Stocks Sink as Inflation Fears Rise, and Counting Down to “Liberation Day” 3/28/25
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Live from the NASDAQ MarketSide in the heart of New York City's Times Square, this is Fast Money. Here's what's on tap tonight. A Friday fade, stocks selling off on the back of a grim inflation outlook and continued worries about Liberation Day, a.k.a. Tariff Day next week. Will the coming earnings season help stabilize the market or add yet another problem? We'll debate that. Plus,

CoreWeave stumbles the biggest tech IPO since 2021 closing unchanged. So much for an opening day pop. What does it say about what is next for the AI trade? And later, the latest on Lulu's lemony sour post earnings action inside Nova's worst month since 2002. And the traders bring us their most important chart to get you ready for

Q2. I'm Melissa Lee coming to you live from CDOB at the NASDAQ. On the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Karen Feinerman, Courtney Garcia, and Guy Adami. We start off with that tech-led sell-off on Wall Street. The NASDAQ sinking over 2.5%, ending the day just shy of its lowest close of the year. And with just one trading day left in Q1, the index is

pacing for its worst quarter in nearly three years. Every member of the so-called Magnificent Seven was down today, the group losing a combined value of over half a trillion dollars in today's session alone. The S&P Dow and small cap Russell 2000 also sharply lower today and in March, all firmly down on the year as well. The catalyst behind today's action, more hot inflation data. The Fed's preferred measure of price is coming in slightly above estimates. And the University of Michigan's long-term inflation expectations

hitting a 32-year high. So as we get ready to close out Q1, face the onset of new tariffs and the March jobs report next Friday, should we expect more volatility to grip the markets? Guy.

Volatility, absolutely. Pain, I think, comes along with volatility. And, you know, you say what you want. The market sold off 600 S&P handles from the all-time high to that recent low on March 14th, pretty much in a straight line. The bounce made sense almost to the penny, as Carter would say. Thought maybe 58 and a quarter. It got close, 50 percent retracement. And now this sort of resolution of selling, whatever you want to call it,

To me, makes a lot of sense. The inflation data is hot. Yields backed off probably on the back of a weaker market. But that recent low of fifty five oh seven or something to me is a huge line in the sand here, Mel. So it was a little surprising, counterintuitive, right? You get this hot inflation data and then you get this reaction in the 10 year bonds that is.

sort of contractionary, right? So you could see both sort of happening. I do have an inflation bet that probably didn't work out well today. But that was sort of interesting to me. I feel like it was a bit of a overreaction, but that doesn't really matter. We got a very big event coming as you open the show with right on Tuesday.

I don't think there'll be resolution. That will be our what we're putting forth. Right. Which isn't to say then it's over. Resolution from the jobs report. No, no. I mean, resolution from tariff day. Right. So I feel like going into a weekend like this, we have this very big event on on Tuesday. A lot of uncertainty. I always look to buy when there's a lot of pain, but I didn't buy anything today because I just feel like.

Let's just wait a little more. This VIX, which I know you look at very closely, at 21, it's no man's land. This isn't panicky, right, yet. So I feel like it's going to go higher before it goes lower. Then I will look to buy, probably too soon. But I feel like especially that we talk about the MAG6, MAG7,

I sort of like those names. They're not some of them aren't particularly China sensitive at all or tariff sensitive at all. Great balance sheets, good business models. But, you know, that was a terrible, terrible week for them. But they are growth sensitive. And to the effect, you know, you mentioned tariff day. We're not going to get resolution. We're not going to get resolution on the economic outlook either with this jobs report. I mean, there's

probably still going to be funky, right? Just because the layoffs, we don't know if they've hit. We don't know if federal workers are being counted in these numbers yet. There's just a lot of uncertainty around those numbers. There's a lot of uncertainty around those numbers. And all we continue to do is get more data, more, you know, essentially updates on how the consumer and sentiment. And we're getting to essentially record lows on at least on sentiment in terms of how quickly that delta has moved. Steve Leisman with some great data on that point. But in other words, we're going to talk about spending. We're going to talk about where that's falling off.

Scott Wapner had a great interview with Robert Kaplan, formerly of the Dallas Fed, now at Goldman Sachs, using the stagflation term, using a term that the Fed is so reluctant to do. I thought it was a great interview because it really was very, very open about where we are and where you have seen a quick shift and what conundrum the Fed really is in and that they probably will do nothing. But the tendency is to want to fight inflation first until that jobs market starts to really fall apart.

