Closing Bell: The Data Center Discourse, Memory ETF Wakes Up 9/4/26

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1:00Scott Wapner: All right, guys, thanks so much. Welcome to Closing Bell. Scott Wadriel live from Post9 here at the New York Stock Exchange. This Maker Breakout begins with the debate over stocks. We're going to ask our experts over this final stretch where they see the markets heading in the weeks ahead with some really critical inflation data and that Fed meeting looming in those weeks ahead. Here's the scorecard today with 60 to go in the week. The Russell's green. Everything else is red. Better than expected. Jobs report. Well, it at least has yields back in focus, and we're watching the curve yet again today.

1:30Scott Wapner: It is now green all across. It's short end, long end, all green. We're also watching Meta. We're watching NVIDIA and Apple. Pretty nice weeks, though Apple's now turned negative today. It's been a decent week. NVIDIA, this doesn't really give you the week, but trust me, it's been good. Some pretty good strength in the semis, too. Software, a little bit mixed, and that's been a great story to follow, but there is a pretty good picture about how we're going to end this week. It does take us to our talk of the tape, whether the bull case is still strong. Let's ask Jeremy Siegel. He's the Wharton School professor of finance, Wisdom Trees chief economist.

2:06Scott Wapner: It's good to have you back, as always. OK, so the jobs report was better than expected. We're in a historically rough month. How do you see things today? Well, I thought it was a very good jobs report and a non-inflationary jobs report, because actually there were more people that actually entered the labor force than actually were employed. The unemployment rate, when you didn't round it, actually went up a little bit, which means this was a supply response, not too much demand, wages completely under control. I thought this was a great report. Now, I know the probability of an increase went up a little bit.

2:52And I'll tell you, in September, this is a real live meeting for Kevin. And I would say if the midterm elections were not on the horizon, the Fed would raise rates. But I mean, my God, I mean, Trump's tweet today, not only say, keep them the same. He said, if you don't lower them, I'm going to start raising tariffs across the board on all these countries. I mean, that's crazy. So let's hope that that doesn't materialize. But don't think that he is not going to be under political pressure in the next two Fed meetings.

3:39Scott Wapner: Oh, I don't think there's any question about that. But if he did hike rates, like you say, there's a possibility He would, as I said earlier this afternoon, the roof would blow off of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And you know that would be the case. But you don't actually think they're going to raise rates, do you? I mean, the data tells me there is room for some interest rate increases. If he delays them until after the election, so until December, is that going to be a tragedy for the economy? I mean, now, clearly, if things get really heated, if inflation continues to rise, and I mean, Iran is a wild card, and they may decide to step up their missile attacks before that and send oil higher, and that sends bond higher, the bond market might tip Warch's hand, saying, listen, you know, there's telling me I've got to make a move to get that inflation under control.

4:42And by the way, I think a strong move by the Fed might actually lower long term rates by saying, hey, the credibility of the Fed is on the line and we are going to act. But, hey, he may try to convince Trump of that. I don't I don't think Trump is going to be on board with that reasoning.

5:02Scott Wapner: Good luck with that. Right. Well, let's just say let's just say for the sake of the conversation, Professor, that they they they raise rates in September. What would the market do? I think the market would originally have a negative reaction, but then a positive reaction because they're happy that the Fed is stepping up to get those rates under control. Again, let's hoping that, you know, the roof stays on Pennsylvania Avenue and we don't get a big increase in tariffs, assuming that that is it stays under control. because, I mean, ultimately, you know, the credibility of the central bank to fight inflation is there.

5:43Now, again, we have, don't forget, next week, Wednesday, we have the PPI, and we have that very important CPI. We know Waller drew that line in the sand about whether it's going to be 0.2 or 0.3. So, I mean, there's still data that's very important that has to, you know, be developed. But if you take a look at the, you know, futures markets, the long bond, the two-year, And by the way, as you know, I look at the money supply, something that Kevin Wortsch, in fact, mentioned in his Jackson talk as being important. Since the Iran war began, the M2 money supply has been growing at 10 percent annual rate, which is excessive.

6:24And to me, that does, in fact, say he's going to start raising those rates. Listen, markets like a little looseness. in stocks are much better under inflation than bonds because they're real assets. So in a way, stocks like it a little bit looser. But ultimately, we all gain as a society and as an economy if we can keep that inflation under control.

