from an actual santa claus rally, so, we'll continue to watch it. >> before we go, check out the latest installment of my on the other hand newsletter. this week's debate, are diversity, equity, and inclusion policies on a collision course with free speech at universities? you can sign up at cnbc.com/otoh. that does it for "overtime." >> "fast money" begins right now. live from the nasdaq market site in the heart of new york city's times square, this is "fast money." here's what's on tap tonight. the ten-year dropping below 4% for the first time since july. the dollar hitting levels not seen since august. should investors fear these drops or cheer them? we'll go inside the numbers. plus, bank bonn unanimous sa. the names ripping higher this week. this month and this quarter. and you won't believe this, but they've just erased all their post-svb losses. is there still time to bet on the banks? and later, the december to remember for the housing trade. take a look at today's monster

move in moderna. and find out why foot locker has some serious pep in its step. i'm melissa lee, coming to you live from studio b at the nasdaq. on the desk tonight -- steve grass soap, karen finer man, dan nathan, and chris verrone. we start off with the pivot party rolling on on wall street. the dow hitting another all-time high during the session, ending the day with a record close. the s&p and nasdaq eking out gains, though they all closed well off their highs of the day. the big winner might be the small cap russell 2,000, which jumped 3%. but the real story of the market may lie not with the stock rally, but with the dollar's drop. falling another percent today to hit its lowest level since july. it is now down more than 5% from its october highs. so, what does this dollar decline say about the markets and the economy? chris, you brought this up in our mid-day call, we thought it was really interesting. the dollar is telling a different story. >> yeah, i think it's ironic as we get this pivot from powell, the dollar just falling out of

bed, slicing through 103 on dxy. we've seen euro firm, yen, that's the big story from a macro sense. is this the market's way of telling us that on the other side of this, either inflation actually reaccelerates and we're pivoting into that, or is the market saying global growth may be turning up here? it's one of those two, and i'm not sure it's the best backdrop for the fed into '24, and i think what's important when you look at what this weak dollar story has really -- it's a lot of the value-oriented parts of the market. i think emphasizes this idea that if the dollar's starting to turn, every next incremental dollar does not have to come to the u.s. it's not lost on us that -- what made new highs before s&p? the dax did, the italian index, the spanish index , so, there's some global strength that's gone very under the radar. weak dollar certainly supports it. >> so, iwm, that move has been extraordinary since it was really down 160 something,

not --ago, something like that, and touched 200 today, which is kind of amazing. i think there's still room to go, because that divergence between the spiders and the iwm in terms of price to earnings multiple was astounding. it still is very wide. you know, there's a lot of things, small caps have not as good balance sheets. if that's the case, and we are with a lower interest rate environment, that's better, obviously, for the balance sheets. but i -- and if we don't have a recession, that's probably good for them, too, but i just think that the market was so in love with the magnificent seven that ignored everything else, there is a lot of value here. if you look at the 25, 24-year history of the iwm, it's outperformed the spider except for the last period that we've been in, so, i think we can see a convergence continue. >> so, i would think that a weak dollar is probably a symbol of the fed easing. so, i would have thought that

that would go along with the fed easing, so, i'm not worried about that. iwm, 40% are unprofitable companies, so, you would think that if the fed eases, they have a better chance of surviving. not being profitable, but surviving. so, i'm not really shocked by either. and then, going into the last month of the year, what do people want to buy? what has not run. not what has already ran. >> this is really sort of ignited the trades where financing was needed. anything where you had to borrow money, all of a sudden, that all looks good here. >> right now, as long as the economy is in good footing, and i'll say this about the russell 2,000, it has rallied more than 20% off its lows in the last month and a half, it's still down 20% from its all-time highs from q-4 of 2021. and it was one of the first sectors to turn. so, they led on the way down, and again, they're leading on the way up. but let's just see.