Yeah, and I think really what you saw today was this de-risking. I think the big thing that's on investors' mind right now is tariffs, which are happening next week. And everybody came into this week hoping that they weren't going to be as extreme as people hoped. You saw the markets jump on that news. But now realizing, OK, this is going to come to fruition. And yeah, to Karen's point, could this just be the start of it and a bigger trade war and all these retaliatory tariffs that could be coming along? So I don't think we're going to know everything by Tuesday. It just could lead to more uncertainty. That's what the markets aren't liking. So-

You did get some inflation data out today. There also was some weakness with the consumer, which people are worried about. But I don't think all of the data was bad. Like really, you're not seeing the consumer fall off a cliff. You're actually seeing savings rates went up to about 4.6%. So people are pulling back, but really income has been rising faster than inflation. People just aren't spending because they're worried about the rainy day and what they need to go moving forward. They're not falling apart at the seams. I think that would be a bigger concern. I don't think we're seeing that right now.

And she's 100 percent right, except that, you know, they're saving because they maybe are scared of something. Exactly. And what they're scared of potentially could be what we're talking about now when they see the stock market have days like this. And Karen is 100 percent right. As usual, all the stocks you mentioned really don't have any China exposure, but they have obviously broader market exposure and all the ETFs are in. So if these ETFs all of a sudden are actively traded to the downside, what's

What works for them on days the market goes higher works against them when days it goes lower. And I think to a certain extent, that's what we're seeing as well. It's classic rotation. And anything that has a pulse in terms of high growth, not a lot of profitability, trades at a sales multiple, and people only talk about a sales multiple, those are the stocks that are getting hit. And even though in the last 36 hours we've digested headlines about pharma tariffs and things that are coming for that, and inherently if you're a staples company too, you have exposure to what's going on tariff-wise, and it certainly will be passed along faster.

But staples and pharma outperforming tells you exactly what you need to know. Gold with a fresh high. So this tells you where the market is at. And I do think that there's a case where a lot of people are ready to wait on through this. I don't think we've had anything close to a blow off bottom here. I think there's a lot of people that actually aren't really scared yet. And that's the concern I have. Yeah. And utility is also the only sector up today. So how are you hedging?

You know, I'm not really that hedged. I always have some hedge on, but I'm always very long. And to me, I hedge in companies that have excellent balance sheets that can really weather the storm. And, you know, I have some things that are somewhat counter like this inflation bit, but that actually didn't work today. So I just, you know, endure the pain.

And try to exhale. And I think another hedge that has actually worked really with the tariffs is your foreign companies. I think people really need to realize that because of the tariffs, it's really... You can say it, Courtney. Miga. Make your international grade again. Correct. Exactly.

Yeah, basically, I mean, these tariffs are forcing other countries to put more stimulus into their economies, put more money into defense and spending and reinvesting back into those categories. And I think that's only going to continue to have like an unintended consequence of tariffs. So that's actually a really good diversification and a hedge against these tariffs as we go forward.

One of the things is someone that's been investing globally a lot of my career. One of the things I'm so used to hearing is that when international markets look interesting, a lot of people like, why do I invest internationally when things are even I have more growth in the U.S. with less governance risk, with more certainty. And I think that story is really challenged now. So this this term of U.S. exceptionalism and the challenge to it, I think it's fair. I think it's not just that you've had.

this fiscal announcement, these fiscal announcements really around the world, including we've even looked at the China announcement, which to me seems to be more focused on the consumer and consumption than ever. But a dynamic where these companies are not only extremely cheap, but the oxygen that was being choked out of the room from owning the top seven or eight market caps, which are, you know, at

Basically, between them are bigger than the entire euro stocks, 50. That's the reason why a lot of investment just didn't flow into the U.S. And I think that's part of that story internationally that continues. You know, going back to the names that Karen mentioned, like Facebook, for example, traded right down to a level. We actually talked about it on the show. We had a conversation. If you've been waiting, today's the day. I think it was March 14th or 15th, there were about. And it bounced probably $75 or $80 off that low, which was a pretty significant move.

It's retraced that entire move in the course of about five or six trading days. And here we are at that prior support. So a lot of the things which bounced off support levels are right back to critical levels. So next week, whatever you call Liberation Day, quarter end, assuming today was not quarter end for some people. So a lot's going to happen next week for sure. Right. For more on today's hot inflation data, let's bring in Ben Emmons. He's a senior investment executive at Strategic Fortune Wealth and the CIO and founder of FedWatch Advisors. Ben, great to have you with us.

How do you fit in today's economic data into the mosaic that we've had so far? It is definitely harder than we thought. I think the tariff effect is starting to come through because I know that particularly durable goods, PCE was up and there were different categories there. I think it was related to what we're seeing in the trade data too. People started to continue to frontload

a lot of imports to try to get ahead of the tariffs. That in itself drives up inflation while we're having what it looks like some sort of a slowdown in spending and against all this uncertainty. So it seems that that's what the market got really tense about today. The S-word is back as Robert Kaplan was talking about earlier. I don't think it's the actual stagflation, but it's the idea that we're trying to get ahead of tariffs

which actually leads to more economic activity, but more inflation while the tariffs still have to happen. I think this is the tension in markets. So, Ben, it's Karen. Just to that point, do you think that we will see in the next coming month or two of data a reversal of that very high inflation expectation?

