inflation was not worse than the rest of the world. we compared the u.s. economy during the biden presidency to the advanced economies inflation and we were right on par with the rest of the world. so, it was a global phenomenon, but there's local prices to pay. >> all right, steve liesman, thank you. that's going to do it for "overtime." "fast money" starts right now. 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. the nike swoon. shares hitting 18-month lows after its latest earnings report. we have all the details and bring you the headlines from that conference call. plus, out of a.i., and into what? where is the money flowing? the great rotation may already be under way and the bene beneficiaries may surprise you. later, roaring kitty barks. he sent out a critic message this afternoon that sent shares of chewy and other pet stocks on

a volatile ride. what the options market is saying about the moves. i'm melissa lee, coming to you live from studio b at the nasdaq. on the desk tonight -- karen finerman, dan nathan, guy adami, and rebecca patterson. we start off with an earnings alert on nike. the conference call is just getting under way. sara eisen has the details. >> hi,melissa. profits were a big beat, but sales missed, and were down 2% overall. also importantly, the cfo alluded to a guidance cut for 2025 in the release. here a quote from the statement. in part, saying, our fourth quarter results highlighted challenges that have led us to update our fiscal 2025 outlook. expect details on the call. but it is unusual to hint at a guidance cut from nike in the press release. so, why? what are those challenges? well, i spoke to some senior executives at the company, and here's what i can tell you. the lifestyle business declined,

think air force ones or air jordans, and then the performance business, which is running and basketball, it did grow, but it wasn't enough to offset the lifestyle declines. another weak spot, digital business. that was down 10% in the quarter. they really started to see weakness in april and may. and in part, it's because the lifestyle products are more represented on the website, so, outsized decline there. the business has tripled, also, in the last few years when it comes to digital, so, it is seeing the decline, and that's where you see the dtc, direct to consumer, dropoff. and finally, traffic in china actually started to decline in april, so, the company lowered expectations there. now, here's the big picture. the ceo is about one year into a three-year turnaround. he's made executive changes. he's made cuts to the organization, shifted the focus to core areas like running and also made some changes around the channels, for instance, shifting business back to the wholesale partners, away from the direct to consumer, and

clearing out some old products to make room for some of the newer innovations. now, some of this can be attributed to some of those changes, some of the weakness, that is, in the quarter, but some are surprising, too, like the dropoff in digital sales. nike executives tell me they do feel confident in the turnaround still, and the innovation cycle, they're pointing, for instance, to optimistic wholesale orders they're seeing, but clearly, they're going to have to convince investors. >> sara, looks like the margin was disappointing compared to estimates and i'm wondering if you think it's because of a mix shift, the lifestyle weakness, or if there is discounting involved here. >> well, clearly, it's a promotional environment. the executives see that in china, they see that in north america, as well, so, that's part of it. also discounting as it relates to some of the changes that they're making in order to make room on the shelves for new product. but i think overall, you know, they have more levers to pull on the profitability side of things, when it comes to cost, for instance, massive

organization. then they do on the revenue growth. and that's really what the concern is for investors here. it's getting the brand heat back to nike, and franchises that are so important, like air force one and air jordan and dunks, that is the core of the issue, of the business, it's why you look at adidas, for instance, the stock has outperformed. now, nike says it started the innovation turnaround with performance and saw double-digit growth in places like basketball and it will take time to work through and get to lifestyle, but that's something that executives are going to have to try to conditiovince investors e call, and what kind of confidence level do they have in turning that around? >> sara, thank you. what did you make of the quarter, guy? >> we're going to talk about a few things, i'm sure america is wondering about, but i'll say this, they looked at the eps, said, that's a pretty significant beat. and you look at the quality of the beat.

