Knicks Fan Gary Vee: I Want to Match Up with the Spurs 5/28/26

0:00Never 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.

0:30Introducing Fidelity Trader Plus. With customizable tools and charts you can access across all your devices. Try our most powerful trading platform yet at fidelity.com slash trader plus. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC. Member NYSE SIPC. Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod. The biggest business headlines. A luxury Pied-a-terre tax coming to New York in July. Fertitta buying Caesars, and a Google engineer has been charged with fraud over polymarket trades. Nicola Spagnuolo allegedly earned$1.2 million by betting on who would be revealed as the most search person people of 2025 on Google.

1:15Who was it? And understanding the markets, the froth, and your portfolio with Sanctuary Wealth chief investment strategist Marianne Bartels. Everyone should be out on market in 2030, in your view then. will not necessarily be out of the market, be in something different than tech. And finally, New York is alive with Knicks merch. Media mogul Gary Vaynerchuk. New York loves the Giants. They love the Yankees. But this is a Knicks town. $250 ,000 for courtside seats. When there's that much demand pent up for two and a half, three decades, it's funny and shocking to see how it plays out in price. It is Thursday, May 28th.

1:56Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand Becky by in three, two, one. Cue it, please. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live from the Nasdaq market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernan and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Meantime, now to the latest from the Middle East. U.S. forces conducting military strikes against Iran, this is after Tehran launched drones of commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. And U.S. officials say that American forces shot down Iranian drones and then hit a drone control station located near the Strait. Administration officials characterizing the attacks as limited and defensive, they're saying in nature, not an escalation that would collapse the ceasefire overnight.

2:40Kuwait saying it was intercepting hostile missile and drone attacks after a period of calm under the ceasefire. So here we are talking about a ceasefire. And yet, at some level, there's not a ceasefire. There are things that, yeah, I don't know when when it becomes not a ceasefire, what that takes. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has asked a judge to vacate the agency's five million dollar penalty against the Gemini Trust Company. It's a crypto exchange founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. Winklevoss, the CFTC, said that under the Biden administration, the agency brought a lawsuit against a Gemini, against Gemini based on a whistleblower account that was incredible.

3:23Now, they're saying Gemini settled the charges in January of 2025 during the final weeks of the Biden administration. And the CFTC and Gemini say they've agreed that the settlement should be vacated, citing the CFTC's changed policy on crypto enforcement now under President Trump. The Winklevoss twins, by the way, donated to President Trump's election campaign in 2024. But an attorney for Gemini told CNBC this case should have never been brought. And we're thankful that the CFTC has joined us in seeking to right this wrong. Separately, the White House is reviewing a CFTC proposal that would provide guidelines for the prediction markets.

4:03event contracts provided by online platforms like CalShea and Polymarket allow users, as you know, to place bets on the outcome of a variety of topics like sports, politics, and business. And the CFTC has been staking out its turf against states that have been trying to regulate firms as sportsbooks or casinos. And as we like to do and need to do for disclosure, CNBC and CalShea have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment. A Google software engineer has been charged with fraud and money laundering over bets that he allegedly made last year on Polymarket based on non-public data.

4:4836-year-old Mikola Spagnuolo allegedly earned$1.2 million by betting on who would be revealed as the most searched person or most searched people of 2025 on Google. That information wasn't available to the public at the time. Spagnuolo is an Italian citizen based in Zurich. He was arrested yesterday and appeared before a federal judge in New York. Reports say that he did not enter a plea and was released on bail. Google said it's working with law enforcement and that the employee has been placed on leave. Who was it? Oh, the most searched person. People? I don't know. People. Most searched people.

5:24Taylor? Epstein? I don't know what the answer is. While Becky's looking at that, the Trump administration pursuing funding deals with a group of drone companies. That's according to a Wall Street Journal report that says it's part of an effort to increase domestic production and lower the cost of increasingly vital weapons. Deal talks are still in a negotiation phase, but could include both debt and equity stakes by the U.S. government. Among the companies under consideration, performance drone works, unusual machines and NEROS technologies. Unusual machine shares, they are soaring, but the company has a market cap below$1 billion.

