← CNBC's "Fast Money"
CNBC's "Fast Money"
Fast Money 11/24/25
00:43:39
Listen to our traders take you behind the money...how to play the volatility...pops and drops and the movers you missed. Fast Money Disclaimer
Loading summary
Transcript189 lines
- [00:01]
Narrator/Announcer
Introducing Fidelity Trader plus, the next generation of advanced trading from Fidelity.
- [00:06]
Tim Seymour
Customize your tools and charts and access them seamlessly across desktop, web and mobile.
- [00:11]
Karen Feiderman
For faster trades anywhere you go, try.
- [00:14]
Narrator/Announcer
The all new Fidelity Trader Plus. Learn more about our most powerful trading platform yet@fidelity.com TraderPlus investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC Member nyse, sipc, VRBO Last minute deals make chasing fresh mountain powder incredibly easy.
- [00:34]
Dan Nathan
With thousands of homes close to the.
- [00:36]
Narrator/Announcer
Slopes, you can easily get epic Pow freshies, first tracks and more. No need for months of planning. In fact, you can't even plan. Pow Pow is on its own schedule. Thankfully somewhere in the world it's always snowing. All you have to do is use the last minute filter on the app to book a last minute deal on a slope side private rental home. Book now@vervo.com.
- [01:03]
Melissa Lee
Live from the NASDAQ markets in the heart of New York City's Times Square on a day where tech ripped higher, this is fast money. Here's what's on tap tonight, Alphabet's record breaking run. Shares of the Google parent turning things around since last summer, leaving some other tech high flyers in the dust. But will the outperformance continue? We'll debate that plus a novo no go. The trial results weighing on shares of the pharma stock while other results are pushing competitors into the green and later, plenty of storage as memory makers get a boost. Drivers behind the wheel and behind on payments as auto delinquencies speed higher in a bitcoin bounce back in crypto stage a holiday rebound. I'm Melissa Lee comes along Studio Be at the NASDAQ on the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Karen Feiderman, Dan Nathan and Guy Adami. First, the AI trade revival helping drive today's market comeback. The Nasdaq seeing its best day since May, posting a nearly 600 point gain, higher by almost 2.7%. The S&P 500 and Dow also charging higher. Alphabet a key driver for today's gains, up more than 6%. The tech giant closing at a record high. Google's now up almost 12% over the past week as the company announced its upgraded AI model Gemini 3. Alphabet Strong gains comes as other darlings Oracle, Metta, Microsoft, they faltered of late. So far this month Alphabet is up 13% while Oracle is off nearly 24%. So is Alphabet's rebound a good or bad sign for the rest of the trade? Are we seeing any kind of rotation here do you think? Dan?
- [02:28]
Guy Adami
Definitely rotation. I mean we've been mentioning this A handful of the Mag 7 have underperformed not only their peers, but also the S&P 500. And you know, the thing about Alphabet is really interesting. There's a lot of moving parts there.
- [02:39]
Tim Seymour
Right.
- [02:39]
Guy Adami
And you know, for those folks, and Karen's going to obviously speak about her thesis that she's had for multiple years is that, you know, this thing has made considerable progress from a really bad rollout. I don't know if you guys recall Bar and it was a joke. And one day we walked in, the stock was down like 6% and everyone's like looking around, they're like, yeah, they're in Paris and they had this thing and it was just a bad, bad rollout. And this was coming right after the chat. CBT rollout. Well, obviously things have changed. There's been naysayers the whole way. But right now you have situation where yes, they've gotten tremendous reviews. You think about their distribution. They have six or seven platforms with over 2 billion users. Right. For them to kind of infuse this technology throughout all of them, that's great. They still have the issue of these overlays and AI mode. It might put a dent a little bit into that search revenue. I know that's been one pillar of the bear case, but when you talk about a stock that's moved this way in such a short period of time, there should be some sort of check back. And I don't mean just on price, but I also mean as far as sentiment is concerned. So I look at this thing, I see it trading at like 27 times forward, 28 times forward. And you have growth that's not really accelerating now. That's the good thing. If the numbers right now consensus is just too low, then there's more room to run. I'm not so sure that's the case. I'm not so sure analysts are able to make that case right here, right now for 20, 26.
- [03:57]
Melissa Lee
I mean if you thought 28 or 29 was expensive for Alphabet, it's really closer to 30 with this running. It's. That's how much it's gained in terms of the market. Excuse me, the forward P E. Yeah.
- [04:07]
Dan Nathan
Although when you say it's not going to grow, I mean, I think if you look at the numbers for Google Cloud, which, you know, admittedly much, much, much smaller, you know, fraction of the size of search, but that's growing. I mean it's grown 50%.
- [04:20]
Guy Adami
Right. But their margins next year are supposed to like check down like 2%. Right.
- [04:24]
Dan Nathan
Like, so those are still some really good margins, right?
- [04:27]
Guy Adami
But they're going the wrong way. I mean like as far as I'm concerned and I'm not debate, I mean like the stock's been amazing, you know what I mean? But I'm just saying like when you think about the growth that is expected earnings and sales, I mean the earnings growth high single digits, you know what I mean? So you're going to need to see some sort of meaningful upgrade to earnings expectations, especially in a like margin environment that's expected to kind of weaken a bit.
- [04:47]
Tim Seymour
It's, it's been an extraordinary run. It was not expected. I mean we've had multiple conversations since July on this desk about suddenly their core search being dead. Then suddenly you have Gemini multiple iterations getting better. You have this DOJ settlement that at least makes it clear that Google is whatever turf they've carved out is still theirs. And that's as we know, good for multiple players. But I think you just get to this case where it was so oversold, it was so underappreciated and the analyst community which knew Gemini 3 updates were coming out here suddenly seems to somehow have been caught behind. So I think it's interesting, I think for the markets overall, the fact that we have mega cap tech having been so poor outside of Google and Broadcom over the last six to eight weeks is very good for the market going into year. And I think there are a lot of people that wanted to buy Amazon here. I think there are a lot of people that are looking at Microsoft and saying, you know, let's do this. And by the way, after bouncing off the 100 day, the semiconductors or the stocks or whatever you're following, SMH is up 9% from the intraday low on Friday. Which just tells you you can't get too far away from this trade and people that are trying to be overly tactical one way or the other, I think this was another missed opportunity.
