and suggest these are more idiosyncratic issues, and they're not something that looks to be systemic. And the market feels like it's right now getting beyond it, barring another headline. What do you think about that? I mean, I understand the, I think the data point that maybe a lot of people who are more optimistic about the private credit issue maybe lean on

is, you know, credit as a percentage of disposable personal income, or if you look at the household sector, even the financial sector, really not being leveraged, nowhere near where it was and the lead up into 07, which is the proxy that a lot of people want to use. So I don't necessarily think it's a repeat of that. And the tough part about private being private is that it's private. So there's an opacity there that we just don't, you know, a lot of us don't have access to. You can look at some of the private equity names in the public markets that have traded pretty poorly lately. But again, to this point of the broader market doing relatively, well, many small caps hanging in there, the cyclicality trade really not getting hurt.

I think that sort of speaks to a lot of the tailwinds that are still behind us at this point. Plus, from a bond market perspective, not even just in the U.S., but if you look globally, this rise in bond yields has really been arrested to some extent over the past month or two. So I think that, save for maybe Japan, there's a little bit more of an issue there, but if you look across the Eurozone, if you look across Asia, especially in the U.S., you know, the bond pressure has really alleviated. And I think even in the U.S., now the correlation between Bonniel's. and stock prices has flipped positive again, and all L-SQL, that means that when the market's

rallying, it's better for growth, and it's a healthier outlook for growth. I'll come back to you all in a minute. I'm looking at my fact set screen and seeing Uber shares make a little bit of a move here. There's some news developing between NVIDIA and Uber. Christina Partsenevolo is coming on right now to tell us exactly what is happening here, Christina. Yeah, Scott, Invidio just announcing they are teaming up with Uber to improve self-driving car technology by essentially training AI models on Uber's massive collection of real-world driving data, so that would mean everything from airport traffic to just bad weather conditions.

Uber has a lot of data. And so Nvidia's using this data to make its own simulation systems more realistic and better at handling rare or tricky driving situations. This partnership would really leverage Nvidia's cloud computing platform to speed up the training process, and according to them, improve overall performance of autonomous vehicle systems. So again, this is a push for NVIDIA into another realm that they've talked about, a lot, auto. And then you can see shares Uber up over 2.5% and VDIA up of 1.5%. Yeah, Christina, thank.

We might as well look at Tesla, too. Thank you very much. We'll come back to you in a bit. I mean, Tesla's coming off of its earnings report. We had come on the air this hour showing you the move that the stock had made. Remember, it was lower, and then it had gone positive. Can we get more of an intraday? Yeah, that's a look I wanted to see.

Thank you. Because obviously, they spent a lot of time highlighting FSD, self-driving. That's where the money is going for them, robotics in that area. So we'll watch that. It's an interesting development with Uber and Invidia. We'll stay on top of all of that. It just brings me to mega-caps. We're talking about Tesla was the first of the mega-caps to report. Invidia is a ways off. But next week is going to be big with tech.

Does it flex its muscle? I think so. I mean, look, we have the second largest stock in the world making new highs here, Apple. Microsoft seems to be getting back in gear. Meta seems to be getting back in gear. The reversal in Tesla today is flat out impressive. So not only do you have some of the big stuff still involved, Russell 2000 is making new highs here too. So it's hard to get all worked up about the breadth argument when small caps and nuclear weight S&P are joining the large cap names at their highs.

I think the Tesla move is interesting. It was only two weeks ago the journal ran an article about the negative message the autos were sending on the economy. me. I have four to 52 week highs, GM at 52 week highs, Tesla 52 week highs, Toyota broke out overnight. I think the autos are sending a message of cyclical recovery here. Well, GM was unbelievable the other day. I mean, you saw a stock like that move in ways that you just don't normally see. Kind of like you saw some of the quantum computing names, too. I'm bringing Christina back in because you had the conflicting reports here that were driving the action in quantum computing stocks. Can you give us a little more information about what's actually happening?

