← CNBC's "Fast Money"
CNBC's "Fast Money"
Stocks Jump After CPI… And A Potential Media Deal 9/11/25
00:42:07
Stocks ripping to fresh records as investors digest an August inflation increase. What it means for next week’s Fed rate decision, and how the treasury markets are responding. Plus more media M&A on the horizon? How Paramount Skydance could be gearing up for a bid on Warner Brothers Discovery, and the impact it would have on the media landscape. Fast Money Disclaimer
Loading summary
Transcript131 lines
- [00:00]
A
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 how will you shape the future of industrials with confidence? Whether you need to define your strategy, optimize your supply chain or keep pace with data driven manufacturing, EY professionals understand industrials and the sectors they supply, bringing the insights that deliver real outcomes. With a full spectrum of services, EY helps strengthen your business from factory floor to product development and beyond. So when the global market shifts, your business is agile enough to adapt. Ey Shape the future with confidence. Hi, it's Melissa. Before we jump into today's show, I've got something exciting to share. On December 11, we are hosting a special edition of Fast Money Live Trading the holidays right here at the NASDAQ market site. You get to watch a live taping of Fast Money, meet and interact with the traders and of course celebrate the holiday season with us. It's stocks and cheers in the heart of the city, Times Square in December. You will not want to miss this. Tickets are available now@cnbc events.com FastMoney Live in the NASDAQ markets in the heart of New York City's Times Square. This is Fast Money. Here's what's on tap tonight. A CPI surge. Stocks hitting new records and benchmark Yields briefly falling below 4% as inflation numbers all but cemented a Fed rate cut next week. The sector seeing the biggest gains and how to play the moves. And from bear to bull, one of our traders says Tesla is one good looking chart. What has him change his tune and how long can a run last? Plus a potential media deal. Send shares of Warner Brothers Skyd the latest read on the housing trade from star analyst Ivy Zellman. And the Premier League Lacrosse is getting ready for championship weekend. PLL president Paul Rabel will join us to give us his take on the action and to dive into the state of sports streaming. I'm willing to Lee come to you live from studio be at the Nasdaq on the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Bono and Ison, Dan Nathan and Steve Grasso. We start off with the inflation print that some stocks to fresh records consumer prices rising slightly more than expected in August bringing the annualized inflation rate to 2.9%. That's the highest reading since January. But investors didn't seem to think the bump was enough to keep the Fed from cutting rates next week. All three major averages ripping to new highs. The Dow adding more than 600 points for its fourth record close this year and first close above 46,000, while it was the 24th record close for both the S&P 500. And Nasdaq, the tech heavy index also finishing above 22,000 for the first time. Meantime, treasury yields pulled back with the 10 year yield briefly dipping below 4% to hit its lowest level since April 7th. So is a Fed cut and more market exuberance all but guaranteed? Tim?
- [03:05]
B
Well, we've priced in a lot of market exuberance and really even after the V shaped recovery from Liberation Day, we've done, you know, probably almost 10% on the S&P, almost 12% on the NASDAQ. And, and it's interesting, you know, you're talking about the Dow today. We, you know, we kind of sometimes make fun of the Dow as an index because we think it's, you know, it's the way it's calculated makes less sense to me. That's not what we're here to talk about. The point is that small caps equal weighted Dow so not semis, not the high end of the tech outperformed today on this sense that you really got reaffirmation from some of the data, the data being a bizarre jobless claims number. Excited to talk to Rick Santelli and get his interpretation of some of that. But I don't think today's CPI was, was, was a great number. If you're someone that wants to see inflation tamed. I mean I think we actually saw some goods inflation that's seeping through. I think we know that services inflation is sticky. I think we have a higher kind of inflation paradigm right now, better than at least higher than where the Fed wants to be. And I think all the liquidity to have markets going to the moon right now, and that's almost every market, especially even credit, is something that should give the Fed some pause, even though the labor side of the mandate we all know is getting all the attention right now. So markets have priced in a lot of Fed, I think markets have priced in more than the Fed that we now have in terms of Fed fund futures. And I think that's something to be somewhat wary of. But what a week when you think of all the earnings revisions, I think that are coming for the tech sector based upon all the news we've had over the last five days.
- [04:35]
A
I mean, I think the question at this point is the markets pricing in too much Fed? I mean, you take a look at the inflation numbers. Are you somebody out there who buys groceries, gasoline, electricity and repairs your car? Well then you see inflation and that's an issue. I mean, that's a problem for the Fed.
- [04:50]
C
It's a problem. I mean the macro is about as confusing it's been in a very long time. You look at that June jobs report that's been revised lower. That was the first one, I think, since COVID Right. And then if you look at the CPI and you look at some of these other inflation readings, you have to kind of take into account like the cumulative nature of, you know, this inflation is the thing. So if you have a weakening jobs market and you have inflation starting to move higher, that's a really tough spot for a consumer that is already dealing with some of these increased prices as it relates to the tariffs and the uncertainty and how long we're going to actually be in a trade war. I mean, you got to think about this. We came into this year, it was two and a half percent, basically that tax across the board and here we are, it's about 18%. So the, you know, as it relates to the market though, I think, you know, Tim, what he just said is like there's one thing though that's actually working in the stock market in The S&P 500 favor is that we see the dollar can't get out of its own way. And this whole notion that we're going to be in a rate cutting cycle, the, that should be a bit of a tailwind. And then you just kind of throw in this capex that we've seen again and again and again. The numbers are so huge and I think it was Apollo's Torsten Slok had this slide last week and I think we talked about it two weeks ago. If the consumer is 2/3 of GDP, right. Well, that CapEx has just matched that number. So that's been a huge, huge tailwind. So if you do start to see a pullback in that and a weakening consumer, there's little doubt that you're going to be in a situation where it's going to start getting back to that R word, recession. We haven't heard that in a very long time.
