CNBCfix - Fast Money Review

‘The Trump Trade is back on’

Kevin Simpson at the beginning of Friday's (1/17) Halftime Report observed that "if yields come down, stocks go up," but the only question about the 5% 10-year is when will it happen.

Brenda Vingiello said the market rally needs "earnings to definitely come through."

Steve Weiss said Scott Bessent's testimony on Thursday (which preempted Thursday's Halftime Report) "was pretty good" and "very strong" and we should have "confidence" in him. Weiss said Bessent said he'll be "apolitical" and is "very focused on the deficit" (snicker) (yeah sure, Scott Bessent is going to rein in the deficit).

"It appears today, the Trump Trade is back on," Weiss said, singling out bitcoin.

"I would ignore these money market flows," said Bryn Talkington, adding it's "just a small crumb of data."

Weiss: Buy S&P or Nasdaq instead of AAPL

Kevin Simpson on Friday's (1/17) Halftime Report said, "Everyone freaks out when we sell Apple," even though he's sold it 10 times in 13 years.

Brenda Vingiello said that relative to the Mag 7, AAPL revenue growth seems "limited," and reax to its AI product is "mixed."

Steve Weiss said, "You might as well own just the S&P index or the Nasdaq index instead of owning AAPL because you get the same performance without worrying about the volatility when they report earnings."

Brenda sold AMD, saying AVGO seems like the bigger winner. Brenda cut half of her ADBE position; management's guidance was a "disappointment." Brenda added to WYNN, but SNOW was a new addition.

Guest host Frank Holland questioned, "Why Wynn right now." Brenda's rationale seemed less than convincing; she said she expects Macau's recovery to continue, and there's a new property due in the UAE in 2027.

Kevin said he wrote a covered call on UNH on Tuesday expiring 3 days later on Friday at 545, it brought in $10.80, "a 1,500% annualized premium."

Bryn Talkington suggested selling NVDA May 160 calls for $7.45.

Kevin bought TPL at $900; he trimmed after it ran to $1,600 but bought more in the "$1,300 range."

Weiss admitted he actually bought SLB. "I think the service companies are the way to go," Weiss said. Like nearly all of his positions, "it's a starter position."

Weiss said NFLX is going after "non-U.S.-speaking (sic) (snicker) countries," a slight twist to his regularly bullish NFLX outlook. (This writer is long NFLX.)

Kevin Simpson said he bought HOOD "last Friday at $40." He sees "a lot more potential" for this stock. Kevin said HOOD is getting "into the right businesses, not sports betting."

Weiss said of crypto, "The animal spirits here are alive and well; the momentum will continue," or basically what he's been saying since last autumn.

Grasso has ‘outsized bet’ in bitcoin

On Friday's (1/17) Fast Money, Karen Finerman said that "at the end of 2024, the U.S. had $489 billion worth of gold. Um, and what was it, 20, 10 billion dollars of bitcoin ... 20? ... There's a lot of room between here and there."

Steve Grasso said "you're only going to have a maximum of 21 million bitcoin ... I have an outsized bet in bitcoin; I think it goes much higher."

Steve said that when he watches streaming, he always starts with NFLX (this writer is long NFLX) and maybe he'll "wind up" watching Paramount and Hulu, only if there's some reason for him to go there. Steve said much is expected of NVDA, and "nothing" is built in to the price of INTC. Steve also contended that Donald Trump "ties himself" to the stock market and bitcoin; "he's not going to let either one fail." Grasso also maintained, as he has previously, that Donald Trump will not let X fail. (This writer is long X.)

CNBC’s Fast Money
live event is sold out

If you were waiting to buy a ticket, you waited too long.

Halfway through Wednesday's (1/15) Fast Money, Melissa Lee brought up the show's Feb. 27 "live event" at the Nasdaq in which guests will enjoy cocktail hour with the panelists and receive a commemorative gift. Missy revealed, "Thanks to overwhelming response from our loyal fans, we sold out in record time! All the tickets are gone, in less than 48 hours. But if you missed out, don't worry, you can join the waiting list ... we might have future events as well."

Weiss declares ‘Valuation really is an arbitrary number’

Taking a victory lap of sorts, Joe Terranova on Wednesday's (1/15) Halftime Report told this story:

"I got a phone call Monday afternoon after the show, from a hedge fund manager whose name I will leave out of this conversation," but the caller noted Joe saying on CNBC that yields are near a peak (see below), and the caller wondered how Joe would feel Wednesday when "CPI comes out and the 10-year is approaching 5 and a quarter."

Joe said the CPI data actually "shakes some of the excessive short positioning in the Treasury market."

Grandpa Weiss, who should just buy the Mag 7 and call it a year but can't figure out whether he's "super bearish" or not bearish at all (he claimed with a straight face "I'm not bearish"), said if the job numbers continue at present pace, "you will see inflation return."

Weiss claimed that Joe was "very immodestly claiming victory and slapping down an unnamed fund manager."

"I think we're out of the woods for now," Grandpa added, but it's "too early to declare that we will see a cut in March." Judge asserted that the market had already "kinda been declaring" that there won't be cuts for the "foreseeable future."

Joe said the Nasdaq is "one place you could look." (Translation: Buy the Mag 7.)

Liz Young Thomas said we "can't declare victory" over inflation, but core CPI was "definitely some sweet relief."

In yet another correct jab on the show at P.E. ratio investing strategies (snicker), but not by someone who regularly jabs it, Weiss actually claimed, "Valuation really is an arbitrary (sic, he didn't really mean the number is 'arbitrary,' but that the judgments as to whether it's high or low are 'arbitrary') number, right. It's based upon historical, uh, you know, experience in terms of where these stocks are trading, where the market was trading. That's pretty much been thrown out the window as ETFs have taken control of the equity markets."

Jenny complains that stocks didn’t go down far enough

Jenny Harrington on Wednesday's (1/15) Halftime Report questioned if the new administration/Congress gets off to a bumpier start than what Jenny thinks the market expects; Jenny said the market is "anticipating a best-case scenario."

Liz Young Thomas said, "I think we already unpriced a lot of it though." Jenny complained that the market's only down 3%.

Jenny actually mentioned "our insane budget deficit," as though anything will be done about it.

Grandpa Weiss actually bought NFLX after he "sold some a few- a couple of weeks ago" because of "risk management," but the stock has "corrected," but it's not even a "definitional (snicker) correction." (This writer is long NFLX.)

Weiss touted pricing power and sports and noted how many popular Netflix programs are in foreign languages, there's "fertile ground" for international growth.

Those are fine points, but Kevin Simpson really said it best about a week ago (see below): Netflix has all kinds of levers to pull with advertising, and they're charging people less than they'd actually pay for the service.

Weiss has 1 great line

Joe Terranova on Wednesday's (1/15) Halftime Report stated that nat gas is going to be the "solution" to meet growing power demands.

Steve Weiss said the investment concern is whether there's "too much natural gas in this country." Joe said he "really" doesn't think so.

Weiss demanded of Joe, in what was his best question/statement/punch line of the year, "Tell me all the supercycles that were predicted that actually came to fruition. Give me even 1."

Not answering the question, Joe said, "OK. Can we just have a little mini-cycle."

Meanwhile, Weiss said if UNH trades down "significantly," he'd use it as a "buying opportunity," but he only has a "small position."

Jim Lebenthal joined remotely to take a victory lap on C (Zzzzzzzzzz). "It's now at 85% of tangible book value ... I see no reason that doesn't go to 100% ... and I mean, soon."

Later on Fast Money, panelists agreed with Jim. "There really was a lot to like," gushed Karen Finerman about Wednesday's bank reports. Tim Seymour said "the bank messaging was fantastic."

Whew — a day without Weiss expressing all kinds of ‘super bearish’ points and then claiming he’s not super bearish

Jim Lebenthal on Tuesday's (1/14) Halftime Report kinda indicated he'd prefer, despite Lourenco's statements this week, that his favorite $10 stock CLF simply stay away from X.

Jim said that as an investor in CLF, he "would like to get U.S. steel behind us." Jim said that buying "pieces" of X will "bring balance-sheet stress" to CLF.

Still, Jim predicted, "from here to year-end, you're gonna see positive returns on the stock." Of course. When has Jim ever not predicted positive returns for CLF.

Stephanie Link explained why she bought UNH, which Jim and Jason Snipe also own. Judge noted the tragedy in New York last year and the reaction to it but said it seems to him like those on the show who have bought the stock are under the impression "this too shall pass."

Jim argued that the system can't stick it to health insurers; "They need these companies to administer Medicare." Jason said Medicare reimbursement news a day earlier was "huge."

Jim noted the frenzy over Jeremy Siegel Day the calls for "emergency rate cut!!!!" 6 months ago.

Jim bought AZN and said it got a "knockdown" from China news last year.

Judge said it's "interesting" (snicker) that Jim trimmed AAPL when it's down about 10%. Jim said he's picking spots within the Mag 7 that he wants to "accentuate" (snicker). Jason said "they don't trade as a monolith" in the Mag 7. Jim said AAPL is a "core (snicker) member" of the Mag 7.

Stephanie said, "I made a lot of money in D.R. Horton last year and even in Home Depot."

Josh Brown presented an interesting chart comparing the 10-year yield with RKT.

On Fast Money, during a TikTok discussion, Steve Grasso said of SNAP, "if anyone needs a ban on TikTok," it's SNAP.

Anastasia stuns in white

The early portion of Monday's (1/13) Halftime Report turned into a go-round on 1) why stocks are slumping and 2) how long it lasts.

Judge opened the show about a "Bloomberg story that I saw today" about Goldman seeing a "big change in equity positioning from institutional investors."

Josh Brown said, "We literally told you this was going to happen. 2 weeks ago, and 3 weeks ago, on this show. ... There's a massive wealth management-driven move happening here that is 100% related to private clients telling their advisor, 'Don't you dare drop a tax bill on me in the last 2 weeks of this year. We're taking our massive Nasdaq gains next year at the earliest."

We're sure that's at least part of it. It does get into some of the weirdness involving taxes that this page has tried to address (but all of that is for another time).

Josh added, "It's tax. Listen to me now. I know this. It's tax."

Judge offered, "It may be that," but "it's also the change in- in interest rate."

Anastasia Amoroso, who buckled knees in white, said the January market "might be a struggle ... between the positives and negatives." Anastasia also cited "increasing odds of rate hikes," which she said are up to 35%.

Grandpa Steve Weiss said we have to look at the "symptoms and the causes of this," which is that bonds are "spiking because tariffs are reality."

Weiss then said he actually ties tariffs to national security. "I agree with taliff- tariffs, because I do think it's a matter of national security, and I do believe ultimately it will create jobs and increase the onshoring activity we see. But in the interim, it's like any other thing that's good for ya, right. If you wanna lose the weight, you've gotta put in the effort, you gotta put in the pain. And that's what we're goin' to see."

Josh asserted that tech-gain money is going to names such as HUM, VLO, CVS, "where everyone had losses last year."

In a bit of hyperbole, Joe Terranova claimed "The environment that we're in right now is the choppiest, one of the poorest environments to be transact- transacting in that we have seen since probably 2022. I agree that this is a short-term phenomenon." But that doesn't mean Joe's "running in" to "transact" (snicker).

Joe said the Dec. 18 Fed meeting is when all the momentum "broke."

Judge claimed if you took out UNH and AMGN, we "probably have a negative Dow."

Josh suggested the tax selling will be done by Jan. 15; Judge actually said that if Brown's right, "this is a great buying opportunity." Anastasia (did we mention that Anastasia has probably already won Halftime Report Outfit of the Year?) agreed that "this is shaping up to be a buying opportunity."

Weiss insisted, "Inflation's the problem."

That prompted Judge to wonder, "I don't know, man. I can't figure where you at. Are you super-bearish now?"

Weiss protested, "No I'm not. I don't know. I'm not willing to say that this is a buying opportunity just yet."

Joe said, "I truly believe we are near the top in Treasury yields."

Try to land a ticket for Fast Money’s Feb. 27 live event

Steve Weiss on Monday's (1/13) Halftime Report revealed that he trimmed IBIT; "it was an uncomfortably large speculative position, so I cut it back ... 10% maybe. Not a, not a big deal. Uh, actually I'd say a little higher than that."

Rob Sechan is a Pittsburgh Steelers fan; Rob said nothing about weekend football but said his shop bought AMZN, "we thought it was a good time to get engaged in (snicker) Amazon." Rob also bought NRG and QCOM.

Josh Brown said it looks like there could be a resurgence of "Merger Monday."

Josh said not to make anything more out of him getting stopped out of SQ.

Josh talked up BKR, EQT, KMI and LNG as among the "best stocks in the market." Maybe. We'll see how long that lasts.

Josh also said airline names DAL and UAL "should have your attention."

Josh said "the news is great" for SHAK long-term investors, but there's a "little bit of profit-taking ... little bit of sell the news." Josh even mentioned "the analog" of CMG and said SHAK "has the potential, um, to get to that type of a company."

Weiss' Final Trade was LDOS, saying the worst of DOGE is behind it.

On Monday's Fast Money, the panel discussed the developments in X, a stock/deal that gets mentioned on Fast Money far more than on Halftime. (This writer is long X.) Tim Seymour suggested the bid will be "above 40." Karen Finerman pointed out, "There's still a deal in place" that both parties want to pursue. "For a couple of months, I think there's still no clarity here." Guy Adami said "the timing is interesting" and that "somebody got a phone call" and was told to "figure it out" because "the optics around this are bad." Guy asserted, "It's not gonna be a straight line to 40," there will be a day when it's "back to 32."

Mel said you can try to get one of the 100 tickets available for Fast Money's live event on Feb. 27, it includes being able to join the crew for a cocktail hour, watch the show at the Nasdaq set, take part in a Q&A, receive a commemorative item and get "6-month subscription to CNBC Pro." Tim Seymour predicted the ticket prices will "triple" on Stubhub. (If we got a ticket, we'd demand Sully be there.)

Contessa Brewer described the L.A. devastation as "apocalyptic."

It’s a 3-peat: For the
Chiefs, and the Mag 7

Up until a few years ago, this page every January put together the toughest sports prediction challenge on the internet: Predicting the entire NFL playoffs before the first-round games.

Keep in mind that it's not like an NCAA basketball bracket — because of NFL seeding, it's impossible to know for sure who will play who in Week 2 until after the Week 1 games are over.

We had to give up that project a couple years ago when the NFL added a 7th playoff team in each conference, and guessing what the divisional-round matchups were going to be became impossible.

But we haven't given up at all on the Kansas City Chiefs, who seem like the no-brainer Super Bowl pick for this season. (Barring key injury.)

Skeptics point to all the close games this year. They weren't really that close. Honestly, we've been surprised at how the Chiefs' suspect offensive line has not only survived, but thrived, shutting out the Pittsburgh Steelers' pass rush on Christmas Day.

There's an obvious gap between the Chiefs and all other NFL teams.

The rest of the AFC field is filled with regular playoff losers. The Chargers are getting closer but aren't there yet. No way any of these teams goes into Arrowhead and wins a playoff game. Then we get to the Super Bowl. None of these NFC defenses is going to stop the 4th-quarter Chiefs offense. In fact, after two very close Super Bowl wins, we figure the Chiefs are due for a Super Bowl blowout.

Honestly, the stock market seems just as much a no-brainer. Maybe if the Federal Reserve starts redoing 75-point interest rate hikes, you'll want value stocks instead. That's not a bet this page is going to make. There are the Chiefs and the other 31; there are the Mag 7 and the other 493.

‘What small caps need is a recession’

Friday might've been a down day for stocks. But it was an up day for the Halftime Report.

Judge and his panel put together a crisp, great show with lots of provocative commentary about the market.

Josh Brown opened the show saying he's learned that "Every time the market sells off because the economy is too good, it's a buying opportunity."

"I'm not convinced that inflation is back," offered Jim Lebenthal, pointing to numbers at the start of last year. Jim said it's "healthy that expectations are being reset right now," however, "We may be in the middle innings of a correction."

Joe Terranova started to make a statistical point, "You go back to the 1980s (Zzzzzzzzzz)," but he followed it with a strong declaration: "What small caps need is a recession. Because small caps work coming out of a recession."

Moments later, Jim conceded "that's historically true," but "the last 3 years, we've seen a lot of historical patterns broken."

Jim said everyone's been saying we're "late cycle," but Jim thinks we're actually "mid- to early cycle." Josh said that instead of traditional classical economic cycles, we now have "events," and "for the last 15 years, we've only been in recession for 2 months," an interesting point that nobody ever talks about.

Joe claimed that if "you go underneath the surface" of the market, "you're beginning to see that the rotation (snicker) is actually happening, energy, health care, some of the defensive- defensive-oriented sectors that sat out 2024." (We're not so sure about that.)

Bill Baruch said the market's having a "slip" that will be a "buying opportunity."

Judge kept asking panelists about some big drops in previously high-flying tech stocks. Joe said a lot of the stocks they're talking about "kinda went parabolic" after the election, so "it's reasonable to see them fall back to where they were prior to the election."

Jim impressively explains what’s happened to the airline trade since the pandemic

Friday's (1/10) stock market was pretty bad.

But not for 1 stock — DAL, which prompted conversation on the Halftime Report.

Jim Lebenthal was as gung-ho on this stock as any in recent memory, saying "all things are going right," and he predicted it could go to a "10 multiple or higher." (Why Jim is trying to predict a multiple rather than share price, we don't know.)

Jim claimed Ed Bastian is "low-balling" guidance. Judge said "low-balling???? He- he said that this year is gonna be their best year ever."

Jim admitted "it looks that way," but "things can get out of control," which apparently means that Jim thinks the Street may not be taking Ed's comment too seriously.

Jim pointed out something that hasn't gotten enough attention — that in 2020 and 2021, some Halftime panelists (um, that would be Steve Weiss) constantly scoffed at airlines being "underwater" and 1) would never pay off the bailout and 2) would never have much business travel because everything was going to Zoom.

Jim said, "In the heart of the pandemic, everybody said, these things were dead, business travel is never coming back, we're doing Zoom. They figured it out. Kudos to them."

Well said.

Bill suggests all the bearishness for AMD is already priced in

Judge on Friday's (1/10) Halftime Report mentioned the AMD downgrade from Goldman, "the 2nd downgrade this week."

Joe Terranova noted AMD "peaked in early March of last year" and chuckled that he'd be happy if it merely stayed "range-bound." Josh Brown said it's a "dangerous name" given the competition.

But Bill Baruch wondered, "How much more bearish can AMD get at this point? ... At this point, I mean, you can only have some surprise upside news."

Josh noted it's "an AI stock that went down in 2024. That's like a, a Dave Matthews fan who doesn't get up when they play 'Ants Marching.'"

Joe claimed, despite what Bill said, the Street is "still in love" with AMD. Bill countered that last year, "being the only loser in tech, I mean how much, how much more tax-loss harvesting could it- could it withstand. ... Wait 30 days, let's see how this thing looks come middle of February." Bill added that we "may see some rotation" from NVDA to AMD.

Bill looking to add to IBIT

On Friday's (1/10) Halftime Report, Jim Lebenthal admitted the WYNN share price "sucks," but the "operational results are there to keep me in the name."

Bill Baruch said he owns IBIT and is actually "looking to add to that." Josh Brown pointed out how bitcoin holdings have become part of the everyday market, which has good and bad ramifications.

Jim's Final Trade was C (Zzzzzzzzzzzz). We wuz hoping traders had left that one in the rear-view mirror. Guess not.

On Fast Money, Contessa Brewer reported on the dire insurance/homeowner situation in Los Angeles. Contessa said insurers may be liable for some policies for which they haven't yet been paid premiums. Contessa also said homeowners who have a $4 million policy may find it will cost $5-$6 million to replace their home and thus they're "way underinsured."

Fast Money treat — Dylan visits Nasdaq set (and Susan Krakower, Mary Duffy, John Melloy are mentioned in 59th minute)

Honestly, we were sort of wondering throughout Wednesday's (1/8) Fast Money why the show was trumpeting its 18th anniversary particularly since the show actually has numerous "anniversaries" from when it started as a segment, then a bigger segment, then a prime time show, then a business day show, etc...., as though there was something significant about that number.

But in the final moments, we got our answer — original Fast Money host Dylan Ratigan was on hand to celebrate the permanence of the program.

Dylan, who attended Union College in Schenectady (that wasn't mentioned Wednesday), is the Tastylive/Tastytrade global editor, we learned. He also said he moved to Milan (in Italy, not Illinois) in 2018.

Guy Adami, who wore a jacket ("which I never, ever do"), said so many gracious things about Ratigan and Melissa Lee, you'll have to visit our home page to see them all.

Recalling the era of the show's early days, Karen Finerman said, "the precipice of financial disaster was just so enormous, right ... the rise of tech, the power, and how much money they make, it's extraordinary."

Meanwhile, Lawrence Golub, a special guest for the Fast Money 18th anniversary show who happens to be Mr. Karen Finerman, reported that consumer spending "looks pretty strong." Lawrence added, "We're expecting inflation in the 3's."

Karen observed of the Pacific Palisades, "If they can't get insurance, right, the property values have to go down, a lot."

Back to the anniversary ... it was somewhat of a major omission that Susan Krakower — by this official account, the actual creator of Mad Money and Fast Money — was going to go unmentioned, until Karen Finerman said to Melissa during Karen's Final Trade, "I just wanted to thank- it's been a privilege to be part of this, you, and Dylan, and thank you to Susan Krawkower and Mary Duffy and John Melloy for finding me and allowing me to do this"

The fact that Fast Money and Mad Money remain entrenched among CNBC's limited breadwinners strongly indicates Krakower made a prodigious imprint on the channel's success.

As a nice touch, some of the historical photos on Wednesday's program showed Pete Najarian. (Would've been an even nicer touch to invite the Najarii back for this event, but whatever.) (No sign either of Eric Bolling, Jeff Macke or Tim Strazzini.)

Wednesday, it was great to see Dylan Ratigan, who seems to be doing great. Dylan was not perfect. He was/is a sensational host, and his departure was a loss for CNBC.

Joe tries to claim a ‘box check’ for his botched NVDA call

Jason Snipe on Wednesday's (1/8) Halftime Report said the lack of NVDA details this week about "what is the here and now" was "somewhat of a letdown."

Jason concluded "CES was a little bit of a downer."

Jason noted "the last 6 months have been relatively flat for Nvidia."

Then Joe Terranova recapped his NVDA prediction from Monday (see below).

"I said the other day, uh, that I believed that the keynote address would lead to a new all-time high. Check the box. Got the new all-time high. That's not me patting myself on the back," Joe stated.

And as this page alone in the internet pointed out, Joe actually predicted Monday that the stock would "power" higher ... he did not say that "Oh the stock already is only pennies from the new 52-week high it's gonna hit and then reverse."

Anyway, Judge cut in Wednesday that last year, the stock climbed after CES, while this year, it did go up into the event, but "it didn't stay there."

Joe admitted, "It's very rare to see a stock trade to an all-time intraday high and then close challenging the 50-day moving average. You can't ignore that. That- that has significance."

Joe then offered an explanation for NVDA's dive, saying we have to "acknowledge" that NVDA has been "gameified." Joe said if you're a buyer around 150, you have to note "the momentum in the near term is down."

Finally, Joe stated, "Let's just acknowledge (as this page already did, a day earlier), that what I expected to happen did not happen, and now the momentum's rolled over. ... It will make a new all-time high at some point in the future."

Judge said AMD got a double downgrade from HSBC based on a less-than-impressive AI outlook. Steve Weiss claimed, "I never thought AMD would be competitive," then gave a speech about how he's never had a "core position" of NVDA and has grappled with how best to invest in this space.

Joe said "it certainly doesn't look good" for AMD's momentum and its place in the JOET. Weiss said it was "so asinine" and "made no sense" for AMD to trade for a year at a higher valuation than NVDA. Weiss said the AVGO bull case is "also overstated."

Weiss tries to argue with basically everybody

Boy did this get old fast.

Grandpa Steve Weiss, evidently irritated by Donald Trump's Greenland and Panama comments, decided to fight with basically everyone besides Donald Trump on Wednesday's (1/8) Halftime Report.

Basically, someone could've told him that the Kansas City Chiefs won last year's Super Bowl, and Weiss probably would've been screaming, "NO!!!!! TEPPER DID!!!!!!!!"

Anyway, late in the show, CNBC's Seema Mody reported on PLTR's slide and mentioned other software stocks.

Joe Terranova again advised waiting for PLTR; look for it in the upper 50s/low 60s. Joe said ... and this would prove a controversial comment ... "Valuations are rich if you continue to see yields move higher."

Judge noted high P.E. ratios of numerous software stocks. Joe said "Twilio looks great" and said ZM is "cheap" on valuation but was less enthusiastic on other names. Jason Snipe trimmed NOW and said the company's doing well but the 67 forward multiple is a bit of a concern.

Finally given a chance, Weiss bluntly stated that the valuations are "ridiculous" and that "if Joe thinks these are reasonable valuations, his wife must have a closet full of Birkin bags."

Joe protested, "Did I say I think they are reasonable valuations? I said Zoom is reasonable."

Weiss claimed, "What you said was, I'm paraphrasing, granted, you said, 'But is 5 reasonable. At 5% then I'd start to worry,' meaning that you're OK now," which isn't what Joe said.

"No, I said- No! I said as yields move towards 5%, these are gonna be challenged," Joe said. Weiss demanded a "ruling" from Judge.

Judge told Joe, "You, you said that these valuations were high because of where you- you know, with yields at this level."

Joe insisted, "The current price is a reflection, and the pullback in these stocks is a reflection, in (sic not 'of') the rise in yields." Joe said 3 months ago, valuations were "anchored."

Earlier in the show, Weiss insisted to Judge that "part" of deregulation is already in the market. Judge said extending the tax cuts is "not necessarily in the market." Weiss said "of course it's in the market."

Shannon Saccocia though cut in to say "I think the impact of deregulation is being underappreciated" and predicted an "M&A drive." Weiss argued that "funding in the private markets is still ridiculously tough." Judge said, "You runnin' for the hills ... you sound so negative." Weiss admitted, "I am biased towards negative, absolutely."

Judge says the difference with Donald Trump this time is ‘he’s not running for reelection’

Opening Wednesday's (1/8) Halftime Report, Joe Terranova stated, "The equity to bond correlation has turned negative," and we're being "held hostage" by Treasury yields.

Joe said there's "momentum as it relates to the Treasury market" and it's pointing to "higher yields."

Grandpa Steve Weiss said rising yields are "definitely" a "real problem" because they're providing an alternative to stocks and a "safety trade" if the U.S. tries to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal, which Weiss said creates "nervousness" and "instability."

Then Weiss basically said what matters is "inflation, inflation, inflation."

Jason Snipe said the "pace of rates" is "significant."

Judge said Weiss was "bailing" on the India trade "in numerous ways." Weiss claims he "made money" but not as much as he expected; he still sees supply chains moving from China to India, but he also sees "more onshoring."

Weiss questioned no one in particular, "Is it really pro-business if you get a cowardly move by Mark Zuckerberg on Meta to say, OK, anything goes now, and then, what do you- what are the advertisers gonna think?"

Joe said yields are an issue outside of the U.S. too. Joe said the "consensus" for 2025 has been "choppy 1st half, better 2nd half." Weiss scoffed, "That's always the consensus in the U.S. ... They can't say it's gonna be a bad '25. It's gonna be a worse '26."

Joe said he thinks "choppy" and offered, "I also think the president-elect cares what happens in the stock market ... the minute the stock market declines, he's gonna go 'Whoa,' he's gonna call his economic team and say, 'Hey, put somethin' out there to comfort the markets.'"

Grandpa Judge said, "I would only say that the difference this time is, he's not running for reelection, I think he cares more about what he cares about getting done (snicker) than necessarily how the stock market, tick by tick, reacts to what he does."

Weiss said "choppy" is the "best case."

Weiss actually correctly calls out b.s. about Nelson’s label

Judge in the 22nd minute of Wednesday's (1/8) Halftime Report announced "an exclusive uh that we've just, uh, got our hands on," which was Trian sending an "open letter" to SOLV shareholders.

Steve Weiss suggested companies have gotten more "emboldened" in telling off activists, and Peltz doesn't own enough to "influence the board," so "I don't expect much to happen there."

Judge said Nelson Peltz will argue he's "more than an activist, but a constructivist (snicker)."

"And that's b.s.," Weiss blurted. "If you're truly being constructive, you do it behind closed doors," Weiss added.

Weiss said that Weiss can call himself a 6-5, NBA player. Judge said not only has he seen Weiss' height, "I don't even need to see your basketball skills to know that's b.s."

"My skills are good," Weiss insisted, maybe his only funny line of the day. Weiss said SOLV "deserves to be cheap."

Weiss and Judge then haggled over how long Peltz stays in stocks. Weiss suggested Peltz will bolt early; Judge would be "shocked" if that happens here, "he's a pretty long-term holder" of stocks he's gotten involved in," Judge said, but Weiss said Peltz exited DIS once he got "relief."

Meanwhile, Joe Terranova bought TER, saying it's "finally gaining traction in terms of AI-facing exposure" and is "breaking out technically," but Joe suggested a "tight stop."

Judge said Cowen downgraded LDOS. Weiss said companies in that space are "in the crosshairs of DOGE."

Regarding Goldman's double upgrade of TRV, Joe said catastrophic losses for insurers have been "significant" for a few quarters, but the margins are resilient.

Joe said for CEG, Calpine would be a "good deal."

Steve Grasso: ‘Both Biden and Trump’ got the X decision right

Tuesday's (1/7) Fast Money included a spirited debate on the fast-moving developments in the X-Nippon Steel/CLF situation. (This writer is long X.)

Tim Seymour said of the blocking of the deal, "I don't really understand this," as it's "not 1950 in this country, where they made half the world's steel."

Steve Grasso reiterated a point he has made a few times recently: "I think you'll see a bailout," apparently of X, and that Donald Trump is "gonna figure out how to get 'em a billion dollars," either through "tax incentives" or "tariffs"; or "any way necessary."

Steve added, "I do see why it's a critical industry. And yes, Japan is a major ally, but they weren't always a major ally. ... It's about unions, it's- it's about a whole bunch of other things ... I'm a believer that both of them, both Biden and Trump, got this one right."

Melissa Lee, after airing statements from David Burritt and Lourenco Goncalves, said the commentary was "really outspoken"; then Tim and Mel agreed "he should be," and whether they were referring to Burritt or Lourenco wasn't at all clear and was a production lapse.

Tim and Mel made clear they don't see the argument for blocking the deal; they protested that Nippon Steel made promises about not laying anyone off. Tim insisted, "This isn't about unions." Steve said, "I think it's about foreign ownership." Karen Finerman said, "I think the reverberations could be much greater than just this 1 deal ... with an ally ... they're not welcome."

Steve said, "I also have a problem with China buying farmland next to military industries."

Mel said, "China buying farmland is far different than Nippon Steel investing in U.S. Steel."

Steve said, "I don't think it's that much different."

Mel said, "China is not an ally. Japan is an ally."

"Whether it's an ally or an enemy, why would we want to pull- put another country in charge of our steel industry," Steve asked. "It just doesn't make sense to me."

"We can't make everything ourselves, right," Karen said.

"We can make steel ourselves," Steve said.

"But they can help us, right," Karen said.

"I just don't want them owning it," Steve said.

Tim said Keystone Pipeline opposition "made no sense to me."

At the end of the show, Mel declared Mike Khouw the winner of the show's 2024 Acronym Challenge. These acronyms were talked about during the year but were more of an inside-joke thing than something we wanted to chronicle. Basically Mike picked bitcoin as part of BRAVE. Karen Finerman got 4th place basically only because of picking META in HELM, and Steve Grasso got 2nd, mostly for GOOGL and ethereum.

Despite Joe’s prediction, Jensen’s speech doesn’t ‘power’ NVDA higher

A year ago, Joe Terranova got red hot in January with a couple of Mag 7/broader market calls.

This year, it seems like he's already 0-for-1, and we haven't even had a full week of trading.

On Monday (1/6), Joe opened the show saying of NVDA, "It's gonna continue to go higher. It's gonna take out the all-time high at 152.89. ... I expect nothing short of a very optimistic, uh, address this evening from Jensen Huang, I think that will power the stock higher."

On Tuesday (1/7), the stock did indeed take out 152.89 — barely, by reaching 153.13 early. It quickly slid and finished the day down $9.

It's not in Marc Chaikin Land yet. It could always bounce back soon and "power" ahead as Joe indicated. So far, Joe's call seems a miss. For a day, at least, it seems the correct call was to sell the rumor as NVDA traded up at 152.16 Monday. If it's back over 150 this week, Joe could still have an early victory. Within a short period of time, we'll know whether Joe's forecast was accurate ... or a short-term top.

Josh says dividend-stock performance generally trails the S&P 500, says buybacks are a ‘better deal’

Rarely does the Halftime Report delve into any science (if that's the correct word) regarding stock investing (probably because some of that science utterly deflates the sentiments of several on the Investment Committee), but Tuesday's (1/7) Halftime Report produced an interesting conversation about dividend investing, courtesy of Josh Brown.

Josh stated, "You find a lot of people who got back into the market after the Great Financial Crisis, or sometime thereafter, but they allocated so heavily to the dividend factor, that they really missed out on a lot of what else drives market performance."

