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Record watch on Wall Street as stocks recover to levels that have not been seen since February. Futures are fighting to keep the rally alive today. Plus, President Trump meets with NATO leaders in the Netherlands to focus on European defense. We're live on the ground in just moments. It's Wednesday, June the 25th, 2025, and this is Worldwide Exchange on CNBC and streaming on CNBC+.
Good morning. Thanks so much for being here with us. I am Frank Collins. Get you ready for the trade day ahead. We begin with the U.S. markets and the S&P within 1% of a new all-time high and the Nasdaq 100 hitting a closing high. Take a look right now. You can see the stats right here. The Dow is still about 4% from its all-time high. Down here, the Russell pulling back.
about 12 and almost a half a percent from its 52-week high, not an all-time high when we're talking about the Russell. Right now, we're going to look at the S&P 500 pre-market gainers. Take a look at those. You can see, actually, I'm sorry, this is futures right now. First, we're going to start with futures. Bit of a muted open right now. The Dow looks like it would open about 50 points higher. The S&P and the Nasdaq both fractionally higher right now, but you can see solidly in the green across the board. Now to the S&P 500 pre-market gainers. Take a look at some of those names.
Lennox International right here at the top of the list, up 3.5%, followed by Textron. Seagate, Steel Dynamics down here, Fiserv. Then the other side of the coin, the S&P 500, Laggard's. Take a look at those stocks. You see FedEx right here at the top of the list. We're going to talk a lot more about FedEx coming up in the show, pulling back about 5.5%. Despite beating on the top and the bottom line, it's weak current quarter guidance that's pulling back.
The logistics giant WC Energy, CarMax, Interrepublic Group and Brown and Brown running out your worst performers on the S&P and the pre-market. We'll look at the chips trade. Chips moved just about three and a half percent higher yesterday. You can see it's been a big week so far for chips up about four and a half percent right now. The SMH up fractionally right now in the pre-market. Let's look at some of the components of the SMH and how they're doing as well in the pre-market. You can see NVIDIA with the biggest component in the in the ETF pulling back very fractionally right now. AMD shares up.
Just over a half a percent down here. You see Micron also up over half a percent. It has earnings after the bell later today. We're going to talk a lot more about that just a bit later in the show. Also, a check on oil. We've seen some wild moves when it comes to oil this week. Taking a look. So for the week, look at this chart right here.
Oil making some big declines for the week, down more than 13%. But right now, a bit of a rebound, up about 1.5% right now. And we'll look at cryptocurrency as well. It's been kind of a wild time for cryptocurrency. Right now, you see Bitcoin right now trading above $106,000. The coin about $106,650 right now, up about 1%. You see Ether up about a third of a percent down here. XRP actually pulling back about three quarters of 1%.
And a quick look at the bond market as well. We've seen bond yields move to the downside in recent days. The benchmark right now at 4.29, significantly lower than we've seen it in recent weeks. Up here, you see the two-year at 3.79, the long bond at 4.83. Okay, that is your setup now for a check on the European markets. Our Karen Cho is live in London with much more. Karen, good morning. It's good to see you.
Frank, good morning to you as well. Big developments in Europe this morning with all eyes on the Hague and the negotiations around bolstering spending to 5% of GDP on defence obligations. Don't forget the diversification away from some US assets has been into defence names in Europe around those commitments. So what is negotiated today at
the NATO summit is absolutely pivotal for European markets. As a result, you're seeing a fairly quiet session play out this morning. We are moving into positive territory on the back of gains yesterday, but slim ranges where you are seeing the biggest gains unlocked again in those defence names, Hensholt, Renck, Leonardo, Rymotel. These are the names that investors are
closely eyeing in the trading session today. In terms of at a sector level, auto is stronger, 1.25%, technology, financial services, construction materials. Where you are seeing some weakness crop up today in the defensive part of the market, namely drinks businesses. A couple of big drink stocks under pressure at this hour. And you can see in terms of a sector level, media stocks giving back territory about 1% down, telecoms, freedom beverage,
down three quarters of a percent utilities so again risk gone is benefiting some areas of the market but all eyes very much on the commitments that are being made at that nato summit bolstering defense spending to five percent of gdp very strong movers for those defense stocks here in europe today back to you frank all right our karen show live in london karen thank you very much turn our attention now back to the middle east and the energy markets oil
It appears to have found a bottom right around 64 bucks a barrel. Oil seeing a really wild three session slide over the last few days. You can see again it's higher this morning. WTI accrued up about one and a third percent. Similar story for Brent Crew which is the international benchmark. Our Dan Murphy now joins us from Dubai with much more on oil. So Dan does this look like this is the bottom?
