Power Lunch - Major averages rally across the board 5/6/26

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

Memory and chip stocks rally. Lightshed Partners' Rich Greenfield breaks down Disney's first earnings report with Josh D'Amaro as CEO.   And how is the consumer holding up? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Your money and the markets are rallying as oil falls and gasoline prices should come down soon. Welcome to Power Lunch, everybody. I am Brian Kelly is out today. It is a huge day for stocks, the semi-soaring on AMD's blowout quarter, Nvidia, Qualcomm, higher, and Intel hitting yet another big high. The table is set for more big names tonight. Plus, oil prices down and gas prices may soon follow all on optimism for a real peace deal with Iran. The market's hopeful. The de-escalation continues, but as you well know, hope is not a strategy. All right, hi, everybody. We hope you are having a great day. Wherever in the world you may be,

we are live in our CNBC, Los Angeles Bureau today and tomorrow. But whatever your zip code, the markets are higher. Surging to new records, strong earnings, and that geopolitical news, bring the buyers in as small caps, midcaps, super caps, all. new record high. So what should you focus on now to be smarter and a better investor ahead? Let's talk about it all with your all-star panel to kick off power lunch. Steve Sosnik is chief strategist to interactive brokers. David Zervos, Jeffrey's market strategist and CBC contributor. And Jay Wood's chief market strategist of Freedom Capital Markets also a CNBC contributor. Welcome to all of you. Great day to have you on. Steve, is today's move really just because AMD posted a better

outlook and earnings? Good afternoon, Brian. No, it's not strictly A&D. AMD is certainly a big contributor, being, you know, being of 16% or so. But that's, that's continuation of the semi-rally. But I think the fact that you see oil prices taking much lower and bond yields taking much lower is their belief that there's some progress to be made in the Persian Gulf. You know, we've seen this play out before where we move higher on anticipations. patient of some sort of peace process occurring and that it doesn't necessarily pan out.

But the market does it. The market rewards the efforts toward peace and doesn't penalize them when they don't occur. But it's impossible to ignore that move in crude and the movement in Bond Giles today. Yeah. I mean, it just seems completely inversely correlated, although David Zervos, I guess I would have said that except the last couple of weeks. Stocks and oil have gone kind of up or at least sideways together to what do you, ascribe today's strength. This is a market that, I just in my humble opinion, appears to want to go higher, and it's going to take something really darn strong for this thing to not keep going up. I think that's absolutely right, Brian. And I think it's even more important to look at it,

not just over the two weeks, but the last two months. We've seen oil prices jump over 50%. We've seen two rate cuts that were priced in before this war began. priced out of the market. So I think even a little more than two back on February 27th before this all began. So this market has withstood a significant change in Fed policy expectations and a significant change in energy prices, spot levels up 50 to 75 percent, depending on when you looked at it over the last couple months. These are huge, huge shocks to the system.

And what did the market do? It basically went up. And it's up now almost 8 percent in total return from the time this. the Iran situation started. It's a truly incredible move, and it tells you that the underlying guts of this economy, this growth story, this productivity story is just phenomenal. I would argue that if the war had never happened, if nothing ever happened around, oil was back at 60, 65 bucks, we were going to get a rate cut from the Fed in June and maybe another one in September, December, that we would be up another 10% from here. So I think this market is telling you, we have a lot to

go, especially if you believe, as I believe, that this geopolitical story is coming to an end sooner rather than later. Yeah, that'd be S&P 8,000 already. By the way, in early May, Jay Woods, listen, we did have a war. We did have an oil price shock. The war is not over. We hope that it's ending, but we don't know. I mean, tomorrow could be something totally different every day. There are new headlines, but I think what is not new is kind of what I alluded to David, which is that this is a market that wants to go higher. Biers want to buy. Biers want to buy this market. You can hate it. You can disagree with it. You can argue about it. But the reality is you can't argue with the charts or the money flows. What are you seeing? Yeah, I mean, just to strike home,

