Power Lunch - Power Lunch: 12/26/25

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

CNBC’s Kelly Evans and Brian Sullivan take you through the heart of the business day bringing you the latest developments and instant analysis on the stocks and stories driving the day’s agenda. ���Power Lunch” delves into the economy, markets, politics, real estate, media, technology and more. The show sits at the intersection of power and money. “Power Lunch” gives viewers a full plate of CNBC’s award-winning business news coverage, plus a healthy dose of personality from the show’s anchors and the network’s top-notch roster of reporters and digital journalists.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Stocks hitting some record highs in a light post-Christmas session. Welcome to Power Lunch. I'm Kelly Evans, and for those of you who celebrate, hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Brian is off today, but he's not off entirely. You'll see him a little bit later on. The S&P is closing in on the 7,000 mark while the Dow is just a hair away from the record it reached earlier this month. All major averages on pace for their third consecutive year of gains.

Impressive run here. We're going to talk about it with Interactive Broker Steve Sosnik. He's here, well, he's already here, but we'll talk to him in a moment, about his strategy for the new year and the top stocks the retail investors are buying and selling right now. Plus, Santa may be done for the year, but the holiday shopping rush isn't over. Shoppers are expected to hit the stores again. Got to spend those gift cards, return on wanted items, and search for those post-Christmas deals. Dana Telsie will join us with her read on retail and the names with the best setup for 2026. Plus, take a look at the precious metals. Boy,

do they continue to sparkle. With gold, silver and platinum reaching new highs in platinum I'm absolutely surging today. It's still up nearly 10%. Gabelli Gold Fund's portfolio manager is here to tell us if this rally still has legs. Looking forward to that. But we begin with the late Christmas gift for investors. Despite a quiet day on Wall Street,

the Santa Claus rally is delivering another record high for the S&P, although we're since kind of gyrating around here in negative territory throughout the afternoon. If we end in the green, it will be the S&P's 40th record close of the year. And the history says the odds are still in its favor, according to Gars Carson Group's data that goes back to 1950, December 26. Today is the second most bullish day of the year with an average gain of half a percent. For those wondering, the best day on average is October 28th. That's the best day of the year for stocks.

So with the new year just around the corner, should investors expect more record highs in 2026? Let's ask Steve Zosnik. He's the chief strategist at Interactive Brokers. First of all, welcome to you. Great to see you, Kelly. Well, I mean, you get kind of a front row seat into what going on on your platform? All the retail interests, the stocks people are chasing, the market that they may or may not be chasing. What do you see and what does it tell you about what next year may hold? Well, it seems like the momentum stocks that have got us here still remain in favor with our customers. They're buying on balance. On any given week of our 25 most active stocks, we'll see 22 to 25 net buys as opposed to sales. So there's clearly a pattern of money

continuing to flow in. The ones that are most active should not come as a huge surprise. It's Tesla. It's Invidia. Lately, it's been Micron because of the great earnings. It's been Oracle because we can't read the news without talking about them. It's been Broadcom. Other ones that come in and out, Palantir gets up there. You know, if we sat here, you could get, you could easily get 10 of the 25 within about 10 seconds. And what does that tell you? I mean, at a time when a lot of people are talking about whether AI is in a bubble, is the rally broadening or not? What's going on with retail parties? I mean, everyone's back at work now, but I guess we're all still trading stocks more so than

we were five years ago. Yeah, well, our customer base tends to be a bit more, what I would call pro tail in some regards. They're a bit more sort of focused on the markets, more day-to-day. We don't necessarily cater to as many casual investors. We have plenty of them, but we also have what I would call a lot of semi-professional investors, individuals who use, you know, who basis. if not at their full-time job, but they use very sophisticated strategies. They're smart. And to be

fair, let's say in April, they bought big. I remember you saying that. In November, they kind of were a little bit, you know, sold a little bit before the market faded and then came back in. They've been very aggressive at buying dips. One thing I think we've seen, and it'll be interesting to see, you know, how long this persists, is dip buying remains probably the number one most popular strategy. And to be fair, it works. Now, Nothing works forever. Trees don't grow to the sky, et cetera, et cetera. But it's worked so well for so long that I can't, why should they stop?

