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Join Jim Kramer, David Faber, and me, Carl Cantonea on the opening bell hour of CNBC Squawk on the street. Good Wednesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the street. I'm Carl Cantonea with David Faber, a post-night of the New York Stock Exchange. Kramer is at one market in San Francisco after his interview with Mark Benioff last night at Dreamforce. Meantime, the big day, is finally here. Fed decision 2 p.m. Eastern time in an even more important press conference. Odds of a 50 basis point cut still outweigh a 25. A roadmap begins with 25 or 50 as traders debate how big the cut will be. The S&P also eyeing a fresh record at the open. Plus, as for that AI trade, well, Jensen Wong says Nvidia is just getting started while BlackRock and Microsoft team up for a massive new AI infrastructure fund. And an election pause for the fate of Nippon's bid for USDOI, a national security panel has or is delaying its decision. Let's begin with the decision day for the Fed today and these rate cut expectations. Jim, Fed fun futures haven't really budged much since last night. 65% odds of 50. I don't know how they get that because I'm just seeing too many companies that are doing incredibly well, record after record after record. There are a couple companies obviously that have been hurt by commodities going down and the oil companies certainly have been a big beneficiary of too much drilling, even though it's President Biden. You know, David, there really isn't a lot of deflation in the system. There's a lot of stabilization. But I find too many companies that are doing well and really call for a slowdown. I know, well, that's an interesting way to sort of talk about going into today's decision because there are those who say things are not slowing down and you're talking about a 50 basis point cut. I mean, I guess I come back to a couple of people who said I don't think we should have any cut at all. Now, they are a minority to say the least. But, you know, from the business perspective and certainly where you've been spending the last three days, Jim, I know it's nothing about anything slowing down. David, if you can claim that you're an engineer of any kind and probably even a trained one, you're going to get a job out here. There's just a severe shortage of people. Again, when you're talking about all the different foundries that are being built when you talk about Intel, severe shortage of people. We just don't have enough people to do tech. You know, Carl, it is a little existential. When you go from a 2.0 to 1.7 children being born and when you talk about a sense of we just don't have enough people, you see why the story out here is about the agent, the bot, whatever you want to call it because that's all about the Fed should listen up. That's all about we can't find workers. It's very important. Although, isn't it also about the productivity that would allow you to do business with fewer workers, Jim? Yes. Well, I think that what they're trying to do when, for instance, Salesforce, we can talk about it, is make it so the people who are at a call center can go to another part of the company and make more money than for their company than they would at a call center. I'll tell you, David, one thing that is really interesting is developing. There's kind of like a SotoVochi war between Microsoft and Salesforce where Microsoft has co-pilot and Salesforce is making fun of co-pilot. They're calling it the Clippy, the Clippy, which of course was a come and go technology. David, it could be all out or soon between these two. It's Clippy that little like thing, that little, yeah, that cartoon character. Benioff kind of took a shot at Clippy yesterday. Yeah, that's what Jim was just saying, yeah. Mark is getting very aggressive on this. He feels that billions are being lost. He calls it out. He calls AI out saying, "Listen, billions are being lost because it's not used right." And a lot of it just because of co-pilot, which he thinks is an hallucinating nut job at times. That's a little extreme. But, you know, he just doesn't feel that co-pilot provides any sort of value. People liked it at the beginning and then they've left it, tremendous presentation about SACS using marks, the agent force. It's just so exciting to watch the war and how things are going. And then to see Jensen, Jensen Wong, CEO of a video on stage with Mark, where he's talking about a level of business that if you're thinking about the next quarter, you're obviously just ill-advised. I would say something else, but I don't want to be too extreme. Alright, but when Jim, you know, when it comes to AI and as we watched you talk to Mark from yesterday, aside from this competition between the likes of Microsoft and Benioff for certain enterprise customers, for certain applications, when are we going, what is the talk in terms of when we're going, when this is going to really bleed into the broader consciousness, so to speak? When are we going to start to see, I mean, here on this phone, for example, as we're all waiting, you know, what'll be what, 1,000 different apps or some sort of AI agents that we can pay a monthly subscription fee for? What is that coming? Everything you said is true. And I think that in the case of Benioff, it's about to happen because he does have a, that rumored to be like a $2 per query that the agent handles. But, you