Power Lunch - Dow pulls back from record, Nasdaq sheds 1% as Nvidia leads tech lower 8/19/25

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

Stocks pulled back in afternoon trading Tuesday, after the Dow earlier rose to a record high thanks to strong gains in Home Depot. A broad decline in technology stocks put pressure on the broader market. We’ll cover all of the market angles for you. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It is a weird market day as some of the high flyers come back to Earth a bit. Welcome to Power Lunch, everybody. I am Brian Sullivan. Kelly, of course, is off. And the stocks that everybody loves aren't getting a lot of love today. The NASDAQ down more than 1% right now. All the MAG 7 stocks, they're striking out. We're going to find out what may work in the weeks and months ahead. Plus, ESPN's big rollout, Nvidia's big surprise, and a big-time fundraising. round for one of America's fastest growing companies. All that ahead. Welcome, everybody. A lot going on today in kind of different ways. And let us start the program with a rather simple market question. Is a sell-off coming soon for stocks and a sell-off that would give you a better place to buy back in?

It's kind of what Mike Wilson believes. And many of you that missed the rebound rally off the terror panic lows might actually be hoping that happens. So let's kick off and dive in with Morgan Stanley's chief U.S. equity strategist. Mike Wilson, Mike, it's great to have you back on the program. A lot of people, they may have sold during the panic. They kind of, they haven't been back in. They're waiting for an entry point. Is that coming?

Well, good afternoon, Brian. I mean, look, I don't know if they're going to get a big fat pitch like we got in April. That's probably very unlikely. We think ultimately that was the end of a pretty significant bear market. We're in the beginning of a new. bare market. It's still about only four months into that. So, you know, pullbacks will probably be shallower than people want. I mean, that's the classic sign of a new bull market. It doesn't really let anybody in. The good news is, you know, our data suggests that the retail investor

really didn't sell in April. In fact, they were buyers all the way through that period. It was really more the institutional community that created that low and a lot of the passive strategies, quite frankly, and it was so quick that many people didn't even have time to react. So my suspicion is most of the viewers probably have plenty of equity exposure. They're probably enjoying the ride. The question they probably are asking themselves is, should I be selling here because that made so much money? And in that case, you know, that's a personal decision to get to pay taxes if you do that. My suspicion is if we get a pullback, it'll be probably less than 10%, which in the grand scheme of things, that's not worth trying to trade around for most people.

So you believe we started a new bull market back in April? Why? Because we had a bear market. I think that. that's the thing that people don't really acknowledge, which is that, you know, the sell-off in April was really a final capitulation to a bear market that began last summer. If you actually look at most stocks, they topped in July of 2024. They were down anywhere between 30 and 35 percent on average. I mean, that's a proper bear market that ended with a capitulatory price action. So whenever you get that type of price action, you have to some demarcation between the bull market in the bear market, that was it. It was the capitulation. So, you know, most bull markets don't last

four months. They last, you know, years or, you know, year or two at a minimum. So I think right now we're in by the dip mode because we're in that bull market mentality. And the question now, and I think you're alluding to it earlier is like, what should I own? And I think, you know, we're probably getting to the stage of this bull market where you can probably see some broadening out. Maybe that's one of the reasons why we're seeing the max seven start to maybe underperform a bit now. And that's, you know, really going to be contingent in my view on when the Fed starts actually cutting interest rates. I don't know if they're going to do it in September or not, but once they start actually doing that, that's when you'll probably see the bull market really broad now.

Yeah, I said it was kind of a weird market day. I posted that to X as well, and it kind of is because all Mag 7 are lower right now, the Palantiers, the AMDs, the stocks that have been red hot the last couple of months, they're the leading laggards. In other words, they're the down the most of percentage basis on the NASDAQ 100 and mid-caps, which are been pretty much, you know, the Jan Brady's of the market pretty much ignored Mike Wilson for a long time. They're actually slightly higher. One day does not a trend to make. I get it. But does it feel like we're starting to see that broadening out a little bit? Well, I think it's the beginning. It's like it's also August, Brian. I mean, it's very thinly traded right now. We have a big event

this end of the week with the Jackson Hole conference. And we're, you know, waiting to see if they're going to give us any sign on timing for that first Fed cut, which is probably forthcoming sometime. in the next three to six months. And what I would say is that we're in that bottoming process. We've been underweight small midcaps now for going on 40 years, okay? And it's been the right view. And when we're starting to see the small midcaps start to, you know, bottom out a little bit on a relative basis in the sense that they're not going down at the same pace relative to the S&P 500,

that's the beginnings of something, I think. But I don't think it's time yet to go fully all in it. But it is time to be considering that move, given the four years. of relative underperformance. I'm not taking anything away from the importance and magnitude of this week's Jackson Hull conference, but I'm going to take a little bit away from the importance of magnitude of it. Here's why, Mike, we know that Jerome Powell is out, probably in May when his term is ending. I know May seems like it's a long way off.

