Closing Bell - Jobs, the Fed, and Market Crosscurrents: Oil, AI Spending, and Precious Metals 1/9/26

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Sam Stovall of CFRA weighs in on the broader market backdrop, while former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher unpacks what the data means for the economy, the Federal Reserve, and looming leadership decisions at the Fed. Sarat Sethi of DCLA offering rapid-fire stock takes on Meta, oil, and Nvidia. Precious metals come into focus with Rob Krcmarov, CEO of Hecla, talks gold and silver prices and his company’s soaring stock. Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge close out the show with a look ahead to the coming week’s catalysts Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, that's standard regulation. NCR Voix, ringing the closing belt in the New York Stock Exchange, Guarded annuity, doing the honors at the NASDAQ, another record day for Wall Street, the Dow, the S&P, and the Russell 2000, all at record closing highs. The NASDAQ, not quite there, but nearly 1% today. The weekly number is showing increases of about 2% for the major averages. But look at the Russell small caps up almost 5%. We'll say 4.6%. And that performance amid heightened geopolitical tensions as we started this trading week with a raid in Venezuela.

What a week it has been. Materials, utilities, consumer discretionary. Those were among the best sectors today. The homebuilders driving discretionary higher. The best week in about a year for home building ETFs. This as President Trump turned his focus to housing in recent days, the latest effort focusing on bringing mortgage rates down by buying mortgage bonds through the GSEs. For today, it's working 30-year fixed rate, falling below 6%. according to Mortgage News Daily. That's the lowest in almost three years.

Well, that's the scorecard on Wall Street, but winners stay late. Welcome to closing bell overtime. I'm John Ford, alongside Morgan Brennan, and oil rising another 2% today. Just below 60 bucks a barrel. We're continuing to watch any developments from the White House where energy CEOs are meeting with administration officials now. And silver, getting back to its winning ways, up another 6% today. That's good news for companies such as Heckla mining.

That stock is up more than get this. 300% in a year. We're going to talk to the CEO coming up. And this morning's jobs report showing an increase of only 50,000 jobs. Markets seem to like it, but is it warning of weakness in the economy? We're going to discuss that with former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher. Let's start, though, with more on this record-breaking day for stocks. Christina Parts and Evelace is at the NASDAQ for us with all the big moves. Christina.

Let's start with a lot of the big tech moves. The Van Ex-Semic semiconductor ETF really rebounded more than 2% today. investors rotated back into chips after two days of decline. You can see on your screen, Lamrease, surge jumped about eight, ASML, applied materials gaining over 6%. Intel, though. That's a name that closed up over 10% after a flattering social media post from President Trump.

Then you also had memory maker Sandus soaring after Digi Times, which is an Asian paper, reported the company is approaching customers with long-term supply contracts that require 100% cash prepayments. up front, 100% up front, which is really just unprecedented terms. And so that's why you saw the stock climb almost 13%. Qualcomm was the worst chip performer today after Missouho downgraded the company. The firm says a weak smartphone market plus Apple making more components in-house could weigh on Qualcomm over the next few years.

Nuclear power plays Vistra and Oklo jumped out today after striking deals to power META's AI data centers. You can see Vistra, for example, up over 10%. And then Alphabet inching closer, closer. of $4 trillion in market cap after leapfrogging Apple earlier this week, but didn't quite make that 4T today. It did, though, hit a fresh all-time high and is on pace for its best week in more than a month, guys. Yeah, big week for that stock. Thank you. Now, let's get to Rick Centellion in Chicago for a look at how bonds are trading after the morning's job date. Rick. Yeah, I'll tell you, John, it was an important day for the Treasury complex. Look at a year-to-date of two-year,

And remember, this is the sixth session of 2026, and that two-year yield led the curve higher. And why is that so important? Well, 4.4 reasons. The lower unemployment rate, in my opinion, really put the final tombstone on the interest rate cut that was for January. In my opinion, looking at the January Fed Fund futures, it's basically at zero. It's like 2 or 3 percent. It was at 12 or 13 percent yesterday. That's it.

If you put in the tens, you can see the difference. Okay, two years breaking away to the upside. It's up about seven and a half basis points. A 10 year on the week, it's actually down a couple of basis points. The dollar index is having a terrific week as the probabilities for interest rate cuts go down. That really pushes the dollar index higher. It's at a one month high right now, but it gets complicated if you lift the hood a bit. Now, remember, 57.6% of the dollar index is the euro current.

