← CNBC's "Fast Money"
CNBC's "Fast Money"
Stocks Close Out Another Strong Week, And Why the Oracle of Omaha May Be Seeing a “Buy” Signal 5/2/25
00:43:47
Major markets rallied on Friday after a stronger-than-expected jobs report and news that Beijing might be paving the way for trade talks. Can the momentum continue? Plus investors descending on Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting this weekend. And the legendary value investor may be seeing a signal that markets are cheap right now. Fast Money Disclaimer
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Edward Jones
A rich life isn't a straight line to a destination on the horizon. Sometimes it takes an unexpected turn with detours, new possibilities and even another passenger or three. And with 100 years of navigating ups and downs, you can count on Edward Jones to help guide you through it all. Because life is a winding path made rich by the people you walk it with. Let's find your rich together. Edward Jones, Member, SIPC.
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Tim Seymour
As America's leading.
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Melissa Lee
Business lender, bank of America is on your corner and in your corner. With $215 billion in business loans and over 3,700 business specialists across the nation, we help businesses thrive so communities prosper. What would you like the power to do? Learn more@bankofamerica.com LOCALBUSINESS bank of America Official bank of FIFA Club World Cup 2025 Copyright 2025 bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved. Live from the NASDAQ markets in the heart of New York City's Times Square, this is fast money. Here's what's on tap tonight, a major tech divergence, the two biggest companies in the world heading in very different directions this week. What we learned from the earnings reports out of Microsoft and Apple and what it means for the trade. And reading the Buffett indicator as investors descend on Omaha in the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. One of the legendary value investors favorite market metrics could be saying it is time to why should you get on board? We'll debate that. Plus, crude clocks its lowest level in over four years. Netflix streams to an 11 day winning streak and Bitcoin closes back in on 100k as a new record just around the corner. I'm Melissa Lee coming to you live from studio. Be at the Nasdaq. On the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Vanuan Ison, Julie Beal and Steve Grasso. We start off with a solid end to the week for stocks. Major indices all rising more than a percent after a better than expected jobs report eased fears of a recession. The S and P now up nine days in a row, its longest winning streak in over 20 years. Today's gains had the benchmark index joining the Nasdaq and recouping all its losses since President Trump announced sweeping tariffs on April 2. The Vix notably also falling to its lowest level since that day. Speaking of tariffs, markets also getting a boost today on news that China is looking into ways to address the fentanyl crisis, which could pave the way to begin trade negotiations between the US And Beijing. Megan Casella is in Washington with the very latest. Meghan hey, Melissa.
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Megan Casella
It's the first sign of possible momentum in these trade talks between the US And China. The Wall Street Journal reporting around midday that a top Chinese security official has been looking into what exactly the Trump administration wants to see when it comes to his concerns over fentanyl. Remember, the 20% tariffs before the full 145% tariffs took effect were due to fentanyl in particular. So now China's saying they're considering sending this security official to Washington for meetings or having him meet with the Trump team in some third I should note here, Melissa, I reached out to the White House and have not heard from them as to whether they've heard from China on this or if it would be enough to lead the president to cancel at least some of those tariffs against China, even temporarily. But this does come just after China's Commerce Ministry said yesterday that they are that they are evaluating offers from the US and that they want to see the US show some sincerity by canceling some tariffs before they launch talks. And that's what makes this a key move potentially from China, because it's something that could really give both sides a, a win here. Melissa it's the kind of thing that the Trump administration could say we're getting something on fentanyl, potentially they could adjust the tariffs in that way. Then China could say if tariffs are being adjusted, we're open to starting talks. So the kind of thing, Melissa, that could at least get the ball rolling, a positive step.
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Melissa Lee
Megan, thank you. Megan Kucella from the White House. China has already begun carving out exemptions in terms of the list of products covered by tariffs, which is maybe an olive branch of some way. This was definitely taken as a positive. This would be a major win if, if even they started officially talking, especially.
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Julie Beal
Because this was really where we started out, right? I mean, and so quietly exempting some of these tariffs is also another way the Journal phrased it. And I think that's right. And I think if you think about combining that with what we had this morning, which was that the parge was just right in terms of today's jobs number on a week when we had a little bit of mixed economic data. But for the most part, the economy right now is doing its part going into a Fed meeting next week. But all the superlatives about the stock market you can throw at it really are. And you know, it's one of the hope you didn't sell because it really is it seems as if some of this was an aberration. I don't think a lot of this is an aberration in terms of what we got in terms of the market's concern around the strength of the economy. But, you know, we're through an earnings season, you know, whatever, 60% through or so with obviously some, some. Most of the big folks having reported correlations, realized correlations between stocks are extremely high, which tells you that people are just buying the market in some level. And I do think, you know, as we've said a few times, a lot of the selling, if you believe it was just repositioning by long short hedge funds and global macro guys and CTAs, it means that there really wasn't a lot of real selling in there. And I think, fortunately for a lot of people, not overtrading this market is exactly how this was to be handled.
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Melissa Lee
I mean, the data that we got this week, Julie, really addressed some of the key concerns of the markets when it comes to the stagflation fear. The jobs report certainly ease sort of those concerns. And the earnings data that we got over the past few days ease the concerns about that AI slowdown sort of trade too. So you knock those two things down and, and then you factor in upside from tariff talks, potentially. It's kind of a good setup.
