Advertising deal with openai, and as dom said, gameshop shares tumble. Take two cuts its forecast in what it calls challenging times. Lets begin with markets a day after the dow hit 40k for the First Time Ever on pace for its fifth week of gains. What did you make of all the fuss yesterday . I thought this was one of the broader attempts at a major milestone. And what led it was just incredible. I mean, youre dealing with a level of broad that what let me tell you, the most important thing was rates had only something to do with one stock out of ten. You could pin on rates. I think thats very important. I do believe most of these companies are just run by ceos that dont get enough credit. Its amazing to me that we simply are always willing to consign, i think thats because of the nonsense risk on, risk off, thats just something that came up to confuse the viewers. Im not crazy about it. I think whats happened here is when you get a guy like solomon, and he realizes, you know, goldman is not being run right, sasha nudell, when he decides to go all in on azure. We cant make cat boom or bust anymore. We have to make it so its a secular grower. Lets be linked to data centers, to oil and gas. These guys, up 100 . Were not going to just cater to the older demographic. Were going to go after gen z, after millennials and theyre lifetime value customers. These are ceos who matter. Even though were stuck in a world of macro, micro, and what the fed is going to do, it doesnt make you money. It fills up the hour. You have to fill up an hour, 47 minutes, when you have almost 60 minute, you have to fill it up. I like to say, lets make money for people. If we do that, then nester, you know, whatever bark, nice fellow. Sea of love, was that . Good title. But i just think that in the end, we have to help people make money. He blows up the model, comes out. Rob davis, he just could do keytruda to make it when the patent comes off, we wouldnt have merck be one of the top stocks. Jim is referring to the names that added most to the dow since 30k. Goldman first, microsoft second. Laggards were 3m, nike, and disney. 3m, mike came in, he was given a bad hand. And wow. Hes come back with a vengeance. Hes created a company thats ready to accelerate. Thats all on him because he got a bad hand. It looked like a good hand. I mean, it looked like he was playing people looked like the 2s and 7s were wild. It turned out they werent wild. He had a bad hand, but hes augmented it. And i take a look at some of these guys. Lets take a guy like mike worth. Mike worth is an oil guy, but mike decided capital discipline, and lets give back in dividend and lets not blow the company up buying anadarko. These guys are meaningful. And youre going to say jamie dimon was the principal beneficiary of the fed rate cuts and also principal beneficiary of raed hikes . No. I talk about the great theory, but im saying there are people who do more. Look at the hand that bob iger got. Thats a bad hand. But it was an iger hand. There was a stop, there was a guy in there. A pit stop. He made a pitstop in there. Now, they said if you dont have anything to say thats nice, just dont say it. Nanny is never wrong. Didnt know all that much. Youre talking about corporate dynamism. Yes. Is that enough to fuel a further rally, and did walmart yesterday answer concerns about the lower end consumer . Doug hit it out of the park. Best earnings reaction in almost six years. Doug mcmillon, first, he had deflation in many aisles. Second, he had some particular food stuff deflation that mattered. He understands the consumer better than any major mass merchandiser. And i thought doug did great. I mean, by the way, doug is not only hes so nonpromotional. I had to try to tell him that his fashion is great. I had to. I said, listen, doug, your fashion is great. The stores look fabulous. Thats him giving the managers a lot of say. But i was blown away by how page after page of a recognition that the consumer scrapped. It was really a poignant piece of americana. Its interesting because b of a last night looking for signs of the low end cracking of the consumer. Not yet, they argue. If you look at wages versus pricing at the low end, its still outpacing higher income consumers and has for years. And thats x grocery and gas. Thats important because look, the preconception is everybody using a credit card. No, no. People arent doing as well. I mean, maybe they have spent the socalled capital they built up during covid. I think its not its not the stuff thats found at walmart thats a problem. Its service means, between the lines in the home depot quote, which is also a very important call. Between the lines there was the labor is too important. Its not the actual goods. And home depot cant do much about the labor. Immigration can, but we dont know about the work permits biden is giving. When you look through walmart, you know if you go there, its the same prices as 2020, not 2019. Almost nobody can bring it back to 2019, unless you buy their private label where they have a huge number of foods that are under 5. I wish wall street would go, analysts would go to walmart. But you cant go to one. You have to go to many wall marts because they look very different. It makes it so they look different. Thats not what theyre doing at a Cracker Barrel. They will. We can get into what Cracker Barrel is doing. But i thought the walmart was extraordinary. And that stock was deservedly up, and its not done going higher because that was a remarkable quarter. Theyre not the costco model. Sams, maybe, and that means lets just do volume and make money with the card. I felt so good that america is reacting to what doug is doing. Which is to make it so that he is bringing back the roll backs that sam waltons s used to do. He told me, were bringing back sam walton. There was one after 78 where you would go and it would have an ice chest from rubbermade, and it cost them 40 and they were selling it to you for 20. You say i beat the heck out of walmart. Like that. You made your crazy eddy reference yesterday. Are we in a crazy eddy environment where prices are insane . Some of them are insane. Theyre fashion. Doug doesnt someone is doing the fashion for doug because doug doesa ant seem to realize when my daughter wore the combat boots, i dont think he knew that was him. But the prices are crazy. They had valentines day outfits for like 9 that looked like they were like 72. I know you tweeted out, i think it was a People Magazine piece on clothes at amazon that are 20. Look, the idea that apparel is up, thats why i mean, david, im telling you that the Labor Department how could they be wrong, theyre the Labor Department . Theyre wrong because they dont know temu and amazon. That was a good exchange. Meantime, were watching china rolling out new measures in hopes to stabilize their property crisis. Eunice yoon is live with more. Reporter hey, carl. The support package is beijings most aggressive yet. The focus of it is to convert unsold homes into Affordable Housing and also to encourage more people to buy new apartments. Now, the package involves a 42 billion relending fund to help stateowned firms to buy inventory for that public housing. Local governments would be leaned on very heavily. They would buy some unsold homes at, quote, reasonable prices. Theyre also being urged to get more heavily involved with finishing stalled projects or creating the conditions so the projects would be completed and buying back land from developers in order to try to ease their financial burden. Now, as for the potential buyers, the National Mortgage rate floor will be removed from tomorrow and down payments ratios will also be cut. State media has been describing these steps as historic and the stock investors really did like these policy announcements. Capital economics which is a Research House said this could be potentially significant. It sees that new home sales could be up 10 in the first year but if the funding is sufficient. And that is a big if, guys. Based on the size of the problem and also the current state of the finances at a lot of these local governments. 42 billion, thats great. People in the know, people who know far more than i do said it could be a 6 trillion problem that they have. Trillion, with a t. This does not seem to be addressed by what people in it know are saying. Yeah, but we see that beijing has been kind of reluctant to do a whole lot. Its taken a lot for beijing to get to a point where theyre allowing state firms as well as local governments to have some type of intervention. The big problem is that the signal is that they dont want to pay for something too big because they have already had issues with debt. And also, that potential destabilizing impact, you know, any kind of major moves can make, and as you well know, the authorities here are very wary of anything that could create social instability. Meantime, eunice, the data we got last night, Industrial Production with the wbeat but retail sales with a miss. A bit of a mixed picture there. It was a missed picture, but it reflects what we have been seeing all along, that the government is kind of pushing the whole export and factory component of the economy. But the consumption really wasnt really there. So what we were seeing was a miss on the consumption as well as the investment, the Infrastructure Spending not doing so well. But then, the exports the Industrial Production was up. So again, you know, a lot of imbalances in this economy. Eunice, when president hoover was confronted with a similar situation, he created a Reconstruction Finance Corporation and spent some money. But was reluctant to do keynesian comes. Whats the resistance to keynesian economics. This is a man, president for life, hanging out with putin, you could argue, axis of evil or something, but he can do whatever he wants. Why is he hoover instead of roosevelt . I mean, i think it, again, goes back to this whole concern about social stability. He doesnt necessarily want to do something thats so massive. They dont really want to pay for it. At least thats the signaling thats there. And you know, theres big question mark because this problem is so big, exactly what would happen if they made any dramatic moves. Again, even with this scheme, there arent a whole lot of details but people are wondering, so who is going to be made whole . You might have the financing. But is it going to be the developers or will it be the potential buyers who put down large deposits and could lose everything and are already protesting in some areas or have protested. Or will it be some of these workers we have seen who are protesting because theyre angry they havent gotten their money back or the suppliers . Theres a lot of questions about what the government is able to actually do. Wow. Eunice, between that and your robo taxi reporting this week, your plate has been so full. Appreciate it as always. As the guards here when we leave say, stay safe. When we come back, a couple gaming names to watch. Well get to take two and gamestop, as gamestop is back to levels before Roaring Kitty returned to social media. Oeg,l get to cannabis, bin hood. When we come back. Car, this isnt the way home. Thats right james, it isnt. Car, where are we going . Were here. surprise the future isnt scary. Not investing in it is. Car, were you in on this . Nothing gets by you james. Nasdaq100 innovators. One etf. Before investing, carefully read and consider Fund Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses and more in prospectus at invesco. Com i cant believe you corporate types are still at it. Just stop calling each other rock stars. And using workday to put finance and h. R. On one platform. Tim, you are a rock star. Using responsible ai doesnt make you a rock star. It kinda does. You are not rock stars. clears throat okay. Most of you are not rock stars. Oooh. Data driven insights, and large language models. Oh, thats so rock roll. It is, right. He gets it. Yeah. You ready . Showtime. This is gonna be epic. It is, right. [ barking ] its what the poster said. Do you want to make out or . Nope. I meant yes. Hes a bon garcon. I give amazing spongebaths. Can i get a room . [ chuckling ] chefs kiss. These have been challenging times and in addition to delivering hits, we have asked everyone to dig deep and make sure the business is highly efficient, right sized, and that challenging and one of the most extraordinary things about our organization is the amazing morale and focus on the common good. Thats take two on the call last night following the companys latest earnings print. Well talk to him later this morning at 11 00 a. M. , as gta 6 pushes to next fall. Yeah, look, and i know that people pushback say a billion and a half. I cant believe how much the old, the current gta makes, which just tells me that you cant estimate how much the new one will, the houser likes to make a perfect game. I thought that he was right to knock him on this. Its been very hard to quantify. Its a really, really hard game. Its going to be the greatest game ever. Hes going to deliver that. Maybe too soon, maybe you need another quarter. But theres no doubt this company is doing incredibly because they were starting to see results from zynga, match factory. This thing is a very popular game. Im all in strauss. You would rather wait and have it done right, is that your point . It has to be. Look, rock star that people who make it, theyre perfectionists. The reason that game holds up under all the different years and iterations is because they are just so clever. I think that strauss look, hes from the movie making business. He understands you cant rush great productions. And i think that in the end, when i look at take two and what hes done, analysts are putting up 1. 6 billion back. I say wait a second, its the push out that i expected from the point of view of strauss gave you enough leeway that i didnt think it was that big a disappointment. Im all in strauss. Hes done a lot of good stuff. As for gme, we got the mixed shelf file. We got the preliminary number below consensus. Going to open below 22, jim. Look, theyre going to offer stock. Theyll do it at the money so theyre not going to club the stock. I wish he the done it the day before. I think they had to put out the horrible results before they do this. The thing theres a lot of things wrong with gamestop we never talk about. We talk about the kitty litter or whatever it is, the fresh step this guy is making with 30 this morning. Hes clearly ill advised. There is a real problem. Its an existential problem. For instance, the ncaa, the new games coming out, it was delayed because of the nils. I follow this closely because everybody in the office is looking for it. You preorder it. If you download it,it comes immediately. All right. If you go to gamestop, its one to three days. And its same price. So what is the advantage of gamestop . Well, you might want the disc because you might want to go to a friends place, have a sleepover. Maybe its okay to have a threeday wait. Otherwise, why not just download it for the same price . Whats great about gamestop is they can close. They can close they can close it. And then they wouldnt have to mess with it because its irrelevant. I matched it against best buy. Assassins creed, theres 72 different assassins creed. Theyre all the same price. If i go to best buy, i can get the refreshed pc. Is this all about extending and pretending, then . Whatever hay theyre able to make . Thats good. Im not saying it. Maybe hes using the bed, bath, beyond model. Its mpickleball court. I think gamestop, i remember when i went to livingston mall, which was an experience. There gamesstop on the first level and a gamestop on the second level. I was thinking, are you kidding me . I think its fighting for relevance. I think it became the stock, it made sense to short it other than the fact they overly shorted it. Its an existential crisis. Its been one since i had paul on where he was he was fabulous, trying to make it a swag store. Carl, look at the prices. Theyre no different from best buy. Look at the time it takes, no better to have it if you have xbox and just download it. And everyone who is playing with it, i urge them to go to one. I urge them to use it. I think they would say, we ought to switch and we should do it with foot locker. Lets go on foot locker. They need to go to another one. Lets pick another retailer that is struggling for relevance but as a vio that understands the business. Really, i could go to the mall and find 20 other stores that are better. And i mean, kohls bought sephora. They got the right, they didnt buy it. Gamestop has to do something so different, so i dont know. Like maybe with petco. Youre not joking. Something outside the box. Theres nothing there. Theres nothing. Hey, lets have strauss on. You ask him about why gamestop exists. I think its going to be a head scratcher. Well talk to him at 11 00. They could offer, i dont know, buckings has great sandwiches. Merge it with gamestop. When we come back, cramers mad dash and the opening bell. The dow looks to put together another positive week along with the s p. Stay with us. ella fashion moves fast. Setting trends is our business. We need to scale with customer demand. In real time. jen so we partner with verizon. Their solution for us . A private 5g network. ella we now get more control of production, efficiencies, and greater agility. marquis with a custom private 5g network. Our customers get what they want, when they want it. jen now were even smarter and ready for whats next. vo achieve enterprise intelligence. Its your vision, its your verizon. [crowd chanting] they ignored your potential, and mocked your ambition. But its not the critic who counts. With every swing and block, your game plan never changed. Some still call it luck. Let them. Because you know what its always been. Inevitable. Take a look at some gainers here. Amd up on a report involving microsoft which well talk about in a couple moments. A little media in there as well. Netflix, marvel rounding oheut t top four. Opening bell in just about four minutes. Tamra, izzy, and emma. They respond to emails with phone calls. And they dont circle back, theyre already there. They wear business sneakers and pad their keyboards with something that makes their clicketyclacking. Clicketyclackier. But no one loves logistics as much as they do. You need tamra, izzy, and emma. They need a retirement plan. Work with principal so we can help you with a retirement and benefits plan thats right for your team. Let our expertise round out yours. Time for cramers mad dash. There are times, we talk about ceos, and you said made that comment about people can really change things. Julie mussina has taken on the Cracker Barrel and shes put out five pillars to redevelop. S