← CNBC's "Fast Money"
CNBC's "Fast Money"
Big Year For Banks… And What’s In Store For AI & VC In 2026 12/30/25
00:42:41
Big Banks on pace for a standout year. The money centers with double digit gains, and if the financials sector can stay on focus in 2026. Plus New Year, New interest in AI? What the VC landscape is looking for in the red-hot AI space, and where an early stage investor sees the most opportunity. Fast Money Disclaimer
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Live for the NASDAQ market site right here in the heart of New York City's Times Square. I mean right here. This is fast money. Here's what's on tap tonight. A big year for big banks. Some names seeing their best gains in decades. But can the trade notch more gains in the new year? We'll discuss and debate. Plus the China wild card tension between Beijing and Taiwan heating up. What it could mean for the markets both overseas here at home and your money. All that plus Meta making a move to up its AI game. Boeing shares. Steve Grasso hitting two month highs after signing a big new contract fueled up trade. The energy stock that's hitting a new 52 week high. That Guy Adami just absolutely loves. He gave us a, gave us a nibble of it last night. Hi everybody, I am Brian Sullivan in from Melissa Lee coming to you live from the NASDAQ Studio B right here. And on your desk tonight in aforementioned Steve Grasso, Karen Feiderman, Dan Nathan and Guy Adami. All right, we start tonight with those milestone moves in many of the big banks this year. Think we're kidding. Look at this. Morgan Stanley stock up more than 40% this year. That's its best year in four years. Goldman Sachs doing even better with gains last seen during the depths of the of the financial crisis. Citigroup though, the biggest winner of all, 60 plus percent gains. That stock's best performance since the turn of the century. And I mean 2000, not 1900. All these handily outperforming the broad index of this year. Even some of the biggest AI trades. The question is with the big banks. Guy Adami, sir, great year. I know you've been on them. No, no, you have been good calls. What's going to happen next year?
- [02:54]
E
First of all, Karen's been on top of it and Tim has, who's in absentia I believe is in Europe right now in terms of the banks. Some we've gotten rights. A lot of them I've gotten wrong. But Citibank is the one that continues to stick out to me. And we can talk about what a great job Jane Fraser has done. There's this getting, you know, getting themselves out of bad businesses, focusing on what's working, the restructuring of the bank. But if JP Morgan we've done this math problem is worth three times tangible book ish, I think it's fair to say that Citi should be half of that and half of that gets you about $148 stock. And you know, we've been pretty consistent on this. That's where I think it's going. And although Citi's had a huge run off the lows that we saw earlier in the year, I think there's still a lot of room to the upside here.
- [03:38]
A
And the interesting thing, Karen, about Citigroup is that Jane Frazier has done a great job and one of the things she's done is to get bigger in terms of the stock valuation by getting smaller, shrinking the company. She this is not a winner take all strategy. She I feel like she's being very targeted, very smart about just ditching businesses that she doesn't need, doesn't want.
- [04:01]
D
Right. Well also she's been really good about trying to get them integrated to be one bank after just a series of acquisitions over decades that were never put together. And I mean she's created a culture there where I think, you know, building the asset wealth management business. But it is a great time for banks overall. It doesn't get any better than this. The economy is growing, regulation is heading their way, credit quality is great, capital markets are really good and looking to be just as good next year. Then you have the asset wealth management business, all of that's great. And then you have AI making banks. They're a great candidate for what's a business that could be so much more efficient than it is. If you could cut out 2% of expenses, you can increase your margins because the margins are so thin. And banks, that's a fantastic setup. That's why they're up this much. But just because it's the year's ending, I'm not going to sell my banks and look for something new.
- [04:57]
A
You still own it. You're keeping it city.
- [04:58]
D
City is the sea in my car trade. Yeah. That I get a lot of guff for. Why that would be a word Guy would use.
- [05:07]
E
Well, you know, these anagrams and you know, carved. And energy is an oi. It's very od.
- [05:13]
A
As I, as the energy guy, I fully endorse the oi. The. Oh, the car, the xlm, whatever. We'll get to Xymon a bit. Guy. Tommy, just settle down.
- [05:23]
E
I'm fine.
- [05:24]
A
148 on Citigroup. Would you agree with guys take. Yeah. I mean you have the economy of D wrag. You have a host of things that are going right. Investment banking fees are up 50% probably across the board. Is it something that I want to buy now? Probably not. I think you got to let these things breathe. I think you go into a new year. There's the capex spend, there's IPO markets, there's M and A, there's tax cuts, there's immediate expensing. You could name all the, all the things that are tailwinds. What are the headwinds? If the economy slows, if, if big, if, if people, if unemployment rate moves higher, then you're going to have less loan demand. So I think there's a host of things that could happen. Even if rates come down, there's a sweet spot for net interest margins where if rates come down precipitously, those margins will get squeezed. So I think you have time to wait on the banks.
- [06:19]
B
Yeah, I just think at least the investment banks, Morgan, Goldman, I think they price a lot in right now. I mean, you're going to continue to hear, you know, capital markets, you're going to continue to hear about the ipo. I mean, while the IPO market was up a lot this year, I mean, it's coming off a very small base. And next year it's really dependent on these massive names. Right. And I suspect, you know, this is the time of year you kind of make some big proclamations or whatever. I suspect that one of these big names in the air space that a lot of folks are hoping that goes public next year actually blows up and it goes the opposite way. And we see a lot of reverberations, whether it be the banks that are lending to these folks. You just, you know, VCs have some. Whoa.
