Stocks Bounce Back After Rough Week… And China Jumps Ahead Of A Big Week 3/14/25

0:03Live from 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. Believe the bounce. U.S. stock surging to cap off what has been an otherwise ugly week. The S &P notching its best day of the year. But can the gains keep going or is there more pain to come? And we're counting down to NVIDIA's big AI event kicking off Tuesday. It's the only MAG 7 name to pull off a gain this week. But will it be able to deliver on expectations and propel its stock to new heights? Plus, glistening gold. Can the precious metal keep shining bright? China in rally mode.

0:33But will next week's econ data keep investors from piling in and not so Gucci headlines that had the luxury retail giant hitting the discount rack today. I'm Melissa Lee. Come to you live from Studio B at the NASDAQ. On the desk tonight, Karen Feinerman, Courtney Garcia, Steve Grasso and Tim Seymour. We've got breaking news here on the Senate vote to fund the government. Let's get straight to Emily Wilkins for the very latest. Emily. Hey, Melissa. Well, we are on that critical vote to advance the government funding bill that would keep the government funded until the end of September, avoid a government shutdown.

1:04And at this point, it does have the votes to pass. Now, the vote is not final yet. People still could change their minds. But we are now seeing 10 Senate Democrats following Chuck Schumer's lead, joining with Republicans to keep the government open. And we're seeing that they have a lot of the same logic that Schumer put forward. They're saying that while they are very upset with what they've seen Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency do in terms of cuts to the government and to federal employees, they believe that a shutdown would be even worse. So we're waiting for this vote to close.

1:39When it does, the Senate is hoping to move very quickly here. We could actually see this bill pass by the end of the hour, averting any sort of government shutdown. And then, of course, the big question is, Republicans have said that they are going to be making cuts here. Exactly when and how and how much do those cuts have? Because right now, all they are doing is continuing funding from the Biden administration. Melissa? Emily, thank you. Emily Wilkins. Let's get back to the relief rally on Wall Street. The S &P and Nasdaq both having their best day since the election, and the Dow surging nearly 700 points, its best day since January.

2:13Still, even with those gains, stocks down sharply since Monday as tariff uncertainty weighs on confidence. The Dow is seeing its worst week in two years. The S &P 500 is still more than 8 % off its record high, tech more than 12 % off its high. But that group led the charge in today's bounce back as investors scooped up MAG7 stocks in a big way. Nvidia up over 5 percent. Tesla up 4 percent almost. Meta, Microsoft, Amazon also seeing some pretty big gains. It wasn't just tech rallying today. The travel trade bouncing back ahead of the weekend. Airlines, cruise stocks, casinos all well in the green.

2:45And energy up nearly 3 percent climbing into the green for the week. It was the best performing sector in the S &P 500 since Monday. But will today's relief rally be sustainable or is there more selling to come? How did you feel about today's gains, Karen? So not shocked. I mean, it's not shocking after such a bad week that we would bounce some and sort of a bit of an air pocket up. So still, though, if you just step back and sort of squint a little, I mean, this has been a very, very rough time for the last several weeks. But to me, I've done a little buying recently. I did the last few days, but also today a little buying in Google, a little buying yesterday in Meta.

3:22So I think that valuations are attractive. I think we could see another scare for sure. I look at the VIX very closely. It was down reasonably a fair amount today. 21 and 2177 or so is where it ended, I think. But I don't think it lives here either. I think it's going back down or it's going back up or both. And so I'm always long. So in a week like this, it's terrible. Today was nice, but I'm just going to stay that way. So I look at the technicals. If you pair up the technicals, if you could if we could show a chart of the S &P and go back to October of 2023. It looks very similar to price action.

4:02And what I mean by that was in October 2023, seven days, it was actually two days below the 200-day moving average, one day above, six days below. Total of eight combined, we're at five right now below. What made us rip? The Powell pivot back then. We're not going to get a Powell pivot. So I think we can last a little bit longer, but not terribly longer. So what's going to get us back up? Maybe the tech sector, but I don't think you're going to see the follow through. NVIDIA is back to$120 something. When it faded, it was right around$120. I had thought it would get to$90. It got down to$104-ish.

