podcasts. >> >> astronauts like us. i also eat cheeseburgers. you're making me hungry here. next week fed speak, pce and micron, interesting given the ai trade. >> given all the action in chips as well and we talked a lot about qualcomm and intel. i suspect they will talk about that on fast money as well. >>man and dell start trading. >> "fast money" starts now. >> live from the nasdaq market site in the heart of times square this is "fast money." here's what's on tap. breaking news, qualcomm approaching intel about a takeover in recent days. shares of intel spiking on the report before coming back down to earth. we'll have the latest straight ahead. apple officially putting the iphone 16 on sale. pomp and circumstance but will sales match the hoopla. one analyst still bullish on a super cycle. constellation energy working to turn the power back on at three

mile island. you heard that right. microsoft signing a deal to get its hands on all that power for the next 20 years. the details on the deal and flood of nukes coming up. i'm melissa lee on the desk tonight, courtney, dan, guy, and mike. we start off with that breaking news in the chip space reports in the last hour that qualcomm approached intel about a takeover in recent days. this as investors continue to doubt intel's costly turnaround plans and ability to design and manufacture next generation chips. if a deal were to get done it would be one of the largest tech mergers ever. for more on all of this bring in bernstein's stacy rasgon. >> good to be here. >> could this happen in your view? >> i don't know. i mean, there's a story or rumor that said qualcomm might be interested in buying the client business. i am not sure how that would work. maybe this is we're willing to take the whole thing.

look, i think the rationale, if i was to come up with it, is qualcomm is still primarily a handset company, primarily a android handset company and a diversification play there and even pcs. this would accelerate that diversification story and, you know, would make them a very big, important compute player and frankly their pc business is pretty small, so not a lot of overlap there. i guess you could argue. there's a lot going on here. i really wonder. the biggest is like what happens to the manufacture and assets. that's the biggest problem. their manufacturing business right now is losing $12 billion this year and it's questionable to me whether or not qualcomm can run those assets better than intel can. i kind of doubt it. at the same time i don't think they can sell the manufacturing assets, i don't think anybody else really wants to run the fab

assets for them. while hypothetically you can think of it, you scrap and sell the tools, i don't think that's politically viable. any deal had them like completely getting rid of the manufacturing arm so that was no longer available i don't think that passes muster with the u.s. government. the whole thing is to try to get local like leading semiconductor manufacturing off the ground here in the u.s. i think it's just tough. it's tough. intel -- they're in a tough spot. it's like i don't know maybe i'm just not bold enough. like, like what could happen here. maybe. i think [ inaudible ] a tough deal just given -- intel is in the middle of a major restructuring, so that begs the question how much incremental synergies, if any, are there. how much more comps can they take out, do it without disrupting the business. is this another major distraction that will happen on top ofeverything else? i don't know.

>> well, you know, whenever you see a report like this, i mean, you think maybe it's a trial balloon by at least one of the companies, probably intel in this case, and i'm just curious if you think that maybe this indicates in your view that a level of desperation that's not already priced into the stock? >> i'm not so sure. i'm not sure it would be from intel's side. they haven't seemed to be eager to sell. listings are much worse. i will be honest, i don't think they're in a desperate situation from like a cash standpoint. like i think if you add up, you know, the capex cuts and op equities funds they'll they've been selling portions of their factories to private equity and getting cash, that should give them cash. i don't think they're in danger of running out of cash look are things tougher in terms of them

actually -- i don't know, but they've been [ inaudible ] betting the company that their process [ inaudible ] their cap what they call their next iteration prospect is on track and that this will save the company. [ inaudible ] everything they've been saying publicly suggests that road map is on track. if it's not on track why would you want to buy them in the first place? >> right. amazon seems to believe that it's on track in some fashion. stacy, off the board, the connection is not that great, but off the board for a minute. if you were to engineer a deal for intel, what would that look like? would that solve some of intel's problems? >> again, i don't know because for me, the -- and i'm not going to -- i'll be careful what i speculate here. for me the biggest issue what really happens to those manufacturing [ inaudible ]. with the fabs this becomes difficult because they're not running well now. i don't know that qualcomm can fix them or run them better than intel can.

