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!
