Power Lunch - Heavy Hitters Weigh In On The Economy 2/24/25

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon sounded off on CNBC today, saying the economy is “normalizing” a bit. And Warren Buffett is piling up a record mountain of cash. We’ll tie it all together for your and your money. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And welcome to Power Lunch, or you have heard from some power players over the last couple of hours. Jamie Diamond sounding off to CNBC minutes ago saying things are normalizing a bit. Warren Buffett piling up a mountain of cash. We'll tie it all together for your money. Plus, Tim Cook and Apple handing Donald Trump a big win. Alibaba opening up its big wallet with some AI spending and some signs that one big player may start cutting back. Oh, and Kelly, France, come into the White House and we expect to hear more,

maybe from the president himself, very soon. In fact, the substance of that conversation, Brian, might be helping the market mood this afternoon and maybe those comments from Jamie Diamond as well. We've had a little bit of a midday turnaround with the Dow up half a percent right now, the S&P higher, the NASDAQ off its worst levels, as it was briefly in the red year to date,

so keep an eye here. The momentum stocks that have been really hot, losing a lot of steam over the past week. Palantir down 21 percent, similar for Robin Hood, Constellation Energy. We were talking Constellation Brands last hour. Energy down to 15%. It's doubled, though, over the past year.

Robin Hood tripled. Palantir has quadrupled, so we'll put that into some perspective. But the other area seeing of softness is related to the consumer. Walmart down 9% in the past week, but it's not just them. They're not alone. Caesars down 11% Chippole down 10% as well. Constellation and Constellation, Kelly, one's Watts, one's wine. What's the difference?

All right. Let's, though, begin with the markets and your money today, because you don't have to be Jamie Diamond or Warren Buffett to see there are some red flags beginning to pop up, especially around the keystone of the American economy. That is you, the consumer. Today, Citigroup's economic surprise index coming in worse than expected. Over the weekend, we learned the aforementioned Warren Buffett is lounging on a record amount of cash.

Does that mean he's growing worried or simply can't find a better place to put all that money? Only he knows. But either way, it's a little concerning. Also, some growing negative data points around the American shopper with the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment coming in weaker than hoped at Walmart coming off its worst week in the markets in over two years. By the way, it is not just Walmart to watch. Here's a little random but interesting for you. Consumer discretionary, the worst part of the stock market this year.

Oh, and don't forget about this thing they're calling Doge. The layoffs and potential layoffs spooking the entire Bellway. And over the weekend, Apollo investments highlighting studies that for every federal employee, there may be two more contractors associated with the same job, meaning that any job loss may not just be one. It may actually be three. Now, separately, all those things, they may not be a big deal. But when you wrap them all together nicely, it is definitely something that we want to talk about Kelly and so. I think we will. All right, Brian, thanks. Jamie Diamond weighing in on the economy. as well today and kind of addressing all of these concerns. Now, against this worrisome backdrop, he says the consumer is returning to healthy levels. Take a listen. We've had this huge boom after COVID and all the money that was given out and spent. And so we see consumers are kind of back almost kind of normal. So they don't have all the extra money, but they have jobs, wages are going

up. But if they substitute a cheaper product, a more expensive one, they cancel a trip. You're starting to see what I put a normal. Credit costs have normalized. So it's just almost back to what I call a normal environment. Normalized. Normal. It's almost back to regular. It's a normal environment.

Soothing talk there. Let's get some more reaction from Ken Stern. He's president of Lido Advisors here on set with us. Greg Daco is chief economist at EY Parthenon. Greg, I'm just going to throw it to you first with the economist's hat on here. Would you agree with sort of Jamie Diamond's comments or more in the camp? But we were just talking about a few moments ago who sees the potential for a soft patch in the economy the next few. economy the next few months?

Well, I certainly think that we've seen a normalization in the economy, but this is not new. This is something that occurred about a year ago. When we look out the horizon, we do have risks for consumers, and I think it's misguided. You have heard me talk about this in the past, misguided to talk about one type of consumer. There are a multitude of different types of consumers, and those at the lower to median end of the income spectrum are the ones that are being more constrained by higher prices and lingering higher interest rates. That's where you're seeing some of the softness. One thing I am a little bit concerned of and watching very carefully is the direction of travel of real disposable income growth.

