you see a massive change coming to an end. this has been an incredible run for one of america's most well-known companies. >> i think you're right. one of the most incredible runs we've ever seen in markets down 4% today. maybe it's crack, i don't know, maybe it's just time to take some profits. >> that's it. >> thanks for watching. >> closing bell starts right now. >> all right guys, thanks so much. welcome to closing bell i'm scott wapner live from post nine here at the new york stock exchange. it's make or break hour begins with the battle for ai domination and new developments, placing elon musk and sam altman at odds once again. we'll have those details straight ahead, as several stocks in that space are moving today. here is the scorecard with 60 to go in regulation. not exactly the highest conviction one way or the other today, but the s&p is making another run at a new closing high. we will track it about 4 or 5 points below it right now. sectors they're pretty much split today. energy is leading the way. and most of the banks are higher today. two bank of america shares. however there they are. they are lower by about 1%. a

new filing from berkshire hathaway reveals that firm selling even more shares lately. interesting news constellation brands shares are sharply higher. berkshire initiating a new position. so those stocks going in opposite directions. it does take us to our talk of the tape. several ai stocks surging today from oracle to dell to vistra and vertiv, perhaps because of elon musk's new ai model. we have three reporters on the beat today steve kovach, who covers tech, kate rooney on all things a.i, and kristina partsinevelos on nvidia's march. hire steve kovach. you first. what's this all about with this new version of this model? >> today it's grok three day. aren't you excited, scott? this is this is what elon musk announced last night. it's the third version of the grok ai model. this is what you access either through x, the social media site, or x, the stand-alone chatbot app for grok. and this is they're making some big claims here that it outperforms openai's chatgpt

best and latest greatest models, that it outperforms deep sea, and also some catch up features here scott, including web search, ai infused web search, and voice chat. that's all of these are features that we've seen from rival ai companies. so what we're really seeing here is a little bit of a catch up. but also these claims that grok three has surpassed openai and others. at the same time. we see these two companies raising boatloads of money. and i guarantee you this is not the last model we're going to hear. that's the best and greatest and fastest ever. scott. >> more models equal more money, right? >> yeah, exactly. but at the same time, i think what we really got to look here at scott is since these models are coming out so quickly and advancing so rapidly, it comes down to the product. which of these companies has the best product that you actually want to use? and right now, these chat bots are kind of filling the bill. if you look at the app store rankings today, in part because of these moves that we saw from grok last night, chatgpt sitting pretty right there at the top of the app store, we have grok

moving up a little bit. deep seek is up there in the top 10 or 15. what you don't see is some of the big tech companies up there. you don't see google's gemini, you don't see some of the more incumbent players there. so this is really an interesting moment to watch. how popular these these startups are getting, and really taking away at least some mindshare away from the establishment players. scott. >> are we back to what we witnessed with the streaming services and the number of different options that were out there, and you were essentially forced to choose which ones you wanted to pay, whatever you were willing to pay for them. >> that's a really interesting analogy. i never thought of it that way. and the answer is kind of yes, and then we'll see how it all shakes out. i will say these are a lot more expensive, this grok three model. there have been some kind of confusing messaging around how much it's going to cost. it's going to be at least $30 a month though. that's if you subscribe to it through the social media site. and then it might be a little, i'm sorry. if you subscribe to it through the grok app, it might be a little more

expensive. if you do it through the social media site, you cannot have all of these. they're all basically do the same thing. so if you're picking and choosing which one you want, if you only have 20 to $50 a month to spend, you can't take them all. like you can have netflix and peacock and all those other scott. >> yeah. interesting. steve. thank you for that. to kate rooney, the threat to openai here is, i guess, in the forefront more in the battle between musk and altman. how should we think about this? >> it's got one thing to think about is just the pressure that it adds to openai that steve alluded to. all of these models are becoming better. it costs a lot of money to run these and to make better versions. it just ups the ante on what openai has to do. but i would expect the velocity at which they've been launching products. i would expect openai at some point in the next couple of months to say, hold my beer. here's our newest model. you just see this every couple of weeks where they try to one up each other. i love this analogy. one of the ceos out here was talking about the commoditization of these. they start to look the same. they're all really high level. it's like taking the top men's or women's tennis players and putting them

together. on any given day. one of them could win. it could be nadal, federer. you don't know who's going to win on any certain day, but they're both extremely high level. so i think that's one way to sort of visualize how good, how competitive these are. openai is still sort of considered in pole position, but it is a threat. and that's something i hear all the time in silicon valley, at least in the last couple of weeks. people must have known this was coming, because i had a lot of people say to me, grok, here is the dark horse. this is the one to watch. yes, the others are in pole position and leading anthropic is another one we should mention. but grok has made a lot of progress. they've got the talent, they've got the money, and they've got the data, which are sort of the three factors that you need to compete here. so they are seen as a challenger. not to mention, as you said, the competition between musk and altman. that is the backdrop here, the elephant in the room that at the same time they've got these competing products. one of the things and really the clapback from sam altman last week was that he wished elon musk would compete on the technology on the products. here's elon musk's answer. he's coming out with one of these newer versions. so i

