← CNBC's "Fast Money"
CNBC's "Fast Money"
Stock Wrap Up February Flop… And Bitcoin’s Dip 2/28/25
00:46:34
Stocks closing out a rough February, as the tech unwind pushes the Nasdaq to close out its worst month in nearly a year and a half. And the Oval Office clash didn’t help things either. How the traders are handling the markets with March trading kicking off on Monday. Plus Crypto’s pullback. Bitcoin briefly dipping below $80,000 as the crypto market continues to drop. Where one crypto firm CEO sees the space heading next. Fast Money Disclaimer
Loading summary
Transcript163 lines
- [00:00]
Mike Santoli
Our state has changed a lot in the last 140 years. We know because Multicare has been here guided by a single 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 Are you still quoting 30 year old movies?
- [00:33]
Tim Seymour
Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted?
- [00:39]
Mike Santoli
If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past.
- [00:42]
Tim Seymour
Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back.
- [00:50]
Mike Santoli
Welcome to the now it pays to Discover.
- [00:53]
Tim Seymour
Learn more@discover.com credit card based on the February 2024 Nelson Report.
- [01:01]
Karen Feinerman
Live from the NASDAQ markets side in the heart of New York City's Times Square, this is fast money. Here's what's on tap tonight. A February to forget. Stocks closing today near their highs of the session but still posting solid losses for the month. The NASDAQ briefly erasing all its post election gains and seeing its worst month since April. But what does the action mean as we get ready to kick off the month of March? And a bitcoin bummer. The cryptocurrency dropping below the $80,000 mark for time before bouncing today for the first time in over three months. Is there more pain in store for the digital asset or are we primed for a rebound plus housing headache as the homebuilders struggle at the start of the year. A box office make or break moment ahead of the Oscars this weekend. And the traders reveal their charts of the month after this very volatile February. Mike Santoli, Informalista Lee Today coming to you live from Studio B at the nasdaq. On the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Karen Feinerman, Courtney Garcia and Steve Grasso. Welcome to you all.
- [02:05]
Tim Seymour
Welcome to you.
- [02:05]
Karen Feinerman
Welcome to you all.
- [02:06]
Courtney Garcia
Thank you.
- [02:08]
Steve Grasso
It was great to have you.
- [02:09]
Karen Feinerman
You got me. You showed me the rest of the way.
- [02:11]
Courtney Garcia
Do you have a Fast Money nickname yet, Mike? I mean, have you been, have we given you one?
- [02:14]
Hunter Horsley
Sounds like Tim has thought about one for you.
- [02:17]
Karen Feinerman
You got 58 minutes and 40 seconds to come up with one.
- [02:20]
Courtney Garcia
Remember Jamal Wilkes and the Los Angeles Lakers? What was his nickname?
- [02:24]
Steve Grasso
Well, he's Keith Silk.
- [02:25]
Courtney Garcia
Okay, Silk.
- [02:26]
Amen Javers
I'll take it.
- [02:27]
Courtney Garcia
Silky smooth Mike Santoli.
- [02:29]
Karen Feinerman
I'll try to live up to it. Thanks.
- [02:30]
Amen Javers
Hey.
- [02:31]
Karen Feinerman
Markets rebounding late in the day to close near their highs of the session but it was still a rough month for equity markets. We're going to get more on that in just a minute. But we start with more on the fiery Oval Office argument between President Trump, Vice President J.D. vance and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelinsky, which ultimately led to the cancellation of their press conference this afternoon. Amy Javers is at the White House with all the headlines. Amen. The market seemed to stop and gape at what was going on there, as I guess, all of us. But knit it all together with us in terms of the upshot.
- [03:04]
Tim Seymour
Yeah, Mike, there was a lot of stopping and gaping watching what happened in the Oval Office today. Dramatic and unprecedented events in the Oval Office as the meeting between the United States and Ukraine broke down into what ultimately became a shouting match between President Trump, President Zelensky and Vice President J.D. vance. A lot of this was over U.S. concern that Zelensky was not being grateful enough for American foreign aid, was being disrespectful to the United States in the Oval Office, as the vice President put it. And at one point, I want to bring this to you because there's this question. As President Trump is now reorienting American foreign policy away from Ukraine and toward Moscow. There was a question from a reporter in the room about whether the president, President Trump, that is, is too close to Vladimir Putin. Here's that exchange.
- [03:56]
President Trump
You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, hi, Vladimir, how are we doing on the deal? That doesn't work that way. I'm not aligned with Putin. I'm not aligned with anybody. I'm aligned with the United States of America and for the good of the world, I'm aligned with the world, and I want to get this thing over with. You see the hatred he's got for Putin. It's very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hatred.
- [04:20]
Tim Seymour
And you saw, Mike, as you said, that the press conference after that meeting was canceled, the luncheon that was scheduled today at the White House, also canceled. The President is getting ready to leave the White House here. He's going to spend the weekend in Florida. We'll see if he talks to reporters on his way out the door. Following the president for a couple years, I can tell you, I expect that he will talk. He will want to have the last word on this exchange. So we'll wait for those comments. But meanwhile, we're getting a reaction from all over the world here. What we're told is that Zelenskyy has already spoken to France's President Macron, also the head of NATO. The Canadian foreign minister posted that he has spoken with the Ukrainian foreign minister to reaffirm Canada's unwavering support for Ukraine. German Chancellor Scholl says Ukraine can rely on Germany and Europe. And we saw this from the vice president of the European Commission, saying that ultimately the free world needs a new leader. She says Ukraine is Europe. We stand by Ukraine. We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the aggressor. Today it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It's up to us Europeans to take this challenge. So the question now, Mike, and it's an unknowable, is what happens with the US Ukraine relationship? What happens to US Military aid to Ukraine, if anything, and what happens to the US Relationship with Europe? A lot of damage done here today. This president sees himself as a disruptor and a dealmaker. He's certainly done some disrupting today and we'll see what kind of deal he's able to pull out of the events of this afternoon.
