Power Lunch - U.S. government announces it will take stake in USA Rare Earth 1/26/26

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

USA Rare Earth CEO Barbara Humpton joins the show to discuss the U.S. government taking a stake. Tom Lee joins the show to discuss markets and crypto. And PGA Tour golfer and 3-time Major champion Jordan Spieth joins the show.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right, stocks are up, and it's a big week for your money. Welcome to Power Lunch alongside Kelly Evans. I'm Dominic Chu in for Brian Sullivan today, who is on assignment. We're going to see him very shortly. We've got a very busy on a week of earnings on deck, including four of the Mag 7 stocks. Of course, the Fed's decision on interest rates looms. What it's going to mean for borrowing costs, and another government shutdown, by the way, is looming. Tom Lee is the head of research over at Fundstra.

He's going to join us to tackle all of this and more, Kelly. And we have a significant deal in the quantum space with IONQ acquiring the chipmaker Skywater for nearly $2 billion. They bring semi-manufacturing in-house and are accelerating the race for next-gen quantum processors. IONQ's CEO, Niccolo Damasi, will join us later this hour. Plus, Jordan Speath, the PGA tour golfer here, three-time major champion. He's playing at Pebble Beach in a couple of weeks. But first, Dom, he's on PowerLone. Excited. I'm excited as a golfer, of course.

And of course, another big day today for the Trump administration, investing one. $1.6 billion in critical minerals company, USA Rare Earth. The CEO, Barbara Humpton, is going to join us next. And that's where we start today with a big exclusive interview. USA Rare Earth is getting a huge vote of confidence from the U.S. government and some blue chip investors. The shares are up 14 percent today. Government will be giving USA Rare Earth $277 million in direct money, along with a $1.3 billion loan. As part of that, the U.S. Department of Commerce will take 16.1 million shares of common stock and 17.6 million warrants in USAR. A group of private market investors is also providing a few hundred million in capital. The shares soared on the news that

are still near those levels, as I mentioned with the gain of 14%. Let's bring in none other than our own Brian Sullivan for this interview. Hi, Brian. Hey, Kelly and Dom. Yeah, hey everybody. And Barbara Humpton, the CEO of USA. We're joining us. Barbara, I am on the road. So I'm doing the laptop thing. So I apologize for the look. But Thank you very much for joining us. Congratulations. It's a huge day for you and your investors. Can you give us a little more background? Did the Commerce Secretary and the White House team come to you? Did you go to them? How did this play out? Brian, first of all, it's great to see you. And I know you're giving a keynote today, so I appreciate you phoning in for this. At USA Rare Earth, everybody needs to know is the first mine-to-magnet heavy rare earth supplier outside of China. We've been putting together these assets. I joined. in October, and one of my first objectives was to make sure the U.S. government understood the assets we have under management so they could begin to see how that fits into the various issues they are so urgently working on. And yes, in November, early November, I had the

chance to be in conversation with Secretary Lutnik. After hearing about our capabilities, his question was, what would it take to go faster and to scale further? And so, And so we went to work immediately. Actually, the Department of Commerce led an all of government effort. We had a really first of its kind meeting at the Pentagon with both the Department of War, the Department of Energy, and commerce themselves. At the end of the meeting, the question from all three departments was, how fast do you need to move?

And ultimately, Commerce stepped up and the Chips and Science Act team switched into high gear to make sure that we moved at warp speed to understand how to scale up this business and to see the transformative opportunity ahead of us. Are these shares and these warrants? Are they newly issued stock or this from existing stock of stock? These will be issued to the government. The government is taking an economic interest in the business, not a governance interest. and what we anticipate is the U.S. being able to, U.S. taxpayers being able to participate in the benefit.

