Closing Bell: NVIDIA Fallout, Anthropic IPO Test and Apple’s Record Run

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1:02Welcome to Closing Bell and Happy Friday. I'm John Ford in for Scott Waffner. This make or break hour starts with the continued fallout after Jensen Huang's abrupt exit from NVIDIA. We're going to have a top tech fund manager standing by with his reaction. But first, here is your scorecard with 60 minutes to go in the trading week. You can see the Dow there just about at break even for the day. S &P 500 down a half a percent. NASDAQ down close to one percent. Russell, the small caps, about half a percent as well. And check out NVIDIA. That stock is down again today, 2 percent, more than the market, more than the NASDAQ as the Jensen-Wong scandal overhang continues.

1:43That brings us to our talk of the tape. New reporting this hour on what might come next for that company. Our Seema Modi following the latest for us. Seema. So, John, the search for a permanent successor may be on, but NVIDIA's board telling CNBC they are still in the process of selecting a search firm. And at this point, it has not engaged with any potential candidates, internal or external. Those comments follow a report from the Financial Times that the company approached Arm's CEO Renee Haas as a potential successor to Jensen Wang. This as Colette Kress conducted her first meeting as interim CEO with high-level executives at NVIDIA headquarters yesterday, where we are told upcoming earnings, the report, the communication strategy were among the topics addressed.

2:26A lot of chatter among analysts on there being more interested in better understanding how NVIDIA breaks out revenue derived outside the U.S., given the unconfirmed reports that NVIDIA may have sold advanced chips to China. John, so we are counting down until that earnings report. Of course we are. Yes, Asim Amodi, thank you. Now let's bring in Baker Avenue's King Lip. King, happy Friday. Hi, John. How are you? I'm doing pretty well. Let's start with NVIDIA earnings coming up. You know, the traditional tension is that the CEO wants to set targets for the coming quarter guidance that is ambitious and spurs on the company to action.

3:09And the CFO tends to be more conservative now that, at least for the time being, the CFO is the interim CEO. How likely that perhaps that guidance is more conservative so she maintains the trust of the street? You know, that's possible. I think this next quarter's communication is probably one of the most important of NVIDIA's history. I would say this. We don't need a heroic order. What we do want to see is proof that NVIDIA is bigger than Jensen. So we're expecting some strong numbers. What does that mean in this case? What does that mean in this case when all of the numbers are pre-scandal numbers that they're actually reporting in this quarter?

3:51So what you get is a guide. And I find it hard to imagine that there's much of an incentive to give an aggressive guide in this situation. Yeah, I think it's likely that the company will continue to deliver strong guidance. But that being said, they might want to give themselves a little bit of a cushion given the transition. But I think it's most important thing is for them to deliver confidence. So whether that confidence comes from qualitative numbers or from a more quantitative perspective, I think that's really the goal of this next earnings call. It's to maintain, see if the company can basically communicate that it can maintain the culture and give a credible message that the product roadmap is there and customer relationships are still intact.

4:42King, what do you see as being the key ingredients for that? Because it seems to me for investors, the question isn't so much just will the stock price keep dropping? The question is how long before it gets to that$240 a share territory or higher? And when will they have leadership that can confidently, crisply make the kind of decisions around roadmap, around partnership, around M &A that might fuel growth? Leadership is key here. It's really whether the current team with Colette Kress and the rest of the team can be able to carry out this machine that Jensen Wong had built. NVIDIA is a strong culture.

5:27It's a strong culture of hard work, entrepreneurship, and innovation. Our bet is that NVIDIA's culture will continue and their formula of success will continue. But it's really the leadership's job to be able to carry that through and communicate that to the rest of the team. Until then, we think the shares are going to continue to sell at a significant discount. In Silicon Valley, being in California where there are no non-competes, and particularly in the semiconductor industry, there is a history of fortunes shifting when talent moves. If you even go back, you know, to the original sort of Silicon and the Traders 8 in Silicon Valley, how much should investors be watching that talent picture?