It's really not. There's only a few Fed meetings ahead. And we know this. I think it's fair to say, right? And if I'm wrong, correct me, Mike, that the next Fed chair is going to be somebody who has definitely prone to interest rate cuts, period, end of story. So at what point, maybe it's now, do you and your team already start to factor in rate cuts because they are coming, whether it's in September or whether it's right after May?

Yeah, look, I think, I mean, the stock market is absolutely already pricing in some of that. That's one of the reasons why the rally has been so relentless. And it's definitely been part of our view why we've been more bullish. since May, because we do see that coming down the pike. However, for the true broadening out, what we need to see is the back end of the bond market really come down to get the interest rate sensitive parts of the market really moving and get some of the capital spending going, which is also going to be helped by the tax bill. So we're in that window. You know, nobody has a crystal ball. The small mid-cap stocks have had a good absolute move. Okay.

So that's one thing you have to keep in mind. It's not like they've been flat since April. They've gone up quite a bit, too. They just haven't gone up as much. So if we're going to get a consolidation or some sort of correction in the third quarters we've been expecting, then that's going to be the time when you sort of make the rotation. It's going to all happen at the same period, which is sometime probably the next six weeks. I think what you just said is incredibly important. And I want our viewers and listeners that are not market professionals to understand what you said. You said you thought some of the move that we've seen already is in anticipation of rate cuts. So does that mean when we actually get a rate cut, whether it's September 17th or at the end? October meeting or the December meeting or whatever, the market may not react because the market is already or has already reacted. Well, that's right, Brian, as you know, that's what we call a classic sell-the-news event. I think part of the reason why you want to wait and see how this happens is remember last fall when the Fed cut interest rates by 100 basis points, the back end,

the 10-year Treasury yield actually went up 100 basis points. That's unprecedented in history, where the Fed starts a rate cutting cycle to see the back end of the market go up. And so that, I think, is what I want to see. I want to see the back end behave on that first Fed cut more so than what stocks do. I want to see the back end of the bond market come down and follow the Fed's leave because that's what's really needed for the next leg of the bull market and the next leg of the growth cycle is to get the back end of the market down to stimulate some of the interest rate sensitive parts of the economy.

Yeah, absolutely. Kind of an amazing move there in the bond market. We're going to leave it there, though, Mike Wilson. Welcome back on anytime. Mike, thank you very much. Thank you. All right. So, folks, as we noted, the biggest economic event really of the year is about to kick off in Wyoming, the annual Jackson Hole Symposium. And as you just heard Mike say, the bond market is already watching. It's kind of waiting and it's sizing up potential moves.

But the bond market waits for no one. As Mike said, it's already moved. Let's get more now in the bond report with Rick Santosh. Telly and Rick, you can react to what you just heard because bond investors, bond traders, they don't wait around. They're not waiting for the headline if they are. They're out of a job. Yeah, but if they're not waiting, they're certainly not trading.

I mean, if you look at where the 10-year closed, Thursday closed, and these are cash market closes, not the 4 o'clock Eastern close. When cash market closes, the close was 429 on Thursday, 432 on Friday, 433 yesterday, and right now we're hovering at 429 plus. Okay, so it has been tight ranges. And if you look at the dollar index, it's similar. So I guess what I'm saying is, yes, there's a lot of eyes focused at Jackson Hole. But the market certainly is comfortable.

And the bond market understands something the guests just pointed out. There's a life beyond the Fed for interest rates. Okay. They cut a year ago September, or last September, and what did the market do? The guest told us interest rates went up on the long end, the curve steepen. I think that's going to remain in play in the future. So you could have 11 guys that are all dovish or girls that are dovish, whatever the complexion of Ness Fed Chair is going to be.

In my opinion, that list is some pretty sharp people. And no matter how they try out for the job by being dovish, once they're in the job, they're going to do what's right with regard to the market. And I'm not sure the curve is going to flatten. I'm not sure you're going to see interest rates on the long end. behave at all, no matter what the Fed does, hit Jackson Hole. It no matter what the Fed speak is in Jackson Hole. And on the dollar index, that's been steady as she goes as well.

