Closing Bell - Closing Bell: What’s Next for the Rally? 7/29/25

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

What might hold the key to the next move in this rally? We discuss with Trivariate’s Adam Parker, Invesco’s Brian Levitt and Capital Area Planning Group’s Malcolm Ethridge. Plus, we get a pulse check on the credit market with Mark Okada of Sycamore Tree Capital. And, top financial advisor Rich Saperstein tells us how he is advising his clients right now. 

Brian thanks so much. Welcome to Closing Bell. Scott Wapner front and center this hour from Post 9th at the New York Stock Exchange. Stocks searching for a new catalyst today. The trade talks are front and center. Mega cap earnings about to get real. We discussed with our experts over this final stretch today. In the meantime take a look at the scorecard here with 60 to go and regulation were modestly lower. We have really been for most of the day today several names getting hit after their earnings reports including United Health Merck Royal Caribbean and Spotify just to name a few That's how those losses look at this hour Novo Nordis shares are slammed today after cutting guidance some stocks in those related groups are falling as well But that one's ugly down more than 20% It takes us to our talk of the tape the road ahead for this for this record setting market and what might hold the key to the next move. We begin with our own Eamon Javis today. He is in Stockholm as trade meetings wrap up with the Chinese.

Eamon, you also spoke with the Treasury Secretary after those meetings ended. Yeah, Scott, that's right. Treasury Secretary speaking to us just after he got off the phone briefing President Trump about what had happened during those talks, we asked him a whole bunch of questions, a couple that I thought made news. One, on this question that's been swirling since Sunday on the EU trade deal, which is there was a $600 billion piece of that trade deal that was agreed to be European purchases of American products. After the deal was announced, EU officials came out and said, well, actually, that will be private

sector purchases, and we as the government can't mandate that the private sector make those purchases. So we have no way of really enforcing that. I asked the Treasury Secretary if the U.S. is convinced that that $600 billion is a real commitment from the Europeans, and here's what he had to say. I think that's going to be closely monitored. I think President Trump believes that this is a good deal. I mean, on paper, this is a deal of the century and I would be surprised over time if the EU doesn't hold up there into the bargain or the

15% tariff rate could change. And we're also just a couple of days away Scott from that August 1st deadline that's on Friday for tariffs for all of the countries around the world that haven't gotten deals with the United States. I asked the Treasury Secretary what American businesses should expect on Friday, and here's what he said on that. It's not the end of the world if these snapback tariffs are on for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks as long as the countries are moving forward and trying to negotiate in good faith. So Scott, the big headlines from

today in Stockholm from the Treasury Secretary, one is no specific agreements on any points with the Chinese in these talks over the past two days and the second is the markets had really been looking to see whether the August 12 deadline for China tariffs will be extended again. The Treasury secretary and Jameson Greer, the US trade representative, would not commit to pushing that trade deadline back until they said they speak to President Trump in the Oval Office tomorrow. He'll be the ultimate decider on that. The Treasury Secretary was trying to suggest often that the context of the meeting was good, things were positive, but ultimately he's not the one who can

extend that deadline. Has to come from President Trump, likely not to happen until tomorrow, Scott. I felt like the last soundbite that you played was almost the Treasury Secretary, Eamamon talking directly to the markets saying look if it goes past the deadline it's not that big of a deal for a few days or weeks as long as the countries continue to negotiate in other words market don't fall out of bed if we have to go beyond the deadline as long as the negotiations are continuing and continuing in good faith I think that's a good way to read it got he clearly was trying to set a bar of expectation there and i think there's two audiences right one of financial

market and you know he would be concerned about market falling out of bed if you pay but the other is american companies that import from any of those countries which are going to have to start to pay very very high tariff on friday presumably uh... if those deals don't come through in the next three days. So those people are going to be paying higher prices, and they're going to have to figure out what to do. It's going to be a big business problem for a lot of American companies doing a lot of

business with a lot of countries around the world, and it's going to start on Friday. You also have to think about what the end game ultimately is here, and I thought the Treasury secretary gave you an answer along those lines as well towards the end of your interview where he said the president sometimes is happy to do the deal and he's sometimes happy just to have the tariff income. It just makes you wonder how long all of this is going to play out and what the real motive is. Yeah, I mean what he was talking about in our interview it'd be enormous

structural reconstruction of the chinese economy he want the chinese to rebuild their economy and they can consumer economy not of the manufacturing and exporting economy that's just not what they've done for the past fifty years it would be an enormous enormous change for china strategically economically uh... you, whether the Chinese have any interest in that goal or not, I mean, we'll have to ask Xi Jinping when we get a chance to talk to him next, but it is they're asking an enormous amount from China, and we'll see if there's any way these two countries can meet in the

