think necessarily is going to be the decisive factor for how this market goes. it could certainly be a catalyst for another one of these rounds of sector rotation, style rotation that we've seen for a while right now. but we're kind of coasting into the number in a pretty comfortable spot and kind of neutral. >> yeah. we'll see what actually shakes out tomorrow as you and i man the desk together, mike santoli. "fast money" starts now. life at the nasdaq market center overlooking new york city's times square, this is "fast money. " i'm melissa lee. tonight on "fast" we're all over the after hours action broadcom on the move on the back of earnings. the company's call just getting under way. we'll break down all the big headlines from the quarter. plus grounded. tsa screenings at our nation's airports falling to their lowest level in the last four months. and later, a real ringer shares of tt popping today and

options traders are betting on even more gains ahead. we'll break down the action and why. but first -- that's right. you hear the sleigh bells. roll out the holly, pour yourself some eggnog, we are counting down to the most wonderful time of the year there are fewer than 114 days before santa comes to town, but is christmas at risk this year problems piling up at the ports disrupting the global supply chain, a massive labor shortage threatening retailers as they gear up for the critical holiday shopping season. good luck getting that high tech toy, the chip crisis continues to cripple the industry. with just 114 days to go, are we setting up for a nightmare before christmas guy adami. >> bah humbug to that, mel nothing keeps the people from shopping for christmas quite frankly. i think this year will be another record year.

you can talk about supply chain disruptions, what have you people will finding a way. now it's just a question of what retailer is best suited. we've talked about williams-sonoma. i'm sure a lot of people wanting to get that crockpot for their loved one. another situation where maybe we topped out here. the one that sticks out like a sore thumb, not that i suggest doing your christmas shopping there, but costco, jeffries just raised their price target today. believe it or not costco had earnings in this holiday season is probably the one that shapes up the best. >> it's just hard to wrap things that come in bulk and put them under the tree that's the only problem with costco brian kelly, if the crockpot isn't on the shelf because it's stuck in a container er somewhe off the coast of china, you might bring your money someplace else and buy something else. >> exactly i'm more of an instant pot guy,

but crockpot, sure, whatever you want to use. if you can't get the product, you'll look for something else so look at what's happened over the last year. look at the baltic dry index this time last year it was at 1200 spiked up about two grand. today it's over 4,000. you can't get the shipping space. you can't get the containers then once you get to the port of long beach or one of the other ports, you've got to wait in line to get it unloaded. then we might have a trucking shortage then all of a sudden you don't have anybody to sell it to you when you go to the store or anybody to pack it when you order it online. so all of these things are going to be an issue as we approach the holiday season we talked last week a little bit about stagflationary environment. this is one of those inputs into it to me is why there's a limit on how fast the economy can grow because you don't have that ability to meet the demand so there is a feeling on

econ economics, but at the same time you're going to be paying up for goods if you want them. >> we talk a lot, karen, about purchases delayed. for the holidays it might not be delayed, it might just be purchases that don't happen. are you worried at all about the robustness of this holiday season given all of the challenges we might face >> well, you're kind of a mean one, mrs. grinch, short of 114 days to go for christmas and now we're ringing the alarm bells, but i think you're right i was thinking of the exact same thing about purchases denied versus purchases delayed if you don't have the right gift for someone, i don't think you're as likely to get it later. so i would have thought that things would start to improve. i thought that about the autos when the chip shortage first started happening. it's going to be way more prolonged than i thought so i don't know if we'll see that here in terms of transportation. i think so the one factor that might get a little better is after september

when some of those benefits run off, we'll see if people return to work and some of those labor shortages will improve that i don't know. but i think you're right to sort of be afraid of not only what were you going to do for your christmas but how are these stocks going to do and i think that sales denied are not going to get credit in what would have been a very, very, very robust christmas. so i'm a little concerned about some retailers some, i think, will fare much better. >> we also forget sometimes how unvaccinated a lot of the world is, particularly in areas where we are relying goods to come from, the world's factories like china as well as ietnam. the ports over there, dan. maybe we're just not factoring that in. we've already seen the world's third busiest port in china shut down for a period of time because of a covid outbreak. they have since opened but that really caused a lot of

