← CNBC's "Fast Money"
CNBC's "Fast Money"
2025 Trading In The Books… And UnitedHealth’s Next Move In The New Year 12/31/25
00:43:38
2025 trading is in the books, with the S&P 500 locking in a 16% gain. How our traders are positioning into the new year after solid runs in some major stocks, and where they see the most opportunity in 2026. Plus, Charting out UnitedHealth’s next move. After a rough year for shares of the insurance giant, the Chartmaster Carter Worth is seeing some positive signals in the beaten down name. The key levels to watch, and where that stock could head in the new year. Fast Money Disclaimer
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- [00:00]
Dan Nathan
Introducing Fidelity Trader plus with customizable tools and charts you can access across all your devices. Try our most powerful trading platform yet@fidelity.com TraderPlus investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, llc Member nyse SIPC.
- [00:15]
Brian Sullivan
What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before?
- [00:20]
Halima Croft
I have no fear of failure.
- [00:22]
Julia Boorstin
Trailblazing women, changing the game One of.
- [00:24]
Courtney Reagan
My favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs.
- [00:29]
Halima Croft
Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself.
- [00:34]
Brian Sullivan
Life is short and you just got to think big to accomplish big things.
- [00:38]
Julia Boorstin
Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players. New episodes every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts live for.
- [00:47]
Brian Sullivan
The NASDAQ market site in the heart of New York City's Times Square. Look at that. And what will be the heart of the New York party? Because we are just hours away from the ball dropping the bell ringing in 2026, at least here on the east coast. This is fast money. We have got a big New Year's Eve show for you. We are live and as you probably heard me muttering, we are the last live show of the year, I do believe. All right, cheers by the way to the year market trolling out a third year of double digit gains. We take a look at the winners, the losers and what to expect in the new year. The year, by the way, good for your gas bill but rough for oil crude clocking in its worst year in five years. But with so much drama around Russia, Venezuela, now even Nigeria, what are the big global themes to watch next year? Alima crop is here. Plus why the chartmaster Carter Braxton Wirf says this once godlike chart is about to turn around to get a full roundup also of this year's retail winners and losers and some surprise names. Also, what stocks maybe ready to party next year and beyond. The traders giving you their picks. Hi everybody, I am Brian in once again for Melissa Lee. And as always, coming to you live, Studio B here at the nasdaq. But a special night and on your desk tonight. Carter Worth, Dan Nathan, Guy Adame. The only smart one was Karen Feinerman. That's true because she's not here physically. I don't even know how we're gonna get out. All right, meantime, stocks riding a four day losing streak to close out the year. But let's be honest, there's been a lot of reason to celebrate financially this year. The S&P 500 jumping over 16% since January. It hit Intraday records guy down yes. How many times this year?
- [02:42]
Guy Adami
I don't want you tell me Brian.
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Brian Sullivan
46 times.
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Guy Adami
You know it's probably about 46 times.
- [02:47]
Brian Sullivan
Good job. That's mathing. The Dow closing out its best year so since 2021. While the Nasdaq Trump in the mall surging 20% large part thanks to AI. But it was not just big gains From Big Tech. 10 of the 11 sectors they closed up this year. Communications, yeah. Tech industrials, the largest outperformers. Oh and the metals we have talked so much about lately. Silver and gold looking at their best years since 1979. Both trading near records of their own. Oil though a different story. Settling for the year right around 57 bucks a barrel here in the state. And that my friends, oil's worst year since 2020. And so called digital gold. Bitcoin also in the red. It did hit a record though, about 125,000 and change in October. But overall finishing the year weak down about 6% so far this year. There is a lot to do, a lot to discuss. We can also look ahead to where we go next year. Guy Dami, great to see you. Happy New Year. Got a new year haircut, a new cut, new you.
- [04:02]
Guy Adami
Yeah, well it's the same me.
- [04:04]
Brian Sullivan
It's the same you. What do you see for next year?
- [04:09]
Guy Adami
Always great to have you here. It's fun to come into Times Square on New Year's Eve. What do I see for next year? Does volatility come back? I think April well, I shouldn't say a lot of people definitely surprised me by how quickly the market recovered from was a pretty significant sell off and a volatility event that we hadn't seen in many, many years. That surprised me. I think we're in for another type of volatility event in 2026. I can't tell you when I think it's going to be early. I also think the bond market is something that not enough people are paying attention to. So very quietly TLT selling off, yields going higher. I don't think the market cares until we get to about four and a half percent in the ten year but I think we're going there and I.
- [04:47]
Brian Sullivan
Also think so 4 1/2 percent.
- [04:48]
Guy Adami
I do now I'm probably the only one here that thinks that.
- [04:51]
Brian Sullivan
But let's talk about it because by the way that was not music to the ears of a lot of people out there hoping to buy a home in 2026.
- [04:59]
Halima Croft
Because.
- [05:00]
Brian Sullivan
Because mortgage rates largely tied to that 10 year treasury sounds Like Guy Adami might think mortgage rates could be going up.
- [05:06]
Guy Adami
You know, not now today on our call at 1230 that the 30 year yields are as low as they've been in quite some time. Which is the good news. I think the bad news is I do think 10 yields go higher for a number of different reasons that we've talked about on this desk, not least of which what's going on globally with interest rates and obviously a global debt problem and this dollarization thing. I also think in terms of homebuilders quickly as much as about interest rates, we talked about this last night. It's equally about the employment situation where they think it's going to deteriorate next year as well.