to me, it looks like it's a bit of an equilibrium. it might be that rates have run too far to the downside in the near term, to chris' point, about what the weak dollar might ignite going forward, i mean, we were talking about jeffrey last night on the desk, he seems worried about inflation picking back up. that being said, look at where crude oil is, look at where nat gas is. i'm going to bring this back to large caps, very exposed to the dollar and a lot of these input costs. when you have a dollar move the way it has in the last two days, and you are trying to think about the economic landscape, you say to yourself, 2.5% in two days for a multinational, you know what i mean, that gets more than half their sales outside of the u.s. and especially if some parts outside the u.s. are starting to inflect before we are, maybe that's what their stock market, well, that should buoy earnings, so, i get all that. lower rates should buoy earnings. so, if you aringe ilooking, 12%r over year earnings growth, they

are expecting less than 1%. they were up 4% last year. so, let's just say that 12% is high, but with the dollar down and rates down and other input costs, maybe that's how you get with more cost cutting and the like, maybe that's how a 19.5 multiple, if you look at consensus, about 245 for earnings next year, it's 19 1/2 times. it's one or two turns over the ten-year average or something like that. i can say why people are saying maybe we're not that expensive, especially if you take out the top ten names. i'm not buying it. just making the case. >> what i think is a little ironic in this conversation is, it was actually higher rates that helped companies earn more. they got return on cash. and you begin to wonder, is the market actually discounting a change in that function. what's a little unusual about when this is all happening, if you look historically, december is typically not a big month for big change. it's a month that resembles the past part of the year. you reward the winners and sell the losers for tax reasons.

that's not happened here. for six weeks, there's been subtle hints of change. it's become more overt the last several days, with equal weight -- >> does it make you more skeptical of the moves then? >> you know what it reminds me of? it reminds me of, in the five, six, eight weeks in november and december of 2021 where you began to see value flash some signs of life and it didn't make any sense in the context and it set off this chain where value would work into 2022. i think there's glimpses of that right here. >> in context of, this is actually a rotation that started weeks ago -- >> right. >> maybe interpreting the move yesterday and into today isn't such a crazy thing. >> i don't think it is. i don't think it's such a crazy thing. i think it's just an extension of it. and it was so outsized with the mag seven. but to dan's point. dan said stuff there that was positive, i think, for the market. with oil coming in -- >> and then he said i don't believe any of it. >> no, no, he believes -- >> i believe all of it, i don't

think -- >> that it's healthy. >> in -- >> i think the u.s., we went from worrying about spr and worrying about oil price to now outputting oil at the highest level historically for the u.s. so, that takes a huge headwind for the consumer. and the markets. >> i mean, i think, you know, dan, correct me if i'm wrong, i also think what you're trying to say, which i agree with, there's a level where ten-year yields down is not an easing of financial candidates, it's a message, whoa, whoa, wait a second, something's wrong, or there's a level of crude where it reflects demand, not supply, and i think using the market as the gauge for when those are actually realized is important. i look at discretionary versus staples. when discretionary is outperforming staples, you are generally in pretty good hands. that's been okay for much of the year. but that's going to be a sn important tell. >> i think the question here is,

i mean, we've had a move in the ten-year yield in the past couple of days. we are well below 4%, so, what is that level where you're like, what is going on here? and what is this saying about the economy and future growth? where do you think we are there? because 3.9 seems like great, amazing, amazing right now. >> yeah, i don't know if it's recession or if it's just, okay, this finally, we've been waiting for the pivot. however, this giant run we've had in the market since october, whatever, 27th or whatever it was, was on that premise, right? that we will be at -- >> right. >> so, i would think that it's somewhat of a sell the news. that sort of surprising to me the magnitude of this. i still come back to something that was an issue a long time ago, doesn't seem to be anymore, which is, we're going to start to see a lot of ten years for sale, right? the government has to fund. and so that's not that far away that we're going to revisit this issue. now, it is good that rates are down, they're going to owe less interest, but nevertheless,

supply/demand dynamic is still in force. so -- i am short treasuries, which obviously was not the right place to be this week, but havin haven't covered, haven't added. >> i guess it's because the message that powell sent was so unexpected. >> we talked about this, why did he seem to be giving it away for free, this -- i'm done. >> two weeks ago, he was the polar opposite of this, he said, we're not even thinking about thinking about cutting rates. and it confuses everyone, and this is my opinion, that it's all posturing at a certain p point. he wanted to talk the markets down and then to have 12 days later for him to pivot like that doesn't seem like it's -- i'd rather have less transparency. >> you have to remember that he's not necessarily speaking for himself when he is giving that press conference. he's speaking for the committee. so, it could be that the committee is moving towards that, even though he may not personally be --

