Closing Bell - Closing Bell: Stocks & The Storm 1/23/26

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

The big question hanging over this market is NOT how good will mega cap earnings be… but how much snow are we getting this weekend. 200 million people are in the path of this monster storm – and the energy market has been moving on it. We break down all the details from how much snow to expect to the surge in natural gas to the airline impact with our all-star team. Plus, Renaissance Macro Research’s Jeff DeGraaf tells us the four big breakouts he’s watching as we end this trading week. And, Lo Toney from Plexo Capital breaks down his earnings playbook ahead of some big tech reports next week. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right, guys, thanks so much. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wobner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This make or break hour begins with stocks and the storm. One acting more volatile lately. The other looking especially vicious as it slams a large part of the country into the weekend. We'll get that update in just a moment. In the meantime, let's show you the scorecard here with 60 to go in regulation. We have been mostly lower throughout most of the day. The Russell getting hit pretty hard today. S&P and the NASDAQ are trying to get something going. And the NASDAQ's been the best of the majors. The Russell's been the best by far year to date, but it's given a little bit back. Intel, it's getting hammered today after giving a very weak outlook. That stock down at the lows of the day, down 18%. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, they're running a bit as those earnings loom next week. And that takes us to our talk of the tape. The big question hanging over this market, not how good will mega-cap earnings be,

but how much snow are we getting this weekend? 200 million people in the path of this monster storm. Energy's been moving on it. Prediction markets are a buzz with bets. And Accuethers, Jeff Cornish, joins us now with the very latest. Jeff, what can you tell us? All right, Scott, this is going to be a very, very high-impact event here. The biggest winter storm, the central, southern, and eastern U.S. has faced in several years.

200 million of us are going to be affected by this. Travel shut down east of the Rockies into early next week. One of the big aspects of this storm that will have a lot of implications for life as cold air sets in, we're going to have major freezing rain problems across the south and into the southeast, up into the mid-Atlantic states as well as we move through the next several days. It begins in Dallas this evening and tonight with some rain changing to freezing rain, then sleep, but big-time problems into Atlanta, Charlotte, into the end of the weekend. Heavy snow on the north side.

As you mentioned, we're going to be dealing with a hard-hit areas, especially near, and west of I-95 hit especially a lot. hard. But regarding the ice, here we have that sleet and freezing rain combination that's going to be a very dangerous thing, especially with power outages that will likely follow near record and record breaking cold on Sunday. And if you don't have electricity, that's a bad thing there into Texas. We'll see some near record lows into the Carolinas following that into Monday and Tuesday. And the snowy side, widespread 6 to 12 inches of snow across much of the southern plains. And then look at this. We're going to zoom into the northeast here in the darker blue zone, 12 to 18 inches into areas near. I-81, there's potential that New York City could even see double digits if we don't see any sleep mix in on the back side. Scott? All right, Jeff, thanks for the update. We appreciate it. Well, we told you, energy's moving. Nat gas is just exploding this week. Pippa Stevens joins us now with more. Breatthaking to look at. That's right, Scott. And one trader calling it a historic week, and the storm hasn't even begun, meaning we could see more fireworks for gnat gas prices,

especially with the contracts set to roll on Wednesday. The spread between the front month and second month is now a buck 76 that is highly unusual and demonstrates the current market tightness. A lot now depends on the direction of the storm and whether energy infrastructure is impacted in the east and south central with city forecasting 80 BCF of supply at risk. Now this week could see the second largest inventory draw on record. Right now storage is 6% above the five-year average,

but if February winds up being chilly, the need to refill storage could add price support for injection season and lift gas prices. Scott? All right, Pippa, thank you for that. That's Pippa Stevens. Phil LeBoe joins us now with how the airlines are preparing for this weekend's massive storm. Hey, Phil. Hey, Scott, they're issuing travel waivers and canceling a lot of flights in advance. We've already seen some flights canceled today. Primarily the biggest areas hit are the central Plains, Dallas, Oklahoma City, even here up here in Chicago, we've noticed this as well. This is Flight Aware saying 542 flights canceled so far, more than 2,500 flights delayed.

What are the airlines expecting? Here is Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minnacucci talking with us earlier this afternoon about his expectations. It's going to be ugly. We're taking down our schedule to the east coast. Now, fortunately, we're on the west coast, the bulk of our operations, but we got pounded with rain and, you know, all that stuff. So we had our stuff as well.

