Closing Bell 10/13/26

Micron Technology

Across the shows: 6 speakers in other episodes, 3 bullish and 2 bearish calls, past 30 days

• Oliver Renick · CNBCNeutral

  Micron's options flow shows dip buying, but call-spread selling suggests only a near-term low, not a big rally.

  Micron slumped about 5% alongside Sandisk and a drop in South Korean stocks, after nearing its all-time high following last month's earnings. Renick notes that call purchases exceeded puts by just under two to one, and the most-traded contract was the 1,000 strike call expiring the next day, which needs about a 6% rally to pay off. He cautions that big call-spread sellers are also present, so the flows may signal Micron finding a near-term low rather than a large rally.

  “Now the catch is that we also saw some big call spread sellers, so this may be more about Micron finding a near term low rather than a big rip higher, Scott.”at 37:20

Morgan Stanley

Across the shows: 2 speakers in other episodes, 2 bullish and 0 bearish calls, past 30 days

• Leslie Picker · CNBCBullish

  Today's bank results should bode well for Morgan Stanley given its large equities and prime brokerage business.

  Picker reports that third-quarter results were powered by stock trading, with prime brokerage driving higher equities revenue across the firm while fixed income, currencies and commodities was light. Because Morgan Stanley has a big equities and prime brokerage business, she argues the trends seen in today's reports should bode well for it, and says Ted Pick's comments on Asia and peak sales and trading will be critical.

  “The trends we saw in today's reports should bode well for Morgan Stanley, which has a big equities and prime brokerage business.”at 38:33

Johnson & Johnson

Across the shows: 2 speakers in other episodes, 2 bullish and 0 bearish calls, past 30 days

• Brian Belski · Humilis Investment StrategiesBullish

  J&J's device and non-drug businesses have been very steady, the most consistent of big pharma.

  Scott Wapner notes Belski owns J&J. Belski says the device business and the other non-drug side of J&J have been very steady. Of all the big pharma stocks, he argues J&J has been the most consistent, and it did not take much water after big pharma stocks were hit in 2025. He calls the reaction steady despite the stock being down almost 6% on the day.

  “their device business and their other side of the business aside from drug has been very, very steady. And of all the big pharmas that you wanna throw it in there, that has been the most consistent”at 44:45

Enterprise AI adoption & AI software

• Robert Smith · Pushkin Industries

  Enterprise AI software winners will be those that prove governed, reliable AI, and investors will start to differentiate them.

  Smith says there will be winners and losers in enterprise software. Enterprises will not adopt AI systems willy-nilly or early. They are looking for trusted vendors whose systems have governance and guardrails and do not leak or damage their intellectual property. Vista's portfolio focuses on governance, guardrails, trust and security, built on 25 years of 'operational intelligence'. He expects public markets to start distinguishing vendors that are really growing agentic solutions from those merely recharacterising what an agentic solution is.

  “They're looking for trusted vendors who actually can deliver to them systems that actually have governance procedures around them on guardrails.”at 3:16

• Robert Smith · Pushkin Industries

  Enterprise adoption of agentic AI is still early, but adopters are seeing a large economic rent pickup.

  Smith says enterprise diffusion (utilisation) of AI solutions is still really early. Vista has 68 portfolio companies now agentic, up from about 30 a year ago, but only a small fraction of its 750 million software users actually use agentic solutions. Among the group that does use them, there is a massive economic rent pickup compared with a standard SaaS system. Public markets will see who is growing with agentic solutions once those signals become clear.

  “It's still really early... it's still a small fraction that are actually using agentic solutions. What's interesting, though, is that group that is using them, there's a massive economic rent pickup.”at 4:37

Private credit

• Matt Brown · CAIS

  Private credit managers see no meaningful change in defaults; the volume dip is normal.

  Brown says the private credit managers he has spoken with, all at the summit, are not seeing default rates change meaningfully. He attributes the recent fall in volumes year over year to a huge prior year for private credit. He sees the media focus on private credit risk as overstated, and says newer private credit strategies are gaining traction.

  “None of them are seeing default [rate] change meaningfully... volumes may be down year over year, but last year was such a huge year for private credit. So that's normal.”at 23:00

• Drew McKnight · Fortress Investment Group

  Software lending losses came from excessive leverage, not AI, so Fortress cut software exposure to 6%.

  McKnight says the problem for some managers in software was not AI. It was 8x leverage and 1x interest coverage in aggressive capital structures with aggressive leverage facilities. Fortress was as much as 25% in software around 2019-2020. As capital structures and leverage multiples got more aggressive it slowly cut exposure, and it was much more cautious when software reached 30-40% of 2025 issuance. He says this was a bottoms-up decision, not a top-down call.