The euro is at one month low. The dollar index is at a one month high. That's very normal. They shadow box each other. The dollar yen. The dollar has really surged of late. It's at a one month, or excuse me, it's at a one year high versus the dollar yen. Now for the not so good news, if we look towards China, the dollar versus the yuan.

The dollar is at a two and a half year low. So it does get a little bit confusing as you go around the globe, but ultimately let's keep it easy. easy. We're above 99 in the dollar index. It's had a couple of touches and fails to get above 100. Above 100 changes the technical picture. And that tenure, if it closes above 20, 4.20% anytime in the next several sessions, that's something to pay attention to. Morgan, back to you. All right. We're going to write those numbers down and pay close attention to the technicals. Rick Sandelli, thank you so much. Oil price is rising as CEOs of the big oil companies are in a meeting at the White House today. as we speak, Brian Sullivan is there, and he has more, Brian.

Yeah, I think, I would say oil prices probably rose because of what's going on in Iran, not Venezuela, but the meetings behind us that are just wrapping up right now, President Trump and members of cabinet and a bunch of oil CEOs are more about Venezuela. And the CEOs basically all kind of saying the same thing. If they have security guarantees, if there are changes to say commercial contracts, i.e., they can make some money. If there are other provisions that occur, they might be willing. Conicos, the Exxons, and others of the world might be willing to go into or go back into Venezuela to try to help rebuild their oil infrastructure and increase output and production.

The people that we talked to you heard some of the interviews earlier today on CNBC thinking maybe three to five to 700,000 barrels a day in the next year if we get some Western capital know-how and commitment. back into Venezuela, a big if. There was a bit of a lighthearted moment. Remember, Conoco Phillips has a legal judgment against the country of Venezuela, which has no money to pay it, either doesn't want to or cannot pay it. It's about $12 billion. And there was a back and forth between Ryan Lance, the chair and CEO of Conoco Phillips and President Trump about that money. Listen to this. You're going to make a lot of money, but we're not going to go back. You left a lot of money behind, I guess, huh?

What number? 12 billion. How much? 12 billion? Well, it's good right off. It's already been written off. All right, thank you. You'll make it back one way or the other.

You're all going to do very well. So guys, we'll wrap it up there, them and others. They will. They might make it back if they go back or owe into Venezuela. A lot of ifs, a lot of things will be done, but a big productive meeting with a lot of Cs, with a lot of CEOs and oil and gas executives right in the West Wing, right behind us here at the White House. Back to you. What a difference a week makes. Brian Sullivan, thank you.

Well, the economy added fewer than expected jobs in December, ending a year marked by a slowing labor market as firms got more cautious on hiring. The market pricing in for rates to stay the same in January. So what does it all mean for markets during the first full week of the trading year? Well, joining us now to share his thoughts is Sam Stoball. He's the chief investment strategist at CFRA. Sam, happy Friday. So is this job's news not hot in the sense that it's actually good because it boosts the likelihood of more rate cuts, which is how the market seem to take it today? Or is it concerning enough that investors should be cautious? Hey, John. Good to talk to you again. Now, I don't think it's concerning enough to make investors

cautious. If you remember February of last year, investors were worried that we'd be heading for a recession. I think that the numbers that we got today really gave more credence that the Fed will be cutting rates sometime in this first half. We think it will be closer in the second quarter. But we also believe that because the unemployment rate might edge its way up to about four and a half percent or higher by the end of this year, that we could end up seeing the Fed cut rates twice, once in the first half and then once again in the second half. So that I think should offer some support, if not propel prices even further. All right.

So as we look out at the year, investors figuring out what to do. You say history would caution folks against buying stocks this year that were losers last year. Why is that? Well, the old question is, should I buy last year's winners or last year's losers? And history actually says you should embrace an alternating strategy. If the prior year was down, then you want to own last year's three worst performing sectors. If last year was higher, you want to let your winners ride. So implying communication services, industrials, and tech.

And since 1990, this would have added about 300 basis points on a sector level. If you bought the 10 worst or best performing sub-industries would have added more than 700 basis points. and in both cases, you would have outperformed the market 70% of the time. So essentially, it's more based on probabilities. Obviously, we are seeing improvements in health care, in energy, in materials right now. But for the full calendar year, the implication is stick with what is already working. Sam, we've had a really strong start to the year here. And investors do seem to be hurtling the wall of worry, if you will. How does that set us up? What does history signal from that standpoint for the rest of the year? Well, we did not get a positive Santa Claus rally, but that really

indicates whether it's going to be a better than average or a less than average gain. But the first five days were positive, according to the Stock Traders Almanac, and that historically has added to the likelihood of a positive return for the S&P. I prefer the January barometer, as goes January, so goes the year. A positive January has late. led to a positive full year, 86% of the time versus a more normal 72%. How about January effect? We've got a Russell 2000 that's at 5 and 3 quarters percent, just since the start of January. Well, it's working once again, and for good reason,

because I think that investors are not giving up on stocks, they are rotating, especially going down size because the S&P mid-cap 400 was recently trading at about a 30% discount to its 20-year average relative PE and small caps were trading at a 35% discount. So very undervaled relative to the S&P 500. Okay. Sam Stovall. Great to have you on. Thank you. Thank you.

