Apple Ripe For A Rebound… And An Economic Outlook Ahead of CPI Data 8/8/25

0:02Live from the Nasdaq market site in the heart of New York City's Times Square this is fast money. Here's what's on tap tonight. Apple's big week. The iPhone maker continuing its run with another 4 % gain today and powering the Nasdaq to a new record. Is Apple heading to all-time highs itself? And will it bring the rest of big tech with it? And Magical Madrigal, the company, pharma company, serving 14 % this week on the back of earnings and strong demand for its first commercial product. We'll talk to the CEO about the outlook and what's next for this biotech. Plus, gold shines hitting an all-time high.

0:33The trade desk sees second 30-plus percent drop in just this year. And out of the ether, the second biggest crypto clawing back above the 4 ,000 mark. We dive into the move and the other names riding the coattails. I'm Melissa Lee. Coming to you live from the studio, we'll be at the NASDAQ. On the desk tonight, Bono and Eisen, Carter Wirth, Tim Seymour, and Mike Coe. And we start off with a seemingly unstoppable Apple. The iPhone maker has now gained 13 percent in the last three days and just put together its best week since July of 2020. Since News Wednesday, it was investing more in the U.S.

1:04and avoiding tariffs on its India manufactured products. It has gained$410 billion in market cap. Today's move finally gets it back above its Liberation Day close, now trading nearly five-month highs. The move in Apple helping power the Nasdaq to a record close. The S &P and Dow also both sharply higher today. But even with recent gains, Apple is still down more than 8 % this year, behind only Tesla as the worst-performing MAG7 stock this year. And it remains nearly 12 % below its all-time high hit just after Christmas. So has Apple really gotten its mojo back? Bonwin, what do you say? Part of it.

1:40Part of it. I mean, it's like, what is that movie, Goldmember, where the guy lost his mojo? So I think they do in terms of them actually kind of meeting and exceeding expectations in terms of service revenue, in terms of like iPhone in China. I think there were some positives there. I do think the overhang here is what is their AI strategy? And until we have a question, until we have that question answered, I think it's tough to really say that they truly do have their mojo back. And certainly in terms of them being a tech leadership and taking us to a new all time high. So I think there's still a bit of a challenge there.

2:16I do think a lot of the overhang, though, whether it's China iPhone cells, whether it's the tariff related things, I do think I mean, 100 billion dollars is a lot to ingratiate yourself, ingratiate yourself to this administration. So I do think it's a step in the right direction. But I think it's a bit early to say that they're fully out of the woods yet and definitely a reach to say that they've now reestablished themselves amongst the leaders in the Max 7. It's not nothing to say that the tariff overhang and the China overhang, though, are at least temporarily put to the side. Mike? I mean, those were two huge facets of the bear case for Apple in addition to AI, which, of course, is the one outstanding issue here.

2:53Well, I think it's one of the outstanding issues. I think valuation could arguably be another part of the issue. I mean, look, we're looking at a company that's trading around 31 times. So it's a couple turns richer than the S &P, 9 % or so adjusted EPS growth year on year. That's pretty solid, better than 3 % free cash flow yield and growing. That's also pretty solid. But then take a look at it relative to the S &P overall, and you're looking at numbers that are probably 12%, at least what it looks like year on year. So on a relative basis, it's hard for me to get super excited about it. I will say one quick thing about it, though, and that is that, you know, Apple has a very sticky business.

3:31It's hard to get people who are basically in the Apple ecosystem to migrate away from it. And I think that that moat does deserve a little bit of a premium. I mean, I think you highlighted, Melissa, by pointing out that, yes, it's a big week, but of course, the stock is still one of the worst performers among its key super cap brethren. And so it's both the good news and the bad news to be up 13, 14 percent in the week. It's been very much a catch up trade. But we know also that Apple's relative performance to the S &P 500 tech sector were coming up on the three year anniversary of the peak. That was September of 2022.

