know your audience >> another down day for the s&p. pce, tomorrow which the fed's preferred sentiment gauge and the final michigan consumer sentiment report for december is one to watch. >> you have to say there has been so much volatility. we are currently down on the week for all of the major averages >>. >> that will do it for overtime. >> "fast money" starts now. >> live from the nasdaq marketsite at the heart of sometimes square the dollar and yield both continuing their treks higher after yesterday's fed decision will that spell gloom and doom for equity marks in the new year we'll debate that and health concerns from weakness and the insurers to the disappointing drug rile and the sector getting hit hard today and we'll dive into the headlines and dig into whether the sector is worth another look

nike and fedex surging and we'll go inside the numbers and shares of french fry maker lam westin getting skewered and i'm mel melissa lee, on the desk tonight, tim seymour, karen finerman and mike khouw will join us shortly. three major moves that can threaten stocks, and the ten-year climbing 4.6% after yesterday's fed meeting and its highest it's been since june 2022 the dollar also continuing to strengthen hitting a two-iary high of its own. those moves as the central bank revised its outlook for 2025, now expecting just two more cuts and that sent stock markets reeling on wednesday while the major averages tried to club back some of the losses yesterday. a late-day phase sent the nasdaq into the red and the dow well off its highs and it did manage to break the ten-week losing streak and the gain in the historically strong month.

can the rally get back on track, and i guess the key here is we mentioned the dollar and the yield if they keep going higher, what kind of headwinds will they be >> there's no question that significantly higher yields are back, and i don't think anybody wants to see yields diving and i think that the ten-year below three and a half is also a great sign here and the dynamic that we'll talk about budget deal and now government spending and no limit to government spending and new administration this is part of the dynamic that i think is what was driving yields over the last couple of days typically when we talk about the fed and what yield they can control we talk about the short end and not necessarily the long end and that's the barometer of inflation and it's also a barometer of other factors including technical factors and budgetary factors that i think are at least in today's headlines part of what i think we would be talking about. i think for now, this move is more of a function of how significant you've had a breakout now above some of the recent resistance and the dollar

move to 108 and 109 at least at some point today and really through at least the top of the old range where you had a bit of a double top at 108 probably feels for people out there that are fearingful that the dollar can go to 114. in that case you start to have this question about multinationals by the way, a dollar that high is going to certainly damp down some of the inflation. it's at least an alternative to at least what's been going on with inflation today's action after the volatility of yesterday is a little concerning because, again, these would be factors that i think could lead to more volatility if you have big moves and you can't lose sight of the fact that going into yesterday's meeting you had the markets that rallied 14% from fed meeting to fed meeting and you need to relax in terms of equities and these two factors that we're leading the show with are things we have to be watching. >> what's interesting is looking ahead to next year, a lot of the shops on the street were

anticipating the there are to peak in 2025 and then to decline. if the fed is taking up 50 basis points of cuts next year then those estimates need to be revised and yes, is the hit plus the geopolitical uncertainty abroad, will that make the dollar even stronger >> it's interesting. for the trump administration there would be things that are supportive of the dollar and he talks about not wanting a strong dollar so i don't know where that's going to end up. >> neither does he, by the way. >> it's what >> neither does he, by the way >> none of us know i don't know, i think about when multinationals it's not great for them when they're importing those dollars when they get fewer eps back i don't know, i always discount those as wanting to see how the business is rather than what the eps is in the short term so i think, to me, the things that weigh more heavily are tariffs which obviously are tied in, but that to me has a

bigger -- if we are in a tariff war, that's more problematic to me to the market than the dollar each though it relates to the dollar >> if you have the dollar that remains strong or gets stronger and you have the multinationals that are generally selling into weaker economies. >> and that's important. a lot of people thought let's look at the russell 2000 and small caps they're not going to have the same pressures they would from the strong dollar, if rates will stay higher for longer they have a higher access to capital and those are things that are probably restraining growth to some degree and to start, your question was the dollar strength and the yields or whatever i think we have to focus on why this is all happening right now. everyone predicteded a recessi that never came in 2023. if you look at the faithful eight over the last year they're -- what? >> go ahead. have at it have a ball, dan