Frank, it may well be. Let's call it a fragile recovery, at least for now. Oil certainly bouncing back ever so slightly after a nearly 15% collapse over the last two sessions, the sharpest two-day decline we've seen since 2022. So what we're seeing right now is traders continuing to fade the conflict premium in crude and
The current market pricing suggests that this episode between Iran and Israel is done, at least for now. President Trump's ceasefire appears to be holding. We've seen no reports of missiles flying today or flare-ups on the ground. Many commercial flights have also resumed around the region now that airspace has been reopened. And most critically for the oil traders out there,
The Strait of Hormuz, this is the world's most critical oil choke point, remains open as well. Around 20% of global supply moves through there. So traders see that as a signal that physical barrels are less likely to be disrupted. Now, of course, anything could happen at this stage. This is still the Middle East.
But right now, the focus is returning to the fundamentals of the oil market. And some analysts I've been speaking to say oil is heading lower from here, perhaps into the low 60s, perhaps even into the 50s at some point this year, based on several things, of course, chief among them higher OPEC and non-OPEC supply, but also tepid demand owing to factors like
tariffs, for example, rates, and of course, the USD. So all eyes are on the oil market right now to assess exactly what happens next. But it seems as if this is a fragile recovery. Frank, back to you. All right, Dan Murphy live in Dubai. Dan, great to see you as always. Moving back to the U.S. markets, easing oil prices and Middle East tensions.
They're providing fresh fuel for the bulls here in the U.S. And by the way, I want to take a quick pause. We're seeing the president right now in the Netherlands right now taking some pictures. He just spoke just a short time ago about that strike on Iran. Getting back to the markets, though, the S&P 500 within striking distance of a new record high, now less than 1 percent away with that. Let's bring in Craig Johnson, chief market technician at Piper Sandler. Craig, good morning. Good to see you.
Morning, Frank. Thanks for having me back on. So, Craig, right now we were just talking about this S&P very close to a new all time high, the Nasdaq 100 hitting a new closing high. And in this environment, you're actually raising your recommendation for equity exposure, just just a very slight amount from 97 percent to 98 percent. But generally, when stocks are at record highs, valuations are elevated. People are looking to possibly move away from stocks. Why are you getting more bullish?
You know, Frank, when you when we think about all the negativity that we've seen so far in the first half of this year, it's been incredible between tariffs, between geopolitical, between budget issues, all these things. The market has shrugged it all off. The market is telling us a pretty solid message that it wants to continue to keep going higher in here. And the only way to sort of reverse that negative sentiment is going to be through new highs. And that's exactly what we think is going to play out.
And that's why we've continued to increase our recommended equity exposure. And that's why we continue to reiterate our year end objective of sixty six hundred on the S&P 500. All right, Craig, I'm not going to make it easy for you. The tech sector hit a new all time high yesterday. So outside of tech, what other sector do you see moving us to these new all time highs?
Well, we have to have financials working. That's going to be a key part of this. Financials continue to keep working. You look at stocks like Charles Schwab. You look at stocks like Robinhood on the brokerage side of the world. You look at Goldman. You look at the big major money center banks. They continue to keep working.
Beyond that, also take a look at the industrial companies. Even some of the pre-market movers, Frank, you were talking about here this morning, fit into that industrial sector with Lenox and some of those others. And then also service companies. Lots of names on the payroll processing side of things. You got PayPal that's been a constructive-looking chart. Frank, there is no shortage of constructive-looking charts, and I think that's an important message we need to pay attention to.
All right. You also seem to like small caps right now. You say there's a technical reason. We're going to show the chart, the 100-day moving average and the 200-day. I'm looking at it. The stock is above its 100-day moving average, but it seems to kind of hit resistance right at that 200-day moving average. At least it did a few weeks ago. What's the technicals that you're seeing here that's making you bullish on the small caps?
Frank, when we go look at the chart of the Russell 2000 and you look at it on a weekly basis and go back over the past, say, 24 to 36 months, it has made what I would define as a pretty impressive inverted head and shoulders bottom. And the time frame, when you look at how long it took to set that up to the time frame of where it will ultimately play out, we see about 16 percent upside. And Frank, I'm not mincing words here, but
But the Russell 2000 is very likely to make a new high and probably will do so before mid-October. All right. I want to put that in context. You see it hitting moving 16 percent higher, but the S&P you only see moving 8 percent higher. So you see small caps significantly outperforming in this environment. We have tariffs. We're not really clear on Fed rate cuts. There's some talk about July cuts. What's the catalyst? What moves these small caps higher?
- Scott Martin: Well, the fact is that a lot of these small caps really got beat up in the downturn in April. We saw the Russell off over 30% from the highs, and now we're starting to see the Fed signaling, but perhaps that they are going to lower rates. The inflationary pressures are coming down. The economy has been a lot more resilient than people have been thinking about. And we're seeing from a chart perspective a broadening of the participation of this market.
