In short
A tech selloff—especially semiconductors and software—sparks debate about whether AI euphoria is cooling, how that spillover hits private credit, and what it means for market rotation. The show also covers Novo Nordisk’s obesity-drug guidance shock, Walmart’s $1T milestone, PayPal’s CEO/earnings-driven drop, Bitcoin weakness, and earnings updates (AMD, Chipotle).
Guests (backgrounds)
- Wilma Bertis, Director of Equity Research at Raymond James; covers equities/credit-related themes.
- Evan David Siegerman, Head of Health Care Research at BMO; covers pharma/biotech.
Key claims
- AI-linked software multiples look stretched; monetization and revenue deceleration concerns are driving the software ETF slide.
- Semis and software are structurally linked but short-term correlation is asymmetric/cyclical.
- Private credit exposure to AI-disrupted software is limited due to low loan-to-value (~30%); underwriting and fee-based models reduce loss risk, though some redemption spirals are possible.
- Novo’s guidance implies U.S. pricing headwinds and weaker volume are worsening near-term earnings visibility.
Notable examples
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang denies OpenAI “controversy” about investments; AMD includes China sales in guidance; software losers include Vertex, Akamai, Intuit, Salesforce; private credit names include Blue Owl and Aries; Novo shares -14.5% after sales outlook cut; Walmart joins $1T club; PayPal -20% after forecast/CEO shakeup.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOMarket Overview and Tech Sell-Off
0:00 to 0:22
Discussion on the tech market's performance and the impact of recent sell-offs.
“Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand.”
Market Overview and Tech Sell-Off
1:38 to 2:55
Discussion on the tech market's performance and the impact of recent sell-offs.
“On the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Carter Worth, Steve Grasso, and Julie Beal.”
Investor Sentiment on AI Stocks
2:55 to 5:01
Exploring investor fears regarding the AI trade and market rotation.
“Look, I think everyone who's involved with NVIDIA and AI, and certainly those companies are very excited about what they're doing and think they're changing the world.”
AMD Earnings Report Discussion
5:01 to 8:13
Analysis of AMD's latest earnings report and its implications.
“The risk of the market is that the euphoria that's in semis ultimately the air comes out of that because look what's happened to semis.”
Software Sector Sell-Off
8:13 to 14:01
Exploring the impact of AI on the software industry and recent stock movements.
“It's to protect from anyone else getting them and being able to fortress your capacity, even if you don't necessarily know for 100 percent sure you're going to need that capacity.”
Market Reaction to Software Stocks
14:01 to 17:50
Discussion on the software market's decline, driven by AI concerns.
“Meantime, investors dumping software stocks today, the IGV ETF dropping nearly 5 percent, a six straight day of losses.”
Macroeconomic Insights on Tech
17:50 to 20:59
Andrew Davis shares insights on tech's performance and market dynamics.
“For more on what this all means for the markets, let's bring in Andrew Davis, Director of Macroeconomic Research at Bryn Mawr Trust Advisors.”
Novo Nordisk's Stock Plunge
20:59 to 22:00
Analysis of Novo Nordisk's stock decline and market concerns regarding pricing.
“What do you what do you make of the call on small caps?”
Further Discussion on Novo Nordisk
23:59 to 28:00
Continued analysis of Novo Nordisk's challenges and market dynamics.
“For more on the impact, BMO head of health care research Evan David Siegerman joins us now on the Fast Line.”
Market Reactions and Communications Challenges
28:00 to 29:20
Discussion on market reactions and the challenges of managing expectations in the current climate.
“We also have the element that Novo has a new CEO, and so part of this could be just…”
Show all 15 chapters
Tech Sell-Off Impact on Stocks and Bitcoin
31:17 to 37:15
Analysis of stock performance during tech sell-off and the implications for Bitcoin and private credit.
“Stocks falling today but closing well off their lows as investors rotate out of tech stocks.”
Private Credit Exposure and Market Perspectives
37:16 to 42:00
Interview with Raymond James' Wilma Bertis on risks and performance in private credit amid AI disruptions.
“So I think that they do a good job protecting themselves and underwriting.”
Chipotle's Growth Strategy and Challenges
42:00 to 44:24
Learn about Chipotle's efforts to attract younger consumers and improve its service.
“particularly in the first half of this year.”
Housing Market Insights and Builder Opportunities
44:24 to 45:48
Discover the impact of private funding on homebuilding and housing affordability.
“The program calls on builders to sell entry-level homes in a path-to-ownership program funded by private investors.”
Final Trades and Stock Recommendations
45:48 to 46:44
Get insights into stock picks and the rationale behind each recommendation.
“And as much as I love Cloud Code, I don't see it replacing banking cores anytime soon.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:02Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. It starts with our approach. Every Mazda comes standard with proactive safety features. So you're more aware of what's around you, more focused on the road ahead, and ready before problems ever start. Mazda. More of what matters most to you. Go to mazdausa.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse or promote any product. At Edward Jones, we believe rich isn't about having life all figured out. It's opening yourself to all the possibilities.
0:37Tim Seymour:That's why your dedicated financial advisor provides long-term planning built around you, meeting you where you are, and helping you get closer to where you want to be. So no matter where you're starting from, you can move forward with confidence. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones, member SIPC. Live 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 tech wreck weighing on the market. Semi and software stocks both sinking today. What it says about the state of the AI trade, and is this a sign of a true rotation in the market?