middle. The first thing to look for is whether the president announces an extension for that August 12th date. It felt to me, Scott, like that extension is coming. I was talking to the Treasury secretary a little bit about what city they might meet in again in 90 days. He didn't give us a city, but they're clearly shopping around the world for venues for that. So it felt like they're heading in that direction, but it's always up to President Trump, and

he can change his mind at the last minute so we won't know until we know. Aiman thanks on the move of course after his interview with the Treasury Secretary and we're grateful that you called in thank you Aiman Javers from Sweden live let's bring in now CNBC contributor Adam Parker of Trivariate Research back here Post 9. It's good to see you. Have you moved on from all this are you how fixated are you on on what's actually taking place on trade? I mean, this week I've gotten zero questions from institutional investors so far.

Not a single one? No. Probably done seven or eight Zooms, a couple in-person meetings, and I had a big dinner last night with eight big investors and it didn't really come up. Does that tell you that we're desensitized to it or we've just decided that this is all going to play out in its own timeframe and we're going to moveized to it, or we've just decided that this is all going to play out in its own timeframe, and we're gonna move on to bigger and better?

It's funny, so at this dinner last night, these are chief risk officers of major firms, institutions, and I kinda said, look, nobody's worried about tariffs. Is it all, we're worried about in April, and even those of us that were staunchly worried aren't worried anymore, and is that the moment of complacency? Because that could be the risk. And I think a lot of people just said look like we've spent a

lot of time doing the math and we think we can identify the securities and we just don't think it's as big as a risk as we used to so it could be complacent but I think more the price in the market is generally telling you that it's probably gonna impact the S&P earnings less than people thought. The less of a bad outcome is yeah like what the sum of all this sounds like it is according to your conversations. I think that's right. I think the biggest risk is probably still the China part, which was always the biggest risk.

And to the extent that we see that quote, they have a good relationship and all that, to the extent that people think that's not going in a negative direction, I don't think we're going to get a huge growth scare out of the tariff stuff with what I know right now. OK, so let's talk about what some suggest are the risks, OK? Jonathan Krenzke of BTIG says, the clock is ticking for a shakeout. In other words, we've run a lot.

Wolf Research today says, this marks the seasonal peak for equities. In other words, seasonals are gonna get tougher from here. Goldman Sachs today says, equity valuations remain quite high. So we're higher than the 10-year historical average. We're 22 and a half, and the 10-year historical average is like 18.6.

You put all those three together, what do you come out with? No information. I learned nothing from hearing that. You're not worried about any of that? I mean, costing at a three- We've run a lot. Wait, costing at a-

Seasonals get worse, and stocks are expensive. Let's go in order, okay? Costing said there'd be 3% S&P appreciation per year for the next 10 years, and we got the whole 30% since he said that, so I don't know why I'd listen to him. That's one. Two, because I'm not saying I could do it,

that's an impossible task, okay? Earnings are less impaired than people thought. The consensus numbers are coming up since the trough, okay? So I raised my numbers, I think the earnings are coming up. Valuations, I wrote a big note on Sunday. I know you saw it. It's just not the way you pick securities. Cheap stocks don't outperform expensive stocks.

Nobody is saying that it's the way you pick stocks. The reason the market's more expensive is it's better. The market's better than it was. But do you ever look at the fact and say, well, given the unknowns that still exist, I mean, the economy's not roaring. Do I? Is it?

No, I mean, no, but- And we've come a lot and the market is more expensive relative to where it was. Right, as it was on January 24 after it went up 25% and then it went up another 25%, as it was, you know, I think it's always like a question of, what do you think the changes to perception about growth are gonna be?

What do you think the changes to perception about rates are gonna be? And do you think the changes to perception about rates are gonna be, and do you think that skews to the positive? I think it does because we're in this sort of innocent until proven guilty mode about AI productivity that hits earnings. It's cheap to say seasonals, that's the part I get that gets me a little more lathered up than normal.

It's like, come on, go evaluate 100 years S&P returns, tell me September's statistically significantly worse than others, yeah, like a bunch of wars and other stuff. You dumped on Costin, you dumped on Wolf. What did you leave for Krensky? I don't know who the person at Wolf who said it is. You just blanketed the whole firm. No you said Wolf research.

I know Eddie's a great guy. I'm just saying he's built a great business. Who said that? I don't know. I don't know who Krensky is. And Costin I'm just saying he's been valuation sensitive the whole way up, and we know valuation isn't a predictor of subsequent return. I think valuation works in years five through 10, not in years zero through five.

So you could sit there and be wrong for five years using valuation as an argument. That's my point. So then you're bullish. I think the risk worse due to the positive. But it's cheap for me to do that double-breaking putt call, say, well, I'm concerned about this growth scare. The most negative data points that have happened in my mind in the last three weeks have been one, ASML.