- [06:14]
D
I go a different angle. I go jobless claims. So jobless claims, the worst in four years since October 2021. If you have a job, you can play inflate, pay inflationary prices, shelter costs A third of the cpi. Think about the chicken, the egg. If the Fed lowers rates, you wind up having lower mortgage rates. You wind up having lower cpi. Right. So for me, they're enforcing that higher CPI by not cutting rates. So if you could cut rates, a third of CPI comes down. Third of CPI comes down. Then you throw in transportation, you have gas coming down, used car prices. Why aren't used car prices moving down? Interest rates. So you have mortgage rates, interest rates for used car prices. Everything that the Fed is doing is fostering higher prices by keeping prices where they are right now. So double mandate. I'm looking at the job side.
- [07:09]
B
More importantly, you just, you just took a lot of leaps there. I mean, tell me, tell me where I took them. Well, I mean, one thing. A leads to B, B to see. A leads to see. I think that's the thing that I.
- [07:20]
A
Hung up on though was rates. If you're paying a higher rate, usually the price of the house comes down to compensate.
- [07:25]
D
Hasn't happened in years.
- [07:27]
E
Right.
- [07:27]
A
Prices haven't come down because the supplies.
- [07:29]
B
Situation, because lower rates will yield higher property prices. I mean, if you can buy more house for less financing, you're going to know the prices are going to go higher.
- [07:37]
D
There'll be more competition. I see what you're saying. Normally that would be the case, but the golden rate right now is 5.5% in a mortgage rate. We have to get rates down to that. So existing home prices fall with competition.
- [07:50]
F
Yeah, I mean, where I agree, I mean Tim's point out where he disagrees, and I'm happy to dig into a lot of that, but I'm going to try to find some common ground here. And I do think that the emphasis on the unemployment mandate is, has probably shifted to center stage. We've seen numerous revisions. We're tracking at essentially half of what we thought we were in terms of jobs added. And now you see that tick up in initial jobless claims. So I do think that is enough fodder essentially to kind of pivot away from continuing to push this agenda of taming inflation to now saying, okay, the duality of this dual mandate is squarely in play. And now this seems to be key risk that we need to address. So in terms of that, I think the 25 is likely is well priced in this notion of 50. That's where I worry about us getting ahead of ourselves. We're saying that we're going to be data dependent. The data has been murky, to put it politely. And we've had all this pushback on BLS because of the inconsistency and murkiness of the data. So I think perhaps the market may be getting ahead of itself. The flip side of that is that at $300 roughly in terms of earnings and we're arguing around 22, 21 times the trade down in rates may continue to support the fact that you could see 1:22 be sustained and dare I say, perhaps even multiple expansion. So I do think you have those two forces essentially playing against themselves.
- [09:16]
A
All right, let's get more on the markets and rates from the one and only Rick Santelli.
- [09:22]
B
Clap him in.
- [09:25]
A
One of the only guests who insists on standing. We don't have to bring a chair out or anything. We're very happy to see you, Rick, especially on a day like today.
- [09:33]
G
You know, a couple things I haven't heard of and I want everybody's opinion on. Back in the old days when you had a holiday like Labor Day and you thought about how initial and continuing claims have to make seasonal adjustments for the four day work week, we used to expect crazy numbers, but I would have expected 212,000 instead of 263,000. It is probably an anomaly. But I also find it very strange that the last time we were over 250, over 250 was October of 24. That's a long time. So if this is some type of a sentinel warning to pay more attention to the labor market, that makes the Fed's job tougher. Because I'll tell you what, those inflation numbers might be as expected. But I'm telling you what.4 on the top,.3 encore. 2.9 year over year and 3.1 encore. Those aren't cold, those aren't cool little heat. Absolutely.
- [10:27]
C
They're warm.
- [10:29]
G
And I know the PCE is their favorite gauge because it happens to be the lowest gauge. But 2.5, 2.6%. I don't know. The Fed's going to have a hard time.
- [10:39]
B
Sounds like you think they should do nothing.
- [10:41]
G
Listen, I'll tell you what. I know that you know the administration isn't going to be tickled with me, but ultimately I do think that the labor market weakening. If this 263 ends up being less than anomaly and actually gives us some sort of reality, I think they should do a quarter. But if the inflation numbers stay where they are, if I was the Fed, I'd do a quarter and call it a day.
- [11:01]
A
Yeah, we had the pleasure of having a conversation earlier in the day on the exchange rate and you posited that Perhaps the inflation that we are seeing, albeit in line with what was expected, is actually not tariff related at all, which many people believe, but that there is just a, an endemic systemic.
