>> disney breaking out into the earnings tomorrow. take a look. >> okay. jim stewart will join us on "closing bell" also. name? >> commodities gsg on china news. >> i was going to do disney. >> that's fine. stephanie? >> apple. >> buying more. "the exchange" begins now. hi, everybody. i'm brian sullivan in for kelly. more tech layoffs, more musk headlines, and two themes dominating silicon valley. plus, we were at the halfway mark for earnings. we have three more names getting ready to report, one of which getting crushed since covid. that's one of the reasons our trader likes it. and don't worry about a new wall of worries, as our market olid returns this year.re he

but as always, let's start with dominic chu and see what's happening in today's session, dom. >> fractional gains and loss, but a very stable market so far today. the dow up about 89 points, one quarter of 1%. the outperformer, 38,467 the last trade there. the nasdaq, the underperformer, down nearly one half of 1%, at 15,536 and change. the s&p 500 currently stands at 4940, just down two points, so just about flat on the session. at the lows of the session, we were down roughly eight points. if i can draw on there, i'm going to do it right here, down eight, up about 15 points at the highs. so tilting a little towards the middle part of that range. we'll see if that sticks around for the afternoon part of the session. if you look at one of the big themes, it's across the pacific ocean. namely what's happening with large-cap tech stocks in china. this is the ishares china

large-cap, up 5% today after the government and sovereign wealth funds over there make up a mosaic of possible speculation about more intervention coming from the government down the line, to prop up the market over there. it's been an underperformer over the last few years. we'll see whether or not the best day over the last couple of years has any kind of bearing on that trade. and then on our own side of the atlantic and pacific, take a look at what's happening with new york community bank corps, nycb, down 14% today, $4.63 so far. again, remember, this company reported a surprise loss, boost in loan loss reserves. we're hearing some commentary out of janet yellen about the risks in commercial real estate to certain parts of the overall market. on-balance regional banks is still a focus today. back over to you. >> dom, thum. -- thank you very much. the big thing in the economy is layoffs.

32,000 tech jobs have been cut so far this year. of course, we're only in february. yesterday, snap announced it was eliminating 10% of its workforce. and that trend may continue. the next guest says silicon valley is all in on financial discipline. joining us now is sam lessen, general partner at ventures. the overall jobs number for america are good, we know that. last month was a blowout. so what's happening in silicon valley? >> efficiency. i think the reality is for a long time, silicon valley was crushing it, and the big tech companies, they weren't so concerned about the bottom line. people knew it was there when they needed it. there was a huge reckoning, and now there's a combination of ai, which does automate a lot and create opportunities for automation improvement there. coupled with wake-up call for

financial discipline. and you are starting to see what tech companies can really do. >> was it an instant sale? i posited this last night, but is this the result of over hiring? you talk about discipline, but we came out of covid, no one knew what was going on. tech was the place to be. was this just too much hiring? is that how we should look at it? >> tech companies, a lot of them are very ambitious. there's been an arms race for talent. google has done this forever, and hoarding talent was the key name of the game. they were so profitable, it didn't matter. you just wanted those engineers and those people in case a big opportunity came up and didn't cost you anything. what we saw out of covid and some reckoning there, hoarding talent at very high prices might not be the right strategy. i think what you are seeing now, and i do give elon musk credit for make thing acceptable at twitter, but a lot of the big

companies decided to get lean and efficient. this is where you start to see the incredible leverage of what these tech platforms have. they didn't need those people. they were hoarding the talent. there was a cheap option for them, but now they're going to have huge opportunities with ai and opportunities for more efficiency. and we didn't need most of those people any way. >> that's the question, because ai, that's all we talk about now. and it's supposed to be the biggest generational shift since the internet itself. will ai be a net job adder or a net job remover? >> i think it's a question of time frame. short term, i think what you'll see -- i'm not a big believer in agi and some of these visions being put forth, but it will be an efficiency driver. and companies that can harvest that efficiency are going to be

fabulously wealthy. the companies that change their business models and can chip away and automate, it really is cloud 2.0. it is just kind of pure efficiency in the sense of technology. that will remove jobs in a lot of places. i do think the economy grows and we get added back in places. i'll stay away from talking about the agi future, because i think that's a lot of smoke. >> why is that? >> you know, there's a lot of overlap between religion and technologists. if you put technologists enough, they'll talk about religious leaders. while the returns on large data sets and how do you optimize ad copy or videos are very real coming from ai. those are all very practical. the second you talk about superintelligence or alternative intelligences at the level of human sophistication, i think that is much more religion than practical. >> that's a fascinating take,