6:10How much should investors factor that in when they're watching how the board conducts this search and whether they can hold on to that NVIDIA executive bench through this process and after? The key risk is a brain drain. I mean, that's really the strength of NVIDIA. So what the management team needs to do is to communicate to the rest of the team that the formula of success is still there. I'm certain that a lot of NVIDIA engineers are potentially getting calls right now from their competitors, whether it's AMD or Broadcom. So, yeah, probably more calls than a couple of weeks ago even. Now, broadening it out a little bit, I think you said the AI CapEx cycle is a durable multi-year earnings engine, not a bubble.

6:59But now in this environment that we find ourselves in with so many headwinds, potential policy headwinds from midterms, etc., do investors have to brace for a potential sentiment shift? And, you know, perhaps similar to the one that we saw against enterprise software over the past several quarters. Yeah, I don't think things really change. I mean, despite the fact that this NVIDIA leadership shock, the AI demand is still very strong. I think the economics may change. I think the economics may spread out among NVIDIA's competitors. I mean, NVIDIA has an 80 percent market share. There's probably room for that to be distributed among its competitors.

7:43And I think that's overall stronger for the overall AI value chain. I hear you, but you're still talking about the numbers and the fundamentals and demand being there versus that sentiment. I mean, there's so many enterprise software companies where the numbers have been pretty good, but they just can't command the multiple that they used to because the narrative with some of the frontier models has shifted against them. Do you view that as being anything at all that investors should be concerned about with some of these names like NVIDIA that are in the infrastructure realm or no? No, I think the sentiment is still there.

8:18I think the sentiment has changed from being perhaps too optimistic to a little bit more cautious. But I think next week, the sentiment may very well change with Anthropics IPO. I think that's the first test of whether sentiment really has changed or not. From what we're understanding, the overall sentiment is still very strong. I mean, Anthropics IPO, I believe, is over six times oversubscribed. So from that perspective, I think investors are still quite optimistic about the overall AI build out. Yeah. OK. Key to watch that for multiple reasons. King, stay with me. Right now, Apple is hovering near all time highs.

8:56And Mackenzie Cigalos joins us now with more on what's been driving this move higher. Mac? So, John, Apple hitting a fresh all time intraday high above three hundred and sixty dollars in trade today, pushing its market value above five point two trillion. And with the triple Q firmly in the red heading into the close, Apple is once again standing out as tech's safe haven. Investors are rewarding a company that's delivered stability on multiple fronts, from a smooth CEO transition just two months ago to iPhone sales holding up against last year's record growth. New UBS data shows holiday quarter iPhone revenue on track to jump nearly 12 percent to a record$95 billion, even as unit sales fall 3 percent.

9:38That is a testament to Apple's pricing power. Customers are paying more for premium devices, with that$2 ,000 foldable iPhone duo still particularly difficult to get your hands on. Three weeks after launch and deliveries still stretch into late January, while demand for the pro models is tracking largely in line with last year's super cycle levels. There's also momentum in China, where Apple's climbed to second place in smartphone shipments, capturing nearly 20 % of the market despite an industry-wide decline. Regulators this week clearing Apple intelligence for iPads and Macs as well, meaning that Apple is expanding its AI footprint in a critical market.

10:17And unlike much of big tech, Apple isn't betting its future on an expensive infrastructure build-out. Bank of America sticking with its buy rating, with Apple spending just 2 % of revenue on capital expenditures, a fraction of what its hyperscaler peers in the MAG-7 are committing. Bernstein, meanwhile, is comparing Apple to consumer giants like Costco and Walmart, pointing to its 90 % iPhone customer loyalty rate comparable to Costco's annual membership renewals and its ability to consistently generate cash and then return it to shareholders. John? All right, Mac, thank you. King, I know Apple is one of your top holdings, and I'll take a little bit of a personal victory lap here.

10:59a year ago, I was saying all this, you know, talking down about Apple in the AI realm overlooks the fact that nobody has beat them on their own court, in their home court with AI. It's not like there was a phone out there that was selling gangbusters because it had AI features that Apple didn't. And now we see with their silicon strategy, they're in a position to perhaps drive really high productivity, particularly with open weight models and people wanting to run them locally. So with that said, in this part of the cycle, when we're seeing more of the iPhones come online, we've got the holiday season coming up.

