Closing Bell Overtime: Amazon and Apple Take the Spotlight as Wild Earnings Week Rolls On 7/30/26

the bell is bringing into the trading day at the N. Way and see the CEO of Black Berry bringing the bell before speaking to Jim Kramer and Matt Money tonight and at the Nasak, the Long Island Alzheimer's and dementia center closing the trading day. Welcome to closing bell over time. Live from Studio B at the Nasak Market site. I'm a list of Lee along with Mike Santoli. A big bounce back for stocks today at more than 600 points about half of what it lost yesterday. S&B 500 adding 1.7% Nasak up nearly 3%. It's not be a six- session losing street with its best day in a month. Microsoft, the big winner following its results. Memory names with a huge comeback as well. Amazon also would gain her as it is set to report any minute. And we're also going to get numbers from Apple 29 minutes away from that report. Coinbase, Reddit, and others also on our radar this hour bringing the results. As soon as we have them, but what a day, Mike, what a snapback we saw. Yeah, there was a concentration of multiple reasons to be worried yesterday. You had that downside momentum from the Fed reaction. Really this sort of maybe there's no bids in semis, as we thought there were. And then you come up this morning and the situational awareness hedge fund is reported to be blown out. They were getting margin called. And it really mirrors what we've seen through July, which is anything that did incredibly well in the first half of this year has gotten smoked. Korea, the whole all the story that was layered upon it. And it was enough to give traders this idea that maybe we've seen a sufficient amount of de-risking and you can get back in there. Now, all it really is is that the market is going to be a little bit more than a few years ago. And then we're going to see what we're going to do with the economy. And then we're going to see what we 're going to do with the economy. And then we're going to see what we are going to do with the economy. And then we're going to see what we're going to do with the do you expect them to offer any guidance as to what it looks like for next year? Is that a relevant swing factor here? >> I know Amazon, I don't think they'll talk about next year. I know Google has already talked about CAPTEX for next year, meta-declined, Microsoft gave you some forward financial free cash flow guidance. That's not Amazon's, that's not what they normally do. So I wouldn't expect them to talk about it for next year. And then in terms of financing, they have enough financing to get through this, this biggest investment cycle ever. They have enough without having to tap the equity markets. I know there was this urban myth that they would do that. I strongly disagree. The last time Amazon did an equity offering, it's IPO. So they just don't do that. But a debt offering possibly, though, only if they feel like it's helpful to the balance sheet. There's no necessity on their part to raise debt if they want to. If they wanted to, they absolutely have the ability to raise it. But I don't expect them to. >> Anything else that we've missed so far, Mark, I know it's early on. The conference call hasn't happened and you got the release, but anything else stand out to you. >> Well, it sounds like we had acceleration across the board, advertising retail and AWS. My sense is I haven't looked at the retail margins yet, but the probably gapping up. Now I want to find out some things. Let's talk to us about Project Leo. So are we blasting off part in the pun? Are we going to go commercially live in the fourth quarter? I think we will, but I'd like to hear that. And then we've got new business initiatives like this logistics and shipping initiative. So it's only been out for a month or two, but what kind of early traction are we getting for that? Those are the two most interesting new business areas. This is when during the earnings call. They usually riff a little bit on some of their new initiatives. I want to hear those. >> All right, Mark, great to have you. Thank you. Mark Mahaney. >> Thanks, Melissa. >> The Nasak having its best day since March 31st, but it's still down 4% month to date. So where does today's bounce back leave the markets? So now is Schwab had a macro research and strategy. Kevin Gordon. Kevin, good to see you. >> Good to see you guys. >> What did you make of today in the context of yesterday of Kevin Warsh of Bonneville's Moving Higher and Saying High? >> Well, I think you both mentioned it well and summarized it well at the beginning of the show. Today I don't really take a big macro message from the market. I mean, there's so much distortion from this reflexive move that you've seen in the mega caps. But I do think as it pertains to yesterday, not just the stock market reaction, but I think the process at reaction of short end yields lower, long and higher, dollar down, stocks down. Of course, you'd ever want to extrapolate that. It's just one day. But if you start to see more of that reaction in the next month and after we get this next set of data, I think that will be more of the market sort of questioning that sort of credibility, inflation-fighting credibility nature of the Fed. Not to say that that's the case right now, but once we get more Fed speak, but you also get another round of inflation data presumably, it gets a little bit hotter because of