i think any deal that would involve those manufacturing assets will no longer be available is difficult for me. that to me is the biggest unknown on top of a lot of others here. i don't know what happens with those assets. >> we're going to let you go. thanks for phoning in. stacy rascon of bern stein. guy, intel gave up the gains initially on the back of this report. >> we have to get what do they call that when you do housekeeping things. happy birthday day dan nathan number one. >> thank you. >> wednesday was national cheeseburger day. i don't know if you knew this. >> do you like cheese burgers. >> jon fortt got me thinking about that. the more you know. i don't understand why this would happen. reminds me in the sports world. gms make calls to each other all the time, is this person available, is that person available. this might be one of those things. doesn't make a lot of sense to me in terms of what qualcomm will be getting out of this

deal. they probably are better off if intel went away as opposed to trying to gobble them up. i think the knee-jerk reaction the last two -- think about what we've heard this week from intel. we've heard about the amazon deal, right, the deal with the pentagon, and now this, and the stock is still basically nowhere. i think any pop on this stock we've said it before you have to sell it. >> it does make sense. i remember for years there was like, you know, people were speculating that intel should buy qualcomm because they missed the mobile thing, right. turn the thing around, wherever intel is, as you think about, you know, these high-end gpus, they're nowhere, right. at some point they'll get up to speed and this push towards manufacturing i think they already told you they're going to slow this stuff down. qualcomm is fabulous. they're in mobile. this would really not have a ton of overlap. you could say there's not a lot of synergies, but it could kill their plan to manufacture and then the chips act money probably goes away, right. like at the end of the day, intel has nearly half the

enterprise value that qualcomm does, very little overlap. it could make sense. you think we were talking about this last night in the context of nike and the ceo shift, gelsinger is not wrong for the world here. this might be a good last act, you know what i mean. the stock trading around 20, maybe get 35 bucks and drop the mic and move on. >> i think the -- a lot of the problems here with intel are going to be the fact that long term their foundry business will be an opportunity but the amount of capex needed to get there is a big problem for them. the question is qualcomm the person to do that, and i think that does beg the question, i don't know if that is going to solve their problems short term. they're having to cut employees, lower their guidance. they have a lot of issues here that i don't think are going away in the short term even if this were to pass. long term it has opportunity here, but i don't think this changes the needle. >> mike, your thoughts. >> what would the number be and how would they structure the deal? significant negative cash flow for the reasons that were just

discussed on the intel sell. intel trading at around 21 bucks, i mean it has lost most of its share price value. what's going to be the magic number that would even get the intel board to say we're okay with this? usually you're going to do a year look back, it would have to be some kind of stock deal. if somebody wanted to speculate on the upside and buy calls because it would have to be a stock deal that would be okay. seems like that's wherethe flows are going because you would still preserve some optionality thereafter because you would have options on the merged company stock. >> if i were a viewer at home listening to this conversation in its entirety i would walk away with the conclusion based on what you have said and stacy have said, intel's only real path is to go it alone. and so, therefore, if that is -- if that is the most likely option, is that worth anything at this point now with the stock down 60% or so this year?

>> the go it alone option? okay. so -- >> faith that gelsinger can execute. >> i want -- it's friday. i'm not looking to get on anybody's bad side. we've done that before with mr. gelsinger. no is short answer to that. he's done a good job in the past. this is probably bigger than what he thought. maybe the problems were bigger at intel. i will say this, it is possible to turn the ship around. microsoft was nowhere for years, and they were able to figure it out. ibm before our eyes, sandy's eye in his whatever trade look at what that stock has done over the last year and a half because new people were brought in that were able to figure it out. it's not like it can't happen. i just don't think it happens under this regime. >> let's get to the broader markets now. another record day for the dow to end this big rally week. the industrials closing above the 42,000 mark again, the s&p and nasdaq ending slightly lower but all three major averages finished higher fort week. the fed cut a key driver and waller told steve liesman that

policy will be flexible with economic risks grow. he voted for the half point cut this week. >> the data starts coming in soft and continues to come in soft i would be much more willing to be aggressive on rate cuts to get inflation closer to our target of 2%. >> he was clear, though, that he and the other fed governors who voted were pretty confident in the strength of the economy and on the other hand, we heard from fedex and the ceo said that the fed's 50 basis point rate cut signaled a weakening in the economy we did not see. who has it right? fedex the company dealing with the economy right now or the fed governs at the federal reserve? what do you think? >> we've been talking about this two different economies that exist here in the u.s. there's a high-end consumer doing pretty well, middle-end consumer doing well. the lower end consumer having such a tough time. when you think about a fedex, it's really hard to get a sense of like what's going on there.

