← CNBC's "Fast Money"
CNBC's "Fast Money"
Countdown To November Jobs Report… And Bitcoin Breaks Above $100,000 12/5/24
00:43:53
All eyes on tomorrow’s November jobs report, as stocks take a breather from their recent rally. The pockets of strength in today’s trading, and what tomorrow’s employment data could mean for the markets next move. Plus Bitcion finally breaking through the elusive $100,000 level. What the milestone means for the crypto space, and where retail investors are putting their money to work. Fast Money Disclaimer
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Melissa Lee
This episode is brought to you by Merrill. With a dedicated Merrill advisor. You get a personalized plan for your financial goals and when plans change, Merrill's with you every step of the way. Go to ML.combullish to learn more. Merrill, a Bank of America company. What would you like the power to do? Investing Involves risk Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Inc. Registered Broker Dealer Registered Investment Advisor Member SIPC At Capella University, learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the course room to the workplace. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella. Edu live in the NASDAQ market site in the heart of New York City's Times Square. This is fast money. Here's what's on tap tonight. Bitcoin boom, the cryptocurrency crossing the milestone mark of 100k before pulling back banks, travel names and a couple of the Mag 7 surging to new highs. Can this record run continue? We'll debate that. Plus self driving heads south. Alphabet's Waymo is taking its talents to South Beach. They'll go inside the rideshare rumble shaking up the space. And later, a double dose of obesity week. Guests tonight, Eli Lilly's chief scientific officer breaks down the company's latest trial results and the CEO of Structure Therapeutics on its oral option in the space. Both are here with us this hour. I'm Melissa Lee. Come to you live from Studio B at the nasdaq. On the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Carter Worth, Guy Adami and and Mike Co. We start off with some pockets of strength on an otherwise tepid market day. Bank stocks outperforming with Citigroup posting its highest close in more than three years. Airline stocks also taking off after American gave a strong outlook for the fourth quarter. That stock hitting its highest level since July of last year. There was strength elsewhere in the travel trade to hotel chains Marriott, Hilton as well as Expedia and Booking holdings all at record highs. The moves coming as investors turn their focus. Tomorrow's jobs report expectations that hiring picked up substantially after a week October. Will the data get the broad markets moving once again? Moving higher, I should say. Guy, what do you think? Well, it's interesting, right? This jobs number. What are we rooting for? We have this conversation seemingly every month, but what are you rooting for? Does it matter or does it matter? I think that's the third. That's door number three, Monty. And maybe I'll take door number three. I'M not sure it does at this point. I mean, the market seems pretty convinced, you know, we're going to be on this lower left, upper right trajectory. Today was an interesting day. Technically, the Carter can opine on. It's not a big deal, but, you know, one day design a trend make. But the reversals today were interesting. But you mentioned Citi, and that's one that's been a dog for so long. But I think collectively a name we've tried to wrap our arms around and it's finally showing signs of life and trading where it probably should go to, you know, if you want to be in the banks. Although most of them had huge runs, Citi, to me is still undervalued despite the move it's seen over the last couple of months. Bank of America, also a nice day today, guy. What's the over under you think? And what's the number that Mel actually knows the phrase who. Who she can reference taking their talents to South Beach? Wow. I have no idea. Yes. You know, I do not have any idea. Okay. LeBron James. Oh, come on. That's everybody here. Okay. I mean, she's good like that. She knows everything. She knows everything. So in terms of knowing everything, if you knew coming into even the last, you know, three months that airlines were going to have the kind of, you know, period that they've had, it's a combination of the numbers are just better. They're becoming more efficient, they're becoming more profitable. And then you even have an upgrade of Delta's debt today to, you know, to triple B minus, which is low. Triple B. Excuse me, but this is an important upgrade. Again, you think about airlines that have never had the balance sheets to take it higher. So I just say symbolically, and then over to Citibank, again, the worst of the money center bank, so to speak, in terms of their efficiencies. But this has been the year of efficiency for Citi, Citibank. So banks will continue to outperform. I think what you're seeing more more broadly in the market is an acknowledgment these companies and that earnings are going to be better in 2025. I think good news is good news tomorrow on the payrolls. And I think you're going to snap back after a couple of strikes, a couple of hurricanes, and these numbers are going to be real. I mean, the question for banks, of course, are we getting a redo of what happened in the election 2016? And we know that financials, and banks in particular surged post election, and yet they peaked one month later, mid December of 2016. And they, to this day have never achieved a new relative high. I think we're setting up for the same kind of thing so that a lot of money has been pumped into this area, but it's not going to Deliver Alpha in 2025. As a consumer, of course, it's a very mixed bag. You've got homebuilders acting poorly, autos acting poorly, but then airlines and hotels and travel stocks and so you got to pick your. Pick your spots. Yeah. Where are your spots, Mike? And do you think tomorrow's number really matters to a market that wants to go higher? Clearly? Well, I mean, I think that tomorrow's numbers obviously, you know, I don't know that it's. It's early yet after the election. You know, what we have seen is that cyclicals are doing very well. I think the general attitude is that, you know, the election results are good for cyclicals. And I think we obviously have to wait a little bit to see whether the, you know, the employment