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CNBC's "Fast Money"
The Most Important Charts… And “Mysterious” Trading Around Trump Announcements 3/25/26
00:43:25
Stocks take a leg higher after the U.S. reportedly sends a peace plan to Iran. But with markets seeming to swing on any headline out of the middle east, our traders lay out the charts they’re watching for clues on the markets next move. Plus, Trading Trump announcements. Why a spike in oil futures ahead of Trump’s latest Iran announcement is turning some heads, and the suspicious trading pattern raising some red flags. Fast Money Disclaimer
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- [00:00]
Narrator/Commercial Voice
What does it mean to live a rich life? It means brave first leaps, tearful goodbyes and everything in between. With over 100 years experience navigating the ups and downs of the market and of life, your Edward Jones financial advisor will be there to help you move ahead with confidence. Because with all you've done to find your rich, we'll do all we can to help you keep enjoying it. Edward Jones Member SIPC not every sale
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AT&T Business Wireless Representative
happens at the register. Before AT&T business Wireless checking out customers on our mobile POS systems took too long. Basically a staring contest where everyone loses. It's crazy what people will say during an awkward silence. Now transactions are done before the silence takes hold. That means I can focus on the task at hand and make an extra sale or two. Sometimes I do miss the bonding time. Sometimes.
- [00:55]
Guy Adami
AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything.
- [01:02]
Melissa Lee
Live in the NASDAQ marketsite in the heart of New York City's Times Square. This is fast money. Here's what's on tap tonight. Another roller coaster day for stocks. Stocks finishing off their highs but also off their lows. What do these swings mean and what the charts tell the true tale of where the market is heading. The traders each give their picks and a blockbuster deal in the health care space. We dig into Merck's latest attempt to avoid avoid the patent cliff and who can the next takeover candidate be in the space? Plus ARM holdings jumps on its latest chip announcement. What is sending shares of Chinese Internet stocks higher today and building blocks new mortgage data And a warning from KB Home signals more struggles for the housing industry. When could there be relief in sight? I'm Melissa Lee, come to you live in studio. Be at the nasdaq. On the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Bono and I since Dan Nathan and Guy Adami. We start off though with markets winging on seemingly any headline related to the war in the Middle East. The S and P rising a percent and a half early in the day after news the White House had sent a 15 point plan to Iran to end the conflict and open the Strait of Hormuz. But falling midday on a report Tehran had rejected the proposal. The index ended the day half a percent higher. Crude meantime, lower, although again off its worst levels of the day. Yields also retreating after yesterday's spike. So in a time when investors are looking for any indication about the direction of the war, we wondered what our traders think is the most important chart in the market right now. Guy, kick it off.
- [02:30]
Tim Seymour
Is that what we're doing?
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Guy Adami
The most important chart? This is no pressure, no Pressure, no pressure, no pressure.
- [02:38]
Tim Seymour
It's an important chart. No, for me it's the, it's high yield credit, Hygie high yield corporate bonds. And this is not an ETF that trades all that actively or with all that much of a range. But if you look over the last sort of couple of weeks, we're at the lowest levels we've seen since last June and that was off the bounce from April. So we're looking at levels really haven't seen in a while. I would submit that credit's going to lead this thing. And if credit is sniffing something out, I think the same way American Express is, Capital One is to a certain extent some of these banks clearly private credit, it's going to find its way to H Y G which theoretically could find its way into the broader market. So for me Mel, it's H Y
- [03:15]
Melissa Lee
G. I mean before this whole conflict started that was the, one of the concerns, the centerpiece concern, concerns in the market, private credit and what was going on there and whether or not there would be more defaults. I mean I think ubs had predicted 15% defaults. And then quickly, you know, with the war we sort of, you know, it's sort of brewing still, but not front and center.
- [03:32]
Benoit
Yeah, it seemed to be bubbling up. I mean keeping in mind that if you look over like a five or ten year period, Hygie is still relatively close to the lows. But if you look at the percentage change off of where it was. I'm with Guy. You're seeing a material tick higher in the rate and lower in hygiene. I'm not sure if that's my invitation to talk about my most. Okay.
- [03:51]
Melissa Lee
When I asked you following,
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Guy Adami
I wasn't
- [03:56]
Melissa Lee
sure so I know that you asked.
- [03:59]
Guy Adami
I like where guys going with this. I think credit always sniffs out problems. I think the credit markets are where equity should always be taking their lead. And therefore when we were at all time tights in credit equity markets were at all time highs. It should be noted that you are already starting to see some ground in the high yield option adjusted spread. You can look this up at home, it's easy. Just, just look that up. You'll get a chart. We're at 3:30ish. We were at 260ish just, you know, just three months ago. And so some of this began even before the war. So there's no question, I think we're at a level that should be watched. I think this level is absolutely fine in terms of credit spreads. In fact, I think on A relative basis, it's still pretty tight, but it has given ground.
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Melissa Lee
Are you going to go to the Fintech name? So we've seen.
- [04:45]
Dan Nathan
No, I wanted to go to mine because mine is actually a good segue. It's a really good segue.
- [04:50]
Guy Adami
Everybody just wants to talk about their
- [04:51]
Dan Nathan
own because mine is actually a nice addition to what you guys have all talked about.