sort of snags in the supply chain even for that short amount of time. >> yeah. one thing chair powell and the fed has said numerous occasions over the last few months, he's used that term bottlenecks we've talked about the feits an starts of this global economy getting back up and going and reflating in the same direction. when you think about a reliance on some of those more underdeveloped, less vaccinated countries, this is going to be around for a while we're still dealing with delta other parts of the world are at different stages of that there's likely to be more fits and starts i'll just say this about our economy here when you think about consumer confidence last month, it was the lowest in six months you think about this eviction moratorium in many states is going to be rolling off. karen just mentioned expanded unemployment benefits for up to 12 million americans are going to be less than what they were over the last couple of months we still have seven, eight or 9 million americans employed pre-pandemic that are not. put all that together with a

savings rate that's ticking lower here and money that really was that government transfer i'm fairly well convinced that a lot of that robinhood capital that we were talking about flowing into the market is now flowing into open sea and nft marketplaces and might not be going to traditional retailers you might be getting some jpeg from your kid for christmas not some new iphone or something like that. for me i don't think it's a layup that there's a tremendous pent-up demand for goods and serves that we were expecting 18 months into this pandemic. >> i would love to see guy's reaction when he unwraps his gift and finds a digital rock from one of the kids you had made the case, guy, that the consumer will finding a way to spending. i understand that there are plenty of americans still employed and who are maybe in a better situation now than pre-pandemic in terms of the leverage on their household balance sheets but at the same time, haven't we

seen them spend? wasn't there pull forward? or is there more spending to come >> no, i think that's a great argument you make. the pull forward -- clearly there is a pull forward. it's a question of is there a reacceleration into the holiday season and will that pull forward be dwarfed by what traditionally has been people will spendi if they have the means. they probably do one thing we should mention is fedex and u.p.s. are telling the story you started the show off with they should be the harbinger or bellwether if we're going to have a great season. since may neither one has traded particularly well so maybe we'll take our cues from there i've learned over the years never bet against the u.s. consumers want to spend. if there's a way to do it, they will find it. >> so brian kelly, what is your top pick going into the holiday season, if there is one? you're long coal what is it >> no, no, no.

no, i actually think there are ways to play it. you've got to think about you have one kind of the digital gift maybe someone wants to get b.k. a pudgy the penguin. the other thing what can you get that's tang iible you'll look fr things that are in stock so take a look at etsy i think there's a lot of people buying macrame pot holders as opposed to that whiz bang technology that they can't get so etsy is my pick going into the holiday season >> karen, how about you? >> me, i think when we're dealing with limited cargo space and port congestion, you've got to go with the biggest players to me target is very big obviously not as big as walmart, but very big, but also has a variety of goods that you could do for christmas they do have interesting home stuff, they do have good

apparel. so i think target will have a fantastic christmas. >> all right for more on the outlook on retail as we head into the holiday season, let's get to former toys "r" us ceo, jerry, great to see you. >> my pleasure. >> seems like a number of challenges facing the retail industry as guy mentioned, you don't want to bet against the u.s. consumer so where do you come out on how this retail season will be >> look, of course there are challenges, but the opportunities are going to way overwhelm the challenges first of all, there's huge consumer momentum. when you look at what's going on with retail sales, look at the two-year stack that's the only way you can do it because last year was during the pandemic it's up double digits. that momentum is massive consumers have the money, they're spending it. the government keeps fueling it. that's going to drive all the way through the holidays i have almost no doubt about that secondly, some of the negatives or challenges are opportunities for many retailers stronger retailers don't have any problem when there's some

shortages and inflation. they actually do better. they can raise prices. look at that gross margin number it goes way up the consumer comes in the shop and goes i'm sorry i don't have what you want, but i have this no, it's not on sale we can't put it on sale. my gosh, we'd sell out in two sec seconds. so retailers are going to do just fine. and finally there's going to be the better than last year syndrome last year was horrible during the holiday season for covid it was the biggest lockdown conditions you can imagine people are learning more how to live with it for better or worse and i don't think we'll see that again, so a much better environment than last year way up double digits versus two years ago. i really see nothing but strength i said that when the retail report came out for july some people said it's slowing down year over year it was still up double digits. what happened? every retailer marched forward and reported amazing sales numbers. some disappointed a little

