one point so he could give up his green card to have his wife also come over because the green card did not allow that.ag down 1%over greater. that's going to do it for us at "overtime." >> "fast money" starts now. live from the nasdaq market site right here in the heart of new york city's times square, this is -- this is "fast money." and here's what's on tap tonight. limping to the finish. after a record-breaking first 11 months of the year, stocks ending the year with a whimper. is a sluggish december a good or maybe a bad omen for the new year? plus, do we need to bear down with the bird flu? why the cdc is concerned about mutations in the h5n1 virusing

and how a bad regular old flu season could impact the spread. bird flu. it's the real deal. and later on, inside microstrategy's no good, very bad miserable month. and chart master looking at where the energy trade, after a pretty good run the last few days, is going from here. i'm not melissa lee, i'm brian sullivan, good to see you. coming to you live from studio b at the nasdaq. on the desk physically tonight, it's just guy adami and myself. we have carter worth, mike khouw, and julie biel standing by, ready to go on this hour show. and we're going to start with a lot more red than green in your market today. all the major averages did close off their worst levels of the session there's your good news. but just three stocks in the s&p 500, 30, rather, were able to eek out gains today. today's winners,ing look at th

green, guy. >> winkle. >> yeah, winkle. >> a little bit of greenon your screen. slb, royal caribbean, and valero, those gains totaled six cents. energy today, your only sector higher. the weakness keeping most of the major averages in the red, ie down for the month of december. the nasdaq is barely higher this month, the small cap, the russell 2,000, on pace for its worst month in more than two years. for the year, though, remain firmly in the green with the s&p up 20% for the second straight year, and that, guy adami, the first time that's happened since 1988. but does this 11th hour fade signal that all the momentum is gone, or is this just an

opportunity to buy in -- >> good to see you. i'm going to effort to answer that in a second, if you indulge me for a second. you know i think the world of you. you are as unique a talent i've seen. and you and kelly are going to be doing "power lunch" together -- >> you are going to make me blush. thank you. >> it happens to be true. >> appreciate it. >> you bring an energy that a lot of people don't understand. i happen to understand it, having been sitting next to you for many years. so, let's get into the market. i'll sail this. you sort of set it up, is this a harbinger 0 of what's going to happen into early 2026, this is just my opinion. i think what the market is starting to realize, wait a second, interest rates matter despite the fact that ten-year yields went lower today, and valuations clearly matter. the couple stocks you mentioned in the energy space are names

you can actually make a compelling case around on valuation. and i think the market has come to the realization that there are a lot of sort of headwinds out there that have been out there for quite some time and now for whatever reason, the market's starting to take issue with it. the vix at 17 1/2, i think that's going to be a story early in 2026. we've said that for awhile. and i think you have to buckle in for higher interest rates. >> super kind on the -- i couldn't do it without great people, everybody around me, thank you for that. carter, let's go to the charts. you heard me at the top. back-to-back 20% gains for the first time since 1998. 26 years, hard to believe, but true. but what are the charts -- strip the emotion out of it. what do the charts say about this market? >> all right, so, there's so many things going on under the surface. we know we have a very bifurcated market. the actual s&p is up 24%, plus/minus, but the equal weight

is up half that, 12. we're see that in sector after sector. consider that the semiconductor index up some 20%, but the equal weight semi is down on the year. we know this is happening in the sector level, as well. telecommunications, basically a robust year, where as the equal weight almost unch. so, the question is, is there an analog? it's tempting to find analogs and compare this period to another period. but you know, there's that expense, analogy is a weak form of argument, and that is true. it's a comfort blanket to find something similar. there's not a lot of data. when you do statistics, you're talking about hundreds of thousands of inputs. there's 100 years of data, so, it's 100 inputs, this year versus that year. what we do know is that the market is full. valuation is a terrible timing tool, so, i don't want to say expensive or cheap. but the market is full. a lot of money has been put into the market.

