Hi, I'm Ben Rosuto, Wealth Strategist at Janice Henderson Investors. Is a brighter future possible at Janice Henderson we think it is. For 90 years, we've worked to help clients achieve superior financial outcomes and fulfill our purpose of investing in a brighter future together. We know that this means our thinking and our investments are helping to shape millions of futures. At Janice Henderson, we are committed to helping you invest in a brighter future for the next 90 years and beyond. To learn more, go to Janice Henderson.com. 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 Monday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Kaiten Ayer with Jim Kramer, a post-9 of the New York Stock Exchange. David Faber has the morning off. We're set up for a packed week of retail earnings, Nvidia, FedSpeak, pre-market's pretty steady with our first close at Dow 40k. Now in the books, got some positive market commentary today as well. We'll get to all of that. Our roadmap begins with the ongoing melt-up for stocks and why one longtime bearish strategist has finally capitulated. It is Nvidia's week and at least four analysts upping their targets ahead of results on Wednesday, and then Apple's ongoing China challenge reportedly slashing iPhone prices to some new lows to counter competition from Huawei. Let's begin though with the markets coming off an historic week for stocks, Jim. We got the 40k, we close to the 11th handle on the VIX, just barely, but we did it. People are talking about the stock market. For the longest time, wherever I went, they talked about my tomatoes. And now I find they say, wow, what is that about? People who have not been in, people who are thinking, is it too late? And I try to present a constructive view, but it's gotten on people's minds, Carl. And I saw some numbers from Gallup last week that said that 62% of the people now are back. They are someone in their house who owns stocks. That's up from 52, which was interesting. The 52 was the low, which is just when the Dow got back to where it was before 2007. So yet, 2007, people got back to even and they left. And now Gen Z, Gen X back, Millennials back, boomers I think just blown out and don't rely. But it's quite encouraging because if we can get people in stocks as opposed to some of the more radical things that people buy, the option is the double ETFs, single stock options. I think that we might find that the DEX selloff, which I think will be one of course, we're going to have new buyers. It's a different class and it's kind of surprising. Coming to the population of marginal buyers is important for prices. Right. Now, as long as you have the low count of IPOs, a little bit above last year, and as long as you have the buybacks above last year, and we'll talk about JP Morgan in terms of being conservative, you may have a situation where you could see, I'm not talking about the melt up. I know other people talk about that, where you see a virtuous circle, which is that every time you come down, new people come back, they come in, companies buy back, and then without a new source of supply, the equilibrium, you have to go higher. So I think it's really quite amazing. We have people who are back and people who have never been, who are in, and it's making them money. So we have to be a little more buoyant about our outlook. Main time, we mentioned some of the commentary. A lot of it circles around that reflation scare being over. The upside for earnings, Deutsche goes to 258 today on S&P earnings. And then of course, Mike Wilson is all over the tape on his, it's a little bit weird because it's not a year end, it's a 12 month, but he's no longer calling for that decline by year end that he had. I said to my colleague, Sir Jeff Marks, Ben Stoto, that I actually feel bad for the guy. I'll tell you I feel bad for the guy, because we forget how great he was. We forget how he got us out. And sometimes you got to get back in. I remember the late markings, she used to talk to me about this, it's like, not that I tell you to get out. I'll tell you when to get it. I'll tell you when it gets too negative. He didn't understand that the market had pivoted for a lot, mostly because of the Fed. And I think he's a great, unfortunately learning lesson in that there were so many things that were negative that it should have gone down. I've been going over this with a lot of people, which is that, okay, so Ukraine, why doesn't it go down? Israel, Gaza, why doesn't it go down? Election, why doesn't it go down? Rates, why doesn't it go down? And the answer is, is that the assets come back to life. We don't talk about it enough. The asset, which had been so discredited by the $2,000 bomb, by $2,000 spike, and then decline by the 2016 scare. But those are now in the rear view mirror. Then the COVID decline seems to now look like all one giant buying opportunity. And it's a rational view, because think about it, we're at $40,000. When I got in, we were then, right down the block here, $55,000. We were at $1,000. And all I heard was that we were going to go to $500. And I think it's important to recognize that the Mike Wilson's of the world are not a new phenomenon. They're an old phenomenon. It's funny, because there was a game on Twitter the other day. Pick up the price of the Dow on your first day in the business. And yours was about $1,081. And I kept thinking, you know what, all the naysayers could be wrong. I'm going to buy Texas, I bought Texas Instruments, I bought Motorola. I bought companies that just were going, I