ASML is a very real company, and they said it wasn't just company specific, there was some tariff stuff. We have to watch that carefully, as you mentioned at the top of the show, tons of tech company and earnings coming out. We have to see how much real companies, I would say big companies with dominant position, talk about tariff issues. Okay, what about this week?

Coming up with the mega caps. Does that make you more bullish because you know that those results are gonna be good and that's gonna feed the next catalyst or not? I think the issue in the second point that was gonna say more bearish is just the bank earnings were great and the stock didn't go up that much.

And I was worry a little bit about that point you're making. Isn't that relevant here? Yeah, it is. And that's the part that say the two things I think are a little bit less post and they were but on the other side of it like do I think the earnings from that that core to mega cap companies the tech ones are gonna grow double digits 26 versus 25 yes. Do I want to short stocks where the earnings are growing double digits? No I do not. All right. I mean so I mean so I don't know why you got me a little more lathered up than normal today with your question.

I mentioned like three. So in a good way, I mentioned three notes from three firms. You got all worked up. But it always it always works. You're a hater. Well, look, I I just think that, you know, our job is to react to new information and try to see did I learn anything. If I sit there with a negative view for 10 years in a row, then you get the broken clock is right twice a day thing.

If you were acting incrementally, I just told you, as someone who thinks the risk word's positive, the two things that are actually negative are ASML's common on tariffs, and the bank stocks with very solid earnings provisioning less for losses, and the stocks didn't go up that much, and I would have liked them to go up more. It's always worrisome when stocks are beaten,

don't go up very much, the same way it's awesome when they miss and don't go down. All right, well there. So those are the directional negatives. The directional positives are we're on the precipice, I think, of implementing productivity across a whole bunch of companies that could really benefit.

So I think 206 and 27 earnings are gonna be up decently with what I know now, and I definitely don't wanna get negative on US equities when earnings are gonna grow. All right, there are a lot of stocks that have gone up a lot that are, I don't know, they look a little bit dicey today. Christina Parts-Nevalos is looking

at the so-called speculative stocks. And whether it's a sign of something, what do you see? Well, what we're seeing is just really retail traders driving another speculative surge this summer. But those risky bets, to your point, are showing a little bit of, I guess, an unwind today. Open door down what? About 10%. Here here the old speculative

Tracer senior game stop in AMC but Kohl's off 7% 1 800 flowers down 6% even the ARK ETF on pace for its fourth positive month and best streak since August 2020 is down over 2% with its top holdings Tesla Coinbase Roku just all really under pressure today today's selling really follows huge runs earlier this month for names like American Eagle, Kohl's, or Open Door as an example, which was up almost 300% with little fundamental backing to really explain these swings just over the last little month.

Online trading platform Interactive Brokers says this week's data based on a five-day moving average of orders shows quote, a relative return to normalcy with AMD, Oklo, Hymns and Super Micro all seeing net selling activity just over the last five business days. The question now whether this really marks the end of summer's speculative fever or maybe just another pause before the next wave of tech earnings and of course tomorrow's meeting with the Fed. Scott? I think it's a key question. Christina, thank you very much. Christina Partsanevalos. Now let's bring in Invesco's Brian Levitt and Capital Area Planning Group's Malcolm Etheridge. Malcolm's also a CNBC contributor.

It's great to have you both with us. Thank God Levitt didn't publish today. He'd be all over him. He'd be dunking on me. He might in your face. Let's see if he has that. I'm not much of a dunker. Let's just be cool. And the reality is... The reality is, to be fair, I was sitting here nodding my head with Adam. The reality is...

You scoff at some of the negative... Yeah, I'm not all that concerned about seasonality. I mean, I agree with Adam with regards to valuations. You could be wrong for a long while with valuations. They give you far more information about the intermediate to long-term. Valuation should never be considered a timing tool. Are you as bullish as he sounds?

Yeah, I'm optimistic. I think when we talk about risks, the one thing I would be worried about here is if inflation, you know, if prices are gonna move up, but does the bond market start to get a whiff of broader inflation? If not, inflation stays stable, expectations stay stable. I think the Federal Reserve eases in an environment where the economy will slow a bit, but it's

not showing signs of cracking. Corporate bond market's not showing signs of cracking. It suggests to me that you continue to want to be in risk assets. There are some calls that I've seen that suggest, Adam, that bonds are going to be better in August than equities. Look, they could be. Listening to that comment about sort of meme stocks, high-value shortages, ones that rip, I think the challenge for most institutional investors is it's hard for them to market

to their allocators that they own low quality stocks. And so what is ARK? ARK is a hyper growth junk, low quality proxy. It's had a huge run, low quality stocks have outperformed high quality for three, four months, and that's hard for people to keep up. So maybe the bullish thing is that these things sort of get sold and we get back into some of the higher quality names that could lead. But if they do continue to get sold, does it make the market more fragile because you

have a rush to the exit on an already shaky leg of a four-legged chair? The institutional investors were buying the Kohl's and Open last week. After they go 50 to 150 on a retail short squeeze that's all targeted, it would be illegal if it's institutional investors, but it's fine if it's retail, the retail guys are all looking at options, activity, and volume, and price, and they're squeezing higher to about 50 to 250.

