♪ ♪ and welcome to "power lunch," sure, the dow may be higher. nobody cares about the dow and the nasdaq down again, it's now close to wiping out all of the gains it has made since the election and many big-name stocks ust keep going down. that include, kelly, some of the big moneymakers last year. we'll dig into why on all of this. >> i think it's significant that we're almost round tripping weighing on stocks big time has

been rising bond yields. the yield on the ten-year 5.8% earlier on and the highest level in more than a year. the dollar strong, as well. the high of the number there with a couple of exceptions since the 1980s. >> the rate cut is dead, long live the rate cut. >> one thing that is rising is oil. crude oil prices keep creeping closer to 80 bucks a barrel yet again. it may have to do with not only rush russia, but also canada, kelly. >> i will add, they're riding with the strong dollar it make the rise more significant and they're blowing past it. shares of honeywell, the company may split itself under management. again it goes back to ge. it split itself into three. those three individual companies have done very well, probably better than expected since that. we've had other companies, fedex, i think, looking to spin out the ground division. here comes honeywell. >> i know we have the story coming up. if bankers don't make money

putting companies together, bankers will make money by breaking them apart. >> investors do get red for a busy week of economic data and the start of earnings season. the dow is up 200 points, but like brian said the nasdaq is where we see it three quarters of percent and the s&p is positive, and earns are expected to be strong or they better be strong because we have pretty high wall street s&p targets and our next guest is the most bullish on wall street with the year-end price target of 7100. here to make his case is john stolfus, chief investment strategist at oppenheimer. how did we get there? >> kelly, very simply, it's got to be fundamentals. economic growth, the fed making progress on inflation. business doing what it does best, do business, so the consumer remaining resilient and jobs numbers resilient and on top of that effectively what

you're looking for is an environment where jobs keep growing. we've got all of that now and we have a bond market based on the fact that there are some very heavy duty players who want the fed to lower rates much more than the fed currently wants to do, and we think the fed's doing the right job and we think they will do it. i don't think they can enforce jerome powell to do anything he doesn't see as warranted. >> i don't want to say all of this is. it's a tantrum to make sure that the fed doesn't cut on make sure that the fed -- huh? tell me again. >> it's an emotional reaction and it's also a tactical move by traders. i mean, there are two types of investors -- there are many types of investors, but the two types of investors, basically you have traders that tend to be leveraged and the leverage -- the cost of leverage has gone up significantly since march 2022 even with the three rate cuts that we had earlier this year, and then you have enter media to

long-term investors. for one thing where the ten-year is now, consider the fact what it really needs and we're at levels on interest rates where bond issuers, whether it's the u.s. government, municipalities, corporate entities or others effectively are paying for the privilege of borrowing money again at a fairly normalized rate. >> john. to kelly's question, and open up the interview, hi, by the way. thanks for coming on. what happened? borrowing costs for ten-year bonds are now 1% more than they were four months ago. that's a gigantic move for the bond market. what happened? >> what happened effectively is you have to figure that the traders thought that the fed would be cutting more times than it appears that they will at this point in time. they looked at that time and they thought it would be more than two times once mid-year and

once at the end of the year, but you have to figure traders, especially leveraged traders with the hedge funds, what do they do? they're highly leveraged and they placed bets. all of a sudden the reality is based on the hot jobs number that we had, based on the cpi expectations, based on what we were seeing last week in terms of the jobs number. all of that says the economy is doing better than expected. it's showing resilience which means the fed won't cut and you have to reposition. you have to sell positions that were bullishly placed for rates to come down more than they're likely to. that's a lot of what's happening right now, and you even hear people talking about recession risk at the current levels where the ten-year treasury is. we've been here before, 2021 -- 2022, '23, '24 and now in '25, and we still haven't had a recession. >> i know people say oh,