I think that's what's keeping a floor. You know, I've seen other analysts like Brian Reynolds say that retail interest is literally now as big a factor in the market as stock buybacks, which for years in the 2010s we talked about how stock buybacks were constantly supporting equities. Do you think that retail participation is kind of keeping a floor under the market as well? Absolutely. I think that certainly was the case in April, let's say, when, institutions were freaking out and individuals continued to buy, I think, I think at some level,

the institutions have adapted, too. Because I think so many of us have become momentum traders. So, you know, so as long as the, for example, as long as the trend remains intact, you know, it's understandably why you'd want to buy the dip. If that trend breaks, buy the dip doesn't work so well, but the question, but as of now, the trends have remained in place. If you know you're going to make money, and I'm saying this kind of tongue-in-cheek, why not leverage it up? I mean, do you see that those kind of phenomenon? I mean, anything that you would describe as maybe getting a little overextended or no? In any given week, TQQQQQ, triple levered QQQ is more active than QQQ. It's almost, it's uncanny. So they're both among the most active

names on our platform, as you would expect. But I think it is a little counterintuitive for people to realize that TQQQQQ outpaces QQ. TSSL, the double levered Tesla, never approaches, never really is threatened Tesla's top, Tesla's always number one or number two. But it's frequently in the top, it's almost always in the top 25 as well, because people like that leverage. And so, yes, they're going, you know, if you like it at one X, you'll love it at three. Exactly. So we're going to remember this conversation with day. I don't know what day it's going to be. We're going to look back and say, yeah, I remember we were talking about all this. Tom Lee was on just before Christmas and said he thinks that a couple of financial names could join the

list of the Mag 7. In fact, specifically, we can listen to this. He said that AI and blockchain technology can help boost the big banks next year. I think the large tech forward banks are going to start to see margin expansion and trade more like tech stocks in the future. And that's why, you know, the JP Morgan and the Goldman's could actually be the next Mag 7. Keeping in mind, Goldman's coming off two years back-to-back of 40% gains and JP Morgan, a perennial performer. Do you agree with him? To a point. I don't, I think calling him the next Macs. Seven is a little hyperbolic. I think that, you know, for example, people love Apple. People love, you know, Instagram. I don't know that anybody loves J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs in the same way.

But I do understand the constructive point of view on banks, particularly because we're starting to see a more normalized, if not steepening yield curve. So remember, banks tend to borrow short, lend long. That is favorable for banks. The regulatory climate has turned much more favorable to banks. We haven't seen a ton of M&A, but it still is lurking out there, particularly for the small and mid-sized banks. And finally, I think I don't disagree that the banking sector, the financial sector, is ripe for AI in some ways maybe that more so than other sectors might be. So I do understand why he's constructive on it.

I'm not going to go quite as far as saying that we're place Microsoft and friends. When are you guys adding prediction markets? When can I get on interactive brokers and place a five-part parlay on the NFL games as your rivals, who maybe don't cater quite to the pro-tail crowd, are clearly ramping up these operations quite swiftly and trying to be the home of everything that you might, so to speak, bet on. Well, we had our prediction markets going day one, actually. Did you?

Yes. So we've been active in this. I think you remember that now from Tom Petterfrey talking about that. Yes, basically the day that prediction markets were allowed, we had them ready to go. We just weren't the ones fighting the legal fight. But we have not ventured into sports and stuff. I can't comment too much on what our plans are, et cetera, et cetera.

But what I will say is we have a huge suite of anything financial, economic, or anything almost related to markets, whether, you know, a prediction about, you know, who's the next Fed chair. But we just have not gotten into sports and pop culture. We've kept it very much in some way, shape, or form that's relatable to markets, economics, et cetera. in news events? I mean, do you find that that cannibalizes people from their T-T-T-T Q's or does it just mean they are more active in the place, you know, or is it a completely different audience? Well, some and some. I mean, actually among the contracts with the most open interest right now are basically short, you know, where will the S&P close on December 31st?

So can you argue that that's cannibalizing the options market? Maybe, on the other hand, it's the options business is printing record volumes as well, right? You know, the OCC numbers, are things that I could never have imagined when I was an options market maker all those years ago. So I think just right now, I do think that we're in a piece of convergence here where I think maybe we're a lot,

as I mentioned, very risk-tolerant to the point where people will see every dip as a buying opportunity. I think they're also seeking out leveraged opportunities along the way. You know, we can take the 50,000 foot view and say, is that really investing or is it speculating, you know,

where it is speculating? Where does speculation turn into gambling? Exactly. I don't know, and I'm not going to moralize on it, but, you know, basically... If anyone in our audience would like to, you know, hit us up on next, we can have that discussion as well. Steve, we're going to bring you back later this hour with some picks, but really appreciate it today. Thank you. Steve Sosnik.

Let's move on to interest rates where the Federal Reserve has signaled a cautious path forward for rate cuts in 2026. They're thinking or projecting one move, but Wall Street sees a different story. Their expectations are for two or even more cuts. Steve Leasman joins us now with more. And Steve, how does this get resolved? Well, it's not a big deal, Kelly, right now. And the reason is because of the difference in timing, right? The difference that we're talking about is one over the course of a year.