With all the major averages finishing the week out higher here, the S&P and the Dow both at records. Coming up much more on the market reaction to this morning's jobs report, stocks moving to record highs, as I just mentioned on that news. But what does it really tell us about the same? state of the economy. Plus, latest numbers from our data partner, Kalshi, show that Kevin Warsh is widening his lead over Kevin Hacett and the possibility of being the next Fed chair, former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, is going to weigh in when overtime comes right back.

Welcome back. Stocks bouncing today, despite a weaker than expected jobs report, non-farm payrolls rose 50,000. That was shy of the 73,000 estimates. Revision's also brought down totals for November and October. But does today's number change the narrative for the Fed? as we get set for a meeting later this month. Well, joining us now, former Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher. He's also a CNBC contributor. Richard, it's great to have you on. Let's start right there because we saw softer hiring numbers.

We also saw the unemployment rate tick lower. And the takeaway from all of this seems to be no hiring, but also no firing. Your thoughts? I think you summarized it well, and I think it doesn't motivate the Fed to move in their meeting at the end of this month. Again, the inflation numbers, we don't have clear view yet. We have a partial report from last month, on the 14th, up to the 14th on. And we've got to get a full report of that number. But the employment data and the growth data, which the president keeps citing,

he cited again today, are awfully good, at least on the surface. That appears to be the case. And I don't see why the Fed would feel compelled to move other than Mr. Byron, who, of course, is predictable. So we'll see. Okay. And, of course, we get CPI reading and PPI next week, too. We know the Fed has a dual mandate.

What's more important to the equation right now? Is it labor and how that data continues to flesh out here in coming months? I always say that the inflation number is the key number. The White House and the politicians worry about the employment number, understandably. They want to be reelected and they like to be supported. And the Fed tends to err on the side of the inflation numbers. And, you know, a lot has been made of how well the market has done this first week. But platinum's up 12%.

And silver's up 6%. And gold's up 16%. And the dollar is up, but only 7 tenths of 1%. So I think there, I can't tell if that's due to AI data center buildout. But there still is a little bit of lack of confidence. in terms of the U.S. economy. And I didn't hear anybody talk about that today. Yeah.

We're all happy that the equity market has done so well. Yeah. Because we all benefit. But those commodities, which I view as a hedge against the dollar and against the U.S., particularly gold and silver, platinum, of course, 12% up year-to-date this week, is pretty strong. So we have to see what that tells us. Bridger, we didn't get a surprise. Court opinion on tariffs today. Are you penciling out the possibilities on what kind of

reaction we get either way impacts on the economy if, I guess, really, if they do get challenged to some extent, whether any of them get rolled back or even a market reaction to those? Well, I think it could be disruptive to the market. We'll have to see what they replace it with if they are rejected. The Supreme Court is taking its time on this issue, and they're getting further into the year, and it will be hard to reverse the impact of those tariffs if they rule against it. And I think if you take Scott Besson for his word and the other authorities, the USDR, they're prepared, we'll have to see. I do feel, as a former deputy, U.S. Trade representative, that it is the business of working with Congress that's important. So I wouldn't

be surprised if they rolled it back, but I will not be surprised if they, you know, use Section 301 and the 232s and other sections to make up for whatever the Supreme Court might rule against them. All right. Richard Fisher, thank you. Thank you. It's a pleasure seeing you. Great to see you. Well, consumer discretionary, the best performing sector this week, a 5% gain. Up next, we're going to look at one group helping lead the sector higher. And as stocks have soared to record highs. We've seen some of the momentum names with absolutely huge gains this week. Our market's getting a little too optimistic. Well, Mike Santoli will be here with his level-headed analysis.

