CNBCfix - Fast Money Review

[CNBCfix Fast Money/Halftime Review Archive — September 2024]

Weiss takes issue with Joe’s declaration that the jobs report could steer investors to ‘lower quality’ stocks

Judge on Monday's (9/30) Halftime Report was once again suggesting Tony Pasquariello's latest note is gospel.

Judge said to his panel that Tony is suggesting that figuring out this market is as simple as the Fed's easing while the economy is "picking up speed."

Joe Terranova agreed and tossed in China stimulus.

Joe said if there's a "very strong unemployment report," he'd be "more open to owning some of the lower-quality areas of the market and small caps themselves (sic last word redundant)."

Steve Weiss said he agrees "in general" with Tony's points, but, "It's never, ever that simple." Judge admitted, "Oh believe me, I've simplified it." (What kind of note, exactly, did Tony put out? A flowchart?)

Weiss said data is "more mixed" and you can't conclude that the economy is "much better" and "trending higher"; he said the consumer is "weakening."

Then Weiss told Joe he's "got some questions" and "I was unsure as to what you were saying, if we get a strong jobs report, then you're gonna be forced to go into- you're gonna look at going into lower quality."

Joe responded, "If you get a strong jobs report, you have to be open to the premise that the market will begin to allocate in lower-quality areas."

Weiss countered, "If you get a strong jobs report, then it's unlikely the Fed goes 50, they'll go 25, because you don't start with 50 and then do nothing-"

"I don't- I don't need the- I don't need- Look, I'm not excited about going to low-quality areas of the market or small caps themselves (sic redundant again) but I don't need the Fed to go 50."

Weiss explained that "the simplest way" to make money "is buying quality."

Despite this conversation about the jobs report, Joe stated, "I believe when you go into the 4th quarter, you wanna own stocks that are showing strong performance year to date. You wanna buy that momentum."

"What about month to date," Judge wondered. Joe said tax-loss harvesting happens in October, "and it happens based on where we are for the year."

Weiss said he's "not so sure" how much China stimulus will work: "I think they do a lot of saving before they do a lot of deploying of capital."

‘Longer than a week,’ markets expect Biden to step in

On Monday's (9/30) Fast Money, Guy Adami started things off saying it's "amazing" that the stock market doesn't seem concerned about the dockworkers' labor situation.

Guy must've found it amazing that Judge didn't spend any time on it at Halftime.

Guy said if a strike happens (it did, overnight Monday-Tuesday, when this review was posted), it's "probably gonna be somewhat drawn out."

Karen Finerman offered, "I think the Biden administration is loath to step in here."

Courtney Garcia said markets may not be reacting to the port situation because "there's been a lot of preordering" ahead of it, and "if it goes longer than a week, people are expecting Biden probably will step in."

Doubtful that Judge has seen the Marisol exhibit at Jeffrey Gundlach’s art museum yet

Judge on Monday's (9/30) Halftime Report asked Steve Weiss if Weiss agrees with "your guy" (Tepper) about "Buy everything" related to China.

Weiss stammered, "First of all, he's been in BABA for a while, you know, and uh, and he's been right, right."

Sarat Sethi sold GM last week, saying he owned it "too long," for "over 5 years" and adding, "It's been a horrible investment," which is a lot differently than how Jim Lebenthal always describes it. Sarat mentioned "peak earnings" and a "huge amount of supply of autos."

Judge said Morgan Stanley made ADSK a top pick. Joe Terranova praised recent earnings and said it's "13% below their high in 2021," always a favorite metric of CNBCers.

Joe bought EQT and compared how well the stock has done (267%) vs. nat gas (27%) in the last 5 years. "This is about power demand" for data centers, Joe said.

Sarat touted PYPL, a stock that has recently caught fire; why it has caught fire, we're not really sure about.

Judge grilled Weiss over QXO being "down 78%" for the quarter. Weiss said he doesn't know who was buying at "100, 150, 200; I got in at 9.14" and "I'm up nicely" and added at 11 and 13.

Sully declares OPEC is ‘not gonna defend a price target’

About a quarter of the way into Friday's (9/27) Halftime Report, guest host Sully pointed to the camera and made a grand statement:

"I talk to OPEC nations verbally, over text, WhatsApp, Signal, whatever. They're not gonna defend a price target," Sully stated.

In unrelated matters, Sully, who ended up in a curious dual gig of Halftime Report and Closing Bell Overtime, said he goes to Dollar General near his home in "rural Wisconsin" because it's one of the "main places" for getting Tide.

Kevin Simpson bought META and made it his Final Trade.

Brenda Vingiello sold BA, pointing to stress from the strike and saying there are "more opportunities elsewhere."

It seems like Jason Snipe is always touting COST; he did so once again on Friday.

Jim Lebenthal said BMY "shouldn't be this hated."

Bill has 18% cash

It's a trade that's already over, so it really does you no good.

Yet, Bill Baruch on Thursday's (9/26) Halftime Report offered a tip about buying call spreads that just might spare some viewers from dialing up "IT'S NOT AN OPTION!!!!!!!!"

Bill said he bought the 110/125 call spread in MU that expires Dec. 20. He paid $2.75, but he's already "exited this trade ... legged out with an average price of 6.12."

Bill explained that when buying such a spread, you take the difference between the call numbers (15 in this case) and divide by 4 and try to pay less than that number, which of course he did (although our math tends to be shaky here).

So there you go.

Bill said he got out so fast only because he "got close enough" to his goal so early on the spike, and he brought up the old saw about bulls/bears/pigs.

Bill said after trimming, he's "back to about 18% cash."

What happened to Lawrence Summers’ calls for endless rate hikes to combat runaway inflation?

Jim Lebenthal on Thursday's (9/26) Halftime Report was still talking about how DIS "needs to close the Hulu (snicker) transaction." (Didn't Iger come back to save the day?)

Jim admitted there are "worries" that the theme park division is "not growing nicely," but he sees a "trough." (Tip: Anytime one of Jim's long-term favorite stocks is slumping, Jim always thinks the worst is behind it and he'll stay with it.)

Josh Brown said China's got "kind of a new narrative."

Josh said "61% of the FXI float is short, still," he said he doubts that'll be the case next week.

Liz Young Thomas cautioned, "The property market in China is stil lin trouble."

In the META conversation, Brenda Vingiello actually said, "I think wearables is the wave of the future ... when we're not all staring at a phone (as if)."

Liz said it's an "odd thing" that banks aren't "acting particularly well."

Jim bought WAB. Jim said of ONON, "What a fun stock ... I think it continues." Jim admitted people may question him owning this name as a "value investor."

Josh's Final Trade was PYPL, a stock that got nifty this year once Halftime panelists gave up on it. (This writer has no position in PYPL.)

Weiss doesn’t fully know the names of CNBC’s reporters

Technical glitches prevented us from catching up with Tuesday's (9/24) Halftime Report, but if it was the same as Wednesday's fairly sleepy episode, we didn't miss much.

On Wednesday's (9/25) show, Judge noted reports of possible iPhone 16 demand issues.

Steve Weiss brought up one of his own favorite gripes, about all the telcos subsidizing the sales, and suggested the possibility "one day" (snicker) that the telcos unite and decide, "Let's stop giving everybody free iPhones."

Judge said Steve Kovach (offscreen) heard Weiss and told Judge via message, "Tell Weiss, no free iPhones: Carriers may offer them for 'free,' but they eat the cost up front, and you pay it back over 2, 3 years. Apple still collects the money."

Weiss told Judge, "Tell Kovachs (sic, Judge corrected and scolded Weiss that nobody calls Weiss 'Wees') ... that the consumer believes they're getting it free."

The pronunciation of Kovach's name was mentioned throughout the rest of the program.

Joe Terranova pointed out that AAPL is "aggressively buying back their stock."

Joe suggests Fed announcement was a sell-the-news for Russell 2000

Joe Terranova opened Wednesday's (9/25) Halftime Report saying the Mag 7 has had a "nice price recovery" since the Fed announcement; "the concern that I have is that it seems as though we've got a sell-the-news-moment ... for the Russell 2000 index (sic last word redundant)."

Kari Firestone said it's "really hard to see" a cheap sector of the market.

Steve Weiss said he doesn't think the market's "cheap," and it's not "which area" of the market you're in, but "which stocks" you're in.

"I've heard 'tech is a crowded trade' frankly since I've been in the business," Weiss said, adding tech generally has the "best fundamentals" and "best products."

Amy Raskin said, "There aren't that many, you know, great opportunities, particularly in U.S. equities." Amy said "things are much cheaper" abroad.

Weiss ‘not all that concerned’ about AI disrupting Google searches

Citing Oppenheimer's note, Judge on Wednesday's (9/25) Halftime Report quibbled with Steve Weiss over whether Alphabet can keep getting "multiple expansion."

Weiss asserted, "They haven't had multiple expansion," and everyone settled on 20 for Alphabet's forward P.E. (This writer is long GOOGL.) Of course, we've been wondering for more than a year now about all these searches that Brad Gerstner warned were going to be "AI" and not whatever Google's got.

Joe Terranova asked Weiss, "Aren't you concerned though what artificial intelligence is gonna do to search." Weiss said he thinks about it, but "right now, I'm not all that concerned about it."

Judge claimed with a straight face that the "duopoly, essentially, between Facebook and, and Alphabet ... around search and advertising, is not. Anymore."

Not sure what happened to the ‘manicness’

Joe Terranova on Wednesday's (9/25) Halftime Report pronounced APO's CEO as Marc "Rowing"; Judge corrected that to "Rowan." Joe said, "I'm from Long Island."

Judge said there's "no takers" on the desk on NKE. Amy Raskin said we have to "wait and see what happens." Joe said they have to "lower all the expations- (sic) expectations for 2025." Joe told Steve Weiss he wouldn't short the stock into earnings.

Amy trimmed LVMH, saying "it has been a terrible stock all year," and she thinks struggles in the luxury space continue. Judge wondered if "the worst is behind" stocks such as LVMH or EL, one of the worst stocks in recent memory (this writer is long EL). "I don't think China comes roaring back," Amy said.

Bill Baruch joined remotely late in the show to trumpet buying MU December 110 calls and selling December 125 calls, a trade that cost "about" $2.75.

Weiss said he added to VRT; he said he previously sold some around $104, and he'll ride it longer this time.

Weiss said the Morgan Stanley downgrade of GM is a good call. Weiss said he doesn't know why RIVN is still around, other than getting "handouts" from Saudis or somebody else.

Can’t figure out how NFLX got knocked out of the Mag 7

On Monday's (9/23) fairly sleepy Halftime Report, probably the most interesting conversation involved NFLX. (This writer is long NFLX.)

Judge said Bernstein reported that hedge funds are looking at NFLX as a short possibility.

Steve Weiss said he trimmed NFLX, not because of Bernstein's report but because it was "30% larger than any other position" in his portfolio, which made it "irresponsible" (snicker) to keep it at that size for risk-management purposes.

But Weiss knocked the shorting argument and said he'd "love to be in the opposite side of the trade" of all hedge fund shorts of the last 5 years. Weiss said "what they should watch out for" is that "Netflix can raise prices yet again."

That's the argument this page agrees with; that NFLX at $17 a month (or whatever the price is) is like when Amazon was offering Amazon Prime for $69.

Even so, Weiss said, "I do think it's ahead of itself right now." Joe Terranova owns NFLX personally and agrees with what Weiss said. Joe said he has "no problem" with anyone ringing the register in NFLX.

On Fast Money, Katie Stockton told Karen Finerman that NFLX "does still have resistance from 2021" and "this would be sort of a natural place for it to maybe pause."

Joe has been trading Russell futures ‘from the short side’

On Monday's (9/23) Halftime Report, after Jenny Harrington expressed concerns about META spending (Zzzzzzzz) and earnings, Judge said, "I would say that all of those potential worries you have are outlier worries."

"Maybe," Jenny said, citing where the stock was 2 years ago, which Steve Weiss said is just a moment in time.

META was the top story on Fast Money, where Karen Finerman said META is her largest holding, though the chart is "somewhat of a little bit of a nosebleed."

Steve Grasso said Mark Zuckerberg has "done a masterful job of not pissing off Congress."

Steve also said he's hoping to make a quick 10% trade in INTC.

Back on Halftime, Steve Weiss started by saying he agrees "perfectly" with Tony Pasquariello's optimistic market outlook, but Weiss allowed, "You gotta feel a little unease though at how easy it's been," basically that the corrections haven't been big enough.

Joe Terranova said earnings are the "potential catalyst" for the market. Joe said "it's critical that the viewers understand that a lot of the places that have been working so far are the places that are gonna work as we move forward. Stay with the large caps." Joe revealed, "I have been trading the Russell futures from the short side since the announcement of the Fed meeting." (So much for Tom Lee's forecast.)

Joe said he "probably wouldn't" be selling semis, but he would if their earnings don't deliver.

Steve Weiss stated, "I don't understand the love affair with Broadcom. I hear so many people come on and talk about Broadcom. They've got a highly cyclical component to their business, and it's not small ... The multiple is higher than Nvidia."

Weiss revealed he sold ADM, after "about a 10% gain." We thought it was an interesting trade when he first mentioned it, but as he noted Monday, it fell from the 80s and never (as of now) got back there. Joe said it's one of those stocks in a "value trap."

Joe said PLTR is "in the momentum sweet spot."

Belski got ‘a lot of hate mail’

Most people who are "fully invested" are typically happy when stocks surge higher.

Jenny Harrington of course is not, according to her commentary on Friday's (9/20) Halftime Report.

"Yesterday made me really uncomfortable," Jenny stated, explaining that "there was a mania to it. A manicness (sic)."

Jenny said Wednesday's trading made sense because, according to Jenny, "We all knew 50 basis points was coming."

Judge at least challenged that one, stating, "Oh I don't know if we all knew 50 was coming ... a little bit of a, a surprise."

Jenny made a reference to "1999-2000."

Jenny referred to interning at Laszlo Birinyi's shop and said she was taught then that one of the "worst" indicators was when the AAII goes "hard-core bullish." Judge said the S&P is up 1.2% this week and wondered, "Is that a mania?" Jenny said it's "pretty wild" that it's up 21% this year.

Jenny also said Brian Belski's 6,100 S&P call "makes me uncomfortable too."

Steve Weiss said there was an "appropriate move in the indices" after the Fed's decision. But Josh Brown ripped the market's reaction on Wednesday to the Fed's decision. "Who the hell taught these people how to trade??" Brown demanded.

Weiss said we're back in the mode where bad consumer news will be good news for the market.

Jenny insisted she's not "super bearish" (after saying "super bullish (sic)".)

Belski, who joined remotely for a bit, said he "got a lot of hate mail" for his 6,100 call.

Jenny said there's "tremendous mutual respect" between herself and Belski.

Judge said those issuing warnings like Jenny "are the ones who've watched the train go by." Jenny said, "That's why I'm fully invested."

Belski claims 6,100 call was made before Fed decision (a/k/a Krinsky’s call deemed ‘amazing’)

Brian Belski, fresh off his Price-Is-Right-like 6,100 S&P call, joined Friday's (9/20) Halftime Report remotely, and started off stating, "We just simply believe stock prices are gonna be higher by year-end."

Judge asked Belski if he made the 6,100 call because of the "supersize" (snicker) Fed cut. Belski claimed "we actually wrote the- wrote the piece a couple days prior to" but admitted "we wanted to see what the language of the Fed was going to be."

Joe Terranova said "the calendar was a factor" in doing 50 points.

Joe declared, "It's a secular bull market, plain and simple."

Judge told Josh Brown that Krinsky is saying "respect the action; bulls gain the upper hand." Josh wasn't terribly impressed, stating, "It's a technician who, uh, recognizes that the market is going up. It's amazing."

Judge said Tom Lee "still thinks" (snicker) there can be a "huge gain" by year-end in small caps. Judge asked Joe about Jeffrey Gundlach suggesting small caps get more of a tailwind from the Fed than other stocks are. Joe, who has recently touted large caps, announced, "During my career, I've done much better reacting vs. anticipating," and he's not ready to react to small caps just yet.

Steve Weiss said NKE needs "innovation and new ideas." Josh said it's a "tough time" for NKE and that under-12-year-olds aren't jazzed up about LeBron James shoes or Kevin Durant shoes.

Joe predicted continued "price appreciation" for AAPL over 12 months because it "aggressively buys back its stock." Judge said it's not buybacks "alone" that would cause people to buy AAPL, "you need the upgrade cycle." Joe said the buyback defends against a "major inflection point."

Josh Brown reiterated his belief in PYPL. Weiss bought some more VRT. "I've got the lowest cash I've had," Weiss stated.