until we start seeing a degradation in s&p earnings that would give us some sort of indication that companies are feeling it, that we hit peak margins and the like here and that 2025 earnings estimates i think is up 14% year over year, until that is in some sort of, you know -- you know, it -- listen, at the end of the day, it just feels like we're in this zone right here where there's a lot of uncertainty. they said they're going to be flexible. i really would doubt any time soon if they're going to be raising rates. that doesn't mean -- you know what i mean. when they say flexible what is the pace of rate cuts and for what reasons? that's my take. >> yes, when fedex came across some on the desk made the point much dow theory, what does this tell us about the economy if fedex is tanking here. i don't know, guy. we're a services economy at this point. >> some of the conversation revolved around fedex specific problems and, you know, as much as you want to make it a dow theory thing, fedex has had sort

of -- they've had their ups and down downs, more downs than ups given where the stock should be trading and it's not. yes, in terms of dow theory i'll answer your question, the market commentary you're hearing is more accurate to look an doakically at consumer spending and saying everything must be good. i'm making more simplistic than it is, but below the surface there are problems. if it's one company it's one thing. this is a lot of companies across a swath of industries that are saying the same thing over and over again. at some point that's going to mean something. >> mike, how are you feeling after the 50 basis points cut more bullish about the markets or more concerned? >> well, i mean i think i would have to be more bullish overall. that's not necessarily because i think the lower tier economy if we can sort of bifurcate it in that way is necessarily any better off. i think that, obviously, we got that out of dollar general and the number of other companies that were reporting. the fact is about 35% of s&p

earnings i think this might be one of the things that dan was just talking about, you know, 35% of s&p earnings coming from what the top 15 constituent stocks of it and they're not really exposed to that. we're talking about the mag seven names and a couple others, make united health would fall into this. that's not necessarily an economically driven story, so s&p earnings can hold up even if some of those other names aren't doing so well. so, you know, i'm not feeling that great about the lower end consumer. neither are they, obviously. you can see that in the savings rates and in their debt levels. >> yeah. i think what we have to look at, too, is contrary to popular belief the economy actually has been continuing to grow. you're seeing gdp numbers increasing, the labor force is tight and that's really why the fed came out and did say we're positive on the economy even though a 50 point basis cut not because we're worried about the economy. things are going well. you get this news from fedex which poses the other side of the question, but i think i would not look at fedex as like a bellwether for where the total

economy is going because what you're seeing is a change in not only the high income versus low-income consumer but what they're spending on. you shifted from goods to services, people traveling and eating out as opposed to buying e-commerce will affect fedex. you're starting to see news come out like a lot of big retailers announcing their holiday sales right now trying to get ahead of that. maybe you're going to see that improve with fedex going forward. overall i don't think that means the overall economy is in trouble because of what fedex is saying. >> what month is this. >> ho, ho, ho. >> what season? >> pumpkin spice season. >> this is more directed to courtney. the holiday season fa, la, la, la. costco reports next week. >> i expect -- listen when costco sells off earnings it typically is three or four days later making a new all-time high again. if our crack staff can put up a chart you'll see what i'm talking about.

expensive on valuation without question. they ramped up prices to be one of their i guess, you know, members, but their membership rate is sticky. it's 95%. not that that is a big portion but what's going on. they work the same way walmart works. it's their worltds and everybody is living in it. >> i was going to say when you look around like what are the issues here? we have a low end consumer in a difficult spot. you have china that is weakening. you have some geopolitical risks, risks here about the election, i don't think that's dramatic one way or another, nothing out there, and then the u.s. debt and deficit and that sort of stuff. people keep talking about that, but at the end of the day there's -- i don't think there's a ticking time bomb right now. >> right. coming up a no go from novo. the pharma giant. what is holding the little pill back from the g-me.biti apple taking over the big apple. will the new iphone boost the stock. one analyst still betting 16 will kick off a super cycle.