>> i'd rather no one speak at that point. >> just a blackout. let's bring in the man who can answer all these questions. did jay powell send the right message to the markets? steve liesman joins us now. we were talking about this on the call today, i don't really get why you would give that away at this point. >> so, there's a lot of kind of postmortem going on here, and i'm kind of settling on a really weird answer, which is, the ppi. and i think grasso's been around a long time, melissa, you've been around a long time, karen, as well, can't remember a time when the ppi has moved anything. what happened, i think, in part, that ppi came in, and i made a pretty big deal of it, i have to say, because of the impact it will have on next week's pce.

powell mentioned the pce and the ppi, even, during the press conference yesterday. he also mentioned that because of what happened, the wholesale price index coming in below, i can't believe i'm telling you this story and somebody hasn't given me the hook yet, but any event, the ppi came in low, it caused people to reset the inflation number for next week to be lower, in fact, down in the two range, maybe 2 1/2. he even said that the fed had already calculated, go back and look at the transcript, that pce next week at 3.1, which would be the lowest, but there's others on the street like jpm and others that may have lower numbers than that, if you look at it on three-month annualized basis. so, the point would be -- and by the way, to finish the story, he says in the press conference that some people came in and changed their forecast numbers for the sep, because of that number that morning. so -- i think that part of it was overall, the theme here is,

the -- the data changed. the data changed, there was a good pce report last month, the wholesale report was good, the inflation number. if you take out the shelter, the pci number was good. it became untenable to not change policy. and i'll tell you another reason why. if you do the math, which is plus two, it's very simple math, if they didn't -- if they didn't change their policy now, they were going to be stuck with it until january. which means they would have not changed policy for six months, and this idea of, oh, look out, we're going to hike -- >> six weeks. >> it would have gotten to be a little silly. so, i think that's another reason. they had not moved since july, they would not have moved until january. so, you couldn't stick around with the same policy, you had to tweak it. now, another question you're asking, did the market go too far and/or did the fed allow it

to go too far? that's a different conversation. >> do you want to have that? >> tomorrow night? >> what do you think -- >> they just told me to wrap. they just told me to wrap. >> no, no, i'm going to keep asking you questions. if anybody said, oh, if powell indicated that a pivot was in store, what would the markets do? i mean, it's a no brainer that the markets would rally hard. >> right. >> so, you don't think he's thinking, oh, my gosh, financial candidates loosened significantly, all these reactions were very predictable and yet -- he allowed it to happen. when he didn't have to. >> well, okay. well, okay, let's go back and do a little of the tale of the tape here, melissa. all the caveats were there, right? we may hike again if inflation doesn't come down, we expect the economy to moderate, we expect the job market to keep loosening, we expect this progress to go, and if it doesn't keep going, if it doesn't keep going, well, then, we may have to do something

else. he said all that stuff. i don't know, first of all, let me tell you this, i agree with grasso. it's hard to draw a line from his last public appearance two weeks ago to today. to me, that's difficult. i went back and reread that whole thing on the plane last night coming home. i couldn't get there, steve. so, i do think there was a big change. i don't know if it was the committee, him leading the committee, the committee leading him, something happened in between. waller came out and spoke the truth, he said, you know, said the quiet part outloud. if inflation goes down, we have to cut. it is a big change. mostly, by the way, these things get telegraphed one way or the other. there was a debate about whether waller came out and did it on purpose or was it just off the cuff, i kind of think it was a little bit off the cuff in that regard, but easings tend to be telegraphed. i thought this change was going to happen next month. i was going to go home and go o out for drinks last night. i didn't have a chance to do that. >> if you were a fed skeptic, a real skeptic, steve, you might think that the fed felt like they might be behind the eight-ball with this drop in ppi

leading to a much softer eventually pci and they have to pivot and they have to send this message really fast. >> yeah, if you are dan and you refuse to celebrate for even a single day and want to find something to worry about, that's the thing to worry about. did they see something in the banking data, is the ten-year being down telling you something more ominous about the outlook for the economy, does the fed see something coming down the pike that is -- that is the thing you would worry about. you would also worry about -- i completely agree, this notion of whether or not the fed has now loosened financial conditions, by the way, that was the first text message i got from a billion dollar fund manager was, what is he thinking when it comes to financial candidates? that's the other side, and whether or not that has a negative effect on inflation. those are the downsides, but you could also celebrate for 24 hours. >> so, steve -- >> 24 hours, that's long.

