and it is a little bit of a show me story but is worth a position because of the defensive aspect the company has as well. >> you did it. you did it beautifully, joanne thank you. three for three. joanne feeney. we've got ten seconds.to talk a. >> what about drones drones over your house. >> i know about droning, okay. make sure you join us tomorrow. >> on and on and on. >> "squawk on the street" is next welcome to "squawk on the street," i'm carl quintanilla, bulls do look to get some back after the dow's worst day in a month. the dow is also trying to avoid a tenth consecutive loss it's fed day, rate decision at 2:00 p.m. eastern time beginning with fed watch, a third straight rate cut is expected investors are waiting for the

dot plot and some tea loaves. >> nvidia shares look to be set for a bounce salesforce launches arn ai hiring spree, and regulators are warning about tech surging power demands, and starbucks on the verge of a major barista strike and early challenge it would seem for the new ceo brian nichol. >> it's not just rate decision, jim, we'll see if there are fewer cuts next year. >> not represented in the fed fund futures, why are they doing this i come back and say why are they doing this, look at the material stocks, look at anything related to industrial export the housing stocks there are cohorts rolling over it isn't like everything is super strong and quantum computing and rocket lab >> man, those small quantum computing companies. not the one that's going to win if it comes to it, but the small

guys, who knows. they're all taken off. >> but to your point about what's not been working also, jim, and i don't know if this goes to interest rate forecasts for the fact that we may not get as many cuts, but value stocks, 11 straight days down. >> it's incredible >> like a new record >> these are mini bear market. >> the index that's so called sort of encapsulates the so-called value stocks. >> did you see dow chemical? if yields 7%, there's no sign it can't cover the yield. it certainly can. >> looks like a bit of a rebound today. that's 11 straight days. >> this is called the morning. you're looking at stocks, cleveland clips just went by it's under $10 ford motor, you look at ford motor, you just say, wow, warranty problems but also inventory problems so i think that the talking heads, and boy are there ever a lot of talking heads decided that, look, if you look at what we're seeing in some retailers,

things are strong. by the way, retail is not strong either if you count kohl's. >> the headline beat yelled ste was about dealers offering inventory. >> i don't get where people think it's strong. they look at the aggregate numbers. i look at the individual companies companies. aisle trying to find companies that are strong. when you have general mills having to get more promotional to get sales up, what does that say? it says that their promotions are all over the place, and i happen to think that i had lowe's up last week, a big chain, you're talking about head winds, head winds, head winds. >> why is atlanta tracking 3-1 for the quarter. >> i'm trying to find why, where that is. we know, david, the travel is strong leisure is strong. dining out is strong these are strong, and by the way, they're very obvious. they look obvious, and obviously the atlanta fed, i don't know what kind of waiting they have, but wow. >> maybe they include hyper

scalers spending money on chips. >> microsoft, they spent a lot on chips of course. >> maybe it's power demand maybe it's building data centers. >> i do think that what we're seeing is the tech, amazon, alphabet, apple, these must be just over -- maybe they're overweighted walmart is having a dynamite quarter. costco is having a fantastic quarter. these are very large >> you just argued against everything you just said. >> walmart literally is the reflection of the broad consumer. >> i'm trying to find what's in atlanta. i want to do atlanta now that kirk cousins has been benched. they pay 120 million >> do you see "new york times" power rankings >> i think we're playing a tough game against the commanders.

>> you know, josh, i do, i do know josh. >> was he a good stock guy man, he's dynamite. >> it wasn't as much as stocks as buyouts for apollo, now private credit. >> what's apollo doing here? >> what does that question mean, what is apollo doing here? >> i mean, should have stuck with home depot. >> the other story, regardless of our own debate about where our economy stands is the turmoil in germany, in the uk, the cpi number today china, we mentioned south korea. bnp. >> the canadian dollar, i mean, we got to go to toronto, you and me man we'll get you a new jacket 70 cents, the canadian dollar is the worst since march 2020. >> i'm going to toronto in july, i think. i'm going to see cold play up

there. >> buy everything. go to hudson's bay by then it could be the 51st state, carl. >> naturally we're supporting them to the tune of 100 billion that year. >> come in, be the 51st state. the president-elect he keeps pushing that argument. >> you know what's stable, power, speak truth to power, didn't go to mar-a-lago, didn't give a million dollars, i think, to the -- we have to find ceos who did not give that million dollars. >> should we give a "squawk on the street" contribution of some kind, do you think you already got the interview. you got the interview. germany, you mentioned that economy is in trouble >> auto-based economy, you know, volkswagen gave money to rivian. did you see rivian downgraded?

>> they employee 300,000 people. >> nissan and honda are talking about trying to get a co-op agreement or a full blown potential. >> the world away from the united states, i'm trying to find countries, maybe argentina making a comeback, but it's difficult to find a country i would invest in. >> see what's going on with the currency in brazil we may have issues but. >> got brazil today. i don't know, trying to find a country that isn't upset in turmoil in something, it's very difficult. japan's okay, i guess. >> yeah. >> but the people's republic of china is behind so much of what's going wrong, but they are never, other than peter navarro, called out >> the journal is taking a good look at even with their gdp targets and even their current data, citing citizens there who say it feels like a depression.

>> look, i have to believe it, because i don't believe a single number they send we used to look at their electric power >> that used to be a way to judge -- >> how about employment of youth. >> the level of growth was looking at their power consumption. they continue to build solar plants at an amazing rates >> right and they build cars at an amazing rate, and we know that they've got a military budget that is gigantic, where as ours, great piece in the atlantic, anyone read that piece i didn't >> holy cow, we're making weapons the way they used to around the civil war that piece in atlantic. >> amazing writer. >> she's going to macau today to mark 25 years of chinese rule. >> i saw win with a price target boost. >> did you, carl >> i'm aware there's a lot of business in macau. >> junkets are back, that would be good for estee lauder,

nothing is good for estee lauder, forget that. >> the chinese consumer is nowhere to be found. >> no. >> all china stories lead to tech nvidia is up in the premarket. piper reiterates an overweight on the stock the slump has sent the shares, as you know, into correction territory. jim, you said there's been no change to broad demand at the high end or low end. >> i'm sure about that just the fact that microsoft got the chips. immediately who the wags are there must be a demand problem if that day got the chips. that's completely untrue i do not like if you like an up opening. the people who bought it will be heat seeking missiles blasting that 133 you need a crescendo selloff, and you did not. >> you said midday yesterday, you thought we might be getting there. >> 127, 128, but then to 130 back to 128. there are sellers of nvidia, they just decided, you know what, it cannot possibly be as good as last year. i say it's going to be every bit

as good. you're going to hear things from jensen huang that are going to make you regret why you sold at 127. >> when you say everything will be at as good, do you mean the performance of the company or you actually believe that the stock will also have that kind of performance that did this year despite the last six months of being flat, we're talking about a stock -- >> the stock follows performance, and the big problems, 170%. >> you don't remember what it was like from 386 to 486, there are these aps. blackwell turned out to be much harder to ship, the current ship this is hopper, the chips that microsoft bought, not the current it ration, but they're very powerful, and i think that everyone, don't forget, meta, which is just upgraded, upgraded, upgraded or price target boost said that meta ai would be the most powerful right now, it isn't. meta ai, i think it stops in like june 28th of 2023

but okay, the glasses that translate. how about that i'm giving everybody the ugly glasses. this is my present to people nobody watches in my family so it doesn't matter. you have an extra pair, let me know >> joanna stern, the reviewer at the "wall street journal," very positive about them! the actual raybans are so cool, take pictures, talk to it, have a great time >> you have been critical of the information, but they have a piece up saying that nvidia's cloud service couldn't rival aws potentially one day. >> i think they just kind of felt the heat of having never said a single good thing about nvidia during one of the greatest runs in history, other than it's bad, it's this or that it's like they have a gix on nvidia. >> a what on nvidia? >> david looks -- every so often he gets one, i don't