As we grow this business, the benefits will accrue to all of us as U.S. citizens, as well as the private investors we have currently engaged. These are conditional stakes then? And if so, what conditions need to be met for these triggers and these milestones, these payments to occur? You're asking about how the money will be paid out, and this is really important. The CHIP's team wanted to be crystal clear that the United States government is not taking all the risk here. So first condition is we were asked to go raise private money, and we had a goal of $500 million. I'm happy to say that the pipe that we've executed was many, many times oversubscribed, and the board decided that the board decided that the right number we should take for equity is $1.5 billion. This is our own fundraising that goes alongside what the government will be investing in. Now, with all that said, between the two, we now have

the resources we need in order to execute through our first two years of this ambitious plan we have put together. Now, the government will be tracking our progress very closely. We created a detailed plan. There are key milestones, and the government has tied the payments of both the funding as well as debt elements. They've tied those to our accomplishments, meaning if we don't progress with our business, then we won't receive funding. But as we do progress, we'll be supported by the American people to ensure we quickly build these assets that are needed for our economic security. And I think that you obviously know. that's the challenge that some investors are concerned about, Barbara, which is this hill, this mountain's called Roundtop in Texas. It's got heavy minerals. It's got lighter minerals as well. It's a very mineral-rich mountain. But to be fair, this mountain has existed for years. It's been, I've met people to talk about trying to sell me the mineral story 10 years ago, 15 years ago, around Roundtop, which we're seeing right now, how do you convince investors, both current and future, that you, you and your team, are the one.

ones that can actually finally extract the minerals from this mountain, which is 90 miles east, southeast of El Paso, and get them to Oklahoma and do it profitably because that is a big, big job. Yeah, Round Top is a very special asset. And today I had the chance to talk to Commissioner Don Buckingham, the land commissioner of Texas, as well as Judge McKenzie of Hudson County. This is a very special place. And yes, teams have been working on this for years to understand the right way to extract these minerals in an economically viable way. Over the last year, the team had a breakthrough. They had been working with continuous ion exchange, but decided to go to the de-risk solvent extraction form in order to progress what's called a flow sheet.

I don't know what any of that. I don't know what any of that mean. How does that change the round-talk story? It's not a new story, though, Barb. Pardon me? How does that change what you just mentioned, which I'm going to admit, I don't understand, the ion and the flow, but people have been concerned. It's a mountain that's been around for a while. How does USA Rare Earth do what others seemingly have not been able to do before? Okay, so first, changing the method used for the mineral extraction is the first step.

And the team has already gone through from simulation to bench testing to piloting. We know that the chemistry works. And now we are building up our demonstration facility. So through the early part of this year, you'll be able to see the results as we bring samples from the mountain and actually process them. So the new flow sheet does one more thing, Brian. It takes advantage of a switch in what we're trying to extract. our focus will be on the heavy rare earths, the highly valuable heavy rare earths, as well as hafnium and zirconium, very marketable. With this new approach, instead of trying to extract

every single element, instead focusing on those that are in high demand now and highly important to our economy, we move quickly. And the great news is that those elements that are not yet extracted in our flow sheet can be preserved for future processing when there are additional breakthroughs. The math is done. The science is done. We're moving. Well, you're forecasting 10,000 tons of these magnets per year by 2029. So that's a, I mean, it's 2026. So it's not too far off. Barbara, people have talked to say, well, that's a heady goal. I mean, that's three plus years. That's really, really fast in an industry that is known for moving really, really slow. This is why the funding from both the private sector as well as the public sector is so important.

So many operations have to go step by step, you know, prove me, prove to me, prove to me, before they're able to secure the funds they need to proceed. By ensuring that we have the funds now, we're already in touch with equipment manufacturers, getting ready for the long lead items that we need so that we can move in parallel. Remember, this is a problem we have to solve for. national security. We've heard from Secretary Lutnik and Secretary Wright, their laser focus on making sure that we are no longer dependent on supplies from China. There's only one way to get there, and that's to build it, and that's what we're doing. How much right now? Final question,

Barbara, thank you. How much does China control? We know they control the industry for the most part, but how much do they control the pricing? Is there a risk that China could drive down prices to a point to basically try to put you out of business. Brian, I don't think we're falling for that trick again, right? We've seen the markets yo-yo up and down, and China's actions twice this year have made it clear to everyone that economic dependence is also geopolitical dependence, and we can't let that happen again.

