Power Lunch - How to Trade Apple, Nvidia & AMD's China Chip Sales 8/11/25

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

CNBC’s Brian Sullivan and Kelly Evans take you through the heart of the business day bringing you the latest developments and instant analysis on the stocks and stories driving the day’s agenda. “Power Lunch” delves into the economy, markets, politics, real estate, media, technology and more. The show sits at the intersection of power and money. “Power Lunch” gives viewers a full plate of CNBC’s award-winning business news coverage, plus a healthy dose of personality from the show’s anchors and the network’s top-notch roster of reporters and digital journalists. 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, everybody. I am Brian Sullivan. Kelly on maternity leave. Well, a new week, new highs, at least earlier, Big Tech hitting new records again. Wall Street chasing the rally. City Group, raising its S&B 500 target to 6,600. All this. As Bank of America's new survey says, fund managers are still the most bullish in months. Mem stocks, many of them soaring again. But all that asks us, is it time to get a little bit nervous? markets just turning negative, but as we said, we did hit new highs earlier today. Bottom line, there is a lot going on to kick off the week. Welcome, everybody. Let us jump right in. And before we get to a more macro discussion, we've got to show you not just the stock of the day,

maybe the stock of the last week or more, and that is Bitmine immersion technologies. We'll just call it BitMine for short. Tom Lee of Fundstra, not the drummer, is the executive chairman. Why are we showing you BitMine other than the fact that it's up 20% right now? Because shares have doubled in a week, doubled in just a few days. BitMind is a few things. On a very basic level, it's effectively a micro-strategy-type company. But instead of Bitcoin, it is buying massive amounts of the crypto-Etherium. In fact, BitMind now says it holds 1.15 million Ethereum units, valued at about $5 billion.

dollars. That might help explain the company's $7 billion market cap and it's one of the most traded stocks in the entire stock market folks. If you bought BitMine recently, congratulations. You've printed money. Always nice to start the show on a high note. Now to the macro market. And your next guest is likely not all in on BitMine. In fact, he's got a $6,400 price target on the S&P 500, which, as you might notice, is exactly. where the market is right now. So is the rest of the year dead money? Let's find out.

Scott Wren, senior global market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. Scott, good to have you back on. Don't worry. I'm not going to ask you about Bitmine. Everybody else is talking about it, so we won't. But I will ask you about your car. I could not talk about Bitmine, Brian.

Even if you could, I'm not sure that I would ask you about it. Even if I had an opinion. But I will ask you about the S&P 500. 6,400 is pretty much where we are right now. So does the rest of the year just go sideways? Well, I tell you, I think we're going to have some volatility. And really, Brian, for us, and we've tried to be patient here, you know, if we look back over the last 12 or 18 months, we're buying stocks on pullbacks and we're leaning towards stocks. We took advantage of the pullback we had in April.

And I would say that, you know, when you think about tariff uncertainty, I mean, you can just think about the announcement over the weekend or today with the two chip companies. companies. You know, inflation's creeping a little bit higher, growth slowing down. So I think there's some uncertainties out there that will give us an opportunity to buy stocks, not dramatically lower than where they are right now, but lower than where they are right now. So if we get that opportunity, we're certainly going to try to take advantage of it. But we're trimming a little bit in a couple of sectors. Okay, would then say like a 7 to 10 percent pullback, not only be welcome, but healthy? I would say it would be. I mean, really, You know, Brian, when you look back over the history, the long history of the S&P 500,

you have a 10% pullback on average about every 10 and a half months. So they happen. Retail investors certainly get nervous about it. But the thing you want to do is, you know, if your timeframes two years, three years, five years plus, is when stocks are down, you want to buy them. And, you know, optimally, the best times are, we own stocks are down as much as they were in April. I don't think that's going to happen again today. but, you know, if we saw a 5 to 10 percent, 7 to 10 percent pullback,

I think that would be pretty reasonable after the run we've had. Earnings have been pretty solid, particularly among big cap tech, which I do wonder, is part of me wonder, Scott, is big cap tech the only thing that matters right now? You can comment on that if you'd like. But have you been happy with the earnings numbers that you have seen? Well, I tell you, for the second quarter in a row, it was about double expectations.