11:35What should investors watch to gauge the health of Apple? You are spot on, I would say, John. I would say this. It's kind of ironic. I think that Apple has gone from what was an AI laggard, if you would, to this huge winner because they were such disciplined in their capital spend. And I do think that investors, and including ourselves, we think the valuation is rich at about 40 times earnings. That being said, investors are willing to pay up for predictability and defensiveness, especially given the recent uncertainty of the AI trade. So what I do think that investors should watch, and we're very confident about management, is that management needs to execute.

12:19Expectations are high. There's little room for error, especially with a premium valuation. But it seems like Apple's firing on all cylinders right now. The big question, I think, for a lot of investors has to be around memory cost. That's a critical component there for so much of what they do. And they seem to be supply constrained around their ability to get it. From my read, a lot of what Apple's been doing over the last couple of quarters is really emphasizing higher-band, price band devices like the Duo, like the MacBook Pros, where, hey, they can get a lot of dollars for the amount of memory that they put into those.

12:56How are you thinking about, A, how investors treat Apple during this period of component constraint? And then what kind of leverage Apple perhaps has in the future when that constraint lifts, given that it's not spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI data centers and has that money for other uses. That's right. I mean, this is where Apple really excels. I mean, they're just leaders in, you know, supply chain management. And second thing, it's really the brand of Apple that's able to command a premium. People will pay up for an Apple phone, an Apple device, because of the fact that they're they're going to get quality.

13:41So despite the higher component costs and iPhone Dual selling about$2 ,000 a phone, it sold out until the end of January. So this is why investors are paying up as high multiples as 40 times earnings for Apple's share price. How about that? Apple above$5 trillion, NVIDIA below$4. Life comes at you fast. King Lip, Thank you. And the AI trade, as we mentioned, facing a big test next week as Anthropic prepares for its blockbuster market debut. Our Kate Rooney joins us now with more. Kate. Hey, John. So we are expecting Anthropic to start trading next week on Thursday, from what we're hearing. CEO Dario Amadei has been meeting with investors and earlier today, sat down on stage with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon in New York.

14:30This was live streamed at JPMorgan, and we should mention is an underwriter on the IPO. It's also helping lead the retail investor push. Dario Amadei did make a case for Anthropik's strategy on compute. He called the$900 billion that they plan to spend a large amount, but says that their move has been to buy relatively little compute, at least compared to competitors. He told Diamond on stage, quote, we tend to buy on the low side and then buy relatively little compute for relatively low cost ahead of time. And then if things do not go as well relative to expectations, we're covered. But if things go really well, and then they have an opportunity, he says, to buy compute and additional compute on the spot market, which so far he says has always been available and he believes that will continue to be available.

15:16So John, there has been a debate, as you were just talking about, in this industry about overbuilding and overspending. Anthropic clearly wants to be on the conservative side here. Others, though, have argued in the past that Anthropic might not have enough compute, probably too soon to tell on that. But we are also, he also said, I should say, there's a buffer of cash on the balance sheet. They do plan to raise even more through this IPO. Revenue growing quickly. He pointed that out. Gross margins are better than competitors at about 15%, at least on the adjusted number. Also talked about efficiency of the models, called it a misnomer that there are just expensive models out there that they offer.

15:49Cheap models from others, he tried to make the case that Anthropic is able to do both. He also said he hopes the IPO, John will under promise and over deliver. Back to you. Wow. Well, the promise is already pretty big, as you know, Kate. Thank you. Let's now bring in the Wharton School Professor of Finance, Wisdom Trees, Jeremy Siegel, City's Scott Kroner, and MetLife's Drew Mattis. Guys, happy Friday. Welcome. Professor Siegel, I'll start with you. That$900 billion spend number, given what data centers have been doing across the U.S. economy. We see them in the beige books every time one comes out.

16:30How do you even wrap your mind around the significance of a single company planning to do that and the significance of this Anthropic IPO for the economy in general? Well, the significance of Anthropic's IPO, I mean, that we've had$2 trillion IPOs in six months, SpaceX in the summer, and we're going going to have another one, probably early, you know, open AI in 2020. It just boggles the mind, actually. I mean, I actually think one of the things that might spur holiday sales is I think that there's a lot of investors that are going to have a little bit of extra money from the profits that they get from IPO allocations next week when it starts trading.