and i'm not sure i would disagree with that. although you can overlap religion with a lot of things out there right now. so if we're going to predict, right, we're going to use your intelligence, what is going to be the theme of the rest of 2024 with technology? >> yeah. the theme of 2024 is going to be applied current generation ai. starting to harvest the winds from it. people have already priced in and gotten excited about the long-term potential of where the world could magically go. but people are going to say, great, where is the pay off now? it's clear for adobe that can do amazing things by adding to their existing platform. it's clear for meta where all of a a sudden i was buying ai ads. so you're going to see that chip, chip, chip away and will help profitability and growth for people who can leverage it incrementally. and i think that will be rewarded, versus the general, broad idea of revolution.

>> do you think there's any kind of an ai stock bubble out there anywhere, sam? >> 100%. there's a bubble in a lot of places. i'm a venture capitalist, and you're going to see huge wipeouts in the ai theme. things are being massively overpriced because people are excited. i'm not sure if it's the next 12 to 18 months, the street and i think investors will say, look, it's great that you have a theoretical ai story, but show me the money. but there are things that are overpriced at hype. on the flip side, there are other thing where is the benefit of the automation, the practical ai in front of us are real and immediate. and when you start to see people delivering real returns on that, that will be very exciting. >> fascinating. on a lot of levels, including the bubble. listen, we'll see. it's been a heck of a run. sam, appreciate it.

thank you very much. we are halfway through earnings season, which means there's as much opportunity ahead as there is behind. today, we're looking at ali baba, amgen and uber, part of today's earnings exchange. here is jeff kilbur. my man, how are you doing? >> great. how about you? >> good to see you in the daylight. it's start with ali. it's been crushed, down 27% this year. did rise today with the overall market, jeff, as china is taking desperate measures to prop up stocks. morgan stanley is watching baba for any ai, that we just talked about, related news and the macro china economy is still in question. that was our mystery chart at the top of the show. what is your take on bab snarvegs -- baba? >> you have to be a buyer here. if you look at how much it's gone down, let's look at a

snapshot. the s&p is up nearly 100%, and we're seeing baba down about 50%. so valuations are very cheap, and i think china is committed. they're committed to moving the market here higher short term. i think you get a pop in baba. right now i think it's an opportunity to trade. >> next up is amgen. having a big year, at more than 10%, jeff.izon therapeutics in october and watching the weight loss pipeline saying that amgen is the best name to challenge the existing trugs from lily, novo, and others. are you a buyer here of amgen if >> i am a buyer, and i think

they are coming into the obesity drug. obviously, you're seeing eli lily and novo, but there's plenty of room. we had a couple of family members suggest that i take a look at some of these weight loss drugs. none the less, i think amgen has the ability to move higher. it is exciting here. i also own lily, but you can own amgen. it's very expensive and overextended when you talk about relative strength index. it has a level of 77. >> so basically own them all if i hear you right. >> i think so. >> finally, uber. uber has been on an uber run. they're also watching lyft, because apparently app downloads for lyft have lifted. so jeff, with uber, has that

stock run up too much for you or still valued here? >> pump the brakes, sully. you have to look at 150% in 2023, off to a great start, up today. so you have to take profits. if you still own it, you can be cautious and put on option joef lay. but the incentives that they need to give their drivers globally, that's a head wind. i think you can think their market expenses because more of a head wind as they fight lyft. i'm a seller here. it z so pump those brakes. >> overall, jeff, i want to get your macro market take. it's been a pretty good start to the year, magnificent seven, minus tesla, of course, has done very well. you just heard the previous guest say that he thought it was a 100% chance of some kind of ai bubble in the market right now. >> i disagree. i think there's more room to