- [06:58]
A
That's a bit what you just said. This is what Dan Nathan does. You just, you kind of, you put the ball in the table, drop the bomb in there. I assume you're talking about the tussle headed Guys company out in San Francisco. Well listen, if they hundred billion in valuation.
- [07:13]
B
No, if they can't if open, I can't raise 100 billion and soon. And you know, let's say they tap the debt markets this, I mean I don't know the mildest slowdown there. And when I say blow up, I mean it's not going to zero or anything like that. But if that, if the wheels are not greased over there, then there's a whole host of other things that are not working not just in technology but also in our economy. When you think about the contribution of capex to our GDP and there's a whole host of other things that we've been talking talking about as it relates to what are the major components of gdp. Well if you think about, let's just say we have unemployment that is going to 5% maybe because of efficiencies from AI. There's a whole host of things going on. There's an article in the Wall Street Journal say you know, CEOs are planning for 2026 and hiring is not one of those plans. They're not firing people just yet, but they're certainly not hiring letting people roll off.
- [08:01]
F
Right.
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B
So, so my point is if you go to 5%, the economy slows. Right. If there's a whole host of things that could happen here and a lot of it's dependent on what's going on.
- [08:09]
A
I want to get back to that because I want and we're here for your opinions, not mine but I've been pretty clear on the Twitter machine and others that I think if to your point, I'm agreeing with you that if Open Air stumbles, the market's in trouble. And, but is there a direct correlation between open AI and these big financials?
- [08:25]
F
The big. Sure.
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A
I mean because the lending because of IPOs, it's getting to a point, I.
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B
Mean JP Morgan, I think Jamie Dimon said it the other day, they're getting ready to write $10 billion checks for this sort of stuff. And so this is not the sort of lending that generally goes on. But when you think the VCs that have subsidized this, where they get their money from sovereign wells, from insurance companies, from, from pension funds. Right? All that sort of stuff, there's a lot of folks that are going to be on the hook. It's really made its way, it's made its way into the banking system. This is very financialized, which was not the case during the dot com. It actually resembles a lot more about what went on in the aughts into the housing crisis.
- [09:00]
D
So I find myself agreeing with Dan which is, you know, an uncomfortable place to be. Right. But I do think that if, if we see that stumble that it will have reverberations in banks everywhere. All not just banks, but so many parts of the business like something like you know, a GE vernova which has been fantastic. Well that's. You got to think, all right, if the lending, if that's not happening OpenAI, then all of the data center build has got to slow and you know, you got to think there's so many, so many sort of collateral and by.
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A
The way, it's a private company, secretive company. It's 1 billion here, here San Francisco. Nobody knows what's going on.
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D
Well and you know, people are concerned about private credit and that's been a big source of funding for data centers.
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B
All of these data centers next year don't get funded off the balance sheets of these major hyperscales. They get done in these SPVs that are like done in conjunction with the private credit guys that the banks are lending into. Okay, so it's gone to a different place than where it was two years ago. And I think that's what's most important to just kind of understand what is the other side of this because tech folks out there and a lot of bankers are really excited about all this stuff. But a lot of things have to go right for this to work.
- [10:10]
E
I think that's a fair. Listen, that's there's a relatively good probability of some sort of blow up going on in whatever lending markets or credit markets at some point next year. On the back of what Dan is talking about with that, without question, I think the good news is many of these larger banks are I think are very well insulated against that is my sense. So it's the smaller banks that are probably lose which only makes the bigger banks do better I think in the long run.
- [10:36]
A
I think. And I would just add on to this because would you say it's the time of year when you make big proclamations? Why not? I'm going to make one which is that if, if that company OpenAI were to stumble at all, I think, I think the markets writ large go down 10, 15%.
- [10:51]
B
I mean listen, the markets go down anybody here just 10% at some point anyway.
- [10:55]
A
Okay, this could be 20. Yeah, but by the way, they don't even have to stumble. They're sucking up between space X and OpenAI. They've sucked up a lot of the capital within the Market. I do think it's a zero sum game. I think that is potentially has changed the environment. So you get a lot of these after flow IPOs. But if any of us, you're in those meetings where you're trying to get Money, whether it's 100 million or 500 million, no one wants to give those checks. They want to give the, they want to be on space.
- [11:25]
B
But we're talking about open air billions, we're talking about 100 billion.
- [11:28]
A
That's my point is they've sucked it up so, so they don't even have to stumble. They've sucked up all the oxygen in the room and it's very anticlimactic if these deals get done and it leaves a host of others that don't. There's also just a lot of companies that are tied to that remoras, if you will, on the back of the shark.
- [11:45]
E
Anyway, nice remora.
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A
It's a fish. What is it? No, symbiotic.
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E
All right, meantime, symbiotic as opposed to.
