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Hello and welcome to market domination.

I'm Josh Lipton live from our New York

headquarters. There is just now to go

now to the closing balance. Stocks are

rallying here. The Dow is up over 900

points on strong earnings and optimism

around US tensions. Y finances Jared

Blickery is standing by with the very

latest. Jared,

>> thank you Josh. And things are moving

quickly. We have the Dow up quadruple

digits, up over a thousand now. And

guess what? That is a record high. First

one in a while, not only for the Dow,

but a bunch of other indices. We're

going to go over them. First, here's

what's happened with the Dow today. We

gapped up lots of green there and have

built on it throughout the day, though.

We kind of flatlined over the last hour

or so. Nevertheless, up 2% or 1,032

points. NASDAQ Composite not quite back

at a record but nevertheless

outperforming the Dow up two and

three/4ers of a percent pretty close to

those highs of the day. The S&P 500 also

around 2% very similar chart and even

the equal weighted index which was

leading uh maybe the last week or two

weeks uh to a record high which it hit

last week. So it got there first the uh

index where everything gets every stock

gets one vote and now the mega caps are

catching up. But it's not only the mega

caps. Russell 2000 set for a record high

along with the S&P 500 in the Dow. It's

up almost 2%. You can see the same thing

in another small cap index, S&P 600.

Here's the S&P 400. That is the midcaps

also at a record. So, you get the point

of what's happening here. And let me go

down to the bond market because we have

talked a lot or at least I've talked a

lot about the 30-year T-bond yield. Um,

it has recently hit the highest level

since 2007. That's a potential problem

for stocks, but is backing off of those

levels. It is down four basis points

today. So, moving in a friendlier

direction for US stocks and also US

dollar index. Well, let's call that

break even. Not much happening there.

Now, if we take a look at the sector

action, we see XLK that is up 5% today.

That is a huge move for XLK. In fact,

it's that in industrials. It looks like

industrials now outperforming the S&P

500. But materials and financials also

up more than 1%. Utilities, healthcare,

energy, real estate. Those are your

underperformers here in the red, but

those are defensive sectors. And we

consider all of this a pretty bullish

setup. Kind of something that was in the

works for a while. We had the s we had

the semiconductor trade fall apart, but

the rest of the market was holding up

and now we're getting those record highs

once again. Here's the NASDAQ 100 and we

are seeing a really nice move by Nvidia

up 3%. Here's SpaceX ahead of earnings

today up 10%. It hit a all-time low

yesterday, Monday, and uh it rocketed

off that level, no pun intended. And

we're seeing some continuation today.

Tesla up 2%, Broadcom up 7%. Let's take

a look at those. Look at those

semiconductors.

A lot of high flyers here. I mentioned

Broadcom, but LAM re Lamb Research up

7%, ARM up 18%, SanDisk up 11, and uh

we're going to spend a little time on

semiconductors in a minute, but I want

to show you what's happening with

software too because software is also in

the green. Uh I'm going to close off uh

this particular section here on the Dow.

And here we got a little bit more red.

And some of those defensive names that I

mentioned in those defensive sectors a

minute ago, those are are what are

trading lower. Johnson and Johnson, you

got staples. Chevron is your energy

trade. Coca-Cola another staples trade

and United Health down 1%. That's your

healthcare. But, uh, some nice moves.

IBM up 3%. Cisco up four and a half.

Boeing up one and a half%. Josh.

>> All right, Jared. Before you go, I know

you're also tracking semis, the MAG 7 as

they kind of lead stocks to record highs

here. It looks like that that old AI

trade is back, Jared.

>> You know, it's been really interesting

to track this 4-day move. So, off of

last Wednesday's close, we we are now

closing in on four trading days. This is

what happened in semiconductors today.

I'm going to show you the 4-day tallies

here because some of these are really

big numbers. Once again, uh you got 67%

to 30% on the top line there. Not only

not all of these are the biggest ones,

but here's SanDisk up 40%. We got

earnings tomorrow night on SanDisk.

Lentum up 42%. And if I go to my leaders

here, this is a bunch of ETFs that I

used to kind of gauge market sentiment

over these last four days. Top two

spots, Korea and Socks. So that's Korea,

which is chip heavy, and then the socks

is of course a Philly semiconductor

index. Those have been leading the way.

But guess what else is participating?

Almost everything else. We got Quantum

up 16%, Solar up 12, IPO up 12, uh even

MAG 7 up 10%. So, we've got the MAG 7

leading again. We've got semiconductors

leading again. And it just tells me that

yes, the old AI trade is back, at least

for now.

>> All right. Thank you, Jared. Well,

earnings are dominating the market

conversation today as SpaceX is about to

deliver its first report since making

its public debut back in June. Join me

now with what investors will be watching

for. We got Y prices summariz. So, so

what are you listing for? What do you

expect? If you got to breathe, breathe

in, breathe out.

>> Let out a [laughter] scream.

>> Uh but yes, what are we looking for?

Revenue 6.8 billion, right? That's a

nice that's a nice sequential growth

there for for uh for SpaceX. Uh but a

net loss of about 2.1 billion. So the

loss per share estimate 24 cents uh

share loss. Adjusted EBID 2 billion.

Fine, fine, fine. AI segment operating

loss 2.4 billion. I think there's going

to be some some some uh just some some

focus there, scrutiny there on some of

these businesses. But I think we've

talked about this earlier, Josh, and

it's it's sort of like how does Elon

Musk, Gwen Shotwell, the whole team uh

talk about the future of SpaceX, where

they see things going because if you

look at it, there's a lot of disperate

businesses within that SpaceX empire.

And I think that's where you might see

some focus there because there shares

doing well today, but not well since the

debut.

>> Yeah, it's been rough. I mean there's so

there's so many moving parts to this

story pro like is there one metric is

there one data point where you say you

know when this hits the wires this is

what I'll make a beline for

>> well I think people are going to be

watching this capex number right so it's

it's pretty high look it's a space

company right they're making rockets and

satellites and things like that so the

capex spend estimate for the quarter uh

19.6 billion I don't sorry 18.6 point I

don't have the actual projection from ne

next quarter uh but within that is 13

billion just in AI business I think

there's some question marks as what are

you spending so much money on AI for is

it the chatbot grock is it are you

spending money on these terrestrial data

centers is it is it investment into

making the orbital data center I think

there's some questions about where is

that spending going why is it so high

when you think about you back out AI

spending it's only $6 billion on rockets

and satellites that's what people want

spending money on right but who knows

>> um to your point. The print's important,

the numbers are important, but how

important is it going to be just to

listen to the SpaceX executives on the

call, listen to how they kind of talk

about and frame, you know, the road map,

their ambitions, the opportunities, and

the progress they're making towards all

that.

>> Yeah. I mean, I think two big components

in the non-AI part are

>> rocket business, Starship, what's next,

the 14th launch coming up. They talk

about how they want to catch the

Starship and the the two Mechazilla arms

like how how's that progress going

towards that? When is that next launch

going to be? Uh Starlink, that's the

thing that makes money for them, right?

Question is what's next for that

Starlink version three satellite? How

big is that is that constellation going

to grow? Uh big thing they're talking

about is mobile to to sell satellite to

sell service. That's a big component of

their revenue business. So that's a big

thing they're going to ask. But also,

how do you tie like you said, how do you

tie the AI component to this? How does

that help the space business, the

satellite business? Um, I know they're

making chips with Tesla, right? That's

also part of it. Also, speak of Tesla

merger talk. That's also

>> that a lot of chatter about that. You

think I would expect that to come up on

the call, but would your expectation be

if it does just bats that right down?

