expiration, sometimes that sort of holds the indexes in place, and we do have a little bit of resistance between us and the all-time high. >> hmm s&p and nasdaq higher for the sixth straight session can we continue? >> yeah. well, we could but i'm never going to say we will >> all right mike santoli, thank you. that does it for us here at "overtime. "fast money" begins right now. live from the nasdaq market site in the heart of new york city's times square, this is "fast money. here's what's on tap tonight retail rally walmart popping after raising its outlook and posting an earnings beat. retail sales jumping more than expected can a resilient consumer help power the market higher? we'll debate that. plus, the nuclear option we are live at the first new nuclear power plant built in america in a generation. will this boost the lagging fortunes of the uranium trade? we'll go inside the numbers. and later, a new surge for the semis, behind the big week for chips. the worrying sign that could

spell trouble for the auto industry and instead of a baba boom, it's another baba bummer. i'm melissa lee, coming to you live from studio b at the nasdaq on the desk tonight -- courtney jar see garcia, dan nathan, guy adami, tim seymour. shares of walmart surging more than 6.5% to a new all-time high today on the back of better than expected earnings and raised guidance. the retail giant cfo telling cnbc that revenue growth was driven by higher unit sales, rather than higher prices. and more good news on the consumer front retail sales rose a full percent, well above expectations those two pieces of data helping the broader market rally again today with the nasdaq up more than 2%. the s&p positive for the month of august. so, can we lay to rest any of those concerns thatwe had had about the strength of consumer spending, guy? >> negative, ghostwriter we've said this for awhile we've been very constructive on

the stock for a long time. and what this speaks to is not necessarily the health of the consumer, it's where the consumer is going. if you look at the comps and the margins, everything you look at suggests they continue to win in a meaningful way and just not that, they've been able to manage their inventories better -- one quarter exception, couple -- year and a half, two years or so ago, they've done it magnificently. now inventories are down against 4.7% sales growth, which means their margin is going to hang in there. good for walmart if you try to connect the dots and say the consumer is in great shape, basically, you're saying all the things you've heard from home depot and a swath of other retailers and restaurants don't mean anything. i think everybody is going to walmart. >> no matter where they are spending that money, courtney, because, they are saying they're not seeing a weakness in consumer, they're seeing a consumer buy groceries and not pull back on does cession their. that doesn't necessarily mean they're spending elsewhere >> it's true, but you want to look at the retail sales numbers that came out today, and it is

showing that the consumer is still hanging in there what you want to take away from this is the consumer is stretched, and we all know that. inflation is really stretching everyone's dollar across all income cohorlts right now, and that's why everyone across income cohorlts is going to a walmart. but they're really not at a dire standpoint the consumer could potentially get through this, but they're feeling it >> you mentioned discretionary, and i know tim likes dick's here, and this stock is a 55% on the year, you know, best buy acts pretty well here. the fact that home depot, on that guidance, didn't sell off, so, there is some discretionary acting well. i know we've talked a lot about on the high end, that there was some weakness, and a lot of that comes from china you know, that's what we've been seeing on the low end, guy mentions this all the time, look at a dollar general it does not act particularly well so, i think guy is right i think there's a concentration in the value that people are seeing karen talks about tjmaxx a lot that's also acting very well

they've had good results here, so, to me, i see the retail sales number coming in much better than expected maybe that's seasonal, back to school, that sort of thing who knows? but i could also make the same case about, if you are bearish on some of those jobs numbers for july, that also might be seasonal, too, so, you know, to me, i think that these two data points that we've gotten over the last few weeks, it's basically clear as mud as far as the economy is concerned >> yeah, what -- i go back to a line from the pepsi earnings call, tim, the consumer is getting choosier about how they spend and within walmart's quarter, they're saying the majority of share gains they are experiencing are from higher income consumers, which i thought was very interesting >> i think it's a tale of many different retailers, where walmart actually is able to be a crossover play the story around walmart also, contrary to what a lot of other earnings reports are, that july was really strong for them that is not a trend we've seen in a bunch of other retailers.