As a matter of fact, this is the six straight session where it looks to close in a range that has been less than a half a cent in the dollar index. To me, maybe the markets are all looking on Jackson Hole, but everybody's sitting on their hands while they're watching. We'll call it Jackson Hold? How's that? I like that. I like that.

Hold them and fold them. That's it. Jackson Hold, we've just rebranded it. Rick Centelli, thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right, on deck here on Power Lunch, Data Bricks, announcing its latest fundraising round at a staggering $100 billion valuation.

The CEO will join us next. Talk about why there is just such incredible demand to invest in his company. All right, welcome back. So just a moment ago, we had Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson as your top market guest. So here is some added value from the firm that you're going to want to take note of. Morgan Stanley digging out which stocks hedge funds were buying last quarter. In some cases, buying aggressively. Morgan Stanley found the names by looking at some of the biggest position changes as reported in those 13F quarterly filing. Sometimes we call it whale watching.

It takes a lot of work. Their team in Morgan Stanley did the work, so we're going to put it on TV for you to make it easy. All right, so here are some of the names that Morgan Stanley is reporting hedge funds bought the most of from May until July. Do keep in mind, this is second quarter data. So some of this may have changed because the data lags about six weeks. But as of the second quarter, hedge funds added a lot of end phase, brown and brown. Campbell Soup, MGM Resorts, Charles River Labs, Pool Corp, Viatris, the JM Smucker Company, NRG, and Masco. That is quite a varied list. Really, it goes from battery storage to gambling, to making electricity, and also making jams and jellies.

hedge funds buying up those companies, according to Morgan Stanley's data, just another value ad right here on Power Lunch. In the meantime, venture capital's big bet on AI continues. Databricks finalizing a monster mega round of financing. The new cash values the AI analytics company at a stunning $100 billion. That is a mighty 61% jump in valuation for their funding round, just less than one year. year ago. And eagle-eyed viewers and listeners will remember that Databricks rolled in at a cool number three on this year's CNBC disrupt their 50 list. That is our annual ranking of the most innovative private companies in the United States. So we are pleased to join in an exclusive

interview. Aldi Godsey. He is the co-founder and CEO of Databricks. Aldi, thank you very much for joining us. Congrats on the round. Was this a round that you had to do? I don't think so. Or one kind of investors really, really wanted you to do? Yeah, I mean, after the Figma IPO, we did get lots of lots of outreach from investors. My phone was blowing up. So, yeah, there's definitely been a big push from outside. But at the same time, we also saw it as a great opportunity for us to invest in two products that need a lot of funding, Agent Bricks for Agentic AI, and then Lake Base for building databases for AI. So, you know, we kind of put those two together.

So what kind of questions are investors asking you? You know, some big private equity, venture capital, whatever they come in, they say, we want to hand you, you know, $300 million. What kinds of questions are they asking? The number one thing on everyone's mind is, is this agentic AI going to work? Is it going to actually be able to automate work inside of these corporations? What are you seeing? Is it in production?

Are you seeing the value yet? You know, because they're putting a lot of dollars towards AI. So they obviously want to see, are you seeing the ROI yet? What are you seeing? What are you hearing? And you know, both of those products, agent bricks for building AI that can do those tasks and also Lake Base for building databases for those agents, you know, that's what we tell them. We tell them these are two big opportunities.

But it's early innings, that's what I tell them. I say, you know, it's not the case that, yeah, we have these agents roaming around in every company and it's automating all the tasks that hasn't happened yet. It's in the early inning. So most of the questions are centered around that ROI. really justifying is our investment sound or not. So is it working? I mean, a lot of people will say that things like chat bots and whatever, you know, that they're

being used, but they're not adding the value of the cost of AI right now. They will, but they're not right now. Yeah, I think you're right. You know, things are moving fast, though, and, you know, people are excited. But I would say maybe the focus has been on different things, unfortunately. The focus is on superintelligence, which is so smart and so much smarter that we can't even define it. It's even smarter than general intelligence. And what can that super intelligence do?