- [11:19]
G
I completely agree. And I can't remember. I think maybe it was Dan that was just talking about this.
- [11:24]
A
Yeah.
- [11:24]
G
But yes, I know everybody's looking at goods, they're looking at apparel. First of all, if apparel is getting juiced a bit because of the tariffs and the uncertainty, first of all, who knows whether it's ever going to come back down? Maybe that's the new area. But granted you need the dynamic movement to create inflation. But I think things that you brought up, services, there's a lot of costs going on in the average person's life and I don't see them going down. So I think the stickiness has some portion on the good side. But I think there's a whole lot more to the story than tariffs.
- [11:55]
A
That's what we were saying before groceries, gasoline, electricity.
- [11:58]
C
Absolutely.
- [11:58]
A
I mean this is everyday American, you know, what they pay for on a monthly basis. And that's not going down at all.
- [12:05]
G
No, I don't think it's going to. And I think the stock market. Listen, first and foremost, I'm a technician, okay. And I think when it comes to stocks, I'll count my Fibonacci moves before I listen to the fundamentals. There's too many and it's hard to reconcile. But as we were talking off camera, how much money's on the sidelines in T bills? It's just astronomical. And how many of these big institutions are anywhere even in the zip code of their bogeys? Okay. The fourth quarter, I'm telling you, they're going to get that down closer to 50 grand.
- [12:37]
C
Rick, last year at this time the Fed was more concerned with the labor market. That was weakening. You just mentioned you got to go back to October 24th to see some of these sorts of numbers. So we cut 50 and then another 50 and two different meetings. What do you think that did for the labor market? Because what we've seen over the last, call it eight or nine months, it wasn't really that helpful.
- [12:55]
G
No, we're in this. No higher, no fire. It's a very strange dynamic and is the Treasury, Treasury Secretary said, and I'm paraphrasing the day before yesterday, if the Fed's data dependent and the data is inaccurate, then they owe the markets more cuts. Now, I'm not sure I agree with that entirely, but it's a very logical premise. I mean it really is if the data is flawed and the jobs market significantly weaker, then your whole strategy in the past isn't exactly where you ought to be.
- [13:25]
A
Well, if the jobs number is supposed to be actually stronger, then the Fed should actually remain where they are. It's more fodder. If there's an inflation problem, the jobs market is fine.
- [13:36]
H
Yeah, but.
- [13:39]
G
Jobs is more than half now. I understand it was March, so it's kind of, in a way it's old, but man, we've looked at these revisions and it's a little bit scary and I don't see anybody really working to make the data more accurate. You know, adp, we have a lot of ways we can go AI, you would think that they would be able to follow payroll data and do it better. Surveys, come on. Who in this room would ever answer a phone and do a survey with anybody?
- [14:05]
A
I don't answer the phone.
- [14:06]
G
Me neither. Even when they're in my contact list, I don't answer, so.
- [14:11]
B
So, Rick, is it significant that gold in the last day has also broken its inflation adjusted all time high?
- [14:19]
H
You know what?
- [14:19]
G
And I waited for a while.
- [14:20]
B
This has to mean something for you.
- [14:22]
G
I was trading gold in January, February of 1980, it reached 800 and something bucks. I did the numbers and you're right. If you bought it after it broke out, technically adjusted for inflation, you still made about what, 600 bucks? Yeah. No, I'll tell you what, the gold trade is a very, very good trade. And I can't wait at some point to see the duel that's going to go on between bitcoin and gold.
- [14:43]
A
You said before you'd sell bonds, you'd sell this rally. So where do you think rates should be?
- [14:49]
G
I think, I think I look at it more from the yield curve standpoint and twos to tens is like in the low 50s, it's going to go back out towards 75. So to me, I would be selling tens, selling 30s, even though 30s aren't the benchmark. I look at that premium between those, I look at the knob. 30s minus tens, the fight tens minus fives and they keep kind of staying wide roughly around four year widespread. That tells me that there's an inherent stickiness in the long end.
- [15:17]
A
Rick, great to see you. Go catch. Great to be here. You're always welcome. Stop by any time. Rick, thank everybody.
- [15:23]
G
You guys are awesome. The best show on tv.
- [15:25]
A
I'll call you said that.
- [15:30]
D
What do you think the market is telling you? That they're worried more about jobs and growth and that's what's going on with the yield curve. So if you if you think and Rick's a trader so he'll tell you if the 10 year does not break down below 4 aggressively, he's going to wind up reversing his position there. I think rates are going lower.
- [15:45]
A
30 year mortgage rates hitting their lowest level since last October. And that's giving a boost to homebuilders, Dr. Horton, Toll Brothers, Lennar Palty all up more than 2% today. For more on what's next for the housing trade, cnbc, Diana joins us from the Zellman Housing Summit in Boston with an exclusive interview with Ivy Zelman. Diana?
