before february 28th 1-800-918-0808. that's one (800) 918-0808. >> we're going to rip through finals. josh. >> toast. >> kev cme group. >> jason goldman sachs energy. >> see you on closing bell. >> and welcome to the exchange. >> happy friday. >> happy valentine's day. kelly's enjoying her valentine. i am brian sullivan. all right. it has been a heck of a week. tariffs inflation and elon musk sleeping. >> in the white house. >> and still your money does not care because what does the movie wall street never sleeps. >> stocks at the post. another big week. >> we are not soaring. >> today, but. >> the overall. markets and your money. >> up very nicely. >> since monday. the question really is why? and your first guest today says it may be a

case of the market not crying wolf. >> let's get right. >> to it. joining us now to kick things off on the exchange is steven sosnick. he is the chief strategist at interactive brokers. hi, brian. good to see you. way over there. is this a case we hear a lot about tariffs. >> tariffs. tariffs. tariffs. >> but nothing is really happening. don't tell anybody. >> well that's. >> what's going on here is i think what the market is right to fear tariffs. but we at some point we have to see them. and so far what we've heard is a lot of bluster. and but yet we had the 25% tariffs that weren't, that have been postponed. we had 10% on china. but china didn't really retaliate. yesterday we had the big announcement about the potential for reciprocal tariffs. but the market rallied because it realized we don't really know what those are and when they're going to be implemented. so i think this is one of these situations is the market is right to be concerned about tariffs, but not necessarily right to panic about them until you see the basically

don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes. >> and we may never see the whites of their eyes. i think that's what the market is saying, that the tariffs, while threatened, may not happen. i think that's why we're seeing part of the markets run. saw some momentum. but what if we do see them. >> well if. >> we do then we got to think differently. i think what's going on now is the market may not be right to just sort of brush them off aside because to be to be fair, i mean, trump has generally been a person of his word. so i think if he gets the sense that the market, you know, he likes the market's going up. but i think if he gets the sense that people are being disdainful of his tariff talk or some of these other things, they're going to go in. and i think it's wrong just to sort of say just because he hasn't done them yet. and by the way, it's only been a it's been less than a month since the inauguration. so it just because there's a lot going on doesn't mean that that nothing will go on. yeah. so i think it's right to stay focused on them but not necessarily right to freak out about him every time that something is. >> there's a great ray bradbury

novel called all summer in a day, and it kind of feels like that, that you're waiting. it's been only a month, but it feels like a longer time because there's such a heavy flow of news. but yet the market continues to go up. and i think for our viewers, whatever their political leanings, they want to make money. but to your point, what if trump does impose the tariffs, which could be inflationary? then the fed may have to react. the bond market appears to have already reacted. stephen, i think we have to. your job is to project to your clients. what is the element of risk in the market right now? >> right now? to me, in strange, in a strange way, the biggest element of the biggest element of risk or the biggest thing to fear for me is the lack of fear itself. i think the fact that we see our customers viewing every dip as a buying opportunity, and i understand why, because essentially for the last five years, it's worked. so people are going to keep doing what works for them. so that's not a criticism, but it's basically just the idea that that the bigger the dip, the bigger the buying opportunity. or once you

get into a trend, let's follow the trend. let's keep jumping on it. my one of my one of my things i've been advocating is don't fight the tape because that's a fool's errand, but insure against it because there's a lot of pitfalls that could be out there. you can you can do this, but not necessarily be all in all the time. consider some hedges when they're appropriate. >> i like the paraphrasing of fdr. what is that? again? the biggest thing to fear is the lack of fear. >> the thing i fear most, i guess the thing i fear most is the lack of fear itself. >> you'll be up there on the wall, but can we just. i know you're not like an individual stock guy, but can we just highlight that that meta, the parent company of facebook and instagram and whatsapp is up 20 days in a row. 20. it has not had one down day in the trump administration. i don't know if that has anything to with it or not, but it's a hell of a statistic. it's added more market value than disney. the entire company of disney meta's added more value in three weeks than all of disney is worth. how much does a run like that,