know, David, I think that when you're out here, the answer would be not yet. Okay, that would be just not yet. I wish they had more. Meantime, Jim, he did talk to you about companies being hypnotized, so to speak. Take a listen. Companies have been hypnotized to think they have to buy a chip and a data center and a database and a security structure and an AI model. And of this, and of that, and of all these things, and they don't need to buy any of that, Jim, they just need to use the Salesforce platform and we will deliver the results. Reflections on apps? Yeah, yeah, there it is. What he's saying is that everybody has been taught to have their own infrastructure, which costs a fortune, and then layer on co-pilot and really just be bamboozled versus taking a Salesforce product and just make it so you have one price. You don't have to build a data center. Your data isn't sent out. You don't have to do the cloud. Mark takes care of that. It's a one-stop shop, David, and it would obviously save people a lot of money, which is why I felt this was the first thing where you really realized that what Mark is saying is that when you call any company, if you get the agent, the agent's going to be kinder, gentler, more respectful, and smarter than any of the people who otherwise pick up if they pick up at all. David, I agree with that. Only the machines can treat humans like humans. I know, and you've said that, but what you've also been saying is, "All right, call center, call center, call center." And you just indicated it's too early, and I just wonder when we're going to come back to this question of return on invested capital for these four companies essentially. And when we're really going to start to see those results. That's why Mark's offering a till December product. Of course, I mean, if we had it for the investing club, I'm absolutely sure we would get a major lift because it's how you have customer service in the 2024 era. You call people or not, it's a lot about how people are harried, they can't spend time, you can't identify an ROI because it's the easiest group to fire. And really what it says is that we got to go back to the days when humans helped people who call and that that is, no, and it's not, it's like press one for idiocy, press two for we're going to insult you. And this is a different world that Mark's introducing, a world where there's a force multiplier that allows people to answer the phone to actually go sell something, maybe handle the toughest questions, or maybe we just don't need to hire as many people. Then Jim, there was the longer term message at a Jensen Wong yesterday talking about the advances we're going to see primarily in medical science over the next 10 years and in his word something you don't want to miss. Listen to that. Mark, I'm just getting started. These are my finest hours, we're just getting started. This is the best. Nobody, nobody should miss the next decade. Would you agree with that? The next decade of technology advance. Everybody, yeah, dude, don't, you're not going to want to miss this movie. Yeah, you're not going to want to miss this movie. I think the next 10 years, the breakthroughs that we're going to have in digital biology, the breakthroughs, and just helping diagnosing disease, the breakthroughs in science, we're going to have so many scientific assistants. Jim, what do you think? Look, I think this is for Jensen, this, and obviously it's the Plano Data Center where he has inside all of this stuff. But yeah, what he's talking about is, right now you have this disparate collection of records that would take maybe 10 years to sort through, to find common genes of what causes cancer. And now it can be done in three or four days. This is the accelerated computing side, not just the gender of AI side, and it is very exciting. Jensen comes in, and you have to understand that you may think that AI is something that is a bubble. And then this man comes in, he's of a different plane entirely, and he's basically telling you, look, we do not have the ability as humans to get things done. But the machines do, and obviously he feels that the machines, David, are good guys. Yeah, he does. One by good people. Yes. You know, I always find myself thinking of that apocalyptic movie that will be made, or at some time in the future where, of course, they run that basic clip. And then the next thing is the robots rounding everybody up and killing them. Well, yeah. I mean, I can't help, I don't know. Your viewers, not many people talk about your view, David. But that's okay. Maybe they should. I mean, it always comes back to, yeah, everything's going to be done to make us live longer, but we don't seem to be talking about the other side. Well, do you know who really thinks you should get along? Not insignificant risks. Matthew McConaughey. Matthew McConaughey would tell you that Matthew McConaughey, who does a lot of work with Mark, I think would debunk you. Or he might find you even, I think you're hallucinating. That is my issue. That is my issue too, typically, on all things is Matthew McConaughey. That's who I would explain to him. Well, that's why I bring him up, because I think that, I mean, when I have a question, you know, it's just the testimony yesterday for Capri Tapestry. I call Matt McConaughey, because why wouldn't I? Well, I think you're trying to understand. I understand US Steel. I call Matt McConaughey. And, of