4:07And the question is, can Apple ever make a new relative high when you have things like NVIDIA and Palantir and other very prominent names that are driving the performance of that sector? Apple is a lower beta stock. It's a more defensive stock. And it is of late a non-participating stock. So my hunch is to fade this move. It's a big move, and it doesn't change the facts. Yeah. Tim, how do you feel about Apple today versus three days ago? Well, you know, we had a spirited debate last night and my argument was there's no AI priced into Apple and I still feel that. And I think if you think about Apple relative to itself, Apple traded at 34 times before there really was AI mania in markets.

4:55If you look at the rest of the tech sector, albeit some that have exposure to AI for sure, But but you know whether you're talking about Google or Meta or Amazon or other members of the Mag seven. The fact of the matter is that Apple as Carter said it underperformed even those stocks. I think in a world where even you're moving sideways and you can make an argument that Apple either way if the market is rallying Apple needs to go there. The irony is that of course Apple this week is the reason why the Nasdaq made a new relative high on its own to the S &P. So he's right. Apple's done nothing. It's it may not ever make another relative high.

5:30but I like it more than I like it three days ago. Tim Cook gave a masterclass on how to handle geopolitics. This is a stock that last, this was a fantastic quarter. Okay, pull forward. A lot of people had pull forwards, but the reality is that iPhone and a refresh cycle is something that at least is continuing onward and it's not necessarily because of AI. I like Apple. I like it because it has underperformed. It's a stock that's been dead money for three years and I do sleep well with the stock. So I think there's a lot of reasons to feel good about the momentum that's now in this stock and the fact that, as you said, some of the uncertainty.

6:05China is the reason why Apple has lagged for the last six months. To me, it's not lack of AI. It's China. And I think this is very good news. Yeah. I mean, the AI point is interesting because you could either be glass half full or glass half empty. I mean, Tim is glass half full on it, obviously. There's no AI price in the stock. Or you can think Apple is so behind in AI that it's going to be very difficult for it to catch up, Bonoan, here, and it's ceding some share to others. You know, I don't want to look at this just through this very narrow lens. I think you need to hearken back to, let's think about like Meta's performance, what is it, three years ago, where they were absolutely slammed for their CapEx spend, and it wasn't justified.

6:43And so I do want to give Apple some credit because they've kind of held true and waited until this was like a proven technology that supports the investment dollars. And so if you aggregate all of the CapEx spin that's been tailored towards AI from the hyperscalers from 2022 to current, I can make the argument that Apple could spend that same amount of money and essentially break even and have lesser downside risk because it's much more of a proven technology. So I'm not willing to throw in the towel here because I do think they've essentially backed themselves into a corner where they have to make some type of acquisition and aren't going to be able to rely on organic growth.

7:24If they are reluctant to make that move, well, then clearly I will have to reevaluate my position. All right. One of Street's most bullish Apple analysts out with a new note today, suggesting it's a make or break moment for the stock and it all comes down to AI. Let's bring in Dan Ives, Wedbush's global head of technology research. Dan, great to see you. Great to see your outfit, too. It's always fun to see what you're wearing. Thank you. It's interesting that you come out with this note and you say, is this going to be, is there a BlackBerry moment waiting for Apple, which really implies the worst situation for a tech stock.

7:55After a massive rally here, this doesn't alleviate any of those concerns. Look, I think the biggest, look, there was a huge concern on tariff, playing nice in the sandbox with Trump. That clearly has alleviated that in terms of the India, the China tariffs. And you've seen the stock lift from it. And it was way oversold. But the elephant in the room, it's this AI revolution, this strategy right now, it's essentially invisible for Apple. And you think about everything that we see in big tech across the board, it's an F1 race passing them by. And Apple is essentially in Cook on a park bench drinking lemonade.

8:30So our view is whether it's perplexity, doubling down on Google despite DOJ and other antitrust issues, bringing new management in under Cook. Look, they got to do something because time ultimately, we're talking about three to six months that they have to make a big move. If they stay on the treadmill, and I think that it does cap some of the upside. One of the things is you say do the perplexity acquisition. Can they get there effectively having some sort of AI search available on its iPhones, on its devices without making acquisition? No. I mean, I just continue. There's a better chance of me playing in Ryder Cup in September.