>> the lower ppi, steve, do you attribute that to just efficiencies, productivity, deflation, some of the, you know, we had the logistical nightmare last year. do you attribute it to that or pending recession or starting recession? >> i think -- i think -- i don't know about the last part of it, but all the other things you said, there is some productivity out there, there's an interesting productivity story. some fed officials have started to think about this, too early to sort of say it's there definitively. the other thing that's happening, trade margins are -- profitability and trade margins are part of the ppi. they've been coming in a bit. that's something that's helped the ppi at the wholesale level. also interested in this idea of whether or not we're breaking this kind of inflation culture that happened at the wholesale level and got passed onto the consumer level. if producers can't get the price

at the consumer level, they turn around to their suppliers and say, you know, sharpen your pencils, do better for me, i can't pass along another 5%. that breaks the cycle, karen, and i'mwondering if that's what we've been seeing in what has been, by the way, a series of very low wholesale price increases. >> steve, thank you. always great to get your take. >> okay, thanks. we've got a news alert here on rtx. morgan brennan has the details. >> that's right. so, leadership change at one of the largest aerospace and defense companies. rtx naming chris calio to succeed greg hayes as ceo. this is a formal transition, expected to be completed on may 2nd of next year. hayes will continue to serve as executive chairman, calio has been elected to the board of directors. a little context around this, wall street has been anticipating that we would get a succession plan announced here for some time. it's a long-planned transition.

calio e vated to coo and president in march of 2022 and tasked with realigning rtx into three business units. he's a nearly 20-year veteran of the company. again, a change for rtx, as greg hayes steps aside next year and chris calio takes the reins as ceo. melissa? >> morgan, thank you. one of our traders says the metals and mining etf, surging 4% just today. let's go off the charts with chris here. i guess weaker dollar -- >> yeah. >> stronger metals, makes sense. >> we look at the dollar blowing through 103. dxy is mainly euro. look at the emerging market pairs, where you see considerable strength versus dxy. what it cat lized a value trade.

and a chart that we've been showing as many clients as possible is the difference between large cap growth and value and small cap growth and value. the large cap growth value as we know is a week removed from basically being back at the highs. the small cap growth value index actually peaked back in june. when you look at what's in small value, you have a lot of financials, a lot of industrials. that's really cat lized the shift towards a more value-oriented market down the cap scale. i think the second part of this is what it's done with the metals here. xme is the etf, as we all know. basically a two-year breakout. blew through 55 over the last several days here. good-looking chart. what's in xme, it's all the usual suspects, it's bhp, southern copper. one of our favorite names in the group, golden cross, 50-day up through the 200 on bhp, and if you want to look at the precious metals, as well, the fact that

gold held 1950 and has comet right back to the highs is another message that this weak dollar story has technicals, many areas that we look. >> you said this is a 5,000-year high in gold. >> yeah. >> our charts don't go back that far. we'll take your word for it. >> that's right. >> actually, this is the first time in -- i'll ask chris this, too, this is the first time where you see the gold miners not outperform the metal, where it's usually a three to one outperformance, because they have the ability to say, hey, let's not mine anymore, pull back and throttle. so, they can be more effective. i don't know what this is telling me, that the miners are not outperforming. they're underperforming. anything? >> my suspicion is, and steve, you certainly know, you've been doing this a long time, that gold stocks have been perennial underperformers relative to the metal s metal. so, start the conversation with that, but they start to move initially when gold gets going. the fact that they're not, tells me that gold is a macro play, rather than a commentary on how

great the industry is. i come back to, what is gold telling us? and it's a commentary on the u.s. dollar. >> the other thing on the u.s. dollar, emerging market -- foreign markets, right? some of the ones we look at, so, mexico. mexico is at a ten-year high now. it's been an enormous move. across the board, i mean, brazil also, just -- i think maybe it's time for them. coming up, we're digging into some jaefafterhours action. and a major move in moderna. the pharma stock surging. well tell you what's behind the move. "fast money" is back in two. this is "fast money" with this is "fast money" with melissa lee, right here on cnbc. . get an expanding library filled with new online videos, webcasts, articles, courses, and more -