picture and the hiring sort of keeps up with that. But I think it's still going to be positive for that. The hesitation I have with the banks, I have to say, is that if things really pick up and we start to see the long end of the rate curve rise, obviously we usually think about a steeper yield curve as being good for banks. You know, borrow short, lend long. Of course, the issue is for some of them, like bank of America, that still have a lot of duration on their book, that could be a little bit problematic. But it's going to be good for CNI lending, I would assume. If it's good for cyclicals, is it a little bit different, dare I say, this time, if the economy is really going to heat up, if there's really a pipeline when it comes to M and A, whenever there's really a pipeline for IPOs, when the consumer is in still relatively good shape because the employment picture is decent, so things are largely okay even if rates are rising. That's a Bank of America specific issue. But in general, regulatory environment is, I think, essential for this whole. It's part of the bank story, without question. And I think in addition to that, the potential for M and A in this new administration is going to be significant as well, which is why I believe the KRE is having the move that it's had and might have some more legs to it. But the economy is an interesting thing. I mean, we talk about the consumer. The consumer is 70% of this economy and they will spend under just about any circumstances. But if you start really breaking down and looking delinquency rates and credit card debt and the average rate that people are paying out of credit card debt, it tells a story that I don't think the market is paying attention to. I mean the question is rates, right? It just turns out, I mean rates were where they right now, where they were in Q4 of 2022 were 4.17%. Not once. And it's important to state this, not once did the 10 year yield close on a weekly basis above 5%. Not once. So the higher for longer was never. It was, it sounded nice. It's melodious in the air. It's like, but, but, but, but it was never true and it's not true. Where the cost of 10 year money is 4.17% here at the end of 2024, how is that higher? Yeah, Carter, you've been saying this for a long time, so I applaud being right on that. And it certainly has been an environment that's allowed, that has allowed equities to move higher. The one thing that is also that dynamic we are contending within this payroll number is the wages component. And we had ESM yesterday out services which was a little weaker. But more importantly there were wage pressures that were discussed within there. What we've heard over the last couple of days is a series of corporates that have come out, including Chipotle out there yesterday, saying they're raising prices. Some of that is food input, A lot of it is wages. McDonald's tells us about wages. So I think, you know, the problem for equities will come is if the Fed really has to acknowledge that they're not comfortably getting into their 2% target. I think right now the jury is out on that. I think the wage component, services inflation is something that we should be worried about as equity investors, as citizens. It's a great, it's great news. The job market is very healthy. And I think ultimately some of those credit metrics that guy also brings up that we should be concerned about right now, I think are still rearview mirror, at least as long as the job market holds up. Yet initial jobless claims outnumbered today. That was kind of weak and you know, it's a noisy data series, but you have to watch this. Right? So obviously rents is being a big input and wages. But, but the grains, I mean the grains are at multi year lows. Right? Oil is not particularly. There's a lot of mixed currents going on here to suggest that there is or there isn't inflation at the same time? I mean, and this is an honest question, Mike, is it consensus that that we do reach 2% eventually or is it consensus that the Fed will have to accept a higher than 2%, maybe a soft acceptance? But still, I think the consensus is that it's going to be very difficult to achieve that because a lot of the secular tailwinds basically for the inflation picture over the course of the last couple of decades, for example, we had a lot of globalization, we had a lot of production moving to China. A lot of those forces have subsequently reversed. And I think that obviously it's great that oil prices remain low. That's not surprising. We're producing every bit of domestic demand at this point. Actually the highest production that the United States has ever seen. We're the largest producer in the world by a long shot. So that's obviously a great tailwind for us in terms of inflation. But on the other side, obviously we have wages and other things. And what we have seen in past inflationary periods is that there's a little bit of a cycle and you get this dip. We have seen that. But there's a lot of patterns I've seen that suggest that we could see an uptick in inflation in probably the next 18 months or so. I think that's fair. You know, in fact, Tim mentioned cmg, by the way, very quietly that stocks approaching levels we saw in June of this year, which was an all time high under the radar. So that burrito blowout is coming back in a major way, but in a good way. It's not always good. I guess there's some question out there. I don't know. You know, I would say the lion's share, it's a good thing. Yes, I agree. Once in a while, stock is by the way, about 20% percent higher than it was at the peak before Mr. Niccol left and walked out the door. So other words, it's not only dealt with that, but it's well above that. Yeah, quickly. I mean, the inflation story is. I don't think it's over. And I think you're hearing more and more people come to the realization, hey, wait a second, maybe that genie is not back in the bottle. And the rate story, Carter has been spot on. 100%. Tim outlined that as well. But I think the rate story is to surprise people early in 25. Well, especially with the tariffs coming. I mean, how many companies have said we will pass that on to the consumer? I mean that is going to, I mean if there are tariffs, the consumer will ultimately pay. That's just the fact of the matter. I mean, I'm a big Barbie fan and Mattel said that also yesterday they went out there and they pretty much, they, they felt the need to go out there and also say we only source 40% of our