- [05:37]
Brian Sullivan
You know, it's an interesting point Dan, about this year because in you referenced last night you talked about open air and we can get into that a little more about what happens. We forget though what happened in April, two weeks, the tariff turmoil, markets collapsing. We talked about, you know, how low does this market go before one of the fastest rebounds are you seeing some kind of. And by the way would be historically accurate to have one of these 10 or 15% drop.
- [06:03]
Dan Nathan
We get them every year and that one was just a bit violent. And to guys point there, it was also that every risk asset went a bit haywire. And so that was one of the things that if you've been a long term market participant, you don't see those sorts of breaks that frequently. You know, we saw, you know, correlations basically go to one and that's where some bad things happen generally in the market. So the likelihood of having another situation like that that come all at once is probably not that great. But I think going into the new year we obviously know where a lot of the performance came from this year and we know why. Right. We saw multiple expansion in a big way here. The expectations for earnings growth are again, you know, low, low teens I think going into 2026. And so I would just say that there's a strong likelihood that whether we're up or down, let's say in the first quarter, the first half or the whole year, that the equal weight S and P starts to outperform the s and P500. You know, it almost doubled it up this year, the market cap weighted. I just think that if we're going to have legs to this trade, there's going to have to be some demonstration of return on the investment that a lot of these companies have made, the ones that have accrued most of the market cap. Right. Because of this sort of theme and then it's going to be the ones who are purchasing this technology or building on top of it. If you think about this kind of application layer there. And so to me, I think that's where the opportunities are going to be across lots of different sectors. You know, Caterpillar was a name that we also talked about on the 12:30 call. They have this power business. It's growing very fast. It's 50% of their revenues in the last quarter. If you go look at the stock, you look at the chart, it looks like one of the semis that is selling these sorts of GPUs. So to me there's going to be stories like that. They're going to have to kind of take over in my opinion, the second.
- [07:43]
Brian Sullivan
Derivative AI trade, maybe third derivative. Here's a good example.
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Dan Nathan
I mean JP Morgan doubled up. The performance of the S&P 500 is trading at a multiple it has not traded a very long time. A lot of that I think is anticipation of them getting a return on the investments they've made, but also the fact that they're not going to have to hire as much, they're going to get better productivity. So. So those are some of the themes I think are working through the market right now.
- [08:03]
Brian Sullivan
Yeah. You know Karen, here's the dirty secret of the market to Dan's point. It goes down. It doesn't just go down every year, it can go down violently. In fact, LPL Financial had a great chart on this today going back the last 10 years. Four of those years we had a 20% drawdown or more obviously one of those was the COVID year. But having these sort of fast, violent swings down is not only not unheard of at this point, is it fair to say it should be expected?
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Karen Feinerman
It should, yeah. I don't know. It should be expected every year. I mean Dan talked about it happens often, it should be expected. And also it really presents opportunities that are very hard to, very hard to pull the trigger when something's down 20%. But yet every time that we've seen that, and I think it's just about every time, certainly in the last maybe up to 2007 or 8 there was some down 20 where there's still more to go. But every time it presents an opportunity. This year I think it was a little bit unusual in that to me that drawdown seemed entirely a self inflicted wound where other times it's something exogenous that you didn't expect, you didn't see coming. This one was self Inflicted and then self corrected. And so that one was a little bit unusual.
- [09:30]
Brian Sullivan
Karen, let me ask it a different way. Sorry to interrupt. As a long term holder like you invest for the long run, have you gotten used to these drawdowns being faster and maybe the recoveries also being. They don't. We don't go down over a course of months, it feels like any more. I feel like we have three months of decline in three weeks and then maybe we bounce back just as quickly.
- [09:57]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. Things move so much quicker, news spread so much quicker and markets move so much quicker. And I do think it's in this, I don't know, truncated space that used to take so much longer, which doesn't give you a lot of time to adjust to it, you know, so you have to, I mean it's scary to stay long during those really difficult down periods, but that's what I try to do. And then when it's super scary, when the VIX goes as high as we've seen, like 55 or 60 or something like that, as difficult as it is, then it's time to buy. So I'm not wishing to see a Vix at 60, but if it gets there, I will be looking to buy things.
- [10:36]
Brian Sullivan
Yeah, you got to buy when it's the scariest. Carter. Worth how the charts look heading into next year.
- [10:40]
Carter Worth
So it's good ones and bad ones. But. But a couple of things. I mean I don't think anything's changed. I think it's important to say that and it's important for everyone to know that there have always been periods where markets go down quickly and recover quickly. 1987 was not a recession per se, was a flash crash, quick and over. If you think about the 2022 bear market, the S&P was down 27%, the Q is down 37. That took 10 months. So a bear market rather than a sort of a force majeure. Right. An act of nowhere. The tariff kerfuffle. A bear market is duration based. This sell off this year is 21% but it was just weeks as you point out, because it was sort of associated with an event that was retracted almost as quickly as it was put on. Tariffs? No tariffs, yes. And so forth. But overall, and there's no way around this, it's a sloppy year for the market. Let's talk about the market first. We know that only three sectors of the 11 outperformed, right? Only three that would be industrials and of course tech and telecommunications. And the rest have underperformed. We also know that you're talking about within stocks that were just up on the year. You've got 150 stocks in the S and P that were down and there is so much concentration that is good until one day it doesn't work. If you look at how random it might be, the top five best performers, Newmont was one of them. A gold stock, a brokerage was one of them. Robinhood. The rest of course are tech like W and Seagate. So it was supposed to be a stock pickers market. Right. Rather than an index market. And guess what?
