Losing Momentum?... And How Nvidia’s Results Will Impact Stocks 2/24/25

0:02Live from the Nasdaq market site in the heart of New York City Times Square this is fast money Here's what's on tap tonight. Hitting a wall, shares of some recently red-hot stocks dropping sharply today as more defensive names continue to catch a bid. What to make of the shift in momentum and how you should trade the moves. And decoding diamonds. JP Morgan CEO sitting down with our Leslie Picker earlier. What he had to say about the consumer, tariffs, and the future of regulation. Plus, the nuclear trade stalls out. Hims and hers slims down after earnings. and WNBA star and changemaker Brianna Stewart on her newly launched three-on-three women's basketball league.

0:37I'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 Tim Seymour, Karen Fireman, Guy Adami, and our guest trader tonight, Joe Moglia, former chairman and CEO of TD Ameritrade. What a day. Well, we start with the momentum being sucked out of some of the hottest parts of the markets of late, the NASDAQ going negative for the year. As Meta's historic 20-day win streak turns into five straight days of losses, its longest losing run since August. Palantir, Walmart and Robinhood all slamming the brakes over the last week as well.

1:08Three stocks at or close to records before seemingly running into a brick wall. Even Alibaba dropping 10 % today despite Morgan Stanley upgrading the Chinese tech giant. It was up over 15 % last week and trading at more than three-year highs. Meanwhile, defensive sectors, consumer staples, utility and energy have really begun to outperform among the best groups so far this month. So how do you make sense of this loss of momentum? Tim, not a lot of huge news flow to really turn the tide, but we just continued what we saw on Friday. Sentiment changing? Is the bull rally over? I agree. Kind of a nuanced day because there's some stats out there that are floating around the market, which is that hedge funds exposure to MAG7 stocks is at its lowest since April of 23.

1:52Kind of, you know, you kind of see that after some of the moves. The dynamics we have, I think, overall with what's going on with the post-deep seek environment, whether it's spend, whether it's AI, whether it's data center, whether it's all the related trades. Also, other comments out there today that Microsoft is actually looking to cancel leases on certain data centers, puts a little bit more of a scare into the CapEx spend part of it. It's all ahead of suddenly. I know it always feels like it's the most important earnings call, but NVIDIA really feels critical for Wednesday. And then if you get back to the charts, semiconductors, which we've all chronicled here, have led the NASDAQ, which have led the S &P for years.

2:27Really, it seems like it, at least for two or three years. And now the breakdown in the semis is very gradual. It's kind of what you said. We've been going sideways for months. But we're getting to a place where not only did we close below the 50-day, which we've done now six times in the last six months, but most of them have come in the last three weeks. But we're about to possibly have a bear cross, which is where the 50-day crosses over the 200-day. simply saying that long-term trends may be starting to change if we wanted to oversimplify what that means. So there's a lot of different things, both technicals and I think some nuances.

2:57Nothing has changed in terms of the backdrop. We've got the same administration that people are very excited about the market implications for. I saw Scott Besson talking about how policy is disinflationary. I believe him. I feel very confident in that Treasury secretary, but I think there are dynamics for this market. It's as much about positioning and sentiment right now. Guy, what do you make of everything that's going on here? And just recently this afternoon, Trump was saying, look, these tariffs that we had planned for Mexico and Canada, they're going forward as scheduled. We don't have a lot of the details yet.

3:24But, I mean, is that going to rattle markets then going in further tomorrow? Welcome, as always. Thank you. And welcome back to Joe. With that said, I mean, I think the markets figured out how to sort of handicap tariffs and a lot of the rhetoric out of the White House to me. And I'm glad to mention it. You know, semiconductors have led the way without question. But you know what's fascinating? The SMH, which is not the best constructed ETF, but the one we all look at, that made its high in July of last year. And ever since then, it's been trading sideways now to slightly lower, which I think is interesting.

3:53And Microsoft, which I think we all would say is one of the top five most important companies in the world, that also made its all-time high in June, July of last year and has been trading lower since. So there are a lot of things around the surface, despite the fact that the S &P is effectively at all-time highs to be concerned about. And then over the weekend, we hear that now Warren Buffett has north of$330 billion in cash sitting around. And that Buffett indicator, which is not a timing mechanism, is now north of 210 percent. So as much as there are things to be, I guess, optimistic about, there are a lot of things to be concerned about on the metric side.

