Closing Bell Overtime: Stocks Surge After Democrats Retake Both Chambers of Congress 11/4/26

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0:48The Bell's bringing an end to the trading day at the NYSE Inventress Properties ringing the bell and ProShares doing the honors here at the NASDAQ. Welcome to Closing Bell Overtime. We are live from Studio B at the NASDAQ Market Site. I'm Melissa Lee along with Mike Santoli. Stocks soaring following the midterm elections. The Dow gaining 1 ,570 points. That's its fifth biggest point gain ever. The S &P 500 up 1.5 percent. The NASDAQ Composite up 1.4. The hyperscalers with big gains, 6 % for Amazon and Microsoft. Apple even getting in on the action today. NVIDIA, however, slightly lower as chips and other parts of the AI trade get crushed on concerns the new Congress will slow the data center build out.

1:27But we're seeing big gains in other sectors. Retail rocking as tariffs might ease. That and other factors boosting home builders. Clean energy stocks also getting a boost. The only other sector in the S &P 500 today that is lower besides tech is energy. Oil sliding 7 percent. We're going to have much more on all of these issues. And it's another day of earnings reports as well. But we begin with the first take on the close for a remarkable and historic trading day, of course, after the results of the midterms, a firm rebuke of President Trump and Republican policies. And here we are, Mike. But we're still not above the pre-sell-off levels for technology.

2:04No, we're definitely not. It definitely was still selective, even though the vast majority of stocks did go higher. Pretty impressive move when you consider where the futures were at 10 p.m. last night, which was close to a 2 percent indicated decline in the S &P 500. So it's, you know, a three and a half percent swing low to high. And I think part of that was the market had kind of been leaning into this weakness. And we've already were a little bit sold out on some level. We were very tightly wound. And the stuff that worked, you know, when after 2024, we had the Trump trade. And it was a simplistic version of what was going to work based on the policy mix.

2:39Now it's a little bit the anti-Trump trade, or at least going against what the prevailing policies have been, the big drop in oil. But value stocks up two and a half percent as a group today. That's what the Dow story is. I do question we haven't been able to get over 7 ,700 on the S &P even with this push. We hung out there all day without semiconductors. It's really hard to see you getting a real broad push higher to and beyond the old highs. But it's still hard to say it's anything but constructive. Yeah, we had a 3 percent decline on SMH, on Philadelphia Subconductor Index. And that was interesting.

3:15But, I mean, when you take a look at the rise in the hyperscalers, I mean, really on this notion that they're not going to have to spend as much and they have an excuse not to spend as much. They don't have to pull in the reins themselves. They're handed an excuse to get out of those commitments. But you would think that there would be a little bit more softness on the other side of it in terms of the suppliers. There was such a quick pivot to that storyline, which was actually the big tech platforms are well positioned here. I joked earlier that it's like, you know, an auto race where they had the restrictor plate on, which everybody can only go at a certain limit.

3:43And therefore, it's about the skill and navigating it. So that is where we are. I still do question, you know, exactly whether that completely refreshes the credit markets and all the rest of the things we were concerned about. But if you did the list of worries a few weeks ago and it was the Fed's going to be more hostile, AI, CapEx, overheat, oil's too high, they've all actually gone in the right direction. Let's turn now to the reaction to the election results. Eamon Jabbers just spoke to President Trump. So, Eamon, what did he tell you? Yeah, Melissa, we had a brief phone call within the past hour, and the president was very much in a conciliatory mindset toward Democrats.

4:20I asked him if he can work with the new folks up on Capitol Hill. Here's what he said. He said, I can work with them on many things, many more things than people understand. When I ran against Bernie Sanders, basically when he dropped out, almost all of his people joined me instead of Hillary. We are identical on trade. Now, I pressed the president for some specifics. He didn't really want to go there. I asked him about caps on credit card interest rates, for example, as a possibility. That's something that a lot of folks have said might be an economic populist idea that the left and right can agree on in Washington now.

4:54He said he didn't want to comment on that specifically. But clearly, this is a president who is in a deal making mindset. The one thing he said he's not willing to make a deal on is withdrawing tariffs. He suggested that if he pulls back tariffs, a lot of the plants that are under construction across the country now, all of that construction activity would evaporate. So he's pretty adamant in his conversation with me about keeping to the tariffs. But otherwise, he seems to be looking for a way in and looking for a way to make a deal with Democrats when they come to power next year, guys. How did he sound about Iran, which J.D.

5:28Vance, his vice president, said was the reason why Republicans lost on such a scale? Yeah, I mean, that was going to be my next question. And these conversations are pretty brief. So he hung up the phone before I could talk to him about Iran. What we did hear from him on Iran earlier today was that he acknowledged that that's been a big driver of the increase in price of gas. And that's why voters might have soured on him last night. And you heard J.D. Vance in that social media post. What the vice president is saying is that the Iran war is top of the list of things that voters want Republicans to fix.

