Another Day In The Green For Apple… And The Next Move For The Energy Sector

0:03Live from the NASDAQ market site right here in the heart of New York City's Times Square. This is Fast Money. Here's what's on tap. Another record for Apple. It's been on a bit of a stealth rally the last couple of months. We'll ask the traders if Apple still has appeal. An energy inflection point. What the chart master sees in the oil world that makes him a buyer right now. Plus, a big Bitcoin bounce back above 90 ,000. Boeing takes off on optimism over strong deliveries. What happened to Costco? The once unstoppable, unflappable warehouse retailer has been lagging Walmart all year. We'll talk about why and what to do now.

0:44I'm not Melissa Lee. Hi, everybody. I am Brian Sullivan. Coming to you live from Studio B at the NASDAQ, on your desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Carter Worth, Dan Nathan, and Guy Adami. We've got a lot to do this hour, but let's start with another record close for Apple. Shares up again today. Apple now has a market cap of more than$4.2 trillion. That is close to taking the crown from NVIDIA. And, Guy, if you go for the ground, you best not miss. And that is a title, by the way, that Apple has not had since April. Now, it was a rough start to the year for Apple. You know that. In fact, many people out saying this stock was rotten because the company does not have a clear AI strategy.

1:28But all Tim Cook and company have done lately was to outperform the broader market over the last one, three, six months. All this, as you may have heard, Guy Domi, we're in an epic multi-trillion dollar battle over technology and AI. Good to see you, Guy. What did maybe people get wrong about the Apple story? It's great to have. We'd like to welcome you, as you know. Hello. To Munchkinland? Welcome, Brian. No, not to, no, just to the show. Okay. By the way, I want people to know that we all came in. Everybody seems to be in a bit of a mood, but we're going to turn that frown upside down right now.

2:04That's a smile, not an upside down frown. People like me have gotten it wrong. People like Tim Seymour have not. And what I think is happening now is the fact that maybe they were late to the AI game is actually an advantage for them. And some of these other companies that have been spending wildly are now being, I don't know, punished in a way. And Apple is sort of winning to this. And listen, I've had a problem with valuation with Apple for quite some time. Obviously, that's been misguided. Apple wins to passive investing. It's in over 400 ETFs, of which it's one of the top 15 holdings. It wins on down days as well as it's a flight to safety.

2:40If you can sort of wrap your head around the valuation, I mean, it's a great story right now. Well, it's definitely a valuation that has been a big part of at least the pushback in a world where they're not going to give you the kind of growth, even that they might have given you the last couple of quarters, whether it was a bit of a pull forward, whether it was a Liberation Day pull forward when and certainly where we are in the holiday season. But but Guy nailed this. This is this is a stock we've seen rotation. People were underway. I think it's as much technical in terms of how owned, how under owned.

3:09Some of the dynamics of a chart that took two years, maybe three years. And Carter has probably the exact dates on this where this stock was struggling to get to 200, came up against that level a couple of times, then got through there and slowly started to build higher. It's moved from 200 to 280 since April without any real news other than the DOJ, other than some much better follow through in demand on the new iPhone, other than ASPs on the 18 offsetting the 17 and the fact that this company doesn't need to spend on AI because ultimately it will be the vehicle that serves it up for most people.

3:44That's why I own it. And that's why. Is the idea then that what you just said is Apple going to be a winner because we all have this. Nonetheless, we don't care who the AI bot is. We're going to use it on this thing anyway. I think until there's something other than a smartphone. And I know there's been some threats of that over the last 18 months from some other people, including people that used to be inside the Apple bubble. But, yeah, I think the smartphone is the way that most people will actually be engaging in AI. And I think the app community, the developers community, all the places where Apple has an enormous amount of power, I think we still haven't even seen them go there.

4:16Yeah, so not to beat a dead horse, it really is about that 8 % of revenue of R &D, right, relative to, let's say, 25 % of these major hyperscalers and even meta, right, that they've been spending over the last couple of years. And, again, it started out as something, well, they're behind the eight ball here. They don't have a product that they can actually put on this huge distribution platform. They have basically two billion iOS devices out there in the world. And when you think about it right now, I mean, most of the Mag 7, other than Apple and Google, are down about 10 percent from their recent all time highs.