It's been a confusing day because the Trump administration is essentially pouring cold water on a report from the Wall Street Journal about quantum computing deals. Specifically, the Commerce Department is now saying they are, quote, not currently negotiating equity stakes in quantum companies, but stocks like IONQ, D-Wave are still soaring. Look at D-Wave up almost 15%. The key words in that statement are currently an equity, which suggests maybe a different structure like warrants that could let the government buy shares later. I reached out again to the Commerce Department for them to clarify. get back to me in time. Raghetti, though, this morning, told CNBC, quote, if the U.S. does not lead in supporting these breakthroughs, others will, posing risk to our national security.

So if a deal happens, it would follow Intel, essentially. We talked about this just over the last few months. The government converted grants into a 10% stake earlier this year, but Intel has billions of dollars in revenue. These quantum firms have barely any. Washington would essentially be backing tiny startups with, while Google, IBM, Microsoft, Amazon spent billions of dollars on quantum. Google just said its willow chip ran 13,000 times faster

than a supercomputer. So this is really a global race. The U.S. sees quantum as critical to staying ahead, especially staying ahead of China, Scott. Yeah, also trying to figure out, Christina, when all this is going to really be meaningful. Remember, there was all the speculation, and Jensen Wong comes out and says,

well, it's a ways off, and all the stocks tanked, and now they've been building up, building up because then he came out and said, all right, maybe it's not as far off as I said. Yeah, because of the negative reaction and all the share prices, and then he hosted a panel of these quantum leaders. So I think that's the discrepancy right now, is that this technology is not commercially viable just yet. They are making incredible breakthroughs. There's no doubt. But can we actually see companies use this anytime soon or, you know, mass distribution? Most likely not within the next few years. That seems to be the case even longer

from other research reports. All right, good stuff. Christina, thanks. Christina Portsenervalus. Now let's bring in halftime committee member, Amy Raskin, whose eye on Q trade has been a very, very big winner. It's good to have you on. Definitely wanted to talk to you in light of this news. So what's the latest with the position that you have in that name, and how are you thinking about the group in light of this news today? Sure. So we added this name to portfolios about a year ago at $13 a share.

We've trimmed it three times with the most recent. trim a couple weeks ago at about $66 a share. We're keeping this in portfolios. It is a small position. We will keep it small just because of volatility, and it's a very binary outcome. Either it's going to work really well or it's not. So we still like the space.

I do think it is a key critical technology that the U.S. does need to dominate. I don't really have a view about whether the government needs to take a stake or not. take a stake or not. I feel like there's enough private investors to push this forward. But it is clearly a critical technology that we need to master from both a networking, security, and computing perspective. What do you think about the price action in the names today? You know, the journal comes out with its report, which is not exactly fully refuted by any stretch, but the immediacy

of a development seemed to be pushed down just a bit, yet the stocks are holding on against. The stocks are rolling on to gains, but they were, you know, over five days, they're still weak. I mean, not that long ago. It was an $80 stock, and now we're in the 60s. These are very volatile names, so that's why it's important to trim when positions get too big, and you could add if they get too low. You know, look, there's a lot of people playing these names and trading them and trading them on rumors. It doesn't mean that the technology is not real, though, in my opinion.

So we still like the name. They're gaining a lot of quantum talent from lots of different places in the industry. Obviously, the big guys are in this space and working on their own quantum solutions as well. So I think it's something to watch at a $20 billion market company at this point. You know, it's not that small, and it is highly volatile. So I do think there is a lot of good news sort of baked in. But it is a key area that we need to – we need to – we need to – to develop because I think the speaker before is right if we don't do it, somebody else will.

Okay. Amy, thank you so much for calling in as we watch this story continue to develop, which brings me back, Abby, to the whole AI and quantum, if you lump it all together and then ask the question, is there a bubble in this space? I'm sure you're, you know, you've been thinking about it, you've been asked about it. What do you think about it? I mean, I think it's been like just really underestimated over the past couple of years, like what these companies are willing to spend and where they're willing to go in terms of developing this technology. And I think she said it perfectly in the sense that this is a critical technology. There's money behind it that's not only public, it's private, it's also the government.