1:15Tim Seymour:Plus, the fallout in the private credit companies. Why concern over the software sector is taking a bite out of names like Blue Owl and Aries, the investment thesis for these stocks right now. And Novo loses momentum in a big way. Walmart hits a milestone and joins a very exclusive group and a strong foundation for Lennar, the potential plans that had the home builder jumping today. I'm Melissa Lee. Come to you live from Studio B at the NASDAQ. On the desk tonight, Tim Seymour, Carter Worth, Steve Grasso, and Julie Beal. While stocks close off their worst levels of the day, it was red across the board on Wall Street.
1:46Tim Seymour:The NASDAQ leading the losses down nearly a percent and a half as investors swerved out of tech and into safe havens. The AI trade in particular getting hit hard. Hyperscalers deep in the red today. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang trying to allay concerns over his company's investment in OpenAI during an interview with Jim Cramer this afternoon. Take a listen. No, there's no controversy at all. It's complete nonsense. We love working with OpenAI. We are incredibly honored and delighted to be able to invest in their next round. And so we're privileged that they're inviting us to invest for each one of their rounds.
2:25We would love to be invited and we would consider, of course, investing in it. This is one of the most consequential technology companies in history.
2:35Tim Seymour:Those words, though, failing to stem the bleeding. Shares dropped nearly 3 % for a second straight day. Is today's action a sign of genuine investor fear for the future of the AI trade? Are we making too much of this? I just spoke to Jim Cramer in the last hour and he was basically saying, Jensen tells me the truth. He's always told me the truth. So I don't know why we're making such a big deal.
2:56Karen Finerman:Look, I think everyone who's involved with NVIDIA and AI, and certainly those companies are very excited about what they're doing and think they're changing the world. They may, in fact, be changing the world. To what extent we've priced in euphoria across the entire space to a place where, especially in software, you had the group trading on an EV to revenues, not to earnings, but to revenues probably north of 30 times before this pullback began. There's a lot of questions about monetization. Even for some of the biggest companies in the world, we've even questioned even Microsoft's ability to monetize.
3:28Karen Finerman:We've certainly questioned their ability to grow at a multiple that's deserving. And when they get their, you know, not to pick on Microsoft, which I actually have nibbled at the last couple of days. But, you know, Azure decelerating, 365 decelerating. So these are things that I think are part of the story and the backdrop. The other side of this is this is a wonderful rotation that's going on across the rest of the market. And, you know, we talked about that industrial production number, that ISM. We talked about the dynamic that it's not just that they're value stocks that look more interesting relative to software names.
4:00Karen Finerman:But we truly are seeing, I think, an economic expansion in certain parts of the economy that for a long time had underperformed. So 52-week highs and lows across the board, more positive than negative today in terms of where this tape was. So, no, I mean, I just think it's a breadth. I think semis are making lower lows. I think a Broadcom hasn't touched the 200-day to the downside going all the way back even a couple of years. You have to watch these things. That's why Carter's here. But I guess, you know, I'm not surprised at the euphoria, but the violence of some of this rotation only is mirroring where we were on the way up in some of this stuff.
4:37Karen Finerman:I don't think it's, you know, doesn't invalidate what's going on in AI.
4:41Tim Seymour:I mean, we had continued strength in transport. Staples had a great day. Utilities had a great day in spite of this sort of, you know, bleeding elsewhere.
4:48Guy Adami:So just a cliche, but it's a stock picker's market because of that. But, I mean, the important risk here, I think, for the market is we know that the relationship between semiconductors and software companies is proved, right? They are linked structurally. And yet the relationship is asymmetric and cyclical short term. Long term, they're complementary. The risk of the market is that the euphoria that's in semis ultimately the air comes out of that because look what's happened to semis. We have a spread now. What, the SOX is down some, up some 20 % for the year, practically six months, and software's down 20, you know, 4 ,000 basis points.
5:21Guy Adami:That's the real risk, that these complementary areas, ultimately, the hype, whether it could be precious metal or a Bitcoin or a semiconductor stock or software stocks, they were all loved. If the air comes out of that, because they are linked, the market cannot endure that. Yeah, and I think it's, maybe players are just tired of the same thing. Maybe the players are tired of the semi space. Now, semis are boom bust. We've talked about that. And they have not been bust in quite some time. So semis could be evaluation play where people want to move away from that. Softwares are a replacement play.
5:57Are they getting replaced by AI, by an expensive AI? How long can CapEx stand to where CapEx is right now? I think just let's extend that out. How high can CapEx really go to? It's not rhetorical. I'm just asking a question. It can go higher. I don't have the number, but I hear you.
6:16Karen Finerman:And I think, again, it gets back to this story about companies that were generating free cash flow at will are no longer deserving of the same multiple if they're not. Carter's right. I mean, the thing you should be most concerned about is that semis are within 3 % of all-time highs, and yet it feels like death out there. Now, in fact, most of the semis are rallying, and that's what I think is pretty interesting. I think it's some of the broader tech, too, that I think when people see a Netflix crack$80 and the move that's been an extraordinary move and other parts of even non-Mag 7, it was a day where we're going to talk about some violent moves in some former kind of blue chip tech companies that aren't even anymore.
6:55Karen Finerman:But that's more, I think, what we're up against. I think it's the Russell. I think the Russell is the canary in the coal mine. It's the longest outperformance of the Russell over the S &P since the mid-'90s. So maybe they think that Worsh is going to be more dovish than the market thinks right now. So this outperformance cannot be swept under the carpet right now. I think people are looking for a new horse.