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Steve Grasso
Yeah, I think there was a lot to be excited about or enthusiastic about in the last week. Some of the data was for sure just a relief. And so it wasn't necessarily that it was great data, but it was just not as bad as people were worried about. And I think in looking at companies reporting earnings, that's actually been playing out with earnings too, where as long as you're doing better than feared, you seem to be getting away with, you know, being okay even if you don't issue guidance, which I think a lot of companies have just decided, you know what? Actually I can't issue the guidance, but for the stocks themselves, it's clear that, you know, there's so much enthusiasm to buy these dips. Right. So many money managers and retail investors, frankly, you know, sold stocks in March of 2020 and then missed out on buying them back. And I think that that always kind of provides this floor for people to kind of come back in because we all want to be heroes, right? We all want to buy at the bottom.
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Tim Seymour
Yeah, I think you make a good point, Julie, in terms of, you know, the, the forecast and guidance. You know, you look at Apple and it seems like they got a little bit of pressure there because they were unwilling to kind of try to look into the crystal ball and give you some concrete data to Kind of wrap your mind around. So I do think just from a strategic standpoint it makes sense to say, listen, we kind of have the COVID to say, listen, there's, there's uncertainty. We're not even going to make an attempt here. And so I think that is a prime example of what happens, you know, when you try to be perhaps, you know, extremely transparent and it kind of comes back to bite you. Speaking more macroeconomically, I also echo a lot of the sentiments that I think this was kind of the proverbial sigh of relief. I'm going to wax slightly pessimistic in terms of saying that I still think this is mainly April data. I think it's probably going to be two, three months of data that you're really going to need to see if there is a bit more deeper effects of the tariffs here. And then the last thing I'll point to is the volatility. We still need to understand that we're coming from a mid teens regime to now. We're saying that mid low 20s is a bit of a relief. And all that's all that says is that the downside is still going to be exacerbated. Tim spoke about the correlation. That VIX level is still telling you that on the downside there is still heightened correlation there. And so that's something to kind of, you know, still, still suggest that you need to be picking upper crust names as opposed to looking at like extremely growth names that we, that we saw in 20, 20, 2021 and 2022 and that, and that's where the upside was offered there. I think we' regime.
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Vanuan Ison
So if you have, if we get the most negative, if we have a, if we have a jobs issue or if you say the market comes in, I think you get the Powell put back. Right now you have the Trump put because he can change and be flexible on trade, which caused this rally, right? At any point. So you have the Trump put, do you have the power put if unemployment ticks up, Powell put inflation, you see energy prices coming in to a certain extent we see inflation moderating. To a certain extent, we see crude drastically collapsing. That's what Trump wanted. He wanted lower energy prices. So I think you get a Powell put at worst, at best you get a Trump put and a Powell put. If you see yields start to rise again, Trump has no flexibility watching the yield rise above four and a half in a ten year. The most important thing right now is China US Trade. Everything else is secondary by a distant second. If China trade gets handled 3% 5%. What limit up in the S&P is 5%. So I think we could see a.
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Melissa Lee
Limit up day you got a trade deal from.
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Vanuan Ison
If we got, if we got a trade deal.
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Julie Beal
I'm not an economist and I try not to play one on tv. I do think if you look at the effective real tariff rates that we still would have even in a. Again this. If the presumption is that they solve China tariffs, that they remove reciprocal tariffs of a flat 10% and then all the other things that are out there, the world changes dramatically and I think you have a backdrop that still is supportive to equities. I also though believe some of the headwinds we're seeing for the economy were tariff independent. I mean I think there was certainly some dynamics of this going in pre tariff that I think people were a bit concerned. I get back to just the market itself and I'd say if you are someone that believes that we could go higher. But you also have this dynamic where people still will talk about the uncertainty around tariff. I mean implied volume turns downside put protection for this market is been removed. In other words there's, there's no extra premium I guess I should say to where we are now than there was to protecting the downside versus buying the upside. And I think that's something you should be thinking about in this environment. I think it's absolutely a time where you take advantage of this move. A lot of people wanted to be sellers. If I could just get back to 5650, 700 on the S and P. I think if anything you protect yourself remember those days.
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Melissa Lee
But I mean it is, it's remarkable how it's been exactly a month. Right? I mean those tariffs were announced on April 2nd. Today is May 2nd. Who would have thought that we would have been back to where we started on the S and P got offsides but also the volatility index. So to Tim's point in terms of protection protecting yourself, you think it's volatile straight ahead. Now is the time you're back to where we were. But it's also a key market decision point too because you're back to where you were. So do you remember those days when we were talking about S and p, you know, 48, 50 or you know worried about those days and you sell or do you say you know what the worst is behind us? The worst of the tariff pessimism peak terrorists regulation is around the corner and tax changes are around the corner too.
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Vanuan Ison
Yes, that's the next leg up is Taxes. So if you can get that tax bill and you can get the economic data going the right way or even the wrong way until we bottom out, you're going to have the tax policy as the next momentum kick up. Right now people are still worried about stagflation. People got offsides. You don't have nine straight days of up days unless the Bears got offside. That doesn't. We have 20 year. We have a 20 year streak that we haven't seen since 2004.
