Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Stocks rally into the close as tech takes off, NYSE Chair on market volatility, and a $200 oil price warning 3/24/22

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Stocks rebounding on wall street as the major averages close near session highs. Tech the best performing sector led higher by a surge in semiconductor stocks. Cowen’s Matt Ramsay reveals his top chip picks. NYSE Chair Sharon Bowen discusses market volatility and her plans to bring more IPOs to the exchange. And Bank of America Head of Global Commodity Research Francisco Blanch warning oil could hit $200 if there is a major disruption to oil production.

thoughts are near session highs with the nasdaq leading the pack the most important hour of trading starts now welcome to closing bell everyone i'm sarah eisen here's where we stand in the market a one percent gain at least for the s&p for the nasdaq which as i said leading up 1.3 percent the dow is up a healthy three quarters of a percent 242 points and small caps also rebound the only sector lower right now in the S&P is energy. Technology is the best performing sector. Materials, communication services, health care, oils weaker. Bitcoin's at a three week high and treasuries are slumping again, sending yields higher. Here are my top takeaways on today's biggest stories. Is the economy really slowing

down? It is the topic du jour on Wall Street. The widely followed Atlanta GDP tracker out today says expect only 0.9 percent growth in the first quarter. And that is a markdown from a week ago. We knew Omicron hit us in Q1, but it does make it harder to stage a full-fledged rebound for the rest of the year, especially with Fed hikes and high food and gas prices. A soft landing by the Fed is going to be tricky. The dramatic up and down moves in the market continue for stocks. So what comes next? Jim Cramer spotlighting some interesting technical analysis showing the S&P has successfully retraced 50% of its big decline. In the last 21 times that's happened since the Great Depression, it's meant the decline is over every single time.

Do you believe in chart history? And the metric to watch this earnings season? Margins. That will show how companies are being squeezed on higher costs from commodities to labor and who can pass it on to consumers like Nike. Barenberg today cut forecast on consumer giants Kimberly-Clark, Danone and Unilever says they are vulnerable to inflation hits and shrinking margins. Let's get straight to our top story. Stocks rallying while allies meet in Europe. President Biden speaking this afternoon in Brussels and the White House earlier announcing a new round of sanctions on Russian elites and corporations. Joining us now, CNBC senior White House correspondent Kayla Tausche live in Brussels with the president.

CNBC senior markets commentator Mike Santoli and Bank of America head of global commodity research Francisco Blanche on the oil story. First, Kayla, we heard from President Biden he wants to boot Russia from G20, wants to convey a sense of unity among NATO members. What did they accomplish at this meeting? Well, the U.S. this morning announced a series of new sanctions that essentially just put it in alignment with what Europe and the UK had already done. That is slapping sanctions on all 300 plus members of Russia's lawmaking body, the Duma, sanctioning several state-owned defense companies in Russia, and also the G7 taking a coordinated

action to keep Russia from being able to evade sanctions by having its central bank pay for transactions in gold. That will now be banned. A senior administration official estimated that Russia had more than $100 billion of its central bank reserves stored in gold. So that cuts off a very large source of potential funding for President Putin as this war becomes even more protracted. Just how protracted, Sarah? Well, at the press conference this afternoon, President Biden was asked about the fact that sanctions so far have not deterred Putin. And Biden said that the alliance is not willing to

change course in a few weeks, in a few months. He said that it will be important to sustain this level of sanctions for the better part of this year, if not the entire year, to make sure that they get the actions from Putin that they want. And that is a withdrawal from Ukraine and sovereignty there restored. Sarah. Yeah. And Francisco, the other message to come out of Brussels has been a threat to Putin or at least, you know, strengthening the NATO alliance in case Putin uses biological, chemical or nuclear warfare? That is not a zero percent probability. How would the market react to any escalation like that? Well, look, I think the oil market obviously would be very concerned upon that kind of

escalation because the threat of sanctions on energy could potentially materialize if the conflict were to escalate. So I think the direct consequence would be potentially some sanctions on energy, which, as you know, Europe has been avoiding so far because of the risks to the European economy and European consumers. So what's priced into oil at this point? We're down three and a quarter percent, but1.10 on the price of WTI. How long is the market expecting these Russian barrels to be offline? And what does it expect as far as potential further sanctions? Well, I think the market is pricing in a scenario,

which is our baseline scenario, what we call the bad scenario. We'll probably lose about a million barrels a day of Russian supplies throughout this year. And also, we're looking at potentially some relocation of Russian barrels away from Europe and the U.S. into India and China. That's what's been priced in. But I don't think the market is pricing in a major disruption beyond a million barrels a day. There are scenarios, which is our ugly scenario, that if supplies were to drop by 4 million barrels a day from Russia, remember Russia exports about 8 million barrels a day in a 100 million barrel a day market, we could see prices potentially rising by $6 to $75 a barrel on top of the current levels, scratching $200 a barrel.