- [05:55]
Courtney Garcia
Amos. Tim, thanks for joining us. Extraordinary comments from around the world. And we talked about alignment. You talked about alignment. My sense or my guess, and my question to you is how about alignment within the White House? And if we looked at markets, markets, that was the low point of the day and I know they're not related, but on some level they are. Was there some attempt by the White House to walk this back? Because it clearly looked like that was the nadir of sentiment today. But again, trying to understand within the administration and Trump's team if this really is a clear issue of alignment.
- [06:26]
Tim Seymour
Yeah, I mean, look in terms of what happened inside the White House afterward, I can tell you that there is, there's no deviation of views among anybody at this White House that the president handled himself appropriately, appropriately and did the right thing. I mean, within moments after Zelenskyy left, I was getting texts from White House officials saying the President just kicked Zelensky out of the White House. They wanted to hammer home that point, that this was the president being decisive, making a break, a deliberate break with Ukraine. The feeling that the United States is spending a lot of money here and getting not enough return and not enough respect back. And then the question of markets, Tim, I think is a good one. You know, you know better than I do why markets reacted today. But, you know, the old cliche is that markets hate uncertainty. And what we saw in the Oval Office today does bring a whole lot of geo strategic uncertainty back onto the table that maybe a lot of people Thought was off.
- [07:17]
Karen Feinerman
Amen. Absolutely appreciate it. Following every turn of it for us. And now in terms of the interplay with markets, I mean Steve, the market usually is going to look for something specific that it needs to reprice, maybe in any of these geopolitical events as opposed to just a, a feeling or some kind of a guess of what it's going to mean down the road. So what did you, what did you read today's market action as in relation to this?
- [07:40]
Hunter Horsley
Everybody just backed off. Buyers really. There was, this was something that we've never seen. Right. So no one knew what to make of it. It was the end of the month, you had a large pension rebalance. Everyone took their fingers off the buy buttons, gave it a little bit of a rest. They came in late in the day, but we don't know. It's so manic. Does he show up at Mar a Lago? Does he show up next week? Does there a phone call? Is there something that happens in a 24, 48, 72 hour time period? President Trump wanted a reason to distance himself. Remember that tweet that was super aggressive against Zelensky? Then he backed off from it. I think he almost wanted this to happen. So does it, does it do something to the overall markets? I think people are just going to take a hiatus, take a little bit of a breather. Remember it was month end. I think people would probably news stories are going to be cycling over for the next two days. Let's see on Monday, Tuesday where, where it falls. We do have tariff Tuesday. So that might take a little bit of the focus off of this.
- [08:46]
Karen Feinerman
Courtney, the setup was interesting too. Right. The market was down 4.5% coming into today. It was getting a little bit overdone maybe to the downside. Oil's been tame, rates are down. So in other words, it wasn't just like this came out of the vacuum and we were at all time highs to react to. I guess the question is, should investors be incorporating this in any specific way to their market outlook, to their portfolio strategy?
- [09:09]
Mike Santoli
I wouldn't say yet. Right. I think this is just so new. We don't know how this is going to play out by any means. And I think coming into this, what a lot of people don't realize, and we're talking to all of our clients, is the fact that Europe has actually been outperforming the US this year. When you hear Trump talking about America first and we're going to put tariffs and all these other countries think a lot of people aren't following this day to day do not realize that that's been happening. And even today, if you looked at the European indexes, they also sold off like right after that conference, but also just came right back up by the end of the day. So I think a lot of this there was that knee jerk reaction, but I think it's been positive to see that the markets have been reacting a lot less to these political headlines coming out of D.C. and I think that's what it is is there has been so many of these. This one is probably more extreme than others. But the fact that markets are taking a pause I think is a good thing, that they're looking at fundamentals, not just political headlines.
- [09:54]
Karen Feinerman
Karen, is that the way it feels to you? That is the market overstimulated and therefore just kind of shuts down on it or have we priced it in here and there?
- [10:01]
Steve Grasso
I feel like it's it was theater somewhat right. As we all said, we'd never seen anything like this and you'd certainly be surprised to see it in that, in that open forum that it was specifically designed to have the press there. Right. So we saw right. When he came in tariffs right away and then backed off a few days later. So you, I mean you'd sort of be, you can't just follow whatever the shiny thing of the moment is because it may not be shiny in two days. So let's see. But I think that it's tiring, though. It's tiring for investors and I think also it does weigh on sentiment for some CEOs. Right. How do we know how to gauge our business? How do we know what kind of inventories we need? How do we know what tariffs we may or may not face? How do you prepare for that?
- [10:46]
Hunter Horsley
And it's hard to your point, defense stocks, you would have thought they would have rallied more when he said you're paraphrasing, you're on the precipice of World War three, you're on the brink of World War three. You would have thought defense stocks would have rallied a little bit more. I'm long mp that one did rally because the reason why they were in the White House Oval Office was because.
- [11:08]
Karen Feinerman
Of rare materials or by him. The overall thrust of what the president was saying is we're out, we've written our last check. So maybe defense stocks aren't going to go up if this is not going to be. Although European defense stocks have been very strong.