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Tim Seymour
Yeah, fair enough. I do think you want to think a little bit about in terms of how we got here. Right. It was a pretty precipitous fall, a self inflicted gunshot wound for lack of a better word. And so I can understand Bears getting offsides because there was no clarity. And so in terms of what takes us higher, I really think you need to see some clarity in terms of seeing some trade deals actually get done. I think the, you know, like speaking about what may be, what may be developing, I think we've probably kind of exhausted that. I think it's. We've round tripped.
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Melissa Lee
Well, I'm sorry to interrupt but let me ask you this. Do you think that the tariff situation is going to get worse from this point or get better?
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Tim Seymour
I actually tend to think it's likely to get worse.
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Melissa Lee
Ok, so you think it's going to get worse then I could see your case for saying the markets are going to. But if you think that there's upside from here because the worst being the highest level of tariffs to be inflicted are on, then I feel like then there's upside.
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Tim Seymour
Let me clarify perception around the market's perception around. Are we in a better place or are we in a worse place? I think now there's optimism that's being priced in. At one point we had, we were extremely pessimistic. We got slapped with this 125, 145% number. We had these reciprocal tariffs that we still can't do the math on.
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Melissa Lee
So this is pricing in.
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Tim Seymour
I think this is pricing and bounce back in and that there is going to. There is a pending price deal, pending trade deal.
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Melissa Lee
Julie, do you think that we're pricing in this level, this recoup that level? Is that pricey and wins trade winds at this point?
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Steve Grasso
Yeah, I think it has to be pricing in a certain amount of enthusiasm that you know these deals are going to get done. Right. You can't have nine straight days without. That's clearly a major change in sentiment. And you know the market, if it does one Thing really? Well, it's overshoot, right? And so if I think about how quickly we've moved back, it really gives me a certain amount of pause because the thing is, is that we don't have any actual deals announced. We are still talking about talking about deals. And to me that's the problem, right? That's always the problem in the market is where our enthusiasm for what might be gets well out ahead of expectations and what actually could be. And the thing is, is that regardless of kind of where we end up, whether it's, you know, 10%, 15, whatever, it's still at a higher level and it's still creating friction and it's still going to create an upward lift on pricing.
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Julie Beal
I think just real quick, the other thing that's helped equity markets here is we've stopped the free fall of the dollar and we've also stopped this uncertainty. There's been order restored. Rich Ross writes great stuff. I read his piece today. He said, you know, between 410 and 440 on that 10 year you restored order. And that's a yield that's really indicative of not inflation or a slowdown.
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Melissa Lee
Let's roll down on the tech earnings. Microsoft the standout in the week, rising another 2% today to bring its gains to 11% since Monday. The company topping cloud revenue estimates and issuing a stronger than expected full year outlook when it reported Wednesday. But Apple sank more than 4, almost 4% I should say following last night's results. Missing on services revenue, saying it's hard to forecast the impact of tariffs past June. So what does the divergence say about the trade about the Mag 7? Let's bring in Gil Lauria, head of technology research at DA Davidson. Gil, great to have you with us.
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Gil Lauria
Thanks for having me.
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Melissa Lee
I mean, is Microsoft the winner at this point in this sort of environment? I mean we. Yes, advertising came in better than expected for Meta as well as Google, but that is obviously a cyclical business which will be affected by the macro very closely. And Apple is most closely tied in Amazon to tariffs. Microsoft seems to be sort of the one with the least amount of problems.
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Gil Lauria
That's exactly right. Here's a framework I would use to understand the earnings we just saw and what's ahead for the year. The consumer is slowing down. Once that happens long enough, advertisers, companies are going to advertise less. And if it lasts even longer than that, maybe they'll scale back their enterprise technology spending. What that means is we already saw the most consumer exposed companies, Apple and Amazon show some weakness Yesterday, the advertising companies, Google and Metta were okay and Microsoft's the one that's doing the best and looks to be resilient for the balance of the year because things have to get really bad for companies to pull back on their software spending and on that shift to the cloud. On top of that, Microsoft is executing phenomenally well. The fact they were able to get azure up to 35% growth, this is $70 billion business when it is only growing 17. Even Google Cloud's only growing 28. That tells you that not only are they more resilient as the least consumer exposed, but they're also executing phenomenally well.
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Vanuan Ison
Gil, when you look at the deep SEQ headlines late January and you look at Mag 7, it was the most negative for in video. It was the most positive for the rest of the group because the rest of the group can make cheaper AI chips. So it was a tailwind for the rest. They're all trading as a monolith right now. But once we start to get to a different time period, could what is negative for Nvidia be positive for the rest of the space?
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Gil Lauria
It is positive because the cost of compute is a cost for these companies. They're generating revenue based on that. So the lower the cost of compute, the more efficiently we can do compute, the less expensive the costs are for Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Metta. For Nvidia, it's a different story. This week there's some relief in Nvidia because Microsoft, Apple and Google maintained their capex plans. Metta increased its Capex plans. Nvidia is fine on that side of the ledger. The it's the other half of the business that's more a concern. Right now, 20 to 40% of the revenue comes from either China or Chinese companies. That is very much at risk as we speak. Until we know within the next couple of weeks, how much chips are we allowed to sell in China if at all? We're not going to know about that. And let's not forget that when CORE we've IPO'd, we learned that there's a whole segment of Nvidia sales that's below subprime companies that have to borrow at 14% interest to buy GPUs. That's very much at risk in a slowing economy. So that's the half of the business for Nvidia we'd worry about a lot less those big customers.
