>> yeah, though, to your point, it's been a bif furcation in bi tech. that's going to do it for us here at "overtime." >> yeah, but not yet. we got -- we got to -- like, set the table for how cyber has moved us, and now, we are continuing on a.i. we'll send you to "fast money" with that. live from the nasdaq market site in the heart of new york city's times square, this is "fast money." here's what's on tap tonight. bruised and battered. shares of apple down 12% for the year, and a major drag on the markets today. iphone troubles in china, falling behind in a.i., those are just a couple of the bear case talking points. we'll get the bullish take coming up. plus, a coming obesity bomb. why a former obama economic aid is warning the boom in weight loss aids could become a government budget buster. the traders are set to weigh in on this one.

pun unfortunately intended. >> yes. >> and bitcoin's record and retreat. target's big pop, and generative a.i. to the insurance business. i'm melissa lee, coming to you live from studio b at the nasdaq. on the desk tonight -- tim seymour, dan nathan, guy adami, and julie beal. >> apple dropping 2.8% today. they are down 14% from the record high hitless less than months ago. they have lost $450 billion in market cap. the latest catalyst weighing in on the stock, a report that found iphone sales in china plunged 24% in the first six weeks of the year. market share in the company's third-biggest market also falling. and apple's weakness today did seem to filter into the broader market. the nasdaq closing just above the 16,000 mark. the s&p and dow also down more than a percent. so, was this is the break in the market euphoria that some of the

desk had been waiting for, before you answer that, i want to point out that nvidia and supermicro finished higher today. >> positive. extraordinary. >> so, what's the deal here, tim? >> well, if we're answering the -- the big, like, today, if you -- are you a brady bunch fan, guy? >> come on. >> who isn't? >> right, so, remember the marsha marsha marsha? today was china, china, china. it was china on apple sales, it was china in amd, china back home in china not delivering. it was tesla seeing shipments dive in china. back to apple. if you think about where apple has been getting their growth, we know services have been where they've been getting their multiple, but they overindex to u.s. and china. so, 33% of global iphone sales are u.s. and china. they're around 54%. and they're losing ground fast to huawei. so, some of this are the dynamics that we've been talking about for a long time on this desk, if you make things really ugly for china, i think some of our most important companies are

going to find it tough out there, too. then there's huawei, what they've been doing on their own. they picked up 750 basis points of market share in the last year. and apple's fallen 200. so, the dynamic here around things that have been plaguing apple for some time, and more importantly, at this point, it's the market that's -- you know, the fundamentals are what's bringing this story forward, but it's very clear, apple has been underperforming and a relative underperformer for a long time. that's dead money for over two years now, if you look at where they got to 179 in march of '22. >> yeah, and the data from china shows it is weak. apple has been given the benefit of the doubt for a long time, and now it's not. that's part of the story, the differentiation. >> it's not being given the benefit of the doubt. 100% right. finally, today, at least today, the market caught up. staying with the brady bunch,

because, why wouldn't you. annb. davis -- >> alice. >> alice. >> ha. tremendous. >> nice job, mel. >> she was the center square. she was the linchpin to that entire family, if you think about it, and there was an episode where she left because she didn't think she was needed anymore. dan used to word -- remember that whole thing. >> that was alice. >> that sort of -- apple was the linchpin and now it's starting to show the signs of why it is. now, the -- the thing you have to figure out is, where am i buying apple here, not where am i selling it? those days are over. the first level comes in the form of the october low, 165ish, we'll see what happens and when we get there. and then you probably talking if, in fact, it overshot, you know, 152 is the next level. but i do think finally the market is starting to catch onto the apple weakness. >> we're not afraid to admit -- >> every day. we say it gladly. just yesterday, we led the show with this notion that, oh, the market is broadening, apple's down and we're okay, julie, and

yet, here we are today, maybe we're not so okay. where do you stand on that in terms of whether or not you need apple in order to advance here? >> ah -- i don't think you need apple, but i think what you do need is -- we do need for breadth in this market for people to feel confident there is staying power and strength in the economy. the biggest problem we have is that the economic data is going all different kinds of directions, and so, people are flocking to the growth stories they feel good about, that they feel are durable. so, you see that, that any time there's any kind of whiff, we're going to talk about a big whiff of mine later in the show, any time you see any kind of whiff, people sell the stocks aggressively, and so, that's kind of what we're seeing here. i do think that the long-term fundamentals in apple are good and interesting. i think they're going to do the same thing in a.i. that they've done in all their other businesses, and they design and make it better and leverage the fact that everyone believes they are a safe and secure place. but in the meantime, i agree.