- [11:21]
Courtney Garcia
Yeah. And as someone spent two years in Russia, I can tell you there's American CEOs that don't want to have any part of doing business in Russia because they don't have any part of doing business in Russia. And I think there's a lot to unpack here. And I do think as we went into 24, again, this is 25, the year where 24 maybe is unfolding, I think, and that includes less MAG7 than the market expected in some of that transformation. But I think the geopolitical theater, whatever we're calling today, was theater. But there's a lot of geopolitical trouble spots. Europe's going to dig in around this. And again, I spent a lot of time focused on this issue. Naito and support of NATO's is a very big deal across Europe, which means that the headlines out of Europe, and we just saw some amen read a couple of them aren't going to get better. I think they're going to get worse. Get it back to the market. We came into this moment, this low point in the day where the S and P rallied 2% off of that low to close the day at really a low point for, I would say, over six months for where markets have been really since. If you think about where we came into this, where we came into a lot of the Nvidia numbers yesterday in the market's digestion of them, and you could make an argument that this was a really bullish response. And again, I get back to that deep seq low and if you look at Nvidia, you know, it basically rallied right off of that. So did the smh. I'm not saying that that is sustainable. I'm telling you that if you're looking for support and support being held, that's the cues almost touching the 200, sniffing there and bouncing there. This isn't awful. And sentiment's about as bad as it gets. And I'll say one more thing about valuations for some of these big multi cap mega caps. And in fact, I was just talking to one of the smarter hedge fund guys I know who I think had a great call on this 16 times on Google right here. I mean, I don't really care. And that's a place where I think you really have to pay attention to what some of these stocks have done.
- [13:03]
Karen Feinerman
I mean, the reality too though is, I mean, as much as you may not want to talk too much about it, the market inherently is kind of immoral about these things. Right? So, yep, the market doesn't want a just peace. It wants peace. Right. It wants kind of the distraction out of the way. I mean, I'm not saying the market jumped to that point, but.
- [13:20]
Steve Grasso
Right. No, the market likes certainty. It almost doesn't matter what the certainty is.
- [13:24]
Courtney Garcia
Right.
- [13:24]
Steve Grasso
If tariffs, this is their X and that's it, we know their X amount, then they adjust around it.
- [13:29]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah, well, there is a little more going on than just the geopolitical scene. All this happening as Wall street digest the latest core PC figures. The Fed's preferred inflation gauge increased by 3, 10 of a percent month over month in January. That was in line with estimates. But just last hour, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee told our Steve Liesman that inflation is still higher than they'd like it to be. Steve joins us now with all the headlines. And Steve, also plenty else to talk about within that personal spending data and Atlanta Fed gdp. Now, where do you want to start?
- [14:01]
Amen Javers
Yeah, well, you know, Goosby sort of addressed all that. He did say there's more work to do on inflation, but he likes what he saw when it came to the inflation numbers. You know, he said this shows we're still one on the path back to 2%. We've had a couple of good ones in a row. He's been kind of a dove on inflation and the numbers have kind of been breaking his way down to that 2 1/2% range. Still above target but headed in the right direction. That's the first thing. The second thing is he did take note of those, you know, weaker consumer sentiment numbers, consumer spending numbers. It was minus point five percent when it came to real consumer spending this morning. He said, look, it's one month's worth of data but it's definitely quote, worth keeping an eye on. When it came to that, he also talked about tariffs. He said, look, normally we look through these tariffs, but you know what, it's a little more complicated than that. Here's what he said.
- [14:51]
Courtney Garcia
Tariffs are a one time cost shock.
- [14:53]
Karen Feinerman
That monetary policy should mostly look through.
- [14:56]
Tim Seymour
But I don't think it's going to.
- [14:57]
Karen Feinerman
Be that easy to figure out which part.
- [15:00]
Tim Seymour
If you started to see inflation going up, which part is the part you're supposed to ignore?
- [15:05]
Amen Javers
Yeah, that's the problem. Which part do you ignore? Of course, the market, Mike, as you know, is looking for two cuts this year. Maybe those tariffs kind of interrupt that timing of say a June and a September cut.
- [15:16]
Hunter Horsley
Steve, when you look at it, Austin has, has been more dovish, as you mentioned, he's been a more dovish person through, through that prism. But when you look at the PC, how much did weather have an influence over this and how much was it really weighted to autos? Because autos seasonally, this is usually a weaker time for autos. So we have the weather, we have autos. Is this something we should take as a one off or is this a trend?
- [15:43]
Amen Javers
Well, I think the weather was something that might have affected the spending numbers. I think that's what you're asking about or that's what you're implying. And yeah, it might have had a big effect. Jan Niffin, one of our retail analysts here, did write me a note that said it was all weather. I'm a little bit not ready to go there because as you know, those sentiment numbers went down as well. And people, I think you guys were talking about the confusion from policy. I think that's probably permeating the public a bit here when it comes to, you know, whether or not they feel confident in the future. A lot of balls in the air. A lot of balls in the air when it comes to what the federal government's going to do, what kind of spending there's going to be, what benefits are going to be and also employment is. Some of the surveys we've seen of consumers have also shown confidence in, in finding a new job has gone down as well. So I would, I would be careful with it. The Atlanta Fed Mike mentioned before, I would put that to the side that was heavily influenced by a huge surge in imports we got in January. I'm betting Tim Seymour took note of that and that ended up taking 3.7 percentage points off the Atlanta Fed number. So they got down to minus one and a half percent. Other economists I'm looking for are still looking for a slowdown in growth, but more in the say, one to one and a half percent positive place.
- [16:58]
Courtney Garcia
Steve, I love how you know exactly what I'm thinking, especially during those moments. By the way, Steve and I overlapped in Russia back in the day. I'd love to talk to you about Russia, but maybe we should save that for another venue. I want to ask you about jobless claims this week. This was the week we cared about jobless claims when they spiked 24%. It's a very volatile series, but it seems in the context of data more broadly that wasn't supportive to the, and you add in some, some spending and some consumption numbers. Are you worried about this number? Did the market overreact to jobless claims?
