Nvidia on Deck, Muddy Waters' New Long Position & Read on Retail 11/19/25

Summary

Podcast Summary: CNBC’s The Exchange — “Nvidia on Deck, Muddy Waters’ New Long Position & Read on Retail”

Date: November 19, 2025
Host: John Ford (in for Kelly Evans)

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Episode Overview

This episode focuses on three main themes shaping the current market moment: anticipation for Nvidia’s critical earnings update amid AI investment fever, a rare long call from short seller Carson Block (Muddy Waters Capital) on Snowline Gold, and a status check on the pulse of retail as major companies report earnings. The show delivers expert market insight, exclusive interviews, and breaking news—from White House jabs at the Fed to Goldman Sachs’ view on the AI investment cycle.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Nvidia Earnings and the AI Trade

• Setup for Earnings

  • Nvidia is pivotal for the AI market and broader indices (8% of S&P 500, 10% of Nasdaq 100).
  • New details on a partnership with AI startup Humane: a massive GPU commitment spanning Saudi Arabia and the US to offset vanished China revenue, as countries focus on “sovereign AI” infrastructure (01:46).
  • Options markets are signaling a significant move (~6%, or $300B in market value), while traders are positioning mostly for upside.

• Panel Discussion

  • Low Tony (Plexo Capital):

    • “A beat is a meet. If they meet their numbers, that might be perceived as a miss.” (04:01)
    • The durability of AI demand is key; “digest” is the word investors don’t want to hear, as it hints at slowdown.
    • Massive infrastructure spend (~$3T over 5 years), with only half likely fundable from tech cash flows—the rest via debt (06:49).
    • The future AI landscape will belong to efficient, durable enterprise applications, not just training.

  • Jay Goldberg (Seaport Global Securities):

    • Only analyst with a Sell rating on Nvidia currently: “There’s a lot more that can go wrong for Nvidia than can go right.” (05:08)
    • Believes we’re nearing the top of the current semiconductor cycle: “At some point next year...things need to...digest.”
    • Notes growing risk as major cloud players (hyperscalers) invest in their own AI chip designs—Amazon’s Trainium, Google’s TPU, Meta and possibly Microsoft (10:39).

  • Deirdre Bosa (Tech Update/Timestamp 08:53):

    • Google’s latest AI model was trained entirely on its custom TPU chips, not Nvidia’s—a “first at this level.”
    • Broad industry diversification: Shopify, Anthropic (committing to 1 million TPUs), Apple, Meta, and OpenAI all increasingly use non-Nvidia silicon.
    • Suggests Nvidia’s dominance may erode over time, as hyperscalers build fully integrated stacks.

  • Low Tony (On Ecosystem Insulation):

    • Predicts a “mixture” world: hyperscaler custom chips for proprietary use cases, Nvidia for customers’ varied workloads (12:03).
    • Nvidia’s committed ecosystem provides resilience but is no guarantee if demand softens or custom chip performance improves.

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2. White House Breaking News: Tensions Over the Fed

• Eamonn Javers Reporting (13:47):
  • President Trump, in remarks at the Saudi Investment Forum, issued unusually sharp public criticism of both Fed Chair Jay Powell (“he's got some real mental problems”) and Treasury Secretary Scott Besant (“if you don’t get it fixed fast, I’m going to fire your ass”).
  • “Hard to tell if the president was joking...Sometimes he does these jokes which have a little edge to them, and it voices the frustration under the surface there.”
  • Notable intra-administration tension; first time Trump publicly criticizes Besant this way.

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3. Carson Block’s (Muddy Waters) Rare Long: Snowline Gold Corp

• Interview with John Ford (19:04):
  • Carson Block: Known for legendary short calls, now bullish on Canadian gold explorer Snowline Gold after presenting at the SON Conference in London.
  • Shares up as much as 21% during the segment.
  • “Snowline is what we think is a true tier one discovery that is going to unlock a whole gold district there. We don’t find any reason to question the resource estimates.” (19:17)
  • Believes a major miner will acquire the company—“We don’t think this company is independent, you know, in three years from now, quite possibly bought out before then” (19:04), with multi-billon CAD upside potential even if gold prices fall.
  • Gold mining context: Majors have stopped greenfield exploration post-financial crisis. New deposit discoveries are exceptionally rare (“in the 1990s...1.7B ounces...this decade on track for only 60M ounces” 21:00).
  • Stands by past short theses such as Applovin (“they’re cheating and...violating terms...But we’re in an environment where anything that calls itself AI...can do no wrong”). (24:17)

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4. Retail Earnings and Consumer Health

• Melissa Repko Interview (40:16):
  • TJX (parent of TJ Maxx) stands out as a winner, with strong value-seeking traffic and fresh inventory.
  • “TJX’s opportunity is really as consumers make trade offs; they’re going to its stores to try to find those better deals.” (40:16)
  • Broader pattern: even higher-income consumers are cautious; Lowe’s, Home Depot see hesitance on big ticket projects.
  • All eyes on Walmart earnings next, as it provides the broadest read (exposure to both SNAP-affected shoppers and higher-income households).

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5. Goldman Sachs: AI Investment—Bubble or Business as Usual?

• Leslie Picker interviews Kim Posner, Co-Head of GS Investment Banking (29:54):
  • On the AI “bubble” question: “I think that AI will be absolutely transformative and value creating across industries over time...but it’s much greater scale, it’s much faster, and there’s much, much broader applicability.” (30:14)
  • GS research: Historically, tech innovation triggers equity bubbles 75% of the time, but “we aren’t in an AI bubble yet.” Still, “it’s still too early to tell...time will tell.”
  • Debt issuance by hyperscalers is massive, but credit metrics and balance sheet strength are robust; only modest spread widening for now (32:20).
  • Strategic alliances between model companies and hyperscalers: “Strategic partnerships…are merited because of the size of the opportunity. Others would argue interconnectedness creates elevated risk—especially in the event of a correction.” (33:34)
  • Upbeat on M&A and IPO rebound: CEO confidence driven by “pro-growth US administration, continuing Fed easing, robust equity markets, and AI as a growth catalyst.”

