who was a beast on the boards among others, the wnba draft which is next monday. dawn staley, the coach of south carolina incredibly gracious with respect to what caitlin clark has meant to the game. >> you said you were gripped by that game. >> it was really good. it was a really terrific game. thanks for watching "power lunch," everybody. stay on the path of totality. welcome to closing bell, i'm scott wapner, here at the new york stock exchange. this begins with a make or break week for the week with a rally. earnings are about to begin as well. we'll ask our experts over this final astretch what is really a stake, including the billionaire investor marc lasry, he'll join me in just a few. your score card, the story really continues to be about that backup in yields. take a look, 442 is where we currently stand on the ten-year. that's putting pressure on the major averages today.

no real conviction either way for the dow, s&p, and nas. big week gets going. it's requgoing to be a big one. there's your look at the major averages. we are green across the board, not decidedly so, but we'll take it given what's happening with yields. p, pi, cpi, earnings, all in the days ahead. we are watching tech, meta and amazon a couple of bright spots today hitting new highs. today meta turning negative. it's down about 1%. amazon is still in the frgreen. it takes us to our talk of the tape, whether stocks can continue to riseif bond yields do as well. let's ask anastasia omorosa with me here at post 9. if rates continue to back up, are stocks going to go down? >> well, so far so good for stocks, even though bond yields are rising. the reason for that is bond yields are rising because growth is improving as well. yes, there's also an improvement or deterioration in inflation expectations, but for now because you have better earnings expectation, we can shake that off.

i think if the moves are somewhat contained here, i think we're fine despite the backup. obviously if you have anything closer to a breakout to 480, i think we would have to worry about! o . >> so you agree with what tony pasquariello of goldman sachs was talking about in his new note. he asks this question, which i think is the most relevant question of any right now. when do higher rates begin to bite? he suggests a move towards 480 is where things could get tricky. >> yeah, i think the move right now has been more about the pickup in economic growth. it has been about stronger payrolls, stronger manufacturing, and therefore the fed pushing back the rate cut expectations, but to the extent that the move starts being driven by inflation expectations. of course we've got cpi on wednesday. if that's a surprise and continues to reprice inflation expectations higherer, that's where it becomes dangerous for stocks. >> are you still optimistic about the jooverall direction f the market and the economy. jamie dimon is talking about we have this foregone conclusion almost, that it's going to be a soft landing.

he says markets are pricing in 70 to 80% chance of that. i believe he says, quote, the odds are a lot lower than that. >> i am still in the soft landing camp. i actually think that the last several weeks or months of data has really reinvigorated the no landing camp, and so we wrote this piece last week about an uptick in manufacturing. i actually think that's a really big story for the rest of the year is we're starting to see an up uptick in the u.s., china, global manufacturing, orders component is improving. but i think we're early innings of what is typically a nine-month uptick in manufacturing. if that's the case, and you can and a lot of cyclical momentum that develops in the economy. this used to be a one engine economy with the u.s. consumer really supporting the globe and supporting all the industries, but now if that broadens out and you can have industrials and materials and energy participate, i think that's what gives me confidence on the economic front. >> do we need rate cuts or not? if we need them, how soon do we need them? >> maybe not for the broader market, and that's really the question that we had to ask

ourselves last week is can the markets still be okay without the rate cuts? i think the answer is yes. of course i look to the earnings picture and earnings for the s&p expected to be up about 11%. we're looking at the earnings revisions and the net earnings revisions have flipped into positive territory, and i suspect as the year progresses and if we're right on manufacturing, we'll see the cyclical earnings uptick as well. so if that's the case, then maybe you don't actually need rate cuts, especially if the consumer is able to function with that. the caveat that i would have to that is not everybody needs a rate cut except if you're in real estate, if you're in housing, if you're in unprofitable tech, i think it does get painful. >> if your stock happens to be in the russell, you probably need a rate cut. >> this is an interesting part of the story because typically when manufacturing picks up, when you have the cyclical momentum, you have small caps that typically outperform the s&p by five percentage points except for i don't want to make the call on small caps right now

