← CNBC's "Fast Money"
CNBC's "Fast Money"
Fed Leaves Rates Unchanged… And SoundHound AI’s Nvidia Partnership 3/19/25
00:43:00
Stocks ticking higher as the central bank leaves rates unchanged. What Powell had to say about the next move in rates, and where they stand in the fight against inflation. Plus SoundHound AI expanding its partnership with Nvidia, as the AI voice tech company looks to grow out its models and applications. What the CEO says about the collaboration, and if this stock can make a comeback. Fast Money Disclaimer
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- [00:00]
Steve Liesman
Say you've always wanted to take a.
- [00:02]
Mike Santoli
Spontaneous trip to the Caribbean.
- [00:03]
Steve Liesman
Here's the thing, if you get smart.
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Mike Santoli
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Melissa Lee
Money so you can be a little bad.
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Mike Santoli
Join their 19 million customers today@empower.com not an empowered client, paid or sponsored. For 140 years, MultiCare has been in Washington prioritizing long term solutions, partnering with local communities and expanding access to care. Together, we're building a healthier future.
- [00:45]
Melissa Lee
Learn more@mycare.org live from the Nasdaq market site in the heart of New York City's Times Square. This is FAST money. Here is what's on tap tonight. The Fed in focus. Stocks up and yields down after the central bank held rates steady again. What changed in their outlook and what do they have to say about the impact of tariffs? We will dive in. And Nvidia's Jensen Huang holding a Q and a session with the media for the past hour. All the headlines from that event and the CEO of Soundhound on his expanded partnership with the chip duck giant. Plus, Boeing gets a bounce on comments from its cfo. Signet Jewelers rings up a win after earnings. And we're counting down to Nike results tomorrow. How will tariffs impact the shoe giant? We'll find out what the options are saying later this hour.
- [01:32]
Mike Santoli
Hour.
- [01:33]
Melissa Lee
Mike Santole in for Melissa Lee, coming to you live from Studio B at the nasdaq. And on the desk tonight, Karen Feinerman, Dan Nathan, Guy Adami and Michael Kintopoulos, deputy chief investment officer at Richard Bernstein Advisors. Welcome to you all and thanks for having me.
- [01:52]
Guy Adami
Slow your roll.
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Melissa Lee
Important thing, I mean, this is the.
- [01:56]
Guy Adami
Hardest working person at the entire net. Mike Santoli, do you agree with that? Dan Nathan, 100%. And he's gracing us after extraordinarily long day. Finds out he's host posting fast money during his last show. And here he is. A little round of applause for Mike Santa.
- [02:11]
Melissa Lee
All right, little known. Every day I save up like one hour I still have left in the tank.
- [02:17]
Guy Adami
So hopefully, hopefully this is it.
- [02:19]
Mike Santoli
Let's do it.
- [02:20]
Melissa Lee
We'll see how it goes. But we do start with stocks surging after today's Fed decision though closing off their highs of the day. The Central bank holding rates steady for a second straight meeting, but saying it still sees two cuts potentially ahead this year. The Fed also upped its inflation expectations as economic uncertainty rises and tariffs begin to have an impact. Our Steve Liesman has all the details. Hey, Steve.
- [02:44]
Steve Liesman
Hey, thanks, Mike. Yeah. The market's taking a dovish cue from the Fed today. It kept rates unchanged four and a quarter to four and a half percent as expected. And that's despite concerns about higher prices coming from tariffs. It emphasized the uncertainty in the outlook from these changing policies from the Trump administration, but it still forecasts rate cuts this year.
- [03:05]
Mike Santoli
If the economy remains strong and inflation does not continue to move sustainably toward 2%, we can maintain policy restraint for longer. If the labor market were to weaken unexpectedly or inflation were to fall more quickly than anticipated, we can ease policy accordingly. Our current policy stance is well positioned to deal with the risks and uncertainties that we face in pursuing both sides.
- [03:27]
Melissa Lee
Of our dual mandate.
- [03:30]
Steve Liesman
Notice, no talk of hikes there. Fed officials in their projections raising their core inflation outlook this year by 3. 10 to 2 8, most of which is linked to higher tariffs. They lowered the growth forecast by 4. 10. That's down to 1.7% exactly, by the way, matching the CNBC Fed survey. And yet it kept that forecast for two rate cuts this year with the median forecasting a3.9 by the end of the year from the 437. Now, the takeaway is that Powell made clear he would be watching closely to see if tariff raised prices only one time where became a broader inflation problem. He's pretty cool about it. He basically said he would not be taking any preemptive action. And Mike, I just want to get on a little news right here that I got while I was talking there. Megan Casella, our ace Washington reporter, has confirmed a Washington Post report where she would have found that one White House official tells me the total value of goods hit with tariffs on April 2 could be quote in the trillions, but nothing is for sure yet. So there's this idea that there is, as you know, a massive additional wave of tariffs coming. Powell knows about it, but he was pretty cool in the face of it.
- [04:37]
Karen Feinerman
Hey, Steve, it's Karen. Thanks for being on today. So right after the the language came out, the market down and then up and then down a little bit. Seemed like it was the press conference where it seemed to me that it was the absence of a hawk is a dove. Was that your take on it?
- [04:56]
Steve Liesman
I think so. Look, the chair has been kind of on the dovish side. If you peered inside of the dot plot. So the so called projections for, for, for rates this year and next it was a little hawkish. Your doves went away, they came up towards the median and there are a few people out there for now who are saying no cuts this year. But again, no talk, Karen, of rate hikes in the face of this, no preemptive actions and talk to the idea that these tariffs could be transitory and don't say thanks for being here. I have to be here. If you're throwing down the gauntlet of Santoli being the hardest working guy, I'm just being polite.