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and looking to get the new model now sort of ai ready with intelligence features launching next month. let's bring in gene munser who thinks the iphone is entering a new super cycle. the launch today the numbers you know that allegedly came over last weekend, any of that feed into this view or you had this view prior? >> i had the view prior and it's a thesis because ultimately the biggest substance, the biggest juice around this is going to come starting in the march quarter when the features are more available. the reviews today are largely irrelevant because this, of course, the critical feature is related to apple intelligence and it's not available today. but melissa, as i think about today and the importance of today and this is in the life of gene munster a big day since 2007 i've trafficked apple stores on iphone launch days and does survey work.

this survey today we found that the average life of a phone, the average age of a phone being upgraded is 3.1 years. this is really important because what it shows is that typically in an upgrade day the first day it's about a two-year old average age and so i think this plays into a piece to the apple upgrade this iphone cycle sometimes gets overlooked beyond apple intelligence the size of the pool. and if there's one data point apple investors should take away from is that in 2021, iphone sales were up 39% year over year. a massive year. and essentially the ripple, the echo effect of that is going to hit in the next year. i think that's part of the reason why we saw older phones showing up in the lines this morning is because this pool is bigger, easy comps, apple intelligence. put all of this together, iphone can grow closer to 15%, double

what the street is expecting for fiscal 25. a bold bet but that's where i stand. >> you forget more about apple than i may ever know. you've been through these cycles. the day of wwdc on june 10th a split box like this, you were very excited about this stock. it was 193 and quickly went to $225. you had it right about the excitement that is going to come about apple intelligence. here we are, the phone is launching, right, being delivered today. and there's no apple intelligence. i think the differentiator of this device was going to be there was going to be ai on device. an over the air upgrade of course like what is this going to be? you know, as far as i'm concerned, to get your 15%, it better be based on the knowledge that hundreds of millions of iphones need to be upgraded because they're bought in 2021. i don't see this as a big upgrade cycle for what they build apple intelligence for. is that fair? >> it's totally fair. that's the beauty of what we do

as investors is we don't have perfect information here and what we have is the potential around what these features are going to look like and we have some guesses. i have some guesses and expectation about what that's going to do to demand. when i kind of put that all together, i agree, like the -- we've got a nice tailwind by the size of the pool, easy comps, that's going to carry us through the back half of the year. the substance as you said is about something we haven't put our hands on. where in the world does my confidence come from? the answer it's just a belief that ai is not a feature. it is a paradigm shift. we've talked about that inspect past. more similar to the shift from a keyboard to a touch screen than a simple feature. that's part of where i get. but that's ultimately where i'm going to be wrong it's a pretty simple case. where i'm wrong is that these features don't resonate and like i expect them to and you just get kind of a muted back half of

fiscal '25 and they probably grow closer to 5 to 7%. >> gene, thanks so much for joining us on this most important day of gene munster's life. >> thank you. >> gene munster. >> no, it's not. >> i hope he has a dancing bear waiting for him, a cake, hat. >> creepy. >> the super cycle is coming, when is the stock -- have you seen it? >> play it out a little bit. 8% revenue growth maybe. maybe you got 11% eps growth. margins have been flatlining. we know all those things. in order to continue to be bullish on the stock at this price, you have to think that revenue is going to accelerate and along with it get an acceleration in their services side so it can continue to grow at least to 25%. if you get that, then maybe the valuation is justified. that's the rub. if you believe that, the stock is a buy here. i think historically the stock sells off in a meaningful way a couple times a year. we've seen it maybe once and i think we're setting up for another one. >> i think everybody has been