run. it's fascinating to me. we had fed chairman powell. he was forced to go on "60 minutes" to try to slow down what is happening in the economy. i know the ten-year note went above 4%. but the fed will be forced to cut rates. i think the economy and consumer is strong. it's not going to be linear, but with the vix where it is right now, i'm cautiously optimistic. it's an election year. there's a lot of good juju in the market right now. >> at this point, we have daily missile attacks in the red sea, the u.s. military is bombing targets in iraq and syria and yemen, they're shooting back at us. israel-hamas, all that, china kind of on its doom rattle. and yet the vix is below 20. make it make sense. >> there's 8 trillion reasons

why it makes sense. so a lot of people either took profits or underinvested, they're scratching their head. the s&p maybe takes a pause at 5,000. but for the rest of the year, i think the underinvested, the bears will continue to be keep thing market higher. it may come down to the q3 and q4 time, but this earnings season has been very impressive to me. you're impressive to me, sully. >> keep it coming. jeff, really appreciate it, my man. have a great day. >> see you, pal. coming up, corporate defaultsare on the rise. the sectors more at risk for maybe more ahead. plus, election day, only nine months away. a new cnbc survey is looking at how young voters view the economy. we have the results and the person behind the poll. "the exchange" returns after this.

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xfinity rewards presents: '1st and 10gs.' xfinity is giving away ten grand to a new lucky winner more options than you know. for every first and ten during the big game. enter daily through february 9th for a chance to win 10gs. with the ultimate speed, power, and reliability the xfinity 10g network is made for streaming live sports. because it's only live once. join xfinity rewards on the xfinity app or go to xfinity1stand10gs.com for your chance to win. welcome back to "the exchange." the fed may be getting ready to cut interest rates in the summer, who knows? but for a growing number of companies that may not come soon enough. corporate defaults nearly tripled last year, and companies defaulted on more than $19 billion worth of debt, 2/3 owned by private equity, with health

care seeing the biggest uptick. so what might this signal about the state of direct lending and the trends in defaults joining us is christina padgett, moody's head of finance. the numbers are on the rise, but overall, i believe, they are still relatively muted for now, historically. >> well, if you compare them to the pandemic or to the global financial crisis, defaults are lower. and that's true. i think the risk is that even if rates come down, they'll stay elevated. for highly leveraged businesses, the risk will remain prevalent, even if he think it will peak this quarter. we think there's continuing risk. >> how do default rates and default dollar amounts compare to say normal -- non-pandemic,

non-crisis times? >> well, historically, the other thing is, after those last two crises, rates went down to almost zero. so defaults peaked very high, and then dropped precipitously. we don't expect that to happen this time. the fed may take rates down. we don't think they're going to take them down nearly as low as the last two cycles. so there's going to continue to be pressure on the most highly leveraged businesses. >> it's not just directly higher borrowing costs, i would assume, meaning that companies have to pay more for their debt. it's probably the impact that those borrowing costs are going to have on the overall economy. >> two things happened. the higher rates slowed down the economy, so those -- that earnings lift that you thought you were going to get when you bought that business in '21 levered it up, paid a high multiple. that earnings expectation has declined. the other thing that happens when you take rates up is asset prices decline, as well. so valuations are lower.

so there's pressure on those businesses that will persist. >> private equity is private equity. they don't sit on money not to invest it. so it sounds like private equity might have made a lot of bad bets or bad forecasts about where rates and the economy were going in '21, and probably overpaid for companies that they should not have overpaid for. >> true enough. and as i notice, you mentioned direct lendors. one thing that did happen in '22 and '23 when rates came up and the market got a lot more sort of risk averse, they came in and refinanced some of those deals. so there was some additional liquidity that came into the market through the private credit side. >> what does that mean? >> it mean it is you're worried about liquidity for the weakest companies, the fact that private credit has been able to grow more capital and provide some

lending, it alleviated some of the defaults. it doesn't solve the problem, but it definitely created a valve when the syndicated loan market wasn't there. >> got a beautiful chart of a wall, this giant wall behind you, and it's breaking it down by sector. a lot going on there. it kind of looks like my ekg. media, our industry has been suffering, laying people off. what do you see from a sector perspective? which ones are most at risk now? >> i always like to start with the point that the most receptors in this environment are ldos. you take all those companies, the majority of them might be a consumer goods company, might be a retail or apparel company. but it's probably owned by a private equity sponsor. that being said, you think about something like the durable sector. they did really well during the pandemic. we were all stuck at home. that changed. >> that's home goods and stuff. >> yeah.