because they had very high expectations but they were all way up and we'll see that for the rest of the year. >> so jerry, prior to the pandemic on a show like ours we might have been talking about a lot of these department stores and just kind of kissing them good-bye and saying their time had come and gone. when you look at macy's that's up 100% on the year, up 300% from its pandemic lows, were the stocks bailed out or business bottles bailed out or both how do you think about some of these department stores going forward? >> well, you know that phrase dead cat balance i've seen nothing to suggest that traditional department stores have reduced or declined. in every segment, their two-year stack is by far the worst. nordstrom couldn't even with pent-up demand do better macy's did a little better but it's still much worse, much weaker than target, walmart, costco amazon, my gosh, they're still

the class of the e-commerce. then you have dick's and best buy. those are great places to go they're consistent where the consumer is going, towards sporting goods, towards electronics. home depot and lowe's is going to keep going. that's where the consumer head is right now, not department stores this is their last chance. if they can't post a positive two-year stack and a good healthy one this holiday, it's never happening. >> jerry, i also wanted to ask you about who or what type of retailer you think has pricing power. speaking to oliver chen, the retail analyst over at cowen and he said handbags you said be paying 10% to 20% more on handbags this holiday season i'm not in the market for a handbag thankfully, but i imagine that would be sticker shock for a lot of people. >> luxury has been doing great for a long time. they have been raising prices

forever. take a look at what your favorite burke costs now people have the money to spending, particularly in the stock market so i certainly think luxury will do great when i talk about department stores, i'm talking traditional department stores. luxury is thriving and will continue to thrive how could it not be strong >> jerry, good to see you, thank you. jerry storch. karen, i wanted to get to you on the back of that last bit of our conversation. could the real real be a winner this holiday season? >> i hope so it hasn't been so far, that's been a lump of coal so far but i think they're positioned well i think the circular economy is gaining a lot of traction so they do have goods they don't need to manufacture goods. i'm optimistic he's talking about luxury and

handbags and that plays very much into realreal's strength. they need a fourth quarter, a very good one to get the stock back on track and i think they'll get it. >> dan, i want to ask you abou visa you flagged it earlier today it's down 2.6% pretty much since its july recent highs hasn't been doing too well. >> yeah, and i think that might have to do with some of the deals we've just seen over the last month or so so saw square pay for afterpay that's a buy now, pay later platform out of australia. last week we saw the deal from amazon with affirm i thought that was really interesting. amazon already has a buy now, pay later. they're trying to get broader distribution for that. that might speak to a little bit of the fact that, okay, is this the sort of subprime sort of borrower who's looking for a point of sale sort of payment sort of thing. any way you think about it, i think this is a fascinating space to watch it's not fintech about the way

we think about technology enabling things, it's about lending. what sddoes that do to transactions for mastercard and visa they have rolled over. they have not confirmed any new highs in the s&p 500 for a while. keep an eye on that and also american express is down from its recent highs. the summer travel surge may be slowing down. tsa screenings hit their lowest level since may. what does it mean for airline stocks first an earnings alert on broadcom that stock on the move after the conference call is now under way. we'll have more on that next we're live from the nasdaq market site in timesque. asmoney" is back in two. need a s plan for my business, but all my employees need something different. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this... your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee... yeah i should've just led with that...