what's been going on with energy. That to me, I think is going to be the more important macro message. But I do think in the context of what has happened in this mega-cups sell-off and in this momentum drag, the broader macro message, at least in the stock market, has not been poor. If anything, breadth has improved throughout that timeline, small caps have not gotten hit. So I don't think that necessarily sends a bad macro message. >> Certainly not a bad macro message. I just kind of wonder because it's been so perfectly scripted, exactly as you'd like to see. I started to get a little bit nervous. But we've gone through these situations where as it happens on month ends, that's when you've had these decisive inflections, right? The war starts February 27th, the market bottom March 30th. June 30th was kind of like pretty much the start of the AI rethink. And here we are one month later, we have the biggest momentum drawdown. And we're starting to bounce out of it after spending a few days below the 50-day moving average in the US. >> I mean, this also happens as you've seen particularly the retail cohort, which has sort of been that, you know, stalwart never leaving the market kind of actor, has been de-risking relatively aggressively into this, especially within the tech sector. You look at net purchases, dipping negative, most aggressive since the pandemic. I think that's starting to get to some of that capitulation behavior that you tend to see. And what was interesting was that in the sort of setup to this, the months leading up into the peak for whether it was memory or semis, you had seen more froth on the behavioral side, not necessarily on the attitudinal side. So everything from a positioning and a flow standpoint was more aggressive, not necessarily reflected in what we were hearing, what we were seeing in surveys. So the fact that now you're going through a little bit of the washout on the behavioral side, it does set you up a little bit for that, I guess, month end activity where you're sort of due for maybe a little bit of a stronger snapback. >> Great, yeah. >> If rates stay high around where they are now, or maybe even a little higher, do you rethink how you allocate? >> I don't think that the level of rates should necessarily dictate that. We've done a lot of work over the rate of change in rates and the volatility being more of the driver of whether equities are going to respond in a particular way, especially if it's aggressive. So if rates are going higher for the so-called wrong reasons and we do get more of a troubling inflation backdrop and the Fed is not responding to it, then yes, I do think you need to start rethinking that. Admittedly, we don't have a whole lot of history and a historic land-alogged for that, so it's a little bit of a tougher backdrop to assess. But at the same time, I mean, focusing on the fundamental backdrop of earning still being relatively strong, the breadth of earnings being positive and healthy, that to me I think still matters a lot more in the short to medium term. >> Kevin, thank you. >> All right, Coinbase earnings are out. Today, McHale has those numbers today. >> Go ahead. >> Hey, guys. Coinbase reporting a wider than expected loss of $1.36 per share versus estimates of 17 cents per share revenue came in at $1.3 billion, also missing estimates of -- sorry, came in at $1.2 billion, missing estimates slightly of $1.3 billion. I do want to highlight the transaction and subscription revenue. The gap between those two is narrowing. Coinbase, of course, is trying to prove to investors that it can continue to make money even when there's a trading slump in crypto prices. The transaction and subscription revenue, a difference of about 16 percent this time last year. That narrows this year to 7 percent and subscription revenue just about half, 48 percent of its overall revenue. But that was not enough to lift the Coinbase, you know, the overall earnings. And you can see in the after hours movement, the investors are not happy with that, guys. >> All right, Tenae, thank you. Tenae, McHale, sock down a quick 5.5 percent on the back of those results. Bonyls holding near yesterday's highs, as we've mentioned, as a PCE number shows inflation remaining well above the 2 percent target, will the Fed have to hike at some point. And we're also awaiting results from Apple, Tim Cook's swan song with a sock near record highs. You're watching Close and Bell Over Time, live from the Nasak Market site. >> Sucks are in today, but Bonyls holding onto yesterday's levels of 30 years still near that 2007 high. Let's get to Rick Santelli and Chicago for more, Rick. >> Well, if we're talking about a 30 year, why don't we talk about the 20 year? Both those are odd ball issues, like just like the 7 year. The 10 year is still hovering around that May 19th, what was the cycle, how you yield close. Look at the 210 spread. That's one week chart. You see that bump up? That was driven largely by short rates going down and long rates, not really going anywhere, the same place they was last week. And conventional wisdom is a dangerous thing. I don't know that the Fed needs to ease. And if all you're looking at is the 2 year consider this. We've had a boatload of issuance and tea bills. That's historically not the norm. And it distorted that bill, 2 year relationship, not to mention institutions like to trade the 210 spread, speculators