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A
A lamprey quality fish by the way. Meantime, China showing its military might firing rockets toward Taiwan, sending assault ships and bombers to the region for the second day in a row. The country seeming to send a message to any nation that looks to block Beijing from claiming control of the region. So could geopolitical unrest in China be maybe the big wild card for the global markets? For more, let's welcome in our managing director Shahzad Kazi joining us now on set. Shahzad, thank you very much for coming back. You just heard this sort of semi scary conversation about open and what were to happen. I think China is probably the other massive variable. We had a good year this year. Are you expecting a good year for Chinese equities? Anything related to China in 26?
- [12:42]
F
I think the uncertainty will certainly carry on. I think equities did a lot better than we would have predicted at the beginning of the year considering the trade war predominantly now next year the economy again will be reliant on Beijing stepping in to perhaps provide stimulus on the consumer side, continuing to provide stimulus to stabilize the property market if they can get there. So lots of open questions about economic growth. I think geopolitics in the first few months of the year you can rest easy because of the Xi Trump summit. But after that, once again we may be back in a place where instability continues to just go back up.
- [13:21]
A
Yeah, you've got more saber rattling in some cases literal saber rattling around the Taiwan issue. Let's, let's hope and pray. Nothing, nothing Happens if something were to happen. I know you got your December data report. I want to get to that in a second. But if something were to happen militarily, what would happen to China's markets? What would happen to the US Markets?
- [13:42]
F
Well, look, I mean, that would be catastrophic, I think, for markets across the world. I mean, certainly here and certainly in China. I think a lot of the question for folks is what will the administration here do? Because I don't think everybody is convinced, and they shouldn't be, that the current occupiers of the White House, the President and his team, really firmly believe that we have to go as far as needed all the way to protect and defend Taiwan. I think there's a big question mark on there.
- [14:09]
A
All right, let's go to the December flash data report for the China Beige book. What are you seeing? There's so many questions around the Chinese economy because it just seems to be in a constant state of stimulus.
- [14:21]
F
Look, the consensus narrative is, has been very, very negative on China. The idea that the Chinese economy is slowing down. What we've been saying month after month is that actually if you look at it, the economy is doing just fine compared to a year ago. It's growing over, you know, compared to a year ago. At the end of the year, there was in December a bit of a slowdown. It's nothing alarming. You know, I think China released extremely positive data in the earlier part of the year when they were under pressure because of the tariffs. When the political threat and pressure was gone, they were much more comfortable releasing the negative news. And that's what's happened here.
- [14:54]
A
So when you give us a cheat sheet, because I find this very interesting, but you're the expert on it. So when you look for things, right, we know about the property market, we know about stimulus. What are the canaries in the coal mine that you look for that will let us know that China could be on the precipice of something bigger. Because all this other stuff dancing around it, whether it's 8% growth now, 5% growth, are going to 4% growth. We can factor that in. We could trade around that. But what's the cataclysmic stuff, if anything, that you look for?
- [15:25]
F
The big one has to be consumer spending. Chinese consumers are going to be very, very cautious unless policy changes and unless they do structural reforms to eventually move towards a consumption driven economy. So are we going to get another year where they do some trade in subsidies and this and that to boost the GDP or are we going to get A year where you see Beijing say we are finally going to start working towards actual structural changes to the economy. I am not very, very positive at all on the latter. I think they love the fact that they're export a powerhouse. They love relying on the manufacturing sector, getting the world, keeping the world reliant on them. I think that's what they're going to continue doing.
- [16:03]
E
Currency wise, where do we get concerned? Here was, I think August of 2014, if I'm not mistaken, yuan devaluation. Things did not work out well in our markets. Here we're 11 years later. What should we be looking for?
- [16:15]
F
They are not trying to devalue. There is no reason to be doing that. On the other side, they remain very concerned about the currency strengthening too much. It's extremely managed, as everybody knows. But the reality is they want to chart this course where they can remain very competitive in terms of their exports without unnecessarily needing to, you know, any kind of yuan devaluation leads to capital outflows and such.
- [16:36]
A
Something to watch. Under seven. So she's out. Kazi China beige book. She's out. Thank you very much. Karen, you got a hot take on China?
- [16:42]
D
Well, I am long some China. So Alibaba, one that guy and I share, I mean, it's had a huge run and we know their market has had, I don't know, what, what 20, 28% this year or something, I don't know, in that range, but off such a low base, off, you know, such a sort of downbeat expectation that I'm staying long.
- [17:04]
A
Just Alibaba or China generally.
- [17:06]
D
Well, I have FXI as well. K Web.
- [17:08]
A
So the whole smack shares, K Web, the fxi, big China etf. All right, Karen, thank you. By the way, we've got a news. Speaking of China, we got a news alert right now on Nike, which does a huge amount of business in China. A filing showed that CEO Elliot Hill bought about 16,000 shares of Nike. Somebody quickly do the math on what that is. Remember last week we got news that Tim Cook and former Intel CEO Bob Swan also bought shares worth about three and a half million dollars combined. So you had Karen, Tim Cook, Bob Swan, and now you got the CEO newish. But coming back to the company stepping.
- [17:46]
D
In 16,000 is actually not that much million dollars.
- [17:49]
A
That's why I was trying to do the math.
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D
I did the math at First I thought 16.
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A
Did you come up what's the number change exactly a million?
- [17:55]
E
Well, it probably was a million years.
