CNBCfix - Fast Money Review

[CNBCfix Fast Money Review Archive — February 2018]
[Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018]

Bill said Nov. 6 he’s not ‘throwing in the towel’ on HLF, insisted then that ‘This is the last time I’m gonna talk about this company’

As panelists were heard chuckling, Judge on Wednesday's Halftime declared, "I can report that Bill Ackman is now basically all gone, uh, from Herbalife. ... His position is, is unwound, is how he put it to me."

Well, that's a bit of a departure from November.

Leslie Picker said Bill appeared to be "on that path" to unwinding his position when it became a put position.

Picker said "we have reached out" to Carl Icahn but "have not yet heard back." Judge claimed, "I didn't have time to make any phone calls as this was all happening."

Pete Najarian hailed Ackman's method of loss here, stating "the one really smart part of this trade though for Bill" (snicker) is that he "used the leverage of options."

Steve Weiss said the first question that would be asked of Ackman at investor meetings is "What the hell are you still doing in Herbalife ... People don't wanna invest in managers that are stubborn where their ego overcomes reason and fundamentals."

JJ Kinahan (who got no questions at all about why TD Ameritrade keeps running those terrible ads of that goofy maintenance guy for years) said something you don't hear every day, "Let's give credit to Herbalife's management," calling the 6-month chart "a dream."

Steve Liesman asked Judge if Wednesday's HLF news is "the final chapter" of Judge's book. "The book's comin' out in April," Judge said, adding, "pre-orders already now."

Liesman said he needs the "prologue" (sic) to the book; "I'm gonna get on the phone with your agent."

Karen doubts Judge’s report on Bill should ‘get much traction’ from investors

Judge opened Wednesday's Halftime with news reporting from one of his favorite sources.

"I'm told from Bill Ackman himself (sic last word redundant) that Pershing Square has been building a position in United Technologies," Judge said. "He told me that he thinks it's a great company, and that's where our conversation really ended."

The only thing about that, moments later (see above), Judge was talking about conversing with Ackman on HLF, so apparently the conversation didn't really end when Bill said he thinks UTX is a great company.

Morgan Brennan from Post 9 said Greg Hayes views himself as UTX's "inside activist" (snicker).

Judge said he has "no reporting" on whether Hayes and Ackman have spoken. Brennan admitted "I don't have insight on this yet either" but vowed "I will make some uh phone calls once, uh, once we're done having this conversation."

Karen Finerman on the 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin, which Judge guest-hosted, asked her colleagues whether they'd rather buy UTX on news of the company taking a deep dive into itself or on news of Ackman's position, and the answer according to Judge was the former. Karen agreed and said of Bill's news, "I don't think it should get much traction."

Leslie Picker on Halftime congratulated Judge for "great reporting."

UTX: Zzzzzzzzzz

Assessing Judge's report on UTX, Jim Lebenthal on Wednesday's Halftime stressed the high multiples of select industrials and said several times they need to "focus" on something, apparently "a few end markets."

Sarat Sethi called UTX a "great, very-well-run company" and said a breakup is a good move.

Steve Weiss agreed, "It makes sense to break it up. ... You may see value creation after the breakup."

Pete Najarian said, "If I'm Bill Ackman and I'm lookin' around for the areas, he's not even gonna have to ruffle feathers (sic grammar)."

JJ Kinahan said UTX should be assessing if it's getting the "full benefit of these great brands."

Weiss said it's a "mistake at this point to make a bet on infrastructure."

Weiss said GE should be viewed in a "completely different lens" than UTX.

Steve Liesman suggested "deconglomeration" as the term for what UTX and GE are presumably doing.

Morgan Brennan asserted, "Tax reform is gonna completely change the equation for these companies."

Sarat Sethi said he'd be "careful" about how fast the stock goes up.

Judge said David Faber is suggesting "maybe there is" another activist in UTX.

If the S&P 500 falls another 100 points, will Joe have to retract his sorry-for-not-calling-the-bottom-Feb.-9 refrain?

Offering up his own assessment on Wednesday's Halftime, Judge declared, "Powell's somewhat refreshing to investors and the markets. Because they got it yesterday. He spoke plainly, OK, in understandable English."

But Steve Liesman suggested Powell was probably thinking about Tuesday's testimony and wondering if he "had the intended effect he had."

Steve Weiss said, "I think he did a great job," and actually said he felt "differently" listening to Powell, "more of a real person," than Bernanke and Yellen.

Jim Lebenthal said his takeaway from Powell is that it's not just 2%, "it's sustained 2%."

JJ Kinahan said he thought Powell painted a great outlook, but he heard grumbling that Powell was "too honest."

Weiss claimed, "I've been thinking 4 for a while here."

We figure that if Powell causes the market to tank, he'll get fired, but the Tuesday-Wednesday selloff isn't enough because it's merely unwinding the big Friday-Monday gains.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin, Guy Adami now says he thinks it's a "sell-the-rally" market.

Karen Finerman repeated her assessment of earlier in February that volatility occurs in clusters, and "I think it's gonna die down again." As for stocks, "I'm certainly not a seller."

Josh Brown apparently really got everyone’s attention with a suit

Jim Lebenthal on Wednesday's Halftime said he thinks the worst is over for UAA, stating he doesn't think it's "going up in a straight line" but that it's reached a value where private equity will take a look.

That ignited Steve Weiss, who scoffed at why private equity would care about stock price as to whether a deal works; "stock price has nothing to do with it. ... They're not saying, 'Oh, $16 stock, I'm all in, baby.'"

"Hang on," Jim protested, stating enterprise value is "a little less than $7 billion."

JJ Kinahan said UAA, UTX and GE are all about "focusing on what you did/do well."

Pete Najarian questioned the "incredibly high" UAA multiple. "That should be somewhat concerning."

Judge asked Pete what Plank could say to Jim Cramer that would make Pete buy the stock. Pete mentioned the "Steve Wynn effect" (snicker), but he was referring to buying shares (and not other things that might not be so well-received).

Judge revealed Josh Brown bought UAA on Tuesday, which unleashed the inside jokes/Laffalympics. Weiss said, "It was an upside-down golden envelope; that's why he bought it," producing howls around the table. Judge said, "He did have quite a suit on yesterday. America didn't get to see it because of Jay Powell."

"That was a suit," Pete agreed. "It was burlap, I think."

Weiss reiterated, "Private equity doesn't buy on P.E. They buy on cash-flow basis."

JJ Kinahan’s explanation for why XOM might be better/worse than CVX needs some refining

Judge on Wednesday's Halftime said Bank of America upgraded CVX to buy, the Call of the Day.

JJ Kinahan first said it's a comparison of nat gas and crude and said XOM is a better play on straight crude. Then he said he owns XOM because of "the diversification" of crude, nat gas "and also the chemical business."

That didn't exactly clear it up.

Jim Lebenthal said the rig count hasn't really ramped up to the higher crude range. He said XOM and CVX and BP are all fine, but RDSa is his favorite of the group. Weiss scoffed, "Buy the S&P; these are S&P stocks." Jim said, "Steve I love you, I, I, I don't agree, and I'm not sure I fully understand what you're saying." Weiss said the only thing Jim's right about is saying he loves him.

Pete Najarian said the BofA analyst in the CVX note sees 50% upside for XOM. Judge said CVX's forward P.E. is higher than XOM, RDSa and BP. Jim said, "It's not very high," so Judge said he'd "rephrase" and repeated his comment to a veritable Laffalympics.

Sure was some burlap suit Josh must’ve been wearing (a/k/a why did Judge load up the panel on a Fed-testimony day?)

Jim Lebenthal on Wednesday's Halftime said he doesn't think NFL sponsorship "matters at all" to Papa Johns. "I don't particularly care for the taste but a lot of people do," Jim said, pronouncing the stock OK.

Pete Najarian said May 52.50 calls in INTC were getting bought Tuesday, as well as some a bit "further out" on Wednesday. He also said March 60 calls in AIG were popular.

Judge said INTC is "well-liked." Jim said he's concerned that "it's havin' a hard time breakin' past 50." Pete questioned, "Would you really call it a hard time."

Pete said he's in LOW and it's "not a great day," but it's bouncing off the lows. Pete said he got in the name while it was underperforming after being in HD.

Jim said he loves Stouffer French bread pizzas. Judge said he used to have Stouffer's after school, so he totally digs it. (He did use the word "dig.")

Sarat Sethi said he still likes the pipeline at CELG and called it a "good hold."

Judge promised Ken Langone's comments on GE but didn't deliver.

JJ Kinahan said Flannery said "I feel sorry for people shorting the stock."

Steve Weiss bought MSFT and NFLX, citing the latter's revenue projection. He said MSFT is a "cheap stock" and he regretted not buying it earlier.

At the end of the show, Judge said HLF had a "new (sic redundant) record high."

Jim's final trade was AAPL. Weiss said EXPE. Sarat said LOW. Pete said CELG. JJ Kinahan said CSCO.

Guest-hosting the 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin, Judge mispronounced "quadruple digit" as a funny term, but he said, "That'll come back to haunt me sometime," so we're going to avoid the haunt and not mention it (because it's really nothing that's going to haunt anyone anyway).

[Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2018]

‘Overheating,’ yes, but nothing about ‘giddy’ or ‘euphoria’ or ‘bottom’

Nearly all of Tuesday's Halftime was preempted by Jerome Powell testimony (that's fine; needed a break).

Steve Liesman said Powell "kind of opened the door" at 10:38 a.m. to the possibility of 4 rate hikes, though Liesman noted the perceived chances are 25-30%.

