hello and welcome to Market domination I'm Julie Heim and Josh Lipton is back live from our New York City headquarters we're giving you the ultimate investing Playbook to help tune out the noise and make the Right Moves for your money from today's top investing stories to Yahoo finances trending tickers to the.

Macroeconomic forces shaping markets we take deeper into everything you need to know for that last hour of trading and here's your headline Blitz getting you up to spe 1 hour before the closing bell rings on Wall Street I think at some point soon we have to pull back uh and uh that will be normal that will be health healthy but I.

Do think it's going to be something that's going to last more than just a couple of days and just a few percent this particular Bill ensures that bite dance divests itself of the vast majority of the ownership of Tik tock Our intention is for Tik Tock to continue to operate but not under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.

Two3 being in the affirmative the rules are suspended the bill is passed and without the objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table what we've told investors out there is you know if you were going to kind of play this event uh the best way to play it actually is with SNAP you certainly if it was shut down that the.

Place you're going to go is is probably on YouTube and the advertis iers would flip over so Google could could be a beneficiary obviously meta uh and Pinterest uh also could see uh more time spent we've got one hour to go until the market Clos so let's show you where we are in the markets and how we got here let's take a look at the major indexes.

First of all the Dow coming down from the highs of the session at one point today it was set to close at a new record but it's not there right now as we see that roll over a little bit still up about a fifth of 1% but the other major averages are lagging today we've got the S&P little changed although it has been bouncing a little bit between.

Gains and losses and the NASDAQ the lagered off by about a quarter of 1% today a little bit of a drifting kind of day here without a big economic report like CPI for example to push things but we do have the xlk which is the tech ETF down the most today off about 9/10 of 1% real estate as well and then on the plus side we've got a rally in Commodities.

That's been going on so XLE energy up the most today along with xlb which is material so that's been an interesting story to watch here as we see some rotation happening in stocks Josh let's talk about the big other story we're watching today for sure Julie the house has indeed voted and Tik Tock could be on the chopping block today.

Representatives voted 352 to 65 in favor of a bill that would cause bite dance the Chinese owner of Tik Tok to either devest the company selling it to a US company in the next six months months or face an entire ban it now heads the Senate Rick Newman has been following this so that's it rick uh attention out goes to the Senate what do.

We think is going to happen there they're going to slow roll it I mean so this kind of came out of nowhere that the house passed this but it's not going to happen that fast in the Senate uh you know the analysis I say uh the forecasting I'm is 40% chance the Senate passes this this year let's say um and then let's say this this Senate does.

Pass it and actually President Biden has said he would sign it a lot of the headlin focus on the this law that would ban uh bite dance and ban Tik Tok well that's not the main purpose the main purpose is to leave Tik Tok intact and just have force them to sell it to somebody else um Tik Tok is going to be here for a good while so even if this.

Passes even if President Biden signs it it seems almost certain that uh bite dance the parent company would challenge it in court that could take years um and who knows when this whole thing might get resolved and then there's the chance that the Senate does not pass it year and we have to start over again in 2025 well and and isn't it sort of.

Effectively a ban because some are saying you know bite Dan has said it's not going to sell it so if it's not then I mean do you believe that so I I don't know what I believe I mean so follow the you know the possible course of events here first fairly low probability that Congress as a whole passes this law this year and then President Biden signs it.

Okay if he does if that actually happens they're going to challenge it in court how long is that going to take 3 years 4 years 5 years I mean is it going to be Microsoft antitrust legislation all over again I don't know was that 10 years yeah um so th this is going to go on for a while and I mean in the meanwhile the Tik Tok app will continue to operate um.

It let's say it actually came to it all gets through court and you know yes this is going to happen uh you either have to devest or you or you're going to the app is banned why would they leave money on the table and say we're just going to shut it down and I mean could they even do that I mean you know this is a normal private sector company you know in some.

Ways like you don't just shut down a valuable asset that you could sell for a lot of money and say we're just angry so we're just going to shut it down so you know sometimes a divesture can actually be good for shareholders it doesn't mean they're going to lose money they could make money what do you think politically should get your take on Trump's role in.

All this because he's been out there saying well yes it might be a national security threat but if you ban it he says you're going to just make meta stronger we know how he feels about met and Mr Zuckerberg but it is interesting because it seems to be a change in position from when he was it's a complete 180 by Trump so remember he.

Actually tried to ban Tik Tock by executive order in uh when he was president and nobody was surprised that the courts didn't uphold that and by the way there's a ban that Montana passed a ban that courts have also reversed which can't do I mean that's not goingon to you know you just can't do that unilaterally I think the more.

Interesting question is what if it actually works and um Tik Tok ends up banned I think what whatever politician was associated with Tik Tok getting banned is just dead I don't think any politician could get reelected again because of what you would do uh not just to all the people who use T Tik Tok but to all the people who um create have.

Created businesses around Tik Tok I mean there are a lot of legitimate businesses that use Tik Tok as their main that that is their main way they reach people right so um I think when for President Biden to say yes he would sign this bill I think he is 100% aware that there are there would be no negative impact on anybody anytime soon even if he did sign.

This bill and we did hear that Biden favors a ban of Tik Tok because it would not happen for years as for Trump you know he just flip-flopped on this I mean what seems to have happened and he has not denied uh one investor a billionaire named Jeff Yas who owns part of Tik Tok uh had an audience with Trump and apparently persuaded him to change his.

Mind and gave him these talking points oh what about the competition it would benefit the weird part of the weirdness is guess what else is part of the competition Trump's own social network so in theory he owns a social network that would be among these beneficiaries if um if TP Tik Tok were banned now I don't think um young Tik tokers I don't.

Think there are very many of them on Truth social you know ranting about the evil Libs and the you know whatever they rant about on true social but um in theory he would benefit but um who knows I mean maybe he's also been chatting with Elon Musk maybe and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that there could be some kind of arrangement.

Between Twitter or X and Trump's Network truth social interesting a lot of different threads to pull on in the coming weeks thanks Rick appreciate it well let's get back to the markets here because we are seeing a mixed picture today but we have seen the Magnificent 7 get hit hard as of late Nvidia Apple meta and Tesla they're all trading down.

Today should investors be worried about the pullback in Tech and broader ramifications of that for more we want to welcome in Binky chat bank chief Global strategist Binky it's great to see you so we've talked to a lot of investors recently about the broadening of the rally and yet with the big cap Tech down today it does seem to be.

Taking stocks down along with them so how far can that broadening go and can it happen without big Tech uh so you know for the rally to to to to to broaden so to speak uh what you need basically in our view is uh greater confidence really in the strength of the US economy U I would say you know one of the key reasons why Mega.

Cap growth and Tech have led uh especially on a relative basis is simply you know what we call the cyclical overhang I mean for the last year and a half the macro consensus has really been for you know growth to fall off a cliff for the economy to go into a recession so there's you know very little confidence I would argue um but I would.

Point out that that does seem to be changing what you're starting to see is CEO confidence pick up on the economy and that should get reflected basically in uh better guidance as we go forward and the better guidance would of course you know at the same time uh be associated with the upgrades to earnings estimate so the cyclical overhang is.

Still there it's still lingering uh the the S&P at uh you know at the market level you know is is doesn't look like it's pricing in a recession is pricing in growth there's no doubt about that but I would argue there's plenty of pockets within where you know the the the market still believes uh a much more negative outcome and that would really.

Be in the cyclical parts of the consumer it would be in the the banks U and that's exactly where we Bel yeah and big guy I want to get your take on another subject which is a source of debate which is just valuation Binky and get your take how you're thinking about valuation for the market and also bigy whether whether it it really matters for.

Returns in the near to intermediate term so um what I would say is you know first of all where valuations uh you know I would characterize valuations at the market level as basically being uh pretty full I would argue that you know they're not necessarily you know extreme or or or or hugely overvalued what I would keep in mind is basically that you.

Know just think about the S&P 500 multiple going back on 100 years and and and you know you see that it basically generally remains between 10 and 20 and then you look at the times that we were above 20 which is uh where we are today and you will notice that most of the time when we went about 20 outside of the late uh uh 1990s was when we were.

Having a cyclical recovery so for example coming out of a recession so that's just simply saying that the Market's pricing in basically you know some kind of recovery going forward uh so valuations are pretty full in the sense that at 22 or 23 times earnings you know the market is pricing in go 105% earnings growth now our forecast.

Happens to be around 10% so you know that's why I say valuations pretty full uh uh uh but they're not extreme in terms of you know when valuations matter it's you know it's really a function of the the the Catalyst rather than valuation by itself being a driver especially at these kinds of levels which are you know way below where we.

Were in the 90s for example so bingy do you think that um you know we've been seeing a little bit more rockiness in stocks broadly as of late although then they seem to re aieve new records every time do you think we'll see a more significant pullback in the short term and if so would you be a buyer of that pullback uh so what I would argue first.

Of all I would point out that you know the markets had difficulty since uh you know October were selling off by 2% uh uh we you know our technical characterization basically of the pullback is 3 to 5% those kind of pullbacks are very frequent we haven't had one for basically four months um and you know the rally has been very very.