Again, that would be a scenario where Europe would be actively trying to block Russian barrels into their economy. A difficult one to see, but one that could happen under an escalation of the war in the Ukraine. $200 per barrel, Mike. I mean, the possibilities here, and we're up another 1% on the S&P. Is the market underestimating how long this could last and how much worse it could get? Because we've now wiped away most of the losses on the S&P since the war began. We're well up from when the actual invasion took place. I don't know that the market's underestimating. I do know the market is not going to over anticipate the move to two hundred dollars a barrel unless the oil market actually shows a sign of getting there soon. So I would look at today as a day when of all the things

the market is concerned with, it asks, are there fresh additional reasons to be worried today? Either on the situation in Ukraine, it seems like it's a very short-term equilibrium on oil. It's pretty steady today. Yields aren't doing very much. Fed speak. We've already absorbed the message. So I just feel as if what we're left with is investors having felt a little bit offsides, a little bit underinvested with this huge surge that took place over six days. And so they go back and buy the leaders of 2021, which is the big tech stocks. It's pretty much happening independent of the geopolitical story, at least for today. I would also note that energy stocks are pretty much flat despite a 3 percent loss for oil. So holding up better than the commodity.

Kayla, Mike, Francisco, thank you all for joining me. After the break, we'll talk to NYSE Chair Sharon Bowen about her path to the top of the exchange and her outlook for the large the lagging IPO market this year. That's up about 248 points. You're watching Closing Bell on Wall Street. S&P is up 1% as we head into the close. Every sector higher except for energy, which is sort of flattish. The Nasdaq in the lead once again up 1.5%. Joining us here at Post 9, the New York Stock Exchange, is the chair of the New York Stock Exchange, Sharon Bowen.

She was a CFTC commissioner, spent three decades practicing business law and is newly instated chairwoman. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. You should say welcome. Yes, welcome. Yes. Welcome to my house. You joined here as chair at a pretty volatile time in December. This war has broken out. There's been a ton of volatility. What has that been like witnessing the markets now from this front row? So the good news is this market is, this exchange is built for volatility. And so I've been impressed with the resiliency of the market. You know, you're right. We had most volatile days during the pandemic. Now with the with the crisis in Ukraine. And so the good news is our markets are doing what

they're supposed to do. We're not having any IPOs, though. It's been a really long stretch and it's been very quiet. How do you bring companies back? What is the big fear? Well, you know, 2019 and 2020 were pretty slow first quarters as well. And both of those years were record years for us. You know, uncertain times means that companies will pause a bit before they come to market. But the pipeline is really robust. And so I think it's just more of a question of timing. Not just the war, but also uncertainty around interest rates, inflation. That kind of volatility makes people pause for a moment. I wonder if also the underperformance of the

newly listed companies last year, we had so many go public and they haven't done all that well. If that has held back the pipeline, Is that what you're hearing? I have not heard that. But you're right. There has been some sell-off, particularly with some of the tech stocks. So I think today some of them are rebounding. And so I think the market sentiment really has a big effect on whether the market is up or down. You are the first person of color, woman of color, to lead the New York Stock Exchange, chair the New York Stock Exchange. I know it's something that you talk about and you promote diversity. How are you going to, in this role, promote that within public companies?

Well, the good news is I get to combine my passion with financial markets, with my passion with diversity, inclusion, and ESG. So one of the things I plan to do is to use my platform to help our listed companies along their ESG journeys. So not everyone is, you know, at the same pathway. The other way we're helping is, you know, we founded the New York Stock Exchange Advisory Board Council. And the purpose of that was to increase the number of women and diverse candidates who are board ready. And so we found that was the best solution for companies, particularly listed companies who are looking for diversity on their boards.

What about what the NASDAQ is doing, which is instituting a law now that the SEC is backing where companies have to disclose gender and diversity of its board members and explain why if they don't have that. Would the Stock Exchange, would the New York Stock Exchange go so far as to make a rule like that as well? Well, you know, today 95% of our companies already have at least two women on their boards and 88% have more than 20% women on their boards. And so we found that our solutions-driven approach was a more appropriate way to address diversity, although I do applaud any type of activities that's going to promote diversity in the financial markets.