What we understand is there will be a market forming outside of China. We're building into that. We're working with lots of. other players across the marketplace. If we were successful in securing even 20% of what China controls in today's market, every player in this business would grow. So I'm confident that this is going to be a collaborative. I think there's going to be a lot of co-opetition in this market space because the real trick

here is we all need to grow in concert in order to scale and build the strong supply chain outside of China. Barbara Honton, Lisa, I hope we'll continue this conversation. Maybe your facility in Stillwater, Oklahoma. We'd love to come see you and pay a visit. Is that something that's on the table? Come over any time, Brian. Okay, because I'm not too far away, by the way, from the other mine in California,

from one of your competitors, MP materials. I'll just say that. Also one of my suppliers and customers MP materials. Yeah, we're in Las Vegas right now. Barbara Humpin, do appreciate your time. Big day, stocks up 16%. Barbara, thank you very much. Thank you. We really appreciate it today. Again, the stock is reacting to some of her candid comments about how that deal went down. It was really fascinating. Listen, and our thanks to you both. We're going to take a quick break and then Fund Stratt's head of research and bidmine chairman Tom Lee will join us to talk about the market right now and why he keeps buying ether. Stay tuned.

Welcome back. It's a huge week for the markets, obviously. We have the Federal Reserve's latest decision on rates coming on Wednesday. We have a key test for the rally fueled by AI optimism. With four of the Mag 7 reporting, as you can see on your screen there, we've got Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, and meta, we'll hear from all of them, plus a lot more, all while geopolitical and policy uncertainty is simmering in the background. Maybe there's a shutdown now. Here to discuss it all as Tom Lee. He's Fund Stratt's head of research and a CNBC contributor. I kind of want to start, Tom, with what's been going on in the metals, because a lot of people

are pointing to this and saying the dollar's collapsing and metals are soaring, and should they feel good about owning stocks in this environment? or you hold your nose. Can you kind of just unpack for us what you think is going on here? Yeah, I mean, I think metals is proving to be a real genuine asset class because I think for many years, maybe people thought only goldbegg should own gold.

But now, especially the last three years, medals have, I think, proven to be a bit of a juggernaut. And it's hard to tell how much of it is geopolitical uncertainty, dollar and currency weakness versus devilish central. banks, but maybe if it's all three, that explains why gold's done so well. I don't think that those are bad for equities, because if this is anticipating dollar weakness or more dovish moves by central banks, then it's good for asset prices. So I almost think the goal move could be sort of a glimpse into sort of risk-aptite growing for stocks. As a result of things like

dollar weakness and everything else, right? This idea that you go into more riskier assets or ones that are diversified away from there. If you're going to look at that, though, with the dollar weakness intact, Kelly also mentioned the MAG7 stocks and the slew of earnings we've got coming up. Weaker dollar has typically in the past, from a conventional wisdom standpoint, meant better for large multinational companies. It helps their overall revenue profile, especially outside the U.S. Is that still something that we want to look towards as a true tailwind for this market, other than just saying maybe risk assets are in vogue, and we just want to play the AI trade ad nauseum for the rest of the business. this year? Yeah, I mean, in some ways, I think one of the big sort of real stories this year is

earnings growth is accelerating. And that was because of onshoreing, the tariff headwinds disappearing. But now if we have dollar weakness, I think it puts more upside to the earning story. Investors aren't necessarily paying for that right now because multiples have been compressing, but I think it really helps anchor stocks. So between now and the end of the year, I think there can be a lot of reasons for speed bumps, but I think as we exit the year, the earning story is anchoring, I'd say, upside to our 7,700 target. Yeah, which is, I mean, we're starting to look at, we've seen one round number after another falling for gold and the likes, and you wonder if we're finally going to get back to talking

about S&P 7,000 and Dow 50K and all of that. But so you're not worried there's going to be, you know, kind of landmines hiding in the earnings reports or anything like that. Does the government shutdown matter? I mean, we just had one at the end of the year, and yet here we are with equities. Yeah. In the short term, of course, shutdowns create uncertainty, and we just, like, as you said, went through the longest one.

Those have all proven to be buying opportunities, but it's, like, it's hard to ignore the fact that gold and silver are, like, sucking oxygen out of everything. Yes. Yeah. So what do you do with that? I mean, Carter Worth, for what it's worth, I want to know what all the technicians, what everyone thinks about this. He's now put out a note and saying sell all of it, the silver, right?

Just sell all of it. I mean, it's up 50 percent today. It's parabolic. It's parabolic. Yeah, it is. And it's just in the last two to three months. Yeah. Yeah.