David's point, the market didn't even correct 9% with all that turmoil going on. And now here we are after sentiment had flushed out to all-time record lows. Now we have this FOMO rally on top of an earning season that, for lack of a better word, just crushed it across the board. And now we're, you know, having this party with the earnings before we start to focus. next week on some economic data, CPI, PPI. We'll see this inflation spike up is just going to be transitory. That will take a little time to play out. But right now, what's leading is technology and then real estate, which kind of is a little befuddling. And then you have small caps making all-time new highs, up 14% leading the indexes when we're not cutting rates. We're not raising

them, but we're not cutting them. So the market's a little puzzling, but where I'm looking at, there's some of these stocks that have gone a little too far out over their skis, hockey stick-like rallies that should start the pause and then where will they rotate to. The industrial setup looks phenomenal to me. Parts of the health care sector, healthcare providers. You look at CVS today, reported earnings up over 5%. Humana, UNH. There are pockets where if these other stocks that have let us pull back, I think we rotate into those and the pullbacks in this market won't be too much. I want to follow up in what you said because I was thinking when you said FOMO, I was thinking maybe we go no-mo on the no-go on the fo-mo because I fear missing out. Who's missing out? I mean,

who's left to buy, Jay? That's kind of my point. Where are these buyers coming from? Stocks go up when there's more buying pressure or more buyers than selling pressure or sellers. Who has missed out? One, it was those bearish people on the sidelines waiting for that bigger dip that never happened. When we broke that 200-day moving average, when things started turning south, I was one of those people, okay, I'm ready to buy this dip. a little, didn't buy as much as I wanted to. So you have people chasing performance. And then the retail investor, we are seeing pockets of very risk on moves. All right, watch photonic stocks and the

DRAM stocks. They've been on a tear. Now what's catching a bid, which was hot last year. We're getting nuclear coming back to life. Quantum coming back to life. So we're seeing those riskier assets get nice pockets. And then you see moves like in Avis where the retail investor, they're looking for opportunity. So I think this is a combination of a retail appetite. You may want to throw in the excuse that we got nice tax refunds and people putting money to work. But there was a lot of money waiting for a bigger dip that never happened that now has to chase performance. Yeah, but David Zervis, I would imagine that if you and all your friends there, Jeffries got together and had a wonderful dinner and you got in a room together and you said, hey, if this happens and this happens,

market's going to be at 7 to 300. They would have chased you off or said, I'll have what you're having in terms of a drink because I don't know if anybody could have predicted we'd have a hundred dollar a barrel oil or 95 whatever it's out today it might be back to 100 tomorrow and still be where we are. Brian, well, we missed you at dinner in L.A. like you usually come to for our milken events. So hopefully we'll see you next year at that one like we usually do. But we did have a room full of Jeffrey's clients on Monday night. And they were, I think, you know, discussing exactly. this, the resilience of this market and the resilience of this economy, which has been a story for a while now. For many years, the economy has performed incredibly well, even without producing

a lot of jobs. So I think there's a lot of underlying stories that are extremely positive for owners of capital for the S&P, for stocks in general. And I think to answer your first question, which is, you know, who's left to buy? We have so many people. You wouldn't even imagine, Brian, how many rooms I go into and speak to clients, particularly outside of the U.S. in Europe and in Asia, that are just, they're not invested. They don't want to be invested. They're emotionally detached from the U.S. They've let their political beliefs get in the way of their fiduciary responsibilities,

and they are the ones that are ultimately going to have to buy in once it keeps going higher if they want to keep their jobs. Okay, very quickly, very quickly before we go to get Tessa Brewer, we should break in news on Fandle. I got to ask you, David, what are the risks then? List out, I'm sure you talked about it Monday night and the dinner I will be at next year. What are the risks right now? I think the big risks surround the midterms, Brian. I think we've got to watch what's happening in the Supreme Court with the redistricting. We've got to watch what's happening with the fights between Ken Griffin and Mamdami. These are the big pictures. Capital is going to be shaken if they start to see the threats

to taxation or confiscation or regulation coming in. in and making it difficult to put a return on that capital. This election is going to be a big deal in November, and the market is going to watch mostly. Well, I'm going to come back and talk about that in just a second, but we got some breaking news right now with Contessa Brewer on Fandall. Contessa, what's going on? Brian, CNBC can report exclusively that Fandul's CEO, Amy Howe, has been ousted from her post after five years at the company.