6:49Scott Wapner: Sure. But you could make the argument that rates are doing the Fed's job for it. So why why should they hike? What could they possibly do about oil prices? Nothing. What could they possibly do about AI build-out financing? Nothing. So then why should they hike? Well, don't forget, there are$10 to$15 trillion worth of short-term loans that are directly and almost exactly tied to that Fed funds rate. You're absolutely right. On the long end, long bonds, 30-year mortgages, that's the long end. But there are trillions of dollars of money from, you know, credit card rates, auto loan, factoring rates, short term borrowings, commercial paper and all that.

7:36That's really tied to the Fed. So, you know, if the Fed does raise those rates, that pulls back a little bit on that borrowing, creates, you know, a situation with less credit creation, which ultimately is less inflation. So I say I really believe that is still very important for inflation and they control the short end 100 percent. And what they do there still matters a lot for the economy.

8:03Scott Wapner: So we have the midterms looming. We have a couple of Fed meetings before that. We have all the focus on the bond market. The A.I. earnings were just really good. So the market, the S &P is at seventy seven hundred. Knowing all that lies ahead, and the war, by the way, of course, as you rightly mentioned, still unsettled, how does the runway ahead look for the stock market over the next few months, do you think? Wow. You know, this is one of the most difficult times. I see it's a balancing act, great earnings. You know, I mean, you know what, NVIDIA really, I think, turned it around. You were talking with Mike Santoli earlier about how the AI Mag 7 has come back, and I think that NVIDIA was part of that.

8:52NVIDIA's link with Salesforce also gave confidence to that sector. There's a lot of great things going on. I mean, you know, we could talk about the AI build-out. My feeling is once the elections are over, there's so much money around that we're going to get those data centers actually built, despite the opposition. There's just too much money that's too attractive to too many localities that they can't settle on some sort of deal. So I think that that, you know, that AI trade and AI is is an industrial revolution is certainly still there. But then, you know, the midterms, Iran, oil, you know, how you know how what's going to happen on that front is what's keeping the market, I think, pretty much in a hey, wait and see mode.

9:45Scott Wapner: Yeah, it seems that way. We'll talk to you soon. Professor, great long weekend. Thank you, as always. Thank you very much, Scott. You too. All right. Jeremy Siegel. Of course, the professor just mentioned Mike Santoli in this conversation that he and I had earlier today when he flagged the fact that the MAG-7 is back. And if you look at what's happened over the last six months, as he did, it's a really good observation, Mike, that you made. It set us up for a robust conversation at noon because you can see in June, July how they, you know, diverged from one another, the MAG-7 and the S &P 500.

10:22Scott Wapner: But tell us more why you focused on this this morning the way you did. Mostly because, Scott, it felt as if the leadership of large stocks, and obviously MAG7, the largest, has reasserted itself as macro flux has increased. And as I think you had a crescendo of concern about capital spending that really came together in June and July. That has sort of relieved the storyline I hear solidifying a little bit is, look, whatever we're going to do about spending in the future, we've probably seen the peak year-on-year growth rate of capital intensity for these businesses. They're still growing. They got cheaper.

10:58OK, MAG7, as a group, went from 34 times forward earnings in October, late October of last year, to about 23 times at the lows this past summer, about a month or two ago. And that was just enough. I mean, you kind of reached a little bit of a level where it felt as if they had been de-risked based on valuation. They also serve as anti-momentum. They were not participating in the upside of the momentum trade. The momentum unwind actually flattered their steadiness. And so we have that all working. Now, of course, you know, the group got a percent and a half today. It's not going to be a one way street.

11:29And I think the key, too, is there's massive divergence within the Mag seven. So you look at Apple and NVIDIA to the upside over that six month period. You have Meta and Tesla really weak. So I don't think it's necessarily a matter of this is now the group that's going to be the locomotive for the market exclusively from here. But it shows you they do have defensive properties and they can only go down so much.

11:51Scott Wapner: It's interesting you mentioned the relationship between the mags and momentum and that we just learned today that they're now negatively correlated. The mags are with momentum for the very first time ever. What does that tell us? It's fascinating. I think a lot of it is Apple. Apple is like the one stock stabilizer against the momentum trade, against semis. And it's almost been this kind of binary out there. Now, of course, Apple giving a little bit up today. That's a big piece of it. And also, funny enough, NVIDIA has not traded really beat for beat like a semiconductor, like the memory stocks, like the higher leveraged ones.