>> but i think embedded in a lot of those consensus estimates for 15% year over year earnings growth next year is that other sectors are going to kind of pick up the baton a little bit, and i'm not so sure in that environment when we're talking about a stronger dollar and than i go back to goldman sachs who, remember, in october they suggested the annual return for the next ten years will be 3%, yet the economist thinks that growth in the u.s. next year is going to be better than expected i think 2.5% gdp growth versus 2% i'm not putting those things at odds, i just think folks with those things and low returns and better than expected growth, and i don't think those can be true. >> part of what exacerbated the move and i had markets react to the move, they look at central bank differentials and this is the day when they kept rates on hold and the boj that never believes is ever going to hike rates as maybe they should or should have and at some point

they would have missed their spot it does mean that the fed is suddenly out there looking significantly more hawkish than the rest of the world. that will do something to interest rates and that will do the differentials, i think, a dynamic where you continue to see rates higher and this is on top of the factors which we'll look at the conversation later in the show. >> it seems like a heap of risks to the markets which are sitting close to record highs. >> we're already there though, rid? one of them is new of the risk >> i guess -- higher rates for a longer period of time. >> the fed being -- >> the higher dollar and longer than -- >> or a hawkish fed. >> your hawkish cut. >> yes more hawkish >> it was more hawkish than i had thought. a couple of things are happening as we get later in the year. i think you will see them lower and there are no buybacks now which are supportive of the

market, and i think we'll see those re-engage earlier next year, and it was interesting to me that the vix, it came in a little bit that was a very significant move yesterday and it's still elevated so i wouldn't be surprised to see more volatility, but overall i'm still optimistic >> mike, what's your take on where we sit right now >> first of all, speaking to tim's point we have to see the central bank differentials because we have very different economic pictures in these places china, japan and certainly europe and germany are really in the throes of it, frankly. so they'll have to be accommodative on their side and our economy is relatively strong, right? or quite strong, i would actually argue so that in combination ties monetary policy and we'll see how it plays out some of the stronger dollar help offset the inflation impacts and

i also suspect when i look at china specifically, even with some tariffs and they really are in a demographic pickel and they have encouraged continued exports. the whole notion that they had five years ago that they were going to sort of mature as a developed economy and sort of focused more on services domestically doesn't hold much water when you have a demographic upside down in terms of age you put all of those things together and the monetary approximately see is not something that we can really control for. >> i want to get to a newsletter, house republicans to avoid a government shutdown. cnbc's emily wilkins is here from capitol hill with the very latest. >> hi, melissa we do have a plan b for keeping the government funded after the friday night deadline that is coming up. the question is can it actually pass this funding bill has a couple of different com popents and it

does include the aid relief and aid for farmers and it extends the debt limit so instead of jp jan 2025, this bill has gotten the green light from president-elect donald trump and he posted on truth social today encouraging both republicans and democrats to vote yes on the bill and to do it tonight. while there's a lot of moment up around republicans, democrats have not been big fans of this bill the democratic leader in the house, hakeem jeffries spoke with us a bit earlier and listen to what he had to say. >> the musk-johnson proposal is not serious. it's laughable, extreme maga republicans are driving us to a government shutdown. >> right after that, jefferies actually went into the m behind me where he's meeting

with democrats and we heart cheers and chants of hell no, hell no from the room and if this bill will pass it will be with republican votes only and that could be a concern because there are a number of republicans who are concerned that the debt limit is being raised without trying to decrease government spending and it could be a long night ahead and at this point congress is certainly not out of the woods when it comes to a shutdown. melissa? >> just to get to the votes needed for this to pass and avoid a shutdown, emily, not advocating this is a great bill, whatever, every single republican has the vote. do they need democrats >> so at this point and to not get too wonky here, we are expecting to have votes come up. if they do it through an expedited process they'll need democrats to pass it however if the next vote fails it can take a little longer and they can do it with just republican votes, but remember, we're just talking about the house here then the bill has to go over to the senate where it is

