Exclusive with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Big Bank Earnings, "Red" Chips 4/12/24

David Faber (0:00)

Market insight and analysis. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

Happy Friday, everybody. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm David Faber with Sara Eisen and Mike Santoli. We are live for Post 9 at the New York Stock Exchange. Carl and Jim have the morning off. Let's give you a look at futures. You just heard Becky say we have taken a bit of a turn lower, at least it would appear when we open. We're gonna be down rather substantially on some of the broader averages. Let's get to our roadmap this morning.

It starts with the banks, JP Morgan City, Wells Fargo. They all reported earnings all appear to have been fairly strong. We're gonna break down the quarters.

Plus BlackRock now managing nearly 10.5 trillion in assets. We're joined exclusively by chairman and CEO Larry Fink. That'll be later this hour.

Sara Eisen (0:43)

We're also watching the semis this morning. Qualcomm, Intel, AMD and Nvidia, all moving lower ahead of the open.

China reportedly telling its telecom carriers to phase out foreign ships.

David Faber (0:55)

I wanna start off with the banks and with that downturn in the market as well. Of course, earning season kicks off with the likes of JPMorgan and Wells Fargo and Citi, for example. Mike, I'd love to just turn to you quickly and just get a sense on the market as well.

Mike Santoli (1:11)

Yeah.

David Faber (1:11)

We had an interesting day yesterday with that move up in Apple shares, particularly as the day went on, obviously moved the NASDAQ appreciably higher. But what do we think is behind some of the weakness we're seeing beyond these bank earnings, which at the worst are a mixed picture?

Mike Santoli (1:27)

Yeah, I don't think it's bank earnings necessarily the catalyst. Yesterday, the indexes were rescued by not just Apple bouncing on some reports about some AI MacBooks and whatnot, but Nvidia going up 4% because this is the market we have. When we get nervous about macro and yields and inflation and we've had a 10% pullback in Nvidia and some of the other AI stocks, well, the market, when it gets defensive, actually goes into the growthy secular names. So I think that was yesterday. What we have now is a market that has been sort of chopping around very familiar levels for about four weeks. I think no matter what you thought heading into this week, the picture did not get any less complicated with what we learned this week.

In terms of inflation being sticky, repricing the Fed's path, bond yields going up to multi-month highs, I don't think that we have to have a strong specific rationale for why gold is going vertical to say maybe when gold is going vertical, things aren't necessarily as settled as we'd like them to be. So what we have this morning is, again, going to test the lower end of this S&P range. It's around 51.5 and geopolitical upset is obviously in the mix. You have oil rising. This has been a feature of this market, especially ahead of weekends, where normally you have the volatility index backing off because you're going to be closed for two days and today it's popping again. And it's obviously a volatile mix on a limited basis at least, but then we had the, if, you know, hopefully there's no escalation of any sort, Monday you have a relief trade.

Sara Eisen (2:57)

Well, there's this journal report that Israel's preparing for a direct attack from Iran on southern or northern Israel as soon as Friday or Saturday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Iran's been public with the threats and you have, you know, just to reiterate, Mike, you have Brent crude oil above $91 a barrel.

You have WTI crude oil surging at the same time where the dollar is surging and gold is surging. And usually those things don't happen together because gold and oil are priced in dollars. They usually go in other directions. So there's definitely a safe haven flight right now. And I would also mention that treasuries are catching a bid today as well. So it's not like high rates are spooking the market this morning because treasuries are getting bid.

David Faber (3:40)

Yeah. And of course, as we were sort of combining here, banks and the broader market, I'll come to JPMorgan, not the numbers themselves, more the comments on the media call from Jamie Dimon. We already got a sense from this from his annual letter, which came out early in the week. But he once again is saying, I'm not listening, I'm not predicting a recession or no recession. I don't know what the future portends of all the things that we're talking about. But he does continue to say, sir, his own personal belief is things, the price in the market is probably too happy.