in fact, kind of the opposite what you heard out of home depot. i think walmart is all about gross margin enhancement management talked about their opportunity in gen a.i the analyst community has done a lot of modeling on what this could mean i think it's piper that's out there saying a $20 billion ebit opportunity by 2029. that gross margin of 24.4, it was up 43 basis points year over year that's the story, to me, for walmart. we know the trend is in their favor in terms of, you see, you know, the demographics working for them it's certainly a trade down to walmart. doesn't really feel like a trade down to most people, by the way. and i think that's -- that's the story. so, what are you paying for walmart? well, clearly, you're paying probably 28 to 30 times now. and if they continue to grow and, again, part of this is around international, but also e-commerce, then you're probably going to continue to be rewarded the bottom line is, you know, where are most people going to go they're not leaving walmart to

go some other place. and i think what we've seen within some of the apparel names and some of the other discretionary, i do think that there are a lot of headwinds, but walmart will travel through this >> how do you connect walmart results, guy, to other retailers, is this a good thing or a bad thing for target? >> i think so. >> you can argue either way. >> you can argue either way. i'll argue the way you think i'm going to argue, which is that it's negative for target i know the stock bounced today, i get it i think it's positive for c costco i think target gets middled in this whole thing and i don't think target has gone nearly as good job on the margin front and inventory front. so, i get why target got dragged up, but i don't think it's necessarily a good thing for target >> i would agree with that when you look at a walmart, that's much more of your discretionary purchases as opposed to your nondiscretionary purchases. and i think that's going to bode well for a walmart but i think set the consumer aside, and walmart's higher margin businesses are growing faster than their nonhigher margin businesses. so, think of advertising, third

party fulfillment. that's something that they have that target doesn't have as much that's why i lean more toward a walmart. >> walmart plus memberships up, too. >> those are really small percentages. i think it's m.d.id single digis at best. look at the autos. we're seeing auto sales really weak like, there's a lot of big ticket items that are just not going through, and it brings you back to the staples. they are not having success pushing up prices, but they are, like the ones that add value, are getting a bulk of the sales. >> so, tim, you alluded to the forward pe, which is, i think, now 31, with this 6% pop in today's session. is walmart worth it? >> well, it's a company that's transformed itself the largest retailer in the world. we kind of knew that but in terms of e-commerce, and again, some of the numbers, they're going to essentially invest $7 billion or so into wages from an a.i. perspective

so they can do $130 billion more in sales with the same cost on head count that's impressive. and that's something that will only work to their advantage where the economies of scale and the operational leverage in their business they are truly someone that's going to be a beneficiary of a.i. they're hard at work, they've been hard at work. they've invested in stores and technology and invested in people that's kind of what management was saying today and i think that's part of why it did what it did these comps were better than the street walmart's comps and, as we've all said, the momentum around the walmart sales trend trajectory is very different than what we've seen from other people but to me, it's all about these investments and back to your question, that translates into a higher multiple. there's only so high it can do walmart's traded like a tech stock this year. it's outperformed target by 40%. there's a reason for it. but at some point, i do think, and look, i am flat walmart. i missed this move i've been long the stock for two years, i'm disappointed i'm flat i think i can probably get it

lower, i hope i do >> if you want to nitpick, though, on this -- >> third quarter guidance. >> well, yeah, they raised their full-year by just the amount that they beat in the first half >> yeah. i'm glad you brought that up because third quarter guidance, it's interesting, people are looking right past that. they're saying, they are probably sandbagging for the rest of the year, they're looking at thi quarter, looking at margin improvement. we don't care, we're going to beat, we want to get ahead of it i'll say this quickly. tim probably will get it cheaper because when you see 2. 1/2, 3 time higher open, it fills the gap. you don't run too far. our next guest says walmart has a massive advantage over target bill simon is here to break down today's numbers. bill, great to have you with us. i'm going to start off with a question that i posed to tim, and that is, at 31 times next year, is walmart worth it?