materials from China. But they said we will price that in. And I think there are a lot of companies that are waiting, so we just don't know. And I think there's a lot of speculation about what tariff policy is going to be. I think they're will be some headlines that will be exciting for the new administration to get behind and there's a reality to what they can do. Let's just wait. But, but the pressure on inflation I think is to the upside right now. It's not to the downside. All right, let's move on to Eli Lilly announcing a $3 billion investment to expand GLP1 manufacturing capacity at its Wisconsin facility today. This coming just a day after the company published results of a head to head trial comparing its weight loss drug Zepbound to Novo Nordisk. Wegovy patients losing 47% more weight on Lilly's drug after 72 weeks. Joining us on the fast line for more is Dan Skavronsky, Eli Lilly's chief scientific officer and president of Lilly Research Labs. Dan, great to have you with us. Good to talk to you again. Yeah, pleasure to be on. Thank you. There's a lot of excitement surrounding this head to head trial, but there is one big question mark and that is the tolerability profile. Will we get those data anytime soon? And can we extrapolate it all from historic trials where, historical trials where we saw the, you know, the nausea and vomiting percentages. Can we extrapolate that maybe Lilly's profile looks better than Novo, seeing that, you know, at 72 weeks versus 68 weeks on Lilly on Novo's drug, that the percentage of patients suffering nausea and vomiting was lower. Yeah, it's a good question. Thank you and thanks for highlighting this trial. We showed the patients on Zepbound lost about 50 pounds compared to the competitor WeGovy. Patients lost 33 pounds. In the press release, we noted that the tolerability of the drug, the adverse effects were similar to what we've seen in previous trials. For each of the two drugs in previous trials, we've seen that Setbound is generally well tolerated. The most common side effects are, as you point out, the nausea and vomiting and diarrhea, which still happens in a fraction of patients. Most of those Patients actually stay on the drug and get the benefit. The study wasn't designed to compare the safety of the two drugs, but of course we'll be presenting that data at a scientific meeting. And we're excited about what we saw, not just in the efficacy, but also excited about the tolerability profile of Zefbound in this trial as it's demonstrated in previous trials. So I mean, this has great implications in terms of the ability to market saying, you know, your drug Zepbound is more effective than the Novo Nordis. But you know, there are a lot of drugs coming down the pipeline and I'm wondering, you know, it's sort of like an arms race, all these. There are all these drug candidates from you, from Novo, from other smaller players where they want to benchmark higher and higher weight loss advantages. How do you look at that in terms of the importance of gaining that sort of benchmark weight loss percentage in terms of the success of a drug? Yeah, thank you. Weight loss is one of the important aspects that patients are looking for for sure. That's why we did this trial. It's actually the most common question we get from people who are interested in these drugs is the two great drugs out there, how do I know which one to try? And now we have data comparing them directly. But also over the last year we've generated a lot of data on Zepbound, but also some of the other benefits of the directive sleep apnea. Most recently we showed a trial where we tested it in people who had pre diabetes, meaning they were at risk to go on to get diabetes. And we reduced the risk of diabetes in those patients by 94%. We're accumulating a lot of data about the benefits of weight loss. But you're absolutely right, we're in a race. Maybe it's a good race for the benefit of society. We in Novo, probably as the main two competitors keep trying to out innovate each other with better, better medicines. Novo had semaglutide and then we came with Zepbound, which is the dual acting molecule we're talking about today. And now they are working on their own dual acting. We're working on a triple acting molecule that actually targets three incretins. Retatrutide. We're working on an oral molecule. Both of those are in phase three. I think we're going to get to a point with molecules like Radatrutide that are in phase three where for most people I hope they'll be able to achieve a normal body weight, even starting with very high levels of obesity on this medicine. And so then it becomes important to think through those other benefits and how can we make sure that we're improving the health of the whole patient in addition to losing weight. And we look forward to more and more of those data coming up. You're also working on an oral, and that seems to be something that a lot of people would like to not inject themselves, either as a primary way to lose weight or as a maintenance program. We're going to be speaking to the CEO of Structure Therapeutics later this hour. They've got an oral candidate. You've got an oral candidate in OR for Glipron, and it's supposedly almost just as effective so far. That's what the data shows for Structure Therapeutics. Dan. And so I'm curious how you think about, you know, the competition coming and when you have these sort of benchmark trials and investors are all taking a look at, you know, the results for weight loss. What's your outlook for Orphaglipron in terms of how it fits into your portfolio of obesity drugs? Yeah, thank you. We're pretty excited about Orphaglipron. This is an oral pill. It's a small molecule, easy to take without food or water restrictions. We hope, and we hope in phase three we'll find out that it can deliver the same benefits as the best injectable GLP1s. We don't know that yet, but this is already at the end of the last stage of development of phase three trials. So we're going to get the data next year and if that's successful, we hope to be able to launch that quite soon. Now, I know there's many companies, and you mentioned one of them that want to follow in our footsteps here. I know we're quite a bit ahead here and several year head start, but of course there'll be competition in this area. It's a huge market opportunity. We estimate by 2030 that there'll be a billion people around the world living with obesity. That's a lot of