- [05:35]
Guy Adami
1 and 1A. So Steve, I mean listen, first of all on a daily basis I say things I regret. But with that said, it was about 11 months ago that when asked about stagflation, Chairman Powell said I don't see the stag nor the flash. And yet today, as you just mentioned, they lower their growth forecast and they raised their inflation forecast and the unemployment forecast as well. So was that sort of tacit acknowledgement that you know, maybe I shouldn't have said it when I did?
- [06:04]
Steve Liesman
Well no, because the stagflation he was asked about 11 months ago is very different what he faces now. And Guy, we're kind of simpatico in that thinking. That was exactly the question I asked him, which is how the bank of Canada responded to that, where he said hey or the Bank Canada said I'm going to deal with inflation and I can't do much about a trade war. Powell didn't kind of take that bait, didn't take that stance. He kind of said we're going to wait and see. We don't have that problem now. He is indeed, as you say guy, facing likely higher prints on inflation, likely lower prints on growth. But neither is going to dissuade him, I think, or make it persuade him into the idea of hiking rates because he thinks he's in a good place and because the unemployment rate is relatively low and growth has been pretty strong. Look, if the bottom drops out, the Fed will act. And that's the idea. There's a couple different ways to get to lower rates, lower inflation as well as lower growth and sorry, higher unemployment. So there's two different ways to get there and doesn't look like there's a whole lot of ways or a whole lot of routes right now to higher rates themselves.
- [07:12]
Melissa Lee
Right. And just with so many acknowledgments that there's a pretty opaque outlook ahead of them and they got to take the time and the Data as it comes. Steve, thanks a lot. We'll see you. See you tomorrow. Pleasure, I'm sure. Dan. The market action as it was unfolding, it seemed like this. The general tone from Powell of some tolerance of higher inflation readings. At the same time they're keeping their two potential cuts on paper was enough for a market that's kind of oversold and was down 1% yesterday. And we obviously still closed below yesterday.
- [07:42]
Mike Santoli
Well, you do the work all day long and you talk about a lot of these indicators, the sentiment, and again, it was pretty oversold. Whether you're looking at technically, whether you're thinking about it anecdotally, just talking to folks on the street and you know, look at the degrossing that we've seen over the last few weeks, but also the pace in which the market sold off. It's really hard for us to put that in some context. We've all been doing this a long time. I think that's one of the reasons why, especially if you're like a retail investor, you didn't really have time to think about a whole heck of a lot the way in which we just went down 10% in a straight line. The good news is the S and P, you know, the silver lining thing that I do, you know, is that the S and P is only down three and a half percent of the year. You know what I mean? So maybe they took a lot of this euphoric sort of price action and some of the biggest names in the market that we've all been talking about this concentration for a long time. I think almost more importantly, it's the meme stocks like Palantir that went to 100 billion, then 200 billion, 300 billion. To see the back of some of those things broken makes me feel a little bit more optimistic that you might go back into the prior leadership if we do sort of get an all clear on some of the tariff stuff and some of the rates.
- [08:46]
Melissa Lee
Yeah, I mean, X Mag 7 markets up this year and sometimes the max 7 acts as defense. We'll see if that can happen again. Mike, what's your take on how the bond market took it? Obviously yields pretty much down in a pronounced way across the board.
- [08:58]
Mike Santoli
Yeah.
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Dan Nathan
I mean, listen, I think the bond market is pretty much what you expected, right? You didn't have a huge change in the dots. Obviously, still pricing into cuts, higher expected inflation, you expect a steeper yield curve, and that's pretty much pretty much what you had from the bond market at a steeper yield curve. I think that probably continues to steepen as well. When you look at, you know, you miss inflation expectations, you look at input prices, you look at the Fed's own forecast and then you look at the lower growth, you know, 1.7% GDP, you'd expect a steeper yield curve. So I think, listen, the Fed, excuse me, the bond markets seem to take this in stride. I think we're going to be in a range bound market for some time. I do think you could go higher on rates because if you do get a stronger equity market, if growth doesn't disappoint, you know, you don't get down well below 2% on GDP, if earnings remain strong, then essentially the Fed is remaining easy, liquidity is plentiful, look what Bitcoin did today. And you could actually see higher yields in the back end. And so that's, you know, I think that could be in the future over coming months.
- [09:54]
Melissa Lee
I mean, Powell was pretty dismissive of the University of Michigan expectations number. Now when it's convenient, on the way up, he was grabbing hold of it. But I do think in general that's the big debate. And he sort of characterized it this way too when we seen consumer confidence, CEO confidence, small business confidence plunge from high levels. And what does it mean? Does that actually get transmitted into real hard data? And I think that's the, that's the vigil right now that we're.
- [10:23]
Dan Nathan
Yeah, and I mean, I think, I think Chair Powell mentioned this during the press conference in the sense that oftentimes the soft data, the survey data doesn't actually translate into the real economy. But remember, a lot of the data that we're seeing on the economic side is lag data. So we don't really know where things are going to go going forward. The best thing that we can model are profits. And profit growth still remains pretty healthy. And so, you know, that's sort of my cue in terms of where the equity market's going to go from here and you know, really sort of where the opportunity set might be.
- [10:49]
Melissa Lee
So, Karen, do we put the Fed in the column of things that have the markets back or is it still just sort of completely, you know, in the middle here?