mean, I hate to say this, but had momentum. And it's been momentum ever since, because momentum is not, momentum is part of the equation. And just like those failures that I mentioned, this fear factor, people think they don't trust momentum. And yet momentum is animal spirits. The greatest of our markets, they are a factor. And do we celebrate them? I think we all feel that ever since 2000, if we celebrate anything, remember the Dow 40,000 hat that I got? I didn't take it out from here. And I didn't take it out because I thought it might be a jinx. Of course. And I just don't want to be part of the jinx. I also am afraid myself to say anything that sounds like cheerleading. Because we all remember that when we cheerleading in 2000, we cheerleading in 2007, it was disastrous. There is something between cheerleading and just abnegation. I think it is rationality. We have a market that historically, when you have the Fed about to cut the Fed switches from being your enemy to being your friend, and that's been when you buy. You don't just buy, buy, buy. You wait till you've got some things which indicate that the Fed is pivoted. That's historically when you can do it. We saw it in 1998, the Fed pivoted off of the long-term capital. We know the Fed pivoted in 2002 too long. We know the Fed pivoted under Bernanke. I mean, everyone in the pivots or the give-ups when they tried to raise rates, they've all been good times to buy. And this is a good time to buy? When, though, do we get back to worrying about growth? But if we see real cracks in the labor market in the next couple of months, and along with lower prices, I noticed Target today cutting prices on 5,000 common everyday items, they got earnings tomorrow. Right. Right. It'll be interesting because you wouldn't cut unless you felt that you had too much inventory, but then you'll get the inventory of Walmart. It's very lean. We sat there this morning and talked about what does it mean to, what a black box target really is here? What a black box loses? We just don't know. We know Home Depot was not good. But then we know that it didn't even get hurt. Everyone just views it at endless buying opportunities, but go back to the labor thing. You know, there are 600 red lobsters. And there is a chance that the endless shrimp deal that was not a long term, it was meant to be a limited time only, but then got long term, did really hurt the company. I mentioned that because they had a totally, that's what can happen to restaurants. And you know, where are those? Is that the beginning? I'm waiting for the right-aid shoe to drop because my right is no inventory. I mean, you see these things. That's a big chain too. But those are signs that the Fed is going to give you which won. And if you didn't have some cracks, then you'll never get what you won. It'll be a foot race between what the Fed does and the layoffs. And right now, I think that the Fed is in pole position, but if they don't, then it'll be like the pre-dish. You're just not going to get us to stay. Well, I mean, the Morgan Stanley note today, still looking for three cuts this year, argues that the population supply shock that we got made the economy bigger and also allows the Fed now to cut into strength. Look, I think that they would do well. I love Mike Wilson to not do that kind of stuff. Like, if I were running that strategy, I'd say, "Look, why don't we just say that rate cuts are a possibility? Why do we draw a line in the sand?" See, Mike Wilson drew a line in the sand. And I know we don't want wishy-washy analysts, but I sure wish he hadn't. I sure wish that he had said at one time, "If these things happen, I have to be more constructive." But he never did. And the things that needed to be constructive did occur, and the fact that he didn't leave himself that, the fact that they go with three rate cuts will leave them to be discredited. I've learned this. I've been doing this for 40 years. And the one thing I want to say is, "Let me tell you what's going to happen." No. Let me tell you factors that could happen. And that way, I mean, I remember when I was at the street, I was making declarative comments on CNBC, like, "This is going to happen." And I learned my lesson because when it doesn't happen, you get Mike Wilson. Right. It is a tough business. It is. It is. It's much tougher than people realize. Jim, we also got Nvidia, of course, due out later in the week. Barclays, Baird, and Stiefel today raise their targets on the stock, which has, of course, tripled over the last 12 months and is up almost 90% for the year so far. I think the Stiefel number 1085, Baird is 1,200. Yeah, I spent the weekend writing a piece for the club. I do these weekend pieces about how this is not the watershed for Nvidia, since everybody thinks it is, because this is the beginning of when you get to Nvidia platform. What they're going to be doing is bringing out the new chip that can take video. It means basically, this, when Blackwell comes out, anything you can do, a robot can do better. I know you like show tunes, so look what that is. But I do think that if you base it on this quarter, then I think you're going to be faced with this. This is not last year at this time. We got the fable May, greatest Miss Ever, she told my wife Lisa. He said, greatest Miss Ever, by 4 billion, but it was to the upside. I don't think you can keep doing that, because they do have a transition. But unlike the transition from the, say, the 386 to the 486 to the Pentium with Intel, they're not obviating their