12:26It's traded more like a hyperscaler platform. And, you know, I think that's part of the answer as to why those things have worked a little better. Plus, you can't ignore Microsoft just riding this relief rally in software. And that's added a lot of heft to the Mag7 trade.

12:41Scott Wapner: Oh, man, it's up 30 percent, that name is, from its earnings period until now. And you can almost say that Microsoft's strength from its earnings and then NVIDIA's strength from its earnings helps to make the case that you're showing us why we've witnessed what we've witnessed, because earnings were a catalyst that we weren't sure what was what was going to happen. So I appreciate it much. We'll see you later in the zone. As always, that's Mike Santoli giving us something really good to think about today. We're getting some news out of Washington. Megan Casella joins us now with that. What are we learning here, Megan?

13:15Scott, we just heard from President Trump in the Oval Office. He was signing a pair of executive orders related to the beef industry, one of which would allow ranchers to process their own beef, another of which would change what's called country of origin labeling. Both of these designed to help farmers and ranchers and possibly to bring down the price of beef in the United States. We'll see how that plays out. But he also took a number of questions. We heard from him on a number of different topics. On the Iran war, first up, he was asked about Vice President Vance's comments yesterday that he would not call this a war.

13:43And the president agreed with his vice president. He said, quote, a lot of people don't call it a war. I call it a military conflict because it's small potatoes for us. It's not a big thing. And he was pushed on this a little bit, saying, Mr. President, 18 people, 18 Americans have died in this conflict. And he pushed back on that, saying many more died in Vietnam. He said that what matters is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. Of course, though, there is still no agreement, no nuclear agreement with Iran on that point. Now, he was also speaking about trade and trade deficits. And he really doubled down on or defended his threat from earlier today on Truth Social when he warned the Federal Reserve, it seemed, that unless they cut interest rates, he's looking to cut off all trade with countries with which the U.S.

14:25runs a trade deficit. Now, Scott, that is most of the United States' major trading partners. And he really elaborated on this. He was saying, we have the right to cut off trade with them, that it wouldn't hurt, in his view, the United States economy. He says, if we don't trade with them, they don't have any money to pay the bills. And if we're not going to be treated properly, then we're going to do that. Many economists, most economists, I should say, do not view the trade deficit as a negative thing for the U.S. economy, but hear the president threatening to cut off all trade with a number of our major trading partners unless he sees lower interest rates.

14:57And then finally, Scott, just one small comment on the bond market. He was pressed by a reporter who said a rate hike would reassure the bond market. And the president responded, to me, it doesn't reassure the bond market. To me, you should see a rate cut. we should have the lowest interest rate in the world. Scott.

15:12Scott Wapner: All right, Megan, thanks. Megan Casella. Let's bring in our panel now Schwab's Kevin Gordon, CNBC contributor, Requisite Capitals, Bryn Talkington. It's good to have you both with us today, Kev. I'll start with you since you're sitting here next to me. I want to start with where we left off with Mike Santoli. Yes. The resurgence, reemergence of this critically important trade, what you think it means? Well, I think the most important chart that came up when Mike was speaking was the divergence among the members in the MAG-7 and the fact, you know, tied into what you were really focusing on, which is now this negative correlation with momentum and the fact that these names have really started to trade in a very different way.

15:47I've tended to group them now into a basket of hyperscalers and memory and semiconductors because that seems to be where things have sort of shifted in terms of themes. So if you take the Mag7 as a group, I think one of the reasons that it's been so much of a struggle so far this year is because you've seen that massive divergence. Meta and Tesla really holding it down at the bottom of the list. And then you've got the likes of NVIDIA still doing relatively well. Also Apple and Microsoft more recently. So I think that from an investor's perspective, not necessarily thinking about it as a monolith anymore is going to be really key moving forward, especially because now you're even starting to see the biggest names.

16:24And I'm not an individual company analyst, but just looking at the biggest one being NVIDIA, even its contribution rank in the S &P 500 to performance has slipped to third place. It's been first place for so long. So even now you're starting to see that contribution rank and performance sort of seed leadership to other areas like Micron, for example.

16:43Scott Wapner: But if this is a reemergence, Bryn, what does it mean for a month that's historically unkind to investors? This is theoretically happening at a very critically important time. Right. I mean, it's not just this month. It's really now between now and midterms. And Scott, if you go back to 1962, I think we've had, what, 16 or 17 midterms. Every single time between now and the midterms, we've had a drawdown between like 7 % and 25%. So just like probability-based investors, I would think that we would have another drawdown. This would be the first time we haven't had one since 1962. So I think investors should expect some temporary volatility.