controlled by democrats. i think a lot of question marks remain this evening. >> how many republicans can they lose, emily? i think at this point, three or four republicans and it depends on what attendance looks like and there is only one republican chip roy who has raised massive concerns about extending the debt limit was included in this bill >> emily, thank you for keeping us posted and emilywadkins andy, great to have you with us. >> nice christmas tree >> oh, thanks, melissa >> in terms of what do you make of the fed and what they did yesterday and where long-term rates will go? >> yeah. i think the big takeaway from yesterday is the fed succeeded in out hawking the risky asset markets which were expecting more dovishness, while they failed to outhawk the bond market and so the bond market did the work for them and moved

fairly meaningfully after what was a hawkish outcome. the meeting was a big shift because after 13 months of decidedly dovish posture, the fed acknowledged that it may have been premature to act as if the mig was accomplished it took 13 months to reach this decision it's not going to be reversed, i don't think. i don't think there will be a repivot until the inflation is dead or the economy tanks. >> so this was a significant pivot. do you see any room in 2025 for an even more hawkish pivot i cite this because bloomberg was citing a trade to sulfur which basically bet on a very hawkish pivot in 2025 which would indicate perhaps a rate hiking path? >> yeah. i can get there. i think with interest rates rising as they have and likely to continue to rise, i can see the five, the ten-year drifting out to the 4.75 or 5%.

i don't think they're going to rise significantly more than that, but with that and potentially the slightly weaker equity market, you can actually start to see the economy if these rates stay higher for something more than a few weeks. if they stay higher for a few months you would see the economy soft know a bit and that should allow the fed to basically stay on path. >> andy, it's karen. thanks for being on today. i know you often talk about how they refund and not just how much it is, but how they actually do it do you think that's going to change a lot, and if so, how >> yeah. i mean, i think the fiscal outlook is uncertain and the sequencing of the agenda for the trump administration is uncertain, but what we do know is coming is on february 3rd,

the t-back will meet the first time treasury bessant will have the mantle and one of his underlings will run that meeting and they'll have to decide whether they're going to change the policy that the prior administration had which resulted in over the course since quantitative tightening started, and resulted with 50% of the nation's debt is being financed with bills. >> secretary bessant has been very public about saying that that is manipulating the economy via the treasury secretary role which is not their role and that they should extend the debt financing. that could have an impact on the long end, as well, but it's unclear whether that will happen at this meeting upcoming or the next one >> given all of these uncertainty, andy, short term. are you constructive on equities do you think the environment is good >> ahead of the fed meeting and earlier this month i started

selling equities short, and i've also been short bonds since the fed cut the 50 basis points in september. i covered a lot of my equity short today, and i covered all of my bond short i think the rest of the month could be choppy, but i think if the economy and the destination is higher for the ten-year bond because the two-year bond will stay around fed funds until a cutting cycle starts again so the drift up on the ten-year should be bearish bonds in the new year and that should keep equity multiples in check which to me means the easier path is downward in the first quarter. >> all right andy, thank you. great to speak with you. happy holidays >> you, too. >> andy constin. interesting, the notion that if yields stay within the range,

but higher for a few months and that will be enough grit in the wheels of the economy so to speak to slow it down. >> i think a lot of us, that move from 4% to 5% about a year ago, and the fact that it just kissed 5% and came off quickly and that's the idea that if folks continue to go higher here and if it continues to go back there, there might be enough reason for them to stay that way and to your point, you asked it right away and i think you asked of steve liesman as we were parsing through what happened about an hour or two before. what if we actually go from a point where the dots suggest okay, we went from three to two cuts to no cuts to maybe raising interest rates that would be a thing that the ten-year will run in front of, obviously. so at that point you have a stronger dollar and tim mentioned this earlier if we go back to the highs in the dollar and the dixie to 14 and that's where it was. at this point that would be a

