Markets Rebound After Monday’s Drop… And Netflix Streams Higher 4/22/25

22:47If you're looking for silver linings, others on the street do see an opportunity for Amazon to maybe take share from retailers who can't absorb some of the price increases as well. Plus, if current exchange rates hold, the dollar has been under pressure. That could actually be a slight tailwind for Amazon's quarter. They're going to be reporting next week, Mel. All right, Kate, thank you. Kate Rooney, obviously a lot of headwinds there. There's also a report that it's paused in data center lease talk for its cloud division, which throws into question again the AI trade, Dan. Yeah, I mean, listen, you know, they had that huge bump in CapEx.

23:21Investors did not like that when they reported Q4, right? And the stock really has been down 30 percent, almost in a straight line, over the last two and a half, three months or so. And so I think that M, I think investors might cheer the fact of the pullback. You know, we were talking, you know, a few months ago is that, you know, these guys are going to ask, you know, for forgiveness rather than permission to do this. And I think now that they're faced with these headwinds about tariffs, it's not just about their, obviously, their main products that they're selling. but it's also the uptake of the services in AWS.

23:49And now for a situation like Amazon, it's also this advertising business, which has really fueled a lot of margin for them over the last few years. What did we say about our staff in EC? Crack. Crack. Meaning good. In case people might be wondering, well, crack meaning what? Crack. No, no, no. Crack staff. Like top, top notch. So if they could pull up a chart over the last year, let's say, and you will see that Amazon just recently traded down to the lows we saw in August of last year. So that held like a boss, as Dan would say. As Kate just said, the report next Thursday, which amazingly is May, you know, this sets up for a trade in earnings on the long side without question, given where we held.

24:28We've got some breaking news out of the Oval Office. President Trump just making some comments about Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Let's listen to what he had to say. Whatsoever. Never did. The press runs away with things. Now, I have no intention of firing him. I would like to see him be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates. This is a perfect time to lower interest rates. If he doesn't, is it the end? No, it's not. But it would be good timing. She could have taken place earlier. But no, I have no intention to fire him. I don't want to comment on that. That doesn't matter.

25:07Mr. President, you said...

25:12So after all that talk about whether he would use, he's examining whether or not to fire, he said he has no intention of firing Powell. And that's arguably what caused yesterday's pullback, the worry that we would be destabilizing the central bank, that there'd be some questions about our credibility in the world, that we'd become like Turkey if we fired Jerome Powell. But here he's saying, nope, no plans. Well, fortunately, somebody got in his ear. I mean, the two texts or whatever, a couple of days ago, I think over the weekend, you His term, and I'm paraphrasing, please don't at me, but something to the effect of his termination can't come fast enough.

25:45Now, I don't know if that was meant to be his leaving date in May of 2026 or his actual termination. I don't know, but he definitely threw it out there. Fortunately, I think somebody probably said, you know, it's probably not going to be a great thing. We want to ratchet back a little bit. And that is a stabilizing thing. By the way, we're looking at the after hours action in the SPY, the S &P 500 ETF higher by a percent. NASDAQ 100 also higher by just about a percent in the after hours on the back of these comments. So, again, being viewed very positively here. Look, they're great headlines. They're great headlines.

26:17And clarifying that the Federal Reserve is left alone is a great thing by President Trump. And I think it's a dynamic for markets that I'm not so sure yesterday's tail off was Powell related. I do think if you look at the dollar and you look at Treasury markets, they could have had a greater impact here. But ultimately, my sense is, and if you read strategists, economists and market pundits everywhere, I don't think anyone was really expecting Powell to be fired. So I think market weakness is for reasons related to people worried about recession priced into stocks. Yeah, I'll just push back at that.

26:50I mean, Kevin Hassett, his economic advisor in the White House, said they were studying whether to do it. And I don't know why you would trust this back and forth. We've seen this. You know, he blinked on the tariff stuff. It doesn't mean that they're going to do anything any differently. So just wait. May 7th, this is going to be fireworks, man. If they don't say the sorts of things that you expect into it, I think he's going to turn it right back up. By the way, there's some comments also about China. He says that I think we'll make a deal with China. He also has told reporters that he'd be very nice in negotiations with Beijing and that tariffs on imports from the country would fall significantly following a deal, but not to zero.

