The Global Rate Rally… And All The Headlines In The Weight-Loss Drug Space 3/19/26

18:32Karen Finerman:I mean, these are extraordinary numbers. I'm just going through them. But, you know, the dynamic around where the margins are and where they are improving essentially the cost base at a difficult time is incredible. So the operational effectiveness of this company, independent of the macro, is what the market is doing here. Let's also I mean, this is a stock that certainly pulled back in the war conflict. But this uptrend off of really the October 25 move is is something that's north of 45 percent into this move. So long, love this name, love the transport space even here, at least those ones that I think were relying on them to make their businesses better.

19:07Karen Finerman:I think UPS fits that bill, too.

19:09Tim Seymour:The quarter ended prior to the Iran war. So now what? Markets didn't give them a pass, I think, because operationally things are better. I mean, it's all about express with FedEx. Freight they'll figure out, but express margins were almost 8 percent. And the street was looking for 6.8 percent. That's on FedEx. That's just them operating better. And yes, higher energy costs are going to hurt. But I think the market will give them a pass. And even though it's more expensive than it was a while ago, it's still not that expensive. So I still think there's room to the upside. So, yes, the quarter, it was a great quarter for sure.

19:43And it is somewhat irrelevant because none of, you know, all the excitement happened until recently. But they also didn't need to give guidance where they did. Right. They could have gotten a pass. They could have been a little tempered. this probably is tempered guidance. Why not? Right? So that's impressive. And Rajiv Bramian has done just a really spectacular job. So we'll see how. I think freight will be interesting when they spin it off. I don't own it, but very nice job.

20:11Tim Seymour:And the cost savings estimate has gone up as well. They raised that to more than a billion versus a billion. And an analyst that we spoke to in the last hour in closing Bell Overtime said that actually higher fuel costs could be helpful because they put in that surcharge and then they make money off of it. Right. They don't roll it off nearly as quickly as they put it on. Company was being run inefficiently. It was running as three separate entities. Now it's running as one and they're spinning off freight, obviously, in June. This is one that you look at. They're growing. Revenues are growing.

20:42UPS is shrinking. They're growing and they're transitioning to a better company. It's still a buy.

20:48Tim Seymour:Coming up, the latest taxi team up Uber and Rivian announcing an EV partnership when thousands of robo-taxes could hit the streets around the world. That's ahead. But first, the action in two tech giants, how Apple may be catching up in the AI space, and why micron shares are lower despite blowout earnings. Don't go anywhere. Fast Money's back in two.

21:12This is Fast Money with Melissa Lee, right here on CNBC. Modern enterprise is made up of a lot of moving parts, and Comcast Business helps you orchestrate it all. With SD-WAN working at scale to keep 150 hospital locations connected and working as one. Plus, SASE and Zero Trust Security protecting financial data across a bank's 2 ,000 branches. And AI-powered networking that optimizes traffic across five continents. No one does business like Comcast Business.

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22:46Tim Seymour:Welcome back to Fast Money. Apple could be benefiting from the AI boom, even as it lags competitors in developing its own AI system. According to the Wall Street Journal, the iPhone maker is tracking to bring in over a billion dollars in revenue this year from App Store fees tied to the generative AI apps. Three-fourths of those revenues coming from ChatGPT. Meanwhile, shares of Micron down almost 4%, despite an impressive earnings beat after the bell yesterday. Revenue almost tripling from a year ago. Shares are still up 55 percent this year. Not bad. So what do you want to trade first, Karen?

23:19Micron, I mean, you know, going into the print, I don't know that the numbers actually matter. It was great. It was better than great. It was enormous. Right. But going into the print, I mean, I don't know that there was a high enough bar they could jump over to to have it go higher from here. Interestingly about the whole space, though, is the talk about longer term contracts. And to the extent that happens, that should smooth out the boom bust cycle of P.E. multiples that normally a commodity like business like this would have. So that's sort of a you know, that's a fundamental, interesting change.

23:56This valuation, though, is it's not. Yeah. Yeah. I think you've seen near term top in Micron. I think that moved from 200 to 470 or wherever it topped out right around there. If you think about what they're building, they're building on demand stated right now. There's demand shifts. There's demand slows. And then some of these could just be overstated. So I think you're going to see this year where this boomed. I think 2027 could possibly be a bust for it.

24:28Tim Seymour:2027 is when capacity, additional capacity will come online, whether it be through Micron or some of its competitors in South Korea.

