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highlighting what you might pay for a down payment or perhaps the monthly payment. will it work to woo more buyers? the dow falling for the first time, off by a third of a percent right now. you can see the s&p 500 is up a .1%. nasdaq come po sit up .37%. 3m, reported lower sales for the fourth quarter and guidance for 2024 didn't quite meet what analysts were expecting. tyler? >> all right. on the other hand, we have verizon, higher after beating estimates and reporting a jump in wireless and broadband customers. there you see verizon up nearly 6% at 4r 4188. stocks pulling back as the rally hits a wall while earnings ramp up. will earnings kill the rally or be strong enough to keep it going? our market guests expects an expansion of the rally in the year ahead. he is kevin ma-h president and chief investment manager. good to see you. so far, earnings, how would you

characterize them? >> i believe that the market is actually feeding of off earnings. they're looking to digest the earnings reports to see if in fact the fed's forecast economic slowdown will come to fruition. i would also argue if we have a weak earnings season, that could actually provide additional fuel to this bull market rally because it ties into the notion that they're going to have to cut interest rates to help prevent this economic slow down from leading into an economic recession. >> but if they cut rates because they're worried about an economic slow down. >> yes. >> is that good for stocks? >> it ultimately is good for stocks. >> ultimately. but in the short run. >> the next six months there will be additional volatility as this pace of economic slow down starts to set in. the fed is forecasting economic growth to slow to 1.4% this year. and stable 2% all the way through end of 2026. they'll have to step in and start cutting interest rates but not until the second half of

this year. >> let's look where we are. 10% of the companies in the s&p 500 reported so far. 62% have beaten census expectations in terms of earnings per share. the 5-year average is 77%. so we're broe that. and the consensus is that we're going to get 12% earnings growth this year. is that too high given what we're seeing so far? >> i do believe that 12% earnings growth forecast does have to come in a little bit. as it stands right now, fourth quarter, s&p 500 are expected to decline not increase but decline by 1%, 7% year over year. that would mark the fourth quarter out of the last five quarters where earnings growth have declined other the last five years. that fits right into this notion that the economy is slowing. >> does it matter? half the time i swear i cover earnings. a company that just knocks it out of the park. you know what happens? the shares decline. are investors paying attention to earnings? >> they certainly weren't last

year. all they were focussed on the fed guessing game. when will the fed cut interest rates and how much will they keep rates at this current levels. now they're starting to pay attention because they want to understand this forecast for an economic slow down is real. and it is. the next two quarters will mark an economic slow down. the fed will have to step in. and that creates the opportunities. >> you don't see them stepping in until second half of the year or mayish, junish, what? >> i believe it will take two consecutive quarters of a slowing economy for the fed to feel comfortable cutting interest rates. >> slowing or negative? >> slowing. >> not dipping into the classic definitionrecession. >> shrinkage. let's talk about the idea that this year to the extent there is a rally will be a rally that is broader than what we saw last year. you call a rally of the rest? >> yes. i believe 2024 will be an expansion rally beyond those

seven large cap technology stocks that accounted for 62% of the s&p 500's gain last year. but to get to that point, we do need the fed to start cutting interest rates. we need inflation continue to moderate. and that rally will expand just beyond those technology stocks into areas of the markets that haven't recovered just yet. >> for instance, you really like ai and cybersecurity right now. >> i do. >> are there specific companies within those sectors? >> i believe. what's lost in the ai race the glue that holds the technology puzzle together. in fact, it's even more important now with the proliferation of ai. certain names that we hold within smart trust include crowd strike, fortinet or cyber arc these companies will provide the software to help thwart cyberattacks forecasted to account for over $10.5 trillion of cyber crime caused by the end of 2025. >> what are you looking at in bio tech? >> we believe the pace of m & a

activity is only going to increase. >> ground breaking innovative healthcare treatments in the fields of immunology. >> kevin, it's great to have you with us in studio today. thank you for making the trek. >> my pleasure. time for today's three stock lunch. three big names making news today as three ceos and one other businessman you might recognize joined cnbc to talk business. here with our trades, victoria green, chief investment officer with gsquared private wealth. up first we have procter & gamble. the company reported second quarter earnings. here is ceo john mueller discussing the state of the consumer right now. >> things are going very well from a consumer standpoint, as i mentioned. volumes strengthening. there are, of course, challenges in the world that we live in, but the team has done a great job executing our growth strategy to overcome those