Jim sees no reason whatsoever that C shouldn’t trade at book

Early in Thursday's (9/19) Halftime Report, Jim Lebenthal wondered aloud, "OK, if the S&P 500 is going up, does that mean you just wanna buy SPYders and call it a day? We don't think so at Cerity Partners. I mean, we're- we're overweight, uh, small caps, and that's where we see a bigger return ... we see a much bigger return in small caps than in the market overall."

OK. That's the Tom Lee call.

But a couple hours later on Closing Bell, Joe Terranova revealed, "I'm not sold on the premise that small caps are going to experience this dramatic outperformance."

Joe said the S&P 500 is up 35% "since the first rate hike in March," so careful how you apply those "Don't fight the Fed" slogans.

Regardless, back on Halftime, Jim said, "I think it's very strongly- uh, likely that we're gonna rally into year-end and set new highs."

Jim said he was "pleasantly surprised" by 50 points. Jim said he is "long, strong and optimistic as ever."

Guest host Frank Holland said Belski moved his S&P target to 6,100, which, according to the CNBC chart, seems to be the highest on the Street. (See, it's kind of like the bidding on "The Price Is Right.")

Kevin Simpson said there will be "a lot of Monday Morning Quarterback" about the Fed's move.

Steve Liesman joined in the 14th minute, stating, "We're trying to understand the word- the meaning of the word 'recalibrating' when it comes to monetary policy." Steve identified 3 areas: From inflation to employment, from restrictive to neutral, to less "data (pronounced DAY-ta) dependent."

Jim asked Steve if "market participants can stop thinking about the Fed." Steve said they can "think less about the Fed."

Frank asked Stephanie Link about Jeffrey Gundlach's suggestion (see below) that a recession is possible. "I just don't see it," Stephanie said.

Kevin Simpson bought more IBM; "I think they're starting to get it right with AI." (This page would snicker, but it's around a 52-week high.)

Jim, who got zinged by Al Michaels last week (not by name), shrugged off the "underweight" call on CASY by JPMorgan.

As Frank pointed out Jeffrey Gundlach's touting of gold a day earlier with Judge, Kevin Simpson bought more FCX.

Jeffrey: ‘Good shot’ that September 2024 is the ‘start of a recession’ (a/k/a Harvard needs a loan)

On Wednesday's (9/18) post-Fed Closing Bell, Jeffrey Gundlach noted that Jay Powell "admitted" that they could've cut in July.

Jeffrey opined that "the word of the day was 'recalibration'" and that Powell "seemed relaxed" and "even cracked a couple of jokes."

Eventually, though, Jeffrey offered, "I still think there's a good shot that the history books will say September '24 was the start of a recession."

Steve Liesman joined and, oblivious to most of Jeffrey's comments, said, "Scott, I want to bring your attention to the word 'recalibration.'" Later on Fast Money, Steve said Jay Powell said "recalibrate" 9 times.

On Closing Bell, Steve said that while Jeffrey may see a possible recession, Steve thinks this could be the "first-ever immaculate 50-basis-point rate cut."

Judge mentioned the term "data-(pronounced DAY-ta) dependent."

Jeffrey said it "might" be time to look at emerging markets.

In the midst of a spree of financial commentary, Jeffrey said, "The problem that I worry about is that our responses to recessions are- have been incrementally more money-printing," and after COVID happened, "The amount of money that they were willing to give away is, uh, a cautionary tale as to what might happen when the next recession comes."

Well, we can finish that thought for him. Yes, the next hint of recession (or the next time Jeremy Siegel pounds the table when the Dow falls), those $1,400 checks are going out, with or without someone's name on them. And then the CBO will report that the current national debt rate is manageable but "unsustainable."

Jeffrey claimed "there's a lot of illiquidity" in large pools of money, citing Harvard having to tap the bond market "for operating money" because its $50-$60 billion portfolio didn't have enough liquidity (snicker).

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman said Jay Powell did a "good job," and 50 was the "right amount."

Karen raised an interesting question about whether furloughed workers are considered unemployed. The panel tossed it to executive producer Sandy Cannold, who said, according to Mel, that "a furloughed employee still collects benefits ... but they can claim unemployment benefits." Guy Adami hilariously referred to "Kensho."

‘This is like a TMZ moment’

Joe Terranova on Wednesday's (9/18) Halftime Report said if there's a "significant correction" to stocks after the Fed's move, then it's a "buy-the-dip moment."

Joe and Steve Weiss both said 50 points is merited. Weiss complained, "This is like a TMZ moment," although we weren't quite sure what that meant.

Guest host Frank Holland opened the show saying he's heard from "a lot of traders" who think Jay Powell's commentary is all that matters. Jim Lebenthal, though, said, "I think it does matter whether it's 25 or 50."

Frank played Judge's Jeffrey Gundlach clip from a day earlier in which Jeffrey predicted 50 bp and said "The Fed just follows the 2-year Treasury" and "needs to cut rates 150 pretty quickly."

Steve Liesman noted there's been "a little bit of cold feet in the 50 camp."

Bryn is selling TSLA Nov 240s

Bryn Talkington on Wednesday's (9/18) Halftime Report said she bought TSLA "around 229" and sold November 240 calls for $19.50.

Bryn said CRWD is "still in the penalty box"; Bryn owns the BUG. (This writer is long CRWD.) She said PANW is "easier" to own right now than CRWD without the "hangover" from the outage.

Joe Terranova said cybersecurity names have had a recovery but may be "running in place" for a while.

Bryn said oil, and other commodities, have a "China issue." Jim Lebenthal said Bryn's "absolutely right" about China but "there's also a lot of room for it to improve," something we've been hearing for years (witness casino stocks). Jim also mentioned the "need to rebuild the Strategic Petroleum Reserve." Jim touted RIG inking a contract for 2028.

Jim said he trimmed Alphabet and ORCL, explaining, "This is just portfolio management."

Joe Terranova said the JOET will deal with SMCI "accordingly" (snicker) in the end-of-October rebalance.

Joe talked up KKR and other private equity names.

Steve Weiss bought more NFLX in a "tactical trade." (This writer is long NFLX.) He said he expects a "pop" in NFLX from the Fed announcement, even if that pop takes a day or 2.

Steve Liesman: ‘I don’t know this time’ (a/k/a Please, Fed, get this cut over with)

Tuesday (9/17) is almost the last day we have to hear CNBCers predicting 25-or-50, and we were highly tempted just to skip the Halftime Report, but whatever; a bunch of 'em were in Huntington Beach (at a rare conference that Barry claims you won't forget what city you were in).

"25 seems right," said Josh Brown, who said the stock market is "comfortable" with that number, though he doesn't think people would get "overly emotional" about 50.

Judge said the market seems to be "hoping" for 50.

Shannon Saccocia, who like Bill Baruch was at Future Proof with Judge and Josh, predicted 25 but said the Fed's door will be "wide open to become much more accommodative."

Josh claimed, "Almost every stock is in its own individual bull market."

Steve Liesman, who in the last week or so is kind of on TV round-the-clock but isn't at Future Proof, admitted to Judge that 25 vs. 50 is a toss-up even to him.

"I almost always know, and I don't know this time," Steve admitted.

But Steve predicted it'll be "easier" for Jay Powell to get unanimity for 25 rather than 50.

Bill Baruch actually claimed "the market is seasonally getting a little bit bearish." Judge called out that one, stating, "The market's not getting bearish. The market's actually getting more bullish." Bill then stated, "It begins today, it begins this week and then really you have the quadruple/triple witching at the end of this week."

Dan Ives sat in with the group in Huntington Beach, in that lime-green jacket.

Josh said this is Year 3 of Future Proof. Judge claimed, "This is like the Lollapalooza of finance, and you're like Jagger out here." Josh said, "This is definitely my people."

Judge noted that EBAY is up since Josh recommended it to Al Michaels last week.

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman keeps saying she's in the "50 camp."

60/40 in terms of 50

Joe Terranova, white-hot in September and at a few other times this year, said on Monday's (9/16) Halftime Report that he thinks the market is "pricing in" 50 basis points, and that 25 would be a "slight disappointment."

Anastasia Amoroso is in the 25-point camp because there's "not a state of emergency right now in the U.S. economy."

Jason Snipe is in the 25-point camp.

Steve Weiss, though, had a curious way of putting it, stating, "I've been at 60/40 for about a month now in terms of 50." (Which sounds a little bit like "25 or 6 to 4.")

Weiss claimed the Fed is "not focused on the election at all." Weiss said "I still think tech is the place to be, except for certain stocks."

Anastasia said she's sticking with a "defensive core" and would add to regional banks. Citing real estate writedowns, Weiss said, "no offense," regional banks are the "worst place to be in the market." Anastasia said "no offense taken" but that commercial real estate is "so nuanced."

Apparently both Judge and Bob Pisani are at Future Proof (an increasingly common corporate slogan these days) in Huntington Beach. On Monday, Bob talked to Barry; ads promised Judge and Josh on Tuesday. Bob said Third Eye Blind is playing. Barry said "most conferences" are forgettable and attendees at most conferences can't even remember where the conference was.

Is reducing interest rates by 50 basis points going to turbocharge inflation?

Early on Friday's (9/13) Halftime Report, Jim Lebenthal said Adam Parker is calling the Mag 7 "the Big 6" (Christy Mathewson's nickname).

Bryn Talkington offered that "the economy is doing just fine," she thinks it's "slowing, not stalling."

Joe Terranova, who made a monster call earlier in the week (see below), noted the "mesmerizing price action of the last 48 hours ... It feels as if the market never closed on Wednesday. It never closed on Thursday."

Bryn predicted "the market will continue to price in a soft landing until otherwise proven, until a different narrative emerges."

Rob Sechan said the Fed is "300 basis points above their neutral" target but other than in 1981, the Fed has never cut rates by 75 points without a recession.

Guest host Dom Chu said Tom Lee is predicting tailwinds for the market into the Fed meeting. Joe said it's not about 25 or 50 in September but October earnings.

Rob said for financials, we may have to worry about net interest margins, "for sure." Rob expressed concern about "really high" expectations for earnings growth, while Jim questioned why Rob is "conditioning" his outlook on it.

Rob bought TSM for its "dominance."

Jim said he sold BA at 230 "the day after the Alaska Airlines blowout." He said there's "too much risk" to buy it back. Jim said that for the company and its union situation, the "opening gambit" was a 25% raise over 4-5 years, and it's just a "negotiation."

Joe said the Uber-Waymo deal "doesn't do much for me" and noted UBER peaked this year at 82 in March.

Joe said momentum for GRMN is at a "yellow light."

Bryn offered that "historically ... energy has actually been one of the best-performing sectors going into a rate cut."

Jensen claims to be ‘not very informed’ on the tariff situation

During Thursday's (9/12) Halftime Report, Megan Cassella scored an exclusive chat with Jensen outside the White House in which Jensen talked a lot about "energy" for AI and government help for it in some way.

Megan asked about potential impact of tariffs. "I'm not very- very informed in most of that stuff," said Jensen who declined to make any presidential endorsements; he said NVDA is "focused" on "supporting whatever administration is here."

Jensen said of Blackwell, "Every company in the world is, is uh, chomping (sic meant 'champing') at the bit, you know, for us to ship to 'em."

Judge, who was in San Francisco, noted that Jensen had a "busy 24 hours, from leather jacket here in San Francisco at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference to suit and tie at the White House. A look we're really not used to seeing Mr. Huang (sic grammar)."

Dan Nathan on Fast Money made a joke about Jensen not having the leather jacket.

During Halftime, Jason Snipe said, "We're talking about a new industrial revolution." Jason called the "small flaw" that's delaying Blackwell chips "really immaterial."

Amy Raskin said, "when you hear Jensen Huang speak, you just get excited"; he sounds "rational" and "confident."

Dan Greenhaus notes people have been calling the S&P 500 expensive for 10 years

On Thursday's (9/12) Closing Bell, Dan Greenhaus said something that should be plastered on headlines everywhere.

"I've been told the S&P has been too expensive for the better part of 10 years," Greenhaus said. "The last time I heard it was attractive was somewhere around 2012 or 2013, I believe. And even then it started to get too expensive at 13, 14, 15 times."

Also on Closing Bell, fresh off his blockbuster call of Wednesday, Joe Terranova stated, "You have to respect price" and that "yesterday's a compelling inflection point" as tech suddenly went from "guilty until proven innocent" to "innocent until it can be proven guilty."

Judge questioned why anyone with "issues" with tech a week ago, such as valuation, wouldn't sell after this week's gains. Joe said his concerns weren't so much valuation but "enthusiasm."

Josh claims a great 14-year return is just ‘fortunate timing’

In what's sort of a 2- or 3-times a year appearance, Al Michaels joined Thursday's (9/12) Halftime Report ahead of the Amazon Opener (that would be the first Thursday NFL game a week after the NBC opener) to discuss the state of the NFL.

Al said interest in watching games on Prime has risen because it's somehow "so much more accessible" than in the 1st year, when "a lot of people" asked Al, "Where do I get the game?"

Judge felt obliged to mention "the success (sic) we've had with games on- on- on Peacock." Judge also felt obliged to mention CNBC's assessment of NFL team values. Al said Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys for "about 150 million," and Jeffrey Lurie got the Eagles "for like 180."

Al predicted a "tight and exciting" game between the Bills and Dolphins. It was anything but.

Al mentioned hearing Judge's Marc Lasry interview the other day.

Al told Josh Brown about buying FAS 14 years ago, and "you told me, that was a day-trading stock." Al said he's had it 5,110 days and it's up 2,136.22% and asked Josh what he does now, perhaps sell covered calls.

Josh kind of stoically said "I would say you got very, very fortunate with the timing," and "these products, specifically, were launched for day traders, and all of the literature the firms themselves put out say, 'Do not hold these over long periods of time, thinking that you will definitely get 3X the index."

Josh's stock tip for Al was EBAY. Al said he bought 1,000 shares by the time Josh had finished talking about it.

Al said to Josh, "Now, you're not gonna tell me your Final Trade today is Cleveland-Cliffs, is it?," chuckling, a joke that Judge doesn't have the brass to make. Josh said, "No that's not me, that's the gentleman with the glasses."

Fast Money took up the ‘Moderna Meltdown,’ something Weiss won’t do

Josh Brown on Thursday's (9/12) Halftime Report stressed that there's "room to go" on the SMH, meaning upward; most of the stocks "are already in their own correction," and that even NVDA "got very cheap" around $100.

Bill Baruch, who wasn't a panelist but joined remotely, said he bought more AVGO, MSFT and META. Bill weighed tech vs. staples and said names in the QQQ "double bottomed last week against the August 5th," which told him "the selling was overdone."

Judge said UBS says the "money on the sidelines" from money markets will be going into large cap tech. Josh Brown though said he thinks it'll go to investment grade corporate bonds.

On Fast Money, Guy Adami said of NVDA, "Technically, it looks pretty good." Steve Grasso said to use the 50-day of $117.75 as your stop-loss in NVDA.

Also, Steve Grasso took up the MRNA debacle, noting, "People are not lining up to take, uh, to take the shots anymore." He said it's back to its October 2020 level, but "it just had a death cross," and Steve thinks with death crosses, "the downside is nearly laid out," so you could "roll the dice" on it.

Joe’s on fire — calls intraday reversal around 5,400, says it’s time to play the market long

Wednesday's (9/11) Halftime Report had some good stuff in between but couldn't top the calls from Joe Terranova that basically began, and ended, the show.

Joe opened the program stating, "You can play the market from the long side as long as we technically (sic redundant) hold above 5,400 in the S&P 500." Joe spoke as the S&P 500 was down 44 points. Joe said that "underneath the market," the semis and megacaps seem to have found a "trough."

At the end of the show, Joe reiterated he was "reversing my bias over the last week and a half. I think you now play the market from the long side ... I think the S&P by the end of the day (down 15 points at that time) will be higher."

Was it ever.

In case you're wondering, "Wasn't Joe just 2 days ago shrugging off Monday's bounce and predicting 'corrective behavior' in the market for weeks?" Yes, Joe just 2 days ago was predicting "corrective behavior" for weeks. And maybe 2 days from now, he'll change his outlook again.

But he did nail Wednesday's trade, big-time.

A few hours later, on Fast Money, Tim Seymour attributed at least part of Wednesday's rally to, "There were people out there with shopping lists." Grandpa Guy Adami admitted that if the reversal had gone the other direction, he'd "make a big deal out of it," so he grudgingly has to comment on Wednesday's rally; Guy said it was an "extraordinary" move, but before you get over your skis, Grandpa Guy warned that the dollar/yen unwind "is not over, so, more volatility ahead I think."

Karen Finerman suggested that early in the market, there was a "knee-jerk response to the idea of Harris doing better and the idea of a Democratic presidency being less favorable for the market." (The funny thing about the debate ... absolutely everyone who watched it knows who "won" the debate ...)

Joe actually suggested semis got a lift from "some tariff relief after the bate- uh, the debate last evening."