Not going to get into that.

>> Well, he sort of did the same thing in

the Tesla call when he said, "This isn't

the appropriate avenue for this

discussion." He didn't he didn't shoot

it down. He just said that requires a

process. We shouldn't talk about it

here.

>> He'll probably see the same thing again,

which again says he didn't deny it.

>> Question is when.

>> All right. Thank you, PR. All lies on

SpaceX after Bell. Thank you.

>> Other big report out today got AMD

chipmaker set to release its second

quarter results. Jin's Dan Howley

joining us now. All right, Dan, break it

down.

>> Yeah, this is obviously kind of the

precursor to Nvidia. AMD probably hates

to hear that, but this is basically

going to give us a look at how the chip

industry is functioning as we continue

this kind of AI buildout. We saw Intel,

they obviously had very good earnings,

but they disappointed when it came to

having to spend. Uh, and so we saw the

stock drop. Now, the stock a lot of

semiconductors have since rebounded. But

I think for uh AMD in particular, let's

just run through the numbers. The first

is we're expecting earnings per share of

$161 on revenue of 11.3 billion. That's

up just a little bit from the year

before when it was 48 cents and 7.6

billion in revenue. So 11.3

from 7.6. That's huge. Data center

growth is expected to top 100%. That

would be at 6.5 billion versus 3.2

billion. And its client uh division is

expected to come in at 3 billion.

That's, you know, chip sales to uh

laptops, things along those lines.

Gaming not so good. That's expected to

be down 30%. There's a number of reasons

for that, but uh the main thing is

obviously the downturn that we're going

to see and are starting to see in the PC

space uh and the gaming space as a

result of increased memory prices.

>> The the thing for AMD here is they're

just getting into kind of the the direct

competition with Nvidia as far as these

rack servers go. So, they launched their

Helios rack scale server has 72 GPUs

similar to Nvidia's NVL 72 systems.

Sue talks very tough about the

competition.

>> She was she was throwing mad trash out

there. You know what I'm saying? She was

saying she was like, "All right, we got

the best GPU out there, you know, bar

none. That's, you know, just taking it

right to to Nvidia." Uh, this is going

to be a kind of head-to-head face off

now. And we'll have to see what

companies uh think of both systems. Do

they go with Helios and say, "Well, you

know what? AMD's got it." Or do we go

with and stick with Nvidia and say, "I

mean, they're the they're the top dog.

there's a reason for that. And so I I I

don't think that this is going to be a

thing where you say, "Oh, Nvidia is in

dire trouble now, right? This this isn't

an existential threat." Uh if anything,

I think if you talk to analysts, they'll

say that the pie is growing, and so

Nvidia still has room to grow. AMD also

has has room to grow as far as market

share goes. Maybe Nvidia doesn't have

the massive 90% estimate that uh of

market share that they have, but

>> they're still going to see revenue

growth. And so, you know, I I do think

that that's one of the key things though

to watch is what's going on with this

Helios system and if they they talk

about any deals that they've had and

then who those deals are coming from.

You know, when Nvidia announces their

data center revenue, they usually say

about 50% is from the hyperscalers.

Where does that leave AMD? Are they also

seeing that kind of, you know, large

chunk going to this one cohort?

>> We talked about the data center

business, but what what about client?

What about PC? What what do you think

they say those AMD execs Dan about the

PC business? just give me all the memory

dynamics what we're talking about. I

mean I think you know what we're seeing

broadly is price increases uh from you

know this this memory shortage this

general storage s uh shortage um and

that's raising prices on consumers for

consumers for businesses um I think so

far we haven't seen the uh the other

shoe drop but we've seen so far is

shipments decline

>> so uh I think it was uh most recently uh

one of the worst uh uh quarters that we

had seen for smartphone shipments

uh laptop shipments are following suit

and now we have to see what that means

for revenue because everything's here,

you know, things have been shipped. What

happens when the prices go up and people

stop buying? And so we didn't

necessarily see that for Intel in the

last quarter. We're not expected to see

that for uh AMD in this quarter. We're

going to see it in the gaming side most

likely because that's the the most acute

hit. We've seen Sony, you know, they use

AMD chips. Microsoft, they used AMD

chips in their Xbox. Those prices have

gone up. They're also later in life

devices. So, the fact that the prices

are going up, that's just un it's not

normal. So, to see that, you imagine

people are probably slowing down on on

sales. That couple that with the fact

that it's hard to get access to these

graphics cards that go into uh

computers, they're raising prices on

those as a result of the memory

shortage. So, the gaming side is going

to take a a wallup. The client side may

not take that just yet, but imagine it

coming down the line at some point.

>> All right, Dan. Thank you, buddy.

Appreciate it. Coming up, we check in on

some of today's top trending tickers.

That's next on Market Domination.

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>> Time now for some trending tickers with

the Yahoo Finances, Brook Depal. We're

going to start here with Wayfair Brook

as Wayfair reports sales in the US

growing at the fastest clip since 2021.

Q2 revenue from US operations rise about

9% and that was better than analysts

have been looking for.

>> Yeah. What really did well for them was

their luxury segment. This paragold

business outperformed expectations. It

was up about 35%

in the quarter when it came to revenue.

And the company really saying that it's

leaning into this idea, this ongoing

trend of a K-shaped recovery that we

have been seeing, like you said, the US

segment accelerated 9% year-over-year in

terms of revenue. And what investors

also really liked was the fact that they

also updated their third quarter outlook

rather provided that guidance. They

expect high singledigit revenue growth

for the third quarter. And I was reading

this note from William Blair analyst

Philip Blee. He had said that Wayfair is

becoming more one of the most consistent

and predictable models with some of the

strongest share gains in the furniture

and home space. Of course, this is an

environment where the consumer continues

to be a resilient and boy did they show

up when it came to furniture and redoing

their homes even though many of us

aren't moving.

>> Stock was down about 10% year to date

heading into that print, but is ripping

higher right now.

>> Yeah, up nearly 30%.

>> Yeah. Topic two, Chipotle. Let's get

into this one. Pulling jalapenos from

some Minnesota restaurants. The peppers

may be linked to a salmonella outbreak

that has sickened about 110 people.

Company says it's it's acting

proactively. Remove the suspected

peppers, but what do we need to know on

this one?

>> Yeah, remove their peppers, these

jalapeno peppers that might have been

impacted and now provided it from

another producer. So, they changed it

out acknowledging that they're working

with CDC on this one. But I do want to

pull up alpha space for this because the

stock reaction that we saw was quite

dramatic. So, I'm going to pull this up

right here. If you take a bigger picture

view, you can see right when the company

put out that release right here, you saw

the stock just fall dramatically. I

changed it to percentage trying to get

an inside look and as you can see right

here, the stock now down 8.86%

declining as we make our way towards the

close. And as you can see right here,

the headlines off to the right really

offsetting those results that we just

got last week. And now the story

unfortunately is getting turned the tide

to now the salmonella outbreak of course

as that ongoing cycllospora outbreak

continues and uncertainty around that

that's certainly hit Taco Bell hurt

other lettuce salad makers that impacted

Chipotle even though they said had

nothing to do with it and now this is

another food outbreak.