is it overvalued at this point is it well valued? >> well, you know, walmart's worth whatever anybody's willing to pay for it. right now, it's walmart's world and everybody else is just a visitor. they're literally built for this you're seeing the magic of the supercenter, the velocity that comes from their just massive grocery being that's now being translated into some growth on the general merchandise side, which is really encouraging. as far as target goes, you know, if you break down their categories, the comparisons category by category, the performance is not too different. the real difference is in the food mix at walmart, and the traffic that that food mix delivers and target just can't match that, nor can really anybody, you know, amazon is a little bit soft this last quarter, softer, for amazon because they don't have the ability to deliver the buy online, pick up in store grocery

model that walmart's delivering. and with the tradedown now coming from, you know, 100,000-plus consumers they mentioned in the report today, things are lining up really well for them. >> all right, you see sam's club, that was an outlier, as well you start connecting dots, and you say, target next week, there's a huge bulls eye on that report, in the form of a lot of things, but you know, declining traffic growth has been a story. i don't know how that gets better when we hear from walmart and what they have to say. what are your thoughts on that >> well, the only thing that makes me a little bit encouraged is that walmart reported some flattening, or even slight growth in their general merchandise categories that we hadn't seen in probably two years. since, you know, since the peak buying of the pandemic if that carries through to target's report, if we see an improvement in target's general merchandise business, i'll feel a lot better about the consumer going forward. and that's really what i'm going to be looking for in target's report >> bill, it sounds like you're

really favoring walmart at this time, and one might think that you will always -- you would always do that, but you haven't when you've come on the show in the past but what sticks out in my mind is something that you said the last time that you were on, and that is that the gain of the high income consumer as a new, you know, demographic, that's sort of a risk to the walmart story, because they typically don't hold onto those consumers when times turn better is that still a risk in your view, or not as much anymore >> well, it's a risk, i think. they'll keep a portion of them, a percentage of them, but as, you know, things brighten up in the economy, you know, sort of turns back into a much more positive direction, the higher income consumers go to quality and they go to convenience and walmart, you know, is a fine quality product, but they're not -- they're not the high end of grocery and so a good portion of them will move back, but on the other end, you'll see a filling in on

the bottom side as people in the middle income group start to recover some, so, that -- that's a dynamic that constantly pluck waits for walmart. i like walmart in the next 12 to 18 months, but as this food tailwind that they've been sort of riding for the last couple of years eases, and the economy returns to a more robust general merchandise, you know, business, i think they'll have challenges from -- from amazon, from target, and from, hopefully, we'll see a rebound in some of the department stores. >> hey, bill, you've obviously been in retail for a lot of different economic cycles, let's call it, over the last few decades or so. when you see unemployment rise the way it has over the course of the last year, what do you expect to see from a consumer, looking out six months, 12 months, that sort of thing maybe -- does it signal -- a higher potential for a recession

than some economists are speculating right now? >> with employment at the levels that we're at, we've never had a recession. we'd have to see significant -- significantly more job loss for me to start to get worried about a recession. i still worry more about a return of inflation. as wages are improving, and they have been, and if employment stays at these levels or even improved with the reports today, i worry that there's going to be too much money in the market again, and we're going to start seeing more inflation, so, i'd be more cautious of inflation than recession >> bill, great to see you. thank you for joining us >> you bet happy to do it >> bill simon. all right, i don't think a return of inflation is on most people's bingo cards for the rest of this year, guy >> jamie dimon's bingo card. he's backed off a little bit you know, what bill says makes a lot of sense, and it's about wages at this point, and i think the fed is laser focused on that so, then one has to asked -- you

see a retail sales number like this, right, unemployment is still basically, granted, off 3.4%, but still historically low, what's the rush, again, to cut rates? i just don't get it. so, you know, if inflation -- if that is a concern, there's zero reason to be cutting rates in september, in my opinion >> and i also -- i don't know what the time frame there for saying inflation could be coming back, because i think there could be an argument for that. but i think longer term we could stay at this more elevated rate than we've been over the last decade, and that's something that people need to understand and acknowledge is a risk here yes, interest rates are very likely to come down in september, probably a couple times this year is what is getting priced in. but after that, i think there is a question about how further down do we go down or does inflation continue to stay high? another look at stocks today. rallying thanks to the strong retail sales number. the data pushing treasury yields higher across the curve. the ten-year climbing ten basis points, topping 3.9% you know, interestingly, one upon a time, this data would

