Power Lunch - Stocks Seesaw in Volatile Session 10/15/25

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

China and the U.S. continue to go back-and-forth in trade talks. A look at European and U.S. equities with ING's Anneka Treon.  And how will the existing power grid handle AI? It's all here on Power Lunch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A bit of a rally reversal with the Dow racing its 400-point gain, despite strong corporate earnings. Day 15 also, by the way, the shutdown China trade tensions are simmering. Welcome to Power Lunch, everybody. I am Brian. Kelly is out. InVIDIA BlackRock Microsoft X-I announcing a new $40 billion data center partnership. But one analyst says AI's impact on the economy may have already peaked. He's here.

Plus, should you get ready for blackouts? And soon? One big part of the American electrical system warning about just that today. You will hear from them directly. Plus, call it a big game of geopolitical chicken. Scott Bessett telling us that even a market sell-off will not stop the White House from going after China. We'll hit on that in just a few minutes. Hi, everybody.

Hope you're having a great Wednesday, wherever you may be. We've got a lot to do. And we're going to start on this critical question. Will all the money being poured into AI actually pay off? Now, of course, many say yes, it just will take some time. But a new note from Barclays has a slightly different take and suggests that the impact of all this AI spending may already be peaking,

and even that expectations for long-term productivity gains may be a bit overstated. Jonathan Millar is a senior economist at Barclays and joins us now, and I want to be clear because talking about an AI bubble is kind of all the rage, Jonathan. That's not what this is, correct? No, that's not our point here. Our point is a much more technical one with regard to GDP growth and the impetus that comes from AI.

And our point is basically that even though the AI spending at this point looks very impressive and has grown, you know, by many measures exponentially over the last year, really we're probably at the peak. now in terms of what this means in terms of contributions to annualize GDP growth. And that's important because really AI for that to continue to have a measurable impact on the economy, since it's a relatively small part of a $30 trillion economy, you really need it to continue to grow very fast to continue to provide the kind of thrust to GDP growth that it has so far this year. Yeah, and what you write, and it's an excellent, excellent note, Jonathan. What you write, and you'll forgive me, I'm going to look down so I can read your note,

is that you said simple math, basically, shows the capital deepening by itself, unlikely to move the needle significantly. You've got to permanently boost productivity, but not just boost productivity. Talk to us about how much we need to boost productivity, basically just to make all this capital spending break even. Well, I don't know about it in terms of how it would break even, terms of market returns. One thing that I can say in terms of having a measurable impact on that potential GDP growth, the bar is actually very high if we're looking for that to occur

just through capital spending on AI. So to give you a sense of it, we calculate that you'd probably have to raise the level of investment by about 20% per year in perpetuity in the overall BFI for the US to achieve maybe a percentage point increase in potential GDP growth. Those are really big numbers. I think the only thing comparable to that that we've ever seen would be during the 1990s when we saw 12% growth in BFI for about seven years. In that case, yes, it did move the needle or not a lot. We had a productivity miracle.

But in this case, if that's happening, we're still in the very early stages of it. And we'd have to have growth really pick up in terms of business investment for that to occur. Yeah, BFI, business fixed investment. And by the way, actually yesterday on this very program, Jonathan, I kind of semi-compared open AI to global crossing, not with the outcome. I want to be very, very clear on that, but about the need to build out the infrastructure that we now still use. And a lot of what we're doing now, the power generation alone, even if it doesn't go to data centers, we're going to need for the nation. over the next 30 to 50 years. In fact, we talk a lot more about this with our next guest after you.

But again, whenever there's a relationship to the 90s, it kind of has a weird take. You understand what I'm going for because the 90s were amazing, but didn't end well. Yeah, that didn't end well, and we'll have to see where this particular episode ends well. But one thing that we can say that the 1990s were great in terms of productivity, even though, you know, we had a boom in bus cycle in terms of wages, in terms of productivity, the economy, that was a great decade. But really, the issue is here that it's going to be hard to sustain that kind of growth. And I think even when you add in all of this infrastructure, and I think that that's important as well, a lot of people are stressing the fact that we're going to need much more power generation,