- [17:58]
D
Yeah.
- [17:59]
E
Think about it. With 16,000 is an odd number. He probably said here's a million bucks. How many shares can I buy?
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A
So, so there's the headline.
- [18:09]
D
I don't know that that's a vote of confidence to be honest.
- [18:12]
A
The news alert just crossed better than selling it. Let's say, let's get it. Shares of Nike. That would be a different issue.
- [18:21]
D
Selling 16,000.
- [18:22]
F
How about this?
- [18:23]
A
It layers on to the news that Tim Cook, who didn't have to buy anything, came in with his own cash.
- [18:30]
D
And bought more than that 2.6 million.
- [18:32]
A
And Bob Swan, I don't know how.
- [18:34]
D
Much Bob Swan bought. So.
- [18:36]
A
Well, he would have bought about 500,000 because according to Guy Dami's math, Tim Cook bought 3 million. So I'm just trying to do basic math here on live national television.
- [18:45]
D
Yeah, I mean, okay, he should, he should buy that much if he doesn't want to buy it at that price. I mean why should we? But I am long. That's a sad thing to feel.
- [18:56]
E
Look, it's not a bad thing. Obviously it's not bad but it could be better. It could be better. I think to Karen's point when Jamie Dimon. I think it was 2018. Was it February? I forget exactly when it was. The market was getting crushed on a Friday and news came out that Jamie Dimon had bought half a million. Yeah. Shares of J.P. morgan stock. And I think the stock was trading about 50 something dollars at the time. It never looked back. That to me is sort of a line in the sand. He might as well bought a couple pair of Nikes.
- [19:23]
A
You got I want nobody else is I love all of you but you got it.
- [19:28]
E
You got.
- [19:28]
A
When somebody buys $1 million of stock. Yeah, I'm sweet. We don't, we don't know. We don't know what it is. His accountant probably told him to do it. We don't know what the real true ramification, we have no clue. I mean it's not like he's sitting there putzing around saying I have a million bucks. Elliot, I think you should buy a million shares of Nike. Just something there's a rounding arrow with some type of wealth. I hope one day everybody watching and listening for them. $1 million. The rounding area, that's my holiday wish. It's like a godfather out there.
- [19:57]
E
Mere finance.
- [19:58]
D
How much money does he make? This seven.
- [20:01]
A
I will look it up in the commercial break. Coming up, Boeing, Boeing flying high. They landed a major supply contract. The stock at 2 month highs. Well last Steve grass higher. Boeing might be able to fly. Plus Guy Dominic, newly favored stock. ExxonMobil hitting a fresh 52 week high. Insiders buying millions. Guy Poo Poo's it, but he loves the stock. We'll talk more about it. I made the last part up. You're watching Fast Money. We're back right after this. The heaviest metal credit card of all time. Rumored to be one of only 18 in existence. Plated with the very same tungsten that forged the international Space Station and wielded at business dinners like a samurai sword. It's a classic corporate power move. But the real power move, having end to end visibility on your most critical shipments. FedEx. The new power move. What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before?
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Trailblazing women, changing the game.
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One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs. Leadership can look in many, many different forms.
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Life is short and you just gotta.
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A
Think big to accomplish big things. Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players. New episodes every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts, we're gonna give a little Love here to Mr. Steve. Thank you and Karen. Boeing shares getting a bit of a boost today. Up half a percent. Like Elliot Hill. News after the US we figured out, by the way, that's 1 27th of Elliot Hill's potential compensation this year. Anyway, the Air Force awarded Boeing over $8 billion to build fighter jets for Israel's Air Force. The deal comes, or covers rather, 25 new F15A aircraft, with Israel allowed to order another 25 at a later time. The build is expected to run through the end of 2035. But here's the thing, Steve, and we'll go to Karen. Boeing shares up more than 15% this month. A lot of money's been made, but you wonder, do you sell now because you feel like you made the money in a company? It's had its problems. That's probably a rounding error for Boeing, that contract, by the way. Still. But. But I think I bought the stock slightly below. I bought it at 197 and change below 200 hours. I was looking for upside of 250 to 75. For me, it's about free cash flow, return, consistent profitability and 737 triple sevens. 787 pumping those planes back out minus the headwinds. Airbus now has the headwinds of its own. It's a duopoly. So I think you're going to get much More upside to Boeing. I'll probably get out of the name around 250 to 75 or start scaling. That's again we're going back to remedial math here. Yeah, that's about a 20% upside from where we are right now. 25%. 20, 25. 35% upside is what I was looking for on the trade. It definitely took a hit with the market originally when I bought it traded down to 180. So I had to have a little bit of tenacity with this trade. But I do believe for all the things that I mentioned and this administration piece through strength, there's going to be a lot more contracts that are funneling through Boeing.
- [23:27]
D
Agree with Steve. I think the defense things are better there. Things are clearly better in the commercial part of their business and we're just starting to see cash flow. They're just talking about 2026 becoming cash flow positive. So I think that there is still, I agree, a lot of upside here. I'm not inclined to sell it all. If I owned none, I would probably buy some right here.
- [23:47]
A
You know we talked about it last week how Met Aerospace like 86% gain this year. They supply parts to Boeing and others. So if you're, you look at that stock and you think well if that stock's doing so well, it's the orders are coming from somewhere. A little bit of Airbus nibble with Boeing guy.