27:23So also some positive comments regarding trade specifically with China, which would be a a very important development for the markets here. I'm just blown away. You know, if I had told you that the United States, the United States stock market would rally because there was a reaffirmation that we were going to maintain an independent Federal Reserve, I don't even know how to wrap my mind around that. I just think the fact that this is... But did you know we were going to be potentially restructuring the U.S. economy to re-industrialize after 150 years? I mean, it was nothing. But I think this gets at, like, the very lifeblood of what makes capital markets and why there is, you know, why the United States is, why the USD is a reserve currency, why there's so much faith in government bonds, et cetera.

28:08So it just kind of blows my mind. And for me, it just speaks to the fact that I do think you should continue to see volatile trading. You're going to look to pick your spots, entry and exit points. But the fact that this is actually a trading catalyst is a bit worrisome. And I think it's something that you should take into consideration as you're sizing your positions and when you're allocating capital. The comments we've been talking to happening in the Oval Office just moments ago, Eamon Javers was in the Oval Office. He joined us now with the full report. Eamon. Yeah, Melissa, that's right.

28:38I happen to be in the Oval Office with some reporters talking to President Trump at an event where he was swearing in the new director of the SEC. I was able to ask the president whether or not he intends to fire Jay Powell and whether he believes he has the power to fire Jay Powell. What he said was, I don't want to talk about that in terms of whether or not he has the power to fire Jay Powell. He said, because I have no intention of doing that, never did have any intention to do that. He said the press simply runs away with speculation sometimes, but the president here reaffirming the idea that he does not intend to fire the chairman of the Federal Reserve or to attempt to do that.

29:12That was one item that was interesting to me. He also answered a question on China in terms of the tariffs and whether or not he's concerned about the impact on West Coast ports. The president said that ultimately he believes the tariffs are going to be good for the country overall. He was asked whether or not he's negotiating with the Chinese right now. He didn't provide any details or specifics about exactly where those negotiations stand. But I also asked him about tariff rates overall. And the Treasury Secretary's comments earlier today that the tariff rates, as high as they are, amount to effectively an embargo on trade with China altogether.

29:48The president says he does agree with the Treasury Secretary that it is effectively an embargo with China right now But he doesn't think that tariff rates are going to stay where they are right now He said they're going to come down significantly. I asked him to what level he said not to zero But he implied sort of north of zero but much lower than where they are now So this is a president Melissa I've got to say who seemed eager to send the kinds of signals to the stock market That the stock market wants to hear right now wanted to be very conciliatory about the Fed and very much to indicate that he's in deal-making mode with China, Melissa.

30:21What's interesting, Eamon, is what you said about the president saying that he wouldn't comment on the status of talks with China. Oh, the Secretary Besson earlier in the day said that talks have not started. I'm wondering why there's daylight between the two explanations. Well, reporters tried to press the president in the Oval Office just now on, you know, what updates can you give us? Have you talked to Xi Jinping? Have you had any meetings? Where are these discussions specifically? And the president just sort of kept going back to his argument that there is going to be a deal. Things are going well with China.

30:53He has a great he's confident in his relationship with Xi Jinping, but no real specifics in terms of where those negotiations stand, who's meeting with who, what dates the meetings are taking place on, whether there have been any offers exchanged. Just the president asserting that he feels confident that there will be a deal here. I also asked him if he speaks if he has spoken to or speaks regularly with Jay Powell. He declined to answer that question. All right, Eamon, thank you so much. Eamon Javers from the White House at this hour. Again, we're looking at an after-hours rally on top of the gains that we made in today's session on these comments regarding President Trump having no intention of firing Jerome Powell.

31:30And also the positive comments he's making about China in terms of resolving the trade embargo that is in place right now. Yeah, all good. Maybe this will help the market to be a bit less squirrely. Yippee. Yippee. Yippee. Well, squirrely is a good word as well. That's what he used. Yippee. Yippee. Yips. Well, what's interesting also is, again, if you think about those kinds of comments, China tariffs are going to come down. The idea of tariffs as a panacea for a deficit is something I've just struggled with. And so this is really getting you back to dollar friendly and rates friendly, bond friendly type rhetoric that I think can still strike a balance between let's level the playing field.

32:10Let's get back what's ours, but let's not change how we actually raise revenue in this U.S. government. By the way, Eamon was like right there. We had this break news. There's Eamon. I happened to be in the Oval Office when he made this comment. So good. Yeah, he's so good. You should make one last comment here. Is this a good negotiating tactic to tell your adversary, to tell the folks that you're negotiating against what you're going to do? Because if you're China, it might just embolden you. So the idea that we're going to get these kind of half-assed sort of commentary back and forth, this and that, and that's going to cause these rallies or these sell-offs, I just think that the risk is still to the downside until there's something materially coming out, not just these sorts of one-off comments like this.

