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Visit chevron.com/anker. It's Jim Kramer here. You're listening to the opening bell on CNBC's Squawk on the Street. Don't miss a minute of the action. Good Tuesday morning and welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm David Faver with Sarah Eisen and Bob Pissani. We're live in post-90 in the New York side. Good change, calls on assignment. And Jim has a well-earned day off. Let's give you a look at futures before we start trading a half hour from now. We are set up for what appears to be a higher open and that gets us to our roadmap, which does, as you might expect, begin with the market. That rally rolls on down the S&P, both coming off fresh records. Energy is leading the way to start this week. Plus, speaking of energy, energy secretary Jennifer Granholm will join us live here at Post-9 after ringing the opening bell, chucking everything from oil prices to the reopening of Three Mile Island. And the CEO of Novo Nordes set to testify before a Senate panel this morning over the high prices of its popular weight loss drugs. We're live in DC ahead of that hearing. All right, let's start with the markets. And of course, what is a record run that continued yesterday? Bob Pissani, nice to have you here at the desk. And a good way to start the morning in terms of just give us a sense here as to where we are, what you expect as we wrap up September. This week, as I have listened to you, typically not a great one for the market in terms of history. There are two really bad weeks and we are in them. Last two weeks of September are traditionally the worst two weeks of the year. And of course, so far, everything's been wrong. September is also the worst month of the year. Normally, it's down one, two percent. Last few years, it's been down four percent and yet we're up one percent. So this holds you about the value of being careful about thinking that events that happen in the past necessarily predict the future. With all that said, I think there's a lot of reasons to be positive. We've talked about this a lot here. But the Fed is in easing mode, that is a huge positive right now. The economy, there is no recession that is going on. You could say it's slow down, but there's certainly no recession going on. Inflation is declining, earnings are growing. Yes, there are some negatives that are out there. Jamie Diamond highlighted one of them today, but we talked about the seasonality factor that's generally weighs on stocks in September and into October. That's certainly in the middle of that. We have the elections coming up, a little uncertainty around that. And Jamie Diamond, speaking about geopolitical risk today as well, I think if you ask me, David, the thing that I find a little bit worrying is the markets, and Sarah, maybe you have thoughts on this, the markets really discounting an enormous amount of rate cuts out there. We have another what? On top of the 50, we're already at least another 150 basis points and cuts. 200 till the end of next October, so it's very excited about rate cuts. So that's a lot of expectations for a lot of rate cuts. And in a sense, to me, that's a little bit of a risk now because once again, just like they did a year ago, they're getting ahead of themselves in terms of how much the Fed, they were wrong last year of the market about when the Fed was going to begin cutting rates and how much, and I think they're probably a little bit aggressive. So if you ask me, that's a little bit of a risk in the markets, but right now, boy, if you just look at the sector leaders, they are not indicating there's any slowdown, any kind of recession out there. The leadership groups are consumer discretionary and industrials, new highs for industrials. You wouldn't get that if there was a belief the economy was going into a recession. The other major leadership group, of course, is interest rate sensitive sectors. Those are utilities and real estate. Utilities have got a whole other thing going. They are now essentially an AI play because of the power generation capacity, which is one reason we have the number one stock out there. S&P 500, Vistra, which is essentially a power generation company. Yes, it's. Outdoing NVIDIA. It's performance has displaced NVIDIA this year now. Yeah, amazingly enough. It's a somewhat $38 billion market cap company. Yeah, and kind of came out of nowhere. They had a little bit of a merger recently, but who would have thought that a power generation company? Who would have thought utilities, which were always just an interest rate sensitive play. Rates go down, utilities go up reflexively. But now, all of a sudden, utilities and power generation are kind of caught up in the entire AI debate that's out there. And of course, this company we're referring to, Vistra Corporation, is now the number one performer on the S&P 500, replacing NVIDIA largely, of course, as a power generation story. Really remarkable. I mean, you laid out a lot of reasons why the market has been bullish. What's interesting today is that there was a new catalyst that we hadn't been including before, which was China. And there was a bit of a surprise there in terms of doing more to stimulate the economy. And it came from the Chinese central bank overnight. And I was saying the anticipation was building yesterday when they announced a special meeting. And they announced some things. They're going to cut rates, their reserve ratio rates. That's by 50 basis points, another 25 they promised by the end of the year. They lowered their seven-day reverse repo rate by 20 basis points. They cut mortgage rates and down payments for second homes. They are helping stock stability funds. They cut the minimum down payment to buy a home as