That's been the key pillar to the U.S. exceptionalism that we've seen. That's starting to slow. That, along with evidence that consumers are dipping into their savings to finance their outlays, are two elements that I'm a little bit cautious about in terms of the horizon for consumer spending going out into 2025. Kedin, you still feel pretty constructive. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that. And what else jumped out to you from Jamie Diamond's comments? Yeah, and I am constructive, and I think those points are valid, but they're very, very, very small right now.

And you can even add that businesses are hesitant with their KPEX, not knowing what's going on with tariffs and whatnot. And the American exceptionalism, it is very strong. So at the end of the day, what does that mean? If tariffs don't go through tomorrow, what do you think the market does? And interest rates, what is the probability that they're going? higher, very low, but what's the probability of staying the same of go down if we see a little bit of a hiccup? This is cyclical. The secular trend is very, very positive. Unemployment is very low. If you see entry points because of a reverse momentum, I like that. So you like entry points

in bonds, it sounds like too. Let me ask you about the more controversial part of the market, which is some of these real high-flying stocks. I have to imagine you're talking about entry points for stocks more broadly and not necessarily for Palantir, although, Maybe you see this as an opportunity. Well, it went up so much, so fast. I think that you have to look at specific stories like Palantir. Walmart, by the way, had great numbers. They just talked a little bit about potential for softness.

And now the market, you know, it goes up like an escalator and down like an elevator. And they're going to ask questions later. There's a good chance that there's a positive next quarter surprise. You know, Greg, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being absolute, zero. being zero. How much faith do you have in all the data? Because a lot of the stuff we're doing is like, while the University of Michigan sentiment number came in at whatever, that's fine. We've also learned that a lot of the data points, maybe not, they don't end up what, you know, where going, where you think they might go. How much faith do you have in the unemployment numbers

that can reference all the University of Michigan numbers, et cetera? Well, you know, I'm a nuanced type of guy. So I like to look at a broad set of data whenever I'm analyzing the economy. I think we have to be conscious of the fact that the U.S. economy, first of all, as we were just talking about, is very robust. We have a historically low unemployment rate. That is a true reading on the underlying state of the labor market. But you are starting to see some headwinds in terms of momentum. Real disposable income growth is gradually slowing. High interest rates are curbing housing sector activity. And the government, which has been a key support of economic activity and job growth is starting to become a little bit more of a headwind.

Add to that, the risk of terrorists, which may not all materialize, and that would be a great thing, but the risk of tariffs risks curbing economic activity and lifting inflationary pressures. Those are all risks I'm paying close attention to. The economy today, still very healthy, two and a half percent clip, very strong productivity growth. The economy tomorrow, a little bit more at risk. Ken, go, okay, you're an L.A. guy. You live in Los Angeles. All right. So you're here with us.

We appreciate it. Tell us what you saw at LAX. That said, Kelly and I are both Virginians, not by birth, but that's where we kind of went to high school. All right. All of our friends were on the belt, we are freaking out. Right. Maybe rightfully so. They're going to lose their job.

Someone's going to lose a job. Their neighbor may lose their job, et cetera. Growing up in Los Angeles, though, I realized that we don't really pay attention necessarily to what's happening in D.C., 3,000 miles away unless we have to. So, as a guy who looks at all the national data, how closely, if at all, are you paying attention to all these job cuts or potential job cuts in and around D.C.? Will they matter to you and your clients? They do. And it could reverberate, but this economy is exceedingly resilient. And we tend to absorb in many, many different ways. So I am not trying to in any way sidestep the fact that people are losing their jobs. It's a real thing. You know, it's a real thing. recession. Yeah, I hate it. It's happened in the private sector for hundreds of years, and it sucks every time we have to talk about it. But we still have very low unemployment rates nationally. This is going

to probably have some kind of a ceiling and an effect on inflation as well as interest rates, and those kind of rotations are good entry points in the market. And again, the market valuation was exceedingly, it's still high, this is actually creating more of a normalization. It's these kind of events that you look at as an opportunity rather than, and again, I don't want to minimize anybody losing their job, clearly. Or not? Well, anything from Berkshire that you kind of take, I mean, do you, is there much to, they're so big, right? They're such a unique animal. But is there anything that, you know, oh, they have a huge cash pile. They're not putting anything to work right now until they see valuations probably way lower from here. Warren Buffett is the value

investor. He is the quintessential value investor. This isn't a value market by definition. So if you look at, I don't think he necessarily looked to raise this much cash. What is it? 300 plus billion dollars. No, he says that quite clearly. This is not a, you know, preferred position. He sold stocks. He had a great profit in. He has cash now. He's earning more than we've earned on cash. I mean, what is it, billions and billions of dollars. He also paid one-fifth of all, I think you pointed this out. Corporate taxes. One-fifth of all corporate taxes in America last year. I think it was five percent. Not unbelievable. Or whatever the Maybe it's not one-fifth, but a lot.