- [24:06]
E
They don't get full value for the defense business. We've been saying this for a while to 35. If our crack staff and he can pull up a longer term chart. You will see we have failed there on three different occasions this next time it will not fail there. And I think we're going through, I think at some point early next year this is a $250 stock. So I think you stay long.
- [24:25]
A
BA all right, we got 250, 250 and more on Boeing. All right, there is a lot more fast money to come. Here's what's coming up next.
- [24:34]
B
Excellent. Exxon, the oil major hitting a fresh 52 week high. But can the high energy trade continue.
- [24:40]
A
In the new year?
- [24:42]
B
Plus Meta's latest moves, the company upping.
- [24:45]
A
Its AI game with a deal for.
- [24:46]
B
A Singapore based startup. What it means for the tech giant in the AI race. You're watching Fast Money live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. We're back right after this.
- [24:57]
A
And now a next level moment from ATT Business. Say you've sent out a gigantic shipment of pillows and they need to be.
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There in time for International Sleep day.
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What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before?
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C
I have no fear of failure.
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A
Trailblazing women Changing the game One of.
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C
My favorite pieces of advice Think about what your boss's boss needs. Leadership can look in many, many different forms.
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It really does come down to just trusting yourself. Life is short and you just got to think big to accomplish big things. Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players New episodes every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts all right, let's talk about energy. Why not ExxonMobil, the oil and gas major hitting a 52 week high again. It is up 12% this year so it's not breaking any records, but not a bad move. Guy Adami Considering the price of oil is on pace for its worst year, ExxonMobil stock showing it can go up even if the price of its underlying one of its underlying commodities stays flat or go down. Are you surprised?
- [26:24]
E
That's no, I'm not surprised. I'm surprised it's traded as poorly as it has the majority of this year. But to your point, it just made a 52 week high. But if you pull up a longer term chart you will see for the last three, three and a half years we've basically been somewhere between 112 and 120. What I think is happening for the Louis Yamada fans out there, we're building a base and as shoes want to say the longer the base the higher and outer space, which is where I think we're headed now. The company has run better, their balance sheets are better, they've been forced to operate better for a number of different reasons. And I think energy is going to surprise people. Karen was on this this year, But I think 26 is a year where these stocks make a lot of sense. Not about valuation. To me it's about balance sheet, it's about productivity is about all the things they put in place for this move and break even higher. Break even, break even.
- [27:12]
A
Right. The break even is going down. So the break even is going down. ExxonMobil, you know, you know this space pretty well. ExxonMobil, I think the break evens around $40. Chevron, it's between 35 and 40. The other producers, the EMP companies, it's higher, which, that gives them a problem. You want to avoid those. Buy the large integrated names. Buy the refiners. Those are the names you stick with, with the efficiencies in the energy space.
- [27:36]
D
So I'd like to. Oh, for a while, you know, this year up a little. Up six or so. Disappointing. I think for all the reason, the.
- [27:45]
A
Mix and that that.
- [27:46]
D
Well, it's heavy. It's a very concentrated SLB and Halliburton and. But Baker. But I still, I do still think that even if you have headwinds like let's say there is hopefully a. The end of the Ukraine war, that would be a headwind for oil. I still think that we can rally.
- [28:07]
A
You know who has rallied this year? The refiners. Virginia Tech are Par Pacific, DK Delic. You look at a Valero Vlo. More spreads because their input cost, their input costs are coming down and their output is staying static. Par Pacific is double par. Look at that. Those are the ones you want to stick. There's team back at England, crack spreads. Crack team.
- [28:31]
D
Crack team.
- [28:32]
E
You question it, but they do a tremendous job questioning it. Sandy Canold, the senior executive producer who will shortly be in your ear because you haven't mentioned the folks listening on radio won't be able to see that Par Petroleum chart.
- [28:45]
A
Well, Par Petroleum, if you imagine a chart, if you're listening on the radio. Thank you. I'll shake your hand later. Coming up, Meta's latest move, the Singapore startup that they are scooping up, why Metta is making a $2 billion deal. All right, welcome back. Stocks posting a third straight day of losses. There is just one trading session left in 20. There's also just one day left. Not just trading session guide. I mean just one day. Tomorrow is December 31st. I will be left with. Will you be here? Will you be here? No, I'll be. I'm going to be here. I'll be here. It's going to be great.
- [29:22]
E
Dan's going to be here.
- [29:23]
A
Dan's going to be here. Oh, my God, we got a party.
- [29:25]
E
All right, who won't be here tomorrow? Who's here tonight?
- [29:27]
A
Karen Feinerman.
- [29:28]
D
I'll be.
- [29:28]
E
She'll be remote.
- [29:29]
A
Be remote.
- [29:30]
E
Our next guest won't be.
- [29:32]
D
Let's get to it.
- [29:33]
A
So let's, let's, let's bring in Laura Rippey of Alumni Ventures, the Number one ranked female early stage investor in the United States. Also big investor in Grok GR oq which has had a not, I guess a non deal deal with Nvidia, but exactly.
- [29:50]
C
And so welcome by the way. Why thank you for being here. I appreciate it.
