In short
Fast Money episode covers: (1) software earnings season positioning after recent selloffs in ServiceNow, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Adobe; (2) Danaher’s plunge after earnings, with implications for life-sciences equipment/bioprocessing; (3) Intel’s rally ahead of earnings after job cuts and a foundry customer announcement; (4) Bitcoin and crypto exchange stocks via options flows and chart levels; (5) Philip Morris technical setup ahead of earnings; plus (6) France’s ban on social media for kids under 15 and a CNBC survey on middle-class financial stress.
Guests/hosts
Melissa Lee (host) with desk analysts Carter Braxton-Wirth, Steve Grassov, Dan Nathan, Guy Adami, plus reporter Oliver Rennick (crypto options segment), and reporter Christina Parts Nevelis (Intel segment), and Julia Boorstin (France social media ban segment), and analyst Jared Holz-Mizuho (Danaher segment).
Key claims/examples
software pain tied to IBM’s warning about shifting spend to hardware; ServiceNow “buy now” if it endorses consensus; CRM downgrade reflects agentic AI execution risk; Danaher weakness points to delayed bioprocessing acceleration (equipment strong); Repligen flagged as a potential beneficiary; Intel foundry deal with Fortinet lacks disclosed financial impact; Bitcoin options show call-heavy positioning; Philip Morris breakout above ~210-212 cited.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOSoftware Earnings in Focus
0:39 to 0:55
Discuss the upcoming earnings in the software sector and market reactions.
“With Pretty Litter, the odor-neutralizing, long-lasting, health-indicating kitty litter, that's simply the most luxurious way to bury my poopies and my peepees.”
Software Earnings in Focus
1:44 to 2:55
Discuss the upcoming earnings in the software sector and market reactions.
“in the software trade as that segment of the tech sector gets ready to report earnings.”
Software Sector Concerns
3:05 to 4:12
Analyze the challenges facing major software companies and their market performance.
“I mean, what IBM said last week about customers shifting their spending away from software and toward hardware, that just sort of underscores all of the fears surrounding the software sector for a very long time.”
Sentiment in the SaaS Market
4:18 to 7:09
Explore the current sentiment and expectations for SaaS companies like Salesforce and ServiceNow.
“I mean, specifically for CRM, it's it's their investing in this new business.”
Market Churn and Volatility
7:10 to 9:16
Examine the recent market behavior and its implications for the tech sector.
“I think it was last quarter, they announced a$50 billion stock buyback.”
Alphabet and Cloud Opportunities
9:27 to 11:15
Discuss Alphabet's upcoming earnings and its position in the cloud market.
“And so to the extent that they spend on CapEx, maybe that detracts from the software train because the thinking is you spend on hardware and then, you know, you're not spending on other things.”
Bitcoin's Market Movement
11:18 to 14:00
Analyze Bitcoin's recent price changes and the sentiment around crypto investments.
“The crypto has gained almost 13 % already this month.”
The Impact of Clarity Act on Digital Assets
14:00 to 17:40
Learn how regulatory clarity is influencing the digital asset market and related equities.
“Clarity Act is what made it made the whole space jump to they need just that clarity.”
Robinhood and Market Recovery
17:40 to 19:26
Understand the potential of Robinhood and other trading platforms in the current market conditions.
“Some major announcements had shares surging today.”
Intel's Strategic Moves and Short-Term Impact
19:36 to 24:16
Explore Intel's recent job cuts and partnership announcements ahead of earnings.
“and said it locked in a marquee customer for its foundry services.”
Show all 20 chapters
Social Media Legislation in France
24:16 to 28:00
Examine France's new social media laws aimed at protecting children and their implications.
“She's like, you know, we're just collaborating.”
Lawsuits and Social Media Addiction
28:00 to 30:40
Explore the rising wave of lawsuits targeting social media addiction and design.
“It's not about the content shared on them.”
Transition to Market Updates
30:40 to 31:00
Discussion transitions to stock market updates and key earnings.
“Danner, under the knife, the earnings headlines that triggered the stock's worst day in 25 years and how Mizzou host Jared Holtz is digesting the MedTech move straight ahead.”
Earnings Reports and Stock Reactions
31:00 to 36:20
Analysis of recent earnings reports and how they've impacted stocks.
“Stock snapping a three-day losing streak.”
Danaher and the MedTech Sector
36:20 to 42:00
In-depth discussion on Danaher's earnings and implications for the MedTech sector.
“Was Danaher, and of course, Stephen and Mitchell Rails.”
Introduction to Economic Pressures
42:00 to 42:30
Discussing the growing financial pressures faced by Americans today.
“Completely unrelated to our previous conversation.”
Survey Findings on Financial Strain
42:30 to 44:08
Exploring the results of a survey indicating increasing financial strain among the middle class.
“A new CNBC survey shows growing pressures on the middle class as more Americans are starting to live paycheck to paycheck.”
Discussion on Economic Indicators
44:08 to 44:58
Analyzing economic indicators and their implications for the consumer and economy.
“I mean, this is just eye-opening because the headline numbers on all the economic reports indicate a pretty good economy.”
The Impact of Interest Rates
44:58 to 45:37
Debating the effects of interest rates on consumers and the economy.
“If you raise rates, that pushes them over the cliff.”
Final Trades and Celebrations
45:37 to 46:22
Concluding thoughts and final trading recommendations, along with a birthday shoutout.
“Carter, Braxton, Worth or Worth charting?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00At Edward Jones, we believe rich isn't about having life all figured out. It's opening yourself to all the possibilities. That's why your dedicated financial advisor provides long-term planning built around you, meeting you where you are, and helping you get closer to where you want to be. So no matter where you're starting from, you can move forward with confidence. The key to being rich is knowing what counts.
