Power Lunch - IPO Market Continues to Heat up 9/12/25

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Gold and silver prices keep climbing. Several companies make their public debuts.   And could David Ellison's Paramount buy Warner Bros. Discovery? It's all here on Power Lunch.  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. I'm Brian Sullivan. Great to be back with you. And back in focus is your money. Record watch again. The S&P and NASDAQ notching higher. Another intraday high for both, all the major averages on pace for another winning week. Also hitting a new record, The Chips. We'll talk stocks, semiconductors and more in moments. Plus, is Europe finally going to cut off Putin's cash cow and stop buying Russian energy? A new push is on. We hit a moment. on it from Italy this week. And now Helima Croft is here. And IPO mania by the Winkle Boss twins could get a whole lot richer today. Shares of their Gemini open for trading moments ago. It's already been halted twice. We'll hit the latest trade. Oh, and Dodge Ram, they just made a huge U-turn in the pickup truck program. That news breaking within the hour. And we have it. Happy Friday, everybody. A lot to do. Let's begin with the markets because we have more new records for most the macro market today. The Dow down a little bit right now, but it hit a new record yesterday. And it's not just stocks. What I call the Burl Ives trade, silver and gold. I'm not going to sing

it, is a big hit. Silver at a 14-year high. Gold also on the rise, both heading for yet another monthly game. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about crypto. Let's talk about more. One of our favorite guests, that is the CEO of Van Eck Associates. Jan Van Eck. Jan, welcome. Great to be here, Ryan. We got gold, we got silver, we've got crypto. Let's talk about a lot of things.

Number one, why do you think that gold and silver, boring old, expensive to hold metals, are doing so well? Well, I mean, I think gold is in a multi-year trend of de-dollarization where the demand for gold and gold holdings by foreign central banks now are above that of U.S. treasuries. So that's just part of a long-term trend. I think what's really exciting over the last month or so has been the rewriting, re-rating, excuse me, of gold mining companies, which are up 100% this year. And why? Because the quarterly earnings finally showed they could get their discipline. They're lowering their costs, or at least not increasing.

And so all the higher prices are leading to higher profits. And the market's paying more for those profits, which is great for those investors. I'm going to quote you back to you. Because before the show began, moments ago, you were telling me. me that back in the day, and I remember this, gold mining stocks would perform with or even outperform gold. Not been the case for most of the last few years. Gold has gone up. The shares have lagged for the miners. Recently, though, they've made an aggressive comeback trade. Why do you think that is? I mean, one of the worst businesses to own was gold mining companies. They've got X amount of gold

in the ground, but they're not finding more. And they haven't had the money really to invest in finding more stuff. So it's like, okay, it's a dying business almost, right? You dig out, literally respectfully at all the gold bugs. You dig out rocks. And those rocks are more valuable than other rocks. But, and you're getting less gold per rock. So the economics are worse. You have to dig out more tons for the same ounce. So no one wanted to own these companies, unless they could get their costs under control. So there's been some consolidation, which is good. But the big companies like Barrack is getting rid of non-core assets. They just sold one in the last week. And Newmont has shown that they can control their costs.

So anyway, gold share investors are getting excited. It seems like anything that has to do with money or a form of money has been red hot lately. Obviously, silver and gold. You could use those to exchange for goods and services. Crypto today. I know we've got another trade to Leslie Picker for Gemini in a moment. We'll get your comment on that as well. Crypto and crypto exchanges have also been super hot.

Why is the, I'm going to make it up right now, the substitution of cash trade been so hot? I mean, there's been a- Is that a fair way to frame it? Maybe it's not. There's been a huge regulatory unlock here, right? So companies like Gem and I have gone through, you know, they've been around for quite a while, Coinbase, they can all get, offer more products and more services in a clear regulatory regime. So they're coming to market. And I think there's going to be a huge consolidation because it used to be crypto over here, securities over here. that's silly. A consumer wants to be able to trade both in one app. So I think we're just in the early stages of a play that's going to be a consolidation over the next year or two.