course, when it comes to AI and all of my questions about the future, Matt McConaughey. Well, doesn't it matter that he's like a thousand percent cooler than you are? I don't know if it does, but I would agree with the basic premise, yes. I don't want to be fatuous. The reason why I bring him up is that Matthew McConaughey is probably one of the closest, it may be the closest advisor to Mark about how to tell the story. I saw that last night. It's incredible. He's finishing the sentences of Mark. He's actually augmenting things, making things more competitive, making things more human. And he's a very compelling figure that I know the Wall Street Journal felt doesn't really earn his keep. I think it's the opposite. I think he's underpaid. Well, I want you to get into those little corners with people and get them to share their most significant worries and concerns and doubts, Jim. That's what I want, all right? I want to stop hearing about all the advances that are going to be made in terms of decoding disease, which will be wonderful. Yes, absolutely. But I want to understand the other side of this. Okay, here's the other side. People who are in tech just keep coming back to what could happen with healthcare, but they're not doing anything about the healthcare, but they think it's the best usage for the next couple of years. I have Lisa Suellen tonight. Lisa Suellen told a big room two nights ago that we will look back ten years from now and just kind of be shocked at how prehistoric we were, about how inefficient we were, and about how uncreative we were. Because we didn't have AI. Now, Carl, Lisa Suellen is in a dog fight with Jensen Wong. Right now she's behind because Jensen's got more and more -- Jensen's actually pulling away. But I think she offers a unique view that there are other things that AI can do right than what we talk about now. Well, if not McConaughey, we have Larry Fink, of course, BlackRock and Microsoft launching this $30 billion fund finance AI infrastructure build out. We did talk to Larry Fink. I think Jim back in April about the promise of this whole space. Take a listen to that. AI cannot truly happen unless there's a huge investment in infrastructure. The amount of energy that is required for AI is enormous. An amount of power generation. We will run out of electricity if we are going to fully adapt the full AI world. And so the need to build on -- and this is all going to stimulate our economy, by the way -- to build out a more AI, which at the backside is that building out more electricity power. Listen closely to those words at the time. Yeah, and I've got to make something really clear. The hyperscalers, the big companies, the tech titans, all have to build more because we just keep hearing when I'm out here, I ask everybody. Was Larry Ellison right when he talked about how he has 162 data centers and he'd like to have 1,000, maybe 2,000? Everyone says, "Yes, that's the number." And I say, "Well, maybe he over builds, and everybody else over builds it." And the percentage of how much of electricity, by the way, the secretary, the EPA administrator told me it's going to go from 48% of the entire grid because the demand is so humong. It's for data centers. And David, I know you may have a pejorative view on what's about who could hijack a data center, but that is one of the prevailing themes, which is that the data center lives. It's incredibly important, and if you don't do the data center, then you may be big. No one wants to be big. Nobody wants to be binged. Or flippy, apparently, as well. Clippy was just the insult of why I thought the insult was so -- Listen, we talk about it every day for a reason. The incredible need, the insatiable demand for computing power that reflects in the need for more and more data centers, which, of course, consume enormous amounts of power. Again, I come back to Ellison as well. I just thought one of the revelations from that call last week was we have a team of former utility executives who do nothing but think about how we're going to figure out how to power all of these data centers that we're building as we move from what is 162 to over 1,000 of them. There's no doubt, and an enormous amount of capital is going to be needed, and the Black Rocks of the world, and so many other alternative asset managers as well, Apollo, and on from there, and Blackstone. They're all there. They're all there. They all will continue to be with enormous amounts of capital that will be needed to fund this. I interviewed Dave Wregner. He is the CEO of Trade Technologies. There's a chart of 53%. It's all about one of his major things is to make it so that these places are cooled, but they don't generate a lot of greenhouse gases. When I see the chart, I say to myself, "Wow, you can't stop that train. It is just incredible. It's deeply in the heart of AI, trades at 35 times earnings, and all-time high pretty much consistently for days and days and days." That's the chart of data centers. More important. That's the chart of data centers. Along with Lenar and Pulte and Amex and Visa yesterday, we're going to talk a lot about what the market's responding to in advance of the Fed cut, or message this afternoon. When we come back, Jamie Diamond's message to college students. When it comes to TikTok and Facebook, we'll get to General Mills, the autos, Meta Microsoft on the Hill today, got an airline merger closing. When we come right back, stay with us. 