0:25Melissa Lee:Let's find your rich. Edward Jones, member SIPC. For moi? Claude, you can talk? I've always had the gift of gab, Nancy. But now you can understand. With Pretty Litter, the odor-neutralizing, long-lasting, health-indicating kitty litter, that's simply the most luxurious way to bury my poopies and my peepees. Pretty Litter was developed with veterinarians. It helps me monitor potential health problems just by changing color. Go to prettylitter.com today. Pretty Litter. Not just a pretty litter. Live from the Nasdaq markets, I'd been in the heart of New York City's Times Square. This is Fast Money.
1:06Here's what's on tap tonight. Software in the crosshairs. Some of the biggest names in the space under pressure as earnings season is about to kick off. What we should expect to hear in these reports and what it says about investments in the space. And a Danaher drop shares of the medical device maker seeing their worst day in 25 years. The reason for the plunge and what is in store for the stock right now. Plus, Intel gets back in rally mode. what options traders are saying about the bounce in Bitcoin and time to buy Philip Morris. The chart master is getting bullish on the tobacco trade, what he is seeing in the technicals right now.
1:36I'm Melissa Lee. Come to you live from Studio B at the NASDAQ. On the desk tonight, Carter Braxton Wirth, Steve Grassov, Dan Nathan and Guy Adami. We start off with the latest bugs in the software trade as that segment of the tech sector gets ready to report earnings. Service now kicks things off tomorrow, down 2.5 percent today, having lost a third of its value already this year. IBM also out tomorrow. It hasn't recouped any of its losses since its warning last week. And Microsoft reports next Wednesday it's the worst performing stock in the Mag 7 so far this year. Elsewhere in the space, Salesforce and Adobe down today after Morgan Stanley cut its ratings on both stocks.
2:11Analysts are citing execution risk and slow organic growth in their agentic AI efforts. And take a look at Oracle. Shares rebounding today after hitting more than two-year lows yesterday, but credit risk also on the rise. Five-year CDS spreads, lowest, excuse me, widest since the financial crisis. So can this quarter's earnings results relieve any pressure on the space, or is there even more pain to come? Guy, what do you say?
2:35Melissa Lee:I hope so, because obviously the pain has been felt if you're a shareholder. And there's been, I mean, today you mentioned Oracle bounce. It's a pretty meaningless bounce in the context of what's going on, but at least it did bounce. And I think earnings is the key to this. More important than the earnings, I think, is going to be some of the dialogue in the aftermath of earnings, what the guidance is, and to the extent that they have any visibility whatsoever, what that is. And more importantly than all those things, what's the spend going to look like and what the balance sheet looks like? And do they need to sort of tap in to the debt markets, which is obviously a concern for a lot of people trading these names.
3:05I mean, what IBM said last week about customers shifting their spending away from software and toward hardware, that just sort of underscores all of the fears surrounding the software sector for a very long time.
3:16Melissa Lee:Yeah, and a lot of these SaaS names got really hit hard, right, with that IBM print. And, you know, it was kind of a shoot first, ask questions later. And I don't think that's something that software investors are not too unfamiliar with. If you just look at, like, ServiceNow, for instance, down 60 % from those all-time highs made about a year and a half ago. I look at the numbers here and I look at the expectations, let's say, in the ServiceNow. You know, the opposite market is pricing about a 10 % move in either direction. And right now, you know, consensus is calling for 19 % earnings growth, about 22 % sales growth.
3:44Melissa Lee:but this company has 79 % gross margins. And so I just say to myself, if this company is able to kind of come in line and kind of just endorse consensus, I can't see how these stocks are going down. Now, I think, you know, obviously the narrative is going to be really important. You know, the CRM downgrade for Morgan Stanley, I think kind of spells it all out for all intents and purposes. It's like the company is growing that agent force off a low base and it's growing kind of fast. But I think the term they use hasn't really inflected yet, right? And how much time do they have to kind of get that right?
4:13Melissa Lee:So to me, I think the service now is a great one to get this early in the cycle. I mean, specifically for CRM, it's it's their investing in this new business. So they're trying to disrupt themselves. It's not happening fast enough. In the meantime, their old legacy businesses are still a huge drag. And so it's it's sort of not enough to sort of offset. Yeah. When you look at service, when you look at service now, that's a different standpoint, not the growth rate. They also have a buyback. They also have free cash flow margins, 40 to 50 percent. We haven't heard of that in any name recently, have we?
4:45Melissa Lee:And then when you look at CRM, it's different. Competition is rising. Growth is slowing. So you have a totally different. And they're more of a billboard where ServiceNow is the brain. So I look at them in different ways. Microsoft is treated like a utility, but the price sucks. Price action is terrible. When you look at it, though, it's traded lower year to date than most of its counterparts. But when you look at it against a CRM or a ServiceNow, it looks excellent. Right. So you have to judge these things. But I think that the damage has been done in ServiceNow. I think they're actually a buy now.
5:22Carter Braxtonworth, what do you see in the software space?
5:26Guy Adami:Well, in principle, let's talk about the two that we're talking about. They are just in established downtrends and CRM. And Microsoft's a little different, more defensive. But I don't think one of these is interesting. not service, not Salesforce, not Microsoft. I would just resist the temptation to think it's over or it's cheap. A lot of times after a great run up and then an equally great wipeout, which is the circumstance at hand for these names, you get to a dull period where you just become a pair of twos. And guess what? That's not a very good hand. So a pair of twos. Dan, you just said that they look pretty good to you.
6:05Melissa Lee:No, I mean, they're possibly bonding me out. I'm I'm talking more about the potential for the fundamentals to kind of, you know, get so bad that maybe that just kind of discounts a little bit of where these stocks are. And I just think the sentiment is really poor. And, you know, when you look at the sales force, for instance, I mean, you're finally getting around to downgrading that stock. Right. And you're lowering that price target by 35 percent. And, you know, the writing's been on the wall for fundamentals. I mean, Mark Benioff comes on, you know, CNBC after every quarter. And he talks a great game about how they've been positioning themselves to kind of take care of this agentic sort of new, I guess, world order.
