utilities but may not be that, right? sounds like companies want to build mini nuclear power plants. >> that's part of it. that's why i like to go the private sector route, something like blackrock to play that or uranium like we said but what i think is important within the net zero momentum, we may not get to net zero whenever, 2050, when that initiative is, however, there will be capital spent in attempt and that's where i want to follow. where is the money going to be spent, who are the recipient and how does that translate to earnings. charles: what are you most concerned about for 2025? >> it's definitely the inflation picture. i think if we talk about the possibility of tariffs, we talk about when tariffs came last time it was with a restrictive fed. if there are tariffs i want an easing fed and that i think will be great for the market. charles: speaking of great, you have been great. liz claman, you're always great. liz: we're watching the big board here, just a few seconds ago it popped into positive

territory, straddling the flat line so we were all kind of -- charles: very exciting. liz: a lot of alerts here. breaking news as we kick off the final hour of trade. it's the nasdaq zooming toward a record close. it's 38th of the year. so look at this point gain for the nasdaq, 255, very close to session highs. it actually only needs 108 at the close to notch the new record. now, much of the nasdaq's tech sector is in the green but if you needed any more valuation or validation that a.i. is still the energy dream driving the bulls, look no further than broadcom. for the second straight session the a.i. chip maker is zooming to the top of the nasdaq, the top of the s&p, up 10.8% right now. which yes, was the exact same thing it did friday which was when broadcom hit a trillion dollar valuation for the first time thanks to its prediction it's going to see a huge explosion in demand for its

chips that power artificial intelligence. and look at the power generating alphabet shares. they too are blasting to a new record, gaining about 4%. this on the rollout of google's new generative a.i. tool, whisk. what is that? whisk lets you prompt a chat bot versus an image versus a more detailed text prompt in the subject. alphabet is topping out at $189.33. the broader markets, no records for the dow, s&p or russ eel. arussell.the dow is up 29 pointn the russell which is actually putting in a respectable 1% gain here, up 23 points but no record there either. bitcoin on the other hand, look at the crypto. it continues to blaze a meteor partictrail. sunday it smashed through

106,000. this afternoon it continued its assent, cracking through 107,000. it's up 5%. that is something to behold. xrp hitching a ride on bitcoin, up 1.6%. the two are getting a bump as well on news ripple xrp will launch the stable coin tomorrow which will become available to crypto users on the xrp and ethereum networks. we're watching all of that. bitcoin owner, micro strategy, a.i. data software, john palintir and axom, all three will join the nasdaq 1100 december 23rd. all three have jumped by more than 100% this year. micro strategy has put in a stunning 519% gain since january. so what's veering off the bull course today.

>> energy, health care and materials. those are the laggard sectors here. what can investors glean from any of these movers. let's get to the floor show. joining us economist, john lonski, president of the lonski group along with bank of america chief officer, matt dizok. the wind is at the back of the nasdaq at the moment. what do you make of this really dramatic move. >> the move in equities is based on a solid foundation of corporate profits. that's the big story. we don't have to make it more complicated than that. people complained about deficits. people were worried about deficits. that adds to the debt level. at the same time, that is the simple reason behind economic resiliency and the simple reason why corporate profit growth continues to increase. if the federal government is dissaving, spending more than taking in on revenue, some other sector has to be saving.

the deficit of the federal government is a surplus of the private sector that's keeping corporate growth strong right now. liz: i have to say, you throw this into the cake batter recipe, the federal reserve kicks off the final meeting of the year tomorrow. the announcement on a rate cut possibly wednesday. what say is going to happen here and what should happen? >> we're going to get a rate cut on wednesday. we'll have fed funds lowered from a 4.63%, 4.38%, but that may be the last rate cut for a while. i think the federal reserve wants to see how well the economy does, how well the labor market does, and whether or not we are still on the trend towards disinflation. i want to add one thing to the earnings outlook. i think this is important. i was receipt reading, i think , third quarter of this year, s&p profits up 10% year over year but that was unequaled. we had a 33% year over year increase for their magnificent

seven. the other 493 member companies of the s&p 500, their profits were up by only 44% 4% year over year. 4% earnings growth isn't all that high and it may not take much in terms of lower than expected revenues or greater than expected labor costs to cause earnings growth for the other 493 companies to slow. liz: well, yeah. if you look at what the market has really gotten its strongest tail wind from, it has been the fed lowering rates. however, if you look at the january fed funds futures, the derivatives contract there, there's only something like a 17% odds that we will see a 16.3% now of a 25 basis point cut in january. so is it -- are we basically looking at this i guess moment where we expect a pause, like prepare for a maws? pause?>> i agree with john.

