Closing Bell: Mag 7 Trade, The Big Business of Nascar 9/8/26

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1:00Scott Wapner: All right, guys, thanks so much. Welcome to Closing Bell. I'm Scott Wapner, live from Post 9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This make or break out begins with these jittery markets. Oil, Brian and Kelly just talking about rising on more strikes in Iran. You had those reports that were just emerging in the last few moments, maybe causing a little bit more consternation in the markets. Yields higher as well. That's a big story, of course. With that Fed meeting looming next week, we put it all into perspective today with our experts. We'll do that in just a moment. I'll show you the scorecard here with 60 to go in regulation.

1:31Scott Wapner: The majors have been read all day long, led by a drop in financials. Healthcare has been a loser as well today. A lot of that having to do with Amgen. Take a look at that stock down near 10 percent. I mentioned that one first because it's having a big impact on the Dow, and it is in response to poor trial results from Novartis. That's having a day of its own down more than 14 percent. Got the details on all of that coming up as well. Elsewhere, Apple's lower today ahead of its key iPhone event tomorrow. We'll talk more about that. Pretty good day for the chip names today. AMD is looking especially strong, about 6%.

2:10Scott Wapner: Qualcomm's higher on a data center deal with Amazon watching both of those moves. All of it takes us to our talk of the tape, how to play the markets right now. Let's ask our panel. SoFi's Liz Thomas, Solis's Dan Greenhouse, J.P. Morgan's Abby Yoder. Good to have everybody with us. Abby, I'll turn to you first. You've been bullish on every conversation that we've had. You just revised your earnings estimates higher by 4 % for the year. What do I do with a market that's jittery? Our attention has shifted from earnings to oil and yields. Even though the earnings story is pretty good and you say it's going to get even better, what's the yin-yang on all of that, you think?

2:51I mean, I think you continue to focus on earnings, right? Like if over time, that's what's really going to be driving the market, that's what you pay attention to. And yes, to your point, we revised higher earnings, which 4 % like doesn't really sound like that much after what we just had from 2Q, right? We had earnings growth 30%, and this is the seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth. But I think it's really important to keep in mind because of that earnings growth and because of the earnings revisions that we've had, the multiple for the S &P 500 has contracted from 22 and a half times to 19 and a half times.

3:19So I think a lot of those uncertainties that we're talking about are reflected in the market multiple, particularly in tech.

3:25Scott Wapner: So still, some would say historically rich, you know, earnings have to live up to the hype. Yes. That's going to be everything, especially with yields backing up, right? Because that puts the multiple into a little bit more of a question. And you're confident that earnings are going to maintain the momentum for the 12 months that are coming, not the 12 months that just finished, which have obviously more certainty. Yes. So looking forward, you're going to see a deceleration in the growth rate, right? Like core operating earnings for 2026 are going to grow 20%. So that's excluding those one-time gains that have been talked about.

4:05So going into next year, it's going to be closer to mid-teens, right? So you're seeing that deceleration that's reflected in the market multiple. And to your point on yields, that is certainly the biggest risk out there, I think, in terms of what's going on with the equity market. Maybe not so much from a multiple perspective, just from a fundamental perspective, right? Like the longer that you have like longer dated yields at these levels, the more restrictive it comes, even for the likes of the hyperscalers, right? Because they are now a different balance sheet story as it relates to the fact that they are raising debt, so are more interest rate sensitive.

4:36Scott Wapner: Okay, so 480 on the 10-year, that's obviously going to get everybody's attention. Is that to you as well the biggest risk right now, yields? Well, yes. I mean, I think it is a risk. I don't know that it's the biggest risk. If it's not, what is that? I think the uncertainty around what the Fed is going to do, the uncertainty around how long oil prices stay at this level, because we're starting to get a real bifurcation in opinions about what people think is going to happen. Goldman today at what was like 120 is a risk if things sort of deteriorate further. Well, and I don't think it's so much, you know, if it spikes up to 120, that is OK as long as it doesn't last very long.

5:13It's the staying above 90 for an extended period of time that starts to pressure everything else. So when you look at yields, it's funny. I wrote my talking points for this segment at 10.50 a.m. today, and I said I'd buy the 10-year above 480. And at that point, it was just slightly below, and then I got here, and it's above 480. So I think if you're looking at what's going to happen with yields, there's this weird tug-of-war happening between the Fed and the Treasury. The Treasury wants yields to fall. There's all this speculation that the Fed's going to tighten and then yields might actually rise.

5:44My bet is on the government intervention actually winning that. So I don't think that yields, especially the 10 year, end up much higher than where they are now. So if you're looking for just income, you're looking for that guaranteed yield. I think they're an OK buying opportunity here, but they're not a diversifier in the portfolio like they used to be. Mr.