Brown insisted, "I am pro-dividend," but "54% of the time, it trails the performance of the S&P 500 over all 12-month rolling periods going back 30 years."

Josh explained how the 36% of retained earnings going out in dividends has been "pretty constant," but buyback spending has gone from "17% to 71% of all corporate cash," because "it's a better deal for stockholders."

Brown pointed out that demanding a dividend means missing out on stocks such as BRK-B, AMZN, NVDA.

Brian Belski said (basically) he thinks Josh is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but, "I completely disagree with you," stating that with dividends, "you can't look at dividend yield; you have to look at dividend growth."

Josh said, "I didn't say a word about dividend growth ... I'm talking about the dividend factor, which weights toward high dividend."

Belski agreed with Josh's comment that "Companies pay a high dividend for the most part because their share prices have collapsed," as Brown noted that dividend yields seem to go high just so they can be cut.

Josh said stats show dividends+buybacks leads to far stronger returns, and it's "completely false" that dividend stocks are "less volatile."

What Brown didn't get into was that a lot of people like the dividend stream and count on it in some way, even if, to our understanding, a better strategy may simply be to own a non-dividend stock and trim a few shares every quarter. Tax treatment can really affect people's mindset here even if maybe it shouldn't. But people can choose whichever approach they like. Brown's comments were most relevant in regard to what a high dividend (in terms of yield) often but not always signifies — a slumping share price and a place where the company can cut.

Josh unfazed by 5% NVDA pullbacks

At the top of Tuesday's (1/7) Halftime Report, Judge asked Josh Brown about NVDA's pullback. Josh said, "I try not to make too much of it."

Judge persisted that this is a "notable rollover," and Judge wondered, "Is this the breakout, or the breakdown."

Josh said there was nothing "at all" in Jensen's remarks that indicated any kind of a slowdown. Josh said NVDA is his largest position again. "I can live with 5%, uh, pullbacks. They don't, they don't affect me; they don't faze me."

Sarat Sethi said of NVDA, "It's gonna probably be dead money, or up and down, until earnings."

Stephanie Link called it "just a bit extended."

Someone makes CMCSA a Final Trade based in part on SpinCo

Stephanie Link happened to mention on Tuesday's (1/7) Halftime Report that inflation at 3% is "not horrible."

Judge retorted, "You cannot have a market that did all the work that it did (snicker) on the expectation ... of inflation coming down closer to target, and then now tell me that 3% is OK. It's not OK! It's not OK!"

Judge said MoffettNathanson downgraded AAPL to sell, "and their commentary I thought was worth reading to you as well."

Judge said the note said there's been a "great deal" of AAPL news recently, and "all of it's been bad."

Josh Brown said he doesn't disagree at all; "I don't understand what the fundamental drivers were behind the Apple rally." Sarat Sethi suggested, "It's a trading call. It's not an investing call." Stephanie Link said, "When I sold it, I was up about 35%." Congrats.

Brian Belski said B of A's cut to TSLA is just a "trading call."

Josh said SHAK has been a "spectacular winner," and he's not selling any of his stock "regardless of how much it's up."

Sarat Sethi touted FCX and the long-term need for copper but he said the trade is "gonna take some time."

Sarat bought more NSRGY (which is Nestle, not a stock heard often on the program).

Sarat said he's "selling my United and moving into Delta," which will be his "one and only" airline.

Josh again talked up RDDT's supposed monetization of one of the biggest "treasure troves" of (often stoopid) user comments that "LOMs" (we think that means Learning Object Metadata) will buy. Sarat's Final Trade was actually CMCSA, which he noted is "spinning off cable" (that would be SpinCo, which will be signing the CNBC contributor checks).

Judge bluntly says that Jim got buffaloed out of GM

Judge on Monday's (1/6) Halftime Report brought up GM and demanded of Jim Lebenthal, "Did you sell it too soon?"

Jim said, "Not by the numbers (snicker), I sold it at 57," but Jim said the question is "Should we get back into GM?"

Judge wondered, "Should you ever have gotten out of something based on an initial, 'Well, tariffs are comin'! Oh, I got to sell.' Which is what you did."

Jim responded, "I think the answer is yes, but I had experience, remember. I'd been in General Motors through the first Trump administration."

On Fast Money, Guy Adami said, "I don't think GM is out of the woods yet at all. And I think, in order to prove itself, it needs to close above 60. I don't see that happening anytime soon."

Joe predicts NVDA takes out all-time high

Joe Terranova opened Monday's (1/6) Halftime Report saying NVDA is "gonna continue to go higher. It's gonna take out the all-time high at 152.89."

Much of the NVDA conversation is everything you've heard before. Apparently Steve Weiss got a call while Jim was talking about NVDA having an "actually cheap" PEG ratio, prompting Jim to ask, "Are you with us?" Judge pointed out, "He's got a phone call coming in." Jim said, "Yeah. Jensen Huang."

Bryn Talkington suggested PLTR "trades down going into earnings this quarter." Joe said "I don't believe you reach for it right here," rather, look for it "somewhere in the upper 50s to the low 60s. I think that's the right spot."

If all the bitcoin in the world were locked away at Fort Knox, that would mean ... what ...

On Monday's (1/6) Halftime Report, Steve Weiss shrugged at what Judge said are "some" people making $250,000 bitcoin predictions, stating, "For me, it's a directional (snicker) trade" (as opposed to those other trades with no direction).

Bryn Talkington said the whole bitcoin reserve currency thing is just a "narrative" and not a "reality," but the institutional adoption is the "real deal."

Meanwhile, Bryn mentioned how UBER management thinks the stock is "undervalued." Weiss thinks more Ubers will be needed as "the work-from-home experiment is thinning out."

Jim Lebenthal said the DIS "narrative (snicker) has changed." (But who's Bob going to be replacing in 2028?) Jim is still talking about the final payment for Hulu.

Bill Baruch, who bought TSLA last year on Bottom Day in one of the show's best trades of 2024 (see below), joined remotely to say he trimmed AAPL. Bill bought MBLY and contended MBLY will be "in the thick of it" with autonomous driving. He sold TMUS for ... (drum roll) ... "portfolio management." Bill bought AMD, saying "this thing is way overdone to the downside."

Bill also bought more UBER, which was The Most Popular Stock On The Show.

Weiss actually bought UNH and made it his Final Trade. Jim offered RIG, which he admitted got "bear mauled during tax-loss harvesting in December."

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman knocked the notion of C trading at a supposed all-time high just because it did a 1-for-10 a while back.

Jim and Weiss accuse each other of arguing for the sake of arguing

Early on Friday's (1/3) Halftime Report, Jim Lebenthal said "I hate hearing" one of "these aphorisms" that "you have to own the Mag 7." Jim concluded moments later, "When people say to you, 'You have to own something,' it's just not true."

But he was just getting warmed up.

Around the 20th minute, Jim stated, "I don't hear anyone ... coming into the desk today and saying, 'Let's go load up on the Mag 7.'"

Jim made it sound like that's unusual.

We don't think we've ever heard a Halftime panelist advise people "load up on the Mag 7" or even that people "have to" own the Mag 7 ... even though it's been a phenomenal trade for the last 2 years and basically the last decade.

1) Jim is detecting clues anywhere he can find them that suggest it's better to own CLF (snicker) than any Mag 7 name; 2) Just because nobody mentions a trade on the Halftime Report doesn't mean it's not working — it can be perhaps quite the contrary.

Anyway. Jim's comment led into a fairly amusing dust-up with Steve Weiss, also on the set at Post 9, stating that he added to VRT. Weiss further protested that he's been "fully invested in the Mag 7."

Jim stressed that his point is that Weiss, Bryn Talkington (the day's 4th panelist but not at Post 9) and Jim have all been trimming and told Weiss, "You're not hearing me. You're arguing with me just to argue with me. I'm saying nobody's coming on the desk today and saying, 'I'm adding to the Mag 7.'"

Weiss said, "I don't wanna argue with you for the sake of arguing, like you're trying to do. What I'm saying is, there's a difference between trimming, because of portfolio management, and because of fundamentals."

Jim said, "We're talking different things, and you're getting mad."

Weiss said, "I'm not getting mad. I try to be very patient with you." (Imagine if they were talking about Park City slopes.)

Guest host Courtney Reagan said at the end of the A Block that it was a "jam-packed beginning of the show."

Despite Jim's commentary, Tim Seymour on Fast Money (keep in mind, it's only the 3rd day of the year) suggested, "I actually think that '25 could look similar to '24."

Trim every day ... trim, trim, trim ...

In a show full of stock-trimming revelations, Steve Weiss on Friday's (1/3) Halftime Report said he trimmed Alphabet, for Reason No. 1 on the program, "the position frankly just got too big."

Weiss again knocked Waymo's profitability and again pointed out how with Uber, drivers pay for the insurance and upkeep of the cars, his favorite observation of the UBER/TSLA/GOOGL sphere.

"Call me old school, but I want a person in the driver seat," guest host Courtney Reagan said. Weiss insisted that riding in Waymo is "fine" and even "great."

Later, Court noted Benchmark reiterated a "sell" on NFLX. (This writer is long NFLX.) Weiss of course trimmed that too, he waited until this year to do it, and it was "purely a ... (drum roll) ... portfolio management call. ... The position just got way too big," he said, after extolling how great and promising the company is.

Kevin Simpson, who was at Post 9, said 2 things about NFLX this page totally agrees with: "They haven't really figured out how to completely monetize advertising," and "you can charge us anything; we're not gonna get rid of Netflix."

Actually, AT&T went straight up last year

Opening Friday's (1/3) Halftime Report, Bryn Talkington said she trimmed half of her AAPL stake, saying she thinks it's probably just a "market performer" and it already had a good November-December.

Steve Weiss said he trimmed AAPL too, he had bought into a "major upgrade cycle, until I learned that they're just gonna roll things out gradually."

Jim "Don't Buy Mag 7" Lebenthal said he agrees with Weiss, and "I applaud the move" made by Bryn.

Kevin Simpson said he's "sold Apple 10 times over the past 13 years."

Weiss yet again, for about the 10th year running, brought up the possibility, "given the problems telcos are having, right, how the stocks are just being shunned," of telcos saying "no more subsidies; we're tired of supporting Apple." Jim said it's "reasonable" but we don't know "when."

Jim added, "You've said it before."

CLF hit a 52-week low on Monday (at least Jim’s clients won’t call and complain about buying a stock at an all-time high)

Might as well get it out of the way.

On Friday's (1/3) Halftime Report, after a discussion of the U.S. Steel pending bailout, Jim Lebenthal said he found a reason to buy still more CLF and noted that CLF made an offer for X a while back, "so certainly U.S. Steel could've done better."

Judge would've given Jim the 3rd degree, had Judge been there, but guest host Courtney Reagan probably doesn't know viewers' history of hearing Jim talk about CLF.

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman said of the X deal that Joe Biden is blocking, "This has been a crazy one from beginning to end." Steve Grasso said Donald Trump is "not gonna let this one fail," Steve is long X and thinks "it goes substantially higher."

Jim gets Weiss back with a good dig on energy

On Friday's (1/3) Halftime Report, Bryn Talkington said FANG will continue to be "somewhat of a darling" in energy.

When guest host Courtney Reagan turned to Steve Weiss and said, referring to energy, "such a loser," Jim Lebenthal said, "What about energy?"

Kevin Simpson chimed in, "I thought that, but I didn't say it."

Weiss said of Jim, "Here's the thing: Even if he says something funny, it's deliberately so bad, you can't tell if he's talking about Cleveland Cliffs again, or me."

Kevin Simpson said he's sticking with MSTR as a "leveraged play on bitcoin" and mentioned how you can "bring in massive cash flow" by writing calls against it. Bryn suggested IBIT and said she sold May 70 calls for "close to $4 in premium." Weiss said "you can believe" bitcoin is going higher because of the new administration.

In fact, for his Final Trade, Weiss predicted $125,000 "is the next stop" for bitcoin.

Weiss also bought more GS, citing "so much pent-up demand" in the IPO/secondary cycle, another point he's made numerous times in the last couple years.

Court asked panelists for a New Year's resolution; they mostly basically said, do a good job and pick the winners. Jim had no resolutions, stating that the change of the calendar "doesn't change who I am." Courtney said, "My resolution is to make more meals my kids will eat."

Karen: ‘Not a dry eye’ at EC when Tyler signed off on Power Lunch

Thursday's (1/2) Fast Money was guest-hosted by Tyler Mathisen, whose sign-off from Power Lunch in December was chronicled on our home page.

In incredibly classy remarks at the top of Thursday's show, Karen Finerman told Tyler, "It's so nice to have you in your retirement ... that sendoff a week or two ago, whenever it was, really, not a dry in EC. Anyway, we're lucky to have you."

Meanwhile, later, Guy Adami said there's "more pain on the downside" for homebuilders. But Karen said builders could be in a "sweet spot" in that there's "enormous" pent-up demand, but inventory isn't coming on-line yet, and she'd be inclined to give 'em a shot.

Jim plans a ski trip not realizing there’s a strike going on

Having a TV platform gives folks a chance to ... vent personal outrage.

Jim Lebenthal on Thursday's (1/2) Halftime Report complained that he was in Park City, which got 2 feet of new snow, but Vail Mountain "didn't let any of us know that there was a ski patrol strike goin' on, so less than 20% of the mountain was open at the peak holiday time."

‘If you’re 85, you’re not gonna like what I’m saying’ (a/k/a Jim gets called with complaints about buying stocks at all-time highs)

Thursday's Halftime Report opened with a series of potential warnings — which doesn't really do anyone any good right now — and then got downright loopy as Josh Brown and Joe Terranova discussed "flows."

Jim Lebenthal said "I'm actually happy with some uncertainty," and he said the uncertainty in the market comes from presidential policies. Even so, "I do see a good year ahead" based on the "profit picture," Jim explained.

Liz Young Thomas declared, "Typically when the market is up over 50% in 2 years, you still see positivity in the following 12 months, but not to the magnitude that we've seen." (Translation: Another prediction for a market that's up 8-10% in a calendar year ... when have you ever heard that before ...)

Joe Terranova reverted to the land mine metaphor, stating, "The biggest potential land mine that's in front of us here in the next 30 days is earnings."

Then Joe said the "first several weeks" of January will clue us in to the "personality" of the 2025 market. "It's surprising to me that we're actually higher," Joe said, although it went down later in the day. (This review was posted overnight Monday/Tuesday.)

Josh Brown pointed out, "The majority of Wall Street was way underweight equities, uh, going into 2024." Then he stated, "What you really need to focus on here is, is flows. Very simply put: January should be a great month for flows."

Joe questioned Josh, "How do you treat the month of (sic 3 words redundant) January if the flows were to disappoint?"

Josh wondered, "Who would they disappoint?"

Joe said, "If the flows disappoint, and you don't see that type of confidence, is there a message there that you extrapolate through the remainder of the year?"

"No, I think it's a great outcome," Brown said.

Then Josh stated that "you don't wanna buy all-time highs if you don't have to. If you're 85, you're not gonna like what I'm saying. If you're any age under that, you should be happy to hear what I'm telling you. You want the pullback. Especially early in the year."

Actually, we think 85-year-olds probably enjoy buying the dip as much as anyone else. (For example, any time there's giveaways like on Jeremy Siegel Day on Aug. 5.)

Jim affirmed that a "correction would be healthy." Jim added that "a lot of times," people call him and complain about, "'Why are we buying stocks here; they're at an all-time high?' You know, almost definitionally (snicker), stocks are at all-time high all the time." (Ah. So that explains CLF, PARA and GM.)

Josh pointed out that pharma "did nothing last year," homebuilders are nowhere near 52-week highs and SBUX has never had 3 down years in a row.

Santoli suggested keeping the stock market on a "shorter leash."

Another year of UBER being incredibly underpriced by the Street that just doesn’t get it, apparently

On Thursday's (1/2) Halftime Report, guest host Courtney Reagan aired a morning clip of Jeremy Siegel (snicker) (who, um, didn't always have great calls last year) (see below) stating that companies need to see the results from all the AI stuff they're buying.

We don't really disagree with that.

Josh Brown acknowledged Jeremy's point and said, "The question is, where's the ROI. The ROI is probably gonna happen not with Copilot per se, but with agentic AI."

Jim Lebenthal touted Alphabet, though Josh Brown has been trimming. Josh though said "I love it. I'm not in love with it," calling it a "headline-risk name for the first half of this year." Josh said he thinks this is "Amazon's year" instead.

Josh said UBER is the "most mispriced stock in all of large-cap tech," though he conceded it's not a tech stock "by taxonomy" (there's that word again). Josh stressed again that UBER only has capacity problems, not robotaxi problems.

EQT = Zzzzzzzzz

Josh Brown and Joe Terranova found something to agree on during Thursday's (1/2) Halftime Report, as Josh said EQT "is about to break out."

Joe said it benefits from its "proximity" to data center demand and he praised the "strong fundamentals." Jim Lebenthal said a lot of nat gas' gains have to do with Russia-Ukraine as well as export terminals.

Meanwhile, Joe said he unloaded NU, bought it a couple months ago but it was a "horrible trade," he "got stopped out of it" and bought the XBI, which he's been "tactical" in.

Joe said the JOET owns airlines because of "momentum," which we thought is kinda why the JOET owns anything, supposedly. Joe said we "always hear about the effect of weather" on airlines (that was yet another cautionary warning about the 2025 stock market heard on the show); he'll leave the "research" to others.

Joe suggested in financials, focusing on SQ, PYPL and TW. Josh backed SQ.

Joe, Frank close the year with great message to viewers

On Tuesday's (12/31) Halftime Report, Diana Olick reported on the surprising surge in retail real estate demand. Diana said open-air malls have lower vacancies than closed-in malls.

Jenny Harrington said you can't paint the sector with "one broad brush" and touted DEA, which Jenny said got slammed by DOGE on inaccurate perceptions. Jenny also touted the yield in O. Joe Terranova offered IRM and WELL.

In a classy comment, Joe closed his Final Trade saying, "I think I speak for all of us on the Investment Committee, everyone on the show, I just wanna wish everyone in 2025 the 2 most important assets in your portfolio, and in life, and that's health and happiness. That's what matters most. Thank you to all the viewers for watching all year. It's been a phenomenal year for all of us."

Guest host Frank Holland said, "It really has. It really has been great joining you guys ... hopefully this show is really helping out our viewers make their investment decisions, you guys are all fantastic along with the other Investment Committee members that are here on Halftime every single week. It's been a pleasure and an honor to fill in with you."

Honestly, we have no idea why Josh was doing a ‘Trade School’ on ... something or other ... on Dec. 31

On Tuesday's year-end (12/31) Halftime Report, Josh Brown provided a Trade School, apparently about active management and ETFs, stating that in 2014, he "wrote a blog post called The Relentless Bid Explained, and I basically prophecied exactly what's played out." (Congrats.)

He said the transition of financial advising from commissions to "more of a fee-based, fiduciary relationship" has prompted advisors to move money from actively managed mutual funds into ETFs.

Ok. There you go.

Josh said "73% of stocks underperformed their own index. It's very very hard, as an active manager, to beat an index that does that." (At least he didn't give us a Trade School on how P.E. ratios in tech stocks are just too high.)

Joe says financial advisor unable to explain what year-end slide means

Well, it was a lousy close to 2024.

But, evidently, so what.

Guest host Frank Holland opened Tuesday's (12/31) Halftime Report saying "this is the first time since 1952 the S&P's had declines of 1% or more in the final 5 trading days of the year. Does that mean anything now?"

Joe Terranova said an advisor a day ago "hit me with that statistic," and Joe asked what it meant, "and the advisor didn't have an answer for that."

We will infer from that that it means nothing.

Joe then provided a graphic of stellar returns from 1949-52, then said that in 1953, the market went down 1%. Then he said 1954 was up 52% and 1955 was up 31%. So if 2025 is "gonna look like '53, I'll take it, if you tell me that '26 and '27 are gonna look like '54 and '55."

OK. We'll go along with that. But the idea that today's stock market should draw inspiration from the days when Otto Graham was the NFL's premier quarterback is, um, a bit of a stretch. (What did Paul Brown think about algorithms ...)

Josh Brown lectured anyone disappointed about the final week. "if you required a Santa Claus rally this year ... you've probably been doing this wrong. ... This is one of the best years in the history of the stock market," Josh said.

Josh pointed out how the "biggest bull" a year ago was Ed Yardeni, with a 5,400 target.

Frank told Jenny Harrington "just 1 more stat," that the S&P is trying to avoid closing the year with 4 straight losing days for the first time since 1966 (when Bart Starr was the NFL's premier quarterback).

"I don't see meaning in that," Jenny said, adding those kinds of stats "mess with people's heads."

Frank said the "CNBC Data Team" found that just since Election Day, 95% of the stock market's gains are in the Mag 7. Joe once again stated that he runs an "equally weighted strategy," so that kind of outperformance is "troublesome" to him. But Joe said the Mag 7 is where the earnings growth is coming. "The market is more and more growth," Joe said, pointing out for the 2nd straight day that 2016 was the last time value outperformed growth in an up year and adding, "To me, for value to outperform, it means we're having a correction in the market."

Jenny complained that AXP's multiple "shouldn't" be this much of a discount to the Mag 7. "So I can kinda see money flowing out of Mag 7 (snicker) and into stocks like that," Jenny said. Jenny said there's been "so much noise" and we need to get past inauguration and Cabinet nominations, then "let the dust settle," and people will "start to look at valuations (snicker) instead of being swayed by stories" (snicker).

The study of classifying, describing, and naming organisms

Josh Brown on Tuesday's (12/31) Halftime Report said financials had a big year, "the problem is the taxonomy (snicker) — spending all this time trying to categorize what type of stock something is ... you can have value stocks become momentum stocks."

Guest host Frank Holland said he likes Josh's use of "taxonomy."

Joe Terranova said sectors with earnings growth in 2024 besides the Mag 7 were "rewarded," including airlines and financials.

Josh said he would "trust" Tim Cook among all Mag 7 CEOs to "nail the relationship with Trump," even over Elon, "who may be flying a little too close to the sun" and according to Josh, is "inhabiting a cottage" at Mar-a-Lago "and just walking into meetings whenever he wants." But Josh said AAPL's "41 trailing P.E." is high in any terms. "If I did not own the stock, I would not be running around buying it," Josh said.

Malcolm Ethridge, who generally is on Closing Bell, touted fintech. Malcolm also backed the XLF or big banks in general, and he likes the CIBR so that he can own both PANW and CRWD, and the space is "ripe for mass consolidation." (This writer is long CRWD.) Jenny Harrington said she wants to be in cybersecurity but not at these valuations.

Joe doesn’t want ‘40% exposure to the Mag 7’

Over this weekend (see below), this page lauded Joe Terranova for several calls on the Halftime Report in 2024 favoring the Mag 7, even if Joe himself (via the JOET) isn't too excited about Mag 7 outperformance.

In the 13th minute of Monday's (12/30) Halftime, Joe bluntly stated he's tired of Mag 7 outperformance.

Joe shared, "I'm equally weighted ... I have an equally weighted strategy. I don't wanna have 40% exposure to the Mag 7. Does that mean that the Mag 7 the last 2 years have not been the place to be? Without question, they've been the place to be. And they've had the earnings growth. But at some time- at some point, does that story, is gonna change (sic)? And I think I kinda wanna get a little bit ahead of that."

Joe pointed out most of MSFT's gains in 2024 came in January; it was up 10% then, 13% now, "kinda running in place."

(Honestly ... here's where we wish we'd paid closer attention in statistics class ... we find it curious that Joe is so wary of 40% exposure to the best companies in the world. Does Joe actually think that's a greater "risk" than owning the entire S&P 500? ... As if the Mag 7 could go down 20% and the rest of the market is flat? ... Like they say ... Puh ... leeze.)

Frank asked Bryn Talkington about UBS maintaining a "sell" on TSLA and a 264 (snicker) target (the screen graphic said it's a 226 target). Frank corrected himself to 226 later and said consensus is 296.

Bryn said it's "not just a car company" and that there's still "a few bears out there." Bryn said she sold a January 400 TSLA call and expects to get called away on Jan. 17, but maybe not.

On Monday's Fast Money, Guy Adami opened honoring guest host Sully for Sully's new Power Lunch gig with a spectacular statement (see our home page) and said the market is now realizing "a lot of sort of headwinds" that have been around for a while. Grandpa Carter Worth complained about how there's only 100 years of year-end markets and "there's not a lot of data" or it's always different, but "what we do know is, the market is full." Carter predicts the market will "falter" in January.

Joe says ‘we can’t pretend to think we know’ what the future trend is

In his opening statement on Monday's (12/30) Halftime Report, Joe Terranova basically made the case against anyone sharing stock picks on TV, stating, "I think what we're learning as we approach the end of the year is that we can't pretend to think we know what the future holds in store in terms of the actual trend, the actual direction."

Joe said December is "fading" into "a narrow, concentrated performance from the Mag 7 once again." (We think we also caught a "Fliday" (sic) (snicker) from Joe.)

Bryn Talkington said "speculative froth is coming out of the market," which is "such a healthy thing to happen."

"I would say directionally, the market's going higher," Bryn said, but she wants to be "judicious" about stock picks.

Rob Sechan, speaking remotely from a living room but sounding like he's in a cavern, said he sees "the potential for a mean-reversion trade." Rob said the "unwind" of some big gainers might continue because so many people are "lopsided" in positioning.

But Rob later said it's a "fool's game" to "take an early prediction and carry it out for the balance of the year."

Jason Snipe is still "positive and constructive on the market" and thinks the dollar "will pull back some."

Joe said there are "very high expectations" for earnings in 2025, which could be the "biggest land mine."

NVDA earnings still 2 months away

During Monday's (12/30) Halftime Report, Joe Terranova looked at COIN's chart on his screen in "disbelief." (Who woulda thunk that crypto-related stuff would be so volatile.)

Rob Sechan called health care "a great warning story," because the Street expected 20% earnings growth this year but got 3%. (Who woulda thunk that health care stocks could disappoint.)

Jason Snipe pointed out the impact that higher (than usual) mortgage rates are dealing to DHI and other builders. Joe said "13% of the homebuilding construction industry is undocumented workers."

Joe suggested focusing on natural gas, pointing to demand for power from data centers.

2024’s best (and worst) of Halftime Report, Fast Money and beyond

This site — alone among financial media — makes it an annual tradition to recap the best and worst of what we heard on CNBC's Halftime Report during the past year.

It's a tradition going back to practically this site's mid-2008 inception; in our first year-end review, December 2009, we actually singled out Karen Finerman's Genentech trade, though it wasn't No. 1 that year (check our archives.)

We freely admit: 1) We don't monitor every stock pick made on the show(s) (we had to give up caring about Final Trades long ago); and 2) We don't see anywhere close to every minute of CNBC's business day programming.

Still we see and hear enough to know who — at least at times — had some big hits ... and who had some misses.

If you ever scroll through this page's archives (snicker), you'll see endless short-term commentary about how names such as NVDA, TSLA, AI stuff may trade for a few days or weeks. At year-end, we're more interested in the calls that stuck.

Most of our best/worst findings of 2024 relate to a few subjects: Bitcoin, Donald Trump, TSLA, Federal Reserve, Aug. 5.

One trend you'll see here — and we didn't realize how pervasive this was — is that a lot of stocks/investments were flat through summer and early fall, then started skyrocketing around the time of Election Day. Whether that's because of the election outcome, or just because it was finally settled, we're not sure anyone knows.

Here's the trade that would've won Call of the Year, except that no one actually stated it: "Invest in anything backed by Donald Trump."

As always, we wish the Halftime/Fast Money panelists/guests the best in trading and in making calls. We'd like to have a list of 100 great calls and 0 bad calls. But that's never how it actually works. So we try to come up with a balanced ending. This year, for whatever reason, we ended up with 19 calls on either side of the ledger.

Our goal, as always, is to inform — inform The. Best. Audience. In. The. World. Of. Media. (Yes, you know that you are.) ... If you're here, you "get it" on every level, you know what they're talking about on CNBC and you're also picking up those pop culture referencs too. Journalism is changing. Traditional media can only afford to cover far less material than it once did. We're only here because you are, cranking it out in real time, fighting for every click we get.

Now for 2024 in review — the Busts, and the Call of the Year ...

The Busts of 2024

19. Jamie Dimon, Feb. 26, on soft landing odds less than 50/50: Tells Leslie Picker he gives it a 35-40% chance.

18. Torsten Slok predicts no rate cuts in 2024 (March 1), calls stocks "overvalued" (Oct. 18): Said in October that a forward P.E. of 22 "implies a 3% annualized return over the coming three years."

17. Jeremy Siegel, Jan. 26, on growth vs. value: Said growth stocks could have "perhaps a zero year" while value is up 10-15%.

16. Jim Lebenthal rides CLF to a 52-week low, years-long: Even Al Michaels was knocking it.

15. Jenny Harrington adds KSS to portfolios that don't already have it, May 24: "Thinking about Kohl's, right, and I actually added it to the portfolios that didn't already own it."

14. Brad Gerstner, March 27, on today's political climate: Touted new initiative called Invest America, which would be a "401(k)-like account from birth." Brad said, "We expect that this will be a piece of legislation that we can get passed (snicker) in the spring of 2025."

13. Dan Ives, June 10, on Apple's WWDC: Predicted event would be a "jaw-dropper."

12. Jenny Harrington compares April 2024 market to March 2000: "We're trading at 21 times ... last time the market traded at that was January 2022, um, and March — this is really inspiring — March of 2000."

11. Steve Weiss, Jan. 25, short TSLA, bought more puts: "There is no there. The best days are far behind it ... should break a hundred." He did abandon this position during the spring, or it would've ranked higher.

10. Jeremy Siegel calls Kamala Harris "prohibitive favorite," July 5: Said his opinion is that if the Democratic nominee happens to be Kamala Harris, she will be the "prohibitive favorite."

9. Jeffrey Gundlach, calls recession in 2024, Jan. 31: "Yes I am, in 2024, Yes I am ... When I hear the word 'Goldilocks,' I- I get nervous." By Sept. 18, he was not giving up: "I still think there's a good shot that the history books will say September '24 was the start of a recession."

8. Barrons, Jan. 16, prefers UNH to Mag 7: Judge said the venerable publication decided to go "super provocative this week" by building a "better" Magnificent 7, adding BRK.B, V and UNH and subtracting AAPL, TSLA and META.

7. Marko Kolanovic's "Dotcom bubble," Feb. 7: Judge reports Marko issued a note: "Market concentration continues to flash a warning sign as we are near the highs of the Dotcom era. ... The current period is in some ways worse than the Dotcom bubble."

6. Marko Kolanovic's 4,200 S&P target, July 3: Judge: "Marko Kolanovic is, is leaving, uh, JPMorgan. Um, he had the lowest target on the Street of 4,200. We wish him well, obviously. Those are not easy jobs."

5. Dan Nathan, April 2, says TSLA ($160s that day) is "probably going to a hundred": "One of the worst-looking stock charts I've ever seen in my life" (138 was the low later that month).

4. Tom Lee says 50% small cap gains still possible, Aug. 9 (Closing Bell): Honestly, we don't think anyone actually believed it, but he did reaffirm it. He said, "I wouldn't be a seller of any of these megacaps here," but Judge reminded him that he made a call "months ago" that small caps could be up 50% this year. Tom said he's still "very constructive on small caps" and that "the upside is at least 50%." And, "I still think 50% could happen before year-end." Judge said, "Wow. Wow."

3. Dow Jones Industrial Average massively underperforms: The price weighting of this legendary index has always made people scratch their heads ... especially when UNH gets to be the top dog.

2. Comcast tosses CNBC into SpinCo, November: CMCSA honchos Mike Cavanagh and Mark Lazarus insist the cable channels it's jettisoning will "play offense" (snicker) and be "predator, not prey" and the pair (probably) mention "digital" and "IP" a bunch of times.

Bust of the Year: Jeremy Siegel’s ‘out of body experience,’ calls for emergency 75-point cut, Aug. 5

It was pretty much a unanimous vote.

Jeremy Siegel said on Squawk Box on the morning of Aug. 5, "I'm calling for a 75-basis-point emergency cut in the Fed funds rate, with another 75-basis-point cut indicated for next month at the September meeting. Uh, and that's minimum."

The comments basically speak for themselves. Still, Jeremy joined Closing Bell 9 days later, Aug. 14, and 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." Later that day on Fast Money, Guy Adami said of Jeremy's commentary, "Everything that he said implied everything that he just said he didn't mean. ... I don't know what he was thinking that day. It was sort of an out-of-body experience for him clearly."

The best calls of 2024 — and the Call of the Year is ...

19. Tim Seymour dismisses small caps, Jan. 24: "Do we have to own small caps? I mean, small caps have underperformed for a decade." It's a comment that speaks for itself. Well said.

18. Josh Brown calls LYV under $100 a "gift," April 30: Making calls on stocks taking special-event hits is or should be the bread-and-butter of CNBC panelists. Josh didn't really trumpet this trade long enough to make this list. However, he was spectacularly correct in his initial Justice Dept. suit assessment and contrarian call while many warned of years of uncertainty. He did say on June 4 that he trimmed, citing regulatory overhang.