17:26And so I think that this mean reversion, I would call it, with most of the Mag-7 minus Meta, really, and Tesla, I think it probably is going to take a rest here. Because I do think that midterm drawdown is going to start anchoring on the market, you know, throw in Iran, the Fed, etc. We're kind of setting up to have a breather, some drawdown before we then go into seasonality, where from November to February, markets are typically up quite nicely.

17:59Scott Wapner: Kev, you think we're going to have increased volatility between now and November? I do. I think that especially at the index level, because you haven't seen as much of it this year, a lot of it has just been this more considerable churn and rotation under the surface. I do think that that's an increased likelihood, maybe solely because of the inflation backdrop. If you do get a hotter set of prints for CPI and PPI, that probably locks in a rate hike for September, probably have some volatility associated with it. I do think the markets get gotten increasingly comfortable with the fact that the Fed might tighten and the likelihood is a little bit higher.

18:31But at the same time, if there's a signal, especially that you get a couple of hikes or you start to embark on a hiking cycle, to the extent you get any of that from other members, not necessarily the chair, I do think that probably introduces a little bit of a rupture.

18:45Scott Wapner: Do you really think that there could be a hike? I mean, that matters. Do you really think that there could be in September? Absolutely. And would the market withstand that? Over the long term, if it's a hiking cycle in the context of an economy that continues to grow, yes. I realize that there could be, you know, at times hiking cycles that are not necessarily consistent with recessions. The most recent one, that was the case. And you did have a bear market. So I don't want to bring that kind of volatility completely off the table. But at the same time, historically, when the economy is growing, when the Fed is not hiking aggressively every single month, it's not necessarily been a poor setup for the equity market if you take a 6 - to 12-month look outward.

19:25So I do think that it's still a possibility you get some kind of correction, but maybe not something as sinister as if they were hiking aggressively and sending the economy into a recession.

19:34Scott Wapner: Let's just say, Bryn, it happens. OK, they hike 25 basis points in September. What does the market do? Oh, the market goes down. First of all, this is what happened in the late 90s, right? They hiked as the economy was this is like what birthed the bubble back in in 99, 2000. And they started hiking actually into a weakening economy. me. And so I don't think they're going to hike. I think if they do hike, they don't just do one hike. They go into a hiking schedule. And I think I've always said, don't fight the Fed. So if Kevin Warsh, which I don't think he will hike rates, I mean, Trump just put him in there.

20:10That would just be so ironic that they start raising rates. But the market would go down because that would signal a hiking cycle. And I will say what to your point, your comment with Professor Siegel earlier, what can the Fed do to actually do anything on inflation, which when nothing in the Fed's toolbox is causing inflation, we don't have these like great loan growth within housing and commercial real estate. That's just going to hurt the real economy while the other inflationary pressures have nothing to do with what the Fed's toolbox consists of.

20:43Scott Wapner: That's why the concern would be a mistake, the Fed mistake, because you couldn't do anything affecting what's actually part of the issue or a major part of the issue, but you could harm things on the periphery that you don't want to do. But let me ask you this, Kev, the backup in rates, that in and of itself, is that a problem for stocks? In level terms, not necessarily. I think it's because it's been a little bit more orderly this time and you haven't gone through a significant sharp increase in a shorter time frame. Historically, that's been what's been more disruptive for the equity market.

21:20So I do think that for some reason, if you get a hot inflation print and you don't have a Fed that necessarily responds to that, that's where I think you could see more of a rupture at the long end like you did back in July. Although that was more about messaging from the PEST conference. But still, if that is the backdrop and you get a sharper increase in yields in a shorter time frame, that's typically what's been more of a sinister scenario for the stock market.

21:41Scott Wapner: Folks, we'll leave it there. Have a great long weekend. Bryn, we'll see you soon. Kev, we'll see you back here at Post9. Let's send it now to Christina Portzinevolos, she's looking at the biggest names moving into this Friday close. What do you see? We got to start with Tesla because those shares are slumping after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched a probe into the cyber cab to just make sure it met federal safety standards. This follows Tesla's much anticipated cyber cab event that happened last night. The move essentially wiping out yesterday's gains. Shares down almost 6%.