So, I mean, certainly this reporting season, was very good. I think you're going to see a noticeable slowdown in the third and fourth quarter earnings. You know, Big Cap Tech has been really driving the bus and tech and tech-like. So if you look at communication services where we're trimming a little money from there, they had, you know, far and away the best earnings growth rate year over year. Tech was in there, financials were in there. We like, we're overweight both those

sectors, or we like both those sectors. So I think that you know, big tech and big tech-like companies, they're going to continue to do well. They're going to continue to have nice revenues and cash flows. So, you know, over the course of time, they're going to go higher, I think. But communication services, as I mentioned, that's one of the sectors where we're trimming a little money, put back into financials, which has trailed a little bit over the last three months, but we like. Well, we're still not out of the woods with tariffs.

We've still got some concern about all the AI spending that maybe it may not all come to pass because companies simply won't be able to execute on it. In the next block, we're going to talk about President Trump, many with Vladimir Putin. There are always risks to the market, Scott. But if you had to some of the things I just listed or more, what would be the bigger market worries right now? I think, Brian, the things that are going to give us the opportunities, the worries that are going to give us opportunities, the worries that are going to give us opportunities. I think is the level and length of tariff implementation. But the thing we're going to see first, I think, is inflation creeping up a little bit.

We're going to see the labor market weakened, and we're going to see growth slowdown. So I think the tariffs might take a little bit longer to play out, even though in this next earning season we're going to hear more and more about it. We heard about it a little bit in the second quarter reporting season, but we're going to hear more in the third. But I think inflation, growth fears, labor market fears, those are the things that are going to worry investors that are going to provide, hopefully, the opportunity to buy a little bit lower. And then finally, how much, if at all, does the Federal Reserve matter right now?

Well, you know, we've only, we only have one cut priced in now. Could that be in September? Sure. September is definitely live. But one more, one this year, one next year. You know, the market, I think, is going to become convinced that the Fed is not going to ease as much as the market thinks. Now, there's only two cuts priced in, so, you know, one or two, you're kind of splitting hairs there. But the Fed, you know, over the course of the next 18 months, is likely to lower rates a little bit. And I think the market's fine with that. I mean, when you've got low unemployment, inflation, higher than where the Federal Reserve wants to see it, there's not a lot of reasons for the Fed to cut aggressively from here. All right, well said.

Scott, Rand, we're going to leave it there. Wells Fargo Investment Institute, Scott, appreciate you kicking off the show and a Monday. Thanks, Brian. All right, you take care. All right, folks, speaking of the Federal Reserve, let's get a quick read on bonds. Our bond report, American companies are seizing the moment to refinance and raise money in the bond market, and they're getting some of the best terms that they have seen all year. The average yield on investment-grade corporate bonds is debt issued by the biggest

and most stable American companies is falling below 5%. That is the lowest level of the year. That drop means companies can now unload debt and maybe add up new debt at a cheaper cost. It is a sign of both investors growing appetite for risk and increased confidence in the American economy's resilience. So while you may not care about corporate debt, corporations paying the least they have this year, not all,

but many of them, one does wonder, will new mortgage rates also? start to come down just a little bit. All right, we are just getting started. And after the break, is it the end of the road or the start of a new one? President Trump, to meet with Russia's Vladimir Putin, which could bring an end of the Ukraine war. The question now up for debate is how would it in? All right, welcome back to Power Lunch.

It is perhaps the big meeting of the year. President Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are scheduled to get together on Friday. The summit will take place in the last. with the goal trying to negotiate a deal to end the war in Ukraine. President Trump elaborating his intentions for the upcoming talks earlier today. I'm going to meet with him. We're going to see what the parameters are. I'm then going to call up President Zelensky and the European leaders right after the meeting, yeah. And I'm going to tell him what kind of a deal. I'm not going to make a deal. It's not up to me to make a deal.

I think a deal should be made for both. Now, it is unclear if the Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky will actually attend that critical meeting. He has been, of course, very outspoken that he would reject any possible outcome involving a land swap between Ukraine and Russia, or Russia would get certain regions of Ukraine that it currently occupies or partially occupies. Your next guest says that both possible outcomes on Friday, the most likely outcome will be a pledge to end the war, But many questions, of course, do remain. Remember, Russia is currently locked out of Western investing. Could all of this change?