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welcome back to "fast money." we've got an earnings alert on lennar. shares of the home builder lower despite beats on the top and bottom line. bertha coombs has more. >> lennar hit an historic high during the session. they beat on the top and bottom line. earnings coming in at 42 a share, well ahead the estimate

of 459. revenues well ahead, $10.97 billion. the street had been looking for $10.25. gross margins did miss at 24.2%. with all those mortgage incentives to entice buyers, but that resulted in a beat when it came to deliveries, 23,795, and new orders up 32%, to 17,366. both of those were a beat. in the release, the ceo talked about those incentives, saying the economic environment shifted as interest rates rose for most of the quarter and then subsided. higher interest rates tested home buyer sentiment, although purchasers remained responsive to incentives that enabled affordability. he added, chronic supply shortage continued to result in housing demand outweighing short supply. now, for 2024, he sees deliveries at about 80,000 new homes but says they will not guide full year margins right

now, as the interest rate environment is evolving. we've seen a 30-year mortgage rate now at 6.25%. lennar shares hit an historic h high. kb homes and toll brothers also hit new highs. they're up, melissa, about 13% since yesterday, before that pivot. lennar's going to hold its analyst call tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m. eastern and we'll see whether mortgage rates slide by then. back to you. >> yeah. bertha, thank you. bertha coombs. a lot of names hitting new highs here, not just lennar. you have citi saying 100 basis points in cuts next year, j jpmorgan saying 125. the list goes on and on. at what point, we're sort of -- do home builders start feeling the pain, because existing homes start coming on the market, because the market is loosening?

>> right. they've been in this extraordinary position of being the only supplier in town kind of and now -- didn't know how long it needs to stay at this level or even go lower. where you start to see some of that huge existing home inventory unlocked. and then it becomes more competitive. we'll see. but to me, i think, you know, i've been thinking that sentiment is just so huge that anything even remotely related, so, something like zillow, which i look at, whirlpool, things like that, anything also bad related to home building also up. it is kind of extraordinary nafr. and lowe's, and home depot, up big. >> this group is an accident waiting to happen, if you -- forget the last couple days, it's up 50% in the last week. this is a company that did $11, this is toll brothers, in 2022, it was trading at $50, it closed today at $105. i don't care it trades at a single digit multiple. there's a reason for that. so, if you have this sort of euphoria in a group like this that has these weird supply/demand dynamics anddynams

is the thing that a lot of folks are kind of missing here, we're talking about six rate cuts now. why? why are we going to cut six times next year? what will that be, like, to counter balance there? so, if we have all this data that's weakening is the cause of the rates to come in, is the cause for this pivot, and if it goes the opposite way, just like it swung, you know what i mean, this way, what is that going to be for a group like this that is front-end loaded all this stuff in again, $11 in earnings last year, expected to be $12.5 next year and up 50% in just six weeks. coming up, more afterhours action. this time in costco. details from the company conference call next. and is it time to get your feet wet? shares of foot locker going higher. what a call sees in the sole of this stock. you're watching "fast money," live from the nasdaq market site in times square. back right after this.