But I'm hoping it's not going to be as bad as it is, but it looks pretty dire right now. Take a look at a couple of charts. We're going to start off with American Airlines. Why? DFW is its hub. And they're already noticing cancellations. That's going to ramp up as we go into Saturday and Sunday and then move to the east. Delta, Alaska, United Airlines. You heard Ben Minnacucci talking.

They've all been issuing travel waivers. nearly every airline is doing that. And the thing that you need to keep in mind is you take a look at the airline index, Scott, the most impactful storms. The ones that really hit the bottom line for airlines are those that are unannounced and are open-ended. This is a fast-moving storm. Even though it's big, Scott, it's fast-moving, and the airlines have been warning passengers for some time. If you can delay your flight, move it to another time, do that. They're out ahead of this as much as possible. We'll see what happens, Phil. Thank you very much for the update. That is Phil Lebo. We'll get to the markets in a moment. I've got Tom Lee sitting here, but we do have a news alert, have it right in front of me here. Goldman Sachs just moments ago revealing CEO David Solomon's 2025 pay package that coming in a regulatory filing. Mr. Solomon receiving $47 million in total compensation, which includes $2 million in base salary and $45 million in incentives. That's an increase from $39 million in 2024 and reflects the really stellar year that Goldman's shares have had up more. more than 43% over the past 12 months. The firm also posting its second highest net revenues and net earnings for 2025. By contrast, JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Diamond paid $43 million last year. That's a 10% increase from the year prior, and those numbers just released yesterday.

Tom Lee, as I said, is with me now as we turn back to the markets. He is a CNBC contributor, of course, FundStrat Global Advisors. So it's good to see you. Great to see you, Scott. It's been a turbulent week. It has. Is it portends something that's going to come forward here for us? Well, part of it is, of course, as you know, we're an earnings season,

and markets tend to be volatile around earnings. I'd say that some of the high-profile declines like Intel look bad over a one-day period, but Intel was $17 a year ago. So to me, it doesn't surprise me that you could see some of those stocks have done really well, get punished a little bit on earnings. I mean, this is a hard one to say it's representative of anything. I mean, you know, the company's obviously been challenged. They have the government backstop in there, and the stock was up a ton going into the print.

As we turn, speaking of the print, the prints that matter next week, the mega caps, which you still love, but not quite as much? I mean, we still like the mag seven and the mega caps because they're great earning stories, and they have a lot of visibility. But as you know, our top picks this year in terms of sector is energy and basic materials. But as far as earning stories go, yeah, I think next week's critical

because you got most of the MAG7 reporting. Tom, you're crushing that so far with that call. Energy and materials are the two top sectors. Yeah. Why were you leaning that direction as the year began? You know, we were betting a bit of mean reversion taking place in 2026. One of the things we identified in our 2026 outlook

in early December. was that energy and materials underperformed over the last five years at a level that in the last 50 years have marked turning points higher. So we were betting that so much of the bad news was baked in that they could have okay fundamental years, but the stocks could do really well. I feel like you were on the right path as it pertains to small caps and the Russell just a little early. Yeah. I mean, remember, let's remind people, last year you told me up here that we're going to have a 50% gain in the Russell. Now, obviously, we didn't have that, but the Russell is almost outperforming everything else over the past year, and in one month, it's up 5%.

Yeah. Is that going to continue? Yeah. One of the things we talked a lot about last year was that when small caps turn, it tends to be a multi-year. In fact, it could be up to a 12-year period. So the last turning point for small caps, and on a relative price to sales last year or price to book, they were at the exact same point they were in 2001. That was a launch point for 12 years of relative outperformance. So I think small caps benefit from a Fed turning dovish, possible M&A wave coming, an ISM turning back above 50, and then catching up to where EM, because EM did really well last year, and small caps usually track that.

It didn't. Fed turning dovish, you know, we have a meeting next week, in case you did. didn't know, and not expected to do anything. So maybe not as dovish as people thought several months ago. And by the way, as we look at prediction markets, as we think about who might be the next Fed chair, Black Rock's Rick Reeder is now the leading contender in prediction markets. There's Kalshi. We, of course, have a partnership with them. 52% leaning towards Rick Reeder. We shall see. Do you care? How much you think about who the next might be? I mean, it's important because it reflects the market needs to respect who the new Fed chair is.