challenges and i expect the same will continue. >> what's your trade on p & g? >> p & g is a buy for me. i have to tell everybody here, it is a staple. i'm not expecting an explosion up 100% the rest of this year. but i like the staple and how it's positioned right now. they saw an expansion 8 out of 10 of their lines of business stayed the same or grew. they are dealing with a china problem, but they aren't. who isn't. they're selling to everybody else. sales volume growth and margin expansion, that's a great place to be. they're expected to buy back 5 to 6 billion in share authorization buybacks for this year as well as 244 yield. i like this company as a place to be steady eddy growth. it's a staple, so if you're expecting ai type of throws in a staple, you have to reset that. great place to get your total return. >> don't get giddy. let's talk about united airlines. shares are moving up a bit

today. scott kirby is discussing how it will be impacted from the fallout on the boeing 737 max issues. >> we'll see. we're early in the planning process. probably means we change the order books up. there are alternative airplanes instead of max 10s. we're still going to be in absolute the fastest growing airline in the history of world aviation. we're not going to grow quite as fast as we otherwise would have. boeing won't be able to deliver all the airplanes in the time frame. >> they'll be the fastest growing airline in all of aviation history, says the ceo. shares up about 7% today. your trade here? >> i'm selling it here. take your profit if you've got it. i don't think it will hit those 2018, 2019 '90s highs or '57 high. they have a new labor agreement, which is great. wu they'll see labor go up 40% over the next four years and labor and fuel are the vast

majority of their costs. we are seeing issue with growing airplane tickets coming down. yes, they're continuing to grow their volumes. but a lot of that growth didn't come from the united states. i just don't buy that they're not going to have more problems with the max especially the max nine. i do not see the faa fast tracking getting those back. if anything, the faa will move slower with all the problems the max had. and united has a pretty big boeing relationship. it was fascinating, that's the first time, the ceo publicly spat with boeing. everything has been very collegial and behind the scenes. we'll see if they try to pith to air bus or stay boeing. i don't trust this airline right here. cheers, victoria from adolescent boys everywhere. wrestling on netflix. paying $5 billion to bring wwe raw to its platform and tko group which owns the wwe is putting dwayne "the rock" johnson on its board.

here is the rock, yeah, celebrity on cnbc on the importance of this deal. >> i think that this is an important step for them in their service and in their subscription service. >> when it comes to netflix, i'm excited about it, too. 52 weeks lye. that's a lot of rock raising the eyebrow every week for netflix. >> love it. victoria, netflix reports -- >> i wish i could raise an eyebrow. i wish i could do those eyebrow raise. >> if you're like me, you lay off the botox andall of a sudden your eyebrows are back to moving around like they're supposed to. it's been a while. we look for netflix earnings. what's your trade on netflix? >> i loved this stock for over a year. what they're doing is phenomenal. they keep expanding their offering with ad based tier at $7, basic tier at 15, you want to add a family user, they're at 8.

netflix is well positioned and will continue to get more and more ad revenue if they move more into gaming and live events which are two opportunities for growth. this could be huge. they need to execute on doing live events and streaming ing l events. their content is phenomenal. their original content versus what they've got licensed is a great balance in their programming. so i see them continuing to expand free cash fro. i see them getting 9 to 10 million new users. average revenue per user may fall in q4, it's better than the $0 per revenue they had with all the free loaders. we should be be prepared it may fall a little bit but general revenue and free cash flow is phenomenal and i love the stock going into earnings this around. >> really this kind of content, this live content hooks in a younger demographic that grew up on netflix. for sports i'm saying, they're hooking in the younger

demographics. you're talking about gaming as in video gaming. but it raises the specter of what's the crossover with sports gambling as well? we know wwe made a play to get a gambling license that didn't work out for them last year when they made a big hoopla about it, but the potential is there. >> absolutely. and they're trying so hard to also get young users away from youtube. youtube is obviously a huge competition for them. the whole gen-x and z that watch everything on youtube. the more you can do life, may be attracting viewers that were using adifferent channel, i think that's huge. lye is one of the only -- sports is one of the only live entertainment that's really got a huge amount of value to young customers. and i may debate with wwe is a sport or not, that is above my pay grade. but it's a toe hold in there. >> the gaming regulators thought no which is why they didn't get the licensing in colorado. thank you very much for joining

me today. >> there's the raised eyebrow. >> got it right there. >> sharing a lot there. >> coming up, alphabet mixing its moon shot factory. we'll explain why the company is cutting staff at its technology lab in today's "tech check" after the break. plus, surreal time for semis. ai rush boosting names like nvidia and others despite all the hype, not all the chip makers have been benefitting nameless texas instruments. that story ahead on "power lunch." >> sometimes you have to own it. >> you do. you have to go with it. icy hot. ice works fast. ♪♪ heat makes it last. feel the power of contrast therapy. ♪♪