patients that need to be treated. And I think easy to use orals are probably the way to go here. All right, Dan, great to speak with you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Dr. Daniel Skavronski of Eli Lilly. Not too long ago we were saying, oh, this key level on Lilly, but it's sort of bounced here. Let's take a look at it. Real throw up a chart that made its all time high, traded down to 775 or 770 in August bounce and made a new all time high, traded down and held it again had a subsequent bounce. This recent low took us down to the April low, which we held and now are bouncing. So the theory behind the trade here should be we're set up to take out those prior all time highs and they continue to sort of get the tailwinds of these good news. And you know, when valuation matters, it does. When good news matters, it overrides it. I think that's where we are right now. It seems that the Lilly trade is sometimes, at least in this phase, called the last two months, has been a function of the competitive landscape as opposed to just, you know, early innings really in this GLP trade because we are. And, and so what do you want to pay for a company who is arguably the leader? And there is this whole dynamic with is it CAG or semi? Am I saying. Okay, so Kagar Sema, you know, there's a debate that if this comes out with even greater than 25% weight loss dynamics, it could be, it could be a bear pivot for, for Lilly. I don't think so. I think it's a case where you just have to look at the, the compounded annual growth rate you couldn't be expecting from Lilly, which I think is going to be 25 to 30% over the next three years. And I think you're buying that weakness. I mean, I guess the question is this has been an uninterrupted and very orderly uptrend. Right. And now for the first time in almost three years, there is some question to whether that uptrend's intact. Right. So the characteristics are bearish price, volume correlation and poor relative strength to its sector and to the market. My hunch is that one is right to reduce exposure. Coming up, we are watching Lululemon after our shares on the move after reporting results of details and numbers from their quarter. Next and self driving coming for the Sunshine State. Alphabet's Waymo looking to hit the roads in Miami. More on their expansion plans and the rideshare stocks taking a hit on the news. Don't go anywhere. Fast money's back in two. Waiting for dinner. Spice things up with Golden Nugget online casino. With hundreds of the hottest games, Golden Nugget lets you live it up in your downtime on classics like Cleopatra or exclusive games only found on Golden Nugget online casino. Forget about waiting. Golden Nugget keeps the action rolling while your dinner simmers. New players can get $50 instantly in casino credits. All you have to do is sign up with code Fast money and deposit just $5 to get 50 in casino credits. Make any moment golden gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or in West Virginia visit www.1-800gambler.net Please play responsibly. 21 plus physically present in Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Only void in Ontario. 1 per new customer minimum $5 deposit max 50 do in non withdrawable casino credits that expire in 168 hours. See terms@goldennuggetcasino.com welcome at Capella University, Learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the courseroom to the workplace. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all with Indeed. Don't search Match Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed Data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. If you need to hire, you need Indeed. You can even use Indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging to connect with candidates faster. 93% of employers agree that Indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites, according to a recent Indeed survey. And since Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, the more you use Indeed, the better it gets. Join over 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire Great Talent Fast plus listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@indoubtedly.comsxm just go to indeed.comsxm right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire you need Indeed. Welcome back to Fast Money. We've an earnings alert on Lululemon shares higher by about 10% after the company beat on the top and the bottom lines. The conference call wrapping up. Courtney Reagan joins us now for all the details. Courtney yeah, a lot of positive surprises in this one 18 cent beat on the bottom line, slight revenue and comparable sales beat. But I think the pattern is what's important because comparable sales did reaccelerate from last quarter. So at 4% total Americas are still down but slightly better than last quarter and international comparable sales also much stronger than what we saw last quarter. Now the holiday quarter outlook it brackets estimates. And then on the call just now, CFO Meghan Frank describes the forecast as prudent and she called out the shorter shopping season and uncertain macro conditions for part of that now Lululemon also we should note increasing stock repurchase program by $1 billion. On the call, CEO Calvin McDonald did say he was pleased with the business and traffic in store and online over this extended Thanksgiving weekend. With Black Friday actually setting records for most visits ever to Lululemon's app and website. Now remember, Lululemon doesn't run these blanket promotional events. They're not storewide, they're not site wide. McDonald's that actually they use that elevated traffic to clear through product that it's not going to take forward but also to feature full price style. So I think the street like to hear that that's such strong traffic without those big sales events. Now shares are higher, but they've got a lot of ground to make up. I mean year to date we're down about 33% for Lululemon XRT in that same period, up 14%. The XLY up 28% over that same period of time. There's some short interest, but not that high. But I think the Street's probably pleased. A lot of questions on the call trying to dig at whether or not the executives think that the Americas situation has bottomed. Not quite going there, but analysts are trying to figure it out. Exactly. I think maybe that's about as far as they'll go. They said that it's, it's to their plan. To their plan. It's a 6% short interest shares outstanding. So it's not