like to trade the 530 spread. Hence we mostly seem to talk about that 30 year. Now, if you look at that 210 spread going back a couple of months, what should jump out at you is that on the 24th of June, it was at 24 basis points. Look where it's at now, an incredible move in a short period of time. Hey, bankage pans meeting. And many believe that they're not going to do anything with rates, but they most likely intervene. Look at that chart. That's the dollar yen. The dollar getting hit. A big move in the end. A positive move. Nobody expects it. But the bankage pan knows that intervention. It doesn't have much efficacy. But if you paired it with a surprise rate height, maybe it would pay attention to that market between 11 and midnight to night, Eastern time. Mike, back to you. All right. Yeah. Set in the alarm. All right, Rick. Thank you. Well, the streets verdict on Kevin Worsh's second press conference. Largely was not a kind one. Investors were left with few answers after the new Fed chair declined to offer many specifics on how the Fed might respond to inflation. So as the Worsh era takes shape, does he need to evolve his communication style as many Fed chairs have before him or is this simply the new reality for market? Joining us now is Gileba. He is chief fixed income strategist at Jenny Montgomery Scott. And Gage, it's great to have you on. Look, I mean, everyone's kind of running commentary during the press conference. A lot of folks a little bit either put off or alarmed or not hearing what they wanted to hear. What do you think the intent was? What do you think the result was for the market? Well, I think you can see the results in the big upward move in 30-year treasury yields. I mean, the biggest one day upward moves in the tariff period more than a year ago. Look, I would say that what Worsh said was a little confused. It was difficult to detangle. There was a lot of circularity in the comments and without kind of getting into the details of why markets took that as a source of significant concern. And I think the biggest sort of change between, call it the noon yesterday and where we are today, is that many, many asset classes are trading all of a sudden with a little bit of an incremental risk premium. And that risk premium really comes from the fact that Worsh, very, very circumspective up fighting any form of guides to the markets, something that we've been used to for, you know, going on 20 years in gradually increasing measures. - I mean, it's okay, if the long end of the yield goes higher, that's fine, as long as the Fed follows up with some sort of hike. I mean, it's all in the follow-through, right? I mean, you can only, you know, jawbone so much, but if there's no follow-through, then that will only, it's like intervention, it only lasts for so long. So is there no harm, no foul, if they come through with a hike in September, when do you think, you know, you'll sit there and say, 'cause you were very candid yesterday during the press conference and some of the posts on X, when will you say the Fed's lost control here at the treasury market? - Yeah, well, I think for at least a brief moment yesterday afternoon, the Fed certainly lost the long end. And oftentimes, they sell off so they're momentum driven or they're Federal Reserve driven. They don't end until an accident happens. I'll sort of bring your viewers back to late 2023 in September and October of 2023. We have the guilds crisis that kind of capped the big increase in yields around that period. And that was that version's market accident. I'm not sure what's gonna happen this time around, but it's sort of one of two areas I would lean towards. One, the market effectively bullies the Federal Reserve into a rate hike. And I guess you could call that the contemporary version of bond vigilantes, so I don't tend to like that phrase. And two, the long end continues steepening in the absence of forward guidance, right? If we see probably another few months of moderate to slightly high inflation prints, plus a Federal Reserve and a Kevin Orsch, it says similar things to what he did yesterday. And I think we have long end yields move materially higher. Unfortunately, I don't know how great way to gauge which of those more likely at the moment. - I mean, there's one way of, I guess, looking at it to say going into the decision yesterday was a two-thirds chance based on the market pricing. Nothing was gonna happen in terms of rates. You know, even if you looked out to September December, it wasn't like they were rock solid, they were gonna 100% happen. So I guess my question is, what if he had come up there and says, well, if inflation remains tame around these levels, we're gonna have to potentially consider tightening down the road. We might have left us in a similar place. I'm just sort of trying to reconcile how the market just rebelled against the manner in which he conveyed certain things. - Again, it's the lack of guidance that's really the key here. So I think we underestimate, because it's been such a feature of financial markets, just how smooth, even a little bit of forward guidance in the Federal Reserve has made the course of rates. And just to give you one example, if I'm a bank portfolio or another manager that's essentially exposed to short-term interest rates and wants to smooth out earnings, in a world where the Federal Reserve gives me pretty good