- [05:59]
Dan Nathan
So search, I mean we talked about the fears are definitely overblown at the moment. We don't know exactly how it's going to evolve. But remember though they. So everybody's in this capex spend and that's been the fear. The Google balance sheet of all of them is still net cash. It's. This is not a drain on them at all. Now could they fund it through, through debt? That's probably makes more sense for them to do that. But also talk about YouTube, I don't think YouTube. The sum of the parts valuation I don't think is getting really enough Play as it should. So there's YouTube, there's Waymo, other bets, which is a negative. I don't know how much think of that balance sheet with net cash still. And then we haven't seen yet anything close to what the monetization of AI could be for them.
- [06:42]
Tim Seymour
Right.
- [06:42]
Dan Nathan
We've probably seen it somewhat in search and how well search is done. But, and I think Tim's right, it really was overdone. I mean, and, and the, the remedy to the first part of the antitrust was much better than we thought. But all that having been said, I'm looking now to sell some upside calls because I think it's run so far so fast.
- [07:02]
Melissa Lee
Is it overvalued?
- [07:03]
Dan Nathan
Is it overvalued? No, but I feel like it's a little ahead of itself and, and the calls are, you know, the skew is very much in favor of the calls. So I've looked to sell some.
- [07:15]
Guy Adami
Yeah, I think that's right. And Tim said tactical, I don't think 28 times is overvalued. I think a move of more than 100% since the April low is a little bit extreme even in the environment that we find ourselves in. So I think it's worthy of the valuation. I think the move is overdone. I think you probably do see a back and fill at some point. And where is that back and fill to maybe to 75ish if you look. That's sort of a level on the chart as well. But I think they're growing into a valuation. I think the average price Target now is 325. We're basically there now. So I think valuation is okay. It's just the magnitude of the move in a short period of time that is somewhat concerning.
- [07:49]
Tim Seymour
I also think it's, you know, we keep talking about when are the payoffs coming from all of these investments. Gemini 3 right away goes right, inserted it goes right into search. And I think the, the search audience, I think the users are going to continue to see benefit and that's going to pay off. And as Karen said, we don't really even know how that feeds through to more monetization. But at this point they are monetizing.
- [08:13]
Melissa Lee
I mean, in terms of the numbers, monthly average, monthly active users for Gemini 3 are actually, they're pretty high compared to OpenAI. I mean, OpenAI has 800 and Gemini is 650.
- [08:23]
Dan Nathan
I was at 450 not long ago.
- [08:25]
Melissa Lee
Right. It's a swift cat.
- [08:27]
Guy Adami
Yeah, I guess I wouldn't think about it against Open Air right now, it doesn't really matter because they're not monetizing their user base other than subscriptions. And so Google doesn't have to worry about that. Now, obviously a lot of us are paying for Gemini right now and their hope is that it becomes ubiquitous across all their platforms. In the near term, the more usage at a Gemini relative to traditional search might be a problem. Like we haven't seen this sort of growth out of it. We haven't seen the sort of models that a lot of folks are saying are that much better than Chat gpd. Was Mark Benoit from Salesforce Today talking about he's no longer using Chat GPT is only using Gemini. We might start seeing that a lot more that might be a point of leverage as some of these companies are thinking about licensing this technology or infusing it into some of their offerings. So again, I think there's going to be a lot of noise about this. I do think in the near term you run some risk of that cannibalization of that traditional search, especially as this accelerates.
- [09:20]
Melissa Lee
At the same time as Gemini 3 ascends and OpenAI is out there, there might be some questions about OpenAI's growth. And so to the extent that there are some questions about its ability to raise money, that sort of breaks that whole virtuous cycle of it being able to tap debt and pay for all these different things that it is paying for or get money from Nvidia and the like. I mean, it sort of puts that into question. Right, right.
- [09:45]
Dan Nathan
Well, it used to be they were all in this together.
- [09:47]
Melissa Lee
Right.
- [09:47]
Dan Nathan
And I'm not sure that's fully true. Right.
- [09:50]
Tim Seymour
And how could it ever be? Right. These aren't folks that play in the same sandbox too.
- [09:55]
Dan Nathan
Well, but earlier we were afraid about is it Atlas OpenAI search.
- [10:00]
Melissa Lee
Right, right.
- [10:00]
Dan Nathan
We were afraid of that. At the moment that doesn't seem to.
- [10:04]
Guy Adami
Be a browser search. And then Perplexity has one also called.
- [10:09]
Dan Nathan
So, and I use Perplexity and I really don't use comment. But so I think to, you know, Atlas not being really a threat at the moment, I do think that is to, to Google's benefit. Now, would there also be some open air Google revenue that might not happen. Maybe. But they're not all going to be winners.
- [10:32]
Melissa Lee
Yeah. Ben Rice has had an interesting note today. I don't know if you read the note from today. Remember he was on the show and he was talking about the Kodak moment that Google would face potential for because of the search business being in Danger. But today he's saying let's say Google wins, let's say Gemini wins. It is the most vertically integrated player out there and so they are less likely to lean on the likes of an Nvidia. They have this TPU that they have developed on their own and they use Broadcom. So that's why we saw Broadcom shares trade higher today. But I mean they have their own sort of ecosystem so they box people out here if they win.