7:19Tim Seymour:In terms of specifically the open AI trade, Julia, I'm just curious what your thoughts are on this whole alleged NVIDIA open AI drama. Both of them saying that they love each other basically. and OpenAI was saying that yesterday on a post in X, and Jensen Huang was saying that today to Jim Cramer. But there is this element of frenemy where OpenAI does not have an exclusive relationship with NVIDIA. And Chris Rowland of Susquehanna just said that he believes that OpenAI is working on its own TPU, which could be competitive to NVIDIA. So there's sort of this unease here in terms of whether or not these partnerships will actually be as accretive as we think to these players.
7:59I think that that's right. I think it almost feels like Melrose Place. Do you guys remember that show where the interwoven relationships between people and, you know, whether people were friends or foes? It really actually does feel that way. Part of it is I do think that a lot of the buying that's happening in chips and semiconductors is defensive. It's to protect from anyone else getting them and being able to fortress your capacity, even if you don't necessarily know for 100 percent sure you're going to need that capacity. There's really no other explanation for OpenAI's movements. It just doesn't really feel like they're economic when you compare the revenue base and even their very rosy forecast projections.
8:39It just doesn't really make a lot of sense or pencil. So to me, it feels like a lot of this is about the posturing and the hype, because that's what we need in order to support the valuations when we're out here fundraising and eventually going public. But I think that Steve's point about the Russell is actually really interesting because I do think that this rotation into small cap is about, look, I don't understand if AI is good or bad for software. I don't know if it's good or bad for chips, but I do know that lower interest rates have a really direct impact on the Russell, and that at least is something I can have clarity on and get excited about.
9:14Tim Seymour:Right. And also, I don't know if there's an AI impact on a trucking company or a railroad. Yeah, it's positive. Or Cheetos. I mean, take a look at what is moving higher.
9:27Karen Finerman:Cheetos had a good day. Cheetos had a great day today. Diet Coke had a great day today. I think they were actually drinking a lot of Diet Coke at 4616 Melrose Place that Julie referenced, which was, I mean, that was a nice flashback. Absolutely. There's no question. And if anything, the argument has been made that the rest of the real economy is actually benefiting from AI and from some of the benefits, some of the margin accretion. They have not been asset heavy in terms of how they've had to invest in it. But Pepsi, for sure. I mean, Pepsi gave a great outlook. They gave a guide to their numbers, their snack business also.
10:00Karen Finerman:They're actually kind of keeping prices in line and seeing more demand and more price sensitivity there. And it's actually working to their advantage. So, again, I think the rest of the economy was in full display today.
10:11Tim Seymour:All right. Let's stick with the semi-space here. Earnings alert on AMD. Shares dropping despite the company giving better-than-expected revenue guidance. Conference calls underway. Christina Parts-Nebelis is here on set with the latest. Christina. So we know the numbers you talked about, even with an analyst in the last hour,$1.53 on revenues of 10.3. But what really, I guess, took a little bit of analysts by surprise is that it now factors in China sales. And China sales were added roughly$390 million to that revenue number. So if you take out China, the beat wasn't massive. And then for the Q1 guide that we're also seeing for AMD, they also said that they're going to be including$100 million specifically for China.
10:48I was able to just ask AMD now, does that mean that the U.S. government is getting paid? That hasn't been worked out yet. Recall that the U.S. government worked out a deal with all the chip makers. They're going to have to pay anywhere between 15 percent, depending on the chip, to 25 percent if it's a more advanced chip. So that could equate to roughly 58 million dollars that needs to be paid to the U.S. government. In regards to the guide, though, it was higher, 9.8 versus the 9.3 in terms of revenues that the street was expecting, a billion, I should say. And then even for the gross margins number, the guide, I guess the concern is China.
11:20And then the second concern, too, is that the guide wasn't much higher than what the street anticipated. But I spoke to one analyst, too, just offline, and he was just saying that the product ramp is really going to pick up in the second half of this year. The stock has run up, what, 41 percent just in the last six months. Well, much higher than NVIDIA, Broadcom, et cetera. So that could just be part of the reason, too.
11:40Tim Seymour:The product ramp when it comes to data center versus traditional CPU. I mean, so to your point, it's called the Epic processors. That's the CPU stuff. That actually was really great. And it's part of the data center revenues. They even said that they had a very strong demand. In regards to the product ramp, it has to also do with their GPU chips. So the next iteration and their Helios rack, which includes a much bigger piece of equipment, 72 GPUs, a bunch of CPUs and similar to what NVIDIA is doing. And so that is scheduled for the second half of this year. There's a lot of hype around those racks as well.
12:13So that's what he meant in terms of just the product acceleration in the second half of this year.
12:18Tim Seymour:All right. Christina, thank you. Thank you. Christina Parts Nevelis, what do you make of the quarter?
12:22Karen Finerman:The quarter was fantastic. Again, it's all about relative expectations, and everything we're hearing on the tape is AMD is doing their best to get in there and say, hey, by the way, I'm reading this coming across the tape here, eight out of ten of the biggest companies are using Instinct Chip to power their production and their workloads. They're talking about modernizing of data centers. We know AMD has owned the data center space, has stolen it from other places, especially from Intel. So I think these numbers are great. I'm not surprised in the tape that we have that people wanted to see a little bit more.
12:53Karen Finerman:But the question has always been, where are they closing the gap? Where are they filling a niche within at least the AI chip space that NVIDIA is either avoiding or is not, or they can take a little bit of market share? We're still waiting for that. Carter?