current iteration. It's just they're adding one more, but they can't add it fast enough. I want everyone to understand that there is an overwhelming sense that the chips that Google's making and the chips that Microsoft's making and the chips that we're seeing from Amazon are somehow meant to compete. No, they're meant to compliment. So that's not the Achilles heel of Nvidia. I think the Achilles heel of Nvidia would be if AMD was able to develop a chip that could also be trained, not just infer, and they don't have it. They don't have it. And I really respect what Lisa's doing, but there is no doubt about it that there's a step function way up for what Jenson Wong's doing, and don't judge him by this quarter. That would be a false construct. Right. Meantime, we do have a Microsoft event today in Redmond, who's going to roll out some surfaces. I know Dell got upgraded over at Bernstein. I'll reiterate it out before watching that as a call on HP. Yeah, HP has it and I've been, now I could be wrong about this because I might be early, but this is the biggest PC refreshing history. So the trust point, Best Buy, not knowing if this may not be the, you have to get through this quarter, but I didn't want to like, you know, own it. I didn't want to wait until someone said, you know what, now the bad quarter's over. Let's buy. I'm probably a little early on for the club, but. Best Buy. Best Buy. Best Buy. But you've got a refresh cycle like no other, and I think a lot of people are going to realize this is something Jenson Wong taught me. Your PC's no good, because you've got to talk to your PC. You've got to understand that it's going to be part of AI, Microsoft's the winner. HP, of course, is presenting itself as a winner. Dell is the actual winner because Michael Dell was in the front row of the fabled GTC conference where he became the de facto way for you to get into the Nvidia universe, because Nvidia's no longer a chip company. It's a platform company. I know everyone wants to be a platform company. They really are now because they're, this new Blackwell is so vast that it's a super computer. So your PC's going to be no good. Would you say the same thing about an iPhone, an iPhone? I think that the iPhone next generation has to incorporate far more AI than it does now. But you know what? Tim Cope would say that. I mean, Tim Cope was tackling when I said, I need my, I'm going to hold, I need my iPhone to have what, what, what an Android has, he was like, okay, that's good enough for me. There's a piece of Bloomberg's got a piece today about how they need to evolve in an AI age. Well, I, I think that over and over again, we have said that Apple's not doing something right. And meantime, they were doing it. And by the way, the Apple story about the price cuts in China, we saw a survey which said that February, right before Apple reported that February was bad, March was worse. Turned out that February was good and March was better. Let's be careful making a judgment about China from any report because almost every report has been wrong. Really? Jim mentions said to be making a move, cutting prices, to some argue new lows on the Huawei competition, Jim, but you're just not willing to. No. I mean, then we'll see that in the cities, it's doing better and the, the desire to knock back Apple by everybody is extraordinary. And I got it. Can I just say I was too tough on Tony Second Aggie. He came out right before the quarter and he got it right. I want to know more about what that was good because the stock was all the way down. And he was presenting as a multiple year opportunity, not a quarter opportunity. Sometimes I'm too tough and I want to apologize to Tony. It was a great call. It was great. Cool. Yes. He's got some other calls that you think you still disagree on maybe, I don't know. True, but you know what? He's neutral on Tesla. And I remember from the old days, he's just such a nice guy and I said, what a, I was way too tough on him. He's a cerebral fellow who's very, very, very complete in the way he thinks. We're going to talk some more Apple and some financials as a JP Morgan has their investor day. Slough headlines out. So far, so good. I wish he, of course he has to talk negatively because he's part of our problem. See, I want to be positive and then I listen to him and I want to just walk it back a little. No, down 40,000. If you walked it back, you didn't get it. And it's our goal to at least present it as an option. Yes. Take a look at the pre-market speaking of which we will get a number of retail names in the week. It's a big target and lows TJX, of course, getting out into some top pick lists. There's a look at the futures. Not far from the flat line as the Dow puts together five straight winning weeks back in a moment. Hello, I'm Laura Castleton, U.S. head of portfolio construction and strategy at Janice Henderson investors. Is a brighter future possible? At Janice Henderson, we think it is. For 90 years, we've worked to help clients achieve superior financial outcomes and fulfill our purpose of investing in a brighter future together. We know that this means our thinking and our investments are helping to shape millions of brighter futures for the next 90 years and beyond. To learn more, go to Janice Henderson dot com. Let's get straight to the point. You want to grow your portfolio to fight rising costs of inflation or pay off your debt or anything standing in the way of you and financial freedom, right? Yahoo Finance, our sponsor today, can help. 