so now, you're done buying home goods. what you really want to do is take a trip. so those businesses are actually doing better. the stay at home businesses are doing worse. overall, that high rate environment changes the consumer behavior to some degree. americans are good consumers. >> telecom is pretty high, the projection heading up to january '25, it's tapping 20% according to that chart. >> those are more vulnerable businesses to start, so those are businesses that are having more of a secular issue. so if you dive into each of these companies, there's some characteristics, but the big problem is, they can't afford the debt on their balance sheet. >> that would be a problem. by the way, christina, that's a problem for humans and companies. i can't afford the debt on blank balance sheet, whether it's a company or a person.

does the federal reserve -- also maybe because of massive u.s. debt -- but you think they're looking at this kind of information and thinking, maybe we need to cut rates a little sooner or more adresggraggressi because we don't want a wave of corporate defaultis. does that go into their thinking? >> what we saw in the last two cycles is the fed really took into account the state of the financial markets. i think that was very clear -- >> powell does a good job at that. >> i think this time, he has the added concern of inflation, and he's clearly articulated that is top mind. we fully believe at moody's rates will come down. maybe end of may, maybe a little later. but that is not to go down to that sort of zero range. and bear in mind that these companies, they're mostly owned by private equity. they're going to do some kind of

distress exchange. financial engineering is their thing. >> you have to pay all those duke nbas, christy. not knocking duke. financial engineering is a thing, and those folks will earn their pay based on your projections. but they can go home and say, at least we're not in commercial real estate. christina, thank you. >> sure. coming up, we're just over 30 minutes away from the release of the nts b's report of the boeing 737 max 9 door plug blowout that. ice ahead. oose t-mobile for business. pga of america and t-mobile are partnering on 5g-powered analytics to help improve player performance. t-mobile's network helps aaa stay connected nationwide... to get their members back on the road. and las vegas grand prix chose t-mobile to help fuel operations for one of the world's largest racing events.

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so secretary yellen was asked about the bank today. she was careful to say she was not be commenting on individual banks, but she was saying that the treasury is in touch with bank supervisors and monitoring banking stresses carefully. and listen to this -- >> commercial real estate is an area that we've long been aware could create financial stability risks or losses in the banking system, and this is something that requires careful supervisory attention. >> reporter: in her testimony, she acknowledged the risk of high vacancy rates in commercial real estate. she acknowledged the number of loans coming due and needing refinancing coming up. so she says it will put "a lot of stress on the property owners, but bank supervisors are focused on this issue."

overall, she says she's concerned but that the issues should be manageable. although some institutions may be quite stressed by what's ahead. brian? >> megan, thank you very much. now let's get to julia for a cnbc news update. new hampshire's attorney general today made the texas company as the source of an apparently ai generated robocall, pretending to be joe biden. that told democrats not to vote in last month's presidential primary. this came days before the vote, using the president's vote to persuade democrats from voting. the state a.g. says while progress has been made in the investigation, there is not enough yet to bring charges. maui police just released a report that looked into its response to the fires that leveled the town of lahaina and killed 132 people in august. among the recommend nations to improve response, better equipment and stationing a high

ranking officer in the island's communication center during emergenciys was recommended. prince harry arrived in london to see king charles a day after his cancer diagnosis. the king is being treated for the undisclosed form of cancer found during treatment for an enlarged prostate. >> julia, thank you. we asked over a thousand young american voters which company they would invest in. they say they love tech, but there's also something preventing them from putting their money where their mouth is. that's coming up. and remember, during february, we're celebrating black heritage. here's goldman sachs global head of engagement sharing her story. >> i was an immigrant, and we grew up in public housing. i think there was nothing about my back ground that would have suggested that i would grow up to become the senior most black professional at goldman sachs or the second person in the firm's

history to sit on the management committee as a black person. but i think there's a universeality that black history is american history, and there's so much to be learned in that. ameritrade is now part of schwab. bringing you an elevated experience, tailor-made for trader minds. go deeper with thinkorswim: our award-wining trading platforms. unlock support from the schwab trade desk, our team of passionate traders who live and breathe trading. and sharpen your skills with an immersive online education crafted just for traders. all so you can trade brilliantly.

i want to break some news to you. there is a presidential election this year, we're told. and it's happening exactly in 39 weeks. one demographic that is vast and could and probably will make a difference are younger voters. understanding what motivates them is key. so we have polled over 1,000 people between 18 to 34 from all 50 states, even alaska. that was done this the last week of january. joining us now, the founder of generation lab, cyrus. good to have you on. >> thank you. good to be here. >> i've got to imagine,inflatio come down, but the cost of living is number one here. >> absolutely. >> i know that, because it's on a giant graph behind your head. how big a deal is this?