And it's one or two cuts. Depends upon how you look at the data or look at the pricing. If this were next month, yeah, I'd be worried about it. I'd say the Fed has some explain. to do or the market has some adjusting. But that's not the case. Let me show you. The Fed is looking at a 3.4%. This is their average, obviously, of all the official forecasts. Okay, this is the other chart I wanted to show you, which is the one that shows the pricing through the course of this year. You can see no cut really expected in March, kind of one in April, more solidly in June,

where that first cut is priced into the market. Then you look at the full year and you see the Fed is at 3.4% while the market is at 3.07. So, That's where the difference is. It's in the back half of the year, Kelly. So there's time to work it out, plenty of data to come, and they can figure this out over time. The one sort of big X factor here is the next Fed chair. Does that next Fed chair take office in May? And you can see there, by the way, to December 26 Fed Funds.

It shows how I'm arriving at that year-end forecast for the market and the Fed Funds rate. That's 3.08 right there. So really, we have four people on tap. All of them want to cut rates. maybe some of them more aggressively than others. So you might see maybe one of those cuts pulled forward into the summer, perhaps 50 basis points in the summer rather than over the course of the year. But I wouldn't suggest it's a big difference right now.

Kelly, we have to watch as the year goes by to see where the data come out and how the market prices in that data relative to the new Fed share. Right. And how low we can go. That's my new favorite question, Steve. you gave me that one. How low can we go with 360, but we can maybe only go down to 3%. Yeah, I mean, I think that's where the market thinks about where the, it's where our Fed survey puts the terminal rate. It's more or less where the Fed puts the terminal rate.

That's the 3%. So think about that. If we go below that, then we'd be in a situation where the Fed would believe and the market would believe we need stimulus for the economy rather than the Fed being at the neutral rate. I know, and we'll see if it thinks that even before. Steve, thanks. We appreciate it. Be policeman. Coming up, tariffs, the longest government shutdown in history, not even sticky inflation. None of that

could curb consumer spending this holiday season. We'll get you the current list of winners and losers, and what it means for the setup next year right after this break. Welcome back to Power Lunch. The Treasury Secretary, Scott Besson, who also now serves as acting IRS commissioner,

expects American taxpayers to get massive tax refunds in the first quarter of next year. According to Bessent, the retroactive effects of the one big, beautiful bill, mean many households could see refunds of up to $2,000. Or I'm hearing numbers that could be even twice that. That means this upcoming tax refund season could become the largest on record. So will this incentivize Americans to spend more? What impact could it have on the retail space? Let's ask Dana Telsey. She joins us now here on set to break down which names could benefit the most. CEO and Chief Research Officer Tulsi Biser Group. Hello to you. Hello to you too.

Happy holidays. Happy holidays. No sooner is this over or underway than we're talking about. Because, look, February is when the refunds really ramp up. So February is right around the corner. How big do you expect this kind of refund cycle to be? It's going to be big. It will be one of the biggest refund cycles.

I'm hearing increases of the high teens levels in terms of the amount of refunds. It will drive consumers to spend. But don't forget, we have other events that are going to drive consumers to spend. You have the Winter Olympics coming up. You have the World Cup coming up. You have the World Cup coming up. You have America 250 coming up, coupled with higher tax refunds. Those are all ways that companies out there are dressing up their assortments to drive conversion and spending.

The figure I saw, and we'll get more clarity on this next year, but I saw that the refund itself could be around $800 bigger for a total size of maybe $3,800. Now, again, I know. People are getting their own money back. They just didn't update the withholding tables when they changed things last year. nevertheless, you get a check like that, what do you think people are going to do with it? I think they're going to look at what to buy. Do they go on a trip? Do they buy new clothes? Is there something with electronics? They're going to look at all of these retailers and, frankly, discretionary items that could be the activator to retail sales, maybe not in the first quarter, but for the balance of the year. Really? So you think it could be not really just a February event, a Super Bowl timed thing, but really something that we see the effects linger throughout the year?

Exactly, because I think one of the things you have is those events that I mention, the World Cup and also America 250 coming a little bit later. And the other thing you have going on is look what companies are doing. When I think of what 26 is going to be about, it's the letter A. Assortment, it's going to be advertising, it's AI, it's adaptability, and most importantly, affordability. Okay, and affordability crisis, you know, the president's going to be talking a lot about that. What are your stock picks? Like, what do you like? And if the answer is Walmart, Costco, and T.J. Max, D.