"The word he used, the new word, was 'overheating,'" Liesman revealed, adding he would "guarantee" that use of that word was debated in the Fed before the testimony.

(That's fine; around here, the new word tends to be "overeating" as opposed to "overheating," but that's the difference between CNBCfix HQ and the Federal Reserve.)

Joe Terranova explained that the problem is, "If you're talking about 'overheating,' this doesn't end with just 2018 hikes, this extends into 2019, and what's the impact on that ... 7, possibly 8 hikes."

Liesman calculated, "3 plus 4 is 7, and 7 is 175 basis points."

Liesman said Janet Yellen "ruffled feathers" among Republicans in Congress by talking so much about inequality, but "Powell is not goin' there. He doesn't see inequality as a major issue for the Federal Reserve or a major economic issue. I think he's concerned about it."

Liesman also praised Powell for speaking with "great specificity" about bank regulation (Zzzzzz). "That's because he did the job at the Fed."

[Monday, Feb. 26, 2018]

Oly-moly: Why don’t the Fast Money/Halftime folks pick a stock for Beijing 2022?

It's such a good question, it's gotta be asked.

Fast Money returned Monday after a 2-week absence for CNBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics, basically the curling events.

It got us wondering — if you had to pick a stock to ride until the next 2-week Fast Money curling break (which happens in early February 2022), what would it be?

We know a bunch of folks will say "Well first you have to determine the economic conditions and rates and what the investors' goals are," and we don't need any of that mumbo jumbo. We're talking about, if you have to pick 1 stock for 4 years, what would it be?

So many interesting candidates. AAPL. AMZN. BRK. V. FB. GOOGL. TSLA. MSFT. NFLX. NVDA. All potential favorites. But what about some other intriguing possibilities ... INTC ... AMGN ... ABBV ... ADBE ... LMT ... CRM ... maybe some current laggards such as XOM, GE, CMG, UAA. Maybe a long shot like TWTR or SNAP? Maybe gold?

Chances are, the winner will be a stock that's not well-followed now but experiences hyper growth. That's extremely hard to even research, so among the usual suspects, we're going to lean FB. (This writer is long FB.) (If you play this parlor game and are NOT long the stock you're choosing, then you need to think about a new hobby.) The gut feeling is that FB has a very enormous and very sticky user base and very smart execs who can figure out ways to monetize it ... and oh yeah, the concept we keep getting back to, that this company is ridiculously popular. The biggest negative we can determine is that unlike AMZN, it's not getting that automatic $99-a-year subscriber fee that is the gasoline of AMZN's extraordinary stock gains of recent years. As always with free stock tips, you get what you pay for.

What are the most famous trades of Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn? (a/k/a Nobody could use a correction more than Warren)

Judge on Monday's Halftime aired a clip of Warren Buffett's morning chat with Becky Quick, some of which centered on AAPL.

"I like Tim Cook very much; I like their policies," Buffett said.

Hmmmm. And we thought AAPL has a big problem with products that are harmful to kids, according to Jana-CALSTRS and its letter that cites a cartoon as evidence of public concern and the Psychic Tax prof and the uncredited-"Kagemusha"-assistant-director prof.

Evidently Warren doesn't agree (or hasn't read the letter).

Jim Lebenthal noted it's a "value stock" that's still getting lumped in with the FANGs. Josh Brown suggested Warren Buffett is a "GARP guy."

Pete Najarian hailed Apple services and twice said, "I'll give you a new one," and it was "wearables." Pete predicted Steve Weiss (who wasn't on the show) will say, "They're not innovative," but "they are."

Joe Terranova said it was a "great opportunity" when AAPL recently traded at 150, for all those traders who possess time machines.

The Buffett clip, for whatever reason, got us thinking about something we really hadn't thought much about. Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn became famous making gobs of money decades ago. But what are their most famous trades?

Forgive us for recency bias, but we're going to say Buffett's 2008 lending to GE and GS and Icahn's 2012 plunge into NFLX. Buffett was really proud (some might say "giddy") of this trade and almost surely at this age is eager for at least one more big score to gush about in his couple-times-a-year TV interviews. We're thinking that's not gonna happen without a steep correction.

Judge forgets his own programming, doesn’t know Francesa announced selling ALB at 125

Dialing up a recent disaster, Judge on Monday's Halftime asked Josh Brown about ALB. (This writer is long ALB.)

Brown called ALB a "really fascinating stock" because the bulls and bears are "so far apart" and that Morgan Stanley suggests a possible 85, while UBS came out Thursday or Friday and reiterated buy at 148.

Judge said that's "exactly" why he wants Brown to settle it. Judge also stumbled, mentioning how Mike Francesa spoke about buying the stock on Brown's recommendation but wondering "who knows" if Francesa still owns it.

Brown mentioned Chilean lithium supply and said he's on the other side of the Morgan Stanley argument because he would be "shocked" to see Chile "voluntarily blow up" a chief export.

Jim Lebenthal said the "battleground" on ALB is whether it's a commodity stock or whether it's got a moat. Joe Terranova said ALB reports on Tuesday.

We got excited about this stock last summer when Brown, after having previously touted it, made a great call to buy the dip after an earnings report. Since November, it's been dog food.

We’ll provide the Z: Zzzzzzzzzz

Mike Mayo on Monday's Halftime started to say he has a preview of JPM's earnings "that goes through letters A through J."

Mayo tried to mention "asset quality," but Judge at least cut in and said "Viewers don't have time ... give us the scoop."

Mayo said there's a "25-year structural breakout where bigger is better. ... Scale is making more of a difference than ever before." OK. Fine. Can't say we're "giddy" or even "double giddy" (see below).

Judge told Mayo that Chris Whalen just tweeted that bank stocks are already back to 52-week highs "on relatively flat revenue, earnings ex-tax benefit." Mayo mentioned the "3 R's," which are rates, revenues and regulation (isn't "revenues" a partial effect of the other 2?) but returned to his 25-year breakout theme.

Pete Najarian asked Mayo if JPM isn't getting close to 2 times book, so perhaps there are "better names" to be in now. Mayo said 1 year "is too short of a period," whatever that means.

Josh Brown said he was "disappointed" about Warren Buffett kind of giving WFC "a pass" and thinks Warren wouldn't have the same attitude if he weren't the largest shareholder.

Joe continues apology tour for perhaps briefly missing the bottom

Judge opened Monday's Halftime wondering if maybe the recovery might be a bit rapid.

"We're basically back, Josh, as if the correction never happened," said Judge. Josh Brown noted NFLX is up 53% year to date even after the February correction.

Jim Lebenthal asserted, "We are gonna go higher from here" but pointed to the upcoming wage numbers a week from Friday.

Joe Terranova said, "Historically, you do not have the environment right now that would suggest we go back and retest the lows."

We're not sure why he alone is taking the fall for this when virtually everyone was talking of a "probable" retest, but Joe again bemoaned how he didn't call the bottom on Feb. 9. Joe brought up "capital usage" as a reason for anticipating an upsurge.

Jim assured his 10% cash will be "totally at work" by the end of the quarter.

Jonathan Krinsky indicated the stock market's bull trend is intact, and he doesn't see a need for a retest of the low.

Pete Najarian said the correction was "far more about algos" than levered ETF products.

Judge avoids the ‘e’ word,
but Dan Nathan brings it up

Joe Terranova on Monday's Halftime said there's a lot about GE that still needs to "unfold" in terms of asset sales, though some people were pointing to 13.95 on the day as perhaps a bottom if it ended up going green. (It did.) (This review was posted after market close.)

Joe said he's "not ready to jump in" and buy GE just yet, but pensions weren't as bad as he feared.

Pete Najarian said April 135 calls in VMW were popular.

Pete said March 75 XOM calls were getting bought.

Pete said not to hold your breath on Warren Buffett buying an entire airline.

Jim Lebenthal predicted Powell would "stick to the fairway." If only everyone did.

Joe's final trade was MSFT. Josh Brown said INTC. Jim Lebenthal said QCOM. Pete said C.

Last Thursday, MCC told Karen Finerman that Mel wouldn't be on the 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin this week, but on Monday, Mel was hosting.

Dan Nathan said there was a "nearly euphoric" situation in January.

[Friday, Feb. 23, 2018]

Um, we think after ‘giddy’ comes ‘euphoria,’ but that didn’t come up Friday (probably next week)

It's not like the stock market needs much cheerleading, but Ed Yardeni on Friday's Halftime was virtually doing handstands.

Yardeni said he's "giddy" about the market because corporate managements "are actually giddy with what, uh, all the cash they're getting."

"I think inflation is dead," Yardeni asserted.

Steve Weiss seemed in disbelief that Yardeni doesn't seem to see a big problem from possible wage inflation or rates rising from 3.25 to 3.50.

"What comes after giddy? Double-giddy?" Weiss asked, hilariously.

Returning to his favorite topic (which is nearly as dull and tiresome as Kevin O'Leary's BUY THE RUSSELL 2000), Jim Lebenthal asked Yardeni if he's ever seen a correction as short as the one this month. Yardeni first suggested the Flash Crash, which Jim dismissed, then he mentioned 1987 but conceded it took 3 months to get over that.

Judge's Call of the Day was Bernstein upgrading FDX with a 290 target. Kevin O'Leary said, "If you love Amazon, you have to love FedEx."

O'Leary seemed to pronounce "Icarus" as "Ipocris."

A dog is tied to a stagecoach, both go across the country, and ...

Jeffrey Gundlach dialed in at the 26-minute market of Friday's Halftime Report, and once again, the lede got kinda buried.

Gundlach said stocks look OK unless there's a breakout of rates, which is a "clear and present danger." He said if he had to make a bet, it would be on rates breaking to the upside, but it's a "low-conviction feeling."