sgna was part of it. huge tax rate differential in terms of what the street was expecting and what they came in at. they said, okay, look at the revenue. revenue wasn't good. last night, i said, listen, last quarter, inventories really came in, down 11.5%, again sort of flat sales growth. i thought that would mean margins were good, they weren't good, either. things are not going particularly well. and you hear some of the commentary. now they're going to be in the penalty box. i thought the stock would be trading 99 postearnings, it's trading 89. even the multiple that's less than it's been historically, is that too rich? >> to your point on the low quality beat, gross profit dollars fell short of consensus estimates, so, that's a number to focus on. >> and sara really surrounded that trade. he was really focused on that lifestyle stuff. in "the wall street journal" this morning, nike missed the boom in running culture. and they're talking about, you know, hoka, new balance, some of

the other brands, and so, that was always at the core of this company, right? in the last 50 years or so, and the lifestyle stuff has been huge, jordan brand is awesome. we had the olympics, the euros going on, a lot of promotional opportunities here. the guidance is not out. the fact she said they hinted to a guidance change for 2025, that reads kind of negatively, but let's see what happens. >> for sure it reads negatively, i mean, we're going to update our forecast. i would be shocked if it's positive, i would be shocked. i mean, disappointing. i own some. i would like to be bigger. i would rather buy it higher with better news than lower with bad news. i think that, i mean, this is a few quarters now. they had a couple of ups where things seemed better. we talked about the inventory getting into better shape, less promotional, which would be better for gross margins. they've lost their mojo, right? so, the multiple, i don't know exactly what the new guidance

will be, but it will go down at least one turn, that puts them at about 23, and for a company that i do still think deserves a premium multiple, it's not crazy expensive, but i was saying before, i would rather buy it higher when they seem to have gotten it together. >> right. >> than here. >> but you're presuming that their path of innovation is still going to hold. they're going to be able to revive that sort of -- >> yes. i believe that. i mean, if for no other reason, they have tremendous resources. they have tremendous resources to do that. and i think -- this is a company that wants to win. it reminds me of lululemon, talked about this before, similar dynamics, wild new competition, right? here we have different competition, on and hoka and new balance and others. yet i think there's a way for nike to win. >> i would just say, going from the product and the strategy to the environment they're dealing with, two uphill battles they're going to have continuing for the

rest of this year, probably into next year, just going to be sluggish overseas growth. china, greater china is over 15% of their revenues. they only -- half of their total revenue comes from outside north america. so, it's going to be a sluggish china consumer. i think we're going to get a sluggish european consumer, despite rate cuts. >> even with the olympics? >> well, olympics is a point in time. that's not going to last the rest of this year. you might get a spike for a week or two. and the other big one is the dollar. the dollar is up, dxy is up 4.5% this year. dollar is up 12% against the yen. and i don't think we're going to see the dollar weaken materially. the fed may ease in september or december, but they're not easing fast or a lot unless something really hits the fan here, which tends to be dollar supportive, as people come back and bring in cash. >> what do you want to know from the conference call? >> what's going on. this is now three years. put up a long-term nike chart. this stock is cut in half since the all-time high in november of 2021. it's a series of really poor

quarters. they are trying to get their inventories in lirngs but the margins aren't going up. is competition eating their lunch? that's pretty clear to me. inno innovation, i guess, is part of it. i think they probably, quite frankly, got lazy. i'll say this real quick. the october 2022 low, i think, was 87ish, and we're precariously close to that now. stock has to hold. this is pretty key support levels, mel. >> it's funny, as long as i've been in the business, and this is over 25 years, they've been challenging the multiple that this company has, not too different than what we heard with starbucks and a few other discretionary sort of things. and it's been bottom left upper right until recently. there have been periods since there have been big drawdowns and the like. so, to me, this is a company that has over 25% market share in u.s. footwear, and any time these guys hit a multi-year, multi-quarter, however you want to think about it, challenge, they usually figure it out. karen used the term, they like to win, and, you know, when you

think about lulu was always challenging them, and the women's athleisure, all that sort of stuff -- lulu is down 40% in the last six months from its recent highs. maybe there's something going on in the athleisure space. but again, i think they probably work on some momentum from something like the olympics, and we're going to have the olympics here in the u.s. in 2028. i think that works for them. >> we have a news alert on a merck vaccine. angelica peebles has the news. >> that's right. we are getting news out of the cdc vaccine advisory committee about merck's new vaccine to prevention bacterial pneumonia. this committee is recommending the vaccine should be an option for people 65 and up, and some adults 19 and up who are at higher risk of severe disease, to get this vaccine, if they have not already gotten one already. now, the 65 and up is really important here, because this vaccine is approved for people