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you need with comcast business securityedge. ask how to get comcast business securityedge to help protect all your connected devices. and get started with a great offer on fast and reliable internet and voice for just $64.99 a month. plus, ask how to get a prepaid card up to $500. call or go online today to learn more. comcast business. powering possibilities. welcome back to "fast money. we've got an earnings alert on broadcom let's get to julia boorstin with all the details. hey, julia. >> yeah, shares of broadcom slightly lower in after hours trade. the company did beat on both the top and bottom lines but supply constraints appear to be holding back the semiconductor part of its business taking a look at that segment it did miss estimates slightly. the infrastructure software business, however, did perform

better than anticipated. that business bringing in 1.76 billion in revenue versus estimates of 1.69 billion. fourth quarter revenue guidance also stronger than analysts anticipated. the company guiding to revenue of 7.35 billion versus estimates of 7.23 billion. the president and ceo of broadcom said in the company's release that the company delivered record revenues in the third quarter reflecting our product and technology leadership across multiple secular growth markets, in cloud, 5g infrastructure and wireless we are projecting the momentum to continue in the fourth quarter. tan is kicking off the call with bullish comments about the fourth quarter, particularly when it comes to cloud customers. he's forecasting that they will upgrade. guys, back over to you. >> julia, thank you. g guy, what do you make of this quarter? >> i thought it was a great

quarter. operating margins up from a year ago. in terms of revenue, beat on revenue, beat on eps valuation, i think it's 17 times next year's numbers. broadcom is cheap. the problem is for whatever reason it's failing at the 495 level. that's where we topped out in march, seemingly having trouble now. i think we talked about it the other tonight on o.a., every friday at 5:30 i watch it religiously. the stock for whatever reason is having trouble here. i think you've got to give it a couple of days but it should go higher on the back of this quarter. >> are you better paying up for a company that has more solid growth or has had a better run >> yeah, in this market momentum is king. it hasn't really paid to necessarily go after the value in the particular sector what i think is particularly dangerous about this, we had a false breakout it looks like

above .500 everything we talked about demand is there but you can't get the supply to meet that demand therefore, your growth is limited. so i'm with guy on this one. i think you sit like a spider waiting for your next meal and see if it starts to break out. you don't have to do anything today. >> here's the would you rather to that point, dan nvidia at 54 times forward or broadcom which guy mentioned about 17. >> i much prefer broadcom and i think you go for the value here. if demand is not the issue, it is a supply thing. we know that's going to come back online. to guy's point, that's 17 times with consensus estimates for high single digits, earnings and sales growth next year and they guided up this quarter, it's cheap. those numbers are probably going to prove to be light so i think that the deceleration that we're likely to see in nvidia, because of the supply that they have had to meet their demand and the valuation, people are just crowding into it so i'd

much rather a broadcom here. >> we are just getting started here on "fast money. here's what's coming up next. summer travel losing steam tsa screenings dropping to their lowest levels since may. so what's in store for the airline trade? the traders are boarding that one, next. plus, amc you later. the reddit darling dropping recently as wall street and retail traders lock horns. both sides of this brewing batt wn asmoy" turns."ft ne ay. and anything could happen. it could be the day you welcome 1,200 guests and all their devices. or it could be the day there's a cyberthreat. get ready for it all with an advanced network and managed services from comcast business. and get cybersecurity solutions that let you see everything on your network. plus an expert team looking ahead 24/7 to help prevent threats. every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities.

welcome back to "fast money. airline stocks holding up despite a slowdown at the nation's airports. let's get to phil lebeau with the details.

hi, phil. >> hey, melissa. this is confirmation of something we've talked about for at least three or four weeks there has been a plateau in travel and it's starting to pull back a little bit. you need some proof of that? take a look at the tsa passenger screening levels we're showing you this because you can see that there was a peak in july since then if you take a look at the levels yesterday, down 22% the lowest since may 11th, 13th, somewhere in that range when 1.4 million people were screened, the month of august down 23% to 19 2 million passenger days and just 9 in the month of august. in july there were 18. so when you look at whaets ha -- what's happening delta has said that its flights between september and december, they're likely going to be down about 22%, approximately the airline capacity as we reported earlier this week when we had the research firm oag

crunch the numbers for us, it's down 9.1% the month of september. as we look at these stocks and what they have done, it has them all cutting their projections for revenue. there is a big investor conference coming up next week that's when we'll hear from a number of cfos and other executives we'll get a better sense of their out look for september and for the rest of this year, melissa. bottom line is this. we knew this was going to happen in september and october you've got a combination of factors. vacation season is over. people are going back to 6school kids are going back to school and you have a resurgence in covid-19 cases which has a lot of people cancel their flights or think twice about booking a flight put that together and you've got a pullback in travel at least in september and october. let's see what happens with the holidays. >> phil, when you say capacity is down 9%, is that period on period or is that -- i mean is