- [04:56]
Guy Adami
Wow, man.
- [04:58]
Melissa Lee
All right, go for it. You know what, I give up.
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Dan Nathan
By the way.
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Melissa Lee
This is not rehearsed. Everybody just obviously it's not rehearsed.
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Guy Adami
Clearly not rehearsed.
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Melissa Lee
I mean, does this look rehearsed?
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Dan Nathan
My chart. This was from Torsten Slack of Apollo yesterday on the Daily Spark. Okay. And he's talking about all the government debt that needs to be refinanced over the next year or so. And it's $10 trillion. And then where I was going to go is that there are now hundreds of billions of dollars of investment grade debt. Right. That's coming from that hyperscaler build out. And then there's high yield, there's all this other stuff needs to be refinanced. Rates have been going higher. Right. So if you think about what's going on there, it's going to put pressure at least this is what Torsten saying, on the sort of demand that you might have for Treasuries or that you might have for corporate debt. And you're basically going to have spreads doing something that won't be great obviously for what you would like to happen. And that's going to put pressure on equity valuations because the higher that you need to borrow the rates, right. It's going to be that much more attractive and relative to equities and if we have an equity slowdown as far as earnings growth, that sort of thing, you're going to see multiple compression though. Is that a good like a little bit for me there to here it's a little bit.
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Guy Adami
I mean if you have to tout your own, you know, touting.
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Dan Nathan
I'm justifying, I'm just.
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Melissa Lee
There's still quite demand, strong demand for investment grade bonds though in just a couple of weeks that we had like the biggest day of issuance for investment grade in many years.
- [06:22]
Tim Seymour
I mean it seeming. Listen, I'm not suggesting anything is awry yet but around the edges things are starting to get a little interesting. And for me that move in American Express a couple of weeks ago opened my eyes to a lot of things. Capital One as well. We've obviously talked private credit names to death. And now potentially seeing the H Y G so as Tim will say it doesn't happen. Credit happens slowly than all at once. That was a great snap by the way.
- [06:46]
Dan Nathan
Good snap again if he has to tout his own snap.
- [06:49]
Tim Seymour
I didn't, no, no, no. I didn't tout my own snap.
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Melissa Lee
Straight point that's applicable.
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Guy Adami
You have a nice snap, you snap and you keep moving.
- [06:55]
Tim Seymour
You know it's a good point by you. I should have just not said a word.
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Melissa Lee
You rushed it so it's almost like if there's. Where there's smoke, there's fire. I mean all these things you think they don't have to be systemic risks though. I mean they could all be happening. There could be some issues but does have to spill over into the broader markets.
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Guy Adami
Well it, the question is have we spilled over? By the way you haven't asked me to give my chart. Not. I'm not sure. I think there are other places though we see where it has spilled and so whether the correlation between the oil price obviously and the market, that's kind of obvious. Gold has been another one of these places where actually a rally in gold is market friendly. It is right now and it's kind of interesting because historically you might have seen gold as more of that safe haven. So I do think that the concerns around credit which existed as we know before Iran is something that we have to be watching here. We were already starting to see the pullback in banks. We're going to hear from banks in three weeks. I think it's a, it's a fascinating time but we should all always be watching credit in the equity markets. Look at the, look at the spreads on the corporates of the equities that you hold. You can see how healthy or not the market is treating those companies.
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Melissa Lee
Yeah Bahrain, why don't we go to your chart. OK boy, sort of semi related to what we're talking about.
- [08:11]
Benoit
Okay, okay.
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Melissa Lee
That's my Vanuin. What is your chart?
- [08:14]
Commercial/Promo Voice
There we go.
- [08:15]
Benoit
Now I can go. So also very closely correlated to what Dan and Gary were talking about. I'm looking at the two year treasury specifically as opposed to the entire kind of term structure that Dan alluded to. I think this really gives you a pulse on a lot. Right now we're trading on macro headlines as you kind of enter the show talking about. I think if you look here you're looking at, I mean if you look at that chart we've shot up to just shy of 4% in a matter of 30 days, 45 days and this two year rate essentially Dan talked about the refinancing risk. Okay, you're talking about bank deposits, we're talking about some of the banks that have struggled. I mean they're competing against this risk free rate for deposit base. I think that that makes for a challenging case. You talk about refinance, there's that, then there's the whole inflation situation. If we talked about the rotation that we saw at the end of last year into the early part of this year out of growth Beta into like IWM smallcaps and all of this was because we thought we were going to be in a much more accommodative Fed policy type of glide path that is not playing out right now. And you can tie that into Iran and oil shocks, gasoline input costs, all of it. The last thing that I'll say is that if you just, if you also compare both this to your chart and acqui or IFA and you juxtapose that with what we've seen in the US market, you would expect that if this rotation away into cyclicals and away from technology, you would expect to see a lot more some outperformance in those names and you're not seeing that. So this two year treasury chart to me cues everything and makes it where if, if you're not in an accommodating type of situation, it makes all of the equity markets much more challenged, all of the high yield markets much more challenged because it's the proxy on which all of these spreads are priced off of.