well, right? Yeah, as you took 15 percent. Right. And they're trying to boost their stock market as well. Was it the big bazooka that the markets have been waiting for? No. Was it fiscal? No. Does it stimulate the consumers? Maybe. But does it show that the Chinese want to try to boost their economy and perhaps achieve their 5% growth target? Yes. And that's a positive sign. It's why the Chinese stock market jumped 4% overnight and why that's translating into some of the gains. Not just for the ADRs here, but the commodities as well leading today, everything tied to China, iron ore, energy. It's been a weak China story. If there's a bit of a China resurgence on the back of monetary policy, that just adds to all the stuff that you've been pointing to because we haven't included that. Do they have more room now to do that in part because we lowered rates? Yes. And therefore they don't have to worry as much about, I guess, capital flight or things like that. Capital flight with a weaker currency, right? So now that the US has gone a little bit bigger on the monetary policy side, it buys room for everybody else to go a little bit bigger on the monetary policy side. But don't you think this is significant? I mean, maybe you're right. It's not a bazooka, but it's a mini bazooka. The Chinese leadership has made it clear they don't like big stimulus package. They don't like helping out the China billionaires anymore. They're trying to move away from that. So in a sense, this is a concession. The real estate market is not doing well. The stock market's not doing well. Chinese personal savings rates are at all time high because Chinese consumers' investors don't see anywhere to put their money. I think it's a pretty strong package. If it's not a bazooka, it's a pretty strong package. No, and it's an aggressive monetary policy package. The most aggressive we've seen since the pandemic from China, but the thinking is with the property market so weak and the spending and savings numbers so weak, it's going to take some fiscal stimulus. And we haven't gotten that piece of it out of China. So that's why I say it's not the bazooka necessarily, but clearly it's a positive signal and the markets are taking it. Well, look what's going on in Europe. Look at gold mining stocks, Anglo-American, all the big mining companies, Antofagasta, Rio Tinto. Everything's up 4% in Europe right now. They've done fairly well on the year. Glencore, Arsalor, Mittal are all up. The luxury, which has had a terrible year. LVMH was at a new low just the other day. They're up about 4%. I see Burberry curing. Well, that's all right. That's all China related as a result. That said to your points, Sarah, the Chinese have not really taken the so-called bazooka out. And really done the kind of thing that many anticipate they need to truly support the consumer. The man's side stimulus. Correct. Fiscal stimulus. And depending on who you talk to, the loss is so-called. And the property sector could be as much as I know there are some firms that say 18 trillion dollars. It's a lot helpful to you. How do you bottom that out is a real question. Between that and then the equity market, which is also, I mean, been weak for the last, I don't know, three years or so. No, 15 years. I don't know if we can put up the Shanghai stock exchange, but the Shanghai stock exchange is now the, which is the main market there, is now trading where it was in 2007. Remember, China had the enormous move up in the mid-2000s, of course, on the whole thing of the redevelopment and has gone essentially nowhere for the last 17 or 18 years. It's not only Shanghai, and by the way, Shanghai is down about, I think, 74% this year, but Hong Kong, same thing. You would think like, more offshore stuff. There it is. There's the Shanghai. Do we have a 20 year? Yeah, yeah, this is where it was. Look, in 2007, and this is the main exchange. Shenzhen is not much different. Shenzhen is a different exchange, but has more technology-related stocks. And Hong Kong is trading where it was. I don't know if you can put up the Hang Seng index, where it was in 2006, essentially. So you have 18 years of investment here that essentially hasn't produced anything. And, of course, there you go. Essentially, where we were in 2006 for the Hang Seng. Even technology ETS, we talk about stocks that trade here, like Alibaba trades right behind us. Kweb, which is the ETF for the China stocks, the China tech stocks that trade outside of China. That hasn't gone anywhere, either. KWEB, if you can put that up, that went public in 2013. It's basically all the big China tech stocks. It's where it was back in 2013. It's essentially not far from new lows. There you go. There you see that going all the way back. And so, China investors are out there trying to say, "Sara, what should we do?" It's China investable. You've talked about that many times. And there are now ETFs out there that X China out. There are emerging market ETFs that X China out, because so many people feel, first of all, in terms of investments, it's been a disaster. In second, ideologically, whether or not we want to do that. Well, that's the thing. So when you ask whether China's investable and whether investors today are wondering, "Okay, should we get back in?" There are a number of considerations that make it more complicated than just they're stimulating their economy from a monetary policy perspective. And the main one is the trade tensions and the geopolitics and the fact that the Biden administration has kept the Trump administration tariffs in place. They've taken a hard line against China on things like semiconductors and advanced manufacturing with those export controls. And both sides, it's one point of agreement between Harris campaign and Trump campaign talks tough on China. So we are setting up for more of a... Yes, we'll talk a bit later about, we'll take a look at Deere shares. Of course, Trump talking tough about Mexico now as well. Significant tariffs there for companies that move their business to Mexico. Let's talk a little tech here, guys. Playing a major role, of course, in this run. No surprise there. Tesla, by the way, is back in positive territory for the year after being down. More than 25% as I recall, at least, at its lowest. Meta also rallying to a record high, although the multiple remains. 