My sources tell me that Fandul's president, Christian Janetsky, Fandul's president, is going to take over leadership. sounds like there will not be a change in title, but rather just taking of the reins. House Oster is rather surprising, given that her leadership over Fandul's expansion has been so remarkable. You've got sports betting and eye gaming and prediction markets across multiple states. But, of course, competition from prediction markets have spooked investors. Shares of Fandul's parent company Flutter are down 58% over last year. And now, of course, there are worries about consumer spending,

amid higher gas prices and inflation worries. Shares of draft kings, by the way, down roughly 26% over the same time period. Well, in February, Flutter issued 2026 guidance that missed Wall Street expectations, and at the time, Flutter CEO Peter Jackson, told me that the company should have spent more on marketing and promotions. Also, he blamed a lack of compelling storylines around NFL players that drive gambler engagement. But of course, How's the only female CEO of a major gambling company in the United States. She's one of the very few women leaders at all in this space. She told me at Changemakers, she was just named to 2026 CNBC Changemakers List, and told me at that event that she cares deeply about Fandual. She cares deeply about the

sector in general. And so here's a woman who has deep experience, guiding companies in transition, especially those under public scrutiny. The company is going to report earnings in the next couple hours, presumably will grapple with the context and the color around Howe's departure. But as of now, that's the news. Amy Howe is out as the Fandul CEO, the nation's leading sports book. Brian? To be clear, so Flutter has a CEO. Peter Jackson. That's right. So he's there still, even though that stock is down 58%. That's right. You just nailed it. Contested Brewer. That's what I do. Thank you very much. All right. It is now. not just about stocks today.

Of course, always watching the bond markets as well. Treasury yields on this market move. They're pulling back a bit. The tenure down just a little bit, but let's be clear, still above 4%. Let's bring in Rick Santelli. All right, so Rick, obviously got the stock moves. What's it going to take to meaningfully move the bond market in either direction? What is Rick Santelli most closely watching?

Well, I think that what we're most closely watching is history. The day before the conflict began, we had the lowest yield closing a tenure at 394 going back to the fall of 24. And that was a very interesting time, Brian, because on the 18th of September, 2024, that's when the Fed first started cutting rates. They cut at 50 basis points. And the yields were in the 360s, okay? And when we had that 227 close at 394, that's what we were comping to. Then the war began, and you see the next chart, the year-to-day chart of our yields, booned yields, guilt yields in the UK. They're rather elevated, especially in the UK.

That last panel you had nailed it. We're all on the same page because there's only one question to ask. Why is the equity market so optimistic? And the answer is because of underlying strength. Well, you could apply the same logic to the treasury complex. If you look at where it was before all this began, it was in many ways going to be its first major foray under 4%. We couldn't do it in 2025. So I think in the context of how the markets are reacting today, it's ignoring debt, it's ignoring debt and deficits, it's ignoring maybe

the cost of the war, potentially the cost of energy in the future for the same type of reasons that the equities are ignoring all of the above. So I think as well, I think as well, much as I never suspected that the Treasury complex could spend a lot of time under 4%. Now we're going to actually be able to test that theory. And I think ultimately, there was so many emails I received this week about how we're going to test 5%. It's almost as if the contrarian trade of all time may be about to reset in the Treasury complex. Well said. As always, Rick Santelli, Rick, thank you very much. I've got to go back to our panel, David Zervos and Jay Woods. David, I want to go back to the point you just made before we had that breaking news about the midterms.

All right. So let's assume, let's hope, to be optimistic about Iran. Midterms in November, it's early May. Markets historically swing pretty wildly about 15 to 17 percent move, top to bottom in midterm election years. Do you expect that kind of move maybe later on this spring, early this summer, at some point, ahead of those midterm? terms? I think you have to, you have to be prepared for it, Brian. You have to be prepared for all of that history around knit terms, which is, as you point out, quite volatile and can get quite negative if that volatility really spikes. So I think you have to be prepared for it. But

again, I think you want to watch, you want to talk to your political consultants. We in Wall Street are not great politics. We're not great of Washington, D.C. And I think you need to spend some time really understanding what the changes in the Supreme Court decision mean for redistricting, what the probabilities really are at the House and Senate level, and then kind of have a game plan for what you think is going to happen policy-wise if the House turns, if the Senate turns, and where we might be. And if not, and also the other side, which is if the House stayed Republican and the Senate State Republic, what that might mean. It might be a little bit of a frozen time going into November, but it could be, if we get a big enough rally, a time where you can