- [09:56]
Guy Adami
I'm here to comment on my fellow panelists chart. Not necessarily, not necessarily mine. But what's fascinating, and we've now seen this a few times in the last year, that there's a flight out of safety from Treasuries during an important point and a point in the markets, in other words a risk off moment. Treasuries haven't been that flight to safety. And that's what's fascinating. In fact today markets are better and you actually start to see treasury yields come in. And so we've had these days during the war where and we've had these days in the last year when people have been concerned about some of the policy that at least Washington might be inflicting on the rest of the world where you've had equities, debt and the US currency all trade off in the same day. So I'm just pointing out that I agree with the two year note yet almost a 65 bip move higher on the back of Iran. But again this has not been a flight to safety. This has been a flight out of safety and I think that's notable and I think it's going to continue.
- [10:54]
Melissa Lee
It's like a barometer of oil prices, of inflation. Right? I mean yields go higher when oil prices are higher. That's. But that's the relationship.
- [11:01]
Tim Seymour
I think that's part of it. And I think that's exactly why the administration seemingly acquiesced the other day when 10 year yields got I think to 443, the highest we've seen in a while. So I think there's a huge correlation between risk on in the form of the market going higher and yields going lower, which is exactly what they want. We'll see how long that can last.
- [11:19]
Dan Nathan
Yeah, and about the yield thing, I mean we've talked about this a bit. You know, We've seen the 10 year at four and a half, we've seen it at five in the last few years. I think what's really changed right now is the inflation expectations going forward, like we're just talking about here, but also growth. I mean, look at some of the missed increases that we've seen in gdp. And when you think about the sort of higher input costs, not just from tariffs and just the supply chain disruptions, but what's going on right now and the uncertainty about how long it's going to take to rectify itself. You know, this is the sort of environment where, you know, you use that, you know, expression stagflation. We don't have growth inflecting and we do have a lot of uncertainty on the economic front. No, I mean, I guess the best, you know, point about that or the best example is this labor market, you know, and we're going to continue to get some data. I'd be really shocked to see it pick up pretty dramatically over the next couple of months.
- [12:05]
Melissa Lee
Timbo, what is your chart?
- [12:07]
Dr. Guy Winch
Whoa.
- [12:07]
Guy Adami
Well, I mean, it's nice and I assume there's a reason why we saved the most important of the most important charts for last. And I think it's a very much an equity market dynamic. I think it's the outperformance of the semiconductors to the overall S and P. So even during a difficult time in the markets, semis have continued to outperform the S and P. And in fact, I think they're about to make a new relative high. Whether they make an outright high is another thing, although I think that's probably eventual. But I think the most important thing for market right now is leadership. What's been interesting also is that within the semis, you've had significant rotation around different pieces of it. And so we're, we're now out of, now out of memory, but we are certainly holding serve as it comes to semiconductors. We're learning about other parts of maybe more the brick and mortar semiconductors, the more generics, those that are helping folks like Metta build their own in house or partnering up. So I think as long as that continues, that's very positive for the equity market that is is in a secular growth trend as it relates to semiconductors. And I don't think that stops.
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Melissa Lee
Could this be defense in this market, Tim? I mean is.
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Guy Adami
I think what we've seen is there's been defense within semis, within that rotation at times you found certain things. I think there's still all kinds of question of where the wrecking ball is going within AI, but there's no question it's around demand for chips.
- [13:31]
Tim Seymour
It's fitting that on the opening night of the baseball season, Tim will be hitting cleanup for this squad.
- [13:36]
Guy Adami
Yeah, it's nice. Well, it is. And you know, I think in terms of cleanup hitters in New York, there's a real debate out there.
- [13:43]
Tim Seymour
There's a real debate.
- [13:44]
Melissa Lee
But you know what happen on this show.
- [13:46]
Tim Seymour
But, but since we're on the topic, let's pull up a Micron chart which
- [13:51]
Melissa Lee
we haven't talked about returning to stocks.
- [13:54]
Benoit
Thank you.
- [13:54]
Melissa Lee
For what?
- [13:55]
Tim Seymour
Well, since they reported earnings and look at the move to the downside we've seen since they reported $100 in the stock, which percentage wise probably about 17 or so percent off the top of my head. That's significant. And on a decent day today, another down day in Micron and sandisk. So maybe the market is sniffing something out in terms of the other side of the mountain of the storage trade.
- [14:15]
Melissa Lee
Yeah. Let's get to AAM, the chip designer surging 16% today after unveiling its first ever in house chip designed specifically for AI datacenter inference, the company forecasting that its AGI CPU will generate $15 billion in revenue by 2031. Shares are up more than 40% this year, close at their highest level since November. And that 15 billion, that's like five times more than the forecast had been before. So this is a staggering increase to that forecast.
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Dan Nathan
Yeah, I think this was a surprise. Most people. Right. So this is a company that designs chips for some of the biggest chip makers that we know. And so they're going to be squarely in competition. And we just heard Jensen Huang last week, you know that they are going to be making a CPO for inference. Right. This is amd, this is Intel. One of the reasons why both those stocks traded pretty well. I take this another direction here. You know, aam, 86% of that stock is owned by SoftBank. We were talking about last year, SoftBank sold in video so they could fund their investment in OpenAI. Now, there's been a lot of skepticism, despite the fact that OpenAI just raised $110 billion. A lot of that is going to be pieced out over the next year or so. And, and SoftBank's a big part of that. So I actually think this is probably pretty good for OpenAI when you think about the ability for them to continue to get funded, if there was any trepidation about that before their ipo, and whether they were going to be able to continue at the pace in which they were spending.
