Closing Bell - Closing Bell: The Road to New Highs 4/14/26

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

What is the best way to be positioned right now? We discuss with one of the country’s top financial advisors – Richard Saperstein of Treasury Partners. Plus, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made some comments about the Fed’s next move. We get instant reaction from Former Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida. And, Goldman Sachs’ Alexandra Wilson-Elizondo tells us if she thinks we’re on the cusp of an everything rally. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Right, thanks. Welcome to closing bell. I'm Scott Wapner Live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This maker break hour begins with stocks nearing record highs, continuing their remarkable run from the lows of the war. That's a scorecard right there with 60 to go in regulation. S&P 6950, it's like three quarters of 1% from new highs. We've been green all day long. Tech is certainly one of the bright spots today as the software comeback continues. names like Amazon and Alphabet surged towards new highs of their own. We're going to have more on those moves in just a little bit as well. Elsewhere, city is higher today, shares of wells, though, or lower, JPM is in the red. The bank's reporting today.

We'll follow it. We'll discuss coming up. It takes us to our talk of the tape, the road to new highs and how best to be positioned right now. Well, let's ask one of this country's top financial advisors. He is Richard Saperstein. He's founding principal and CIO of Treasury Partners, and he joins us now. Welcome back.

Thank you. You surprised at the resiliency of this market? Not at all. Not at all? Not at all. Stocks went from a P.E. of almost 23 in October to 19 and change two weeks ago. And it's important to look past this conflict to the underlying fundamentals that are in the economy. We're going to have the sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth, record profits, record margins,

and the stocks have become way more attractive now with the conflict, much like after Liberation Day last April. Yeah, but I mean, it's easier to dial back tariffs than it is to just dial back what's been taking place in the Middle East because part of that's not in the president's control in some respects at this point. None of that factors in. You're just playing it like you would play that, look through it and focus on the fundamentals. The fundamentals are what's kind of.

So let me give you some numbers. Okay. All right. So if we go to the operating cash flows of the S&P 493, it's roughly 6% for the next 12 months, the estimate. If you look at where, let's say, Amazon and Microsoft are, there are 7 and 7.5%. So you can basically buy a large growing company at an operating cash flow greater than the overall S&P 493. And that ties into the peg ratios. So if you look at the PE ratios to the growth rates of different sectors, if you look at the large cap tech right now, it's one to one and a half.

If you look at it in Coke or, let's say, Kimberly Clark or Procter & Gamble, it's two and a half to five. So you're paying way more in Staples or in the $493 for growth than you are in large cap tech. All right, so Goldman's Tony Pescarello today, I feel like you guys are on the same wavelength. He said, I've spent much of the past six weeks trying to work out why the S&P was so resilient. And the same kind of question I asked you. In that search, a few things came up again and again. Number one, the market never lost confidence in the underlying durability of the economy, right? You agree with that.

In turn, earnings expectations trended higher. That ended up being the story, more so than what took place in the Middle East and what's been taking place or the spike in oil prices until the fundamentals, of earnings and the economy change, you just were not going to change. No, because the conflict ultimately will have a resolution. It's not going to go on forever. And the economy is benefiting from the surge in CAPEX, favorable employment. Think about it. 300,000 government jobs were lost, and they've been absorbed into the private sector.

So a privatization of the labor market. We've got deregulation, ease of permitting. There's a host of factors going to lead to rising profits. and earnings, and stocks follow earnings in the long run. They don't follow the conflicts that are going on around the world. Well, I mean, you be our city today upgrades the U.S. to overweight. They were at neutral. I feel like everybody has swung, like the tides turned, right?

For the market and the narrative, and, you know, technology obviously has a lot to do with that. The software rebound is in full swing today. As you know, again, Sima Modi joins us now with a look at the names that are jumping, and there are many for the second straight day. Yeah, there are, Scott. Today's rebound in Saver, primarily driven by Oracle and that partnership being expanded with Bloom Energy that not only gives the company access

to about three gigawatts of power by 2027, but warrants in Bloom's shares, which continue to run up. Overall, the deal underscore Scott, how critical energy is becoming to the AI buildout. With today's move, Oracle has gained roughly $74 billion in market caps since Friday. Also lifting sentiment for software, a report from the Financial Times that Open AI investors are questioning its mega-high valuations.

