Power Lunch - Nasdaq, S&P 500 hit fresh records after strong Alphabet earnings 7/24/25

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq ticked higher on Thursday, after Alphabet’s latest quarterly results came in better than expected. We’ll cover all of the market angles for you today. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

More record highs as the market shrugs off, the looming tariff deadline. Welcome to Power Lunch, everybody, as Big Tech once again puts on a big show earning so far, they've been solid. The question I think, Kelly, is Google a sign of more things to come. That's the hope for sure. Plus, one of the biggest IPOs of the year began trading moments ago. Shares of accelerant soaring, accelerating, we should say, in their debut. The insurance company pricing above its range due to investor demand, the CEO, Jeff Radke, will join us shortly for an exclusive interview. But let's start with these markets, as we just heard Brian mentioned, the S&P and NASDAQ record highs again.

Some of the blue chips, though, like United Health, Honeywell, IBM, those are dragging the Dow down half a percent. Our next guest says it is time to take some profits. She likes tech, but is also getting defensive with these health care and utilities plays. Joining us now is Emily Rowland. She's the co-chief investment strategist at ManuLife John Hancock. Emily, it's good to see you. So is it time to look at, you know, again, look at the news flow on United, you know, it reminds me of Boeing a few years ago.

Is this a moment for you to get into some of these health care names and if so, why? What we're looking at right now is really finding opportunities where there's an intersection with solid technical trends. Momentum by far has been the best performing factor this year, chasing winners. We want to be there, but we want to think about combining that with quality. So looking for opportunities and stocks that have great return on equity, good free cash flow, really an ability to maintain margins at a time that they're coming under pressure. So that's leading us to overweights in areas like tech stocks, communication services, health care, and utilities. One thing we've been looking closely at is the peg ratio.

I don't want to get too technical here this afternoon. No, they're talking about this. Peg ratio is having a moment. Go ahead. It really is. And it's about kind of not just momentum, but quality momentum. So it really measures how much you're paying for future earnings growth. We want to be thinking about ways we can manage valuation risk while still participating in markets. Because a lot of things are going right.

The technical trends are there. Earnings growth is holding in. The economy is doing all right. The biggest risk to markets right now is that there is no risk. The S&P 500 is trading at 22 times forward earnings. 24 is the highest we've ever gotten to in the late 1990s, high-yield bond spreads, which were a measure of how much risk is being thought about in the market. At 280, the tightest we've ever been is 230. That's back in 2007. So we just want to be mindful of here of reaching too far for risk in a period where there is a significant sense of overvaluation across assets. You're making, Emily, you're making all great points. The problem is nobody has seemed to care. If your name's not in vivid,

or has AI attached to it, the markets have kind of ignored it? Well, there has been some broadening out. Lately. Lately. Yes. Very lately. Financials, industrials. Really, honestly, Brian, everything is up.

This is just one of those everything rallies where markets are brushing off every risk that's come its way. And we've also seen tariffs really lowering the bar for earnings as well. 5% earnings growth was a low bar. after double digits last quarter. And we've had this cacophony of events from tariff announcements to supply chain concerns to this massive roller coaster of sentiment with consumers having deeply, deeply negative sentiment to start the quarter. And now we're seeing just absolute surging sentiment.

So there's been a lot for companies to navigate. And I think analysts are saying, hey, you did a pretty good job. And you maintain profitability here. You get an A plus. Right. But basically, you know, it's always, you look, you go, okay, let's say, the market faces some turbulence. Fine. Like, for instance, we go back to December, January, we're having some similar feelings, and we ended up with this big sell-off. But look at the

performance coming out of the sell-off. You know, healthcare is still atrocious. Tech is still leading. So it just makes you wonder, well, if you rotate, you're going to rotate in what, try to then rotate back as soon as the corrections over. It just, maybe that's what professional management is, but it feels like it's really hard to do all of that timing. Yeah, there's a definitely a buy-the-dip mentality. You know, one thing that I would point to, though, as everybody's talking a lot about tech, but actually the best performing asset globally has been European financials. That has been the trade, just absolutely incredible performance there, and frankly, the earnings haven't been there. So we've seen the sentiment-driven rotation,

capital flows leaving the U.S. and actually investors allocating assets towards Europe. And just, again, negative earnings growth and 30 plus percent returns year-to-date for European financials. If I heard that, I would be like, you know what? I don't care about the performance. I'll stick with NVIDIA because at least I know it's a real company with tremendous power versus what? The European financials where the trend is negative, but people are still bidding up the price. Yeah, it's pretty remarkable. There are some lower quality banks that are up 80 plus percent year to date.