22. Yeah. 22. 23. We talked about this yesterday. Given the fact that it's up 60% this year, it's really kind of exciting because you actually have a company here that had a very rough patch around virtual reality. Of course, the metaverse has pivoted, in all respects, I think, excellently towards back to AI. Back to AI, well, you had the year of efficiency in the middle there as well. So you had significant job cuts which were certainly embraced by many investors. And then to your point, obviously, the pivot to AI. I still called meta some very positive stories of late about their sunglasses as well. And what they can do, Sarah, in terms of being able to take pictures, it's very good for people who create content, for example, and take videos. I don't know if you have a pair. >> I don't. >> With the kids, I don't actually know. >> No, I don't. >> Well, it's the meta AI thing that's really kind of amazing. Essentially, it's helping go into all of their products and essentially be able to ask. So you can go down Facebook now and just have a meta overlay and really help you answer questions. That, to me, is really remarkable. That's the pivot to AI. >> Right. Well, the idea that you'll have these glasses on and you can actually, I can look and they'll tell me everything I need to know that Bob is signing, not that I don't already, but of course, if I know too much. >> Yes, I probably did. I would share it though. >> And in the voice of Judy Dench. >> And in the voice of Judy Dench, right? >> Here's the celebrity voices for Meta's AI chat bot. It's in a eclectic mix. John Senna has a ton of fans. Look, there's a note. >> Yeah, I love John Senna. I can't hear that, it's great. >> There was a note from Citi this week, actually saying that we're estimates were taken up because of some Citi proprietary data they were looking at for reels and the video service of Meta saying the company's short video service is showing good momentum on the ad space. And so good numbers potentially for October 23rd. That was a similar reason for Tesla too yesterday, by the way, there were some notes, positive notes, a Barclays note in particular about delivery numbers. So we're going to get deliveries and as the next potential catalyst here. And Barclays was saying there's a little more upside than consensus on deliveries. Consensus is 461,000 deliveries. The key things that this Barclays analyst, the number goes a little bit higher than there. And that could add to even more momentum ahead of another catalyst in October, which is the robo-taxi day, which is I think October 10. >> Yeah. >> Corteso. >> Yeah, I mean, obviously notable. It is back in the black up, 0.61%, but hey, it approaches an $800 billion market cap again. We did have Tim Cook saying some things about artificial intelligence as well. I think he was a guest of Jimmy Fallon last night on the NBC show, The Tonight Show. Take a listen. >> Apple intelligence is coming next month. And so it comes in October. It'll start with things like summarization of your emails, which is huge for me because I get hundreds a day. And you know, one little click, and all of a sudden it's summarized this long email. >> Really? >> Yeah. You can do gin moji, you can do image playgrounds, lots of really things that you do every day. >> Yeah, nice little walk there by the lake in Central Park. I think if I recognize that. >> I have been waiting for a little self-respect. >> This apple intelligence thing. And what excites me is the personal digital assistant. Bob 2.0, Sarah 2.0, David 2.0, that will actually sit by us and really actually help us manage our life. Not just like what's in the next plane to Miami, but just generally sit there and provide us help just getting through the day. And the question is whether or not this can sit resident on your phone and not be some server somewhere where it's going to be the ultimate hack of all time. It looks to me like Apple is insisting this apple intelligence data is going to be resident on the phone and that will provide the protection, hopefully to allow something like a personal digital assistant to really flourish. That's going to be the ultimate app, I think. If it works like what they're saying, it's going to be amazing. But it's in the execution where all of us really kind of has problems, we'll see. >> All right, coming up with to expect from Novo Nordus CEO, that'll be the next hour. He testifies at a Senate hearing. This is lawmakers are looking to ask questions, of course, on those high prices for the weight reduction drugs will go the end of zemping. There's a look at futures. Bob's already told you, September typically doesn't look too often in the green, but that has been the case thus far as we wrap up the months last week. >> This episode is brought to you by AARP. Ten years from today, Lisa Schneider will trade in her office job to become the leader of a pack of dogs. As the owner of her own dog rescue, that is. A second act made possible by the reskilling courses Lisa's taking now with AARP to help make sure her income lives as long as she does. And she can finally run with the big dogs. And the small dogs who just think they're big dogs. That's why the younger you are, the more you need AARP. Learn more at aarp.org/skills. >> Whether you're scouring business financial sites or listening to economics podcasts like this one, you'll find there's no secret to successfully managing your company's finances for the future. You just need PNC corporate and institutional banking. 