have been a market negative. >> yeah. it seems like the market likes it when the potential for more than expected rate cuts are priced in, and when you have better than expected economic data, it likes that, too i can't make heads or tails of it i will say this. as you think about, again, we heard this about a broadening out a few weeks ago, when money moved into the regional banks and the russell 2,000 and other sorts of names and they were selling megacap tech, one of the things that interests me right here, i've thought if the s&p was going to make new highs, it was going to be the same leadership that was powering ahead for the last year and a half the s&p is up 16%, the nasdaq up 17.5% on the year. and i look at the mag seven. tesla is obviously still down. apple is up in line with the nasdaq look at this microsoft is up 12.5%. google is up 15.5% and amazon is up 17.5% those three, that i just mentioned, forget the apple, they are 30% of nvidia's sales

nvidia is up 140%. they report on august 28th investors are actually -- think about the three hyperscalers that i just mentioned. they are up either below the market or in line with it. what are investors saying about this generative a.i. trade right now, if you can't get those three outperforming the broad market again and so, to me, they all underperformed today, which i think is really interesting other than amazon, by the way, but that's something you want to keep an eye on >> tim >> well, microsoft, i would certainly emphasize that one and it's -- you've got meta, which is almost, you know, back up at all-time highs so, it is pretty fascinating, the separation you're seeing within the ranks the other things just around the macro and the market that yen is a whisper from 150 again. is that good news or bad news? i'm not sure we want to see it going a lot higher the dollar is slowly weakening and i think the trend there is one that probably continues.

so, you know, what we've seen is -- we are going to get weak prints in terms of the sentiment around growth. they may not necessarily be taking us straight to a recession, but we know how sensitive the market will be to this so, that's really what we know i agree, i mean, semis did have a catchup day. the leadership was back there today. the s&p is within 2% of all-time highs. and i think if you expect that volatility is gone, i think you're going to be sadly, you know, awakened but i think the dynamic here is that the jury is really out where leadership comes from. but i do think microsoft is a concerning chart i do think that we're going to continue to see some pressure from deleveraging that's coming from a lot of different places in the investor community. and i think the long only passives are looking to buy the next weakness. that's -- that's the reaction you get after the kind of move we've had. it's ten days later and the market is almost back at all-time highs. coming up, an historic time for nuclear power in the u.s in a make or break moment for

ura uranium. what the first new reactors in 30 years could mean for the future of the energy trade. but first, afterhours action in applied materials the latest from the earnings call right after this. this is "fast money" with melissa lee right here on cnbc

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switch today for a limited tim. welcome back to "fast money. an earnings alert on applied materials. shares are lower by almost 3%, despite reporting a beat on the top and bottom lines seema mody has the details >> the stock falling a bit more here in afterhours fourth quarter numbers came in lighter than estimates however, the ceo on the call said discussions with leading a.i. companies, reducing power for operation, is becoming increasingly more important. that's where he thinks applied materials can play a role. and that the need for more energy efficient compute is driving major architecture upgrades he adds that seeing growing demand for high bandwidth memory, accelerating in 2024, expects to generate more than $600 million of high bandwidth revenue. on china, executives remain cautious exposure to china is around 32%.