- [16:04]
I
Thanks, Melissa. Ivy, it was your day today. What an amazing day. Hundreds of people here to hear everything. I'm going to take you back to 9am where you had seven slides on the state of the housing market. But the most interesting one to me was where you said that home prices will go down next year before coming up again in 2027. How do you see that? Well, it's really a tale of two geographies. Regionally we have geographies that were the COVID winners and now they're decelerating as we're seeing net migration under pressure even lower in some states than it was in 2019 as well as really elevated resale inventory. And the invent is then being pushed, even prices being pushed lower because the homebuilders their market share has grown so much in those markets, they've oversupplied the markets it's back. So when you add that lastly employment, you're looking at those markets that will be pressured. Whereas the other side of the coin are markets in the Northeast and the Midwest that were covered losers that are seeing improving that migration. Inventory is kind of still well below Covid levels and employment that's actually holding up. So what we're looking at are really all in prices. We think think in 26 that will be down about 0.8% barring affordability doesn't improve dramatically. But you know, you focused on affordability. And let's talk about the builders specifically. They've been buying down mortgage rates aggressively. Your number was 73% of builders and more than half of them were buying down by more than 100 basis points. So if they're lowering rates into the 5% range already, then we see rates come down even more by the Fed. Perhaps then you're having affordability is improving. Yes. Doesn't that send money more many more people into to the market and therefore push prices higher? Well, the builders have been pretty much offering mortgage rate buydowns when rates started going up in 2022. So today there are one to two years as low as 2.99, 3.99 and then for the remaining 30 years relapse they'll do 4.99. So they've already been making it a buyer's market providing very good value and affordability. So the real question is will they keep providing mortgage rate buy downs as mortgage rates prevailing come down And I but it's hitting their margins. I mean you said it but the margins will be less impacted because it gets less expensive as rates come down. But they have a lot of spec inventory and it's not like wine, it doesn't get better with age. So they're motivated sellers but they the velocity that they want to keep sustained is going to be driven by the incentives. And while it might on the margin decrease a little bit, I think they're going to stay very active with buy downs. But you bring up spec homes and there's been this kind of argument here because you showed that Dr. Horton and Lennar are 100% in on spec homes and you said I think the right way to go. I talked to Ryan Marshall halt and he said I don't think that's the right way to go. Think about this. If you're worried about the job losses accelerating and builders are specking, they're providing the consumer a mortgage rate buy down. If you do a bill to order, you can't do a mortgage rate buy down. The timeline to close call it 6 to 12 months. It's too expensive to take the forward commitment risk. So if in fact you say you want to get growth build to order might be under much pressure. We have builders that are going into 26 with backlogs down 30 to 40%. Wall street won't like it if they're not going to grow. Now if you think the economy is going to get better because rates are coming down and job losses won't be a concern, then obviously pricing power will come back to the market. And Ryan Marshall on build to order could be right. So it's really where you stand on the economy. But I think builders that are specking are doing so because they want to offer mortgage rate buy downs and provide new move in ready which was demanded during COVID Thanks so much Ivy Zell, amazing conference today. Thank you for having us here. Back to you Melissa.
- [19:56]
A
All right, Diana, thank you. Our thanks to Ivy Zelman as well. Meantime, we do want to get to an earnings alert as well on RH shares dropping as a high end furniture retailer, missed revenue estimates, lowered guidance. They had been down more than 15% at Lowe's, currently off of those levels. But certainly one that we are watching down 4% right now. There's a lot to unpack here with the conversation that Diana had with Ivy Zelman. I think it was interesting, it was an extensive presentation this morning. But builders are buying down mortgage rates by 100 basis points on average. That that would indicate to me that, that, that the clearing price, that magical mortgage number is even below that five, five and a half percent that you mentioned before.
- [20:34]
D
Yeah, I mean 85% of people own homes have a mortgage rate below six, 55% have a mortgage rate below four. So it's definitely lower, but they're not budging for above 4, 5.5. They'll budge around 5 because they'll take a leap and then they can always refinance. But that's what gets them motivated.
- [20:49]
C
You know, a year ago fed funds was five and a half percent.
- [20:51]
H
Right.
- [20:52]
C
And so they started cutting, they cut 50 basis points back then the 30 year fix was 6.35. It's 6.5 right now. So when you think about that, we're 100 basis lower in the fed funds. And I think that there's a situation that you guys were kind of fleshing out a little bit where the housing market market is stuck. Right. Like even if you see year over year, we have fed funds again, it's going to be down one and a quarter percent on next Thursday. Right. And so let's see, maybe mortgage rates came down in front of that. You do have this downward pressure anyway because of them buying down rates. So again there's, the buyer has had the opportunity to get that five and a half percent rate and we still have a housing market that stuck.
- [21:33]
A
Meantime, Orange is an interesting one. Tariffs is one reason why they're saying, you know, things are not good.
- [21:38]
B
Yeah. They say there's a $30 million hit from incremental tariffs to their business. You can make an argument that is a major discretionary poll. It's a, it's a demo. It's a consumer that seemingly should be less exposed to some of the labor market dynamics and less sensitive to tariff prices. But what we've seen is this stock has, is definitely wildly surfed. I think some of kind of both the macro and socio economic trends including Covid and whatnot. So I like RH here. It's a volatile ride. It's not expensive. They're talking about 8 to 10% growth. They're not contracting. I think we kind of know tariffs are in the price and I think the homebuilders do look pricey, do look expensive and do look like their margins are under pressure.