arguably the greatest run in the stock market? modern history? how much does that, if at all, matter to the macro markets. >> to the macro markets? not necessarily this this i we weren't neither of us were alive during joe dimaggio's 56 game hitting streak. but that's kind of what well, then you're then you're very well preserved then this is kind of what it must have been like because this is just remarkable. but what it tells us from, you know, it's very meta specific. but i think but i think what's going on is it does tell us a lot more about the broad market and its willingness to just if it finds a trend. let's clamp on to it. let's just get our jaws around it, stick with it. and meta is meta. let's ride that wave. >> and. >> he's doing it. >> yeah. and here's why we care. so meta is sort of the new invidia which was the new tesla. tesla was everything. then kind of the money went to nvidia. nvidia hasn't done anything really nine months. so now all the money seems to be within meta a little bit with palantir as well. and why do we care. all right folks, i'm going to tell you something. just steve me and

you don't tell anybody else. meta is the top five holding of like 400 different major market etfs. so meta itself, even if you don't own it, it does matter to the macro market. >> it totally matters as do the other companies you mentioned. well not all you know nvidia. it just is by their size. remember you. >> have those. let's be clear. those seven we call them the mag seven people get on my case the airport i get it. those seven companies are like half the stock market. >> the add in add in broadcom, which to me is sort of the adjunct member of the mag seven. great. eight or whatever you want to call it, that's about that's about a third of the s&p 500 and roughly half of the nasdaq 100. so yes, if you're if you're this is one of the risks that i think that people don't appreciate is if you're buying sort of the diversified portfolio of an s&p 500 index, you're not as diversified as you think you are, because eight stocks make up a third of your portfolio. and yes, the money still flowing in there. we see we see customers still very active in tesla nvidia buying

them. palantir you mentioned they're coming up. but but the lack of diversification it it's not a problem. now when the market's going your way that can be a big problem if everybody starts to rush. >> and 7 or 8 maybe eight is enough. yeah that's a great show by the way adam rich great hair i think. i think those stocks are and don't quote me on the numbers folks. it's friday, it's valentine's day what, 3,540% of the market cap? 3,540% of earnings, capital spending, any metric you get those 7 or 8 companies run the show. okay. so let me ask you this. what happens if and it may not happen? i want to be very clear. i'm not saying this will happen. what happens if any of these companies cuts their capital spending plans? >> well, this is this. that's why the market freaked out about deep seek, right? >> we're going. >> to understandably. >> blow everything. remember that day, january 27th? i don't. >> because because what's happened is all the this big run this market concentration is very much predicated on this ai spending. and so as long as as

long as that model holds, so does that investment thesis. the risk with deep seek is that all these companies are spending tens or in the case of amazon, i think $100 billion, they're spending tens of billions of dollars on this, on this, you know, large language type of artificial intelligence, if that's not necessary. well, that just upends the whole thesis. what's, you know, and so that is a big risk. not necessarily. not necessarily. >> is it the big if you had to wait it let's just play a game. let's have some fun. right. and we're going to wrap it up. a bigger market risk would be the macro tariffs. if trump decides to throw them on he may not. but if he does or amazon or nvidia microsoft, google whatever, cutting their capital spending. >> i think the disruption the latter and the reason for that is because so much is predicated on markets can adapt to tariffs, markets can figure it out. i think the fact that think about it this way, if they're making all this money, they're going to attract competitors. and that's and that to me is a big risk.

>> well listen you you nailed it. steve sosnik interactive brokers rolled with everything and more. appreciate it. have a great weekend. all right. well, speaking of the white house and washington, we are seeing defense stocks pretty much all lower right now. there's a big defense etf the ita. you've got lockheed martin rtx northrop grumman all losing investor money today. now this probably comes from comments out of trump yesterday. listen. >> there's no reason for us to be. spending almost $1. >> trillion on military. there's no reason for you to be spending $400 billion. china is going to be at 400 billion. we're at a trillion. we're going to be at close to a trillion. and i'm going to say we can settle this or we can spend this on other things. we don't have to spend this on military. >> but kind of like everything with the president. did he really mean exactly what he said? let's bring in eamon javers and also welcome in td

cowen defense policy analyst roman schweitzer. eamon, let's start with you. because again, kind of like the president speaking in dare i say like these tv terms, right. it's all hyperbole kind of this that and the other thing. the market seems to be listening. >> yeah i think you have. >> to put. >> some caveats. >> around what. >> the president said yesterday. >> he's talking about massive defense. >> cutting in the case. >> of a major. >> deal with. >> russia and china. >> to. >> denuclearize and. >> then lower defense. >> budgets by as. >> much as half. >> you know, that is predicated on. >> the. >> assumption that you get to that deal. >> which is. >> of course, a. >> very, very long shot. >> but i. >> did. >> have the opportunity in that oval. >> office session. >> that you just played. >> brian. >> to ask. >> the president. yesterday about elon musk and his efforts. >> at dodge. >> to cut government spending. and if he found that wasteful spending. >> at the defense. >> department, what would happen? here's that moment. wasteful spending in the. >> defense department, defense. >> contractors and the like. >> are you willing to go after that spending? yeah, we. >> have to go. we have to go waste fraud and abuse. yeah. and

