CNBC Closing Bell
2026-08-25 · Hosted by Scott Wapner, Melissa Lee, Michael Santoli · CNBC
Executive Summary
Stocks closed mostly lower Monday — the S&P 500 down a quarter of a percent and the Nasdaq off about three quarters of a percent — as chip stocks led the market down ahead of Nvidia's Wednesday earnings, while the Dow eked out a roughly 140-point gain on rotation into defensive names. Nvidia fell for a seventh straight session, its longest losing streak since September 2022, after Bloomberg reported server makers are raising prices more than 15% on Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems due to memory costs. Man Group's Christina Hooper cautioned that rising long-end yields, driven more by fiscal unsustainability and foreign investor reticence than inflation, could pressure long-duration tech and AI stocks further.
Key Stories & Changes
1. Markets Brace for Nvidia's Wednesday Earnings
Nvidia fell nearly 3% Monday, a seventh straight losing session — the longest since September 2022
Reportedly raising prices more than 15% on latest chip systems for early-2027 shipments, driven by soaring memory costs
UBS's Tim Arcuri: numbers should be strong, with Vera Rubin CPU ramping in October and more significantly in the January quarter; questions remain on maintaining gross margins as the new product ramps
Wall Street consensus: Nvidia trading at 13x next year's earnings estimate, which Arcuri called limited room for further multiple compression
Nvidia generating roughly $1 billion of free cash flow per day next year per Arcuri's estimate; company previously guided to returning 50% of cash flow to shareholders
2. Treasury Announces New Iran Sanctions, Oil Falls
WTI: Crude Oil — -2%+ — Fell as Bessent's sanctions stopped short of hitting China, UAE, other major Iran trading partners
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent designated entities and vessels for sanctions violations but avoided secondary sanctions on China, UAE, and other countries
Bessent: "We believe that a warning shot and a level set of expectations is appropriate... they should leave the dollar system" if they don't comply
Iran's economy minister said the country is "fully prepared" and sanctions "cannot cut off our financial arteries"
Bond yields pulled back a few basis points on the news across 10- and 30-year maturities
3. Utilities Struggle Despite AI Power Demand
Utilities remain the worst-performing sector over the past six months despite being positioned as AI/data-center demand beneficiaries
City analyst Ryan Levine: political backlash is reducing allowed returns on equity in Maryland, New Jersey, and parts of New England
Texas paused its "bad zero" grid-connection process, most likely delayed until after the election, spurring interest in "bring your own power" behind-the-meter solutions
Levine's preferred names: FirstEnergy and Excelon (out-of-favor states, seen as well-positioned longer term); NextEra for islanded/data-center campus solutions
California wildfire legislation expected by end of week could de-risk (reduce regulatory/legal risk) the regulatory environment for utilities
4. Retail Earnings Movers and El Niño Risk
GOOS: Canada Goose — 52-week low — Double-downgraded to underweight by Wells Fargo on El Niño winter warmth risk; ~80% of profit comes in holiday season
DECK: Deckers (Ugg) — Underweight — Cold-weather exposure via Ugg boots; 2015 El Niño saw Ugg miss Q3 guidance by 7 points of revenue
VFC: VF Corp (North Face, Timberland) — Flagged as exposed — Cited as vulnerable to a warm winter
BURL: Burlington — Overweight (still) — Off-price exposed to cold-weather categories but analyst maintains overweight on execution
Wells Fargo's Ike Boruchow: 70% chance this El Niño event could be the strongest in about 150 years; every 1% of winter warming correlates to a 3-5% hit to outerwear sales
2015's comparable El Niño event saw outerwear sales down 20% industry-wide
5. Hims & Hers Flagged by Visa Over Disputes
Hims & Hers (HIMS) shares fell 8% after Visa placed the company in its acquirer monitoring program following a surge in card disputes tied to weight-loss subscriptions
Company faces an $8 surcharge per dispute (~$75,000 total on ~9,300 disputes) and must get its dispute rate below 1.5% for three consecutive months to exit the program
Comes alongside a broader FTC investigation launched in July, which analysts say is the larger concern beyond the fee itself
6. Nvidia's Groq Chip and Software Push
Nvidia is putting its Groq 3 LPX chip into full production, aimed at speeding inference on open-weight AI models
Independent inference chipmaker Cerebras stock fell more than 5% (down 26% overall) on the news