talking about this super cycle everyone is hoping to have and now the iphone is coming out and there is no ai on it. maybe in march. at what point do you get that okay now it's march, april, people are starting to get excited and they push it out to the next iphone cycle, a several cycle upgrade instead of one super cycle. they're so dependent on iphone sales such a large portion of that ir revenue they have to have that big cycle and starting to get pushed out further and further that that doesn't bode the case to, you know, buying apple on that news. >> the traction on revenue from services that's not for quarters. >> gene talked about easy comps and margins, guy is right they did flatline around 42%, around 2021 and 2022. they stepped up from 39%. expectations for i think this year, this fiscal year, 46% a little above that next year. it's embedding the expectations a bit more of services. we know that 50% of their sales comes from iphones. that's probably the sort of

thing. that's big part of the bull case, right. if you get towards 50% gross margins for a hardware company with a 1.5 billion install base then the software sales start becoming a bigger percentage. >> mike. >> yeah. we're trading at the upper end of the multiple range over the course of the last four years, so i think a lot of good news is baked in. i actu think you could actually get above average sales on this iphone 16 on more mundane things like the switch from lightening to the usbc jack, probably one of the reasons everyone in my household will upgrade it. nothing to do with ai. there is a relatively aged fleet of iphones out there due for replacement. >> why are you laughing? >> aged. >> i mean, first of all, i like mike. i love mike. but i mean, if you handed in' -- what did he call that? a lightning. >> lightning cable. >> and the other one. >> usbc. >> people know the difference. >> i get the point. it's like -- like -- >> guy, stop. >> and then people waiting

online for this thing. come on. >> we'll explain this to you during the break. coming up a bitter pill to swallow for novo nordisk because its weight loss pill shows slim potential. the energy trade goes nuclear. constellation energy surging as it plans to reopen a key nuclear plant to fuel ai's need for juice. we have the scoop right after this.

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welcome back to "fast money." novo nordisk dropping over 5% today on mixed results for its experimental weight loss pill trial. participants seeing modest weight loss with side effects raising red flags. angelica? >> that's right. this pill targets c b1 a different mechanism from the glp-1s that we know. people in the drug losing about 6% of their body weight after four months. that tracks will lilly's pill but well below the 15% that novo nordisk tell graphed. the concern is the side effects. people taking the pill experienced psychiatric side effects like anxiety, irritable and trouble sleeping. the higher the dose the larger the rate of side effects. novo and others are trying to overcome the risk by targeting cb-1 recenters outside the

brain. novo not giving up on the pill saying more research is needed to find the right dose to maximize safety and efficacy. it's planning a larger phase 2-b study for the next year but there's doubts about the mechanism now. >> how is it different from the older versions. sanofi had a drug that was approved for weight loss but pulled off the market because of the neuropsychotic side effects. how is this cb-1 drug different from that one that got pulled? >> this drug goes after the peripheral receptors trying not to get into the brain. getting into the brain caused the side effects and if you can avoid that you can avoid the side effects. that remains an open question. >> angelica, thank you. all right. so this is an attempt to diversify its weight loss portfolio at this point. it's got a lot of other oral candidates here. how important is it to you in the story, guy? >> i think it's a huge part of the story, and it's the reason

why if you look at some of these ancillary plays or tangential plays like viking, viking was probably higher on the back of the news and we've talked about that stock now for a while. yes, it's volatile, but we started talking about it in the low 50s it's been up and down. but i'm convinced now the more stories you hear the more that this stock is going to be in somebody's cross hairs and we rarely talk about m&a as a catalyst or reason to buy something. in this case i think it is. >> mike? >> yeah. in novo's case it looks like it's sort of broken down out of the long-term uptrend. the good news i would say, out of the trial is that, you know, and what was just being discussed here is that the side effects are dose dependent, but there was a cap essentially on the efficacy at the higher dose ranges which suggests there might indeed be a sweet spot which is what the company is presumably talking about trying to identify. i mean there was still believe it or not, unusual bullish

activity in the options market today even though the stock was significantly lower. >> that's the chart that you sent earlier today. >> you know, again, it's a technical breakdown but that's one part of the story. if you look at the fundamentals of this company, you know, it's much cheaper than lilly, but lilly seems to be in the seat. this is a company if they don't have the ability to move towards oral they might have to vertically integrate a little bit and focus on getting the supplies of the shot. right now we know that there's issues as it relates to the pens maybe more than the drugs. you know, this is a tough one but looking to play the names there are not that many names unless you're going to be speculative. >> i would agree on the m&a that guy mentioned here. the more that you're getting the pills are really -- that's what everybody wants as opposed to the injections. there's a demand and marketplace for that. if they're not able to have the efficacy they hope to have you see the smaller players have it and you will see more m&a activity in the space.