And as you know, like when you look at extensions like this, it's dangerous to fade it because you don't know how long it will go. But you're right. A parabolic move highly marks the end of the move, not the beginning of the move. So it's a good question of like timing. But it sure seems like commodities, especially precious metals, needs to have a place in people's portfolios. If you look at the way that the earnings story is,

is going to shape up since you brought it up. If we want to look towards this season, we've kind of established the fact that we're maybe in this transition phase, this earnings season is going to be important, but maybe not as important given the future macro tailwinds that the market may have. In your mind, are there certain key parts of the market that you should be more exposed to?

You had in the past talked about banks and financials being there. We saw the run last year, And since the earnings season has started, those banks have kind of sold the news, so to speak. So are the banks still one of those places you want to be? Yeah. From Fund Stratt's perspective, when we did our outlook, our top sector picks this year would be energy and basic materials. And that was from early December. We still like the Mag 7 and financials and industrials and small caps.

I think the financials are being buffeted because the White House is choosing, winners and losers. And right now, they want to reduce the burden on consumers by potentially capping credit card rates and maybe making it harder for institutional buying of homes. So I think this is hurting the banks to an extent. But the bank fundamentals are so good. And I think tokenization and so blockchain are really big productivity drivers. And AI is a huge tailwind that I think banks are in the process of re-rating more like tech stocks over time. So I mean, I would use any of the weakness to buy them. Exciting times.

There you go. Tom, stay right there. Don't move. We're going to see you again in just a moment. Before we head to break, just want to also give you a quick market alert on Intel. The shares are now down about 20% since last Friday. It's only its worst two-day drop, by the way, since August of 24. They issued that disappointing guidance, warned about supply shortages.

A lot of people were questioning kind of what happened on the execution front for them last year. The stock is still on track for a positive month, and it has also doubled in value over the past year. But those losses now, Dom, are becoming pretty significant. All right. Now let's turn to the bond markets with the benchmark U.S. 10-year note yield ticking lower into this week's Fed meeting, but still in the range. Rick Santelli joins us now from Chicago with the latest with the bond report. And Rick, what exactly will be the catalyst for any kind of a move out of this range that we've seen for pretty much the last five months? Well, I think the catalyst would be what's going on in Japan. But we'll get to that in a minute, Dom. Let's look at the data today. We had really, really solid preliminary durable goods data. at the following two charts, twos and tens, when do we make our high yields of the session about four minutes after that 8.30 Eastern data hit the wires. Then everything reversed

to some extent. Now, here's the chart that I think everybody ought to look at, blow up really large and all you investors out there, this is the chart you want to watch. Here's a two-year chart of gold on top of 10-year Japanese yields. And I think it just speaks volumes as to what what's going on and what's the motivation here. It's a fiat currency rejection. And many investors obviously are selling sovereign debt and buying gold. And it's a pretty hard trade to argue with, especially when you look at a country, that's what, 250% debt to GDP and now talking about stimulus.

Yes, that's what the Japanese are doing. And finally, of course, it's affecting one of the fiat currencies, and that's the dollar. But it's kind of indiscriminate at this point. The dollar now hovering just above its low close for 2025, which was 9663 right in mid-September. And to answer your question directly, Dom, to me, right now we have sticky inflation until we see some numbers where the PCE and some of these core numbers start to get back closer to 2% versus 3%. I think the Fed may move a bit. I also think that the notion of the labor market deteriorating, well, I think that maybe we're over our skis on that deterioration.

For when I see, whether it's Atlanta, GDP now, or a bunch of other anecdotal metrics, I think the economy's heating up again. Back to you. All right. Rick Santelli, we're there with the Bond Report. Thank you very much for that. Coming up next on the show, Tom Lee is going to stick around with us.

Give us his crypto outlook right after this. Keep it right here. Welcome back to Power Lunch. Now, NVIDIA is investing $2 billion in the AI infrastructure provider Corweave to help expand the company's AI data center capacity. The new investment expands the company's previous partnership and makes NVIDIA the second largest core weave shareholder. Meanwhile, the shares are moving in opposite directions, with Corweave jumping higher on the news and NVIDIA stock fractionally lower in today's session right now, Kelly. So we'll keep in on that dynamic between CoreWeave and NVIDA. Oh, for sure. Plus, bit in mind, the largest treasury company of Ethereum.