24:35Karen Finerman:Yeah. I mean, so the question is, how much does the market want to price that in now? Also, you know, yesterday, on top of everything else, we saw, I think,$14 billion in free cash flow, which translates to about a 10 percent free cash flow yield, which is extraordinary. And we heard about CapEx. But as far as I can tell, this is still a very different free cash flow story than some of the hyperscalers who are on the other side of this. So I'm not chasing it here. I actually think it can pull back. I think we've priced in a lot of that into 27. And I do think supply will come on faster than people think.

25:09Karen Finerman:This is all people want to do. And by the way, in-house, there's a lot of places, too, where I think people are working on memory. Yeah, if the market sniffs that out, whether it's 27, mid-27, they'll sniff it out long before that. And the other side of the cycle is as fast as these names go up, that's how fast they go down. And I guess the last 24 hours were glimpses of that. It was, again, historic, the quarter. But the price action is everything. So we'll give it a couple days, but I wouldn't be a buy here either. All right.

25:36Tim Seymour:There's a lot more Fast Money to come. Here's what's coming up next. Sharing a robo-taxi ride. How Uber and Rivian are teaming up. and when you may see their driverless EVs hit the road. Plus, the Lilly Lowdown, the pharma giant's next-gen obesity drug posting record results. What it means for the stock and the competition in the weight loss drug race. You're watching Fast Money, live from the NASDAQ market side in Times Square. We're back right after this.

26:13Karen Finerman:Never bet against American grit or American energy. Through innovation, Venture Global is not only building some of the largest energy facilities in the world right here in the United States, but delivering American energy at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time. So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. that's venture global that's unstoppable energy

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27:30Tim Seymour:Welcome back to Fast Money. Uber announcing it will invest up to$1.25 billion in EV maker Rivian to bring as many as 50 ,000 robo-taxis to the road by 2031. Rivian shares rose as much as 10 percent at its highs, closed the day up 3.8 percent. Uber shares were down today and have lost almost 8 percent so far this year. As part of this agreement, Uber will purchase up to 10 ,000 vehicles and then 40 ,000 more later on. These are options, too. But in theory, they could be owners of vehicles, which is very different.

28:05Karen Finerman:It's very different and it's very interesting. It's very dangerous all at the same time if you're thinking about this, because, again, asset heavy is not what this has been about. And this is a company that got to profitability faster than people thought after people thought it was going to take forever. All we do is follow headlines on where Uber is being X'd out because their platform will no longer be needed. They're going straight at it. It's interesting. I'm not sure what to do with the headline.

28:31Tim Seymour:How is this different from the hyperscaler? I mean, I know it's like, but I mean, they're moving to asset heavy as well because they have to embrace AI. And that's how you do it. That's what they did. Isn't this logical? Is it logical? To embrace AI and how it's applied to this industry. Maybe you move to asset heavy as well. Should they be rewarded for that? Well, if the hyperscalers are a cautionary tale, then no, they shouldn't be, right? If we look at what's happened to Meta, as they become asset heavy and even go, you know, net debtors, not a lot relative to their cash flow. But I agree. That's the first thing that I thought of.

29:10Yeah. I think there's a couple of takeaways from here. You're touching on one of them. But the other one is it's not a Tesla robo taxi story all on its own. Rivian is going to share some of that. The problem I have with Rivian is I've been in and out of it. I'm not in it now. But they've raised$30 billion and they burned through$24 billion. It's a burn rate. It's a cash burn rate. And every time they get an injection, they somehow let that be a fleeting moment. So I'd rather look at the Rivian side of it and say it's now become an execution risk. This is one that the market probably won't forgive them if they screw it up.

29:44For three years, if you sold Rivian on these bounces, you've been rewarded. And the crack staff in EC can show you a chart. I mean, it has bounced. At one point, I think late December, it's a$23 stock. And look at where it is now. I would have thought, again, to play that game, a headline like this would have been worth a lot more than the day's gains that we saw today. It's not, which speaks to, I think, the underlying weakness of Rivian.

30:06Karen Finerman:Uber's not expensive. It's also been inverse correlated on some level during this war conflict. Certainly, there is some sense that they might be a gainer in a higher fuel environment. You know, I think Uber is something that's interesting here. This news is fascinating. It doesn't mean that they have to go over their skis. It does mean they can cement their place in the middle of robo.

30:29Tim Seymour:Coming up, a weight loss win for Eli Lilly. The latest trial results for its next-gen obesity drug. And the FDA news for Novo's Wigobi shot. All the details out of the pharma sector when Fast Money returns.

30:42Missed a moment of fast? Catch us anytime on the go. Follow the Fast Money podcast. We're back right after this.