- [15:38]
Melissa Lee
What do you make of this news?
- [15:40]
Benoit
Somewhat of a mixed bag, Clearly. If by 2031, I believe it is, maybe it's 2030, $15 billion. I mean, that's a legitimate ramp up in Tammy. My question is, do you really want to pay for that now in 2026? And if there's any hiccup, I would suspect that this probably is slightly painful. With that said, I can understand how they're making somewhat of a pivot making, you know, really jumping into the competition for inference and broadening themselves away from just royalty streams. So if they're able to convert that and have a recurring revenue stream, I see it as a positive in terms of trading the stock again, am I willing to pay right now in a market that seems Quite volatile for 5 year out revenue that, that may or may not actually be realized? That's the challenge for me.
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Melissa Lee
They have to walk the line though, because they're going to be a supplier but also compete with their customer base. That's a strange position to be in.
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Tim Seymour
I find myself remembering a lot of things. And I remember, I think it was the ARM IPO in general, right around it.
- [16:44]
Guy Adami
That's good.
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Tim Seymour
Remember, ARM was, it was, it was a very mature company that went public a few years ago. Their revenue stream was about a $5 billion run rate over the course of three or four years prior. And right now it's probably looking at a $6 billion run rate next year. So you've had no real meaningful revenue growth yet. People are rewarding at this $150 billion market cap company. So price to sales never made any sense. So they absolutely needed an announcement like this to at least justify the valuation. But they still have a long way to go in my opinion.
- [17:12]
Guy Adami
I think analyst me was expecting this. I think they've something in terms of their approach to silicon and I think this was just that much better and I think it was that much bigger as we've all indicated. So I kind of like ARM here. I think it's a, the softback part of it bothers me. I mean it really does. And it's hard to feel like I want to follow them, but I might
- [17:33]
Dan Nathan
know they're going to be. I mean the point I was making is they're going to be selling a lot of this, right? So they sold in video, which is much smaller position.
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Melissa Lee
Coming up, another multibillion dollar buy from Merck. The latest deal for the pharma giant and what it means for the drug pipeline. Plus China tech taking off Regulators stepp up efforts to end food delivery price wars, what it means for the stocks and how it will impact company profits. Don't go anywhere. Fast money's back in two.
- [18:00]
Square Representative
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- [18:58]
Dr. Guy Winch
started Today, men are struggling with their mental health at some of the highest rates we've ever seen. But most aren't getting the support they need. And that needs to change. I'm Dr. Guy Winch, your host for season three of the Visibility Gap, presented by Cigna Healthcare. This season, we're focusing on men's mental health, bringing together real stories and expert insight to explore the pressures men face every day and why opening up can feel so difficult. Join us for the new season wherever you stream your podcasts.
- [19:30]
Commercial/Promo Voice
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- [20:00]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to fast money. Merck rising 2.5% today after announcing plans to acquire leukemia drug maker Turns Pharmaceuticals. The deal, worth $6.7 billion, is expected to close in the second quarter. It's the latest move by Merck to offset a major patent cliff with key Trudeau responsible for about half the company's revenues coming off patent in 2028. For more on the impact, John Flavin joins us now. He's the CEO of Portal Innovations, an early stage biotech venture firm. John, great to have you with us.
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John Flavin
Hi, Melissa.
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Melissa Lee
From the Merck perspective, this seems like good news for investors. It bolsters the portfolio and also shows the a certain discipline because Merck's CEO back at JP Morgan had said that no deal would be more than $15 billion. So they're certainly keeping within that for you. Is this sort of prime time for a lot of your portfolio companies to go out and look for partnerships or deals? These companies, all these major pharma companies facing big patent cliffs?
- [20:55]
John Flavin
Yes, definitely. And Merck's not alone. As we know, a handful of pharma companies face a roughly $300 billion patent cliff in 2030. And that has really driven a frenzy in M and A activity certainly over the course of last year and even in the first quarter of this year. We're seeing about $26 billion in deals announced so far this quarter versus 19 billion in the first quarter of last year. And the bite size of these acquisitions tend to range recently between 1 and $10 billion. And what that indicates is pharma is looking for assets that have shown initial human proof of concept. So they got to be in the clinic, but they're willing to take early risk, as is seen in the turn acquisition by Merck.
- [21:43]
Melissa Lee
And you saw that with one of your companies which recently entered into a $2 billion partnership with Novo Nordisk. And I'm wondering, you know, you watch the space. One of your companies is involved with Novo now. And Novo basically closed today at levels pre Ozempic for weight loss Levels as if ozempic for weight loss had never happened. What do you make of what is going on here in this space?
- [22:08]
John Flavin
It's surprising. I mean, I think it's a value opportunity, you know, for those interested in, you know, playing that type of risk. I think it's, they're dealing with an overhang that was really dealt by the prior management team. Some of the fumbles that happened over the course of last year, I mean, we know that they've come out with the first, you know, oral approach. They're ahead of the game in that regard. Yes, you know, Lilly, you know, the 800 pound gorilla in the space continues to dominate, but really I think there's a value play opportunity with, with Novo. And we're certainly excited to see our portfolio company vivtechs, enter into that transaction, which is allowing them Novo, that is to make more of these obesity drugs in an oral pill format, which as we know becomes really important from a convenience and compliance perspective for obesity patients and other patients that benefit from GLP1s.