6:04And also the Republican Party's relationship to Israel. That's a really fascinating pivot point geopolitically for Republicans, particularly as you see J.D. Vance, somebody who is now positioning himself to be the heir apparent to the MAGA movement to potentially succeed Donald Trump as the Republican presidential nominee and maybe as president. You can see some big changes now starting to be contemplated by both men as they figure out how to navigate this new political reality. reality. Yeah. President himself actually also, I guess, before the results were in, said there might be a little bit of a rethink in terms of military aid to Israel as well.

6:43So a lot of things in play. And thank you. That's right. A big decline in oil today, as some think the election results, as we said, will make President Trump look to end the war in Iran. Pippa Stevens joins us now with more. Hi, Pippa. Hey, Mike, WTI is under 90 and Brent under 100 at a two month low as the blue wave raises hopes for the end of the war in Iran. Four key things here, note CIBC energy trader, Rebecca Babin, who did say today feels like a shoot first, ask questions later type move. The first is President Trump continuing to walk back rhetoric, reiterating strikes are not imminent.

7:13You've also got Vice President Vance's comments and the lack of public backing for the war. Iran hasn't yet responded to the strikes on Geshem Island and positioning was long ahead of this, which is accelerating the downside. And without any clear indication of escalation, the marginal buyer is likely to wait and see how far this goes before stepping in. Now, Rysad Energy noting the The White House still has discretionary power over strikes, blockades and sanctions licenses. But what changes now is the price of using them and a now shorter political runway and greater institutional pressure to find a Hormuz deal.

7:44Guys. Pippa, thank you. Pippa Stevens. Qualcomm earnings are out. Let's get to Seema Modi, who's got the number. Seema. Melissa, Qualcomm's quarterly earnings beat the street by a penny. $2.17 adjusted versus the$2.16 estimate for the first quarter. It does see revenue between$10.4 billion to$11.2 billion, which is at the midpoint. At the midpoint is higher than the estimate driven by its core semiconductor business, QCT. Though I would point out its Q1 earnings guide is seen slightly below the midpoint. That's perhaps why the stock is moving here. Qualcomm confirming renewed agreements with Apple and Huawei to extend into the next decade.

8:22So sort of supporting its role in the 6G era. This is a company that's best known for making chips for smartphones. But Qualcomm is leaning into data centers with CPUs and processors and now expects December quarter data center revenue to exceed$650 million. The company says its CPU deal with Meta remains on schedule and that it's engaging with another large potential customer. CEO Christiana Amon says fiscal 2027 marks the start of Qualcomm's non-handset revenue inflection. The company also acknowledging, guys, the increase in input costs, citing wafer fabrication, advanced packaging, memory and other materials, and that it is taking actions to increase prices.

9:01Stock down about 5 percent. We'll wait for that earnings call to begin momentarily. We'll want more guidance, Melissa, on handset revenue and also China. And, of course, any more details on that SpaceX partnership they announced this morning? Seema, thank you. Seema Modi. And don't miss a first on CNBC interview with Qualcomm CEO. That is tomorrow, 12.20 p.m. on the Halftime Report. So will these post-midterm gains last or was it a knee-jerk reaction in sectors where policy expectations may not actually play out? Joining us now is Scott Kronert from Citi. Scott, great to have you with us. What is your take?

9:34Hey, Melissa. Yeah. So what I think is what we're looking at here is a pretty massive sentiment shift on that part of the market that's been affected by this triumvirate of oil prices, inflation concerns and interest rates. Our view has been that has held the key to how we get to higher year end prices for the S &P. At the same time, going into the election, and this is sort of where we, I think, got it a little bit wrong. On the one hand, we felt that an extreme Democratic win in the Senate would put more pressure on the AI trade. We got part of that right with the semi-pullback you're seeing right now.

10:13But I think the market is also interpreting some scaling back of CapEx ambitions as actually quite constructive for the ongoing supply demand for AI compute setup. So the combination of all that says sediment shift can run for a while, probably good for the year end trade. Be careful, though. Sediment has to translate eventually into fundamental changes. We don't see that on the immediate horizon. Yeah. And I guess, Scott, the question after a day like today is were some of these moves so exaggerated that you would want to, you know, kind of fade them or just sort of wait for them to cool off a little bit?

10:49Equal weight at consumer discretion, five and a half percent today. You know, homebuilders up seven and a half percent. So clearly, Damari was rushing into these areas that for years have been on the outside. Yeah, what I would say now, Mike, is that I think what we're learning or the lesson of today is how ingrained the sentiment had become around some of these concerns. We've been navigating, as you know, some combination of tariffs, you know, other macro considerations and the Iran oil price circumstance. And I think what we're now finding is that over the past couple of years, what that's led to is a fairly embedded, cautious tone to parts of the markets.

