Navigating 3 Big Stock Moves… And Opportunities in Private Credit 6/3/25
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John Batiste's all-new jazz club and the Caribbean's largest casino. Visit Bahamar.com today and discover your next vacation. Live from the NASDAQ MarketSite in the heart of New York City's Times Square, this is Fast Money. Here's what's on tap tonight. Three major moves catching our eye today. What's behind the action in these big names? And should you be a buyer or seller at these levels? And a nuclear trade meta inking a 20-year agreement with Constellation Energy. What it means for the utility and what it says about the future of AI.

Plus, CrowdStrike drops from their all-time highs after its latest earnings report. Dollar General hosts its best day ever. And Ford gets a big bump in sales in May. Can the carmaker keep driving higher? I'm Melissa Lee. Come to your locker room studio. Be at the NASDAQ on the desk tonight. Tim Seymour, Karen Feinerman, Dan Nathan, and Guy Adami.

We start off at the tail of three stocks driving today's action. Boeing rising nearly a percent. Netflix dipping slightly into the red after hitting an all time high early in the session. We start off with Nvidia surging almost 3% in a strong day for chip stocks. The chip maker also catching a bid on headlines out of Taiwan Semi's Investor Day with that CEO brushing off concerns over the impact of tariffs so far and saying that AI demand remains robust.

NVIDIA surpassing Microsoft to once again become the most valuable stock in the market with a total value of almost $3.5 trillion. It's the first time at the top since January 24th. But what do you do with the shares here? Buy or sell? Guy.

Well, you're familiar with that meatloaf, the single meatloaf? Mr. Loaf? Mr. Loaf to you. Two out of three ain't bad. Exactly. Do you have a real name on meatloaf? Not Jim Steinman. It was like McAnee or something. I'm sorry. I apologize. Mr. Loaf to you. NVIDIA is the, out of the two, that's the third one that I've obviously not gotten right. And here we are at 141, which is where we were trading after they reported earnings.

An earnings report that we collectively said was very good. The margins were great. Everything was alike. The stock actually sold off in the few days after, got down to 134, and it felt like a sort of a replay of what we saw in January. But it's not. Now you have analysts sort of piling in. You still have to take out that 153 level. And given today's price action, it feels like it might happen. And there's also a report, I think, in the information yesterday that they're going to develop a new China chip.

Basically, that goes right up until the limits in terms of exporting AI chips, the H30, I think, no, P30, excuse me. Yeah, and this happens, obviously, there's been a lot of back and forth. And, you know, we throw NVIDIA in that sort of final battle fought with U.S. tech brands. And Tesla, Apple are right in there. They thought they got some sort of exclusions. And then it's gone back and forth. And I think it's about as clear as mud what's going to be going on there. And, you know, listen, I...

Again, I have no idea. I'm with Guy. Last week, it felt like a lot of folks were really excited about the guidance that they gave, the trip that Jensen Wang had gone on with Trump to the Middle East. You know what we call that? What do we call that? We call that Jensenity. Oh, my gosh. Oh, nice job. I can't believe I'm reading that again. I like it. I forgot all that.

So we're not just about acronyms here. We're about nicknames, too. We're going in terms. I mean, we're doing a lot. No, I mean, that is something that I think a lot of people look by some of the issues as it relates to China. You know, I'm still in the camp. I mean, you can kind of look at a core weave and you say, look what's going on here. You can kind of look at Microsoft back towards those all-time highs, despite that we don't see any meaningful pickup in Copilot and that sort of thing. We saw Azure kind of do better than expected. So, yeah.

I'm just in the camp that sooner or later, you know, I've been saying this for a year, you're going to get a bit of a digestion. But the one thing I just want to say here is that, you know, we talked about this, whether it was going to be from 153 or $200. These stocks can get cut in half. And it happened in a very short period of time. So there are risks when you're buying into this where sentiment feels absolutely

Absolutely great and that's one of the reasons why I think it's really important to keep touch or close to these data points in Taiwan semi which makes up almost 90% of Nvidia's high-end GPUs if you're hearing it from there if you're hearing it from there you're hearing the guidance you're hearing a new channel then I guess that's fine I'm just not a buyer here. I wasn't a buyer I should have been a buyer at 95 everyone should have been a buyer at 95 but who knew well that was the digestion right and so I mean he said the there will be there will be a digestion again I'm sure but it's a trillion dollars since that you know that low point and and

What we got the other day from NVIDIA was at least a handful of answers that were really important. We had a China answer, I think more broadly, even not just on earnings. We've had some answer in terms of export restrictions and also, you know, where NVIDIA was really on the other side of the U.S. government. NVIDIA right now seems to be, you know, alongside the U.S. government running around the world cutting sovereign AI deals.