Well, we think it can win in Olympiads and in programming contests and do things that no human can ever do breakthroughs in science. But the organizations, they actually have much more mundane tasks that they want to automate. They don't need a physics Olympiad math, you know, scientist to do it. They just want to figure out how do I onboard a new and you know, employee. How do I answer questions about, you know, our financial policies or how do we do this marketing event better? So that's what we're focused on with Agent Bricks. We are focusing on that. We are not trying to solve superintelligence. We're trying to solve data intelligence,

which is intelligence on the data that enterprises already have, but yes, it's early innings, and they're not many companies that are focused on this. I love what you're saying because, you know, I'm, you know, reasonably intelligent guy, I hope. And if somebody says to me, oh, don't worry about it, You'll never understand it. It's much smarter than you, but don't worry, we've got it. No way in hell am I touching that thing? Because if somebody can't explain something in a way that makes me feel there's value, whether it's the universe or Lakeflow software, which you might have heard about from a company called Databricks,

then it's too much. And there's part of AI, I think, Ali, that's there now. Like, don't worry about it. We'll figure it out later. Just give us the money. Exactly. I mean, would you hire a PhD genius? to just onboard employees in your company?

If he or she could communicate effectively, was welcoming to the team, but if just based on that, no, I would not. I don't care. I'm sorry, I should, you know. Exactly. So, yeah, so the focus is how do we build agents that can actually be useful in these organizations

and solve the day-to-day tasks that organizations are actually facing. That's what the focus needs to be on. So that's, you know, what we're focusing on with Agent Bricks and we're seeing huge demand for it from enterprises, this is what they want to do. And then the second thing is that an interesting development

that we're seeing in the industry is that IT departments, instead of buying SaaS software, are thinking, hey, we can actually probably build it ourselves now using this vibe coding techniques. That's also this huge interest in that. Again, it's early innings. They're just getting started. It's not like they've replaced all their software with this,

but it's the early innings. And what does every piece of software need? It's a database under the hood. today, that's the most important piece of technology that powers all of our software. So that's why we have lake base to power the agenetic databases under the hood. But these are two clear trends we are seeing in the industry. Quickly on a fundamental basis, tech crunch reporting, the round was about a billion dollars and was wildly oversubscribed.

Can you confirm that? Well, the exact amount we haven't actually finalized yet. It is wildly oversubscribed. So my phone has been blowing up with investors saying, please let us, you know, we want to have 200 million or 300, please don't cut us back, you know. So, you know, there's a lot of capital out there and they want to deploy it. And there are not many places to put it. So they want big allocations. So that's correct. And then valuation is over $100 billion. Will this round be over a billion dollars? It might. It might. It's an interesting answer, Ali. It might be.

So close to a billion would be a fair thing to say. We call this making news in my industry. Yeah, I'm sure we're clear the billion dollar threshold. So, you know, that's guaranteed. You know, we're probably not going to raise $10 billion like we did earlier this year, which was the largest private financing round. But that's just because, you know, we don't have that much capital needs. We were cash flow break even end of last year. But we are going to put a lot of capital towards these two, Agent Bricks and Lake Base.

And, you know, in the AI era, the, you know, the talent is crazy insanely expensive. so that will require investing. You got to go after those MIT PhDs. They're probably not as expensive as some college dropouts that are just willing to roll their sleeves up right now. Ali Gatsy, Databricks, congrats to the funding round.

And congrats, number three, Disruptor 50, CNBC. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. All right, coming up, how do Fed-proof your portfolio? All right, welcome, but welcome back. Let's talk about Fed-proofing your portfolio.

In other words, Protecting your assets, no matter what the Fed does in both the near and longer term. And your guest in Market Navigator today says a big bank and maybe an airline and a health insurer could hold the answers. Joining us now is Chris Pregotti. He is CIO of SWBC. Chris, welcome to CNBC. Thanks for coming on Market Navigator. First off, how do you define Fed-proofing a portfolio? Fed proofing is just an effort to get something that will not react harshly in either direction, regardless of what the Fed does. And the Fed is making a lot of news and headlines lately.