9:11than Apple innovating internally on AI. I think there's 100 % chance that that is not happening internally. So then it comes down to a company that has never acquired, beats$3 billion, biggest acquisition. You got to rip the bandit off. In other words, now is the change, because I can tell you from talking to developers, everything we see in the ecosystem, it has to be acquisitions. And it can't be small deals, undisclosed. Two years from now, we're still waiting for this. You have the biggest install base in the world. You have 1.5 billion iPhones. This is the time. And look, and I continue to think, I think Cook should be CEO.

9:47We believe he's been a Hall of Fame CEO and should continue to be. But it will tarnish his legacy and the Apple future if they miss out on the fourth industrial revolution that's right in front of us. Tim has a question. Dan, looking sharp as usual. The question for you is, are we too focused at the multiple here? Have investors been too focused for the last six to nine months? As you said, there should be urgency to where they sit. But the rest of the sector multiples don't really seem to matter. Is this a problem? Well, Tim, to me, it's really about they're missing AI. So when it comes to Palantir and Microsoft, Godfather, Edge, and NVIDIA, you could continue to look at the growth next two, three years because we're talking about trillions that's going to be spent in the next three years.

10:33Apple is nowhere when it comes to AI. That's why the multiple is going to continue to be under focus because you don't have that that's now playing out. And I think when we were at WWDC and Cupertino, you left there thinking like, okay, was I just in back to the future? Because that fundamentally is the problem right now for Apple. I mean, money flow is everything, right? And so all the negatives that you highlight, institutions are well aware of. It's why it's not as widely held a stock anymore, whereas it's still the most widely held stock in the retail complex. What do you think will make the retail constituent ultimately abandon it, where most of them have it for three or four years, the cost base is so low, they don't want to take the tax.

11:12But what would get the retail, the individual, to back away from their beloved Apple? Look, if we go through, like I said, the next six months, nine months, if we're sitting here at the end of the year and they haven't done acquisition and AI is nowhere and we're talking about iPhone 17, okay, we add a color that's orange instead of red and it's not moving the needle, that's where you start to get nervous because it's my view like tech stocks are going to be up another 20 25 percent you don't want to miss that and but it's ai driven the ai party you do not want to look at that from the outside through the windows yeah i'm looking sharp so you mentioned three strategies either uh somewhat of an internal cultural shift where they make higher exogenous hires in and innovate that way doubling down on gemini or the perplex perplex perplexity or another acquisition.

12:03Can you kind of rank those in terms of what's most likely to move the needle and what's going to have the greatest impact? Perplexity is number one, I think, by a mile, because that's one look, even if it's 18, 19 billion in terms of last valuation, they spend 35 billion. There'll be a drop in the bucket relative. So perplexity continues to be one where right away you'd go from if you think zero to 60, you now would be in the race relative to that technology if you integrate into the ecosystem. Google clearly, even though I think they should double down, that's by antitrust, that will obviously take longer in terms of the partnership and ultimately how that's going to play out.

12:41And then in terms of the internal management, look, you've got to bring in new blood. I mean, it's clear this is not a management team that's innovating and they're losing talent. And I think that's why, as someone who's been so bullish on the name for a decade and still very positive on the name, now is the time. Clock struck midnight, rip the bandaid off, do something. At what point do you reevaluate your valuation or your rating on the stock? If it turns out that there isn't a clear AI strategy in three to six months and it becomes a company that has a huge install base, people aren't leaving, but there's no catalyst for a super cycle per se.

13:19and presumably, you know, the value of that install base becomes less and less because you risk that install base just migrating elsewhere. Sure, and just not monetizing it. I think that's the biggest problem. When you look at all these hyperscalers from Microsoft to Google, it's monetization. Look, that's the thing. If you go through the next three to six months and it feels you're on the treadmill at 2.5 speed at Apple, you get nervous because it's hard to pound the table as that goes through. So you're saying to Tim Cook, basically, he's on the clock when it comes to your rating. We've talked about him on the clock.