Strong I would point out that basically if you look from early November till today uh the S&P 500's rising in this U very very tight very strong Trend Channel that's going up at uh you know a little bit over 4% so 4.2% uh uh at a monthly rate so you know we're now in uh the fifth month of that uh at an annual rate that's 65% that's.

So it's clearly unsustainable so we will get a pullback um but I would argue it's still a bit early to get that pullback I would say a closer sort of you know I I I don't think it's for to six weeks away um I would say you know if you if you look basically and going back to you know your your earlier question basically uh you know over the last few.

Years I mean both on the way up on the way down and then in the rebound basically a mega cap growth in Tech played really you know key key role um and and we think basically that uh Mega cap growth in Tech earnings are sort of approach ing AC Crossroads whether it happens basically in q1 earnings or Q2 earnings uh is you.

Know open but uh if you think about their earnings over the last 20 years they've been in this basically you know very very clear Trend Channel you know annual rate of increase or rise in their earnings is about 11 to 12% uh but they just delivered a 40% uh year andye earnings growth in the fourth quarter uh and that's because their.

Earnings you know had fallen basically uh to the bottom of the channel and we've now moved much closer to the top of the channel and and and so you know as long as they stay in that channel and that's our Baseline review then uh you know it it does imply a pretty significant slowing in their growth I'm not talking about bad earnings so being.

At the top of your Trent Channel and moving along is as good as it gets uh it it but it does mean that uh the comps imply that b basically growth rates are going to come down the market is of course you know very very long there it's pretty crowded um and going from last quarter's 40% down to their Trend rate of growth uh you know it's long.

Ways down from 40 down to 11 or 12 yes indeed Binky thank you so much for your time I appreciate it it's my pleasure thank you we're just getting started here on Yahoo finance live coming up we're checking in on some of today's top trending tickers including shares of Dollar Tree sinking as the retailer aims to close 1,000 stores plus the newest.

Edition of our series goodbye or goodbye we'll get investor Insight on two stocks to help you make the best choices for your portfolio stick around more Market domination still to come.

n yeah.

it's a big noisy Universe of stocks out there welcome to goodbye or goodbye our goal to help cut through that noise to help navigate the best moves to your portfolio and today we're going to be focusing on the energy sector specifically infrastructure plays and producers AS Global conflicts and OPEC.

Plus Cuts drive oil prices higher and expectations we're going to need more energy in this new age of AI what's the best way to play it well here now with that answer is Rob thummel tortoise senior portfolio manager rob it is always good to see you thanks for having me all right so let's start here Rob with your pick your buy and that's going.

To be energy transfer few different reasons for this rob you would lay out and your first point here predictable cash flows in dividend explain that one yeah so energy transfer is a classic energy infrastructure stock one of the great things about energy infrastructure lots of cash flow lots of free cash flow in energy transfers case it's got an.

Eight and a half percent dividend yield that's you can't find a lot of eight and a half percent dividend yields in any stocks and energy transfer is actually an investment grade rated company so we really like the stock for investors and think the dividend yield by itself is compelling let's look at another another key Point here you make operates.

Essential infrastructure Rob elaborate on that for us yeah so operating essential infrastructure what does that mean well Warren Buffett talks about an economic moat if you think about infrastructure and how important it is infrastructure really is the key to anything it's it's the key to everything for global economic growth and.

Population growth you're going to need more energy and and that economic uh Mo that energy trans have is basically it's pipeline Network it's very uh it's not it's really Irreplaceable it's it's more difficult to expand and you couldn't you'd have to spend a lot more money to replace the existing uh pipeline Network that energy transfer uh uh really.

Operates now if you tried to replicate that going forward got third Point here this got my attention rob you would argue to viewers you this is actually an AI play yeah well if you go backwards if you think what really drives AI well you need a lot more computing power you need a lot more electricity you need reliable electricity 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

What does that well energy basically oil natural gas natural gas in particular provides that reliable energy that AI needs so there's no AI without EI or energy infrastructure final Point here on this one rob you would point out to viewers uh this is an an investment grade rated debt yep investment grade rated debt that that that once again.

With an 8 and a half% dividend yield it's an investment grade rated company that there's really a mismatch between really the value of the company and its investment grade rating and the fact that it's got an 8 and half% dividend yeld those two just don't make sense together Rob you have made a very convincing case but though viewers are.

Listening here maybe they want to Pile in what is the big risk they need to consider for this name yeah the biggest risk Josh is just a global recession reducing demand for oil and gas basically and we've seen that a couple times but but big picture energy transfer just TR really charges a fee to to uh to move product through its.

Pipelines that's the predictable fee cash flow uh predictable fee uh cash flow story so if you have a global economic recession then you're going to have less oil and gas and that that that could impact the the the stock in general all right so here energy transfer is one to buy Here Rob let's move over to one you would avoid that.

Would be Halle Burton few reasons for that as well let's let's run through them one you would point out Capital expenditures expected to decline yeah so halberton is an oil field services stock so so it's it it really is subject to what happens in the oil and gas producer space oil and gas producers are reducing their Capital expenditures JS so that.

Means the Hal Burton services are going to be needed less potentially going forward and so that's one of the reasons why not to buy this stock got it also you would argue Rob this is interesting valuation in your opinion not attractive these levels that's right so halberton itself trades at a premium well at on an Enterprise Value e basis relative to.

Exxon Mobile and Chevron it trades at a higher uh valuation than Exxon and and Chevron and so from our perspective we would probably be more interested in Exxon and Chevron less interested in in in halberton at its current valuation got it final Point here want to touch on Lower dividend free cash flow yield yeah we just talked about the high dividend.

Yield of energy transfer hel Burt's on the opposite and they've got a little over 1% dividend yield so not really compelling and attractive relative to the broader Market free cash flow yield which is really a main attribute of a lot of energy companies Hal Burton's free cash is significantly lower than the than other companies that you can.

Really buy and find in the energy sector and fin I'll end here Rob just as I did with energy transfer what's the risk to your call with this name yeah well the risk here continues to be lower spending BAS basically longer term so Hal Burton is really contingent upon and if we have lower commodity prices that means lower Capital spending that means lower.

Services and O oil field services needed and and then that will have a negative impact on on halberton itself got it Rob let's wrap this up for view so you're telling investors listen buy energy transfer given it high cash flow essential infrastructure assets and AI energy Demand on the other side you're saying avoid Hal Burton due to its.

Valuation and poor fundamentals thank you rob thumel for joining us today and thank you for watching goodbye or goodbye we'll be bringing you new episodes three times a week at 3:30 p.m. eastern time now for Call of the day Tesla it's a growth company with no growth that's according to Wells Fargo.

Analyst Colin Langan he's downgrading the stock today from equal weight to underweight but on the flip side wed bushes Dan Ives a staunch Defender he says the negative noise on the street is overblown let's bring in our senior Autos reporter Pro Superman for more um you know Colin has been tepid on the stock for quite some time but tepid is.

Not underweight right and so it's pretty dramatic here that he's downgrading the stock yeah I think that headline s sort of says it all the Growth Company with no growth um you know it's kind of the highlighting the concern on Wall Street we've seen recently up for Tesla uh he's warning in particular that cutting prices to boost sales isn't working uh.

Noting that sales were only up 3% in the back half of 2023 whereas prices were cut by 5% so he's kind of concern there you know Tesla itself warned about their growth Prospect saying that they see significant sort of uh deceleration there most analysts think it'll be around 20% for this year we'll see maybe less but um you know we've seen this.

Story before right where where where the Bears sort of got them got got going here in Tesla and then they were burned uh we'll see if musk can kind of pull a rabbit out of a hat here but you know like long term I think you mentioned Dan Ives I think people like Dan IES even Even Adam Jonas at Morgan Stanley say that this is a more of a long-term play.

Look to 2025 even 202 six for a return of that growth the question is how can how long can investors last here when the mag s stocks are or the rest of them are kind of taking off or at least doing better than Tesla yeah Bloomberg point out by the way shares of bullish ratings on on this name now now back the lows we haven't seen since April 2021 so it's.

Pretty impressive just the sentiment on the name it wasn't all bad news though right right BR there was actually some good news for Tesla today out of Berlin I think right restarting that production there I mean look it was bad news when it stopped because of that that sort of protest and potential vandalism uh of like a power substation nearby but good.

News that they're back up uh back to sort of I think not sure if they're at full capacity again but it takes a while to ramp up but you know they were making around four to 6,000 model wise a week there so that's significant amount of I mean that that feels less like good news and more like the removal of bad news you know what I mean less like a forward.

Sort of pushing development forward one other headline that caught our eye today is that market cap wise Tesla's now fallen below JP Morgan in terms of its market cap so to your point about the analyst coverage going down and you know to your point about you know sort of timing trying to time these things which is notoriously difficult but it is.

Interesting that we seem to have reached this nadier of of sentiment around Tesla but maybe it could get worse I don't know yeah I mean look the stock is still sort of richly valued compared to other automakers but again you're betting on that long-term growth you're betting on that sort of they're not they don't have the Legacy costs of a lot of these other.