- [11:09]
Tim Seymour
I think that's right. They have the dominant desktop and dominant mobile position in others. You've got Google wherever you want it. And that is where I think we always said. And this is where I also believe it pays off for Apple because I think this is a prelude to where ultimately it is going to be carried out on the consumer basis. We know what's going on with enterprise, but that is part of the story here. And add in these other pieces of Google which don't get enough credit and Google is a holding company. Any holding company will trade at a discount. But there are some pretty powerful pieces in here we're not valuing as we should.
- [11:40]
Guy Adami
You know, Karen said she's going to sell upside calls. That's right. She's, you know, again going back to tactical. She's not going to try to trade around this. I'm not trying to put words in her mouth. I think inevitably this stock trades higher. When I say higher, I mean they could be deserving of a 30 to 33 multiple in this environment because other companies are in half the position that Google finds themselves in. My only concern is the magnitude of the move since April is astounding by any stretch of it. It's gone from less than a 2 billion, $2 trillion market cap to approaching 4. That's pretty significant in a short period of time. It will back and fill at some point. Yeah, it's interesting the Broadcom point that you guys made. So the custom silicon, they work with Google, the GPUs. I mean Google obviously still buys GPUs from Nvidia, but they probably love for the performance of the TPU's that got match or be better than that. And they're making their chips and they're vertically integrated, that sort of thing. But Broadcom trades, you know, relative to its growth of peg a pe to growth of like 1, you know, and it's growing much faster than most other names in the ecosystem. The stock has definitely consolidated over the last couple of months. You see a move like today, 11% on this news. I'm not sure, that makes sense. It just feels like a lot of investors, obviously over the last couple of weeks kind of got a little offsides here a little bit. But it's a tough trade. The higher they go up into year end over the next month, I think it makes it that much harder for 2026. And again, this goes back to look at some of the underperformance we've seen. Microsoft's up less than the Nasdaq. You see Amazon up a few percent on the year. You see Metta up a few percent in the year. You see Tesla up a few percent a year. And you could say that's good for broader.
- [13:12]
Tim Seymour
I think it's good.
- [13:13]
Guy Adami
Yeah. Well, I mean, you see Broadcom, you see Taiwan, semi, you see some of these other names in the semi space. But again, I'm not sure that powers a 25% gain next year because of the concentration of all these big names. If you continue to see some underperformance.
- [13:27]
Melissa Lee
All right, meantime, we did get fresh headlines today on U. S. China relations. President Trump announcing he will be visiting Beijing in April after a phone call with China's Xi Jinping. Eamon Javors has got the details on this. Eamon.
- [13:38]
Guy Adami
Hey there, Melissa. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told his citizens in an address tonight that negotiations in Geneva over the weekend involved, quote, difficult, extremely detailed work. But he said that the number of points in the 28 point American proposal have now been cut down and that many correct things, as he put it, have been taken into account after those negotiations. Still, it's not clear where all of this is going to wind up. We've been expecting Secretary Rubio to brief President Trump at the White House late today. And President Trump said on social media this morning that it is possible that good things may happen in those Ukraine negotiations. And we now know that Ukraine was at least part of what President Trump spoke to Chinese leader Xi Jinping about in that phone call earlier today. Here's what White House press Secretary Caroline Levitt told reporters this afternoon.
- [14:30]
Melissa Lee
The focus of the call was really Russia.
- [14:32]
Dan Nathan
Ukraine did come up, but the focus was mainly on the trade deal that we are working on with China and.
- [14:38]
Narrator/Announcer
Those relations and how they are moving in a positive direction.
- [14:42]
Guy Adami
And President Trump took to social media this afternoon to announce that he will be accepting President Xi's offer to go to Beijing for a state visit early in 2026 and that the Chinese leader will reciprocate with a visit of his own later in the year. The Chinese readout of the call offered one detail that the American side did not offer, which is that in addition to discussing the future of an independent Taiwan, that was in the conversation today. According to the Chinese side, Xi told Trump that Taiwan's return to China is an integral part of the post war international order. So Taiwan, Ukraine, all in the mix in that call. Melissa.
- [15:21]
Melissa Lee
Yeah, Eamonn, thank you. Eamon Javers, it does seem like it would be, you know, good news that there's some progress in terms of relations being thawed. But when it comes to Taiwan, that's a big issue that, you know, it's, there's a stark difference here in terms of where we stand, the US and where China stands.
- [15:35]
Tim Seymour
And I'm sure that she loves the Putin model on this one. And by the way, I'm glad they eventually got to talk about US China trade rather than US And China discussing Ukraine, Russia. I mean, and I get what's going on here. But the original details of that peace deal were I think the last people that were consulted were Ukrainians.
- [15:59]
Melissa Lee
For more on the markets, let's bring in Stuart Kaiser, Citi's head of US Equity Trading Strategies too. Great to see you with us. In terms of what we saw today, what was it, what was this big rally in tech all about?
- [16:11]
Stuart Kaiser
I mean, you know, part of it was the Google headlines, I think that you all discussed. Part of it was we'd had a tough week and, you know, things got a little bit solid. It looks like retail stepped back in a little bit today. Retail favorite stocks are up about five and a half percent, which is a pretty large move that said, you know, not all clean, you know, S and P, advanced decline was negative. You know, mag 7 equal weight was up 3 1/2 percent. The rest of the 493 wasn't. So it kind of just looks like last week you had a pretty aggressive selling of market leadership, whether you want to call that tech or growth or AI. And today we got a little bit of bounce into that. Could be seasonals. But it does seem what, like a couple of positive headlines to your point. You know, Friday we kind of maybe sold off a little too much and we're coming back. And then getting retail back involved was it was a positive as well.
- [16:51]
Dan Nathan
It seemed to me that bitcoin had sort of an outsized involvement in the markets, sentiment and trading. And over the weekend it seemed to stabilize and actually had a decent run. Do you think that's so or just coincidental?