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Brian Sullivan
It was.
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Carter Worth
But it wasn't. Guess what. 71% of all actively managed mutual funds underperformed this year. One of the worst years in the past 10. Their stock pickers, professional stock pickers. It was a treacherous market.
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Brian Sullivan
Fair point. Do you see it quickly? Do you see a bear market happening next year or is it just likely that we might get one of these, I hate to say run of the mill because they are to Karen's point, scary big drawdowns.
- [12:38]
Carter Worth
Yeah. So the average year going back to 28, you get typically an 8 to 10% drawdown at some point, peak to trough in the 12 month period. Obviously a more severe one like this year or just what you said during the COVID year but those are sort of news related or again force majeure. Who can know whether a bear market is ahead? The real question is if you take a long term view of equities, are equities expensive is a bad word and valuation is a terrible timing tool. Are equities full? Has a lot of money been pushed in? Have a lot of people participated? And just as quickly as it can go up, it can go down. Look at Bitcoin, right. Look how aggressive Tesla was on the way down before recovery. It's, it's these are risk assets hard.
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Dan Nathan
Yeah. I want to make another point. You just mentioned open air. There are pockets of risk that are not being I think appreciated on a show like this. Okay. Because we focus primarily on the public markets. But when, when you think of what happened this year, you know, SoftBank out of Japan had to fund $40 billion for Stargate and their investment in OpenAI. OpenAI is looking to raise more money at $850 billion market cap. Well, you know what, SoftBank squeaked it right in. They got that last, you know, 25 billion in on the second to last day of the year. And you think to yourself, okay, well Nvidia, they're involved in this whole thing. You know, everybody in this sort of ecosystem. And so you say to yourself, it's so point. You know, we have right now Palantir is down 15% from its recent highs. Back in the spring IT sold off 45% from its recent highs. These guys are all really good at the marks. They're not taking them. Right. But when, when SoftBank had to fund this opening, I think you know what they did, they sold their entire Nvidia position. Okay? They sold a lot of their ARM position and they still own a lot of it. So my point is that in the, in the private markets there's pockets of risk and they've been funded by VCs, by private equity, by insurance companies, by pension funds, by sovereign wealth funds. And if things go bad, they can sell the things that they can sell or they sell the things that they can sell. And that's not something I believe is appreciated right now across the, you know, by multiple markets, if you will.
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Brian Sullivan
Well, you're on, you're on the record. And as the kids would say, timestamp. That guy Adami is a witness. All right. It was a good year for stocks, but not a good year for any traders that were long. Oil, oil having one of its worst years in years. Down about 20%. American oil output is at a record high inventory globally they're up. But there's also many big macro issues to focus on with oil, whether it's Russia or Venezuela. Now even some developments in Nigeria. Let's talk about it all more about the commodity, these risks and more. CNBC contributor RBc Capital Markets Global head of commodity strategy and somebody who took a break from a vacation to join us. Yes, yes, we do appreciate it, Alima, thank you very much. Are you able to, you do these global macro better than anybody. Are you able to rank sort of the risks that the, the oil markets are facing next year?
- [15:37]
Halima Croft
I mean, the question is, Brian, are we going to be seriously oversupplied? What caught a lot of market participants by surprise this year was the OPEC decision. The phase in barrels right after Tariff Liberation Day. I mean, they announced that they would be quickly bringing back, you know, over 2 million barrels of production. We probably got half of that because it was mainly Saudi barrels. But that came against the backdrop, as you just mentioned, a very high US production, continued high production out of Guyana, Brazil. So we had plenty of oil this year. And the big geopolitical stories that we would think about is disrupting oil supplies like The Iran, Israel, US 12 day war really didn't lose any barrels on that. So the question is, is it the same story next year in terms of being a wash in oil or is something going to happen seriously with Venezuela, Russia, Washington, second story on Iran. But again, right now everyone saying we look like we have plenty of oil for next year.
- [16:40]
Brian Sullivan
But you brought up kind of the hidden, I think if I was going to say what's the hidden story of oil for 2025, I would say Brazil, because Brazil is now over 4 million barrels a day. I'm not going to say they came out of nowhere, but Petrobras has done a lot. Guyana, to your point, Exxon Mobil and Chevron and Hess, they have come up considerably. Let's focus though quickly in that region on Venezuela. We know what's been happening with the oil tankers. If there were military action or Maduro leaves, will we view that as bullish or bearish for oil or maybe some combination of both on the time frame?
