a handle of states but they think when they get licensing, they will be able to win over the customers they already have to the sports book. >> very interesting. all right, good story. >> thanks. >> i love the word promiscuous. >> thanks, everybody, for watching "power lunch." we hope you have a good weekend. "closing bell" starts right now. of hello, i'm mike santoli in for scott wapner. stocks with a winning week this month and what would be a fifth straight monthly gain if it lasts through next week with all of the bull market drivers engaged of the s&p 500 on a flat line but that sits on a 2.4% gain week to date. big neck reasserting leadership behind nvidia. the s&p 500's largest upside contributor both today and this week, after the splashy developers conference. the stock up almost 3% today. healthy economic readings and

healthy capital spending. clicking to a new high earlier this morning. and a dovish message from the fed, looking at treasury yields, down in a more comfortable zone, for equity investors, the 10-year note, back down to 4.22. so here's the report card with 60 minutes to go in regulation. you can see the nasdaq, up about a quarter of a percent. modest gains. but certainly hanging on to a strong week. the russell 2000 giving back sot. so outperformance down almost 1% on the day. that all takes us to the talk of the tape. with investors squarely focused on the blessings of a soft economic landing and a benign fed and exuberant ai buildout are there any hazards being ignored? >> let's talk to the managing parth ner and cnbc contributing editor. great to have you. >> it could be good news. the market is fully embracing what it sees in front of it. do you think it could be that easy for a while longer? or should we be on the lookout for a little more chop here?

>> bull markets always feel it is easy to see in behindsight. we have had a return of returns in three months. right when you look at pretty much every broad index, it is up close to 7 to 10%. and i think it is natural, we're not going to continue on this three-month tear that we've had. but you have some settling out. but i think unless some exogenous event, which is not worth talking about, because it is exogenous by nature, it seems like we're in a really nice area where the market is not panicking about the 10-year, solidly above 4, the market is not panicking that it went from 6 to 3 rate cuts, tand comes down to excitement about ai, and also a broadening out of returns being enjoyed by many, many other sectors and securities besides nvidia, meta, and microsoft. >> that is for sure. people ask for it, and the market delivered it so far this year, in terms of broader participation. you know, you mentioned it is like a year's worth, an average

year's worth of returns in three months, but it is also true that bull markets, it is essentially rare for bull markets to give 8 to 10%, and overshoot to the upside. and the s&p 500 has been up more than 20% in a calendar year, and three times as often as it has been down 10%. so i guess the question is, is there any reason that you would want to be rebalancing away from what has been winning already, and looking for still other things that haven't yet quite caught it? >> how we have been allocating is i would say we have our core kind of down the fairway s&p exposure, really barbelling that with technology, and then companies that have a high free cash flow yield, and where as last year, it was really just the nasdaq, and that free cash flow yield, i think there are 9 or 10%, we have already seen those types of companies, which actually are more value biased, do really well this year, so we're going to stick with what's working, having that core s&p

exposure with a barbell around tech and a free cash flow yield and i think that will continue to be a winning recipe. >> in terms of some of your core holdings, i know you own apple and it is about flat for the week, actually, even though it did have a big wobble and is relatively underperforming after the department of justice suit, the news out of that yesterday, what's your read right now on maybe not just the merits of the case, but how apple finds itself right now having to persuade investors that it can kind of clear that hurdle, but also prove that it is going to re-enter a growth mode? >> well, i mean re-enter growth mode has been a question for some time. and i think the reason why we have a premium on the stock is like at costco, like a proctor and gamble, their earnings are very durable and stable and such huge install base. apple is down, what, 10% for the year, and so i think it is less about this d.o.j., but more about, they don't have an ai story, which is fine, but that's like exciting for investors, and

i think they are, we are going to have to wait one or two cycles to get people really wanting to upgrade, and if you want to talk about, you know, the d.o.j. suit, i think it's not even nearly as explosive as it could have been once i read through it. >> okay. sow don't think that -- well, i was interested to see the fact that the stock did go down 4% on the news. in other words, you know, everyone is looking at the same details, it seems the kind of thing we thought that the authorities might scrutinize, and try to contest, and yet, the market sort of backed away. >> right. well, it's kind of -- you know, it's interesting, if you just even skim through it, it seems like, i mean there's multiple points but to me, they're having issues with apple because in other words to watch, i mean this is their clip, high quality videos, you have to buy a very expensive phone and that doesn't make any sense, well, it is expensive because it gives so much value, and then you know,

they don't like the google that when you texas from an android, it turns green, and you know, they're very competitive, but to me, this is not a microsoft case, like we saw in the early 2000s or late '90s with microsoft, which i think it is so much teeth and meat, and really put microsoft back years and years. and by the way, allowed other companies to go forward. i think this is going to last a while. but i don't think it is going to be a hangover on the stock very long. i think it is more about the ai story and the refresh of the apple phone. when is that going to be. and how much, how many people are going to upgrade. to me, that is what you need as a catalyst to get the stock above that 250 or 100-day moving average. >> right. yes, it has been sort of technically sort of compromised a little bit. finally, also, another word on tesla. you know, you've owned it for a while. various levels. it's obviously been a under a lot of pressure. it is mostly about volumes and pricing. it's not necessarily a lot of the ancillary stuff.