Joining us now is Michael O'Hanlon. He is Director of Foreign Policy Research at the Brookings Institution. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, it's better to meet jaw to jaw than meet in war. Ideally, if you're talking, you're not fighting, but Zelensky and Putin are not in the same room. How much could we actually expect to accomplish from Trump? Trump and Putin, if anything. Greetings. Well, the worst case outcome would be if somehow President Trump were wooed by Vladimir Putin

into thinking and believing that the land that Putin wants is really rightfully Russia's anyway based on some historical fairy tale that Putin probably believes, but is based on a very selective reading of history. And Trump decides to push for that and essentially strong-arm Ukraine into that kind of approach. But I don't think President Trump's going to make that mistake. I think he's been around this issue now a while. I think most of his movement in 2025 has been in the correct direction of understanding who caused the war and who is the obstacle to peace. And that's Putin in both cases, as we know.

And so I'd be very disappointed and surprised if Trump wound up so gullible as to just fully adopt the Putin line. I think where Trump may be willing to do things that, let's say, a lot of the foreign policy community would not like would be to rule out NATO membership for Ukraine forever. I could live with alternative concepts besides NATO, but of course, the foreign policy communities in the United States and Western Europe have espoused this idea for a long time. Putin hates it. That's the kind of place where you might see Trump do some deals that a lot of people would complain about, but I think might be useful to jumpstart a subsequent negotiation. Just one last point.

It was very good that Trump said today that he's not going to make the deal because he knows it's not his job. That's very encouraging again. All he can do is pressure the parties. he knows they have to get together and make the decision. Yeah, and Europe also will, you know, they can offer their recommendations. This is what we'd like to see happen. But ultimately, Ukraine, a sovereign nation, a proud nation, they're going to ultimately do

what they want. And they will fight as long as they have to to get what they want. No one can blame them for that. So is this meeting, Michael, even worth it if Volodymyr Zelensky is A, not invited or be invited, but does not come? Yeah, it's still worth it. But I think, you know, President Trump's going to have to go in with a clear sense of his willingness to put more pressure on Russia. The way he actually already has with the additional tariffs on India for buying Russian oil, I don't necessarily agree with that particular approach.

But the general concept of putting more pressure on Russia, if they continue to obstruct peace and continue to fight, is absolutely correct. So that sort of thing is important. President Zelensky's got to be careful here, however, because if he thinks that any kind of lance-war, is fundamentally unacceptable, then I think he could wind up the odd man out in this conversation. And at that point, he might lose President Trump. And we could be back to where we were at the start of the year. Morally speaking, of course, there's no reason for Russia to be allowed to steal any of the land from Ukraine that it's taken since 2014.

However, practically speaking, we're going to have to find some pragmatic outcomes here that we don't necessarily love. And I think that could include land swap. So Zelensky should be flexible on that point. at least in theory for now. And I referenced Winston Churchill, Michael, or at least bastardized it at the top, because the idea is simply being,

if you're talking, you're hopefully not fighting. A lot of people, as you know, are going to find any meeting with Vladimir Putin unseemly. I get it. He's a terrible guy. He's a dangerous man, and his country is backed against the wall.

But at least if they are talking, should we take some positives from that? Or should Vladimir Putin be cast off like a Kim Jong-il, like the Kim Il-like the, the Kim Il-sung, like the dictator, he is. I don't mind the talking. But, of course, Churchill was not talking to Hitler during World War II. 100%. There got to be a point. Right. And we're at a point. I'm not saying Putin's quite as bad as Hitler, but I think Putin's behavior is atrocious and abominable. And if he uses the idea of negotiations

to just keep persuading Donald Trump to postpone additional sanctions, that would be regrettable. That could be a way in which talks actually are a net negative. So I'm hopeful that Trump will stand his ground and be willing to keep applying more pressure if he doesn't see some room for compromise from Putin. Is there quickly, Michael, and this is a market show, CNBC, I'll leave the purely political stuff up to others. If a deal is reached where Vladimir Zelensky and the Ukrainian people approve of it, if something happens where Ukraine says this is an acceptable outcome and the two sides effectively stop fighting,

