Closing Bell - Netflix Reports Earnings; Interactive Brokers Founder On The Retail Rally 7/17/25

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Netflix earnings with on-the-spot insight from Evercore ISI’s Mark Mahaney, plus a look ahead to the company’s ad future with DoubleVerify CEO Mark Zagorski. Vital Knowledge’s Adam Crisafulli and Unlimited CEO Bob Elliott weigh in on the broader market tone. Interactive Brokers founder Thomas Peterffy on his company’s momentum and the retail participant in the current rally. 

Well, that's the end of regulation hearts to homes ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange high digital technologies doing the honors at the Nasdaq once again an all-time high for the Nasdaq is the tenth record close this year the S&P 500 as we settle out here It looks like it too is closing at a new all-time high would be the ninth for the S&P this year And though tech led the way we do have some industrial economy stocks to tell you about as industrials also hit a record close here, starting with Caterpillar hitting a record high today and on track for the eighth straight week of gains. It is up more than 50% since those April lows. It's the biggest point contributor to the Dow's rebound and indirect infrastructure play. That's been the argument here.

Pepsi having its best day since March 2020 following strong results. The soda and snack giant saying it will respond to consumer preferences when it comes to using natural ingredients. And some movement on the rails. Reports that Union Pacific has hired Morgan Stanley to explore a potential acquisition of a rival perhaps to create a transcontinental railroad. UMP lower on the day but Eastern operators CSX and Norfolk Southern both charging higher. Well that is the scorecard on Wall Street. Welcome to Closing Bell Overtime. I'm Morgan Brennan. John Fort is off today. We've got some earnings coming this hour

starting with Netflix. We'll bring you those numbers when they cross and actually I think they're crossing already. We're going to get instant reaction with Mark Mahaney. Conference call starts later this hour as well so we'll have those headlines too. Plus, we will also be hearing from interactive brokers this hour. And the company's founder and chairman, Thomas Pettyfee, will join me after those results and before the call with Wall Street. As we break down Netflix results, let's begin with the markets. Positive reaction to key economic data from this morning showing strength in the U.S.

economy. The Dow and the S&P 500 are higher for the second straight session. So let's bring in Vital Knowledge founder Adam Chrisafulli. Adam, let's start right there because we had strong data, we've had some solid earnings, and we haven't had a lot of volatile news, shall I say, out of Washington today. No, definitely. I think, you know, this week, Bulls have had, you know, No, definitely. I think this week, bulls have had a very good string of news, starting with earnings. The Q2 season is kicking off in a very healthy fashion. Companies are reporting ahead of expectations, both on the bottom and top line. And the qualitative tone sounds a bit better than it did three months ago when they reported Q1 results. You have that, and you've also had very robust economic data, you know, at least based on the numbers out this morning

It does seem like growth maybe is ticking up a little bit And if you go back and look through the PPI and the CPI while you definitely are seeing evidence of that tariffs are placing some Upward pressure on questions and now it's being explored elsewhere I'm gonna I'm gonna interrupt you there because we do have those Netflix numbers to bring you Julia Borson has them for us. Hi Julia Hey Morgan Netflix beating on the top and bottom line with earnings of $7.19 ahead of the $7.08 that was estimated by analysts.

Revenues of 11.08 billion just ahead of analysts of 11.07 billion. But the key thing here is the company is raising its full year revenue guidance for the year. So now guiding to 2025 revenue of 44.8 to 45.2 billion up from the prior guidance of 43.5 to 44.5 billion. I'm noting an FX neutral operating margin of 29.5% higher than the 29% margin previously shared. I'm going to be digging into this report and we'll be back to you with more. The stock is pretty much flat. Okay Julia Borsten, thank you. Adam Chrisafulli, I know I

interrupted you before. If you want to finish your thought have at it. Otherwise definitely want to get your reaction to Netflix as we do bounce around the flat line here but there had been very high hopes coming into this print. You know I was just saying that you know News Club this week has been very favorable for bulls on both the earnings front and the data front, and Netflix, I think, falls into the same category of very healthy Q2 results and bullish guidance. For certain names, expectations are very, very elevated. Netflix kind of falls into that category, so that would be today to a lesser extent, where the stocks aren't responding to great numbers, but on an absolute basis, Corporate