We're going to talk a lot more about Meta's deal with Constellation. But that's just another reaffirmation that the demand out there for AI data center is alive and well and hasn't even altered at all. So I think Blackwell Supply, some of the dynamics, I think, around just what's going on with their next wave of chips has now been answered. There's still some uncertainty. But why would we doubt NVIDIA?

after they've delivered on everything else. But most importantly, it gets back to valuation. Because this is a company that's trading 27, 28, 29 times 12-month forward with a NASDAQ that's at 25, 26 times. What would you rather own here? Would you rather own NVIDIA and its growth or the entire index, which people say is also expensive?

Woodratter. Southwoodratter. Yeah, Woodratter. But I do own a number of them. Right. So I do own it. I think the demand story being intact was very much, I think, the most important thing. Because if we see that, then we'll see the margin improvement as they're able to fulfill that demand. And we saw it again with Dell. Demand story is there. So I'm long. I do agree that this is susceptible to...

A change in sentiment. It's also very susceptible to China-U.S. relations, I think, right? I think that's why it sold off a little bit after, even though that great report ran up so much into it. So I'm staying long. I do think we're still at the earliest stages of AI, and so the demand will continue for a while. I know the stock will peak before demand peaks, but I don't know when that is. All right.

Now let's get to Netflix. Shares had been up nearly a percent of their highs of the session, touching a new intraday record. Jefferies raising its price target on the stock to $1,400 from $1,200, forecasting more growth tied to U.S. price hikes and a robust content slate. Both shares up over 36 percent year-to-date as the stock running into some resistance here. Tim, what do you say?

Well, after running like a bat out of hell. Oh, nice job, Tim. I think we say it all the time here. We've said it for the last, by the way, Marvin Lee a day. That comes from Sandy Cannell. I didn't know Meat Loaf's real name, even though I should. I think you're at a place here where that's the problem. The problem is nothing to do with the content release and Guy watches all of these. I mean, he's usually games and he's on the adolescence. I remember was one of his big ones.

But I think it really is very difficult to give Netflix a hard time, especially when you look at what they're doing with the ad-supported models. It seemed to be somewhat recession-proof. That needs to be seen. International growth. It's about the valuation. And I think, you know, at some point that really does matter for a company that probably no one dislikes, and that might worry me as a trader. Well, Tim, you took the words. Nice. Right out of my mouth.

That's so good. That is so good. That really is good. That really was good. Again, you want to fight against non-evaluation? Well, people have been shooting against it for the last five years, and it's their world. You're waiting for a day, and today was not that day, but a huge volume day, new all-time high, and it closes on the lows. Now, you had that sort of today, but trade at half the amount of volume it typically does. Wait for a day where it trades 15 or 20 million shares.

And reverses. We haven't seen that. Yeah. So going back the last 15 years, I feel like we've talked about this name an awful lot. Right. And there's been a few folks on this desk who've been buyers on every all three of you, by the way, and our main man, Tom Rogers. And, you know, it was Netflix's game and taking the words out of my mouth or your mouth. And everyone else is just been kind of, you know, thrown to the side. Right. But.

the problem that you have here is that you know every time you see a dip in the stock you know folks just say continue to own it and you know sooner or later there will be something fundamental we go back 15 years 10 years or whatever there were fundamental mishaps right people like used to sell the stock on price increases right but it's proven to be recession proof so at some point might there be something that they kind of hit up against maybe and i listen i

I think you just keep owning it. I don't think you buy it. And I would have said that, you know, a week ago, two weeks ago, two months ago. It's just a really hard name, despite the fact there are a runaway winner, like very few runaway winners that we've seen in technology that have been able to keep that pace over the last kind of 10 years or so. So what would be the bear case in your view? I guess very accelerated competition from others that really start, which is not happening. Right. That would be a case.

I mean, this company has managed to remake themselves over and over and over again, right? And successfully. Successfully. And.

And now, you know, doing much more live sports now. And so they just seem to be everywhere that you want to be ahead of everyone else. Also, their balance sheet ahead of everyone else. I also been thinking that, you know, with a lot of the stuff in terms of how would that affect content costs? I have to think they've got to go down dramatically. That's important for them and everybody, any streamer, any any creator of content. That's important.

I like everything about it except the price, but I'm willing to live with it. It's so expensive, but it's worth it. However, I have sold calls against it, and that has never been a good trade. That's really interesting what you say about AI and content cost. That is going to be a battleground. That might be the sort of thing that causes some of this A-list talent that's been gravitating towards their original content to kind of go the other way. I mean, this is something that you keep hearing about in Hollywood, but we haven't really been faced with that sort of challenge. But my only point is,

It could go either way. What do you mean? So where does that, let's say those people do it on their own, how do they get on a platform? No, no, no, they go back to a more traditional platform. Like think of it, Adam Sandler, he's doing this second. There's like a revolt against AI. There could be, and we've seen that before. What I'm saying is who knows, if this technology is going to be such a sea change for so many other industries and it's going to put a lot of pressure on a lot of things we haven't even figured out, that might be one of the most important points, one of the most important challenges, I guess. All right.