Is there any scenario where Russia can or should be allowed back at the Western financial table? Because right now you can't do anything there. They're cut off a lot of the systems as they should be. Is there any system or scenario where they come back to the Western and world stage? I think so. I think you have to offer some way back, partial way back. I don't know you could ever fully rehabilitate Russia until Putin's gone. But I think the idea of incentivizing Russia to behave better and stop the fighting, partly through

economic means, should be in our toolkit. And so I don't view it as some redemption for Russia. I view it as a necessary ingredient in getting to some kind of peace. And, you know, if you can find a way to do it that's principle that doesn't force Ukraine to suffer along the way and doesn't pretend the war never happened, then I think partial steps back could be acceptable. We shall see what happens on Friday. It would be ideal if Vladimir Zelensky would was invited and did attend. We'll see what happens. Still a few days left, Michael, Hanlon, Brookings Institute.

Michael, thank you very much. Thank you, God. All right. On deck. Kind of stay on the geo-macro topics. Is it a good deal or just kind of a shakedown? The unusual circumstances Trump now wants from some American companies, and it could impact their stocks.

All right, welcome back to Power Lunch. Another big story out of Washington today. two of the U.S.'s biggest chip makers, NVIDIA and AMD, agreed to pay 15% of their AI semiconductor sales in China to the U.S. government. With the U.S. and China locked in a fierce competition

over AI, President Trump clarifying China will not get the most advanced chips. Listen. The chip that we're talking about, the H-20, it's an old chip. China already has it, in a different form, different name. Jensen also has a new chip.

The Blackwell, do you know what the Blackwell is? The Blackwell is super duper advanced. I wouldn't make a deal with that, although it's possible I'd make a deal a somewhat enhanced in a negative way, Blackwell. In other words, take 30% to 50% off of it. I think that's a technical term, super duper advanced. Your next guest just raised this,

price target on Nvidia, factoring in any increased exports to China. Joining us now to talk more about it is Aaron Rakers. He is senior semiconductor analyst at Wells Fargo. So, Aaron, how do you score it? Would increase sales to China, pardon the phrase, trump the additional 15% payout that they would now have to give to the U.S. government? Yeah, I mean, first of all, thanks for having me on. The short answer is yes. I mean, I think it's better than nothing, right? I mean, if you look at Nvidia last quarter, I think they reported they shipped 4.6 billion

of revenue into China, the H20 prior to the ban in April. They had missed out roughly two and a half billion. So that's north of seven billion of revenue in the last quarter. That'd be, call it 13% of total revenue, 17% of the data center revenue for them. if you included that, and they had guided that they were going to miss revenue opportunity of about $8 billion this quarter. So annualized $30 plus billion of revenue opportunity, I do think it's better than nothing. We tried to factor that into our raised estimates this morning.

I think ultimately the key debate is going to be what's the precedent that this sets going forward. And then as you just played the clip, what's the progression to theoretically the B20, the B30 products as we move forward as far as their ability to sell into the China market. That's something they'll have to discuss on, you know, the upcoming earnings release on the 27th. Aaron, sit tight. Don't go anywhere. We're going to come right back to you. This actually might impact what we're talking about right now because we have some breaking news from Washington on trade with China. Let's get that now from Amin Javers at the White House.

Brian, that's right. A White House official tells me that the president has now signed an executive order to extend that China trade negotiation. for another 90 days. Now, we haven't seen the executive order yet. I'm told it's about to be released publicly a short time from now, so we'll wait for any additional details that might be in that. But that is the expected outcome here. After those negotiations in Sweden between Treasury Secretary Bessent

and his Chinese counterparts, Besson said that he was going to come back to the U.S., brief the president in the Oval Office on those discussions, and then they would decide whether or not to extend that deadline. Otherwise, if not extending the deadline, that tariff snapback would happen tomorrow, Brian. So the president here waiting until the eve of the deadline to go ahead and extend. You know, he was pushing on social media yesterday for more soybean purchases from the Chinese. We'll see if he got any commitments on that and any other details around this when we get the official language, which I'm told is coming out shortly.

I'm sorry, I should know this. I'm trying to carry the one in like long division. There's a remainder. What is the new deadline? Like mid-November? Yeah, I mean, it would be, I think, October, right? I mean... I don't know.