Disclosing today, they bought 40,000 more of the cryptocurrency last week for their biggest purchase of the year. Let's bring back Tom Lee. He's Bitmind's chairman and a CNBC contributor. So just explain or unpack this for us. What crypto continues to experience, because we talked about this before, the October 10th reset and all of that. I don't know if that applies to Ether and kind of where it goes from here. Yeah, I think we're still feeling the ripple effects because on October 10th, there was a massive de-leveraging. it crippled many of the key players in industry, some exchanges and market makers,

and so the industry is sort of limping along, but the fundamentals have improved a lot. And I think even Davos really amplified that, that Wall Street is now starting to view traditional finance and tokenization and blockchains as one business that's converging. And it's not just Larry Fink, but it's the UBS CEO, the UBS CEO, EuroClear, really Wall Street sort of is on board.

I think the precious metal move has sucked a lot of the oxygen out of the room. So I think crypto prices aren't quite keeping up with fundamentals. But as you know, when fundamentals go up and to the right, prices eventually follow. Does that, though, mean that there is a certain degree of relative cannibalism between regular gold and digital gold, so to speak? I'm just using that as a kind of a metaphor and analogy right now. But if you're saying that the move up in silver and gold is kind of drawing a lot of that money or interest away from digital gold and digital silver, so to speak, does that then mean that the investor bases that they share is growing? And so they make that distinction from an allocation perspective. Yeah. And I think part of it is mechanical. Like, you know, when gold and silver rise and let's say folks are using margin or options, then they're using capacity that could be used to buy.

other risk assets, whether it's Mag 7 or cryptocurrencies. But because crypto inherently has de-levered, then that's going to be felt more in the crypto space. So I think crypto, which should be going up on like weaker dollar easing Fed, it doesn't have the leverage sort of tailwind because the industry de-levered. And as long as gold and silver arising, then there's a fomo into buying that instead of crypto. But of course, that is just a little. leading indicator, right? Because when gold and silver take a break, then, and in the past, that would lead to a Bitcoin and Ethereum surge afterwards. Right. I mean, it's bittersweet, I know, for a lot of crypto investors. They finally got their dollar to basement. And if you've

been in it since 20 or whatever, it's not a big deal. If you're in it more recently, it's probably more frustrating. What do the Bitcoin mining companies do here? Well, yeah, I mean, the Bitcoin miners, as you know, many of them have been, become... almost data center like entities, and they've become sort of power players. So the Bitcoin mining, I think, actually is done decently. I mean the Bitcoin Treasury companies. Oh, the Bitcoin Church. Yeah, and so there's Bitcoin Treasuries and Ethereum Treasuries.

And I think the Bitcoin Treasuries have lost momentum, with the exception of micro strategy, which has continued to buy crypto. In fact, since October 10th, only two treasury companies have bought more than a billion dollars worth of crypto, its micro strategy and Bitmine. The other Bitcoin treasuries, I think, have to figure out a strategy because Bitcoin doesn't generate an inherent yield. And they have to get investors comfortable with this marginal question about quantum and quantum risk. The Ethereum treasuries generate native yield. You know, Bitmine's current holdings are going to generate almost $400 million of rewards this year. So without even buying more Ethereum, you know, Bitcoin's current holdings, are going to generate almost $400 million

of rewards this year. So without even buying more Ethereum, you know, you know, Ethereum, it's a highly profitable company. In fact, in terms of net income, it's the 780th most profitable company in America. So how exactly do you explain then the divergence between what's happening with Ethereum prices versus BitMine immersion BMNR stock? I mean, they seemingly are kind of diverging a bit in this current regime of trading. Yeah. I think part of Bitmines sort of languishing lately is that there was this really important shareholder vote. that was taking place on January 15th to increase authorized shares. And that dominated headlines for a few weeks.

So investors were focused on the idea that this company's trying to increase its share authorization. But that's behind us now. And I think there's been a little bit of confusion because BitMine also now made a $200 million investment into Beast Industries, makes it the largest corporate holder of Beast Industries. But as we've talked to institutions,

they're starting to see the synergy that Beast is really iconic creator, you know, a billion followers, really important with Gen Z, Gen Alpha, millennials, and that's the audience that is going to be onboarding into crypto in the future. So we really help, we're going to help onboard several generations of folks into really understanding Ethereum and Crypto. All right. Tom, thanks. Double session with you today.

We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for taking the time. Great to see him. Tom Lane. We've also got a massive week of earnings ahead, and one company reporting has had eight weeks of losses in our row. Does our next guest think it's time to buy it? We'll reveal that after the break.