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. Support for this program is provided by Chevron. The anchor offshore platform is utilizing breakthrough technology to enable us to produce oil and natural gas in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico at pressures up to 20,000 psi. A new industry benchmark. Anchor is part of Chevron's plan to produce 300,000 net barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2026 in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Home to some of our lowest carbon intensity producing operations. That's energy and progress. Get chevron.com/anchor. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B. But with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linkedin, the place to be, to be. Even with the prospect of a fed cut, got some decent data this week so far. Retail sales was a beat. Industrial production, second best number of the year. Atlanta Fed goes to 3%. Q3 tracking. Ten year, 367 is obviously off of the lows of yesterday. We'll get Kramer's mad dash and countdown to the opening bell after a short break. Support for this program is provided by Chevron. The anchor offshore platform is utilizing breakthrough technology to enable us to produce oil and natural gas in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico at pressures up to 20,000 PSI, a new industry benchmark. Anchor is part of Chevron's plan to produce 300,000 net barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2026 in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, home to some of our lowest carbon intensity producing operations. That's energy and progress. Visit chevron.com/anchor. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B. But with Linkedin, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkton.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkton.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linkedin, the place to be. To be. Alright, alright, alright. Time for a mad dash. There he is. Now David. General Mills reports earnings and I'd love to actually get you to get to it and make it the subject of the mad dash. Well, look, I think that when you're Jay Powell, you're looking for a reason to cut. Well, you know what? When General Mills says uncertain macro environment will hurt the company and there's the input costs that are higher. They're profit margin shrinking. You need to say, well, wait a second. General Mills, they do have a bit of an inflation problem. But General Mills is talking about how things are being tougher for the cereal maker and for high end pet food. So David, maybe this makes the case for a quarter point when you're trying to factor everything, every last report. You have to even think about the micro here. But that's been a good stock and it won't be a good stock today. Anything else that it sort of gets, has an impact on? Well, I think that the food group was down 130 basis point input costs. They're just going to cause a lot of people to wonder whether others who we thought had declining input costs are getting surprised. One of the reasons why General Mills is down so much. It was a surprise. No one really felt that these input costs would come back to haunt them. We thought that inflation was under control. Yeah, gross margin, as you just said, down 130 basis points, 34.8% of net sales. And they say, Jim, driven primarily by input cost inflation, unfavorable mark to market effects and unfavorable net price realization and mix. That's got to be a concern. And that's why we're seeing this stock down. Yeah, I mean, it's cereal, don't they? What is that? Like the box because the actual stuff in it isn't much blue buff. Look, there is a competitive market for dog food, as you know, David, because I know I think you feed your dog. Ooh, with burner den, make sure your dog food. Who is it that makes you dog with a burner den, right? Saga. Yeah. How many Michelin stores does your dog's chat down? No, man. Group is a vegetarian. He eats the same thing every day. He's allergic to a lot of other things. I don't know. We take good care of them. I think you die. Why? We take good care of them. All right. What would McConaughey do? That's what I ask myself now. You know, what you got to say about General Mills and margins? Just not sure. Heart check. Heart check. Every day you wake up, think about it. What would McConaughey do? All right. Opening bells just a few minutes away. Don't forget you can catch us anytime and anywhere by listening to him following the squawk on the street. Opening bell podcasts. And who wouldn't want to do that? This morning, the House Energy and Commerce Committee set to mark up more than a dozen bills, including the Kids Online Safety Act. That comes one day after Meta's Instagram announced it would make youth accounts private. Yesterday at Georgetown, Jamie Diamond offered his take on alternatives to social media. Advice to students. Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. If you're a Democrat, read the Republican opinion. You know, the good ones. There are a lot of good, very small ones there. If you're a Republican, read the Democrat ones. Read history books. You can't make it up. You can't make it up. You only learn by reading and talking to other people. There's no other way yet. Maybe one day they'll be able to inject knowledge into your brain directly or something like that. Learn, be smart about it. People waste a tremendous amount of time. For most of you guys, turn off TikTok, Facebook. Total stupid ways to sh*t. Waste of time. We've bleeped that out for you, Jim. There does seem to be this growing sense that what you see on social media is increasingly removed from reality and that a lot of Americans are beginning to think that way. It is amazing how when you'll mention something that you read on a site. That's just something I read on Reddit to a couple of people. They didn't even listen to me when they heard Reddit, they said, "Why do you read Reddit?" A lot of people really hate TikTok here. They think it's influencing young people's views. Not sure exactly how it's influencing. I just find young people don't even like that. They're hoping that Shen and Tenmoo get a come-up in spy Amazon. That's another thing. You don't find anyone who is campaigning China here. I mean, I can know. Let's get the opening bell here and the real-time exchange of the big board. It's the Susan G. Coleman marking National Breast Cancer Awareness Month from beginning October 1 at the NASDAQ. It's SS and C. Technologies a provider of financial services and healthcare software. Jim, speaking of financial services, we mentioned Diamond didn't get to this wire piece yesterday on JP Morgan talking to Apple about the credit card. Look, what the hell? Why wasn't that a much bigger story? I mean, first of all, we can't find necessarily what Apple wants to do. But second, I mean, this has been a giant, just hole in Goldman's complete roster of products. And you just haven't been able to see it. But, oh, amen. Did they ever want to get rid of this thing? And Jamie, of course, can just integrate it. And by the way, they spend a lot of time with Jensen Wong. Jacob Morgan really advised a lot by Nvidia. Maybe, maybe this is one of those things where you can get the card and not have to have as many people. And it'll be really important. Nothing, David? I mean, I got plenty. But I got a lot of paper in my hands right now, and I'm just trying to look through some things. Okay, you want to come back? I'll come back. Yeah. I'm going to get your list too. I mean, although number two on your list is Starbucks. I mean, really? Starbucks. Number two? We did get to be a mano today. China-white strategy and the idea in which we get rid of the black hole that is China, a lot of people feel that there's a lot of AI-helped that Starbucks is going to get if they want, if Brian Nickel wants to choose it. Because, wow, these machines can make a latte like it's going out of style, David. The most amazing number in that report was that China, EBITDA, Jim Perstor, since 21, down 40%. Yeah, I mean, you know, Brian's going to look at numbers. He's not beholden to anyone, not the luck spin to previous CEO, not the Howard. I think he's going to say, you know what? Anything that is just going to hurt our stock is gone. He did an unbelievable job at Chipotle making the food better and also getting the stock up. He's capable of doing that. I think it's a very, very exciting situation. Real quick on US Steel, guys, we mentioned at the very top of the show, it's a political football, as our viewers at this point probably know, where the union goes, many of the politicians are going on both sides of the aisle, by the way. That said, as I'd sort of indicated recently, you know, I think the governor of Pennsylvania, it's sort of potentially, again, the speculation, put pressure on the White House to say, hey, let's hold this off a little bit, because you've got US Steel talking about moving a lot of jobs out if the deal with Nippon doesn't go through. Of course, the union is dead set against that deal, aligned as it is with Cleveland Cliffs. But what has happened is what we expected. I said what happened the other day. They pulled on the CFIUS, so they'll pull and refile. It's going to push it until after the election. So stock is up yet again. It's had a very nice move here, as you can see, on at least these continuing hopes that somehow, given more time, they're going to figure out a way to get the unions on side and get to the finish line. Jim, I know you have decided opinions on them in part as a result of your conversations with the CEO of Cleveland Cliffs. We may not be talking about it for a bit, although it may have some incremental news as we go along. Certainly we'd love to hear from Dave McCall, the union at some point, to understand fully what their position is and why they're willing to risk what would seem to be jobs in Pittsburgh and the future of the Montvalley plant by still saying no, no, no to Nippon's transaction. David, I felt that when I've been following this, it is kind of remarkable how the people who surround, when you have a steel mill, New Court once told me this, there are about five jobs created for every one job that's created at the actual steel mill because it becomes such a central aspect of the town. They pick towns that, frankly, are one horse towns because it's just a cheaper place to go. But I think that if Nippon's steel puts money in a lockbox, so to speak, and says they're going to do this, then there is a chance because, wow, more jobs, more votes, and I think that that's very important right now for the administration. Speaking of unions, Jim, sounds like UAW is going to start having some votes to strike at various stellantis locals. And then on the merger