He reaffirmed that his best trade now is to be long commodities. "I think late-cycle, commodities always rally," Jeffrey said.

Gundlach predicted 3 rate hikes this year. (So much for that Goldman Sachs podcast that didn't include Hatzius.) He explained, "5 seems like quite a stretch to me from what the rhetoric has been coming out of the Fed so far."

He said bond yields "are at a level that makes uh a pretty good deal of sense right now." He explained that DoubleLine has "for the past few years really" been noting the 10-year yield tends to reside in the "average of nominal GDP and the competitor yield, which is the German yield," and lo and behold, that's about right where we are today.

Gundlach made a strange analogy about rates and nominal GDP that involved dirt roads.

In an observation that doesn't seem to foreshadow anything, Gundlach said bitcoin's crash "presaged" the stock market tumble, then bitcoin "managed to start rallying" before the "stock market bottomed out." (Apparently that means if you see bitcoin fall another $3,000-$4,000, expect the Dow to have a couple of 1,000-point drops a few weeks later.)

Judge noted arguments that certain deflationary forces could offset inflation's upward pressure. Gundlach responded, "So if these deflationary forces are supposed to be offsetting, why aren't they offsetting now? I mean inflation is higher today than it was, uh, a couple of years ago."

Jim Lebenthal noted Jeffrey's suggestion of the possibility of a Fed policy mistake and said that just because the Fed may make a policy mistake, "That doesn't mean it's a disaster." Jim mentioned Trichet raising "prematurely," and then there was PIIGS ... curiously the first time we've heard that term on the show in at least a year other than our own headlines of the past week (see below, hit PgDn a few times).

Steve Weiss said, "Policy mistakes can go either way."

Kourtney Gibson said, "If you actually think the economy is doing better, right, rising-rate environments tend to then bring stocks higher."

Kevin O’Leary claims an AMZN miss would ‘take down the entire tech sector’

On a day the S&P 500 rose 43 points (it was only halfway there around noon; this review was posted after market close), Kourtney Gibson declared on Friday's Halftime Report, "It's a stock-picker's market."

Judge expressed concern over Nasdaq stocks getting over their skis. Steve Weiss said he bought EXPE but that fundamental Nasdaq stories aren't being "derailed."

Josh Brown said, "You have to look at this week as, as very constructive."

Brown trumpeted INTC and called it "investable" and one of the stocks not threatened by rising rates.

Jim Lebenthal gushed that "there's something for everyone" in technology, including great growth stocks and value names such as INTC, CSCO and IBM. Kourtney Gibson said "spot-on, Jim."

Weiss said of AMZN and MSFT, "I would say, relative to historical measures, they are overvalued." Josh Brown cut in to say "Amazon's not even a tech stock; it's consumer discretionary" and that FB and NFLX pretty soon will be a "communications stocks."

Kevin O'Leary scoffed that they should just rename the Nasdaq as "Amazon."

"If AMZN missed a print one quarter for any reason, whatever it is, it will take down the entire tech sector," O'Leary contended.

Jim pointed out that MSFT and AAPL are bigger in the QQQ than AMZN is. O'Leary went on to grumble about the lack of dividends in names such as AMZN and NFLX.

"I don't care where we came from," O'Leary said; he's only looking at places to deploy capital. O'Leary said those multiples are "insane." Brown said, "They've always been."

Pete Najarian said LOW October 95 calls were getting bought. Pete also said April 12.50 calls in BB were showing up on the radar.

Kevin O'Leary's final trade was health care services in the Russell 2000. Josh Brown said INTC, pointing to resistance at 50. Kourtney Gibson said LITE, a name she mentioned at the top of the program. Steve Weiss said EXPE, a name he mentioned at the top of the program. Jim Lebenthal said XRT, but if you buy it, probably "sell it by Tuesday or Wednesday."

[Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018]

Karen at Post 9!!

Closing Bell viewers on Thursday got a treat when Fast Money regular Karen Finerman showed up at Post 9 to cap the day with Bill Griffeth and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera.

Karen mentioned buying AAPL, apparently after the recent plunge; "I got lucky somewhat on timing."

Karen explained, "There is more to the Apple story" than the iPhone X, hailing services as a possible "offset" of "lumpy" phone sales. She even got grilled as to why she hasn't owned it all along.

Karen said she's looking forward to Fast Money returning after the Olympics. Bill said, "Are you anxious to get back to work there?"

Karen said, "I've loved the Olympics though so that's fun, uh yeah, I'm ready to get back to work. I miss the guys, miss Melissa, lookin' forward to it."

MCC pointed out, "Melissa's not back next week." That probably means Sully-land.

Bill and MCC obviously haven't been reading this page or else they would've wished Karen a Happy Birthday this Sunday.

Famous Bottoms: Timothy
overachieves as Mr. Hart
in ‘The Paper Chase’

Joe Terranova started off Thursday's Halftime Report revisiting the activity of ... yep ... Feb. 9.

"I did a poor job as many others have in the wake of February 9th not saying that that was the bottom and that it was time to get back in again," Joe said.

"You have a market that is being driven back on this rebound so powerfully by growth momentum stocks. And that is just not aligned with the strategy that we're all so afraid of: The strategy of higher rates, higher volatility and being more defensive because there's a risk to the outlook," Joe added.

Joe also said the market Wednesday overreacted to Fed minutes.

Judge said there was a Goldman Sachs podcast (snicker) in which someone said "it's certainly possible" that there are 5 rate hikes (snicker) in 2018.

"I think that's aggressive. I think that's a lot of rate hikes," said Kari Firestone, who said that type of wage push is "very unlikely in this economy."

Judge noted that suggestion was "not from, from Hatzius."

Josh Brown said the terms "inflation" and "higher rates" are "being conflated."

"Do not use the 2 terms interchangeably. It's wrong," Brown said.

Pete Najarian stated, "Well first of all I think the algos have now programmed themselves to be attached to the, the rates themselves."

Pete predicted the financials will do great in a trading environment and "drag along the rest of the market." That's odd to hear "drag" used in the sense of taking something higher.

Jim Lebenthal said Wednesday's Fed notes were "irrelevant because it was 3 weeks ago." Jim said inflation is more relevant, and all the inflation worries are "centered on the month of January."

Jim said he doubts 5 rate hikes, which would be "courting disaster."

Still wondering what happened with Greece ... why Greece isn’t the word ... aren’t all the PIIGS going to sink the market ...

Jeremy Siegel visited with Thursday's Halftime crew and started off agreeing with the idea of Wednesday being an "overreaction."

Siegel said talk of a "supergrowth" has "really cooled down in the recent data," which gave Judge an opportunity to heckle the Atlanta Fed number again. But Siegel does expect 4 hikes.

Siegel said James Bullard has been a "superdove" and "super-uberdove."

Then Judge made this declaration about the Fed: "They look at what's happening in the stock market. And for better or for worse, their opinions and decisions have been made at times by virtue of what the stock market has done and what investors quote-unquote have told the Fed to do," Judge said.

Siegel told Joe Terranova that, "Most of us think that 3½, 3¾ may be the peak of the 10-year. And that is a lower world than we experienced, you know, I'm not even talking about the inflationary '70 and '80s but even in the '60s and the 2000s, where we had the 10-year, you know at 5 to 6%."

Siegel faulted an "inordinate number of trend followers" for the rapid plunge and rapid recovery of the past month. (So now it's trend followers and not the levered VIX ETNs.)

Siegel said that unlike the 2010 Flash Crash, this time "there were no dislocations" and that the market seems to have gotten through it "with flying colors."

Joe insisted upon stating that in April 2013, "The 10-year was 1.60. The following January, the 10-year was 3.05. The S&P went from 1550 to 1850. We had the same concerns. So there's the template. The market can go higher as rates move higher."

Josh Brown noted a bounce-back in utilities and REITS while rates haven't pulled back.

Pete sits out the SNAP discussion, says nothing this time about ‘single digits’

Judge on Thursday's Halftime Report brought up the MoffettNathanson bear calls on SNAP and TWTR.

Josh Brown conceded TWTR is a "very expensive stock" with a lot of hopes pinned to revenue.

Brown said SNAP has had a TWTR-like bounce the last couple months, while "the only fundamental change in SNAP has been negative. Uh, 1-star reviews for the app on the app store are like 86%. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before. The user community is so disgusted with the overhaul."

Brown concluded, "I own Twitter, would not own Snap."

Kari Firestone noted "Twitter is still well below where it was a few years ago" and said "it's done a lot of things right."

Jeff’s research for making bullish bitcoin prediction amounts to phone call from Doc

Jeff Kilburg on Thursday's Halftime Report said the crypto selloff is "due to regulation."

Kilburg said he just talked to Jon Najarian, who's doing a "crypto crawl" in Europe again, and Najarian "said sentiment is strong," so Jeff thinks it can go higher.

Anthony Grisanti said he's got 9,570 as support and said resistance is 11,800. "I would expect this market to trade sideways a little bit," Grisanti said.

Pete Najarian said RF March 22 calls were bought for 2 days in a row. Pete also said March 75.50 calls in XOM were popular.

Pete admitted P upside calls "did not work out."

Joe Terranova said CHK's gain is "obviously" a short squeeze; he likes CXO and PXD better.

Kari Firestone said W could "move higher" after its slam if it executes well.

Addressing what proved to be a bungled final trade from Tuesday, Jim Lebenthal said ROKU beat on earnings and beat on revenues, and "it's where it was 1 week ago. So clearly it got ahead of its skis." But Jim said "this stock will be back at 50 ... you can fix margin problems really easy." It's a compelling argument given the extent of the selloff, and one we'll think about. (This writer has no position in ROKU.)