America, especially the biggest companies, are performing very well. They're navigating this environment. And it does seem like underlying macro conditions are definitely not as bleak as was here a few months ago. How does this set the tone for other tech companies? We talk about it as if it's part of this bucket of mega cap tech players. And maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but it certainly sets the stage.

No, it's a great point. It's more immediate company than a tech company. We've heard now from a handful of tech firms, so TSM earlier this morning was quite healthy. ASML yesterday morning was a little bit more mixed. The Indian IT outsourcing companies were mixed. So there's still a lot to go in earnings, and that's one risk now is that we've had such a very healthy start to the season. We have three more very busy weeks to go and now the bar is higher

for everyone. So, you know, I think expectations have definitely shifted a little bit higher. You know, we still, like you said, have a lot to go in tech with semiconductors, with with enterprise software companies, etc. But so far, it seems to have been a very healthy Q2. OK, Adam, Chris Fooley, thanks for kicking off the hour with me with shares of Netflix down right now, 2% here in overtime, but the major averages all finishing higher. Record closures for the Nasdaq and the S&P. We've got breaking news on those crypto bills on the hill that we've

been following. Emily Wilkins has the story. Hi, Emily. Hey, Morgan. Well, the House has now passed all three of those crypto bills, the one on market structure that will go to the Senate the one on Banning the central bank digital currency that will also go to the Senate and of course the one on stable coins And that one is headed to the White House tomorrow to President Trump's desk We're already hearing that there is expected to be a ceremony to sign it That one is a first-of-the-kind rules of the road bill for stable coins And of course this comes as the crypto industry has long lobbied for these. You saw them sink almost $200 million into lawmakers campaigns in the 2024 election

in hopes of moving these bills. And you've already heard them announce that they have $141 million so far for the upcoming midterms and they do it in a bipartisan manner, building coal coalitions and you can see today it is paid off for them. Of course we're going to have to continue to follow that market structure bill as it goes to the Senate. That is the one that a lot of these crypto groups tell me is really key for them to get past. But today they're celebrating stable coin as a win and with strong bipartisan support for both the stable coin and the market structure bill. Guys? Okay, Emily Wilkins, thank you.

Let's dive deeper into those earnings results. We just got a few moments ago from Netflix. Joining us now, Mark Mahaney from Evercore ISI. Mark, it's great to have you on. You're very bullish on the stock. You have been for a while. Your reaction? They needed to put up a beaten race quarter and they did.

Was it enough? Revenue growth organically actually accelerated. Margins are up year over year. So if you're a bull on Netflix, you're happy with what you got. But I'm not sure there's a reason to aggressively buy the stock right here. It's a small buy for us. With the stocks trading at a 40 PE multiples, but the upper end of its valuation range. Look, everybody expected good results because it's good games you got stranger

things coming up wednesday so the content is all there the margins are you getting a margin trend she won but um... questions what else is going to be newest what they need to talk about is how advertising revenues ramping up and what they need to talk about his live sports live events how we're gonna see more of that content on the network i think you will i think those are your two big bull characteristics or bull drivers going forwards. But this is a decent print.

It's a very good print. That's largely as expected. It doesn't strike me as there's something dramatic to do either way on the stock right here. Well, I'm glad you brought up the ad piece of this because we have some more details from Julia Borris, and we're going to go to her right now for more from this Netflix report. Julia. Hey, Morgan. Yeah yeah some color here on subscriber numbers.

