pricing, and what does that look like now in 2024? >> yeah, and, of course, alphabet, right? they don't guide, so the commentary that we were told to look for, particularly around a.i., and how we can expect to see that show up, that's going to be important. morgan, see you back here tomorrow. that's going to doit for -- >> i'm coming back. >> "fast money" starts now. live from miami beach, this is "fast money." it is day two of our special coverage of the i-connections global althoughs conference. i'm here with dan nathan and guy adami. big money on the big short. now four of the original traders will join us to unveil their big bets for this year. a must-see reunion, coming up. plus, the heads of fortress and oak tree will be along to talk private credit, the economy, and more, ahead of the fed decision. and later, we'll hear about

the push to help people live longer and better lives. we have a jam-packed hour ahead, but we start off with a full slate of earnings, from big tech to big coffee, we're digging into the numbers. fume team coverage here. we start off with deidrdre bosa s tal talking alphabet. >> talking a lot about a.i., search, subscription, light on specifics. and that is what the street is looking for. he says that gemini ultra, their most advanced version of their large language model is coming soon. there were no numbers. really not much color, either, on early uptake or other versions or expectation for ultra. and the chief business officer

provided some optimism on how gen-a.i. can drive google ads. advertisers are building higher quality search campaigns with less effort using gemini, but that hasn't been enough to help search this past quarter, and wall street is really focused on that broader advertising number, which came in light. melissa, the prepared remarks are still going, they should be ending soon, ruth, the cfo, speaking, and then we will get into q&a. i will be listening, hopefully we hear some more details on that generative a.i. strategy and monetization, in particular, so, we'll come back if we hear anything good. back to you. >> all right, thank you. deirdre bosa, alphabet down 5%. meta shares are down by more than 1% in sympathy here what did you make of this quarter? >> slight miss on ad revenue for google, which is the only thing i can sort of take away in terms of why the stock is lower. other than the fact, we can pull a chart up, this was the high today that we made, the same how we made in november of 2021. what's fascinating is, going through the releases as we're

doing, i thought google might have been one of the better ones out of the bunch, yet it's reacting the worse. we saw that a couple months ago. >> guy, what did your grandma say to you? >> little guy. >> if you don't have -- >> i said some nice things just now. >> be silent? >> what did d-bo say about what they had to say about gen-a.i.? i think people are, like, pretty comfortable on valuation, relative to, let's say, microsoft and the other ways you were going to play gen-a.i. in the public market. the problem is, they don't have a product right now that is humming the way that, say, like microsoft does. so, again, you're not going to get a lot more detail. the stock just rallied 13% into the print, they didn't give you what you needed to do, and so, you're going to take a step back on the valuation. it's just not that interesting right here, especially when you consider that gemini launch they had and going back a year to that bard line, they are not delivering on what investors need to see right now. >> got to really climb out of the trench in terms of convincing wall street they are an a.i. story.

they have a product that's monetizable, and that's what wall street wants. >> that's what it wants, but listen, google can stand alone on their own two feet in terms of -- >> sure. >> and this is a stock, 148, down to 83, back to 148, so, you've had a huge run over the last year and a half, two years, and valuation has not been stretched like some of these other names. if people are waiting for the a.i. genie to come out of the bottle, it's not going to be in the form of google. >> it was fine, it wasn't as healthy as what wall street had expected. so, what is sort of the read-through for meta? >> let's go back a month or two. we heard from some of the digital ad-based models about the war in gaza, and obviously the terrorist attack, what that meant, there was some talk about, like, weak ad environment, so, might we see that out of meta? i mean, people are pretty geeked up about meta into their print on thursday, but again, you know, i just think that we're probably -- you want to pay attention to those things. digital ads in particular are sort of cyclical. the other thing is, that ad business, i mean, this is one of

the racisks of gen-a.i., other folks that are harnessing the technology better. >> let's get to microsoft. steve kovaches has more on the results. steve? >> yeah, mel, you want to talk about monetizing a.i., that's microsoft. microsoft doing it with the beat on the top andbottom lines, but the other numbers are telling us about the a.i. story here, you have azure growth, that is a beat. 30% versus expectations of 27.5%. and here's the real kicker here. microsoft says six points of that is coming from a.i. services. that's stuff like openai running on the cloud, on the azure cloud, specifically. and it's a second beat in a row, showing growth is reaccelerating for azure cloud. next, take a look at office 365 growth, on the commercial side, well, that's up 17%. the big question, how much of that is due to sales of