>> we have some data that spells out what we've been hearing in terms of the economy, still trying to figure out what the big disconnect is between economic indicators and how people are feeling about the economy, what are the two big gems in the economy right now? super low unemployment rates and the stock market going bonkers. >> but it doesn't benefit you can people. not a lot of young people are owning a ton of stock, if any. >> exactly. if i'm a young person in terms of the unemployment rate, yeah, i have a job, but it's one where i'm living paycheck to paycheck. if the stock market is going crazy and i'm not participating, what good does it do? it's like they're skating on that's rink and everything looks great, and there's this beautiful unemployment rate and this beautiful stock market. but the ice beneath me is thin, so it's hard to enjoy the scenery. >> it's the difference we talked about, asset owners versus asset

renters. old and young people have one thing in common, we all have to eat. i'm old, but i make a good living. every time i go out to eat, i get a stomach ache because of the price. it doesn't matter if it's chick-fil-a or a steakhouse, how are you affording food? >> i think the short answer is, they're not. >> mom and dad? seriously, i don't get it. sandwiches are like $15. >> there you go. they are 90% are making most, if not all of their meals opposed to going out and getting food. so that's probably the first reflex, one of the first places you'll trim sails when times are tight. again, have to remind people that for young people times are tight. it's food. >> food as we can see on another giant beautiful graphic behind your head, cyrus, you can turn and look, food, 56% of those you surveyed are saying that's it. you've got health care, rent obviously a big deal. listen, 20 years old, live at home?

why not, you're at home, come home for the summer. i don't know who the 4% is that didn't notice. that's the cannabis trade, i guess. it's all good, man. we're told you've got to save for retirement early. i didn't save much for retirement. i spent everything i made. but you guys are smarter. financially you're smarter, you learned more lessons, you've been through a number of recessions. >> present company excluded. >> anybody able to save for retirement? >> people are saving for retirement, but that's the exception not the rule. again, i'm speaking to the theme here. if you don't have that much money left over after you account for all the essential items, it's hard to imagine your first reflex from work is to scroll through your roth ira and ways to invest in retirement. >> not going to happen. i can't imagine. it's a shame, but i get with the higher costs. do the folks you surveyed, the 1,000 18 to 34-year-olds, i'm

sure they would like to own a home. do they see it as a reality? >> we asked whether folks are considering buying a home? at this moment, the biggest answer was that folks aren't even considering buying a home. we asked if the interest rates are a factor, whether or not they buy a home. again, biggest majority said i'm not even considering it. but those who are considering it, interest rates, huge factor. >> which is interesting, because a 6% mortgage, way up from where it was, is still historically low when you go back to the olden times, my era, and my parent's era. so what does economically, politically, regulatorily, cyrus, what do the folks you surveyed want most? >> that's a great question. so economically, in terms of regulation, you know, i'm guessing that not a ton of people watching right now are pounding the table asking for more red tape. but you think about it, from the

perspective of young people, the youngest people that we surveyed in this, they went into the workforce during the pandemic. the oldest folks that we surveyed in here, they came into the workforce during the great recession. they know what suffering on main street looks like, and i think they want nurses to get a raise more than they want -- >> jeff bezos to make more money, i think we can all agree on that. we bring that back up, because we got a lot of listeners on so sirius xm. this is a pie chart, 66%, which should u.s. businesses be focused on? 66% said regulations and new laws for american corporations. 34% on corporate growth and increased profits. it doesn't appear that your generation is afraid of more regulation. >> absolutely. and it will be interesting to see how that changes once they get established in the

workforce. but you're right. right now, they've got their priorities clear. >> and health care -- look at that. current health care system working. 73% said government should fund and regulate more. interesting. health care, a huge cost. don't get hurt or sick. >> right. and that one makes sense. people think that health care should be cheaper and easier. you know, bernie sanders gets a lot of -- the subject of a lot of jokesters and everything. there's a reason why he had so much passion among young people. i don't think it was because of his youth or his hair or anything like that. >> yeah, yeah. listen, if you have the majority of american bankruptcies across all age spectrums come from health care related debt, medical debt, can't afford it. unbelievable. these are great results. i love it.