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Julie Beal
Gil, real quick then, how about your investors? How about your clients? What I want to hear about is Microsoft nice outperformance Microsoft had underperformed Most of the Mag 7, not just a little bit. I mean underperformed Tesla by 48%, underperformed Apple by by 20% on form matter by almost 30%. So it's been a year, it's been a year and a half of waiting for Microsoft next move. I'm just kind of curious where people are positioned and where sentiment is going in these names going forward.
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Gil Lauria
Well, things for Microsoft flipped in March, right. The underperformance came between the middle of last year until March because and Google Cloud had caught up to Microsoft and it looked like it was going to be a more even race. Things flipped in March when that narrative flipped when we started worrying more about consumer Microsoft became the best, most defensive play because of their least amount of consumer exposure. And if you look since March and certainly since tariff day, Microsoft has been the best performing Mega Cap and that's what we expect to continue for the balance of the year.
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Melissa Lee
Gil, great to see you. Thank you. Thank you Gil Lauria DA Davidson Bona win Did Microsoft come out on top in your view of this earnings season?
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Tim Seymour
I think it came out in terms of the safest amidst concerns. I think Tim makes a good point in terms of it's kind of been flat money for I'm not going to call it a dog but it's been.
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Julie Beal
I mean you think about the year we had. Think about the rolling one year that that you had even in video which looks like it's peaked. Nvidia outperformed Microsoft by almost 28% on a rolling one year basis. So I think there's fleas on that dog.
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Melissa Lee
Okay, here's a question, Julie. If a trade, all the trade deals get resolved tomorrow, the market rallies. Do you want to be in the Magic 7 or do you want to be the S&P 500x Mag 7? Where's the biggest, where's the bigger upside in your view?
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Steve Grasso
I think there's more opportunity across outside the Max 7 for sure there's enthusiasm to be had in the Mag 7 with the opportunity but I think actually a lot of that is priced in the valuation is still not attractive to me versus the rest of the S and P. First of all, there's two reasons. One, it's not only just that they're better priced but they did a better job protecting on the downside. So you're assuming if we get all our trade deals done that that's the end of that. But I think that that's the concern is that even if we announced a whole bunch of trade deals. What could happen later? You know what other changes could happen? The level of uncertainty is so wide that I would rather have more diversification.
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Melissa Lee
And spread all right, coming up, crude oil closing out its worst week since March and CEOs are sounding off on earnings. The state of the space next and bitcoin roaring back toward the $100,000 mark and the crypto retake the key level. Or is the momentum about to hit a wall? More fast money and to.
- [20:48]
Mike Santoli
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- [20:58]
Gil Lauria
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Melissa Lee
Welcome back to Fast Money. Crude oil turning in its worst week since March as trade fear, trade war fears and OPEC combine to make traders cautious. Weaker prices hitting big oil earnings in the latest quarter, Exxon profits shrunk 6% while Chevron's net income dropped more than 30% from last year. Here's what Exxon CEO Darren woods had to say about demand.
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Julie Beal
The questions around how the tariffs are going to impact economic growth around the world is leading to a lot of speculation and uncertainty around where demand goes. That then puts concerns and pressure on the demand side of the equation.
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Melissa Lee
What happens with oil from here? Grassland your view?
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Vanuan Ison
Yeah, this is a tough one because it's already dropped 18%. So you have a huge drop. And to from my point of view, it's based on OPEC plus which is increasing production by 411,000 barrels per day to we don't know how long. So they're going to keep voting on that. They want to keep market share away from us producers. So for me, when I look at Chevron versus Exxon, Exxon has the Permian and Exxon has Guyana and Chevron got hit with as you said, the 36% drop in revenues. When you look at the overall base of down 18% a little, I think there's probably has to be some stability, maybe a little bit of a sideways movement. I don't think we can go much lower in a straight shot in oil right now.
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Melissa Lee
Exxon's also going forward with production growth. Exxon's going forward with its buybacks, which is a different story from Chevron, which also by the way has a possibility of its Venezuela license being revoked that's been looming over the stock since Trump took office here. Which one would you prefer?
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Julie Beal
Yeah, it's amazing because for, for a couple of years, until about a year and a half ago, Chevron was doing everything right. And before that I really think was Conoco. Again, companies that were looking to be efficient selling assets where they could not over investing in areas, drilling dry holes, etc. It's been Exxon's been the winner and truly that project that's been now a, you know where Chevron is now bid aggressively to own piece that was owned by Hess. I mean that's great. What Exxon told us today ultimately is that a $5 billion quarterly buyback is still intact. The div is probably going to be growing. Free cash flow is excellent. They can dial it back. Steve's right. I mean the biggest issue for oil price has been, I think, you know, for the recent history OPEC had made us feel that oil price was under control and that they would control supply even if we couldn't control demand. That seems to be more in question now.