A big, big number. And he said it was all because they've never really paid a dividend. That's exactly. And look at what he is buying. More value a la in Japan. Isn't that interesting? It is. Do you think there's more opportunities outside the U.S. than inside right now?

Oh, that's a good question. We've argued that for years, and you and I have talked about it several times. I remember being skeptical, so my apologies. Look it. It's hard. It's so tempting because you have lower multiples and great entry points. but the growth just isn't quite there, and there's been so many head fakes,

I'm not willing to get overly bullish in any one specific economy. Greg, I feel like we should create the graphic. You know, the GIF or GIF where it's like Scrooge McDuck is diving into the pool of gold coins, and then he comes up and he spits out all the money. We should just put Buffett's head on Scrooge McDuck. That said, are you reading anything into the overall economy

by what Warren Buffett may or may not be doing, or is he literally his own thing? I do sense that there's a little bit of a wait-and-see in the general public. We're hearing from a lot of clients that we talk to across a multitude of sectors that there's so much uncertainty right now as to the direction of trade policy, regulation, immigration, even the Fed's next move, that there's a little bit still of that wait-and-see approach

until there is more clarity. Businesses still want to drive growth, but they're going to be focusing on the assets that have the greatest return on investment in that type of environment where interest rates remain quite high. And let's be honest, the Fed now is very much in reactionary mode. It's essentially adopted this hawkish conditionality where it's not going to be easing rates rapidly because it wants to see sustained progress on inflation. So we're likely to be in this higher interest rate environment for some time to come still.

All right. Ken's still buying buy. We don't have to get back into it. Gentlemen, thanks very much. Appreciate you joining us today. Ken Stern with Lido, Greg Docko with U.I. Parkathon. Thank you. All right, coming up, why the elections in Germany may matter a lot to your money here in the United States. Stick around. All right, welcome back. You know the markets and your money are global. So what happens over there matters here. And there was some big news happening over the weekend as well. First, you had elections in Germany where the more right-wing

political party did gain votes but did not take control. Also, President Trump meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron today in the White House. Let's talk about all of it and wrap it up with Fred Kemp. He's the CEO and president of the Atlantic Council and Michelle Caruso-Gaburra, CEO of MCC Global Enterprises. Both are CNBC contributors. Michelle, your take on the German elections. What happened and why they might matter to what happens here? So the German market has hired today because it was the best outcome that people expected. We now have a pro-business leader in Germany. That's the good thing. The problem is he didn't get enough of the vote to be sure that he can actually carry out the things that Germany really needs. Germany has a broken business model. It's based on

exports and cheap energy. They don't have cheap energy, and they have fewer and fewer exports now because China has now started to replace the things that they used to get from Germany. They need to redo everything there. And it's not clear that the German people are quite on board with that yet, or the politicians. Fred Kemp, you were just there in Munich. You might still be there, for all I know, as a matter of fact, at the Munich Security Conference. I've been there many times. You talk to just random voters in bars, and guess what?

They're really mad at Gerhard Schroeder, and they're pretty mad at Angela Merkel because they feel like they were misled on their economy. What's your take on the outcome of the German elections? So I've known the new Chancellor, Friedrich Marx, for years. Michelle is absolutely right. He's probably the most pro-business German chancellor maybe we've had since the Federal Republic of Germany post-World War II, certainly much more so than Anglo-American. The problem is that he had the worst outcome, his 28.5% outcome for the Christian Democrats, was the second worst outcome for that party since the war. The SPD, the social Democrats, with whom he'll probably coalesce, had their worst outcome since 1887, even,

worse than March 1933 when they had a very bad outcome ahead of Hitler's coming to power. And so the gains in this election were the far left and the far right. And so the far right EFD, the far left DELINCA add up to one third of the electorate, and that is a block for any constitutional change that could lift debt ceilings and allow Friedrich Merritt's to really get the economy going and lift the debt limits that he needs to lift. So it's going to continue to be a really messy political situation, but with a much better chancellor. Speaking of messy political situations, France, you heard those comments between Macron and Trump. Michelle, this afternoon, what jumped out to you?