4:27Karen, again, we're seeing these defensive names obviously catching a bit today. Consumer staples higher, but not like what we saw on Friday. Still, I mean, anything fundamentally change for you today? No, I don't think so. I mean, to me, the air coming out of some of these things. So Palantir at 90. It's not shocking that it's at 90. It's shocking that it was at 145. Oh, OK. Right? To me, Carvana at 285. It's not shocking now it's at 215. How did it get to 25? Maybe. I mean, I'm long. So, of course, I thought, well, that's just fine. But you're right. It was, you know, too expensive for it. So there's a lot of those names that I still think.

5:00Reddit, for example, down, I don't know,$50 or more. Affirm, which I that the last two quarters were spectacular. The stock just sort of got ahead of itself. We'll see. We got some very big earnings this week. I think actually NVIDIA is obviously really important. I own it. It's certainly important to me, but I don't think it is as much of a linchpin as it was last year when it was all mag seven. And I think we've started to see things really broaden out in terms of where where they're, you know, health care today was really good. Staples has been doing nicely. Industrials had a really tough, tough week.

5:35But I think it's important, but not quite as important. You know, Joe, Karen brings up some names that I know a lot of retail traders are really interested in. Palantir sort of jumps out to me. I mean, to see a big drop like that, about 10 percent today. Does that sort of worry the trader at home following along? Is there more fear that's going to be shaken out? Well, Courtney, when I was on the show last time, I said as an executive, I felt great about the operating environment. And I said, as an investor, I hadn't been more bullish in like decades. And since then, we announced the tariffs. We had the deep seek surprise.

6:08And when you look at what's going on, I think now it makes sense, though, I think, for the individual investor to be a little bit concerned. We talked about the technicals look bad. There's a lot of negative sentiment. Consumer sentiment was bad the other day. But I think as far as the individual investor goes, as long as you've got uncertainty, there's been an incredible run here. We can't forget that. So the last year has been great. The last three months has been spectacular. It's spectacular. So in the face of uncertainty, it makes sense. It definitely takes something off the table. But I think I would look at a significant drop.

6:37I would look at getting back in the market aggressively. Karen, you brought up NVIDIA. I know, Tim, you did too. And obviously, this is a really big name that's coming this week. What could they say or could they say anything to turn this momentum around? I mean, they were the driving force for so long. I mean, I would have to be – I don't know that it's so much this quarter. To me, guidance for them, that's going to be what's crucial. if they put up a really big number for what they expect. But I don't know why they would do that. Okay. I mean, they've always... Why they would put up a big number or why they would...

7:06A giant number. Like, why over, you know, why... So the very first time... You're saying, like, some powder? Yeah, undershoot it a little. A little sandbag. I mean, obviously the pressure's on them to put up a very good number. But why do they need to put it all out there at the same time? How defensive do you think they need to be about the deep-seek news that's come out since we heard from them last? I don't think they're going to address it defensively at all. I don't think they need to. I mean, I think NVIDIA is so far ahead of everybody else and the spend there. The question is, how much have we priced it in?

7:33I think for market participants, though, NVIDIA is not a name that's going to get away from me this week. I just I don't know what they can tell me on Wednesday after the bell that we don't already know about NVIDIA's positioning. And that includes, again, the entire software, the platform around this. This is where I think they really are well insulated from the competitive landscape. And DeepSeek, I think it's on some level it's apples and oranges, even though we know that DeepSeek brought into this question about how much spend was really appropriate here. But again, from the market's perspective, given how semiconductors have had such leadership and we've meandered, I think Karen's right.

8:09I don't think NVIDIA is critical to the broadening of the market. It's already been broadening. But I do think the headline indices, which have been buoyed by five to seven stocks for the last year and a half. And look, we all wanted this a year ago. We came into 24, and I'm sure I said a few times, there's no way these six stocks are going to be 35 % of the S &P ever again. And yet, as we came into 25, they were probably a little larger. One thought I have as far as that goes, I think, one of the things we want to look at, that I think is critical with the earnings for NVIDIA on Wednesday, is the data center revenues.