Let's move on to Boeing. You're hitting a 52-week high. Bernstein naming the stock its best idea in aerospace and defense thanks to accelerating production, attractive fundamentals, and a compelling valuation. Shares are up more than 65% from their April lows. Boeing is the B in carved. Yeah. It is the B in carved. Of course. Karen. Yes. And so you like the stock. I do like the stock. I did really, really love that giant capital raise. What?

I mean, looking good, by the way. B in carved, whatever that is. I thought it was A. I thought it was aerospace and Boeing was aerospace. No, A is Alibaba. Come on. Come on. Obviously. Harvard. She went to Harvard this one. And the A in Alibaba is throwing her for a little bit. There it is. They put it back up for you. There we go. So I loved that capital raise, that giant capital raise when they did, you know, what, $20 billion debt or equity. And...

And then it's just about getting deliveries out the door. This is a cash flow story. You can't do it until you start getting deliveries. That's happening. I feel like there has really been a change here. And so we're early on. They also just did a divested Jepson. That's about $10.5 billion. A little more help for the balance sheet there. So a lot of things just going now. It's just execute. That's it. Execute.

Well, this is also the B in band. I want to steal the B in carb, but this is the B in band. And so, look, I didn't really like Netflix. I like Netflix and I love Boeing. So, Guy...

Two out of three ain't bad, right? We'll take that. And I love Boeing. And it's interesting how they call it a momentum stock, because that's not what you usually hear about Boeing. And if anything, you have that momentum. I also find it interesting to refer to it in terms of an attractive valuation. This is a company that doesn't make money, hasn't made money, but I know where they're going with this, and it's going to happen quickly. The cash flow flip is going to happen.

in the second half of 25, that 735, 737 ramp, excuse me. We absolutely have demand exceeding what they can do on production well into the 2030s is kind of their call. This is a stock that really could actually be a safe pair of hands for a lot of people. So I think it's under-owned. I think the analyst community is just coming around and we probably need a little more follow-through on cashflow, but no one's expecting any.

It's great news. It's momentum since April, certainly. It's up more than 60 percent from the lows then. It's got more room. Our crack staff in EC, if you go back to February of 2019, the stock was making an all-time high north of 450. That was the first point of a downtrend line that is about to be broken to the upside, which theoretically should get us to the highs we saw a year and a half or so ago, which is 260. So I still think that's in the crosshairs. And if I may for a second, are you familiar with Greg Maddox?

Just say yes. Sure. The umpires would give him the benefit of the doubt because he was so great. So a ball a couple inches off the plate would be called a strike. Not unlike Karen. Could we put the carved back up? The R in carved is

It's URI. I mean, come on. It's rentals. Come on. I mean, come on. That's fantastic. Anyway, enough rigging our protocols for this. Let's get to Constellation Energy here. Finishing in the red after being up more than 9% at the highs of the day, the company is securing a 20-year agreement to supply Meta with 1.1 gigawatts

of nuclear power starting in 2027. Names like Vistra, Talon Energy, Nextera also getting a boost from the news. For more on what this means for the nuclear energy landscape, let's bring in KeyBank Managing Director and Senior Analyst Sophie Karp. She has an overweight rating at a $337 price target on Constellation. Sophie, welcome. Good to see you.

Good to see you. Thank you for having me. It seems, at least to me, that maybe the deal is a little bit opaque in that we're not really sure if they're getting a premium in this deal in terms of price per megawatt hour from Meta.

Yeah, we don't know the details of the deal in terms of the price that's being paid. And I think that's becoming increasingly common for players in the power space to not disclose such details for competitive reasons. I do believe they're getting the premium versus the market price, considering that the press release states the amount is paying for the environmental attributes, such as zero emission nuclear energy.

And usually there wouldn't be any reason to really do a deal without the premium, right? You can always hedge at that power curve if it wasn't the case. So we like the deal. I think what we've seen in the market review is a little bit of a profit taking. The deal was somewhat anticipated, another deal this year. So that's what we're seeing. I think just the fact that the deal came through pretty

pretty much pretty early in the year just reinforces the thesis that constellation is really well positioned to monetize its fleet it is unique it's getting more valuable intrinsically by the day because it's getting more expensive to build new generation in this country um and with we really like our thesis here i think the constellation will continue to do well

Sophie, it's Tim. Thanks for joining us. DeepSeek really knocked a handful of the utility, the power utility, the energy data center plays. This may be more than any other than Vistra. But before all that, people like I'm long the stock and very excited about that Calpine deal. And again, you combine maybe the best nuclear play, at least in terms of scale. You combine the gas assets. I mean, talk about this as a utility. Leave all the AI hype aside and talk about this name from those perspectives.