6:38Melissa Lee:but they haven't been demonstrating it at all. So I just look at what's going on there, and I say to myself, okay, at some point they might get it right, but to your point about disrupting themselves, that might be a really, really difficult process. The last thing I'll just say about all these SaaS names, and you keep hearing about this, where the agents are going to have their most impact in the near term is going to be in small, medium business, right, and especially new businesses, that sort of thing. But the switching costs for a lot of big companies to kind of rip out ServiceNow and Salesforce, it's big right now.
7:06Melissa Lee:And so, like, at the end of the day, these companies are probably going to keep these numbers around for long enough, but investors are going to continue to discount it, I guess. I think it was last quarter, they announced a$50 billion stock buyback. For them, it's significant. It was probably a third of the market cap at the time. And I thought, incorrectly in retrospect, that the stock would bounce significantly on that. And it did for a couple days, but we're actually lower now than when that announcement was. And, you know, if you want to go back and look for support, and I'm not saying it's going to get there.
7:34Melissa Lee:I mean, valuation, you can make a very compelling case, but that's never a timing mechanism. It's got to go all the way back to, I think, December of 2022, when this was like a$125 stock. And that's the ultimate low of this thing. And I got to tell you something. If they say things that are going to disappoint or they give any a hint of weak guidance, I mean, that's where we're headed, Mel. They announced the stock buyback then, Guy? Last quarter? It'll be interesting to see how much stock they actually bought during the quarter. And if they bought not much, that may speak volumes in and of itself.
8:05Melissa Lee:I just think when you look at the tech space, it's like you're moving deck chairs around, right? So you have the semis and then the semis ran. Then you have this software. You sold them off. So I think people are just rotating in and out. Now it's software's time. It's plain and simple. I mean, it's been a churn. And Carter, you point this out in your note today. It's been a churn for the past eight weeks. We've basically gone nowhere, despite all the volatility that we see day to day.
8:35Guy Adami:I mean, that's exactly right. But what's important is what was the precursor to the churn, right, which was a very aggressive move off of the sort of Iran-U.S. initial sell-off, right? The markets dropped 10 percent right to the end of the quarter, March 30. And then April and May were straight up, right? S &P up 20, Nasdaq up 30. And then now this very tight range-bound trading, which is perfectly normative, right, as you can call it consolidation. But what is not known, and sometimes you get tells, but there are no tells here, how it then gets resolved. We've been dead flat eight weeks after the huge move of the preceding two months.
9:16Guy Adami:And it will be earnings likely that resolves this standoff. And it's as much a 50-50 jump ball coin toss as I think one will see. Very rare. Yeah, we haven't mentioned, I mean, we're talking about software, but obviously Alphabet reports tomorrow. And so to the extent that they spend on CapEx, maybe that detracts from the software train because the thinking is you spend on hardware and then, you know, you're not spending on other things.
9:41Melissa Lee:Yeah, I think the thing we spend a lot of time talking about YouTube, we talk about their search business, we talk about TPUs, we talk about GCP, right? And Gemini is obviously a big part of that. That's going to be the secret sauce going forward. But when you think about how Google might distribute, I guess, Gemini across its kind of suite of like productivity tools and the like, that's the thing that is probably going to be coming at Microsoft to some degree, because the integration that you have across that whole vertical stack is something that I think investors kind of got around to definitely mid last year when Google started selling their TPUs and probably earlier than that, you know, to some of their competitors and the like.
10:14Melissa Lee:And so I just think of Google as probably continually the best name to kind of play this. You know, Microsoft's probably the worst name. Meta's probably the second to worst, you know, that sort of thing. Amazon, to me, I just don't like really throw it in there. But I think Google's opportunity to monetize their investments is probably the best out of all the major hyperscalers. Yeah. Do you like Microsoft here? I want to. I mean, there are a lot of reasons to like Microsoft. It's probably as cheap as it's been in a decade, if not longer than that. I mean, that's not a reason to buy something either.
10:43Melissa Lee:But get any inflection in terms of Microsoft, in terms of their cloud. And, yeah, I think it has at least a 15 % to 20 % move over the course of a couple days. The problem is, I mean, this stock has been a non-performer now going on almost a year. I think it was the fall last year when it made its all-time high. Yeah, I mean, I think you just have to look for cloud growth. Everyone's been throwing this one out. But when you look at it on a chart, Carter could read it on it back to April 2025. So we're not talking that long. But it's bounced from these levels. historically pretty consistently. And it's off the lows, but it should move higher from here.
11:17All right. Let's get to Bitcoin now, bouncing back above$66 ,000 today. The crypto has gained almost 13 % already this month. And the move is options traders betting more gains are ahead. Oliver Rennick is at the SIBO in Chicago with more. Oliver.
11:31Melissa Lee:Hey, Melissa, it's been a brutal year for crypto. Bitcoin lagging stocks by the widest margin in seven years. But hope springs eternal if you put credence in options flows around crypto related stocks. We saw two to one call to put buying ratios in strategy, IBIT and even more in Coinbase, where call buying almost tripled puts and options volume was 30 percent higher than the 30 day average. The stock rallied 10 percent today and found technical support on a three year line. As CEO Brian Armstrong told CNBC, he's optimistic that the crypto clarity bill will get passed in D.C. Bitcoin's also quietly up 7 percent the past five sessions, while the S &P 500 is roughly flat.
12:16Melissa Lee:And lastly, also arguably a good sign, call options in Robinhood were also surging four times as many were bought than puts, as that stock also rallied 7 percent, Melissa. Oliver, thanks. Oliver Rennick at SIBO. So, Carter, what do you see in the charts for Bitcoin?
12:33Guy Adami:Yeah, I would put this as the sort of dull. Of course, you get big bounces. You can get it out of coin after something has dropped as much as it has. But it feels like it's all still happening at a new lower level where it's going to be mired longer term. Dan, your thoughts?