11:33So when you begin to free up the optionality of going back the other way, you do have to allow for the repositioning component of this to run for a little bit longer. But to your point, fundamentally, we're not out of the woods yet. And we do need to get from concept to actual implementation of some solutions. Scott, hang with us for just a second. We're going to get back to SEMA, who has numbers from Arm Holdings. Hey, Mike. So for Arm Holdings, posting a sizable beat on earnings and revenue for the quarter, sales tied to licensing came in higher than street estimates, while royalty, which is how much a customer pays Arm Holdings per chip, sold came in lighter than expected at$670 million.

12:13on Dita Centers. The company says that Arm-based server market share at the top hyperscalers more than tripled from 15 % in 2024 to more than 50 % in 2025. Executives now expect that number to exceed 60 % by the end of calendar year 2026. I would point to the Q3 guide as slightly above the street. We're looking at the stock down just about 1.5 % here. Mike and Melissa. All right, Seema, thanks. Seema Modi, and let's get back to Scott Croner. And Scott, We were talking about some of these sectors that really moved in today's session. And you said, you know, sentiment has to translate into reality, basically.

12:50And for the expectation that hyperscalers will actually pull back capex, there's a lot of a lot of sort of this has to happen, then this, then this, then this. And that is, you know, on the local level, there has to be a movement to actually block or to impose a moratorium. There's a whole chain of events that needs to happen. I don't think that's going to happen by year end. So what happened to this trade, at least? Yeah, Melissa, I think that's spot on. It's not going to happen by year end. In fact, we need to get the new Congress in place, if you will. But, you know, look, we were acknowledging that the Texas gubernatorial race was going to be sort of mission critical to this AI moratorium push out component of the discussion.

13:29But, you know, again, what where I would go with this and something that we've been saying for a while now is that the market has been pricing in 26 and 27 earnings growth expectations around the data center build out. Where it's been confused or has been lacking confidence is 28 out to 2030. So even though we've seen these projections for CapEx up into the right out to that time frame, I don't think the market has had that much confidence yet in how that plays out. So this is another step down that path. Are we going to see moratoriums lead to cancellations of projects or just push outs? So a lot of this fundamentally remains to be seen.

14:05But in the meantime, you know, a 10 percent pullback or nearly that in the oil price. The response we're seeing out of interest rates, the market pricing out one of the three previously expected Fed rate hikes, that does kind of play back to another theme we had going into this quarter, which was let's buy the potential beneficiaries of lower oil prices. We're just getting there through a little bit different path than I would have expected. Yeah, fair enough. Scott, appreciate it. Thank you, Scott Croner. While one party now has control of both houses of Congress, does that mean the policy can actually pass?

14:44And if so, what can we realistically expect movement on? Joining us now is Stiefel, Chief Washington Policy Strategist Brian Gardner. Brian, good to see you. That is the question, right? I mean, what was sort of the policy agenda that was in play for next year that may have now changed on things relevant to investors? The market found a lot to react to, but I'm wondering how much of it is actually going to be showing up in policy. Good afternoon, Mike. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's a great question. We are going into a period of gridlock despite some of the happy talk of today. You know, I was listening to Amon's report on his conversation with the president before.

15:23and bipartisanship is breaking out all over the place in Washington. The challenge is that eight years ago, we're hearing the same rhetoric. And six weeks later, the government shut down for 35 days. We went into a very contentious period in the next two years where very little got done. And so I think we're probably heading for a similar spot. Now, there are going to be times when Democrats have some leverage at government spending bills, the debt ceiling. And so they are going to be able to exert, use that leverage to get some some policies that they want. Maybe it's on clean energy. Maybe it's on credit card interest rate caps.

16:00Maybe it's on some of the cuts in social spending programs that we saw in one big, beautiful bill. But I think it's generally going to be restrained of what can be accomplished in the new Congress. And I wanted to ask you specifically, Brian, about crypto, because we saw a lot of the crypto names up today across the board. And, you know, this is an interesting area because you've got Sherrod Brown elected and maybe he's seen as somebody who could actually derail clarity. Maybe clarity doesn't happen. What is your view here in terms of what happens? I think clarity is done. You know, and I don't think that's an exaggeration.

16:34I don't want to be hyperbolic. But with an incoming Democratic majority, Democrats currently in the Senate are not going to be inclined to deal with Republicans in a lame duck session. Not to mention, Sherrod Brown is probably going to be seated in the Senate in December because that was a special election. So that's already a seat that Republicans are going to lose before year end. So what's the path forward for the Clarity Act? Are Democrats going to pick it up and make some changes that are palatable for the industry and Republicans next year? Possibly, probably not. And so I think it's up to the regulators to create from their current authorities some new regulatory framework.