- [10:59]
Karen Feinerman
I mean, I guess I think of it as having a put, but it's not at the money put at all. It might be, you know, several percent out of the money. So I don't take a lot of faith in that, but I do, I have noticed, I mean, you know, discretionary, which that consumer number was terrible. Yet the stocks did seem to bottom right around that time.
- [11:16]
Melissa Lee
Yeah, yeah. I mean, they were stretched, I'm sure. Guy, I'm usually a, you know, half balance sheet doesn't really mean.
- [11:24]
Guy Adami
No, thank you for mentioning that. Because the runoff, this reduction in the runoff. Yes, you're 100% right. Going from 25 billion down to 5 starting in April. I think that's what the market sort of took its cues from in that initial run. Higher people are saying party on. We're going to go from cut to qe. I don't think it's that linear in my opinion, but I think the market took a lot from that. I think it's one of the reasons that yields might have gone lower in a meaningful way. But with that said, you could also make an argument that that could potentially be sort of inflationary as well. So it works in the short term. It might sort of nip them in the bud in the longer.
- [11:57]
Melissa Lee
I mean, it's a couple hundred billion that less that the treasury is going to have to issue, essentially. I mean, so just right there, I don't know if that's inflationary just because the Treasury's got to issue less debt. But it was maybe just. Was it a slight surprise, Mike?
- [12:11]
Dan Nathan
No, I think the bond market is pretty much. It was fairly in line with the bond market was expecting. So I don't think that was a huge driver today. But, you know, if you had gone to zero that thing, that would have been a little bit of a.
- [12:22]
Melissa Lee
So was the bond market at least kind of bracing for something a little more hawkish? I'm just trying to explain the market action after, you know, I don't, I.
- [12:29]
Dan Nathan
Don'T know if it was necessarily breaking for bracing for anything more hawkish. I think it was just sort of more of a relief that it was in the sense that, you know, you kind of have like a, you know, a relief that this is going to be the status quo from here on out. It's not necessarily that there is a big expectation for something more hawkish. But hey, you know, he acknowledged the uncertainty out there that keeps them on, you know, on hold, keeps the cuts in play. And so, yeah, I think it's just sort of a nothing burger.
- [12:56]
Melissa Lee
Yeah. And you know, also just taking what Steve was saying that Megan has confirmed about White House saying, okay, so whatever we do on April 2nd is going to cover trillions of dollars. First of all, goods imports annually, like 3 trillion. Right. So maybe not that much of a surprise that reciprocal tariffs are going to apply to that much in the way of goods, but it's a debate as to whether we should think of it mostly as friction that causes growth to slow or as something that's, I think.
- [13:24]
Mike Santoli
The friction, I mean when you think about just what's going on. You just mentioned all of those sentiment indicators, consumer sentiment, small business, you know, they've fallen off a cliff because the uncertainty that we have on the tariff front. Right. And if you go back and look at Trump 1.0, I mean the tariffs did not create new jobs here. It did not reshore a whole heck of a lot of stuff. When you think about agriculture, you know, they might have taken in $60 billion in tariffs on that. They gave them right back to the farmers. You know what I mean? So to me, I think it has less to do with policy and more to with politics. But I look at what's going on right now and I say to myself, I just have a list right here. I haven't seen these sorts of companies announce layoffs in a very long time. I have to go back to maybe 2022, Starbucks, Chevron, Estee Lauder, Metta, Southwest and Morgan Stanley. That's just a handful and they're small right now. Okay. But you know what's much bigger is the ones that are being cut in the government. Right. And if you start seeing tariffs sort of weigh on all of those confidence indicators, we start seeing lower prints. You know, 1.8% GDP. We were no one was expect anything with a one handle for the better part of this year. So again, I think we run the risk of the longer we have politics. We're playing politics with this policy. Then I think you have the risk of the economy slowing, unemployment going higher and a whole host of other things going off the rails.
- [14:41]
Melissa Lee
Yeah, well we'll get weekly claims tomorrow. Doesn't count federal employees. But you know, it's also the case has been made, I mean federal employment is pretty small even as a percentage of public sector employment. It you know what I mean like state locals like eight or nine times that maybe that's going to be a lagged effect. All right, we'll take a look at another one of the big drivers today in video shares up nearly 2% today as its GTC conference continues. CEO Jensen Huang telling CNBC this morning that the tariff impact on the company will be minimal. He's been holding a Q and A session with media for the past hour. Christina Parts Nevilles was there and she joins us now with you know, all of today's highlights and and what you heard. That was fresh. Christine.
- [15:23]
Christina Parts Nevels
Yeah, I just ran over from two hotels. So it's still ongoing because we started a little late and I started. That was my first question. Question to the CEO Jensen Wong is if he's saying that there's going to be no meaningful impact in the near term regarding tariffs, how is that going to happen? And he said that they are. If they get on Shoring going by the end of the year, things will be quite good. So he didn't really elaborate on what on shoring meant given the lack of US President presence for manufacturing. Of course we have tsmc, but intel, you know, in terms of advanced nodes, a lot of it isn't up to par. Global foundries, not advanced enough. So I was a little bit still confused on how he plans to onshore everything in the near term when we don't have enough manufacturing capabilities. And it's not going to be something that happens in five years. We all know how expensive that is, especially with a president who doesn't want any chips act funding going out or any more going out for that sake. Point number two was the reframing of Nvidia. He just finished saying that we build chips. We are not a chip company, we are an AI infrastructure company. Then a few seconds later he followed up and said we build chips, but we are an AI algorithm company. So in other words, he wants you to know that they're building everything from the sparks all the way to the superpods and supercomputers and really just the full entire stack. And that leads me to my third point, which is demand. I think that was the biggest concern for him that he needed to address is that cloud service providers might be cutting their capex, specifically Microsoft cutting their leases. And so in the financial analyst Q and A this afternoon, he spoke about that and he said that he underrepresented the demand for Blackwell in the keynote. He just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that demand is out there, but there's still so much more coming from everyone else. But then he also said he was the chief revenue destroyer. And what he means by that is when he's putting out new products every single year, inevitably you're going to cannibalize your own business. And I think that's where the disconnect continues, is that you have the cloud service providers that are really driving a lot of that demand. But what are all the other enterprises doing? Are they waiting? Are they spending a lot right now? And then that means they won't spend a lot in years to come. So I feel like that's still a concern. Concern for some of the analysts here and some of the tech guys here. So those are the three points I got take away from, from today, Mike.
