Power Lunch - Power Lunch 9/15/25

Episode Date: September 15, 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.

Kicking off a big week for your money with a bang. The S&B and NASDAQ once again hitting all-time highs. Welcome to Power Lunch, everybody. Happy Monday. I am Brian Kelly is off. Investors rooting for a rate cut from Wednesday's Fed decision. The only questions now seem to be how much and how fast. All this, as President Trump says trade negotiations with China are going well.

Speaking of China, Nvidia shares down after it was accused of violating anti-monopoly laws. Oh, and Google, now a $3 trillion market cap company, and with that, the Mag 7 is now the magnificent 20 trillion and combined value. Folks, that means seven American companies are now worth more than the entire annual output of China's economy. And guess who counts both NVIDIA and Google as clients? Data Center player Equinix and its CEO will join us live right here on set. Oh, and we're going to hit oil as well for the Bank of America's, Global Head of Commodities, Francisco Blanch. That, as they say, is a lot of show.

It's a huge hour, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Let's jump right in and begin with the very latest on China because there is some good news that may be helping your money today. Reps from both the U.S. and China meeting in Madrid this weekend to lock in a trade deal. Treasury Secretary Bessett saying both parties got to a framework deal

to transfer ownership of TikTok to the United States. President Donald Trump, And Chinese President Xi Jinping expected to finalize a deal and a phone call on Friday. But with all that, remember this. It is still possible that the Supreme Court rules all the tariffs are ultimately illegal. And all of this ultimately is for not. Oh, and of course, we've got a giant Fed meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. So what exactly should you be focusing on right now?

Let's talk about it all. Kick off the show, kickoff the week with our friend Michelle Khrushik. CEO of MCC Global Enterprises and a CNBC contributor, Michelle. Pretty good news on the trade front. But does anything matter except for the Fed right now? Oh, I think when it comes to the markets, investors are clearly very focused on the idea that interest rates are going down, that the Fed is going to cut, at least at the short end of the curve, right?

Let's see what happens at the long end of the curve. That's absolutely the number one focus. I will say the China news and the trade news is important because, well, it may not show progress. It shows detente, right? We see the Chinese now, once again, coming after NVIDIA. Yes, Nvidia's down, but not by that much. And it feels like it's part of that whole tit for tap thing that we're dealing with. But progress on TikTok, that's a big deal. It just shows things maybe they're not going forward very quickly, but they're not going backwards either. And that is, the market just doesn't want to revisit Liberation Day. Because, yeah,

to your point, isn't TikTok, while a lot of our viewers and listeners could give a squat about TikTok itself, it does seem to represent something larger. Oh, 100%. Because remember, when President Trump was first in office, this first time, he outright banned TikTok under the Emergency Powers Act. And then that failed in the court system because they thought it was too much of a controlling freedom of expression. But since then, we've got laws passed.

I mean, clearly there's been a lot of national security concerns about TikTok, whether or not you believe them or not, certainly the Congress passed that law for. a reason. And the fact that we're getting to some kind of culmination on what is going to happen with that, that's progress. And that speaks to the larger relationship between the U.S. and China. China has been red hot as a stock market the last couple of weeks. And I do wonder how much, if any, of this China boom, of this U.S. continued rally, if this is the by the speculation on the Fed and China, and when the Fed actually cuts rates on Wednesday and maybe makes devilish comments, we'll see, And the China deal gets done, the market yawns because it's already made the move.

That's very interesting. When it comes to the U.S. market, that is very much a possibility. When it comes to the Chinese market, remember, Americans can't really buy mainland stocks. It's extremely difficult. Chinese investors have tons and tons of savings, trillions and dollars of savings. They have a closed capital account. That's a wonky way to say they can't transfer money overseas. So they can't buy our market.

It's very difficult. They used to buy real estate. That doesn't work anymore. You can only put so much in a savings account. So I'll think a lot of what's happening there is pent-up demand for something to do with your money. One, two, the fact that the Chinese government says they're going to subsidize and do all these things. Let's see if that really works out. But certainly there's a pent-up desire to do something with savings over there.