Absolutely. Demand for power has been rising before the AI came to the scene. DeepSeq really did not put any dent into the CapEx budgets for AI data centers as an aside that we have seen so far. The companies in our space have signaled no slowdown in demand on the inbound interests that they're seeing from large load customers.

But the demand for power is definitely rising regardless. And the fact that Constellation has been able to assemble this portfolio of base load assets such as nuclear and load following and picking assets from Constellation that are positioned in growing markets, in attractive markets, it

That makes this company very valuable. And like I said, it's getting more and more difficult to build a new generation in this country. So whoever owns the existing portfolio of these assets, they're intrinsically increasing in value. Like it takes seven years to get a gas turbine, right?

now, right? You cannot just build a gas plant tomorrow. The repeal of the IRA that's kind of ongoing in Congress, that's going to make it more expensive to build renewable generation. That has been actually the majority of the additions recently. So as it becomes a new nuclear, that's

That's years away, right? The SMRs, something like that, there's something that's years away. Potentially, like we're looking at the next decade when those are going to be at scale. So in the meantime, there really is very limited new generation coming online. So when you see Constellation and they have this ability to do a bit of upgrades, increase the capacity of the existing plants, they've assembled this great portfolio of assets that can address different pockets of market demand. They have a retail book to match that.

This is a company that we like. Sophie, thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate your insights. Sophie Karp of KeyBank. Uranium stocks also got a bit today on the back of this deal. And what was interesting in terms of noting where the valuation is on Constellation, it is approximately the same on a forward basis as Meta. Not expensive.

But look at the price action today. I mean, again, if you think, and Tim is right on this, if you think it's a secular story, you just want to be long in space, I totally get it. But you look at a day like today, we traded up to the prior high. We opened on the highs today, 342-ish, closed on the lows on about three times normal volume. So you might have put in a short-term double top. It doesn't mean this trade is over by any stretch of the imagination, but the formation is a little scary. You know, it's interesting. If you overlay CEG with meta, they look like the same chart, right? And so I go back to the fall.

I think it was Satya Nadella talking on a podcast that he's no longer constrained as it relates to access to chips, but they're power constrained. So if you talk about where the digestion period comes, we don't see a bunch of use cases materialize as we get into the back half of the year or, you know,

we might see that digestion phase as far as compute and the need for it. And then it comes back to power, how much access. You could also see overcapacity in the power space, right? If you don't see things materialize. So I guess I'd rather be long, let's say, a meta than a CEG right here. Except can the capacity be picked up by just...

increasing use of power in general by yes but our government i mean isn't this government making it clear that power is one of their biggest priorities and i think they're right i'd rather though have asset light than asset heavy right which is meta asset light right okay meantime elon musk sounding off in the congressional spending bill in a series of posts on x calling it a quote disgusting abomination amen javers has got the details on this amen

Yeah, Melissa, if that wasn't bad enough for the White House, disgusting abomination is pretty tough. But then he followed it up with another tweet in which he effectively threatened the primary Republican members on the Hill who don't vote the way he wants. Here's what he said in the tweet that he put up. He said in November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people. Now, that post on X was a response to a user on X who was complaining about Republicans

on Capitol Hill and the way they've conducted themselves and the way they've prioritized things in the budgeting process. Musk there threatening to fire politicians who don't vote the way he wants. That sets up a political conundrum for this White House, which is trying to get that bill over the hump in the Senate. Russ Vogt, the Office of Management and Budget Director, was out here on the White House driveway just a short time ago talking to reporters, and he explained the pitch that he's making to Elon Musk and others. Here's what he said.

We think the bill is a very good one. We think it's very strong fiscally. Nothing's changed from our view of the world. We understand where he's coming from, but if you have an accurate baseline that treats taxes the same way it treats spending, this budget is $1.6 trillion in mandatory savings.

Now, I asked Russ Vogt if he had made that case to Elon Musk specifically, and he said, look, I'm making this case to everyone. He also rejected the premise that he needs to do a lot of cajoling to get this bill across the finish line in the Senate. They are saying here at the White House that they feel confident that they're going to get the bill done, despite what Elon Musk just did here this afternoon.