Stay with us. Welcome back to overtime. Before the break, we told you consumer discretionary is the best sector this week. Travel names helping to give the group a lift, Expedia, Hilton, and Marriott hitting all-time highs in today's trading. Airbnb and the cruise lines also living it up higher by 5% or more. Well, the markets have been riding high into the new year, but one chart suggests optimism is hitting levels that could raise some eyebrows. Senior Markets commentator, Mike Santoli, joins us for the look at the optimism. Mike. Yeah, Morgan, you know me when I see people starting to have a lot of fun, I start to get suspicious.

And, you know, that's one of the reasons for that is when we do see very, very a bullion sentiment among investors, it sometimes means we're unprepared for anything that's adverse in the way of fundamentals or any kind of a shock. So here's what the Stratigis market sentiment composite looks like right now. This is about eight different indicators, a lot of market-based stuff, options. volumes, ETF flows have been incredibly strong, as well as some survey data. And we're back at the 80th percentile, which means it doesn't get too much more bullish from here. Although we were here at the beginning of last year, and we did not immediately start to go down in the markets. As a matter of fact, you had the deep seek scare in late January, but then came back from

that. It was mid-February before the market really had any kind of a correction. And of course, we know what happened with terror. So it's not necessarily some fine-tuned timing mechanism, but it just shows you the bull case is pretty well acknowledged and people are positioned for good things in the market. Take a look at the volatility index. Tells a similar story. Not a lot of protection being bought right now. We're below 15 at the close, just barely up from those holiday doldrums levels around December. One of the inputs to that prior sediment indicator was the VIX futures curve.

So essentially how much people are willing to pay for protection against volatility in the coming weeks and months. And it's pretty subdued right now. So just something to keep in mind out there. Not too surprising, given markets are at all-time highs, that nobody's expecting terrible things. But you have to be aware of the mood. How much of this is a U.S. story? How much of it is global?

Honestly, it's very global. I mean, the bull market is very global, as you know. So a lot of outperformance the rest of the world. Also, this idea of reflation and re-acceleration trade is confirmed by what's happening in various asset markets, yields up, commodities up, equities up. So I do think that it's, it's actually well-founded. You know, usually you don't see sediment excesses that have no truth underneath it. Usually people are kind of pursuing a plausible

understanding of things. It just sometimes the positioning overshoots reality in the short term sometimes. All right. Mike, thank you. See in a little bit. Well, time for a CBC News update with Pippa Stevens. Pippa. Hey, John. The Virginia man arrested for allegedly planting two pipe bombs in Washington, D.C. on the eve of the January 6th riot at the Capitol pleaded, not guilty today to two explosives-related charges. Brian Cole is accused of leaving the devices outside of the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters. The bombs did not detonate. A judge has ordered Cole to remain behind bars while he awaits trial. The man accused of murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan could go to trial before the end of the year

in his federal case. A judge said today it could start in December if the death penalty remains on the table in the case or start as early as October if it's. his lawyer's bid to drop the capital punishment is successful. And Amazon is taking steps to open a brick and mortar big box store in the Chicago area. According to planning documents with the suburb of Orland Park, the 229,000 square foot building would function as a large format retail location, offering groceries, general merchandise, prepared food options, and more. Orland Park says the proposal is still subject to public review and approval.

Back to you. tip of Stevens, thank you. Meta tied with Apple is the worst performing Mag 7 stock over the past year. Up only 7% with investors concerned the company is spending too much money without enough return. Today, Meta signing a deal for nuclear power. That's helping Oklo and Vistra. Both stocks up more than 7%. But what does it mean for meta? That's coming up on overtime. Welcome back to overtime, a record day on Wall Street. The Dow up more than 200 points. closing level, 49,504. We could be talking about Dow 50K next week. The S&P 500 at a record as well, also getting close to a major milestone, 7,000. The Russell 2000 hitting a new high to,

it's up 5.7 percent so far this year, and we're only a couple days into it. Apple closed higher by 33 cents or about one-tenth of 1%. Here's why that's still noteworthy, though, because it snapped a seven-session losing streak, and it was a huge, week for the defense names. It started with military action in Venezuela last weekend. Then the president signing an executive order to crack down on dividends and buybacks and executive compensation that's tied to production performance for the defense contractors. Then he signaled a huge increase in defense spending potentially for next year. So you saw big moves in the defense contractors, but also some of the smaller players in aerospace and defense as well. A 43% gain