30:53Tim Seymour:Welcome back to Fast Money. Stocks in the red again, but bouncing late in the day to close off their lows. The Dow dropping more than 200 points. The S &P and Nasdaq both down more than a quarter of a percent. All three indices pacing for a fourth negative week in a row. WTI crude settling above$96 a barrel. Brent settling above$108 per barrel after hitting a high of 119. A double dose of weight loss drug headlines moving GLP-1 makers today. Eli Lilly finishing just below the flatline after a phase three study showed that people with diabetes lost more weight on its triple agonist weight loss drug, Reditrutide, than other GLP-1s.

31:26Tim Seymour:And Novo Nordisk lower by a percent even after winning approval for a higher dose of Wigobi. That allows people, helps people lose almost as much weight as Lilly's Zep-bound shot. For more on competition in the obesity space, Mizuho Healthcare Specialist Jared Holtz joins us here on set. But, Jerry, great to have you with us. Thank you. What's wrong with Novo? I mean, I'm starting with Novo. It seems like it gets no credit for anything. Is this going to help? Unbelievable. It should help. I mean, just, you know, get the company back on track in terms of the script volume. And, you know, if you started on a lower dose, you can continue on this new one.

32:03And hopefully it solidifies them a little bit. But it's been horrendous, worse than I ever thought. and the stock hasn't gone up once since this launch, it seems like. And they're already annualizing at nearly a billion dollars in revenue if all these patients stay on, and it's gotten zero credit. So I don't really know what's going to drive it at this point, maybe further business development or something else.

32:28Tim Seymour:How should we think about Red Hatru Tide? It's been out there in terms of its effectiveness. There's no plateauing in this recent readout, which is really interesting. How should we think about pricing for this? Should we expect premium pricing, or is it still going to be under pressure? It seems like there's just a pricing sort of lid on all of these drugs now. Yeah, the pricing dynamic finally started to shake Lilly recently. I mean, we've been talking about it for Novo for a long time, and I think a lot of Lilly investors thought that, you know, maybe it would sustain a bit better for them.

33:04And I feel like we're finally at the point where if it's negative for one, One, it's got to be negative for both. The company hasn't really commented on the triple G, whether the pricing is going to be at a premium. I would expect it to be to some degree. But at the end of the day, like these are consumer products. We've talked about it so many times. I just don't know if a large pocket of the population needs this sort of weight loss. It's unclear.

33:27Tim Seymour:Or if they're going to pay double to get 5 % more or whatever percent more. I mean, like that's sort of the tradeoff. If it's a consumer drug, that's what you look at. Agree. That's what's gotten me sort of to back off of Lilly over the near term, because most of the people looking most of the people on these drugs, I think, are looking to lose a little bit of weight fairly quickly. Not a ton of weight over the long term. At least that's what it seems like. Obviously, you have some people that are like morbidly obese that are going to be on them chronically. But for the most part, I think 10 to 15 percent is what most people are looking for as a consumer, not as someone who's on this therapeutically.

34:02So, yes, finally, pricing has really started to shake people out of Lilly a little bit. I got to ask about Structured Therapeutics, if for no other reason than it's in my acronym. But I am very, I mean, this stock has round tripped. And yeah, what do you think of it here? I just feel like the investor base has kind of determined that it's not necessarily better. And it's obvious it's later. And so you've got two entrenched players that are big, you know, driving very profitable businesses. And unless you come along with something that is much better, either from a dosing standpoint or from an efficacy standpoint, where are you?

34:40So I think they're kind of like in no man's land. Then again, could someone pick them off tomorrow that wants to get in the game because they are fairly far along for a standalone obesity company? Totally. That's what makes me still engage probably on the long side down here than not. because M &A is rampant and someone could come tomorrow with a big premium. I just feel like it's a possibility. Jared, when you look at this space, can Lilly, Lilly dictates what we focus on in large cap pharma. So what can they change if it's not GLP-1s? Can they switch and pivot to another one of their drugs? What should we be focusing on in the back half of 2026 or 2027?

35:21Is it still going to be GLP-1s or what is the next thing? Yeah, it's a really good question because I think we're already starting to see that the evolution of the thesis may be slightly away from obesity for the first time in, what, four years. I think there's some other stuff in their oncology portfolio, which is probably understated as far as investors are talking about it. INI is a big piece of this business now trying to get into inflammation and some of these diseases which have really big markets. And I think Lilly is a big time. Now, they've done a lot of deals. They've been smaller in nature.