take some chips off the table, enjoy a little piece and quiet into the pre- Thanksgiving period, and then come back to it. So I'll be watching that very carefully. But I have to say, I was super surprised and pleasantly surprised with Rick Santelli. Boy, was he positive on the bond market from a positioning standpoint? I don't usually hear that from Rick, and I'm really excited about In what way? What made you the most excited? We want to be at a good mood. Markets up. I'm in L.A. I think you're in L.A., David. Like, why do you want to be excited? What did he say? Well, he just talked about the sort of people, everybody talking about 5% it's coming, it's coming, and how everybody positions for it and the negativity that sort of comes into the inflation story. And here we are, you know, pushing back toward 4-3 after everybody got up to, you know, talking about 4-5 and breaking up higher in 10 years. So I just, you know, usually, you know, to get a bond bullish story or not a bond bearish story these days is a nice thing. It's nice to see it from Rick. And I'm certainly in that camp. And I certainly think rates can. drift ultimately lower once we have this impatience side. But I'm not in L.A. I'm

ando. So you're always moving around. Jay Woods very, very quickly, if we get a 4% 10-year yield at some point, what does that mean for stocks? Wow, that's a great thing for stocks. I think that's the tail one we need. Will we get it? I don't know. I do agree that everyone in consensus saying 5% was another reason to be positive that it wasn't going to happen. We've seen it with sentiment. We've seen it there. So with the magazine covers where the war started. The one thing I'll push back on is how you led the show. Hope is not necessarily planned. So let's hope that this spike in oil is now behind us.

We come to some resolution and then we can, you know, continue to trend up. Maybe not at this pace. But I think the pullbacks are set up now to be bought, given the rally we've just had from the lows. Well, what did they say in the Shawshank Redemption? Hope is the best thing, maybe the greatest of things or something like that. We've got it today. David Zervos, Jay Woods. Steve Sazick, we lost early if you're out there.

We appreciate you joining us up at top. All right, folks, we are just getting started. And up next, semiconductor stocks, they just keep on surging. So will the big earnings tonight keep that rally going? Look at those stock moves. We talk about the whole thing. Next. All right, welcome back.

The big single stock story today, AMD. An AMD getting an A-plus after earnings. And tonight, another big name post, that is Arm Holdings. investors. Going to be watching the company's pushing to making its own data center GPU chips. Let's talk about that and other stocks in this hot space with Patrick Moorhead, his CEO and chief analyst at more insights and strategy. Patrick, great to have you back on the program. I mean, what a move by AMD. Is the market reacting properly, are they overreacting? The numbers were good. I didn't think they were great. What's your take? Yeah, so thanks for having me on.

I think the market is appropriately reacting for a simple reason. I mean, I mean, they just doubled their TAM for one of their biggest offerings, and that's CPU. And they pretty much had a clean sweep of earnings. So not only is the, they're doing well today, but they're also increasing the TAM. And also, they have some great stuff to say about MI450, which is their latest GPU coming up. Listen, that's great. Tam total addressable market. That's nice.

The total adjustable market, to your point, do. double. Doesn't mean they will win that market. Doesn't mean they will grow at all. Just the market that they could grow to gets bigger. Do you think Lisa Sue and her team at AMD can execute and grab a bunch of that addressable market? Yeah, so there's one thing that we've learned about Lisa Sue. Very rarely has she said anything that didn't become true. I know some investors might be frustrated at the aggressiveness of the guide, but when she says something, it happens. One thing I was really enthused about is the increase in revenue for CPUs this quarter in the data center weren't from increasing prices. They were from increasing units. So I do think that they took

unit share today. I do, when I look at their roadmap, think they have some very compelling offerings, but there's a lot of competition out there from Nvidia, from Intel, and upcoming from Arm. Let's focus on Arm because those numbers are out tonight. And Armholds. does not get the love or the investor attention or, frankly, the media attention is the others, but as I understand it, and I'm not an expert. So I'm going to say something that may be wrong, Patrick, a lot of these companies that sell these chips, whether it's Nvidia, whether it's some of the other chips that are out there, many of those chips or companies are paying a royalty to arm. Is that accurate? And if so, how much is Arm getting from companies that don't even make chips with