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6. Industrial AI Derivatives: Caterpillar’s Boom

• Sima Modi Report (43:23):
  • Caterpillar is the Dow’s top performer over the last three months, benefiting from the race to build hyperscaler data centers.
  • “It’s the hyperscalers that are lining up” for Cat’s generators and turbines; sales up 31% in the past year.
  • The energy/transport segment now 40% of sales thanks to AI power demand.
  • Watch-outs: inventory lags, demand lumpiness, speculative buildouts may risk future pullbacks.

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• “A beat is a meet. If they meet their numbers, that actually might be perceived as a miss.”
  — Low Tony, 04:01, on Nvidia’s high bar of expectations

• “There’s a lot more that can go wrong for Nvidia than can go right. There’s just so many...expectations built on top of them now that it’s hard to surprise people to the upside.”
  — Jay Goldberg, 05:08

• “Google’s latest AI model was trained entirely on GPUs—and not Nvidia's GPUs. That’s a first at this level.”
  — Deirdre Bosa, 08:53, on Google’s TPU announcement

• “We don’t want to hear the word ‘digest’ because that means there’s a slowing down so that the hyperscalers can actually make sense of all their commitments.”
  — Low Tony, 04:49

• Carson Block on gold’s importance:
  “In the 1990s, there were gold discoveries of about 1.7 billion ounces. So far this decade...we’re on track for discoveries of only 60 million ounces. ...the majors need to acquire companies like Snowline.” (20:48)

• President Trump, on Fed Chair Powell & Treasury Secretary Besant:
  “He’s got some real mental problems...Scott, if you don’t get it fixed fast, I’m going to fire your ass.”
  — Reported by Eamonn Javers, 13:47

• Goldman Sachs’s Kim Posner, on the AI bubble:
  “Despite many similarities, they found that we weren’t in an AI bubble yet. Now, I think it’s still too early to tell.” — 30:14

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• [01:03] Nvidia earnings preview & market impact
• [01:46] Nvidia’s Sovereign AI deals; options market set-up
• [04:01] Panel: What would “calm” markets for Nvidia really look like?
• [08:53] Google’s AI chip (TPU) challenge, implications for Nvidia
• [10:39] Forecasts of hyperscalers eroding Nvidia’s dominance
• [13:47] TRUMP: Breaking news, public rebuke of Powell & Besant
• [19:04] Carson Block’s bullish case on Snowline Gold
• [24:17] Block on Applovin, AI’s current investor “euphoria”
• [29:54] Goldman Sachs on AI bubble; Lesley Picker interviews Kim Posner
• [40:16] Retail read: Melissa Repko on TJX, Walmart, Target, Lowe’s
• [43:23] Caterpillar’s AI-fueled performance surge

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Conclusion

This episode captures the market’s current AI obsession—both opportunity and fragility. Nvidia’s pivotal earnings, the debate over sustainable AI demand, and analogs to past tech cycles set the tone. Meanwhile, “classic value” in retail and mining (from TJX to Snowline Gold) shows investors seeking shelter or new opportunity outside pure tech. With strategic catalyst moments just ahead—Nvidia’s print, Walmart’s retail bellwether, and signals from AI’s capital stack—the next few days were framed as critical for the late-year market turn.

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For more in-depth reporting and live coverage of the coming earnings and market events, visit cnbc.com/pro.

Transcript

[Eamonn Javers]

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[Deirdre Bosa]

You're listening to the Exchange. Here's today's show.

[John Ford]

Welcome to the Exchange. I'm John Ford in for Kelly Evans. Stocks rebounding from a four day slide but still looking like a down week led by concerns about the AI trade. Will Nvidia calm or catalyze those concerns today? That's what Wall street is waiting to see in overtime. With the stock up 1 1/2% right now, almost 2% will get you set up into the print and retail earnings rolling on with Lowe's and TJX delivering Target. Disappointing. We're to look at how that sets Wal Mart up for tomorrow and Bitcoin down once again, touching the 88,000 level earlier back to 89 now, the lowest level since April. It's down 18% in a month. But we'll begin here with Nvidia. Christina Parts Nebulous has the final setup.

[Christina Parts Nebulous]

Christina well John, Nvidia announcing right now new details about its partnership with AI startup Humane. So I'll start with that first because Humane is committing to 600,000 GPUs across Saudi Arabia and the US over the next three years. This is really just the playbook Nvidia is running as China revenue disappears. Sovereign AI deals with countries building their own infrastructure that are filling that China hole since revenue has gone down to zero according to the company. But heading into the post earnings stock pattern really is just hard to ignore. The last four reactions have been somewhat muted at best. In February, shares slumped over 8% after the print. August saw the stock drop and continue falling a few days after that. Even when it initially popped last November, it still gave back 10% over the next four sessions. This matters because Nvidia is roughly 8% of the S&P 510% of the NASDAQ 100 held in over 700 ETFs. And so options traders are pricing in at least a 6% swing through Friday, which means roughly $300 billion in market value in either direction. But as of this morning, more options traders are actually betting the share price will climb, which could be adding to that 2% stock rise. Part of the stock's issue though just over the last little while, especially since October, is that the CEO Jensen Huang already pulled forward expectations with that Fed 500 billion dollar order figure at the October GTC conference. The stock hit an all time high the next day and has been down ever since. What the CEO really needs to do tonight is first hit the buy side Q4 revenue guide, which I'm seeing between 63 and 64 billion dollars. And then secondly speak to the durability of AI spending to calm those bubble fears. The question though is whether any of this is really just new information and enough information to actually move a $4.5 trillion stocks.