There was head-scratching at CNBCfix HQ at such a reversal without really any kind of obvious catalyst, in the middle of a month that's typically sluggish. There's no question though that this was a legit "Big. Whoosh. Down," and we'd be surprised if Joe's forecast, at least for a few weeks, doesn't pan out.

David Solomon questions lack of discussion about national debt at the presidential debate

Judge's star guest from Goldman's San Francisco conference on Wednesday (9/11) was recently soaring CEO David Solomon. (Solomon made a great comeback from potentially being Chapek'ed.) (Then again, there's a difference between Lloyd and Iger.)

David told Judge, "The environment's actually OK ... for bank activity."

Judge said David recently cited a "more challenging macro." David explained that, "You're taking a soundbite out of my comments at Barclays ... referring specifically to that August volatility."

David said he's "still in the soft-landing camp." He suggested "2, maybe 3 cuts" through the fall.

David said he watched the presidential debate; "Did debt come up once in the conversation all night? I don't think there was any discussion about the debt, you know, at all in the debate last night."

Afterwards, Steve Weiss credited Judge and Solomon for "just an excellent interview." Joe Terranova agreed it was a "great interview."

We don't disagree. Judge asked good, crisp questions, and Solomon gave fair, informative answers. It could've easily gone another half-hour.

Another thing David Muir didn’t ask about at the debate — the bailout they’re going to give U.S. Steel

Aside from David Solomon and Joe Terranova's be-long-stocks call, Wednesday's (9/11) Halftime Report had mostly measured commentary.

(With Judge in San Francisco for the Goldman conference, panelists were beaming in from home offices, including Joe's with the whiteboard, that brought back a lot of stale memories of the COVID era.)

Josh Brown said the magnitude of Fed cuts and the outcome of the election figure to hover over the market, though there have been "bids" coming in.

Steve Weiss said it looks like a 25-point cut is coming but that financials were denting the market. Nevertheless, he bought more GS on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Joe basically said it's either GS or JPM in the banks, no others.

Kari Firestone said software is gaining interest.

Liz says it’s actually ‘easier’ for people to sell winners

Liz Young Thomas said something interesting on Tuesday's (9/10) Halftime Report:

"It's a lot easier to unload a gain than it is to unload a loss."

That's interesting, because Rob Sechan has indicated just the opposite several times recently. And Steve Weiss has sorta done the same.

A new take on how DLTR and DG reflect the economy that people have been preaching about

One of the curious economic developments of the summer has been the debacle of Dollar General and Dollar Tree — and listening to Guy Adami on CNBC's Fast Money try to make it fit into his thesis about the consumer as he continues to warn about rising unemployment.

On Tuesday (9/10), Jenny Harrington took a stab at that on the Halftime Report, stating she "read a really interesting article the other day comparing Dollar General and Walmart."

Jenny said that what the comparers saw was, "The lowest, um, earners at- who were- who were shopping at Walmart now have to downgrade and go to Dollar General, and they're desperate, right, for the biggest bargains they could (sic grammar)."

OK, so if we understand the new narrative ... it's so bad out there that people who previously shopped at WMT can't afford it, so they're going to Dollar Tree ... but they won't buy anything from Dollar Tree unless it's desperately discounted.

Got it.

Jenny mentioned owning KSS (because who would rather own NVDA or MSFT when KSS is out there).

On Fast Money, Grandpa Guy Adami stated, "I get it, I mean, people will say they've tamed the inflation dragon, the same way they said that in the early 1970s. We shall see."

Josh mentioned SBUX getting backlogged by orders at the airport but it’s unclear what the easy fix is

Judge flew all the way to L.A. to ask Marc Lasry on Tuesday's (9/10) Halftime Report about Wonder Woman comic book No. 1 investing in sports teams; private equity in the NFL is one of Judge's favorite subjects.

Judge asked Marc if the Fed should've started cutting already. "Not really," Marc said. Marc sees a "soft landing" and said if there is a recession, it'll only be "6 months."

With Judge in L.A., Sully guest-hosted Halftime again. Bill Baruch dialed in to trumpet ORCL, suggesting a "breakout" and said it could "easily" be a $180 stock. Josh Brown also cheered ORCL but said there's some "AI voodoo" being sprinkled around the stock.

Josh said Brian Niccol's SBUX turnaround will "work," but "on an elongated time frame." Sully questioned the fact that Niccol is working remotely.

Kevin Simpson sold DE, suggesting the company's taking on too much debt. But he bought more TJX.

On Fast Money, Julia Boorstin interviewed WNBA star Cameron Brink, who twice told Karen Finerman that the off-court promotional demands have been "tiresome" (sic). We assume she meant "tiring," as in, she gets physically tired because the WNBA draft/season takes place shortly after the college season; "tiresome" to most people implies boredom or annoyance. (Then again, Brink went to Stanford, so, um, maybe we shouldn't question her grammar usage...)

Weiss says election is between ‘somebody pathological’ and ‘a socialist’

Steve Weiss on Monday's (9/9) Halftime Report pointed out the oddity of a Republican candidate praising Lina Khan.

Weiss stated, "Unusually, you have the Republican slate, JD Vance being very very visible, saying that Lina Khan's doing a great job, and he agrees."

As far as potential breakups (long a strange sorta-government goal in the tech space), Weiss said META's parts "are worth more than the whole" and maybe Alphabet and even Amazon's are too. But he said the FTC and Khan have "terrible track records in breaking up companies."

Of the presidential candidates, Weiss bluntly declared, "Either candidate is putting tariffs on ... You've got 2 terrible choices. On one hand, you've got somebody pathological; on the other hand, you've got a socialist."

Guest host Sully joked, "Maybe we wait 4 more years."

Sully suggests people are getting tired of ChatGPT

Steve Kovach on Monday's (9/9) Halftime Report said only 7% of people worldwide and 4% in the U.S. have a "very high inclination" to buy a new cellphone for the AI.

Guest host Sully called Apple's AR Vision Pro "a bust; it's a complete disaster."

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman described the Apple presentation as "a little bit underwhelming." (Karen also talked about "shrimp cowboy," whatever that means; she tried to explain it, and we still didn't get it.)

Meanwhile, on Halftime, Sully also said he "saw a chart over the weekend" that "ChatGPT use rates are going down ... the novelty wearing off."

Steve Weiss mentioned that "the telco companies are still dumb enough to subsidize every iPhone purchase." Sully countered, "They have to be dumb enough. If they're not dumb enough, they're doomed."

Stephanie Link beamed in remotely to say she bought more AVGO.

Sully questioned if Super Micro and Intel might be indicative of a "pop" of some kind. Jim Lebenthal said that thing rhymes with "space telescope." But he doesn't think it's a "Hubble" but just "very specific stories."

Judge actually told Jimmy Haslam with a straight face that the Browns have a ‘good roster’

Joe Terranova opened Monday's (9/9) Halftime Report, guest hosted by Sully, saying, "I'm pretty surprised that we're in the green today," as he expected overseas weakness over the weekend and "one of those Mondays" with "significant pressure." (Translation: He was looking forward to buying, if we had gotten the "big. Whoosh. Down.") (Nowadays, the big whoosh down requires Jeremy Siegel calling for emergency rate cuts.)

Joe shrugged off Monday's gains as "nothing more than a technical bounce." Joe said he wouldn't be surprised to see "corrective behavior" for "several weeks."

Jim Lebenthal wasn't worried at all, saying the U.S. is still growing and citing Atlanta Fed and telling Joe that this is not "in your face at all" but that "last week was- was September being seasonally September."

Weiss said he would've thought Jim had "learned your lesson" from citing Atlanta Fed. Weiss insisted, "The economy is definitely slowing."

Joe said, "The megacaps will tell you where the market's gonna go."

Jim said he's "long tech and long cyclical."

Sully says, go to the Midwest to witness the nation’s obesity crisis

Joe Terranova on Monday's (9/9) Halftime Report said of LLY; "any dip, you just buy it." (He also says, every time it comes up, that LLY trades like a biotech.)

Steve Weiss said "I would not buy it," calling the multiple "ridiculous."

Guest host Sully offered that we have an "obesity crisis in this country, even among the young." Weiss agreed, "2/3 of the country is overweight."

Sully said "all my friends in the Midwest, I love ya, go there, and then you'll understand the market."

"I don't have to go there to see overweight people, I have plenty of places around here," Weiss said.

Jim Lebenthal bought more C, offering the same arguments you've heard about this stock for 15 years. Joe said financials are one of the top sectors this year and how could the economy be that bad if financials are doing so well, and there's a "multitude of opportunities" in the space. Weiss though said "Regional banks, I would stay away, they are death."

(On Fast Money, Karen Finerman said she owns C and likes it "a lot." Zzzzzzzz. Tim Seymour claimed there's "a lot more upside" (snicker) in the name.)

Weiss said he has a "good-sized position" in NFLX and said the Disney-ESPN product gives NFLX "more pricing power." (This writer is long NFLX.)

Joe said the JOET has 7 positions in energy. Joe said oil's in a "very difficult place" for investors to have a "high degree of confidence" in a risk-reward scenario. "I think the energy sector probably has the highest sensitivity to the election outcome of all the sectors." Weiss said oil is for "good traders only."

Tom Lee says ‘Trump’s probability of winning actually increased this week’

Tom Lee on Friday's (9/6) Closing bell noted last year was rough in September-October and said, "I wonder if markets are going risk-off early."

Lee indicated it doesn't matter much to him whether the Fed goes 25 or 50, it'll be all about the reaction; he just thinks it's good that they're starting to cut.

Lee said tech may be getting hit because people want to "de-risk," and they've got big holdings in tech, but there could be a "political aspect" to it as "Trump's probability of winning actually increased this week in the betting markets and in the polls," which investors could see as "bad for semis."

Tom said he doesn't think tech's a "sell" but is a "source of funds."

On Fast Money, Steve Grasso said the week's selloff seems about "more seasonality" than anything else.

Weiss: Tech ‘always will’ lead

One profoundly important statement was made early on Friday's (9/6) Halftime Report.

It came from Steve Weiss, who said that looking out "a year, 2 years, 3 years, tech is going to be leading the market again. Period. End of story. Always has. Always will."

That's a bold statement.

This page, basically, agrees.

But what really matters is that nobody on Friday's panel challenged that statement.

Weiss said the data (pronounced DAY-ta) is telling a "very, very bad story in terms of slowing." Weiss said "the odds favor a 50-bp cut." Weiss added, "I'm not calling for recession. But I'm calling for continued weakness."

Steve Liesman, though, offered that Fed members are "open to 50" but "probably gonna start with, with 25."

Jim Lebenthal stated, "It's not a Fed that's cutting because of economic weakness. It's cutting because it's way too restrictive by the virtue of 300 basis points real Fed funds rate." Hmmmm. There's definitely truth there. But there are some legit "weakness" concerns.

Jim actually said "the pause that refleshes (sic)" but corrected himself.

Regarding the steel space, which Judge brought up with a healthy amount of skepticism, Jim said he takes "full responsibility" for recommending CLF or any other stock. Jim said he's "not likely" to sell CLF. Jim said the hot-rolled steel price looks like it's "bottomed."

As for getting X on the rebound, Jim said Lourenco won't pay "any price that is anywhere close" to what Nippon offered.

Jim praised all of CLF's recent deals but never addressed why the stock is only $11 after all those deals. Judge said the market has basically been saying in the past week that it doesn't want CLF to do the X deal. Jim conceded, "They don't want the balance-sheet stress on Cleveland Cliffs."

Karen on X: ‘I think the deal should go through’

On Thursday's (9/5) Fast Money, CNBC's Pippa Stevens reported that Lourenco Goncalves is "ready to go" for pieces of X.

Karen Finerman offered, "I think the deal should go through" and "the politics of it is sort of disturbing." Karen suggested this wouldn't be a big issue in any state that isn't a swing state.

Guy Adami said Lourenco, whose stock is $11, is in "a bit of a catbird's seat" because he could ask "behind closed doors" for some "sweetheart deals" from the government to buy X. Tim Seymour said, "I think you wanna own U.S. Steel here. ... This stock's probably worth 45 bucks."

Tim and Mel agreed that the resistance to this deal sends a "terrible" message.

He doesn’t go there often, but when Judge visits Wendy’s, he has a Frosty

Bill Baruch and Josh Brown were in agreement on Thursday's (9/5) Halftime Report about not falling for the market's head fake.

Josh noted the "growth scare" in the market but cautioned, "Don't get carried away by 1 day, 2 days activity. Um, don't do countertrend things that work against your best interests."

Bill Baruch agreed that "you don't want to start selling your tech here and start rotating. That's- that trade has already happened." Bill suggested what's happening this week is "some seasonality being- maybe being front-run."

Stephanie Link bluntly stated, "I don't think the growth scare is legit."

Kari Firestone asserted that the "No. 1 determinant" of the extent of the Fed's move is the unemployment rate; "If it turns out it's 4.4 or 4.5, they're definitely gonna go to 50."

Judge told Steve Liesman, "The Fed's in a bit of a pickle here, that, they probably should've gone in July," and now, going 25 isn't enough, and going 50 "sends some sort of alarm signal."

Steve said there's been easing of conditions since the Fed's July statement.

Steve joked that this is "The Wendy's meeting," meaning the question is whether the Fed will do a "single or a double."

Then Steve told Judge, "I bet you don't go to Wendy's at all." Judge said, "I like the Frosty." Both Steve and Judge said they don't go to Wendy's that often, but Judge insisted that when he goes, he gets a Frosty.

Stephanie Link said, "I'd be really shocked if Judge is going to have a Frosty in the next 6 months we get a really crappy number tomorrow."

Bill Baruch bought more NVDA. He explained how he had just been trimming it and said he likes it at 106 or 105 with "a lot of support" there.

Bill said he bought more TSLA, including putting on December calls, the 260/290 spread.

Josh said Berkshire is "short-term overbought." Josh noted that Berkshire isn't doing much in buybacks, something Judge trumpeted, concluding, "They apparently don't see much value in anything right now."

Stephanie Link has touted SLB for months if not years; Judge pointed out it's at a 52-week low. Stephanie said she'll stick with it.

Judge didn't have anything at Halftime regarding CNBC's blockbuster new report speculating on fair market value for the Dallas Cowboys (as if they're going to be sold anytime soon); Michael Ozanian explained on Closing Bell that it's all about "multiples of revenue."

On Closing Bell, Joe Terranova said "50 is better" for market sentiment.

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman stated, "I've actually moved out of the 25 camp into the 50 camp." Karen said there's "not that much downside" to going 50. Guy Adami countered that a 50-point move would be "politicized without question," and he doesn't think the Fed wants that.

If White House blocks deal, ‘You could have them try to bail out the steel industry’ (a/k/a when are they going to move on the stamp-out-price-gouging agenda?)

It was one of the best episodes in months.

Wednesday's (9/4) Fast Money led off with news of the apparent blockage of the U.S. Steel deal, reported by Eamon Javers, and panelists followed with one cogent comment after another about the developing situation.

Mel said it's "curious" that the deal could be rejected on national security grounds. She demanded of Javers, "What is the excuse that they could possibly give to not approve this deal?"

Eamon said "it'll be all about supply chains."

Guy Adami (who admittedly pretended to be reluctant about delving into a political issue) stated, "I don't get it either, to be honest with you. It'll save thousands of jobs; Nippon Steel's probably gonna invest a billion dollars, keep it in Pittsburgh, keep it in the state of Pennsylvania. nobody else seems willing to step up to the plate here. I don't understand, to your point, I mean this is a pretty staunch ally for the, you know, many decades. So, I don't get it."

Steve Grasso stated, "It's all about the union worker ... I can make the case for both sides. Because there is a defense mechanism to it. You don't want to be reliant on a foreign country developing or making- making steel in your country. That- That's- That's why it's bipartisan."

Steve did say something we found a head-scratcher, claiming of the deal, "Maybe it changes with the wind tomorrow" and you could "play it through options."

Tim Seymour, practically in disbelief about the news reported by Javers, said, "This isn't about U.S. Steel. This is about the state of Pennsylvania. This isn't- this isn't even about Gary, Indiana, and some of these other plants. Nippon has said 3 billion will go into these plants right now, no layoffs till '27. Japan is an ally. They actually wanna compete against China. You know what's the real steel problem — it's China. ... This is the most absurd thing, uh, if you wanna try to argue in favor for market-strategic forces. And it's as if we can't make all the steel we want in this country? We sure can. In fact, there's too much steel. And that's part of the problem."

Karen Finerman somehow questioned why the administration doesn't just wait for CFIUS to block the deal and "wait for that as cover. ... Instead, they wanna front-run that."

Steve Grasso pointed out that if the deal doesn't go through, "You could have them try to bail out the steel industry. Which becomes even more inflationary. And you're buying- and you're directly buying votes then." (Exactly. Checks in the mail again.)