a lot of people believe in the general way being higher, and markets in january have a way of sometimes following through momentum or faltering and i would suspect it's the latter that we falter. >> you know, julie, it's like cnbc hosts and guests have an impossible job recently. there's no denying it's been an amazing two years, we can talk about $7 trillion in new debt added, okay, fine, we'll get to that. but for an equity perspective, it's been a nice run, until the last couple of weeks, maybe the last two months, for semicon ducker semiconductors. how do we read it? that was then, this is now, and the setup, to carter's point, doesn't look perfect. >> it doesn't, right? but i think this has been -- the last two years have been a really great example of the fallacy that you can really be able to predict with any accuracy a lot of these outputs. they're just too complicated.

think of two years back, we were positive there was going to be a recession in 2023 and it didn't show up. i always get a little bit nervous when the consensus really starts to coalesce, but typically, that means the market is going the other direction. it really likes to screw the most people it possibly can and when we're really sure, that's when you need to be really nervous. but what i'll say to kind of carter's point, i think there is an understanding that there are a lot of really challenging headwinds still in front of us right now, and that the valuations being full, you know, a full valuation is not problem ic all by itself. when expectations aren't met, there's a lot of crying as the stocks go down. >> and, you know, i hate -- i shouldn't say hate. >> you just said it. >> i did. i'm doubling down. i don't like, i hate the word, mike, perfect, because it's too overused. it's -- the perfect casserole, it's used everywhere. >> whoa, whoa, what?

perfect casserole? >> on cooking magazines. you get my point, mike, the market has been perfect. a lot of people, i'll walk right out here after the show is over and people say they made the 20%. i brought it up earlier today, because guess what? all you had to do was throw a dart and the stock probably went up the last two years. that's kind of my point. i don't know if it's going to be like that anymore, but for people that literally just close their eyes and press the button and bought nvidia, they've doubled their money. it makes it seem like this is a pretty easy job and it's not. >> yeah, i mean, or they bought bitcoin and they more than doubled their money. >> yes. look how smart -- everyone's a genius. >> yeah, makes it really easy. i mean, i don't know that, you know, to julie's point, if everybody's sort of coalescing around an idea and that sentiment is bearish, then i kind of agree with the idea that, you know, you always want to sort of -- if everyone's on one side of the boat, you want to start thinking about moving

to the other side, but i'm not sure everybody is on the bearish side. it sounds like a lot of people on the desk tonight are, but i think there's a lot of optimism, certainly we've seen and heard a lot of optimism from corporate management after the election, i mean, some have come out and said, you know, this is as bullish, at least on their own businesses, as they have been. the caveat i would offer is that we have seen sort of continuing claims on the employment side extend out a little bit, and if we start to see some weakness, one of the things we don't talk about too much is the incremental passive dollars that just throw into the market automatically every single time people are contributing to their 401(k) and so on. if we begin to see the employment picture worsen a little bit and then you also have everybody kind of in this tide of unbridled optimism, up until about a week or so ago, then i think that we -- we do have room for a little bit of downside in january. i -- you know, it's -- tail end of december, that happening, that's not the end of the world. we had a very bullish end to

'21. look how '22 started out. that's not basically an indicator of anything. keep an eye on employment. that is something to worry about a little bit. >> i'll let you take the casserole thing back, brian. >> i love casseroles. >> well, look at william sonoma. that's been remarkable. somebody is actually not only making casseroles, but buying the, what -- >> you were so nice to me at the beginning. >> dutch oven. >> you get my point. everybody just made money in this market and -- >> so, mike khouw just sort of touched on it. passive investing. a trillion dollars of funds, flows came into etfs last year whshgs was which was a record. passive investing trumps all else. names like apple, there are 400 etfs of which apple is one of the top 15 holdings. they win in this environment. the money flows in, those stocks sort of, they reap the rewards of passive investing and the levitation that the market's done is on the back of that. my concern has been, and it's been unfounded, at some point,