co-pilot? that's the a.i. assistant, they started selling to big businesses last fall and opened it up to even more folks here in january. guys, wait for the call at 5:30, especially for any color or commentary about the co-pilot sales, how much of that contributed to 365, plus guidance for the current quarter. we usually get that towards the end of the hour. hopefully i can sneak it into the show for you. >> yeah, steve, thank you. steve kovaches. again, guidance to come. and whatever they say about copilot and a.i. that's going to be qualitative. we don't have numbers of expectations. we want to hear about demand, uptake. >> i think it's going to be unimpressive. we won't know until they say it, but the stock just rallied 13% in what feels like a straight line off the lows this month. it's rallied 30% since late september. that's a trillion dollars in market cap. they will have to blow the doors off of guidance in their commentary around this to keep this stock going higher, so, again, this is an unobstructed

move to new all-time highs, the largest market cap company in the world. i just don't think they're going to be able to deliver the sort of guidance that will justify this valuation and this move over the last few weeks. >> august it was a $315 stock. i understand that azure growth was better, but the run to the upside was basically predicated on that growth coming in where it did, if not better than that. i want to wait for the call, i get it, but not only that run, but the run since this time last year, when i think it was at $223. >> this puts a huge fine point on what amazon has to say on thursday. you think about what steve just mentioned, okay, so, azure, and outperformance they're seeing there, i mean, there's folks that are obviously renting that cloud storage to get access to those products, right? and amazon's growth is down at, like, low teens right now, aws, they are the market share leader, but they are losing share to google, to microsoft, and to the other players. that leads me to thursday again. >> all right, let's get to amd now. shares are down around 3% after reporting minutes ago.

kristina partsinevelos has more on the big earnings here. kristina? >> well, the stock first reacting negatively to the lighter q-1 revenue guidance, but coming back ever so slightly on the slightly more bullish 2024 outlook for amd's new gpu chip, which rivals nvidia. what we're seeing, let's go over q-4 really quickly. data center revenue fell in line with estimates with amd saying it was a record quarter. they continue to steal market share, presumably from intel. and you can see it on your screen, gaming beat. but what investors care about is q-1 guidance. amd expects it to be flat. pcs, the semi-custom chips to decline quarter over quarter, but the company saying that all that weakness will be offset by a stronger data center gpu run. and that's what investors want to hear. so, i just received lisa's prepared remarks, the call has just started. and we know that amd is increasing its 2024 a.i. chip

revenue from $2 billion to now exceeding $3.5 billion. so, again, now it's going from $3.5 billion, it used to be $2 billion, and that's what investors want to say. the company seeing revenue growth and customer pull, and all of this, so, this is just -- i'm sure she hasn't even said it yet, but it was in the prepared remarks just now, so, that's what investors want to hear, melissa. >> all right, kristina, thank you. kristina partsinevelos. that raise on the a.i. that was expected, to 3.5. >> yeah, i mean, look at the -- think about it, last two quarters, amd, $135 stock two quarters ago. everybody loved it, it traded down to 95. last quarter, a $95 stock, everybody hated it and traded up to $180. it's doubled in the last quarter or so. this first quarter guide in terms of revenue, that's discouraging in a word, especially when you talk about a stock that's effectively doubled over the last few months. >> it's just a different story. they're not demonstrating the sort of upside that got that stock going last spring and ket

it going into this year. and expectations are obviously very high with nvidia, thestock rallied 30% in a straight line again over the last month. just do the math on that. that's a half a trillion dollar in market cap. when i think about amd, consensus is calling for near 50% earnings growth in calendar 2024, with only about 20% sales growth. so, they just raised that number a little bit. you are just not getting the upside. and the last point i'll make, this is a 53% gross margin company versus nvidia, that has upwards of 72, 73, something like that. how they're going to take share versus nvidia is likely on price. they're not likely to get the margin benefit that nvidia got over the last year and a half or so, so, to guy's point, this is all in there. >> inmeantime, coming up, a hug lineup joining us from miami beach. we're digging into the state of private credit with the heads of two major wall street firms. and the traders who predicted the 2008 housing