We're going other places. All right, thank you. Let's go other places. I have a basket. I have a select basket of companies like urban outfiters, Victoria's Secret, and the gap because of the new initiatives that they've put in place. I've got more, like, for example, Steve Madden, and it's not just the brown suede winter boots,

but I have the Kurt Geiger acquisition that should add incrementally to their bottom line. And I've got others, the continuation of capturing younger consumer. at both Ralph Lauren and Tapestry. I think we're going to have more of a discretionary year in 2026. What's old is new again. I mean, for me, these were the names that I shopped at growing up, and I've seen the articles about young people flocking to Ralph Lauren and all of that. So that would be, you know, we've seen Victoria's Secrets of 31% in a month.

I think American Eagle, same kind of thing. So people get a little nervous about stepping in front of some of these highly volatile. I understand it's easier, more comfortable to stay in a Walmart, to stay in a Costco. But what do you think? I think overall, when you look at some of these names, yes, they're up, but it's up basically on the weakness that they had. Now you're seeing the incremental growth in top line. You're seeing the margin attribution that it'll all help them get back and grow their operating margins to some double digits plus. So how is shopping in general?

I don't hear you talking a lot about the K-shaped economy and all of that. Maybe that's implicit in the background. But how would you describe the consumer spending landscape? I do see it as the K-shaped economy. I'm there with that, but I think also one of the things you're seeing is at the lower end, you're seeing even the Walmarts of the world, they're getting the benefit of higher income customers trading down. You're looking at the off-pricers, like the T.J. Maxes, they're getting better brands. And the expansion of categories is attracting consumers. At the higher end, they're putting in other categories, not just the expensive bags, but now there's also cosmetics. And you do have some companies which haven't performed as well. that there's some share gains. I think the weakness at some of the upper-end department stores who are private is giving other companies like Macy's opportunity.

All right, I like a lot of ideas here. So finally, a little bit harder call, maybe, I don't know. What do you do with a Nike? What do you do with the Lulu Lemon? When I think of the Nike's and the Lulu Lemons, let's see who the next CEO of Lulu Lemons is going to be. At Nike, China was the weak link. But the subtle improvements in North America,

watch that. New product drives awareness and interest. story about total night. I think that's what it's called about how there was a coach out, I think, in Louisiana, a 35-year-old guy who took the trademark to that. And so they want to gear up this kind of retro to your point about what brands are working right now. Apparently, that's a popular thing with buyers, but they don't own the full rights to it, or it's highly disputed. That'll be something to watch. Just a good reminder that it's not always a clear sailing path. Any final word you'd leave us with, then, kind of, whether it's brand-specific or a trend overall?

I think overall, the consumer is resilient. More resilient than ever. We've got more reasons to be resilient, given we're also lapping tariffs in 2026 than what we had in 25. Companies are very agile and adaptable. They move fast. You're hearing less talk from companies about the headwinds of tariffs. You're hearing more about what can we as a company do ourselves to drive demand. All right. We'll see if it pays off. Dana, thanks so much. Thank you. Appreciate it today. Dana, Tulsi. Coming up, we'll take a quick break, and as we look ahead to the new year, this stock could be one of the best ways to play the cybersecurity meets AI theme, at least according to Wed Bush's Dan Ives. If you can guess the name, message me. We'll reveal it after the break. Welcome back. We talk a lot about the AI trade, the hyperscalers, data centers, but key to that tech stack, of course, is also cybersecurity. And a new note today is calling out the best way to play the cyber AI theme. Let's bring in the man behind it, Dan Ives. He's global head of technology research at Wedbush. Dan, it's great to see you. Welcome.

Be here. Give me, you know, on a zero to 10, your excitement level about Nvidia, Tesla, and then cybersecurity in kind of ranked order. Or is it just going to be, you know, rising tide lifts all boats next year? Why does crowd strike in particular jump out to you? Yeah, well, I mean, to me, it's really about this is going to be the year for cybersecurity meets AI because as all these workloads are moving to the cloud, the use cases are building the Palantiers, the Mongols, those snowflakes.

cybersecurity is going to be front and center. Now, of course, it all starts with big tech in terms of Nvidia, Microsoft, Hyperscalers. But when I look at CrowdStrike, and I think what Kurtz and the team are doing, they're at the intersection. And I think they probably have some of the best AI footprint when it comes to cybersecurity. Investors way under the radar in terms of this name. Yeah, I've heard a few others talking about this. And in general, that AI is dealing with AI is moving into the security space, into the software management space. Is that kind of how you see it?

Yeah, I mean, look, we've talked about Palo Alto. You look obviously at Crowdstrike Z-Scaler. But I think the reality is that it's all about second, third, fourth derivatives. And we talk about that in the Ives A30, and you look where cybersecurity fits front and center in terms of where we see that playing, in terms of where CrowdStrike is. And I think, look, this is really going to be about the derivatives playing out across the space. And we see it on authentication, you know, with where we are on the Orbs. But I think cybersecurity, it's going to be a golden year for cybersecurity. The stock crowd strikes up 40% this year.