So really just huge sentiment, big rotation. I mean, there's been some positive political developments there. We're hearing about more stimulus and tax cuts, the ECB cutting, the yield curve, steepening, in Europe, which has been beneficial for financials. But again, almost it's like the perfect cocktail, summer cocktail for European markets. It just can't get much better than this in our views. So we would look to fade some of the gains in those areas of the market and redeploy into U.S. high-quality stocks. Yes, they're up, but they're not the sort of momentum kings that we're seeing overseas in Europe. Well, it's stimulus, right? First off, they got so cheap. It was like

every one of them was going to go out of business. And then you got the government of Germany realizing they've screwed up. And they're like, oh, we're going to throw $500 billion at the problem. I can understand some of the momentum in Europe. I guess the question is, Emily, how much longer does Europe's outper? Because the market's there have outperformed ours by a lot this year. Do you think they're going to keep outperforming? We think it's going to be tough.

I mean, there's been so much positive news that's already been baked into those markets. And one of the biggest things we hear still is Europe's cheap, Europe's cheap. Well, guess what? It's not cheap anymore. It's actually trading right around its long-term average over the past 20 years. Meanwhile, there's parts of the U.S. market that have cheapened up a bit, especially going down in market cap. U.S. mid-cap is one area that's still trading at the steepest discount to its large-cap

counterpart since the late 1990s. That is a home that we would think about in terms of redeploying those European assets into the United States. States. Love it. Emily, thanks very much. Good to see you today. You too. Thanks. Emily Rowland with Manu life, John Hancock. Well, let's go from European financials to big tech here because Google parent company Alphabet kicking off earnings with a bang, shares are jumping, sales and earnings both beating, maybe even more bullish. Alphabet said it's going to spend more money than originally planned this year. Investor like it, but we're

just getting started. We got meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, all on deck to show off their earnings next week. So like we talked about at the top of the show, is this alphabet sort of a one-hit, one-off wonder or a bigger sign of things to come? We don't know, but maybe Brent Phil does. His tech research analyst that Jeffrey's got a buy rating on Alphabet and just raised his price target,

230 from 210 today. He's also got buys of meta, Microsoft, and Amazon. You know, we like to lump them in together. There's acronyms and things like that, Brent, which I'm sure you're aware of. but all these companies ultimately do different things. Is there a read-through on Alphabet that might give us confidence about any of these others that you cover? Yeah, I don't think it's one hit. Wonder, like Britney Spears, I do think this is a good sign for what's going to happen at Microsoft with Azure. You look at the Google GCP number and all the incremental rays in the CAPX from 75 to 85 billion is all going to the public cloud.

That tells you that Amazon AWS has probably seen the same thing that should be bullish again for Amazon, given it's the majority of their market cap embedded in their cloud business. Secondarily for Microsoft with Azure, you're seeing it in Oracle with 100% backlog growth in the build-out in their infrastructure for AI. So we're very much in a get-ready for AI. AI applications have not rolled out to enterprises. We're still less than call it 5% of total revenue. from the software industry is an AI. So we're in this critical, lay the foundation, concrete,

trim the trees, put the concrete down. That's all in these infrastructure names. And again, we don't think that this is a one-hit wonder. We do think it's a direction. Many of our field checks have suggested that since the tariffs, many of these enterprises have gotten more confident. They've got more bullish to spend. They know they have to move forward.

And they have to get ready for AI. And many of these large enterprises are still 70, 80% on-prem. They're not even in the cloud. So you can't do AI until you basically consolidate and centralize your data. And then you can do AI in top. So we are still seeing what we would call get ready for AI. We're, you know, again, I think years out from really monetizing this in a big way in the application sector. It's reassuring.

I don't think Brittany was a one-hit wonder. I mean, she had a couple of songs. Brent, right? At least two. Leave Britney alone. Yeah. All I remember, Zubz, I did it again. In fairness, it's mistakes all the time. So that's all I remember.