But get this, Jeffries, cautioning today that the price action we're seeing across software is more reminiscent of a squeeze that we saw back in March versus a fundamental shift in how long-only investors are thinking about the space. As we know, though, the narrative can shift very fast. IBM set to report earnings. That will be the first software company to give us a good read across growth and AI. Scott, that's next week. Good stuff, Seema. Thanks so much for that. Simomori. I mean, IGVs up 5% this week already. It's coming off its best day in a year. And it hit a 52-week low on Friday. And the mega caps are playing a role, too, in all of this. The moves in Amazon and Alphabet, both of those stocks are approaching new highs, as we said.

Kate Rooney has more on Amazon's big run, and it's up a lot in a month. Yeah, Scott, right now it's on track for its highest close since November. Amazon has been leading the Dow today after announcing a deal to acquire Global Star. This is a roughly $11 billion a deal really meant to help Amazon beef up its satellite internet business known as Leo and then to help connect consumer smartphones and devices with those satellites. Amazon has been trying to make a dent into Elon Musk and SpaceX's dominance with Starlink. Amazon says it does plan to launch a new satellite to cell phone service in 2008 and then provide this service to smartphones. Global Star already has a network of satellites out there and has provided Apple with links to support some of the iPhone. phone features, emergency call assistance, for example, when you don't have cell service or that's

not available. Amazon has also said it did agree to a deal with Apple to power satellites for its phone networks and then plans to work with Apple in the future. Spectrum rights are becoming a much bigger deal, a lot more valuable as SpaceX and Apple do start increasingly using these satellites to connect to phones instead of just telecom providers, Scott. All right. Thank you. That's Kate Rooney. So this plays right into something that you've been doing. You added to mega-cap tech, Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft. Yeah, I just thought the multiples had compressed, and they were too attractive to pass up at these levels?

There are companies you date and companies you marry, and when these companies that you want to get married to go down, and they're operating cash flows and earnings keep going up, you want to add to them. And they suffered from a couple of hits in the last 60 days, whether it was the fact that they're spending all their cap-back, all their operating cash flows on cap-ex or a host of factors that have affected large-cap tech, great opportunity to add.

What about the idea that multiples have come in, right? So you already knew that you were going to get durable earnings growth, right, better than most other areas of the market. The AI spend doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon. And now you can get, you know, slightly above a market, for most of these names, rather than a little bit more of a premium like you had to do before. It all plays in the story, right? It does.

And you can also buy them. The market multiple might be elevated, but the peg ratio is below the $493, and the operating cash flow is above the $493. So while the PE might be higher, the growth rate is expected to be higher. The market's basically saying, hey, look, guys, you're spending all your operating cash flow on cap-x. We're discounting that. We don't believe in that. All right, I take the other view. I think that these CEOs know their market, know their business, and they're deploying capital efficiently, and it's going to benefit shareholders.

You must think that software's bottomed if you initiated small positions in Palo Alto and CrowdStrike. Is that right? It's probably like catching a falling knife, which I don't like to do. I just wanted to get my feet wet, so I added a very small position. But I do think that there are certain software companies with embedded books or record, a proprietary data, regulatory requirements, transactional records that are going to thrive because they're going to adopt AI and they're going to actually benefit when all this is said and done. I don't see an AI agent coming in and disrupting these software providers that are in the stack of a company.

But you're tactical, though. I mean, you're looking obviously at cyber as a place that you don't think is going to be disrupted as much as the stocks would have suggested they would be. because Anthropic, every time Anthropic was in a sentence, the software stocks and these things went down a lot. Exactly. And I also added booking and Expedia because the world is not going to stop traveling. Remember, the underlying economic condition of the country is fine. People are going to resume traveling,

and those stocks are selling at very high operating cash flows, which is what I like. Okay. Well, we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for sharing the knowledge. Rich Saperstein, we'll see you soon. mixed results from the big banks means mixed trading in today's session. We showed you a little bit of that at the top of the program. Dom Chu joins us now with a little bit more, even as Wall Street continues to grow more

bullish on earnings overall, Dom. Sure, Scott. So earning seasons gaining steam, and it's the banks always getting the focus, the bulk of attention in this early reporting window. So let's start with today's action. J.P. Morgan Chase, as you see, their biggest bank in America by market value, down about half a percent or so after beating expectations for both profits and revenues, but it did lower guidance for net interest income.