I mean, that's already pricing in a lot. And that's an incredible. That's a really nice run. That probably outperforms a lot of the Mag 7. Probably rivals in video. I'd say get the popcorn out because I think this is a stock that could have, you know, ultimately a six in front of it. And when I think about, you know, 700 bull case, because right now, we're talking about trillions that are going to be spent. I mean, we're still in the

early innings from the use case perspective. When you look where a crowd strike plays, cybersecurity, I mean, I think also you're going to see a lot of consolidation in the space. I think this as a subsector, cybersecurity could be one of the best performing of all of tech because of this AI trade. And can you, Dan just explained as a non-specialist to me, you know, are you saying that these are companies that because of AI, you know, they need to defend themselves against different types of threats? Are they securing kind of entry points throughout the data stack and that sort of thing? Just what did, how do they fit into kind of the compute behind AI? Yeah, if you think about it, okay, so you have the Nvidia chips, you have the

hyperscale or build out, you go on a use case, an enterprise. How do you protect the work? How do you know the users internally externally that's all in the cloud that's a whole other use case in terms of agents in terms of threats that's where crowd strike's going after that's why it's the it's really intersection of AI and cyber security and when now it's you see more companies go down that path cybersecurity which i'd say to some extent has really been viewed in the background it's going to be front and center you're not going to be able to do it without cyber and that's where it names like crowd strike pow out those z-sackey Scalar, names like Checkpoint, you know, I think play out.

And I think it's very important in terms of this theme in 26. Yeah. And so can I pivot and ask you about the news of the day? Also, Dan, this Nvidia deal, this licensing agreement with GROQ for their language processing units. They say this could require less compute, be more efficient, maybe fend off or answer a little bit of what Google is doing with its TPUs, maybe raises some regulatory concerns. Although, again, they seem to be doing so in a way that would perhaps dodge all of that.

What's your interpretation of the deal? I think it's a master poker move by Jensen because you look what's happening with Google on the TPU side on the inference. And this is really invidious. Look, this is them flexing their muscles because they're going further and further expanding out, making sure competitively, but also on the offensive. Because you go in 2026, this is going to be a huge pain point. It's one of the best technologies out there. And I think, look, this just speaks to what we're going to see. more and more consolidation, more and more acquisitions, more and more deals that we see in this

arms race that's going on. And look, the godfather of AI Jensen is not just going to sit there watch us from the stands. It's going to be on the field. And this is a smart move at the right time. It sounds like a movie script when you put it that way. Dan, thanks so much. Appreciate it today. Thank you. Dan Ives. Precious metals outshining stocks this year, even as well as the S&P has done. Gold, silver and platinum, even better. Making new highs again today. Will they keep that luster into 2026. We'll ask a gold portfolio manager about that next. Gold is up 70% this year. Silver is up over 150%. All of this is happening amid fears of an AI bubble and uncertainty over the Fed rate cuts, but both hit new hall time eyes again today

and are on pace for their best year since 1979. The van at Gold Miner's ETF, GDX, it's up more than 160% this year. It's on pace for its best year ever, dating back to inception 19 years ago. Some of its standouts include Hecla mining, Anglo-Gold, Core Mining, and Newmont. Here with his insight on what's driving this boom, and if there's more room to run, is Chris Mancini. He's co-portfolio manager of the Gabelli Gold Fund, four-star rated by Morningstar, end up a nice 177% this year. Have you ever had a year like that? No, no, absolutely not. Did this surprise even you on some level? It did. I mean, it did. And, you know, it's funny because back in the day, when gold was 2000, and people would say, well, what's the

best that could happen, you know, what could happen with gold. I would say, well, you know, if things go really well, it could go to 2,500, could go to 3,000, but to see it at 4,500, you know. I remember this. I mean, again, I remember writing about gold at all-time highs and people pawning their jewelry 13 years ago. And then it was supposed to be the thing to hold during the 2010s. And now all of a sudden this year, why this year? And is it central banks? But that doesn't explain the rest of the metals trade. No, right. It doesn't. I mean, I think what's going on is that the narrative has really changed. Like what we've been saying all long about gold

is that it's an asset that's not replicable and it's nobody's liability. And that's why it's been the currency for millennia. And during a period of time, when it was clear, when like the dollar took that role of the currency of the world, it wasn't clear as to why you should have gold. But now that we're seeing kind of cracks in the dollar.