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Tim Seymour
Yeah, I tend to agree. I think given the tariff uncertainty, I think given the market uncertainty, you probably want to stick with with exxon between the two of them. With that said, I do think a 5% Divyade is relatively attractive. And given what we've seen with yields recently and also given what we've seen with volatility and the market generally speaking, I think if we continue to see a pullback in Chevron, you actually might want to look at that name as well.
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Melissa Lee
You and oil. Julie.
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Steve Grasso
No, you know, I mean, we continue to find it to be a difficult place to invest because it's just so hard to create any kind of competitive advantage in an actual commodity. And I think the thing that really strikes me is when I looked at Chevron's earnings, this shortfall in free cash flow, it's cut in half year over year. That's just really difficult to get excited about. Right. And the capital intensity of it overall is just it really doesn't make it super attractive for us.
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Melissa Lee
There's a lot more fast money to come. Here's what's coming up next.
- [25:47]
Mike Santoli
The crypto craze carrying bitcoin back within inches of the $100,000 mark. Does digital gold have enough momentum to hit a fresh record high, or is is this rocket about to run out of fuel? Plus, the oracle of Omaha taking center stage at Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting this weekend. And one of Warren Buffett's favorite market metrics is flashing a big buy signal. We'll tell you what it is. You're watching Fast MONEY live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. We're back right after this. CNBC is your ticket to the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting. Warren Buffett meets with shareholders Becky Quick and Mike Santole with full coverage. Watch live on air or on CNBC.com starts Saturday, 8:30am Eastern. CNBC.
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Melissa Lee
Bitcoin closing in on $100,000 once again. The cryptocurrency trading at its highest level since February. Bitcoin rebounding 27% since its early April low. More gains to come. Well, Grasso certainly hopes so. It is I don't want to reveal. It's a big position for you, let's put it that way.
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Vanuan Ison
Yeah. So. So it is a big position. So if the market is down and bitcoin is up, I'm up that day. So it's it's probably, as Bono would say, it's, it's probably a crazy bet that I have right now, but I'm originally long from about 60,000, traded up to 109,000 and change traded down to 75,000 pretty recently. We have to cross over 1 0,000 again. This is a bounce level up to 97,000. If we can do that, I think we have tailwinds. 225 bond.
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Julie Beal
Would you say that's a crazy bet?
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Tim Seymour
I just, you know, it's a little, it's a little offsides, to use his word. Right. Little offsides on the got to be quick.
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Vanuan Ison
It's a fast money.
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Tim Seymour
Yeah you know, my issue with Bitcoin and I'm also bullish. It's just that the correlation to the market, to me kind of runs antithetical to why you want to invest in it. And so because of that, I just think you have to think about, right. Sizing that position. If it were, in fact digital gold and you were getting yourself some protection when the market was kind of, you know, doing what it's done over the last 30 days, then I would say, okay, I can understand you diversifying a bit there. But for me, all you're doing is just adding beta to the portfolio. And that gives me a little bit of pause.
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Melissa Lee
This is like an intervention.
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Tim Seymour
Exactly.
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Vanuan Ison
That's what I want to do.
- [28:08]
Tim Seymour
That's what I want to do.
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Melissa Lee
Intervention for Steve Grosso portfolio. Tim.
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Julie Beal
Well, this gives me an opportunity to talk about gold. Gold. This is a pullback to buying gold. And you're not owning gold for, for there are people that have. And if you think about the 43% move year over year in gold, it's been a great trade, it's been a growth trade, so to speak. But you're buying gold on a 20 year chart. Look at the 20 year chart on gold. You're buying gold for all the reasons that it was in vogue a month ago. And the pullback in gold is an opportunity to buy what obviously was an overbought condition, but not in the long run.
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Melissa Lee
Let me ask you this.
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Julie Beal
Yeah.
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Melissa Lee
Trade deals, let's say trade deals announced across the board tomorrow. Does gold go higher or does the pair go gold?
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Julie Beal
Gold has been a very defensive hedge against market and volatility and whatnot. And that's been proven. But gold also is a hedge for a lot of other things. And gold is also just again, we talk about this. The secular reasons for owning gold I think are intact. But no, I think gold could pull back with more market excitement for sure.
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Melissa Lee
Coming up, the Oracle of Omaha's favorite metric is flashing a big bold buy signal. Is now the time to go all in on this market? That hot debate right after this.
- [29:17]
Mike Santoli
Missed a moment of fast. Catch us anytime on the Go follow the Fast Money podcast. We're back right after this.
- [29:30]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to Fast Money. Stocks surging to end the week thanks to a better than expected jobs report in renewed hope of a trade deal. With China, the S and P locking in its longest winning streak in more than 20 years, erasing its losses since so called Liberation Day April 2. The Nasdaq, which marked that feat yesterday, briefly crossed the 18,000 level for the first time since March. The Dow is up nine days in a row. Take to Interactive climbed back off its lowest levels of the day. The video game company announcing it will delay the hotly anticipated next installment in its Grand Theft Auto. I know it's not until May 2026. What am I going to do all weekend, all year? A year it was previously slated for release this fall. Tesla shares higher even as April sales plunged nearly 40% in Europe as Chinese competition gains market share. And finally, Netflix hitting a fresh all time high, extending its record winning streak to 11 days. The streaming giant up more than 20% since reporting earnings on April 17th. You know, shortly in the days afterwards we did segments on Netflix. Is it the most defensive stock you can own because it's hard to tax or digital services not in the crosshairs right now. And is it like a utility? I mean consumers are not going to go to movie theaters, they're not going to go out to eat, but they may stay in and watch Netflix.