Yeah, that was, I was going to ask, my next question was sort of in my head, are there too many of these exchanges? My guess is, if you believe that, then all these exchanges at some point in the next number of years, or maybe months at this rate, are going to be part of much larger companies? They have to demonstrate value. If I can go to Gemini, which is listing today, right? They're a 20th of Coinbase's volume and customer base. They're in market cap. So they've got a long ways to go. They have to do something. Now, they had a problem with the crypto defaults. They got caught up in some of that. But now they're public. They have a currency. They've got to do something with it. Their app downloads are up 800 percent over the last several months, which is great

because they have a credit card product, but they really have to do something. But yeah, because don't all these firms ultimately just sort of bastardize each other? They're in competition. It's like sports gambling apps, right? A lot of people I know that do it fervently, they will go between apps

because one gives them five bucks as a bonus or a 10% cashback, whatever it is. You become just a marketing platform. And I worry that all these exchanges are going to just end up doing the same thing. There's not that much, competition, right? You have coin-based crack and then Gemini further down. So it's not like you've got hundreds of these things, Brian, that need to go away. Rather, they're offering more products and

features. And the shadow over all of this is Robin Hood, which had a big investor day in, you know, and a hundred billion dollar valuation. But they're offering crypto. They're taking crypto market share, is my point, because they have the customers. So they're all going to have to offer more products and services. I want to get your take on Gemini. It trades and it's halted. Can I ask you to stick around for a few more minutes. Sure. All right. Jan Veneck, stick around for a couple more minutes.

We've got a few things to do. We've got the bond report now. We'll go back to Leslie Picker. In fact, let's talk about bonds. Because tenure yields, Rick Santelli, they're back above 4%. We've got a big Fed rate meeting and decision on Wednesday. Where will the focus of your big brain and your market be the next few days? Well, I think the market's going to answer that question for me.

Yesterday? Well, yesterday it was all about 263,000, a big jump in initial jobless claims. And we saw yields plummet, even though CPI was close to expectations. Anybody who thinks it wasn't warm didn't really look at the numbers. And today, I think the market's paying a whole lot more attention to that inflation number because as you look at a two-day chart, two-year yields and 10-year yields now have higher highs than yesterday, reversing that big move. And I think that's important.

It's somewhat of a stagflation trade, which was reflected, Brian, in today's University of Michigan sentiment, preliminary numbers. You had weakening on the sentiment side and you had stickiness on the inflation side, although I pay less attention to inflation of surveys than some of the more hard data like PCE, CPI, and PPI. So I do think that the big deal for the Fed meeting is going to be the fact that we're not going to get 50. We're going to get 25. But beyond that, if this stickiness remains, hey, maybe the market's going to reprice how aggressive this easing cycle will be. We have a double bottom potentially.

We rejected 4%, which is the low yield close of the year. You see it on the left side of the chart. We all know treasuries like double bottoms. The fact that this reversed, you know, yesterday when I was out there, I said, if I was in the pit, I would have been selling at 4% looking for yields to bounce. And that's exactly what they did. And finally, you know, when rate cuts are on the way, everyone, all investors are grabbing anything that's got a juicy yield, like high yield junk. Look at the high yield ETF.

Basically yesterday, it closed at the highest level in about three and a half years. Brian, back to you and welcome back. Thank you. Very quick. I got to ask you this. You got Bitcoin all time high, crypto all time high, stocks all time high, gold all time high, silver all time high, house prices all time high in most places. And yet we're talking about the Fed cutting rates. Help me understand.

Well, I mean, where do you want to store your value? Where is the safest place to store your value? How are currencies or reserve currencies like ours? Is there a risk? Is there a risk due to debt and deficits? Is there a risk through the fact that most G7 countries have real fiscal issues? And I think safer places to hide to store your value, especially when equities are potentially in stratospheric.