Automakers to go ful EV in but the question now is we saw Adam Jo us again with the note today talking about how it's bigger companies that are actually kind of dialing back their EV EV sort of game plan dialing back their Capital spending being more sort of uh thoughtful about that spending and he upgraded he upgraded the entire sector.

So there's this you know what are you looking for now you want more near-term growth or long-term growth I think that's the BET right now that's a good question BR thank you so much Jo appreciate it coming up financial and Bank Services accounted for a quarter of AI spending in 2023 our next guest says those Investments are about to to start.

Paying off more on that when Market domination returns.

time for some trending tickers as we move closer to the closing bell on Wall Street let's check out Dollar Tree here to start shares you can see dropping after announcing its plans to close hundreds of Family Dollar stores as well as some Dollar Tree stores news coming.

As the retailer deliverers lower than expected fourth quarter results so Julie on the results earnings did miss the streets forecast of 266 a share same store sales they actually climbed about 3% but and that was better than expected but the headline getting attention is there's going to be fewer stores here going forward fewer stores but also in.

The results what was interesting is they reported a loss and it's because of write Downs partially cost to close those stores but also writing down the Val Val of Family Dollar which they you know fought to acquire um a number of years ago so it's interesting now that that has not worked out as they planned and now obviously they are trying to.

Write the ship by closing number of stores they also closed a bunch of stores in 2019 about 400 stores so this is the second time they're trying it and they're doing it in a bigger fashion by closing more stores well for more color on this let's get bring in ya finances Brook deama uh who what happened to learn the lead to Dollar Tree now decid.

To make these hundred of store CL closing what's the reason here yeah well this was certainly has been a decade long struggle of Dollar Tree trying to make Family Dollar really work for them here and this is the first time that were really seeing Dollar Tree say hey this this Family Dollar acquisition actually isn't working and they're.

Ultimately taking action here as you noted Dollar Tree really fought hard for this bid Dollar General came in with a higher bid Dollar Tree had the lower bid here but due to fewer anti-competition concerns among uh lawmakers they ultimately led to them closing this deal in July of 2015 and experts telling me that this was a suboptimal business to.

Begin with that really the signs were against them it was had a weak brand image it had a weak brand loyalty they didn't Le the category in terms of pricing and they also had supply chain issues and so Dollar Tree tried a number of things they tried to dabble with private label they converted some stores but right now here we are seeing that.

The new management who came in a year ago who actually is the former CEO of Dollar General the Dollar Tree CEO he's coming in and really saying you know we're going to rationalize these unprofitable turn them around and experts also telling me they're doing what they can with the cards that they've been done I.

Mean what's a couple of things stand out to me too about this story they're closing a thousand stores but there are more than 16,000 of these things which I didn't realize that there are so many the other thing I didn't quite realize is that Family Dollar more urban right and Dollar Tree actually is more suburban and does have a bit of a higher.

Income consumer the other headline that caught my eye today from the I guess from the conference call is that Dollar Tree is planning to expand its price range a little bit they're going to go up to more like the $7 range which I guess by Dollar Tree standards is a higher price point no more dollar no more do25 now we're up to $7 I guess.

They have they start a dollar but then they go all the way up to seven which is not as high as they had gone previously so maybe that is part of the attempt also to capitalize on some of those higher income consumers and what's interesting too is Family Dollar does have this sort of appeal where people are grocery shopping they have more than.

Just the general merchandise we might see in a Dollar Tree people are really going there particularly low-income consumers for their everyday needs to cook dinner to make ends meat and so it'll be interesting to watch where exactly these customers will go to next will they turn to a Dollar General will they then turn to a local Dollar Tree.

Store so after losing these roughly 6 970 Family Family Dollar stores where will these then uh consumers ultimately turn to to buy their everyday needs want to watch well maybe they're not turning to McDonald's as much right because we also heard from McDonald's um the CFO speaking at an investor conference today and interesting here he is talking about.

People um going to grocery stores rather than making as many visits to McDonald's which is interesting as you look at it alongside the sort of Dollar Tree news yeah of course we have that CPI report out yesterday and we continue to see the cost of restaurants uh not decelerate as much as the cost of groceries the cost of groceries has come down significantly.

Or rather the rise in the cost of groceries has decelerated much more so than the cost to dine out and so consumers are being much more aware of just how much they're spending when they go out being more frugal about how far they could spend their dollar whether it be at grocery or dining out and McDonald CFO really saying here that they are.

Losing that lower income consumer not to another chain but to the grocery store and and I think this will definitely be one to watch how value and affordability plays into this how all these fast food Giants are really looking to get in front of consumers and say we have the best bundle we'll give you the best being for your buck here yeah he also.

Talked a little bit about International sales as well so all of that Weighing on the shares today thanks Brooke appreciate it well AI has been tipped uh to be a game changer for most Industries but banking may not be the first that comes to mind though financial and Bank Services comprised a quarter of AI spending in 2023 amounting to around.

$154 billion that's according to Wells Fargo who says we're just about to see that investment start to pay off Mike Mayo is managing director and head of us large cap Bank research at Wells Fargo he's the one who gave us that number and he's here with us in studio mike it's great to see you nice to be in this new yeah modern studio thank you so much.

Appreciate it so you put out this um large piece of research on this and and I have to admit I'm one of those who I did not think of banking first off when you think about AI spend but I'm curious concretely what kind of changes are customers going to see and what kind of efficiencies are these Banks going to get when it comes to AI well Shameless.

Plug for my hobby of weightlifting I have a barbell strategy we have the the Best in Class JP Morgan uh as my number two pick and the worst in-class city group as actually my number one pick yesterday we hosted a New York City conference and we had the head of JP Morgan's head of AI basically and I think JP Morgan could wind up becoming.

The Nvidia of banking because they are Goliath Goliath is winning they have more data than anybody else they've been at this for a decade they've extracted AI from the rest of Technology they're going through all sorts of use cases only one idea out of three makes it from Lab to production and they should see it they targeted $1.5 billion of benefits.

Last year which would be a doubling from every year since 2020 and so they have the resources the spending the data the processes and the people in place and I think uh you guys reported that Jamie Diamond said this will have unbelievable potential maybe they'll split it off as a separate business line one day but JP Morgan has optionality uh and they start.

From a position of strength more than any other bank that's your best-in-class example my worst in-class example uh the other side of the barbell is City group they've had worst in-class returns efficiency um they've fallen short of all sorts of targets and for there it's more basic um at my conference yesterday they invoked Way's law which says that.

Your technology architecture is a function of the architecture of your firm as a whole so city has sold off businesses now they've simplified The Firm they'll be done with their or simplification two weeks from this Friday and then that allows for more simple technology to which they can add on AI so different examples of how two.

Firms are approaching it but for the industry as a whole it should be able to take banking efficiency toward record levels the most obvious use cases are coding this ancient Cobalt code you know that even I learned back when I was a computer science major you can transition from Cobalt code to C++ or python in a very precise manner so AI is.

Very good at doing that and then all of us are going to have ai co-pilots to make us more productive okay so just a quick follow for you and it's a selfish follow I have to admit I'm a city customer a longtime City customer and I had occasion to call the bank yesterday with a question um and I got an automated system and man did I go down a.

Rabbit hole so much so that I had to hang up and start over again there it just seems like there's so much loow hanging fruit when it comes to things like customer service are they taking advantage of that as they should be once they do that simplification process you know the good thing about city is they've the bad thing is they failed the.

Last 12 restructurings right this is restructuring number 13 I think lucky number 13 for a city everything's upside down okay but this one is different for two reasons number one they're selling off businesses equal to 10 to 15% of revenues so that simplifies them and they're going from this Matrix multinational mishmash structure to five.

Lines of Business Services banking markets consumer and wealth and those five heads report to the CEO Jane Frasier so now when you ask a question like how's customer service well how is it in each business line so Services is the number one player in global wholesale payments so that's looks good credit cards you know they're a top.

Three player and you see with the Discover acquisition that that's that's a value banking in markets is a player and wealth is a player but they have a lot of work to do you know in consumer US banking that is a a whole the wealth business that's kind of a hole that's 20% of the company so is the glass 80% full or 20% empty from a strategic.

Standpoint and you don't have to wait forever I think this year they've given the best guidance for revenues to expenses than any other large bank if they simply meet their targets I know that's a big ask for City Group if they simply meet their targets they will probably have some of the best you know year-over-year performance of any large.

Bank so sometimes it feels like and recommending city as my number one pick I I have hundreds of pounds on my back you know and I but you've had some recent experience with that so it's okay so as long as we can lift that weight and I think they are going to lift that weight and I think Jane Frasier come two three years from now she has a risk of.

Being fired if she doesn't improve the returns but she also has a chance to become Banker of the year how how long though do do you think Mike that restructuring takes just to play out you know I think what your timeline for it I think what's underappreciated it's we're talking two weeks from this Friday and you say well no bank's ever done this.