A number of things. Trump wasn't as dismissive of NATO as he has been before. He actually spoke positively about NATO. That would be an improvement for the members of NATO. Macron said when it came to a deal with Ukraine that they had reestablished deterrence when it comes to Russia. I'm not sure how that's possible. And then the other thing they think was super important was Treasury Secretary Scott Besson was asked very directly by the president, where are we on a deal with Ukraine?

He said, we're on the first-yard line. So when it comes to doing some kind of equivalent of a lend lease for Ukraine to have help in the United States when it comes to restructuring post-war, if and when they get a peace deal, done. Those are some of the things that stood out before they go on to do now the official press conference that they're going to do with the press. And you know, Fred, listen, you're not a market's guide, but I'm sure you look at the markets. You watch CNBC, your contributor after all.

We know that. We watch the markets. We look at the data. And then Michelle's point at the top, these European stock markets, they've done really well the last couple of months outperforming the United States. There's a lot of reasons why. But there does appear to be for the first time in a while some economic optimism around Europe, even with all their energy and security problems. You were just there. Do you feel that at all, or is that just, am I just wildly overstating it TV style? Well, look, also the Chinese markets are outperforming the U.S. markets this year as well. So the multiples are good in Europe.

So it's a good place to invest if you have a little bit more reason to invest. But you still have zero growth in Germany. And Michelle is also right. They've been hitting manufacturing, particularly car sector, by China as well. So I think it's a market where the prices are good. So I think one should be buying Europe at the moment right now. And particularly in Germany, what went up today was defense. So Ryan Mital is kind of the standard stock in the defense sector.

And I believe that was up 4%. And so I think defense stocks are going to be where, where you want to buy right now, because across Europe right now, if you can't count on the U.S., all European countries are going to have to invest more in defense. This last point that Fred just made is important. If you cannot count on the United States, the J.D. Vance speech in Munich really got a lot of people quite upset over in Europe. But it's also led to a lot of thinking that maybe the Europeans are finally going to actually spend what's required of them when it comes to NATO, because

they've been relying on. They joke about it. They say, the Bank of America when it comes to NATO spending, right? So maybe they're finally going to do that. Maybe they're finally going to listen to Mario Draghi used to run the ECB who said for, you know, more than a decade, things, we need to stop the internal barriers that are killing ourselves in Europe, why we don't grow. So maybe Trump has finally given the wake-up call that they've got to do more than that they've been doing in order to prove the economy. Yeah, the market certainly. Yeah, go ahead, Fred. Can I ask one, let me have one thing to that. So Frueger, Merritt said it's five minutes before midnight, it sounds actually even stronger in German.

The five minutes before midnight says, I know we're in trouble. I know we have to move things. We have to get our act together. You know, he's seen a doubling of the far right party. If the SPD and he don't get together and create more growth, if they don't get together and spend more on defense, I don't know when they're going to get another chance. So I think he's right that it's five minutes before midnight right now. It's also good that Macron is talking to the president.

He has a good relationship with him. He just invited him in December to the opening of Notre Dame. And so even though they disagree quite a bit with each other on various things, they have a personal relationship that's better than many other European leaders with Trump. Trump was very nice to him. I mean, some very nice things. And, you know, he doesn't do that often. Unless he's getting something that he wants.

Then he's like, well, I've always loved Macron. But, you know, I hate him, but then I love him. Yeah. That's the Trumpian way. Yep. We've got a long way to go. I think you said. We're in the beginning of the first inning. But look at the market this afternoon and you wonder if this kind of happy talk was helping lift the mood. And that's where we are. Michelle, thanks. Appreciate Michelle Cruz. So Cabrera. Fred Kemp, always a pleasure. Thank you, Atlantic Council CEO and president.

As we had to break, check out shares of meta turn to fate for the name from a 20-day winning streak to now a five-day losing one. We'll take you through some of the other key movers ahead. Welcome back to Power Lunch. You're seeing a rather familiar picture lately. which is falling bond yields. The 10 years below 440 right now, and more investors are coming on and talking about owning bonds here. Let's get to Rick Santelli out in Chicago. Hi, Rick.

