Software Sits Out Of The Rally… And Inflation Data Impact On Next Fed Decision 4/9/26

20:51So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's venture global. That's unstoppable energy.

21:03With Uber's new women preferences, women riders can request a woman driver whenever they want. Like Amy, who's traveling solo in a city she's never been to before. or Danielle, who works night shifts at the hospital or Kelly and Jana, who were way overdue for a night out. Because sometimes comfort comes from having another woman with you. Request women drivers with woman preferences on Uber. Learn more on the Uber app. All right, welcome back to Fast Money. Don't look now, but Intel just logged a seven-day win streak. And if you're counting at home, that's the longest win streak since September of 2023.

21:46A long-lagging semiconductor stock now 50 % in that time in today's move. Coming is the company and Google announced an expanded partnership to supply AI chips for data centers. Christina Parcinobos joining us now on set with more on a big and I think surprising deal. Maybe. No? Well, because it's a part of a multi-year deal, and I say maybe because Intel is keeping its eye on CPU chips inside Google's data centers. They've been actually collaborating for years, and they're expanding into other hardware that keeps those systems running, handling things like networking and storage behind the scenes.

22:22So this is really about Intel showing that Google isn't abandoning it, especially as big customers design their own chips and NVIDIA dominates the AI conversation. One thing is moving in Intel's favor. CPUs, those central processing units, are becoming more important in AI systems. NVIDIA's chips definitely get all the attention, but those systems still rely on the traditional processors to keep everything running. This is also part of a string of recent wins for CEO Liputan of Intel, including a U.S. government investment, a stake from NVIDIA, SoftBank, giving Intel a credibility and a credibility boost as it tries to turn things around.

23:00Also, why the stock has just climbed so high over the last little while. And you see the same strategy in Intel's tariffab push tied to Elon Musk's AI build-out from earlier this week. Intel's positioning itself really as the infrastructure layer behind all of this. But the companies disclose no financial details or purchase commitments, no timeline. I pushed back on Intel. They wouldn't give me any details. Intel still hasn't landed major outside foundry customers, and that's the overhang. The Google deal adds hyperscaler credibility. The proof will be in the numbers. It feels like Intel's like a phoenix, kind of come out of the ashes, right?

23:33Is this, you know, in chains? Or a meme stock. Okay, well, that's interesting. Is it a meme stock? Well, I don't know. I don't know what the balance sheet is. I don't know if these contracts are real. We don't know what this deal is, right? They haven't been able to produce and have a manufacturing business. They haven't been able to actually even partner with people that are more important to their core business, like Taiwan Semi. They're trying to buy back. Did they buy back their stake from Apollo? The joint venture in Ireland just last week for$14.2 billion. Where are they getting that money?

24:00They're laying people up. Well, they must be having—they laid off 30 ,000 people in the last two years. So he's been cutting back quite dramatically. They shipped their first chip on 18A, which is an advanced process this year. So that's seen as a win. But I understand your point of view. The argument is that Liputan, the CEO, is really doing a good job at saving, cutting back on costs, which is why he was able to buy back the Apollo. Sharon, maybe he'll do so with the other joint venture. I'm not going to be like Superfly Seymour coming off the top of the year, by the way. Do we know the status that Ohio Fab was on again, off again, on again, off again?

24:29It's still on. They're working through that. Okay. Yeah, I don't know if there's going to be any major delays like we heard in Maine today with the other story that Emily Wilkins shared. But, no, you have no idea what I'm talking about. But it doesn't matter. No, that's still on. No, no. Oh, you're like. No, no, Emily's story about the data centers in Maine. Dan educated me on Maine's political leadership and the importance of that story.

24:52Melissa Lee:Can I get in there? Oh, sure. Go ahead. So you just mentioned the NVIDIA investment going back to, what, it was the fall, right? In Intel. I think that was one of those things, I'm sure. I know you were reporting on it. We're like, oh, that's kind of weird. Are we going to find Intel in a position? And Tim just mentioned, obviously, from a fabrication standpoint, this company has misfired on numerous occasions. Because of all this demand now for CPUs, are they going to find themselves in a difficult situation to supply all these CPUs, whether it's to Google or Google? Well, they shared that on the last earnings call.