>> it would be like me buying tickets right now to the super bowl jinx, yeah, they say these things that are just -- i mean, it's incredible, if you follow them, you really would believe that that company is going the way of ev charging station >> competition, custom silicone, scaling walls, peak capx >> remember, broadcom and marvel tech work with the gpu they can't pplant the gpu, amazon would love if training can keep up with the gpu, but they have to buy a tremendous number of nvidia >> they still do they still do. we talked about this yesterday, we'll say it again today nobody is supplanting it but you believe that the financial performance of nvidia will be equal this coming year to what we saw in 2024 >> there's music being played in

my year, which says we have to go i arranged during my party on "squawk on the street," it means nothing. >> you did arrange that. >> i remember. it's commercial free it's terrific. >> you're very welcome i was happy to take care of that for you. when we come back, one of brian nichols big tests, facing on his hundredth day, lowest since september. we'll get to names, crm, jim mentioned gerallnel mis a look at the premarket softening a bit here back in a moment deadline in five!

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today marks brian nichols 100th day as starbucks ceo, he's facing a big test on the labor front. the starbucks workers united movement says 90% have voted to authorize a strike as they seek a contract with the coffee giant. the incoming questions on the stock this week have been many i don't know if you saw china

retail sales, beverages were down 4 on the month. >> the honeymoon is so over. people are talking about weakness in india too. i do feel that now it's going to be a stock when it was at 98, the expectations were too high i feel that it can continue to shade lower, the stock i own for the club, talking about tomorrow at our club meeting. it had that big jump from the 70s to really 100. i think i should give up some of that, david, it frankly was up on the strength of the man, not necessarily the fundamentals i still trust him to come up with it. >> it's flat, basically, since he was announced or came in. that's since he became ceo i mean, i see it we have it right there up .81%. it's flat. >> well, the stock -- i think the stock ran on the announcement, so we're not showing right. >> doesn't give the complete

picture. i think one person can make a big difference it's not a one quarter fix >> see it's up 19% since the announcement. >> the other good chart is chipotle versus starbucks on three months chipotle has not looked back. >> he had the giant split. if you take a look, about when nichol came in, we should have a look at that, a ten-year chart on chipotle, you'll see chipotle was in this bad shape. we're having a little trouble with the chart. >> no, we're not we're good chipotle was almost in bad shape as starbucks, and brian turned that around very very quickly. remember, he came from -- there it is. in 2018 period, he came from yum. i remember asking him, the yum burrito has like 147 ingredients, and yours has eight, and he says, well, what does it matter i'm at chipotle now, and his campaigns at yum were brilliant, okay, he moves over to chipotle. the first thing he does is tackle the health and safety issues

and then he just goes on and on and became one of these things where we used to be rabid about the limited time offers. i mean, the last one, brisket, which is not his have you had the brisket >> i haven't >> there's a look at the two names over the past 90 days. can you blame the union for wanting to organize? >> look, i think that there was a bonus issue, i mean, haven't belonged to a union that ruined a company. i've always been hesitant to say, look, you know, give them a little room. give the guy a little room before you go all after him. he could make it so that everybody ends up doing really well there has to be some sacrifice when your company is doing as poorly, but if it's that we're not getting the big share, i think they're recognizing that the pie is shrinking. >> although td cowen had a report out arguing that coffee

as a category will be the second largest growing in the next ten years after chicken. it's not like the category is getting smaller. >> i think coffee is good for you. it's not bad for you remember, when we thought wine was good for us? >> i continue to believe wine is good for me. >> it's not good for your heart. >> it's very good. >> were you needing on ice >> sure. you got some it's delicious. >> my wine needs two ice cubes >> sell the wine >> that was the tail end. >> that was the end. >> rosebud >> we'll get cramer's mad dash countdown to the opening bell as we awa tithe fed's decision and the presser at 2:30. one more look at the premarket split. don't go anywhere.

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nothing runs like a deere™. ehh... hmm. oh, that's very, uh... - right? - mmm... this store doesn't have agentforce, so an ai agent didn't tip off the stylist as to what i might actually wear.

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bob iger. >> and hugh johnson, the cfo is helping too. morgan stanley, they have a top pick situation, and they asked spotify. a great subscription model, but they did swap it for disney. david, substantial streaming profits coming password crackdowns and best of all, they are now part of the distribution is king metaphor. >> right >> yeah, yesterday they did 130 pages on cable, and broadband, today, i think it's on media and as you just said stock has had a nice move since those earnings, jim, to give you credit you got positive prior to that >> thank you linear. espn, these are no longer hurting. >> the commercials are good. they're doing well abc, i don't know the actual tv. >> that doesn't move the needle anyway, really

>> stream, and profitability, and showing significant margin and improvement will be very important. >> i think the parks are going to surprise because travel and leisure is still good. this makes sense it's pulled back, consolidated right here i think it's good. i like the call very much. i like what hugh johnson has brought, by the way. remember what he did with pepsi. pepsico not doing that how about the early clinical gop -- >> we're talking about merck. >> this is good, bob iger turning around and green bay is good too he likes them. green bay is underestimated. >> okay. you heard it here first. green bay is underestimated. by the way, don't forget, you can catch us anytime and anheywre, listen and follow "squawk on the street" opening bell podcast

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>> so much news in the world o auto and evs today honda, nissan, confirming that

report out of nikkei, the rivian downgraded, baird takes tesla up another 480 target. >> i do not understand why the problems ith autos are not so visible among the cognizant or the atlanta fed. this is a huge industry, and employs a lot of people. the layoffs and the ramifications of what could happen here, and other mergers, is so devastating. we will finally, you think we have a worker shortage, you put these kinds of companies together, they have massive white collar overhead! yeah they would have about 7.3, 7.4 million sales together a year just to put it in perspective. still below volkswagen and toyota, japanese based toyota as well the chinese are iling the auto markets around the world with

their battery technology and their control of that in so many ways, and obviously the proliferation of evs in so many markets, cheap, cheap, cheap evs. remember, it's going to be a real battle ground what experts are really going to do, they're getting away with murder, they really are. they're getting away with wiping out industries all over the world and there's one guy who stands up to them, and even he was saying that he has a good relationship with xi, and that is president-elect trump, and i think that -- president-elect is not going to say we have to preserve the german economy, he thinks the germans should contribute more to nato. i think everyone is taking this lying down i don't get it you go to italy, you rent a chinese car. >> kind of like what they did with steel decades ago. >> we're talking about the country of lamborghinis.