Like it's really coming from and firing from all cylinders. And, you know, I think there's maybe some nervousness, as there always is in earnings, going into the big week next week, around whether or not they raise those numbers. And to us, it just seems like it's a very clear yes in terms of the build. It's more about, like, what happens with the supply chain bottlenecks that relates to the energy side of things. So as long, Keva, as the CAPEX numbers remain robust, the stocks do as well? I mean, it's not the only factor. And keep in mind that, you know, for the tech sector in particular, when we've gone through some more significant drops for tech over the past couple of years, you know, I think about last summer, I think about earlier this year,

some of those have been driven buying the catalyst was, you know, the upping, actually, of an estimate for CAPEX. when they were projecting a little bit more of a spend, the market pulled back a little bit. Presumably, earlier this year, everything Deep Seek related because there was a worry about the return on that capital and whether it was going to be realized. But, you know, a lot more money now going behind all of this from the public, the private, and the government space.

I think that that does provide, you know, more of a foundation, but, you know, you should take a balanced look at any of this. On the one hand, yes, it looks more. I think, you know, it looks stronger because a lot of it's been from equity, not necessarily debt. Some of that is transitioning now into debt. But on the other hand, you do have larger companies where their earnings profiles are just stronger now relative to the late 1990s, which I know that's the proxy that gets thrown around a lot for, you know, the AI stuff today. But there can also be bubble activity in earnings.

It's not just in price. So I think we should keep that in mind, too, just because there are a really significant chunk, the Mag 7, you know, of overall S&P earnings, doesn't mean that there's no risk there either. Okay, we'll leave it there. Guys, thanks so much. We've had some good conversation and good news around that as well. We'll talk to everybody soon. I just want to give you one more check of Uber, which was moving on that development. We just discussed a few moments ago.

It was just off the highs of the day on news that Invidia and Uber are going to collaborate on autonomous vehicle technology and development. So we'll watch that story develop with about 40 minutes to go here. We're just getting started up next. Rigged poker games, sports betting, mob families, and star athletes, the alleged scheme that's rocking the sports world today. Our Contessa Brewer is following that for us. We'll have an update. We're live at the New York Stock Exchange. You're watching closing bell on CNBC.

Welcome back. We're following the latest developments on the alleged betting scandal that's rocking the NBA and the broader sports world today. Contessa Brewer has the deal. details for us. Hi, Contessa. Hi there, Scott. Yeah, Trailblazers coach Chauncey Billups heads to federal court in Oregon this afternoon in just a couple hours. He's indicted on charges relating to a mob-run poker scheme to defraud some of the players at the table. We just got a statement here from the team that Billups has been placed on immediate leave and that the team

is cooperating with authorities. Miami Heat player Terry Rosier is also charged. He's in court in Orlando, where he played against the magic last night. And Damon Jones, former player and assistant coach for the Cavaliers facing charges as well. In total, we're talking some 34 people indicted on a slew of extortion, conspiracy, wire, and bank fraud charges. Rose here and Jones are also charged with six people in a separate indictment on sports gambling. They're accused of throwing games or benefiting from insider information. This is part of the same conspiracy that brought down Raptors player, Jonte Porter, in 2024. And he is, awaiting sentencing still. The U.S. attorney said today, the sports books were victims,

not perpetrators. Draft Kings and Fandul have both reached out today, as has the American Gaming Association. They want to be clear that they are committed to reporting suspicious activity and protecting the integrity of the game. The NBA said the same. The Players Association says, look, it's really hard when the popularity of our players is being used to make a point, and we are committed to due process. Not so much related to this, though, on ancillary sort of way. Can you speak because you cover this so closely, especially the digital sports books, the growth of parlays in this business and how they proliferated. You can't watch any programming related to sports gambling and not see that mention where you're betting on a certain player to score.