- [22:18]
F
I would just like to add that essentially they have 72% import exposure to Asia and I think that lends to Tim's argument around volatility. So I would echo that.
- [22:26]
A
Coming up, shares of Adobe on the move after results and numbers and the details from the quarter next. Plus a potential deal in the media space with a merger between Paramount, Skydance and Warner Brothers Discovery could mean for the industry don't go anywhere. Fast money is back in two. The world runs on energy. And as demand increases, Sempra is rising to help meet the challenge. Through our Texas and California utilities, we're investing billions to help power these booming economies. We're building tomorrow's energy infrastructure today, modernizing one of North America's largest energy networks with next generation technology to power the everyday lives of nearly 40 million people. That's positive energy. Learn about Sempra's financial results@sempra.com investors.
- [23:15]
C
I'm no tech genius, but I knew if I wanted my business to crush.
- [23:19]
A
It, I needed a website. Now, thankfully, Bluehost made it easy. I customized, optimized and monetized everything exactly how I wanted with AI.
- [23:29]
C
In minutes, my site was up.
- [23:30]
A
I couldn't believe it.
- [23:31]
C
The search engine tools even helped me.
- [23:33]
A
Get more site visitors.
- [23:35]
G
Whatever your passion project is, you can.
- [23:37]
A
Set it up with Bluehost with their.
- [23:39]
C
30 day money back guarantee. What have you got to lose? Head to bluehost.com to start now.
- [23:47]
A
Are you ready to get spicy? These Doritos Golden Sriracha aren't that spicy. Sriracha sounds pretty spicy to me. Um, a little spicy, but also tangy and sweet. Maybe it's time to turn up the heat. Or turn it down. It's time for something that's not too spicy.
- [24:08]
D
Try Doritos Golden Sriracha.
- [24:11]
A
Spicy but not too spicy. Welcome back to Fast Money. Warner Bros. Discovery soaring in its best day on record. Or David Faber confirming reports of Paramount's Skydance is preparing mostly cash bid for the company streaming and studio business. A deal could be announced as early as next week. David joins us on the Fast Line with the latest development. David, great to have you with us. Thanks for joining us. I mean, it makes sense if you want to take Warner Brothers off the board, you know, do it now. I don't know. Can it get through?
- [24:42]
H
Yeah. Can get through. I think from any trust perspective, Melissa, you know, especially with Larry Ellison and conceivably, you know, close to the Trump administration, there's probably not a lot that might stop it on that front. I think the key will be when we do get this bit and it won't be tomorrow, won't be this weekend, but, you know, will be soon is the understanding I have from people close to the situation. It's going to have to have mostly cash in it, if not all. Just because I think if you give these guys equity, you give this board a real choice here in trying to determine what that equity is going to be worth and plenty of questions around it as well. So, you know, obviously price important. You saw the stock soar today, as you just said, Warner Brothers. But will it be, you know, if it's low 20s and it's some stock or a good amount, it's probably a no. From what I can tell at this point, if it's mid-20s and cash, that's probably a different story. That's high 20s. That's certainly a different story. Mostly cash. And cash shouldn't be an issue for these guys given Larry Ellison is either number one or number two. Richest man in the world and his net worth went up by $100 billion yesterday. Although even that would be dilutive to Paramount shareholders. And what's kind of curious, the stock was so strong that being Paramount skyd certainly synergies, no doubt about that. But you're talking about putting more linear networks together and a company that's already pretty levered and you know, so there's not that much financing that they could do on the debt side, where you going to leverage to maybe four or four and a half times. So certainly some questions. It could be a tough one for the board if it isn't a blowout offer. Certainly that would be what they would tell you, right?
- [26:17]
A
Where does it position, if there is a combination, where would that position it in the media business, David? I mean the studio business gets bigger, there are more linear networks, the streaming business will get a lot stronger, I would imagine, without a doubt.
- [26:30]
H
I mean, right now Paramount streaming business is subscale, you know, and Warner Brothers, HBO Max is, you know, it's a player, but it's also not as large as obviously the biggest guys, not even really close. And so you do get scale, you get some international there as well. That's important. Is it enough? Unclear, but certainly helpful. And as I said, the synergies in terms of putting together everything, the studios, the linear networks would be significant. But don't forget, you know, Warner Brothers Discovery, as I've reported, had taken a look at Paramount when and before they did the Skydance deal. They chose not to pursue it. You know, they thought the price might be a bit high in terms of the synergies that would come through and what they ultimately still have to pay, not to mention doubling down on cable networks was not something they wanted to do. You know, some other questions here. Would anybody else want to come to play now or are you going to try and wait for this and hope that there is a split in the spin that will take place in April? And then if you're Amazon or a Netflix, would you be interested in buying the streaming plus studio business if that happens? So understandable why Paramount would want to come now. Maybe not quite as clear why they want to own all these linear cable networks. And obviously the key will continue to be what are they willing to pay for it. We know Larry, Larry Ellison can pay the price, but, you know, is it a smart move?