All right. Eamon, thank you. Eamon Javers. It's amazing what a few days will do. I mean, it was just sort of the beginning of the week. He was in the Oval Office standing right next to Donald Trump. And here he is calling the big, beautiful bill an abomination. It's not necessarily. Oh, go ahead. I was just to say real quick, he's not necessarily wrong. So love him or hate him. I mean, I think he's on point with this. I mean, and this is totally consistent with what he was there to do. A lot of people didn't really like the approach, but a lot of people were very much in favor of cutting spending and cutting a bunch of groups within the government that

that really weren't doing anything. Yeah, I guess the broader issue is like, OK, it's one thing for the president to threaten his own party to, you know, to primary folks. I mean, the fact that you have these kind of dueling forces, it is a little difficult for our democracy when you think about that. And, you know, this is the richest man in the world who has, you know, amazing, amazing levers to pull. If you think of the platform he owns, if you think

space and all that sort of X AI, which is growing tremendously. Starlink. I mean, the list goes on and on. It's like take every Bond villain of the last 50 years, mash it together, and this is what you got. And you think I'm being like hyperbolic. I'm not, at least the way the Broccoli's think of it.

You actually had an interesting take in terms of the impact on his business. He could be winning back some more fans. I'm wondering, if you're a Tesla shareholder, are you happy with these set of tweets or are you not? Clearly, when he went the other way, it had a noticeable impact on his business. He did, however, say, I'm getting out of the politics game, sort of. Something to that effect. Not exactly. This is sort of getting back into the politics game a little bit. But I don't know. It's interesting.

Coming up, we are watching CrowdStrike after hours, shares on the move after reporting results, the details and the numbers in the quarter, and how our traders are handling the cybersecurity name. That's next. Plus, a symbolic vote at Warner Brothers, shareholders rejecting CEO David Zaslav's pay package, what it means and what precedent it could set. Don't go anywhere. Fast Money is back in two.

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Welcome back to Fast Money. Shares of CrowdStrike dropping after hours despite an earnings beat. The move coming after the stock closed a regular session at a record. The conference call underway. CNBC's Steve Kovach has got the very latest. Steve? Yeah, we see shares off 6.5 or so percent here after hours. Mel, look, here's what we got here. EPS was coming in at 73 cents adjusted. That was a beat by about 8 cents. Revenue directly in line at $1.1 billion. As for Q2 revenue, that guidance was a tad

light, $1.14 to $1.15 billion. Street wanted to see $1.16 billion. That could explain a little bit of the dip we're seeing. They also announced a $1 billion buyback. In this press release here, CEO George Kurtz highlighting annual recurring revenue of $4.44 billion. That's up 22%, and he says it's making progress towards their $10 billion goal. Stock has, of course, been on a

Huge run, up more than 40% on the year. Most of those gains in just the last two months. Now, we're not seeing a ton of negatives in this report. Perhaps a little selling of the news because CrowdStrike didn't exactly demolish expectations. And like you said, the call just started. So if we hear anything new about this quarter, I'll come back if anything comes out of it now.

All right, Steve, thanks. Steve Kovach got down 6.8% right now. Guy? When you trade north of 100 times next year's numbers, you have to crush in order for this to continue.

With that said, which would be a great T-shirt, that 450 level that we're trading at now, that's the prior high that we traded up to and failed at back in February. So this should actually be the first level of support. There's nothing not to like here other than the valuation. Yeah, I like it a lot. And I think it was impossible to after a 63 percent move in February.

six weeks. This is a stock that was up 40 percent. I also just think that the software and certainly the security side of the software space has been moving just after the semis get going again. So I think there's more to this trade. I think you'll let this one wait, but I don't think you're going to get a big opportunity. All right. There's a lot more fast funding to come. Here's what's coming up next.

Auto adjustments. How Ford is steering through tariff challenges and whether last month's sales surge can keep driving the stock. Plus, the latest read from the private credit market where one top investor is seeing opportunity now and how he sees the high net worth market shaping up. You're watching Fast Money live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. We're back right after this.

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Welcome back to Fast Money. A rare vote against a CEO pay package coming in just the last hour. Warner Brothers Discovery shareholders rejecting David Zasloff's nearly $52 million compensation plan with more than 59 percent voicing their opposition. The vote is non-binding, but WBD shares are more than 20 percent off their 52-week high. The company facing major headwinds in its cable business and S&P Global recently downgrading its debt to junk.

We were chatting about this before the show, how unusual it is to get such turnout for any kind of shareholder vote, let alone such a sound rejection of a comp package, which is normally rubber-stamped, I mean, for the most part. Yes, and the only reason we're doing this is because exactly that point. But look at this stock over the last couple of years. I mean, it's trading $9.50 now. I mean, we're at levels we haven't seen, I think, since 2007 or so. So it's hard to just—

in my opinion, that type of compensation for performance of a company that hasn't performed. It's not unlike sports. If you don't perform, you're not going to get re-signed. You're certainly not going to make $51.5 million. It just does seem like an extraordinary amount of money. Now, granted, it's in an industry that's really facing headwinds, but that shouldn't be the shareholder's problem, that they should have to pay, you know, an excessive amount. Can you imagine how much they would have paid him if it really worked? I can't even fathom. When I hear about...

Elon Musk's pay package. I think he was worth it. He put out these extraordinary goals and he met them. Okay, so maybe they didn't do it as they should have, but then they...