13:57This is the time to do deals. This is not the time to do some grandstanding and wait till next year. You have the biggest tech industrial revolution that we've ever seen. You cannot have Apple, the biggest install base in the world, looking at it from the outside, looking in. You have wartime CEOs across the board, Musk, Zuckerberg, everything that Dell is doing, of course, the godfather of A.I. Jenton. Cook can't just be sitting there on a park bench drinking lemonade, watching this F1 race go through. Dan, great to see you. Thank you very much. Thanks so much. Dan Ives of Wedbush. Mike, what do you think?

14:31Do you think Apple is on the clock? How long would you give it? Well, as far as the retail investor base is concerned, I think one of the things that tends to attract them is they buy the things that they know and that they interact with all the time. And until you start seeing that installed base decline so that they're not carrying the iPhones around, they're not interacting with CarPlay and things like that, I think they're still going to continue to hold on to the stock. So I don't know that many of those holders are necessarily, you know, biding their time waiting for the AI story. However, it is really important for them to take that on because, you know, this is how people interact with devices now.

15:10And if somebody else actually starts making real headway, that's when you start getting a device pivot. So, you know, BlackBerry had better functionality than Apple did in its time. And I think that's essentially what Dan's alluding to here. Yeah. Tim, in terms of China, it's interesting because it looks like the China problem has been put to bed, or at least for now. But at the same time, in China, the competition is much fiercer when it comes to an AI-enabled device. And so the market share that Apple has there is much, much more vulnerable than here in the U.S. Well, and the market share, even before we kicked into high-gear AI and high-gear geopolitics, was already rapidly eroding.

15:54And so I think China is going to continue to be a place where Apple is going to struggle, at least relative to where they were. But I get back to that. This is a company that they're not a hardware company anymore. And so that two point three billion installed base, I like the the metaphor is great. And I got a nice visual of Tim on a sunny park bench sipping some lemonade. But I think with two point three billion installed base, especially when apps going forward are going to be AI interactive and Apple is going to be there for that. I don't know who else is going to be there in that kind of size.

16:26So, yes, urgency. Why not? There should be. And perplexity would be well worth the investment in terms of the market cap move. It would probably do that five times, I'm sure, what they'd have to pay. So I'd like to see that. But I'm not concerned that Apple can't be delivering. And again, WWDC has been all more, at least, about showing where they really, truly can be engaging those apps that are going to be AI-driven. And they haven't had that yet. And that's something that I think will be a pretty exciting moment. It's really in the mood for lemonade now. I mean, it really sounds delicious and cold and refreshing.

17:02But let's get to Ethereum. Ethereum crossing back above the$4 ,000 mark today. It's highest level since December. It's up 15 % this week. The rally pushing BitMine Immersion Technologies Company, the world's largest Ethereum holder, up 62 % this week. It's up more than 1 ,100 % since Fundstrat's Tom Lee became chair. Sharplink Gaming, an Ethereum treasury company, also seeing strength up nearly 40 % this week. Of course, the bull case for Ethereum is it's what stable coins run on. It's going to be the next, you know, holding of a like a, you know, like months, like a micro strategy was before you have all these new Ethereum treasury companies.

17:44Yeah, I mean, I think, listen, there has to be a second player. And we talked about NVIDIA versus AMD. We've talked about Nova and Lilly. It's not necessarily where it's just a one-man race. And I know that there have been a lot of popular opinions that it's Bitcoin and then everybody else. But I do think there is some interesting technology there, particularly with the new governmental support around stable coins. So I do think for those retail investors, as we've been speaking about, that are chasing some additional beta and perhaps feel like, OK, Bitcoin's run a bit too far. I'm not sure if I really want to allocate$118 ,000 or wherever it is currently at spot to that.