Now Netflix has not reported subscriber numbers either the first or second quarter this year. They stopped reporting those subscriber numbers at the end of last year but they say in this report here that member growth was ahead of our forecast saying this occurred late in the quarter limiting the impact on Q2 revenue. Also just want to point out here Q2 operating margin was well ahead of expectations 34.1 percent versus 32.9 percent expected also forecasting higher margins in the third quarter of 31.5 percent ahead of the 30.8 percent that was a street account estimate. Another thing to note here, as the revenue was just a hair ahead of expectations,

but the company increased its revenue forecast for the year, saying, this reflects the recent depreciation of the US dollar versus most other currencies, with a balance attributable to continued business momentum driven by solid member growth and ad sales. Now, speaking of ad sales here, they don't disclose any numbers

about how many of their subscribers are using the ad supported version, though we hope to hear more in the earnings call, but they say the US upfront is nearly complete. They've closed the vast majority of the deals with the major agencies. They say we're pleased with the results, which are consistent with our goal

to roughly double ads revenue this year. And of course, we hope to learn more about the success of that ads business in the call, which starts at 4.45 PM Eastern. Back over to you. Okay, Julia, thank you. Mark, wanna get your reaction to that. Because doubling of ads revenue this year sounds exciting,

but I also realize they're coming off of a low level, right? They probably did about 800 million in ad revenue last year, so you're doubling it. You get to one and a half to two billion. Hey, that's good. It's not great. You know, you want five to 10 billion, and I think this company is certainly capable of delivering that, and I think they will over the next three years.

I bet you they can keep that doubling or high double-digit growth rate for ad revenue for the next couple of years. So I think that's the real big bull case. But you know, you're still starting with a really small base. Look, this is a very good Netflixian print. They've got the strongest contents laid out there. Our survey shows that consumers have consistently rated this as the number one streaming service

and the lead seems to be widening. I know there's some wonderful hits on other networks like Love Island that's popular in the Mahaney household, outside of that the content is really gapping up the content leadership is really gapping up at Netflix I think it will continue to do so there's that kind of a snowball to to Netflix the more Subscribers they have the more revenue they have the more they can spend on content the lead is going to widen That's why you want to be long Netflix and the free cash flow is starting to ramp up, too Hmm it's interesting because in your report ahead of this, France, you did call out the fact that Netflix should benefit from a significant sequential FX tailwind.

Julie just talked about that too. Does that continue? Probably. I don't think you get a lot of credit from investors for beating numbers based on FX, and that's why you don't have a big pop in the stock. But it's a subscription business, so you rarely get big pops in the revenues where you get the surprises in the sub-numbers, but of course they don't disclose that anymore,

so then where the real surprise comes in is in the operating income, and they keep showing this leverage. You know, one question that I know is gonna come up in that callback with management is, why did you only raise margins for the full year to 29.5% from 29%. That's not a huge increase. And you're running in the first half of the year,

well north of 30%. What are you gonna be spending that money on in the back half of the year? Or are you just being dramatically conservative? I don't know what the answer to that is, but I think that's the number one question that I would think of going into that management call in a few minutes.

It's interesting to hear you say that, because we've seen it in recent quarters where Netflix bottom line is growing at a faster rate than the top line so perhaps getting back to that point. Yeah I think that's right so they why is that because this is a successful subscription business that can keep showing leverage against marketing costs and then they've got this this content flywheel and they're gonna keep raising their content spend we're gonna go from 17 to 18 to 19 to $20 billion a year.

It's just that the revenue growth is going faster than that content spend. So there's still inherent leverage in the model. But by the way, they have the right to dip in and aggressively go after some live event rights, sports rights, if those come up. And I imagine they would look for that opportunity. That's probably what they're doing

with their second half guidance. They probably wanna give themselves the firepower to go after a big sports deal, live events deal, if it shows up. And if it doesn't, investors will see that margin flow through. It'll be higher than what they're guiding to. Okay, Mark Mahaney, thank you.