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welcome back to "fast money." foot locker topping the tape. 10% higher today a, more than doubling from its august low. it is down 17% this year. does the shoe fit? >> no shame. >> karen? >> yes, well, one slipper out, right? but i think that all of what they said, which is that the inventory problems that they had that have weighed so heavily on it will subside, and that will allow them to have better margins. all that is true. all that i think is reflected in

the stock price already. after that terrible quarter, the stock went down to a 16 handle. so, it is up almost 100% from there. so -- i feel like the news is already in it. i wish -- i mean, i think mary dillon's great, but they are far, far, farfrom getting that laceup plan going. >> let's get to costco now. earnings out. the big box retailer reporting a beat on the top and bottom line. conference call is under way. pippa stevens has been on this call. pippa? >> hey, melissa. on the call just now, management said they saw year over year inflation in the range of 0% to 1% in the quarter, but noted deflation in big and bulky items like furniture sets and tvs in large part because of lower freight costs. during the quarter, same-store sales up 3.9%, excluding gas prices. with costco saying the five days during thanksgiving and cyber monday, sales were up in the mid teens year over year. the retailer announcing a

one-time special cash dividend of $15 per share. now, no word yet if the company will raise its membership fee that it was a question of when, not if, in the last call. and costco said it sold $100 million worth of gold bars during the quarter. melissa? >> i thought you were going to give me a stat on rotisserie chickens. maybe later. thank you, pippa. and that goes to our gold conversation. dan, you said that costco was going to be particularly interesting to you. seemed like a good report. >> no doubt. listen, against what the reaction to walmart's results were about a month ago, that was a big gap from an all-time high. costco seems to be setting up in a similar manner. they did a special dividend of 15 bucks. investors like that, too. again, i think also investors like the recurring membership. the low single digits of the membership fee they have there. doesn't seem like there's going to be anything there to cause you to say there's anything

wrong with that sort of consumer. but we've been talking about a tradedown for two years now, and clearly they've been the beneficiary of that and has not abated yet. >> the comments about inflation going down to 0% to 1% was shocking. a change in terms of the forecast. >> you begin toened wonder, is hard to pass along price to consumer? i look at the chart, the chart's fine. i think the only risk is that the bar of expectation is considerably high from here. you have a very, very overbought stock. nothing prevents a conso consolidation. >> other thing i thought was really interesting, due to lower freight costs. t maybe this is issue of inflation coming down, not a demand reason, but a cost reason. >> yeah, i see that as improving their margins, because that's what they're spending money on is the freight costs. and the -- their membership fee,

there's a 90% recurring rate of renewing that membership fee. it becomes an annuity. when you look at the stock compared to walmart, they're up 38%. they have outperformed the entire group. much smoother chart. i think you're safe to still be buying it here. coming up, former fdic chair sheila bair will lay out why she says wall street's optimism is too much about jeff rolrome pow news. and some big moves in the pharma space. moderna surging as eli lilly and novo nordisk head lower. where you should be in this trade, when "fast money" returns. ( ♪ ♪ ) ♪ (when the day that) ♪ ♪ (lies ahead of me) ♪ ♪ ( seems impossible to face) ♪

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welcome back to "fast money." stocks keep the good times going after yesterday's big rally. the dow climbing more than 150 points. the s&p and nasdaq both with modest gains. the major indices now on a six-day winning streak. shares of citi getting a boost today, up 2%. wells fargo bank analyst mike mayo named the stock a top pick in 2024, and that wasn't the only bank action worth noting. kbe bank etf erasing all of its losses since the svp collapse back in march. the kre also closing at its

highest level since march 8th. and clearly, with rates coming down, it makes their assets look a lot better, helps them, karen. >> certainly. the hold to maturity has been a big deal, which is why bank of america has been outperforming, though i think it was a colossal mistake. that's been good. pendulum swung too far, we know that. not sure if that's what's happening here in the kre. they do have the potential deposit issue, not bank america, but some of the others. but that's -- at the moment, nobody cares about that. a former fdic suggests market optimism is premature. she warns inflation is still a significant issue. sheila bair joins us. her newest book coming out this fall. that sounds like a page turner, sheila.