- [23:02]
Guy Adami
Hey, John, Tim. Great stuff. And so this move by Merck, as you said, you've got the patent cliff for they and many others. Surprising to me a little bit that Merck rallied on this news. Although it's not a big transaction and it's, it does bring a lot of promise. How do you really assess a deal of this size? And maybe not specific to this deal, but it does seem to me there's still a whole lot of unknown in terms of what this can translate into, especially as part of an overall approach. I mean, people did not reward Pfizer for dropping $35 billion on five or six companies after they had a windfall coming out of COVID It seemed like the right thing to do. Stock's been dead in the water, although it has rallied. So I'm just kind of curious how you approach this.
- [23:45]
John Flavin
I think again, it's good news for small biotech companies that are working in innovative novel modalities going after important large disease areas, certainly cancer, in this case leukemia, large unmet need new kinds of modalities like radiopharmaceuticals as breakthroughs. A lot of science that's driving better outcomes for patients, frankly. And as you look at the acquisition analysis, you know, the business development and M and A teams at big Pharma have quite a task ahead of them. So they have to take some risks, but they're pretty good at mitigating the risk by understanding first and foremost what market, you know, is this asset going to address. Second, is it a protectable moat from a pricing perspective that can help replace the currently marketed revenue producing drugs in their pipeline? And then third, you know, what is the likely regulatory path that the company will need to follow? This is early data, for example, interns. But there's a lot of early promise. I mean, 75% response rate in this types of study does show that it could be a multibillion dollar drug. And that's what gets companies like Merck and other pharma companies excited and then they have to be moving that direction. And again, that's good news for earlier stage companies that are in our portfolio that are in the clinic or entering the clinic.
- [25:11]
Melissa Lee
John. John, great to speak with you. Thank you.
- [25:14]
John Flavin
Good seeing him, Alyssa. Thank you.
- [25:16]
Melissa Lee
John Flavin, specific to terms, this is interesting in terms of the price, $53 a share. The average price on the street price target is 56. And there's some talk that they undersold their company basically. Was it stolen? Did they not get enough money for it?
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Tim Seymour
Bit of a lottery ticket. So you can play both sides of that coin. I mean, Merck's making a bet here and the data suggests that there's a good chance they're going to win. The flip side of that coin is Turn just did a secondary, I think in December, if I'm not mistaken, about $40 a share. Ish. So they clearly were sort of in this road where they had a, this came, this opportunity came and they made the decision that you could say it was too cheap.
- [25:57]
Pharmaceutical Commercial Voice
Cheap.
- [25:57]
Tim Seymour
I'm not sure that's the case. I think it's a lottery ticket for Merck and I think it's an exit strategy for Turn.
- [26:03]
Melissa Lee
All right. There's a lot more fast money to come. Here's what's coming up next.
- [26:08]
Commercial/Promo Voice
A rally in China Tech, how a move by regulators is boosting shares of Alibaba and PDD and whether it's enough to add them to your portfolio. Plus a couple of interestingly timed trades raising eyebrows. The recent futures action that caught our traders eyes and what can be done about it. You're watching Fast Money live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. We're back right after this.
- [26:41]
Dr. Guy Winch
Men are struggling with their mental health at some of the highest rates we've ever seen. But most aren't getting the support they need and that needs to change. I'm Dr. Guy Winch, your host for season three of the Visibility Gap presented by Cigna Healthcare. This season we're focusing on men's mental health, bringing together, real stories and expert insight to explore the pressures men face every day and why opening up can feel so difficult. Join us for the new season wherever you stream your podcasts.
- [27:11]
AT&T Business Wireless Representative
Not every sale happens at the register before AT&T business Wireless checking out customers on our mobile POS systems took too long. Basically a staring contest where everyone loses. It's crazy what people will say during an awkward silence. Now transactions are done before the silence takes hold. That means I can focus on the task at hand and make an extra sail or two. Sometimes I do miss the bonding time.
- [27:35]
Guy Adami
Sometimes AT&T business Wireless Connecting changes Everything
- [27:42]
Narrator/Commercial Voice
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Melissa Lee
To why not?
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Guy Adami
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- [28:13]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to Fast Money. China Tech taking a big leg higher today with Meituan and JD.com among the big winners. Beijing regulators stepping up efforts to end price wars in the food delivery space. A steep discounting weighs on profits. Baba Meituan and JD.com have rolled out offers to pull in users, putting pressure of course, on margins. So the war is off, Tim.
- [28:34]
Guy Adami
We'll see. You know, and I do think this is important, but I don't think this is a game changer for the industry. I think the industry and I mean China Tech, whether you're looking at the K web, whether you're looking at Alibaba, we're looking at JD Mituan I do think think needed something and so you know, I like this news flow but it's not a reason. I think we're a lot more concerned about US China relations. I think you're going to continue to worry about innovation and where Alibaba certainly Ali Cloud is a driver and where they are going to have to throw a lot of money at this as well.
- [29:09]
Melissa Lee
It sounds like you're cautious.