because 40% of small cap exposure to that is actually floating. if the fed doesn't cut rates, the leverage does still become prohibited for these small caps. >> square this for me. in let's say late october, right, the bottom, before we started this incredible rally and set new records for stocks, we did that one would think on the expectation and the anticipation and the discounting of future rate cuts, okay? the economy was good. here we are and we're saying, well, never mind that. we can still go up, and we don't even need the rate cuts that we thought we needed that we thought sent this rally sinto motion in the first place. how do we square that? >> you're right, in october we were expecting rate cuts, and that was going to support the economy eventually, but instead what happened is the economy was able to find enough momentum to actually start to accelerate. if you look at any surprise

index. if you look at atlanta gdp now, close to 3%, consensus going into the year was about 1% gdp growth. that's what happened is i think the consensus realized maybe we don't need the rate cuts if it's growth that's able to support us. >> steve liesman, our senior economic correspondent has been on this very question throughout the day, and steve, i think you called it a hawkish tilt as you sort of looked at the current makeup of the fed speakers who matter most in the days prior, and who are starting to ma maybe lean towards being a little more hawkishment . i should say as i ask you that, not exactly the fed chair, and that's important. >> i think the fed chair still is sort of in the middle, gauging his committee, guides his committee. i think what's happened, stcott is the dots leaned hawkish and then the rhetoric leaned hawkish. i think we're hearing the

reflection of this movement of the dots essentially to the right. you had people give up the idea that maybe you would do more than three cuts and then you just barely hung on to the median of three cuts in the dot. you also had people move up their sense of where neutral is and other rhetorics come along with that. which you know, you kind of in this environment, scott, you started to think about a hawk as somebody who thinks maybe more probability on the idea of note cuts or one cut. more concern about the recent inflation numbers, whereas powell still seems to be holding out hope that, or holding onto the forecast that essentially says that inflation will come down. but there's folks like neel kashkari there who's saying, you know what? maybe we don't need to cut at all. chris waller says let's hang out at a higher rate for longer, and michelle bow month, lorie logan talking about the potential upside, and bostic who you know on our air talked about the idea of one cut in the fourth quarter. >> i mean, but oh, how far we've come, right? if we are declaring that a hawk

now as part of the fed is a one or maybe none, that's a long way from where we were before because i think our greatest worry -- and maybe it still is in the backdrop of, well, what if we have to do another hike, and i don't hear that entering into the debate at all, at least now. >> well, bowman is the one person who talks regularly about the idea that if inflation does not behave, the fed could reverse course. it has a low probability in our fed surveys, but you're looking right now at the fed rate cut probability, and you know what 50% is. well, in some places, it's just a toss of a coin. so right now we're even money on the idea of cutting rates at all in june. july is slipping a little bit, and then if you look at the january 2025 fed funds contact, which as you know, is the measure of the market's gauge of how many cuts all year, and you'll see we're trading, you know, at 2.7, 2.6, 25 basis

points cuts with the 0.6 there. there's 471, almost at the high, if you went back on this chart to september or october, that's when it was around 480, which is where they think the rate cuts will be. so that would be 50 or 60 basis points of cuts if we got that high. so yeah, it's slipping away right now. i just want to add to what anastasia was saying, 100% right looking at the cpi. but as you know over the last several months, the ppi has become almost as important to the cpi because what fills in and tell us about the fed's preferred inflation indicator. you're out of excuses if you've been excusing the data for january and february, you don't have those excuses for march. so this is really -- i don't know if you want to call it the rubber match or the telltale sign or the benchmark, whatever word you want to use, it's the one that matters. >> that's why we've been calling this and we did at the top of our program, it's the make it or break it hour but also what is likely to make it or break it