6:02Scott Wapner: Greenhouse, what do you think? For fun, I'll disagree and say I don't think the Treasury can possibly win. And on the margin, they're going to have an impact. But I don't think that he can possibly buy back nearly enough bonds or open mouth operation yields lower. If for some reason yields were to have to go higher to say 5 % or something like that. But do you do the topic of risk, the biggest risk in the market right now being back up in yields? Do you agree with that notion or no? I don't. I don't think so. I've been a broken record for a year or two now. I think the AI story dwarfs everything else.

6:36Scott Wapner: And yeah, higher oil is not great, but Brent's almost 100 right now. Yeah, higher interest rates aren't great, but the 10 years up 90 basis points since the spring or something. And the stock market's at a high, including the equal weight. It's not as if it's just the MAG-7 on this comeback. Commentary from the last earnings season, even outside of technology, was quite good, again, with higher interest rates and higher oil. And that's because the AI investment story continues unimpeded right now. Sure, but continues unimpeded right now. Therein lies part of the risk that Abby is talking about.

7:10Scott Wapner: It has been unimpeded, but don't you think a further backup in rates could impede the build-out at all? No. Why not? Well, I'm being flippant for fun, but I don't think Google and Meta and Amazon. I mean, Amazon is going to spend, what,$220 billion? dollars, I don't think a few extra basis points matters very much to these companies that are more or less printing money. Now, obviously, free cash flow is borderline zero right now. And every increment, I don't mean to sort of dismiss outright. You sound dismissive and flippant. Yeah, I guess I would be dismissive and flippant. Even if you don't mean to be, you do.

7:49Scott Wapner: I'm trying to start a conversation here. We're just back into the office. Let's get it started on Tuesday. But in general, no, I don't think these companies care about marginally higher interest rates as it relates to the need to invest 150, 200 billion. Sure, but they're not the only borrowers. On the margin, some of the lower quality investors might be impacted to some degree, but they are de minimis relative to the hyperscalers. I mean, again, we've had$500 billion globally worth of issuance this year. Net issuance is somewhere around 175 or 200 billion, something like that. Most of that is coming from Google, Meta, et cetera, et cetera.

8:25Scott Wapner: And I don't think the 10-year 480 versus 460 really matters to them. Does anybody think that the Fed's going to hike next week? No. You do? Yeah, we do have it. And it's really more so because, I mean, the labor market data is mixed. And the inflation data, in our view, is clearly to the downside in terms of what we're seeing from a core inflation standpoint. It's more so on, like, the credibility side, right? Like, the issue, like, that Liz was mentioning in terms of what the Fed wants to do, I think one of the issues and why you're seeing term premium in the long end of the curve and why you saw a disconnect between the short end of the curve and the long end of the curve earlier in the summer is because nobody really knows what the policy is, right?

9:08Like, nobody knows what the trajectory is because the communication is changing and this is a new Fed chair and they've explicitly said they want to say less, right? And so I think an element of that, you know, term premium and that curve steepening that we saw post his initial press conference was related to that uncertainty. And the most important thing is we expect one hike. We don't expect a hiking cycle, which would be very, very different for the equity market.

9:32Scott Wapner: But what does one hike do anyway that just says, hey, think of us more credibly than you did yesterday? Well, yeah. And like, okay, we've got conflicting data as it relates to the labor market. We don't really know where inflation is going to go until Liz's point. It really matters what happens with oil, right? Like oil and yields are like 1.7 % of positive correlation right now. So that really matters. But they also can't hike away oil prices. They can't do anything to affect the straight-up-form moves, right? So I do think it's really just a credibility thing because what you saw after, again, earlier in the summer, is that there was question marks around whether or not they were being too lenient as it relates to inflation.

10:09Scott Wapner: Okay, so hike, no hike. You got anything flippant on that? There's nothing else but hike or no hike. Why don't you settle it? I will be an equal opportunity disagreeer and disagree on the concept of they need to hike to defend credibility. Wait, did you say they're hiking, though? I didn't say anything. By design. I don't think that there's a single additional credibility problem for the Federal Reserve today than there was three months ago, six months ago, two years. They have missed their target for years. They decided to miss—I don't care what anyone says—they decided to miss their target. In 22 and 23, when they announced to the market, inflation is not getting back to our target for four years, a time frame that continuously has been rolled forward.

10:51Scott Wapner: Because we are not ready to raise interest rates then to levels sufficient to bring inflation back to target, that might have caused a slowdown in GDP or an increase in the unemployment rate. So what are you saying? They have no credibility to begin with because they missed their target? I'm not saying they have no credibility. I'm saying there's no additional worry, I would argue, about their credibility today than any of the years that they have missed. If they want to bring inflation back to target, you have to first determine what share of inflation is, to Abby's point, affected by the funds rate.