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Tell us what we can expect Angelica. >> Yeah, David. Novo CEO Lars Fjorgard Gorgensen planning to make the case that ozempic and Mugobi are worth paying for. Gorgensen saying that no single company can solve the challenges of the complex U.S. health care system. He doesn't go quite as far here as he does in his written statement, where he clearly names PBMs as the problems. He plans to promise that Novo will work with the committee on policy solutions to address the structural issues that harm patients to drive up costs. And that Novo will never stop working to cure diabetes and obesity. What's not in here though, is a direct acknowledgement of the price of wagovi and ozempic in the U.S. versus other countries. Senator Bernie Sanders pointing out that obesity drug wagovi goes for $1,300 a month in the U.S. Well, it's available for just $92 in the U.K. Jorgensen planning to spend a lot of time on the decades of work that have gone into developing ozempic in wagovi. And he'll also touch on the $30 billion that Novo is spending on manufacturing the drugs. He'll also get into how much the diabetes and obesity costs the U.S. every year, making the case that these drugs are worth paying for. And he mentions that hopefully soon Medicare will cover wagovi for seniors without addressing how Medicare will actually pay for that. So we'll expect to hear more on that, guys. Angelica, you know, that differential in price though for countries that have nationalized health services that I guess pay in a different way. I mean, in a sense, the U.S. consumer seems to be subsidizing the cost of drug development so that these guys can buy it more cheaply than we can. So I'm sure we'll hear, and they talk about this a little bit in the testimony, is that the prices are not necessarily apples to apples. So even though wagovi is $1,300 a month, that's what the list price is. The price that PBMs pay is actually much lower. And in the testimony, they talk about how the price of ozempic, the net price, has actually gone down about 40% since that drug was launched a few years ago, and wagovi is tracking similarly. So they're going to make the case that you can't directly compare these, and that the price is already coming down. And also that Medicare could soon negotiate the price of ozempic, and also there is this competition in the private market from Eli Lilly and other companies. So they're making the case that the price is already coming down, and you can't directly compare what we pay here versus what we pay in other countries. Right. Can they also make the case in terms of the health care costs that will be saved as a result of people obviously not being as fat, and therefore not having as many health complications that come along with that? Yeah, you see that in the written testimony where they talk about all of the prices that we pay. I think it's something like $2 trillion the cost associated with obesity here in the US, saying that this is worth paying for. But again, these are expensive drugs. If everyone who needed them was on them, there's a real question of can we afford that? And I expect that you'll hear a lot about that today. And I'm sure there will be a direct question on, you know, will you lower the price of these drugs? All right, Angelica, thanks for getting us ready. We'll obviously monitor it, certainly the Q&A as well. Angelica peoples back in the DC for us. Still to come, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will join us here at Post 9. Oil prices, three mile island. Among the issues we're going to discuss. Take another look at your futures as we head into the opening bell. We're pointing higher again. Dow futures up almost 100 points. S&P futures up 9. Building on these record highs we've seen in the market lately. More squawk on the street when we come right back. 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LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. - Some headlines on Levi Strauss, the Financial Times reporting the company's target of hitting nine to $10 billion in revenue by 2027 would be pushed back as rising costs of living hit Western consumers in particular, even as the company expands store openings. Meantime, Levi's is also teasing a jeans collab with none other than Beyonce, posting it on Instagram yesterday and even tagging her, which got people excited. Of course, this makes a lot of sense because Beyonce had her first country album this year. And she had a song on the album called Levi G. So. - Wow, what a tie-up. (bell ringing) Where's the opening bell? Take a look at the real time exchange. Here's the big board. Secretary of Energy's Jennifer Granholm, commemorating Climate Week. She's gonna join us on such a spinous amount over the NASDAQ identity security company, Cyber Arc. That's celebrating its 10th listing anniversary. Any broader takeaway, Sarah on "Malivai," at least news being reported by the FT? - I think that it's challenging for any retail companies right now, even if jeans are popular and they're changing styles and they're doing well, just because insulation has thrown a wrench in consumer pocketbooks and it's needed harder to make these long-term targets. I guess that would be the only takeaway of that. And Levi, you know, Michelle Gus is the new-ish CEO there. She's gotta keep momentum going beyond just jeans. And the good thing for her