22:10Speaking of down, shares of Lululemon really tanking almost 18 percent after it reported a sales slowdown and also cut its full year outlook. The performance was really dragged down by negative social media sentiment and just weakness in key categories like leggings. Not as trendy anymore. It's a challenging backdrop, though, for the company's new CEO, who will take over on Tuesday, stock hitting its lowest level since 2018. Adobe shares also dropping on an executive shakeup. The company naming its customer experience president as CEO after its former CEO of 18 years, Shantanu Narayan, said he would step down just last month.

22:44Narayan will become executive chair during the transition. Shares down 6%. Scott.

22:50Scott Wapner: Okay, Christina, we'll see you soon. Thanks, Christina Parts and Nebulos. We're just getting started. Up next, the AI arms race colliding with the data center revolt. Best-selling author and leading technology thought leader Walter Isaacson weighs in on that growing backlash, whether it could put America's AI boom at risk. We're live at the New York Stock Exchange. He joins us next.

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25:08Scott Wapner: We are back. Big tech feeling the heat as the data center debate rages. For more on where that issue goes from here, we're joined now by Walter Isaacson, Tulane University professor, Perella Weinberg advisory partner, also a CNBC contributor. So very much look forward to speaking with you. Welcome back. Thank you, Scott. Good to be back. I'd like to get your overall take on the issue for starters, as it really feels like, Walter, that opposition is only growing louder and the stories we're reading continue to be out there multiple times. It feels like every day I've got at least 71 percent in a March survey of respondents against data center construction.

25:49Scott Wapner: Seems everybody is writing about it and thinking about it and talking about it. What's your take on it? I think the backlash against data centers is very real, but it's a proxy for a backlash against AI and the discomfort with AI. I mean, the data centers aren't necessarily the problem. An average data center uses about as much water as an average golf course, but people don't go fighting golf courses. I think what there is is a discomfort with AI and how it's not actually serving humanity as much as it was supposed to, at least in people's mind. Now, in a lot of ways, it is. I've just read my favorite technology newsletter, Fix the News, and there was a story about how AI is helping to remove brain tumors.

26:36But most of the time, you're reading about how it's destroying jobs for young people, entry-level jobs.

26:43Scott Wapner: You know, Secretary Besant, his comments this week from the G20, I thought were really interesting, where he put the blame on big tech itself. Let's listen and we can react on the other side of that. I think that the AI companies, whether it is the builders of the data centers, whether it is the labs themselves, have done a horrendous job, horrendous job of explaining themselves to the American people. And I think we need a big reset on this. They're going to have to take some of the blame and they are going to have to convince the American people that all the benefits will not accrue to a small group.

27:23Scott Wapner: So that was the secretary in the industry appears to be taking some blame, as Sam Altman said during an interview yesterday. And I quote, I think the industry has done a terrible job of this on the whole. Do you agree? A hundred percent. First of all, there are things like, if you want to talk to Sam Altman, there's that escape that ChatGPT OpenAI's bot did when it did Hugging Face. Now they've got a new model coming out that they basically say, we don't know if we can control it. If you read the report about the various agents created by the ChatGPT that escaped, they're conspiring against humans.

28:05and nobody's saying, hey, let's stop it. Secondly, they're not doing a very good job of focusing AI on things that could truly help us, how to fold proteins to make us to cure cancer or to help us with vaccines, how to deal with climate change. So there are all of these things that I think are on the AI companies, the big tech companies, that they're just showing they're making things that they can't control, things that aren't particularly helpful to us. And then, as the Secretary of the Treasury rightly said, the huge benefits and the money from this will accrue to five or six companies. And people say, well, that'll make it so that we'll never have to work again and everybody will have universal income.

28:52No, that doesn't just happen automatically. They're the ones who are going to be taking these profits.

28:57Scott Wapner: Seems that the administration itself is having trouble messaging on this, too. I mean, the president earlier this week goes after the communities who don't want them, suggesting the only reason that communities throughout the USA should not want data centers if they want to end up being backwards or poor, he wrote. And then I want you to listen to the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, on our network midweek on Squawk Box. Let's listen. data centers don't use water the data centers this is propaganda by our adversaries to try to slow us down the problem walter with that statement is that it's obviously it's just not true and it contradicts mr lutnik himself from what he said last year quote these ai things suck water they need water in fact the florida water and pollution control operators association they did a study in which they found a medium-sized data center requires roughly 100 million gallons of water annually.