8:44You've got to see where they are, see where they're headed. and they know better than anybody else the impact that DeepSeek is going to have on them down the road. So I think data seven revenues, what's the trend there, and what's the forward guidance going to be? That will tell you a lot, I think, in terms of how concerned they are or how much they have it under control. Tim, you talked about Alibaba on Friday, which was just the last show, obviously also having another kind of bummer of a day. What do you make of changing your thesis at all? Well, again, I think there's some dynamics around this that the technical side of this is I think CTAs picked up this trade over the last couple of weeks.

9:17And so there's been some fast trading of it. It explained kind of the parabolic move. I would get back to I'm not scared of Alibaba at one hundred and thirty dollars because I think the fair value of the company is one hundred ninety or probably in the two hundreds. I think what we outlined on Friday that makes the story it's evolving from we always know it was cheap. some of the parts. We knew there was a lot of cash. But the dynamic around what's going on in terms of the China tech superpowers are now being actually pushed and supported by their government. Jack Ma has returned to the scene.

9:47He is actually a critical piece, I think, of some of their view on their own tech future. What we heard out of AliCloud, what we heard out of their core businesses that are leading in China is very positive. So I love the fundamentals about Alibaba. I hated today's move, but I tell you what, it was due for this. And I think a bit of a reset on sentiment is fine. Oh, good, Karen. Well, don't you think a lot of it was CFIUS, though, this uncertain, you know, what is CFIUS going to, what are they going to decide that they can't have Chinese invest in at the U.S.? I think that was a lot of what happened today as well.

10:20There isn't any question. Alibaba is a tremendous company from a fundamental perspective. But one of the things that I get concerned with, one of the things that I know the retail investor gets concerned with, no matter how great it is, maybe fundamentally, there is absolute serious tension between ourselves and China. The geopolitical risk there. The tariffs. It's going to be a tariff war, right? No matter what we put on them, they're going to put it on us back. And how devastating that could be over time, we don't know. How honest are the Chinese, not the Chinese people, the Chinese government are going to be with regard to giving us information that's accurate and honest.

10:48So that's what scares me. The risk associated with something we have no clue of and we don't trust them, it's difficult then to say step up and buy it. One of the things we talked about on Thursday, and I'm sorry I missed you on Friday, but, you know, it had, listen, and Alibaba went from 80 to 145, pretty much in a straight line. You know, we thought that given earnings, given the amount of volume traded, it made sense to trade back to that prior high that we saw in the fall, which is about 118, and we're within the earshot of it now. So you're looking for a place to get back in. I agree with everything Tim said.

11:16This stock should be significantly higher. And quick about Palantir. I mean, he's been telling the same story now for the last five and a half or six years. The story hasn't changed. People have now picked up on it. But at its zenith, a week or so ago, when this was almost a$300 billion company, You were trading 60 times revenue. So I'm only going to do$5 billion in revenue, which, again, it's not an indictment of the company. It's an indictment on the market forces that bid it up to those levels. It had a full forward multiple of 190 at the zenith. And now, Karen, what is it, 132? 166, I have your last.

11:47But it could change. It could fluctuate widely. It could be 130. It's dirt cheap. But I think the point, again, Alibaba versus Palantir is Karen's point where the go-go, the Momo stocks that have actually defined both this liquidity run and the sense of risk aggression, I think you've started to see it break down. It's breaking down, at least in places where, I mean, Palantir is a real company, has real technology, has real relationships with the government, has an order book that's very impressive in terms of the Fortune 50 companies in this country. But the chase on that and what I would hear from people, I can't tell you how many people have asked me about Palantir that I didn't even know knew there was a stock market.

12:26I mean, that's the kind of dynamic I think you've gotten with a bunch of stocks. I think it's healthy to see some of that fever break. And again, I think that's why this week is so important. A couple other things. You know, we had almost record demand today on a two-year note auction at a time when people are concerned about Treasury issuance. We had German elections over the weekend that I think are very important in the global geopolitical scheme that we're all concerned is very fragile. That was a bit of a relief. I mean, there's a lot of interesting things going on. And I think these cross currents, I think you're going to see a lot play out this week.

12:56Active week. Well, meanwhile, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon chatting with CNBC's Leslie Picker at the Bank's Global Leverage Finance Conference in Miami. Dimon commenting on tariffs, the moves out of Doge, and the state of the consumer. Leslie joins us now for the highlights. Hi, Leslie. Hey, Cord. I was curious to get Dimon's thoughts on the recent tariff moves and the cost-cutting efforts through Doge. Neither of them really seem to concern Dimon too much. He said if tariffs are, quote, properly used, they're actually a good thing. But if they're overused and there's retaliation, that could be bad for the economy.

13:28He said he's taking a wait-and-see approach there. Now, in terms of Doge, Steinman said he hopes it's successful because the government is, quote, inefficient, not very competent, and it needs a lot of work. He said that if there's overreach, the courts have stopped it. We also talked about bank oversight and what he makes of the hollowing out of some of the key regulators for the industry. We have become a highly bureaucratic, litigious, over-regulated society, and it's bad. If you don't believe me, go to Europe. I'm not saying we shouldn't have regulations. We should protect the financial system, we should protect the food system, the water system.

14:07But the American Post knows this is bureaucracy completely run amok. He said it's possible to make the banking system virtually fail-safe if there were more conversations about how to do that and less focus on academics. Court? It was a great interview, Leslie. Very wide-ranging. If anyone missed it, check out CNBC.com. It is there, especially if you're a pro subscriber. I think you get all the big highlights. Thanks, Les. Joe, you know, obviously, Leslie hit on a lot of topics with Jamie Dimon. He speaks very plainly. We love to hear what he has to say. What did you make of some of his comments?

14:41Where do you think we are right now with the government sort of intervening and all these things that have the tentacles wrapped around markets? Yeah, I think that the key that really struck me is the whole thing with regard to Doge. So when I began at Ameritrade, that was 20 years ago, but when I began that we're 100 % going out of business, not a maybe, and I thought we were a financial service company. We weren't. When we looked at our core competencies, we were a technology company and a financial service wrapper. So we're either going to go out of business or we figure out our core competencies.

15:06We did that. Once we did that, we eliminated literally everything else. We took half the savings and we offset our losses and we put the other half into transaction processing, buying and selling stocks, what we're good at. So you look at the government now, if the government was a business, it would go out of business. It would literally go out of business. It's poorly run. It's inefficient. It allocates entitlements. There's money all over the place that's poorly allocated. It's inefficient. It's struggling. If we don't get our arms around that, we're going to have troubles. Now, Musk, I think, is doing a good job of addressing it.

15:42I think a couple things. Number one, nobody wants to lose their jobs, but if you do offer them a really fair severance package, that's going to help the hurt a little bit associated with that. And the other thing is the image. I know Musk is going to do whatever he wants, but coming out on the stage with a chainsaw, that doesn't make you feel warm and fuzzy. saw before. Years ago. It was effective. Doesn't make you feel warm and fuzzy. I get it. I get your point. Karen, I knew you watched the whole interview. You had a couple takeaways. Of course I watched the whole interview. I watched it twice.

16:13Of course. Three times? Why not? Once with the sound off. But no, I thought it was interesting. I think Jamie's main message is just calm down. Everybody just calm down. Take a breath. We can't get excited about every little thing. But the other thing I thought he said that was important was Leslie had asked him about, okay, you might have$60 billion of additional capital. What are you going to do with that money? And he talked about most important thing, grow the business. First, you have to guarantee the dividend. The dividend needs to be sacrosanct. So that's always what you want to try to do if you possibly can.

16:45And sometimes they've had to cut their dividend. The second one was grow. And the third one, buy back stock. And he sort of made it sound like he wouldn't be buying back stock right now, which isn't shocking because he thinks his stock is expensive. I'm long. No, I think you're nailing it with the dividend, too. I think the fact of the matter is banks were uninvestable to a lot of investors for a long time. They started paying money back. We started getting to a place where some of the deregulation dynamics were changing. Then you had SVB and you had a dynamic in May of 23 where banks looked like it's getting concerned.