>> a note novo does have another oral candidate which had very good results just last week i think. coming up, constellation energy goes nuclear inside plans to reopen the three mile island the site of america's worst nuclear accident. the details after the break. we are on the lookout for big profits wholesale prices ahead of costco earnings. how the opons rk itimaets setting up for that report right after this. >> catch us any time on the go, follow the "fast money" podcast, we're back right after this. thos are often paused. citi's seamlessly connected banking, markets and services businesses, deliver global financial solutions. so our client can keep investing in innovations for patients around the world. without pause. for the love of moving our clients forward. for the love of progress.

. welcome back to "fast money." a nuclear moment for energy constellation energy surging more than 22% today as the company announces plans to restart the three mile island nuclear power plant where a reactor melted down in 1979 for the worst nuclear accident in u.s. history. constellation planning to sell that power generated to microsoft, helping fuel its ever growing energy needs for ai and data centers. the nuclear announcement boosting the utility sector the group leading the market in a big way today up nearly 3%. uranium getting a boost. check out the etf finishing up more than 4%. straight to pippa stevens who has the details on this. >> just a year ago reopening a

nuclear power plant especially three mile island would have been unheard of. today's announcement demonstrates how large ai's power needs are. it's a 20-year agreement, constellation is spending $1.6 billion to reopen the plant and microsoft is buying all of the power produced. john bartlett from reid asset management told me there's a land grab going on for nuclear from deep pocketed tech companies that have emission goals as well as power hungry data centers. he added, at this point constellation is funding the restart itself, rather than pursuing federal and state supplements, speaking to the fact that microsoft wants this plant back online as quickly as possible. and that the economics and risk sharing were favorable. this is not the first or likely the last partnership we'll see between tech companies and nuclear power. amazon's paired up with fallen while oracle said this month it's building a data center powered by three small nuclear re reactors. three mile island is subject to

the regulatory requirements before it comes back online. >> there aren't too many other mothballed reactor sites in the u.s. that could be restarted. is that correct. >> there's the palisades plant in michigan that holtech is trying to reopen, pursuing federal and state funding to get that off the ground and really the only other site is dwyane arnold in iowa owned by nextair. when you do decommission plants there are two separate ways you can go, either a slow and steady process you own and keep it, you know, online and that's what happened with constellation and three mile island. the other option is to decommission it immediately, sell it to another company who will start stripping it and in that case you get access to the decommissioned fund up front and these nuclear power plants have those funds available. really, the duane arnold one in iowa is the only other option that could come back online. these are few and far between. final point the longer they've been off line the harder it is to bring it back online. >> pippa, thank you.

pippa stevens. all right. so it was interesting on the conference call for oracle larry ellison talking about powering a data center with nuclear specifically. >> and now listen the microsoft news that pippa talked about, this is actually a big story and this could be one of those pivotal moments for the uranium trade, that has had fits a starntsz along the way. if tim was here he would say the same thing, the uranium etf, sruff, for you playing our home game, listen, volatile, typically something we don't talk about but this is where you want to be uranium will be a story and when you hear something like this, microsoft giving you the sort of i want to say the backstop for the entire thing, uranium trade is alive and well, i think. >> for more on how constellation's nuclear plans could impact the space bring in sophie carp of key bank can't marketsp great to have you on. >> thank you for having me. >> this seems like an exciting deal for the industry but how