Nvidia separately agreed to pay $6 billion to license Poolside's technology and hire 100+ engineers to build its own open-weight model, per the Wall Street Journal, aiming to create an American open model rival to China
Analysts framed this as Nvidia increasingly operating as an AI "platform"/infrastructure company rather than a pure hardware vendor, trading more like Amazon than pure chip peers
7. Value Investing Ideas from Boyer Value Group
Uber (UBER): trading at below-market multiple growing 20-30%/year with ~7% free cash flow yield (cash left after expenses, relative to share price); Jonathan Boyer sees the market wrongly pricing in disruption from robotaxis
MSG Sports: enterprise value of $10 billion vs. the Lakers' recent $12.5 billion sale price; team split into separate Knicks/Rangers public entities expected around October
Cooper Companies: activist involvement (Jana Partners) may lead to sale of its women's health division, leaving a higher-multiple pure-play contact lens business
Scotts Miracle-Gro: potential sale catalyst following the exit of longtime CEO Jim Hagedorn, alongside exit from the cannabis business
Trends Identified
1. Rising Long-End Yields Threaten Long-Duration Tech Valuations
Man Group's Christina Hooper warned that the rise in 10-year yields toward 4.7% stems from fiscal unsustainability tied to war spending and foreign investor reticence toward US Treasuries — not inflation expectations — and that this creates a difficult environment for tech, especially AI names whose valuations depend on hyperscalers eventually justifying massive capex (capital expenditure, spending on infrastructure) with revenue.
2. Nvidia's Transformation From Chipmaker to AI Platform/Financier
Between the Groq chip launch, the $6 billion Poolside model licensing deal, and its expanding financing and equity-investment activity across AI startups, analysts increasingly describe Nvidia as a diversified "holding company" or platform play rather than a pure semiconductor stock — a shift reflected in its correlation to Mag 7 names like Amazon rather than pure memory/hardware peers.
3. Utilities' AI Narrative Diverges From Stock Performance
Despite being pitched as prime beneficiaries of AI-driven power demand, utilities have lagged for six months as political backlash over electricity costs constrains allowed returns in key states, even as analysts still expect the sector to be a long-term beneficiary once regulatory friction eases.
4. Weather Risk Re-Emerges as a Retail Catalyst
A potentially historic El Niño event is prompting analysts to reprice cold-weather retail exposure (Canada Goose, Deckers, VF Corp, Burlington), echoing the 2015 event when outerwear sales fell 20% industry-wide — a reminder that macro/weather risk can outweigh company-specific execution in certain retail categories. ---
Sentiment Analysis
Overall Market Sentiment: Cautiously Defensive
Investors rotated out of high-flying tech and chips into defensive sectors (staples, value names) ahead of Nvidia's earnings, reflecting elevated caution but not outright bearishness.
Risk Factors Highlighted
Nvidia earnings disappointment: Given the seven-day losing streak and high guidance expectations (>$109B next-quarter revenue), a miss or weak guide could trigger a larger selloff.
Rising long-end Treasury yields: Fiscal unsustainability and reduced foreign demand for US Treasuries could continue pressuring long-duration equities, especially AI/tech names.
Memory cost inflation: Server price hikes tied to soaring memory costs threaten margins across the AI hardware supply chain.
Iran sanctions escalation risk: Treasury's warning of further unilateral action leaves open the possibility of a bigger economic/oil-market shock if trading partners don't comply.
Utilities regulatory/political risk: State-level backlash over electricity costs and wildfire liability could continue to cap utility sector returns.
El Niño winter weather risk: A historically strong El Niño could hit cold-weather retail sales broadly, as seen in 2015's 20% outerwear sales decline.
Hims & Hers regulatory scrutiny: An active FTC investigation compounds the Visa dispute-rate issue and could pressure the stock further.
AI hyperscaler revenue justification: Christina Hooper flagged ongoing concern that AI hyperscalers may not reach revenue levels that justify their capex spend.
Grand Canyon Education governmental investigation: CFO placed on leave amid a probe into stock trades by a non-employee third party, an emerging governance risk.
This episode was covered in today's [The Market Signal — 2026-08-25](https://marketsignal.beehiiv.com/p/the-market-signal-2026-08-25), a cross-source synthesis of multiple podcast reports.