yet. To your point, it's not that much. In terms of the surge after hours China mainland was really surprising. Is it a tiny base? It's up 27%. Yeah, I thought that that was really interesting. So obviously stronger than when you're looking, looking at the bigger results there. I mean look, I think there's a lot of questions too about competitors. Aloe Vera now they're private, so we don't exactly know market share gains there. But I think whether that is taking share internationally here, the United States, a lot of questions, but I think so far a positive surprise. I have to say just anecdotally I was at the Garden State Plaza mall for Black Friday and I was there before doors open. The longest line actually was at Lululemon and that's without, you know, these big storewide sales. So I thought that was interesting. Yeah, I think for the story here you have to wonder whether one, you're worried about the US Comp staying negative or whether you're really more concerned about where the margin profile for the company is going to be because you Know going into this tailspin the company was at peak margin. The move which has now been almost 70. I'm sure Carter's got to be on the chart because it, it has been a heroic run off those, off those lows. I just think that the dynamic around the competitive landscape is one that's going to continue to be something to worry about. Valuation could actually have some upside. It really depends what the multiple you want to put on it. Yeah. So we will. It's indicated to open up at 380. Tomorrow it's trading at 344. Interesting Wall street and there's about 40 analysts that cover it have a 12 month price target of 323. So a group of individuals, not just Water2 but a broad group 40 believe it's worth three hundred and twenty three in the next 12 months. But it's trading at 344 and tomorrow be at 380. So what will happen is they will all change their price targets. That's the way it goes. And the question is, do you fade this pop or do you embrace it? I think you fade it. Mike, is Lulu still in the Holly indicator? Did it come off the Holly indicator when it was the stock was down. Did it come back on as us looks to be stabilizing? And can we, can you explain the Holley indicator? Yeah. So the Holley indicator is sort of a Peter lynch approach to investing. You take a look at your credit card bills and you see where your family is spending your money. Lululemon, Tesla, Apple, Costco, these have always ranked fairly highly. Fiore did start to rank more highly. But on the CNBC website I actually put out an article on October 24th saying to get long the name simply because I think it did get extremely cheap relative to the S and P and relative to the consumer discretionary index and actually relative to other athletic apparel companies like Nike, this thing was trading around 21 times and still growing. If you took a look at observed sales, this is intra quarter data that you get from all data sources, foot traffic and so on. Towards the last couple of weeks it actually had started trending a little bit higher. Right now it's trading 24 times trailing 22 times. Focused with, you know, consumer discretionary trading at 29 times and the S&P at 25 or 6. I mean I don't think it's expensive even, you know, net of this 10% pop. Courtney breaks it down better than anybody. And I'll say this, you know, the Street's going to look at inventories which are only up about 8 1/2% against comparable sales year over year of about 8.7%. Say they figured that out margins were better. Which signet? Signif signifies that maybe they're over the obstacles that they presented with themselves. But the competition is still there, to Tim's point. So despite the fact that valuation is compelling, I'm with Carter on this one. Think you faded, Courtney. Thanks, Courtney Reagan thank you guys. Court There's a lot more fast Monday to come. Here's what's coming up next. South beach self driving Alphabet's Waymo taking to the Miami streets, but not everyone's revved up on the robo taxi plans. The stock's hitting a roadblock today on the news. Plus, Bitcoin hits 100 grand what's fueling the crypto rally and how investors are moving their money to take advantage of the trade? You're watching Fast Money live from the NASDAQ Market site in Times Square. We're back right after this. Is it time to reimagine your future? The right business skills may make a difference in your career. At Capella University, we offer a relevant education that's designed to focus on what you need to know in the business world. We'll teach professional skills to help you pursue your goals like business management, strategic planning and effective communication. And you can apply these skills right away. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more@capella.edu when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all with Indeed. Don't search Match. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed Data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. If you need to hire, you need Indeed. You can even use Indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging to connect with candidates faster. 93% of employers agree that Indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites, according to a recent Indeed survey. And since Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, the more you use Indeed the better it gets. Join over 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire Great Talent Fast plus listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@indoubtedly.comsxm just go to indeed.comsxm right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire you need Indeed. Welcome back to Fast Money Waymo Announcing plans to expand to Miami today, the Alphabet Owned service will begin cruising through the Sunshine State in 2025 with human, quote, unquote, safety drivers. It plans to launch its robo taxi service in the area the following year. Rival rideshare is Uber and Lyft both plunging about 10% on the news. And this seems to happen again and again. I think the question is, will Uber and Lyft ultimately benefit by being the platforms to manage these sorts of fleets? Because Waymo doesn't have that platform to interface with consumers. That's the sense. And we've had, and we had Mark Mahaney come on and talk a little bit about those dynamics, at least as it relates to lubricant, to Uber, and as it relates to Lyft. You know, the jury's still out on a lot of dynamics with Lyft. I