So if you're looking for opportunities that haven't already been exploited, you're probably not going to find that in the mag seven. You're going to find that down cap. And then also, Frank, fear of missing out FOMO. The FOMO trade is full on at this point in time. There's a lot of managers that did not get out of the way in the downturn in April, did not reengage in this market as you got into the May and June time frame. And with the market making new highs,
The pain trade is squarely up. They need to play catch up and your better opportunities are down cap versus trying to go and play, say, Apple or Microsoft at this point in time. You're also underweight transportation. We're just coming off FedEx earnings, looking at FedEx and the pre-market is down. And that's based on current quarter guidance. You look year to date, FedEx shares down more than 20 percent. But if you look at transportation more broadly, I like to look at the IYT transportation ETF.
That it's up about a half a percent underperforming, but still up a half a percent. Why underweight transportation when you're bullish on small caps? Aren't they very closely tied?
Well, they're a small part of the overall index. The bigger part of the index is going to be industrials. It's going to be technology. It's also going to be health care and also financials. And the parts that are in the larger components inside of the Russell are likely to be a bigger driver of this. If I look at the IYT as an example, it's been showing sort of
poor trend, poor relative strength. So lots of competition in the transportation sector, whether it's airlines, rails or even some of these delivery areas. There's just better opportunities elsewhere. But it's not in transportation. But Craig, in all fairness, aren't both very closely tied to U.S. growth, U.S. economic growth. They're both really domestic plays, especially when we're talking about transports. Yes, they have exposure to overseas shipping, but the majority of their revenues really come from moving freight here in the U.S. So
If you don't think those companies are having higher revenues, why do you think the other domestically focused small caps are having higher revenues and higher earnings? So when I've gone back and sort of dug into that exact rationale, there's a lot of competition on the trucking side of the world that needs to be addressed. They've been very competitive on their pricing side of it, and that's been creating the challenges on the transportation index itself. And then also, we do need to see
fuel prices come down for the airlines, and that would be helpful for them. The recent surge that you were talking about just before this segment, Frank, about oil prices going higher, has certainly led to higher prices and higher ticket prices. So that has also been a little bit of a margin squeeze for some of them. Greg Johnson from Piper Sandler, always great to see you. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Frank.
and then later falling short. We're just talking about FedEx. Shares are falling this morning, down about 5.5% in the pre-market. Even after beating revenue and profit expectations, we're going to dig into it. A very busy hour still ahead from Worldwide Exchange Returns.
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Welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. President Trump arriving at the NATO summit in the Netherlands today as questions continue over the U.S. commitment to the defense bloc and Trump's willingness to maintain current spending levels. Our Steve Sedgwick now joins us live on the ground in The Hague. Steve, good morning.
Yeah, very good morning to you. Absolutely fascinating morning of arrivals here in The Hague as well. Most of the world leaders who are in NATO walk past this camera point here and we've got a lot of questions into them for CNBC. President Trump actually had his own press conference with the pool at
similar kind of time to we were speaking to the rest of the world leaders. And it was fascinating to see the bonhomie, the good atmosphere between the president and the secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutter, as well. And actually how relaxed the president was. Now, there were a lot of questions to him about Iran. And there were a lot of questions to him about whether the effectiveness of that raid were. But the truth of the matter is,
That's one issue which, of course, a lot of people are covering. For me, this is more about here, about the US commitment to NATO and to European defence as well. And it comes with a price, and as it well should do as well, and the President's been very, very clear about this for a long time, Europe has got to find some form of, and this is the key word, equalisation with the US in terms of spending. And within that as well, getting to 5% of GDP, of their total economy, spending on defence assets.
on military, on infrastructure as well. And it looks like there is an agreement from the 32 members to get to that 5% level, which is quite extraordinary. 3.5% on military, 1.5% on infrastructure as well. One leader who didn't walk past me here today, and it's absolutely fascinating, one of only about two or three, was Pedro Sanchez. Who's Pedro Sanchez? He, of course, is the Spanish prime minister, and he's the one...
Perhaps flying the ointment, the one issue that is still hanging over this meeting is what about the Spanish? Now, the Spanish, like several nations, like the Portuguese, like Luxembourg, like Canada as well, have failed to even get to 2%. 2% was a level agreed way before President Trump. It was agreed in Wales at a NATO meeting in 2011. But most members are now at 2%. And to see them get to 3.5% is going to be very difficult. The Spanish have asked for an exemption. Now, I spoke to...
I reckon a dozen world leaders, including the Swedes, including the Lithuanians, the Poles, and all kinds of nations, the Norwegians, the Dutch as well. And they're all saying, no, everyone's got to agree to this. Everyone's got to agree to the 3.5% on military spending. So how the Spanish get out of this and how they get an exemption, that'll be absolutely fascinating in the working group meeting, which is going on now.