- [17:03]
Stuart Kaiser
Look, investors are definitely focused on it. I think on Friday there was a view that bitcoin actually led a little bit of the move lower and then obviously that's a big retail asset as well. It's hard to know because bitcoin is so tricky because it doesn't have a fair value. So I think a lot of times it just gets blamed and credited for a lot of stuff because there's not. Not an easy way to put the stake in the ground. But I think it's positive in the sense that it had been negative for risk sentiment. It does suggest retail under pressure and seeing that kind of stabilize over the weekend, I think just gave the market confidence. This wasn't a market flush going on. It was. It was maybe just more of a little bit of indigestion still.
- [17:36]
Guy Adami
We're just talking about US China, Taiwan came up. If Taiwan is some sort of pawn in this global chess match that's willing to be sacrificed, that's significant, I would think. Does that factor into any of the work you're doing now?
- [17:48]
Stuart Kaiser
Well, I'm more of a checkers guy, so I'm going to get to stay out of that global chess match. Look, I think anything that brings geopolitical tensions down is a positive. I think as far as China US the bottom line is I think both sides kind of, for lack of a better term, believe in mutually assured destruction. And they realize that this goes way, you know, off the rails in either direction, whether it's geopolitics or whether it's trade. That's a net negative. And from a markets perspective, what that's done is it's narrowed down your range of outcomes to, frankly, a range that people can risk adjust and trade around. So I think generally speaking, any weakness on China US headlines is still a buy the dip opportunity and we're going to kind of pursue it that way until proven otherwise.
- [18:27]
Guy Adami
So, stu, you mentioned the 7 and the 493 and the sort of performance that you're seeing. You know, you have great insight on your desk, but you specifically, are hedge funds getting a bit more choosy about these names? We know that they're still powering a lot of the gains, but you know, when you see a Metta and Microsoft acts the way they have over the last month or so, are you seeing that? Is that evident to you or is it more a retail thing?
- [18:48]
Stuart Kaiser
Oh, I think institutions are definitely getting a little more circumspect about this. They're auditing the AI trade in a little bit more of an aggressive way. And like Oracle is, is the poster child for that, just given what's gone on with those credit spreads. And you know, Karen made the point earlier about balance sheet. I think the worst balance sheet in the mag 7 is double A minus. Right. You know, Oracle's triple B and there are other tech companies that have a lot of spending commitments that, that are rated lower than that. So yeah, I think you're, you're getting, you know, some circumspect circumspection about hey, what is the spending? What is your balance sheet strength? And also, you know, prove it to me, you know, show me you can actually generate some revenue off of this. So yeah, I definitely think there's, there's a little bit going on on that side of things. And frankly, if you look at Mag 7 as a percent of S& P year to date, it's only about 40% of the market cap gain. So the trade has broadened out and I think now that you're seeing some cracks in it, people are maybe questioning some of that broadening out and going maybe stock by stock and saying where am I comfortable being out there and where am I a little less comfortable?
- [19:46]
Melissa Lee
Stu, great to have you. Great, thank you. Thank you, Stu. Kaiser Citi. Tim, we didn't mention with Stu the Fed meeting. But you know, add that to the mix and I'm wondering where you think we are in terms of pricing of the risk of the Fed meeting.
- [19:59]
Tim Seymour
I got the sense that the market's reversal on Friday and that 8% in semis or 4% in the Nasdaq opposite lows is all about the Fed. I think between being oversold and it seems as if again the messaging you've gotten from a Fed that I think the most important folks want to at least be. I think, I think Peter Buckvar even spoke about how Fed's John Williams we did this I think on Friday, you know, so he doesn't make that statement if it's not at least an approved statement. Which doesn't mean he's not an independent person in all of this. But I think the Fed is very powerful. I guess I just feel as if some technical factors, some holiday factors, some oversold factors and again that hundred day that everything bounced off of was really important and weakness out of those big five of those seven is bullish for stocks.
- [20:45]
Melissa Lee
Coming up, a storage surge. The memory makers with a major push higher today where Wall street thinks the group is heading from here. Plus the headlines behind today's Pharma moves. The upgrades and trial results swing Novo Fair, Merck and more. Do not go anywhere. Fast money's Back in two.
- [21:04]
Tim Seymour
This is a 30 second ad.
- [21:07]
Narrator/Announcer
In just 30 seconds there are likely.
- [21:09]
Tim Seymour
To be an average of over 30,000 cyber threats to all businesses.
- [21:13]
Narrator/Announcer
Since I've been talking, more than 10,000 likely just happened.
- [21:17]
Karen Feiderman
Hey, cyber threats don't wait and neither should you.
- [21:20]
Tim Seymour
With advanced security solutions, Comcast Business can help keep your network intact, data secure and your business reliably up and running. Get threat ready with Comcast Business. Learn how@comcastbusiness.com cybersecurity streaming is changing the.
- [21:36]
Narrator/Announcer
Way we watch live sports and your Internet connection can be the difference between catching the game, winning touchdown as it happens or hearing about it from your neighbor's cheers. That's why Comcast is building the network of the future. Using cutting edge AI and edge computing technology. We're bringing fans closer to the action in stunning high definition with ultra low latency. It's not just fast, it's game changing. Learn more@comcastcorporation.com sports what are you doing in a meeting? That could have been an email. Losing interest. Don't let it happen to your money too. Vanguard's CashPlus account can't help you at work, but we can help with your savings. Find out how much interest you could earn@vanguard.com cashplus offered by Vanguard Marketing Corporation member FINRA and SIPC.
- [22:18]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to Fast Money. Novo Nordisk dropping 5.5% now trading at more than four year lows. A company out with disappointing data on Wegovy's potential to treat Alzheimer's. The drug failing to show a slowdown in disease progression. It's not any better than the placebo. Meantime, some bright spots in the sector as well. Bristol Myers popping over 3% of strong blood thinner. Data from rival Bayer validates expectations for its own drug for stroke prevention. And merck up nearly 3% upgraded to outperform at Wells Fargo on optimism around its pipeline. Build for more on the moves. Mizuho health care strategist Jared Holz joins us here on set. Jared, great to have you with us. It felt like the bar was sort of low when it comes to Novo and the Alzheimer's data and yet the stock is moving this much lower. I mean what, what do you need to see at this point? What do I mean, is it a value trap here?