6:02Unusual machines are not just unusual. It's actually the name of the company. So the highest overall monthly volume was President Donald Trump, and Elon Musk remained the most consistently Googled individuals, averaging roughly$15.96 million for President Trump and$10.96 million for Elon Musk. That makes sense. Yeah. And shifting gears, but Andrew's talking about drones, So speaking of drones, an interesting new role for Russian central bankers. The country has passed a law authorizing staff at the central bank to be armed with systems used to repel drone attacks. The employees can use those systems to down unmanned aerial vehicle attacks without the involvement of any special forces.

6:45And the move comes as Ukraine's military has been conducting longer range drone strikes within Russian territory. New York state lawmakers have approved a tax on luxury second homes in New York City. That's the pied-a-terre tax that New York Mayor Zoran Mandani has been pushing for months now. It's going to take effect on July 1st. It could add hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to the tax bills of some very high-end condo owners. Real estate executives and business leaders have pushed back, saying the tax will be costly to implement and won't provide much bang for its buck. But it sounds like we are here.

7:22I imagine there could be some lawsuits and other things that will. But I think it's happening. I guess condos, there's the question as to whether those buildings, because they're the ones that are paying it. Condos or the co-ops? He said the building would pay it. And then this question, if that gets passed on to others. But just figuring out when it would go up. So when it would go up and if real estate prices come down, how quickly taxes would go down. Well, the big question, I think we talked about this. It was a very smart story in The New York Times about a month ago. They talked about London.

7:57And when London raised taxes on the very high end, they did something similar to this. And then you saw real estate in London has just been a flatline story. So now there's lots of other factors. You could look at Brexit. You could look at all sorts of other things and say, are those tied? So we'll all sit around in five years from now and we'll decide whether this has proven to be a terrible idea or a great idea. More money to blow, I guess, on ineffective government. What is it,$500 billion that they're anticipating it will raise? There's a question whether it will raise that or not, or if people will sell.

8:32I'm sure they'll use it well. Cheese will be next. Coming up on Squawk Pod, a casino deal worth billions, and the market's record rise. Will it continue, or should we be bracing for a fall? Longtime market watcher Marianne Bartels is next. There's three phases of inflation. You have the inflation boost, which we're in right now, where prices go up and that helps revenue and earnings. And then inflation continues and then you start getting somewhat of a squeeze. But equities can do well in that environment. It's not until you have the hyperinflation that you really have a problem.

9:34We'll see you next time.

9:38unstoppable energy.

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11:06to buy Caesars Entertainment for$31 per share in cash. It's about$5.7 billion. That excludes debt. Tillman's company owns the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casinos, also Langer's Restaurant Chain, the NBA's Houston Rockets, by the way, the corner store restaurant downtown, which I think is like the hottest restaurant in all of New York City right now, along with a whole bunch of others. So this is a pretty interesting transaction. If you look at Caesars over, I don't know, we can go back in time. I don't know what you think, five years. It's a symbol. It's CZR is the stock. You go back, by the way, it was like 100 bucks in the middle of the crisis.

11:48I say the pandemic. We're now obviously in the in the 20s here. Twenty twenty dollars. The premium that they're talking about on the unaffected stock price, because it obviously. It's had. Yeah, it's run up. But as this can clear, also, they're calling it a 17 billion dollar transaction. Twelve billion dollars is assumed debt. So just the 31 dollars a share of cash is what you said, five point. Taking that company private. It'll be interesting.

12:20Minneapolis Fed President Neil Kashkari speaking to CNBC overnight in Japan. He said the Fed would continue taking a balanced approach to its dual mandate of price stability. and full employment. He echoed his previous warning about the dangers of inflation, saying that the longer it remains elevated, the greater risk that inflation expectations become unanchored and move higher. Speaking to CNBC at the same conference in Japan, Chicago Fed President Austin Goldsby said energy inflation tied to the war in Iran has lasted longer than expected. And then yesterday, Fed Governor Lisa Cook said inflation is headed in the wrong direction and she'd be prepared to raise interest rates if that were to continue.

13:05Joining us now, Marianne Bartels, Sanctuary Wealth, Chief Investment Strategist. You had a 7 ,500-year-end S &P target. We're already there. You're not raising it, but you're saying that the next upward level to watch is 7 ,800. You get to keep your cake. You get to eat a little bit of it. What are you doing? Well, I do think we should get a pullback. What I'm trying to get people to focus on is the long-term target that I have on the market, which is$10 ,000 to$13 ,000. I think that's where we're truly tracking. This is by$2400. By$2029,$2030. Oh,$2029. Oh, okay. We've got a few more years. You shouldn't do a target and a time.

13:50You should do one or the other. Well, I gave the target of$10 ,000 to$13 ,000 somewhere peaking around$2029,$2030. Okay. And that will end the secular bull market that we're in that we started in 2013. And how long will there be a secular bear? Then you go into a secular bear market 15 to 20 years. What ends the bull market? It's not generally high prices that end the bull market. It's usually something else. Any time you peak, you know, you had it in 2000. It was the tech bubble. We had a great run, but we peaked in 2007. And then you go into the secular bear market of the great financial crisis.

14:26So every time it's going to be something different. It was like three years, Marianne. It was not a secular bear market. We've gone straight up from 780 in 1981 to where we are now. So the secular bear market was from 2000 until 2013. That period was a sideways trading range. You couldn't break out and hold a new high. We tried to do that in 2007. In the S &P? In the S &P. And then in 2013, you cleared the high. Then you enter a whole new secular trend. So we've been in a secular bull market. I think we've been in a secular bull since 1981. I mean, I remember in 1959, we were at 1 ,000. And then how long did it take to get back above 1 ,000?

15:13Well, if you look at a chart even going back to the 19th. 1969, I think. For the entire terrible, remember the 1970s, I have some memory of the 1970s. The Nifty 50, like American Express was like a$40 stock. It went to like two. I mean, it was miserable in 1974, right? Yes. And we didn't get back above$1 ,000 until 1982, I think. Right. 1982 started. 69 to 82. 82 was a major bottom, and you did have a secular bull market. I can tell you why it happened in the 70s. That's why we're asking what will, with AI and technology and all these great things. I do think we've started an inflation cycle. So I've mapped out that there's three phases of inflation.

15:57You have the inflation boost, which we're in right now, where prices go up, and that helps revenue and earnings. And we're seeing it in abundance in technology. And then inflation continues, and then you start getting somewhat of a squeeze. But equities can do well in that environment. It's not until you have the hyperinflation that you really have a problem. So everyone should be out of the market in 2030, in your view then? Well, not necessarily be out of the market, being something different than tech. So I think the early stages of what's going to be the new leadership have already emerged.

16:32It's going to be small cap. It's going to be commodities, energy. And the real big one for me, Joe, is the international markets. I haven't said to be invested in international markets for a secular trend in my entire career. And I think there's a new secular bull market that started in Japan. It started also in Europe and in emerging markets ex-China. So I think the opportunity set to diversify a U.S. portfolio outside of the United States is one of the greatest times, I think, in history. So global equities will not be in a secular bear market from 2029 on? International markets. International will not.

17:12Correct. And you're really talking about U.S. technology sector being in the secular bear. Correct. Correct. All right. So then it. And because of the market cap, it drives down the averages. So the entire S &P will be. Correct. But there's other things that are emerging. And it really looks like a repeat of what we saw in 1999 and 2000. Well, that, as I say, I don't remember. The leadership came from small cap. Quite as horrible. Yeah. Energy. You know, Rich Bernstein was pounding the table back then in 99 to buy energy stocks, which was a big controversy because the technology stocks were on a tear.

17:51Right. Your inflation forecast, the hyperinflation, is this related to this$40 trillion in debt and counting by the year 2029? Will that improve? I don't know exactly what will be the trigger. Is that really the problem? them? I do think we have an inflation issue. Because of the debt or because of something else? I think the whole secular trend, because from 1980 down to 2021, we were in a deflationary event. I think that ended around the COVID period. And now we've started a new inflationary cycle that can actually last for 10, 15, 20 years. Where does that put the 10-year back in the the 5 % to 10 % range?

18:39Eventually, longer term, you can get back up to 10%. 10%. But I think now we're normalizing somewhere around this 5 % to 6%. But we've, okay, going to technical analysis, on the 10-year, we formed what's called a triangle pattern. 4-6 on the upside, if you break that and sustain it, then you're going up to 5 % and higher. But if we break to the downside of the triangle, which is around 3.6. Right. All right, Mary. Rates are going lower. This is not a luxury belief that you have because I will be here and I will remember in 2029 and 2030. And if this doesn't happen, we're going to say, Mary Ann.