think this is really an area to watch the technological back and forth. and then you've also got the lawsuits. >> the, the funding competition too. right? you you need to continually raise more money. >> everybody does these these guys are prolific fundraisers. if you think about elon musk and sam altman and sort of in that category too, these are three people who have shown this just ridiculous ability to raise money. and that's one advantage that they have here. you know, venture capital has been eager to get in on some of these deals. but those i mean, those three looping in mosses on here, who's backed openai. that is a huge advantage in ai. as i said, it's money, it's data and it's talent. i would say that the talent piece of it is up in the air. we had some news today. actually, some of the former openai folks have gone off and raised money for their own startups. but as long as they can raise the most money so far, that has been a huge advantage in one way to stay ahead. >> yeah, kate, thank you for that. that's kate rooney kristina partsinevelos nvidia looks at all this and says,

yeah, keep keep coming, keep coming with your new models because we need we need to just sell even more chips. >> exactly. if i'm going to thread a. >> theme, you had. >> steve that say. >> basically they all do the same thing you had. kate mentioned commoditization, but the commonality. >> between all of this. >> is the foundation is. >> nvidia. >> and that means. >> that. nvidia is going to continue to do well when it comes to demand. what we know from the grok three, that it was trained on 200,000. >> a100s. >> that's double the. >> original 100,000 they talked about last year, which shows, hey, we. >> need even more. >> chips to. compete at the. >> top level. >> which would. >> further. >> drive capex for a lot of other companies. >> the second. >> major point, too, is that. >> all of. >> grok three. >> was trained on. >> hopper chips. >> which. >> is, i guess, the current. >> iteration. >> the one that people can actually. >> get their hands on. >> it's not trained on. >> blackwell. >> which could further. >> drive upgrades in the near future, and we're going to hear about that next week with nvidia's earnings. >> and then the third. >> point is. >> just. >> this is all built. >> in 92. >> days, right? >> so they elon. >> musk said. >> it was the largest liquid

cooling cluster of gpus out there. if they're able to. >> do. >> that, get their hands on all the. >> chips in 92. >> days, that bodes. >> well for nvidia. demand to. remain consistent and not have. >> these air pockets. >> or moments of transition between quarters that. some people are worried about. >> yeah, we'll see what they deliver. but a week, a week from today, expectations i guess, are going to be high again. right. because the stock has been ramping into the print yet again. >> yeah, it's actually above well it. >> was above. >> that. 140 level when you. >> had. >> deep sea. i'm calling it the freakout. >> in january. >> but the. >> major concern. >> also for nvidia that we have to. >> mention is. >> these export. >> controls, any. incoming restrictions. >> coming from the trump administration. >> if any, if there's any. >> retaliation on. china's side that could impact nvidia. so that's. >> an overhang. and then. >> it's the it's the. >> supply issues that with blackwell there's. >> so much demand, but there's still some issues. >> there have been. >> rumors of issues. >> of the. >> advanced packaging. >> that goes onto those chips. and so perhaps that's delayed

the increase in revenues to the following quarter. but it's still demand is still there. that theory, that. >> thesis. >> that story for. nvidia hasn't changed guys. >> good stuff. covered a lot. helped us better understand what's happening today. why? perhaps a lot of these ai stocks are in the forefront of the market price action today. appreciate that, steve, kate and christina. we'll see you soon. let's broaden the conversation now and bring in liz young thomas of sophie and chris heisey of maryland, bank of america private bank. it's great to have you both with us. it does highlight, liz the reemergence of tech, which has put the s&p on the doorstep here again of a new closing high. >> yeah, i mean it's. >> such a big sector. >> such a big. >> influence in the market. >> overall. >> not just on sentiment but. just on. >> market direction. >> so we. >> were already in. >> a pretty. >> solid place fundamentally. >> i mean, we've got earnings growth for the fourth quarter of 2020 for. most sectors. i think nine of 11 sectors have beat growth expectations. and then