Thanks, Morgan. Shares of Netflix down about 1% right now, but keep in mind, up about 50% over the six months ahead of these results we just got. Interactive brokers just out with results as well. Earnings and revenue both beating estimates. Commission revenue grew by 27%. That's thanks to higher customer trading volumes. Trading for stocks, options, and futures all rose.

So after the break, we're gonna be joined by the company's founder, Thomas Petterfee, to discuss those results. Over Time is back in two. Welcome back to Overtime. Shares of Lucid are soaring today. Uber inking a six-year robotaxi deal with Lucid and investing $300 million in the company. Uber is going to use Lucid's Gravity SUV as part of this deal, saying they will use

at least 20,000 of them using autonomous driving technology from Neuro. You can see those shares of Lucid finished up 36%. Uber down fractionally. But another name that we're watching here in overtime is Interactive Brokers. And that stock is surging right now, reporting a beat on the top and bottom lines

while seeing a 32% jump in customer accounts. Now that's a key number for investors. You can see their shares are up three and a half percent. And joining me now in exclusive interview is Thomas Petterfi, Interactive Brokers founder and Chairman Thomas. It's great to have you back on the show. Welcome. It's great to be here. It's great to announce a fantastic quarter. We are announcing 51 cents per share per our newly split for newly 441 split shares. Our revenues hit a record of 1.48 billion dollars for the quarter and for the very first time our profits exceed 1 billion dollars for the quarter. And as you said accounts were up 32 percent, customer equity 34

percent, customer credit 34 percent, daily average revenue trades 49 percent. These are all records. The only thing that was not a record was our margin loans, which is not so bad because after all, margin loans always carry some danger. So with the exception of these margin loans, everything is a new record. What do you attribute that to? Especially since this past quarter, we saw so much volatility in the market. That's part of the reason for the great records. But it's also, it's an extremely favorable environment for interactive brokers and most other financial firms. The last time you were on with me,

which was after your last earnings report back in April, you had just called a market bottom and you were right to do that. I wonder what you think about the market now, I guess the stock market, as we do see an S&P and a NASDAQ both trading at record highs? So I basically do not see any dark clouds in the horizon. As a matter of fact, I can't think of anything that will stop this rally.

I expect this rally to continue for the next two or three years. What do you think powers it from here? Especially as we talk about earnings, we talk about perhaps more than I can remember ever doing, talking about this intersection of Washington and policy and investor flows. Do you expect that to continue to drive things forward? Absolutely.

So the Trump policies are very favorable for equities, especially the doing away of all the barriers to business. Less regulation, more incentives to save and invest are very, very favorable. In terms of the activity you have seen across the platform, and I realize we've talked about this previously too, but there has been this divergence this year between retail investors, sophisticated individual investors,

and some of the big institutional players. And retail has certainly seemed to power the market higher here. I wonder what you attribute that divergence to. the market higher here. I wonder what you attribute that divergence to. So I think that the institutional investors, they scared each other about the trade policies. So they are all left behind and the retail and the sophisticated individuals, they continued buying. As a matter of fact, we almost every day we see net buying on interactive brokers.

And I think that these institutional investors are left behind and they will still have to catch up. And that has a great firepower that is still to come. You have a crypto trading platform within interactive brokers. We just saw the stablecoin deal make its way through the House. It's now headed to the White House. Two other bills that are headed to the Senate. What are you seeing in terms of crypto activity on the site?

And what do you expect regulation or clear rules of the road to enable from this point forward? Well, from everything we hear, the regulations will be favorable. And so that means that there'll be more and more crypto trading. Of course, I have to ask you about the predictions markets as well, because I know that's been an area of growth for you, and it's certainly been something that traders are watching increasingly closely. Does that continue to surge?

Well, we are very excited about those markets. We are very excited about the economic indicators, but interestingly enough, this newly controversial mayoral election in New York City is basically taking the lead here. So most people are very, very interested in that race and they are very interested in expressing their opinions and buy yes or no contracts on Mondani. Interesting.