- [17:28]
Amen Javers
I'm going to take Austin's language on that. I'm keeping an eye on it. Look, 240 is the higher end of the Range. But if you go back, it's still pretty low. Okay. Used to go start worrying about globs because when they're like 2 8,300, we're not there yet. It's definitely been up from 200 to 240 since the beginning of the year. It's worth watching. You're going to see some of the not federal layoffs. Federal layoffs are counted in a different index. Those are up only a little bit year over year. That will probably start to rise, but it won't infect the jobless claims numbers. The jobless claims numbers could be affected by private federal contractors, other people who are not working for the federal government that lose work because of less federal spending. Worth watching that. These tariffs have me more worried than perhaps the street is about them. I think that there's potential negative. These are much bigger than they were in 2018, much more widespread. They really hit it. Two of our most important trading partners. So I think there's a potential negative economic outcome from them which a lot of people on the street are also forecasting.
- [18:34]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah, certainly if it happens full blast as threatened, on time.
- [18:38]
Amen Javers
And Mike, I'm sorry, just one more thing to follow up with what Tim is saying. Yeah, that whole surge in imports was probably front running the tariffs.
- [18:45]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah.
- [18:45]
Amen Javers
And there might have been some consumer spending in the fourth quarter that front ran those tariffs as well.
- [18:51]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah, there definitely is a little bit of potential there for some. Some catch up across a few fronts. Steve, thank you very much. So Karen, I mean look, the bond market based on what it's done recently isn't too concerned about inflation by the looks of it. You have the two year yield under 399 at the close and they're seemingly wondering if we're more vulnerable on the growth side.
- [19:09]
Steve Grasso
Yeah, I think so. And also the, this PC number being just in line. I mean anything above that, even the tiniest bit would have really I think been bad because you know, the Fed is already on sort of neutrally with the. Let's wait, wait, wait. Now they. This gives them a little more flexibility than they had. The market likes that.
- [19:28]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah, it does for sure. It seems like we'll get a lot more jobs number next week. So going to fill in some of the blanks coming up. A disastrous month for homebuilders in the books. But can this group lay a foundation for a spring comeback? We have a debate that next and we're rolling out the red carpet for the Oscars. Film's biggest night could have major implications for the magic Kingdom. That's right after this.
- [19:55]
Tim Seymour
You're watching Fast Money here on cnbc. We'll be right back.
- [20:07]
Mike Santoli
Our state has changed a lot in the last 140 years. We know because Multicare has been here guided by a single 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 Are you still quoting 30 year old movies?
- [20:40]
Tim Seymour
Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted?
- [20:46]
Mike Santoli
If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past.
- [20:49]
Tim Seymour
Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now it pays to Discover. Learn more@discover.com credit card based on the February 2024 Nelson Report.
- [21:06]
Mike Santoli
Find YOUR hustle CNBC make it's new.
- [21:09]
Tim Seymour
Online course how to start a side hustle. Three industry experts break down proven paths to success.
- [21:15]
President Trump
Get out there and do it.
- [21:16]
Tim Seymour
Go to CNBCMakeit.com side hustle special offer ends April 1st.
- [21:23]
Karen Feinerman
Welcome back to Fast Money. Homebuilding stocks closing at a rough month, down 6.5% in February and a far underperforming the broader market. The weakness coming amid a slew of disappointing data for the housing market. Pending home sales falling more than 4% in January to the lowest level on record. And new home sales fell to greater than expected 10% month to month. So will this trade be on shaky foundation through the spring? Steve, on the other hand, what took on with rates, 30 year mortgages I think are down below 6 and 3.
- [21:53]
Hunter Horsley
Quarters again if you look at historically we all remember on this desk, with the exception of Courtney, what mortgage rates, what normal mortgage rates were and what they, I don't know what they should be, but I know that I forget.
- [22:06]
Karen Feinerman
A lot, by the way. You do forget a lot.
- [22:08]
Hunter Horsley
You forget a lot. Yeah. So when you look at them now, it seems like you don't want to touch these and you need that 30 year mortgage to come down. But when you, when you think about it, people own a mortgage, they don't own a house. So you can't move. It's going to cost you twice as much to get out of your house. So I think people will lift, lift a leg and say I'll sell something if I could refinance on something else. But that mortgage rate has to come down below 6 for it to get attractive. And right now you're seeing it stagnate and there's only so much the homebuilders can do to add incentives and to buy down that mortgage rate. So I don't think we're there yet. I think to your point when you introd it, maybe the spring is the time where we see a resurrection of, of the home.
- [22:54]
Karen Feinerman
You see more things listed, but also more things pulled off the market. What it's the number 60% of homes with a mortgage.
- [22:59]
Courtney Garcia
I think It's a low 4%.
- [23:00]
Steve Grasso
Yeah, for now. Yeah, for now. But hopefully that that's aging.
- [23:04]
Courtney Garcia
We're burning through that.
- [23:05]
Steve Grasso
Those people do need to. Eventually you have to move. And I think that, yeah, terrible, terrible for the month for homebuilders, but that 30 year coming down as much as it had, maybe it's not quite, quite enough, but some people are going to just have to go with that anyway. So I actually am optimistic on the space.
- [23:24]
Karen Feinerman
I mean, Courtney, obviously the stocks have taken a hit. So if in fact things are going to pick up, the market's giving you a little bit of an opportunity. But how does that fit into maybe the broader consumer trade as well?
- [23:35]
Mike Santoli
Yeah, and I think the bigger picture here, there's. There's been this huge supply and demand constraint when it comes to housing that is not getting fixed. And first of all, my generation is so sick of all the baby boomers telling us like, oh, rates low when we bought.
- [23:46]
Courtney Garcia
Catch that stuff.