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All the tools and tools you need in your wealth, yahoofinance.com, and you can also find out, what you need in your wealth, what you need in your wealth, what you need in your wealth, and what you need in your wealth, yahoofinance.com. That big picture perspective is what great investors need. For comprehensive financial news and analysis, visit the brand behind every great investor, yahoofinance.com, the number one financial destination, yahoofinance.com. The market never lacks for excitement, and this morning, Elliot Partners, which I think the world of, took a billion dollar stake in Johnson Controls. I think it makes a lot of sense when you look back, first of all, it hasn't gotten back to where it was in 2022, but it really is not kept pace with carrier and with train. I think that this is a, these things tend to start friendly, I don't know, they tend to start with, well, wait a second, maybe here are some ideas we can do, now, we don't know whether to start buying it there and move up, but I do think that when you cooperate with Elliot, you tend, like constellation brands, my shop was ourselves, when you cooperate, they have a fan of ideas, they do incredible work, and when you don't cooperate, it becomes difficult. There's no reason, it has to be difficult because they do come in as people might not realize constructively. It's only the management itself that defeats the constructive attitude. It's certainly not the way Elliot works, and I think it's going to be a good one, you can go much harder. Now the story's been a lot about streamlining, selling HVAC or trying, selling ADT or trying, right? Well, I think that one of the things that's hurt them is if you're the, if you look at any trust and you wanted to be bought by Honeywell or by Train, this administration would not let you do that. No, arguably, I would tell you, maybe it shouldn't, it's good to have a lot of competition. These guys have kept a lot of their customers, but I will warn people, it's up on a spike because of Elliot, and then I don't expect that any sort of takeover, I don't expect any sort of movement, but I do think that the company will be under pressure for some time because it's been such an underperformer, and I think by the way, I would say myself, it made me the CEO, the leadership team needs a little scrutiny here. Do you think it's the most interesting activist story since Disney? Yes, yes I do. How many others there have been really? Well, yes, because one of the reasons I, because this is one of the hottest, they have data center HVAC, and anything that is data center is so, I don't be like so hot, I don't some like it hot, but I do, what, hey, that movie ended so well, did it? Nobody's perfect. Nobody's perfect. Joey Mo, what I would say about Johnson Controls is nobody's perfect. I'm a man, we'll get the opening bell. Well, great. In about six minutes, don't forget, you can catch us anytime, anywhere, just listen to and follow the squawk on the street opening bell podcast. Game stop moving lower in the pre-market after last week's wild ride for the so-called meme names, shares the video game retailers took a nearly 20% hit on Friday after soaring earlier in the week. Jim, and we talked about the split between fundamentals and market prices. Right, and I was thinking about what brought a lot of Gen Ziers back was this, and I believe that you could beat Wall Street. It was never Wall Street that you were trying to beat. It was you were investing in a company with shaky fundamentals. Now, let's just show you take two, which you had, or you had Strals Zell on the coin. It's a very hard business, because when they get the game right, it's got to be perfect. But you don't buy it there. You download it on your Xbox, and what the fundamentals, what they seem to not understand the people who are buying that is it's a company. It's a company that's very challenged, it's a company with very little information, it's a company that is kind of a CEO who doesn't really care for explaining what he does, and it doesn't have a big short position anymore. There were so many other stocks they could have gone after, they should just let it alone, but they seem to not be able to resist, and they feel badly. Because it's not a way to make money anywhere. There's no short to beat up one, there's no short that's flailing, it has to cover. It's just now you're investing in a company that is a second-rate company. Do you think the companies, though themselves, are now nimble enough to say, "Look, if you're going to present this opportunity, we're going to meet you at the market?" I was very surprised that it took, I mean why didn't GameStop have that in place? Adam Aron sure did, and he completely gaffed everybody because he's such a good CEO, but he's got to pay off near-term debt. But I would have thought that GameStop would have had some program that was ready. You also had to pre-announce apparently at the same time, so you had to say how poorly you're doing, and put the, you couldn't issue a program apparently, and not tell people how poorly you're doing, but you could have like a quarter ago done it. GameStop, they just didn't do it fast enough, but, and they don't have a bad balance sheet, so I don't want to portray it that they needed the cash instance, certainly. But if you're going to continue on the way that they're doing, where you're having a declining business, you need all the cash you can get, they needed to reinvent the company. Now, I was made money trying to