front, we do have Alaska saying it's closed to Lyon. Yeah, that's amazing because I think that those are two that you've competed against. I know they say they're not that much round overlap, but it's good to see both of those stocks were getting crushed. I was thinking, well, what happens to these two guys? And this was one that I think few people thought would be as quickly closed as it was. Oh, good, that guy is a hoot. Alaska air is very well run. Everyone knows this is a very well run outfit. I don't recommend airline stocks because they just don't make enough money, but this is a good combination. Speaking of antitrust or combinations, guys, I did want to point -- it's a small deal. It's not one that's at our radar, but it is indicative in some ways of still with the regulatory scrutiny or the level of regulatory scrutiny is like right now. And while this one didn't go to court, it's not happening, and it's not happening because of the objections of the FTC. I'm referring to what was Will Scott and McGrath's rent corpse mutually, well, their deal and the fact that they are now terminating it. Here's the key paragraph, despite extensive and exhaustive engagement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over several months. In recent weeks, it became evident the path to regulatory clearance would be excessively onerous, would detract from the execution of other value-creating initiatives inherent in Will Scott's business. Will Scott was the acquirer here. The company is what they offer as this range of products, modular office complexes, mobile offices, classrooms, temporary restrooms, portable storage containers, so you get a sense as to their business. There was a belief that it would create concentration in that overall sector, Jim, and they abandoned it. You can see it as having an impact on McGrath. Will Scott, by the way, one of the more successful. I believe it was a SPAC deal, a way back, and one of the more successful ones at that. Well, look, I think that there are a lot of people who realize, they may have started this deal, that at the end of an administration, these agencies tend to go wild. They go rogue, they just kind of try to block everything. I think we're seeing it justice. I think we're seeing it at FDC. FDC completely, I'd say, despised out here. People just think that they don't even know anything about technology. There's truly contempt for that part of our government. Speaking of antitrust actions, of course, we continue to focus on the courtroom, whether it be Kroger Albertsons. But yesterday we had the end of testimony in the government's case to try and stop tapestry from buying Capri. Remember, much of this, in fact, so much of the case comes down to market definition, affordable or accessible luxury. Whether that really represents a market. Who's a part of that market? What the market shares are yesterday, the companies presented their expert witness, Fiona Scott Morton. And what I've heard from those who obviously are watching this very closely is that she did a very good job rebutting the government's position, specifically in the FTC, relying on brand classifications from an outside vendor, NPD. And sort of raising the idea that these were porous classifications based on a limited data set. That said, she did not offer a market definition of her own. She didn't do that, simply saying that the market definition remains opaque. Will that be enough to sway the judge to say you don't have a case FTC here? They relied, in part, on internal documents that identified this market. They never really were able, as I understand it, to identify that one company cut price because of the other. I've heard the FTC lawyers were not particularly aggressive on cross-examination. And overall, not did not put on a particularly strong case. Jim, so much of this comes back to the judge, and again, back to market definition to remind people it is a $57 share all cash deal. There has been some question given Capri's numbers that have been particularly weak of late as to whether once they get through this, if they do get through this successfully, whether Tapestry might still try to claim a Mac and lower the price. Well, in the last conference call, their CEO said, on Capri's standalone results, yeah, you're right. The level of underperformance that they have announced is disappointing and surprising. That word surprising caught a few people. That said, if you were going to do that, you probably would have wanted to do it prior to any court case, but Jim, that figures into the mix here as well. Look, a lot of people are saying that maybe the FTC has given Tapestry a chance here to get out of the deal that they don't really need. The market is so fractured. There's so many copies in it. It was another one of these. I mean, I said that I agreed on error when they did it. I was just tired of the heat from those guys. I mean, he's like, all right, that's fine enough. Let's take a look at it. I didn't think the FTC rank and file was at all interested in this case. You mentioned the cross-examine. I'm not saying they threw it. I am saying that this was the case too far where the professionals kind of said, you know what, can we just stop going after everything? We got handbags? Is that what we're supposed to be doing? Handbags? I mean, Carl, handbags? There's plenty of ups. There's plenty of upside and caprice stock price. Should they actually