17:17I mean, Dario, I think, wants small investors to have some money in their pocket. And I think that's a positive force. But what about when has there been a time when so much of the economy was riding on a bet that risky? I mean, you used to see, you know, IPOs come out and, you know, maybe if you're in the low billions, that's impressive. That's how it used to be. Trillion, that's a whole different thing. Yeah, I mean, no, it's been pointed out that if this build out does take place, it will be the biggest infrastructure build out in U.S. history, exceeding that of the U.S. railroads, which was second place in the 1870s and 80s.

18:03So, you know, there's no question about the size of this. But there's no question in my mind that that the AI is, you know, the second industrial revolution and information revolution that's really going to change the world. So, yeah, it's certainly a big part of it, but it also means that it's going to change our economy. So I think, you know, hope rises along with the risks that are accompanying the AI buildup. Yes. And important to remember that the Gilded Age was a bit of a messy time, exciting, but messy to say the least. Scott Kronert, good to see you. How is your view of the AI growth cluster where you've been sort of overweight, affected by the dual ends of this NVIDIA controversy and the upcoming Anthropic IPO?

18:54Well, John, I think you touched on it with the earlier interviews where I think so much of this is a confidence issue right now. And what the market is kind of seeking, if you will, is more belief that there's an extended growth phase that's ahead of us, whether it be on the rollout, if you will, of additional infrastructure, i.e. data centers, as well as the component supplier network into that, which is semiconductors. And so going into this quarter, you know, we were looking at the semiconductor space saying, wow, this is one of the best fundamental setups I've seen. Combination of confidence in growth, generation of free cash, quality metrics off the charts.

19:38But then something happens, such as we've seen with NVIDIA. And now we've got to stumble in a major disruption to that fairly visible setup that's now coming into question. I've got a little concern, Scott, and maybe you heard it earlier about what kind of messaging investors should be prepared for on this NVIDIA conference call. And just to recap, CEOs oftentimes tend to be optimistic around their guidance and spur their teams on to meet it. CFOs tend to be a bit more conservative. Here we're in a situation where all of a sudden the CFO is the interim CEO and is going to need to maintain credibility with Wall Street.

20:19What kind of guidance should investors be braced for? And in this moment when it's going to be juxtaposed against some very lofty expectations around Anthropik? Yeah, the way I'm thinking about it is that I think the immediate 26 and then probably calendar 27 fundamentals are in pretty good shape. I don't know that there's going to be that much discussion around it. So what has to happen here is that investors need to need to come away from this quarter with a bit more confidence that the path forward that had been laid out over the past several years is still in really good shape. And I think, you know, mission critical is is getting some conviction around a lot of the circular financing concerns that have been out there.

21:04And so that you can fall back and say that the NVIDIA leadership component is still very much at play here. Certainly, there's competitive dynamics at work. But I think, again, I think that's what investors are going to be looking for is that there is a management team here that's steering the ship. And there's a path forward much beyond the next year. Indeed. And Drew Mattis, zooming out here to a bit more of the macro again, I think about a year ago, you said that you expect 2026 to be a stall year, slower growth, sticky inflation. you know, et cetera. And, you know, a strong argument that that's kind of played out as you described.

21:50What do you see coming now over the next couple quarters? At least which way are you leaning and how much do these IPOs, the prospect of them, factor into that? Well, I mean, the base case is another year that looks like last year. So growth is OK. Inflation is probably still a little too high, but probably coming down. The risk is that there's so much depending upon the AI trade, whether it's the investment side of the equation feeding into CapEx or whether it's the equity market returns feeding into the consumer, which is then keeping the overall economy on an even keel. But it all basically goes back to the same point.

22:31And that's a problem because that means that there's a lot of risk on that point. And if there's a questioning of the AI trade in any way, shape or form, it could have, you know, it could actually really impact the economy as we move forward. Isn't that inevitable, though, Drew? I mean, I don't know if you see it the same way, but it seems to me that over the past couple of years, certainly with the Trump administration in place and Republicans in charge of both wings of Congress, there's been a lot of messaging that benefited the markets in various ways and certainly benefited the AI and crypto trade in some of the areas that were seen as a bit more risky.