So you're seeing that translate to activity on the platform. Absolutely, yes. Does that go above and beyond just the predictions piece of the platform? No, that's also, you know, the question is, will Mondani be elected to be the mayor of the city of New York? And you can buy a yes for roughly 70 cents at the moment or a no or 30 cents. And if you're right, you get a dollar.

Thomas Petterfi of Interactive Brokers. It's great to have you on. Thanks for joining me. Thank you very much. With shares of Interactive Brokers. It's great to have you on. Thanks for joining me. Thank you very much. With shares of Interactive Brokers up 3% right now. Well, as stocks soar to record highs, healthcare has been the worst performing sector over the past three months. Up next, we've got a closer look at some of the culprits

creating those unhealthy returns in that sector. returns in that sector. Welcome back to overtime. Another rough day for the health insurance stocks. Elevants missed on second quarter earnings and lowered its 2025 guidance. Molina Centene, United Health also falling today. Centene has lost half its value in July following its own earnings warning. And in general, you've seen these managed care companies,

these stocks re-rate. They've been some of the worst performers since the start of the year. Well, it's time now for CNBC News Update with Courtney Reagan. Hi, Court. Hi, Morgan. President Trump won't be appointing a special prosecutor

to look into the case of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. That's according to White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt today who said the president has called for Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ and the FBI to quote, put forward any additional evidence of Epstein's crimes. The Attorneys General of 20 states are suing to keep parts of a Department of Health and Human Services rule from going into effect next month. In the lawsuit filed today, the Attorneys General, along with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, argued the actions illegally changed rules for state and federal health insurance marketplaces, which could lead to nearly two million Americans losing coverage.

And Felix Baumgartner, the Austrian extreme athlete who gained global fame when he parachuted from the stratosphere back to earth in 2012, has died. Sky Sport Austria reporting Baumgartner died instantly in Italy today when he crashed into a hotel pool in a paragliding accident after suffering what local authorities called a quote sudden illness. He was 56 years old. Morgan, back to you. Courtney Reagan, thank you.

Well stocks continuing to soar to new highs. Today new closing records for both the S&P and the NASDAQ. But are the market expectations a little too high? We're going to discuss that next. And Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is in Beijing this week, as Nvidia said it expects to resume chip shipments to China. John Ford spoke with Synopsys CEO as his company closed its $35 billion acquisition of Ansys today after securing Chinese government approval.

Now he stressed the importance of being able to do business in China and around the world. We did not lead by being contained in one region. The more you open up a market, the more we have R&D money to invest, and the more we'll be able to continue on competing and leading. So the best way to describe it, John, is that I did not imagine that my job is going to become a technology ambassador between two countries, but we played that role. Welcome back to overtime markets closing higher. Once again a record close for the NASDAQ and today the S&P 500 joining the party. Netflix reporting results earlier this hour earnings and revenue beating expectations at third quarter forecasts also above estimates. The stock slightly lower in overtime though down about 1% right now. J Bill announcing

a $1 billion share buyback. J Bill is an Apple supplier, particularly in production of AirPods. You can see that stock is up about 1.5% right now. But let's stay on the markets, shall we? Our next guest says stocks and bonds are pricing in a near perfect scenario, continued growth, little inflation impact plaque packed from tariffs, coming rate cuts and continued profits for corporate America. So what happens if one or more of these conditions aren't so perfect? Well, let's ask unlimited CEO and CIO, Bob Elliott.

Bob, it's great to have you back on the show and let's start right there. Why do you think we're priced to perfection here? Well, if you take a look at what's priced in for equity earnings over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, you're looking at double digit or better earnings expectations.

And bond yields at these levels continue to price in relatively strong growth over time and cuts in the short term. And so you put that together. And in order to achieve the outcomes expected across these markets, we're gonna have to have almost a perfect combination of very strong growth and very little inflation

that allow the Fed to ease, a combination of which is challenging to see when you see the hard data showing in many ways the opposite of those two trends. So you don't think we're out of the woods in terms of tame inflation and tariff impact? Well, if anything, we're just getting started with a tariff impact. And in fact, the collected tariff revenue, at least through May, which is when we have comprehensive data, was only about 8% when the announced policy rate on tariffs is 20% or higher.