Proctor and Gamble did this we have a is that is that the model you would use for this one absolutely it's like finding a needle in the Hast stack I was wandering our our research floor at Wells Fargo Chris Cary covers consumer staples and Proctor and Gamble and I described to him what city is doing go well Proctor and Gamble sold businesses equal to 10.

To 15% their revenues Proctor and Gamble went from their Matrix they called it a Thicket to six lines of business the S similarities are there so anybody who's ever owned Proctor and Gamble for the last five years take a look at City Group because there's a lot of similarities I want to strugle back to JB Morgan for a minute and the idea that.

It could be the Nvidia right of banking in terms of of the AI opportunity you said they have more data than anybody how do they use that data to optimize profits to optimize the business how is that going to play out well they have 500 heaby of data I don't even know what that means right it means l a lot of data and data is the fuel for AI and you.

Do have to go ahead and use that data but JP Morgan is in a position when they deal with the business they can use that data potentially to have more insight about the business than the business itself has they can use that for predictive Behavior so you might be in the market to buy a car they should be offering you.

Um you know low price loans or they should know I want to buy the car before I know I want to buy the car yeah look it's cliche but it's true it become the Amazon banking okay or Tik Tock when you you know what's going to connect you to the next one what's that recommender as I had um you know a speaker from Nvidia at our conference yesterday and the idea.

Is to have a recommender who that the secret sauce what's going to anticipate what you need not just based on your prior history but based on everything that should be known about you on social media and all the clicks that you have and the audio and the video and you you put it all in there and then you go ahead and in English in.

Our language not in Pascal or cobal or assembler or C++ in English you ask a question and get an answer so this will be a game changer for the industry over the next 5 to 10 years I'm not changing my earnings models yet for the next year but I think over the next three years it's in sight and if a bank does not have a good AI strategy I would say they.

Don't have a strategy all right here's the other thing I want here's another strategy I need Mike strategy of deadlifting because our viewers should know they know Mike Mayo as a wellknown a wellknown well respected Financial I think we have look at that video here's Mike Mayo yeah this is this is what is your one-time squat let's see this cuz.

You actually compete we should know that that was this was my best that was 358 but that it's a refrigerator M felt like it felt like recommending City Group oh you got my squat in there too okay but that squat felt like my recommend of City Group because I'm stuck there and it's like a 50-year strategy that's failed and they're getting out of that.

Consumer 20 years of failed execution they're combining the systems but you dig deep at that point you go to Your Heart Right you dig deep and sometimes you feel like that in recommending City group like oh no but you know what they've come through the last one or two years so that was one I've failed many times with my recommendations and in.

Powerlifting that time succeeded and I think City's going to follow that path they're going to grind through and lift that weight one time bench press what is it uh not as much as the other it's 245 that is solid Mike that's impressive I I have to get that up but uh we'll see I broke the thousand pound barrier that was my goal overall so I'm looking May.

Impressive so but but Power strength training is underrated both for individuals and corporations for their resiliency so uh there's the parallel recommendations powerlifting health tips Mike Mayo you do it all thanks for being here thanks for having me I appreciate it coming up we're diving into the recent Market momentum in the investor.

Playbook we'll break down the smartest portfolio plays on the other side of the break.

a with just over 12 minutes left till the closing bell on Wall Street we're.

Looking at how to navigate the big picture with the Yahoo finance Playbook the broader Market IND indices as of late have been largely at the mercy of big Tech looking at you Nvidia we're taking a look at where the market may be broadening and where investors can therefore find Opportunities joining us now Katie Kaminsky Alpha Simplex Chief.

Research strategist and portfolio manager and Han gr aliance investment Investment Management vice president and head of ETFs excuse me guys thanks so much for being here it's great to have you both in the studio with us so Katie I want to start with you because I think it is a confusing time for some investors right because.

We've had this monster Tech rally we've had a lot of talk about broadening but now I think people are kind of confused where they should go whether they stick with tech whether they go to those broadening areas this is a really good question because I think it's just been such a strong move in the markets particularly in Tech and it just keeps.

Going and I think today we're seeing some of that again so it is hard to go against that Trend when the trend just continues to keep being so strong despite what we're seeing in the other markets out there like in fixed income and you want to bring you in here too on that same theme I mean clearly momentum has been a big Focus for this market.

Right yeah it has I mean but it's all been gravitating from or pulling from the tech sector right but it's been broadening out like you said and I think that's the key story like it used to be you know call it the mag 7 you know lifting all boats but now it's really all the boats lifting the mag sevs if you will you have a very broad-based.

Rally uh call it the last four or five months uh Tech sector is up maybe 30% but everything else is also up and that's what you tend to forget sometimes but this is really broad a lot of stocks are well beyond their 200 day moving average so what we're seeing now is very different uh used to be Tech you know driven by what the expectation is in.

Terms of what uh the FED will do with rates or not now it's much different it's much broader now and so if that's the case do you stick with tech you know as the picture changes a little bit or do you go even more Broad and just buy the market Katie how how should people be thinking about it well I mean I I agree with Johan here.

Is that you've actually seen that it's also International so it really has been spreading to a very nice very long Equity Trend that has worked very well and I think that's what makes people a little nervous as well you're starting to see valuations pretty high you're starting to wonder at what point does momentum slow down and I think if you.

Look at some of the names and the crowding and names it's definitely something that people are worried about in some degree what slows down that train so what does slow it down and when does it slow down tell us exactly I I mean honestly like two months ago I was thinking it would slow down I thought it would slow down in February and here I.

Am in March this week has been a big mover we've seen we saw a little bit of a pullback but now we're seeing everything back to everything's business as usual things are going well in the equity markets and I think that continues to surprise me we're momentum Traders so we're going to continue following that momentum until we see.

Something that kind of changes the narrative and Yan so there's viewers right now they're listening they're wondering what do they do with their money one strategy you talk about are these kind of risk mitigating ETFs explain what those are Johan and maybe some examples as well yeah I mean it's it's kind of cool cuz you have a market.

Now that feels a little toppy a little peaky you know there's a little bit of nervousness coming into it at least at this table but you also have a lot of investors out there still bullish you know there's still this pressure coming up from underneath the irony is that you have a ton still a ton of cash on the sideline so people are clearly nervous.

With how they're voting with their dollars no question so the the buffer ETFs that you're referring to structured ETF defined outcome ETFs they provide a structure inside of an F that gives you upside exposure so if you buy them today you can still make money on the upside up to a certain level like a cap but you're buffered underneath on the.

Downside so if the market is down by you have and you have options here either 10% or 20% you don't lose any money over a defined outcome period so over 6 months or 12 months for example so you can partake in the market but you don't have to go all the way into the market well and you you refer to a lot of cash on the sideways I I would submit that at.

Least yes people might be nervous in keeping money there but they're also making money gaining interest in Money Market funds for example for the first time in a long time so how does something like a money market fund compare to something like you're talking about yeah sure so if you if you think about it this way um if you're in a.

Money market fund you're getting income that's keep getting taxed and you still have inflation so there's not a ton of juice left even if you get 5% from it the buffer ETF that I'm talking about if you have a 10% buffer in other words the market come can come down by 10% and you're still made whole you have an upside cap the last fund that we had now.

About 177% so you can make 17% and the opportunity cost is the difference between the 17 and the five if the markets continue being in a mon Market when the Market's rallying you have to make a decision to give up that opportunity cost how do they how do you know these kind of buffered ETFs you're talking about how do they sort of fit.

Into the overall investors portfolios well in it's a very versatile product and you don't have time for my whole answer so I'll keep it short here's the cliff notes note uh if you're looking to retire or if you're if you have retired and you're starting to think about reallocating your portfolio to be a little bit more conservative typically.

You move equities from equities into bonds or cash high level speaking you don't have to you can still have access to the equity risk premum you move money from Pure equities to buffered equities you take some risk off the table but you don't kiss all your Equity positions goodby and Katie to get back to the momentum idea for a moment here um are.

There Pockets where you you are seeing a special momentum right now and what are signs that that is breaking this is a good question I mean I think we've been so focused on equities that there has actually been some interesting Trends out there that we've been watching particularly in the commodity sector you've seen a lot of Divergence there.

You've seen energy up quite a bit today I don't know um if you saw there was some pretty sizable moves but we've also seen negative positions and short views in the agricultural sector and very disperate interesting opportunity sets that are going to lead to very different possibilities for thinking about inflation so we've seen Divergence.

Across Commodities we're following things like cocoa um we're following things like corn um and also soybeans uh pretty large Trends there which may start telling us where inflation could be going next um if we start seeing that revert which we have seen a little bit this month there's some chance that inflation higher could provide some.

Interesting opportunities in the commodity sector but also Short Bond positioning is also interesting right now this idea that cuts are possibly coming later this year rather than sooner so interesting stuff interesting stuff yeah Coco I know it's been a rocket ship 27% in February yeah I saw some charts compar I think our Jared.

Blicker has a chart comparing it to Nvidia so that tells you something right there Katie thank you so much Johan thank you so much great to see you both in person well we want to take a look at a couple of mve today taking a look at fintech specifically PayPal shares up about 4% today that's after the Company CFO made some remarks at the company's.