Yeah, the K-Web, which is one of the ETFs. You can buy ETFs here that represent. Mimic stocks overseas. Good word. You can buy shares in Hong Kong. but to your point, domestic Chinese shares, you've got to have like a local proxy that kind of does it for you. K-Web has been hot, still well off its highs of 2020, but it's been on a pretty good run. What could screw this all up?

What could screw this all up? If the economy in the United States turns out to be weaker than people have expected because there's been predictions for so long about some kind of recession, and yet we don't see that happening? Three out of the last two recessions have been predicted by economists, Michelle. I know. That's right. What could happen? Now, China, this trend is very interesting. You know, we got economic data out of China this morning. That was once again weak, weaker than expected. That economy is not growing as much as it could be or should be. And that government could still continue to make self-inflicted wounds that prevent it from growing. Yeah, and we're going to talk about energy in the next block with Francisco Blanche.

But there's a lot going on with Russia and Putin, Ukraine striking inside. of Russia this weekend with drones, hitting refineries. President Trump saying, I'm going to ask Europe to levy huge sanctions, real sanctions on Russia this time. It feels like the U.S. stock market is ignoring all of this. Yes. And I wonder why. Well, one, because the economy continues to chug along. When you look at all of the economy, other economies in the world, we are still growing faster. Despite the concerns we have about a potential recession, despite the concerns about what's happening, what was happening at the long end of the curve, Europe can't get out of its way. It can't do enough to grow.

They want to grow. They want to spend more money on defense. They want to change. But politically, it's extremely difficult for them to do. That's why the French government fell. I will say this. We have, Stacey, I'm going to ask you to stick around for our next segment, but I'm going to just editorialize for a second, okay?

Because I know you're a world traveler. I was just in Italy last week. I came away very bullish on Italy. They changed their tax policy to lure rich people. And whatever you think of rich people, fine. But they wanted to have hedge fund managers move from London and Frankfurt and Paris. And by the way, I met a few that have to move to Italy. There's a one-time flat tax on a certain level of income.

I feel like I can't speak for all of Europe, but Italy seems to have figured something out. Well, their prime minister is new in the last few years, right, and had a very different attitude towards the economy compared to what we've seen. They've desperately needed reforms. Mario Draghi, who ran the ECB for a long time, was their Treasury Secretary. He has begged for them to do reforms. You know, they haven't gotten there yet,

but she certainly has a much better attitude about business than we've seen before. I feel like Greece and Italy, two countries you know well, we've talked about. I feel like they're on the ascension, and the rest of Europe is struggling. France and Germany. They trade better than that. in France. They really do. Sit tight because speaking of trade talks with China, NVIDIA now getting caught a little bit in the middle. Chinese regulators claiming that Nvidia violated one of its anti-trust laws with its 2020 deal to buy a company called

Melanox. Now, NVIDIA issuing a response to this, saying, quote, we comply with the law in all respects and denying any wrongdoing. Invidia's stock initially fell on the news. It's flat, not literally exactly unchanged right now for more on what this may all mean or not mean. It's bringing Bernstein senior analyst Stacey Raskan. Stacey kind of hit with an antitrust accusation and the stock market snores. Well, you've got to remember, they're not selling anything in China right now. Yes, they want to. They want to.

And actually, the reason they're not selling right now, it is because of the China side. The U.S. seems to be getting a little more flexible on that. It's sort of unfortunate because, you know, supposedly the antitrust piece that they violated was that they weren't selling. They had promised post-Melanox to make sure they kept selling into China. Of course, it's not their choice. You know, it was on the U.S. side in that case, was not allowing them to sell. So they're sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place, I guess.

But to be honest, I don't know how serious this really is. I mean, they're in trade talks right now as you were talking about. This feels to me just like one more like chess piece on the chess board being moved. I don't know how serious it actually is. Okay, so let's use, let's use your analogy, is it an analogy or metaphor? I can never remember. Let's use that example. How about that, Stacey?

Me, fail English. All right, here's the thing. In chess, there is a goal. That goal is checkmate, right? Is to beat the other. So if this is a chess piece, as you say, what is the goal? Yeah, again, this is a whole other thing because I don't know how much our administration is playing chess or checkers or whatever.