And so it's taking time for that tariff effect to actually even get implemented. There's a couple of structural reasons why that is. It takes time for the goods to come from offshore to onshore. And in addition, it takes time for the CBB to collect the actual revenues and so you're talking about an actual tariff delay impact that could be you know three or six months from the time of actual announcements and so we're before it gets on to store shelves and so we've got a ways to go before we can really say the U.S. economy is feeling the full effect of the tariff policies being announced. So if you have money to put to work right now,

what would you be doing with it? Would you be just keeping it in cash? Would you be taking some profits here and sitting in cash? Would you be investing it somewhere else? Well, I think when we look at what's going on with equity markets at all time highs, it's time to start to think about where can you get actual diversification.

I think in many ways yesterday highlighted some of the risks that exist from a policy perspective. When we saw both stocks and bonds go down, when there was a threat that Chairman Powell would be removed, the one asset that showed real diversification power there was gold. And it's an asset that the vast majority of investors aren't holding in their portfolio.

Yeah, you've liked gold for a while. You continue to be a gold bug? Well, I don't know about a bug, just a guy who looks at gold performance and sees that it's diversifying and continuing to drive pretty good returns. And so I think the idea that most investors are all in on bonds as their diversification tool,

and it's time to look to hard assets, whether it's gold, maybe it's Bitcoin, if that's your interest, to help create a more diversified portfolio given all the uncertainties ahead. In light of that, what do you think? We're expecting an executive order, potentially perhaps at some point,

maybe it comes today, maybe it comes before the end of the week, regarding this idea of opening up 401ks and retirement funds to private markets. We know a lot of the ALTS firms have already been focusing a lot of attention on putting individuals into private markets. Do you think that would be a good way of diversifying? That's about the last thing that investors really need. I mean, most of those ALTS programs are just different forms of being long only in equity

like risk. And they're just more illiquid and with higher fees. And investors don't need higher fees and they don't need more long only risk out there. They get plenty of that with the assets that they have available in their 401ks. What investors really need is they need diversifying strategies. So things that can go long and short if markets start to turn or diversifying assets like gold in their portfolios. And so, you know, it's in many ways just another money grab from the big private asset industry that frankly can't get anybody else to buy their assets given the illiquidity challenges

that they've continued to face. Oh, that's some spicy commentary from you, Bob. I am curious, we've talked about it in the past, but what we've seen from bank earnings so far as the season gets underway here, how much of a read is it to what else we can expect as we get more earnings from more industries over the coming days and coming weeks?

Well, I think it continues to affirm that banks, the banking industry is quite healthy. I think the thing that's interesting about the banking industry is a lot of those profits you're seeing are coming from trading activities, not necessarily from traditional, you know, real economy lending. In fact, if you look at real economy lending, it continues to be about as depressed as it's been during basically any trough in the economy. And so what that highlights is, is that under current rates, they're sufficiently restrictive that you're not getting significant pickup and borrowing from either households or businesses. They're going to offset some of the slowing

that exists elsewhere in the economy. It's gonna take a lot more easing before you get to a point where those sectors of the economy are gonna start to pick up their borrowing. Okay, Bob Elliott, great to have you on. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. Well, speaking of earnings,

Netflix earnings call is just moments away. We're gonna bring you the highlights. Those are coming up. Plus, I'll look at the sectors most exposed to tariff turmoil this earnings season. Overtime returns in two. Welcome back. Tariff's been a major question mark heading into this earnings season. Pippa Stephens is here. She's looking at which sectors could face the most tariff turmoil due to their international exposure. Pippa. That's right, Morgan.