- [17:43]
Melissa Lee
For sure. Christina. Yeah, I mean a lot of reassuring words. The stock, modest response. The street was out and defending it. We will see how it continues from here. Thank you, Christina. Don't miss Jim's interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Mad Money tonight. That is at the top of the hour right here on cnbc. Dan, we're getting these headlines as Jensen Huang continues to give this press conference. He was asked about the potential of buying intel or a stake in intel and he said nobody has invited us to a consortium to purchase a stake in Intel.
- [18:13]
Mike Santoli
I don't know why that would happen again. You know, they're talking about some other companies like Taiwan, Semi and maybe even AMD like getting into their fabs. You know, they had this big plan to do that. I think this stuff with Jensen is really interesting. He's been talking, it seems like nonstop for two days. Right. And the stock hasn't really, I know it bounced a little bit today hasn't gotten out of its own way. If this was six months ago, I mean the stock would be making new all time highs. Like just think about it from a sentiment standpoint. And some of the stuff that was reading, there's a great article in the Information today saying top developers want Nvidia Blackwell chips. Everyone else not so much. They're talking about some of these data center companies that have just gotten their first Blackwell chips. And he's talking about Ruben. Right. And so like at the end of the day, it went from being very capacity constrained about six months ago, a year, whatever. Now we're kind of seeing some of this come into equilibrium. We saw this. Satya Nadella was on Brad Gerster's podcast, I want to say a few months ago, Satya said we are no longer capac capacity strains as it relates. We said we're a power constraint but turning the power on is a totally different thing. That's going to take a while. So to me, I think the fever is broken in this trade for a bit. I said it last night, but I just don't know what the next catalyst is. He's out there, he's wearing the leather jacket and he's talking up Ruben. And it doesn't sound like a lot of people are that excited about it right now.
- [19:25]
Melissa Lee
Look, it's, it's nine months. It's more or less been in this range the stock in the year and a Half before that it added $2.7 trillion in market cap. Right. So maybe it's kind of like the market rushed to this point where it's got big high expectations for how long it can go.
- [19:42]
Guy Adami
Taking a little bit of a breather. Dead on, spot on. I mean, look, if you want a tradable bottom, it comes in the form of what we saw. I think September 6th trade down to 103. Look where we just traded down to on March 11th. So that gives you something to shoot against on the long side. But to Dan's point, it's not like it had this robust move like we've historically seen after he speaks.
- [20:00]
Melissa Lee
Yeah, it's a cheap enough Karen.
- [20:02]
Karen Feinerman
I own it.
- [20:03]
Melissa Lee
Yeah.
- [20:04]
Karen Feinerman
So I've owned it for a while, for a long time. I totally agree with Dan. You know that that sort of verbiage 6 months ago would have been very different. But we'll see later in, in April we'll see the big cloud service providers, they'll talk about capex. That will matter a lot for sure.
- [20:23]
Melissa Lee
All right, coming up, Boeing's big day. Shares jumping as the company CFO weighs in on production and free cash flow. The updates that had investors PIL plus GM revving up in recent weeks. But can the stealth rally accelerate further? We'll debate when fast Money returns. We are back into it.
- [20:41]
Mike Santoli
Our state has changed a lot in the last 140 years. We know because Multicare has been here guided by a single purpose, making our communities healthier. That comes from making courageous decisions, partnering with local communities to grow programs and services and expanding healthcare access to those who need it most. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn more@mycare.org Is it time to reimagine your future? The right business skills may make a difference in your career. At Capella University, we offer a relevant education that's designed to focus on what you need to know in the business world. We'll teach professional skills to help you pursue your goals like business management, strategic planning and effective communication. And you can apply these skills right away. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella. Edu. Worried about what ingredients are hiding in your groceries? Let us take the guesswork out. We're thrive market the online grocery store with the highest quality standards in the industry. We restrict 1000 plus ingredients so you can trust that you'll only find the best high quality, organic and sustainable brands all free of the junk. With savings up to 30% off and.
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- [22:15]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to Fast Money. Shares of Boeing leading the Dow and the S&P 500 today, up nearly 7% after the company's CFO updated investors on production and cash burn improvements. It was the stock's best day in nearly two years. Phil LeBeau has the details. Hey, Phil.
