Dow Hits Fresh Record High… And Gearing Up For Target & Walmart Results 8/15/25

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. Joining the party, the Dow notching an intraday record for the first time this year, joining the S &P and Nasdaq in the all-time high club. How did it finally get there and can it keep its momentum going? We'll talk about it and the retail readout. Some of the country's biggest consumer names report earnings next week. What they'll have to say about the impact of tariffs and more. Plus, semi-stocks slumping after a disappointing report from AMAT. Lyft gets a lift amid a board shakeup.

0:37And bet on DraftKings, what the chartmaster has to say about where the sports gambling stock could go from here. I'm Courtney Reagan in this evening for Melissa Lee, coming to you live from Studio B at the NASDAQ. On the desk tonight, we have Steve Grasso, Courtney Garcia, Mike Coe, and Carter Worth. But we start with the Dow's day in the sun. The index hitting a fresh record high today. It's first of the year. The S &P marked the feet way back in February, the Nasdaq followed suit in late June. The Dow, though, has been largely held back by shares of UnitedHealth. Until yesterday, the embattled insurer was solely responsible for cutting more than 1 ,000 points from the index this year.

1:16But that all changed when Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway revealed a new stake in the company, buying more than 5 million shares in the second quarter. And that sent UN8 shares soaring nearly 12 % today, its biggest gain since March 2020, and single-handedly kept the Dow in the green today, even if barely. And while the S &P set an intraday record early in the session, it and the Nasdaq both ended the day in the red. So what do you make of today's market action and what stage does it set for next week? Steve, it's kind of impossible, obviously, to talk about the market action excluding UnitedHealth if we're talking about the move in the Dow, which sort of isn't a story in and of itself, but just generally.

1:57Relatively quiet day for news in the markets that move the markets, but big sort of macroeconomic influences at play. Right. And I think you laid it out perfectly. The Dow was affected by about 180 points for UNH. You said a thousand points for the year has been the deficit side. So, you know, I always I'm a little skeptical looking at 13Fs because they're always looking backward. Sure. So if you think that it's going to pull, it does have the effect of pulling more investors into some of these names. So you could see some follow through that could last days, weeks, maybe. But UNH has its health care costs that have been rising.

2:42So those are the issues that really affect whether or not they're going to be a revenue generating in a strong environment company. Having said that, we go through a weak seasonal period between August and October for the overall markets. And you know the most overused line, this time is different? This time could be different. We have Trump, we have Putin, and we also have the most important thing going on, the biggest Fed meeting coming up, right? So September, if there is a rate cut, That could change that whole historic weakness and seasonal weakness. So everyone's looking at that. Do we get a cut?

3:22How much? And I'm looking for a 25 % cut for September. I think 50 is a little. Basis points. Yes, exactly. Sorry. Basis points. So I'm looking for that, and I think that will keep the tailwind in the market. It very much could be a September to remember. Courtney, what do you make? I want to go back to Steve's point about UnitedHealthcare. Yes, 13 Fs are backward looking, but this is Berkshire Hathaway. This is Warren Buffett. He's not a trader, right? He's an investor, but also a little uncharacteristic of the way that Warren Buffett invests because of all of, let's just say, scandal sort of surrounding the trouble that UnitedHealthcare has been in.

4:00But with an investment from Buffett, does that change your mind on what that opportunity could look like for others going forward? I actually wouldn't call that uncharacteristic. Okay, fair. I think when you look at Berkshire Hathaway and you're going to look at Warren Buffett, he's a long-term value investor. So I think a lot of their problems probably are considered more short-term here. So you're looking at their medical utilization costs, which have been increasing. You're looking at a lot of the issues with the Department of Justice, who's been investigating them and their billing practices.

4:27But this had such a sell-off. I mean, at some point in time, I mean, they are one of the largest insurers. And at some point when it comes to this kind of a value, he's saying, OK, maybe at some point they get over this hump. He's looking at holding these for the long term. So as a short-term trade, I wouldn't get into UNH here, but as a long-term investor, I think he sees a value there. So I'm not jumping in, but I think this is a long-term, not a short-term strategy, which is right up Warren Buffett's alley. Very interesting. Mike, what do you make of the action in UnitedHealthcare today? And I guess what would an options play here be, potentially, if you see that there is one for UnitedHealth?

