In short
Fast Money episode covers markets and major catalysts. Topic: U.S. capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and the ripple into energy, plus CES/Nvidia and other stock movers.
Guests
Halima Croft (RBC Capital Markets, global head of commodity strategy) and CNBC’s Eamon Javers (Washington correspondent).
Key claims
Energy stocks rallied because traders expect a potential Venezuela oil turnaround, but Croft says it’s a “2030 story,” not a light-switch, citing military control, deteriorated infrastructure, and security/terms issues for U.S. reentry (including seized assets and Exxon/ConocoPhillips). She argues Venezuela won’t quickly replace shale-driven U.S. growth; volatility risk remains.
Notable examples
Chevron +5% (best day since April 9), WTI near $58 (+~2%), OIH oil services ETF +5%+, Bitcoin topping $94,000. CES: Nvidia Jensen Huang unveiled “Vera Rubin” chips (10x lower inference token cost vs Blackwell) and autonomous driving software. Other segments: Novo Nordisk Wagovi launch (Novo shares +5%); Versant (VSNT) spinoff debut; Hilton hit by DHS/ICE room-refusal allegations.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOImpact of Maduro's Capture on Markets
0:00 to 0:22
Discussion on the market's reaction to Nicolas Maduro's capture and implications for energy.
“Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand.”
Impact of Maduro's Capture on Markets
1:42 to 3:56
Discussion on the market's reaction to Nicolas Maduro's capture and implications for energy.
“On the desk tonight, Carter Worth, Karen Feinerman, Dan Nathan and Guy Adami.”
Geopolitical Implications of Venezuelan Oil
3:57 to 4:52
Analyzing the geopolitical aspects of oil production and international relations.
“the president over the weekend suggesting that American oil companies are going to spend billions of dollars to go into Venezuela, reconstruct that oil capacity in Venezuela and start pumping more oil.”
Analysis of Energy Stock Trends
4:53 to 7:11
Examining current trends in energy stocks and market sentiment.
“Have we reached the end of the window where I can actually say happy New Year?”
Challenges of Venezuelan Oil Production
7:12 to 8:23
Exploring the challenges and future potential of Venezuelan oil production.
“We saw some very, very big gains in today's session for some.”
Long-Term Outlook for Oil Companies
8:24 to 14:03
Discussion on the long-term prospects for U.S. oil companies in Venezuela.
“China is the number one buyer of Venezuelan output.”
Analyzing Venezuelan Oil Production Prospects
14:03 to 17:08
Experts discuss the future of Venezuelan oil production and regional impacts.
“I think it's important when we think about the medium term.”
Market Reactions and Energy Stocks
17:08 to 17:42
Discussion on energy stocks and their performance amidst market changes.
“No, I mean, her points are obviously great.”
Nvidia and CES Innovations
17:42 to 20:41
A look at Nvidia's latest announcements and their implications for the tech market.
“If you just take the long view, we know that oil adjusted for inflation is about where it was 50 years ago in January of 1986, literally about$17 a barrel.”
Stock Market Trends and Predictions
20:41 to 22:01
Analysts share insights on stock trading patterns for the new year.
“I know Sam Malman talked about, well, maybe we'll consider transparency.”
Show all 19 chapters
Novo Nordic's Obesity Drug Launch
24:01 to 26:55
Discussion on the impact of Novo Nordic's new obesity treatment on the market.
“the first in the United States, marking a new chapter for obesity treatment.”
Eli Lilly vs. Novo Nordic: Market Dynamics
26:55 to 27:55
Comparative analysis of Eli Lilly and Novo Nordic's market strategies.
“But even when you add in all the things like needing to refrigerate and things like that, aside from manufacturing, you're saying including all of those things.”
Versant Media's Future and Market Dynamics
29:07 to 33:54
Discussion on Versant Media's stock, market dynamics, and strategic vision.
“We understand what's needed from us to face each threat head on.”
Market Reaction to Maduro's Capture
33:54 to 34:23
Analysis of the market's response to the capture of Nicolas Maduro.
“what he had to say about the AI race and much more.”
Highlights from CES and NVIDIA's Innovations
34:23 to 39:06
Recap of highlights from CES, focusing on NVIDIA CEO's keynote address.
“capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.”
In-Depth on NVIDIA's Keynote and AI Developments
39:06 to 42:00
Discussion on NVIDIA's latest technology and AI advancements from CES.
“He shares an video down just a fraction of a percent after hours.”
Analyzing Jensen Huang's Keynote and Stock Performance
42:00 to 43:55
Discussion on the nuances of Jensen Huang's keynote and its implications on stock performance.
“if there's a situation that's not in the manual that you need to navigate through.”
Hilton's Recent Controversy and Stock Impact
43:55 to 45:25
Examination of Hilton's stock decline linked to accusations from the Department of Homeland Security.
“Hilton shares closing two and a half percent lower today for the stock's worst day since October.”
Final Trades and Predictions
45:25 to 46:30
The hosts share their final trade ideas and predictions for various stocks.
“Well, I mean, if you look at Marriott, look at Hilton, generally speaking, Expedia and other travel-related stocks, the airlines, they all look good.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:02Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. It starts with our approach. Every Mazda comes standard with proactive safety features.
0:11Melissa Lee:So you're more aware of what's around you, more focused on the road ahead, and ready before problems ever start. Mazda. More of what matters most to you. Go to mazdausa.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse or promote any product. At Edward Jones, we believe rich is more than caring about the latest and greatest. It's also taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are with personalized financial strategies that help protect what matters so you can preserve your progress while creating a path forward. The key to being rich is knowing what counts.
0:54Let's find your rich together. Edward Jones, member SIPC.