that quarter on quarter? it's year on year? >> september capacity is scheduled to be down 9.1% and this is based on oag looking at the flights that have been scheduled by the airlines. now, this could change they could pull it back even more but it's down right now 9% for september compared to september of last year. >> that's really amazing, phil, considering that september of last year was prevaccine and, you know, maybe people were more reluctant. so is this -- how much of it is delta and how much of it is just the airlines cutting back their capacity because of airline shortages? >> i don't think it's labor shortages. i think it's demand. when you talk to people in the industry, they're noticing that there really has been a pullback in demand. i think that relates to covid-19 >> all right, phil, thanks phil lebeau with the latest on that akaren, is it too soon to jump to conclusions here the airlines pretty much across

the board were fairly optimistic going into the summer and the fall about the return of business travel, the return of the leisure customer and here we are. >> i think at that time they had right to be optimistic and i think that they probably scheduled more planes, more routes and so talking about capacity, which is really the key here, i think that the capacity will be -- the little excess capacity, that marginal passenger not being there, that's rather damning for profitability or the attempt to get back to profitability. so even though the stocks have come down, i'm not optimistic on them being able to maximize the revenue because of this. we think about september last year and that was sort of in between waves. so i think people were starting to feel better then we didn't see the real wave until the fall and into the winter so i'm concerned about capacity. i used to be more concerned about the balance sheets they pushed out maturities so

they do have room to run in terms of not having debt payments, but i think that extra capacity is going to hurt them. >> guy >> it's interesting. i look at jetblue and by the way, i think you come to realize that the airlines sniffed this out in march most of these airlines if not all of the stocks basically topped out in march. i look at jetblue, which traded up to $22ish in february of 2020 and then fell off a cliff. as carter worth would say that move in this march was to the penny that prior high. we basically corrected 50% of that move that i just outlined, that basically 9 to 22 so for a trade, these airlines have discounted a lot of things we've talked about so jetblue is interesting right here. >> what's the impacts of all of this, brian kelly, of travel slowing down >> right so hotels and car rentals and everything you do when you get off the plane. i think those things are permanently impaired

not only that, remember we have very little international travel and that is unlikely to come back any time soon business travel is almost -- i shouldn't say nonexistent but down significantly again, i think that's a permanent change so i do think the airlines are rather challenged here the one thing you can do if you want to track this and say, all right, is this demand or supply, you can look at airline prices so use your favorite search engine google, i know dan likes bing, use that and find airline prices and you'll see they have come down a lot this fall >> dan, you were mentioning visa before. >> yeah. >> american express, for instance, highly leveraged to travel a lot of the bulls predicated the coming of axp on this return of travel and it doesn't look like it's returning as strongly. >> yeah. i will tell you that that zoom report the other night kind of led us to believe that maybe the travel stocks should be trading

better because we're seeing less uptake there on future customers. i'll just say this guy mentioned that the airlines sniffed this out months ago and guy sniffed this out i think over a hundred years ago with his co-author of the dow theory white paper charles dow when he suggested and charles that the transports should be confirming the highs and the industrials. we have not seen a new high in the dow transports in months i think they're down about 10% from their recent highs here and so to me that's kind of troubling in a way and so, you know, again, energy, we're just seeing crude oil break that downtrend that that's been in. that could be more trouble for some of these transports but it's not just the airlines if you look at some of the rails, they're down about 5%, 6% from their highs we mentioned fedex and u.p.s. so not a lot of great action for the transports. coming up, pop the popcorn the blockbuster battle over amc heating back up. one analyst downgrading the stock. we'll hear from him in moments.

plus, one of themost outspoken apes in this trade will defend his position and make his case ahead. n'go anywhere, "fast money" is back in two [music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] [music: “you're the best” by joe esposito] [triumphantly yells] [ding] don't get mad. get e*trade and take charge of your finances today.