is that Denum is very trendy right now. Jean Jackets, Jean Dresses, Jean Skirts, we're all wearing them and that's helpful. But there's a lot of competition like everybody and so that's going to be the challenge. As far as the long-term goal, last year, end of year, I think they were about a little over $6 billion. So you can see why it would be hard to achieve the $10 billion, 2027 revenue target in light of that. But to your earlier point, David, if you look at what's at the top of the market right now, it's China related. I mean, everything from tapestry to Estee Lauder to win resorts. These companies haven't had the China tailwind for a while because China hasn't done that much to stimulate. So announcing this new package of measures overnight, a lot of them having to do with monetary policy and housing, certainly giving a little bit of a hope and a boost that translates beyond just the Chinese market into a lot of these US names, Nike too. Tesla's in there as well. Tesla's continuing- - Yeah, that's funny. I looked at Starbucks, that's one that's not up. But when you think about the big ones, Apple, obviously Tesla, Nike, Starbucks. Caterpillar, Estee Lauder, tapestry. - And all the Chinese stocks. Alibaba was trades right here behind us. - Yeah. - It's a big deal to Alibaba. - You've got JD.com also strong. - And you've got Baba of over 6%. Perhaps there's a belief that this is only the first in what will be a series of moves meant to stimulate consumer demand in the countries. We've discussed many times, of course. It's always been an export-led economy, but they have really been putting the pedal to metal when it comes to exports, subsidies, obviously, for so many of the industries, whether it be solar, which essentially the Chinese control, whether it be battery technology. Again, which the Chinese essentially control, and obviously flooding the world, not this country, probably never here with EVs. - And you see Alibaba up here. They just had something very important happen a few weeks ago. They have a dual listing now in Hong Kong, a dual primary listing, it may surprise people. The Chinese average mainland Chinese consumer has a very difficult time accessing a company like Alibaba, the trades here, it's a primary listing. And they changed this to a primary dual listing in Hong Kong a few weeks ago. What that means is mainland consumer investors can now buy Alibaba, potentially, through the Hong Kong Shanghai Connect. There's a stock connect line that allows mainland investors to buy these stocks that they weren't allowed to do before. Potentially, this allows a much broader participation by consumers in China for stocks like Alibaba that were very difficult to acquire prior to this. So this happened just about two weeks ago. - When you were talking about China flooding the world and over capacity, I thought you were gonna mention steel because you gotta watch US Steel today. We've got a big interview in the 11 o'clock hour with the CEO of US Steel, Dave Burret. Haven't heard from him too much in this whole sale process. - No. Right now, it rests with Siphias. This is the government agency chaired by Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary of whether they will get approval to be acquired by Nippon Steel from Japan. And of course, the consideration there is on national security. President Biden has come out against the deal. Kamala Harris has come out against the deal. Donald Trump has come out against the deal. And I'm very curious to talk to him about what he says are the economic benefits and necessities of having this deal. - Well, just the latest news tag. And there's news every day on this. - Well, the stock has moved up appreciably in part because it did appear that the deal might be blocked in the near term. That is no longer going to be the case it would seem. And Burret has been outspoken in terms of at least saying, if we can't do this deal, we're moving out of Pittsburgh. We're closing the Mon Valley plant at least over time. I'd be curious to see what he says. The man you also want to hear from of course is the men who runs the United Steel Workers Union because they remain very much in favor of, or against a Nippon deal. And in part in favor of something Cleveland clefs. And I just saw Lorenzo here as well, I think. - He's here with the energy secretary. - Yes, Dave McCall is the, as Sarah just said, is the man I'm talking about in terms of the. - But the latest is Nippon, his chairman, or vice chairman, says come to the table. He's calling on the steelworkers to come that they haven't even come to the table. And that appears to be a very big option. - I'm not sure an expert in yet another area that I used to typically focus on, Sarah. It's nice. - It's a deal, are you saying? - No, takeovers. - A takeovers. - Yeah, syphias. Yeah, it's amazing, Bob. It never ends. Sarah's ability to-- - The revs of her knowledge. - Never seizes. - To continue to-- - It never seizes to amaze. - It's too amazing. - It's incredible. - She can go deep on Levi's and now on syphias. - That's why we have her. - Not that bad. - That's why we have her. That's why we have her. - You can see the China influence here. Metals and mining stocks up, energy up, materials all up. But other than that, tech's getting a nice lift today. And the things that were leadership, like real estate and utilities, down a little bit. So here's this, you know, broad rally. Two to one to advance into the climbing stocks. On days when the old leadership and utilities, real estate, even healthcare, not doing well, tech kind of comes forward. This is why you have such a great market. It just keeps rotating around. And when you look around for the month, mega cap tech, which is a laggard group, not doing