1:02Live from the Nasdaq market side in the heart of New York City's Times Square, this is Fast Money. Here's what's on tap tonight. We are watching shares of NVIDIA. CEO Jensen Huang takes the stage at CES. All the headlines from his keynote and an exclusive interview with the CEO himself live from Las Vegas. And the ripple effect from this weekend's capture of Nicolas Maduro from oil to Bitcoin, how the geopolitics in Venezuela are impacting the markets. Plus, Novo Nordisk catches a bid as its Wagovi pill goes on sale. Goldman Sachs leads the banks and the Dow to new records and shares of CNBC's new parent making their market debut today.
1:35How one trader's positioning amid the pullback and where the stock could be going from here. I'm Melissa Lee. Coming to you live from the studio, be at the NASDAQ. On the desk tonight, Carter Worth, Karen Feinerman, Dan Nathan and Guy Adami. The stocks higher across the board with the Dow jumping almost 600 points to close at fresh records. More on that shortly. But first, let's get to the latest developments on the U.S. capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro over the weekend. The energy sector front and center. Chevron, the only U.S. oil major still in Venezuela, surging 5 percent for its best day since April 9th.
2:04Other names, including Exxon and Valero, also firmly in the green. Oil services stocks as measured by the OAH, adding over 5 percent, while the underlying commodity rose modestly. WTI crude settling nearly 2 percent higher to top 58 bucks a barrel. Defense stocks also catching a bid. The ITA, the iShares Aerospace and defense ETF, hitting all-time highs. Drone makers, Air Environment, Red Cat were each up double digits. Other winners include Axon and Northrop Grumman. And traders also adding to precious metals positions, gold rising almost 3%, while so-called digital gold, Bitcoin, topping 94 ,000 for the first time since December 10th.
2:41Maduro today pleading not guilty to narco-terrorism charges in a New York City court. For the latest details, let's get to Eamon Javers, who is in Washington for us. Amen.
2:50Melissa Lee:Yeah, Melissa, that's right. The Venezuelan president or former Venezuelan president, I should say, Nicolas Maduro was in court in New York today where both he and his wife pled not guilty to those federal drug charges. It was a bit of a dramatic scene there where at one point they were interrupted by a spectator in the courtroom during that hearing. And we saw the armored car delivering the former Venezuelan president to the courthouse this morning. So dramatic stuff in New York here in Washington, though, after that frenzy of military and diplomatic activity over the weekend, the president speaking to reporters several times throughout the weekend.
3:24Melissa Lee:The president chose to remain behind closed doors here at the White House throughout the day. At least so far, we have not heard from him on camera today. We are expecting Secretary of State Marco Rubio to head up to Capitol Hill shortly to brief House and Senate leaders on what happened in Venezuela and the plan forward after this. So we may get some more details from the administration once that meeting breaks up and senators and members of Congress have a chance to talk to reporters up on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue from here. So some big questions remain unanswered this evening, Melissa.
3:56Melissa Lee:The biggest one is you saw the president over the weekend suggesting that American oil companies are going to spend billions of dollars to go into Venezuela, reconstruct that oil capacity in Venezuela and start pumping more oil. And then you saw Brian Sullivan's reporting on our air today that a lot of those oil companies are cool to that idea, I think is a good way to put it. And so the question now is, you know, what kind of pressure or offers, carrots or sticks, will you see this administration put onto U.S. oil companies to try to encourage them to do what the president wants, which is to produce more oil, benefit American consumers, lower energy prices here at home?
4:34Melissa Lee:Melissa? Eamon, thank you. Eamon Javers. There's also thinking that whatever happens in Venezuela is going to take a long time. So even if there's the belief that oil companies will go in and increased production, that that in and of itself will take a while, guys. We see the stocks, though, trade higher in the short term. So what do you do? I agree with that. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you. Good to see you. Welcome back. Have we reached the end of the window where I can actually say happy New Year? I reached it a while ago. All right. But with all that said, and it's great that we have Halima here in real life to sort of break this down.
5:03Melissa Lee:But I'll say this. What you just said is 100 percent correct. I mean, this is going to take months, if not years, to sort of reconcile itself. But the market's going to sort of buy first and ask questions later. And to me, this was sort of a piece to a puzzle to get people off the fence in terms of the energy stocks and get them to move in terms of valuation, in terms of balance sheets and in terms of just being positioned the right way. And we've been talking about that for a while. In Karen's acronym last year, obviously, energy was a big part. And, you know, she may have missed it by a week.
5:31Melissa Lee:But this is still, to me, in play. And Carter can speak to this. The bearish to bullish reversals in ETFs and individual stocks are at pretty interesting levels across a swath of names. Yeah. So just to the acronym for a moment, had I been in the present tense at CARB instead of past tense CARB, it would have been much better off. Anyway, to the energy, the E, the OIH, that's why it did relatively better, much better today than the underlying. Like, who knows about the underlying commodity, so many other things. But to have a potential for gigantic oil field services, that's obviously why, you know, we had such a huge day.
6:09But if you go back a couple of years, really, this has been a very mediocre trade.
6:14Melissa Lee:Yeah, I'll just mention, you know, from a sentiment standpoint, we've seen lots of shifts over the last, I would say, month or so. We saw a lot of dispersion in some of the kind of, you know, really popular trades. And to come in here, and we could all agree that energy was not particularly popular despite your carb. You know, it seems like everyone's on the same side of the boat here. You know what I mean? And, you know, Mel, you just made the point. It's going to take a while. And, you know, Eamon just said that some of these large, you know, integrators and stuff are a little cautious. They have reason to be if you go back and look at the last 20 years.