4:41I think we're going to see another test. But I do think that Microsoft and other stocks and Meta and Amazon and Google can rally at the expense of NVIDIA. I think we're going to hear from them that they're working on a next extremely expensive chip. That's not going to drive NVIDIA higher. What's going to drive NVIDIA higher is when they start working on cheaper chips. Cheaper chicken. Remember that movie? So they're working on cheaper chips so that they can expand and box out their competition. I think this leaves the ability for all other capex to come in drastically. DeepSeek changed it. if the other ones come in and cut their CapEx by 75%, that's going to be years of efficiency for them.

5:27It's going to be years of decline for NVIDIA. So I think NVIDIA fails, the others rally. Courtney, what do you make of this rally? Yeah, and I think that when you're seeing how much the markets have sold off over the last couple weeks, it's clearly very sentiment-driven. When you see a big pullback like this, that typically is just a standard correction. It's not really something like a larger bear market, which tends to happen kind of more slow and steady and a little bit more unnoticed. And I think this is probably an opportunity that you want to continue to buy into some of these. I think my only hesitation is you're seeing people are willing to come in.

5:59So days like days, days like today, people are coming and buying into the markets. Just kind of anecdotally speaking, we always get a handful of clients who will call us and they will panic out and they will, regardless of what we're saying, will want to sell out of the markets. We haven't had any of that. We're having people calling us say, hey, should we add some more here? Which is kind of like contrarily makes you say, I don't know if we're at the end of this quite yet, But I do think they're buying opportunities. I don't know if today's the end of it, but still buy these dips. Yeah. Tim, do you feel better about the markets today having seen the rally or do you feel worse?

6:28I mean, did you do you think that we've seen that bottom has the is the worst in terms of all the volatility behind us? No, I don't think so. I mean, today was a combination of government shutdown averted way, way, way oversold. We had RSI levels, so relative strength indicators that on a short-term basis were as oversold as we've seen going back to March of 23, but really back to kind of bottom of COVID. I think you have a dynamic where just sentiment-wise for the investor community, this was due to happen today. I think this was a day also you are looking at the names that you want to own, but I'm not sure that anything really changed today.

7:06And unfortunately, that confidence number we got really was a microcosm of all that is uncertain. We had expectations on spending down. It was a stagflationary consumer confidence number, and it wasn't a great number. But the market had to rally. And again, if you think about where we were, we've basically taken half of the 22 bear market is rallied and, excuse me, is sold off in just a month's time. This has been so extreme that we were oversold. We were due for a bounce. But, you know, the things that have me say I don't know where we really get out of this are some of the things to oversimplify.

7:44I do believe that the international outperformance is not just because the fundamentals are so much better. It's more just I do think we're going to have a period where the U.S. exceptionalism story has challenges from all over the place. I think the Trump put no one really knows where that is, but the strike price on that Trump put is probably moving lower. whether it's the Fed put is higher or lower than that, probably lower. So there's very little relief for the markets in the short term. As we know, there are more tariffs coming April 2nd. As we know, companies are starting to talk about the impact on earnings.

8:17So I do think this is an opportunity to find great companies. And I think people are exploring those companies outside of the MAG-7. And I think that makes sense. Yeah. The sentiment data was terrible this morning. Terrible. And the markets not only shrugged it off, but they rallied on the back of it afterwards. I mean, I think what Tim was saying, the relief over how bad it's been, as well as the crisis averted, which I think people weren't really expecting that to be a real crisis, but just so overdone that there had to be a little bounce back. But the inflation number being up and the sentiment, that was interesting that the market behaved this way.

8:56Yeah. We'll see what the jobs number holds. Our next guest sees more market pain ahead. CNBC contributor Peter Brookvar is the chief investment officer at Bleakley Financial Group. Peter, great to see you in person. So more pain ahead. And not only more pain, but we're going to see a transition in leadership, which I thought was interesting, that the best days of the MAG-7 are gone. In terms of their market dominance, in terms of them carrying the weight of the entire market, where the top seven stocks made up 35 percent of the S &P, I think to what Steve said, So the deep seek news was game changing and the market needs to pass the baton onto something else.

9:29It already started passing it on to international markets and maybe it'll find the value trade in small mid caps. But also there are other big picture things that are happening here. If our plan as a government is to cut the budget deficit relative to GDP from 7 percent to 3 percent. Well, the 7 % level was a massive fiscal blowout that showed up in the private sector, showed up in corporate profits, showed up in economic growth. So while it's a very good thing to get control of our debts and deficits, in the short term, it's going to have a very negative impact on economic activity. Now, where they go from here with that, we'll have to see, of course.

10:07But they're like mega trends that I think are reversing to the point where the playbook that works so well over the last couple of years, throw it away. It's not going to work. The world's changing. We're at major inflection points, I believe, in the markets. And then you throw in, of course, with tariffs and everything and how that's going to go. If we want to shrink the trade deficit, that means you also shrink the capital account surplus. Capital account surplus had a lot of money flowing into the U.S. Foreigners own$17 trillion of U.S. stocks. If we want to shrink the deficit, well, that pile is going to shrink.

10:39They're going to take their money home. I think that's one of the reasons why the dollar has weakened. As the MAG-7 stocks have fallen, the dollar has fallen as well. So there are a lot of big picture things going on here that, again, throw out the playbook that has worked so well. So what will be the leadership, at least here in the United States? So that is the big question, is where, who's taking that baton? I think that the value growth divergence got so extreme that it could be the other 493 stocks. It could be small mid-cap. But I think international, this is not just a one or two quarter outperformance.

11:14This is potentially a multi-year outperformance relative to U.S. stocks. So let me just take the other side of some of that. And I'm speaking my book because I am long a lot of MAG-7. But when I think about the over or underperformance of the MAG-7, they got a lot of good things going for them in terms of huge cash stockpiles, right? They've got gross margins that are tremendous. They're not unlike some other industries where margins can really get hit. Tariffs isn't relevant here. And the valuations have come down a lot. They're below market. So I understand the market can absolutely go down.

11:48But to me, they seem relatively more safe than some of the other areas that might not be able to withstand, you know, logistics, supply chain, all that kind of thing. So I agree with everything you said. But in terms of taking the market with it and literally carrying it on their shoulders, I think those days are over. I think we're potentially in that transition where there are growth stocks that become value stocks. And historically speaking, that is a multi-year transition. I mean, you can double your earnings, but if your multiple gets cut in half, your stock goes nowhere. And we saw that in the 2000s after the peak in March 2000.

12:22Microsoft was a solid company with a tremendous balance sheet in March 2000. Google's 18 or 17 multiple here. This is not a Cisco kind of. Right. But I just think that they're more trading stocks rather than the one decision stocks that that works so well over the last couple of years. And one last potential group. I'm very bullish and we're long commodity stocks. I think we're on the cusp of a big move up in commodities. We're already seeing it in raw material prices triggered in part by the tariffs. But I think that that is a beaten up group that I think is really attractive. Commodities and not necessarily precious metals.

12:56Precious metals I love and we're very long that and I remain so. All right, Peter, great to see you. Thank you. Peter Bookvar, Bleakley Advisory. Tim, do you agree international stocks over U.S. for the next five years? Look, I think in the short term, I think we've got a case where international stocks are going to continue to outperform. I think you've got a case where the valuations are a lot more interesting. I think you've got a case where the fund flows are going to favor that. I think people are still very underweight. The performance of Germany to the U.S. is over 20 percent this year.

13:31And there's a reason for it. It's not just because of what's going on with tariffs. Do you agree that MAG7 won't be carrying the markets in the future? Yeah, I mean, we've been looking at that for a while. I think just some of these valuations have become stretched. And I think to Karen's point, some of them aren't extremely high any longer, especially after the recent pullback. But I think the question is you're seeing investors start to look elsewhere. I do really like the international call there because I think what you're seeing is people have become overly bearish on those. They've become much cheaper than the U.S.

13:57But also you're seeing these countries kind of in spite of the tariffs are having to put more stimulus and more money back into their own economies because they can't rely on the U.S. as a growth source any longer. So oddly enough, Trump has been like the best thing to happen to investing abroad recently, which is interesting. So we still own the MAG-7. It's just not something I'm actively overweighting or adding additional money to. I think you want to continue to broaden out here. If you if you look at the valuation, that's why Germany, because of the dislocation between Germany, China, and the U.S.

14:24That's why that was bought. But everything I heard out of Peter was if the market comes in, then I think the Powell put is in play. I think the market can continue to rally, but it will be on the backs of the MAG 6, not MAG 7. Meantime, Nvidia bouncing higher today, up more than 5%. The stock closing out the week with an 8 % gain, making it the only MAG 7 stock up this week. Still, the AI Darling is down more than 20 % from its 52-week high. And next week, the company hosts its GTC conference in San Jose with a keynote from CEO Jensen Huang Tuesday and a quantum day on Thursday. Analysts looking for updates on NVIDIA's Blackwell Ultra and next-gen Rubin chips, as well as demand from China and a roadmap for its quantum computing plans.

15:05Karen, you know that part of the run-up this week, at least, was anticipation of this major potential catalyst. Right, right. But what I think, I don't know if he's going to address this, is how is demand right now? Right. Has anything turned? Yes. Has anything turned and having a little bit more time, not a ton, but a little bit more time post deep seek? You know, do you think the world has changed? Stacey Raskin, I don't know if you heard him on in the prior hour or two, was saying he thought deep seek was a big positive. But clearly the street thinks differently. I'd be very curious to hear Jensen's take on that, which I know he's saying inference is going to we need so much more compute for inference.

15:43Yes. Right. And so he, you know, is touting that as a positive, which there's skepticism, though. Right, right, right. Tim, you got your voice back? Let's hope so. It's been a tough run here. Yes, what can I do for you? NVIDIA and GTC. What are you expecting? I do think this is an important moment for the stock. We got numbers, as we all know, a few weeks back, and those numbers were fine. But as we think about the drivers and what the deep seek impact is, there's no question that still NVIDIA is the only game in town. And I still think that that CapEx spend is not something we should be challenging.

16:20GTC is going to be another data point. And I think it's important for the market. I like what the stock did on the chart this week. It was really important. Do you remember when NVIDIA reporter earnings John Ford had an interview, a one-on-one interview with Jensen Huang after that report? We were saying, oh, you know, Jensen Huang, he's always managed to come out and message the markets and stir the stock higher and nothing happened. So what do you think? He's been an excellent salesperson for the name. I think this will be one of those Apple events where you sell it, you know, on the day of or you sell it coming out of it.

16:55But what I thought was interesting is they're having their first ever quantum day. And if you look at stocks like D-Wave, that was up 47 percent today. If you look at Rigetti, that was up 28 percent today. So watch those names out of it. They're trying to change from AI to quantum. I think that's very interesting. How does NVIDIA stack up in your Mag7 list? Well, they're really dependent on your other Mag7, right? Because what you need to see is the CapEx from these other companies need to continue to increase, which interestingly enough did even after DeepSeek. They pledged even more money to go back to chips, which has been a positive for NVIDIA.

17:31So I think you want to watch not just what they're going to say at this conference, but also is that CapEx going to continue to increase, especially if there is concerns about growth in the economy? Are they going to pull that back? I think that's a bigger indication of where NVIDIA is going. Coming up, Tesla's latest plan to keep its market share in China is a revamped flagship model, enough to keep the EV maker afloat in an increasingly competitive market. Plus, some heavy metal trading with gold at all-time highs. What is next for the precious metal after crossing above 3 ,000 for the first time?

17:58That debate right after this. This is Fast Money with Melissa Lee, right here on CNBC.