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wireless that works for you. it's not just possible, it's happening. welcome back to "power lunch," everybody. time now for "tech check." more cuts could be coming to google at a very specific area of the company. deirdre bosa has the details. >> so layoffs this time are

happening at x, not to be confused with the company formerly known as twitter. this is google's moon shot factory. its mission is to pursue things that sound undoable but if done could redefine humanity. that has included everything from self-driving cars to internet balloons to ocean preservation. some of the divisions and projects within it are called wind, wamo our audience is probably familiar with, lun, the internet balloon one that was shut down. you only have to look at this chart, at this other bets division. so when a project graduates from x, they go into other bets within the alphabet structure. it has 6 billion in operating losses in 2022 on just other $1 billion in revenue. there's been a lot of pressure from wall street to cut those losses. and in times like this, where wall street is looking for efficiency and is more

unforgiving for projects that aren't directly tied to the generative ai hype cycle, the moon shot factory feels manufacture of a nice to have than need to have. it all raises the question, where is that other revenue stream going to come from, if the core advertising business, which has been so lucrative in google's history, where does that come from? a lot of folks say, cloud has had a lot more early success. >> go ahead. >> deirdre, i think it's amazing, but we had talked before about these layoffs. are there more coming? when you look at how you get a return on the investment you're making, are humans irrelevant at this point in the big technology of the future? >> you are kind of pointing to something interesting that has come out of this year's layoffs. and that is the excuse before was, wall street demands it. we need to be more efficient. where as this round of layoffs this year, more like the machines made me do it. ai is leading to these layoffs

because they need a different kind of work force. to answer your question, are more coming? probably. it was only last week we were talking about the memo that was sent to all alphabet staffers saying, more are coming because we need to get ready for this generative ai shift. when you think about the moon shot project, right, life sciences unit, that maybe seems less appealing, less pal letable versus some of the ai projects they want to shift resources to. >> is this sort of x-corner of alphabet, is it effectively a venture capital arm or venture capital with an even sort of higher long shot quotient to it? talking yesterday about how so many of the technology companies have venture capital arms. comcast, our parent has a arm. >> a corporate corporate arm. yeah. that's a good analogy. it's like venture capital on

steroids. >> that's what i was thinking. >> the mission is to solve humanity's greatest problems. so, yes, and the losses are so huge. $6 billion in losses? 2022 alone? i think it was 20 billion in losses over five-year period. >> i would be happy to take some of that money. i'm happy. they can fund me. i'll go for a lot les than 6 billion. >> can you solve ocean preservation? put self-driving cars on the road in. >> done. check. >> got it. >> all right. >> if you can do that, i'm sure they're happy to pay you. >> have them direct a little bit. give me a call. i'm here, google. thanks. >> i'll tell them. >> thank you, deirdre. up next, bitcoin coming back to earth? maybe like my co-anchor as well. the crypto currency tumbling about 20% from its highs following the epf approvals. we'll get details next. ♪

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e. bond yields rising today as stocks take a breather from the record rally. let's get to rick santelli in

chicago reaction from the bond market. hello, rick. >> hi, contessa, indeed. we had a 2-year note action today. 60 billion. we never auctioned off more than 60 billion all during the covid years we did have auctions in 2021 at that amount. tomorrow 61 billion 5s. we never auctioned off more than 61 billion 5s, but similar to 2 year. we did issue 61 billion. we just never issued any more. so today we had a good start to the first leg of 162 billion in 3s, 5s and 7-year supply. you look at that 2-year note yield chart, you can see yields moved down since 1:00 p.m. eastern when the b was the above average grade i gave for the first leg. open the chart up, these will be the highest year close in a 2-year, going back to the 18th of december. and all these yields being so