So that's the reason there. Shares of Wells Fargo lower to the tune of just about 5%. And the single worst performer in the S&P 500 financial sector so far. This is after a mixed report where profits appear to top estimates, but we're still being evaluated for comparability to analyst consensus estimates. Revenues, though, did fall shy of expectations. And then Citigroup, that's the outperformer up about 3.5% today after handily topping estimates for both profits and revenues.

With the revenue mark, by the way, coming in at the best levels in a decade. City was helped along by strong performance in both its key fixed income and its equities divisions. Now, it's early stages, as you point out, but we are starting to see some more bullish commentary coming from strategists. One of the latest is via the team at UBS, which put out a note to clients saying they expect first quarter earnings growth for the S&P to come in around 17%, which would be the fastest pace in five years. They also add they think U.S. stocks remain attractive, and they favor financials, consumer discretionary, health care, industrials, and even a more defensive utilities trade. So keep an eye on some of those movements and sectors, Scott. I'll send these back over to you. We will do.

Appreciate that look. Comprehensive, too. Dom, thanks so much, Dom Choo. Now let's welcome in our panel, CNBC contributor, requisite capitals, Brin, Talkington, and 314 researches, Warren Pyes. Nice to have you both. Bryn, you first. Do you agree with the bullishness from UBS and Mr. Saperstein? Well, I think UBS puts the math, right, to their earnings estimates.

So I think that tracks, you know, you and I have talked about how much NVIDIA and micron are going to contribute to that first quarter earnings. So it is very, very narrow, by the way. If you take those two companies out, you get single-digit growth. That being said, I mean, I love how tech is trading right now. invidia is participating. I mean, we haven't talked about it yet, but invidia is at 195. You know, if we can get above 200, I think that really brings back a lot of good things to come for big cap tech. And so we'll see what happens with the straight of Hormuz and President Trump.

I can always throw a wrench in it in the short term. But I think this year definitely with earnings, we're setting up for a very constructive year. I guess, I mean, Warren, it feels like the market has just moved on from the war and the spike in oil and the, the straight, and it's focused on the economy and earnings, and it just isn't as complicated as some have tried to make it. Yeah, I mean, I think equity investors have a longer time horizon than oil, physical oil market participants, for instance. I'd say oil is the shortest duration asset on the menu, so it's just a fundamentally different asset. But if you rewind the clock a little bit, you think about the equity perspective, the fear going through the,

through the first part of the year was all of the CAP-X spending from MAG7 and was there overspending and, you know, is there going to be a glut and a data center glut and things like that? And what we've talked about in what's been developing, I think, under the surface throughout the war and it's been, you know, the war's been on the headlines, but the real trend for the market under the surface is this growing shortage of compute and the realization that this AI appetite for compute is insatiable almost. We see this.

I've talked about this with you. over the last month going into the GTC conference, we track GPU availability every day. And what we're seeing is just record lows, all-time lows in GPU availability, which indicates excessive demand. And I think Rich hit the nail on the head when he was talking about the reset and PE ratios. We looked at every 9%, 10% correction we've had going back since the 1980s. And we have 63-day forward earnings growth of 8.3% at the trial. this market, you just really don't see that. So fundamentals accelerating while price is declining,

and you're getting some of the things that the market was worried about on the compute side, the semi-side, the Kappex side, cleaned up. And so all you needed was a little bit of good news to come out of the Middle East. And so that's what the market's grabbing a hold of here. And I know, I think it's warranted for now. Let's show that chart of the S&P that we just were we're showing because what it does show over the last year, Bryn, is a V-shaped. Every single time something upset this market and we thought a correction could be deeper than it was at the time. This market has showed a resiliency that continues, I think, to surprise a large number

of investors because the things that it's been upset about have been legit. you're talking about extraordinary tariffs on the better part of the world. And yes, I understand that they were dialed back. The market just jumps right when that news hits. Now you have an even more serious situation of a war in the Middle East. Things are unsettled as it relates to the Strait of Hormuz and oil prices. And here we are again. The common denominator in all of that is even through Liberation Day or now.

economic expectations never really changed. Earnings expectations never really changed. In fact, in this instance, they've only been going up. I think even if you go back to 2020, you know, minus 2022, we've had what I call whipsawes, right, where you get these violent downturns. And then within a month, you're all the way back and you've retraced those all the way back up. And so I think investors need to understand these whipsawls in the market are becoming more and more normal. And I think that when you go back, even though we had like a blip of a recession, you know, in the summer of COVID, the U.S. economy is so incredibly resilient. And we have a very different economy than we have in the 70s and 80s. And so I think that when we had people saying stagflation, you know, every once in all they keep using that word. It's just like the economy in the U.S. is a very service, more asset-light economy, even with all the data center spending, yields, which all have up right there, are very anchored. The 10.