- [17:17]
Halima Croft
I mean, we've talked about this before, Brian. I think a lot of market participants will quickly start penciling in a massive increase in Venezuelan output. Like when I covered Venezuela a couple of decades ago in the US government, they were producing over 3 million barrels. You know, they're now under 1 million barrels of production. But this is going to be a long way back for Venezuela. It's going to require about 10 billion a year in investment and a stable security environment. And there really is a near term risk on the already reduced supplies. We have reports that Pervasa is already having to shut in production because of these attacks on tankers and this de facto embargo declared by the United States. So the question is, do we have a chaotic transition in Venezuela that puts current output levels at risk? I would also say very close attention to Russia because I think part of the softness in prices we've seen recently is this anticipation that Trump is going to get a deal that brings back more Russian volumes, removal of sanctions. But again, the Russians have basically said that they are considering a deal but they never sign at the dotted line. And so do we really believe that this is going to be the year where Vladimir Putin makes significant territorial concessions when it comes to Ukraine? Not clear at all.
- [18:34]
Guy Adami
Halima, I'm not sure if you know this, but Taylor Sheridan is a big fast money fan and if he doesn't cast you in season three of Landman making a huge. Of course you do. You should be on it. Maybe Brian Sullivan should.
- [18:48]
Brian Sullivan
I was going to say why I'm happy to just wave in the background.
- [18:52]
Guy Adami
Well, but Halima, I mean, come on.
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Brian Sullivan
I know, I know.
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Guy Adami
Thanks. But my question to you is the following. First of all, I think oil is going higher next year but what is the price on the downside? That really puts our domestic producers in a bit of a bind.
- [19:06]
Halima Croft
Well, they would say current prices are suboptimal but the question is like if you really get, if we're holding in like the low 50s for WTI, like that is not a price that works for producers. The question is how many have hedged, can they do this for a year? I mean they talk about it being a tough price environment currently but also some of the tariffs on aluminum and steel have not been great. There are labor issues in this sector. They've managed, managed to keep production elevated this year. But can it continue at current levels if we don't have a more robust price environment? And I do think you're already starting to see when you talk about OPEC the other side of the production equation. The fact that OPEC has paused production increases I think is important. Like they're not signaling for 2026 that they're going to be putting a lot more supply in the market because frankly they don't have a lot of supplies left. I mean there is not a lot of oil in the OPEC tank. So they just can't repeat what did in 2025.
- [20:07]
Brian Sullivan
They've also reserved the right, as they've said Halima, to reverse it. They percent cut output theoretically 100%.
- [20:15]
Halima Croft
I mean that is something a Saudi oil minister has been very clear about. And I think that the most bearish cases for oil just see the Saudis and the rest of OPEC saying we're going to give you everything in the tank. Whereas I think if we were staring down like an appreciably lower price environment, I do believe they would come back into the market.
- [20:32]
Karen Feinerman
Market.
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Halima Croft
I don't think they want a massive inventory build. I think that's what they're concerned about. I don't think they want the market getting away from them. So it's not as much as price dependent. But how much do we have in terms of inventory builds?
- [20:44]
Brian Sullivan
Well, we know how much we have. The fact that you're willing to say bye to your family for a couple of minutes, join us on vacation. We appreciate it. Happy New Year, Halima and I and I hope that next year brings maybe a cameo in Landmark 1, you never know. Happy New Year to you and yours. Thank you very much.
- [21:03]
Halima Croft
Thank you.
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Brian Sullivan
Karen Feynman, you willing to bet you want to buy oil and oil related companies.
- [21:10]
Karen Feinerman
Well, I have been this year, you know, in my acronym, which I get a lot of pushback on. OIH was in there for this second time and once again, it just hasn't worked at all. All the reasons. Guy always talks about what he talks about how much better these companies are run, how much more efficiently, how great the balance sheets are. All of that discipline. And yet here we are again. I don't know. It's tiring. Are you.
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Brian Sullivan
I'm sorry. Here's what I don't know. And I'm just going to admit it. You know, it's hard to say you don't know something. Where does the OIH fit in? Carved. I'm not a great speller, but I'm trying to.
- [21:46]
Karen Feinerman
It's obvious.
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Guy Adami
E. Obvious energy.
- [21:51]
Karen Feinerman
Obvious to me.
- [21:52]
Brian Sullivan
Okay, so O for obvious for the oih, but the O is actually the E. So it's.
- [21:59]
Guy Adami
By the way, they sent out rules for this coming year 26, and they were very specific.
- [22:05]
Dan Nathan
Yeah.
- [22:05]
Brian Sullivan
And Karen, object. We'll get into. Get into that on the Friday show.
- [22:10]
Guy Adami
It's Wednesday.
- [22:11]
Brian Sullivan
All right. Happy New Year on deck. Karen, we'll see you in a few minutes. Right on deck. It was a rough year overall for retail, but if spending stays strong, could the retail sector see a big swing next year? Plus the end of an era. Legendary investor Warren Buffett stepping down as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. What it means for the stock and investors. What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before?
- [22:41]
Halima Croft
I have no fear of failure.
- [22:43]
Julia Boorstin
Trailblazing women, changing the game.
- [22:45]
Courtney Reagan
One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs.
- [22:50]
Halima Croft
Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself.
- [22:55]
Brian Sullivan
Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things.
- [22:59]
Julia Boorstin
Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power players. New episodes every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [23:08]
Brian Sullivan
Welcome back. It has been a wild ride for retail this year. You had tariffs in the news. You had prices still well up from a few years ago, although headline inflation has come down a bit and some retail stocks popping even despite or maybe because of those things. Let's get the retail roundup from our friend Dayton, Ohio's own Courtney Reagan.