12:52Melissa Lee:Yeah, you know, Guy and I, we like to play games all day, don't we? We sit around and we just kind of say. Wow. You and I were talking about the Bitcoin. We were talking about some of these names. You saw like Coinbase and some of these names are all trading really high. And, you know, we were playing the would you rather. That's what we were playing. You know what I mean? And I said I'd rather I'd rather some of these names, some of these exchanges. You know, I was like I bumped into a good friend of ours, Tom Farley. Anything to say about Tom Farley? Bullish. Handsome. He is bullish. I mean, he is bullish on the crypto.
13:20Melissa Lee:So he's the CEO of this company, Bullish. It's an institutional trading platform and they have an exchange and a lot of different things trade on it as it relates to crypto. So and, you know, he said the word tokenization like five times to me. And, you know, I am somewhat skeptical about the need for that. But when you listen to somebody who's building a platform around it, right, and you say to yourself, OK, it's about stable coins, too. I get it. You know, they just bought a company. I think he mentioned that, you know, is going to be in that tokenization space. They own CoinDesk, which is like the big media sort of platform there.
13:51Melissa Lee:Twenty five percent short interest. I just looked at this thing and it was trading at all time low yesterday. So I think there's names like that. I have no involvement in one way or another. But I think it makes sense to look at some of these names as opposed to Bitcoin, because I think you're going to get a lot more bang for your buck. Clarity Act is what made it made the whole space jump to they need just that clarity. What's what's a an equity? What's a digital asset? Who's going to regulate? That's what these companies were waiting for. That's what these companies are hoping to get. So I think there's an underlying bid.
14:22Melissa Lee:But to Carter's point, Bitcoin looks sick lately, right? There's still just lower highs in the coin. And you need to prove itself before you really dive in at these levels. To Dan's point, you don't need to be invested in Bitcoin in order to believe in the applications of blockchain and tokenization, for instance. In tokenization, I think there are a lot of skeptics on tokenizing stocks, etc. But if you want 24-7 trading, I don't necessarily want that. But if one does, then tokenization is probably the way. And so do you invest in that way as opposed to the crypto? I think that's, listen, first of all, Tom Farley's got many things going for him.
14:59Melissa Lee:Two of them specifically, as Steve mentioned, extraordinarily handsome man. Number two is the Georgetown grad. If he were here, he'd be blushing. No, he wouldn't blush. He's heard it many times. I think bullish is an interesting way to play it. Now, listen, short interest is something that, you know, you get any glimmer of good news and that stock rallies 15 or 20 percent. In terms of Coinbase, quickly, report on the 30th of July, Bitcoin goes sideways here. And the fact that, as Oliver just talked about, that we held that 144 level going back three years a number of times now suggests that there's more, I think, steam left in this train.
15:32Melissa Lee:I think Coinbase goes higher in earnings. Carter, do the exchanges on which you would trade or the platforms on which you would trade Bitcoin and the other cryptos look better than Bitcoin itself?
15:43Guy Adami:Well, Hood, for instance. I mean, Hood is, if you were to use that one just as a— Yeah, Coinbase is all that. Well, Hood in particular. Hood has, I think, obviously not just Bitcoin going for it, but it was really damaged. It's bounced more substantially to the point where the pattern is repaired. I would be Long Hood. I mean, Hood is—we got a glimpse from interactive brokers after the bell. Schwab today saying retail trading activity was off the charts. margin borrowing was at record highs, we saw in the month of June. So to Carter's point about Robinhood not being just crypto, maybe also benefiting from things like predictions markets, as well as equity trading.
16:21100%.
16:22Melissa Lee:And they're well positioned for that. I mean, again, a lot of these stocks have been under considerable pressure now for quite some time. So relief rallies, as Tim says, when he's here, when things just need to go from very bad to bad to get some of the big moves. And I'm not suggesting we're at the very bad level, but it was clearly bad. Now we're starting to inflect. So I agree with you there. You know, it's astounding what you're seeing year over year and actually the trading growth one way or another. And, you know, you just had on the closing bell a guy from BlackRock talking about the IQQ.
16:52Melissa Lee:This is an ETF that's trading at twenty four dollars relative to the QQQ that's trading at seven hundred dollars. Can you imagine if all of these stocks that are trading six, seven, eight hundred dollars, A lot of these, you know, we got$1 ,000 on Western Digital and Sandcase. If those companies start to split, the trading activity per share is going to go crazy. Options volumes are going to go crazy. And that should be an absolute, like, orgy for these companies. And, you know, one last thing on these markets. We were just showing interactive brokers on the screen. This is a name that we probably don't talk about enough.
17:25Melissa Lee:We talk about Robinhood. We talk about Coinbase. They're in everything. They're in prediction markets. They're in every and they were really early. They're up 47 percent this year. And the chart still looks amazing. There's no peaks and valleys the way you get in the other ones. Maybe take a look at that one. Coming up, critical intel. Some major announcements had shares surging today. What they mean ahead of Thursday's results and whether this turnaround has any traction. Plus, a reckoning for social media more on the landmark ban in France and the impact of the stocks at home. Don't go anywhere.
17:54Fast Money is back in two.
17:58Melissa Lee:This is Fast Money with Melissa Lee, right here on CNBC.
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18:26Melissa Lee:After all, you listen to this show. See terms at discover.com slash credit card.
18:55Melissa Lee:That reduces hair loss by 85%. Only the strongest will survive the shedding. For moi. Claude, you can talk? I've always had the gift of gab, Nancy. But now you can understand. With Pretty Litter, the odor-neutralizing, long-lasting health-indicating kitty litter, that's simply the most luxurious way to bury my poopies and my peepees. Pretty Litter was developed with veterinarians. It helps me monitor potential health problems just by changing color. Go to PrettyLitter.com today. Pretty Litter. Not just a pretty litter. Welcome back to Fast Money. Intel shares popping almost 9 % today after the chipmaker announced more plans to cut jobs and said it locked in a marquee customer for its foundry services.
19:43Intel reports earnings on Thursday. CNBC's Christina Parts Nevelis has been following the story. Christina.