but even if you look at, say, projections for additional buildout of electricity going forward, you know, that's only contributing a little bit to GDP growth as well. So really, I would say, just in the very early stages, and if this is going to happen, we would need CAPEX expenditures to be continued to grow at these kind of pace. This kind of pace. But is that mathematically even possible, Jonathan? I mean, does the money even exist? I guess you can just issue debt and sort of create money,

but I don't know where I hope it continues. It has to, otherwise we won't have the build out. But does the money exist? Yeah, I think so. I mean, in principle, it would exist. So remember that, you know, the 500 billion or so that they're projecting that the five largest hyperscalers will be spending in, you know, in a couple of years' time, that's pretty small in relation to the overall economy.

So we have about $4.2 trillion dollars in business fixed investment per year. that number is only up about maybe eight and a half percent annualized in the first half of this year. So I think there's definitely the scope to raise the capital for this as long as, you know, everything else remains relatively subdued. That's not really the issue. It's just the appetite to continue this buildout at the pace that it's been going. Yeah, it's right now, arguably, the greatest capital spending boom in the history of the world, at least the modern world.

and we'll see where it ends up. Time will tell. It's an excellent note. Jonathan Malar, Barclays. Really appreciate it, Jonathan. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right.

Well, stocks may be back near record highs, but U.S. Treasury yields kind of still in that tight range, hovering right above 4%. So let's talk about what may finally move the bond market either way. Rick Santelli, joining us now from Chicago. And Rick, I know you pushed back on me in the past. I'm not implying bonds haven't moved, but is there anything that?

that you're seeing that might send the yield meaningfully under 4%. You know, I really don't. And that doesn't mean we can't see it periodically and for a short period of time, maybe move under 4%. As a technical response, if we happen to get a new fresh close for 2025, which is under 4%, because it's currently the close of the year. That's it. The low close, April 4th, 4%.

But I think any sustained trading above that level may prove to be very difficult. Because no matter how we slice it, if the economy does better, you could see more pressure upward on long rates. If the economy doesn't do better, it exaggerates the debt. We could see more upward pressure on long rates. But the short end? The short end's paying attention to the Fed chairman, as it did yesterday. Let's look at the charts, Sully. If you look at just a 12-hour chart of tens, boom, look at it.

You touched 4% already twice. twice, twice, before our time zone and in our time zone. Now, let's add another day to it. We touched it yesterday. So three touches of 4%. You touched it on September 19th, but yet you still haven't been able to really close under it. That is very significant. Now, granted, we're well off the closing yields. We close it 457 in a 10th, so we're off a little over 50 basis points. But I think it's very important to understand that the yield curve, especially long-dated treasuries, The only thing I could see that could really substantially put under 4% will be quantitative easing. And that type of manipulation by the Fed has its own potential negative feedback loop.

Finally, let's pair up the two-year to that two-day chart. And a couple things should jump at you. Not only are the ranges very, very tight while you see equities going hog wild. But if you look at the two-year, the two-year yesterday led rates down and it closed it, the lowest yield closed in three years. Today it's leading the yields higher as it takes back a little bit of that dovishness from yesterday in Jay Powell's speech.

Sully, back to you. I know we got breaking news out of the Fed in just a second, but Rick, yesterday Jerome Powell kind of alluded to a semi-form of quantitative easing, I think. Well, he definitely talked about potentially slowing or completely shutting down the tap on the runoff. And yes, the next logical conclusion, conclusion is that you could be a buyer, but caution, caution. I really do think that even with only

a 6.6 trillion balance sheet down from 9 trillion, I think it's a dicey proposition outside of a crisis. All right. Rick Sinteli, good conversation there. Thank you. And in fact, right now, folks, who does some breaking news from the Federal Reserve. We've got the latest beige book. Steve, I should say Steve Leesman has the latest page book. He's looked at it, but maybe also, Steve, you can comment on what we just talked about with Rick about this idea of, is there any chance the Federal Reserve does a pseudo form of QE? I'll get to that in a second. Let me get through these headlines here, if I could, Brian.