for Kratos, a name we don't talk about very often, but is very big in the drone and autonomous space. And check out shares of nuclear power companies, Oklo and Vistra. Those jumped after signing new energy deals with Meadow that was announced this morning. Some large moves there. Julia Borsson has the details. Hi, Julia. Hi, Morgan. Well, Meta's nuclear deals are all about its fight to secure energy to achieve its AI ambitions. The social giant is working to become a real player in terms of AI functionality as its tools lag, Google's and Open AIs, and also to make sure it has the energy to fuel all of its AI growth. Today's deals aim to help catch up with OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google's nuclear deals. Meta shares are down 13 percent since it warned in its last

earnings report that this year's capital expenditures would increase, quote, at a significantly faster pace. The company forecast cap-ex as much as $72 billion for 2025, a $1,000, a from $39 billion in 2024, today's deal could impact this year's spending, although Meta is not disclosing any of the financial terms of these deals. The question is when and how Meta will justify its lofty investments. Rosenblatt's Barton Crockett writing today, quote, there's no guarantee that the envisioned full power slate will materialize, yet this marks a meaningful step towards de-risking the feasibility of META's AI-driven data center ambitions. Now, Meta's nuclear energy is set to come online by 2030 at the earliest, and guys, a lot can

change by then. Oklahoma CEO is going to discuss that deal with META Monday 11 a.m. Eastern on money movers. Julia, thank you. Now let's trade some of the big movers today, including META with our next guest. Joining me now is Sarat SETI. He is managing director at DCLA and a CNBC contributor. Sirot, let's start with meta, which you own. I mean, I guess it has the potential to build the AWS of AI in the sense that right now,

it's not a public cloud provider, but by building AI infrastructure for its own use, it might outflank the incumbents. Is that the bull case? That would be the bill case. But I think what we're, you know, investors are focused on monetization. And right now, the reason the stock release sold off of the peak is because investors really don't believe it. And the question is, when is that going to happen? How is it going to happen?

And Mark Zuckerberg has been known to make these big CAPEX expenditures. So the question is going to be, how are you going to get that in the future? And is this a completely different business model than the current existing one, which is really relying on advertising and growth of user content created by users. Well, another part of the market in focus today, oil, after President Trump met with oil executives. I guess they're still meeting today to discuss investment possibilities. in Venezuela. You own Chevron and Exxon. This does bring down the cost of oil, I guess, if it works. Is that good for these players overall? Is there reputational risk for those who go in?

I mean, exactly how you said, you guess, right? We don't know how this is going to work. And the question is, where does oil go? And one would think oil would be closer to 50. It's not. And I think given the geopolitical risks out there, whether it's Venezuela or something else, whether something happens in the Middle East, I'm not saying it's going to. But the reason you want oil in your portfolio is it's a good hedge against the volatility that occurs all over the world. And also, oil sold in dollars. So if you're getting a debasement of dollars, you're going to, you know, the price of oil and the oil companies are going to do well. So the Exxon Sherrons of the world are good hedges in your portfolio. We also like the Schlomburgis of the world that add technology aspect to it, too.

having them there, given what's going on. Maybe they go into Venezuela. We don't know. But that's going to be a very long tail. And they're going to be some big guarantees. And we just don't know what administration is going to be there when and if this happens. All right. Finally, the big dog, NVIDIA, it closed out the week, nearly 2% lower, despite bullish commentary from NVIDIA's CFO, saying the chipmaker's backlog actually higher than

the half a trillion dollars previously reported. Investors seem to be leaving NVIDIA alone for a while. But we've seen periods like that in the past, that end. Can you buy it here? Yeah, it's like reminiscent of what happens to Apple, too, right? It gets kind of flat, and it's a show me story. It's going to be about execution. What's the new chip going to be like?

What's the demand going to be like? So right now, as kind of capital has moved away from the Big Seven and really, Nvidia is a show me story. I do think as the demand builds up and the backlog builds up, I wouldn't be a buyer at these levels. I mean, it is one of our largest positions. But you do get these opportunities, not just in the stocks, specifically, but in the market specifically. So I think that would be an opportunity to buy it.

It's a very high-quality company and earnings are there. But I think it's such a show-me story that you're going to get a better opportunity down the road to add more to this one. We talked about Meadow, which is one of the slower performing stocks in the Mag 7. We just talked about Invidia, which has been one of the best over the longer term. How do you feel about the mega-cap tech leadership in stocks overall this year? and whether this broadening out means you should focus elsewhere. Well, we like broadening out elsewhere as well because we like a diversified portfolio. It does not mean that you don't own these.

I mean, you can own the NVIDIAs. We like Amazon and Google in this area, too. I think they're both great cash flow machines that have great levers. But there is a broadening out there, John. And I think you can look at health care. You can look at industrials. You can look at financials. Those have some earnings power to them.