- [29:53]
A
You got Blue sky, you've got a number of other companies in your rig computing, quantum computer.
- [29:59]
D
Oura.
- [30:00]
A
Oura ring.
- [30:01]
C
Yep. Oura ring.
- [30:02]
A
Thank you.
- [30:03]
C
Whole bunch of nuclear companies. I know you like energy.
- [30:05]
A
I wanna get to nuclear because that's my jam. Let's talk about it in just. There's some of your companies. Congratulations by the way on some of these accolades. What are you seeing that others are missing?
- [30:16]
C
Yeah, so we see a lot in the early stage. Right. So about two thirds of our work is seed and series A, so we start early. So to give you an example, with Blue sky, we were in starting at the series A with Aura Series A. Now it's multibillion dollar company Impulse space Series A, that's kind of the next SpaceX. We can talk about IPOs if you want. So I think for us we come in early and we follow our alumni connections when we can and we bring that to individual accredited investors.
- [30:47]
A
Alumni connections.
- [30:48]
C
That's really what makes it different.
- [30:50]
A
The veterans of the companies that you have founded or worked with or worked out or whatever it might be the top of the show, we had a pretty serious conversation about what would happen if open I were to stumble. What would happen to the entire AI data center ecosystem? If. Huge if. Yeah, that were to happen.
- [31:12]
C
Yeah, huge if. So they're not alone, right? I mean there are a lot of folks who are biting and scratching and crawling their way to compete against OpenAI. So I think if they stumble, there will be Aqua Hires, there will be other competitors and we've got a few public companies like Google that is hungry for that market. So I have no fear that there will be a problem. It would be a function of bit of a scrum, fight it all out. But the Grok deal is part of the tease here where Aqui hires are going to be a bigger part. Bigger, you know, increasing part of what happens in this market too.
- [31:53]
E
Great to have you here. Maiden voyage for you. But you'll be back, no doubt in 26. What are the emerging markets that the market's not paying enough attention to that you are.
- [32:02]
C
Yeah. So in venture we look ahead of the curve, we look sort of around the corners. So defense innovation is enormous. You think of the public market bets on defense other than Palantir, you're really talking about the primes, but all of the innovation that's happening, that is happening in the early stage and it's accessible for individual accredited investors who want to go into venture. But if folks aren't playing there, they won't see the impact of those companies for years. I'd say a second pocket is in space. So I mentioned Impulse Space. This is a company that's probably the next Space X. It's now only a few billion dollars in valuation, but man, that has grown like a rocket ship. On the private side.
- [32:42]
A
No pun.
- [32:43]
D
Yeah, pun.
- [32:44]
A
Pun was fully intended for man.
- [32:47]
C
You guys are.
- [32:47]
B
Well, let me ask you this. On the defense stuff. And again, like you say, you know, it's been really hot. Andrew is probably the poster child for that.
- [32:54]
A
Right.
- [32:55]
C
And the private side.
- [32:55]
B
In the private side, when you think about the reliance of some of these hardware manufacturers.
- [33:00]
E
Right.
- [33:00]
B
Whether it comes to drones. On China.
- [33:02]
C
Yeah.
- [33:03]
B
For the parts. Authentic. All this stuff that goes into. They're all in China. They make like 85% of them. Does that worry? I know you're very early seed and.
- [33:11]
C
Egg, but that's so strategic for the U.S. do you know China, Ukraine, Russia all produce 2 million drones a year? Do you know how much we produce? Want to take any guesses?
- [33:22]
A
Less. God, I'm so glad I'm sitting next to you.
- [33:25]
C
How many?
- [33:26]
A
That's some mapping right there. That's. Elliot is going to be around the hole.
- [33:30]
C
Around the hole.
- [33:31]
B
Anybody getting hundreds of thousands.
- [33:32]
C
It's like 25,000. Yeah, 25,000. 525,000.
- [33:37]
D
25,000 to Ukraine.
- [33:39]
C
Yeah. So we are behind the curve. So think about the innovation that's happening. One of our companies is Firestorm. They do basically manufacturing at the edge so they can make those drones at the edge of the fighting conflict. And those are the kinds of things where we bring the brilliance of American innovation and we bring it to bear with tech in the defense industry.
- [34:03]
D
So I want to ask you about the evolution of VC investing. Used to be you do, I don't know, CD round, maybe then try to file go public. That seems very different. Now you have a lot of companies do it. Like Armistice, the Lifecycle just did an L round that got taken out. There was never a stop in the IPO. Sort of.
- [34:20]
C
You're totally right. Yeah. In 2000, it took maybe five to eight years to go public. Now it takes more on the order of 12 to 14. We have a backlog. There's $3.9 trillion of value in unicorns right now. 830 unicorns. And half of those have been around for nine plus years. Those are companies that are ripe to go public. They need to as soon as they go to. Why don't markets.
- [34:42]
A
Why don't they. Okay, that I don't know.
- [34:43]
C
I mean you guys are the public market people. It sounds like it's kind of hard to be a public market company, but they really should. And since they aren't, the people who are investing on the private side are making all the money. So you asked about Grok, right? So we got into Grok at Alumni Ventures in the series c at an $800 million valuation. The exit is at 20 billion. And that happened in four years. And all of that appreciation of value happened on the private side for the venture investors. We have 2,000 people that invested through Alumni Ventures in Grok. Those 2,000 people rode that rocket ship up.