- [23:07]
Karen Feiderman
I think you just need to see some resurrection of of its obesity drug in terms of revenue. Right. Like it's hard to believe we're at four to five year lows in the stock. It's almost as though they would have been better off not even having an obesity drug if they knew that the street was going to treat it this horribly if they were second fiddle to Lilly. So that's why, and we've spoken about this before, like I've been terming it Moderna 2.0 because at the top of its success they kind of stood still and now, you know, years later they're trying to kind of, you know, recoup and build out and with the, the pipeline and whatever. But I think it's just going to take a little bit of share gains on the part of we go V versus that bound and, and go from there. But it's been startling to see the demise of what was a couple of years ago like the darling in the sector.
- [23:53]
Melissa Lee
Yeah.
- [23:54]
Dan Nathan
So I'm surprised sort of at the magnitude of. Certainly early this morning the magnitude of the move was, was kind of shocking that you would think oh this 12 and change times P E. But 12% of that was really on the hope of this drug, the Alzheimer's drug, which didn't make any sense.
- [24:08]
Guy Adami
Right.
- [24:10]
Dan Nathan
How significant did you think this drug should be?
- [24:14]
Karen Feiderman
I mean that was my take, Karen. When I saw the data this morning I thought maybe down 5%. That's what I wrote very early on. I thought it overshot. I didn't expect this to be a super positive trial. I think those that were optimistic were looking for some pockets, maybe some patient populations within the trial to show promise. But I think investors thought the up down on this was up 20, down 5. And so when I saw the data this morning I'm like OK, maybe this is a minus 5% day. It wound up being that when all was said and done. But I don't think there was much expectation in this at all. Certainly not in the models or the valuation.
- [24:51]
Tim Seymour
Yeah. And getting punished on an Alzheimer's evoke trial is not what I would have expected as a shareholder. So back to investors, it seems to me that this was, and there's been a bunch of these, a chance to really throw this one out. So let's get to investor sentiment though in almost everything else in your sector, which really does seem to be. But let's go with Mega Cap pharma especially and some of the biotech where, you know, after the moves we've seen, I mean a Bristol breakout here almost on the charts. Looks like you have a long way to go and you've been waiting for this.
- [25:24]
Karen Feiderman
Yeah. This has been an incredible year for large cap pharma. Really when you back at a couple of the of the exceptions JJ up 40. Lilly obviously it's been a gangbuster year. Abbvie trading at highs. Amgen Gilead has been a great stock this year. So we're finally dealing with the Merck's, the Bristol's, those that have not yet gone to year to date highs. Bristol a little bit tricky. There's some data there that they have to kind of get through but I thought it was encouraging today. Stock up 4% on someone else's data. Clearly I think there's a bias to own them. I think the investor base is just trying to figure out what is going to be that driving factor that gets them to turn more positive.
- [26:04]
Melissa Lee
So what is the story with Bristol moving higher on the back of Bayer's data? Because it had a similar mechanism which it tested for acute coronary syndrome but this would be for pre stroke and so it's a different indication and so therefore there's a reason that this drug may be revived after people left it sort of for dead.
- [26:22]
Karen Feiderman
Yeah, I think Bayer is working on this as well for essentially stroke prevention. These Factor 11 inhibitors, similar markets and I think obviously the read through today was if works for Bayer here, it's going to work for Bristol. We don't know that but again when a stock is trading below 10 times you don't really need much.
- [26:43]
Melissa Lee
Yeah, it's trading at 7 plus.
- [26:45]
Guy Adami
Well that's what we're talking about in the overtime, the 2, 3 standard deviations of multiple that Eli Lilly gets as opposed to these companies. And I'll just. This is my final question to you. M and A has been a thing over the last month and is 26 going to be the year where all these three to six billion dollars companies, there are about five of them out there get gobbled up?
- [27:05]
Karen Feiderman
I think so. I mean this has been an incredible year. I think there have been 19 deals north of 500 million in public biotech equity that would be the second best year. Not in terms of dollar. We've seen bigger dollars spent like the Celgene year and the CGEN year but it's been incredibly active. All the data points and anecdotal conversations suggest that next year is going to be a huge year too. I mean the denominator in publicly traded biotech is still hundreds of companies that are kind of up for grabs here I've been using a list of what I call like the top 40 maybe and they kind of span from $30 billion in market cap all the way down to $1 billion. So there is a sweet spot there and Honestly, like I heard you guys talking before about tech. You've got these multitrillion dollar companies out there. What would be so shocking about a 30 or 40 billion dollars deal in the context of the, of the broader market? It wouldn't really shock me. I think the street might be. But I think we're set up for a big year next year.
- [28:06]
Melissa Lee
So from now until a year out, Novo, Pfizer or Bristol.
- [28:14]
Dan Nathan
Would you rather?
- [28:15]
Narrator/Announcer
Rather.
- [28:15]
Melissa Lee
Would you rather. Rather.
- [28:17]
Tim Seymour
God, we got a year on this trade.
- [28:19]
Melissa Lee
Got a year.
- [28:19]
Tim Seymour
What's our timeline?
- [28:20]
Melissa Lee
One year.
- [28:21]
Tim Seymour
It's not fast money.
- [28:22]
Karen Feiderman
I think I like Novo here.
- [28:26]
Melissa Lee
Oh, okay.