I'm like, you know what? And the full passage of time, maybe she was. But so for investors who think this is old news, it's time to rotate it. So rotate into health care, you know, rotate into whatever state. I don't know where you go. European financial. I mean, you think this has legs. It has runway.

people are not going to be disappointed that they came into what some would say is the best performing sector of the market at one of the times that it's been nearest to its all-time high in terms of general S&P valuation. Yeah, I mean, I think there are valid concerns. And I'm a tech analyst, so I don't cover other sectors, but I would say that, you know, we had a big fear at the beginning of the year in macro and all these stocks did nothing. And then we've ripped now into the face of a better environment. And the CEO of IBM said something very telling on the earnings call last night. He went from cautious optimism to optimism. And IBM's results were mediocre. But Arvin is a great leader, and I respect what Arvin has to say. And when he is seen in his global travels, deal velocity improving, deal sizes picking up, getting ready for AI, all these things. I think we're still at the beginning of this buildout. And you look at the percent of AI deployed inside enterprises.

It's tiny. You and I pick up our phones every day on chatGBT or perplexity. whatever app you're using for AI. I mean, it's basically the first, you know, it's become common. It's not common in enterprises. And we're still at the beginning. So I think that's going to take time. Sorry to interrupt, running out of time. So you just made the case of why people thought Google was dead, right? Is that we're not Googling stuff as much. I mean, I guess we are, but it was a thought that, you know, Kelly and her husband, they're huge. And AI, they don't Google anymore. They chat GPT it or they It's true.

Clawed it on Anthropic. Yes. So it sounds like Google's not dead. It's not, but the perception that it's going to hit them is weighing. I mean, if you looked at those numbers, I'd say the stock is going to be up five plus percent. It's up one and a half percent because it's the inevitable fear that AI is going to get them. It's the boogeyman that comes out of the closet. And again, you know, when we opened this door, this quarter, it was like Monsters Inc when the when the monster gave the kid a hug.

It's not as big of impact short term, but it's weighing that we will perplexity or chat cheap, our summer holidays, whatever. We don't need Google in the next year. And that is weighing, again, on sentiment where investors look at Microsoft, they look at Amazon, they look at some of the other names and realize that's not the case in these situations. They're not on these incremental, you know, these inflection points. Google's definitely an inflection. They're doing a great job, by the way, of embracing the change.

But I think investors still don't believe, and they're in other names. The sentiment's the worst of Google of any name I cover. Most of our institutional investors are underweight, Google and overweight, Microsoft, Nvidia, many other names right now. And I think it's going to be that way until we have further proof that they can, for multiple quarters, put together what they just put together in this last quarter. All right. Investors are saying, oops, we did it again. We underestimated their earnings pie.

Brian's giving me a look. Brent, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Brent Thill of Jeffries. All right, from stocks and Britney Spears, apparently, to bonds and your borrowing costs. Because despite some good news on the economy here and a lot of pressure from the White House, borrowing costs have not moved really at all in nearly a year.

We've been around this level in the 10 years since last fall. No doubt much the frustration of mortgage brokers and homebuyers everywhere. It's too bad. We can't borrow in other countries or currencies. The same borrowing cost, 10-year in Germany, is much lower than us. And wholly yen. In Japan, a 10-year bond is just 1.6%. And by the way, Kelly, that's actually near a 17-year high.

Right. Can we just get a mortgage in yen? I know. This has been royal and global bond yields, and it's 1.6%. Pretty remarkable. We're tracking a developing story out of the Federal Reserve. Let's head out to Aiman Javers in Washington for the latest details on the president's visit there, Aeman.

Kelly, the president's visit is expected at 4 p.m. Eastern. of that, the Federal Reserve invited some reporters over to take a look at the construction site. Remember, the President is angry at cost overruns of this construction site. This is the video that was taken by reporters just a short time ago inside the construction site. You can see this is that near total gut job of the Federal Reserve headquarters building. There are two buildings here at stake. The main iconic one that you've seen on television called the Eccles building, and then next to it is a 1951 Constitution Avenue, with the building. We're going to which has been purchased by the Fed.

They're getting extensive renovations, reporters getting a chance to take a look at all of that. The Fed's saying that a lot of this expense and cost overrun is due to the historic nature of these buildings. They have to consult with the National Capital Planning Commission in order to renovate them and keep everything in historical context right on the National Mall there.

Also, there's some real high-tech security features and some low-tech security features. Blast-resistant glass. They've also got construction designed for progressive collapse. in the case of an explosion, that is, so that only parts of the building would collapse in the case of an attack. They're also going to have to meet modern codes around Americans with Disabilities Act, upgrading to environmentally friendly standards and the like. The Fed has said that there are no luxuries here that are out of order.