- [22:32]
Mike Santoli
Hey, Mike. This was fairly upbeat guidance from the CFO of Boeing, Brian West. Now, he didn't give formal guidance in terms of earnings per share expectations, but he did give an indication of where the company is and how it is improving. Three things stand out. First of all, he said in the first quarter the cash burn is easing. That's a huge, huge concern for investors. Working capital is less of a drag and production is improving. Any way you look at that, if you are bullish on Boeing, you want to see these incremental steps here. And in terms of deliveries, keep in mind that they pretty much, I don't want to say they bottomed out last year, but they dropped considerably down to 348. The expectation. They've delivered 89 in the first two months of this year. The expectation on the street is that they hit 551 for the full year. And again, there was no guidance today. But this was positive encouragement from Brian West. As you take a look at shares of Boeing, keep in mind that when it comes to tariffs, a lot of people say you got a lot of aluminum, you got a lot of steel in these planes. Surely they're going to be impacted. He said, look, the tariffs, at least in the near term, no material impact. They've got big, big inventory. That's been known for some time. They also have longstanding contracts with their suppliers and they source most of their aluminum steel yield here in the United States. Put that all together, it's the reason Boeing shares were up almost 7% today. Mike?
- [23:55]
Melissa Lee
Yeah, and even in normal times, I mean, the price of aluminum can swing around pretty wildly, maybe even more than the percentage tariff that might be be put on there. Phil, thanks very much. Karen. Was this encouraging, is it?
- [24:07]
Karen Feinerman
It was encouraging. I mean, you know, free cash flow, that's going to be the ultimate goal here. You know, we have these acronyms on this show where we make trades for the year.
- [24:15]
Guy Adami
He doesn't know.
- [24:15]
Karen Feinerman
He's just not a letter, you know, for your like he has tube. Right, Right. So I have carved the B in carved Is Boeing okay? His B is Baba. Anyway, I like, I like Boeing. I like, I like the turnaround. I mean, you know, when you start deliveries, good things happen to working capital and good things happen to cash flow. But he also held out. This is the cfo, the opportunity there. And when they could start really ramping up and converting into cash flow, that's what it really.
- [24:46]
Melissa Lee
Yeah. I mean, that was a core piece of the story for such a long time. All right, there is a. Oh, guy.
- [24:53]
Guy Adami
What's that? I thought you going to break. No, I like. Listen, if you watch Stephanie Link, she's been on all the morning shows. I think that's her top pick for 2025. And it makes sense. The reversal we saw I think is interesting. We didn't trade down the levels that we saw when they priced that secondary. The reversal was significant. And this stock could easily be 2 or 5 to 10. And nothing has changed at all in terms of the fundamentals. So I think Boeing still a buy here.
- [25:18]
Melissa Lee
Yeah. I mean, investors are itchy for something that feels like the next GE or one of these mega turnarounds. We'll see if it can get some traction.
- [25:26]
Steve Liesman
All right.
- [25:27]
Melissa Lee
There's a lot more fast to come. Here's what's coming up next.
- [25:31]
Mike Santoli
GM driving higher. The auto stock quietly climbing back from its lows of the month. But can the move keep its momentum? We debate. Plus Soundhouse expanding its partnership with Nvidia, the company raising the volume in the AI voice assistant space. What the CEO is saying about the tech and whether the news can amplify the stock again, you're watching Fast Money live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. We're back right after this. At Capella University, learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the course room to the workplace. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella. Edu. Businesses that are selling through the roof.
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- [26:47]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to Fast Money. The road may be clearing up for General Motors shares of the automaker up more than 2% today and now up more than 12% from their early March low. Guy, you flagged this move. I mean, it doesn't sound like tariff. Is tariffs just getting in the way?
- [27:02]
Guy Adami
No, I don't think so. And in an odd way, they might be winning to it, but that's another story. I mean, look at the move the stock had. It had that huge move north of 60 and then that precipitous downturn which got us back to the level that we started the whole move in the first place. And I think GM has sort of figured it out. Tim talks about it, Karen talks about it. If you want to own one of the auto companies, believe it or not, GM over Ford and maybe even GM over Tesla. But that bottom we put in about a week and a half or two weeks ago. I think it's going to stick for a while.
- [27:28]
Mike Santoli
Guy, can I talk about it?
- [27:30]
Guy Adami
I'm just, you know.
- [27:32]
Mike Santoli
All right, so here's one of the things that I find really interesting. We've spent so much time talking about Tesla from a brand standpoint and what's happened here. Obviously Europe's been an issue in Q4. I think the Chevy Equinox was the top selling EV here in the US in Q4. Chevy saw their EVs grow 85% year over year. So it's interesting, we've talked about no competition for Tesla here. All of a sudden you have these cars that are doing really well. You have Cadillac, have you guys been in this Lyriq or they have a brand new Escalade fully. And they're beautiful cars and they're competing on the high end where Tesla's not selling anything in the high end anymore and the stuff on the low end is not particularly competitive. And most, you know, unless you're a MAGA person, you don't want one of those things. So, you know, I think GM has some legs there, especially as sentiment got so bad for them with EVs over the last couple years.
- [28:20]
Melissa Lee
And then I mean they have the buyback. I mean, it's obviously they're trying to send that message that they're smart stewards of capital as well.
- [28:26]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah. Although, I mean, just, I don't know how. Navigate. How do you navigate that supply chain?
- [28:31]
Melissa Lee
Yeah.
- [28:31]
Karen Feinerman
Between Mexico, Canada, the U.S. what you mean? I don't know. I mean.
- [28:34]
Melissa Lee
Oh yeah, they're saying like in within weeks, like they're going to.
- [28:37]
Karen Feinerman
How do you.
- [28:38]
Melissa Lee
Production just like dwindles. Yeah, absolutely. So obviously wait and see. All right, coming up, Soundhound AI Surging after leveling up its partnership with Nvidia. CEO joins us next to unpack how the collaboration could shape the future of AI voice tools. We are back right.
- [28:57]
Mike Santoli
Missed a moment of fast. Catch us anytime on the Go follow the Fast Money podcast next. We're back right after this.