Welcome back. It's power check time, and we're going to drill down today on three stocks reporting this week, including a pair of the mag seven names. Let's start with Apple, of course. That was our chart earlier. They report after the bell Thursday and are coming off eight straight weeks of losses. Let's talk about that and more with Jay Woods. He's the chief market strategist at Freedom Capital Markets and a CNBC contributor. Jay, welcome to you. Apple, you excited to be a buyer here or waiting it at? We are at key pivotal moments, not just in Apple, Microsoft, but I would throw in meta and Tesla, the four Mag 7 stocks that report this week.

There are the four tops to me. We're seeing topping formations in all of these stocks, and we are at key levels where I will just sit back as a trader and wait to see how these shake out. Long term, love these names, but right now I want to see how the dust settles when they report earnings. And Apple is at that 245 level, which is old resistance. broke above it in September and now it's circled back. So it's got some work to do. It broke a long-term up trend. And to me, I think there's overhead resistance. It's got to get back above that 265 level around the declining 50-day moving average. So I'm watching this one carefully because it can dictate how the overall market goes as we shift away from technology into some of the lesser sectors that have been doing well over the last month. All right. So best day for Apple, by the way,

since October 20th, I want to say it's up about three and a quarter percent right now. So it doesn't It doesn't sound like you want to take a position going into earnings. That's not what you want to do. So let's bring up another one. Microsoft, which reports after the bell on Wednesday, is off 15% from its recent highs. So that's one. Again, earnings as a catalyst, do you want to play it or not? Well, right now, another key moment.

We're getting a relief rally. We were off 20% from our highs, so it is in a bare market on its own. And what has it done? It's broken long-term support. It's got a nice topping formation, and it's got a key low to watch. $450, that's the recent low. If that doesn't hold, watch $420. If that doesn't hold, this has a gap from last April.

You don't see the gap in a line chart, but if this does come under pressure, it could be a fall from another 20% from current levels. So risk reward is not favorable. I think we can trade it long going into earnings, but I would wait this one out. We want to see a break above its 200-day moving average. That barometer held to me, 485, 490, then back in, and we have a clear sailing to the low to mid-550s again. But right now, too much risk involved going into earnings with this topping formation. A breakdown could be very bad for Microsoft and for the tech sector. Wow, interesting.

So quite a lot at stake there, really. I mean, you don't think it's just a rotation away from the Open AI trade to the Google one? Well, that's what it is. But Microsoft and Met have really set the tone for that rotation away. quarter. Their earnings weren't that bad and price action did not follow through. We broke down and then we broke down some major trends. So I'm on the sidelines until this proves me. Otherwise, you know, get back above that 200-day moving average. Long-term, hold it. I don't really pay that much attention to it. But short-term, looking to get into the name, now's not the time.

All right. Let's move away from the Mag 7 then and talk about Starbucks because surprisingly, they're on pace for their best month in a year. They were going to hear from them as well. Yeah, well, this is a turnaround stock. This is the exact opposite, a nice bottoming formation with key resistance levels, this 97-99 level. We've gotten there three times over the last year, failed to get above it. This reminds me when Brian Nichols started at the company. We had a nice gap, nice rally. His first quarter last January, the stock jumped.

We are at that same exact inflection point coming into this January earnings. The stock could jump, but I like it either if it gaps. I want to trade it into 115 or on a pullback. This stock has broken major downtrends, broken above key moving averages. So even a dip, if it holds the low 90s, I think it's a great entry point. We call that flagging and technical analysis 101. I think if it holds the low 90s on a pullback, it gives you an opportunity. It's up about 15, 60 percent already in this year-to-date the last three weeks.

So it is a little overbought. Doesn't mean it can't gap and run to 115. but on a pullback, I think it gives someone that's been watching this stock, waiting for the turnaround, a nice opportunity to enter the stock with a good risk-reward set up for their portfolio. All right, just a taste of what you get in his technical analysis class at Fordham University. That is true, Dom. That is true. Jay Woods of Freedom Capital Markets, thank you very much.

Have a nice day, sir. Thank you. All right. Let's get over to Kate Rogers for a CNBC news update. Good afternoon, Kate. Hi, Dom. The White House said today President Trump is not giving up on the Ukraine peace process and remains deeply involved. It comes after Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said talks between the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine to end the war were due to resume on Sunday.