13:07Guy Adami:Well, again, I would just, Tim, refer to it. There is no such thing, right, as good or bad results. There are only results, and it's how the market reacts. So if the stock is down, it is. The results are bad. Is there any other way to interpret it? No. The market is the arbitrator of good or bad or market direction. But when you look at AMD, they have a$10 billion buyback. They have roughly 8 % to 10 % market share. They're shooting for 20 % market share. It's a question to Carter's point. Is the market tired of semis? The market's telling you it's tired of semis when you have that type of print.
13:45They're up 13 % year-to-date. Micron is up over 40%. So that shift has already taken place. You're looking for where Tim said truckers. It does help AI. So you're looking for those efficiencies to spread out to areas where the market has not valuated yet.
14:00Tim Seymour:All right. And do not miss an exclusive interview with AMD CEO Lisa Su. That is tomorrow, 9 a.m. Eastern time on Squawk on the Street. Meantime, investors dumping software stocks today, the IGV ETF dropping nearly 5 percent, a six straight day of losses. It has now lost 19 percent this year. The weakness sparked by fears AI could dramatically alter software's well-established growth model. Among the big losers today, Vertex, Akamai technology. No, it's actually Akamai technology. Intuit and Salesforce, how much pain could still be ahead here? And, Julia, you see it sort of rolling through sectors because we had a general malaise in software for quite some time.
14:39Tim Seymour:But more specifically, you know, when Microsoft reported earnings and you saw that big sell-off, you thought, oh, wow, this sell-off is real. Then we saw Project Genie disrupt some of the gaming stocks. And then today, Claude Code released new tools that could potentially displace the legal industry. And you just wonder, like, where does this end? It feels pretty endless, right? But I think there's a disconnect between the reality of, think of your enterprise IT departments. They are not really that excited about Jim in marketing, vibe coding, a new CRM platform. So I think you have to be able to really separate the types of companies that have a data advantage, have a workflow, and are also important enough that an IT department isn't going to be that enthusiastic to have different tools coming into play that haven't been rigorously tested and that don't have the kind of qualifications that some of this software does.
15:35That said, I think there is a lot of optimization, automation software that can be very easily replicated at low cost where you don't have a big problem. It's not a big deal if it hallucinates or, you know, if the note taking app makes a mistake, it's not a big deal. It's just you have to look at these kind of one by one to see what can be replicated very easily and what's going to be much more difficult and costly if there's an error.
16:01Tim Seymour:But the best in class, I mean, the ones, Julie, I think that you're referring to, the likes of a Microsoft, the likes of a service. Now, Salesforce of the world, even they are being sold off as if they could be replaced tomorrow, even though, to your point, the IT department is probably not going to say, you know, we're going to get rid of 365 entirely. And yet that's the way the market is positioned.
16:22Karen Finerman:Yeah, again, the revenue in their two core businesses is actually decelerating. I mean, it's still impressive. I mean, Azure at 37, 37 and a half, 38. But, again, I cite a Jeffries note that I saw. It was really fascinating. I mean, they say that more than half of the sector has decelerating revenues, which tells you. And, again, we're talking about multiples that at their peak were 50, 60 times EB to sales. The entire sector is even pulled down to, you know, sentiment is as bad as it is. And, again, according to Jeffries, as it was in the bottom of the financial crisis and the dot-com bottom in software.
16:56Karen Finerman:And yet multiple has not dropped, and there's a view that it could go lower. When I look at these, you've heard me always say that I buy or I sell CEOs. When I look at a service now that's down 40 % in three months, I don't want to sell a Bill McDermott. I don't want to sell a CRM that's down 25 % in three months. So I think the market overreacts on both sides. It definitely feels that they've overreacted to the downside. I'd be a buyer of software here.
17:24Guy Adami:Again, I would say is the extreme oversold, at this point, move in the group weakness to nibble at and or to pair against the extreme strength right in semis? And I would say that probably is a smart play here to sort of be contrarian and anticipate some give back or a lot of give back in semiconductors and some perspective bounce in these very beaten up software names. All right.
17:50Tim Seymour:For more on what this all means for the markets, let's bring in Andrew Davis, Director of Macroeconomic Research at Bryn Mawr Trust Advisors. Andrew, great to have you with us. Thanks for having me. What's your take on what's going on in tech since it's the biggest chunk of the markets here? Yeah, hard not to notice. Look, I think it's interesting to me right now that software really mirrors what we're seeing in the broader macro data, right? Slower hiring, a lot of questioning of discretionary spend. And so for us, we're focused, laser focused right now on selectivity in this market. OK, so selectivity like specific stocks or I mean, right.
Read the full transcript
18:27Tim Seymour:You're sort of you're the macro guy. But what sectors are you looking at? Yeah, well, I think more from a market cap perspective, something that's really interesting is you look at like small caps and EM off to the races. Phenomenal January. And we certainly don't want to fight momentum here. But we would just push back gently on the markets really in love with this pickup and growth story. And, yeah, I think it's right to have a little bit of caution around that.
18:54Karen Finerman:I agree. And I was looking at your notes and you say the story is still looks like cooling, not collapsing. But I think what you're saying, because I think the economy is expanding. And my view is, despite, you know, one member, maybe a couple members of the Fed that seem to be rubber stamping stuff, It's impossible for the Fed to be avoiding inflation here. And it seems to me it's a market that was expecting a lot more Fed. So as you look at the investment landscape, how much do you think less Fed is also an issue for markets here? Because if anything, what we're getting from the economy is stuff that is not indicative of, hey, we should be in a massive cutting cycle.
19:31Well, it's interesting because the bottom is not falling out. And you go back to small caps, that performance that we saw in January. how much of that rate-sensitive segment of the market is really betting on lower rates. If the market hangs in here, kind of the slow stretch expansion that we're seeing, an employment light expansion, I still think the Fed has a rate-cutting bias, but I don't think they need to get there too urgently.