i think a pause is likely. there will be more in watch and see mode. very to see what powell says at the press conference. bank of america securities research has three rate cuts baked in for next year but that could only possibly be two. they say they're focused on 2% inflation but we're not near 2% in terms of cpi. we're sort of stagnating around the 3% level. they don't seem too concerned about it with 50 basis point cut, another one in december. there is some risk of less cuts as we come into next year if the economy is on the strong trajectory. liz: when we see, going back to earnings, that people were disappointed with nvidia earnings. i mean, nvidia is now in correction territory, down 10% from its most recent highs which is crazy. i mean, they expect to make a lot of revenue next year. but people are anticipating that the bar is so hi high, they woud like to see more and more. is that going to work in the psychology of the markets and the economy of oh, what have you

done for me lately. >> that very well may be the case. let's not forget with the new administration, poply. is one of the undercurrent of trump's economic policy. my view is if you follow the path of populism you'll see faster growth. one of the reasons we've got profit margin ratios up to such high levels, is because we had a slow dardown by employee compensation. if employee compensation were to gain speed, for one thing, we're not going to see a much lower rate of inflation, for another we're going to see a squeezing of profit margins that is going to weigh on equity investment sentiment. liz: and yet, matt, you're saying at merrell, bank of america, that it's time to go away from row, row, meaning rest of world and stay with u.s. equity, large cap, small cap, what part. >> focused on u.s. equity

outside of the rest of the world. we do like japan. within the u.s. we expect a broadening out to the 4933 away from the mag seven. we would prefer more s&p equal weighted as opposed to being market cap weighted. at the same time we agree valuations are quite high. we feel very good about fixed income, especially at these real yields. you want to make sure you have a large component of fixed income in case the forecast for the equity side is wrong. liz: really quick. >> i think the march coat is ms overvalued. i'm looking at the thinnest junk bond yield spreads since june of 2007. we know what happened beginning in 2007. liz: good point to warn. that's what we're here for. we have to flag people on what could happen. great to see you. happy holidays.

super micro has macro problems that even a.i. data server demand cannot fix what's wrong. we're going to tell you why the one time whiz kid stock of 2024 is finding itself at the bottom of the s&p 500 after a pretty blistering runup over the past month. and a major cannabis company pouring its resources into a shift from its home grown primary business. irwin simon is here to tell us how he's brewing up a new business plan to give his company a bigger buzz that may really ring loudly if tariffs get slapped on foreign imports of liquor and beer. the claman countdown coming right back.

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liz: fox business alert. after a blistering one month runup of 56%, super micro computer is falling to the bottom of the s&p 500 and nasdaq on a bloomberg report that is asked investment bank every' eve to help raise capital via capital and debt. they have been removed recently from the nasdaq 100, the stock is down 7%. it hit a split adjusted all-time high of $122 back on marc march 8th. it's at 33 bucks and change right now. let's bring up honeywell, it's at the top of the dow, on track for a record close, looking into spinning off the aerospace business now. this comes after activist investor elliott investment management disclosed $5 billion stake in honeywell and pressured it to split into two companies. honeywell says it will give an

update at the next quarterly earnings report at the end of january. shares are up 4 and a quarter percent. look at grinder, grinder is grinding to a two year high at this hour after goldman sachs initiated coverage with a buy. goldman also setting a price target of $20 for the lgtq plus dating platform. the investment firm says that grinder's total addressable market is, quote, large and growing and could lead to 27% upside for the stock by the end of next year. shares up 9 and a third percent at the moment. as we get deep into the holiday party season, booze brands are in focus. over the past month, the parent of guinness and smirnoff is up 10%. the maker of tequila and rum have climbed 5%. but today they are down and the question is could those gains soon dry up? people are saying 2025 could be

