Stocks Surge To Start Week… And Structure Therapeutics CEO On Weight Loss Space 3/24/25

0:02Live 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. A strong start to the week. Major averages rallying on hopes of a softer tariff policy out of D.C. Can the strength be sustained and how much higher can we go from here? And a box office bus. Disney's trouble plague retelling of Snow White failing to impress on ticket sales. What's it mean for the studio and the competition? Plus, why the chart master says Uber can drive higher. BYD hits a major milestone faster than Tesla. And the race for a weight loss pill will get the very latest on developments from the CEO of Structure Therapeutics.

0:37I'm Melissa Lee, coming to you live from Studio B at the NASDAQ on the desk tonight. Tim Seymour, Karen Freinerman, Dan Nathan, and Guy Adami. We start off with the markets ripping higher to kick off the week. President Trump suggesting many countries could get breaks on tariffs. The NASDAQ up more than 2%. The S &P is seeing its best Monday since the bear market ended in October 2022. Consumer discretionary, communication services, and financials leading the way today with utilities. the only sector to finish in the red. Among the single stock winners, Tesla, United Airlines, AMD, and Palantir.

1:06But the three major indices are still negative for the month, and only the Dow is in the green, albeit barely for the year. So should you have faith in this rally that we've seen recently? Are you a believer, Guy? Hi, Mel. Hello. Happy Monday. No, I'm a believer in a lot of things. I was just contemplating a lot of things. In this rally? No, I'm not. And, you know, we had a conversation last week. You know, we thought it got down to levels where theoretically technical support, you should see a bounce within this sort of counter trend rally. We're seeing it now. If you want to do the math and play that game, I think 58 and a quarter makes a lot of sense.

1:40That's a 50 percent retracement of the all time high we saw in February in this recent low of 55.05. So the rally makes sense. I think, again, probably oversold conditions, but I think it's going to be somewhat short lived. I could see a day tomorrow where we open on the highs and close on the lows. Yeah. And the other thing is it doesn't really clear up the uncertainty that was causing the downward volatility over the last month or so. I mean, this is the kind of on again, off again. I mean, we've seen this before. We were Trump 1.0. We saw, you know, we're going to do this. By the way, this is not something he ran on.

2:08I mean, this was not a reason that he got elected. This wasn't one of the main reasons. And so I just find it really interesting that this is one of the things that's kind of causing not just on Wall Street, but on Main Street. Right. And so when we get to earnings season really in a few weeks, which is pretty interesting, I think we're going to see that Q1 activity was probably slower than we would have expected. And the guidance for Q2 is not going to be particularly great. So you have to start asking yourself is that if we don't get any clarity sometime soon, this volatility is going to be here to stay.

2:38And, you know, it's probably not doing anybody any favors when you think about the economy coming into the year. It was pretty decent. I mean, saying that the tariffs are going to be softer, that's nice. But the uncertainty is still there. If you're a CEO, you still don't know how to plan. You don't really know what the tariff situation will be. And, I mean, it might even be worse. Isn't it better to just know and then you can deal with what you know as opposed to being pushed around constantly? Markets hate uncertainty more than they hate bad news. The scepter of bad news is well worse. So I agree with that.

3:07Although, I mean, there was not maximum fear, but a lot of fear, a lot of fear already. And so to have them come back a little bit is great. Interesting. We saw that data this morning, pretty hot in a different market where on a different day where we weren't talking about maybe the tariffs not being as bad. I think what that did to interest rates may have actually had the market go south. Right. Because I think this sort of that hot, those hot numbers take the Fed out of the equation a little bit more, I think. So, I mean, it was a nice bounce. Right to your point. I mean, it's not shocking at all.

3:41We really were oversold. You know, I'm always long. So a day like today is great. But I've had 17 bad days. So, you know, whatever. We're back to, you know, maybe going down. Two weeks ago. Yeah, two weeks ago. I do think the tariff thing is important, though. But I think that we're still going to see companies, when they come out, give conservative guidance. Yeah, I would answer just through the lens of the markets. If you think that this is that the Trump put, which I thought was around 5 ,200 on the S &P, if the strike price is now 56, it gives markets a reason to say. And this is what markets do, whether it's the Fed, whether it's the administration saying there's a level in which we'll have so much pain, even though they're telling us to just endure a little pain.