There's no new elevator going up to a private dining room. The Fed says, reporters say that at the site there, they showed them the elevator that goes up and said, It's only been moved by about 18 inches. That's the existing elevator that's there. Nonetheless, you can expect the president to make quite a bit out of these cost overruns, which have been substantial over the years at this headquarters building and continue to put that political pressure on Jay Powell. The president wants him to raise rates, and he's going to use this event to put pressure

on Powell and say he's mismanaging the Fed in a very visual way that maybe a lot of Americans might resonate with as opposed to sort of the normal complexities of. the fed's inner workings, which a lot of Americans are just not focused on day-to-day. Yeah, Amin started jumping quickly. Like every time I love coming down to see you guys, but I'm always shocked, aside from our hardworking staff, D.C. is pretty empty on Mondays and Fridays. Is anybody going to be working in that building, or is it still going to be mostly remote workers? Because D.C. is a very low back-to-the-office ratio.

Yeah, that's true. And, you know, I was just in the Martin building a couple weeks ago. That's the third Fed building, which was renovated and is now finishing. and is gorgeous, by the way. Fantastic art on the walls there. And there were very few people in that building on that particular day other than those of us who are there for the Fed beige book release. If you build it, they will stay home. Amen, thank you. That's right. If you build it, they will work from work. Bill to come on our menu today. We'll talk about United Health woes. They do continue. It's the worst performing stock on the Dow this year. And now it is facing DOJ

scrutiny of its Medicare billings. What it means is, means to the company and investors, plus a potential media mega deal. ESPN reportedly closing in on a blockbuster deal to acquire the NFL network and red zone. Can the two sides get over the goal line? We'll discuss the latest details in negotiations, plus accelerating the IPO pipeline, insurance risk exchange accelerant, making its trading debut today. The stock is up. We'll speak to the CEO in an exclusive interview coming up. All right, welcome back. Let's talk about now one of the biggest and maybe most uncovered stories in corporate America. That is more problems that America's largest health insurer. United Health. Sherr's slam. Company admits it is under a

federal investigation over its billing practices. That's a big change from just back in May. It's when the Wall Street Journal had a story saying United Health was under investigation. United Health hit back, calling the report, quote, deeply irresponsible. Now, to be fair, at the time, it is possible United Health was unaware of any investigation. But now things have certainly changed. And UNH says it is committed to working cooperatively with the Department of Justice on this investigation. This is just the latest, of course, in what has been a very painful few months for United Health, its employees, and its shareholders. One of its divisional CEOs was murdered back in December in New York. Its overall CEOs stepped

down a few months later. The company withdrew all forward guidance. And in that time, United health shares have lost more than half their value, or about half. So where does America's largest health insurer go from here? Joining us now is John Ransom. He is Director of Healthcare Research at Raymond James, and here on set, Jeff Jonas, portfolio manager at Gabli, managing their health care and wellness trust. And I assume, Jeff, because you're here, you are an owner of UNH? We do. And you're a believer in the company long term. How come? I think they can turn this around. They get to reprice the majority of their insurance here at the end of the year. And they have a great franchise that's very diversified across a lot of different lines of business. So even though some of

the government businesses are underperforming right now, they still have a great commercial franchise and still have a great Optum business that does some of the providers and service offerings. Well, yeah, I don't know if we can ask John a question. John, yeah, there you are. So John Ransom, let's talk about it because there is a thought. And I know, Kelly, you had Bill Smead on your show yesterday. He was bullish on the stock as well. He's sort of saying, look, how much worse can it get? This is a highly important company to the whole country, right? I mean, their membership rivals that of government health programs. So at some point, the government will. So was intel at one point. So John Ransom, what do you think? Can it get worse?

Well, look, you guys were talking about Britney Spears and monsters and Field of Dreams. That was a lot more fun. Just wanted to say that. So I feel like the Grim Reaper here. Well, on United, there are just cheaper ways to play the recovery and Medicare advantage. You know, Humana, if you believe they're out, your numbers is about a 6 PE. CVS is kind of about an 8PE, if you believe in the recovery. The problem with United is even if they can claw all the way back to, say, $30 a share of earnings in a couple of three years, you know, the SOX's, you know, 30, 40 percent more expensive than similar stories out there. So there's a lot of cheap health insurers out there.