a very dangerous year for any company that imports beer and spirits to the u.s. but investors wary of president-elect trump's promised tariffs could find liquid gold in one weed company that branched out into domestic spirits. ceo irwin simon is here with a fox business exclusive to tell us how diversification into american made craft beer, liquor and other drinks could lift your portfolio to a brand-new high. it's a fox business exclusive. don't miss the newest episode of my everyone talks to liz podcast. while studying at syracuse university, my guest this week turned her beauty queen crown into the start of an acting and singing career that eventually she nabbed a position on reality tv as one of the real housewives of orange county. before you roll your eyes, it was a battle just to make a living in the early days.

today, she's a huge multi-mill dollar success. multi-million dollar success. now she is fighting just as hard not just for mother career but for her children. i hope you listen. i hope you download it. dow jones industrials down 17 points. nasdaq is on fire. nasdaq is on fire. we'll be right back with till maybe rich is less about reaching a magic number... and more about discori magic. rich is being able to keep your loved ones close. and also sd them away. rich is living life your way. and having someone who can help you get there. the key to being rich is knowing what counts.

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liz: constellation brands is losing its fizz at this hour, down about 2 and-a-half percent. the alcoholic beverage sector hasn't kept pace with the gains we've seen from the rest of thee market with election day. they are concerned with any company that imports will face a 25% tariff on all of its mexican imports once president-elect trump takes office january 20th. but that could present a growth opportunity for one company that spent the last couple years diversifying from its canadian cannabis focus to red, white and blue domestic beer brands. joining us now, till right ceo irwin simon. today from mar-a-lago, donald trump, when asked about the threat to slap up to 60% tariffs on foreign companies said

tariffs will make the u.s. rich. that has really frightened a lot of companies that import. what position are you in, knowing now that you have bought up a dozen, even more made in america spirits and beer brands? >> well, he should number one. and number two, we've got to employ americans, we've got to make beer here and beer is to be made here and till rate today is the fifth largest craft brewer in america. all our products are made in america. all our spirits are made in america. we only employ a couple thousand people, 2500 people that make our beer and distribute our beer, et cetera. so tariffs will not affect us at all. and you know, it's great. corona coming out of mexico, we have pub beer coming out of oregon and coming out of georgia. liz: it says cerveza on it. >> the good news, from our standpoint, we're in a really good place.

we've been very innovative on products. till rate now is a beverage business where we have focused on a lot of new innovation. we've come out with liquid love which is water. we've come out with nonalk which is a big growth category for us. we have great energy drinks with regard to high vol and we have spirits drinks that are made in breckenridge, colorado from snow. liz: that was one of your first things you purchased when you were expanding. >> that was one of our first. the first was sweet water 420. since then we've made numerous acquisitions in the beer and spirits industry. i like where we are positioned. i like where we are today. we have 10 breweries manufacturing and process beer. we have 20 brew pubs where you get to try our beer, eat our food. we have 700 beer and spirit distributors in the u.s. today that are distributing our products. if you go to bars today, we're in about 17,000 taps.

we're national across most supermarkets, convenience stores, good growth for us. so i like the spirits industry. i like the beer industry. yes, there's some declines going on there but it's great from innovation and a standpoint where we are. so we're in a really good spot. liz: it's been a couple of years that you foresaw an issue with legalization of marijuana here in the united states. so you've been transitioning all of this time, buying up as you said d -- green splash brewing, alpine in beer company. how do you get investors to see that tariffs on any foreign imports are going to help you and that you as a cannabis company originally are in a better position than the others? yes, your stock has fallen, what, about 33% since election day. however, cure leaf, another competitor, is down 52% and true leaf is down 60%.