- [35:21]
A
I hope to someday be on their yachts in Boston in any one of those 2,000 people. Quickly on nuclear. Listen, I love, I love the, I love the energy around nuclear. Pun intended. You got fission, you got fusion, small module reactors, you got a bunch of these companies. Not everybody is going to win. I hope they do. I don't think they will. Where are you betting?
- [35:43]
C
Energy is a $38 trillion opportunity. There'll be many.
- [35:46]
A
Where are you betting?
- [35:47]
C
Yeah. So allo? Atomics was on the COVID of Forbes a couple of weeks ago. They make small modular reactors for AI data centers. Purpose built for AI data center.
- [35:59]
A
But they're not, they're not working yet.
- [36:01]
C
Oh, they're coming up at first sort of tests coming off the assembly line already. They're going to Idaho right now to test that they are very close to production. So that's small modular reactors. The nice thing about it is you add a few together. So each one 10 megawatts. You put five together, you got 50 megawatts. They're modular, they can be rapidly manufactured. Another one is radiant. They make even smaller modular reactors. These fit inside a shipping container. So you can take those everywhere. We've got fusion coming up. We've got a couple of fusion bets. We've got even a company that's retrofitting existing fission reactors. So I mean Alumni ventures, we have 11 different investments in different facets of the nuclear economy. And we are deep in the potential there. And it's only going to be be increasing as climate pressures happen.
- [36:53]
A
Well, listen, I like it. It's not my show. I'm just a fill in. But I think Guy Adami and the crew would welcome you back any Time. Is that correct?
- [37:00]
E
What did I say before?
- [37:01]
A
I don't know. Listening will be Alumni Ventures. Really. Happy New Year.
- [37:07]
C
Yes.
- [37:08]
A
Good luck with the nuclear stuff. Let us know how it's going.
- [37:10]
C
Go or a go, right?
- [37:11]
A
There you go.
- [37:12]
C
Where's our ring?
- [37:12]
A
I got the rich. There we go.
- [37:15]
E
All right.
- [37:16]
A
Coming up, my new robot friend, maybe my only friend at this point. We're going to show you some video. If you missed it today on Power Lunch, you're going to want to see this. Stick around. All right. Earlier today, look at that. We made a new friend. That is the Unitree G1. It's a viral humanoid robot. That one actually had a name, right? Koid. It's being tested by OpenAI, Nvidia and Amazon. And we sat down with Teddy Haggerty, the CEO of Robo Store, the largest global sellers of that robot. We actually talked to the robot as well, but with Teddy the human, we talked about the future of humanoid robots in society. And they're coming, guys. Also, autonomous vehicles are coming as well. And when you look at Tesla, Dan Elon Musk has said those, not those robots. Robots like that are 80% of the value of his company. Are the robots coming? Because that's. That was cool today, I have to say.
- [38:14]
B
A lot of them are already in use. There's a company called Agility. They make them. I met the CFO a few months ago, and when you talk about humanoid robots, they don't need to have heads, Sully, you know what I mean? They all need to do is like.
- [38:24]
A
Kind of a humanoid robot would need to have a head.
- [38:27]
B
They actually don't. I mean, they can just be, you know, a body doing the sort of things that are hard for humans to do. So the point is they're here. And that's one of the things about if you're buying Tesla here, you've got to believe in optics. Optimist. This is a big part of the story going forward. Investors in a day like today, they put that press release out about, you know, deliveries and they don't care. I mean, the auto story is done. It's about Robotaxi and it's about Optimus.
- [38:50]
A
Can't come soon enough. Huge, huge robotics fan. I mean, this is going to be. It is a price to be paid by the employment world. Right? So we have to see where the efficiencies are going to be. Who are they going to replace? But I guess the benchmark is can a robot fold laundry? And I'm not being facetious about this.
- [39:09]
D
No, I think they have.
- [39:10]
A
You have to have these so it can. So this is Coyde. It's walking. There's our newsroom. This is today. Now it is operated by a human being via remote control. But I have a limp. It's not limping. It just. I mean an odd gate.
- [39:23]
D
It's an odd gate.
- [39:24]
E
Then he was in the cyber war.
- [39:26]
A
It's a robot.
- [39:28]
B
Well, the point is it's a robot. Sully. Just take the over when they're going to be useful. If humans are actually operating these things and it's like a Christmas. You got this thing under the tree last week. Okay. And I'm sure it's amazing. Like until it can be autonomous and do the sorts of things that it's meant to do.
- [39:42]
A
What would make you happy about a robot? Nothing personal. Nothing.
- [39:46]
B
I mean, like what. I'm pretty useful every.
- [39:49]
A
I want everyone. He says you. I want everybody tonight to go home and watch the movie Ex Machina. Have you ever seen it?
- [39:56]
B
Yeah, they kill everybody. Don't worry.
- [39:59]
A
But I mean like all the robots kill everybody in the future.
- [40:02]
B
Sully. Okay, spoiler alert.