17:14The SEC and CFTC are already working on that. There are legitimate questions about how durable that is going forward and whether the courts will intervene and rule that the agencies have overstepped their bounds. This is going to play out over several years. Can Congress do anything about, you know, the leadership or the orientation of CFTC and SEC? And I always keep pointing out we have one CFTC commissioner, the chair. Yeah. So I think there is room for a deal on the commission seats. Right. There are there are certain nominees nominations that a Democratic Senate is not going to touch. But the commissions where they can get their own people in, there's there's room for for dealing.

18:00You mentioned CFTC. There's only one person there. You know, maybe it's a Republican paired with a Democrat. You can pair on the commissions. By the way, I would rule out the Fed on that. I don't think it's in the same bucket. But yeah, there is room for some kind of deal, because a lot of times those positions have to do with Senate staffers getting those positions, and suddenly it becomes in the interest of individual senators to get their people on the boards and commissions. Brian, as you look at the sectors today that have rallied on this notion that there will be policy enacted that was not able to be enacted prior to this Democratic sweep, What do you think has gotten overdone?

18:40What notion has gotten overdone? You know, I think it's so broad based. I mean, it may be simplistic to say everything has been overdone. But, you know, to the extent that investors are think I first of all, I think a lot of this is just like a clearing event. The election's over. We have clarity. We know it's not going to drag out. And so I think there is some element of that. But to the extent that investors think that there's a pathway forward for some level of bipartisanship, I think it's a mistaken view. All right, Brian, thank you. Brian Gardner. Thank you, guys. Snap earnings are out. Let's get to Julia Borson with the numbers.

19:23Julia. That's right, Melissa. Snap revenues of one point seventy billion dollars, a hair below the consensus estimate of one point seven three billion dollars. adjusted EBITDA of 383 million is ahead of the 337 million estimated, but the stock is down about 12 percent on that revenue miss, as well as user growth that was lower than expected. The company's earnings of three cents per share is not comparable to analyst estimates, while daily active users 495 million was 4 million short of estimates. Now, taking a look at guidance for the fourth quarter. It is ahead of expectations. The company guiding to revenue in a range of 1.95 to 1.99 billion.

20:03The consensus is at the bottom end of that range, also guiding to adjusted EBITDA of 490 million to 525 million, also ahead of estimates. The midpoint there for estimates is 498 million. Now, Snap just announced that starting in the first quarter, it will only report monthly active users and will stop reporting daily active users. It now has 977 million monthly actives. CEO Evan Spiegel saying in his prepared remarks, which they just posted, that ad revenue growth remains below our ambitions. He goes on to say advertisers are seeing the benefits of our performance. And Mike and Melissa, he says they need to turn that into the results going forward.

20:46Back to you. Julia, thank you. Expedia earnings are out. Contessa Brewer has those numbers. Good guess. Yeah, it's a beat for Expedia here, Mike, on the top and the bottom lines, fueled by resilient travel demand and strength of its B2B business. Revenue grew by 12 percent over last year, coming in at$4.4 billion. The street had expected$4.7 billion. That looks like a miss, actually. All right. And earnings per share of$9.39. That's a big beat on EPS there, where the street was expecting$889 a share. $34 billion for$34 billion bookings in the quarter, booked room nights coming in at$115.7 million, and EBITDA at$1.69 billion.

21:31The stock is off, though, by more than 6 % on fourth quarter guidance, which has been revised. They're issuing guidance right now for the fourth quarter of revenues between$3.69 billion and$3.75 billion. The street was expecting$3.74 billion, so the midpoint just misses expectations just a bit. We'll keep an eye on that stock, guys. All right. Thank you very much, Contessa Brewer. Well, amid this market rally, the data center trade getting crushed. Neoclouds, including Corwee, punished on the thinking the election results will lead to pushback and a slowdown in data center development. How much does this really change for the AI build-out trade?

22:09And we want to show you shares of Zillow falling sharply after hours in the back of results, a company missing on EPS and revenue. Revenue coming in at$724 million. That's versus estimates of$754 million. In the release, the CEO calling this, quote, one of the toughest housing markets in a generation. Stock is down 14.5%.

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23:06Upfront payment of$45 for three months, $90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. AI is here, transforming how we work, live and lead. And the women I talk to aren't waiting for the future. They're shaping it. I'm Julia Boorstin, senior media and tech correspondent at CNBC. This is CNBC Changemakers, where I talk with the female leaders transforming business as AI reshapes the world. Follow and listen to CNBC Changemakers, women leading in the age of AI, wherever you get your podcasts.

23:52Kava earnings are out. Brandon Gomez has the details. Brandon. Hey, Melissa. Yeah, shares you can see down 8.5%, a miss in the top and bottom line. EPS coming in a penny lighter than expected at 11 cents on revenue of$356 million, below the$359 that was expected. Q3 same-store sales slightly below expectations, 3.3 % versus 3.1. That said, Kava is raising its full-year comparable sales from its prior guidance, now saying it sees 6 % to 7 % growth versus its prior guide of 4.5 % to 6.5 % range. And this is interesting, too, guys. Kava lowering ever so slightly the top end of the range for its restaurant-level profit margin, the new range falling below street expectations.