figure out some other what they could be doing, and I keep coming back to, they have too many stores, they have, must be some stores that are profitable, you have to close the ones that are not. That would have saved a lot of companies, I could have been saved by closing the non-performers, but they don't, they seem paralyzed, and people are investing in a paralyzed situation, where they even didn't time the, and they're doing it at the market, which I hate, because that means you can't move it up, they'll always be there. We'll keep an eye on it, it certainly has been an interesting week or so given the mean dynamic. Let's get the opening bell here in the CNBC real-time exchange. At the big board, it's clothing company Contour Brands, celebrating its fifth listing anniversary and at the NASDAQ candy maker, so good, celebrating a recent show. By the way, Contour Brands, I interviewed for me this morning in KTV. It's a remarkable company, it's a stand-off with the F-4, which is obviously problematic. The company's been waiting, Scott Baxter, great CEO, to really have the story down, where they're doing a good dividend, they've got the country singers all aligned with them, and it is a look when they did this ATG look, challenged me buys, but they're also doing an athleisure look that is challenging, woo, woo, woo. Well this week, Jim, we're getting TJX, RL, PVH, VF, and a bunch of others. It's very interesting, VF will be challenged because, you know, Racking Dow is going to try a slate of, you know, he used to be a proper gamble, that, that, I don't know whether that, he put that to work. As did Chip, as did Chip Berg, as did Chip Berg, TJX recommended it all over the place, I don't know, Ralph Lauren had such an amazing quarter, and it took so long for the street to react, the stock is now up, up reachably from when it had its last quarter, and that's Patrice Louvay just doing a remarkable job, and VF, people just liked it, I didn't see it as much like other than Helperger seems to have stemmed his problems, and I, I just can tell you that, that of all those, I think that Ralph Lauren is going to put up the best numbers. Right. Because Patrice is just a remarkable unsung CEO. Meantime Evercore does add TJX to their top five retail names, along with Ulta, Lulu, Burl and PVH, Jim. Yeah, I like Burl, Lulu was down, down 150 points, it still has a very high multiple, and a lot of people are gunning for them. I mean if you look at the, the pseudo athleisure aspect of, of what Contour is doing, going into women, you just know that there's just still one more challenger, Alata obviously a challenger from Gap Stores, well they haven't really emphasized it yet, but this, this is one I think Lulu does a good number, I don't know if people care, I, I don't know, I mean to me I, she's the multiple shrunk there, and I think the moment was shrunk because everybody wants that business, I was down at 23 times, she's pretty cheap, wow, I didn't know it was down that much. Hasbro did get added to Morgan Stanley's top picklist, Jim, along with Progressive, but I wonder in the consumer front, what's your choice? Well, Chris Cox is, has reinvented Hasbro, he's done a lot of tough things to get things right there, they need it to be done. I, I think that's one that I, I really do like of the, of the, you know, of, of, not comport for a while, but I, I, the upgrades seem very positive and, and justifying. Anytime NCLH is leading the S&P, what, what do you want to talk about tonight? Well, look, one of these, we know from, from Endless Data, whether it be from MasterCard, which put out a fantastic piece last week, that this is still the biggest bargain, or from Steve's career market, especially people love the crews, Norwegian Cruises has lagged the group, Frank D'Orio used to run the company at no longer, we've got Harry Summer, but I think, yeah, we had the Viking, yeah, I do, yeah, you know, as between Viking Therapeutics and Viking, the ship company, I vastly prefer Viking, the ship company, that carnivals up on this, people love the crews, Carl. I had a cruise booked for the last week of February and at 2020. And you obviously, well, couldn't go? No, it was a little COVID, basically, kind of. Yeah, that's what it hit. Yeah, and, yeah, that was it bummer, man. Well, that's a nice gain on just watch some travel trends. Speaking of calls, Jim, we got some initiations on Rubric today. Everybody loved it. Barkley's overweight, Evercore, I don't know, sorry, Webbush, Dan Ives goes out perform 50. Well, you know, Rubric, when I sat down with Ben Stowe, obviously, research director for mankind this morning, we looked at each other and we said, you don't want enterprise software, cloud data management, security, regulatory compliance, in other words, buy it. I mean, it's incredible. It's kind of like, it's kind of like, well, I don't know what they sound like Splunk. Cisco wants Splunk. Okay, let's buy Rubric. Yeah, enterprise software is a mystery and most data data dog, yeah, MongoDB. But these are the companies that always try to be the next service now. They try to be the next sales force. They try to be the next Palo Alto. They try to be the next crowd strike. And what they ought to be is themselves. Now, Palo Alto reports tonight and you'll see. Now, the last quarter was a disaster from the cash. I'm betting he, by the way, he had the United Health. They called him in immediately. He's, I think, got the hot hand. But George Kurtz and crowd strike is, the guy never misses. But those are what these companies