23:09Now that we've got Democrats that are going to come in control now of both houses in Congress, isn't there going to be more skepticism injected in the form of, you know, hauling CEOs in front of Congress to testify and the possibility of regulations, taxes, et cetera, rising up around AI infrastructure? Well, I mean, nothing's inevitable. Time creates change. And if you think that, you know, just because you've got a long period of time ahead of you, there's not going to be a change. That's obviously not the way the world works. The longer the period of time, the more change there is. You know, this is a technological development.

23:49It's a significant technological development. and usually there's a lot of disruption around those developments and the disruptions aren't always what you think they're going to be. And I think that's kind of one of the risks that people are kind of turning a blind eye to is if you had thought you knew who the winners of the internet build out were going to be, you were wrong. Yeah. If you thought you knew who the winners on election day were going to be, you were largely surprised too. At least a lot of folks were. Jeremy Siegel, close us out, please. What's the inflation picture look like to you now?

24:23I know that there have been some thought that some cutting or at least holding could happen, but the latest numbers seem to put the Fed in a pretty tight spot. How does it look from your advantage? There's going to be a raise, I think a single raise in December, but we're getting some good news. I mean, gasoline is down more than 60 cents from its all time high. Diesel is down not quite as much. Wholesale prices actually show that gas can fall further. That's going to put a few extra dollars, I think, in consumers' pocket. Look at the body blows that the market has taken the last two weeks. The blue wave, the questioning about the AI buildout, the bad CPI report that sent the yields soaring.

25:08And of course, NVIDIA, which we're all talking about, both the Dow and the S &P 500 are less than 4 % below their all-time highs. That shows confidence in the market, I think, confidence in earnings and the future. Yeah, we'll see what kind of holiday cheer we might get as well as Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday are right around the corner. Gentlemen, thank you. Jeremy Siegel, Scott Cronut, and Drew Mattis. Well, now let's send it over to Contessa Brewer for a look at the biggest names moving now into the close. Contessa. Hi there, John. First up, we're looking at Meta because it's reportedly testing for a prediction market app called Takes.

25:48The Wall Street Journal is reporting these early tests involve employees betting on events using cred or credibility points. So far, it doesn't look like the app is allowing users to bet using real money. but you can see right now Meta is up almost 3 % on the day. Shares of Cerebris Systems are up on Q3 earnings. It was a beat, revenue growing 70 % during the quarter. The stock also getting a lift from stronger guidance for full-year outlook. And a new deal with Microsoft, Cerebris is up almost 11%. Cisco Systems moving lower on a share price target downgrade from multiple firms despite beating on third-quarter earnings.

26:26Analysts at Citi maintain that the computer networking company as a buy, but they suggest that Cisco's quarterly growth may have peaked. Those shares are off by more than 6 % today, John. All right, Contessa, thank you. And we are just getting started. Up next, the crypto sell-off deepens. Bitcoin hitting its lowest level since August below$70 ,000. What's driving the decline and how much lower could it go? We are live from the New York Stock Exchange. You're watching Clothing Bell on CNBC. Legacy Credit Scores only look at a brief snapshot in time, and that limited view often leaves millions of qualified credit seekers out of the picture.

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27:43CNBC Sports' Michael Ozanian has the numbers. If a dot margin in the NHL is right there with the NBA. Official NHL team valuations. See the full list at CNBC.com slash sport. Welcome back. Bitcoin hitting its lowest level in three months. Mackenzie Cigalos back with us with more. Mac. So, John, Bitcoin briefly falling below$68 ,000 earlier today, breaking through its closely watched 200 week moving average. It is now down 17 percent in the past month and on track for a six straight weekly loss. Adding to the pressure, MSCI says it will drop Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, from its major stock indexes at the end of this month, effectively forcing funds that track those benchmarks to sell.

28:29CEO Fong Li telling CNBC yesterday that the move is immaterial since only about 3 percent of Strategy's shares are tied to those indexes. But he accused MSCI of waging a multi-year campaign against digital assets. Strategy, Coinbase, Robinhood, and Bitmine immersion all trading in the red today. And the broader backdrop isn't helping the crypto market. A stronger dollar and surging bond yields are pulling money out of riskier assets. Chicago Fed President Austin Goolsbee telling CNBC this morning that inflation is spreading beyond energy, fueling expectations that the Fed stays hawkish for longer.