- [30:47]
Tim Seymour
Yeah, I mean as the kids say, Netflix and chilling is a thing.
- [30:51]
Julie Beal
Is that for you, Is that what goes on in your house as the kids say? You brought it up.
- [30:59]
Tim Seymour
Got a little personal there. Yeah, a little too close to home of hi honey. Listen, I think again the defensive posture of it and the fact that you are able to kind of circumvent the tariff situation is a lot of the story. The earnings growth there is also another part of the story. But talking about sentiment and how I'm positioning and how people have been feeling lately, I really do think that I'm going to hesitate to say a utility but I think that that perceived defensiveness is why we've seen the continued run up post a stellar earnings report.
- [31:30]
Steve Grasso
Julie, to me I agree. But to me the real, the real benefit and the strength of this business is just their ability to bring content internationally. Their ability to absolutely get me hooked on every single love is blind derivation there is Sweden Habibi. It is all, all knowing and they can do it so inexpensively and competes so effectively against all the other streamers that it probably is the last one that you shut off. And so in that way it is very much like a utility.
- [32:03]
Vanuan Ison
So this is one that I got wrong because I would think that you bet against Netflix running up like this. This is, this to me seems like an overshoot. So if I would say what I said about Bitcoin about Netflix, it's not a. Would you rather. But if you say it's not a.
- [32:18]
Melissa Lee
Would you rather say this is an overshoot but bitcoin's not. That's my point.
- [32:21]
Julie Beal
That's my point.
- [32:22]
Vanuan Ison
Would Bono and Tim feel better and Julie feel better if I said that I was highly levered to Netflix or Bitcoin?
- [32:31]
Julie Beal
Better. Better on bitcoin. But I mean, I don't like either. I don't want to be highly ever to anything.
- [32:34]
Melissa Lee
Right.
- [32:34]
Julie Beal
I mean, that's, you know, that goes against my grain.
- [32:36]
Vanuan Ison
But you got to outperform. No one's outperforming. If not, when I say highly levered, I shouldn't say. I'm not borrowing, I'm not borrowing about Netflix.
- [32:45]
Julie Beal
It's outperformed for so long, it's not going to outperform like this for the next year. That may be a bold statement, but I love Netflix. We all love it. We all have articulated exactly why it's what it's done. Come on. Not at 32 times.
- [32:57]
Melissa Lee
All right, well, Berkshire Hathaway shares hitting a record high today, now up 19% so far this year. The gains come as shareholders arrive in Omaha for the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting tomorrow. CNBC senior Marcus commentator Mike Santoli is already there sampling all the seized chocolates and looking around what sort of the, the feel of this year's meeting. There's so much going on in the markets.
- [33:20]
J
Yeah, I mean, obviously Berkshire kind of operating from a position of strength here. You mentioned what the stock has done. The valuation is rich on its own basis, but you can sort of see why, based on just the financial strength, the defensive characteristics of the business. And then as more time goes on, the optionality, the option embedded in Berkshire for something happening down the road and unlock of value, whether it's a big acquisition, whether it's a huge buyback, whether it's just some other kind of transformative event, it grows in value. So I think all of that's coming together. Certainly people eager to hear Warren Buffett weigh in on the major issues of the day usually likes to really draw back the, the aperture and give you a long term perspective and how many calamities and world wars he's, he's lived through and how the markets have metabolized all those things. I think you're going to get plenty of that. Not sure how much on the individual public equity holdings he seems to want to deemphasize some of those moves, but clearly he'll get questions on all that.
- [34:18]
Melissa Lee
Yeah. You know, we also let in with you, Mike, talking about the Buffett indicator, which, you know, someone said flashing a buy signal. And I would imagine that the Commentary, though, from Warren Buffett himself would be very cautious about this sort of uncertainty in this environment. So it'll be interesting to see how he squares the two.
- [34:34]
J
Yeah, I have to say the Buffett indicator is one of those things that I know. He said it a quarter century ago. He cited the ratio of total stock market value to GDP as something that was showing that the real economy had a lot of catching up to do to get to where the market was 25 years ago. I don't think he's had an ongoing endorsement of this as a market timing mechanism. And you see right there, it's only a buy relative to the last couple of years, if that. And I also think it's lost really relevance as the S&P 500 has become more global. And so therefore why are we comparing it just the US gdp? It reminds me of the Fed model, which somebody called the Fed model, how you value stocks versus bonds in the 90s. And the Fed has never said that's how you should value assets.
- [35:19]
Melissa Lee
Mike, you've been going to this annual meeting for how many years? At least a few, right?
- [35:24]
J
I mean, yeah, we. Four in a row, at least. Yeah, in a row.
- [35:28]
Melissa Lee
Before, what is your favorite? Like, you get there to Omaha, you get onto the floor there and you head to the. What food first?
- [35:36]
J
I have to say, first of all, my favorite thing is the lines that gather outside the Fruit of the Loom booth. Like, of course, what are we talking about here? It's not like you can't find the stuff elsewhere, but maybe there's a little bit of a good deal on there. But no, the See's candy, honestly, is because it's not something that I would encounter anywhere else. And so you just sort of stock up on all these sort of varieties and bring them home and. And all of a sudden you know you're Santa Claus when I get back to New York.