It's a kind of dower or downbeat Bayesbook with the Fed saying economic activity changed little from the prior report. That prior report showed little economic activity. Three districts said there was modest gross. Five said there was no change. Five saw a slight softening. Consumer spending inch down when it came to retail goods, and there's a big difference when it comes to by income group I'll get to in a second. But electric vehicle demand was boosted by auto sales, and of course you know the end of that government tax incentive that ended in September.

There was a further decline in leisure and hospitality demand from international travelers. That's something we've been tracking. Spending was strong by high income earners. However, low and middle income households can you see discounts in the face of higher prices. and elevated uncertainties that has seek discounts. Manufacturing was hit by higher tariffs and waning demand as well. Agriculture, energy, and transportation, all were said to be generally down. There was some improved business lending, and that became because of what you're just talking about,

lower interest rates. Sentiment did improve in a few districts. Others said uncertainty was weighing down economic activity. Employment levels were stable. Labor demand was generally muted, however. most districts saw employers lower headcounts through layoffs and attrition. So that's not good news there. Some employers were hiring temporary and part-time workers instead of hiring full-time workers. The labor supply was said to be strained in hospitality, agriculture, construction, and manufacturing, perhaps as a result of recent deportation and the immigration policies that are out there.

Wages grew at a moderate pace. That's okay, modest to moderate pace. health insurance expenses drove up labor costs. Now on the important issue of inflation, prices increased further with input costs increasing at a faster pace and tariff input costs increased across many districts. There was, however, a lot of difference in the past through of tariffs to final prices. It varied with some businesses passing along, others holding the line. There was waning demand in some markets that pushed prices down even further. The Fed could always increase QE, Brian, but really what we heard yesterday from the chair was part of an ongoing process where the Fed was trying to find the right level of reserves in the system. And so what was talked about yesterday was ending quantitative tightening, in other words, ending the runoff or the failure to replace those bonds that are running off of the Fed's balance sheet.

No talk at all at this time at all, really, of changing course. and going back to quantitative easing. In fact, I think, Brian, that the, because of the experience from the pandemic, the bar for doing QE the next time will be quite a bit higher. So we don't read into the end of quantitative tightening or the lowering as necessarily quantitative easing. One does not beget the other, correct? Alphabetically, QE does not follow QT.

I feel like we're in algebra class. I got like a D-minus, but you get my point. Steve Leesman, thank you very much. clearing that up. Steve, thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Coming up, the White House ratcheting up, the China rhetoric right here on CNBC this morning. Your next guest says, no matter what gets said, negotiations could all come down to a big game of chicken. All right, welcome back to U.S. trade tensions with China. Back in focus, President Trump now threatening to stop U.S. purchases of Chinese cooking oil, yes, cooking oil, a retaliation for China's refusal to buy American soybeans.

that a presser in Washington earlier today, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett commented on the current state of affairs and singled out a Chinese official as being disrespectful. He showed up uninvited in Washington and said, quote, China will cause global chaos if the port shipping fees go through. So I don't believe that China wants to be an agent of chaos. And maybe they used to have the wolf warrior diplomats. So maybe he thinks he's a wolf warrior. We don't know. Here not to react to that and also talk more about the government shutdown. Ed Mills, Washington policy analyst, managing director at Raymond James.

Ed, you've written that you think it's going to get worse before it gets better and that this kind of tit for tat back and forth kind of two kids on a playground shoving each other is going to get worse before we see some kind of resolution. But do you think we will see some kind of positive outcome here? Absolutely. I think what we've seen time and time again with President Trump is that when things escalate, you actually move the goalposts and you could get a bigger deal. What we've been telling clients at Raymond James is that as Trump and she meet,

We could see kind of a significant purchase of U.S. goods, be it soybeans, airplanes from China, up to a trillion dollars of investment in the United States. But what China wants for that is they want a relaxation of different tech restrictions, things that have been going on since Trump 1.0, semiconductor, semi-cap equipment. What has changed, Brian, is the fact that the Trump administration now really wants U.S. technology to be the default technology for AI. And I think they're willing to give it to China, if China. China guarantees us that we can get the critical and rare earth minerals that they are seeking

to restrict that are desperately needed for our industrial production. But you think this will end with Trump and Xi meeting and they get the photo op and they shake the hands. That would be good for the markets want that outcome, but saying basically this guy showed up unannounced and he's a wolf and sheep's clothing, whatever it was, and it was disrespectful. It's escalating right now. Yeah, and I think it's China that is mostly doing the escalation. I would agree. I think what China saw is that President Trump really wants a meeting with General Secretary Xi.

And normally when you are getting a meeting with the United States, you have to give something. But they say that Trump really just wants this meeting. So they're trying to kind of see where they can poke the United States, where they can get a reaction, where the soft spots are. But I do think that part of the reason why I am hopeful that this meeting ends positive is that it is not. not just this meeting that is on the books. We've also scheduled a home and away. President Trump is supposed to go to Beijing at some point next year, and at an appropriate time, she is supposed to come to the United States. So this is something that can build upon this. The other thing I heard from Besson today is that because we are going to see kind of such a high-level conversation, we actually could see longer pauses on tariffs. We've been 90 days,

90 days, 90 days, can we get a longer pause? Can we get higher commitments? The market would absolutely like more certainty greater than 90 days out between the number one and number two economies in the world, Brian. I don't want to throw firecrackers into a room and then walk away, but, you know, I'm going to do that right now. That's what you do. Yeah, that's what I, better than anybody, by the way. What happens if the Supreme Court rules tariffs are illegal?

Then what? The president has a lot of other authorities. The thing that we've been telling folks at Raymond James is that if the Supreme Court strikes down AYPA, which is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which he's done for the fentanyl tariffs, the immigration tariffs, the global reciprocal tariffs. Well, he could shift to other things like Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Trade Act of 1930. If the president thinks that there is an unreasonable policy limiting growth of the United States, he can unilaterally, immediately put a 50% tariff on. He can do 301 investigations. He has all these 232 investigations that don't

have tariff limits. So, Brian, if the Supreme Court strikes part or all of this down, the process might change. The outcome is not going to change. big deal. So we kind of taking that off our list of market risks, Ed? Well, I think that the market will absolutely react to that headline. We get a lot of questions about how this works, what the process is, what could be in terms of refunds of tariffs that have already paid. But it's really because they have not paid close enough attention to some of the details because what we have seen is that this administration knows that they need a plan B. So they have a plan B. So you could have an immediate market reaction, but as soon as that plan B rolls out, I think people will be

surprised unless they are really paying attention to the nuance and all of the different authorities that we have pointed out here. I know, and I'm not being, I'm very cognizant of the fact that government shutdown is impacting families in the federal government, around the federal government in D.C. and elsewhere. So I'm not being insensitive to that. But so far, the market, the stock market, the bond market, haven't seemed to care. We're on day 15. We're on day 15. We don't seem to be any closer to a deal. Tell us if we are or not. At what point does the market start to care? Brian, I think it's right. This has been the non-shutdown shutdown shutdown. Obviously, I have neighbors. I have friends who are furloughed. You're from Virginia. You know the impact of the federal government on this area. But the reality is that when we've done the data here at Raymond James, we have found on average the S&P 500 is up more than 3% during government shutdowns. That has been tracking so far. If it goes much beyond a month, that's where we can get concerned about the economic drague of so many furloughed employees.

What's happening with capital markets activities. The SEC is trying to make sure deals can get done, but there are deals that are getting held up because they are not fully operational. We could see weakness in housing because of the fact that certain government programs that provide flood insurance or provide guarantees on the mortgage products don't get done. And so when we're beyond a month, I think that's where the kind of impact on GDP could start to drag. But the reality is right now, Brian, is no one thinks that they're losing. And that both sides, both Democrats and Republicans think if they cave right now, they would lose politically. And so unless someone makes a political mistake, unless we start having really long lines at airports, unless something happens that impacts the average American, this government shutdown is destined to be the longest on the books.

Really? Wow. We're at day 15. Longest of the books, was it 34 days? That was 35 days. It was 34. So that was won off. Yeah, so that would be a long time and maybe the market does start to pay attention. Ed Mills, Raymond James, always a must read. Ed, thank you. Thank you. All right, on deck. We've got a real power player in the House, the president and CEO of New York State's grid operator out with a big warning. And he is here live. Next. All right. Time for another power play. And here's a story. story that will seem like it's local, but it's really an important national headline. The grid operator for the state of New York is warning of potential power outages or shortages beginning next summer. It's a 141-page report, but the basics are this. Without significant ads to the New York power grid, it is likely the system will be, quote, deficient beginning

summer of next year. In other words, we could have blackouts or brownouts or whatever. This is not just a New York state issue. A few months ago and a few years ago, PJM, which is the grid operator for all or part of 13 states and D.C., issued its own warning about potential shortages of power. And we already, of course, saw, sadly, what happened in Texas a few years ago when a winter storm knocked power offline for a host of different reasons. The bottom line is this, power outages can be deadly. With all the new demand coming from AI and data centers and crypto, though, it might even get worse in years to come. Let's talk about it.

Let's try to find some solutions and answers. Joining us now is the president and CEO of New York's independent system operator. Richard Dewey. Richard, thank you very much for joining us the report. 141 pages. It's long. It's well done. It's complicated.

For the non-power professional out there, what is the conclusion of your report? Yeah, Brian, thanks for having me. The conclusion of the report really is when you look at the readiness of the power grid within New York State, we're dealing with a lot of factors. You mentioned AI, large load growth, new demand coming onto the system. That's a big part of the challenge. We're also dealing with an aging generation fleet. We've got one of the oldest generating fleets in the country in and around New York City. And as we've been dealing with some of these policy changes that have been driving us away from fossil fuels towards renewing.

renewables, we're just in this, we're at this inflection point, really, that if we don't take some action now to start addressing some of our supply issues in and around New York City, we're going to be deficient. And what that means to be deficient is the risk of a reliability issue is greater than we've established our standards to be. So what's the first thing that you would do? You help run the grid, but you're not in charge of policy. If you were in charge of policy, what's the first thing that we should do? So the trigger for this report was a number of generators in New York City and Long Island notified us this summer that they plan to leave service. They want to exit for economic reasons.

They no longer want to participate in the markets and they want to deactivate. So one of our responsibilities when that happens is to do the analysis, to do the studies, to see if we can continue to maintain reliability after that happens. And what we found in this instance is if these generators were allowed to leave the system, if they were allowed to deactivate, we wouldn't have enough resources on the system starting next summer to be able to maintain reliability. Now, there's some other projects under development that are coming in. There's some transmission lines that are under construction that are not done yet. So minimally, we've identified that we need to keep these generators in service until those projects are completed. Can you force them to stay operational? And for the, again, the non-power professional out there,

how can a power plant just say, we're out, we're done? It's based on economics. It's whether they're making money with the current pricing environment. It's the age of the facility and if they have to do big capital upgrades. So our organization does the analysis of the studies, but we're independent. We cannot compel them to run or force them to remain in operation. New York State as an entity has some powers from the Public Service Commission that could do that. The Department of Energy could also do that. What we will do and what our team will do is we'll try to come up with an economic solution that. that will incentivize them to want to stay into service until some of these newer projects can be completed. On the longer duration, some of this load growth that you talked about, when you start looking four, five, six years into the future, even if these plants stay in service, we've identified that we're going to be deficient probably by about the end of the decade. So the time it takes to build new facilities, this is really a call to action by our organization. It's time to start now. We've got to thinking about new development. We've got to bridge. the gap as the fleet ages, but we also got to prepare for this economic development that we all see on the horizon. If I'm in New York City, if I'm in Manhattan, I should say, I don't want to say New York City. If I'm in Manhattan, I look across the East River, I look at the Astoria Generating

Company. And again, we got viewers in California, in Texas and all of the world, so they're like, what the hell are you talking about? It's a giant power plant in Queens, New York. And when I look at its capacity, Richard, it's hundreds of megawatts. It's tens of thousands of homes worth of electricity, it is one of the ones, I think, from reading your report that is asking to be deactivated. What happens if that power plant, just one of a few, shuts down? Well, what happens? Yeah, what happens is, you know, when we think about reliability, it's what's the likelihood that we're going to be able to maintain power for everybody in the peak load situations, right? So it's the hot summer days when they're doing lots of air conditioning.

increasingly it's the super cold winter nights when, you know, heating demand and demand for natural gas is stressing the system. So we plan the system to really perform in all scenarios and addressing those peaks. So if it deactivated today, probably nothing would happen. But as we get into next summer and we start hitting those peak low conditions when demand is at its highest, that's when we've identified that we wouldn't be able to guarantee the, level of reliability that consumers rely on. And again, I don't want to be political about it. But just yesterday, the governor of New York State said that they are not going to turn on

Indian Point. It's a nuclear power plant north of New York City. A lot of people are afraid of something were to happen. Millions of people are in trouble. I get the worry about it. It's shut down now. Some people are calling for it to be restarted. Governor Hochel said no.

Should it be turned back on? You know, when Indian point, the decision to return, entire Indian point was made. We were in a much, much different situation in terms of the surplus of supply we had on the system. Should that facility be turned on now? You know, it's not up to me to decide, you know, the policy around, you know, safe operation of a power system. We're agnostic. We don't care which plants run and which plants don't, but we do want to make sure that we've got adequate supply on the system. So, you know, we run a market. We try to do the most economic solution available at that point in time.

Affordability is important. That's a big part of Governor Hopewell's agenda as well. And it's really about coming up with the minimum supply that we need to ensure that we've got those resources on the system we need it during the banks. We'll let you go, Richard. But I'm old enough to remember 2003. We had a power outage for a different reason and tens of thousands of people in Manhattan walking across the Brooklyn Bridge to wherever they were going,

nothing ran was a site I will never forget. Richard Dewey, New York's grid operator, New York ISO. Really appreciate it, Richard. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Brian. Appreciate it. All right, very much. All right.

Your next guest says she does not see an AI bubble, but rather a big, fat opportunity for you to buy more stocks, the area of the markets that she likes right now. Next. All right, welcome back in Hemphie. Hump Day. It is another good day for investors. Stocks are up, as you can see, across the board.

Even the Russell's small cap index hitting another new intraday high, but it's early. So far, earnings have been solid, though. The big banks out reporting earnings that beat the street. So there's that. But oh, yeah, there's this massive AI boom that's single-handedly driving the greatest capital investment rush of modern times, if not ever. But with markets around the world at record highs, can you still make money if you missed the houseboat? Is it too late to jump on? Your next guest says, no, it's not too late.

You can still make money. She's got a global view. Joining us now on set, Onica Trion, head of global head private banking, wealth management, and investments at ING, based in the Netherlands, and you bicycle all the way here. It's amazing. It's amazing. So thank you. So what is the European investment view of the United States markets? Because we're all debating bubble or not, you think not.

We continue to see opportunity, because ultimately, A AI bubble or not, it boils down to real dollars being spent on real CAPEX with a very long runway of funding ahead. Today, companies are spending about half of their operating cash flow on CAPEX. That's much more than it was. Half! About half of the operating cash flow on CAPEX. That sounds like a lot. It's a lot, and it's more than double of what it was.

However, there's still more. And more importantly, if companies want to go out there and raise AI CAPEX related funds, there's ample capital out there. So that source, that runway of funding is not something that I think we need to be concerned about. You live in the Netherlands. There's some countries around you. I don't know if you ever heard of Belgium or Germany. They're all right there. Austria.

Their stock markets on U.S. dollar terms have done better than our market has. So despite Europe's problems, it's been a pretty doggone. on good investment this year, is it still a good investment or is the US a better investment? Yeah. Well, as you know, stocks are going to go up for one of two reasons. They're either going to go up because of multiple re-rating or they go up because of underlying earnings growth while the multiple stays the same or it's a bit of both. And if you look year to date, European indices have been great. But it's been largely driven by multiple re-rating because the starting point was

very cheap, especially compared to U.S. equities. U.S. equities year-to-date has been much more driven by earnings growth. Now, at a certain point, it becomes a problem if the, you know, if the performance... At some point Europe has to stop, you get to a point where the multiples don't make any sense anymore. Well, and I mean... It was so cheap before, I think, is what you're saying. It was so cheap before, and it still is. So it still is. There's still a very big multiple gap between European equities and U.S. equities. However, you need to see the earnings growth. That's your fuel. That's your oxygen.

And that's why the U.S. has just continued to perform. Whether as government shut down, whether there's tariffs, the earnings growth has continued to fuel the markets. It's been, and I don't think, and tell me if I'm wrong. Okay, I'm on TV. There's always a little hyperbole here or there. Maybe with me. We don't know. But I said it's the greatest capital investment in modern history, if not ever.

Is that hyperbole? I don't think it's a hyperbole. The numbers are staggering. It is. It's staggering. I think it's half of US CAPEX is on AI. It is staggering. And at the rate of innovation that we are seeing, it's going to continue to be staggering. It feels that we're at the forefront of it.

The key question is... Forefront. It feels that way. The key question is, are these dollars of invested CAPEX going to yield the expected return on invested capital? And the interesting thing is... Isn't that your job to figure... that out. It is our job to figure out. However, you won't know whether you're right or wrong until a few years' time. And that's the fascinating moment that we're in now. So we could sit here

today and come up with all sorts of thesis that we are not going to achieve the expected returns on capital. But we won't be made right or wrong until those days come, which is at least more than a year from now. Well, by the way, if that money, as Larry Fink said on CNBC yesterday, if that money that we're talking about is on power plants or power lines that can be used for other things like we just talked about. It doesn't matter if it's AI. I don't care if it's AI or I light and heat my home. But what about the other investment dollars, the invidia's and sort of the semiconductors of the world? By the way, invidia could not exist but for a Dutch company. Absolutely.

ASML. Without ASML, you have no Taiwan semiconductor and thus you have no invidia. Go Netherlands. Absolutely. You need those EUV machines. Yeah. Is that a good investment? still, that space, that area of the market? I think it is. I think it's an exciting investment. Essentially, innovation is an exciting place to invest in. And I think we can overthink, we can be skeptical, we can be cynical. However, again, if we zoom out and look at what is going on in markets, what are markets offering, let's take the U.S., for example.

You're seeing easier monetary policy. You're seeing easier fiscal policy. You're seeing strong earnings growth, and you're seeing capex booms. So you don't need to be too obsessed about one off the four. The general backdrop is very accommodating and very helpful. Are you as optimistic about our soccer team in the World Cup for next year? Because I don't, we lost the Netherlands in the World Cup playoffs. There I have less of it.

Last year, I was in Amsterdam for that game. Anika Trion of ING, great global view. Love having you on set. 260 billion of invested assets. Of invested. That's a lot of money. It's a lot. Anika Trian, I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. All right, let's get down over to Kate Rogers for a CNBC news update. Hi, Brian. The Conservative Majority Supreme Court appeared open today to gutting a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The justices heard oral arguments on whether states can consider race in drawing new districts while complying with the law. The court's decision could lead to widespread redistricting efforts. 15 governors representing about one-third of the U.S. population announced an effort today aimed at improving public health coordination and emergency preparedness. The alliance, which includes California, Colorado, New Jersey,

and New York, accuses the Trump administration of turning its back on public health. The states say they will exchange and collaborate on vaccine policy, emergency response, and other issues. And it's going to cost more for some people to heat their homes this winter. That's according to the Energy Information Administration, which sent today U.S. households using electricity, will spend about 4% more to stay warm because of higher power price forecasts. The government An agency says prices are responding in part to the growing electricity demand from data centers powering the AI boom. Brian, back over to you. That and of course, nobody building new power plants because you can't build this, you can't build that, you can't build that, you can't build this,

so you build nothing. Kate Rogers, thank you very much. All right, up next, like millions of Americans, maybe you're in debt, maybe you're deeply in debt, you're wondering every day, how do we get out of this? We're going to take deep dive into that very issue. We're Sharon Epperson in a personal finance Of course. Next. Hi, welcome back. A major debt dilemma facing millions of Americans and families. Recent surveys show most adults across all income levels say debt is impeding their ability to build wealth, yet fewer using debt relief programs like debt consolidation to pay it off. Sharon Epperson down joining us with more. Do we know what real impact this debt dilemma is having?