It could be, Karen, if we're getting, again, this all depends on the clarity of these tariffs we've all talked about. We don't know this exactly. We're getting tidbits here of like, whether it's on autos or copper, or I saw a headline now on pharma that tariffs are being prepared for those too. I think that is really what the consumer may be looking for, is the clarity on these, where can I expect these tariffs, and then expectations adjust accordingly.

But I also think it's about all this front-loading that's happened with all these goods that are, I guess, not being tariffed just yet. What will demand do from here? And it will really then slow down so significantly that that puts a little bit of pressure on prices downward if we're getting into the second quarter. I think you can expect that people continue to try to figure out what is really tariffed, yes or no. I think that's still the uncertainty we'll stay with.

So right now the markets are firmly in the camp with the next Fed move being in June, Ben. And I'm wondering, in your view, I mean, based on what you said about PCE and how it's being distorted because of all this sort of bringing in the inventory earlier to get ahead of the tariffs, how many quarters do you think we'd have to wait? What are you telling clients in terms of how the Fed will want to see clean data and when that clean data starts to come through?

It may take another quarter, I think, Mel, because what you're seeing currently is that this GDP data is negative because of basically the import effect. So it should be put back into GDP, so to speak, rhythmically. But then it's about like, what's the confidence effect that we're seeing coming through as well in the Michigan data we saw today really going to do to spending in the following quarter? Are people really going to pay it back? And, you know, to...

Courtney's point, like the savings rate ticked up a little bit. And so people are getting cautious. And is that caution going to continue? So it may still stay with us for a quarter at least for this distorted data before you get more clarity on the economy itself. For the Fed, however, it is that fog that Barker was talking about. They can't really do anything in part because they deal already with hotter inflation from all this front loading. And so they're kind of stuck. All right. Ben, great to speak with you. Thank you.

Thank you. Ed Emmons. Last week, Guy, you were on the Squawk Box with me. Last week, you spoke to Austin Goolsbee, and you said several months, several months, not a few months, several months before we would actually see the impact of the tariffs flow through the economy and get a good sense of where the economy is. Might be true. You can see it a lot faster in the stock market, though, right? Yes. So that's, I think, what we're trying. I agree with him on the economy without question, but people are preparing themselves.

You know, Tim and I have talked about the move in copper is trying to get ahead of those tariffs. When you watch this evening news and you talk to dealerships with all the inventory on their lots, that's trying to get ahead of this. So some people are feeling it already. But the market is clearly preparing for more.

Maybe the worst case scenario, maybe not, but clearly preparing for something. Well, as you point out, I mean, the market is preparing, but earning season will even prepare us even more from what the C-suite is saying. So if you think about where we're coming and this is also coinciding, not surprisingly, with the street downgrading EPS expectations. So we've seen it. We're going to continue to see it. But we're going to hear the C-suite be incredibly cautious and that's not going to help the stock market. So

We need to see something more for the market to rally, even if we're not going to see it. And I think a lot of this, you're seeing a lot of very conservative guidance. And I think that's what you have to do right now with this kind of uncertainty and with what you're seeing with the consumer. And that's where you're seeing everything is getting priced in is on what these expectations are going forward. But if the consumer doesn't actually fall off as people expect or if this does come to pass, the uncertainty falls.

I do think, yeah, there is probably some opportunity here. Because Dan sits there typically and he's a silver lining Dan. But if you have to call yourself that and remind people that that's what you are, you are not.

Let's get now to the biggest U.S. tech IPO in four years. NVIDIA backed Corweave, closing unchanged after pricing came in below expectations. Corweave seen as a bellwether for AI demand. CNBC's Christina Partsanovelis has followed the action all day here at the NASDAQ. She's right here. And joins us now. Right here, CEO. Tons of people. So like you said, closing $40. It opened at $39, so let's be positive. It was a little bit higher, but still below initial expectations. Corweave rents out AI infrastructure.

Our GPUs, pretty much, so customers don't have to deal with the hassle. The company has seen tremendous growth, $16 million in 2022 revenues, almost $2 billion last year, although they're not profitable. There's obviously concerns about looming debt. Dan normally likes to talk about that.

But keep this in mind, this is a growth startup. It really was only formed in 2017 and has come a long way. CoreWeave CEO Mike Entrader and I were chatting right over there on this set earlier, and he wanted me to know that their debt, this is the key part, is manageable because it's systematically paid down through reliable revenue streams like Microsoft contracts. Or as he said, Microsoft isn't going to default. Secondly, the assets such as DPUs actually retain more value than critics suggest, so don't stress out about the depreciation schedule.