areas completely make sense to me. All right. You laid it out. I love it. Rick Santelli. Grazie, me la Grazie. Rick, thank you very much. All right. Speaking of Gemini, we just mentioned it. It began trading moments ago. Leslie, picker at the NASDAQ, Leslie, do we have trades or are we halted again? We have trades, although a lot of the air has come out of this one since first opening up. Gemini, currently up about 24 percent, trading around 34, 25 there. The Open price was 3701, and then this company priced its IPO at $28 a share. So it's really just about finding where the supply, which largely comprises retail, of course,

as we've seen with a lot of these crypto IPOs, where that meets, or I'm sorry, the demand, which comes from a lot of retail, meets the supply. And so you can expect to see a little bit of volatility today, currently up about 22%. I believe it was up as much as 60% at the highs of the session. But this is, you know, one of a slew of crypto-related IPOs we've seen this year that have had this kind of reaction on day one. And, of course, this one got better than expected demand on its roadshow as well, bumping up the price, pricing above the lifted range, and then trading up on day one. It's something we also saw with Klarna earlier in the week. So we'll keep an eye on this trend in terms of just the overall demand for IPOs and then whether they can sustain these prices after they move higher from that IPO level.

Yeah, stock up 20%. Obviously, very, very, a lot of volume on that name. We'll see where it all ends up. We got two hours to go, Leslie Picker. We're glad you're there. Leslie, thank you very much. Going back to our guest, Jan Vanek, Jan, thank you very much. Up 20% on Gemini.

Again, your take on this product. Could you see also at some point a Schwab, a Robin Hood buying a company like this? A Schwab, sure, someone that really feels like. they're behind in the crypto area and needs to kind of develop that presence, I think absolutely. Yeah, you don't build it, you buy it. Yeah, you get, you bring in those younger customers, right, that have been with Gemini for quite a while, right? The Winklevite, you know, they deserve a lot of credit, right?

They're the OGs in the crypto space. They were talking about Bitcoin. Well, most people thought they were absolutely nuts, right? They were the first to file for a Bitcoin ETF. I give them a lot of credit. We use them inside our, our Hoddle ETF, which is our Bitcoin ETF. So I just think, yes, they've got to, it's a competitive world, and they've got to really prove themselves now that they have this currency.

I love your ETF as hold on for dear life, HOD, and I love the fact you refer to them by their plural. The Winkle Y, not the Winkle Voss twins, by the way, some of America's best ever collegiate rowers while at Harvard. Thank you very much. Jan Vennack, really appreciate it. Good to be here, right. All right.

Coming up, America asking Europe to finally cut off Vladimir Putin's energy cash, cash. but will Europe finally act this time? And if they do, will oil and gas prices spike again? Alie McRough, up next on that. All right. Welcome back. If you missed some of our coverage from the giant gas tech energy conference in Italy this week. Let us remind you of some key parts. It certainly could play a role in how groups of stocks or stocks trade. Remember, we spoke with both Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, and Secretary of the Interior, Doug Bergham, about natural gas, LNG, oil, nuclear, and more. Here's some of the highlights. First, we asked Secretary Wright about nuclear,

and we asked him why there's so much investor love around nuclear right now. If you look out 500 years from now, nuclear is going to be huge. In fact, we're going to use nuclear power to create hydrocarbons. Can't have a modern world without hydrocarbon molecules. We just might get some of them in a different fashion down the road. But no, in this administration is doing everything possible through four executive actions, reform of the NRC, reform of permitting across. the board, I truly believe we're on the edge of a large nuclear renaissance.

Now, Chris Wright is a former board member of nuclear startup, Oklahoma. That stock up a cool 1,200 percent in a year. New scale has popped about 300%. One of the reasons both Wright and Interior Secretary Bergam were in Italy was to keep pushing Europe to stop buying Russian natural gas. Even though the pipelines are almost totally off, Russia, selling a record amount of liquefied natural gas or LNG to Europe. And Bergen was there in part to push Germany, Italy, France, and others to buy more gas from

us than from Vladimir Putin. LNG would be one of the easiest things, put it on a ship, send it over here, displace Russian gas, drive their market share to zero in Europe, drive U.S. market share up. That's great for America, great for our allies, and we stop funding Russia's side of the war. Now, this all comes under reports that the U.S. is going to push Europe hard to actually stop buying Russian energy. The idea is pretty simple. If Europe gets serious about cutting off Putin's cash, the war could end sooner than later because Russia simply runs out of money. But doing that could also spike energy costs.