all are meant to be. They want to be the next so-and-so and the next so-and-so. I don't like that game because I like the one, I want to be the one that is. Not the one that's next. Right. But to be, to be sure, there is, PashiCorp got taken, right? IBM, there is that? No, that was really interesting. You're right. You're absolutely right. I guess I just feel that when I'm betting on the cash down, 60 points. And the cash is a proud man and has delivered over time. I can't wait to hear what he says. It's a little cock, Reggie. Jim, the oil market was not really shaken by the now confirmed death of the Iranian president. Well, what moves the oil market? Now, that was, the economist has kind of a piece that suggests foul play. Look, I think, you know, when you see what happened, it just doesn't seem that way. But we know that we still have, there's a sense that we've peaked in the Permian, at least for now. So you could really jack up oil, but it's not happening. And some people keep saying, well, you know what, when you see the preponderance of electric fields in China, the nominal demand that came from, you know, the marginal demand that came from China may be out. Although they're gun and copper, but that may be data center, not even. Yes, and they're climate tech and all of that, right? Yeah. Although, I think copper, you're to date 35%. Oh, incredible, right? When you remember when it was about pipe and housing. We're stealing it off of yards. Oh my God. And, you know, I went to a waste management yard, you know, and people are like, well, don't throw away that copper. But I do believe that it's no longer, obviously, Chinese housing, it's data center and it's EV. What an incredible story because we've written off copper so many times and it was obviously wrong. I know that copper is a great byproduct of gold. Maybe I was thinking about looking at the gold miners just because suddenly they have a frost that may be gold. Interesting. We mentioned JP Morgan a few moments ago. Our Leslie Pickers there at Investor Day. A lot of the comments, Jim, are around white space and private banking overseas trying to quantify some of their AI use cases. They are the ones, just for the record, that spent the most time in the video. They're the ones that I think have been trying to figure out exactly how well to integrate it. There's no doubt about it that they've always been a remarkable machine. Giving some other high-ranking officials more responsibility. Well, that could be interesting because even in the fabulous series' succession, there was a success. Yes. At some point, Jamie will do it. Obviously, Jamie Diamond is a much, much-loved CEO by investors and I think that as long as he's there, people want to own the stock. Of course, JP Morgan, Goldman, I think even B of A, Jim have been putting in high after high for the last couple of weeks. Well, let's pay attention to Wells Fargo. My terrible trust is there and we have more to say. This is Charlie Sharf and Charlie with 11/12 times early. Charlie's getting, he's picking up all these different 55 and 65-year-old guys that have been, that didn't become CEO at these banks. And it's amazing. One of the things that you learn, Jeff Sonifel, I got to hand it to him, is you can't, you have to retire at a certain point because you're going to lose all the people who are 53 and 57. They recognize that they don't have enough time to be a 10-year CEO and now I think that Charlie Sharf just says, who worked at JP Morgan, I've worked at Visa, just says, "Alright, I'll take it." And he's building up, quietly building up a real investment banking powerhouse. Watch Charlie. I think he's got it. He's got the momentum. He's got a lot of those bad things behind him that were not his fault. All new board, all new team, confident, share buyback, remarkable man, by the way, remarkable. Are you talking about a real evolution, the mortgage business now, a thing in the past? Yeah, I think that they're, they want investment banking. If Charlie wants that, they want, if they want M&A, don't get it because he's a very respected businessman and business person, I should say. And I do think that, look, we could like City, too. I just had him to favor Wells because Charlie's back and those of us who remember Sharf in the days when he was... When he isn't the teddy bear that he has now. Exactly. Jim, Micron, gets an upgrade today over at Morgan Stanley to go to overweight. I wonder how you think that fits into the overall shock story. Alright, here it is. Joe Moore says he belatedly came around, comes around to HBM, which is the high, this is the memory, high-band memory with, and he says he remained negative for too long. Micron was a mistake, staying negative. I like that. I mean, yeah, oh, I would have liked it if he had been positive, but at least there's some humility. This is a stock that when you get it right, when you get it right, you have to start when it's horrible, when people really hate it. But I have to tell you, if you parse everything that Sanjay Marocha said, you would have gotten it because Sanjay was saying, "Listen, the inventories are now lean." And that's when you see that first, like, the base camp on the way to Everest? Yes. The first base camp was when he said the inventories are lean, and people got it and said, "Wow, maybe the long time followers of Micron realize you can't wait until it's better." And this fellow Joe Moore waited until it was better, and that's just not what happened. It can lead for two years and then go back down, but