35:57But Lilly is a big time acquirer, I think, probably starts to come into more focus as we go into the second half of the year. Because as a trillion dollar company, the only way to move the needle at that point is to do a big deal. We'll see. I mean, the oral launch is coming. I'm sure we'll talk about that. That's going to be that's going to be big. I think the street's still pretty positive. But again, Novo Nordisk, over 400000 patients on their oral drug and no one cares. So that's why I just don't understand why there's so much fanfare around Lilly for what's basically the same product. But I think the question's a good one.

36:27I think it's going to be pipeline and then M &A. In terms of Novo going back along the same lines of Karen, I don't know if you're familiar with my junk, but the N in the junk is Novo Norton.

36:36Karen Finerman:Who's not? Well, Jared apparently is not. He is now. Probably just lucky. These were diabetes drugs before they stumbled onto this weight loss thing. And you look at the round trip. I mean, this is still a diabetes drug at a certain level that they're not being rewarded for seemingly at all. Is it a messaging problem at this point? Yeah. Messaging has been a big piece of it. You know, they basically flipped their entire board, new management team. The execution over the past year probably couldn't have been worse, you could argue. that that being said i did write a couple weeks ago that you know in some weird way they would be better off never having gone into obesity with the stock being here i mean these are multi-year lows they still have 40 share give or take of the biggest market in all of therapeutics and the street has totally abandoned it yet you got eli lily sitting here as of like a couple weeks ago at a trillion dollar market cap the argument could be made of course you can't go back in time and they are driving a ton of revenue.

37:38But it's it's mind blowing that the stock has done so badly given everything. Yeah. I mean, if you kind of rewind and go back, this was a compounder on a fairly boring business. They get into the sexy one, the sexiest business and they were first.

37:55Karen Finerman:Really quickly, that speaks to positioning, though. So tell me where your clients are on this, because it tells I mean, nobody's in Novo. And I feel like Lily's a little overweight. I saw your notes. You think Lily actually has stopped going higher. You're not making maybe a short call on this one, but I'll make the call on positioning. It's extreme. It's the most extreme I think I've ever seen for pretty much the same product. I mean, the nuances we can debate for hours and, you know, what patient is better off on which drug and the percentages. But by and large, you've got Wegovy at 15 or so.

38:31You've got Trisepetide at high teens. For most people, I think they're basically the same. We've been talking about them like they're polar opposites. These are essentially the same things for most people, yet one company is worth 5x the other. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. You know, we talk about Stryker and Zimmer and Merck versus Bristol is sort of like comps and health care, but we've never seen valuations get blown out like this that I can recall for a market that's so clear as day. So it's fascinating.

39:03Tim Seymour:Jared, good to see you. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Jared Holtz of Mizuho. What do you think the trade is here? Well, incorrectly, I thought it's been novel for a while. And there was a point in time earlier this year where it looked like we actually caught a cold on the bounce off the lows that we saw in the peak, in the trough of 2020. That didn't wind up being the case. I don't think that, well, it doesn't matter what I think. It feels as though, to Jared's point, the market is not rewarding Novo at all for the rest of their businesses. Tonight, a deeply personal story from one of our own. In a special one-hour documentary, Becky Quick opens up about her daughter's rare disease and connects with others determined to rewrite the rules of medicine.

39:40Tim Seymour:Here's a look at one man taking on ultra-rare conditions one patient at a time, including a young girl named Susanna. Tell us what hurts. Susanna has a mutation in her KIF-1A gene that slowly kills the nerves in her brain and kills the nerves in her whole body. Her condition is considered nano-rare, affecting only a few dozen patients worldwide. When doctors told Luke and Sally Rosen that they had five years, they quickly started a foundation to look for others like her and to identify experts who could help. I recall banging down Stan Crook's door and just calling and calling and calling until he got back to me.

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40:52Tim Seymour:We have five applications in the first 10 minutes after we open our doors. So I knew that it was a much larger problem than I recognized. Unlike most biotech companies that are chasing scale, Enlorum designs ultra-personalized therapies for populations with 30 people or less. For these families, the foundation is their only hope. Do not miss CNBC Cures, Defying Rare Disease. That is tonight, right here on CNBC, 7 p.m. Eastern Time. We're back in two. Welcome back to Fast Money. The Alibaba share slumping more than 7 % following disappointing earnings before the bell. The Chinese e-commerce giant missing revenue estimates reporting a whopping 66 % year-over-year drop in net income.

41:41Tim Seymour:Cloud revenues grew 36 % from a year ago. Shares of Alibaba down nearly 15 % this year. Is this an acronym this year or is this all last year? Last year from us last year.