firm in 2024 have moved a long way to keep the dollar index quite buoyant. it's up on the year, last year around 101. here we are on our way to 104. similar to a 2-year and other maturities in the treasury complex. the dollar index to close will be the highest yield close since the 12th of, a little other a month. the yield curve today is deinverting just a smidge has been hanging. so 20 minus 20 to about minus 28 seems to be the range traders are paying closest attention to. that's 2 versus 10s. tyler, back to you. >> rick santelli, thank you very much. bitcoin coming off and we do mean coming off the euphoria of the big etf milestone down 16% since the 10th of january. who is doing the selling? kate rooney knows. >> part of the crypto selling we have seen lately has to do with this loss in enthusiasm around that etf launch, but leverage is also a big factor here.

and it's increasingly dominant force in these markets. analysts over at glass note point out the open interest in january 9th and 11th when the etf speculation peaked prices near 49,000 at that point. and then that was followed by this wipe out in some of the positions. prices you saw this bitcoin sell off over the weekend, the largest crypto currency dropped to lowest level since december. this week that has been disappointing for a lot of crypto investors. hoping it would unleash new invest from traditional investors and therefore boost prices but the opposite happened in the near term. bitcoin roughly 15% off of where it was trading on those funds launched. and it's emerging as a sell the news event. popular in the hedge fund world some informsers worried about heading into this etf approval. coin base are also getting hit this week. jp morgan downgraded coin base, at least, saying today that they think a key catalyst for the

crypto industry in those bitcoin e trk fs has been overestimated by the crypto community. they acknowledge that coin base they think is a dominant u.s. exchange and leader in the space. but they think the catalyst in those bitcoin etfs say that pushed the ecosystem out of its winter. they say it will still disappoint market participants. jp morgan expects the etf enthusiasm to further deflate as they described it driving prices lower along with lower ancillary revenue opportunities for firms like coin base. back over to you guys. >> where were these wet blankets before the etf approval came along? you didn't hear a lot of people saying, oh, this etf approval, it's going to go down from here. bitcoin is because it's overbought. >> that's a great point, tyler. hindsight is 20/20, at least in the analyst community. you're now hearing more bearish sentiment ahead of this news it was a lot about the potential of constitutional investors. now the reality is sitting and

hearing way more bearish tone out of the sell side when it comes to coin base and some of those names. i will say all of the bearishness you're hearing on the crypto-related stocks comes after this massive run-up last year. so stocks, take coin base for example, up 400% last year. so there is that to take into account. >> can you think of -- >> bearishness but part has to do with valuation. >> can you think of many, if any, who predicted a 15, 20% sell off after the approval of etfs? >> there were some that did say, you know, buyer be ware. there is the buy the news, sell the rumor risk that especially in crypto currency market. so absolutely. that was being said. we said it on cnbc multiple times. firms said, yes, we're excited but you have to be careful. couple wall street firms did get ahead of this but now you're hearing a bit more wet blankets out there as you said, tyler. >> chickens roosting that metaphor. kate, thanks. let's get to bertha coombs

for a cnbc news update. >> hi. washington's federal appeals court has rejected donald trump's request to reconsider a gag order in his federal election case today. the former president's attorneys asked the court to examine the gag order after three-judge panel upheld while narrowing the restrictions on his speech. the judge said trump's election case imposed that order back in the fall in response to concerns from special counsel jack smith's team that the former president's history of making controversial comments could taint the case. turkish legislatures began debating a long-delayed bill to approve sweden's accession to nato. if lawmakers ratify the membership bid, the turkish president is expected to sign it into law within days, leeing hungary as the only member state

that has yet to approve sweden. and charles osgood, long-time host of "cbs sunday morning" and cbs radio osgood files died. osgood spent 45 years at cbs before he retired back in september of 2016. he was known for his way with words and love of poetry and music. his family said he died today from dementia at his home in new jersey. osgood was 91 years old. and i have to say, he was one of my all-time favorites. i just loved him. >> yeah. he really was -- had a marvelous way with words. his poems, his rhyming was really clever. and he left a really indelible mark on sunday morning and on cbs news. our sympathies to the family. thank you. after the break, reeling in the buyers on reels. and if you get the reference, you're a lot hipper than i am. home prices still sky high in part of the country like new jersey, many real estate agents are trying new social media