so what's the path out, if there is one, for that name? >> well, there is always a path out, right? so i think that i never want to underestimate elon and his team. they continue to iterate and evolve full self driving. i think that in the u.s., they will continue to dominate the ev. really, mike, it's china. you know, china is the question in the ev mark and a ton of question from byd. i think he needs a catalyst to get investors excited about the story again. because right now, what is not exciting is the earnings growth is looking to be this next quarter to be down 25% year over year. those important type of metrics are going the wrong way and until you get stability in earnings and revenue, you won't have new money come into the stock because it is too big of a company to not have the earnings growth behind it in order to catalyze it to go higher. >> yes, it is obviously been sort of trapped in that gravity field for a little bit.

stay with us. let's bring in scott rand of wells fargo institute and ed klisso, and ed, i would like to get your current checkup on the bull market, and how it is working, and what do you think we have in the way of fuel left in the tank in the immediate term? >> yes, i think big picture, things are in pretty good shape. the risks are low. and historically, you don't get nonrecession bear markets this close to the one we had at the end of 2022, so it is really about we're setting up for a near-term correction, and there are some ingredients in place, we've got 100 days without even a 3% pullback in the s&p, and the last time we went that long was, it ended in january of 2018, right before the incident with the vix etns. we're overbut. the sentiment composite is showing lots of optimism. we've gone 16 weeks of excessive

optimism. that's the fifth largest on record, going back to 1995. so the ingredients are there. is there a down side catalyst? we could all kind of hypothesize if yields spike, if the fed changes course, if there are downward earnings revisions, those could all be catalysts but we need to think in terms of a healthy pullback with an ongoing bull market. >> gotcha. so yes, you have the atmospheric conditions but we don't know if it will develop into anything. and i guess yourwork would suggest, whatever comes on the way of a pullback, it probably wouldn't be a big one. so i guess reassuring. so scott, how would you think about things? i know you're looking at the possibility for maybe a little bit more downside, or at least not the most favorable risk/reward here. >> yes, i tell you, mike, i don't think the risk/reward is that favorable, and certainly, stocks have made a gigantic move since the october 27th low. we're not chasing the s&p 500 from these levels.

and you know, stocks are expensive, but you know, it's the tech bubble back in 2000, as it showed, they can get more expensive. but what we're trying to do is look under the hood a little bit, and really, if you look back, whether it is calendar year '23, whether it is the last 12 months, you know, tech looks expensive to us, communication services look expensive to us, and you know, there's been some head winds in the consumer discretionary sector which you just talked about, but for us, we're trimming from those sectors, and this has been over the last few months or so, and we've been buying things like materials, industrials, energy, and if you look over the last six months, those have not been outperformers, but if you look over the last month, you know, you'll see materials, energy, industrials, in the top three, so i think things are starting to turn. we definitely, we want to be overweight large cap,

underweight small. we don't think it's time to buy the russell 2000 or anything like that, we want to be overweight u.s., relative to international, so there's been some things that have worked as the market has gone higher than what we initially expected it to. but certainly, you know, to have a 5 or 10% pullback from here, that is not a bold car in any stretch at all. and so we're looking for some volatility here. you know, i think the market has been comfortable that we're not going to have six or search fed cuts this year. and i think surprisingly a little bit, the market is starting to get comfortable that we might not even have three cuts. so you know, i think the market is running on momentum here. there's a lot of people that are kind of getting into the market. i don't sense that there's a lot of chasing going on. certainly money managers who have the s&p 500 as part of the benchmark can't be sitting on

cash and watch this thing set records every day. traders, they're going with the flow on a daily basis, but on a retail sort of basis where we know there is a lot of cash on the sidelines, i don't sense a lot of chasing so far, so we could see a little bit of upside here, but i think you need to be cautious on just jumping in and buying the s&p 500 here. >> yes, i guess it depends where we're looking. i mean if you look at real high, active trader retail, that segment, there has been some chasing, there has been some wild move notice options market but the overall retail base, a lot of cash still in those accounts. and ed, when it comes to the pace of rate cuts, i know you've kind of said for some time that actually fewer cuts might be better for the stock market. now, the market may be showing us that, but why would that be the case? >> yes, what we did is we looked at historical rate cut cycles and said let's say the fed is cutting very quickly, five or more cuts in the year, or actually the market has done