29:06And, of course, the leadership crisis at NVIDIA after Jensen Wong's exit is weighing on tech, dragging down more speculative assets like crypto. All of that triggering a wave of forced selling, wiping out$1.3 billion in leveraged positions over the past 24 hours. And big investors are not stepping in to buy the dip. More than half a billion dollars has flowed out of those U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs this week, most of it from BlackRock's fund. There is, though, one potential bright spot here. Traders are increasingly betting against Bitcoin with funding rates in the futures market turning negative for the first time in a month.

29:44That kind of pessimism has in the past marked a short term bottom, raising hopes that the worst of the selling may be over here. John? Question for you, though, not to pile on with the pessimism here, but I think it's fair to say I'm going for understatement of the week. Now, the Democrats are not as big a fans of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as the Trump administration and some Republicans have been. So sentiment-wise, once we see what the legislative agenda looks like and doesn't look like when it comes to cryptocurrencies, what does that mean for this market? It's such a great point because you think about the election cycle two years ago where you had Coinbase behind stand with crypto.

30:23They had a lot of money tied up. In fact, probably the most influential voting bloc in terms of what they raised and the people that they put into Congress. And then it was a complete reversal of that trend. And the overhang here is that the Clarity Act did not get passed into law when they had the most favorable Senate and House set up for that legislation to go through. And so the argument is that with the turnover that we've seen, that doesn't bode well for the Clarity Act. That really is what has been standing in the way of Wall Street being able to get more involved, invest more money, create more infrastructure around the crypto market.

30:59And that is a major overhang. And when you add on what's going on with strategy this week, the biggest corporate holder of Bitcoin, 850 ,000 Bitcoin on their balance sheet, what has really provided a floor for this trade. These are two major headwinds for the crypto market in the last week alone. Yeah, I've got to watch to see if that leverage starts hitting back at any point. Mac, thank you. Well, coming up, hockey on a hot streak. NHL franchise values are soaring, and we are breaking down the big bucks behind the league when Closing Bell comes back after this quick break. Which NHL teams are scoring big off the ice?

31:35CNBC Sports' Michael Ozanian has the numbers. If a dime margin in the NHL is right there with the NBA. Official NHL team valuations. See the full list at cnbc.com slash sport. Welcome back. The business of hockey is booming. CNBC's exclusive NHL team valuations list is out today with the average franchise now worth$2.7 billion. That's up 23 % from last year. CNBC's Michael Ozanian is looking at which teams are leading the pack. And CNBC's Alex Sherman has a look at what the NHL's next TV deal could mean for the broader sports landscape. landscape. Mike, starting with you, if I remember correctly, about 12 years ago, Steve Ballmer bought the Clippers for$2 billion, and that was an outlandish amount for an NBA team.

32:26I mean, now hockey's average is$2.7 billion. What is going on? A few things, John. Number one is there's a lust for all sports teams in any league. Limited supply, real content that people want to see in real time. The second thing is with the NHL, you have very strong TV ratings. You have several teams that have gotten or going to get new arenas with the economics are a lot more lucrative. They recently got a new Canadian national TV deal that began this season that was more than twice as much as the previous deal. And as Alex will elaborate on shortly, the likelihood is they'll have a substantial increase in the next U.S.

33:08TV deal as well in two years. Alex, what has happened in the balance of power between these leagues and the networks? It used to be that, you know, networks made a lot of money showing sports. And I don't know, maybe they still do in some way, but it seems like the teams are worth a lot more. They're getting a lot more. And wherever you show it, it kind of, the seeing it has become pretty fungible like a commodity. Yes, sir. The dollars have flowed to the leagues and that has had a giant impact on the entire world of media. Go beyond sports. Each one of these companies now needs to dedicate more and more dollars to pay for the live rights of the major sports.