19:53Tim Seymour:What if growth doesn't reaccelerate and it just goes flat? Because you say that's the biggest risk in the markets. What do the markets look like with that scenario? Yeah, I think that's spot on because the risk really isn't a recessionary tale. You look at kind of what the market, the tape's been telling you, and it really is pricing in this reacceleration. Now, maybe one healthier thing, we've seen small caps stretch positioning there on the longs, short positioning starting to bubble up. So that tells me that the market is loving this reacceleration growth story, but they're also maybe starting to hedge in case the data doesn't follow through.
20:29Tim Seymour:Which sectors are overweight in your view? So we're more focused on kind of at the market cap level. We like quality. We like, take, for instance, like a Russell 2000, that small cap index versus an S &P 600, where you can pick up a little more quality, a little more solid fundamentals. Again, kind of just back to is the market a little over its skis here, not pushing back on the momentum story broadly, but just being cognizant of this asymmetrical return opportunity. All right, Andrew, great to see you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Andrew Davis. All right. What do you what do you make of the call on small caps?
21:04Well, I like the call that he made taking S &P 600 over over over the Russell, because you do get over 40 percent are unprofitable companies with S &P 600. I got to assume that's above 60 percent. I don't know if anyone knows that number. It's probably closer to 80 percent are profitable companies. So you've done a lot of your guesswork and a lot of your risk taking out of the market. You don't have to worry about the Fed as much with the S &P 600.
21:28Guy Adami:I mean, the real question is, is it about the denominator, right? I mean, alpha is generated by choosing something among other choices. If small caps really outperform, it's been nascent so far on a more enduring basis, two, three years. Is it because they're doing great or is it because the denominator, the market dominated by large cap, is struggling, right? And that we are actually heading lower. That's the real risk, independent of the absolute judgment to buy small cap.
21:52Tim Seymour:Coming up, the latest headlines, tanking shares of Novo Nordisk. What sent the stock into the red for the year? and the other pharma news on our radar. That is next. Plus, a trillion-dollar milestone for Walmart, the ripple effects of the crypto carnage, and a major drop in PayPal after CEO's shakeup. Don't go anywhere fast when he's back in tune.
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23:39Tim Seymour:Welcome back to Fast Money. Shares of Novo Nordisk dropping midday to close 14.5 % lower. The drugmaker warning that sales could fall between 5 % and 13 % this year versus 10 % growth in 2025. The company grappling with a more competitive U.S. drug pricing environment, plus Ozempic's loss of exclusivity in several countries this year. Shares of Novo now negative for the year. For more on the impact, BMO head of health care research Evan David Siegerman joins us now on the Fast Line. Evan, great to have you with us.
24:07Guy Adami:Thank you for having me.
24:09Tim Seymour:What was interesting about today's decline was that it was a decline across the board for all of the obesity drug makers. What's your interpretation? What was sort of the read through for the sector? Great question. So first off, we got the Pfizer print where they released the initial kind of long-acting data from their MetSera product. Disappointed. And when I spoke to management and catching up with them after the call, they highlighted that they couldn't give us all the information that folks wanted. So I think investors couldn't actually determine if it was competitive to the offerings of Lilly and Novo.
24:41And then, of course, kind of surprised midday, Novo released their earnings a day early. What happened was when they realized that there was such a divergence between what they were printing and where consensus was, they had to go up for Danish law. So they surprised us at about noon today.
24:56Tim Seymour:OK, so but Pfizer, I mean, the MetSera thing, that's that was sort of a hope. OK, so you're saying that we don't have enough information. But for Novo, that really seemed to be what hit the group. So is it the notion that sales, that there's going to be less demand, that they're going to make less money, even though they have this first entry in the oral GLP-1 space? I mean, what is it about the story that is now impaired? That's a very, sorry. Yes, exactly. So I think with this kind of guidance, the thing that really stood out to me was the pricing headwinds we're seeing in the United States.
25:32We all know about that, but the fact that it's really cutting sales and profits so much for NOAA is really spooking investors. Of course, there is strength in the Wagovi pill, and the hope is that that would be enough to kind of overcome any headwinds. Beyond that, we have Lilly printing tomorrow, and they're unlikely to include significant credit for Orphaglipron in their guidance. So folks are concerned that that could be somewhat squishy as well. So I think that people are taking pause. Some of the pricing headwinds are coming, you know, it's coming to be. And then you need to see those volumes take up.
26:02They just haven't yet.
26:04Karen Finerman:Evan, it's Tim. Thanks for joining us. I got the sense that just the guide on the oral pill and some of the recent sales also just didn't live up to the hype. And I also get the sense that it's really the U.S. market, not what they're doing globally, that had people most upset. Can you talk about that? Most definitely. So, you know, the pill is early days. I mean, we've only had it out for a few weeks. And the scripts that we're tracking are incomplete. And I think that they want to be conservative there. When you look at the United States, you look at the scripts for Nova Nordisk and kind of they've been flatlining.
26:35So where is that volume coming from? That's the key question mark. You are correct. OUS, you are seeing a pickup in prescriptions for both the Novo products and the Lilly products in the cash pay segment. But still, the United States is so important for any player in this space. And when you have these massive kind of like moments where there are such big concerns around pricing and profitability, that spooks folks.