week in some respects for this rally. you stay with me, do you think, anastasia, are we underestimating or not listening closely enough to the rising volume of the more hawkish members now on the federal reserve board? >> i think we should be paying close attention because one thing that really caught my attention last week was when li loretta mestors was talking about the balance of risk. the risk might be cutting too soon versus cutting too late. the other thing she said is that we need to see more convincing evidence that this disinflation is still the trend and it has not flipped. to steve's point, we have been seeing an uptick in ism prices paid for, for example, and yes we have this deflation, are we now going to the next several months where we could have an uptick to goods inflation. the fed is going to pay attention to that. my answer to that is i don't think it derails the whole

disinflation story. goods represent about 12% of the cpi. energy is another 7%. but given the hawkish rhetoric from the fed, i could see the markets being concerned about it. >> the other thing too, steve, i would assume is that the fed doesn't want to see rates back up too much and put it in a more difficult spot. >> i think that's right. i want to just add one thing to what anastasia was saying and what i said earlier. i don't think that, i don't know, rogue's list of fed mug shots we put up there, i don't feel like these are ideological hawks. i feel like this is their read of the data. i feel like if you go back and look at the history of these folks, they have been dovish when it came to cutting rates to zero. so i don't feel like we're dealing with -- you remember before we've had what felt like ideological hawks on the fed. >> kashkari was as dovish as you would find anywhere in the

world. >> excellent point. neal's read of the data right now, i don't feel it is core. he's a hawk who wants to keep rates higher than they need to be. and in answer to the question you had to anastasia earlier about do we need a cut. yeah, if rates are higher than they need to be, then it would be nice and i think effective and useful to reduce them if indeed you're putting too much restraint on the economy. look, if the economy wants to run and doing so would not be inflationary, then by all means, let's let it go. >> i hear you. love your insight as always, steve, thank you. steve liesman our senior economic correspondent. let's bring in jordan jackson. it's good to see you as well. welcome, i'm going to ask you the question that pasquariello was asking people, when do higher rates begin to bite? what would your answer be to that? >> i think when we start flirting with around 5%, that's when you'll start to see rates really begin to bite. but look, i've been arguing since the beginning of the year that we're probably going to see

4.5% on the u.s. ten-year before we get down to 4%. as has been talked about on this show already, june, july pretty much a coin flip on whether they go again. if the markets continue to skew towards one to two cuts and fully price in two cuts or one and a half cuts, you'll probably see the ten-year hit 4.5%. that being said, so long as the narrative is still around cutting rates and not hiking rates, i think the market can continue to grind higher. >> okay, so jordan, you got a day today when you've got chris harvey over at wells fargo. he bumps his target on the s&p to 5535. now, in fairness, it was 4625, so he had to move it up, but he also had the choice not to move it up that much. he did not do that. add adam parker gives three reasons for the resilience of the rally, which he says accommodative fed, right, that's to your point, gross margin expansion, and earnings growth for several

years. remember, we're coming off of three consecutive periods of bad earnings. we expect the tide to turn this quarter. >> that's exactly right. and when you look over -- this has really been a micro market, right? the market is now caring about earnings. we've seen earnings be the driving component of stock price appreciation this year. not so much valuations. and then i think when you look underneath the hood, right, obviously last year if you teased out the max seven earnings growth, earnings were negative for the rest of the market. when you actually forecast out to the fourth quarter this year, so fourth quarter of 2024 over fourth quarter of 2023, obviously you know, comps are going to be a bit favorable, but the rest of the market is expecting earnings growth of around 15% by the time you get to the fourth quarter, whereas again the max 7 or the fab five so to speak are actually going to be converging down to that number. i think this is an earnings backdrop in which earnings are playing catchup, which is really important, and again, very, very

supportive for stocks in this environment. >> so anastasia earnings expectations have come in as time has gone on, right? 10% growth for this quarter. now we're looking for 4 to 5. are we going to be that good? and if we're just that good, is that okay? >> yeah, i think the bar has been reset lower. i actually do like that going into the earnings season. you were right several weeks ago we were looking at 5% earnings growth expected for this quarter. now as you mentioned it's closer to 3. the other thing that's really interesting is the number of negative preannounce ments is above the five or ten-year average. i like the fact that the bar has been reset. what i also like to go back to the manufacturing stories, the reason i keep talking about that is while it's only 20% of the gdp, it's 50% of earnings are tied to the goods and the manufacturing story, and so if we could have that uptick, if we could have the upwards earnings revisions and we have sectors from industrials to materials to financials, to energy begin to b benefit from that. >> they have already.