huge, huge headwind for stocks and valuations because if you were willing to actually put a couple of turns or two or three of the multiple of the s&p 500 when you were expecting 150 basis points of cuts about a year ago you'll have to do the opposite, you know what i mean if we're getting up there. we're at 23 times and you can see it 14 times. >> just on differentials. >> for sure. >> we are of the view -- i am of the view this those differentials are real i'm of the view that ultimately you've got a case where the dollar will at least represent some of that i also think the mark is not priced for any hawkish fed so i'm not talking about necessarily even rate hikes, but what we saw yesterday was a fed that is -- that is balanced in terms of their outlook it's also coming from one of the most extraordinary runs in equity marks in a long time. so i think mega-cap tech, maybe

the favorite eight >> faithful eight. >> i'll start my own, favorite eight. whether it's eight, seven or six, there's no question that the rest of the mark has been significantly underperforming stocks not a little bit over the last two weeks and that is something that i think will continue even more so in the rate environment we're in >> coming up, earnings season is winding down and the details on the quarters from nike and fedex next plus, a lot of movement in the health care space today from the update on the murder of united health care ceo to a popular weight loss drug taken off the shortage list. everything you need to know when "fast money" returns tip off tt as to what i might actually wear. - yes. - oh. that's a commitment. [glass knocked] hey bud! whaddaya think? you know, people can see you out here. ha ha ha ha, yeah, yeah, right, right, ha ha. love you, too. agentforce helps retailers prevent fashion fails. it's what ai was meant to be. ♪♪

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♪ ♪ welcome back to "fast money. mikey mikey shares, barely, and barely in the green and climbing again, interesting. this is the company's first quarterly report on the new ceo elliott hill the conference call is under way which accounts for the volatility courtney reagan is here with the numbers. >> elliott hill opening up the remarks and just to talk about the quarter, better than expected and the company came

out and the holiday quarter and they postponed ahead of elliott hill and everyone is focused on looking ahead and we knew things were messy i'm going to look down because he started making the remarks and outlining his strategy and elliott hill saying they need to be sharper in the product especially with the focus on individual sports. they need to reignite sports marketing and focus on big, events and big athletes and he named names. went through the executives that he's met with different retailers, dick's sporting goods and footlocker which i found interesting. he just noted there was a lack of newness and they weren't delivering inspiring stories and those are the things that they want to get back to and outlining big ideas right off the top. they've not yet given earnings guidance in the last 45 seconds or so and usually that does come on the call and we don't know if that will be the case this time

around >> we're up 3.5% right now is there any sort of inventories are flat versus last year. >> how did they keep that like that what were they selling >> i wish they gave us more detail and to be quite honest it was forward looking and they didn't give us much color at all and i imagine if that was what the cfo was talking about and he was looking forward, that at 50% of what they sold online was promotional and 50% and that was the one inventory nugget they gave so far. >> so the mix of online and not online was better. >> down about 2% >> the gross margin being somewhat better. >> okay. so this was way better than feared and we've seen shares fall and the expectation were low and the company gave us this level set look and this will be

an interesting situation and that's whattel yet hill is trying to do and he's been with the company a long time and now he's back. >> enthusiastic without a lot of detail as karen said it's funny it's different how you read financial media. these numbers were better than expected and is better than feared or better than expected and that's what i get to nike is not lost in the forest and still needing to be upstarted and jump-started this is the biggest and the best global athletic brand in the world. sales were down 8% 8% year over year to take the stock higher we nood to see need to change and for a lot of different retailers and very important for nike to figure that out soon.

>> yes, it's a big brand it's a great brand and what not and there has been brand deterioration. if you look at resale website and those prices are going down. >> i each saw some data today from folks at social media channels and niek he lost a million instagram followers and 4 million since april which is interesting, right since they're so big on imagery and marketing campaigns. to unfollow, that's an active action that you have to take so i found that interesting with the brand heat and johnson was talking about how the brand heat remains low. >> and the plan and that's what they're saying and the stock was up based on the better than expected quarter, and there are so many other stocks that are

trading much better than this one that don't rely on china for growth if you think of the athleisure space. >> are there other areas, even after a lulu's come back, are there other areas that investors are more interested in >> i think, unfortunately for a lot of wanna be investors, some of these investors are the hot ones where it's flowing and they're not publicly traded and aloe, they picked up a decent amount of share and i would be interested to see how nike might be i think you're seeing some speaking of brand heat speaking in that direction. >> the stock, of nike up about a percent and bouncing around in after hours. >> coming up, more fedex shares on the move after delivering results and the numbers out of the name next and pharma upon droing after disappointing ocinkiller starting that has the stk selling off and in other