So I don't know. At the end of the day, I mean, like, Nvidia wants to sell into China. And I'll be honest, I think there's a lot of demand in China for Nvidia's parts. So I actually think the Chinese customers would like Nvidia to be able to sell into China. You know, China right now is flexing everything that they can

to bring to bear around some of these trade talks. This is one lever that they may have. They did some other things today, too. You know, they launched an anti-dumping investigation into the analog space. So again, wherever they can at least, you know, in some sense, try to influence some of the outcome and apply at least a little bit of pressure. They're doing everything they can. I think part of the issue, at least in semiconductors, is that there's not a lot that they can do.

Like, they don't really have, because of some of things that have occurred, they don't really have a leadership position in most of these areas in semis. So wherever they can, I mean, they'll try to grab it. But, you know, there's not a ton that they can do at this point. We'll see what happens. I don't exactly know what the goals are on either side at this point. We'll see. And I'm sure there's a sims. I tried the Simpson quote from Ralph Wiggum.

Maybe there's something related to Nvidia in China. Who knows? But either way, Michelle, there is some goal here. And China wants the chips, but they probably also want to flex and show they're not just going to be pushed around. I feel like the TikTok, again, analogy metaphor, I can't remember which is which. This is symbolic of something larger than just Nvidia and some company Melanox that nobody's probably ever heard of.

It's definitely symbolic of something much larger. I think TikTok represents this issue, is emblematic of the relationship between China and the United States, because so many of the concerns expressed by members of Congress here are about national security. And that's been the overarching discussion that we've had. When it comes to TikTok, are they using TikTok implanted in people's phone to follow people around, to know where they are, to spy on them? That's, they did that. Well, answer your own question.

Well, but they did that when they were trying to figure out who was the mole in TikTok that was speaking to reporters, they started monitoring where reporters are doing. Chinese executives did that back on the Chinese mainland. So that was a concern. What about, are they using the algorithm to, you know, have malign influence on Americans' thinking about the United States and positive thinking about China? These are all things that we think about. We think about the national security relationship with China.

very deeply here in the United States. Stacey, quickly, what is the next market moving event for NVIDIA stock? What's the next major thing that you were following? Yeah, I mean, see, you've got earnings and everything else. I mean, they just reported earnings not that long ago.

What we're really looking for, at least for this year, I guess is two things. One is the magnitude and trajectory of their rack shipments as they ramp their blackball alter their GB300 parts into the end of the year next year. Look, we're also waiting to see if if some of these licensing and other issues around their ability to do business in China do these,

because, again, they have zeroed it out from their numbers. So anything they get from China in the near to medium term is upside. And I guess as you go forward, they've got their GTC event, which will be in March of next year. It's not that long, you know, six months from now. We'll probably get a lot more color on their next generation product, which is called Rubin, which is supposed to ramp in the second half of next year. So we'll probably learn a lot about that in the first half of 2026 when they have that event. God, we're already talking about 2026.

We're almost there. We're almost there. Summer 2025 is not even over. Technically. September. Oh, my goodness. Time is, time, as they say, is flying. Stacey Razgon.

Thank you. Michelle Cruz-Cabrera. Thank you. Pleasure. All right. Up next, while your next guest says, barring some big geopolitical changes, the price you pay at the pump could be in for a shock.

That's ahead. All right, welcome back. It is time to roll. out a new branded segment. We are calling it PowerPlay, where we hit some of the biggest energy stories in the world with the biggest guess, is the new home for really all things related to energy. So let's kick it off now because oil moving up a touch, but there is growing political risk to energy because Ukrainian drones, as we just talked about, hit Russian refineries over the weekend, and President Trump continues to press NATO nations to stop buying Russian oil or else.