passive will start to become active, and it's never active on the way up. >> okay, let's bring in another voice on this conversation. i want to clarify what i was talking about, ben emons from fed watch advisers, must read daily notes. here's the point i was trying to make, casseroles aside, ben, which is this, let's say somebody's gambling on football and they bet five games, five bucks, right, they don't care and they win all five. they get a little more bold, they bet ten bucks. they win five more in a row. they say, you know what, i'm going to mortgage the house, i can't go wrong. i can't miss betting on football. and i do worry there's a part of the market that that's where we are with stocks. the risk has not gone out of the market, ben, but i don't want people to get too confident, too cocky, too complacent, because that's when you get hurt. >> yeah, i think that's right, brian, because i described

recently, it's like a casino market, has some feel to it. today. i'm myself bearish on bonds, but i think there, too, it's not a blind eye on bonds. really it's about fundamentals there. i think you can get a rally there, too. >> okay, rally in bonds. but let me ask you the other side. do you think, if we -- doesn't sound like you think we're going to get a 5% ten-year, but if we got close to that, can the equity markets quote unquote, i'm doing air quotes, survive a 5% ten-year treasury?

>> i think markets will be under pressure, because at 5%, brian, we may not even be, you know, at five high enough, because i think there's where the psychology comes in where people are overweight bonds, they start changing their minds. i think the 5% represents what everybody has been pricing into the equity market. a stronger economy with more inflation and a fed that has to stay on hold, they may have to reassess where they are, so -- i think that's going to be a pressure point there, not to mention, we deal with this debt ceiling coming up in january, you can kind of tell during the budget resolution and even today, there's some tension about the speaker and about what's going on with that. if the bond market can react to that, that's a negative thing, ie going higher with yields after the short-term pullback that we're seeing in yields. so, i think it's a pressure point. it's something that we have to watch. we're going to go to 5%, we're likely to go higher there. >> yeah, ben, you've been one of

the few people that thought that yields could go higher, correctly so. but what you're talking about in the very short-term, i think, is tactical, in the tlt rallying into january, yields may be going down to 4.4%, but you think that could be on the back of potentially a flight to quality as the stock market sort of sells off? i think we caught a glimpse of that a little today. >> yeah, i think that's right, guy. i think that's the relationship that probably plays out. people making note of economic data and surprisingly see the curl down and yields have deviated from that, so, there may be some reasoning for people to say, hey, there's -- this is short a technical opportunity, but if you think about bonds, you think about the risk of bonds, you think about the economy, we have too much duration risk still in these bonds. each time yields go lower, the duration actually goes up. >> what does that mean, can you say duration risk in plain english for the folks at home on the radio that -- maybe new

listeners and viewers because the stock market has done well. >> that's a good question, brian. think of the idea that if the yield of a bond goes up, the price goes down by x percent. that's kind of what that duration measures. duration of five years, yield goes up by 1%, the price goes down by 5%. and actually currently today, that duration in treasuries is higher, more like six, seven years. 6%, 7% loss you can have on the treasury bonds, it still yields 1%. that's actually what happened this past fall. i think that risk has not abated at all. future losses is something to really to keep in mind for people watching. >> listen, i think it's an important lesson, and education, ben. have a happy new year, ben, thank you very much. you know, mike, i think he brings up a very interesting point, which is, it was so easy and then bond yields reversed,

now they spike back up and guess what happens? all these high beta, high valuation names, not all of them, but a lot of them, get hurt. the market, mike, can turn very quickly on people. >> yeah, i mean, there's really two markets i probably think of first when i think about the interest rate exposure. one is sort of the high duration equity. when we talk about high der ration equity, we're talking about stocks, not ones that are paying big fat dividends and have stable growth, but all of those companies that are pricing in a lot of future growth. those are going to be more interest rate sensitive. another area that is going to be more interest rate sensitive is the trump trade stocks, which is probably in julie's wheelhouse, actually, but companies that are more capital dependent on the debt side, the smaller cap stocks, russell 2,000 names, those are going to be very sensitive to interest rates in ways that sort of, you know, the high, large cap stocks might not be. i don't really see alphabet as being materially impacted by