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money," fedex shares driving higher after it intends to spin off the fedex freight business into a new publicly traded company. the conference call is about to kick off any minute. frank collins has the details. frank? >> this spin, it wasn't just expected and it was long overdue according to an investor and several analysts who i've spoken to they all think the stock was generally undervalued. it was less carrier in the u.s fedex freight generates significantly low revenues like its pure dominion and fedex as a whole trades at a significant discount that trades at 20 times forward earnings and what could be a major inflexion point and ltl gets two-thirds of the volume from the manufacturing and industrial sectors volumes of that high margin freight and speaking of margin, a huge beat when kwhou look you

fedex express and it expresses air and ground delivery and it is now a total of 80% of revenue. this margin would lead you to believe that the cost-cutting and right sizing efforts that fedex is doing they're making progress so fedex did lower the full-year guidance and how will it unfold and they're expecting more details on the call. we'll tune into mad money and we'll get more details, as well. tonight at 6:00 p.m. raj subramanian will sit down with jim cramer. >> thank you frank holland. they did lower guidance and it's all spin it's all spin, right there was, you know, it wasn't the best the spin part. >> it's all spin-off and what's driving the stock and that is really an opportunity to unlock value, if you look at where some of the other ones trade.

i always thought ltl, and why it's not lttl, but whatever. >> less than load -- >> less than is the l and tl is the truckload. >> has it been bothering you for a long time? >> it doesn't ccur to me until you said that. ltl player, less than truckload company. >> that's unlocking value. >> but this freight business is the smallest of all their services and it's something that i think on some level it's been running separate cargo and they've almost acted like they were a different business. to the extent that there are ways to unlock for fedex which relative to trz itself is tradi cheap and that's part of where we are even though the company has arguably raised that multiple in the last 12 months versus the last 24 to 30 months. i think fedex is interesting i think the idea that you will see other catalysts outside of the earnings story, no, and i

think the real story is pricing and where they can go with that and right now that's been a part of the issue >> by the way, take a look at the part since raj subramanian has taken over, what are you seeing on fedex? >> yeah. i mean, first of all, on the point of the spin-off and the comment that tim was just making you're talking about 10% of the business and if you take one of those competitors in the ltl space which we'll assign that to that portion then what are you going to add in terms of value to the business ultimately you could say, okay, that piece of the business or 10% of the business is now going to be worth, two, two and a half and at best 3x and if you get a 10% pop off of earnings on the basis of that, that's already accounting for a big portion of it and it isn't a reason to buy the stock, i don't think and that's the first thing i would say. the second thing, of course, is we're going into what has always been a logistically challenging period for all of these

companies. ups in particular which might be one of the reasons why the company has done a very good job in their cost-cutting initiatives and the network two, and the drive initiatives have been quite effective and the management has tried to do a good job, but it's a tough environment. >> coming up, the pressure on health care stocks continuing today in a triple dose of stories that are catching our attention and we'll tackle what is driving the moves and whether the trade can ke a comeback in the new year we'll be back.

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with an eye on taxes and risk. doors were meant to be opened. let's take another check of nike it's down 0.6% double digits and q3 margins down 350 basis points and it sees a greater headwind in q4 than q3 from the new ceo's plans and we are watching it carefully and it is approaching a loss of a percent in the after hours in the men time, luigi mangione, the 26-year-old is facing new criminal charges related to