Yeah, really interesting conversations going on there in The Hague. One thing I want to ask you about, if we're talking about increasing European spending on defense, you know, military spending, and also you mentioned some other softer things like cybersecurity. Is that spending to be done with European companies or is it going to be done with U.S. companies? I don't think a lot of our viewers are very familiar with the European defense sector. Where do you see that playing out? I want to pull on some of your insight in the region. Yeah, it's a great question, Frank, as well, because, of course,
There are some very big European companies. I'll talk you through one or two of those in a few moments time. But the fact of the matter is there is a healthy debate going on in the EU and within the European nations of NATO, which is two separate things, although they overlap quite a lot as well, about whether it should be homegrown defence companies or whether it should be relying on the US military industrial complex as well. Now, big
Big companies, BA Systems, it's a top 10 Pentagon supplier. Supplies all kinds of military hardware and kit to the United States military as well. So BA Systems, that's one of the big ones. But it's British. It's not in the EU. And there's been a big debate about how the British have now got an agreement with the EU so that the BA Systems and other British companies can actually sell to the Europeans. Some of the other big names?
Saab. I think a lot of our viewers have heard of the Saab Gripen, which is an extraordinary fighter aircraft as well. The Swedes are seeing enormous share price increase in the value of Saab as well. So that is one which is definitely going to be a big beneficiary as well. And I spoke to the Swedish prime minister about this very issue yesterday as well. Other big names are Ryan Mattel. They make a lot of the equipment for tanks, for Leopard tanks as well.
and Renck as well, another big German company. And the big French company is one called Thales. Now, I don't know if our viewers are aware, but there's two very big new, shiny new British aircraft carriers, the Prince of Wales and the Queen Elizabeth. Thales was the main contractor on that as well. So there's some of the names that will definitely be beneficiaries, but there is no doubt about it. And we've been hearing from Keir Starmer in the last couple of days that U.S.,
equipment is still a key part. And actually, we understand that some order is in the offing is very close to being signed between the British and the Americans for new aircraft, which would be able to carry and diversify the British nuclear capacity as well. So absolutely, American companies still a big part of that future. Yeah, our fellow actually spoke to North American CEO of Thales last week. And by the way, for our viewers is actually a way to play ETF through an ETF, the European defense stocks, the EU AD ETF.
But, Steve, thanks for sharing some names that might benefit from this conversation we're going to continue having. Thank you again. Great reporting from The Hague as always. Good to see you. All right. Still on deck here at Worldwide Exchange. Counting down to this year's list of top states for business and the major role that AI is playing among some of the top contenders. Coming up right after this break. Stay with us.
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And we'll get to Worldwide Exchange, a live look at The Hague right now, where world leaders, including President Trump, you see him right here on the left hand side of your screen, are meeting to discuss defense and a number of other issues. This is a plenary session that just started a short time ago. We were just talking to our Steve Sedgwick, who's live on the ground there, talking about some of the discussions about increasing European spending on defense for our audience. If you want to look for an ETF to invest in European defense stocks, including BAE Systems and TALIS,
We're showing on the screen right now the EUAD. It's the Select Stocks European Aerospace and Defense ETF. You can see right now it's up nearly a half a percent.
All right, moving on to your big money movers for this morning. Turning back to FedEx, reporting better than expected fourth quarter earnings and revenue. But you can see this chart right here declining, though, falling pretty big right now in the pre-market, down more than 5.5% as the company's profit outlook for this quarter came in below estimates. FedEx also declined to issue four-year guidance, citing uncertainty over U.S. trade policy, especially in regard to China, the world's largest exporter. FedEx is more exposed to China than its rival, UPS.
Tesla shares sales in Europe are slumping for a fifth straight month down about 28 percent in May. That says EV sales overall, they jumped 27 percent in the region. You can see Tesla shares still up about a quarter of one percent. Tesla's market share in Europe is just over one percent, with customers switching to cheaper Chinese EVs. Some Europeans are also continuing protests against the politics of Elon Musk.
And QXO is looking to raise $2 billion in a share sale. Shares of QXO right now falling nearly 6%. The distributor of building products led by billionaire Brad Jacobs intends to use that money for various purposes, including a possible takeover. QXO made an unsolicited $5 billion offer for GMS last week, but said it would not raise the bid after reports said that Home Depot made a rival offer.
And right now, we're just about two weeks away from revealing our top 20, 2025 states for business in CNBC's exclusive annual study. Today, the battle for data supremacy. CNBC's Scott Cohen joins us from the biggest trophy yet in that battle in Richland, Paris, Louisiana, about 250 miles north of New Orleans.
Frank, we've been reporting on CNBC about these data centers and how states are falling all over themselves to win them. They are, after all, the backbone of the artificial intelligence revolution, and Louisiana has just reeled in a huge one. The site is massive, best viewed from the air, 2,250 acres, enough to cover a big part of Manhattan.
