← CNBC's "Fast Money"
CNBC's "Fast Money"
Energy Climbs After Maduro Capture, And An Exclusive Interview with Nvidia’s CEO 1/5/25
00:43:31
Stocks rallying to start the week after the U.S. action in Venezuela and the capture of leader Nicolas Maduro. How oil and energy are leading the charge, and if larger geopolitical conflicts will follow. Plus an exclusive interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, fresh off the stage of the company’s CES event in Las Vegas. His take on AI, robotics, competition, and more. Fast Money Disclaimer
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- [00:00]
Julia Boorstin
What does it mean to live a rich life? It means brave first leaps, tearful goodbyes and everything in between. With over 100 years experience navigating the ups and downs of the market and of life, your Edward Jones financial advisor will be there to help you move ahead with confidence. Because with all you've done to find your rich, we'll do all we can to help you keep enjoying it. Edward Jones, Member, SIPC what made you.
- [00:32]
Melissa Lee
Confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before?
- [00:35]
Halima Croft
I have no fear of failure.
- [00:37]
Julia Boorstin
Trailblazing women, changing the game.
- [00:39]
Halima Croft
One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs.
- [00:44]
Melissa Lee
Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself. Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things.
- [00:53]
Julia Boorstin
Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players New episodes every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:03]
Melissa Lee
Live in the NASDAQ markets in the heart of New York City's Times Square. This is fast money. Here's what's on tap tonight. We are watching shares of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang takes the stage at cbs. All the headlines from his keynote and an exclusive interview with the CEO himself. Live from Las Vegas. And the ripple effect from this weekend's capture of Nicolas Maduro. From oil to bitcoin, how the geopolitics in Venezuela are impacting the markets. Plus, Novo Nordisk catches a bid as its Will Gobi pill goes on sale. Goldman Sachs leads the banks and the Dow to new records. And shares of CNBC's new parent making their market debut today. Have one traders positioning amid the pullback and where the stock could be going from here. I'm Melissa Lee comes to you live from CDP at the nasdaq. On the desk tonight, Carter Worth, Karen Feiderman, Dan Nathan and Gai Adami. Stocks higher across the board with the dow jumping almost 600 points to close at fresh records. More on that shortly. But first, let's get to the latest developments on the US Capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro over the weekend. The energy sector front and center. Chevron, the only U.S. oil major still in Venezuela surging 5% for its best day since April 9. Other names including Exxon and Valero. Also firmly in the green oil services stocks as measured by the OAH adding over 5% while the underlying commodity rose modestly. WTI crude steadily nearly 2% higher to top 58 bucks a barrel. Defense stocks also catching a bit the ITA, the iShares Aerospace and Defense Fence ETF hitting all time highs. Drone makers Aerovironment Red Cat were each up double digits. Other winners include Exxon and Northrop Grumman and Traders. Also adding to precious metals positions, gold rising almost 3% while so called digital gold, bitcoin topping 94,000 for the first time since December 10th. Maduro today pleading not guilty to narco terrorism charges in a New York City court. For the latest details, let's get to Eamon Javors who is in Washington for us.
- [02:49]
Eamon Javers
Eamon yeah, Melissa, that's right. The Venezuelan president, or former Venezuelan president, I should say, Nicolas Maduro was in court in New York today where both he and his wife pled not guilty to those federal drug charges. It was a bit of a dramatic scene there where at one point they were interrupted by a spectator in the courtroom during that hearing and we saw the armored car delivering the former Venezuelan president to the courthouse this morning. So dramatic stuff in New York. Here in Washington, though, after that frenzy of military and diplomatic activity over the weekend, the president speaking to reporters several times throughout the weekend, the president chose to remain behind closed doors here at the White House throughout the day, at least so far we have not heard from him on camera today. We are expecting Secretary of State Marco Rubio to head up to Capitol Hill shortly to brief House and Senate leaders on what happened in Venezuela and the plan forward after this. So we may get some more details from the administration once that meeting breaks up and senators and members of Congress have a chance to talk to reporters up on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue from here. So some big questions remain unanswered this evening. Melissa the biggest one is you saw the president over the weekend suggesting that American oil companies are going to spend billions of dollars to go into Venezuela, reconstruct that oil capacity in Venezuela and start pumping more oil. And then you saw Brian Sullivan's reporting on our air today that a lot of those oil companies are cool to that idea, I think is a good way to put it. And so the question now is you of pressure or offers carrots or sticks, will you see this administration put onto US Oil companies to try to encourage them to do what the president wants, which is to produce more oil, benefit American consumers, lower energy prices here at home.
- [04:35]
Melissa Lee
MELISSA Eamon, thank you. Eamon javers, there's also a thinking that whatever happens in Venezuela is going to take a long time. So even if there is the belief that oil companies will go in and increase production, that that in and of itself will take a while, guys. We see the stocks, though trade higher in the short term. So what do you do?
- [04:51]
Guy Adami
I agree with that. Happy New Year.
- [04:52]
Melissa Lee
Happy New Year.
- [04:53]
Guy Adami
Welcome back.
- [04:54]
Melissa Lee
We reached the end of the window.
- [04:56]
Guy Adami
Where I reached it a while ago.
- [04:59]
Melissa Lee
All right.
- [04:59]
Guy Adami
But with all that said, and it's great that we have Halima here in real life to sort of break this down, but I'll say this, what you just said is 100% correct. I mean, this is going to take months, if not years to sort of reconcile itself. But the market's going to sort out buy first and ask questions later. And to me, this was sort of the A piece to a puzzle to get people off the fence in terms of the energy stocks and get them to move in terms of valuation, in terms of balance sheets and in terms of just being positioned the right way. And we've been talking about that for a while. In Karen's acronym last year, obviously energy was a big part and, you know, she may have missed it by a week, but this is still to me in play. And Carter can speak to this. The bearish to bullish reversals and ETFs and individual stocks are at pretty interesting levels across a swath of names.