much worse under those scenarios when the fed has cut four or fewer times and the reason is because when the fed is cutting quickly, they have already made a mistake and chasing their tail and trying to avoid a recession and doing a poor job of it. so the move for the fed fund futures looking for seven cuts to maybe three, maybe two, it is actually moving into the better situation of a slow cycle. the fed moves slowly. so you think of the last few times it happened, say in '84, and '95, and 2018, those kind of slow cycles tend to be positive for the market. so yes, this is actually a better setup than what the futures were pointing to earlier in the year. >> yes, doing the math, a little bit of a deeper pullback, and the dow is mostly lead together downside. a lot of that is nike. and brin, obviously nike has issues but spotty guidance from consumer companies, it hasn't always been about the consumers being very healthy. it has been hit or miss.

how does that fit into whatever thought you might have in terms of where we are in the cycle and where we prefer to look within the market? >> you know, i think on the consumer side, these earnings are idiosyncratic. i mean i feel like nike is china. i feel like lululemon, there are a lot of brands out there, and it takes change, and so i think we still have -- i mean we can look at the credit card data, it is moving up, credit card delinquencies, but don't forget, mike, it is like a strong jobs market equals a strong consumer. they're one and the same. so until that jobs market, we start getting higher unemployment, which it is just i don't think anyone see, that the consumer is going to stay relatively strong, and so i would really pass that off to idiosyncratic specific companies than a broad brushstroke on the retail consumer. >> scott, it struck me, you think that maybe there is going to be some slowdown risk, i guess, but yet industrials, materials, you prefer, it is a tricky place in the market, if

you want to look at some things that appear that, you know, that are well positioned with earnings, revisions, and things like that, you kind of have toing making a bit of a macro call that the economy is going to hang in there, don't you? >> well, you kind of do, mike. and for us, i think as far as the energy call, you know, oil, we don't think it is going to trade much below 70. that's why we were favorable on energy there. because we still think there's some supply issues out there. and then really, if you look at materials and industrials, they're benefitting mightily from all of this infrastructure that is going on. and whether it is, who is going to be the next president, or what the economy does here, in the short-term, over the next couple of quarters, and there's going to be a lot of infrastructure spending that's in the books, that's going to be introduced, that's going to go on, and so i think those sectors, you know, normally, this might be a little early, for those sectors to be outperformers, but you know, given the stimulus, the deficit spending that is going on, that

you know, clearly isn't going away any time soon, i think those have been more favorable than they normally would be, and that was kind of our thesis behind trying to get behind those sectors. >> yes, you know, example number 4,000, that this cycle hasn't been synced up to what we might have been used to in terms of reading all of the signals. >> brin, scott, and ed, thank you very much. have a good weekend. >> thank you. let's go over to kristina partsinevelos for the biggest names moving into the close. >> fedex is a top s&p 500 gainer today. even though it posted its sixth quarter of year over year sales declines which the company blamed on lower fuel surcharges and decreased shipment volumes. but the company beat analyst expectations thanks to stringent cost cutting. the logistics company also announced a flew $5 billion share repurchase program, and promised to keep trimming for the rest of the year and that is why shares are up 7%. shares of digital world acquisition corp are off earlier

lows but down 10% after the shell company shareholder approved a merger with donald trump's social media company trump media. the newly-merged company trump media could begin trading under the new ticker, djt as early as next week. the former president holds a majority stake in the new firm, which could be worth billions of dollars, if it regains that 10% loss that we saw today. >> all right. yes, a very tricky situation. thank you. we're just getting started here. up next, former dallas federal reserve president robert kaplan is here and where he sees inflation headed from here. we're live from the new york ocstk exchange. you're watching "closing bell" on c nbc.

rylee! from rylee's realty! hi! this listing sounds incredible. let's check it out. says here it gets plenty of light. and this must be the ocean view? of aruba? huh. this listing is misleading. well, when at&t says we give businesses get our best deal, on the iphone 15 pro made with titanium. we mean it. amazing. all my agents want it. says here...“inviting pool”. come on over! too inviting. only at&t gives businesses our best deals on any iphone. get iphone 15 pro on us. (♪♪) they're waiting for you. hey, do you have a second? they're all expecting more. more efficiency. more benefits. more growth. when you realize you can give your people everything, and more. thank you very much. [applause] ask, "now what?" here's what. you go with prudential to protect, empower and grow. with everything you need to deliver, you guessed it... more. one more thing... who's your rock? learn more at prudential.com

did you ever worry we wouldn't get to enjoy this? [jeff laughs maniacally] (inner monologue) seriously, look at these guys. they are playing great. meanwhile, i'm on the green and all i can think about is all the green i'm spending on 3 kids in college. not to mention the kitchen remodel, and we'd just remodel the bathrooms last month. with empower, i get all of my financial questions answered. so i don't have to worry. so you're like a guru now? oh here it comes— join 18 million americans and take control of your financial future with a real time dashboard and real live conversations. empower. what's next. meet ron. ron eats, sleeps and breathes hoops, but oh how he can nail a software solution. you need ron. ron needs a retirement plan. work with principal so we can help you with a plan that's right for him. let our expertise round out yours.