Math on live television is just not my strong suit. But, yeah, we would be talking about another 90-day extension. And then, you know, I was talking with the Treasury Secretary in Sweden about this. You know, where would they do it? They've done, you know, London, they did Sweden. He was throwing out just for fun, maybe the idea of going to Portugal. But it does seem like, you know, they're... going to be in this ongoing series of negotiations and whether they can get to that big final deal.

The expectation is Trump and Xi Jinping would both have to be in the same room at the same time for that. But clearly, another meeting is going to have to be in the works here at the end of this extension. Once we get the official language for the new deadline. Apparently, I just got word in my ear because I also don't do math on live TV. Sunday November 9th is the new deadline. I'll see you on a Markets and Turmoil special Sunday November 9th. About six of our producers just texted me that too at the same time. At the exact same time.

Hey, at least they're watching. People who can do math faster than me. Well, we are on live TV. Amon Javerson. Thank you very much. Amen, thank you. Now let's go back to our previous guest. Aaron Rakers, Aaron, does that, semiconductors are a massive part of our trade with China.

Do you look at the macro trade and tariff headlines as a part of your single stock analysis? or is it kind of over here and you just work on sort of the sharpening the pencil on the other side? Yeah, I think we try and look at all the data points, right? So a lot of our note this morning

on the video, we did actually take a look at some of the import export data that we track and how things have changed around that. So, you know, I think as far as the sales into China, I don't think that news necessarily changes anything from the news that we had heard last night.

Obviously, AMD also, you know, fits into this equation. they lost, I think they guided one and a half billion of revenue opportunity loss from China this year. And so, you know, I think at this point, you know, we're in a quiet period for Nvidia going into their earnings on the 27th. We'll just have to wait to hear. And I think, again, can they recapture that 30 billion? Do we take 85% of that? And then more importantly, what's the growth profile competitively as we think about that China market going into the Blackwell product cycle and even subsequent product cycles from there?

Aaron Rakers, Wells Fargo. Aaron, we're going to cut a little bit short. Got some more breaking news as well. We'll let you get back to your job. Aaron, thank you very much. All right, we have a news alert on the search for the next chair of the Federal Reserve. Steve Leesman now, Pop. We got all kinds of breaking news on Power Lunch today.

I love it. Yeah, Bloomberg got with another report, Brian, saying, essentially, and then there were eight, saying that Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, who was handling the search for the next Fed chair, adding some new names that we had not heard before. Lori Logan, according to this report, the Dallas Fed Chief, Phil Jefferson, the vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board, Mickey Bowman, whose name has been in and out,

but not necessarily through any actual report that she was being considered. She's the vice chair for bank supervision, and that joins Mark Summerlin, the former Bush Economic Advisor, Kevin Hassett, the current Trump administration, head of the NEC and Kevin Warsh, former Fed Governor, along with Jim Biller, the former St. Louis Fed President now at Purdue. So I cannot give you any insight into whether these reports are accurate. It does seem as if the administration is casting perhaps a wider net from the one that we thought about,

whether or not these are the people that the president would support it's unclear to me. Logan, a bit of a hawk. She's from a, she ran the desk at the New York Fed. Phil Jefferson was an academic who was plucked up to become a vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board. He's obviously a covenant and well-known economist, but he has not been, at least publicly, a leader on monetary policy. And, of course, you know the rest of the names that we've talked about. Just real quick, Brian, I did on Friday when this first round of additional names came out, I got a statement from the White House kind of neither confirming nor denying, but I think it's worth reading at this.

point, it said, President Trump will continue to nominate the most competent and experienced individuals deliver on his pledge to make America wealthy again. So Mawa, I had not heard that one before, unless it comes from President Trump himself. However, any discussion about personnel decisions should be regarded as pure speculation. And I think that's important from a White House official because Scott Besson can do all these things and he will talk to a lot of people. But I believe ultimately it's going to come down to a meeting between the president and this individual and the president being comfortable with this individual.

the question as to what it is the president really wants to happen at the Fed. Mawa, also a town near us in northern New Jersey. That aside, Steve Leasman, where do these new names come from? I thought we were down to basically the two Kevins, Warsh and Hassett and Chris Waller. I thought so too, but again, these are Bloomberg reports. And look, hats off to them. I'm sure that they're accurate in terms of the reporting of this, that these are names that will be, These are people who will meet with the Treasury Secretary for possible consideration. But again, the issue, Brian becomes, who's going to, does the president want somebody who's going to do his bidding, someone who's going to transform or reform the Federal Reserve Board,

or did you want somebody who's going to uphold the independence of the Federal Reserve and is well regarded by markets? I think you might be able to get two of those three. I'm not sure you can get all three. Yeah, we'll see. And maybe there might be a few wild cards that could come in, including some people that are sometimes on this network. We shall see. Steve Leesman, a couple new names being thrown into the mix. Steve, thank you very much.

All right. An industry in transformation keeps transforming some big deal headlines in the media space and will impact your TV. Morehead with CBC founder, Tom Rogers. All right, like the kid's song says, apparently three is the math. magic number because in the last 10 minutes, we have our, we have our third dose of some breaking news. This one on the Stubhubb IPO, Leslie Picker has that. Yes, we'll see if anything comes beyond this. But you're right, Stubbubb updating its S1 filing, effectively restarting the company's process to go public. I'm told by a person familiar with the matter that the online ticket

marketplace is aiming to kick off its roadshow after Labor Day and make its debut later. in September. This comes after the company paused its IPO process amid the Liberation Day volatility back in April. They initially filed an S-1 in March. Now, this new filing includes Q1 numbers showing gross merchandise sales growing at 15% year-over-year. That's actually slower than the 47% from the fourth quarter. However, GMS can be lumpy depending on the live entertainment that's slated on a quarterly basis. Its competitor vivid seats reported its gross order value last week, which declined 31% in Q2, and that has contributed to that company's 82% decline year over year. Stubhub's revenue gained 10% in the first quarter, although net losses widened year over year.

The company spent more on sales and marketing as it aims to sell more directly to consumers. Stubhubhub had been targeting about a $16.5 billion valuation for the IPO, and it ended up. tends to list on the NYSC under the symbol, STUB, guys. Stubhub, IPO, September, third dose of breaking news in 10 minutes. And I know you know that song, Leslie. Got a couple little ones at home.

I get it. Three is the magic number. I do, yes. Listen to the De La Sol versions. Even better. Leslie, thank you. Good tip. All right, so the media is in focus today

with one deal happening and another one reportedly on the way. TV broadcaster NextDott, reportedly in advance talks to acquire rival Tegna. Both of those stocks are surging today, 3 and 28%. Now, neither of those companies' names may be a household name, but those companies are both likely in your household. Next star is the largest TV station owner in America with more than 200 owned or partnered outlets.

Tegna is also big, owning about 64 TV stations. Now, that is not all the media news today. The new Paramount Skydance is throwing its own upper cut in the sports world, buying the U.S. rights to the ultimate fighting championship for $7.7 billion over seven years. Bottom line, folks, streaming and the phone are changing your viewing habits. The entire media landscape is changing and changing quickly. Here now with more Tom Rogers, CNBC founder, now a contributor, senior advisor of Dverson, which will soon be our parent company along with 100 other titles. We don't have time to get to.

Tom, thanks for joining us. Next star in Tegna. Again, corporate names. Our viewers have no idea who they are, but they own a lot of local TV. What would that deal, if it happens, mean for television? Well, you need some regulatory change here. The courts have started to help. It looks like the FCC is going to loosen up the rules on broadcast ownership.

And what it will mean is the ability to streamline. ownership of broadcast stations, drive scale. Scale is the name of the game in the media world today. Perry Sucke, who is the CEO of NextDAR and a very strategically visionary executive, I think understands local has a major role to play in the media landscape. Newspapers have been going out of business on the local level like crazy. Broadcasting is a way to make sure news in particular is continued to be a major. element of the media diet on the local level. And I think their view is you need scale to be

able to do it. This is one major way of achieving that. Yeah, I listen, maybe I'm talking our book here, Tom, but local TV, TV news not going away. It's going to shrink, but it's not going to change. If anything, it might become more exclusive. If this deal gets done, and under Brendan Carr and the FCC and the Trump administration, would that then clear the path for, say, Sinclair to buy an EW Scripps SSP? Sure. If there are regulatory changes here, and I think there would be, and I think they're deserved, because I think we need to do something here to make sure that localism is preserved,