- [29:11]
Guy Adami
I'm cautious because, well, I'm cautious because the stock's not cheap, these names aren't expensive. As a group, the dynamic with China right now is, I would just say been sideways and I mean it hasn't really been good or bad and these stocks have fallen out of favor and
- [29:29]
Benoit
obviously International has certainly a positive headline. But I'm with Tim in terms of being, you know, somewhat cautiously optimistic. I'm not even sure if I call him optimistic, just perhaps just cautious. Listen, this isn't the first time that we've seen Beijing come forward with, with an announcement and perhaps pivot or pull back. Bob has been in the crosshairs before and so for me, until I see some follow through, it's really hard to establish a real core position in these names because, you know, we have been down this road before and it hasn't always ended positively for the investor.
- [30:03]
Melissa Lee
After the break, recent market moving announcements from the administration and the mysterious trading activity that preceded the them. The trading patterns that caught our traders eyes and what regulators could do about it. Fast Money's back into
- [30:20]
Commercial/Promo Voice
missed a moment of fast. Catch us anytime on the Go follow the Fast Money podcast. We're back right after this.
- [30:32]
Melissa Lee
Welcome back to FAST money. Stocks climbing as investors digested the latest developments out of the Middle East. The Dow up more than 300 points. The S&P up half a percent in the Nasdaq leading the gains climbing more than three quarters of a percent. All three indices on pace to snap a four week losing streak. Oil meantime, settling around $90 a barrel. Shares of Generac closing off its lows of the day as the company holds its investor day. The generator maker giving better than expected guidance for 2028 net sales but did not announce any long term hyperscaler agreements. Generac stock up more than 50% so far this year. Shares of JetBlue jumping more than 13% today on reports the airline is bringing in advisors, I should say for potential sale. According to the report. JetBlue is considering how mergers with United, Alaska or Southwest would sit with regulators. Swiss sneaker maker on holding dropping more than 11% as the company shakes up its leadership, appointing its co founders as co CEOs. The company forecasts lower sales growth earlier this month. Shares of on down nearly 25% so far this year. And Chewy surging more than 13% today. The online pet food retailer forecasting another year of sales growth and margin expansion. Its earnings report this morning, chewy though still down 20% this year. Well, a series of unusual oil trades tied to the Iran war raising red flags this week. Among them a volume surge in WTI on Monday at 6:50am Eastern Time. 15 minutes later. After that time, President Trump posted on Truth Social that he was halting planned attacks on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure. That's when oil plunged. Former SEC enforcement attorney Jacob Frankel thinks it's absolutely worth investigating. Jacob is now Dickinson Wright's chair of Government Investigations and securities Enforcement. Jacob, great to see you.
- [32:15]
Jacob Frankel
Good to see you, Melissa. Thank you.
- [32:17]
Melissa Lee
Do you think this will get investigated? I mean so many people are pointing at this and saying this smells, this looks, I mean all it's just suspicious.
- [32:26]
Jacob Frankel
You know, I think it's in the administration's interest for it to be investigated. Yes, I think it will be investigated because of the unusual spike. I think we have to also be mindful as to who could be doing this investigation. But we also should not lose sight of the where could, if there was material nonpublic information actually communicated, where was that communicated? The natural assumption is that occurred in the United States, but it could also have been within any of our foreign government partners who could have also communicated information. So you have to think about the whole world of information and in terms of who will do the investigation. We're talking about spikes in oil. That's the jurisdiction of the cftc, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. And when it comes to the equities, to the extent that there was unusual trading in any equity securities, that will be the SEC's Division of Enforcement.
- [33:19]
Tim Seymour
Well, check. I mean there's $1.5 billion of notional value S and P futures that were bought 14 minutes ahead of this. So. And that in and of itself moved the market. Then subsequently you saw what happened. So. So there's got to be some paper trail to this, I would imagine. And I think in your seat you can understand why people watching to say the entire game is rigged against us.
- [33:41]
Jacob Frankel
I mean that's, that's a natural conclusion to reach. And that's exactly why I said what I said, which is I think it's in the administration's interest and the regulator's interest to conduct an investigation because it's the opportunity to show, you know, through the investigative process that it did not occur here. And you're mentioning, you know, the training and in the S and P. That's clearly within the jurisdiction of the sec. And I have great confidence in the experience and expertise of the SEC to conduct such an investigation. I also, you know, this to me is also a flashback. It's a flashback to 911 when there was a lot of, when there was there was put option trading, there was short selling in advance of the Twin Tower attacks and the 911 terrorist attack on the United States. A lot of that investigation was principally centered overseas involving trading by Middle Eastern interest. That investigation ultimately did not result in any enforcement actions. Why I think that's still a big mystery. But at the end of the day. This is the kind of active trading activity that absolutely should be investigated. And to restore confidence in the integrity of the markets, it's necessary for the regulators to do so and to report their findings, particularly if ultimately there is no enforcement action, which we really can't prejudge at this point.
- [35:07]
Melissa Lee
There are also suspicious trades surrounding Liberation Day. Jacob so this is not the first instance where there are suspicious trades surrounding an event that insiders, whether they be in the United States or out, might have known the outcome. If you were still at the fcc, how would you start investigating? Where would you look first? How do you go about this?