5:05Well, I think a lot of people have seen that there is one. I mean, I've sort of followed the United Health story for quite a long time back to my CRT capital days. I mean, this is a company that if they can navigate some of these uncertainties, and I think to me the biggest cloud is certainly the investigation, but this is a company that's probably going to do$25 billion worth of free cash flow on a, we'll call it a$300 billion valuation round numbers. I'm kind of splitting hairs between the market cap and the enterprise value here. I mean, that is as cheap as the company has traded in 20 years, other than a brief period during the GFC.

5:40And we've got Steve Hemsley back at the helm. I think there was a little bit of a misstep there on the management side. So people are speculatively bullish here. We were seeing some short-term call buying. I think that's just basically news-driven. But we've seen some longer-term call buying as well. Traded over a million contracts today. That's a substantial number when you consider that we might trade 40 or 50 million contracts overall across all securities in a given day. You can see, I mean, you're talking about more than 2 % of all options flow is calls in UnitedHealth. I think that there are some people who think that the longer term story is that they could turn this thing around.

6:19Fascinating. I do want to sort of move back out to the bigger picture of the market and what we're looking at right now, particularly from where we have come. Carter, I mean, it does seem like sentiment is fairly bullish right now from a market perspective. I'm also, though, wondering your thoughts on whether the market has gotten a little bit ahead of where the Fed might be, ahead of Jackson Hole, with some trying to call for a 50 basis point cut when Steve Leisman is saying that is not what the Fed fund futures are suggesting at all. I think that might be wishful thinking for some. Where do you sum up where we're sitting right now going into the week that will hold Jackson Hole in this very potentially historic event?

7:00Yeah, I mean, I think it's one of the most sort of difficult, but actually in that sense, silly endeavors. The first is payroll. Some 40, 50 economists each month get ready and predict the payrolls, and it's just off, off, off, undoable. And then there's this FOMC thing. Probabilities go from 90 % of a cut to then back to 20, then cut 50, then no cut, then 25. that the reality is, of course, that all of that is discounted in the S &P right now. And the S &P, from its April low, has had an impressive ricochet following, of course, the aggressive tariff-related sell-off of more than 20%. And the S &P is slightly above its pre-sell-off level.

7:42But as you started out here at the beginning of the hour, the Dow has yet to make a new high. The Equal Weight has yet to make a new high S &P. The MidCap has not. The Value Line arithmetic index, the Dow Jones transports, and so forth. So we have this odd contradistinction of the one, the S &P, right, having made a slight new recovery high, and yet intraday the Dow attempts today but can't. And on the week, for instance, was it a good week? The two best performing sectors, industrials and tech, year to date, are both down. It's a curious setup. something needs to give. These other aggregates need to come to life and confirm, so to speak, the strength in the S &P, where the S &P is on its own and the others are signaling things that are not as sanguine as the message purported by the S &P.

8:34Well, our next guest predicts more all-time highs are coming. I know Carter pointed out some that we still haven't hit yet. Ben Emmons is founder and chief investment officer at FedWatch advisors. Ben, thank you for being here. I mean, I understand that your viewpoint is generally bullish overall. You think we should buy on some weakness. Why? Well, Courtney, if you take today's retail sales number, you know, there was a clear acceleration happening within the number. And what's encouraging is that the core piece, which is called control group, was revised upwards. So that gets directly into GDP.

9:08So it seems that we're coming out of the summer low soon into some sort of acceleration phase while we're having some weakness in the labor market that is keeping this rate cut probability in check that we'd like to see the Fed deliver on this rate cut. So you're getting a cocktail here of already an economy coming out of a summer low with potentially rate cuts following. You can see the scenario that actually getting an acceleration in the fall, which means it will be matched by the stock market. So any kind of pullback that we're getting next week on some trepidation of what Powell say, yes or no, Raycott, that has an opportunity, I think, to buy.