her uncle's unhappy. with a plan tha i'm sensing anim. 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. we're getting news on the ipo front on a friday afternoon.

pippa stevens has more. a filing today, to trade under the ticker for ibotta, ibta. it is a firm backed by walmart. back in november, there were reports it was valued at as much as $2 billion. goldman, citi and bank of america are handling the ipo. mike? >> all right. i guess the window is open, pippa, thank you. the dow pulling back from the record high. still heading for its best week of the year though. the major averages all on track for healthy gains there week. following wednesday's fomc meeting. chair powell reassuring investors that rate cuts are likely on the way. joining me now to discuss is robert kaplan, former dallas fed president. he is also former vice chair at goldman sachs. robert, great to see you. it's interesting the market had a net positive reaction, considering that the statement and message were almost identical to what we saw last time, right? so in other words, not much change in the fed's stance. it feels as if policy makers are wanting to make use of the

luxury of time to maybe allow inflation to get a little bit better. but what did you pull out of what chair powell had to say that is most relevant to the outlook? >> i'd say the statement, his comments were pretty much as expected. he is setting up the option to cut in june, but leaving the flexibility in case they don't like the information and data they see over the next few months. i think he reaffirmed what they said back in december, but i think the fed is going to want to turn over a few more cards, and he gave them the flexibility to do that. the market may also be reacting to his comments on the balance sheet, which actually may be more significant for the market in that it is clear the fed is moving toward slowing the runoff of the balance sheet over the next few months. and i think that actually might be as or more significant than the statement, the comments on interest rates. >> right. so i guess he said, essentially, soon, that they will likely have

a plan for tapering the quantitative tightening, and perhaps that was a little bit sooner than people were expecting that to be on the radar, seeing as if the market did take a little bit of heart in that. but piggerbigger picture, it fe like the fed, the committee is wedded to this area, there is a lot of room between where rates are and inflation is, each if it is not near target. so almost like there is an urgency maybe to get started, as a matter of just, you know, normalizing, getting that process going, even if it is not really to explicitly help the economy. >> yeah, listen, the fed is very mindful of the fact that they probably were late this cycle in raising rates and starting to run up the balance sheet, maybe as much as 20 months late. i think they're now thinking about the fact that they don't want to overstay, keeping rates

high for too long. the issue that is making this more difficult, though, is you still have very substantial fiscal spending on unspent arpa money, american rescue act money, inflation reduction act projects, infrastructure act projects, which are stimulating demand for labor, as the fed is trying to cool demand, and i think that is creating resiliency, particularly in the service sector, and on wages on the other hand, you had a couple of developments, labor supply growth, probably from immigration, and productivity looks like it is a little higher, which means maybe we can grow a little faster with lower inflation. bus these are cross-currents, and i think it is still unclear which of these cross-currents is going to be more dominant. which is why they're kicking the can at least a little bit longer. >> sure. i guess there's even another overlay on all of those cross-currents that you mentioned, which is the parts of the economy that would or are

most responsive to higher interest rates, to restrain inflation, are the goods part, the housing, it is the stuff that is already feeling the effect, and it is unclear if services inflation can be, you know, addressed in a similar way, by keeping rates up here. >> yes, that is right. i agree with that. so it's not like, it's not like tight monetary policy isn't working, as you just said. it's affecting real estate. it's affecting the desire to keep inventory. it is affecting banks' willingness to lend to small businesses. so it is having an effect. the issue is, there's a counter-force which is fiscal spending, deficit fiscal spending on projects, which is resilient. it's not stopping goods disinflation. but it probably is making service sector inflation a little more resilient, and so the fed is getting ready to take action, but it's not committing to it by any means, and i think they would be wise, and if i

were there, i would want to withhold judgment for a little longer, just to see how this is all going to shake out. >> yes. probably glad to have two or three months before they're expected to do anything whatsoever, just to see how things shake out. robert, great to have you. thank you very much. robert kaplan. >> great to see you, mike. we're getting some news on ai startup enthroppic. kate has that for us. >> the hottest tech investment out there right now. i spoke to three sources who tell me a stake in anthropic is shaped on to wealthfunds but saudi arabia will not be a new investor. they have ruled out taking any money from the saudi public investment fund, despite the saudi's interest in technology investing, and more than 900 billion this assets it has to spend. sources tell us that anthropic has privately cited national security risks. the stake is for sale because it belongs to ftx, the kpaled