>> All right lastly Brooke let's look at

Proctor and Gamble because they're

making news today winning this bidding

bidding war for Thorn the supplement

maker deal reportedly valued at 3.8 8

billion transaction expected to close

later this year. CEO saying Thorne

strengthens our position in premium

wellness with a trusted sciencebacked

brand that complements our existing

portfolio.

>> Yeah, really interesting to see PNG pop

on this news. I mean up about 2% as we

make our way towards the close. This is

sort of leaning into once again maybe

that higher income consumer. Thorn is a

company that was founded in 1984 I

believe and they have everything from

creatine to prenatal vitamins. So, it

seems like it's leaning into this idea

as more and more younger consumers lean

into supplements. So, perhaps this is

quite literally supplementing PNG's

already existing portfolio here as well.

>> I do see analysts citing the press is

saying strategically they're suggesting

kind of makes sense because they're

saying shoppers might be buying maybe

less essentials, but they're continuing

to spend on health and wellness like

supplements.

>> Yeah, Thorne apparently bringing in $650

million in revenue for 2026. Something

to watch for sure.

>> All right. Thank you, Brooke. Appreciate

it.

Well, recent Indeed data showing a

mismatch with AI in the workforce. And

here to dig into this is Laura Olrich,

director of economic research at Indeed.

Laura, it's good to see you. So, let's

get right into this because one stat

that jumps right out, Laura, from your

research, 45%

of of employers, you say, are actively

recruiting AI native talent. Let's stop

there, Laura. What does that mean

exactly? AI AI native. How do you define

that? who qualifies?

>> Great question. Thanks for having me to

talk about this. Um, so AI natives are

workers that use AI across across

multiple workflows and really default to

thinking kind of AI first across many

different tasks that they do rather than

using legacy task um processes prior to

to AI being around. AI fluent workers on

the other hand are people that are

comfortable using AI. They can use it

across different tasks, but it's not

necessarily their default.

>> So, it's sort of like Laura, is it

someone, okay, basically I I know chat,

GBT, I know anthropic, I'm I'm good at

prompts, I'm good at leveraging these

tools in my work and workflows.

>> That would be someone who's AI fluent.

someone who's AI native would actually

think um about using those first in the

work that they're doing for their

employer and and would be comfortable

using across not not just one task or a

few tasks but really all task

>> and these skills Laura in your opinion

are they now sort of you know here in

2026 are they as as important as maybe

we used to think of you know uh Excel

and PowerPoint

>> I think it depends on what sector you're

in but in white collar um business and

tech forward sectors. I would say we're

getting close to that. Uh you know 45%

as you mentioned of people are really

seeking out actively seeking out this AI

native talent but only about 14% of

workers are AI natives and so um it is

an important skill and there's quite a

skill gap there.

>> Yeah. So that's interesting. If 14%

Laura say, "Yeah, I'm AI native." But

45% of employees you say you say are

trying to recruit AI native folks. I

mean that that would suggest a pretty

big mismatch.

>> Absolutely. I mean the technology is

new, right? It's changing. People are

trying to get upskilled to learn more.

And one of the things from the survey we

also found was that the majority of

workers don't feel like they're

receiving enough training on AI and

learning AI skills enough from their

employer. They they would like

additional training.

>> Why? So I guess my why is that Laura?

Why why is corporate America moving

slowly on this?

>> You know I think one of the answers is

the generational gap. Many leaders

within corporate America are like me.

they're Gen Xers um or even baby

boomers. And a much lower percentage of

older workers consider themselves to be

even AI fluent. The gap is really

noticeable. 35% of Gen Z are AI fluent,

but just 11% of my generation, the Gen

Xers are AI fluent. And so part of this

is that it's difficult for managers and

companies to teach people how to use it

if they're not AI fluent and AI natives

themselves.

>> Bigger picker picture question for you,

Laura. You know, there is this

continuing question out there, this

concern about, you know, is AI going to

take my job? Um, how much of a risk is

that, Laura? What are you seeing in the

data?

>> We are starting to see some really

interesting things here. So far, we are

not seeing a whole lot of what we could

point to and say direct AI job losses.

However, what we are seeing is new jobs

that are popping up uh that have AI in

the title or mention AI as a skill.

those jobs are are job postings for what

we're calling AI touch jobs are up

considerably and one of the more

interesting things we're seeing is that

this started in tech in our data but now

it has bled into many other sectors and

about 63% of these now AI touched jobs

are outside of tech I think it's hard to

know in the long run exactly what the

balance is going to be in terms of AI

created jobs versus AI destroyed jobs

but I think it's clear that there are

some sectors mostly white collar that

are much more exposed to AI

transformation.

>> Laura, let's say, you know, you were

talking to um maybe a college kid,

right? He was talking to you and he was

saying, "Laura, you've done so much

research into this issue. I want to make

myself as attractive as possible to a a

potential boss here when I graduate in

our new AI economy. How do I do it?"

What would you tell them, Laura?

>> Yeah, I actually have done that in my

own household. I have high school and

college kids of my own and have had

these conversations with them. I think

it's important to try to become part of

that AI native talent pool. Um I've done

that myself which few Gen Xers have. If

you look at the data, I think this is

actually a skill where it's relatively

easy to upskill yourself simply by

asking the AI tools themselves, whether

it's COD or chat GPT or another tool,

how to become AI native, how to learn

those skills. And so I think this is a

space where if you're currently um in

college or or looking to reskill or

upskill, you can dive into this on your

own pretty easily.

>> Laura, as always, great to have you on

the show. Thank you.

>> Thanks so much. Bye.

>> Coming up, a new forecast from EY

Parthonon is out saying that M&A [music]

volume is heating up. We're going to

have all the details on market

domination returns.

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A weak yen is playing in favor of

automaking giant Toyota Motors is Jake

Connley. Joining now with a closer look

at that. All right, Jake, let's start

there. So, Toyota is talking about a

weaker yen. Explain that. Why is a

weaker yen a tailwind for Toyota? This

is going to be a tailwind for any

exporter in Japan right now. When you

take a company like Toyota that exports

a lot of its products, let's say it

makes a sale in the US, it's going to do

that transaction in US dollars. But when

it books that transaction for its

accounting purposes, for its earnings,

that's going to get booked in yen. If

the yen is weaker against the dollar,

which means it takes more yen to equal

$1. If you convert that back to yen,

then that's going to be more yen on the

book. Let's say that the transaction is

$1 USD and the yen's at 160. That means

for that $1 you get 160 yen. If that

goes up to 170 ex at the exchange rate,

now you've just made 10 more yen on the

same $1 USD transaction.

>> So is there a tension, Jake, between

what is good for a Japanese exporter, a

Toyota, versus what is good for the

Japanese economy? Right now there is

because what does the Japanese

government want right now? They want a

strong yen. This is why you saw the US

government, the Bank of Japan and the

Ministry of Finance in Japan step in

over the last few days intervene, spend

billions of dollars to try to prop up

that currency. The yen has been really

devalued recently. That makes imports

much more expensive in a much in a very

import.

This also comes at a pretty crucial

moment for the US administration

[clears throat]

because at the same time, [snorts]

President Trump last summer in 2025

signed this huge trade deal with

Japanese Prime Minister Senate Teki. A

lot of that trade deal depends on

billions of dollars of Japanese purchase

of US goods. With a stronger yen, those

purchases get easier to make. With a

weaker yen, they get harder. But for

Toyota, it's the exact opposite. And of

course, you don't also want if you're

you don't want to see Japan selling

treasuries as they defend their

currency, potentially setting bond

yields higher, right?