United, even the socks down a lot. You know, we think the by side thinks the starting point in earnings this year will be in the teens. Maybe call it, we're at $20 a share, but we've heard lower numbers. So if we start at, say, 18, 19, and maybe we're too high. To claw back to 30 in a couple of years, we just think the stock doesn't really offer that much value at the moment. Jeff, what would you say to that? Well, I'd agree, actually, on both fronts. First of all, I think we're expecting in that $18 to $20 range for their initial guidance.

probably something conservative, probably something they can grow significantly over the next couple of years. And I would agree that we kind of prefer Cigna, which doesn't have a lot of government exposure, or even Elevance, which is trading under 10 times earnings. So I'd agree on valuation. I mean, United Health is one of our smaller insurance company holdings. I think it's just because, John, we don't know what the ultimate result of this investigation may be. I think that's the problem. I think if you buy the stock, and there are a lot of very positive things about the company. Bill Smead, been him yesterday, Jeff's making a few now. But let's be honest, I think there is an element of rolling the dice here, is there not?

Yeah, so a couple things. The deeper point to me is, and how deep can you get on a financial channel. But, you know, the company's got this one shot next week to reset the guide, but also to reset the strategy. And that's what I'm most interested in. Like what one of the businesses they're in, which is 60 books, million-dollar businesses where they take risk in optimum health, not only for themselves, but for their competitors. And I just don't know if it makes sense. If Medicare Advantage is a

one, two-percent margin business now, does it continue to make sense to take risk for, say, Humana and lose money? You don't see Wells Fargo buying loans from JPMorgan and lose money on those loans. And that's kind of what's happening. So that's one line of business. I'm really curious if the management looks at and says it just doesn't make sense with, you know, the new Medicare care advantage. The other thing, on the investigation itself, good reporting by the Wall Street, I talked to them at the time, and they said, look, two things can be true. The company can be under investigation and not know it, and that ended up being exactly correct. I didn't know why at the time they were so virulent in defending themselves when they just didn't know. So that was

surprising. But look, the other thing about this issue is it's not going to be that they, I think get investigated and pay a fine in a year, 18 months. It's really the behavior changes and the reputational issues that go along with this. So at the margin, do they code less aggressively? Are they less tough on prior authorizations? And when you have a 1, 2% margin business, even small changes in this direction can have outsized changes in your earnings. Right.

And Jeff, what would you say about it's kind of what's possible now for this company? What's realistic? You know, for investors who are thinking about, you know, to your Bryant's point earlier, do you get involved now? Do you wait this out six, nine, 12 months? What do you think? Well, next year is not that far away, and I do think they're going to earn significantly over $20 a share next year. I do agree Medicare Advantage is going to be far more competitive and far more challenging for them when they aren't able to code as aggressively or, you know, engage in some of this more aggressive behavior. They'll be more competitive with Humana and some of their peers, maybe not as much of a market leader in the past.

But again, they have a lot of other businesses that help diversify them and give them a great earning stream. I don't know if this will have. I want to be clear. I'm not saying this around United Health Group, but as a fund manager, would you care if one of your stocks was removed from the Dow? In the short term, sure. It's definitely a hit. In the long term, though, no, we care about the fundamentals, the earnings, the cash flow, those sorts of metrics. Yeah, I'm talking about any company that might, because the Dow is kind of a symbolic index.

And who knows, I'm not saying anything's going to happen, but I'm just saying, would you care if anything did happen to? Any company that might, any of the 30 companies, you could take your choice. Yeah, we saw that happen at Walgreens a few years ago, too, and they continued to struggle, and now they're going private. John and Jeff, a good discussion around a very difficult, difficult story in many levels, guys. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Coming up, a market-defining moment.

Why one portfolio manager says this earning season could be a make-or-break-it scenario for investors. Market Navigator has more on that next. All right, welcome back to Power Lunch, everybody. As you can tell, if we've got Dom Chu here and he's here, there he is. That means it's time for our market navigator. And what are we navigating today, Doc? Well, I'd like to think of all of our viewers and listeners as navigators in this ecosystem. I'd like to think of his family.

Exactly. We're not just captain the... Yeah, they're a family. Family. Navigators and family. Well, all right, so, Brian, so traders typically look towards earnings season to kind of set the market tone for the coming months. But our next guest says that it's not just about whether companies beat expectations, it's what the market believes is coming next vis-a-vis those beats. So do the latest earnings reports indicate the market is actually over or undervalued?