  “I think where some folks got sideways on software wasn't necessarily getting sideways with AI. It was software where they were eight times leverage, one times interest coverage.”at 27:27

US stock market outlook

• Michael Santoli · CNBC

  Equal-weight has tried to recover versus cap-weighted S&P; he wants to see it prove it.

  Santoli says the nontech parts of the market, which have absorbed pressure from rates and oil, could get relief from earnings reports. Equal-weight has tried to come off the mat relative to the market-cap-weighted S&P 500, and many think it is timely for that to continue. He is not convinced yet and says the market has to prove it.

  “...equal weight has tried to come off the mat relative to, the market cap weighted S and P. I think a lot of folks think it's timely to have that continue. I'm gonna say prove it.”at 35:24

• Brian Belski · Humilis Investment Strategies

  Slowing earnings growth, not a decline, is the market's next big threat, over the next six months.

  Belski argues companies are delivering on earnings, but the market has to talk the talk. The next big threat is the second derivative, meaning less positive earnings growth, which he expects to be a major trend over the next six months. He stresses positive is still positive and double-digit earnings growth is still very good, and expects the market to get through the malaise after the midterms, CPI and PPI, then reward the earnings.

  “I think the next big threat of the market and the negativity with respect to the bulls is the second derivative less positive earnings, which I think is gonna be a major, major trend over the next six months.”at 41:37

AI bubble & tech valuations

• Michael Santoli · CNBC

  The market is letting big tech valuations compress until next year's earnings and capex are visible.

  Santoli says the market has passively decided to allow valuations to compress. Big tech stocks are not really suffering on an absolute basis, but investors will wait for line of sight to next year's earnings and CapEx plans before deciding whether to give credit to big tech. That leaves the rest of the market an opportunity to catch up or be caught down by AI tech.

  “the decision has been kind of passive one, which is to say we're gonna allow valuations to compress... we're gonna wait until we see next year's... line of sight to next year's earnings and CapEx plans.”at 36:00

• Brian Belski · Humilis Investment Strategies

  Megacap tech is rightly rewarded for fundamentals and margins and can keep the market climbing for now.

  Belski argues the megacap tech stocks are doing what they should, rewarded for strong fundamentals and operating margins. Leadership has rotated among the Magnificent Seven all year, with Microsoft in a malaise, Apple underperforming, Google getting going and Nvidia taking off. He says mega caps can keep the market climbing for now because nervous investors seek liquidity in the biggest companies. He expects the broadening trade to work only in the second half if rates ease and growth slows, and says the current negativity is good for the longer-term breadth of the market.

  “I think the tech stocks are doing exactly what they should be doing, and they're being rewarded for the great fundamentals and the great operating margins what we've seen so far.”at 42:44

Software & SaaS

• Robert Smith · Pushkin Industries

  AI-enabled software firms can yield huge free cash flow, and agentic usage billing will exceed seat revenue.

  Smith argues that enterprise software is shifting from per-seat pricing to usage or outcome billing. Vista's telemetry agents track the value created and bill against it. Agentic revenue becomes a multiple of the seat revenue it replaces. He cites a portfolio company at a 76% EBITDA margin growing about 10%, against a 39% rule-of-40 profile when Vista first built it. AI-enabled businesses without agentic top-line growth can still generate a lot of free cash flow, which he calls a great place to invest in enterprise software.

  “Those AI enabled businesses, they may not have agentic offerings that are gonna drive top line growth, but you can enable them to deliver a massive amount of free cash flow.”at 6:12

AI regulation & safety

• Robert Smith · Pushkin Industries

  Self-regulation of AI is hard to rely on, and society needs actionable frameworks building public trust.

  Smith says a self-regulatory framework is hard to think about long term when some organisations are incentivised for mass proliferation rather than constructive, intentional building. Geopolitical competition, notably with China, pushes against pacing. He agrees with Dario Amodei's call to pace the frontier, which most executives at a group he hosted also endorsed. The hard question is how to pace and to whom the labs report. He wants frameworks that give the public safety and trust, for portfolio companies and customers alike.

  “The self regulatory framework is a challenging one to think about long term when certain organizations are incentivized for mass proliferation as opposed to constructive, intentional building...”at 11:53

IPOs, M&A & deal activity

• Robert Smith · Pushkin Industries

  Strategic buyers are increasingly acquiring Vista's portfolio companies to agentify their own businesses.

  Smith says strategic investors have become much more active. They see what Vista is doing to agentify its businesses and want to do the same with parts of their own businesses where their teams are not moving fast enough. He says that activity is picking up dramatically. Buyers want to acquire category one or two companies rather than ones that face disintermediation.