Rachel Peterson is the VP in charge of data centers for Meta, which chose Louisiana for its main artificial intelligence hub. We looked at finding very, very large contiguous plots of land that had access to the infrastructure that we need, the energy that we needed, and could move very, very quickly for us. Louisiana did just that. Susan Bourgeois is Secretary of Economic Development.
As barriers arose in the project, we eliminated. But this project will create just 500 permanent jobs. Even at the height of construction, it's just 5,000. Yet, Louisiana is giving Meta a rebate on potentially billions of dollars in sales taxes. A CNBC investigation just last week found those sales tax breaks increasingly popular.
Like most states, Louisiana can't say how much it will cost. This wasn't about what the state would win or lose from just that one isolated sales tax. This was about we want to compete with Texas. We want to compete with Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina. And then there's the energy. Local utility Entergy Louisiana wants to build three power plants just for this project. Worth it, says the CEO.
With this announcement, it says we're open for business. We believe this is a foundation upon which we can build upon and attract more technology to the state of Louisiana.
and bring new vitality to one of the poorest regions of the country. But not everyone is on board. We'll be live here all day on CNBC to do more of the cost-benefit analysis, and we'll speak with this state's governor. A reminder, you can read more about our top state study and follow our journey at topstates.cnbc.com. The top state revealed on July 10th. Frank?
All right. Coming up here, Worldwide Exchange with Sam Altman just told Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella about the open AI future with one of its top backers. And if you haven't already, you should follow our podcast. If you miss Worldwide Exchange, check us out on Apple, Spotify or other apps. We'll be right back.
this data center renaissance so shocking to the people who abandoned these stocks the nvidia's the amds the vertibs the microns the marvel technologies are all back or nearly back in the story the envy that nvidia ceo jensen wong calls the new industrial revolution is once again front and center it's like deep seek never happened the ai stocks they're all breaking out so that was our jim cramer on mad money last night talking about the ongoing resurgence by some key chip players remember those semi stocks how
helping to power the Nasdaq 100 to close at a fresh all-time high with the SMH coming off its best day in just about a month. Welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. I'm Frank Holland. Coming up this half an hour, much, much more on the chip trade. Micron earnings that are coming up after the bell. And also, we're going to get some top picks in the semiconductor space. But first, we're going to get you ready for the trading day ahead. We're going to begin with the U.S. markets.
The S&P within 1% of a new all-time high. The NASDAQ 100 closing at a fresh record high. You can see the moves right here. The Russ 2000 is still about double digits away from its all-time high. Piper Sandler's Craig Johnson, our heir, just a short time ago, saying he believes there's a double-digit upside move for the small caps coming up this year.
Up here, you can see the Dow still about 4% away from its all-time high as well. All right, we'll look at U.S. stock futures right now. Taking a look, we were in the green across the board just about a half an hour ago. Right now, taking a look at the situation, still pretty much the same, actually pulling back just a bit, but still in the green solidly across the board. The Dow looks like it would open up very fractionally higher right now. We'll look at the NASDAQ 100, pre-market leaders and laggers. We're going to start off with these leaders right here. Strategy up about 1.5% as we see Bitcoin back above $106,000.
Marvell Technology, Amazon, Applovin and AMD running out your best performers in the pre-market. Then we have the other side of the coin, the NASDAQ 100 pre-market laggards. Take a look at those. Baker Hughes, a big energy player, pulling back about three quarters of one percent as we see oil prices actually rebounding a bit today. Monster Beverage, Xcel Energy, Palantir, big defense stock, pulling back about a quarter of one percent. Global Foundries,
running out your worst performers on the S&P and the pre-market. Technology sector hitting a fresh record high yesterday. Taking a look at some of the stocks that are moving that sector higher this year. Palantir once again right here. Those shares up about 89% year-to-date, followed by Seagate up about 59%. Micron again reporting its earnings after the bell.
up over 50% year-to-date. We're going to dig into that in just a moment. Then some other names moving the sector higher. Jabril, those shares up about 47% year-to-date. CrowdStrike, KLA Corp, rounding out your top performers in the tech sector. Again, pushing it to a fresh record high. We've got to talk about oil. Oil really having a wild week. Take a look at WTI crude. Right now, actually off of its highs of earlier, but still up about 1%. But look at this chart. Week-to-date, down more than 13% as we've seen Middle East tensions ease.
Again, President Trump talking about that strike on Iran at The Hague earlier this morning. Also want to look at some other parts of the market, including cryptocurrency. We just saw strategy up here as one of the gainers. Right now we're seeing Bitcoin still above $106,000, actually moving higher since we last checked, almost hitting $107,000 a coin. Ether up just about a half a percent. Down here, XRP, kind of the outlier, pulling back about a half a percent right now. And a look at the bond market. Yields have moved significantly to the downside. The benchmark coming in at 4.29%.