>> Because bond yields are already at

multi-deade highs. 30-year treasuries

are at above 520. If Japan, the largest

foreign holder of US treasuries, had to

start selling those holdings, then

that's going to put more and more

pressure on yields at a moment where the

US Treasury really does not want to see

those yields going higher. that Toyota

story uh Jake you're talking about do

you see that as okay that's a uniquely

Toyota thing or no you may see a similar

story narrative from other Japanese

automakers

>> so we got numbers from Nissan yesterday

saw the exact same effect I want to

quote the number

>> the management at Nissan said that the

depreciation of the yen against the

dollar

>> was a positive impact to their uh their

operating profit for the year of 35

billion yen

>> at Toyota that figure was 400 billion

yen We're going to get Honda earnings

tomorrow. We're certainly expecting to

see the same thing there. This is going

to be the story for any major Japanese

uh exporting company and that's all of

their automakers that sell their cars in

Europe, in the US, in South America, in

wherever else they're selling. That

impact you're going to see across the

board.

>> All right, Jake. Thank you, buddy.

Appreciate it.

>> Thanks, Josh.

Ma M&A activity is picking up with EY

parthonon now forecasting US deal volume

to rise 15% this year as companies push

ahead with big deals in AI pharma and

more joining us now we got Mitch Berlin

EY America's vice chair at EY Parthonon

Mitch it's good to see you so let's

start with that headline there Mitch

nearly it looks like double your US deal

volume forecast start there Mitch how

come what what changed

>> sure so the first quarter we were

expecting

um M&A volumes and these are deals over

100 million. Um we expected that to

increase by 8%. Now we've we've

increased that to 15%. So we increased

it by 7% because the dynamics in the

market have changed. We're seeing um

consumer spending continuing to pick up.

Corporate corporate profits are

increasing. CEO sentiment around doing

deals are increasing and the overall M&A

market is increasing. So when you put

all those together, it's looking for a

very frothy M&A market for the rest of

the year. A lot of that though, Josh, is

really in corporates. PE is still sort

of slow. It picked up in Q2. Overall, we

expected to be relatively flat, maybe 1%

increase in volume year-over-year, but

the corporate M&A market continues to go

gang busters.

>> What about potential headwinds, Mitch?

You know, you think about uh rates,

tariffs, geopolitical conflict. How does

that factor into the forecast?

They're all they're all relevant. But

what we've seen, Josh, is that despite

all that, corporates are still

transacting because the headwinds the

competitive headwinds they're facing are

greater than the geopolitical geop

geoeconomic headwinds. And so if you

look at technology, for example, a lot

of technology deals because they need to

trans they need to transform through

transactions. So the fastest way to get

there is through M&A, the ANI race, the

the AI race, sorry, the uh cyber

security, the the need to um increase

power to fund all the infrastructure

that keeps AI going. That's an external

force that's more val more important to

them than the geoeconomic geopolitical.

You look at pharmaceuticals, same thing.

There's about $370 billion worth of

revenue coming off patents in the next

six years. So, they need to repopulate

the R&D pipeline. That's why you see a

lot of deals in M&A. And then just back

to, you know, power and utilities that

that goes back to the AI comments around

needing to continue to fuel and provide

sources of energy for all the AI

infrastructure. So, that's what's really

driving all the corporate M&A.

>> You mentioned corporates leading the

way, Mitch. I'm just curious, you know,

what do you think we need to see? What

needs to happen to really, you know, see

any kind of uh private equity activity

accelerate?

>> Yeah. So, you know, 1% increase. It

increased, by the way, 18% in Q2

compared to last year. So, there is

activity there. It's just not as big as

we really would have expected it to be

given how slow private equity has been.

the fact that they're almost sitting on

two trillion of dry powder that what we

really need to see is a decrease in the

Fed borrowing rate, which we're probably

not likely to see this calendar year if

you read all the signs because a lot of

these deals are leveraged. The cost of

capital is high and the the bidder

seller gap is still broad and that gap

just gets bigger if you have to factor

in the cost of capital. If the cost of

capital goes down, that can narrow the

overall gap in the business thesis. So

that would that would drive more M&A and

private equity.

>> You know you you mentioned AI Mitch and

and how that's playing into all this and

I mean already you know SpaceX buying

cursor for 60 billion but um how

vulnerable is the deal landscape to that

Mitch? I mean what if you know uh

companies don't see the ROI and all this

historic AI spend for example what what

are the what are the risks there?

I I think the bigger risks are that

there's more that we become more

efficient and so all the infrastructure

that's needed around AI is not truly

needed as fast as we thought it is. But

when it comes to efficiency, the move

from AI automation to agentic workflows

is going to have a very different impact

on corporate America. It's one thing to

take a thousand use cases and automate

them to create, you know, supposed

efficiencies, but if you're able to

identify an entire workflow and have

more of a native AI organization, you

are going to see those efficiencies. I

think that's less of a risk.

>> Finally, Mitch, I just want to get your

your take. you know, turning to the role

of Washington here and regulators. How,

Mitch, would you, you know, say the

Trump administration when it comes to

M&A? How would you say that

administration kind of compares and

contrasts, Mitch, to Biden's?

>> Yeah, it's a it's a very deal friendly

administration right now, which which by

the way, Josh, is probably another

reason why you're seeing a lot of

corporate M&A because people want to get

in before the midterm elections, which

can have an impact or per, you know, two

years from now as well. the there has

been only one deal uh on record that has

been ch that has been stopped by the

Trump administration compared to the

Biden administration and Lena Khan who

who you know was very vocal um around

M&A. So it's a very friendly environment

right now.

>> Mitch, great to have you on the show.

Thank you.

>> Thanks Josh.

Leopold Ashen Brener's hedge fund lost

67% in July as leverage AI bets

unraveled, forcing the fund to sell most

of its public holdings to Citadel and

remove all leverage. Our finances Julie

Hyman spoke to the reporter who broke

that news about Citadel's purchase,

Gregory Zuckermanman, special writer at

the Wall Street Journal.

>> As you were covering this, as you were

sort of, you know, deep in the weeds of

what was happening, you know, how are

you thinking about also how it reflects

kind of this moment?

To me, it says we're all searching for

guidance. We're in a period AI is

affecting every job. Your job, my job,

every industry out there, and we're not

sure where the future is going to take

us, here's a guy that emerged to tell

us. He was kind of our sherpa, a young,

well credentialed, did well in school,

great background, obei, FTX, maybe not

quite as much, but he had, you know, he

was well connected and he was telling us

where the world was going, what our

future was, and now as it were, and

we're all looking for that. So this to

me is a sign of that especially as

frankly kind of older investors are over

and time and time again I've covered

this a lot of times where they are uh

eager to hear what the younger next

generation has to say and he represented

the future for them.

>> Um and where do you think it kind of

went wrong here? I mean you know as you

wrote about the guy had no investing

experience but he did have this insight

into where he thought AI was going. I

mean, it seems to me that works as a

long-term thesis. Maybe it works less

well as a shorter term trading thesis

and certainly a leverage thesis.