indication of what they're gonna do in the next month, the next couple months, I don't need to hedge that risk very much. But in a world in which there's so much uncertainty about the very next FOMC meeting, I need to go out and hedge that risk, right? And that's gonna create both in the market terms and elevated appearance of a probability of rate hikes or cuts at some point down the road. And it's also gonna incur a long run cost to me to run my balance sheet and reduce that risk. So that friction, I think, is a lot of what the markets are reacting to. Essentially, again, if I'm that hypothetical bank, I now have to hedge every single FOMC meeting from year to the end of the year to 2027. - Gey, thanks. Great to get you to take. - Take it. - Gila Ba. Up next, Apple earnings. Tim Cook's final quarter as a CEO, the stock just a few bucks from record highs hit this week. Will these results propel it even higher? That is next on overtime. - Yeah, I think that's the last thing that I've been doing. - Now, I want to raise prices on Macpokes and some of the other cross portfolio. It's unlikely, and typically Apple doesn't like to tell you what's going to come out late in September, but I do think at this point, I wouldn't expect them to raise prices on the iPhone 18 lineup. The debate might just be what's about the giveaway season. - I believe they're out, yet the stock is moving here. Mackenzie, Sigalo, do you have the numbers? - Hey there, Mel, we've got shares. Just at the flat line right now, despite what is a blockbuster quarter for Apple, I'm looking at a revenue beat here of 109.4, 2 billion versus the 108.65 billion that was expected. That is a 16% jump from a year earlier. Now, EPS is coming in at $2.02, but we're not gonna compare that to estimates, at least not at this point, because it includes an 11 cent favorable impact from Terra Free Funds. Going down the line here, iPhone revenues a huge beat, surging 22% year over year to 54.25 billion. That's its third straight quarter of 20% plus growth in that segment, the iPhone 17 family, their most popular lineup in company history. Services coming in slightly light at 30.74 billion versus 31.22 billion expected, but stay at, I mean, that category is still up 12%. Percent from a year earlier, and then China, a third straight quarter of 20% plus growth, it's up 22% to 18.8 billion. That's been a huge bright spot for them. Growth margin is coming in at 50.1%. But again, we're not gonna be comparing that to estimates at this point, because it includes that favorable impact of two percentage points from those Terra Free Funds. Cash on hand, we're looking at 146.5 billion, and then I just have to point to the max segment because it was just a blowout quarter. There are 10.35 billion beating estimates of 8.74 billion, and then just a couple minutes ago, guys, us catching up with CEO Tim Cook back there in Apple Park. It's his final quarter, of course, the CEO 15-year tenure before he hands over the reins to John Ternis, I specifically asked him about Chinese memory. That has been Chinese memory because of the memory supply crunch that we are faced with right now. And he said, I think memory that from any source can help because there is a fundamental supply issue in the consumer DRAM space. There's not enough, it's too expensive. So both of those things are happening. It wants an obviously related, any source providing some supply would be good. So it seems like all options are on the table. Of course, CXMT, that DRAM supplier in China just went public this week and shown high. And then my second question was asking about this Google partnership because so much of this upside for Apple that we've seen has been related to, the company is anti-CAPEX AI-BET, not spending heavily to train frontier models and licensing that tech from Gemini, and from their partner Alphabet. I asked if there was any concern about that dependency. Tim Cook told me we are collaborating with Google. We're doing a lot of work ourselves as well. It's an engineering collaboration, and no, it does not bother me. I think it's very smart. Guys, calls kicking off at five o'clock Eastern, and that's where Cook will be addressing whether or not we see any price hikes. - Right, McKenzie, thank you. So if it was an 11 cent gain on the 202 in EPS, back at $1.91, looks like a 2 cent beat off the estimate, maybe not that dramatic. I'm just to focus in on services growth. It looks like it was a little light relative to what you were expecting, which was I think 13.5%. - Yeah, I mean, these headline, these numbers look like, you know, services is a little bit blind. I from this likely stronger than people expected. I'll see, net net this looks really down the road a fairway for them. I mean, the gross margin of being my mouth directly is 48.1%, people are hoping for 48. So it's all the zip code I want from to expected. I'd say iPhone slides it better. So it's just likely worse up. - I mean, in terms of the valuation, though, is that the problem here going into, I mean, the fact that it was, you know, just off of record high, the quarter is good, it was solid, but it wasn't like gang busters. - Yeah, I think the valuation question kind of depends on two things. One is, what do you think about the rest of the world, right? If you made in a risk off narrative, Apple will continue to do a lot. I think that's one part of it. The other part I think that