On the company's transaction margin growth and the big lift from its interest income on customer balances last year he made those comments at a um conference today excuse me she made those comments at a conference today um and so you know we kind of saw the move in PayPal this morning Josh before we saw those comments but we also noticed.

That um block was moving higher hit a 52 we high in today so you know maybe there's just a bit of a bid also more generally under some of these fintech companies it was also I you know you want how this plays into it you saw that headline from stripe saying volume jumped 25% last year to more than 1 trillion it was about 800 billion in.

2022 just to put that in context company said it was robustly cash flow positive Julian 2023 expects the same in 2024 yeah although it's interesting is that a tide that lifts all boats or is that Stripes gain at the loss of some of its compe S I guess we'll have to wait and see till we get some more numbers from all of them all right well we're.

Wrapping up today's market domination don't go anywhere we've got you covered with all the action following the closing bell stay tuned for Market domination overtime.

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Yeah that's the closing bell on Wall Street and now it's Market domination overtime Josh and I joined by Jared blicker to get you caught up on the action from today's trade let's see where the major averages ended up first of all you know we were just talking on the da about the Dow an hour ago right and we saw that it.

Had fallen down from its highs of the session even dipped into the red briefly but finishing Higher by about 39 points it's just a tenth of 1% the S&P 500 also just off the lows of the session uh down about a fifth of 1% and NASDAQ off by about a half of 1% as we've been talking about big cap Tech has been leading declines I just wanted to check on the.

10e yield remember yesterday in the wake of CPI we saw it tick up a little bit didn't seem to affect stocks that negatively today up again of four basis points to 4.19% and while we have you why not check in Bitcoin again because yes it is at or near another record today above 73,000 Jared's got a look at today's.

Sector action right now hey Jared hey there Julie well guess what we got to celebrate a record high here the first one for materials in just about two years you'd have to go back to January of 2022 to see this sector at a record high here is a five-year chart where you can see finally eeking above that uh not a big breakout but the beginning of one.

And a lot of material materials companies have been forging record highs this year and I would throw in the gold miners into that so a sector to watch for for sure now energy takes out the top spot we have crude oil advancing utilities financials also among the winners but the losers look at that xlk that is the tech sector that is down the.

Most over 1% after being the sole outperformer yesterday and I believe it was a record high yesterday not today also in the red real estate health care and consumer discretionary and then taking the leader uh Julie you just checked uh Bitcoin that is the number one spot in our leaders and sentiment indicators but Tech having a rough day.

With the chip stocks the stocks is down about 2.4% if we take a look at that leaderboard looks like the lagger board we have AMD down about 4% Josh well Jared let's take a look today at us steel letter X dropping in today's trade and you can see a big drop the reason a report that President bayen does plan to express what's being described here as.

Serious concern over its proposed takeover by nepon Steel apparently Biden is going to issue this statement Julie before the Prime Minister from Japan arrives for a visit on April 10th this is all per the financial time signing sources company did say it's going to hold a special meeting in connection with this proposed takeover on April.

12th so a few different moving Parts here but you can see the reaction today's trade yeah the United Steel Workers have been very unhappy with this deal and they have been meeting uh with nepon steel to try and get this over the line in fact back on March 7th there was an in-person meeting between the head of the United Ste workers as well as the.

Executive Vice President of nepon Steel and they didn't come to an agreement so this is seems to be part of what's going on here that perhaps um the president who we know has close Union ties is taking that into account um but the stock reaction today was very clear when this story came out well if you're it's so interesting because it is politics I.

Mean Pennsylvania is a critical swing state in this election and Biden now finds himself in between the union and voters on the one hand and then Japan on the other he also doesn't want to alienate obviously a very critical Ally yeah definitely all right uh let's talk more about the top takeaways from today's trading day let's bring in yah.

Who finances Josh schaer and Josh The Last Story you know brings to mind the idea that presidential politics sometimes does affect the markets and affects individual companies definitely and we're getting closer to the presidential election so maybe we're going to see more of this and this isn't the first time we've seen it even this.

Week right truly think back to Monday we saw a big a pretty big draw down in meta now I don't know if I would give the full 5% move that we saw one point on Monday specifically to former president Donald Trump talking badly about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook and meta but it did correspond with the move so we were sort of looking at it in that realm and.

Then you've seen some of the other stocks that former president Trump has talked about repeatedly or has been linked to I should say repeatedly in dwac and Rumble those stocks have been rallying to start this year and it's just curious to sort of think about as we get into this election cycle and remember as these presidents are talking.

About different pushes and they talk about companies investors are going to be listening to that trade and it's just something to be aware of I think if you're an investor in certain companies that we know they're going to be talking about so that was one takeaway I had today guys but I want to move on to my second takeaway that's up on the screen.

Right now Commodities are just ripping like we've been talking a lot about gold and I know gold gets a lot of headlines when we see gold at a record high but it's beyond gold too I ky Kaminsky was just talking about this Coco was one of the ones that it's ridiculous the Coco sh it's flat out ridiculous I mean Jared put it up next to Nvidia it looks like a.

Similar climb and it's been interesting you've seen Silver popping you've seen copper popping you've seen stocks related to Copper you think of like a free Port macaran up 5% today so you're seeing those stocks move as these Commodities move and one thing I wanted to mention guys do they still call it Dr copper by the way is that still Dr.

Copper people still call it Dr copper I like Dr copper Dr copper because it is a an economic indicator so traditionally that's why it's been called Dr copper like it's it's the doctor that tells you what's going to happen economic it keeps going higher we can do Dr Pepper and talk Dr copper those are good charts now that's.

The story one other thing guys I wanted to point out with that that I've been interested in in Commodities is just the relationship between silver and gold and if silver starts outperforming gold I recently worked on a story on stagflation and the different signs we can see in terms of that and one thing Michelle Snider had highlighted to me.

Over at Market Gage she said back in the 70s and 80s when we had that big bout of stagflation one of the Key signs was you started to see silver outperforming gold we're looking at a short-term chart there this isn't a big Trend but at overall as we're talking about stag FL will'll be interesting to see if that Trend sort of continues well and I'm.

Just sort of looking at some of these Commodities on the um Wi-Fi interactive and it's interesting because the breakout has been quite recent so here's silver for example year to date and it just went positive for the year call it an early March so this move up has been relatively sudden that's the same case goes for gold as well so it's kind of.

Interesting how that's been playing out that it's all of a sudden kind of roaring from nowhere there's corn that one's not doing quite well because everything's roaring right Julie is it because everything is roaring I'm looking still for Co for Coco there's our Coco that one has been roaring year to date up 65 it's the Nvidia of.

Commodities uh right we've got a lot of nvidias of things today right got JP Morgan Pras we went a whole hour without mentioning Nidia I think I thought I had to bring it up we got to overdo it yeah exactly and what's your last takeaway speaking of Invidia should we do Nvidia of sectors we can just call it that right.

We'll call it if something hits a record high it's the Nvidia of X or Y right but it was interesting jarro just highlighted this if you take a look at xlb uh that hit a record high for the first time in over two years today and adding that sort of to the string of record highs that we've been seeing right so when we take a look at the S&P.

500 and sort of go under the hood you're seeing other sectors in M we're talking about material specifically right now hitting a record high which is interesting to highlight and then you had financials again hitting a fresh record high again today they just started hitting their record highs that's been picking up so I think you.

Guys were just talking recently about the broadening out are we seeing it are we not seeing it one thing a lot of folks highlight is just look at the different sectors it's not just Tech I was looking at sector year- to-day performance a little bit ago Tech is not one and it's not two it's communication Services financials and then Tech I mean.

Communication servation Services is Tech I've got this up on the interactive too if we want to take a look at it the xlc is the best performer here's the year- to-day performance so the only lagging one is real estate and it's interesting that interest rate sensitives are in the in the lagging position real estate and utilities but the others are doing great.

Flip it to the one month flip it to the one month he says okay when we go to the one month I think it's just interesting to see sort of the flip we had there right so the scre looking at before year to date you had communication services in Tech sort of up high but then when you look at the one month now here's where you really see that rotation.

Materials and energy materials and energy has kind of been the trade for a month now yeah and here's Tech just kind of in the middle there right that is not uh not up as much over the past month so maybe it's not all just en video or maybe it is maybe it's not maybe it is thanks tomorrow story Joshua thank you we move on here the House of.

Representatives passing a controversial Bill to give China bite Dan 6 months to sell Tik Tok or face a US ban of the app that bill which raised issues of National Security easily passed by wide margin in the house but it is not a done deal yet of Court still faces major hurdles in the Senate joining us now is Tobin Marcus wolf research head of US.

Policy and politics Tobin it is good to see you so uh Tobin the house passes this bill by a landslide but of course now attention turns to what happens in the Senate what do you think is going to happen there Tobin yeah I think mostly a lot of nothing is going to happen you know we're going to see a lot of comments from Senators we're going to.

See a lot of people saying that they agree that Tik Tok is a threat that they want to take a close look at this bill that they have concerns about the specific approach but in general the Senate tends not to feel a lot of pressure just because the house happens to vote on something multiple different folks in the Senate uh not least of them.