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♪ welcome back to "power lunch." high mortgage rates kept many buyers on the sidelines, and many would be sellers are sitting in homes they just don't want to let go at bargain prices. some experts predict that home prices might surge more as mortgage rates decline. with this standoff between buyers an sellers, real estate agents are finding they have to get creative to protect their own personal bottom line. on social media, they are exshen chew waiting the positive, as usual and down playing the negative. for example, in new jersey, we spotted agents highlighting the down payment or the monthly payment rather than the full selling price of the home. a real estate and branding expert and president of home qualified joins us now in the studio. does it work? if you just say, look at what your monthly payment is and forget about how much it costs over 30 years. >> it at least gets them off the

sideline to explore. i believe that's what real estate agents are trying to do, at least look at what the market looks like. according to real estate agents, it's always a good time to buy. >> sure. >> they're using those practices through social media to bring people in, hey, at least take a look. >> is the breaking down of the mortgage payment per month factoring in where the rates are right now? i mean, are you having to br balance, if you wait longer and home prices soar, you could pay more even if your mortgage rate goes down a little bit. >> for sure. what realtors are highlighting is that if prices rise in june or july when we think the fed is going to cut rates, then home prices will -- if rates come down, home prices will go with it. so if it's a higher price, you're better refinancing that home at a later date. buy the home now at a lower price and refinance at a lower rate when rates go down.

so i believe that if you see anything, it will be a 10 to 15% raise in prices. so -- >> as rates come down. >> that's the way bonds are. bond rates come down, the value of the bond goes up. that's really what a mortgage is. >> exactly. exactly. >> it's really a bond. i think your on to this or realtors are on to this. the idea that people buy the payment. they buy the monthly payment. if you looked, if you are going to take out a $500,000 mortgage and pay it off over 30 years, you're not just going to pay $500,000. you're going to pay 1.4 million or something. hell with that, i'm not paying that kind of money for that house. but, if i reduce it to the monthly payment, and the down payment, that makes it much more pal letable thing to me. >> payments is what you get every month. nobody is looking what it will cost me over time. that monthly payment -- other things that factor in. >> car payment. >> same exact thing. >> buy a $60,000 car, maybe i'm not looking at the price of the car but looking at the price of

the monthly. >> ere single time. some other thicks are factoring in. insurance costs are way up other the last year. that has become a huge problem. now taxes, home prices up, are now being reassessed and taxes are higher. these factor into the monthly payment we're not highlighting that need to be looked at by buyers wrnls i heard that insurance costs are so high that in some places, for instance, in florida it's killing deals. i'm out. i can't wing that. i'm curious, the last time we saw mort ggage rates at this level, we didn't have the ability to story tell -- like you didn't have a house as part of this narrative with beginning, middle and end. and the cost of producing it now are so low compared to what they were back then. does it make it easier to sell homes even when the market is difficult? >> it definitely helps. a lot of what you're seeing now

is people showing br and after on homes. use renovation loans or make this house what you want it to be or relocation has become a huge thing. this is how much a $300,000 house lacks like in texas compared to what it gets you here. relocate to texas or florida or tennessee and get a lot more for your money. br we didn't know what that was. we thought it. now social media is making that present where we can see, visually see, hey, if i move states, taxes are lower, i get a lot more -- >> i get a pool. i get 4,700 square feet as opposed to 2,700 square feet in ft. worth. >> these weren't present br. >> how tough is it for real estate agents, mortgage agents, title people, like what is the market like right now if you're working in this industry? >> it's tough. you know, this is probably the toughest year that all those people have seen maybe ever. toughest year since 2007 or eight in a different way.

you know, there was the report that came out that last year 2023 was the least amount of homes sold since 2010. i think that number is skewed because it's a different market where there was a surplus of homes then and now a shortage of homes. that played into it. but that doesn't help people who are in the business that are doing a lot less business because there's a lot less going. >> if i'm a selling, three things i must do today. get my house ready to sell, price it right, whatever, to market it. whatever. >> sellers have to be realistic about affordability. price your house the way it should be priced today. if you look at most markets last year, new jersey not being one of them or new york not one of them, most markets prices were down last year overall. i think you have to look at a seller you have to be realistic -- >> price it right, correct. >> you have to stage it? you have to stage the house? >> i don't know that you necessarily need to stage it. little things to make sure it's