I think he deserves that money. This, to me, is a very different situation. Why do the shareholders come last? I don't get that. Right. And it's not only just this year's pay package. It's the past years of pay package, of extraordinary pay for a stock that has been lagging its peers. Yeah, one thing that's worth noting, a couple months ago, I think it was, they added a few board members. One of them was Anthony Noto. Another one was Anton Levy. These guys are kind of heavy hitters a little bit. Fossil Merchant, who works at a company called Wiz that just got bought from...

for $32 billion from Google. So they're beefing up the board here. And I think that's something that's notable. And then if you kind of scale back some of the compensation, that is investor stuff. But it could be interesting. Well, speaking of sports and speaking of performance, they just lost the NBA. You know, I mean, this is a huge, huge move for these guys. And, you know, to the extent that this was something that was really – by the way, TNT's done an incredible job on the NBA playoffs. And that's something that I think people are watching this and thinking –

What's going to happen to these guys next year? Yeah, we did note, but just to underscore this, it's non-binding. So this vote is a symbolic gesture. So what kind of pressure is the board under at this point? Tremendous, I would think, right? I don't know how those two new members would vote, but you've got to think your shareholders are telling you something loud and clear. It would be, I mean, OK, ignore them, I suppose, but...

Maybe you'll have a lot, you know, a big exodus. Coming up, looking to avoid volatility in the stock market, how one firm is giving investors another alternative and where they are seeing the most opportunity 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 extending their gains today the dow jumping more than 200 points now up four days in a row the s p up half a percent and the tech heavy nasdaq leading the gains of eight tenths of a percent those two indices posting their highest close since february shares of hims and hers more than

Erasing an early surge, the company announcing it will acquire European telehealth platform Zava as it looks to expand globally. The stock up more than 18% at its highs. It's still up nearly 130% this year. Shares of Robinhood jumping another 6% today, posting its highest ever close. That's up nearly 90% over just the past two months.

And some more after-hours action. Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and software company Asana beating top and bottom line expectations. Shares of Ford higher after reporting a third consecutive month of double-digit U.S. sales growth in May. Demand fueled by its ongoing employee pricing program. And Wells Fargo higher after hours. The Federal Reserve lifting asset cap restrictions that stem from a 2018, that long ago, enforcement action against the bank.

after its fake account scandal. This was long in coming. This was expected in terms of Wells Fargo and the asset cap, but here it is and the stock is up. I think it's big news. I think it's stock that especially, you drop that into the context of deregulation in the banking sector and, you know,

Let's think about the cyclicality of banks, what they have, but also a yield curve that's been getting steeper. But I think Wells Fargo, really since 2018, has had certainly a ball and chain around it. This is a very big deal. Some analysts said that this cost them, this cap cost them almost $40 billion in earnings over the last, or whatever that is, that seven years or so. So I think it's a big deal. I actually think you can stay long.

Stock is trading around an all-time high, so it is a big deal. Maybe that's one of the reasons. I'll tell you, I will play the game that Tim played earlier, the self-would-you-rather. There are many games. You played the game. You like to play them by yourself. I do, Tim. Actually, I do. A city over Wells Fargo. Mel, back to you. All right. High net worth investors and now retail investors flocking to private credit as they look to diversify their portfolios. For more on the demand and themes to watch now, Fortress Investment Group co-CEO Drew McKnight joins us here on set. Drew, welcome back to

Thanks for having me. Where are the pockets of opportunity for you now as this, you know, this demand for it has sort of gone inning by inning by, I don't know where we are. You can answer that in terms of demand. That's a good question. Look, I think the way people define private credit I think is evolving and I think the private credit pie is growing.

Initially, private credit really came about post-GFC, filling the void of the shadow banking system that folks talked about a lot. And that initially started primarily in LBOs and buyout financing. I think private credit, as a definition, has grown immensely. And I think when you define it more broadly and you start to capture consumer finance, mortgage finance, asset-based credit, the

the denominator is just a lot bigger than the way people have traditionally defined it. And so while I think we're cautious on some of the buyout financing, because I think that has gotten quite competitive, I think when you look at asset-based credit and some of the, frankly, larger asset classes, the growth there, I believe, is just getting started and is actually very early. And to that end, I mean, you're pointing out to our producers that

The disintermediation of regional banks in particular, I mean, they've got a lot of commercial real estate on their balance sheets, and that's an opportunity for you to step in. That's right. And again, I think you've seen it. Really, it got exacerbated post the Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, First Republic in 2023. It took a little while for that to digest. But I think when you look at banks, you look at their balance sheets, you look at the duration of their portfolios where everything in real estate has extended duration.

just because of interest rates. And that has caused banks to pull back. You couple that with what they saw in 2023, which was a deposit flight and a run on the banks. And I think that that caused all of them to reassess their liquidity and think about what they can allocate capital to. Asset-based credit, which I touched on, is an area of growth, not just for us, but for a host of folks.