i think it's really challenging for the stock to work from here. >> yeah, i agree with all that, and i think they are a very good fashion folul fast follower. this is really important, though, because where they get this margin on services this is what this is going to be died to, right? so, the hardware business is declining, they have, what, 15% market share in china, 20% of their sales come from china, so, china, you know, again, that's a separate conversation here, so, how are they going to actually go from a 45% gross margin, justify a 30, you know, it was trading at 30 times. that's really important, just to remember. just two months ago. now it's about 26 times. and you don't get there on a hardware multiple. so, you have to have something in the gen a.i. space. the fact it's only down 13% on the fact that some of the other leaders, microsoft and amazon and meta, nvidia is a different story, but this presents a story. the way guy mentioned it is not

figuring out where to sell it, but where to buy it. i know you talked about 160 a lot, all summer long. it almost got there. it got to 165 or so. i think at that point, it discounts a whole heck of a lot of the skepticism about their lack of gen a.i. vision pro, when you think about spatial computing, it is about services going forward. and that will -- all of this a.i. sort of stuff will work into that at some point, and i go back to our conversation last night with the ceo of perplexity, i think there are certain opportunities that will exist. most of them will not be able to make acquisitions. >> right. >> apple probably can, when you think about what amazon's been able to do in this space, what meta's been able to do in the space, what google has been able to do in the space, obviously microsoft. that kind of plugs a hole. one last thing here, the china, china, china thing, i don't think the market's here. i don't think investors are paying attention to this. china is exporting deflation right now. china has a huge youth unemployment problem. china has a huge demographic problem. these are things that are not

fixed very quickly. our government is getting a little focused on the idea of dumping evs, all this sort of stuff. if they start dumping things, because they don't have the internal consumption dynamics, this is going to spread from apple and tesla to other parts of our markets, other parts of our multinationals that are relying on china. so, i think this is a precursor. i know we've been saying this, but it's here, people. i mean, that's what tesla and apple are telling you right now. >> i don't know if it's priced into a lot of u.s. companies that are so dependent on china. i hear you there was a lot going on out there, and i think they disappointed in terms of a policy response. i think we priced in a lot of china pain in the chinese stocks. i'm not sure we priced enough of it into the u.s. stocks. so, we can go to nike, starbucks, we played this game. and meanwhile, the rhetoric only rachets up that much more. so, i do think it's a really important point. i think we're kind of goldilocks on a lot of stuff. the fact that nvidia closed higher, when semis were down

1.5%, and at one point, they were down, excuse me, significantly more than that, it just tells you where, i think, there is a lot of fear, and that is the fomo kind. >> nvidia and supermicro -- >> impressive. >> the latest entrant to the s&p 500, finishing higher today, of all stocks. >> in a word, impressive. i'm glad tim flagged that. on a day, they had every reason to take those names out to the wood shed and leave them there, they crawled their way back. so, good for them, i guess. i'm not quite sure what that's on the back of. if that is a flight to safety, then i think we're all having a much different conversation, because that's a little bit scary. but you can't deny the fact that there's still a thirst for these names without question. on valuations that i think are stretched, but the rest of the market doesn't seem to at this point. >> our next guest says that despite current weakness, apple could be set for a monster turnaround when it unveils its first foundational a.i. model. gene munster, deepwater asset management, joins us now. great to have youwith us. you tweeted this yesterday, and