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welcome back to "fast money." live from miami beach. the fed is set to make its first rate decision of the year tomorrow, as the economy has been showing signs of strength. our next guests have insight into what it is doing for the private correct markets. gentlemen, great to have you with us here by the beach. drew, i'll kick it off with you. you say that the credit is more interesting than equities right now. why is that? >> any time you can get paid high single digits, low double digits, coupons, and be at the top of the capital structure, your downside protection is much greater than equities and you're getting equity-like returns. >> a lot of people say everybody and their brother getting into private credit. that is a concern, that there's

a bubble forming. is that the case? what would you say to that? >> i think the demand for private credit actually exceeds the supply. there's a lot of dry powder in private equity in search of private credit solutions, and over a medium to long-term period of time, there's a big expansion opportunity. >> we spent the last ten minutes breaking down earnings releases. so, we're very granular. at 30,000 feet, what do you see that's encouraging or maybe that's scary right now? >> well, i think encouraging, credit markets are wide open, right? and think the availability of credit is very healthy for the markets. that said, the costs of credit, given what's happened with interest rates and credit spreads is not cheap, and so, i think the cost of that capital is something that does need to reflect itself both in private equity multiples and public equity multiples. >> we have expectations for a rate move, not high at all, but as we think about march, that's goingto dominate the conversation.

are we on the precipice of another regime shift, as it relates to rates? we've had a lot of volatile any the yields, and how do you guys think about that? >> it's very hard to predict what the fed will do. but i think there's enough data to support possibly a rate cut, but it depends what you believe will be the case in the economy at that point to precipitate that rate cut. you'll have to see a picture that's not that pretty for the fed to move faster than what would otherwise be necessary maybe mid-year. >> how would you characterize this coming year? is it going to be sort of a sweet spot? it seems like we have rate cuts coming, the economy has been slowed, but not halted. so, in terms of private credit, is that sort of, like, the goldilocks scenario? >> i think it is an interesting place to hide, where youdon't have to get the rate cuts call right, you don't have to get the equity multiples call right and still earn very healthy returns. i think what gives us some pause and worry is the cost of capital

in the real estate capital markets is still very expensive. the availability of credit, whether it's commercial or residential, like anyone who is trying to take out a mortgage right now, it's a lot more expensive. so, that is something that gives us pause, and 25-basis point rate cut or a couple of them is still very far from the cost of capital we saw in 2021. >> so, do you see that -- i'm assuming you see that in terms of the higher cost. and can you sort of play that out with what's going on in commercial real estate and the concerns that surround that sector? >> the issues with commercial real estate are two-fold. first of all, in cheshl office properties, you have a need for capital to read tenant space. and the existing owners of that real estate are not willing to provide that additional capital. the second issue is the maturity wall, even outside of commercial office properties, is high and will continue to be high for several years. and with that escalated rate mover the last five years, there is going to be a need for addition alec byty capital or

hybrid equity to fill that gap. >> drew, how important is what's going on with china, over the last six months, but more specifically, over the last couple weeks, in terms of their seemingly commercial real estate and real estate problems? >> look, just yesterday with evergrande, i think it's very much top of mind. if you look at what's going on in that market, i think it's navigating a lot, because they really don't have a bankruptcy regime. reinvest in dropped markets because we're in credit and our biggest focus is needing to actually enforce contracts. and china is really inventing that process as we speak and you're seeing it play out on something like evergrande. it effects everything we're doing -- we had a panel earlier, talking about treasury auctions, china is a big player in our auction. how does this effect that? >> you know, guys have been the higher for longer camp, and the last question you answered is, i can't really predict rates, but the whole idea that for rates to go down precipitously, and at one point, five or six cuts were

priced in. we debate on this desk, what would need to happen for that? something not good. on the flip side of that, though, and none of us are going to try to predict that, higher for longer, what does that mean for you? inflation is a bit stickier, the economy, you know, we have unemployment that stays below 4%? >> i think it's the goldilocks scenario. there is gdp growth but it's tepid. there's cpi that's sort of in line and not really problematic, that needs to -- or -- not -- you don't need to see a rate increase. but there's no real catalyst to actually reduce rates. and i think that being in that goldilocks scenario results in being higher for longer. >> all right, we're going to have to leave the conversation there. thank you guys, so much, always too little time. drew, armen. thank you. let's get another check on alphabet. shares are taking a leg lower right now. they are at afterhour session lows. let's get back to d-bo.