33:47That means less dollars for your general entertainment programming, your shoulder programming to these sports. So, you know, you only have a certain amount of money that you can dedicate to all content, and the biggest sports are just deriving more of that money from the overall kitty to go to that content. The biggest one, of course, is the NFL. The interesting thing about this upcoming NHL deal is that the NFL also is going to renew its rights. Those discussions will probably take place in the early to mid part of 2028. The NHL deal is going to get done first. So each of these companies in the back of their minds needs to say, okay, we expect the NFL to charge a billion dollars or more than we're already paying.

34:32We've got to save that money. How much money can we spend on all of the other sports, the non-NFL sports? The NHL is going to be the first test of that. Mike, what's the Dallas Cowboys of the NHL? That perennial, most valuable franchise, and doesn't have anything to do with how much they win. Why is something in the NHL more valuable than another thing. Great example with the Cowboys that you brought up, John. I would say Toronto Maple Leafs. The Cowboys are by far the most valuable NFL team,$15 billion. Toronto Maple Leafs haven't won the Stanley Cup since the 60s. The Cowboys haven't won the Super Bowl since the mid-90s.

35:15Look, local revenue is the key in the NHL. NHL teams only get about 20 % of their revenue centrally where it's evenly distributed the nfl is over 60 so your gate receipts that local revenue is key so you're telling me how the maple leafs the maple leafs the maple leafs ticket revenue last year was like 145 million dollars versus a league average of 83 million the other thing was in your local tv which there isn't any in the nfl it's about 10 of your revenue in the NHL. U.S. teams, because of what's been happening in the regional sport network model, have seen their local media crumble. Not so in Canada, where your local media is sort of quasi-national, regional.

36:06It's all controlled by Rogers, which happens to own the Maple Leafs. So teams like the Maple Leafs, Calgary Flames, Vancouver Canucks, their local media rights have continued to increase and are among the highest in the National League. Just to put some aggregate numbers to what Mike's talking about, the last NHL national media deal in the U.S., seven years,$4.5 billion. The NFL's media deal, which was about 11 years,$100 billion. So that's the delta we're talking about in terms of these things. Of course, now the NHL thinks maybe we can double that. Maybe we can bring that number up somewhere between 50 % and 100%, I'm told.

36:44Impressive. Guys, Alex, Mike, thank you. And for the full list, you can head over to CNBC.com slash sport. Now, up next, we're tracking the biggest movers as we head into the closing bell. Be right back. Now, 10 minutes of the closing bell. Let's get back to Contessa Brewer for a look at the key stocks to watch. Contessa. All right. So, John, we're looking at shares of Modi Manufacturing surging on a Bloomberg report that Samsung is in talks to acquire the data center cooling firm with a deal possibly forming in the coming weeks. That stock is up. Look at this, a whopping 28.5 % on that news. Domino's in the green on an upgrade to outperform by financial services firm Baird.

37:22Baird says they see improving comp sale prospects and that the fast food name is on a path to stronger franchise profitability. The shares are up almost 3%. That's delicious. Burlington shares falling on a couple of price target cuts. An analyst at Gordon Haskett downgraded the stock to reduce from hold and cut the target to$240. It's down from$250. Wells Fargo is also cutting its price target to$330, down from$370. That stock is down more than 15 % year-to-date and down 4 % on the day, John. Contessa, thank you. And coming up, the countdown to Grand Theft Auto 6 is on. It's got the potential to be one of the biggest entertainment launches in history.

38:08We're going to break down the stakes for Take 2. That and much more when we take you inside the market zone. We are now in the closing bell market zone. Mike Santoli and Wilmington Trust's Megan Hsu are here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. And Julia Boorstin is watching take two as it gets ready to launch its highly anticipated GTA VI. Diana Holick has more on the housing market as new home sales slough to a 16-year low. Mike, let's start with you. We've heard of the October surprise, that thing that happens right before an election. I feel like the past two weeks have been November surprise.

38:41First, the election results themselves. And then this week, the Jensen-Wong fallout. How has the market reacted and what can we learn? Yeah, John, I would say the market has reacted in every way in both directions for the last, let's say, seven or eight trading days. And I think that it's been noisy. But if you looked at the last four days, the indexes have basically held Monday's bounce. So I think there is plenty of confusion as to, you know, what implications of both the election and the NVIDIA affair are going to have on a forward going basis. But in the meantime, the market is sort of occupying itself with sort of churning around and finding something to buy whenever there's something to sell.