11:20Scott Wapner: They're not going to bring down oil prices, the AI investment cycle. Generally speaking, not particularly interest rate sensitive. So once you get underneath that, and tariffs, of course, once you get underneath that, what's the level of inflation, demand, that might be impacted by raising the Fed. So you don't think they're going to hike? Just answer the question. No, I have no problem. My gut says they don't hike. I think it depends a lot, obviously, on the CPI report on Friday. But I think it's a stretch right now, based on the data we have, to think they're hiking. I would add, though, a feather in Abby's cap is if they don't hike now, They're certainly not hiking in October, four days before the election.

11:59Scott Wapner: So they might feel pressure, so to speak, to go now and then pause at the next meeting to open it up again. I mean, there's like a 60 percent chance the market thinks that they're going to hike. I think the market's wrong. I think the problem that now Warsh has is that he has committed so much to this 2 percent target. Right. That if he starts hiking, he is going to send a message to the market that he's not going to stop hiking until we get to 2 percent. And in this cycle, to the points that have already been made, we are above 2 percent largely because oil prices are where they are. The Fed has no control over the war in Iran and because of technology driving these prices higher.

12:38The Fed has no control over that. The biggest risk, back to your first question in this whole segment, the biggest risk, I think, to this market is that the Fed does hike and creates pain for parts of the economy that do not have the strength to withstand that pain right now. That's right. And hyperscalers and the Mag-7 can hold up the market because of mathematically their weight in the market, but they cannot hold up the entire economy. So I think the Fed could easily kill the economy by hiking rates too much while the market goes on unabated, as if whistling past the graveyard until it all would come crashing down.

13:13Scott Wapner: Well, some have made the argument that not just the hyperscalers, but the AI trade in general is holding up the entire economy as it is. That's how it would appear. I mean, you look at housing, you look at construction, like it's basically in recessionary territory, right? So it is to a certain extent. And obviously the estimates around what it's all contributing to GDP, because so much of it is imports, is a big question mark. But that is the argument, too, which creates even more issue around, OK, what's a big risk to the market, the AI trade unraveling, because it also has economic implications.

13:46Scott Wapner: But the AI trade, generally speaking, is not only is it not unraveling, it's been gaining more steam. Like, look, we've been showing since late last week when Mike Santoli flagged this, I think, for the first time, the performance of the mega caps, the MAG7, the MAGs, versus the S &P, and how they're now sort of neck and neck. And it paints a picture. If we can grab that, guys, I'm not sure if we can do it, but I'm hoping we can. It's a six-month MAG7 versus the S &P. You can see the underperformed. Thank you. No, you can't. You can. Trust me, you can. Thank you, guys. June, July, right? There's this underperformance.

14:28Scott Wapner: Market's like, OK, what are we where are we going here? And then now we've got a trade that's that's back. What does that tell you about what what needs to happen here with the mega caps and tech in general, if the market's going to be able to look past some of the issues with oil and yields and some of the uncertainty around the macro? Well, that catch up started on, you know, July 29th or July 30th, right, which is when you got real proof. Earnings, right? Yes. Mega cap earnings that you got real proof of a revenue acceleration related to AI. You had a nine percentage point increase on a quarter over quarter basis for these companies, these major hyperscalers, these massive companies.

15:08That is huge in terms of an acceleration. So you're really starting to see a return on that investment. Now, you need to see more of that to continue. You need to see more of that. You need to see more of their backlogs, which are now at$1.7 trillion, converted into real-time revenue and continued operating margin expansion as well.

15:25Scott Wapner: Give me the six-month again, guys, please. As long as you have the mega caps doing much better like they have been, does that insulate the market from going through some of these gyrations around yields and oil and the macro? On the index level, yes, but in the other sectors, no. I think that the rotation trade that we've been hanging our hat on for months now and saying, well, there's still strength everywhere else. Look, we don't need the MAG-7 in order for the market to do OK. If we go back to a period where the MAG-7 is the only thing doing OK, we are much more fragile than we have been for the better part of this entire year, frankly.

16:10So I think what's happening right now is we've had some volatility. We had that big rollover in momentum. Momentum lost its luster. And investor muscle memory in this entire cycle has been go back to large cap tech, the blue chip names in large cap tech, and rotate into things that are defensively growthy, like health care. And that has happened yet again. I do think that through the rest of the year, we've got policy uncertainty, we've got macro uncertainty, and there's going to be continuous headlines about that. the Meg7 hyperscalers probably will do well for the rest of this year?

16:45Scott Wapner: I don't know. I mean, we've got the equal weight at a high. We invest in individual stocks. The whole bunch of sectors and stocks are doing just fine. They've eaten the rate increase and the oil increase, relatively speaking, pretty well. Obviously, energy being at a high, some of those names are pretty large. So you're disagreeing with everybody again? I'm trying to make good TV here. I believe what I'm saying. Well, I'd like to have some sort of, you know, genuineness to the conversation and your perspective. I think the viewer understands my level of genuineness. Very high. With a smirk. With a smirk.