We've done $7 billion of originations in asset-based credit since the fall of 2023. And we're really just scratching the surface.

People talk about whether there's a bubble in private credit. You talk about the opportunity set. We believe it's like a $6 trillion opportunity set. So, yes, it's growing. But the amount of capital that does need to move from the small and regional banking system into private credit is, frankly, immense. And so the formation of capital is...

I think is important. I think the other thing to think about is can you actually achieve the returns? And that's something that I think we're seeing. You talk about private wealth and you think about traditionally a portfolio that was 60-40 stocks and bonds and obviously the world's slowly evolving.

But I think about my mom's portfolio and what would I be comfortable with her having. You look at what private credit has delivered over a cycle, over interest rate volatility, over stock market volatility, and you're achieving high single digits to low double digits with very low volatility. And I would much rather my mom have a portfolio of some of that mixed in with a stock and bond portfolio. And so I think ultimately the ability to achieve returns is what's most important. And that's where I think we feel, frankly,

uh... quite quite strongly about the opportunities on friday jamie diamond said there's gonna be a crack in the bond market i'm telling it's gonna happen it's going to happen is pretty adamant about that what does that mean for your world to great question and i think

Obviously the markets are telling us globally that that this is front and center I think what we take some comfort in in the asset based credit world is you've got floating rate interest risk You've got floors in your sofa. So you've actually got your your if interest rates collapsed you've got floors built in if interest rates are higher you you float and with the structures that we're seeing even with the demand is

We're running scenarios that loss curves at 2 and 3x what the global financial crisis is. So you're fairly conservative in terms of credit assessment. And so, frankly, from our perspective, we feel like it's actually a place to hide where you can earn those high single digits, low double digit returns on a net basis in a somewhat insulated world versus the volatility in the stock market and the risk in the bond market.

So we know private equity has been slow. And one of the things that's had it slow, that caused the slowdown is the IPO market being closed. But that's sort of starting to change, right? There's a number of high profile deals. We've had a few. Do you think, is there enough of that to sort of get the wheels rolling again in the future?

I mean, we're hopeful. I do think it's early. I think the IPO markets are open. I think the real issue for private equity isn't that the IPO markets aren't open. It's the price that private equity wants to sell their companies isn't necessarily at the market clearing price. I think if you had Jamie Dimon, David Solomon in here, they would tell you the IPO markets are wide open.

if you come to market at the right price. I think the issue right now is a lot of private equity that was bought in 2020, 2021 was bought at high multiples with low interest rates. And I think the real issue is the price of liquidity or the price of the go public doesn't match what they're projecting for their returns.

Drew, great to have you. Thanks so much. Come back soon. Drew McKnight, Fortress. Coming up, make a house a home or turn it into cash. The record amount of equity homeowners are sitting on and why they're tapping into it right now. That is next. Plus, Dollar General notching its best day ever on the back of its results this morning. What they're saying about the impact of tariffs and how they're finding opportunity with higher income customers. We've got the details on Fast Money Returns.

Welcome back to Fast Money. Homeowners are sitting on an eye-popping $11.5 trillion of tappable equity, and data shows they are starting to cash in on that in a big way. CNBC's Diana Olick joins us now for more on these recent trends. Diana.

Well, Melissa, the steep run-up in home prices over the last five years means roughly 48 million homeowners are sitting on that record amount of collective cash. In total, $17.6 trillion. According to new data from Ice Mortgage Technology, that's the full amount of home equity. But as you said, they can tap about $11.5 trillion of that while still leaving enough to make lenders happy. The average individual homeowner can pull out about $212,000 each. Not bad.

In recent years, though, homeowners have been reluctant to take equity out. They, of course, still remember the great housing crash well over a decade ago, but that's now changing. In the first quarter of this year, all home equity withdrawals, including home equity lines of credit and cash out refis, totaled $45 billion. That is the

highest Q1 volume in three years. Now, if we're just looking at those second lean home equity lines, the HELOC withdrawals, they made up $25 billion. That is the largest volume in 17 years. Demand has increased mostly because interest rates on HELOCs have fallen to the lowest level in three years and could dip even lower by next year. Also, people are just staying in their homes longer, which means more repairs, which of course is one of the top uses of home equity. Equity out, equity back in. Melissa.