That's what the hedge funds do, and they're chasing it, but none of those stocks, any kind of real investor who turns the book over once or twice a year, buys Coles when they all know what's gonna be as weak. I told you two years ago it was going to zero. It's pickleball court. So those things open nobody buys open it's a 50 cents if you're short a 50 cent stock with 50% short interest

you're asking for problems from the risk management perspective right like that's a tough short so I look at that and think it will be helpful to most institutional investors if we stop seeing that kind of mean point 3.0 short squeeze stuff and we get back toward the fundamentals, I think some of the top half quality growth names will actually benefit in the second half of the year. It's not a short term streak, Malcolm, that some of these stocks have been on. The ARK ETF had an eight week win streak before last week.

We've had the high beta ETF pacing for a fourth positive month in a row. That's the best streak in three or four years. Yeah, I don't know that we could paint with a broad brush and say what happens inside of the ARK ETF is indicative of what we're talking about with the memification of some of these names that were penny stocks a couple days ago, right?

I know Cathie Wood does a little bit more research than that. And so I think we should at least separate those two categories. But I do think what we're seeing is investors taking profits that they earn from April 9th on through June and using those profits to invest in some of these more speculative things. And that's part of the reason that we're seeing this reset that you guys started by talking about. And it's probably going to carry through the rest of this week's earnings even after we get

bang up numbers from some of the hyperscalers in the Mag-7, the market will likely respond with a little bit of a yawn similar to big bank earnings that kicked off the earnings period. Brian, are the mega cap tech stocks, are they tired? Are they exhausted? Are they just resting before the pause that refreshes after these earnings this week? Probably the resting before the pause that refreshes. I mean some of this

low quality high-risk stuff, that's not indicative of the macro environment that we're likely heading into. We're heading into an environment where growth is likely to moderate, prices are likely to move up, Fed can't do much of anything. We shouldn't be fishing in the lowest quality waters in that type of an environment. I think investors are going to move back. Higher quality, higher quality in this country tends to mean mega cap growthier tech names. And you can't paint Mag 7 with one brush, but a lot of them are well positioned. So you're talking about prices moving back up as a result of tariffs, like an inflation issue

that keeps the Fed on hold? Potentially keeps the Fed on hold. More of a price shock than an inflation issue, but the challenge is exactly, the Fed caught between a rock and a hard place, growth slowing, probably want to respond to that. We probably shouldn't be sitting with a flat yield curve, but they have to pause because of where

the consumer price index is going. But don't you think that companies are gonna be more reticent to pass costs on and they're going to eat it and figure out a way to do so, even if it comes at the expense on a small degree to their margins? Well, there's probably a combination of both that will happen.

Obviously, there's a cost to tariffs. Some of that will be absorbed by businesses. Some of that will be absorbed by the consumer. My fear in it would be if you start to see inflation really start to accelerate to the upside. That's a different story. That's end of the cycle. We can't put that to rest at this point? I think you get a price shock on tariff impactedimpacted categories, but not broad-based across the economy. I'm not that worried about it, only because we all do this.

I do this, too, of recency bias, where we say, wow, we had massive inflation in the COVID recovery. But you remember, we did this payment protection program, helicopter money, so not only were factories shut down, but we also had massive high nominal GDP, the highest in our lifetime basically. So we don't, as you said, like we don't have that strong of demand side. So I don't think we're gonna have inflation that high. And kind of back on Malcolm's point before, just to be clear, like I'm not saying anything about, you know, Cathie Wood individually as a researcher. I'm just saying it's a factor bet. When you show me that high beta stocks in the CMBC index are up a lot in four months,

or Tri Verde has this hyper growth junk tag, or ARK is massively underperforming any kind of comparable index over a long period of time, because really it's just a giant factor bet on high beta, low quality growth stocks. And when you get regimes like around the election last fall, or since beginning of Q2, really since Trump said buy stocks in early April, they've worked.