stalking and vile olations cigna, united health, humana and cvs dropping down double digits and just in the last hour house republicans abandoning efforts to include the stopgap government funding bill. for more let's bring in mizuho health care strategist jared halls. >> it's out of this cr, but the clouds are far from dissipated from this group. in terms of the bipartisan legislation that would cause them to separate pbms from pharmacy businesses in terms of the potential regulatory scrutiny because of the murder of this united health care ceo is that all there? is that a concern to investors because i'm seeing more analysts come out and say unh is a top pick for 2025 and the valuations look great >> right well, i'm not surprised at all at all and it all comes down to valuations from the analysts and they're looking at it like they're getting a really good deal on a stock that usually performs well. it's tough to argue with that,

but at the same time, so much noise, and i don't feel like the pbm problem has been solved especially with the bill not going through and it's not, clearly the government has it out for this complex of names as trump has articulated already this was not his bill to begin with so the noise does not dissipate into next year and we're in for probably a long road from here >> i thought also interesting was the specific pressure on humana because of the exposure that humana has to veterans' health care. so basically, their hum ana honors program and if the government starts to look for efficiencies and cost-cuts that could be a place >> yeah. that was mentioned a couple of days ago the stock got hammered there's really not that much that's known about this. it's a newer item. it's tough for me to see the government really going against the va in such a harsh way that would take away benefits or

limit them so i'm really not sure where that stands, but again, just another headwind, another news item that the sector doesn't need >> meantime, the fda affirming today that the active ingredient in eli lilly's ldp 1 is not in shortage and it's telling them stop com founding found pounding, they they're them be a gz news for eli lilly, but the stocks are not up on this news. >> they lost all of the momentum they had earlier this year it's been a very tough stretch the last three months in particular i think the supply/demand metrics that we look at continue to favor the companies, just not enough clearly, a good headline for lilly today and novo's will come in time and we have hims and other companies can they compound, can they not

does this -- is there any reversal here at any point i was surprised to see the stock down and again, pharmaceutical stocks in general had been super weak with the closure of the deal, downing of the deal, and yet the stock, we saw the reaction in today's session, so imagine if semaglutide comes off the shortage list. >> it's tough to know exactly when they'll get online in producing these drugs at scale, but it's just a matter of time >> all right we want to touch on vertex it has a pain killer drug in trial, but the results show that the placebo group had the same sort of results as the drug group which is always disappointing in a trial >> right these pain trials are always hit or miss. the stock had a lot of value for the pain category and still has some they have a drug for acute pain. they're wok other on this chronic drug aside from what

they reported today. so it's not dead in terms of the viability of this asset to make it to market and i think the way that investors were looking at it were a blockbuster drug and now it has been more nichy >> is this an adjustment for the smaller tan. >> the value for vertex to me is in the $350 to $400 range and there's still optimism here. >> jared, good to see you. >> thank you >> coming up, the private sports revolution and private equity is about to up end big time collegiate sports and why the top programs are now worth billions the details are next "fast money" is back in tw

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get four, on us. on any unlimited plan. only on verizon. ♪ ♪ welcome back to "fast money. big money flowing into college sport like never before and with the college football playoffs kicking off tomorrow, cnbc sport in conjunction with athletic director debuting its inaugural list of the 75 athletic programs the top five are worth nearly $6 billion combined with ohio state

leading the pack and the new settlement could make the eye-popping numbers even bigger. cnbc senior sports eporter and athletic director joins us now on set great to have you guys both here any surprises here in this list, mike >> i was surprised notre dame was not in the top five. i'm a big notre dame fan, but as you look at the data, you'll see they don't monetize the assets as much as the s, c and big ten schools do also, usc, the longtime archrival not up there and if you look at the model it's based off of four times revenue and we made adjustments for nil spend and how big are their alumni and do they require subsidies, but this list is, i think, something that will have a lot of impact over the next year as outside money looks to invest in college athletics. >> and out money includes

private equity so jason, can you explain to the viewer at home who cannot explain how we got to this point and how private equity is looking to get in and how is the appetite from traditional investors are in for endowments for this kind of investment. >> that's right. four years ago student athletes were able to start earning an, l money meaning they could earn revenue, and so over the last four years about a billion dollars has flowed to those student athletes because of the new settlement for the house case the ncaa will back pay $2.3 billion to student athletes over the next decade and starting in 2025, they'll pay $2 billion a year to the athletes because of that, all of these athletic departments will have major budget shortfalls and so they're seeking ways to be able to mack up that money and so private equity is the most logical place for them to go and as you see with the conference being worth several billion of