- [27:47]
B
David, It's Tim. So the part about the value in the cable networks, maybe there's more intrinsic value than people had thought. I mean, this is the thing that's fascinating to me. It's some of that which was fascinating about Skydance Paramount. It tells me that these things were so bombed out, private equity seems to do a very good job of valuing some of the parts. And so why did we need to wait for this bid to attach match this kind of value? Or is it simply that there is a buyer out there? Because again, yeah, I get that. David Zaslav, once he separates cable with a lot of debt and studio and streaming stand on their own. But we knew they were there the whole time. It's just a little interesting. These assets seem to all be undervalued.
- [28:26]
H
Yeah, no, it's an interesting point. And you're right. I mean, it's been sitting there and you know, Zaslav would certainly argue, hey, we've turned the studio around, we've got a good TV business in terms of producing on that front and we are well undervalued. I mean, that is why they are pursuing this, the split of the company, because they do feel like it will really show true value. And you're right, it has been kind of sitting there. Obviously you continue to see declines in the linear cable business. As we all well know, you do still have a company that is fairly highly levered. They did buy back a good amount of debt and they've righted their capital structure. But there have always been those questions. To your point though, Paramount seems very much willing to take the risk on linear thinks maybe they can do some things. They certainly like broadcast. We know that with CBS there would be some cost synergies with cnn so we'll have to wait and see. And who knows, I don't know what could be next for Paramount. You can't even rule out the possibility that they kind of keep trying to roll things up. Maybe they want to try and figure out a way to buy Tick Tock. Larry Ellison's had interest there too.
- [29:27]
A
David, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
- [29:30]
H
Sure thing.
- [29:31]
A
David Faber, we saw Netflix trade lower today. I'm not sure if it's connected.
- [29:35]
D
Yeah, it's got to be connected. But when you look at the chart, it looks like Netflix has, has wanted to roll over. It rolled over once, then it wants to roll over again.
- [29:43]
F
I don't know.
- [29:44]
D
To David's point, who's going to have the appetite to do the spin and will they get approval to do the spin? I understand this is a horizontal merger. The spin outs aren't going to be done. Amazon, they're not going to get approval. Right. Because if you buy, if Netflix or Amazon come for a spin and come for a stream, how is that going to get approval? Because those are the most dominant players in the space. So this is getting approval because they're in the both the same segment.
- [30:08]
A
The merger won't get done.
- [30:09]
D
This could get done. This horizontal merger.
- [30:12]
A
This one is so the studios joining the biggest studios together. You think that's not an antitrust concern?
- [30:17]
D
No, because it's a horizontal. They compete in the same industry. So that's why they call it a horizontal merger. The other way you're not feeding the beasts in the, in the streaming world. I think that's a tougher tough, totally Disney positive.
- [30:29]
B
I mean, as far as I'm concerned, this is saying that all the assets that Disney already has, including what seems like dying linear and cable networks and whatnot, are not, you know, not selling at bargain. I mean should not be selling at bargain. I think, I think this tells you.
- [30:43]
A
The whole space, the media sector and.
- [30:46]
B
The charts even before today. And I think I brought up a couple of days last week. I mean they look good.
- [30:51]
A
Coming up, more after hours action. Shares of Adobe on the move after results numbers, the details from that quarter next. You're watching Fast Money live in the NASDAQ markets out in Times Square. Back right after this. 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 at.
- [31:41]
C
I'm no tech genius.
- [31:43]
A
But I knew if I wanted my.
- [31:44]
C
Business to crush it, I needed a website.
- [31:47]
A
Now, thankfully, bluehost made it easy. I customized, optimized and monetized everything exactly how I wanted with AI.
- [31:55]
C
In minutes, my site was up.
- [31:56]
A
I couldn't believe it.
- [31:57]
C
The search engine tools even helped me.
- [31:59]
A
Get more site visitors. Whatever your passion project is, you can set it up with Bluehost with their.
- [32:05]
C
30 day money back guarantee. What have you got to lose?
- [32:07]
G
Lose?
- [32:08]
C
Head to bluehost.com to start now.
- [32:16]
A
We've got a news alert on Open Air. New details on the company's corporate structure. Mackenzie Segalis got the details. Mac. So the two are announcing that they've signed a non binding memorandum of understanding for the next phase of that partnership between Open Air and Microsoft. Now as part of that, OpenAI is giving us new details on its corporate structure as it evolves into a public benefit corporation. OpenAI chair Brett Taylor says that the nonprofit that controls OpenAI will now hold an equity stake exceeding $100 billion in the public Benefit Corporation, potentially making it one of the world's best funded philanthropic organizations. Now, the recapitalization is designed to keep safety decisions tied to their mission while raising the capital that OpenAI needs to scale. The key thing on Microsoft here is that OpenAI has a term sheet on its next phase of commercial agreement that unlocks their ability to move forward with recapitalization, which is really key to unlocking that final stipulation to meet the $40 billion SoftBank led funding round Microsoft shares. They're up on this news. Mel. All right, Mack, thank you. Mackenzie Seagallos. We see it up 2% here. Dan, what do you make of all.