24:30Now, I did ask the company's CFO about that adjustment and whether it was related to rising input costs. She said it comes from a reinvestment from the company to push durable growth long term. Meantime, let's turn to Dutch Bros. You can see also lower despite a top and bottom line beat. Shares falling 17 percent now with same store sales coming in slightly lighter than expected. Really looks like weakness came in around the full year. Adjusted EBITDA number calling now for at least 380 million versus prior guidance ranging from 385 to 390. So you can see shares really taking a hit there, 17 percent.

25:04When you ask the Cava CEO about the restaurant level profitability and said reinvestment, I mean, is that investment in price? Because that's what a lot of retailers say. They say they're investing in price. And that means discounts or something like that. Yeah, no, those specifics did not come up as part of our conversation. But it is a great question because that is exactly right. Reinvestment in price, does that mean that you're reinvesting it because of the elevated cost of these goods that are going into your product? It's definitely a conversation that I'm sure will come up on the earnings call in a few minutes.

25:33Yeah, for sure. Brandon, thanks. Brandon Gomez. Thanks, Melissa. The Democratic sweep of Congress is hitting the AI build-out trade with data center stocks under pressure after wins in key growth states, with Vertiv, GE Vernova, Vistra, and Constellation Energy all sharply lower today. Goldman Sachs says state and local results could put about 45 percent of planned U.S. data center capacity at risk of delays or moratoria. Does politics now become the next big test for AI CapEx? Joining us now to discuss, Amit Daryanani, Evercore ISI Senior Managing Director, covering the IT hardware and communications equipment sector.

26:06Amit, great to have you with us. Thanks for having me. How do you plug this into your models? I mean, how do you view this in terms of a potential slowdown? Yeah, listen, I think clearly the market sold off all the data center-centric names today. Really a reflection that, hey, it's going to be much more difficult to ramp up AI data center capacities as you go forward. I'll say there are two things you have to think about. But one, the advantage will be with hyperscalers and folks that already have a lot of capacity online. You can retrofit that for AI much more quickly. The second part I would say, which could be a bigger theme, which is efficiency ends up becoming much more valuable and upgrades will happen more so.

26:43So to the extent you have to upgrade your network, a company like Arista, Cisco, do really well. I also think you'll have to upgrade your physical infrastructure. So cooling, power management, things like that become more relevant. But certainly adding new greenfield capacity gets more difficult. efficiency upgrades start to matter more for the world right now. Amit, the memory stocks, Micron, Sandisk, they're down 7 % or more today from already depressed levels. The market clearly thinking that it's not going to help the supply, demand or pricing story with memory. No, listen, I think there's an element of view that we're going to throw the baby out of the bathwater today.

27:19I think that's happened to some degree. You're totally right. Folks are looking at this and saying it would be hard to build net new capacity, period. I do think there's an element where you will be able to retrofit capacity. The other part I would stress and say is AI is not captive to the US geographical boundaries. You can build this in international places pretty quickly as well. And so I do think there's that element that could take off in a much bigger way. And the one part, maybe I'll touch on memory and say it could be a nice benefit. A company like Apple that has actually struggled with memory as an input cost could potentially get reprieved if you truly have a memory slowdown over here.

27:54So it's interesting the point that you make about geographic, you know, the ability of data centers just to go someplace else, because 27 percent of planned U.S. data centers are being planned for Texas. And that's exactly where they were sort of ground zero in terms of this democratic sweep. sweep. You don't think that that is going to prove even more difficult for those who are feeding into those data centers in Texas? I mean, CoreWeave has a lot of projects under construction right now, for instance. Yeah. And listen, I think that is where the new capacity challenges will come up, right? Which is CoreWeave, we picked as an example, right?

28:29They have 1.7 gigawatts right now. They need to add about 1.2, 1.3 gigawatts next year. How much of that is already in the works that you can do versus things that will potentially get delayed by 6 to 12 months. There's absolutely going to be a bit of a slowdown in terms of the new capacity addition that will happen. I saw I would concede that point. What I think has happened in the market today is we've kind of sold all AI infrastructure names, period. While I think there are certain names like Arisa, like Avertive, that can help you with efficiency as a way to offset it. But I do think for the neoclouts, the focus has to be how much capacity can you really bring online right now?

29:04And to your point, anyone that has a lot of Texas or Georgia exposure will have at least a six month, maybe a longer delay right now. Yeah, fair enough. So looking for the babies, I guess, that were thrown out as well. Thanks so much. I'm a Dari Anani. Appreciate it. Elon Musk is the world's richest man, but he's got about half a billion dollars less than he did a few months ago and little to show for it. A look at Musk's Texas turmoil is next.