So we don't know exactly what's going to happen going forward. But the expectation is, is how can you insure yourself against a negative application going forward? Okay. So you said, insure, one of your names, United Health, you got an airline in there as well. But I get those. But J.P. Morgan Chase, it's a bank. They have interest rate trading. They've got bond trading.

they've got stock trading, they have checking accounts. Those would seem to not be as Fed proof. I mean, how is J.P. Morgan Chase not directly related to the Federal Reserve? Great question. You know, it's more about when you look at how the market will react. It's going to react. I'm sorry, J.P. Morgan Chase should react relatively positively regardless of what the Fed does in the near term. So the expectation is if the Fed holds rate steady, the way the interest curve is set up right now,

now with very steeply sloping curve. JPMorgan has done an excellent job at capturing some really good opportunities and improving net interest margins over the past year and a half or two since the wheel curve has steepened. Naturally, if the Fed does cut rates, we would expect a very positive performance for J.P. Morgan Chase, but I will take a positive performance on a rate cut and no real implication if there is no rate cut at this point in time as relative insurance for the portfolio. Okay. It sounds like you're not scared off by the sort of the chaotic nature of headlines the last few months around United Health? Correct. Not really too scared off because I think there's opportunity. It's a it's a buy-the-dip mentality. I think Warren Buffett stole a little bit

in my thunder last week on this particular point. But I do think there's opportunity in United Healthcare going forward. They're really doing a lot of good things in terms of turning the company around in terms of optimizing that optimum opportunity they have to really kind of set themselves apart and differentiate. Plus, they're a market leader in the space. And when things get a little rough, you want to be with market leaders. And JetBlue, down 30% year to date again, a name beaten up that you're not being scared off by. Now, again, there's opportunity and what they're doing. Their real opportunity looks forward to what they're doing with United and their conglomeration there. And there's opportunity in the space when you look at what they have done with their jet forward

program, which is really doing things to drive business going forward, increase reliance and reliability of the air travel experience, increase the reliability of their actual airplanes and their aircraft to be on ground and in good condition. And that's really improving customer experience, which helps going forward. And when we look at what's happened in the airline industry over the past several years, we're looking at peak levels of participation and opportunity in the space is really growing as a result of that. Yes, I don't know about you, Chris. I like my airlines in good condition. It beats bad condition. Chris Brigotti, UNH, JPMorgan Chase, JetBlue, Chris, thanks for coming on Market Navigator and Power Lounge. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Coming up, a power check deja vu for the second straight day. Our trader bullish on this mystery stock. Look at that chart. It's like my EKG. We're back right after this. Hello, Lent. Is a great story, Brian. Cybersecurity is one of those businesses. that continues to keep moving forward. EPS, I think it's going to be up 16% year over a year. If it is, I would be a buyer of it there, but with the idea you're going to hold this. That was Michael Landsberg on this very show yesterday

before Palo Alto networks reported strong results after the market closed on Monday. And if you bought into the stock heading into the print, you are making a little bit of money today. Palo Alto shares popping higher after revenue rose 16% year over year. The company issuing better than expected guidance for the first quarter and your next guest, also bullish on the stock.

Joining us out of talk about that. And more is our friend Victoria Green, CIO and founding partner at G-squared Private Wealth, also is CNBC contributor, Victoria. Thank you very much for coming on. Palo Alto Networks. I know you were in love with CrowdStrike for a long time. You might still be.

Where does Palo Alto networks fit on your investment thesis? I love Palo Alto right now. I like them, and I bought that dip after they announced the CyberArck acquisition because it was such a complimentary acquisition and then they went and crushed earnings. So that was just cherry on top to me. This was already a quality company.

And they talk a lot about, and I might butcher this word, platformization and how so many people are coming on and saying we're done with all these different modules. We want to buy more modules, integrated security, all together as one. Palo Alto was already there as a leader in firewalls and security.

Now they're doing identity security. The reason CyberArk is, so key and crucial to them is it's getting so much easier to spoof these days. And they are aware, they have to be AI forward. They have to be ready with the identity side of the security, not just the firewall, because it's the people that are the weak point. They really are. They're the ones that are getting spoofed. They're the ones that are resetting, you know, no passwords or multifactor authentication. Look at like the MGM hack. Think about all these big hacks. Now Palo Alto saying, we're going to be cutting edge on identity security. We already have this great platform. We have so many

people buying more modules, just absolutely love the acquisition and love this stock. It feels like it's becoming, you know, cybersecurity was so crowded for so long, Victoria, kind of feels like it's becoming, I don't know, maybe five players out there, right? Palo Alto in the conversation, you got CrowdStrike. I throw Palantir. I know they do other things, but kind of around the margins as well, just feels like these are going to be the long-term, I'm not say stock winners, but winners at least of that industry.

And I think you need that. I think you need scale because you need to have the investment in AI. You need the ability to be nimble. You need the ability to grow your AI technology to keep up with threat actors because threat actors continue to get more and more advanced and they're continuing to exploit opportunities. And they need to fix things within 15, 20 minutes sometimes because it's happening so rapidly now. So yeah, I think bigger is better here. I think they're able to invest more.