i thought it was interesting. we've been thinking about, what is the upside, what is the unknown, if apple manages to come out with something, we've all got these phones and the likelihood of us saying, you know what, i'll pay x dollars a month and to sort of capture that revenue right away, seems to be sort of low hanging fruit. but you walk through your assumptions yesterday, can you go through 1.4 billion active users, and then what? >> so, they've got 2.2 billion active devices, that's the number they gave. they don't give out the monthly active users, but you can back into that, and as you said, it's 1.4 billion, and they have a history of having services, obviously everything from music to icloud storage to apple tv, and on average, those are about $9 a month. so, if you just take a product that's personalized a.i. and i'm going to talk about the product in two seconds here, but you take a personalized a.i. product, you sell it to 20% of that base for $10 a month,

that's going to add over 15% to operating earnings. and i think that's a very achievable piece. 15% operating income is important, when you look in the context that apple, after they report the march quarter, their business will be down on average 2% per quarter. and so, anything in the growth direction is going to be viewed as positive. i buried the lede, what is personalized a.i.? this is a chat bot, essentially, that is personalized to you and i do tasks for you. it could remediate utility bill that you don't like, it could set up a social event. there's infinite number of things you could do with a personalized a.i. apple is in a unique position related to their privacy and security, unique position in a sense that consumers have to give their data to have this personalized a.i. be active, and i think people will take that, so -- that's the lever to the model. if i may, melissa, i want to

quickly go back to the conversation more broadly, related to everything that's wrong with apple. and i think the panel did an excellent job of just framing it, what the near-term concerns are. and when i think about those, those are things that are potent in the near term. and the key question that i have, when i think, evenbeyond a.i., is a very simple question, is, are we going to use devices in the future? and if the answer is yes to that, apple is the only company that brings together hardware, software, services, soon to add a.i. to that. think about that. name another company that seamlessly brings hardware together, across devices. nobody does that. and so, i understand, this is a dark chapter for apple, but i believe that once they inject a.i. into that ecosystem of hardware, software, services, bring that together, i think that this tide will turn. >> so, we had the cofounder and ceo of perplexity on yesterday and we were discussing his

thoughts on google's a.i. problem, and i thought he framed it really nicely in that, you know, when you use the word google as a verb, it's almost synonymous with finding the answer. it is the equivalent of finding the truth. and it's almost the opposite case with apple and siri, it's almost a universal joke that siri is terrible. everybody hates siri. siri can't understand anything that you're saying. so, where does that put the bar in terms of apple having to deliver on this personalized a.i., if there's already this notion that the a.i. that apple has in your device currently, which is siri, is horrendous? >> the one advantage that apple has is that even though it's the product is horrible, siri is horrible today. it can do a call, it can set a timer, and tell you the weather. even though the product is not up to par, people still use it. and they use it multiple times a day. and that's the funt fopportunit

apple. they don't have to have the best. they have to do it good enough where people say, this made my day better, and i think that is a low bar for them to clear, and i think that they will -- they're not going to do it in june, but they're going to show the framework of how they start to improve that. >> gene, i know you've been bullish, and you've been right. the stock since july of last year has been a weird trading environment for the name. topped out, traded back off, i think it basically tried to make a new all-time high, traded off again. here we are at these current levels. understanding that the difference between 170 and 165 doesn't matter, if you think it's going to 250. however, i know there's a little bit of a stock trader in you, so, where do you think this thing gets down to, where you say, that's it, that's the bottom? >> i think we're close. and i think that today's injection about china being down 24%, you're on the math on that. if that holds up for the quarter, they'll miss numbers by 3%, the stock was down 2.5% today. i think it's never fully priced

in, but i think we're getting close to that. it has been, by my measurement, this has been the worst month and a half from an investor standpoint. there's always a fire out there, but we have four fires going on right now. i think that sets up for a good rebound in the next 6 to 12 months. >> so, gene, i guess that's the point. if apple can ever actually get involved in a dispute i have with the cable company, i will -- >> that would be amazing. >> fantastic, but it gets back to what you're saying. this period of six weeks. i think it's been a lot longer. and i get back to you, the analyst, what's the multiple? because we've been having no problem putting a much higher multiple on apple for the last three years, four years around services, you make great points on the comparison to meta. and where at what point, essentially, those maus, daus, whatever they're talking about these days. but talk about the multiple. around 30 times is where most of the street is willing to stay, despite the fact that it's been s such a period of lack of