32:46By the way, in the after-hour session again, we're seeing the indices across the board rally by more than a percent apiece. We're also seeing shares of Tesla for one. Big China exposure, obviously. The conference call is going on just five minutes in, but the China exposure aspect is sending it higher by 4%. Apple is up. NVIDIA is up. This is fantastic news for the market, Bono, and if true. If true. That's the caveat. And I think you need to go ahead and stick your hat in that one. You know, we've just seen so much back and forth that I'm just not sure how much confidence you can put on anything that you're hearing.

33:18At a moment's notice, you might get a reversal of what was just said or some statement that contradicts what was said on or off record. I just think it makes for a tough trading environment. With that said, it presents opportunity and not one that one should shy away from necessarily. But to just I am still a bit more cautious. I'm definitely not pessimistic, but I do think bear market rallies are a real thing. And I do think you might want to look at names that you're a little bit too full on of where you don't necessarily see where they fit in your portfolio, looking for opportunities to sell into these rallies and then allocate elsewhere.

33:52All right. We're going to take a quick break. Fast Money. Be right back. Welcome back to Fast Money. Netflix hitting a new intraday record today, popping nearly 8 percent at its highs. Evercore ISI has called the streaming stock highly recession resistant, but can it continue to its run higher? Let's bring in Mark Mahaney, the analyst behind that call. He is the firm's head of Internet research. Mark, always great to see you. Hey, Melissa. Does this run concern you at all in terms of the speed of it? Sure. Yes, it does. I continue to like the stock. It's not one of my top picks, but I think there's still upside here.

34:28Maybe, you know, low double digit, 10 percent upside. I think there are other stocks that are more attractive risk rewards here. But I think this I'll stick with the point, which is I think this is one of the more recessionary, resilient stocks you can find. And it's been tested. You know, we've been tracking this for whatever, 25 years. And, you know, you've seen Netflix hold up in a lot of economic cycles and different types of cycles over time. So I think that'll be the case here. Also, you've got a situation now where they've just hit record high operating margins. And my guess is that they're going to lean into content spend later this year as they really expand the bundle and get more and more into live sports and make the service more and more compelling.

35:05So I think it's recessionary resistant. I think valuation is reasonable, not dramatically compelling, but reasonable. I continue to like the stock. Mark, you mentioned a lot of good things in terms of them being able to grow top and bottom line. You mentioned the multiple. I kind of want to dig in on the price of sales multiple at 11 times. Can you kind of give us a little bit of background in terms of where that tracks historically? And then where do you think is kind of like the equilibrium point in terms of where you can get comfortable in terms of the multiple that you're paying on revenue?

35:33Yeah, I don't typically look at it on price to sale. No one could. But the beauty of Netflix is how it's changed over the last couple of years is, hey, we got free cash flow now. Like, we got material amount of free cash flow. They're also buying back stock. They had a record amount of share buybacks this last quarter. Now, I don't know if that's arrogance, stupidity or what, because or just a dramatic amount of confidence because they're buying an all time amount of stock and an all time high in the stock. That's very bold. But I think they've got good reasons to be bold. I look at it on the P.E.

36:03basis, price to earnings basis. It's expensive. It's trading at like 35 times earnings. That's at the upper end of where it really should trade. So I don't think you got a lot of multiple expansion from here. But the stock can go higher because they're going to be giving you 25 percent earnings growth. And so that's how we can compound from here. So that's the P.E. multiples, what I would suggest to you look at instead of the price to sales multiple. Hey, Mahanes, it's Tim. That's Guy's nickname for you. But we love having you on. And I guess I'm just curious. You know, I hear also Netflix is now signed on for their second live NFL game.

36:35And as a Netflix shareholder, I'd be kind of disappointed if they went really hard at sports, because I think the networks kind of fight each other over over those costs. But the content slate, while 18 billion, they're producing. So it's such a, you know, I'd say efficient level. I'm just curious your thoughts on all of this. Like, where do you want to see them spending on content? Do you want to see them more in sports? What do you think? Yeah, I guess at the end of the day, I do. I wanted to get more into live events and there can be special. They don't have to be you don't have to dig, you know, get in there for big negotiations on major league rights.