emerge victorious in this deal? Despite, again, to your point, Jim, and the one that was made by the CEO would have not been good numbers at all from the company itself. No, I mean, I think that the FTC should go to TJ Maxx where David and I go, the one next door. You get all the handbags you want, and I got to tell you, there's some prices there that you would not believe. I always send my wife to Home Goods and to TJX because that's where the prices are. Speaking of TJX and Burlington and Ross, all three of those reiterate by today over at B of A. Jim, we do have a couple upgrades of Victoria's Secret and VF Corp. Of course, all of that after retail sales yesterday imply pretty much a 3% annual rate of real retail sales growth. In other words, inflation adjusted. Yeah, look, I'm really glad you brought a VFC. Now I had them on. I think Brack and Darryl is an engineering turn right here, right now. I know that the charter's already up a lot. That was when he sold a particular street clothes line. People were surprised he did, but he got a lot of money and fixed the balance sheet. And now here's the one. This is why it has to be running. Vans had been the most important product they had, and Vans has turned. It has inflected, if Vans has inflected, and that means throughout the country and in shoe stores, then they've got something. David, this company could be a coil spring now that it's run better. And by the way, when you see Vans turn, well, let's talk about what people are talking. You know, I always like to say, who's next to go? Who's not cutting it? David, I'm getting Nike over and over and over again because they think that a technologist, someone who is a consultant, is running the company and they're getting taken to by on, by new balance, by Adidas and by Vans, it doesn't stop. This has been drum beat, David. Don, I hear you. By the way, you are the main drummer, just so we're clear. Well, I'm a purveyor of what I hear. You literally tweeted a picture of you wearing them this week. Well, I know, but that was the Air Force One special bond craft anniversary. And those can be run with one with formal wear. I had to get out of my comfort zone, Carl. You know, I garden in Breony. It was such a pleasure to wear sneakers. They were cool things. They lace up and stuff. It's cool. I mean, I know. I have golden tips. I know you don't tell people to short stocks, but you wouldn't have done a bad job. You know, if you actually did that, if you had the guts. And I mean, you've been right on some of these names. You're negative, but you obviously would never say anything along the lines of short stock. No, no. And by the way, if I'd Nike were to make a change, the stock would probably go to 95. I don't want to play with that. I don't know if they're going to do that. Meanwhile, Brack and Darryl, I mean, they sold Supreme. They lost a lot of money on that deal. The money he'd spent 2.1 in 2020, it wasn't him. He gets the 1.5. He fixes the balance sheet. He can then spend the money on the brands that he knows can turn. And that's a true turn by a really great executive. He turned around Logitech. He's going to turn around B.F. It's a buy. The other thing James has been put on. Yeah, it was. It was. The Meta Ray Band. Now, if you saw Jim, Meta renewed their partnership with Luxautica into the next decade. Well, look. I mean, one of the things that people have to recognize is those are the glasses that look cool. You have no idea that no one has any idea that it's AI. And the AI in it just keeps getting better and better. I think that this was something that when I tried to get Mark Zuckerberg to come on and talk about it, he demurered. But I have to tell you, when I've tried them, I think they're incredibly exciting. One thing we didn't get to, Jim, is housing. We had starts this morning, some multifamily beginning to slow down. We knew that was coming. And then a refi's, Jim, up 14 in the last week. The highest refi's since 22. Yeah, April 22. Look, there's a lot going on in terms of the lowering of mortgage rates. It's the thing that people are really buzzing about. And I think that if you get transactions starting to get transactions because there's price discovery on the downside on rents. But I think ultimately you're going to be in houses. Got to see a Wim Sonoma. I saw Laura Albers for dinner. Laura Albers got a company. Laura Alber is at one grade executive. You want to do Wim Sonoma if you believe that there's going to be a lot of change at the mid to high end in housing. I think it's just as good as being able to buy Lenoir where you have to roll the dice a little because they're about to report. Don't you think, Jim, mortgage rates two year low. Gas prices three year low. Fast food, value meals, deflation in Las Vegas. Room rates, thank you B of A yesterday. Doesn't that all add up to at least a modest but fed cut? Yeah, I mean, look, I think companies couldn't put the price increase. I remember though, I had to pull up with a Walmart strategist yesterday. And one thing is for certain, they destroyed the pricing of a lot of companies by bringing everything down. Very meaningful what's going on at Walmart. Meaningful what's going on at Costco versus Dollar Tree versus Dollar General. People are starting to realize, wait a second, this thing is higher than we expected and we get it better at Walmart. But throughout, it's like General Mills. Yes, there is