But that could benefit American companies like a Chenier, a venture global, Baker Hughes, and more. By the way, we spoke with the CEOs of Schneer and Baker Hughes about this as well. Well, both of those interviews are available right now on CNBC.com. We will push them out again soon. Let's talk about it all. Lima Croft, the global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets. Alima, thanks for popping on kind of late notice. Looking at supply and demand, is it even possible for Europe to completely get off Russian energy?

Well, first of all, welcome back from Gas Tech. I think the big question is, you know, in what time period? I mean, European officials have talked about. wanting to get off of Russian gas. And if you look at the U.S. EU trade deal that was just signed, it includes massive purchases, potentially, of U.S. molecules, you know, natural gas, LNG, into Europe. So it's really a question of, like, timescale.

I do think the interesting question, though, is when we talk about potentially, like, larger secondary tariffs on countries that continue to import Russian molecules, there's kind of an easier way if you really want to get countries off of importing Russian oil and gas, you could put secondary sanctions on Russian energy companies. And to date, there have been no secondary sanctions on gas prom, on Rossnev, on none of the big energy producers, and we continue to see the molecules flowing. Is that because we're trying to kind of, I don't want to say protect Europe, but they do need that gas, I think. I mean, you don't want to completely destroy the economy.

economies of Europe when they've already done a lot of self-inflicted damage. And 100% because also Europe went forward, you know, early on with the move to ban imports of Russian seaborne oil. And if you actually look at what Russia gets the most money from, Brian, they get the lion's share of their money from oil exports, not natural gas exports. So actually, the decision to go after the oil imports was a big decision that the Europeans need. And notably, it was the United States that was very concerned at the time. time about a major supply disruption. So we did price caps to enable those barrels that were no longer welcome in Europe to flow to countries like India. Now, they were supposed to be at a discount if you

use European service providers. But again, when we talk about why India continues to import so much oil from Russia, that was a function of the price cap policy. Yeah, there's but also talk about raising sanctions on Iranian oil vis-a-vis sanctioning the countries like India and China. that buy that oil, is that even possible, Halima? Well, India, I think why we focus so much on India and why the Trump administration focused so much on India is we did see when you applied sanctions pressure on Iran, when you basically did secondary sanctions on Iran, you did see India essentially really significantly curb their purchases of Iranian oil.

Where is Iranian oil going now? It is going largely to Chinese. teapot refineries that are disconnected from global financial markets. Now, some of the Iranian oil also gets disguised as other countries bear also. People point to a country like Malaysia and say it's really interesting if you look at a large Malaysian oil exports when Malaysia is not a very large oil producer. So there's a lot, I think, that can still be done in terms of sanctions enforcement when it comes to Iran. That's always the question. You could have sanctions on the books, but what is a degree

of enforcement. But if you were to impose, again, secondary sanctions on some of these big Russian oil corporates and gas corporates, you would, I think, see refiners like Reliance in India starting to significantly pare back their purchases. Yeah, but you're a mom, right? There's times when you say to your kid, well, if you do that again, you're going to be in big trouble. Then they do it again. And then you say, well, if you do that again, you're going to be in big trouble. Because at some point, you have to enforce the policies. And I wonder, is, you know, is the White House, is brousy Are they going to actually start enforcing them? Because it's one thing to say something.

It's another thing to do something. Well, again, if you look at seaborne oil imports into Europe, like they did cut those off. Again, the question was, were we too concerned at the time, Brian? Remember the time when Europe went forward? And frankly, it was the Treasury that was worried about a 3 million barrel-a-day disruption and higher energy cost at home. Did we make a decision that we were more concerned about inflation than the money? than driving down Russian oil revenue.

I always say that price caps were an inflation reduction measure, not really aimed at reducing Russian revenue. Yeah, you could just sell more oil cheaper. Halima, you were ahead of the game. Halima Croft, RBC Capital Markets, Alima, thank you very much. Thank you. By the way, we're going to bring you another big interview on Monday that you're not going to want to miss.

