Oil The New Gold?… And Microsoft Pushes Back On AI Growth Report 12/3/25

0:03Live in the Nasdaq market site in the heart of New York City's Times Square. This is fast money. Here's what's on tap tonight. Oil's time to shine. Black gold has been under pressure all year long. But one top market watcher says things could be about to change. He'll lay out the case for where things can go from here. And Microsoft's AI ambitions, a tech giant denying a report it is lowering software sales targets. But can the company keep pace with the rest of the hyperscalers? We'll debate that. Plus, NVIDIA Jensen Huang heads to D.C. New laxer standards for auto emissions and a big quarter for Macy's.

0:34But the retailer raising the red flag for the holidays. What's it mean for the stock as it trades near three-year highs? I'm Melissa Lee. Coming to you live from Studio B at the NASDAQ, on the desk tonight, Steve Rosso, Karen Feinerman, Dan Nathan, and Guy Adami. And we start off with what might be an inflection point for the energy trade. WTI crude pacing for its worst year since 2020, trading around the$60 handle for the better part of the year. Energy stocks have also been under pressure. The XLE and oil services ETF both lagging the broader markets in 2025. It's been a different story, though, for gold.

1:04The precious metal has soared more than 60 percent this year, setting 49 record closes along the way. It is pacing for its best year since 1979. Gold miners have done even better with names like Anglo Gold, Kinross, I am Gold and Newmont, all more than doubling year to date. But energy was the best performing sector in the S &P today and leads the gains for the week. Chartmaster Carter Worth was out with a note yesterday saying oil prices are going higher from here. So are things about to change in the new year? Could energy turn the tables on gold? Is it so bad? It is good, to use a phrase from Carter Braxton Worth guy.

1:40First of all, people at home should know that you're playing hurt today. I mean, you're not supposed to be here, but you're here. I'm good. Because that's who you are. I'm happy to be here. Gamer, pro. I think E is the, right, carbed energy is the E in Karen's carbed. Is that correct? That's for OIH. E-O-I-H. And funny you should say that. Pull an OIH chart up and look at the move it had just today. I mean, you don't see it move like that over the course of a week, let alone a day. Yet here we are. So what's happening? I think valuation finally is becoming compelling for people where maybe they can't get their arms around some of the tech names.

2:13They can definitely get around the energy. And I think they've learned that, you know, crude oil doesn't matter at these prices. It can go sideways for the foreseeable future. And these companies will run better. Their balance sheets are better. And quite frankly, valuations are something that's compelling. So I think they can continue to go higher from here. There is a glut, though, for oil. And if the Ukraine war does end or it goes in that direction, there'd be more of a glut. Yeah, I think maybe some negative tone about that maybe also partially helped today. Right. But I feel like to me it's similar to the rotation into Big Cap Pharma or health care.

2:50Right. The space was so beaten down. There was still a lot of bearish stories around it and pressure, pricing pressure from the government and a lot of bearish things, you know, exclusivity cliffs, things like that. But it was just so compellingly cheap that money that was looking to rotate just found it. And it seems to me this is a similar type of thing for the reasons that Guy talks about. I mean, the valuation, I agree. But those pharma companies can buy their way out of a patent cliff. But for oil companies. They can try to. They can, right? Right. But for oil companies, if the underlying is still going to be in, you know,$50 a barrel or whatever, lower.

3:30They do make money, though, at that level. And it's not like the balance sheets are in peril, as they were in, you know, years past when it was more of a boom and bust. And so I think that it's a similar type of rotation to me. Money looking to find a place. And a lot of it, I always have trouble with the phrase under-owned, because every share is owned by somebody. But I do think to the extent that there's indexes that are underweight. So we talk about the underlying commodity as the new gold or we talk about the energy stocks because energy stocks can rally. But I think oil is going lower to your point.

4:04Oversupplied U.S., Brazil, Guyana, all pumping at record levels. Saudis cutting production, OPEC cutting production. How can it go lower? I mean, how can it go higher? I don't think it can. And remember Trump's first presidency, everyone thought it was going to be an oil boon. But oil went down and those stocks went down as well. Biden's presidency, oil went up and those companies went up. So it was counterintuitive to what you thought. I don't think we're going to see anything different this time. So in your view, then, is there in both scenarios, oil up, oil down, oil stocks are higher? I think oil stocks, to everything Guy said, they run more efficiently.