Joining me now to discuss all of this is Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager over at Global Investment in Keith. this is an interesting story because I want to know, and I think all of our inquiring viewers and listeners want to know, is the market over or undervalued in your opinion given what you've seen so far from earnings season? Owen, by the way, the rise of the second wave of meme stocks. Absolutely. And thank you again for having you done. We're looking at this market as really at a turning point right now where this earning season is much more important than it has been in the past and just confirming or lack of confirmation, frankly, what valuations are asking of investors right now.

Valuations up here 22 times on SB 500 are really assuming a little bit of a margin stability, growth that is more consistent and more widespread. And this earnings season will either validate that going forward with guidance and also some of the rhetoric of corporations or perhaps it could refute that and add another risk to really as part of the rapid, it has to broaden out or become more consistent with what we've seen from the broader market

in order to keep going another leg higher in our opinion. All right. So, Kate, then, that begs the question from a portfolio manager's perspective, what exactly are the key things to watch for to tell you whether or not this market is at a top or not? Absolutely. We take signals from every part of the market. What we're looking at really specifically is the way the yield environment, particularly a 10-year-longer end,

are either providing pressure or relief to markets. It really hasn't come off of its most recent highs in a way that would justify this latest move in market. So that's one point of concern. Also, we're looking at margin stability and how forward-looking earnings are typically a precursor for how margins develop or expand over time. 22 times is saying the margin will continue to expand.

The market expects 14% growth in 2026 and 9% this year. Finishing this year with that kind of growth accelerating in the next year is baking in the margin expansion that the corporations have to start speaking to in a more positive manner. The lack of that will threaten those valuations, which we feel like already, as I mentioned, under risk because of a high-rate environment, which raises the cost of capital going forward. So a lot of different themes at play that we feel like could potentially put this market at a really vulnerable state right now. All right. Keith Buchanan, Global Investments with the 10-year yield,

maybe the single indicator he's watching the most. We appreciate it. It has been nine months. It hasn't. I think what Keith's point is, is that you're at this kind of point where there is a tug of war and it's fairly equally split between one side and the other. But for me, it's all about whether or not these earnings expectations can add fuel to an already hated rally. This has been one that's been going up to record highs, despite the fact that everyone thinks we're due for a pause.

I know. I will say that at the top of the show, the show is called Power Lunch, by the way, tune in. Top of the show, Brent Phil, who's an analyst, said something I thought was, he just kind of threw it in there. But it was important. The CEO of IBM last night said he used to be cautiously optimistic. He is now just optimistic. In other words, IBM's chief took out the word cautiously. So kind of a little, it's these little words that matter a lot for the market, I think.

All right, you got it. It's true. They mark a sea change. Still to come, it could be a deal to change sports media for decades. Speaking of a sea change. We'll get you all the latest details about it next. All right. A major shakeup could be coming in sports media. CNBC can now confirm the NFL is in advanced talks to buy a minority stake in ESPN.

And in return of any deal, ESPN could take control of the NFL network and Red Zone. If it happens, definitely a bold move that could reshape how fans watch football, Alex Sherman, our media and sports reporter. He's got a great piece out on CNBC Sport with Eli Mann. But right now, you're here to talk about this. You think it's going to happen? Well, yeah, I think it's an advanced talks to happen. From what I hear, the talks are centered around a 10% equity stake in ESPN.

That's what the NFL would buy. And then, as you said, in return, ESPN would own all of NFL network, NFL Red Zone, and a few other assets within the NFL media umbrella. So the interesting part of this, I think, is the equity stake part, because we haven't seen that, right? A league taking an equity stake in a major media company like ESPN. We don't really know exactly what the ramifications of that would be. You could certainly say from ESPN's standpoint, that sounds like great news.

You want to cozy up to the NFL. That's the most important programming of all. You'd think that you would kind of secure NFL rights for as long as the NFL had that ownership because now it would be in the NFL's interest to make sure that ESPN was on steady ground. From the league standpoint. Unless you're sued, I suppose. But I guess they can deal with that later on. From the league standpoint, probably makes sense to own a little bit of the most important sports media company in the United States.

There are so many questions. I mean, I'll rattle some of this off. First of all, a little bit of the baseball model, no, where it seems like we're going in a direction where MLB network just becomes, like, forget the RSNs, they're just broadcasting baseball game. Maybe that's that analogy. Other things that come to mind. If the NFL owns a stake in ESPN, how journalistically, I don't know if it matters if you're watching sports, How journalistically independent are they uncovering issues from deflategate to anthem issues to, you name it. It does make a difference when that's part of your ownership.