crypto exchange offloaded from three years ago, worth $500 million and the stake is now worth more than a billion dollars after the recent boom in ai. the sale i'm told is still ongoing. the proceeds will be used eventually to pay back ftx exercises. the banker of the process declined to comment in this story. and anthropic has raised more than $7 billion the past few years from tech giants including amazon and alphabet and salesforce, and the language model competing with open ai's chat gpt, these are class b shares sold at the same valuation i'm told as the company's last financing round which a source tells me $18.4 billion. the founders of anthropic pre-emptively told bankers they would not accept saudi money they do not plan to challenge money from other sovereign wealth funds including the united arab emirates, the uae-based fund that is actively looking at investing, and one of the people that i spoke to, the

potential buyers of ftx's stake are also looking at a bit of a syndicate of new investors. a source tell mese that i'm told that amazon and alphabet are not increasing their holings through this particular stake. anthropic and google and amazon declined to comment. back to you. >> 18.4 $18.4 billion, i mean i grand scheme, with all of the kind of big numbers being thrown around, ai capacity, it seems like a modest number. >> you can see that it is discounted, depending how you look at it. >> yes. >> it is. and it is also interesting, that seeing kind of the makeup of the potential investors who typically had sort of these big tech investors on the cap table, it would be fascinating if you started to see more sovereign wealth, and also these individual investors, there's money being raised through special purpose vehicles as well. so you have smaller investors trying to get in. so you may get a little bit more diversity on the cap table with this ftx stake being old, mike. >> interesting. kate, appreciate it.

up next, investing with artificial intelligence. generative ai has made its way into the world of finance and shaking up how investors are managing their portfolios. we will speak with one investing assistant company how this could imctheart d urpa t mkeanyo money. we'll be right back. as an independent financial advisor, i stand by these promises. as a fiduciary, i promise to be the financial steward that you and your family need. i promise to put your long-term financial well-being above any short term transaction. everyone has a big picture. my job is to help you invest in yours. [announcer] charles schwab is proud to support the independent financial advisors who are passionately dedicated to helping people achieve their financial goals. visit findyourindependentadvisor.com

you know what's brilliant? boring. think about it. boring is the unsung catalyst for bold. what straps bold to a rocket and hurtles it into space? boring does. great job astro-persons. over. boring is the jumping off point for all the un-boring things we do. boring makes vacations happen, early retirements possible, and startups start up. because it's smart, dependable, and steady. all words you want from your bank. taking chances is for skateboarding... and gas station sushi. not banking. that's why pnc bank strives to be boring with your money. the pragmatic, calculated kind of boring. moving to boca? boooring. that was a dolphin, right? it's simple really, for nearly 160 years, pnc bank has had one goal: to be brilliantly boring with your money so you can be happily fulfilled with your life... which is pretty un-boring if you think about it. thank you, boring.

power e*trade's easy-to-use tools, like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis, help make trading feel effortless. and its customizable scans with social sentiment help you find and unlock opportunities in the market. e*trade from morgan stanley. with powerful, easy-to-use tools, power e*trade makes complex trading easier. react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity. e*trade from morgan stanley.

welcome back. generative ai has become the defining narrative for the tech sector, it is also making its way into the way of finance as a

tool for individual investors to manage their portfolios. here is the founder and ceo of tiffen, the company behind the ai investing assistant magnify. great to see you. >> my pleasure, my friend. >> give us just a quick snapshot of what the service is, and what makes it ai, what does it enable an individual investor to do? >> so mike, we have a collection of ai systems that tiffin magnify's one of them, which helps an individual investor bring together all of their accounts and in the u.s. 25 million people with more than one directed account, and ask questions, and get insights and get suggestions, and be specific. and sometimes people come in and ask us what happens if i buy nvidia. or for example, how much apple do i hold? because they exist within funds and indices, and positions, and multiple accounts. or we find people come and ask us, what happens to my portfolio if rates go up or emerging markets drop. the early investors often ask

us, how do i repire early, what is the plan i can put in place. essentially it is the decisions of both the system, guiding if you will to make better decisions for investors. >> how is it different than what might have been out there already, which is some kind of a recommendation engine or some profile that you would sort of have in your accounts that says, you know, do my risk weightings and all the rest of it that you might have been able to do for a while? >> it's a great question. and in some cases, the question hasn't changed for the investor. they want intelligence. and intelligence wasn't delivered in many places. the brokerage account, the workplace account, we have the ai assistance, with these places where money sits. think of it this way. back in the day, you had a paper map that you looked at and mapped out your journey and you went off. today, our gps system that is realtime, it adjusts things, you can take a turn and it will adapt to it. so this is a conversational