presentable. curb appeal. that the landscaping looks right. the kitchen and the bathrooms are at least presentable. these are what people want to see when they walk into a home. >> where do you think prices are going to go up the most? which states? and where do you think we might see a decline? >> in the states where you can't build a lot, like new york, new jersey, california, most places in california -- most places you can't build you'll see prices rise the most. you can't create inventory. in cities and states you can't create inventory, you'll see prices rise. a lot of states the south had a boom. right? tennessee, south carolina, north carolina, even florida seeing prices come down a little bit because you can create inventory. so i think -- >> nour yacht land constrained. >> yes. >> you're not in northern new jersey or my town, montclair where they're not -- >> you could share part of your backyard if you want to help people build. >> i could. i could rent out the shed. >> thank you for joining us. we appreciate your perspective on the real estate market. >> good to see you, man.

coming up, shining bright solar energy stocks on the rise for a change after a bullish call at truist seeing, quote, meaningful upside for 2024 after a brutal sell off in the space last year. we'll get the key details when "power lunch" returns. a car is a car... is a spa. an office. hi! hello! a cinema. so automated. yes, the definition of a car changes... but one thing stays the same. it's a mercedes-benz.

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book now. ♪ welcome back, everybody, to "power lunch." we have too many good stories in the energy space to choose just one, we'll do a power rundown with pippa stevens. we have three topics. first up, natural gas prices down 13% in a week. got cold here. why do you think gas prices would go up? >> yeah, usually frigid temperatures would mean a jump in gnat gas prices. but the boost we saw earlier this year was short lived. there are three key charts that explain why. the first is december heating. warmest december on record in north america. and so people weren't cranking up the heat and demand for nat

gas stalled. that means more gas than usual was heading into storage. right now inventory is about 11.2% above the five-year average as you see on that chart there. and then finally, u.s. production is hovering around record levels. about 15% of that is associated gas or gas that's produced alongside oil. so it isn't sensitive to declining nat gas prices. also some are talking about the coming wave of demand from lng, meaning producers also don't want to seed market share right now and cut output at a time where there could be a big demand jump coming. that's why the prices have been under pressure. >> we appreciate the explanation. our second topic, pippa, we'll look at the solar names rallying. canadian solar influx of cash. what's happening here? >> yes. canadian solar subsidiary recurrent energy got $500 million investment from black rock's climate infrastructure fund for 20% stake. now canadian solar is vertically integrated company meaning they manufacture solar hardware and

also develop solar projects which recurrent does. blackrock fund is all about infrastructure and so they invested in subsidiary because they do not want manufacturing exposure. renewable project development typically has stable cash flow streams on manufacturing can be more risky. this also fits into blackrock's larger infrastructure push after the firm bought global infrastructure partners last week for $12.5 billion. nova also in the green after truist upgraded both to buy rating saying we'll have a restaller reset. >> move on to the last one, plug power rallying on hopes for some old fashion green energy time. this time from the government. >> yes. so that stock is surging after the embattled company not producing liquid green hydrogen at its georgia facility. this was anover hang on the

stock since the company was buying hydro yen for third companies. business update this morning, plug power also said it's getting closer to $1.6 billion loan from the department of energy, which would be used to build out six other facilities. on the call, executives also emphasized efforts to reduce cash burn and improve mar yins saying they need to reset after the company announced up to 1 billion at the equity offering last week, shares down 80% other the last year. >> are these facilities they're borrowing for also hydrogen facilities? >> yes. the idea is to make liquid green hyd hydrogen. up until now they make fuel cells and providing to companies like amazon, and they would have to actually buy the hydrogen on the open mark to supply the fuel cells and there's only two hydrogen producers air products and lindy. they were spending a lot of money especially this past fall

buying that hydrogen. now they can buy it themselves. >> thank you. still ahead, shares of texas instruments just a little bit higher. ahead of its earnings after the bell this afternoon. guiding five-straight quarters of year over year declines. we'll tell you what you need to know when "power lunch" returns.