>> and solar power >> by the way, opening bell here at the big board, it is potash, a recent ipo with ocean first financial. jim, what do you make of this? you mentioned materials and industrials or the percentage of names above their 50-day is pretty low now. >> oh, my, i think they're doing so terribly. i'm watching the chemicals trade down consistently. anything that is sold in home depot and lowe's is doing abysmally, and we sit here and say, you know what, amazon, i'm putting my price target higher google, alphabet the mag 7 seems immune even to china which they never got into. >> we talked at the top of the program about the decline in value stocks perhaps today will be different than that. to your point, the ma g7 or at least three or four have been

asserting themselves at year end in particular alphabet, which we have talked about often in the last few days, backed off a bit yesterday from those highs on the strength, apparently of quantum computing, something that is years away >> you say the call. >> i love ben, he had to jump in the 2030s, and it's more premature to talk about that one than even nuclear. there are some nuclear, and certainly space. space is doing pretty well but, david, i call your attention to qubt, ionq. >> these are the quantum stocks. >> these are winners in scrabble, that's about as much as they have to offer. >> ben says quantum is a call option on ibm, could result in billions of dollars of revenues, maybe as early as 2029 >> quantum is going to be able to figure out every encryption, including bitcoin, by the way.

>> yes. >> so what happens then? >> jensen huang goes to the poor house. >> and all the bitcoin is like, yeah, you know. >> david, are you following the nuclear power industry >> i am to some extent following, yes. >> of course no one's built really a nuclear power. >> by the way, the nuclear stocks to the extent we want to call them that have been coming down lately because there seems to be a lot more question about small modular reactors, how quickly they can be put up. >> or uranium out of canada. uranium enrichment stocks. >> he sat there, right here, and i wanted him to go nuke so badly, and he's talking 2033, and he's a real business person. >> you're talking about vernova's ceo. >> he's a business person, not a fly by night guy, not a guy

trying to boost nasdaq's stocks, not trying to robinhood anything, he's a business person. >> it's seven years away. >> he said eight >> seven, eight, nine. >> he's doing 2025 numbers quantum and that is going to come at the same time and then it will all be over. >> we saw what happened with nvidia, and we saw that monster may quarter last year, and we said to ourselves, let's find the next nvidia. a bottle signing, what's the next nvidia. >> nvidia is the next nvidia why do we have to find the next nvidia. >> data centers and space. also data centers offshore, using geothermal power that's where it's all going. nuclear. we're talking space. >> offshore. >> specter specter had it okay, where was thrush located >> where was who located >> thrush. >> law enforcement had to go against. >> oh, they did? >> the 13th floor of the empire

state building. >> oh, that was a different -- i'm talking specter from the james bond movies. >> brilliant and a terrific eye. >> what's next, chaos? >> oh, my gosh >> cone of silence. >> special executive council for terror, what else, somebody will have it out there. terror. >> the claw. these things were so politically incorrect, which is why i bring you to instill one more netflix price bump is swinburg a guy who wants to go with the flow >> i remember the battle. >> 130 pages who reads 130-page reports >> chatgpt, you get everything. >> he writes it and summarizes it for you. >> chatgpt it, david >> you perplexity me >> to your point about some of

the big ones, jpm raises google to 232, amazon, bernstein to 265. still in catch up mode >> i just find that these things go on endlessly, and they don't want to actually jump the price. they have to tick it up a little bit. this is what's going on, david, we're in that period right now where everyone seems to say no one is going to be around next week because of the odd time that christmas falls let's just go and talk about intuitive machines, you know, space, you know. >> i don't know that one >> how about rocket lens. >> good things about humana. i will preserve him by not talking about it >> humana was down sharply on the worries about pgms. >> cvs is a real company. >> yes, it is. and the stock broke down i saw someone on frank holland's show this morning, talking about a potential bottom in some sf of these. >> i don't see it. look, the president-elect does

not say it once. he says it like ten times that he wants to wipe out, you know, it's a theme >> it's a theme. >> there you go. it's an update >> it's got a huge dividend. >> after a significant down draft, over these last couple of weeks, and concerns about, care mark, pbm. the middle man. >> how did they get on the red hot, i remember when larry merlo ran the company and it was up, up and away. >> those who are considering legislative, policy risk, it's not clear the senate will get it by friday. >> the idea that congress, it does bring them together, we all, i think, have given up the idea that congress focuses on something. >> well, i mean, there's going to be a one vote disparity in terms of what -- or something close to that, at least initially in terms of republican control. so getting anything through the house will remain quite

difficult to carl's point about the continuing resolution that even they're needed, i think, democratic support >> depends on whether he wants to go through the rules committee. if not, you're going to need 2/3 it's tight the tightest gop majority since the 30s. >> if we're going to go around we don't know how to use congress to buy ourselves stocks we turn to things like general mills because they report and guide the future >> getting rid of the middle man may be more difficult in practice >> can we say that the middle men have been under fire for decades? and mckesson is always standing. mckesson has defied everyone abc. >> you cannot attack sancora,

they are teflon. they always win. cardinal health is having a fabulous year. you cannot go against these. these companies are too powerful they're too powerful you can't touch them you can't. >> are you going to do merck as well on the license thing? >> i don't have much to say other than the news. it's kind of interesting, merck trying to get in at least to a certain extent, the glp receptor territory, dominated, as our viewers know, by lily and know voe -- they will be associated with the development, regulatory approval and commercialization of this candidate, and right now, all it is is an investigational preclinical small molecule, glp-1 receptor,

from hanso, a chinese biopharmaceutical company. i can't remember mentioning too many chinese biopharma companies. >> they used to buy all of these instruments from dan hur, used to be -- >> who used to buy all the instruments? >> chinese government. >> and now they don't anymore? >> lumina, the orders from china, for scientific equipment for thermo and for dan hur are just incredible how poor they are. look at that, that's not just -- that's danaher. >> and look at tmo, such a good company, chinese orders. >> i didn't know that! chinese orders because they have not done the stimulus. let's put up another loser that i own. ge health care gehc, which has been just crushed by the fact that they don't have the chinese order

they're going to analyze i'm going to have to talk about ge health care tomorrow. that's one of my stocks, should be attacking me left and right on. >> i'm not going to. i'm going to give you a break on that. >> why >> i don't know. >> you're still in the green for the year. >> i am. >> it's not enough to be in the green. you got to be in the playoffs. i got to be in the playoffs. >> it's ridiculous, you stink. >> thank you i got to be in the playoffs. >> you've already clinched >> i've already clinched. >> heavy nfl today >> that's why i'm playing carson wentz this weekend we may have to start him, it's a high ankle sprain, not as bad as '22. >> you mentioned china, china orders, apple trades at 41 times earnings it's the highest pe ratio, i'm reading here at least, according to one firm, since 2007. >> and people will not stop buying it. >> except for berkshire, which has sold a lot of their apple. >> they did. >> david, one of the things

that's happened is people just say, we're getting away from the cell phone cycle >> 41 years of earnings is a lot. >> i say own it, don't trade it. so far, the biggest trust, i think if we can get away from the 17, 18, 19, get away from that, and make this much more of a service story. tim cook, bridles, if you say, look, it's razor blade because this is a tech company with the highest satisfaction. >> yes, very nice. >> i do think if you can make it so that the service revenue is the thing, and you've got china, without china orders, no longer. apple is no longer dependent on china. then you get a hire modable. but this has to be followed up by a dynamite 2025. >> it would seem to have to be the company is at $3.8 trillion. obviously we'll have some focus