4:21This is kind of what it felt like. And everyone is documenting or identifying the oversold conditions we had. We all know where RSI's got, even on the S &P as an index kind of mid last week. We had a quad witch on Friday. I mean, it's set up for good news to take markets a lot higher, especially the biggest stocks in the world, which didn't necessarily go crazy other than if you look at what semis did. But it tradable bounce and whatnot. And I know we're going to have a great conversation with Mike Wilson in a second. But let's just be clear. The S &P has already rallied over five percent off of that intraday low.

4:52So half of you think we're going to have a 10 percent move in the S &P. And if you do, half of it's done. And if you were selling on the day that actually it turned around, you're not feeling so great. So I don't know that the fundamentals have changed at all. That's why it will be interesting to hear what some of the strategists have to say. Karen brought up yields, I think, correctly. I mean, we're back above 430 again in the 10-year. And does it make sense? Yeah, it makes sense to me. I think to a certain extent, the broader market sell-off led people into the bond market, sort of a flight to perceived quality.

5:22The fact that maybe there's risk on the last couple of trading sessions, Maybe money's coming out of the bond market, I think, correctly. So at a certain point, people are going to start talking about the bond market again. It's probably a lot sooner rather than later. You know, as the silver lining guy on the desk, it is interesting that the S &P is only down 2 percent. Right. So if you think about that, like we've taken a lot of the euphoria out of the fateful eight, as Karen calls them. And we really, you know, are kind of back at a place where you want to look at some other sectors that may be part of the leadership going forward.

5:51It's been my belief, though, the only way we're going to get back to those prior highs and probably get through them is if the fateful eight really does take us higher. So we've seen earnings come down for them at least a little bit over the last couple quarters. And if you see that start to inflect higher and maybe you kind of lay off a little bit of that CapEx, then that will be very helpful for S &P earnings. I saw a strategist come out and say they think there could be two hundred and thirty dollars in earnings. If we have two hundred and thirty dollars in earnings for the S &P 500 this year, then we are way, way expensive.

6:21relative to, you know, the last five and ten years. So, again, we better hope not for that, but we better get more clarity on the tariff situation or we're going to continue to see some kind of, you know, I think tough sledding for the S &P 500. I'm glad you mentioned the eight largest tech stocks. Yeah. I refuse to call anything. Does Dan get paid every time he says fateful eight on TV? I feel like, right? He gets some kind of kickback. I just wanted to see him. I just wanted to sound twisted. Sit on me. Why don't call him fateful eight? There is an argument being put forth by J.P. Morgan that there's been a lot of de-risking that has gone on in the tech trade.

6:54And so, therefore, the likelihood of another major pullback has gone down because the positioning is sort of right-sized now. I don't think there's any question about that. And you can see that in the fund flows. And Bank of America does a nice job with that. Michael Hartnett's notes have chronicled where we had it. And we actually had actually a lot of people step in on Friday after a couple weeks. And we know where foreign stocks or the MIGA stocks, Dan, actually have actually outperformed the rest of the world, making international great again. I would just also get back to the data. I'm not worried about the bond market unless it yields to the downside.

7:25I'm not worried about five set four seventy five on the 10 year. I'm not even that worried about five percent. I think we're at a place here. You got composite PMIs this morning. So you get a little bit of manufacturing, a little bit of services. And it was a great number. It was a lot better than expected. I think it came in at fifty three six versus fifty one four or expected. The problem is that some of this is just front running on tariffs and some of that services industry. But what you did hear from the business confidence element of this is that business confidence is nowhere. From a trading perspective, there's some things that I think you don't get too far away from, which indicate that there's a lot of fear.

7:57You don't get away from gold. You don't get away from from industrial metals. You don't get away from the places I think are both measuring inflation and uncertainty. And I think those are trades that even on days like this, you're getting another shot to get back in there. So in terms of this tradable rally or whatever we want to call it, short-lived rally, rally for now, not for the long term, is it just into earnings? Is it just until earnings season starts when we start getting the CEO commentary but all the uncertainty out there, how, you know, the consumer is still weak or uncertain, et cetera?