Okay, that is your setup. But first, we want to do a quick check of overseas markets. Take a look at those overseas markets right now. Asia ending the day in the green. The Hang Seng and also the Shanghai leading the gains up over 1%. I want to move this line for you to get a clear look. Japan's Nikkei 225 up just about a third of a percent. The Kospi just fractionally higher as well. Also want to take a look at the early trade over in Europe. We were talking a little bit about that earlier with our Karen Cho. Right now, we're seeing the DAX. Remember, Germany's the biggest account.
economy in Europe right now, pulling back very fractionally. Down here, the mid is the leader among the bourses right now, up about a quarter of a percent, but kind of a muted start to the day over there in Europe. OK, that is your full setup. Let's now get a check on some of the top stories right now with our Silvana Hanal. Silvana, good morning. Hey, Frank, good morning to you. Well, the U.S. and Mexico are reportedly focusing on possibly
exemption to reduce tariffs on steel imports. Now, that's according to Bloomberg, which says negotiators are looking at a quota system for Mexican imports of the metal that U.S. automakers and other industries have called essential. Now, the report adds the move would exempt the steel from a 50 percent tariff, but that it would still be hit with a 10 percent charge.
Meanwhile, President Trump remaining steadfast that U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites completely destroyed those facilities. Reports by CNN and The New York Times citing early U.S. assessments of the strikes suggest they did not take out Iran's nuclear program, but likely only set them back by a few months. In a Truth Social post, the president claiming they were in fact destroyed, calling the strikes successful.
And OpenAI's CEO appears to be speaking with Microsoft's CEO following recent reports of tensions between the two. Sam Altman revealing his talks with Satya Nadella in a New York Times interview saying the two discuss their future working partnership. Altman adding that in any deep partnership, there are points of tension and we certainly have those. But on the whole, it's been really wonderfully good for both companies, Frank.
All right, Silvana, thank you very much. Turning back to the markets, as we mentioned, the NASDAQ 100 closing at a fresh record high yesterday. The chip sector helping to power much of the gains for the index. The SMH having its best day in about a month. And the ETF is now just about 4% away from its 52-week high. NVIDIA, which holds its annual shareholder meeting today, is up about 40% over the past two months and is a little more than 3% from its January highs. And it's not just NVIDIA. AMD is also up more than 40%.
Over the past two months, Marvell has gained almost 30 percent. And Micron reports its earnings after the close today. Shares are up more than 30 percent since its last report, although it's still more than 10 percent off of its 52-week high. Let's talk a lot more about this with Jordan Klein, tech media and telecom analyst at Mizuho. Jordan, good morning. Good to see you.
Morning, Frank. Great to be here. So, Jordan, I'm just looking at the estimates right now. I'm looking at earnings estimates for Micron to show 150 percent year over year growth. And I'm also looking at the valuation looks like it's trading at about 15 times forward earnings. I mean, that seems like a real steal for that kind of growth.
Yeah, I mean, a couple of things going on. I mean, they are in the midst of trying to pull out of a memory downturn. And so the numbers, the growth rates year over year are going to be kind of artificially inflated. Second thing is, is that memory stocks, because they're viewed more like commodities where there's intense competition, high fixed capital costs, they tend to trade at a discount versus some of these higher margin, higher profit other semi-companies.
Also looking at NVIDIA today, having its annual shareholder meeting, we're seeing more and more bullish signs about data centers. Our Scott Cohn is actually in Louisiana talking about a data center that Meta is building that could kind of cover, it looks like, some significant parts of Manhattan, maybe the Upper West and the Upper East Side, if you kind of tilted that map a little bit that we showed earlier. When we're talking about NVIDIA going forward, what are your expectations? Can it still maintain these very lofty expectations? Does it still have the same dominance when it comes to the AI chip space?
My views is a hundred percent yes I personally love Nvidia right here the fact that if you go back to middle or early of summer last year the stock is kind of traded sideways it's still slightly below its high in the multiple- that you look that it's getting in the market is very low relative to its growth I think the key for Nvidia is they're still dominating the training- market with GPUs they have the best product
It offers customers the best performance, and the demand is insatiable. So they're making and selling everything they can. And the key here is what I think is going to be almost an acceleration of their sequential quarter-to-quarter beats and raises is
that will come as more of this Blackwell product, their most advanced new GPU system starts to ship in volume this quarter and then going into the back half of the year. So that's going to be the true test. And I think they pass with flying colors. I want to ask you kind of a double-sided question. Number one, what are your top picks in the space? And also we're talking about defense spending in the recent days. Our Steve Sedgwick's at the NATO summit in The Hague where European leaders say they're going to increase their spending on defense. Are there chip stocks that benefit from that spending in particular?