17. Dan Ives' green jacket, multiple appearances: Maybe some like the coral better. Opinions vary.

16. Bryn Talkington and Brian Belski declare P.E. a "terrible" or even the "worst" way to forecast stock moves (co-call), January: Bryn on Jan. 11 and 13 calls P.E. a "terrible metric" for stock trades. Belski says Jan. 10, "Valuation by the way is the worst thing you should look at in tech. It has no predictive power, we proved it in a- in a chart that we put in in our report."

15. The Najarians get back on CNBC — by paying their way, all year: Kinda odd to see one of CNBC's most popular duos not on any program, but in the advertisements (which they're unfortunately prolific at).

14. Josh Brown touts GLW in May and June: Easily one of the show's best short-term calls, it did come close in early August to round-tripping the sudden gain, but if you held on through year-end, you're fine.

13. Jenny Harrington talks up DOCU, Jan. 12: This stock was not mentioned much in 2024. However, we nearly put it on the list for 2023, and we're giving Jenny carryover credit, as Jenny in January (stock at $64) said she bought it at $42 in September 2023. It did virtually nothing from February through October, then caught fire at year-end for the 2nd year in a row. A great call on one of those pandemic names that people have sort of forgotten about.

12. Stephanie Link buys CMG, Aug. 14: The stock, about $51 that day, had just bottomed. This is not the biggest gainer of the calls we scrutinized, but it's a prominent stock, and basically everyone else took a wait-and-see approach to the CEO change, while Stephanie was right to plunge in.

11. Bill Baruch buys ARM just before the spike, Feb. 9: This was one of the biggest 1-day bursts ever called on the show. ARM closed that Friday at $115. On Monday it reached $148. It did pull back over the following few days but spent much of March in the 130s and 140s. Bill did backpedal, slightly, on how long he would hold it, or this would rank higher.

10. Liz Young Thomas gets married! Announced June 7: And appeared on the Halftime Report the Friday before. "Big weekend!," Judge said.

9. Karen Finerman says CRWD's slide more than outweighs legal liability, Aug. 8: This one's got a little home field advantage. (This writer bought CRWD after Karen's call and is long today.) In a discussion of DAL's lawsuit threat against CRWD in the wake of the summer outage, Karen noted the market-cap decrease in CRWD vs. the cost of the entire amount of damages that DAL was claiming and pointed out CRWD is down from 369 all the way to 240, "so I think this, this too shall pass."

8. Bryn Talkington trounces Steve Weiss in TSLA bull/bear debate, April 17: While Steve was touting shorting TSLA, Bryn cautioned against betting against the stock longer term. The shares were just a few days from bottoming, and this would rank higher had Bryn suggested "back up the truck right now" rather than the next few months probably being weak. Weiss got rather pointed in their debate. "Steve. Wisdom is chasing you if you would just stop. OK. Like, seriously," Bryn said. Weiss insisted, "What the hell is she saying? I don't even get it ... Just admit you're wrong and the stock is going lower. And I'll buy more lower. That's what she should be saying. Facts are facts." A week later, Weiss praised Bryn's "brilliant call."

7. Karen Finerman calls the Aug. 5 bottom, Aug. 2: For those who thought the yen-carry crisis was the end of the world, Karen predicted on Friday's Fast Money, "Monday, we probably sell off again, and then I would look to be buying things on Tuesday." We think the bottom actually took place Monday, but this was close enough.

6. Andrew Left pronounces market "great," June 7: Too often, CNBCers parse everything. Left was mostly on to discuss GME but breezily told Judge, "Everything's just fine. The economy's great, the stock market's great," about the best advice anyone could've had this year, or most years.

5. Bill Baruch buys the TSLA bottom with a "calculated position," April 22: Bill said TSLA hit a March 2020 trend-line low of 140 — and that day was the 2024 low. Judge scoffed, "One of my problems with technical analysis is, trend lines don't mean squat if the fundamentals of a story change."

4. Steve Weiss recommends bitcoin, most of the year: On Feb. 14, Steve predicted bitcoin would "get past" the "prior highs in the 60s." He touted it several times in Q1, then did say in late April he had sold his position, then started talking it up again in Q4. This was a strong contender for Call of the Year. Had Steve said in August, "If Donald Trump wins, bitcoin is going through the roof," it might've been.

3. Steve Grasso predicts 3 rate cuts in 2024, May 6: People forget that this was a very iffy subject in the first half of 2024, when a lot of voices on CNBC started suggesting no rate cuts this year, making this exactly-right prediction a sensational call. Karen Finerman several times questioned why the Fed would "give it away" for free when there was no need. Steve reiterated his 3-cut prediction May 15.

2. Steve Eisman predicts Donald Trump victory, May 21: The famed investor told Fast Money, "My call is, that, with as much certainty as I could possibly have, I think Trump wins every single swing state and becomes president." This would've been the Call of the Year, except that he followed it with, "Um, and, I don't think that has much implications for the market at all."

Call of the Year: Joe Terranova and the Mag 7

The. Man. Quite. Simply. Was. On. Fire.

Joe Terranova so dominated the "broader" market observations on the 2024 edition of CNBC's Halftime Report, he's the runaway choice for Call of the Year.

Even though it's not even 1 particular call that we're singling out. (That's a bit of a break with tradition.) Rather, we are taking artistic license to say that Joe's wire-to-wire series of calls — far more than any other panelists' — correctly pegged 2024 as Another Year of the Mag 7.

CNBC.com has a Mag 7 index. Here's what the chart for 2024 looks like:

Here's a quick recap ...

Jan. 10, Joe implies 2024 could be 2023 all over again: Noting small caps and energy were weak to start the year, Joe said the "Mag 5" minus AAPL and TSLA are leaders. Judge questioned, "What are you telling me, that 2024 is gonna be 2023 all over again?" "That's a big risk," Joe said.

May 22, Joe predicts NVDA, then $930-$950, breaks $1,000 after earnings: Joe expressed doubt that people would unload NVDA (which was pre-split) in the event of an earnings miss. Joe said NVDA is "set up the right way" where it keeps moving higher and tops $1,000 in afterhours. The next day, it hit $1,060, and within a couple weeks was $1,200.

June 10, Joe predicts AAPL crosses $200 after earnings: On Monday, June 10, with another highly watched earnings report looming, Joe said AAPL has "the type of momentum that most likely propels the stock above $200 at some point this afternoon or in the coming days." It didn't cross $200 until the next day — and within a month was $230.

Sept. 11, Joe says be long days after early September skid: Joe opened the program stating, "You can play the market from the long side as long as we technically hold above 5,400 in the S&P 500." At the end of the show, Joe predicted the S&P 500 (having slid 90, yes 90, points that day and down 15 points when Joe spoke) would be higher at day's end. It was.

Oct. 23, Joe is first and only panelist to suggest GOP sweep: "I also think a lot of what's going on with the semis does relate to the possibility of a Trump and Republican sweep."

Joe did waffle a bit back in February about reducing Mag 7 exposure, including his notable debate with Adam Parker on Closing Bell. Maybe, like that ESPN sportswriter show, we should dock him a point or two. But unlike how so many panelists/guests are trying to call Mag 7 direction every week or, worse yet, suggesting what to do based on P.E. ratio, Joe was consistently suggesting — from January through December — that Mag 7 is probably going higher. To Joe and the rest of the Halftime/Fast Money/CNBC sphere, 1) Thanks for showing us the way, 2) Keep doing what you're doing, and 3) Happy Trading!

Jenny suggests Wendy’s might start siphoning SBUX sales

Often, when Josh Brown and Jenny Harrington are on the same episode of the Halftime Report, viewers tend to get a debate.

That's what happened Friday (12/27), when Josh talked up SBUX and said "being down 3 years in a row is a pretty rare thing."

Jenny first told the old saw about the fastest way to make $2 million in the restaurant business; you start with $10 million. Jenny said SBUX is "overpriced" and the coffee is "mediocre."

Jenny explained that a week ago, she was "on the phone with the management team from Wendy's," and, "You know what they're looking at? They're looking at coffee ... Everyone wants to be in coffee. Because it's easy to add and it's high margin."

Josh cut in, "Find me one person, walking around, with a straight face, with a coffee cup from Wendy's, saying that they used to go to Starbucks. ... Find me one."

Jenny protested, "Joshy. Joshy," claiming "it's the same as the athleisure space."

And oh by the way, compare the DIS/NFLX market cap

Friday's (12/27) Halftime Report was guest-hosted by Frank Holland, who had Jenny Harrington and Kevin Simpson at Post 9 and Josh Brown remotely.

It was one of those light, holiday-related trading days without much news, but Frank and the crew put together a crisp show (even if Frank did ask the question about what to expect in 2025 a little too often).

Nobody seemed to think Friday's selloff — which got worse by the end of the day — was much to worry about.

Josh said maybe Friday's market is typical selling, or maybe it's people sensing there will be rebalancing sales in January and they're "trying to front-run it a little bit."

Jenny said, "We're getting a hint of what's to come. And what's to come is going to be a real, to Josh's point, rebalancing."

Kevin said he expects a "bumpy ride, volatility" in the first couple weeks of 2025, and he's "poised" to buy the dips.

Frank asked Josh if Josh sees a broadening next year. Josh said, "Respectully, there is no broadening," pointing to the Mag 7 and the group of stocks sort of near the Mag 7. Josh added, "Nothing has kept up with- with this particular subset of stocks."

Bob Pisani said he doesn't know whether "ignored" sectors can get investors off the "crack cocaine" (snicker) of AI stocks.

Kevin bought DASH and called it a "convenience that will never go away."

Julia Boorstin reported that the Netflix Christmas Day games were the "most streamed NFL games ever." (This writer is long NFLX.)

Josh said "Netflix is actually growing revenue this year faster than any other year." But Josh said NFLX is 40 times earnings while DIS is 20 times (whether those numbers are right, we have no idea) and "a little bit more attractive valuation-wise," but he wouldn't sell NFLX.

Kevin Simpson curiously said, "There's more value at Disney than there is at Netflix, but you can't stop this momentum. This stock will go to a thousand dollars."

Actually (keep in mind, this writer is long NFLX and has no position in DIS), we question Kevin's "more value" contention, which Frank never asked Kevin to clarify. 10 years ago, Kevin's statement is correct. The theme parks will always be there. But today, DIS is trying to reinvent cable TV channels, and NFLX is streaming and according to Josh Brown, growing revenue faster than ever, despite still charging people far less than they'd actually pay while rapidly developing all kinds of advertising levers and live sports/concert content. Kevin's assertion of "more value" is certainly debatable.

Joe notes last 4 Januarys have provided either the yearly high or low

Josh Brown early on Thursday's (12/26) Halftime Report said there are "3 land mines" in Q1, the No. 1 risk being NVDA's earnings Feb. 26.

Risk No. 2 is the dollar getting out of control, and No. 3 is "tariff stuff."

Josh and Jim Lebenthal addressed the mentality of younger investors. Jim stated, "The data is factual that a lot of younger generation particularly skewing to males are looking at the stock market as a source of gambling." But it's not about gambling, Jim said; "it has to do with an intellectual pursuit of trying to find a dollar's worth of value selling for 50 cents."

Josh noted how much Miami-area land Ken Griffin has been buying and said it comes from "people who are 27 years old and need to make 4,000% every time they place a trade."

Joe made an excellent observation about how early January, for the last 4 years, has provided either the market low (in 2021, 2023 and 2024) or high (2022), providing a blueprint for the rest of the year. Though Joe conceded it's possible that the trend "breaks" in 2025.

Josh says he was first Halftime ‘cast member’ to announce a bitcoin stake

Josh Brown on Thursday's (12/26) Halftime Report revealed, "I've invested in bitcoin since before it broke 3,000. I think I was the first cast member of Halftime Report to come on the air and say it."

Josh said he's "middle of the road" and not a "nutcase" on bitcoin and mentioned the idea of a "strategic bitcoin reserve," which seems "really likely."

Bryn Talkington though said a U.S. bitcoin strategic reserve would require congressional approval, so she gives that a "low probability." Bryn suggested "technically," bitcoin could hit $65,000 before $200,000, but she's "long-term bullish."

Seems like everyone expects stocks to be sold at some point in January

Guest host Frank Holland opened Thursday's (12/26) Halftime flagging the 10-year at 4.609% and said it's near highs last seen in May.

Frank asked Josh Brown about "trends" in the final week of trading.

Josh said he doesn't "assign" much importance to the last few trading days of the year. But Josh did say to expect seeing some big winners selling "in the first 2 weeks of the new year" in "mechanical" trades just to rebalance portfolios.

Joe Terranova curiously drew a distinction between money in the market and "people" in the market. Bryn Talkington said they should "record" and "replay" Joe's explanation for a "foundational piece of knowledge" about how "the machines run the market on a daily basis," but over the longer term, "momentum, sentiment, fundamentals and earnings, you know, drive returns," Bryn said.

Unlike Josh, Bryn said that in the final days of the year, "the direction should be higher." Bryn predicted "a lot more volatility in like the 3rd and 4th week of January" than in the first 2 weeks of the year.

Jim Lebenthal too shrugged off the importance of the last week of the year, but he said next year, "the rally should broaden."

Steve Liesman: ‘A Complete Unknown’ is a ‘terrific’ film

Bryn Talkington on Thursday's (12/26) Halftime Report indicated "the parts are greater than the sum" at DELL.

Josh Brown said he thinks MMM is only in the "2nd or 3rd inning."

Josh called SBUX a "steal" around 90, for his Final Trade. Bryn offered UBER.

Bob Pisani said buybacks in 2024 have gotten really close to $1 trillion but aren't there yet.

Bryn said she had "no expectation in any universe" that PLTR would end the year at 82; Bryn called it "the most expensive stock in the market."

Jim Lebenthal referred to the SBUX CEO as Brian "Niccols" (sic).

Steve Liesman on Power Lunch said he saw "A Complete Unknown" and called it "terrific," saying "all these music biopics, none of them put the music at the center. The music was at the center of this one." Steve said Timothée did an "unbelievable job."

Carter Worth: ‘Who the heck knows’ what return stocks will have in 2025

Mary Lago was Judge's guest on Monday's (12/23) Closing Bell and predicted ... of course ... 5-10% returns next year, because nobody in the world would predict 20%-plus (even though it's often happened recently).

As always, according to Lago, the outlook for next year looks strong but we've supposedly pulled ahead some of those gains, hence 5-10%, which Judge indicated would be something of a disappointment, especially if it's the 5% end of that range.

On Fast Money, Carter Worth was asked by Dom Chu about this subject, admitting he has "no idea" what the 2025 market return will be.

"The truth is," Worth stated, "It's a Wall Street convention, uh, that was adopted about 35 years ago to have a year-ahead price target. Who the heck knows. 12 months, vs. 13, what about 11. It's a feel-good, like a comfort blanket, someone says to you, 'I think we'll be up, uh, 10-12%.' We also know, and this is important, that every year since strategists have been tracked, every single year, they have predicted up years."

Yep.

Judge says ‘sucked’ on air (and he wasn’t talking about the Pittsburgh Steelers)

"I think momentum continues into year-end, um, in the tech trade," Rob Sechan offered at the top of Monday's (12/23) Halftime Report, but he said "from a macro standpoint, we're trimming our overweight to technology and we're adding value (snicker), cyclical value."

Rob said that he's also "guiding towards U.S. exceptionalism still."

Jim Lebenthal said he agrees with Rob's points and that Rob "could've said something" when they were in makeup, which set the crew up for a couple minutes of jokes.

Rob chortled, "You were up there for a half-hour; I was only up there for 5 minutes."

Judge told Jim, "You walked into that. You earned that one."

Jim started to make his point and Judge cut in with a chuckle, "Wait a minute — you went to makeup?"

Anyway, Jim said what's happening now is "just the early phases of a good old-fashioned correction." Jim predicted some "pent-up selling" in early January. (Because that pushes the capital gains off, which is why this April, it's so much better to pay tax on stocks sold in January 2024 than in December 2024.)

Joe Terranova outdid Judge in a big way, explaining that he wanted to ask Jim and Rob a question, and it was a fantastic question: "Owning value, is it a requirement that you have to have a correction. Because that seems like the only time that value really works. In recent memory."

Jim said "No" but admitted "it might not work here."

Jim stressed that he can find companies in energy and commodities with "single digit multiples (snicker) with free cash flow." Judge said, "That doesn't mean they're good buys. I can find a lot of stuff that's trading really cheap that's sucked this year."

Jim claimed, "I think you're making my point for me," which is that there's "potential for multi-times returns (snicker)" in those names.

Torsten was smart to do a note the day before Christmas Eve; Judge evidently had nothing else to quote (a/k/a What about Marc Chaikin’s idiotic and misleading commercial about selling NVDA that is somehow OK’d by the FCC)

Joe Terranova, who must've said "rebalance" or "rebalancing" about a hundred times on Monday's (12/23) Halftime Report, curiously said "momentum is still favoring equal-weighted strategies. Momentum is still favoring financials. Momentum is still favoring industrials."

Judge pointed out, "Momentum is still favoring financials? But it's down almost 5% in a month."

Rob Sechan chipped in, "They're stil in an uptrend, to Joe's point."

Joe at one point stated, "I think we greet the year with a tremendous amount of uncertainty." (Saying on television either that "there's so much uncertainty" in the market or that it's a "stock-picker's market" always rings up the CNBC players' card.) As a result, Joe said the market has "recalibrated" to be "bordering on skepticism."

Judge said Torsten Slok sees a "90% chance" of NVDA's earnings disappointing. Jim Lebenthal suggested that with a 31 P.E. (who knows if that's accurate), maybe such a disappointment is already priced in. Jim said maybe there will be disappointment by the end of next year, but not in the next couple of quarters.

Rob claimed he bought NVDA "when it dropped to 29 times, 99 bucks, 96 bucks."

Joe advised not "reaching" for PLTR.

Jim bought more QCOM (Zzzzzzzzz).

Joe said $85,000 is a "huge area" for bitcoin.

On Closing Bell, Judge was barking up the Torsten tree again.

What neither Julia nor Barron’s nor Joe mentioned was what happens if the rapidly collapsing Pittsburgh Steelers blow this game

Julia Boorstin on Monday's (12/23) Halftime Report said NFLX paid $150 million for its Christmas Day games. (Remember that Howard Stern said that while buffering problems may be tolerated in a Mike Tyson fight, it won't be tolerated with NFL games.) (This writer is long NFLX.)

Judge said Barron's recommends "sidelines" for NFLX, saying sports rights are expensive, the Tyson fight had glitches, and the stock's pricey. Joe Terranova said he's owned it for about a couple years, but if you don't own it now, he thinks you have to "wait," which is basically what Barron's says. But Joe said he's hanging on because he's not sure the analyst community is enthusiastic enough, and a few actually have sells.

Meanwhile, Joe rattled off all the cybersecurity names he owns, either personally or in the JOET (this writer is long CRWD), and said he believes in the space but "there's gonna be volatility."

Jim Lebenthal trimmed V and wondered "how much more can we put on the back of the consumer" (snicker).

Rob Sechan agreed with Joe that you can own CRM. Rob even said, "If you believe in Dan Ives broadening out from AI to software monetization." Judge said, "Did you have an outperform rating on Ives, is that what you're saying?" Rob said, "I love Dan Ives."

Jim said it "makes no sense" that DAL's sales forecasts for 2025 haven't budged for 9 months.

Rob said he bought BABA at the "right time," when Tepper was talking about China. Rob said he's "round-tripped it" but still thinks you can own it.

Joe called ZM one of his favorite stocks heading into 2025.

Jenny says the Dow is the ‘normal’ return this year (but she apparently hasn’t checked the AFC standings)

Friday's (12/20) Halftime Report was fairly sleepy — except when Jenny Harrington tried to explain yet again why tech stocks are gonna stop going up and why you should buy a bunch of has-been, low-P.E. stocks instead.

Jenny stated, "Almost like all of our normal clients, anyone who has any asset allocation in their portfolio, has a Dow-like return this year. You know, they're up 10%, 12%."

Judge cut in, "That's bad, relative to everything else."

Jenny said, "It's normal, Scott."

Judge said, "People don't look at that return and think it's normal, they look at it and say 'Where's our other 20% for the everything else."

Jenny insisted, "If you're up 10, 12, 13% this year, you're normal. And you know what else is up 10, 12, 13% today- this year, like all the Ivy endowments."

Judge said, "It feels like an L ... when the S&P's up 30."

Jenny said, "Across the board, if you look at what real returns are out there, they're not the S&P. ... If you're comparing yourself with S&P, and you think like, 'Oh, I'm a loser,' to your big L, you're gonna start to make really stupid decisions. And your stupid decisions right now are gonna say, 'Oh, I missed MicroStrategy, I'm gonna sell my whole portfolio ..."

Judge said, "My only point was if you're looking at the Dow as representative of really everything"-

Jenny cut in, "It's not representative of everything, but it's a normal return."

Judge continued that the Dow was down "10 straight days," and "half of the loss over those 10 days was United Health," which is why it's "not the greatest place to look as your overall market health picture."

Jenny insisted, "I'm still saying it's a representative total return number."

Jenny said if you take AVGO, TSLA and GOOGL out of the S&P, "you have a completely different return in the S&P 500." Judge said, "If you take the Chiefs and the Bills out of the NFL, you have a much different playoff picture." Jenny said, "Fine, but your sports analogies are lost on me."

Meanwhile, Stephanie Link said "it was really confusing commentary from Powell, for shore."

Kevin Simpson said he trimmed TSLA, "pure risk management." Kevin said he sold it Tuesday at the open at 470. He sold a 440 covered call expiring next Friday for $46 and was able to buy it back later in the afternoon for $20. #greatmomentsinmarkettiming

Jenny bought TRIP and made a lengthy case for it, but Stephanie suggested "patience" with this one; "their core travel business is in bad shape."

Jenny responded, "We've literally worked on it for 13 months, so that's like Step 1 of the patience."

Judge mocks Jim’s UNH buy as a ‘pick 6’

Addressing UNH to Jim Lebenthal on Thursday's (12/19) Halftime Report, Judge casually mentioned, "By the way," it's down again Thursday and "down 8%" since Jim talked of buying it last week.

"Feels like a pick-6 to me," Judge scoffed, saying it's as if Jim metaphorically was hoping to hit a receiver going deep and instead, "You laid one right out for the corner who's takin' it to the house."

"Jameis Winston style," Josh Brown added.

Jim acknowledged health care execs will be "lit up" by Congress, then said "that may or may not happen," but Jim said "this whole story is wrong," if there's a 7% denial rate, "there's 93% of claims that are approved, and a lot of those are life-saving."

Jim said this isn't going to be about tobacco companies a while back or auto execs in 2008 going to Congress. Jim stated, "I think it's absolutely a travesty that the murder of the CEO has knocked this stock down 20%."

Judge said it may be a "travesty," but the "debate" that's emerging about these companies' practices is "neither trivial nor a travesty" and is "just beginning."

Jim stressed that health insurance "is a better option than paying for it yourself." Jim said people are "basically saying" that health insurers shouldn't make a profit.

"That's not true Jim," said Steve Weiss, offering "actual facts rather than speculation," saying "what they're taking a look at is ... they have revenue cycle management companies that, what they do is, they collect on behalf of hospitals and patients for claims that were denied. ... They've taken pain out ... it's a real debate."

Josh told Jim, as far as "travesty," it's not an "act of government" that hit UNH shares, "it's people like you" who own the stock who decided to sell. Jim said sellers are outweighing buyers now because the company is in the "limelight."

Here's a debate where middle ground is the winner. Jim was too early to buy, but Judge and Weiss are mistaken to imply these current headwinds (there's always a new headwind in this space) are going on forever.

Josh Brown noted that health insurers were up Wednesday and said that's because they've been hit so hard, they're too hard to sell.

Josh sounds like he’s making the case for the original SpinCo, while Judge still won’t tell us how Mark is gonna make sure it’s ‘predator’ and not ‘prey’

Josh made the case for WBD on Thursday's (12/19) Halftime Report, saying it's "back on my radar" and explaining how David Zaslav announced a restructuring that will "take the quote-unquote bad part of the business out of the equation," which is basically the "linear TV networks," which Josh said would be packaged "into a SpinCo."

Josh said people will actually want the spinoff "because they're maximizing profitability without growth (snicker)," but the better business remains. Josh said he'll probably buy if it falls below $10.

Josh actually called MTTR "one of the worst stocks I've ever owned." It did spike in May but hasn't done much since.

Judge hectored Jim Lebenthal about CLF being a "dog." Jim protested that "if you actually do the analysis," apparently you'll find some really lucrative EBITDA that somehow should eventually get it to a $16 billion market cap (it's $5 billion now).

Judge outlined a couple football analogies, either Jim fumbling at his own 1-yard line or the opponent's 1-yard line. Jim said Al Michaels probably thinks he's the "Dieter Brock of the team."

Steve Weiss shrugged off bitcoin's slide to $98,000 and said it's a "trading tool."

Judge’s fashion comeback to Weiss didn’t really register

Judge opened Thursday's (12/19) Halftime Report saying Ed Yardeni calls the selloff a "buying opportunity," and Tom Lee is indicating the same, even possibly "back up the truck."

Josh Brown heartily agreed, saying he loves to buy dips when people are afraid that things are "too good," and while more downside can't be ruled out, "These are the types of dips you buy."

Brown said if you're "most worried about" the labor market being so strong that there won't be 3 cuts, then you have "no real problems right now." Brown said Wednesday was a big move but "not a correction."

Josh said that "what really got hit" was the Russell 2000. Judge then immediately turned to Jim Lebenthal, stating, "The small cap trade looks specious" and "does not look great."

Jim claimed "it's been back and forth all year." Jim again reiterated his point that higher rates don't really hurt small cap stocks with interest expense, rather, they create concern that higher rates "tip us into a recession," and he knows of no one calling for a recession.

Jim argued that it's "2 steps forward, 1 steps (sic) back" in this market. Josh suggested to Jim that for that "theme" to keep working, it needs "lower rates," and they won't be as low as we thought. Jim said "sure" but that he thinks the market's well-adjusted to 4½%.

Liz Young Thomas said we're entering perhaps Year 3 of a bull market, "so the chances of us having another 25 to 27% year are slim." (Actually, we wonder how Liz arrives at that. It sounds like slot-machine mentality.) Liz said we're in a "new phase" and "in-between time" where we don't know what will happen in 2025.

Steve Weiss said "yesterday was emotional" and said the market "pulled forward" some of the expected January selling. Weiss told Judge he'd describe Thursday's recovery as "actually like your wardrobe -- muted and uninspiring."

Judge responded, "Whatever I would say would pale in comparison ... to the look which (sic meant 'that') speaks for itself."

After the show was over, Tom Lee turned up on Power Lunch and indeed pronounced the selloff as "another buying opportunity." Jeff Kilburg though noted the VIX spike and said while he's got the truck "runnin'," he's "not ready to back it up yet."

At least Judge didn’t demand Jim answer his question about whether the best is behind us

Judge noted on Thursday's (12/19) Halftime Report that some momentum stocks that "rolled hard yesterday" were actually still in the red on Thursday — for all those with attention spans of zero who can't bear to see stocks down for a whole 2 days in a row.

Steve Weiss said AVGO's recent gain was "all multiple expansion."

Weiss said you want to own the megacaps, but Wednesday wasn't a big enough gift; "This is not a buying opportunity," there will be a "better" one.

Josh Brown said he wouldn't despair about MU but "wouldn't ignore it" either. Weiss said MU has great management, but great management can't always save a "commodity business." But Weiss said "now's more the time to buy it" than when it's having huge quarters.

Jim Lebenthal said he wasn't going to "minimize" VRTX's slide but he wants to "put the facts out there." Jim said "the weird thing" is that the placebo did as well as the pain drug, but this is what can happen in trials when doctors collect "subjective" data from patients. Jim said it's "not game over" and he's not selling.

Josh of courses agrees with a SHAK buy rating; it hit an all-time high earlier this month. Josh said he thinks ZM is "too cheap" and that it's using the video business to launch bigger things.

Liz Young Thomas said "we're still well above 7% in mortgage rates," which won't "encourage" transactions. Liz several times mentioned the significance of "construction unemployment (sic)" but explained when it "falls"; she either meant when "employment" falls or when "unemployment" rises.

Jeffrey Gundlach: ‘The market is clearly overbought’

On Fed day Wednesday (12/18), Jeffrey Gundlach, once again Judge's star guest of Closing Bell, suggested 2 rate cuts would be the "maximum" for 2025.

(Honestly, we're starting to wonder if there will be any. After all, Jerome Powell is all set to be Arthur Burns Part II.)

Returning to one of his favorite themes, Jeffrey stated, "The squaring of the 2-year Treasury yield and the Fed funds rate is now complete."

Jeffrey said his takeaway from the press conference is that we're "not likely to get to 2% inflation in 2025."

As for stocks? "The market is clearly overbought," Jeffrey stated.

It sounds like Jay did what Weiss said the Fed couldn’t do

In a correct call — but still a major understatement — Joe Terranova on Wednesday's (12/18) Halftime Report rather clumsily said that if we don't get a little dovishness from the Fed, "then I think positioning is in trouble."

Bill Baruch talked about Jerome Powell possibly "threading that needle" (um, that didn't happen) (this review was posted overnight Wed-Thurs) but said he's "fearful" of the Fed being either "too dovish" or "too hawkish." (The latter proved correct.)

Judge insisted they're not going to be "too dovish."

Steve Weiss doubted this will be a "hawkish cut," stating, "You can't say 'we're troubled by inflation' and still cut. That's ridiculous."

Joe and Weiss clashed over whether the market believes 4 cuts next year based on the "dot plots."

As far as rates, etc., Joe said, "I'm troubled by the homebuilders."

Weiss pounds the table for bitcoin — but wonders why anyone would buy TSLA

Steve Weiss on Wednesday's (12/18) Halftime Report said bitcoin is "purely momentum" but remains "the safest trade that I see on the board," though he conceded there could be profit-taking in January.

Judge said the "irony" is that Weiss is calling "arguably the most speculative trade within the market itself (sic last 4 words redundant)" the "safest."

Weiss said "speculation is coming to a reality" in terms of pro-crypto policies.

Weiss also assured panelists and viewers that his portfolio always has a "speculative aspect," and bitcoin is part of that.

The funny thing is, Weiss is all aboard a pure momentum trade with no use case. But he won't touch TSLA: "No way should you pay a car com- a multiple of a car company like this."

Jeffrey Gundlach on Closing Bell suggested strength in gold and bitcoin is a "harbinger of skepticism regarding the fiscal path that developed countries are on" and predicted "sideways movements" in both in the short term.

Judge fails to convince Weiss that Jensen’s next speech may kickstart NVDA

Wednesday's (12/18) Halftime Report curiously started with Bill Baruch talking about how he sold NVDA.

Bill said he last bought it at $100 (translation: He didn't take a loss) and protested that trimming it by 20% "has nothing to do with me disliking Nvidia." Bill's reason for selling was "portfolio management." He said if it finishes the week over 135, he's "very excited."

Judge told Steve Weiss that Jensen is speaking again soon. Weiss said Jensen's speeches have a "basically decreasing impact on the shares."

Judge protested that the stock has risen "quite substantially" after a couple recent Jensen speeches. Weiss conceded "you can play it" as a trading move but for holders, "the stock's traded down since those events."

Joe Terranova offered, "Last 6 months, the momentum for Nvidia is basically flat." Weiss argued, "The marginal buyer is already in there." Joe said NVDA is in a range of $10 up, $10 down.

Regarding UBER, Bill rekindles a popular expression of Pete Najarian

Judge on Wednesday's (12/18) Halftime asked Joe Terranova why PANW was down and said all CNBC could find was a price target cut on Friday, and "CrowdStrike's following suit." (This writer is long CRWD.) Joe didn't really answer the question, stating, "The momentum factor has been struggling."

Bill Baruch said he's been long TSLA and "letting it run." He said there's a "meme stock craze" in the market right now. (Well, at least there was until about 3 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.) (This review was posted overnight Wed-Thurs.)

Joe noted UBER has been falling, but, "The analyst community remains overwhelmingly bullish on Uber." Bill said "we still love the name" and said he may add more if it holds $63, but "I just don't wanna pick the bottom here."

Judge said NFLX "has been a monster" and said Morgan Stanley has upped the price target to $1,050. (This writer is long NFLX.) Steve Weiss responded by saying the same things about it he always does but said he thinks it "keeps going."

Maybe SpinCo should invest in bitcoin?

In what's becoming a bit of a broken record on the Halftime Report, Steve Weiss on Tuesday briefly joined remotely to offer the same old reasons for buying more bitcoin.

Weiss mentioned all the government tailwinds for bitcoin and said it'll go higher if Michael Saylor keeps buying it. Weiss said he still doesn't see the use case, but he's convinced that "it will keep going higher, because the momentum's going to take it there."

Judge questioned what kind of "upset" would cause bitcoin to fall. "What would that be?" Judge wondered, other than the "obvious" answer of a market pullback.

Weiss mentioned Michael Saylor buying with leverage, "potentially that's an issue," but "he's held on through, through declines." Josh Brown though suggested that the notion of how much the Trump administration is backing crypto has "gotten carried away."

The stock went up only because a lot of money went into it

Judge opened Tuesday's (12/17) sleepy Halftime Report bringing up B of A's fund manager survey (Zzzzzz), which finds "super bullish sentiment."

Josh Brown told Judge that "my mind was blown as well (snicker)" and said this reminds him of 2017, when "global synchronized growth" was heard on the show every week, according to Brown.