Hi, Kelly, and it doesn't hurt that you have days like Friday where you learn that when equities look nasty, treasuries are still pretty much a safe haven, even when there's so many question marks as to all the variables in the new administration and how they're going to affect interest rates. Now, look at a two-year, and pay particularly $3,000. close attention to the right side, there were yields really dropped. That was 2 o'clock, 1 o'clock Eastern,

and it was the end of an auction of 69 billion twos, and it went exceptionally well. Tomorrow will have 70 billion fives. Now, if you stick with two-year, right now we're on pace for the lowest yield close in the two-year since the 11th of December. Hey, let's throw in a 10-year, because even when you move down the curve, we're basically at the lowest yield since the second week of December. And this is a big deal, especially when you consider some of the dynamics that have made these market moves. Friday, we had weak Michigan, but you had strong inflation, but yet look at how the long end moved. Maybe the best way to keep track of it all, let's look at that Tuesdays 10 spread. Now, this is a month-to-day chart. What do you notice?

It's coiling. So we're having mostly parallel shifts in the yield curve, and that's something to pay attention to as we hover about 20 basis points below. the steepest the curve was just about five weeks ago. Brian, back to you. Rick, thank you very much. All right, coming up, Apple, making a big promise, and maybe giving a big win for one Donald J. Trump. Connect Apple and the White House.

Next. Welcome back to Power Lunch. I'm Pippa Stevens with your CNBC News Update. A U.S. Appeals Court upheld Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes' conviction on charges of defrauding investors in her failed blood-testing. startup. The court rejected claims of legal errors at Holmes and President Ramesh Sunny Balwani's trials that were held separately in 2022. Holmes was sentenced to just over 11 years in prison.

The Vatican said this afternoon the Pope is still in critical condition but has shown slight improvement. According to the latest update, the 88-year-old is still receiving oxygen as he receives treatment in a Rome hospital for double pneumonia. The Vatican says his mild kidney failure is not of concern right now. And after 10 years of anchoring NBC Nightly News, Lester Holt is stepping down. He says he will make his last appearance at the beginning of the summer. Nightly News is the flagship news broadcast of our parent company NBC Universal. Holt says he will move full-time to Dateline where he has been the principal anchor for nearly 15 years. Kelly, back to you. Congratulations to him. Pippa, thanks very much, Pippa Stevens. Let's turn now to the latest in the

arms race as heavily funded startups and tech giants hustle to get any lead they can. Now Amazon backed Anthropic says it's developed the company's most intelligent model yet. Kate Rooney has the latest details that I've been watching on social media Kate while people mess around with it and you can do some pretty cool stuff. Yeah, Kelly, it's interesting. So Anthropic is really a first mover here with this news. They say it's their most intelligent AI model yet, but it is also a new type of AI models that competitors think of Google and Open AI do not have at this.

point. It's called a hybrid model. So it's a mix between reasoning, basically stopping to think about complex answers and then a traditional model that tends to spit out those answers in real time. I spoke to Anthropics co-founder Jared Kaplan. He told me instead of consumers needing to pick between all of these different options, quote, they want one coherent AI that can help with everything. He says there's an advantage in that simplicity. People can turn the reasoning part on or off. It's sort of a toggle feature. And this is live and available today, as you see, said, Kelly, people are starting to mess around with it. The move could give Anthropic a much needed edge against some of its competitors, Open AI and a lot of the big tech companies.

This is the company we should mention, backed by Amazon. Amazon's invested about $8 billion into this startup. Anthropic product, chief product officer, Mike Krieger, who also happened to co-found Instagram, also told me this is an effort to make this whole chatbot experience more simple. Simplify the whole thing. Says these models, they all have different personalities. They're all a little bit different and he would eventually hope that users don't have to think about it in the future. We also heard from Sam Altman. He hinted a couple weeks ago that OpenAI would move in this direction. He posted on X that his company would try to do a, quote, better job in simplifying our product offerings, writing that we hate the model picker as much as you do. And we want to return

to what he called the magic of unified intelligence, Kelly. Well, it's, you know, you watch these wars back and forth and it's incredible how every day you turn around, there's something new and better and amazing on the scene, but the real trick is going to be who can stick with consumers. Open AI with chat GPT now is what 400 million active users? That's going to be the tough part. They also, everybody's sprinting at the same time after enterprises, but you are seeing this sort of flywheel effect where the more people are using your consumer chatbot, the more those same people are going to go to their company and say,

hey boss, I'm actually using this great chatbot. Why don't we try to integrate it on the enterprise side? So Anthropic is really battling here. They've had a couple wins, though. They launched sort of this agent capability ahead of Open AI. So it's one thing to be the first mover. It's another thing to be the best and to have a sustained moat, which I think is one of the big questions about these richly valued companies. I think at the end of the day, though, this all benefits consumers.