- [23:34]
Dan Nathan
Courtney Reagan, first in flight, Dayton, Ohio it is first. I mean, just, just also where my.
- [23:39]
Guy Adami
Wife went to high school, the Dayton Flyers. Good basketball player.
- [23:42]
Brian Sullivan
You know who else at CNBC was raised or born in Dayton, Ohio? Michelle Caruso. So Cabrera.
- [23:48]
Guy Adami
Michelle Carisso Cabrera.
- [23:49]
Brian Sullivan
Dayton, Ohio Courtney Reagan, we understand that you are there. Can you give us the retail roundup?
- [23:57]
Courtney Reagan
Yes, I do appreciate the Ohio shout out because the Ohio State Buckeyes are playing in just a few hours. Oh well, anyway, the retail team for 2025 for me at least sort of surprising for two reasons. Number one, the resilience of the consumer and retailers ability to mitigate most of the tariff costs, at least to mute the the impact for consumers. So the XRT was up about seven and a half percent. That's half the S&P 500. But if you would have told me that would have been the case in April that retail would be positive at all, I would not have believed you. You can see the dramatic drop from that April 2nd tariff announcement. You mentioned it at the beginning of the show. So think how far we've come. Consumers were really value seeking throughout the year. And I don't just mean price though. Yes, that's part of it, but also item attributes, meaning if there is value, consumers would pay for it even if it was full price. Now low price players soared. To be fair, Five Below shares up 80%. Dollar General gained 75% Dollar Tree 64%. But Specialty Mall brands also did pretty well. American Eagle launched campaigns with Sydney Sweeney and Travis kelce. Shares grew 59% in 2025. Victoria's Secret gained 200% in the last six months. Sort of stealth rally there. 32% for the year. UBS has both AEO and Victoria's Secret on its 2026 buy list. And as Macy's gets smaller, we're talking store footprint. Its shares gained 30% for the year. Kohl's new CEO also led the department store to 45% share growth. Now Tapestry's deal to buy Capri was blocked in late 2024, as you all remember, because we talked about it a lot. Thank goodness I guess, because Tapestry shares gained 96% for the year. Lululemon though shed 45% under some internal missteps and some competitive issues. Target missed out on that discount rally too. Both of those names getting new leaders. PVH Deckers, RH among the biggest losers of the sector. But looking to 2026. Jefferies is more constructive on retail, although selective saying Nike is its top pick. Also suggesting a short for on holding while UBS puts on holding on its buy list along with Ralph Lauren, tjx, Signet and others. Brian, back over to you.
- [26:04]
Brian Sullivan
It's a good rundown there, but very quickly, what was the name of that bakery Donut place in Dayton you sent.
- [26:08]
Courtney Reagan
Me To Dorothy, Bill's Donuts.
- [26:11]
Brian Sullivan
Bill's.
- [26:11]
Courtney Reagan
Bill's Donuts.
- [26:12]
Brian Sullivan
I say Dorothy.
- [26:12]
Courtney Reagan
Dorothy Lane. Market also has amazing killer brownies. Bill's Donuts is closed between Christmas Eve and New Year's. But don't worry, we snuck in before they closed Bills.
- [26:21]
Brian Sullivan
And Dorothy Lane, Courtney Reagan, the best. Appreciate it.
- [26:25]
Courtney Reagan
Happy.
- [26:25]
Brian Sullivan
Thank you very much. Happy New Year as well. Karen, you an owner? You a buyer of any of those names that Courtney just laid out?
- [26:34]
Karen Feinerman
I do own tjx. I like that. I think that works in a tough environment or a good environment. She didn't mention Walmart, but I do like that. To me, my favorite one of the year she didn't mention was Abercrombie and Fitch which started off the year with a disastrous downturn when they sort of pre, pre, I guess, I don't know, guided down in the street went nuts. And then going into earnings. Last month the stock was trading at 6 times earnings at 3 and change times EBITDA and it's up 90% plus off of good earnings, solid earnings, but totally just left for dead with a great balance sheet. I don't know why. So I do on that. That's actually my biggest position in this.
- [27:16]
Brian Sullivan
Biggest is anf Abercrombie and Fitch.
- [27:18]
Carter Worth
Yes.
- [27:19]
Karen Feinerman
Yes.
- [27:20]
Brian Sullivan
Fantastic. Karen. We'll see in a few minutes.
- [27:22]
Karen Feinerman
We went down.
- [27:23]
Brian Sullivan
There's a lot, there's a lot more fast money to come. In fact, here's what's coming up.
- [27:30]
Dan Nathan
Buffett's last day. The oracle of Omaha stepping down after 60 years. Leading the charge at Berkshire Hathaway. What his departure means for the stock. Plus a technical take on a once godlike stock where The Chartmaster sees UnitedHealth.
- [27:44]
Brian Sullivan
Heading in the new year.
- [27:45]
Dan Nathan
You're watching Fast Money live from the NASDAQ market site at Times Square. We're back right after this.
- [27:55]
Brian Sullivan
What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before?
- [27:59]
Halima Croft
I have no fear of failure.