>> Well, the key was leverage, but not so

much just how much he piled on. He did

pile on a lot of leverage. Uh, we

reported four to one leverage. For every

dollar he had, he borrowed a good three

four dollars. On top of that, he also

used options that kind of added to the

leverage. But it wasn't just the

leverage. There a lot of lever hedge

funds, but they usually trade in less

volatile investments, bonds and such,

that kind of thing. So, you could pile

on a leverage if the underlying

investments aren't volatile. But if

you're going to go long short AI related

stocks, it's sort of inevitable that at

some point you're going to have some big

setback that's going to lead to a margin

call that's going to lead to panic.

That's going to lead to what happened

here. Um, Greg, as you did your

reporting, did you also I mean,

certainly there must be other blowups or

losses that we don't necessarily know

about or that didn't have as big a

ripple effect in the market. Did you get

any glimmers of anything like that?

>> There were rumors, but not enough that

we could report just yet. People want to

reach out, feel free. Um, nobody's this

big, frankly. No one's grown this this

much so quickly. I mean, the guy got up

to $45 billion in aum in assets and up

from just a few hundred million just

like a year or so ago. I think earlier

this year is at 20. So, he doubled it.

Uh, nobody's this and all the leverage

on top of that. So, he had an outsized

influence on the overall market. And you

could kind of see that some of these

stocks, I mean, there were other things

going on, too, to be clear. But you

could see when he was under pressure,

they were going down. And then suddenly

when Ken Griffin and Citadel swooped in

and and made their purchase, the stock

started shooting up. Part of that is

short sellers stopped targeting. Part of

it again is short sellers stopped

targeting these stocks and they moved on

to other stocks.

>> Yes. As they always do. I mean, what's

one of my takeaways from this whole um

episode is also hubris to some extent on

the part of Silicon Valley. Like they

embrace this guy because he's one of

them, right? And you know, he's not a

Wall Street guy. He's a sort of an AI

native. Um and it it's a hubris I don't

know, it's an arrogance perhaps you

could use that word that you see applied

to different realms. Um but I wonder if

this, you know, do they pull back? Do

they go back to more traditional Wall

Street hedge funds as a result of this?

Or do they say, "Okay, you made one

mistake. Here's some more of my money."

>> Oh, Julie, I've covered these things

over time and time again. It's it's like

a badge of honor to lose a lot of money

on Wall Street. It's shocking. You and I

and regular people don't really can't

relate to it, but you get second and

third chances on Wall Street. There's

this weird kind of uh pride in losing a

lot of money. Well, yeah, I lost

billions this time, but that means next

time I can make billions. And people

figure you've learned lessons. Uh, yeah,

I don't think he's going away. And he's

got this big portfolio of private

investments, um, anthropic and such that

are doing well. So, yeah, I think he'll

kind of say, I learned my lesson. I'm

24. Give me another chance. And I think

people will. Greg, of course, the other

um fascinating side of the story is the

other side of the trade who is Ken

Griffin over at Citadel. Um and there

were a lot of um sort of rumors or

speculation that he at least in the you

know closing moments of this whole saga

that maybe he put his thumb on the

scale, so to speak, and maybe maybe

caused even more pain for situational

awareness and then swept in and bought

the portfolio. Did any of your reporting

indicate any of that?

There's speculation and accusations. I

have no evidence of that. And it's

always the accusation of of Ken and

others like them who who step in there.

Uh because there were short sellers and

and who were were shorting this stuff.

But nah, I I haven't heard that. And and

I covered something similar 20 years ago

almost to the day uh Amaranth uh

collapsed, the biggest hedge fund

blowoff in history. And some similar

themes. uh Brian Hunter who who led the

natural gas investments of Emir too much

leverage was doing well was put on a

pedestal by the industry and then Ken

Griffin and others kind of swooped in JP

Morgan JP Diamond and made a lot of

money and yeah those are always the

accusations but again when you you

borrow so much money and you you let and

you and you bet on really volatile

stocks it's I don't say inevitable it's

there's a danger of of something like

this happening.

>> Yeah. I mean, it's also just sort of

illustrates the savvy and power of

somebody like Citadel and Ken Griffin

and and the fact that he came and did

this did seem to to mark at least a

short-term turn in the market that

people said, "Well, if he's buying, then

maybe it's okay."

>> Yeah. Although he got a 10% plus

discount, so if you and I would get 10%

discounts on stocks, we might be more

apt to to step in and write a big check,

too. Yeah, he and his firm and others

were out there bidding, but he and his

firm were able to write a big check. And

this is kind of what they do. They wait

for these opportunities and we've

reported I've reported that they reached

out and they said, "Hey, can we be

helpful here?" So, they weren't like,

you know, forcing him to do a deal, but

they offered a a big amount and and

listen, they had other options. I mean,

Leo could have sold uh his anthropic and

he didn't. So, this was his option.

>> Yeah, he made he made that choice. Greg,

thank you so much. Looking forward to

more reporting um as we learn more about

all of this. Appreciate it.

>> Of course.

>> Coming up, we check in on the top

options trades in the volatile AI

sector. That's next on Market

Domination.

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>> A volatile July in the markets has

propped up options trading volumes, but

with SpaceX's first quarterly earning

still set to test the market in the high

stakes of tech and AI. We're looking at

how to navigate it all with YieldMax

ETFs, chief strategist, Mike Co. Mike,

always great to see you. Let's start

here. I mean, SpaceX after the bell,

right? First earnings report. Your fund

doesn't own the stock outright. Maybe

start there, Mike. Remind us like what

are you trying to accomplish with this

option strategy? Yeah. So the option

strategy, we have a proxy for the long

stock because when you create an

exchange traded product that is single

stock focused like like this one is you

actually have some concentration tests

that make owning the shares themselves a

little difficult. So we we buy a proxy

for the equity position. So long calls,

short puts and then we look to harvest

some options income by selling call

spreads against it. So the idea is that

and we can see this it's a volatile

stock highriced options. We're trying to

capture some of that while still

maintaining some upside exposure to the

underlying. So in simple terms, is it

let's let investors participate in much

of the upside and kind generate income

along the way. Is that a good way to put

it?

>> Exactly. Right. So we're basically

looking to capture 70 to 80% of the

upside exposure to SpaceX while also

collecting and then paying out

distributions by selling upside options

against it. And right now those premiums

are pretty high because it's implying

about a 16.5% move higher or lower

quarter billion a quarter of a trillion

dollars excuse me you know is kind of

the valuation swings that we're we're

looking at here.

>> Who is that option strategy for Mike?

>> Anybody who's looking to get income I

think from their ETFs. I mean once upon

a time people would invest and they

would collect dividends or they would

buy bonds and they would collect

coupons. Um you know more recently

people are targeting just strict capital

appreciation. I buy a stock, it goes up

20% a year. And they have been doing

that happily for a couple of years now.

But there are investors, I think, who

are looking to get regular distributions

either so they can deploy the capital

elsewhere or because they're living off

of them, things like that.

>> What What are the potential tradeoffs,

Mike? Like what what would I potentially

be kind of giving up rather than just

owning the stock outright?

>> If you own the stock outright, you're

going to get 100% participation. If the

stock goes up 100% after earnings, I

don't think that's likely, but if it

did, uh, you get 100% of that. If you

are in this strategy, you're not going

to get quite that 100%. But I can tell

you that if we see the stock up 30 40%

by the end of next week, again, not a

likely outcome, but if you did, you

would get most of that in this strategy

anyway. So, you're going to have

slightly lower volatility, slightly less

participation, but you will be getting

regular distributions.