- [28:27]
Karen Feiderman
Multiple, incredibly low. They've got an oral weight loss drug launching soon. If that can get, you know, 30, 40% of that market, at least there's something there. You've got management that seems to know that there's a fire under it. Finally, new board construction. I think there's a lot there, clearly. I think that it's a really interesting question because all three, you know, are kind of like they could be coiled springs if anything were to go right. I just think that this market, with the way that the streets reacted in the past to weight loss, could be the one that gets going in this Novo. But it's a, it's a tough one.
- [29:08]
Melissa Lee
Jared, thank you. Jared holds. Mizuho. I'll pose the same question to you.
- [29:12]
Tim Seymour
Would you rather?
- [29:13]
Guy Adami
Rather.
- [29:13]
Melissa Lee
Yes, yes.
- [29:15]
Guy Adami
Well, I was hoping he would say Novo because I agree. I mean Pfizer Novo is you mentioned. He just called it. What, Coiled spring. Listen, I thought it was a coiled spring at 65, $70. Here we are 40. But I think anything on the margins that are positive, this is $60 stock.
- [29:31]
Melissa Lee
There's a lot more fast money to come. Here's what's coming up next.
- [29:35]
Narrator/Announcer
A storage surge. The bullish call on Wall street charging.
- [29:39]
Guy Adami
Up the memory makers.
- [29:40]
Narrator/Announcer
And if the climb can continue. Plus an AI Baba bump. And another missed target. The fast movers catching our traders attention next. You're watching Fast Money live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square.
- [29:56]
Guy Adami
We're back right after this.
- [30:05]
Melissa Lee
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.
- [30:13]
Narrator/Announcer
Education that's designed to focus on what.
- [30:15]
Melissa Lee
You need to know in the business world.
- [30:17]
Narrator/Announcer
We'll teach professional skills to help you.
- [30:19]
Melissa Lee
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.
- [30:31]
Narrator/Announcer
Learn more@capella.edu buy the dip with Pro's best deal of the year, including exclusive.
- [30:38]
Tim Seymour
Access to Pro live events.
- [30:40]
Karen Feiderman
This is my first time at the.
- [30:41]
Tim Seymour
Stock exchange and it's been awesome.
- [30:43]
Narrator/Announcer
Go pro@cnbc.com ProBlackFriday terms and restrictions apply.
- [30:53]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to Fast Money. A News alert on SanDisk shares jumping after hours. The data storage stock replacing adverse advertising company Interpublic and the S&P 500. This comes after a big day for data storage stocks. SanDisk up 13%. Micron up 8% as analysts at Morgan Stanley raise their price targets on the stocks. The firm citing memory conditions improving as storage is shortages intensify and a lack of AI concerns claiming memory vendors are still agnostic winners. Storage names SanDisk, Micron, Seagate, Western Dig all seen triple digit gains since the start of the year.
- [31:27]
Tim Seymour
Well, I've been so wrong on this. I mean, at least I've been of a view that there's nothing all that proprietary or that much of a moat except for the fact that there's been such consolidation there as you get into the super memory and the bandwidth memory that Microns is, is a leader. And outside of a couple of firms in Asia. You get the move here. I still don't think there is that type of a competitive advantage other than the cyclicality of what we know, what used to be uber cyclical. Well, we know there's demand and we know there's a lack of memory. So at some point I think it's.
- [31:58]
Guy Adami
Going to turn there S and P goes again. I mean, the Stock is up 350% in two months. I mean, just, just think about that. And you know, we've seen this before in no shortage, shortage of stocks. But again, I mean, they're taking Interrepublic Group out. This is, this is a great example of just how things are going here in this economy, but also in this market that's a, you know, an advertising conglomerate. But it's really hard to chase these things. I mean, you know, again, this was trading at 50 bucks. You could add all you wanted in the first week of September and here we are, it's trading the aftermarket near 250. So I just don't think you chase any of these. Micron price Target raised from 325 to 338, which is not a big deal, but it gets them back having people like us talk about it again. And Tim just hit the nail on the head as usual. Highly cyclical.
- [32:41]
Stuart Kaiser
Thank you. I thought you're.
- [32:43]
Guy Adami
No, I'M being serious.
- [32:44]
Tim Seymour
That's very.
- [32:44]
Guy Adami
I wasn't being sarcastic.
- [32:46]
Melissa Lee
I think he was being serious too. I mean, you're genuine and saying thank you for the compliment.
- [32:49]
Tim Seymour
And I was just deflecting and saying that's very nice.
- [32:51]
Guy Adami
Why don't you guys just get a room. That's what we want here. Yeah, we've done that before. Game together anyway. But still highly sick. Put up a micron chart over the last year. I mean it shouldn't trade the way it is. And $338 is what is that, 45% higher than ish than we're currently trading. That's astonishing that people say it's cheap on valuation. That's not when you buy these stocks. I mean it's historically when it's cheap on valuation. Is the time to be getting out of these names. Maybe it's different this time.
- [33:22]
Melissa Lee
Coming up, the pops and drops from today's session. Alibaba's bump as the Chinese tech giant unveils its new AI app and the continued decline in shares of Target as a retailer gears up for what could be a rough holiday shopping season. That and more when Fast Money returns. Welcome back to Fast Money Stocks surging to start the holiday shortened week. The Dow jumping 200 points. The S&P climbing more than one and a half percent and the NASDAQ leading the charge soaring more than 2 1/2 percent. Shares of Alibaba getting a bump at the Chinese tech giant's new app Quinn surpassing 10 million downloads a week after its relaunch. This as it looks to rival OpenAI's ChatGPT. Alibaba's up more than 90% this year. Shares a target continuing their decline. The retail giant rebounding after last week's rough earnings report but losing steam throughout the day. Some after hours action tell you about shares a zoom higher after topping earnings and revenue estimates. The company also upping Q4 EPS guidance. 10 we'll go to go to you with Baba.