Normally, and I think what's hard for institutional investors is you don't really get sustained low quality rallies unless you're kind of near a recession bottom and you're expecting incremental accommodation from the Fed or incremental fiscal. So what makes this junk rally and the magnitude of it a little challenging is it's happening at a time where the economy is slowly getting worse,

not where we dream it's accelerating. That's been tricky. Some of it's been retail manipulation on the meme stocks and some of it's just been more risk taking. But look, we didn't mention it yet in this hour, but we're seeing some M&A pick up again. And that's usually a bullish indicator as well. Including Malcolm, the headline today regarding Palo Alto.

So IPO markets picking up, got some M&A activity. Maybe we are getting long delayed animal spirits finally manifesting themselves. I would agree and I think once again the bank earnings were a precursor to telling us that right. We saw significant increases in deal making revenues. The prices that each one of the banks, the toll that each one of the banks collects each time they help make one of the banks cut the toll that each one of the banks collects each time they help make one of Those marriages happen and I think what's happening specifically with

Palo Alto and cyber arc is interesting because I've been making the case for a while that there can only be Three or four as far as the standalone Cybersecurity firms are concerned and there's several out there that offer one or two products and aren't necessarily a platform Company just yet And so I think it's really interesting to see one of the largest by market cap going ahead and taking out one of those standalone companies, if the deal does actually go through. And I think that realistically we have to consider that it's not just about those

three or four names that'll become the most dominant in the space competing against each other. They're also competing against companies like Microsoft and Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, for example, where security is just a feature. It's not necessarily the service that they're offering. Brian, last thing for you on the return of animal spirits. What that means for the market.

We're talking about catalysts. What are the catalysts? We already know about taxes. We already know about deregulation. We know what's going on with trade, for the most part. We don't know the degree that you're going to have a deal-making environment that is bullish. Well, we know about a resilient economy.

To Adam's point on inflation, my recency bias is not 2022. It's more 2018-2019, where it fades quickly. And yet, you're starting to see good signs of animal spirits. You're starting to see M&A activity pick up. More names coming into through the IPO market. All positive. This feels middle cycle in the mid cycle. This does not feel late cycle.

We'll leave it there. Malcolm, thank you, Brian. Thank you. A little lathered up, Jack. I'll get some more sleep next time. That was fun. See you, Malcolm. You, thank you. A little lathered up, Jack. Get some more sleep next time. I don't know. That was fun. See you, Malcolm.

You have some extra hot sauce in your lunch today. Adam Parker, ladies and gentlemen. Remember, Adam Parker. Not me, not Brian. Adam Parker. I'll take it. Try very research. Bring it on. Bring it on. Let's send it over to Christina Partsanevalos now for a look at the biggest names moving into this close.

What do you see? I don't have any hot sauce, but I'm checking in on a group of earnings movers. UPS among the S&P laggards after missing earnings per share estimates. The shipping company also declined to issue guidance for 2025, citing macroeconomic uncertainty, which you guys were just talking about. PayPal meantime on pace for its worst day since early February despite beating estimates in Q2 as well as raising their full year earnings per share guidance, but transaction margin dollars, which is really just a key profitability metric, showed slowing growth and that was a major concern. And then you also have Whirlpool lower after missing estimates,

including a big earnings per share miss and they also cut their dividend. The appliance maker CEO said the results were impacted by, quote, competitor stockpiling Asian imports into the United States. Scott. Christina, we'll come back to you soon. Thank you very much. Christina Parts-O-Nevelos. We are just getting started here. Up next, Sycamore Tree Capital's Mark Okada

standing by with a pulse check on the credit market. He'll join us right here at Post 9 after this break. ["Post 9 Theme Song"] after this break. All right. Welcome back. Stocks taking a bit of a breather today as you see some firms now suggesting bonds might be your best play into August and September. Not stocks.

Marco Katas, the co-founder and CEO of Sycamore Tree Capital joins us once again at Post9. Nice to see you back. Good to see you, Scott. I'll ask you about that in a minute, but because trade is taking a lot of the oxygen today with the talks in Sweden, you say trade policy being less bad is still bad. You think the market's underappreciating that thought?

Well, certainly there's more certainty now. We know we're getting these tax deals, trade deals, whatever you wanna call them, tariff deals. We're getting the deals done, so that's good. But what's coming out of them isn't exciting me. Even the truce with China at 40%, I don't think that's good for growth. It's not good for consumption.