we're doing that. >> and then take. >> a. look at. >> this headline from the wall street journal this morning, reporting that officials over at the pentagon are now coming up with lists of defense systems that they would like to cut. to propose those to the doge folks as useful things, to cut things that they wanted to cut brian, for a long time, but congress won't let them. and that sets up this really fascinating dynamic between now doge on one hand, and the president here at the white house. you've got the pentagon, some of these very expensive weapon systems that they say are ineffective, too expensive, outdated, or just not in their plans. and yet, up on capitol hill, members of congress, in both parties traditionally have vouched for those programs and refuse to let the pentagon cut them. that's because the defense contractors are very savvy about building these defense systems in congressional districts across the country that get them votes up on capitol hill and spreading money around on capitol hill. so where is that sort of triangle going to break between doge and

the white house, the pentagon and members of congress up on capitol hill? that's a fascinating question. i think a lot of folks on wall street who analyze defense stocks are going to try to have to solve that mystery right now. let's try to solve it. >> right now, eamon, because we have roman schweitzer with us of td cow and roman. you heard what eamon had to say. you heard what the president had to say yesterday. you hear what the market is having to say. what do you have to say about all this? >> i'd like to take a little bit of a break and maybe have some rest. honestly, brian, but i think, i think we're not going to get much of that for the next 204 weeks. what i would say is there are a lot of crosscurrents right now in defense, the president's comments notwithstanding. and i would agree with eamon. i mean, the prospect of a large. nuclear agreement, either a bilateral agreement or a trilateral agreement would be incredibly complex to negotiate, subject to verification, perhaps even treaty approval via the senate. but i think if we just set those

things. aside right now, what you're seeing in dc is senate and house reconciliation. >> plan. >> dueling reconciliation plans that would increase money for. >> defense. >> although there's unclear uncertainty about how much that would add. hawkish members of both the house and senate are pushing president trump. it's been reported in many places about. increasing defense. >> to 4 or. >> 5%. >> of gdp. secretary of defense pete hegseth recently reiterated that us defense should be pegged at 3% of gdp. that forms a an interesting baseline if you pick your favorite gdp number. >> and. >> then extrapolate the fence, that could be a 40 to $60 billion increase over the. next several years. and then of course you've got the bigger issue of nato spending. but the reality the train right in front of us is the march 14th expiration of the continuing resolution, fiscal 25 appropriations. and i would say the mood in washington is not

hopeful that we are going to avoid a shutdown, an extended continuing resolution, or even a full year continuing resolution which has not hit the fence. so then you can complicate that with the efforts of doge. i would certainly commend the wall street journal and their reporting. but, you know, i think the idea that the pentagon offers up some doge treats ahead of time is. probably does that. >> it's so okay. the doge. eamon i was in dc. you and i were talking in person. the secretary of energy in our exclusive last week was commenting about, you know, basically these are people. we know who they are. there's a lot of mystery around this doge stuff. usaid is getting kind of carved out. how does this go with the defense department? there's a lot we don't know. there's some things we do know, but it mostly seems like we're speculating on a lot of things. >> we're definitely speculating because we haven't seen an effort this robust before to cut federal spending, brian. and so we don't know what that looks like in the entirety of my career in washington, which goes back a ways. now, you know, if

you looked at this fight and you were teasing out who's going to win, you would say pork barrel spenders on capitol hill will win this fight because they simply outlast any effort to create a blue ribbon commission or any other effort to cut spending. in this case, though, you've got elon musk, who is a singular figure, and donald trump, who at least in theory, although he jokes about it, is not running for reelection again. so neither one of them are subject to the traditional pressures. and trump controls his party to a degree to which, you know, we just haven't seen again in my lifetime of covering politics. so you have to look at, you know, congressional republicans and their appetite to fight either of these men on this issue. we haven't seen, you know, a real appetite for confrontation among republicans who control capitol hill. you have to imagine that continues at least in the short term. >> but i think roman, as an investor, here's what i would say. we showed that if we put the chart up with the defense department budget, what it was 840, whatever billion dollars it was. okay, let's say doge, that