41:53Karen Finerman:Yeah, I think I had it a couple years ago and seems to be the story. Although, you know, the folks at home don't know this, but we were just talking, you can actually swap in a new letter into your acronym at the end of the first quarter. I almost feel like in Timbo, I want to slide out BioGem, which has rallied and drop in an Alibaba that's underperformed. This is just getting you into some of the tactics and how we play Timbo again. I mean, how amazing. So what's interesting about Alibaba is I don't think these numbers were bad. I think they were in line. I think there's some really exciting parts of their business, including kind of the tokenomics that's been some of the headlines over the last.

42:29Karen Finerman:But Alipay, Alicloud, Alicloud especially, is part of the story that has this company in a great spot in the AI world at a time when I don't think they've overspent. So sentiment is awful. International stocks have been selling off. I think this is a long term up. Yeah, I agree. I mean, there was a miss sort of down the whole line. Lots of different businesses, delivery. and, you know, but they're being aggressive right now. They know that's going to be a difficult business. But I agree with you. I also think the macro just is terrible, and they're just sort of going down with that as well. Some deserve here, but I think the big picture, I like it.

43:07I still like it. A lot of cash. Well, business is good. The spend hurt margins, but the e-commerce portion was a disaster. In a word, it's another word I used, but I'll save it for a different show, but it was a disaster. But I'm with these guys. I mean, just the back of the envelope, Matt, suggests the stock should be a lot higher than it is. You're not going to swap Alibaba in? No, I'm not swapping any. You dance with the girl, you're brought to the prom. Can we see Guy's acronym? Is it possible to see that picture again? Apparently I was smirking. I mean, I don't know. Is it possible to smirker?

43:33Possibly get junk up there? Cheshire cat. I like that.

43:36Tim Seymour:Coming up, the next move for the housing sector. Oh, absolutely. As new home sales plunge to start the year, the impact on the builders, what mortgage rates mean for homebuyers, more money and more fast money in two.

43:54Tim Seymour:Welcome back to Fast Money. Homebuilders taking a hit again today with the XHB ETF hitting its lowest level since June, the move coming after new home sales dropped to their slowest pace since January 2022. Sales fell more than 11 percent from a year ago, while the median price was down 7%. Compared to December, sales were down more than 17%. And where are mortgage rates now? 30 years at about 6.3%. So now what? Yeah, the mortgage rates are going the wrong way. You need mortgage rates in the fives to actually be competitive. But you know, when you have a rising rate environment, it helps everyone who already has assets.

44:29It hurts everyone who doesn't have assets, who doesn't have a home, who doesn't have stocks, who don't have a 401k that's bulging. So it's going to hurt all these names. I do think that when you take the lens back and we look at June and maybe summertime, I think these rates will come down same as with the price of oil. And you'll start to see life being bred in. And Guy brought it up earlier on the show. Stocks react about six months ahead of what the news is coming down the pike. So I think these are probably good buying opportunities. See, first of all, bulging 401k sounds painful. I'm sure there's a salve for that that I'm not familiar with.

45:06But I'll take the other side. I think in terms of like the Pulte's tolls, DHI, it still feels like there's some pain to the downside. People are expecting rates to go lower, but the labor market suggests that things are softening. I'd avoid the homebuilders. You're talking HD today.

45:21Karen Finerman:I think HD is interesting. 320 is a three-year level on the stock where it seems to bounce. It was resistance back three years ago. And I just think that you've had an opportunity to see some of the margins hit, some of the tariff dynamics hit, some of this to settle through. It's been very cyclical. This is a range to buy. Lowe's, incidentally, might look a little bit marching. They also just announced a home services business, which basically means you could call a guy and get some stuff done at your house that you don't know how to do yourself. Because my guess is you don't know how to do most things that are at your house.

45:49Karen Finerman:But, you know, I mean. Sorry.

45:53Tim Seymour:Up next, final trades.

46:00Tim Seymour:Final trade time, Timbo.

46:02Karen Finerman:At 375, people wanted to own Home Depot. I think this is an interesting level for a long-term investor. Karen. Just so you know, Tim and Melissa both know how to cock. Anyway, my final trade is Alibaba. That's my superpower. It's important. Steven. First solar. Guy. Newmont Mining, Melms.

46:21Tim Seymour:Thanks for watching Fast Mad Money with Jim Cramer starts right now. All opinions expressed by the Fast Money participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet, or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of an opinion. 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.

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47:24Bank of U.S. Soccer and FIFA World Cup 2026. Bank of America NA, member FDSP.