you bring tech back into this. and it's a further tailwind to just continue to drive things higher. so i think this is a good sign for investors. but don't forget that there are a lot of other places in the index and just in the market overall where you can make money and probably pay a little bit less. so don't take your eye off the ball. i think people are still concentrating so much on what got us here, and we have to make sure that we're broadening it out to other sectors. >> pretty resilient market, right? >> very resilient. >> part of which is because tech is coming. >> back again. but the rest of the marketplace was kind of hanging in there and actually starting to show some signs of leading to a certain degree. liz mentioned financials. financials are still leading on that. >> well. >> but everybody was just waiting for tech. >> to kind. >> of go into that phase. >> three, which is a race for dominance right now. this previous segment, talk about a race for dominance. that's where we're at. >> and now. >> that winds will start to blow again. and there's. >> still the welcome. >> mat of the house. >> do you feel confident enough in the direction of the market to say that we're really going to have a lasting broadening that, you know, these what we

had when tech sort of took a back seat, you did have a pickup. and if you look at the breakdown year to date of the sectors, you had so many sectors that had performed pretty well. is that a lasting trend, do you think. >> what's interesting. >> now is you're starting to see the cyclicals perk up, you know, materials, energy, but not just that. within tech semis. >> are coming back a little bit. >> i don't think all the cyclicals will blow at the same time. but if you're going to see nominal gdp. growth of 5 to 6%, which is what we've been told, and it's pretty much in the. >> cards you do. >> you do. >> get that broadening out. >> it's going to. >> be sneaky quiet, though. it's not all of a sudden we press a button and we wake up and like, wow, look at the rotation. it's going to catch us by surprise for those that haven't been watching it. >> but i mean, if you it's already kind of happened to the points that have already been made. i mean, you know, financials year to date are up 7.5%. utilities are up five. i mean you can go down the list. there are a handful of sectors that are up four, almost 5% in some cases 6 or 7%. we've already witnessed this. >> yeah. and look, if you add

the weight of financials and communications together, that's about the same weight as what tech is in the index. and if you look at earnings growth from the fourth quarter, financials and communications are actually the top two sectors in earnings growth. so there is a possibility. the question has been for a long time can the market still go up without tech. well absolutely. if some of these sectors do it together and if the fundamental story stays intact and right now it has. >> you make a good point. i mean earnings right. we had we had been told coming into earnings season. you know the market's rich richly priced valuations. you know 22 times. whatever it is you're not going to get any more multiple expansion. you got to have earnings deliver 15% earnings growth. >> yeah that's been. >> the. >> story i needed to see. >> that's the foundation. at the end of the day, you have to grab on to. >> a narrative. >> that's going to take something to eat. >> into. >> that multiple. if you didn't get that, the multiple would be rich. but since you're getting that and there's probably even more momentum than that, we'll get some manufacturing numbers

out at the end of the at the end of the week, you're seeing europe perk up china's stimulus in place so you can actually see higher earnings growth than that. and then that 22 multiple won't be so scary to a lot of folks. >> i mean, the other big development today that i want to talk to you guys about is what eamon javers is covering for us today, the justice department issuing a memo today confirming it will keep the strict biden era merger guidelines intact, at least for now. eamon javers is here with those details and what is a pretty surprising story to many today, eamon. >> it's surprising to many. scott. that's right. the trump department of justice issued a memo today confirming that it will keep these strict biden era merger guidelines that were largely disliked by big business. that will surprise a lot of people on wall street who have assumed that the second trump administration will open up the m&a market and dial back antitrust enforcement. although we've been explaining this dynamic for a couple of months now on cnbc, that's not necessarily the case. in the memo dated today, the acting assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, omid

assefi, writes that the antitrust division will continue to use the 2023 merger guidelines until further notice. and over at the ftc, chair andrew ferguson posted on social media earlier today that the 2023 merger guidelines will serve as the framework for our agency's merger review analysis. now, the trump doj has already signaled a continuing skepticism of big mergers with its suit in late january to block hpe's proposed $14 billion acquisition of juniper networks. that decision, now viewed as something of a bellwether for the trump era approach to m&a. the question is why is that? and the answer is conservative. populists in the trump administration largely agree with the biden consensus that big corporate mergers can kill american jobs, and they're more skeptical of corporate elites than traditional republicans. so if you thought that trump two meant, you know, this huge m&a boom, dial those expectations back significantly. what they're signaling here at both the doj

and ftc is that they are going to enforce antitrust on these big mergers, and they're going to look skeptically at any big merger that hurts american jobs. >> scott certainly goes against much of the narrative that was there since the election. and as this new market year began, eamon, thank you very much for that. that's eamon javers. this is an issue. >> i think it's an issue in the sense of set your expectations logically. right. so some of the sectors and i would put myself in this camp too. i expected energy to be, for example, a big beneficiary of m&a activity this year. so maybe lower those expectations a bit. but this is still really applicable to very big businesses. i still think that there can be a healthy amount of m&a activity in that mid to small cap range and particularly in financials, and i think there's still an opportunity for that. the other thing that we have to set expectations for is that some of the bull case behind financials was that there's going to be all this capital markets activity, some of which was m&a. and all the underwriting that needed. >> was thought to be like a