The CEO of Equinix, one of the biggest data center companies in the world. It's going to join us. We'll talk about data centers, energy. demand and their crucial role in AI. That is on Power Lunch Monday. All right, coming up, Gemini is among six IPOs today. There are others. We'll talk about them. Next. All right, welcome back. As we just noted, the IPO market is really buzzing today. Of course, we talked about Gemini. That's the big one. But the momentum continues with a trio of highly anticipated new listings heading to public markets. Let's run through a few. First up, engineering firm, Legions.

backed by private equity giant Blackstone. The IPO priced at $28 per share under the ticker L-GN. The stock did open a little bit lower. You can see now it is trading up, but only about 3% from its IPO price. Next up, the coffee is brewing on Wall Street with BlackRock Coffee Bar, heading the NASDAQ under the ticker BRCB. BlackRock coffee bar, drive-through coffee chain, surprised investors by pricing its IPO above. the expected range. And as you can see there, that caffeine boost coming. Shares up 39% right now.

Congrats to them. And finally, the tech transport platform via or via transportation, making its market debut on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker VIA. It is a software provider. It helps cities manage micro-transit and other transportation systems. It adds strong demand. Shares coming out at $46 each well above the IPO range. But like Legions, the opening bell post-trade has been a little less than stellar. Shares were down a bit earlier. They're not anymore. They're up about 1%. So really kind of a mixed bag for three other newly public companies. Gemini continues to soar. Stay with us. We're going to break down the latest IPO numbers and what these market debuts might mean for investors. All right. Coming up is big media about

to see another big merger. Two huge stocks on the move. The analyst who may have predicted it all next. All right, welcome back normally on Fridays. Kelly and I do our Stocks of the Week. Kelly is still out, so we're going to hit one name today in my Stock of the Week. I mean, how could we not pick Oracle? Oracle shares soaring this week was on huge optimism around Oracle Cloud and AI-adjacent

businesses. And as that stock soared, founder Larry Ellison personally profited by about $100 billion. Now, stock's down a little bit right now, but this week, the best performer on the S&P 500. Oh, and speaking of the Ellison family, Larry's son, David Ellison is the CEO and founder of Skydance, recently merged with Paramount, now called Paramount Skydance. It's really the combination of CBS, Paramount, with Skydance Media. And there are now reports that Ellison, David, and his team may make a bid for Warner Brothers Discovery, the parent company of CNN and Warner Brothers.

That's why Warner Brothers stock right now is up 19%. Robert Fishman is an analyst at Moff-Nathanson, and he really called this all the way back in March, writing that WBD, Warner Brothers Discovery, could be a ripe target for the then paramount, Warner Brothers stock is up about 75% since then. Robert, so good call there. Glad to have you on. Do you see this deal actually happening? Well, it's definitely looking that way. Thank you for all of that. So what we can say is when we saw at the beginning of the year, the upgrade that we did, we saw some true underlying value at Warner Brothers Discovery. And clearly, the debt situation was the biggest overhang. But as the company has made moves over the past few

months to deal with that debt, separate the company, and move forward with their own way of looking to monetize and get better value for these really premium assets that are in there, including Warner Brothers Studio on the TV side, theatrical side, that's got a lot of momentum right now on HBO. And clearly, this all starts with streaming. As we think about the possible combination with Paramount and Skydance, streaming is going to be the leading way that they look to try to transform this company. So it does seem like we are very close to getting a real bid based on your own reporting. And so I think that's what we're very much looking forward to next week now. Yeah, and to your point, and I did a panel with David Zazlob, the CEO of

Brothers Discovery a number of months ago in Los Angeles, TBS, TNT, True TV, Warner Brothers, CNN, HBO, Animal Planet. You've got all these amazing assets, but to your point, Robert, the issue has been debt. It's not that the brands don't have a lot of value. It's just that the company as a whole held itself back under the weight of debt payments. That's gotten better lately, to your point. But is it still too much for even a David Ellison and his team, he'd be like, no, it's just going to be too expensive. Well, I think it's important to remember what you started with. And again, I'm not saying that the timing is just a pure coincidence or not.