a certain amount of points or get a touchdown or get the first interception of the game, et cetera, all of these things that have come about to draw more people and draw more interest into the activity itself. I think it's a great point. First of all, the parley is where you stack your bets. You have to get like, you know, you're going to win the game. Also your favorite player is going to hit a home run. It's a stacked bet. They are very profitable for the sports books. Why? Because people lose. They don't win as often at parlays as they do. straight bets. However, players love it, the gamblers, because the payoffs are so bigger when you do hit it. So if you bet a dollar or two, you get a much bigger jackpot than you do

if it's a straight, say, money-line bet. The second thing to point out here is Fandle really had innovated with these parlays. It was ahead of the game. It was bringing it from overseas and trying it out here. And then its competitors followed suit. Well, they had argued, we're not really worried about competitors from prediction markets because they can't do parlays. Well, guess what Kalshi did? Kalshi is now offering a, you know, a combo bet where you're matching your trades into a combination that looks an awful lot like parlays. But it's very popular. What you're talking about, too, these player props, there has been some criticism about, especially the unders. If you're, if you're counting on players to fail, it's easy to cheat.

But, you know, so far, state regulators have not cracked down on that, at least. not at the professional level. College sports, different story. Yeah. It just shows you just how the whole business has grown. We're growing up. You're betting on, you know, this team is going to win, that team's going to lose. Now the options that are available to players, to gamblers are so many. It has just increased the stakes on everything. Yeah, and there's a lot of stakes writing on this for the earnings of these companies that are still in growth mode, still in expansion mode, what they don't want. is negative headlines over illegal gambling to prompt regulators to crack down or to keep, say,

California and Texas from expansion. Yeah, you've done a great job covering the story today, Contessa. Thanks so much. We'll look for more headlines from you throughout the rest of the afternoon. Still ahead, your earnings rundown. All the key themes you need to watch when Intel Ford and Decker's report in overtime. We're back on the bell after this break. All right, coming up next, notable capitals. Jeff Richards is back. We'll get his playbook for the tech sector this earning season. Bell's coming right back.

All right. Welcome back. Mega-cap tech earnings taking center stage next week. For more on what to expect, we welcome in Jeff Richards. notable capital managing partner. It's good to see you again. We're thinking about big numbers, CAPEX. Is that what this is going to be all about next week? I would certainly think so, Scott. I mean, obviously the AI trade has been the topic over the last 12, 24 months, and you don't need me to come on and fan the flames of that. But I will tell you, in Silicon Valley, there's just a ton of excitement around all the innovation that's happening.

And obviously, the CAPX has been laying the ground layer for what we're now seeing happen in cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure and the application layer. over the next 12 to 24 months. So it's a great time to be here in Silicon Valley. I mean, do you think as long as the CAPEX numbers remain intact that the story just continues and the stocks continue to go up? The minute that there's any hesitation to spend, the street gets a little suspicious with why? Well, the biggest thing I think that's, you know, a lot of folks ask how different is this from the dot-com bubble 20 years ago? And all of this CAPX spending is being funded by free cash flow from these big places.

like META, Amazon, Google, et cetera. I think it's a little different from the last time around, if you will. The other thing that we're seeing now is these folks partnering with some of the private equity and large capital partners. You saw the META, Blue Owl announcement earlier this week. I think we'll see more of that. And we don't see any lack of demand. I mean, the thing you always have to ask yourself is, is there demand for all of this

infrastructure that's being built? And the end-user demand that we're seeing among Fortune 500 companies around the world, as well as consumers, let's not forget, chat GPT, just crossed 800, million users. Ten percent of the world's population is using chat GPT. So I think it's hard to argue we don't see end demand. And as long as the end demand is there, it'll fuel the spending that funds all this CAPX. What do you think the impact is of the fact that the companies that are leading this whole thing besides the hypers, obviously, are private? Their valuations continue to grow like wildfire, you know, open AI, anthropic, and you can go on and on and on. And you can go on and on.

But because they're private, there's the opacity that exists in that scenario. So we just can't fully get our arms around exactly where this is going to end up. Yeah, I think it's one of the big challenges in the markets today, Scott, is, you know, I put this on Twitter yesterday, or X. One of the things that's very hard for public market investors to get their head around right now is the metrics around these private companies. So you've got, you mentioned open Aanthropic, you've got amazing companies that are private today like Versal and REPLID and all the players in the application layer, cybersecurity layer, they don't have any visibility into what's happening in that space. And it's not just the public numbers, it's also the analysts. The analysts that cover these companies, cover the public companies, don't have a lot to work with right now.