layup coming into this year. is that different now. >> less of a layup. but still i think there can be activity midd there's plent activity. there's a lot of market stuff that i think a lot of people are taking part in. so it's not as if the story is dead, but you do have to kind of step back, sharpen the pencil and rethink where the opportunities lie. >> what about that? i mean, you do have some big pending deals that are still hanging out there. two words you heard coming into this year animal spirits. do we need to dial it back in thinking about, you know, some of these ideas that we're going to be a boon for the stock market. >> certainly for the larger potential mergers itself. i think liz absolutely nailed it. the small and mid-cap space we i in particular, we in particular, have been looking for reasons to get a little bit more excited. we've been excited and waiting, particularly in the mid cap space for an m&a cycle. but spoe

same time, if you do get financial deregulation, that's where the hunting ground is first. so the large space, sharpen the pen >> you know the other thing. not so, you know, maybe specifically related to the administration and what they've done thus far. and what they hope to do is a view that outside the us is now a better bang for your buck than inside the us. josh brown on half time mentioned, you know, the chart ofund manager survey peak in investor conviction of us exceptionalism tony pasquarello goldman sachs today us market not the best game in town that we're witnessing a collective rally in global equities jeff degraff of renaissance macro europe's breaking out as well. do we need to really look elsewhere? >> i mean it's about time, right? it's been over a decade, and i remember having these conversations for a long time

about europe and some of asia, too, and just saying, well, it's cheap and shouldn't we buy it because it's cheap? and then it always got to the point where it was like, well, it's cheap for a reason. it still is cheaper and it probably will stay cheaper than the us if we're looking just at broad multiples, because you have to pay up for quality and you have to pay up for growth. but i do think it's time to be considering some of these other regions. i prefer china to straight years of plus 20% returns in the s&p. you don't usually see that three years in a row. so find the opportunities elsewhere. it's just that everybody is stuck in this comfort zone of us stocks, particularly us consumer discretionary tech and communications, that it's tough to consider putting money somewhere else. and it feels risky in a geopolitical environment like this. but i think you can get more bang for your buck if you're worried about valuations, especially at a time when yields are high and

are likely to stay high. >> how do you see it? >> just about every global investor is underweight everything. but you know, outside the united states. >> hit it, right? i mean these stocks were you'd say, oh, they're cheap. i mean, yeah, they're cheap for a reason. >> yeah. 1015 years. and you had some bright spots over the window would open and the window would close. but you still need a second reason. the first reason is valuation, technical readings, perhaps a little bit of a breakout. the second reason would have to be earnings growth. we would have to see the earnings growth follow through to rival what's going on in other parts of the united states market. otherwise, you get a little bit of a so-called longer relief rally, but it doesn't carry itself into a year or two years or three years. so we're still skeptical. >> guys, good to catch up with you. thanks for coming by, both of you. chris and liz young thomas, we're just getting started here. up next, shares of gene d are soaring. in today's session, we hear from the company's ceo exactly what's going on after the break. we're live at the new york stock exchange and you're watching

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com or just stop by granger for the ones who get it done. >> shares of the biotech company gene d are surging to a new high today on the back of its latest earnings report. the company ceo is catherine stueland and she joins us once again here on set. welcome back. thanks for having me. good day for you to be here. what has the market so excited today? you know we've. >> been able. >> to drive. >> tremendous growth. >> both in 2024. we delivered 56% year over year revenue growth. and that's really been in large part because we've been able to focus on solving a really important problem in healthcare. for children who have a genetic disease. it can take on average five years to get a diagnosis. it can take 16 ineffective tests and three misdiagnoses, all because we're not using genomic testing upfront to be able to rule in or rule out whether or not there's

an underlying genetic condition. so we're in a position where we're delivering better clinical care, we're saving the health care system valuable dollars, and we're creating a good business out. >> of it. do you do you have a sense of what your total addressable market could be? >> absolutely. so when we think more broadly, we think about the pediatric market, which in total can be up to $25 billion today as we think about the pediatric market, we've really started focusing on conditions like epilepsy autism miss milestones. so when you're going in to see your pediatrician these are some of the most common symptoms that parents are coming in to talk about. and what's not happening in that general pediatrician setting is they're not getting a genetic test up front. so that's what we're seeking to change, is intervening and making sure that every child who has one of these symptoms has access to a test. >> how difficult is it for a physician to prescribe a genetic