And lastly, new major partners like OpenAI are a vote of confidence in the company's long-term viability, aka they wouldn't do business with CoreWeave had they not done their due diligence.

This was the first big tech IPO in four years, to your point, and seen as a litmus test for appetite in the market, not only for IPOs, but also pure AI infrastructure plays. Corey, you're CEO, telling Jim Cramer, it was a really, really tough tape today, and it's been a tough tape for the last couple of weeks here. You're going to hear more from that interview right after the show. Mad money. See that? Cool.

Just quickly, Christina, Microsoft is 62% of sales, and that's one of the knocks, concentration of customers. When you hear about reports from a TD report a couple weeks ago about cancellations and Microsoft specifically canceling leases, is that core weave?

Is that reading between the lines too much? In other words, how much ability does a customer like a Microsoft have to cancel or back out of those contracts that are done to systemically pay down debt? The CEO was quick to say that OpenAI had put in a $12 billion contract very recently. And so then that can raise the question, is this really about also the relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft and how they're trying to diverge? And that could be.

Very much the case. I don't know. He didn't tell me if that was a... But how ironclad are those contracts to be... Could they be broken? So... Unlike, you know... I asked him that. Bond payments and whatnot are one thing, and Microsoft certainly has got incredible free cash. And you think if you're signing these lease contracts that are 15 years old, do you really want to sign a contract for four years? Is that going to offset the debt that you're going to have over the next little while? He told me they're about, on average, over four years.

So I said, well, four years, that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to re-sign, right? And you have these GPUs that are supposed to last up to six years and some even more because they're so darn expensive. They're spending billions, right? The OpenAI contract, excellent example, $12 billion. It seems hard to believe, and I'm not disputing what you're saying, but like a four-year contract in this environment and AI, who's signing that? Right.

Right. I mean, this is the world is changing by the second. And it gets back to, yes, it's the concentration risk of two clients. It's the concentration risk that's also attached to essentially this is, you know, renting out access to NVIDIA chips where NVIDIA is like the primary. So it doesn't doesn't it's all fine. But it ultimately implies that there has to be a different level of demand than there is right now at a time when people are questioning that demand.

Yeah. No, I agree. You're totally right. I asked him that, and he was quick to say GPUs have another, their lifecycle continues because they can be repurposed. Christina, thank you. Christina Partsnevelis. Now, all week, even before this week, Dan has been saying that he would steer clear of this IPO. He's joining us now for Friday Pop-In. We had to go back to you, Dan, in terms of how this thing traded and your warnings, and we've heard a lot more from the CEO. How are you feeling about this new issue now?

Yeah, I wouldn't buy this with my worst enemy's money, and that would be Elon Musk. I mean, maybe he's kind of dabbling a little bit if he's a customer of this sort of stuff. When you think about what's going on, and Christina really kind of nailed the whole setup here, the problem is that they continue to actually make these long-term leases for data centers. They continue to raise this capital to buy GPUs. Most of their GPUs are Hopper. They're the last generation, and they're depreciating them at $1.

six years these things are going to be useless in about two years from now then you have the situation of an accounting situation where you know if they have to actually depreciate these faster so they have all this debt they need to continue to raise debt to grow they were not able to raise a whole heck of a lot of equity on this deal and so i think about the situation here the concentration of the customers you guys just covered it who knows how you can get out of these uh

these leases if you're like a Microsoft and you're 62% of their sales. But make no mistake about it. Microsoft, when they're leasing from a company like CoreWeave, this is not their most important sort of workloads that they're doing. And that's why if they have built over capacity for their own data centers, they're going to be the first ones to cancel when they can something from CoreWeave. So again, I think there's going to be many, many

of this story that play out. But if you're thinking about ways to invest in the public markets in this generative AI trade, this is the least innovative way to do it. If you think about all the other stuff that's going on in the private markets right now, whether it's open AI, whether it's anthropic, whether it's coherent, these are really innovative companies

customers of a data center like core we've and they're ultimately probably going to have more pricing power especially as you have this kind of ebb and flow of the band and then capacity constraint right now I think there's no real capacity constraint I think they've overbilled I stink we're starting to see that right now. On the options will trade on this thing and sometime next week I presume I would you be inclined to make a bet to the downside.

All right, here's something really interesting, Mel. And I heard this today from some equity capital markets groups across the street. I don't know any investors who are buying this stock. I did hear from some investors who, if the thing were to pop, they would be looking to get a borrow to short it, right? And so Karen can kind of walk through. She's probably one of those sorts of folks. I don't mean on this deal in particular, because again,

We don't really know the valuation just yet. Here's the one thing I would love to know. When Goldman, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley initiate on this name, I'm not going to say I guarantee you anything. I'd be shocked if there's a buy rating. So again, I think you're going to have a lot of hedge funds look to be opportunistic and probably take the other side of this, especially when you see what's going on in the public markets. All the hyperscalers are down at least 20%. NVIDIA is down nearly 30%. Why would you go out and buy this thing?