- [34:24]
Tim Seymour
Well some of the move I don't know that this is about today's announcement as much as this is again a rally in tech stock. Mega cap tech stocks that were oversold. It was a week ago we were talking maybe 10 days ago we were talking about this report that was coming out of the White House that they're having conversations that actually Alibaba might be working with the Chinese government. Go figure. You know that doesn't mean and I think one of the things I said at that point is I'd be concerned if they weren't working with the Chinese government and that this was a reason to buy it. Now, I'm not saying that there are issues there and that there are people in this country that are investors that are always worried about Alibaba being delisted and whatnot. I think you get back to the core, which is Ali Cloud is a major, major growth machine. It's underappreciated. This, this company has 30% of the market cap in cash. It's very cheap and I own it. So I'm long.
- [35:13]
Melissa Lee
You flag target trades.
- [35:15]
Guy Adami
It's terrible. I mean, can't get out of this way. I mean you're going to have a tradable bounce at some point. Point. But the bouncers are short lived at best and they just continue to sort of disappoint. Yes, I get the whole valuation narrative, but they need to make significant changes that they haven't proven they can do yet. So I think the trade continues to be long. Walmart short.
- [35:35]
Tim Seymour
What do you want to see on their shelves that you're not?
- [35:37]
Guy Adami
Groceries, baby. But it ain't happening. Is there something, by the way, you want to note since you asked the question why a nice throw pillow every once in a while?
- [35:44]
Tim Seymour
Yeah.
- [35:44]
Guy Adami
And the seasonal post Paris.
- [35:47]
Melissa Lee
How about a scented candle?
- [35:48]
Guy Adami
Love scented candles. I'm a garden if anybody's watching.
- [35:51]
Tim Seymour
I heard from Linda that, that actually you have too many throw pillows at some point. She doesn't know you really have too many.
- [35:56]
Melissa Lee
It's true.
- [35:56]
Guy Adami
You really have too many.
- [35:57]
Melissa Lee
What do you do with so many?
- [35:57]
Tim Seymour
You got to be careful.
- [35:58]
Melissa Lee
Well, when you make curate your pillows.
- [36:01]
Guy Adami
Yeah. You have to curate.
- [36:02]
Tim Seymour
You just throw them everywhere.
- [36:03]
Guy Adami
Well, no, you don't throw them. The colors have.
- [36:05]
Melissa Lee
This is like a whole other show.
- [36:08]
Narrator/Announcer
That no one wants to watch.
- [36:09]
Tim Seymour
I think we should have a design show.
- [36:12]
Guy Adami
Yes. We'll have a Pinterest page. We can't show it now.
- [36:14]
Melissa Lee
You haven't changed since 2000. Coming up, behind the wheel, behind on payments, the rise in auto loan delinquencies and how higher car prices are only making things worse. More on the consumer crunch and fast money returns. Welcome back to fast money. Consumers expecting to spend about 10% less this year on holiday gifts for an average of nearly sixteen hundred dollars as they prepare for higher prices according to the latest Deloitte Holiday retail survey. Our next guest warns that consumers are strapped. We could see a January hangover. Joining us is Laks Ganapathi of Unicus Research. She's the founder and CEO of the Short Investment Research firm. She's also worked Closely with Steve Isman, who is a friend of Fast Money, of course. Locks. Great to have you back. Good to see you.
- [37:06]
Laks Ganapathi
Thank you for having me.
- [37:07]
Melissa Lee
So you've been concerned about consumers and consumer credit for a while. What do you see happening in the past couple of months going into your end that makes this thesis even more relevant?
- [37:17]
Laks Ganapathi
Well, holiday season is on. Consumers are going to spend and according to the latest statistics, 52% of the consumers are spending because of some obligation or guilt. But you know, they started shopping from August. Some of them, you know, it's more like not splurging. It's more value driven and more guilt driven than, you know, splurging for happy Holidays.
- [37:46]
Tim Seymour
That sounds awful. I mean that's really. Yeah, that is not the spirit.
- [37:49]
Laks Ganapathi
It's, it's not. And, but they are still doing it. 20 to 31% of the consumers who use credit cards for last year holiday spending, they are still paying off the debt and they are going to stack up on it this year. So the holiday cheer is on, but it's all on either BNPL or on credit card.
- [38:13]
Melissa Lee
Okay, so how do you express this view in terms of stocks?
- [38:19]
Laks Ganapathi
Well, stocks, BNPL companies like Affirm, Klarna and other companies, they are going to be happy. Something to be happy about because consumers are using credit cards and those who tapped out of credit cards, they are choosing BNPL. Like 30% are choosing BNPL to pay for holiday shopping. So in terms of stocks, it's more BNPL companies are going to do pretty well.
- [38:50]
Guy Adami
Auto loan delinquencies, I'm reading the highest since 2000, I want to say 10 credit card, the highest in 14 years. 7.1% delinquencies. Nobody seems to care. The market's sort of looking at this and saying it's not a big deal yet. When does it become a big deal?
- [39:05]
Laks Ganapathi
Well, there is going to be a hangover in first half of 2026 and this happens when the layoffs are started to pile up in 2025. More than a million layoffs. And if this labor market keeps softening up into the 2026, we will see delinquencies and charge offs to spike up in auto loans and credit cards.
- [39:30]
Dan Nathan
So are you seeing a bifurcation in the wealthier customer versus the wealthier shopper versus the the lower end shopper that where the upper, upper level shopper is actually concerned about layoffs, maybe even more than the lower end?
- [39:45]
Laks Ganapathi
Definitely. I mean last quarter we saw through Dollar Tree and Dollar General that people who are making more than 100,000 are trading down to shop at discounted places like Target, Walmart and Dollar Tree. So yeah, consumers across the board are very concerned. And near prime consumers are facing a lot of delinquencies in terms of auto loan and credit cards.
- [40:13]
Melissa Lee
So near prime is like what household income approximately.
- [40:17]
Laks Ganapathi
Roughly 100k and like 200k in that range. It's. Yeah, yes.