Rick Reeder is somebody that markets really do respect. So, as you know, the Fed has to communicate not only with the White House, but also with the bond market. And I think Rick Reader's experience in the market's world makes them very credible. But you're not expecting anything next week, right? I'm not, but I'm also expecting the Fed to reiterate that they are focused on no longer fighting. inflation. But looking at the job market, that's a Fed put on the economy. To me, that's a doveish tilt. And as long as they're not fighting inflation, to me, that's a doveish Fed. And that's why you think the equal weight S&P is up 4% so far this year compared to the

S&P, which is up one, and the NASDAQ, which is only up one and a half percent? Yeah, I think so. Because, as you know, not only is the Fed no longer is trying to establish inflation credibility, which is hawkish, QT has ended, which to me is the same as aversy. of QE starting. So we are facing a dovish Fed. Even if there aren't cuts, it's still a Fed that wants the economy to do well. I'm not sure everybody sees every appearance that you have, and people generally think you skew bullish, which you obviously do. That said, you're still looking for what you've said could be a bear market in the middle of the year. Do you want to explain one more time why even in the midst of this bullishness we hear from you, you still

think stocks could have a bit of a rocky road at some point? Yeah, I think 2026 has the same contours as last year. So in 2026, I think there's a good fundamental earning story, earnings growth accelerating. But we have two transitions to deal with. One is the Fed, a new Fed. The market always tests a new Fed. So from confirmation, let's say that starts in March, a new Fed happens, and then the market tests him. That's one source of a drawdown. The second is, of course, policy. The White House is much more deliberate this year in picking winners and losers, and there's some uncertainty around the tariffs. Last year, that was enough to drive a 20% decline in the S&P.

So I think the combination of policy uncertainty along with Fed could create a drawdown that feels like a bare market, but that's from higher levels as well. It makes you nervous the events of earlier this week, speaking of policy uncertainty, you just don't really know. what's coming anywhere, for that matter, social media or policy by post or what have you. What did you learn, if anything, about Tuesday's events and then how the market acted subsequently? Well, I think it's a prelude to what a bigger drawdown looks like because just a social media post about Denmark caused a 2% decline in the S&P and a spike in the VIX. And that was, of course, quickly diffused. but imagine a scenario where there's a series of policy headlines that markets get anxious about. It could easily lead to a larger drawdown.

Which some expect more volatility. Let's find out what others think as well. Let's bring in Keith Lerner. He is of truest wealth and a CNBC contributor, Malcolm Etheridge of Capital Area Planning. Guys, good to have you. What about that, Malcolm? More volatility ahead after this turbulent week? Yeah, I think we're certainly in for some volatility, not only through the entire year,

but possibly this quarter. I don't think that Greenland is necessarily a settled case. I don't think that all of the president's agenda that he's going to want to get enacted before the midterms happen. I don't think we've heard the last of it. And Tom makes a great point about years where a new Fed chair comes in and what the market's reaction is to that immediately following. So I think that there's definitely a ton of volatility coming. But more specifically next week, I think, sets the stage for some of that volatility. if any of the four Mag 7 companies that we're scheduled to hear from, Microsoft, Apple, Tesla,

and I'm blanking on the fourth one, sorry, but that's 15% of the S&P 500's Apple. Thank you. I don't know how I can forget them. But that's 15% of the S&P 500's waiting. And that is very important because it's going to determine whether the rotation away from tech continues or if we hear guidance from those four companies that backs up what we heard from TSM a little bit ago, that basically bookings are, sold out through the entire year and the money that these companies have been spending is not going to slow down anytime soon. That is very helpful for materials, construction, utilities, those kinds of names. And so I think it helps to keep the party going within tech. Or if we do

hear some weakness in that guidance, maybe it starts to show that more of a rotation into IWM, the small caps, things like that that Tom's getting excited about. Isn't it interesting that you forgot to mention Apple? The stock's boys for eight straight, down. weeks. A lot of investors have forgot about it lately because it hasn't given them, Malcolm, much reason to think about it, certainly, you know, relative to what their AI story has been, and when you compare it to some of the other names. Well, yeah, and it's also very telling that Apple has decided to, I won't say throw in the towel, but go in a different direction and work with Google once again for their AI platform for their AI build into the iPhone.

So I have the iPhone 16. The 17 were also told that Apple intelligence was supposed to be the thing that really start to turn the corner. And it seems as if either they're delaying that or they've completely stepped away from Apple intelligence being the thing to really power the device. And now they're focused on partnering with names like Google and others to help bring that along. And that's really disappointing to Apple shareholders like myself. Keith, what's at stake do you think next week? I mean, this happens at an interesting time where these stocks for a change are not leading. going into their prints in many respects.