anything. >> so, that meta example, just to fill in the broader audience here, the basic idea is that when meta was wiped out, people forgot the general -- how big their install base was, the daus, kind of that fabric, that framework. that's the same thing with apple. the reason i make that comparison, i think that is a justification for a multiple that is outpaced relative to the company's growth rate. i think the multiple is ultimately in the high 20s, until they start to show some excitement around a.i. then i think it can do higher. let's put it in the high 20s, a 28 multiple, put an $8 earnings number on that in a couple years, i think you get 225, around 225. so, the loose math there is you get 30% upside, so -- if a.i., to answer your question, tim, the multiple is not going to go up much, if they don't crack the code around showing the business is going to reaccelerate.

if they do show reak xel for th business, i think the multiple goes up. >> gene, thank you. >> thank you. >> gene munster, deepwater asset management. what is your take? >> i agree on most of what gene said. the one issue i have, for them to get material revenue that will cause the sort of bump in margins and justify a higher multiple, it's years away. like, from a product offering in and around a.i. they are probably going to introduce a phone that has a.i. on the phone -- >> the margins are very high on a.i. >> right,but think about this. i want to be really clear. microsoft, 69% gross margin company, versus apple at 45%. microsoft, mid-teens expected growth. apple has mid-single digits and they don't have gen a.i. if you are going to make, you are going to bet that microsoft is going to be able to inflect and get a lot of leverage, and this openai thing. and apple has not articulated a single thing they're doing. the thing that the market is

paying up for right now. and that's why the stock is being sold. >> so, you just did a self-would you rather -- >> stealth. >> i like what you did, the inflection in the investment now, when it's going to pay off. so, julie, the same question to you. microsoft or apple here, right now, for a.i.? >> well, probably microsoft. i would say probably microsoft, not just because they've already made the investments, it's like, they have the right people. think of how stressed out everyone was when there was all the drama with the openai board. the keys to openai are really with a handful of people. the fact that google has spent so much money so many years and has -- can't really come that close to it, items you everything you need to know. so, i think the ip is really with microsoft right now. >> all right. meantime, the ten-year yield dropping to its lowest level in a month today, crossing below its 200-day moving average. this comes ahead of fed chair jerome powell's testimony before congress which starts tomorrow. let's get to steve liesman with what to expect. what kind of powell are we going

to hear from tomorrow, steve? >> i think, melissa, the thing to listen for is, it's going to break it down into three different categories here, or three different areas. the political side, the regulatory side, and the economic side. politically, expect republicans to coax powell into being more cautious or concerned with inflation. democrats might argue oreso the case for cuts. futures markets going into this testimony with little chance for a rate cut until june. financial regulation might be a hot button issue, with plenty of criticism from republican side and even some democrats about plans to require banks to hold more capital. i expect a bit of that back and forth tomorrow. economically, that's where it gets interesting. powell will be sure to note that inflation progress, but insists there's no victory yet. he'll extol the good economic growth and employment numbers, but say risks are nearly balanced, but with a wary eye for inflation to rekindle. it's here that there could be some downside risk to the testimony, with some concern

powell leans towards fewer cuts. you take a look here for year-end, the futures market now prices in three and three quarters, down from seven, but not far right now from the fed's three, though some officials are looking for only two. that's where there would be downside risk. minority opinion, the funds rate ain't broke relative to the performance of this economy, so, why fix it? listen tomorrow for how powell characterizes how much current rates are retraining the economy for clues about how much relief he thinks the economy might need. and melissa, one more thing. the upside risk could come from how much he characterizes the january inflation numbers as just one off. >> guy has a question. >> steve, new york community bank, does it come up? and how does he address it if it does? >> sure. i think that it comes up, because we're approaching the anniversary of the silicon valley bank failure. you might have some discussion around that, relative to the financial regulatory stuff i was talking about. i think, again, the fed sees

this thing sort of the way it saw svb, as a kind of one-off. what's going at new york community bank does not appear to be the -- what do you want to call it, the canary in the coal mine on the books of the banking system. that's not it. there may be one yet, but i don't think this is it. >> steve, thank you. steve liesman. >> pleasure. >> tim, what did you make of the move in the ten-year? >> great song by the police, "canary in the coal mine." the move in the ten-year was a function of the ism number. there was some deflationary dynamics in that number, and i think if you look at, again, three rate cuts by the end of the year -- i think, if anything, i think powell needs to talk about liquidity conditions out there. i think there's so much liquidity sloshing around, and that has something to do with even bitcoin's move today, so -- that's interesting for me, but i think that the macro data right now on the labor market is all that matters, and we haven't seen a whole lot of weakness. coming up, watching