Mr. Silver Linings, great to speak to you on this Friday. Great to see you, peeps. I'll see you next week. Thanks, Dan. Curious, it closed exactly at $40. I find that amazing, actually. Because it could not close below the deal price. It could not close below, exactly. It was defended. You'll never work again if you're the equity syndicate and you didn't take this thing. Right, but what did they sell, 37 million shares? Down from 49. Well, $41.

million shares traded today. Now, it's the same, you know, the same stock trading over and over again. But I actually found it. I mean, we've seen we've seen deals where there is a syndicate that does try to hold price and yet still it breaks below Uber, for example. Yes. Remember that? Yeah. Going back. Facebook. Facebook traded terribly. Yeah. First, it was horrible. I just I found 40 to be kind of surprising that they were. Really? Yes, actually. Yeah.

Real quick, the CEO said tough market environment today. I think this IPO might have created that tough market. Well, for today's session, for sure. For today's session, for sure. And by the way, there was an FT article on the 5th talking about Microsoft potentially backing away from CoreWeave leases that CoreWeave denied. But that has been out there for a while. And as Dan has said, there was a tremendous amount of insider selling before this deal today. So there's a lot to be skeptical of for sure. Right.

Coming up, a tech titan's tough break. Amazon finishing out its eighth straight losing week. But could the pullback be priming shares for a powerful debate? That next and later. Lululemon down on its luck after earnings as a broader retail space also takes a hit. The guidance that's got investors spooked and what it all says about the health of the consumer. Fast Money will be right back. This is Fast Money with Melissa Lee right here on CNBC.

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Welcome back to Fast Money. Amazon closing out its eighth straight losing week. That is its longest losing streak since 2022. The tech giant down nearly 20 percent during the rough spell. The company dealing with recent AI weakness alongside growing cracks in the consumer. So it's really taking it from all sides. Courtney, how are you feeling about Amazon?

You know, I actually, I think I look at a lot of these as buying opportunities. I don't think that the economy or the consumer is as bad, I think, as people are fearing right now. And if so, I think this is something that you want to take advantage of. And I think I see this with a lot of your MAG-7. I think it is getting oversold here. I also don't think, though, as a market recoverer, it's necessarily going to be the leader. So I think this is something you want to own. I'm not over-allocating toward it, but it absolutely is part of my portfolio. And I think these are buying opportunities.

I agree. I mean, if you think about half, however you want to divide up their business, a giant chunk of it is very Walmart-like, right? And so to me, that's a very defensive part of the business. And then, I mean, there's still tremendous growth in the cloud service provider part of it. So I agree. I'm inclined to buy more. I think I'll get more opportunities.

opportunity that I care for tomorrow next week. You know, if you look at the prior all time high back in July of last year is about where we are right now, 195 ish. So that prior resistance becomes support. It was a decent volume day today. But again, they're not sort of

They are get caught up in the whole consumer weaknesses, the rest of these stocks, and they get caught up in the ETF flows the other way as well. But this is as good a level as seen in a while. I agree. I agree with everyone here. I also look at the valuation on Amazon is not terrible, certainly relative to itself. I think their e-commerce business is what you get for free when you buy their cloud business. And I think AWS has won.

we should be worried about the competitive landscape and how I don't think it's commoditized, but I don't think they're able to really extract the kind of margins they used to. That's what we're watching in AWS. All right. There's a lot more Fast Monday to come. Here's what's coming up next.

Lulu Lemon hitting the mat. What the company said that has Wall Street so concerned. And whether it's a warning signal for the broader consumer space. Plus, the traders' top charts as we look to close out the worst quarter for markets in nearly three years. These charts could tell the true story of where we're headed next. You're watching Fast Money, live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. We're back right after this.

Under Biden, Americans' cost of living skyrocketed. Food, housing, auto insurance. Lawsuit abuse is a big reason everything's more expensive today. Frivolous lawsuits cost working Americans over $4,000 a year in hidden taxes. President Trump understands the problem. That's why he supports loser pays legislation to stop lawsuit abuse and put thousands back in the pockets of hardworking Americans.

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Welcome back to Fast Money. A major buzzkill for Lululemon. It's worst day in more than a year, down more than 14% after last night's earnings. The athleisure brand issuing disappointing guidance saying store traffic and sales were struggling due to economic uncertainty. Maybe we shouldn't have been surprised, and yet we were, down 14%. Tim, what did you make of this?