the broadening of the market was legit, which started in march. the question, jordan, is does the broadening story continue, and is it believable even in a market of backed up rates? >> i think it does, and the fact is obviously as we continue to move through the area, first quarter reporters, earnings reports are going to be important. remember, markets are forward looking. as we start to look ahead towards 2025, markets are calling for about an 11% earnings pereps growth this year. tack on additional 13% eps growth for 2025. as you start to get into the forward p/e, next 12 mornings. the fact that you're getting that broader breadth of positive earnings growth expectations feeding through into some of the 2025 numbers, that gives me support and confidence. >> so let me ask you this now, anastasia. i've just gotten a note passed to me or a section of a note from marko kolanovic, jpmorgan, he's been broadly negative u.s.

equities for as long as i can remember. okay? and i mean, tongue in cheek, but we're talking like at least a year, okay? so his new mention says that he sees opportunities in utilities, okay? and real estate. it's notable, it's not like broad bullishness, but it's notable considering he has urged people for a while to stay away from u.s. equities. are we finally getting some inklings of opportunity in places that we may not realize, like utilities, okay, say, well, yields are backed up. why would i want utilities? because you go to the yield. if you think yields are going to come down, then utilities are maybe a place to be and then real estate, quote, is of interest too. >> that's right. the call in utilities doesn't scream bullish necessarily because i think for utilities to do well, one of the things that would need to happen is yields need to be materially lower. as we were just talking about

higher economic growth and also potential higher inflation sort of goes the other way. you may make a case when it comes to utilities is that the demand for energy, the demand for the buildout of the electricity grid and the demand for wind and solar, that actually can bode well for some of those utilities. if you get that coupled with lower yields, that's a positive story. look, on real estate, scott, i actually talked about this on your show, the halftime report about that being one of the top contrarian trades for this year. if we get to the point where the fed does actually cut interest rates, i think real estate is one of the biggest beneficiary sectors, and by the way, we were talking about the cpi. the fed actually looks at core cpe, which we get later in the month. if we do get one that's below 2.8%, is inching towards 2.5%, i still do think the fed does cut rates. if they do, real estate is that contrarian trade that you would want to add to. >> jordan, lastly, you like utilities as well along with energy, health care, and staples.

last point to you. >> sure, it's generally maintaining a bit more defensive posture within portfolios rel relative to a cyclical one. inflation being a bit sticky, the fed staying a little bit higher for longer, right? growth while still strong is taking a step down in the back half of the year. all that is supportive of a more defensive posture. that's not to say we're not finding opportunities in the tech sector and parts of discretionary, but we think you've got to be very, very selective and really focus on quality within those more cyclically exposed. leaning a little bit more defensive makes a whole lot of sense. importantly when you look at the earnings stability, right? earnings expectations stability, you're seeing a lot more resilient earnings expectations amongst the defensive parts of the market relative to the cyclicals. >> all right, i appreciate it very much, the conversation. we'll see you soon, jordan, thank you. anastasia, our thanks as well for being here. post 9, let's send it over to

steve kovach. >> let's start with tsmc, shares up 1.50% after securing up to $6.6 billion in financing from the u.s. government to make chips in this country. the money comes from the chips and science act, of course, and so far intel has been awarded the most money from the act up to $8.5 billion. shares of take two interact, they're up 2% after citi analysts upgraded the stocks from neutral to buy. much of the expected growth is coming from the next grand theft auto game, which take two announced would launch in 2025. the analysts expect the new gta to drive nearly $3 billion in bookings for take-two. >> we'll see you in a little bit. thank you very much. up next, billionaire investor marc lasry is back with us e. he's going to break down the fed's next move, where he is finding the best opportunities in the markets right now and beyond. we are live from the new york stock exchange. you're watching "closing bell" on cnbc.

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you've heard all about it, and there it is. let's show it to you. there it is. that's a live shot from nasa of the total solar eclipse. it's happening right here in new york over the next hour, the eclipse will continue cutting diagonally across north america before exiting over eastern canada into the atlantic. it is the first solar eclipse to be visible in the u.s. since 2017. it will be the last until 2044. you get your glasses? you're not outside. marc lasry is here with us as we keep an eye on the markets ands the eclipse. investors are awaiting key inflation data. you're not into the eclipse? >> no, not really. >> you're not investing in the -- you're investing in everything else. >> everything else is fine. the eclipse, i'm good with. >> so we're talking a lot about

rates, and rate cuts, right? and the calculus has obviously changed. what are your own expectations in terms of rate cuts? do you think we're going to get any this year? how many and when? >> look, i think you're going to have -- you know, the question is it one or two. i think it's closer to one. right now the fed's in no rush. the economy is doing well. you're seeing that as far as the fed is concerned things are fine, and until they start seeing that there's a problem, their biggest worry is still inflation. so there's no rush on them cutting rates. >> how have you sort of dialed back your own expectations of, you know, let's say six months ago what you thought was going to happen, right? the market has come a long way from pricing in seven to three and now we have people like you and others saying one or, hey, maybe none. how have you reset your own expectations over this period? >> i think for us, we don't really invest based on what's happening on rate cuts.

like, where rates are is actually great simply because we're lending money around 12 to 15%. >> still? >> still. >> with this direct lending -- >> it's specialty lending. it's people who need money. >> it's still a critical part of your investing strategy. >> it's continued. it's actually going extremely strong in europe because there's more issues. less here in the united states, but europe and asia people need capital. >> it feels like it's -- that space i feel like has exploded almost more than any other. >> it has. >> there's so many players. does that impact you at all? is it more competitive? >> it is more competitive. that part has changed burt you got to remember, the biggest competitor were banks, right? that's who we were competing, and their cost of capital was far, far lower than ours, so now if i'm competing against an apollo or anybody else, their cost of capital is roughly the same as mine, maybe a little bit lower. so you're still able to compete,

and there's quite a bit to do for all of us. for me, we're just trying to do smaller deals because you're not going to have as much competition. >> are there -- are there any concerns about too much of that activity in preparation for you coming on? i saw an imf blog, okay? it said private credit warranted a closer watch. they called it opaque with limited oversight and vulnerabilities. what would your response to that be? >> i think what ends up happening is regulators want to know everything. i don't blame them because the more they know the more there's a belief they can protect the economy. here they don't know who we're lending money to, whereas they could go into a bank because a bank's regulator, and they know where the banks lend at what rate. so i think that's what the fear is or the concern is that when there's a problem, there's going to be less that a regular can do because they've got less control over the economy. >> is that a legitimate concern?

>> honestly, at the end of the day, i don't think so. we're not -- we're going to lend based on the fact that we think we're going to get our money back, plus our interest. right? we're not doing anything stupid. i don't think any of the other firms are. >> i'm not thinking about you guys doing it. of course you're not doing anything stupid. what if you're lending money to firms who ultimately -- they won't be able to pay the money back if the economy turns south or if interest rates go much higher. >> right, i hope so, then we'll get control of those companies. >> that's why you're always one step ahead, lasry. you're always thinking about that. do you think there's going to be more issues like that that are add vvantageous for you. >> there are issues with the economy. people say that the economy's doing great, and i think it is. but ultimately at the end of the day the cost of that capital has gone up for companies. because of that you're going to have more issues. the fed's only going to lower rates when they see we're going in a recession, right? >> really, you think that?

you don't think they'll just be able to do it because inflation is going to come closer to target skprgs we know they're going to cut before it gets there anyway? >> if inflation is level, why would you lower rates, and the economy's doing strong. you're not going to lower rates unless there's an issue. >> you could lower rates so that people like -- people like marc lasry don't get to take advantage of all of these distressed opportunities that might be caused if they left rates too high for too long. >> that's true, but the fed is never early, right? they're always late. that's going to be the problem. for us and others, you're going to have all these opportunities. >> what do you make of what jamie dimon had to say in his letter. he said markets seem to be pricing in a 70 to 80% chance of a soft landing. i believe the odds are la lot lower than that. what do you think? >> look, i don't like betting against jamie. he sees a ton of data, right? he sees everything. he's lending money.

i think jamie's probably right, but at the end of the day, i'd love to have the information that he has, you know, from the seat that he's at. we just -- you know, we don't see things as much or as well as he can. just sifmply because we're not lending to as many people. we don't have all ththe consume information he has. jay >> he said interest rates could soar to 8% or more in coming years. that they're prepared for a broad range of outcomes. does that sound outlandish to you? >> i think that's hard. the only way rates really move up is if inflation really all of a sudden the fed hasn't been able to get that in control, and you'd have to raise rates. by doing that, you're talking about a real recession in this country. the biggest problem people have. if you think about to buy a home, the cost of that has gone up. >> a lot. >> yes, 100% in the last years. that's why people don't feel the

economy is doing that great. for you and i, the economy is great because it has -- the stock market's gone up. all the things we're doing have worked out . if you're an average consumer, the cost of goods has gone up and the cost of housing has gone up 100% and the cost of fuel has gone up 25, 50%. those are real things for the average american. that's why it's an issue, and that's why you've got this disconnect between people thinking the economy is doing well and people thinking, no, actually, it's not doing well and it's worse for me. >> do you think that's been hurting president biden whom i believe you're still supporting? you hit on a good point. we can sit here and say that, well, inflation has come down from 9% to 27 or 3 or what have you. prices haven't come down, so the rate of prices going up has slowed. the price of milk and educggs

hasn't come down. people are still going to the grocery store and still paying what they were paying before. the prices have stopped going up as much as they were. >> i think that's the disconnect. i think that's the problem. that's what's hurting biden because ultimately, the only thing people care about is do they have a place to live. that's gone up. the cost of that, you can't afford it. the cost of food has gone up skpsand the cost of heating has gone up. that's not good. yes, the stock market has gone up 20%, and that's great if you've got money to invest in the market. but if you don't and you're just making ends meet, you've got issues. >> are you going to be giving the president or the campaign any advice this go-around? >> i tell them what i tell you, you know. >> you do -- you're in dialogue with them? >> you're in dialogue with the folks that are within the campaign. >> you are now? >> i am but a lot of other people are. i think that's the issue that the campaign's got to deal with. >> let me ask you about another opportunity, a big one that i know you see and that's through sports. we talked last time you were here, this sports fund that i

think you're continuing to raise, correct? >> that's correct. >> so you've invested in bull riding. why that? i know about pickleball which was public already, we've talked about that. but bull riding now. >> what we're trying to do is find sports that people three or five years ago were not looking at and today they are. right now you've got the average nba game is about a maillion an a half. do you know what an average bull riding on cbs psports is? it's over a million americans. what we're looking for is sports that are growing and that there's opportunities to do. it's one of the reasons we invested in the pga. it's things where we could invest that we think media rights are going to continue going up. >> you're part of the strategic sports group that made a big investment in the pga. >> yes. >> where are we on the talks between pga and liv as you're now starting to get the rory

mcilroys of the world and other big names who are suggesting we need to figure this out quick because it's becoming an issue. it's becoming a distraction. are we any closer to a resolution? >> i think there's been talks going on. i think it's better than it was three months ago. i think they're moving forward. the question is will they be able to cut a deal? obviously i hope they do, just like i would say tiger, rory, or anybody who's involved wants to end up having a resolution of this because it's better for the game. >> can you speak to what the -- you know, what's the major sticking point at this point, and how involved are you in the actual conversations? >> shockingly, it's money. but i'm not involved really in the negotiations, and that's because that's going on directly i think with the folks at the pga -- >> okay. it's great to visit with you. >> it's great to see you. >> good to have your insights as always, marc lasry joining us on