- [28:01]
Julia Boorstin
Trailblazing women, changing the game.
- [28:03]
Courtney Reagan
One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs.
- [28:08]
Halima Croft
Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself.
- [28:13]
Brian Sullivan
Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things.
- [28:17]
Julia Boorstin
Julia Boorstin, Host hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players New episodes every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [28:27]
Brian Sullivan
Legendary investor Warren Buffett wrapping up his final day as CEO. Berkshire Hathaway. This after 60 years of running the shop. Yeah, 60. The A shares of Berkshire Hathaway trading at more than $750,000 apiece put that into perspective. Our data goes back to 1976 and back then those Berkshire A shares were a neat and tidy $69, not 69,000, just $69. And that my friends math tells us is a more than 1.1 million percent gain. Now Buffett will remain chairman of the firm Carter Worth end of an era but the stock in the company goes on.
- [29:15]
Carter Worth
Yeah.
- [29:16]
Brian Sullivan
What's your take?
- [29:16]
Carter Worth
Well, the first thing is while he's stopping now he announced that he was going to stop literally at his all time relative peak to the S and P, the stock performance in terms of.
- [29:26]
Brian Sullivan
Literally going out on top.
- [29:27]
Carter Worth
Literally going out on top. And he was sort of ridiculed, right as having missed a lot of this technology AI stuff just as he was in 99 and 2000. We all know how that worked out for him very well. He's obviously a major shareholder of Apple even though he's cut back. But the thing to note is that this insurance stock and that's really what it is, right? Despite all the other bells and whistles, railroads and candy and things, it has done better than the insurance group. Right. If you look at the State Street Insurance ETF Kie and you look at Berkshire relative 1 year, 3 year, 5 year, this stock, Warren, however you want to characterize they're one and the same, has done better than his peers. His peers being all state or progressive or Chubb or aig, etcetera and so forth.
- [30:13]
Brian Sullivan
Guy Adami, you do want Greg Abel, who is his new CEO, newish CEO, not going to ask him to fill those shoes. That would probably be impossible. Is the company in the stock worth owning with Buffett gone as CEO?
- [30:31]
Guy Adami
The short answer is yes. And I think one of the reasons the stock Berkshire B Burshary where you're looking at, is underperformed for as long as it has now, probably eight or nine months is because they've been accumulating a cash position. I think it's north of $370 billion. In the context it's a trillion dollar company. So percentage of market cap in cash is significant and I think they're waiting for a rainy day. So I think there's a chance that if you see a downturn in the broader market, it as penalized as they've been for having cash, they will be rewarded for even put it to work at a lower level.
- [31:04]
Brian Sullivan
If we get that drawdown that Dan and you and others were talking about, that cash will come as a reward.
- [31:10]
Guy Adami
Yes sir.
- [31:10]
Dan Nathan
Well, let's be clear that we're Talking about. We're talking about something drawdown Sully. And I think that happens every year. You know, on average we get a 10% drawdown. So I think to Karen's point before, it's like that presents opportunities. It just depends how violent and why it happens. And then the duration of these things is another one. So. So again I can string this into Berkshire. One of the reasons why they've had these periods of outperformance over the last 25 years is like think about when we've had these market disconnections, right? He's gone on there and he's been. The bid of last resort. I mean, I can't imagine how much money he made on those, you know, warrants and all the stock that he bought in the throes of the financial.
- [31:45]
Carter Worth
Crisis and that was the relative performance peak. We only just now last year got above that. So his all time peak in terms of performance as an asset compared to other things, which is what it's all. That's what Alpha is, right? Was in October of 08 into early 09. That was the top. And he owned.
- [32:02]
Brian Sullivan
Well, literally banks were going to him for a bailout. Like he was literally the Godfather sitting.
- [32:06]
Carter Worth
Back saying, oh, now you want a favorite stamp, Right? Right. His stamp. Then Goldman was okay. Right. Lehman was not. Then Morgan Stamps. Whoever borrowed took his money. They were money good.
- [32:16]
Brian Sullivan
I don't know if he had a cat. Excuse me. It's a Godfather reference.
- [32:20]
Guy Adami
You know, that cat was not in the script.
- [32:22]
Brian Sullivan
That's right.
- [32:23]
Guy Adami
Just appeared on set. And Brando, the genius that he is, was able to integrate it into the scene. It's brilliant.
- [32:31]
Brian Sullivan
I know.
- [32:31]
Guy Adami
Now I would say he's a big fan of the show, but unfortunately Mr. Brando passed away.
- [32:36]
Brian Sullivan
Freshman Karen. Coming in hot from this off the. Off the top rope. We do, we do like that. By the way, the freshman. Clearly Brando's best movie. All right, on deck. Why one huge health insurance stock may be ready to rally in 26. UnitedHealth ended the year down nearly 35%. It's its worst annual performance since the financial crisis in 2008. It was a difficult year obviously in many ways for UnitedHealth investors and its employees. But are there better times ahead next year for the company and for the stock? Let's find out. Carter, worth looking at the charts on unh. What do you see?