>> mel, they were down nearly 7%, and you know, despite analyst best efforts to get the management team to break out generative a.i. and get more detail, the team there keeps talking more about incorporating it, more of what they've been doing for years. less about breaking it out as a product that it can charge for. there was some comment around cap-x that could be making investors nervous. the cfo called out $11 billion in cap-x in the fourth quarter. she said overwhelmingly driven by investment in tech in infrastructure with its largest component for servers, followed by data centers. aka, that's gpus, which we know are scarce and expensive. she also said that in 2024, we expect investment in cap-x will be notably larger than in 2023. so, perhaps offsetting some of the efficiency measures they are taking like the rolling layoffs we've seen this year. mel, back to you. >> all right, d, thank you. by the way, meta shares are down by 2.6%. we'll continue tracking this conference call. meantime, there's a lot more

"fast money" to come. here's what's coming up next. focusing on fin tech. where our next guest sees strength, and how the deal landscape is shaping up. plus, the big short traders are back together, but they're not as short these days. their take on the markets, economy, and more. you're watching "fast money," live from the i-connections global alts conference in miami beach. we're back right after this.

welcome back to "fast money" live in miami beach. a look at how stocks closed out the session. mixed day on wall street, as investors await tomorrow's fed decision. the dow closing at a record once again. the s&p pulling back slightly. and the nasdaq down about three-tenths of one percent. some of the earnings movers. shares of u.p.s., sinking 8%. the company saying it will cut about 12,000 jobs. gm, meantime, heading in the opposite direction, up 8% after a beat on the top and bottom lines. the company forecasting continued strong profit this year. and a check on walmart. the company announcing a 3 for 1

stock split, shares are up about a percent on the news. we've gone through this again, it doesn't change anything, but here we are up in the afterhours session. gm or u.p.s., your pick? >> u.p.s., i get it, it's u.p.s. specific, but is it a broader tell? and in terms of unemployment rate, more layoffs in u.p.s., trying to reduce cost. and that's a theme we've been talking about for four months. let's go to fin tech here. the fin tech industry facing h headwinds, but is the tide turning? our next guest thinks emerging technologies could create a major opportunity in the space. the founding partner of motive partners, a specialist private equity firm investing in financial technology. blithe, great to have you here. >> nice to be here. thank you. >> people think of fin tech and they think of the names that have been crushed in the markets. should we be concerned about these firms? because the bear case will say, these are just financial firms, and we should treat them accordingly and if there's something bad that's going to happen in the economy, these

firms will feel it even worse. >> well, the interesting thing about the fin tech space is probably better labeled financial technology, because that really describes fully what it's all about. and it's much than just some of the high profile nonbank challenger actors that have been harshly treated in some cases fairly so in the markets. this is a gigantic space. the vertical represents almost a trillion dollars a year of spend by financial services company on technology. it is also a horizontal, but people are imbedding financial technology in nonfinancial businesses in order to enable financial activity by their customers. that's approaching over the next five years another trillion dollars of spend. so, this is a space that's too big to ignore. it is also one where technology-driven innovation is occurring at a furious pace. and that is something that will survive cyclical developments in interest rates and many other things. in fact, many of the companies in the space are not heavily

leveraged and have business models that are relatively impervious to the ups and downs of rates, inflation, and other things that have effected more cyclical businesses. there's still plenty of opportunity in this space. >> we spend a lot of time, guy just mentioned it, thinking about unemployment rate and the trends that we're seeing, and today there was a headline, a paypal, for instance, is cutting 9% of their work force. think about, that's a company that has a really good balance sheet, trades at a decent valuation. the stock can't get out of its own way, right? so, are we going to continue to see businesses like that really solve towards expenses, to your point a little bit, and should we expect to see cuts in the space continue? >> you know, i think the issue you're referring to is bigger than the fin tech space. we're looking at an environment where we've had aed radical chae of economic condition and that's affected the cost of operating. we had a period where there was significant wage inflation, that meant the cost of employing

people rose. significant increase now in interest rates, refinancing wall that is being, at least now, alleviated somewhat by market expectations of future rate cuts, which has meant that the capital markets for debt have reopen ed some what. so, the refinancings are getting done, good news, but they are getting done at extraordinarily higher coast. and the combination of the wage inflation, the higher cost of interest is what's causing layoffs and some of the larger economically sensitive businesses like a paypal and many others you mentioned, others in your introduction. that is a phenomenon that is a cyclical phenomenon. it's not where the value is coming from, which is much more an technological innovation and new technologies being deployed, notably, a.i. and similar. >> you are in the hall of fame. you are a genius, and it's interesting. "oppenheimer" was the movie, and

we "the big short" guys coming on. in looking back at the credit default swaps back in the day, i mean, you were sort of at the forefront, what are your feelings than today? i know you created them with the best of intentions, but it was used in somewhat ne fare use ways. >> well, that's dialing the clock back a bit. first of all, it would be actually nice to be able to claim that i invented credit -- >> you were -- >> i did help evolve them from an idea to a widely used instrument. neither i nor jpmorgan ever had the idea of applying them to subprime home equity loans or securities, and therein was the problem, in fact, we were deploying the contracts more as risk management tools, ironically. you know, i think at the end of the day, the issue is not about the product itself, so much as the way it was used.

>> exactly. >> and the lessons were learned about the potential for derivatives to create contagion, and much of that was addressed in the financial reforms that occurred in the aftermath of the financial crisis. >> we wish we had more time. there's never enough time. thank you so much for joining us. it's great to see you. >> pleasure to be here. >> hope to see you soon. coming up, the big short traders are back. the men who predicted the 2008 financial crisis are here to give us their take on the markets, the economy, and much more. you're watching "fast money," live in miami beach. back in two. in real time. (jen) so we partner with verizon. their solution for us? a private 5g network. (ella) we now get more control of production, efficiencies, and greater agility. (marquis) with a custom private 5g network. our customers get what they want, when they want it. (jen) now we're even smarter and ready for what's next. (vo) achieve enterprise intelligence.

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hi, how are you? >> hey, mr. bennett. what do we have? >> let's see what you got. >> do you smell that? what is that? >> what? >> what's that smell? >> cologne? >> no. >> opportunity. >> no. money. >> oh. okay. >> i smell money. >> a memorable scene from the 2015 blockbuster "the big short." the four guys represented there are with us in miami beach. i moderated a panel with them earlier today here at i-connections, an interesting takeaway, as they are expressing bearishness differently from what you might think back in the financial crisis. with us now -- by the way, this is a tv first, to have all these guys here at the same time, at

the same table. so, thank you guys for being here. >> great to be here. >> thank you. >> we showed a clip from the movie. i got to ask you, and i asked you this on the panel, how much of it was true? >> you can take that one. what do you think? >> the book was 100% accurate. i would say the movie was 75%, 85% accurate. the way that adam was able to explain cdos to people with the fourth wall was amazing. no alligator coming out of the pool, but all the other stuff was pretty good. >> the strip club scene never happened. >> of course not. of course not. >> it was, you know, 20 years ago almost that we came down here to florida and there was all this building and there was no people, and so, that's when that scene -- came back and, it's a problem. >> you went there and you saw the foreclosed properties, they were empty, the bills were piling up. >> it was pretty obvious, yeah. >> are there any trades today that you have as much conviction in as you did back then? steve? >> well, the one i have that is a long is infrastructure,

government's going to be spending $1.2 trillion over the next ten years, so, there are a lot of things to do. i mean, i wouldn't call that as big a conviction story as the big short. that was taking on, basically, western civilization. and everybody telling us we were lunatics this is a more relaxed investment story, but i think it's a great one. >> things have changed a lot in the financial system. have they changed to the point where there won't be a trade like that? >> well, right now, the fed's on the case. when we think about what happened during the great recession, there was a famous line, i knew more than allen gr greenspan. he wasn't lying. he did. the fed has wisened up, and now the ability to have the price discovery luke we did back then would be very, very difficult. >> right. >> won't be allowed. silicon valley lasted 24 hours. >> exactly. >> the only other time was in '21, '22, where they were way behind the curve on inflation and that was a time where short

sellers could really profit, because they knew the fed was offsides. and so, you know, that's not the case today, you know, the fed has 400, 500 basis points in their back pocket if something bad happens. so, that's what, as a short seller, you are fearful of that, so, if something bad happens, they just cut rates pretty quickly. >> we know it's a much more difficult business to be a short seller these days. so, i'm wondering, danny, in terms of finding that trade, how have you changed your approach? >> well, the four of us traded pre-financial crisis, during financial crisis and we've all traded post. not necessarily together, but i think there's still bits and pieces of it alive. back then, there was glimpses of, you know, tech companies that -- companies posing as tech companies that were just consumer finance companies. you see those pieces today. you see upstart and affirm. we've seen that game before. these are specialty finance companies and when credit comes back to haunt them, their balance sheeting now the same way the mortgage companies did, they couldn't get it off their

balance sheet. those are the things i look for. and yes, these are smaller companies, maybe not the rest of the investment community can get on. i seep gl glimpses of it, alway. >> i was born jewish and i converted to long only. i just made that up right here. that was my epiphany about that question. >> needlepoint that onto a pillow or something. >> thank you. >> it's true. your life changed. and people were remarking about this, how zen you are, how happy you are. >> kind of shocking. >> you're not the guy in the movie. >> that guy was very, very, very angry, and the movie accurately -- >> portrayed your anger? >> kind of miss that guy a little bit. >> i don't miss him. >> you can go from 0 to bear -- as we all can, pretty quickly. and times change, we change. >> let's get to the highest conviction trades you have right now. >> as a short seller, your are loathe to mention shorts, but

one of the best this year has been tesla. they've been a big underperforming stock, and so, i think they really have problems with sales and, you know, one of our best traits is calling bs on a company, and i think eventually the market will come around to the fact that it's really an auto company with, you know, not great -- not great tech, you know, everyone else is catching up to them. and so, that's -- has been underperformed, will continue to be. >> for so many people, they want to short tesla and they have gotten their shirts ripped off. >> yep. >> how did you manage that trade to make that a profitable one? >> you know, over the last, again, over the last three years, it's been a great short, right? >> that's true. >> i got crushed in '22. yes, it bounced back last year and, you know, bad q-4 earnings helped that. >> right. >> it really started working when the tam, the amount of cars they could sell, the growth rate is just not coming to fruition. as a result, you have to ask yourself, why do i own this thing that's trading at such high multiples that don't have the growth rates?

>> right. you are also short u.p.s., in the news today. did you cover their or is there more to come? >> there's more to come. it's -- you can see it with the labor costs and the weak volumes, and, you know, i think that's going to take time to play out here, so -- >> yeah. your biggest short is the companies that you mentioned, affirm and upstart. >> upstart. almost five times book. again, it's a specialty finance company. so, they turned into a storage company, instead of a moving company. they are no longer able to sell the loans they are originating. cloud-based a.i., they can put any name on it. eventually these things underperform. i think it's going to be a really good short from here. >> old steve would have loved that. >> and i was going to say, but you're now happy steve. >> i'm happy. i have nothing against that company. >> are there pockets of the market that concern you? the old steve, you can feel him

coming back, writhing from within? >> i have a simple view of the u.s. economy. 70% is consumer driven, as long as the consumer is healthy, it's fine. and, you know, credit quality, while it deteriorated for awhile, seems to have stopped. capital one says they think delinquencies have peaked. don't worry, be happy. i mean, until it changed. as of now, it's not changing. >> the one concern, people are pretty eupeuphoric. go around this conference, there's a lot of people that are bullish, so, that's the one thing that concerns me. no one's really that scared right now. at all. >> that's a big risk, at least in the near-term, is complacency. >> in terms of another big short -- >> that's different. >> you can believe people are too euphoric -- >> that's a short-term. >> our expertise is credit, the financial system. and as long as credit quality is okay, there's no, you know, big drama coming. >> think about it, though, the whole issue with commercial real