26:57Tim Seymour:Are you more worried today versus 24 hours ago or 48 hours ago about the element of pricing? I mean, what was notable also in today's sort of moves within the sector was that, you know, a structured therapeutics, for instance, that also was sold off to a certain extent. Is there just this fear that even if you come on with a new entry, that the pricing dynamic is such that it's going to be difficult for so many players to be in that same market? Well, I think for the long only investor, really long term, they know that. And it's a volume play. And that's still my thesis. So that hasn't changed.
27:30I think the near-term kind of headwinds are spooking folks. And it's been so tenuous, right? We want to see these do well. And something like this that just comes out of left field, that's the real issue. So people kind of panic. If Lilly has a decent print and kind of okay guidance, I think, that stabilizes things. On structure, what that means to me is that a buyer is just concerned that – or basically what that means to me is that a barrier may not be able to get as much value for a structure asset as they would have been able to. A lot of things going on. I expect things to stabilize, though.
28:05Tim Seymour:Evan, thank you for phoning in. Always good to get your analysis. Thank you so much. David Siegerman, BMO. We also have the element that Novo has a new CEO, and so part of this could be just…
28:16Karen Finerman:Communication doesn't…
28:16Tim Seymour:Right. Set the bar real low here for 2026.
28:19Karen Finerman:And the communication wasn't good before. So, I mean, part of what was announced is they're guiding basically a 26 outlook that was around 8 % below consensus. And some of that is communication. Some of that is just inconsistency. I don't think things are – I think things were misguided. Julie? Yeah, I agree. It's being able to manage expectations is very, very difficult, especially when you have this much hype because we can all recognize the size and the scale of the market that they're selling into. But the minute price really starts to come into the equation, that means your earnings visibility kind of disappears.
28:54And you have no sense of what the profitability, the underlying profitability, the earnings power of the business is. And that makes valuation really difficult. You have to trim. You have to take away.
29:05Tim Seymour:How do these stocks look?
29:07Guy Adami:Well, Novo, in particular, of course, is the one that parted ways with Lilly long ago and has been trying to base and bottom. But this is a bad setback. I would call this a failed bearish to bullish reversal. I would abandon it.
29:18Tim Seymour:There's a lot more Fast Money to come. Here's what's coming up next.
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31:16Tim Seymour:Welcome back to Fast Money. Stocks falling today but closing well off their lows as investors rotate out of tech stocks. The Dow hitting a fresh all-time high this morning but dropping 166 points to end the session. It had been down 575 points at its lows. The S &P down 0.8 % and the Nasdaq leading the losses falling about 1.5%. Walmart bucking the trend and joining the$1 trillion market cap club, the move fueled by the growth of e-commerce and new digital businesses. Walmart up more than 28 % over the past year. Bitcoin, meantime, continuing its slide. The token hitting a low in the 72K range, the lowest since November 2024.
31:52Tim Seymour:Robinhood, Coinbase and MicroStrategy falling in sympathy. And PayPal dropping more than 20 percent today after missing earnings estimates. The fintech company also giving a disappointing profit forecast for 2026 and announcing a new CEO. Shares have lost more than 86 percent since hitting a record back in 2021. And some after hours action here. Take two higher after beating revenue expectations. Mondelez and Match Group both topping estimates on the top and the bottom lines. Mondelez flagging profitability headwinds coming from cocoa costs. And Clorox beating revenue expectations but coming up short on EPS.
32:26Tim Seymour:Carter, you've got some intelligence on Bitcoin.
32:30Guy Adami:Well, let's see. Some charts. Yes. So, well, look, the burden of proof is on the bull. The slippage continues. And the question is just how much more. Unknowable. But let's look at two charts and maybe we can figure out the way forward together. So this is a sort of one, two, three year chart. And we, of course, have broken trend that took place about three, four weeks ago. So that's an important circumstance. And it's a negative one. If you look at a longer term chart, we also have a decade long trend line. And that also has been breached. So typically that doesn't just, well, end up being a small thing.
33:06Guy Adami:It can be quite a bit more. It's not a casual event. And I think, again, buyer beware. Grasso? Yeah, I mean, there's a host of things. It could be quantum that's affecting it. It could be geopolitical. It could be people pulling. Gold has become the new Bitcoin, right? So Bitcoin was the new gold. That's obviously switched gears at this point. You never know until you know. And I think there were a couple of hacks. People are worried about their wallets. So you never know what the true sell pressure is. The charts indicate that there's more weakness to come. But there will be some bottom fissures.
33:41And the owners have a different mix to them. There's a lot more institutions. There's a lot more ETF owners. So we'll see how it plays out. Unfortunately, I, along with many, are getting hurt on the crypto collapse.
33:54Tim Seymour:Coming up, the knock-on effects from the software slide. Why the AI funding rush has taken a toll on private credit. The details from Fast Money returns.
34:06Tim Seymour:Welcome back to Fast Money Private Credit. Now, companies like Blue Owl, Aries, TPG slumping today as concerns grow over the exposure alternative asset managers have to the AI-disrupted software industry. Our next guest says the fears are overblown. Raymond James' Wilma Bertis joins us now. She's the director of equity research there. Wilma, great to have you with us. Thanks for having me. When you hear about a Blue Owl, all these names having, you know, 10 to 20 percent exposure to the software industry, there is fear. Walk us through what the risk actually is, if there is. The risk is really quite limited.
34:39When you look at the loan-to-values, they're about 30%. And so you've got 70 % equity layer that helps protect them from actually having any losses. And then they are fee-based companies, so they don't have balance sheet exposure to these loans. In addition to that, they're great underwriters. And so really, they've been very selective on software for the last several years, anticipating AI to come through.