earnings estimates, maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't. we always go one way or the other and it's not the earnings that i get stuck on. it's the news flow that might come out of the incoming administration because when you look at the plans. if you look at what steven moran is writing about and saying, it's not up to him, but he'll be an important player in this administration and he is saying yeah, there might be taxes on treasury bonds. yeah, we're looking to raise revenue. this is a clear plan in focus to try to change the prevailing global monetary system of the past 30 or 40 years. i can understand if the market is jittery around that. that's what makes me wonder more about getting to 7100 even if the fundamentals for the near-term are pretty good. >> you know, kelly, you have every right to think the way you do, but i disagree with you. if anything, i think the administration here is putting all of the cards on the table and are shuffling things around and how they actually come out of this, you know, i'm not an apologist for any administration whether it's the biden

administration or the trump administration, but i must say, trump is interested in his legacy here. i don't think his intention or any intention of the members of his future cabinet are likely to be the cause a recession, and i don't think jerome powell is planning on it right now. >> yeah. >> i do think that innovation that is powering everything will help corporations and innovations that exist today, but it's growing almost on a day-to-day basis will likely help companies and the consumer navigate a period of transition which is what we're in. i've been in this business since 1983 when paul voelker was in his second term so i've been through many rate cycles, and this is to be expected and the end of the curve that's unsatisfied here will say rates are too high. the fed needs to cut and the fed will do what it feels right and this is the bernanke legacy fed

with jerome powell at the helm and it is remarkably communicated and it's been very straight so far. >> to be clear, i hope you're right. that would be awesome. john, thanks. appreciate it today. john stoltfus. >> one thing i will say about john, he's done it since '82 and the dow closed 1982 at just over a thousand points. so through all of that sterm, the dow's gone from 1,000 to 42,000. >> and this is why i was joking the other day, i've had to come around to that point of view because i know in the long run they're right. >> one day you kids will get it right. by the way, nothing wrong with a little bit of age. >> let's see how bonds are aging because we've seen a big rise in yields as we've been bidding up, i guess, or setting up rick santelli, to this week's big

inflation data. there's nothing wrong with age when it comes to humans, too, in the markets because, by the way, it's experience. >> yeah. well, we've experienced a lot of debt and deficits which is one of the reasons i think we're looking at these rates. you know what is fascinating? look at tens and 30s on january 2nd. i know i'm the only one who finds it so interesting, but when you think the low yields were made and the very first day of trading in 2025, and i have an informal poll on why rates are going up, and the number one answer and quelly referred to this in the last segment, good job, kelly. uncertainty is viewed through the lens of half empty. tariffs will make the dollar go even higher and it will all be super duper inflationary. why do i bring it up as the number one answer? because that's how quickly things can change when we get a

better gps on what the new trump administration intends to do, and the number two answer was rollover risk and number three answer was tied, inflation and a better economy. as you look at a two-year note it will be the highest yield close since the end of july of last year. look at tens and 30s on the same chart there. if they close at the current levels it would be the highest yield close since halloween 2023, and finally, the dollar index, and believe me, this is the most talked about market that when i discuss with sources what's going on when the trump administration comes in, the fact of the matter is we're closing in on 110. if the dollar closed here it would be the highest close since the first couple of weeks of november in 2022. it's on pace for its fifth consecutive higher session close, and i don't see anything in sight until we get better gps on trump to make this trade

disappear. kelly, brian, back to you. >> rick, thank you very much. all right, folks. we have a long way to go and on deck, why what's happening right now in china could impact your money here. plus, speaking of china, if tiktok does get shut down and it could happen, we will show you another china-based app that is suddenly red hot. we're back right after this. ♪ ♪ this year taxpayers in 25 states are eligible for the free tax filing program irs direct file. to qualify you must have income from w-2 wages, social security, unemployment compensation, retirement or interest income and claim e thstandard deduction. for cnbc, i'm sharon epperson.