it's almost as if you're getting hit less hard if that's a term than the others because you may have insulated yourself. >> i step back and i'm hard on myself when i see our stock and being down 30% is nothing that i accept. okay. i'm disappointed in our stock performance. but i've been doing this for five years. as you know, i built a natural organic food and personal care company into a $3.5 billion business. i imcompare myself and i look at tesla, microsoft and all these companies, after where they were in five years okay. and step back, you know, when you have to depend on government and regulation it's hard to do. cannabis, will it get legalized in the us? i think sometime during the trump administration it will. liz: he said, i believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations for adults with small amounts of marijuana for personal use. we must also implement smart regulations while providing access for adults for safety tested product. >> you just come back, here in

new york there was a billion dollars of cannabis sold in new york and there's lots of tax dollars come in, a lot coming in also through an illicit market. you take the rest of the u.s., if it's a 35, if it's a $40 billion industry and i think the great thing about the trump organization, they're focused on the dollars and actually they're focused very much on crime that comes with illicit market. you need to legalize cannabis somewhat in the u.s. from a safe bank, you need to legalize it from a medical stand point because there's a lot of benefits from medicine here. in canada, it's legal. it's $5 billion market at retail. we pay at till rate $135 million in excise tax. we pay six times more than beer, three times more than wine and four times more than spirits. okay. we're contributing a lot to the canadian economy. liz: i have to ask you this, the final question.

mashione going to mar-a-lago, offering a billion dollars to invest in the united states, talking to the president-elect. you have all of the tech guys going. why not pick up the phone if you haven't already, made the call and said mr. president, i would like to come see you. >> listen, there's a time and place and you know, he is president-elect and very -- its very favorable what he's doing today. i like what he's doing. i think there's a time and place. i think there's a lot of things on the agenda right now. there's four years to get this done. s the good thing is, till rate is in a position where we're not left on hold because we've got a strong business in the u.s. in our beer, our spirits and actually our hemp business which is manitoba harvest. we've got a great business in canada and europe. it's not the short game. it's the long game we're building over there. liz: you'll call him in the white house, not mar-a-lago. thank you very much and cheers.

>> cheers and happy holidays to everybody. it's great have a spirit during the holiday, okay. liz: thank you so much. japan's top tech investor promising president-elect trump today, yes, he will pour 100 billion into the american economy. we're going to have a live report on soft bank's pledge and how much they think the investment will create in the usa. no bigger beneficiary in the trump trade than the crypto verse he as bitcoin hits another record high. steven mcclurg is here to react to the crypto rally that appears to have no end in sight but when people say that you've got to be careful. maybe there's a pullback. we don't know yet. claman count down is coming right back. stay tuned.

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liz: breaking news, tiktok has filed an emergency request with

the supreme court to temporary halt the law that would force chinese parent company bite byte to divest the short form video app by selling to an american company. this comes after the d.c. circuit court denied an emergency request from bytedance and tiktok on december 13tto block the law. tiktok says divesting is not possible and the company is not speaking with potential buyers. if there is no resolution by january 19th of 2025, the most popular social media app will go dark in the united states. tiktok releasing a statement saying, quote, estimates show that small businesses on tiktok would lose morthan $1 billion in revenue and creators would suffer nearly $300 million in lost earnings in just one month unless the ban is halted. youtube parent alphabet, meta

and snap, they're moving higher d just please take into account when you see this huge gain of more than 4% in google, a lot of that has to do wi an unrelated new listing of its whisk which we talked about at the top of the show. that's its visual, its image generated a.i., we'rgoing to put in an image versus an actual text of what you would like help with. in the meantime, president-elect donald trump has not officially become president yet but he's already cutting deals like he is today at mar-a-lago. trump and soft bank's ceo has announced the investment company committed $100 billion for u.s. projects over the next four years. soft bank estimates the multi bill yon dollar investment will generate 100,000 artificial intelligence focused tech jobs while donald trump is in office. let's go live to edward lawrence at the white house, the trump trade evidently still has legs, doesn't it, edward?