estate, we have seen bits and pieces of it, and there's an issue. a trillion dollars coming due to be refinanced. for some reason, the moral hazard in the world believes that will balance out and it probably will. they'll have a program for commercial real estate loans. and they probably will, but i think people are too complacent in that, as well. >> right. >> the markets were able to clear, right? nothing traded last year. there was no volumes in commercial real estate, so, that's one of the reasons you haven't seen problems. >> i think all of us will be more concerned if and when it's a real big of an if, if the fed has to pivot once again to being in the tightening bias. then we start to freak out. >> we have to leave it here. thank you so much, guys. that was fun. i hope you had fun with your reunion. >> oh, we did. >> great to be here. coming up, starbucks on the move. we have the details from that quarter next. and the search for the fountain of youth?

a we'll talk about that next. we're back in two.

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company. kate rogers has all the details. >> we'll start with starbucks missing on the top and bottom lines and with lower comps than expected across the board, despite what the ceo called a highly successful holiday season. in north america/u.s., comps increased 5%. international comps increasing 7%. that's far less than the 13.2% growth anticipated in china. on the call, the ceo said the company was hit with some unexpected headwinds beginning in november, adding, quote, we saw negative impacts to our business in the middle east, second, events in the middle east also had impact in the u.s., driven by misperceptions about our position. our most loyal customers remained loyal and in fact increased their frequency of spend in the quarter, but we did see a softening of u.s. traffic. and he added there was a slower than expected recovery in china. he added starbucks is confident in china in the long-term, but the market is kind of going through a transition now with

competition that will shake out over time and as you mentioned, some change for guidance here. they revised revenue, now, for the full year, in the range of 7% to 10%, that's down from the 10% to 12% previously given. full-year u.s. and global comps in a range now of 4% to 6%. that's revised down from a range of 5% to 7%. china comp growth of low single digits revised from a range of 4% to 6%. but the stock is higher by more than 3% now. back over to you. >> kate, thank you. kate rogers. why is the stock up then? >> every metric i looked in, they missed. the good news, it's still a u.s. story in terms of revenue. the international miss was not good at all, but you can say, okay, it's not an international story. margins in line, better than a year ago, which i guess is good, and i guess people are looking at sort of the revenue number, which wasn't bad. i have to tell you something, the only thing i'm looking at, valuation at least you can wrap your head around it, 19 times or so, 20 times, and maybe it's a

bit of a relief rally. the quarter, just looking at it, was not particularly good. >> by the way, amd shares are down by more than 6%. microsoft is still off. we're on the conference calls. we'll bring you any guidance as it comes. what is the question you want answered from either company? >> yeah, i mean, look, what was kind of the sell-through of the co-pilot products? they announced the pricing a couple quarters ago, and again, the stock is trading 36 times this year, 31 times next. the stock has gained a trillion dollars in market cap and we know all of that data. so, if they can't, basically, come in better than people are expecting, the stock's going down. >> all right, coming up, are we closing in on a cure for aging? our next guests think we are on the cusp of several exciting breakthroughs to revolutionize long longevity. that's right after this. of a bu, constant contact's ai tools help you know what to say,

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welcome back to "fast money." so much attention has been lavished on the boom in obesity and diabetes drugs recently. but our next guests are shifting their foe cushion towards curing aging and helping people live fuller, healthier lives. joining us now, jim mellon and alan patrickof. a alan, you are almost 90. you expect to live to 114. >> don't give away my secrets.

though i did say it in my book. no red lights, last year, that i was going to live until 114. >> 114. is it going to be because, you mentioned positive attitude, but also the drug discoveries that people are investing in? >> i think drug discoveries are obviously going to keep increasing every year, our company will do developments every year, but i have a positive attitude, i take care of myself, i do a lot of exercise, i walked four miles this morning, which is very short, but we're here down in sunny miami, and i really believe it. and as you know, i got married last month. >> yeah. >> and i live a life working every single day, and that helps to keep you with a very positive attitude and i'm going to get there. >> yeah. >> i promised my new wife that i would make it 24 for years. >> or else it wouldn't have been worth it. he ran the marathon two years ago, went to burning man, did all the things that a young person would do.