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the action around amc heating up again. two men with very different takes on where this stock is headed matt cores is long shares of amc. he says it's heading higher from here he of course is known as an ape. we're going to hear from him in just moments first let's get to chad banen who's downgraded the stock to underperform with a $6 price target chad, welcome to the show. >> thanks, melissa appreciate it. >> big part of your note was highlighting sort of the obligations that amc still has even despite all of its capital raises ren rent is one of them how big of an issue is it for amc and how critical was that to you downgrading the stock to an underperform >> yeah, sure. for starters for the past couple of years we've been bulls on the space and real believers that

the streaming and the p-bod won't disrupt this industry. what we've seen in the data in the past couple of weeks tell us that the margins will be impaired for these companies going forward. i think it's very difficult for them to get back to the margins that they had in 2019. to your point when we look at some of the obligations that companies that we cover have to pay in 2022 and 2023, it was just hard for us to continue to support amc. we do have a 12 to 18-month target yes, it's the obligations that were the crux of our downgrade and we're projecting them to generate 0 cash flow in 2022 >> and the data that you're citing is from the past couple of weeks or so and is all box office data? i imagine we knew what the rent obligations were pretty much for the year well before a few weeks ago. >> yeah, it's the revenue

picture. so for the third quarter we're projecting down 50%. that gets down to 35 in the fourth quarter the big thing for next year we're projecting down 15% versus pre-pandemic prior to our downgrade, we were looking closer to levels getting back to pre-pandemic from an admission revenue standpoint. >> i respect that this is a fundamental analysis, chad, that's what you do for a living. you have a model and you've got to go with the numbers but at the same time, do you acknowledge that the stock even though your model may point to it may never get to 6? it may not actually be an underperform in your universe simply because of the other dynamics going on? >> yeah, absolutely. you know, we've been looking at some of the other meme stocks and some of the other options people could go into i understand that the technical setup is pretty positive and there's been a lot of people talking about that also. with people going back to work post labor day and sports betting coming out, there's going to be a lot more things that some of these retail day traders can look to do other

than support amc on a daily basis. i think just the overall options for them could also hurt this story going forward from a meme momentum standpoint. >> so you're saying meme investors may shift their focus to other meme sort of stories away from amc? >> yes. >> so even that part of the story could go away. >> yep. >> chad, great to see you. thank you for joining us >> thanks, melissa. >> chad beynon now let's get to one of the biggest apes in this stock matt joins us now. matt, i know that you guys -- when i say you guys, the army of the apes, have said repeatedly that it's not a fundamental story. is there any point at which you say the box office is simply not there and the stock won't go anywhere it may not go all the way down to 6 but it won't go much farther than 44? >> yeah, so i wouldn't agree

with that just because for many people, the millions of people who this particular story resonated with, the box office was not the reason why they got in so i don't know why the box office would be the reason that they get out i respect -- i was looking at chad and i respect a lot of what he said. right there even a little thing i want to point out kind of his commentary was more right now. it's a technical setup many of the, quote unquote, apes are in for a swing momentum play to see if there's an advantage of a short squeeze and a chance to make money on a pretty decent trade. so the box office, obviously i hope that it comes back and is stronger than ever, but right now that is part of the fundamental breakdown that not many of the people that are in the current trade are really focusing on at all. >> what's your current technical take on where the stock is trading right now? >> i'm extremely, extremely bullish, apish on where the technicals are at. honestly from july up until august we're seeing a bullish

follow-through and a beautiful cup and handle for my technicians out there and looking for it to test in the 46 to 48 area and see if we can get a breakout once we get back into the 50s, for the average duration of the shares that are out on loan, we have a lot of those people who all of a sudden they're going to start being underwater on the short position and to me that's where things get very, very interesting to see if there's some sort of pressure on them to start cutting before they go underwater and we could see an explosion like we saw in early june. >> hey, matt, it's b.k i'm looking at the technicals. yeah, it looks like it wants to break above 50 so let's talk about the other side let's say it breaks out, starts to run and you get the short squeeze. when do people get out of it then it's easy to make money but it's hard to keep it. >> yeah, i definitely agree with that part. here's where people have different opinions on where they do or don't. obviously i'm not a financial advisor. i implore everyone to come up