- [05:43]
Karen Feideman
Yeah. So just to the acronym for a moment, had I been in the present tense at CARB instead of past tense carved, it would have been much better off anyway to the energy, the E, the O, ih. That's why it did relatively better, much better today than the underlying, like, who knows, but the underlying commodity, so many other things. But to have a potential for gigantic oil field services. That's obviously why, you know, we had such a huge day. But if you go back a couple of years, really, this has been a very mediocre trade.
- [06:15]
Dan Nathan
Yeah. I'll just mention, you know, from a sentiment standpoint, we've seen lots of shifts over the last, I would say month or so. We saw a lot of dispersion in some of the kind of, you know, really popular trades. And to come in here and we could all agree that energy was not particularly popular despite your carb. You know, it seems like everyone's on the same side of the boat here. You know what I mean? And you know, Mel, you just made the point it's going to take a while. And you know, Eamon just said that some of these large, you know, integrated and stuff are a little cautious. They have reason to be. If you go back and look at the last 20 years, because despite what just happened, it's going to remain a volatile situation for a while. So to me, I just think it's A hard one just to pile into. But I mean, the guy's point, he's been looking for something that has nothing to do with just happened over the last month. And all of those fundamental reasons are, might come true, but this uncertainty might kind of add a different layer to the idea of this is going to be a sector that's going to just kind of, kind of pick up, I don't know, a little bit of the steam that we saw in the broad market last year. Despite the underperformance.
- [07:14]
Melissa Lee
How are the charts positioned? We saw some very, very big gains in today's session for some.
- [07:18]
Carter Worth
Yeah, I mean, a couple of things. We know that it's still a very small sector overall less than 3%. But the key is that the beta trade, which is to say drillers and oil service stocks, they've been outperforming since August. So in fact, the OIH and stocks that are in that category are ahead of the S and P. It's the big integrators that have held it back, but those are showing life as well. I think it's a, it's a circumstance as follows. You have very little downside risk to be overweight this going into the year. So you either waste time yet again, but I don't think lower is in the cards. So it's either sideways and you have a dud in that sense as opportunity cost, or you actually have something that really does start to outperform for the first time. Now remember, it's the ultimate think about the number one performing sector off the COVID Low energy, of course, because what it was the worst performing sector going into it. There wasn't a single car plane moving. So a lot of beta, a lot of cyclicality, but within that it's definitely drillers.
- [08:17]
Melissa Lee
Yeah, Guy. There is also the geopolitical aspect to this in terms of what, what Venezuela produces, who else, who buys it, who else produces it, in terms of heavy crude, Russia produces heavy crude. China is the number one buyer of Venezuelan output. And so if you sort of play the chess game in terms of where the administration wants to exact some pain, I mean, if we're controlling Venezuelan assets and we say, hey, China, we're not going to sell to you. There are a lot of different levers to consider here geopolitically, which, and through.
- [08:46]
Guy Adami
The lens of that question, none of them, I think are particularly bullish. And so to your point, Chinese are watching us and saying, okay, you know, you've made your foray into Venezuela. We could use the same type of rationale and say, you know what, we view Taiwan in the same way and who's going to stop us? Russia could say the same thing about obviously Ukraine, they probably have, but they could move it over to Poland perhaps. I mean, there are a lot of chess pieces yet to be played and none of them I think are particularly market friendly. But in terms of energy you just mentioned, and again, Halima is walking on, I think at its peak Venezuela was producing 3 million barrels a day. That was probably a third of that. Now, you know, if you can just get the infrastructure in there with all these US Companies and all these service names that Karen talked about, you get it back to maybe even half or two thirds of what you're looking at. And it's significant for these oil companies.
- [09:31]
Melissa Lee
You mentioned her like you tease Halima. Eight minutes. We're just going to bring her on because why not? CNBC contributor Lima Croft. Croft is here. RBC Capital Markets Global head of commodity strategy. Halima, great to see you.
- [09:47]
Halima Croft
Thank you for having me. And I remember when Venezuela was producing over 3 million barrels. I remember when it started to really decline. 2003 Venezuelan oil strike. Hugo Chavez fires 20,000 Petavasa employees, decides to turn Pedavasa into an organ of the military, the piggy bank for the Bolivarian revolution. It has been a multi decade decline. It is run by the military, by criminal gangs, infrastructure totally deteriorated. And the question for US Energy companies is how much do you want to front in terms of the capital for a turnaround story? The military looks like it's still in charge of Venezuela right now. So what is the path for the military actually going back into the barracks and getting out of the oil business?
- [10:33]
Melissa Lee
So there is the aspect of investing money in new production, but how about the assets that were seized from US oil companies in 2007?
- [10:41]
Halima Croft
Exxon? This is such a great question. This is why I think Exxon ConocoPhillips. ConocoPhillips has the largest non sovereign debt. They had the $8 billion settlement. The question is what are the terms for them to go back? When you talk to the companies, I don't hear a lot of enthusiasm of jumping into this right away. Real questions like who is really running Venezuela? Who is going to provide the security guarantees? Certainly they want to work with this White House. Everybody wants a turnaround story for Venezuela. But the question is, is it the role of the oil companies to play essentially the quasi government developmental role? Who's going to build capacity?
- [11:21]
Melissa Lee
Yeah, in terms of we were talking about sort of the chess pieces moving around the globe. So when you take the bigger macro picture, how do you factor in Russia as well as China?