4:48So you've seen a little bit of a I don't know, you know, a dispersion, if you will, and a focus on a couple of names that are right now perceived to be the winners. And maybe because they actually are attached to the hip in many different ways. Right. So Google pays 20 billion dollars a year for exclusive search on. iOS devices on Safari. Apple just turned around and paid a billion dollars. It's a rounding error to Google to use certain Gemini technology, you know, for their new Siri, whenever they launch that, right? So it's about spend. It's about distribution. And, you know, the Apple thing to me is kind of curious that there's so much focus on a company that actually doesn't innovate on this front, right?

5:30Like Siri is a disaster. And we actually have a lot of questions about what they're going to be able to do with this existing platform. But in the meantime, folks seem to be pretty happy about this upgrade cycle. I didn't think we were going to see a super cycle, but we clearly had maybe what Tim's talking about is a little bit of a pull forward. We'll get more on Google in a second. And Carter, I want to come to you because I want you to look at the chart. What it really is, remember, it's all about where the money wasn't. Apple, as you cited, is outperforming one month, three months, six months.

5:59But Apple, since Q4 of 2022 to now Q4 of 2025, has gone up 85 percent. The tech sector is up 160. This is one of the biggest laggards in the sector that's simply playing catch up. Over what time period? Last three years. Okay. So the tech sector up about 180, this up half that. So this is a stock that's lagged, that was out of favor, meaning its relative performance peak was over three years ago. It's simply playing catch up. That's all this is. Can we throw up a 10-year chart of Apple? Because I think this will go right to Carter's point. So a fair point. Okay, let's go back further. I want to go back 10 years.

6:35Apple is a$25 stock 10 years ago today. $25 stock. It's now at$286. It's gone up tenfold in that time. But your argument is in the last three years, not the performer. So how much of this performance do you think, Carter, is just technical momentum? Meaning people know that the other things were quite full, right? Think about the other big laggard. It was Google. Apple and Google were the huge laggards. It was Meta. It was Netflix. It was Avago. It was NVIDIA. And then the two biggest laggards are the ones that have been the best performers. We're talking about 10 % EPS growth, and I'm probably being a little bit generous there.

7:15And we're talking about high single digits revenue growth with margins that have been improving slightly but been flatlining for the last couple years. I get it's a remarkable company, and the install base is historic. However, I think the market is rewarding them in the form of the valuation. So, you know, we talk about this when it was a growth stock seven or eight years ago. It was trading at a value stock valuation. Now that it's a value stock, theoretically, it's trading with a growth multiple, something I think has to give at some point. You know, the comment that Carter made, Tim, about Alphabet, and we could maybe throw up Alphabet as well, Google's parent company.

7:53is so interesting because Alphabet's put another name that is just the last couple of months, kind of like, I don't want to say come out of nowhere. No, you can say stratospheric. But you understand my point. I wonder how much of that is just the ketchup trade versus looking for a fundamental reason why this has happened. Well, because Google's core business and search and the existential threat from AI to what they've always done at their core was that much more extreme than it was for Apple. That's why this parabolic move is that much more extreme than that move of Apple. But both of these, as we've said, were laggards.

8:27You can't underestimate that day and the DOJ took the pressure off of a relationship that, as Dan pointed out, is very symbiotic for both sides and very beneficial for both sides. And by the way, the optionality for Apple is that that that that relationship was carved out. But it doesn't mean that they don't have optionality to go in other places going forward. So they're kind of in a position to be a consumer themselves of the best AI trade through the vehicle that we all know, which is this$2.4 billion installed base. So I just think the Google to Apple move is very much reminiscent of the Google to Apple pessimism, which on the downside was that much more for Google than Apple.

9:05Yeah, I'd say also on the Google, they've been building out GCP, right? So that's their cloud business. They're number three behind Azure and AWS. US. So when you think about this spend, they're going to actually have this compute, this infrastructure that other companies are going to be able to rent. They're going to be able to access the Gemini models. And then you think about they have three properties. If you think about Android, you think about workspace, and you think about Chrome that have over three billion monthly active. So they're able to distribute all of this technology, the Gemini, throughout that.