4:43Their cost of production is lower. They're actually, they have, same way that the car companies don't have to do EVs, they don't have to get caught up in alternatives anymore. So I think it's better. Yeah, just Carter, what do you say, Guy? Longer the base? That's Luis Yamada. Not outer space. The higher outer space. Talk about, like, legend. Luis Yamada. Yeah, but Carter is up there, too, on the Mount Rushmore. And so he was on last night. And we were talking about the XLE. And to all you guys' point, I mean, obviously two names, Chevron, Exxon, make up 40 % of the weight. We talk about the weightings in these ETFs all the time.

5:20But, you know, to get that sort of exposure, if you like all the things that these guys, I don't know what you guys are saying about discipline and all that sort of stuff. But if you like the technical setup, you like the valuations, I think Exxon is the way to play it and play for a breakout in the new year. Look at Exxon Mobile since we have the chart up. If you go over the last couple of years, we've been flatlining around somewhere between 112 and 115 for quite some time. And again, we're right around an all-time high. Now, you can say, well, the S &P is at an all-time high. It should be. But, you know, the energy stocks have been under pressure.

5:47Now, all of a sudden, this, to me, is on the verge of taking the next leg higher. So I absolutely think you can own the ETFs if you want. I think you can own the individual names. And look at names like Valero and Marathon, both lower today, but both names recently making all-time highs, not just 52-week highs. Our next guest is bullish on energy, calls oil one of the world's cheapest assets. CMC contributor Peter Buchbar is the chief Investment Officer at One Point BFG Wealth Partners. Peter, always great to have you with us. Hi, Melissa. Thanks for having me. There seems to be an extreme amount of bearishness priced into a barrel of oil as well as oil stocks.

6:20Is that basically why you think that it's due for some sort of a bounce? Well, that is one part of the story, I believe. Another one is sort of what Karen referred to, that the weighting of energy stocks in the S &P is 2.8 percent, I think, which is an historic low. But from a fundamental standpoint, I think what investors are missing is the influence of U.S. production. Call it over the last 10, 15 years, almost all of non-OPEC plus supply has come from U.S. shale. And there are more and more signs that U.S. shale production is rolling over. In fact, in the beginning of November, the Energy Information Administration released a chart that reflected that.

7:04And with expectations that in 2026, U.S. oil production will actually fall. So while, and as Steve said, we are getting some production increases in Guyana and Brazil, I think we cannot discount the U.S., which is the largest producer in the world where their main shale basins are tapping out. Now, technology can sort of reinvigorate them, but at least right now, there is, I think, a growing supply issue coming out of the U.S. Now, with OPEC, we've seen more than 2 million barrels a day of production increases and quote increases, but the production increases haven't really met up fully with the quotas, which tells me that there's less available excess production supply, and it's really only coming out of Saudi and UAE.

7:49And with the market still holding around 60, after absorbing all that production coming on the market, I think is a fundamental case as well that this commodity is very cheap. And lastly, the gold to oil ratio is at a record high, pointing to how dirt cheap the price of oil is on a per barrel basis. So is your recommendation sort of like a rotation out of your gold exposure in more towards oil or do you own both? Do you want to own both? So we own both. And but I think going forward from here, you could maybe see more upside in oil. But I still think that from an investing standpoint, we're holding on to both positions, both energy and the precious metals.

8:35Peter, it's Karen. Thanks for being on. I'm going to ask you a question. Melissa asked me at the beginning, which is about Ukraine. And to the extent that there if there is hopefully there is a end to the war, what do you think that does to the energy trade? I think$60 a barrel is pricing in almost no geopolitical risks. And I think the market just almost in a way assumes that there's going to be a deal. Now, in the meantime, every single day, there's a Ukrainian drone that's blowing up a Russian shadow tanker. So there is, as we speak, supply that's getting disrupted. But of course, tomorrow, if there's a truce, then that will go away.