Because let's face it, the traditional software players like SAP, Salesforce, Adobe are not the folks that are leading the charge in a lot of the innovation here. And so one of the things we'd love to see is more of these companies go public. And hopefully we'll see that in 26 and 27. We had a healthy public market to start the year, obviously, a bit of it on hold right now with the government shutdown. But M&A is at a record high. We've got the largest year for M&A, really, in history, other than 2021. So a very healthy capital market, and that's going to return liquidity to LPs in our industry as well, the private equity in venture capital industry who've been looking for liquidity for a few years now.

Do you think parts of the AI trade are in a bubble, and if so, which ones? Well, there's a lot of speculation around quantum. That's one area that's been, I would say, sort of relatively unproven. And there were some announcements this week that the government may get involved in that sector. But one thing I'd point to in the software and application layer is if you look at in the public market today, there's only one company in the software space that's growing north of 30% a year. And Pallantir. And Pallantir trades at 70 times forward revenue. So when we talk about private company valuations and companies trading at 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 times forward revenue, they're often growing at 50 or 100 percent a year.

So one of the things we often marvel at is some of these companies that are private might actually be more highly valued if they were public. And as I mentioned earlier, I hope some of them will go public. But the public market is star for growth. Let's get some of these companies to go public so we can have those companies are growing 50, 60, 70 percent, and give public markets and analysts something to work with and data that they can see. so they can see the underlying value what's happening with this AI trade. Let me lastly ask you as a VC and a leading one. Somebody made the point, and I just can't remember which notable person in the investing world did it in the last few weeks, that, you know, in periods of incredible excitement like we're in,

and maybe it was Jeff Bezos when he was speaking over in Italy. It's hard to determine great ideas from bad ones, and you won't know it for a while. Are you facing this similar challenge yourself and your own business? 100%. It's part of the venture capital business. As you know, our business is a very long-term business. So we're investing in companies today that, you know, most people won't hear about for three, five, or even seven or ten years. And so uncertainty is a big part of what we deal with.

And when people look at the hundreds of billions of dollars that are going into venture capital, they say, oh, my gosh, a lot of that is going to go into companies that may not prove to be winners. And, you know, we certainly saw that in the 90s. Amazon and Netflix, but you also had Pets.com and lots of other companies that didn't work. I think we will have a number of notable companies in this industry that will become extremely valuable. You're already seeing that with Open AI valued over a half a trillion. Anthropic valued at over $100 billion. But we're also seeing growth rates. I mean, Anthropic is publicly disclosed. They started the year at around a billion of annual run rate revenue. The summer, they were at $5 billion. We've never seen enterprise software

companies grow at that kind of rate. So we'll see. I think it's going to be an exciting next 12 to 24 months. But to your point and to Jeff Bezos comment, will there be failures? 100%. It's part of our business. We understand that. Many of the companies we fund will not end up being successful. But the winners are going to be pretty impactful. You know, the next meta, the next Google, the next Amazon, those companies have been funded in the last three to four years. It's going to be a lot fun to see how it plays out. Jeff, we'll see you soon. Jeff Richards joining us. Thanks, God. Once again here on closing bell. Coming up next, we track the biggest movers. As we head into the close, Sima Modi, standing by with that.

Tell us what you see. 16 minutes left. Scott, investor confidence is building ahead of Honeywell spin-off next week. We've got the full details straight ahead. All right, well, less than 15 from the closing bell. Let's get back now to Sima Modi for a look at the stocks that are moving. Tell us what you see. Okay, let's start, Scott, with Molina Healthcare Tumbling about 18% after the managed care firm

slashed its annual earnings guidance because of higher costs across government-backed plans. Molina also posted mixed Q3 earnings with profits coming in notably below estimates. But revenue beating shares on pays, though, for their worst days since July. Industrial giant Honeywell posting a Q3 profit and revenue beat fueled by aerospace in the aftermarket business. CEO of Imal Kapoor noting increase with win rates and backlog and downplayed the effect of tariffs ahead of next week's big spinoff and the stock is up 7%. Southwest Airlines, though, sinking after cutting its forecast, citing in part the ongoing government shutdown. down, but the airline did post record third quarter profits. Shares up about 3% so far this year. Scott.