You know, if you and I are using these chatbots, these companies battling to make these better and smarter and more efficient, will benefit the end user and make it easier. If you're not an engineer, you just want it to be the easiest option. Right. Make it simple in the front end. I think that helps a lot of us out there. Yeah, and I'm thinking a lot about Google these days. Like I said, I find myself using it more. Now when I go back to Google, I'm like, I have to go back to this.

Client. Brian, I need to get Brian into this world, Kate. I use perplexity. What? Perplexity's okay. You need a, yeah, we need AI. Brian, Kelly is the chatbot queen. Recipes, you got the whole thing.

I do. You have the perfect consultant right next year. Laziness is the mother of innovation. I, you, I, I, I, I, I, chat. I tap her and Eric's AI knowledge all the time, Kate, as I do yours. I'm more of a perplexity guy, but that's just me. That's shit. Everybody's got their own flavor.

Why don't you let people do what they want? Don't you think about Google? Let people live, Kate Rooney. When we, Kate, thank you. When we have these discussions, what does that mean? And they have Gemini, and they're doing a lot, they are. I'm going to ask perplexity. What is the best?

AI chat bot right now, question mark. So I'm going to check the different websites. Hold on. They call this a dramatic pause and tell the best AI chatbot is widely considered to be chat chippy T. That's perplexity. Just answered that on live TV. It will tell you the truth, even against its own interests.

There you go. How nice. It's so honest. Who is the most handsome business TV anchor of the 2 p.m. Eastern Time show? All right. Speaking of big technology, something else to keep. keep an eye on for your money? Is Microsoft beginning to quietly pull back on its AI spending? It's a big debate. Here's why. All right, TD Cowen in a recent note, said that Microsoft

may be pulling back, but Microsoft saying not so fast. All right. Late last week, TD. Cowen wrote in a note, their channel ticks indicate that Microsoft has recently canceled AI leases with at least two data center operators totaling enough power to light up a few hundred thousand homes. That note got a lot of attention over the weekend and actually probably was going to hurt the market or did

earlier today or late last week. But, and listen to this. Happening now, Microsoft responding to that note writing to CNBC that, quote, our plans to spend over 80 billion on infrastructure this

fiscal year, FY, remains on track as we continue to grow at a record pace to meet customer demand. That email coming in, Kelly, moments ago to us at CNBC about the TD Cowan note. Yes, the company defending and saying kind of this, whatever might be happening is already in the market. It's not part of this new narrative. We are not all being deep-seeked once again. Deep-seeked is now a verb. Let's talk about all of that, not grammar, but everything else.

and news around Apple with Dan Ives of Wedbush. Dan, I think this note to CNBC from Microsoft is a big deal. It's leading CNBC.com right now because it's basically saying what you've said, which is TD Cowen kind of scaring everybody over the weekend. You know the note was getting passed around. And yet Microsoft felt compelled enough to respond to it and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we may move spending around, but we're still going to spend 80 billion bucks.

Yeah, I mean, I thought it was way off base. in terms of just the merits of it, because Microsoft does this all the time. And they foreshadowed, even on the conference call, talking about, you know, they're going to be focused more and more on servers and actually less and less when it comes to some of the data center buildouts.

I think this is something, there's more smoke, new fire. I think that's where they had to come out. This was definitely scaring a lot of investors in the jittery market. I think any sell off here, this is a name that's way oversold, and nothing here in any way makes us nervous.

The broader, I mean, we also hear from Nvidia after the bell on Wednesday, Dan, so everyone's a little bit on edge to see whether they, I'll use the verb again, are showing any signs of being deep-seeked. Look, I think that's the issue, is that, you know, the nervous isn't out there, but it's 15-1 demand the supply for Nvidia chips.

I think when Jensen comes out on Wednesday, it's going to, not just in terms of the beat that we think, you know, 2 billion beat, but talking about Blackwell demand, you saw the Capax $325 billion from Big Capax. That's just going to be more and more, I think, the tail win for Invidian for this buildout. Everyone keeps looking for cracks in the armor. But I could tell you, we're seeing more things accelerated in the last three months than anything else. And that's why we continue to be very bullish on names, despite many of the bears, right?