test upfront, as you say, and get an insurance company to pay for it? has that issue in and of itself is really taken the forefront over the last handful of months? >> so insurance companies do pay for it. so insurance and medicaid both pay for this testing. and the reason why they pay for it is because it can actually help them save dollars as well. so they're spending a lot of money on those 16 inefficient tests they can just spend on our test upfront. and we continue to drive down the cost of our tests. we continue to make them faster. so it's actually quite easy for a clinician to order the test today. what we think is going to unlock the market, though, in the future, is when guidelines come out from the american academy of pediatrics that will better direct a general pediatrician to start using our testing. so today, a parent will go into a pediatrician. they get referred out to a specialist. so think about a pediatric neurologist or a behavioral specialist. and that's where we've been able to drive most of

the growth last year. and this year we're going to continue to drive growth with even more indications coming. >> you're evolving to this whole industry, i guess is evolving from a single genetic test to a whole gene sequencing. correct? >> absolutely. so about a decade ago, we were testing brca1 and brca2, and each one of those genes a decade ago was about $3,500. today, we can take an entire genome and sequence it cost effectively, and we're able to do it quicker. we just announced that we will be offering an ultra rapid genome, which we can deliver to babies in the nicu as soon as 48 hours. >> wow. how long did it used to take? >> a few years ago. it took about six months, but last year it was about two weeks. we were able to improve that turnaround time, so by the end of last year we were at five days. but now we can do it in 48 hours. >> that's incredible. last question. how do you view what's

happening in washington around, you know, health care, possible cuts, medicare, medicaid, obviously changes in health and human services department. how are you thinking about it as the ceo of a company like this? >> it's something that i care deeply about. i'm sure you do. and i happen to think that we sit in the intersection that really beautifully overlaps with the priorities of the administration. they want to make sure that there's more efficiency in terms of health care, and that's something that our testing squarely does. we save the health care system dollars by utilizing this testing upfront, and they want to make sure that kids remain healthy and are getting diagnosed with disease as early as possible. we are a unifying issue in washington, so we are continuing to have amazing conversations with policymakers on both sides who absolutely support the work that we're doing. >> to those who say, and i'm sure you've heard this as well, criticism that some are anti-science, you couldn't be more science. how do you respond

to that? >> so we were actually born at the nih. i think we are a shining example of what government funded and founded science can do in terms of changing the standard of care, being able to provide better clinical care and save the government and save private insurers valuable dollars. >> interesting. good to catch up with you and congrats on the quarter and the stock move. catherine, we'll talk to you soon. thanks so much. all right. up next, your ultra high net worth playbook. top wealth strategist mary lago is here to tell us how she's advising her clients right now. that's right. after this. we're back on the bell. >> that's it. oh. >> hi, frank. >> hey, goldie. >> i'm looking for those. >> reports from yesterday. >> they're already. >> on your desk, frank. >> of course they are. >> easily isolate phone calls. >> easily isolate phone calls. >> to the discovering innovation today, helps drive growth tomorrow. as a leading global asset manager, pgim has established a track record of helping investors capitalize on growth opportunities.

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washington policy is impacting the sector john fort morgan brennan closing bell overtime today four. eastern cnbc. >> welcome back getting some news at this moment from bill ackman. mike santoli following this for us today mike. >> yeah scott. so bill ackman posting just a little while ago that at 4 p.m. he'd have an announcement perhaps making the analogy of forming his version of a berkshire hathaway which presumably would mean kind of a publicly traded vehicle with which he would make further investments and try to build value down the road. now, immediately, one of the ways that the market started to connect the dots here was to buy shares in howard hughes triple h. now, this is a company. remember that bill ackman's firm owns about 37.6% of. and last month he offered to purchase more shares that he so that he would have a majority stake by merging it in with a subsidiary of pershing square, maybe cashing out some existing shareholders at $85 a share. so you see there, the stock popped up to around 80 bucks right after that announcement. we

obviously don't have any more detail in terms of what is going to be announced. howard hughes created a special committee of the board to review possible options back when that unsolicited bid did hit. i think it was january 13th. >> and at that time, mike, when, you know, he announced the intention to increase their stake in howard hughes to what was thought to be between 61 and 69%, you talked about a majority stake, he said in the time at the time, excuse me? in a letter to the board of howard hughes, quote, it would create a modern day berkshire hathaway that would acquire controlling interests in operating companies. so he sort of put his hand on on the, you know, revealed his hand maybe before he actually holds this event at four. not that we know it's howard hughes, but i mean, if you connect the dots as you said. >> well, not that, you know, presumably he's alluding to howard hughes. what we don't know is whether there's an actual deal or that, you know, it's kind of just a reiteration