30:00Scott Wapner: So there's a messaging problem, it seems, everywhere. Well, yeah, but as I said, I don't think this is really about water use. I mean, I think that can be a problem, especially in many places where they're clustered. But I think the real problem is AI companies saying, we're making things that are totally out of control. We don't know how to control them. We don't have any guardrails and we're not going to put any in necessarily. And we're going to make a whole lot of profits off of this. And it's going to destroy jobs. And it may be the AI apocalypse. Of course, people are going to be reacting against it.

30:33People were booing mentions of AI, not just mentions of data center in speeches. And so you're seeing Republicans, whether it be, you know, in Ohio or even in Texas now, So, you know, the governor of Texas, hey, maybe we got to pull back on data centers. I think that's really a proxy for saying this AI thing, we're not sure how to control it. But there is a real problem. And it is that if we pull back, China will keep pushing ahead. So sometimes.

31:04Scott Wapner: I'm sorry, finish your thought. I apologize, Walter. No, I mean, sometimes it's a problem because if you pull back in the U.S., you're going to have China pulling ahead. There's not an easy answer here. What's it going to take to reverse the tide? And do you think that big tech can convince wary communities around this country that AI is not going to steal jobs? It's going to create jobs, that your electric costs are not going to go up. And all the benefits that you said of what the prospects are for health care innovation and the like. Gavin Baker, who's a well-known name in the world of tech.

31:37Scott Wapner: big post on social media this week with the virtues of data centers and how how maybe the conversation has changed over the last 18 months for the better about what they'll bring and the virtues of them. Jensen Wong retweeting that and adding his own. Can they change the conversation? I think they're going to have to show that AI is aligned with the values of humanity and will be good for humans. One of the deeper problems is that the AI models are creating agents that act without being tethered, without being linked directly to human agency, to human values. This is not the way the personal computer revolution was.

32:20Personal computer revolution, Steve Jobs, Doug Engelbart, it linked us to our computers so that our computers became a tool. I think what you're seeing with the AI revolution is they're creating agents that starting to frighten all of us. And that makes the backlash against not only data centers, but AI.

32:40Scott Wapner: Walter, appreciate it as always. You enjoy the long weekend as well. See you soon. Walter Isaacson coming up. Big shake up at the top of the WNBA. Commissioner Kathy Engelbert stepping down after seven years at the helm. We'll talk about why now and what her exit means for the league's next chapter. next.

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34:20Scott Wapner: news today that the w nba commissioner kathy engelbert will retire at the end of the year ending a tumultuous last stretch as leader of that league cnbc sports reporter alex sherman joins us now with more would you make this announcement today yes scott i would not classify it as a surprise um we didn't know exactly when the date would come but i and other reporters have asked Kathy about potential retirement or succession for well over a year now. And every time she's answered, you know, I'm 60, 61 years old. I'm not going to do this job forever. It was never my intention to serve forever. So like the suggestion was there that retirement or her stepping down was coming.

35:03Of course, the big hurdle was the WNBA's collective bargaining agreement. And that is something that before the beginning of this season, she got done. And in many ways, I think will stand as her biggest legacy, where she was able to get a deal done with the players. It was not an easy deal. And I think it led to some lasting tensions between Kathy and players of the WNBA, which will be sort of the other side of her legacy. But if you take a look at kind of the bare bones stats, WNBA players make right now make a lot more money than they used to make. All of sort of the statistics around the league are very much up and to the right.

35:41Take a look there. Viewership up more than 450 percent. Attendance up 70 percent. The valuations of these teams have skyrocketed during her reign as commissioner. I mean, all you need to do is look back to like 2021. The Las Vegas Aces sold for two million dollars in 2021. CNBC Sport values the Aces at five hundred million dollars. Five years later, there's even a billion-dollar-valued WNBA team, the Golden State Valkyries now. So it's hard not to see her tenure as a success from that standpoint. Really, it's the player relationship standpoint where I think you can kind of ding her. She has struggled, particularly with some of these star players in the league, to foster a close relationship.

36:29And I think that may be the next commissioner that will be a high priority on that person's list.