They're able to stay cutting edge. They're able to stay relevant. And more and more companies don't want this diverse platform. They want so many that can take care of everything. They want the end user, they want the individual, they want the platform, the firewall, the monitoring. They want somebody that's a one-stop shop and not all these different modules because it's so much harder to keep up with. I got a lot of friends in Minneapolis. Know a lot of people that work on the Nicolette Mall.

Target, company, it's been struggling. They got earnings out tomorrow night. This is the name that you say you got to avoid because Target used to have a really kind of clear focus on identity. I don't know if it's that clear. focused right now? I don't. I don't think Target knows who it wants to be anymore. Target used to have that clear focus.

The suburban mom went to Target to get their Starbucks, waste time, shop, and buy a couple of things that were key. Now they can't figure out if they want to be DEI friendly, if they don't want to be DEI friendly. Somehow they managed to offend both the right and the left. Very, very impressive feat in these day and age. And so they're losing traffic. And so they can't figure out, do they want to be lower cost?

No, they're getting that margin by Dollar General, Walmart, T.J. Max. Do they want to be higher in and cutesy? Well, they're also facing competition there. They're not as big into grocery as Walmart are. We're expecting same source sales to drop. We're expecting traffic to drop. They may have picked them up by raising prices. This company needs to figure out who it wants to be.

And they have a potential CEO transitioning coming down the pipe that could be very crucial for their direction. I mean, look at what happened with Starbucks with the new CEO. It could happen. I'm just not expecting great earnings. Does this all benefit Walmart? They probably sell 95% of the same stuff. Yes, absolutely. And Walmart is the giant in the room. You know, Walmart is Alley to Frazier, right? And they're just wiping the floor with the competition. We expect traffic growth. We expect same source sales growth. We expect growth on e-commerce. And then we eventually think that they have such a clear vision. They're continuing to grow. And they're going to challenge Amazon a little bit on general merchandising and e-commerce. But it's the grocery. Walmart has a store within 10 miles of 90% of the U.S. population. And so much there is so ingrained that I can go to Walmart. and I can get not only my food, but I can get my staples.

And we think back to school shopping. They were really brilliant on how they priced some of their general merchandising to drive traffic. They've been fantastic with their strategy. This is a company that knows what it wants to be and knows where it is going to remain competitive in a rapidly changing world. All I can think about now is down goes Frasia. Down goes Frasia. Victoria Green.

Bringing it, as always. Victoria, thank you very much. Thanks, Brian. All right. Now let's get a CBC News update with Angelica Peebles. Hey, Brian. Well, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee said it will reportedly publicly release the files it receives on the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The panel is expected to receive the materials from the Justice Department on Friday.

According to CNN, a committee spokesperson says the public release will be redacted to shield the IDs of victims and other sensitive material. The White House is reportedly considering the Hungarian capital of Budapest as a possible site for a trilateral. meeting between President Trump and his Ukrainian and Russian counterparts. The Secret Service was preparing for the summit for the Central European nation, according to Politico. European leaders have suggested Geneva, Switzerland, as another neutral site for the summit. And the Air Force's top uniformed officer is planning to retire early in the latest shakeup of military leadership.

General David Alvin will serve as the service's chief of staff until the Senate confirms a replacement. The Washington Post reports Alvin was told last week that he would be asked to retire because Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth wanted to go in a different direction. Brian, back over to you. All right, Angelica, thank you very much. Right up next, getting a first look at ESPN's new streaming service and why Disney hopes this is the, dare we say, game changer of sports media apps.

CryptoWatch is sponsored by Crypto.com. Crypto.com is America's premier. crypto platform. I welcome back some big news in sports streaming. Disney's ESPN giving a select group of very, very exclusive sports reporters and exclusive look at its big news streaming TV app. And if you pay for it, it not only gives you the game, it's some other cool stuff as well. Alex Sherman, CNBC sports media reporter joining us now.

I know you got to look at it. There's things that are embargoed. You can't say everything. Right. What can you say? I can say the basic details for people, which I think are the most important ones. The ESPN app exists today. There is not going to be a new ESPN app.

It will be the same ESPN app that we have on our Apple TV right now. The difference is starting on Thursday, 12.01 Eastern A.m. Eastern time. That app will transition into something that is much more expansive to, include everything ESPN has to offer if you pay $2,9999 per month, or if you are a cable subscriber to specific pay TV providers. So if you're a direct TV subscriber or if you're a charter subscriber, you will get authenticated access. Not yet.