Maria cwell chair of Senate Commerce Committee which is one of the Committees that'll have jurisdiction here have been working on their own approaches to Tik Tok for quite a while now and the fact the House suddenly leapt into action on this bill over the course of the past week or so I think is not necessarily going to make them feel like they need.

To go ahead and do something right away um and you know signals from Senate leadership are they're going to kind of r a normal process where everyone's in the loop and everyone gets a time to to weigh in on the approach uh which means probably that this is going to drag out without clear signals in the Senate longer you know past the point that.

There is an obvious vehicle to attach it to because we're getting closer and closer to the election and they're sort of not that many bills that are going to get done between now and the end of the year so if it doesn't get done now will it ever get done yeah I mean I think that the realistic uh Avenue for getting this.

Done is uh the next annual defense policy Bill the so-called ndaa uh for fy2 which will get done sometime after the election in the November December January time frame that's a bill that happens every year sort of one of the last Bonafide bipartisan uh things that gets done uh Tik Tok has some level of National Security angle to it you know.

It's not a defense policy question but it is somewhat gerain uh so I think it's a foregone conclusion that we see uh an attempt to attach this bill to the house version of ndaa um you know possible that that the Senate goes along with that in putting their version together over the summer so I think that's sort of the next threat that we're looking at.

And even if they miss that boat you know I don't think that the noise is going away on this whether it's this bill or some other Bill like the concern is clear and toin if this did become law I'm just interested to get your take how do you think the CCP that the Chinese Communist Party would respond Tobin would there be a risk you think they.

Retaliate in China a lot of American companies do a lot of business over there right from Apple to Tesla to Nvidia yeah so you know it's an interesting question it's come up a lot over the course of the the you know variety of different uh economic restrictions the US has rolled out uh on China not least of them the exports on.

Uh or the the restrictions on semiconductor uh Capital exports um that have been rolled out and Titan over the course of the past couple years and generally we have not seen that much in the way of direct Chinese retaliation I mean certainly sort of directly in the social media and Internet advertising domain uh it is already the case that.

The sort of big us internet Giants uh are not kind of allowed to have much penetration into China um you know I think they have a lot to lose in terms of uh you know really uh sort of draconian retaliation that is essentially unrelated to what's going on here you know if they were to go after Apple like there are a lot of uh jobs.

And economic activity inside of China that are connected to uh to Apple's manufacturing footprint there so I think probably we'll see some symbolic actions but I don't know that it really qualitatively changes the US China economic relationship or the kind of risks that we Face there Tobin um you know I think of one of the other Chinese.

Companies that was affected by us regulation Huawei are there any parallels there are there any kind of um things we can learn from looking at that situation as an analog to this situation yeah it's an interesting one you know in Huawei I think um uh that was a use of existing kind of emergency economic authorities uh to really use.

The nuclear option full blocking sanctions there kind of cutting them off from transactions in the dollar system um you know I think the uh track record of attempts to unilaterally go after Tik Tok from an execut action perspective so far uh has not been particularly strong you know president Trump's uh efforts were kind of.

Uh you know blocked in court uh the efforts of the uh cifas under Biden also I think have been slow because they expect legal challenges and I think unlike in the Huawei case there is a real consumer concern like I think it matters to the viability of this Bill in Congress that it is at least being pitched as an effort to force divesture.

Rather than a direct ban of uh of the platform whether or not it ends up being a ban is a different question that it depends on decision- making in Beijing uh I tend to think that it probably does but you know I think it's a different conversation for folks in DC to say hey we think it's important that if this keeps operating it needs to be an.

American hands versus we're g to just sort of directly uh nuke this thing from from orbit with uh sanctions to and finally I wanted to ask you about voters and how they feel about Tik Tock because we have seen Tik Tok send out alerts we've seen people calling their members of Congress over this is it going to mobilize voters though is is is the.

Tiktock issue something that people are GNA come out and vote on yeah so I think up until last week the hope would have been that the responsibility for any move against Tik Tok in DC would be pretty broadly diffused and so uh you know no party no political player would face a really dramatically greater uh amount of voter.

Backlash for having taken action on this than anyone else Trump's sort of sudden odd reversal on Tic Tac uh last week into this week I think changes that calculus there's been a lot of conversation about what it means for the kind of political calculations of Republican members of Congress but from a democratic perspective it also means.

That Trump would be in a position to say unlike the rest of these you know swamp creatures in DC I was not trying to go after this I didn't want to take away this thing that 170 million Americans are are using and liking and and sort of taking away their free speech rights so you know I think the concern about uh sort of disperate partisan impact of.

This is uh probably going to be a concern on Democrats Minds as they sort of go through this process in the Senate um if it were to move forward you know I think it would it would be an issue for some number of Voters you probably most of them would just move over to to reals or some competing product um but you know certainly there would be uh.

Elections are decided at the margin and this is a thing that that some number of people care about intensely Tobin thanks so much for joining the show today appreciate it my pleasure coming up drivers can expect to pay higher prices at the pump in the coming weeks we're going to talk the latest crude Awakenings on the other side.

now and we've been talking about Commodities rallying today oil and gas have been a part of that rally and Yahoo finances in s FR has the details for you on the the latest price action as we see those bump.

UPS inz how you doing yeah Julie oil today up more than 2% with WTI closing just below the $80 a barrel level today and Brent crude closing below or above $84 a barrel part of the reason for this has to do with inventories those API numbers that came out those dropped by 5 million barrels for last week and that's much more than what analysts had been.

Expecting across the board you saw gasoline inventories also down now this comes ahead of the eia numbers that are coming out tomorrow also geopolitical risks have really driven up these prices you have drone attacks on Russian refineries that have impacted those refineries Russian diesel exports are impacted by this and those customers.

Have to buy those supplies elsewhere in the world which brings me to my next point is what's happening with gasoline prices those have been going higher and those are expected to higher in the coming weeks part of this has to do with that summer blend that starts around this time of year California already started mixing their summer blend of.

Gasoline that's more expensive California prices by the way are at $488 you've got the national average right now that's at $340 up about 18 from the last from last week and Gul Coast refiners those have started to mix their gasoline blend their summer blend this week and that is going to impact.

Prices going forward you also have some refineries that have been doing maintenance so that's been impacting prices and that BP Refinery out in in Indiana that is a large Refinery that has uh been trying to come out of the the impacts that it's had because of the power outage as of February 1st so it's been a long time coming weeks uh of of.

Them uh just struggling to sort of ramp up their production there as well and that's been impacting prices and the reason why it's important is because we saw what the gasoline prices did to inflation last month Julie and as I'll take it from here thanks so much thank you a key theme for markets it's all about AI we know that and it's not just.

About chip makers and internet names mcor's out with a new note highlighting opportunities amid the hype across a spectrum of software and Hardware stocks and joining us now is Tim Nolan M senior Media Tech analyst here to take a closer look at the advertising space Tim it is good to have you on the show maybe just start um Tim you know big picture.

Because you point out how advertising and marketing companies Tim they're already integrating Ai and benefiting how so Tim walk us through some of the examples you're seeing in those two industries sure thanks um you know AI is is a huge theme as you mentioned across so many Industries um in the media and advertising space um you know it's been.

It's been a factor for many years already if you think about you know media companies that are using AI as part of their uh uh image or or or video Generation Um ad agencies that are using AI to help create you know multiple versions of AD creative content for example uh where you can just sort of throw in you know a local reference for.

For a product for example um and um you know I think of much broader implications as well the search Market could change because of ai ai brings chat GPT brings much broader implications to how consumers can perform searches searches a two 00 billion doll industry it's a quarter of all ad spending we wonder how that might.

Change as consumers interact with AI applications more in the future hey Tim it's Julie here does this mean then that there will be a big drop in ad spending if I mean frankly if the searches get better or if they get more targeted if you don't have to go to as many places no that's not how I think of it um I I would think um the search Market.

Itself what I mean is as chat GPT and other fun funs come to search itself the way the consumers perform searches May begin to change so there are there are um search like applications where you can just you know speak into your phone um about any topic of interest you might want to book a hotel room or you might wonder what the weather is in Beijing.

And you can you can you can just get a reply that may or may not be generated uh a delivering advertising alongside with it um but I'm thinking more broadly here as well advertisers who have been putting about a quarter of their dollars of their ad spending globally towards search have other ways that they can apply their spending now so we cover a.

Couple of companies um in the adtech space uh for example app Len and the trade desk which are very very involved in ad transactions automated ad buying uh for the trade desk across multiple uh Industries multiple media for App 11 and more specific Ally focused on mobile gaming and both of these companies they see huge volumes of transactional data.

They can feed that data into their AI engines and they can then use that to make their automated ad buying platforms more effective the more effective this proves to be and AI generates better uh responses on the ad purchases that they make the more advertisers may think about well should I be advertising as much as I am on search when search is.

Changing I can put more money to work in other areas such as these other demand side driven platforms so it's it's not about more or less necessarily it could be more because advertisers are looking for Returns on spending the better returns they get the more they're willing to spend and with these new types of tools.