I just think it's a story where the bar still is so high relative to itself. There's nothing wrong with these numbers. We all know that. The guide was not good. The slowing U.S. comps are a sign that U.S. margins are going to come down, too. China actually was kind of a bright spot. But if you look at what's going on, the fear is between inventory and SG&A spend.

that this is a margin story that won't ever or won't in the near future be anywhere near it was. I also just think there is macro pressure on consumer discretionary. I mean, how many more Lulu items do you need, Guy? Why don't you tell us? Since the man in the Lulu shirt. Since the man in the Lulu shirt. See that? Exactly. That's called projection. I'm not buying any more. I'm not buying any more.

This is it. Well, I think that's the trouble is their guidance was actually on the macro consumer. So they're saying this isn't a problem with Lululemon, it's the problem with the overall consumer. But I do question, is that the case? Because I think there has been so much competition there where people are going to Aloe and they're going to Viore. And they have alluded to that in the past. They said, well, that's not this time. It's actually because of the consumer. And I don't know if I'm sold on that idea yet. And I do agree with you. China was their bright spot, but 70% of their business is here in the U.S. And if we're not buying Lululemon anymore...

that's something you have to see going forward so i'm i'm not totally sold on that idea yet

So like all the retailers, it's been modest, right? Why be anything but conservative, which I think is what they were doing. It's down again on that same thing of being a retailer and issuing, you know, guidance that was a little disappointing to the street. The quarter, I thought, was pretty good, right? The margins were good. I thought, you know, China, I think, will continue to be a bright spot because it's such a relatively small part of the business. The growth there, I think, can be for a while. It doesn't move the needle so much.

We haven't seen Lulu at this valuation in I don't know how long. Right. Maybe 2020, the bottom of the of the pandemic fear. But I don't own it, but I am intrigued. So no need to jump in here. Three day rule for sure, especially down. Fifth, whatever. Forty nine bucks. But I don't know. I don't think it's.

Don't throw out the baby. Where do you have that multiple, roughly? I mean, you say it's cheap. Less than 20. Less than 20, yeah. Great balance sheet, too.

Streets still too high. I think the average price target on the streets, 387. That's with a lot of people taking down their numbers today. Yes, valuation is compelling. But this is there used to be somebody on the show named Jeff Mackey. Love Jeff Mackey. He used to say specialty retail is where hope goes to die. And to a certain extent, that's what we're sort of seeing here. And this looks eerily reminiscent to what Nike is now dealing with in terms of competition and sort of bloom off the rose. And Nike's been now in a four year downtrend, Mel. All right.

We do have breaking news on Elon Musk's XAI. Julia Borson's got the details. Julia. Hey, Melissa. Elon Musk announcing on X that XAI has acquired X in an all-stock transaction, saying that this combination values XAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion, $45 billion less, $12 billion in debt, saying since its founding two years ago, XAI has rapidly become

become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers, saying X is the digital town square where more than 600 million active users go to find the real-time source of ground truth that in the last two years has been transformed into one of the most efficient companies

in the world, positioning it to deliver scalable future growth. He goes on to talk about combining the data models, compute, distribution, and talent of these two companies, this advanced AI capability of XAI and X's massive reach. He says this will allow us to build a platform that actively accelerates human progress. And he thanks everyone for their support. Back over to you. Julia, thank you. Julia Boorstin.

Coming up, more chart than science. With uncertainty rocking markets this quarter, the traders lay out their most important charts and the clues they could be giving about where we go in Q2. All that and much more when Fast Money returns. Missed a moment of fast? Catch us anytime on the go. Follow the Fast Money podcast. We're back right after this.

Welcome back to Fast Money. Stocks plunging into the red on the hot PCE inflation data, giving up all the gains for the week. The Dow dropping more than 700 points. The S&P down just under 2 percent. The Nasdaq losing more than 2 percent for the fifth time in March. It's pacing for its worst month in nearly three years.

Well, with all the volatility we've seen this month, we thought we'd ask our traders what they think is the most important chart in the market right now. First up, Courtney's going to kick it off. You're moving away from technology. Where are you going? Yeah, and I think this is something that's always in focus, right? Because those are the sexy, exciting stocks are the Apples and the Googles and the Microsoft. But your MAG7 is down about 15% since the beginning of the year. The S&P 500 is down about 5%. When you take those out and you look at the rest of the markets, they're basically flat this year. So you look at this as a large capital.

XMAG 7. It's down 0.3% since the beginning of the year. I think this is where you need to remember as an investor why you want to be allocated to other categories and there is plenty that's holding up here. So just try not to focus on just those things. I think this trend is probably going to continue.

Tim, what is your chart? Well, my chart is, is the relative performance of the semiconductor index to the S and P and I'm taking a similar angle. It's, it's a similar, um, concept, at least inference from what's going on here and what it means. In other words, semis were the growth part of the market, the most exciting part of the part of the market. We talk all the time that that part of the market outperformed, uh, for a long time, but really stopped making relative highs against the S and P back in June. Uh,

What we noticed, and even on today's close, so today's close was not only through the close off of the lows of two weeks ago that the market rallied, you know, almost 11% in terms of semis rallied,

But they made a new relative low today. And that to me, to oversimplify this, which is what I think we were able to do. We often talked about this on the way up, which is as long as semis are outperforming Q's or the Nasdaq, which are outperforming the S&P, life is good for markets. And it doesn't mean that there aren't stocks that weren't trading here. So today, new relative low. And this week, semis make a new relative low.