so bad after Amazon's up eight percent, Metas up eight, Microsoft's up four, Apple's up one. And Vinny's down two percent. And that's considered a laggard at this point. And today you see the influence of China here. All of these stocks, Las Vegas, Ants, Albemarle, Freeport, Wind Resorts, all in some way, China related. So when you look around and you see, it's easy to see why strategists are getting really excited. And by the way, the strategists are way behind. You know what I did yesterday, Sara? I looked at where the strategists were. 20 big strategists, the high and the low. Right now, the median strategists, year-end target, 5600 on the S&P. Hello, we're up 5723 on the S&P. >> They're going to rate their target? >> That's the median. The average is 5483 here. The high one is Julian Emanuel at Evercore. He has 6,000 for the year-end target. He's the high one and we're 250 points away from 6,000 on that one. So look at this, this is where we are. We're 20 of the top strategists on Wall Street. The high is Julian Emanuel. >> He's going to join us next hour. >> 6,000, the low is 4200. I believe that's a JP Morgan. The median where 50% or above or less is 5600. Remember we're 5722 and the average is 5400. So the strategists again are way, way behind where the market is actually going. Now, heaven knows, we may end up at 5600 on the year. So the long three months to the end of the year, so we don't know. But the point is, right now, the average strategist is way behind. >> Ooh, what a thought. We would have had a soft landing and rate cuts, you know, with the stocks at a record high. >> Approaching, yeah, 20% about the S&P and the NASDAQ. Guys, I did want to mention a deal, a fairly large one in terms of a go private of the likes of which we have not seen that much this year. Smart sheet. >> Really, it's a news alert? Okay, got it. >> Well, that's a record high for the Dow. That's the news alert. The statistically insignificant index, but we want to let you know, which nobody follows, and nobody tracks. >> That's true, people do follow the Dow. >> Well, they follow it, but no money managers benchmark against it. >> Even the ETF business, this DIA has, which is the ETF for the Dow. It's insignificant amounts. >> Thank you. >> But we still want to bring you that news alert. Then you just saw some news about smart sheet. Let's tell you about this, because this is, as it was about to say before we had that important news alert, enterprise work management platform, and it's getting bought, taking private, $8.4 billion. This had been reported on, let's call it July 18th, somewhere in there initially, and that was, so you're talking about a 16% premium to what had been the least a 12 month closing high prior to news reports, or what we call then what became the affected stock price, the unaffected stock price prior to that. Also a 41% on the 90 day volume weighted average price. Again, unaffected stock price, and they do expect it to close by January 31. No news here, and specifically, it's Blackstone and Vista, they're splitting it. Not the first time they've done that, partnered on a deal earlier this year's as well, a smaller deal, energy exemplar, also been some cases where they've sold assets to each other, I think this is agreed to sell a majority stake in SEVENT, to Blackstone, that was another public to private deal, that was 4.6. But the numbers here are high, it's got the 45 day go shop, as you typically see included many of these go privates, and you can see the stock is reacting a bit given where the close is going to be. No news on financing, I'm always kind of curious, we've talked about many times over the last few years, the fact that the banks have been very much disintermediated by private credit, when it comes to financing deals of this type. Again, we haven't seen Sarah that many of them, and certainly not the likes of an $8.4 billion go private, but splitting the equity check helps there, when you get to a size of this type, because you are talking about a fairly significant-- Are we gonna see more of those? You know, all year long, possibly, I mean, rate cuts certainly don't hurt, in terms of the cost of borrowing. You need to have, as importantly, if not more so, sort of a sense, you know, on the buyers that prices are stable and that, okay, I can engage here, because I believe the economy is stable, I don't think that software, SaaS companies are now overvalued, that has been a gating issue. And we have not seen as many go privates, perhaps as many have thought, we also are not seeing nearly Bob Passani, the exits that so many private equity firms or alternative asset managers look for, in terms of the public markets. In fact, many of the exits now are private to private, because companies still don't come public. And I cover this very carefully in the ETF market, which is tying itself into a pretzel, trying to figure out how to offer private equity and private debt. State Street just announced a new ETF, where they're gonna have partly private debt in it, a very interesting offer that's generated a lot of interest in the community. The real problem, of course, is you can't get private equity, private debt in an ETF structure very easily, and so there are people who are demanding this, I just got back from the Future Proof Conference, I talked to 100 RIA's, they all said, how do we get access, our clients want access and private equity, private debt, and we can't get access? >> I think it's funny, 'cause again, I've mentioned this interview a number of times, but Apollo's Mark Rowan, I mean, I think there's some are, they're working on products exactly the likes of what you're talking about. >> They're very involved in the state street. >> Yes, that's right. >> So they're