mean, first of all, there's an operational challenge that has been chasing Uber for two years coming out of COVID So part of the move that we've seen in Lyft, and it's been a volatile ride, but it's. It has been generally up and it has been up, and it is up 20% year to date with a lot of move in and out. The Waymo dynamic is something I don't know that we do know. I think you should be focused here on Lyft normalizing their business. The fact that the drivers and the fleet dynamics are back, the margins are improving, they are taking back some market share, and that means, I think it stays higher. Lift being, of course, the L into bliss. We have that. I feel like we should. It's like full disclosure. I mean, we have the whole. Look at that. Look at that. Yeah, look how happy you are. I was really happy at the start of the year for some reason. The optimism of your acronym, the possibility of it, can't wait. We're going to do acronyms again, by the way. I can't wait for that in January. Viewers can either. Carter can opine on this. If you look at Uber, the chart, it traded up to about 82 or so in February, sold off, traded back up there recently, is selling off now feels as if it wants to visit that $58 level, which is probably the low that we saw a month and a half or two months ago. But then I think you got to take another run at it on the long side. So wait for the pullback to, I think, 58 and Uber, I think that's about right. So it has its low on August 5, same low as the S and P. It recovers, makes a new high, and now of course, it's all the opposite. The price correlation is bearish, the relative performance is poor, and the smoothie magnet has started to turn over. I would be careful. Coming up. Bitcoin finally breaking through the $100,000 level and investors are pouring in. But if all this money is flowing into crypto, where is it flowing out of how retail traders are allocating their funds when FAST Money returns? Welcome back to FAST money. Stocks closing in the red ahead of tomorrow's jobs report. The S and P and NASDAQ both touching fresh all time highs in today's sess. But finishing the day down about 2. 10 of a percent. The Dow dropping nearly 250 points. Shares of UNH. The biggest drag on the Dow, the stock closing at its lows of the day. Police still searching for the person who fatally shot its insurance CEO Brian Thompson early yesterday morning. And some more after hours action. Shares of HP DocuSign Ulta all in the move after reporting earnings and revenues that beat expectations. And bitcoin finally breaking through the $100,000 level level, but falling below the milestone late in the day. This early strength coming after President elect Trump said he'd nominate crypto advocate Paul Atkins to head the sec. How does this chart look, Carter? Well, so bitcoin has achieved what is known as a measured move. Right. So it was stuck for almost a year and then on schedule broke out. And while these things are not infallible or perfect, you typically as a, as a measuring device, you take the width of the range in which a security was mired before it broke out, project that same amount and bitcoin touched it to the penny. I think you take profits here. All right. Well, our next guest says that retail trader demand for bitcoin and other cryptos is picking up this quarter. Let's bring in Charles Schwab's Joe Mazzola. He's the firm's head of trading and derivative strategy. Joe, great to have you with us. We've been hearing the stories about all the money flowing into bitcoin. And I think the question is for the market, you know, from a market standpoint is where do you think that flow is coming from? Is it, you know, out of tech into Bitcoin as it once was thought. Well, here's what's interesting, Melissa, is there's been volatility of multiple sectors. It's kind of hard to say specifically. But you know, where, where we've seen weakness technically would be energy, materials and real estate. I think that's where you've seen Some of that movement out of those sectors and a little bit more into Bitcoin, specifically materials. You know, I don't know if you can consider Bitcoin a replacement for gold, but you know that's, there's been some invest. Talk about that. Is there more interest in sort of the Bitcoin ETFs or in the bitcoin related stocks like a Microstrategy or a marathon? If you look at the Bitcoin ETFs, those are the most heavily traded where because it's given access to retail and MicroStrategy is doing the same thing, traded 800,000 contracts today in terms of the options. So it's been a, it's been a really big surprise and something that retail has really kind of adopted is the ability to kind of trade it through options and trade it through the etf. Joe, the evolution of the retail trade over the last five years is astonishing, I think, and good for them. But you know, their ability to go from sector to sector and sort of turn on a dime, I'm sure you see it there. You know, they're just navigation of what's been an interesting market. Yeah, yeah, I think that's, I think that's a good point. When we look at our stacks report, basically it takes monthly movements and monthly buys and sells in client accounts. We do see that there's volatility in that sector move. I'll give you a perfect example. October, October saw information technology being the biggest sell and then November it was the biggest buy. So you know, it, it's hard sometimes to kind of sit there and hold those positions. Maybe you should. But we've seen our retail traders really step up and trade those products quite a bit. Hey Joe, it's tim. How about mag7stocks as funding vehicles for the rest of the rally? And what are you seeing? Because I would have sat here a year ago and said I don't think you're going to see six stocks be 30% or seven stocks be 30% of the S and P ever again. They largely are. It's weakening, but it's happening. I think there's some truth about, I mean I really do. When I look at, you know, our biggest buys themselves, we starting to see kind of the Mag 7 roll up. You know, two, two names that, that come to mind right away would be Palantir. And then earlier you talked about MicroStrategy. Those are two new entrants into kind of our, our net buys or our biggest buys for the month. So you're starting to see names like Tesla, Apple kind of fade a little bit just because you, you know, you haven't seen Apple breakout. It's kind of, you know, it's at a new high, but it is within a range. And I think