15% across the board, and then we'll probably get a hike on August 1st, but that's $350 billion of tariff revenue that's coming out of the consumer in the long run. Right now it's coming out of companies. But that's gotta go somewhere, right? And so Net-Net, I think the market is saying there's less unknown now, we're getting more certainty,

and so that feels good. But on the other hand, what I'm hearing doesn't get me excited. It doesn't sound like a positive. We're too complacent around trade and the impact of tariffs over the longer run. Like the economy what looks good today might not be such tomorrow so to speak? Well it's let me let me put it way. I think signal to noise ratio is horrible. There is so much noise. It is very difficult to pull signal out on the market. But if you go back to January 1 to now,

inflation's about the same, labor market's about the same, earnings are still positive. There's not a whole lot of big signal that would tell this market it should be down a lot or up a lot. And it's kind of rebounded and gotten back there. So if you're just looking at signal and what we've gotten, it's okay. But I think it's weakening on the edge.

I think some of the data we're seeing out of labor starts to concern me. If you look at the employment numbers come out and there are surveys and every time those surveys come out it looks wrong and everyone says hey this the labor market's fine but then the next month it comes out and oh and the prior month we were off by a hundred thousand we're off by 50. They've been off every month this year to the negative of about 75,000 on average so there is some weakening under the surface, and those signals probably start to show up, and I think complacency might not be the right thing,

but it's certainly, the market needs to react to that. The credit signals, if you want to continue to use that word, were flashing yellow for a little while. Little bit, yeah. They've calmed down. Well, dispersion's up, so if you, credit's this asset class that is very defensive. We only make money when we get our money back. We got a coupon, we get

our money back. There's not a whole lot of upside in credit. We've talked about this before. I'm a pretty bearish sort of person in general. And I don't know if you would, that's why you're in credit. Yeah that's what we do. But if you look at the names that are exposed to the industries that are mostly China, mostly hit by tariffs, those names are down 5-10 points. You're not escaping it in the credit markets. But on the surface, Scott, we're being pulled along by the equity markets. Credit's not leading in here.

Credit is high and tight, and there's not a whole lot of risk premium everywhere I look. The market is wide open. Activity is high and tight, and there's not a whole lot of risk premium everywhere I look. The market is wide open, activity is high. The CLO market that we're in, issuance is up probably 30, 50% over long-term averages year to date. So markets are open, it's good, they're operating, but it's like on the edge. It's starting to feel like we should be more defensive in our thinking as opposed to offensive. But that's why I said earlier, there was that moment where credit was leading the equity market.

It's not now. It's not now, but does it have, if not the last laugh, does it have another fit that we need to pay attention to when we get more focused on the outcome of what the tariffs are going to mean and then we're more fixated on now that the on the outcome of what the tariffs are going to mean and then we're more fixated on now that the taxes are done, what the deficit's going to do, how do you think about it, and what the Fed may not do? I don't know. Well, bringing up the Fed, you know, my interpretation of all this pressure that Powell's getting

is that Trump's not ignoring all of the disruption that he's doing all over the globe. And he knows that he probably would like to have some insurance against that. So a rate cut in here to me might not be a bullish rate cut. We might get a bearish rate cut. We may have something where the Fed thinks that they need to ease because the labor market's weakening. And that would certainly be something coming out of the bond market, something coming out of the rate market. At the same time we just finished with a bill and the Fed, the Treasury has

to restock their coffers. So now that the debt ceiling is gone, they're issuing a ton of T-bills and they're probably going to do some twists to try to stop you know longer rates going up but all of that sucks liquidity out of the system. I think that feels to me as one of the reasons why we've had all this great news coming out from Besant and everybody, and the markets have kind of sit there. It really haven't done a whole lot.

It bounced back up, but even today is a good example. It's like, okay, nothing bad out of China, but... Well, there was nothing necessarily good, but the market's looking through that because it assumes that you're not gonna get the worst case scenario anymore. It doesn't believe it. That's right. But that was priced in already, is my point.

And so it's like, at some point, I think, to the extent that this does start feeding into fundamentals, like look at it in the credit markets, Moody's has downgraded more names this year than upgrades. That was flip from last year. Last year there were more upgrades than downgrades. This year we're seeing more downgrades than upgrades. That's a fact.

That's something that's weakening within the credit space. And so I think you ought to keep an eye on it. Our view is there are opportunities in here, but there's probably more risk than opportunity. We had a trade deal with Japan. You are part of an economic summit that's going to take place with Japan and Texas. That's right. How meaningful is that going to be?

We just announced a Japan-Texas Economic Summit. We're going to bring about 500 people, leaders from both Japan and Texas, government and industry, all together. I always say that capital flows to where it's best treated. And you may not know this, but Japan is the largest, is responsible for more growth of jobs in Texas than any other country outside of the U.S. So Japan's been investing in Texas. We want to welcome them. We want to bring the summit back this next May. It's an exciting time to take advantage of some of this. All right.

Thanks for the insight on that. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Mark Okada, joining us right here, Post9 once again. Up next, one of the nation's top-ranked financial advisors. Rich Saperstein's back with us. He'll tell us what he is telling his clients about the markets in the months ahead.