18:21This may be the next best alternative. And I think that sets up at least the risk reward seems a lot more imbalanced than trading down to a doge or some other type of mean coin. I mean, it's a catch-up trade of nothing else, right? You get a six-year relative low to Bitcoin and right to a prior low to the penny and bounced aggressively. The presumption is after backing off 15 % two weeks ago and now reasserting itself, it can break out from this range and continue higher. All right. Coming up, an ad tech wreck. The trade desk diving nearly 40 % after earnings. What Amazon has to do with the drop and who else is getting caught up in the move.

18:56That's next. And more than a glimmer of hope for gold, the precious metal hitting a record high. The chart master says the run isn't over yet. More Fast Money right after this.

19:08This is Fast Money with Melissa Lee. Right here on CNBC.

19:23Welcome back to Fast Money. Shares of the trade desk, a big buzzkill in today's otherwise strong market. The ad tech stocks tanking nearly 39 percent, notching its worst day on record despite better than expected results. Analysts flagging concerns over increased competition from Amazon specifically in the digital ad space. Pinterest and Snap also under pressure. Both companies also seeing a more competitive advertising landscape. What was also concerning specifically about the trade desk is not only is it its second 30 plus percent drop just this year on the back of earnings, but management said explicitly Amazon is not a competitor when every single analyst on the street said Amazon is a competitor, which seems a little tone deaf here.

20:05Mike, what do you make of the trade desk or these ad stocks? Well, you know, it's people aren't too enthusiastic. This thing saw massive volumes, I have to say, on the option side, more than 700 ,000 contracts traded in this. And, you know, I mean, it also has a pretty big short interest at this point. It's going to be a pretty woolly ride. I think that much is clear. And I am a little bit concerned as far as Alphabet is concerned. That was one of the names I kind of liked. I thought it was a little beaten up at the beginning of the year. But, you know, I think this is kind of a reflection of just how much the landscape is changing for basically, you know, online ad sales at this point.

20:47And I think that these guys are obviously being hurt by it, but I'm a little bit concerned about Alphabet 2. I think I'm more concerned about the tone deafness that you mentioned than I am the price drop. Because, again, we've seen similar types of moves. It's a higher beta name. It trades at a higher valuation. So that isn't what completely shocks me. it's perhaps management's failure to really understand the competitive landscape. I juxtapose this with what we're seeing from Meta in terms of how they're using AI to, like, really streamline and target their ad. And I wonder if there's a situation where the air is essentially being sucked out of the room by them.

21:23You mentioned Pinterest as well, which also has an AI angle, and they've mentioned some weakness coming out of China. You worry about the de minimis loophole being closed. So, you know, I'd probably, you know, put in place Karen's three-day rule here and wait. But I do think given the volatility and given where they are in terms of their offering, like the one dashboard that kind of allows you to parcel out what your ad spend is going to be, I do think you will find an attractive entry point. I just don't think it's one that you want to rush in yet. There are a lot of price target increases on Pinterest despite the drop in the stock today, which I thought was kind of interesting.

21:58I mean, so whether it's a three or six, there's no real rule to that, so to speak. but it's never good technique to buy something that has just dropped in gap for a reason. And the reason was something to do with the fundamentals, right? And so it's not just this. It's traditional advertising in a public group. It's WPP in London. It's Omnicom. They're all under a lot of pressure. And generally speaking, the idiom from the English language is let the dust settle. Whether there's a four-day settling in the dust or ten days, it's stand aside, wait until things will look clearer, and then make a judgment.

22:30All right. There's a lot more Fast Findity to come. Here's what's coming up next.

23:02Right after this.

23:09Welcome back to Fast Money. Gold hitting a fresh all-time high today, posting its 26th record settle this year, ending the day just under$3 ,500. The precious metal now up more than 32 % this year. The miners climbing even higher of the GDX ETF surging more than 70 % in 2025. And the chart master is hitting the technicals on the metals next move. So what did you see, Carter? Well, really, they change places all the time, right? For quite some time, gold was leading and the miners were lagging because there's a lot of doubt. And then, of course, they flipped. And you can see the comparative chart here.