interaction, where it can give you options, one could be a fast route and a scenic route, and it will adapt to that in a back and forth manner. >> about a decades ago, i remember, you know, the big wave was robo advisers, just the software-based, you know, advisory service, which is instead of perhaps a human financial adviser, you can just plug into, and it went on auto pilot, and it would adjust over time. obviously, those have grown. but is that has not really displaced individual financial advisers very much. how does your set of services fit in? >> i don't believe, we don't believe that financial advisers are going to be displaced any time soon. essentially, we believe that individuals will have money in three places, the self-directed account, the advised account, and their employer account. and intelligence will seep into all of these three places, using ai assistance. advisers are using ai assistance, also, to get better answers. effectively, all of this

together boils down to what is inevitable, which is better advice for more people. that's what the ai assistance is enabling. >> and just quickly, before we go, because somebody just subscribed to the service -- does somebody just subscribe to the service or you get an account with mag fy fy. >> you go to magnify.com and you subscribe like a streaming service or information. >> and plug nur information. >> yes and get answers. >> up next, we are tracking the close. >> the ceo shakeup at papa john's getting a price downgrade for the stock. and dutch brothers selling more shares. details next.

complexity. healthcare payments are filled with it. wasted time, inadequate resources. confusion about the cost of care and how to afford it. it's time to simplify. waystar's technology is the way to make healthcare payments more human. the way for providers to prioritize care and improve margins. the way for patients to have clarity and trust. the way to care for healthcare payments.

waystar. the way forward.

here's why you should switch fo to duckduckgo on all your devie duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine like google, but it's pi and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooi and creepy ads that follow youa from google and other companie. and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today.

20 minutes until the closing bell. the dow down about 250. the other indexes just below the flat line, all set for weekly gains, of better than 2% though. let's go back to the key stocks to watch. >> well, let's start with papa johns shores. they're down 3% after bank of montreal lowered the price target of the pizza chain to $80 from 90. they still maintain an outperform, the stock is almost 4% lower. the announcement was surprised by papa john's ceo rob lynch's departure announced yesterday. he had been with papa johns for almost five years but the departure grows to the growing

list of decents, the ceo, the coo, the chairman of the board, the list continues and it comes as the company is facing market pressures and competition from domino's and questions about franchise economics. from pizza and burgers to coffee. shares of coffee chain dutch brothers are down about 6% after announcing a secondary public offering represented by tsg consumer partners. the selling stockholders want to sell roughly 8 million shares, priced at $34 a piece. shares are now $33.47. mike? >> thank you. coming up, the retail rundown, nike, lululemon and lvnh all getting hit in today's session. what is behind those moves and what is signaling about the health of the consumer. the "closing bell" will be right back. .for the championship! nice shot, marcus! sweet, turn simulation off. tssk, tssk, not so fast. what, why? did you forget marcus? forget what? your chem exam?

uggh? flashcard time! the atomic weight of boron. the future isn't scary, not investing in it is. 100 innovative companies, one etf. before investing, carefully read and consider fund investment objectives, risks, charges expenses and more in prospectus at invesco.com.

♪ ♪ investment objectives, risks, chnext. expenses next. stop. we got it? no. keep going. aga... [ sigh ] next. next. if you don't pick one... oh, you have time. am i keeping you from your job. next. i don't even know where i am anymore. stop. do we finally have it? let's go back to the beginning. are you... your electric future. customized. the fully-electric audi q4 e-tron. ♪ ♪ to build the electric vehicle of the future, you need partners. mining partners. technology partners. education. supply chain. energy. what if one partner could do it all? that partner is ontario, canada. with all the critical minerals to make electric vehicle batteries. 65,000 stem graduates per year.

one of north america's largest i.t. clusters. a fully integrated supply chain. all powered by one of the cleanest grids in north america. ontario. your innovation partner. ( ♪♪ ) were you worried the wedding would be too much? nahhhh... (inner monologue) another destination wedding?? we just got back from her sister's in napa. who gets married in napa? my daughter. who gets married someplace more expensive? my other daughter. cancun! jamaica!! why can't they use my backyard!! with empower,

we get all of our financial questions answered. so we don't have to worry. can we get out of here? i thought you'd never ask. join 18 million americans and take control of your financial future with a real time dashboard and real life conversations. empower. what's next. welcome back. the dow's recent run bringing it pretty close to 40,000. less than 2% away right now. so what stocks might push the dow over that milestone? head to cnbc.com/pro for the details. scan the qr code on your screen. up next, reddit shares slipping on the second day of trading. details and what the market debut could be signaling about the ipo market. plus, best buy getting a boost, one jp morgan analyst is getting bullish on that name. he will join us. that, and much more, when we take younse e rk ze. iidthmaeton unlocking the power of thinkorswim, the award-winning trading platforms. bring your trades into focus on thinkorswim desktop

with robust charting and analysis tools, including over 400 technical studies. tailor the platforms to your unique needs with nearly endless customization. and track market trends with up-to-the-minute news and insights. trade brilliantly with schwab.