37:09But there's smaller leagues you can get into, perhaps. perhaps and there are one-off events maybe the formula one race is something you can build stories around i think that's great for uh for netflix but i think this is absolutely tim i think this is where they're going i think five years from now you're going to see more sports and eventually you're going to see major league sports on netflix and i think their strategy is every year they're going to go from they're going to bump up that content spend by a billion and they're going to be able to outspend everybody out there and they can do it because they've got far and away the largest audience the largest audience on which to kind of amortize that spend so So for live sports, Netflix is coming for you.

37:43They may talk it down, but I think they're coming for you. And they're willing to write bigger checks than almost anybody else out there. Over time, we'll be able to afford. Mark, great to speak with you. Thank you. Mark Mahaney, Evercore ISI. We've got to get to Tesla just hitting after hours highs, giving up 5 percent, but up 4.5 percent still. Let's get back to Phil Aboe with headlines from the call. We've got Elon Musk talking about Doge. Phil. Yeah, and right off the bat, he gets to the question that many people have, is whether or not he will stop his activities with the Trump administration, or at least curtail them.

38:17He basically says that starting next month, he will be spending much less time with Doge and spending more time with Tesla and his private business activities. He defended the work of Doge, saying it's important to weed out the fraud and the corruption in government. And he's proud of the work that Doge has done. But he believes that now that it's essentially an entity that is set up within the Trump administration, he can scale back how much time he devotes to it. So that is one question, Melissa, that people wanted right off the bat. And one other quick update just a couple of seconds ago. He did indicate that they are on schedule for the launch of Robotaxi in Austin.

38:58No details yet in terms of how big it'll be, but that is the June launch that they've been talking about for some time. Melissa, I'll send it back to you. Phil, keep us posted on the call. Phil LeBeau. The stock is up just over 4%. Color me skeptical, but that seems to be sort of an anemic bounce. Well, think about one of those numbers in January, I think, and please don't at me if I'm wrong, but the stock closed around 385 or so, came out with an abysmal quarter. Margins were horrible. The free cash flow, the beat of$600 million was on back a sale of Bitcoin or mark-to-market of Bitcoin or something like that.

39:36We had a conversation that if you're just looking at this fundamentally, stocks should be 320. Tread it up to 420, 425 over the next couple of weeks. So, you know, here we are at much lower levels, obviously, and we're seeing a similar thing. This can last. 220 was a low back in October. You can bounce off this level for a while, but nothing changed fundamentally, in my opinion. Look, think of what futures are doing. I mean, let's think about also a stock that's one of the highest betas to the market. You know, I'll chalk a lot of this up to that. I'll talk this up to the rhetoric from President Trump, things that are supportive and really have some halo effect for Elon here.

40:10All right. Let's bring in Brett Winton, the futurist at ARK Invest, the chief futurist. I guess there's a legion of futurists there. Brett, great to have you with us again. You got what you want in terms of, I mean, not not it's a little scant on detail so far. We're only about 16 minutes in the conference call or so. But you got an affirmation that RoboTaxi will launch in Austin in June, which you wanted. We have Elon Musk getting back to work at the company as early as May in terms of scaling back his involvement with Doge. We got everything we wanted, and the stock is up 4%. What do you make of this?

40:42Well, I mean, I think that the stock has—it's clear that the stock does not discount the autonomous future that we envision. There's, you know, all the skepticism on the panel. Think about what a car could generate in cash flow if it can do 100 ,000 miles at$1 a mile, and the cost to operate that vehicle is less than$0.20 a mile. So that's$80 ,000 in revenue that can be shared with the person who owns the car and is cleaning it and then flow back to Tesla. Right now, if they sell a Model 3 for$50 ,000, they're getting$5 ,000 in operating profit. Right. So there's there's multiples in potential profit per vehicle and fleet that they get as Robotaxi launches and scales.

41:28The question is, how quickly is it going to scale? And he was indicating that it'll begin to hit the financial statements next year in a material way, which is consistent with how we think about the scaling of the business. And we'll see where it goes from there. But, you know, like one of the panelists was saying, it's like, oh, on today's metrics, this stock is overpriced. Yes, equities are a discount of future cash flows. And the cash flow characteristics of this business are going to change when it becomes a robo-taxi business. All right. Brett, thank you. Brett Winton of ARK Invest, the chief futurist there.

42:07Well, he better hopes that happens sooner than later. Because at some point, you know, there is gravity in markets. And everything that he just said about what he sees in his crystal ball in the future is basically pie in the sky. Take the over when, you know, listen. If the complexity with Waymo is who owns the fleet and how does it scale and the hardware that they need, what they're talking about is when someone buys a Tesla and cleaning it and electrifying it and having it sent to a depot, that's just a bunch of garbage. It's just not going to happen. I mean, this is like Jetson sort of stuff.