19:47Melissa Lee:Well, what Intel is doing is it's trying to show it can cut costs while building a new business. Another round of layoffs in data center and AI group as CEO Lipu Tan continues to streamline the company. Intel says the cuts won't affect its product roadmaps and also didn't provide an actual number. But today announced a new foundry partnership with cybersecurity company Fortinet. Fortinet is going to use Intel to build its next generation security chips that won't use Intel's most advanced technology, but will be built in an American fab by an American company, offering kind of a level of supply chain security that remains difficult to find here in the United States.
20:23Melissa Lee:And that's a theme Intel has been leaning into as it expands beyond defense work into commercial customers looking for U.S. options. Intel's biggest confirmed foundry customer is still itself, although the U.S. government also uses its fabs for defense chips. Fortinet now joins a growing list of commercial companies working with Intel as it tries to build a contract chip making business. The companies didn't disclose financial terms, didn't disclose production timelines or volumes. So investors still can't measure the deal's revenue impact. But it's another step, I guess, as Intel tries to prove its foundry can win customers beyond its own chip designs.
21:01Seems odd that it's doing this like a couple of days before its earnings release. And by the way, we're not going to give any sort of details as to what this deal is.
21:10Melissa Lee:And I pushed back. I had a bunch of questions. I'm asking, why don't you have any financial times? Maybe they're going to be revealing more. But this also falls into the time frame where the CEO said Q3, Q4, there's going to be multiple customer announcements. So perhaps this is getting the ball rolling and maybe this is the smallest of all of them. That's fair. Christina always does a great job. And that is the pushback. Why would you why wouldn't you just wait until the 23rd after the bell to make all these announcements at once? It seems logical to me. So listen, let's wait and see what they say.
21:38Melissa Lee:I'll tell you, I think HSBC, I think today or yesterday, raised their price target from 100 to 200. So obviously a lot of people are getting excited. I think the average price target for the stock is 113. There is no valuation cushion whatsoever. But people are excited about what's going on in Intel. I mean, this is a stock that came from$20. And even if it pulls back to$60, you're still a triple from where it started. No one's going to be helpful. I wasn't in 20, but I sold it at 40. I thought I hit a grand slam. So I left a lot of money on the table here. I would not be a buyer of it at these levels.
22:12Melissa Lee:But the market does love the efficiency at this level where we're talking about absurd CapEx everywhere else. But yet this one, they like the efficiency. You know, it's interesting. Looking at Fortinet, probably I don't know much about this company. I just looked up. They're going to have$8 billion in sales this year. And you say to yourself, all right, so what percentage of those sales are really that business that they're doing? Is this chip that's going to be manufactured? It's going to be, Kate Parcher said small. You know what I mean? Like, it's not going to be huge. It's exclusive, though.
22:39Melissa Lee:I didn't have that in my report, but I reached out to Fortinet. They said it's an exclusive contract, but I'm predicting it's... Yeah, but what does it say that companies are willing to give them a shot on manufacturing but not use their technology, right? And manufacturing chips is a hard thing, and that's one of the reasons why Taiwan Semi has this kind of chokehold on it, you know? So it'll be interesting to see, like, how some of these things get done over time. It's going to take a little bit to kind of get a sense for that. To your point, though, that's why Google said that they're only collaborating with Intel.
23:04Melissa Lee:That's why TerraFab is working with Intel but not actually doing any chips. That's why Apple won't confirm, despite what President Trump is saying, right, that Apple is going to become a customer to Intel. There's a deal here with no revenue value attached to it, no value attached to it. Carter, what is it? That's the signs of today, though, in this market, I feel like. I guess so. Up 8 percent. It's worth something. Carter, what do you see in the charts?
23:26Guy Adami:Well, I mean, there's a common circumstance. It's not idiosyncratic, of course, Intel. They all have these huge moves from the early April lows. the SOX itself doubled, right? Literally April 2nd doubles 7 ,000 to essentially 14 ,000 plus. And now you've got various forms and shades of corrections drawdowns. Some are down 40, some are down 50. The SOX itself down 25%. My haunch is that it's too young a move, only 15, 16 sessions, 25%. It's not corrective enough. I would not be buying into this dip. All right. Christina, thank you.
24:03Melissa Lee:When you say, maybe now I understand why you say you collaborate with me and you don't work with me because you don't want to, right? Now it all starts to make sense, Melissa. I don't get that. We collaborate. Well, she doesn't want to, she's not all in. She's like, you know, we're just collaborating. Arms length. Arms length. You follow now? No, I must have missed something earlier in the show. You say Intel and Google are collaborating. Oh! I'm sure somebody else watching didn't get that connection either. I speak to an audience of like three people every evening. Not including himself. Coming up, France taking a big step to rein in social media usage among children.
24:38The details on the impact next, plus a health care checkup inside one medical device giant's post-earnings plunge. And the stocks one top strategist says are healthy enough to buy. You're watching Fast Money Live from the Nasdaq Market Side in Times Square back right after this.
24:56Melissa Lee:It's smart to always have a few financial goals and a really smart one you can set. Earning cash back on what you buy every day. And with Discover, you can. Get this. Discover automatically matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year. Seriously, all of it. And we trust you to make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. For moi? Claude, you can talk? I've always had the gift of gab, Nancy. But now you can understand. With Pretty Litter, the odor-neutralizing, long-lasting health-indicating kitty litter that's simply the most luxurious way to bury my poopies and my peepees.
25:41Pretty Litter was developed with veterinarians. It helps me monitor potential health problems just by changing color.
25:47Melissa Lee:Go to PrettyLitter.com today. Pretty Litter. Not just a pretty litter. Monday.com AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. I stay in the loop only when it matters. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Welcome back to Fast Money. French lawmakers adopting sweeping legislation that bans social media usage for children under 15. Let's get to Julia Borson for the details. Julia. Melissa, France is the first country in the European Union to pass a law like this. This law also bans the use of cell phones in high schools, expanding a ban that already exists in primary and middle schools in France.