17:14As we went into the election season, it started to look not great for banks either. I tell you, the environment we have for banks, I don't think we've seen as good as we have since the early 2000s, because deregulation is not only in the right direction for banks, but also the efficiencies that are coming from. Remember fintech is an overused term. Banks have never been more efficient. AI will help banks probably as much as anybody. And we have a steep yield curve. So Citibank, to me, the cheapest of the money center banks is the place I think all of these trends come together at once. But I love what Jamie's saying.

17:46I also think deregulation around the world is following an American lead. And that's fascinating because, again, back to Europe. I mean, talk about a place where I think regulation twisted this place up into knots they couldn't get out of. I start to see that unwinding a bit. It's part of why I think Europe's rally. I think in the financial world, or financials rather, I think with the deregulation, M &A is going to start to play a much bigger role and the efficiencies that can come out of that. Guy, I want to make a turn before we have to go here. I mean, Diamond said the consumer he thinks is OK, but look at shares of Walmart down three days in a row after they put out their report, which was a really good quarter.

18:20Karen and I talked about it. Fundamentally, it doesn't seem to be worried. Maybe their earnings weren't as high for the guidance as consumers would like to see, or investors would like to see, but nothing really scary there. Who's right about the consumer? The action in Walmart or what Jamie says? I don't think the Walmart action has anything to do with the consumer. That's just my opinion. I think it was more predicated on evaluation. It just got expensive. And they really needed a crush in order for that to continue. We actually talked about that last week as well. And the fact that inventories probably went up a little more than the street wanted to see.

18:47So this move makes sense. But I'm not going to indict the consumer. What I will say, though, are 90-day-plus delinquencies are now the highest we've seen in about 14 or 15 years. and that's only can continue to grow. So as much as people want to say the consumer is in a good place, I'm not certain that's the case. They're fighting inflation with credit. Historically never a good thing. Do you know what I paid for eggs the other day? $9 a dozen. $8.49 for a dozen. In New York City. Does that buy now pay later? No, it wasn't. It wasn't. But you know how I sleep all night? With that weighted blanket.

19:17Anybody that watched on Friday knows what we're talking about. I've got a Christmas gift for you. A weighted blanket? I'm not telling. I'm surprised you knew the price of eggs, frankly. Listen, I'm on top. I have my finger on the pulse. You certainly are. Finger on the pulse. Well, coming up, some key names on the move after hours. HIMSS, Zoom, and more. Those are all reporting results. The details and numbers from those quarters are next. And some changes afoot at Nike, while analysts see a swoosh in store for the name and a huge upside that could be coming for the stock. Don't go anywhere. Fast Money is back in tune.

19:55Welcome back to Fast Money. Check out shares of Summit Therapeutics sinking almost 15 % after its Q4 loss was almost twice as big as the year before. The company also announcing a clinical partnership with Pfizer testing its cancer drug candidate in combination with Pfizer's drugs to treat solid tumors. Meanwhile, an earnings alert on him's and hers. Health shares dropping despite a top and bottom line beat. The conference call kicked off at the top of the hour. CNBC's Brandon Gomez joins us with more. Hi, Brandon. Hey, Courtney. Look, I spoke with the company's CFO, Yemi Okupe, ahead of the call.

20:25Look, the stock has been a name that is make or break on weight loss. Still, he emphasized the majority of 2024 revenue was outside GLP-1 offerings and, in fact, increased 43 percent year over year. I did ask how he expects weight loss to grow. Now, with the FDA declaring the Wagovi and Ozempic shortage over, he didn't seem too concerned. Our aim, again, is not to look to circumvent any type of regulation in place that has kept consumers safe for decades. But we are looking to ensure that consumers have the ability to access medications that they need where they have a clinical need beyond what is commercially available.

21:03Now, focus on that, Courtney. Clinical need. There are ways HIMSS can keep compounding even post-shortage. Clearly, though, Investors pulling back a bit to wait and see what happens here. Shares down about 16%, 17%. Yeah, Brandon, wow, that's quite a drop. Guy, what do you make of this name? Seems to be fairly volatile and obviously very connected to this GLP one. We play this game here on CNBC's Fast Money when you put the letters together. Yeah. You know that thing, the acronym game. The acronym game. The acronym. Yeah. Well, Emily with a Y, that's Emily Glass, who cracks that. Of course. Hymns was one of her stocks, and it went from 25 to 75 in a straight line.