35:03Tim Seymour:But with the declines that we've seen, I mean, we saw in one of Blue Owl's vehicles late last year where there was an unusually high request for redemptions. And that can sort of feed a spiral. Is there that concern on your part that with this fear, with the declines that we're seeing in the equity side of things, that there was going to be more redemptions and create that sort of vicious cycle? Owl is great at fundraising, and many of these companies are. And really, 4Q25 was a record for OWL as far as fundraising. I think that you see some different pressures potentially, but there's so much demand for these types of products, and they have great underwriting.
35:45So I think you'll continue to see strong demand.
35:47Karen Finerman:Wilma, great to have you. Bifurcation across credit, though, does seem to be kind of the story, and yet people tend to lump it all together. And then they'll look at a Blackstone or a KKR, and they'll look at those charts and say something's going on. And so can you try to break it down? Because it does feel that the bottom up is not pricing at all the same way. But it does seem as if that there are those subsectors that are doing just fine and those that are bubbling up a little bit more than others. Where are you concerned? And again, as we look at some of the mega cap credit players, alternative players who have a lot of exposure here, is the market overreacting?
36:27I think the market's absolutely overreacting. I think to your point, there are some funds that have not performed as well. You're seeing a little bit of divergence, but really Owl's credit's been great. The underwriting on most of these big companies you mentioned has been pretty strong.
36:41Tim Seymour:When you take a look, though, at the concerns about just the AI infrastructure build-out and whether there's too much and if the demand is going to keep up, and these players also have that exposure in terms of loans to finance the build-out of AI, Is there any worry that some of these loans are being made for, you know, demand that is projected that might not come to fruition? The companies write pretty strong contracts in order to protect themselves from losses. And so the way I see it, most of these loans, the worst case scenario would be something like a high single digits type return. If there's actually more demand for data centers than expected, it could even there could be quite a bit of upside to that.
37:20So I think that they do a good job protecting themselves and underwriting.
37:24Tim Seymour:You seem really like no concerns about the sector at all. Is that a fair characterization? I think to your other point, there has been some diversions, but I think that the strong players are doing quite well. Okay, so buy. Absolutely buy. Absolutely. Wilma, great to have you with us. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Appreciate it. Wilma Bertis. Julie Beal, would you buy? I have some hesitation. I think it's hard underwriting some of these projects when we don't have a lot of representation of how they're going to pay out. The deals are very complex. I think most of them are probably going to be fine, but I don't know how much any kind of default is priced in there.
38:05And we know that that's always a risk. It would be the very first time in any kind of technology transition if there weren't overbuilding of capacity and assets. It would be the very first time. So you have to assume there will be some, and hopefully the largest, most well-capitalized players who have been doing this a long time will be fine. But I do think that there will be some heartache on the way.
38:25Guy Adami:Well, the first thing is the word steadfast came to mind. As I was listening to one of that, that was very common and reassuring. But let's go to maybe price. These are the most cyclical assets there are. I mean, every one of these stocks, from Aries to Blue Owl, KKR Powell, Just during the sell-off of tariffs, they lost 40 percent plus. Not a one was down less. During the bear market of 2022, almost 50 percent. Something's wrong. They're in trouble. I would not step in the way right here. Let's go back to the cockroaches' comments all over the place. You could use that analogy anywhere. But there's plenty of things that have been down 40 percent.
39:02I'd rather go with cars and say it's a no-touch than to look under the hood. I could trade these technically, but you have no idea what financial or fundamentals are under the hood in these. If you don't know, you don't buy it.
39:15Tim Seymour:I guess, you know, it's sort of if you take a look at Oracle and the CDS and the concern about Oracle's ability to pay, you know, to pay its debts. And then you have this sort of it seems like if you have a concern about that, then there should be some concerns about the loans extended to fund the A.I. build out. And I get that they can have very tight and high underwriting standards, but I don't know how the two things can.
39:39Karen Finerman:Well, and that's the point. So and where the spillovers into leverage loans and other parts that I think are all affected here. There's no question that Oracle seemingly has funded 2026 CapEx. Who knows about 27 CapEx? I'm not saying that this is a company that's going anywhere, but, you know, it's an enormous amount of money. It's an enormous amount of funding. And I still think that even before any of this, people had a question that there are certain parts of the credit world that have grown, especially middle markets, that have been wild in terms of the growth. And the view is that somewhere there is a shock that would cause a couple of dominoes to fall.
40:17Karen Finerman:That's, you know, that's the word.
40:19Tim Seymour:It sounded like you would be inclined, though, to pick up some KKR or some of the that that's been sort of thrown out.
40:26Karen Finerman:I think I think KKR and Blackstone are always the smartest guys in the room. And so, you know, my guess is the diligence that's going on in terms of the underlying managers. But flows in terms of liquidity are sometimes things they cannot control. And that's some of the cyclicality in the asset management business we've seen.
40:43Tim Seymour:Coming up, more after hours action and shares of Chipotle. The numbers from the company's latest quarter and the headlines from the conference call. That is next. And check out some stocks trading at records even in today's sell-off. Cisco at the highest level in its 35-year history as a public company. Caterpillar closing at its best level since its 1929 IPO. And ExxonMobil and Coca-Cola trading at their highest since hitting the market more than a century ago. Don't go anywhere. Fast Money's back in two.