- [11:31]
Halima Croft
This is the best question because Pete Vesa, the national oil company, half the floors in their tower were occupied by Rosneft, the Russian oil company. What happens to Rosneft? What happens to Chinese interests? The Chinese are owed a lot of debt by the Venezuelans themselves. Who is going to make the deals with these companies? You have Europeans operating there as well. So when we talk about the US Reentry, what happens to the existing players?
- [11:57]
Melissa Lee
Do you think that the US would use this as sort of a leverage against the Chinese or Russia? Like how do you see that factor in.
- [12:05]
Halima Croft
I mean, that's an interesting question. Is there some type of trade in terms of the Russians? I mean, there was this story or theory floated by Fiona Hill, former National Security Council representative for Russia, saying like, look, the Russians have offered to trade Venezuela for us. Basically hands off in terms of Ukraine. So very interesting guy's whole point about spears of influence. Because the National Security Council strategy for the United States is now this is our sphere of influence, the Western Hemisphere. No more outposts of Chinese and Russian influence. What do the Chinese say then when it comes to Taiwan? We know the Russian view on Ukraine. What does it mean for the other.
- [12:46]
Guy Adami
Baltic states getting into dangerous territory? But I'll try. I mean, there seems to be a thought that somehow this can potentially be the United States oil's oil reserves, which I don't think is factually true, but I think there's a notion that that could take place. Thoughts?
- [13:03]
Halima Croft
I think this is very difficult oil. I mean again, they have large reserves, but this is, this is not shale. This is not the light switch that is short cycle US production. I mean the great American energy renaissance was driven by shale. The idea that Venezuela is somehow going to be the bulwark of our energy security, I find that challenging at this moment. Again, we hope it all works out well for Venezuela. That country has been through so much. Our track record though, when it comes to regime change in nation building in oil producing countries, our recent track record is not outstanding.
- [13:47]
Karen Feideman
So first of all, it's really great to have you here. Thanks for coming in person. So the question is, when you think about oil and as.
- [13:57]
Melissa Lee
Do you put.
- [13:58]
Karen Feideman
This aside and say, all right, this is really not going to in the next year or two or three, it's not going to move the needle one way or another.
- [14:05]
Halima Croft
I think it's important when we think about the medium term. So when I talk to the companies they say if everything breaks right, if the United States is able to pull this off and stabilize the security environment and turn around the whole sort of health indicators, I mean, if you look at the health indicators in Venezuela, it looks like a conflict zone. I mean, they have food insecurity. I mean, this does not look like other oil producing countries. But if we turn this around, that's a 2030 story in terms of future production. We're just not there yet.
- [14:38]
Melissa Lee
So when you see the gains that the oil companies have made, great, you're not a stock analyst, you're commodity analysts. But still, do you, do you feel like this is overdone, that the assumption that there's going to be more for them so quickly is overblown?
- [14:50]
Halima Croft
Well, there's one interesting aspect to this story. If you look at Guyana. Guyana, if you look at where we've seen production gains, non OPEC production gains, Guyana has been a great growth story for the companies. Venezuela had been threatening Guyana for years. Have we essentially de risked the Guyana story? Are we basically saying if Venezuela is not able to throw its weight around in the broader region, is that a regional stabilization story? Again, I think that's one interesting aspect. But beyond that, I just don't believe we're going to be talking in the next six months about the Venezuelan oil renaissance.
- [15:30]
Melissa Lee
And then even if there is a renaissance, I mean, should oil prices go lower?
- [15:34]
Halima Croft
Well, that's the interesting question. I mean, you would have thought given all the kind of optimism about we're going to turn this around, oil would actually be lower today. But I do think there is this acknowledgment or people are waking up to the fact that this is not a light switch. This is a long way back from Venezuela. I think there are other interesting stories we're going to have to watch. So in the next couple of weeks, if you are the Iranian government, how are you reading these developments in Venezuela? Do you believe that President Trump is coming for a second strike in Iran? And before we were talking about Venezuela, we were talking about Iran. Last week he issued very stark warnings to the Iranian government. If you shoot protesters, we're coming for you.
- [16:16]
Melissa Lee
So have you changed at all your forecast for oil for the year or would you, what would get you to change them?
- [16:22]
Halima Croft
Again, I would say from the standpoint of what would get us more bullish on oil, I do think if we started to see sort of rolling instability, like if Venezuela is a chaotic transition, that would be something that we would think would be concerning for current production levels. Actually, Venezuelan production has been declining because we have been targeting these tankers. They have, they have been shutting in production. So what do we see in terms of that transition if it were to look like Libya or Iraq? I'm not saying it will, but that would be something we'd be concerned about. And as we go over to the Iran situation, if we do get involved in another military engagement in Iran, what does that mean for regional supplies?
- [17:07]
Melissa Lee
Halima, great to see you.
- [17:08]
Halima Croft
Thank you for having me.
- [17:09]
Melissa Lee
By Halima Croft of rbc.
- [17:12]
Guy Adami
You know my view totally. She's. She's Parthenon, right? She's there.
- [17:16]
Melissa Lee
She's had it Summit.
- [17:19]
Guy Adami
No, I mean, her points are obviously great. I'll say that. She's not going to play stock market. I will. I mean, the names that I think did well today and should continue to do well are names like Marathon Petroleum. Look at the move in Valero. That might be historic in terms of the magnitude of the move. And they all did it. All These names on 3 and 4 times normal volume, which suggests people that have not been in the space are going to plow into the space, regardless of duration that this takes to work itself out.