expects d-ram demand in the fourth quarter to be at nominal levels remember, the biden administration is reportedly discussing whether to further limit china's access to memory chips on intel's capex cuts. applied materials doesn't see any impact, though analysts have been arguing that may be more of a 2025 story. melissa? >> seema, thank you. seema mody so, why do you think the stock is down, guy >> 5% year over year revenue growth in an environment where it should be much -- this is just my opinion, much better than that. and to me, the market was sort of sniffing this out look at the move from july 8th this stock went from 252ish to 170 even in the blink of an eye and the setup was actually pretty good on the long side and you're seeing the pull-back. margins sort of in line. there was -- look. it's a fine quarter. but given the backdrop and given the importance to the whole a.i. trade, i thought it would be a lot better >> yeah, this feels like it did a few weeks ago when companies

were meeting and giving cautious guidance you have to kind of beat and raise, and that didn't happen here i think the point seema made about architecture upgrades, i mean, that is going to be a theme. but also, 30%, you know, exposure to china is also an issue. samsung, taiwan semi, intel, micron, they make up 35% of their total sales. and we've had taiwan semi had some good things to say, samsung, not so great. intel, a disaster. micron kind of mixed >> yeah, and i think this is a scenario where the bar was set high when you had strong momentum in the second quarter but really when you're looking forward, i think when this artificial intelligence story is -- it's going to be long-term. you are going to need the equipment and services there, which they're going to benefit from in the short-term, you're seeing how much people are punishing the a.i. trade we talked about that change in leadership everybody is going to want to see the numbers why there's so much spending. so, if you are light on guidance or light on your numbers right now, you're going to get punished >> and the risk of 30% of your

revenues, being the revenues from china, tim, that's no joke. >> yeah. well, i was tactually going to say, the numbers and the guide, they pointed out despite china, d-ram demand was decent, they're pointing out all the secular, or, the themes we have going on in terms of hbm. so, these numbers were fine. nobody expected a lot. it's a high beta stock in a world where there are some questions. all right. there's a lot more "fast money" to come. here's what's coming up next america is going nuclear we go inside the historic step forward in nuclear energy in infrastructure and find out what it means for all things uranium. next. plus, medicare madness the biden administration revealing the first set of drugs with negotiated medicare prices. when those prices roll out to pat patients the potential impact on big pharma's biggest names and what it means for innovation in this space. you're watching "fast money,"

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getting a boost today. this as new nuclear reactors go online in the u.s. for the first time in 30 years what can this mean for the uranium trade? pippa stevens joins us live from the plant in georgia with all the details. hey, pippa >> hey, melissa. i'm at southern company's plant vogel for the first newly built nuclear reactors in the u.s. in more than three decades are now connected to the grid. it's pivotal moment. the industry says this proves that nuclear can and should be built, while critics say projects are perpetual lily beh schedule and expensive the ceo of southern company said they had to rebuild the nuclear supply chain and it starts even before that, with the uranium supply chain. the administration has banned russian imports starting in 2028 now, at this plant, no fuel comes from russia, but across the u.s., more than 20% of our enriched uranium is from russia. now, the interest in nuclear has pushed uranium spot prices to

the highest level in more than a decade and companies are taking note we are even seeing a restart in domestic mining, including from ur energy, uranium energy, encore energy and energy fuels out in wyoming, texas, utah, and colorado melissa? >> pippa, are there many -- i know in europe, there are reactors that are being put back online, basically, they were moth balled reactors are there also in the united states >> yeah, there's some movement we've seen in michigan, with the palisades reactor. there's also now talk about rebooting three-mile island, that could face an uphill battle to get that back online. but now vogel three and four are up and running, there are no commercial scale reactors under construction in the u.s., as you noted, we are seeing the same ap-1,000 model being built in places like poland, china, ukraine, and bulgaria. but none of them here, simply because it is very cost prohibitive. however, there is a lot of momentum behind smr, so small

modular reactors people like bill gates are throwing a lot of money behind that those are still years away >> is there a vogel one and a vogel two? >> there is. so, vogel one and two are right over there and they actually came online in the -- at the end of the 1980s and you can see, they look completely different you can see the ap-1,000s have new features that are focused on safety you see on the top there, the big water tanks, they hold 750,000 gallons of water so that in the unlikely event that the control room loses access to their power, to cool that reactor core, the water just nows down, it can actually keep it cool for three days there are a lot -- more than a third fewer components, and so, just trying to make the process more streamlined and easier to kind of get rid of some of those areas where you could have a part malfunction >> thank you, pippa. pippa stevens. tremendous >> killing the game. >> yeah. >> so, i grew up in the shadow