- [23:46]
Mike Santoli
Like there are memes I can't hear.
- [23:48]
Hunter Horsley
So good out of this year.
- [23:49]
Karen Feinerman
By the way, I'm Gen X. The baby boomers all you want.
- [23:54]
Courtney Garcia
No boomer here.
- [23:55]
Amen Javers
I'm not a baby boomer.
- [23:56]
Mike Santoli
I'm all actually, you know, but really what, you know, what is happening is as these rates are higher, it's everybody who does have those mortgages, would you point out that are less than 4% is not putting their houses on the market. But I think you're starting to see people are waiting for rates to come down. They can't wait forever. Like at a certain point you're going to start to see those go back on. You're going to start to see people who are getting to places in their lives where they are going to start to buy the houses. But I do think higher rates probably actually benefit your homebuilders because they can give you those incentives. As rates go down, you're probably going to see more current homes go back on the market. So February actually tends to be a pretty bad month for the housing stocks. It's been a particularly bad month. I see the thing. The sentiment's probably oversold. See, I think if anything, I'm with Karen here. I'd probably take advantage of it as an opportunity.
- [24:38]
Karen Feinerman
All right. Well, there's a lot more fast to come. Here is what's coming up next.
- [24:44]
President Trump
We're rolling out the red carpet for.
- [24:46]
Tim Seymour
Netflix, Disney and more as the biggest names in entertainment duke it out at the Oscars.
- [24:51]
Mike Santoli
The stakes for these stocks ahead of Hollywood's big night. Plus, bitcoin goes bust, the cryptocurrency hitting.
- [24:58]
Tim Seymour
Its lowest level since November.
- [25:00]
Mike Santoli
But our next guest says this market is healthier than ever in spite of the volatility.
- [25:05]
Tim Seymour
The next phase of the crypto craze next. You're watching FAST MONEY live from the.
- [25:10]
Mike Santoli
NASDAQ market site in Times Square. We're back right after this. 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. Learn more@mycare.org Are you still quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days?
- [25:43]
Tim Seymour
Do you think Discover is isn't widely accepted?
- [25:45]
Mike Santoli
If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past.
- [25:48]
Tim Seymour
Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back.
- [25:57]
Mike Santoli
Welcome to the now it pays to Discover.
- [25:59]
Tim Seymour
Learn more@discover.com credit card based on the February 2024 Nelson Report.
- [26:07]
Karen Feinerman
Welcome back to Fast Money. We're just two days away from this year's Academy Awards and it'll be a make or break moment not only for the nominees, but the studios behind them. Our Julia Boorstin joins us now live from the red carpet for that story. Hi, Julia.
- [26:22]
Mike Santoli
Hi, Mike. That's right, the red carpet. It is covered with white plastic, but this is the red carpet. And Mike, the stakes are high for theaters as well as the studios as they work to lure audiences back to the box office. And the bar is high, with ticket prices nearly 26% more expensive than they were before the pandemic back in 2019. And theatrical releases are now available at home after just a 30 day window after the release in theaters. That's down from a three month window before the pandemic. But the box office does have some tailwinds this year. The number of wide release Films will increase 17% from last year to 110, though that is still 10 fewer than 2019 and bolstered by superheroes Jurassic World and Avatar. This year, year's box office is projected to grow 9% from last year to nine and a half billion dollars. So that is still well below the $11 billion that the box office brought in in 2019. And the Academy, which runs the Oscars, is doing its part this year requiring an expanded theatrical release to qualify for Best Picture.
- [27:27]
Julia Boorstin
We did increase our theatrical eligibility requirements for best picture about 18 months ago. That was done to encourage more markets to have a theatrical window and that's been very successful.
- [27:44]
Mike Santoli
So we'll have to see which studio walks away with the most awards. CNBC, sister company Universal Pictures has 25 nominations in total, including 10 for Wicked. But the film with the most nominations this year is Netflix, is Amelia Perez. Mike?
- [27:59]
Karen Feinerman
Yes, Julie. As Netflix, I guess still looks for its first Best Picture win. It's got some, some nominees. Julia, appreciate that. So Tim, on Disney, I mean there was a mantra that was that the industry had to survive until 2025 because you had the strikes and all the disruption. Now they have a full slate. Is that going to filter into the, the entertainment stocks?
- [28:22]
Courtney Garcia
I think so. And Disney, you know, if you look through their 10, their 10k, they, their 10q, they had a dynamic where you could see that the distribution was up two and a half times from where it was. So in other words, you are getting that, that improvement over the strike year. The dynamics for the stock have also been driven by real profitability in their DTC business. That the DTC ad rev is up 16% year over year. If you look at the Stock at around 115, that's a pretty interesting breakout level. So I believe that the risk reward is to the upside. Even though I think Disney was, it was bizarre how detailed they gave a five year plan on most recently and something that the market loved. But at some point you have to be held to that.
- [29:00]
Karen Feinerman
You know, I mentioned that, you know, I'm sorry. We got some breaking news down in D.C. with Eamon Javas.
- [29:07]
Amen Javers
Amen.
- [29:08]
Tim Seymour
Mike, The President of the United States just talking to reporters here a couple of minutes ago on his way out the door to the helicopter to catch a ride to Florida this evening. We are expecting to see that tape here momentarily. But the President saying that Volodymyr Zelensky needs to want to make peace in order for the White House to restart talks with the Ukrainians. We'll wait and see exactly what he said on that tape. This is event that happened just a few moments ago and the White House press pool is queuing it up right now to play it back for us, Mike. We'll see that in a couple seconds.
- [29:40]
Karen Feinerman
Right. And he did, of course, you know, put out something on social media earlier, essentially saying that, too. I guess the definition of, you know, of what, what it would mean for Zelensky to want peace in the estimation of the administration is unknown.