And on that note, too, you said you're focused on ESG. I was wondering what you were thinking of the SEC's new proposed rule that we got this week that would require companies to disclose carbon emissions of their operations. Is that a step too far to require that disclosure, or do you support it? Well, we obviously are taking a look at the proposal, and we have a good relationship with the SEC. And I personally look forward to working with the commission and with our issuers and market participants. There will be a two-month comment period, at least two months. And that's what's great about our markets,

is we get the opportunity to hear from different people and different viewpoints. And I'm pretty sure we'll hear from different people on this subject as well. But do you worry that a rules-based approach like this could dissuade companies from going public and increase their costs? You know, I think we have to see how this process works out. I mean, again, I think that's the whole purpose of having a public and comment period is to weigh the pros and cons. And, you know, as a former regulator, I always welcome collaboration and getting insights from those who would be affected. And so I am really excited about the process, that it will work.

And I'm sure we'll get all kinds of input from the investing public as well. The other thing I wanted to ask you is, I noticed the Russian stock market, the exchange opened today, sort of, for the first time in weeks and actually went up. But they have bans on short selling and all sorts of limits for selling. How does an exchange like that get back to any sort of normal? Is it possible? You know, that's a really hard question really to kind of answer in that sense. I mean, I know here we did halt the three Russian listed stocks,

and we have a regulatory oversight ability to kind of look at the markets, but it's kind of hard to gauge what that really means. Is there a threshold that you could bring back the Russian-listed stocks here at the exchange? Well, we just halted the trading. And again, market regulation, which is independent, will take a look at the facts and circumstances at the time to make that decision. Understood. Sharon, thank you. It was good to talk to you.

Thank you so much for having me. Chair of the New York Stock Exchange. Give you a check of the markets here. We are moving higher. 271 on the Dow near session highs right now. S&P, a nice 1.1%. Again, technology is in the lead. It's up more than 2%.

Materials also going strong. So you've got a mix of tech, cyclical sectors. The banks are doing a little bit better today, up half a percent. Yields are rising again today. NASDAQ up one and a half percent. BlackRock's Larry Fink warning the war in Ukraine is ushering in the end of globalization. But that call might be a little late. Mike Santoli with a chart to explain why next. And check out some of today's top search tickers on CNBC.com. Ten-year yield back on top where it usually is. Prices go down, yields go up. NVIDIA rising again on the back of its

investor day. Look at that, a 9.3% rise. Tesla holds its gains from earlier in the week up another 1% or so. The Moscow exchange, as I mentioned, finishing higher today. Although a lot of people think that's a charade. And Nicola announcing production up three and a half percent. We'll be right back. Building on the gains of 306 on the Dow, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink saying today the Russia-Ukraine war has put an end to globalization in a letter to shareholders. Mike Santoli taking a closer look at why that call, Mike, might be a little late. Well, it seems like deglobalization has been a theme for a little bit, a little while. And this proxy for globalization, which is the amount of global trade relative to global GDP, it peaked before the global financial crisis right here. Oh, seven. Oh, wait. Then, of course, you had the Trump trade war and you had covid.

So all of these things, I think, built upon this idea that we might have seen the peak in this, you know, outsourcing, arbitraging, low labor costs around the world, looking to import things as opposed to making them domestically. So it's fair to argue that the Ukraine war and the commodity disruptions and all the supply chain stuff is accelerating that process and maybe is a more definitive end. But I don't think necessarily the markets are caught blindsided by this idea. Well, no, it's just highlighted first COVID, now this, how dependent we are on places like Russia and Ukraine and China for supply chain. I guess my question is, what are the implications for global growth? Right. If we are because globalization was considered a boon for growth. Right. It was a boon for growth. It was a force for disinflation around the world and arguably productivity or at least efficiency in corporate operations. So right now it's more about, you know, secure your own

supplies, do things domestically, maybe pay wages, pay higher wages and essentially have redundancy in the system as opposed to relying on faraway suppliers to to meet your needs. Take time. Yeah. Like some like building semiconductor plants here. Up next, Mike, thanks. Bernstein's Tony Sakonagi weighs in on a report that Apple is developing an iPhone hardware subscription service. How that could impact the stock. When Closing Bell comes back, Session Highs on the markets. Apple said to be considering a subscription service for its iPhones and other hardware products. That's according to a new report. This would be a further push into automatically recurring sales for the company. Joining us now is Tony Saganagi, Bernstein Senior Analyst,

covers Apple. Tony, vintage 2016. Tony Saganagi note writes about Apple doing, I think, hardware subscriptions, a la Netflix and Spotify. Here it is. We dug it up. Apple as a service. So they're finally listening to you, maybe, according to a report. What would it mean for this company? Well, thanks for having me on, Sarah. Look, you know, back in 2016, Apple was trading at 11 times earnings. And the knock on it was that it was a hardware company and it was cyclical. If you had a good iPhone cycle, things would be good.