But clearly having the full Allison backing here is a critical piece to how this could play out. Again, based on the reporting, the fact that this could be largely or even fully a cash bid is a real signal in terms of where this could be heading and how they possibly deal with this debt situation on both sides of the table, right? Because, again, it's not as if Paramount is in the full clear. Clearly, they've tried to readjust their own balance sheet as part of the Skydance transaction. So this is definitely something that we're looking to learn a little bit more detail around. Yeah. And it's no surprise to you, and I'll be perfectly transparent with our viewers, CNBC, MSNBC, and a few others, we're being spun out to a new company called

Versant. That is expected to be a new stock. Right now, we are owned by Comcast. When that occurs, Robert, in the next couple of months, where would that asset fit into the media landscape? And do you see more consolidation anyway, anywhere, and, you know, a home for a, you know, middle-aged, but pretty talented TV newsacre? There you go. So I do think. think this is clearly a big step in terms of all of the M&A dance partners. Again, we have been talking about these potential scenarios for quite a while now, and to see it actually start to play out is pretty exciting. But I do think it's another big step or potential step once we learn more about where some of these other pieces might end up and how the other possible combinations

end up happening, including these other cable network portfolios. Yeah, we're showing some stocks of the board as well. And News Corp with Fox, Class A, by the way. Fox has kind of done its own thing with streaming kind of, you know, they have it, but they've kind of gone their own way, at least on the news side. Where does the Murdoch family fit into everything that plays out over the next few quarters and years? I mean, it's a fascinating question because we just got the,

updated news in terms of the Murdox dealing with their own family trust and, you know, making Lachlan the essential heir apparent here of that, you know, future. So we're waiting to see, you know, if that changes anything or not. Clearly, from a Fox perspective, Lachlan is already the CEO, so it doesn't seem like there should be any real strategic pivots, but at the same time, there's always the possibility that they look to combine some of the Fox and News Corp assets again, or, as you mentioned before, see how other M&A possible scenarios can play out within the larger ecosystem here. Listen, it's a lot of interesting stuff happening in our industry right now. The Warner Brothers News, certainly moving. You talked about it back in March.

People listened. They made a lot of money. Robert Fishman of Moffitt Natheson. Robert, thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Let's get now with a birth of Coombs. Press CNBC News update. Brian, Boeing defense workers rejected a contract today that would have ended a more than month-long strike. The deal included a 24% wage increase over five years, as well as $4,000 in a ratification bonus. The roughly 3,200 union workers assemble the company's fighter jets and other military products.

Boeing, meanwhile, announced contingency plans. last week to hire replacement workers. NATO launched a new operation today to bolster Europe's eastern flank following Russian drone incursions into Poland earlier this week. It's called Eastern Century, NATO's Secretary General, saying the operation will include assets from Denmark, France, the UK, Germany, and others. And Russia released video today of joint military exercises conducted with its ally Belarus. The long-planned drills in Belarus will last through Tuesday. They've drawn some concerns from European leaders

who are remembering Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 when Vladimir Putin sent troops rolling into the country following joint drills just days before the incursion. Brian, back to you. All right, Bertha, thank you very much. All right, coming up, we've got breaking news on another automaker ending. It's EV plans. Crypto Watch is sponsored by Crypto.com.

Crypto.com is America's premier crypto platform. Well, welcome back at some breaking news today in the auto business, RAM trucks today, saying it will not be building an all-electric RAM pickup. Let's get more now with Phil Aboe. Phil. Brian, not a huge surprise given the fact that we've already seen Stalantis and by extension, U.S. Arm, sort of dialing back, actually very much dialing back their plans when it comes to electric vehicles. But today confirming that they are not going to be building a pure electric RAM-1500, what many people referred to as the RAM charger. They are going to go forward.

By the way, that was scheduled to come out in 2027. They are continuing with their development and plans to build a RAM, an extended range. Let's get this right. Ram extended range electric vehicle. Essentially, you know what this is. This is another version of a hybrid vehicle, but where you have basically a gas power generator on board, which is powering the electric motors. And the range is going to be enormous if this is ever built and it meets the expectations. They're saying it could go up to 690 miles. By the way, Brian, they have had success with extended range vehicles and you're starting to hear more and more automakers talk about. This is where consumers are saying, okay, I don't want to go pure electric, but I like the idea of an extended range electric vehicle.