on whether it hits and when it hits $4 trillion i can remember when it hit a trillion isn't that amazing >> core holders for tomorrow's speech it's still a core holding. i don't know what to say, would i come in and buy the stock right now? i think i would wait for a bit of a come back it trades like, you know, nuclear. >> oaklow, i saw that. >> it's apple. >> unbelievably great company. i don't know what to do. this is a total quandary for me. how do you tell people to buy apple at that multiple when it doesn't have that kind of consistency, and you have to believe that what they do have is a plan, they're out of the cycle business. >> we did get some, you know, reports over the weekend about foldable giant ipads and watch upgrades satellite. >> i'm sure david remembers when andy williams sang social

security -- sang it's that wonderful time of the year you see the ad, why would you put it in hot chocolate. like a marshmallow. >> it was a nice membrance of andy williams. >> we have jabel circuit leading the s&p. jabil represents building of technology, and you have micron that goes up every day, setting up for failure, unfortunately, i don't like that. that's reporting tonight that's high band width because it does have great high band width ai business. >> the component manufacture there was an interesting story about jabil using labor that was undocumented because they went to another firm to provide it for them this was in the first trump administration, and how many people -- >> look at that stock. >> potentially are at risk for

them, and/or others stocks are that rely on undocumented immigrants. >> that is signaling all systems go for a lot of tech companies >> you completely ignored my point about deportations, you just talked over it. >> more humanitarian, i said that i said that. i want to be but when you see the sto up 13, my first thing that comes to mind, i'm a dollar sign remitted by a man, is that as a lot of money, and second, i do care, okay all right. >> i wasn't asking whether you care i'm wondering whether it's a risk to companies like this that do rely on this labor force that may no onger be there. >> that's not good the cost will go up, absolutely. but i do think, carl, that when you see a company that does contract manufacturing, a lot of it was also med science, med tech, that is a sign of health, and i don't want to hear if you say the sign of health, the fed has to be tough hawk

what is that, black ves? >> i didn't like it. >> come to think of it, i didn't like it either >> the writing. >> i prefer lioness. >> do you? >> i tried two new shows on netflix, i couldn't get through either of them in my mind, they're not good. >> david has never heard of "squid games," you probably think it's like -- >> i liked "squid games," you probably thought it was like the cat show, do you remember that >> i don't remember the cat show. >> never mind. it's not cats, it's catch. >> oh, catch >> to your threat about the consumer, enstock is going to have a decent morning, and double upgrade ollie's. >> i pushed it hard last week. it has the biggest road map of all of these closeout stores

i like tgx, that's the king. if you went to ollie's, a sergeant, listed in the army, you never know what you're going to find there. ever. >> it's a treasure hunt situation. >> i told you i got the rise and the fall of the third reich. somehow there was a water damaged bookstore, and between 283 and 284, if you're caring, you don't rip the pages. i got it for $0.78 >> that's a great buy. >> i bought tarps for shares, they were like 7 bucks join me at the army. >> stock's up 30 bucks in a month. >> it's fantastic. they used to have a heck of a lot of stuff that were hasboro i don't see that they had a lot of nool if we can put up the chart of nwl. there is a comeback and it's working and you don't see their stuff at ollie's, that's how you

knew to buy newell that's when you see anything at ollie's from newell. >> you see something that's really heavy there, like i got worried because they do the most yeti knockoff i have ever seen. >> yeti knockoffs, that's trouble. >> trouble with a capital t and that rhymes with me. >> thank heavens for yeti. their stock is good because they keep developing new products they're one step ahead of ollie's, which is like the posey. >> who are those guys, butch cassidy. >> i didn't see us ending the block on yeti innovation. >> shockingly good. >> and butch cassidy and the sun dance kid. >> let's go to bolivia, i hear things are great there. >> la paz? >> watch bonds, as we said, an important day for central banks as we await the fed decision and

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what is the best performing dow stock of the month, it is boeing, better than amazon better than salesforce, better than apple, better than microsoft. they have resumed. >> i think of plane maker, if you're making planes is better than one not making planes >> 137 was a good call, jim. >> and they did the great secondary, everyone made money on that. supposed to be ripped, apparently, straight athlete >> and we'll see what it means for travel got an upgrade at expedia over at morgan stanley. we'll get stock trading with jim in a minute.

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bring on the good stuff. xfinity. it's time for jim and trading. >> the street is turning positive on best buy, which has been a decent stock for me people are talking about ever core's got a good rationale, holiday survey looking good. this is a company when they reported their quarter did not

give the kind of guidance i wanted and the stock came all the way back down, up to 100 if growing optimism says the prices are similar to amazon, maybe there's a chance i'm ing to talk about it tomorrow in my investing club meeting. i'm basically saying the aipc did not work out it does need rates slower. appliances are not selling as well this is another example where you would read how they're doing and forward the head winds, and say, look, they need a cut to get homes to be built and there's stuff to be -- homes to be remodeled and that's really where they make their money. this was two positive pieces on best buy. >> that's interesting, you did call it to 90, as i recall. >> i liked it very much. we did get let down by the aipc, which is proving so far to be plain disappointing. >> how about tonight >> i have republic services, i like the waste companies, waste management has been a winner

these companies tend to be interested they tend to be more involved with say the building of homes that's where the real waist is -- waste is. i have been to a landfill. it feels like the birds. >> we did a documentary on garbage about a decade ago, and it's a great macro tell. >> cleanest single waste place on earth >> david, didn't think we would end there. >> susan plachett. >> carson kept her on the sofa. me mad money, 6:00 p.m. eastern ti sara eisen ease interview with marc benioff in a moment

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good wednesday morning. welcome to another hour of swap on the street, i'm sara eisen with carl quintanilla and david faber.

live on the post nine of the new york stock exchange. stocks little change, happy fed day. the s&p 500 is a little higher. financial healthcare, communications, services, and materials, all those sectors are up right now, but it's being upset by losses, energy, consumer staples. tesla's down 2%. that's a little bit of a different story than we've seen lately. obviously these big technology, heavyweighters move the indexes. there's the nasdaq, it is down just a fraction. again, marching in place ahead of the fed. take a look at treasuries right now. the story has been higher yields. the ten-year yield higher again. 30-year higher as well, but kind of mixed around the curve. we're 30 minutes into the trading session. here are three movers we're watching. shares of nvidia are rebounding this morning after being down four straight own days in eight of the past nine trading sessions. the stock is still in correction territory, which means it's down more than 10%

from recent highs. shares of general mills dropping after cutting its outlook for next year. cereal maker revived volumes by lowering prices across its products, but higher targeted promotional investments weighing on the forecast. shares of salesforce moving higher. company unveiling the next generation a.i. platform and hiring 2,000 people to sell its a.i. software to clients. i did speak to salesforce ceo marc benioff about this big news. that interview is coming up in a few minutes from now including new tidbits on what they're seeing as far as demands and orders. but guys, today is the fed day, so let's get into it. there's not a lot of mystery about what the fed is going to do. the market says 95% chance the feds cut interest rates. it will be the third one since they started cutting in september. the big question around today is the communication. it's a little bit of a communication challenge for him. first of all on justifying the rate cut, i feel he has to do a little bit of a dance to

justify a rate cut in this kind of economic environment, similar to what they did back in september when they cut 50. remember, that was kind of a surprise. there was a little bit of a dance with the recalibration thing. so today, there's going to be that too. the other challenge he has is on expectations and how he interprets the better economic data and firmer inflation number, and whether he tries to pivot to every other meeting kind of rate cut. we will see as we go. we could go more gradually, we could pause. language like that, i think it will be really important because the market is now ahead of the fed in terms of fewer cuts. importantly today, we'll get the dots, which is the expectation, what they think rates will look like in the years ahead. the dots, the last time around, they will come out every four months will show three cuts in 2025. forecast on wall street shows three cuts in 2025.