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texas instruments on deck to report q4 earnings after the dow share up about a third of a percent right now. what to expect. >> so texas instruments set the bar pretty low, because they have guided revenue down for five straight quarters with year after year declines. it is no wonder this stocking those popular chip short in the second half of 2023. but many analysts right now betting that the company is near a bottom name. you right now actually believe it is a buy. that is why the stock is underperforming. you can see the stocks year to date so far. there is some reason for this buying hesitation. your continued weakness in industrial and automotive.

microchip warning of an ev slowdown and double ordering happening at customers, so that could impact texas instrument. and you also have possible cuts to fab utilization rate. that is because of demand. an increase possible capital expenditures. both of those two things would hit gross margins. lastly, some pricing pressure in competition in china, which does not bode well for texas instruments, either. i would like to point out that all chips are not created equal. there is a discrepancy between the computer chips, a.k.a. those ai names up 14-20% to date, or even super microchip, the maker of power efficient servers which is soaring this year up over 55%. the new compared to the analog names like texas instrument which is a little bit positive. you can see it on your screen. there is a difference between the curves. >> what about supermicro? that is up 38%.

>> i would like to call it the midas touch of nvidia. supermicro makes these really powerful efficient server storage units, as well as switchers. >> not a chip company? >> well, they build the infrastructure for the chips. and that is important, especially when you are doing these comp located ai tasks, because it uses so much energy. the other thing is, the stock really jumped last week because they preannounced just last thursday, they preannounced revenue for q2, which was much higher than consensus. that bodes well for a lot of these ai names, also for dell and hp because it competes directly with it. within the stock not only run at this year, but also last year because it is in a i play that is maybe slightly overlooked. >> everyone wants to hear about nvidia. what you hear about nvidia? the stock is on a rampage. >> the cost, that is what we want. >> the ceo was dancing in chinese new year's? >> yes, it will be dancing somewhere else, next week.

they are in a quiet period right now, so they are not sharing any information. but there's going to be a few smaller announcements in the coming days. specifically with nvidia you saw the run up because meta really put forward, you have to name drop now. it's like saying i have six homes. i have 600,000 gpu's. that really helps a name like nvidia, and it shows that the name is still there, despite the concerns that there will be a slowdown in q3. the wait for these chips is reported at 39 weeks for some companies. >> backlog. >> huge backlog. that puts them in the top spot for now until we ee a and d come in and still market share. >> still ahead, letter number 13. oppenheimer securing a baker's dozen nominations for this year's oscars. we will discuss that and mh uc more when power lunch continues. power e*trade's easy-to-use tools, like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis,

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we have a little more than two minutes left in the program. several more stories we want to tell you about. number one is 2024 oscar nominations out today. oppenheimer in front with 13 pics, including this picture. barbie trailed behind with eight nominations, but surprising to many, greta gerwig was not nominated for best director, nor margot robbie for best actress. when it comes to production, netflix came out on top is the most decorated streamer. producer. 18 nominations. apple received 13. this tells you about the changing business. it is not the studios, per se, it is these studios. netflix, apple, they are the studios. >> and they are getting big name stars to go into really serious, and movies. the quality you are seeing on streamers is really remarkable. we'll have to wait and see how that plays out.

johnson & johnson has reached a tentative agreement to settle an investigation into the marketing of its outcome- based baby powder. the deal includes 42 states and washington, d.c., with j&j set to pay millions of dollars to settle the claims, although they continue to insist that their talc does not cause cancer. i will say one thing to factor in here is that usually in these kinds of situations, insurers foot the bill here. >> their liability coverage kicks in. interesting. all right, the world's top hedge funds raked in record profits last year admitted insurgents in the stock markets. a new analysis shows the 20 leading fund managers a $67 billion in investor profits in 2023, up from 65 billion in 2021 . including among the best performers were cti, ken griffin 's citigo, and andrea halverson's viking. the company is doing well in all markets. they did not have a good 2022

speaking. and alibaba cofounders have picked up shares between them and the less he wants, according to regular filing in the new york times. alibaba is down nearly 21% since the plan spinoff of its cloud business was canceled. >> thanks for watching power lunch, everybody. closing bell begins in five, four, three, now . welcome to closing bell. i'm scott walker hear from the new york stock exchange. beginning with the recent high for stocks, and whether the bull market is too stressed or just right. we'll debate that in just a bit with two well-known wall street walters on two different sides of the debate. in the meantime, your scorecard was 60 minutes ago and regulation looks like that. dow is trying to get off its worst levels of the day. moving that way. 3m has been dragging the dow all day long . that stock is weak