29:36The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal. It brings a hash brown and a small cafe for$5. Only at McDonald's for limited time. The prices and participation may vary. The price of the promotion may be lower than the price of mine.

30:06Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for a 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. AI is here, transforming how we work, live, and lead. And the women I talk to aren't waiting for the future. They're shaping it. I'm Julia Boorstin, Senior Media and Tech Correspondent at CNBC. This is CNBC Changemakers, where I talk with the female leaders transforming business. as AI reshapes the world. Follow and listen to CNBC Changemakers, women leading in the age of AI, wherever you get your podcasts.

31:02Elon Musk was a big loser in last night's election results and his pain continues today. Tesla and SpaceX both falling during this historic rally. Musk spent$474 million in total, with$224 million of that in Texas alone. This according to a CNBC review of campaign finance records. His candidates lost in the two biggest elections in the state, Republican Ken Paxton losing the Senate race to James Tallarico and Governor Greg Abbott losing his race against Gina Hinojosa. Musk seemed to be taking it with good humor, tweeting late last night, data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.

31:37I mean, it goes way beyond the$440 million, I mean, including the market cap loss. I mean, he has moved his personal residence there. He has built factories on the ground. He has reincorporated Tesla in Texas. There is a lot that he, you know, put on Texas. All the chips were there. No, there's no doubt. And, you know, even at the federal level, of course, you have exposure to new NASA and defense contracts, going to be an investigation into, you know, Starlink and Ukraine and all these other things that all of a sudden become massive complications. If there's one thing which might actually net out not being a disadvantage is that SpaceX has all of this terrestrial AI capacity in Louisiana and Memphis.

32:18So in other words, not in states where it looks like they're going to clamp down as much on a relative basis, they may be OK. But of course, there are questions now as to whether SpaceX Tesla merger can actually go through. That's a big Big question. And so that's a huge question. Yeah, it seemed like there was a bit of a rush to try and get to that point while it was going to be approved. And both stocks were down. Maybe it's reassuring, you know, you can't literally buy elections at this point, no matter how much money you have. Shares of CVS getting crushed today following earnings and its announcement of a plan to split itself into two companies.

32:48CVS Health will be Aetna Health Insurance and CVS Caremark Pharmacy Benefit Manager. The other part will be CVS Pharmacy, the stores and other retail businesses. The company's CEO telling CNBC earlier the move is in part a reaction to the regulatory environment. Markets change and companies need to evolve with it. So I think what you see in the regulatory environment is clearly one of the things that we need to make sure we're navigating and we're actually positioning the company to be able to thrive, regardless of how these companies are being expected to operate in the states and at the federal level.

33:22Senators Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley had been pushing for a breakup of the company. Current CEO David Joyner will stay on as CEO of the health solutions side of the business. I mean, huge questions about why now. Obviously, this is one answer to why now. But it felt as if, you know, the kind of wholesale pharmacy benefit manager insurance parts of the business has started to operate pretty well. Right. And nobody thinks there's going to be much appetite for a retail drugstore company. Although the retail business has been picking up as well. And so analysts are saying, well, this makes no sense, especially when this company not too long ago was touting the benefits of vertical integration.

33:57I mean, like there's so many benefits of having all the links of the chain. There's the whole premise of putting it together this way. And now you have to explain why it's not a disadvantage when you pull them apart. Yeah, exactly. All right. Time now for CNBC News Update with Kate Rooney. Hey, Kate. Hey, Melissa. An appeals court is allowing New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani to move forward with a controversial second home tax. A Staten Island judge ruled in September that the city botched the rollout of the so-called Petitere tax and ordered it to start over. The city immediately appealed and then still launched the tax as the lawsuit worked its way through courts.

34:33Meanwhile, investment firm BC Partners is reportedly dropping its bid to relaunch Live Golf. The league filed for bankruptcy in September after Saudi Arabia's public investment fund ended its financial backing at the end of the 2026 season. According to the Financial Times, that decision came as B.C. faced a deadline to show it had enough players signed up for the league to hold a tournament and a tournament series in 2027. And finally, as other major award shows transition away from traditional broadcast networks, the Tony Awards will remain on CBS in a new five-year deal. The live theater awards show has been on that network for nearly 50 years.

35:12Meanwhile, the Emmys and the Oscars have announced future moves to streaming services, while the Grammys will head to ABC in 2027. Guys, back over to you. All right, Kate, thank you. Qualcomm shares under pressure on a weak forecast. Up next, we'll get reaction from one of the few analysts on Wall Street with a sell rating on the stock. Closing Bell Overtime. We'll be right back.