nine months, the election, thank you. good stuff. appreciate that. coming up, the head of the faa wants more oversight of boeing. they made the case on capitol hill today. he sat down with phil lebeau and did not hold back. that is next. at ameriprise financial our advice is personalized based on your goals, whatever they may be. all that planning has paid off. looks like you can make this work. we can make this work. and the feeling of confidence that comes from our advice... i can make this work. that seems to be universal. i can make this work. i can make this work. no wonder more than 9 out of 10 clients are likely to recommend us. because advice worth listening to is advice worth talking about. ameriprise financial. the first time you connected your godaddy website and your store was also the first time you realized... well, we can do anything. cheesecake cookies? the chookie! manage all your sales from one place with a partner

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and ready for what's next. (vo) achieve enterprise intelligence. it's your vision, it's your verizon. welcome back to "the exchange." the director of the faa testifying about greater oversight of boeing on capitol hill today, something he also talked about with phil lebeau this morning. and phil joins us now with more. a great and fascinating conversation, phil. >> the most interesting thing is mike whitaker admits the current system suspect working. there has to be a better way.

that's why they're doing an audit of boeing to figure out what needs to be improved. take a look at shares of boeing and spirit a arrow systems. boeing, moving a little higher. a couple things will be happening here in 15 minutes. we'll get the ntsb preliminary investigation results from what happened with the alaska airlines flight where the door plug was ripped off in mid flight. that comes out in about 15 minutes. the faa has added 26 inspectors, 20 in washington, six in wichita, kansas. the faa safety audit is ongoing, to which i asked mike whitaker this morning, has anything popped up yet, have you seen a red flag that makes us worse than is expected? >> we're waiting for all the data before we talk about that. you can assume that we haven't found anything that has caused us to make immediate action, but

we are monitoring and collecting data. >> shares of boeing, whitaker will be in washington next week to firsthand take a look at the manufacturing of 737 maxes. he has been in steady contact with the ceo of boeing. you get the impression from talking with him, brian, that they know that they have a ways to go before they can make a determination about how to improve the safety culture at boeing in terms of being the oversight agency there. but you get the impression that he feels that they're making some progress here. there's still more steps that need to be explored. that will happen over the months to come. >> yes. okay. so spirit aerosystems is at session highs, stock is up 6.5%. any idea what is behind that? >> it's the conference call, brian. pat shanahan, the new ceo, and i say new. he took over in the fourth quarter at spirit. worked out a deal in terms of fuselage production with boeing.

he's in the process of working out pricing with airbus. they're also a supplier to airbus. more importantly, he talked about the steps that they had taken right now to cleaning up their act. they have long had a problem in terms of quality control. and this was a tour deforce in terms of if you listen to a conference call and you want to know if a ceo realizes the situation, pat shanahan did that. when you listen to this conference call, that's why the stock moved higher over the last hour and a half. >> phil lebeau, spirit aerosystems up 6%. thank you very much. coming up, forget inflation. forget recession risks. is the stage set for solid returns this year? outside of all of it? your next guest thinks so and is here to tell you why. let's get some show and tell. we'll show you a start, tell you a story.

pa palintir has results, enough for citi group and jefferies to upgrade the stock from sell to hold. here's what the ceo alex carp said last night about geopolitics. >> the more dangerous, the more real it gets, the more battle tested and the more real your software has to be. i believe it's about to get very real. why? because our gdp growth is significantly better than china's. now, i know the always wrong crowd says we should then get peace. but i'm telling you the rational consequence of that is our adversaries are like, america is going to be stronger tomorrow than today. they don't have a gdp story because they cannot -- they do not build these systems as well as we do. they don't have the tech community we do, and they don't have the u.s. market like we do. look at our results.