And your next guest says, geopolitics is making a case for investment in both fuel storage and renewables. And he warns, if changes are made, there could be some price shocks ahead. Francisco Blanche's head of commodities and derivatives research at Bank of America. Securities, Francisco's great to have you back on the program. How do you see this Russia story playing at our, and are you surprised that oil's not moving more, given that Ukrainian drones hit pretty deep inside Russia? Hey, Brian, thanks for having me. Look, we've had, of course, hits to Ukraine refineries, but also, so Russian refineries by

Ukraine and drones, but also we had the port of Primorsk, which was hit a couple of weeks ago, exports about a million barrels a day, it started coming back again today. So we are in the midst of this constant warfare where energy infrastructure assets are being targeted. And that's, of course, a challenge for the market. Very different what we saw during the Biden administration, where there was a lot of concern about the potential hit to Russian energy assets and the impact on prices. So you might ask, so why isn't, as you said, why isn't the price reacting more now? Well, the reality is OPEC agreed to bring another 1.6 million barrels day of capacity back into the market, having agreed to bring online 2.5 million barrels a day

in the last six months. So there's a lot of OPEC plus barrels coming in the market as this attacks go on. And we assume and we believe that Saudi Arabia and maybe some other OPEC nations, but really the Saudis have enough spare capacity that if there was a meaningful offline of certain Russian barrels, maybe Ukraine hits them a little bit harder, that, Saudi Arabia and some others could fill any gap that may be in the market? Well, I think if you're looking at a relatively small hits, the answer is probably yes. And in fact, there's reports that within Russia, there's been some shortages of petroleum fuels like gasoline, because, of course, as you hit Russian refineries, like the one that was

hit over the weekend. Again, that was about 7% of Russian refining capacity went offline. And they are already in a tense internal market. So some of these measures are denting away, or some of these attacks are denting away, Russia's ability to fuel its own domestic market, the international markets. And yes, I mean, remember, we've been in a surplus in the first eight months of the year or so with the majority of oil of the surplus oil going to Chinese storage. So the Chinese are also buying on their end getting ready for what may happen in the future.

Yeah, and you've got a couple of macro trends, Francisco. You're a big thinker, and I love that about you. And you talk about how energy demand is going to grow, electricity demand is going to grow. We know that. We've talked about it. But who are the winners? Who ultimately wins from the world's sort of unlimited thirst for more power? Well, look, I think it's very clear that at this point, you need an all-out energy strategy. The demand from data centers for artificial entology, and other new sources, as well as electric vehicles and the electrification of homes, is enormous. It's already hitting markets like Texas, where we've seen dramatic our demand growth. I mean, 5% plus year and year. I mean, you don't even see that in emerging markets, Brian, it's incredible, the amount

of demand we've seen. So you really need to have all sorts of energy available at the moment to meet this great demand. And remember, Google today hit, or Alphabet hit $3 trillion. That's because the market expects these companies to generate a lot of profits, and to do so, they need a lot of power. So I think you need a policy that's very encompassing. We're seeing that in different countries.

But I have to say, the Chinese seem to be a little better prepared than other regions. They're investing very heavily in their grid infrastructure, upgrading it quickly, but also accumulating vast amounts of thermal fuel storage combined with renewal fuel setups in solar and wind. So they're really going all out here. Yeah, and I pressed the Secretary of Energy and Secretary of Interior last week in Italy at a conference about wind and saying we're going to need all the energy in the world. Is it smart to go offshore offshore wind when you can hate it, but we still need it? What do you think? Is there a future for things like offshore wind? I think there is. And offshore wind is probably the more expensive sources of renewable energy.

the cheaper being onshore wind, of course, but also solar. And I think battery technology is picking up very strongly. Now, here again, the Chinese have invested enormous amounts of money in their own domestic industrial capabilities. So they are a very strong position to meet that incremental energy demand. And I think even to some extent Europe looks okay because there's been so much demand. destruction in the European continent as a result of the crisis three years ago, that you have spare capacity.