of indian point, which probably comes as no surprise, given some of my quirkiness tim has talked about -- look at ccj. now, the good news is, i mean, this is the one -- i think the best pure play better news is, the stock has sold off significantly since that prior high we saw i think it was in may or so. the double tops we've pointed out, but if you want a pure play here in this space, ccj off this pull-back gets you done. >> tim, you've been on this trade for awhile >> yeah, pippa killed that whole story. i think the story around uranium is also something that's going to continue to kill it i think you've got a dynamic here where there's massive shortages. we've had some seasonality that's been part of some of the weakness in the uranium price, but the enriched uranium story and the ban and the dynamics here, there are shortages. there are major utilities are short. there are traders that are short. i think you have a case where the numbers, cameco was fine there's global dynamics, as well you have a mineral extraction

cost causing the curve higher. and i think the bigger players are so well positioned that they can kind of call the shots there's one step, two steps forward, one step back dynamic to this sector that's what we've seen and i've been following it for 20 years so, i think this is a trade, you stay long, and you deal with cyclicality and volatility coming up, united airlines' ceo scott keirby with glowing praise of boeing's new ceo. plus, medicare madness the biden administration announcing new drug pricing. what it means for the biggest names in big pharma, right after this missed a moment of "fast?" catch us any time on the go. follow the "fast money" podcast. we're back right after this.

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welcome back to "fast money. stocks ripping higher today on strong retail data and better than expected earnings from walmart. the dow jumping 554 points the s&p gaining 1.5% and the nasdaq soaring nearly 2.5%. meanwhile, baba eking out a small gain after falling 3% early in the session the chinese e-commerce giant

missed on the top and bottom line, blaming the cautious chinese consumer. deere surging after crushing top and bottom line expectations for its latest quarter. and home builders getting a boost today, despite a surprise drop in sentiment data for august. finally, boeing and united airlines both taking flight today after ual ceo scott kerr by says he has renewed confidence in the new ceo's arrival. medicare drug price cuts were unveiled. the biden administration says this move will save medicare $6 billion and patients $1.5 billion when pricing takes effect in 2026 the discounts could be smaller than they appear, since medicare net prices are already below

sticker price. 79% and 76% are the highest discounts. pharma stocks impacted by today's news did end the day mostly higher. astrazeneca, bristol myers, and novo all finished in the green let's bring in jared holz. great to have you with us. and part of the lack of reaction is just some of the drugs were going to go and become generic in a matter of years anyway, so the drug makers were going to lose that revenue, in short order. >> melissa, great to see you yeah, i think that's definitely part of the conversation today we've been awaiting this list for awhile we knew the drugs that were going to be impacted we didn't know the pricing variance, but we found that out this morning and i think most of the drugs on this list, if not all of the ten will see some sort of generic competition, loss of patent exclue stifty before the end of

the decade these are drugs that the street had been modeling pretty significant decleans for anyway. so, the price decreases that we're going to see at the hands of the government, i think, were just not taken all that negatively by investors today. >> this is just the first chapter, though, in this whole sort of notion of the government can negotiate with drug companies. there will be 60 drugs that could be subject to negotiation by 2029. i would imagine this would not help profitability of drug companies and we've heard from various companies that this sort of changes the calculus on what drug trials they actually conduct, what drugs they actually launch into market. what do you think the impact will be, i mean, if this is just sort of the surface of it, but this is a story that we're going to see play out over the coming years. >> yeah, for sure. this is a situation in perpetuity i read a few pieces this morning saying, you know, this was the best case scenario for pharma. i'm not really sure.