9:46So it's actually an improved economic environment currently. And I think this is why the stock market will continue to go higher. You know, it is interesting, sort of the parlor game that is when everyone's trying to guess what the Fed is thinking, what they will say. And we have this very important meeting of Jackson Hole next week where we'll hear from Chair Powell for the first time in some time. And in the interim, you've had market watchers speculate 50 basis points of a rate cut could be on the table. But as I pointed out earlier, the Fed fund futures aren't really seeing that. Maybe it's just wishful thinking.

10:21Where do you really think the chair is thinking about? where particularly, I guess, with this week's retail sales, PPI and the other economic data? Well, he will definitely be more cautious, I think. He has been more cautious in the stone each time that inflation sees a little bit perking up. But there's these other Fed members who are really ringing the alarm bell, like, look, this labor market is weakness and maybe you take a weekend from here. I think that's where the 50 base point rate cut could be coming from. I'm actually myself a bit in the camp of Dave Zervos, where they actually do 50 basis points like in insurance.

11:01Because if you let this labor market continue to weaken and the opponent rate starts rising and starts rising faster, it moves away from you. So what they did last year was for the same reason. They cut by 50. It was a surprise, but they did it because they want to get ahead of the problem. I think there's a possibility this time they do the same. Yet, Powell will be, I think, in his tone, in his speech, cautious on that front. But he's not the only one determining the vote. So we'll see how it plays out. But I do think that this 50 base point cut is a possibility. Let's say that if it isn't in September, then it could be in October.

11:36Ben, do you think the Fed has forgotten about the balance sheet runoff? When you look at what they're letting run off, the MBS is running off at$35 billion per month. and we have treasuries running off down from$25 billion down to$5 billion. Shouldn't they have stopped that runoff? Because MBS does have that lift effect on the 10-year, and mortgage rates are affected by the 10-year or based on the 10-year. And a third of CPI is housing or shelter costs. That's fair point, Steve. I mean, it's interesting they did signal earlier this year they wanted to stop it altogether, together but yet have to do this and you know this does add some tightening to the system in itself that is like a lot but it is underneath there's pressure there so this meeting too that comes up will probably be where it gets determined that they want to end the runoff of the balance sheet nonetheless it's something that is with us here right it's a continuing tightening of financial conditions like subtle but it's underneath and i think this is where the mortgage markets have been struggling for one reason.

12:45As you mentioned, it gets determined by the 10-year yield a lot. We know that the 10-year yield, for example, today was up because of retail sales. So there's also an economy that plays a role against this technical background of the balance sheet. I expect the balance sheet, though, to run off the end. So eventually it gets alleviation for MBS. And that should, with all the attention to MBS, if people want to buy MBS, probably be a crack tightening between MBS and Treasuries. Ben, we know at the top you said that you are generally bullish. Can you give us some actionable ideas before we have to let you go?

13:16Where should we be looking to buy? Right. So what's interesting is that since April 8th, the time of buy, you know what other sectors have outperformed except for tech were like electric equipment and related to AI power sectors. Now, you extrapolate this out to what may happen in this fall as the commitment to invest in the U.S. really gets some attention in the administration to move that forward, I think materials and staples and energy, which have kind of lacked most of the rally, I think an attractive opportunity here. If you believe that there's going to be more investment coming into the U.S., I think those sectors can now go forward.

13:54Ben Emmons, thank you so much for joining us. Have a happy Friday night. Thank you. Courtney, what do you make of what Ben's theory portends? Yeah, so if the Fed is, in fact, cutting interest rates here, which is like 95 percent expected it's going to at this point. I think there's a lot of areas of the market that are going to perform. And like this week, I think, was a good indication of that, where you saw small caps move for the first time in months, which everybody was talking like this was the hot topic the end of last year. Everybody said, oh, there's going to be less regulation. There's going to be tax cuts.

14:24There's going to be interest rates coming down. All of that was kind of thrown out the window because tariffs have been the big conversation. But now as we're starting to see interest rates are likely actually coming down, this is happening in the near future. I think you're going to see some of those more interest rate sensitive, small caps being a good example, probably starting to make a turn here. Carter, what do your charts tell you about small caps? As we mentioned, they had the best week, the Russell 2000, since June. Yeah. So, I mean, there are catch-up trades. You see, for instance, home builders, let's say that's a very economically sensitive, rate sensitive area of the market.