whatever this group is, they come in and they identify 100 billion in waste, fraud and abuse. and so we hear president trump say, we're going to cut the budget to 740 billion, whatever it might be, right? does that necessarily mean bad things for lockheed, northrop, rtx and others? roman? what if they're just making a toilet seat, not be $5,000 and making it down to 50 bucks like we all pay at home depot? you get my point. does that necessarily mean that the publicly traded defense companies are going to experience cuts? i don't know. >> i do. and in that circumstance, i don't think there is a $100 billion worth of overpriced toilet seats. i think there is a certain amount of decision making in terms of priorities such as dei related efforts or climate change related efforts. we certainly see that. and you could see a change in prioritization, right? i mean, if the nuclear triad, if there were nuclear cuts, then perhaps the nuclear triad might be on the table for potential reductions. if you accelerated

the push into unmanned systems, then you might see manned systems. if the decision is made that we're not going to fight war in europe and that, you know, land conflicts and that we wanted to move and refocus on asia, you might see a change that way. but i do want to say there is an opportunity here, right? i mean, secdef hegseth has focused on war fighting as a priority and that bottom line capability. and so if the department stops doing stupid stuff and is able to reapply that money to sort of warfighting equipment, that actually might be a net positive for these companies. and i think that that's. >> that's exactly what i was getting at. >> yeah. >> and i think that also applies across the federal government. right. particularly not only defense heavy primes, but government services companies as well that that work in agencies and departments. if you cut headcount, you still need somebody to do the work. ai implementation, cyber security, quantum post-quantum encryption

protection, all of these things, these higher tech capabilities that the government needs really need to be done by the private sector. so again, i stress the fact that we're probably in for a few months, i think june, at least until there's sort of enough proof in the pudding for, for investors. but you know, this this isn't necessarily a net negative. >> brian, i i'd offer one thought here, which is keep your eye on the f-35. right? i mean, that is a lockheed martin product, that fifth generation fighter jet. it's extraordinarily expensive. and it's something that elon musk has targeted for criticism in the past. and elon musk is somebody who sees himself as knowing a thing or two about aviation, as like the only person in the world who can land a rocket. he knows how to build aviation products cheaply. and he looks at the f-35 and he says, what is this? why is this costing so much? well, i'd watch that one as sort of a bellwether, right? i mean, i think what you might see is a couple of an effort to, to trim a couple of very high profile defense systems in order to show

that they're serious. >> if i may quickly pile on that. and with all due respect to eamon, as well as elon musk, who is far smarter and wealthier than i am, you know, the f-35 was just offered by the president to india. the f-35 was used to great effect to essentially denude the iranian the iranian air defenses. by and large, any pilot who flies the f-35 will not go to war on anything else. so it is an expensive capability, but it is the only sixth generation fighter in the world now or fifth gen now. the chinese recently unveiled two sixth gen fighters. they seem to be doing it all, and i think the department needs to figure that out. and then also at the same time, transition to exactly some of the things that mr. musk is talking about. >> i think you guys actually might have been agreeing. i think eamon was saying just kind of watch it, not that anything will happen to it. right? right. that is just a potential

bellwether. but all these points are well taken. eamon and roman, thank you all very much. appreciate it. and brian, we had all five letter names. all right. we've got a market flash on dell kristina partsinevelos i'm watching dell stock. it's rising. you know why. >> yeah dell technologies is finalizing a landmark deal worth about $5 billion. this is to supply ai servers to elon musk's xai. and this is according to a bloomberg report. right now, the servers will be equipped with nvidia's gbx 200. that's the rack chips from the blackwell architecture and delivered this year with the goal to support xai chatbot, grok and other ai initiatives. the deal also reflects the surging demand for ai computing power, with dell expecting to ship $14 billion in ai servers by 2026. the hardware should help existing supercomputer project in memphis, which already uses dell servers. so there's that relationship alongside with other providers. so that's why you're seeing the shares really

pop dramatically over 5%. hpe supermicro they also they assemble ai servers. so those two names you can see popped not as much but ever so slightly within that same timeframe. brian. >> wow. all right. watching dell that stock is up more than 5%. now michael dell can finally afford dinner. kristina partsinevelos, thank you very much. all right. on deck is the vaunted american shopper finally starting to slow down some data you have got to see. plus, the shocking stock having its best week in 25 years. and it's not meta markets overall. they're flat to maybe slightly higher. we're back right after this. we're back right after this. >> this is the exchange on (grandpa) i'm the richest guy in the world. (man 1) i have time to give. (man 2) i have people i can count on. (grandma) and a million stories to share. (vo) the key to being rich is knowing what counts.