What happens to the competition? So to your point about the games, if you're NBC, CBS, all these places with lucrative and important NFL games airing in years to come, what happens to all of those packages? The competition question, I think, is the question everyone's talking about. And some of that, I think, will be within the details of the deal. we'll see exactly what the reaction is from the NBC sportses, the CBS sports of the world, these media companies that compete with ESPN for media rights and also just generally for access within the NFL. I think it's important to note that the NFL wanted out of the broadcasting business. So the NFL has owned NFL network for many years in Red Zone.

And for years, literally, they've been in talks to sell these assets. So by moving it to ESPN, it allows ESPN to include it in their direct-to-consumer product, which is coming out later this year. From ESPN's standpoint, you figure the more content, the better to get people hooked in. Also, there are seven games that aired on NFL network. So ESPN would then get control of those live games in addition to all of the Monday night football games that they already paid for. Okay, first off, I want to say this. Scott Hansen, if you're out there, the hardest working man in business.

He's amazing. The guy's unbelievable. I don't think he goes to the bathroom in like 10 hours of NFL Red zone. I can tell when he does, though. If you listen. How could you tell when he does? What are you watching for here? Because you listen, all of a sudden you realize he's not narrating for a couple of minutes.

They're just playing the gnat sound. That's how we do. That's how you know. I thought you were. I thought you're talking about like the naked gun where you can hear the microphone and it was actually him going to the bathroom. Go to the bathroom. Sure.

You're joking. Glad, glad you want to do that. Okay. Well, this is more insight into Kelly Evans's home life, which is just, NFL yellow zone. Big red zone fans. But that aside, what happens to the NFL network?

I'm thinking about, like, Rich Eisen, you know, used to be an anchor on Sports Center, but at the NFL network for years. Does that live on or does that get eaten? Well, do we know how much money the NFL network makes off what we call carriage fees in this business? Right, we don't because the NFL is not a publicly traded asset, so we don't exactly know how much they do. Wild guests, take a random wild set.

I don't even know, to be honest. I would feel uncomfortable taking a wild guess because of it. I haven't looked at any of the finances because it's not all that known. But I will say this. What we will know is we will know the valuation of ESPN if once we get a dollar figure attached to, let's say, it's a 10% stake. Because ESPN operates as an entity within Disney. It doesn't have its own valuation.

That's just the guess that anybody's made. Now we will have a firm valuation. Let's say it's, you know, if it's a $2 billion for a 10% stake, then you can say ESPN's worth $20 billion. If it's $3 billion, whatever, maybe $30 billion. So on that end of things, we will have a firmer read. Now, of course, the ESPN, ESPN started last year, they started breaking out their finances. So we have much more clarity in terms of revenue and profit and so forth on ESPN's side.

But we don't know evaluation. Now potentially we will. I'm never going to watch Red Zona get the same way. Now I'm going to be like, it's eight minutes in that sound. Is Jeff Bezos going to buy the NFL? No, no, no. I'm just kidding. Yeah, right.

Alex, thanks. Thanks. I think you made him. I'm not going there. Alex Sherman, by the way, we referenced, we didn't get to it today. Go to CNBC Sport. Alex has a fantastic interview with Eli Manning. Also sign up for the newsletter, QR code, whatever.

You can see the entire, beautifully shot at the stadium. Yeah. Eli looks great. You look great. We have great production values on all these CNBC Sport video guests. Really good. Credit Jess Golden and our great camera crew. See, that's why you have friends.

Yeah. Alex Sherman, thank you. Time for the news update. Let's get over to Kate Rogers for just that. Hi, Kate. Hi, Kelly. President Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Whitkoff, cut short negotiations over a ceasefire in Gaza

and said he would bring his negotiating team home. Whitkoff said after a meeting in Qatar that Hamas showed a, quote, lack of desire to reach a deal. Whitkoff also said alternative options to bring home the hostages in Gaza would now be considered. Senate Republicans blocked a deadline. Democratic resolution today that calls for the Justice Department to release the Epstein files. It comes after the Wall Street Journal reported Attorney General Pam Bondi told President Trump his name appeared several times in the Epstein files. Being mentioned is not a sign of

wrongdoing. And Wisconsin's Democratic Governor Tony Evers announced today he will not seek a third term in 2026. Ever said in a video announcement it was time to focus on his family. His departure comes as Democrats in the state work out to chart a pass. to control the Wisconsin State Senate, House, and governorship for the first time in its 16 years, Kelly. Back over to you. All right, Kate, thank you very much. Kate Rogers. On deck, the CEO of America's newest stock will be here, live and in person, with the shares of 32% from their IPO.