14:55And they had a fantastic week. Whereas regional banks, which are highly weighted in small cap, not so much. So the aggregation, IWM, whether it's using the ETF or the Russell 2000 itself, again, a good week. But here, too, the strange circumstance of essentially being below where it was four or five years ago. Where's the alpha? That's the question. That is indeed the question. Well, meantime, President Trump meeting with Russian President and Vladimir Putin today in Anchorage, Alaska, for a very high-profile summit. Eamon Jeffers has the latest. Eamon, some of those images that we saw today, really striking.

15:34Yeah, that's right, Courtney. The two men are now behind closed doors for the potentially hours-long meeting without the media present. But already what we've seen is a historic greeting, a handshake there on the tarmac at Joint Base Elmendorf. And this is the first time a Russian leader has ever been in the state of Alaska since Alaska was purchased by the United States from Russia back in 1867. We saw the two men on the red carpet there, then getting on top of a podium that had been set up there, posing in front of Air Force One, but also on the side, just outside this shot, Courtney, are F-22 aircraft, sort of a display of power by the U.S.

16:17Air Force there. And then an interesting moment in the motorcade here as both leaders got in the same vehicle. That's the beast. That's the president's limousine. And there you see Vladimir Putin riding right in it on the left hand side. A smile, a wave for the cameras. The leader of Russia certainly looks pleased as punch to be riding in the beast there. And then a quick video that we got here of the two leaders meeting in a bilateral session. the president with his two top advisors there. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is there. Special Envoy Steve Whitcoff is there as well for the U.S. side.

16:54And then the press was ushered out and the closed door session began. So, Courtney, we're going to monitor this for as long as it goes. And the reports are that this could be multiple hours of talks behind closed doors. We'll see what, if anything, comes of it. The big indicator for success this evening is going to be, If you see the two leaders come out to do a side-by-side press conference with something to announce, that might indicate a successful meeting. If you just see Donald Trump on his own briefing U.S. reporters, that might indicate something less than success here, Courtney. So much in the images and the messaging and reading between the lines.

17:31We know you're going to continue to do a more statement even as we go off the air potentially as this meeting goes on into the evening. Thank you so much. You know, Mike O, as you look at this, what are you thinking? I mean, what could happen here? How could the markets react? Well, I think the only thing that could potentially happen is we have stasis. We basically end up where we are right now, which isn't a great situation. You know, for all the jawboning, we really haven't made a lot of progress with Russia and Ukraine. So I kind of feel like it's either the same old thing or something better.

18:07I don't really see how it could come out a whole lot worse. I mean, obviously, we'll see that I'm going to knock on wood a little bit as I say that. But, yeah, my expectation is that we're either going to be right where we are right now, we'll have some interesting press photos, or it's going to be slightly better. And, you know, I'm cautiously optimistic, maybe give it a 30 % probability that we end up with something better than where we are right now. We'll hold those thoughts for a moment because we have a news alert on OpenAI. Mackenzie Sagalus has the details. So, Mac, what do we know? Hey, Courtney.

18:38So, Bloomberg is reporting that OpenAI staffers are preparing to sell about$6 billion worth of stock in a secondary share sale that would value the company at roughly$500 billion. Now, Thrive Capital is expected to lead that deal. I spoke with a source close to the process who said that figure is directionally accurate, but the final total will depend on how much current and former employees ultimately decide to sell. Now, that source also confirming that Dragoneer and SoftBank have been added to the investor group. OpenAI, we know, has been in talks with investors about the deal, which would not raise new money for the company, but instead allow employees to cash out some of their holdings.

19:15This, of course, is separate to that$40 billion funding round announced in March that put the company's value at$300 billion. So this is a big jump up here, Courtney. Absolutely. And Mackenzie, thank you so much for bringing us those details. There have been a lot of moving parts in that area recently. Steve, what do you make of sort of new valuation for OpenAI and what it means for the space? In this arena, you have to get people their money back, right? So with every round, somebody wants to sell, somebody wants to buy in. So I think this helps people get their money that were initial investors.