17:17Scott Wapner: No, I think the market's doing pretty well. I think the economy's doing pretty well. We're only at 1.7 percent of the S &P off a record high. Yeah. And again, the 10 years up, 90 basis points. The whole conversation around the Federal Reserve has changed. Oil is back to 100. Brent, there are any number of reasons one would look at the macro backdrop and say, oh, the market should be down 5%, 6 % or something like that. And it's not. Well, because of how Abby started the conversation with earnings. If the earnings story was different, yes, if earnings were negative, the market would probably be lower.

17:51Scott Wapner: Not negative. There's a famous saying, I won't repeat on air, about my grandmother and my grandfather. But the reality is that that is what's going on, that earnings are great. Earnings revisions for the next couple of quarters have been to the upside, not down. And that's even excluding technology. Call it one, two, three percent increase. The backdrop's pretty good. You mentioned on the halftime show the Wall Street Journal story about the summer was good and now it's time to worry again. No one ever writes an article that's like, we're doing OK. And I think that's where we are. All right. We'll leave it there.

18:24Scott Wapner: Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Appreciate it very much. Speaking of the mega caps, there's some news on Meta. Julia Boorstin has that for us. Hi there. Hi, Scott. Well, Meta is unveiling a personal AI agent that Mark Zuckerberg has been teasing for months. This new agent will go head to head with OpenAI, Google and Anthropics agentic tools. There's a new app called Muse and also a tool that you can use within WhatsApp. It gives users a personalized agent which can act like an assistant. It can monitor security cameras, file it, fill in paperwork, find items to buy or can book tea times.

18:55Users can also create a feed to keep tabs on news, social updates and the like. Now, this new tool, Muse, is rolling out today with a free tier and also more advanced tiers for power users, those two tiers costing$20 and$100 a month. I spoke to Meta AI chief Alex Wang, who told me, quote, we are incredibly excited about consumer AI, and we see today a very small number of people who have really experienced the power of advanced agents in these new models. He went on to say the company aims to bring those capabilities and this advanced technology in a form factor that will actually be usable and digestible.

19:33Now, amid growing concerns about AI cybersecurity risks, Meta says its agent is built to be private, safe and secure. It will ask for your permission to use your credit card and it will draft emails, but it won't send them without your explicit permission. Scott.

19:48Scott Wapner: OK, Julia, thanks very much. That's Julia Borson. Apple, meantime, gearing up for what could be one of its biggest iPhone launches in years. Mackenzie Segalos following all of that, of course, for us, joins us now. Hi. Hey there, Scott. And Apple's first foldable iPhone would mark its most significant redesign of the product in nearly a decade. Now, that's expected to sit at the very top of tomorrow's lineup, starting at$2 ,400, according to Morgan Stanley estimates, with higher storage versions potentially topping$3 ,000. An early supply could be extremely tight. Nikkei Asia says production is only a few hundred units a day versus the tens of thousands typically needed for a mass launch as Apple works through strict quality control requirements related to the display and hinge.

20:31But that scarcity could actually work in Apple's favor, creating buzz around a product that's already designed to feel exclusive. It's also part of a broader move up market. The street is expecting the fall lineup to skew heavily toward the Pro models, with price hikes of up to$500 versus comparable iPhone 17s, including a 20 % increase on the base Pro model. That higher price mix should lift the average selling price and help Apple protect margins as memory costs rise. The Pros should also get upgraded specs, including the new A20 Pro chip expected tomorrow as well. That'll give it more horsepower for Siri AI, Scott.

21:08Scott Wapner: All right, good stuff. If you'll be there, look forward to that. Mac, thank you. Mackenzie Segalis mentioned earlier. Shares of Amgen Novartis are lower today. Annika Kim-Constantino joins us now with exactly what is going on here. What can you tell us? Hey, Scott. Novartis had a rough last week reporting several trial setbacks, one of which is dragging down other names like Amgen. Today, Novartis said its drug for a muscle-wasting disorder failed to meet the main goal in a late-stage study. And that treatment was the centerpiece of the company's roughly 12 billion acquisition of Avidity Biosciences last year.

21:39And the other key trial setback we saw came on Friday when Novartis said its cholesterol-lowering drug failed to meet the main goal in a phase three trial because it did not significantly improve cardiovascular outcomes. Guggenheim analysts did tell me that the study was incredibly high risk, but the results are casting uncertainty on the broader class of drugs targeting what we call bad cholesterol. So that's why we're seeing shares of other companies developing those treatments trading lower today, namely Amgen and Lilly. Novartis today maintained its sales outlook of growing 5 percent to 6 percent a year on average until 2030.