they have now a less cyclical business. They have a secular growth business that's related to data centers, and this high-band with memory is fantastic. The great manufacturers notice, by the way, they make things in America, and Sanjay Marocha. I know that I love what the commerce sector is doing. I love it, but Sanjay is his own commerce sector. In terms of making it here. And to your mind, though, I think she spent a lot of time with Intel, which is great. I would check that balance sheet of Intel, but I do think that Micron can do it alone or do it with someone. Sanjay Marocha is the king of American chips, not Pat Gelsinger. Interesting. Yes. And by the way, a quiet man, not a braggadoe show, just goes about making great chips in an area where there's only a couple of companies, and it's really dominant. And that's why that stock can go still higher. Speaking of making things in this country, this vote out of Mercedes on Friday did not go to the UAW's win. Wasn't that something? Were you surprised? Well, the south is different, but yeah, I was because I know that when I look at what Ford had to give and GM had to give, one of these people are basically voting for status quo. And if you look at the deals that they got in Detroit, wow. I mean, they were great. Now, I'm sure there are people like my wife who would say, Jim, the so-and-so CEO is making $22 million in Washington. And there's definitely that disparity, and we know that when Toyota came here and Honda, they were determined to make it so that the CEO's pay is more aligned. But I was surprised. Meanwhile, Reuters has a piece on Tesla about the company trying to assuage some complaints from fleet managers in Europe. And then it kind of takes us to what Elon Musk said on the most recent earnings call about whether or not you're buying Tesla right now as a car company or autonomy play. Here's what he said. If you value Tesla as an auto company, this is the wrong framework. If somebody doesn't believe Tesla's going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company. But we will. And we are. Now, that's from a group that's advocating for this pay package vote. Well, look, this pay package is what I'm going to say. I mean, it's a deal. I mean, it's a contract. You should get the money. But where I find it quizzical, he wants me to value it as a tech company. Well, I've got Nvidia, and Nvidia is selling it 37 times earnings, which is probably going to turn out to be 25 times future earnings, and his is selling it 68. So if I want the tech company that he relies on, I'll buy the stock of Nvidia. I'll wait until after Wednesday, so I don't have to play that rush from the late game. But I think that he is right that one day, the tech will be a driving force. But right now, it's not. I guess, but your advice, then, is Nvidia over Tesla? Nvidia is maybe the beginning of a new industrial revolution. Tesla has not been able to make the chips that Nvidia has. I know there was a time when famously, when Neil on my side, I don't need you, Jensen. And then he had to come back to the fold. Look, it's a $550 billion company. It is clearly not being valued as an auto company, because Ford's 48 billion. So you have to suffer, you're kind of in no man's land. I wish Tesla well, and I think he deserves the money, because he got the contract. But it doesn't mean I want to buy the stock. I'd rather buy companies that are betting in the revolution, a Dell, a service now. I see Kendra this morning making a deal with Nvidia. You have to get with Jensen. And I did a lecture about getting with Jensen. You have to get with him, because it's the industrial revolution. Nothing that you have will be the same after his GPUs become more broad. And they're not broad yet. The Times has a piece, Jim, on Paramount with Sony Apollo, signing some NDAs. They do backup favors reporting from last week about maybe cooling on the idea of an all cash. Yeah, David's been right on that. I always joke with David. You kill Paramount. You know, it's like he kills Kenny. He kills Kenny at every single week. But yeah, he's been right. I suspect that on that one is. That's even more fraught than my position on Disney for my travel trust. Thank heavens. We sold a lot. Did you really? Oh, my God. And it was just discipline when Peltz left. I know that, boy, Peltz's name is... There are people who just say Peltz had nothing to do about going to the stock. They'd go higher. I'm interested in the stock. I'm not interested in whether Goofy and Pluto are unionized. But Whoofy and Pluto? Yes. Mercedes, no. That's right. I mean, I don't know. I mean, how about the seven? How about the seven book? I'm just looking at Dow components. You're today, Jim, and we're Disney ranks. Please. Yeah. I mean, we talked the other day about its lack of contribution to Dow 40K for the last big milestone. Well, you know, I've done enough to say negative things about Bob Eier. My travel trust is in it. You, Johnson, Bob Eier, look, figure something out. But we go back again and again to what a bad business anything linear TV is. And the coordinators are now taking... The coordinators are so prevalent that you feel like you're... Like, you take the bundle? I mean, I think... When I meet with young people, they... I'm trying to get them to watch me. They watch me on the... This 20-minute... This 10-minute thing I do is check marks. People know that. And I tell you, I tell you, I... You've got this great program. And I'm thinking, "Oh, may have money. May have money." Yeah, there's the... The