many more of these kinds of deals could actually take place given how few reactors there are in the u.s. that could actually be brought back online? >> yeah. so this [ inaudible ] number of reactors that have been retired in the last decade, right, in relation to dwyane arnold is pilgrim, oyster creek, and it's -- they are all in different stage of decommission. might be more or -- more opportunity to bring some of them online than others. but that's not the only way to go. right. the industry has the capacity to take nuclear reactor out of the grid and sign a bilateral deal with an off taker like microsoft or racle or any hyper scalar and we've seen that with the susquehanna nuclear plant in pennsylvania this year which was taken by fallen and amazon. so there's quite a few of those and the deal that constellation

announced today sidesteps the political fallout that can happen when such a reactor gets off the grid. where there's an appetite there's a potential for deals like that that utilize reactors as well. >> which publicly traded utilities are sort of in the -- when it comes to inking these deals where they actually take, you know, a reactor and sell all the energy long-term contract to one customer or couple customers? >> so it's not a utility. i think it's important to distinguish the utility would not be doing such deals. i don't think they have a legal ability to do so. they have to serve their customers. constellation is a generator, and they are not regulated. they can do what they please with a nuclear power plant. they're the only game in town. they're the largest nuclear operator merchant nuclear

operator in the u.s. other than them, new jersey utility has an unregulated arm, that owns several nuclear reactors, some of them co-owned with cg but that's the only ones that own at scale. >> how about the other side of the equation, what would power the nuclear plants uranium? what's going on in your view in terms of supply and pricing given russia's, you know, plans potentially to do sort of a retaliatory ban? >> yeah. i think the industry has been very focused on that and it's not just the uranium. there's a number of steps that need to happen before the uranium becomes nuclear fuel and the issues really not been the -- not as much raw material as lack of the processing capacity outside of russia and the former soviet union. the industry has been focused on addressing that and very careful in making sure that the capacity

has been built in the u.s. and other developed countries as with el. i think this will be addressed and it's very important national security issue as well. >> all right. sophie, we're going to leave it there. thanks for joining us. mike, do you dabble in this space? >> well, i think i like utilities in general because i think we're on a sort of second wave of electricity demand. we basically had no incremental increases after 2007 for some period of time because most of the big increases that we saw over the previous 50 years or so came mostly from, you know, air conditioning in the south basically. but now we've got evs, now we have increased data center demand and that, obviously, creates a tailwind. maybe invest in a company like flur. can't just take mothballed nuclear facilities and bring them back online. a lot of those were running on extensions before they were

actually retired. so at some point, we're probably going to need to build new generation and you might want to take a look at the construction and engineering companies that would do it. becktell would do it but that's private. >> right. utilities just recently all-time high. record high. >> which is fundamental as mike was saying. >> or defensive. >> both at the same time i think is what's going on. >> how can you have both? >> you can always have both. going to burger king -- >> have it your way. have it your way. >> mike is laughing because he knows. you can't have it your way. i went to burger king the other night driving home from d.c. >> tmi. >> yes, you can -- flr, that's like old -- >> very haven't talked about --. >> if you think much those engineering stocks from '07 to 2011 were on fire and they fell by the wayside. >> can it be both? that's the bottom line, you know, can you have a trade levered to the growth trade ai

and also be defensive? >> yeah. i think typically you don't think of your utilities as a growth trade and i think that's where you look at a constellation which trades like 31, almost 32 times forward earnings should a utility be priced that high? yes, because of the demand the electricity grid on demand and ai centers such a magnitude. we talk about that. i don't think people are really able to grasp how much more that that demand is going to go forward. yeah, it puts them morein a growth trajectory that does justify their higher valuation. >> coming up, options in bulk. how traders are setting up in front of a pivotal earnings report for costco. more "fast money" right after this. i'm really just here for the at&t internet, it's super-fast so, any pre-launch concerns? what if nobody buys them? that's mean or, what if everybody buys them? oh, i hadn't thought of that that's probably not gonna happen can we handle that kind of traffic? the network can handle it! i downloaded eight hours of true crime stories just during our last video call i'm learning a lot