35:40Welcome back to Closing Bell Overtime, live from the Nasdaq market side. A huge post-election bounced back for the markets, the Dow gaining more than 1 ,500 points, its fifth biggest point gain ever. And the S &P 500 and the Nasdaq both up about half a percent, one and a half percent, I should say. The big hyperscalers gaining. Amazon, Microsoft, and even Apple all higher by 5 percent. But concerns that the election results could slow data center build out, crushing other areas of the AI trade. NVIDIA leading chips lower, but the biggest losses were in memory, neoclouds and the power players. Energy also a big drag today as oil prices fell 7 percent.

36:12President Trump blaming the Iran war for the election results. And some expect he may look for a way to wind down the war. But we saw big gains in other sectors, especially the consumer stocks. Best Buy up 8 percent. McDonald's a big gainer after earnings target higher by 5 percent. The consumer staples ETF XLP hitting a new all-time high. And shares of Qualcomm are moving lower after reporting that the guide for first quarter EPS was slightly below the midpoint of the Wall Street consensus. The company also expecting data center revenue in the December quarter to exceed$650 million as it jumps into the AI buildup.

36:48Joining us now is Jay Goldberg from Seaport. Jay, that's$650 million in projected data center revenue, I don't know, 6%, 7 % of total revenue. Qualcomm continues to try to shift the narrative away from just the smartphone exposure. Are they doing the job? I would say no. So I think part of the reason the stock is down today is they had this big event a few months ago saying they're getting back into the data center business. They got into some pretty lofty revenue targets, these long-term targets over multiple years. And they said in the December quarter, they'd get$650 million in revenue from their first AI product with Amazon.

37:24And you look at revenue guidance, it's pretty much in line with consensus. I think people were hoping that there would be some upside to being in this new business. And it looks like the data center business is just barely offsetting declines in the slowing smartphone market. So I don't think the street is ready to believe their AI story yet. At the same time, I mean, it's a little early, right, to just say no. I mean, they are saying that fiscal year 27 will be that inflection point for data center for the non-handset revenues. And data center in that rampant revenue is going to be part of it.

37:58Why are you so skeptical that in fiscal year 27, we won't see evidence of that happening? That's a fair point. These sales cycles take many years, and so they deserve some time to prove or disprove their ability here. I just don't have a lot of faith in the sustainability of the business. I think they have some kind of win with Amazon, something around capacity and little things here and there that get them through this custom deal with Amazon. But beyond that, it's tough for me to see them having legs. And I say this also as someone who used to work for Qualcomm. And if you see behind me, this is their back there is the first attempt they made at the data center.

38:34This now is their third attempt to go into the data center. They haven't done too well the first two times. And I think they have a lot of proving to do before anyone is going to give them credit for being in the data center. That being said, Jay, I mean, you have a sell rating and a price target of$100 a share on the stock. I mean, right now, the consensus is, what,$10 a share for earnings? So you think that it should trade down to that valuation or you think earnings forecasts have that much downside ahead? I think as as hard as they're trying to move this narrative away from smartphones, it's still the, you know, the vast majority of their business.

39:10And I worry that they're taking their eye off the ball there a little bit. You know, five of the top five handset makers in the world have applications, processors which compete with Qualcomm that they design internally. Three of the top five handset makers make their own modems, which is the core of Qualcomm's business. Their own customers are trying to diversify away from Qualcomm. I think Qualcomm has great engineering talent, but I don't think they're utilizing it well because I think they're distracted by these other things. And I worry that the smartphone business is going to get much worse next year just on consumer demand.

39:41Plus, there's this risk of Qualcomm share loss. All right, Jay, great to speak with you. Thanks. Jay Goldberg. Stock's down 6.5 % right now. Home builder stocks significantly outperforming the broader market on the hopes the midterm election outcome will lead to a rollback in tariffs. Up next, a top analyst on whether these stocks are ready for an extended rally. Closing Bell Overtime. Be right back.

40:06Consumer related stocks really helping to drive this post midterm election rally on hopes control of Congress by Democrats will lead to a reversal of many of President Trump's tariffs. Nike, Gap, Lululemon, Dollar General and Dollar Tree among the big apparel and retail winners. We also saw rallying companies that sell bigger ticket items, autos with General Motors and Ford, home appliances with Whirlpool and furniture with RH. And of course, the drop in oil prices and fine yields didn't hurt either. Yep. Housing, another terror sensitive sector seeing gains today as a result of the midterm elections.

40:38Home construction ETF having its best day since July 2025. The homebuilder ETF up 5 % today with names like KB Home, Lenar and Pulte Group all up more than 7%. Housing suppliers like Home Depot, Lowe's, they're also higher. So will congressional leadership change? Will that change lead to meaningful change in the sector and keep this rally going? Joining us now is Alan Ratner from Zellman, a Walker and Dunlop company. Alan, great to have you with us. You make the case that there's probably going to be no impact, even if tariffs are going to be rolled back. Did I just deliver the punchline here?