- [29:53]
Tim Seymour
Yeah, that's the big question here. And the other big question is what was it exactly that set this meeting on the wrong track? You know, what was the comment that the White House felt was disrespectful? I was just talking with the White House press secretary in her office a couple of moments ago asking about that, and she said, you know, more than a comment, it was actually Zelenskyy's body language. The president felt that he was rolling his eyes, that he was folding his arms, that he was being skeptical of what the president was saying. A lot of that body language, apparently, is what offended President Trump during the course of that meeting and led to the level of tension and the level of emotion getting higher and higher. So more so than even what Zelenskyy was saying specifically, it was the vibes that they were getting from him that really started this thing down the wrong path.
- [30:45]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah. And I do think some of that tape, perhaps of some of the body language was making the rounds as well, Eamonn. And I do think we do have this tape from the President.
- [30:56]
President Trump
Thank you very much. So I just want to say we're going down to Florida. We have a big event tomorrow night, big MAGA event, Make America Great Again. And it's setting records. And otherwise, I'd rather be right now at the White House. But we're doing the big event tomorrow night. We had some big news this week, as you know, because Apple is investing $500 billion. Think of that. And that's going to be a lot. It's going to be a tremendous investment. I guess the biggest investment anybody's ever made in the country at one time. But they're going to be investing a lot of money, 500 billion. We have many other companies, companies have just announced they're coming in. A lot of it's because of how we're doing. We've done a great turnaround in a little more than 30 days, but the country is really doing well. Really doing well. We're respected again all over the world. If you look, we had the Japanese prime Minister, we had the Prime Minister yesterday of UK as you know, we had the Prime Minister of India. We have another 20 prime ministers and presidents wanting to come and very good, very good feeling. I think our country has really turned around. We had a meeting today, as you know, with President Zelensky and I would say it didn't work out exactly great from his standpoint. I think he very much overplayed his hand. We're looking for peace. We're not looking for somebody that's going to sign up a strong power and then not make peace because they feel emboldened. And that's what I saw happening. I'm looking for peace. We're not looking to go into a 10 year war and play games. We want peace. And it was just my impression that if we do that, if we sign up, he's looking for something that I'm not looking for. He's looking to go on and fight, fight, fight. We're looking to end the death. 2,000 people died this week, soldiers, more than that, but 2,000, approximately people died this week, young Ukrainians and Russians. And somebody would say, why do you care about Ukraine and Russian soldiers? Soldiers, I care about them. I care about everybody. And we're not doing that now. If we don't do anything, he's going to have to make peace. But he's dealing with a very weak set of cards. If we sign, he's dealing with very strong set of cards and that he doesn't want to make peace. So that's where we are. It's very simple. I'm not looking to get into anything protracted. I want immediate peace. President Putin is going to want to make and he wants to make, he wants to end it. And you saw what I saw. This is a man that wants to get us signed up and keep fighting. And we're not doing that, not for this country. So we're setting a lot of records. Economically, we're setting records and I think every way we're setting records. One of the best is the right track, wrong track. You saw that we're on the right track for the first time in over 27 years. People are impressed with that. The other thing is the feeling about our country. The feeling is great. It's up 48% on feeling, on business. And that's the record we've never had. There's never been a record where we've ever gone up that much in such a short period of time. So we're doing really well and I guess some of you are coming with us and if you are, I hope you're going to have a good flight. What he's got to say, I want to make peace. He doesn't have to stand there and say about Putin this, Putin that, and all negative things. He's got to say, I want to make peace. I don't want to fight a war any longer. His people are dying. He doesn't have the cards. Just so you understand. Understand it. Okay, I. I don't have to tell you that.
- [35:08]
Tim Seymour
Go ahead.
- [35:09]
President Trump
I think. I think you know the answer to. Wait, wait. Look, I don't trust or distrust anybody. I just want to get a deal done. And if a deal happens, good, good. But you can't embolden somebody that does not have the guards. And all of a sudden that person says, oh, well, now I can keep fighting. I can. We're not going to keep fighting. You're going to get the war done or let them go and see what happens. Let them fight it out. I want anybody that's going to make peace, if he's capable of making peace, which he may or may not be, but I want somebody that's going to make peace again. He doesn't have the cards. When we sign up, he's got all of the cards. That doesn't mean he can fight. He's got to stop the fighting, stop the death. He's losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers. It's time to stop the death. Well, he says he wants it now. He wants to come back right now, but I can't do that. They should have an immediate ceasefire. That was the other thing he didn't want to do about ceasefire. A ceasefire could take place immediately. A contract. If you want to end the war, you sign up an agreement. That's going to take a period of time. It takes time. I want it to end immediately. And I think if you had a ceasefire, it would be a ceasefire.
- [36:46]
Amen Javers
Fire.
- [36:47]
President Trump
A real one. That would end it. But he doesn't want to do that. That's fine.
- [36:51]
Tim Seymour
Do it better than that.
- [36:53]
President Trump
I want it to end immediately. I want a ceasefire now. He says, oh, I don't want a ceasefire. Well, all of a sudden he's a big shot because he has the US on his side. Either we're going to end it or let him fight it out. And if he fights it out, it's not going to be pretty, because without it, without us, he doesn't win.
- [37:12]
Mike Santoli
Let me tell you.
- [37:18]
President Trump
It doesn't matter what I'm concerning. I'm just telling you. You saw what I saw today. That was not a man that wanted to make peace. And I'm only interested if he wants to end the bloodshed.
- [37:29]
Karen Feinerman
Thank you very much. That was President Trump speaking after his meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky. Let's go back to Eamon Javors at the White House with us now, Eamonn, I guess the president said that Zelensky wants to come back right now, but I couldn't do it.