Tim Seymour said, "Both sides of the aisle ... none of it's deficit-friendly." Tim said the "Trump-era tariffs which were kept by Biden" were a tax of $80 billion on U.S. taxapayers in 2020.

Guy Adami questioned what happens now if a U.S. company wants to buy a Japanese company. "This doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever," Guy said.

Actually, the panelists did leave out one thing: It's not all about the state of Pennsylvania, it's very much about the name of the company being acquired.

On other matters, Steve Grasso said that until NVDA gets above 110, "I don't think you should be trading it," because it could fade all the way to "$88 and change."

Judge says people making Jenny’s argument have been ‘run over’

We were just going to skip Wednesday's (9/4) Halftime Report given that it figured to be another insufferable episode of Jenny Harrington basically declaring DON'T BUY ANY TECH STOCKS!!!!!!!!, but we heard Judge actually push back, so we figured we might as well note it.

Jenny claimed yet again that the math somehow doesn't add up for the market going much higher.

Judge moments later told Jenny, "Those who have made the argument that the math doesn't work, uh, have been making that same argument for the better part of the last 18 months. And, and, they've been run over, OK. They've been run over. They have."

"Well, OK, define 'run over' (sigh)," Jenny said.

"Like run over, by the bull market that has taken the stock market to new highs," Judge explained.

That's when Jenny admitted, "I've been making that argument, but I've still been totally- like almost completely invested." And then she got to the point she always wants to make because she's oblivious to the QQQ's long-term returns (any time frame) (this writer is long QQQ), "In fact, maybe you just shift a little bit, right, out of to- into, you know, the point I've been making, out of Mag 7, into the other top 10, you get to participate- sorry, into the other 493, you get to participate in those."

Judge said Jenny's been making the argument of "somebody who's negative on the market."

Jenny admitted she's been "duking it out with people on Twitter." That's always a great use of time.

Meanwhile, Jim Lebenthal stated, "I think what you're gonna see is that the rest of the market catches up with technology." (We've heard that one before, too.)

Rob Sechan said "a little bit of a retrenchment" would be "welcome." (Sure. The "big whoosh down.")

Rob bought more CRM (Zzzzzzzzz); Kari Firestone called that "a good idea." Rob made it his Final Trade.

Jim claimed CSCO is back and "you can hear it from the analysts' questions (snicker) on the last 2 earnings calls."

Jenny Harrington said of CSCO, "With a 14 times multiple, you're not gambling with too much." What does that mean? Stocks with a multiple of 14 won't go down very much??

In another curious comment, Jenny stated, "I think we all know that over the next 5, 10, 20 years, copper's just a straight-up bullish play."

Jim said "the biggest thing bar none facing the energy markets is China."

Judge asleep at the switch on Haslam family’s Berkshire dispute

Midway through Tuesday's (9/3) Halftime Report, Judge welcomed Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and Huntington Bancshares CEO Stephen Steinour to discuss Huntington's naming-rights deal for the Browns stadium.

Judge wondered about terms and how Huntington realizes value from a stadium name. "Terms are not disclosed," Steinour politely said. He said the deal would "help propel our name and our brand nationally."

Much analysis has been done for decades on those deals. We doubt that stadium naming rights ever brings in much extra business. But maybe it does. (Quick, name the corporate name of the Browns stadium prior to this deal.)

Judge must've been planning lunch at Burger King, because then came the whopper. Judge told Jimmy, "You are the chairman of the truck stop, uh, empire Flying J, which your father founded," and Judge asked Haslam about the "highways and byways of what's goin' on, uh, in this economy."

Haslam pointed out, "We sold our remaining interest to Berkshire Hathaway in January of last (sic it was 2024) year."

What Jimmy didn't mention was that selling the remaining 20% stake to Berkshire turned into a really messy court fight that was, despite Judge being oblivious, well-covered in financial media. According to Reuters last February, "In competing lawsuits in Delaware Chancery Court, each side accused the other of manipulating Pilot's accounting in bad faith, with the Haslams saying Berkshire was undervaluing its stake, and Berkshire concerned it might overpay."

As to Haslam's chairmanship, the Reuters article said that after acquiring a 2nd stake of Pilot Flying J in 2023, Berkshire "subsequently overhauled its management."

(We're guessing the Halftime Report Research Dept. picked up the Haslam-is-chairman thing from Jimmy's not-recently-updated Wikipedia page.)

Reuters reported that Warren Buffett did not mention the Pilot Flying J deal in his annual letter in February but relayed this anecdote: "People are not that easy to read. Sincerity and empathy can easily be faked. That is as true now as it was in 1863."

Meanwhile, on Tuesday's Halftime, Jimmy told Judge he believes "very strongly" in the private equity vote. Judge said CNBC's Alex Sherman "broke the news" that the NFL wanted a "a cut of the private equity profits." Judge said it "raised a lot of eyebrows." Jimmy didn't totally confirm it but indicated that all the parties involved want it that way.

Judge told Haslam that the Browns have a "good roster." Judge didn't ask Jimmy why the Browns have a poor record under his leadership and gave a ridiculous guaranteed contract to a quarterback who 1) has an embarrassing reputation and 2) no other teams wanted and 3) isn't particularly good anyway.

Judge was trumpeting how CNBC's new sports-reporting initiative is going to rank perceived market values of NFL teams on Thursday, the day the season opens. The Reuters story says Berkshire ultimately paid $13 billion for Pilot Flying J, which would've been enough money to buy the Browns — and another team.

Now Congress is part of the Executive Branch

Judge on Tuesday's (9/3) Halftime Report opened the show saying the semis were "ugly." Josh Brown cited the reaction to NVDA's earnings and stated, "Sentiment got a little bit carried away again."

Steve Weiss said tech in some ways does "hold the key" to the market, but, "I really think the key to the market is the economic data and what the Fed does."

Weiss said we're in a "rare circumstance" in which we've got "all 3, uh, parts of the Executive Branch (sic) up for grabs."

Joe Terranova claimed there are "2 forces at play today," one of them being "seasonality" (i.e., September) and the other having something to do with passive indexing (i.e., some sectors and stocks are actually up so it's not as bad as the indexes show).

Judge rattled off stats indicating strong market sentiment. Josh Brown said, "It would be weird if people weren't bullish."

On Fast Money, Guy Adami called Tuesday's trade as "sort of the aftermath of what we saw on August 5th. ... Personally I think there's more to go." Karen Finerman revealed, "This is actually one of the worst back-to-school days I've had in many many years," but we had a "very nice August" after the 5th. Even so, "I don't know what catalysts there are in the short term," Karen said.

Joe’s arguing for market timing again

Joe Terranova in the 10th minute of Tuesday's (9/3) Halftime Report advised viewers to "take down your exposure" in the megacaps and "assess your risk," and if you're "concentrated" in some direction, "I wouldn't concentrate in that direction anymore."

Even so, "I don't think you go to small caps," rather, Joe likes large cap and "quality" and there's "plenty of names" in financials and health care.

It's kinda the same argument Joe made against Adam Parker in February on Closing Bell when Adam recommended having 25% in megacap tech. Joe backpedaled from that one within a couple weeks.

Steve Weiss noted that trimming tech would prompt taxes (which might be a curious move for someone who might just buy the stocks back in a short time) and asked Joe, "What time frame are you referencing?" and how much short-term downside is there really in megacaps.

Joe's answer was, "I think it's mean reversion (snicker). ... I don't think megacap is going to give you the type of outperformance relative to the rest of the market that we've had over the last 18 months."

Joe insisted, "You had a lot of people right now who are overexposed to the megacaps."

But Weiss pointed to historical returns of tech and wondered, "I'm a normal retail investor, why wouldn't I just hold on and wait out any correction in this cycle."

Joe said Weiss "basically" is suggesting "buy and hold" which is "completely fine." Judge weighed in that what Weiss said has been "proven to be the right strategy," at least over 18 months. Joe said he's suggesting "it is the time to be tactical." Weiss said he views "tactical" as "waiting for those corrections in tech and then deploying cash in there."

Moments later, after Josh Brown rattled off some strong names recently, Joe noted how many of those names are outside of tech. Joe protested, "I'm not saying sell Nvidia. I'm not saying sell Apple. I'm not saying sell Microsoft. Those are names you should own. I'm saying, what degree do you own them." (So he's not saying sell 'em ... he's saying ... don't own as much as you have been ...)

Parker, by the way, was coincidentally on Closing Bell Tuesday and 1) didn't mention Joe's loopy call and 2) said he sees a "bigger than normal inconsistency" between rate-cut forecasts and earnings estimates.

Weiss has nothing to say about MRNA

It was sorta Book Day on Tuesday's (9/3) Halftime Report as Judge in the 50th minute touted Josh Brown's new book.

Josh claimed the book is "15 years in the making." Josh said he's written 4 books, but "this is really the one."

(Remember about 10 years ago when you heard about When the Wolves Bite practically every day.)

Meanwhile, Sarat Sethi cast doubt on the Deutsche Bank downgrade of JPM, advising holding it through good or bad times.

Josh Brown said if you tried to trade JPM based on analysts' overvalued calls, check out longer-term returns vs. other banks; Josh would "hard ignore" those calls. Josh said insurance stocks are rolling, probably because they are a "classic mid-cycle play." Josh also suggested maybe avoiding consumer discretionary; "the staples look much better."

Josh sold NTAP, stating it had been a great stock but "things change." Josh said there's a "big tailwind" for ORCL, though he doesn't own it. Sarat owns ORCL and said it's expensive but that it's executing and can go higher.

Joe Terranova said, "Momentum's actually waning in Steel Dynamics" and noted it's "infrequently spoken about on the network." Judge said people have been "transfixed" on U.S. Steel and noted (in an indirect way) that some people on the panel love to talk about CLF, an in-joke that some viewers wouldn't get.

Santoli suggested the stock market had been munching on "empty calories" on Friday.

Jim & Frank way apart on NVDA forward P.E.; Rob finds a stock to sell

In what seemed a little bit of overhype, Bryn Talkington on Friday's (8/30) Halftime Report said she would "implore" viewers to listen to the "wonderful" NVDA earnings call.

"If Nvidia did nothing for the rest of the year, it's still gonna be probably the best-performing stock," Bryn explained.

Jim Lebenthal stated, "I own a nice-sized chunk of Nvidia. I'm very happy holding it. I was not thrown at all by yesterday's price movement."

Jim then stated that NVDA forward earnings is "29 times." Guest host Frank Holland said "according to our system ... we have it at 40 times forward earnings in our system." No one tried to explain the discrepancy. (Apparently, on Wall Street, you can find numbers to tell you whatever you want.)

Jim defended Pat Gelsinger amid pushback from Stephanie Link and praised Pat for at least making a decision that apparently didn't work.

Stephanie Link bought more CRWD. (This writer is long CRWD.) Stephanie said, "I started buying this when it fell 41% from its highs," always a key metric for Halftime Report panelists.

Frank questioned if Stephanie isn't concerned about "how rich this stock still is." Stephanie said "there's always concerns," but operating margins actually expanded and the stock's EV/sales fell from 22 to 13.6. (Frank apparently didn't have that statistic available for comparison.) Bryn said she bought BUG because she likes the space but doesn't know who the "actual winners" will be.

Jim trumpeted August winners GM and ONON. Frank noted Bryn had winners PLTR and VNOM but asked about an August loser, ETHE. Bryn said there's a "dispersion" between bitcoin and ethereum.

Bill Baruch dialed in to talk up DELL, suggesting 134 by year-end. Bill indicated he's not concerned about current-quarter guidance being below estimates.

Rob Sechan dialed in to say he sold LULU, which had been on a "short leash" but now provides "potential tax loss benefits" (always a key consideration of Rob's) against the "good performers" in the portfolio. Rob insisted LULU is still challenged in its "core business." Rob conceded it's "still a high-quality business," but, "We are taking this from a tax-loss standpoint."

Friday's Associated Press stock market recap article included a quote from Liz Young Thomas, who told the news organization, “The payroll data next week is incredibly important."

NVDA was a gift on the day Jeremy Siegel called for an emergency 50-point rate cut

Josh Brown opened Thursday's (8/29) Halftime Report saying he tries to "be like the voice of the sane person (snicker)."

Josh said that, "Anyone speaking hyperbolically about Nvidia somehow disappointing or missing or, no, Nvidia doesn't miss — the analysts who cover the stock miss."

Josh crowed about his argument a couple days ago with Rob Sechan about the notion of how the market might "shoot the generals" if Nvidia "takes a pause," with Josh saying Thursday that his expectation is "exactly how things are playing out today."

Kevin Simpson crowed about selling NVDA 145 September calls for $4.95 (the screen said $3.95) that are now worth 73 cents (which sounds like an intriguing buy). Josh even asked Kevin if he'd "buy those back" or let them expire worthless (assuming they expire worthless). Kevin said he'd "probably buy 'em back."

Liz Young Thomas said that the fact the rest of the market is doing well while NVDA pauses means "Optimism is still on."

Bill Baruch pointed out that finally getting NVDA's earnings "removes uncertainty" from the market.

Josh: ‘Ton of pessimism’ already in CRWD

Josh Brown on Thursday's (8/29) Halftime Report said you can call CRWD's gain a "comeback" and said the CRWD management team probably had "literally (sic) the worst summer ever." (This writer is long CRWD.)

Josh said the gain in the face of lower guidance is "all the signal you need to understand that there's a ton of pessimism already in the story."

Josh said he wouldn't put a $400 on CRWD because it "doesn't deserve to" get there, but "we're gonna stop talkin' about this IT outage probably next quarter or the quarter after," a point this page agrees with.

Bill Baruch said CRWD has been "trading very well" for a couple of weeks and that Thursday is a "very good day" for the stock.

Josh pointed out that George Kurtz said deals were only "delayed" by the outage and not canceled.

Judge hasn’t mentioned unusual options activity for a long time, wonder why

Josh Brown on Thursday's (8/29) Halftime Report said CRM is in "the middle of no-man's land technically" and while it indeed may become king of enterprise AI, it's not happening immediately, it's a "multi-year story."

Josh suggested the NTAP "exacerbated volatility may be around the Nvidia, uh, news."

Bill Baruch likes DELL and said he's looking for a reason to add to the stock.

Kevin Simpson touted ADBE buybacks.

Judge said NTRA is in Kevin's QDVO ETF.

Judge is mentioning upgrades from shops he’s never heard of

Judge on Thursday's (8/31) Halftime Report said Clarksons Platou is calling FCX a buy, and Judge said "We never mentioned them before ... No disrespect to Clarksons Platou but we never talked about them before."

Kevin Simpson said a 58 target on FCX is "a little bit lofty." Josh Brown wondered if Clarksons is a "person."

Kevin said DZ Bank's upgrade of PG is a "little bit late to the party for an ugrade."

In a curious category of "comeback kids" (basically just a handful of the gobs of stocks that surged since Jeremy Siegel called for an emergency 50-point cut), Josh once again touted TTD and SG and IOT and ... somehow ... even PYPL. He admitted he doesn't "fully" trust PYPL but said "The narrative here is shifting (snicker)."

Bill Baruch touted MTZ and LDOS.

Tip: Bill’s gain in a stock has no bearing on whether it’s going higher

Josh Brown on Thursday's (8/29) Halftime Report said of Berkshire, "I can make the case that it's both offensive and defensive."

Bill Baruch sold DUK, "it's really served its purpose; we've gained about 20% on this name since buying it earlier this year." He said DUK is entering a capex cycle.

Liz Young Thomas said she likes utilities but they are "almost at overbought." Josh said it's not "early" in the utilities trade but he doesn't "dislike" the idea of owning them.

Josh Brown curiously said Malik Nabers was "supposed to go 3rd or 4th round."

Guest hosting on Fast Money, Sully said maybe Dollar General should be called "75-Cent General."

Guy Adami said during Final Trades that Sully would be at "one of the great steakhouses" around Times Square shortly after the show; had we been in town, we definitely would've taken up Guy's suggestion to join Sully for a meal.

Guy: You can get NVDA at a ‘better entry point’

Judge on Wednesday's (8/28) Halftime Report said Dan Ives is calling the NVDA earnings report potentially the most important "in years" (snicker).

Jason Snipe agreed "there's a lot riding on" the report and said "it's about the magnitude of the beat and raise."

Joe Terranova said it "sets the tone for risk in the coming days." Joe said if NVDA misses, there'll be a "stress test" for the rest of the market.

Judge said, "Dan Ives, he likes his superlatives, he likes his cliches, he likes his analogies. I totally get it." Ives was on Closing Bell with Judge a couple hours later ... and wore a lime-green jacket.

Steve Weiss was "unwilling" to put quite the same emphasis on NVDA earnings as Ives has.