26:31Now, this law approved by both houses of France's parliament could go into effect as soon as September for the start of the French school year. But it does still need to be reviewed. This is the latest in a wave of action to limit teen access to social media, starting with Australia in December, which became the first country to ban kids under 16 from using social media apps, followed by Britain and Canada, which passed similar restrictions last month. The EU is now expected to introduce similar measures for across the EU in September. Now, Meta and TikTok have not responded to requests for a comment.
27:07Snap directed us to a blog post from Snap's head of law enforcement and safety policy about why social media bans may create new risks instead of mitigating existing ones. Now, there are plenty of questions when it comes to these types of bans about enforcement and also consequences for the platforms if they don't comply. And these global restrictions come as social media platforms face lawsuits here in the U.S. around allegedly addictive design. So, Melissa, challenges both at home and abroad. Yeah. Any thinking, Julia, that this sort of ban could be adopted here? I mean, are any local governments considering state governments?
27:48Well, look, there's a lot of support for legislation when it comes to social media and questions about how to handle teen access to social media. What's been interesting is because though there has been a lot of bipartisan support for social media restrictions, because of Section 230, which protects social media from the content shared on the platform, the energy here has really shifted to these lawsuits because these lawsuits are about litigating how the apps are designed. It's not about the content shared on them. It's about whether the app design itself is addictive, whether things like Infinite Scroll lends itself to addiction.
28:30So we had one big lawsuit here in the U.S. I'm sorry, here in California, there's another state, a set of lawsuits that are coming, including one in Northern California later this summer. So we're seeing really what's a wave of lawsuits that have been compared to the crackdown on big tobacco a couple decades ago. So I think it's the lawsuits that are really going to determine how things are managed here in the U.S. rather than a nationwide ban because of the issues we've seen with this type of legislation getting passed. Julia, thank you. Julia Boorstin. What do you think?
29:03Melissa Lee:Sadly, I mean, the genie's out of the bottle. We all have kids. And it's just one of these situations where what is the enforcement of masculinism, you know, as it relates to individuals and, you know, whether they're going to find a way to get on these platforms. And so it is sad. We all know that they've hacked our brains for all intents and purposes. And it's really detrimental to kids, you know, below the age of what, 16, you know, that sort of thing. And I just feel like, you know, if you're selling off these stocks because of the fear of that, it's probably not the best reason to do so right now.
29:31Melissa Lee:Yeah, I agree with that. And I do believe the infinite scroll, it affects all of us. You go down that rabbit hole and you just keep going. And I wish we couldn't. But as Dan said, it's really hard to go backwards and put that genie back in the bottle. You infinite scroll. Does that mean you can scroll infinitely? Yes, as the name of it. For the next story, the next video, the next Dutch Amin hit. The next puppy video. What have we done to this? You know who doesn't scroll? Guy Adami. No, you do. I don't. You scroll a little bit on the Twitter and stuff like that? Sure you do. You go down rabbit holes.
30:06I don't have a single social account.
30:09Melissa Lee:Sandy just said in my ear, sure I do. It's the biggest unlock that you could just possibly imagine. You don't even look at it. I don't have anything on the thing. Just get back to it. Maybe we should all. Listen, they're not an endorser of this show, but Barnes & Noble is a lovely place to go. You can find a book where you can sit in a corner by yourself and read. Or the public library. Or the public library. Or don't buy your kids a phone. Or don't buy. Old enough. All those things work. The more you know.
30:39Coming up. Danner, under the knife, the earnings headlines that triggered the stock's worst day in 25 years and how Mizzou host Jared Holtz is digesting the MedTech move straight ahead. Fast Money's back in two.
30:51Melissa Lee:Missed a moment of fast? Catch us anytime on the go. Follow the Fast Money podcast. We're back right after this.
31:08Welcome back to Fast Money. Stock snapping a three-day losing streak. The The S &P rising almost a percent, and the Nasdaq surging 1.3 percent. General Motors gaining nearly 5 percent after the automaker reported top and bottom line results ahead of estimates, thanks to strong demand for its trucks and SUVs, the company also raising full-year guidance. Nebbi is soaring 19 percent after NVIDIA revealed a 9 percent stake in the Neocloud company. That stock now up 160 percent year-to-date. And Novo Nordisk filed a lawsuit against Eli Lilly, alleging its GLP-1 ad campaigns are designed to mislead consumers about the efficacy of the weight loss drugs.
31:43Novo ending the day down half a percent, while Lilly rose more than two percent. And Diana Herr, take a look at this, having its worst day since 2001, despite an earnings and revenue beat for the latest quarter. The medtech company giving a cautious outlook for growth in the current quarter, lowering guidance for its bioprocessing business. Mizzou host Jared Holes joins us now to discuss these results and what that might mean for the rest of the sector. Jared, good to see you. And you wrote in your note this morning on Danaher that it was a very crowded trade overall. Medtech is a very popular trade.
32:12So what does this do to the sector?
32:14Melissa Lee:Yeah, I mean, it's less about medtech, more about this life sciences sector that sells equipment into pharma and industrial industry groups. The results, I thought, were pretty mixed. I think the street wanted to see improvement in bioprocessing. This is essentially manufacturing for new drugs that are coming on board. So I think the expectation was there was more of a tailwind there. They actually took that number down a bit. And there were all these reasons given on the conference call as to why. But at the end of the day, investors wanted to see that business pick up. On the flip side, where the positive side, equipment was very strong.
32:50Melissa Lee:So the peer group, I think we had all sort of asserted we expected weakness. But that equipment number helped the likes of Bruker and Revity and Agile. And a lot of the peers actually went up on the day. What is the read-through on the biopharma production part of it being weak in terms of uptake? What does that mean about, I don't know, factories or production or whatnot? It's not clear necessarily as far as what the read through is. I think there was an expectation that that business was going to see more near term acceleration. And it seems like that tailwind is probably not going to take place until maybe early 2027 or six months from now, nine months.