I mean, bears are always going to get everyone nervous. And I think Wednesday that those are put to rest. All right, we'll see. We got a couple of days to go. And maybe some more AI models will debut between now and then. Maybe we'll get some more clarity on what's going on with the Microsoft investment piece as well. Let's talk about Apple for a second. I mean, that was the big headline this morning, $500 billion in investments over the next four years.

And I liked your line that Tim Cook is proving he's 90% politician once again. Look, I mean, look, that's, Cook's able to do this. better than any CEO, right? It's that, you know, he's, he's obviously CEO, but he's also 10% politician. 10%, okay, even more. 10%. And no, but realistically, Kelly, is that he,

it's a balancing act here between Dublin down in the U.S., specific when it comes to AI investment, but as we saw, it's a page out of what we saw in 2018 and 2019, Megan Shore plays nice in the sandbox with Trump, big tech investment, especially when it comes to China, and some of those tariffs. And this is something investors want to see. It's a balancing act.

I think it's the smart move for Cook. You know, I'm looking at all the energy-related AI names. Dan, I know you're not the energy guy. Don't worry. I'm not going to go there, but Aklow, Constellation, Arista Networks, Vistra. They're all down 5 to 10% right now, probably on concerns around any kind of slowdown, whatever company may be involved, around AI spending.

I know we're going to hear more on Wednesday with Nvidia. It sounds like you are, lock solid that we're not going to get any meaningful downgrade in spending expectations by anybody. And to Summers, I think it's accelerated because what we're seeing in terms of the use cases, from Pound to the where I believe ultimately be Salesforce and others, and Big Tech doubled down. How many times in the Della need to double down? I mean, look at outfit, look at everyone else. And there's only one red phone to get these chips, Nvidia.

And that's why stories like you saw this weekend or deep sea, look, the cracks, people worry. But this is the fourth industrial revolution playing out. That's why I believe tech stocks going to have 25% this year. And I think that's what needs to play up. I think Wednesday night, it's going to be a seminal night for big tech. Which one is your favorite, Dan? Listen, Grock 3 is probably the best right now, but you don't use it on the phone. Yeah, I'm a perplexity as well as a chat.

Oh, he's 10% politician, too. Yeah, and 3% pink jacket. If you're on the radio, Dan's wearing a pink jacket with a yellow shirt. If you're on the radio, you're not getting the full Dan Ives. Turn on the tube. Catch the whole thing. Dan, thanks. Appreciate it today, Dan Ives.

We were just talking about big tech names, most of them lower on the year so far. Of the nine companies with trillion dollar valuations, seven are down since Jan 1, except meta. And Berkshire Hathaway. We heard from Warren Buffett over the weekend. That stock hitting an all-time high. 502 for the B shares. Should you trade like Buffett?

Of course you should. Three stock lunch is coming up. Welcome back. Today we're unveiling our second annual CNBC changemakers list of women transforming business and philanthropy, not philanthropy. Julia Borsden joins us now with a special look at one of this year's leaders.

Hi, Julia. Hey, Kelly. Well, CNBC changemaker, Anjali sued, formerly CEO Vimeo, who took that company public, is one of the women on this year's list. She's been at Fox's Tooby since September 23, and she's driven growth of the free streamers content library and ad business. And she's been using AI to customize Tooby's users' experience. One of the things I'm most proud of is how To Be is really democratizing access to storytelling. And I think one of the ways we're doing that is breaking the monoculture and really platforming more diverse stories and storytellers.

I'm probably at my most fearless and battle tested. I've been through enough ups and downs in the business world that I've developed, I think, some pretty thick skin. And also I just feel much more bold about trying and striving to do things that I believe in. and not being as afraid of failure, and sort of seeing failure as an important way and a necessary part of achieving success. And we are excited to unveil the speakers at this year's CNBC ChangeMakers Summit.

It's going to be in Los Angeles here on the Universal Law, which is where I am right now on April 8th. To hear more from some of this year's changemakers, request your invite to the summit at CNBC.com slash change makers or cbcevents.com as well you can also scan the QR code on your screen guys back over to you all right julia thank you very much well hold on hold on hold on i was looking we bring that list back up paris hilton i was paris hilton stuck out to me big business obviously julia yeah she's had a remarkable impact now what's so impressive to me about paris hilton

is not only does she have 11 11 media she has tv shows she's branched into a cookie show. She also has products. She has cooking products as well as a handbag line at Walmart, but she has also been using her platform and her reach to drive good across the world. What's really been interesting is she's been focusing here in the U.S. on helping protect children. She testified before Congress to get legislation passed to help protect kids at some of the institutions that she herself suffered at the hands of. So really using her platform as a force for good. And Brian and Kelly, that's been a theme across the change makers both last year and this year, this idea of the women on this list really aligning purpose and profits.