18:16Welcome back to Fast Money. Tesla shares popping almost 4 % today. The EV maker reportedly looking to bring a cheaper version of its Model Y to China. The company also raising concerns about the impact of retaliatory tariffs on its business. For more on all this, let's bring in our Phil LeBeau. Phil. Melissa, this comment about a more affordable EV, or I shouldn't say a comment, the reports out of China early this morning had a lot of people saying, is Tesla close to an announcement? By all accounts, that is not going to be happening anytime soon. Could happen, maybe in the next few months. This is the report out of China.

18:49It will be a stripped-down Model Y. Many people have speculated that a stripped-down Model Y is essentially what they'll come out to when they come out with a lower-priced model. Second half of the year is the expectation, at least for the rollout in China. Pricing and specifics, they're not included at this point, though many people believe that if Tesla can get a Model Y, stripped-down version or not, down closer to$30 ,000, that it will have a better shot of competing against some very intense competition in China. China is one area that has been behind Tesla's slowdown in sales. UBS out with a report today saying that the sales for China year-to-date down 16 % when they add up reports out of Europe, out of China.

19:33We still don't get the U.S. sales until the beginning of May. And they've cut their price target down to$130. So as you take a look at shares of Tesla, yes, it's a nice pop today, but this is a stock that's still well off of where it was back in early December, mid-December. So it has come back just a little bit today. There was also a letter that was sent from Tesla to the U.S. trade representative. It was an unsigned letter. It was not signed by Elon Musk, CEO of the company. This happened yesterday. In that letter, the company essentially said, look, if there are tariffs that are going to be put in place, we're an exporter.

20:09They do build vehicles in the U.S. and export them, and exporters are inherently exposed to disproportionate impacts when other countries respond to U.S. trade actions. Essentially, the letter, which was fairly vague and fairly broad, said, think twice before you put these tariffs in place about the implications for those in this country who export vehicles. We're showing you all of the auto stocks today. They all moved higher along with the market. Remember, April 2nd, that is the date, Melissa, where we'll find out if auto tariffs go into effect. And if they do go to effect, that's when we'll start to see how the automakers respond in terms of pricing, reducing incentives, etc.

20:50Right. And BMW already, Phil, has talked about the cost of tariffs to them in their report. Yeah. At least a one billion euro hit is what the expectation is from them. And remember, their largest plant in the world is in South Carolina. It builds primarily for North America. They do ship some vehicles from that plant to other countries. They've already incorporated a lot of manufacturing in this country, but they have said that they will take a hit. They do bring some in from Germany as well as from Mexico. And the tariff war, if there is one, is going to hurt their bottom line. Phil, thank you.

21:27Phil LeBeau. You bet. Steve, how are you feeling about Tesla these days with the drawdown? I'm just looking at it. I'll start with a Fibonacci retracement. This looks like where the stock bottomed out from basically October through August or I'm sorry, August through October, right around these levels. If you follow it on a Fibonacci level, the stock can go another 80 points higher from here. So maybe a 35 % to the upside if we follow those retracements. Usually stocks do follow retracements, especially after the beaten down that this stock has gotten. Obviously, the competition for them is BYD.

22:07In the first two months of the year, BYD sold 481 ,000 cars against Tesla's 60 ,000 cars. So they're trying to do what they did here, where they lower the cost, they build out the base, they take market share back. Very difficult to do in China, but I think purely technicals, the stock can rally a lot further than where it is. I mean, Phil is talking about the difficulties, and you're talking about the difficulties in the Chinese market. I mean, this is not even, you know, addressing the issues they have in terms of backlash because of Elon Musk's role in the government because of his comments siding basically with the far right in Europe, which Europeans do not like.

22:47I mean, there are a lot of other issues here on top of a weakening fundamental picture. And, by the way, oil is 60 bucks a barrel, 66 bucks. I mean, that's not necessarily helping that EB story along either at this point. Well, I wonder about the back. We know the backlash here is pervasive. But they seem to in the past, I guess, before he joined the administration, Elon was somewhat of a cult figure in China. It seemed right. I don't know how damaged that is. That's that's sort of interesting to me. But also, I mean, I guess the valuation differential is so big between what they sell their cars for and what the Tesla car is.