Therefore, I might have more interested in this. And by the way, they have had success at Stalantis in terms of early marketing of these types of vehicles. The reason I flagged this story, Phil, is because I was one of those people that put a deposit down two and a half years ago on there was only a hundred bucks. For a pure electric. Yes, I know that surprises a lot of people, but I put the deposit down. I got the email today saying we're not going to do. this, but to your point, it was kind of, the language was kind of like, well, we're not going to build the all-electric, but it's going to be electric-ish. So there still will be some kind of hybrid, for lack of a better term, hybrid technology in a new platform going forward, but there will be no F-150 lightning version of the RAM. Correct. Not a pure electric version. And I think this was a decision that they made when they looked at what's happening with the EV-Tex credits going away,

the demand for electric vehicles is going to slow down. And let's be clear here, Brian, while you have the lightning that is out there and you have the electric Chevy Sovarado that is out there, electric pickup trucks, a lot of people look at them and say, that's not where you need to be developing electric vehicles. You wanted to develop electric vehicles, it's all on the lower end of the market. That's where you should be developing small crossover utility vehicles. That's where many believe. If you're going to see EVs continue to be a significant part of the market, that's where the growth is going to be. It's small. I think it's small and light. Is that fair to say, Phil? I was just in Italy. I flew back yesterday. Boy, my arms are tired. There was a Fiat car,

speaking of Stalantis, that I took a picture of, I think it was a single-seater. I think it was literally one seat. The car was about the size of a golf cart. And I saw them everywhere. I think you know the car that I'm talking about. Is the future of EVs? Maybe Rivian would disagree, and I think they're on Monday. Is it small and light is kind of where we're going or no? Definitely smaller. Lower price is really where the industry is going. The battery costs still need to come down substantially for the automakers to make a profit when it comes to electric vehicles, beyond Tesla. And if they're going to do that, they've got to get to the part of the market where you have higher volume. That higher volume is in something under $40,000. Preferably, if you could get it down

around $30,000 or $35,000. You go up in that upper end. Will there still be EVs that are priced and sold above $55,000? Yes. Is that going to be the part of the market that grows in the future? I don't think so. I think it's, I think the public is very clear. They'd be interested in an electric vehicle, but you've got to bring that price down, especially when the $7,500 federal tax credit goes away at the end of this month. That's when we'll see the real demand that is out there. I would imagine that this is a positive development for a Rivian, maybe for a Ford, maybe for the all-electric Sovarado. If you take a competitor, future competitor, out of the market and people really want an electric pickup, whether they do or not, if they do,

you just took out a major player from the market. But you didn't really, Brian, because you could tell people you can't get in a pure electric ram, but you can get an extended range one, and it's 690 miles is the range that we're promising. How many people who would sit there and say, oh, it's got to be pure electric? Or would they likely say, okay, I'm good with that. I'll buy the extended range one. So I'm not sure what you're saying is true. I don't think that there are many people who are so caught up on buying pure electric

that they would say, oh, no, it has to be that. Can't do the extended range. But don't you have Rivian on Monday? Not on Monday. Not on Monday. Next week. Sometime next week. So you can ask the founder, RJ Scouringe, about this.

This is like the thing we could do. I plan on doing that. No doubt. Phil LeBoe will not be driving, nor will I, an all-electric RAM pickup truck. Phil, thank you very much. You bet. All right. Your 401K benefiting from the record rally in stock.

So why is America still? lagging in retirement security. Sharon Epperson, help with that. All right, stocks keep going up. No doubt many of you are feeling better about your retirement. And why not? But how safe and secure is your retirement plan? Well, apparently, it may be less safe than some other countries. Sharon Epperson, joining us now with more. I don't even, I don't even think about retirement security. I just think about the returns. Exactly. And people are thinking about their retirement security in a vast different way. They're looking at their health care. They're looking at finances. They're looking at the quality of life and their overall well-being.

And when it comes to all of those factors, a new survey from just revealed that Norway is actually the number one country in terms of retirement security, followed by Ireland, Switzerland, Iceland, and where does the U.S. come in? Twenty first. Wait, wait, wait. What is the great? We look fifth on the map, but we're 21st. 21st, 70 average, C grade, not even a C plus grade, a C grade. Like, who's ahead of us? These are all the countries ahead of us.