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ah, these guys are intense. with e*trade from morgan stanley, we're ready for whatever gets served up. dude, you gotta work on your trash talk. i'd rather work on saving for retirement. or college, since you like to get schooled. that's a pretty good burn, right? welcome wback, shares of alphabet up 1.5%. bank of america out with a note saying that event could boost ai

sentiment on the stock. i suppose that is much needed. deirdre bosa joins us now. how important is this event tomorrow? you know, with all the narrative where it's gone over the last, i don't know, seems like forever at this point, they need a boost. >> it's like musical chairs, right? that's why these events are so important because it's a chance for each of the mega caps, whether that's google, whethe that's microsoft, whether that's apple at wwdc to really tell investors and developers and customers how they are going to give them an edge in generative ai. so google's event, the stakes are really high. it has to have a really consistent clear message. when we think about the last 12 to 18 months, how google has been talking about generative ai, it's kind of been all over the place. we started with -- now we finally have gemini. in the same way that microsoft has used co-pilot as a name for its family of ai generative ai tools.

google's going to have to do the same thing with gemini, and it has an advantage here because a lot of google applications are cloud native, right? like work space. so it can get a leg up once again, but it's going to have to do it in a way that is convincing, that is clear, that shows off sort of their pioneering in this space, right? i keep coming back to that, scott. google was here before anyone else. yet somehow over the last 12 to 18 months, their position has been in question. >> it has. it's so interesting because it's not as though d, and you know this, of course, it's not as though the stock has so dramatically underperforming let's say microsoft, for example, even though the narrative would have you believe that this company's ai ambitions have been all but left for dead. >> yeah, and part of that is when you come out with sort of a new product, a new chat bot like a gemini. chatgpt had these issues as well. there's going to be issues because users are going to go on

and try and trip it up too. so google most recently announced its gemini layers of generative ai, chat bots and they had a few stumbles like its image generating product, they had to suspend it because it was going a little bit too politically correct. so they have a lot to make up for here. one of the things that investors should listen for are options, right? and you hear about these investments. google and amazon both have been pouring billions of dollars into an ai darling like an anthropic. that is in order to bring it sba sort of their cloud platform and tell developers and customers that we have so many different tools. we have so many different foundational models. the choice is yours, as you're building, and whatever your ambition is with generative ai this cloud infrastructure, whether that be microsoft or google or amazon has the right tools. so part of that race is just access to all the different foundational models. >> yeah, no, your points are well taken, and of course they've had some self-inflicted wounds and very much so in this

whole rollout process. we'll see how this goes tomorrow, dee, thank you. up next, we're tracking the biggest movers into the flow. steve kovach is back with us. >> we're going to talk about one stock upgraded to buy after a big selloff last week, and another rising on a futuristic transformation promise. we'll reveal those names when "closing bell" comes back after this. >> announcer: the bond report is brought to you by pimco, a global leader in active fixed income. what straps bold to a rocket and hurtles it into space? boring does.

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we're about 15 from the close, back to steve kovach for the stocks he's watching. >> ulta beauty up 2% or so today following an upgrade from buy to hold from the analysts over at loop capital. that follows last week's selloff of the stock, which loops analysts says were, quote, overdone. they said sales comps for the company will improve this year and there's a possibility of a cash dividend. meantime, shares of tesla up nearly 5% after elon musk said he would reveal the company's robo taxi at an event on august 8th. tesla has not given formal updates on its robo taxi plans since musk promised a softer update would enable 100 robo taxis next year, that was almost five years ago. >> steve kovach, coming up, ge popping in today's session.

why there could be more upside ahead, "closing bell" is coming right back.