Dan Nathan said on Fast Money that NVDA "just didn't hit the whisper numbers." He added, "I wouldn't be buying it here." Steve Grasso said he was early in warning about this, but NVDA's buyback plan seems like a "red flag."

On CRWD, Steve Grasso wondered whether anyone has been fired for the July outage. Bonawyn Eison offered, "I think there's more pain ahead." (This writer is long CRWD.)

Joe lashes out at social media ribbing over JOET’s percentage stake in financials

Judge on Wednesday's (8/28) Halftime Report mentioned Berkshire crossing $1 trillion in market cap.

Steve Weiss said Warren Buffett's "visibility" has "declined" in recent years (he meant "visibility" in terms of how often we see Warren, not Warren's economic outlook), and "I tend to think that what's going on now is succession planning."

Joe Terranova boasted about the JOET boosting its financials exposure from 8% a year ago to 28% now. Joe said "You can send me all the, the tweets and and social media hate that you want, but that's that ... the right place to be." (Whew. This page is not a "tweet" nor "social media." Nor does it deal in "hate.")

Joe said if you've got SMCI, "I would tell you to step to the sidelines." Joe said the JOET bought it at the end of July, "there's a 40% loss on the stock right now." But Joe said for those who question equal-weighting, "This is a reason why you're equally weighted." (Hopefully he doesn't stop and read the tweets he gets about that subject.)

Bryn Talkington said her previous advice to sell TSLA October 250 calls is a "good trade right now."

Judge said Bernstein calls NFLX "the easiest to own stock in all of media." Jason Snipe said he "couldn't agree more." (This writer is long NFLX.) Jason said the last time the stock was around this price was October of 2021. Jason mentioned the ad tier, live sports and content library. Weiss said he likes the stock also and was "pissed off" after he sold some of it recently. "Management does not get enough credit," Weiss said. Weiss correctly described the company as a "unique asset here that you can't get elsewhere." Joe mentioned ... yep ... the Christmas Day NFL games ...

Bryn described the bitcoin trade as an "amplified version" of the Nasdaq.

We're tired of hearing about PLTR. Bryn said it's "one of the names to own" for AI reasons. Joe said it's the "most underappreciated AI-adjacent name within the marketplace."

Rob says ‘one of the issues’ he deals with is inability to sell stocks with big long-term gains

It's not as sexy as Bryn Talkington talking about P.E. ratios, but it's close.

Rob Sechan, on Tuesday's (8/27) Halftime Report, once again brought up maybe the strangest problem mentioned on the program:

Stocks that go up so much, people refuse to sell, because they don't want to — or perhaps can’t — pay the taxes. (But if the gains aren't so large, apparently, somehow they have no trouble paying taxes.)

Rob on Tuesday said of HD and LOW, "They've been long-term holdings for us. They've done incredibly well. One of the issues that we have is they've compounded so effectively over a long period of time that we can't trim them."

It seems to us there are 2 simple solutions to this problem of not wanting to pay taxes on stock gains: 1) Write your congressman; 2) Only put your stocks in tax-free accounts.

But if the goal is to stockpile untouchable gains for decades and let the organization that eventually receives the bequest deal with the taxes, then you might as well do exactly what Rob is talking about.

Jim says Lourenco is ‘a little ticked off,’ apparently because his offer was spurned in favor of one that’s going to be vetoed

Tuesday's (8/27) Halftime Report included a feisty debate that a lot of folks would have to say involves some deep-in-the-weeds type of subject matter.

It was all about what happens to stocks in general if investors "shoot the generals" of the market. (Seriously, that's what it was about.)

It involved yet another preview of NVDA earnings. Josh Brown pointed out how much NVDA's customers spend on its product but conceded "guidance is gonna be key."

But Rob Sechan said he doesn't care about what Nvidia says; he's watching the "price action after" to see if investors start to "shoot the generals" of the market.

Josh cut in to say we've had "tremors" in the generals, they're temporary, and the money just goes into other sectors.

Rob cut in to say that in 2022, that's not what happened.

Josh cut back in to say "that's a bear market; I'm talking about this year."

Rob said "Can I finish" and said that in 2022, only energy got new money.

Judge had started the show asking his panel if they "believe" in the market broadening.

Josh noted big gains this year of some non-tech stocks and said "facts are facts," there is broadening in the market. Stephanie Link offered that "Growth is still outperforming value by 8 percentage points year to date."

Judge said Rick Rieder wasn't a "big believer" in the broadening story; Rick dialed in and said, rather skeptically, that we've "gotten a decent amount of the move" and there's "a lot of good news that's priced in."

Josh explained why he's long JPM rather than cheaper banks, opining that in the financial space, "Stock price very often dictates the fundamentals." (Um, it's an effect, not a cause ... but whatever.)

Jim Lebenthal, who had a quiet show, said "enough," he finally got out of PARA and blasted the Skydance deal again.

We learned from Judge's graphic that CLF's share price is only $14. Jim yet again painted a bullish picture for the company. Jim said Lourenco isn't going to redo his original offer for X "at the same price he offered" if the Japan-X acquisition falls apart; "he's a little ticked off." Jim said Lourenco may try to "pick off some pieces" of a failed X deal.

Joe, Weiss both make the correct point about CMG

An interesting little (and we mean little) debate took place on Monday's (8/26) Halftime Report when Joe Terranova questioned why Scott Boatwright is "not the permanent CEO" at CMG.

Steve Weiss defended the interim designation, stating, "They basically have to go out and see what's- else is, what else is out there."

Joe insisted he wants "consistency in the management team."

Hmmmm. Interesting debate. We can't really see any downside, to the company, for the interim tag. The risk would be that he takes another job. But if he were being recruited elsewhere, he already would've left; what job is he going to get that's better than this one.

The "interim" tag allows the company to get a sneak preview. If Boatwright performs well, they can shower him with money and titles. If he's mediocre or worse, they can easily change.

It's like an NFL team with its quarterback injured in December that gets to use a college quarterback for the remaining games and can wait to decide whether to draft him AFTER seeing him play.

Or, it's like a guy at DIS (that would be Chapek) NOT getting the interim title but still being it because, um, Bob is sorta still there.

So Weiss is correct. But Joe is not incorrect. What Joe is sort of implying is that Mr. Boatwright, just handed the keys to a Ferrari, may not yet have wowed the board. If true, that would be an important consideration for potential buyers of the stock.

Weiss wants CRWD to get ‘crushed’ — so he can buy it

"You're not doing anything this week," Joe Terranova advised at the top of Monday's (8/26) Halftime Report, before explaining, "The response is the most critical component of the Nvidia earnings" (for all those stock owners who care about obscure metrics but not how much the stock goes up or down).

Steve Weiss said this is an "optimistic" market with a "constructive" backdrop, but the debate eventually will be whether the Fed can cut "fast enough." Weiss went to the well again on the "delayed impact" of all the rate hikes, apparently thinking one of these days it's going to be true.

Weiss actually talked up the onshoring trade and said he bought CAT.

Joe said "we" own ADSK but he's not yet sold on the "turnaround story."

Judge said B of A reiterated UBER as a buy; it seems to get those kinds of upgrades every day, along with $100 price target calls from panelists on the show. Sarat Sethi let slip a little boast about buying/liking UBER "in the 20s" (which doesn't do anyone any good now) and said he's "potentially" looking to sell his remaining stake. Joe expressed concern over UBER's chart of the last 3 months.

Weiss touted Brad Jacobs at QXO and gave a complicated explanation about how Jacobs raised money (somewhere) and how Weiss took part.

Judge noted CRWD, like NVDA, has earnings Wednesday. (This writer is long CRWD and NVDA.) Joe said CRWD doesn't want to miss on guidance and revenue but agreed with Judge that the CEO will probably indicate "this is as bad as it's gonna be." Weiss said, "I would love it to get crushed so I can buy it."

On Fast Money, Carter Worth advised viewers to "play long" in NVDA into earnings and post-earnings. Guy Adami said it'll "come down to margins" and said the stock could be "vulnerable to the downside."

Jenny’s P.E. Ratio Calculator says the market can’t go much higher (a/k/a What’s the P.E. ratio of Advance Auto Parts)

Shortly into Friday's (8/23) Halftime Report, Jenny Harrington declared something she has declared many times previously, "Valuation matters! And I don't think the market broadly gets past that."

Jenny said she wouldn't buy SPYders or the QQQ (of course), but there's "tons of individual stocks" you can buy, apparently with lower. P. E. Ratios.

Kevin Simpson claimed Jenny's right but pointed to 1995-96 in stating how markets can throw "logic to the wind" and go higher.

Josh Brown said "Jenny's right that this is obviously, uh, a stretched S&P 500." But Brown said "we've been in this position before" where "we've been bailed out" by earnings growth.

Josh also said, "If you pull out the, the Big 7, um, the multiple is not all that egregious."

Karen says Jay Powell has done a ‘masterful job’

Guest host Frank Holland opened Friday's (8/23) Halftime Report saying, "We got a very dovish Jay Powell."

Jenny Harrington shrugged, "I don't think anything's new." Frank wondered, "Nothing's changed???" Jenny said, "Not really."

Frank said Rick Rieder is baking in multiple rate cuts and thinks the door's open to a 50-point cut. Kevin Simpson said the market's expecting 100 points by year-end; he thinks there was an "overreaction to the upside" in morning trading.

Josh Brown didn't seem that surprised either, but Frank said, "I was a little surprised by just how dovish he really was."

Bryn Talkington said Powell's speech was "refreshing" and "clear."

Bryn said Powell was "very self-deprecating" and "made some jokes" about inflation being transitory in 2021.

On Fast Money, Steve Grasso said Powell has "done the best job anyone could've done in that seat." But Grasso thinks "they should've been cutting probably in March." Grasso said he's "looking to sell things right now, not to buy things."

Karen Finerman though stated Powell has done a "masterful job."

Josh indicates it would’ve been a good move to buy NVDA a couple weeks ago

Bryn Talkington on Friday's (8/23) Halftime Report said it would be "shocking" if NVDA doesn't have a "massive beat and guide higher." (This writer is long NVDA.)

Josh Brown said of NVDA's biggest customers, "None of them are pulling back on spending." But Josh said that a couple weeks ago was probably a better time to build an NVDA position than right now.

Kevin Simpson hailed Amplify's launch of the QDVO ETF, which has Megacap Tech stocks with a call-writing strategy.

Leslie Picker reported that Third Point likes AAPL and AAPL's AI prospects.

Josh once again touted UBER, this time for its partnership with Cruise. Josh said his forward P.E. for UBER is 32, the "cheapest" since it became a profitable company a few quarters ago.

Josh said SG was having a "rally in sympathy" with CAVA.

From Jackson Hole, Austan Goolsbee told Steve Liesman that Powell "gave an excellent speech." Goolsbee indicated rates should only be at these levels to cool an overheating economy, but, "This is not overheating."

Jenny Harrington sold SLG because it's been up "way too much."

CNBC graphics still having spellcheck trouble (a/k/a Sara calls Sydney Sweeney the ‘It Girl’)

Josh Brown on Thursday's (8/22) Halftime Report said the early August volatility is "probably as wild as things will get."

Josh said he watched "a couple of the clips" from Aug. 5 and concluded, "I don't think anyone in professional money management was really falling prey to, to all of that negativity. I think it was mostly a Twitter phenomenon, quite frankly."

Anastasia Amoroso said "we needed to correct, uh, when we came into the middle of July ... now we're sort of on the other side of that, and we're actually seeing systematic buying pressure as well as the buybacks come back into the market."

Steve Liesman, in vest from Jackson Hole, mentioned numerous times the importance of the "data" (pronounced DAY-ta) to the Fed.

Anastasia mentioned "data (pronounced DAY-ta) centers." Josh made an extended case for IOT.

In the category of Apparently Timing The Market, Stephanie Link trimmed AAPL after her position went from 1% to 9% and said, "The stock is up 32% since May" and mentioned "32%" again (tip: stock prices don't care about someone's position size) (unless maybe it's Warren Buffett's).

Frank Holland mentioned AAP's slide (Frank didn't mention that this used to be a Jenny Harrington name); Jason Snipe compared it with AZO and mentioned the ways in which AZO is stronger and might not be as affected by the "challenging marketplace."

Josh again touted UBER, this time the S&P Global debt upgrade to investment grade.

The panel went through some stocks at 52-week or all-time highs, including DHI, MMM, PG, TTD; most of those we didn't actually realize are at highs.

On Fast Money, CNBC's Eamon Javers reported that there's "rhetoric" from the Democratic Party but "no definition even of what price-gouging is." Karen Finerman said the party is trying to "build up Kamala Harris."

Karen said of CAVA, "This is sort of Chipotle 2.0."

Guy Adami boasted that he has no idea who Sydney Sweeney is. Guest host Sara Eisen told Guy, "You're under a rock. She is the It Girl right now." Tim Seymour admitted being "clueless on this." Karen Finerman stated, "I do know who Sydney Sweeney is."

Sydney, by the way, played one of the Manson Family characters in "Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood."

Joe says market risk for 10 days is ‘specifically related to Nvidia’

In a sleepy Halftime Report on Wednesday (8/21), Joe Terranova mentioned the NFL Christmas Day games (we're going to hear about those for months) on NFLX and stated that a 735 target for the stock "is too low." (This writer is long NFLX.)

Joe said the "calendar" is about the only reason to bet against the market right now, though there have been big gains and "it does probably need a pullback."

Then Joe narrowed the scope of the conversation, stating, "The risk is specifically related to Nvidia ... within the next 10 days." Judge noted the NVDA earnings report is "a week from today." (This writer is long NVDA.)

After the A Block, Judge brought up CRWD, stating, "I feel like we talk about it almost every day." (This writer is long CRWD.) He said JPMorgan made it a top pick with a 330 target. Joe praised the CRWD management team and stated, "I think the cybersecurity names are back once again."

After a technical glitch, Bill Baruch beamed in remotely to explain that he bought November QQQ 450 puts, for protection "if the market starts to roll over." Make of that what you will.

Karen Finerman on Fast Money said of M, "The deal's over."

Bill’s timing the market

It's true that Halftime Report/Fast Money is/are supposedly trading shows, and the shows indeed should be about trades.

Sometimes, however, people seem to be overthinking it, such as Bill Baruch, who every couple of weeks is dialing in to explain how he's reversing a position he put on just days or weeks earlier.

Bill on Tuesday (8/20) dialed in to discuss trimming NVDA, AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL, META and SNPS. Bill said he trimmed "between 10 and 20%" in those names. (This writer is long NVDA and GOOGL.)

OK, fine, fair enough, he's trimming.

Bill cited as his rationale "8 straight up days" and that the rally has happened with "4 rate cuts being priced in." Bill asserted, "There is a lot of resistance right here."

OK, that's where we start to question whether Bill can effectively call the market day to day and/or whether someone long AAPL for 2 years will do better than someone who is, for reasons that escape us, trying to trade it every week.

Meanwhile, PYPL has somehow gone up recently, so Josh Brown is interested again, though he freely admitted, "I have lost money in this name before." Brown cited the "incremental moves" made by the new CEO.

Kari Firestone joked that she remembered "the last time Josh bought it, because we had sold it, and I wish Josh luck." Kari said if retail holds up, "it's good for PayPal."

Josh is sticking with MMM and says he likes the setup.

Rob Sechan took yet another victory lap on buying LLY a long time ago (which doesn't necessarily mean it's a great stock to buy now).

Judge brought up PANW and CRWD to Josh. (This writer is long CRWD.) Josh said there's a "secular trend" in cyber spending "that's only going in one direction." Josh said he thinks CRWD "has upside" but cautioned, "it's still a premium valuation," evidently not agreeing with Bryn Talkington's statement on valuation a day earlier (see below).

Also missing Bryn's point, Rob Sechan said LULU is the cheapest valuation since COVID lows, but he conceded it "may someday be a tax loss candidate this year."

Steve Liesman via phone told Judge that Jay Powell in 2022 was "unconditionally hawkish" and in 2023 was "conditionally hawkish." Now, Steve expects the Fed chair to be "conditionally dovish."

Josh Brown once again trumpeted NDAQ.

Guy Adami on Fast Money mentioned "The Needle and the Damage is (sic not part of the actual title) Done."

Bryn says valuation is a ‘terrible, horrible’ way to forecast stocks

The stock market concept of "valuation" is one of the more curious things you hear about on television.

It's sort of the light saber of "value" investors, who always have a good story from March 2000 to explain why they don't buy tech stocks.

This page has regularly questioned (partly because Judge never does) exactly how, as so many Halftime Report panelists claim day after day, "valuation" can be a predictor of stock performance.

On Monday (8/19), Bryn Talkington impressively didn't wait for any prompting from Judge or anyone else, bluntly stating, "Valuations by the way are a terrible, horrible, non-correlative metric, um, overlooking at 1-year forward returns. So just like, it doesn't matter at all. There's just no correlation between future returns and- on 1 year in valuations."