8:26Well, I feel like the banks are the most important ones because it's not just how they're doing. It's how they look through in the whole economy. So that's important. And I also think they're maybe a little less likely to sandbag. So that'll be really important. One thing I did today, I had bought some J.P. Morgan call spreads. I took them off. That was it. But that's, to me, the most important set of earnings. Yeah, you know, I think there's still weakness in the consumer that tariffs, no tariffs. I mean, we're going to get more headlines, obviously, from now until April 2nd. But I think the underlying cause, in my opinion, the headline cause I get, the underlying cause is a weakness in the consumer and a weakness in the economy.

9:04despite some of the numbers we might be seeing. And Tim says he's not concerned. I get it. If rates go higher because things are improving, that's fine. But if rates are going higher and things are deteriorating, that's not particularly good. Well, Morgan Stanley's out with a new bullish call saying the beaten up MAG-7 names could be ready to rebound. Mike Wilson's a firm's chief U.S. equity strategist and chief investment officer. He joins us now. Mike, great to see you. Good to see you, too. So this is a tradable rally for how long? Well, it has been. I guess, you know, look, I think we're just marking to market with respect to, I think we came into the year a bit more worried about the first half.

9:42We had a range of sort of$5 ,500 to$6 ,100, and we hit the low end of that range. So, you know, the fact that we bottomed right on that number, I guess, made us feel better. That technical level was real support. But really, at the end of the day, I mean, everybody's talking about tariffs right now. But the reason the markets are lower over the course of the last three or four months has nothing to do with tariffs. It's mostly to do with the fact that earnings revisions have rolled over, the Fed stopped cutting rates, you had stricter enforcement on immigration, you have Doge, which all those things are growth negative.

10:13And then tariffs is just kind of the final piece that kind of got people really kind of bearish at the end. And I would say the thing that really got the S &P going down at the very end was when it became clear that the president does not care about the stock market, at least for now. And that lack of a Trump put was like really new news to people. So we felt like all of that sort of capitulation was good at 5 ,500. It started out with a low-quality rally, which is what we expected, meaning a short squeeze. And then what we noticed is that the revision factors on the MAG-7 are actually starting to stabilize a bit.

10:47So the last couple of days, those stocks have acted better. And that can take the index higher. Like how high? 5 ,900. So we're almost there. It's halfway done. I mean, the move has kind of already happened. I think the bigger moves are going to happen in these lower quality areas where the short base is still pretty stiff. And ultimately, though, I think I agree with a lot of the commentary you had on the panel there, which is that it's going to remain volatile through the end of the second quarter. So whatever rally we're getting now, we think probably ends up fading into earnings into May and June.

11:19And then we'll probably make a more durable low later in the year. A durable and new low. Like we haven't seen the lows for the year. Potentially a low. Let's put it this way. I think the chance of us making a new high in the first half is very, very low. OK, could we make a new high in the second half of the year as people look forward to 2026? Yeah. Do we have to make a new low in the S &P 500? I have no idea. But I can tell you this is that I think that it's going to be a trading environment at a minimum. OK, that's your best case scenario between now and probably the end of June and into the summer.

11:49And that's why we're here on Fast Money. You know, our job is to be both, you know, we have views on the long term and we have views over the short term. And our views in the short term, I think, have been pretty accurate. Yeah. So, Mike, you came out with that note this morning. But last week's note, so every Monday you come out with it, was also hinting to this. You were kind of suggesting the fact that some of the names that you really care about from an earnings perspective were kind of getting overdone to the downside. If you think of the fateful eight, they were doubling up the downside that we saw in the S &P 500.

12:19So on a day like today, it's kind of interesting when you see Apple, Microsoft, Broadcom underperform. Is that sort of price action, is that the sort of thing over the next few days, if we just don't see them continuing to participate, that you might kind of go to a more bearish stance? Well, there's dispersion in the MAG-7, Faithful 8, whatever you want to call them. I mean, half of the group was quite positive today. I mean, Tesla had a massive move. So, look, I think the barbell to own right now for this trade has been MAG-7, but also low quality. And that's what this is kind of reflecting.

12:57I don't think the market's trading off of fundamentals. It's more about technicals. It's more about the flows, where the short base is greatest. But the one piece that we felt good about this week was that the MAG-7 or Faithful-8 revisions are starting to sort of bottom out a bit. And the other trade that we advocated this week was that the U.S. could have a relative move back against Europe. because as we go into second quarter earnings, right, now with the dollar weaker, that's going to be a headwind for European earnings and actually a tailwind for some of the larger cap names in the U.S. Look, these are the trades that, you know, this is what we're being given, right?

13:32So we have to take advantage of these trades when we see them. Hey, Mike, it's Tim. So it sounds like you're a little more negative on the MIGA trade, and that's making international great again. But my question for you is, what part of your view here is somewhat non-consensus? or I'd be just curious to know, like, which of these subsectors do you actually think we're really going to have some impressive earnings growth? I mean, the energy sector is one of these places, too, where I think you really have seen some non-correlations, some surprise resilience and actually some earnings growth. It's not a big deal, probably, even to someone like you, because it's it's four to four and a half percent of the S &P.

14:02But tell me about health care. Tell me about, you know, which also looks like it's really had a nice recovery off of some fundamentals and some headlines that were not so good. Help us drill a little deeper than just this is a trading rally. That's right. I mean, on a more core basis, you know, we've been very focused on earnings revisions where they've been good. And that's been financials, some of the software stocks, consumer services still look pretty good. And, of course, some of the media entertainment area, not the ones people are excited about, but more like your telcos and cable companies, quite frankly.

14:31And then energy has been a group we've been overweight. It's finally working now here this year. Health care is very idiosyncratic, as you know. So, you know, it's a mix. It's a real mix, and it's more idiosyncratic. I think what I can tell you is that our work suggests that you still want to stay up the quality curve for your core portfolio. What we've been talking about the last couple of weeks is more of the trades that we sort of like in here. But those four groups I mentioned before, financial software, consumer services, and some of the media entertainment, those would be the core of our portfolio right now from a revision standpoint.

15:02And then we'll be looking for parts of the market that can benefit into 2026. I think it's a little premature for areas like energy and materials have a sustained move because I'm not really a believer yet in global growth accelerating. But those are two areas I think could have a really good second half of the year. Mike, great to speak with you. Thanks. Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley. What do you think of this core? Tactical. No, the court. It all makes sense what he's saying. He's looking for an overshoot to fifty nine hundred. We talked about fifty eight in a quarter. I get it. I think close enough for government work type of thing.

15:34I do think if I'm reading between the lines, potentially another leg lower before we reaccelerate in the back half of the year. That all makes sense to me. But I'll add one more group. I think energy very quietly is going to surprise people to the upside. The XLE, I think, closed north of 92.5 or so today. And that's going to start flirting with levels we saw 11 or so years ago, I think, very quietly without people paying attention. So energy to me is the place to be. You've got energy in your acronym. I do. Remind us which letter it's supposed to be. E. It's E for the OIH. I don't know why this is so different.

16:04Yeah, it's two years in a row. It's elementary, Watson. Exactly. So, yes, I like, I mean, you know, it has, I just, the valuations are so ridiculously cheap. That's been the case for a while, though. But I'm a believer. And now to one of South Korea's biggest companies, Hyundai, expanding their U.S. presence. A multibillion-dollar investment was announced at the White House this afternoon. Let's bring in CNBC's Seema Modi for the details on this. Seema. Melissa, South Korea's Hyundai announcing a$21 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing that includes a new plant in Louisiana that will produce about 2.7 million tons of high-quality automotive steel a year for Hyundai and Kia motor cars.

16:43The announcement was made by President Trump alongside Hyundai's chairman at the White House this afternoon, in which the South Korean conglomerate also revealed plans to purchase$3 billion worth of U.S. LNG. It is seen as a way to level the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea. Trump adding that the investment in U.S. onshoring is a clear demonstration to him that tariffs work, suggesting that this is a blueprint for other companies looking to avoid higher levies on U.S. imports. Unclear if Hyundai's investment announced today gives South Korea an exemption from the April 2nd reciprocal tariffs.