Okay. Thanks so much. Seema Modi. Up next, we run you through what to watch for when Intel and Ford report in OT. You know why the market zone is next. We're now on the closing bell market zone. CNBC senior markets commentator Mike Santoli here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus, Phil LeBoe with what to watch for from Ford results. They're coming in OT. Christina Parts in Nevelos with a breakdown of Intel,

star chip analyst Stacey Raskon standing by with what he expects from those numbers. Michael would begin with you. I mean, we'll take anything that seems pot is positive on trade with China and this meeting that we know is now going to happen. Yes, and so the market definitely trying to seize on that. In general, it's very hard to argue with just the big picture arrangement of apparent bullish tailwinds. Obviously, seasonals, I mean, just the aggregate earnings, are moving in the right direction.

They're very supportive, even if individually, you're seeing some of the stingy responses to good reports. That said, yesterday was an extremely high volume, very messy rotational day. In fact, one of the 15 highest volume days in recent years. Today's a very light volume, levitation of market, kind of allowing the indexes to lift into the CPI tomorrow, just not getting in the way.

We got big tech earnings next week. I'm not trying to dismiss it as insignificant, but I don't think that it's a matter of conviction that we've reset this market and we're reloading for the big rally. It's much more about let's not get too negative as we try to sweep away some of the potential complicating catalysts. All right. Come back in a little bit. Phil, tell me more about Ford. Well, the question is whether we see results at Ford that we saw last week from General Motors when GM reported stronger than expected earnings. So that's going to be the question. Ice Division profits. Ford, GM, they're all doing better in terms of mitigating the

impact of tariffs. So will we see strong numbers when it comes to the internal combustion engine vehicles and the F-150 in particular? Speaking of which, the F-150 gets aluminum from the Novellis plant in upstate New York. We heard about the fire. Will we see some type of a charge? What's the impact from that fire? And it ultimately brings up the question, will they raise their full-year guidance, much as we saw from General Motors? Their Q3 sales, as you take a look at chairs of Ford, up 8.2 percent. And the number to look for, Scott, 36 cents a share. That is what the street is expecting from Ford when we get the numbers in just a little bit. All right, Phil, we'll look forward to that, and we'll look forward to hearing from you. That's Phil LeBow. Christina, Intel coming up

as well. Yeah, this quarter isn't really about the numbers. It's about whether political backing can really keep this rally alive for Intel. Shares are up at 88% this year. But that surge has almost nothing to do with Intel's actual business. The U.S. government took a 10% stake. InVIDIA, co-developing deal. Softbank poured in billions. And as our Bernstein, Stacey Rasgon put it, the real bull case right now is Trump wants the stock to go up. I really love that quote, so I had to bring it in. But Intel actually brought in roughly $16 billion in cash. But it doesn't necessarily fix the fundamental problems. The company is still bleeding market share to AMD. It has maybe no, we're going to say, a lack of a clear strategy for AI. And analysts expect the foundry

business to stay unprofitable through 2027. So Wall Street, does expect better than feared results. PC sales are growing, AI workloads are driving server demand, but this stock isn't moving on quarterly beats. It's moving on government support and optimism that Intel can really turn this around. All right, Christina, thank you. Now to the man behind that quote, Stacey Raskon himself.

That's the whole story, that the government's got the stake. You think Trump wants it to go up, so that's the bullish case in and of itself? I mean, he literally tweeted out a picture of himself watching the stock price going up. So I don't know if that's the whole bull case, but it's clearly a big piece of the bull case. Because you have to remember, like the company itself, like from a fundamental basis, is still quite challenged. The cash that came in helps. It helps a lot, you know, and preserves their balance and everything else.