- [35:30]
Jacob Frankel
The way you go about it is the first thing you do is you pull the records on the trades, who is trading and then you try to find out what are their connections to potential sources of information. It's, it's always about connecting the dots and the place to start is, you know, is always the case in what I'll call financial crimes capital markets investigations. It's follow the trading, follow the money. And that's really, you know, that's really where the investigation will start and will lead. And one of the things that we've seen historically when the SEC in particular, but also the CFTC believes that there, that there was a need to take emergency action through the courts, they can freeze assets. But let's also not lose sight of the fact that we now have the former chairman of the SEC as the United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York who has gone on record as saying that he's going to be conducting investigations and is conducting investigations involving, you know, involving the, you know, the prediction markets. We've already seen a case, criminal case brought in Arizona. So I think there are a lot of jurisdictions that will show interest. And I think going back to a point that I made early on, the same type of information that the SEC or CFTC or U.S. attorney's office would look at, so too with the foreign regulators to the extent that the activity is taking place outside the United States because ultimately jurisdiction matters. But historically and typically in these type of investigations there's a lot of deference to the US Regulators, US Enforcers to take the lead.
- [37:09]
Melissa Lee
Jacob, it's always great to speak with you. Thank you for your time.
- [37:12]
Jacob Frankel
Thank you, Melissa.
- [37:13]
Melissa Lee
Jacob Frankel, we're talking about the suspicious trades in the futures markets, but there are also suspicious, suspicious trades in the predictions markets. On poly markets there was a mystery trader that had a 93% win rate. They made dozens of five figure bets on, on predicting unannounced US and Israeli strikes unannounced. And somehow they got it right. I mean all of this just, I don't know, it's suspicious, let's put it that way.
- [37:41]
Guy Adami
Well, prediction markets, again, this is a whole new frontier that needs regulation and it needs regulation and ultimately it will lead to more value in the space. I mean, what we've seen throughout time is that institutions need to have structure around this. It's great to hear that regulators here are very focused on these events sense and it's great to hear that the credibility of the markets are always critical. This is, this is what we all want. It's what everybody wants. So go get them.
- [38:08]
Dan Nathan
Yeah, big difference between insider trading in around a corporate action, right. Whether it's earnings or an M and a situation or whatever. I think the companies and I think investors and I think regulators all have the same interest that this doesn't happen. I think this is a very unique situation where to have this sort of information to be able to bet the sort of money that has been bet that this is national security. I mean this has so many other implications here. And the likelihood, unfortunately no one's going to get to the bottom of this. I don't think any of the regulators are going to have this sort of leeway to go after and get the sort of information that would find who did this and how they did it. And so again, I think it's really a knock against some of the things that I think a lot of people feel that is so important about our markets here in the US the transparency, the regulation, all that sort of stuff. So this is just another one. This is not going anywhere. People like this is like where we are right now with this sort of
- [38:59]
Melissa Lee
information, the national security, I mean there are leaks. That means. Right, somebody knows this.
- [39:03]
Dan Nathan
Listen, here's the thing, let's be honest. Everybody knows the president's phone number. Talk to any journalist right now, they all have his phone number. So there's things that are being hacked, there's no doubt about it. So maybe there was nobody who did anything wrong, you know what I mean? Within the government. But there's plenty of bad actors who can figure this stuff out, have his number left out.
- [39:23]
Melissa Lee
Oh, poor guy. Coming up, I know he watches the show though. Coming for the CEO, Zeta joins us next to lay out the company's new agent and how they're looking to usher in an era of super intelligent marketing. They're going anywhere. Fast Money's back into.
- [39:44]
Tim Seymour
The
- [39:48]
Melissa Lee
welcome back to Fast Money AI Marketing Cloud company Zeta Global rolling out its super intelligent agent Athena to enterprise marketing teams this week. Athena uses enterprise data to help teams make decisions and execute campaigns through a conversational Interface powered by OpenAI. For more, we're joined by Zeta Global CEO David Steinberg. David, great to see you.
- [40:07]
David Steinberg
Great to see you, Melissa. Thank you for having me.
- [40:10]
Melissa Lee
If you take a look at Zeta stock, it looks like it is. It suffered a lot of the same sort of pain that a lot of the software sector suffered, David. And so how does this agent answer investors concerns about businesses like yours being supplanted or threatened by AI?
- [40:27]
David Steinberg
Well, let me start by saying, you know, that narrative is, I've heard it before. I heard it when the Internet came out.
- [40:33]
Guy Adami
I'm that old.
- [40:34]
David Steinberg
And the Internet was going to destroy JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley and Walmart. And what we saw in 100% of the cases is enterprises that adopted and embraced these technologies skyrocketed. Enterprises that turned their back on everything from the Internet to mobile to cloud computing, they went away. And it's going to be the same thing with large language models. We're going to adopt them, but there's no scenario they're going to disintermediate Zeta.
- [41:06]
Dan Nathan
Hey, David. Dan, thanks for being here. You know, you have this product launch here today, and it seems like something that you guys have really leaned on, leaned into. And then obviously this relationship with Open Air, you know, how do you measure the performance of something like this? Does it take a little time? Are your clients, you know, are they open to this? Is it something that is going to be disruptive to the way they operate their businesses and how quickly might they see a return?