42:37And I'd take the over if we want to do 2030 on that. What's the flip side on Waymo and what's not priced in, you know, to essentially? Yeah. I mean, it's fascinating to think about if this is really so significant for Tesla, even if they are hardware constrained. That seems to be the easy link, right? Isn't everyone kind of presuming that hardware is not a problem? So why isn't Waymo garnering a much greater valuation? Coming up, chartmaster Carter Braxton Worth sees cause for concern in gold's record run. He lays out the case for buyer beware back in two. Welcome back to Fast Money. Another check on some after-hours moves after President Trump's tariff comments.

43:16The SPY, S &P 500 ETF, is higher by 1.7 percent. We're also seeing some nice gains in the queues, up by almost 2 percent here. Take a look at some of the stocks that we watch very closely when it comes to relations with China, because specifically President Trump said that he thinks the deal will be done with China and that he will be nice to Beijing. Apple, NVIDIA, Taiwan Semi and the SMH, the semiconductor ETF, all surging in the after-hour session here on the back of those comments. And of course, the other comments sending the markets higher. The comments about Fed Chair Jerome Powell saying he has no intention of firing Jerome Powell.

43:51He wants Powell to be more active on rates, but no intention of firing Powell, putting to rest some reports and speculation that he was looking into it. Take a look at some of the retailers here, because, of course, retailers are very exposed to tariffs, specifically to China. Nike, Starbucks, Target, Walmart, all trading higher. Automakers, we were just talking about Tesla, but automakers here, GM, Ford, and Stellantis, slightly higher here. So we're tracking all these sectors, all the moves, because resolving the trade war with China would be a major step forward. The question is, back to this Oval Office, these statements, what was the context here?

44:28Were these planned? Because it almost seems like this is something that wasn't exactly supposed to be announced today. I mean, what was the context of that Oval Office meeting? Was it just a meeting with reporters? It was to swear in or, you know, give the oath to the new SEC head. And so he was asked by reporters in the pool about some of these issues with Powell and China. If I'm cynical here, I would say be careful about that. Just because, again, I think these were off the cuff comments. Having said that, it is clear that these are the latest thoughts that at least have come through to the White House, and they're right on them.

45:04Well, it's interesting because the context is also Secretary Besant was out this morning making some comments that sent the markets higher. And then who does he invite into the Oval Office? Eamon Javers is in there. What do you think Eamon Javers is going to ask about? He's going to ask about Jerome Powell. Look at you connecting dots. I'm not saying, but I mean, it lays the groundwork for market rally. and a continued rally into tomorrow. No doubt. So let's look at the gold market tomorrow. Let's see how gold – Now, gold was probably selling off right now on the back of this. One of the last legs higher was probably on the back of the Jerome Powell stuff.

45:35We'll see. But I think any sell-off in gold, you gobble up very quickly. Gobble. Gobble. Well, you say gobble. Gobble, gobble. Chartmaster might say something different. Gold briefly topping$3 ,500 an ounce for the first time ever today, marking the 25th time it has set an intraday record this year. The precious metal is up nearly 30 % in 2025. And the chart master says prices have gone too far, too fast. Let's bring you the chart master, Carter Braxton Worth of Worth Charting. Carter, what do you see? Yeah, I mean, a big day today. I think the key thing is a major milestone was reached. Gold adjusted for inflation literally today went back to its 1980 peak.

46:14This chart you see is just gold in nominal terms, and it's almost 4x what it was in 1980. But the next chart is the chart that's so important. We got literally to the penny. It was January of 1980, adjusted for inflation. 45 years later, gold has recouped all its losses in real terms. And it hit its head, stopped to the penny. Gold reversed, closed on the low. This is a more day-to-day chart. And then last chart, look at this chart with its 150-day moving average. But we are now 25 percent above the 150. That's only happened four other times in the past 25 years. And each and every time gold sold off essentially 10 percent or more.

46:56So whether you love gold for a double from here and you have long term views of the banking system and Bitcoin and fiat currency, or whether you're an inflation or deflation person or a gold bug, doesn't matter. Tactically, from a sequencing point of view, gold is steep and uncorrected. All right. So a check back of about 10 percent, you said, Carter? I think that should be the minimum. All right. Carter Braxton, worth of worth charting. Well, you know what? I bet gold is going to be a hot topic when our next Fast Money Live takes flight. Thursday, June 5th, join us here at the NASDAQ. Watch a show.

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