- [17:44]
Carter Worth
I mean, a couple of things if you just take the long view. We know that oil adjusted for inflation is about where it was 50 years ago in January of 1986, literally about $17 a barrel. We also know that oil as a percentage of GDP as output is running at 4 or 5%. That's low. Ultimately, I suppose there'll be no more combustion engine cars. We know that's coming and so forth. The question is, is there a play just here and now because it's about making money, Is there a play to be overweight or underweight energy in the coming year? My hunch is overweight.
- [18:16]
Melissa Lee
Karen, do you feel like it was overdone today, the gains?
- [18:18]
Karen Feideman
I do, yeah, I do. I mean, I know you've been outside of Venezuela. You've been positive anyway on oilfield services. But to your point, though, I also think as a percentage of gdp, it's probably heading lower and lower ultimately still.
- [18:32]
Carter Worth
Ultimately, yes.
- [18:33]
Karen Feideman
Right. So, you know, working on the acronym, I really got to.
- [18:37]
Melissa Lee
I think energy gets the boot.
- [18:38]
Karen Feideman
It might. It might get the boot, which would be the bottom by.
- [18:45]
Melissa Lee
All right, meantime, check out shares in video. They're actually fairly flat. In the aftermarket session, CEO Jensen Huang delivering the keynote address at ces, Huang unveiling new autonomous vehicle software as well as new open new open models and a physical AI platform. Shares of Nvidia rose nearly 40% just last year. So this is an interesting one to watch. Lisa Sue's AMD also on the docket presenting at ces. So we'll see what she has to say say too. But there's a lot of enthusiasm around the chip trade at the beginning of this year saying that they think that it's going to be a super cycle for things like memory and storage and all that.
- [19:20]
Dan Nathan
It's so many investments by Nvidia that some of these are going to get crowded out. Right. And the longer we get into this cycle, I think investors are trying to find other spots and we kind of highlighted that on numerous occasions last year when you saw memory names join the party, you saw storage, you saw, you know, a host of other companies in the ecosystem and now you're starting to see some of the names that were early leaders just kind of underperforming form a little bit. So you hear this expression all the time. Stock picking and stock pickers market. I think it's hard to move away from Nvidia and I know that just a few trading days into the new year does not make right any sort of trend. But just look at Nvidia and look at Broadcom, how they've traded. And I think Broadcom is really interesting to me because this was a story that a lot of folks again wanted to get behind. They want to diversify a bit away from this in video. But what happened, Google comes around, or at least that narrative comes around with the TPUs. And obviously Google is a customer of Broadcom. But since their earnings, Broadcom time hasn't seen an uptick. So again, I think that we're likely to see some sort of rounding of some of these names that have traded very well. Look at how some of these stocks opened up today. The opening was the high of the day and they gave a lot back. So again, Nvidia tomorrow it'll be really telling to see how this stock trades after all these announcements.
- [20:34]
Karen Feideman
The thing I think will be most important this year is open. I was, I mean, until we have some clarity. Also, I'd love to have some transparency. I know Sam Altman talked about, well, maybe we'll consider transparency, maybe they won't, I don't know. But it's a giant center that we don't have any real light on, you know, a center of this whole thing that we really don't, don't know. So I'd love to see them go public. I don't think it happens this year.
- [20:59]
Guy Adami
I look crooked in Nvidia chart. I mean potential for, and I'm saying potential for head and shoulders. Their first shoulder was in August, the head obviously in October at the all time high. Now you're sort of building the other shoulder. You get through 175ish. On the downside and I think technically problematic and the fact he didn't have a rip roaring day today in a vacuum, I think it's somewhat concerning.
- [21:19]
Carter Worth
Works for me.
- [21:22]
Melissa Lee
It works for you.
- [21:24]
Carter Worth
Yes. I mean weakness here will inform the pattern, just as not weakening will inform the pattern. The key is this, that technology overall, we know its relative performance peaked on 29 October. So for the last eight weeks of the year, it's been very, very poor and there wasn't a lot of lift today. I would say you want to be underweight tech for the year.
- [21:46]
Melissa Lee
Is it a pair of twos or is it actually something negative?
- [21:49]
Carter Worth
There are a lot that are negative. Right. A lot of software names in particular. I would say pair of twos or maybe worse.
- [21:56]
Melissa Lee
Worse. Okay.
- [21:57]
Guy Adami
The worst hand. As you know, Melissa, I don't know. A two and a seven off suit.
- [22:00]
Melissa Lee
I don't know what that means.
- [22:01]
Guy Adami
A two and a seven of different suits, off suit. You learn something.
- [22:06]
Melissa Lee
The more you know, the more you know. I need a. Although we're a different company now, so I don't know if you can use that. Anyway, coming up, Novo's weight loss bill is officially on the market. The impact on the shares and the company's place in the obesity drug space now. Plus CNBC's parent company Versant making its market debut today, how it's looking to compete in the media space and what currency is in store for the stock. Don't go anywhere. Fast money's back into. What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before.
- [22:38]
Halima Croft
I have no fear of failure.
- [22:40]
Julia Boorstin
Trailblazing women, changing the game.
- [22:43]
Halima Croft
One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs.
- [22:47]
Melissa Lee
Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself. Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things.
- [22:56]
Julia Boorstin
Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and power players. New episodes every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [23:05]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to Fast Money. Novo Nordisk shares to popping more than 5% after the launch of its GLP1 pill, the first in the United States marking a chapter for obesity treatment. Novo's WeGovy pill is now available in over 70,000 pharmacies across the country. The starting dose retails for $149 a month for cash paying patients and as little as $25 a month for those with insurance shares of Novo at their highest since October. I guess the question here is for how long? Seeing that Eli Lilly's oral could come onto the market later on this year.