>> reporter: apparently so. president-elect trump believes it's the expectations of lower regulation, of lower taxes and fewer prices actually coming down that's already brought some of these investments here into the united states. you mentioned the soft bank ceo today, that announcement was made today where the soft bank ceo announcing a huge investment over four years related to artificial intelligence, also chip making technology. we're talking about $100 billion, creating 100,000 u.s. jobs. listen to this. >> well, my promise is 100. but he's asking to do more. i think, you know, with your dealership, my partnership with you, with your support, i will try to make it happen. all right. >> 200. he'll make it happen. [laughter] >> 200 million investment. >> he's a great negotiator.

[laughter] >> reporter: still trying to negotiate to 200 billion even in the announcement. the incoming president points to some of the president-elect's greatest detractors coming to mar-a-lago for meetings. they say they see a bright future with this deregulation. >> this will be the most exciting and successful period of reform and renewal in all of american history, maybe of global history. the golden age of america, i call it, it's begun. so it's the golden age of america. and that's what it's going to be. >> reporter: soft bank announcing it represents $100 billion in tech and private investments, the biden administration claiming over the past four years his government spending in tech sector has attracted 446 billion for semiconductor and electronics. the trump administration, incoming trump administration already a quarter of the way there and we're still 34 days out from the actual oath of office, liz. liz: and going back to the tiktok breaking news, edward, i

don't know if you heard that, but earlier at mar-a-lago donald trump was asked about tiktok and he said he had a special place in his heart for tiktok. he had a big impact on winning the election. >> reporter: and on that point, he says he's going to try and do something with tiktok. he said baron, his son, is the one who actually helped him navigate who to talk to through tiktok through the campaign but the president-elect saying he wants to do something with tiktok. we'll see what that is. >.liz: that is a big difference from back in the day when he said china is spying on us through all of this. there's so many small businesses who have sprouted up on tiktok and done very well. so there's going to be a fight, i'm sure. thank you very much, edward lawrence. no sector has benefited more from the so called trump trade than cryptocurrency, particularly bitcoin. it continues to climb to a new all-time high. now, earlier it topped $107,000. right now, it's at 106,172.

but it's still a gain of 4.7%. and since donald trump won the november election, the digital token has soared more than 50%. joining me now in a fox business exclusive, former cio and co-founder canary capital ceo, steven mcclurg. it is quite something that the huge gains that we've seen in cryptocurrency overall but as bitcoin rallies to new highs, topped 107,000 earlier, what goes through your mind about this? >> well, liz, thank you so much for having me. it's always a pleasure. last time i was on your show i think we were talking about what bitcoin would do under a trump presidency and i said that we would probably see about 120,000 as far as a price goes this year and that was back when bitcoin was 60,000 so we're almost there. i'm still holding onto that price target. hopefully we get there. but really the bigger news isn't

just price. the bigger news is actually all the enterprise solutions that are going to come out of this presidency. so it's not just bitcoin. it's we've got ripple that's building a stable coin that launches on tuesday. we've got h bar that's launching enterprise solutions. we've got light coin that is converting their chain to be able to process more transactions and more layer two solutions and other types of protocols. so we're seeing a lot happening and i believe that under this administration just as you reported on earlier, soft bank investing into the u.s., we're going to see a lot more in terms of cryptocurrency, block chain and a.i. investments and achievements in the year 2025. liz: it's a b burgeoning

multifaceted sector. it's interesting to see the growth, particularly when you get the government, a more open minded perspective from it. you have already been forging ahead. you have filed for a handful of etfs, xrp, solana, light coin. the s.e.c. signaled two weeks ago, this is the gary gensler, joe biden s.e.c. -- gary gensler will step down january 20th, the day of the inauguration for president-elect trump, they said they wouldn't approve the solano etfs under the current administration. how optimistic are you that the trump administration will? >> i'll put it in the category of i don't really know what's going to happen in the next year with the etf applications. i do believe that there's a greater chance that some of these etfs will get approved in 2025 under a new administration. but there's also a lot of things they have to look at. and under a new chair, under a new commission, we could possibly see at least one or two

more single token etfs going live in 2025. i do believe that we'll get there. i don't know which ones we'll get. but it certainly will be more favorable but to say that we get all of them is probably not going to be the case but we are cautiously optimistic. liz: what do you think would happen to the price of bitcoin if the president-elect were to do what he said he might do and that is establish a strategic bitcoin reserve for on behalf of the united states? what happens then to the price of bitcoin? could you anticipate? >> yes. so even without a strategic reserve, our base case is 250,000 for 2025 for the price of bitcoin. with the strategic reserve, that number could certainly go up into the 300s. liz: okay. 200 -- i'm sorry, i'm shocked, 225,000 next year?