actually selling the deal to the private equity, excuse me, the private credit part to State Street, and very interesting is, who's determining the price, is how does that all go around? That's a difficult thing to figure out at this point, but you can see the business, the ETF business, just desperately trying to figure out a way to do it, and you can't do it easily in an ETF structure, because you have to create and redeem shares, and you have underlying-- >> Well, you don't have to actually look-- >> You don't have to actually look-- >> You have not, that's the problem. You can't really do it that easily, so they're tying themselves in the knots to figure out ways to buy stuff from people, and then of course you have to go back and forth, or who's going to set the prices when you sell it back to them, it's all a very interesting question. But you're right, the real problem is, why are more companies going public? Back in the 90s, they complained, oh, there's too many young companies, and there's too much volatility around young companies. Would you rather have that problem, or this problem, we have middle-aged companies sitting around for 10 years? >> Well, that's in part because there's so much-- >> I'm far out there. >> There's so much capital available to them as they stay private. I want to get to the bond market real quickly here, before we head to a break. Check out how treasures are faring this morning. Of course, we've talked a lot about the Chinese, and the stimulus that they've added to their economy, in part because, of course, now, at least they aren't to compete in terms of capital flight, but SARS made this point where we're almost 3.8, above where we were on yield, prior to the Fedmo. >> 3.64, which was 10 years before the Fed. >> We'll be right back. Take a look, cheers, of constellation energy. You can see it's quite a week, of course. The main news there, turning back on one of the reactors at Three Mile Island, which had been decommissioned not that long ago, in order to power data centers from Microsoft into the future now, and they were trying to move that along as quickly as possible, according to some reports. Governor Josh Shapiro actually also getting involved, saying, yeah, let's get this done fast. You can see it's pulling back a bit today. >> Energy and focus this morning. Oil prices are climbing 2%, rising tensions in the Middle East, China stimulus, all in play. Also news that Pennsylvania's governor is urging fast-track approval for that Microsoft deal to revive part of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant amid growing AI data center demand. Nobody better to discuss all of this than the Energy Secretary of the United States, Jennifer Grant-Hall, who joins us here first on CNBC at Post 9. Madam Secretary, nice to see you. >> Great to be here, thanks so much for having me. >> So just in terms of news of day on oil prices, China's in there a little bit, it's been weak demand. And then the Middle East as tensions escalate between Israel and Hezbollah, I do wonder what you think the scope is for a wider regional escalation that could potentially involve more directly Iran, the big producers? >> Yeah, I mean, everybody is watching this and seated at the end of their chairs for a variety of reasons, not just because of oil prices, of course. But it's one of the reasons why honestly, being Energy Secretary at this time has been so rewarding is because we have really been investing, obviously we've seen record amounts of oil production, record amounts of gas production, but we've also seen record amounts of renewables generated on the grid, like unbelievable amounts. We had 30 Hoover dams worth of clean power added to the grid this year, we are having 30, that's a huge amount of added power, clean power. So it's really-- >> Is that for the inflation reduction then? >> Yes, it's because the United States has become irresistible for developers of clean energy generation, but also for manufacturers of the products that get us there, whether it's EVs or batteries or solar panels, we've had, since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, just to say, I mean, policy actually works, we've had over 800 factories announced that they are coming to the U.S. or expanding in the U.S. because of the public-private partnership that has been created as a result of the President's Invest in America agenda. It's so, so great. It's so exciting because that means 400,000 more people are working in this clean energy space, which is record amounts. It's really an amazing time. >> I wonder how much of that is at risk as if Donald Trump becomes president, he has threatened to roll some of it back to help pay down the deficit and pay for some of his other initiatives. >> Yeah, I mean, here's the thing, is that in fact, just this past week, there were 18 Republicans who signed on to a letter saying please don't roll this back because we're seeing the benefits in our states. 