fed funds future, which trades, shows two cuts in 2025. so who is right? will the fed move closer to where the market is pricing? those will be some of the big questions that i'll be looking for and others will be looking for. and where is neutral? where are they trying to get to? what's the destination, right? this economy is pretty strong in the face of a lot of rate hikes. does that mean neutral goes higher? >> this economy is strong. there's not a lot of economies around the world that are particularly strong. >> we're crushing it. >> that makes policy for the u.s. >> i know, i do wonder how that figures in. germany is so weak, france, brazil. five year fall swaps on a yearly high. i mean you go on from there. there's a lot -- >> even the u.k. out there are sniffing out. odds of the b.o.e. cuts. >> it is notable, 2.6%. that's a move up because it's been a global phenomenon on inflation. everyone fell together and everyone is sort of sticking

together. look, here is my chart of the day. it comes from rpm, an economist i've long followed. it gets to the whole expectation. back in september -- this is the two-year yield. it is most sensitive to policy expectations from the federal reserve. when they first started cutting the blue line, the two-year yield was much lower because we thought that this was the start of a cutting cycle. there was going to be a lot of easing. it was going to come back down, but now yields are higher. this is the two year yield in orange. it's not suppose to happen. normally when the fed is cutting rates, you would expect yields to fall at this time. but the uncertainty over the strength of the economy and the probability of the inflation declined stalling have pushed up yields, which is the signal for the fed among many signals that they can't cut maybe as much as they thought or as much as they wanted in this cycle. now we always on fed day here at cnbc, take a look at what it means for you, right?

mortgage rates, credit card rates. how do you feel the fed policy. you can compare to when the fed started hiking interest rates in march 2022 to where we are right now. and we're still elevated. 30-year mortgage rates, still very high. home equity loans, still very high. you feel this. the credit card rates, which have skyrocketed. again in march of 2022, they were already elevated on the expectation of rate hikes. so people are still feeling the impact of higher interest rates, obviously. it is not having a destructive affect on the overall economy as maybe the fed and most economist and investors thought it would. >> and maybe it was weaker than we thought. we did have that price this week suggest that they will get back to 6% for the first time in 20 years. >> that's out of consensus high. >> i know. they said maybe we'll get to five and then talk about it, but they didn't rule it out. >> right, what that speaks to,

predictions are coming in for higher yields. and throughout that hike, i mean these are out of consensus and they're a leap from where the market is right now, but we're talking about that because the date has been good. >> in the meantime we will talk about how they play into this market, where they have not been historically kind to stocks on powell presser days. the dow, of course, rebounding from this nine-day loss. longest since 1978. our senior market commentator is here with some positive reps today? >> it is like the market is trying to get ahead of this possibility that we get a bit of a tension release. even if it is just about getting past frankly the decision of the press conference, that's the one thing that will be accomplished. sometimes it's enough. but real stark. everybody has been talking about it in this market. and real specifically, it's the reciprocal part of the market, the economic sensitive areas that have suffered the most in the last month. and that's not really consistent with this census out there that they are humming, and you know, the fed, they

might need to restrain it soon. it is actually more consistent with we have this little bit of data. we stopped the forecast. they're on the down swing. at the same time as you guys have been saying, we are taking anticipated fed cuts out of the market. so that's a little bit of a pinch in there if you take a look at industrials over to the nasdaq. i mean two different directions. what's really interesting though as a set up is the majority of this market is now really oversold and it is due for some kind of a relief balance if we get past it. we have a 15.5 in the s&p 500 that's been static all month for like two to three weeks. that's usually not the case. so i'm open to the idea that we'll get a little bit of an okay. maybe things aren't so bad. we would price in a less generous fed. now there is finessing to be done, right? you have to be able to characterize some kind of openness b to inflation. maybe not doing what you think. but i don't think that he's going to be ready to come off the idea that inflation is generally speaking moving in

the right direction or that neutral is below where we are right now. >> i guess the question is how is the market poised to handle it if he does signal pause or more gradual rate cuts in the future because they are kind of there? >> exactly. that is exactly what it is. i mean he's going to be kind of validating the market stance on things. i think inherently, they will create more suspense around every meeting. they will create a little more stakes in each data point if the fed is very open and they could move out of the way or wait. but six weeks is a decent long time. we'll get a lot of data in that period. but the housing market is just stuck, right? i mean, it is just not moving. the building permits are up today, but that's a negative part of this, of the economy in the near term. and so i don't think that they will be insensitive to that. but the fact manufacturing has softened up. so it's interesting. market, right after the election, they got super bold

up on trump trade 1.0. and let's just play it. small caps. it's going to be a high metabolism economy. the starting point was wrong. we said it at the time, we were kind of pricing at a pretty good economy. it wasn't like 2016. that trade just ran into a wall. what's worked since then? the least economically sensitive stuff, which is mega cap growth, stuff that seems kind of to benefit from various policies. >> crypto. >> and low quality garbage beta. i mean that's not what's connected to the economy, but they do harness confidence and animal spirits. >> we'll see what we get as we will get questions on the policies and a new administration in 33 days. >> for sure. >> that will be one of the more interesting pressers. we'll talk soon. road map for the rest of the hour this morning. we'll talk about what's ahead as mike just mentioned if they do scale back the rate cuts for the next year. plus a big warning from one of the nation's power regulators about the threat a.i. is posing for the electricity grid. we're going to speak to the ceo of georgia power about how her

company is bracing for that surge in demand. a big interview with salesforce ceo, marc benioff, making a new push into a.i. squawk on the street will be right back after a quick break with the dow up 139. to go further, you need to be ready for what's down the road. as energy demand continues to rise, we're harnessing breakthrough innovations to increase production in the u.s. gulf of mexico. our latest deepwater development, anchor, produces

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force, salesforce is unveiling their next generation a.i. platform called agent force 2.0. and agents are tools that can complete tasks like customer support or sales development without human supervision. they call it the future of digital work. i did speak to marc benioff, the ceo, and i asked why he's so excited about it and how he plans on selling it to their enterprise customers. >> i've never been more excited about anything in my entire career. we're seeing really the future of work itself. and humans with agents working together to drive customer success. we've been talking about this for a while. but now here in san francisco, we're showing our new salesforce. that salesforce itself, it's using this service, and it is absolutely amazing. >> how are you using it? give us a used case. >> well, salesforce answers about 36,000 questions a week from its customers. traditionally, something like about 10,000 of those questions

have had to be promoted to human beings. but now through agent force, only about 5,000 of the 36,000 questions go to human beings. 83% are being able to be resolved automatically by agent force. and that is incredible. that is really now transforming our escalation rate and cut it in half. and so we have a whole new opportunity now to row balance our support system. we could have less support agents, human support agents, more digital support agents. we could mix the human labor with our digital labor and create an incredible new salesforce. >> so is the newness of the 2.0 that it is smarter and faster? what is different about the technology? >> it will have an incredible new atlas region in it and that ability to make decisions. it's one of the smartest a.i.s that's ever been released.