my name is oluseyi and some of my favorite moments throughout my life are watching sports with my dad. now, i work at comcast as part of the team that created our ai highlights technology, which uses ai to detect the major plays in a sports game. giving millions of fans, like my dad and me, new ways of catching up on their favorite sport.

power e*trade's easy-to-use tools, like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis, help make trading feel effortless. and its customizable scans with social sentiment help you find and unlock opportunities in the market. e*trade from morgan stanley. with powerful, easy-to-use tools, power e*trade makes complex trading easier. react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten,

or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity. e*trade from morgan stanley. bell market zone. julia has more on how reddit faired in second day of trading. and we have a report that apple is exploring a deal. courtney reagan brings us big moves in the world of retail. and jpmorgan has more on why they're getting more bullish on best buy. julia, a little bit of a dip in reddit but still well above the offering price. >> yes, that's right. reddit lost about 3.5% in the second day of trading. but it is still about a $1.50 above where it started trading yesterday at $47. up 43% from where it was priced at $34. so now, steve huffman, the ceo of reddit, faces some key challenges.

the ftc's inquiry into the company's data licensing practices, including the $60 million deal with google, the industry research calling that inquiry a 5% overhang on its $54 price target for reddit. he also faces some stiff competition for digital ad dollars with larger rivals pinterest and snap, and particularly with meta. the giant in this space. and then there's also the question of what happens with reddit-ers turn against the stock, the popular reddit forum is still pretty mixed. and finally, we will have to see how reddit creating a business around subscriptions and a user economy and the business which is excited about down the line will take years to build. mike? >> all right. again, not a bad gain from the offer price at $34. we will see how it goes from here. thanks, julia. dee, and talk about am and baydou and ai ambitions. >> the chat bot that we're talking about all the time, chatgpt, they're very good at

english language queries, china, a totally different case. so if apple wants ai devices there, enabled devices there, it needs a partner like baidu, they have the learning bot that is in different smart phones not just for functionality but also to navigate the many regulatory hurdles that exist there. baidu shares were up as much as 5% on the report but they look to finish only up about a half a percentage point higher. take a look at apple though. it started the week higher on a separate report that it would potentially incorporate google's gemini ai into the iphone, the english language version of ai. it looks to end the week with only a slight -- actually that turned into a slight loss. so between baidu, and gemini, some investors are starting to ask where is apple's own ai strategy and that is kind of the take-away this week. >> it seems like it. although i guess, i suppose there's strategy, their strategy could be we will partner and essentially outsource it, you know, you could have, at some

point, maybe said what's apple's search strategy, and their strategy has been let google do it. >> exactly. i mean you bring up a good point. it totally outsourced the search strategy to google. not only was that wise, but it brought in some 18 billion dollars annually to apple services units, and that worked out well, but some believe that generative ai is too important to outsource. they need their own strategy. it doesn't mean it doesn't have one. it raises the stakes for wwbc, which comes up in june. and some thing that apple is going to release its own version, or its own strategy of what it is going to do here. >> for sure. it raises the stakes. and we keep hop scotching from one developer's conference to the next it feels like from now to then. good to get your thoughts on this one. courtney, retail, you know, we get the tail end of the earnings, and they're pretty eventful. >> yes, exactly. i mean that retail etf, the xrt, well underperforming the broader markets today. we did hear from lulu and nike, and they both had better-than-expected results for

their quarters but the disappointing forecast for both looking forward, that of course is dragging down shares today. lululemon down almost 16%. the ceo did point to weakness in the u.s. consumer, almost at the very top of thatearnings call. and while lulu's international sales were strong, 43% up in the quarter, mainly in china sales specifically growing 78%, sales in the americas gained only 7%. now, most analysts aren't concerned. they actually advise buying on the share weakness here. but obviously investors are disappointed. nike's brand turn-around, we know that is going on for a while and it continues. executives there now lean into the wholesale partnerships than they did before when direct to consumer seemed to be the entire focus. nike shares are down almost 7% intra-day. and shares with luxury conglomerate lvmh down 2% in european trade and it hasn't put out results recently it did put up a record in 2023. i think it is getting caught up in the fear about what is going

on about the consumer, maybe particularly the high-end consumer, because i know we were just talking yesterday about lululemon and how it doesn't need to discount in order to sell. and so that i think is sort of part of the triple ripple effect here that is moving overseas in shares of lvmh which has historically extremely strong. >> and didn't we see some weakness in gucci's parent as well, on the pure luxury side. >> yes. >> the lulu thing is amazing, because analysts say the long term story hasn't changed here but there is sensitivity among investors that there is possibility of not a broad consumer slowdown but the brand is no longer as bullet-proof as it has been. >> exactly. there are so many brands that stay strong for some time, nike being one of them. and look at where they are now. right? they're not, not strong. they're a very strong brand. very preferred by teens and a number of athletes alike. but they're still seeing some weakness.