22:13But investors will be watching closely to see how the company can offset upcoming patent expirations of blockbuster drugs. Scott.

22:20Scott Wapner: All right. Good stuff, Annika. Thanks so much for that. That's Annika Kim-Constantino. We're just getting started here. Coming up next, school back in session, the dean of valuation, Aswath DeModer. and he'll tell us if he sees stocks as too expensive right now. We're back.

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25:05Scott Wapner: We are back on the bell. Pick up almost any market-related publication these days, and it'll probably say valuations are among the richest they've ever been. Is that an ominous sign of things to come, or are the higher prices justified because of the AI boom? Let's ask the dean of valuation, Aswath Damodur in NYU Stern School of Business. Professor of Finance joins us once again. It's good to have you back. Thank you for having me. So if I opened a publication that you wrote or are teaching it at NYU, do you think stocks are too expensive right now? They seem so. And here are the issues that I think are at conflict with each other.

25:41One is interest rates have risen over the course of the year. and by itself that would be a negative. Higher interest rates, lower value. But at the same time, earnings have actually gone up even more than interest rates. So what's held stocks up is not AI per se, but the collective earnings of companies being able to keep track with inflation and interest rates. And really the challenge for markets is, can they keep doing it? Can earnings continue to keep pace with inflation? And if they do, I think the market will come out as less affected than we thought it was going to be at the start of the year.

26:13So I think that's how you explain those those incongruent facts is the market's earnings have kept up with inflation and interest rates. And that's kept markets up as well.

26:23Scott Wapner: Do you expect anything different? I mean, that that is the key to this entire market, the way that and the reason that we've been able to ignore some of the other macro factors, because we've always fall back on, well, look at earnings. They're living up. They're living up to it. So why shouldn't valuations be justified? And you can't point to AI as the reason earnings are up either. So if you break down earnings by companies, AI is more net negative than net positive for earnings because a lot more money is being spent building AI architecture than is being made making money on AI. So I think this is something that's coming from a strength in the economy that most economists didn't predict at the start of the year.

27:05You think that, you know, with the worries about oil prices and a recession around the corner that consumers will pull back, but they haven't done that. But you're waiting. You're waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it's not dropped so far. And maybe the promise we as economists or as finance people don't, we're underestimating the resilience of the economy in the face of odds that look insurmountable.

27:31Scott Wapner: So when people cite, for example, the CAPE ratio hasn't been this high since 2000, right before the dot-com bubble burst, does that miss the point? Well, sure, that may be true. But that run-up was based, I don't know, I want to say hardly at all on actual earnings. It was all based on, you know, fantasy land that just wasn't going to come to fruition. This is totally different. Now, I'm not going to say it's totally different, but I've stopped looking at the CAPE ratio because it hasn't worked this century. Forget about the last year, the last five years, it hasn't worked in this century. The fact that people keep pointing to it suggests to me that they can't dig a little deeper.

28:14So I think we need to stop the focus on P-E ratios because as we increasingly become a tech-oriented market, earnings for tech companies can't be compared to earnings for manufacturing companies. The accounting is screwed up. So I think we need to come up with more creative ways of thinking about what it is that's driving stock price and looking at the proverbial bottom line of net income is not going to do it anymore.

28:38Scott Wapner: When you look at the mega caps, people are, I think, shocked when they look at the actual numbers. NVIDIA's 10-year average is 36 times. It's at 18 times, almost 19 times. It's not like you have egregious valuations based on history for most, frankly, of the mega caps until you look at Apple. And that number 34 times versus a 10 year average of 23 really jumps out at you. It's the one criticism I hear from folks when we have conversations around Apple is it's too expensive at these levels. How do you assess that? Maybe the reason investors are giving Apple a higher number relative to earnings, it's the one company that hasn't spent like it's going out of style in terms of investing in CapEx, AI CapEx.

29:30Every other one of these mega cap companies, the earnings have held up, but the cash flows haven't. It's estimated that this year Alphabet's earnings might be close to$200 billion, but they're going to invest$190 billion in AI CapEx. And as investors, it's cash flows that you ultimately count on. So maybe the Apple premium is a premium for restraint of not jumping in and spending money like it's going out of style on AI CapEx. So that might be the explanation for the divergence in P ratios. It's a company that behaves like a traditional old time tech company. The others have become manufacturing companies that masquerade as tech companies.

30:07Scott Wapner: Well, it just it raises the stakes, though, doesn't it? As we look forward to this event that Apple's holding tomorrow, because it trades it now 34 times. it better live up to the projections of what investors think it's going to do in the future. It's a fragile company from that perspective. It's a smartphone company. It's making a bet on the iPhone. And to the extent that you think some other technology out there will replace the iPhone, that is going to be the disruptive event that upends Apple. So I know that they know this as well. And I think that the foldable iPhone and the kind of other devices they're building are their protective wall.