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all right. welcome back. we will call this next chart wbi, wonky, but important. this chart is the difference between ten-year borrowing costs here in the united states against ten-year borrowing costs in china, and as you can clearly see, well, trust us if you're on the radio, there is about a 3% gap between the same borrowing costs here and in china. it's only 1.65% on their ten-year versus 4.78% here. okay. what does that mean? let's talk about it with adam kobesi, founder and editor in chief of the kobesi, always a must-follow on social media. he brings the cool chart, and we love having you on, adam. it's a neat stat, but what does it mean? what does it tell us about either us here in the u.s. or china? >> yeah, well, first, thanks for having me. it's definitely a wild start to

2025. it's pretty incredible that the global economy right now is more interconnected and intertwined than its ever been, but major economies around the globe are seeing exactly different situations and backdrops between -- and you just underscored that. look at china. the 300-basis-point gap in rates is massive and one of the biggest we've ever seen and they have six straight quarters of deflation and the exact opposite with inflation on the rise and they haven't had three quartes ers of deflation since 1999. it is at record lows and eventually these economies can't be siloed anymore. i think it will start to spread a little bit. some people in the u.s. will say yeah, i'll take lower prices, but it's a vastly different background.

>> it sounds nice on paper. you go to order a burger or dinner and rocery store and you think i wish we had lower prices. as much as we would like the cost of things to go down, generally, deflation can also be a dirty word. >> absolutely. so look back to the great depression, right? even around 2008 and 2009 around the financial crisis, we saw some deflation, but china is living proof right now of how catastrophic that can be. the high yield real estate index is down 80% from the high. there are literally ghost towns of new properties being built and no one wants to buy these properties. if why spend the money today? it's the exact opposite of deflation. as a result, the economy effectively comes to a halt and even with these widespread stimulus measures being unveiled by china, they still can't

escape deflation for now. so you kind of want to -- >> you don't want to be on either end of the spectrum. you kind of want to be in the middle. it's a pendulum and it swings back and you don't want it to swing in deflation and you want to fall back into the fed's 2% target which is why that's been a lot more difficult to achieve and they're still in the process of achieving that, but that's why you don't necessarily want to see falling prices after all. >> it was interesting. xi jinping asked the leadership what's the deal with deflation, but it will pick up on what you said about pendulum. it feels like everything is going to such an extreme and their currency is weakening further and our dollar is strengthening and it will be an each bigger headwind for manufacturing and so forth and right as trump and team will take office and where we're so much in balance, and the things happening in the market are making all of that worse and now they have to try make it better without upsetting the applecart.

good luck. >> absolutely. look at the u.s. dollar index, and we're at 110. i know you guys were talking about that earlier. that's a 24-month high and that makes doing business with the u.s. extremely expensive for people that are using currency other than the u.s. dollar and having to convert their currency to dollars. also, it's interesting because you see assets like gold. gold in u.s. dollar terms continues to be incredibly strong. we are now trading around 2700 in a market where the ten-year note yield is up 100 basis points and the u.s. dollar is up 10% in three months and that's also something we've also been looking at. so from a traders' perspective, these large moves and the big contrasts we're seeing between major global economies actually create opportunities to trade, but it's definitely not something that the fed is too exciteded excited about is they have all three measures of inflation back on the rise. you have one month, two month

and six month annualized with cpi and ppi inflation accelerating more and rising toward 4%. i think it's possible you could see rate hikes return in 2025. >> a lot of our viewers and listeners don't care about bond yields, but maybe they should because they probably pay taxes. what is this going to mean to interest costs for the u.s. govern government, adam? during covid we spent trillions. some of of it did go to covid response. a lot of it did not. a lot of those trillions come come due just like credit card debt or mortgage debt. the bonds end and they have to be refinanced. we know that interest costs for u.s. debt is spiking and spiralling higher already. a loot of that has to be financed and what is this going to mean for how much money the federal reserve -- and by the way, by federal reserve i mean taxpayers because i also want to remain our audience.