with their own trading plan. for me i'll be using some of the various data sources to track what's going on with the shorts and personally for me i'm looking for something as simple as following the trend and looking for the shorts to cover. not necessarily a price target and i'm not saying that's a good or bad plan, i'm just saying that's my personal plan. >> matt, great to check in with you. thanks. >> thank you. >> matt kohrs. guy, you've got to feel for some of these analysts out there who still have to day in, day out go with their research report that has a fundamental analysis when there are so many other factors at play in this story. >> there are a lot of factors at play a short squeeze -- i understand. but recently the stock averages about 140 million shares traded a day so if you're short the stock you have ample opportunity to get out on a daily if not hourly basis so i understand, i get it. people are short and they have to cover but basically on any given day, those shorts can cover in

spades so i'm not quite sure that holds as much water as the folks wanting to think with that said, could it go higher absolutely we live in a different world right now where as you said when we started that fundamentals really don't matter so i'm not certain why they're going to start mattering now. >> we've got an after hours alert here on beyond meat that we're watching shares are down after the company disclosed its coo left the company just last week the stock is now down by just under a percent at this point but it follows a string of c-suite departures over the past year or so dan, where do you stand on beyond >> i think the way this came out, i guess the cfo left abruptly it was announced days later. like you said, mel, this is a company that's had a hard time holding on to some senior executives you know, trading at, what, 14 times sales, that sort of thing, is not that compelling for a company that loses a lot of money and are not expected to be profitable for a couple of

years. a lot of competition out there isn't the jury still out whether it's still a good product or not. to me, this one doesn't interest me as all. coming up, the spac market has come to a standstill but there may be a way to earn some money in this space. karen is laying out why she is buying an underwater spac. options traders dialing into at&t as the stock pops in today's session. we'll tell you what was behind this move when "fast money" returns. (vo) at t-mobile for business, unconventional thinking means we see things differently, so you can focus on what matters most.

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welcome back to "fast money. after a red hot start to the year the spac market has slowed down in a big way. there was $100 billion in the first three months of the year some high profile names of taken a hit recently take a look at performance of stocks like beach body, virgin galactic while the market for spacs might be slowing there may be a way to profit from the space. so karen, what is your trade >> so the trade is slow free money and potentially you're getting paid to take a look at whatever deals some of these sponsors come up with. so the spacs are worth $10 if you don't like the deal that

they come up with, you can sort of put your stock back to the company and get the $10. so there's a number of spacs with high quality sponsors, high-profile sponsors like michael kline of churchill, so cbii is one, gary cohn and cliff robbins have another one so i've been buying them as a discount to 10 the thought is i will sit on them they have to find a deal by two years after the spac comes public so michael kline has 18 months left on cbii, for example. gary cohn has only one year left on crhc to come up with a deal i know that i'm going to get at least 10 back, so that's nice, but i get a look at whatever deal they come up with they're really incented to come up with a deal they make a lot of money if they come up with a deal. i don't know if the market will turn or not, but i know that i'll have a chance to look at whatever deal they get it may trade up on the announcement of the deal and i have until the actual

merger closes to decide what to do if they pick -- if they get a company and the market loves it and it trades up, i don't need to wait until the end, i can sell it higher so you're getting paid an option to take a look at what they have i think it's -- it's just for selling, too many levered holders of spac stocks so i'll sit around and wait and get paid to do it. >> karen almost lost me at slow but she got me at fast she said slow, free money, b.k too good to be true here what's the catch in your view? >> well, the catch is that they can go down more there's nothing necessarily guaranteeing that you won't get a seller out there ultimately you're going to get your 10 bucks back so you may have to wait a bit and stomach some volatility. but to me i think it's a great play i would almost think of it if you're thinking about your portfolio, put them in your fixed income bucket. probably better to do this trade than it is to buy bonds at this