9:33I don't know about you guys. I'm done with ChatGPT. I'm done Done with. What? No, I agree. Done with it. So Guy had all of them. Guy had all of them. He had Claude. He had GBT. He had perplexity. You know, if you use Google products, this Gemini is working really, really well. You're not going to need multiples. And also, the other thing about, you know, Gemini, it's going to be throughout this whole system. Folks over the last 25 years have gotten used to searching for free. I don't think ChatGPT's main revenue driver right now, which is subscription to do searches and obviously to do a whole host of other things, is going to be something that has, in my opinion, a lot of longevity based on the – One of the lead stories, the lead story this morning on CBC.com, you probably saw it, was that Sam Altman, who runs OpenAI, kind of issued in an internal memo a code red.

10:22Internally basically like we've got to challenge – they've been the leader for three years. Open AI's ChatGPT kind of strutting around, and all of a sudden Alphabet and Google have come out. I don't want to say, again, come from behind, but they have come out of semi-obscurity. Because people said they were dead. Yeah, but they all do. They were dead money. They've lost the AI. Hold on a second. They all do different things, right? So Claude from Anthropic, it's a good coding assistant, right? Gemini works really well on this suite of products that we just described, right? ChatGPT was that first search experience, right?

10:54Now all of them are moving into images and video and all that sort of stuff. It's my view, and I'm not a technologist, that a lot of these are going to be commoditized, right, at the end of the day. So, you know, you can pick your horse right now, but pick the horse that is actually most useful to you and the things that you need it for, whether it's personal or whether it's for professional reasons. Does that make sense? I love, yes, because I love to use the horse analogy because I was actually going to reference Seabiscuit in the race against War Admiral when it came from behind. But then I realized I don't think you can reference Seabiscuit as if it's so common of a reference that people understand what you're saying.

11:28Well, that's why I didn't do it. OK, well, we just did a great comeback story, though. Can I just get back to the trade here on Google and Apple? I'm not sure you're chasing these things right here. OK, after a 50 percent move in Google and after I move in Apple that I'm very happy about, I'm not sure this is time to pile in. I don't think what I'm hearing on this desk is something suddenly changed on the fundamentals. And we all know the valuations are challenging. I think there are two stocks you can be long. And I think what we've established here is that these are two companies that are going to still be strategic and core in the AI space for a long time.

11:58But this has been one heck of a move. Well, let's stay exactly on that, because your first guest tonight says you've got to put money in the market, of course. But you don't just throw it against the wall of AI and hope that it sticks. You have to stay focused. Evan Brown is head of multi-asset strategy for UBS Asset Management. You've been very patient. You've been listening to this conversation. Where do we put money right now in AI, given what Tim and everybody here has just talked about? Good companies, but concern about valuation. And were you lost on the Seabiscuit reference? I was not lost on the Seabiscuit.

12:33Great movie. Then I stand corrected. You know what? One man doth not HR make. It's okay. No, look, I mean, I think what we're seeing right now is really encouraging in that it's not everyone throwing all this money at the wall. While we're seeing more discerning price action, we're seeing a little bit more like a decline in correlations between these names. And so for the market that's been talking about a bubble and this and that, I think what we're seeing is quite healthy. We've seen the hyperscalers, their correlation has gone from 80 percent three months ago down to 20 percent. Why? Because we're seeing some, you know, in the in the Gemini ecosystem that doing a little bit better.

13:16and you're seeing in the ChatGPT ecosystem a little bit worse. And so the market is becoming a little bit more discerning. So the idea being, and if I'm hearing you right for the folks in back, if everybody had just put a bunch of money into all six or seven of these companies, they made a fortune. They made a lot of money the last five years. There are better and more strategic and targeted ways to make money now than doing that. Yes. So I think, you know, what we've seen since ChatGPT was released is all these names have just, you know, shot higher, some underperforming, some outperforming. But overall, you know, if you own the index, that was that was enough.