Judge said "American exceptionalism" seems to be the "phrase of the moment." But Kari Firestone said she's "a bit nervous" because of the "extreme" signs of bullishness; Kari said AVGO went up only "because so much money went into Broadcom."

Special guest Dubravko Lakos at Post 9 said he sees a "bit more of a broadening" next year and a chance for "laggards" to do better. Dubravko suggested the possibility of the Fed not hiking but just opening up the doors to a potential hike, at which point, "financial conditions start to tighten."

Stephanie Link told Judge, "As you know, I sold Apple because I made 40% in 4 months time." Congrats.

Josh said he's sticking with SQ and said it looks "really good" technically, though he wonders about Jack Dorsey's appearance.

Joe says bitcoin is a momentum trade like no other in his career

On Monday's (12/16) fairly quiet Halftime Report, Joe Terranova said the move in bitcoin is a "classic chase for performance" as well as "the most identifiable example of momentum I can remember in my professional (sic redundant) career on Wall Street."

Joe said if he wanted exposure to bitcoin, he would "probably turn to" the Moochmeister, Anthony Scaramucci.

Kari Firestone stated, "it's very hard for us at our firm to embrace bitcoin right now," before cautioning, "There is a lot of leverage that applies to bitcoin," which is "something we are concerned about right now."

Jim Lebenthal offered that you can make a "cogent, rational explanation" for owning Megacap Tech, not so much for bitcoin.

Amy Raskin is "underweight the Mag 7."

CLF apparently is at a 52-week low

In a curious conversation on Monday's (12/16) Halftime Report, Judge brought in Julia Boorstin to detail the rise in NFLX (this writer is long NFLX).

We were all ears. However, what Julia mentioned (live events, ad tiers and lower churn) is hardly new news and is basically mentioned every time the stock is discussed on the program, which is probably at least once a week.

Joe Terranova said the NFLX multiple is justified by the ad potential with live sports.

Meanwhile, Joe bought DOCU, DDOG and ZM. Joe said the first 2 are "trades" and the latter is more like an investment. Joe said ZM is "pivoting towards AI (snicker)."

Amy Raskin trimmed IONQ, a stock she mentioned recently that's done awesome, because ... (drum roll ... there are only 2 possible reasons) ... "just because it got to such a big percent position" (that would be Door No. 1).

Joe sold the XBI, grumbling it "hasn't worked."

Amy actually bought more AVGO. Judge tried to jab Joe about selling AVGO on Dec. 4. Joe tried to say he made 170% on it; Judge said "it's up 45% since you sold it."

Amy Raskin added to DIS, a stock which has done curiously well since the election (although Judge never mentions the correlation); Judge said Rosenblatt upped its DIS target to $135.

Jim Lebenthal said he doesn't see "any headwinds" for airline stocks.

Judge, Mel haven’t clued in viewers on Mark Lazarus’ plan to find growth at SpinCo

One of the very interesting business stories that's playing out right now is one you won't hear much about on CNBC:

The future of the channel.

Since the big news broke a month ago about CMCSA spinning off the less lucrative/desirable group of channels into their own company, we saw reports of some staff meetings.

One of the headlines was about Mr. Lazarus apparently assuring the crew at Englewood Cliffs that they'll be "predators" and not "prey."

(That's a good one for the softball team's T-shirts: The CNBC Predators.)

Honestly, about the only news of "innovation" we've seen from these stories is the same old stale corporate jargon about somehow maybe licensing daily stock market chatter to other channels (how much do NBC and MSNBC use it now) and the old standby of exec(s) saying the word "digital" about 500 times. (We haven't yet seen a story in which Mr. Lazarus says "Well the key to growth is tripling the subscribers to Jim Cramer's newsletter," but that and extending the "Shark Tank" contract seem to be CNBC's only ideas of the last decade.)

It seems like, before we hear more endless opinions about what DIS (for example) needs to do, it wouldn't hurt to hear what SpinCo should be doing in the same space.

Jim buys UNH while Aswath sells

On Friday's (12/13) Closing Bell, Aswath Damodaran told Judge he sold half of his UNH position after the incident in Manhattan. He said "there's a reckoning coming" in the space.

That was interesting, because a day earlier, on the Halftime Report, Jim Lebenthal spoke of adding UNH for a trade.

Jim said he "was pretty surprised" at how much it's been down since the Manhattan incident. Jim said it's likely to make a lot of money "whether you like it or not." Jim added, "I don't believe we should be killing people if we disagree with policies."

Judge said the stock is down 12% since the shooting. However, Judge told Jim, "It feels like you're a little dismissive of the issue that has bubbled over ... of insurance company practices ... and what that could potentially mean for the long-term performance of some of these companies."

Jim said he thinks "the government's gonna get involved" and "go against United Healthcare." Josh Brown said the question is whether UNH will "proactively undergo a business model change" so as not to be the "villain" in future headlines.

Josh, Bryn express different views as to the level of interest in HOOD in sports betting

Bryn Talkington bought HOOD and said on Friday's (12/13) Halftime Report that we've seen the company "grow up" in the last couple years.

Josh Brown questioned the company's interest in gambling at the same time it's trying to be custodian for retirement accounts.

Bryn said she thinks Vlad was asked by "Andrew and Joe" about sports gambling and said "that's not what they're gonna do." Bryn predicted the retirement platform at Robinhood will be "very sticky."

‘The science had no clue what the hell they were doing during COVID’

On Friday's (12/13) Halftime Report, Josh Brown said there's a "weird dynamic" in which the stock market interprets everything that's good for TSLA as "bad for UBER."

Josh said that's a "misperception." Josh said UBER's problem is capacity, they don't have enough and want more rides on the road.

Josh called UBER a "screaming buy," and Josh and Judge agreed that Goldman's Eric Sheridan made UBER its No. 1 pick in the space with a $96 target. (This writer was long UBER for much of the year but has no position.) Josh thinks it's going to $100.

Kevin Simpson bought more CME, citing the special dividend. He also bought RTX, citing a "very low, um, price to earnings ratio." Steve Weiss bought more VRT; "You're not building data centers without these guys."

On Friday's Closing Bell, Loretta Mester said she prefers the Fed be more "data informed" rather than "data dependent."

On Fast Money, discussing RFK Jr. and vaccines, Steve Grasso stated, "Not to be political, but we were told follow the science, and the science had no clue what the hell they were doing during COVID, right. 6 feet, it was an arbitrary number. The COVID vaccine, it's gonna safeguard you, no it really doesn't safeguard you. So, that's what put a bad taste in the population." But Steve said polio is a "different beast."

Sounds like Warren sold too soon

Judge on Friday's (12/13) Halftime Report said that 12 years ago, the Mag 7 market cap was $1 trillion; today, it's $18 trillion.

Kevin Simpson's AAPL position got called away, the 10th time in 13 years that has happened.

Josh Brown pointed out that Warren Buffett "basically liquidated his position" in AAPL, "and the stock responded to that by rallying 25%."

Josh said AMZN is "clearly under accumulation" and "technically speaking ... looks as good as any stock in the S&P 500 right now."

Josh said a "huge number" of stocks have outperformed the indexes this year.

Bryn Talkington said, "I think seasonality, or the trend, is gonna definitely push through towards the inauguration."

Kevin said he got $160 for a $700 MSTR call for January 2026.

Jim irritates Judge by saying ‘Everybody stop for a second’

Early on Thursday's (12/12) Halftime Report, Jason Snipe said there's still "a lot to like" in the stock market, though expect some tax selling.

Judge quoted Barry Bannister, referring to Barry as just "Bannister," as calling the S&P "overextended" and expecting a "mid-5,000s" S&P correction.

Judge also said that BofA says the best is "probably" behind us in the stock market.

Jim Lebenthal said it "may well be true" that "the best is behind us," but it'll still be "good going forward," and so he can "get completely behind" that call.

Judge asked what Jim meant by "you say 'I could get behind that,'" and is that Jim's call.

Jim said "Yeah," that's his call, then, anticipating being cut off, stated, "Everybody stop for a second-"

Judge cut in, "No no no, I'm gonna drive the conversation."

"OK! Well then let me respond," Jim said.

"I asked you a question ... just answer the question for me, please," Judge said.

Jim pointed out that we've had "2 years in a row of 25%-plus gains" and we might only get 7-8% next year, and we might get a correction; that's fine, he said people shouldn't sell their stocks.

Jim says he hasn’t read analyst’s steel report but insists it can’t have anything new

In what could be a bit of hyperbole — or could be true — Josh Brown on Thursday's (12/12) Halftime Report said AAPL "may be the best business ever created in the history of the world."

Jim Lebenthal said he trimmed MSFT because it's a "very inviting target" as a source of funds.

Jenny Harrington claimed the Mag 7 rally is in "late stage," because, she said, "based on the multiple." Josh and Jenny sparred for a bit over Jenny's skepticism of AI, or AI multiples, or whatever.

Judge said, "The Nippon-U.S. Steel deal ain't happenin'." Jim scoffed at UBS' downgrade and first said "I haven't had a chance to read it," then said, "Really is there something new in this that we didn't know? I don't think so."

Jim said CLF is trading at a multiple "that to me says there's a lot more upside." For many years, Jim has been saying there's upside ahead for CLF; it trades currently around $10.

Stocks that peaked 2 months earlier can still have positive momentum scores, apparently

Joe Terranova on Wednesday's (12/11) Halftime Report said LLY is technically broken, and he suggested that the pharma sector spent "too much of their resources during COVID and post-COVID focusing on COVID itself, not enough investing in things like GLP-1."

Judge asked Joe, if LLY "peaked in August," why didn't the JOET get rid of it in the last rebalancing.

Joe protested, "if you pull the lens back- I mean, you're asking me now a complicated question surrounding how do we measure momentum; there was still a positive momentum score on the stock itself." Joe said there's "proprietary factors" that go into momentum scores.

Judge persisted, wondering if the "momentum was gone" after August. Joe insisted, "No, the momentum was not gone after that," claiming the momentum broke down "probably around the election."

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman, back from a break, said the market rally "seems like animal spirits, just, you know, kinda running amok. ... I'm long. This is really fun. It will end, I'm sure."

It was Weiss who suggested Lina might keep her job, on Nov. 15

Judge opened Wednesday's (12/11) Halftime Report asking Rob Sechan about Megacap Tech.

Rob gave a short speech about earnings growth and said "Tesla is the only Mag 7 name projected to exhibit (snicker) meaningful earnings acceleration." Rob said because the others are projected to have deceleration, you have to be "selective" in Mag 7 stocks, a point he reiterated a few minutes later.

Joe Terranova shrugged that "we play this game of trying to pick the winner." (Well, those who constantly tout active management/stock-picking on CNBC.) Joe said "I never understood the premise that you want to ignore the Mag 7 in your portfolio."

Judge protested, "Nobody was saying get out of it," just that the "tremendous level of outperformance" won't be the same next year.

Joe said the Andrew Ferguson/FTC news was "one of the catalysts" for the Mag 7 rally.

Stephanie Link told Judge, "You know I sold Apple in late August because I made 42% in 4 months." So if Judge already knew it, apparently she just wanted to let viewers know.

Judge scowled that, "Funny that someone- some even on this program were trying to argue in the last few weeks that, uh, well, you know, there's a good chance that Lina Khan's gonna stay on. We were like, Really???"

Joe said that was an "impossibility" that "never made much sense." Joe stressed that "President Trump's scorecard is the stock market and his golf handicap."

Joe noted that Donald Trump is "visiting the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow."

On UNH, Rob said he's been "slightly underweight and trimming," though it "obviously has nothing to do with the tragedy that happened and obviously the public outrage that we've seen, uh, you know, boil to a, boil to a point around this, uh, around this tragedy." (Honestly, we don't know exactly what Rob means by "outrage" and "boil" in this instance.)

Judge mentioned the Warren-Hawley idea to split PBMs from health insurers. Rob said, "I view this as very opportunistic for somebody like Elizabeth Warren to try to, try to take advantage of this at- at this time." Judge cut in that it's a "bipartisan bill" also introduced by Josh Hawley.

Joe said you can buy NFLX at its all-time high. (This writer is long NFLX.)

Joe said TRV is at its "last line of support," which is actually 235, according to Joe.

Rob said he "regrettably" increased his ADBE position in January.

Judge said COST set a "new (sic redundant) record high." Joe said "the stock is extended," and expectations are high.

Tom Lee on Closing Bell predicted stocks finish the year "very strong." And he predicted a cut in December.

Greater chance of a market 3-peat than a Chiefs 3-peat

On Kelly Evans' The Exchange on Tuesday (12/10), Andres Garcia-Amaya said it's more likely the market has an up-20% 3-peat year in 2025 than the Chiefs have a 3-peat in February 2025.

Andres said market forecasters always predict a 10-12% up year, but rarely does the market go up within that narrow range.

Andres impressively knew that there have only been 2 NFL threepeats, both by the Packers and neither completely in the Super Bowl era.

We don’t know if momentum outperformed in late 2002 or late 2008 because Judge’s crew didn’t do any research

Judge opened Tuesday's (12/10) Halftime Report "front and center" with the supposed "momentum meltdown," gravely pointing out that the JOET on Monday had its worst day in 3 months (stop the presses) and saying Wolfe is claiming "nasty action" indicating momentum is "clearly stretched" at levels seen, in the last 30 years, only in late 2002 and late 2008.

Joe Terranova said he agrees with "stretched" and also thinks things are "extended."

Joe said during late 2002 and 2008, "The entire market at that point went down," and how do we know momentum didn't outperform at those times.

Joe stressed, "I utilize (snicker) a quality factor."

Josh Brown said it's "logical" to assess why the "great companies" with momentum suddenly sold off and maybe think about buying; the "illogical" approach is to say "they're all garbage now, next."

Judge said Krinsky is warning of a "yellow light (snicker) for risk."

Jenny Harrington offered, "We know prices are up too much on things." (As always, everybody else's stocks are overpriced.) Judge said "that needs to be debated a little bit." Jenny said, "I would say" that she knows when stocks are up too much, though Jenny admitted, "Maybe I'm wrong."

Jim Lebenthal, who wasn't officially on the panel, joined remotely and advised not bailing on ORCL, though he conceded "a miss" in earnings. Judge wondered if ORCL got caught up in AI-related "froth." Jim said the answer to that is "purely subjective."

Jim claimed the ORCL forward multiple is 28; the screen graphic said it's 26.41. If it's not even certain what the multiple is, how does anyone use that as their investment guide?

Stephanie Link mentioned how much she made in FANG and META. With the former, Judge thought viewers might not've heard it, so he actually repeated it.

On Fast Money, Steve Grasso said X is "a buy on the weakness."

Faulkner, step aside: AI is going to mine 20 years of Reddit gibberish

Judge for some reason on Monday (12/9) was fascinated enough by the Morgan Stanley upgrade of RDDT to bring in Josh Brown remotely to gush yet again about the stock.

Judge said the stock hit a record high on its new AI tool. Josh gave the same speech he's already given several times, stating, "For the first time in 20 years, search is actually up for grabs."

Judge kept asking Josh about stock price and said Morgan Stanley is thinking 200 now. Josh said, "I bought it around like a hundred or something."

Josh again stressed about Reddit, "They literally have 20 years worth of user-generated information on that site." Yes, and it's all very valuable information.

Weiss actually thinks a 7,100 price target is ‘kinda troubling’

Judge opened Monday's (12/9) Halftime Report saying Oppenheimer has gone to 7,100 for 2025.

Anastasia Amoroso told Judge, "It does sound reasonable."

Steve Weiss said it's "Wall Street's version of the game Can You Top This? So, uh, it's kinda troubling actually."

Weiss said there's "broad ignorance" of what could go wrong. Judge asked for what that is. Weiss offered "what China announced today" about rare earths in "retaliation" for Donald Trump's tariff plans. (Hmmm, we didn't have China-rare-earths at the top of our market risks list.)

Jim Lebenthal admitted, "I"m more with Steve than not," but "very clearly, the rest of this month is likely to be positive," arguing "FOMO's back" and "animal spirits are in force."

Jim said year-end targets "might as well be 7,100." However, Jim said "there may be" in the first quarter a "wake-up call" (snicker) with things like tariffs.

Anastasia said the "base case scenario" for 2025 has to be equities moving higher.

Weiss returned to one of his favorite subjects, stating, "Biden had said, and other administrations, we will project- (sic) protect Taiwan. There's been no such announcement by Trump." Weiss said this position is "critical to the global economy."

Judge mentioned the "Tepper move" of stocks related to China and asked Weiss if Tepper's recent observation on Squawk Box about how China will pump more stimulus at any weakness will be correct. Weiss said "he's been involved in BABA for a while," but those comments were "before we've gotten this heightening of geopolitical risks."

Wow, someone’s getting a large baseball salary

In what should've been a rather simple and forgettable conversation, Jim Lebenthal on Monday's (12/9) Halftime Report said ORCL is a stock you want to add to after earnings on Monday.

Jim mentioned a story about 3-4 months ago that's "actually true" about Larry Ellison sitting down with Jensen Huang "at a high-end sushi bar" and saying he really needed Blackwell chips.

Judge wondered if the restaurant was "Nobu in Malibu." Judge and Steve Weiss agreed that Larry Ellison owns it.

Moments later, Judge corrected himself: "By the way, the restaurant was in Palo Alto. Nobu. Palo Alto. He owns that too."

Weiss said ORCL's "50% multiple expansion seems, uh, seem- seems kind of wild."

Meanwhile, Judge said Cowen upgraded BX to buy with a 230 target, up from 149. Weiss said he owned CG but "sold it obviously way too soon." (Honestly, we know these asset managers have done great ... we just can't get the least bit excited about them.)

Jim touted the pipeline for VRTX. Jim claimed forward P.E. is 26.

Jim suggested CASY will go higher despite the multiple (whatever it is).

Weiss bought more VRT and shrugged off the selloff; he said it's a way to play AI.

We're hoping at some point society gets to the point where it's not fascinated by large baseball salaries. #alldayonCNBC ... Weiss even calculated what Babe Ruth's lifetime earnings would be in today's dollars.

Judge cracks that players in the crypto space could afford a ‘private jet’

On Friday's (12/6) Halftime Report, Steve Weiss said he was at "my office in Chicago" when he saw Donald Trump's appointment this week to SEC chief, which gave bitcoin a boost.

Weiss said it's "not unusual" that bitcoin would pull back from $100,000, but he now sees that level as "support."

Judge said Wolfe calls bitcoin "overdone but not over." Weiss said bitcoin has "no intrinsic value."

Jenny Harrington asked Weiss if he's playing bitcoin for a "25% return." Weiss said, "Um, I don't think I have to define it," he's playing momentum, at least until "the momentum starts to ebb."

Jenny said "I don't invest for momentum," and when she invests in a stock, she wants 8-10% a year on average for 3-5 years.

Judge then brought up DOCU. Jenny hailed the gains, even if Friday's seemed kind of outsized, and said when she bought DOCU, "It was down almost 90% from its pandemic high."

That conversation got kind of interesting when Weiss cut in to tell Jenny, "We have different investment styles. You track your clients with 8-10% returns. So that's what you do-"

"That's on the dividend portfolio," Jenny cut in.

"I'm not gettin' into that, that's not the point," Weiss said. "I look for absolute performance. ... I'm there to make money regardless of where it is. You're there saying, 'I've gotta do this; I've gotta do that.' Because that's what your clients expect. Mine have a different expectation."

Jenny mentioned a client who cashed out an "enormous portfolio," including at one of the "major wirehouses," he had a combination of growth stocks, international stocks.

"What's the point?" Weiss wondered.

Jenny said the client bought bitcoin, MicroStrategy and Palantir, "100% in that," and Jenny wondered, "What does he think he's gonna get?"

Judge said, "Private jet?"

Weiss said he "could care less" (sic meant "couldn't" care less) why someone else was buying bitcoin.

‘Too many charged-up bulls’

"It's actually been Goldilocks for a while," Steve Weiss said early on Friday's (12/6) Halftime Report, claiming it doesn't matter to the market "in the least" as to whether the Fed cuts 25 points in December.

Weiss said there's a belief there's a "guardian angel looking over the market, in business, in taxes, everything, in the Trump administration," though "issues could come up next year."

Weiss said he has positions he wants to sell or trim, but he's "not doing it until January," which is OK because next year's tax changes will be "retroactive" to the start of the year.

Jenny Harrington, though, said that rather than Goldilocks, it's a "frathouse party in the market."

Jason Snipe said there's a "chase" now but he expects Q1 to be "a little bit volatile" because of "a lot of tax selling."

Judge said Ed Yardeni thinks there may be "too many charged-up bulls."

Steve Liesman said Beth Hammack sees 1 cut by the end of January and "a few" cuts by the end of 2025.

Judge and Weiss haggled over exactly what kind of position the Fed is in; Judge concluded that the Fed has "the luxury to wait" on cuts because the economy is strong, and Weiss praised that terminology.

Jenny says UBER is making enough money to invest in dubious ventures

Judge on Friday's (12/6) Halftime Report noted that UBER is down "10% since the election" and asked Jason Snipe whether he's "sweatin'" over the stock.

Jason said no, because he thinks UBER has a "tremendous network." Judge said "some say" that "the goalposts have literally moved." Jason said he's "very aware" of that perception but he's not sure that's the case.

Jenny Harrington suggested that UBER, if it wanted to, could buy its own robotaxis. Steve Weiss said the drivers with Uber currently are responsible for paying for the cars and the upkeep, and if UBER adds robotaxis, "Who's gonna pick up those costs?"

Jenny said "I'm not suggesting that Uber wants to do that. I'm suggesting they don't." Jenny said her point is that if UBER thought robotaxis was the way to go, it could enter that space. Weiss said, "I don't think it's workable right now, robotaxis." Jenny said, "OK, that's a great point."

Jason Snipe bought more NFLX. (This writer is long NFLX.) "The spread between them and the other players is only growing," Jason said. Like this page has said countless times now, we don't think it's a case of how far ahead NFLX may be from other services which are all goosing their numbers with handout subscriptions that most people never watch; it's that NFLX alone is practically a traditional cable company within itself (without the old wire-infrastructure necessities but with the ability to charge all kinds of different levels of pricing), and we doubt all the others are ever going to reach that level.

Jenny mentioned, as she always does, when META was $79. Jenny said, "We don't wanna sell it right now because the gain is HUGE. We're looking at year-end ... like everyone else, we're kicking the can on capital gains." (Oh joy ... the thrill of delaying a tax payment from 4 months to 16 months ...)

Weiss called GXO "dead money," citing stories about "rumors" about the company being up for sale that were quickly superseded by stories about the company not being sold.

When was the last time you heard ‘NFT’ on CNBC?

The Moochmeister, Anthony Scaramucci, joined Thursday's (12/5) Halftime Report panel in the 17th minute to discuss his new bitcoin book.

Anthony called the $100,000 level for bitcoin "really just the beginning." He added, "I really do see this as an asset class."

Anthony said the current administration's approach to bitcoin is a "fundamental failure by the Democrats actually."

Josh Brown said that Barry was at Anthony's book party this week. Josh wondered if Anthony couldn't have built a "bitcoin reserve" before Michael Saylor did and "beat him to the punch."

Judge observed that Anthony has "such great perspective on it because you literally lived through the turbulence of the growing-up of this asset. You, you've seen the scammers, the shysters, the phonies, the fraudsters, in many respects," as though those characters are no longer on the scene.

Anthony said, "We have to be objective about President Trump."

He also kind of praised Gary Gensler. "Weirdly he helped the industry, because he cleaned out a lot of the dregs in the industry, if you will," Anthony said.

Anthony indicated that anyone who studies crypto will be hooked. He mentioned Paul Tudor Jones and Stan Druckenmiller and stated, "I know very few people that have done the homework Scott and then say 'Oh no, bitcoin's not for me.'" (Evidently, Buffett/Munger haven't done enough homework.)

Bill explains how to handle those stocks that actually go higher

On Thursday's (12/5) Halftime Report, expressing the No. 1 Problem For Halftime Report Panelists, which is having a position grow too large (No. 2 is paying the taxes on big capital gains), Bill Baruch explained that TSLA has become a "big position" in his portfolio but they've tried to manage it and "keep it outside the top 5" holdings because it "trades like a commodity." (A better way to say it is to buy whenever Weiss talks about how he's going to short it.)

Bill said the Nasdaq "officially" broke out a day earlier and that it hadn't even been above its July high. But now, Big Tech names are "setting record highs" like "dominoes."

Bill bought WDAY, which he said is shifting to a "big focus on profitability." Bill also bought ORCL; Josh Brown had bought that one under $100, but Josh lamented on Thursday that he "sold it way too soon."

Liz Young Thomas opened the show saying she thinks we "keep going for a while," even though strategists have "more muted" expectations (tip: their expectations are always muted) for 2025.

"Nobody wants to get off the ride" when it's one like this, Josh Brown said.

Josh scoffed at the description of "Trump bump" for this rally, rather, it's because "earnings expectations were too low for the quarter that was just announced."

Josh says he’s not as cynical as Kara Swisher

Josh Brown, as he always does, downplayed on Thursday's (12/5) Halftime Report the day's decline in UBER's share price, suggesting it's not related to Waymo expansion but word of FTC interest in subscription cancellation policies.

However, Brown said that's just "one more inquiry" by this administration, and, "Over the last couple years, every time you've sold on some sort of a regulatory action headline related to Uber, it's been the wrong decision."

Addressing the Jeff Bezos interview (see below), Josh said he heard Kara Swisher say, "Well Jeff just wants a space contract," but Josh isn't "as cynical as she is," rather Josh thinks Jeff is "looking at the state of regulation" and seeing things that "could potentially get done."

Josh asserted that AMZN is "on the way to 250."

Judge asserted that "tech has felt undeniably under pressure and under attack under the current administration."

Liz Young Thomas said we won't know until "midyear at best on some of this regulatory stuff."

One thing about the Bezos interview; they didn’t run any ads, so nothing for Peacock and the theme parks. #SpinCo

In recent days, a few Halftime Report panelists have mentioned obscure stocks.

Thursday (12/5), Bill Baruch said he bought CDE, which we'd never heard of before, but it reminded us of the inaugural glory days of Fast Money when Eric Bolling & Co. were tripping over each other to pick commodity stocks every day.

Bill said CDE is "headquartered in Chicago," and it bought a Mexico interest, but 60% of their mining is in the U.S., and, in the important part of the commentary, he thinks miners will outperform what Bill sees as the "upside in gold and silver."

Judge has hardly spent any time on gold in years, despite the fact it's had a great year, and really has an impressive chart since 2016.

Liz Young Thomas offered, "I like gold here," contending "the buyer of gold is different than the buyer of crypto," so she's not sure that crypto and gold are actually competitors.

The funny thing about that, a couple hours later on Closing Bell, assessing crypto and the gain in COIN since Halloween, Joe Terranova said, "This is momentum at its best" but observed that "we don't value tangible assets anymore," rather, we're into intangible assets like AI and bitcoin.

Meanwhile, on Halftime, Bill's Final Trade was bitcoin-related, the IBIT.

Bill said he used the selloff in ABBV to "increase our exposure."

Josh Brown actually made the case for JCI, saying the sector is "starting to front-run" a turn in the fundamentals. Josh also touted FERG; "probably first time ever being talked about on CNBC." He also said NET is experiencing a "breakout in progress."

Jeff Bezos: ‘You’re going to solve the problem of the national debt by making it a smaller percentage of GDP ... by growing the GDP’

The Fast Money panel on Wednesday (12/4) was needlessly full-staffed even though CNBC basically showed the excellent Sorkin-Bezos DealBook interview for the entire hour.

Sorkin's questions started off with the lack of a WaPo endorsement; that was understandable, but it nearly hopelessly bogged down the interview as Bezos said nothing different about this subject than what he has already stated.

Jeff's most interesting comments were about how national debt will only be solved by "outgrowing" it with GDP, and how he's "super optimistic" about Donald Trump's pending presidency or at least Trump's approach to regulation.

"He is calmer than he was the first time," Bezos said.

Sorkin pointed out that Donald Trump considers the press an enemy. (Trump actually doesn't consider the press, at least all of it, as his enemy, but whatever.) "I'm gonna try to talk him out of that idea," Bezos said.

Jeff said he takes Elon's assertions "at face value" that Elon won't try to use Elon's influence in government to hurt competitors. Jeff said only very rarely in a couple instances has not being cynical led to a problem. See our home page for a little more.

Judge suggests Mar-a-Lago visits are boosting stock prices

The signature statement of Wednesday's (12/4) Halftime Report came shortly into the program when Judge said he's not predicting another 30% year in tech stocks, but you have to look at CEO meetings with Donald Trump and notice "where the puck continues to go, and the rink, if you will, continues to get longer."

Judge said META is "up 7% alone since Zuckerberg went to Mar-a-Lago to have dinner with the president-elect."

Joe Terranova said that in the Mag 7, "it is clearly, clearly, Tesla and Amazon right now."

Kevin Simpson wasn't on the panel but joined remotely to say he's bought more META; he doesn't think it's overvalued "by any means."

The big earnings report of the day was CRM. Joe said you want to be in software and semis, "it's clear from SalesForce's report that AI is having a beneficial impact on earnings and lifting the valuations of these stocks."

Sarat Sethi bought CRM 2 months ago and said money is "not flowing to consumer staples or health care." He said he "wouldn't take a full position" in CRM today, but "I would definitely nibble into it today."

Shannon Saccocia agreed with Joe that you can own "both" semis and software and don't have to pick between the two.

Joe told Judge that his selling of AVGO "is not an indication that I'm seeing a deterioration" in quality or momentum.

Judge brought up APP around the 21st minute and noted it's in the JOET. Joe credited "the strategy" for buying it. Joe said if he owned it personally, he'd have a "trailing stop."

Bryn Talkington said RBLX "clearly refuted" Hindenburg's "financial claims" and has put in "meaningful levers" for parents to keep tabs on kids' activity.

On Closing Bell, "I think there's still gas in the tank," Tony Pasquariello told Judge, "into the start of next year."

NKE has a ‘stale lineup’ (at least in this footwear conversation, we didn’t have to hear Weiss jab at whatever shoes Jim’s got)

Judge on Wednesday's (12/4) Halftime Report pointed out that bitcoin remains on the doorstep of $100,000. But Bryn Talkington said that in the crypto space, "There's a tremendous amount of leverage," which Bryn thinks is "exuberant."

Bryn pointed out that HOOD has "just a fraction" of assets under management as Schwab and Fidelity have. But Bryn said HOOD is an "interesting name to watch" as it grows past the game-ification that some have associated it with. Joe Terranova said HOOD is "growing up right before our eyes."

Bryn said she thinks people have had a pairs trade going of long TSLA/short UBER, and Bryn likes UBER and thinks that pairs trade no longer "makes sense." Joe said he expects UBER momentum to "restart" but not until February. Sarat Sethi cautioned about "regulatory risk" for UBER.

Joe said he thinks APO will get to 188 and praised the space. Sarat practically gushed about the "whole sector" having a "huge amount of tailwind behind it."

Joe said FL needs "complete change in the strategy" and he thinks it's "primed for some form of activism." Joe said there are "secular challenges" for FL that affect NKE. Bryn said she agrees with Joe that there are "secular headwinds" but the space is also "incredibly cyclical" and you have to "time these trades right."

Judge pressed Bryn on NKE's "lack of innovation." Bryn said "innovation" isn't the problem; Judge insisted it's "part of the story." Bryn shrugged that NKE just has a "stale lineup."

Jim claimed on Sept. 6 that hot-rolled steel prices appeared to have ‘bottomed’; doesn’t seem like that was the case

Rather skeptically, Judge asked Jim Lebenthal on Tuesday's (12/3) Halftime Report, "Did you sell Cleveland-Cliffs yet," because if it's down (it was actually unch or up pennies when Judge spoke) when Trump announced he'll block the U.S. Steel deal, what makes Jim think it'll go up.

Jim said he hasn't sold and said he'd be "very surprised" if CLF bought "all of U.S. Steel," which apparently was Jim's way of saying that Donald Trump blocking the Nippon takeover of X probably shouldn't affect CLF's share price.

Jim asserted that it's a "long-term holding." Judge concluded that Jim is "never selling" and that Jim "trapped" himself with his comments.

"I'm not gonna give in" to Judge's "making fun of me," Jim declared, while he said Judge was "busting chops."

During this conversation, Jim told Josh Brown it wasn't Brown's turn to talk. Judge made an "our time" joke from "Fast Times," which was good, then explained it to everyone, which was weak (it wasn't clear whether Jim knew where that quote was from or not).

A lot of people are fascinated by the TGT-WMT spread (a/k/a Reversion to Mean trades are back)

Early into Tuesday's (12/3) Halftime Report, Judge said at least 2 or 3 times, "I don't remember a day in which we had this many moves from this many people (snicker)."

Well, most of those moves amounted to trimming some stocks that the panelists kept defending anyway.

Judge started by asking Josh Brown about buying SBUX. Josh thought, of course, the technical setup was good, "so I entered the trade (snicker)."

Josh cut in to the follow-up conversation to add "how great of a setup this is for both traders and investors," and he said that the RSI says "it's not yet overbought."

Josh also trimmed GOOGL, saying it's "unclear" how it will fare against "more competition AI." Jim Lebenthal though said he's "not trimming it," because he thinks the "competitive pressures" are already in the stock.

Josh Brown and Brian Belski each bought more AMZN.