33:30Melissa Lee:That element of the company continues to be pushed out and pushed out. I think that's why the weakness was a little bit more profound than we thought. Dan has been a lagger now for five years. At some point, there's some valuation cushion that says we know all the things you're talking about, but it's priced into the name. Are we close? We might be. That was a big conversation this morning, which is, do we cover this if we're short? Do we go long? Do we double down if we're already there? I think there is already a dynamic that you buy the weakness in Danaher. It's been five years. The pandemic basically allowed Danaher and some of its peers to really catalyze growth for a number of years based on vaccine production and other sort of one timers.
34:14Melissa Lee:And they're still sort of like reeling from that. It's really the only industry group where anyone mentions COVID anymore. But it was such a tailwind at the time that it's taken years to get back. Jared, you started answering this before, but are there any names in the space that were unjustly sold off that should be bought or are there any names that should be bought off of this? You said that some of the competitors actually ran on this news. Which of those competitors should extend that run? Obviously, you already commented on Denner. Yeah, the one name that sort of stands out is Repligen. That would be maybe the closest comp in terms of the bioproduction business.
34:52Melissa Lee:That name was down close to 10 percent at one point today. It's unclear whether Danaher is seeing something that the market is not seeing. Is there a broad based slowdown? I don't really believe that there's anything ultimately material. I think just a little bit of weakness in the Danaher quarter. So I think Repligen could be the way to actually play this. If you're bullish, big picture and you think their results will be better, that could be the trade. And switching quickly to Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, what do you make of this lawsuit? I don't really know. It seems a little bit desperate on the part of Novo to be going after Lily at this point in time.
35:27Melissa Lee:We sort of all get the fact that trisepatide is stronger and more efficacious than semaglutide. We've talked about it at so much length. Whether they were using the correct dosing, the apples-to-apples dosing, I think is sort of meaningless. The doctors know and the patients know. A little bit of desperation, but we'll see. I mean, I think the Novo quarter is going to be pretty good. So this is sort of like an out-of-left-field situation, yes. Like, maybe Lily pairs back advertising. Maybe they, you know, adjust the dosing slightly. But I think everyone sort of gets it. Nova on August 5th. I mean, hopefully this is the inflection point because the rest of the business is being valued effectively, seemingly at nil.
36:05And can I ask a question here?
36:08Melissa Lee:To Jared? Yeah. Of course. He's still sitting here. I do not say goodbye to the guests. You know, one of the first stocks ever mentioned on CNBC's Fast Money, like in the early days. Like before my existence on this show. Well, you've existed for such a reason. No, but on this show. Was Danaher, and of course, Stephen and Mitchell Rails. And the sort of the genesis of Danaher was what? Let's say I'm setting you up, but I know you know the answer to this. I don't know. Danaher Creek. They were on a boat, the brothers. Oh, I've heard this story before from you. They were on a boat, two guys in a boat.
36:39Melissa Lee:And they just said, hey, this would be a great name for a company. Had you known, you wouldn't have let them ask this question. Absolutely not. The more you know. No, I mean, there are people in Montana watching right now. Like, I know this place. Huge fans of the show, Montana. Mitchell and Steve watch. All right. Jared, great to see you. Thank you, Jared Holz-Mizuho. Coming up, a smoking hot sin stock, the bullish signal that Chartmaster sees in Philip Morris shares and why the rally may be far from burning out. That's next on Fast Money.
37:08Melissa Lee:As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, CNBC spotlights the companies that rose with the nation
37:15Guy Adami:and continue to shape its future.
37:18Melissa Lee:I think what's made America stand out and be successful is its drive to evolve. It starts with identifying problems and then having the freedom and the opportunity to innovate, to solve those problems and make the world a better place. My name is Toby Rice. I'm the president and CEO of EQT. EQT was founded back in the late 1800s, drilling natural gas and building the pipelines to power Pittsburgh and Appalachia as a whole. When we talk about the history of energy, it started with human labor. Then we introduced coal, and that allowed some more industrial capacity. It wasn't until the discovery of oil that really unleashed the next large wave of innovation in this country.
37:58Melissa Lee:People like to talk about the evolution of cars, but cars were made available because we had plentiful energy to power them. We've made our energy so affordable and so reliable that people have started to take energy for granted. Energy powers everything. Energy underpins industry. And our success on energy translates to our success in industry. I believe that America has a bright future. And I think people are waking up to realize just how incredibly important energy is to the success of American business.
38:36Welcome back to Fast Money. Philip Morris releases Q2 earnings tomorrow morning. Shares are up nearly 20 percent since its last report. And the chart master says the tobacco company has more room to run. Carter, what do the charts say?
38:49Guy Adami:Well, a dollar, frankly, it's the exact same price it was a year ago. But we think it breaks out here. Let's go to the charts and try to figure it out together. So one way to depict the circumstance as seen there, a well-defined uptrend over the past two years from May of 2024 to here the summer of 26. But those flat tops, we keep hitting there and not progressing. That is what a potential breakout candidate looks like. Another way to draw the line, second iteration, it doesn't matter how one draws them. It's characterizing a circumstance where there's a lot of tension as you continue to try to move out of a range.
39:27Guy Adami:Again, we're exactly the same level we were one year ago in June. A third iteration, also this. That line is very precise. It's touched there four times to the penny, and I think we move above that line that's depicted there. Finally, let's look at a long-term chart of Philip Morris. And this internal trend line is what you call that first line going in effect since 08. Just to get back to that line, it takes you to about 210, 212. Again, we close at 188 today. Had a nice pop on its last quarter. We think that happens again tomorrow. Hmm. Interesting setup, Steve. What do you make of it?
40:09Melissa Lee:They are about 40 percent smokeless and they're trying to move to about two thirds smokeless. The others trail that. So the other ones are better for deep value tobacco stocks. This one, you get growth and you get the yield on it as well. Everyone's trying to move to like the Zins or the Icos or whatever the substitutes. They're they're on the way and they've made the most progress. This is PM, obviously, so this is international, not Altria, which is domestic. Which is the MO kind, PM kind, MO kind. Do you like what I did there? Yep, yep. First of all, nobody should smoke ever. It's bad for you.