Karen, what is your most important chart? Mine is the 10-year, which was interesting today. I mean, to me, it's just, you know, as a proxy for the economy, right? And so today, what it was telling us is concern, concern about stagflation. And so in the face of that, it's hard for the market to rally a lot. So that's my most important chart.

Guy. Hello. In a similar vein of a cautionary tale, the gold market, which is something we've been harping on now for a couple of years, but recently now it seems to be impervious to everything. Historically, news would come out to make gold go lower. It's no longer happening. So gold to me is a story that's sort of portending, I think, something, to Karen's point, sort of scary that's out there. And I think the gold market is sort of

a prelude to that kiss member that show and on Broadway played to a kiss no it was a Broadway show late nineties early not mid nineties obviously not in I think Alex a big one over the out one might have been alright well go anyway if you want to get inside on charts markets maybe even trader music playlist cuz there are playlists that are in action during the breaks here

Buy a ticket to our next Fast Money Live event. That's on June 5th. It's a great chance to pick our traders' brains in person. Watch the show and have a couple cocktails. Click on the QR code on your screen or go to cnbcevents.com backslash Fast Money to sign up. We do play a main game of...

movie trivia for sure. And rock and roll trivia too. And passwords. I'll challenge anybody out there. I will take you down in rock and roll trivia. I'm as good as they come. I'm just sorry. You can bring a group of people. No, take me on. Take me on. Take me on. Yeah, and name that tune. Name that tune. We have like three...

Let's take that one. It starts out in cartoon and then it turns into real life. Worst month in more than two decades. Why Bank of America says earnings could disappoint to what tariffs on the industry could mean for the stock. And a quick programming note, a new show from CNBC Sports.

premieres this weekend. It is called On the Record. You can see it tomorrow, 3 p.m. Eastern. The episode will feature interviews with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, ESPN's Mina Kimes, and TKO President Mark Shapiro. Fast Money is back in two. Back to Fast Money. We've got breaking news on former OZ Media CEO Carlos Watson. Julia Borson's got the details. Julia.

Melissa, that's right. Trump, President Trump has commuted his 10-year prison sentence. Carlos Watson tweeting out on X that his sentence has been commuted, saying, and this has been tweeting out with a thank you to Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, and this goes on. So big news today that he is not, Carlos Watson is not going to prison. All right. Julia, thank you. Julia Boorstin.

let's get to novo nordisk down once again today seeing its worst month since july of 2002 down more than 23 percent in march analysts at bank of america warning of an earnings miss this quarter thanks to quote sluggish ozempic and wagovi trends and worse fx they also expect a cut to guidance but our next guest still sees the injectable obesity space as a two-player market mizuho securities jared holtz joins us now uh jared great to have you with us

Just because it's a two-player race in obesity doesn't necessarily mean that the stock goes higher? I mean, or is it just completely washed out right now? Hey, Melissa, thank you so much for having me. It's so washed out. I mean, a lot of it's going to come down to the numbers for the quarter coming up, as these other analysts are alluding to, how much

a guidance cut actually takes place. I'm not expecting a major one. Maybe there's a modest one on FX and some of the trends are coming in light. But I think based on what we've seen earlier this year and much of last year, the fate of Novo is as much the competitive landscape as it is itself. And we'll see what happens with this oral data from Lilly in a couple of weeks or up to a couple of months.

It's interesting because just this week alone, Jared, Novo has made a couple of deals for a small payment up front on various obesity, metabolic disease sort of drugs, the latest one being today with Lexicon, the other one earlier this week with the Chinese pharma company. It hasn't moved the needle. So what do you think Novo has to do to change the narrative about its pipeline? They had their annual general meeting and apparently the CEO didn't do enough to change investors' minds.

Yeah, it just seems like the company has been a little bit too late in terms of aggregating assets that investors believe are significant enough. I mean, we talked about this last time and we've discussed it so many times over the past year. You know, the stock was, you know, more than a double from here last summer. And at that point, you know, that was the time in which the company should have been looking for assets when things were going really well.

And in pharma, you know, the street is often unkind. And I think it's basically voting now and saying that they believe investors believe this is too little too late and these deals are defensive and now they're behind and we'll see. I mean, it's going to come down to the data that these two deals that you mentioned, you know, what the data look like individually and then what the competitive landscape looks like over the next couple of quarters.