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like we touched negative on the dow. negative on the spy as well. >> we have, and we really are waiting and seeing. . we genuinely are for the inflation numbers. some things might have changed, sort of technical, maybe just the shadings of this rally last week with a little more of a pullback. by the way, we haven't made a new high in a week and a half. that's the longest stretch since january when we first made -- >> oh, the nerve of this market. >> exactly. that's the point. it's kept to such high standards of how relentless the rally has to be. that said, the fact that oil traded soft today and the volatility index is down 3/4 of a point suggested to me we were somewhat tensed up for potential geopolitical escalation over the weekend. the fed's on a mandate right now and that's what we have to worry about. >> pasquariello asking when do rates take a bite. i think every investor is thinking along the same lines. i don't know if everybody's coming up with the same answer.

i think if you still get a little bit of a backup above 45, few are going to say, test me. >> you at least have a reflex back away type of an instinct at that level. 48 is one full percentage point above the recent low. so i think if the velocity does matter as everybody says, i also think it's worth reminding people, in mid-2022 we thought three was the number. in late 2022 market couldn't handle 3.5. last year it was 4. so over time if the economy hangs in there and shows it's not fully sensitive to it and it's not blasting higher in yield like it was last fall, we're probably okay. i think we're testing the tolerance for slightly higher rates near 4.5. >> maybe we needed it too. just a bit of a reality check. >> since ge vernova spun out of ge a week ago, we've seen the stock fall by around 8%. that may be due to existing shareholders saying i want more exposure to aerospace versus the

energy story. either way jpmorgan this morning saying this is a buying opportunity, upfragrading the sk to overweight with a price target of $141 referencing the strength in vernova's electrification business. they say this business can outperform as data center electricity demand increases. there's just more demand, scott, for these companies that operate in managing the grid as power scarcity becomes an issue. so that seems to be what's driving this upgrade, and you're seeing shares up about 6 pr%. the next big driver for the stock, analysts are saying is going to be earnings. >> we'll look forward to, that thank you very much. to kate rooney with coinbase. we shouldn't be surprise first-degree coinbase is rallying if bitcoin is. >> as goes bitcoin, so goes coinbase and the rest of those crypto stocks. for bitcoin, the rally started over the weekend. it picked up some steam during early trading in asia, and topped $72,000.

today we have seen strong demand really since january when that group of bitcoin etfs launched. $79 billion when it comes to inflows per month this year. there is also some investor excitement around something called the having, which is coming up later in april. that cuts the newly created supply of bitcoin in half. among the risks out there to bitcoin, tax season might be one. a potential pull back if traders do need to cash out to pay uncle sam. coinbase higher on the back of bitcoin. barclays still underweight, and there has been some retale selling arnound coinbase. coinbase was one of the most sold names by individuals in the last month. you got micro strategy as well, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin higher today too. >> appreciate that, kate. thank you. back to mike santoli. we haven't talked about earnings yet, and we're obviously kicking off with the banks. this season is going to be interesting given the number of

sectors that have done really well to start the year. it's not just saying, hey, the bar is really high for tech. no, i mean, maybe the bar is really high for financials up 11% on the year. maybe it's really high for industrials up 10% on the year, and energy up 16. >> yeah. >> and tech as well. >> i do think especially for certain slices of industrials, which have really run and which are seen to be these now longer term secular growth stories, the bar is higher. what i did find interesting, it says analysts always trim their estimates over the course of a quarter. they've done so again. it's now under 4% expected, 3.5, whatever sit is. they cut estimates less than is usual over the course of the three months. >> interesting. >> that suggests that company guidance, it's all getting filtered in. it seems like we really are about to hopefully see that inflection where the majority of sectors start to participate and enter into it. that said, even with that happening, the outside the mag

7, i think we're still talking flattish year-over-year earnings. it's the second half of this year when a lot of that has to kick in and we'll see if guidance with this reporting season starts to shed light. >> 5,200 even on the s&p. >> we're kind of sticking now. >> close above that, looks like we'll stick there. dow is going to go right to the flat line. i'll see you tomorrow. interest rates keep rising, taking a late day toll on stocks. it was a choppy session. the dow finishing just about flat. the s&p a similar move, and the nasdaq as well. that's the score card on wall street. welcome to "closing bell" overtime, i'm morgan brennan. jon fortt is off. it was a volatile session for the major averages. we closed well off the high as investors keep a close eye on the ten-year treasury yield which hits the highest level of the year. coming up, the ceo of fixed income trading