6:44Melissa Lee:Because despite what just happened, it's going to remain a volatile situation for a while. So to me, I just think it's a hard one just to pile into. But, I mean, to Guy's point, he's been looking for something that has nothing to do with just happened over the last month. And all of those fundamental reasons might come true, but this uncertainty might kind of add a different layer to the idea of this is going to be a sector that's going to just kind of pick up, I don't know, a little bit of the steam that we saw in the broad market last year despite the underperformance. How are the charts positioned?
7:14We saw some very, very big gains in today's session for some.
7:18Melissa Lee:Yeah, I mean, a couple of things. We know that it's still a very small sector overall, less than 3%. But the key is that the beta trade, which is to say drillers and oil service stocks, they've been outperforming since August. So, in fact, the OIH and stocks that are in that category are ahead of the S &P. It's the big integrators that have held it back, but those are showing life as well. I think it's a circumstance as follows. You have very little downside risk to be overweight this going into the year. So you either waste time yet again, but I don't think lower is in the card. So it's either sideways and you have a dud in that sense as opportunity cost, or you actually have something that really does start to outperform for the first time.
8:01Melissa Lee:Now, remember, it's the ultimate. Think about the number one performing sector off the COVID low. Energy, of course, because what? It was the worst performing sector going into it. There wasn't a single car or plane moving. So a lot of beta, a lot of cyclicality. But within that, it's definitely drillers. Yeah. Guy, there is also the geopolitical aspect to this in terms of what Venezuela produces, who else who buys it, who else produces it in terms of heavy crude. Russia produces heavy crude. China is the number one buyer of Venezuelan output. And so if you sort of play the chess game in terms of where the administration wants to exact some pain, I mean, if we're controlling Venezuelan assets and we say, hey, China, we're not going to sell to you.
8:40There are a lot of different levers to consider here geopolitically. politically.
8:43Melissa Lee:Which, and through the lens of that question, none of them, I think, are particularly bullish. And so to your point, Chinese are watching this and saying, OK, you know, you've made your foray into Venezuela. We could use the same type of rationale and say, you know what, we view Taiwan in the same way. And who's going to stop us? Russia could say the same thing about, obviously, Ukraine. They probably have, but they could move it over to Poland, perhaps. I mean, there are a lot of chess pieces yet to be played, and none of them, I think, are particularly market friendly. But in terms of energy you just mentioned, and again, Halima's walking on.
9:13Melissa Lee:I think at its peak, Venezuela was producing 3 million barrels a day. That was probably a third of that now. If you can just get the infrastructure in there with all these U.S. companies and all these service names that Karen talked about, you get it back to maybe even half or two-thirds of what you're looking at, and it's significant for these oil companies. You mentioned her like, you tease Halima. I'm a fan. Like three times in the first eight minutes of the show. We're just going to bring her on because why not? CNBC contributor Halima Croft is here, RBC Capital Markets, global head of commodity strategy.
9:45Halima, great to see you. Thank you for having me. And I remember when Venezuela was producing over 3 million barrels a day. I remember when it started to really decline, 2003, Venezuelan oil strike. Hugo Chavez fires 20 ,000 Pedevesa employees, decides to turn Pedevesa into an organ of the military, the piggy bank for the Bolivarian revolution. It has been a multi-decade decline. It is run by the military, by criminal grangs. Infrastructure totally deteriorated. And the question for U.S. energy companies is, how much do you want to front in terms of the capital for a turnaround story? The military looks like it's still in charge of Venezuela right now.
10:27So what is the path for the military actually going back into the barracks and getting out of the oil business? So there's the aspect of investing money in new production. But how about the assets that were seized from U.S. oil companies in 2007? This is such a great question. This is why I think Exxon, ConocoPhillips, ConocoPhillips has the largest non-sovereign debt. They had the$8 billion settlement. The question is, what are the terms for them to go back? When you talk to the companies, I don't hear a lot of enthusiasm of jumping into this right away. Real questions like, who is really running Venezuela?
11:02Who is going to provide the security guarantees? Certainly, they want to work with this White House. Everybody wants a turnaround story for Venezuela. But the question is, is it the role of the oil companies to play essentially the quasi-government developmental role? Who's going to build capacity? Yeah. In terms that we were talking about sort of the chess pieces moving around the globe, so when you take the bigger macro picture, how do you factor in Russia as well as China? This is the best question, because Pedevese, the national oil company, half the floorboard in their tower were occupied by Rosneft, the Russian oil company.
11:38What happens to Rosneft? What happens to Chinese interests? The Chinese are owed a lot of debt by the Venezuelans themselves. Who is going to make the deals with these companies? You have Europeans operating there, as well. So, when we talk about the U.S. reentry, what happens to the existing players? AMNA NAWAZ, Do you think that the U.S. would use this as sort of a leverage against the Chinese or Russia? Like, how do you see that factor in? I mean, that's an interesting question. Is there some type of trade in terms of the Russians? I mean, there was this story or theory floated by Fiona Hill, former National Security Council representative for Russia, saying, like, look, the Russians have offered to trade Venezuela for us, basically, hands off in terms of Ukraine.
12:23So very interesting, Guy's whole point about spears of influence, because the National Security Council strategy for the United States is now this is our spear of influence, the Western Hemisphere. No more outposts of Chinese and Russian influence. What do the Chinese say then when it comes to Taiwan? We know the Russian view on Ukraine. What does it mean for the other Baltic states?
12:47Melissa Lee:Getting into dangerous territory, but I'll try. I mean, there seems to be a thought that somehow this can potentially be the United States oil reserves, which I don't think is factually true, but I think there's a notion that that could take place. Thoughts? I think this is very difficult oil. I mean, again, they have large reserves, but this is not shale. This is not the light switch that is short-cycle U.S. production. I mean, the great American energy renaissance was driven by shale. The idea that Venezuela is somehow going to be the bulwark of our energy security, I find that challenging at this moment.