9:14But I don't see that market really pricing in really any geopolitical risks whatsoever. Peter, you know, go back 10 years. The average price of crude oil is 63 bucks. Right. And we had that move during COVID where I don't know what you guys call it. There was some sort of Asian that happened and, you know, crude went negative or something like that. And then obviously in the beginning of 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, you had that move up above 100. Well, here we are where we were 10 years ago. I mean, how much does like global growth play into this? because, again, global GDP is expected to be, I don't know, flattish.

9:48You know, we don't see a whole heck of a lot of growth there. It's certainly not here and in China. Like, is that a factor? No doubt. But a lot of the demand, the global demand for oil is coming from emerging markets. I've seen a variety of estimates in terms of the increase in per barrel per day of growth in oil, and it's about a million. But some people think that it's actually greater than what is being forecasted. So, yes, that is an issue. And even China's growing usage of EVs from a transportation fuel perspective, you know, is a bare case. But China's buying, I've seen everywhere from a half a million to a million barrels a day, just stockpiling them.

10:32And China's got this growing petrochemical business. So I think overall in the years to come, demand is going to steadily increase. But again, mostly coming from emerging markets. So if the developed world slowed down, if the U.S. economy slowed down, I think some of that could be mitigated again by emerging market growth like in India, for example. You know, Peter, I know you heard us talk about the OIH, the single biggest one day move I've seen in a while to the upside. But what's what's going to be the catalyst? Is it a rotation out of some of the technology names? That's what I think it is.

11:00What are your thoughts? So I think that that is my most difficult question to answer is what would be that catalyst? I mean, every Friday we get the rig count. The rig count last Friday hit a fresh low going back to September 2021. That rig count is now down about 15 % year to date. If that continues to fall, maybe that will reach a point where it matters. More than half of the basins in the U.S. will lose money drilling for oil below$50. So even looking at this from a risk-reward perspective, if my downside is call it$10 in oil,$50, and I believe over the next coming years, oil is going to be$80 to$100.

11:45And even$80 to$100 on an inflation-adjusted basis would still be dirt cheap. Peter, interestingly, in the notes, you say that AI power demand is coming and that there's a lack of investment in energy. How does that pertain to the oil story? or are you just talking about the oil players that have exposure to NatGas specifically? Can you explain that? Sure. Well, two things. Yes, a lot of these oil companies are benefiting from natural gas, which is at now$5, which is a multi-month high. But the oil industry in totality needs to invest a half a trillion dollars a year on a global basis just to maintain production.

12:24And I think there's no question over the last bunch of years there's been a lot of focus on cash flows and dividends and reigning in CapEx and that we've sort of underinvested. So if that demand continues as I see it, we are going to reach a point where there's going to have to be an increase in investment in order to bring on more supply. But in the meantime, you're going to only get higher prices that will eventually then stimulate that new supply. Peter, great to speak with you. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Peter Buchbar, oil is the next gold. It's a very provocative statement given the run that gold has had.

13:02Do you buy that? No, I don't. And I'm not taking it away from Peter. Peter said his downside was$10. I do believe that$50 mark is the make or break. So I'm looking for oil to break$50 to the downside. I think you could possibly see oil in the 30s over the next couple of years not higher than 70. How about you, Karen? Well, the scenario where 30 is a troubling one. A lot of other things are going wrong. Right. Economically. Yes. Yes. In that scenario. So I'm not as doomsday-ish. I don't know. I do think that I do really think there's something to this rotation part of it. Yeah. Why did what is really different.

13:43Right. Today than it was two weeks ago. Nothing really. Yeah. So I think that that's really what's going on here. I do believe that you mentioned it. Oil right now, the barometer is the Ukraine-Russia war. It's the barometer to that war. So when days when we get further away from peace, it moves higher. Maybe. You know, I think to me that's sort of rearview mirror stuff, the Russia-Ukraine. But it's important. I'll say this. $30 oil. Remember, during the Trump's first administration, he actually went to OPEC and told them to stop putting oil out in the markets. The price was too low. So there is a sweet spot.