50 and up, but there's a lot of debate whether we should make it 65 or 50, and the committee eventually landed on sticking -- keeping it at 65, because they felt like there were too many questions about whether it would be cost effective for 50 to 64-year-olds to get this vaccine, and whether it would be confusing, because there's already a vaccine approved from fuser, and that's for 65 and up. they will revisit this in october, at their next meeting, but for now, this is the recommendation. melissa? >> angelica, thank you. guy, you've been on merck for awhile. >> yeah, i don't know if it's necessarily going to be stock moving, but again, it's going to be one more sort of arrow in their quiver. merck, to me, makes sense. it's made sense, it's not little wli lilly, it's not novo, but they are figuring things out. and probably have some tuck-in acquisitions along the way. i still like it. rotation out of the a.i. trade today in the broader

market. micron taking the other chips with it. nvidia down 2%. qualcomm and broadcom following suit, as investors left the red-hot sector. where did they go? well, maybe, surprisingly, they didn't flee tech entirely. looks like software names like palo alto, salesforce and more posting strong gains. what does this rotation within the tech sector tell you? it was always all the spend is going there to a.i., and so, therefore, it's going to be pulled from software and sas, and so, we had a reversion here. >> i'll just say this, since wwdc, apple has been a huge ben beneficiary. i thought that was baearish. they weren't spending billions and billions of dollars of high end gpus to build their own models, they've been actually licensing, or, they're going to be licensing a lot. and when you think about that, okay, what are the use cases right now? and they're not very clear, you snow? i mean, to me, the monetization efforts.

there was an article in "the information" today, openai is selling more of its a.i. models than microsoft is. when microsoft reports in a month for now, if they are not saying that all of this investment, $13 billion in openai, and, you know, like, the budget shift that they've had, right, towards selling these sorts of products and what out means for their enterprise customers, i think the whole trade -- i think a lot of air comes out of it, to be very frank. it won't be too different from what we saw late july to october of last year. the s&p sold off about 11%, the nasdaq a bit more, stocks like microsoft were down high teens, you know what i mean, from those highs. so, again, i think it's obviously a bit more severe now, because there's been so much appreciation. microsoft is up 47% from its october lows. you just do the math on a $3 trillion market cap company, it's pulled forward a lot of excitement about what they may do, how they may monetize these investments. >> i mean, it's quarter end, it's half year end, i also think there's a lot of medium-term

investors right now just looking at their portfolios and rebalancing. so, it might be as mundane as that. there's some specific stock news going on, as well. and when something rises as much as dan just described, to have some profit-taking, i actually see that as really healthy for the market. i'm not concerned by this at all. >> it does seem like the timeframe that you were mentioning, microsoft has to prove that it's working for them, in terms of tin he investment. the timeline is not very long. seems unreasonable. but because of the stock's run -- >> right. >> the stock pulled forward -- >> therefore, the expectation has to be, too. >> the expectation has to be high. we're going to see a new windows operating system later this year, which will be a very likely catalyst for a lot of upgrade. so, they're going to need to give some color on that, maybe, but they pulled forward a lot of the stock return for the hope of this really, you know, selling, didn't know how many millions of co-pilot subscriptions a month. but to the rest of the trade, i

mean, we always look at nvidia as sort of the everything. oracle was up a little, dell was up a little, amd, arm up a little. but i don't think it really matters. we sort of don't have a good catalyst right now until somebody starts their earnings announcement. >> do you think was -- the start of a rotation? >> feels like. without question, it was today, and i think it probably will continue. i thought the rotation would be into energy, and maybe health care, it obviously was in software. but throw am azon in the mix, those miserable super bo commercials, one of them, what do they call it, when you get a brain worm thing -- >> what? >> the super bowl commercial. >> do you have one now? >> i mean -- >> i hope not. >> anyway, rivian, today there was more news. amazon, very quietly, is actually bucking some of the trend here. >> yeah, to nvidia, we know the story here, it's microsoft, it's meta, amazon, google, and dell make up 50% of their revenues.