25:20They said that they couldn't keep up with the demand. And if anything, they were ill-prepared compared to, let's say, the likes of AMD, which is why you saw the stock drop so dramatically post-earning. So I wonder this time around, I think it's April 23rd with the upcoming earnings report, if they're going to say they've actually worked out that supply and demand issue and things have improved because demand, like you said, for these CPUs is so strong. And they could benefit. They are the CPU maker. Well, one of them.

25:43Melissa Lee:Is it a meme stock, Guyadami? Intel? In 2000, Intel made an all-time high of 75. I think their EPS for the year was$1.80 or so. I think they did it on like$35 billion of revenue. That's 26 years ago. This year, they'll do$58 billion. That's probably apples to apples given inflation over that period of time. It's trading right now, in case anybody cares, almost 61 times next year's numbers, which is extraordinary. They report earnings on April 23rd. I mean, they better say data center is better and things are getting better. Otherwise, this valuation makes zero sense. Meme. Meme. He said it in a word.

26:17Melissa Lee:I said it in a lot of words. Hey, this is, you know, you're bothered by that term. No, not at all. It's okay. I'd like to, we could do the whole hour on Intel, except we can't. That's too bad, because then I could stay a lot longer here. Well, you could stay anywhere. Hang out if you want. You're good. You don't care. All right, there's a lot more Fast Money to come. You don't care? Here's what's coming up next. I would love it. There you go. Disney slimming down. The media giant's new chief making some moves early in his tenure. How the company is cutting costs. And what could be next on his agenda.

26:48plus inflation in focus. A key price gauge coming tomorrow gives us a read on the impact from the Iran war, how it could impact the Fed's next decision, and what it could mean for stocks, the dollar, and more. You're watching Fast Money, live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. We're back right after this.

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27:57So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's Venture Global. That's unstoppable energy.

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28:42Disney, planning to lay off as many as 1 ,000 employees, according to sources. Many expected to come from their marketing department. The news comes just weeks after new CEO Josh DiMauro took over as CEO from Disney, from Bob Iger at Disney shares, down a percent and a half in the early trade before ending the day higher. Any take on Disney? It's, listen, I hate talking about stocks and there's layoffs because people are losing their jobs and it's not good. Well, not long, but that's the right thing to do. You come in, you know, people are nervous. What's going to happen? What's going to change?

29:15It's better just do it as deep as you're going to, you know, as however many layers you plan on going. And then hopefully after that, the rest of the employees can say, all right, now we're not going to focus on that. Let's get back to it. Listen, we love to talk about Disney as a media company because they are. They've got TV. They've got ESPN. They've got ABC. But the increasing bulk of their revenue, their earnings comes from the parks. That's why he's the CEO. Should they dump the media sign?

29:44I don't think so. I mean, I think that the media that they're shooting for is is DTC and streaming. And I think they've had phenomenal growth and the profitability is increasing. It's part of the rest of that business is part of that flywheel. I don't know why anything's changed. It's just the medium of distribution has changed. And I think, by the way, they're getting their act together. But look, as a shareholder in this name, this has been dead money for 15 years. And it's not about valuation. I think the new leadership is exciting. The parks are printing money. The cruise lines are making a lot of money.

30:19The problem is media. Streaming is a hard business. Well, again, I just think what we've seen in the media world, especially at Paramount, Skydance, et cetera, I think some of these properties, I think ESPN is intrinsically more valuable than the market gives it credit for. And I think we've seen that based upon what people are paying for assets. All right. Coming up, what this morning's inflation read may or may not have told us about the economy and how the Middle East war impact the CPI data coming out tomorrow. We'll get more on all of it. Markets up for seven straight days. We're back in two minutes.

30:57Missed a moment of fast? Catch us anytime on the go. Follow the Fast Money Podcast. We're back right after this.