14:22And$30 oil devastates our shale production or all the U.S., basically pretty much every company in the energy space in the United States. So if we get there to Karen's point, something bad is happening. I will say this, though. I mean, again, sideways crude oil is not a bad thing for these companies. And if there's going to be a rotation, which I think we're in the midst of now, to Karen's point, there's no reason all of a sudden for this to be happening. I think it can continue early next year. But to go to the question that's on the bottom of the screen, could oil be next year's gold? I will go to probably the top bull on this desk tonight when it comes to the gold trade.

14:56Oh, it would not be Dan. Sunshine Day. A fresh, a new dollar to allocate. Where would you put it? All right. So if that's the case, so gold basically doubled this year. So you need crude oil to go from 60 to 120 sometime next year. It's not out of the realm of possibility. Personally, I don't see it happening, but we've seen it before on things that seemingly come out of nowhere. So I think there's a 25 or 30 percent chance of that happening. With all that said, given the game of would you rather, I would still rather gold here than oil. How about you, Steve? Gold. Gold still. Yeah, still. I don't think it's going to go to 30.

15:32We have midterm elections. There's going to be just think about how many bands on offshore drilling on federal lands and et cetera, et cetera. Trump will be drilling anything that is not tied down. If oil spikes, he's going to put a lid on it. Let's get to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Capitol Hill today talking about demand for chips and the need to protect national security. CNBC's Emily Wilkins has got all the highlights. Emily. Hey, Melissa. Well, yeah, Jensen Huang, he's coming to the Hill after the Senate really just did a 180 on semiconductors. You know, just a couple months ago, they passed a provision as part of a larger package.

16:10it would have restricted chip exports, but now that same provision is being removed from that package after NVIDIA and the White House lobbied against it. Jensen Wong said that he does support export controls, but said that the private sector is already ensuring that most advanced chips are going to U.S. companies. He also weighed in on another hot-button debate around whether state AI laws should be overwritten to help ease the regulatory burden for companies. State by state AI regulation would would drag this industry into a halt and it would create a national security concern as we need to make sure that the United States advances AI technology as quickly as possible.

16:52A federal AI regulation is the wisest. Now, Huang's meeting was with Republicans, but we're now hearing some blowback from Democrats who were upset that they were not included in the meeting. Senator Elizabeth Warren is now out with a statement criticizing the meeting, saying that Huang is sneaking in to meet with Senate Republicans behind closed doors and saying that he should be brought in to testify publicly and under oath, not pushing his agenda in secret meetings. In addition to that meeting with Senate Republicans, Huang also met with Speaker Mike Johnson as well as President Donald Trump.

17:28He told me that he and the president did speak about export controls, but he's not expecting any new announcements anytime soon. Melissa? Emily, thank you. Emily Wilkins. So there's nothing in NVIDIA's forecast about China right now. So it would be a major upside if there were to be some relaxation of the export controls. Yeah, it also comes at a time, though, where China's placed import controls for all intents and purposes, encouraging their companies who are buyers of these chips. You've also seen these companies stockpiling these chips, accessing them through places like Singapore, training their models outside of the U.S., having access to these H100s or H200s, which are obviously scaled down versions of the hoppers.

18:08I'm not so sure if you think about the timing of this is like, OK, we've been spending a lot of time talking about Google TPUs. We've been talking about ASICs. We've been talking about training from Amazon. There's just all of a sudden a lot of competition. And I think all of these potential buyers are thinking, am I going to buy these chips for all these years, right, at the expense of my margins for their margins, right? And I think this is all happening at a time where I don't think Jensen really has a choice other than a push for this, despite the fact that there's national security concerns on both sides of this.

18:40He is on one side of it. But the irony is that he's going and doing these backdoor meetings with Republicans. And this is fair weather federalism. Isn't the Republicans the ones who actually want the states to regulate everything, not the federal government? And it just seems like this is a very opportunistic move by Jensen. Well, a number of things. I do think the the in practice of having every state have their own regulations is a crippling. Yes. When you think about interstate banking and how ridiculous that was and how how it just created layers and layers of regulation. and the benefits seem to be very small.