No one, including Judge, said anything to the contrary.

Chris Hyzy: ‘Very, very difficult to stop this market from going higher’

While we were waiting for the Democratic Party to finally put Joe Biden on stage Monday (tip: they wanted you to see her in prime time, not him during the late show), we took note of the stock market analysis on Monday's (8/19) Halftime Report.

But actually, the strongest market call we heard was from Chris Hyzy on Closing Bell, when he told Judge, "It's gonna be very, very difficult to stop this market from going higher."

On Halftime, Bryn Talkington cautioned about getting too skeptical of the market and falling for "recency bias" from the aftermath of the 2022 annual Fed gathering. "Historically, if you go back, markets are actually up, um, 2 weeks after Jackson Hole," Bryn said.

Joe Terranova said the big recent gains aren't necessarily a reason to sell. "When it has that type of V-shape pattern, that's generally the point where you make new all-time highs," Joe said.

Joe again advised sticking with megacaps while conceding there will be a "moderation" in the growth.

Kevin Simpson said he's "hard-pressed" to recall a 2-week period like the one we just had. He thinks stocks may not keep going up "in a straight line, but I think the bull narrative holds true."

Bryn said she thinks the trend of companies buying AI chips from NVDA is "intact." (This writer is long NVDA.) As for moderation, Bryn said the QQQ has a cumulative 3-year return of 33%, "that's it," while 97-99 was "a hundred-plus percent."

Joe questioned why some people view positive AMD headlines as negatives for NVDA. Judge said NVDA was up 2% and he wondered, "Who said this deal was bad for Nvidia? I haven't heard any of that." Joe claimed "there's a couple notes out there on social media (snicker) and competing networks (snicker)." Judge questioned if the notes Joe purportedly saw on social media are "real notes." Kevin wondered "what are the other networks."

Joe made a social media joke about his Final Trade, EQT.

We always hear about selling upside calls; almost never hear about buying upside calls

Joe Terranova on Monday's (8/19) Halftime noted PANW is almost back to its February "breakdown level" of 360 but cautioned about "spending fatigue." Judge said Joe's description of PANW sounds like what they could be saying about CRWD. Joe said CRWD has a "longer timeline" than PANW for restoring confidence. (This writer is long CRWD.)

Joe explained why he sold ITA; it's not really worth going into.

Bryn Talkington said if you think TSLA is debuting a robotaxi in mid-October, you need to "rethink" that. Bryn said "there's a lot of support" in the stock over $200. In fact, Bryn's Final Trade was to sell the TSLA December 250 for $18.60.

Judge said Evercore lifted MCD to 320. Kevin Simpson said he doesn't think it can top $300.

Kevin touted selling FCX 47 calls (unclear which month) and, as always, talked about the "annualized cash flow" from selling this call. Bryn said she sold January 50 calls.

Joe admitted he sold the GLD "way too soon."

Karen calls the Ford Flex ‘one of the worst cars ever’

On Friday's (8/16) Fast Money, Karen Finerman postulated to guest host Sully about just having the year's best week in stocks that "part of the reason we had the best week was still residual, leftover, something or other from the pressure that was on the market last week from the unwind. I think."

Late in the show, Robert Frank reported on the classic car auction in Monterey. Karen Finerman said Lotus is "not a bad car actually," but "I have one of the worst cars ever — a Ford Flex."

Sully argued, "Oh I love that car. The wagon? The square wagon? It's an awesome car!"

"It's awesome-looking, but you have terrible blind spots," Karen explained. Karen said Lotus was up 12% "on no news," maybe because there were "Loti" (sic not the Creedence song) for sale at the show.

Sully for whatever reason thought the show was ending with about 5 minutes left (once in a while, Judge is way off on the minute count also) and introduced all his friends in the gallery. That shot revealed Karen Finerman's ensemble of chic white pants and white sneakers. Julie Biel was on the program but did not mention swimwear.

Either way, Jim’s right

Early on Friday's (8/16) Halftime Report, Jim Lebenthal seemed to offer up competing views of the financial markets at the same time.

Jim said he sees new highs by year-end, then asserted "this is a time to be fully invested" while also asserting, "This is also seasonally a terrible time."

Judge, sans tie, opened the show asking Josh Brown about the Stonehenge discovery, "Are we heading to new highs?"

Josh said to look at "what's been rallying," and from that, "you have to conclude that, yes. The market is in a buying mood."

Josh said, "People got too bearish all at once on the economy, and they've had to reverse themselves."

Josh marveled at the beta in NVDA and said the stock is "its own casino." (This writer is long NVDA.)

Josh also marveled at DECK buying Hoka for just $1 million 10 years ago. However, he doesn't own DECK.

Stephanie Link a couple times brought up buying CRWD on the rebound, stating the "breach" (sic meant "glitch" or "outage") won't be "that big of a deal in the long term." (This writer is long CRWD.)

Josh bought TTD for his personal account. "I think you can buy it here for an impending breakout," Brown said.

Josh also bought SG, citing a "breakaway gap in this chart." Brown said that in Manhattan, "There's never a line outside," which is a good thing because "nobody has time to wait in line for lunch."

Brown said SG has a concept called "Infinite Kitchens" from buying a robot startup a few years ago; its Naperville, Ill., store "basically" functions as a "vending machine." Josh suggested the company is a "robotics play" that could license the technology to others.

Judge and Santoli talked up this week's Taking Stock (in the Cramer slot). Santoli said "we're trying to synthesize, uh, what mattered and, and maybe didn't as much this week," as well as a "debate" about what previous year/cycle August 2024 resembles. Guests were Liz Young Thomas and Dan Greenhaus.

Rob Sechan, as most of Judge's panelists do nowadays, dialed in to trumpet the big day for HRB. Rob said, "In the last year, it's up 80%, outperforming 6 of the Mag 7 names." Judge claimed "it's up near 40% year to date," when it actually appears to be up 33%, with a dividend yield of about 2%.

On Closing Bell, Judge yet again called Aug. 5 a "panic attack."

Belski predicts retest
of Aug. 5 low

More than halfway through Thursday's (8/15) Halftime, Judge was asking Brian Belski for a "high quality buy basket."

After a bit of speechmaking, Belski revealed that he buried the lede, claiming, "I think we're gonna most likely have a retest of the low that we made last Monday."

"Oh really?!" Judge responded, surprised.

No other panelists on the Halftime Report jumped on that, but Joe Terranova on Closing Bell separately predicted, "Anytime there's a correction in the market ... you're going to see corporate buybacks," as well as the "retail community" buying up 5% pullbacks.

Judge opened Halftime asking if this is Goldilocks. (And the fact he's asking that question kind of tells you the answer.) Belski opened the show stating, "I think that 25 basis points might not happen in September."

Liz Young Thomas (Judge almost left off the "Thomas" during Final Trades) said the markets have gotten "jumpy" about data (pronounced DAY-ta), but the data is "solid." Jim Lebenthal admitted, "I feel good."

Jim claimed that small caps are a place where you can get a "bang for your buck."

Later in the program, Judge was still talking about Tom Lee's ridiculous small-caps-50% call, which is about as ludicrous as those TV commercials where Whitney Tilson claims to have anticipated numerous major stock market moments and only got out of the business because he got tired of making money for rich people.

Regarding C, Jim said he and Mike Mayo "see absolutely no reason why this trades at a discount to tangible book (snicker) value."

After the A Block, Jim made the case for CRH.

Guy says Jeremy Siegel was having an ‘out-of-body experience’ during Jeremy’s ‘emergency’ rate-cut call

On Wednesday's (8/14) Closing Bell, Jan Hatzius got top billing over Jeremy Siegel.

But Judge eventually got to Jeremy, and, regarding his "emergency" 75-point rate-cut call of last week, Jeremy protested to Judge, "By the way, I didn't say there was a recession, I didn't say it's a bear market, I didn't say dump your stocks." But he allowed that if given a do-over, "I would've stated it differently."

A couple hours after that, Guy Adami on Fast Money said of Jeremy's commentary, "Everything that he said implied everything that he just said he didn't mean."

"Right. Which is a head-scratcher," Mel said.

Karen Finerman started to say that if the Fed had announced exactly what Jeremy prescribed, then ... and Mel finished the statement, "the markets would go haywire."

Guy offered, "I don't know what he was thinking that day. It was sort of an out-of-body experience for him clearly."

Bryn, Shannon disagree on the merits of Rick Rieder’s recommendation

Judge opened Wednesday's (8/14) Halftime replaying Rick Rieder's clip on Closing Bell a day earlier in which Rick first said stocks a year from now will be higher but then said "seasonals aren't great" for reasons such as "election" and "Mideast" (how much are stocks up since Oct. 7?), and ultimately recommended "de-risking."

Joe Terranova said Rieder's advice "sounds very logical," but he wouldn't sell megacap tech, which has been "remarkably resilient."

Joe said the Russell just had a "false rebound."

Bryn Talkington said she's "at odds" with Rieder's forecast because it's a timing call, he thinks stocks will be higher in a year, and if you trim now, "when do you get back in," as "timing is so difficult."

But Shannon Saccocia said "I disagree, Scott, with Bryn," because "I do think we're gonna see some more volatility" and the "boost" from a presidential year tends to "come a little bit later, closer to November."

Rob Sechan said the Fed "seems to be living on current data or in the past."

So much for culture: Judge wasn’t the slightest bit interested in the Stonehenge mystery reported by Bertha

Judge on Wednesday's (8/14) Halftime Report brought up "regulatory risk" regarding what the Justice Department might do to Alphabet.

In a remarkable example of candor, Judge posed a question about how it seems like the companies "write a check, if anything," and "pay the fine" and it never moves the stock, and do we need to "reconsider" how much regulatory fears are baked into stocks.

Joe Terranova indicated agreement; "They pay the fine, and they move on." Rather, he said the biggest investor concern for Alphabet is "level of spending."

Hours later, the Fast Money crew took up Alphabet vs. Justice Dept. Steve Grasso and perhaps the others think the sum of the parts broken up might be worth more than the current company.

Karen Finerman predicted, "I kinda think that we will get bored with this story shortly, and that we'll go back to the thing that will drive Google in the short term is, How is Google doing in its business."

Gene Munster said if we woke up tomorrow to an announcement about Google being broken up, he would expect the stock to be up "probably 5% plus."

Judge doesn’t really need to put together a panel at Post 9; everyone calls in to talk about their new buys

Stephanie Link on Wednesday's (8/14) Halftime Report dialed in to say she bought CMG, citing the strong management team aside from Brian Niccol.

Joe Terranova though was still skeptical, stating, "The one thing that bothered me was the fact that Scott Boatright ... he's the interim CEO" and not (yet) permanent.

Joe, though, admitted that when he came home the night before, his kids were eating Chipotle.

Joe touted tech, in Tony Pasquariello's terms of "the sword and the shield."

Rob Sechan said of scooping up NVDA a week ago (probably somewhere around that gift (as Jon Najarian would call it) price of 92-92), "We literally (we could check out the accuracy of that word, but whatever) bought it on the lows on the show that day." (This writer is long NVDA.)

CNBC's Dee Bosa offered "here's the rub," that many megacaps are "still expensive" compared with the last 5-10 years.

Judge said Wells Fargo cut its FANG price target from 230 to 231; "the research into that is- must be astounding," Judge deadpanned, without admitting that this whole $1 drop is probably the reason it got mentioned on his program. Judge added that DVN was "cut to 55 from 57." Bryn Talkington lamented of DVN, "the market does not like this name."

On Fast Money, Grandpa Guy Adami warned, "This is happening before our very eyes: The unemployment rate is going higher whether you like it or not, and the market is not pricing any of this in."

Joe likens Niccol departure to Brady leaving the Pats

Judge on Tuesday's (8/13) Halftime Report went straight to the CMG-SBUX management shake-up and noted CMG is in the JOET.

Joe Terranova lamented that "the rules are the rules" and he can't do anything about CMG right now, though, "If I had the ability to do something, I would sell it," given that Niccol is "a Hall of Fame CEO in the restaurant industry. He's the best."

Joe even said, "It's the same type of effect, the same concern that you have when Tom Brady left the New England Patriots and went to Tampa."

Joe conceded "there's a lot of excitement" in SBUX, but he'll wait to buy the stock. Judge noted SBUX isn't cheap. Joe conceded the company's headwinds but stated, "Niccol brings excitement."

Stephanie Link said it's not a case of "all is lost" at CMG, as Boatright has a "great reputation." Stephanie predicted Niccol will split off the China operation from the rest of SBUX.

Joe at one point countered that CMG "still needs that stewardship."

Judge said just a day ago, he asked the panel about excitement in SBUX and got "crickets."

Joe said the move is "really bad timing" for CMG, because Ackman (snicker) is "kinda looking for the exit somewhat," and the stock had begun to stumble since the end of June.

Stephanie said "the stock is down 30% from the highs," always Halftime Report folks' favorite metric.

Judge reported that Trian had been building an SBUX stake, and now suddenly "they're out." While Judge delivered that report, the screen text detailing his report misspelled Mellody Hobson. (#somuchforAI) It was corrected moments later.

Judge said Brian Belski is the show's only panelist who owns SBUX; Brian joined remotely to trumpet the trade that he said he put on June 1. Then Brian's connection went out.

Connection restored, Belski said he'll hold SBUX "for a while" and stated SBUX's "peak P.E. was at 50 times." He likened it to buying NFLX 2 years ago. (This writer is long NFLX.)

Rob Sechan, one of many panelists who wasn't really on the show but beaming in remotely, at one point said "Chipulte" (sic pronunciation) (haven't heard one of those in a while).

Judge decides most of his panelists should dial in, even if they weren’t booked for the show

Stephanie Link on Tuesday's (8/13) Halftime Report again talked about buying a "small position" in CRWD recently. (This writer is long CRWD.) Before a commercial break, Judge teased this as a new move, when Stephanie actually announced it last week. (Judge at one point said "Crowdstike" (sic).)

"They'll get through this issue," Stephanie asserted, conceding "they're gonna have to lower numbers," but she thinks it's got a "sticky customer base."

Joe Terranova said cybersecurity is an "enduring thesis that we'll be speaking about 2 years from now." (Only 2 years?) (That statement/argument made by Joe is like circa 2007-08 when Fast Money panelists constantly said to buy fertilizer stocks because "people gotta eat.") Joe said PANW, long one of his favorite names to talk about, hasn't recovered from the "spending fatigue" it talked about in February.

Meanwhile, Jim Lebenthal, who wasn't on the official panel of the day, joined remotely to talk about ONON. Jim said ONON missed the quarter "by a little bit," which hurt the stock premarket, but Jim said the full-year outlook must've turned the stock around on Tuesday. Jim said ONON's technology is "spectacular."

Kevin Simpson joined remotely to talk about trimming MCD (Zzzzzzz). Kevin suggested the price to sales (Zzzzzzzzz) is a little high based on historical trends.

Rob Sechan beamed in to talk about HD (Zzzzzzzzzzz).

Joe sold MCK (Zzzzzzzz); he said he was in June 5 at 576, and he sold Thursday at 568.

"You don't allow a winning position to become a losing position," Joe said, though it sounds like that's exactly what happened given that it was 630 this month.

Joe said he thinks he needs to go back into the "old reliable" XLG.

From that discussion, Judge launched in to B of A's fund manager survey (Zzzzzzzz) that found sentiment at a 7-month low and a buncha money moving into fixed income, to the point Judge is seeing headlines about 60/40 (Zzzzzz) being "back."

Rob said he's sticking with LLY despite being up "200%" since he initially bought. (Uh oh, can't sell it, 'cause they'll have to pay taxes.) Joe said he's staying with NFLX despite the fact it "stalled out" at $700, which was "discouraging" to him. Joe mentioned those Christmas Day NFL games (he didn't mention that one of them is Kansas City-Pittsburgh). (This writer is long NFLX.)

Jim says Tom Lee could’ve walked down (ridiculous) Russell prediction, but ‘Good for him’

Judge on Monday (8/12) on Closing Bell was referring to last week as a "panic attack" at every opportunity. Judge also referred to Tom Lee's still-50%-by-year-end call on the Russell, which also came up during Monday's Halftime Report when Judge replayed the clip from last week.

Jim Lebenthal and Kari Firestone both saw the Lee interview; Jim said Monday, "I think 20% is reasonable" and added, "I thought he had a chance to walk it back to like 35%. He didn't take the opening. OK, good for him."

Whatever the Russell ends up doing (20% from here to December, that's a robust gain), Kari said rate cuts are more important for shoring up the economy than giving Russell companies cheaper financing.

Jim said he thinks retail sales matters more than the other upcoming data. Jim said we could get a "false signal" from July's weather "that then gets reversed next month."

Santoli described the market as "kind of adrift in no-man's land."

