SOTS 2nd Hour: Government Shutdown Impacts, A Read on the AI Trade, & LIVE: Tonight Show's Jimmy Fallon 9/30/25

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Sara Eisen (0:47)

Good Tuesday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Sara Eisen with Carl Quintanilla and David Faber. We are live as always from Post 9 at the New York Stock Exchange. Take a look at stocks this morning. We're under a little bit of pressure, although not really. The S&P 500 is unchanged, masking some of the strength beneath the surface core weave, for instance, popping double digits on this meta deal. The Dow is up about 59 points. We are awaiting the job openings report any minute now. Let's take a look at how treasuries are faring ahead of that. As it looks increasingly likely, we're barreling toward this government shutdown, 10-year yield, 4.1 percent. So some buying of treasuries. That's been a trend so far this week. Coming up this hour, countdown to the shutdown, we'll talk to former Trump administration official Mark Short about the wide-ranging impacts of a government stoppage, how long it could last. Plus, NVIDIA competitor Cerebra Systems just raising more than a billion dollars in new funding at an 8.1 billion dollar valuation. We'll talk to the company CEO in a first on CNBC interview. Also, I had Jimmy Fallon with us ahead of tonight's launch of his new business competition show on brand with Jimmy Fallon. Lots of talk about with the late night host. But for now, Carl, technology, healthcare materials, only sectors green.

Carl Quintanilla (2:00)

Conference board and Joltz on the tape as well. Let's get to Rick Santelli again. Hey, Rick.

Rick Santelli (2:06)

Yes, I'm Joltz. This is an August read. Openings expected to be right around 7.2 million. A little bit extra horsepower, 7,227,000.

That'll be the best number since, well, just June. But in the rear view mirror, a nice upward revision. Last month, originally reported 7,181,000, becomes 7,208,000. And it's significant because that now changes the dynamics. That would have been last month, July, the weakest of the year. Moving it to 7,208,000 makes it the second weakest. The big number now is March at 7,200,000, the lowest job openings of the year. If you look at Conference Board, these are September confidence numbers, and boy, they're disappointing. If we look at the headline, well below expectations at 94.2, the weakest since April of this year, sequentially lower even though there was subtle positive revisions to all three metrics last month. If we look at the present situation, another big disappointment, 125.4, the weakest since September of 2024, well below 132.4. And the rearview mirror for our August final. And finally, expectations at 73.4, that is the weakest since June of this year, and much sequentially lower of course than 74.7. So confidence disappoints, positive revision and a better Joltz number on the openings. We made the low yield of the session in treasuries on those data points that's coming in right around 410 plus on a 10 year. Sara, back to you.

Sara Eisen (3:45)

Thank you. Perhaps those job openings data take on a little more importance if we don't get the jobs, the monthly jobs report on Friday. We will still get ADP though on Wednesday. That's the private sector jobs. But guys, it's the end of the quarter. So I just wanted to look at some interesting moves across markets that we don't necessarily always pay close attention to.

The first, I mean, star performer, gold, really shining again during the month of September, during the quarter, and so far the year. I mean, it's just been the steady climb up. It's up 16%, as you can see, for the quarter on gold. It's tracking for its best year since 1979, up more than 45%. Why? Dollars weaker. I don't know. Let's watch it during a shutdown. You know, is there, is it a safe haven status? The Chinese buying, all these reasons that you're given and that you hear about gold, it's just, it's notable that it's up so much at a time where, you know, it hasn't been kind of like this risk off scary period for the markets, where it's been a flight to safety. Gold is up as stocks have rallied as well. And then let's just look at the flip side of that trade, which is the US dollar. It's something I'll be watching into the shutdown because of all the markets, you know how everybody says stocks and bonds brush off shutdowns? Dollar has typically actually reacted negatively around shutdowns. Dollar is what you watch when you're worried about, I don't know, government credibility and politics, Fed credibility. I remember Ken Griffin last week telling me that he thinks the weak dollar would be signifying something about, you know, credibility of US assets, including Fed independence. That's a big theme for him. Look at the dollar index. It's weaker right now. And year to date, it's down 10%. That is a pretty sizable decline for the US dollar. So it helps explain the rise in gold but also, I think, leads to some bigger questions about what ultimately that means about the allure of US assets.