>> even without a strategic reserve. but with a strategic reserve of bitcoin it's possible that it shoots over 300,000. liz: because we had mike novagratz telling me a week and-a-half ago that he expected 180 by the end of next year but when i said okay, 180, he said well that's as good a guess as any. it's hard to anticipate what bitcoin trades on because sometimes when the fed cuts rates it moves down, sometimes it moves up. we just don't know exactly what is sort of the special sauce that juices up bitcoin. do you know? i mean, what could you tell our viewers about why it moves higher? >> well, first of all, we had 11 bitcoin etfs launched the beginning of 2024. and usually what happens is a lot of institutional investors as well as financial advisors want to see at least a one year track record for an etf before

they really begin to allocate or they might dip their toe in the water and allocate some but then later allocate more once there's an actual track record and you see that everything has gone well. so what i'm expecting is that if there are allocations of up to 1% of a portfolio in bitcoin, those allocations might move to 2% or some institutional investors that don't have anil location will begin to allocate at least 1% of their portfolio to bitcoin in 2025 and even into 2026. so this flood of money coming in should drive the price more. liz: steven mcclurg, thank you very much. you're at the tip of the spear it feels like especially considering you're so enhe trenched on what's going on in the crypto verse. we'll keep you posted. thank you so much. >> thank you, liz. liz: we've got united healthcare at the bottom of the dow jones industrials. health insurers have been in

focus lately, the only thing more shocking than the brutal murder of united healthcare ceo brian thompson a week ago wednesday was the outpouring of support for the suspected murderer, some of it even coming from the nation's elite educational institutions. charlie gasparino up next to tell us if anything can be done about it. university of pennsylvania professor cheering it on, he's got the story, that's next on the claman countdown. since 2019, john deere has invested more than $2 billion in our american factories. today, we're nearly 30,000 u.s. employees strong. in more than 60 u.s. based facilities,

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liz: the murder of united healthcare ceo brian thompson nearly two weeks ago has since sparked a wider conversation about americans' anger toward health insurers, now a shocking declaration by an ivy league professor, she's a self-described socialist, anti-fascist at the university of pennsylvania. she took to social media to praise thompson's killer, luigi mangione, called him an icon. this raises questions, will big

donors possibly stop the endowment of institutions with professors that support those ideals. >> i believe it won't just be the donors. it is the trump administration as well. her name is dr. julia, it's a russian name, alexiava. goes by -- she calls herself an art dent socialism, she goes by the media handle, the soviet. she doesn't have qualms about her views. she teaches pretty woke classes. you can look it up. i did a column about this in the new york post. this is really interesting. how does a school like penn which charges $85,000 a year, $95,000 a year to students, how do they afford this? they've got to keep the lights on. this seems like it's crazy that

schools are not just flush with money or maybe they are. and when do you a deep dive into financing of major colleges and i've been doing that lately, you notice that they have something called an endowment. the endowments are in the billions. it's funny. steve cohen's hedge fund, 72 point capital is -- liz: point 72. >> point 72 has 36 billion in assets under management. penn has 26. it's right there. harvard has 53. right there with the biggest hedge funds. the trump administration is following this from what i understand. the trump transition team, almost looks like they're an administration now. he seems to be the president for all intents and purposes. they're looking at taxing these endowments at 36%. here's where it gets interesting. they're not taxed now. they're mildly taxed. there's a tax on income of about