19:18So I think that this is similar to that. And I, of course, understand why he would want it or any player in the space would want one regulation. So there's that. I think, I mean, the stock was down, I guess, on the Microsoft thing. We'll get to that later. I do agree with you, Dan, that there are sales to China. They're just not directly there. I don't know how significant that is, but I do think that's happening. So I guess I don't know that it matters so much, though. If the models all show no China sales, then that's what we're looking at. Still, the demand is huge, but there's just a big overhang in the space and the debt issues of building all these data centers still hangs out there and is big.

20:02Queen Gertrude, familiar? You went to a good college. Hamlet. Oh, I thought you meant a real queen. Okay, yes. No, I don't know if there is. There might be a Queen Gertrude somewhere, but in literature. But, and we've said this, the lady doth protest too much, methinks. He's been talking a lot over the last few months. And you have to wonder, you know, what is he so concerned about? If things are as rosy as they portray, he's out there talking a lot about competition and all these other things. That would be concerning. And I'll say this, there is competition coming, I think, in a meaningful way.

20:33And 75 % gross margins are not going to be enjoyed in perpetuity. I mean, Marvell Technology raised their forecast on this notion that they have this huge contract with Amazon for Terranium TPUs, Terranium 3 and 4. So, you know, to the concern about competition, that really underscores that. Yeah. Well, NVIDIA has been at a declining trend line for the last month. And I do believe that their four to six main customers are going to be their main competition. Every time he goes to D.C., he tries to pull a new lever. I think he's out of levers right now. I think the stock goes lower. Coming up, all the after hours action.

21:09Salesforce, Snowflake, and more reporting results tonight. The details and the numbers out of the reports next. And speaking of earnings, Macy's riding a roller coaster today after its own report. What's got the company cautious heading into the holiday shopping season? Don't go anywhere. Fast Money's back in two.

21:29Welcome back to Fast Money. We've got a double dose of software earnings to bring you. Salesforce shares jumping after the company beat on earnings and hike guidance. while Snowflake is lower despite reporting earnings and revenues ahead of Wall Street estimates. Seema Modi has been dialed into the calls. She joins us here with the latest. Hi, Seema. Two calls, Melissa. Let's start with Salesforce because CEO Mark Benioff providing a really encouraging update. He really talked about agent force and the metrics there that show that not only are customers signing up, but they're integrating AI agents.

21:56Salesforce revealing a 70 % increase in accounts and production. So that shows that clients are moving from pilot phase to deployment. That number also up from 60 % in the last quarter. In total, revenue for Asian Forest was over$500 million in the third quarter. That's up 330 % year over year. Management highlighting its current remaining performance obligations of$29.4 billion, being fueled by this powerful pipeline that the company has looking into the future. Benioff will be joining Jim Cramer on Mad Money tomorrow. Software pair Snowflake moving in the opposite direction after hours, bucking what has been an otherwise strong year.

22:33Shares are lower despite that earnings beat. Its outlook for the fourth quarter, specifically margins, came in weaker than expected. Product growth decelerated slightly, also noting a new$200 million partnership with Anthropic. The stock is still up about 65 percent this year. Sima, I'm curious if, because Benioff is known to slight other companies, talk freely about other companies. Sure. If he addressed that Microsoft report today, because as one of the few companies that actually report AI revenues as a breakout, people really looking to this report to either confirm or dispute that Microsoft report.

23:08Yeah, specifically around AI agents. No mention yet of Microsoft on this earnings call, but it is underway. It just started 20 minutes ago, and he led the call talking about how AI agents, this is a real thing. You have clients who are not just signing up, but they're moving into deployment. They are finding ways to use these agents to automate tasks. But we'll keep you updated on what he says on Microsoft if it comes up. All right, Seema, thank you. Seema Modi, where do you want to go? Quite revenue missed, but I think the guidance was good. I think the quarter was good. Margins were better than expected.

23:35I think that's really important. And we've talked about this 230 level. There was a low last June. We held. We traded down there a couple times this year. We held. Bouncing now. I think you can stay with this. I mean, valuation is not ridiculous. And I think you're going to see a relief rally over the next couple weeks. So the information thing, I know we're going to talk about it later. But one of the things I took out, there was an example in there how Carlisle, which is the large private equity firm, was using Copilot Studio, which is a Microsoft offering, and they kind of scaled back. So this is, they scaled back the use or paying for these things.