so that is sort of a worry that i think investors have, that for some reason, at least right now, analysts don't, and they're looking past it, but you've got more competitors over the years, maybe any number of brands that has hair own athletic leisure way that has maybe gotten better when it comes to performance and quality. so i mean it is not out of the realm of possibility that lulu starts to see some brand and the brand momentum can't always continue into perpetuity. >> that's a great test. we'll see you. thank you very much. >> yes. chris, you upgraded best buy today to an overweight and raised the price target to 101. what are you seeing in the business right now, and why is this opportunity there for investors? >> yes, mike, that's a great question. i think at the end of the day, what you're seeing is that the goods economy is starting to come back. you had two years in covid where, we were buying laptops, appliances, tvs, all of this work on our home, at home depot, and then we went into this sort of recovery area, on the wallet,

towards services. and during that time, there was this big replacement cycle pull forward, we've had negative comps, and now, you're seeing green shoots, and you're seeing it across the goods category, you're seeing home decor, laptops turn positive for best buy, in the fourth quarter, and that's over two years, before they had the last time that they had a positive comp. tv units are turning positive. so the green shoots are emerging. as you think about it, four years ago, almost to the day, we got locked down. and we had to spend all this money on technology to work and learn from home. and we're coming back out of it. while they're not comping positive yet, you look to the back half of the year, there's more newness coming on computing, on the chip side, that's going to drive higher prices, on the laptop side, tv units are already positive, and shares while it is back to pre-covid levels, so you flip this very sort of thin margin model to positive comps, with

the cost savings with best buy generating and you put a normal mid cycle multiple, that stock is north of 20% higher premiere, and given the re-rating in retail, you could argue that this could actually go much higher, maybe 30% or more. >> interesting. and you mentioned a re-rating in retail. i mean get to that a little bit more, where there are these chains that have managed, after the pandemic, and after a little bit of a langover, to sort of -- hangover, to sort of retain a better valuation. we are talking about dick's sporting goods here? what other ones. >> i mean you see it across the board. it is interesting right now, it feels a little like the back half of '09, early 2010, where you essentially had this like cyclical fed, accommodating the fed, re-rating of all of the consumer stocks, it is a little far, just because it is just not like the past two years, where because of a recession, it was because of just give-back from covid. so you've seen prices, share prices move up 20, 30% on re-rating. we're you a now back to peak

valuation. all of the strong names like home depot, and costco, and o'reilly, they're, tractor supply, they're valued on 2025 estimates already at the high end of the historic bull range. you've seen dick's, a williams sonoma, basically go from something like six times ebitda, all the way up to like an 8 to 10 times ebitda. and now, best buy, frankly is lagging, and it is one of the reasons that we upgraded the stock. >> one element you mentioned for best buy's story in particular was potential newness in laptops. and we keep hearing about ai laptops, there is going to be some new kind of twist on computing. are you banking on something like that? or is it just more or less a refresh cycle? >> you know, it is really just math. and it is both. so refresh cycle, it is starting, we're seeing the positive laptop units, positive tv units, and this is the most

deflationary category in goods retailing. constantly marking down old product at a deep discount to make room for new product. when the newness is -- when the technology newness is low, you don't get enough bump off the new price. these chip makers are just going to sort of force the consumer to buy higher-priced technology, and that's going to sort of harmonize with better unit growth, and drive faster sales growth. >> makes sense. best buy up almost 2% today, up almost 5% for the week. we'll see how it goes from here. chris, thanks very much. appreciate you running us through that call. as we are in the last 45 seconds of the week's trading, leading to the upside. nvidia, alphabet, amazon, the typical winners. profit taking in the likes of visa and of course, the crack in nike and lululemon. bonds have cooperated post-fed.

coming down on the 10-year. small cap russell 2000 down 1.2% today. like the other indexes, up more than 2%. the s&p is going to be going up. 10% year to date gain. that's going to do it for the "closing bell." sending it to "overtime" next. a record close for the nasdaq. the s&p 500 settling just below the flat line. the dow is snapping a four-day winning strike. that is the score card on wall street. i'm morgan brennan. communication services, tech, driving the nasdaq gains. while real estate financials were the biggest losers in today's session. lululemon, nike, shrinking. the consumer discretionary sector as well following disappointing outlooks. coming up, we will discuss