30:44I don't know how successful it will be. against this disruption that will come for the smartphone.

30:49Scott Wapner: We'll talk to you soon, Professor. Thanks, as always. Thank you. That's about the motor. And coming up, NASCAR heading into the final stretch of the season. The action isn't just on the track. We're breaking down the business of racing. NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell, USA Sports President Matt Hong, right here, Post 9, next.

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32:47Scott Wapner: All right, welcome back. Nine races to go in NASCAR's 2026 season with driver Denny Hamlin leading the chase standings. Meantime, the business of the sport speeding well ahead of its recent pace. Joining us now, NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell, Matt Hong. He's the president of USA Sports, which airs a block of races. Gentlemen, welcome. It's good to have you here at Post 9. Thanks for having us. Let's talk about this momentum you have, the strongest business season in years. Attendance up, commercial momentum up, younger people finding the sport, trackside merch, highest in a decade. Why? I think, you know, the racing speaks for itself.

33:24I think more people are finding NASCAR due to our great partners. Matt, partner here as well with USA and what everyone's been able to do and really push NASCAR to new audiences. Once they sample the sport, they're going to become fans. So, you know, yes, a lot of momentum, but a lot of bright spots ahead in the future.

33:40Scott Wapner: How do you keep that momentum going after, you know, years of which was a slowdown? And now you feel like you have something, maybe lightning in a bottle. How do you how do you continue to grow that? It's going to be all about partnership. So I'm doing a lot of listening right now, talking to our drivers, owners, racetracks, a lot of our partners. where do we want to go in the future? We're calling it Project 2032. So we're trying to all line up together and talk about where do we want to be five years from now? And if everyone can kind of align on that goal, I think we've got a great opportunity.

34:08Scott Wapner: Speaking of where, you're in some new markets, right? San Diego, for one. San Diego, 70 % of those fans were new to the sport. That's amazing. What does that mean to you and how you think about other new areas you want to go and the types of audience you can grab? Yeah. So I think we want to be authentic to where we go. When we go, we want to put on a race like we do at Talladega, Daytona, that kind of thing. San Diego was a perfect fit for us. A great partnership with the men and women of the military there. So those are the types of things we want to continue to explore. You know, we'd love to be in the Northwest.

34:37We'd love to be in Denver. So we'll see what the possibilities are.

34:39Scott Wapner: Did you think it was going to be as successful as it was? Originally, I was thinking San Diego. Does that really have a history of being a racing town? But then you bring the military angle into it, which I wasn't thinking about, which seems to me to make perfect sense. It was a perfect match. Did I think it would be a successful? No, if I'm honest. But, you know, merchandise sold out the first day we were out there. It was fantastic. So Chase Elliott, Bubba Wallace, they're obviously in the chase, which is you need to get your biggest names in the biggest part of the season. We do. Correct? Yes.

35:10Scott Wapner: So what does that mean to you? I mean, he, from what I understand, Chase, is the most popular driver right now. Yes. Bubba Wallace knows Slouch. He's also a cultural icon, too. So having those two guys now in your playoffs means what? So I think if you look at the 16 drivers that we have, all great storylines, all have a chance at winning the title. The move to the chase really put us back on focusing on driver star power, talking about what they do each and every lap. And that's worked for the first 26 races. So we had our first race in Darlington to start out the chase. You saw some guys step up in our chase, and it's going to be an interesting run over the last nine races.

35:47Scott Wapner: You've been doing this long enough. you know well about having the biggest stars on the biggest platforms at the biggest moments. The August 9th race in Iowa, which started USA's season, delivered the largest non-Olympic sports audience of the year on USA Network. Yeah. What happened? I mean, I'll start by saying NASCAR is a foundational partner for our parent company, Versant, and for us at USA Sports. When we spun from NBCUniversal at the start of this year, It was the property that we identified along with a couple others that were really core to coming with our company. The ratings for NASCAR, not only this year, but year in, year out, continue to be amazing.

36:29Audiences tune in. It's a sponsor-driven sport. Our distribution partners count on it and rely on it. So it is a workhorse for us as a business and a sports property. And we've known Steve for I don't know how long we've known each other, Steve. You guys personally have known each other for a long time. Yeah, I mean, Steve, you joined NASCAR, as I joke, last century. That's very true. I, whether at this company or in a previous life, have worked in and around NASCAR for 20 years. So we've got some longstanding relationships.

37:01Scott Wapner: But the business, it's a performance-based business. What's the breakdown, Matt, on how people are consuming NASCAR? I think, obviously, everybody in this business, in this industry, is grappling with the changes between linear and streaming. How about for NASCAR? What are you seeing? Yeah, I'll ask Steve to weigh in on the various broadcast partners that they have, a new streaming partner in the mix. For us, it's still a highly consumed, highly, highly consumed property on USA Network, which is pay television. We've got our social handles. We've got digital content that we do along with NASCAR.