13:29Again, we hope it all works out well for Venezuela. That country has been through so much. Our track record, though, when it comes to regime change in nation-building, in oil-producing countries, our recent track record is not outstanding. So, first of all, it's really great to have you here. Thanks for coming in person. So the question is, when you think about oil and as, do you put this aside and say, all right, this is really not going to in the next year or two or three, it's not going to move the needle one way or another? I think it's important when we think about the medium term. So when I talk to the companies, they say, if everything breaks right, if the United States is able to pull this off and stabilize the security environment and turn around the whole sort of health indicators, I mean, if you look at the health indicators in Venezuela, it looks like a conflict zone.
14:24I mean, they have food insecurity. I mean, this does not look like other oil-producing countries. But if we turn this around, that's a 2030 story in terms of future production. We're just not there yet. So when you see the gains that the oil companies have made, and granted, you're not a stock analyst, you're a commodity analyst, but still, do you feel like this is overdone, that the assumption that there's going to be more for them so quickly is overblown? Well, there's one interesting aspect to this story. If you look at Guyana, Guyana, if you look at where we've seen production gains, non-OPEC production gains, Guyana has been a great growth story for the companies.
15:03Venezuela had been threatening Guyana for years. Have we essentially de-risked the Guyana story? Are we basically saying if Venezuela is not able to throw its weight around in the broader region, is that a regional stabilization story? Again, I think that's one interesting aspect. But beyond that, I just don't believe we're going to be talking in the next six months about the Venezuelan oil renaissance. AMNA NAWAZ, And then even if there is a renaissance, I mean, should oil prices go lower? AMNA NAWAZ, Well, that's the interesting question. I mean, you would have thought, given all the kind of optimism about we're going to turn this around, oil would actually be lower today.
15:43But I do think there is this acknowledgment or people are waking up to the fact that this is not a light switch. This is a long way back from Venezuela. I think there are other interesting stories we're going to have to watch. So, in the next couple of weeks, if you are the Iranian government, how are you reading these developments in Venezuela? Do you believe that President Trump is coming for a second strike in Iran? And before we were talking about Venezuela, we were talking about Iran last week. He issued very stark warnings to the Iranian government. If you shoot protesters, we're coming for you.
16:15AMNA NAWAZ - So, have you changed at all your forecast for oil for the year? Or would you? What would get you to change them? Again, I would say from the standpoint of what would get us more bullish on oil, I do think if we started to see sort of rolling instability, like if Venezuela is a chaotic transition, that would be something that we would think would be concerning for current production levels. Actually, Venezuelan production has been declining because we have been targeting these tankers. They have been shutting in production. So what do we see in terms of that transition? If it were to look like Libya or Iraq, I'm not saying it will, but that would be something we'd be concerned about.
16:55And as we go over to the Iran situation, if we do get involved in another military engagement in Iran, what does that mean for regional supplies? Halima, great to see you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming by. Halima Croft of RBC.
17:11Melissa Lee:You know my view. Totally. She's Parthenon, right? She's there. She's in it. With something on. Summit. No, I mean, her points are obviously great. I'll say that she's not going to play stock market. I will. I mean, the names that I think did well today and should continue to do well are names like Marathon Patrol. And look at the move in Valero. That might be historic in terms of the magnitude of the move. And they all did it, all these names on three and four times normal volume, which suggests people that have not been in the space are going to plow into the space, regardless of duration that this takes to work itself out.
17:42Melissa Lee:I mean, a couple of things. If you just take the long view, we know that oil adjusted for inflation is about where it was 50 years ago in January of 1986, literally about$17 a barrel. We also know that oil as a percentage of GDP, as output, is running at 4 or 5%. That's low. Ultimately, I suppose there'll be no more combustion engine cars. We know that's coming and so forth. The question is, is there a play, just here and now, because it's about making money, is there a play to be overweight or underweight energy in the coming year? My hunch is overweight. Karen, do you feel like it was overdone today, the gains.
18:17I do. I do. I mean, I know you've been outside of Venezuela, you've been positive anyway on oil field services, but to your point, though, I also think as a percentage of GDP, it's probably heading lower and lower still. Ultimately, yes. Right. So, you know, working on the acronym, I really got to... I think energy gets the boot. It might. It might get the boot, which would be the bottom. All right. Meantime, check out shares of NVIDIA. They're actually fairly flat in the aftermarket session. CEO Jensen Huang delivering the keynote address at CES. Huang unveiling new autonomous vehicle software, as well as new open new AI open models and a physical AI platform.
18:59Shares of NVIDIA rose nearly 40 percent just last year. So this is an interesting one to watch. Lisa Su's AMD also on the docket presenting at CES. So we'll see what she has to say, too. But there's a lot of enthusiasm around the chip trade at the beginning of this year, saying that they think that it's going to be a super cycle for things like memory and storage and all of that.
19:19Melissa Lee:It's so many investments by NVIDIA that some of these are going to get crowded out, right? And the longer we get into this cycle, I think investors are trying to find other spots. And we kind of highlighted that on numerous occasions last year when you saw memory names join the party. You saw storage. You saw a host of other companies in the ecosystem. And now you're starting to see some of the names that were early leaders just kind of underperform a little bit. So you hear this expression all the time, stock picking and stock pickers market. I think it's hard to move away from NVIDIA. And I know that just a few trading days into the new year does not make any sort of trend.