And I think if you look at the economy and you look at where the consumer is, you can get some upside there in selective stocks. And I think that's where the opportunity is going to be. These are great companies in the FAP 7 or the FAP 10, if you want to call it. But I think the opportunity to actually outperform a great sum alpha is going to be in some of the other sectors. Sarat Sati from DCLA. Sirot, thanks. Thank you. Well, if you think Silver has had a good run, check out shares of Silver Minor Hekla. More than quadrupling over the last year, up 322 percent, to be exact. Heckla's CEO is going to give us the outlook for the precious metal when overtime returns.

Welcome back to overtime. The run precious metals has boosted the gold and silver miners' ETFs. Both are up over 80% in the past six months. One of the top performers in the GDX has been Hekla mining. The company is the largest silver producer in the U.S. and also mines gold, lead, zinc. Hekla has four mines in North America. Joining us now to CNBC exclusive interview is Rob Krich Morav.

Rob, it's great to have you on. Welcome. Thank you very much, Morgan. I think I have to start with a really basic question, and that is, from your unique standpoint, as a minor, as a producer, who's actually pulling some of these materials out of the ground here, state side. What is driving this precious metals rally? I think it's two things. So, you know, obviously gold's up 65 percent, and now we're pushing up past $4,500,000. And it's its best year since 1979. But silver has really stolen the show.

That's up 147%. And I think what's remarkable about this rally isn't just the quantum or the magnitude. It's really the quality of the demand that's supporting it. It's also interesting that they've rallied for quite different reasons. So gold is all about central banks. And according to the World Gold Council, since 2022, the central banks have purchased roughly over 1,000 tonnes of gold annually.

And that's roughly double the historic average. And more importantly, they still indicate that they continue to plan purchasing it. For silver, that's really a supply story. We're in the fifth straight year of deficits. We're consuming something like about 200 million ounces a year more than we produce annually. So if you add China's export restrictions, which really just kicked in on January the first, you've really got a proper genuine supply squeeze that's meeting accelerating industrial demand. So what does that mean for Hekla? Can you invest more to produce more? We keep hearing about day regulations in the mining space, for example. Does all of this pave the way for you to do that?

I think it's very helpful. Certainly permitting timelines have expanded significantly, but a lot of silver is produced as a byproduct, so a byproduct of gold mining, of lead and zinc. And there's very few silver primary silver deposits. And any new discovery or development project takes many, many years. And so the fact that we're already in production really helps us. Would you look outside of North America to expand your assets and your capacity? That's an important question because I think one of our brands is that we, all of our assets are in Canada and the U.S., as you noted in your introduction, with the largest producer in the Canada and the U.S. And what that does is gives investors certainty is, you know, we're in operating jurisdictions that have much more certainty, no risk. We're not going to wake up and read that our minds have been taken away from us, or there's some new surprise tech.

It's predictability and certainty, and that should give our investors a lot of comfort. We have energy companies meeting with the president right now down in Washington. The other thing Venezuela has is significant critical mineral deposits, and it has some precious metals deposits as well. I think about gold, for example, gets a lot of attention. Would you look at an opportunity like that if the right security, the right guarantees, the right contracting was put in place? I think security is the most important thing, and that remains to be determined. More importantly, Venezuela has very large gold deposits. I'm familiar with them.

Silver deposits, there are some, but really right now, our appetite for risk is reasonably low. It's very dynamic. We want to see things settle down a little bit and understand exactly the implications of investing in a country like Venezuela. We would consider it so long as we became comfortable with the risks. Okay. And finally, your take on M&A, whether it's for Hekla specifically or across the industry, especially as we've seen a week where reports have started percolating again about the possibility of a combination of Rio Tinto and Glencore. Yeah, I can't really comment on that, but obviously consolidation in the silver spaces obviously happened.

And that's really driven by the scarcity of primary silver deposits. So we see that happening. The best thing that we can do is really continue to, to influence. improve our own business, focus on maintaining costs, operational efficiencies, all the things that are within our control. And finally, silver, can I keep going higher, given what you've talked about with supply demand dynamics? I think absolutely it can. You know, the driver's industrial, and then you've got the tar wins for the gold price going up. So historically, there's been a correlation between gold and silver. It's been roughly 60 to 1. Towards the end of a bull run cycle, silver experiences explosive growth. And I think the fundamentals for gold are very, very, very.

robust and therefore silver as well, but underpinning silver is the industrial demand, which is really quite significant. I think there's a long way to go on this. Rob Krichmurov, thanks for joining me. Thanks very much, Morgan. Appreciate that. Up next, Mike Santoli is going to look at why Wall Street isn't too worried about the state of consumer spending, even though a key indicator of consumer health keeps falling. Overtime's back in two. Welcome back to overtime. When it comes to gauging consumer strength, few indicators

carry more weight than aggregate weekly payrolls, a blend of wages, hours, and job counts. The trend, though still slowing not far from its pre-COVID norms. Mike Santoli has more. Mike? Yeah, John, so this sort of wraps together most of what we want to know about labor market health and consumer experience in the moment. So on a monthly basis, it does combine the number of people working, how much they worked in a given week, and average hourly wages. It all comes from that monthly non-foreign pay.