>> Beyond beyond space, kind of broaden

this out, Mike, I mean, wild swings in

the AI trade and semis, do do these kind

of option strategies, are they also

attractive in those spaces?

>> Extremely. I mean we have uh a couple

billion dollars actually deployed to

that to that area. So uh we are very

heavily in chips semiconductors. We have

uh also some funds that are focused more

on the AI trade. So that's going to have

the semis in it but then it's also going

to have the hyperscalers. It's also

going to have your C3 AIS ciphers eights

and stuff like that. So if you want data

center plays and things like that we do

have that as well. Um and actually

SpaceX itself is in some of our other

funds too um in small size. We have one

that just focuses on the top 50 largest

companies by market capitalization. The

S&P 500 doesn't have it in the index,

but it is one of the top 50 largest

companies. And so the fund that we have

that tracks those does have a small

piece of SpaceX as well.

>> Longtime market watcher that you are, I

wanted your take on a couple other

stories. One, Leo Ashen Bunner

situational awareness. Did you look at

that story, Mike? I'm just curious and

think, okay, you know what kind of like

isolated leverage problem, young guy

still learning risk management or no?

Was it like was it some type of yellow

flag, broader yellow flag? I'm just

curious what you made made of it.

>> Every sort of big market thematic

situation where you have a bull market

in certain stocks, you find these

situations. Um, you know, we had a

family office not that long ago, also a

little over levered that blew up. Uh, I

heard you guys referencing Amaranth. I

remember Brian Hunter. Uh, that whole

story. I traded natural gas as well. So,

you know, there are always going to be

those beneficiaries. Look, it's very

tempting if you have a trade that's

working. Why not make it work even more

by adding leverage and more leverage?

And you know, you can have a very smart

guy who's making the right bets, but

risk management is really the key to

this game. If you want to persist and

stay in the business as long as I have,

you're going to have to manage your risk

a little better than he did, but he'll

probably get another chance. He's still

there.

>> Uh, finally, Mike, just broadly, I mean,

listen, we're breaking out to new highs

or really new highs all over the world.

How do you broadly want to be positioned

right now?

>> Well, you know, I think uh we're

obviously not in the first inning, but I

don't think we're in the last one

either. Um, you know, the really

important thing to think about on the

hardware side is wait until you start

seeing hyperscalers scaling back on

their capex. We haven't seen that. The

only thing we're getting is we're going

to continue to spend at the rate or

we're going to increase that rate of

spend. Um, is it always going to be as

good as it is right now? Probably not,

but I don't see any reason why it's

going to hit the brakes, you know,

between now and the next couple of

months.

>> All right, we'll end it there. Mike, as

always, great to see you. Thank you.

>> Thanks.

And to exit options market activity, be

sure to check out the options hub on

Yahoo Finance's Alphaspace platform,

which is powered by Unusual Wales.

Coming up, we have you covered the

closing bell on Wall Street. Don't go

anywhere. [music]

Thank you, man. Thanks for shipping in.

>> Oh.

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>> Stocks ending the day in the green here

trading at record highs as markets eye

Middle East talks and earnings roll in

our finances Jared Blickery joins here

with the recap. Jared,

>> that's right Josh. We got a lot of

records to talk about and here's the Dow

that is a record high first record

closing high in a bit and we're adding

97 points today or 1.7%

really nice gap and go day NASDAQ

composite bit more not a dissimilar

chart pretty close to the highs of the

day ending up 2.6% big tech really

taking the reigns there we're going to

be talking about that and S&P 500 up

1.8% even the equal weighted index of

the S&P 500 up 1.4% 4%. And guess what?

Both of those are at records. The

NASDAQ, no. S&P 500, both of those

calculations, yes. Russell 2000, small

caps ending at a record high. S&P 600,

another small cap engine, that is at a

record. S&P 400, the midcaps, that is a

record as well. So, you get the point

here. Uh, lots of lots of records to go

around. want to show you what's going on

with the Philly semiconductor in it.

That is not a record high, but it's up

six and a half percent. And we might

have a chance to dig into that in a

little bit more detail in a minute. But

I just want to show you the year-to-

date trade because we're now just

breaking out of this negative trend

line. Not quite there yet, but really

nice 4-day rally off of those lows since

Wednesday of last week, which is really

interesting because that was also Fed

day. Uh I'll show you quickly how the

30-year wrap today because we've been on

30-year yield watch. Uh this is a

year-to-day chart. You can see it broke

two highs here. Not only the highs of

the year, highest level since 2007.

That's why we're watching this, but it

is down today four basis points to

5.19%. That's at uh part of this little

move right there. And that is the right

direction for stocks right now. And

checking out the sector action today.

XLK up 5%. You don't see that often.

That is the best day in two days because

two days ago or two sessions ago, it had

a really great session as well. Uh but

that is a big number for XLK. That's

tech. Materials up 2%. Both of those the

only outperformers from the S S&P 500.

Industrials also pointing uh to a big

move today. Financials, communication

services, those round out your leaders

here on the top row. To the downside, it

was all defensive sectors, real estate,

healthcare, energy, and utilities.

Utilities the worst off, but only down

about 610 of 1%. in uh NASDAQ 100 land.

You can see SpaceX here ahead of

earnings that uh we're waiting for here.

That is up nearly 10% today. That is the

best day ever for SpaceX. In fact, uh

the second best second best day was

about uh 7%. So by far in a way the best

day for SpaceX. It was only yesterday,

Monday, that we had a record low in

SpaceX. And I'll just show you that

chart real quick. We got a little bit of

time. Let's do a year to date. So that

gives us the entire history here uh

since the IPO. And here we go. This was

day three, that record high. Intraday

was $225. Went all the way down to

almost broke 100, but uh that low was

yesterday. And we are up off of that.

You can see it's down 16% from that

opening day uh of $150 I believe

something in there. Uh Broadcom today,

chip stock doing really well. Broadcom

up 6%, Microsoft up one, and Nvidia up

two and a half, Alphabet and Apple each

up more than 1%. Apple coming back after

taking that big post earnings slide last

week. But, uh, I'll tell you what, I'm

going to give you uh, I think we'll save

that. I want to take a look at the Dow

first. Uh, we got Cisco up 5%, IBM up

four, Boeing up two and a half%, and

Visa up 1%. And Josh, do we have time

for more tech talk?

>> We sure do. That big tech, uh, Jared,

you mentioned that. I'm just curious

when you look at the recent performance,

what do you see, Jared? Break that down

for us.

>> I mentioned last Wednesday because that

was kind of a pivot low in the market.

That's uh when the general market kind

of bottomed and it we we've had a

blistering rally over these last four

days. It's been led by tech. So, I'm

showing you the NASDAQ 100 because

that's where we see a lot of the mag

almost all the mag seven well all of the

mag seven trades and most of the mega

caps. Um and I was mentioning Apple a

minute ago. Apple's a standout to the

downside, down 8.5%. But check out what

the others have done. And a lot of these

are on the backs of earnings that were

really strong. Microsoft up 26%, Amazon

up 22%, Broadcom up 13%, Alphabet

earnings were a couple weeks ago, but

that was up 12% and Nvidia up 12%. The

Mag 7 are leading once again. It's no

coincidence, I think, that we're seeing

markets back at records uh highs today.

And guess who also is back? The

semiconductors. Now, they are not at

record highs, but they have rallied

strongly off of the lows. And uh aside

from some of the bigger ones, and these

numbers are actually low, low double

digits here. Let me sort by performance.