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welcome back to "fast money." costco among a handful of names reporting next week results out thursday. mike has more on what the options pits are expecting from big box retailer land. mike? >> yeah. so the options market implying a move of 3.7% higher or lower not a whole lot higher than the 2.6% that the company has around. even though we are seeing quite a lot of bullish activity more than 50 times forward earnings, this always trades rich, this is a lot richer than it has traded

historically and i think we're getting to the upper edges of reasonable valuations for this one. >> courtney. >> i think costco they've been in such a good position when you look at their membership, they have like 94% membership renewals, high income consumer and starting to see better comps in discretionary goods unlike most of their other competitors. i have to agree with mike, i think their valuation does give me pause here. it does so well and when will you start to see that come to reality. i like it's done well but probably wouldn't chase it. >> coming up it is friday. you know what that means, not one, not two, but four charts of the week. what's catching their eyes next. for "fast money" in two.

let's say you're deep in a show or a game or the game. on a train, at home, at work. okay, maybe not at work.

point is at xfinity. we're constantly engineering new ways to get the entertainment you love to you faster and easier than ever. that's what i do. is that love island? welcome back to "fast money." at the end of the record breaking week for the dow and a week where all the major averages closed higher we asked traders to give us their chart of the week guy, kick it off. >> watching this jeff bridges thing "the old man" a place to go here, and it's an unbelievable series. he's an old guy -- >> what streaming platform? >> i don't know. hulu or something. >> go ahead. >> you can find it on your favorite podcast store. got me thinking doesn't matter the age, you can still kick rear

end and warren buffet doing that. he's now accumulated $80 billion in cash or cash equivalents. the buffet indicator flashing red. the market doesn't seem to care. it's clear that old man does. >> dan? >> i think i want to look at software the igv the etf that tracks it. we spent so much time this year talking about the smh, the semiconductor etf. look at this chart quickly. this is the one year. this is about to break out here. it's getting close to the all-time highs there when i think about this one i think that they're going to pass the baton from semis to software. smh is about 16% for all-time highs and this is on it. >> courtney. >> there's a big debate right now on what's happening with small caps and especially as rates are coming down you're seeing that the fed does choose the larger rate cut as opposed to the smaller. look at the s&p versus the

russell 2000 this week it is outperforming and that's something likely going to continue here ly when you factor in the price to book on the russell 2000 is less than half of that in the s&p it's going to put them into good position and something you want to take a look at. >> mike. >> gold hit all-time highs but the miners didn't. i'm looking at newmont. the price is going up but the costs aren't going up as quickly as inflation has slowed and you will see margin expansion here and some of these miners for the short term play catch-up with gold and i like newmont. >> guy you've been on the gold train for a long time although part of the face of fear trade in the markets the fact that gold is dole well. >> i agree. in the acronym game, perhaps our crack staff can throw a chart up and take a look at this sucker over the last few months and it's done extraordinarily well.

>> up next, there it is, final trades. clem's not a morning person. or a...people person. but he is an "i can solve this in 4 different ways" person. you need clem. clem needs benefits. work with principal so we can help you with a plan that's right for him. >> university of maryland let our expertise round out yours. global campus is a school for real life, one that values the successes you've already achieved.

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next, i'm wrapping up my week out west with a c-suite lineup you do not want to miss. check in on cyber with okta and pc innovation straight from hp headquarters. >> "mad money" next on cnbc. it is time for the final trade on this friday. around the horn. michael. >> yeah. i love costco but don't love the valuation. options a are fairly pricey. >> courtney. we talked about small caps as my chart of the week. vanguard's etf a way to play this. >> dan nathan, happy birthday. >> thank you. >> i have to wish a happy birthday to my twin brother andy. >> yes. >> quickly intel we talked a lot about it in the last few days here. i think you can buy this thing. it probably fills that gap on

any real takeover. >> wow. guy. >> like the jet game last night talking about in the green room saying that's the road map for success this year, right. >> 100. >> throw the ball, good defense. mel's on it. my mission is simple. to make you money. i am here to level the playing field for all investors. there is always a bull market somewhere and i promise to help you find it. "mad money" starts now. hey, i am cramer. welcome to this west coast edition of "mad money". i'm just trying to make you some money. my job is not just a entertain, but to educate and teach you, so call me. 1-800-743-cnbc. at the end of the week it was totally defined by the fed. we finally got a