19:53Melissa Lee:But just look at NVIDIA and look at Broadcom, how they've traded. And I think Broadcom is really interesting to me because this was a story that a lot of folks, again, wanted to get behind. They wanted to diversify a bit away from this NVIDIA. But what happened? Google comes around, or at least that narrative comes around with the TPUs. And obviously, Google is a customer of Broadcom. But since their earnings, Broadcom hasn't seen an uptick. So again, I think that we're likely to see some sort of rounding of some of these names that have traded very well. Look at how some of these stocks opened up today.
Read the full transcript
20:22Melissa Lee:The opening was the high of the day, and they gave a lot back. So again, NVIDIA tomorrow, it'll be really telling to see how this stock trades after all these announcements. The thing I think will be most important this year is OpenAI. I mean, until we have some clarity also, I'd love to have some transparency. I know Sam Malman talked about, well, maybe we'll consider transparency. Maybe they won't. I don't know. But it's a giant center that we don't have any real light on. You know, a center of this whole thing that we really don't know. So I'd love to see them go public. I don't think it happens this year.
20:58Melissa Lee:I look quick at an NVIDIA chart. I mean, potential for, and I'm saying potential for head and shoulders. Their first shoulder was in August. The head, obviously, in October at the all-time high. Now you're sort of building the other shoulder. You get through 175-ish on the downside, and I think technically it's problematic. And the fact that you didn't have a rip-roaring day today in a vacuum, I think it's somewhat concerning. Works for me. It works for you. Yes, I mean, weakness here will inform the pattern, just as not weakening will inform the pattern. The key is this, that technology overall, we know its relative performance peaked on the 29th of October.
21:35Melissa Lee:So the last eight weeks of the year, it's been very, very poor. And there wasn't a lot of lift today. I would say you want to be underweight tech for the year. Is it a pair of twos or is it actually something negative? There are a lot that are negative, right? A lot of software names in particular. I would say pair of twos or maybe worse. Worse. Okay. The worse hand, as you know, Melissa. That's a 2-7 offsuit. I don't know what that means. A 2 and a 7 of different suits. Oh, oh, offsuit. You learn something. The more you know. Yes, the more you know. Although we're a different company now, so I don't know if you can use that.
22:10Anyway. Just do. Coming up, Novo's weight loss bill is officially on the market. The impact on the shares and the company's place in the obesity drug space now. Plus, CNBC's parent company, Versant, making its market debut today. How it's looking to compete in the media space and what Karen sees in store for the stock. Don't go anywhere. Fast Money is back in tune.
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23:50Melissa Lee:And we trust you to make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. Welcome back to Fast Money. Novo Nordic shares to popping more than 5 % after the launch of its GLP-1 pill, the first in the United States, marking a new chapter for obesity treatment. Novo's Wagovi pill is now available in over 70 ,000 pharmacies across the country. The starting dose retails for$149 a month for cash-paying patients and as little as$25 a month for those with insurance. shares of Novo at their highest since October. I guess the question here is for how long, seeing that Eli Lilly's oral could come onto the market later on this year.
24:31Dan, what are your thoughts?
24:32Melissa Lee:The pricing of this thing. We were talking about this a year ago, saying that it just wasn't accessible to most patients for a whole host of reasons, right? And all of a sudden you see what's going on here. The administration has obviously had something to do with this. And you had the big shot or just big shot. You did the doc on it. You know, what was the number? Like how many patients in the U.S. were taking this thing? Now it's going to be multiples of that. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So, I mean, again, pricing pressure, I think that's going to be the story going forward. I'm not sure it's great for either one of these.
25:02I mean, at least for this, even if it's for a short window of time, you've got to think that people are saying, do I pay more than a thousand? If you're cash paying, do I pay$1 ,000 a month or whatever it is at this point for Eli Lilly's injection? Or do I pay$149 for an oral with no needles? See, I think the story isn't at the moment price. It's the market, the total addressable market now, given that, you know, for a whole host of reasons, people don't want to use people for whatever reason. You can see why they don't want to use injections. Oral once a day. I mean, that's huge. And then if you start scaling manufacturing, I mean, still, it's an incredibly profitable product.
25:39So I think it'll be more of that than pricing pressure.
25:42Melissa Lee:And that's why I think structure, GPCR, despite the fact it was down today. I mean, their oral, if you look at some of the data, it's actually very competitive. which is a good thing for them. And you saw a stock move 100 % a couple weeks ago. It's leveled off a little bit since, but I'm not convinced of anything. I am quasi-convinced, though, by the end of the year, GPCR gets bought by somebody bigger than they. It will be interesting to see if that makes it into your acronym. I've got to figure out if it's an S for structure. An S for structure, I think, would work nicely. Or a G for GPCR, it depends.
26:10Or X for anything. Could be anything. Could be anything. That's true. Excellent point. How is Lilly looking versus NOVA or NOVA looking versus Lilly?
26:17Melissa Lee:Well, I mean, you know, think about how correlated they were and then how separated they became. And my hunch is, obviously, you're always right to go with a stronger stock. But the Novo has all the elements of a bearish to bullish reversal, very nascent, very young. It's the more speculative, more dangerous play. I'm always inclined to wager I would go with Novo. It will be interesting to see what the margins are on this, because it takes a lot more active ingredient to make a pill version versus an injectable, just because of the way the pill is manufactured. And also there are certain limitations in terms of taking on an empty stomach, not being able to consume water or taking other medications within a certain window of time.
26:55But even when you add in all the things like needing to refrigerate and things like that, aside from manufacturing, you're saying including all of those things. Yeah, yeah. The actual manufacturing. The manufacturing requires much more active ingredient than an injectable. But the injectable, though, has so much more expensive handling. Right, exactly. The handling could be more. But in terms of orals, this version of the oral versus a small molecule oral is much harder to manufacture than Eli Lilly's version, which is a small molecule.