So, look, I mean, some U.S. energy exporters will be big winners as well. It's kind of sad that the way that Europe meets their energy needs is by shrinking their economy to meet the energy availability. Not the way we want to go. Francisco Blanche, Bank of America Securities, Francisco, always love your views. Thank you very much. All right. Coming up, Too hot?

too cold or maybe just right by Michael Cantowitz. He's a Goldilocks economy ahead. All right, welcome back and happy Monday, and it is a bit of a happy Monday. Not by a lot. You can see that right there. The NASDAQ up 8 tenths of 1%. S&P is higher as well. And again, not a math whiz, but if you're at a record high and you go up from there, that's a new record high. Once again, on President Trump's positive comments, maybe on the trade talks or looking ahead at the Fed meeting on Wednesday and what they say and may do. There is a lot to discuss. Maybe it's just on good old-fashioned earnings announcements. Let's talk about it all with Michael Cantowitz, joining us, chief investment strategist at Piper Sandler. It's like dealer's choice, Michael. You've got Fed,

you've got positive China news, you've got continued strong earnings. How would you select sort of the rationale for what's been a pretty good rally for the last two months? Yeah. Well, it's been really since early April, pretty explosive rally. Some of the stats are... Well, the first two weeks April were pretty explosive on the downside. From the bottom. From the bottom, yes. Well, yeah, I think thus far, you know, generally everything's gone right.

Many fears have gone away. And I think, you know, something I'm picking up in our work and people are beginning to talk about is for the first time in about three years, you're seeing a broad improvement in earnings expectations. And the last few years, the narrowness of the market and even the economy. has been obviously something people have talked a lot about, and I think we're beginning to see a healing of that situation somewhat of a convergence. If we don't get, I almost don't want to say this, but if we don't get a rate cut on Wednesday, if we get a J-Pal, it's like, yeah, we're not ready yet, then what? I would be surprised. I'd be surprised, too, and the market would be surprised, given that it's a 90-plus percent probability.

but we don't know what's going to happen. So I'm just at the extreme outlier. Sure. What if the Jets actually won a game? That kind of a thing. Well, I mean, I, the markets wouldn't like that because that would create a lot of uncertainty in a market that clearly is pricing in, I think 100% odds roughly of a cut. That's all the odds.

And a couple more. That's correct. So, and the Fed doesn't like to surprise the market. And I think Powell in Jackson Hole talked a lot about the change in the labor data. So I think he opened the door and he's going to. Okay. So let me ask a less dumb question. So let's just assume that we get a rate cut because it's 100% in there.

Now the market is betting on how many rate cut. Do we get a quarter point? Yeah. Or do we get a half percentage point? Let's assume it's a quarter. Goldman Sachs is calling for three rate cuts. Maybe you guys have the same or more. You let me know.

But what if we get a quarter? kind of a one-and-done mentality, Michael, in the market? Is that a smarter question? Because then I fear stocks may be at risk. Agree, because, again, that would be a surprise. And I don't think Powell has given much forward guidance in several meetings because there's a lot of uncertainty. A year of uncertainty.

Yeah. And proven he's been data-dependent, though transparent at the same time. So I wouldn't expect them to indicate they're done. I would expect to hear the same thing we've heard from him at the end of pretty much every other meeting is every meeting going forward. We'll evaluate the data and as it changes and we will react if it's necessary. So we get a slightly less than doveish fed. Maybe stocks could be a little wobbly because we're told, Michael, that September traditionally, historically, is one of, if not the worst month's year for stocks. And yet all we keep doing is going up.

Yep. Well, seasonality, you know, doesn't entertain the idea of context. So the average, yeah, is very negative. There's some big outliers there. However, in periods just like Selimé go away, there's plenty of periods where markets do really well between May and September end. So I think, you know, we have to think about this backdrop today, why the market's going up. Will that continue rather than just take some average of history and apply it? Quickly, how do we know if we're going to get a Goldilocks economy or maybe we have one already?

Well, I would say we have one in this cycle's context. Okay. If you think about what I mean by that, if you think about pre-COVID, so after GFC through 2020, we had a generally slow growth backdrop with disinflationary pressures. So the stronger growth was the better the market did. irrespective of how high interest rates rose. In this backdrop, after an inflation shock in 2022, I believe the best backdrop is some softness

enough to get the Fed to gradually lower rates, not too much, not too cold, not too hot, and I think kind of that's where we are right now. The Powell porridge. Has that been used yet? I like that. Let's use it. Yeah.