Diana, what have you noticed in terms of fees? Because I've seen a couple banks advertise no closing costs for HELOCs if you deposit X amount into an account, basically a way to increase accounts there. Yeah, they're definitely getting more creative. Why? Because mortgage lenders need business. We've seen mortgage applications fall dramatically in the last year as interest rates rose. That's for regular refinance applications or for just purchase applications because the

the spring home selling market has been so bad. So lenders are, where can I get some business? Maybe get it in the HELOC market because there is so much equity there. So they are definitely using lots of ways to get people in. All right, Diana, thank you. Diana Olick, what do you think this says about the consumer and the need for cash right now? Well,

I'll let Guy, who talks about this stretch consumer, I'll just say this says people are going down to Home Depot. I mean, this says that actually the DIY, which was actually lagging in these last first quarter numbers, but overall the numbers were fine or decent because pro continues to be both margin and a place where they're outperforming low. So I like Home Depot on even the medium term here, even though it snapped back nicely.

Agree. Agree with everything Tim just said. I think Home Depot, Lowe's, all of them. There's another one, QXO, we never talk about, that it's a roll-up that I think is really interesting. It's one we can talk about another day. Yeah, Guy, to use an expression you like to use, cash on the sideline. It just seems like there's a lot. I mean, it's more, you use it generally for the stock market when you see those balances, but this is obviously a tailwind for the economy, especially as you think about interest rates coming down or taxes coming down.

Where does that fall in relationship to more buyers and sellers or more sellers and buyers? Yeah, that's a good one. That's up there, too. That's where it's up there, too. The pantheon of stock market space. The Parthenon pantheon. I'll say this. You know, it could be a good thing, tapping into it because they can, or the flip side is because they have to.

I'm more of they have to camp, which I don't think is particularly encouraging. If they have to, though, how can they qualify for a HELOC? Well, that's entirely different, I think. I mean, listen, you could have pretty good credit scores and still be in a situation where, you know, you see what's coming down the pike and you have to move. Some of these people already have those programs already lined up. I mean, people, if you're smart out there, you've actually, you've at least taken down some kind of a HELOC program that you don't start paying for until you draw on it. So I think there are people that have that powder dry and it's probably a good place to be.

Coming up, Dollar Gen surging on the back of results and Dollar Tree's report is on deck. What are traders seeing in store for the discount trade? When Fast Money returns, back in two.

Welcome back to Fast Money. Dollar General topping the tape today, gaining almost 16% for its best day ever. The discount retailer hiking its full year guidance after an earnings beat and saying it is attracting more higher income customers amid tariff fears. Meanwhile, Dollar Tree jumping 6%. That company reports earnings before the bell tomorrow. Very interesting commentary, similar to what we heard from Walmart in terms of the trade down happening for the upper income consumer. I like the tree.

The tree's been slowly building a base here. What do they say about the base, Guy? The bigger the base, the higher in outer space. That's right. And that's where we've been on this one. We've gotten good news out of China. Remember, they were the first ones to sell off on the lower cohort. I'm talking 18 months ago in the economic cycle. I think this is interesting. The general, Dollar General, was also saying...

No, the other general, Dollar General. Only 10% of its merchandise is impacted by tariffs. So if you recall, and I know you do because you write notes, copious ones, by the way, Carter Braxtonworth had a note, and we talked about it on this show. When Walmart said what they said and an administration came after them, we said, you know who's going to win here? Dollar Gen. And you have a bearish to bullish reversal. I still think there's room. 125 was where we dropped from in August. That's where we're going to, I think.

What are they trading down from, though, is what I wonder. From Target, maybe? I mean, if you try to think, where is the market share coming from? Like the higher income consumers trading down, where are they not spending that money? Probably not Walmart, probably Target. Right. Right. And so, I mean, they're much cheaper than Walmart, if you look at the multiples.

More expensive than Target, but the trajectory seems much better for these two than Target. It's kind of different inventory I mean there's a chance that it's just like that lower-end consumer has more money and they're spending more I mean like I just don't see like it You know when you go into Walmart, you know what Walmart take it to the bank. The staples are there You know what's going on trading down to a Dollar Tree or a Dollar General? I mean if you've been in them you realize that it's just treasure hunt. Yeah, I mean, that's it. I mean going there with five bucks

and hand it to your kid and it's a great day. Well spent $5, that's for sure. Speak from first-hand experience. All right, up next, Final Trades.

Final trade time, Tim. So we have a huge birthday shout out to Brian Tebow from Virginia Beach, Virginia, from his wife Susan. Huge Fast Money fan. Oh, and by the way, bong tonight. Karen. Yes, also to Brian, happy birthday. Wells Fargo, this is good news. On the ESSER cap, I like it. Dan. Yeah, happy birthday, Max Myers. Yes. Tim, you said Nike way too cheap the other night. Yeah. It's looking pretty good. Well, that was nice of Susan.

to reach out on behalf of her. Susan went out of her way to let us know. Happy birthday, Brian, in Virginia Beach. Yes. We're looking forward to seeing him. We'll see him the next time. We'll see him whenever they want to come. Let us see, Melms. All right. Thank you for watching FAST. Happy birthday, Brian and Max. Mad Money starts right now.

Thank you.

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