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recession this year and neither does your next guest. in fact, he says most fears for the year probably overdone. we could see a year of double-digit returns again. let's bring in chief investment strategist for mariner wealth advisers. good to see you again. what makes you so optimistic about 2024. >> you know, our optimism started going back to 2023 and i don't think the story has changed all that much. i think the world expected recession and an earnings meltdown in 2023. and we thought 2023 would be the inverse of 2022. we already got that negative reaction in 2022. and then we had better than feared economy and earnings and calming inflation and the fed peaked interest rates at about the levels that we thought they would, which were actually al l. and so, when you look at the fundamental valuation and technical backdrop, that really

was quite good as we move through 2023, it still is. and you know, the only thing that's shifted, i think, from a concern on our part is we had a positive thesis going into last year. and now we're consensus. everyone has come around to our view. so you have to question when everyone else becomes positive, should you be positive? and i think it's the fundamental valuation in technical data that gives us the confidence to remain positive. we don't think we're going to have crazy positive returns this year, like we did last year. we just think it's going to be normal. >> yeah. >> back to normal. that's all. >> you probably believe in history as well, jeff. and history says that after a good year we also just tend to have a good year, albeit with a bit of weakness from the beginning that data coming from carson group and many others. history is on our side. >> it is. and i think a lot of people

want -- you know, as human beings, we just have this negativity bias. and so, we're skeptical can things continue? and you're right, if you look at history, the most common return category or cohort of returns in the s&p 500 going back to 1926 is greater than 20%, the second most common is greater than 10%. rarely do we lose money, and rarely do we get little or no gain. that's because normally the economy and earnings are running pretty nicely. and therefore, it's a great time to invest. it's a good environment to invest. and so, it's not unusual to have a nice repeat. that's for sure. >> yeah. looking at some of the areas you like as well, meta platforms. the stock has doubled, jeff, more than doubles. still heck of a run. what do you see there? >> well, you know, it's interesting. so often people will criticize

buying a stock at a 52-week high. i made more money and our team made more money over the years buying stocks at 52-week highs if they continue to, you know, execute. and we actually just recently came into meta. we took a look at the fundamentals. and you got great cost control that's going on. you have a nice advertising cycle, political advertising year. and you're seeing pretty solid pricing. and they're nicely positioned within that advertising pie. it's trading at 20 times earnings, brian. 20 times earnings, and yet we're looking at 30% growth rates as they control costs. and you get pretty good top line. there's not a whole lot not to like. i actually was concerned because we didn't have exposure to meta. we had some of the other mega-sevens. but we didn't have exposure until recently and i wanted to close that gap. thankfully we did that before we had that nice 20% day just a

couple days ago. a lot to like. >> buy high, sell higher, which is by the name of a book by our good friend. goes to nvidia. >> that's right. and you know, you really have to -- when a stock moves like it did, where you get 200% plus returns, you have to really make sure you have conviction to continue to be in that name. but it is in a growth cycle like none. 150% earnings or revenue growth last year, 250% earnings growth. projected 80% earnings growth this year and yet it's only trading at 30 times earnings. you know, i'm sorry. if you didn't say nvidia, brian, and you just gave those statistics about the in markets, growth rates and valuation, you would say, yeah, i'll buy that till the cows come home. so, just because it's got the

name nvidia in it, i would not say you got to brandish it, it's something to avoid at all. >> liking two hot stocks, nvidia and meta platforms. jeff, pleasure. thank you for coming on. >> thank you. appreciate it. all right. so before we wrap up, "the exchange" we have courtney reagan getting ready for "power lunch." a check on the markets here. a little rebound in the big caps. not the tech side, but the dow is up .3 of 1%. s&p exactly the same. kind of gaining back a little bit of what we lost on monday yesterday. the nasdaq is down by about .2 of 1%. the market has been just totally reliant on yield and the 10-year is at 4.089%. that does it for us on "the exchange." i will join miami of ohio's own courtney reagan on "power lunch" right after this. what do you mean? these straps are mind-blowing! they collect hundreds of data points like hrv and rem sleep, so you know all you need for recovery. and you are?

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♪ hey, welcome to "power lunch," everybody. alongside courtney reagan, hello. i am brian sullivan. coming up, ai is everything to everyone, everywhere. we're talking about in washington and silicon valley and maybe soon at your local electricity company. we'll explain all that. plus, as earnings continue to roll in, we're adding block to today's three-stock lunch. we'll get the details on chipotle, eli lilly and spotify and ask our trader for her take on each of them. yeah, we know gawk i