- [33:26]
C
This good Mac just surrounding the trade there? You know, it's interesting. This has been a big debate, right? We've seen Microsoft looking to kind of potentially do other deals right away from Open Air. This relationship has kind of been unfolding a little bit the bad way, you know, but I think it will serve Microsoft probably decently to have second sources for this sort of technology. And so not a bad thing. I mean, Microsoft, if they weren't doing this right now, if you were a shareholder, I think you'd probably be a little worried.
- [33:53]
A
When I heard unlocking the funding for OpenAI. I mean, we had all these questions about whether or not OpenAI would have the money, for instance, to pay for the Oracle deal. And here it's going to unlock funding. That's good news for that.
- [34:05]
F
That's doubt. I definitely think it's an incremental positive for Oracle. I mean, Dan made some great points yesterday. I think there are some great points made on both sides in terms of whether there's true value creation and what the Runway is and ability to pay. But I do think you see a little bit more clarity in terms of that path forward there. So I tend to agree incremental positive on Oracle, although I'd still probably wait from the price levels that we see right now.
- [34:27]
A
Coming up, a number of fast movers catching our attention in today's rally. The jumps in 17 micron Alibaba and a big debut for blockchain lending IPO. All that and fast money returns. Welcome back to FAST money. Stocks rallying after this morning's inflation data likely leaves room for the Fed to start cutting rates next week. The dow S&P 500 and NASDAQ all closing at fresh record highs. Shares of Centene jumping 9% today. The health insurance company reaffirming its outlook and saying quality ratings for its Medicare plans are in line with expectations. Shares of Micron climbing nearly 8%. Analysts at Citi hiking the price target to 175. That's up from 150. Micron now up nearly 80% in 2025. Alibaba, that's also making a big move higher today. The information reporting that the Chinese e commerce giant has started using internally designed chips chips to train its AI models, partly replacing chips made by Nvidia and another crypto firm going public. Blockchain lender Figure Technology trading here at the NASDAQ today. Shares opening at 36 bucks a share. That's above its IPO price of 25. It closed 24% higher. And this of course ahead of tomorrow's highly anticipated Gemini IPO with reports that the Winklevoss founded crypto exchange is now more than 20 times over subscribed. Wow. And an earnings alert here in the after hours on Adobe the software. Stock higher after posting earnings and revenue that topped analysts estimates though off after our session highs stock is higher by three and a quarter percent. Dan.
- [35:59]
C
All right. The fact that it's only up three and a quarter percent after being down 40% from its 52 week highs. So that beat and that kind of raise, it's not like that dramatic. I think you know if we're going to just kind of keep talking about remaining purchase obligations that is what you would call a backlog. The idea so there's was a record is up 13% year over year. That's what we saw in Oracle. That was one of the big things that drove the stock. These are not always realized like just do the work here people. It's like a nice number to kind of throw out there for a three, four year sort of time horizon and in this situation it's not helping, you know. So I just think that not enough people are looking at the Oracle situation and kind of discounting what they're going to actually receive over three or four years and what it's going to cost them to build out that infrastructure to get that revenue right.
- [36:47]
A
I mean it is being burdened with the mantle of being a I has been right for Figma success that's seen as Adobe's sort of existential threat.
- [36:56]
B
Look there's no question and I'm looking at news flow after the bell on this announcement that also just indicates this was really more about design software demand and like that's the stuff that no one really wants to hear about. I've seen I sprinkled into the headlines as well but but Adobe's been a real underperformer on a five year basis and down around between 350 and 300 you've got a major kind of double bottom I it's hard for me to believe a company of this resource also doesn't have their their pathway here and therefore I think some of the price actions interesting but no, I don't want to run out and buy.
- [37:33]
A
Up next, Premier Lacrosse League president and co founder Paul Rabel will join us for a first look at the sports championship and to break down the ever changing sports media landscape. And don't forget to grab your tickets for the next Fast Money Live on December 11th. They're almost gone. Fast fans get to watch the show here at the Nasdaq. Maybe get a question answered live on Fast Money. Raise a glass of holiday cheer with all of our traders. Scan the QR code on the screen, head over to CNBC events to get your tickets. We are trading the holidays back right after this. Welcome back to Fast Money. The Premier League lacrosse gearing up for its championship weekend. This is a league recently inked a fresh five year broadcast deal with espn. The network also became a minority owner in the pll. Here to talk about the league's growth, the big weekend and the sports streaming landscape. PLL co founder Paul Rabel. Paul, great to see you.
- [38:26]
E
Great to see you too. Thanks for having me.
- [38:28]
A
Perfect timing. We got a potentially big media deal here in the works. A lot of sports assets. Warner Brothers and Paramount, Skydance. What do you make of that? How does that change things?
- [38:38]
E
Well, the latest Paramount deal, if you bring in the Ellison's and Jerry Cardinal and then what they announced a few weeks ago with the ufc, was a big statement. And then if you look at wbd, which has sort of been moving around the market in various ways, at one point we thought Versant might take the cable assets of wbd. This makes a lot of sense, primarily from emerging standpoint. One of the inhibitors, if you look at regulatory oversight is there are four big broadcast stations, right? So WB does not have one. But if you have, if you look at HBO and Warner Brothers Distribution, it's. It's pretty amazing what they can do. And really the media conglomerates are trying to position themselves in this tech awakening. And so if you're Paramount, this is a smart decision. And if you have an owner who has $400 billion to his name, you can look at WWBD and their $40 billion in debt on their balance sheet.