Josh Brown said CAR had low expectations and thus the stock is up, but it's "still a sloppy chart" and not where he wants to be.

Pete's final trade was WFC. Josh Brown said he'd stay long TWTR and said you can put a stop just below 30. Kari Firestone said WCN and called it "recession-proof," for those fearing recession. Jim said GM. Joe said MOS in a "longer-term trade."

[Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2018]

Weiss explains what hedge funds do, claims they’re ‘not supposed to outperform’

Leslie Picker on Wednesday's Halftime reported that Greenlight had a 5.5% drop in January and that David Einhorn said the prior worst underperformance was in March of 2000, "which was a similar environment" (snicker).

But the really interesting comment of this discussion came from Steve Weiss, who curiously stated, "Let's understand what hedge funds do. Hedge funds are not supposed to outperform. Because they're running a hedged portfolio. So their net exposure to the market is half what the market is, 60%. So, outperform doesn't mean outperform the S&P. It means outperform their peers."

Really? ... People are paying 2 and 20 with a goal of not outperforming passive investors? (Joe was already doing a rehash on this program (see below); we expect the same from Weiss on this subject in a few days.)

Meanwhile, Picker said Paul Singer continues to warn of a "potential crash on the horizon," but then again, "Singer has been beating this drum for years."

Judge said Einhorn predicts "a reversion is coming" in growth vs. value. Joe Terranova brought up one of our favorite snickering terms that we'd almost forgotten about, questioning if Einhorn is still short the "bubble basket" (snicker).

Leslie said he is, so Joe said it would take AMZN and "Netfix" (sic, corrected) to "fall significantly" for Einhorn to be right.

Judge asked if anyone sees value gaining ground. Weiss chuckled, "I don't know why I'd care. You know I'm, you're finding, instead of being a strategist, he might as well buy ETFs, if that's his thought, because the stock-picking's not working out." (But his goal isn't to outperform, apparently, and neither is Ackman's.)

Judge said Einhorn's strategy has "worked in the past." Weiss said, "It hasn't worked for 3 years" and noted Elliott has performed well while Greenlight hasn't.

Erin Browne said there are "2 instances" that would favor value, namely reflation and the tax bill, but it really hasn't happened. "At some point, you've gotta question, is this trade fundamentally flawed for some reason."

Joe continues to talk about whether AAPL is making fundamental or "index" gains. (Zzzzzzzzz)

Joe rehashes Friday’s exchange with Josh Brown about The Bottom

On Wednesday's Halftime, Joe Terranova was hitting rewind.

On Friday, Joe told guest host Sully, "How many people, myself included, on this network, said, to answer the question that we were all posed, was last Friday the bottom ... well maybe, it was the bottom, it could be. But we'll probably retest it again."

That led Josh Brown to point out that Brown was saying on that Feb. 9 that it was a bad time to sell during a washout, with Pete Najarian piling on.

Joe on that show tried to clarify that he wasn't saying people should've sold on Feb. 9 while Brown and Sully butted in to quibble over Sully's ski-accident analogy.

On Wednesday's Halftime, Joe brought up that Friday discussion and stumbled a bit to say Brown "michunderstood" (sic pronunciation) his point.

"I was not saying that you needed to sell I think on, on that February 9th low. That's not what I was saying. But I think in the rebound, part of the rebound is that there is this sentiment that still believes we need to go down and test that low," Joe said, and it hasn't happened, so that sentiment persists. "I'm amazed at the speed of this rebound."

What happened to Greece? And the PIIGS? They’re not going to accept austerity! omg!!!!!!

Judge opened Wednesday's Halftime with Tony Dwyer, who apparently expects a "shock drop" that will retest the lows and whose argument simply got worse the more he stumbled along.

Basically he's citing the "10-week rate of change on the VIX." He said "typically" in situations such as early February, there's a 5% rally off the low, then a retest.

Judge said, "We've already kind of had a retest. And we've also moved far more than 5% off of what the low was."

Dwyer insisted "that immediate retest Scott doesn't count."

Then we got what's known in journalism as the "nut graf" when Tony added, "I wanna make it clear: I am absolutely not calling for people to trade this lower move. I'm saying, Get ready for that lower move, be prepared for it when it comes, don't let it shock you. And you wanna take advantage of it."

Translation: Don't sell, because chances are, I'm wrong.

Judge suggested rather than the retest not counting, "Maybe the correction shouldn't count."

Part of Tony's sample size apparently is the 2010 Flash Crash. Tony claimed that he went to the bathroom during the Flash Crash, presumably came out, couldn't figure out why the market was down 500 points, then the market bounced back, "and then you made a lower low."

Moments later, Judge asked Dwyer, "What happens if 10 days from now you have a jobs report that does not back up the wage number from the prior month."

Poor Tony eventually said, "I think the next move is lower on lower long rates and a defensive move, and I think that's what you wanna buy." Judge was heard scoffing after the word "move."

Judge said, "You honestly think that in the next jobs report, if if um, you know, alleves some of the fears about inflation, that stocks aren't gonna go up. You think they're gonna go down on that?"

"If you gave me the number Judge, no clue," Tony said.

"You just said-" Judge insisted.

"Here's what I know: Again, again, I think that you can peak out the long rates here ... " Tony said.

Weiss jumped in on Judge's side and haggled with Dwyer over which time Weiss said there's a better chance of Dwyer growing hair.

Joe Terranova said shorting volatility has to be a "critical component" of retesting the lows. Tony said, "We're doin' a lot of what-ifs here."

Tony Dwyer likens Fed
concerns to gunfire

On Wednesday's Halftime Report, Erin Browne insisted they all agree (uh oh, that's always trouble on this show) that the correction was technical and asked guest Tony "shock drop" Dwyer who the "incremental seller" is now.

Dwyer said he disagrees that early February wasn't a fundamental move, suggesting it was based on "volatility of Fed policy" (snicker).

Tony even suggested the volatility ETNs were the "gun" and that "the actual shooter, the way that it fired, was off of fear of Fed and higher interest rates."

OK ...

Joe Terranova noted that tech is leading the recovery, and if Tony's correct, wouldn't value stocks be more in favor. Tony said "typically" when people get hit, they're going to buy what they already like.

Steve Weiss actually said "it definitely was a fundamental move" but "exacerbated" by volatility and algo trading. Weiss insisted to Judge it was "fundamental" rather than "fear of fundamental change."

Judge said it was "one number." Weiss said "big deal."

Rich Saperstein asked Dwyer how the market would get below a 16 multiple with robust earnings. Tony mentioned "some of the volatility products" (#2018bogeymanalert) playing the "Monetary Policy Uncertainty Index."

Weiss actually claimed there's an immigration policy "that wants to keep the low-cost labor out" and predicted hotels having to pay more than minimum wage.

Erin Browne said the Move Index was a forward indicator ahead of the meltdown.

Saperstein said this is a "whole new phase" of the bull market. (Translation: Tony's historical patterns probably don't amount to a hill of beans.)

Judge at one point told Dwyer, "The market's biggest fear right now is inflation. Could we- we can agree on that, right?"

"Correct," Dwyer said.

Honestly, Tony always seems like a good bloke, and we felt for him this time. Some days, after a rough patch, you're just thinkin', Man, what was I thinkin'.

Judge accused of ‘attack’
on Atlanta Fed GDP data

Kevin Hassett on Wednesday's Halftime told CNBC's Eamon Javers we're not in a "new normal" era of low growth but "normal" growth again.

Hassett seemed like a good bloke, and we were wondering how this fellow found his way into the Trump administration, given that many A-listers haven't exactly been applying.

Maybe we got our answer when Hassett got oddly chippy over Judge's questions about the reliability of Atlanta Fed GDP forecasts, telling Judge, "I don't agree that you should attack the Atlanta Fed GDP Now number quite so aggressively because it is something that's been proven over time over many many years of econometric study to be about as good a real-time read of Q1 as you can get."

"I certainly wouldn't use the word, um, 'attack,' and that's not in any way-" Judge started to say.

"Well that's what it sounded like to me," Hassett said, albeit rather breezily.

"Who doesn't hope that, that GDP in the first quarter is, is above 5%," Judge said. (Well, actually, probably a bunch of bondholders, to be honest.)

Judge read Hassett some excerpts from Paul Krugman's column in which Krugman, mostly referring to Trump's own apparent goal, referred to infrastructure spending as "investment."

Infrastructure is basically never an "investment." Infrastructure is like a car. You buy it, you pay to fix it, and when it wears out, you pay more for a new one. You don't pay $30,000 for a car and expect your boss to start paying you $31,000 more.

Hassett said with a straight face, "Absolutely we're keeping a very close eye on government debt, and on deficits."

Something about Doug McMillon’s role to ‘put his arms around him and act as his bodyguard’

Addressing tech stocks, Cathie Wood on Wednesday's Halftime said, "We are in the sweet spot of some S curves here" in the tech space. Wood said AMZN made less than $3 billion in advertising last year and is aiming for GOOGL's $73 billion and FB's $40 billion and is "effectively becoming another search engine."

Those numbers alone were interesting and worth the price of this interview.

Judge asked Wood about some more obscure picks; Wood touted names involving genetic work including ILMN and EDIT and CRSP.

Anthony Grisanti said he'll go from selling crude rallies to buying dips as gasoline demand picks up. Jim Iuorio said 65 is his upside crude target. Jackie DeAngelis looked dynamite in black.

Pete Najarian showed up at the very end of the show and said April 80 C calls were getting bought.