i'll say something very loud and clear. there is no federal government money. there is only our money. how much are we going to be spending on all this debt? >> absolutely. so the 4 trillion of stimulus from the pandemic, i at the time continue to call it one of the largest involuntary taxes in u.s. history. taxation through inflation, that is, and what's happening now is we have over $1 trillion per year in just interest costs on that debt, and as for decades, the u.s. government was effectively borrowing it for free and below 2% and now they've more than doubled in some cases and this debt is no longer, quote, unquote, free money and it's more expensive than it was and it's growing at a much faster pace than it was and what does that mean for consumers? >> that's a lot of the reason why treasury yields are rising and when the government needs more money and they want to spend more money on deficit spending, they have to issue bonds and what does that mean? you're driving up the supply of

bonds which drives up yield and lowers the price and those same bonds then translate into interest rate markets impacting consumers. look at market rates are back on the rise with the rise of treasury yields and look at credit card debt and they all move together, and effectively government spending and deficit spending is one of the most inflationary things that we can see and right now it's happening at record levels. i think that step one is reducing deficit spending to get inflation at least somewhat under control and get these yields lower. >> adam kobeissi of the kobeissi letter, thank you. >> thank you. >> the head of policy for open ai says the ai race with china is one the u.s. absolutely has to win and it comes as they make policy recommendations to the incoming trump administration. kate rooney has more. in contrast to the biden administration which is leaving office with ai plans or programs

that seems the tech world is not thrilled about. >> yeah, kelly. no, that's a great point and backdrop to all of this with the new administration coming in. the gist of the blueprint that open ai put out is really geopolitics. the u.s. needs to invest in ai infrastructure to beat china. open ai's head of policy crystal haynes says there is an estimated $175 billion from global funds ready to invest in this type of infrastructure saying if the u.s. does not attract that cash it will flow into china-backed projects and strengthen the ccp's global influence and here's what lahane told me from d.c.. >> this is a race that the u.s. absolutely has to win. i'm confident that the u.s. will win and the democratic ai will prevail, but at the end of the day to make that happen we need to have the infrastructure in this country. infrastructure is destiny. that infrastructure gives us the raw computing power to make sure

that the u.s. continues to lead and that we're able to build democratic ai all over the world. >> he also says that that $175 billion is mostly from foreign investors, think of sovereign wealth fund, pensions, and private capital. he says the key to winning is through chips data and he does argue for public incentives and regulation that would establish clear rules of the road. there's a line in there about models being trained with neutral political values as they put it as a default trying to counter the woke ai criticism. as you mentioned with the new administration they're playing to this new group in this report. i asked him about whether open ai competitors take elon musk would support the effort, anyone who wants to see the u.s. win over china will want open ai to win or authoritarian, guys? >> kate rooney, we appreciate it. >> as we head to break, check out shares of edison

international. traders continuing to sell the name amid the los angeles wildfires even though there's no evidence the utility company was involved and more than 60 square miles was scorched. people want to know what happened. we'll take a look at the damage report next. ♪ ♪ i had the worst dream last night. you were in a car crash and the kids and i were on our own. that's awful, hon. my brother was saying he got life insurance from ethos. and he got $2 million in coverage, all online. life insurance made easy. check your price today at ethos.com.

welcome back. the devastation out west is difficult to comprehend and maybe even more difficult to see. street after street of nothing but burned-out shells of homes. that is how our contessa brewer describes because she is out in los angeles with what we know, what we still don't know and how all of this may eventually be rebuilt. contessa? >> yeah. i have to say, brian, when you say street after street. i've been to a lot of isaster zones, this one only compares, in my experience to what i saw after katrina, and i've never seen it as the result of a fire, but here we are and there are still red flag warnings for wind in effect right now through wednesday. here in the business district of pacific palisades the first step to getting back to business is safety. so what we've seen is they're cutting down damaged power lines

and literally using rope to just tie up and brace these telephone poles so that emergency traffic can get through on these streets. governor gavin newsom's emergency declaration this weekend clears the way for rebuilding. he has ordered state agencies to streamline the permitting process. accu weather forecasts and economic impact as much as $150 billion, insured losses could approach $30 billion according to the latest estimate from wells fargo. why such a big disparity between those two numbers? in part it's because of the massive problem of homeowners being underinsured or not insured at all. next week, we should get some more solid figures and insight from insurers in terms of exposure when travelers kicks off earnings season for the industry with quarterly earnings on wednesday. there, you can see some of the most exposed, publicly traded