and this will certainly strengthen local companies post-merger. It will open the doors for other possible mergers by other major groups. But Next Star is the industry leader here acquiring Tegna would be a major transaction and a major step forward, I think, in helping to preserve local media. All right. Let's go to the other big story. And that is the new Paramount Skydance, buying the U.S. rights to the UFC ultimate fighting championship, $7.7.000, a big number over seven years. David Ellison, obviously, just getting this company together. The board has just been built. He is wasting no time. And if you kind of factor in his dad, Larry Ellison of Oracle, one of the top five richest men in the world, do you think that this is just the beginning of possible dealmaking for Paramount Skydance? I think it's not only the beginning of possible dealmaking. It is the beginning of very aggressive spending now by what has been a laggard of a streaming player among the major traditional legacy television companies.

I think they are signaling here that they are not interested in short-term earnings. They are playing this game for the long term. This is a move that basically says you can't cut your way to profitability. We're going to grow a way to profitability. All the legacy firms have demonstrated that owning major sports rights is critical to that growth. But I think what we're seeing signaling here, particularly with the South Park deal, that Paramount recently did on the renewal and the focus of the distribution of that through Paramount Plus, that while others have invested heavily in sports, entertainment spending is clearly being cut back.

And I think we're likely to see not only aggressive sports spending, but aggressive entertainment spending, aggressive technology spending. And I think we have here a player that plans to be disruptive in the amount of money that they're willing to put to work on the streaming front. Yeah, sports appears, Tom, to be the answer because now if you want to watch the UFC in the United States, you will have to subscribe or have access to Paramount, right? I mean, and that's the whole process. If you want to cancel Amazon, that's fine. But guess what? If you do that, you're also not going to be able to watch Thursday night football.

Right. Well, I think that's an important point. They're also making UFC more accessible to view it. A lot of the best of the UFC programming has only been available on pay-per-view. So in addition to having to subscribe to a streaming service, in this case, ESPN Plus, you've had to subscribe every month, pay a major ticket price for access to the pay-per-view event. These are all going to be available through Paramount Plus, which is on an advertising-supported basis, a $799 monthly subscription fee, but also all available, the major events,

on CBS. So this is a major way of opening up access to UFC to a lot more viewers. We're going to see a major test here on the sports rights front because of the change of ownership of Paramount. The NFL contract they have, obviously, the most significant of all sports rights is up for the NFL to be able to reopen the pricing negotiation on those rights. That's going to be a major negotiation. NFL actually owns a piece of Skydance because of a documentary deal that NFL and Skydance have. But we're really going to see some new pricing established for sports with the outcome of that negotiation. The deals keep rolling on in media, Tom Rogers. Glad to have you on.

Appreciate it. Thank you, Tom. Thanks for having me, Brian. Great to see you. All right. Now let's get over to another Rogers. Kay Rogers for a CNBC News update. Kate.

Hi, Brian. Pennsylvania officials say at least one person is. dead and two are unaccounted for following an explosion at a U.S. steel plant near Pittsburgh. They say multiple people have been treated for injuries, but their status is not known at this time. A rescue operation is currently underway at the plant, and the health department is on-site to monitor air quality. The CDC tightened security today after an attack at its Atlanta headquarters on Friday

that left a police officer and the gunman dead. The agency told employees to work from home today and asked them to remove vehicle decal, showing where they work. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to visit the headquarters later today to speak with staff. The shooter's motive remains unknown, but a source tells NBC news he believed COVID vaccines had made him sick. And the Pentagon shared new details this afternoon about the president's deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C. Military officials say about 800 soldiers will be activated with between 100 and 200 soldiers supporting law enforcement at any given time.

Brian, back over to you. All right, Kate, Rogers, Kate. Thank you very much. All right, coming up here on Power Lunch, Ford going big on getting smaller. Sort of. That story is next. Crypto Watch is sponsored by Crypto.com. Crypto.com is America's premier crypto platform.

All right, welcome back to Power Lunch. Let's talk cars, electric cars, because the entire industry is in flux right now. EV sales this quarter, they should pop, but that is likely because people are pulling forward purchases to qualify for the federal tax credit, which goes away at the end of September. And that is not all the news. Ford CEO joined Phil LeBoe earlier today, talk about some of their new big plans to build a newer, smaller electric pickup truck. Phil joining us now. Phil kind of summarize what Ford is saying they're going to do. Well, the pickup truck, Brian, is actually the secondary news here. Yes, it's important, but they didn't show a rendering. We don't know exactly what it'll look like, but it will be approximately $30,000 for a sales price.