retail, retail investors are looking at that and looking for other opportunities. Joe, great to have you. Thank you. Joe Mazzola, Charles Schwab. Mike, what are you seeing on the bitcoin front in the options market? Well, I mean, a lot of activity I think is the short answer. I mean, as he was just pointing out, the IBIT Bitcoin ETF is seeing huge volumes and microstrategy even more so, largely because of the volatility that both of those are illustrating. And what's interesting is that if you take a look at the moves in gold like the GLD ETF starting in late October and then take a look at how bitcoin did at about that same time, what you're going to see is that there was a real divergence there. One of the places I think that people are really coming around is the idea that bitcoin is the proxy for hard money more so than the metal is. I was bullish on both of those at the beginning of this year. But the other thing that retail investors are always looking at is they want moves. And on the option side, that's what they're going to chase. And bitcoin's got them. Look at the move today in Robinhood. I'm Carter can opinion this as well made a multi year high. I think it was a 3 year high north of 42, closed lower on the day on 3, 4 times normal volume, which is not an indictment, it's just an observation. I mean the stock has had a huge run so maybe that's a tell for the next couple of weeks. But I think at a certain point you're back in the game with Robinhood. Coming up, Entergy signing a monster data center deal with matter. More on the money flowing into the utility names that power the trade next + structure therapeutics CEO Ray Stevens joins us for a deep dive into his company's obesity drug offering. How it stacks up against the competition right after this. Welcome back to FAST money. Entergy shares higher after Meta selected the utility company to power its $10 billion data center project in northeast Louisiana. This deal the latest in a huge year for utility names as hyperscalers up their demand. Pippa Stevens got all the details. Hey, Pippa. Hey, Melissa. Well, hyperscalers are increasingly going to utilities directly, oftentimes signing power purchase Agreements that guarantee power at a certain price. You can't have a data center without power and so utilities are a very important partner. Plus these long term agreements provide earnings visibility for utilities. And Enter G is just the latest partnership leadership. We've also seen Microsoft and Constellation team up, Google and as with Amaran, Alliant Energy, Exelon and Next Air among the other utilities that have announced datacenter deals. But what's notable about Mehta's latest is that its $10 billion data center will be powered by gas, making it the first sizable hyperscaler to turn to gas generation, according to Jefferies. And it probably won't be the last. All of these tech companies might have emissions goals, but wind and solar are intermittent and similar are still years away, meaning gas could be the big winner, Melissa, at least for the time being. All right, Pippa, thank you Pippa Stevens. And certainly we've heard all of the headlines so far with the hyperscalers going directly as Pippin mentioned, to the utilities. Energy is worth noting. They said in the release that this deal basically covers their expenses for the year. So this is tremendous. I mean if you're an energy shareholder, you're thrilled. The win. Yeah. And it's not just that. I mean utilities are something we rarely talked about on the show. Then earlier in the year there was a reason to be in utilities for the defensive play and then on the back of the whole AI craze and it worked. And then, you know, this is a name that we didn't talk about forever on the show, VST Pulpit Chart and Vista. And just look at what this has done over the last six to eight months. It's extraordinary and quite frankly the analysts are just starting to wrap their head around this. So despite the fact that it's been parabolic like I think all these stocks still have room to the upside. I'll let Carter remind us what he always reminds us about utilities over time versus the S and P. But I'll just say I want to reload the gun on utilities for 25. I think these are companies that are going to continue to be generating free cash flow. The dynamics around some of the the secular trade winds, tailwinds, what's going on with Datacenter but also free cash flow generation for a number of these names. NextEra Ni is I think a core part of any of that. I am long the name well a couple of these Energy just this year moved above its 2008 high. So think about it as extended as it is. It's not extended in the sense that it just got back above where it was, you know, 20 plus years ago. In terms of utilities, of course, obviously on a cash basis, they underperform as a sector, the market. But on a total return basis, if you take utility dividends included, utilities have kept peace with the S and P since March of 20. Incredible. At a low, at a, you know, volatility, which makes it a higher quality return. Yeah. Mike, where do you stand on this trade which seems to be working in a good environment and bad environment? Yeah, well, I kind of like the EPC space. So companies like Fluor, which obviously, you know, their engineering and construction, which services the industry, they, you know, decommission and recommission nuclear plants. They actually have an investment in smr, that's the small modular reactor space. And they're also trading at a discount to the market. And of course, they would benefit from a cyclical trade. So I think that's another way to play something that's sort of been a steady grower throughout the year. It's only trading, I think, 20 times forward earnings right now. I think that's another way you could look to play it. All right, coming up, Fast Money. Special coverage of the obesity drug race continues with a look at one company hoping to tip the scales with their weight loss pill. Structure Therapeutics CEO Raymond James joins us next to lay out what is next for that company and what's next in the weight loss drug space. More fast money in two. Welcome back to Fast Money. Structure Therapeutics shares down over 40% in the last six months, even as its oral obesity drug advances in trials. After giving upbeat data on the small molecule pill back in June, the company is now working on a study to determine the max tolerated dose to be used in a phase three trial. For more, let's