31:13All right, welcome back. Stocks continuing their momentum after yesterday's surge as hopes rise for a broad Mideast ceasefire. The Dow jumping nearly 300 points, turning positive for the year. The S &P 500 up six-tenths of 1%. Still down a touch for the year, But if you throw in dividends, they're going to be higher. The Nasdaq up eight-tenths of a percent. Both the S &P and Nasdaq now on seven-day win streaks. That is actually the S &P 500's longest win streak since October and the Nasdaq's longest win streak since 2024. Now, oil actually rose today, rose 3.5%. It's now just below$98 per barrel.

31:54And by the way, we've got some new postings around the war. President Trump just put this out minutes ago on True Social. Quote, there are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait. They better not be. And if they are, they better stop now. Donald J. Trump. Meantime, shares of Brown Foreman surging nearly 13 % today. They're a big maker of booze, including Jack Daniels. And they are reportedly exploring a deal with privately owned spirits maker Sazerac, which owns brands like Fireball Whiskey and Buffalo Trace Bourbon. The report comes a few weeks after the company said it has held talks for a deal with France's Pernod Ricard.

32:37In the meantime, the dollar tumbling this week following France's President Trump's two-week Iran ceasefire announcement. So for more on this and more, let's bring in Vanda President Jens Nordvig. He is also the founder of Exante Data. All right, Jens, a lot to talk about. With the war, dollar, currencies, what's the number one thing that you are focused on right now?

33:05Melissa Lee:So we have a chat system where we talk with our clients around the world 24-7. And the most important data point that all our investor clients around the world is watching is literally whether there's any crude oil tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz, right? So this is not a data point that we look at every day last year, but now we look at it every 10 minutes to give a precise picture of what is actually flowing through. So I want to pat myself a little bit on the back. For a couple of weeks now, we've been showing that live chart saying this is, because I've talked to smart people like you and others, Jens, that that live chart of the straight-up-forward moves is right now the most important chart in the world for the stock market.

33:53Melissa Lee:Absolutely. Absolutely. So we have different types of data. We have to be very careful about how we interpret it. It matters whether it's a few tankers coming from Iran directly or whether it's international tankers that are actually transporting crude oil as normal. And so far, it's essentially only Iranian oil and Iranian vessels that are coming out. And that's the reason why we have, despite the ceasefire, crude oil prices bouncing up, as you mentioned in the intro, over the last 24 hours. Jens, the strength in oil is devastating to Japan. Their currency weakens seemingly by the day. 160, whatever reason, is seemingly the line in the sand.

34:34Melissa Lee:It's doing it against a bond market that continues to erode. If that's the most important chart, second or third most important chart, I think, is what's going on with Japan and their currency. Thoughts on that? yes so we've we've had a an episode here since this war started right where the the dollar got a safe haven bid uh it got a bid because uh the united states is energy independent and the ones that got you know the the biggest damage were the ones that import a lot so the asian countries including japan is right up there and we had significant weakness in in japanese yen Korean won and so forth.

35:14So that's really what was happening into the ceasefire.

35:19Melissa Lee:Right now, we've had some relaxation. And what is pretty interesting in the last two days, right, is that the dollar and to some degree, the equity market is starting to diverge a little bit from the short term fluctuations in the crude oil. So I think that tells you that there's some hope, that even if the short term is going to be very volatile, there's some of the tail risk around dramatic further escalation, troops on the ground, damage to not just transit, but also production. That fear has gone down. And I think that's why you're starting some of the correlations change. Like we had a couple of days where everything was exactly the same trade.

36:00Melissa Lee:And now we start to see a little bit more risk taking. Our clients definitely engaging more again. And that's leading to somewhat different correlations where different assets are trading with less correlation to crude oil. Let me put it that there's still correlation, but less extreme than a couple of days ago. Jens, next move in the dollar below 96 or above 102. So I do think if this ceasefire is holding, that will mean that risk taking is coming back. Risk assets can trade a little bit better, as we've seen over the last several sessions. And in that environment, the dollar is likely to leak lower also because, in addition to the risk sentiment angle, we have other central banks around the world, ECB and so forth, that are actually going to increase rates because of this energy price pressure.

36:50Melissa Lee:And that's not going to be the case for the Fed. So you have a divergence where actually the rate differentials are starting to move against the dollar again, which is something that is new and a fresh impulse for that type of trend. So what wins on a weaker dollar? So I think in the current environment, you have to look at each central bank individually because everybody's facing slightly different circumstances. And the most hawkish central bank right now is the European Central Bank because they are coming into this with quite low rates. And they're quite concerned about any upside risk to inflation.