36:34Scott Wapner: So it's undeniable, as you say, of how she helped transform that league from a growth standpoint, a financial gain standpoint. But it's also undeniable that the way that the conversation has been lately, it's all been about social turmoil within that league. And there are those who are going to say she owns that as well. Yeah, and you know, in many ways, I think the job changed for a commissioner, right? The priority was to get that CBA done. She did it. But in the process of that, I think she angered a lot of the players, the players feeling like she was really not their mouthpiece. And after that deal got done, now the problems for the league have sort of shifted.

37:19It's very much kind of a cultural, political boiling point. The transgender issues, the racial issues, the gender, the sexuality issues, It was like they're all kind of bubbling there. And over it all, I think, is how the league deals with Caitlin Clark, its biggest star by all viewership standpoints. Other players in the league have hard fouled her and have kind of given her a hard time. There was that all-star vote where the players voted her as the 11th best guard in the league, whereas fans voted her as number two. So there's clearly a divide there. And again, I think a commissioner that's coming in will likely prioritize a relationship with Kaitlin Clark and a relationship with the league's other stars so that all of the players in the league can kind of get their oars rowing in the same direction so that the brand of the WNBA stays unified in these years to come.

38:12Scott Wapner: Alex, thanks. Talk to you soon. Alex Sherman. Up next, the biggest movers as we head into this close. Christina is back with that. Hi. Well, we have credit score stocks sliding as Washington targets what it calls a scoring monopoly. A theater chain rallying after ripping a brokerage over a quasi-fake market and two software names falling despite pretty strong results. Details next.

38:41Scott Wapner: Ten to the bell. Let's get back now to Christina Parts and Nevelos for a look at the stocks that she's watching. What do you see? Smiling, but shares of credit bureaus falling after housing director Bill Pothese said he's directing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to approve all lenders to use VantageScore, saying FICO has just had a monopoly. He also posted on X that Equifax, Experian, TransUnion have been, quote, overcharging Americans for far too long. That's why you can see even FICO down almost 16%. AMC shares gaining after it slammed Robinhood for launching a tokenized version of AMC shares. CEO Adam Aaron calling it outrageous and saying that Robinhood is creating a, quote, quasi-fake market as it leans into round-the-clock stock trading.

39:23AMC up 4%. And two software stocks sinking despite strong results. Guideware software dropping as its first quarter revenue guidance missed estimates. And UiPath initially dropped as much as 10%. You can see it's down about 17 % right now. It dropped 10 % yesterday, 17 % today before heading in the opposite direction as Canaccord Genuity downgraded the stock. And I should say it was up yesterday, down today. Now I got it. All you need to know, selling off for these two names.

39:50Scott Wapner: We got it. Thank you very much. Christina Parts and Evidence. Coming up, Apple slumping today ahead of next week's big iPhone event. We're breaking down what to watch for, what it might mean for that stock inside the market zone, which is coming up.

40:10Scott Wapner: We're now in the Closing Bell Market Zone. Mike Santoli and iCapital, Shinali Bassick, here to break down these crucial moments of the trading day. Oliver Rennick, of course, standing by live from CBO Global Markets in Chicago. We'll play options action in a moment. Mackenzie Cigalas watching Apple, of course, and looking ahead to that big event next week. Michael, begin with you. Leave us with a thought on what you saw this week and what you think it means for next. Sure. I mean, it's basically a push at the index level. The S &P 500 is flattish. We did test some sort of minor support at the lower end of the range.

40:39We passed that test. I do think that the market did kind of go by a few decent excuses to give up a little more ground. Obviously, oil and yields pressing higher. So that's a net positive. There's no flashing yellow lights on that level. You do actually have, though, some pressure emerging still in consumer cyclicals, in industrial. So those cyclical rate sensitive areas. I do think there's plenty for the market to contend with when everyone comes back after Labor Day. Obviously, we have a coin flip Fed meeting at this point right ahead of us. We're not quite sure if we're going to make our peace with yield levels here.

41:13We have the VIX at 14, and it makes all the sense in the world. It's been a very calm index for months now, and we obviously have a three-day weekend ahead. But it does show you that there's room for a little bit more of turbulence and testing and rethinking of the scenario going out from here. The trend is fine, but maybe it gets interesting along the way.

41:33Scott Wapner: Well, there's inflation data now looming, especially large next week, so we have to watch for that. We'll watch for you in less than five in overtime and look forward to that, Michael. Thank you. Oliver, let's play some options action. What are you focused on? I'm watching for the possible reawakening of a sleeping giant that is DRAM, Scott. The memory stock ETF has been quietly range bound now for two months, but its 5 % rally stands out today. And so do its options, which lean quite bullish. Now 6%, about three times as many calls were bought versus puts today. And the big money trades were also mostly in calls.