of an intention to do what he wants to do. but obviously market not waiting for the details. >> yeah. all right, mike, thank you very much for that. that's mike santoli with the very latest there. well the us is best. that's the take today from our next guest who advises ultra high net worth clients. mary lago is with ferguson wellman and joins me here at post nine. it's good to see you. >> great to be here. >> how you feel about these markets. what are you telling your your ultra high net worth clients? you're trying to, you know, preserve their capital, but everybody wants a good return on it to. >> preserve and. grow in. >> the us has done a great. >> job of that. >> we think the us economy is in really solid shape, and if we look forward, we expect those key economic indicators to move in a fairly tight range over the next 12 months. and that's a really supportive economic environment for domestic earnings growth as well as returns. and the market has shown so far this year, it's rewarding. >> what about what i mentioned earlier to some of our guests these these calls that the best opportunity is now outside the us that we came into this year thinking us exceptionalism for

obvious reasons. but now there may be better less volatile opportunities elsewhere. >> we follow the earnings. so fundamentally ferguson wellman pays a lot of attention to the earnings. and if you look at earnings growth for the international markets, it's at about 8.8%. whereas if you look at us markets, despite the fact that q4 earnings came in higher than expected. so those forward looking earnings projections have come down just a little bit at about 12 and one half times. we still like 12.5 times better than 8.8. and we believe we have a more solid environment here. >> where do you want to stay in terms of the cap space market cap wise? big, big. >> we remain overweight, large cap and overweight domestic. we still have some small cap holdings. we still have some international holdings but slight tilts to the underweight. we like some of the names that are well regarded in the market space already like technology and mag seven and not in all of them, but overweight in a number of them. and like industrials communication services. so we still see some good growth opportunities. and the earnings

projections are looking really strong. >> do you think there's going to be a prolonged broadening out of the market. >> absolutely. so if we look back. >> a couple. >> of years you know we were seeing contraction in the earnings growth of the other 493 stocks. they were really concentrated within the mag seven. we saw that broaden last year. we expect that to continue to broaden this year. and even so if you look at earnings the earnings growth potential still looks better in the mag seven than it does across the rest of the market. >> kind of risks. do you see i did the story earlier in the show today about m&a guidelines staying in place from the biden administration. a surprise, at least now to many who figured, you know, we're going to get animal spirits. deregulation is going to lead to a lot of big deals. well, maybe not so much. and maybe there's going to be some other volatility around tariffs and other, you know, parts of the policy. what do you think. >> volatility is a given. volatility is the price of admission. but we still look longer term in the markets. if you think about even with all of the policy conversations that have happened so far this year,

u.s. markets have seen through it. if we could take january's return of 2.8% and multiply it by 12, i think most investors would be pretty happy for the year. >> what don't you like within this market? what's a sector you would avoid? >> real estate is one we've been underweight we've been thinking about adding to, but it's proving to be very interest rate sensitive and especially with fears of potential inflationary pressures. we're remaining rate sensitivity. we're remaining a slight underweight there remaining underweight consumer discretionary. so i know that's that's a little unpopular at the moment. but we think that we're not going to get any big lift from moves in interest rates or inflation there. and consumers have spent a lot of their excess reserves. and so that's another one we're sitting on the side. >> is your does that mean your base case is higher for longer. you think these rates are going to remain elevated for longer than some people think? >> we won't be surprised at all if we don't see another fed rate cut this year. >> all right. we'll we'll see. and we'll talk to you again. all right. all right. thanks.

>> thanks so much. >> great to be here. all right. up next, william byron. he is the winner of the daytona 500 for the second year in a row. that doesn't happen all that often. he joins me next at post nine. first, we're tracking the biggest movers as we head into the close. kristina partsinevelos is standing by with that. christina. >> we have a. >> major pharmacy chain. shares are surging right now, and a popular. >> trading. >> platform is facing its. worst day in months. we'll tell you. >> who and. >> why next. >> the bond report is brought to >> the bond report is brought to you by pimco, when i started walton goggins goggle glasses, i had no idea what i was doing. but godaddy airo does. using ai to build a logo, website and social content. so i can let the world know, if your goggles ain't goggins,

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for as little as $1, with no commissions. talk about easier investing. consignors get $100 extra terms apply. >> with less than 20 from the closing bell. back to christina. now for the stocks that she is watching. tell us what you see. >> walgreens there jumping right now. shares after. cnbc's david faber. >> reported that a take private. >> deal with sycamore. >> partners is. >> still a possibility, despite earlier doubts, the deal seemed dead but is now, quote, showing signs of life. analysts are cautious, though, pointing to walgreens financial challenges and heavy debt, which could complicate a buyout. shares up 13%. robinhood stock, though, is set for its worst day since december after wolfe research analyst downgraded their outlook. they say recent growth is already priced into this stock, which shares fully reflecting higher earnings and crypto trends. they also warned that competition from giants like fidelity and schwab could hurt robinhood's crypto edge. shares down 7%. scott. >> christina, thank you very much. christina partsinevelos. well, winning the daytona 500 once is hard enough. capturing

the great american race two years in a row is almost unheard of. well, william byron is only the fifth person to do just that after his come from behind victory on sunday. he joins me here at post nine. as you can see, with a very large trophy. that's what they give you for winning. >> that's right. >> yeah. could you ever imagine winning this race back to back? only, as i said, the fifth person to ever do that. >> yeah. it's crazy honestly. no. >> i thought that, you. >> know, winning. >> this race. >> is kind of a can be a. >> career long achievement. so just for us to. >> win it back. >> to back is really special. and credit to our. whole team and all of our preparation. >> you're only 27, so when you reach an achievement like this, especially twice in a row at this stage of your life and career, which is obviously young. and i read today that people say there's no ceiling for you at all. i mean, how do you keep it going if you reach the pinnacle at 27? >> yeah, just try to continue to win races and, and we have the really our booking of our season is the biggest race is the daytona 500 and the

championship. so still trying to chase the championship each year. >> and. >> and continue to try to win more big races as well, like the daytona 500. >> what i didn't realize first, i mean, you you raced for hendrick, right? one of the biggest names in the sport. you drive the 24. yeah, i think of that. i think of jeff gordon. i didn't realize that you could drive the same number as a legend of the sport could. that's got to be incredible. >> yeah, yeah, he's actually my boss. so he he took over at hendrick motorsports on the competition side after i or after he retired. and he's been a big supporter of mine. so it's nice to work with him. and yeah we don't really retire numbers in racing. but he handed off the 24 car to me. so it's been an honor. >> but that that has to come with a pretty big responsibility. i would think too. i mean, to live up to a legend like him. >> it does. yeah it does. no, no pressure at all. but it it started when i was a rookie. so he's a he's been a big supporter like i said. and i think that you know we have a lot of fans of the 24 car and jeff gordon. and it's nice to hopefully make them proud. >> ratings are up modestly after

struggling for a bit. i mean, how do you keep this sport growing and what is a more crowded landscape for all sports? >> well, i. >> think it's. >> just telling the story of the drivers and the teams and the technical side. i mean, it's a very technical sport and i feel like, you know, the entertainment aspect of the sport has continued to grow. the racing is really exciting right now. the cars are super close together, so it's just putting on good races and hopefully that grows the sport too. >> do you? i mean, i'm wondering how the drivers think about the economics behind the sport and the sponsorships and, and such. i mean, i'm just trying to educate myself as best i could. and i saw that sunoco, which has been the long, long time official fuel provider, ends their sponsorship deal after this year and it's not renewed yet. yeah, obviously that could be a huge gap in revenues if that doesn't happen. i mean, how are the drivers talking about that? >> no, i think there's a lot of there's a lot of different sponsors coming in, you know, like having michael jordan come in as an owner shows that the

sport is has a lot of promise to it. and just having different partners come along like axalta who's our our biggest sponsor. so i think it just kind of it goes in waves. you know, different companies come in and out of the sport, but hopefully we can continue to grow it. >> enjoy enjoy it. continued success. and thanks for spending time with us. yeah thank you. it's william byron. he is the back to back winner of the great american race, otherwise known as the daytona 500. still ahead. what to watch for when toll brothers reports in overtime. we're back on the bell just after this break. >> sector sword is sponsored by sector spider etfs. sector spider etfs. visit us on the web spider etfs. visit us on the web at sector (vo) what does it mean to be rich? maybe rich is less about reaching a magic number... and more about discovering magic.

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>> we're now at the closing bell markets on cnbc. senior markets commentator mike santoli is here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. diana olick on what to expect from toll brothers. earnings in ot plus two energy earnings also out after the bell. pippa stevens on oxy and devon. you want to talk about what's on your mind today in this trading session. >> so market is continues to be very split. not in a particular hurry to get anywhere even though we've been hanging around the highs for a while. but i find pretty pronounced rotation today growth in value. how do you keep the s&p 500 flat? growth index down 30 basis points. value index up 40. so far the index has managed the market has managed to continue to kind of surf whatever wave comes in and not necessarily kind of get washed out in the process. that's been positive. i

still think you're looking at a little bit of fatigue in some of the winners. the red hot stuff you hit robinhood, there's also hims and hers. there's costco, there's netflix all down multiple percent today. we're taking it naturally as well. and so we'll see if there's anything more to it. i've been talking for a while about how these expirations this week could sort of like let some of the that elegant rotation roll away and maybe have the market kind of get a little more jumpy. but that remains to be seen. >> yeah. i mean, just to let everybody know, meta is down 3%. the 20 day win streak is going to be kaput, which is more than likely. >> a good thing. >> all around. >> it was otherwise start to get weird. yeah. >> yeah. it had to happen at some point. and tell us what to expect from toll brothers. >> well, the expectation is for a revenue decline of just under 2% year over year for tolls q1. but toll has a habit of beating expectations. other builders like taylor morrison, which reported last week, have had strong beats. but pulte talked about buyer pullback due to higher mortgage rates. toll is,

of course, the luxury builder. the average price of a toll home right around $1 million. its buyers, however, are not as mortgage dependent as the other builders. toll had a record 2024 in revenue and in its q4 release. ceo doug yearley said since the start of our fiscal 2025 six weeks ago, we have seen strong demand, which is encouraging as we approach the beginning of the spring selling season in mid january. so we'll see how that panned out. we'll also be interested to hear any commentary on potential tariffs hitting builder costs. builder sentiment of course, this month tanked to a five month low on those tariffs tariff concerns. back to you. >> all right we'll see the numbers. thanks. that's diana olick hard to get that excited about housing given where mortgage rates are. >> very hard and the market is definitely struggling with it at this point. you know, the homebuilder stocks have really given up any kind of cyclical leadership type position. i think it's a big question for the overall macro data as well. you know, we've been able to sort of make it work without

housing being a real engine of gdp growth, 7% mortgage rates. i mean, 10 to 10 year is basically sideways to down year to date, but we're still kind of marinating in the higher rates and have to see if there's a knock on effect in employment in construction has not been that strong. so yeah it's one of those things the market's going to have to hurdle. >> all right. we'll talk about some earnings too after the bell. pippa devin and oxy. >> yeah that's right scott. >> so oxy and devin. >> report amid. >> muted expectations after. >> giants exxon and. >> chevron quarters. disappointed the street. now for production. >> not expecting big upward. >> moves from either company. >> since the group broadly has signaled low or no growth this year amid plans to keep spending in check. now for oxy. the stock has underperformed, in part because it's running a higher debt to market cap versus peers, which increases the risk profile. top of mind will be any plans to restart buybacks, which are paused as the company does try to get down its debt. on the other hand, devin has low leverage and morgan stanley expects it to raise its fixed

dividend early this year after the company said it expects to pay out up to 70% of free cash flow. now, investors will be looking for commentary on the company's pivot from the bakken to the delaware basin. see the stock up just a little bit here before earnings. scott. >> all right pippa, thank you very much. that's pippa stevens. mike we are above a closing high. yeah. on the s&p right now about 6123. we had we have to get above 6118 and change. so you know even with sort of the uneven trade not much conviction. we still rung by rung. we're getting up the ladder. >> yes. so far it's definitely not the most vociferous emphatic statement that we're blasting to new highs. so you do want to see a couple of successive closes with some room between where we are and the prior high. that being said, it's held in fine. the trend is okay. a couple of things. people are flagging me. one would be bitcoin's weak. the overall nasdaq has managed to kind of hang in there better than bitcoin. but it's trading back to levels that first got to

in november. >> yeah. what do we have 95 around around 95. >> today 94 two or so. >> 93 eight now. yeah okay. >> and so yeah obviously it's one of those things where it doesn't mean it's predictive of anything else happening. but it does show, i think, a little bit of a stutter step in risk appetites around these levels. and again we've been able to kind of deal with it and kind of go sideways instead of down in the market. there's a feeling that, as you mentioned earlier, the market's been resilient. but mostly what the market's been able to do is tune out noise, because resilience implies that there have really been some actual heavy kind of challenges to the bull case. and, you know, many, many inflation scare yields went up to 4.8. but then they came back down. to me it's much more about the markets had sort of bit of equanimity about it in terms of not jumping to conclusions about what policy is going to be really good or bad. and so far, you know, been been a good formula. >> i mean, it's a good point you. >> make, you know. >> with the. >> news today of. >> the m&a guidelines staying in

place from the prior administration. goldman still up i looked at morgan stanley jpm. private equity stocks are mostly green. so your point is very well made mike thank you. there's the bell. that's mike santoli. >> new record. >> close for the s&p 500. you can put that in the. books as i send it into overtime. >> well that's under regulation. >> urban edge properties ringing the closing bell at the new york stock exchange. >> mint incorporation. >> limited doing the honors. the nasdaq a record closing. high for the. s&p 500 and plenty of action under the surface as intel leaps higher and meta finally breaks its win streak. >> that's the scorecard on wall. >> street for the action. just getting started. >> welcome to. >> closing bell overtime. >> i'm morgan brennan with jon fortt. >> and coming up on today's show, pfizer ceo. >> albert bourla. >> is. >> going to join us for an exclusive interview. >> on the outlook for the pharma industry. with rfk. jr at the top. >> role in health and human services. >> plus. we're expecting earnings this hour from tol