Rolls report. It's been gently decelerating is the way I would characterize it, much like a lot of other job market indicators. 4.3% on an annual basis. That's obviously a nominal figure. So that's all the money earned by all workers on a weekly basis. You see it comes in just below sort of

that, you know, Trump One era level. That was near 5%. It doesn't seem the market, though, has been particularly alarmed about consumers' ability to keep spending. There's a lot of expectation that you have some stimulus measures on the come. Take a look at how The consumer discretionary sector on an equal weighted basis is just trouncing consumer staples.

This is one of those kind of pair trades that people use to discern the market's assessment of the health of the consumer out there. Maybe there's some quirks here. Maybe there's some structural stuff going on in staples that don't really account for sort of how badly they've performed relative to the rest. But clear the market doesn't want defense. And we did just get to a new high on this indicator, this equal-weighted, consumer discretionary. So I feel like people are built up about the consumer. We'll see if the numbers can bear that out in the coming weeks and months, John. Mike, in those charts, we can't see the case-shaped economy reflected. The idea that the

working class is doing worse than those who have stocks in the market. How might that affect the underlying truths that you can't see necessarily in the blue lines? You know, you can't really see it in there, at least in a specific way, John, but it is private sector people earning a paycheck, right? So it's not asset-based income. On the other hand, you know, we are seeing some separation in terms of the kinds of consumer stocks that are working. Travel, you guys were talking about that earlier, extremely strong. That is one of those sectors where higher spenders carry more weight. You talk to the airlines and they basically say, we're making all of our money from people flying business in first class and spending a huge

amount of money on the rewards card. So I do think that you can have both things be true, which is in aggregate. You know, we're hanging in there, but it's been very widely split in terms of, you know, what's working, what's not, where there's precarity, and where there's comfort. The same time, I guess, lower gas prices would help everybody. Yeah, the lower, yeah, the lower earners especially. Mike, thanks. Sure. Yep. Well, Big Banks kickoff earnings season next week. But up next, Adam Krista Fooley joins us. He's going to tell us whether there's another potential market catalyst that he's watching. Stay with us. Welcome back to overtime. Let's get you set up with next week's trade. Earning season kicks off on Tuesday when J.P. Morgan,

Morgan, Bank of New York Mellon and Delta all report. We will get results from Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and City on Wednesday. Thursday brings Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Taiwan, semi, and J.B. Hunt. And PN.C. Regents Financial, M&T Bank, and State Street will close out the week. On the economic front, we will get December Consumer Price Index, CPI, the combined October and November producer price index, December existing home sales, and the Fed's beige book will be released on Wednesday. We will get the latest reports on retail sales, import prices, and weekly jobless claims on Thursday. That's a lot. Now, for more on next week's catalyst, let's bring in Adam Krista Fully. He's founder and president of vital knowledge.

Adam, welcome. So if inflation has ears, there'll be burning next week. We get December CPI, and we didn't get that Supreme Court opinion on tariffs this week. Maybe next week? It could come next week. Wednesday will be the next opinion day, so that will be the earliest that we could hear on them. You know, the market wildly assumes that the Supreme Court will strike those tariffs down. And then, you know, the question will really be kind of how the market reacts, how the White House reacts to it, and then kind of some of the nuance in the language of that opinion. So that's one wildcard event for next week.

Is there any scenario on the court ruling that you think the administration wouldn't have a workaround for? I mean, there certainly isn't a lot of indication that the president intends to abandon the tariffs. No, it does not seem like that at all. So I would presume that, you know, probably a few hours, if not a couple minutes, after the Supreme Court issues a decision. And if they were to strike them down, you're probably going to see an announcement from the White House almost immediately, with kind of a new legal justification to maintain the tariffs in as close a fashion as they can to what's already in place. Adam, how important will big bank earnings be next week to set the tone

not only for earnings season but also for all the economic data we're getting? Yeah, I think banks really kind of have the best macro insight into what's happening in the economy. So from that perspective, they're going to be very, the insight will be very invaluable right now just kind of what they're seeing on the employment front, on the growth front. You know, M&A activity has been very robust. They're likely to speak positively to that. So, you know, we just heard from a lot of the big banks back in December at a couple of conferences. But I doubt their overall tone has changed all that much.

