 Welcome back to Trading 360. I'm Nicole Petalini. I'm live on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to look at developing stories this morning. Kevin Greens with us and your market correspondent here on Schwab Network. We've seen a lot of acquisitions in the energy space. Occidental. Now there's news here with Crown Rock. Tell us more about that. Yeah, definitely. And Nicole, this is actually a story that has developed over the last couple of weeks here. We talked about it here on the show about two or three weeks ago, but it now appears that this deal is going to go through here. Occidental Petroleum has agreed to purchase Crown Rock for around $12 billion. And Oxy believes that the acquisition will add another 170,000 barrels per day equivalent to the market for their portfolio here. Now they plan on actually financing this deal by utilizing $9.1 billion with the debt, as well as using $1.7 billion in common stock. And they also increased their dividend at $0.22 per share post this announcement. Now, Oxy believes that they will actually benefit around 25% or higher when it comes to increased free cash flow just because of the deal alone. And they are expecting that they're able to break even at around $40 per barrel when it comes to oil. So we continue to see acquisitions when it comes to the Permian Basin. And Crown Rock is actually probably the last major player within this space when it comes to the Permian. We probably will continue to see deals, but they're going to be on a smaller scale. All right. And then what about Lululemon? Well, so I actually was going to actually talk about Nike. But when we're looking at Nike in itself, they actually did get upgraded to a buy from a neutral with a price target of $135. And they're citing the company's strength when it comes to its ability to fend off here any type of macroeconomic headlands that they might see in 2024 and 2025. They also anticipate gross margins to recover starting in Q2 of 2024 here. And they also are a little bit bullish when it comes to the new innovation calendar that was released by Nike going into next year, especially above before the Paris Olympics. So overall, they are bullish on this name. They do believe that it has sold off enough where the valuations and the risk-reward ratio here is appealing for some upside potential. Yeah, I see $135 from $100, a buy rating. And this comes on the heels of last week, where Goldman Sachs actually liked Nike better than Lululemon also. So I guess there's a lot of love for Nike now. Kevin Green, thank you. Senior markets correspondent. Now we're back to the market. Melissa Armos with us, founder and owner of the Stock Swoosh. Melissa, good to see you. How are you feeling about the markets after six weeks of gains and some record closes for 2023 on Friday? Well, I'm not as bullish on the market as everybody else is. We've been in a range since November 14th. And yes, we are up for the year, that's true. But we seem to be in a stalemate now, waiting for the Fed meeting on Wednesday and waiting to see what the Fed does. So hot take here today. The Fed says something on Wednesday that the market does not like, what would that be? They would either raise rates Wednesday, or they would signal that they would raise rates again in the first part of 2024, which nobody thinks but me. And or they could say on Wednesday that they are going to keep rates higher for longer and that they are not looking at cutting rates any time in the first part of 2024. So while a lot of people are out there bullish on the market and yes, we've had gains for the year, my hot take is that Wednesday is very unexpected, whatever the Fed says. Is it more likely that we'll hear the Fed just sort of saying, we'll raise if we need to and then people just continue to bet on cuts for 2024? I don't know why people are betting on cuts. We're nowhere near the 2% level inflation. Not once did he discuss cuts in any of the meetings. Again, people are putting out there what they want to hear. And sometimes this is what frustrates traders. They get upset and they go long and they buy into what commentators are saying and what people want to hear. What people want to hear is not what he stated. He did not ever state anything about cuts in early 2024. He stated in fact that their target goal is the 2% inflation. And again, inflation is still high. I mean, as a consumer, you're seeing that, particularly this time of year when people are shopping and rates are still very, very high. So the most likely aspect or outcome of Wednesday will be that he will signal that rates are going to stay higher for longer and no cuts in sight anytime soon. If in fact, he wants to state that. And I think he needs to state that to actually take control back from the narrative because the narrative has gotten away from him. Because the rally that we had in November up until even today is because no one thinks that he's going to raise rates and everyone thinks that he's going to lower rates early 2024. And he said he did not say that. And let me ask you this. Let's turn your attention over to the stock market because you have a bullish pick, a bearish pick, but I do have a thought on Macy's. I mean, the stock is up almost 20% today. Any thoughts there? Well, Macy's was along today. You could be along Macy's today, whether or not there's any kind of takeover or buyout. I don't know. But I mean, you can't deny the bullish gap up. It was at 17 on Friday and change. And today it's over 20. So yes, you could go along Macy's. But again, the stock has been struggling for quite a bit of time. It's nice to see the jump in Macy's and anything that can help them hang on is a positive. But again, most retailers are green, you know, after Black Friday. This is when technically again, the Black Friday term came from retailers were in their red all year up until the holiday season. And then there was all these shoppers. So I'd like to see Macy's continue to lift if in fact it wants to. And maybe it will lift into the end of the year and into January, could get up to 22, 23. That would be a really big move for Macy's from 17 to have a four or $5 gain like that. Right. Now you have bullish and bearish names that you're watching. Let's talk about CrowdStrike. This is one you do like. Why? CrowdStrike had an amazing lift in earnings. And CrowdStrike is if it's not there right now today, it's headed to 250. I mean, it's gotten really, really close. And again, it might have rallied even in the last hour since I've been waiting here to speak to you. The fact is that that has never looked back, even when the markets tends to pair off in the last two weeks, that stock just seems to be almost on a straight up trajectory. So again, if you're looking to go long, not knowing what the outcome would be of the Fed meeting on Wednesday, I would stick with very strong stocks. And CrowdStrike is one of them. Again, this is something that can have very large moves even on a day to day trade or even to do option calls in. The stock can move five, six, seven, eight, $10 even in one day. But what I really like about it is that the bind is coming in. It's been consistent. It's been swift. It's been big. It's been fast. And it hasn't worried about what the market said. And again, that's the kind of stocks that you want to focus on going into Wednesday if you want to be long something. Okay. And then on the bearish side, actually looking over to China and Alibaba. That's been falling almost every single day. Again, this is one of these things that you watch and you see what's happening in other markets and you get up in the morning. That stock has been continually gapping down. It rallied today and it pushed back on the gap down. But I mean, it's over 70 barely. 69, 68 is probably in sight for Alibaba at some point. Again, going into the end of the year, it's something that has been falling. And again, if the market, if in fact the market does fall off on Wednesday, it would be nice to get a downside move in something that has already been moving ahead of the market. And that's one of them. So I think long term it's better for an overnight in Baba because it's kind of difficult to day trade in and out quickly. But it has been falling almost every single day since the earnings in that stock as well. What about Walmart? I mean, was this a darling or not? Walmart had earnings back in November as well and fell off the planet on that day. Unfortunately again, even though it's a retailer, this has not behaved well since the Black Friday season. And I don't know what to make of that because again, Walmart typically goes towards people who are trying to save money with less expensive products and toys and things that people are buying. But they really didn't see much of a lift in the last few weeks. And it finally broke that 150 level actually today. And that's really bad for the stock, really, really bad for the stock. So again, if you want to be short something going into Wednesday, if in fact your betting of the market could sell off, Walmart could be a big pick because it's already started to make the move. And I mean, I just don't see how that's going to survive even into the end of the year. If it didn't have the lift over the holiday shopping period, what's going to make it rally even between now and the end of 2023? Yeah. What about Disney? Because I want to give you some kudos on this one, Melissa, you've been on the show for years at this point. There was a time you loved Disney when it was hitting new highs that one summer and then things started turning and you just lost interest in it and you said, I want to wait and see, wait and see. You never supported Disney again and hit that low of $78 from 203 a few years ago. Where do you see Disney now that they're implementing some changes? You have Bob Iger at the helm, your thoughts? I think that Disney has some brand image problems and that's definitely affected the stock. They also haven't really had any successful movies. And again, part of that goes to the branding, where they're becoming far too political. Disney is the theme park and all the movies and the toys, it's for kids. The politics really has no place in what's going on with the branding of Disney. And they've aligned themselves so much so that, again, Governor DeSantis has been attacking them and now they're having issues with what's happening with the taxing in the state of Florida. So I think there's just been too much branding issues for Disney to quickly recover. And also don't forget, I mean, they're up against with all of their programming, they're up against now Netflix, they're up against Amazon Prime, Apple TV. So when you're paying for all these subscription services, you have so many choices out there. If you get turned off by the politics of some brand, then you may have to go to somebody else then and watch and pay for their programming. There's so much programming out now that everyone's paying for all the card. It's not like it used to be, you know, 10 years ago. Thank you, Melissa Armo of The Stock Swoosh. Thank you. Coming up next, The Disruptors. We're watching HP's stock up nearly 10% this year, just got an upgrade over at Evercore. George Sills will talk more about this name and have an example trade for us. Take a look at Winners and Losers in the SP500.