Zelensky said it would be better if they could happen even sooner. According to NBC News, Trump ally Lindsay Halligan is no longer a Justice Department employee. It comes after she gave up her role of interim United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia last week, months after a court ruling found she was appointed illegally. It wasn't clear if she would assume a different DOJ role as Lena Haba did after federal appeals court judges upheld her disqualification as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey in December. And Elon Musk said today, SpaceX is planning its next starship launch in six weeks or mid-March. The launch is expected to be the first test flight of its larger and more powerful, reusable version 3 rocket, which is designed to carry heavier next generation Starlink satellites into orbit. Don, back over to you.

All right, thank you very much, Kate Rogers, for the news update there. Coming up on the show, PGA Tour golfer and three-time major champion, Jordan Speath, is going to join us on the other side of this break to talk a lot of stuff about the future of the game. Stay with us. All right, welcome back to Power Lunch. We are covered in snow here in the Northeast, but the PGA Tour is already often running with the first legs of its season taking place over the last few weeks in places like Hawaii and California. Number one-ranked golfer Scotty Sheffler just won the most recent event,

the American Express down in the Palm Springs area this past weekend. Now, the next tour stops are in California. The Farmers Insurance Open, then to Arizona for the Waste Management Phoenix, and then back to Pebble Beach in California for the AT&T ProM. That last course is one that our next guest has had some success on. He's won there in 2017, had an iconic Cliffside Parseve there in 2022 to come in second place. So joining us now to discuss this current season and more is 13-time PGA tour. winner and three-time major champion, Jordan Speath, who, as you can see, is in a tropical-ish

location right now. So, Jordan, please right off the bat, tell us where you are. So in there. Exactly. It's making Kelly and I just feel a little terrible right now about being in New York. Yeah, you know, Dallas is, I live in Dallas, and Dallas is not conducive to getting work done right now, so I'm actually down in Mexico working, I swear. Yeah, then back home for a couple days and then off to Arizona. All right. So let's talk a little bit about why you're here right now. First of all, you've got some new hardware gear, if you will, with AT&T.

Let's take us through what's happening with your new bag. Yeah, AT&T does a great job of providing me with bags at special events, whether it be the majors, Father's Day, Mother's Day. But I get a really cool one to start the season at the AT&T, Pebble Beach open there. and I get this year's is a little bit different. We still have an ode to the old Bing Crosby. You still have your great Pebble Beach moments on the bag. But a big charitable focus this year.

We've got organizations like Euthon course, the first tee of Northern California, Special Olympics, American Red Cross, a bunch of local and national organizations, given the tournament itself is the most charitable tournament that PGA Tour has ever had over its 80-year history. So 250 million to charities over his 80-year history, which is amazing. And AT&T is just keeping that going.

It's one of the biggest charitable donors of any major sports group in the world, the PGA Tour is. And it's the reason why a lot of people pay attention. Speaking of the PGA Tour right now, the PGA Tour recently brought back a golfer who was not with the PGA tour this past couple of years, but has come back. His name's Brooks Keppka, a story major winner. I wonder from your perspective, Jordan Speeth will be playing in some events with Brooks Kepka. Do you feel as though the PGA tour product is better with former live golfers like a Brooks Kepka? And do you think that's the betterment of the game is going to be served well with some of that reunification in small doses?

Well, sure. I've been a friend of Brooks for a long time. I think that having him back on the PGA tour is certainly makes our product better. And I think that that's really just what we're the entire goal of what the board was looking at when he was asking to come back. So he's going to tee it up this week. It's going to create a lot of noise. And I think in a good way. And he's a five-time major winner that still has a lot of golf yet to show.

And that's going to be great being on playing for the PGA tour as we look forward to. Yeah, whatever the next stage of reunification is. As a person with a lot of skin in the game, literally and figuratively, with regard to the PGA Tour, what do you think of what's happening with the message that new current PGA Tour CEO Brian Roelap is putting out for its current players and some of the ones that have gone to the live tour about what the state of the game is? Do you think Brian Roelap has a daunting task ahead of him? And what do you think as a player do you need to see from Brian Roelap for this next couple of years to make the tour product that much better? Well, I think he doesn't have scar tissue, right?