both will try to focus on this call is, as CVE AI rolls out, does that enable Apple to sustain this 20% plus iPhone momentum growth that they've had into iPhone 18? If you can get faith that they can do 20% iPhone growth again next year, I think this stock has a tremendous amount of upside worst stuff. I think fundamentally that's the point you want to focus on is, can iPhone demand fault of the way it is? Despite the price increase, the Navy and the landing app? - And what are we looking for at sort of leading signals of whether that can happen? I mean, presumably people are going to have to be aware of what CVE AI offers and then that has to catalyze and energized upgrade cycle. - So CVE AI in the Western hemisphere, actually it would be the focus. The other one is, they've got approvals, they've bought Apple and Gallaudin from China with partners with Alibaba and Baidu. When does that roll out? What does that momentum look like? That's another part of it. The club manager see, you know, give a 20% plus iPhone girl, this potentially some of this a full-end ahead of what everyone is starting to understand, which is iPhone prices will go up next year. And if that's the case, then iPhone 18 momentum could be a little bit weaker, right? I think that's a full-end push with what you got to watch for. - What are your thoughts on, and I don't know if they're going to comment on the conference call about this, about getting chips from a CXMT, for instance, and how that would, in theory, help margins for Apple. - You know, 48% gross margins is down about 120, 130, basically, sequentially. We think they'll have the guy gross margins down again and sectoral, right? So there's a bit of a downward trajectory between gross margins right now. A big part of this, right, of the 120, basically, once got a gross margin drop, we think two-third of that is actually grown by memory right now for them. So this is extremely relevant for them. And I think the most important thing Apple probably wants to ensure they can get is a allocation of memory that we need to shift the products, but we just have some security on the prices that they have to take in, right? So I do think they can come out and say, we have LTEs, we know what our memory input cost is that will look like for the next four months, that would be an advantage then. - Is there any suspense or kind of unanswered questions about how John Ternis is going to sort of take the baton and set priorities, or is this just pretty seamless in your view? - You know, I think the message from who Martinez being, it's going to be more of the same, right? I think the key focus points around, you know, the consumer and making sure that they're happy with the products that they have. And we'll all remain the same. I really don't think this will be a lot of change. The ones that you could potentially use in our John comes from much more engineering background. Typical, it was a phenomenal operations person. Maybe there's a bit of a change there. But I do think it's going to be more of the same with the CU transition. - Ahmed, thanks. Great to get your take. I'm at Darianani. Stock is off by just about 2% much more in this huge hour of earnings straight ahead. As we count down to the analyst calls from Apple as well as Amazon. Close and bell overtime, be right back. Welcome back to Close and Bell overtime. Live from the Nasak Market site. Big rebound for stocks today. The Dow up 613 points about half of what it lost yesterday. The Nasak, the big winner of 2.8%. Microsoft, the leader after its results. But we also saw big jumps and momentum names specifically. Those are big holdings of the situational awareness hedge fund after Citadel jumped in to buy its portfolio and stop the selling. Amazon jumping after beating on earnings and seeing strong growth in its cloud business. That's on this higher right now by 6.7%. Roblox, though falling sharply posting a net loss. The smaller than expected in line in revenue, the issue seems to be third quarter bookings. The street was expecting 1.77 billion. 1.65 is the high end of Roblox's guidance. That's on this down to whopping 13%. - Well reddit, also moving lower. Julia Borsten has those numbers. I Julia. (upbeat music) - Hi, well reddit beating on the top and bottom lines was stronger than expected guidance and user growth. But shares are plummeting now down about 6.5% on search traffic headwinds. I spoke to CEO Steve Huffman who said quote, "Search referrals were chopping in the quarter and traffic was more volatile later in the quarter." He also said visibility remains low. I asked Huffman if he's going to drop reddit steel to license its content for AI use. He said they're thinking about all of their options to maximize the long-term value of reddit and they have yet to find a win-win. Saying quote, "Search results have driven a tremendous amount of value for the whole ecosystem and AI overviews have yet to make a similar level of positive impact." Now Huffman stressed the strengths in the quarter saying that they are delivering AI returns without AI cost with 61% revenue growth and as well as guidance for Q3 and arrange well above analyst estimates all of this on $1.1 million in capex in the quarter. We're going to be talking about all this in morning an exclusive interview tomorrow morning with Huffman in the 8am eastern hour of Squawk Box over to you. Julia, thank you. Well, despite