27:25Melissa Lee:But is there a larger addressable market for... Right. The TAM is still bigger, I think. I think so, which will make up for the margin. With the TAM with the price. With the price, yeah. But what is Lilly priced in? I mean, this thing has gone up 40 % or something like that. It made new all-time highs. And so you think of Novo and what Carter's saying, the sentiment has been so bad. The price action has been so bad. Coming up, CMC parent company Versant making its market debut today. Why Karen is buying up shares in what she sees in store for the stock as it tries to shake up the media space. You're watching Fast Money Live from the Nasdaq Market Site in Times Square back right after this.
27:59Melissa Lee:Everybody wave. Versant's day of the year.
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28:46Melissa Lee: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. To realize the future America needs, We understand what's needed from us to face each threat head on. We've earned our place in the fight for our nation's future. We are Marines. We were made for this. Welcome back to Fast Money, our parent company, Versin Media, ringing the opening bell right here at the NASDAQ this morning.
29:29The company completing the spinoff from Comcast, now trading under the ticker VSNT. CEO Mark Lazarus joins Squawk Box to lay out his vision for the new venture. Take a listen.
29:40Melissa Lee:The market is listening to what we're saying, that, you know, vertical scale is going to be a way for us to differentiate and to diversify our business, to be not so beholden to pay TV. While that's still a big profitable part for us, it's not going to be the end game. First in stock was down 13 percent today, but our very own Karen Feinerman picked up some shares. So walk us through your thesis. Yes. So several reasons that I did that. So one is, you know, one for the home team. I want to do that. So the second one is I do believe that when you are in charge of your own destiny, as Versant is now, that you do a much better job.
30:21You're very focused. Right. So that's really important. The other thing is there is a technical issue to this trade that I think is really important, which is that most of Comcast is owned by mutual funds that are tied to, let's say, the NASDAQ composite. So they need to mirror that. Versant will not be in that. So if you're a mutual fund and you own Comcast, you will get 4 % of the number of shares that you own in Versant stock. You can't own it. You must sell it regardless of price. When you can sell it, you might have a little bit of room. Often people begin to sell it immediately. So you saw a ton of volume today, right?
31:00I think, doing the math, I think there's maybe about 90 million shares to go, potentially, if all of the index-related stocks sell, which I think may happen. But so today you had a lot of volume. I thought, all right, so about 10-ish percent of the shares traded today. I'll step in and buy about 10 percent today. I love the dynamic of when you have someone selling who cannot own it, regardless of price, they have to sell it. And so I'm also somewhat intrigued by the media space has gotten a lot of attention. We'll see the W. Whoever, however Warner ends up, we might see somewhat of a comp to look at.
31:36And, you know, the balance sheet's in decent shape. You got a management that's in charge of their own destiny. Let's see what happens. I mean, that's that stub price, right, of what Netflix wants to buy X, the live businesses. That is the comp, in theory, to what Versant is now. And there was a bidder interested in that. Right. Yes, so that's important.
31:56Melissa Lee:So there you have it. I think that's right. And Karen brings up the number of shares. So 40-something million shares traded today. You get a couple more days, you flush this thing out. And maybe it doesn't mean it goes down in those ensuing days, but Karen's right to sort of picking away at this in terms of the forced liquidation. Wait, wait, wait. I didn't see that. But that number of volume was not there when I – so that must have been a huge near the end of the day. Late day. Yes, late day. So that's really interesting. How does a Comcast chart look, Carter? I mean, you know, it's one of those that's trying to show itself.
32:29Melissa Lee:But, I mean – We're not owned by Comcast. You can say whatever you want. I already did that last time, remember? I was like, look, it keeps trying. I mean, this is the kind of thing that the trick is just to avoid it. Avoid Comcast. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Actually, you said that before, too. So, yeah, that's fair. Yeah. But how do you look? I mean, in terms of, you know, when Lazarus says we want to have scale in verticals, I mean, that's sort of an interesting notion in this day and age when 62 percent of the revenues is tied to live TV for Versant Media. Well, I heard Mark on a podcast a few months ago and the way he articulated this is, you know, you talk about that scale and they have some great properties.
33:06Melissa Lee:obviously, this one in particular with some amazing shows, this one in particular. But they really want to do a lot of things that they think are like the next 25 years in media, not exactly leaning into the last 25 years. And I think that's what's exciting about this. When you think about what Netflix is doing with Warner, and forget the stub, and I know that's the comp, I just heard you guys talk about it. I mean, that's not exactly the next 25 years. You know, if I was a Netflix shareholder, I might be excited for them to do something that in the near term you might scratch your head about.
33:34Melissa Lee:But if they have the same vision that they had 20 years ago about their business, those are the sorts of things. So when I think about Versan, I think it's really a lot of upside here, especially as a lot of investors get their arms around what this thing is and what the vision is going forward. Coming up, all the headlines from NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's keynote address from CES in Las Vegas, what he had to say about the AI race and much more. Plus, some of today's biggest stock moves, why the action in Tesla and McDonald's caught our attention, and how long bank strength can run into the new year.
34:04Fast Money is back in two.
34:10Melissa Lee:Missed a moment of fast? Catch us anytime on the go. Follow the Fast Money podcast. We're back right after this.
34:23Welcome back to Fast Money Stocks. Higher to start the week after the U.S. capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. The Dow jumping nearly 600 points, closing at a fresh record high. The S &P and Nasdaq both climbing more than half a percent. Shares of Tesla snapping a seven-day losing streak, what had been its longest down run since April of 2024. The stock up more than 3 percent. CEO Elon Musk had dinner with President Trump over the weekend. He tweeted the picture out and said it's going to be an amazing year, 2026. McDonald's, however, down for a sixth day in a row, losing more than 4 percent in that time.