company, but again, their exposure to these fires may differ from what their exposure is across the state. brian? >> there's so much here, contessa, and i want to be very clear. we have no idea what caused the fire, and we heard edison international does not operate in the palisades side. that would be l.a. department of water and power and theria a lot we don't know, and i want to be very careful here and to your point of the under insured. go a little deep into that. we know this is one of the most expensive and pricey areas that live in the united states. by the way, do i have friends that live there and their homes burned down, say the home is 5 million to rebuild. they're on the hook for that $4 million gap even if insurance pays, correct? >> that's right. that's exactly right. there may be some latitude in terms of inflation and it depends on who your insurer is,

but brian, you are absolutely right. people will be under insured. they may have thought they had full coverage of their home, but because of the inflation of construction material, 37% higher over the last five years, construction labor up 35% over the last five years, it may be very costly to rebuild their homes, plus, you have to add in now the fact that the demolition includes basically a hazmat site. this is a toxic waste site from the flame retardant and from the fires that burned and all of that has to be cleaned up before any rebuilding on a residential site can commence. >> just brutal scenes. if you know the area in particular, it is so difficult to see. contessa brewer, i don't know how long you'll be out there, but an important story, and we are glad you are. thank you very much. >> as kelly said going into the commercial break, i also want to look at edison international. that is the parent company of one of the utilities. i want to be very clear.

the ceo was on cnbc earlier today. he talked about two fires. the hurst, kelly, and the eaton fires. this is not the palisades fire. edison international does not operate in the palisades region. if you live in that area you get your power from the city, from the l.a. department of water and power. there was a 2007 malibu fire, and they talked about burying power lines because of that. not sure they got nywhere with that. by the way, edison, though is, is down because of the potential liability over the hurst and/or eaton fires which are on the the other side of the hill. if that makes sense. you have to know l.a. and the ceo was on and there is a fund. he said basically the fund is their liability is capped at the fund level, but the market cap of this company has lost over ten billion now over at this point. >> wow. there is a wildfire liability fund that was set up.

a $21 billion fund that is there to help people impacted by the fire. although with a liability camp for investor-owned utilities in southern california edison, that is $3.9 million, and yet our market cap has decreased by 9 billion since the start of the fire. >> they're saying edison is not showing any electrical anomalies prior to the beginning of the eaton fire, but there are several fires burning and all with likely different causes. investigation is still in the early stages. bloomberg is reporting edison international was hit with a lawsuit blaming the providers' equipment for igniting one of the wildfires. that's normal, by the way, it doesn't imply guilt whatsoever on edison's part. >> a lot of times these files are filed so companies can have

all communicated and they're under, the abhutly market wants to discount that risk. coming up, moderna is down big today. last i checked down 20% cutting sales guidance and seeing decline for its covid vaccine. we'll speak to the pfizer ceo about that and other news items next. crypto watch is sponsoreded by crypto.com. business. it's not a nine-to-five proposition.

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-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. scombloo . welcome back to "power lunch" with your cnbc news update. a potential ceasefire between hamas and israel. the white house says negotiators are on the cusp of an agreement and that president-elect trump's team is participating in those talk sgloos talks. >> a new risk finds the study of dementia is increasing as

americans live longer. the journal nature medicine estimates 42% of men and women would develop dementia in their lifetimes with cases predicted to double by 2060 and other recent research underscores the risk remains highest for women and african-americans. texas sued allstate today over accusations the insurer tracked drivers through their cell phones without consent, and then used the data to justify higher car insurance charges. the lawsuit claims allstate paid mobile app developers millions to create the world's largest driving behavior database with information on more than 45 million americans. allstate would not immediately comment on the claims. kelly? >> all right, bertha. thanks very much. bertha coombs. shares of moderna are sinking 20% after the company lowered its 2025 sales guidance

by a billion dollars and it is down 7% amid waning demand for its covid vaccine and it's trying to rebuild itself after a sharp decline in sales of covid products and pressure from an activist investor. for more we are joined by ceo albert bourla with angelica peebles. welcome to you both, angel qaa? >> that's right. we are here with dr. albert bourla. thank you very much for being here today. last year 2024, you said it was all about execution. so what is the focus this year? >> the focus is pipeline. last year it was execution on commercial front so that you can regain market share that we felt that we could have done better in '23, and we achieved that very well. in '24, it was execution of the pipeline. >> how are you going to do that? >> we have a lot of changes implemented in 2024, but when it comes to rnd, we have new