today's market comeback, our next guest is still waiting for the fat pitch when it comes to getting more aggressive as a buyer in this market. Finding how much more downside he thinks there might be when closing bell overtime returns. Stocks staging a strong bounce today after yesterday's sell-off a convincing rebound or just fleeting relief with us now is John Colovus. He's head of technical strategy at macro risk advisors. Began calling for a summer swoon months ago. John, do we clear any hurdles today? Not quite yet, Mike. I think today was a bit of a kick save on the markets. It was good to see on the headline indices up over about a percent or so on the S&P and almost 3% on the Q's. But we're still in this corrective process. We're still in this trading range, okay? And why today was a kick save is because we came down to this important support level by the July 26th low. If we had broken that, that would have created a trap door down to around the 7,000 area. So he bounced right off of it and that was a perfect kick save for the market. However, if we were to follow through to the upside and break out above the 75-25 area, then we would be able to say that the correction is over. But we're not out of the wood yet, Michael. So that's a couple of percent up from here would be that threshold. So what about one of the harder hit parts of the market that had driven us down? Yes, when it comes to the semi-conductor, first of all, in my note today, I said that we're looking for technical green shoots. And one of the technical green shoots that we're looking for is an over-sold condition in the market. This is the first time that we're seeing semis get down to an over-sold level. However, if you take a look at the semis themselves, it completed a head and shoulders top. And that implies moved down to around the 460 area. We haven't gotten there yet until we rebound up until, you know, call it the, you know, up to the 50-day moving average or so. I think there's still more downside to be had. Ideally, to find a proper low on the semi-conductors, is that we make a lower low here down around the 460, and then the RSI starts to do a positive divergence. So I don't think we're out of the wood yet when it comes to semis. So, John, why don't you come on over? Let's talk about what we need to see in order to achieve that sort of summer swoon that you've been calling for. You do note that August is a terrible month, historically, for stock. So that should work in that swoon camp favor. But capitulation isn't there either. Right, and that would be ideal we get capitulation, honestly. Like, as a technician, I'm just looking at the S&B. I'm getting bored to tears looking at this. There's nothing just going sideways every flipping day. The quickest way out of this would be capitulation. VIX, 35, or 40. And we got pretty darn close to seeing that again yesterday. Credits spread started inching higher, and I was like, there it is. Credits gonna blow up. You know, the Fed made a mistake. We're gonna get a big spike in ply correlations. We're gonna do it. Finally, we got the swoon. We'll wash things out, get a bottom around 7,000, and then work our way up, you know, through the end of the year. But we just didn't get it yet. So we gotta keep a very close eye on those credit. - So it kind of interrupted the process arguably here. You also got this crazy rally in the end. It's two years ago, almost to the day, when that was sort of a catalyst during excuse for a little bit of a correction. - Yeah, and that worries me quite a bit. The Magra was still a huge concern for me, and I think that could lead to the swoon. If the end doesn't stop doing what it's doing today, it looks exactly like it did back in July of 24. And the S&P went down about eight to nine percent during that time frame. So this Magra environment needs to stabilize. That big, big time. - At the same time, and for treasury yields, what do you see there in the charts in terms of that 30 or remaining fron, even after the meeting yesterday? - Yeah, I still think the trend for interest rates is still higher. I would say at least the 10 and the 2, they're still targeting year to date highs. I still think they're going there. But they keep it really simple for viewers and whatnot. 50 day moving averages good enough. If you break underneath there, then we can start removing the need to see immediately higher interest rates, but they're still there. And that's part of the whole, tightening financial conditions. - You mentioned capitulation is ideal, right? I mean, if you really wanted to draw it up, if you don't get it, and this happens all the time, where you kind of have a little bit of a half-hearted low and the market tries to resume its trend, I mean, does it just sort of limit the potential upside momentum, or is it mean you just sort of delaying a potential correction? - No, I think what's important when it is is like, you're looking for that fat pitch, right? But sometimes it's okay to go on a base for a walk. And then you take it from there. So it's all right, the market just does its thing, we get pushed apart. You know, my base case is we go to 7,000. We don't get a 7,000, okay, fine. It's okay to be wrong, but it's not okay to stay wrong. Okay, and when the market evolves, so with a call, right? So we don't get the capitulation fine. You know, it'll eventually work its way higher. - Will there be