So Tariff Talk dominated Q1 earnings with some 450 companies mentioning tariffs on their earnings calls. That was the highest in at least a decade and most likely a record high. And now it's all about how companies are managing through that uncertainty. Now, one key metric is exposure to foreign markets. Overall, international sales make up about 28% of the S&P 500's $17 trillion in sales, that's according to Goldman Sachs, with Asia, Pacific, and Europe, the largest non-U.S. regions. But that disguises disparities across sectors. Excluding tech, materials has the highest exposure at 49%, followed by energy

and comm services. On the flip side, you've got financials at just 20%, healthcare at 12%, and utilities rounding out the bottom with just 2% of sales in international markets. Now, on a company-specific level, some names with more than 50% exposure include Netflix, it's at 59%, McDonald's as well as Estee Lauder at 75%. You've also got names like Schlumberger, Visa, as well as Match Group at 54%. On the other side, companies with no exposure include some of those key staple names like a Kroger, Dollar General,

as well as Southwest Airlines, Union Pacific, Crown Castle, and then utility company, Duke Energy. Still, despite all the unknowns around the tariffs, including whether there will be reciprocal actions taken, Goldman noted that a basket of international weighted stocks is still outperforming domestic folks' names this year. And a lot of that is because of the decline in the dollar, down more than 9% so far in 2025.

Morgan? Super interesting, Pippa. I mean, I'd add defense companies with their vertically, or with their, we'll say largely domestic supply chains to the list of companies that maybe are less exposed to trade in tariffs. But what was interesting to me in the first quarter was that we heard a lot of this phrase mitigation, right? Tariff mitigation, trade mitigation efforts.

We heard about it from Alcoa's CEO on this show yesterday too, the idea that a lot of their Canadian made aluminum is now going to places it would have originally been destined for the U.S. but because of made aluminum is now going to places. It would have originally been destined for the US, but because of tariffs, it's going to other countries now as well. I just wonder if the expectation is we're gonna hear about all of these different levers continuing to be pulled, these mitigation efforts, if you will, this season.

Yeah, I think mitigation is definitely a key word to watch here because right now with so much uncertainty, companies are still trying to figure out how are we going to reorganize our supply chains, how are we going to shift our things like our cargoes or our imports and our exports based on what we see with the tariffs ultimately shaking out. But I think also what's at play here, of course, is the TACO, everyone's favorite acronym du jour in the sense that these tariffs keep getting pushed out. So I think there's also a hesitancy on executives part to really go full force into changing things like their supply chains or doing a price hike, something like that, when they still don't know.

So I expect more clarity this season from executives on earnings calls. But until we get those tariffs in writing across the board and more understanding, probably still a lot of hedging we'll hear as well. Okay. Pippa Stevens, thank you. Well, up next, Fast Money's Dan Nathan plays, Would You Rather? Find out whether he'd rather own Bitcoin right now or Bitcoin related stocks like Coinbase, Robinhood,

and Circle. Plus, Netflix earnings call is just about to kick off. We will dig deeper into the strength of the streaming giant's ads here. When we're joined by the CEO of Netflix's ad partner, Double Verify, stay with us. Welcome back. Railroads continuing to move here in overtime.

And we told you earlier in the show that Union Pacific has hired Morgan Stanley to explore a possible deal That was according to reports this morning now The Wall Street Journal is saying that the intended takeover target is Norfolk Southern CNBC and myself have reached out to both companies for a comment We'll let you know what we hear if we hear in the meantime You can see shares of Union Pacific are down right now and Norfolk Southern is up about three and a half, almost 4% in overtime.

Well, we're also watching CoreWeave. Under pressure today, HSBC initiating coverage of the AI Cloud Computing Company with a sell rating and a $32 price target that implies a roughly 77% downside. The analysts there are expressing concern about a vast majority of sales coming from Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI, as well as higher borrowing costs and valuation. Now, CoreVeef shares more than tripling

since going public in late March, but you can see down about 7.5% today on this initiation. Well, meantime, the house passing key crypto legislation that now heads to the president's desk. The passage comes as Bitcoin hits an all-time high this week. How should investors play the space as rules of the regulatory road emerge? So joining us now is fast money trader, Dan Nathan.