34:53And bank stocks seeing some strength as a first full trading week of 2026 gets underway. Goldman Sachs is 4 % gain, responsible for more than 200 points of the Dow's gain. So continued strength here into the new year.
35:05Melissa Lee:Goldman Sachs, I think, is up over 100 % since the lows we saw in the spring, which is remarkable in and of itself. And if you just look at a chart, you're saying, is this a biotech stock? Is this a tech stock? No, it's Goldman Sachs. I'll say this. I think they report on the 16th of this month, which is fast approaching. History suggests you sell your shares ahead of it and look to buy it cheaper. I think that's what's going to happen here. But real quick, I think collectively, Citi's been a name we've talked about. And despite the fact that it's at a multi-year high now, I still think there's room to the upside.
35:32So I agree with everything you said. The strength, I don't love going into earnings. I am happy, though, that we're getting back to earnings, where the story is about what are companies seeing? What do they see in the consumer? What's the outlook? That's interesting to me. I think the stories are still really compelling. I'm still on Citibank. I'm still on J.P. Morgan. I mean, none of that changes because the calendar has changed, but I do think the bar is a little bit higher. I would probably look to sell some upside calls going into earnings. The bar has been raised.
36:04Melissa Lee:In the valuation, which is obviously a large part of your work, these are all trading at record high price, the tangible book. I think DLJ probably was the highest sale ever in March of$3 ,000 at credit's risk at three and a half times. JP Morgan is over that now. Does the valuation not concern you as a holder, or how do you hope that? Well, it concerns me a little bit, but the tailwinds, I think, the regulatory environment improving is gigantic, right? There's that. There's all the other things are working well right now. Loans are good. Credit quality is good. Just think about the capital markets business, both equity, debt.
36:39Think about the asset wealth management business, also really great. And then when you add on, I think the AI opportunity for these companies is enormous. So there's a lot to like. The multiple relative to the S &P, it always trades at a discount. It's pretty high right now. That's the only fly in the ointment. Relative to themselves, though. Relative to themselves, very high. Yes. Yes. So, I mean, that begs a question. Should they be re-rated?
37:07Melissa Lee:Well, I think if you go back maybe a month and a half ago, you remember at an industry conference, I think it was the CFO of JP Morgan talked about, you know, spending on tech and the like. Like stocks sold off like 5%. If I'm any of these CEOs, I'm going to be cautious here, right? Because if you're Goldman or Morgan in particular, right, you are like Goldman's like a tech company. Half their employees are like tech people, right? And so you think about what it's pricing in relative. They're going to be lead left on like dozens of IPOs, the biggest ones, the best ones. And I think it's probably pricing a lot of that in.
37:36Melissa Lee:And a lot of things have to go right, I guess. I agree. I mean, I think, you know, they always, Jamie is always cautious. Yeah. Always. And when Marion Lake did that and said expenses are going to be 104 or whatever it was, people flipped out, I don't think they were taking into account, all right, if we're doing a huge amount of business, we're going to have to pay our people more. That's where some of those expense money goes. So I still think there's a lot to love, but I don't love this setup. Can I say something quickly? Of course you can. This is an ensemble show. What's today? I think this week, if we make it 19-year anniversary.
38:10This week. What anniversary is 19? It's the eighth or the ninth. I'll ask my husband because he's so good with getting anniversary gifts. That's right. Start over. Go back to work.
38:21Melissa Lee:But you know what has not happened in all of those years? So many things actually have not happened. A lot of things have happened. Jamie Dimon has not come and spent time with us on this desk. I know he's watching right now. He did on video. He called in for your birthday that one time. That was very nice. I tried to call in for his birthday, but they wouldn't let me talk. That restraining order. They wouldn't match you through. Yeah. We'll see. Come on. No, you never know. I know he's watching. Watches religiously, I'm sure. Coming up, we will get the highlights from CES, including NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's keynote address.
38:53John Furt will have his take on the next move in AI robotics and much more of that when Fast Money returns.
39:06Welcome back to Fast Money. He shares an video down just a fraction of a percent after hours. The CEO Jensen Huang delivers his keynote address at CES. CNBC's John Ford has the highlights from Las Vegas. Hey, John.
39:18Melissa Lee:Hey, Melissa. Well, the bad news is Jensen just got off the stage literally 90 seconds ago. So he's not going to make it up here a couple floors from the stage in time for Fast Money. But I will be taping with him. We'll have that on CNBC tomorrow. The big news out of his talk, I believe, is Vera Rubin. Now, we had been expecting this next generation of NVIDIA technology. They had talked about it a bit, but there's some major updates here, including that all six chips that are a piece of this are now in full production. They're giving some benchmark stacks on how they're running, and the partner systems are arriving in the second half of this year.
39:51Melissa Lee:And a little bit of that detail, they're saying 10 times lower inference token cost versus Blackwell. Well, it's a fancy way of saying the price performance is a whole lot better than the current generation. And the argument is, yeah, this might be expensive, but it's premium. And the bang that you get for the buck is going to be that much better than the existing systems. We've talked to Jensen before about how they've made these systems kind of backward compatible. So it's relatively easy to swap in the latest generation for the old one. As a matter of fact, I was talking with one of NVIDIA's partners earlier today, the CEO of Runway, which does a high-end AI video.