  “Strategic investors have become a lot more active of late. Why? Because they're seeing what we're doing with the agentification of our businesses.”at 14:34

Private markets for individual investors

• Matt Brown · CAIS

  Over $30 trillion will flow into alternatives in two to three years, and the trend is accelerating.

  Brown cites record CAIS attendance (1,250 people, $20 trillion in represented assets) and an event that filled to capacity 45 days after announcement. He says the wealth community wants to spend time with asset managers in alternatives. CAIS platform usage, volume and allocation are growing faster than ever over the last twelve months. Alternatives are still a tiny share of wealth assets versus institutional allocations, so he expects the flow to keep accelerating.

  “We're looking at 30 plus trillion dollars in assets going towards Alts by... in the next two, three years. It's definitely not slowing down from anything that we're seeing. If anything, it's accelerating.”at 18:44

AI & jobs

• Matt Brown · CAIS

  AI will make wealth advisers better, so there will be more wealth managers, not fewer.

  Brown, who takes a contrarian view, expects more wealth managers in the future. AI will help advisers become better, acting as a partner that carries out activities and tasks and gives advisers leverage to spend time with clients. AI cannot replace the judgment, advice and relationship parts of the job, which the CAIS summit is about building.

  “I might be a contrarian, but I actually think that there'll be more wealth managers in the future than fewer... the AI will absolutely help them become better advisors, but AI is not gonna replace the judgment piece, the advice piece.”at 19:22

AI infrastructure & data centers

• Drew McKnight · Fortress Investment Group

  Bullish on AI productivity, but not every data center will win, and credit gets equity-like downside.

  McKnight is bullish on AI's productivity impact. His caution is about the insatiable demand for capital needed to build data centers. Not every one will be a winner, and winners cannot cover losers on the credit side because credit lacks the asymmetric upside of equity. Some financing structures let manufacturers walk away from contracts, which he finds incredibly risky. Fortress's data-center exposure is in picks-and-shovels plays, not picking winning data centers.

  “I think we're incredibly bullish on AI and what it's gonna do from a productivity perspective... We don't think every one of them is gonna be a winner.”at 25:57

Credit markets

• Drew McKnight · Fortress Investment Group

  Higher rates lift Fortress's floating-rate income but will pressure borrowers' capital structures over time.

  About 99% of Fortress's credit book is floating rate, so higher rates lift its income. He expects that over time higher interest costs will pressure capital structures across the board. He is therefore positive for his own book near term and cautious on borrowers longer term.

  “99% of what we do is floating rates. So from our perspective, these higher interest rates are leading to more... higher income for us. I do think over time, it's gonna put pressure on capital structures across the board.”at 29:47

US rates & the Fed

• Drew McKnight · Fortress Investment Group

  Unclear how many more Fed hikes remain; the question is whether the Fed has regained credibility.

  McKnight says it is hard to know how many more hikes the Fed has ahead. The Fed has taken rates up partly to regain credibility with markets, and bond markets were holding it to the fire. The real question is whether the Fed feels it now has that credibility. He also raises competition for capital, with data center demand for fixed-income-like financing possibly pressuring rates.

  “It's hard to know. I don't know how many more hikes we have... Ahead of us. I think the real question is, do they feel like they have that credibility?”at 30:39

US Treasuries & yields

• Drew McKnight · Fortress Investment Group

  Rising yields reflect a mix of inflation, tariffs, energy prices and the data center capex boom.

  McKnight calls the rise in rates a confluence of factors. He points to inflation, tariffs last year and early this year, and energy and diesel prices, which are immense pressures. He adds the CapEx boom from data centers across the board. The rise is a combination of these forces rather than one cause.

  “You look at, you know, tariffs last year and now used to be getting the first part of this year. You look at energy prices and diesel prices... And then the CapEx boom from data centers really across the board.”at 31:30

Banks

• Brian Belski · Humilis Investment Strategies

  If banks keep saying capital markets and investment banking stay steady in 2027, financials will look positive.

  Belski points to record revenues at Citigroup as a positive, while Wells Fargo was squishier and the banks did not discuss wealth management enough. He expects wealth management to be a source of strength in the fourth quarter and into 2027. He adds that if banks keep saying capital markets and investment banking revenue will be steady in 2027, after the huge 2026 uptick, that would be very positive for financials.

  “if we see them continue to talk about capital markets and investment banking revenue kind of being steady in 2027, especially after the huge uptick in 2026, I think it's gonna be really positive for financials.”at 44:24