- [37:47]
Tim Seymour
Yeah. Well, what we know is that Volodymyr Zelenskyy left the White House, canceled a number of meetings that he had scheduled throughout Washington, D.C. this afternoon. But he did go over to Fox News Channel where he had a meeting, a meeting scheduled and an interview scheduled with the anchor there, Brett Baer. We're told that interview appears to have gone on. So we'll see what Zelensky has to say after this as well. Another remarkable sort of moment from that exchange just there, Mike, I'm going to have to go back and look at the transcript of what the president just said. It appeared to me that he said that among the things that he wants Zelensky to do is to stop saying negative things about Vladimir Putin. He said, he says, Putin this, Putin that he needs to want to make peace, which is a remarkable thing to ask of a wartime leader whose country has been invaded and atrocities committed on his soil and is fighting for the existence of his country to not say negative comments about the leader of the country that's doing that to you. I don't know how Zelensky can respond to those terms. You know, clearly Zelensky is going to want to repair this relationship in some way if he can. What Trump is doing here is setting the bar very, very high for Zelinsky to do that. And we'll see what happens.
- [39:00]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah, for sure. And you know, Zelinsky, among the things he managed to get out in that meeting was, you know, Putin didn't, didn't honor the prior cease fire and, and such. It would be a pretty, pretty tall order. Eamon. Thank you very much, Steve. You know, President Trump, one of the patterns you can see going back several years is he likes to preserve leverage wherever possible. Kick the tariff deadline down the road. I still have leverage in this case. He's trying to really, I guess, maximize that. We'll see where that.
- [39:28]
Hunter Horsley
Well, when you heard what he said, it's obvious, right? So he had that distance where he created that leverage where he said, without us, you can't win without you need a deal. So he's pushing that deal in his mind, he's got all the leverage. And by the way, he does have all the leverage. He's just making sure that Zelinsky understands that as well.
- [39:48]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah. Well, it's interesting given, given that, you know, Europe had a lot to say about how they're still.
- [39:53]
Courtney Garcia
What about, I mean, what leverage does Putin have? I mean, you know, this is a one sided conversation that's being discussed without the other side.
- [40:02]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah, no, it's true. Whatever, whatever the war cost the United States, arguably, Putin is what cost us that. Right. So. All right. Coming up, bitcoin hitting its lowest levels since November. But our next guest says the crypto market is ripe for opportunity, despite the dip where he's seeing opportunity next. Welcome back to FAST money. Bitcoin climbing back, clawing its way back after dipping overnight below the $80,000 level. For the first time in three months, the cryptocurrency is on pace for its worst month since June of 2022. Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley joins us on set for more on what's going on in this market. Hunter, good to see you. On one level, I guess you could draw a picture of the ultimate sell, the news, because bitcoin fans have gotten every single thing they could have wanted and said was part of the bull case four or five months ago. And now it's like what's next to look forward to?
- [41:03]
Julia Boorstin
You know, I think bitcoin is famous for volatility, and yet when it experiences volatility, people are surprised. Q1 has been the best moment for investors to put money into bitcoin. And we've seen that with our client base. I think we've seen more traditional investors, wealth managers, asset managers, banks engaging with bitwise, the bitwise Bitcoin ETF and the asset class in the first quarter of this year amidst the price action. So I think price is always a story in this space. If you remember back to when the Bitcoin ETF launched went from 46,000 to 39,000 and people said, OK, maybe it was a buy the rumor, sell the news story, and then it worked its way back up to where, where it was more recently. So I think it's there's never been a better time for this asset class.
- [41:44]
Karen Feinerman
You say it's always about price, but isn't that because there isn't much more to it than price at this point?
- [41:49]
Julia Boorstin
You know, price is the most prominent feature, of course, and it's what bitcoin's famous for. It's the reason that we always have something, you know, something noteworthy going on, the volatility, the price. But I think the story right now is regulation. It's the most obvious thing. It's a sea change. Since the inauguration, the White House, the Congress and the SEC have, have flipped to a constructive level that has never been true before.
- [42:13]
Steve Grasso
So one of the things first of all, thanks for being here. One of the things that drove a lot of, I think the sentiment around bitcoin was the idea of some sort of potential for reserve currency or some US Buildup of reserves of bitcoin. And I haven't heard anything about that in a while. Where, where does that stand? Where did it ever really stand?
- [42:34]
Julia Boorstin
It is definitely in play. So it's one of the items to evaluate that was in Trump's executive order shortly after he was inaugurated. It's one of the items on Treasury's agenda. And then Senator Lummis is working on a bill around that. She's actually having a gathering on March 11 where a bunch of myself and a number of other CEOs will be in D.C. to discuss the initiative. You saw more recently Abu Dhabi announcing that they bought bitcoin in the sovereign wealth fund, about half a billion dollars. And so there's now about 11 nations that have expos Believe it or not. It's very real. And I think that that's one of the remarkable things about this moment is it's almost hard to imagine Washington, D.C. being positive on bitcoin and crypto. But we're seeing that from the SEC throwing out enforcement cases against Coinbase and Uniswap just in the last two weeks. We're seeing that in the SEC and in so many places now.
- [43:26]
Karen Feinerman
That's exactly what I mean by in terms of everything people wanted is in place. We'll see where it can go from here. 100 thanks a lot, Steve. One thing about the the fact, for example, the SEC comes out and says meme coins are fine. You know, they're not securities. Have fun. Fight your own risk. Does that drain demand away from Bitcoin proper? Is there a concern about that? If it's a free for all and we're going to just be launching coins.