jim, in terms, you are a bio tech investor, effectively, what are some of the most promising things that you are excited about in your pipeline? >> well, the first thing to say is that we're about ten years away from having drugs that will actually keep us healthier for longer and make us live longer. >> ten years? we just have to hang on in there, and so, in the 14 years that alan -- 24 years, sorry, that alan has left, he's got plenty of time to do that. so, it's going to take a bit of time, but money's coming into the sector, and in our case, we have a very promising drug for alzheimer's, because that's the biggest issue of our times, you know, cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes and so forth, are being addressed, the things that normally kill people, but alzheimer's is what we should all worry about. and so, we have a drug that will shortly be in clint yoic here ie united states. and i'm very optimistic about that, because the people i work with are very experienced. and the second is something

derived from the amish community, where a certain genetic mutation that 10% of them have enables those people to live ten years longer than the average. >> wow. >> and we've taken that, and we're using it, and we think it will have a big effect in longevity, as well, for the general population, not just the amish population. so, it's called pi-1 inhibition. watch out for that. two drugs about to go in the clinic. super exciting. >> alan, when you think about what jim had to say about the excitement in and around also himmer's, and how the markets have seized on these an anti-obesity drugs, and if you think about lilly and novo nordisk, combined $1 trillion in market cap, we have never really see that in big pharma. do you think some of the other things that gym just jim just m do you think they have the potential to be megatrends? >> first of all, let me say that i have a fund called prime time partners and we don't invest in

drugs or anything that requires fda approval, so, i'm not promoting a drug. i can personally envision my wife, before i married, just got married, my previous wife who passed away three years ago, passed away from alzheimer's after having it for 12 years and i saw that decline. if you had a cure for alzheimer's, i don't think there's any end to how big it could be. if ozempic and these other comparable drugs are producing the kind of revenues they are in a very short period of time, everybody is going to want to prevent a neurological decline, and it's not just alzheimer's, it's parkinsons and essesenilit germ. i have no way of valuing those two drug companies and i'm skeptical how soon we're going to have a cure. all we've had so far are encouraging things for early on-set of the disease. we have interestingly one of our

investments called isaac health is solving -- not solving the problem, addressing the problem of -- there's a shortage of neurologists in this country. try to get an appointment in this country for a neurologist. they are trying to deal with people who are potential, or having alzheimer's and deal with them through telemedicine and quasi-neurologist in several layers to accomplish the shortage, in the meantime, until they find a cure. >> jim, to the extent that you can answer this question, what pharma, big bio tech companies out there do you see that are sort of on the cusp of doing the things we were just talking about? >> the only one that's making positive efforts is regeneron, which is a sort of large but not huge pharma company. but let's put this in perspective. $2 billion a year is spent on anti-aging, if you want to call it that, in the broad sense, and $200 billion around the world spent on pharma research.

so, it's a very small trickle of money. but it's the most important thing of our time, because for the first time ever, it's possible to intervene in the fundamental biology of humans. >> when does big pharma catch on? >> as soon as there's a positive trial of some sort. and so, the trials are under way now, there's about 200 longevity companies, most of them in the united states, as you would expect. about 50, i would say, are legit, you know, companies that are potentially investable. all of them have the big challenge that you can't stay in business for 40 years to see if your drug works. so, you have to have a near-term commercial application, and so, for us, it's fibrosis with pi-1, with alzheimer's, it's obvious we're trying to stop the p progr progression. we have a good chance of being successful. >> until that time, remember, we have an increasing proportion of the population who are aging, who are going to be over 60, over 65, 100.

we have to take care of them. >> absolutely. >> that's where i focus on. doing anything, product, services, take care of older people. >> thank you, an aalnd jim. up nexting final trades.e [ employees snoring ] anything can change the world of work. from hr to payroll, adp designs for the next anything. personalized financial advice from ameriprise can do more than help you reach your goals. -you can make this work. -we can make this work. it can help you reach them with confidence. no wonder more than 9 out of 10 of our clients are likely to recommend us. ameriprise financial. advice worth talking about.

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