i'll get one for my kids. >> absolutely. >> let's talk about this in terms of premature. the implication of saying the turn in rates is premature implies that this run in banks is premature, as well. >> well, look, i think it's -- i think the focus still needs to be on inflation, and i think the fed needs to strike a much more hawkish tone. if only to offset the irrational exuberance of the markets drying to create expectations that are significant ly loosening financial candidates at this point. so, inflation's not, you know, the fed itself says they're not going to hit target until 2026. services, you still got some pretty robust price increases, housing is coming down a bit. rents, but not as much as we were hoping. so, there's a long way to go in this fight, and i do worry they're blinking a bit and now starting to pivot and worry about recession when i don't see any of that risk in the data so far. it's a classic problem that arthur burns made, he was p

premature in lowering rates, because he was worried about recession. i do think this is a mistake. i think they need to keep their eye on the inflation ball, and tame the market, not reinforce it with this very dovish move. >> big fan of your comments over the years, ms. bair. when you look at where we are right now, the environment, what's not being discussed is qt. so, qt is going to be there -- >> that's right. >> probably at least middle of next year. would still have some tightening characteristics to it, no one can agree upon how much tightening it is, 25 basis points or 50. that's happening in the background. is that enough tightening in the background to alleviate your concerns where the fed might be, you know, quote unquote taking their eye off the ball? >> well, i don't -- i think they should stay put. we have a good trend lines. we need to be patient, watch and see how it plays out. there is still some tightening going on with the rollup of the

portfolio. and, of course, real rates go up, too. if inflation goes down and the fed fund rates stay where it is, then your real rates are also going up. so, yeah, there is some tightening going on, even if they don't raise rates, but my concern is the prospect of significant lowering of rates in 2024. they need to continue to tighten a bit. inflation has not been beaten. there's still some significant warning signs. we've got other dynamics, you know, this huge deficit spending, relentless demand fby the treasury. we've got trade restrictions, we've got an aging population. we've got a lot of things going on that are going to create more supply constraints, so, i don't see this battle anywhere close to being done, and, yeah, i think it's premature to send this kind of signal right now. >> hi, it's karen. i was going to call you sheila, but then you called you ms. bair, i don't know what to do. let me just ask you the

question. basil three. you know a ton about that. >> right. a huge amount of push-back. how do you think it shakes out at the end? >> so, i think it's a very big package of rule changes that really don't -- aren't responding to what's going on now. these are responses to unfinished business during the great financial crisis, primarily around operational risk and market risk. i think the regulators, there's some good things in that package, some things that give me some concern, it's very complex. i think it would be good if they broke it up and focused on the operational and market risk pieces of that. the credit risk changes, there's some improvements, but they don't really raise additional capital. credit risk charges actually go down a bit. but the market risk in particular, for the very large complex banking organizations, do a lot of trading, a lot of drivi drivives, the risk base has

never really addressed that business model, and i think that's where they should focus. if they break it off in pieces, it's too big to do at once and the public doesn't understand it. the political support is not there. i think they need to regroup and try to do this in stages. >> sheila, last quick question. i believe the last time you were on the show, i asked you if you owned any bank stocks. >> i do not own any bank stocks. i still do not, no. yeah, no, i -- i'm sure there are firms that do. i'm not averse to it, i think well-managed banks are a fine stock holding, but i do a lot of this kind of commentary and that's why i decided not to have any bank stocks. >> all right, sheila, thank you. we'll look for your new book. sheila bair. so, i think that the interest thing, first of all, is it p premature, and the implications, if you think that it's premature to pivot, there are a lot of

other things that have to be unwound. not have to be, but they look too lofty. >> i mean, if you would ask any of us a year ago, would the fed be cutting rates with stocks at all-time highs, we would probably say no. right there is a reflection that a lot of this is happening in a very different environment than most expected. >> yeah, i thought that he was going to dress up or down, however you want to phrase it, the window. i didn't think chair powell was going to talk about cutting rates until the day they cut rates. so, this was a shock to me that they're even discussing it now, but i always thought that they would have to -- they pigeon holed himself. they painted themselves into a corner, because they had to be so tough on inflation that it was impossible for him to talk about actually cutting rates. so, now, everyone got pushed to the other side of the boat, and the reason why things are overextended is that the positioning on this was so grotesquely on the other side, and that was a creation of the fed. all right, coming up, the not so magnificent seven.

apple finishing well off today's all-time highs. a sign the red-hot trade is finally cooling off? we'll turn to the technicals. first, moderna making huge moves today on the back of positive cancer vaccine trial results. could this jump-start a stock that's struggled bill-time this year? more "fast money" in two. fresh, warm hot dogs! when i'm not selling hot dogs, i invest in a fund that advances innovations like robotics. fresh, warm hot dogs, straight out of my torso! one for you, one for you. oh, you're a messy one.