37:37Scott Wapner: But our viewership on pay television is as strong as ever. How are you thinking about that? and the way your sport is going to be consumed in the future. Yeah, it's hugely important, first of all, to be networked on USA, which does a terrific job for us. We've dabbled a little bit with Amazon, doing some things around in-car cameras with HBO Max. So for us, it was a way to sample some new things, make sure that NASCAR has a lot of opportunities for maybe a new fan to sample the sport, but then push everyone to USA and say, if you really want to see those cup races, here's where you're going to find them, and they do a terrific job for us.

38:12Scott Wapner: Do you feel like you're competing with F1 for viewership, or are you just two entirely different fan bases and audiences on TV? You know, I look at it like any form of motorsports that's growing I think is great for all of us. But from our standpoint, you know, we're very proud of the racing we put on. We think we've got a great product, and we've got a lot of room to grow. So we're going to look at continuing to push what we do best, and I think the fans are responding. You, I think we're all excited at the company, you know, disclosure. I mean, we're obviously both on Verson, really making a lean in to sports.

38:43Scott Wapner: And I know we're all excited about the announcements that have happened recently. It's the Bundesliga, World Team Tennis. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Because that's the most recent and also why this strategy seems to make sense. Yeah, I mean, I would say that our sports portfolio, Scott, resembles a business portfolio. So we've got some large cap properties and partners that are continuing to grow. and then we're taking some bets and making some bets on some growth properties, whether that's love volleyball or world team tennis, others that you've mentioned. And so, you know, we've got NASCAR again, which just produces returns for us year over year over year.

39:21And then it's like we've got a venture portfolio with some younger properties. And in between, we've got WNBA and Pac-12 and Premier League and Bundesliga. And so we're pretty happy with the portfolio of properties that we have.

39:35Scott Wapner: All right. Well, we're excited about it. I can tell you that. Matt, thanks, Steve. Great to have you. Absolutely. Congrats on your success and we wish you more. Appreciate it. Thank you. Steve O'Donnell and Matt Hong joining us right here. Post nine. Sticking with sports, a reminder, a quick programming note. Tomorrow we are revealing CNBC's official 2026 NFL valuations list. The season kicks off already. Can't believe it. By the way, we're going to be joined by Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan. You don't want to miss any of that. That's tomorrow, an exclusive 3.30 Eastern time right on this program.

40:07Scott Wapner: We're back after this.

40:14Scott Wapner: All right, 10 to the bell. Let's get to Christina now for the stock she's watching. What do you see? Well, let's start with Corning shares because those shares are jumping roughly 9 percent after announcing a multibillion dollar agreement with Verizon for broadband expansion and next generation AI infrastructure. recording is going to supply more than 80 million miles of optical fiber to expand specifically nationwide consumer broadband access and really help, of course, gen AI, generative AI compute needs. And so shares are actually up 8 percent. Qualcomm, on the other hand, up about 3 percent after announcing a data center infrastructure partnership with Amazon Web Services.

40:48Qualcomm says it issued Amazon warrants to buy roughly 12 million, 25 million shares and will help build out Amazon Web Services AI infrastructure focusing on inference. Shares initially popped RBC saying that had to do with a short squeeze. And so you can see they're back down about two and a half percent. Scott.

41:05Scott Wapner: All right. Good stuff. Christina, thank you. That's Christina Partzinevelis coming up next. Set you up for the big week ahead for software stocks as well. That and much more in the market zone, which is next.

41:23Scott Wapner: We're now in the Closing Bell Market Zone. Mike Santoli and Kestrel Investments' Karen Murphy here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Oliver Rennick standing by live from the SIBO Global Markets in Chicago. We'll play options action in a moment. Seema Modi looking ahead at the big week again for software. Get to that in a minute. But Mike Santoli, to you first. It's about rising oil, rising yields. And what else? Yeah, that's impinging on, I would say, the majority of the market today outside of some of the AI hardware and just energy stocks as well. So once again, majority of stocks down where we keep kind of migrating within this range at the index level, 7 ,600-ish to the downside, 7 ,800 to the upside.

42:03And we're not really resolving a whole lot, but rotating to stay afloat. That has been the story. I do think the jobs report on Friday maybe sort of de-risked the Fed just slightly, even though I think the market's going to remain on edge with where yields are going. As soon as we clicked to 4.8 % on the 10-year today, you did see an extra little bit of heaviness at the index level. So that seems relevant in the short term.