13:56But now I think we're turning to an environment where there's there's more stock selection. This debate that you guys are having right here, I think, is an important one. And it's showing that there's going to be a lot more dispersion within these names. Evan, do we spend too much time talking about the Fed? Is it a bit of a sideshow now or is it as important as people like me make it out to be? I don't think it's that important right now. I think right now the main story is earnings. And, you know, everyone was focused on the Fed and sounding a little bit more hawkish. But in the meantime, we had a Q3 earnings season that just knocked the doors off once again.

14:32Look, I think the Fed will matter if the labor market deteriorates further. We are seeing it continue to cool. It's not unraveling yet. And so then we'll become a little bit more focused on the Fed. But over now, I think right now, I still think the story is just earnings and them remaining strong. So I want to go back to the AI thing. Right. So you just mentioned the term dispersion right in the public markets. But there's a pocket of risk that I don't think is properly appreciated. And that's like a name like OpenAI. Right. So you have this code red that you just talked about. Now, Sam Altman, when he puts out that memo, he knows it's going out to the world.

15:05So let's be really clear about that. His intentions, who know? But if you think about all of these private companies that are chasing after the same thing, which is AGI, right, there's probably a trillion dollars of worth. Where do they raise all that money? From VC. Where do they raise all that money? From pension funds and insurance funds. So my opinion, there's a pocket of risk that is not being appreciated. If you ever got real marks after a code red, after you see all the customers of OpenAI and all the interchangeable, if they get marked down, then a lot of those folks who have these investments in private markets, what do they have to sell?

15:37They sell the things that are liquid. Do you see something coming in 2026 where all of this circular investment and everyone else? Maybe you see air come out of the private markets, which causes some sort of, I don't know, some of that in the public markets. Yeah, I mean, I think there's pockets of excess in the private markets. There's also pockets of excess in the public markets as well. And we've seen that. And, you know, whether it's crypto or quantum, all these things coming down to earth. And so I think there are kind of public market proxies for excess and speculation. No doubt it's happening in private markets as well.

16:14And they're going to be winners and losers in this game. Evan, real quick, where's the consumer? Are you allocating and are you thinking about places in retail and discretionary, which there's argument on both sides of the fence here? Yeah, I mean, UBS just had a conference today on the consumer. And really what we're hearing is that the consumer is doing a lot better than what you're actually seeing in the macro data. This is what we're hearing from from companies. And so, you know, we still have this split between those better off and the low income consumer. But coming into next year, we'll have the tax rebates coming through.

16:48I think that'll support the long consumer. And I think also just the politics are shifting in a way that tariffs are probably going to be actually coming down. in that there's all this focus on affordability. We might see the effect of tariff rate actually coming down next year as opposed to going up. Evan Brown of UBS. Evan, really appreciate your views. Thank you very much. Very quickly, Guy, Evan talked about tariffs coming down. There is a chance if it's up to the Supreme Court, tariffs go away. And then, like Costco suing today, and we'll talk about it in a second with Eamon Javers, there might actually be a lot of money coming back to companies, which could pop EPS.

17:24Yes. Yes, the Supreme Court rules tariffs are legal. A lot could happen here. What does it mean? What does it do to inflation? What does it do to the broader market? There's a lot of unknowns. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. By the way, Evan Brown, who has now left the set, attended and graduated, oddly enough, Brown University. I mean, it's beautiful. It's the kind of stuff you learn here on Fast Money. I bet no one otherwise. Well, here's the other thing on the EPS front. I mean, Seabiscuit or Brown University. They filmed part of it at Brown. Let's bring it back. I thought the horse was brown, too.

17:59You know what? So this tax bill, you remember this BBB thing that was put through earlier in the year? I mean, that's going to be a huge, I think, tailwind, obviously, for EPS. So if you also have this issue with the, you know, I mean, listen, at the end of the day, politically, one of the best things that could happen for the Trump administration is the Supreme Court striking these things down and then seeing that tailwind from, obviously, the tariffs and the money coming back and then, obviously, you know, the benefit of the tax. Did you order the code red? The pro-Trump view from Dan Nathan will be here.

18:28Yeah, well, sorry. I was thinking about Colonel Jessup for a minute. That was tremendous. I was thinking about Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick. In the meantime, President Trump holding a cabinet meeting earlier today. Eamon Jaffers has the latest from the White House. Also talking all day about what we just talked about, Eamon. Of course, tariffs. Yeah, hey there, Brian. There was this, you know, burst of attention back on Sunday when President Trump told reporters that he decided on a Fed chair. And a lot of speculation that we could see that announcement coming this week.