something like this. those that carry a lot of cash on the balance shield could see interest income on the 50 billion bucks they've got and they don't really have much interest rate sensitivity elsewhere. but those are the sort of barbell ends that you have to worry about if you're thinking about the ten-year rate spiking. >> been a pretty remarkable turn in, especially longer end of the bond market. guys, thank you. we're going to get back to stocks in a second. but folks, obviously, former president jimmy carter died yesterday. he had a two-year very brave fight with cancer. he faced sky high invasion, iranian hostage crisis, and a general sense of malaise in america. but carter also oversaw the beginning of things like deregulation in industries like the airlines, railroads, and energy. and he appointed the man who would crush inflation, that is chairman paul volcker. not a political show, guy, but i think jimmy carter's economic

impact -- >> 100%. you mentioned deregulation. mike was talking about that this morning. and a lot of people on twitter were pointing it out. his presidency was obviously a very difficult time in this country. with that said, i mean, the deregulation that we sort of enjoy today is at the foot of that carter administration, some 40 something years ago, and i'll add this. you can make an argument that paul volcker is the most important fed chair that we've had over the last 50, 60 years and he was appointed by jimmy carter. he did his work under the reagan administration, put in place under jimmy carter. so, a remarkable man. i don't think there's any denying that. incredibly well-lived life. and quite frankly, his presidency set up a lot of things that we're ebb njoying rt now. >> what's amazing, jimmy carter was only 56 when he left office, passed away at 100 years old. more "fast money" right after this.

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now, overall, overall, christina, the group still ended the day down, what we say is in the red. but of course, there's a company called nvidia. i don't know if you have heard of them. they make chips for things that people are going to use. >> that was -- what a -- >> deep thoughts. >> incredible. >> nvidia ended up 0.35%. kristina pers neff artsinevelos more. >> to your point, chips did fall with greater tech, really, that's been the -- the cenario for a little while. and you mentioned the big dog, nvidia, only went in the green after closing. reason for that, two things. the acquisition of its startup run a.i. it helps developers optimize their a.i. infrastructure. and another report coming from

the information that says the parent of tiktok, byte dance, plans to spend $7 billion on nvidia's chips in 2025. so, another customer. so, nvidia shares, if you look at it, just over a two-month basis, pretty flat. maybe 1% down. barely above their 20-day moving average. and that's because of the -- the rumors about chip delays, blackwell and then chatter about the a.i. trade unwinding because large language models may be hitting limits and smaller models are getting better, so maybe you don't need as many a.i. gpus. if you lump all of these players together, these a.i. winners, broadcom, arm, marvel, smc, nvidia. their average return on the year is 107%, far outpacing the broader chip etfs as seen by the smh, up 40%. the stock's up 14%. and then you have those with less a.i. posure feeling the pain. slow down in ev tales hurting o

semiconductor. amd and intel hurt, as well, because of that recovery that's taking a lot longer than expected. >> we have fortunate she is back covering this space, number one. >> back from maternity leave. six months, gone. >> she does an extraordinary job. >> she's so nice today. >> as opposed to what? >> i don't know. >> when you say that -- >> speaking the truth. >> i'm speaking the truth. >> well, you are. >> now you got me off my train of thought. what i was going to say, though, we mentioned nvidia, arm, marvel, absolutely, but for every one of those stocks, look at what kwal qom ualcomm has do. and then, if you want to throw sort of a micron in the mix. there's a lot of cross-currents in the space right now. you know what's coming down the pike? competition. at 18 18-times sales-ish, pric