Well, it's having a real impact on people who may be wanting to. to invest. When you look at what the monthly debt load is, seven out of ten Americans are saying that their monthly debt is so great that they're unable to build wealth or to save. And so that could be having a tremendous impact on some investors. Yeah, everybody wants to pay down debt. Nobody wants to pay debt. What are some steps, real steps, not like, well, stop eating. You know what I mean? Some real steps people can take, especially with credit card debt, which for a lot of borrowers, especially lower on the credit score scale, the interest rate's like 25%. Exactly. And with $1.2 trillion, outstanding debt, credit card debt, people really need to figure out where they stand right now.

That's the first step. You have to know where you are and have kind of an idea either by creating or reviewing your budget to see where you are. Also, people don't think about asking. You don't ask, you don't get. You can't ask the credit card company to lower your rate if you are someone who has been paying pretty regularly, even if it's just the minimum balance. So 83% of people, according to a lending tree survey, found that if you did ask, you would get a lower rate. So think about that. And then consolidating debt is always a good way to go. I periodically listen to the radio, Sirius XM 112, CNBC. Of course.

And I will periodically hear commercials from debt consolidation firms. Yes. Does that work? Well, there are a couple things you should know. First of all, there are a couple things you can try on your own by, like, using a 0% balance transfer card, moving the debt over there. or getting out a personal loan at 14.5% rather than 20, 25% for credit card. But you want to talk to a nonprofit credit counselor. These are folks that are going to give you some idea about what's the difference

between a debt settlement program or debt settlement company that you might hear an ad about or a debt management plan that a nonprofit credit counselor will. Debt settlement is what? Like, I will 100 grand. I'll never be able to pay it off, but I can give you 40. Exactly. Go away. Exactly.

You get something, but you're not getting it all. Right. They're helping you negotiate some type of separate. usually less than what you owe. The problem is that that can have a detrimental impact on your credit score because you're not paying what you owe, and it's listed on your credit report for seven years as having settled for less than what you owe. A debt management plan also will help you get lower rates and reduce payments, but you're

paying that in full overtime working at a plan. The lender might be happy, though, the former, because then at least they get something. You can say, listen, I'm not going to give you anything, but if I gave you something, it's going to be this. But what if they have to then charge it? because they're not going to be paying the full amount. They're never going to get the full amount. Some lenders are now working with nonprofit credit counselors

so they can make sure they get paid in full. All right. Great real-world advice. Sharon Epperson, thank you for more. Real-world tactics. Sign up for Sharon's free Money 101 newsletter at the QR code on the screen. Go to CBC.com slash money 101. All right, as we had to break,

we spent a lot of time talking about power this hour. We just talked about potential power outages across the East Coast. Well, guess what? But Generac stock, they make generators. That stock's up four and a half percent right now. The market buying into this idea of BYOP. Bring your own power. We're back right after that.

The ninth Senate vote on a new spending bill ending moments ago. Let's find out how it might go with Emily Wilkins on Capitol Hill. Emily. Hey, Brian. Yeah, that ninth vote to try and reopen the government has failed and we're seeing that stalemate continue. No movement on either side. I'm told that there will be another vote tomorrow, but at this point, it looks like the shutdown could go into next week. And this is coming as a federal judge has ruled that Trump cannot fire federal workers during a shutdown.

Of course, we'll see whether that gets appealed and whether that goes on. You heard Russ vote with OMB say today he does expect to have more firings. So lots left to go in this shutdown and no end in sight at this point. What's the real sticking point? Both sides blaming each other. Is there like one thing that can get this done? You know, Brian, I'm going to keep an eye on the polls. I think really there's a lot of public sentiment out there.

Right now, Democrats are seeing good things in the polls for them. Republicans, good things in the polls for them. I think that's encouraging both sides to really dig in on their current position. There's not really a lot of room at this point for lawmakers to work together to try and get this done. I think maybe if public sentiment shifts, that might shift as well. Yeah, we heard the same thing earlier. They're worried about the polls and the political outcome, not so much about the government. workers or their families or their ability to, you know, like put food in the table.

Emily Wilkins, thank you very much. Our new workers haven't lost a paycheck yet. Thank you. Not yet. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. All right very quickly, folks, all the rare earth companies we've been talking about every day. We're going to keep showing them to you. There they are right now. They're down today. But hey, tomorrow's a new day. See what happens. We'll see you then. Closing bell starts right now.