Belski trimmed LLY; his shop just isn't "as overweight as we were" (ba dum bum). He bought AMD, C (snicker) and ONON, and he has "started to nibble" on TSLA. (At the end of the show, Jim made ONON his Final Trade.)

Judge said Elon's "proximity to power" is "even more, uh, elevated than some had thought it would be."

Belski said he bought TGT and threw in an "oh by the way," it's the "widest spread ever" between TGT and WMT.

Stephanie Link sold LRCX because of the "overhang with China" and used the proceeds to buy more GPS, as well as CRWD (this writer is long CRWD), citing her favorite metric: "It's still down from its highs about 7%."

Josh Brown hung a "triple digits" on SQ, though he's got a stop and isn't "wildly bullish" on the name.

Jim said AAPL has been going up only because there's been new money coming into the market; it's "simply passive flows."

Josh Brown was allowed to give a speech at the end about using stop losses and rolling them higher "as the trade continues to work."

Ah. It’s better to lose money in INTC than make money because now the taxes can be reduced.

On Monday's (12/2) Halftime Report, Joe Terranova actually said with a straight face, "The biggest disappointment in 2024, without question, is Alphabet. I think coming into 2024, everyone said, this is the year that Alphabet is finally going to catch up in terms of performance relative to its peers."

Judge, to his credit, wondered as we did, "Is this the year that everybody said that? ... I think it was the exact opposite."

Steve Weiss and Judge agreed that Brad Gerstner and others entered the year calling Alphabet a "loser."

Meanwhile, Jenny Harrington dialed in to say she found an excuse to sell INTC. Jenny said she's realized "huge capital gains this year" in other stocks and said "huge" twice and said INTC is a "tax loss harvest" that's "not unwelcome."

Joe said fundamental investors won't like it, but he claimed, "The market is becoming so much more oriented towards technicals and algorithms."

Nobody (at least not here) wants to be a downer on movie theaters. But hearing about how something broke a "Grease" financial record that occurred in 1978 gets a little old. On Fast Money, Melissa Lee got Julia Boorstin to admit that movie theater ticket sales are not adjusted for inflation. But Julia insisted on adding, "I think what's really important here" is that "popcorn sales" go up along with ticket prices.

The death of Art Cashin (who's in the photo in the upper right corner of this page) was reported in between Halftime Report and Fast Money, on Closing Bell and Closing Bell Overtime; for more details, see our home page.

Is Musk’s election spending the best investment ever?

Bryn Talkington on Monday's (12/2) Halftime Report said the "halo" between Donald Trump and Elon Musk will "continue until it doesn't."

In an interesting observation, Steve Weiss mentioned the "return" Musk got from his donations toward Trump's election in terms of how well TSLA has done since; Judge called it "the greatest ROI ever."

That's a fair statement and may well be accurate, especially when looking at TSLA's 2024 chart. However, it's fair to entertain the idea that even if Musk stayed out of politics completely, the election and his stock chart would've gone the same way regardless.

Weiss recalled way back in the year when he sparred with Bryn over his TSLA short; he claimed he "won for about 2 seconds" before that trade started to not work.

It’s apparently time to stock-pick (even though Weiss says 75% of you will come up short)

At one point on Monday's (12/2) Halftime Report, Steve Weiss stated, "It's never really easy doing this; otherwise a lot more people would be doing well. And they don't. It's 75% of managers underperforming the index every year, and it's not always the same 75%."

Evidently, that means people aren't doing a good enough job stock-picking, because on Fast Money, Savita, who sat in as a panelist for the whole program, said this is one of the "biggest years" of changes in the C-suite, and "I feel like this is telling us that we're moving into a stock-picker's market."

So despite Weiss' comment, Fast Money put text on the bottom of the screen as Savita spoke that said "SUBRAMANIAN: BUY STOCKS, NOT INDEX."

Savita claimed "The U.S. has underinvested in its own infrastructure for more than 10 years, right. Stuff is old in the U.S., and it's starting to break." That's interesting, because we're not sure we've ever once heard someone on TV — ever — claim that the U.S. has spent plenty on infrastructure.

Savita was asked to address her recent 6,666 S&P call for 2025. Savita said, while it may seem like everyone's bullish, "The truth is, there is euphoria in one specific pocket of the market, and that is megacap tech."

Someone actually had to be ‘bullied’ into selling GM

Monday's (12/2) Halftime Report had trouble getting rolling, as Joe Terranova started off with the 10-year (Zzzzzzzz).

Joe said that 1 year ago, "a 10-year Treasury was 4.20," so in terms of Treasurys, we've just had a "roller coaster ride to basically nowhere."

Judge likened the 10-year chart to a football player who runs sideways back and forth across the field and it ends up "a long run to nowhere."

Assessing the economy, Grandpa Steve Weiss said "we're still warped by the freebies from the government that keep replenishing that consumer and business pocketbook with these gimmes."

Bryn Talkington observed, "It definitely feels like we have some YOLO, uh, in the market." Bryn said she expects to see "more broadening," but she expects to see "tech continue to outperform."

Jim Lebenthal, who had a quiet show, bought more IJR; Jim said "the rally's likely to continue," though he laments, "I got kinda bullied out of General Motors; I'm not happy about it, but the facts on the ground changed."

Joe claimed, "You can find opportunities in the totality of the equity market." Jim pointed out that NVDA is not currently leading the market, rather, the semi trade "seems to be broadening."

Steve Liesman said there's a 63% chance of a December rate cut. Joe claimed "it's 50/50 right now," while Judge clarified, "it's 60/40 actually."

Weiss said he doesn't want to chase momentum in small caps. Weiss said the valuation (uh oh) of META is "dead on" with that of DE. Jim said the market is looking through DE's trough, and Jim said he doesn't want to argue with Weiss over which stock(s) to pick in this instance because it doesn't have to be an argument.

Joe sees $100,000 bitcoin

Wednesday's (11/27) pre-holiday Halftime Report, guest-hosted by Frank Holland, was sort of a curious production. It's always a quiet trading day, and we didn't hear much excitement; on the other hand, Frank and the team put together a good, crisp, watchable show.

The most interesting comment we heard came on Fast Money, when car-buying expert Yossi Levi said "the deals are just getting better," because the car supply has "ballooned."

We don't think Levi addressed car insurance. Talk about something that's really ballooning.

Also on Fast, Grandpa Guy Adami said he "won't be watching" the Black Friday NFL game on Amazon. (Too bad, he missed a great game.) (This review was posted Saturday 11/30.) But he suggested "analysts are offsides" on DIS and said there could be a "bearish-to-bullish reversal" with a close above 123½. (It almost might be just that the analysts underestimated "Moana 2.")

Speaking of the streaming space, on the Halftime Report, Steve Weiss said he's sticking with NFLX and even though he has a pretty large position, he might add on a pullback. (This writer is long NFLX.) Frank asked about the Tyson-Paul fight. "That was more of a variety show than a fight," Weiss explained.

Bill Baruch admitted some disappointments with the DELL report; he said he may add if it holds 115.

Frank asked Joe Terranova about CRWD. (This writer is long CRWD.) Joe said the report shows "less evidence" of CRWD regaining momentum, but he's not "discouraged enough" to sell, and "I think that theme is still intact," citing CRWD, PANW and FTNT as the leaders.

In Final Trades, Joe predicted $100,000 for bitcoin "in the next couple of days."

Judge and Mel haven’t shared with viewers what Mark Lazarus told the CNBC crew

Judge on Tuesday's (11/26) Halftime Report said Savita is predicting a "cyclical inferno (snicker)."

Judge said Savita established a 2025 target of 6,666; "thank God she added the extra 6 (snicker)," Judge said, adding Savita advises buying stock, "not the index," and being overweight financials and discretionary, materials and real estate.

Josh Brown said "Savita is among my favorites," which is the setup for saying, as he did, that he doesn't really find her forecast that relevant. "I don't really allocate portfolios based on chief strategists' notes in November/December for the year ahead," Brown said.

Bill Baruch joined remotely to say he was buying GS before the election and wanted to add more. Bill said he took a new position in ICE; Bill mentioned that "they own the New York Stock Exchange, where the show is."

"That's right," Judge confirmed.

If housing a TV studio for a SpinCo channel is a reason to buy a stock, then there have to be some interesting plays out there.

Bill said he sold CB, which was a "rotation within the financial space." Judge noted the stock is "good enough for Berkshire."

Panelists at one point had a conversation about bank stocks and book value (Zzzzzzzzz).

Tanaya Macheel joined the Post 9 crew to discuss bitcoin getting to the cusp of $100,000 and what its slippage means for ethereum. Jim Lebenthal said that reflecting on evaluating cryptocurrency isn't really his thing; he'd rather talk about small caps (snicker) as the "place to be" for speculative investments.

Kari Firestone said AMGN was sliding because of "side effects" with its obesity drug.

On Fast Money, Grandpa Guy Adami claimed "The market's gotten itself extraordinarily expensive in a short period of time" and asserted that Warren Buffett is "clearly looking at something."

Mel agreed with Dan Nathan that she's been called "Michelle" about "a hundred times ... whatever."

Judge and Mel aired advertisements during their programs; the proceeds of which are surely going to Peacock and theme parks.

Jim reflects on stock gains

Judge opened Tuesday's (11/26) Halftime Report declaring he'd start with "potential tariffs," and he used that terminology "because that's what they are right now!"

Judge said Jim Lebenthal sold GM on "news of possible tariffs." Jim said Judge phrased it "very carefully," and Jim agreed it's "not certain."

However, Jim recalls it being "very unpleasant" owning GM the last time we went through Trump tariffs.

Judge said "some" are wondering if it's just the "opening salvo," and Judge questioned Jim, "Why isn't today a buy?"

"I simply can't ignore this news," said Jim, explaining he has to "reflect (snicker) on the large gain that I've had so far in it."

Josh Brown said of Donald Trump, "He'll probably do something, um, but I think most of what's probably going to happen is talking and negotiating." Brown said in The Art of the Deal, it says Trump's negotiating strategy is, "You walk into the room, and you punch the other person in the mouth. Metaphorically."

Josh relayed how Chinese buying of U.S. ag products plunged in 2019, so the White House "turned around and did a $28 billion multiyear subsidy to U.S. farmers in order to not lose that vote."

Brown concluded: "Yes, take it seriously. No, don't take it literally."

Judge pointed out that Donald Trump campaigned on tariffs.

Judge says tariffs are meant as a ‘negotiating tool’ (a/k/a Steve identifies the next Fed chair)

Probably the most notable trade mentioned on Monday's (11/25) Halftime Report was Steve Weiss' declaration that he's adding to bitcoin.

"I actually bought more this morning," Weiss said, while admitting, "The use case is what I'm doing with it, which is trading."

Also, Bryn Talkington said this is a "great time" to sell some TSLA calls; "I do think it's a little bit higher than it should be." Josh Brown said he doesn't understand what TSLA trades on "other than, the vibes around, like, whatever Elon's working on."

Joe Terranova said the market anticipates "regulatory relief" from Scott Bessent, but the question is whether the market broadening continues.

Weiss suggested Bessent has the "right balance" to do what needs to be done. (On Fast Money, Steve Grasso asserted that Bessent is "gonna be the shadow Fed chair," which Steve clarified for Tim Seymour, means "he's eventually gonna be the Fed chair.")

Weiss said the market will keep going because it's "seasonally in a great period."

Judge said, for year-end 2025, Deutche Bank went to 7,000 while Lori Calvasina is at 6,600. Josh noted that 7,000 is "only 16½ percent away from where the market is now."

Josh said the 10-year, at 4.30, has backed off from 4.45 on 11/13, and there's "an inversion again in the 10-year/2-year."

Touting Joe Terranova's investment vehicle, Judge actually told the panel, "I've got 3 (sic) letters for ya, it's called the JOET, OK." Weiss said the performance has been "amazing."

Moments later, Judge said, "I'm no genius, all right, but it's been pointed out to me that JOET is actually 4 letters, not 3, as I might've suggested." Weiss said, "I didn't wanna embarrass you on a Monday."

Judge said Adam Parker says now is the time to buy semis and sell software.

At one point, Judge opted to opine on politics, stating, "It's not like tariffs are going into effect immediately on certain things. They're used as a negotiating tool." Weiss said, "I agree."

Joe said he actually thinks "the worst has passed" for UBER and now it's an "approaching 80 stock."

Bryn sold DVN, a stock that never got us excited; "you can make money in energy, but it hasn't been in this stock," Bryn said. Weiss sold the remainder of the TDG that he still had, citing the possibility that the government actually gets serious about cutting costs (snicker).

Contessa stuns in Courtney’s earrings

Well into Friday's (11/22) Halftime Report, guest host Courtney Reagan welcomed Contessa Brewer to discuss one of Contessa's beats, casinos.

Court said it's a busy weekend in Vegas; "Adele's final residency concerts; I won't sing but I kinda want to," and immediately the ears perked up around CNBCfix HQ.

Contessa said, "You could start with at least 'Hello,' right, because everybody knows the words to that one." (Well, maybe not everybody.) Courtney said, "I was thinking of Take It Easy On Me." (Actually, our Research Department thinks the title is "Easy On Me.")

Contessa mentioned all the happenings in Vegas and stated, "Apparently the Broncos are really good."

That's an overstatement. They are probably slightly above average, overachieving and having a better season than anticipated. But "really good" is not accurate.

Anyway, at the end of the segment, Courtney said Contessa's earrings are "on fire."

We couldn't agree more. Court was on fire too, as always, at Post 9.

Contessa revealed, "That's because they're- Courtney lent me the earrings. Their hers. She's complimenting herself."

Jim Lebenthal, as always, rain or shine, trumpeted WYNN.

On Closing Bell Overtime, Pippa Stevens referred to "Patrick Mahomies (sic pronunciation)." If it's OK to say, That. Was. Supercute.

Jim ‘giddy’

"I'm kinda giddy right now," Jim Lebenthal admitted near the top of Friday's (11/22) Halftime Report, adding that no one wants to sell in this market.

Jim said this isn't the time to buy laggards; "don't bottom fish." Grandpa Rob Sechan actually agreed with Jim, though Rob cautioned YOU'LL HAVE TO PAY TAXES ON EVERY GAIN!!!!!" "I think selectivity's gonna matter."

Kevin Simpson said his shop was going to sell its WMT position on Friday. He mentioned all the great things about the stock but claimed a forward multiple of 34 (which, as always, could differ from whatever the CNBC screen graphic shows) and said the stock is "a little pricey," which matches with what Karen Finerman was saying the other night on Fast Money about how cheap TGT is compared with WMT. Rob Sechan chuckled that valuation is "not the best timing tool."

Jim gushed about ONON and said the On hiking shoes he bought are "literally my dresss shoes."

Stephanie Link said she bought CRWD when "it fell 41% from its highs" and it's "still down about 8% from its highs," maybe the most popular metric on CNBC. (This writer is long CRWD.) On Fast Money, Tim Seymour said "I think it goes higher" and Julie Biel said it's "quite well-positioned." Guy Adami though said he'd buy PANW on the pullback instead.

For a while, we've been wondering around CNBCfix HQ why we've been seeing either a commercial or reference to this "Wicked" movie about every 90 seconds, or as often as we have to hear those idiots yelling "EVEN A TERM POLICY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" on that obnoxious company's sell-your-life-insurance-policy commercials that are somehow permitted to raise the volume by the FCC.

Later Friday on CNBC, we think on Closing Bell Overtime but aren't sure, we heard Julia Boorstin explain that "'Wicked''s massive marketing blitz is the new playbook to turn movies into cultural touchstones. 'Wicked' has over 400 partnerships," which Julia said includes "skits on 'SNL' (which may not be permissible to say in the near future if SpinCo manages to license CNBC content to non-NBCUni outlets)." We honestly can't fathom why a movie — if it's supposedly good — needs even 10% of as many advertisements as this one has purchased.

Expert would advise SpinCo chief Mark Lazarus NOT to change CNBC’s name

As Judge remains oblivious to the fact his company is being spun off (with a dubious corporate-parent name), Kelly Evans on Thursday (11/21) took up the "SpinCo" spinoff on The Exchange.

Mark Douglas said "the deal itself kinda feels like it was constructed by the finance team at Comcast rather than the business team."

Another guest, Jessica Reif Ehrlich, said, "The only surprise was that it was Comcast as the first one to announce this," as opposed to Warner Bros. or someone else.

"It seems pretty clear there will be a roll-up of cable networks, uh, mostly for cost reasons," Reif Ehrlich said, adding, "It frees the rest of Comcast to do other things."

Reif Ehrlich said NBC and Peacock are the "really important, um, assets," that's why NBCU is keeping them.

Douglas gushed about NFLX (this writer is long NFLX) and said Reif Ehrlich's $1,000 price target is a "conservative" price target; Jessica said, "I actually totally agree." (Yes, Jessica mentioned the "2 NFL games on Christmas Day.")

One thing not covered in this interview is that Reif Ehrlich told the Associated Press that she wouldn't mess with CNBC’s or MSNBC’s name. "Those are pretty big brand names. I would not advise them to change." So your golf shirts and jackets and caps should be good for the long run.

Dee Bosa says Silicon Valley insiders are betting that the Trump-Musk honeymoon won’t last beyond midterms

Judge on Thursday's (11/21) Halftime was still in San Francisco, this time with Brad Gerstner, who's a fine voice and otherwise a fine guest; the only issue we have with Brad's commentary is that The Board Challenge basically got quickly forgotten it basically always comes down to little more than which components of the Mag 7 does Brad think are in season, and which ones does Brad think are out of season.

"The world runs on Nvidia," Brad said, claiming the earnings report was a "blockbuster quarter." Brad said NVDA is his No. 2 position (or, basically "in season").

Josh Brown, who wasn't in San Francisco, praised NVDA for being "very artful" in keeping enthusiasm high while they did not "ratchet up the excitement too much."

Liz Young Thomas asserted that we're in the "infancy of this AI theme."

Judge said he was "shocked" (snicker) to learn that Brad has sold UBER. Brad said Dara "has been an incredible CEO." Brad said he loves the company, "and it's inexpensive." However, he's been "rotating into Tesla" (see what we mean by the in season/out of season thing?), and "I think the year of 2025 is gonna be about robotaxi."

Judge asked Josh about UBER and again said he was "shocked" at Brad's move. Brown said we're in this "kinda gray area moment" as far as how this space plays out. Josh made an elongated point about how Silicon Valley investors have done great things but have a "blind spot," they often think "things are gonna happen tomorrow that may not happen for 10 years." Josh explained, "Here in New York, we think more immediate." Ultimately, Josh predicted UBER will remain the "central demand aggregator" for getting a ride (apparently as opposed to that newfangled idea called a city bus).

Brad said that was "brilliant framing" and that he was a backer of UBER from 15 to 80 and, of course, "We sold the stock much higher than the stock is at today." He just thinks "the optics were gonna be really challenging."

Brad mentioned the "East Coast fascination that Elon is somehow mischievously hurting all Big Tech"; Brad said that's "way off base." Brad also mentioned his META shares going from $90 to $550.

Brad said he bought GOOGL on the DOJ news about Chrome. Josh though said the issue is whether Alphabet can navigate this "gap period" and transition from providing search results to providing answers.

Brad said he's into bitcoin on a "personal level."

Brad said in the last couple of quarters, SNOW felt to him like "META in the fall of '22." Brad crowed about people who, Brad claims, supposedly declared "Snowflake is dead" and said the sentiment was a "zero out of 10." Stephanie Link joined and said SNOW was having a great day but is "still down 16% year to date."

Josh Brown bought SQ and mentioned bitcoin as a catalyst.

Dee Bosa joined the San Francisco set late to discuss politics in Silicon Valley and said some founders and VCs "are skeptical of how long the Trump-Musk honeymoon will actually last." Dee said bets were taken at a dinner, and the longest bet was "midterms."

On Closing Bell, Judge asked Joe Terranova (who was at Post 9 with Adam Parker) if Joe was going to make a move in UBER like Brad did. Joe told Judge, "I already made my move in the name; I sold it personally at 73.50." Joe agreed with "the concerns that Brad is citing."

The new CNBC spinoff company is being called ‘SpinCo’ (a/k/a Oh joy, catch Closing Bell Overtime on Paramount+)

On Wednesday's (11/20) Halftime Report, Judge was basically oblivious to the news that Comcast is spinning off CNBC.

But on Fast Money, right after the A Block, Missy Lee invited Julia Boorstin to delve into the news; they had an excellent, thorough conversation, and Mel noted "this is a big story, uh, you know, out there and also internally."

Julia said "one source (um, or maybe 'cheerleader') told me" that this "isn't the end but rather the beginning." Julia said the spinoff includes CNBC, "which is where- what we're on right now," along with MSNBC, USA and the Golf Channel and others.

Julia explained that consolidating can provide "more scale" (snicker) (#SpinCospin) to "better negotiate higher retransmission fees" and could license content to other streamers besides just Peacock.

OK. Theoretically, that's true. We all know, in reality, there's a very limited market, and if any of these properties were producing must-have content, Comcast would already be milking the heck out of it. Maybe some streamer would pay a little bit to provide Squawk Box in real time. Are they also going to pay for Power Lunch and Closing Bell Overtime?

Mel questioned, under this arrangement, "Where does Peacock get its content?" Julia didn't adequately answer the question but said all the media companies are "frenemies" who compete and license content with each other, and the cable companies may have "more flexibility" (snicker) to license content now. (Translation: Peacock needs to keep buying NFL games at a loss.)

In her last question, Mel got to the point: "Playing the role of skeptic, Julia ... are we just staving off the inevitable in terms of cable companies combining in order to gain some leverage over retransmission fees. I mean the way of the world is going away from cable. That is the ultimate problem."

Julia admitted "it's true" and that the reason for spinning out cable channels is so that studio and theme parks are "not gonna be weighed down by the challenges of the linear TV system." Which is 100% true and should've been the first thing that Julia said.

But Julia suggested that Brian Roberts being a controlling shareholder of SpinCo "indicates that he has some confidence in this." (No, it means if he had no stake, no one would think it's worth anything.) Julia said they could've immediately sold these assets to private equity, though that's "definitely an option" down the line.

OK. The honest truth is that the spinoff is just the "way station," and they opted against immediately selling these channels to private equity because the price would be alarmingly low.

This page, as always, is rooting for CNBC. Nobody wants Squawk Box stars to wake up and find that instead of GE or CMCSA, their company is owned by either Penske Media or whoever overpaid for Business Insider.

But some long-standing stark facts need to be mentioned here ...

1. There are far too many cable channels as it is. Subscribing to cable television is like ordering one item at a restaurant and having the entire menu brought to your table. Skeptics have every right to wonder why in the world there are 3 business channels on most cable systems. Basically the old Bruce Springsteen tune "57 Channels and Nothin' On" is something everyone has agreed on for the last 20 years. CNBC is operating in a bloated market.

2. In 30 years-plus, CNBC has basically never solved its problem of nighttime viewership. Years ago, the decision was made to syndicate "Shark Tank" to fill in any and all gaps, along with Undercover Boss, American Greed, Jay Leno's Garage and "Dateline" reruns. Those are/were all fine programs. They can run on any channel or service.

3. CNBC has demonstrated almost zero inspiration toward its business day programming where "dead pockets" (we all know they exist) tend to occur. Where. Are. The. Ideas. A big new concept amounts to turning the ticker into hard rectangles instead of softer shapes. They've launched about 1 or 2 (if that) bona fide "new" shows in the last 15 years. Networks can put money into news because they come up with "American Idol" or "NCIS" or invest in football. Where do we see evidence of CNBC developing programming ideas?

Anyway. Mel on Wednesday said "the optimistic take on this" is that, for CMCSA shareholders, the company is demonstrating it wants to focus on growth.

Guy Adami said John Malone was recently pointing out that NFLX has big earnings on $40 billion in revenue while Warner Bros. Discovery "will lose money" on that kind of revenue. (That may be true, but that's a different problem than CNBC has historically had.)

Karen Finerman said of the success of SpinCo (snicker), "So much of it depends upon the structure," and Karen suggested that without too much debt, SpinCo could be a "cash-flow machine."

Karen pointed out that some people thought AT&T would be "going to zero," and "that didn't happen." Karen said she's "not as maybe pessimistic" as Mel sounds, though it's like "Mom and Dad are getting divorced."

Here's the real "optimistic take" that Melissa didn't mention: Legacy media products — think newspapers and others — have supporters. Someone will keep funding CNBC. A long time.

Dan Ives has been warming up the cliché machine

Much of Wednesday's (11/20) Halftime Report was bound to be devoted to an NVDA preview (Zzzzz).

Joe Terranova offered, "I actually think they probably need to do $40 billion to get the excitement, uh, in the stock."

At one point, Kari Firestone pointed to Joe's beat number of "40" and said it feels like that number's going up "every single day," so the company has a "pretty high bar."

"I don't expect a big beat. I don't expect a big miss," said Steve Weiss, rather, he's keying on "what demand is."

Judge said Dan Ives is expecting another "drop the mic performance" from NVDA and estimates that "for every $1 spent on an Nvidia GPU, there's a (sic) 8 to 10-dollar multiplier across the tech sector" (whatever that means), and Ives expects, according to Judge, a "rising tide that will continue to lift all boats." Joe said he's "somewhat skeptical" because he's not sure we've seen that effect.

Josh Brown dialed in to say the "No. 1 potential negative might be" what the answers are to the reports of overheated racks.

All of the inflation fears we hear are kind of like when Nouriel Roubini, Kyle Bass and Meredith Whitney kept predicting another 2008 from about 2009 to 2014

After Joe Terranova's audio tripped out during Wednesday's (11/20) Halftime Report, Judge suggested to Kari Firestone that maybe "the coast is clear" for stocks until Inauguration Day.

Kari said she'd play "devil's advocate" and suggested there are "many obstacles," including possibly inflation (snicker) growing and even things like "whether China bombs Taiwan or there's a nuclear event in Europe."

Judge said TGT stock on Wednesday is "unraveling, that's for sure." Stephanie Link asserted it's "certainly a Target-specific issue." On Fast Money, Karen Finerman said she's "intrigued" by the "magnitude" of TGT's slide, "it is getting very inexpensive," Karen said, and she could see a pairs trade with WMT based on multiples, though she doesn't want to violate the "3-day rule."

Judge interrupted Stephanie to report that Michelle Bowman is throwing cold water on rate-slashing anticipation, expressing as "hawkish a view" as we've heard from a Fed figure "in some time."

Kari trimmed BX and said "the right move" was to trim and "sell high." Judge and Kari had a devil of a time managing the satellite delay, as Judge was in San Francisco.

Steve "There's So Much Uncertainty!" Weiss bought more VRT and LDOS. He suggested the Pentagon's civilian employees will be first to go under whatever DOGE does.

Joe said he doesn't disagree with Oppenheimer's JPM downgrade but he's not selling. Weiss said David Solomon "tells it as it is."

Meanwhile, Judge was at San Francisco for Schwab's conference and spoke with Jeff Kleintop; Jeff thinks international markets could outperform the U.S. in 2025, in particular that Europe has more potential for multiple expansion.

Judge was later joined by Schwab's Jon Beatty to discuss wealth management. Of course, he said AI is "definitely a tool" for the RIA community, rather than a disruptive force.

Weiss' Final Trade was, "Bitcoin's got a hundred written all over it."

Courtney is guest host, fortunately doesn’t have to hear Weiss say THERE’S SO MUCH UNCERTAINTY IN THIS MARKET, EVEN TEPPER DOESN’T KNOW!!!!

Kate Rooney, in San Francisco, had the day's star guests on Tuesday's (11/19) Halftime Report, Vlad Tenev and Robb Baldwin, to discuss the Robinhood-TradePMR deal. Maybe the most interesting comment was Tenev's observation that RIAs have this "constant fear that their custodian is gonna try to take their account."

Meanwhile, Jason Snipe said "clearly" there's been a Trump trade that's done well, though it's "waned some" in the past week.

Jim Lebenthal shrugged off the last week's worth of trading that has been rather choppy. "This is just the pause that refreshes," Jim stated.

Jim said it's "uncomfortable" to say, but "Russia vs. Ukraine is not the story" of the financial markets.

Jim said "FOMO applies again."

Josh Brown gave a speech about earnings growth, for some reason. "Interest rates are coming down, earnings are rising, you want to be in stocks," Josh concluded.

Josh said APD has an "unbelievable" chart and advised viewers, "Don't bottom fish."

Josh, whose mike wasn't always screwed in tightly enough, brought up the old saw about how you have to take Donald Trump "seriously" but not "literally."

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman revealed she watched the women's boxing undercard on the Mike Tyson fight and found it "kinda crazy." (This writer is long NFLX.) Karen said, "I'm long Netflix, I sold some calls against it, which turned out to be a terrible sale ... The valuation is very stretched, but I love their competitive position."

Steve Grasso said, "The biggest takeaway for me is they didn't charge you for the fight." Steve then said something this page has said for months or more: "This is becoming your cable."

Joe tells his friend to keep holding a stock that Joe doesn’t want to own

Judge on Monday's (11/18) Halftime Report said TSLA is up "something like" 37% since Election Day, which Judge called "just unbelievable."

Judge said Monday's news is that the new administration "wants to relax self-driving car rules." Judge noted UBER is down and asked Brian Belski about the stock. Belski referenced UBER being in the "industrials" sector (that's something people on the show like to mention) and he'd be looking to add because "this too shall pass."

Joe Terranova, though, claimed that what to do with UBER is a "hard conversation to have" (snicker) because maybe viewers can't be as "tactical" as pros (snicker) can be.

Joe related that he owned UBER "since the mid-30s" and sold at "73.50." Joe said "a personal friend of mine" who's not in finance texted him at the time, "omigod, you sold Tesla (sic meant Uber; Judge didn't correct)"; Joe said he told the friend, "You stay in it," because long-term investors should be "anchored" (snicker) in the name.

But Joe said "you can be tactical" and trade it; he said he's not ready to buy it back yet.

Quick, name the current HHS secretary

Initially, during Monday's (11/18) Halftime Report, we dreaded the thought of Steve Weiss reprising his ridiculous omigod-market-uncertainty-just-because-of-RFK-Jr. argument of last week and were prepared to tune out.

Fortunately, Monday's version never got that bad, though Belski did get dragged into it.

Judge opened by noting what markets did right after the election and the fact that "last week it sorta turned around"; Judge wonders "what that means" (snicker).

Joe Terranova said we could point "automatically" to Powell commentary, but the market seeemed "due" for "corrective type behavior."

Joe stressed that semis are one of the areas "down the most since the election." Judge said Tony Pasquariello says there's "gas in the tank" for the market.

Weiss said he was talking with Brian Belski, and Weiss actually claimed with a straight face, "There's more uncertainty in the market now than we could ever recall in our careers (snicker)."

As for why there's supposedly all this uncertainty, Weiss cited "taking costs out of the government" and Lina Khan's "legacy" (snicker).

Belski affirmed he's "very bullish" into year-end and his 6,100 target, and he's already "talking about a 6,700 target" next year.

Belski said we haven't had "normalization" since 2007; Judge wondered, "What if we're not going back to what you think is, is normalization." Belski responded by defining "high quality" and stated, "I'm not going to let politics take over what I'm saying from an investment strategy standpoint. I never have. And I never will." Good for Belski.

Belski actually claimed with a straight face that his market outlook would "probably not" be different even if the election had a different outcome; rather, Belski claimed "the train has left the station" in terms of monetary policy becoming "more loose."

Shannon Saccocia said that if people expected stocks to take "kind of a straight line to the top," then that's "a bit naive."

Judge said Josh Brown (who wasn't on Monday's show) "put it well" when he suggested Donald Trump cares most about the 2 scorecards for golf and stock markets. Grandpa Weiss claimed, "I disagree with that by the way. He glommed onto the stock market one because it was working. If the stock market were down, he'd blame somebody else and say 'that doesn't matter.'"

Judge protested, "He cares about what the markets do ... c'mon."

Weiss said, "My point is, is that that's not gonna be his focus ... we don't have to get into that."

Josh is more right than Weiss — the stock market definitely is a Trump scorecard. But Weiss is correct that if the market stank for a couple years, you'd never hear a word about it from Donald Trump.

Moments later, Joe suggested "the regulatory environment" is a factor in market outlook; Belski admitted, "I don't disagree with that."

The use case for bitcoin apparently is ‘people putting money into it, pulling money out of it’

On Monday's (11/18) Halftime Report, Joe Terranova called NFLX's Mike Tyson event a "fight"; Judge questioned if that's the right term. (This writer is long NFLX.)

Joe also mentioned, as everyone is doing these days, the Christmas Day football games. Judge asked how much is already in the stock. Joe said, "I think the- what's not in the stock is the continued opportunity for Neflix to continue (sic double 'continue') to participate in live events."

Steve Weiss said NFLX has "such pricing power" and "scarcity." Weiss said it's "very reasonably priced."

Weiss also claimed crypto is actually "one of the safest areas to invest in under Trump."

Joe shrugged off the PLTR pullback, "it was added to the ETF in the teens for us." Joe conceded it's "overbought on a technical basis."

GLD chieftain George Milling Stanley told Bob Pisani that when the GLD was launched 20 years ago, "investment was about 10% of final end-user demand, with jewelry a full 80%." Now, he said, jewelry is down to "about 50%, maybe even less," and investment is 10-25, 30, even 45% nowadays.

Judge said the JOET is 4 years old as of Monday; "Happy birthday to the JOET," Judge said.

Twice in a week, Judge claims a panelist said something that they didn’t actually say

Hoo boy.

Generally when Judge pushes back against a panelist's call on the Halftime Report, we side with Judge, because in general, the calls deserve pushback if not outright fact-checking, and too often, Judge takes a pass.

But transcribing Judge's conversation with Steve Weiss on Friday (11/15) took us literally days, and even though Judge was mostly right, by the end, we were kind of wishing Judge had taken a pass again.

Weiss wondered about market uncertainty over the new administration. "What if Lina Khan stays" and said we have to "read his mind; I- I can't," Weiss admitted.

Judge asserted that "there's no reason to read his mind," just "Read the- read the room! Read the room!" Judge continued, "The room is that there is going to be, animal spirits are going to be unleashed. particularly when it comes to M&A and the ability of companies to do deals again."

"I'm reading the room. And I don't know what room you're reading," Weiss countered.

"What are you talkin' about? What are you talkin' about?" Judge demanded.

"What do you mean, what am I talking about? Do you think anything's clear about what's going to happen in the future? I don't," Weiss said, adding, "You've got a guy who won on a populist record, not on a big company record, right?"

"He won on the same things that he won the last time on," Judge said.

"That's absolutely not true. That's not true," Weiss said, explaining, "What he won on is saying, your individual lifes (sic that's how he pronounced it) will be better. It will cost you less. It doesn't cost you less if you merge companies. Do you think anybody's paying less for an airline ticket than they paid 20 years ago?"

"You think that there's like the chance of less M&A under, under Trump than there was under Biden?? Really???" Judge asked.

"Yeah!" Weiss said, as Judge actually chortled.

"You can laugh, and that's fine ... I'll be serious," Weiss said, arguing we don't know "where are rates going."

"There's so much pent-up demand to do deals, it's inevitable," Judge said.

"They still have to make economic sense!" Weiss countered, arguing "Rates aren't gonna stay where they are."

Judge said Weiss has made the argument "for as long as we've known each other on this program" that "rates and stocks can go up together."

Honestly, we were scratching our heads at that one and wondering what show Judge has been watching. Some people have regularly made that statement — we think Josh Brown being the most common — and probably everyone has said it at one point. It's certainly not a regular Weiss slogan from the time he started on the program. (He's got other slogans that are worse, but that's for another time.)

Weiss told Judge, "I think you're thinking of a different person."

"No, I'm thinking of you. I'm thinking of you," Judge somehow insisted.

"They can on occasion, but that's not law," Weiss said.

Judge eventually sighed, "That's fine, just stay with the argument that you made — there's gonna be fewer deals under Trump than there was under Biden."

"I didn't say that — you said that," Weiss said.

"You did! No, I posed you the question, and you said yes!," Judge wrongly claimed; Weiss said yes there's a "chance" of fewer deals, not that there's definitely "gonna be."

"And I'm saying, I don't know!" Weiss continued.

Judge said investors of a "certain level" and "every senior banking executive that I've spoken with is beyond optimistic about dealmaking."

Weiss insisted that's "dated" information; "it was before he nominated Kennedy" and the chief of the "D.O.D."

Josh Brown shrugged off Cabinet picks as a factor in investing, stating, "We had these bouts with uncertainty about appointees on- in the first Trump administration ... these Cabinet appointments can be musical chairs."

Brown added, "There's only 2 scores Trump cares about — his golf score, and the stock market. He's fixated on the stock market."

Weiss, though, continued, "It is different than last time," explaining that last time, Trump based picks on "competency" (snicker), and now it's "purely" about "loyalty."

"These are not Supreme Court justices Steve!" Brown cut in.

"Do you call the secretary of Health and Human Services before you buy the company?" Judge demanded of Weiss.

"No. But, I don't understand the question. What's the question? What's the question?" Weiss asked.

"Whatever," Judge sighed.

"What's the question?" Weiss persisted.

Judge said he doesn't want to "belabor this any more" and moved on to NVDA. Josh said he thinks you're probably OK in NVDA but "even with good news," the stock occasionally has had "really short, really sharp drawdowns that can shake people." Weiss said he doesn't care about NVDA's earnings, the stock is "one to own," but the ride will be "rocky."

Weiss admitted that despite his concerns about the administration, "I'm hedged quite a bit but I'm not selling."

So, basically ... sigh ... trying to do a scorecard here ... Judge was certainly right to challenge Weiss' ridiculous argument that maybe there should be the opposite of animal spirits regarding the new administration once the RFK Jr. appointment was announced, but Judge's misquoting of Weiss on dealmaking, like his bungled claim (also this week, see below) of Jim Lebenthal supposedly stating there are and aren't monoliths when Jim didn't say the former, suggests Judge should be paying a little more attention to what his panelists are actually saying.

Judge seems to think Jenny’s health-care positioning doesn’t match her rhetoric about Donald Trump’s Cabinet

Yet another presidential Cabinet scrap took place on Friday's (11/15) Halftime Report that began when Jenny Harrington suggested that when she's "reading the room," she's seeing that "chaos (snicker) is coming."

Seconds later, Jenny said rates may be rising because people think "chaos is coming."

Judge correctly cut in, "If people thought that chaos was coming to the United States, people would be buying Treasurys and rates would be moving in the opposite direction."

A little later, Jenny stated of the new government, "I think we're all expecting the same, personality conflicts, arguments, like, petty, you know, petty beefs."

That got the attention of Judge, who asked Jenny, "You're making your investment decisions based on petty arguments and personality clashes?"

Jenny demanded a chance to answer and said, "No! But it's going to create opportunities."

Moments later, after some unrelated discussion, Jenny said she originally bought AXP for $123. (If that helps people now.) Judge told Jenny it's "interesting" that AXP is up 80% this year and Jenny trimmed it, while PFE and GSK are down and Jenny has "genuine concerns" about the Department of Health and Human Services but "you'll stick with those."

Jenny wondered, "Are we allowed to talk about genuine concerns about Health and Human Services now, you wanna go there?"

Judge said he finds it "curious" that she trimmed the winner but is hanging on to the doormats.

"I didn't say that I had genuine concerns with Health and Human Services. What I said is that there's gonna be a lot of volatility in the perception around what's going on there," Jenny said, adding, "Who knows" if RFK Jr. is confirmed, but the stocks got "slapped," so "why would I sell those today?"

Judge said Jenny was talking about "all the chaos that was going to ensue."

Kevin Simpson makes a bad trade sound like a simple 5th-grade math assignment

Judge on Friday's (11/15) Halftime Report brought up the Mike Tyson fight set for later Friday on NFLX. (This writer is long NFLX.)

Steve Weiss said he was going to watch the fight. Weiss said he would "definitely buy" the stock, if he didn't have a significant position, even at Friday's level, and would keep some dry powder to buy more if it goes lower.

Josh Brown said "this is really the final frontier for Netflix," though Brown was not expecting "a great boxing match" but more of a "spectacle." (It sounds like the spectacle was the quality of the streaming, actually.) (This review was posted Saturday 11/16; the fight wasn't shown at CNBCfix HQ.)

Brown suggested NFLX is "the most profitable utility in the United States. Nobody turns it off."

Meanwhile, Kevin Simpson joined remotely to say he sold MPWR (Judge likes talking about anything that's a "Monolith" these days). Kevin said he's "implementing a stop loss" but "wound up losing about 30% on the name" but said there's "no emotion" (snicker) to the trade and "it's just a math equation." (We're not quite sure how it qualifies as an "equation," but whatever.)

Kevin said he added COIN at 280.

Steve Weiss said bitcoin is actually his "favorite investment" right now because he knows what the "fundamentals will be and can be."

"The chips look like a mess right now," Josh said at the top of the show.

Santoli said Berkshire added DPZ and POOL while selling ULTA. Judge wondered whether the moves are being "led by the lieutenants."

Josh claims the use case for bitcoin is ‘people putting money into it, pulling money out of it’

On Thursday's (11/4) Halftime Report, Steve Weiss revealed he bought bitcoin and GBTC and again said these trades are not what he thinks about it (which is that it's useless), "it's what the administration believes."

Judge asked for the "use case" for bitcoin. Josh Brown offered, "It's people putting money into it, pulling money out of it, using it to buy other coins. ... That's it (snicker)."

Weiss said "that's being very liberal with the term 'use case.' There is no use case."

Jim and Josh claim DIS is ‘out of the woods’ on streaming profitability without mentioning NFLX is worth twice as much

Jim Lebenthal, who wasn't on Thursday's (11/14) Halftime Report panel, dialed in to say DIS had a "great quarter." (If we remember right, DIS had a remarkably great quarter just before the Nelson Peltz vote too.)

Jim said "I think it's going higher from here (sic last 2 words redundant)," and honestly, has Jim ever NOT predicted, in a dozen years on the Halftime Report, that DIS will go higher?

Jim actually claimed streaming is a "high, high margin (snicker) business" and got no pushback from Judge. If streaming is so high margin, why is everyone getting out of it?

Josh Brown first called Disney's streaming the "direct to consumer segment (snicker)" and explained that "we were hearing everywhere last year, streaming's a bad business, it's a bad business. But, turns out it's not so bad when you have some consolidation and you have some companies basically give up."

Perhaps. It doesn't mean that DIS has created any show that people are dying to see, that will prompt people to pay more than the 3-months-free-then-$6.99 rate that Disney and others hook people with when they buy totally unrelated products and then boast about their subscriber "growth."

Josh and Jim somehow agreed DIS is "out of the woods" on streaming profitability.

Jim claimed "it doesn't cost them more as they add 4 million subscribers." How is that a growth argument. The same is true for movie theaters, airlines, cruise ships and hotels.

Judge doesn’t ask Jim about stock ‘monoliths’ this time

Josh Brown on Thursday's (11/14) Halftime Report said if he had to choose, stocks are more likely to go higher than lower into year-end. However, Brown pointed to how RSI works and stated, "A lot of stocks have already done the year-end melt-up; they've just pulled it forward," Brown conceded.

Grandpa Steve Weiss said today's market is different "than what we grew up with."

(Grandpa Weiss didn't mention, as Guy Adami did on Fast Money, that MRNA hit a 52-week low.)

Josh said stocks like APP are in its "own world."

Josh touted ODFL as a "stock that hasn't been discovered yet."

Josh said TEAM is in a breakout.

AMZN hit a record intraday high; Josh Brown gave a speech about AMZN playing "offense." Jason Snipe pointed out that there was a "top-line miss" in the previous earnings report, which seems "2 years ago."

Jim Lebenthal, who wasn't on the panel but dialed in for DIS, said "profit taking" was behind the CSCO selloff. (And every time one of Jim's stocks sells off on earnings, it's always some kind of overreaction and the stock's still a buy.)

Judge went to Phil LeBeau on breaking news about the Trump administration perhaps getting rid of the $7,500 EV buyer's credit. Phil stressed that TSLA is eyeing robotaxis more than its annual EV sales. (Honestly, we're not sure why they would ... but whatever.)

Steve Weiss pointed out that Waymo is "charging the same fees as Uber drivers" even though Waymo has to pay for insurance, gas, etc.

Weiss predicted Lina is "not going to be" in the same FTC role in the Trump administration, though it was acknowledged that there's a populist tone to the Trump campaign.

Judge’s complaint that Jim is having it both ways on monoliths makes no sense

Shortly into Wednesday's (11/13) Halftime Report, Judge chuckled that MSFT looks "weak" being up only 2% since the election (which was barely a week ago).

Jim Lebenthal said he trimmed MSFT and said the Mag 7 isn't leading, and, in a comment that for whatever strange reason resonated with Judge (who repeated it wrongly), also said that the Mag 7 "should no longer be looked at as a monolith that moves together."

Jim suggested that for MSFT, the AI angle is "all priced in."

Judge then claimed that while Jim said the Mag 7 is not a "monolith," Jim "spoke of them as the monolith when you say 'Well, AI's all priced in.' ... Maybe it's priced in for Microsoft, but there are many suggestions that it's not priced in even to Nvidia. ... So you can't have it both ways. If it's not gonna trade like a monolith, then don't refer to everything as a monolith in terms of what's priced in and what's not."

Well, um ... Jim didn't refer to everything as a monolith; he said exactly the opposite. All he said about MSFT/AI was that he thinks the AI upside for MSFT is indeed priced in. He never said anything about NVDA's upside.

"Let me be clear — I don't think they're a monolith," Jim told Judge. Judge eventually demanded, "Let's talk apples and apples (snicker)" (first let's make a better argument). Jim said he's not trimming NVDA nor Alphabet (this writer is long GOOGL).

Later on in the show, in the theme of the day, Joe Terranova mentioned Monolithic Power (snicker).

Laura Martin: ‘I would love Netflix to buy Disney’

Joe Terranova opened Wednesday's (11/13) Halftime Report stating "Momentum is absolutely in control of this market."

Judge said financials are up "low to mid-double-digit percentage points since Election Day" and asked Jim Lebenthal if people should keep buying these monolithic names them.

Jim said, "Yes," then said he "detected a tone of 'trees don't grow to the sky'" from Judge's question. Jim continued that it's true trees don't grow to the sky, however, Jim thinks the financial sector still "has a lot of momentum."

Jim said ADBE's recovery is "just beginning."

Joe talked about how much ZM is up recently. Joe talked up BILL and mentioned buying TWLO again. Joe said he bought 95 calls in TWLO and already sold at a profit.

Joe advised not chasing SPOT. Jim said of CSCO, "If they miss, this thing's comin' down hard," though he doesn't expect a miss.

Jim noted that DIS has been creeping upward recently. Judge suggested that "there has been talk this week" that maybe they're "closer" than expected to naming a successor. Jim said Josh "D'Amaturo" (sic that's how he pronounced it, and he said "I may have mispronounced his name"), the head of experiences/theme parks, is the "odds-on favorite" and the market "would be disappointed if he is not named."

OK. So the market would be disappointed if some guy whose name Jim doesn't even know is not chosen to "succeed" (i.e., keep the seat warm for a couple years) Iger.

That was very interesting, because Jim didn't say anything about whether they need to hire a new CEO who will sell the company. Shortly after Halftime, Laura Martin told Kelly Evans that AAPL and AMZN could be potential buyers of DIS. Laura said of DIS, "We like it better as part of something else. I would love Netflix to buy Disney, so it had all that IP it could develop." Laura noted DIS is "half the size of Netflix now" in market cap; it's true.

Steve Grasso: Trump’s comments on China are ‘all posturing’

Great-Grandpa Rob Sechan (but he's "fully invested") was on the Post 9 set for Tuesday's (11/12) Halftime Report and said we're "pulling forward" some 2025 gains and repeated his dubious claim of a day earlier, that the post-election rally in 2016 was "fleeting" into 2017, because the leadership "faded" (snicker) in the following year.

Joe Terranova wasn't on hand this time to shoot it down, so Stephanie Link did the honors, stating that back in 2016, from election eve to March 2017, the S&P rallied 15%. And by the end of 2017, "you were up 25%."

Bryn Talkington said, "There's a tremendous amount of FOMO."

Discussing CRWD and other cybersecurity names (this writer is long CRWD), Stephanie said the sector is "bigger than AI."

On Fast Money, Steve Grasso suggested Marco Rubio is just as much a hawk on Russia as China. "Trump is actually a strategic hawk on China ... I don't think he's as hawkish as we think he really is. What he says he's going to do and what he's going to do — 2 different things. I think it's all posturing."

Rob seems to claim that 2017 was a bad or weak year for stocks

Rob Sechan, unlike his fellow Halftime Report panelists (and virtually everyone else in the world), is somehow jaw-droppingly skeptical of the late-2024 stock market.

So skeptical, he's even claiming 2017 was a bad year.

Rob on Monday's (11/11) show admitted early, "We are still tilting towards caution (snicker)."

Then he brought up maybe his favorite subject: "We're hoping that a lot of the gains we have this year can be pushed into next year so we don't brutalize our clients from a tax standpoint."

We're still scratching our heads over how Rob appears to dread taxes more than he likes stocks; we can't figure out why he doesn't work in the muni bond business instead where he can skip the taxes altogether.

Rob claimed "we are not chasing performance" because the rally only "increases risk in 2025," and "this has all been based on valuation Scott."

Joe Terranova took issue with that last comment, stating there are "fundamental tailwinds" now in an already strong market that include deregulation and the "overall environment" including increased M&A.

Rob conceded that's true, but "tariffs could happen quickly" and immigration moves "could also disrupt the labor supply" so you have to "stay disciplined."

Rob must've been planning lunch at Burger King, because then he dropped this Whopper: claiming the election boost from 2016 "lasted about 2 months" and "the moves all faded as soon as '17 began."

Joe said, "Rob, I'll take 2017 any day. It was one of the lowest volatility years, the VIX never got above 20, the VIX traded to 8, and we had a 17-plus% return on the S&P. '17 in totality was a great year."

"You also started from an entirely different base Joe," Rob countered. "Interest rates were 1.8%."

Joe said, "Rob, no one knows how high is high."

Joe said, as for tariffs, the semis have "begun to price in" the tariffs.

Rob claimed he's "fully invested" and the conversation is "quite comical," and "if you're not paying attention to the risk, you're whistlin' through the graveyard, buddy."

So what does that mean ... he's fully invested ... but everyone else who is fully invested is closing their eyes and "whistlin' through the graveyard, buddy?"

Jim Lebenthal said he's not going to "slam" Rob's points, but "there's a couple of things that are wildly different than 8 years ago." One is that the Fed is cutting, and now we've got China stimulating.

Jim predicted "at least 4 or 5 more months ... before the chicken comes home to roost."

Jim suggests making money at this time in stocks may be as simple as throwing a dart at a board

A lot of times, we tend to think Halftime Report panelists stress caution in such a way that it almost sounds like they think everyone is throwing darts at a board, but we were even a little surprised by Jim Lebenthal's effusiveness on Monday's (11/11) program.

Jim said the rally has "nothing to do with valuation," but it's a "chase to (sic) performance" and "FOMO."

Then Jim suggested it even may be "throw a dart at a board."

Jim also mentioned the Treasury "drawdown" into year-end and credited Dan Clifton for "pounding the table" on this subject.

Judge said Oppenheimer went to 6,200 (snicker). Joe Terranova said it's a "chase for performance."

Joe actually claimed, "That October flush (snicker) really shook a lot of people out of the equities market." Joe sees "plenty of runway ahead."

Anastasia Amoroso said there's a "sense of exuberance" that's "justified."

‘Some dude’ asks Judge about stocks

Monday's (11/11) Halftime Report included several nice tributes to Jim Lebenthal and all veterans. Jim, as always, was very gracious about this subject.

As for the markets, Judge said he was out of town over the weekend, "Some dude comes up to me, and he starts talkin' about Applovin," which Judge said is replacing DLTR in the Nasdaq 100.

"They are in the ad tech business," Joe Terranova said. "If you're a mobile app developer, you need them." Joe also mentioned "AI." Joe cautioned it's "highly volatile," but he does think it can get to $400 in "coming years" (Zzzzzzz).

And if "some dude" had mentioned this stock to Judge a few months ago, then "some dude" would be the front-runner for Halftime Report Call of the Year.

MacKenzie Sigalos joined the crew to say crypto is surging on 4 promises made by Donald Trump.

Jim bought more ABBV, in his personal account, on the big pullback on the schizophrenia drug, saying it's "too much to the downside." Jim said "management knows what they're doing" despite buying this drug developer for $8 billion.

Kate Rogers reported breaking news that Scott Boatright is permanent CEO at CMG. Joe reminded viewers "I wanted this in August" and suggested its "only challenge" might be the "reawakening" of SBUX and the possible movement of investment dollars from CMG into SBUX.

Jim said DIS is "definitely a hold" (snicker) and you can "probably add to it here." JIm claimed, "There's a lot of things that can go right here (snicker)."

On Monday's Fast Money, Guy Adami pointed out what GEO did around election time in 2016 and what happened in 2017 and predicted the same now. "This is happening exactly like it did 8 or so years ago," Guy said.

Bryn attended Memorial High School, also attended by Reid Gettys and sons of Roger Clemens

Bryn Talkington on Friday's (11/8) Halftime Report said she bought DELL and said Michael Dell is a "Houston-based guy," prompting chuckles from Judge and the panel.

Moments later, Judge said "geographical experts" (apparently one person who sent him an email) were telling him that Michael Dell is based in "actually Austin." (Judge evidently reads emails while panelists talk.)

Bryn said "we went to the same high school" and that he went to "UT" and started DELL in Austin.

Judge said "We've got fact-checkers all over the place (sic) (not actually true), um, thank you very little, uh, for- for the email, you know- you know who you are (it wasn't this page)."

Bryn says NVDA trade has ‘another few quarters’ to go

Bryn Talkington on Friday's (11/8) Halftime Report said "you feel animal spirits in the market already" (actually it seems like they've been felt since Aug. 5).

Bryn predicted there will be continued broadening and "different spots that do well next year."

Brian Belski said he was "very lucky enough" (snicker) to change his S&P target to 6,100 when he did. (Um, what exactly did he achieve from this target? A prize?)

Santoli said he doesn't think 6,000 has a "ton of significance" except it means the market is up 25% on the year.

Of the Fed, Kevin Simpson said he was "pleased, thrilled and just, uh, enjoying a very boring meeting yesterday."

Of NVDA, Bryn said, "I think this trade is gonna last at least another few quarters."

Judge in the 9th minute was once again talking about Elon's "access." Bryn suggested TSLA is "pretty toppy" and said she'd be selling calls.

Bryn said she bought UBER last week "really at like 73," then sold January 80 calls.

Judge apparently gives ‘squirrelly’ looks to panelists when they mention dubious trades

Kevin Simpson on Friday's (11/8) Halftime Report trimmed TPL, which he bought recently when it was up 100% (apparently on the year); Kevin said Judge "looked at me squirrelly when we bought this," but Kevin made "40% profit in a couple weeks." (That's the Joe Terranova buy high/sell higher theory.)

Kevin bought more CME and touted again the special dividend.

Kevin sold covered calls in AAPL and WMT.

Josh Brown wasn't on the panel but joined remotely and celebrated long-term stock gains, stating "risk is rewarded over long stretches of time." Brown said he sold SG despite a "good report." He touted the gains in TOST.

Bryn blamed BHP's slide on "China, China, China" and said "I think we're probably gonna use this as a tax loss this year."

In a BAC discussion, Belski actually said, "I'd be really happy if we never talk about price to tangible book again." Belski said the "theme" of "scale" is finally working in big banks.

Jeffrey Gundlach suggests (potential) GOP sweep driven by ‘crazy lawsuits’

Jeffrey Gundlach on Thursday's (11/7) Closing Bell told Judge that the election was "very very consequential" and that most people were surprised at "how widespread the strength was" for Republicans.

Jeffrey suggested it might be related to "crazy lawsuits" being filed a year ago. He said "Trump's authenticity, uh, is- is something that attracts people," but "he's always been a debt guy."

Earlier on the Halftime Report, Jenny Harrington admitted, "What I really, really didn't expect was a red sweep." Jenny said that will bring a "full extension of the tax cuts." (Note: This page weeks ago reported that the market was trading like a red sweep, a day before Santoli spoke of the same in his Midday Word.)

Josh Brown said at the top of the show that it's "really important" to stress that the market rally was "already underway" well before Election Day. Liz Young Thomas said it's "the best post-Election Day rally in history" and "there's probably still more room for this to go."

Jim Lebenthal claimed, "There's a very esoteric thing (snicker) that's gonna go on in the 1st quarter of this year (sic, either meant 4th quarter of this year or 1st quarter next year), which is the debt ceiling is gonna be reached on December 31st."

Jim said by that point, the Treasury will spend down its general account, which "puts money into the commercial banking system." So Jim thinks the market will go higher for 2 months and then "continue."

Judge said we "may" (he stressed "may" 5 times) get "a further reduction in the corporate rate," but it's "unlikely" to get to 15%.

Some CNBCers apparently already have Christmas trees set up

Judge on Thursday's (11/7) Halftime Report said Barry Bannister is warning, "The train is approaching Crazy Town," and that there's only upside to the low 6,000s and downside to 5,250.

Hoo boy ... this page is going to be referencing "Crazy Town" for a long time.

Josh Brown harkened back to Ed Yardeni's prediction of the "Roaring 2020s" (we'd already forgotten that one) (a lot of people by mid-2020 were saying that) and "everyone mocked him," but "This looks and feels like we're going into a robber baron age."

("Robber baron age" ... that's another one we're going to be referencing for a long time.)

Josh said, "Crazy Town could get- become Crazier Town."

Josh knocked Baird's call to take profits in JPM and pointed out how long it's been a great stock. Jim Lebenthal said that past performance doesn't mean anything (check that, he didn't say that this time) said that to sell JPM, "you have to be negative on the financial sector."

Jim said "about a year ago," UBS "actually recommended shorting Nvidia." Jim suggested that was probably the "CS First Boston folks that they brought on board."

Jim said Baird's call is "not the way to be provocative; this is a way to get carried out feet first."

Josh downplayed Judge's suggestion that Elon Musk's association with Donald Trump is weighing on UBER, noting LYFT's gain Thursday. Judge stressed that Elon has gone from "somebody who couldn't get invited to the White House for an EV summit to somebody who can pull up a chair to the desk in the Oval Office."

Judge said he's "surprised" nobody's mentioned buying TSLA.

Jenny Harrington said that if Elon gets a Cabinet position, he can sell his stock "tax-free." Josh Brown also said or agreed with "tax-free." We haven't heard about that subject for a long time (Hank "sharp elbows (according to CNBC)" Paulson was the one who got a lot of attention about that) and, after a tiny bit of research, it appears the benefit is "tax-deferred," although, from what we could determine from a couple articles, it sounds like it can be a permanent benefit; keep in mind we can barely figure out the square root of 25.

Judge was about 4 years old
during Rick Barry’s heyday

Judge bluntly told Tom Lee during Thursday's (11/7) Halftime Report, "Yesterday was, you know, felt euphoric."

Tom said "animal spirits could be unleashed" and suggested "5-10% upside into year-end."

Judge said Fundstrat is launching an ETF called "Granny Shots" (GRNY) (snicker). Tom said it consists of stocks closely tied to 7 investment themes and explained, "Granny Shots is named after Hall of Famer Rick Barry's way of shooting free throws."

"Some of us do remember that," Judge said. "We definitely do."

Rob Sechan dialed in to trumpet VST.

After the A Block, Judge tried to talk about energy-sector strategies (Zzzzzzz).

Jim Lebenthal said people may be buying ONON on the pullback (rather than Judge's suggestion of riding Under Armour's coattails).

Jenny Harrington said DIS is on "solid footing" (snicker).

Josh retrumpeted RDDT. He said he should've bought more than a "tiny bit" in his original stake.

Santoli said it's "early" to talk about "Crazy Town."

Tim Seymour: ‘A lot of people are offsides,’ predicts ‘squeeze into year-end’

On Wednesday's (11/6) Fast Money, which was far more spirited than the Halftime Report, where people hardly seemed to know there's just been a presidential election, Guy Adami said there were maybe some signs Wednesday of "a little bit of what we call a blowoff top," but it's "hard to argue" with a market marching steadily upward.

The strongest opinion though came from Tim Seymour. Discussing Warren Buffett, Tim said, "In the short run ... I think a lot of people are offsides. I think there's a squeeze into year-end. I think there's a lot of people that are panicking."

Karen Finerman said the "magnitude in so many areas" of the market's strong day surprised her.

Tim Seymour pointed to around 7:30 or 8 p.m. Tuesday when Florida gave a "window" into what might be happening in numerous states.

Weiss hangs a $100,000 on bitcoin

On Wednesday's (11/6) Halftime Report, Steve Weiss said of crypto, "I'm sad I don't own it," but he thinks you can "buy more for a trade." Weiss suggested $100,000 is "probably the next stop" for bitcoin.

Taking a stab at political analysis, Weiss declared, "A good part of what got Trump reelected is playing to the populist person- to the person on the street."

Judge said Tom Lee is "still sticking with his massive run" prediction (snicker) for small caps.

Joe Terranova said of the big rally Wednesday, people call it a "reflation trade" and "we're basically inflating equities right now."

Kari Firestone said megacap tech have performed in a "restrictive" environment and now are looking at "less regulation."

Judge said "I find it very interesting" that META is down. Weiss said the market is "lifting all boats," but that's just "today," and "that's going to change over time."

Weiss said one of the "quick fixes" of the Trump administration will be removing Lina Khan, who "never should've been in the position."

Steve Kovach pointed out that some tech investigations began under the Trump administration.

Judge argued with Weiss' contention that Elon Musk's companies won't suffer as Musk spends more of his time involved with government.

Steve Liesman offered, "I think we're probably on track for 2 more cuts this year."

Jason Snipe bought FI. Weiss bought CRH (Zzzzzzzz). Like virtually every position he's got, "it's not a big position yet."

Joe felt compelled to "keep repeating" that people should not buy SMCI.

The 2 panelists who semi-regularly talk about ISM and PMI were on the show Tuesday (and one of them actually mentioned ISM in the 1st minute of the show)

Jenny Harrington on Tuesday's (11/5) Halftime Report described the presidential election this way: "It's binary, right. One wins or the other wins."

Can't really argue with that.

Judge said Tony Pasquariello says "any semblance of a clean outcome (snicker) — is implied volatility gets hit, hard and fast."

Judge said Adam Parker said a day ago on Closing Bell, "The bull case is intact unless we get a policy change (snicker)."

In the category of Is This November 2007, Rob Sechan claimed with a straight face that momentum, breadth and forward earnings estimates are "deteriorating."

Bill Baruch, apparently referring just to a "split Congress," stated, "If we get an answer there tonight, I expect the market to be higher tomorrow." Bill said he thinks the S&P gets to 6,200, "depending on who wins the presidential election."

(Actually, this page has previously stated (see below) that, given the rally in September-October, the outcome of the election might actually be a blowoff top.)

Joe Terranova wasn't on Tuesday's panel but joined remotely (from his pandemic-era office with the 3 numbers on the wall) to take a victory lap on PLTR and bash the analyst ratings. Joe said $40 has gone from the "ceiling" to the "floor."

Bill said he "definitely missed" PLTR. Joe ended the segment talking up TWLO again.

Judge for the 2nd day in a row brought up MAR (see below), citing a neutral (snicker) call at Mizuho.

Jim Lebenthal said he wants to "stick around" in WYNN. Judge called the stock a "stinker" (snicker).

Jim stated, "I don't actually believe that the prior past performance of the stock is indicative of the future."

Judge wondered if the fundamentals are so good, "Why isn't the stock reflecting that?"

"Sometimes that happens, Scott," Jim explained.

There are 2 panelists who semi-regularly mention ISMs and PMIs; neither was on Monday’s show

Discussing MAR on Monday's (11/4) Halftime Report, Josh Brown scoffed at "ISMs and PMIs and all this other stuff from the 1970s that no longer predicts anything" and suggested "if you just walk outside your house" and take note of business and consumer travel, you'll see the "absolute bonanza" for MAR.

"This thing could go green for all we know," Brown said of MAR's day. (It didn't, actually.) (This review was posted overnight Monday-Tuesday.)

Josh claims RDDT reminds him of Facebook 2013

Early into Monday's (11/4) Halftime Report, Josh Brown explained why he bought RDDT, admitting he "did not buy this stock cheap," but he's trying to "build a position," somewhere "closer to 100," so he took a "very small position."

Josh said the market didn't fully appreciate Reddit's recent quarter, and "a lot about the situation reminds me of Facebook in late 2012, early 2013" (snicker).

Josh said "active user growth year over year was 47%," and that "40% of the traffic is originating from Google. When you search for almost anything now in Google, you're getting Reddit as a top 1, 2 or 3 result." (Which means you're getting about 10% useful references and 90% gibberish.)

Josh even suggested an AI angle for Reddit that "opens up an international audience" that Josh claimed could somehow lead to Reddit "doubling and tripling its revenue."

Josh's comments came after Judge had opened by asking Shannon Saccocia NOT who will win the election, but "what's on your mind" (snicker).

Still not sure what PLTR is doing month to date (cont’d)

On Monday's (11/4) Halftime Report, viewers learned the JOET sold GOOGL and AAPL. (Zzzzzzzzz)

Joe Terranova again gave the tired spiel about "strip out the human emotion" and claimed there are "so many exhibits" (snicker) of how the rules-based approach works but said if he personally had to make the call, he's not sure he would've sold GOOGL. Josh Brown noted GOOGL is below where it was heading into earnings.

Joe marveled at how the PLTR "analyst community" only has a $28 12-month price target on the stock.

Josh is touting a breakout in DAL. Sarat Sethi said he could go on and on about DAL because "it is one of my favorite stocks." Joe said the JOET bought DAL and UAL.

Sarat agrees with Evercore's $400 target on CRM. Of course, the JOET bought it too.

Josh’s blast from the past

In the 36th minute of Friday's (11/1) Halftime Report, Josh Brown actually mentioned "Doug Kass" (apparently that's OK now), recalling a debate 10 years ago when BRK-B was 50 and whether it would go to 40 or 60.

Jim Lebenthal cited the "spinout of Banamex" as a catalyst for ... C (snicker).

As Judge recapped panelists' "contrarian" picks from the start of the year, basically all of them said they were just picking beaten-down sectors and weren't in or committed to those trades.