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welcome back to "fast money." we've got an earnings alert on nordstrom. shares dropping. courtney reagan's got the latest. court? >> nordstrom shares are dropping sharply here, about 10% in the immediate reaction to those results. the forecast for margins is likely the biggest drag on the shares. earnings beat expectations. revenues also stronger than expected, but led by the off-price nordstrom rack business. revenues there grew 15%. the full line department store saw revenues fall 3%. digital sales all in, those were down also, a little less than 2% in the quarter. they make up 38% of total sales. and the department store says its active beauty and women's apparel were the strongest categories. on the call, eric nordstrom calling out running -- on running and hoka, a strength in active shoes. fragrance wasing beauty.

nordstrom is going to start giving comparable sales in the first quarter. on the call, the ceo said that comps at nordstrom rack in the fourth quarter did grow high single dimgits, in addition to the revenue from the new rack locations. goals include driving growth at the nordstrom full line business. interestingly, though, leading the digital and then supported by the stores. nordstrom also launching an online marketplace, that will be in april, it won't be third party marketplace like an amazon or walmart, necessarily, sort of c curated, but new and emerging brands offered online, but not necessarily in the stores. melissa? >> courtney, thank you. courtney reagan. let's stick with retail, do this together. we want to do target, as well, up 12% today after a top and bottom line beat. the cheap, though, forecasting another year of weak sales ahead. they announced its new paid membership program, which will include free two-day shipping

and more time to return items. that stock having its best day since november. julie, retail has had a huge run over the past 12 months or so overall, on average, i'm wondering where you fall here in terms of where you like retail. >> well, i think both of these have been kind of chronic underperformers in terms of their ability to execute, especially nordstrom. my concern is looking at the guidance, just the margins are clearly not where they need to be, and what they're having to do is, they were really the leaders, the pioneers in omnichannel, and it really just hasn't born it. it's been great for us shopping, it's been terrible for retail. and i think nordstrom is the poster child of that, and they have to justify these investments. target, at least, seems to be executing in a little bit better position. their inventory is where it needs to be. the question is, how good is this business really over the next ten years? you know, they're giving solid guidance, but my concern kind of

remains, how good is this business if most of your benefits next year are about having better freight charges and shrink? >> yeah. tim? >> it's interesting, because they beat on margin and if they can get to the 6% operating margin, the street is really going to reward them. the gross margin was better than expected. sales numbers were good. a lot of the good news comes from freight and a year lapping a 2q on shrink. they made some comments about it, so, it's not like it's gotten better, but the relative comparisons have gotten a lot better. i l i like target here. i think walmart's had a huge, huge, you know, last few, call it a week, ten days since it split, not because of that. i think the fundmentals we've gotten from them. so, i think both of these you can own. there's a lot more "fast money" to come. here's what's coming up next. bitcoin backtracking. the crypto hitting a new high, and then taking a big u-turn. could the drop continue? or will the bitcoin rally

revive? plus, slimming your waistline, but packing pounds onto the u.s. budget. just how much the obesity battle could cost the consumer, and the government. you're watching "fast money," live from the nasdaq market site 'rba rhtft tare. wee ckig aerhis.