Jared, it's Karen. So in this two horse race, do you think, you know, Lilly has had a bit of a pullback as well, which maybe is up too much or maybe people too excited about, you know, the booming growth of the GLP ones? I know they've had you know, they're getting the lion's share by a lot. Do you think that any of that overall big picture weight on GLP ones is also weighing on Novo or is it all idiosyncratic? Novo, you're behind and you're getting further behind.

Yeah, I mean, I think that the category has lost a little bit of the halo it had for the better part of the last two years, just based on pricing, the IRA.

drug exclusivity and generics coming before the end of the decade, the competitive landscape with so many companies vying for position here. That being said, and some of it is obviously company specific too with some of the failures it's had along its pathway from an oral obesity standpoint.

But just looking out, I still do believe that we'll be sitting here in a couple of years and these will be the two dominant players in obesity, especially in injectables. Just don't think many companies can afford to be in the market. All right. Jared, thanks so much for joining us. Always good to get your take. Jared Holtz of Mizuho.

You bought, right? You're in. I'm not in. Oh, you're not in. Sorry. I've certainly been bullish in my sentiment and feeling that this is overdone in a company that even without their ability to support and reinvest in their pipeline is growing 15 to 20 percent. I think the expectations for May 7th when they report is that if they reaffirm guidance, I think it's I think it's it's bullish for the stock. So I think you can own it here. I think the valuation is is defensible. I think.

I think so, too, in terms of reaffirming. At the same time, Lilly is going to have data on retatrutide, which is the injectable that is more effective than their current injectable, which is more effective than Novo's injectable. And it will have an oral readout later this year. So it just seems like there's so many positive potential positive catalysts for Lilly, which are then headwinds and negative catalysts for.

If that was, if Novo's only business with GLP-1, absolutely. But they still have a whole insulin business, a whole rare disease business that's being completely discounted. I get it. GLP-1s for them are the lion's share of their revenue. But at this price being cut in half the stock, more than cut in half, I think you've almost priced all that bad news in. All right. Up next, the last word from the traders after today's sell-off as we get you ready for another big week ahead. Be right back.

Welcome back to Fast Money. Markets closing out the week in the red amid more tariff announcements and some weak inflation numbers. Investors now looking ahead to what President Trump is dubbing Liberation Day. That is next Wednesday. But with uncertainty still looming large over the markets, let's get the last word from each of our traders as we start this new, potentially very volatile week, Tim.

Well, again, we're going to hear what we're going to hear. I think it's about the payroll number. And we know that there's a lot of caution amongst the C-suite. And I think there's not necessarily been an impact on job hiring yet. But these are starting to become critical numbers for the Fed.

Karen? Yes. I think, okay, I'm a long-term investor. You don't need to do anything, right? So I don't feel a need to do anything. My strong inclination is to buy. We talked about Amazon earlier. That's the kind of name I would love to buy in the volatility that I'm sure we will see next week one way or another. Yeah. Courtney? And I agree. I think there's something you want to stay invested here. I don't think you want to get nervous with all the volatility. And if anything, you want to make sure you're diversified and buy into these dips, especially there's a lot of people have cash on the sidelines. You want to start to dollar cost average in here.

Sort of with Tim, you know, a year or so ago, Jerome Powell, I don't know what he was asked, but he's in response to something. He said, I see neither the stag nor the flation when asked about the possibility of that. And all of a sudden, more and more people are talking about it. Tim talked about at the top of the show. The final piece to that puzzle, because it's clear inflation is a problem and it's clear growth is becoming a problem, is the jobs number. And if that job number deteriorates, we're staring into the IML. All right. Up next.

Final trade. You know, I'm not sure because I don't think the time is right for final trade. We have two minutes when we come back. You're talking about stag. What do you call it? When you went to a party. All guys, right? Is that what you want to talk about? You brought us back in. This is what happens when there's a lot of dead air. It's not our fault. It was the music. It was early. Who played the music? Is that a fig in the... Did he do it? No.

I don't blame don't know finger pointing on this over team. Next now now a little final trade.

It's time for the final trade. Let's go around the horn. Tim. Let's not have that period of dead air again. That was really uncomfortable. Was it? That's why I'm talking right now. I can tell you're just breathing. Disney. Disney. People are afraid of silence. Awful. Karen. Yes. So a difficult week, but I'm always looking. What can I buy that's really undervalued? I think a good buy right here. Next week, Amazon will be buying some of that. And happy birthday, Jack and Lucy, my big twins. Happy birthday. I love you guys. Courtney. Courtney.

This is actually my chart earlier, but the large cap X, the mag seven, I think they're probably going to continue to be volatility. We want to make sure you're spread out here. This is a good way to do so. Early must win for the Mets tonight in Houston. It tells you a lot about Guy Adom. Bristol Myers, Mel. Okay. Thanks for watching FAST. Have a great weekend. Mad Money with Jim Cramer starts right now.

Thank you.

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