39:24So I don't think it's really proven that it's having this really assertive, you know, kind of year end rally mode that everyone seems to have expected after the election results we're in. But it definitely is hanging in there. And I do think that semiconductors tell us that more than anything else, where NVIDIA's loss on a fundamental basis is being implied. It's going to be somebody else's gain. But I do also want to pay attention to bond yields going up, Bitcoin and gold going down. This sense out there of financial conditions tightening around the edges, which maybe doesn't have most investors attention, but will at some point maybe demand it.

39:59OK, and now let's get to Julia Borsten with more on Take Two ahead of the big GTA 6 launch. Julia, this is the only game launch that my kids, my teens have been treating like a Marvel movie launch. Well, GTA 6, Grand Theft Auto 6, which is launching next Thursday, could be the biggest entertainment launch of all time. John, it's not just your kids who are excited. parent of game producer Rockstar Games' Take-Two Interactive, its shares have doubled since 2023 in anticipation of this game, despite a reported$1 billion-plus budget and multiple delays. Nuzu projects the game could gross more than$5 billion in its first week, with Morgan Stanley projecting that 40 million copies will be sold by the first quarter of next year.

40:47Wolf Research saying, quote, we continue to see GTA 6's release as the start, not end, of Take Two's growth story. The release catalyzes a multi-year compounding story. Morgan Stanley reiterating his overweight rating on the stock, saying greater clarity on GTA Online could drive the next leg of revisions and share out performance. It's worth noting that despite the stock's gains, 94 % of analysts have a buy rating on take two. All right, Julia, thanks. Now to Diana Olick for a look at how the housing market is faring, Guy. Well, after a month of easing, mortgage rates had a rough week with that hotter than expected CPI and then some headlines on the Iran war.

41:30The average rate on the 30-year fixed shot up a remarkable 33 basis points this week to now 7.5%. That's the highest level in over a month. We also got a very rough read on sales of existing homes in October. They fell five and a half percent for the month and were down close to nine percent year over year to the lowest level in 16 years, 2010. That was smack in the middle of the financial and foreclosure crises. Now, take a look at the mortgage real estate ETF symbol REM. It hit its lowest level since April 2020 this morning. 2020, of course, when the pandemic hit, down over 27 % year-to-date.

42:09Components at 52-week lows include Armor Residential, Dinex Capital, Starwood Property, and Annaly, among others. And we'll be watching a lot of monthly housing data out next week, including homebuilder sentiment, housing starts, and building permits, as well as pending home sales. So, so much more to come, John. All right, Dan. Olick, thank you. And now as we head toward the close, let's bring in Wilmington Trust's Megan Hsu. Megan, my question on behalf of investors is, with these November surprises, including the election results. I mean, Mississippi, how about that? And now this NVIDIA thing, is it enough to be a narrative violation?

42:47Do you have to shift the way you look at markets and conditions and how you invest? Yeah, I think we're in a higher volatility period, and it's been a long 10 days for investors since the election. There's been a lot of sort of macro risks. I think the Fed, oil and technology continue to be the three drivers that are most important to watch. I don't see an overall shift in the narrative. I see some bumps along the way, whether it's inflation or whether it's the AI build out. The overall growth trajectory for the economy and for technology, I think, remains intact, especially as it relates to tech earnings over the next 12 to 18 months.

43:28But looking further out, I think you do get a lot more uncertainty. You mentioned tech earnings. We get NVIDIA next week. We're also expecting an Anthropic IPO next week. How key are those events to the narrative? Yeah, well, I mean, I think with NVIDIA, it's a tough timing. I don't know that there's a whole lot that's going to change the trajectory at this point. But I think when we look at semiconductors, when we look at the other hardware plays within AI, the good thing is that there is a long backlog. A lot of those orders are already baked in for 2027, 2028. So we're looking more at like a second half of 2028 trajectory.

44:11All right, Megan Hsu, thank you. And at a time when the VIX, the volatility index, has been below 20, a time of high uncertainty for markets in November as we move further into it. That is going to do it for closing bell.

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