40:31Melissa Lee:He was saying they were able to swap from the previous generation of NVIDIA into their test with Vera Rubin in a day and get that price performance benefit. He was singing its praises. They're in partnership with NVIDIA. But this is NVIDIA's push and attempt to tell the ecosystem we're still innovating. We're staying ahead of competitors, not just on performance, but they will argue on efficiency as well, Melissa. And you'll hear a lot more from Jensen in the conversation that we're going to have tomorrow morning on Squatbox. John, they also announced a move into autonomous driving software. Can you sort of elaborate on that and whether or not that was already sort of expected in the works, you know, in the plan here?
41:13Or is this a brand new endeavor?
41:16Melissa Lee:Well, NVIDIA's got a long legacy with autonomous driving and with next-generation cars. So this is building on that, where they've got new reasoning capabilities inside of the system that they're delivering for that. Now, when I was talking to the NVIDIA folks about this, the example I gave was, oh, like when we had that blackout, that outage in San Francisco, the Waymo cars had some trouble knowing what to do when there's no traffic lights. This is the car that's equipped with this technology will have the ability to make some decisions, not just follow traffic light-based rules that it's been given, and that is the idea.
41:55Melissa Lee:But they were kind of like, hey, you said that. We didn't say it. We're not comparing it to Waymo. But that's why potentially you want your car to be able to reason if there's a situation that's not in the manual that you need to navigate through. I'm just curious also, John, because after the keynote, Jensen took some questions. What was the tone of the questions? I'm wondering what the audience was. What was sort of revealed in the thinking of the audience? Well, as you mentioned it, so the keynote just ended. He's coming up here and right over here, about 50 feet to my right, he's going to meet with some analysts.
42:29Melissa Lee:That's where we expect more of those in-depth questions. And then I'm talking to him after that. So I have the benefit of hearing some of those questions. And, of course, I've got my own. Do you think he'll unveil the price of the new chip versus the price of the old? I didn't hear the price, but I'm not sure I can count that high either. Okay. John, thank you. Great to see you. John Fort out at CES in Las Vegas. You're about to speak to Jensen Huang. You catch a full interview tomorrow on CNBC. So that is one that we will want to watch, especially as the stock has sort of just languished since October.
43:06It's funny.
43:06Melissa Lee:There's 82 analysts who cover the stock on the street. And John just said he's going over to speak to many of them. And they're really, I'm sure a lot of them do great work. But none of them are going to downgrade the stock. They're going to all downgrade the stock. And we saw this maybe five years ago once the story seems a bit saturated, once they lose the sort of pricing power. And I guess the question for 2026 is, like, how long are these companies, their customers, who lose a lot of money, OK, as long as they can keep raising money, How are they going to be able every year, you know what I mean, to keep upgrading these products when the company has all this pricing power?
43:41Melissa Lee:And so that to me at some point, that flip is going to be something I think really important to the narrative of this story. And maybe it's already happening. Coming up, what is weighing on shares of Hilton today and what the Department of Homeland Security has to do with it? More Fast Money in, too.
44:04Welcome back to Fast Money. Hilton shares closing two and a half percent lower today for the stock's worst day since October. The move coming after the Department of Homeland Security accused the hotel chain of refusing rooms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis. In an ex-post this afternoon, DHS shared screenshots of emails it said were from Hilton Hotels in which staff refused to book rooms for federal agents linked to ICE. Hilton responding in a statement saying Hilton Hotels serves as a welcoming place for all. This hotel is independently owned and operated, and the actions referenced are not reflective of Hilton values.
44:41Yes. That may be the case, but here we are.
44:44Melissa Lee:And people are going to self-first ask questions later. I'm not going to get into the go woke, go broke stuff. That's not interesting to me. But I'll tell you, at 30 times-ish earnings, this is an expensive stock that people are just probably looking for an excuse to sell. We've seen boycotts before, and the boycotts sometimes take a life of their own. Regardless of where you stand on any issue, this is just a matter of, you know, for some of your population, they don't like what you're doing for whatever reason, and they don't book that reservation. Well, they were carefully really sort of, you know, isolating.
45:16This was an independent, super important. Every single dollar they spent on crisis management is so worth it right now. How is the chart look?
45:25Melissa Lee:Well, I mean, if you look at Marriott, look at Hilton, generally speaking, Expedia and other travel-related stocks, the airlines, they all look good. Up next, final trades.
45:46Time for the final trade. Let's go around the horn. Carter Ward.
45:50Melissa Lee:Novo Artis on the mend. A bearish to bullish reversal by. Karen Fearnerman. Yes, so we talked a lot about the banks. I don't love the setup going in, so I'm going to sell some upside calls. And J.P. Morgan doesn't mean I love J.P. any less. Not at all. Dan. Costco. Let's call it a consumer staple. Really overdone last year. I think it's going to have a little rally this year. Guy. Great to have you. We missed you for the week and a half. Happy New Year.
46:21Melissa Lee:Marathon Petroleum, that comes out MPC. I know it had a big move today, Melissa, but I think it's the beginning of something much larger. All right. Thank you for watching Fast See You Back here tomorrow at 5. Mad Money starts right now.
46:35All opinions expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet, or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of an opinion. Such opinions are based upon information the Fast Money 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.
47:01To view the full Fast Money Disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com forward slash Fast Money Disclaimer. I'm honored to make history and to make my community proud.
47:10Melissa Lee:Oh, what a brilliant tackle from Naomi Kerma. What would you like the power to do? Bank of America, proud to be the official bank of U.S. soccer. Bank of America NA member, FDSE.
From the publisher
Stocks rallying to start the week after the U.S. action in Venezuela and the capture of leader Nicolas Maduro. How oil and energy are leading the charge, and if larger geopolitical conflicts will follow. Plus an exclusive interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, fresh off the stage of the company’s CES event in Las Vegas. His take on AI, robotics, competition, and more.
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