- [23:36]
Dan Nathan
Dan, what are your thoughts, the pricing of this thing? We were talking about this a year ago, saying that it just wasn't accessible to most patients for a whole reasons. Right. And all of a sudden you see what's going on here. The administration has obviously had something to do with this. And you had the big shot, or just big shot. You did the doc on it. You know, what was the number? Like how many patients in the US were taking this thing? Now it's going to be multiples of that.
- [24:00]
Melissa Lee
Yeah, definitely.
- [24:01]
Dan Nathan
Yeah. So, I mean, again, pricing pressure, I think that's going to be the story going forward. I'm not sure it's great for either one of these.
- [24:08]
Melissa Lee
I mean, at least for this, even if it's for a short window of time, you've got to think that people are saying, do I pay more than if you're cash paying, do I pay $1,000 a month or whatever it is at this point for Eli Lilly's injection or do I pay 1,49 for an oral with no needles?
- [24:22]
Karen Feideman
See, I think the story isn't at the moment price, it's the market, the total addressable market. Now, given that for a whole host of reasons, people don't want to use, people for whatever reason don't want, you can see why they don't want to use injections oral once a day. I mean, that's huge. And then if you start scaling manufacturing, still it's incredibly profitable product. So I think it'll be more that than pricing pressure.
- [24:47]
Guy Adami
And that's why I think structured gpcr, despite the fact it was down today. I mean, they're oral. If you look at some of the data, it's actually very competitive, which is a good thing for them. And you saw a stock move 100% a couple of weeks ago. It's leveled off a little bit since, but I'm not convinced of anything. I am quasi convinced, though. By the end of the year, GPCR gets bought by somebody bigger than they.
- [25:07]
Melissa Lee
Will be interesting to see if that makes it into your acronym.
- [25:10]
Guy Adami
I've got to figure out S for.
- [25:12]
Melissa Lee
Structure, S for structure. I think for gpcr.
- [25:16]
Karen Feideman
Depends for anything. Could be anything, could be anything.
- [25:19]
Guy Adami
Excellent.
- [25:20]
Melissa Lee
How is Lilly looking versus novo or novo looking?
- [25:23]
Carter Worth
Well, I mean, you know, think about how correlated they were and then how separated they became. And my hunch is obviously you're always right to go with a stronger stock. But the Novo has all the elements of a bearish to bullish reversal. Very nascent, very young. It's the more speculative, more dangerous play I'm always inclined to wager. I would go with Novo.
- [25:42]
Melissa Lee
It will be interesting to see what the margins are on this because it takes a lot more active ingredient to make a pill version versus an injectable just because of the way the pill is manufactured. And also there are certain limitations in terms of taking on an empty stomach, not being able to consume water or taking other medications within a certain window of time.
- [26:01]
Karen Feideman
But even when you add in all the things like needing to refrigerate it and things like that, aside from manufacturer, you're saying including altering the actual manufacturer.
- [26:09]
Melissa Lee
The manufacturer requires much more active ingredient than an injectable.
- [26:13]
Karen Feideman
But the injectable though has so much more expensive handling, right?
- [26:17]
Melissa Lee
Exactly. The handling could be more. But in terms of orals, this version of the oral versus a small molecule oral is much harder to or it's harder to manufacture than Eli Lilly's version, which is a small molecule. So.
- [26:31]
Guy Adami
But is there a larger addressable market?
- [26:33]
Melissa Lee
Right. TAM is still bigger, I think with the tam.
- [26:38]
Karen Feideman
With the price. With the price.
- [26:40]
Dan Nathan
But what is Lilly priced in? I mean this thing has gone up 40% or something like that. It made new all time highs. And so you think of Novo in what Carter saying, the sentiment has been so bad, the price action and so bad.
- [26:52]
Melissa Lee
Coming up, CBC Parent company Versant making its market debut today. Why Karen is buying up shares and what she sees in store for the stock as it tries to to shake up the media space. You're watching Fast Money live in the NASDAQ marketsite in Times Square. Back right after this wave.
- [27:06]
Guy Adami
First day of the year.
- [27:17]
Melissa Lee
What made you confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before?
- [27:21]
Halima Croft
I have no fear of failure.
- [27:23]
Julia Boorstin
Trailblazing women, changing the game.
- [27:26]
Halima Croft
One of my favorite pieces of advice, think about what your boss's boss needs.
- [27:30]
Melissa Lee
Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself. Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things.
- [27:39]
Julia Boorstin
Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players. New episodes every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [27:48]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to Fast Money. Our parent company Versant Media ringing the opening bell right here at the Nasdaq this morning. The company completing the spinoff from Comcast now trading under the ticker Vs NT CEO Mark Lazarus joined Squawk Box to lay out his vision for the new venture. Take a listen.
- [28:06]
Guy Adami
The market is listening to what we're saying that you know, vertical scale is going to be a way for us to differentiate and to diversify our business to be not so beholden to pay tv.
- [28:17]
Dan Nathan
While that's still a big profitable part.
- [28:19]
Guy Adami
For us, it's not going to be the end game.
- [28:24]
Melissa Lee
Person stock was down 13% today. But our very own Karen Feinerman picked up some shares. So walk us through your thesis.