Yeah, that's a really good question. No particular semi-company gets, I would say, an outsized portion of the revenue from the defense sector, just because that sector traditionally hasn't grown that fast. But there's a few companies, one in the analog space is Analog Devices, ADI, that gets some decent revenue from defense. Another one I really like that is diversified is called Macom, MTSI, and their defense business is growing rapidly.
very rapidly again these are probably less than ten percent of the total revenues. If I look if I zoom out and I say what stocks do I really like the most
I say you can't really mess with the three horsemen of what's been working great, and that's Taiwan Semi. They benefit whether a customer buys an ASIC chip, which is custom, or a GPU from NVIDIA. I would go with Broadcom, which is the leader in these ASIC custom chips that a lot of these cloud hyperscalers are going to start to design and develop. And then NVIDIA, which I said before I think is going to have –
a big improvement or acceleration in their sequential growth into the back half. Another one that you mentioned is memory. You need a ton of high bandwidth memory to run these GPU AI training systems, and that would be Micron. And then lastly, if you want to connect a lot of these GPU systems together, you need a company called Credo, C-R-D-O. Jordan Klein, great to see you as always. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Coming up here on Worldwide Exchange, one of Tesla's biggest rivals in China reportedly facing new bumps on the road and its push to maintain its edge over Elon Musk.
But first, we're watching shares of Robinhood. Craig Johnson mentioned the stock earlier this hour. See right here, it's up more than 2% in the pre-market. The stock's up just about 2% away from an all-time high. Look at this chart. It's about 2% away from an all-time high. Year-to-date, up more than 120%. The company's annual meetings today. CEO Vlad Tenev actually going to come on CNBC later today as well. We're going to be right back after this.
And time now for your global briefing. President Trump saying that China can keep buying Iranian oil following the ceasefire between Tehran and Israel in a post on Tree Social yesterday. The president says he hopes China would also buy crude from the U.S. The White House telling Reuters President Trump is drawing attention to the fact that Iran did not try to close the Strait of Hormuz, which would greatly impact China, the top importer of Iranian oil. The administration also clarifying this does not signal a relaxation of U.S. sanctions on Iran.
BYD has reportedly slowed production and delayed expansion in recent months. Reuters says the Chinese EV maker is reducing shifts at some factories and putting off plans to add new assembly lines, reducing output by at least a third. The decisions could be a sign that BYD's sales boom that helped it overtake Tesla as the world's largest EV maker, that boom's slowing down a bit as it deals with rising inventory even after offering big price cuts.
All right, coming up, the one word that every investor has to hear today and the stock pick that every investor needs to know. Plus, President Trump turning up the pressure on Senate Republicans. His warning that lawmakers racing to get his tax and spending bill over the finish line. We'll be right back.
And welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. Turning to Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans are racing to rework key parts of that chamber's version of President Trump's tax and spending bill. Majority Leader John Thune maintains the bill's on track for a vote before the Fourth of July recess. And President Trump is turning up the pressure on those Senate Republicans in a lengthy true social post before leaving for the NATO summit. The president said Congress should not go on vacation until that bill passes. Emily Wilkins joins us now with the very latest on what's going on in D.C. Emily, good morning.
Good morning, frankly. Trump and congressional leaders, as you just pointed out, they are really trying to amp up this pressure now for Republicans to fall in line, put their concerns aside, and pass that Trump mega bill within the next two weeks. And the Senate is aiming to start voting on the bill, could be as soon as Thursday or Friday, depends when we actually get that final text.
But before they can do that, there are a ton of outstanding issues on the bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that when push comes to shove, lawmakers are going to have to decide if they want the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
We've got a lot of very independent thinking senators who have reasons and things that they'd like to have in this bill that would, in their view, make it stronger. But at the end of the day, this is a process whereby not everybody's going to get what they want.
Not everyone's gonna get what they want. Well, still senators are at least pushing for what they want at this point. There are a number of outstanding issues right now. This includes again, Medicaid, a persistent problem throughout this entire process, specifically a cap on the taxes that states levy on healthcare providers.
Now, that concern could be somewhat offset with additional funding for rural hospitals. That's something a lot of senators told me yesterday they're looking for. And debates are still ongoing over green energy tax credits, as well as some senators want more time for projects to be able to qualify for those.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told his members yesterday to not leave town for their upcoming 4th of July recess so the House can take up the Senate passed bill as soon as the Senate does pass it. But at least half a dozen House members right now are saying that they will sink the bill if changes aren't made. That includes fiscal hawks like Eric Burleson,
who tweeted that the Senate's watered-down OBBB, that one big beautiful bill, is a joke, he says. He said spending decreases, delayed rollback of the green new scam, the green new tax credits, and no real Medicaid reform. He goes on to say that if leadership tries to jam it through, I will vote no.
Republicans from high tax states are also continuing to push for the Senate to accept that SALT agreement that the House came to. And we're waiting to see what exactly the changes the Senate will make before the vote. And Frank, we're going to have to see something soon if they want to actually vote this week. All right. So, I mean, Emily, I think the real question is this is a self-imposed Fourth of July deadline that the GOP and the president want to get to. What happens if they don't get there?