years solid here. Unemployment's low. Earnings are good. And so I just think you have to like take from what the market's giving you and not getting shaken out because what ends up happening, Scott, is we learn in investing to buy, buy low, sell high, but investors get panic and they ended up buying, buying high and selling low when they get panicked out of these markets when we have these, you know, tantrums from real events, by the way, real, real events, like what's happening in Iran. Yeah, good reminders from you both. We'll talk to you soon. Brennan Warren, thanks so much. Now to Christina Parts of Nevelos, who's got a look at the biggest movers as we head into the close today.

Hi there. Hi, Scott. Well, shares of Bloom energy are soaring after the company said it expanded a prior partnership with Oracle to build out its AI cloud-confuting capabilities. Under this agreement, Oracle will purchase as much as 2.8 gigawatts of power from Bloom. Bloom shares are up 140 percent year-to-date, but up 20 percent just today. Credo Technologies, another company, soaring today after the U. electric cable provider said it agreed to buy chipmaker dust photonics, roughly $750 million bucks in cash in stock. CRETO makes the copper cables needed to connect all the servers so they

can talk to each other, and it's expected to expand its optical division, which would bring in roughly $500 million in revenue for fiscal 2027. So this is about a pivot into optical. And then last but not least, CarMax shares sinking after its latest quarterly earnings surpassed estimates, but reflected declines from just a year ago. The company also paused its share repurchase program to save cash for its turnaround plan. The stock pacing for its worst days since November, down 15%, Scott.

Wow, okay. Christina, thank you. We'll see in a little bit. Christina Parts of Nevelos. Just getting started here on the bell. Coming up next, the reversal on rates. What Treasury Secretary Scott Besson said about the Fed's next move, raised a lot of eyebrows today.

I'll tell you what it is, and we'll get instant reaction from former Federal Reserve Vice Chair, Rich Clareda, the Bell, the Stock Exchange, back after this. All right, welcome back some new comments today from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about the timing of the Fed's next move, raising a lot of eyebrows today. Our senior economics correspondent, Steve Leesman joins us now with more to tell us exactly what he said, whether your eyebrows were among the raised. You know, Scott, my eyebrows are pretty much been raised for quite a while now, but for most of the past

15 months, the Trump administration has done little but criticized often harshly the Federal Reserve interest rate policy. But over the past two days, Secretary Scott Besson has relented at least a little bit. Speaking to reporters on the side of the IMF World Bank meetings today, Besson saying, quote, I believe that their framework had been wrong. I believe that will be proven wrong, but that if they want to wait for some clarity, I understand that. Now, that was a little less definitive than he was yesterday when he said the Fed was doing, quote, the right thing by sitting and watching, but it's still an acknowledgement by the administration and a top official at that. The surge in oil prices complicates the Fed's job of just cutting rates. And it's a long

way from the barrage of criticism from the president and the administration, especially the president, who has never quite missed an opportunity to lamb base the Fed for not cutting rates deeply. Besson added that the Fed chair power should let Trump's nominee, Kevin Warsh leave the way on the next cycle of interest rate cuts, and that inflation, he believes, will come down. He noted that the 10-year yield, which, you know, had traded as high as 4.5% at the end of March, has come down. It's now around 4.5% of a quarter, a sign of less inflation concern in markets from the oil price surge. So, Scott, a little bit of leeway here from the Treasury to the Fed, but the question is how much it matters. The Fed was doing its own

thing anyway. I mean, it matters to us, I suppose. It, in a way, it had Mr. Besson sounding more like the very successful investor that he used to be rather than a member of the cabinet, which has been pretty consistent in advocating, obviously, for lower rates. You also do today, Steve, have a bunch of Fed speak. What are we hearing there? Well, we had, who was it that spoke today? Gulesby spoke earlier today. Gelsby.