- [39:38]
C
All right, Paul, let's talk some wax. You first came on, I want to say, in the pandemic, and you guys were doing this bubble out in Utah, I think, and then, and since then you got done a couple really big media deals. Like Mel just kind of said, talk to us about the growth because, you know, you and I have talked offline a little bit. These crowds are growing. I think the fan base is growing. You obviously some of these games on each weekend are on abc, you know, that sort of thing. Like, give us a sense of like how quickly your league is growing.
- [40:04]
E
Yeah, well, I'm biased, but I think pro sports is an amazing asset class. It carries this enterprise value that moves from media to partnerships, flips to tickets, live events, live ip. There's a huge youth business. It's bolted onto it. And merchandise. Now venues and real estate. If you look at the Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft model of what they've done specifically in Texas and New England, for us, you know, we inhabited a property, or I should say a discipline that's been around for a thousand years in America. And so we needed to just put on an entertaining product. And we did that in year one to three with NBC. And then we brought on ESPN as our media rights partner. And then most recently, we renewed with them for another five years and ESPN made an investment into the pll so it's a lot of hard work, but I think from a overarching viewpoint, attention economy, live ip, pro sports appointment. Watching television is where a lot of streamers and traditional media conglomerates are looking.
- [41:09]
A
Since ESPN has made a stake in pll, you're probably not out shopping around your media rights, but at this, just to get your viewpoint on the changing media landscape and what that means for people who have something to sell like PLL would, maybe what you had prior to this investment from espn, how does that change? I mean, if you had Warner Brothers Discovery splitting, you have Versant coming online. There are a lot of potential customers here.
- [41:36]
E
Yeah, I think a lot of people have this notion that the marketplace is fractured and there's a lot of confusion on where to find your favorite sports or where to watch. And we forget about the pay TV model. And when it was its peak, it was in 2011, and about 80% of households in America had pay TV cut to today 34%. So it's been on a downward trend, as we all know. Also in 2011, connected TVs were in about 10% of home. Today they're in 88%, 117 million homes. And that's been the biggest turning point for everything that we've seen. Because Connected TV service as the modern day TV guide, we would have to surf through 200 channels to find what we want. Now we can just go Netflix, hbo, Disney, espn and you're able to siphon through. So Connected TV has led to the largest shift that we've seen in the modern era with ESPN offering their D2C property that just came out a couple of weeks ago. And in May of 2025, for the first time ever, streaming viewership has eclipse broadcast and cable viewership combined. So we're in it. I don't think the bundle has gone away. I think it's migrated.
- [42:41]
A
Championship weekend. Big, big one for you.
- [42:43]
E
Yeah.
- [42:43]
A
You're excited. I mean, you just had a, you just had a baby and you're still going to this championship weekend. Yeah, it's that big.
- [42:51]
H
Yeah.
- [42:51]
E
I mean, look, our, our team works extraordinarily hard. We've had a flagship year. Our viewership across linear is up significantly. We're up 55% on our ABC broadcasts and 81% against ESPN. We had our largest All Star game of all time, up 115% year over year. Tickets are up 11%, sponsorship is up 20%, merchandise is up 10%. And we're expecting this big weekend coming up on ABC at 12:30 at Sports Illustrated. Stadium just, just nearby home to be an amazing one.
- [43:23]
A
Paul, great to see you. Thank you. Thanks for having me, guys, on this weekend. Paul Rabel, pll, what do you think?
- [43:28]
B
Well, first of all, lacrosse is more than just growing. I mean, it's on a youth level, it's exploding. And I think it's exciting time. And I think the sports media space right now is proving that that's actually where getting, you know, getting a hold of those rights and holding them is a major driver. So congrats to those guys.
- [43:45]
A
Coming up, EV technicals. You'll never guess who on this desk sees some positive signs in Tesla's chart. The details on Fast Money returns, final trade time.
- [44:14]
B
Tim, all these states clamor to get nuclear deals fast tracked. CCJ is producing now.
- [44:20]
F
Finally risky proposition. But if you look at price of sales, that's down five turns. If they can get that CTV turned around, I take a look at trade desk.
- [44:28]
A
Dan Tesla.
- [44:30]
C
Good technical setup, bad sentiment, low expectations. Maybe play it through quarter inch.
- [44:36]
A
Heard that right. He likes Tesla here.
- [44:39]
D
Let's see, we opened up talk about rates and it made me think, obviously the direct play is housing. The indirect play would be Home Depot. Sort of down that line. They sell a lot of washers, sell a lot of dryers, a lot of things that are financed. Rates go lower, Home Depot goes higher.
- [44:54]
A
Thanks for watching Bassett. Tomorrow on the Exchange. Mad Money with Jim Cramer starts right now. All opinions expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBCUniversal, their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, Internet or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of an opinion. Such opinions are based upon information the Fast Money participants consider reliable. But neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Fast Money disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com fastmoneydisclaimer@ Capella University, learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the courseroom to the workplace. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella. Eduardo.