Courtney Reagan reported that Marc Lore says he's absolutely not leaving WMT.

Pete's final trade was MNST. Rich Saperstein said MAS. Erin Browne said XLY. Steve Weiss said biotech. Joe said MA.

[Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2018]

Important CNBC birthday
occurring Sunday

This Sunday, a popular — can we say "foxy"? — CNBCer is going to be blowing out candles.

Unfortunately, because of Olympics coverage pre-empting the 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin, we're not expecting to see any celebration. Those of you with the means and access to provide a gift and cheer, you know what to do, with all the appropriate courtesies.

(One thing we gotta wonder ... why won't she upgrade her Twitter profile picture to something besides that 5-year-old book publicity shot?)

Researching previous year's coverage of this event, we noticed that Tim Seymour on the Feb. 22, 2017, edition of Fast Money declared, "We haven't been this overbought since 2010."

Josh Brown says he thinks we’re going to have a 10% correction but doesn’t tell viewers to unload stocks

Fireworks — or maybe it was little more than firecrackers — briefly flickered on Tuesday's Halftime when Jim Lebenthal suggested, "I don't think you're gonna get another 10% correction. No."

"How could you possibly say that. What planet are we on," asked Josh Brown. "We could have a 10% correction for absolutely no reason."

"I didn't say you could not have one. I said, I don't think we're going to have one," Jim said, as things briefly got testy.

"Oh. OK," Brown said. "I think we are," in that semi-obnoxious way that drives some folks batty.

This all occurred after Judge told Jim earlier in the program that (Grandpa) Mike Wilson sees 3,000 on the S&P but then thinks there could be "at least 1 if not several 10% corrections after that."

Jim said, "I think we're talkin' about timing here. ... I think we've got one last glorious leg up in this bull market ... I think it's gonna take longer than a year for this bull market to run its course."

Al Sharpton once said that George Bush’s tax cut was like Jim Jones’ Kool-aid

One of the star guests of Tuesday's Halftime, Andrew Sheets of Morgan Stanley, explained he thinks the best time for big returns in 2018 is going to be the first quarter, and then afterwards, "we're gonna face an environment of rising inflation" and a "normalization in mean reversion."

Sheets said Mike Wilson's assessment of the latter part of the year being pockmarked with 10% corrections "makes a lot of sense" (snicker).

Sheets said he's more on the "skeptical side" of an elongated boost from the tax cut that isn't already priced in.

Judge questioned if the stock market "overreacted" to that Friday wage number and then the correction "was just accentuated by some other factors, some of these volatility products, et cetera."

Sheets didn't exactly answer but said the challenge is, "We all know markets love to extrapolate."

Then Judge spoke via phone with Richard Turnill, who thinks U.S. stocks are promising. Judge declared, "There's a great debate" on the market.

Turnill said there's been a "spectacularly strong earnings season in the U.S." He said the expected 20% earnings growth this season will offset the cap on multiples from interest rates. Turnill said one of the risks would be a "significant spike in the dollar," but that hasn't happened.

Kevin O'Leary said, "If you buy into Richard's story, you wanna go Russell 2000."

But Joe Terranova asked, "Why are small caps underperforming?" O'Leary insisted "that elastic band is winding up and getting ready to spring."

Stephanie Link said U.S. multinationals are talking about global upside. O'Leary stressed the "super charge, turbo charge" for domestic U.S. companies from the tax cut.

Josh Brown, who's got his own birthday later this week and thus should've been all smiles, said he's with Link because George Bush passed a bigger tax in 2003, "and for the next 4 years, international stocks did way better than U.S. stocks."

O'Leary said "it wasn't the same," there wasn't the accelerated expensing element.

"There's always a caveat, fine," Brown said.

Jim Lebenthal said Andrew Sheets "laid out an extrapolation argument there that March, April, May are gonna get worse. And I- I- there's no evidence of that."

Jim said there are a lot of questions as to whether there's "noise" in the wage report. Judge said "there wasn't any noise. It was one number."

Joe actually claims that Judge’s question about ‘the market’ might’ve been referring to the Nasdaq only

Joe Terranova said at the top of Tuesday's Halftime Report that the "right strategy is to be diversified." (Actually, we think the right strategy is to buy something that's going up, but what do we know.)

Stephanie Link said she's actually been adding European stocks because valuations are lower.

Kevin O'Leary contended throughout the show, "The Russell 2000 is underowned."

O'Leary said to "forget the REITs" in the Russell 2000 because they're not affected by the tax overhaul. He said many companies that will be positively affected don't know it yet. "So it's a stock-picker's market in the Russell," O'Leary said.

"You might be right," Stephanie said 3 times while insisting there are big breaks ahead for big companies. "I don't think it has to be one or the other," Link said.

Judge asked Josh Brown if he's more cautious now on the market. That prompted Joe to cut in and ask, "Which market by the way."

"The U.S. market," Judge said, before scoffing, "The Philippines market."

Joe protested that it was really a reasonable question: "Nasdaq? Which part of the market?"

Judge actually used the occasion to tout his "Shark Tank"-watching credentials, demonstrating to O'Leary that he knows the panelists' names. (How anyone is not sick to death of that program, we have no clue.)

Judge said he doesn't get the "vibe" of positivity from Brown right now and that he senses "doubt about the true worth of this tax plan on the stock market, on corporate earnings."

Brown said "there's no room for any doubt," the market loves the tax overhaul. Rather, the "open question" is whether it will have the impact on parts of the economy that the architects say it would.

Brown indicated he's always got to be cautious for his clients. "This year we're even more overweight international," Brown explained.

Joe said, "I'm concerned about the market because the VIX is still at 20."

Jim Lebenthal said, "Nobody is buying the VIX here, come on."

"You can't buy the VIX," Brown agreed.

Kevin O'Leary insisted, "Everybody hates that thing. You can make money on it if you own it at the right time. ... It's a tool."

Jim said those products are for "literally" 10 minutes.

It took Judge 26 minutes to finally cut to commercial; he made up for it in the latter half-hour.

Stephanie rightly frustrated by being cut off multiple times while trying to make a simple point

Joe Terranova caught some flak on Tuesday's Halftime for revealing he sold some of his WMT stake.

Josh Brown said he'd buy the stock. Joe insisted he's still long; "I sold some of it today from a risk-management standpoint."

Joe cited online growth, but Brown cited tax-related disappointment and "higher capex," which is "exactly what they should be doing."

Stephanie Link said she'd buy WMT at 85 because it's an investment year for that company. Jim Lebenthal was nearly baited by Judge into a SHLD conversation before insisting "you don't have enough information to get long retail right now."

Stephanie Link kept trying to make the point that margins don't look so great. Jim kept interrupting her to question why they are arguing, but they weren't arguing; they just weren't letting Stephanie finish her point.

Joe’s call of Patrick Doyle as secret CMG CEO hire was a bust

Judge on Tuesday's Halftime noted Andrew Left trashed UBNT a while back. Josh Brown said the subpoenas are seeking information on an "endless list" of subjects.

Jim Lebenthal said he likes QCOM in part because he wants it to acquire NXPI.

Joe Terranova said he likes the ag space, including MOS and BG.

Joe said he got out of DPZ at 180 but hailed the company's international and digital prospects.

Stephanie Link said Albertson's should be able to turn around RAD "in a big, big way," so that makes her nervous about CVS and WBA.

Jim Iuorio said if bitcoin can settle over $12,000, then "14,000's the next step." Scott Nations wondered why bitcoin is getting a boost because a government wants to help it when it's supposedly "beyond the reach" of governments.

Joe's final trade was CME. Stephanie said EL. Josh said "still avoiding SNAP." Jim said ROKU. Kevin O'Leary said STE.

[Friday, Feb. 16, 2018]

If you are 70 and you like stocks, go for it

Guest-hosting for Judge on Friday, Brian Sullivan inadvertently happened to ask one of the greatest questions in show history that Judge has somehow never asked.

Sully asked, "Should a 70-year-old retiree be 100% equities right now?"

The group of Grandpas said no. Steve Weiss was even heard to say "probably no equities."

Now that's interesting. Because why is anyone in stocks in the first place, as opposed to bank CDs or Treasury bonds ... so they can make more money.

Is there something about being 70 years old that negates that sentiment?

Does AAPL stock care if its holder is 70 or 25?

If the value of something is going up, shouldn't everyone — regardless of age — be long?

And wouldn't 70-year-olds be much more capable of riding out corrections than someone who's 25? Presumably a 70-year-old is getting Social Security and already has the home paid off and the college tuition paid.

But there's more. What exactly does it mean to be "100% equities"?

Is that even humanly possible? How can a person's entire net worth consist of stock? No checking account? No spare change? How would such a person go to McDonald's? Tell the cashier you have to sell a share of GE first? (And minus commission, perhaps have enough for Value Meal No. 5?)

What exactly were they saying on Feb. 9?

Josh Brown on Friday's Halftime invoked some recent history.

Brown said, "On the show last Friday, viewers that were watching will remember" a conversation about internals, and Brown indicated that he said at that kind of "washout" moment, "It's probably the worst time to be making a sale."

So we checked out the Feb. 9 tape. Brown did give a bit of a speech before saying, "If you didn't sell last week, you might be a little bit late to sell."

So we'll give him credit, although it would've been more impressive had he been more effusive.

The S&P happened to experience a bit of a free fall during that show; it was around 2,560 when the show began but we think in fact the 2,532.69 low occurred during the latter half of the program (though we can't verify that at the moment).

Rob Sechan that day said the correction has gone from "overdue" to "overdone" and said to consider "legging in" to the market. But he warned that dip buyers are "completely, completely scared." (They got a lot more unscared in the last 5 days.)

Jim Lebenthal started off that show predicting "we bounce along the bottom here for the next couple of weeks." He said he was nibbling at GBX, but, "Folks I'm not saying this is the bottom; that's not what I'm saying." Oh well.

Pete Najarian had the biggest clunker of a call, of course based on options activity which, given this example, has to be regarded as a lagging indicator for those who didn't realize that already. (Yes, we know, except for all those insiders buying calls after obtaining secret info.) "You're not seeing the derivatives markets telling you right now at least that this is the bottom just yet," Pete said, adding that people who had been profiting from put buying "continue to wanna see that. ... I don't think you wanna just jump in. ... I don't think we've hit the bottom just yet." (Well, he was right; it took another 45 minutes or so.)

Honestly, we can't fathom why these guys are so Grandpa-cautious in this market that's so obviously a good market in the midst of historically great economic data and far more regulated leverage than when Jimmy Cayne and Chuck Prince were in charge; yes, when Lehman Brothers fails and Congress seems maybe inclined to let other banks fail, you probably don't wanna buy stocks ... for all other instances, when you've got a robust economy with very low inflation and a president who's a lot stronger than he appears (let us know who has declared for 2020) and along with the Fed measures success by the S&P 500, you should probably be viewing any pullback as a gift. So the Halftime Report dudes didn't want to risk calling the bottom 3 days early ... gee whiz, the horror ... if you happened to buy only after the first 1,000-point Dow drop and didn't wait to the 2nd, does it honestly really matter?

Bozos of the Year thus far: Knuckleheads who sold afternoon of Feb. 8 or morning of Feb. 9

Josh Brown on Friday's Halftime told Sully "nothing's changed" over the last week even though stocks are on an upside rampage.

"Nothing fell this week," Brown noted, pointing to stocks and gold and bitcoin.

"The candle on a, on a weekly chart looks phenomenal," Brown said.

Meanwhile, Joe Terranova said there's a "tremendous amount of surprise" in the market. (Translation: Nobody can adequately predict the intense volatility of February, so don't blame anyone here for waffling about calling the bottom.)

"We've never seen in history the short duration type of recovery that we're witnessing," Joe said.

"The average correction took 64 trading days," guest host Sully said. "This one took 9."

"Something internally in the market went screwy," Sully concluded.

Joe offered that "it was the short-volatility strategy." (Which Nancy Davis assures us is still prevalent, but Joe didn't say that.)

"Bingo," Sully said.

But Josh Brown begged to differ. "Something didn't go screwy," Brown said, "Long before there were machines ... we had market corrections," Brown said. "They're called stocks, 'cause this is what they do."

Steve Weiss said he knows some quant traders. "They were on the wrong side, they had to hurry up to get to the right side," Weiss said.

Pete Najarian predicted the VIX would get pushed even lower Friday afternoon as traders map out weekend plans.

Kevin O’Leary wants to invest in 10-year Treasurys at 3.70%

Joe Terranova on Friday's Halftime observed, "The velocity of the move in the 10-year has obviously slowed down quite significantly, and that has had a beneficial impact" on stocks.

Kevin O'Leary said if the 10-year yield were to get to 3.70% on its way to 4, he'd actually "allocate some of my portfolio into the 10-year, which I haven't done in a very long time" (Zzzzzzzzzzz). But then it drifted back to 2.8%.

Mike Santoli, still clinging to that quaint notion of the correction not being over, told Sully, "We're still in a zone in terms of the S&P 500 levels where folks think it would be a logical place for it to take a breather or to settle back a little bit."

"I think more fundamentally, it's the valuation ceiling," Santoli said (Zzzzzzzzzzz).

Joe Terranova said it's "obvious" that buybacks "are being implemented in the marketplace."

Josh Brown calls Sully’s conclusion from Sully’s skiing analogy ‘backwards’

Joe Terranova on Friday's Halftime curiously asserted that if you surveyed 100 professional traders, "over 90% of those people" would say the next 3% in the stock market is down rather than up.

It's possible. But ... Joe also noted how many people predicted a retest of the Friday bottom.

Joe pointed out, "People should not have sold last Friday." But he insisted the "suspicion" of a retest lingers on trading desks.

Pete Najarian said there's been a "complete turn" in sentiment in the options market and warned against using levered ETFs. (Just check out what the sentiment was Feb. 9 according to Pete on the Halftime Report.) Pete said guys a few weeks ago who bought VIX 35 calls started selling those when the VIX hit 33 and started buying 20 puts instead. Congrats. Where do we get a time machine?

Steve Weiss said the "gift" of investors such as Tepper and Cohen "is that they get through all the noise."

Sully made an analogy to skiing more carefully after someone in the group breaks a leg, which is sort of a decent analogy that indirectly suggests traders wrongly overweight certain events based on how recent they are. Josh Brown said, "You raise an interesting point, but, um, your conclusion is backwards." Brown said he wants people to realize 2017 was "bananas" and not a normal year.

CNBC's Bertha Coombs said the rising tide hasn't lifted EXPE while TRIP is up, and that SNAP and TWTR are crushing FB this month. Bertha said "Trading Places" is one of her favorite movies.

Weiss said those contrasting stock moves show the market is "rational."

Joe seems to have one-upped Doc; AAPL performing better than JPM since Tuesday debate over which stock will lead us out of the correction

Guest host Brian Sullivan on Friday's Halftime brought in Kevin O'Leary to trumpet O'Leary's WEN position.

Sully noted, "Wendy's a little skimpy on the dividend, no?" O'Leary said, "Best practices really matter," and he said he likes those with "operational excellence."

Josh Brown said SHAK had a "lousy" forecast. He conceded 2018 doesn't look like the "breakout year" for the company, but he said it's holding a key support level, around 38 or 39.

Joe Terranova said "the worst has passed" for SJM, which a couple years ago he mentioned every other show. Joe said he loves WEN "because I think it's a great cash story," while SJM's cash story needs to be better.

Kevin O'Leary said "the whacking stick has to come out" for KHC board and/or management. Josh Brown said O'Leary is spot-on and that even though the 3G contingent can cut costs, it doesn't matter if people don't want to buy the product.

Pete Najarian said KO is "doing things right."

Steve Weiss likened CPB to IBM. Josh Brown said, "Another awful chart" and questioned if CPB sells products that today's consumer actually wants.

Pete Najarian noted buying in March 42 and May 43 FEZ calls and June 54 calls in FXI, and June 43 calls in GM.

Joe's final trade was ABBV, hanging a 125 on the name. Josh Brown said TWTR, which he said is "under major accumulation." Weiss said GVA again and also mentioned steel stocks. Kevin O'Leary said BTI. Pete said MT and talked too long for Sully's limited closing time.

[Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018]

For a stock-picking environment, sure doesn’t seem too hard to pick the ones going up

Probably without realizing it, Steve Weiss said something quite fascinating on Thursday's Halftime Report.

They were talking about biotech/pharma when Weiss asserted that "the trade yesterday" was NKTR.

"I caught about half the move because I just happened to be in the office," Weiss explained.

See, that's kinda interesting ... because a lot of professionals would have you believe that it takes scores of hours — 50 to 60 a week — to outperform other folks at stock-picking.

What Weiss said makes it sound like picking winning stocks is little more than watching the tape at the right time.

Sticking to his theme-of-the-week-that-will-quickly-be-discarded, Weiss — on a 300-point-forward Dow day — insisted, "It's a time to pick stocks. Everything's not going higher."

‘A derivatives-tactical marketplace’

Offering seemingly contradictory statements in the span of 2 sentences, Steve Weiss on Thursday's Halftime told Judge, "I think we'll go back and test. But I think the worst is over."

So we'll test the lows ... but the worst is over.

Weiss said he initiated a position in BG and "bought back Delta." And he added to BABA and AAPL.

Judge asked why the V won't be a W, and he wasn't referring to Visa and Wayfair. Pete Najarian said it won't "necessarily" be different, but, "The pressure's on is where we're testing some of these highs, Scott, that 270 level up on the S&Ps and all that (sic grammar throughout)."

"You're up 1,750 Dow points since Friday, which is insane. Um, the whole thing is insane," said Josh Brown. Brown stuck to the wouldn't-be-so-bad-to-retest-the-low-on-light-volume thing again and reiterated how it'd be "way worse" to fail at the high again. (Yep, that'd be the worst thing we can think of, the S&P shooting up another 140 points.)

Grasping for slogans the last couple weeks, Joe Terranova uncorked a new one, stating, "This remains a derivatives-tactical marketplace. Even with the market moving higher."

Joe did seem to get a lot of agreement when he said, "I think there's a lot of surprise that we have made this V rebound."

"Well it's a trader market but it's also an investors market," said Pete Najarian. Pete trumpeted calling VMW a buy recently (we think that's more of a time machine trade than a current recommendation) and suggested BAC.

Joe asked his favorite question of late, if Powell is afraid of inflation or deflation.

Josh Brown correctly said of Powell, "You know he's a hawk, but he works for someone who is not going to want him to be a hawk." Brown added in a windup that was way too long for the simple point that could be made, "Rate fears, um, have a self-curing mechanism because the modern Fed is obsessed with the S&P 500."

Pete hailed Jeffrey Gundlach for flagging 2.91% as some kind of important level.

Borderline-Grandpa Steve Weiss continued to suggest caution. "I don't have the exposure that I had in the market a month ago. Nowhere near," Weiss said. "Because I'm concerned because I think we're top (sic grammar)."