leadership of rnd. we have just reorganized our rnd organization into four end to end units like the oncology unit that we had before. oncology was the most successful unit of pfizer in terms of rnd productivity and medicines that really mack really make a difference in human lives and it was end to end from early to late and now we have organized like for biotics and all of the units of pfizer and of course, we are having 13 new phase 3 studies, but are expected to start this year and eight phase 3 studies are expected to come out this year so a lot of that categories. >> how much of that change comes from having an activist investor in starboard and what changes, if any, that they're recommending are you actually implementing? >> look, i try to have a

productive engage ment with the and so far it's been productive and respectful on both sides. we discussed ideas, and i have some ideas that are good and we're doing it. i don't want to discuss it because they're private discussions that we had with them and they were things that are part of a longer plan, but we were having when you realize in '23, that covid revenues are not going to be what we thought would be, so then we had to readjust the company. >> and speaking of covid, we do have a threat in bird flu. is that the next pandemic? >> you know, maybe. i don't worry, but we should be careful. we should be monitoring it. there is a big difference. the difference is that it's not transmitted from human to human so far and it is difficult to transmit from animals to human. of course, we have the first cases that that happened and the fact that you can't transfer human to human is encouraging and that's what we need to

watch. >> we have a question from brian. yes? >> albert, thanks for joining us. brian sullivan and kelly evans from inglewood cliffs. you have the people who have taken the covid vaccine and 9% saying they're definitely going to get it. how do we reinvigorate, for lack of a better term, confidence in vaccines generally because we're seeing some of the covid vaccine concerns spill over now into other vaccines. how do we regain people's confidence in vaccines generally when, let's be honest, a lot of people, no people that had covid got a vaccine and either still got success or ick or got injur? >> you're right. the fact that we had low vaccination rates in the u.s. will contribute to have probably a little bit more covid and severe symptoms as the population immunity are weighing. >> i don't think that people are not getting right now, we have a

reduction in the vaccination rates because they have concerns with the covid vaccine. there is a covid population, and they never got vast majority and they don't feel compelleded to do it because they don't have the need and think, we have controlled covid so owe owe star, we had an even higher script with paxlovid because every time someone has covid it's highly correlated with subscriptions. >> you feel like you've been burned in the past, but people do want to know how committed you are to this phase. what can you tell us about how you view that market and how much you want to invest? >> i think it is a very important market, first of all, because it addresses a significant health issue which is obesity. after the covid pandemic that we need to talk about the obesity

pandemic and it creates significant health issues. i think science tried for many years to find solutions and they're a very good solution so far, and we are having also glp one oral because the common solutions are injectable and we're scratching the surface. i think they're also new molecules and new mechanics, and also we'll take over eventually, and it's good times are people that are living obesity buzz there will be a lot of solutions. that's all we have time for. >> pfizer ceo albert bourla. just a reminder, we are now accepting nominations for the 13th annual disruptor 50 list, the private venture-backed companies. you can scan your qr code,

kelly, if you're driving -- first, you shn be watching anything. don't scan anything and scan disruptor when you get home. big tech getting smacked around along with your money. stick around. - 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] 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. ♪♪

welcome back. five days. that's how long americans may have left to enjoy tiktok unless the supreme court takes action to prevent the shutdown. the rgument from the u.s. government is that tiktok presents a national security risk, and that the chinese-owned company is stealing user data, but officials hope to keep that data away from chinese companies that might be backfiring because one platform americans are moving to as the ban approaches is rednote. yes, rednote. the twist is it's also chinese owned and it has quickly become the most downloaded free app on apple's app store where the users refer to themselves as tiktok refugees. >> i will say this, there's a new app that people that left twitter/x known as blue sky. it's hard to gain traction.