Or maybe it's not Powell's porridge. Well, he's only got five meetings left. Well, there's other people that are in charge of policy. They're into the sous chefs. Gets some credit for it. Yeah, but he is the head cook right now. Sure. See where it goes. The Powell Porch. Michael Cantowitz, Piper Sandler. Great stuff. Thank you very much. All right, coming up, stocks pricing in a rate cut on Wednesday. And as we said, a more doveish Fed, but what is the bond market suggesting? We're going to ask Schwabs. Kathy Jones. Just that. Next.

All right, welcome back. Let's talk more about something we just talked about. And that is, of course, the Federal Reserve's meeting an interest rate decision on the Wednesday. That decision will come down at 2 p.m. Eastern time. We will be here. We know you'll be with us. In the meantime, the benchmarked U.S. 10-year Treasury yield holding steady just above 4% called 4.04, while a rate cut would impact short-term borrowing, tenure yield considered a longer-term bellwether for lending when it goes down. Interest rates, mortgage rates also tend to go down. That's what's been happening recently. In fact, here's a little good news. Freddie Mac, just reporting the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell about 15 basis points. Remember, one basis point is 0.01%. 100 basis points is 1%. So, mortgage rates felled about 6.35%. And while it doesn't seem like a lot, it's actually the largest weekly drop in the past year. And while mortgage rates are coming down, the 30-year fixed rate still above 6%. So that is three years in a row. That mortgage rates are above 6%. The cost of

borrowing, of course, remains a significant headwin for many borrowers, even with some recent moderation. The question is, what can we expect from not only the Fed, but the bond market this week and down the line, what we see meaningful relief for prospective home buyers? Sticking with the bond market, treasury yields dipping, again, slightly ahead of that, is bringing to Kathy Jones of Schwab. Kathy's good to have you on the program. You know, it's one thing for the Federal Reserve to say something. It's another thing for the bond market to do something. And the Fed can do what it, say what it wants.

In Europe, they've been cutting rates and borrowing costs have gone up, not down. What do you expect to happen on Wednesday and going forward? Yeah, Brian, I think the key is not so much the Fed cutting, because that's pretty well discounted in the market. The key is really what happens with inflation going forward. So it's a tough situation when you have the Fed cutting rates because the job market is slowing down, while inflation is stubbornly sticking around 3% and edging higher.

That's not a great dynamic for the bond market because it suggests a sort of stagflationary environment. And it also means for investors, well, you know, do you want to get extra yield for going longer-term maturities to compensate for the risk that the Fed's making a mistake and allowing inflation to pick up by easing when when inflation's moving the wrong direction? So really tough situation here, but I think the major issue that's going to drive bond yields over the next, you know, six to 12 months is going to be what happens with inflation rather than what happens with the Fed. Because, you know, a lot of Schwab's clients, maybe they want to buy a home. And they're like, well, the Fed's going to cut rates. So mortgage rates will go down.

Let's wait it out. It's not a guarantee, Kathy, is it? That the Fed cuts and mortgage rates go down. I mean, they could stay the same or move higher. Yeah, and we've seen that. You know, the Fed has cut rates. And we've seen the yield curve steep in that is yields, as you move out, you know, are not coming down at the pace that short-term rates are coming down because they're driven by not just what the Fed does,

although that's a component of it, but also inflation expectations, what the expectations are for growth and just supply and demand. How much are investors willing to invest in, say, 10-year bonds or 20-year bonds? And right now, around the globe, you're seeing some hesitancy in the longer-term bonds because countries are running big fiscal deficits. Inflation is going the wrong direction. and there's not a lot of confidence to move out the yield curve. We also have the Fed reducing some of its holdings of a longer-term bond. So a big issue for the market is, can private investors come in and buy these bonds with this dynamic going on? I would say we'll get some rally in the bond market after the Fed cuts rates, which we expect.

I'm not sure it's going to be enough to get those mortgage rates back below 6%. And you either read my mind or read my notes, Kathy, because I was going to ask you about QE and QT, quantitative easing, quantitative tightening. It's boring, called WBI, wonky. But important because what the Fed does with its balance sheets is pretty doggone important, right? Maybe more so in some ways than the benchmark lending rate. Do you think there's any chance that the Fed comes back in if it needs to to meaningfully drive down borrowing costs? You know, I don't think at this juncture, the Fed's likely to do that. They've been trying to reduce some of their holdings to get back to a Treasury-only balance sheet.