41:10I mean, is that it? No impact may be a little harsh. I think at the end of the day, it's going to come down to two things. Our rate's going to come down and our oil price is going to recede. So to a large extent, I think the conflict in the Middle East has driven both of those higher. So if we get some resolution there and we see some relief, it could have an impact. But if we go back to earlier this year before either of those were really factors, those have been kind of more headwinds in the last couple of months. It's not like the market was rip-roaring back then. And I think, you know, from a bigger picture standpoint, the affordability challenges that we've seen in housing really for the better part of the last six years, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

41:50Alan, what about the notion that, all that being true, that we've reached some base level of turnover or activity, and that, in fact, if the market is trying to look ahead to data center construction at least slowing down or cooling, that whatever crowding out was happening of that type of construction spending on the whole building kind of chain might let up a little bit. Is that just too far to go? I think it's a little bit overly optimistic. I mean, I think what you're saying is, has the data center wave created competition either for labor or land for home builders? On the labor front, up until recently, driven by more ice raids as opposed to data center competition, labor has been readily available for builders.

42:36If we look at their construction costs over the last several years, builders have done a great job of driving their costs lower. And that's in spite of the data center wave, as well as the tariffs that have been in place now for the last couple of years. So construction costs have not been a headwind. What has been a headwind has been demand and affordability. And outside of a big pullback in rates, I don't see either of that changing. So basically, I'm just trying to. So is it too indirect to think that if tariffs are rolled back more broadly, that that improves affordability for the consumer overall?

43:09And so therefore, therefore, they would go into the housing market more? I mean, I'm just trying to think of other sort of transmission mechanisms of what this Democratic sweep could mean for the consumer and ultimately how they are feeling about purchasing a home. Listen, I think if you're looking about it from the repair remodel side of the business, which I don't personally cover, but certainly some of those tariffs have found their way down to the consumer in terms of what they're buying at Home Depot and Lowe's and through their contractors. If we look at the new construction sector specifically, the builders have done a really good job of leveraging their scale to really push back on the trades and the suppliers and the manufacturers when it comes to tariffs.

43:50So those added costs really have not filtered their way down to the builder and the consumer. In fact, if we look at new home prices over the last several years, they've been lower, not higher. So it's hard to make an argument that the new home pricing is reflective of added cost burden from tariffs. If anything, that's kind of gotten eaten down the supply chain. And maybe that's a net positive for those companies that have taken that margin hit as a result of it. Is there a quick investment play to sort of capitalize on what you see is maybe the mismatch between how the market is reacting and what you're expecting?

44:27Well, I think, again, it goes back to what happens with rates, what happens with the conflict in the Middle East. The companies that have been most impacted over the last, call it six to eight weeks from the dislocation in the market have really been entry level focused companies that are most exposed to that affordability constrained buyer. So if your view is, which, you know, frankly, in 12 hours, I haven't seen enough to convince myself of this. But if your view is that rates are going to move meaningfully lower and we're going to be out of Iran in the next several months, then I think that's the area where you would want to play that.

44:59So thinking of a company like D.R. Horton, for example, which is the largest builder in the country, exposed to that builder, to that buyer. And frankly, even if the market doesn't rebound significantly, they're still very well positioned. That's probably how I would play that thesis if that's what somebody believed. Makes sense. Alan, thanks so much. Alan Ratner. Thanks for having me. Up next, much more on this big hour of earnings and the name set to report results tomorrow. Closing bill overtime live from the NASDAQ Market Site. We'll be right back.

45:35Let's get a final check in some after hours earnings movers. A huge gain for App Love and not an earnings beat. Revenue also better than expected, as was fourth quarter guidance. Fastly a big drop despite better than expected numbers for the current quarter in forward guidance. But the company announcing a leadership change and it will be seeking a new chief revenue officer. Also worth noting, as of 4 p.m. close, Fastly had doubled this year. Dutch Bros, meantime, seeing a big decline. Earnings and revenue were narrow beats. But same-store sales missed and guidance was a little bit soft. That sucks down almost 20%.

46:04And Elf Beauty, with a big EPS and revenue beat, EPS coming in at$1.21 versus estimates of$0.60. The company raising its full-year guidance fueled by international expansion. Elf Beauty CEO will join Mad Money tonight, 6 p.m. Eastern time. That is a big beat. Absolutely. I think Dutch Bros is, like, now 50 % off the highs. So you have all these high-velocity moves. And obviously, you have to respect the strength of the rally. But a lot of room for maybe some hangover in there as well tomorrow. So we'll see how that goes. That's almost going to do it. But first, we have to say happy birthday to you.

46:37I got you back. I didn't have to wait too long. And you're going to continue the celebration with your friends over here at the desk. So have a great one. Thank you. Fast Money starts right after this. We'll be right back.