bring in Structure CEO Ray Stevens. Ray, great to have you with us. Thank you, Melissa. It's great to be back. Yeah. We were talking about the Phase 2A trial. You're going to start the Phase 2B trial right now in the fourth quarter. Can you give us a status check on that? Yeah, absolutely. So we had this summer we released our Phase 2a data. Very positive data. Very pleased with that. We also had very low discontinuation rates. And very importantly, we also disclosed some of our manufacturing capabilities. We have the ability to manufacture more than 6,000 metric tons, which means that's enough material for more than 100 million patients. So that's really important. This is really about accessibility right now in the field. We initiated last month our phase 2B study. It's actually two different studies, what we call Access and Access 2. Access 1 will take us up to 120 milligram dose. That will get us to equivalent to best in the field and then going up to 180, 240 milligram dose. We think we have the potential to be best in class in the oral GLP1 small molecule field. So can you clarify best in field versus best in class? Is best in class also comparable to the injectables on the market currently? And so there's a thinking that your drug right now, that candidate could actually be as good or better than some of the injectables already on the market. I think it has that potential. What we're seeing so far. Correct. Okay. And you also though, see a potential not only to sort of, I don't want to say usurp, but take over some of that market share, but also be a maintenance drug. Can you, can you talk us through where you see the markets in terms of growth and tam? Yeah. So first of all, you know, the tam, this is the biggest drug discovery market market that we've ever seen. A Tam Right now $150 billion. So very big market, a lot of different opportunity. The maintenance phase is what we see as actually the biggest opportunity. Whether one initially starts on an injectable first or the primary care physician may want to start on an oral first. The real opportunity that we see is a number of the majority of people stop taking the injectables after a period of time. The oral pillow is something that we think will be more tolerable for the patients that take these medicines. And what we'd really like to see is, you know, continuing on these medicines, you know, like, like the statins for controlling our cholesterol. We think trying to control body weight is something that we really see the maintenance phase and oral pills have a real opportunity and application for. You talked about your manufacturing capability right now for this particular drug. In recent, you know, in earnings release conferences, you've highlighted the fact that the cash position is enough to take you through 2027. Do I read that as we don't need a partner? We are not looking for a partner. We are not looking to team up with any other company. Other companies look elsewhere if you're looking to buy something. The. So for commercialization, we believe that we, we would like to have a partner for commercialization. The market is just enormous. The number of people that we can help with these medicines. Again, you know, earlier on the show, Today, you know, it was highlighted from eli Lilly. By 2030, more than a billion people will have obesity. That, that is a, that is a very big population and really trying to fit the needs. This is clearly an area that oral small molecules can serve as we've seen in other classes of drug, again like the statins as an example. So we think that manufacturing oral small molecules really is the solution to address the large market. So a partnership, you're not looking for somebody to come along and say, hey Ray, we need an obesity pill candidate at this point, you're looking specifically for partnership in commercialization. That's correct, Melissa. Okay. There's also a lot of excitement about the potential sort of nomination or identification of an oral amylin. And I'm wondering when that would happen. And it's expected in the fourth quarter. Is there a timeframe associated with that? And how important is that in this whole portfolio? Yeah, so what we're excited about is we have both the GLP1 oral small molecule and an oral amyloid small molecule as well. We think both of these are really backbones that can be used. We're quite excited about the amylon, about the amyloid backbone. We think that it has the potential for more selective weight loss, maintenance of muscle. It also has potential for better tolerability profile. And so we see both of these GLP1 and Amylin Small molecules as what we consider moderate weight loss in the teens. If you want more significant weight loss, then you might want to combine them together. GLP1, our oral GLP1 with our oral amylin in a fixed dose combination. Or we also have the ability GLP1/Gipsy which is tirzepatide in a peptide form, except we have a small molecule form for that in a normal pill. GLP1 plus glucagon for liver disease. So there's a lot of different combinations to address different market, different disease segmentation. All right, Ray, great speaking with you. Thank you. Keep us posted. Thank you, Melissa. Good to be back on the show. There's more BC Week coverage tomorrow right here on Fast Money. Bio Age CEO Kristin Fortney will join us to discuss what is ahead for that company's experimental obesity pill. That is tomorrow, 5:00pm Eastern Time right here on CNBC. Up next, final trades, final trade time. Mike coz attractive valuation and looks poised to break out the report next week by some calls. I think the XLU will be taking its talents to south beach as well. In 25 exciting Carter a mid cap industrial API group symbol APG poised to pop breakout I just hope Melissa never takes her talents anywhere but the set of CNBC's Fast Money every night at 5:00 Monday through Friday. Unless we all go to South Beach Case, then that's fine. That could happen. Good times. I think Alibaba might have done enough work on the Downside Melissa to take a look at Be in Blessings. Thanks for watching Fast Money Mad Money with Jim Cramer starts right now all opinions expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBCUniversal, their 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@ Capella University, learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the courseroom to the workplace. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella Eduardo.