The real news of the day is that Ford is finally saying, this is what our future is when it comes to building electric vehicles. Smaller or lower cost, more efficiency, moving faster, retooling the complete Louisville assembly plant. this is a big bet that Ford is making, and if they are correct, if they can do it at a lower price point and they can build a vehicle that people want, then they believe they can be profitable and competitive when it comes to electric vehicles. And I know you talked about it, but we don't, just to reiterate, we don't know if this is going to be that they're Maverick or a totally new thing, correct? It is a new thing. It's a new platform. It's the first on the new EV platform. Now, will they call it the Maverick? Maybe. Maybe they'll call it the Ranger.

look called the Ranger EV. The name is secondary. It's the important thing is that this will be a lower cost mid-sized electric vehicle, and Ford believes it can be competitive priced around 30,000. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal and much respect to the Wall Street Journal and their reporters, but it was like, we're going back to gas guzzlers, and I'm thinking, there it is, Detroit rediscovers the love for gas cozzlers. To be clear, car and truck mileage has been going up the last 20 or 30 years, fairly dramatic. I mean, if you've got a Ford, My buddy has a Ford F-150 hybrid. It's a gas car.

He's getting 24 miles to the gallon and 900 miles on a tank fill. I was a little confused about what this journal article was about. Well, if you go for a hybrid, yes, you're going to get greater fuel economy. And that's why hybrid sales have been growing dramatically over the last couple of years. And I think that's the key point here, Brian, is we will see internal combustion engine vehicles around. There are about 79% of the market right now. But hybrids are growing. And so while that headline says a return to the gas guzzlers, we're not going back to the days of 15 miles to a gallon.

What we are going is to a future that it has a longer lifeline for internal combustion engine vehicles, albeit many of them will be hybrid versions. The Ford LTD where Phil LeBow as a kid could stretch all the way across the back seat. You could fit nine people in the back seat. Give me a buickless saber with no help on the back seat. the steering. That's what I need. Oh, it's the best. While your parents chain smoked with the windows up in the front seat, Philibault, appreciate it.

Thank you very much. All right, we're going to get you a power check on this mystery stock coming off its best week since July of 2020. The reveal. Next. All right, welcome back. It is time for a power check, and you probably guessed it ahead of the break. That chart is Apple.

So let's talk Apple. Despite a rough overall year, Nancy Tangler likes Apple stock and is buying more. Nancy's CEO and CIO of Laffer Tengler investments and joins us now, Nancy. A lot of people have kind of given up or at least disregarded Apple lately. Why are you still a believer? Well, Brian, thanks for having me. We trimmed some of our winners in our TGLR ETF.

We trimmed Microsoft Oracle and Broadcom. And we bought a more defensive name in Apple. It is not participated. They had a great quarter. and they put a floor under the stock price with their buybacks. So this is by no means a largest holding for us, but it is a name that we wanted to add to at the margin. I think the next question is going to be what they do about AI

and when do they do it. Well, Dan Ives in a note this weekend, kind of taking a swipe at Tim Cook saying that while others are actively, aggressively doing stuff, I think Dan, I'm going to paraphrase him, said that Tim Cook was sitting on a bench drinking lemonade around AI. Do you, is he that passive? In a new Dan Ives jacket.

No, I don't think so. I mean, listen, he's always underestimated. Stocks up 32% since he took over in 2011. He does need to do something. I think he knows. If we know that, he knows that. So I do expect, Dan's a good prod. He got Elon back to work.

So I'll stand by him on this. But I think, I think do not underestimate Tim Cook. Yeah, and very quickly, one word answer. or would you like to see them buy perplexity? I mean, I think that'd be awesome. Yeah, if they would. If they would. They're not a big buyer, not since the Beats deal.

We'll see Nancy Tango. We're going to leave it there. We had a lot of breaking news, Nancy. Really appreciate your views. Folks, market's kind of flatlining after hitting new records earlier today. We'll see you tomorrow. Closing bell starts right now.