Yeah, great to be with you and to join the discussion. So, I mean, I agree with some of the points we're brought up. I mean, so far we've had this really consensus rotation into everything but tech's down for the year. But, you know, as I think about this, Scott, and I think and I zoom out a little bit, the technology sector was up more than 70% off the lows. And I think the last two or three months has been a consolidation. I was just looking this morning. I found an interest in that the tech sector is now trading at a premium.

of just 16% relative to the S&P, that's the lowest since 2021. And it's well off the premium of about 36 or 37% that we saw just a few months ago. So we are still positive on tech. It is a critical week with sentiment now more subdued expectations are lower. So what we want to see is that these names clear this lowered bar as we go into a really jam-packed week of tech earnings. Would you be overweight the group? Or would you now lean more heavily towards the rest of the market?

You know, so what we've done, we're still right now, we still have the legacy overweighted tech and communications, but we were with you in mid-December when we upgraded the industrial sector, the energy sector and materials. And our philosophy today is we still like these other areas long term, but it doesn't have to be either or we still like them. They've been out of favor, but we still think as this market broadens and we have an upthick in the economy, that these other areas should be able to participate. And it's going to be hard to catch all these rotations back and forth, right? So why not have some of both, and that's where we stand today? Tom, I mean, we're going to be reminded of something next week, either reminded why we lean so heavily into these names or reminded why we've started to move in other directions in the market.

Yeah. I mean, and it could be a mixed bag that I think you might have some tech names do really well because they're surprising and they're reiterating guidance, and maybe there's a couple stumbles here and there. But to me, it's still, as a group, linked to the AI trade, And I think it's still a central driver of not only U.S. but global GDP. This sucks a lot of oxygen out of the room, guys. I'm aware of that.

But let's move to some other areas of the market that I want to get your takes on. Malcolm, gold. It's just about at 5,000. Silver's at 100. I mean, these are record levels for both. How do you feel about, you know, clients getting exposure there if they don't already have? Are you a believer that the trend just continues to move higher? I do. I think that we go from 5,000 and then we start talking about when do we see 6,000,

because the angst in the markets that we're talking about, it's not going away. And it's also not going into the 10-year treasury the way we historically would expect it to do with yields continuing to rise. And so I think that gold more than likely continues to be the safety trade globally for investors who are either selling away from America or U.S. investors who are also thinking, maybe I ought to be looking somewhere outside of the S&P 500. Keith, what is this about this move towards 5,000 and perhaps beyond, as Malcolm suggests, it could go? Yeah, I think it's a combination of things. I think today we're seeing the dollar a little bit weak.

Central banks are buying some diversification outside of the U.S. We've been bullish on gold all last year and we still are this year. I will note at least on a short-term basis, I do think these trades are getting a little bit stretched. And with commodities, momentum often begets momentum. So you don't want to try to call it top. But when we looked at silver just last week, and the run that we've seen on a six-month basis is the most we've seen since the Hunt Brothers in 79 and 80.

And when we've seen about five other circumstances when it's kind of this stretch, and sometimes it does continue to move forward the next few months. But when we look at 12 to 18 months, the risk reward has been less favorable. Now, obviously, the dynamics that's causing that may be a little bit different. But at this point, we're telling our clients, we would prefer gold from a portfolio diversification standpoint,

and we don't think the risk reward is that compelling here for silver. So we'd be patient for a pullback, even realizing that may come from a higher level. Tom, gold, I'll tell you what, looks a heck of a lot better right now than the alleged digital gold, Bitcoin. What's going on there? Risk on, it doesn't really do anything now. Risk off, it doesn't do anything either. What's it correlated to, if anything?

I think crypto has been suffering from de-leveraging, you know, in October 10th, there was that one-time price shock that was the biggest de-leveraging of crypto in history. And then this week, crypto was doing well until the Greenland announcement, which triggered the move in JGB yields and a de-leveraging in crypto. So I think crypto, unfortunately, would track gold, but you'd have to subtract de-leveraging. And I think that's really what's been hurting crypto. I mean, people these calls it, oh, it's the new reserve currency, you know, break up. out the gong on that, that it's the new gold, break out the gong on that. I mean, what, have you, have you rethought where you thought that this could go over a period of time?

Because your targets on it were so unbelievably lofty. And now I question as to whether they could ever be reached. Yeah. Well, I think Davos was pretty eye-opening. Larry Fink talked about everything being tokenized onto a common blockchain. David Sacks talks about how once the Clarity Acts passed, digital assets and basically the architecture of Wall Street are going to merge. I think crypto is still really relevant as a settlement layer, but it is more a story of smart blockchains, which is more of an Ethereum story over Bitcoin. And as you know, Bitcoin maybe is getting dinged because there's some concerns about quantum being able to steal or capture a third of the Bitcoin

legacy wallets. I don't think Bitcoin's story is broken. I think it is waiting for clarity, but institutional adoption is growing. So I still don't think $200,000 Bitcoin is that crazy. It is just a doubling in price. And think about where gold was and how silver's moved. Historically, those big parabolic moves in crypto follow parabolic moves in precious metals. So I don't think that this is a broken story unless it doesn't happen in the next couple years.

Okay. I don't sound as though your conviction is as resolute. Well, it's those gongs. Scott, the gongs. I mean, it's the truth. They're still ringing in my ear. Well, you're too young for the gong show. You should go back and check it out. We'll see. Tom, thanks. That's Tom Lee. Malcolm, thank you, Keith, you as well. Let's send it now to Christina Parts of Nelvelos for the biggest names moving into the close. Hi, Scott. Well, let's start with shares of intel because they're still sinking about 17% right now.

Almost 18 after the company issued weak revenue guidance as well as week. or gross margins guidance. The company warned of a supply shortage, which they also warned about last quarter, but management did admit on the earnings call they weren't, quote, managing the supply to expectations. The stock, though, if your big picture pull out, it's been up more than doubled just over the past year. Fortnet shares, gaining about 4% after TD Cowan upgraded the stock to buy from hold, the firm forecasting stable demand, and arguing that concerns around memory costs and AI pressure on software just appear to be way overdone. That stock is the best on the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100 today, and that's why you can see shares up

almost 5%. And last but not least, shares of IT defense provider Booz Allen Hamilton, just rising about 6% on an earnings beat and raised first quarter guidance. A new note from Cantor Fitzgerald arguing that recent underperformance is overdone and the company's cyber, AI, and IT businesses will be growth leaders in government technology. The stock is having its best day since January 2024. So I see a theme there. Software, you know, selloff is overdone, Scott. Okay. Christina, thanks. Christina Parts and Evolos. Back to you in a bit. We're just getting started here. Up next for Renaissance macro research is Jeff DeGraph. We get his big four breakouts that he is watching as trading ends this week. We'll be back in a minute.

Even with a turbulent week for stocks, there were some notable breakouts. Jeff DeGraph is chairman and head of technical research at Renaissance Macro. He joins us once again. Now, Welcome back. Thank you, Scott. Let's talk about... It's my mother's birthday. I'd love to say, happy birthday to my beloved mom, Cindy. So happy birthday, Mom.

All right, thank you. Happy birthday, Mom. We wish you the best as well. Let's talk about these breakouts. Regional banks, why is that significant? Well, look, regional banks are part of the lifeblood to small cap, right? So small cap tends to be much more dependent on regional banks and the benevolence of their local bankers.

And so, you know, seeing the breakout in small caps and the breakout in regional banks is good news. It usually is also good news that the yield curve is not going to get out of control and that probably shorter rates are in the offering. And then just to put a little pin in it, it suggests, too, that some of the concerns around auto loans and the credit quality of the loan books is probably in a pretty decent spot. So there's a lot of messaging that can come from regional banks. and I think it's positive here. Well, that says something about the strength,

not only that we've already seen in the small caps, but potentially what they can do from here. Look, small caps, if you look at the relative performance, they're outperforming the Russell 1 on a trend basis, so not just a few days. This is long-term trends, the 50 days for the 200 on a relative basis. It's also true for the NDX, right? So all the consternation, I mean, you remember this, right?

people were just complaining about the narrowness of this market. And really, we've had a elongated underperformance by these Mag 7 names, which in fact got oversold for the first time earlier this week. So I think it's good news. I think it's healthier for what we're seeing for the overall market and all these complainers about breath are finally getting it. But nobody seems to be championing it. So I will. You think that some of these moves that we've seen in the mega caps over, you know, the last couple of days and obviously today running into these Prince next week is saying something. This is not just a couple-day thing. You don't think? Well, I don't, in terms of being oversold, I think they're going to bounce. I don't think

these are trend changes, but I think the relative performance is, you know, a more elongated period of underperformance. I don't like software, so that's one area, and they are oversold for sure. So I don't want this to be a tactical call. But when we look at the tops that are in place in some of these software names, they certainly make us uncomfortable. That's not the same, that's not happening in semiconductors, which actually look better. But, you know, I do think that you've got this transition that's taken place. And again, I would view it more healthy than I would distressed. Wait, so when you, so nothing in the charts tells you that the really dramatic outperformance of semis at the expense of software is about to change anytime soon. No, other than

tactically, software's oversold. But, you know, again, we could get a 10% reversion, but it doesn't change the chart. The other thing I was just talking about with our prior guess is this incredible move in gold, you know, pushing 5,000. Where's it going from here? What does it, what do the charts suggest? Look, you know, there's a graveyard at one end of Wall Street and a river at the other, and that's from, you know, full of people that tried to call a top, right? So I'm not going to do that. But I will say that if you look at the alpha that's been generated in gold over the last roughly three years, We are now matching the previous point or the previous high, which was back in 1979, 1980.

So this is bubble territory. What we're suggesting to our clients is dollar cost selling, that you start to skim just, you know, incrementally pieces off every week, every two weeks, whatever the case may be, to book some of those gains because clearly it's unsustainable. And you're very likely, the probabilities go up that you're going to get a 30 to 50% correction in these moves over the next six months, I should say. So for us, it's very hard to call the top, so we just have to be systematic about it. 30 to 50% correction in some of those moves.

Are you talking about like gold and silver? I'm just curious as, you know, what in the macro environment or the policymaking environment would lead you to believe that? As long as that remains somewhat erratic on both fronts, aren't gold and silver going to continue to catch bids? I think there's an underlying trend to that, but what we're talking about is sort of this unsustainable move higher, and that's where you create these air pockets. So it has nothing to do with the trend and, you know, where we're going to be three years from now. But I just think in the very near term, it tends to be unsustainable. And what the parabolic moves really suggest is you're creating this vacuum. You're sucking in the marginal buyer.

And there just won't be anybody left to really support that. And that's the danger. Again, oversold. We should have a conversation when they get oversold because we'll probably be buyers, but I think that'll be 30% lower than where we are here. All right. Good stuff. You made your mom proud.

We'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Scott. Good to see you. All right. Be well. Still ahead. This weekend's massive winter storm could be a major win for the NFL. There's a big wild card, though.

Alex Sherman standing by to explain. The bell's coming right back. All right. Welcome back. The winter storm this weekend. Could be a huge score for the National Football League as the NFC and A AFC Championship Games kickoff Sunday right as the storm is raging. Alex Sherman joins us now with Moore.

I mean, what are you going to do? You're going to watch the games, right? You know, logic would dictate that you would because you'd be stuck in your house. But I did a little digging, Scott, and I called up some people at Nielsen, some media executives that I know. And I asked them, is there a comp for this? Some sort of major winter snow while the AFC championship and NFC championship games are going on, or maybe even the Super Bowl, a game even more watched.

And there are two. And you can file this away in the Stranger Than Fiction category, but wait until you hear who played in these games. The first most recent one was 2016. That was exactly 10 years ago. That was Snowzilla. That was between the New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos. That is right.

These same two teams playing this year 10 years ago played during a major snowstorm and that game at the time was the highest rated game in 30 years. Now, there is one Super Bowl that was also played during a major snowstorm in recent times. That was one year earlier in 2015. If you take a look at Nielsen ratings, that game really stands out. There are other games around that were in the 1980s, some in the 1970s, and there's this one outlier, 2015. Why?

Why? Because it was played during a giant snowstorm. Everybody was in the house. 49% of all U.S. households were watching that game. And who were the two teams playing in that game? The New England Patriots against the Seattle Seahawks. Take it for what you will, Scott. The power better stay on. If there's a wild card in the whole thing, because you have 200 million people in the line of this storm,

the power needs to stay on for the ratings to be huge. That is correct. That would be the one major wild card here. And look, we're already seeing signs that this storm is going to be enormous, like you said, affecting 200 million Americans, and we're starting to see cancellations

or postponements of games. And the breadth of those games, I mean, the Texas Rangers have canceled their fan fest. So that's Texas. Yukon pushed up its women's basketball. game to Saturday from Sunday, that's Connecticut. So there's just an enormous range here where there's a potential for power outages.

So yeah, we'll have to see that I guess is the big wild card that may push back against the historical data suggesting that this is going to be just a mammoth ratings game. And by the way, almost all these NFL games are mammoth rating games now by far the most watch things on TV. Last year's AFC championship game was watched by more than 57 men. million Americans. And of course, last year's Super Bowl was the most watched event of all time. Well, the league is helped, too, by the fact that there are no East Coast teams left in the playoffs. I mean, if Philly was hosting a championship game again, you'd have to start talking about rescheduling.

And New England is on the road. So that's a big headache that the league isn't having to deal with. One of these games is in Denver. That's the 3 o'clock game. That game will be on CBS. And then the late game at 6.630 is, of course, in Seattle, and that game will appear on Fox. All right. Good stuff, Alex. Thanks, Alex Sherman. Coming up next, the biggest movers as we head into the close, as always, Christina is standing by again with that. Tell us more. Well, a credit card company misses on earnings and makes a big acquisition, plus a location sharing app hits record user growth. And an education lender beats expectations.

I'll have those stock movers next. All right, less than 15 from the bell. Let's get back to Christina now for the stock. she's watching. What is at the top of your list? Capital One, because Capital One is falling about 7% right now after posting an earnings miss and also announcing it's going to acquire FinTech firm BREX for Brex for over $5 billion. This is a deal that's 50% cash, 50% stock, and really supports Capital One's goals specifically related to the business payments marketplace.

Still, Brex has seen a more than 50% decline in valuation since 2023. Life 360 shares soaring right now, about 23% almost 24% after the location sharing app maker reported that its fourth quarter monthly active user base grew about 20% to over 95 million users. That's the highest QFord additions that the company's ever seen in their history. It also reached its highest gains and paid subscribers in 2025, now totaling about 2.8 million. So again, Life 360. Last but not least, SLM shares. Those are gaining about 3%, almost 4% right now after the education lending company,

also known as Sally Mae posted a Q4 earnings beat. The company also authorized a new $500 million share buyback program. Deutsche Bank, Wells Fargo, raising their price targets, also in the wake of these strong earnings. So helping shares climb higher. Happy Friday. I didn't even realize that Life 360 was a publicly traded company. Go figure.

Do you have the app? I do. Oh. See, I was going to do one of those bets because I still owe you five bucks from my, previous bet, but, I don't know. It comes in handy when you have, you know, kids, my kids' age. Oh, that's why. Okay, I'm not there yet. When they don't shut it off. Okay. Bye-bye. We'll see you. Have a good weekend. You do. All right. Up next.

Flexo Capitals, low Tony's breaking out his earnings playbook as we gear up for those mega caps. We're back right after this. Time for the closing bell market zone. CnBC, senior markets, commentator and overtime co-anchor, Mike Santoli here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus, Julia Borsden tells us what's next for TikTok. Follow following a done deal for its U.S. business. And Kate Rooney, she has details on potential layoffs at Amazon. And so capital is low, Tony. We'll look ahead to next week's mega cap earnings as well.

But Michael, I'll begin with you. This kind of feels like a let's wait and see what happens next week with these mega cap earnings after we got past the tariffs in Greenland and all that other stuff. Yeah, let's wait and see. And maybe let's not lean too negative into the mega cap tech earnings because today sort of scrambles the script that we've been working with most of this year. which is everything but tech, actually performing well. You see the banks backing off today.

They had a great run going into their earnings, but actually the large banks are down since earnings season started, and there has been a sell-the-news response in general on earnings. That said, I don't think anybody's questioning the underlying fundamentals of the domestic story. It's much more a matter of whether a lot of the macro moves globally are still going to unsettle the tape or not, you know, in the currency markets and all the rest of it. So right now, I think it's a little bit of a change. challenge for folks who assumed it was going to be a year of broadening and cyclical leadership

as we see things like Microsoft bounce pretty strongly. What are you guys going to lean into it for today? Obviously, kind of both the tactical and strategic. So trying to get an answer of whether this move in silver and gold is completely unstable and whether it's disconnected from the fundamentals or not. And then, you know, U.S. versus the rest of the world. We've got a global strategy that's going to talk about what makes sense there in terms of that equation. Oh, good, because a lot of the world is outperforming the U.S. in this early

year. So we'll see you in Mel, top of the hour. Good stuff, Mike. Thank you very much for that. Julia, tell us more about TikTok. Well, Scott, the threat of being shut down may be gone, but challenges do remain for TikTok as it transitions to U.S. ownership. Its majority owners now are Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi's MGX, with now just 19% owned by Bite Bite Dance. So it's unclear how this new version of TikTok will be different now that it's wrong. on a license of the Chinese algorithm retrained on U.S. data and has a new U.S. company making content moderation decisions. TikTok has been falling in popularity. Average time spent per TikTok user has declined from an hour per day in 2023 to 52 minutes this year, according to e-marketer.

While in contrast, time spent on Instagram Reels has increased. Now uncertainty about TikTok's future has benefited, Instagram parent meta, Snap, YouTube, and Pinterest, and brand- may wait to move their dollars back to TikTok if they've moved them away until they see how this new version of the app works. Scott? All right, Julia, thanks very much for that. Kay Rooney, what's up with these Amazon cuts we're hearing about? Yeah, Scott, so what we're hearing is that Amazon is now planning a second round of job cuts next week. This is according to a source familiar with those plans or Annie Palmer over at

CNBC.com with this great reporting. It does mark a continuation of job reductions that started back in October. Amazon then. cut roughly 14,000 positions at the time CEO Andy Jassy told employees it was an effort. He said to stay nimble. Amazon has been right-sizing after growing pretty rapidly during the pandemic. There are some questions over how much of this is the result of automation and things like AI Jassy. Back in October did point in a letter to employees to AI. He said they need to be organized, quote, more leanly. And then Reuters was the first report. Some of this news, it does represent about 10% of Amazon's corporate workforce, AWS and stores.

we're hearing are among the units expected to be impacted. Royder's reporting that Prime Video is also going to be hit. We have not confirmed that Amazon did decline to comment, Scott. All right, Kate, thank you very much for that. Kate Rooney. We turn now to Lowe Tony, who knows about all things technology. I mean, who do you think has the most riding on next week? Is it META?

Is it Amazon? Is it Microsoft or Apple? Without question, it's META. Okay. Why so? The reason being when we think about all of the KAPX spin that META is putting into place. They're spending CAP-X like they're a hyper-scaler, but their business model is limited and capped to monetizing via the attention from ads. Oh, that's interesting. Let's not forget

what happened after the last earnings print. The market was like, wow, you're spending a lot, and we don't like that. And the chart reflects that. If we can take this back a little, there it is, you can see the big drop-off low at the left side of your screen here. That's the danger. What do they need to say? I think what the market wants to hear is not only how AI is improving the ability for the ad business to monetize and increase the attention, but it's more around these moves like the Manus acquisition, which will require more always on intelligence, the inference side of AI. And that does not monetize as well as someone like Google who's intent-based, or even Microsoft that can price on a per seat enterprise basis.

So the ability to price that is in jeopardy of the business model that Meta has today. Man, we haven't been at a show me point for so many of these names at one time. Amazon stock did nothing last year. Show me something. Microsoft, the stock is up like four or five percent over the last 12 months. show me something. Apple's down eight straight weeks. Show me something. I don't remember saying that about all these names going into an earnings print. Exactly. They've shown the fact that they can spend money. Now it's time to show they can make money.

You think that's close? We'll see. I think for Microsoft it's going to be very close and that's what folks will be focused in on. We've seen that ability with Google. And with Apple, the interesting thing is I call it reverse tack. So, you know, it's reported that likely Google is spending $18 to $20 billion annually for traffic, and Apple is now able to recycle part of that billion, at least, to license Gemini internally. We actually talked back in November about maybe it's a good move that Apple hasn't invested, these massive amounts. Now it looks like that's paying off.

Apple is taking intelligence as an input to an already great business that they can monetize well. I got less than 30 seconds left before this bell is going to start ringing. stocks get their mojo back after what happens next week? I certainly hope so. We are positioned quite well within the economy with the types of productivity numbers that we're seeing. If we can keep the increase on the earnings going, I think we're poised for a nice run. All right.

Well, it's going to be a big one because it all starts on Wednesday. We didn't even include Tesla, but we should include it in the bunch because it is a larger market gap. That's low, Tony. Thanks so much. Thanks for having. And we're going to see out West in a little bit, too. I'm looking very much forward to that.

That does it for the closing bell. batting down the hatches because the snowstorm's coming. And we'll see you on the other side of that. I can promise you that. I'll send it into overtime with Melissa Lee and Mike.