we're going to hear from all of those companies, going to hear their guidance. and micron, this stock joined the party a few months ago, it had tremendous appreciation, they were telling a story how memory is going to be hugely important in these data centers and the like. dell was also telling that story about servers. both of those stocks got nailed after they gave guidance that wasn't better than expectations, and so, to your point, karen, you have that sort of appreciation over a periodof time. you have a multiple that severely stretched at 13.5 times sales, and, you know, like, 35 times earnings, it doesn't leave a lot of room for disappoint or not beating far better than the consensus. >> do you think the roi expectation also applies to nvidia, though? >> sure. listen, i'm going to tell you guys this. five pretty intelligent people who have, you know, like, we know -- well, four and a half, you know what i mean? there's no use case in my life right now other than a little perplexity here and there of some rising something for work

or whatever, and that's not doing a whole heck of a lot, because i have -- >> you're a consumer. you're not an insurance company that's using a.i. to go through a lot of paperwork. >> years away. >> dell just did a survey of 400 companies in their region and found 40% of them are using a.i. on a daily basis and 10% plan to in the next 12 months. i think there are a lot of users out there across different industries. i'm with you, consumer-wise, what do i use? chatgpt or perplexity, one of those, to make my life faster and easier, but -- >> there's going to be huge data issue on -- everybody's going to pull back from it, the hallucinations, this, that, i'm not saying that enterprise is using for that, but there's mission critical stuff that has to go. if you are going to adopt this sort of technology, you better make sure it's working correctly, and that's what makes years, before the mass adoption of it, before companies, the c-level suite --

>> do you think we're priced for that right now? >> no. to me, i think we're -- like, we are -- we're priced for it in three years. you know what i'm saying? that's what we pulled forward. and it's no different than the excitement that we heard about how the internet was going to transform every industry, like, this is 25 years ago. it's the same thing, people. i'm just telling you. so, the enterprise thing, it's going to take awhile to see that drop to the bottom line, and the consumer use case, i think apple has the potential to be the biggest fail, when they release this 16 in the fall, because i don't think you're going to see an upgrade cycle based on what they showed us, especially given the cadence of the rollout of a lot of products. i think it's going to be a 2025 thing. so, have at it, people. >> that's my favorite. on that note -- >> yeah. >> coming up, walgreens worst day ever. the pharmacy retailer tanking after a really rough earnings report. is the company running out of time to turn its restructuring plans into reality? plus, hims and hers plunging on a scathing short seller

report. we'll dig into the findings and debate the winners and the losers of the glp-1 trade, next. this is "fast money" with melissa lee right here on bccn ♪ music ♪ ♪ unnecessary action hero! ♪ ♪ unnecessary. ♪ was that necessary? no. neither is missing your daughter's competition time to shine. get paycom and make the unnecessary unnecessary.

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welcome back to "fast money." walgreens getting booted to its lowest levels in 27 years today after a rough earnings report sent it to its worst ever single day percentage drop. beating revenue expectations, but missing eps estimates and slashing full-year guidance as sales growth slows the ceo telling cnbc that he hoped that consumer would have gotten stronger in the second quarter but that didn't pan out. it's going to close a significant share of its stores in the united states, which total just about 8,600. so, these are major moves here, karen. >> they are, yeah. and he's a relatively new ceo, right? we saw ross brewer was fired. but this is a great example of the melting ice cube, right? so, we had the front of store, which has been just hammered by amazon over the last few years, and now the back of store, the pharmacy, as well. hammered. but also actually by amazon and

walmart who are really just beginning to enter in a big way what i think will end up being a big way, so -- so they're talking about, you know, slashing number of stores, and, you know, it's generally hard to grow your way out of a problem like this, when the -- the fixed cost base cannot shrink as much as the -- as the revenue base. and so -- i mean, i looked more closely, they don't have as much debt as i thought, but they have a fair amount of debt. it's cheap at five times earnings. it should be cheap. it wouldn't shock me if it gets cheaper. >> i was just struck by the comment they expected the consumer to accelerate over the last couple of months. i mean, what was going to drive that, for a small segment of the population, you have equities and home values, but for most of the population, they're feeling pinched. and we're seeing that left, right, and center in earnings and guidance. the amazon thing that you mentioned a minute ago, talking about having the super, super cheap arm of amazon where you -- it takes longer to get your goods, but you save money, or