[Carson Block]

John.

[John Ford]

All right, Christina, thank you. Well, I'm going to talk more about Nvidia's importance to the trade, the key signals to watch tonight. Joining me now is Low Tony, founding managing partner at Plexo Capital, the CNBC contributor. Low. All that stuff about the durability of AI demand Jensen talks about every quarter and I mean, we're not even going to talk about what happens if he misses numbers because oh my goodness, he's got to make the numbers and then some, right? So what more can happen to keep this train rolling?

[Low Tony]

Well, everyone looks to signals for boom versus bust and for this moment. It's a bellwether moment because it's more than just reporting the earnings in the print. It's more around the direction of the market to your point. And so I think what we want to hear is that they are going to be able to beat their numbers because a beat is a meet. If they meet their numbers, that actually might be perceived as a miss. And even more importantly, it's the narrative around what is happening in the market, what they're seeing. Here's a word we don't want to hear. We don't want to hear the word digest because that means there's a slowing down so that the hyperscalers can actually make sense of all their commitments. I think what we want to hear is there's an appetite for more and that it's not slowing down. So those are the things we want to watch for.

[John Ford]

Well, I bring in a man who does want to hear that word digest. Jay Goldberg, senior analyst at Seaport Global securities on only analyst with a sell rating right now on Nvidia J. It's, it's lonely in a cell right now. Why do you think you can get away with that?

[Jay Goldberg]

So my thesis for a long time has just been that Nvidia is going to underperform and I think that's played out since I launched coverage back in April. Like I think the simplest way to put it is there's a lot more that can go wrong for Nvidia that can go right. There's just so many, there's so big and there's so many headwinds and to low's point so many expectations built on top of them now that it's hard to, it's hard to surprise people to the upside on that. And so there's a lot of pressure on them. I think they might be able to pull it off this quarter or for the guide for Q4 but I think it's just going to get harder and harder as we progress through next year.

[John Ford]

Yeah, but arguably it's gotten harder and harder all this time and yet they've done it. If you believe that this AI revolution is actually going to play out, how long can you afford to bet against in video? How, how far ahead of itself do you think the stock is?

[Jay Goldberg]

So that word if is is a big one there. It's doing a lot of work. I'm a believer in AI, the potential for technology over the long term. But I think the adoption is not going to take place in a straight line. We're going to have UPS and starts and I'm a semiconductor analyst and some of these are cyclical, they always have been and they will continue to be so. And I think what we're seeing is we're getting near the top of the cycle and things need to to those words digest for a little bit and I think we're going to hit that at some point, some point next year.

[John Ford]

Okay, well that's the word that you don't want to hear Jensen say. I guess Jay can say it but right now there seems to be some skepticism about AI playing out in software stocks certainly. I mean the semis and some of the infrastructure stocks are doing fine but a lot of the software companies, there's concerns that the LLMs and maybe some others going to commoditize their business. How does that set up the overall trade to what degree does that influence Nvidia?

[Low Tony]

Well, I think one of the big things that we see is just the enormous amount of infrastructure spend. So Morgan Stanley estimates that over the next five years we probably will need to see about 3 trillion in spend. If we think about historically how software companies have been able to build that is from the cash flows of their business. That's why they're so attractive. But when we start to look at that amount, probably only about half of that is going to be financed through cash flows and the other half will need to be financed through debt. Perhaps we are seeing some of the blueprints in deals by both Metta and Oracle Meta doing a deal with Blue Owl, creating a separate entity in the form of an SPV to keep that about, call it $30 billion off their balance sheet. And I think that may indicate what we'll start to see. So that gives a little bit of pause to think about this new world that we're entering. But let's look at the other side of that as well. You know, these are companies that have good credit rating on their businesses and they probably wouldn't want to risk making those types of bets if they weren't really confident about it. But we're entering a new age and you mentioned the lms, tough to really monetize those. We need to look up the stack a little bit at the application layer. And I think as models get more efficient, which is one of the reasons why we invested in Anthropic, which is a Plexo capital portfolio company, is because of Dario's focus on making the models more efficient. That efficiency ultimately will drive to the next era. Model training, high spikes in GPU usage, inference, the ability to think about the agentic side. So the autonomous decision makers, virtual assistants, those are the things that are much more durable and, and having more efficiency on the models and even for driving inference that creates enterprise usage which will be much more durable for revenues.

[John Ford]

I'm glad you mentioned efficiency low. Jay, stay with me here. Shares of Google parent company Alphabet reaching some all time highs today on the heels of its latest AI model release. And Deirdre Bosa has more in today's tech check.

[Deirdre Bosa]

D hey John, speaking of efficiency, three letters here, tpu. That's Google's custom chips, tensor processing units and they are symbolic of the Google Bull case itself. Gemini 3.0 which has in just a day climbed all the third party AI rankings, was trained entirely on GPUs and not Nvidia's GPUs. And that's a first at this level. For years, GPUs have been seen as a powerful but niche tool that only Google could really use. This model though, shows that they're now capable of training and serving a true frontier system at global scale. And it's also evidence that the company is finally aligning its technical depth with real execution. A shift that has coincided with co founder Sergey Brin reengaging in the day to day and the return of Noam Shazir, two people who helped define Google's early edge. Now another model builder, Anthropic, already expanding its use of tpu, is committing to as much as a million of them over the next few years, worth tens of billions of dollars. Apple OpenAI Metta also using or testing TPU infrastructure and in some capacity. Now of course this doesn't mean that GPU demand suddenly slows or Nvidia gets displaced, but it does suggest that Nvidia could get a little less dominant in the longer run and that Google is positioned very well for this next leg of the race with a fully integrated stack model chips ecosystem that its competitors don't have. And I think that's what the market's reflecting at this point.