I think one of the interesting questions will be, depending on who is the new chair of the Fed, there's been a lot of talk about having the Fed's balance sheet maturities match with the Treasury's issuance. Fed Governor Waller has talked about this, maturity matching. And what that could mean, if that happens longer term, since the Treasury's been issuing a lot of T-bills, that the Fed would actually be buying less of the long-term bonds. And that would probably cause those yields to either climb or not to come down. So I think it's going to be an interesting and volatile period for longer-term bonds, waiting to see how policy evolves. I know. And by the way, only five more meetings left.

For Jerome Palace Fed Chair, it gets, there's like the personnel aspect is getting more dramatic as well. Kathy Jones, Chief Fixed Income Strategist, Charles Schwab. Kathy, real pleasure to have you on. Thank you. All right. Let's go now to a CNBC News update and go to Julia Borsden for that. Thanks, Brian. The Trump administration announced today would redirect nearly $500 million in federal funding toward historically black colleges and tribal colleges in the U.S. The one-time investment is primarily covered by cuts to other schools, most with large numbers of Hispanic students. The Education Department said their grants were unconstitutional because they were only available to colleges with certain minority enrollment thresholds. The White House is asking Congress to boost funding for the U.S. Marshal Service and for security for the Supreme Court. The request for an additional $58 million cites an increase in threats to public officials,

and it comes after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. And a looming Long Island railroad strike has been delayed as workers who voted to walk off the job later this week asked for intervention from the White House. The five unions representing the biggest commuter rail service in the U.S. requested the formation of a presidential emergency board as they pushed for a 16% raise over three years. Brian, back over to you. This Penn Station could get even more fun. Julia Borsden, thank you.

All right, on deck, the CEO of the largest data center operator in the world is here. On set exclusively, and she's up next. All right, welcome back. The AI arms race is on the world. biggest tech companies from Amazon Web Services to Microsoft to NVIDIA to even Google Cloud. As you know, in a furious battle for data center dominance, and they are spending a lot of money. In fact, there are estimates that data center infrastructure spending is at $400 billion, and it is growing from there.

And the hyperscalers rely on their data centers to work. Inter Equinix. That is the largest data center operator in the world with recent partnerships and sustainable energy and its deep integration with the world's most demanding. AI workloads, joined on set by Adair, Fox Martin, CEO of Equinix. Adair, thank you for coming in. Thank you so much for having me. To the wilds of New Jersey.

Delighted to be here. Fantastic. Well, delighted you're here. So you gave me a really good example before the show began of what you guys do. You compared it to an airport. Explain what that means and who your company is. Yeah. So I think in the world of data center, there's a harmonious view of data centers, but actually

there's different types. And Equinix is a co-location provider, which means that we're rather like the airport authority of the internet. So imagine an airport. There's a whole series of facilities that the airport provides to the airlines, security, maintenance, use of the runways, ticketing facilities. A passenger comes in. They land on point A. And a whole series of things happen in the background to send them on their way to their next destination. And really, in many respects, Equinix is the airport of the internet, except.

we're not dealing with passengers. We're dealing with data packages that come in, and then we send them on their way to their next correct location. And I would imagine you're paid for all those data packets. Exactly. Right? Exactly. So there's all we talk about every day is AI and hyperscalers and data centers.

Stocks keep going up. Your stock down a little bit this year. What is Wall Street? What are investors maybe not understanding about your story, Adair? Yeah. So I think the secret source of Equinix is, connectivity. We have locations, data centers in 270 locations around the world in 36 major cities. And the secret source is how we connect one business to another through various different

technological means. And why that is super important is in the AI race. Right. The focus in AI right now is on training. But inference is when you begin to put the models that you developed in your training to work in business process, for example. And that's going to need connectivity. That's going to need to get data from all sources. And that's why we're super excited about the inference opportunity for equinex. And you own about two-thirds of your locations, outright you've built them. Do you have guaranteed power contracts on those locations?