He is principal at Risk Reversal Advisors, a CNBC contributor. Dan, long time no see, how are you? Morgan, it's great to be on the OT. Ah, super excited to have you. Okay, we're gonna take a quick look at the crypto ecosystem. How are you? Long time no see. How are you? Morgan, it's great to be on the OT.

Super excited to have you. Okay. We're going to take a line from fast money here and we're going to play would you rather? Would you rather buy Bitcoin or one of the other cryptocurrencies here or would you rather buy stocks that are related to the crypto ecosystem? Yeah. I mean, stocks that are related right now, there's a certain, I guess, scarcity, if you would say. There's not too many of them right now

And so you see the rallies that let's say a coin base has had is nearly doubled off the April lows And you know, this is not one I think you kind of say well on a valuation basis or this that or whatever It just seems to be something that is gonna have volatile earnings It's gonna be very pegged to a whole host of things other than regulation than what you just mentioned for the underlying And so is this a good business? Sure. Are they broadened out away from retail? Definitely.

A lot of those revenue streams are institutional and the like. I look at a circle that just went public. It became a meme stock, right? It's trading like an altcoin, if you will. And so if we're playing that game, would you rather? I'd probably rather buy Bitcoin here. And if you think about how this has traded

over the last, call it month or two, in anticipation of this genius act, I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing.

I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point.

I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. get other companies to do with their treasuries, then you're gonna have upward pressure. And then when you think about stable coins, this is something that obviously is giving more credence to the underlying asset. But again, would I rather?

Neither right here. Yeah, his argument seems to be getting a little more traction, particularly with some smaller companies as of late. Well, let's talk retail, Dan, because sales came in better than expected this morning. Those rose 0.6%, that easily topped estimates. Is there a retail play here,

something consumer facing that you're excited about? Yeah, I think when you look at these numbers and the whole year, right, we've been in anticipation of what a consumer's gonna look like in the face of tariffs. Our company's gonna eat a lot of that tariff that's coming in as a tax, make no mistake about it, or are they gonna try to pass it through to consumers,

are they gonna have some folks in the supply chain kind of eat it up and so when I think about that retail sales number I think it falls into a lot of the data that we've seen over let's say the last four months or so you've seen this pull forward you've seen a lot of consumer demand for products that they thought might be hit with big tariffs as it gets to the summer and the like here so when I think about retail I think you want to continue to watch a lot of that jobs data here I think you want to to watch a lot of that jobs data here. I think you wanna keep a close eye on the housing market.

I think the wealth effect that we've seen with the stock market, the S&P is trading at 6,300. I think people feel pretty good. The 401Ks are okay. You can buy a stock like CoreWeave and it turns into a meme stock after they couldn't give it away on their IPO three months ago.

So I think that that sort of optimism is playing out through the retail sector. When I think about how to play it, a lot of folks would say look at a Walmart, look at a Costco. Those stocks have been monsters over the last couple of years. If you look at a five-year chart, it looks like they invented CHAT GPT. So I look at those and they're kind of stuck in the mud. They are not confirming new highs in the S&P 500.

So I think with retail stocks in particular, I think you want to wait. You want to see more clarity on the tariff front and then let's just kind of see how that housing market, how the jobs market are playing out here because I think that's going to be an important part of the consumer. All right, Dan Nathan, great to have you here on the OT. Thanks Morgan. You can catch Dan and the rest of the fast money traders coming up at 5 p.m. Eastern. They're going to be joined by Solana Policy Institute President, Kristen Smith, as the crypto bills do move through the house. Just got a little taste of what that discussion could entail right here.

Up next, the highlights of Netflix earnings call, and the CEO of a company that makes sure Netflix ads are being seen by humans, and not by bots. Stay with us.