welcome back to "fast money." bitcoin hitting a new record today, briefly passing $69,000, before tumbling more than 7% late in the day. it is the crypto-currency's first new high in over two years. the record marking a comeback in the crypto space, after the collapse of ftx in 2022 increased interest in bitcoin etfs and the upcoming e ing havr havening. >> i was watching this morning, on the "squawk box," there was a whole conversation about -- great show, 6:00 to 9:00, how it could double from here, given its history, given the havening coming up, all these things i don't particularly understand, and i'm saying to myself, and joe said it, as well, he goes, you know, that actually sort of scares me. as it turns out, as they were having that conversation, it's

when bitcoin started to turn. if you look at a chart, not that it necessarily matters, this is clearly where we've failed before, understanding we made a new all-time high, but when you see a reversal of that mag magnitude, i believe it's showing you something. i am shocked that coinbase didn't sell off more than it did. today's one of those days for bitcoin specifically, you want to book mark. >> coinbase didn't have any sort of balance issues or outages, because of the super high value. >> true. and i guess i think about this addressable market that is now in the entire digital space, i've certainly said that's a reason coinbase is an on-ramp, but i don't think this is just about the havening. gold is at all-time highs, too. there's a reason why they are moving in tandem. i think there's a dynamic here, and it does have -- look, super

tuesday, whatever happens, we know we have a political calendar in this country that could create some volatility. if you think you've seen bitcoin do a few things, wait until you get political volatility in this country. coming up, battling obesity and the budget. how weight loss drugs could end up costing the government more than a trillion dollars. more on that angle next. plus, a small cap crunch, shares of endav have a down. but one of our traders is sticking with this name. the case for that one, when "fast money" returns. missed a moment of "fast?" catch us any time on the go. follow the "fast money" podcast. we're back right after this. at ameriprise financial our advice is personalized based on your goals, whatever they may be. all that planning has paid off.

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welcome back. stocks closing just off their session lows today. the dow falling 400 points. the s and p down 1%. the nasdaq down more than 1.5%. some afterhours action. shares of box jumping by about 3.5% after posting revenue in line with estimates. crowdstrike surging, about 26% after posting a beat on the top and bottom line. and chargepoint is down 6% after reporting a revenue miss. we have to talk about crowdstrike. this is massive gain. >> it's a massive gain for a

stock that's had a massive gain. if you think about what's been going on in security, cyber, it's a hot area. and it's a hot area that ties in with a lot of the a.i. stuff. you have to be very careful in software here. if you look at what we saw in snowflake, for example, what happened there was, here's a company that, you know, has grown 25%, they came in at 23%, yet they traded 18 times sales. that's where the street's having some problems, it's really where the multiples are getting out of control. to me, after semis started moving, software, they were the next thing to run. and when crm is growing 9%. that's not really all that sexy. so, that's what you have to be careful about. i think crowdstrike, you're not chasing it here, but i think -- i think of those names today -- that's a silly thing, of course it's doing better today, but there are places to play and places to avoid. >> yeah, i would just say this, up 26%, new all-time high, a market that was not particularly that generous to high valuation tech stocks today.

we started off the show talking about the 10% reversal that supermicro had, the fact that nvidia closed on the day higher. i don't see that as bullish. i just see it as a continuing narrowing. >> a chase? >> a chase. unhealthy behavior. i don't look at your twitter things anymore, so, i don't care -- >> now i want to look at it. >> i thought he was talking to me. >> guy always says, don't at me, because he looks at them. i don't look at them, so, have a ball. >> you should at guy. >> i just have fun with it. >> you do. but my point is, i don't think it's particularly bullish. new op-ed in "the new york times" today asks whether the boom in weight loss drugs could pose a major threat to the u.s. budget. he says taxpayers could spend more than a trillion dollars to battle obesity. he made his case for the government to get involved this morning on "squawk box." >> so, if we don't do anything,

and the status quo is what it is and we do allow this drug to be available to americans, we could be building in a cost to the federal budget spending on the order of another medicare associated with our budget. obviously, we can't afford that as a nation, but i don't think we can afford to not have these drugs widely available, either, so, we're going to need to do something different here and it would be different for policy makers to address this now, rather than to let the costs explode and try to catch up on the back end. >> drugs like ozempic cost $15,000 a year here, but overseas, where prices are regulated, the cost can be a tenth of that. shares of novo nordisk and eli lilly closing in the red today. novo had some data out on chronic kidney disease, it wasn't as bullish. but deese -- oh, i thought the government could negotiate prices with medicare, they identified ten drugs that are up for negotiation in 2026, this