- [29:07]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to Fast Money. Stocks jumping today as the central bank leaves rates unchanged and says two rate cuts are still on the table for 2025. The Dow climbing 383 points. The S&P up more than 1% and the Nasdaq leading the gains up nearly a percent and a half. Crypto currencies also higher. Bitcoin, Ether, Salana all jumping. You see Bitcoin there? 85, 827 XRP also surging after the ripple. CEO said the SEC is dropping its lawsuit against the company and some after hours action as well. And 5 below shares sharply higher after the company beat earnings and revenue estimates. But full year guidance coming in a bit weaker than expected. Michael, the the move in crypto, you taking it any sort of a signal for liquidity for anything else?
- [29:55]
Dan Nathan
I am actually. I think, you know, I think this clearly shows that liquidity is still plentiful and Fed loves to tell us that they're restrictive. From my perspective, there's no way they're restrict. My favorite gauge of liquidity is probably.
- [30:08]
Melissa Lee
Bitcoin, but the fact that it's well off its highs, it's underperformed gold the last little bit.
- [30:14]
Dan Nathan
Well, the gold is actually a good point because I think right now there's scarcity to certainty and gold is certainty. I think that explains gold and gold approaching its highs and being at its highs. Crypto is different. Crypto is all about liquidity. And listen, I think you can argue that there was a tightening liquidity as you pushed out cuts, right? At one point we were pricing seven cuts. Now we're pricing too. So that is a tightening of liquidity and I would argue now we've had a loosening of liquidity, which makes sense to me why you know, the cryptocurrencies are up.
- [30:42]
Melissa Lee
Yeah. All right, we'll see see how it tracks from here. All right. Soundhound AI announcing an expanded partnership with in video set to improve the scale and efficiency of its voice AI models used in automotive, restaurant and tech applications. The stock Getting a near 3% pop today on the news though it is still down about 50% so far this year after a crazy run before that. For more, Soundhound AI CEO Kayvon Mahajer joins us right now. Kayvon first, if you could just describe the nature of the Nvidia partnership. Is it mostly you're using some Nvidia technology on this or how is it, how is it developed and sold?
- [31:23]
Kayvon Mahajer
Thank you for having me. We, we have a great relationship with Nvidia. We showcased a joint demo at CES is just in January and that demo focused on running sound hands, generative AI technologies on the edge without cloud connection and large language models that usually need cloud connectivity, they go, they go on the edge. Jensen talked about it at his keynote that a lot of these AI is going to go on the edge. So we, we had a great demo in January and today we announced a partnership in the cloud where we can utilize a lot of Nvidia enhancements with their enterprise AI solutions in the cloud to make what we deliver to our customers more efficient and faster. So if you look at the last three years, our query volume has gone up 700% that excluding the traffic that we got from our acquisitions. So we are handling a lot of traffic in the cloud and now we can deliver faster and more efficient response time to our, to our users to.
- [32:20]
Melissa Lee
Draw the line from there to revenue and how that feeds into product cycles.
- [32:28]
Kayvon Mahajer
Well, it reduces cost because it can be more efficient. You can increase our throughputs. It also should increase adoption because some of our customers are very sensitive to latency. It basically increases usage that was not possible before and we expect increased adoption and ultimately more revenue.
- [32:50]
Mike Santoli
Hey, I'm just curious. You know, one of the things that we've spent a lot of time talking about is, you know, use cases by some of the end customers. You obviously have a bunch of. It sounds like industrial customers. Speak to us a little bit about how some of your customers are using your technology.
- [33:04]
Kayvon Mahajer
So Soundhound is based on two foundation. Our business based on two Foundation. One is we believe consumers will prefer talking to devices. Voice is going to be the preferred way that users will interact with devices and somehow we provide a solution which is a branded voice assistant for physical products. We are big in cars, we are big in TVs, we are in millions of cars, TV, IoT devices, ultimately robots. Our second pillar is a customer service. We believe every business will have an AI customer service. It will be as necessary for them as WI fi and electricity. Historically that was applicable to large enterprises like insurance companies and banks. But now you can have, you can be a single location restaurant, single location barbershop and you can have your own customer service in a matter of minutes.
- [33:53]
Melissa Lee
Can't help but notice, I mean I mentioned Just the wild move in your, in your stock last year. And there is a heavy short position. I mean, is there, is it. Do you interact with. With the Bears and what they're saying about the company and obviously trades at a huge multiple to revenue news.
- [34:09]
Kayvon Mahajer
Yeah. So that we are in a disruption. And disruption comes with volatility. We think long term. And you know, I tell my colleagues, shorts don't change our goal. Our goal is to succeed. They only make the prize of winning bigger. So bring it.
- [34:27]
Melissa Lee
Okay. And what about the competitive landscape in terms of, let's say, mostly people interact with AI through voice. Where are you relative to other players?
- [34:39]
Kayvon Mahajer
Downhouse. We have been at this for 20 years. We were one of the early pioneers. We have our own IP in house. Probably very handful of companies in our opinion have this level of ip. We benchmark ourselves against the big tech. We beat them in accuracy and speed and size of the model. So we're very proud of our technology and competition is, is a certainty, is not a risk, and either competitors don't matter or they give us an opportunity to leapfrog them. So we don't mind having competitors.
- [35:09]
Melissa Lee
All right, Kayvon, thanks so much. Appreciate the time.
- [35:13]
Kayvon Mahajer
Thank you.