37:28Melissa Lee:They have a one sided mandate as opposed to the Fed. So they're probably going to respond potentially as soon as this month. So that would be very important for currency markets. Jens Nordvig, really appreciate it, Jens. Have a great day. Thank you very much. Thank you. Tim, I'm not sure I agree with the EU going to raise rates take. I think the EU has to posture higher rates, and they are maybe the hawkish of the major central banks out there. But look, if we begin to normalize ceasefire and all this stuff that we're still skeptical about, 96 in the dollar or below, which is, you know, 2 % away, is gold, you know, back above 5 ,500, is a booming market for equities.

38:08And I think the international stuff, especially emerging, really outperforms. And we've seen those have been the outperforming trades on the way down.

38:16Melissa Lee:I think the headwind that the dollars created for gold abates in that circumstances. And gold, I think, to Nikki's earlier point, I think gold goes higher from here as well. All right. coming up here on Fast Money, pills on Prime. Now Amazon is getting into the weight loss drug craze and some really incredible stats from the company about the growth of Amazon Web Services. You're not going to believe them, but we're going to give them to you. They don't even deserve them, Guy Domi, do they? No, we don't. And we're going to give it to them next.

38:51Amazon, another big story today. Today, it popped more than 5%. The CEO, Adam Jassy, said in a letter to shareholders, Andy, thank you very much. I appreciate that. The company will not be conservative in spending on AI. He noted it three years into its cycle. AI revenues. Listen, here's that stat that we wanted to give before the break. We said the audience deserve it. We're going to give it to him anyway. Amazon Web Services revenues are running at a rate of$15 billion in the first quarter. Folks, that is 260 times, 260 times what Amazon Web Services is generating at the same point earlier in its lifespan.

39:34Amazon said it will start to stock Eli Lilly's new weight loss pills and kiosks. Kiosk? Kiosk? Kiosk. Kiosk. Thank you. And some of its primary care offices. Karen, I mean, that 260 % jump number is a. That's even. That's even. Thank you. Even more, pal. I'm really rocking it tonight. It's on Squawk Box this morning. Even you have to be amazed by that. I am amazed by that. I am indeed amazed by that. I mean, you know, Andy Jassy had his letter out. Adam. I didn't focus. Adam, I'm sorry. I know we renamed him Adam. But I thought the retail part I didn't focus on because the AWS part, the chip part, was so extraordinary, as is the$200 billion of CapEx just for this coming year.

40:22But I thought the growth there is extraordinary. When you think about the AWS part, the margins in that business, and there are a few different businesses besides just cloud. There's AI, there's chips, there's a bunch of different things. The margins there are 35-ish percent versus in retail, mid-single digits, maybe. And so where the stock is trading now with the growth that they're looking at, he's pounding the table on extraordinary growth.

40:49Melissa Lee:Well, by the way, I mean, Andy Jazzy, the fourth most famous guy from Scarsdale, I think. That's fair. There's Tim Seymour. There's Tom Rogers. There's ARS. John Revelli. And then there's Andy Jazzy. Butch Graves. Well, I think it's important to remember. A couple astronauts. ARS and AWS. Jassy ran AWS for a very long time, right? Right before he – so this is going to be his baby. This has transformed the company. You can talk about retail all you want, right? This is a company that's doing, I think,$125 billion in ARR. That's AWS. And, you know, Microsoft Azure is their big competitor. They're growing slower than Azure is.

41:22Melissa Lee:But it seems like, you know, investors really like the idea that Anthropics models and OpenAO models and a bunch of other models are on AWS. And I think they think they have the ability to kind of hit a different SMB as you see more uptake of these models. I just do think that this is powerful. Karen talked about this earlier in our call, but the metrics here and the power and the unit economics of what AI means to Amazon is enormous. And remember, if we were talking about Amazon 10 years ago, the big kind of dynamic we would point to is when they want to flip the switch, they can flip the switch.