arm in the name. Yeah, so great observation. So in the data center, right, they are licensing a technology to hyperscalers who essentially design their own chips that get built at TSMC. And, you know, there might be a few hundred dollars in there. But what you're looking at with the new AGI series is thousands of dollars per chip. So they're capturing that design margin as well. And that's why, right, while their margins might be going from 95% to blended 50, 50s,

they're looking at increasing the revenue from $15, excuse me, from $15 billion, sorry, $215 billion in revenue in 2031. Wow. So they're basically an IP, an intellectual property company as well. That's, to your point, licensed that out. So it's not just what they make. It's they're getting, you know, the rights or the VIG, you might say, if we're using the gambling term, on a lot of these other things that are being sold.

That's right. It's a big market, right? I don't believe that royalty or licensing business is going to come to a screeching halt. I am looking forward to see what they post with those customers, right, from Microsoft, from AWS and from and from Google. But, you know, when you're putting a forecast out there to go from $4 billion in revenue to $15 and then, sorry, to $25 with, you know, an EPS of $9, that gets, that gets customers attention. Yeah.

The EPS is rich. And I think you're going to have people look on both sides to the table of those who are believers see it and those who don't, don't. Well, I tell you what, investors, they're not waiting around. you're out tonight. The stock's up 13 and a half percent right now. But Patrick, I want to pivot to invidia, kind of an amazing stat found by my team. I had nothing to do with this. Thank you to them. The Nvidia, which, you know, one of the hottest stocks, the world the last few years, has actually lagged by a lot. It's the third worst performing stock in the Philadelphia Semiconductor index this year. And as we're showing right now, underperforming another big chip ETF,

off the SMH by 40 percentage points this year. If this holds up, it would mark NVIDIA's largest annual underperformance on record. Your take on NVIDIA right now, good or bad investment. Well, so first and foremost, if you dial it back a year, they were absolutely the star. Net net, I do think they're a good investment. I just think that the institutional investors don't necessarily how to look at it's so big. It's almost too big to move, right? If it trades, you know, like you would expect versus other stocks, it would be have a market cap of $9 trillion, right? And that's the combined GDP of

Germany and India, right? The other thing is that for 2026 is likely already priced in, right? So any outperformance is going to be looking at at 2027. I think the final, you know, risk that people are looking at is every deal that Google does with its TPU or AWS does with its traneum, people do do a double take. But the thing about it is, though, compute demand is insatiable, right? And the hyperscalers are going to buy any silicon they think that delivers them an edge. So unlike life, there are going to be multiple winners in this. And I do believe that Nvidia at the end of the day, has room, not just because of the current business it's in. but also the future of industrial IOT and robotics.

Yeah, and to your very good point, they made a lot of investors, a lot of money for years. So not picking on them, just pointing out, it's been a slower start than normal to the year for Nvidia. Patrick Moorhead of more insights and strategy. Patrick, thank you. Thank you. All right, coming up, we're going to pivot a bit.

Some energy stocks. Your next guess says you need to invest in right now. Welcome back to Power Lunch. I'm Dominic here with your market navigator. Despite all our recent focus on the energy names, our next guest says some traders are underinvested and have been for a while. He's got some specific ideas of how you can change that. So joining us now for this conversation is Rob Thummel, senior portfolio or manager over at Tortus Capital. Rob, you specialize in picking and choosing which stocks to buy specifically in oil and gas. So are investors institutionally underinvested to energy stocks? That's what we've heard, Dom, and as you know, energy's been the best performing sector in the S&P 500. So a lot of people are calling us because they want to know which energy stocks to buy because they're underinvested, as you highlight. And so, yeah, I think there's a huge opportunity in energy across not only just oil, but natural gas as well. And what types of stocks are you looking at? It's very easy just to say ExxonMobil or Chevron or ConocoPhillips, but are there specific areas that you like better than others?

Yeah, and the energy sector, Dom, what we like it toward us are the natural gas infrastructure and natural gas stocks, right? If you think about what does the U.S. have from a competitive advantage? We have a lot of natural gas. What does that allow us to do? Two things. Number one, if we're going to win the global AI race, we're going to need low-cost energy. That's what natural gas provides.