[John Ford]

All right, Dee, thank you Jay. I guess this helps your case because it's not like Google's the only one. Amazon's got this project Rainier Inferential working with Anthropic as well trying to do something similar. At what point will we know if that's at all eroding the margin that Nvidia can get or the demand for their high end premium chips?

[Jay Goldberg]

I think in the very near term this quarter and next the story will be about the ramp of Blackwell. That's Nvidia's latest systems. Those are doing well. They got some more allocation from tsmc. I think the very near term looks pretty solid for that. But absolutely next year I think all of the hyperscalers also you also call them Nvidia's biggest customers. They'll all be deeply trialing and using their own internal silicon. So anytime Nvidia loses share today, it's to one of their own customers, one of the hyperscalers who are designing their own chips. They're getting a lot of help from Broadcom doing that in the process and I think we're going to see a lot of that in play next year. We have TPU's looking very strong. We also have Amazon's Trainium also looks promising next year and we have probably will have chips from Metta and possibly Microsoft as well, all trying to chip away at that Nvidia hegemony.

[John Ford]

All right, chip away, no pun included, intended low. At the same time though, these hyperscalers can only deliver what their customers want. It's not like they're deciding if the customers want Nvidia, they're going to have to buy in video.

[Low Tony]

Right.

[John Ford]

Despite what they claim that they can deliver efficiency wise with their custom chips. And Nvidia has been investing in an ecosystem getting those very customers to commit to building on top of Nvidia platform. So how much does that insulate Nvidia?

[Low Tony]

Well, what's really interesting is if we were to take a look at the playbooks that are used by the hyperscalers and even Apple. I mean we think about Apple, we always like to talk about the vertical integration. Part of the reason that Apple does that is because when they are going to produce their own chips, no one is more knowledgeable about the use cases for the products that they offer than Apple. And so they can design their chips to optimize against that. That's exactly what Google has done. Google understands their business really well. Now to your point, you think about the breadth of services that are going to be offered both by the hyperscalers themselves for their own products as well as the services that they will offer their enterprises. What this really points to is going to be a mixture. So we're going to see a mixture in environments that will have both Nvidia chips and they'll have custom silicon from the hyperscalers as well. So the hyperscalers will have the custom silicon to optimize the performance of those chips based on their needs of their products and services. And then in some instances that may translate over to opportunities for products and services for their customers and in others it might not. And so I think we're going to see a world where the two can actually coexist.

[John Ford]

All right, we're about to learn a lot more in overtime today. Lo J. Thank you. Now for more on Nvidia's so called whisper numbers ahead of tonight's report. You can scan that QR code that's on your screen right now or you can let your fingers do the walk in and type in cnbc.com propick a reminder here. You can get the most out of CNBC by checking out CNBC Pro. You'll get exclusive analysis, real time data, deep dive reporting. You can head over to cnbc.com/pro now for a special limited time opportunity there. Now we've got some breaking news out of the White House. Eamon Jabbers has the story. Amen.

[Eamonn Javers]

Hey, John. That's right. President Trump just wrapping up some remarks over at the Kennedy center, speaking to the Saudi Investment forum that's taking place over there today. And the president really ramping up his criticism of Jay Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman, and also offering some more unusual criticism of Scott Besant, the Treasury secretary, sounding a very frustrated note about interest rates. Here's what he said. Mortgage rates are down despite the Fed. I mean, Scott, you got to work in this guy. He's got some real mental problems. No, he's. Something wrong with him. It's just sweet. I'll be honest. I'd love to fire his a. You got to work on him, Scott. The only thing Scott's blowing it on is the Fed because the Fed, the rates are too high, Scott, and if you don't get it fixed fast, I'm going to fire your ass. So some real frustration there from the president of the United States saying of Powell that he wants to fire his ass and saying of Besant, if you don't fix this problem, if you don't deal with Jay Powell, I'm going to fire your ass, too. You know, hard to tell if the president was joking there. Sometimes he does these jokes which have a little edge to them, and it voices the frustration under the surface there. But it does paint a picture of a president who feels very much that he would like to remove the Federal Reserve chair and is frustrated by people who are standing in his way inside his administration. He said that Besant is a person who has been, quote, unquote, begging him not to fire Jay Powell, saying, please don't fire him. Please don't fire him. He only has a couple of months left. So the president, you know, famously does not like people who see themselves as gatekeepers around him or trying to channel him in a certain direction when he doesn't want to be. And those officials in the first term certainly did not fare very well. Besant playing that role, it would seem, in this administration. And maybe this is nothing more than some venting of some passing frustration, or maybe it hints at a little bit more of a significant rift between the president and his Treasury Secretary, who he typically goes out of his way to praise extensively at public gatherings.

[John Ford]

John Beck Eamonn, the Treasury Secretary himself, known to have a little edge. This is the first time I can recall the president speaking about Bessant this way. Do you recall another time?

[Eamonn Javers]

I cannot think of another time. That's right. And you're smart to point out that Besson does have an edge to him as well. I mean, he is a very polished secretary of the treasury and a very smooth communicator and effective communicator talking to global markets. But there have been a number of incidents behind the scenes in sort of the bureaucratic knife fighting of Washington where he has gone toe to toe with other officials in instances where those officials appear to sort of impede his access to or influence over the President of the United States. So interesting here to see the president himself suggesting that he's frustrated with Bessens continuing efforts to keep him from firing Jay Powell.

[John Ford]

Eamon Jabbers, thank you. Coming up, we are live also at Goldman Sachs private innovative company conference where our Leslie Picker is sitting down with the firm's co head of investment banking. We're going to get her outlook on the state of the business, the future of AI and the dealmaking environment. But first, activist investor Carson Block will join me with the new idea he just presented at the SON Conference in London. The short seller making a rare long call on Canadian miner Snowline Gold Corp. Shares popping on that news. He's going to join us next to make his case in a first on CNBC interview when the Exchange comes right back after this.