drug is not there. what deese is recommending is that congress act specifically so that this drug can be added to that list for negotiation. >> get ahead of it. listen, you know that's going to infuriate people, it does not make me particularly happy. you've seen stories after stories as to why -- listen, everything -- it seems great, go to canada for health care until you're waiting 15 hours in an emergency room. there's a reason why drugs cost more in the united states, it's been basically tried many, many times over. and we don't have to go down that route necessarily. they get dragged up to capitol hill every year. with that said, when you start hearing things like this, for you free market capitalists out there, that, to me, is not capitalism at all. >> it seems pretty appalling. you are raising your hand? you're long capitalism? >> i'm long capitalism and the ability of these drug companies to be rewardrded for their r an d. when we think about the

addressable market for glps, we know that it's an elective thing for a lot of people. the government pays, we all pay. taxpayers pay an enormous amount into the system based upon obesity and all the related diseases from it. so, that's why the comments to me are so antithetical to the argument that you hear out there, and again, i think a lot of the interest right now in these drugs are coming from people that don't necessarily have these diseases. >> if you read his op-ed and believe the numbers, he's saying that the drugs will cost $800 billion more than what the government is currently spending on comorbidities and obesity-related problems. it's going to be more expensive. that's the argument here. i don't know what the assumptions are, he says if you make reasonable assumptions. i don't know what those are, julie, but there's a lot we don't know in terms of calculating that addressable market. part of it is, how many people are going to be candidates to take it? and the other part is, at what cost? and so, this is the cost end of

it, you don't know, necessarily, for the lifetime of that patent, if the drug will be $1,000 a month, which is what the rough estimates are. >> right, i think part of the biggest problem with this imbalance is that right now, you know, the people who would benefit most are currently employed and their insurance doesn't want to pay for it and eventually they'll get over to medicare and medicare is the one that's going to have to pay for the downsides of the obesity and the comorbidities that are associated with that. so, it's like the incentive, the economic incentives and the cost and the benefits, they're not aligned. it doesn't make sense for me to pay for someone to be paying for ozempic. i'm not going to benefit from that. they are much later on down the line, and so is medicare. so, to me, that's the problem with the asymmetry in terms of the incentives and the motivations, and that's actually usually typically where regulation makes sense, is trying to correct that imbalance. >> we've got an update here on the unhunhransomware attack.

>> there is a new twist to what had been a fairly standard story of ransomware attack on february 21st. it's a devious double cross that may have taken place here, putting united health care's money at risk. now, the cyber security firm crowdstrike tells cnbc the most likely scenario is that through a series of murky interactions on the dark web, an attempt by united health care to pay a $22 million ransom has been intercepted. it means they may be out the $22 million payment and the original hacker may still be in possession of their data. united health care has not publicly said whether or not it attempted to make the ransom payment. now, the ray ransomware as a service operates, is that hackers use platforms developed by a separate group of criminals to conduct their attacks. service providers take their cut and send the remainder to the original hacker. in this case, crowdstrike says

it appears that the ransomware as a service vendor has simply pocketed the united health care payment without sending it to the original hacker, who goes by nachi-m. crowdstrike sees pleas on the dark web, demanding to know what happened to the money, saying in russian, "bro, who is taking the money? did you scammed us? why?" crowdstrike says a fake takedown banner has been posted on its website, making it appear that the site has been shut down. buff it looks like the hackers just took the money and ran. a spokesperson told us today, "we are focused on the investigation and restoring operations at change." bear in mind, all of the criminals involved in this saga are conmen and liars, so, it's really difficult to take anything here at face value, but

that's what crowdstrike is telling us is the most likelyceo scenario. >> eamon, thank you. i'm going to start calling guy nachi-m. >> how do you know i'm not him? >> i want to call him bro in russian. >> ran ssomransomware as a serv. margins on that must be astronomical. >> apparently, in this case. listening to eamon doing that with a straight face was amazing. that is your next documentary. $20 million, i get, a rounding error for unh, that's not the point. the point is, the prior story we were talking about, crowdstrike, palo alto, despite valuations, that's where the world is going. coming up, tough week for endava, falling 40%. julie biel will dive into the small cap slumper to see if there's a tuarnd ornoun the horizon. more "fast money" after this.