19:47But I would invite the viewers to just Google or go on one of these AI services. is see how many other companies have a 500 billion valuation and see the notable companies that it's more than. So I guess we're living in this AI-centric world, so we have to expand our brains to what real valuations are in that world. But there's just such an amazing amount of stuff going behind the scenes that we don't know what these valuations are truly based on until the rubber hits the road. Yeah, absolutely. All of that makes sense. Well, coming up, investors are loving a big change at Lyft. The key decision sending this ride share name higher, that's next.

20:31But first, a dire warning from Applied Materials, what the chipmaker said about its China business that had investors running for cover right after this. You're watching Fast Money here on CNBC. We'll be right back.

20:54Welcome back to Fast Money. Shares of Applied Materials locking in their worst day since March 2020 after the chip company gave weak guidance for the current quarter. Our Christina Parts Nevelis has the details for us. Hey, Christina. Hi. Sorry, I'm going to have to apologize for the baby screamer in the background. But surprised is what Wall Street analysts are saying about Applied Materials' weaker guide. The chip equipment maker's$1 billion shortfall points to the end of China's long spending boom and the danger of relying on a handful of leaders like TSMC, Intel, and Samsung. Taiwan Semi's dominance means it can dictate CapEx pacing, creating lumpier orders and potentially pressuring margins for suppliers like applied materials.

21:35Management warning that the uncertainty could persist, making it tough for the stock to outperform despite its reasonable valuation. Other equipment names like KLA, LAM, and ASML fell in sympathy today. You can see on your screen with KLA down the most almost 8%, the SMH and SOX chip ETFs also falling. But analysts at Oppenheimer and Bank of America pushed back, arguing this is an isolated issue driven by applied materials specific product mix and conservative guidance, not an industry-wide plunge. But investors aren't buying the isolated incident narrative. They're treating applied materials results as more than just cyclical noise, instead questioning the longevity of the broader chip spend cycle.

22:19Court? Interesting stuff, obviously, and we focus on a lot as well as some of those competing players. Christina, thank you so much. Courtney, what do you make of sort of the action there? Any opportunities to see a chip name down 7%, 8 %? Is it isolated or is it not, as Christina says? I think that's the question right now. I mean, I think a lot of a lot of the analysts right now are calling for the fact this is more company specific than broader. But I do think it's interesting that they highlight the fact that China is really digesting some of their prior purchases. So I think if that's the question, did you get this pull forward, which a lot of people did think was going to happen?

22:51Are we starting to see the inklings of that? So, you know, it's not something I jump into right now, but I do think we want to continue to see how these reportings to come out to see if this is a trend that's going to going to start to happen here. Mike, what do you make of this, the outlook, whether it's an isolated incident or not? Yeah, I mean, it's kind of interesting when you get really disappointing news like this, and then we see a big downdraft, call it 10 % or so, and everybody says, oh, is this a great buying opportunity? Well, if you have a big sort of secular shift from tailwinds to headwinds, a 10 % discount in the stock price might not actually be large enough.

23:24I think it probably makes some sense to allow the market to digest this news a little bit before we really make any conclusions about it. This thing certainly also saw a lot of activity today. And, you know, in the opposite, basically, theme that we saw in UnitedHealth, where we saw some longer-dated call buying, there was a lot of put activity here as we look further out, 160s, 155s. So, not sharply lower from here, but lower seems to be what a lot of people are betting on. Carter, obviously a downtrend in that AMAT chart, but what about the rest of the chip space? Any trends there that you're looking at going into this next week based off what we know from what AMAT just said?

24:03Well, the one pattern is the same pattern here in the SOX as is for the Dow and the S &P equal weight, et cetera, et cetera. The S &P equal weight, the Dow haven't made the high, and guess what? Nor has the SOX. The SOX high was July 10th last summer. Here we are August 15th, and we're still below that high, which means if you're unchanged for a year, the relative performance of the Sox index to the tech sector is now at a four and a half year low. It's just not good. It's another question mark for the overall market. Well, there's a lot more fast money still to come. Here's what's coming up next.

24:42We have Liftoff, the ride hailing stock putting pedal to the metal after a big change to its board. Is this the green light for bigger gains? And we're all in on next week's retail earnings. What to expect from Walmart and Target ahead of their reports. Next, you're watching Fast Money live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. We're back right after this.