if you have a million tiktok followers you don't just slide over to rednote or lemonade or these other ones. it takes years -- i'm on all of them, and with, you know, i'm not -- it's hard to go back and say, i'll start at zero. >> also, if you want tiktok because it's an enjoyable entertainment product. i can't ever use it because i can never have the volume up, because if people can sit back and watch the videos reels on instagram. they've done a really good job and it's getting there and it's not there yet and youtube shorts and there's not a one for one peerns and if experience business and if rednote steps into the void what will we do then? >> it's effectively an arm of the chinese government. the people on tiktok are not an arm of the chinese government, but bytedance is in china and it

is to some extent controlled by their government. >> the question was not so much from officials about whether they were using the algorithm to sow discontent in the u.s. because that would be difficult to, and if you open the browser and tiktok collecting that data. >> it's a microphone and a video in your house. >> that's where they could put it. if these other apps allow for similar types of things sore we find out that they allow the question is will they preemptively stop people from doing it, that's a whole different story and they'll flock to the next platform and have to deal with this. >> the next and the next and the next. >> it will be interesting when phones don't exist and everything will be done through a ring or a watch. up next, it is the three-stock lunch and why tech stocks keep going down, but there are always opportunities out there as jim likes to say and matt maily is your guest coming up.

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where we hit three dint stock stories and why they may matter to you and our guest today is matt maley, chief market strategist at miller tabak. love having you on qwest power lunch." first up is united health and it is up along with other insurance carriers and it is helping to boost the dow, this after the federal government posed an increase to medicare reimbursement rates for 2026. the stock is up 4.44%, your take on unh. >> yeah. i think it needed this good news. we know what happened a little over a month ago with the horrible shooting with brian thompson and that was only one reason of why it brought it down. it brought out exposure on how they were okaying payments for some of their procedures, and that people were worried they would lose a lot of business because of this. the stock was oversold and it bounced back and it was only a technical bounce, but now we have good news, and so that, i

think, it will help the stock and it will help the stock hold up because let's face it, the market is in an uncertain area right now and people are looking for defensive areas and health care is certainly one of those and unitedhealthcare is one of the leaders in that group. >> let's move along to abercrombie. for all that we hear about the strong december retail spend and the shopping season, the stock is down 17% and they even had decent holiday shopping demand and raised their q4 profit outlook and apparently that outlook wasn't good enough. what do you do? >> i have a little surprise about the size of the decline today, down 17% the last i saw. the one thing i'm concerneded about, the consumers are able to fight off the fact that credit card debt is at all-time highs and we have a big increase in consumer credit blink witnessies and the thing hat's concerning to me is the household income is

as much as the pandemic and they're spending it on experiences rather than on hard goods and so even though i wouldn't necessarily be selling the stock down as much it's not one i would be taking big advantage of it, and i think it could stay down for a while. >> final name is howard hughes, a friend of this show, and a friend of the network. bill ackman proposing a deal to merge with howard hughes. some say it creates the next berkshire hathaway. your take? >> that's what we're hearing about and bill akreman has a good track record. every great investor over time has had bad investments and you never know how this will work out, but i do like the idea that howard hughes has with master planned communities is an interesting ones. these eople, we have tens and hundreds of thousands of baby boomers that are retiring. it's expensive to retire in florida now. prices have shot up because of the pandemic and the insurance

prices are through the roof. so i think these things will work real well, but the one thing you do have to worry about with the stock is that, you know, it will be a risk name. >> thank you. >> matt, i hate to jump in like that, but we have ten seconds in the show. i always love having you on. i can't talk any faster. >> but i can s thanks for watching "power lunch." >> we have three seconds. "closing bell "kwot starts right now. guy, thanks so much. welcome to "closing bell "qwest. i'm scott wapner at the new york stock exchange. whether it is still intact or in serious trouble thanks to the dramatic move in interest rates. we'll ask our experts over the final stretch including blackrock's rick rieder. we'll zero in on the nasdaq and that's where the recent selling has been most pronounced and it's down .75% off the worst levels of the day, below 20,000 as you'll see and we'l