40:46Melissa Lee:It's bad for you. We've established that. Full stop. But you know what's not bad for you? Listening to Carter Braxton Worth. And this appears to me. And you like it? Like what I did there. It appears to be a bearish to bullish reversal. Yes, I do. Can I ask Carter a question? Yes. Away from this, you do fine work, Carter. You know that PM, MO, they're not my jam. When you see this sort of price action, I know you look at hundreds of charts a day, what we've seen in semis, semi-equipment. I know it's a hard term. Memory, neoclouds, that sort of thing. Is it starting to say anything to you? Are you seeing things develop in the charts a little bit?
41:18Guy Adami:But in terms of all those high flyers or just just the back and forth action, you know, down 10 percent, up 10 percent. Sure, sure. I mean, that's the if you think sharp indecision is resolved sharply. It's a good adage. So we had this debate four weeks, now five, now seven. And it's happened after a very big move in almost everything. And that's what consolidation is, or it's the opposite. And right here and now, I think, is literally 50-50, whether this sideways, huge volatility, but no variance, right? We're not going anywhere. But individual names, fighting, and money, gapping up, gapping down.
41:55Guy Adami:We're at a major inflection point, and it won't be but a few days, I would think, before we're out of this tight range in the market. and I don't have a clue which way. Completely unrelated to our previous conversation. I mean, it was a good question. It was a fine question. It was a good question. It was a good question. Coming up, the middle class squeeze in the CNBC study finds more Americans are moving to the extreme ends of the financial spectrum. The impact of the K-shaped divide is next. And here's a sneak peek at the Kramer cam. Jim is chatting exclusively with the CEO of 3M. Catch a full interview top of the hour on Mad Money.
42:30More Fast Money in 2.
42:35Welcome back to Fast Money. A new CNBC survey shows growing pressures on the middle class as more Americans are starting to live paycheck to paycheck. Sharon Epperson's got the details here. Sharon.
42:46Melissa Lee:Melissa, CNBC and SurveyMonkey polled more than 2 ,500 adults in the U.S. 63 percent say they're living paycheck to paycheck. That's up from 59 percent in March. And that financial pressure is moving up the income ladder. 64 % of those with family incomes between$50 ,000 and just under$100 ,000 a year said they're experiencing paycheck pressure. And 41 % in that six-figure category with incomes up to almost$250 ,000 say they're feeling the pinch too. Then there's this sharp divide between the ends of the income spectrum. 81 % of lower-income families are living paycheck to paycheck, while just 12 % of the wealthiest Americans say the same.
43:30Melissa Lee:For that middle group, those with incomes between$50 ,000 and$100 ,000, credit card debt, car insurance, and medical bills are major causes of financial stress, in addition to lack of savings. 63 % say they have less than$500 left over every month after expenses. For 40%, a paycheck that's just one week late would cause a major financial hardship. and 36 % say debt has delayed or prevented them from saving for retirement. Many people are looking to stay on track with their retirement savings. Sign up for my Money 101 newsletter series at CNBC.com slash Money 101. Use the QR code there on the screen for a lot of great strategies.
44:11Melissa Lee:Melissa. Sharon, thank you. Sharon Epperson. I mean, this is just eye-opening because the headline numbers on all the economic reports indicate a pretty good economy. Inflation is abating, et cetera. And so there's nothing political about this. And by the way, Sharon's a national treasurer. And these are the people that admit to that, by the way. And those numbers are staggering. But that does not suggest a robust economy. And it certainly does not suggest a consumer that's doing well, which is one of the reasons I think we're sort of on the precipice of a credit event for the reasons Sharon just gave us.
44:45Melissa Lee:Yeah, this is this is the true definition, K-shaped economy. But if you think about it, they could be in a recession right now. So we're talking about if we go into a recession. They're in a recession right now. And unfortunately, this is why it's so complicated. If you raise rates, that pushes them over the cliff. Right, because they're paying the interest rates on the credit cards. Exactly. Everything they do is on credit right now. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, but the flip side is that inflation, and the longer it sticks around, right? You'd rather have a rate kind of stay where it is, that sort of thing, than just have higher prices.
45:18Melissa Lee:You know, the cure to higher prices, higher prices. They've already been hurt. They already can't buy anymore. So I hear what you're saying. Well, the cure to higher prices is like higher rates. I mean, like, like it's well damages. Damage has already been done is what I'm saying. It's not going to fill up anybody's gas tank. This is the this is the wage earners that I really feel bad for. Up next, final traits.
45:51Time for the final trade. Carter, Braxton, Worth or Worth charting?
45:55Guy Adami:Tesla reports tomorrow after the close. I'm a seller. Steven.
46:00Melissa Lee:IBM. I think the worst they got out, I think this should be an uptick. Dan. Yeah, obviously I'm long Tom Farley, kicking the tires and bullshit. Guy. On behalf of the entire squad, Dan is too bashful to say, but happy birthday to Alex Nathan. Aw. From 23 today. Happy birthday, Alex. Big fan of the show. Georgetown graduate. Big fan of the show. You recall my clam, Melissa? I do. How can you forget your clam? Yeah, if you can. The A in the clam was Agnico Eagle Mines. Thanks for watching Fast Mad Money starts right now.
46:48only as an expression of an opinion. Such opinions are based upon information the FastMoney participants consider reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full FastMoney disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com forward slash FastMoneyDisclaimer. Your data lives everywhere. On-prem, in the cloud, across apps. Bring it all together with EverPure, the platform that acts like a living system, delivering the latest in data performance, security, and innovation without ever slowing you down.
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From the publisher
AI stocks bouncing back with major tech stocks closing in the green. The traders break down what’s causing the switch, and whether this momentum can continue throughout earnings season. Then, Danaher sinking despite beating expectations in their earnings report. Mizuho health care strategist Jared Holz breaks down why the stock is trading at near all-time lows, and why the company might need a management change. Plus, the latest on Intel job cuts, and where the middle class is feeling pricing pressures.
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