sales, and their ability to grow into, i think, is going to be challenging. >> and carter braxton worth, here's the challenging part, i think, to guy's point. we love to lump these companies altogether. we just showed you the semis, we say the banks. these are all different companies, to kristina's point, on semi does something different from marvel, from broadcom. when you look at the charts for the group, some of the individual names, what do you see? >> well, this is as bifurcated an area of the market as there is. so, as a simple statement, if one had to check a box, semis were good or semis were bad in 2024, the answer is, of course, they were bad. the philadelphia semiconductor index, itself is up 20%. that's less than the market and it's a whole lot less than the tech sector, up 37. 16 of the stocks in the index, 14 are down for the year. it's been a treacherous area. it required perfect stock picking, and not aggregation,

not just being long a theme. and what's so ironic is, it was such a good theme for the rest of the market. if the tech sector is the most important part of the market at 32%, and semis are the leading edge of that most important sector, and were the most owned and most believed in with, of course, nvidia becoming such darlings, how is it possible that after all of this, the equal weight semiconductor is down on the year 1.2%? bad year for semis. >> he said a lot. >> he typically does. what -- you sound surprised. >> the most important group and the most important group, and they're down. we're going to get more on that later. kristina, great to have you back. >> she has m&ms on her fingers. >> kristina, thank you. >> snowmen and. >> there's a lot more "fast money," and we're back right after this. here's what's coming up next. >> adding to the pile. microstrategy scooping up even more bitcoin as the crypto

covers below 100k. will there be a reckoning in the crypto trade? plus, another potential risk for markets, as bird flu cases come into focus. the latest on the virus, its mutations, and the impact an outbreak could have on the country. you're watching "fast money," live from the nasdaq market site in times square. we're back right after this. ♪ ♪ whether your phone's broken or old, we've got you. with verizon, anyone can trade in any phone, any condition. it's your last chance to get iphone 16 pro with apple intelligence, on us. and, ipad and apple watch series 10. all three on us. that's up to $2,000 in value. only on verizon.

welcome back. the year's hottest bitcoin stock down 8%. in fact, not only that, it closed near session lows. we're talking about microstrategy. now, microstrategy, through its polarizing ceo michael sailor said it bought $209 million worth of bitcoin in the weekending sunday weekend ending sunday. down $2 billion from the start of the month. that's total bit count value. shares of microstrategy now down nearly 22% over the past month. so, do we play any weakness here, let's talk about microstrategy. okay, so, mike khouw, first off, talk to us about what we know about the stock, mstr, and what

are your thoughts on microstrategy? because i get the feeling that microstrategy has more than the ability to move the price of bitcoin. what say you? >> so, you know, i am a bitcoin believer, and i -- >> we know. >> and i continue to be, but this is probably not the place that i would do it. and that is -- there's a couple of reasons for that. one is, it's not like bitcoin isn't a particular volatile asset.it is quite volatile. probably 55%, 60% annualized standard deviation. microstrategy is a levered way to play that. of course, microstrategy has a strategy, which is accretive to shareholders, by issuing debt, issuing equity, essentially being able to purchase the underlying bitcoin at effectively a difference and creating some additional book value per share for microstrategy shareholders. the bad news is, this introduces a great deal of leverage. i'm not sure they are wholly unique in their ability to do this, so, i do worry there would

be others that would say, you know what, i'm looking to take advantage of capital market, capital access to, you know, do levered plays on bitcoin. i would still with ibit, instead. >> julie, what is your take on bit count, microstrategy, both? >> if you were a shareholder of microstrategy and i were getting diluted, so the company could buy more bitcoin rather than running its own business, it's akin to your neighbor's kid who lives in his basement asking you for more money to buy bitcoin. it doesn't make sense to me. and i think it's akin to what we're seeing in game stop. it's run up on the hopes and dreams of a lot of guys, frankly. >> well, there are people that are allowing michael to do what he's doing. >> michael sailor. >> he's not doing anything wrong. people come to him, say, hey, we have these great opportunities for you, we can do these convertible bonds.