- [40:25]
Tim Seymour
Bring it back though to Buy now, pay later and those others. It sounds to me that the story you're setting up is in the short run it's great for them but. But as we get further out, it's a disaster.
- [40:34]
Melissa Lee
It is.
- [40:35]
Tim Seymour
They seem to be often targets on the short side.
- [40:39]
Laks Ganapathi
It's like kicking the can down the road. And you know, it's a whole different conversation when we talk about buy now, pay later. They are being funded by private credit, so the money is a lot over there. So it's going well. And we don't know how strict they are in trying to recoup the delinquent consumers, but so far it seems to go fine with bnpl.
- [41:06]
Melissa Lee
Walk through your thesis on auto delinquencies and how that will translate as things get worse down the chain. I mean in terms of new vehicle dealers, used vehicle dealers, et cetera.
- [41:18]
Laks Ganapathi
Well, the new car price went from $35,000 to $50,000. That is something no one can afford at this point. And you see the delinquencies are spiking up so investors need to stay away or lean away from companies like auto dealerships, new auto dealerships like ABG or AutoNation. And those guys are having a hard time trying to push the new cars out of the lot.
- [41:50]
Melissa Lee
Wow.
- [41:51]
Laks Ganapathi
And student loan, if I may, student loan delinquencies according to the latest Federal Reserve is up 14% 90 day past due and it was less than 1% last year. So this number is going to go up. Even though they don't get it garnished, at least they will go into collections and it will definitely impact consumers credit scores.
- [42:14]
Melissa Lee
Laks, thank you so much for joining us. It's always fascinating to hear your ideas. Laks Ganapathy of Unicus Research. It's interesting. We talk about delinquencies sort of in silos, auto delinquencies to student loans, etc. But when you think about it's one consumer, they've got a car, they've got a house, they've got a student loan and you're layering this. That is the pressure that consumers are feeling.
- [42:33]
Guy Adami
Mortgage debt, credit card debt. I think there were 1.75 auto repossessions over the last year. The highest number we've seen in a while. Yeah, it all sort of like a pastiche of what's going on now. Stock market at all time highs suggests it doesn't matter. I think it matters. Yeah. I just saw some data today that 25% of unemployment are now four year college degrees. Like think about that, four. And that's where all the growth is coming. So if you talk about student debt delinquencies, this is getting worse.
- [42:59]
Melissa Lee
Coming up, crypto's restful weekend. The rebound in bitcoin and if the comeback can continue into year end, more fast money into. Welcome back to fast money. Bitcoin trying to bounce back from last week's huge loss is up almost 2% today. But the world's largest cryptocurrency has a lot of ground to make up down nearly 30% from the all time highs it hit just last month. Etherium and Solana also making moves higher after seeing some similar washouts last week. Karen, what's your interpretation? Does seem like it's sort of stabilized here but I don't know for long.
- [43:37]
Dan Nathan
I feel like it has. So I don't know that 125 is in our sights markets in the short term but I do feel like Stuart brought it up before that it's sort of all together. Right. The sentiment about Bitcoin is sentiment about AI. It's all that sort of the overlapping of that same kind of investor. I'm still long staying long.
- [43:55]
Guy Adami
I think you can overlay a CME Fed watch tool in terms of is there going to be a cut in December? It got down I think 36% last week and that coincided with bitcoin selling off. It's back up to 70% which makes sense coinciding with bitcoin rally. To me it's just a Fed, it's a, it's a synthetic Fed play at this point.
- [44:14]
Melissa Lee
How do you think the treasury companies play into what we've seen so far in terms of the downdraft in crypto?
- [44:20]
Guy Adami
There had to be an unwind last week. I mean you know, you saw the way a lot of these treasury companies, I mean listen, if there's nothing behind, if they're just buying the underlying and trying to kind of get a levered play on that. It's just not that attractive to an equity investor when you're getting these cycles of returns. We just talked about Sanders going from 50 to 250 in two months but.
- [44:39]
Tim Seymour
So I think we're all suggesting this is what I'm hearing is that this is a buy Bitcoin moment because Bitcoin, not the treasury companies, is the one that's being tossed around because it's levered. But at the end of the day, the dynamic around Bitcoin is one we've seen these kinds of sell offs before. Every time we have market volatility too, we know there's more. There's a larger investor base now in institutions, institutional investor base in the space and ultimately they're not making anymore. So you're buying Bitcoin here.
- [45:06]
Melissa Lee
Up next, final trades, Final trade time.
- [45:16]
Tim Seymour
Timothy Holiday gifts out of guilt or what was the other one?
- [45:20]
Narrator/Announcer
I mean obligation.
- [45:22]
Tim Seymour
Obligation that. Anyway, our secret Santa here, our secret Santa here on Fast Money doesn't work like the Alibaba.
- [45:29]
Dan Nathan
Karen yes, so we didn't get to it, but Zoom Communications, another very good quarter for them. One of the most outstanding balance sheets around anywhere. I like it.
- [45:39]
Melissa Lee
Dan.
- [45:40]
Guy Adami
Be raised on every metric. I like it too, Karen, but that's not my final trade. I'm a big we'll go guy. I think you take a crack on the Novo, please. I just let that sort of linger out there like the cranberry sauce. Maximista is out there.
- [45:54]
Narrator/Announcer
Tjx thanks for watching.
- [45:56]
Melissa Lee
Fast Mad Money starts right now.
- [45:58]
Narrator/Announcer
All opinions expressed by the Fast Money.
- [46:00]
Melissa Lee
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 what are you.
- [46:38]
Narrator/Announcer
Doing in a meeting? That could have been an email. Losing interest? Don't let it happen to your money, too. Vanguard's CashPlus account can't help you at work, but we can help with your savings. Find out how much interest you could earn@vanguard.com cashplus offered by Vanguard Marketing Corporation member FINRA and SIPC.