mcdonald's doing the $5 value meal, i mean, we're getting more and more data points that consumers are saying, no more. i'm not paying more, i want cheaper prices, and i'm being more cautious. so, and we saw that in the data. it's on the microside and the macro. pending home sales going down. jobless claims going up. i'm not saying we're about to see a recession, but we are seeing a moderation. but i'm not surprised at all. why is the ceo surprised? >> how did he miss it? why forecast an uptick when -- >> yeah. >> when that wasn't -- >> i don't get it. >> one more, i mean, again, it's just one more thing about the consumer slowing down. he absolutely should have seen that. we talk about it every night for the last six months. however, i mean, cut your way to profitability -- 8,600 stores. a significant share of stores -- what does that mean? so, that is pretty significant. so, again, this is a 27-year low in the stock and it deserves to be. a lot of it is wba specific, but

a lot is the environment, as well. there is a lot more "fast money" to come. here's what's coming up next. a scathing short report haunting hims and hers shares today, raising big questions about the company's weight loss drug business. could this be the first domino to fall in the compounded glp-1 trade? the winners and losers in weight loss, next. and, ahead of tonight's prime time presidential debate, we're priming your portfolio. the inside track on taxes, tariffs, inflation, and beyond. you're watching "fast money," live from the nasdaq market site in times square. we're back right after this.

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welcome back to "fast money." hims and hers down 7% after a short seller report slammed the company for its compounded glp-1 drugs. questions raised around the relia reliability. a proposed fda rule could deal the ultimate blow to the cheaper unregulated formulas. max riali is head of policy

research. max, great to have you with us. and this goes back to the fda putting out sort of a proposal, saying, what if we deem certain drugs not suitable for compounding, so, how do you make that link, that glp-1s could be one of those drugs? >> yeah, so, fda's had this authority for years, goes back to the 2012 new england pharmacy infection that you had 64 deaths from meningitis. they're allowed to create a list of drugs that present difficulties for compounding and create a criteria for doing so. in march, they proposed a list. it has three categories of drugs on there. one does have some on compounding today. the way the list is written is, the criteria taken into account includes adverse events, how complex the process is, how you administer the drug, and these are all issues that are preventing themselves with compounding drugs. the other issue that they bring up, and that pharma makes a good

point around, if you look at other semaglutides, so, that is also in shortage, but you can't compound it. now, you have too few amino acids for things like mounjaro, wegovy, but they are very similar from a process standpoint. it seems like a very easy way, and it's very odd timing, or convenient timing, to be releasing this, if you want to get your hands around the compounding drug issue. >> but these drugs are already compounded, and not just by the compounding pharmacies that are only overseen at the state level, but also the compounding pharmacies that are licensed by the fda, there are about 70-plus of them in the united states. so, how can they say that at this point in time, after the drug has been compounded for so long, that it's dangerous or it's not suitable for compounding? >> so, you can for any reason

come up with a public health or safety rationale, and that's the underlying principle guiding this decision. if they believe it's not in the public health interest and these are only getting compounding because of a technicality of how they set the level, i think they can make a very plausible case. if you just step back, fda's number one concern is integrity and safety of the drug supply chain and control. and one thing that you don't have with compounded drugs is the same visibility into the market with reporting adverse events, tracking sales, and monitoring for sterilization, infections, impurity, things like that. there's a very clear argument to be made to maintain public trust and to, you know, maintain public safety, you need to add these to the list. >> they can -- i mean, they could technically just do this now, right? what is -- what is preventing them from just doing it now? do they need approval? >> yeah, so, there is no

authority to ban these today. they have to establish the authority, so, they are through the process, they will probably finalize it sometime in september. once the list is finalized, the process for adding drugs to the list is finalized, you can go out and suggest any drug or drug category you want. i imagine they'll do, just like australia did, put semaglutides, glp-1s as an entire category in there. most cannot be compounded because of complexity already, so, you would just be add two more drugs to the list. >> did you say most glp-1s cannot be compounded? >> yeah, ones that are used for insulin production, insulin has been in shortage for years, but you don't see compounding pharmacies producing it, they're not allowed to. too complicated to be come pounded. >> okay, max, really interesting. obviously we saw hims and hers really skyrocket on the back of them selling compounded, through a licensed fda pharmacy, by the way, but really gaining on the back of that. >> yeah. one thought with that report