- [33:19]
Carter Worth
I think so. So to Your point, down 34, 35%, the worst performing stock in the Dow Jones Industrial average. And I think the lows are in. Let's look at the charts one at a time. The first, of course, with no drawings, no lines. Number two, let's put some lines in the stock is since the lows of August, tracking a well defined minor to intermediate uptrend lines. Third iteration, the stock has broken above the well defined downtrend line in effect for the past year. Next iteration, another way to depict the circumstance, the two line together. It has moved up and out of those converging trend lines yet again. Another way one might want to annotate it and call it a cup and handle it doesn't matter what you call it has all the elements of reversal. One more just for good measure, it has moved above the downtrend line. It is no longer making a series of lower lows but is now a slight new intermediate high. Abandoned the biggest stock in the health care sector once upon a time and now no longer. Only 50 basis points in the S and P. I think it's this, Brian. If it's wrong, this judgment of mine, it's sideways. If it's right, it's up. I think down from here is a very low probability.
- [34:36]
Brian Sullivan
I think the hard part about this, analyzing this company guy and on a very serious note, obviously is you had one of their group CEOs who was murdered earlier this year. The trial's ongoing. The CEO withdraws all guidance. CEO then steps down. Hard to judge.
- [34:52]
Guy Adami
It is 100%. In the absence though of bad news, which we haven't gotten now for a period of time, I think you see a levitation in earnings. Now, I'm not saying 18 and a half times next year's numbers are cheap. It's not, it's reasonable. The stock has been cheaper obviously earlier this year. But I also think that, you know, you could just start to see again if you don't have any headline risk, which we haven't seen, this stock is just going to fill that gap. I think that we saw the Carter just had on his chart. And they report earnings I believe on January 27th. So I think this thing rallies in the early next year.
- [35:27]
Brian Sullivan
All right, New Year's Eve festivities, they are well underway around the world. And up next, your traders will celebrate some stocks they think are ready to party. They're on the clock. Look at that. Auckland, New Zealand. Happy New Year, Auckland. We're back right after watching. All right, it's 5:45 here in the east coast, but New Year's revelers around the world, they have already started to ring in the new year. There is a look at some of the celebrations we saw minutes and hours ago. Australia, New Zealand, that's Bangkok, Thailand, Dubai, doing what Dubai does, which is having the world's tallest building light up and shoot fireworks out of the top. Greece officially welcoming the new year at the top of the hour. Happy New Year, Greece. And we are just over six hours from doing that same thing here in New York. Pretty much right here. Guy Adami, your favorite, the Crystal Ball.
- [36:31]
Guy Adami
I was just there.
- [36:32]
Brian Sullivan
You were just there, all right. And in that spirit, we asked our traders to give you their picks that they believe, as Gaia Dami likes to say, apparently are ready to party. I've literally never heard him say that. But let's start off with Karen Feinerman. Karen, start us off with a new year treat, right?
- [36:53]
Karen Feinerman
Well, it's always the quiet ones who really party. So this one, a little shameless in that, you know, it's our parent Versant coming out on their own next week. They're actually still part, technically part of Comcast. But a couple of things I think, I think are interesting. If you own Comcast, you own it for the rest of their business. You don't own it for this. So only about 5 or 6% of what you own will be this. You might see it on your sheets and say, you know what? I don't want this. I want the other stuff. I'm just going to sell it. I don't care what price. I love when people sell things at a price that they really don't care about. That creates an interesting opportunity. I think now management is unleashed to try to make these businesses as pot as profitable as they can. And it's a good collection of businesses. CNBC, obviously, MS, now golf, even WNBA, which I love, a good balance sheet. And so I think it's sort of an interesting risk reward. Not a ton of risk. And we've seen, you know, some of these things left for dead. And then all of a sudden there's interest. And just this WBD battle alone has shown there's interest in all parts of media. So this is the quiet one that I think could have a, a nice 20, 26 party.
- [38:05]
Brian Sullivan
I love it. Headquartered right across the way here in Times Square. And I would say you don't bet against this talent, do you? Dan Nathan, Carter Worth. I'm not laughing. Carter Worth.
- [38:21]
Carter Worth
So I think an outlier this year, of course, the performance. Investment banks and brokers. We know that Morgan Stanley up 40%, Goldman up even more. Look at IBKR, look at Robinhood up 200. If you look at the performance of the investment banks and brokers, relative to the bkx, the spread is about as wide as you're going to get. So my hunch is to fade. These brokers have had a great year banking and all the volatility in the trading and the commodity and so forth. And to favor the bkx, which has stable big banks such as JP Morgan, of course, but also US Bancorp, PNC and that sort of thing. So investment banks and brokers paired against banks in general.
- [39:05]
Dan Nathan
Yeah, I like consumer Internet here. I think for the most part they've kind of been left for dead this year. And I think many of them will have like a moment last next year. Maybe that's Spotify, maybe it's Netflix, maybe it's Uber Snap. I'll throw in there too, which is honestly been left for dead there. So Pinterest is another one. So I think that, you know, some of these may breathe a little bit of fresh air next year in 2026.
- [39:27]
Guy Adami
Excellent. Has been trading sideways since the fall of 2022. If you look. Carter would say it's a textbook sort of plateau in terms of then getting to the next level, which I think we will in 2026. So for me, it's energy, specifically XLE.