And that's partly because of what's happened with Russia's reserves being confiscated. Partly we saw with the big inflation because of all the money printing that happened during COVID. Absolutely. The rising national debt. So we're seeing now that the narrative

has kind of been flipped on its head and we are seeing reasons as to why gold is that currency and I think that's what's driving the price. Yeah, we talked to Jeff Curry about this the other day as well and he said it was kind of two, it's the two D-Basement trade and the de-dollarization trade. That's kind of what you're talking about

and both of them happening at the same time. I suppose in this uncertain geopolitical world, central banks and international agents who don't want to be subject to the dollar regime might continue to amass these metals. You know, debasement trade, I don't know if there's a way to discern how much longer that might go on. So what's your forecast for 2026? I think that everything that's driven the price of gold up this year will probably continue into next year. So like it's unlikely that peace is going to break out. You know, these geopolitical tensions are still going to exist. China's still going to be buying lots of gold because they want to diversify out of treasuries,

U.S. dollar treasuries, into something that can't be confiscated because of the geopolitical potential with Taiwan and what have you. Interest rates are probably going to continue to decline. The national debt's going to continue to grow. So all the tail-ins that we had this year probably continue into next year and it'll probably keep going up. But even for you, look at platinum up 9%, silver's up another 9%. You know, copyright, I mean, they always joke, the cure for high prices is high prices. And that's more because you might bring on more supply.

I don't know how realistic that is. But also just because on some level, you get this kind of speculative fervor breaking out. I can't imagine you want that because it's going to make the whole asset class more volatile, I'd imagine. Right. I mean, I'd say, you know, silver definitely looks at this point, you know, somewhat overbought. There are things going on relative to export restrictions from China relative to silver. You know, well, like you say about supply. It's unlike, supply really can't come online unless people do start selling their gold jewelry like they did back in the day.

We aren't really seeing that. So it's like, you know, I'm never going to argue with high prices, you know, considering that we manage a gold fund. But it's, I think, you know, gold has been pretty orderly. The silver trade's been, you know, maybe that's a little bit overextended. Yeah. But gold's been pretty orderly and we'll take it. So I'm at a New Year's Eve party, which I won't be, but let's pretend that I am. And people are talking about this.

And I say, you know, I heard this guy on CNBC, and he had this great idea for how to play it for 2026. What would that idea be? Well, I do think that the gold stocks are very cheap. So our biggest holding and the biggest gold mining company in the world is Newmont, very diversified, but in good jurisdictions in terms of where their minds are. But I have them next year at current metals prices generating around $10 per share and free cash flow. And the stock's trading right now around $105 a share, such as one example amongst many of companies that are, are, you know, cheap. So like, so with a gold mining stock, you're getting the gold in the ground, you're getting exposure to gold, but you're also getting that income from the free

cash that the companies generate. Is it true that they're not, these companies are not always the best stewards of capital over the long run of the cyclicality of the business often undermines long-term holdings? But even if, I don't know if you would agree that that's true, even if it is true, does it matter right now? Right now, I would say no, that's a very good point. And what I would say is that in the past, they haven't been good stewards of capital. But now, but, you know, They've been burnt so much. Since I've been doing this around 18 years, they've been burnt in two cycles. One of them was by their own doing in the 2010s.

The other was during COVID when minds had to shut down, things like that, whatever, because of all the social distancing and stuff like that. So they've been burned twice in the past 20 years, and they are very, very conservative now. Wow, Merry Christmas. For those 18 years in the trenches of the gold trade. Thank you. Wow, Chris, thanks very much for your time, Chris Mancini. Let's get over to Brian Sullivan once again for the CNBC News Update.

Hi, Bryce. Hey, Kelly, Ukrainian president of Vladimir Zelensky says he plans to meet President Trump at Mara Lago on Sunday. All this is part of the effort to end Russia's war in that country. Zelensky also told Axios he is willing to bring the peace plan up for a vote of referendum, but only if Russia agrees to a ceasefire of at least 60 days. Speaking of war, North Korean state media, releasing these pictures, they claim to be of a massive nuclear-powered strategic missile submarine. Leader Kim Jong-un toward the sub and said South Korea's plans to build its own nuclear submarines must be countered. And Google appears

to be rolling out a new feature for Gmail users who want to change their email addresses. Some account users can now replace their existing at Gmail address with a new email and keep their data and services. But Kelly, don't get too excited right now. The change only appears on the account help page for speakers of Hindi, but it may roll out more broadly in the future. And yes, we will talk about the Burr-Lives trade in Fast Money 5 p.m. You know where to find me.