Is there a risk? Because we talk about all the time, the fight for electricity. that thing that we're showing behind you, this giant beautiful graphic, that takes a lot of power. Yes. Look, there's no doubt there's an energy super cycle. And I think it's augmented by the electrification of everything, you know, not just the data center industry and the growth in AI, but the cars on our rows and so on. For our data centers that are currently in operation, we have a 27-year history. We've worked very closely with the utilities over that period of time. And so for the data centers that we operate, our power source is guaranteed from the utilities. Of course, as we begin to construct, then we have to look at how do we procure the power to secure our energy future and the energy future of our customers.

I'm guessing you've met with all of your CEO colleagues from that bevy of companies that we have on the list. So if a CEO of one of those big companies comes in and sits down with you, what questions do they ask, Adair? What are they most interested in learning from you guys? Yeah. You know, most of our customers are enterprise customers, and we also support many of the clouds in our ecosystem. And so I guess the questions might be slightly different. If it's an enterprise customer, they're very interested in privacy,

in resilience, in, you know, surety of performance. If it's a cloud, then they're looking for how do we partner with them to bring the connectivity that we have into their ecosystem. The competition for data centers, is it very robust? Companies say to you, well, Adair, I'd like to use Equinix, but there's other players. Or do you have, kind of like to your airport analogy or metaphor, I screwed it up earlier, do you have sort of just regional locks? I know you're big in Culpeper, Virginia, and Boston and Sao Paulo.

How does it work? I think we're very privileged to have a very balanced portfolio, both globally. So, you know, a footprint in Asia, Pacific, a footprint in AMEA, a footprint in North America, but also by industry. So a very balanced portfolio across industries. So sometimes our data centers would be point of gravity for a particular industry, maybe around a trading partner that brings their whole ecosystem to operate in our data center. What's the biggest risk to, not your company, but to the AI infrastructure trade is powering the stock. market right now. With everything, there are some risks. So you look, your CEO, your job is to kind of look at risks. What do you see as risks in this world right now? Today for us, you know,

it is securing the energy future for Equinix and our customers over the longer term. That's it. Maybe picking up a nuclear plant here and there to just kind of move next door. I mean, I'm only half joking because Amazon did it. Yeah. Well, for us, you know, we're innovating across the spectrum of available power, like up as 10 years ago, we actually implemented Bloom fuel cells, gas fuel cells in our Silicon Valley facility. We've experimented with hydrogen.

So we're looking at all sources of power to in order to ensure that we can secure that energy. And people wonder why we talk about energy and electricity and power so much. By the way, I love your California accent. Thank you so much. I've been practicing. You've been practicing. It's fantastic.

Yeah. Ireland's own Adair, Fox Martin, to a Sullivan. Thank you. All right, still ahead. More on the eye-opening comments from President Trump about maybe stopping reporting quarterly earnings. And our poll on just that. Stick around. CryptoWatch is sponsored by crypto.com. Crypto.com is America's premier crypto platform. President Trump, again making headlines today, he posted on social media that, quote, subject to S-EFortech. the approval, companies and corporations should no longer be forced to report on a quarterly basis. And maybe instead report their earnings every six months like they do in other countries, saying a longer-term timeline may be better for everybody. So I don't know, we don't have an opinion on it, but we want to know what you thought about it.

So the way to do that is you go to X and LinkedIn. We had a poll on X. Companies should report their earnings every quarter like they do now, every six months, or every year. And the results pretty doggone definitive. In fact, the overwhelming majority of all of you very smart and well-informed people, best audience, by the way, in the business, was that companies should continue to do what they are doing right now.

And yes, I realized I had a CEO on right here. I probably should have asked her, what did she think about that? But I screwed up. All right, coming up. What is this mystery chart? Well, here's a hint. It glitters more lately than gold. Time for an RBI and a mystery chart.

chart at the same time. It's a two-for-one special. And gold and silver, of course, they continue to go higher. Gold hitting record highs. But you know what's done better than gold this year? Well, that is platinum. Platinum, up 56% in 2025, topping silver and gold's big runs. What's even more amazing is that this is including a slight drop-release for platinum from its July highs. Platinum, kind of unlike gold does have an industrial use. It is a man. ingredient in a car's catalytic converter. The more you know, platinum. We'll see tomorrow. Closing bell starts down.