- [28:30]
Karen Feideman
Yes. So several reasons that I did that. So one is, you know, one for the home team. I want to do that. So the second one is I do believe that when you are in charge of your own destiny as Versant is now that you do a much better job. You're very focused, right. So that's really important. The other thing is there is a technical issue to this trade that I think is really important which is that most of Comcast is owned by mutual funds that are tied to let's say the NASDAQ composite. So they need to mirror that. Versant will not be in that. So if you're a mutual fund and you own Comcast, you will get 4% of the number of shares that you own in Versant stock. You can't own it. You must sell it regardless of price. When you can sell it, you might have a little bit of room. Often people begin to sell it immediately. So you saw a ton of volume today, right? I think doing the math, I think there's maybe about 90 million shares to go potentially if all of the index related stocks sell, which I think may happen. But so today you had a lot of volume. I thought all right, so about 10ish percent of the shares traded today. I'll step in and buy about 10% today. I love the dynamic of when you have someone selling who cannot own it regardless of price, they have to sell it. And so I'm also somewhat intrigued by the media space has gotten a lot of attention. We'll see the W whoever however Warner ends up, we might see somewhat of a comp to look at and you know the balance sheets of decent shape. You got a management that's in charge of their own destiny. Let's see what happens.
- [30:07]
Melissa Lee
I mean that's that stub price, right? Of of what Netflix wants to buy X the live businesses. That is the comp in theory to what Versant is now.
- [30:16]
Karen Feideman
And there was a bidder interested in that, right? Yes. So that's.
- [30:21]
Melissa Lee
So there you have it.
- [30:22]
Guy Adami
That's right. And Karen brings up the number of shares. So 40 something million shares traded today. You've got a couple more days, you flush this thing out. And maybe it doesn't mean it goes down in those ensuing days, but Karen's right to sort of be sort of picking away at this in terms of the forced liquidation.
- [30:37]
Karen Feideman
Wait, wait, I didn't see that. But that. That number of volume was not there when I. So that must have been a huge. Near the end of the day, that is Late day. Yes, late day. So that's really interesting.
- [30:47]
Melissa Lee
How does the Comcast chart look, Carter?
- [30:50]
Carter Worth
I mean, you know, it's one of those that's trying to show itself, but.
- [30:54]
Melissa Lee
I mean, we're not owned by Comcast.
- [30:58]
Carter Worth
I remember, like, look, it keeps trying. I mean, this is the kind of thing, the trick is just to avoid it.
- [31:04]
Melissa Lee
Avoid Comcast.
- [31:05]
Carter Worth
Yeah.
- [31:06]
Melissa Lee
Okay. Yeah, actually, you said that before, too, so. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, but how do you look? I mean, in terms of, you know, when Lazar says we want to have scale in verticals, I mean, that's sort of an interesting notion in this day and age when 62% of the revenues is tied to live TV for Versant Media.
- [31:23]
Dan Nathan
I heard Mark on a podcast a few months ago, and the way he articulated this is, you know, you talk about that scale, and they have some great properties, obviously, this one in particular with some amazing shows. This one in particular. But they really want to do a lot of things that they think are like the next 25 years of media, not exactly leaning into the last 25 years.
- [31:43]
John Fort
Years.
- [31:43]
Dan Nathan
And I think that's what's exciting about this. When you think about what Netflix is doing with Warner and forget the stub. And I know that's the comp. I just heard you guys talk about it. I mean, that's not exactly the next 25 years. You know, if I was a Netflix shareholder, I might be excited for them to do something that in the near term, you might scratch your head about. But if they have the same vision that they had 20 years ago about their business, those are the sorts of things. So when I think about Versant, I think it's really a lot of upside here, especially as a lot of investors get their arms around what this thing is and what the vision is going forward.
- [32:14]
Melissa Lee
Coming up, all the headlines are Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's keynote address from CBS in Las Vegas, what he had to say about the race, and much more. Plus some of today's biggest stock news. Why the action in Tesla and McDonald's caught our attention and how long bank strength run into the new year. That's when he's back into.
- [32:35]
Dan Nathan
Missed a moment of fast. Catch us anytime on the go Follow the Fast Money podcast. We're back right after this.
- [32:48]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to Fast Money. Stocks higher to start the week after the US capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. The Dow jumping nearly 600 points, closing at a fresh record high. The S and P and Nasdaq both climbing more than half a percent. Shares of Tesla snapping a seven day losing streak, what had been its longest down run since April of 2024. The stock up more than 3%. CEO Elon Musk had dinner with President Trump over the weekend. He tweeted the picture out and said it's going to be an amazing year. 2026. McDonald's however, down for a six day in a row, losing more than 4% in that time. And bank stocks seeing some strength as a first full trading week of 2026 gets underway. Goldman Sachs is 4% gain, responsible for more than 200 points of the Dow's gain. So continued strength here into the new year.
- [33:30]
Guy Adami
Goldman Sachs I think is up over 100% since the lows we saw in the spring, which is remarkable in and of itself. And if you just look at a chart you're saying is this a bio stock, is this a tech stock? No, it's Goldman Sachs. I'll say this, I think they report on the 16th of this month, which is fast approaching history suggests you sell your shares ahead of it and look to buy a cheaper. I think that's what's going to happen here. But real quick, I think collectively Citi's been a name we've talked about and despite the fact that it's at a multi year high now, I still think there's room to the upside.
- [33:58]
Karen Feideman
So I agree with everything you said. The strength. I don't love going into earnings. I am happy though that we're getting back to earnings. Earnings where the story is about what are companies seeing, what do they see? The consumer, how, you know, what's the outlook. That's interesting to me. I think the stories are still really compelling. I'm still long Citibank, I'm still long JP Morgan. I mean none of that changes because the calendar has changed. But I do think the bar is a little bit higher. I would probably look to sell some upside calls going into earnings. The bar has been raised in the.