Two, if you look at energy security, look how important energy security has become to the world, right? And the U.S. is energy secure when it comes to natural gas. There's so much natural gas in the U.S. that we export as significant. amount of natural gas to other countries in the world. And so we're going to export more to Europe and to Asia throughout the next six to 12 months. And so that's going to benefit a lot of natural gas producers like some of the largest producers, like an EQT, and an expand energy. All right. So those are some of the names to keep a close eye on. Rob Dumbull, Tortoise Capital. We appreciate it. We'll see you soon, sir. Thanks, Tom. All right. Brian, I'm going to send things back over to you, and I hope it's

sunny Los Angeles. It's always sunny in Los Angeles. Tom, you know that. You're a California kid as well. All right, up next. We are here live in Los Angeles and with Hollywood just over the hill. How is Disney doing with its new CEO? We're going to find out next. All right, we're here in Los Angeles. So how do we not talk about media and look at shares of Disney. They are soaring this afternoon up 7.5% Disney beating second quarter estimates on both the top and the bottom line. And it's also relevant because this is the first earnings report since Josh DeMorrow took over CEO back in March. Let's talk about it all with Rich Greenfield co-founder and media analyst and lightshed partners. Obviously, rich, investors like the news, maybe like the guidance. What did you like and maybe what did you not like in the Disney numbers? Well, look, I think, Brian, from a really high level, obviously, investors were very worried about theme parks. There's no doubt that given the extended uncertainty in the Middle East, what's happened to oil prices. So hearing Josh tomorrow in his first sort of presentation

to Wall Street show real confidence that, you know, while there is certainly uncertainty and it could change, they're seeing an improvement, actually, from the quarter they just reported into the summer quarter in terms of attendance trend. So it sounds like they expect to be flat to up for attendance. And so the fear is that, you know, people who drive to Disney and that Gas prices would really cause like a week summer. You know, people have seen some increased discounting. So I just think like overall, the conviction and competence on theme parks, which is the key reason investors own Disney is for their experiences segment.

I think that's why the stock is up. Plus, obviously, the overall news that you've seen of the day in terms of, are we moving closer towards sort of, you know, hopefully a final settlement with Iran. So I think all of that is helping Disney stock. But I'd say the other thing was. Josh got on and really came across presidential. Like I just think the way he sort of got on his overall, you know, the tone, how he sounded, how he answered questions.

I think he really inspired confidence in investors in what has been a very difficult stock that's been, you know, sort of sideways for a decade. Yeah, it has been. And of course, Bob Diller left. We're going to talk about Barry Diller in a minute. I combine the two. Bob Eiger left that he came back, that he left that he left, that he came. back. So maybe this is the guy. But, you know, I'm going to push back. I'm here in Los Angeles.

All right. Gas is six bucks, $6.57 bucks a gallon by the interstate, depending on where you are. I know there's been like this whole narrative about how that's going to crush families going to Disney. Number one, if you promise your kids, you're going to Disney. You're going to pay the gas price, no matter what it is. And respectfully to Disney, and I got to be careful because they're right over my shoulder here, basically, rich. The inflation at the parks is a lot higher than the recent inflation in gasoline. and people have still paid it. Now look, there is no doubt that travel from overseas, international attendance to the Disney theme parks has certainly softened.

They have backfilled that with greater attendance and more aggressive marketing campaigns to U.S. visitors. And there was a real fear that, you know, with gas prices at that level, Brian, that you would see people really starting to scale back. And Disney's not denying it could happen. And certainly I think they made a comment like, sure, if gas goes to $8 or $9, anything that's possible. But they were sort of implying that, you know, if you look at sort of what they're seeing right now,

you sort of would have expected to see it already. Like if this rise in gas prices was going to really have an impact on those people that drive, that you would have seen the impact. And so they are definitely showing a level of confidence that I think surprised investors and got rid of some of the big fears. heading into earnings. Now, you know, the other thing, on the flip side, you asked me what didn't I like to hear or what investors didn't like hearing, look, I think every investor in the stock, again,

they own it for theme parks. They don't own it for ESPN and ABC. And so I think management coming out swinging saying ESPN is core or that linear TV is core and that they are going to sort of milk the legacy linear TV businesses and continue to sort of own ESPN and invest in sports was not something investors liked. I think this stock gaps up meaningfully if they were willing to separate out ESPN and ABC. Do you think they are?