That's coming up next. Here's the big question. Has momentum run out of the historic bounce from the April lows? Let's ask one of this country's top financial advisors. He's Rich Saperstein, Treasury partner, CIO, and he is right there live at Post 9. Do we still have momentum left or are we tired? We do. The backdrop is very favorable.

We've got full employment, a Fed on hold. Tax policy has been resolved. We're gonna get the benefits of deregulation and the overall economy is still growing. So I think the overall environment for owning stocks is favorable. Tailwinds galore. That's what you see? Yeah, well primarily in the towers. So the towers were headwinds and I've been

pretty vocal about how it's a self-inflicted wound and it'll change and turn into a tailwind. Now they're turning into tailwinds. How's it turn into a tailwind if it's still a quote-unquote tax even if it's 15%? Somebody's paying that. It doesn't just disappear. The economy, two things, the economy has been very resilient to many shocks and it will be resilient to tariffs but if you find the right sectors that are not as affected by tariffs, that's where you wanna be.

Like? Like large cap tech, utilities, banks, finance. So if you want to buy consumer products or cars or something that is going to be tariffed, then you've got your step in and away of that. So I prefer to be outside of that and find sectors that are benefiting just from the growth in the economy.

Okay, so you're telling me I just want to stay with what's been working really well. Financials have been at an all-time high. MegaCap has led the market. Power and the electrification of AI. Just stay with what's worked. You're not a believer in the broadening trade. No, I think that one of the things I learned 40 years ago...

Plus. Okay. One of the things I've learned is you don't sell a top or you don't sell something that keeps moving higher and you don't try to buy a bottom, right? So I don't see where it might broaden out but I don't see where I should lift our concentrations from sectors that have tremendous opportunity now and and those are the three you just mentioned. And you think this week when we get Microsoft and Meta,

Amazon and Apple are only gonna confirm that? Yes, well look at Google's earnings. So their cloud revenue is up 32%, their margins went from 13 to 20%. Like how do you walk away from something like that? We're facing one of the most transformative technologies right now, and what I find is investors are underway at this sector. Well, I'll see you on the earnings and I'll raise

you on the stock reaction on the other side. That one did not correlate with the other, did it? Agreed. But you're talking to someone that's owned these stocks for 14, 12, and 11 years. So one quarter doesn't make my thesis. I'm looking longer term. This is how wealth is built. Own these great companies, participate in this transformative technology, and you're gonna see continued growth

in these equities over time. No care about valuation or the top heavy nature of valuation in the market at all? Yes, the market is expensive. These stocks are rich, but I still want to own them because they're growing. And you're not gonna, you have a choice here. You can go buy cheap stocks that haven't moved

or that are beaten down or stay with winners. And I prefer to stay with the stocks that have worked. What if I want a piece of credit? Munis, you still like Munis? Yeah, Munis have been fabulous. So when I have a client and they're wealthy and they wanna have safe portion of their portfolio, they're not gonna buy Muni,

they're not gonna buy corporates or treasuries because they're fully taxed. Now we can get Munis four and a half percent. And if I have a target rate of return for a client of seven percent, I'm the 70 percent of that return by owning a safe muni right now. So we still own munis. We're asset reallocating. When we have massive gains in the stock market, we reallocate back to the safe side.

So it's a great opportunity to do that for wealthy investors. You've already had 40 plus years of experience very well, Mr. Saperstein. We'll see you soon. Thank you very much. That's Richard Saperstein with Treasury Partners. Up next, we're tracking the biggest movers into the close today. Christine is back. What's at the top of your list? Scott, well, I'm teasing it, right? Because it's a teased commercial. So it's a fintech platform surging on strong demand

and revenue growth, plus a cybersecurity name. Just jumping over reports, Scott kind of teased it at the beginning of the show of a $20 billion takeover. We'll have those names right after the break. Less than 15 from the bell. Back to Christina now for the stocks that she is watching. Tell us. Let's start with SoFi. Jumping 6%, over 6% after a Q2 beat

and increasing its full year revenue and profit guidance. This is a fintech platform and they saw their fee-based revenue grow just over 72% year over year, which is a record for the firm. Meantime, CyberArk surging after a report from the Wall Street Journal that Palo Alto is nearing a $20 billion deal to buy the software company. Palo Alto is down about 5% on the news.

Both companies fortunately declined to comment to CNBC's CyberArk up almost 13. And Corning, the leader on S&P 500 today after it beat across the board in Q2 and gave strong Q3 guidance, the stock on pace for its best day since March of 2020. Shares almost 12% higher. Scott. Thank you very much, Kristina. Q3 guidance the stock on pace for its best day since March of 2020 shares almost 12 percent higher. Scott. Thank you very much. Christina still ahead.