meeting. I'm like, "No, no, the meeting. The may have money to squawk on the street." No. No, the meeting. And it's like, "Oh, my. How did that happen?" Yeah, that's interesting. Not to mention, Jim, a lot of coverage out of Cannes this week, including Universal's Donna Langley talking about the Global Box Office being down 20-year-on-year. And a lot of that streaming audience, she argues, may just get out of the habit of going to the movies, which is why, "Gee, you need a lot more content." I think that those of us who still go to the movies feel... I look around and I say, "Wow, there's a lot of old people there." My wife says, "Hey, look at the mirror." But, you know, when you have to... There's not as many cinemas. And, like, I think the... I went to see the full guy. I thought it was, like, fantastic. And I said, "This... Movies are back." And it's like, then I saw it didn't even do that one. The box office. You know, it's all Oppenheimer. Oppco. That's the only one... The best by the big screen. The Costco big screen. The ability to be able to stop it when you want. The exciting nature of what something pops up every week. Your couch is dynamite. I mean, you know, I paid $7 for a box of good and plenty. There's, like, fewer good and plenty's in there. There's more goods in the last department. I don't know. The popcorn was, like, the... It was a $100 alley to go see the full guy. I have no sitter. No. Yeah, I just... Wow, yeah, right. No sitter. That's a good saving grace. But, no. I mean, you can't go to the movies without spending so much money. No one... They've been here growing up. You had $2.50. It was, like, fantastic. And then you get the oil shrimp you want, a red lobster. But that obviously would demise that company. Wait, what you're arguably giving up is that communal experience. You may see I'm just taking a look as well. I got a communal experience with my couch and my dog. That's enough? My dog is, like... My dog is, like, somewhat interested. He's been in one of those, like, learning candles last two weeks. Because do you think the dog... It's kind of like how Michael went to college and he gets stupid and Godfather too. He's going to get stupid. That's a good deep track as well. Decent starts of the week. Decent pees up 10 points. 53-14. Losing a little ground on the Dow down 46. Watch bonds today. We're going to get a ton of fed speak today as well. Boston bar, Waller, Mr. Jefferson. And then, again, Boston tonight at 7. My man, let's just continue a smooth path. As we work our way toward Fed minutes later in the week. 10-year, 4-4-4. Stay with us. Watch him in her as hell today. A digital pharmacy startup is introducing access to some of the GLP1 weight loss injections. So close to. CEO told CNBC Company is confident that consumers will be able to get access to a consistent supply of the medications. A nice gain there on a market that's opening. Not too far from all time high. It's about five points shy on the S&P. Don't go away. It's time for Jim and Stop Trading. Steve Flores is a disturbing piece today about one of my favorite stocks, which is ELF, ELF Beauty, saying that it's weakening category, declining market share. Well, I don't know about declining market shares. They're really, really good. But I would tell you, there's a slowdown in U.S. mass beauty sales, the likes of which I've not -- frankly, I've never seen. And it's including Amazon, Costco, Ulta. I don't know what to say. This is a group that had been very, very strong for a very long time. And it's just cracks. It's cracks everywhere. I thought it was just that once Sephora got in, they could really create a huge competition because they moved in very aggressively at Coles. I'm still holding by that. But I don't know. I mean, people -- retail's very tough. I mean, look, TJX, there were three firms that told you to buy it. The stock's down a dollar. So I don't know. Retail's very, very tough. I can't wait to see what Target does. I think people are saying, well, wait a second. That discount says, "Look out." I'm kind of rooting for Brian. Yeah, I'm just rooting for him. I did notice Ulta and Dash expanding their delivery partnership. It's almost the inverse of -- remember your Instagram trade? Yes. That was -- it was like time ago. You're a selfie best. Yeah. Look, the one -- look, Walmart and Costco may be -- Walmart, Costco and Amazon -- sorry, the KOR. This is a problem with Kroger. Are the three great retailers of our time? I sometimes order things in Amazon in the morning just to see if they come -- they're back there in the afternoon. I dare you to get it to me. No, I just always say Brian or something. I always feel bad for the CFO that I ordered, you know, a case of Gatorade. And it's like, "Dare when I get home." Gatorade G, I like the one that has no -- it's a con. Grandma and Lagord, I like your diet one. Contour and Norwegian time. Norwegian. And then we've got -- you know, we've gotten a cash Aurora from Palo Alto. May I tell you that the Contour story is a remarkable story that Wrangler and Lee, it's their time. Whether it be country, whether it be denim, whether it be management, giving you a good return. It's their time. And terrific. Just terrific stuff. Look forward to tonight, Jim. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Big shot. Mad money. 6 p.m. Eastern time. As the SMP at least tries to take aim at some fresh, all-time highs, 53-21. Stay with us. 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. 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