- [43:48]
Hunter Horsley
I definitely think it's a distraction to a certain point for the people who are buying it, but the people who are buying bitcoin are buying it for the long term. So just as Karen asked the question, Hunter answered it. We went from enforcement to a regulatory environment. Now you're possibly going to have corporations buying it, central banks buying it. So limited supply, you nailed that. I think it's up from here. But it's extremely volatile by its nature and you have to have a steel stomach for this.
- [44:18]
Karen Feinerman
Courtney, what would you what are you Telling your clients about whether it deserves an allocation and how to think about what purpose it might serve.
- [44:26]
Mike Santoli
And this is something we have not had an allocation to because to your point, like price is all that there is to it.
- [44:31]
Courtney Garcia
Right.
- [44:31]
Mike Santoli
If somebody is not willing to buy it for 100,000, for me, it's not going to go there. Right. And so I think that's really the problem. And at this point, a lot of the optimism is based on the Trump trade and the fact that there should be some regulation that goes in, but maybe that's already priced in. It peaked on Inauguration Day. If that's not going to come in, you know, it might not come to fruition. So this is a very volatile asset class. I really see it as, you know, kind of invest in your risk. This is something I have on the side, not part of my overall investment philosophy, but it's something I stay away from and continue to.
- [44:58]
Karen Feinerman
All right. Yeah, a lot of downside targets down to like 70,000 and I guess we got that bounce today. Maybe garden variety volatility a little bit. No, for sure. Nothing. Nothing extraordinary there. Coming up, traders share their charts of the month. Why someone on the desk thinks this high flying global bank still looks interesting. Interesting at these levels. More fast money. Welcome back to Fast Money. As we wrap up a volatile February, we're asking each of the traders to give us their charts of the month. One name, good or bad that they think is telling the story of the market right now. So, Karen, kick us off.
- [45:39]
Steve Grasso
Yeah, so for me it was the 10 year and I think, you know, I've been short the ten year. It started the month over four and a half. Remember we had Andy Konstantin on talking about a potential slowdown and this was before that seemed to take place. And the idea now that, you know, the 10 year, where did it go up for 20? So I mean, that does portend the slowdown. I think that just flowed through into the markets and the idea of, well, we're going gangbusters has actually taken a back seat now. So that to me is the most important thing. I hope that's not what continues, but it's certainly what's happened.
- [46:12]
Karen Feinerman
Yeah, we might be just short of that panic level like where we were back in the fall in terms of what the bond market's saying. But yeah, hopefully we don't get there again. Tim, what do you got?
- [46:20]
Courtney Garcia
So banks we've talked about have pulled back here a little bit lately, but we also just talked about the outperformance of Europe and if you look at what's going on in European moneycenter banks? Santander, which is $100 billion bank, which is, you know, essentially domiciled in Spain but has huge business across Europe and in Latin America. I mean this is, I know it's hard to believe, but it's a bulletproof balance sheet. And this trades 30% cheap to Citibank with a higher div. And so this outperformance, this is a core name in ide, which is the international ETF I managed. I think these banks have more to go and again, deregulation in Europe, I think maybe a more powerful story than it is here.
- [46:54]
Karen Feinerman
European banks have been just no quit in them.
- [46:56]
Amen Javers
Yeah.
- [46:57]
Karen Feinerman
So that's one of the better global cyclical indicators at least. Courtney.
- [47:01]
Mike Santoli
Yeah, Alibaba was one that I was looking at which really has outperformed the general markets clearly over the last month. And I think when you look underlying, you looked at their E commerce business was actually a lot stronger than people expected. So I think the read through you want to see is is the Chinese consumer actually holding in better than people had feared? And this is another one we've talking a lot about the US versus foreign assets. I think you want to get in there before there's certainty. I think you want to read through and see that there might actually be.
- [47:25]
Karen Feinerman
Some opportunity and flying on some excitement as well.
- [47:27]
Hunter Horsley
Of course, Steve, I think gold has been interesting. Gold used to be a safe haven or thought to be a safe haven and it trades like a risk asset now. So coming out of if you really want to go back, coming out of the pandemic, it started to trade with the S and P. So I would watch gold because now it's trading with bitcoin, it's trading with the equity markets. So if you start to see this come back, you could probably see the.
- [47:50]
Karen Feinerman
Market a lot of synchronicity, all liquidity trade. All right, thanks very much. Up next, going to get your final trades. It is time for the final trade. Let's go around the horn.
- [48:05]
Courtney Garcia
Tim Silk, great having you today. Always a smart conversation. Santander, I think this has room to run.
- [48:11]
Karen Feinerman
Discount call you sandpaper.
- [48:13]
Steve Grasso
Okay. I like it. A couple of weeks ago before earnings I said sell some Zillow upside calls. Now I want to buy them back.
- [48:20]
Mike Santoli
All right, Courtney, the is a Vanguard international etf. We've talked a lot about this. I would still stay long international here. I think it's worth an opportunity.
- [48:28]
Karen Feinerman
All right, Steve, do you think the.
- [48:30]
Hunter Horsley
Materials, the rare earth materials get stunned with Ukraine?
- [48:34]
Karen Feinerman
Something probably gets Also, even if it gets done, it's all in the future MP materials.
- [48:39]
Hunter Horsley
That's where I'm long. I think it's being affected by the silver.
- [48:41]
Karen Feinerman
Okay, and so you'd rather have the scarcity value for mp. Thank you guys. Thanks for having me.
- [48:46]
Tim Seymour
Thank you Mike.
- [48:46]
Karen Feinerman
It was great. A lot of fun, everybody. Have a great weekend. Mad Money with Jim Cranber starts right now.
- [48:52]
Mike Santoli
All opinions expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of cnbc, NBC Universal, 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 forward/fastmoneydisclaimer 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. Learn more at multicare.
- [49:47]
Tim Seymour
Org.