- [41:30]
David Steinberg
Yeah.
- [41:30]
Jacob Frankel
Thank you, Dan.
- [41:31]
David Steinberg
So if you look at the Zeta marketing platform Today, we returned 600% on every dollar spent through the platform. And initial clients, which included some Fortune 500 companies, came back to us and said not only are they seeing a substantially higher return on ad spend when they use Athena, but they're seeing a incredibly simplistic workflow as it relates to using the platform. So, I mean, just very simply, Athena is a conversational super agent that allows you to navigate the entire platform. And if you think of, of today, most organizations and individuals use a very small percentage of the software they buy. You might have a Bloomberg terminal, you might use 5 or 10% of it. Our platform is the same. We've built this fighter jet, and our average client knows how to fly a turboprop. And they're getting a 600% return on ad spend with it. But by Using the voice enabled interface, we think we're going to be able to get Our clients above 1000% return on ad spend. And once again back to the disintermediation question. I think companies that are creating intelligence, own large pools of proprietary data and are creating meaningful return on investment are going to be very successful in the future. And that's exactly what data does.
- [42:54]
Tim Seymour
So David, I think it's 18 quarters in a row, I think, and you can correct me if you have had earnings beats right. Which is astounding. People will say there hasn't really been a moat. This is the moat, I think. And if people figure that out, then all of a sudden these earnings speeds look a lot more interesting, I would imagine.
- [43:11]
David Steinberg
100% guide. This is a massive mode in our business. It has been 18 quarters in a row. We've been public for 18 quarters. We beat guidance and raised guidance and you know, if you look at Athena and you look at our first party data, one of the things a lot of people do not understand is our enterprise clients, 51% of the Fortune 124% of the Fortune 500 in our 603 enterprise clients, they're giving us their first party data too. We merge our first party data with their first party data and that's where the algorithms train and that's how we create this massive return on investment. Could you imagine a world where a Fortune 500 company is going to hand their first party data over to a large language model?
- [44:01]
Melissa Lee
David, it's great to talk to you. Thank you for your time.
- [44:05]
David Steinberg
Thank you, Melissa. Really appreciate you guys.
- [44:09]
Melissa Lee
That's quite a return in terms of for every dollar spent you get 600 times back. I mean, for a company, that's exactly what you want AI to do for you.
- [44:17]
Benoit
Absolutely. As you kind of alluded to. I think you're seeing the transition from dashboards and looking back in hindsight and being able to meet manipulate data that already exists to more predictive tools. So in that light, I mean, listen, I think it's incredible. Guy mentioned 18 quarters in a row. I'd be curious to see what the conversations are with CMOS on real AI spin. Are these displacing dashboards or is this leading to net new spend?
- [44:42]
Guy Adami
I think the conversation around advertising is also just fascinating. And also what? Even in the last few days, I mean, you know, some of the announcements by Amazon and I mean, you know, Amazon and Metta are eating the lunch of everybody that sat in a space that generated revenue by informing advertisers how their Data could be used better. I don't know what trade desk is going to do, but it doesn't seem like they can counter this, this wave.
- [45:12]
Melissa Lee
Coming up, the latest blow to the builders is more mortgage data waves on the sector as the spring selling season gets underway. The latest in the health of the housing market. That's season that's next for Fast Money into. Welcome back to Fast Money. Mortgage applications dropping more than 10% from a week ago as the average 30 year mortgage rates rose to the highest level since last fall. That's according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. It's just the latest sign of weakness in the housing market market. Homebuilders, Dr. Horton PulteGroup, Toll Brothers home improvement stocks, Home Depot and Lowe's all down double digits since the start of this month.
- [45:53]
Tim Seymour
Guy homebuilder stocks, the ones you mentioned for ex Home Depot. All right, at the lows we saw in November of last year, critical support. But I'll say again, I don't think you can own the homebuilders here, Mel.
- [46:04]
Guy Adami
UBS had a really interesting report about the wealth effect and what the effect it has on consumer spending. I think it has a big effect on the housing market also. I think, I think stocks have meandered if not gone down over the last six months. I think there's something to watch there. But more broadly I do think that's a fascinating stat and I think that's something goes back to why the White House is always, by the way for every administration is always targeting the stock market.
- [46:30]
Melissa Lee
Up next, final trades, Final trade time.
- [46:40]
Guy Adami
Kimbo, we talked about pharma, we talked about Pfizer and how about Tim's Pfizer? Finally starting to make a move. Slowly but surely slow and steady wins the race.
- [46:49]
Melissa Lee
Piper Bono and if you're willing to
- [46:51]
Benoit
look through some of the volatility that we've experienced recently in regionals, I think PNC is worth a look.
- [46:56]
Dan Nathan
And yeah, it's great to hear CEO talk about how an application or enterprise software company is making a move with AI for their clients as data Century
- [47:05]
Tim Seymour
Big Fast money family out there. They watch religiously. It's Kim Lamonaco's birthday. I know she's watching. Yeah, Kimmy, the whole family's watching. Happy birthday. Structured therapeutics. That's the G in Karen's. Whatever.
- [47:19]
Melissa Lee
Thanks for watching. Fast Mad Money starts right now.
- [47:24]
Narrator/Commercial Voice
All opinions expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its 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 Snoring gasping during sleep?
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