17:17However, it does follow a string of high-profile U.S. investments in recent months, from the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor, Apple, Japan SoftBank, Honda. We now wait to see, Melissa, how quickly that money is spent. Seema, thank you. Seema Modi. Can you imagine if all these companies opened their own steel plants to supply their own companies to manufacture their own cars? It sounds wildly inefficient. It really does. It's not how it goes down. That's why it's kind of a surprise. Also, if you look at the auto industry, companies like BMW, we talked about this on this show, which has a major plant in South Carolina, we're already doing a significant amount of their production.

17:55This is great news. It makes for great headlines. And the question is how much of this is truly incremental. Yeah, and how much of it, how much of the money will actually be spent on these projects in the end? That's a big question. Well, yeah, the$500 billion one is sort of top of mind. And was it true? I don't know. Let me know whether this Hyundai was already, I'm sorry, that was SK today, right? Which one? Which was the release they just did? Hyundai. Hyundai. Hyundai. Sorry, it was Hyundai. That that had already been planned prior to this announcement today. Is that correct or no? Yeah, most of them.

18:34I'm not sure. Nor am I. But I like the pronunciation of Hyundai. Tim looked at me. I don't know anyone here is pronouncing it Hyundai other than you, but that's fine. But I do that often with words. Ken's probably the one person who's been to Seoul. You've been to Seoul? I've been to Seoul. You've been to Seoul? I have not been to Seoul. He's the ambassador. Oh, you are. Oh, he's the ambassador. Let's trade the globe here. We're so off base now. Let's move on. Coming up, we lost drug makers on opposite sides of the scale this year. As Eli Lilly and Novo Nordis look to round out Q1 in very different places, what Wall Street sees in the store for this space, and can a new China deal help pack on the pounds for one of these names?

19:10Plus, Chinese EV maker BYD charging past the competition, the company hitting a major sales milestone. How this name sacks up against the U.S. competition. Next, don't go anywhere. Fast Money is back in two.

19:31Welcome back to Fast Money. We've got an earnings alert on KB Home. Shares dropping after missing EPS and revenue expectations. Pippa Stevens has got the details. Hi, Pippa. Hey, Melissa. EPS coming in at$149. That was nine cents short of estimates with revenues of$1.39 billion also short. The company also cut its revenue guidance for 2025, saying, quote, consumers are working through affordability concerns and uncertainties related to macroeconomic and geopolitical issues, which are causing them to move slowly in their home buying decisions, adding that demand at the start of the spring selling season is, quote, more muted than what we have seen historically.

20:06Now, on the call just now, the company is saying it's started to move to longer-term contracts in anticipation of tariffs. Melissa? All right, Pippa, thanks. Pippa Stevens, stock down 6.7 percent here. Guy? Average selling price, the guidance is for$480 to$495. I mean, we've been north of$500 for a while. And then if you look at deliveries, I mean, that was disappointing, I think. I mean,$2 ,770 as opposed to$3 ,000 she was looking for. So there's a deterioration here. And it makes sense. If the consumer is slowing down, it's going to manifest itself in these names. We've been saying it for a while.

20:40I know Tim is on this story as well. To me, it's not about interest rates. It's about the health of the consumer or lack thereof. I think these stocks continue to go lower. Also, the optimism around the jobs market is— Can't be good. Right, exactly. Like, even when you switch jobs, you're not necessarily going to a better-paying job anymore. And that's a big change in consumer psychology from what we've experienced recently. Well, maybe that's why the cancellation rate is much higher than expected. It was 13.3 they were looking for. It came in at 16. All right. Let's move on to Lilly rising over 3 percent with UBS forecasting higher Q1 sales of its blockbuster obesity drug Zetbound.

21:13Analysts highlighting that 70 percent of new to brand prescriptions are going to Zetbound rather than Novo Nordisk and Wigobi. Meanwhile, Novo shares falling 2 percent even after inking a deal for a new weight loss candidate from Chinese biotech United Therapeutics, or I should say United Laboratories, excuse me, very different companies, United Laboratories. The deal, worth up to$2 billion, marks Novo's latest attempt to close the gap with Lilly in the weight loss space. Basically, UBS is saying there's probably going to be some upsides to Lilly in Q1 while Novo remains flat. And this move to ink this deal with it, it's very little money up front.