dollars and there is a real asset class to be able to be invested in. >> i know for equity is 10% cap. is that in existence here? >> there is no cap because there has not been any deals done yet and any of the biggest challenges that they'll face is they're all non-profits and they'll have to create a special purpose vehicle essentially that allows for the revenue producing assets and sponsorships and ticket sales to be bifurcated. a great example is clemson which is at the top of the acc list and nobody has understood why they've done that, but if you start thinking about it it's logical because they're looking to get out of the sec which is one of the smaller conferences now and they'll have to figure out how to compete with south carolina and texas and everything else and they're preparing themselves to take on private capital. >> it seems to me, competing, though is a function of tv

contracts, right there's the ncaa contracts and it gets back to what you see with professional sports and i don't know if ohio state has their own football network the sec certainly does, the big ten certainly does and talk about that and how that's funneled interest big nil money. >> they distribute approximately $60 million a year to etch oof each of their teams ght now. by the end of the decade it will be 40 million. if you're a north carolina or a clemson, you're going to have a 40 or $50 million a year delta that you'll have to make up which is pretty much impossible, right? there's just no way because that's a quarter or third of your budget. so either you take on private equity to close the gap or you figure out how to get in the upper echelon of the league and the conferences and the big ten and it's at big ten schools and they just don't continue to

expand because they'll have to cut up their pie mike, you've been talking about the big teens and what happens if you're sort of in the middle of the pack and you're not at the top. interestingly, those are the schools that probably need private equity the most because they don't have the big tv deals and as jaks onex plained going forward, the advantage and the sec and the big ten is going to have and even if you were in the second division, what are you going to do, and also a big part of this isty! is their brands en for the id innel tier schools are up here and their revenue's down down here. so by bringing it to the door, i don't think it's that way because the private equity firms are incentivized because they're only going to make money if this plan happens, if the schools make more money, you and many

times these schools, their costs are bloated. >> we have to let you guy goes we can talk about this for a long time. >> come on back. >> thank you so much coming up, a delicious divergence in the food space darden restaurants heading in opposite directions as investors digest results the numbers that had the food stocks working next. more fast money. i don't know what that means we'll have more on that, too

welcome back to "fast money," two stocks in the food space heading in very different directions and first darden restaurants jumping to 13% and the company of olive garden and longhorn steakhouse that beat expectations raising the full-year guidance shares of lamb weston dropping and the worst performer in the s&p 500 and the french fry maker naming a new ceo as it faces ongoing pressure from activist investor janice partner. lamb weston down 42% this year mike, where do you sit on either of these trades. >> first of all, lamb weston, this is not the first time they've been punished

post-earnings. one of the problems was this is a company that boosted their prices during the pandemic and they were just a commodity seller and a lot of that that they were essentially squeezing out of the market is now unavailable to them. the options market was quite bearish, i have to say it traded about 65,000 contracts which for a name not a lot of people think about is a lot. we saw most of the activity on the eng opinside going out to february and the 60 strike puts and it's more down >> up next, final trades ♪ ♪

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he was actually saying goodbye to his old phone. i'm switching to the amazing new iphone 16 pro at t-mobile! it's the first iphone built for apple intelligence. that's like peanut butter on jelly...on gold. get four iphone 16 pro on us, plus four lines for $25 bucks. and save on every plan versus the other big guys. what a deal. that's a lot if you ask me. ya'll giving away too fast t-mobile, slow down. time for the final trade. >> pbm reformer is a risk but i

think unh is looking pretty cheap here. >> unlike underperforming sectors like healthcare, energy has some legs. >> karen? despite yesterday's hawkish cut, i thought wasn't anything bad for the banks. in fact, you have a chance to buy the lower. >> i think you wait to buy nike until it has a six handle. >> thanks for watching. mad money starts right now. 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'm kramer, welcome to mad money. i am just trying to help you make a little money. my job is not just to entertain but to try to ex