18:57But in this cabinet meeting this afternoon, the president said even though he's down to just one name for Fed share, he won't name that official until early next year. So no announcement coming this week. And on a separate economic issue, the issue of affordability that's been motivating voters at the polls this fall, the president bristled when he was asked a question about whether the American people are getting impatient with high prices. Here's what he said. You talk about affordability. Is going forward, are the American people, do you believe, getting impatient with the reforms that you're making?

19:33They've talked about it's about. I think they're getting fake news from guys like you. Affordability is a hoax that was started by Democrats who caused the problem of pricing. So the president there dismissing the whole political issue of affordability as a hoax ginned up by Democrats who were to blame in the first place. He's taking a risk in doing that, of course, with midterms coming up next year and Democrats really building their campaigns on the idea of prices for just about everything in America are too high. In the end, voters are going to decide which party they trust the most to lower those prices.

20:09Brian, back over to you. All right, Eamon Javers at the White House. Eamon, you've had a long day. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. All right, folks, there is a lot going on right now. And coming up here on Fast Money, we're going to get results that are moving CrowdStrike, Marvell and more. Plus, all today's fast movers, the big Bitcoin bounce back, the surge in MongoDP and why Boeing suddenly, Tim, flying high again. Yes, right. All that when Fast Money returns.

20:43All right, welcome back. It is time now for an earnings alert. We've got one on CrowdStrike. Stock's not really moving much, down a touch. It posted top and bottom line beats. The CrowdStrike conference call kicking off at the top of the hour. Seema Modi here with more on the details. Seema. Hey, Brian. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz reinforcing this idea that the company is becoming a key enabler of securing AI with the right architecture and how that is driving enterprise adoption. There's two metrics that really illustrate this in the earnings report. Third quarter annual recurring revenue and subscription sales, both beating estimates with its fourth quarter guide coming in higher than analyst consensus.

21:19I guess the question now is how much of this growth story is priced in, which shares up about 130 percent from that August 2024 low, outpacing its peers in the cybersecurity space. Wall Street remains bullish with 27 buys. Wells Fargo has a$550 price target. And analysts there, they remain focused on how CrowdStrike plans to make security fully autonomous and how its acquisition of Pangea, which secures AI agents, is being integrated across the entire stack. That's a big question going forward, Brian. Seema Modi, Seema, thank you very much. Dan Nathan, CrowdStrike, stock's not moving right now.

21:55I know it's very, very early. Thoughts macro CrowdStrike? Yeah, I mean, this is something, and we've talked about this name going back to two summers ago when they had that huge leak. Or what was it, Guy? What was that thing? It was a hack, not a leak. You can see how you get those mixed up. But again, this is a company that is always traded at a multiple and, you know, one that's kind of uncomfortable. So you better believe, I guess, in the fact that we're going to keep getting hacked one way or another. And it just seems like a space where folks come back to because of the demand across so many different industries.

22:24So to me, the fact that it's not moving, I think it was an 8 % implied move in either direction, is pretty fascinating. I think buy-side expectations on this were pretty reasonable going into this. And therefore, you could have set up for a disappointment. You could also have been picking on the valuation for the last five years in this name and trading at 20 times sales. It's something that I think the growth rate is sustainable. I think as we talk about the different pockets of where people are spending and aren't going to stop spending, this is one of them. It is amazing to me, though, that you had one of the biggest hacks of all time happen to CrowdStrike.

22:59I mean, it literally shut down airlines. Yeah. And it mattered for a day. Well, no longer than a day. But I'm being a little facetious. You get my point. They were in the penalty box for quite some time. But then you come to the realization that, wait, this is a pretty remarkable SaaS business. And look at the revenue growth chart. I don't know if our crack staff can put it up, but it's a thing of beauty. And now you're talking about 22 % revenue growth year over year. And, yeah, the valuation is ridiculous. But, you know, this is one in the space probably behind Palo Alto. But I think you stay with the name.