if he's allowed to convert his stock into bitcoin, he will do that. he's said as much. he said countless times that he will buy the highs in bit coin n a consecutive basis year after year. the problem will arise, though, with an average price now i think of $62,000 or such on their balance sheet. you know, if bitcoin were to go back down to 70,000 or so, as they continue to buy, that average price is going to equal potentially where bitcoin is trading, and that could trigger some interesting things. so, i think we all agree that microstrategy is just a levered etf for bitcoin, but you're getting into some dicey areas if bitcoin goes lower from here. >> i miss the days when microstrategy was just a plain old simple software company. >> he doesn't miss that. >> what he's done has worked. maybe it will work forever. all right, coming up, we're going to switch gears, we're going to talk about bird flu.

confirmed cases hitting double digits in america. former fda commissioner dr. scott gottlieb is here to talk about fact versus fiction on a real outbreak and what it might mean for you and your money. we're back right after this. to help you see untapped possibilities and relentlessly work with you to make them real.

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all right, welcome back to "fast money." the u.s. treasury department saving -- saying chinese hackers, get this -- >> stop it. >> chinese hackers stole documents in what is being called a major incident earlier this month. emily wilkins in d.c. and emily, when i hear chinese hackers invading treasury, stealing documents, it's a major incident. kind of comes up. >> it does, brian, no, and i think this is something where there's a reason that we're talking about this now, that a state-sponsored actor in china did hack into the u.s. treasury department. and this is according toobtaine. the hacker was able to access unclassified documents that some treasury officials had in their workstations, according to the letter. the treasury department was made

aware of the hack on december 8th. now, the treasury department spokesperson said in a statement that treasury takes very seriously all threats against our systems and the data it holds. over the last four years, treasury has significantly bolstered its cyber defense and we will continue to work with private and public sector partners to protect our financial system. the compromised software has been taken offline and there is no evidence that the hacker can still access treasury information. brian, i think it's a question at this point, could something like this happen again, what is being done to prevent this from happening again, and what if any anything information did those hackers get? and i think a lot of those are future questions that we're only going to learn the answers to in time. >> it feels like a big story. emily, thank you very much. in more good news, bird flu impacting everything from egg prices to cattle supply.

66 cases now confirmed in humans so far this year. and there's actually a new worrisome development. genetic samples from a patient hospitalized in louisiana showed that mutations could make bird flu, which is called h 5 n 1, could spread more easily between humans. the likelihood of a pandemic is very low, but our next guest believes the u.s. has done everything wrong when it comes to contains the virus. dr. scott gottlieb is with us now. i'd like to say it's good to have you on, but i wish we didn't, because it means this is going on. what do you mean we've done everything wrong? >> well, this is still viewed by most experts as a low probability risk, as you noted, but there is a range of opinions on this, and most agree that it could be a potentially high

impact event should this break out. and we should be taking more steps to mitigate it. a lot of the things that we've done, we've done late. usda only recently implemented a program to start testing bulk milk shipments to try to detect outbreaks on dairy farms where a lot of this infection is localized. it's only in the past summer we ed compensating farmers for losses on their farms. we haven't distributed tests to dairy farms so they can test their workers. there was a study done, a small study, that showed upwards of 7% of all dairy farm workers ave likely been infected already with the bird flu. and we can't compensated dairy farmers for losses they sustained, absences, things like that. and i think we need to do more to be compensating these dairy farms if we want them to do the right thing. they are on the front lines of the risk right now, and we can't expect them to bear the full