- [34:29]
Carter Worth
Valuation, which is obviously a large part of your work. These are all trading at record high price. The tangible book I think DLJ probably was the highest sale ever in March of 3000 at Credit Suisse at 3 and a half times. JP Morgan is over that now. Does the valuation not concern you as a holder or how do you.
- [34:46]
Karen Feideman
Well, it concerns me a little bit, but the tailwinds. I think the regulatory environment improving is gigantic. Right. There's that, there's all the other things are working well right now. Loans are good, credit quality is good. Just think about the credit capital markets business, both equity debt. Think about the asset wealth management business also really great. And then when you add on, I think the AI opportunity for these companies is enormous. So there's a lot to like the multiple relative to the S and P. It always trades at a discount. It's pretty high right now. That's the only fly in the ointment that's not enough.
- [35:25]
Melissa Lee
Relative to themselves though.
- [35:26]
Karen Feideman
Relative to themselves. Very high.
- [35:28]
Melissa Lee
Yeah, yeah.
- [35:28]
Karen Feideman
Yes, yes.
- [35:29]
Melissa Lee
So I mean that begs the question, should they be rerated?
- [35:32]
Dan Nathan
Well, I think if you go back maybe a month and a half ago, you remember at an industry conference I think was the CFO of JP Morgan talked about, you know, spending on tech and the like. Stock still left like 5%. If I'm any of these CEOs, I'm going to be cautious here.
- [35:46]
Guy Adami
Right.
- [35:46]
Dan Nathan
Because if you're Goldman or Morgan in particular, right. You are like Goldman's like a tech company. Half their employees are like tech people. Right. And so you think about what it's pricing in relative. They're going to be lead left on like dozens of IPOs, the biggest ones, the best ones.
- [35:59]
Halima Croft
And.
- [35:59]
Dan Nathan
And I think it's probably pricing a lot of that in and a lot of things have to go right. I guess I agree.
- [36:04]
Karen Feideman
I mean I think, you know they always. Jamie is always cautious. Always. And when Marion Lake did that and said expense is going to be 104 whatever was people flipped out. I don't think they were taking into account. All right. If we're doing a huge amount of business, we're going to have to pay our people more. That's where these, some of those expense money. So I still think there's a lot to love, but I don't love the setup.
- [36:25]
Guy Adami
Can I say something quickly?
- [36:27]
Melissa Lee
Of course you can. An Ensemble Show 6.
- [36:30]
Guy Adami
I think this is this week. If we make it.
- [36:33]
Melissa Lee
Oh yes.
- [36:34]
Guy Adami
19 year anniversary this week.
- [36:36]
Melissa Lee
What anniversary is 19? Is it like it's ramming Because I'm.
- [36:40]
Karen Feideman
So good with getting anniversary gifts.
- [36:42]
Carter Worth
Have you.
- [36:43]
Eamon Javers
That's right.
- [36:44]
Melissa Lee
There's nothing go back to somewhere.
- [36:46]
Guy Adami
But you know what has not happened.
- [36:48]
Dan Nathan
In those, all of those years?
- [36:50]
Melissa Lee
So many things, so many have not happened. A lot of things have happened.
- [36:53]
Guy Adami
Jamie Dimon has not come in, spent time with us on this and I think I know he's watching right now.
- [36:58]
Melissa Lee
He did called in for your birthday. That, that was very nice.
- [37:02]
Karen Feideman
I tried to call in for his birthday but they were restraining order.
- [37:06]
Melissa Lee
Yeah, well, we'll see. You know, you never know he's watching. I know he's watch or watches religiously I'm sure. Coming up, we will get the highlights from ces, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's keynote address. John Fort will have his take on the next move in AI robotics products and much more that when Fast Money returns. Welcome back to FAST MONEY Shares. Nvidia down just a fraction of a percent. After hours, the CEO Jensen Huang delivers his keynote address at CBS. CNBC's John Ford has the highlights from Las Vegas. Hey John.
- [37:44]
John Fort
Hey, Melissa. Well, the bad news is Jensen just got out the stage literally 90 seconds ago. So he's not going to make it up here a couple floors from the stage in time for Fast Money. But I will be taping with him. We'll have that on CNBC tomorrow. The big news out of his talk, I believe is Vera Rubin. Now we had been expecting this next generation of Nvidia technology. They had talked about it a bit, but there's some major updates here, including that all six chips that are a piece of this are now in full production. They're giving some benchmark stacks, how they're running and the partner systems are arriving in the second half of this year. And a little bit of that detail, they're saying 10 times lower inference token cost versus Blackwell. It's a fancy way of saying the price performance is a whole lot better than the current generation. And the argument is yeah, this might be expensive, but it's premium and the bang that you get for the buck is going to be that much better than the existing, existing systems. Talked to Jensen before about how they've made these systems kind of backward compatible so it's relatively easy to swap in the latest generation for the old one. As a matter of fact, I was talking with one of Nvidia's partners earlier today, the CEO of Runway, which does high end AI video. He was saying they were able to swap from the previous generation of Nvidia into their test with Vera Rubin in a day and get that price performance benefit. He was singing its praises there in partnership with Nvidia. But this is Nvidia's push and attempt to tell the ecosystem we're still innovating, we're staying ahead of competitors, not just on performance, but they will argue on efficiency as well. Melissa and you'll hear a lot more from Jensen. The conversation that we're going to have tomorrow morning on Squawk Box.
- [39:27]
Melissa Lee
John, they also announced a move into autonomous driving software. Software. Can you sort of elaborate on that and whether or not that was already sort of expected in the works, you know, in the plan here, or is this a brand new endeavor?