And you can see there on the top line,

we got Lmentum and SanDisk up 45%, Wolf

up 35, Applied up 35, Marll just right

there. Uh a lot of outperformers in this

group. And just when you thought uh

semiconductors might be leading again,

I'm going to show you who's also with

there with them and that is software. So

we have a number of things working

together for this rally that we have not

seen in some time. That is the MAG7, we

got chip stocks, we got software. It's

like everything is firing on all

cylinders. You don't need that 100% of

the time, but um if I show you a cap a

chart of the S&P 500, you can see u and

I've been talking about market rotation

for a while. This is a year-to- date

chart. Here is that multimonth, almost

three monthl long trading sideways in

the S&P 500. This is when we didn't

always have that leadership from big

tech, from the semiconductors, from

software. We had a little bit at a time,

but not all three three kind of kicking

in at the same time. We also had

leadership from other parts of the

market. So, point is it looks like

everything is firing. And there you go.

We are at record highs once again. And

um I'll go back and I'll show you a

different perspective because these last

four days not only about big tech. Uh

here's my leaderboard. Uh my sentiment

markets. These are mostly ETFs. And I

know we got a lot of strange letters up

there, but I'll break it down to you in

words. So the top two spots EW

is Korea. That's an Korean TF ETF highly

leveraged to the chip trade. And socks

number two, that's chip. But we got

quantum IPOs, solar momentum software,

mag 7, lots of other stuff in there.

This is a very broad-based rally, guys.

>> All right, Jared, thank you. Appreciate

it. Well, SpaceX second quarter earnings

are just now across the wire. Let's get

to Yarao Finances in NEZ Fay for the

numbers and how they do.

>> Yeah, Josh, on the top line, you've got

the second quarter revenue that came in

at 7.8 billion. The estimate was for

6.81. So, that was a beat. SpaceX saying

that it ended the second quarter with

47.5

billion in backlog. Also, its second

quarter AI segment operating loss came

in at 1.26 billion. That came in under

what the street was estimating. The

street was estimating for a loss of 2.39

billion. Also, second quarter capex

coming in at $18.37

billion. The estimate was for 18.58

billion. So, that's shy of what the

estimate was expecting. Taking a look at

second quarter Starlink subscribers,

those came in at 12 million. The

estimate was for 12.19

million. Also, the second quarter loss

per share coming in at 9 uh per share.

So, uh second quarter AI segment total

revenue by the way also coming in at

$2.56 billion. The estimate was for

$2.08

billion. Uh so connectivity segment by

the way also just want to add that that

revenue came in at 4.29 billion the

estimate was for 3.88 billion. So quite

a few beats on some of these metrics

that we're looking at from SpaceX. And I

just want to read you also uh from their

earnings release. uh they highlight

demonstrated the power of extreme

vertical integration delivering revenue

growth of 92%

year-over-year across space connectivity

and AI closed multiple industry-leading

cloud service agreements resulting in

4.1 billion on contracted sales uh

announced the uh uh the agreement to

acquire cursor for $60 billion to

accelerate AI enterprise opportunity uh

so quite and also awarded 6 billion in

multi-year US government contracts for

Star Shield. Quite a few metrics. Uh you

have quite a few beats here I would

listen to in the earnings call. Uh watch

for obviously commentary on Starlink,

that's their cash cow, on their launch

launch services on the Falcon 9 Starship

launch and also on that newly integrated

AI and XAI segment. Josh.

>> All right, Nez, thank you. Appreciate

it. For more reaction now to SpaceX

second quarter earnings, let's bring in

Nicholas Owens, equity analyst of

aerospace and defense at Mornings. All

right, Nicholas. So the the numbers just

hitting here, but Q2 adjusted Ebida 3.5

billion. The street had it at 2 billion.

Looks like Q2 revenue is a beat 7.8

billion. Consensus was more like 6.81

billion. Uh but what what do you make of

the results, Nicholas?

>> Uh overall they're pretty good. I'm hot

hot off the press here as you said. um

on revenue it was like actually a little

bit light compared to what I was looking

at but um some of the profitability

actually looks better but they the the

real story for me is although this is

great and we know they have some very

fast growing businesses um the uh bottom

line is they're still investing very

very heavily in this AI project

>> there's a lot of moving pieces Nicholas

right it's space it's connectivity it's

AI is there a metric that you make a

beline for

>> uh yeah I think and um you commented on

them the the subscriber growth is an

important one because Starlink uh what

they call connectivity really is the the

the money driver um in a year or two

when they stop investing as much R&D in

the rocket launch business that might

also be a contributor um so it's it's

really subscriber growth and then the

investment uh sort of let's say R&D and

capex on the AI side I'm is what I'm

tracking.

>> To your point, Q2 Starling subscribers

was a touch light versus consensus. It

was 12 million. The estimate on the

street 12.19 million. As you watch the

trajectory, Nicholas, what are the

milestones? How do you gauge success

here? Is it subscribers or what are you

watching?

>> Well, that's an interesting point. So,

we think they have a really pretty good

runway uh for for growing Starlink over

time. not as heady as some of the

estimates that are out there on the

street, but basically we think that

within technical constraints, there's a

couple hundred million dollar

opportunity for them around um serving,

you know, internet subscribers in in a

handful of different markets. Uh the

milestones are uh let's say

kind of market share within those

different markets. Um, and like I said,

there's there's there's a good decade of

growth in in it for them without them

taking over the whole uh telecom

business, so to speak.

>> A lot of the company's success,

Nicholas, at Starship, it's success in

increasing launch cadence. How confident

are you in that in the quarters years

ahead?

Well, um the the last uh Starship

launchers was really impressive because

the the the key factor there is I mean

first of all they've proven that they

know how to develop rockets and they

iterate and test quickly and yes some of

them blow up etc. But the the the the

real milestone was how well the upper

stage uh the actual Starship itself uh

survived because the the for them to get

to the cadence that they need to get to

uh let's say by the end of the decade

they need to be able to reuse those and

I mean they're talking about reusing a

rocket ship like an airplane like go up,

touch down, refuel, go again. uh they're

we're a ways away from that, but they're

that's what they're trying to prove out.

Um but without that the cadence they

could potentially do that cadence that

they need, which is hundreds of launches

a year, but then they would have to

build way more of these which is not the

the the ideal plan.

>> You know, traditionally you think of

this company Nicholas, you think

rockets, you think Starlink, you know,

but now increasingly you also think

listen the AI company, right? I mean

they are signing these AI, you know,

data center rental agreements with

Anthropic, with Google. How's a

financial analyst covering the name,

Nicholas? Do you think about that

opportunity? [laughter]

>> Yeah. Well, full disclosure, I'm the

aerospace analyst. So, uh I uh you know,

in February when they merged with XAI,

uh we had to roll up our sleeves and

figure out what what all that meant. Um

and I've been collaborating with my

colleagues on the you know, on the chips

and and uh um you know, Neocloud side.

the um the the way we're looking at it

right now is in the near term largely an

infrastructure or uh NeoCloud play where

eventually they can potent launch a

bunch of GPUs into orbit and expand the

capacity that they have and we presume

that they will rent out whatever

capacity they don't use for Grock right

now. I think Brock is still in sort of

um uh rehab, if you will, uh to to to

increase its capacity and then address

some of that enterprise market and the

other apps. Uh but but in the near term,

our forecast doesn't really have much to

do with Grock. It has to do with more of

these anthropic type rental uh

arrangements and they're they're very

lucrative.