[Eamonn Javers]

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[John Ford]

Welcome back to the Exchange. Muddy waters. Carson Block, best known for shorting stocks, betting against them, but A few minutes ago on stage at Son's London conference. His latest pick wasn't that it was a long and you are looking at it up 13 and a half percent it is Canadian gold discovery company Snowline Goldcorp shares.

[Low Tony]

Yeah.

[John Ford]

Holding on to those gains right now. For more, let's bring in Carson Block, founder of Muddy Waters Capital. Carson gold mines notoriously iffy as bets. Why is this one different?

[Carson Block]

So you're 100% correct. I mean the mining space is filled with a lot of bad actors and a lot of incompetence. But Snowline is what we think is a true tier one discovery that is going to unlock a whole gold district there. We don't find any reason to question the resource estimates. So that's typically where you fall down on mining is they've messed around with the resource estimates. We do not see that the case here.

[John Ford]

Resource estimates being the guess of how much gold is in the ground.

[Carson Block]

Yeah, I mean those are basically formed by drilling holes, pulling it out and then extrapolating from when you see little mineral deposits in your core samples, extrapolating how much gold is there. But this deposit that they have in the Yukon in Canada, it's, it's so consistent through it that we think that this is a real game changer for the Yukon as a mining district. So yeah, it's, you know, its current market cap is about little north of 2 billion Cadillac, we think a major has to buy this. We don't think this company is independent, you know, in three years from now, quite possibly bought out before then. And in our best, you know, we think it goes for no less than 4,4 billion CAD and could, if it sits out there for two or three years, maybe fetch up to 10 billion CAD. We don't see a lot of downside on this one either.

[John Ford]

How much of that is depending on the price of gold holding.

[Carson Block]

So this, I mean this project works at $1800 gold. And even if gold were at 2300 an ounce, we think that the NPV on this project would still be the value of this project would still be a little bit north of 3 billion. So even if gold cracks significantly, this thing needs to be acquired by a major. Because you know, what's really important to understand about mining, whether it's gold mining or other metals, is the majors don't spend money on greenfield exploration anymore. Since the financial crisis, they had to repair their balance sheets and then their investors got hooked on dividends. So when you see majors spending money on exploration, it's basically on. They're looking for deposits that are adjacent to their already producing mines. So what, you know, what's a really interesting dynamic to understand here is in. In the 1990s, there were gold discoveries of about 1.7 billion ounces. So far this decade, the 2020, we're on track for discoveries of only 60 million ounces. And you know, people, the economy, the world needs gold. So yeah, the majors need to acquire companies like Snowline. And this is really the only deposit that's out there. We think move the needle for a mid or major miner at this point.

[John Ford]

This reminds me the dynamic here also of biotechs, right, where you get these smaller innovative companies and it looks like they've got a hot drug and then a bigger company sort of has to acquire them. Does snow lion have the resources to take advantage of this deposit, you think, on its own, if it doesn't get bought? I know you're saying that the longer it goes without getting acquired, the higher you think the value goes. But at a certain point, if for some reason a bigger one doesn't buy them, can they prove that the deposit is what it's cracked up to be?

[Carson Block]

I don't think there's really a question about the, about the resource estimates or the metallurgy. And the overwhelming odds are that there's a lot more gold than is outlined in their valley deposit, which is part of their rogue project. You have to understand that the land package they have in the Yukon is roughly equivalent to the size of Luxembourg. And you know, the Yukon is well known for gold rush. There have been 20 million ounces of gold mined total from Yukon throughout its history, much of which was in the 1800s gold rush. None of that came from a hard rock deposit. That was all. It was all from what's called placer mining, which is from streams. Well, everything that ends up in a stream, it was eroded from hard rock. So this is the first, first major hard rock discovery in the Yukon. So with that size land package, it just really, you know, as a, as a major. Because you also need to remember that majors are devouring themselves. There's no term value to these companies because they're pulling what they have out of the ground and selling it. So want to have terminal value or extend their lives, they need to acquire something like a snow line.

[John Ford]

Well, as you and I have been talking about it, this has gone from up 13 and change percent to up 21. So somebody's buying it. But these calls can be difficult. Case in point. Applovin, I believe you said you were short at March 2025, it's gone a lot higher from there. What's your take on what's driving these markets and what hasn't gone your way with Applovin?

[Carson Block]

Well, I mean, look, in this market right now, it's definitely a lot better to be long things than to be short them. You know, with Applovin, our thesis, we fully stand by it, that they're cheating and they're doing things that are going to lead to them having to significantly dial back their growth because they're violating terms of service and numerous laws. And since we went public with this, not only has the SEC begun investigation, but several states attorneys generals are also investigating the company. So we're in an environment right now when it comes to anything that calls itself AI or AI adjacent where they can do no wrong and nobody cares. And look, certainly getting added to the S&P 500 index and all of the flows that that brings has helped Applovin. But we stand by our thesis and you know, at the moment it's, you know, it's, it's euphoria out there in, you know, quasi and you know, pretend AI land. So. Okay, what I think's happened there, your.

[John Ford]

ELF Beauty short has done better. What's your latest take?

[Carson Block]

I mean, ELF we, you know, we, we have serious problems with their financials. We think that, you know, following our, at the same conference last year where we unveiled our ELF short and you know, we questioned their, their financial reporting and so their forward guidance was disappointing and the stock sold off significantly on that. From our perspective, that was them unwinding the excesses that we had identified. Then they acquired Hailey Bieber's company and the stock ripped on that. But you know, the, but I think that they've dialed back the aggression significantly with their, with their accounting and their reporting. So you know, they had another bad quarter and you know, we think that's them unwinding what we had identified.