There are just many many more ways that advertisers can approach um how they Market to Consumers and so Tim so you point out some names that you think will Poise to benefit from The increased use of AI so app Loven trade desk live ramp are there names in your coverage Universe 10 that that you think are disadvantage.

By the increasing integration of AI or maybe just pois positioned here not to benefit as much the tell you the truth we don't call out names under our stock coverage that we think will necessarily lose from this and the reason for that is um I have perhaps the luxury of covering a very interesting set of companies across.

The advertising value chain and probably most of these companies actually are incorporating AI into their functions I mean ad agencies can benefit from this you know the cost efficiencies you know the the idea generation that AI can bring them um I would say it's more like smaller companies smaller advertisers um smaller Publishers that maybe um don't.

Have the sophistication don't have the ability the tools and may fall further behind um from the larger companies that are that are uh that are employing these tactics um and finally Tim I'm curious with the new sort of privacy regulations and opt out ability for across a broad swath of of websites in the US what a effect does that have on advertis.

Obviously it's had a big effect on tracking but does AI help all of these companies sidestep that oh I'll have to think about that one uh there are some very very big changes happening with um the deprecation of cookies on the on the um Chrome browser um mobile ad Market um um players are enacting changes as well.

That will affect the ability to access data signals that to give advertisers the tools that they need um I don't know if I can answer your question directly but I would say AI does give adte companies advertisers ad agencies abilities to do things in a different way than they've been accustomed to so the loss of signal the ability of.

Consumers to opt out of tracking to opt out of um um um cookies that that are understanding what they're doing um AI can provide other tools for advertisers and adtech companies to approach consumers Tim thanks so much for joining us today appreciate the time and insight time now for to watch tomorrow Thursday March 14th another key day of.

Economic data on tap including producer price index retail sales initial jobless claims with the CPI coming in hotter than expected Tuesday February's PPI data May further validate the notion that inflation is not slowing as quickly as the street and the FED might have hoped wholesale prices climbed 0.3% in the first month of the year which was.

The largest jump since August 202 three and the street expecting to see the same number cross the tape Thursday morning we'll also be getting a fresh update on retail sales in January they posted their steepest decline since March of 2023 but the street doesn't expect that Trend continued in February economists predict the retail sales grew 0.8% month.

Over month in February that's a rebound from the 8/10 per decline seen in the first month of the year and on the earnings front we'll hear the latest from Dollar General dicks Adobe and Ulta Ulta beauty Dollar General under pressure Wednesday following some weak earnings from Dollar Tree who plans to close about 1,000 Outlets over the next.

Few years Dollar General is expected to revenue of 9.78 billion and an adjusted EPS of a buck 73 that'll do it for today's market domination overtime be sure to come back tomorrow at 3 p.m. Eastern for all of your coverage leading up to and after the closing bell stay tuned we've got more Yahoo Finance on the other.

Side a.

a now liquid death one of the fastest growing names in non-alcoholic brands has closed.

More than $60 million in funding putting its valuation more than a billion dollar the company made a splash on the beverage scene just a few years ago with its canned water that promised to murder your thirst liquid death has since expanded to sparkling water and iced tea offerings and a new lineup of big name investors could bring new opportunities.

In the head I'm joined Now by liquid deaths founder and CEO Mike Cesario and of course Yahoo finest is very own Brook dama Mike it is good to have you on the show so you closed 67 million in financing Mike what do you plan to do with that money how you going to put it to work to now Build and Grow this business yeah like you guys mentioned.

You know we started off as just uh mountain spring water in a can and um you know eventually launched sparkling and then we launched flavored sparkling which actually has you know a few grams of sugar from a Agave so it's kind of more like a healthy soda and then we launched liquid death iced tea last year which has been really successful so I.

Mean we've really kind of proven that we're building a true cross category healthy beverage brand and um you know now that we've we've sort of dipped our toe in some of these categories where you know with flavored sparkling we started with just three flavors iced tea we started with three flavors and now we're starting to really add more.

Innovation um and and uh flavor into these categories that that are starting to work hi Mike it's Brook here Live Nation is a longtime investor in the company they played in this recent round how has this partnership helped the growth story of liquid death yeah I think a big part of what our brand is is you.

Know all the fun marketing for most food and beverage brands are for unhealthy things anything that's funny or exciting it typically is for you know Candy junk food fast food beer so we're trying to make a healthy brand that's markets in the same funny and fun way as um you know unhealthy Brands and we're even starting to Source occasions.

From the beer side of things because this is more of a replacement for a beer or a soda in a lot of people's uh routines and whether that is being at a music festival or a bar or a venue where you don't typically want to walk around with a glass of water um liquid death kind of creates a new experience that to drink something healthy but it's.

Actually fun to walk around with and some of your investors here Mike I mean is an Eclectic impressive group so I'm seeing DeAndre Hopkins got the comedian Jim Jeff fantastic Josh broland we all loved him in sakario I know how I'm interested Mike how do you actually decide when you're which investors get to invest I mean do you meet like a Josh.

Broland and decide listen he he just gets this company where we are and where we're headed uh yeah you're pretty spot on there I mean we've had the luxury of you know being able to be selective about the investors that we bring into the company and we really you know are focused on people.

Who truly love the brand understand what we're doing um and and you know all these folks I mean that you know they come sort of inbound to us where we find hey they're a huge fan of the brand um and then if there's an opportunity to invest you know we can find a way to sort of get them in mik Tik tock has played such a large role in the growth.

Story of liquid death of course there's uh a potential ban Happening Here in the US what sort of impact would this ban of Tik Tok here in the US have on the company well we like to say it like with that that the way we think about marketing is we are day traders of attention we try to find where's people's attention at what is the most.

Coste efficient way to go get that attention you know there's TV commercials you can reach a lot of people but what you're paying per eyeball is really high to get your message to them whereas social platforms and emerging platforms there's a lot of attention there the per eyeball cost is a lot lower so Tik Tok just happen to be.

A place where there's a lot of attention and when we have our entertainment comedy first approach to marketing we're not here to make ads we're here to make actual entertainment that makes people laugh we can go into any platform where people's attention is and they're into what we're doing they want to follow us because we're providing value so even if.

Tik Tok goes away whatever the next platform is where people shift their attention we'll go there and gain followers by by continuing to entertain people and Mike you know your company now is valued here at more than a billion dollars what about going public Mike is an IPO a possibility and and if so what are sort of the the factors the.

Variables that depends on yeah I mean we're really just focused on building a large profitable business um and we know that if if if we kind of stay on that course that we will have optionality for any outcome that we want whether that is an IPO or whether that's a strategic partnership um so we're of course going to do everything that we.

Have to do to preserve optionality and if you know if an IPO sometime in the future is something we want to do we've got to go through all the steps to make sure that that's even an option um so that that's really how we think about it Mike grocery prices prices have been steadily increasing over the past few years you know some may say that this is.

Overpriced for water what do you say to that I mean we're right at the same price point as most other Premium Waters in our just plain water skew so Fiji asentia um you know pelo all of that we're we're right around the same price as all those Brands when it comes to Premium Water um and then you know in flavored sparkling and healthy soda you.

Know we're we're not actually priced that much more above where other premium brands in our respective categories lie Mike thanks so much for joining the show today appreciate of course our thanks to our veryan Brook dama as well thank you guys and coming up how the recent spike in Immigration may be benefiting the labor market more on that when Yahoo.

Finance returns.

f breaking news Kevin blank is coming back to under arour as its CEO replacing Stephanie lonard as head of the company the coming also announcing that Mohammad.

El Aran who has been on the board of directors for the last several years will become chairman of the board now this is a surprise Stephanie Leonards had only been in that role since February of last year so call it 13 months that she held that position here uh with uh with uh Kevin now coming back to take the Helm of that company and I.

Know you been looking into sort of how the stock has been doing obviously right now it's going higher uh but it's been kind of a rocky road for Under Armour yeah I mean if you look at the stock you you know it's sent a whole bunch of nothing year to dat and over the past 12 months you can see at least the initial reaction here in the after hours is.

Interesting with with a pop of course plank you know founded this company in 1996 just looking through the release um he he goes she he goes on to uh kind of talk about his tenure there how he says the opportunities ahead what he's willing to capitalize says for nearly 30 years we the company's been focused on inspiring athletes talks about industry.

Leading performance solutions and says he looks forward to seizing the opportunities ahead investors have not been um excited about this name if you look at the street and how they feel about even after that under performance most are on the sidelines about about 60% still with a hold even after that kind of underperformance but maybe this.

Changes things with plan coming back on board yeah I mean again it's just sort of shocking I mean Stephanie had um been at Marriott International for many many years she was hired away to uh run Under Armour so it'll be interesting to see if she has a a next chapter in Corporate America as well uh but Kevin plank uh you know I it'll be very fascinating to.

See what changes he puts in place if any to sort of try to reinvigorate Under Armour which you know has been in the works for a few years now stock up about 6% right now after hours surprising strength in the economy since the pandemic may be down to a spike in Immigration according to to new research from CBO the study draws a correlation.