But they're definitely going to be an important sector as we pick up the Q4 or new to them. Should we keep an eye on geopolitics? I realize markets, or at least equity markets, largely shrugged it off this week. But you still have everything that's going on and playing out with Venezuela. Case in point, the oil executives at the White House right now. You have Secretary of State Marco Rubio meeting with his counterpart. in Denmark to disgust Greenland. There's a possibility of Russia sanctions where oil is concerned, and then everybody's also keeping an eye on Iran with all of these protests.

Yeah, I would say for next week, you know, the biggest areas of uncertainty are probably going to be that Russia bill. So it looks like Trump has given his support to the Senate to proceed and pass this Russian sanctions bill. There's still a little bit of uncertainty as to what the final language will be. But that can certainly be a big area of uncertainty. And then, like you just said, Iran is probably, you know, the way. one major country right now of all the ones you mentioned where, you know, there's a lot of uncertainty as these protests don't seem to be cooling down at all. What do you make of this decent move for the small caps, the Russell 2000?

You've had a huge kind of rotation on a year-day basis where investors have really moved into a lot of cyclical groups along with small caps. Part of that has to do with relatively healthy economic data. There has been an uptick and growth momentum over the last couple of months in a lot of the details, and then just a lot of stimulus optimism. So, you know, we did get a little bit of a hawk of shift in Fed expectations today, but between, you know, the Fed balance sheet expanding again, Trump's announcement last night about Fannie and Freddie buying $200 billion of MBS, and then fiscal stimulus as well, which is going to be a huge theme in Q1 and Q2, especially as tax refunds.

All of that is helping to fuel, you know, a pretty notable pro-cyclical rotation. What do you make in the battle of the Kevin's and the predictions markets, with Kevin Warsh pulling ahead of Kevin Hassett as a possible Fed share nominee? Yeah, I think, you know, I don't think markets mind that move. I think there had been a little bit of consternation with Hassett being the frontrunner, and that perception was if he were to get the job, you would see more erosion of Fed independence. So I think markets are more comfortable with Warsh being a bulwark against political interference. And so you have seen a shift in the last couple of days where Warwick is kind of back on top now.

And I think that's contributed to some of the decent price action you've seen these in the last couple of sessions. You think the AI trade strengthens again soon? Yeah, I mean, you just see, you know, I think the market's becoming a little bit more discriminatory as to how they approach AI. So, you know, back in 2025, it was more of a wholesale approach. Now it's really, you know, people are looking more specifically. So memory has obviously been on fire here to date. You know, that pertains to AI. You know, some of the other pockets of AI haven't traded as well.

So I think there's so a lot of enthusiasm for the technology, the data center buildouts. You saw that huge nuclear announcement with meta today. But market investors are definitely kind of taking a much more company-specific or even, you know, sub-sector approach versus just the whole AI, the whole AI universe. Adam, quickly, we got markets at or near record highs right now. Technicals seem to be in focus and certainly some of these round number milestones that we could achieve. Anything to read into that? Yeah, I think, you know, there's a lot of enthusiasm right now.

for markets, I think a lot of it's justified by fundamentals, you know, decent earnings, decent growth, stimulus. You know, you do have valuations, which are not all that compelling. You know, you do have the risk of yields rising. And a lot of the factors that are fueling equities also could help push yields higher, including expansive fiscal policy, you know, decent growth, stubbornly high inflation, etc. And then geopolitics as well. But, you know, I think for fundamentals right now, you know, you have a lot of tailwinds and markets are responding accordingly. Okay, Adam Chris Foley, thank you. And you might have seen the news.

This is the last broadcast for me and Morgan here on overtime. And Morgan, it's been a truly unforgettable experience working with you and the whole team here on the show. Wishing you the best as you start to kick off the business day for us at CNBC in two weeks. And I wish you the best as well with this next chapter. I think it's going to be very exciting. It's an honor and a privilege to be sitting next to you on this desk for the last couple of years. And I just also want to give my deepest gratitude to the overtime crew. They're the best in business news and the best in the news business.

And thank you for having us in your homes for this hour for the past nearly three years. That does it for us here at overtime. Fast money starts now.