But it doesn't change the fact that the product business is still sort of even on the ropes. Again, they are bleeding shared AMD. They don't really have much of an AI strategy. The foundry strategy, the whole manufacturing strategy, is still very, very tenuous. And then even if you're just looking at the numbers, you know, this was a crazy quarter for them. All kinds of stuff were going on. You know, they got cash in. Lots of shares went out, though.

They actually sold Altera, so that's going to come out of the numbers next quarter. I'm not sure the street is quite modeling that properly. And then while PCs look actually pretty decent right now, I suspect that's Windows End of Life pull forward. And I wonder if it actually makes the comparison, the dynamics for PCs next year a little more. challenging. So, like all and all, fundamentally, I think it's still tough, but, you know, you do have that government backstop. It certainly doesn't hurt them. Lastly, if the government didn't come in, Stacey, what would have happened here? I think things would be very challenged. It was, you know, it was well into the 20s before all of that. I think it would

probably still be there. All right, we'll see what happens. We'll talk to you on the backside of that. I'm sure Stacey Raskine, thanks so much for joining us. Michael, I'll turn back to you. I don't know if that tremendous amount of volume yesterday was to do around the momentum. It was largely, yeah. And how far we are along in that progression, and then what you think that might mean for where the markets go. It was definitely the momentum kind of unwined and the rotation into some more defensive stuff, of course, also into the kind of immediate boom-bust moves in some of the meme stocks

where they traded phenomenal turnover. Yeah, I don't know if necessarily you can put a pin in it and say, that was it. that's all we have to do, because if the market stabilizes itself, nobody's going to get the feedback signals that say, okay, we're a little bit too overexposed to some of these momentum leaders. And you see things like Nvidia able to pick itself up. You know, it just was kind of chopping around going sideways below the highs for a while. And you get in a report like this Uber thing. And it's like, well, aren't they selling to everybody? Aren't they working with everybody who wants to use some kind of AI capabilities? Not to mention that the news isn't even new, really.

Right. And I think that's more of a test of investors' willingness to just kind of seize on these little signals. So, you know, I don't want to fight it. I don't think anybody should think that they want to fight it. One piece of it that's really fascinating is going into CPI tomorrow, it doesn't feel like the market is tense ahead of it. You would look to the bond market to suggest whether there was the makings of any kind of adverse surprise. But the tens just barely above four. They've been kind of dozing around that level for a while. right now. So maybe we've just completely gotten past the idea that inflation is going to be a complicating factor in this bulk case because the Fed has told you it's not really going to drive its actions from here on out. So that's an interesting piece of it. Even with oil going up

5% today, you're not seeing the long end wake up too much. So look, we'll see. I think it'll be a good test. I think there's a decent chance too. The market just says, okay, we got past that. Let's bring the VIX, you know, from 17 down to 15 because we don't. don't really see something coming ahead of next week's Fed meeting is probably just a presumed outcome. Yeah, you got past at least initially the credit and loan concerns. The market was able to pick itself back up after that. The market was able to pick itself back up after that China headline of a couple of Fridays. There's no doubt about it. I do think that what it would take would be for an accumulation of corporate commentary in the results that cast doubt on the

underlying GDP pace. We know jobs are weak. Nobody worries about missing the jobs report because you already assume jobs are soft. But everyone's sort of suggesting that this divergence between weak job growth and somehow a 3% GDP is both real and can be sustained. So far, nothing's really disputing that. If companies come out and maybe say, look, it was much choppier than we thought. The B of A credit card data that today was not very strong in the latest week. Whether that matters or not, I don't know. But unless and until that happens and something comes along to really complicate the AI investment thesis, I guess we're okay here. Yeah. Well, you'll have to wait for the mega caps next week to see how that question

is answered. And whether the Netflix experience pretty good numbers with some hair on them cause of 10% sell-off is something that you can extrapolate or whether it was a one-off from there. We know the beat rates are already strong across the board. We've made a pretty decent move as the day has progressed here. Some of the stocks that were down on earnings have either gone positive or at least work their way off of their worst levels. And that brings us green across the board,

not only for the three majors, but the Russell 2000 is the winner today of 1.5% as we bring it out. I'll see you tomorrow.