Okay, let's hit. I was going to ask you, why not split it off? I'm in TV. I get it. But let's be honest, the parks business is the bigger business for Disney, hard stop. I mean, look, we've been harping on this because we don't really believe in the synergy. And I think investors don't believe there's meaningful synergy. Now, if you, Disney's point was, well, hey, look at, you know, look at Paramount Plus doing

UFC and investing more in sports rights. Look at Amazon doing sports rights. Look at Netflix, even dabbling in sports rights. Like, we have ESPN. Of course, this is going to be helpful to bundling with Disney Plus and Hulu. and so that there is, quote, unquote, meaningful synergy to keep the asset. I think investors, you know, continue to sort of look at these as being so different in terms of their long-term strategic futures that I think at the end of the day, that's frustrating.

But, you know, look, it's still very early. You know, whether Josh Till has that view in a year or 18 months, we'll see. I think they're ultimately going to realize that the future of linear TV is different enough. from the rest of the company and that the flywheel of Disney actually spins even faster without it. But look, that is not where their head is at right now. And it's really the only thing that I think you would really point to and say, you know, that's something investors didn't like. But again, what's driving it right now is confidence in theme parks,

confidence in the economy and sort of what it matters to the consumer, because that's why you buy or sell Disney. Yeah. And right now, there are buyers. but to your point, broader, it's been a rough 10 or so years. We'll see if that strategy really does change. Rich Greenfield, Lightshed Partners, co-founder, media analyst, Rich, always a pleasure. Thank you very much.

Well, let's get down to McKenzie Sagalos for a CNBC news update. Back. Hey, Brian. Argentinian officials investigating the deadly hanta virus outbreak on a cruise ship, telling the Associated Press that their government's leading hypothesis is that a Dutch couple contracted the virus while birdwatching in Argentina. They reportedly went to a landfill during the tour and may have been exposed to rodents. The World Health Organization says three passengers have died from the virus and three others were medically evacuated today.

As airlines increased fares and pair back some routes amid rising costs from the war in Iran, the Transportation Department reported today that U.S. Airlines spent more than $5 billion on jet fuel in the month of March. That is a 56% increase over February, totaling an additional $1.8 billion. And a winter storm warning is in effect across parts of Colorado today as the state is hit with a big spring storm. Several inches of snow have fallen, which has forced school closures and flight delays in the Denver area. Some towns at higher elevations have reported as much as 17 inches of snow. Brian, back to you in sunny L.A. Couldn't get snow during the ski season.

Now it's like May whatever 6th, and it's snowing in Colorado. Mackenzie Sagalus, thank you very much. All right, coming up, speaking of gas. prices. Is the consumer cracking? It's the big question. We've got the answer with some new Zeta data with the CEO, Zeta Global. Next. Miles from us here in Los Angeles, since a giant supertaker, that one right there, that may have a rather odd footnote in history. According to an LA Times report, that ship right there called the new Corolla, is reportedly the last major oil tanker to leave

through the Strait of Hormuz coming to California before the war began. two months to get here. And there aren't many ships like that behind it on the same journey. That is a big deal because as I write in this week's Power Insider Energy Report, sign up today, California is short oil, so it needs to import millions of barrels. And because of those high imports, along with the highest gas taxes in the country and gas refinery shutdowns the last couple of years, Californians are paying the highest gas prices in America. But higher gas prices are not just, just here in L.A. gas prices are up across the country. So is the American consumer holding in or hanging it up? Joining us now is David Steinberg. He is the CEO of Zeta Global. They have

exclusive data across millions or I think billions of data points around the consumer. David, you're nodding at the billions. You've got all this real-time data at your fingertips. How are you seeing the American consumer right now? Well, thank you, Brian. And I love your new newsletter, by the way. But the truth, you're welcome. The truth is gas is up 50%. I mean, it's a story is gas, gas, gas. And $4.50, approximately, we're starting to see the consumer meaningfully adjust spend. We had the first drop in the Zade Economic Index month over month that I can remember in a very, very long time. And what we're starting to see is consumers are softening pretty heavily on discretionary spending and stuff like travel, entertainment,