i don't think this is good at all. i think the fact that the stocks trade at low multiples is one reason why they're able to kind of digest, you know, updates like this, but as you alluded to, we're going to see another 15 drugs get impacted for calendar '27, another 15 for '28, 20 beyond that. this kind of -- this is a situation that we are going to talk about every year for the foreseeable feature. so, yes, the first ten, maybe the impact not big, you know, but companies like bristol myers, merck, novartis, and others have said this changes the dynamic at which they invest in r &d and m&a >> what does that mean, change the dynamic? i would look at this, say this is more of a reason to be aquizive, as opposed to less what's your thoughts -- well, if your name isn't eli lilly, or

novo nordisk, what are your thoughts on the names, the others >> agree it either keeps things at status quo, and i think most of the large cap pharma companies, guy, are looking, you know, daily at various m&a targets, it's part of the core strategy it has to be but when you look at the price cuts that are coming in, not only for '26, but '27 and through the end of the decade, and further than that, it's going to accelerate m&a. i think the one thing that a lot of bio tech investors have agree on, the pace of play in respect to business development is likely going to increase rather than decrease from here, for the vast majority of companies here. maybe lilly and novo don't have as much urgency, given what we know about their obesity franchises, but all the others do >> but with lilly and novo, the -- would be the weight loss drugs become subject to price negotiation.

when should we start factors that into that story and the multiples? >> well, i think semaglutide for novo goes -- is going to be part of this list in 2027, so pretty soon, actually you know, how much that changes the die naj by which investors look at the stock is debatable i think the one thing that you can kind of point to here is the fact that even with pretty significant price cuts, let's assume 30%, 40% price cuts for a drug like ozempic, in the latter part of the decade, you can still get to this $100 billion market, given the population and that's just in the u.s that doesn't even include europe or asia. so, i think the market opportunity is still there, but yeah, this is something that's going to happen in the next few years. >> jared, thank you. always good to see you and get your thoughts. jared holz tim, you are a pharma investor how do you think about this? i mean, you are a pharma

company, you put all this money into research and development, getting it through the fda approval process, you paid all that money, you think you have a patent, you have pa tetent excl stifty, and then the government says, a few years before that expires, we're going to negotiate. and if you don't, we're going to tax you. >> i don't think anybody is surprised by this, especially in the c-suites of the top companies there are some benefits there's volume dynamics that more than cover out of pocket costs, break evens and -- some of this is very good for these companies. i appreciate the conversation that we've had, is that the headlines today, what came through today on pricing, no impact in the short-term bristol myers talked about eliquis, the impact is net to what they've guided to consensus, so, i don't think anybody is that concerned in the short run. we're all talking about what this means down the road but i think a lot of these companies, and certainly bmy,

pfizer, j&j, maybe for slightly different reasons around talc, but these companies are not expensive. to some extent, you have this as part of the business model part that's priced in i think there's ebb and flow to this it will continue to be noisy, but i'll say net net, today was a net positive, it could have been worse >> yeah, you know, maybe the stocks aren't expensive, but the drugs certainly are. and i get your point about r&d, but this is a very popular thing across america >> oh, yeah. >> so, let's just think about that, you know what i mean like, so, we do this every four years, but if you ran on that sort of latform, it's not something, unless you are a pharma exec, that's going to turn you off >> yeah, and i think a lot of the reason that we're seeing some of the -- the generally positive, this wasn't as bad as it could have been for them. so, a lot a lot was already priced in. to tim's point, short-term, it really isn't going to be a concern. probably more m&a activity, i do agree with that. coming up, we've got updates on acouple stories we brought

to you yesterday from massive layoffs at a bio tech to the former google ceo walking back his comments on the tech giant's culture what he's saying now about what he's saying now about alphabet's work-life balance formulations of 7 moisturizers and 3 vitamins. for all your skins, gold bond. that's next when "fast money" returns.

welcome back to "fast money. a quick update on a story rebrowe brought to you last night. lykos cutting 75% of its workforce, after the ompany's application was denied about mdma therapy a former j&j executive who helped develop a psychedelic-like treatment for depression will join the company. the company saying in a statement its remaining employees will focus on clinical development and working with the fda to advance a new drug application. lykos had about 100 employees. meantime, former google ceo eric schmidt walking back his comments on google's work culture. he said he misspoke about google's policy and regrets the ere roar for a refresher, here is what he recently said to students. >> google decided that work-life

balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning and the startups, the reason startups work, is because the people work like hell. >> that sounded pretty intentional to me. >> misspeak? when you mess up a word. >> or you just a number wrong. >> when you have a cogent thought that lasts for 20 seconds. >> that's not misspeaking. anyway, he says he misspoke. according to the journal, both alphabet and openai mandate three days a week in the office. t he asked for the video to be taken down and it is now d-listed from the youtube page, but we have it here on "fast money." all right, coming up auto delinquencies on the rise eew automakers are handling the spd bumps.