If you had a bad iPhone cycle, things wouldn't be good. And to the company's credit, they built up a number of subscription and recurring services and products over the ensuing, you know, five or six years since then. And now the stock's trading at 26 times earnings. So good on them. The issue is, can they take this further? And Apple is still, there's still investors who worry that there is hardware cyclicality to this company. 2019, 2020 were not great iPhone cycles. Last year, the iPhone 12 was great. So far this year, the iPhone 13 is pretty good. But clearly there's a worry always that we could have a poor cycle and Apple's earnings could suffer. So if Apple were able to convince more people to have a subscription and basically say, you get an iPhone, we give you a new one every two years, you pay a fixed amount.

Maybe we throw in additional things like free Apple TV Plus or a discount on iCloud. I think that could go a long way to smoothing out the financial profile of the company. And that's something that investors love, more predictability and more consistency in terms of revenues and profits. So it would cause you to rethink your rating on the stock? I think you're at a market perform. Where are you? Around 170, where we are right now? Correct.

So, look, we've talked in the past about how we would view a widespread and successful services offering as being something that could meaningfully boost the multiple of Apple. And so we would certainly view that positively. You know, the key questions, of course, are how broad can this offering be? I think when we thought about it in the past, the question is, could Apple put together a really attractive bundle of a number of different things for a whole household? You know, households are used to paying $100 to $200 for cable service per month or paying $200, $100 to $200 for internet access per month. You know, could Apple put together a bundle where maybe there's a Mac and there's an iPad and there's an iPhone and there's iCloud

and there's Apple TV Plus and there's Apple Music. And I think the more that Apple could put into that bundle, much like Amazon Prime does in terms of not only providing two-day free shipping, but obviously having access to video and music, I think the more extensive and more compelling that bundle could be, the more attractive it would be. So the devil's in the detail. We'll see ultimately what Apple does. But if they are able to successfully engage more people in a subscription type model, that's very good for the stock. That's very good for the multiple potentially. We've seen that in so many other stocks that as soon as they go to a subscription model and

recurring revenue, it changes the whole multiple. Tony, are you surprised to see how resilient Apple stock has been? It's up now, I think, eight days in a row. It's at a five-week high. It's outperformed pretty much all of FANG and the NASDAQ lately, given some of the concerns around supply chain with Shenzhen and a COVID lockdown and demand from China and everywhere else globally right now with inflation? Right. Great question, Sarah. Look, I think those are all considerations. But at the same time, more data is emerging that Apple is having a pretty good iPhone cycle, that supply chain, while still a factor, is less of a factor than it has been over the last two quarters. And in times of uncertainty, people move towards stocks where

they have good visibility and when they have attractive cash flow. And Apple fits that bill to a tee. So it is an attractive, you know, in many investors' eyes, an attractive stock at this current time. I think the big question ultimately is Apple is riding high. It had an incredible year last year. Operating profit dollars went from, you know, $68 billion to $110 billion, an enormous, enormous increase. And so the question is, did they effectively pull forward demand over ensuing years and can they keep it up for the next couple of years? But for right now, they're executing very well and data points generally around the iPhone cycle are good.

Up another almost 2% today. Tony Saganagi, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. I think that 19 points to the Dow. Here's where we stand overall in the markets. We are near session highs as we head into the close. The Dow is up almost a full percent, 317 points. The only stocks lower are Nike, Home Depot, Chevron, and Cisco. Every sector in the S&P 500 is higher right now. Technology leads the charge, hence the Nasdaq's now almost 1.7% gain.