- [36:05]
Melissa Lee
Sandy Cannell just told me in my ear that toasted marshmallow is his favorite. Just passing that on, in case you were wondering.
- [36:12]
J
Toasted marshmallow.
- [36:13]
Melissa Lee
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's a new flavor, apparently. Writing it down, Mike. Thank you, Mike Santoli.
- [36:20]
J
Yeah.
- [36:20]
Melissa Lee
And be sure to watch our full coverage of the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting tomorrow right here on CNBC and also streaming on CNBC.com and CNBC plus. It all starts 8:30am Eastern time tomorrow. Coming up, you ask, we will answer. We are tackling burning questions from our viewers around the globe. Gold tariffs and the state of the economy in just a few minutes. But first, another Big slate of earnings coming your way next week. Palantir, amd, Uber and Disney all on deck. The names our traders can't take their eyes off right after this. More Fast Money into welcome back to Fast Money. We've gotten through the bulk of earnings season, but we still have some key names on the calendar for next week, including Ford, Disney, Coinbase and more. So we wondered which of these reports the traders are watching most closely. Steven, your pick please.
- [37:16]
Vanuan Ison
I'm going with Lyft, a much smaller player than Uber and I'm looking specific. Well, first of all I'm looking for a beat and race that would be spectacular for Lyft. Then I'm looking for price to sales ratio so it's under under one times right now. If you go back to when it was above 4, that was back in 2021, the stock price was over $40. I'm looking for maybe 2x on the price to sales. A doubling from where we are now. That would get a doubling for me in the stock price. I still am looking for a mid-20s price in Lyft.
- [37:51]
Melissa Lee
Shift Bono in your pick.
- [37:53]
Tim Seymour
So we were just talking about, talking about portfolio beta. I'm looking at Palantir here. A couple of reasons. The intraday volatility is just crazy, so presents amazing trading opportunities. And then if you look at the price to earnings, where are we on the risk, on the risk curve? Are we still willing to tolerate and pay 200 plus times price to earnings for a name? We need to see whether or not they're going to beat, raise and guide in a way that is commensurate with that. And then lastly, just the retail presence. I think we spoke about it at length during the show in terms of the retail presence in the market, their affinity for buying dips, whether or not they still have the mettle to do that if there is a miss in this particular case.
- [38:35]
Steve Grasso
Julie Beal I have three software names that are kind of small cap because I'm mostly interested to see how these guys are actually talking about AI if if it's still a big part of their roadmap. One is Paycom, that's a company that does payroll hr payroll software and I'm curious because that'll give us some insight into trends into the SMB and mid market. Bentley works in infrastructure software and I'm really curious how the demand for infrastructure projects, which are actually pretty important for economic growth, are doing with the level of tariff uncertainty. And then I'm interested too to see with our other name what I would Love to know is have a sense for Jack Henry where we're going with regional banks, how they're doing because that's their, that's their customer base.
- [39:22]
Julie Beal
Tim Seymour I think it's got to be amd. I mean think of all the focus on semis. Why are we not talking about the number two player? By the way, semis since that intraday Low on 7th April have outperformed the S and P. And it's kind of leadership you want to see. But we Forget also that AMD's extraordinary run say from 22 to 24 was all about also just them taking market share in data center, datacenter, compute and if you have a little bit of a PC rebound as well. I just think AMD is a value play. It's a forgotten company and I think they have a lot to say on things we all are asking questions about.
- [39:55]
Melissa Lee
Coming up, we are taking your questions from gold bars to put options. The traders tackle all the big asks next. And here's a sneak peek at the Kramer camp. Jim is chatting explicitly with the excellent CEO. Catch the full interview. Top of the hour on Mad Money. More fast money into. Welcome back to Fast Money. Even as the S and P had its longest winning streak in 20 years, some of the fast money fans who attended our last live event have questions about the recent market volatility. Let's take a listen.
- [40:31]
Vanuan Ison
Hi guys, this is Mike arrington. I'm the 82 year old Marine Corps veteran from Chicago who's watched your show from the very beginning.
- [40:41]
Melissa Lee
In fact, I don't think I've ever.
- [40:43]
Vanuan Ison
Missed a show in almost 20 years. My question, with central banks depositing so.
- [40:50]
Melissa Lee
Much money in gold as opposed to.
- [40:52]
Vanuan Ison
Treasuries, what would happen if the dollar.
- [40:55]
Melissa Lee
Lost its reserve currency status? By the way, Mike recently celebrated his 82nd birthday by skydiving for the first time in more than 50 years. So happy belated birthday to you. Mike. That is amazing.
- [41:10]
Julie Beal
Unbelievable.
- [41:11]
Melissa Lee
Unbelievable.
- [41:12]
Julie Beal
I mean he is such a bad. You know what I mean? It starts with an A and it has two S's after it. I mean Mike is, he's a throwback from another time. Met him at our event, we spent a lot of time talking about family and other things and he's also a great trader, so love the fact that he's watched every show. And to answer your question, finally after all that, Mike, I think gold price would double, maybe triple. I mean in other words, the gold's rally is a function of fear of US dynamics and I think slowly over Time. That's why it goes higher.