42:09Today's most popular trade for next week was to buy the 61 strike call. That's about a$1 trade that needs an almost 5 % rally to work. Interestingly, one of the most bearish trades was a seller of 5 ,105 strike calls expiring year-end that brought in almost$300 ,000. But if the biggest bear you have to worry about is someone betting against a 78 % rally, That is a pretty bullish place to be. And the ETF jumping is a nice cherry on top of this week, Scott.

42:41Scott Wapner: All right, Oliver, appreciate you as always. Oliver Rennick will turn to Mac now and Apple, which was having a pretty good week up until today. Up until today, down more than 2%. Next week's highly anticipated iPhone event, Scott, is really the first big test for John Ternus as Apple's CEO. He's walking onto that stage with a lot riding on whether the company can extend the iPhone upgrade cycle and with expectations really sky high for Apple's first foldable and a major pricing reset. Now, that new folding model is expected to start at about$2 ,400. Morgan Stanley thinks Apple could ship about 6.5 million of them in the December quarter alone, generating$14 billion in revenue.

43:20So this can be financially meaningful even at relatively low volumes. And then there is pricing. Pro models could go up by$200 or more, but that may be less about flexing pricing power and more just about protecting margins against much higher memory costs. And for the stock, Morgan Stanley actually expects the typical sell the news reaction on launch day. The more consequential test is what happens after that, whether this launch is strong enough to drive earnings estimates higher, with Apple already trading above 30 times earnings. Scott?

43:52Scott Wapner: It's going to be a big week. There's no doubt about that. Mac, thanks so much. You'll be right in the middle of it. That's Mackenzie Segalis. Shonali Basik sitting next to me here. OK, we've got a lot ahead of us, right? How do you feel about these markets now? A lot ahead of us. I think that there's a lot of uncertainty until we get past CPI and then to that FOMC, right? Because I would agree that you have a coin flip kind of probability here in terms of whether they raise rates next or not. And more likely that it could be later this year. And so until we see that higher base rate, we don't know what the cost of financing kind of looks like across the spectrum.

44:24Therefore, you don't really know what risk appetite looks across the spectrum.

44:27Scott Wapner: Mike Stantoli, you know, throughout the day today has been talking with me about the resurgence and the reemergence of mega cap tech. That's meaningful, especially maybe more so at a time where you have some of these unanswered questions about the macro. Yeah. You know, mega cap is interesting. I think a lot of people looked at the hyperscalers raising a lot of money. But there's that saying that you don't need to raise money when you need to raise money. You raise money when you can raise money. And it was smart for them to do that before you saw rates starting to rise a little more. And you hear that crowding out argument starting to form, right?

44:59This idea of investors looking to hyperscaler debt instead of the treasury market. There's been a lot of that going around. In fact, that's a lot of reasons why people are even still talking about private markets, too, despite the uncertainty.

45:10Scott Wapner: How much do you think the backup in rates matters to this stock market in an environment, let's be honest, where earnings are the show? And that's the reason why we're not that far off from record highs. And the projections are still overwhelmingly positive. Should that still trump everything else? I want to be very clear. I think that the direction of travel is still higher from here. I think it was a choppy path higher. But with that said, what happens when rates are higher? A flock to quality. And there are a lot of areas of the market where you have not seen that flock yet happen. Even broader financials have not seen a meaningful, robust comeback across the board.

45:41You know, industrials are trading still below its 100-day moving average. How crazy. We're seeing so much robust economic activity still underpinning some of this. It's why we are talking about higher rates. a strong job market, and still strong growth.

45:55Scott Wapner: All right, Shanala, you have yourself a great weekend. You too. A long one. All of you as well. They're going to ring the bell in a moment. And again, a much better than expected job support. Grace very much in focus. Karina crossed the curve as we finish up here. And that's why the market probably looks the way it does. The Russell's going to go out positive. Good long weekend, everybody. I'll turn you into overtime. And Mike, thank you. Hi, I'm Roman Mars, host of 99 % Invisible. It's a podcast about all the thought that goes into things most people don't even think about. You're going to see stories everywhere.

46:29Follow and listen to 99 % Invisible wherever you get your podcasts.