dining out, all of which require energy to get there or to travel. And we're starting to see them sort of spend the disproportionate percentage of that, what was discretionary spending on gasoline. Now, the good news is they're not cutting yet, but they are meaningfully pivoting they're spent. Wow. First drop month over month in a long time, David. I mean, that's a pretty big headline. Yeah, over a year. So it's, now, based on the way our customers are spending, we're not seeing a slowdown. In fact, we're seeing an acceleration. So I think our hope is this is a temporary decision, Brian, by the consumer, while gas prices are so high, and of course, the hope is the war will end soon, and gas prices will begin to come back down. So the fact that they're not

cutting is actually a good sign. At this point, they're just pivoting spend, but these are pretty big drops in travel. And David, it's early. I don't know if you, when you patched in, if you heard what Rich Greenfield was saying about Disney, which is their CEO kind of hedged a little bit. They had good numbers, but they were like, well, if this goes on for a while or if gas prices go up even higher, things are going to be different. I mean, to your point, we're early in the game here. If gas prices stay up, I think some of your data might look very different the next couple of months. For sure. I would tell you, Brian, that it is super interesting that credit applications were down 18% month over month. That is a metric we're going to have to keep our eyes on as it relates to

the consumer, because to me, that shows that the consumers are getting a little more close. cautious, and that could be the beginning. If we don't get this settled and get gas prices down, it could be the beginning of consumer spending less, not just pivoting spend, but I want to be clear, we are not seeing that yet. Not yet. And here's the weird thing about gas prices. Higher gas prices actually can raise retail spending data, not because it's a good thing, but because instead of spending 60 bucks to fill up your tank, you're spending 80, so the retail sales number goes up. But that's actually a lot. a net decline from other things. So when you look at your data, David, what are some other trends?

Maybe not you're seeing, but you're starting to keep your eye on. Well, we're starting to see a little bit of concern among the consumer because of the war and as we talked about gas prices. So credit applications are down almost 18%. Travel, entertainment, and dining are down meaningfully. So, you know, if gas prices were to go up meaningfully, I think we would start to see consumers spend not just more in some places, but overall less, which would hurt discretionary even further, right? Because as you said, a disproportionate percentage of what would be their income would be going to gas because they've still got to get to work, they've still got to go get groceries, they've still got to take their kids to school. And that's not going to change. the one thing that I thought was really interesting that sort of was not overt in the numbers

was we saw a drop in grocery purchases, which to me was really sort of unusual because we don't usually think of that as discretionary. What do you make of it then? I think consumers are concerned. And by the way, it could be buying the same things, but they're probably buying store brands, right? Versus, you know, the more expensive.

of products, you know, but I'll go back to it. We're not seeing a drop in spending from our enterprise clients, which, you know, quite frankly, is sort of an offset to that. So I think enterprises today are really focused on the fact that this is a temporary situation. If it becomes not temporary to your point, meaning if gas prices were to go to eight or nine, I think that could be problematic for the economy.

It is a tale of two economies of the NASDAQ, by the way, David is up 1.76 percent, one of the biggest days of the year. It's two different things. David Steinberg, love the Zeta Data. Zeta Global. David, thank you very much. We're back with more car lunch to CNBC right after this. Look at that. Hutt 8 investors printing money today. Stock up 33.5%. The energy infrastructure company signing a $9.8 billion deal to lease its AI facility in Texas. Stock's been red hot. And maybe these results should not be a surprise to keen-eyed viewers like you. Listen to what the CEO told us a few months ago. We have a ton of demand from AI infrastructure primarily today.

Everyone in the world is looking for more power, power at scale, power faster, and we're lucky that we've built a company that has done exactly that over the years. Power, power, power, and people willing to pay big deal. Now, since that interview, a few months ago, the stock, HUD8 is basically doubled. And if you zoom out 12 months, stock's up 750%. It's not the only crypto miner to benefit from pivoting to the AI revolution, cipher mining, Terowulf, also skyrocketing, and no sign there of slowing down.

We'll talk about it tomorrow with Asher Gnude, the man you just heard from, the HUD-8 CEO. We'll see you tomorrow. Closing bell starts right now.