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since monday. all that despite hotter than expected inflation data. look at that. we also got a retail sales number that was worse than many on wall street expected. it showed a drop, and there was a new report on monday that you might have missed. that household debt hit a new high of $18 trillion actually yesterday. so with consumer spending about 70% of the overall economy, where does all this go? let's talk about it. michelle meyer, she is the chief u.s. economist at the mastercard economics

institute. michelle, perfect person to have on today. and these numbers are scary. but we don't care about the macro numbers. we care about what people spend relative to their income. it's called debt service levels on that. how are we doing? >> so i. >> would argue. >> that the. numbers aren't that scary because you have to think about the january retail sales numbers in the context of the broader trend and what we saw in the census bureau data and in our own figures as well, is strong spending throughout the holiday season. we know that the start of the year always has very strange seasonality. so the january numbers, when you're looking at a month over month change, have to be taken with a grain of salt. and then on top of that, we had really strange weather issues. of course, the terrible fires in la, the snow in the southeast, and that created distortions as well. so i certainly think that if you look at the moving average, taking into account the strength

at the end of last year, this is a consumer that is still very much participating in the economy and spending. >> it really honestly, michelle, it's not it's nuts. and i mean and i mean that in the best possible way. everywhere you go i fly all the time. i try to go out to eat whatever. everything is full. the planes are still full, the airport is full, the restaurants are full. it really is remarkable, especially when you look at 1.1 trillion or whatever in credit card debt. nobody seems to care. >> well, i also think that the fundamentals are supportive. look at the labor market. that's a stat that we didn't throw out there. but you have a 4% unemployment rate, job growth averaging well above the underlying trend that we had seen before the pandemic. wage growth running above underlying price inflation for goods and services. so that's real purchasing power. so you have fundamental support for the consumer now. and i think that's been a big story that's supported the economy throughout

last year with 2.9% gdp growth potentially. we'll see where q4 in the final release ends up. but it's above trend growth that we've seen for the last few years and an above trend consumer spending trajectory. >> now, i don't know where you are, michelle, physically, but around, you know, in the new york, new jersey area, if you commute to work five days a week, it's probably 500 to $1000 a month to commute. i mean, it's really expensive. you got tolls, trains, planes, automobiles, the new congestion pricing. it's that way in a lot of america, too. if we see a huge force, a push back to the office five days a week, that's going to people are now going to spend money on gas and the metro in dc and not at a, you know, a restaurant. have you been able to calculate how much that might matter, if at all? >> yeah. i mean, i think consumers are always balancing their budget and their priorities. so what do you think about the covid period, the pandemic, when we were all in

lockdown, you didn't travel for either leisure or for work purposes. so that meant that people were able to buy on things for their home furniture. they, they, they renovated their houses and they bought on all these more durable items. and then as soon as you had the reopening, it switched pretty dramatically towards experiences again. so i think the consumer is nimble. the adjustments are always happening. this might be a new one in the sense of going back to the office in a more sustainable way. and that probably means that instead of going out to eat dinner, maybe on a thursday night, you're going to grab a lunch with your colleagues and you're going to shift around when you go to restaurants and how you spend on some of those leisure activities. but i think, again, it's a consumer that's had a lot of choices. and again, it has navigated that very well in the past few years. >> well, i'm just going to say i was i was off air for a little bit of time for a variety of reasons. michelle. and i'd go to the grocery store at 2 p.m. and there'd be like a bunch of bros on a tuesday walking around the

grocery store. i'm like, don't you guys have jobs? you can't all be tv news anchors. it was vexing. and but they were spending and they continue to spend and we liked, by the way, hopefully everybody out there has spent a little money on their valentine's day. other michelle meyer, thank you very much. appreciate that. >> you got it. thank you. >> all right. well, speaking of spending, is the dollar stores paying walmart's gain report about who may have the lowest prices that you have got to see prices that you have got to see coming up. 7 million us businesses rely on tiktok to compete. within a week of posting, i had over $25,000 in sales. i don't have a million dollars to put towards marketing and branding. tiktok was the way and it saved my company. we had a video do really good this week. sales were up 29%. about 80% of my business right now is from tiktok. small businesses thrive on tiktok. tiktok brings in so much foot traffic. i need tiktok to keep growing. we have so much more work to do.

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the other career prosecutors at the justice department, vice president jd vance and ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky held a bilateral meeting today on the sidelines of the munich security conference. the vice president characterized it, saying the goal was to end the war with a, quote, durable, lasting peace between russia and ukraine. while zelenskyy said the us and ukraine will work toward a plan to, quote, how to stop putin and finish the war. and southern california is bracing for another day of potential mudslides in areas burned by last month's wildfires. evacuation orders and warnings are still in place until 2 p.m. pacific time today, after heavy rains yesterday caused major flooding, as well as mudslides that covered parts of a coastal highway. ryan, it reminds me of that old song it never rains in california, but man, it pours. it's been a rough

start of the year there. >> it has a lot of those plants that burned literally and figuratively held the hills together. a lot of them are gone, all the rain washing it down. they can't get a break. bertha coombs. thank you. all right, coming up, back to the markets. and what? intel is having its best week in nearly a quarter century. plus, we're counting down to this sunday's big race. dozens of drivers gearing up for the daytona 500. and coming up on power lunch, we're going to speak with nascar president steve phelps, not only about the great american race this weekend, but about nascar running in mexico. the big show on netflix, and a lot more that's ahead. stick around. >> and rollins cars both removed to the garage. >> nothing stands still. not technology, not the market and not franklin templeton. we've been a firm in motion for over 75 years, always innovating.

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amazing and is something that we get to use every day. >> all right. we talked about it to lead off the show. it's a big deal and it's a big number. big technologies, capital spending better known as capex, expected to come in at around $320 billion this year, about a 40% jump from last year's numbers. however, investor sentiment around that spending might not be following the same upward trajectory, shall they say. christina, crunching the

numbers. you literally took the numbers and you crunched them. >> yes, with an abacus, i. stocks, though, have seen a significant pullback in early 2025 after last year's surge. and you just talked about it brian. we know tech giants aren't holding back. alphabet is an example. alone is boosting its spending to $75 billion this year. that's 29% more than wall street expected. so massive investments chips, servers, ethernet, networking, you name it. but here's the twist the number crunching you referred to. wall street's reaction has changed dramatically. so take a look at this chart last april. ai focused companies the obvious nvidia dell, broadcom saw their stocks jump when big tech announcements or capex was delivered. fast forward to now those same names and i've included a few more like arista networks, modine, marvell. they're barely moving. we're seeing an average of just 1% last week, a fraction of last

year's excitement after we saw all of those big capex numbers. so what's behind this market shift? well, analysts kind of point to three key factors. first, you have concerns about tariffs. so investors are looking for safer havens like software for example. and you can just see that just in the shift of the igv which is a software etf. it's up about what, 9% just in the last month versus the sox etf a good barometer for chips. and that's not up as much, maybe around 2%. second, you got the deep sea headlines that have some questioning the pace of ai development. and then perhaps most importantly, bank of america is warning that all of this i spend could start eating into profits. those margins, even for the mighty magnificent seven. the big question now is whether this is just a temporary cooldown, or a sign that wall street is really starting to take a more realistic view of ai's near term impact on corporate bottom lines, aka monetization. brian. >> that is the question. kristina partsinevelos. we will see you soon. all right, well,

speaking of sentiment shifts, intel. now, intel has been a disaster for investors. it was a $60 stock three years ago. it is wiped out about two thirds of investor value since then, 60 to 20 something. but this week there was a big swing. the stock red hot intel up 25% this week. it's really on a bunch of news. some of that is around trump, some around a potential partnership with the chip giant tsmc. but is this week really kind of a big headfake or is there something else going on? stacey raskin is managing director and senior u.s. semiconductor analyst at bernstein. not bullish. got a market perform $25 target. stacy, what the heck is going on with intel this week? >> yeah, there's been a lot of. headlines over. >> the last. >> week week. >> or so. >> and you mentioned. >> trump and jvs. >> and frankly, i think it. >> all really. >> does come down to trump. most of the headlines. >> have involved. >> potential. >> like us. government pressure such. >> as it is on tsmc.

>> floating some proposals to. >> help prop up intel. >> and push the administration's. >> kind of made in america semiconductor agenda. and there have been. >> a few. >> things that have been brought up from. >> you. >> know. >> tsmc adding more. >> types of capacity. >> in. >> the us on the one extreme, all the way to the other extreme, which supposedly, you know, proposals to have tsmc do technology transfer. >> to intel. >> and help support them that way. and, you know, the stock has been beaten down a lot like they've been left for dead. i do think that a lot of investors have been shorted. and so because of some of these headlines, you're clearly going to drive sentiment up. and you may squeeze some of those shorts. and that's what we've been seeing over the last week. and you're right. it's had a pretty powerful week off of the off of the lows. >> yeah. now a lot of people are watching it, you know because of we're talking about it stacey. and they're thinking should i buy into. should they buy intel? >> we are not recommending that you buy intel. that being said, and we've we've talked on this. you know, i've always kind of kind of joked i've been a noted

bear on on the company. i'm, i'm, i'm afraid to short it right now for reasons like this. like news flow comes out, we can talk about what what's been said. a lot of it doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. we can talk about why, but it's these kinds of headlines that make me terrified to short it because, i mean, anything can come down. trump can tweet anything out, like on any given day or like whatever, and it can go up a lot. and so it's a it's a tough short and you can see what's happening. i think when people are shorted and news comes like this, it definitely squeezes. >> and listen, intel short interest by the way is about 2.5% somebody in my ear thank you just got and told me that. so i sounded smart. i had nothing to do with it because shorting is risky. your risk of loss is unlimited. the stock can go up forever and you can get your face ripped off. and i think that's what's happened with some people and intel this week, but has the fundamental story. stacy, for intel really changed? >> i don't think the fundamentals have changed, but we should talk a little bit about what is supposedly being

bandied about. and so there have been some news articles that have talked about a few options. they've involved effectively, i guess, governmental pressure on tsmc to either a build more capacity on the packaging side on the back end, b potentially to like take some sort of like equity investment, maybe with other semiconductor companies to help support the very loss making manufacturing assets they have and c maybe even to do technology transfer and to try to, to, to boost intel's prospects that way. i would say adding more capacity in the, in the us by tsmc if it happens is not in possible. they're already building here and they could build more. they could build wafer fab, they could build packaging. it could happen. i'd say direct investments. it's happened. intel actually has a couple of jvs with private equity who've invested in intel, although i would say the terms have been very onerous to intel. and so i don't know what kind of returns would be required. the technology transfer piece is the one that really throws me for a loop. i don't know why tsmc

would want to do anything like that voluntarily. it doesn't make any sense to me. of course, the thought is maybe it's not entirely voluntary. right? and so do you think intel could be taken private? >> stacey i know it's crazy. let's just have fun. it's friday. why not? neither of us have been drinking, i don't think. but do you think that that that intel could be taken private? or is it simply too big? >> well, again, the problem with it having it taken private collectively is again, it's losing a lot of money, especially the manufacturing assets. the fabs are really have really been an anchor. this is the issue people try to do with some of the parts. and you you can come up with valuations for the product piece of the business. and some people would suggest that they're worth more than the value of the company. i'm not sure i agree with that, but some people would make that case. but a lot of people would sort of attribute negative value to the factories right now. i mean, that really is the issue. and anything that they could do, whether it's getting more support or trying to split it or trying to figure out clever things, it's really difficult, given the state of those factories as they are right now. and i mean, that's i think is

the issue that everybody is trying to wrestle with. how do you fix what's going on with the fabs? how do you make sure that they can stand on their feet? because if the feds are viable, it actually opens up a lot of other potential opportunities. but it's very difficult, i think, to make the fabs viable given the state that they're in right now. >> and that's it. you know, listen, you you mentioned it. people are sort of not talking about it, but they're talking around it and it does exist. we got to go. stacy rasgon bernstein. thank you. >> you bet. >> all right. coming up, morgan stanley downgrading california utility pg e to underweight their fancy word for sell, writing that the threat of wildfires in california and out west is simply too much risk for you as an investor to bear, and that california's wildfire fund is likely no longer large enough to support the financial health of the utilities. morgan stanley, also lowering its price target on edison international from 71 to 48. stock is at 51. shares of both of these companies are down right now and

also down big beginning of those fires back in january as we still search for a reason on exactly what happened. we don't know. but the market has reacted more back right after this. >> techcheck is sponsored by >> techcheck is sponsored by comcast (vo) what does it mean to be rich? maybe rich is less about reaching a magic number... and more about discovering magic. >> is this. >> your dream of retirement? how about this. >> sweet deal? i like fishing, or is this. >> a little. >> more your style? retiring wealth isn't a guarantee, it's a goal. >> it's easy when markets. >> are going up. but what about when they're not? that's why. you need this call for fishers retirement. survival kit, featuring your guide to.

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year. shares of roku up 100 bucks, up 200 bucks, i should say, for the first time in 14 months. shout out to laura martin needham. this is her top pick in media. and finally, you got draftkings hitting its highest level since 2021. that despite missing the street's estimates for profit revenue and monthly active users. but draftkings is raising the low end of its guidance for the full year, and they expect promotional expenses to decline. i don't know a lot about draftkings, except i've lost a lot of money on all gambling this year. contessa brewer, though, does know a lot. and she will join us on power lunch, hosting the entire hour in about about ten minutes. not even wearing a watch. coming up, shares of dollar general down more than 40% since they cut guidance for the first time back in august. company stock lowered again in december, and while management says slowing spending is partly to blame, one analyst channel check say that pricing

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authenticated luxury resale shop now with code 20 for 20% off. terms apply. >> all right. welcome back. well, not a great week for consumers at least when it comes to the data. just days after inflation came in, hot retail sales numbers for january

whiffed sliding nearly a percent. although there's a lot going on storms here fires out west. and if you think that might be good news for the deep discounters, think again. your next guest checks revealing some big pricing problems. get this he found and his team found that prices at walmart beat those at the big dollar store chains and by a lot. joining us now to talk about it, anthony chukumba, managing director at loop capital. and anthony, what's interesting i know listen, they're always fighting over who's got the lowest prices, blah blah blah. i think of the dollar generals of the world as sort of being the cheapest of the cheap. but you found they're not. >> that is correct. and look, to be clear, the dollar stores don't have to be at price parity with walmart. they don't have to be lower price than walmart because they are more convenient. right. these are much smaller stores that are right in your neighborhood, but they can't be seen by consumers as essentially ripping folks off, particularly given the fact that walmart has really kind of upped their game. and so we were

concerned. i mean, we saw for the third time in our last four pricing studies that the price gap between dollar general and walmart widened. and for family dollar was the fourth consecutive time. so we were concerned, particularly given the fact that in both cases, the price differentials were above our long term historical averages. we've been doing this here at loop capital markets for about eight years. >> what does that tell you? because it is rather surprising. >> so what it told me was that walmart is getting aggressive and lowering prices. and we pointed this out in the pricing study. we saw price rollbacks at walmart on a number of items. and that is concerning. that is concerning. >> yeah. and you know here's the so these dollar stores they do tend to be a little more rural. is that a fair statement. walmart's rural too. but i mean the dollar stores as i've seen them tend to be kind of out by themselves. does that does that moat if you will, give them a little more pricing power

because they're not all stacked next door to a walmart? >> well, i think you're referring more to dollar general. dollar general definitely has more sort of rural stores, particularly relative to family dollar. but let's be clear. i mean, you know, in a lot of cases, these stores do overlap with the walmart. now, if you're nowhere close to a walmart, if you're in a food desert, then yeah, maybe you don't have to be as competitive on price. but, you know, i would say the vast majority of these stores, particularly for family dollar, a little bit more so than dollar general, but they are competing with that walmart. and like i said, you know, if they're competitively priced then they can win that fight. but if they're not and walmart, like i said, is just getting much better in terms of store level execution, in terms of click and collect, in terms of what they're doing online, that's a problem. >> how i got friends and family that have dealt with walmart or currently deal with them. they go down to bentonville and they pay homage to the retail and they just get the crap beat out of them. because walmart is so tough on pricing, are they is

walmart anthony the best run retailer in the world right now? >> if they're not, they're certainly up there. i mean, you know, it's tough. i mean they've got so much scale and you know, look, to be clear, like if we were having this conversation a few years ago, it'd be a different conversation because to some extent, they were really kind of figuring out how they were going to deal with amazon. and it seems like they've kind of cracked the code. right. they bought jet.com and shut it down, but they've, you know, infused a lot of the learnings and they've gotten really, really good on click and collect. now they're they're a third party marketplace as well. yeah. they're really hitting on all cylinders. >> i think buying buying jet and getting the brainpower of marc lore and others has really helped them. anthony capital appreciate you helping us out anthony. thank you very much folks. that's it for the exchange. i'll join contessa brewer for power lunch next. >> the number of public companies is shrinking while the

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is often the road overlooked. (♪♪) at enterprise mobility, we guide companies to unique solutions, from our team of mobility experts. because we believe the more ways we all have to move forward. the further we'll all go. >> dew point and welcome to power lunch. i'm brian again with contessa brewer today. how do you say investing in europe is red hot in germany? good one. yeah, we don't know either. but we're going to find out because europe is red hot. in fact, doing better than america this year we're going to find out why. and all is well in the world because nascar is back. the head of nascar is here to talk about the great american