- [39:41]
Brian Sullivan
XLE. Kind of a final trades before the final trades. I like it. All right. You know, I don't like cold weather. And the temperature here in Times Square may be dropping. In fact, we may celebrate the new year with the coldest night in nearly a decade. But the IPO market, it thawed this year. And up next, the hot and cold performances of some of this year's much anticipated new listings. We're back right after this. You may not have heard about it, but more than 200 IPOs priced this year, that's a, a 36% jump from the year before and the most since 2021. Together, those IPOs have raised a combined $44 billion. But it's been a mixed bag in term of performance. Among the biggest offerings of the year, you got circle and core. We had monster gains. They've come back down to earth, but they really made a lot of money. Klarna and Venture Global, they have fallen big. Dan, you flagged some of these moves. What are you looking at?
- [40:43]
Dan Nathan
Well, it's just interesting, right? We're all waiting for this IPO market to open up. It's been, you know, three, four years, years since we've had a lot of really good names come to market. Obviously there's some pretty decent names there that we all know, but you know, again, I don't think they're performing particularly well when you think of $44 billion raised. I mean, we just talked about OpenAI is trying to raise 00 billion. So for me, what the big challenges in 2026 for the IPO market is can they bring these massive market caps? We've never seen it before. So it'll be really interesting. If they can't bring the big ones, they're not going to be able to bring a of lot of these small ones.
- [41:15]
Brian Sullivan
Karen?
- [41:17]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah, so a couple of things. I think that the, the pipeline has been clogged up because the FCC was closed. And so there's a number of them that are just waiting. And so there's been a little bit of traffic before they come on. And I do think we'll have a really good IPO year. Often though, those super giant ones, like maybe a Space X or something like that are so hyped up, but by the time they actually come, I'm trying to think of like when, when Facebook, which was Facebook at the time, very, you know, very mediocre. Uber also at the time, Saudi Aramco, you would know far better than I largest one ever. Very so. So at the time. So I mean it's good for banks and I do like the big banks, but I'm, I like the fees for the big banks more than I probably like the stuff that they bring to market real quick.
- [42:08]
Guy Adami
Obviously, Goldman Sachs has been a monster, as has Morgan Stanley. But I think NASDAQ continues not to get its just due. We're obviously sitting here, but I think when people realize it's a technology company and listings are coming back in a major way. Morgan Stanley just had a piece out, I believe on December 22nd. Brian Price target of 111, I think, I think the way to play this is through the nasdaq.
- [42:27]
Carter Worth
Yeah.
- [42:28]
Brian Sullivan
And by the way, quickly, I'm not saying it because we're sitting here. Adina Freedman, her team here at the Nasdaq, only a small part of their business is even listings, their consultation business here. What's happening to people all around us has been, I think an underreported story. And again, I don't say that because I'm just sitting here, but it helps.
- [42:45]
Guy Adami
To be sitting here.
- [42:46]
Brian Sullivan
Well, they'll let us out now, but I mean it's sincere. No, you're right.
- [42:50]
Guy Adami
We've been saying it for a while. They do a remarkable job. Walmart came to nasdaq.
- [42:57]
Brian Sullivan
Up next, your final trades. The hats tell it all a few minutes here, a few hours, the ball's going to drop in Times Square. We are counting you down. It was just a few weeks ago that our very own Gaia Dom. There he is. Got an up close and personal look at the ball ahead of Fast Money Live. Fast Money fans who are here for that event got an actual Waterford crystal from last year's ball. One of the other great gifts that our FM Live fans got was special Fast Money calendar for next year loaded with key market and economic data along with great pictures and fun facts about all of our traders. And we are making this must have calendar available now for the rest of our Fast Fans download. You can head over to cnbc.com fastmoney 2026 final trade time Karen Feineman Yes.
- [44:03]
Karen Feinerman
I'm going with Amazon. Remember when it used to trade a much higher multiple than Walmart? Well that's changed. I think it should trade higher Rivian.
- [44:12]
Carter Worth
It's been basing and bottoming for two and a half three years. A bearish to bullish reversal buy.
- [44:19]
Dan Nathan
Snap has been doing the same thing. Bearish to bullish, all that sort of stuff. The Louise Yamada sort of stuff. She's a legend in your field, isn't she? There Snap has not had too many moments of late. It's gonna have an AI moment next year.
- [44:33]
Guy Adami
Snap. That's a pretty lame horn.
- [44:38]
Karen Feinerman
That was awful what happened there guy.
- [44:40]
Guy Adami
Well, you know you should never blow your own horn.
- [44:42]
Brian Sullivan
Brian dvn Devin, thanks for watching Fast Money. Happy New Year everybody out there. We'll see you next time next year. Matt starts now.
- [44:52]
Julia Boorstin
All opinions expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, Internet or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of an opinion. Such opinions are based upon information the Fast Money participants consider reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Fast Money disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com fastmoneydisclaimer what made you.
- [45:25]
Brian Sullivan
Confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before?
- [45:28]
Halima Croft
I have no fear of failure.
- [45:30]
Julia Boorstin
Trailblazing women Changing the Game One of.
- [45:33]
Courtney Reagan
My favorite pieces of advice Think about what your boss's boss needs.
- [45:38]
Halima Croft
Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself.
- [45:43]
Brian Sullivan
Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things.
- [45:46]
Julia Boorstin
Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players. New episodes every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts.