Record High for the Dow, China Stimulus Effect, Energy Sec. Granholm "First on CNBC" 9/24/24

Jim Cramer (0:00)

It's Jim Cramer here.

Bob Pisani (0:01)

You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

SPEAKER_3 (0:04)

Don't miss a minute of the action.

David Faber (0:07)

Good Tuesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm David Faber with Sara Eisen and Bob Pisani. We're live from Post 9 The New York Stock Exchange calls on assignment, and Jim has a well-earned day off. Let's give you a look at futures before we start trading a half hour from now. We are set up for what appears to be a higher open, and that gets us to our roadmap, which does, as you might expect, begin with the market. That rally rolls on down the S&P, both coming off fresh records. Energy is leading the way to start this week.

Sara Eisen (0:37)

Plus, speaking of energy, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will join us live here at Post 9 after ringing the opening bell, chucking everything from oil prices to the reopening of Three Mile Island, and the CEO of Novo Nordisk set to testify before a Senate panel this morning over the high prices of its popular weight loss drugs. We're live in DC ahead of that hearing.

David Faber (0:58)

All right, let's start with the markets. And of course, what is a record run that continued yesterday? Bob Pisani, nice to have you here at the desk and a good way to start the morning in terms of just give us a sense here as to where we are, what you expect as we wrap up September. This week, as I have listened to you, typically not a great one for the market.

Bob Pisani (1:17)

In terms of history, there are two really bad weeks and we are in them. Last two weeks of September are traditionally the worst two weeks of the year.

Of course, so far, everything has been wrong. September is also the worst month of the year. Normally, it is down one, two percent. Last few years, it has been down four percent and yet we are up one percent. This shows you about the value of being careful about thinking that events that happened in the past necessarily predict the future. With all that said, I think there is a lot of reasons to be positive. We have talked about this a lot here. The Fed is in an easing mode. That is a huge positive right now. The economy, there is no recession that is going on. You could say a slowdown, but there is certainly no recession going on. Inflation is declining. Earnings are growing. Yes, there are some negatives that are out there. Jamie Dimon highlighted one of them today, but we talked about the seasonality factor that generally weighs on stocks in September and into October. That's certainly in the middle of that. We have the elections coming up. A little uncertainty around that. And, Jamie Dimon, speaking about geopolitical risks today as well. I think if you ask me, David, the thing that I find a little bit worrying is the markets, and, Sara, maybe you have thoughts on this, the market's really discounting an enormous amount of rate cuts out there. We have another what? On top of the 50, we're already at least another 150 basis points and cuts.

Sara Eisen (2:42)

200 till the end of next October.

Bob Pisani (2:43)

There you go.

Sara Eisen (2:44)

I'm very excited about rate cuts.

Bob Pisani (2:45)

That's a lot of expectations for a lot of rate cuts. In a sense, to me, that's a little bit of a risk now, because once again, just like they did a year ago, they're getting ahead of themselves in terms of how much the Fed, they were wrong last year, the market, about when the Fed was going to begin cutting rates and how much. I think they're probably a little bit aggressive.

If you ask me, that's a little bit of a risk in the markets. But right now, boy, if you just look at the sector leaders, they are not indicating there's any slowdown, any kind of recession out there. The leadership groups are consumer discretionary and industrials, new highs for industrials. You wouldn't get that if there was a belief the economy was going into a recession. The other major leadership group, of course, is interest rate sensitive sectors. Those are utilities and real estate. Utilities have got a whole other thing going. They are now essentially an AI play because of the power generation capacity, which is one reason we have the number one stock out there, the S&P 500 Vistra, which is essentially a power generation company, it's outdoing NVIDIA.

David Faber (3:43)