Julia Borson, we cannot wait for that. Also, we love the universal lot. There's a tree over your right shoulder. There looks to be an oil tanker over your left. The whole thing is fantastic. Julia Borson, thank you. Look forward to it. All right, up next, what pizza may say about the entire American economy. Welcome back. It's time for three stock lunch, where we hit three different movers and what you should do. Here with our trades is Ari Wald, head of technical analysis at Oppenheimer. Ari, it's great to see you. Let's start with the Berkshire B shares, because they're a little bit more reachable than the A's. They're posting an all-time high after the company put up its

highest ever quarterly profit. Buffett has that big cash pile. Some people hate that. Others just think it's kind of a feature of their size. What do you do with the stock here? I think this is really significant action in the stock, especially in a poor market tape. I think that's a very positive tell. So I would be recommending to buy this strength. I think it does lead to higher highs over the coming months. You know, really kind of just from a market style perspective, we've been recommending large over small and overwin, an ongoing overweight recommendation to the financial sector. So it's a stock that checks a lot of boxes for us.

It's been in a bullish trend. And then what was significant about the recent action, it was a breakout above its September peak. So that September breakout level is 485. That's now support. And I think it marks a resumption of the stock's long-term uptrend. Yeah, and a market that's supposed to be all growth, value is dead, so on and so forth. The A shares are trading at 754th. I remember when it was like, will they go above 300?

You know what I mean? If we all thought about it, like buying a house, anyway, not going to go there. How about Domino's? We mentioned the pizza indicator. lower after missing fourth quarter estimates. The CEO citing some pressure on the consumer. We've been debating this one all day long. We're hearing another kind of weak consumer data point.

Do you buy it here? We wouldn't buy it here. And so it's sold off at the open. It actually has rallied back pretty strongly in the intraday. I don't think that's significant in our work. Really just more consistent with a neutral rating. It's a stock that's been oscillating around its 200-day average. Really since last July following the earnings report,

when it's gap lower and just hasn't been able to find direction since then, relative to the market, been making lower highs even since 2020. So we just aren't seeing that type of structural outperformance. I would steer investors to Darden instead, the owner of Olive Garden. So instead of pizza, maybe consider some Italian brand instead there. I think that's a stronger charge, stronger trend, stronger momentum in a name like Darden based on our work. Hard to argue with that. Okay, let's talk about it. So this is a kind of emblematic of the biggest debate in the market right now. These high flyers, like a constellation energy, was up 90% last year, down 16% year to date, down 8% today,

six, I should say, actually. What do you do with a stock like this? Yeah, high momentum stocks have been in the crosshairs of the market in recent days in last week or so, no doubt. And here's a stock that's been on our large-cap buy list since September of 2022. We've been riding higher. We recommend letting winners run. And we would maintain that rating. With that said, as far as adding new money to the stock, I think that January 27th, DeepSeek, gap lower, which affected a big, a lot of these AI-related stocks. I think that just gives me pause from a trading perspective. I think more is needed from the near term. I think patience is required just given the heightened volatility environment, given the poor market tape. ahead. It's going to be important for this stock to uphold its 200-day average. That's at 235.

So it's still above that level. So technically in a long-term uptread, going to be important to stay that way. Interesting. All right, $30 or so of downside. Ari, thanks. Appreciate it. Ari Wald. Thank you. We'll be right back. All right, very quickly, let's take a look again. Microsoft saying they continue to spend $80 billion. They're sending a note to CNBC. A lot of the energy-AI energy-related stocks, Constellation, Mr. Aklo. They are down the day. Kelly, you're still down. Microsoft note may change that a little bit, but not right now. Watching Microsoft itself down fractionally, it's off the lows from this morning

when people are a little more freaked out about whether it was pulling back on AI spend. And Nvidia is our big data point Wednesday night. So really kind of an awaiting pattern until then. I will see. I am off the rest of the week. Good luck. Thank you. And I will, Godspeed.

Now, we'll see you on Monday. The handsomest anchor, according to Open AI. One of three. There's only four of us. Wilf and Carl, you might want to ask it. I'm just saying. Thanks for watching Power Lodge, everybody. And we'll see you next week.

Bunked out.