[John Ford]

Okay, Carson Block, let's take another look at Snow Line as we, as we close it out here was up 21 when we were talking about it a minute or so ago. Can we put that back up on the screen? How's it doing? Still holding on up more than 20%. Carson Block, thank you from Muddy Waters. Well, coming up, Lowe's turning positive for the week despite cutting its full year profit forecast. We're going to run through the numbers, tell you how it's different from Home Depot's results and what all that signals about the strength of the consumer that's ahead.

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[Kim Posner]

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[Kim Posner]

Welcome back to the Exchange. I'm Bertha Coombs with your CNBC news update. A federal judge gave the justice department until final 5pm Eastern today to respond to a bombshell revelation in the James Comey hearing this morning. The interim U.S. attorney Lindsay Halligan had not presented the final charges he now faces to the full grand jury. Prosecutors divulged that information under questioning from the judge. Comey's lawyers argued the admission is grounds for dismissal. James Comey is charged with lying to Congress, which he denies. A Russian attack in Ukraine killed at least 25 people as president Volodymyr Zelensky went to Turkey to try to revive peace negotiations with Moscow. The nighttime attack hit two apartment blocks. Officials say two dozen people remain unaccounted for. Harvard announcing today it is launching a probe of individuals at the university. Mentioned in the Jeffrey Epstein files comes after the documents showed former school president and current professor Larry Summers had a close relationship with the deceased sex offender. Summers, who stepped down from the board of OpenAI today, says he wants to continue teaching at Harvard.

[John Ford]

John Bertha, thank you. Coming up, we will head live to Goldman Sachs conference to hear from the firm's co head of investment banking, her outlook on the state of the market, dealmaking and more. The exchange is back in June. Welcome back to the Exchange. Goldman Sachs shares are up nearly 40% this year that's thanks largely to a rebound in investment banking. But how sustainable is that momentum and what are clients saying about the deal environment heading into 2026? Let's head out to Goldman's private innovative company conference in Las Vegas where our Leslie Picker has the firm's global co head of investment banking, Kim Posner. Leslie.

[Deirdre Bosa]

Thank you so much John. And thank you Kim for doing this today. Obviously AI is front and center in everybody's mind and you're really at the center of this ecosystem from a venture and IPO standpoint, from an M and a standpoint, from a debt financing standpoint. Based on that 360 view, do you get the sense that AI is in a bubble right now?

[Kim Posner]

So great to see you Leslie. Thanks for having me. So the AI bubble question, that's the multi trillion dollar question question. I think that I will be absolutely transformative and value creating across industries over time is already doing things that were previously unimaginable and there's so many parallels to the Internet sector and how that fundamentally changed our lives and I think has similar transformative potential, but it's much greater scale, it's much faster and there's much, and there's, and there's much, much broader applicability across consumer and enterprise. So having said that, there's a report that our equity research team just did where they looked at periods of major tech innovation over 175 year period. So they looked at 1825-19 to 2000 and they found that there were 51 periods of major tech innovation over that 175 year period period. They found that 75% of the time that led to equity price bubbles. They also looked at the, at the current environment and despite many similarities, they found that we weren't in an AI bubble yet. Now I think it's still too early to tell. And so what does that all mean? I will be absolutely transformative and value creating over time. I do think that the path will be up and to the right over time. I just don't think it'll be a straight line, it'll be ups, it'll be downs. You'll have winners, you'll have losers. When you're allocating this amount of capital this quickly, you're bound to have winners and losers and we don't yet know who's going to allocate capital well, who's going to allocate it poorly and time will tell. We also don't yet know how value will accrue across the ecosystem. So time Will tell and it'll be really interesting to see.

[Deirdre Bosa]

Speaking of that allocation of capital, some eye popping figures just in the last few months in terms of the amount of debt issuance that some of the hyperscalers are, you know, embarking on in order to fund this long term trend. As you talk to participants in the market, whether it be clients, whether it be investors, is there a sense that maybe things are getting a little over their skis in terms of just the amount of debt we're seeing right now?

[Kim Posner]

Yes. So the majority of the capital raising that you're referring to is being driven by the hyperscalers and debt investors have been very excited about the opportunity to get more exposure to those hyperscalers. You have to remember the hyperscalers are huge diversified businesses with enormous amounts of EBITDA and cash flow and balance sheet capacity. They're at the very high quality end of the investment grade market. So even pro forma for these large capital raises, they still have very healthy credit metrics and they still have more debt capacity. And so having said that, I do think that that heavy supply is impacting credit spreads. So credit spreads have widened slightly, but I think that's just debt investors recalibrating to a larger aggregate debt debt quantum across the hyperscalers. And I go back to what I said earlier. These are just enormous, enormous businesses with healthy cash flow and very healthy credit metrics.

[Deirdre Bosa]

Yeah, no, that's. They've widened, but not necessarily screaming an alarm at this point in time. Do you think the circularity of some of these deals merits caution? Model companies, infrastructure providers, hyperscalers signing deals with each other? I know you're in the boardrooms for some of these. Does it kind of ring any 1999, 2000 bells to you?

[Kim Posner]

Yeah, I think that there. Some would argue that these are very strategic partnerships and strategic investments in an AI ecosystem that is merited because of the size of the opportunity. Others would argue that the interconnectedness creates elevated risk, especially in the event of a correction. And I think probably both are true. Now, as you were saying, you were talking about the boardroom. I, I do think that it's been a very interesting and dynamic environment for our clients, including in the boardroom. You've got this evolving macro backdrop. You've got accelerating conversation around AI and digital transformation related to investment and M and A, but also operationalizing AI. And in the back half of the year you've seen this improving macro backdrop. So you've got a pro growth US administration, you've got a constructive regulatory environment. You've got a continuing Fed easing cycle. We'll see what December brings as it relates to rate cuts. You've got equity markets near all time highs. You've got robust public market valuations and you've got AI as a growth catalyst across all these sectors. So all of that combined is driving CEO confidence and that's what's leading to this uptick in M and A and IPO activity.