Now that we’re apparently surviving the bursting of the passive-investing bubble, won’t be long before we’re concerned about ‘too much euphoria’

We're not sure where the scientific support for this comment comes from, but Mike Santoli on Thursday's Halftime said the S&P 500 is "at a very obvious level maybe where it should stall out and settle back down a little bit."

Hmmm. Sounds like a sell call.

Steve Weiss said you have to get rid of "the junk" or "rising tide" stocks from your portfolio. (Is there ever a good time to own "junk"?)

Judge asked "who's to think" that the rising tide market won't continue. Weiss claimed "we're reversing that trend" of the synchronized global growth being "embedded" in synchronized global easing. (Translation: My academic theory for this market doesn't seem to be matching the daily S&P 500 moves, but I'm not giving up.)

Joe Terranova said, "I think it's a great time to just have a plan," and then again, when is it not; because, Joe continued, a common mistake after a volatility spike and range expansion is that "you tend to focus on the S&P, and you almost become an indexer yourself," which invokes Gary Kaminsky's classic "Closet Indexer" gripe.

Joe said he's added NOC, FANG, ABBV and AAPL. He said he'll probably sell some calls ahead of Powell's remarks.

Pete Najarian said you get extra juice from options with the VIX around 30. (That's another time machine trade.)

Moments later, Chris Whalen credited "Rick Santelli" for saying "We're still in a very strange environment" even though Santelli wasn't on the program.

Wonder if anyone asked any great questions during commercial breaks that viewers never heard

Chris Whalen on Thursday's Halftime Report wasn't quite as negative on the big banks as Dick Bove typically is, but ...

Judge asked Whalen if he owns big banks. "No I own fintech," Whalen said, mentioning SQ, PYPL, NRZ. (This writer is long PYPL.)

"Well what kind of statement is that," Judge asked, when a bank expert says he doesn't own any of the big banks. "That's not the sweet spot for me," Whalen explained, saying the "best returns" are "the supercommunity banks."

(There must be something about analyzing this sector that really turns people off about it.)

Whalen said "the bottom was 2015 for credit" and said credit is in the mature part of the cycle.

Whalen said he heard someone talking about selling options against bank positions, and he thinks that's "absolutely right." But Josh Brown questioned spending bank dividends "on option premium." Whalen started to answer but the two got tangled up over the timeline of when the Fed may "step back."

Pete Najarian asked Whalen if GS doesn't have potential from a trading comeback. Whalen said that's "absolutely right" because bankers have been "killing volatility" for 5 years.

Steve Weiss said "I disagree completely" with Whalen on the big banks, that with NIMs increasing and spreads widening, "that's when you wanna own these."

Joe Terranova said Whalen is discounting the bursting passive-investing bubble CCAR-regulation story "way too much."

UAA ‘certainly’ could go higher and ‘certainly’ could go lower

Judge came back from the commercial break at the 26-minute mark on Thursday's Halftime all achuckle and mentioned Sam Poser's advice to fade the UAA rally.

Poser, from the NYSE, said "the numbers were good," but "the inventory levels were through the roof, which is telling me that they're not adequately addressing their problems."

Judge asked if Poser doesn't think 11 is the bottom for UAA. Poser said "there's a lot of very hopeful people. ... I just think there's a lot of hope here."

"I agree with you completely," Weiss told Poser, asking what price it should trade at and noting Poser's 11 target. Poser said it "certainly" could go higher than it is now and "certainly" could go lower than 11. Judge made a joke that we couldn't hear, but it cracked up Pete Najarian.

Judge asked Poser why he's neutral on NKE. Poser said it has a "law of large numbers" issue with the U.S. (That's a new one for that stock; usually it's an "adidas" issue, and then everyone has to pronounce "adidas" in his/her own way.)

Josh Brown said it's "too late" to short UAA, and after its island reversal, there "could be a similar scenario" to what recently happened in TWTR.

Cabbage Patch Kids fetching 5 digits again

Steve Weiss on Thursday's Halftime said he bought CMG on Wednesday for "a brief period."

Josh Brown questioned the market's "celebration" of this stock just because of a CEO hire, then, as if he was contractually obligated to make this declaration, said Weiss should get "credit" for adjusting his opinion on the stock.

The whole CMG discussion was preempted by an out-of-control Laffalympics. Weiss eventually said the new CEO will "think of some other things new to do here." Weiss said "it'll work, but it's gonna work for the lower level at this point," whatever that means.

Pete Najarian said BMY of big pharma names "gets that extra torque" from trading like a biotech. Pete's not in it; he's in GILD and CELG.

Joe Terranova trumpeted ABBV, stating the growth is "phenomenal."

Pete said someone bought a bunch of 5.50 P calls that expire a week from Friday. Pete said he took off half his MT calls.

Anthony Grisanti said 6,000 was key support for bitcoin, but "the lack of regulation" gave crypto a boost. "Certainly the trend looks higher at this point," Grisanti said. Brian Stutland said South Korea appears to be "easing back off" and that bitcoin seems to be tracking the dollar, but now you can "maybe play it to the upside."

Josh Brown said SHAK has a "good setup" after bouncing at 40. Brown said the DE run isn't over yet. Joe touted MAR.

Pete's final trade was KO. Weiss said GVA. Josh said CSCO. (This writer is long CSCO.) Joe said TWLO. Judge's birthday went unmentioned. We celebrated it with a Grand Slam (above) while the chef played "Superfreak" (that's correct) on his radio over the house music.

[Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018]

Happy birthday, Judge

Let's have a little party.

Thursday is Judge's birthday, and — thanks to ample advance notice from this page — we're expecting a party atmosphere on the Halftime Report, assuming Judge doesn't take the day off, but even if he does, Sully should lead the cheers.

Around here, we might have a cold one. (Always drink responsibly.) C'mon, be happy.

Paul Richards: Stocks ‘really vulnerable,’ could plunge 3% in 2 weeks if 10-year yield hits 3%

Last March, Paul Richards masterfully called the coast clear for the American stock market (pending the French election, which was no trouble) for 2017.

On Wednesday's Halftime, Richards wasn't quite so sanguine.

Richards said he's "praying" that the 10-year yield doesn't get to 3%, "but I think there's a 50% chance of that happening in the next 2 weeks, which is why I think that stocks could see another 2-3% downside before we hear from Jerome Powell. ... I think stocks are really vulnerable."

Richards assured, "When everybody can just regroup and realize there's gonna be 3 dots this year, everybody's gonna be fine. However, I do think the market's gonna get a lot more wobbles in the meantime."

Judge asked Richards, "Does Powell have the market's back?"

"I think so, but it's too soon to know," Richards said. "I think he's gonna be absolutely fine."

Jim: ‘We’ve got another glorious leg up in this bull market’

Jim Lebenthal on Wednesday's Halftime Report said he expects "another dip sometime in the next 2 weeks," otherwise, "this would be an awfully short correction." (Ah, we forgot, we're back to a "normal" market now and vol is here to stay.)

Jim said the market seems to have finally stopped fearing the next financial crisis, which tells him "we've got another glorious leg up in this bull market, but when the real downturn hits, people are gonna be complacent. Good luck."

OK ... "Good luck" enjoying the next glorious leg up, or "Good luck" with the "real downturn" that apparently is many months away at the earliest? By the way, if a "real downturn" occurs at all, doesn't that by definition mean people lose? So isn't Jim by definition wishing people luck in a game they've already lost?

Jon Najarian announced that "absolutely," the market overreacted to the CPI number on Wednesday morning.

It was 1 minute into the show that Doc mentioned Nancy Davis and how the market Wednesday "slammed volatility." Oh my. Honestly, we were practically ready to throw in the towel when Judge put us through that Sátántangó-esque chat (in both duration and pain) about volatility sentiment with Nancy Davis the other day ... but it's his birthday. We forgive.

Erin Browne spoke of inflation "break-evens."

Steve Liesman said fears of "current inflation" are "misplaced." The "real story" to him is the "uncertainty."

Jim insisted the market multiple's "already adjusted" to the new inflation scene. Jim noted that oil has come off its highs and claimed it will "offset" some of the inflation.

Steve Liesman said there are "probably 3" rate hikes this year.

Doc said Keefe Bruyette a day ago was pricing in 1 rate hike. Judge asked if that forecast came from the Atlanta Fed.

Erin Browne said if the growth is there, it doesn't matter if it's 3 or 4 hikes. Paul Richards said he disagrees about the 4, because of the plans of Japan and Europe central banks; "You throw a 4th hike in ... that's a lot for the market psychology."

Judge asked the group if buyers will still come in if the 10-year yield spikes again, even adding his own opinion: "I doubt they do."

Jim Lebenthal insisted there are a lot of high-quality names selling at "meaningful discounts," mentioning CSCO. (This writer is long CSCO.)

Doc pointed out Europe recovered from the morning's hit, and he noted the S&P was up 10 (if only he knew what it'd be doing about 90 minutes later). (This review was posted overnight Wednesday/Thursday.)

Erin Browne told Judge, "I think that we bottomed on Friday," but "it takes some time after these vol shocks for volatility to subside." Pete Najarian though said it doesn't take as much time as it used to.

Jim says CMG needs to change its name, could say the same about SHLD but doesn’t, asserts Chipotle has ‘negative brand value’ when it doesn’t

Apparently sensing victory on Wednesday's Halftime, Judge re-aired the clip of his debate with Steve Weiss on Feb. 1 about Bill Ackman's CEO-picking skills; that's the one where Judge suggested Bill will get the right guy, then said it's not just Bill making the picks, then said it's Bill's pick, then said it's not just Bill making the pick.

Though he wasn't on the show Wednesday, Weiss messaged Judge that the new CMG CEO is "a great selection." He suggested momentum will carry the stock though it may take a couple years to justify the valuation.