burden of that. we haven't taken steps to stockpile drugs that could be effective against this virus. we have a lot of tamiflu, but a lot of that is old, and it could be the case if this virus does break out, it may be susceptible to one anti-viral drug, but not another. we've started late, updating the vaccines that could be effective against this virus. vaccines we have stockpiled right now, 10 million doses, may not be effective against this particular strain, so, we need to update those vaccines and have them prepared as a potential hedge against this breaking out. >> 71% of the herds, dairy herds in california, have been exposed to this virus, and i bring up california, because we don't realize that it is actually the biggest dairy production state. california is a monster when it comes to agricultural products. do we need to worry about the nation's milk supply? or is that taking it too far? >> well, look, this is probably

wider than just california. california is doing a lot to test their dairy farms and turning over the cases. this may be more widespread. there are real economic risks to the spread of this virus. when cattle are infected, they are often put to slaughter. this could become an issue with the milk and meat supply in this country. 875 herds across 16 states have been affected. it kills upwards of 2% to 5% of the infected cows and milk production goes down about 20%, so, as this becomes more widespread and it's likely to spread at this point, it seems to be endeck nick the dairy herd in this country, you could see about impact on milk and dairy supplies. >> dr. scott gottlieb, i guess happy new year. thank you very much. >> thanks a lot. >> something else we have to worry about here? >> well, hopefully not. but if you remember pre-covid, this was something that was on people's radar screen that people were concerned about. and my concern would be, again, politics not withstanding, i

think people are sort of covid fatigue and they're going to dismiss this, whatever it is, they call it government hoax and those types of things. and the fear is that people don't take it as seriously as they probably should. >> that's it. something to watch. 66 confirmed human cases. all right, coming up, a flop in the flipping market. why profits in housing are down, and whether the trend will continue in the new year. diana olick up with the housing story you don't hear very much anywhere else. we're back right after this. at morgan stanley, old school hard work meets bold new thinking. to help you see untapped possibilities and relentlessly work with you to make them real. 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. - yes. - oh. that's a commitment. [glass knocked]

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all right, welcome back to "fast money." there's been a lot of tough news today this is not one of those times. there's good news. pending home sales up for a fourth straight month. the national association of realtors reporting a 2.2% month over month gain in november. total pending home sales at a two-month high. but if buyers hope to, you know, buy and then flip their homes quickly, beware. there are some cracks forming in the flipping business. diana olick has the flipping details. diane that? >> you didn't do that. >> i just did it. >> brian, both home flips and flipping profits took a dive in the third quarter of this year,

according to a new record from adam data. a flip is defined as a home bought and sold in the same 12-month period. so, in q-3, 7.2% of home sales were flip. that's down from 7.6% in q-2. but the returns, they showed a bigger drop. flips had an average 28.7% return on investment before the additional expenses, down from 31.2% in q-2. it also ended six straight quarters of increases in that profit metric. so, a real turn in the market, and that profit margin was half of the peak profits hit in 2016. and this is where higher mortgage rates, of course, come in. that profit margin is within the range that could easily be wiped out by carrying costs like higher mortgage rates, as well as higher renovation expenses and, of course, property taxes. so, in real cash, gross profits fell to about $70,000. that's before renovation and carrying costs. down $5,000 from the second quarter, and down $10,000 from

the highs reached just two years ago. we did see in the november close sales report from the realtors that the investors share of sales fell from 8% to 13%. that's flips and investors who think they can buy it, hold it, and rent it for profit. >> $70,000, that was gross profit. do we have any idea how much people might be making or losing flipping homes? >> i always ask, what is the net profit? it's really hard to say. it depends on where you are. it's really hard to say what that net profit is, but the gross profits are coming down. higher home prices, higher mortgage rates and a very tight supply to choose from. >> gross projim, fit, $70,000,

there's a lot in there. what is the net profit? people aren't going to tell you. diana olick, thank you. we're going to take a short break here. coming up on "fast money," all right, high or low energy? >> what? >> high or low energy heading into next year? we're going to give you the energy setup, the technicals, and whether or not -- >> we are? >> we are. >> you didn't tell me about that. i should probably prepare in the commercial break. >> we're going to talk about energy and oil and gas coming up right after the break. assuming i'm still here. 're back right after this. :00 it's 2:55. i know. is this what he's doing now? as your host, i have some rules. first, no showers longer than 5 minutes. this isn't a spa. no games. no fun. yes, coach. (♪♪) meanwhile, at a vrbo... when other vacation rentals make you share your turf with a host, try one you have all to yourself.