[Deirdre Bosa]

Yeah. And Goldman, a key beneficiary of that, poised to notch its best year in a quarter of a century. And Kim, of course, you're leading that charge as co head of global investment banking. We appreciate your time today. Thank you so much. Kim Posnett, thank you, Leslie. I'll send it back to you.

[John Ford]

And thank you to you as well, Leslie Picker. Still ahead, this name is a top Dow performer over the last three months as it repositions its business to AI. We're going to reveal it coming up when the Exchange comes right back. Welcome back to the exchange. The 2025 LPGA Tour season concludes this week with the CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Florida. That's where we find our own Dominic Chu along with CME Chairman and CEO Terry Duffy. Dom.

[Dominic Chu]

All right, thank you very much, John. So first of all, Terry, you had to have been screaming pretty loud at the charity concert last night. Benedict St. Jude Children's Hospital, Keith Irvin, Blake Shelton, just take us through what exactly it means for CME Group to be putting on this event benefiting St. Jude.

[Eamonn Javers]

Well, it means the world, Dom. It means the world to all of us at CME Group. And I'd like to tell you I was up there with Blake and Keith belting out some of their number one hits. But I also had the Leo High School choir here, my alma mater from the south side of Chicago finished fourth in America's Got Talent. And I was singing the Leo fight song. So I think that's what did it to me. So but it was amazing event.

[Dominic Chu]

This is great too. It's also because this is the season ending tour championship, women's tour professionally here in America. You've been a top title sponsor for more years than I can count.

[Eamonn Javers]

15 Now, John, why exactly do you do it?

[Dominic Chu]

What's the motivation for CME Group to do this event?

[Eamonn Javers]

First of all, I think my clients really think the world of it. It's a great branding event for us here at CME Group. And I'm a big believer in equality in women's sport and in business. So I think this is the way to Set a really good example on behalf of other companies to support women in sport, women in business. And I will say one of the great benefits of that, Dom, is the charity. As you know, I'm very passionate as is my company about St. Jude children's research Hospital. And they have parents just take care of their children and not worry about the cost of doing so. That's very important to me and my company and that's why we like to do this for St. Jude.

[Dominic Chu]

Speaking of your company, you made a lot of news and waves deal that you guys. CME Group, a massive exchange operator.

[Low Tony]

Yes sir.

[Dominic Chu]

Has signed with an online betting platform. Take us through the motivation and why you think this is strategically the right play.

[Eamonn Javers]

Well, Dom, I think when I originally approached Peter Jackson back in January, I looked at him and I said, you know, I think we could have a win win here. And there's not too many things in business where it could be a win win where we don't have to invest a lot. He doesn't have to invest a lot. He can diversify his business from online gifts gambling into prediction markets of CME's markets. And CME can have that 13 million eyeballs of FanDuel and have them have access to my market. So the cost was basically zero for both of us, which doesn't happen too often. And at the same time it looks like we can build something together. So the markets are colliding. You know, people are wanting to be in control of their own destiny and they need markets to fit their size and scope of what they can have handle. And we think somebody smaller prediction markets on my core business is good. And if in fact fanduel, which they've announced the other day, they want to have sports on there, we're going to facilitate for that for fanduel through our partnership.

[Dominic Chu]

How do you figure the regulatory business landscape will shape up for as much transparency and visibility as you have? Where do you think this evolves in broker dealers, exchange operators, prediction markets and betting platforms?

[Eamonn Javers]

I think this is ultimately, maybe I shouldn't say this. I think this is ultimately going to the Supreme Court to make a decision on what is these products and it's not just the outcome of a sporting event, but we're getting to the point of, you know, mention predictions. So if you were to saw Brian Armstrong from Coinbase, you know, he was supposedly going to say a word or two and pay the overs. You know, I mean, it's kind of crazy. On a mentioned prediction, will President Trump say the word jobs four or five times in a speech. That's not a market. Dom, you and I've been around a long time. That's not what it's supposed to be. So I think there's a lot to be ironed out here. I think the guardrails need to be set up properly so people understand them. These can be very good instruments for people to get into the marketplace and participate. They could also be something that we need to keep a very close watch on.

[Dominic Chu]

Terry, we're going to let you save your voice. You got a lot of hosting duties. Cme, LP check, group torch.

[Eamonn Javers]

No. Dom, I appreciate you being here in all cnbc. Thank you very much.

[John Ford]

Thank you, John.

[Dominic Chu]

I'm going to send things back over to you from sunny Naples.

[John Ford]

All right, Don, thank you as well. Coming up, here's another look at our mystery chart. Shares have climbed more than 50% so far this year and it is not a tech stock. The name and what's driving the action next? And Abbott Labs is reportedly nearing a deal to buy cancer tech stuff maker Exact Sciences. Abbott labs down about 3% while Exact Science shares popped nearly 14. The exchange will be right back. Welcome back to the Exchange. TJX reporting strong third quarter results including 5% sales growth, hiking full year guidance. And while management said the holiday season is off to a strong start start, the fourth quarter outlook came in a bit light. Shares were up as much as 3% premarket but have since pared those gains now up just fractionally. And TJX is not the only retailer reporting today. Joining me here on set to discuss is retail and consumer reporter Melissa Rapko.

[Deirdre Bosa]

Melissa, thanks for having me on. It's been interesting to see some of the patterns and one of the themes that's really emerged is consumer caution. And TJX is really standing apart. But part of the same theme which is seeking value and looking for deals. And interestingly, TJX's opportunity is really as consumers make trade offs, they're going to its stores to try to find those better deals. And as a lot of other retailers become conservative with their inventory, that also means that TJX can get stronger merchandise and keep stores fresh.