Wall Street is buzzing about Uber, turning some foes into friends. And the stock is popping on that news. Details next. And as we had a break, check out fertilizer stocks, Mosaic and CF Industries hitting multi-year highs again today. Every single day, these stocks hit new highs. Russia is the world's top fertilizer exporter, accounting for 23 percent of ammonia exports, 14 percent of urea exports, 10% of phosphate exports, and 21% of potash exports, all going into fertilizer. Prices are skyrocketing, and those companies are feeling the impact. We'll be right back. What's Wall Street buzzing about today? Uber teaming up with a bitter rival,

New York City taxis. It's a new agreement to list taxis on its app. Uber expects to launch this new offering later this spring. And under the deal, taxi drivers would get the same fare as Uber drivers. While there are still some questions about the pay structure, the move stands to benefit Uber in a big way. Last year, the company acquired a taxi-hailing app in Hong Kong, and according to Uber's global mobility chief, 35% of people who started using the app to hail taxis went on to use other Uber products, like food delivery. It's also a creative way around the labor shortage, as the company just added a big number of drivers to its fleet. Let's hope it also moderates the sky-high a big number of drivers to its fleet. Let's hope it

also moderates the sky-high fares that we as consumers are seeing. Uber shares are up on the news. Coming up, NVIDIA shares surging to the top of the S&P 500 today at more than 9% and more than 30% since last Monday. We'll talk to a top analyst about what's pushing it higher, that story and more next in the Market Zone. And a reminder, we have a podcast. You can listen to Closing Bell on the go by following the Closing Bell podcast on your favorite app. The Dow is up just about 300 points. We are near session highs. Closing Bell back in a 20 minutes until the close. We are now in the closing bell market zone. CNBC Senior Markets Commentator Mike Santoli

here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus, Cowan's Matt Ramsey on today's big chip rally, a standout. BDA Capital partners Barbara Duran on the oversold tech names she is buying. But first up, look at this rebound. A big sell-off yesterday, and now we're climbing back again. Currently near session highs, gaining steam in this final hour of trade. Back to that old pattern, Mike. And energy is now higher, which means every sector in the market is higher.

Some of the other standouts, I mentioned the chips and technology, software names and materials, basically anything tied to commodities except for oil. So steel, Nucor, a lot of the steel names higher today. Freeport, Macmoran. I mentioned the fertilizers as well. What is the narrative, given we're seeing yields continuing to rise and inflation and Fed concerns continuing to be out there? Yeah, I would say yields continuing to rise, but really modestly today, not two new highs. So we're still in the range. Today's action, the S&P 500, almost exactly just retaking what was lost yesterday. The message to me is markets on firmer footing, a lot less volatile day to day. Last week's options expiration on Friday cleared away a lot of the, you know, a lot of the overhang, I think, that was causing some of the

jumpiness day to day. And of course, once you've had an 8, 10 percent rebound off the low, the market is going to be a little bit less twitchy. And I think we're benefiting from that. And people are able to wade back in and say what stocks are still down a lot from their highs with the fundamental story hasn't changed very much. So you mentioned the chips, a lot of the other technology leaders in their apples up another percent or two. So all that stuff seems to be more about people working under the assumption that maybe the market's fever has broken for now, in which case, you know, we're still down six or seven percent from the highs, but seemingly, you know, not as slippery underfoot. Just want to rip up the script for a minute and hit the pot stocks, because just in the last few minutes, they've taken a leg higher, looking at names like Tilray, Aurora, the cannabis ETF,

shooting up just in the last few moments. Some potential news out of Washington, Mike, is that what's moving these names? What have you heard? It seems in the afternoon, yes, headlines about the House potentially taking up a proposal to decriminalize marijuana. So this has been the story for a very, very long time. Everybody just focused intently in this area on the prospects for some action at the national level. Now, nobody's, I don't think, saying that there's somehow a clear path to a national legalization or a market opening up there. But I would point out, if you look at a one-year chart, exactly, of the MJ ETF, it looks just like ARK. It looks just like sports betting. It looks just

like solar. It looks like a lot of the thematic kind of buzzy groups in the market that really got wild to the upside in early 2021 and then have had a major come up. And so it's coming from a depressed base. Well, we mentioned the chips. NVIDIA is now the best performer in the S&P 500. Check out the VanEck Semiconductor ETF, SMH, up about 4% on the back of strong performances from not just NVIDIA, but AMD. Intel is up more than 6% today. Let's bring in Cowan Semiconductor Analyst, Matt Ramsey. Matt, did these names just get beat up too hard? No, Sarah, thanks for having me on. I think it is kind of interesting to look at. At the beginning of last week, we did a bunch of analysis, and some of the best companies that we cover, you mentioned a few, NVIDIA, AMD, Marvell, Monolithic Power. Those proved, since Thanksgiving, down about 30 percent, while the earnings estimates for the out year went up about 10.