point. i'd much rather be here because i've got a bond-like return with a call option on top of it i like that asymmetric return. >> dan, how about you? >> i think karen used the expression for selling we're looking at these things down 2, 3% you might want to wait until you get down 10% because i don't think the force selling is going to end right here. we haven't had a meaningful sell-off in probably six months or so. if that were to happen, there's a lot more spacs now than six months ago there's fewer and fewer targets that make a lot of sense or you would have already seen deals being announced. to me, i don't mind 983 particularly compelling when i think the risk could be down to maybe 9 if we had a broad market decline. but i do like the strategy i think it makes sense as usual, karen is like the smartest one on the panel here. >> i would agree with that. coming up, shares are at&t

are higher today so what had options traders piling into this stock? we've got the reason when "fast money" returns (vo) this is a place for ambition. a forge of progress. a unicorn in training. a corner to build a legacy. a vision for tomorrow. a fresh start. a blank canvas. a second act. a renewed company culture. a temple for ideas. and a place to make your mark. loopnet. the most popular place to find a space.

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welcome back to "fast money. check out at&t shares spiking on rumors that berkshire hathaway could be amassing a large position in the telecom giant. it did cause the stock to pop and also caused a stir among options traders. mike khouw joins us with the action mike, what did you see >> we saw more than five times the daily average call volume in at&t this is not a name we normally highlight but it was actually ranked fourth among single stocks in terms of options contract volume right up with apple, tesla, amc and bbic the most active options were the weekly 27.5 calls. over 93,000 of those traded for a little over 22 cents per share on average obviously buyers are those of expecting the bump we saw today possibly to continue into tomorrow if they hold those through

expiration, they'll end up owning the stock at 27.72 per share tomorrow. >> if we think that the stock popped on these rumors, guy, then you have to think that maybe some of the rumors would be true or some part of it would be and that maybe at&t is actually a value stock, that there is value in it do you think that is the case? >> no, because it's been a value stock for literally the last six years. it's been trading sideways to lower on a broader market that's been off to the races. t-mobile, which is obviously a competitor, just what that stock has done when you compare it to at&t so i get the pop and i'm sure people get geeked up on the back of this, but it's just been a horrible stock to own, dividend notwithstanding. so is it going to trade up to $28.50, $29, maybe >> we're down the path already, the horse is out of the barn brian kelly, what do you think of at&t here >> on this one i think i'm siding more with guy

i'm an apathetic ape on this, who comes. berkshire has underperformed for years and so there was a little bit of a pop here. is this really the great stock to be in it's all for you guys, not for me >> all right mike khouw, thank you. we'll see you in the next hour for more options action tune in friday at 5:30 p.m. eastern time. it is time now for the final trade. let's go around the horn brian kelly, what do you say >> well, this one is for the aggressive traders first solar buy anticipating a breakout. >> karen finerman? >> yeah, i'm going with one of these spacs, the michael kline one, churchill 7, c bvii. >> dan nathan. >> i think at&t is fine. but i like broadcom on the weakness if you get weakness back toward that recent level, i think you buy it i think guidance was good and next year is probably too low. >> guy, you're going to stick around, right? don't forget, you're sticking around. >> of course i am. and since we're in the holiday

season, most of you folks remember there was actually yukon cornelius who saved christmas when he bailed out rudolph. yukon yorecornelius, silver and gold see how i connected the dots, mel? >> that does it for this hour. a special bonus edition of "fast money" starts right after this break. i'm searching for info on options trading, and look, it feels like i'm just wasting time. that's why td ameritrade designed a first-of-its-kind, personalized education center. oh. their award-winning content is tailored to fit your investing goals and interests. and it learns with you, so as you become smarter, so do its recommendations. so it's like my streaming service. well except now you're binge learning. see how you can become a smarter investor with a personalized education from td ameritrade. visit tdameritrade.com/learn

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edition of "fast money." i'm melissa lee. jim cramer is off tonight. the northeast trying to recover fro the deadly storm massive flooding and even tornados forecast for the rest of the season and the plan to beef us ourinfrastructure. an plus a new crackdown in china. president xi wants to set up a new stock exchange to list there. what impact could this have on our markets. and later, so long seltzer, bye-bye beer