that you just cited, it should have -- it sold off today, i get it. should have been a lot more -- given the recent run the stock had, i'm surprised it only sold off as much as it did. maybe it's just the beginning of something. but you actually sort of have to be impressed how resilient it was today. >> one of the allegations within the hunterbrook report was that the compounding pharmacy that it uses has ties to past fraudulent activity, sort of a shady past, but that's, you know, we haven't gotten a response from hims. >> yeah, again, big shot, right? i saw the report, you did a lot of work on compounding. you did. you did, right? no, it was -- it was really interesting. there's going to be supply shortages for a very long time, so, it really does matter who you partner with, i suspect. there's going to be a lot of leicht on both of these things. >> yeah. we do want to get a check on nike shares. they're at session lows. the company gave guidance on the conference call. seema mody has that. hey, seema. >> melissa, we're on the call, and nike just said we now expect

fiscal 2025 reported revenue to be down mid single digits, with the first half down high single digits. the company citing uncertainty and challenges in china. >> so, challenges in china, even though china was a bright spot in the quarter that they just reported. seema, interesting. seema mody with that on nike. all right, so, karen, your presumption was correct. >> well, it was kind of a lay-up, but -- i mean, that's a lot. and i hope it is, you know, sort of clear the decks kind of number. >> right. >> because if their credibility is on the line, which it is now. >> yes. >> then they are better off report, you know, saying, we're really going to miss, coming in higher than putting out, you know, a little rozier and not making it. >> since they did highlight china, with this guidance correction, china has a big policy event, too, actually, in

july, both of those talk about economic policy. if they're going to do anything to revive the consumer, which, i think, is highly unlikely, given president xi's kind of focus on it, but that would be a moment in time to do so. so, if you are going to see an upside surprise around the chinese consumer, more stimulus targeted at the consumer, mid-july is what we want to be watching. >> i'm hard pressed to see too many u.s. consumer brands that have done well over the last year in china. you think about apple, starbucks, nike. i know there was some data out of china that was suggesting that iphones were up 50% in the -- maybe april or may, one of those two, but again, one month does not make a quarter, and certainly didn't make a year, so, we're seeing a lot of pressure on u.s. brands in china. >> still a north american story. china's obviously interesting, i mean, it's $12 billion revenue overall, north america is $5.5, $6, north america is where they have to figure out.

>> 10% decline in nike. coming up, the countdown is on to the first presidential debate this year. we are digging in on everything from taxes to tariffs and inflation. and beyond. right after this. missed a moment of "fast?" catch us any time on the go. follow the "fast money" podcast. we're back right after this. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria.

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welcome back to "fast money." in less than four hours, president biden and former president trump will go head-to-head at the first presidential debate of this election season. the economic agenda sure to be one of the topics in focus. cnbc's steve liesman has a look at how the u.s. has performed under each candidate's watch. steve? >> hey, melissa. yeah, comparing these presidential terms is tough, and none tougher than comparing the trump and biden companies. presidents get the companies left by their press ed issors, and this race has the dramatic effects of the pandemic. biden beats trump on quarterly average gdp. trump's numbers improve if you take out the pandemic. and biden's come down a little bit. biden had lower average

unemployment. biden created far more jobs, 15.6, minus 2.7 for trump. but question is, how much is trump responsible for those job losses? take out the pandemic effects, the losses narrow, and the national gains have biden still better. biden had stronger capital spending. but there it is, there's the inflation. a major knock on biden, a major concern for voters. prices up 19% during his presidency compared to prices being up just about 8% for trump. that's led to a decline in real or inflation adjusted hourly wages of 0.6% for biden, comparing to positive 7.1% under trump. biden had -- s&p rose 44%, trump, 68%. nasdaq doing better under trump. but biden much higher fed funds right. early signs that rate hikes could be starting to bite the economy just as the election

years. the elector rate could see lower inflation rates, but the possible gain for trump, as we head to the polls would be rising unemployment, just as it comes time to pull the lever in me november, melissa. >> and that's why the fed might step in and save the day in terms of a rate cut, which, of course, is denied, steve, but even so, like, let's say there is a rate cut, that -- that wouldn't do a single thing, i don't think, for the elections, right? they step in in september before the elections, does nothing in terms of the impact, maybe psychological? maybe brings mortgage rates down immediately? >> so, ask your traders, because i have nothing better to do with my time, i was rereading a march '24 bostick speech. and he said one of his concerns is if the fed cut rates, this would unleash a wave of business spend, and perhaps a wave of investment. so, i am really interested in what would happen if the fed gave the green light on rate cuts, it took that risk away. we're seeing right now some

really interesting activity in the bond market. these auctions have gone extraordinarily well, and they're super large. and, you know me, i give them an a when they just actually happen, where as rick, of course, has tougher grades, and he's probably right about that. i'm just happy we haven't had a failed auction. they're coming in under the issue, they are very strong auctions, so, i wonder if the bond market is starting to smell rate cuts, trying to trade like they're around, and the question is, what happens to the stock market? what happens in the c-suite when we get the go ahead and rate cuts in terms of things that might be held back when it comes to investment? the fed's a little worried about that. >> do you think one cut, though, is really the go ahead, oh, we're entering a period of lower rates, we're going to cut once in september. it feels like the jury would still be out as to when the next cut is, the cadence of cuts after even the first one. >> you know, melissa, you should go to work for powell, because he would love for you to be able to pull that off. the trouble -- it's rally

interesting. first of all, powell and other fed officials have talked about rate cuts as a process. i think powell even said, what's the point of cutting just once? the other thing is, look at what lagarde was able to do. i don't think the fed has the confidence to just cut once and say that's it. the thing the fed is scared about, the market is going to price in a series of cuts. look at what it did when the fed kind of made its pivot last year at the market priced in six cuts and the fed said three. so, i think the fed has a different problem here than europe does. the fed, you know, is essentially riding on a thoroughbred that wants to run to the front of the pack, and powell is pulling back the reins. that is a problem that he would love to have be the the market would only price in one cut. >> all right, steve, thank you. steve liesman. rebecca, what do you think? >> i think it's possible that the fed cuts in september, if the data are telling them that inflation's close enough to two,

maybe the unemployment rate is ticking up a tiny bit, but it's going to be what they call a hawkish cut. they'll cut and say the cadence is going to depend on what the data do from here and -- they don't set monetary policy on the back of fiscal. they takefiscal as a given. if we have a change in the government and we have a whole new wave of fiscal stimulus, unfunded tax cuts, trade war, then that's going to factor into what they do. they're not going to just go with what the market's discounting, necessarily. so, i -- if they cut in september, it's one, and then just hold off, and i don't think september's a given. >> yeah. >> i agree with you. i can't see people who are holding back, if only we had a 25 -- >> bam, unleash, let's go, let's go. >> remember where we were eight, nine months ago with the expectation of six cuts or so -- >> yeah. >> and the market kept being disappointed, disappointed, and yet the stock market dud better than fine. >> and i think, if i can, that's such an important point, because we tend to think that, okay, we get a president and then we have policy and that determines the

economy -- it's only a piece of it. right? this year, what helped us snl a.i., i.t., tech, right? it was the private sector that was really driving things. i mean, those four, five megacap companies have put something like $200 billion of capex into the market over this calendar year. the chips act was only 50. we're getting 200. >> yeah. >> the fed watch tool saying a 58% probability that there's a 25-basis point cut in september, which -- >> 58%. >> yeah. >> so, when you think about that, we don't have a fed meeting in august, we do have that jackson hole august 22nd to 24th. and if we get cooler data, we're going to hear a lot more about the potential for cuts in september and then again in november, and then it's like, what are you starting to price in? you know, steve said something about what the bond market is starting to price in. i think i read something the other day they're pricing maybe 250 basis points of cuts next year, after maybe one or two this year. that's the sort of thing that

will get, you know, equity traders all geeked up. >> they're not running on austerity. regardless of who wins, it's almost inflationary by definition. coming up, roar, kitty's newest post. more "fast money" in two. with the price of just about everything inflating these days, you may wonder why

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welcome back to "fast money." chewy shares on a roller coaster today, briefly halted for volatility after rising as much as 34% at its highs. shares of petco also spiked midday, but all stocks closed well off their best moves of the session. roaring kitty posted this photo on x, a dog, on a blue background. tongue sticking out. a flood of bullish options activity in chewy adding to speculation that roaring kitty has his paws all over this one. baycrest managing director david bull joining us now with more color on what went on in the options market. what did you see? >> so, that's right. there was buzz about a dog tweet