and to take actions and do things, and it is also fully integrated with all the key salesforce technology including slack. the end result is we're able to lower our cost and deliver a much greater level of ease of use than ever before, and we're eating our own dog food at salesforce. we run them on it. you can try it yourself. we're one of the only large tech vendors who not only said a.i. is the future, but shows exactly how we're using it ourselves to totally transform our company. >> is this a precursor to robots, to a.i. robots? >> yes, it absolutely is because you just have to see that. of course, we have our hyperscale platform. then we have all of our applications, which are still being used by humans like our customer service app, our sales app, and our marketing app and

analytics low, slack, commerce. and then we have our data layer, our data cloud. then we have our layer. and agent layer. that is where these digital agents will live and operate with others. and then we have our robotic layer on top of that. and the robotic layer, robots are just the physical manifestation of humans. you can't have a robot without having the layer within it. so of course, you have the robot model, which is how it has been moved, but you need that layer in it to be able to connect back to the other key customer data. so it is all one integrated system in salesforce. this is one system. we have now sold more than 1,000 customers this agent force platform, and we're seeing some incredible results. >> and a few weeks ago on earnings, you said the pipeline is incredible for future transactions, so i was going to ask you what demand looks like

and whether momentum is holding up, building through q4. >> we sold more than 200 agent force deals in the fourth quarter, sara. you saw that was an incredible quarter. and brian, our ceo told me last night that we have now sold more than 1,000 paying customers in total. we think about half of our sales people worldwide will have at least one agent force in their pipeline. we have never seen that uptick like this with any product in our history. this is incredible. but it was clear to me, sara, one thing. i had to show our customers that this was live ecause you could see companies like microsoft who have had their agent technology or a.i. technology available for two years, they would call it co pilot. well, they're telling customers, oh, it's great, but they don't have it on their own website. so that is where it was clear to me that i need to show people that this is real and it will work for salesforce and it

will work for you. this is real technology that could lower your cost, make things easier, and deliver the vision of digital labor directly to you and your company now. and while other companies like microsoft are saying you can do it. salesforce is doing it for customers today. >> and i was going to ask about microsoft. i'm glad you brought it up first. you've been taking a lot of jabs at microsoft and co-pilot. why is that? is it getting more competitive with these agents? >> because sara, for two years, microsoft has been saying they have a.i. that is going to transform customers. but customers have been so disappointed by co-pilot over the last two years. you could ask any of them. so many of them think that it is 2.0. they don't understand how this is an opportunity to transform their business to add in digital labor, to scale their businesses in new ways, to go into new markets, to add new

products. that's why i wanted to deploy salesforce as fast as possible, so you could see that right now, right now, sara, i have thousands of agents, working with thousands of my human employees, working with thousands of my customers, resulting in all their service right now. this is not some fantasy or future idea. and you can go to each one of these other tech companies, start-ups, whatever. the big companies like microsoft, they will show me how they're using them because customers demand that this is real, and they want to see the real example. today, we have that. >> well, it's true. microsoft co-pilot did have a lot of promise and a lot of hype, and they department get out of the way investors thought. so there is this question, this looming question about whether some of these a.i. promises and technologies and agents are more hype than

reality when it comes to fundamentally changing businesses. how do you respond to that? >> that is exactly right, sara. and look, there is going to be two types of companies. companies that are saying they could do it and the companies that are doing it. the way you're going to know by looking at those companies themselves. whether it is a start-up, a mid- size company, or one of the large companies. look, salesforce is now the second largest software company in the world. microsoft is the largest. if you go to salesforce.com, you'll see on the front of our website, you'll find an agent that you can talk to about all of our products and all of our competitors. if you go to help.salesforce.com, you'll see the entire support mechanism globally is now fully automated through the robotics architecture called agentforce. that is where the rubber hits the road. listen, let me tell you something. i took a waymo to get to the st. regis here today. and when i got in my house in

waymo, it was an agent driving me here to this event. if i want to go back, there is only one waymo company, one company that offers autonomous driving in san francisco. there's no other company i could call. >> and you trust it? >> there are plenty of companies that say they can do it, but only one actually can. >> and you trust it? because that's a big factor here. >> i love it. i don't trust it, i love it. you should come to san francisco, sara, and we can go in a waymo, and i'll show you. it is incredible. there is no human in the car. and in the same way, salesforce, agent force is humans with a.i. agents driving customer success together. it's the waymo of sales service marketing analytics, commerce. that is what we're doing for our customers. we announced today a great

customer. 300 million applicants a year apply for help and support. and they are deploying agentforce to scale their business in an entirely new way. that's very exciting for us to see that level of success so early on that is making me excited. >> that's marc benioff. and waymo is a client of salesforce. should note there. you can feel and sense the excitement around agentforce 2.0, and he's trying to distinguish himself from the top competitor, microsoft and co-pilot when he said it plainly. some of them will be hyped and some of them will be a rate. we've got a lot more from benioff. i did ask him more broadly about mass adoption of a.i. when it's a coming, what 2025 looks like. how he feels about newly elected president trump. his time magazine naming him person of the year. we talk about that. what we can expect from a new administration in a.i. we're going to play that part

of it on money movers. but this part really on agentforce, which has been driving the stock, since they announced it. the stock is up more than 40%. he confirmed the orders momentum is there. two weeks ago, it's 200 major customers. now he says it's a thousand major customers. it's not changing the financials of the company yet, but clearly offering a lot of hope and promise and investors see that. >> he's a very strong marketer. >> yes. >> very good at doing that as well. >> yes. well, you know, he's been around a few tech cycles. >> without a doubt. i've spoken to him about it as well. i mean he is -- he's pushing hard on all of that. >> well, if you think you have the key to the future of work, right, that's what this is. >> the layer we will continue to hear about. when he began the criticism of co-pilot some time back is interesting. >> keeps at it. >> a couple clips he mentioned,

yet again. after the break, it's been a rough month for the insurers as you know. cvs, unitedhealth, cigna, all down. we'll get a closer look at that space when we're back in a couple of minutes.

welcome back. i'm here with your cnbc update. the health updates committee will release their probe into matt gaetz's alleged sexual misconduct and drug use. according to cnn, the committee decided to release it later this week in a secret vote earlier this month. it is rare for an ethics report to come out after a member has left congress. gaetz resigned after president elect trump named him as his pick for attorney general, but dropped out of contention eight days later. russia's security service announced today an arrest today of a citizen allegedly recruited by ukraine to carry out the killing of the general in charge of russia's nuclear defense forces. the general's death came one day after ukraine opened a criminal investigation over his alleged use of banned chemical weapons. and the two nasa astronauts who have been stuck on the

international space station will remain there a little longer. they have been there since june after their experimental boeing spacecraft ran into technical issues. the agency pushed back their return trip from february to no earlier than late march following a delay in launching a new capsule to the iss, david. i'll send it back to you. >> wow. it was suppose to be a week long trip, i think? >> yes, nine days or something like that. yeah. >> and it is literally like gilligan's island. the health sector is one of the worst s&p groups in 2024 seeing continued weakness this month. as we know the health insurers, it's been a bit of a rebound today. let's send it over to take a closer look. >> and david, it is, in fact, right now, the worst performing sector in the entire s&p 500, though i will say in a banner year for the s&p. every single sector is higher. but the health care sector right now is up 1.2%.