So we had basically the top companies in growth semis cut in half from a valuation perspective. And I think that's part of what we're seeing now is that we had some events from NVIDIA earlier in the week to talk about their long-term growth profile. I think investors realize that the long-term growth stories haven't really been dented here, but the valuation certainly had been. NVIDIA, with the move today at more than 9%, is that a, you think it's a delayed reaction to the investor day? What did we learn? What was the big takeaway? I think the big three takeaways

that our team had from the investor day were one, the really strong hardware position NVIDIA's in. They launched their new Hopper GPU, which is important for all across their businesses, particularly data center. They gave us some hints at expanding not just to GPUs, but into the CPU market with ARM-based CPUs to DPUs, which come from their Mellanox acquisition and offering a much, much broader and more diverse set of services to their data center customers.

And the biggest point from the analyst day, they laid out a trillion-dollar TAM, which take with a grain of salt, but a third of it was software. And investors really wanted to hear the early innings of their software strategy that they can think they can monetize over the coming decades across services into the car, in their drive platform, the omniverse into their simulation platform, a bunch of enterprise software features, and GeForce Now for over-the-air streaming gaming services. That's a couple hundred million dollars in revenue for NVIDIA today. We forecasted out to some really strong growth, maybe up to 20% of the company, $30 billion business at the end of the decade. So

we got some breadcrumbs to start modeling a software business that can be margin accretive and much more sustainable long-term for NVIDIA that's leading in the hardware AI space today. So given the fact that it's getting into software and it's becoming more software-like, what kind of valuation does it deserve? It's trading about 50 times next year's earnings, which is higher than some of the other competitors, like in AMD, which have also done well. What sort of premium valuation does NVIDIA deserve? And is it your favorite pick? It is our top pick as of last week. I mean, the stocks moved 30% in, I think, eight trading days. So we're kind of always re-evaluating this stuff. But, yeah, it is our top pick currently.

AMD and Monolithic Power are the other two in our list of three. And I think as we model business out to 25% earnings growth, give or take, through the end of the decade, driven by all of their businesses. And I think the market's assigning the valuation of a company that can take earnings up from $5.50 or so today towards $30 in earnings by the end of the decade and pricing in more of a compounder than something just on near-term earnings power. But there's going to be a material premium assigned to the company, and I think they've earned it. Well, they're all working today, but NVIDIA is up 9.5%. Number two is Intel, up 6.6%.

And then Monolithic Power, your other favorite, up 6.5%. Number two is Intel, up 6.6%. And then Monolithic Power, your other favorite, up 6.5%. Matt Ramsey, thank you from Cowan. Lots of news to hit in the EV space today. Nikola's share is seeing a pop on news it started production on its commercial truck this week. Remember, it had previously expected to begin full production in the second quarter. Mizuho cutting its price target on Rivian to $95 from $100, saying it could see significant manufacturing headwinds that would impact production ramps. And NIO gearing up to report Q4 results after the bell.

Wall Street analysts are expecting the Chinese automaker to post a loss. Let's bring in Phil LeBeau to digest all these headlines. And Phil, these stocks have had a pretty rough start to the year. What are the analysts saying? Have they hit bottom? I think it's too soon, Sarah, to say that it's a definitive bottom, primarily because the supply chain, especially when it comes to things like semiconductors, that's going to remain under pressure for some time. So there's not a lot of certainty there.

And remember, when it comes to the EV stocks, there are a lot of questions that will be lingering this year about the supply and the pricing of raw materials that go into making battery cells and battery packs. So encouraging news today, no doubt, but still too early to say it's a definitive bottom. Mike, what do you see in Tesla's chart, which is rising again and holding its gain? It also outperformed yesterday in a down market. I mean, you're seeing some of the kind of adrenaline stocks start to move again. I see that's part of it. There's no doubt about it. I mean, Tesla has some good cover stories going forward, obviously, when it seems like the proposition for owning an EV looks a little

bit incrementally better relative to internal combustion, given where fuel prices are. But it's always kind of it's amusing that Tesla can get a bump when it says it's going to build a plant in Germany, that it builds a plant in Germany, breaks ground, that it says we're about to start producing cars, then one rolls off. They get credit each time. And that just shows you that the big picture story is still in control. And the stock did not really go down to serious lows. It's bottom twice in the 700s. And so it seems like it's more game on as opposed to people having a particularly fine-tuned projection on exactly where its market share is going in the next year or two. Phil, where does Tesla stand versus the