- [35:14]
Guy Adami
Well, you just said it, Mike. I mean, it's. I think it's a 34% short interest unless you have something different there, which is huge in this stock. $9 stock in Halloween, $25 stock back to levels now. So if you want to play the short squeeze game, this is as good a name as any to do it in.
- [35:28]
Melissa Lee
I mean, you add AI to the name of the company. I guess it is. It is one of those things that you could also still debate as to whether it's going to be central to, to AI. Right. I mean, you have Apple out there arguing through whatever means that, you know, their device is going to be the way we.
- [35:44]
Mike Santoli
Well, you know, it's funny, you talk about that volatility. You talked about the fact that it's down 50% of the year. That's really not on the company. This is like a pre. You know, this is a company, you know, again, they're losing money, they're trying to find use cases. They're partnering with technology providers like in video. And, you know, like, if you have 33% short interest, you better be careful about the projections you give and you better hit them too. You know, so the narrative is really important here, especially when you get down to a cap. I think it's like three and a half billion dollars and something like that. So again, you know, like buyer beware on a lot of these smaller cap names because look at how much worse this stock acts relative to the Nasdaq, which is down 13%.
- [36:18]
Melissa Lee
Well, you were just talking about how, you know, some of this pullback has drained the froth out of some parts, parts of the market. But the fourth quarter run in a lot of these smaller names and even like the app lovins of the world, it's been partially given back, but not entirely.
- [36:32]
Mike Santoli
Yeah, no doubt. I mean listen, we've been talking about a lot that sort of froth, it came out of the market. It started rolling over before the mag 7 or the faithful 8 as Karen likes to call them. And this is the similar behavior that we saw in late 2021. Some of the most speculative stuff started to sell off and then we saw the rest, you know, kind of fall.
- [36:49]
Melissa Lee
Well that is true. That was February of 21. It's really when you got the peak and ark and all that stuff. So you know, you had another eight or nine a little bit and see what happens. All right, coming up, a few consumer facing stock moves catching our attention. How traders are handling the pops and drops in Williams Sonoma, Cigna jewelers and General Mills. That is next. And a quick reminder, there's still time to register for the next Fast Money live event coming up on June 5th in this turbulent market. Join Melissa and the team for a unique in person experience here at the Nasdaq. It's a chance to connect with the fast money traders, ask questions and get their perspective on how to navigate the volatility. To register, scan the QR code on your screen, go to CNBC events.com fastmoney back in June. Welcome back. We've got some consumer movers on your fast money radar today. First up, Williams Sonoma sinking as much as 13 and a half percent at its lows. Stores ending the day down 3 and a half percent. The home furnishing store beat revenue and profit expectations but said it expects revenue to decline in the coming quarters. The company also reported a $49 million accounting adjustment due to over reported freight expenses. So Karen, a big intraday recovery, but what do we make of this?
- [38:04]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah, I mean so the quarter was good as you said, but like every retailer out there, the guidance was disappointing and I guess people thought maybe Williams Sonoma would be the one that could buck that trend. But if you look at the space, you know, RH is just gotten crushed. Wayfarer Also, this is actually not crazy expensive and you would have thought that interest rates Coming down somewhat could help the home trade, which obviously furniture would be great for that, but I don't know, it just, the space was too expensive and the margin guidance wasn't good enough and the stocks had, it's, it's had a nice, it's been a favorite. It really has. She's done a great job.
- [38:42]
Melissa Lee
Yeah. Anybody?
- [38:44]
Guy Adami
I think one with Karen on this one. I mean if you look at the stock and didn't know what it was, you'd swear this was an AI stock or energy adjacent name given the run. But on valuation alone, I think it's continued worth. Look, I get it why they sold it off. So first, ask questions later. But I don't think you run in that far from wsm.
- [39:00]
Melissa Lee
Michael, the consumer in general. We talked about the survey work. Looks like they're in a pretty bad mood. On the other hand, you could build a case that there's a lot of dry powder. I mean incomes have held up and they, they've slowed some spending. Definitely see some hesitancy on bigger ticket purchase prospects. But how are you thinking about it?
- [39:18]
Dan Nathan
Yeah, and you saw that the retail sales miss a little bit on expectations and obviously sentiment has deteriorated. Inflation expectations are up. So it's, you know, it seems pretty clear to me that you'd have some of that pass through to the consumer stocks out there. But you're right. I mean, I think the consumer is still reasonably healthy. You know, you got what for 4.1% unemployment, real wages are fine. And at the end of the day it all comes down to employment in our view. And as long as people are employed, they're likely going to be willing to spend. And so I listen, I think that this is probably more about uncertainty than it is anything else and you know, will pass if you get certainty come back into the consumer and into markets.
- [39:57]
Melissa Lee
I mean it's also a lot of static in these signals in the sense that like Costco and Wal Mart are just like scooping up market share everywhere. So it's hard to know what, what, what's actually macro and what's micro. Next up, Signet jewelers. They have shining bright, soaring 17%. The parent of Zales, Jared and Blue Nile having its best day since December 2022 after reporting better than expected results and announcing plans to reduce physical stores. So Dan, you just celebrated your silver anniversary.
- [40:25]
Mike Santoli
I did. Look at you.
- [40:26]
Melissa Lee
I think we're going to the pocket for like.
- [40:29]
Mike Santoli
By the way, wife's here. This is like the second time in 15 years she's watching the show, which is amazing. So thanks a lot, sir. You know, I think it goes back to the conversation you just had. This is probably, you know, a bit more discretionary when you think of it outside of, you know, engagement rings and the like here. But you know, you just mentioned Wal Mart and Costco, how they're hoovering up a lot of stuff. Look at how quickly those stocks got sold, you know what I mean? So they were priced to perfection. So now we're seeing some of these smaller names who are able to kind of put. Put some different numbers sort of up that don't look like anything like Costco and Wal Mart. And they're going to be volatile just like we were talking about. The W. W. Is that the ticker of that one? You know what I mean?