He's just come in from the NFL, and I think he's looking forward. He's only looking forward while listening to and getting caught up on maybe the last craziness of the last three to five years, really COVID, and then into obviously the live tour starting. So he's being sensitive to that. He's called every single member of the PGA tour. He's asked them a lot of questions, me being one of them. I've spent a couple hours on the phone with him. He's done that with just about every PGA Tour member. He wants to know everyone's perspective,

but then first and foremost, he wants the PGA Tour to be successful going forward. And that's obviously taking care of our sponsors. His history should put us in a great position as our media rights deals come up in 2030. And then when it comes down to what doesn't seem like little things, but are little things compared to the other two, this reunification. You know, I think he's, I think everyone's very confident

that he's going to approach it the right way. He's going to make sure that it's for the betterment of the PGA tour going forward and not kind of holding on to, you know, it'll kind of some of the scar tissue of the past. He doesn't have any of it, and I think that's a good thing for us. That's a good point. Jordan,

just two quick questions for me. It's Kelly here, if you don't mind. The first is, you know, how involved our audience might, want to know in either stock trading or predictions markets or sports betting and all these are kind of quickly blending and rising in popularity. And I'm just, I'd be curious to know how much involved you are personally with them. Yeah, I would say I dive in quarterly, so not quite like y'all, but I dive in quarterly. I have a very good idea on where things are. I'm not a day

trader by any means. I do think that I know what's going to happen in sports events, but I know just about as much as anybody else knows on it. So occasionally, you know, when I'm, I have a relationship with Fandals. So when I'm in states that are legal, I use my credit there. But yeah, it's, I really nerd out for it. I mean, from when I was, I turned professional when I was 19, I, you know, I left college early. And then I tried to take a crash course and financial management in a way.

And it's always been something that's been interesting to me. and I love going into my, but I wouldn't say I dive in more than quarterly, very deep. And I play the long game. I'm not, you know, I've been told that that's the wise option given my age. And so I'm listening now, but we'll see when I'm not as busy with family and golf, if that means I get antsy and want to get more involved. It could be dangerous. It could be good.

It could be bad. If I'm right about your age, maybe you're doing this for about 13 years now. So with that in mind, a question we love to ask our CNBC guests from all walk of life is what's the biggest money mistake you've made so far? Well, it's a pretty, I would say really probably a pretty common thing. I bought a sports car back maybe my fourth year out on tour. I was holding my button on the trigger for about a year and then I bought it. And then I realized I didn't, I wanted to keep a low profile in town. So I never really drove it. And then I sold it with having filled it with one tank of gas like three years later. And it did not appreciate

in those three years. So it wasn't my best decision, but I learned my lesson. I love, though, how your takeaway is like, it's not that you didn't like the car. You just said, I was just too obvious. Yes, exactly. Didn't serve the purpose it was intended to. And my golf clubs didn't fit in it either, so that didn't really help. By the way, Jordan, just so you know, anytime I go shopping for a car, I bring golf clubs with me so I can see if they do fit in the trunk of the car. And I've already ruled out numerous models because they don't fit optimally.

I need two sets of clubs to fit in the trunk. That's how you know you have a problem. I know. I have a problem. I do. Yeah, that's what I'll be doing. Jordan, thanks so much. We really appreciate having you on today. Thank you all.

Best wishes. Jordan Speath. Power lunch will be back right after that. All right, we're just days away from the end of January, and the S&P is in the green for the month. Now, that's a good omen, according to data from Carson Groups Ryan Dietrich. Historically, when January finishes positive, the next 11 months are roughly higher, 87% of the time.

That percentage drops to 60% if we end the month lower. We're going to check back in with Ryan on Friday to see if January actually delivers what it's supposed to. But you get that kind of prediction for the rest of the year. Yeah, I mean, a couple of significant points lately. And Sam Stilvall was writing about this as well. Last week when we started to see the indexes drop, he's like we're in that territory where, you know, the technical start being less encouraging and all of that. So it is a big deal that we've been able to get the Greenland story kind of behind us and now see some momentum here to kick off. And of course, multiple catalysts, as we've pointed out, for this week to see if we've.

can make that move higher or lower with some significant influences in those four mag seven stocks. The Fed meeting probably being the big one. Maybe. There you go. No. All right. Well, thanks very much for watching Power Lunch. Be sure to check if your golf clubs fit in your car next time.