competition? Some of the smaller ones like a Nikola, which we mentioned, or Rivian, or some of the Ford GMs, when it comes to accessing the materials and the battery materials that it needs to make these cars and meet demand? They're far ahead of the competition when it comes to the supply chain. And they've shown that. Look at what happened when the supply chain was stressed because of semiconductors. It hit the others much faster than it hit Tesla because they were very nimble and they made the adjustments there. And when you talk with people in the industry about the EV supply chain, Tesla is ranked almost always near the top in terms of

having it under control better than others. Phil LeBeau, Phil, thank you. I want to point out Beyond Meat. It's been volatile in today's session. A pair of headlines moving this stock first. The company announced it has partnered with the Chinese company Penduo Duo to launch an online store on the Chinese e-commerce giant's grocery platform. Beyond Meat had previously made deals with JD.com and Chinese e-retailer Tmall as demand for vegan goods in China grows. And then separately, Beyond Meat stock was under pressure earlier after BTIG put out a note saying channel checks it's been doing indicate the sales of the McPlant Beyond offering at McDonald's have underperformed what franchisees were expecting. Mike, the stock is actually a pretty ugly chart if you zoom out and look over the last few years. And there are some real questions about whether it's been a fad because everything in grocery works so well during COVID. And now that we're

coming out, a lot of those food sales are still elevated beyond meat. Not so much. No. And whether or not the plant based meat substitutes are a fad, probably not. I mean, I think that that's always going to be an item in every, you know, grocery case. The issue is the stock, which traded above $230 at one point, you know, two and a half years ago, had almost all, like I said at the time, all the enthusiasm for the entire sector was running through this one ticker because there weren't other options as a pure play. And then there's been just a series of, well, maybe they can't figure out production. Their costs are going up, even as those for animal protein are going up. And it's just not that much of a kind of immediate gratification of sales growth

and a path toward real profitable sales growth, I think. So that's been the issue. It isn't necessarily that people have tried it and turned away from it. It's that it got too much credit initially for how big it was going to become. It's now about 25 percent this year. They did get a pop earlier when they announced the new jerky product, which was the joint venture between Pepsi and Beyond Meat. A lot of expectations for this. So I wonder, we're past the point, Mike, where they're rallying off of the news. And it feels like, you know, we were at a point where every time they made a deal with a big CPG company

or restaurant, the stock rallied. Now it's really the proof of how these partnerships are going in terms of sales, because I know there was reports about Dunkin' being underwhelming and now this McDonald's. I feel like we've gotten past the headline excitement. Right. I mean, the company has done really nothing but a constant stream of marketing partnerships and announcements. And what is it? You know, it's still a few billion dollar market cap. It's not like it's some, you know, tiny insignificant company.

But, yeah, you need to see results. And people get tired of waiting. It's three years as a public company at this point. And, you know, we've moved on to, you know, to other kind of buzzy sounding consumer products. Stocks, I just want to point out are at session highs. We continue to build on the gains throughout this final hour of trade. Let's bring in Barbara Duran. She is CIO at BD8 Capital Partners. And Barb, you've been adding to some beaten down tech positions. Tell us what you've been buying. Yeah, Sarah, thanks. I've been I've been adding actually since February. We know the reasons for the sell-off. Things were oversold. You had people worried about the Ukraine situation, inflation,

when is peak inflation, what the Fed is doing. And of course, since the Fed eased, we've been moving in. But when you look at the individual names, you had Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet. NVIDIA was just talked about. NVIDIA was down almost 30 percent. And these other names were down in the high teens. And yes, it was a P.E. revaluation because we all know that forward earnings get discounted when interest rates go up. But it was way overdone. And these are great names with each one has an individual story, but they go into big, growing secular markets. And that has not changed. So to me, these were ideal opportunities to add, particularly NVIDIA, which, you know, you've seen what's happened since. It's back actually

beyond the start of the year high. But that is exactly why. And I also added a few reopening plays. And I had talked about Uber another time or booking holdings, which is an online travel play. And I also wanted a good defensive health care play, which is a core holding. But I wanted to add to it because that also is down almost 10 percent. And that's UnitedHealthcare. That is a solid core holding. You don't get many opportunities to add that cheaper than it currently is. So, Barbara, are you not afraid of the Fed going all in on the inflation fight, potentially 50 basis points of hikes at upcoming meetings, a hike at every meeting, the trimming of the balance sheet, all the things that it's planning to do, which could pressure growth and valuations? Yeah, well, you know what? It's already in the