41:57This is a company that's always invested in infrastructure and logistics and ARP. That's what they've done here, too. Amazon on valuation is very interesting. This was a great couple of days of headlines for the company.

42:08Melissa Lee:Basically a market multiple-ish. I mean, maybe a tad higher, but we can sort of round down in terms of that, which you historically don't see in Amazon. They report, I think, on the 23rd of this month. I think it rallies into earnings. The analyst's average price target on this is 280. I don't think that's that far-fetched for the name. All right. Coming up, let's call this being meh on the market. Why the CFOs, some of the biggest companies, don't expect much. Frank Holland will be along to tell you about that. We're out.

43:07Hey there, Brian. Well, CFOs appear to be calling for an end of the bull market, at least through the lens of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. 60 percent do not see a significant move to the upside or to the downside for the Dow. So if you're looking at this as the glass half full, the majority are not forecasting a bear market. But only 12 percent of CFOs see the Dow hitting a new record, which would only be about a 5 percent move from where we closed today. Also very important to note here, 16 percent do see the Dow falling back to its 52-week low, a more than 20 percent move to the downside.

43:37So there is some bearishness among these financial decision makers. Oil and the Iran conflict also raises some questions about their broader financial targets. 12 percent saying they will have to revise those numbers. 60 percent saying they will not revise. And more than a quarter saying, hey, we're just not sure. Adding, it is all under review. The volatility in the oil market, that's likely a major factor. We surveyed CFOs between March the 23rd and April the 2nd. And Brian, you know this very well. During that time, oil moved double digits to the upside. When it comes to their EPS numbers, we saw a similar mix of responses.

44:08Over the next 12 to 18 months, just about a quarter see their current earnings level as highly sustainable. Forty percent say moderately sustainable, but more than a third, they say their current earnings level is at risk. And speaking of earnings, we asked the CFOs about a potential SEC rule change that would permit semi-annual reporting. Now, if that rule change happens, 20 percent say they plan to go to semi-annual reporting. Eight percent said they would not. More than a quarter say they're just not sure about it. Forty four percent say we're not answering, not applicable to their business.

44:38Brian. Yeah, not that's it. Forty four percent. So when we get the next survey out, Frank, how often does this thing come out? because I'm curious what they're going to say when the war ends, hopefully sooner than later, and how things may change after that. Well, Brian, you're thinking like a lot of people in Wall Street are thinking that there's going to be a definitive end to the war in a couple weeks, maybe a couple months. We generally do these every quarter. It's not a quarterly survey, but roughly every quarter. So I do think it will be interesting. One of the key data points in this, we didn't hit on it here, is the number of CFOs that say their business will be impacted with oil above 100.

45:16Obviously, it's right around 100 now. So if this conflict continues after the ceasefire, those results, they're going to be very interesting. Yes, they will be. And we'll look forward to them. Frank Collin with the exclusive CFO CNBC survey. Frank, thank you very much. Good to see you. All right, let's take a very short break. And then we're going to come back with final trades. Exciting part of the show. I think it's a very moderately sustainable of the show. So it's super exciting. We're back right after this.

45:58It is final trade time. Tim Seymour, kick it off. Brian, you were like an adult beverage to all of us tonight. It was great having you. Overpriced and quickly down. Well, you know, Andy Jassy, which he didn't. I'm kidding. I think Amazon is under value here. I do think the unit economics and the ROC of AI are working. Love that. Okay. Volatility index here now below 20. I think we've got more bumpy roads ahead. So I'm going to buy some of the May volatility index calls. Remember, it's on the future, not the spot.

46:32Melissa Lee:Comes out VIX. I have a sully hangover, I've got to be really honest. I think the IGV is close to a near-term trading opportunity. Scott, you're blocking my UNC women's soccer guard. You guys laughed at me. No, it's really good. Looks good, none of them. Let us see, Brock. Thanks for watching, everybody. Mad Money starts right now. All 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.

47:08Melissa Lee: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. To view the full Fast Money Disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com forward slash Fast Money Disclaimer. Snoring? Gasping during sleep? Feeling fatigued? Ask your doctor about ZepBound Terzepatite, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. ZepBound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA.

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