- [39:42]
John Fort
Well, Nvidia's got a long legacy with autonomous driving and with next generation cars. So this is building on that where they've got new reasoning capabilities inside of the system that they're delivering for that. Now this, when I was talking to the Nvidia folks about this, the example I gave was, oh, like when we had that blackout, that outage in San Francisco, the Waymo cars had some trouble knowing what to do when there's no traffic lights. This is the car that's equipped with this technology will have the ability to make some decisions, not just follow traffic light based rules that it's been given. And that is the idea. But they were kind of like, hey, you said that. We didn't say it. We're not comparing it to Waymo. But that's why potentially you want your car to be able to reason if there's a situation that's not in the manual that you need to navigate through.
- [40:31]
Melissa Lee
I'm just curious also, John, because after the keynote, Jensen took some questions. What was, what were the, was the tone of the questions? I'm wondering what the audience was, what was sort of revealed in, in the, the thinking of the audience.
- [40:45]
John Fort
Well, as you mentioned it, so the keynote just ended. He's coming up here and right over here, about 50ft to my right, he's going to meet with some analysts. That's where we expect more of those in depth questions. And then I'm talking to him after that. So I have the benefit of hearing some of those questions and of course I've got my own.
- [41:04]
Melissa Lee
Do you think he'll unveil the price of the new chip versus the price of the old?
- [41:10]
John Fort
I didn't hear the price, but I'm not sure I can count that high either.
- [41:16]
Melissa Lee
John, thank you. Great to see you. John Ford out at CBS in Las Vegas about to speak to Jensen Huang. You catch a full interview tomorrow on cnbc. So that is one that we will want to watch, especially as the stock has sort of just languished Since October.
- [41:32]
Dan Nathan
There'S 82 analysts who cover the stock on the street. And John just said he's going over to speak too many of them. And they're really, I'm sure a lot of them do great work work, but none of them are going to downgrade the stock. They're going to all downgrade the stock. And we saw this maybe five years ago once the story seems a bit saturated once they lose the sort of pricing power. And I guess the question for 2026 is like, how long are these companies, their customers who lose a lot of money? Okay, as long as they can keep raising money, how are they going to be able every year, you know what I mean, to keep upgrading these products when the company has all this pricing power? And so, so that to me, at some point that flip is going to, you know, going to be something I think really important to the narrative of this story. And maybe it's already happening.
- [42:14]
Melissa Lee
Coming up, what is weighing on shares of Hilton today and what the Department of Homeland Security has to do with it? More fast Money into. Welcome back to Fast Money. Hilton shares closing 2 1/2% lower today for the stock's worst day since October. The move coming after the Department of Homeland Security accused the hotel chain of refusing rooms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis. In an X post this afternoon, DHS shared screenshots of emails it said were from Hilton hotels in which staff refused to book rooms for federal agents linked to ICE Hilton responding in a statement saying Hilton hotel serves all welcome serves as a welcoming place for all. This hotel is independently owned and operated and the actions referenced are not reflective of Hilton values. That may be the case, but here.
- [43:09]
Guy Adami
We are and people are going to sell first, ask questions later. I'm not going to get into the go woke, go broke stuff that's not interesting to me. But I'll tell you, at 30 times ish earnings, this is an expensive stock that people are just probably looking for an excuse to sell.
- [43:22]
Melissa Lee
We've seen boycotts before and the boycotts sometimes take a life of their own. Regardless of where you stand on any issue, this is just a matter of you. You know, for some of your population, they don't like what you're doing for whatever reason and they don't book that reservation.
- [43:38]
Karen Feideman
Well, they were careful really sort of, you know, isolating. This was an independent, super important. Every single dollar they spent on crisis management is so worth it right now.
- [43:49]
Melissa Lee
How is the charlock?
- [43:51]
Carter Worth
Well, I mean, if you look at, look at Marriott, look at Hilton generally speaking Expedia and other travel related stocks, the airlines, they all look good.
- [44:00]
Melissa Lee
Up next, final trades. Time for the final trade. Let's go around the horn.
- [44:14]
Carter Worth
Carter work Novo Artis on the mend. A bearish to bullish reversal buy.
- [44:19]
Melissa Lee
Karen Farnaman Yes.
- [44:20]
Karen Feideman
So we talked a lot about the banks. I don't love the setup going in. So I'm going to sell some upside calls at JP Morgan. Doesn't mean I love Jamie any less. Not at all.
- [44:29]
Dan Nathan
Dan Costco, let's call it a consumer staple. Really overdone last year. I think it's going to have a little rally this year.
- [44:38]
Guy Adami
Guy, great to have you but you know we miss you for the week and a half.
- [44:42]
Melissa Lee
A new year.
- [44:46]
Guy Adami
Marathon petroleum that comes out npc. I know it had a big move today, Melissa, but I think it's the beginning of something much larger.
- [44:52]
Melissa Lee
All right, thank you for watching Fast. See you back here tomorrow at 5. Mad money starts right now.
- [45:00]
Julia Boorstin
All opinions expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, Internet or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of an opinion. Such opinions are based upon information the Fast Money participants consider reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Fast Money disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com fastmoneydisclaimer what made you.
- [45:33]
Melissa Lee
Confident that you could do something that hadn't been done before?
- [45:36]
Halima Croft
I have no fear of failure.
- [45:38]
Julia Boorstin
Trailblazing women, changing the game One of.
- [45:41]
Halima Croft
My favorite pieces of advice Think about what your boss's boss needs.
- [45:46]
Melissa Lee
Leadership can look in many, many different forms. It really does come down to just trusting yourself. Life is short and you just gotta think big to accomplish big things.
- [45:54]
Julia Boorstin
Julia Boorstin hosts CNBC Changemakers and Power Players New episodes every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts.