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Also ahead, the chip sector is looking to recoup some of those very steep losses from yesterday. Taiwan's semiconductor is out with earnings. It does have guidance above what many analysts had been anticipating. Plus, we'll give you the latest from the Republican National Convention this after Senator J.D. Vance delivered his vice presidential nomination speech last night. Let's get to the markets a day after that big sell-off in tech stocks. Jim, you did right. They're making it hard to own some of these. Yes, they are, and I know that at 3.30, the Nasdaq futures were up about 0.3, and then at 4.30, they're up to 0.6, and they brought them right down. But now we're back to 0.6, and I think that what I mentioned this only because the last half hour, even the last 15 minutes, were some of the worst I have ever seen. David, there were people who wanted to get out of stock so badly and use EETFs too, that you would have thought that tonight Taiwan's semiconductor was going to boil last night. Taiwan's semiconductor was going to blow up. That did not happen. I think that this out of tech, out of S&P, the big tech stocks, and in the Nasdaq was a program that lasted a couple days. I don't know how long it can go on. I mean, it's just a program. I mean, no, someone's motivated to bang out the semis, bang out mega, and put money in small cap, and you and I both know, because we talked about it. Small caps can't really sustain that amount of money in without just taking them all up to 4. Well, right. We talked about Bassani about the sort of the mechanics of some of the EETFs and what that will mean and how they go about mirroring the performance of the index and what they have to buy. That is something worth watching. But on the other side of this, obviously the chip sector felt dramatically yesterday. It seems largely because of the Trump comments in the interview about Taiwan as opposed to the potential for new deterrent actions by the Biden administration against foreign companies that use some U.S. parts and they're selling to China. But overall, it just tanked a lot of the semis. Right. AMD had a very bad day in video, and any number of Qualcomm go on from there. Right. Well, I do want to point out, Karl, this is something for our at-home investors. The study just came out by Arizona State University, and it looks at 100 years of returns of stocks. People say to me, Jim, why do you stick with this in video? Why did you name your dog in video? Okay. So in 100 years, the highest annualized compound return for any stock with at least 20 years of return was 33.38% earned by Nvidia shareholders. This is performing stock. Now, this is the greatest performing stock over 100 years. So no, I'm not going to flee it, because someone's got some damn program, which takes up 10 biotechs that are worth zero, and blows out of the company who's no longer in the free challenge. It was kicked down in the free trade on a club yesterday. I say welcome back. Yes. B of A today writes about the period last year where everybody lightened up on Nvidia. How was that? For idiosyncratic winners like Pins and AMD, they think this might be what they call it, a fake AI top. Well, the biggest, there was a huge day where Nvidia was down nine points versus what, you know, obviously percentage wise, very big. And I was vilified by people at a charity, a charity event. Why are you sticking with this thing? But I always, you know, I always ask them when they say that, do you know what Nvidia does? It goes higher. That's like their, nobody, I mean, you have to study Nvidia to realize that it made me part of a bigger trend. Now, I don't know if it's going to go up today, but David, over a hundred year period, the best performing stock, isn't that worth something? It's worth something, but it passed performance. Oh, what have you done for me lately versus a hundred years? I'm just saying it's kept. It's already. It's already. It's already. Brother's discovery. It's up 37 cents. Yeah. Cool. Side. Let me bring up something else, though, that is also sort of coincided with the sell-off, which is this idea that the hundreds of billions being invested by the hyperscalers, namely Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft, will not see a significant return on the invested capital over time. Roger McNamee brought it up last week on our air. He was citing a paper by a guy named David Kahn from Sequoia talking about AI $600 billion question, and then you had this report from Goldman last week as well. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet spent $357 billion on CapEx and R&D over the last four months, excuse me, four quarters, sorry, one year. And then that question as to whether or not it's and how long it's going to take for them to see any kind of a return on that. Is that melding into these questions and perhaps also part of why we've seen this violent rotation? Look, I drank the Hawaiian punch. I remember you stood there, too. I drank the Kool-Aid for Jensen because it's just, look, when he says, "Every single thing that a human can do in terms of moving, a robot can do better." What am I supposed to do? Tell Jensen, he does know what he's talking about. This means the smartest person I have ever met, also very humble, and I'm not going to say, you know what? Your 100-year return means nothing to me. Your view of the reality of where things go, and you beat a quarter by $4 billion, means nothing to me, because Roger Mack to me, who I actually really like, said, "Well, it may not pay off." And I would come at it and say, "If you don't think it's going to pay off, you ought to go buy the stock of Apple." Because everybody wants to give Apple their AI. So that's the best way to combat the negativity, is that all the hyperscalers want to give Apple the AI so that Apple can use it with its installed base of a billion people. Right, but we may be in a period where people are questioning what kind of return you're going to get, at least in the next two or three years, on this enormous investment being made, not to mention the pressure on our electric grid and so many other things that are occurring as a result of this. The electric grid got here, all the electric grid stocks killed yesterday, because of this thesis that they were overspinning. Look, Jensen, again, just quoted when he says, "Look, there's going to be winners, or maybe a winner." Now, I come back and keep thinking about the year 2000. Everyone always says, "How horrible that was." I look at Amazon. Right, there are those. I made the same point with McName when we had this conversation, which is... Yeah, but we came out of that. Yes, there was a lot that was overhyped, but ultimately much of it was underhyped because of the impact that it had. But it doesn't mean that it had that impact in the same time frame that was initially... Right, I mean, look, if you take a 100-day perspective, I bet you NVIDIA loses you money. Because they spent a lot of money. We don't know what's going on. But if you take a longer trip perspective, it's about an industrial revolution. And I believe that. What he says, like the PC, like the iPhone, but it is true. Who won in the iPhone? How many companies? Well, Apple did. But if you've picked the winners, they will return for the winning stocks during this period. I love this thing. It's 5 million percent. There's a bunch of stocks that are up 5 million percent during your period. I want to be in those. I do not want to be in the Russell 2000 Pacific Bio Science. Oh boy, that's a good one. Right, with you. Wouldn't you like to go through this churn? If, in fact, it means less reliance on 7 or 5 or 6 names? I love a broadening, but it has to stop. It can't be parabolic broadening. I look for the rest of the S&P 500. I'd like that to start trading up. And these stocks may be still loud, but they've become huge shared donors. People are selling Nvidia to buy an ETF, small cap ETF. They're not actually singly out of stocks. If they were singing out of stocks, they would never buy the stocks. And I just think that that's usually the last three days. That rotation in the historical, I don't have the 100-year timeframe. But since for about 40 years, we get a rotation that's vicious. They last three days. We're on day four. Although Wells did write, what appeared to be a pop is turning into the real thing. Chris Arvey over there upgrades the banks, maybe 15% outperformance in the next few months. Look, the banks are creatures of regulation, and they're creatures of the rates going down. That would Charlie Sharf. One week ago told you, "Look, we need rates to come down for business to come up." So, yes, rates are about to come down. Now, is it Trump's polling problem? Trump clearly is anti-regulation. And what is the most regulated stock in the country's Wells Fargo? I don't know. People are quoting Vance today. We are done catering to Wall Street and the Wall Street barons who crashed the economy ostensibly in '08. We think he was referring to. Yeah, well, look, he's the vice president to a candidate. The presidential candidate has spoken very loudly about the idea that we just cannot hamstring business. But I have to admit, I was struck. I went through a day that I thought of you immediately. I went through the speech, and I compared that to the famous 1896 Cross of Gold speech by William Jennings Bryan. Now, William Jennings Bryan, who's a great populist, he was in favor of the farmers. He felt that the Wall Street barons were selling out the farmers. Now, there's... That's true. Right. Yeah. Right. It was true. Yeah, it was true. Well, is the Wall Street barons sold out in small town of America? Maybe. I don't know. Yeah. Right. Right. They favored... William and brothers started in Alabama. I mean, you know, behind cotton, right? I know. Cotton. And they... I'm not... You're at that book, too? It's good. I've read a lot of those books. Oh, I didn't know it. Okay. So, but that's the... I don't want to get too far afield. Really? You don't want to get too far afield? No, I don't want to get too far afield. Really? That's the first time I think I've ever heard you say that in 12 years together. Okay. All my... Having been a union person and part of a... Let a Wildcat strike and help destroy a company because I was part of a union. Yes. I recognize that it's entirely possible that you could say, as I did when I was hard left, that small towns were destroyed by companies that pulled out and put factories in India rather than have an India... I don't know if you saw Trump's comments, but it's very good. Very good. He used that as the country, but India, instead of China. No, he uses the... What he's saying, what Trump is saying and what Vance is saying is that small town of America was decimated because we put factories in other countries rather than pay the tariff. And that's true. But the last time I heard that, it was from solid left-wing people, not right-wing people, not right-wing people. Part of this free-market, neo-populist debate that we'll hear maybe more about tonight as the former president formally accepts the nomination tonight. His first major... Meanwhile, it was Vance's first major speech accepting the GOP nomination for Vice President. Ayman Javors has been in Milwaukee all week, has been well-versed in this discussion, Ayman, that we're having yet again today. Yeah, that's right, Carl. You're mentioning that quote from J.D. Vance last night about Wall Street. I want to play that for you because I think it does mark a real break. I was surprised, frankly, at how much economic populism was in this J.D. Vance speech last night. We knew that this was coming with the J.D. Vance pick. We knew that Vance picked, signaled a shift in the Republican Party's thinking about the economy. But he went much more overt with it, I think, last night than a lot of people were necessarily expecting. Here's what he had to say about the Republican Party's relationship with Wall Street. Take a listen. We're done, ladies and gentlemen. Catering to Wall Street, we'll commit to the working man. We're done importing foreign labor. We're going to fight for American citizens and their good jobs and their good wages. I was just emailing earlier this morning with one of the architects of the conservative economic populist movement. I said to this person, you know, people on Wall Street are a little bit stunned, but surprised by some of that language last night. This person says they shouldn't be stunned if they've been paying attention. Probably they should take even greater note of what wasn't said in that speech last night. No mention of tax cuts, shrinking government, deregulating, or job creators. So those are the sort of archetypical Republican economic positions of the past. This is a very new Republican Party that's aimed very much at working class America. They're aimed at union voters, union participants, and they want to reach out to that base that has traditionally been a democratic political base. If they can do that, it's a sea change in the American political landscape, but it also has enormous implications. As you guys have been discussing, we've all been discussing all week enormous implications for Wall Street and for big business as well. Aiman, notable for sure, but what about the idea here in terms of how much of this is actually part of former President Trump's thinking? And how, in any way, the views and perspectives of his vice presidential nominee will actually translate into action from a potential Trump administration should he win? Right. Well look, a striking difference between that Bloomberg Business Week interview with Donald Trump earlier in the week where he was talking about, you know, he wants to keep on Jay Powell, he wants to lower the corporate rate maybe to 15% down from 21%. That stuff that Wall Street will eat up, but you know, Donald Trump has a political skill of telling different audiences exactly what they want to hear. Donald Trump in that Bloomberg Business Week article was speaking to Wall Street, right? This is the Republican Party last night speaking to Main Street and to a broad array of American voters, not just MAGA, but the rest of the country as well. Trump could have exercise, excise those lines from J.D. Vance's speech last night. They had control of the pen of what J.D. Vance was going to say. They did not do that, right? And the reason they didn't do that is because the campaign believes this is a winning message. But, Amy, you do have conflicting doctrines. On the one hand, you have a presidential candidate who favors G-regulation, which often plays to the Wall Street baron, so to speak, because G-regulation means more takeovers, it means more IPOs, it means easier business. And on the other hand, you have Vance's message, which really is not really about G-regulation, but is about protecting the working person. How do you explain the dichotomy of views? Well, look, I think if you look at the idea of the American government as a system of levers of power, right, and regulation is a lever of power that government uses over business, just think about Donald Trump's approach to governance and sort of the chips that he has on the table. I don't see Donald Trump necessarily looking to unilaterally disarm and give up levers of power, right? I mean, I think you look at Donald Trump's approach to all of the transactions, political and business in his life. He wants power. He wants to be able to use it. He has an instinct for leverage and regulation and the ability to oversee that gives a president leverage. Eight-minute will be an important night tonight, as we watch the former president's speech and acceptance of that nomination. Ayman Javer is in Milwaukee, of course, doing such great work this week. Take a look at the pre-market. Tons of calls that to get to on CrowdStrike, Palo Alto, Gap, Elf, and News on Abbott, Horton, Novartis, the airlines, dominoes, when you return. Have you met all modern? All modern brings you the best of modern furniture, and they deliver it for free in days. You heard that right. Days. That way, you get your sofa ASAP and can sit comfortably while figuring out your other modern must-haves. At all modern, you'll find only the best of modern, from Scandi to mid-century, minimalist to maximalist. Every piece is hand-vetted for quality by our team of experts and designed for real life. That's modern made simple. Shop now at allmodern.com. Imagine earning a degree that prepares you with real skills for the real world. Capella University's programs teach skills relevant to your career, so you can apply what you learn right away. Learn how Capella can make a difference in your life at Capella.edu. Alright, we're standing for today's Mad Dad. I've got an opening bell, seven and a half minutes from now. I want to talk a little meta, which, uh, Stocka, which has been down lately, quite a bell. Stock from hell. I wouldn't go that far. Okay, Stocka, this is so pretty good. The sick circle of hell with it. Hey, Dante, listen to me for a second. Yes. Okay, so this is an example of how difficult it is to get a hyperscaler, huge company, a tech titan, to move. But they take a 5% -- I'm sorry, they're taking a 5% stake, we think. It may not happen. But the journal reports it in the EFTC. They're in talks about 5% -- in... Antarctica, Essela or Luxana. Why? Because that's who makes the glasses that I keep telling you are so amazing. Yes. And the glasses, the first iteration, take pictures and Instagram, goes right there. The iteration -- they have factories in Italy, and I am told by my sources, working 24/7 to meet demand. Still doesn't mean anything, right? Because it's such a big company. But, David, the next generation, uh, I heard exactly what they can do. You can put them on. You see a crowd in front of a store. What is the crowd in front of the store at 14th and 6th? What is that? And it tells you, well, that's because they're just introducing a new shoe, like he's introducing a new shoe at that store. You ask at things, and it's AI -- instant AI. Wow. And these are 20 -- the ones that they have, David, you can't make them fast enough. Now, I asked Mark Zuckerberg to come on and talk about it. That was not happening yet. So early. But I do think that you have to watch that this is the beginning of some of the stuff that Metta does. Remember the division that just loses money, hand over fist? This is a hand over fist production. And I think that taking that steak and looks on it, 'cause S.L.R.S.H. is a very big deal. And you think this product has real legs, so to speak. Different than the Apple Vision Pro, I can remember when Zuckerberg compared the two against his reviews, so to speak. Look, they're really cool Raybans, my daughter has, and you can't -- they're not even that expensive. They're very cool Raybans, and at the same time, you can say, you know, take a picture of this. I do that, and my daughter's a real Instagrammer, and I have to tell you, David, it's cool. David, a lot of people are an Instagram. It's a big deal. That's what I hear. They're on TikTok. You see what you said at the present about TikTok. Yeah, TikTok's going to hang around. And like so before. Yeah. Hey, guess who's out of prison? Peter Navarro. But up up. A lot of your buddies are out of prison. All right, we got the opening bell just a few minutes away. It's five minutes away. You can catch us anytime and anywhere, by the way. By listening to and following the Squawk on the Street opening bell podcast. Support for this program is provided by Chevron. Demand for energy is projected to continue rising in the future. To help keep up, Chevron is increasing their U.S. oil and gas production, and they're innovating to help do it responsibly across their operations, including their Gulf of Mexico facilities, which are some of the world's lowest carbon intensity operations, helping supply energy that's affordable, reliable, and ever cleaner. That's energy and progress. Learn more at chevron.com/meetingdemand. Some more weakness in the airlines today. As United Airlines warns on Q3, actually so does Alaska gym. Although United did say that mid-August is where we might get this inflection point regarding demand and supply. I read it with on-wing. I said, "Oh, now it's August inflection." I kept thinking what you say to me almost every weekend in TSA says is the greatest week ever. I don't want to hear if it's the greatest travel week ever that I can't make money. That's the way you play it. It turns out you play it with world Caribbean, play it with Viking, but you can't play it with an airline because they're just not well-run. American Airlines is where it was during the shutdown in COVID. I found this was a very discouraging report because I said, "Look, the stock's been down. I thought that they would say some things that made me feel great. Instead, they'd give me a tease on August." I'll believe it when I say it. You're not ready to think of flyer literally on these things. No, I just don't think it. I just get very discouraged by buying airline stocks because they tend, even Delta, which is really well-run company. Missed the port at Bastions, a fantastic CEO. So I say, "Look, until the airline situation clears up with spirit where they can discount very much with JetBlue, I don't want to touch these stocks." You can own that. I don't care. I've got other fish to fry. Better. Like Abbott that we have in the next 10 o'clock. You're going to stay with us for the interview at the 10 a.m. hour. Meanwhile, Jim, talking about consumer weakness, Bayes' book, five or seven districts all flat to negative activity. Great cut, great cut, great cut. Now, there are people who are still clinging to the July getting and naturalized for no-go. But the different rate cut is so cool for so many companies that I will tell you, small and mean size business will benefit. Let's get the opening bell and see if we see real-time exchange and a big board of its healthcare provider, Argy Harp, celebrating an IPO today at the NASDAQ. It's insurance broker TWFG, also celebrating an IPO. That's why the Morgan Stanley conference call was so important. They're talking about triple the number of deals that they had last year for this time. We're going to be very busy with IPO's call, and that's very good for small and mean. Tell you, is that true service? People were looking at some chart to Schwab while we were sticking with the banks yesterday, Jim. Some of these, it's been a tough couple of days. Well, Schwab did deal. It was really more of a messaging story because people are saying they have to pay more for certain accounts, give them more interest. I have come back pretty assured from the Schwab people that there's nothing like it was in the mini-bank crisis. And people think that it was. It's not. At a certain point, it's got to step in and buy it. I think that point is now. You mentioned rate cut. Greg Epp in the journal today, adding to the why-wait camp says that if the Fed were true, we're truly data dependent, they would not wait until September. I think that that's true, but the problem with that is does that not signify some sort of worry, concern. That's not the way that I feel historically the pals worked. If they do what I would consider to be almost an emergency rate cut, then I'll say, "Wait a second. Maybe things are worse than I thought." We just say September, and we're going to do a long process. I feel much better. We can't have a number that's hot, and then have them, how do you and I say, did they move too soon? That's the cardinal sit. Did they move too soon? That's when he asked to worry. Sure, it's a TSMC. One of the larger companies in the world are up nicely this morning, guys, helping the chip sector. I'm looking in video up three and a half percent in the early-going AMD, regaining a bit of the significant ground that stock lost yesterday. Revenue expected a TSMC between 22.4 and 23.2 billion dollars. Gross profit expected to be between 53.5 and 55. That kind of guidance was, in part, what is fueling the stock, because it was a bit ahead of at least a number of the analysts who followed that company. Of course, this is, as we know, the maker of more or less manufacture of all the high-end chips in the world. It was a very good pounder, Mars, Chang, and what he was able to accomplish in Taiwan. With the help of the government, of course. And that did finger prominently into a former President's Trump's comments in that interview we've referenced any number of times earlier this week with Bloomberg Business Week. Well, the reason, if you go over to the conference, well, this CCY, the Chairman sees. Oh, it makes the point. Look, we've observed strong AI and high-end smartphone-related demand from our customers. Well, that's OK. AI is NVIDIA, and a smartphone is Apple. So you have a reason to say that this sell-off might run its course soon. I'm not going to say the point. But I just learned that it's done, Carl, because there are too many people who were trying to jam down stocks yesterday. So typically what you have is a retest, and then it goes. But there were no flies in the TSM quarter. It was true. Tons of news and consumer products and food. You've got DPZ and this discussion about international. Yeah, I did. You've got Beyond Meat. You've got Darden Chewy. And you've got Bud Light falling to third place. Well, if you go to the Darden Chewy, that was very, very cool. She spent 600 million to get a Tex-Mex chain. A lot of these companies are just for sale. Dave, you know, in the M&A side? Yeah. These medium-sized businesses are just like dying. So I point out that I thought that Darden made a good day. They had cash. They did it. And the stock is down for whatever level. What do we make of dominoes? The stock of which is down over 11 percent. They withdrew guidance for 1100 net restaurant openings due to challenges, they say, with their largest international franchisee. That was a bit of a surprise. Well, she's getting some highlights here from Kate Rogers, who covers the company closely for us as well. What, you know, you've been, I think you've been, I mean, quite awesome. I liked it since it was $10. DP Enterprises could be the reason they, 12 countries, 3,800 stores. This is a big franchisee. And they are weaker. And so the growth, the growth forecast was pulled. The growth of stores forecasts, not the actual domestic same store sales were defined. And the international growth is really, frankly, an integral portion of the story. It was very, very disappointing. Mostly because a lot of the rivals are putting the pedal to the metal on store count. This is pizza. Pizza's supposed to be the hottest area. And I, Russell Wieners, a really good CEO. This was quite surprising, because we should have had a better candle on the international. That's a very big franchisee. They're really in trouble. We should have known. It's a publicly traded stock with them. While we're in the consumer neighborhood, Amazon out with some overall framing of how Prime Day went, obviously records, as we were led to expect. Yeah, look, I think that Amazon is part of the great rotation out. I don't think you can just turn on a dime and get the thing going. There's too many people who were trying to sell in the last 15 minutes to a half hour yesterday. And what that tends to be is they didn't finish. So they will greet any lift with more selling because they made their decision to get out of Amazon. So don't panic if you see the stock not holding. It's what happens. A guy who wants to sell 10 million shares of Amazon may be sold 9 million. And he was frantically trying to sell it in the last few minutes. That guy comes back. He's already decided, I don't want Amazon. I don't know what he wants, Horton. I mean, what does he want? Guys, Blackstone reported earnings. John Gray, as he often is, a guest on Squawkbox this morning. You know, usually look for John to give us some broad commentary in the macro environment. Do you get that much from him? I'm not saying that's of any note per se, but we're not going to share anything from him specifically. As for the numbers, as you see, getting sort of a type of response from investors. And by the way, the stock should be noted as well below many of its peers. It does trade at a higher multiple to fee-related earnings than some of its other alternative asset manager competitors. But I would note, I mean, shares of Apollo up almost 30% this year. KKR up, 36%. Blue Owl up, 25%. And Blackstone barely up, up 1.8% for the year. As for the numbers themselves, the fee-related earnings came in a bit below what was anticipated, at least to take a look at Apollo. I mean, that's just a machine, what they got going on at Apollo in terms of the insurer and private credit. But back to Blackstone's numbers, they deployed $33.7 billion in new capital. That was actually up quite nicely from $24.5 billion in the first quarter of '24. That was seen as a positive. But fee-related earnings were a bit lower, as I said, than many of the analysts who follow the company had estimated they would be. Realized performance was fine. Investment performance generally positive. But it comes back to sort of this higher multiple than it does because it's Blackstone. And whether that should necessarily be the case, given what, again, Jim has been fine, but at least not a great quarter. No. And they do have some really great businesses, obviously. A lot of people feel this is the Halcyon moment for these kinds of companies, David. And that they actually do well, they would do well under Trump because of deregulation. But this is kind of what we're talking about. That Vance would be against private equity. Well, I mean, it's a lot more than private equity, in fact, as we've made the point many times. Private equity, while we still think of it, is really a small business for so many of these companies, Apollo being another name. Private credit, real estate, obviously, when it comes to Blackstone. A number of assets, generally speaking, infrastructure, amigo through so many things. Blackstone's market cap and Goldman Sachs's market cap are identical just to put that in perspective without, and Blackstone, by the way, has not done much this year. So this is an enormously important company with deep tentacles into the economy across the board in the United States and around the world. They are rigorous thinkers that have made a lot of money for people. And I'm surprised that it's not doing better, so to speak. But there's been a great investment over time. It has over time since it came public without a doubt, especially once they became C Corp. Remember when that was involved? And maybe the data center business, you can't see how valuable it is because it's buried within the company? That's right. It's owned within the real estate. But yeah, their data center business is going gangbusters. And as John Gray is always happy to point out, you know, they aren't as exposed to commercial, as you might expect, it's much more about data centers, warehouses and things of that nature, which have held up very well, and in fact, in parts grown. You know, I had first horizon on this, I call it, first horizon, which is in the growth area of the country, Nashville, Tennessee. They're saying they also have a lot of business in Florida. They're saying they're seeing increased competition for opening of accounts because other banks are coming into their area because it's the great growth area in the country, so southeast. So they're not making as much money, and the stock was hitting. I think it's a great stock. I'm thinking about what Diamond says about branches. People like to go visit their money. You would think where there's population growth, there's account growth. DFS, by the way, pretty good quarter. Net charge offs down sequentially. That was interesting. Yeah, but key was a little disappointing. I mean, it depends. It's very, by the way, Ohio figures, obviously, a center advanced from there. But there's a bunch of Ohio banks that I thought that are really doing well, but not doing well enough to inspire people to buy them. The regional banks are just okay here. It's JP Morgan. It's Wells. Morgan is still in golden. They do. Well, it's the true Wall Street balance. Wall Street balance. Guys, I did want to talk a bit about Warner Brothers Discovery. How could I not, right? I will note, of course, that Netflix's market value is well more than 10 times. Warner Brothers Discovery. We are waiting on those Netflix numbers. After the bell tonight, a lot of people getting their numbers together because you do see movement there. But let's talk about the movement here. A couple of days ago, Jessica Rieferlek wrote a report sort of unbundling. The answer was her question. All options need to be on the table. Then there's an FT story today talking about them, at least drafting breakup plans at the company itself. There's a reference to that report arguing exploring strategic alternatives, asset sales restructuring, mergers would create more shareholder value versus a status quo. That is what is going on here. Does that mean anything's going to happen? Of course not. Companies are always thinking about these things. In the case of Warner Brothers Discovery, take a look at what's happened on the stock price over the last couple of years. That doesn't even include the arcagos move higher. You can see an incredible loss of value. You're going to be very focused on making sure your stock's not seven bucks anymore. It was not far from that very recently. From what I understand, certainly they are thinking about any number of things. Is there an opportunity to create value by splitting the company perhaps into what would be a pure content company with the studio and the direct to consumer business with no debt and then putting linear assets in a separate basket, loading them up with that 35 billion or so in net debt? How would that be viewed by bondholders? What are the covenants like? Well, a lot of it is covenant light, I'm told, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't get a lot of pushback from their bondholders if they were to try to do that. But again, none of this means it's going to happen. There are any number of things that they certainly might consider. Is there a possibility of selling the Polish assets? Don't laugh. That thing does $300 million in EBITDA. And I'm told there may be at least some interest there. Whether it's at a high enough multiple for Warner Brothers Discovery to hit the bid. Unclear. Gaming. Even the likes of CNN. I mean, these are things that conceivably could be sold. Will they be? I don't know. But you would have to believe, as was in the research report report from Jessica Eperlich, that all options are kind of on the table, including strategic ones. If Trump were to come in, you heard Zazlov say this at Sun Valley last week. Well, maybe there would be Austrian on an easier regulatory environment. Would an Amazon come along and say, all right, now we'll buy you as we did to MGM. Who knows? Possible. And you also have to be aware when your stock price has fallen as much as this one has of activist investors who might be pushing something on you. Perhaps not dissimilar from the plan, at least that the various things they think about at the company. So none of which is to say any of it will happen, all of which is to say, or at least to say that all of it certainly does seem to be on the table in terms of what can we do to improve the infrastructure for this company beyond just operating the assets as they currently are constructed and dealing with what we've discussed for years and years now. The slow but steady, not even slow. The steady and significant decline in linear cable viewers. Now, can you you mentioned that one of them would be debt free? They would spin off what's root debt, why would they do that? Don't you want to both load some of this horrible debt? Well, you want to offload it to the to the linear. You want to separate that out, you put all the debt on that, and then you have a pure play content company, Jim. Well, that would be the idea. So you'd have the studio and all the content making together with the content distribution in the streaming world, and then you'd have the old media, so to speak, which does generate a good amount of cash flow being the key there in terms of meeting the interest panelists. Do you remember when you and I suggested to that great American, Jeff Dukis, that they should do this? Yeah. And remember what he said to me? What do you say? You don't know anything. Meanwhile, Dukis did. He hit the bed. He did create a lot of value. He came along. He was very happy to see them, and he did a good job for shareholders. Sure did. Very smart. So, you know, we'll continue to keep an eye on that. The nearest term thing, though, from Warner Brothers Discovery, as I said many times, and I'm going to remain focused on is the NBA. This is any day, any hour now. We're going to get at least some details here in terms of what are they really matching, and what are the matching rights there that they have. And as I've said any number of times, you could see this thing end up in litigation. That'll be a story. Warner Brothers Discovery suing the NBA. I hear their lawyer enough at the NBA, so perhaps they're ready for what may come as a result of, again, Warner Brothers Discovery saying, "Hey, we'll match that Amazon package." And the NBA is saying, "Well, not really, because you're not really a pure streamer." And Warner Brothers Discovery is saying, "Well, we have a deal to match. "It was written 10 years ago, and you're not going to honor it. "Well, then we're going to sue on behalf of our shareholders." So, you got that going, too. Well, I do the disparity between what the NFL got, and the NBA is what made me say. I can't believe the NFL might not try to renegotiate, because the NBA is worth a lot. I think the NFL feels like it's the best of the world. And it is surprising that the NBA deal works in 76 billion over what 10, 11 years, right? That's a pretty big number. Really big. But I think the NFL does a fabulous job. I am surprised that they're not making more money versus the NBA. We, of course, parent company of NBC were one of the key reasons why the NBA deal got so high. Yeah, very important. But again, we haven't seen any of this done yet, so to speak, but we're waiting. And meanwhile, Carl, it's important to point out that, like I said, the sellers are back in these big tech companies, and they're just saying, "Listen, I got to get out. I got to get out." It's the same level of panic that we saw. You have to let them be. You have to let them come in and bang these stocks up. Don't be a hero. While we're talking streamers, Netflix tonight, Jim, I think I counted four price increases in the last two days. Although there's also the expectation of the fewest subabs, it adds in eight quarters. I continue to think that if you have something, if you have an option with some commercials, that younger generation, the frugal generation, I'm calling them. They say, "Yeah, you know what? I'll watch the ad. I don't want to pay up." And that frugal generation is making a lot of money for Netflix, because ad support is really great. As they figure out how to connect ads to the target ads, the ads are going to get the highest so-called CPMs. So I think Netflix is really smart and figuring out exactly what ad they should show to what people are good. Meantime, nice round of upgrades for retailers, Morgan Stanley Up's Gap, CD Up's VF Corp, and Baird Up's Elf. Yeah, now we go over those. Elf is because they make their stuff in China. People are fearful of Trump. VF Corp is, frankly, the balance sheet got fixed by the sell of Supreme. So people feel back and down is going to pull that one, that turn around off. And Gap's source is just not recognized as be. We recognize A&F, Abercrombie's being great. Gap is the one that's having the great resurgence. And it's really well run now. It is? Dixon, yes. I think that that sucks. I'm not saying he's a steal in his market, but I think the Gap stores, which had traded much higher, has come down enough that Mr. Dixon at 12 times earnings, I'll take it. It's not bad. I just can't. I love, "Rack and Darryl." How can that guy not win with that name? Well, a guy named "Rack and Darryl" is going to win. No, my father always said a guy with two first names. Stay away. A guy with two last names, blah, blah, blah. That is one good, strong. I mean, a great last name. I have another chance to name him. I might go with "Rack and Darryl Faber." I might just go right there. I'd go with him. That's unstoppable. No, "Rack and Darryl" is a "Rack and Darryl." He turned around, "Rack and Darryl." Watch out for that "Rack and Darryl." It's coming barreling towards you. "Rack and Darryl" is going to fix VF Corp. He's an old proctoring gamble, man. He's too riffing. He's going to fix it. That's as good as any investment advice you could give. The Diaspora. Yeah, the Diaspora. I like that. But, although I stay lawyers, I got hurt there and I ask for that. What about "S" they love her? What about the Diaspora? That's a good answer. Never mind. You're mumbling. Yeah. Domino's Pizza. Didn't own it. Just south of 5600, watch "Bons" today, "Bizzy Day" in fixed income. Claims were a bit elevated. Continuing claims. Again, highest since 2021. We've got three Fed speakers on deck. Philly Fed is already on the tape in LEI. In a few minutes, stay with us. Abbott Labs is a little bit lower today after a good quarter. 114 beats 110. They raise the guidance. We're going to talk to the CEO in the next hour. Jim, you like the print? Yeah, I look like John St. John's was down very big initially, and then it ended up being up 5. Who do us where these go? People don't understand the story. They don't understand the litigation. That's fine. Maybe we'll enlighten people when Mr. Ford comes home. In the meantime, pretty subdued. Headline tape dows up 9. Squawk on the street continues in just a moment. Jim, you're going to come back for Abbott. What's on that tonight? We have the number one beer. We have Madella. We have Constellation Brands. The stock is up very big today. But it's been rocky. Those are the usuals, the GOP-1s and cannabis. So we'll talk a little bit about it. Yeah, we mentioned Bud Light falling behind. I think it's Michelobaltra and Madella especially. Which is an Anheuser beer. Michelobaltra. Right. They did get number two. But yeah. But at the same time, I mean, it is amazing. You have people worried about Constellation, because of the 10% tower from Mexican beer under Trump. And also, because people feel that it's tied in with illegal immigration, which is something I don't even want to go there in Hispanics. What I would say is that it's a growth beer, and they have a lot of different products, but right now it's misunderstood because of the GOP and cannabis, not because of illegal immigration. I miss you owning the bar and getting us real-time data. I tell people I'm constantly about this stuff. About cannabis. Can you get the bar back? No, because my wife owns a Mezcal company. You can't own them. In this country, you can't own a bar and also a liquor company. I miss the bar. This was the time of year we don't go. We'd have the big party. I love the bar, but she, no. We've got to be in plus 4-0. I think she's very happy. She's doing well in that product. We'll see in a few moments. Do you have some breaking economic data after the break in LEI? Don't go anywhere? You've been listening to the opening hour of CNBC's Squawk on the Street. All opinions expressed by the Squawk on the Street participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBC Universal, or their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet, or another medium. 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