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welcome back to "fast money." small cap tech company endava continuing to slide after last week's earnings report, down 2% plus today. to bring losses for the week to more than 40%. julie flagged this company ahead of earnings as a potential stock to watch, so, how do you feel about it now, julie? >> well, you know, like one of my favorite hobbies is to, like, look at the comments on youtube when i'm on tv. they're really, really helpful. one of them mentioned i was looking really old and it was a great opportunity to set up my

botox appointments. do the opposite of whatever julie says, and in this case, that probably would have worked out really well for you. look. this is kind of the classic case in technology where the company has reasonably good business momentum, and then they hit a real air pocket and the stock gets pretty punished. and i think that makes sense, because not only does it take time to kind of rebuild the business, but the credibility for management, that process, rebuilding that, it takes time. for us, as long-term investors, this business is still delivering 20% free cash flow margins. it doesn't have debt. it's in a really good position from a capital structure standpoint. and it's a variable cost business, so, for them, it's very easy for them to, you know, reduce their head count and keep their margins still really high. you know, still high teens in operating margin, so, i think for us, the fundamentals are still okay, but if you are not a long-term investor, i don't think it's going to be an easy ride. >> all right, julie, thank you for that. coming up, insurance payout.

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welcome back to "fast money." securing new partnerships with microsoft and amazon, this data company is deep in the generative a.i. space. the ceo of exl services. great to have you with us. >> thank you. >> so, the biggest customers are insurance companies. in what way can a.i. help

insurance? >> so, the industry in the u.s. is fascinating. number one, it's fragmented. number two, it's got a lot of legacy and debt-laden technology architecture, and number three, there's a lot of promise with a number of consumers that you sell to. a.i. can actually help in terms of improving the decision-making, so, when you're trying to do your distribution and trying to acquire new customers, a.i. can be very powerful and very helpful in that. it can help you in terms of reducing your operational cost in efficiency, so, when you're processing claims or processing an insurance, you know, service line, that's something that you can bring down the cost in a very significant and material way. and finally, because you've got so much of data, you can actually come up with real powerful insights that you can monetize and that you can action in a very powerful way. >> as tim will tell you, playing for the yankees, that's the gold stand about, but partnering can microsoft and amazon like you

just announced, that's pretty big. can you speak to that? >> yeah, absolutely. so, we partnered with amazon, we really started to use amazon aws bedrock. we combine that with our generative a.i. workbench, and we can create very powerful solutions quickly. today, the whole thing is about, how do you create solutions at low cost with speed? and what we've got is, we've got, you know, a workbench, which is very modular, it's something that we can use very easily, our clients can leverage it very easily. we have 50 accelerators on top of that, and we have 150 use cases that we can easily deploy. so,this partnership for us is really critical, because aws bedrock allows us to be able to access the foundation models from a single api, and we can pick and choose which language model we want to use, and apply that into our workben. >> less than a minute, so, this is a challenge to you.

in terms of understanding the benefits of a.i., i think we're still trying to wrap our arms around it, but the markets want to run away with the story so, can you encapsulate, what sort of savings does that mean for your clients, for insurance companies, for instance? >> yeah, so, i'll give you some very quick examples. in terms of distribution and agent uplift, that's almost 200%. in terms of reducing your operational cost and reducing the churn of your customer base, that's about 20% to 25%. in terms of operational cost efficiency, that's 30% to 40%. so, these are very powerful. the problem is, how do you make a.i. real and work? >> sure. > nt,in ank you for comg. >>upex final trades. fresh, warm hot dogs, straight out of my torso! one for you, one for you. oh, you're a messy one.

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>> tim? >> eww, mexico going to all-time highs. >> dan? >> tlt looks like it's going to 100. >> big win by the -- schlumberger, mel. >> thank you for watching "fast." "mad money" starts right now. my mission is simple. to make you money. i am here to level the playing field for all investors. mad money starts right now. >> i am cramer. i am just trying to save you a little bit of money. we have what i call