Steve Weiss declared at one point, "The best energy traders we all know have the toughest time making money in energy."

Josh hung a $300 on MAR. Judge and Weiss chuckled about Jim's cliches while discussing WYNN, even though (other than "the cherry on top") we didn't really hear that many bona fide cliches from Jim.

Judge said PLTR is the "6th best S&P stock month to date," then acknowledged that Friday is only the first day of the month and he didn't know whether it was year to date or something else (at least he didn't try to tell us the forward P.E.).

Josh’s commitment to PYPL spanned a whole $13

On Friday's (1/1) Halftime Report, Steve Weiss said of the MSFT and META selloffs a day earlier, "Who cares ... That's nothing."

Weiss and Bryn Talkington both indicated that AI as an investment thesis is still good to go.

Josh Brown noted that GOOGL has "given back the entire pop" it got from earnings.

Judge again mentioned "monolith," this time in the 5th minute suggesting megacap tech is NOT monolithic. Jim Lebenthal agreed there are "some that will be bigger winners than others." But Jim said that absolutely none of the market is monolithic, and it's a "stock picker's market" (snicker).

Judge and Weiss haggled again over what AAPL's prospects actually are.

Josh said he sold PYPL. "I bought it at 70; I sold it at 83 on Tuesday when the earnings came out," Brown said. (Those numbers are stock prices, not forward P.E. ratios.) (As far as we know.)

Brown said he bought BKR (we would swear the symbol used to be BHI), for the same old reason, it's in a "breakout," and of course, at some point, "there really aren't any sellers." Bryn Talkington backed the trade and used the term "sector writ large."

Jim and Judge offer up some P.E. ratios for MSFT

On Thursday's (10/31) Halftime Report, Jim Lebenthal said he trimmed MSFT, saying "this has had a terrible chart for quite some time" and it's "simply overpriced."

Judge sounded a little skeptical, saying "I get it" about the short-term chart, but that the P.E. is "29 and a half" (snicker) and on July 5, "it was 35."

And invoking his new metric, Judge said the 5-year average MSFT multiple is also 29.5, and 25.2 for 10 years.

Judge said "it seems to me" that some people are actually "more excited" to own the shares now.

Jim claimed a "small detail," that FactSet (snicker) says the forward multiple (snicker) is "31." Judge apparently conceded but said "down from 35."

Joe Terranova said a megacap quarter like that of MSFT "begins to dent the overall prevailing bullish trend that we have right now."

Josh Brown, meanwhile, who wasn't at Post 9, said the reax to UBER earnings is "sort of bizarre." He said it just reported one of its best quarters ever, though a "fly in the ointment" was gross bookings.

Joe said he sold UBER in his personal account. Joe cited the gross bookings.

Jim claims BAC regulatory issues could turn out like WFC, knocks those making ‘wry smiles’

Bill Baruch beamed in during Thursday's (10/31) Halftime Report to say he bought GS and sold BAC.

Jim Lebenthal said there are "some regulatory inquiries" at BAC. Jim said those issues could go "either of 2 ways," one of them being like Wells Fargo, and as Jim said that, he told Stephanie Link, "I think I see a wry smile on your face."

"No way. This is not Wells Fargo. No way," Stephanie said. Jim protested, "Wells Fargo actually sailed through this."

Judge said that Jim maybe would "suggest" that the Wells Fargo situation was "a little idiosyncratic." Jim said what he'd suggest is, "Don't take it lightly."

Judge said, "OK, we will not. Thank you for the heads up."

Jim said where it "should not have been taken lightly was Citigroup ... I know what I'm talking about." Jim said he thought he saw "3 wry smiles" while he was talking.

Meanwhile, Joe Terranova said that regardless of how the JOET handles it, don't buy SMCI. Joe said it's not in the "penalty box" (one of Joe's longtime favorite expressions), but it's a stock that "basically gets suspended for the season."

Stephanie Link called EL, which is still having a mind-bogglingly nasty couple of years, a "no touch for now." (This writer is long EL.)

On Fast Money, guest host Sully mentioned the Rubber Ducky character in the dreadful 1978 movie "Convoy." (Sully didn't say it's dreadful. That's what this page is saying.)

If the ‘closing arguments’ were Sunday and Tuesday, why are the candidates still campaigning?

Wednesday's (10/30) Halftime Report crew had nothing better to do than evaluate the Alphabet earnings. (This writer is long GOOGL.)

Steve Weiss claimed, "AI has helped them actually."

Joe Terranova shrugged that Alphabet just needed to top a "low bar."

Jason Snipe said it was a "great quarter on all ends" and that Google Cloud has come "a long way."

Weiss said the group's commentary was a little "understated," that Alphabet did more than "clear a low bar."

On the other hand, "I thought it was a home run call," said Bryn Talkington, adding that previous calls were kind of "blasé."

Weiss actually brought up the old days of Halftime when people (basically Pete Najarian) used to clamor for Facebook to do something in MOBILE!!!!!!

Joe said of AMD, "I don't view it as broken just yet." Bryn said "Dr. Lisa Su" is "amazing," and Bryn would "never discount her."

Weiss pointed out that AMD entered the quarter "at 80 times trailing P.E." (Judge never fact-checked that number), almost a "third higher" than NVDA (Judge never fact-checked that number either). "What were people thinking? This is purely a momentum trade," Weiss concluded, saying it was "asinine to own this stock at that valuation," one of his 2 "asinine" references on the day.

Joe suggested you don't want to touch SMCI.

Weiss actually claims that LLY has ‘echoes’ of MRNA

During Wednesday's (10/30) Halftime Report, the subject of LLY's earnings came up.

Steve Weiss claimed LLY has "echoes" of MRNA.

"I was involved, as everybody will remind me I'm sure, in Moderna," Weiss said, but actually Judge never mentions it; it's only this site that bothers to point out that Weiss in 2020 and 2021 regularly trumpeted how great MRNA was regardless of whether it was trading in the 300s or 400s. (Weiss has made some great calls, including this one — for a while — but his continuation of this call was a disaster.)

Weiss claimed Wednesday that we're seeing a "commoditization" of weight-loss drugs. He said it's "asinine to own a pharma company at 55 times EBITDA."

Judge suggested the growth is strong; Weiss said it's not "sustainable."

Weiss, LDOS CEO said ‘Hi’

On Wednesday's (10/30) Halftime Report, Judge said Wingstop has commercials "all over, uh, Sunday football games."

Joe Terranova said SHAK is cooking on margins. Joe said there's "disappointment" in CMG having a little higher expenses and not opening as many stores as previously thought. Joe pronounced it "Chipulte" (sic) at one point.

Steve Weiss made the "1 times book" (Zzzzzzz) and "great CEO" argument for BAC.

Judge said he wouldn't necessarily call the big banks a "monolith" but "there really is not much differentiation between the gains in the stocks."

Joe said there's "broken momentum" in energy. "For sure," Jason Snipe agreed.

Judge told Bryn Talkington that RBLX "has now become a pretty controversial name."

"Well the stock hasn't traded very controversial," Bryn said.

Joe said GRMN is in the "sweet spot for consumer products."

Judge said Weiss "front-ran" his own Final Trade of LDOS; Weiss said he was at the HQ a day ago and "briefly said 'Hi' to the CEO." Judge wondered, "Did the CEO say 'Hi' back?" "Uh, yeah, he did, he did," Weiss revealed.

Judge actually cites (what he claims is) GOOGL’s 5-year average multiple

Tuesday's (10/29) Halftime Report opened with panelists previewing Alphabet's earnings and its AI issues (Zzzzzzzzzz) (not nearly as exciting as a day ago when Judge actually said "bar fight" on-air). Jim Lebenthal mentioned the multiple (Zzzzzzzz) and Judge even claimed to know the 5-year average GOOGL multiple (snicker).

Jim Lebenthal complained that the rally isn't broader and said "I hate this" and said he's "really disappointed," and conceded of the market, "Once again, this quarter, it's relying on the Mag 7."

Apparently Tony Pasquariello touted mid caps on Monday's Closing Bell; Judge re-aired the clip on Tuesday's Halftime. Jim lumped in mid caps with small caps as having potential; "You can do research that the rest of the world doesn't know," but Jim conceded that the stocks may not go up right away.

Sarat Sethi joined remotely to say he bought CRM. Sarat sold USB (citing how much it's up over 12 months) and RBLX. Kevin Simpson sold TXN and cited all kinds of stats (Zzzzzzz). He put the proceeds into ORCL. Jim predicted a "crescendo into year-end" for ORCL.

Jim said he doesn't see homebuilders as a buy. Jim said there's "no reason" to own F over GM, though he did call Jim Farley a "very dynamic CEO (snicker)."

Jenny Harrington questioned JBLU's excuse of the November elections. "I'm kinda like, why would anyone not travel because of elections?" That's a great point.

Kevin Simpson said MCD is neither a buy nor sell.

On Tuesday's Fast Money, Mel gave Steve Kornacki plenty of time to outline the current polling in the presidential and Senate and House races. Despite the details offered by Kornacki, not one panelist on Fast Money opined on the presidential election.

If Donald Trump had won in 2020, there’d be no Jan. 6, he wouldn’t be on the ballot now and we’d be talking about Gretchen Whitmer vs. Mike Pence

Monday's (10/28) sleepy Halftime Report opened with Josh Brown trimming Alphabet (Zzzzzzzz). (This writer is long GOOGL.)

Steve Weiss basically argued that Alphabet could surprise in a good way. Then Josh haggled with CNBC's gorgeous Dee Bosa over whether Google could lose its status as the entry point of most people into the internet and whatever AI brings. It wasn't until the 10th minute when Judge got into Brad Gerstner's year(s)-old gripes (Zzzzzzzz) (snicker) about Google losing the AI race.

Bryn Talkington contended that Google's "moat" has "cracks" and will change.

Judge said D.A. Davidson, apparently invoking "Road House" (above), is even calling data-center buildout by tech giants a "drunken bar fight."

Rich Saperstein said he's not about to call for a "reversion" to small caps; "we've heard that for years."

Stephen Tusa joined remotely to make the bull case for MMM and even quoted Judge Smails: "The world needs ditch diggers, too." (That offers a 2nd famous movie photo.)

Steve Liesman hasn’t heard a ‘good response’ from Harris team about inflation or immigration

Late into Thursday's (10/28) Closing Bell, Steve Liesman reported on findings from the CNBC All-America Economic Survey, and in the process made several thoughtful observations about the presidential race.

Thoughtful, for sure, because Steve is one of the most objective voices on CNBC and does not traffic in political punditry (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Steve said the survey shows, "Americans largely believe they're losing ground to these price increases."

He continued, "There's very little that former President Trump has said that leads me or other economists to believe he would have a positive effect on inflation. He has this notion that he's spoken about, which is driving down energy prices, as if the American energy industry needs much lower prices now. Uh, and, and Harris, she seems to be more in line with paying for her spending, even though that's a promise not necessarily always kept."

Steve said the "story" to him is, "We had inflation during the Biden/Harris, uh, time period ... so therefore, we blame Biden/Harris, and anybody else in this situation is going to be better."

Steve added, "I will say this, Scott: After I listened to the 2 debates and have been following the campaigns, I do not hear a good response from the Harris team about the inflation issue. I don't hear a good response about the immigration issue. Those are 2 really important issues, and I have not heard a response- to say the Inflation Reduction Act is really something that does not appear to resonate with the American people."

Judge actually opens two separate shows with HSBC’s mid-level S&P target

Judge opened Thursday's (10/24) Halftime Report saying HSBC raised its target to a whole ... 5,900.

Josh Brown suggested that if the housing market can finally get going, it would be a big boost to the economy. Liz Young Thomas conceded, "Yes new home sales were healthy, however, existing home sales earlier this week were not."

Jenny Harrington said the market is "just kinda frothy." Jenny also warned about the national debt (snicker) and rising rates. Josh pointed out, "There's other theories besides the bond vigilantes that I've been hearing about for 25 years."

A few hours later, at the top of Closing Bell, Judge again started off with HSBC's 5,900 target (snicker) (slow news day). Joe Terranova, who was on Closing Bell, said that target is "probably a little bit light."

Joe also pointed out, "There has not been one pullback today in Tesla."

Jenny’s excited about VZ

VZ surfaced in a debate (snicker) (slow news day) on Thursday's (10/24) Halftime Report.

Jenny Harrington said KeyBanc is "not wrong" about its downgrade of VZ, but Jenny looks at it as "kind of a bond equivalent" and touted the dividend.

Josh Brown questioned what the VZ CEO is paying himself; "where are the activists?" Brown added, "This stock literally is like watching paint dry."

Josh demanded of Jenny, what would change to make the VZ dividend yield 3% instead of 6% because the stock doubles. "I don't need that," Jenny claimed. Josh suggested, "Buy a bond."

Meanwhile, Josh said it was "stupid" for people to sell UBER in August on the TSLA announcements. "I think autonomous, uh, taxis (otherwise known as a 'bus') are the future," Brown said.

Jason Snipe dialed in to say he continues to like NOW. Josh Brown touted the "technical opportunity" of ZM but didn't sound too enthusiastic about it from an "investing perspective."

Josh said he sold half of his LYV position in June, "so today I feel like a schmuck on wheels" (presumably autonomous driving wheels).

Joe twice says markets are thinking about a Republican sweep

Steve Weiss qualified and equivocated at the top of Wednesday's (10/23) Halftime Report before finally concluding, "Hold on to what you have, and wait this out," as if the October market has been an ordeal to wait out.

Joe Terranova said Santoli said Monday that "yields are rising for non-fundamental reasons." Joe explained, "We've got right now speculation surrounding not just President Trump winning, but an actual Republican sweep, which means an extension of the tax cuts and deregulation."

Judge cautioned that it might be a slow process. "November 5th is the beginning, not the end," Judge sighed, suggesting the possibility of a "prolonged" season of counting votes (presumably meaning houses of Congress as well as the presidency).

In the show's 51st minute, Joe again referenced election overhang; "I also think a lot of what's going on with the semis does relate to the possibility of a Trump and Republican sweep," Joe said.

Judge said Piper Sandler hiked its target to 6,100, matching Belski.

Judge pretends Weiss’ joke about Josh wasn’t a good one

Judge on Wednesday's (10/23) Halftime Report invited Rob Sechan by phone to talk about MCD. Rob first said Hi to everyone, prompting Judge to cut in, "What are your thoughts, Rob?" Rob said it's a "small position" with "huge embedded gains," so "we are not selling."

Rob referred to "Chipulte" (sic pronunciation).

Joe Terranova seemed to indicate that SBUX is going to rally faster than MCD will.

Steve Weiss joked that the producer, Kevin, should "send a wellness check out to Josh based on the McDonald's news." Judge sighed, "Let's go."

Weiss said that if you sold CMG during its E. coli problems, "you've had nothing but regrets," and "people aren't gonna make the same wholesale mistake" with MCD, and "This is definitely not a reason to sell it."

Joe tells people not to ignore a news report; Judge takes it personally

During a news alert on an analyst's outlook for iPhone orders on Wednesday's (10/23) Halftime Report, Joe Terranova said not to "dismiss" it (Judge said no one's dismissing it) and insisted on making a point about importance of the analyst's outlook and happened to mention it's "actual numbers."

Judge said "They're not actual numbers. You just said they're actual numbers. They're not actual numbers."

"I wouldn't ignore it. That's the point," Joe concluded.

"No, which is why we sorta discussed it the way we did with Steve Kovach. Uh, but thank you very much," Judge said.

Judge mocks Weiss’ supposed ‘deep preparation’ for the program (even though Weiss generally is better prepared than most panelists)

Judge on Wednesday's (10/23) Halftime Report, trying to press Brenda Vingiello into making a call on Elon, called Musk "the most highly polarizing CEO arguably in America at this point."

Brenda said a "ton" of people hate Elon, but, "3 out of almost every 4 cars on the road is a Tesla in some parts of the Bay Area." Brenda sorta painted a possible role for Elon in the government as a "positive" for TSLA; Steve Weiss sounded incredulous.

Brenda Vingiello was asked to opine on Needham reiterating a buy (snicker) on DIS. Brenda said, "We still think that there's opportunity here, um, so we're sticking with it."

Bill Baruch joined remotely to say he bought more MSFT, stating it's at "the lowest level relative to the Q's since February of 2023."

Weiss said he thinks the order book concerns for VRT are "misplaced." Weiss said he didn't hear the earnings call because it started at 11 a.m. Eastern and "coming on the show, I didn't have time." Judge joked about Weiss' "deep preparation" and for some reason couldn't stop chuckling.

Joe Terranova suggested cybersecurity names have been hurt recently by the "rise in yields." (This writer is long CRWD.)

Joe's JOET owns NTRS; he said he was "skeptical" when it was added, but the "biggest catalyst" for it now is the "skepticism that's still in place right now, today (sic last word redundant)."

Santoli says markets in ‘2016’ mode

Shortly into Tuesday's (10/22) Halftime, Judge was rereading Dan Loeb's letter anticipating a Republican victory. Judge also aired a clip of Sorkin hearing the same from Paul Tudor Jones on Squawk Box, with Jones saying, "primarily because I see the polling numbers have clearly moved in this direction."

The thing we noticed about that clip is that Sorkin hardly had to pull teeth for that comment; Jones was more than happy to offer it.

Meanwhile, Judge reported that David Einhorn, pointing to Warren Buffett, suggests "right now is not a great time to have a lot of equity exposure."

Joe Terranova, one of the day's panelists, decided, "A lot of what this week is, is really noise," though Joe conceded there are "overall strong tailwinds that exist."

Joe at one point claimed, "Yes the market is clearly broadening out."

Judge actually thought it was worth a minute or 2 to discuss Krinsky's call on utilities.

Santoli suggested the markets might be envisioning "the 2016 trade again" (this page made that point a day ago), though he's not sure markets want that kind of reflation "medicine" this time around.

So were they building this much junk in the past, and people just happened to catch it?

On Tuesday's (10/22) sleepy Halftime Report, Joe Terranova again cited "hurricane disruptions" as a PHM headwind, saying those disruptions are "pausing building specifically in Florida."

We're not meteorologists or anything, but we can't figure out why hurricanes would sway people from buying PHM stock given that presumably there's going to be more building — if not right away, then soon — than there otherwise would've been.

Phil LeBeau did a great Halftime interview with Boeing Machinists president Jon Holden in which Phil asked about BA quality-control issues. "It's a lot of Machinists who are on the line. ... How do you explain this drop in quality?"

Holden responded, "You know there was a lot of changes in the quality management system that we have been sounding the alarm on for over 5 years. In fact, the company wouldn't listen. ... we went to the FAA, and thankfully the FAA did restore tens of thousands of quality inspections that should've never been removed."

But in a follow-up, Holden admitted, "I think we've got a long way to go."

On Fast Money, Phil predicted a "close vote" on the new contract deal.

Brenda Vingiello bought WYNN. Brenda trimmed V, citing government overhang.

Rob Sechan said MMM is up "roughly 40% since we bought it." Congrats.

BTIG gave DECK a downgrade; Joe basically just said the company will just have to do better.

Joe said the COST chart looks "really good." Judge said it trades at "52 times." Who knows if it really does. (See below, numerous entries.)

On Fast Money, which devoted much of its time to MCD, Guy Adami said he doesn't think anyone died from the CMG E. Coli problem years ago, but someone has died from MCD's problem.

James Gorman’s list: Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Jensen Huang, Brian Niccol, Jamie Dimon, Mary Barra, Harry Shari Redstone, Nelson

Judge on Monday's (10/21) Halftime Report mentioned always one of our favorite stocks, DIS. (This writer has no position in DIS.)

Judge said DIS is going to announce Iger's successor in "early '26." (So after working on this 5 years ago, and working again on it for the last 2 years, they hope to arrive at a decision in a year and a half.) (#bob'slifetimecontract)

Amy Raskin claimed, "From a long-term (snicker) perspective, we think Iger turns the ship around (snicker)."

Brian Belski actually said, "We love Iger ... if you think about Disney, it's really done a great job on the streaming side, relative to the other, let's say, the big box, uh, streamers."

Really. What exactly has DIS done "great" in streaming? And who are all these "big box" streamers? The only "great job" DIS could've done in streaming is licensing the content to NFLX for gobs of found money from content that was paid for decades ago and then skipping the churn and burn of recruiting their own subscribers with all kinds of $3 intro gimmicks. (This writer is long NFLX.)

On Fast Money, Steve Grasso bluntly stated, "Disney's going to have to decide, are they committed to streaming going forward. ... They're gonna have to decide, are they a streaming company, or a parks company?"

(Well, given that DIS/NFL hung fans out to dry Monday by making the Chargers-Cardinals game watchable only on their ridiculous ESPN+ streamer (even for people who already pay CNBC's parent to have a bunch of ESPN channels), we're guessing the short-term answer to Steve's question is a half-hearted yes.)

Guy Adami suggested DIS is trading at "19 times, 19 and a half times." (Do we know that's the right number?)

Tim Seymour said there's "very little I think to get excited about" at DIS. Carter Worth said "presumptive lows are in" with DIS, though he admitted it could be a "value trap."

We didn't hear any mention of Arnold Palmer on Fast Money, which is kinda surprising.

Brian Belski predicts the exhaustive buying will take place after Election Day

Brian "6,100" Belski curiously claimed in the opening minutes of Monday's (10/21) Halftime Report, "I believe we're gonna have some sort of a buying exhaustion, uh, after the election, no matter who wins. People wanna put money to work. Because they believe in the stock market."

"Buying exhaustion."

We think, based on the entirety of the comment, that Belski meant that people will buy until they're exhausted after Nov. 5.

That's curious, because it seems here like the markets in September started pricing in a November 2016 election outcome and decided to get ahead of Carl Icahn jumping into the overnight futures at 3 a.m. on the first Wednesday of November.

Or put another way, the guess here is that the election will be sell the news — not exhaustive buying.

On Monday, Joe Terranova said rising 10-year rates are pressuring small caps and real estate.

Amy Raskin said, "If yields are up because people are concerned about the fiscal policies (snicker) of the candidates, that's a problem." Judge said, "Yeah."

Jim Lebenthal said the fact mid caps are doing well "bodes well for the small cap sector (snicker)."

Amy called fiscal policy "actually a really big deal" (snicker).

How do we know the market multiple is 22?

Jim Lebenthal on Monday's (10/21) Halftime Report claimed the stock market is "past fair value at roughly 22 times next year's earnings."

And we couldn't help but wonder, does everyone (including CNBC graphics crew) agree that it's a 22 forward multiple.

Regardless, Jim won't worry about it until January. "Who wants to sell right now," Jim wondered.

Amy Raskin touted IONQ and stated, "We were in Nvidia very early," apparently implying this could do the same thing.

Brian Belski complained, "Everyone's a technician, they all got it all figured out, but no one's, no one's- doing implicit fundamental stock-picking."

Belski said, "You just couldn't wait to jab me, could ya."

Joe Terranova asserted that "a large majority of the activity and volume chases price. It just does."

Amy Raskin trimmed CDNS. Joe spent about 3 minutes saying the technicals don't look as good as the company actually is.

Amy suggested SLB will be great long term, if not the short term.

GM reportedly at 5 times

Brian Belski on Monday's (10/21) Halftime Report admitted he actually owns GM, "for contrarian reasons" (aren't they about due for another strike).

Jim Lenbethal said "it makes me feel good" that Belski owns it. Jim said it's at "5 times earnings" (do we know that for sure?) and can "easily" go to 6 times. Judge didn't take a poll of everyone on the panel including CNBC's graphics crew to determine if others have a different P.E. ratio for GE.

Belski gushed about PHM and said "it's up 455% since we owned it" in 2018. But Joe Terranova cautioned that much of PHM's success has come from Florida, and hurricanes and inventory may pose headwinds. (Honestly we're not really sure how hurricanes would hurt a homebuilder; presumably they would have places that would require rebuilding.)

Once again, there are different forward P.E. numbers mentioned for the same stock on the Halftime Report

Judge on Friday's (10/18) Halftime Report told Jason Snipe that there was talk going into earnings that we had "peak Netflix." (This writer is long NFLX.)

Jason said NFLX just reported its "most profitable quarter ever." Jason said Netflix management can be "balanced in their approach" and "the content library is very rich" and they're making a "foray into live sports."

Jason said that given all the levers at NFLX, "I start to feel like this is not a stock that is expensive." Jason and Judge first said NFLX is trading at 32 times, without saying "forward." Then Judge said it's 36, as did the screen text, and the screen text said "forward." (Honestly, if you're expecting the Halftime Report to provide clarity on what a stock's forward multiple is, you're better off changing the channel.) (By the end of the show, it was probably down to 33.)

Kevin Simpson predicted advertising is the "next catalyst" for NFLX. Stephanie Link admitted "I totally missed it" but wonders, "How come Disney can't get it together." (Well, there's a lengthy answer to that one, but suffice it to say that DIS shouldn't even bother with streaming churn and should've just licensed its content that was made decades ago to NFLX and collect checks while NFLX deals with all the subscriber/marketing stuff.)

Yet another forward P.E. (cont’d)

Judge on Friday's (10/18) Halftime Report said Torsten Slok claims stocks are "overvalued" and says a forward P.E. (snicker) of 22 "implies a 3% annualized return over the coming three years."

That's quite a formula. Nobody on Friday's panel seemed too scared about this call, perhaps because no one at CNBC seems to know what any forward P.E. multiples are; they just grab numbers out of thin air to satisfy whatever comment they're making.

"You've gotta be in cyclicals," Jason Snipe offered.

Judge said Scott Devitt sees attractive risk/reward in AMZN. Jason Snipe said there's a "reacceleration" at AWS. Kevin Simpson said he sold an AMZN 195 call a week ago on Monday and bought it back on Tuesday, and also sold a 192.

Jason Snipe said "it's hard to fight" NVDA. Kevin Simpson predicted this AAPL quarter will be a "sell the news quarter."

Kevin Simpson explained that volatility is higher as the election nears, which is why he's writing a lot of covered calls.

Regarding CVS, "There's some problems there," Jason Snipe said, in a bit of an understatement.

Judge said Tom Lee is touting homebuilders, which he says are entering a "golden 6 months." Stephanie Link said homebuilders are in a "decadelong theme."

Kevin Simpson bought TPL; he said it's a "royalty play on commodities" and "not for the faint of heart." Kevin revealed, "I bought it at 950 just the other day."

Steve Grasso: It’s time for NFLX stock to ‘roll over’

On Thursday's (10/17) Fast Money, Karen Finerman got first crack at NFLX's report. (This writer is long NFLX.)

"Everything to like about this — except the price of the stock," Karen stated, adding, "I wouldn't add here."

Steve Grasso observed that, "Every 4 months, you get a bottoming effect" in NFLX. Steve concluded, "I would be selling this right now."

Guy Adami said NFLX "back and filled" on Thursday back to the 2021 high, a chart that others on CNBC (as well as this page) have noted several times this year. He said, "I would actually buy this strength."

At the end of the discussion, Grasso said of the stock price, "I think it's time for it to roll over."

On UBER/EXPE, Grasso said he doesn't think a deal would be "wasting money," but he doesn't think Dara needs to do it. Dan Nathan though said "this makes a lot of sense." Guy Adami said he's "sort of with Dan on this one."

During the Halftime Report, in anticipation of NFLX earnings, Julia Boorstin mentioned NFLX having "2 games on Christmas Day." Josh Brown said there's a "deceleration" in NFLX subs but said it's "not negative," because counting subs isn't the right metric and skipping it is the right move; "Apple did it 10 years ago."

A target of 6,270

In a bullish gush-fest on Thursday's (10/17) Halftime Report, Judge said Goldman's Scott Rubner hiked his target to 6,270 (snicker).

Judge said "the fact of the matter is, there's still a lot of pent-up demand, it feels like, for stocks." Judge said Todd Boehly (his guest Tuesday in Beverly Hills) "rarely sits down to do an interview" but sees pent-up demand "in a lot of places."

Josh Brown said this is a "classic bull market" that will remove a lot of uncertainty in 3 weeks. In the meantime, tons of things are working, according to Brown.

"England is on fire, ladies and gentlemen," Brown said, also pointing to bitcoin and gold.

Jim Lebenthal questioned why anyone would sell regardless of election uncertainty. "I have no idea how the election's gonna turn out," Jim said, but he said "frankly," even if he knew the outcome now, he'd "defy anyone" to explain how to trade it. (Seriously?)

Josh Brown offered that 3 weeks ago, the reason to sell would be that Kamala Harris raises capital gains taxes at the end of 2025 and maybe they would "make it retroactive for all of 2025." Jim said that's a good point but to get that kind of capital gains hike would require a "Democratic sweep," which Brown said is "not gonna happen." Judge said "the market clearly is not voting in that direction."

Judge said Stan Druckenmiller says it was a "big mistake" to sell all of his NVDA from 800-950.

Gerald Levin saw synergies too

Josh Brown on Thursday's (10/17) Halftime Report praised Dara for exploring a bid for EXPE and said Dara learned from Barry Diller, who Josh said back in the '90s said that internet companies needed to combine and find synergies instead of being stand-alone entities.

Judge said Dan Ives raised his CRWD target to $330. (This writer is long CRWD.) Josh said, "The way that they have overcome this, uh, this issue really should be studied."

Jim Lebenthal and Judge seemed to quibble over whether LNG is "the" top pick at B of A as Jim indicated; Judge said they "probably have a list of top picks that they've probably added it to." Jim said regardless, "it's a great company."

Josh said MMM may be getting a little extended, but he's "willing to stick with it."

Judge said Krinsky is touting a "secondary entry point" into the KWEB. Josh explained that Krinsky is making a "tactical," not "investment," call. Josh said the KWEB moves "drastically" based on news flow. Josh said he's not sure about the investment side, but tactically, Krinsky "has something here." Judge said Tepper is "as tactical as anybody too."

Judge and Josh revisited Josh's recent recommendation of EBAY to Al Michaels; Judge said it's "up 10% since." Josh mentioned holiday shopping and said "I think you can stay with it." After the commercial break, Judge said Al reports "he's still in the name."

Jim actually made DIS his Final Trade.

So far, Sully seems to be getting a fair shake

For a long time now, this page has led the league in calling Brian Sullivan "CNBC's Funniest Anchor."

Over time, we've started to wonder if Sully isn't even CNBC's best anchor.

But here's the problem — Sully doesn't even have his own show. He most recently helmed Last Call (yes, if you questioned why CNBC was doing yet another regular news program at 7 p.m. Eastern, you are among 12 million people), which was canceled in July. At the time, Variety reported that Sully was "expected to stay" at CNBC (except Variety spelled it "Sulliivan" (spellcheck should flag that one)).

On the plus side, Sully has been pinch-hitting everywhere for months, including on the Halftime Report and Fast Money, so viewers at various hours (especially those who could never watch Last Call) are occasionally benefiting from the juice Sully brings to the production.

On the other hand, 1) it's hard to fashion a TV-host career as a utility man, 2) the hours from Worldwide Exchange to Fast Money are killer, and 3) this gentleman deserves a position of stature at this channel.

Back in the day, we used to be more plugged in to decision-making at Englewood Cliffs and could sometimes report a scoop. Nowadays, we honestly don't know what talks have occurred between Sullivan & Sullivan (presumably no relation) (that's Sully and CNBC chieftain KC) as to Sully's future.

We're not asking that anyone be elbowed aside. We just wanna keep seeing Sully on the air.

It seems like, as of now, he's getting some opportunities.

Jenny and Joe argue about whether they’re arguing

Jenny "Multiple" Harrington claimed on Wednesday's (10/16) Halftime Report that DIS is a "pretty nice place to hide out."

Joe Terranova added this comment to Jenny's statement: "I gotta give you this statistic: In the last 10 years, price performance for Disney, up 13.9%, 10 years. ... That's unbelievable."

Jenny then suggested Joe was making an "argument." Joe said, "I'm not making any arguments, I'm just- it's a stat."

Jenny insisted, "This is where you and I always argue-"

Joe protested, "I don't argue! I never argue!"

"No no no, on this, we do," Jenny said, explaining that she recommends buy low, sell high, while Joe recommends buy high, sell higher.

"Debating is different than arguing," Joe concluded the segment.

Here's the deal ... Joe claims he's only providing a "stat." But his point obviously is that DIS has done little in 10 years. What that point overlooks is that the stock was around $190 in 2021, presumably benefiting from the stay-at-home/COVID trade.

That doesn't change Joe's "stat." But it's also a stat that those who bought DIS 10 years ago could well have doubled their money had they simply sold in 2021. It's the suckers who bought in 2021 who should be wondering what they're going to hear first — a turnaround plan from Mr. Iger, or another contract extension.

Weiss calls the ASML report ‘murder-suicide in reverse order’

Steve Weiss in the 7th minute of Wednesday's (10/16) Halftime Report mentioned ASML (snicker), his recent buy.

But it wasn't until the 21st minute that guest host Sully asked Weiss about the stock.

Weiss explained that he said on Monday he started an "initial position" and stressed that he doesn't take full positions "anywhere near" an earnings report.

Citing the early release and order book guidance, Weiss said of ASML, "This was like a murder-suicide in reverse order." Sully questioned why, if Weiss liked it Monday, he didn't buy more on the early-release earnings report. Weiss said it's "more expensive now."

On fact-check patrol, we rewatched Monday's (10/14) show and indeed heard Weiss say his ASML stake is "not" a large position. He said he has "lots of room to build on it, however."

Weiss on Wednesday said Jensen is "almost as overexposed as Snoop Dogg."

Jenny perhaps underestimates how many people are reading IT’S NOT AN OPTION!!!!

In the 13th minute of Wednesday's (10/16) Halftime Report, guest host Sully brought up Barry Bannister (Barry hasn't been mentioned on the show in a long time), saying Barry made a "fascinating call."

Sully said Barry's call is that the market goes up another 8-10%, then will "crash 25% from there next year."

Jenny "Multiple" Harrington said Barry's call is "absolute plausible," though she questions how much of a crash there could be given that the "strongest supports of the market remain intact."

Steve Weiss contended that Barry is "generally always bearish." Weiss said Barry used to be a "machinery analyst" and maybe following a group that trades at 10-12 times affects Barry's assessment of the entire market. Weiss said he agrees with Jenny that maybe a crash could occur, but "the catalyst isn't there."

Sully called the 50-basis-point Fed cut "bizarre"; Weiss said it wasn't bizarre, it was "justified."

Joe Terranova questioned what Stifel clients, or anyone else actually, does with Barry's info.

Sully questioned why not buy long-dated puts as a hedge for Barry's call. Jenny said, "Most people out there, it's not really that easy to buy long-dated puts ... us professionals know how to do that, I betcha over half or 75% of the people out there can't just do that easily."

According to Stifel's website, Barry's title is Managing Director and Chief Equity Strategist, Macro & Portfolio Strategy.

Joe had opened the show saying "we're waiting on the Russell to come out of its earnings recession."

Jenny said, "There's a really high chance that inflation picks up. I just don't think it's in the short term." Jenny cited "seriously huge national- national debt levels (snicker)."

Apparently RIO can’t go down

Guest host Sully on Wednesday's (10/16) Halftime Report said Loop raised its NFLX target to 800. (This writer is long NFLX.)

Steve Weiss said he trimmed his NFLX stake to right-size his position, which is maybe his favorite hobby within the investing space.

Weiss correctly said it seems like "every day," someone is raising their NFLX target. Joe Terranova said NFLX can keep raising prices for a while (he and Weiss agreed that at some point, that won't be true, but we're not near that point yet) so that's why the outlook is good but cautioned "it's a volatile stock" that can easily go up or down 5-10%.

Joe cautioned that IBKR could dip to the 50-day; if so, Joe said, "it's nothing more than a pause."

Jenny Harrington said "worst case scenario" for RIO is "stay flattish" and collect the 6% dividend.

Kari Firestone said ADSK has some activists involved and is being pressured to improve margins but has "been on a tear lately."

Bob Pisani reported that buybacks are booming. Sully wondered if there's always going to be a "Big Tech Buyback Put" under the stocks.

Sully wondered if Todd Boehly was going to be in New York on Wednesday night for the Dodger game.

Judge says nothing about Weiss’ ASML bungle

Judge opened Tuesday's (10/15) Halftime Report saying he was at the "CAIS Alternative Investments Summit."

Judge's questions from Beverly Hills, including in his on-site interview with Baird Vice Chair John Taft on the 60/40 Portfolio, were plagued by the background racket of all the CAIS Summiteers that sounded like Judge was broadcasting from just outside the doors of The Scorpions playing "Rock You Like A Hurricane." #acoustics

Judge was joined by Michele Trogni of Zinnia and Todd Boehly of Eldridge and had the same situation. Things improved a lot in the 2nd half of the show when most of the lobby cleared out and Boehly told Judge, "I think we're in a process of having lots of M&A get started."

Judge told Boehly that it seems like "you can't either turn on the TV these days" or open a financial newspaper "and not have the question asked, 'Is private credit a bubble?'" Boehly said, "If you're not a practitioner, it's hard to sit here and kind of suggest that something's a bubble."

Judge asked Boehly about ownership of sports teams. The billionaire class is growing, and "the number of teams isn't gonna continue to expand," Boehly explained.

Judge said a Yankees-Dodgers World Series "hasn't happened since I think 1981." Boehly claimed "there's pretty much nothing like a Dodgers-Yankees World Series." Judge never explained why Bowie Kuhn decided to let in the Dodgers and not the Cincinnati Reds that year.

From the panelist crew that was 3,000 miles from Beverly Hills, Joe Terranova said David Solomon was "countering some of the pessimism that we've heard from Jamie Dimon."

Josh Brown said people expected "election chaos right now," but "it's not the case," and, "You're probably gonna get a divided government." Judge, perhaps because of the din at the CAIS summit, didn't question whether we really might get a divided government.

Josh said SHAK is "probably in the 2nd or 3rd inning" in terms of global potential.

Joe pointed out the low point of NFLX's chart over the last 4 years but touted how the company can focus on growth while rivals have to worry about profits. (This writer is long NFLX.)

Judge got the first TV interview ever with Ian Charles of Arctos.

‘I hate to agree with Weiss’

Monday's (10/14) Halftime Report featured guest host Sully at Englewood Cliffs with Bill Baruch; other panelists were remote.

Bill said he's seeing a "real formidable breakout" in the market.

Bill said "my bet" for the next couple months is that "the Mag 7, the tech stocks, are going to rally from here and outperform."

Grandpa Steve Weiss said he doesn't think the state of the economy "necessarily supports where the broad market is" but said there's upside in "individiual stocks."

Weiss took a dig at CLF (time frame unclear), saying it's "down, probably about 50% or so." Weiss' sound went out during the end of his remarks (as he was talking about Lina Khan), prompting Sully to hilariously cringe.

Weiss took out a new position in ASML. Weiss made some kind of extended valuation argument.

Bryn Talkington said, "In theory, we should have that year-end rally," but she's noticed the 10-year has risen from 3.60 to "4.13 today."

Sarat Sethi, who had a quiet show, said, "I hate to agree with Weiss, but bottom's up is, uh, where you gotta be."

Sully complained about the officiating in the Virginia Tech-Miami game.

Bill disclosed he bought the EEM. Sully explained, "I don't like the name, because I don't view it as an emerging markets ETF at all," and asked Bill "is this a China play for you?" Bill said "yeah, absolutely." Bill also bought AS, "it did break out above its, its IPO price." Bill referenced DECK as a stock he liked that never gave him a pullback opportunity.

Bryn said if she wants to play China, she'd do it through commodities rather than single stocks such as ALB.

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman made the same prosperity-is-just-around-the-corner argument for C that Jim Lebenthal was recently making (and has made for years); Karen said C has been slow to get out from under government decrees, "but eventually that will happen." Guy Adami made a good joke about Kensho and noted how, according to Guy, GS typically sells off upon earnings.

Judge actually declares an important market truth (that some of us declare all the time) (a/k/a Both Jim and Weiss are wrong about C/JPM P.E. ratios, according to CNBC’s graphic)

We didn't think during a humdrum conversation about Citigroup stock that Judge would be making a major pronouncement.

But that's what occurred on Friday's (10/11) Halftime Report when Judge carped at Jim Lebenthal's comment that C is trading at 9 times forward.

Judge said he's heard "for years" the argument about banks trading below tangible book. "That in and of itself is not an accelerator necessarily for what a stock price is gonna do," Judge said.

Ah. Judge gets it. (He actually softened it a bit too much with "necessarily.") P.E. ratio/tangible book/any other metric does not predict where a stock price goes. We wish some of these panelists (such as Jim/Citi) would show proof that C's P.E. ratio or tangible book has ever signaled where the stock is going.

Jim's explanation is that C trading below tangible book is just an "inanity" that will be "corrected" (snicker).

Judge said he's been hearing "at minimum for 5 years" the argument about trading below tangible book, but that argument is "not necessarily good enough." Ya think?

Steve Weiss claimed the P.E. for C is the same as the P.E. for JPM even though JPM is at 2 times tangible book. Jim said "actually no," it's "12 vs. 9." Weiss said "that's not what I show" and it's "pretty close." Jim wondered what it will take to get Weiss to buy C; Weiss suggested Jim "would probably have to sell it."

Vehicles that drive paying passengers around town — they’re called ‘buses’ (cont’d)

During Friday's (10/11) Halftime Report, Judge said analysts seemed to agree there was "little substance" in Tesla's robotaxi rollout the night before.

Judge asked Bryn Talkington, who wasn't on the panel but joined remotely, for an opinion. Bryn pointed out how the stock surged in the summer on "no real fundamental news," so there apparently was "so much hype" going into this event that's responsible for the stock selloff.

Bryn said we'll get "details" about this project during the Oct. 23 earnings call. Josh Brown, who wasn't on the show at all, apparently messaged Judge and crowed about UBER being the big winner from Thursday night's presentation. He's correct, the TSLA event lifted an overhang on UBER. (This writer has no position in UBER, used to own UBER until it kept yo-yo'ing in the 60s/70s.)

Steve Weiss expressed skepticism of the TSLA project, saying Waymo doesn't make money and it's unclear when it will and it's the leader in the space.

A couple hours later on Closing Bell, Dan Ives joined Judge and defended TSLA's big reveal: "In terms of the next few years, I believe it's a game-changer to the broader story."

Judge said, "You saw what might be. Not what is."

Genie Out Of The Bottle Alert: Larry Summers is warning about inflation

Steve Weiss at the top of Friday's (10/11) Halftime Report said the PPI changes "any thought" of 50 points at the next meeting to 25.

Weiss admitted, "Everything seems to be working nicely," but he questioned whether even a great earnings season will be "muted" by concerns about the election.

Weiss said, "Everybody wants to see a divided Congress."

"Right," Judge agreed.

Jim Lebenthal said, "It's hard to find a reason to sell here." Jim said those who cited "valuation" as a reason to sell are "flat-out wrong," it's not that valuation doesn't matter, Jim said, it's just that "it doesn't matter in the 4th quarter of this year."

Well, that's another interesting way of putting it. Jim thinks valuation matters at least some of the time ... but not in Q4 2024.

Judge mentioned Ed Yardeni's "outlier view" of a day ago on Closing Bell (see below) of "one and done" by the Fed.

Jenny Harrington of course tried to pour cold water on things; "what we know is we know the pendulum always swings too far," Jenny said, citing "capital flows" to the stock market.

Judge reported on Ricky Sandler's tweet from a day earlier in which Ricky suggested buying the "vast array of below mega cap companies that have interesting equity stories." Weiss said of Sandler, "he's not positioned in those names" and that "reasonable people disagree."

But Jim said he thinks Ricky is "dead on."

A couple hours later on Closing Bell, Judge told Loretta Mester (in what was an excellent interview) that Lawrence Summers is tweeting about how the Fed shouldn't cut too fast.

Tom Lee has the funky psychedelic backdrop going again

Judge on Friday's (10/11) Halftime Report said some pros have told him that they're buying Russell calls for "early next year." (We've been hearing about how great this trade is gonna be for what, oh, 3 years running?)

Steve Weiss said he's thought about doing that but hasn't "pulled the trigger yet."

Jenny Harrington curiously asked Jim Lebenthal what he's telling clients what to do with new bonus money in January. Jim said "I'm not gonna worry about January just yet" but that "normally," in a year like this, the Q4 rally "crescendoes into the first part of the new year." (Translation: Jim's not telling anyone to sell for a while.) (But unclear what they should buy with that bonus money.)

Judge said Guggenheim pinned an 810 target on NFLX. (This writer is long NFLX.) Weiss said he's still got an "uncomfortably large position" but the company still has "great flexbility" in ability to raise prices. Judge said someone made a negative call about a week ago at 700. (What Judge didn't say was that 700 was around the previous high in late 2021, and observers (at least if you watch Fast Money) had been split as to whether 700 would be a double top, or a breakthrough support level.)

On Closing Bell, Judge's star guest was Tom Lee (ah, wait a minute, maybe it was Loretta Mester) (ah, maybe it was Dan Ives), who said he's a little cautious right now because "I think investors wanna see how- who ends up becoming president after Election Day."

Kevin: NFLX can charge ‘whatever they want’

Liz Young Thomas suggested early on Thursday's (10/10) Halftime Report that "the market is confused today."

Josh Brown chided those who called for "50 and then 50 and then 50" after an August "weather event in Texas." Kevin Simpson sort of chuckled at Goldman dropping its MSFT target from 515 all the way to ... 506. He said he'd be "very happy" if it gets there.

Judge said Morgan Stanley lifted NFLX to 820 and Oppenheimer is up to $775. (This writer is long NFLX.) Kevin said he thinks it'll go higher; "They can charge us whatever we- whatever they want, and we're gonna pay for it."

That's exactly right. This page will not necessarily agree that NFLX can charge "whatever," but it can definitely charge more than it's charging.

Judge said CRWD is up 100% since the October 2022 low. (This writer is long CRWD.) Josh gushed about the "reputational comeback" from the outage.

People buying NVDA calls; who knew

Josh Brown said on Thursday's (10/10) Halftime Report that it's almost a "horse race" between the Mag 7 and the S&P 493, "and you're making money with both trades."

Judge said NVDA is up 8% on the week and claimed "there's a tremendous amount of bullish options activity around Nvidia going out into the spring of 2025." Josh said there's been "monster, monster call-buying at the March, uh, strikes from like 150 all the way up to 189."

Kevin Simpson articulated how much NVDA needs to rise (basically to $163-$164) just to break even on a $150 option that costs $13-$14. Judge said Fast Money's Dan Nathan reports that NVDA call volume is 2x the put volume.

Josh said META is staking out a "battleground" vs. AAPL over the next portal to the internet, which Zuck apparently thinks can be AR (snicker).

AMD was giving CNBC interviews Thursday and announcing a bunch of things; Josh said that "the best thing that could happen for Nvidia, honestly, is for AMD to stay in the fight, so they're not fighting an antitrust battle a year from now."

Josh suggested, "I think ultimately, Tesla probably ends up doing a deal with Uber."

Judge says he won’t discuss 10 reasons for buying a stock

Joe Terranova wasn't on the Halftime Report Thursday (10/10) but he was on Closing Bell, and he sounded incredulous at guest Ed Yardeni's suggestion that the Fed might not do any more cuts this year.

"There would have to be something very troubling in the inflation numbers for them to sit on their hands for the rest of the year," Joe said.

On the Halftime Report, Judge chuckled that Piper Sandler was giving "10 reasons" to buy CRM and ADBE.

Judge told Josh that Morgan Stanley reiterated underweight at MMM. "The problem with Morgan Stanley is they just don't know what time it is. Like, they're focused on the past," Brown said. "It's not overvalued by any stretch."

Josh said PYPL is "barely down" on Bernstein's cut to neutral.

Kevin Simpson sold WMT October 82 covered calls and MRK October 110 covered calls that expire Oct. 18.

Kevin said he's not sure he agrees with Stephen Tusa that HON's spinoff is dilutive and said he'll buy it on pullbacks.

Kevin said PEP is "the 13th-largest name in the Q's."

Judge said at PFE (snicker), a couple former execs who supported Jeff Smith are now backing current management. Josh contended, "Pfizer's problems are large but fixable."

Josh's Final Trade was IOT; he said it's a "mike-drop chart."

Guest-hosting Thursday's Fast Money, Kelly Evans called Mike Khouw "Mike Cow" and seemed to immediately sense a mistake.

Jim somehow gets a 2nd straight day to talk up GM

The Post 9 panel of Joe Terranova, Shannon Saccocia, Jason Snipe and Jim Lebenthal on Wednesday (10/9) all basically endorsed the stock market. Jim bluntly stated, "Is anyone really going to sell getting into the 4th quarter here?"

Jason Snipe brought up Jensen's use of the word "insane" and echoed Jim, "Why would you wanna get out of this market at this stage?"

Joe said MSFT is "not trading well," neither is Alphabet, and AMZN is down 5% in 12 days, so this is "idiosyncratic" as to what's working/not working.

Judge somehow asked Jim to repeat his GM spiel on Wednesday, pegged to the hook of the JPMorgan price target hike. Jim said "they gave enough" at Investor Day.

Joe said he disagrees with Wolfe's call to take profits in insurance stocks.

On Fast Money, Guy Adami quoted "Wall Street" in a discussion about Alphabet: "The breakup value is higher."

Judge & Josh’s assessment of GM was doing great, until ...

Normally, GM conversations on the Halftime Report aren't exactly must-see TV, but Judge and Josh Brown did make things interesting Tuesday (10/8).

Jim Lebenthal spoke of what he wants to hear on GM's Investor Day. What he doesn't want to hear is any "near-term issues" with profitability like Stellantis revealed.

Judge questioned, what if the "most exciting thing they're doing" is buying back stock.

Jim said "that's the bear argument." Judge said the bear argument is that "they got a lot of cars sittin' around" and pointed to Sarat Sethi saying on the show recently that he sold the stock and "called it a terrible investment."

Jim protested that he wasn't on the show with Sarat and insisted, a couple of times, "it isn't a terrible investment."

Jim protested to both Judge and Josh Brown that GM's multiple is so low because some people think the numbers "are gonna fall off a cliff," and Jim doesn't think the numbers will fall off the cliff.

Josh said GM is selling at a 5 times multiple "because people understand that in the future, this is just not gonna be the same business that it has been for the last hundred years."

Hmmmmm.

Josh, who said, "The year is 2040, Taylor Swift is president (snicker)," continued that cars sit idle 96% of the day. Josh said entrepreneurs such as Dara and Elon are taking these "idle hours ... and they have these cars moving, circulating, through the towns, through the cities ... taking people on rides when they need those rides."

Josh added, "That is what's depressing the multiple. ... It's a reality that I think hasn't yet dawned on people."

Well, this page will disagree with Brown. The multiple is not low because of a ride-share fantasy. The multiple is low because this company never makes a product that everyone starts gushing about.

Brown's supposed 2040 automotive scene misses some key facts: 1) Regardless of who owns the cars, they're going to be sitting around 96% of the time from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Everyone wants them on the roads around 8 a.m., 5 p.m. and after the ballgame ends. Why would all the cars that take people to work at 8 p.m. still be "circulating" around with no riders at 10 a.m.? (And there would be fewer people riding in cars in general given that the marginal cost of renting a ride is far higher than the marginal cost of driving the same distance with a car a person already owns.) 2) Most people will find it more cost-effective to own their own car that they can drive any time rather than constantly pay to go everywhere.

Josh downplayed "the only bear case" for UBER, which is that Elon will launch the "Uber killer."

Bryn gives RBLX short case a fair shake, says company should refute many of the claims

Judge on Tuesday's (10/8) Halftime Report asked Bryn Talkington about Hindenburg's short position in RBLX.

Bryn offered a lot of thoughtful commentary, suggesting the company can probably shoot down some of the assertions but should heed others.

Bryn said it's a "very long report," and "I would think the stock would be down more with all of the accusations." Bryn said "one of the big ones is that they're saying that Roblox is conflating people with daily active users." Bryn said that sounds "easily refutable" by the company if the allegation is "not true."

Bryn said she's holding the stock but apparently wants to see the company do more about protecting kids. Judge and Bryn noted the company's statement, but Bryn said, "They need to refute these claims. They're not willy-nilly."

Rick Rieder ‘uncomfortable’ with market multiples, but ...

Star guest Rick Rieder on Tuesday's (10/8) Halftime Report stated, "I feel uncomfortable at these multiples being long, but there's so much cash on the sideline."

Judge asked Rick to articulate why he's not high on small caps (snicker). Rick said it's a "fair" argument about the multiple but that "bigger companies continue to grow the moat."

Jim Lebenthal said the argument he keeps hearing against small caps is "this is not the place in the cycle." Jim said he sees small caps as a "ripe case for another pattern to be broken."

Rick said he agrees with that cycle argument, at least as far as easing rates to come out of a downturn, except that right now, "the funds rate is still restrictive," and they're just bringing it into alignment with inflation.

Rick told Judge, "I don't really understand the hard landing/soft landing thing," rather, "I actually think the U.S. is a service-related economy; I know I call it the satellite economy all the time. Satellites tend to- they don't really land, they just get tired over time."

Jim suggested rates are staying higher "because the economy is a heckuva lot stronger than people expect."

Bryn Talkington pointed out that "going into October of an election year, very normal to trade down, especially the first half of October."

Judge noticed at the beginning of the show that it sounded like Josh Brown was speaking from a cavern in his opening remarks.

Jim said "the one thing" that would worry him about QCOM is that they "do something stupid like buy Intel."

Josh noted in Final Trades that PYPL has an "8 handle."

Belski insists those in the business 15 years or less don’t know how to stock-pick

On Monday's (10/7) Halftime Report, Judge said Piper (he called it "Piper Jaffray" before correcting himself; "I've been here a long time" (snicker)) raised its NFLX target to $800 from 650, while Barclays dropped its target to 550. (This writer is long NFLX.)

Brian Belski, long NFLX, insisted "this is a thousand-dollar stock."

Judge said there's a noticeable "delta" between the Piper and Barclays price targets that's "remarkable." Joe Terranova said it's about the valuation. Joe questioned "rhetorically" if NFLX is losing market share to other streamers; he concluded that the others are focused on trying to be profitable while NFLX is free to focus on growth.

Meanwhile, Belski claimed, "The majority of Wall Street uh has- has been in the business 10 to 15 years. So all they've done is chase indices or looked at ETFs."

Judge scoffed to Bryan, "Oh, but your- your- but your 30 years give you a, a, a richer, uh, uh, a richness that they don't have. Are we goin' there again? Please tell me we're not goin' there again."

"We're not goin' there again," Belski promised, explaining that institutional clients "don't actually know what stock-picking is" because "all they've done is chase things."

Bill Baruch bought a January 135/150 XOM call spread. Joe said he expects XOM to be a trillion-dollar company.

Do we hear 6,200?

In a setting that brought back tired memories of the pandemic era, Judge for Monday's (10/7) Halftime Report was parked at Englewood Cliffs on Monday, with only Joe Terranova at the desk; everyone else was remote.

Joe advised, "You stay with the trend."

Judge said Tony Pasquariello says to "stick with the primary trend in the best stuff." Judge said David Kostin upped his 5,600 to 6,000, "so you've got some chasers."

Bill Baruch, stationed at a different part of HQ, said he agrees that Brian Belski's (who was also on the show) 6,100 is "very doable," and getting there "could be a bit of a trader's paradise" as it could be a "bumpy path" through the election.

Judge said B of A in fact predicts a "stock-picker's paradise (snicker)."

Joe claimed Tony's note advised "staying with the winners." Judge clarified that Tony is saying "stay with the best stuff."

Joe said the Fed cut was a "sell the news moment" because the Russell peaked on the afternoon of the announcement, and yields bottomed the day before. Joe said he's "not in love" with cyclicals; he wants to stick with "what has worked in 2024."

Belski trimmed HD and MCD in his value portfolio because he added LULU, which has been "crushed." Belski also bought SO. He sold AMP and ALLY to fund it, even though he hailed how AMP "did not even take TARP money."

Belski said PFE still has a "COVID hangover." Joe Terranoa said PFE has had "significant managerial missteps." Bill Baruch talked up ABBV.

Anastasia Amoroso barely got a chance.

A little later on Power Lunch, star guest Tom Lee admitted small caps have been "disappointing" despite being "within a few percentage points of an all-time high," but Tom thinks it's "just a matter of time" before they rally.

Stan Druckenmiller emailed Bloomberg

Judge on Friday's (10/4) Halftime Report aired the clip from the morning of Savita saying "This is Goldilocks."

Rob Sechan offered, "it's Goldilocks on steroids." Jason Snipe said he's not sure it's Goldilocks; "I think we are priced for perfection." Jim Lebenthal stated, "I really think we're gonna crescendo into year-end."

Steve Liesman introduced the idea of no cut in November, which he said is only a "very slight probability."

Judge said Stan Druckenmiller has "made some comments, um, to another outlet (snicker) via email," in which Stan hopes the Fed isn't "trapped by forward guidance the way they were in 2021." Steve said he partly agrees with Stan's comments but said the Fed has said it's "recalibrating" to match inflation, which has come down and "justifies the Fed's rate cuts."

Judge jabbed with Jim over Jim's head-scratching contention that "some of these" earnings forecasts are baking in "recessionary outcomes." Judge correctly said "Not really," and then tangled up "inflationary" when he meant "recessionary" (corrected himself a few seconds later).

Judge said VST is "up 75& in a month," and even repeated that information. Rob Sechan's got it. Rob noted it's a "very attractive" name but is "no longer cheap," and he wouldn't be surprised to see it "consolidate a little bit."

A $130 target on a $240 stock

In the category of head-scratchers, Judge didn't ask panelists for "Megalopolis" reviews (see below) on Thursday's (10/3) Halftime Report said JPMorgan raised its TSLA target from 115 (snicker) to 130 (snicker) but reiterated "underweight" (snicker).

Bryn Talkington said, "I don't know what JPMorgan's talkin' about."

Josh Brown opened the program saying how "Mr. Partridge" would just say that this is just a bull market.

Bryn said there's "animal spirits around AI" and advised, "Don't fight the Fed," plus there's "China stimulus." (Judge didn't bring up the fact Stan Druckenmiller is not impressed by China's stimulus.)

Josh said that with Jensen talking about "insane" demand, you have to stick with NVDA. Bryn said Jensen is the "ultimate salesperson" who "delivers the goods" and later made NVDA her Final Trade. Kevin Simpson said of NVDA, "At some point, this trade will burn out like they all do, but I don't think that the runway's any time in the near future."

Kate Rooney joined to recap what Judge praised as her "big interview" earlier with Sarah Friar.

Dee Bosa reported on ways that Google's cooking up to get ads in AI search.

Josh Brown offered a bunch of reasons for and against owning GOOGL; he decided it's "a little bit of a tough trade" and maybe a "better investment than a trade."

Kevin Simpson said he "absolutely" would buy AMZN on weakness. Josh said if it falls Thursday, it would be the 8th straight losing day, the longest streak since 2019. (On Fast Money, they said Thursday was only 7 straight down days.) The 2nd-longest was 9 days in 2009, Brown said.

On AAPL, Bryn said, "There's no one sleeping in tents outside of the iPhone store like we saw in the first half of the decade," but "I do think though the China stimulus, uh, could be very good though."

Excitement over a 1-3 team

Late in Thursday's (10/3) Halftime Report, Michael Ozanian was back (that's CNBC's new sports-reporting initiative) to talk about the Miami Dolphins' sale of a minority stake to private equity, which (ding-ding-ding) probably allows Mike to upgrade his NFL team market value calculations.

Judge said this would be the first NFL-P.E. deal that we're "likely to see a lot more of." Josh Brown said the P.E. crowd is "practically based" in Miami, so it's sort of "emblematic" for the Dolphins to be the first P.E. team.

Honestly, we can't figure out why Judge is more interested in this sleepy subject that affects maybe 75 individuals in the entire country than in the NFL games themselves, but whatever. (Ah, we get it — it's a current topic just as CNBC's sports-reporting upgrade went live.)

Kevin Simpson bought CME, citing recent history of a special dividend in December.

Kevin also bought VNOM, a stock that's been championed by Bryn Talkington.

Josh Brown wasn't sold on the Chicken Big Mac.

Josh Brown said Berkshire's selling of BAC doesn't seem like a sign that Berkshire sees "something wrong, per se, with the banking sector."

Judge should ask Weiss to review ‘Megalopolis’

As everyone on CNBC's Halftime Report basically treads water in terms of stock market recommendations ("Wait for the Fed!" "No, Wait for earnings!" "No, wait for the next CPI!...."), it suddenly occurred to us that it would be awesome for Judge to devote part of the show to a review of Francis Coppola's "Megalopolis."

Then again, Judge had so much difficulty Wednesday (10/2) digesting Steve Weiss' very simple Humana trade, which Judge somehow found "too confusing," we're not sure that Judge would give "Megalopolis" more than about 30 seconds. (That's 30 seconds of watching it in the theater, not 30 seconds of discussing it on the show, though we'd be surprised if it actually got that much.)

(If Jim Lebenthal watched "Megalopolis," he'd surely be gesturing at the screen, "The economy is. NOT. THAT. BAD!!!!")

In the latter half of the show, Judge noted HUM's bad day and said Weiss bought it. "I bought it on the news. So it's actually been a good little trade. I'm only gonna be in it for a trade," Weiss explained.

Judge said, "Here's my problem (snicker)," he wants as much "context" as Weiss can give so they don't give viewers "the impression (snicker) that this is some thing that's gonna be around for a while."

Weiss said he bought it when the stock was down $60 in the morning; it was down $45 as he spoke. Weiss did impressively lay out the issues the stock faces and concluded that if it moves up to the point where it's only down $40, "I'm gone."

OK. We get it completely. Weiss is playing the knee-jerk reaction, which often softens later in the day, making early-in-the-day buyers the smart buyers. (Not always, but often.)

Weiss clearly isn't interested in waiting this out for weeks. And he presumably cashed out shortly after the program, as HUM finished the day down only $32.

Anyway, back to the $40 drop ... Judge said that's only a "4 buck difference" from where the stock was currently at. Jenny Harrington questioned putting on a trade "for 2%," meaning 2% more than where it was at that moment. Weiss said that with a sizable trade, it's still money.

"You see," Weiss told Jenny, "You use a benchmark of what the S&P do (sic grammar) (we think); I use a benchmark of how much money am I making."

Judge concluded, "Next time, we're not even gonna mention it," because it's "too confusing for the viewers." Weiss said he didn't "lobby" for talking about his HUM trade.

Weiss calls Jenny ‘baby’

Judge opened Wednesday's (10/2) Halftime Report with a scoop, saying sources tell him OpenAI's funding round "has now closed," and it raised "a little more than 6½ billion."

Judge asserted, "This is a big deal."

Steve Weiss said he "passed on it," because "it's in the hype stage" and it's "too difficult to pick the winners and losers."

Weiss predicted "continued volatility" through the presidential election. Weiss said the dockworkers union hasn't endorsed either presidential candidate.

Weiss said it's likely Israel will make a "statement" by "going after" Iran.

Judge first assured he wasn't downplaying the impact on human beings' lives of the Middle East conflict, but, "The market has generally viewed that kind of thing as noise."

Joe Terranova said he finds the $70 oil price "somewhat astonishing."

In a lengthy conversation about NKE, Joe said he'd probably buy LULU before NKE. Jenny Harrington said, "My husband refers to my Hokas as my orthopedic sneakers."

Weiss made his usual sneaker commentary, prompting Judge to scoff that nobody should turn to Weiss for fashion insight and prompting Jenny to ask Weiss what shoes he's wearing.

"Stan Smiths, baby," Weiss told Jenny.

Joe claimed that because the JOET has owned MELI since April 2023 and has a "54% gain," the ETF has "time on our side." (Translation: Joe's OK if it loses money from here because he can always say he made a profit on it.) That's a curious way of assessing whether a stock is going higher or lower. He said MELI might be taking a "pause" that refreshes.

Joe said there's "very strong tailwinds" for APO and other asset managers. Joe praised Blue Owl and its owners "who just closed on the Tampa Bay Lightning yesterday" for $1.8 billion.

Judge said Stan Druckenmiller has "no interest" in China as long as Xi Jinping is in charge. Weiss said he doesn't expect Tepper to be in the China trade on a "long-term basis," and that Druckenmiller is "right from a longer-term basis," and Jeff DeGraaf, who says to buy China, is "purely technical," so all 3 positions make sense. Judge stammered through explaining that Tepper and Druckenmiller think very highly of each other's strategy, so it's curious that they're on opposite sides of this. Weiss pointed out Tepper "could be out at any time." Judge concluded, "2 Pittsburgh guys."

‘Everybody needs to hear’ Jim: ‘I really don’t care’ what GM has done for the last 5 years

Jim Lebenthal on Tuesday's (10/1) Halftime Report speculated on why Sarat Sethi (who wasn't on Tuesday's show) may have sold GM (see below), perhaps because it finally went up this year.

Then Jim said to Judge, "I have to tell you just straight up, and everybody needs to hear me on this: I really don't care what it's done over the last 1, 5 or 10 years."

"You don't care what it's done for the last 1, 5 or 10 years?????" Judge asked, incredulously.

"I don't. It tells me nothing about where it's going forward," Jim said.

"What do you own it for, the enjoyment of saying you own it- Gen- you own General Motors stock?" Judge heckled.

"It tells me nothing about where it's going forward," Jim insisted.

Judge’s crew apparently not terribly concerned about port strike

On Tuesday's (10/1) Halftime Report, Jim Lebenthal said the market's got rate cuts, inflation easing and employment hanging in there, "all of which bodes well for retail."

Judge chuckled, "Sorry, but, I have a hard time believing that- that- the- the Fed cuts interest rates by 50 basis points and maybe they go 25, again, and then the people who were having a hard time dealing with the rise in inflation and had already been tapped out are all of a sudden gonna say, 'Hey, you know what, let's go to the mall, because Jay Powell just cut 50 basis points.'"

Jim said, "Your point is well made, but it's not just that."

Jim provided the latest from the Atlanta Fed, as he often does; "2 and a half percent today."

Josh Brown said "the average stock is trouncing the index," that 328 stocks beat the S&P, "by a lot," in Q3.

Josh lamented getting stopped out of SN despite being "right all along" on the stock.

Kari Firestone admitted KMX "has not been a great stock" but said there's been "improvement" in the last quarter.

Judge said the 60/40 Portfolio has reportedly been having a big year, but Barron's is saying it's "flashing a warning."

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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