and call option volume in chewy. now, there's been speculation, whether or not roaring kitty would look at a different name after he seemingly exercised the gamestop options and turned those into stock about two weeks ago. now, speculation has always been there with chewy, because of the link between ryan cohen, the ceo of gamestop and previous cofounder of why by. speculation heats up after the tweet. and looking back in gamestop, were there any breadcrumbs in why by, and there were 20,000 of the july 30 calls traded at 10:40 a.m. this morning, and the tweet hit about 1:00 p.m. looking back over the last week, almost 75,000 calls traded on this line, that's about $12 million of premium. pretty sizable. less sizable than the 170 million premium outlay that roaring kitty previously took in gamestop, but the way in which these executed seemed similar in

terms of execution style and the way they went, eclipsed 5,000 contracts and less. >> david, thank you. david boole, baycrest. karen, does seem curious, the ties between the two, and -- >> it does. especially, you know, just the conspiracy theory of thought. >> sure. >> there was an article that came out in "the wall street journal," it was taking some of the -- one of the board of directors, one of the directors on the board of bed, bath, and beyond, and she was saying that there was a concern that there was a leak between members of the board going to ryan cohen. now, this was in a deposition, i believe, and so that seemed sort of odd that today would be the day to sort of go after -- >> tweet a cartoon dog. >> tweet a car toon dog. exactly. also, interestingly, in the article, they were talking about a basket and then a moon

tweeted, i think -- i think that is a signal, a bat signal to the troops. >> obviously. >> i think so. >> yeah. all right, coming up, propping up payment stocks. the key levels mastercard and visa are at. refa meyrit ter refa meyrit ter this.powe to-use toolsasy make complex trading less complicated. custom scans help you find new trading opportunities, while an earnings tool helps you plan your trades and stay on top of the market. e*trade from morgan stanley and stay on top of the market. - ♪ unnecessary action hero! unnecessary. ♪ - was that necessary? - no. neither is a blown weekend. with paycom, employees do their own payroll so you can fix problems before they become problems. - hmm! get paycom and make the unnecessary, unnecessary.

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her uncle's unhappy. to graduation day and beyond. i'm sensing an underlying issue. it's t-mobile. it started when we tried to get him under a new plan. but they they unexpectedly unraveled their “price lock” guarantee. which has made him, a bit... unruly. you called yourself the “un-carrier”. you sing about “price lock” on those commercials. “the price lock, the price lock...” so, if you could change the price, change the name! it's not a lock, i know a lock. so how can we undo the damage? we could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. their connection is unreal. and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that's uncalled for.

welcome back to "fast money." two payment names dropping today. visa and mastercard down over 2%. both stocks below their 50-day moving averages, but guy, you mentioned that both are at support levels. >> i think they are. throw a chart up real quick. both of these stocks, they are pretty much the same chart, pick your poison. they topped out in the middle of march, and since then, they've been slightly lower to significantly lower over that period of time on what's been a very good tape. now, american express is hanging in there. that's the one you should be concerned about if you are concerned about credit. however, if transactions are slowing down, it goes back to some of the things we talked about the consumer. is the consumer slowing down? i'd watch both of these very carefully over the next couple weeks. >> all right, up next,in ades fal

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one more check on shares of nike. down by 11% right now. the quarter they had just reported, the eps was a beat, but low quality beat. the revenues came in light for the first half. they are guiding for revenue decline of the high single d digits. prior estimates were for a decline of low single digits. and they are saying that the quarters ahead are going to be tough ones. challenging ones for nike, given the toucher macro, as well as the difficult outlook for china they're seeing right now, so, tough times for nike here. we'll watch that tomorrow. time for the final trade. rebecca? >> xle. i like energy. >> karen? >> yeah, too late for me. i already own some nike.

if you like it, wait. you'll get a chance lower. >> dan? >> not much lower, i think you can buy it here, stop it at 80 in case it does go much lower. >> guy? >> those glasses look great, mel. you should rock those from now on. gold. >> all right, thank yofou r watching "fast money." "mad money" with gold. >> "mad money" with jim cramer starts right now. my mission is simple, to make you money. i'm here to level the playing field for all investors. there's always a bull market somewhere, and i promise to help you find it. "mad money" starts now. hey, i'm cramer. welcome to "mad money." welcome to cramerica. my friends, i'm going to try to make you a little money. my job is not just to entertain but to educate and teach. call me at 1-800-743-cnbc. or