And some of the discussions over the past several days, Scott, is, you know, know, the Fed is very firmly in this wait and see approach, very much the way the Treasury Secretary is talking about it. And I like the way you put it, because it's very hard to look at the current situation, Scott, of oil prices surging and say, there's a clear path here for the Federal Reserve to cut rates. There may be a clear path, and it may emerge, but certainly it's not now where the Fed has to be concerned of monetizing the oil price surge and not really giving it any fuel, Scott, and letting essentially let it play out if it's a one-off thing and Besson has actually used the word transitory with this oil price. If it turns out to be that, well,

then the Fed can get along to the idea of cutting rates, but not in the teeth of what's happening right now. Sure. Well, I mean, I think for decades, really, the Fed has sort of tried to look at a spike, for example, in oil prices as transitory, thus not to make any critical monetary policy decision based on that which could be fleeting, which then leads me down the road to the next presumptive Fed chair himself, which is Kevin Worse, and we have learned a little bit more about him today, too, didn't we? Yeah, and Scott, I just want to go back real quick to what you're talking about earlier, which is that there's two definitions out there of look through, and I'll get to Kevin in just

a second, but look through to some as meant look through and cut. But I think to the center of the board, now you've got Clarita coming up, I wonder what but he thinks about this. But to the center of the board, I think look through means hang tight. Don't do anything. Don't cut. Don't necessarily hike. But look through means to keep policy in place.

On Kevin, we learned he's pretty much what we knew, Scott. He's enormously wealthy. His wife is enormously wealthy. He's done quite well. He has a broad array of investments, at least a minimum of $135 million in his own name. There you go. There's the juggernaut funds, two separate funds. There's a series of investment.

investments that look tied to Stan Drucken Miller, THS, DFS, that we calculate as a minimum amount of 22 as much as potentially 75 million. Series of stock ownership in an Asian retailer or looks like a tech retailer as well, 3 to 15, a variety of stock ownership in UPS 2 to 10. And then a company, DCM investments that looks like it's a venture capital fund, providing a lot of seed capital to a lot of very interesting businesses. You know, SpaceX is one of them, but there's also a company that does an automatic robotic arm for coffee makers. All right. Hey, wherever you get it from, at least we know now. Well, you know, the main thing is he's very into tech. And we know that, and that's another discussion, Scott, for another day, how much his belief in the outlook for tech is a part of his outlook for policy. Well, he's very into markets. And we know

that and he's been a trusted advisor to one of the greatest to ever do it in Stan Drucken Miller. So that is an interesting story within itself and will be focused on that a lot, I think, in his tenure. Steve, thanks as always. Yeah. Steve Leesman, our senior economics correspondent. Now to Rich Clarity, he's the former Federal Reserve Vice Chair, now Global Economic Advisor, Pimco.

Welcome back. Good to have you. Yeah, looking forward to the conversation. What do you make of the Bessent comments? Are we reading too much into that? is he saying something here? I did take note of it for the reasons that you and Steve Leesman mentioned. First of all, we haven't heard a lot about wait and see from Secretary Bessent until the last

day or two. And then what I really took note of is when he said that he wanted the next Fed chair, which will be Kevin Warsh, to kick off the rate easing cycle. And I took note of that as well. No, that's not really news in the sense. We know the Secretary is in favor of lower rates, but the mention of the timing, I thought, was interesting. Well, it remains to be seen whether June is going to actually happen. And I suppose a lot of that will have to do with what oil does.

I mean, you would agree, though, with Mr. Besson, if we want to take it for what it is, for what it's worth, that the Fed is right to wait and see. And just see where all this goes. There's no rush to do. anything? For a couple reasons. One, obviously, inflation's moving in the wrong direction. Secondly, there is a lot of uncertainty about the persistence of this shock. Maybe if I can parachute in a little bit when you talk about looking through oil shocks, a lot of oil shocks in the last 50 years have really been mean reverting. Oil moves up and then it comes down quickly. You can also have an oil shock that's more persistent, as we saw like in 2010, 11, and 12.

with oil at 100, but even there, the inflation effect really only directly is within a year or so. So, but I do think that there is more than the usual amount of uncertainty because of the nature and the potential duration of the hostilities in the Middle East. So I think it's very sensible to wait and see at this juncture. And I thought, I thought Steve was very astute in how he in a way corrected my language by saying, you know, when you use the words, look at the through, it can mean different things to different people, especially when you're talking about the Fed. It seems to me that he's correct when he says, essentially, don't overreact to something that truly has proven to be transitory, right? Sure. And I think he's also, not for the first

time, Steve's on top of the pulse of the committee in the sense. You have 19 folks, and they each give speeches and they each give interviews. And you do have a group, it's not a majority, but probably seven at least of those 19, some of whom are voters, who basically think the Fed is done. They think the policy rate is close to where they want it to be. But at least a majority of the committee as of March, you know, after the initial oil shock, felt that, you know, a couple more rate cuts would be appropriate eventually, but obviously in no rush to do that. this year. As a former central banker, where's your temperature on private credit? Are you at 98.6? Or are you a little elevated, but not yet in need of, you know, something to deal with a fever?