86% of the investment. So there has been half a trillion dollars worth of investment in this clean energy space since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Half a trillion dollars. Of that, $1 for a public money, $6 of private money. That's a 71% increase over the two years prior. That money, that investment, those jobs are going, 86% to communities that have below college graduation rates or below weekly income wages. A lot of that is in rural communities. A lot of it, 60 to 70% is in red states, red counties. So it would be honestly political malpractice to undo what is being done and what is happening and people being hired in these communities. >> At the same time that we've been trying to obviously replace typical energy sources with renewables, we now have this incredible potential uptick in the need for power because of data centers and the growth of generative AI. How do you see it playing out? I mean, we talk a lot about nuclear power now. We were just talking about Three Mile Island coming back online or at least one of the reactors and any number of other nuclear sites as well being recommission, so to speak. How's it going to mix out given our power needs could be 20% hired they are right now in a handful of years? >> Well, the estimates are 15% higher within 10 years as a result, both of AI as well as all this new manufacturing activity as well as electrifying the transportation sector. So we are going to need more power. But I'm telling you, we are adding that power. We're adding record amounts of clean power. But in addition, the hyperscalers for these big data centers, they all have commitments to clean energy too and they don't want to see themselves locate in a community where their demand for power causes everybody else's rates to go up. So they're committed, they've been telling us to bringing that power with them, which is why the need for nuclear small modular reactors, co-locating data centers with small modular reactors or the partnerships, for example, with constellation and Microsoft or Three Mile Island to turn on more power. We've got a ton of nuclear sites in this country that have already been permitted for additional reactors that could be powering data centers as well. So we're working with those hyperscalers to make sure that they in fact bring that clean power with them and don't put that cost on everyday citizens. >> Can I ask a different question about cyber security? We talk every day about cyber security and one of the big cyber security issues is the reliability of the electricity grid. How reliable is our electricity grid? Is it safe and what is your department doing to ensure the reliability of electricity grid? >> First of all, the bipartisan infrastructure law gave us about 75s, us and the department of agriculture, about $75 billion to shore up the grid, shore it up from extreme weather events, shore it up because it needs to, because it's old and you need to replace parts, but also for cyber reasons as well. That's not enough money. We have a grid that is old and that as you can imagine, when something was built in the 1950s on wooden poles, needs to be maintained. We need to think about the investment in the grid in that way because we're going to need more power, but here's the good news. That we have been investing in the technologies that would allow for twice the power to go on the lines of existing infrastructure. It's called re-conductoring, putting more power because of new materials on the lines. You don't have permitting issues with that. We have built, we're in the process of building 10 more large transmission lines across the country, which is important to deliver more power. But we're also adding to the grid by adding more power to the grid by more clean generation. So all of this is happening. We're trying to do everything everywhere all at once. - Are Americans really ready for more nuclear? I mean, I know Wall Street's excited, but isn't there a trust factor there? - No, I think, well, recent polls show that there is an increase in trust for nuclear, and that's because we really have a gold standard regulatory regime in this country for nuclear. So small modular reactors, next generation reactors, and turning on existing reactors that may have either closed or on the danger of closing, 'cause this is safe, clean power. - Well, Secretary Granholm, never enough time. There's so much of time. - Never enough time. - I do say in your world right now, but thank you for coming by. It's good to see you here at the New York Stock Exchange. - All right, coming up, we're gonna have President Biden's address to the U.N. General Assembly. That's a few moments from now. The President of Brazil, you're watching the podium right now. We're taking a quick break, right back. - You've been listening to the opening bell on 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. 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, Squawk on the Street participants consider reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and/or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Squawk on the Street disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com/squawkonthestreet disclaimer. - At EverNorth Health Services, we believe costs shouldn't get in the way of life-changing care, and we're doing everything in our power to make it possible. Behavioral health solutions that also keep your projections at their best, it's possible. Pharmacy benefits that benefit your bottom line, it's possible. Complex specialty care that cares about your ROI. It's possible, because we're already doing it, all while saving businesses billions. That's wonder made possible. Learn more at EverNorth.com/wonder. [BLANK_AUDIO]
David Faber, Sara Eisen and Bob Pisani explored market momentum as the Dow hit a fresh record high. The anchors also discussed stimulus measures announced by China's central bank, which gave a lift to shares of U.S.-listed Chinese companies such as Alibaba -- as well as American multinationals with exposure to China. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm joined the program at Post 9 "First on CNBC" -- discussing everything from oil prices to the Constellation Energy-Microsoft deal to help power the tech giant's AI data centers. Also in focus: Vistra tops Nvidia as this year's top performer on the S&P 500, Novo Nordisk's CEO heads to Capitol Hill to testify on high prices for Wegovy and Ozempic, Starbucks downgraded, Levi Strauss' hint involving Beyoncé.
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