>> Yeah, there's a lot of chatter,

Nicholas, about a potential SpaceX Tesla

merger, right? I'd imagine that's going

to come up on the call. We'll see what

Musk has to say about it. One, Nicholas,

you know, do you think it happens? And

two, I guess if it did happen, would

that make financial and strategic sense

to you, Nicholas? Like where would be

the the biggest synergy there?

Yeah, the it seems reasonably likely to

happen. And I think the reasons are that

uh if you went through the S1, I think

Tesla was mentioned dozens and dozens of

times and they mentioned a handful of

pretty big projects where they're

already working together and putting the

two companies together. Aside from sort

of like just getting all of the Elon

Musk, you know, adventure

project under one roof, uh the

logistical reasons are to be able to

share engineers, share expertise, IP uh

facilities, right? So they both want to

make AI chips. They both want to uh do a

handful of these types of projects and

it doesn't make sense to do it twice. Um

so I think there's reasonable business

logic to do it. Um the the open question

is what sort of shareholder adoption

would you have among Tesla shareholders

where Elon Musk controls around 20ish%

of the vote all in um while at SpaceX he

controls something like 85% of the vote.

So, it's it's really a matter of what

kind of um weight in the final company

would Tesla shareholders want or expect

to have um you know as as sort of

compensation for them being absorbed

into let's say this new um mothership,

no pun intended.

>> Nicholas, great to have you on the show.

Appreciate that instant analysis. Thank

you.

>> My pleasure. Thanks.

>> Coming up, we bring you AMD's latest

results. That's next on Market

Domination Overtime.

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Hey, Heat.

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>> Down.

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AMD has just crossed the wire. Let's get

you those numbers. Q2 uh adjusted EPS

166 versus an estimate of 162. So that's

a beat on your bottom line. Look at the

top line. Q2 revenue 11.54 billion.

Consensus was 11.31 billion. So beats on

the bottom and the top. Uh Q2 adjusted

operating margins better than expected

there by a hair, 27%. The estimate was

26.9%.

Uh so they're holding in there. Uh Q2

capex number, let's look at that. That

comes in at 88 million. Analysts had

thought it was going to be something

more like 299 million. So 808 versus

more like 299.

Um Q3 revenue. Let's look ahead there.

Uh AMDC is saying to expect somewhere

between 12.7 and 3.3 billion. The street

was closer to 12.5,

but that Q2 capex number again 88

million versus an estimate of 298.6

million. I think that goes probably a

long way to explain why the initial

reaction here in the after hours were

down a quick nearly 9% here. Well, for

more on AMD's Q2 results, let's um get

Shay Balor here. is Futurum's chief

market strategist Shay. Um, listen, I'm

looking at these numbers. They just

crossed. You have beats on the bottom

and the top. Margins look like they hold

in there. The Q3 revenue guide again

12.7 to 13.3. Street was more like 12.5,

but this Q2 capex number 808 million.

Analysts had thought they were going to

get something like 299 L. What do you

make of that?

>> I'm I'm not going to lie. That's a

shocking upside revision on the capex

number, but zoom out to what AI advance

event was for AMD. They essentially said

their TAM 10xed year-over-year. Now,

they expect the CPU market to

drastically get bigger and bigger as the

Jet AI gets going. But I think the best

way to understand what's happening to

the stock price right now being down

10%. Is it was priced for something much

closer to a blowout. I think revenue was

really respectable, beat by $200

million. EPS also came in 5 cents above

estimate. So, the company did beat

across the board, but it wasn't enough

to reset expectations for a stock that's

trading near 60 times earnings,

especially when I hate making this

comparison because it's not a zero- sum

game, but you have the king Nvidia

sitting there right there at 20 times

earnings. So, I think that you're seeing

the stock just essentially rallied

before the reports, and I think there

was an expectations of exceptional

results rather than merely excellent

ones. And the data center number was

strong but I think it was already

expected to be strong and that is kind

of uh the double-edged sword when you

have uh this company becoming a not just

a second source of the AI economy but

becoming a full systems player with a

massive ramp up for the second half of

the year and data center now represents

60% of the total revenue which is kind

of bonkers if you think about a year ago

uh which more than double from last year

as epic demand continues to accelerate

that I do think you have to like kind of

disassociate

stock price reaction to business

execution cuz on the business front

they're clearly executing. They want to

reinvest in order to meet all the demand

they're seeing. But on the stock front,

it was priced for an exceptional results

and this was not an exceptional result.

I guess sh if I was like an AMD investor

and I saw a Q2 capex number, right, that

was this much bigger than what the

street had penciled in. I I guess I'd

want to know like, okay, are are you

spending this much, Lisa Sue, because

you know, demand is just that red hot

you feel like or or is it because you

feel like you have to because

competition is that redot? But what

would you want to know, Shay, about

that?

I I think aentic AI completely changed

AMD's plans this year. I think the most

underappreciated part of Andy's story is

remains epic. Aentic is going to

continue to increase CPU demand. At the

same time, Helios also expands the

accelerator and rack scale opportunity.

So now you have AMD just having this two

massive opportunities co colliding at

the same time where AI agents do more

than just generate answers. Now they're

going to retrieve data, call tools,

manage security, all the jazz around

Agentic AI. That creates a lot more work

for CPUs even as GPU demand continues

growing. So I think that AMD just

increased their estimates like I said

just a couple weeks ago uh for the CPU

market in 2030 to hit $220 billion. Keep

in mind just a year ago they estimated

being $26 billion. So because manage

clearly believes that Genta AI creates

entirely new categories of CP demand,

they kind of want to put all their chips

in place to get as much of that demand

as possible. So I don't view it as

competition and they're just having this

prisoners dilemma like hyperscalers are.

I purely believe that there's just a ton

of demand right now, especially for Epic

and they have a second half uh kind of

early rack scale story that they really

need to invest in. You know, AMD has

been rolling out new products, Shay, and

CEO Lisa Sue. I I was just talking about

that with my colleague Dan Howie. I

mean, she's been talking tough, right? I

mean, she's been saying, "Listen, you

know, my products can outperform

Nvidia's products." Is that how you see

it, Shay?

>> I will say I think Lisa is the only one

or AMD is the only one that's really

used that reference. I I don't

personally see it, but it again, it

doesn't have to be zero sum. I think

that that's purely just a narrative,

which is fine. That's typically how it

goes. Uh, however, I would say that

if you want to do a comparison, it was

really nice to see AMB's data center

growth beat Nvidia's data center growth

from last quarter. Like I really wanted

the data center business to grow triple

digits cuz Nvidia grew 92% last quarter.

I think the optimization angle that Lisa

is talking about the tokenization of

being most efficient, it is useful. It's

a great narrative. I just don't see real

proof of that yet or third party proof

on that's really the case. But again,

you have the cousins attacking each

other trying to become the king of this

AI buildout. So, I think it's just a

little friendly fun of making that

comments.

>> Yeah, we we should know. Listen, I mean,

expectations were skyhigh, Shay. This

stock was up more than 140% year-to-

date into this print, right? Um I'm and

part of that of course I is all the

excitement around AMD CPUs, right? But

Intel also makes CPUs. Shay, what what

are AMD's what are Lisa Sue's advantages

there?