Look, it's a very broad asset class, and parts of it have grown rapidly, in particular, you know, direct lending to middle market companies. And obviously, it's not been stress tested in a downturn. but there are other elements of the private credit universe, the asset-backed elements where you're lending against tangible collateral. So we think it's important to really take a granular perspective on it for sure. You think, you think Chair Powell feels the exact same way? How do you think they're feeling about it? Well, I wouldn't know. I haven't talked to him about it. What I would say is the Fed is the primary regulator and supervisor of bank holding companies, and at minimum the Fed will want to be comfortable with the direct and indirect exposure that

large banks have. Based on publicly available information, the exposure looks to be pretty modest relative to the size of their balance sheets, but of course, I'm no longer an official, so I haven't seen the detailed data. But I think that's probably the Fed's primary focus right now is just making sure that it understands the exposure of the banking system to private credit, which as I said, based upon the information I've seen, does not appear to be a concern right now. I have to run, but real quick, chances of a June cut by Kevin Worse and company are what?

What do you think the percentage chances are? I think pretty close to zero because it's not clear that Kevin Warsh will be there by the June meeting, depending on what happens in the Senate. And I don't think we're going to know a lot about the prospects for the oil market than necessarily either. So I will say close to zero. All right. Talk to you soon. Thanks as always.

I appreciate the time and the conversation. Rich Clareda. Still ahead, are we on the cusp of an everything rally for stocks? Our next guest weighs in as record highs are once again within reach. Bell's back after this. All right, welcome back with stocks nearing new highs. Our next guest says rising earnings expectations are a high hurdle to jump over. Alexander Wilson Elizondo is co-head and co-CIO of multi-asset solutions here with us at post.

to nine from Goldman Sachs. Of course, good to have you. Thank you for having me. So a couple of things stood out in your notes today, that in everything rally, the market's going to attempt in everything rally, but it's going to be short-lived. Yep. Why do you think short-lived? I mean, like, ceasefires, they stop the clock. They don't rewind the clock.

We're still looking at, you know, commodity markets that are pricing in December, higher rates, you know, and we're 30 basis points higher at the front end of the yield curve. So there's been a lot of movement that's not going to unwind. But when you take off $150 oil from the table and the possibility of outcomes, you start to get a lot of momentum. You're going to get a technical relief rally. Are you surprised at the resiliency of this market? I've asked a lot of people the obvious question, but I'm curious to what your answer is. Others have said no because the fundamentals of both the economy and earnings have remained robust.

I think you would have to be fundamentally changing your Fed call and your earnings forward call to think that the market was going to totally. totally go south. That being said, I think when you start to look relative value, you know, U.S. market versus others, you're starting to see rolling blackouts in Asian markets and, you know, putting constraints on oil usage. So I think all the capital that was starting to get to deploy to this, you know, reflation rally elsewhere is starting to come back here.

Okay, that's a really good point. You make. So do you think the war dynamic has changed that because we had heard from many strategists and portfolio managers, outside the U.S. presented the best opportunity, and now maybe you feel like that's switched back. Yeah, I think on one hand, diversification really matters for your portfolio

in this type of market and all the different things that are happening across the world. But I really want quality growth in my portfolio, and one of the best places to do that is in the United States. So does that also mean that what looked to be a pretty robust broadening trade before this whole thing started is also kind of over two? X your everything rally, which is going to be short-lived, we go right back to the growth trade?

In the U.S.? Yes. And in fact, I think some of the most compelling parts of the market are some that have done really well. So I think this is a, you know, don't fight the trend, don't be a contrarian, semi still look really good, AI is still a theme. You know, keeping with some of the structural growth trends, which are driving the U.S. economy, you know, these are still great places to invest. The other conversation I've been having with people who like tech around the mega caps is the multiple compression. It's like you needed another thing to make these things more attractive. Yeah.