it will be up 2.5% year to date verses the 27% gain for the s&p. and communications services, the best performing sector in the s&p. this sector is up about 39%. now if you dig a little further into that trade for health care overall, what we are seeing are some things playing out with regards to what david mentioned. many of the health insurers, pharmacy benefit manager type operations that are the worst performing, the bigger drags. on the year to date basis, they are down anywhere from 21% for elements all the way down to 48% drop for the shares. big drags there. meanwhile if you take a look at some of the biggest upside moves and influences, it has been a banner year for the medical device makers. look at isrg. boston scientific, all up anywhere from 39 to 61% for isrg. the best performing stock in the health care sector overall. and of course, there is the one big theme, glp-1, weight loss obesity drugs and eli lilly up 33%. it's been one of the biggest

market cap influences to the upside for the sector. meanwhile unitedhealth group on the insurance side down 5%. so there is that big tug of war, carl, between those insurers, some of the big glp-1 companies. i'll send things back over to you. >> all right, dom, talk soon. dominic chu. the fed is expected to cut rates today, but it might be more cautious about 25. what that could mean for the housing market next year. ceo of compass will join us at post nine in just a moment. you founded your kayak company because you love the ocean. not spreadsheets... you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. our matching platform lets you spend less time

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doors lead us to new opportunities. your dedicated fidelity advisor... -surprise! -for you, mama. ...can help you open those doors. by proactively reviewing your entire portfolio. with an eye on taxes and risk. doors were meant to be opened. the fed closing out its last meeting of the year, expected to cut rates for the third time in 2024. getting ready for the press conference later. and he joins us ahead of the decision. good morning, steve. >> hey, david, yeah. a lot of fed commentary from the street has questioned the

expected rate cuts today, noticing the stock market. sticky inflation and still strong job gains in economic growth. less discussed are some of the reasons for cutting, so i want to go through some of those. and set in 2023 for an inflation rate that mirrored 7%. the current 2.33% inflation rate, even if it is sticky, would appear to support a lower funds rate based on the inflation rate. private sector job growth, despite coming in strong in november, has cooled from an average monthly gain of 170,000 per month in the first half of the year to just 110,000 now from july through november. a big part of that decline has come from small business. an engine of post-pandemic job growth that helps keep the economy out of recession. small business job growth has been negative in five out of the past seven months as measured. why? bank of america president brian moynihan telling cnbc yesterday, current rates are very restrictive on small and medium sized businesses. and they have slowed down. and powell and the fed today, likely to say the direction of

rates is still lower. expect that. it's on the fence. but i expect to say that towards an unknown and unnoble neutral rate. but the recalibration process, the easy process is likely over. future moves will be more data dependent. the forecast will likely include fewer cuts and perhaps a higher neutral rate. not to cut the enthusiasm on the incoming administration's policies. setting rates based on optimism surveys by policies that might or might not happen with unknown affects on inflation and employment. it is a reason for caution, but not a solid foundation that you want to base your interest rate decisions upon, guys? >> it is a really good case. it sounds like what we would hear from others that are really fighting for rate cuts right now. steve, what about the path? because we will get the dots. and now as we mentioned earlier, the dots are a little out of place with what the market is expecting as far as how many cuts will happen in 2025 because that will, i guess, be the key. >> yes, so the dots are going

to move, and they're going to be more uncertain, i suspect, sara. what will happen, they will bring down the dots, maybe forecast three, maybe two cuts next year. but a lot of that is going to be based upon the policies that are coming with caution. you're going to have to get more cooperation from those inflation numbers. if you look at the orange line there, that little tick up and that little bit of sideways. that's what got everybody there. what powell has been saying is i'm not thinking about that right now with these last basis points. what i'm thinking about is that bigger decline, that i will have to recalibrate to get that back in line and those days are gone now. >> i look forward to the presser this afternoon, steve. i appreciate it. steve liesman talking to us on fed day. and for post nine and a look at what today's decision might mean for the housing market. we did get, again, mortgage applications in their old habit maybe of ticking down a little

bit this morning. >> and so we are no longer having a view that mortgage rates are going to go to the fives next year or even the following. we believe they will stay around the 6% range for the next two years. and next year, i would expect the prices to go up 3% to 5%. and probably another 5%. but i don't think that we're going to see a big jump in 2025. >> did you have high hopes? >> i did two months ago before the election. that was the view back then. view between the tariffs, and inflationary policies that the ten year would actually increase and not decrease of the same level that we thought it would. >> but you have come on the show before and you talked about them and life goes on, sometimes you have to move it. doesn't matter where the markets are. where do you stand on that view? how much friction will there be if rates are stubborn? >> i think the market will improve. even know, pending applications to purchase a home up 10% year over year. today on a year over year

basis, the purchase of the mortgage application is up 6%. prices are up 5% year over year. so things are improving, but very modestly and off of low base. but the key issues we have, there is not enough inventory. it is 19% more this time last year. 20% less than prepandemic levels. and at compass, we have been able to create inventory by taking the risk out of listing. here is what i mean. a lot of sellers don't want to listen to the spring market because they don't want days on market to occur. and so we have gone to our sellers saying we will take them off the listing. we will not syndicate to the third parties that put the negative insights on the listings. as a result, we have over 6,000 listings today. they're only on compass. in manhattan, over 5% of all the listings in manhattan are only on compass as private exclusives. >> so creating marginal inventory is the effort. >> exactly. >> do you think spring could be an upside to price? >> spring will see upside. i don't know if it will be an upside surprise. [ laughter ]

>> what's inventory look like at this point? >> inventory right now has been increasing across the country. every state has more inventory than it did this time last year. that's a positive. but again, it's 20% less than pre-pandemic levels. there is a chance that by the end of next year, we will be basically at pre-pandemic levels in 2019. >> i mean, it is still short though where it needs to be, right? to bring buyers back and get prices down? >> yeah, there is not enough inventory. if we want to see prices stabilize or come down, we will need much more inventory. we are seeing more inventory in florida, in texas, but we are seeing a shortage in the north, northeast, as well as the midwest. >> and which is more economical right now. buying or renting? >> i would say buying. this is -- prices have stabilized pretty heavily over the course of the last two years. while in places like manhattan, rentals are up 36% over the last three years. >> you say much more inventory.

can you give us the specifics, just so we get an idea in terms of percentages? >> and much more, 15% more this time last year. >> and what we need. you said we need more inventory for prices. and what is that number? >> that number is 20%. >> 20%? >> yes. we are back at 2019 levels. the current view, when you look at research, it will be around 15% more this time next year with an upside surprise to the 20%. >> an interesting story. spinning its land holdings into a separate company would allow it to go light. do you think we will be relying on building or is it all about existing, coming back to life? >> the new administration is going to be encouraging building by deregulation, encouraging people to take federal land. that's going to take time. that's years and years in the making. >> had and then we don't know what will happen to work force and things like that? >> exactly, potential deportation. >> lumber prices. >> it could increase prices of homes because it will increase

the cost to build. >> so the easiest thing is for people to list their homes period? >> the easiest thing is for people to list their homes, but also taking the playbook of the builders. so the builders don't put their listings on all these third party sites. they protect them from days and market price histories, from estimates, less than the value of the home they're trying to sell. that is where compass came from. and it came from in playbook that we saw the builders use. we are just giving that playbook to the individual homeowner. >> you keep weathering surprise after surprise, robert. appreciate you coming on again. good to see you. robert reffkin. still to come, the risks to the a.i. boom. a new report out detailing "the critical reliability challenges" that north america's electricity grid faces. we've talked a lot about this. ora'omgoing to hear fr gegis largest electric providers about those dangers next. don't go anywhere.