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welcome back to "fast money." not everything was down today, guy. >> yes, sir. >> oil was higher today. oil's now up about 4% for the month. but really in energy, oil is not the story. natural gas blowing up, hitting its highest level in nearly two years. but what do the charts on all of energy say? well, we don't know, but the chart master, carter worth does. so, carter, what do some of the energy charts show? >> well, let's get right to it. let's look at crude oil first. you have two charts. this is going back to the early 1980s, and, of course, we have the all-time high, essentially

150, that was in 2008. we got close to that, after the ukraine invasion, about 135, and here we are, sitting here in the middle of the tennis court, which is to say, it's a pair of twos, it's a nontrade. the here and now chart, if you want to zero in a little bit tighter, the question is, as annotated there, it's something of a bottom. the green arrow, that's my judgment, others might put a red arrow. you can trade this higher for about $3 to $4 a barrel. but in terms of the shares market, let's look at the sector. what i wanted to try to depict here, we have -- these are ten-year weekly charts. we're the same level we were essentially ten years ago. the peak was in 2014. we got close to that earlier this year, and we're sitting right here. no, just to go through the next couple of charts fairly quickly, this is the same chart and what we know is, the earnings are identical for the sector, earnings per share for the sector as they were in 2014.

also look at sales. you'll see it's the exact same thing. you can do this also for ebitda. we're essentially at the exact same level, as well, in terms of profitability, so -- the question is, though, the yields are better, right? and the question is, is this a defensive area of the market, if and as the high fliers, microstrategies, give way. my hunch is to be overweight energy in 2025. >> makes sense. if you think -- we started the show about valuations, and i think as people realize how expensive some of the sectors of the market are, and they look for places where they can find value, they're going to find it in the form of these energy stocks, and people just sort of do the overlay of the wti chart and you know, because you're brilliant in this space, i mean, it's not that simple. wti could trade sideways in perpetuity and these would be very profitable, well-run companies that are not being rewarded in the form of valuation. i'm with carter on this one.

>> thank you for the compliment. another compliment. mike khouw, do you think these companies are worth anybody's money? because they haven't done a whole lot, i don't know, in the last couple years, really. >> no, they -- they really haven't. but i think that's really the point that making. i don't think anybody is looking for crude to go back to 100 bucks a barrel. we're probably going to see more supply coming from opec and opec plus, as some of their sort of production curtailments run off into the middle of 2025. but the thing is, that a lot of the companies that we're talking about are trading at relatively cheap multiples, have decent yields, and are profitable at oil in these areas. so, if you are worried about the multipleexpansion, look at stocks that haven't seen any. >> in my mind, the a.i. and nvidia trade is all energy related. speaking of trades, up next, your final trades.

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time for your "fast money" final trades. julie biel. kick it off. >> i think housing inventory is going to continue to be con trained and so dream finders homes and entry level buyers will benefit here. >> mike khouw? >> alphabet deserves a market multiple more than the market does at 25 times. that could be 20% upside from here, i like alphabet. >> you likes it. carter? >> what's the last name of those brothers? name it after carter. >> small cap bio tech, uniqure.

huge move, more to come. >> the gilchrist brothers, they lived in yonkers new york, the three of them were actual brothers. you're a star. i'm looking forward to thursday. devin energy is my final trade. my mission is simple. to make you money. i am here to level the playing feel for all investors. there is is always a bull market somewhere. i promise to help you find it. "mad money" starts now. hey, i'm cramer, welcome to "mad money." i am just trying to make you money. my job is not just to entertain but to teach you. call me or tweet me. tonight i am letting you in on something bi