So Frank, if they don't get there, the next really big deadline for them is going to be that debt ceiling. Remember, this bill does include an increase to that ceiling. And Scott Besson was actually on the Hill yesterday meeting with Republicans. And he warned that while the X date right now, that date that we're gonna hit the debt ceiling, is expected to come sometime in August or September. He noted that whatever's going on with the courts on Trump's tariffs could actually change that outlook.
So kind of warning to maybe not put everyone's eggs in the basket that this is that they can wait till September on this one. I'm really trying to encourage lawmakers to get this done as soon as possible. All right. Emily Wilkins live in D.C. Emily, good to see you coming up here in Worldwide Exchange. The top investment idea, our next guest says, can help add some shine to your portfolio. That stock got more than 30 percent so far this year. We will reveal our mystery chart coming up right after this.
Welcome back to Worldwide Exchange. We close in the 6 a.m. hours to check with a few big stories that we're following this morning. FedEx reporting better than expected fourth quarter earnings and revenue. But look at this chart. Shares are falling more than five and a half percent as the company's profit outlook for this quarter came in below estimates. FedEx also declining to issue full year guidance, citing uncertainty over U.S. trade policy, especially in regard to China, the world's largest exporter. Again, shares of FedEx pulling back about five and a half percent.
Tesla shares in Europe slumping for a fifth straight month, down about 28% in May. That says EV sales overall in Europe, they jumped about 27% higher. And oil rebounding this morning somewhat following a three-session slide. Right now you're seeing WTI accrued up about 1.25%, Brent accrued about 1.3%. Despite today's gains, WTI is still down about 13% so far this week.
And Bloomberg is reporting that Walmart is testing the use of smaller warehouses that are closed to the public, known as dark stores, to provide faster delivery to customers. The report says the retail giant has so far opened up one in Dallas, with plans to add one in its hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas, with the potential to add more.
Watching the U.S. stock futures right now, you can see futures are in the green across the board. The S&P 500 now less than 1% away from a record intraday high. With that, let's bring in Gina Sanchez, Chantico Global CEO, also a CNBC contributor. Good morning, Gina. How are you doing? Good morning. I'm good. Let's start with your word of the day. And again, let's keep in mind the S&P very close to a new all-time high. Yeah, it's intermission. It feels like we just basically rode the roller coaster straight down and then straight back up with
with a whole lot of events in between. But if you went to sleep on January 1st and you woke up today, you wouldn't have known anything happened. And I think that we're sort of in the middle right now, evaluating what happened after the Iran strikes and figuring out what is going to happen, not only with the big, beautiful bill, but also with tariffs.
So I think that there's still a lot of unknowns and a lot of uncertainty. And we remain concerned about inflation, as does the rest of the market, although it has yet to really start to make its way into pricing.
So you're mentioning inflation as a possible risk to the market. Also, a lot of the uncertainty. There's uncertainty in the Middle East is also uncertainty about trade overall. Right now, we're in the middle of a couple of tariff pauses, but we don't really know how those are all going to work out. Yet gold hasn't really performed, as you may expect. We've actually saw it lower in a couple of days. And your pick for us today is in the gold space. Barrick goal. Why is this a good buy right now when we don't really see people running to the safe haven? We see people running to the equity market.
So, you know, Barrick Mining, quite frankly, has its own fundamentals. But if you look at its performance this year, it has, without a doubt, had a tremendous run. It's up almost 30 percent in U.S. dollar terms. I think it's probably up a little more than that. And, you know, the demand for gold will likely continue. And so a proxy for that in the equity space is Barrick.
is a miner like Barrick Mining. But the broader story here is also that this is a company that has been beaten down actually for a while. It is very well-priced, while the rest of the S&P 500 is not. And if you think about where we are and what happens with tariffs,
margins are not exactly back to normal. We're just recovering still under long-term averages for margins. And so any hit to commodity prices is going to be tough to pass through to investors. And so you're either going to have equities get hit and valuations kind of come under pressure. So I think
a cheaper part of the market is going to be more attractive later in the year. Combine that with the fact that we will be concerned about inflation. I do actually think that this sets up for a good positioning for the rest of the year. Gina Sanchez, always good to see you. Thank you very much.
Here's what to watch today. Fresh looks at housing this morning with weekly mortgage applications and new home sales figures. We also get earnings from Micron, General Mills and Winnebago. Also Fed Chairman Jay Powell back on the Hill today delivering his semiannual policy report. This time around to the Senate Banking Committee. One more look at U.S. stock futures. We mentioned in the green across the board, but just fractionally higher.
One area that we're watching throughout the day is going to be earnings and especially micron after the bell and also the tech sector coming off a fresh record high S&P within one percent of its own high. Squawk box starts right now.
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