41:13Tim Seymour:Welcome back to Fast Money. An earnings alert on Chipotle. Shares down despite a beat on the top and the bottom lines. They had nearly clawed back to break even before falling again down 7 percent right now. Kate Rogers has the details. Hey, Kate. Hey, Melissa. So the company closing out a tough year, as you said, beats on the top and bottom lines this quarter, but a drop in same-store sales of 2.5 percent. That was a bit better than analysts had projected. Traffic, though, did decline for the fourth quarter in a row. Chipotle also had its first full-year same-store sales contraction since 2016 last year.
41:43It's projecting now 2026 comps to be about flat, as executives pointed to guests placing heightened focus on value and quality and pulling back on overall restaurant spending. CEO Scott Boatwright called the backdrop dynamic and fundamentally different than it was a year ago. The company also said margins will be pressured, particularly in the first half of this year. The stock, as you said, did reverse some of its losses as Boatwright laid out the recipe for growth strategy, which will center on menu innovation, reinforcing value, developing talent, expanding internationally and leveraging technology and AI to improve throughput in the restaurants.
42:19Chipotle is also searching for its next chief marketing officer and plans to hire a chief digital officer and VP of emerging technologies as it focuses on both marketing and tech to move the needle this year. One more interesting nugget from this conference call. They did note that the protein offerings that they put forth have had a really outsized impact on the younger consumer, Melissa, and that that trend kind of really has a hold on that group. And that's a group that they're looking to try and bring back in their stores. So we'll see if it works.
42:47Tim Seymour:Back over to you. Kate, thanks. Kate Rogers. We haven't said it yet.
42:51Karen Finerman:I was going to say, this almost feels like a burrito blowout. It is a burrito. And they can go both ways.
42:56Tim Seymour:It can go both ways. And we can say with the stock down 7 percent. I'm glad we got there. In terms of bringing back the younger consumer, though, this is the cohort that has hit the most in terms of trying to find a job. It's very difficult for college grad. And so that's going to, you know, add to pressure here for its demographic. Yeah, I think the demographic, that's a wall in front of it. Also, it's 100 percent domestic, basically. So there is an opportunity to grow international. That's going to cost money. I get that. The big push is the digital sales, right? So we all know why. Because when you go to a Chipotle, it's difficult to order more.
43:32The number one complaint for Chipotle, not to get too much in the weeds here, you've been there, is trying to order multiple things at once with a line of people behind you. So you're that guy. I don't know what the answer is. No, I don't do it. I don't do it. So I would order more. I have a family of six. I'd order more, but we have to do it digitally. You can never do it in person. That's a flaw. You'd order more, but you... Unless you order digitally. So they spike themselves out of sales. They've got to figure out that assembly line.
44:01Guy Adami:So you're not getting what you want. Look at the Sebastian Maniscalco. Coming away hungry. He's such a pro-pressure.
44:08Tim Seymour:Prograsso. All right, coming up. Home Sweet Trump. Builders getting a boost on reports of some deals with the administration. What's in the works and what it could mean for housing affordability. More Fast Money in Two.
44:22Tim Seymour:Welcome back to Fast Money. The ITB home construction ETF rising over 2 % today as Bloomberg reports that homebuilders are working on a housing affordability plan dubbed Trump Homes. The program calls on builders to sell entry-level homes in a path-to-ownership program funded by private investors. Lenar and Taylor Morrison said to be among the companies drafting the plan. Paul T.D.R. Horton, KB Homes also firmly higher today. Will this last, this bounce, Steve? It remains to be seen. I think the biggest thing is going to be interest rates, the path that we find on mortgage rates. But this is a win-win for housing stocks because the builders are not putting up the capital.
45:00It's private funding. It's not government funding. It's private funding. So I do believe until we get some of the details sorted out, you buy the home builders.
45:07Karen Finerman:Tim? I guess I'm a little concerned. I think the home builders have had a lot of good news over the last couple months. And certainly, you know, you're not terribly far off of those 52-week highs here. I just think the multiples are somewhat difficult at some point. I also just think there are other places in the housing trade. I would much rather own Home Depot. Sorry for doing that. All right. Julie, quick. I just did something. Yeah, no, I agree. I think I would rather own some of the tertiary players. I hate the exposure that you get from single players. So I'd own a Simpson over that. Okay.
45:39Carter?
45:40Guy Adami:I concur. I concur. For instance, Home Depot, better here. The home builders, the chart of the ITB, pair of twos. All right.
45:47Tim Seymour:Up next, final trades.
45:58Final trade time, Julie Beal. Jack Henry reported good results today. And as much as I love Cloud Code, I don't see it replacing banking cores anytime soon. Tim Seymour.
46:08Karen Finerman:I feel pretty comfortable nibbling back into the software part of this trade, as Carter said. I mean, if anything, you know, put a little something long against whatever might be happening in semis. But Microsoft, worth owning.
46:20Tim Seymour:Carter Braxton Worth.
46:21Guy Adami:Semis and software are structurally linked. Sell semis, extended.
46:28Tim Seymour:Stephen? I felt like it was a quick show. Does that mean it was a good show? I don't know. How did you do? Along to me. I think I did it. Other than the Chipotle thing, I think I was okay. Q2 Holdings is the way I'm taking a risk here. Please use the stop if you buy the stock. Thanks for watching Fast See You tomorrow. Closing Bell Overtime. 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.
46:55You 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. 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. My mom inspired me to dream big and work hard. Siner Adams! What would you like the power to do?
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From the publisher
Tech leading today’s sell-off, with investors dumping software stocks as the AI revolution threatens the sectors growth model. The names getting hit, and the latest comments from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on the company’s deal with OpenAI. Plus, AMD and Chipotle report results, Bitcoin’s slide continues, and the next move for Novo Nordisk after the stock tanks on a sales warning from the company.
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