YouTube TV, Cox, it's coming. It all has to do with Disney's carriage renewal agreements with the different pay TV companies and when they happen to come. So if you have a cable provider, one of those two or a satellite provider or more that are coming, you might get this. I don't want to say for free, but it would be included. It would be included as long as you get ESPN in your cable bundle. You will also get this new app. It is important.

Because then you don't have to kill cable just to get the app. Correct. Because you said, and there's stuff that you can't say, but there's stuff in this app that you think is pretty cool. And broadly speaking, I can say, look, there's going to be different fantasy components. There's going to be different bedding components that integrate with a personalized experience for you so that when you watch, you will have access, easy access to all of these sort of bells and whistles that will go along with the viewing experience in a way that you haven't before. That kind of makes it all integrated and more seamless, and it makes for, I think, a definitely better experience

than what you can just get watching your regular ESPN linear experience, which means that if you're a cable subscriber, you may want to watch the game on this app through your smart TV or through your phone rather than through traditional cable. I think, don't quote me if I'm wrong. I hate being put on the spot. I'm putting myself on the spot.

I think ESPN Plus is 109 a year. Yeah, that's probably. I think it's about, well, in the funnel, it's like $16 or $17 per month. I want to say $12 or $13, something like that for a month. So, yeah, this is called $10 a month with tax. A little bit more. Yeah, right.

So this would be $29.99. Right. So ESPN Plus will become ESPN selected. It will be the same product, but they're changing the name. It will be basically your entry tier into ESPN. That will stay the same in terms of the content it offers. But now if you get that through your bundle with Disney Plus and Hulu, you'll have a chance to upgrade. So instead of paying $17 a month, you'll pay $30 a month, and you'll get everything that ESPN has to offer.

The one thing I like about ESPN Plus is if I want to watch, you know, Southeast, South Dakota, State versus Northern Idaho. Yes. The game is probably on there. That's still going to be on. Correct. So you can still do what you're doing. Same stuff. Okay.

Let's talk about pro football because you and I were trying to figure out before the show began. How many, used to be, and when I say used to be, it's not like 30 years ago. I used to be a candy bar was a nickel. No, no. Like not that long ago. It was like three channels got you all the NFL games. We counted at least seven. If you want to watch every NFL game this year, you have to subscribe.

or at least have access to no fewer than seven different networks and or streaming services. Yeah, maybe more even. I was just trying to do it off the time. We're trying to do it. Yeah, YouTube. Peacock, Paramount Plus, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, Amazon, Netflix, right. Then there's also Sunday ticket, which you may or may not get, which is technically YouTube, but that's different. It's different.

It's not free YouTube. Like there's one game. You pay for that because you're a 49ers fan. I do pay. I pay for that because I'm a charge. I'm the Chargers fan. Correct. That's $480 a year.

Yes, plus all of these other streaming stars. But they're also doing a free game that my chargers are for some reason playing in Brazil against the Chiefs on September 5th. It's got kind of a weird lineup of guess. Anyway, whatever. That game is free on YouTube. That's right. It's one game for free. It's a new experiment that they're.

So that's why people will call and be like, where's the Bills game? I'll be like, it's over here. And they're like, I don't have that. I'm not going to watch it. That's right. And so that's the predicament of the consumer today, right? which is that the good news is that many more games are available than used to be. Because look, if you were not, a lot of times if you were out of region and you weren't paying for Sunday ticket,

you were out of luck. You just couldn't watch the game. Now at least, there's all of these games around different national services that make them more available, but you do have to pay for them. So it's on you. If you want to make the effort to pay, another thing we didn't talk about is NFL network, which is going to become ESPN. Part of ESPN with an equity stake, but not this year yet, because that deal needs to close still.

Wait, that's another one of the networks. That's right. It's not a stream. So that's eight. So that's eight. For say, but it is a. I thought somebody told me it was nine platforms you needed to have to watch every game. You could get those games.

I think we got to eight. What's the mystery knife? Discovery. Do they have a game? No, I don't think that. Not yet. Not yet. Warner Discovery is out of a net.

E not yet. Not of the National Geographic. None of the Versant channels have them yet. But maybe one day. Maybe one day. CNBC will have an NFL game. If Mark Lasvers is. We don't?

Not yet, but we do have Moto. We do have, by the way, Moto GP. We do have MotoGP. I watch every race of everything. Yes. I watch MotoGP. We have rugby. Which I also watch.