I was just going to say I'll speak Hindi if I can change my Gmail address. Like that's whatever incentive they offer to let you do so, I'm there. Brian, we'll see you later. Appreciate it. Brian Sullivan. Coming up, the Bitcoin Treasury Company Strategy

boosting its cash cushion to over $2 billion. A closer look at what the move means for investors as Bitcoin sets out the precious mallee's rally medal we were just talking about. We're back after this. Welcome back. Strategy, formerly known as Microstrategy, is well known for its hugely bullish bets on Bitcoin. But with the stock and the cryptocurrency,

both taking a hit lately, the company is now taking a more defensive approach. Mackenzie Segalos has the details. Mackenzie? Hey, Kelly, that's right. And what's notable here is the shift in priority. priorities. Strategy liquidated three quarters of a billion dollars in shares this week, not to buy Bitcoin, which is usually the move when prices dip, but to add to a cash reserve that's now

at $2.2 billion. They set up that fund at the start of this month specifically to cover preferred dividends and debt interest without having to sell any Bitcoin. Now, the stock, it is down nearly 50% year to date, and you can see why Chairman Michael Saylor is playing defense. Strategy is now trading at a discount to the Bitcoin on its books, meaning that investors can get exposure at around 80 cents on the dollar. That breaks the model. The whole playbook was issue shares at a premium by Bitcoin and then said premium justifies itself. But when it vanishes, issuing shares becomes dilutive and the flywheel stops.

Now, the next test is January 15th, MSCI deciding whether to boot strategy from its indexes. JPMorgan estimates that could trigger nearly $9 billion in stock sales if other index providers follow and it is not just strategy. the broader digital asset treasury trade is unwinding. Bitmine immersion is down 80% from its summer peak. So is Metaplanet in Japan. Same playbook everywhere. Same problem. When the premium disappears, the model breaks.

Kelly? I mean, look, this was obvious, you know, as soon as these companies decided to go with this route. We had the CEO of Strategy on not long ago, and I thought he said it was more in the low 70s that they would eye making perhaps a bigger change. So they've got a comfortable cushion. A lot of their purchases were made at much lower levels. But as you mentioned, the higher beta plays on all of this. I mean, it's up to Bitcoin to prove, like Tom Lee was saying the other day,

he thinks it's an eight-week shakeout still from whatever happened on October 10th, which he thought was maybe a big liquidation event or something. And if they can find their footing again, then we can talk about the trades taking off again that rely on that. But in the meantime, it's hard to see why it makes much sense. Yeah, and a lot of the conversation from the strategy side of this is looking at two different things. One, they still have that buffer between the acquisition price of Bitcoin. it's an average of 75K versus the 89K where it's trading today. So it's a much smaller margin than it used to be.

But they would say we still have a buffer there. And also their debt is long dated and doesn't start to mature in large blocks until 2027. The argument that they've made is that even if Bitcoin dropped 50%, they'd likely restructure before liquidating. But of course, we'd see an erosion of confidence in the trade if that's happening. All right. And we'll look to see if that does happen on the index front. McKenzie, thanks very much, McKenzie Sagalos. While this year is shaping up to be the year of the retail investor who poured record amounts of cash into U.S. equities, Steve Sosnick will be back to reveal the top trends he's seeing into 2026 at Interactive Brokers next.

All right. Steve Sosnick is back with us here to reveal the most active names right now. Can we talk like right now, basically? This week? This week. Okay, at Interactive Brokers. Welcome back, first of all. Great to see you. We were talking about this a little bit earlier. You said I bet that I could guess a lot of the most active names. But we have the top five. on this lovely graphic behind you, talk us through them, if you please. Well, it should be no surprise that Tesla is typically number one, and when it's not number one, it's Nvidia. I look at it this way.

Tesla has the most faithful investors of any company. I refer to it various times as a faith-based company over the years, and I will say investors' faith in all things Musk remains undaunted. Now, to be fair, they don't always strictly buy us. We actually saw them, they are, we actually did see them lightening up into the most recent rally. Really? Yeah. So they are, they're not just monolithic in terms of.

Do you think they're overall looking for some exit? Look, the stock is basically back at all time highs, which is a huge accomplishment, especially after you leave the White House. You think, well, you know, that that would be the moment. To come back all the way now pretty much, it's up 18% year to date, do you think they're looking for opportunities for what's been a massive run, huge market cap now, to pocket those gains, or is it's just some temporary? moves? Some and some. I mean, you know, Tesla is, of course, such a polarizing stock, right?

I mean, it's, if you believe in the story, there's always a bright future. In this case, it's humanoid robots, robotaxies, et cetera. If you're a glass half-empty Tesla person, you're saying, okay, they're putting these huge valuations on things that don't really exist yet. And so it's, and so I think you see some and some. I think in general, there's a lot, there's a lot of faith in the company, but I think there are a lot of people who also just trade it like anything else and see the opportunities. Has Jensen Wong managed to turn himself and NVIDIA into a version of Tesla? Or do you think this one is as interesting as the kind of business is interesting and no more?