- [41:39]
Melissa Lee
But what do you think the odds of that happening? The dollar losing?
- [41:41]
Julie Beal
Not high. Not high here in the short run, but, but I think diversification away from the dollar has been happening for 25 years and will continue.
- [41:49]
Melissa Lee
Second other question.
- [41:52]
Vanuan Ison
Hi, I'm Andy from Atlanta, Georgia and.
- [41:55]
Melissa Lee
I had the great pleasure of attending the Fast Money Live event in February.
- [42:01]
Vanuan Ison
Where I got to meet all the.
- [42:03]
Mike Santoli
Investors and the talented Melissa Lee. My question for the investors is with.
- [42:10]
Vanuan Ison
All the uncertainty of the tariffs, where is the best place to put new capital to work today considering a five year time horizon? Thank you.
- [42:23]
Melissa Lee
We applaud you, Andy, for putting in the time horizon because that is very key in terms of deciding what to recommend. Bahman, what would you say?
- [42:30]
Tim Seymour
Yeah, so I'm going to kind of take my cue from that five year time horizon. I would probably not depend too much on tariffs given the ability for them to kind of be altered, removed, reimplemented, etc. What I would look for more are what are like the overarching secular trends and what I see is AI, cloud, security, data security. So I would be focused there, CyberSecurity, names like CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, et cetera. That's where I would be deploying new capital over five year time horizon.
- [42:58]
Melissa Lee
All right, let's get to our next question.
- [43:01]
Vanuan Ison
Hello, Fast Money.
- [43:03]
Tim Seymour
My name is Tom from Charlotte.
- [43:05]
Vanuan Ison
I had a fantastic experience at the CNBC Fast Money Live event back in February.
- [43:12]
Tim Seymour
But back then no one was talking about a recession.
- [43:16]
Julie Beal
But today everyone is talking about it.
- [43:19]
Vanuan Ison
So my question is, which trader is willing to put their reputation on the line to predict a recession or no recession by the end of the year?
- [43:31]
Melissa Lee
That would be a lot to lose, Tom.
- [43:33]
Vanuan Ison
Wow.
- [43:34]
Melissa Lee
Okay. Steve Grasso.
- [43:36]
Mike Santoli
Sure.
- [43:37]
Steve Grasso
You're up.
- [43:37]
Vanuan Ison
Sure. Yeah.
- [43:38]
Melissa Lee
You're up, Mr. Bitcoin.
- [43:39]
Vanuan Ison
It's not a loaded, it's not a load loaded question right there. I think when you're predicting a recession, you're always wrong. What's the saying? Economists have predicted 11 of the past eight recessions. Right. So it's always in hindsight that you could tell when you were in a recession. I don't think we're going to go into recession. I think there's too much positive on the horizon. And as far as the autographs, did he ask that or he didn't ask that? Now you didn't put that in.
- [44:03]
Melissa Lee
That's, that was a sort of behind the scenes that he did ask about the value of the fast money trader cards which we did hand out as a gift.
- [44:09]
Julie Beal
The aftermarket on these things. I mean, I heard the roof. It's either that or a 52 Mickey Mantle rookie card. That might be his rookie year, by the way. Don't look me up on that. No, those trading cards are cool.
- [44:19]
Melissa Lee
I mean, they. At least, they. At least they're worth exactly how much they were worth before.
- [44:23]
Julie Beal
I mean, I'm willing to flip cards and let's see what we do. Let's do it.
- [44:27]
Melissa Lee
All right. If you want your questions answered by the traders, join us for the next Fast Money live event here at the NASDAQ on June 5th. Folks are coming from all across the country, even from Australia, so join the party. Scan the QR code on your screen or head on over to CNBC events.com fastmoney get a ticket, get a couple. There are a few left, so get on the action while you can. All right, up next, final trades, final trade time. Julie Beal.
- [45:06]
Steve Grasso
If you're looking for some stability and staples, but you still want growth, I think Celsius could be an interesting one. And it's on sale now.
- [45:13]
Julie Beal
Tim, we met so many great people at Fast Money Live, like Mike, like Tom, and I would put my career on the line to say the June 5th event's gonna be even more fun. How about that? And gold miners, by the way, today.
- [45:25]
Tim Seymour
Yeah, I think you played a little bit defensive. I'm gonna go with Karen's Meta. I think the proof of concept is there, and at 23 times, it's not particularly expensive. Meta.
- [45:33]
Melissa Lee
Are you going to say Bitcoin? Steve?
- [45:35]
Vanuan Ison
No, no, I'm going to say the biggest military shipbuilder in the US Of A. Is Huntington Ingalls. We're going to be building more ships, means more profits for them.
- [45:45]
Melissa Lee
All right, thank you for watching Fast Money. Have a wonderful weekend. Mad Money with Jim Cramer starts now.
- [45:52]
Edward Jones
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 fastmoneydisclaimer CNBC is your.
- [46:33]
Mike Santoli
Ticket to the annual Berkshire Hathaway meeting. Warren Buffett meets with shareholders Becky Quick and Mike Santoli with full coverage. Watch live on air or on cnbc.com start Saturday, 8:30am Eastern. CNBC.