stocks and we see how the market's behaving. This is well known. In fact, it was leading up to the Fed meeting where people thought the Fed has to raise rates, has to raise rates. And then they announced that they were. Then the market started to take off. So I think this has been more than discounted in the stocks. You know, we've got six maybe hikes ahead. That could slow things down a little bit, although this is a bit different. In the past, consumers had a lot more debt and they were borrowing. They're not so much. They still have excess savings. I think where the difference could be, at least for the short term, excuse me, is in housing, you know, because you've seen mortgage rates go up 100 bps. That could cause a little bit of a stutter step. And we've already seen

that a bit in the refinancing, et cetera. But we should also remember there, there was a housing boom when mortgage rates the 30 year was at 6%. So, you know, I think the consumer is going to keep spending. And I think these companies are going to keep spending and I think these companies are going to thrive. And we've seen this for the last couple of years. These names are great sources of profit taking and you rotate into other names. This time it's been energy, it's been metals, you know, so it's been the cybersecurity. So people have come back to fantastic long-term stories. Every sector higher now in the S&P 500, technology in the lead, led by the chips, materials doing very well, tied to commodities. Barb, you mentioned cybersecurity. Those stocks

have held up well. I think that you're trimming your positions there, though. Why now, just as we're getting all sorts of threats from the White House that cyber attacks are coming from Russia? I know. You hate to trim and see it go up even higher. But frankly, it's just a risk management. I mean, I have owned Palo Alto as a core holding in all my portfolios for some time, and it was getting to be a very high percentage in some portfolios. So that was why I thought this is a great time to trim, because the stock, you know, will come back down to earth. I think, you know, we've got a little bit, maybe we can go higher, but it's a bit ahead of itself at this moment.

So, you know, but I'm very content. I have large core holdings in this, but it will not stay here. Yes. I just want to hit it again because the NASDAQ 100 is zooming here. It's up 2%. It's still 12% off of its highs, but it has made up a lot of ground. Now down about 9.5% for the year. So the has made up a lot of ground now down about nine and a half percent for the year. So the chart's looking a lot better. You mentioned you were buying some of the biggest

market cap stocks, the FANG names, anything else? Because some of these other tech names have been just slammed way harder than the mega caps down 30, 40, 50 percent off their highs. So would you go to anything beyond the biggest of the tech companies? Well, Sarah, the problem is, and as Mike mentioned earlier about, we seem to be getting maybe back into a little bit of the froth situation. But a lot of those names, you know, which I have owned and bought badly, like the DocuSigns of the world have great businesses, you know, but it's really a question of valuation. And a lot of those smaller names aren't yet profitable. So, you know, it's actually on my list to really take a hard look at those names. But it's been tough in this market to have these smaller names that maybe aren't as profitable

and don't have as long a runway of performance. Yeah, proxy for that ARK Innovation. It's up about 710. So it's underperforming broader market today. Barbara Duran, thank you. It's always good to hear what you're up to in your portfolio. Less than two minutes to go here in the trading day. Mike, what do you see in the internals?

They're pretty strong, Sarah. About 2 to 1 advancing to declining volume in the New York Stock Exchange, which is absolutely solid, although slightly underperforming the magnitude of the index gain, which is now almost 1.4% on the S&P. That's because mega cap growth is outperforming and flattering the indexes a bit. Barb mentioned homebuilders. Take a look at the homebuilder index. No relief for that group today.

We can talk about how the supply demand is going to be resilient and how these guys are in good shape. But higher rates is still having its effect and people not really confident they can finish as many homes as they can sell. So the underperforming commercial real estate, which is the real estate sector, the volatility index really playing along, down another two points, down to 21. It's a big, very profound spike on that chart. So it is positive, down toward 20, and we're talking about the normal range as we sit here, roughly 5 or so percent below the record highs in the index. It is amazing that financial conditions are easinging just as J-PAL is trying to tighten them. Take a look at where we are less than one minute to go before the close. A 1%

gain on the Dow. We're talking 350 points. It's been a solid build throughout this final hour of trade. Who's contributing the most? Well, Barbara Duran's UnitedHealthcare adding 70 points. Microsoft, McDonald's, and Apple all adding to the gains. S&P 500, every sector higher here as we go into the close. Up 1.4 percent. Technology is in the lead, up 2.7 percent. The chips taking center stage. Materials, communication services, health care, all doing well today. The Nasdaq going out with the biggest gain of the major averages. Nasdaq 100 up 2.2 percent on the close and the NASDAQ up 2%. That does it for me on Closing Bell. Send it into overtime with Scott.