Novo Nordic plummeting in today's session. We'll tell you what's driving that stock lower. Look at that. It's down almost 22 percent. We're back on the bell after this. We're now the closing bell market zone. CNBC senior markets commentator Mike Zantoli is here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Plus Angelica Peebles tell us what's behind the big drop in Novo Nordic today. Kate Rogers looking ahead to Starbucks results in OT. I guess today Mike was about trade and maybe a little bit of the rollover in those speculative stocks

that you pointed out on halftime. It's translating into just some heaviness in the indexes and you know it's a mark of how strong and calm and steady the market has been. That if we were to close down 0.3%, it's the worst day in two weeks. This is a trivial decline, although it does feel a little bit different. Breath is kind of eroded throughout the day. The industrial sector, the S&P down 1.25%. That's been a leadership group. So you just have to be aware.

I'm not saying the whole character of the market has changed, but it would be happening on time if it did. Just the inability to embrace decent excuses to go higher. That's maybe what's different about today. Okay. We mentioned Novo and the roll over there. It's taken Lilly down too. Angelica, what's happening here?

Yeah, Scott. So Novo is slashing its full year sales forecast and naming a new CEO, big day for the company. Let's start with that massive guidance cut. Company now sees sales growth of eight to 14% and they previously guided 13 to 21%. An analyst had already started taking down their estimates but consensus was still at the top end of that new range.

So clearly disappointment there. And Novo is saying that the main issue is weak sales of Wigovian Ozempic in the U.S. And Novo continues to lose market share to Lilly, and compounding hasn't gone away despite the FDA's grace period coming to an end. And they assumed that compounding would stop after that, but it hasn't. And now it's up to Novo's new CEO, Mike Dustar, to try to turn things around. He'll need to help Novo regain ground against Lilly. And like you said, Scott, that stock falling today in sympathy.

But JPMorgan analysts saying that the guidance cut is just a Novo problem versus a problem for the entire class. We'll hear from both Lilly and Novo again next week. So we'll have to see if we have any indication, but so far it seems like this is a Novo problem. Okay. Angelica, thanks Angelica Peebles.

Now to Kate Rogers. What do we need to know about Starbucks? Hi, Scott. Analysts are looking for EPS of 65 cents adjusted on revenues of 9.30 billion for the third quarter. Same store sales, of course, a key focus. They're expected to fall 1.3% globally and by 2.5% in North America. International sales forecast to increase 2.2%. Now, if sales fall again this quarter, it will be the sixth drop in North America. International sales forecast to increase 2.2 percent. Now if sales fall again this quarter it will be the sixth drop in a row. China same store sales will also be in

focus as the company assesses strategic partners for that segment of the business according to CNBC's reporting. It's also going to be all about Brian Nichols back to Starbucks plans if they're translating into sales lifts just yet. Those plans include, of course, a slimmer menu, warmer and more inviting cafes, and speedier orders on customized drinks in stores and drive-thrus. The strategy also includes what they're calling Green Apron Service. That's a doubling down on hospitality in cafes,

supported by technology enhancements for baristas and scheduling. You can read more about that in my interview with Starbucks new COO Mike Grahams on CNBC.com. Scott, back over to you. All right. All right. Kate Rogers, thank you very much. We got about 90 seconds left. It's about to get real, Mr. Santoli. Meta, Microsoft tomorrow, Amazon, Apple after. Not even to mention the Fed decision and the jobs report, but let's stay on the mega caps. The earnings, I mean, the story of

the last couple of years has been the AI binge and the profitability attached to it and the hopes attached to it has really papered over a lot of bumps in the rest of the economy. So we'll see if that can happen again. It's really all been AI earnings growth and everything else has been more or less netting out to not much of anything. So we'll see if that can kind of completely sway the overall story. In the meantime, when it comes to the Fed, when it comes to we're gonna get ADP jobs numbers,

who knows if that's worth reacting to? It was a complete head fake last month. But I do think that we've gone to a point where implied recession odds have gone down to basically rock bottom levels, which is fine. It probably makes sense, but you have to see if anything comes along to complicate that story a little bit and gives you a little bit

of a mini growth scare, because we're just not priced for it. That's all. It's not the best. Right along with the Vicks, which is below 16. As a matter of fact, the Vicks dipped below 15 earlier, which is the low for mid-February, and it's popped to 16 now. People feel like maybe it's time to hedge a little bit. All right, good stuff.

Mike Santoli, as usual. Thank you. There's the bell. It's going to ring us red across the board today. A pause, will it be one that refreshes? We have to wait to find out. I'll send you an oversight with Morgan and John.