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welcome back to "fast money." shares of moderna climbing more than 9% following news of an experimental skin cancer drug being developed with merck cut the deadly outcomes in half. the drug is being tested as part of a combo treatment with merck's keytruda. this could allow moderna to seek early approval of this vaccine. the fda today releasing data showing that the drug cocktail cuts the risk of death or relapse of melanoma in half. they are also testing the combo on other cancers. what's the take on the chart? >> i think if you are long, don't overstay your welcome. frankly, the close today wasn't even that great. closed basically on the lows of the session. 200-day moving average has been

down. the bar is really high to say this is more than a bounce. i'm not there yet. >> if we're seeing rotation to value, we should see that rotation go into health care, for a long time, it's only been novo and eli wink tning those dollars. >> it's too hard for anyone to pick the deal stocks. it is impossible for us to see the next takeout. but mostly better off buying an etf in the bio tech space, because you are never going to be able to guess where it's coming from. if you buy the large cap or the small cap. coming up, how about dem apples? the tech titan apple hitting fresh all-time highs today, now more than 15% since october. can apple defy the recent mag seven malaise? refa meyinwothe charts. mo "ston" t.

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welcome back to "fast money." apple hitting a fresh all-time high in today's session, but pared back much of the close. the magnificent seven overall is just up 1% in december, underperforming the broader market. so, what is next for this group? let's go to chris on this one. i want to address this right off the bat, because a lot of people

take a call they hear on the show, think it's a snapshot in time, but it's -- they think it's written in stone when it's just that moment's call. >> yeah. >> a year ago, justabout a year ago, you said on the show to said sell apple. can you talk about that? >> and clearly dead wrong from point to point. but we think our work is wanting to be known for revise what we think when the facts change. and when you look at what apple's done, certainly been a leader, has as the entire complex of stocks. now, let's just be a little bit mindful there does seem to be a change in what the market desires right now, and what it's treating. and you kind of look at the apple chart, it is, i think, the best of the magnificent seven charts. it's the one that's held up best here the last month or so doesn't mean it's not overbought. i think you get a consolidation to 185 or 195. but i think the theme for '24 is, mag seven is no longer

monolithic and you are beginning to see that with, you know, what's on the relative low list is google, even lilly, not mag seven, but in that category, that's begun to roll over. meta, some cracks, microsoft. those are relative changes have tend to proceed price changes. apple's the best of this group. just be aware in the change of character in the market. >> dan, what do you think of apple these days? >> i think it's fine. it's expensive. no one cares about microsoft, i guess, and apple, $6 trillion in market cap trading at 34 times and, you know, growth -- apple's growth is not expected to be what microsoft's is. they don't have the drivers that a microsoft might have. to me, microsoft is more interesting on a pull-back than apple. >> all right. up next, final trade.

final trade time. let's go around the horn. chris? >> southern copper. >> karen? >> yeah, i bought some macy's yesterday. really more of an arb play. if real estate is what's driving this play, lower rates is good for real estate. >> dan? >> i like karen's pfizer. karen's three-day rule. >> oh. >> how about that?

which would be tomorrow. >> i sold some yesterday. >> okay, but i still own some. >> all right. steve? >> i'm going to go tapestry. that's a value trade for me. it's popped from the high 27s to mid 30s. >> all right, thank you for watching "fast money." "mad money" with jim cramer starts right now. "mad money" with jim cramer starts right now. my mission is simple. to make you money. i'm here to level the playing field for all investors. there's always a bull market somewhere, and i promise to help you find it. "mad money" starts now. >> hey, i'm cramer. welcome to "mad money." welcome to cramerica. other people want to make friends. i'm just trying to make you a little money. my job is not just to entertain but put days like today into context. call me. 1-800-743-cnbc. tweet me @jimcramer. the line is drawn, the curse it is cast. the slow ones now will later be fast. as the present now will later be