- [40:05]
A
Happy New year everybody. Coming up, it is not just casual versus fine dining in the restaurant space. We're going to show you some of the winners and the losers when it comes to eating out. And also maybe what robots can do for Dan at a restaurant or to Dan. We're back right after this. It's almost 6 o' clock here on the east coast. How do we not talk about food? Investor appetite for restaurant stocks, it has been been mixed this year. You got consumers increasingly hunting for value. Some fast casual names of really sweet green that's down 79%. Kava once hot IPO down 48%. Chipotle down 38%. You know what's up? Yum brands. McDonald's up a little bit and you got eat as well. Some casual dining stocks have held up relatively well. So let's get more in the setup heading into the new year and talk to Kate Rogers. Kate about sort of trying to figure out who's. Who's. Who's winning here. It's kind of mixed.
- [41:04]
C
Totally mixed. Brian, good to see you. So btig sums it up as a humbling year for the restaurant sector and that's really putting it mildly for some of these nasams you mentioned. Fast casual, quick service restaurants really took the brunt of losses this year. Kava, Shake Shack, Chipotle, Bloomin brands all seeing major pullbacks down double digits year to date. Sweetgreen actually the biggest laggard down around 80% as younger consumers kind of tighten their spending in this uneven economy. Meanwhile, the winners for the year, fast food names including McDonald's, Yum Brands, Restaurant Brands International and Brinker, Chili's parent company, along with the pizza names Domino's and Papa John's. Faring better. The standout performer though, Dutch Bros. Up 18% year to date. This of course, as Starbucks continues to try to stage a comeback. I spoke with TDs Andrew Charles who said some key themes going into 2026 will be here. Number one, value offers continuing in fast food. Look no further than McDonald's for an example here. Adding value assessments into its franchisee standards recently. Fast casual will also aim to win consumers back. We're seeing this already with Chipotle and its new protein and GLP1 friendly menu ahead of the new year. Charles also predicts more specialty menu offerings to come. And then finally guys loyalty programs in focus as they provide a lot of data and the ability to really target consumers with offers in this hyper competitive landscape. Back over to you.
- [42:26]
A
All right, Kate Rogers. Kate, thank you very much. Steve Grasso, any hot take on these restaurants? Yeah, I mean if you, if you're a value menu, we see them moving away from sweet Greens where you have to pay 18 bucks or 20 bucks for a salad or something that you could probably make at home. But if you look at a Chili's, a Brinkers parent company, those are the ones that offer value menus and you have to stick with those. McDonald's didn't do as well. But I do like Darden. I do like Breakers. I like things where you can get a value meal because with inflation, people are looking to save money than going out on a line where you have to spend $20 for a salad. I'll ask a bigger question. Is there any money to be made in restaurants at all? Like, is there a reason to own.
- [43:07]
E
Restaurant stocks, stocks, stocks, vehicles? Absolutely. McDonald's been a great stock stock. I mean it's been lower left, upper right. It sets some pullbacks along the way. But you know, I think you can still own McDonald's. I will tell you, Shake Shack, we get approaching the April low. The stock has been cut in half since July, I think between 73 and 75, which is probably where it's going. I think that gets interesting in earnings. So these are trading vehicles and Shake Shack is the one that I'm going to be looking at over the next couple of weeks for sure.
- [43:33]
A
Shakes another one, these like Kava, one of these formerly red hot names that has really disappointed and probably disappointed a lot of investors as well. It is tough. Last final comment on restaurants, anybody.
- [43:47]
D
What we think of whatever the next version of yuppie is. That's where all the pain has been. Sweet cream kava, all the Shake Shack.
- [43:55]
A
What's next? What's the next.
- [43:57]
D
Is it a millennial? Sort of.
- [43:59]
A
Is that a diner?
- [44:01]
B
The kids are making buy Tupperware. The kids are making all this stuff at home.
- [44:04]
A
Yeah.
- [44:04]
F
That's fair.
- [44:05]
D
Yeah.
- [44:05]
A
There you go. I think it was Newell Brands.
- [44:09]
D
Yes.
- [44:11]
A
They don't eat. They're thin me. Thanks. No up next. You're fine. What do you mean? No up next. You're fine. This is not radio. Your final trades, final trade time. Steve Grasso. You were here last night. You know who was here last night? Yeah, Dan Ives. We talked about Serve Robotics. That was my final trade. I'm gonna do a double server robotics. Karen, back to back.
- [44:33]
E
Okay.
- [44:33]
D
No, I'm thinking back to like, I don't know, B block, C block. We talked about Boeing. Even though it's up, had a nice year. I still really like it. Boeing.
- [44:41]
B
You know, Karen, this one very smart one.
- [44:44]
A
Very smart.
- [44:45]
B
She talked about the Chinese Internet stock today. She's Wong the Baba. It's in the carved hayweb.
- [44:50]
E
Is a good place.
- [44:52]
A
Hayweb. Kaidami.
- [44:54]
E
Doing anywhere fun for dinner tonight?
- [44:59]
B
He food prepped it. Got a little Tupperware Halliburton that's not.
- [45:03]
E
In her oih, but it is part of the oih.
- [45:05]
A
I love it. The double oil Kaidami. Well oiled. Thanks for watching Fast Money, everybody. 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 that 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 the holidays mean.
- [45:44]
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