1.4%. he would raise that tax to 36%. they don't pay capital gains taxes. they pay no taxes on difficult tends earned from their endowments so he would change the structure. here's where the rubber meets the road. if they do that, all these colleges are heavily, heavily leveraged in private equity. if you have that plus a combination of the mark rowans of the world, mark rowan is a penn graduate, a penn alum, he's the guy that essentially lit the charge to get rid of liz mcgill after the social justice, anti-israel protests after the october 7th -- liz: liz mcgill was the president. >> get rid of her. he's a major hedge fund. if more people like him start defunding, start pulling back what they give to the colleges and the colleges have to sell their private equity assets, well, then you have a funding crisis. liz: what is wrong with these schools? you're telling me parents want

professors there who are basically saying yeah, this kid is an icon. >> it's worse than that. liz: she also said i've never been prouder to be at penn. he was a penn graduate. so is donald trump. >> it's worse than that, liz. i raised this with rowan's people. i raised this with bill ackman, another hedge funder who is -- liz: john huntsman pulled his money, he was so furious with the anti-semitism. >> this stuff has been going on, it's been going on for years where these guys actually funded these universities that were essentially hiring people like her. only now is it coming out that rubber meets the road because it's so insane. but remember, they did fund the garbage that you're seeing, the progressive woke garbage that is taking a whole life of its own. and my guess is that -- not my guess, from what i hear from the

trump transition people, they're going to take aim at this and they're going to do something with these endowments because this is a hot bed of anti-americanism. liz: charlie gasparino, good piece in the post about this. thank you very much. lawmakers are now reaching across the aisle to crack down on healthcare companies. democratic senator he elizabeth warren and republican senator josh hawley intro duesed legislation last week together that seeks to break up healthcare conglomerates. the bill would force big companies like united health occur, cvs and cigna to each sell off their pharmacies within three years. despite the potential push against these healthcare giants, my countdown closer sees more m&a activity in the sector next year. portfolio manager john petretise joins me now. more? feels like when you get democrat elizabeth warren and republican josh hawley agreeing on something, they are

ideologically very different. that means that there may be a real taste to break these guys up versus more mergers. >> i think take a step back. i think with lena kahn moving out, the new administration moving, i think a lot of companies were waiting to do m&a. i think you'll see a massive amount of m&a happen because of that. liz: let me interrupt you. donald trump today from mar-a-lago brought it up or was asked about it and he said they've got to break these up. >> well, the pbms, sounds like that's going to be the case. liz: pharmacy benefit manager. >> the pricing model has always been black boxed. nothing is disclosed. they don't say anything on conference calls. you'll have the entire healthcare industry, it's becoming harder to grow so companies are going to buy the top line, they're going to buy revenue through mergers and they're going to cut a lot of costs and that's how they'll grow. the valuations support it. health care is one of the most

attractive valuation standpoint in our sector. liz: you like the etf ryh. you foresee this opportunity. i would think that pharmaceutical companies start to merge and acquire because they want to buy what the buyout pharmas are doing. i get that. >> that's right. you've had decades of wasted capital on research and development by pharma companies that have tried to produce something and have failed. right. and now they're getting so big they can't grow unless you have this amazing pipeline and many of them don't. so i would foresee that there's going to be more acquisition activity because they have the cash to do it. liz: you've got 8 billion in assets under management. where is your favorite sector going into 2025. >> that's a good question. i think smaller caps are more attractive. if the president trump administration follows through with deregulating and if there are more m&a activity, you're going to buy the small guys. i think small cap stocks have underperformed large cap for a

decade now so i think there's attractive value to be had in the sector and multiple catalysts to support it. liz: the russell 2000, there were people sitting in the chair a year ago saying this is small cap's year and they've certainly done well. they've had flashes of brilliance. but the nasdaq and the s&p have outpaced everything. >> yeah. i think the one catalyst you saw that really sparked the rally in small caps this year was the front end of the yield curve, interest rates came down. if you're getting 5% on short-term bonds, right, you know, that's hard competition for a small cap stock to invest in. small caps rely on bo borrowing money to grow. liz: john, a good friend to the show, thank you and happy holidays. >> thanks for having me on. liz: markets, look like the nasdaq is closing at its 38th record of this year. larry: hello, folks. welcome to "kudlow." i'm larry kudlow