- [41:08]
Guy Adami
So just like 30 seconds ago.
- [41:10]
Mike Santoli
Yeah, I was, I wasn't paying attention. I was, I was getting ready for whatever this company is, what is called signet.
- [41:17]
Melissa Lee
Signet, of course, yeah. I mean, so you say it's discretionary, it's not mandatory to buy jewelry.
- [41:23]
Mike Santoli
No, I think what I think is so interesting that the Staples, the one that way you just described them, sold off 15% in a straight line.
- [41:30]
Melissa Lee
They also were big holdings in the whole momentum baskets. Right. So they just got anointed as like.
- [41:35]
Mike Santoli
Yeah. And I guess there is to the point there's single stock opportunities in some of these Nichier sort of retail pockets.
- [41:40]
Melissa Lee
All right, let's get to General Mills shares lower today, down 2% after reducing full year guidance. The company citing a pullback in demand for snack foods North America sales for The Cheerios maker dropped 7% this quarter. But total sales did beat street estimates. So I don't know, it's not an expensive stock.
- [41:58]
Guy Adami
But I mean, I think this, the whole Eli Lilly phenomenon has not helped names like this. And I think you can draw a straight line in terms of what we saw there with some of these names. So it does make sense. But if you're looking for valuation play, I mean this is interesting as well given the levels we just traded down to. So I get all the negativity around it, but this to me off, this sell off makes a little bit of sense on the long side.
- [42:20]
Melissa Lee
I mean, even within what had been a weak Staples sector like last year, the food stocks were even worse. So we'll see if it does hit valuation bottom. So I guess there's no G in carbed. So there's no.
- [42:32]
Karen Feinerman
I could have considered it, but I didn't. There is no G in car that.
- [42:36]
Melissa Lee
Would have coming up. Good Nike in need of a swoosh. The sneaker maker gearing up to report results tomorrow. How the Options options pitch are lacing up ahead of that one. Next on More Fast. Welcome back to Fast money. Some big names set to report earnings this week from FedEx, Nike and Micron tomorrow to Carnival on Friday. So how are options traders gearing up for the quarterly reports? Mike Coe joins us now. Mike, good to see you. What stands out to you here?
- [43:08]
Guy Adami
Yeah, good to see you too. But I'm not sure it's too good on these two names. Both of them are actually expected to move quite a lot. FedEx is expecting about an 8% move and this thing is chopped around a good bit the last eight reported quarters. So that's pretty much in line with what you would expect to see. Nike 2 expecting a similar size move of about 8%. And there too, we've seen this thing move quite a bit on earnings. Most recently today we did see the put volume at about double its average. Actually a little bit more than that, most of that weekly put buying. So it does seem right now like the sentiment in Nike is a little bit negative. And maybe the reason for that too is that even net of this big decline the stock has seen, it's still trading more than 30 times next year's numbers. So, so the trade I think you might think about putting on, given the elevated implied volatility, is a one by two put spread. I was looking out to April. You could buy the 70 strike puts and then sell two of the 65s against it. Net. Net. You should be laying out pretty much no premium. That's betting on an implied move to the downside, essentially. Worst case, you end up owning the stock at around $60 a share or 25 times 20, 26 numbers.
- [44:11]
Mike Santoli
Yeah, you know, and Mike, we used to do this all the time on the options action here. And I think the range that he's kind of identified Getting back to 60, worst case scenario where you own the stock, that was the COVID Low. And I think psychologically that would be interesting. You have a new CEO in there. We're going to hear some new initiatives and the like here. So again, I think the COVID Low would be a layup for this name. But maybe it doesn't get there because the sentiment is so bad.
- [44:34]
Melissa Lee
It is. All right. And Mike, thanks very much. Up next, we're going to have your final trade. All right, it is time for the final trade. Let's go around the horn, Michael.
- [44:44]
Dan Nathan
I think there's a scarcity value to certainty. We want high quality companies to look for those high quality dividend payers.
- [44:51]
Karen Feinerman
Mike, thank you for being here. Appreciate it.
- [44:53]
Melissa Lee
Long day for you.
- [44:53]
Mike Santoli
Thank you.
- [44:54]
Karen Feinerman
My final trade, TJX was final trade.
- [44:56]
Guy Adami
A couple days ago.
- [44:57]
Karen Feinerman
I think in a good or bad retail environment, TJX stands out.
- [45:00]
Melissa Lee
All right, Dan.
- [45:00]
Mike Santoli
Yeah, Zoom, I think it's a quality couple. I but it's been left for dead. You Zoom. That's the zm and I think in this regulatory environment maybe it gets taken over.
- [45:10]
Guy Adami
If you're hosting or part of a show, it is a certainty that it will be great. So thank you for joining us. General Mills. That was Mike Jeff last night and it's General Mills tonight.
- [45:21]
Melissa Lee
All right, 2% cheaper or something like that. All right, thank you.
- [45:25]
Dan Nathan
Thanks for watching Fast Money all opinions.
- [45:27]
Mike Santoli
Expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBCUniversal, their parent company, or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, Internet, or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of an opinion. Such opinions are based upon information the Fast Money participants consider reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Fast Money disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com fastmoneydisclaimer@ Capella University, learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the courseroom to the workplace. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella Eduardo.