I mean, honestly, you're looking at, you know, five-year lows in some cases, like incredibly compelling place to put money to work. And that's the other side of this coin, is there's still a lot of money to put to work. And you see that in these big relief days like we saw yesterday. What about some of the areas that have been hated, like software, now even they look like they're, waking up a bit. Are you a fan in any way of that? I mean, like, there's, you know, there's going to be some winners and losers in there. I think ultimately, you know, AI disruption is a real trend and something we have to be careful and thoughtful around, but it's going to be a slow burn. I don't think it's going to happen overnight.

How do you see, since, you know, we talked a little bit about the Fed and your look ahead and what your idea of calendar looks like for the Fed cuts, you still think cuts this year? We're still expecting cuts, but towards the end of the year. going to have to see, you know, unemployment tick up in order to see that, that change in mindset. And it doesn't matter if we've pushed that off because, as we already said, the economy and earnings are good enough that the market, quote unquote, doesn't need it. This is why I think it's not in everything rally sustained because you do need cuts, you know, for some of that real beta, deep beta names that are highly levered floating rate debt.

They need to see cuts in order to really rally from here. But like small caps, like I feel like, you know, I feel like, You're kind of talking about those. Yeah, but small caps have done so well because there's so much energy in small caps. It's like up 9% of Russell is year to date. You have to look at it like five times to make sure you're looking at it right. It's so outsized relative to everything else. It is.

But again, there's a sector that's done incredibly well that's in small caps that's skewing a little bit of the output there. Appreciate you coming on. Thanks for having me. All right, Alexander Wilson Alizando again from Goldman Sachs. Up next, we track the biggest movers into the close today. Christina Parts of Novelos is back. Tell us what you see.

I am back. A major tech denial sending one to two stocks lower right now an airline merger pitch that could create the world's largest carrier and a farmer giant teaming up with an AI powerhouse. Of course, to speed up drug discovery. We'll have those stock movers next. We're about 10 from the bill. Back to Christina now for the stocks. She's watching. Hi there. Hi, Scott. Well, let's start with Dell's shares because they're down after. InVIDIA denied an unconfirmed report that it was weighing a deal for a large PC-focused company just, just, yesterday. You had Dell shares rise about 6%. HPQ shares over 2% on that news, but the moral of the story is don't believe every headline. American Airlines and United, both moving higher after United CEO Scott Kirby pitched a merger between the two airlines during a meeting with President Trump. If the merger actually happens, it would create the world's largest airline, American pacing for its best day since August on just that development. Scott.

All right, Christina, thank you. Coming up next, Robin Hood, the best performing stock in the S&P 500 a day. We'll tell you what's driving it next in the market zone. We're now on the closing bell market zone. Mike Santoli and Miller value partners, Bill Miller, are here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus, Rick Santelli, standing by live from Cibo Global Markets in Chicago. Mackenzie Seagall is tracking the big bounce today in Robin Hood. Michael, I'll begin with you, your thoughts. Yeah, I mean, obviously this market is kind of penalizing anybody who wanted to wait and see for a little more clarity on exactly outlook on geopolitics. It's obviously been a broad rally in the sense that most stocks are up,

but it's also been really driven by some of the old favorites. And essentially, I think, it's investors marking to market the intensity of AI spend compared to the last time they were focused on this and these stocks are down so much. We see core weave up 50% in two weeks, right? Sandisk, we've all talked about what that's been doing. So it's a little bit grabby on that end. I'm not sure the market is making much of a macro call here. in terms of whether there's going to be, you know, we're going to escape any real friction in the real economy. But for now, it has been tough to fight. I do think it's running a little hot in the short term.

Probably need some time to take a break. But it's definitely affirming the way the market is going to essentially look through the near-term nuance and just figure that the peak uncertainty has already passed. Yeah. What do you make of the bouncing software of the last couple days? Are you a believer yet? I don't know whether I believe it in terms of it being. like, you know, some long-lasting recovery that we're in for here. But I think it's all part of, again, the market penalizing people who are leaning against

the beaten up areas. And, you know, arguably, things like Microsoft leading. It's been a huge upside contributor. Salesforce coming to life. Oracle felt like maybe it got a little bit too bruised. All those things together makes some sense only in the context, I think, of people going to where the earning story hasn't changed very much and the prices have come down a lot. That's the stage. That's enough for now. I'm not sure that you have enough to kind of completely overcome all of the disruption fears that we've been dealing with for months. Quick look ahead to four o'clock. Yeah, all of this, of course, but also emerging markets and whether the story there has changed as to whether the rest of the world can outperform

and whether the oil shock is going to hit harder out there. All right. I've seen about five minutes. It's good stuff. Thank you very much for that. To Rick Santelli at the seabo. What do you see there, Rick? Well, you know, it's all about risk reward. You heard, Mike. If you wait to geopolitics, puts up the white flag and says everything's great, all the moves are over.

To that end, I continue to be optimistic, and I think energy price are going to continue to go down. So let's look at Devon Energy, exploration, production. Let's look at their puts. Because if we continue to go down and price on oil, I would think maybe their stock would go down as well. So we're going to look at the 44 puts. They're trading a little over 4530 right now on the stock,

and the expiration will be the 24th of April, Scott. The cost would be 50 cents. Of course, 100 shares, so it's really $50. Your break-even would be $44, $43.50. And I think it's actually a really good trade, especially considering you have a little time to 24th. And just always remember, follow the dollar. If the dollar keeps going down, you want to definitely look for the energy to be

going the same direction as the dollar. Back to you. I love these options, looks from you, Rick. Thank you. Rick Santelli for us at the Cibo. We said Robin Hood is the best stock in the S&P today. Let's find out why Mac. Scott, yes it is. Robin Hood shares jumping more than 10% going into the close after Bernstein reiterated its outperform rating with a $130 price target, implying more than 65% upside from here. Now, the bull case really comes down to two of Hood's core businesses. First, prediction markets. Bernstein expects that segment to nearly quadruple this year,

making it the single largest revenue driver for 2026. Analysts point to the FIFA World Cup this summer, and midterm elections in the back half of the year is volume catalysts. And then there's crypto, where Bernstein is notably more bullish than the street, forecasting over a billion dollars in revenue this year, 31% above consensus on the view that a rebound in Bitcoin will bring back retail trading activities starting in Q3. And Bernstein's broader thesis, Robin Hood still only captures 4% of the total U.S. retail brokerage revenue pool, leaving plenty of room to grow. Scott?

All right, Mac, thank you, McKenzie Segalis. All right, Bill, what do you think of this market? Look, we're bullish, and there's various ways you can play at, Scott. But we're We're most bullish on the small mid-cap value space, which if you look at the market texture today, it's very reminiscent of what happened actually in 2022, which in 2022, if you recall, Russia invaded Ukraine, price of oil went to the moon. This year, where there's a conflict with Iran, price of oil is going to the moon. What I think is really interesting is earlier, someone mentioned they thought that if oil is going down, energy equities would continue to go down.

I actually take the other side of that, which is, if you're going to, look at what happened in 2022, oil price was going down consistently from June to the end of the year. And energy, the energy space outperformed the S&P through the end of that year. So, you know, if you look at the energy space as a whole, it's underperformed for so long, there's been so much underinvestment there. Expectations are so washed out that there's a lot of names in that space that are trading a massive discounts to what we think they're working. And you don't think that that area of the market specifically, let's say small, value is highly dependent on rate cuts, which are highly uncertain as we have this conversation?

Well, I think small cap value is going to actually be potentially more dependent in this decade on the real cost of capital. If you look at what happened between 2010 and 2020, money really generated a capital note generated no returns. The 10-year yield then was roughly 2.4% on average versus inflation averaging 1.8%. That gives you very little. difference between the two at 60 Bips, roughly, of real return potential. Today, you've got a much different dynamic where the 10-year yield is roughly forward to two. Inflation's about three. So you have two and a half to three times that real rate of return.

Securities that kick off real cash flows today are much going to be much more valuable, and investors are going to value them that way we think moving forward. So that would benefit small-cap value. Sorry to step on your toes there. My apologies. I'm looking at Bitcoin, 74,655. it's up about 5% just shy of that over the last month.

What is it trading on these days in your mind? Considering we still have this war going on and we're trying to figure out where commodity markets are going from here where the dollar is going to go. What is it moving on now? Well, day to day,

it's going to be very hard to say just because it's a leverage asset. There's leverage liquidations that occur from time to time. leverage the first buying that occurs from time to time. But I think fundamentally this is one of the best setups I've ever seen, just because what you saw recently saw 50% pullback. That's the fifth largest pullback in Bitcoin history.

Drawdowns are getting shallower over time. We also have some real fundamental benefits here, which is depth of security route. Talk again soon. Into overtime.