Smaller countries are ahead of us because, as the analysts there say, it's easier for them to kind of put together programs that make people feel more secure. They're not as concerned about losing retirement benefits or government benefits. They're not as concerned about income inequality in some of these smaller countries. So there's, but there were, we showed one, two, two, three, four, and then the USA. By the way, by the way, there's a gap, just not a big enough gap. Please, soccer people out there, excuse me, football, correct me if I'm wrong.

I think the U.S. is also ranked 21st of the FIFA World Cup soccer rankings. Is that right, Kareem? I think so. Either way, what is it going to take to move our ranking up from a pretty dismal 21? Well, people are afraid. People are afraid they're going to run out of money. They're concerned about Social Security benefits, government benefits running out. They're also really concerned about inflation, 67% saying that they think that inflation will erode the future value of their savings.

And 21%, 1 in 5 people say, it's going to take a miracle. They need a plan. That's the problem. What would the plan look like? Well, the plan should look like people saving more money, cutting expenses, figuring out what the long-term plan is going to be of how they're going to be able to retire by knowing a little bit more about what those retirement costs could be. So there are calculators online, there's software you can use to kind of do a calculation of what your retirement cost may look like. That can help you develop a plan and then talking to a professional or using a professional service online or something to help you do that. Can I just, I'm going to ask for a friend. When I do some of these retirement calculators, it's like you want to have 80% of your income or something in retirement.

There's no way that's accurate. It's a goal because, well, think about it. That's what retirement is. you don't have income. Think about this. People who think, you know, they're making a middle income, a million dollars in retirement, that's going to be my goal. And then they do the 4% rule.

So how much income are they able to live on the first year? $40,000. Are they spending more than that in their regular life? Will they spend more than that retirement? A million dollars is not going to be enough. So you don't necessarily get to the number that's that percent, that high percentage that scares you. But at least it gives you some goal to work toward. But here's the thing.

Tell me if this is a real thing. Okay. I do a lot with energy. We talk a lot about climate change. But if you say to people, climate change is going to kill us all, they just tune out. They stop doing anything. Why should I do anything if I'm doomed anyway? I'm never going to be able to.

I'm doomed anyway. So you've got to make these incremental improvements. Right. If I hear that my retirement number is a number that's so far off of what I have, is it possible we're going to scare people out of doing the proven thing for retirement? I think some people. I think some people are getting scared off of doing that, but other people are thinking, I'm not going to have that much by 67.

So let me take a mini retirement now. I'm between jobs. I'm going to use the nest egg that I have and use that and do things that I want to do now, not wait till 67, 70, because that's not a given that I'm even going to be able to be employed that long because of job insecurity as well. Or maybe you people are doing that. You could move to Italy. People are looking at other countries.

I'm not Portugal, maybe. People are looking at other countries where they can do that. Absolutely. Food's good. Good wine. People are nice. Yeah. Retire comfortably.

Where would you go? I don't know. I might go to Jamaica. I love Jamaica. I don't know what the tax rate is there. I don't either. It's warm. I just like the beach.

That's it. Sharon Epperson, real world, important advice. For more retirement saving and investing strategies, of course. You're going to check out Sharon's free Money 101 newsletter series. Scan the QR code on the bottom of your screen. go to CNBC.com slash money 101. Our mystery stock down more than 10% today, but up a whopping 650% in six months,

and its new chair making some pretty controversial comments on CNBC today. You've got to hear these words. They're coming up. All right, before we go, I want to highlight one of the most read stories on CNBC.com, something you've got to check out. And this one has to do with Trader Favorite Open Door. Stocks down a little bit today,

but soaring over this past year. And Chairman Keith Rabeau came on CNBC earlier today and made some pretty eye-opening comments about jobs at his company. There's 1,400 employees at Open Door. I don't know what most of them do. We don't need more than 200 of them. It's got easier because of the advent of AI

and other technologies. This will be a simple problem. He basically just said that the company is 80 to 85% overstaffed. In the same interview, we kind of slammed remote. work. You can read more, watch the entire interview at cnbc.com. If you're an open door employee today, I know it's probably not the words that you want to hear. Pretty shocking comments goes a lot to the AI story as well. Folks, I'm going to leave it there. Thanks for watching,

Power Lunch. We'll see you Monday. Closing bell starts right now.