Savita hasn't been on Halftime in ages, but on Squawk Box earlier Monday said, "I think the idea that we're gonna see a real hard landing unless the Fed cuts excessively is not necessarily the story." Savita added, "I really like large cap value stocks here."

Phil Blancato on Monday's Fast Money said he's "probably the only guy on the Street" who thinks the Fed won't cut in September. (It's a fine bold call, but honestly, at least one person makes an against-the-95-100%-consensus-Fed call pretty much before every meeting ... and we're not sure we've ever seen 1 of them pan out.)

‘Rather AI than the metaverse’
(a/k/a Chapek is on the board of Masimo; other than that, we’re not sure)

Sarat Sethi on Monday's (8/12) Halftime Report explained what he sees as the issue with META.

"I think the negative bar on it Scott is because we don't know when Zuckerberg comes out and says 'I'm going to do something else.'"

Judge and Kari Firestone asked "what's the something else?" Sarat said he owns it because it's "cheap," and it's cheap because of that spending risk.

"I would rather they do AI than the metaverse," Sarat said.

Sarat bought WDAY. Bryn Talkington stated, "When Sarat buys something, I think it's always, like interesting." Bryn said you have to "pick your spots" in software.

Bryn shrugged off iPhone updates as "incremental."

Bill Baruch beamed in remotely to talk about buying more NVDA. (This writer is long NVDA.) "We did trim Nvidia back at 130," Bill stated, but he had started "buying back" around 115. He mentioned the "c" word regarding last week's trade — "capitulation" — and said that last week around $100, "I had to buy some more."

Bill also bought more ORCL. Bryn said she thinks NVDA got "washed out" last week, but she's got a "nice position" in the stock already, so "I don't need to add here."

Jim Lebenthal trimmed PARA and bought more DIS (snicker). Judge said buying DIS isn't "all that intriguing," but Judge was interested in the PARA trimming.

Jim said "the ultimate problem" with PARA is that "analysis doesn't matter here" because of a pending deal decided by 1 person. Jim said it's a "low probability" that the stock gets another bidder, but he doesn't want to unload it all just on the off chance the stock jumps 10-15%. Jim said "I like what they're doing" at DIS. (And who's going to be the latest successor again?) (2nd Iger tenure looking a lot like Joe Gibbs'.)

At the end of the show, Judge brought up ALB as "the worst performer" in the S&P on Monday. Bryn agreed it's a "stinker" and said earnings expectations were 46 cents, "and they came in at 4." Bryn said it was a "terrible performer" last year too and may be a "tax loss, uh, sale for us."

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman offered, "If I were a real speculator at some point in here, I would probably buy some JetBlue calls."

Adam Parker basically confirms nobody was talking about yen carry until after it happened, despite claims by Joe and Bill

On a special episode Friday (8/9) of Taking Stock, which took place during Cramer's hour and which Judge had touted for days, Adam Parker offered some insight into people's awareness of the yen carry trade.

"I did this, um, risk dinner with 10 folks on the buy side in the middle of this week. And zero people said that they, uh, you know, had anything about the Japanese carry trade as a risk until they heard about it ex post."

Adam further added, "I searched every earnings call transcript for every mention of the yen, and there really weren't many."

That's interesting, because on the Halftime Report on Monday (8/5), Joe Terranova called the day's trading "a liquidation of the carry trade" and claimed, "It's something that I've been talking about over the last several weeks." Also on that same show, Bill Baruch stated, "I've been on the show a couple times during the past month or 2 saying that my fear of black swans would be a Japanese yen move."

Elsewhere on Taking Stock, which was hosted by Santoli and sort of co-hosted by Josh Brown, in the category of "Producer Should've Figured Out Beforehand Whether These Whiteboards Would Show Up On Camera," Josh rated the importance of the yen carry trade going forward as a 3. Santoli apparently held up "5/8," but it wasn't readable.

Josh though opined that news of the Buffett sale of AAPL was "the story that broke the Nasdaq's back" and had an "outsized impact" on Monday.

Tom Lee thinks small caps could still end up 50% this year

Tom Lee, star guest of Judge's Closing Bell on Friday (8/9), mentioned the VIX futures curve inverting early this week and said as it "uninverts," it "tells us the worst of the panic is behind us," though there could be "ripple effects."

Lee said, "I wouldn't be a seller of any of these megacaps here."

Judge reminded Tom that Tom made a call "months ago" with Judge that small caps could be up 50% (snicker) this year and whether Tom wanted a "mulligan" on that.

Tom said he's still "very constructive on small caps" and that "the upside is at least 50%." He said the call 'works" when the market believes rate cuts are "imminent." He added, "I still think 50% could happen before year-end."

"Wow. Wow," Judge said.

Judge asked Bryn Talkington to opine on Tom's call. Bryn said the jury's out as to whether the economy is only "slowing," or "stalling."

Jim says he’s ‘gonna speak for all 4 of us’

Steve Weiss wasted little time on Friday's (8/9) Halftime Report in expressing skepticism about the stock market.

"I actually, uh, am troubled by the quick recovery, because I think you needed that dose of reality," Weiss said.

"I don't think we're out of the woods yet. Next week is going to be a very challenging (snicker) week," Weiss said, citing PPI, CPI and "industrial production" (snicker) and "retail sales" (snicker).

Weiss grumbled, "Yesterday, it was like Monday didn't happen."

Judge said Tom Lee says "The worst is over." Kevin Simpson said, "I hope he's right."

Judge said it's a "remarkable story" that the S&P for the week is down half of 1%.

Jim Lebenthal insisted there was "hysteria the whole weekend" just days ago during the glorified Flash Crash, then Jim made a statement on behalf of the group: "All 4 of us — I'm gonna speak for all 4 of us — we knew that was hysterical," Jim said.

Judge protested, "Hey I don't think at the- at, at the ugliest part of Monday morning anybody knew anything" (even though Judge later Friday told Tom Lee, "I don't know that Monday rose to the level of an emergency situation").

Jim said "I apologize" for speaking for all 4 people at Post 9, but that, when one of Jim's strategists tapped him on the shoulder on Monday at 8:30 a.m. and noted the VIX was at 65, Jim's response was, "Are you kidding me???"

But as far as smooth sailing, Jim said, "Of course we're not done. Of course. That's not how these things go," apparently knowing of a sample size of more than 1 for what's happened this week. "Maybe Tom Lee is right. Love him, hope he's right. The odds are, he's not right that the worst is over," Jim added.

Jim: Shari ‘not thinking rationally’

Steve Weiss on Friday's (8/9) Halftime Report said even the "ultra-pricey consumer" is seeing weakness, cherry-picking names he wants to highlight while he shrugged off demand for SHAK as a result of "a unique brand."

Weiss again tried making his rate-hike-lag-effect argument, an argument he's been making for more than a year, saying no one expected the rate-hiking cycle "not to have had an impact" but admitting that "people (himself) have- they've been wrong on the timing," but "they haven't been wrong on the result. The result is still coming."

Kevin Simpson said he bought AAPL on Monday; he said META is a "candidate" for his shop to buy, "but it's going up so much that we can't seem to get an entry point here."

Weiss allowed, "I do think the megacaps are cheap if you're looking out a year or 2." His CNBC disclosures indicate he's long AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, META, MSFT, NFLX, NVDA and TSM (otherwise kinda known as the QQQ). (This writer is long GOOGL, NFLX, NVDA.)

Jim Lebenthal said that for semis in 3-12 months, "these stocks are likely to be a lot higher because of the growth rate for chips." Jim said NVDA is "on sale" with a PEG ratio below 1.

Weiss said he added to TSM and NFLX.

Kevin Simpson said MPC has "a long way to go to the upside." Kevin said if CSCO sells off, he'll buy more.

Late in the show, Jim said of PARA, "There's this SkyDance deal that's gonna go through, and frankly the only word I can use to describe that deal is 'cockamamie.'" Jim then talked up free cash flow and other positive trends but said that's overshadowed by the deal. Jim admitted making "mistakes" with the stock, and, referring to Shari Redstone, revealed, "My biggest mistake was getting in with a controlling shareholder who is not thinking rationally."

Karen: ‘Not that much has changed in the last week’

We had hoped that CNBC's Halftime and/or Fast Money on Thursday (8/8) would take up Julie Biel's very intriguing comment of a day earlier (see below).

They didn't; OK, whatever.

On Halftime, Josh Brown again played down the recent volatility, stating, "Historically, this is what happens at the start of a cutting cycle," and Josh asserted again that the market action "has been normal."

Judge told Jason Snipe that "there was a fairly, uh, sizable panic attack" on Monday. Judge said the Nasdaq during the Monday lows was down "more than 6%," while at Thursday lunchtime, it was only down "1.25%" for the week.

A couple hours later, Judge opened Closing Bell asking his panel if Monday was "one of those panic attacks." Liz Young Thomas agreed it was a "panic attack," but "I don't think it's over; I think this yen thing will resurface (snicker) again (sic redundant)."

Also on Closing Bell, Steve Liesman delivered a news alert on "cool as a cucumber" Barkin's comments on the economy and inflation. Judge said "It sounds a little offsides" from what Powell said last week.

Judge touted Santoli hosting "Taking Stock" on Friday night (in Cramer's slot), which apparently will include Josh Brown.

Karen Finerman on Thursday's Fast Money observed that the yen-carry unwind was "already happening" at the time of last week's employment data and therefore was "exacerbating" the response. As a result, "I feel like really not that much has changed in the last week," Karen said.

Josh says INTC should go private

Thursday's (8/8) Halftime didn't contain many groundbreaking pronouncements about the financial markets, but it was impressively chock-ful of a lot of vigorous stock commentary.

Stephanie Link bought CRWD. Her first rationale was, like CNBCers always say, "The stock is down 41% from its highs." Josh Brown made an interesting point, stating, "Some of the biggest winners over the last 10 years have had massive issues," such as when "people were crying on TV" (snicker) about META a year and a half ago.

We thought about that for a moment. First of all, we don't think spending concerns about META, or the endless META whistleblower spree, is the same as what happened to CRWD. TSLA certainly has had "issues" that could be considered as "massive" as what CRWD is dealing with, but those have been related to management decisions, not the performance of the cars. NFLX has been slammed a few times, but naming something "Qwikster" doesn't seem as devastating as grounding all kinds of flights.

Then there are BP and BA, which seem to have yet to recover from major accidents.

We can definitely see a reason for buying CRWD, but Brown may be a bit premature in his optimism.

(On the other hand, Karen Finerman on Fast Money questioned the financial impact if CRWD actually paid the entire amount of damages that DAL is claiming and noted CRWD is down from 369 to 240, "so I think this, this too shall pass.")

Josh, Stephanie and Jason Snipe all own AMZN. Josh said, "I honestly don't understand why it's trading where it is. I think it's just misunderstood."

Josh said of INTC, "I honestly think it should be a private company. I think it should be an LBO, somebody should take it private, that way they don't have to report quarterly to Wall Street, and they can figure out their next business model, their next avenue of growth, in privacy." (We never understood how a company can better turn itself around without a stock ticker than with one, but whatever.)

Jason Snipe loaded up on more GS, a stock that gets touted on the program nearly every day. Jason also bought DHI.

Judge said ABNB's report was a "disaster." Jason sold MGM, citing "softness" in Vegas and Formula 1.

Bryn Talkington bought more PLTR, a stock that gets a disproportionate amount of attention on the show, although it was as Judge noted up about 16% for the week. Bryn said we'll look back on Monday as a "black swan event," and it traded down to 23 that day, and "I knew they were gonna crush earnings."

Bryn also bought more IBIT, saying she "took advantage" of it dipping to 28. Josh talked about MS giving its advisors the "green light" to buy this stuff. Bryn said MS won't be the "last" of the banks but "probably the first of the banks." Bryn closed out covered calls on NVDA and said with the huge call premiums in big tech names, they've been "wonderful names" for selling upside calls during sideways or down markets. (This writer is long NVDA.)

Judge noted no one on Thursday's panel owns LLY. Judge said PFE got an upgrade, but Josh Brown wasn't too interested in discussing it. "The Street does not trust the stock," Josh said. Jason called AZO a stock to "accumulate." Josh suggested HD would be "the type of stock" that Berkshire might start buying, although anyone buying stocks based on whether they think Buffett will buy it is probably adopting a low-percentage strategy.

Judge said UAA was having its best day since 2018. Jason Snipe's Final Trade was QCOM; he said the stock is "30% off their June high."

Guy Adami on Fast Money said he doesn't see any upside for PARA beyond "12 bucks or so." Steve Grasso said "you can't get excited about any name in the space, even Netflix." (This writer is long NFLX.) Karen Finerman pointed out Netflix is "years ahead" of rivals in being cash flow positive, so it's the "Eli Lilly" of the space.

Julie Biel out-funnies Sully with most intriguing quip heard on CNBC this year

On Wednesday's (8/7) Fast Money, which was guest-hosted again by Sully, Julie Biel said "a lot of us are still trying to figure out what are the drivers" of this market; then Julie really got people's attention wondering, "Is it interest rates, is Mercury in retrograde, you know, is it the PMI that's saggier than I am when I'm wearing a bathing suit. Like, I don't know."

Guy Adami said, "I would push back on that Julie, but, you know, who am I to say."

This page would just add ... hopefully it's OK to comment on this subject #uhoh #hey,wedidn'tbringitup ... Julie should have no concerns about this topic.

Santoli gives away famous book/movie plot

Bringing up his favorite head of hedge fund coverage, Tony Pasquariello (who appears occasionally on Closing Bell but never Halftime), Judge on Wednesday's (8/7) Halftime Report said Tony "literally just dropped a new note" and used "all caps" to say the jobs report was NOT a new trend; Judge said Tony called what happened over the weekend a "global margin call."

Kari Firestone said she returned to work Monday from vacation and thought "oh my God, what a day to start," but "Monday didn't turn out to be so bad."

Waffling like l'eggo my egg'o, Jim Lebenthal said there are "2 things that can be true," which is that this could be a "very good buying opportunity," but also that the next couple weeks are "likely to be volatile." (So Jim's right either way.)

"It's also likely that we haven't seen the highs in the market for this year," Jim asserted.

Jim dubbed the weekend action "hysterical."

Judge noted how the multiples of all kinds of Megacap Tech names have slid in just recent days. "These stocks have come down a lot," Judge said. Jim said multiples have to be viewed with other factors, such as PEG ratio. Joe Terranova said the semis have worked off "excessive" positioning and still have strong fundamantals and buyback authorizations.

The JOET just bought SMCI (gulp). Joe said it had "remarkably powerful momentum" in Q1, but it had a "significant misstep" in fundamentals with a margin miss. Joe said the ETF is equal-weighted, so that "buffers" some of the pain from the drop.

Judge also noted Joe's ETF "recently got out of Shopify in the rebalance" (oops). Joe stated, "I see what Shopify's doing today. I'm totally fine with that." Joe boasted that he's got AMZN and MELI in ecommerce.

Steve Weiss dialed in to say he bought more GS. (However, Judge didn't bother to ask Weiss about why MRNA was regarded as a buy in the 300s and 400s.)

Describing this week's market for the Midday Word, Santoli said it's "on the surface, encouraging in the sense that you don't see this headlong liquidation rush."

Santoli said it's "legitimate" to say, "We probably overreacted to 1 jobs report."

He added, "I always say, whenever you have one of these market accidents, uh, it's- it's 'Murder on the Orient Express.' Everybody on the train did it ... not to spoil a 90-year-old novel."

Judge hasn’t said whether he caught the Marisol exhibition yet in Buffalo

Jim Lebenthal and Judge agreed on Wednesday's (8/7) Halftime Report that DIS was down on park weakness. It was no surprise at all that Jim hailed the streaming update (rather than, for example, wondering why they don't shut the division down and just license the stuff to NFLX and make gobs of money without the massive spending), stating he's "pleasantly" surprised that the division's profitability came a quarter faster than he expected.

Jim said he's not making a "huge retail bet," but he's in CASY and ONON.

Joe Terranova said he's not sure he agrees with the Wells Fargo call on CMG as the "top rate cut play."

Judge said Bernstein has put a 95 on UBER as a "top pick." (This writer recently was long UBER but has no position.) Judge asked Joe if the stock is "back." Joe said he wouldn't say it "went away," a curious description given that it cratered twice recently after reaching the mid-70s. Judge said it had a "big pullback." Joe said he'd say "yes," it's back.

Joe said, "The pressure is on Eli Lilly for this report."

Joe said AXON, at a record high, is "a little bit rich on valuation." The JOET bought it last week. Joe said "price action wasn't exactly exciting" in ANET off the earnings report.

Jim's Final Trade was AMZN: "If I liked this a few weeks ago at 195, you know I love it at 165."

Karen’s Called Shot: Finerman nails Monday-Tuesday market (but wavers on following her own blueprint)

Tuesday's (8/6) stock market action fulfilled a sensational forecast made by Fast Money's Karen Finerman on Friday.