this macroeconomic overhang, but it doesn't deserve 50. It deserves 25. And then they can do more. We spent a lot of time 25/50 as if they get it right this time. Terrific, if they get it wrong, we're dead. I think that's not true. But I do think that 25 would be more measured because as there are industries that are weak, there are also industries that are very strong. Jim, I want to come back to one of our headlines from this morning and just sort of dig a little deeper on it. The infrastructure fund we mentioned from the likes of BlackRock. And remember, they're just going to be closing that deal as well to acquire the global infrastructure partners. That enormous deal, Bio and Glacy running that firm for many years. Where's the money go, ultimately? And who are the beneficiaries? I mean, beyond Nvidia, you know, if you want to play this at home and you see more and more money just continuing to be dedicated and devoted to the AI infrastructure build-out, where do you look in terms of stocks that may still be beneficiaries? The first one is... No, no, the first one is GE for NOAA because these plants are largely natural gas. If you look at that stock, I mean, it's one of the great horses of the year, 237, the stock was 100 points lower, not that long ago, because they are perceived as the company that can build you what is ultimately going to be a natural gas plant because we can't do solar, we just don't have enough. So that is almost a pure play now on the data center. Advertive, almost a pure play on the data center, and that was one of the first SPACs successful. Also, don't forget, company that my travel trust zone is Eaton. They're very big in the data center. And then train technology, TT, because they're trying to cool up the data center. These are all very clear winners, and if you look at their stocks, they are not early in choosing those stocks. Yeah, that's a couple references for train this hour alone. As we go to break up, watch bonds today. We got starts out of the way, fed decision, of course. We'll get a treasury buyback announcement at 11, and we'll be paying attention to that presser at 230. For now, 10 year, about 368. Stay with us. Check out crude oil down a touch, although S&P energy is the best performing sector at the moment. Some headlines today looking at these pager explosions in the Middle East. The Egyptian prime minister saying that some of those may hinder any prospect of a ceasefire in the near term. Dows down 71, S&P up a point. We're back in a moment. It's time for Jim and stop trading. All right, thank you for tomorrow night as FedEx, and I think that Raj, super minions, a remarkable job. But they may be a kind of company that David was talking about. They'd be able to say, look, macroeconomic problems are making it so that we're not doing as much business as we could. That's, again, I'd say the quintessential, well, why doesn't the Fed cut a quarter point? Because you don't want a company like FedEx to do anything other than maintain some momentum. So I'd watch for what that does, but it's not necessarily a blowout quarter, I don't think. Jim, just remind me, did he talk recession like a year and a half ago to explain a bad quarter, a recession that never happened? Yes, he did. But then again, let's give him his due. He managed to be able to take out such huge costs, that even though the revenues didn't explode, the actual bottom line was amazing. Yeah, I mean, be curious to get his comments on China. FT has a piece out this morning that India has now overtaken China as the world's biggest stock market benchmark. Well, geez, that's going to be MSCI. It's going to be Henry Friend, just telling his buddies to CEO. But I don't think China's doing well for anybody right now. I mean, I mean, nobody. Jim, you've had such a banner week so far. How are you going to wrap up these last few days? We got to make it so there's something really special. We've released a suit from AMD. We got SIVA from T-Mobile. We'll certainly find out about new phones and how they're doing. And then, you know, Carl Ashenbeck from Workday has done. Another one of these companies that actually has done really good with AI. I think they're taking you on service now, but let's take a listen to that. And it's not just obviously who comes on, Jim. I know you're talking to so many people out there. And literally not sleeping because I assume you're going to dinners that don't get over till nine o'clock or ten o'clock at night. I got two solid hours last night, so I really resent that. I was watching Morissette. She was right there within two yards, David. She's a very big voice. Who? Alanis? Alanis Morissette. Oh, Alanis Morissette. She's a singer. I remember her. I remember her. I remember her. She's kind of ironic. Yes. Okay, you know what I'm seeing tonight? Ooh. Pink. Makana, hey. Pink. Nice. You know, the singer Pink? No, he don't know. I do. I do. Not Peony Club, David Pink. I didn't know that one. I want to see pictures, Jim. We'll see you tonight if not before. Mad money. 6 p.m. Eastern time. You've been listening to the opening bell on CNBC's Squawk on the Street. 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One day after the Dow and S&P 500 hit new record highs, Carl Quintanilla, Jim Cramer and David Faber discussed Wednesday's big Fed decision -- as market watchers debate whether to expect
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