42:26Scott Wapner: Five minutes from OT. What do you got? Yeah, we got kind of all of that. We're also going to speak to Tony Wong, tech manager over at T. Rowe as well, just to get his take on this meta announcement as well as the shifting AI trade. Good stuff. We'll see you, as I said, now less than five minutes away. That's Mike Zantoli. To Oliver Renick at the SIBO in Chicago, where are we playing options action today? Second week in a row, we're looking at the Brazilian stock ETF EWZ, Scott. It's doing options volume on par with the likes of Apple and SpaceX. 650 ,000 contracts traded today, five times the 30-day average and just shy of$80 million in premium, about 88 % of which is tied to call contracts.

43:11The volumes almost entirely calls, which is highly unusual, and the chart has not been disappointing. It's up another 2 % today, up 14 % off lows, and the most popular contract to buy the 44 strike calls expiring in mid-December are betting on another 18 % gain. As far as the narrative, Brazil has an election coming up and also arguably a commodity proxy. For bears, there was one big seller of 50 strike calls in December, but that could still allow for a very big run.

43:42Scott Wapner: All right, Oliver, thank you. Oliver Rennick, we'll go to Seaman now. Feels like the third straight big week for software, right? It is, Scott, but this turnaround story may just hinge on earnings. Oracle, which has gained about 14%, Scott, in the last 14 days, 10 days rather. OpenAI's latest AI model Astra, which is receiving strong reviews, trained at Oracle's Stargate data center. Now, any confirmation of achieving AGI status is going to be seen as positive for Oracle, which does still rely on OpenAI for about 60 percent of its backlog. Earnings due Thursday, as is Adobe, which has seen its stock fall since announcing the appointment of an internal executive as CEO after a nearly five-month-long CEO search.

44:21Investors will want to hear from the new CEO, Arnold Chakravarti, and his key priorities in steering Adobe through competition from the big AI labs. That's been a big overhang. Software ETF, it's slightly down today while chips are bouncing back, Scott.

44:35Scott Wapner: All right, another big week. Seema, thanks so much. That's Seema Modi. I'm here with Kara Murphy at Post 9. How are you feeling about this market here? You know, oil yields kind of dominating the conversation now that earnings are over. A little bit of a speed bump today. But let's not forget that there's pressure on long-term yields, fears about inflation, oil rising higher. These are risks that have been lurking out there in the market for a while. And so, as you said, there's a little bit less to focus on what the earnings front. So I think the market has sort of shifted its attention now to the risk side.

45:03Scott Wapner: Are the risk side questions more durable now? You think? I mean, now we're talking about valuations relative to yields. We're talking about persistent now tensions in the Middle East with oil potentially going over 100. How problematic would all that be? I think all of it is a challenge. And for most of this year, we've seen the market sort of pulled between this AI-related earnings story versus things like higher yields, inflation, oil. So it's still that same kind of pressure, but now we're leaning a little bit more towards the fears about persistent inflation. Don't forget, we have some really important inflation data that's coming out over the next couple of days.

45:44CPI is coming out this week, Fed meeting in 10 days. And I think while our base case is not for another hike, it's a non-zero chance that the Fed does hike again, if for no other reason that those inflationary pressures are persistent. And let's not forget that their next meeting is right before the election. They typically like to step back. So if they have any sort of inclination that they want to hike in the next couple of months, it's probably going to be next week.

46:10Scott Wapner: What happens if they do do that? I think the market will take it a little hard. I don't think it'll completely take this bull market off the table, but it does create more of a headwind for anybody who's going out into the debt markets, that's consumers and companies. And I think it signals that, as you suggested, inflation is more durable than what we've been hoping for. Would a dip be quickly bought because of the earnings story and then stocks would thus become a bit cheaper relative to where yields are? Potentially. So as long as we can see evidence that that higher rate environment is not impinging on companies' ability to earn, the market can step through it.

46:45Once we start to see those earnings really have more of a headwind, then I think the market retinks it.

46:50Scott Wapner: Real quick, mega caps, resurgence. What do you think about that? I think this is not a statement so much on the business models, but I think it is a risk to portfolios, which is why we want to make sure that we're diversified outside of mega caps and not just beholden to those names. All right. Great stuff. It's good to have you here, Cara. Thanks so much. It's Cara Murphy right here at Post 9, about to ring the bell. As you know, it's going to be a red day led down by the Dow. Now, Amgen, yes, it plays a big story in that, but we'll focus today rising oil and rising yields in what is a very big week with Apple looming tomorrow and some software earnings, as Team Imodi was talking about.

47:26Scott Wapner: Do it for us. I'll send it into overtime with Melissa Lee and Mike Santoli. Something amazing is happening in networking. Organizations are scaling with less stress. That's because CDW is designing and implementing intelligent HPE Aruba networking solutions that simplify and secure operations. With automation at the center of your data center, growing pains can be a thing of the past. HPE Aruba Networking and CDW. Make amazing happen. Learn more at cdw.com slash aruba.