I don't know that Jensen Wong has inspired that cult of personality. I think on the other hand, to me, it's Invidia's market and we're all just investing and trading it. Still, after everything. Because some people would go back to the summer of last year and say that's when the NVIDIA trade, you know, it first began to, you know, stop its market leadership. But then we see time and time again how often its revival lifts the entire market. They managed to keep themselves in the center of everything. Now, to be, now that's not, that's not even a knock.

It just, but for example, you know, there were some questions are other types of chips maybe getting an advantage over Nvidia, but then, okay, let's buy, let's buy GROC to, you know, try to shore up some of that. They have a tremendous market power. I think their vulnerability is that we're all a little too tied in maybe to open AI as a catalyst for all things, AI and everything. And it's hard to imagine how a company with $20 billion revenues is going to meet $1 trillion in spending commitments. But that's a different story for a different time. Nvidia has been this market.

It's not a coincidence that the bull market began in November of 2022, guessing. What else came out in 2022? Chad GPT. By February of 23, I counted it that day. And I think some version of artificial intelligence or AI was mentioned, I think it was 81 times. I don't have it in the number in front of me, some insane amount of times in their February 2023 conference call. So they've leaned into it hard, and boy, as it worked.

And so they are the poster chart. All right, Steve, make me as much money as you could have made me, telling me in February, buy NVIDIA and hold it on this AI trade, right? Like, that's a little bit of how much juice is left in the lemon. Number three is Micron. Number four is Broadcom. We know number five is Oracle, a little bit of a, it seems like the battleground stocks also tend to kind of be some of the most traded.

Where's the juice in the lemon left to squeeze, do you think? In the AI trade, I think there's not a lot of juice left. Really? Yeah, I mean, I think the question here, to me, the existential question is, can all these promises be met? And to a certain extent, again, I don't want to lean on one particular company. But I think just to one, at one problem is if we, if we draw the analogy of the internet era, and, you know, we can debate whether we're 1996, 1998, 1999, I'm going to say

we're sort of closer to the later stages because we've been in three years of a bull market. But in 1998, the internet had this huge promise, and I will stipulate it delivered everything and then some. Yeah, absolutely. Are we using Netscape browsers connecting through AOL and searching on Yahoo. The industries, the early winners do not always turn out to be the ultimate winners. You know, Alphabet was basically a startup at that point, and Mark Zuckerberg, I think, was in high school then. So there's a lot that can come down the pipe, and that's why I think it's a little tricky to say, we're all, you know, we're all basing ourselves on one particular model. Do you think your platform, your traders, are still, still think there's a lot of juice

left in this lemon. Are they acting like there is or like there isn't? They're, they're opportunistic. I think they're not, they're not, you know, buy everything all the time on all these names. I think, you know, certainly on Oracle, the names that you mentioned, actually three out of the five of them have had big pullbacks in recent weeks, right? You know, and NVIDIA had a mini pullback for a while, but, you know, Micron had a huge upswing, Broadcom and Oracle got throttled after their earnings, and then Micron sort of changed the narrative. And so, you know, you've got, they're opportunistic, they're smart, but this is what brought them to the dance. A lot of, so many people have made a lot of money in this, and they've gotten to know these

stocks very well. And so if you're a trader, you're going to stick to what you know. And one of the things we're seeing less in recent months, which I think is actually a very encouraging sign, is a lot less random speculation. There was a lot of times this year where I'd look at our list of most active stocks, and it would be some random four-letter symbol, and I had no idea what it was, And I'd look over, like, what kind of options activity? And there was zero because it was too small to have options listed on it. And that, to me, was a big red flag. We saw a lot of those, like, stocks go, never heard of them before.

They go from $1 to $12. And then, you know, by the end of the week, they'd be back at, like, two and a half. And that we're seeing much less of. I do like the fact that when I look at our 25 most active list, I know what they are. Or at least there are derivatives of real companies. Like I mentioned TQQQ earlier. So I do know what they are, and that's much better, much less random speculation. Steve, we'll get some parting thoughts, okay, right after this break.

Sit tight. All right, before we go, Steve, let's talk about Bitcoin, which is down 20% in the past months. We were just speaking about all the interest and activity there is in some of the hot tech stocks in the AI trade. What do you make of crypto going flat? Crypto is now for normies. Crypto is no longer the province of like, you know, 20 and 30-something young investors. No, and so what it is, this year, because of all the talk around crypto and because of the ETFs, regular people got invested. The problem is if you're starting to have, you know, 60-year-olds buying it through ETFs, they're not going to want to deal with a drawdown that goes from 120 to, you know, to 90.

And so they've moved on to gold. Regular gold has replaced digital gold. Steve, thanks so much. Great to see you today.