19:22That's fine. And that's fair. Okay. That's fair. All right. Because just, you know, it's way out there. You got four years before we can be proven wrong. Well, what I'm trying to tell clients is not to panic. I'm panicked. And to stay invested. I am panicked. If you think there's a crash coming after that, though, will you tell people to get out when it hits 10 ,000? That's my biggest concern. Will I even see when the peak is coming? And the risk is you get out early. You already saw it. Because 10 ,000 to 13 ,000 is a pretty broad range. It is. And is it timing? Is it other signals that you'll be looking for at that point?

19:59Well, you're looking for, obviously, you're looking for euphoria. you're looking for very high valuations. One of the other hallmarks of a major peak is a very levered market, tremendous leverage in the system. We have leverage from time to time, but when you're reaching peaks in markets, the leverage is extraordinary. But basically what you're telling people is be fully invested now and then be on the lookout. Be always fully invested, but know what you own. I don't want to be fully invested if the market's going to tank. You don't want to own what's going down. And basically what I'm saying is the leadership is tech.

20:39It's led by semiconductors. And that's going to continue to drive the markets, I think, out into the end of the decade. And when that leadership ends, that's when you peak in markets. So here's the problem. If we go back 100 years, Charles Merrill, co-founder of Merrill Lynch, in 1928, told everybody to get out of the market because he said 1929 is going to be bad. Anybody who was his client got out of the market, except for the fact that between when he made the comment in 1928 and October of 1929, the stock market went up another 90%. So they were all mad at him. Correct. And that's the hard part.

21:18And the stock market, even though it went down, didn't go down 90%, so he still lost money. That is the biggest problem with perma bears, is that by the time they are finally right, the market never even comes down to where they first got negative. It's like usually doubled from where they were negative. And then they try to, I mean, I can name, there are some famous perma bears that, and they're hilarious. But that's why you should always have a diversified portfolio and not have a concentrated position. We won't need to mention any names, but. Marianne, thank you. Thank you all. Coming up, have you heard about the New York Knicks?

22:00This Cleveland Cavaliers fan has heard quite enough, but I guess some people are into it. I'm a psycho hardcore fan. Gary Vaynerchuk is off in courtside at MSG and his love for the team runs deep. Gary, you're old school. You like a team. I would say kids today like players and they follow players and they follow them to different teams. Yes, I dislike those kids. That's my son. Yeah, that's my, I do not like your son. The eye-popping ticket prices, the pent-up demand, and how paid media can capitalize on social media moments. Right after this break on Squawk Pod.

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24:12This is Squawk Pod. Stand Andrew by, up and enter, cue. You're watching Squatbox right here on CNBC. I'm Andrew Ross Sorkin along with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick. New York Knicks, they have reached the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999 and chairs at Madison Square Garden Sports. They're at an all-time high. Doing this right now to discuss Knicks mania and the business around the NBA Finals is Gary Vaynerchuk, VaynerMedia CEO, VaynerX chairman. Good morning to you. When you came in, I said you get your ticks yet. You said you haven't locked them in. So what are you going to pay for these things?

24:46Whatever the market says I need to pay for that. But have you seen some of the prices? No, I missed it. Of course I've seen the prices. I mean, first of all, let's talk about how diehard I actually am. I'm talking about Oklahoma City and San Antonio. I'm going to game one. I'm flying to game one. So first of all, I'm going to game one where I have a funny feeling the tickets will be a little bit cheaper. Yes. And then, what's that? Maybe, maybe. You know, I'm a Jersey boy from the streets. Don't bougie me up. And, yeah, it's fascinating to watch. And it really, you know, so much of what you all talk about here, market dynamics, it's interesting to watch play out when there's that much demand pent up for two and a half, three decades.

25:28It's funny and shocking to see how it plays out in price. What's the highest price you've seen so far? I think the big meme the last two days, right, was$250 ,000. I said something like that. Yeah. What about all your collectibles? Well, that's been great. I mean, my son and I, brother, others, like the amount of Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns. I've been buying up Josh Hart's and OG Ananobis because if this team wins, I mean, we're still talking about a dunk that John Starks made almost 30, you know, years ago, 30 plus years ago, 30 years ago. And we didn't even win a title. If this team wins the title, all the collectibles around it go through the roof.