a point, which, I mean, we've been around this level for about 10 weeks or so. Is there a case to be made that at a certain point, you say, you know what, the markets are actually holding firm in spite of everything that's being thrown at them? And so this is a base. - Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of the way I was alluding to earlier. We had this coiled spring that's developing right now. And if we had made that breakdown yesterday, that would have been off the table. It's still on the tables. We break out above the 75, 25 area, then that'll take off would be a huge coiled spring. I would just say one thing, one caveat. And I just want to make sure I'm always consistent when I'm on. I don't think the S&P is a good proxy as a benchmark for the market. It's a good strategy. And it's been a heck of a strategy that summer. D ramp stocks destroyed. That summer's getting hit. S&P didn't do anything. It diversified itself nicely. - John, good to see you. Thanks, John Glove. Up next, why investors are ordering up shares of restaurant stocks to fight an increasing number of cyclospor cases nationwide, closing by lower time, line for the Nasdaq Market site, we'll be right back. - Welcome back, investors are bidding up restaurant stocks today following earnings from young brands and Chipotle. Branding Gomez has the details. Branding. - Hey, they're Mike. Yeah, it tests on how much consumers are willing to look past the largest food borne illness outbreak in years. Young brands was initially lower after a mixed print, but the big question was Taco Bell and commentary turned the stock positively. The company's CFO saying current quarter same store sales are down just 2% through July 27th with the worst coming around July 18th. Now CEO Chris Turner saying consumer sentiment improved. Once they realized, this was an industry-wide issue. That was the theme on this morning's call, pushing it on the industry. Meantime, I hit Chipotle with you both yesterday, after the bell, higher today, after raising full year same-store sales outlook, and that's even after seeing a short-term dip in sales from outbreak concerns, CEO Scott Boatwright stressing the company was, quote, "not involved." And what backdrop for another industry darling to come to market today? Jersey Mike's opening at $21 this year, and that's below the $23 IPO price. Solid fundamentals supporting the business, strong brand, loyal customers, an asset light franchise model. But some investors, I spoke to wondering if much of the upside gain at this point was realizing the private market just an interesting environment for that company to come public to, guys. Well, sure. It was only private for like a year and a half, right, blackstone bought it, and not that long ago. I could take a quick flip. And then general, I guess, record of, you know, private equity IPOs is not always the best, and the valuation maybe got people to hold off a little bit, although, you know, there is a pretty good sort of growth story behind that, and you have some competitors kind of dialing it back. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you look at it alongside some of its industry colleagues too, subway. They're closing 700 restaurants while Jersey Mike's is bringing itself to the public market. There's some comp in terms of wingstop when it comes to the franchise model. We'll see what Inspire Brands does now in the IPO chain. Now that they've seen Jersey Mike's come to market, so one to definitely follow. It was interesting that on the, on the young call, July 18th was called out as a specific date. Where they saw the biggest decline in traffic. And so I'm wondering, is that, does that coincide with the, the peak in cases, or have we not yet seen that peak? The pullback, the recall on lettuce products, right? When you saw them say this is impacted our specific lettuce product, we're going to be pulling those from offerings. That's what that date specifically coincides with. We continue to monitor and see the case count climb. We now know there's multiple, okay, origin sources in terms of the cyclospora outbreak. And so that's where that July 18th, at least case came from for Taco Bell. Okay, Brandon, thanks, Brandon Gomez. Thanks. Let's get you set up a tomorrow's trade today. Oil giants, Chevron and Exxon Mobile. We'll headline earnings before the bell, along with Abby, Moderna and Auto Nation. And on the economic front, we'll get the second quarter employment cost index, as well as the July reading, the final July reading of consumer sentiment. So it should be interesting. Summer Fridays are usually slow. For sure. There's a lot to do. There's plenty to chew on. It is the last training day of the month, I mean, it doesn't really seem to have to matter for July, but as I was mentioning earlier, it sometimes does. We've also seen, I think, a lot of differentiation among these huge companies reporting right today. You had MetaWizard drag, Microsoft, huge winner. And at least the way it's shaping up now, maybe Apple gives back a little bit of that recent rally and Amazon gets the benefit. And don't forget the B.O.J. meeting overnight. And that really impact the tech trade in terms of, is a carry trade off, is a good on, Ravel tomorrow. Between 11 p.m. and midnight, we're accessing. Gotta be there. All right, that does a throw of a time today. That's when he starts right after this quick break.