[John Ford]

TJX seems to have been good in past cycles at taking advantage of the sort of inferior good issue where if there's a luxury item that people want to be able to afford, they'll go there for it. As you look across the balance of their businesses, including home goods, what's performing stronger, what's performing weaker? What does that tell us about the consumer environment?

[Deirdre Bosa]

So far we've heard apparel is doing well and home goods are doing well. And that's notable because Target, which sells some of the same stuff, is not seeing the same results. It put up a really rough quarter and is pretty nervous going into the holiday season. While it's saying it's making a lot of moves to turn around the performance, it really is trying to compete on price. And so one of the things that their, their chief commercial officer Rick Gomez said is people are making trade offs. And so they saw that even during Halloween that people were buying more candy but pulling back on decor and they expect that dynamic of trade offs to carry into the season. The other interesting thing we're hearing from Home Depot and Lowe's is that they are also seeing consumer caution. And it's notable because they cater to homeowners, primarily people who are in better, more financially stable position. I spoke to Low CEO this morning, Marvin Ellison, and he said, you know, even homeowners are not immune to reading headlines about layoffs, about the government shutdown, about higher tariffs maybe becoming higher prices. And so they're paying attention and that may be leading to hesitance about bigger ticket items and bigger projects.

[John Ford]

I don't know if there's any read through here to Walmart because of course Walmart's got that grocery business and people got to eat. And if they want to do it affordably, in a lot of cases they've been going slowing, especially at salaries, you know, household income above 100,000 to Walmart. So how, how should we expect that to play out?

[Deirdre Bosa]

You know, I think Wal Mart will maybe be our clearest picture of the consumer because it caters to both high and low. It's very exposed to people who saw those snap benefits paused and that was a big volatile dynamic during the quarter. The other thing is they've been gaining a lot among households that make $100,000 or more. And so we may be seeing, seeing more of that dynamic in this past quarter. So it will be really interesting because they have that clear picture from needs to wants. And they've been interestingly leaning in a lot to discretionary categories with their marketplace. So they may have that kind of complete picture. Whereas with Target, some of it's due to their own company specific struggles for sure.

[John Ford]

Melissa Repco, thank you. Well, still ahead, the industrial that's become an AI derivative play. That's next. Welcome back to the Exchange. Well, the cats out of the bag Caterpillar was our mystery chart is the best Dow performer over the past three months thanks to its AI Pivot. Sima Modi joins me now with that story. Sima.

[Sima Modi]

John, Caterpillar really in the right place at the right time. Its power generators and turbines are selling incredibly fast. And yes, it's the hyperscalers that are lining up for them. What they are trying to do, essentially, John, is solve the power constraint issue at the data centers that they're building and developing sales of turbines and generators, the two products, they're jumping over 31% in the past year, as disclosed in Caterpillar's latest earnings report. Its energy and transportation business, which lagged for many years, now makes up 40% of total sales. And analysts at Melius Research believe CAT's capacity on large engines and turbines will more than double to 50 gigawatts annually, a number that they say is still surprising investors. And a lot of this transformation is happening under its new CEO, Joe Creed, who took over in May of this year. Analysts, though, are keeping a close eye on the competitive landscape from the likes of Cummins and Vernova. Now, as we count down to the Nvidia report, John, here's a snapshot of the industrial names like Eaton Vertiv that provide the electric and cooling equipment that have sold off on these broader funding concerns. But you will see that Caterpillar has actually weathered the storm better than its industrial peers over the past month.

[John Ford]

It just really seems seeming like this is a classic case where you want to watch out for inventory, build maybe hidden in the system and maybe demand lumpiness since, I mean, this AI buildout is such a new phenomenon.

[Christina Parts Nebulous]

Sure.

[Sima Modi]

And also from tonight, what we hear from Nvidia, how much is this company trying to expand its footprint across the ecosystem? At some point do we see the semiconductor player venture into building generators and its own power capacity to stand up data centers? I think that could be a competitive threat for some of these players that have that existing business. But of course, more players in it makes it much more crowded.

[John Ford]

And the question of how many of these data centers are being built on spec right now without the demand exactly being clear, or whether the energy capacity is going to be there to feed them.

[Sima Modi]

Sure, there's always the pipeline, right, which investors use to get a sense of how much demand there will be, not just for the coming years, but the next five to 10 years. That brings me back to the conversation I had with the CEO GE Vernova, a couple of weeks ago. They have an order book that is basically sold out for the next five, six, more than that actually years. Which comes back to the question you were asking as well, tell us what demand looks like, but how much of the sales are coming in now versus deferred.

[John Ford]

Seema Modi, thank you. We're going to see you again in just a few hours for overtime at 4pm Eastern for what else? Well, in video earnings, we're going to have the walk up instant reaction get you ready for the conference call. Let's get a little check on the markets here. The major averages are all in the green, but fractionally. You can throw the Russell in there as well. It's also up right now. The vix, the volatility index, very slightly lower. But everything has been in a bit of a holding pattern, as you might expect, as we anticipate in video, because AI and infrastructure has been driving so much capital investment in this economy in general and certainly just across the markets as well. Thanks for watching the Exchange.

[Dominic Chu]

You've been listening to the Exchange.

[Deirdre Bosa]

Make sure you're subscribed to get each episode every day, same time, same place.

[Dominic Chu]

Clorox Toilet Wand it's all in one. Clorox Toilet Wand. It's all in one. Hey, what does all in one mean? The Caddy, the wand, the preloaded pad. There's a cleaner in there inside the pad. So Clorox Toilet Wand is all I.

[Kim Posner]

Need to clean a toilet.

[Dominic Chu]

You don't need a bottle of solution to get into this toilet revolution. Clorox Clean feels good. Use as directed.