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saying surging demand from the technology sector could overwhelm the grid's capacity. joining us now is kim greene, georgia power ceo. georgia power is the largest subsidiary of the company. serving over three million customers. its invested $10 million in the state's electric grid just in the last decade. kim, great to have you. georgia power recently filed an offcycle integrative resource plan. it's an update in 2023. you noted energy growth through 2030 was roughly 16 times what the company forecast just a year earlier. how did that happen? >> hey, good morning. thank you for having me today. yes, in georgia, we are excited about the growth that's happening. we have been serving data centers for years reliably. largely because of that reliable affordable power. data centers, not just data centers, but many manufacturing companies, they're coming to georgia. georgia, they have been voted

the best state for business. >> kim, can i just stop you for a moment? i just love to have you answer that question. again, 16-fold increase just in one year in terms of your estimates for 2030. why? >> yeah. that is really being driven largely by, again, some of the large data centers and the shift in computing a.i. and the learning models that are very data intensive and very energy intensive. so yes, just from our forecast that were really built in 2021. as we move into 2023, we saw a big increase in that forecast. and we work with our public service commission very constructively to allow us to adjust and meet the demands of these customers. >> right, of course the question we asked be many ceos in your position. can you meet that demand? do you feel the plan you have in place in terms of increase in the capacity on the grid is going to be capable of meeting the needs of, for example, all

these data centers that you just cited? >> we are confident that we are able to meet the demand. we have a market structure in georgia, where we are vertically integrated. we are responsible. we own power plants, transmission lines, distribution lines, and we do planning to ensure that we are able to meet reliably the needs of the growing georgia. >> you know, there is certainly a concern on the part of consumers. does this mean my rates will go up substantially as a result of the need of these hyperscalers? how do you answer that question? >> so our data centers, we have worked, again, constructively with them for years. they recognize the needs that they have are, and they're willing to pay for their cost and shield customers from the cost of those increases that will be born by the data centers. >> yeah, we've been hearing about plans from many of the

larger hyper scalers to do so. behind the meter, essentially, just directly have the power come to the data center, not even go over the transmission grid. are we going to see more of those things proliferate as well, do you believe, in your region? >> again, you mentioned the report earlier that they just recently issued. if you look at georgia, there is no concern by nark around reliability in georgia. and so to the extent that our grid can provide the reliable power, that really is the voice of many of these consumers. and they are going to rely on us to provide them the power through the grid that we have. to the extent there are other options like behind the meter partnering with some of these folks on sort of one off transaction. that may happen across the country. but in georgia, we're good with the structure that we have and the ability to serve these customers from the reliable grid that we have built over

the last hundred plus years, and we will continue to invest in. >> kim, as the demand ramps up, where is the source of electricity going to come from? is it natural gas, renewables, nuclear? how do you think about that mix and what we're capable of? >> we have a balanced portfolio of resources that we are depending on. and that includes, yes, going forward, there will be more natural gas, more renewables. we're very proud at georgia power to be the only company that has built new nuclear generation in the last 30 years from scratch. we brought on in the last year and a half two new nuclear reactors. nuclear, if you care about clean air and you care about reliability, nuclear has to be a part of our energy portfolio going forward. so nuclear should be a part of this mix as well as, again, the other types of generations that

we're familiar with. natural gas, even some coal, and certainly a lot more renewables in batteries. we've also just recently brought online a new battery facility in georgia. so we believe in a balanced portfolio of all types of generation resources, and we continue to look at bringing all of those as we meet the demands of these customers. >> kim, so many capacity challenges. of course, the president-elect made a lot of campaign promises about cutting energy prices in half. now some of that is just fossil fuel. but is the industry okay with an environment where pricing is not inflationary? >> so georgia power, affordability is always top of mind for us. we'll continue to keep that top of mind. we are always looking for ways to keep our prices lower. in terms of working with the administration, we would work with both republican and democratic administrations over our 140 years. and i'm sure we will continue

to work constructively with this administration as well, as we would all look to be able to provide the growth that's needed by manufacturing on shoring, reshoring. this data boom that we're experiencing is very important that we're able to provide the energy needs that these customers, for not just our state, but for our nation. it's really in many ways, becomes a national issue. >> yep, for sure when data centers are potentially projected to use as much as 8% of total power by 2030. the kim, thank you. appreciate you taking the time. >> thank you. still to come this morning, citigroup and wells fargo both outperforming the s&p this year, undergoing some big changes to push those stocks higher. we'll get a closer look at their transformation after a break. coding... nah. but all that writing... nope. ai, done, built.

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doors were meant to be opened. citigroup and wells fargo up around 40% now for the year with both of the companies each undergoing seismic changes and regulatory pressure. leslie picker joining us with a look at why 2025 will be critical for their transformation. leslie, these two have some things in common? >> reporter: they have some things in common. 2025 will be a big year for

them, sara. wells fargo outperforming citigroup by more than 500 basis points year to date. although the street is more bullish on citi where about three-fourths of analysts have buy ratings compared to over majority for wells fargo. both banks undergoing their own transformation, shedding underperforming and parts of their portfolio, while also contending with regulatory uncertainty due to a slew of consent orders. for wells fargo, the big potential catalyst for 2025 is the potential removal of its asset cap. this $1.95 trillion ceiling was imposed in 2018, if you recall, following the accounts scandal. reports indicated it could be lifted during the first half of 2025. meanwhile wells fargo has been simplifying the business, pairing back areas they see as less strategic like mortgages and investing in investment banking and credit cards, which executives there see as having more upside. citi too is facing some regulatory uncertainty as it embarks on its own strategy

shift. the occ and fed in july said they made insufficient progress on reporting, which ceo, mark mason, confirmed last week is still a prevailing issue. in the meantime, citi has been repositioning its portfolio, exiting consumer banking in 14 international markets including the planned ipo of mexican subsidiary, banamex, next year. guys? >> leslie, thank you. should point out all the major banks are up in the session. as the s&p and the nasdaq, our live market coverage continues after this. and using workday to put finance and h.r. on one platform. tim, you are a rock star. using responsible ai doesn't make you a rock star. it kinda does. you are not rock stars. (clears throat) okay. most of you are not rock stars. oooh. data driven insights, and large language models. oh, that's so rock roll. it is, right. he gets it. yeah.

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and more in prospectus at invesco.com good wednesday morning welcome to money movers. today, investors await the fed decision while a quarter point cut is widely expected how did the president-elect's tariff plans and mass deportation policies impact the economy? former atlanta fed president going to answer some questions >>