Alex Sherman, I like watching you. I mean, on TV, not like through the window because that'd be weird. If CMBC is going to pay for an NFL game, though, you know, they're going to have to make some cons. 49ers versus Southeast South Dakota State. Still to come. Invidia's big surprise when it comes to China. Christina Portsnavelas, huge Montreal Alouettes fan, by the way. We'll join us next.

All right, let's go now from snaps to chips, InVitia, and covering some new details about its latest processors for the China market. And some early indications suggest that, despite the warnings, this NVIDIA product may actually be a lot more powerful than we were first led to believe. Christina Parts de Nivellis for the NASDAQ with more on that and other key stories. Christina, what's going on here?

Brian, we've known for quite some time. I mean, we, those that have been following the chip industry space, that Invidia has created chips that are going to be geared to China that go beyond the H20s. The latest revelation in this Reuters report is specifically the quality, the computational power in these new chips. They're calling them B30A and the fact that it also has high bandwidth memory. I've reached out to Invidia many times. They're really great with journalists, and I've just asked, you know, what's the name, memory?

And they've never given me a statement that is, you know, saying that they're working with China. But they've never denied it either. And the latest statement I received, quote, shows this. We evaluate a variety of products for our roadmap so that we can be prepared to compete to the extent that the governments allow. See how that statement there is telling us that they're not denying it. And so this is why you have the chip, the news that came out this morning, the stock didn't really react because it's so largely expected.

But this could be seen as a big strength to revenue in the next, you know, two to three quarters. I say that because a chip like this, if they've been working on it, would only be launched in September. And then for revenues to actually pick up, you wouldn't feel it until a little bit later on. And then also keep in mind that President Trump and Jensen Wong did shake hands about a 15% tax on all revenue from China. So they do have to pay that. So it's not going to be, you know, here, you know, I'm going to buy these B-30A chips and you're going to get all the money. No, 15% of that at least will have to go to the U.S. government, Brian. Well, speaking of the U.S. government, Intel's up like 7%.

Yeah, so there's a few reasons. I'm sure the SoftBank is. is going to be buying or spending about $2 billion in new shares of Intel, which would result in roughly a 2% dilution. But what is it telling us? It's telling us that a big company like SoftBank that invests in a lot of tech-related firms is giving a vote of confidence, that they're willing to put $2 billion into Intel.

So you have that part of the pie. The other part of the pie is that the U.S. government, Howard Lutnik, on our network, CNBC, squawk on the street earlier this morning, did confirm that they're considering giving, the money that was originally slated for Intel under the Chips Act, they're going to give it to Intel for a catch that they're going to have to give Intel's going to have to give the U.S. government equity in exchange. So here's the art of the deal with President Trump.

We'll give you the Chips Act money that was promised to you. You got to give us some equity, but don't worry, we don't want any voting rights. And that is something that Howard Lutnik did also say at 10 o'clock because investors are concerned that if the government gets involved, that maybe the, you know, Intel will not be operating at full capacity in terms of maximizing shareholder value because the government wants to build on U.S. soil, but that may not always be the most cost-effective way for a lot of customers. Okay. And then finally, let's talk about meta because famed Montreal Alouettes fan, Christina Portsenevelas, tweeting out, Xing out. I know, I was trying to bring it up right now, the stat.

It was from S3 partners. Okay, short sellers are piling into meta. Facebook's company seems dangerous, What do we know? It's $11 billion this year. A huge surge in short sellers that really entered this name. And a lot of that has the bears are focusing on AI, the Metaverse, and that whole narrative that perhaps the CAP-X spending has gone a little too far, especially since we haven't seen the ROI. And so Meta is one of the prime targets.

Hats off to S3 because they pointed out, too, that it's bigger than the next five stocks combined that have seen short interest. So a lot in there. Yeah, there is a lot in there. You noted that short interest jumping, but it's got to be expensive to borrow. I guess people just thinking the stock came too far, too fast. Who knows? I guess we'd have to ask each of those individual short sellers.

That would take a lot of time. And actually, this shows over. It's the level of patience for investors. That's what that is. How are the Alouettes looking this year? Aluette, Giantsi Aluette. I don't know. I don't really follow a team.

I know you love to drop in some Canadian vibes. I don't know. A Quebec song for you. Is it a heron? I don't like waiting birds. A lark. That's great. Christina, thank you. Closing bell starts now.