We're back right after this. Crypto watch is sponsored by Crypto.com. Crypto.com is America's premier crypto platform. A big public debut today. The insurance risk exchange company Accelerant beginning to trade. It's a platform or specialty insurance underwriters can sell insurance premiums to buyers like insurance or reinsurance companies, institutional investors even. You can kind of see the flow there. They also provide data to make underwriting for niche businesses more efficient.

IPO is met with strong demand. The company priced above its $18 to $20 range at 21. Upsized the offering. Shares started trading at $2850 last hour and joining a second. for an onset exclusive is Accelerant CEO Jeff Radke. Thanks for coming in. It's great to see you here. Thanks for having me. Is there a way to explain what you do in late terms or does it even matter?

Is it just... I think it matters. What we do is we connect independent expert underwriters with the risk capital that they need in order to issue insurance policies to hundreds of thousands of small businesses. Because I read here that you have like 79 million rows of proprietary data. So what is your special sauce? I think probably the data. the new currency, isn't it? So 79 million rows of data, which is valuable. What's really unique

is the breadth of data, 21,000 unique risk attributes. And if you think about AI and machine learning, it's the breadth that those models really feed on to get really interesting outcomes. Will this help us fix some of the problems in insurance? I hope so. There's a lot of, I mean, when you have home insurance costs that are higher than the mortgage, that's a problem. But not everybody has the same risk profile. That's right. And the question is, let's make it fair so that you pay for your risk profile. And the underlying requirement for that is great data so underwriters can understand your risk

profile so you can be priced fairly. The other big challenge is how can you deliver this product as efficiently as possible? I don't think it's a big surprise that the industry spends an awful lot of money in the delivery of the product. But I would like to go back to Brian's question. I mean, people are dealing with super high auto insurance costs, although we had our guest the other day say, check again, they might be coming down, maybe the market's softening now.

I mean, home insurance, and it's the cost, it's also the coverage. Like, if you file a claim, you basically lose coverage. I know a lot of what you're talking about, too, is more on the commercial side and all the rest of it. But anything you can tell us about how these market dynamics might be changing in the age and era of AI? Well, first of all, you're right. We are 100% commercial insurance.

but it seems short-sighted to dodge the question because the question applies on the commercial side as well. One of the things that won't get fixed is that your risk, you have to pay for your risk. And sometimes that's not popular. It's not, no. Sometimes that's not popular, but it is fair. And it went, well, and it went for years,

and as you know, I've, I know some insurance executives pretty personally. And now they're in the industry. So I'll get it. The industry takes slums. What they'll say is risk wasn't priced properly for years or decades. Yeah, or it was priced too high and then it was priced too low and then it was priced too high. It sounds familiar. Yeah, the human condition, right, the pendulum where we can't ever seem to get it quite right. But if we have less emotion and less fear and more data, it should, those oscillations should get smaller. You surprised how that you were oversubscribed? I mean, again, it's not like this is a stable coin.

It's not a widely recognized, but clearly investors acknowledge that you're doing something exciting here. Our friends, the bankers, hopefully tallied up the fact that we did 174 investor meetings in the process. One of two things. Either we educated them slowly or they just gave up and they said they're not going away unless we just buy the stock. Right, right. Jeff, thanks very much. Appreciate you coming in. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Big day for the company, Jeff Radke of Accelerin. Thank you. And it's a crude reality for Intel investors, an eye-popping and potentially painful stat for you ahead of its earnings tonight with the shares down 3%. We're back right after this.

Let's wrap it up with an RBI. Our team found this amazing stat. I mean, it's amazing for one. If you invested $10,000 in Intel 10 years ago, you have just over $10,000. Basically, it's been dead money for a decade. But if you invest the same $10,000 to Nvidia a decade ago, Kelly, you have... Big number. Three and a half million dollars, and you probably have a giant yacht.

Stock picking matters a lot, thanks to our team for finding that. Jensen Wong yesterday at the AI event said he's created, you know, however many billion, or more billionaires than any other company or something to that extent, because all the executives who have been with him have done well with all of their shares, obviously. And a rough road for Intel, but let's focus on the positives. Great news for Nvidia shareholders, random, but interesting. Thanks for watching. And Brent Bill says it can keep going. Closing ballot starts right now.