Between High numbers of people entering the country and the better than expected labor market data along loosening inflationary pressures Rick Newman has been looking into it all Rick uh well there's a lot of research going on here I mean economists generally tell you that um immigration legal immigration is a good thing we need immigration and we.

Need population growth uh to make the economy grow and to make the labor force grow and by the way we need more young workers to pay the benefits for Social Security and and Medicare recipients so here's a couple of things we know we know there's been this surge of migration at the Southwest border during the last couple of years um people may.

May be confused about this but most of those people are not so-called illegal or undocumented immigrants most of those people who come in through the system they get assigned a hearing date or at least they go into the system but this hearing date doesn't come for five or 10 years and so they're allowed to work they can get a work permit while they're.

Here so we've seen this surge of people into the United States who are getting work permits and working legally and at the same time how many times have we been sitting here talking about well the unemployment report surpris to the upside yet again uh you know it beat Economist forecast well there's new research now um from the Hamilton.

Project at the Brookings institution that puts these two things together and says um there does seem to be a definite correlation between more migrants coming in an increase in the labor force an increase in the number of Americans working and even a slight increase in GDP in other words this is good for the the US economy now that's not the.

Coverage it's getting the coverage it's getting of course is that this is a so-called crisis um some cities and other certainly parts of the Border are overwhelmed with migrants who don't know where to go we don't have enough resources for handling even here I mean even here the mayor of this city is called the crisis also Chicago Los.

Angeles San Francisco it's hit the sanctuary cities the Democratic controlled cities who have been begging buying to do something but it's almost like there might be like a hidden benefit here to the economy um and look B has clearly benefited from an economy the for the recession that economists have been forecasting keeps not.

Happening um you know growth keems up being higher than forecast employment ends up being higher than forecast so one of the reasons these researchers are saying is this flood of migrants into the country most of whom are ending up in the labor force and working Rick there's a lot more I want to ask you but we're out of time so off to do it off.

Camera in The Newsroom thanks so much we'll have to discuss this another time I wonder if we'll be able to do that I'm sure it won't go away thanks a lot hi guys well Nvidia is on a tear so far this year surging nearly 80% thus far in 2024 Bank of America seeing shares will head even higher of course there's a world Beyond Nvidia for those looking to.

Get into the AI Arena some of them looking to get in very early joining us now Martina lenko cost costanoa Ventures partner thanks for being here Martina so you um are at the very early stage of some of these next waves of AI you guys are at this sort of seed stage uh inventure Capital so where not just specifically but also sector-wise where.

Are sort of the next Innovations going to come from when it comes to AI yeah well Julie you asked a really great question which is if you're not Nvidia which is doing the compute what do you look for that is enabling this same J gen era and for us that is really all about data infrastructure because someone has to write all the models you.

Need the coming in and being stored and having the pipelines and having the data scientists that can build the models that are doing all of this work all that all of that is in the category of data infrastructure and so we see that as being one of the biggest most important areas to continue to invest in there's also applied AI which is in specific.

Vertical like defense where you can take in all of this raw data and intelligence data and then do the job of an analyst or cyber security where the bad guys are doing a lot of bad stuff with this gen and we need an equally strong cohort on the cyber security sign fighting for the good guys Martina I'm interested in your role you know you're talking to a lot of.

Young Smart entrepreneurs uh focused on AI um and you've got to decide you know who you write a check to and who you don't how are you making those disting distinguishing between these Martina how do you distinguish between you know what's real what looks meaningful and what looks like marketing fluff well for sure the team is the most.

Important thing and you have to assess that through references but the bars just become higher there was 11.5 5 billion invested into the seed stage last year but that's down from its peak just a couple of years ago and so we always want to make sure is this a team that knows how to learn and adapt quickly we joke there's a Founder in our.

Portfolio that says everything that I know will be obsolete in five years and that could be true technically and so we have to have people that know how to adapt to how quickly things are changing on the technology front as well as be able to respond to market segments and how dynamic they are and that comes up and how they behave and what their.

References say about how what they've done in the past if things are changing though that quickly I mean won't we see some of these companies maybe change entirely what they're doing in that in that period of time that is absolutely going to happen that's a a really normal thing for early stage investing is we can't be.

Married to the idea which is why the team becomes so important are they reacting dynamically to what they've built and how it might need to adapt to what it Market or technology reality when they are finding that traction point so early stage investing is really about being able to roll with all of that as it.

Evolves Martina can you give us maybe an example of an AI focused startup in your portfolio one that you're excited about yeah well vanav our Labs is a great example of that applied AI that I was talking about so they are ingesting all of this raw image data audio data and being able to process it in a way that lets anal essentially does the job of an.

Analyst and so the defense department can be much more specific and fast in how they're allocating resources or company like Delina which is helping the data scientists who are building all of these models that are creating this era of of gen AI build better models faster so this is going to yield more intelligent sales forecasts better fraud.

Models more Dynamic bets on how you were able to do your ad buys and all of this is powered by gen and so you need the people who are actually doing the work to be able to build these better models faster so that's what this tool set and this data infrastructure or the supply AI is giving us Martina thanks so much for.

Joining us today appreciate your time oh thank you guys so much for having me coming up under arour announcing a leadership transition Kevin plank is set to return as CEO could to break down what this means for the company move forward when Yahoo finance returns.

breaking news Kevin plank returning to under arour as its CEO replacing.

Stephanie linards who just rounded a year in her tenure as head of the company the company also announcing that mohhamad L Aran of aliance and of Queens College at Cambridge will be chairman of the board he has been on the board for the past couple of years Brian sazy our executive editor covers this company very closely and so he's here to give us.

Perspective my outfit and how I look right now I think explains the shocking nature of this cuz I was getting ready to leave and I think this was I want to be careful what I'm saying because this story is still developing I'm still going through a LinkedIn post that Kevin plank uh put out there Kevin noing he has uh he has reflected on his journey.

Uh at UA uh he said he's learned a lot of course as a company that dealt with various issues on how it treated employees and and various other operational things when Kevin was CEO so he said he's learned a lot he had he calls a period of self-reflection and learning that has been invaluable um but uh now I should note that Under Armour.

Did not want to make Kevin available for an interview didn't really want to comment uh much beyond what Kevin posted on LinkedIn they did uh remind me that Kevin owned 65% of this company and and that has been always the The View on Under Armour this is a Kevin plank controlled company and if he wanted to come back and if he wanted to run the.

Company at any point he in fact could now I will also add this Stephanie L's only about a year mark uh into under she was laying the the groundwork to bring Under Armour into the Next Generation what what L the next levers are uh more focused product cooler lever product uh better operational uh Playbook fewer expenses a more focused company that is.

Taking the fight back to Lemon now Stephanie was laying the right groundwork uh in fact we I recently talked to her a couple weeks ago uh for our new series lead this way and she actually talked about working with uh Kevin plank uh he's saying that he's was very passionate and they actually had an office right next to each other but.

Overall this is a a shocking development for a company that appeared to be going back in the right direction I I do find it interesting that unarm found it uh important to remind me that Kevin didn't own 65% of the company did the company get an offer to be taken out unclear to me uh it's also unclear to me what Kevin is going to do differently than what.

Stephanie was doing the company was struggling uh under Kevin I have much appreciation for what Kevin launched and and brought to uh the apparel Market in Under Armour but those Last 5 Years of his tenure this is a company that lost cons market share to Lemon Nike and many other retailers outside of all the other issues that dealt I'm looking at a Max.

Chart of this stock and you know as a Baltimore native yes who I think my dad got in close to the IPO he's a m my father went to Maryland just like Kevin plank this was like The Pride of Baltimore when this thing started right the pride of Maryland and I'm looking at the max chart it went public $13 a share it's trading around $8 right now peaked.

Uh just above 50 back in 2015 and maybe she was getting it back on the right track but the stock has not really reflected that it's been going sideways and it's just I mean I'd be if I was it's a bit of a shame is you know looking at the at what it meant to to the at least as a marylander and to that it was interesting um SI as soon as that.

Headline crossed the initial reaction after hours was a pop yeah I if you're an UnderArmour shareholder today and I will say this is not a one-day story this is something I think that is going to play out over the next few days you have to be wondering what caused this separation did the company get an offer are did they underperform in this most.

Recent quarter are people are other the retailers not buying when Under Armor selling for the next six months or the holiday shop we know though that it wasn't a Personality Clash I asked them I asked them that I asked under Armor's uh Team if there was a disagreement between the two they declined to comment to me on that referred back to me to.

That that LinkedIn post that Kevin uh posted uh regarding him coming back but this is a shocking development and it's shocking because Stephanie larts who I originally got to know at Marriott she really LED that bonvo program amongst many initiatives one of the most highly regarded leaders in Corporate America what she did at Marriott was absolutely.

Tremendous and she was do starting to do tremendous stuff at Under Armour so it's sad that she's being shown the exit s thank you so much for your perspective I thought of you immediately I knew you were the guy appreciate it thanks all right that'll do it for today's yaho Finance live be sure to come back tomorrow at 3 p p.m. Eastern for all of.

Your coverage leading up to and after the closing bell have a good night n.

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