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a lot of people thought we'd see much stronger auto sales than we've seen one of the factors may be that credit standards haven be tightened, both by the captive finance ashls that are run by the automakers and the banks that do a lot of the auto loans. need some proof why they're doing this it's because of defaults these are people who just walked away from their auto loans now over 3% year to date highest since 2010- 2009 was the recent high water mark at 4.1% look at the metrics when it comes to buying a new automobile average transaction price, over $48,000. average new vehicle loan rate of 9.8% it's over 14% on the used vehicle side and then your average monthly payment for a new vehicle loan, $767 that is close to the record high has not gone down. so, for all the discussion about auto prices falling, that has not been seen.

and as a result, has a number of people wondering if the automakers need to goose the market a little bit. because right now, the sales pace is 15.5 million vehicles. that's what it was last year i say that, because it's not at 16 million, or close to 16 million, which is what many thought it would be at the start of this year and that's just not happening. so, as you take a look at the auto stocks, keep in mind that one thing that we could see to increase sales, melissa, is an increase in incentive. as of right now, incentives are running at a little over $3,300. 7% of the average transaction price. nowhere close to the 10% high that we saw before the pandemic. that's what people expect to happen next. also take a look at the auto dealer stocks. bottom line is this, melissa, it's not a bad market for the automakers, and the auto dealers, it's just not the robust market they were expecting, and one reason is because of the tighter credit standards. >> 9.8%, i mean, that's

prohibitive, i would imagine, for a lot of people, phil. historically, have we seen a pickup in sales once we start to see the fed cutting? >> no. >> no, okay. >> i shouldn't say no. what i should say is, i have asked a number of people how quickly do you see once the fe cuts rate -- they are sticky cox automotive said, look, they're going to stay where they are, close to where they are, for awhile they're not going to come down right away historically, it doesn't happen that way >> wow phil, thank you. phil lebeau. courtney, where are you on the automakers >> i do think this is going to be -- it's going to continue to be a problem for the automakers, and i think until rates come down, that's really going to be a catalyst to see more people in the market i'm interested to hear him say the rates won't come down as fast as the fed. that was kind of the expectation there, which would be a concern as you look forward. i don't think it's something i'd rush into. >> start of the show with the

consumer, end it there now credit card defaults are, i think, 11 or 12-year highs so, lump all that together, the consumer is not as strong as walmart numbers suggest, mel. walmart numbers suggest, mel. up next, final trades. morgan stanley is partnering with the women's tennis association to remove boundaries... ( ♪♪ ) because this game is for everyone.

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final trades tim? >> gold about to make all-time highs again. sprott investment, invest in gold stay there >> court >> scha, small caps are starting to outperform again. >> dan >> walmart, i wouldn't chase it

here >> guy >> tough day out at shay ea tod you can't be losing 2 to 3 out of oakland in the middle of a pennant race as you know, mel robinhood getting off the lows we saw a week or so ago. >> thank you for watching "fast n'ney. dot go anywhere. "mad money" with jim cramer starts right now anywhere, "mad money" with jim cramer starts right,000. my mission is simple to make you money. i'm here to level the playing field for all investors. there's always a bull market somewhere and i promise to help you find it. "mad money" starts now hey, i'm cramer! welcome to "mad money. welcome to cramerica other people want to make friends. i'm just trying to make you some money. my job is not just to entertain you but to educate and teach you. so call me at 1-800-743-cnbc tweet me @jim cramer look, you can't blame anyone for