On 8/2, Karen predicted, "Monday, we probably sell off again, and then I would look to be buying things on Tuesday."

On the surface, this is an extraordinarily prescient call and a contender for Call of the Year. In terms of finesse and nuance, it seems like it's maybe a half-day behind, as, based on charts we saw, Monday morning might've been the worst of the selloff and thus the time to buy.

Even so, Karen correctly predicted a major uptick. Yet on Tuesday's Fast, she surprisingly was not satisfied with her own accuracy. (She was not on Monday's show.)

First, Grandpa Guy Adami on Tuesday offered, "I don't believe we're out of the woods," before explaining that bulls would've preferred to see on Tuesday the big flush early, then the rally late.

Guest host Sully asked Karen what changed from Monday to Tuesday. "I think that it was just overdone yesterday," Karen said, agreeing with Guy that she'd "much rather" have seen the market down 500 points Tuesday, "and then end up 300."

Karen revealed, despite her statement Friday, "I bought nothing today."

Judge, Josh haggle for minutes over whether Monday’s market was ‘run of the mill’

Judge opened Tuesday's (8/6) Halftime Report explaining that the stock market "had one giant economic panic attack yesterday."

Judge said Barry Bannister says it's "too soon" to buy, while David Kostin says people "typically" profit from buying 5% selloffs. Joe Terranova said "without question" he agrees with Kostin; "this feels to me like August of 2015." But he said the next 30 days will be a "volatile environment," and we could retest Monday's S&P low at 5,119 (at which point, some of us would be backing up the truck).

Josh Brown said he doesn't see an "urgency" to be putting on trading positions, unless you're doing trading "by the hour." Even so, Josh said it's "baseline obvious stuff" that "you don't sell a 60 VIX; you buy a 60 VIX." (That's true, except at times when Congress is negotiating a TARP package.)

Josh then really got Judge's attention by stating that what happened over the last few days is "extremely normal," even though "people who have been sitting in cash for 10 years" made a "concerted effort" to "tweet things out in all caps (snicker)."

But Judge cut in, "I don't think yesterday was run of the mill anything."

"I think it was," Josh said.

"Do we generally have pullbacks the magnitude of what we did yesterday? Is that normal?" Judge said.

Josh said it was "2½ percent." Judge questioned if that was at "the lows." Josh said, "That was what the day ended up being." Judge said, "That doesn't matter ... it's how badly stocks sold off to start the day."

Josh mocked a "Mackintosh" column in the WSJ comparing Monday to 2008. (The headline actually referred to 1987.) (But no one said 1937 this time.) Judge protested, "I didn't say it was reminiscent of anything."

Judge tried to tell Josh that we just went from the Fed chief talking about "normalization" of the labor market on Wednesday, "to a full-blown panic after the release of the jobs report that we were going into recession. ... To Friday and then Monday, we're panicked about a recession. Did we over, did we overdo it?"

"The Fed chair said that?" Josh blurted.

"Said what," Judge said.

"We're panicked about a recession?"

"No he didn't say that. He didn't- he didn't say that. He didn't say that. If you were sitting here, it'd be easier to have this conversation ... That's not what I said," Judge insisted.

Joe seeemed to think a lot was accomplished Monday. "There's a lot of speculation in the market," and we "worked off a lot of that leverage yesterday" and came out "relatively unscathed," Joe said.

Joe added, "You can make a strong argument that hedge funds and speculators and institutions are going to be somewhat adverse (sic meant 'averse') to stepping back into the market and taking risk," which might keep a "sideways range" into the fall, but Monday is "probably not too far away from the worst moment we're gonna see in the next couple of months."

Flash: Typical UBER customers are ‘affluent’

On Monday, Judge thanked all his Halftime panelists for showing up (as if they couldn't go an entire hour without fielding calls from clients); on Tuesday (8/6), somehow, even people who weren't panelists on the show had time to call in and trumpet trades.

Kevin Simpson was one of those people, mocking "everyone else" who was "asking for the Fed to come out and do an emergency rate cut," while he was looking for "opportunities," and one was buying AAPL around 200. Kevin also bought AXP.

Rob Sechan bought NVDA and joined remotely to explain why. (This writer also bought and is long NVDA.) Rob said ORLY was trading at a high P.E. (snicker), and he used that cash for NVDA to capitalize on a "recent valuation reset." But he only took a "half" position because there's risk "in the short run." (Yep, hopefully people will be giving it away in the low 90s again soon.)

Jenny Harrington said the "rotation" in the stock market has actually been "not caring about valuation (snicker) into caring about valuation (snicker)." (Translation: Don't buy Megacap Tech, buy these irrelevant low-P.E.-ratio stocks that no one cares about.)

Josh Brown said he cashed in on GLW on Friday while he "still had a gain," and he added to AMZN.

After the A Block, Josh got to introduce the UBER quarter. (This writer is long UBER.) Josh said it was "one of their best quarters ever," and even with the gain, it's still "way off the highs," always one of the favorite categories of CNBCers. "I'm as bullish as I ever was," Brown affirmed.

Joe Terranova said it's important that Dara mentioned that the Uber customer is an "affluent consumer," as if people had previously thought that it's typically poor people who take $250 car rides home from JFK (see a few months below).

Joe predicted PLTR, one of those stocks that we've never figured out why people on this program talk about so much, "takes out $30 easily."

Judge said CRWD got an upgrade to a buy from Piper Sandler, but with a 290 target, down from 310. Josh said his outlook (staying long) hasn't changed; he said we're not "fully certain" about the financial impact of the recent outage.

Joe said he's been "skeptical" of RCL for "many months," but it's in the JOET for "quite some time," so "the strategy knows better than I do."

Joe again talked up CDNS.

Guest host Sully, CNBC's Funniest Anchor who cracked up the Fast Money gang like they hadn't giggled in decades, said DIS is raising streaming prices. Karen Finerman said price hikes and ad tiers have worked for NFLX, so that's why it "absolutely makes sense" that DIS was up Tuesday.

Guy Adami said the only Guns 'N Roses song on his Spotify playlist is "November Rain."

Suddenly, multiple people are claiming they were warning about the yen trade

On these kinds of days, you better bring your tennis shoes, and Judge did, to Post 9. (Well, OK, they're "sneakers"; we're not sure if they qualify as "tennis shoes.")

Joe Terranova started off Monday's (8/5) Halftime Report claiming he's been talking about this for weeks.

"I truly believe what we have witnessed in the last 24 hours is a liquidation. It's a liquidation of the carry trade. It's something that I've been talking about over the last several weeks," Joe said, explaining, "The long leg of the trade is long Nasdaq, tech companies, AI and halo-adjacent companies ... it needed the technology names to continue to price higher ... and it didn't get it."

And the yen rallied "12% in a quarter, and everyone's short the yen."

Joe said the VIX shot to 65 at 8:30 in the morning, reaching March 2020 levels.

Later in the show, Bill Baruch dialed in; he said he scooped up some META and AVGO. Bill also claimed, "I've been on the show a couple times during the past month or 2 saying that my fear of black swans would be a Japanese yen move and- to the degree that it has. Even though I forecasted, it's tough to time, it's tough to manage."

Well, hmmm ... we can't prove that Joe and Bill have not been talking about the yen multiple times in the last month or 2, as this page does not run a complete transcript of the CNBC Halftime Report program can you imagine actually doing that?.

But when we scroll down through archives on this page, we don't see the word "yen" anywhere, until Friday 8/2, when Rob Sechan brought it up.

So the notion that Joe's been warning about the unwind of the yen carry trade for "several weeks"? Um, NOT.

Judge: Data could be signaling that Fed has made ‘one of the biggest blunders in the history of central banking’ (Um ... how could they possibly throw 50 flags on 1 play?)

Steve Liesman on Monday's (8/5) Halftime Report praised the "great discussion" and singled out Joe Terranova's commentary (above) about the yen carry trade.

Steve pointed to the 2-year yield rising and the ISM service index and comments from Goolsbee to help convince the market that things aren't "careening out of control towards a recession." Also, "You're not seeing a blowout in high yield."

In one of his most stark pronouncements ever, Judge said Jerome Powell used the term "normalization" on Wednesday, and, "It would be one of the biggest blunders in the history of central banking if the Fed chair on a Wednesday says, 'Look, things are good, they are where we want them to be, this is just a normalization in the labor market,' and then by Friday, not 2 days later, less than 48 hours, that a jobs report would signal that they are so offsides that- I mean you're gonna throw 50 flags, um, that they are so clueless as to what the current condition of everything is."

"That's a great observation, Scott," Steve said, adding, "I thought they should've gone in- in July."

Weiss didn’t mention how MRNA is doing, a stock he trumpeted in the 300s and 400s

Halftime Report traders on Monday (8/5) didn't really seem fazed by the stock market cratering.

"My clients are calling in looking to buy stocks," Josh Brown said.

Jim Lebenthal said he's feeling "serene calm," even though that may sound "blasé or casual."

Shannon Saccocia suggested that an "intermeeting" cut would "stoke the flames that we do have more of a recessionary concern than I think is really justified."

Steve Weiss explained that he came into Monday short QQQ, VOO and the IWM, "and I covered those, pretty early, I'd say about 7:30 or so," because the market seemed "so emotional," which is "generally an opportunity." He apparently made a quick buy and flip of META. Weiss cautioned, "This is not for everybody," stating "I've been in business for 35 years" and he's not buying anything that would really sink his portfolio if he's "completely wrong."

Weiss said this is "just a confluence of events all coming together." Weiss said he's been saying of the economy for a "long time" that the yen was going to upend financial markets "we're on borrowed time." (Translation: The "lag effect" trade from the rate hikes that Weiss was still adhering to well into 2023 might still be happening (even though it's probably not).)

Judge read a tweet from Steve Eisman saying "I just don't see a recession." Grandpa Weiss said the consumer isn't that great and that Eisman is "not an economist."

An emergency rate cut would be one thing. Imagine if they needed this Congress to pass an emergency TARP package.

The JOET bought JPM, viewers learned on Monday's (8/5) Halftime Report. Joe Terranova stressed that in the financial component of the JOET, "overwhelmingly this is about insurance companies and financial services."

Jim Lebenthal said he's not in the recession camp, so he's not selling bank stocks.

It's not often that we turn to ETF Edge for Halftime topics. On Monday, Bob Pisani had Jerome Schneider from Pimco as a guest. Schneider said, "Investors need to get- cash out of cash, move out of money market funds." He added, "The time is now to move out of cash."

Judge asked Steve Weiss about that advice. Weiss said, "Assuming he didn't mean right now, today, I think he's right," because TINA is "coming back."

Jim said "ballast" about 4 times and stated, "This is a good time if you're looking for ballast to buy bonds."

Judge asked Josh Brown about Buffett's AAPL move. Josh was "surprised" because cutting a position in half is kind of rare for Buffett, and this is a big stake for Berkshire. Josh said it's "not true" as media have reported that Buffett's percentage of cash "is some incredible amount relative to, uh, what it has been historically." Josh said it was higher in Q2 2020. Josh pointed out that AAPL's multiple was a lot lower when Berkshire started buying.

Without clarifying which month, Judge said UBER reports Tuesday, and "Stock's down near 20% in a month." (This writer is long UBER.) Weiss again told how he sold it recently out of concerns about the consumer (the lag effect from all those hikes).

Judge concluded the show giving credit to panelists simply for showing up. "I appreciate everybody being here. Uh, I know your phones are ringin' off the hook from clients, et cetera," Judge said.

Karen: More selloff on Monday, then start buying Tuesday

On Friday's (8/2) Fast Money, Karen Finerman predicted, "Monday, we probably sell off again, and then I would look to be buying things on Tuesday."

Karen suggested that "one data point of better employment" would prompt the market to "calm down."

On the Halftime Report, forecasts weren't that specific, but opinions were similar.

Guest host Sully, CNBC's Funniest Anchor, opened the show saying Judge "picked a good day to be off."

Sully asked Jim Lebenthal if Friday's action was an "overreaction," and Jim said "yes."

"The bond market is really what I think is driving this," offered Rob Sechan.

"The most crowded trade on the planet was short yen, long tech. Period," Rob said, asserting it's "rapidly unwinding."

"I definitely think we have a jittery market," said Bryn Talkington, citing raised chances for a 50-point cut in September.

Jason Snipe said we're in more of a "normalization" than an "obliterate slowdown." He said "we've been top-heavy all year" in the AI trade.

Rob pronounced the consumer "completely bifurcated."

Sully said he went to a boat/RV dealership in Wisconsin last week, and they said, "We haven't sold anything in months."

Jim at one point said he thinks this is just a "normal summer correction."

Bill botches the INTC trade

Guest host Sully on Friday's (8/2) Halftime Report said INTC was having its worst day since 1974.

Bill Baruch dialed in to say he bought it at 33 (snicker) "a few weeks back" and it was the "smallest position in the portfolio," and he sold it on Friday.

Bill referred to the conference call by "Gessinger" (sic) that Bill said was just a "monotone" with a "lack of enthusiasm" and just a "disaster."

Sully said Pat Gelsinger made "over a hundred million dollars in compensation in the last couple years," though "I don't have anything against him." Sully later clarified "a lot of that compensation is tied to stock performance," so he doesn't know what Gelsinger will actually end up with.

Jim Lebenthal said in Gelsinger's defense, "he made a choice" to get into the foundry business, "I compliment him on that," but it's a "failed strategy." Jim said that in the foundry business, "You're in competition with your own customers." But he said Gelsinger "didn't have much options."

Mario Gabelli, when he used to make appearances on the show, talked up GPC all the time

Apparently a little chippy about Mike Mayo's underweight call on MS, Jim Lebenthal on Friday's (8/2) Halftime Report stressed that there's nothing "wrong" with MS.

Jim said he thinks Mike could've taken the call to a "neutral," but "he doesn't pull any punches."

Guest host Sully questioned why we call MS a "bank," when it's a "different type of company." Rob Sechan said most financials are above their 50-day and remain in an uptrend.

Sully trumpeted Leslie Picker's interview next week with Jamie Dimon in Kansas City, saying it was Monday, saying "cue promo graphic," then noting once the graphic appeared that it's actually Wednesday. "I got the guy right, and the host right, but the day wrong," Sully explained.

Meanwhile, Jim said he'd be buying AMZN if he didn't already have a large position.

Sully said his wife will say "straight up" that "Amazon is killin' CVS, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, Duane Reade and others."

Jim sold GPC (Zzzzzzzzzzz); Sully incorrectly claimed it "might be a first reference to Genuine Parts on Halftime, ever." Jim said he wanted to buy ONON instead. "They're really up and coming," Jim explained.

Rob said "there's a whole host of reasons" why people will keep their cars for a long time before getting another one.

Bryn Talkington, who had a quiet show (there was no discussion of TSLA), said she bought more FCX at 45 and sold the January 50 calls for $3. Jim praised the trade and said the metals space has been "pulverized," so it's a good time to buy.

Jim talked up XOM and once again argued that nat gas prices will rebound.

Bob Pisani talked about the "significant rerating" in tech multiples, citing NVDA in the past month.

Dan Nathan notes interesting parallel to 2023

Judge opened Thursday's (8/1) Halftime Report saying Thursday's market seemed to be having an "econo-fear selloff."

Judge had a couple of botches, saying Jeffrey Gundlach indicated a day ago that "he thinks they'll go 150 basis points this year," when actually Jeffrey said "certainly by a year from now" (see below).

Judge also referred to the released WSJ reporter as "Evan Gersowich (sic)."

Meanwhile, Josh Brown said the market is back to, "Bad news is bad news."

Josh said the data suggests the "reality" that the Fed should already be cutting.

Liz Young Thomas suggested "things are getting too cool, too quickly."

Stephanie Link said the market is struggling with "Powell not being consistent with what he's been telling us, and, and the whole committee."

Bill Baruch said he added to stocks on "strength" on Wednesday (#badtiming), so Thursday's action is "concerning." Bill said Wednesday's gains in Big Tech had not quite "dissipated" yet on Thursday.

Bill bought AVGO a day earlier, in the morning ahead of the Fed. "It's a very tactical play," Bill said, though he's "not happy" with Thursday's action.

Josh said that in NVDA, "the volatility here is insane. This is a casino," a point echoed on Fast Money by Dan Nathan. Josh said not to be fazed by the "noise trading" in the stock.

It wasn't mentioned on the show, but MRNA, which used to be touted by Weiss even when it was in the 400s, was taking a plunge Thursday.

Josh once again touted the new CEO of SHAK amid the stock's huge day Thursday. Josh joked again that he's not only a shareholder but "client."

On Fast Money, Dan Nathan pointed out that the stock market in 2023 peaked around July 18, slid into October, then started rallying again, and this year, the high is July 16.

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