Jon Najarian called the hire "very bullish for CMG." Judge said Cramer calls it a "staggering" (snicker) choice.

Jim Lebenthal insisted CMG is a "fast-food restaurant." Then, in the most provocative comment of the day, Jim stated, "They need to change the name."

"They're not gonna change the name," Judge scoffed. "Why do they need to change the name?"

"Because it's always gonna be associated with e. coli," Jim asserted.

Judge said Taco Bell had an issue as to whether it was actually putting meat in tacos or something else, and Taco Bell didn't change its name.

"This has negative brand value," Jim insisted. Pete Najarian said he sees Jim's point, but he doesn't think they have to change the name; "They just have to change what the perception is out there in the rest of the world." (Sounds like it'd be easier to just change the name.) (But actually, they don't need to change the name.)

Doc said "look at the margins," comparing Chipotle's burrito prices with Taco Bell's. Doc said Brian Niccol is an "inspired pick."

Erin Browne said Niccol was "instrumental" in the digitalization of Taco Bell, which CMG is "not taking advantage of."

Jim actually claims SHLD is a ‘gorilla’ in the retail sector

Judge on Wednesday's Halftime said the TGT outperform by Baird is the Call of the Day, a distinction that surely hit home with Pete Najarian.

Pete retrumpeted his chats with Brian Cornell and stressed again how WMT is far more linked to groceries than TGT is. Pete said "there's plenty of room to the upside" in TGT despite the big recent gains.

Jim Lebenthal actually claimed that short-term, there's a problem for TGT, because there's a SHLD bond due in October (yes, he actually mentioned this) that's trading at 75 cents on the dollar.

"The financial markets are telling you something very very ugly about Sears. And when that happens ... there's gonna be a liquidation of inventory that's gonna hurt profit margins over the next couple of quarters," Jim claimed.

Judge said, "Why we worried about Sears; we're talkin' about Target."

Jim said, "Because it's in the same industry and it's a gorilla and it's gonna hurt profit margins. I just explained it to you."

"Target shares are gonna go down if Sears liquidates?" Judge asked, incredulously.

Pete Najarian said he disagrees with Jim, stating SHLD is in its "own little category."

Jim endorsed TGT and DKS but said he would stay away "for the next couple of months" for the Sears reason (snicker).

Feelin' it on birthday eve, Judge rightly scoffed at this analysis, stating it's like debating who will win the Super Bowl and deciding, "The Giants suck."

Seema Mody, curling

Jeff Kilburg on Wednesday's Halftime Report said we're at the "higher end" of gold's range. Scott Nations said of gold, "It is a store of value against inflation."

Pete Najarian said there's been "absolutely spectacular" call-buying in GLD. Jon Najarian said he likes the miners and said to watch the "big surge" into miner trades Wednesday.

Doc said March 102 calls in WMT were getting bought. Pete said March 36.50 MT calls expiring March 2 were popular.

Judge and Pete tried to claim FB is a "battleground stock" now. Mark Cuban says youngsters just don't use it anymore even though they've got an account because they've got an account. (This writer is long FB.)

Pete said he agrees with Goldman Sachs' CAR downgrade and HTZ price cut. Pete suggested KMX in the car space.

Doc said you could buy BIDU at 208 a week ago. For all those needing trades that require a time machine.

Jim Lebenthal said FOSL was experiencing "the mother of all short squeezes." Doc said calls were being bought aggressively.

Erin Browne said she likes the brokers and said IAI is one way to do it.

Doc said he likes MAR in the hotel space.

Jim said of CSCO, "Barring a mess-up, which I don't see happening, uh, the stock should rally." Pete said he loves the stock too though he's not in it. (This writer is long CSCO.)

Erin Browne blessed tech. Pete said he loves AMAT and owns calls.

Jim called MRO a "good name in the space" but suggested everything's based on the price of crude.

Jim's final trade was GOOGL. (This writer is long GOOGL.) Erin said XHB. Doc said CREE. Pete said KKR.

[Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018]

How is AAPL going to lead the market if it’s making a product that is (as Psychic Tax Prof and Jana-CALSTRS say) harmful to children?

Joe was trying to remake a point, and Doc was having none of it. (And frankly, it was a chicken-and-egg point that makes the head spin.)

Joe Terranova on Tuesday's Halftime Report opined, "Apple was declining into the market decline. I believe that Apple will rally if the market is going to rally, ahead of the market. So it's gonna lead us out."

Jon Najarian, though, contended, "I think it's more about JPMorgan than about Apple, as far as the direction of the market and so forth."

Doc predicted the stock "consolidates" in the 165-175 range, "and basically it might be there for 6 months." Joe said he respectfully disagrees on the importance of the name, saying AAPL is "such a bellwether" and that in the last couple of days, "the market lifted as the market was witnessing Apple coming off the bottom. So look, if, if Apple's trading not 162 but 152, I don't think the S&P is sitting where it is right now making the correction."

Doc said, "The 8's are moving like crazy," but the X, "not so much."

Stephanie Link said of AAPL, "I think the stock has gone from loved to hated, and I think there's a real value story here."

Josh Brown noted AAPL is back to August 2017 levels and that at its recent bottom, it was down 16% from its peak, so those who were waiting for a pullback, what else are they waiting for.

Joe said he bought AAPL "on the decline" and if it trades 165-175, "That's great. That's great."

How would a 200-point surge in the S&P 500 be ‘the worst thing that can happen’?

A day earlier, we started to get all excited (snicker) about the notion of a market bottom being a "process" and not a "point in time" or "particular price level."

We also got all jazzed about the notion of this being an "equity" correction and not a "portfolio" correction.

The latter was revisited on Tuesday's Halftime when Joe Terranova stated, "I don't know if I can make this point quickly. I talked yesterday about equity and portfolio correction. And there is distinctly a big difference. And this is purely an equity correction. And that's what you have to focus on."

Actually, we thought from everything else Joe was saying, it's merely an "Apple correction." (We're also awaiting word on the bursting passive-investing bubble.)

Joe said 2,650 is "not that big of a bounce" from the Friday low, which Joe thinks means the equity market, of all asset classes, "looks the most vulnerable."

Judge sounded skeptical, stating, "I mean it was a pretty big bounce in 2 days- only 2 sessions."

Joe insisted, "There's a long way to go, another 200 handles in the S&P, to retest those highs."

Jon Najarian lukewarmly stated, "Like I said yesterday Judge, it felt like we could test again — at some point — perhaps not this week, perhaps not for weeks into the future. Could test again down to that level. Wouldn't be a shocker. But. Record tax revenues. When they announce things like that, that we're seeing record tax revenues collected, that's a positive as well."

Josh Brown said, "I think, I think the rational person is rooting for a light-volume retest of that low. With much less drama accompanying it." Brown added, "The worst thing that can happen is, we go retest the high and fail."

"I agree with that," Joe said.

Doc said there were some "pretty big trades" in the QQQ, specifically the March 164 calls, which looked like a "pretty smart trade" from Tuesday morning's lows.

Brown said, "Every single one of these episodes has been a V. And this is no different so far."

Stephanie Link quibbled with Josh Brown that elite names haven't pulled back enough to give savvy buyers a gift.

Judge asked Mark Cuban if Friday was the bottom. "I don't know. I can make an argument both ways," Mark said.

If the president is so bad, how come no one has announced a run against him?

Perhaps told to cross-promote "Shark Tank," Judge on Tuesday's Halftime dialed up Mark Cuban, whose flimsy phone connection should've made at least one of the parties say "I'm out."

Cuban said he bought puts on the VXX, "not huge positions, but enough to be interesting." He also bought VIRT, in case volatility continues to work (snicker).

What an exciting pairs trade.

Cuban said until recently, you could buy anything and win without caring about little things in the market. "Now we have to start paying attention to detail. Because of the uncertainty," Mark said.

OK. We'll pay attention. We'll also pay attention to Mark's curious suggestion that an offshoot of the tax cuts will be rising trade deficits and possible punitive measures.

Mark also uncorked, as Steve Weiss did Monday, the old youngsters-no-longer-use-Facebook refrain (see, last summer on the show, it was, "OMG!!!!! MARK ZUCKERBERG SAID HE'D KILL SNAP, AND THAT'S WHAT INSTAGRAM IS DOING!!!!!"), stating, "A big portion of the younger demographic, you know, they may have a Facebook account just because they have a Facebook account, but they're not really using it."

Cuban waffled on UAA like L'eggo my egg'o. "I think their worst times are behind them," Mark said, but he doesn't know "where the growth will come from."

Mark called the iPhone X "OK" but "not spectacular."

Bob Pisani reported on the VIX whistleblower who suspects possible manipulation ... but the whistleblower's letter referred to the CME when it should've been referring to the CBOE (we refuse to lower case the "boe").

That was only one of many "yeesh" moments of Tuesday's Halftime, as Judge and Leslie Picker brought in Nancy Davis to say everyone's still in the short-volatility camp though volatility and interest rates "are very correlated."

Davis said there's "a huge opportunity for actually owning vol in the market because everybody else is selling right now."

That's fine, but then Nancy reached back into the past, not the boring past but the type of past (usually it's the years 1929, 1987, 1999 and 2008 that people like to mention) that people on the show are always warning about. The current volatility sentiment is "just like Long Term Capital in 1998. What were they doing. They were selling vol. It's just like mortgages before the crisis. Mortgages are inherently short vol," Davis said.

Davis wouldn't answer Doc's excellent question about whether the VIX could hold even 20 if there's not another huge selloff "in the next week to 10 days." She said she doesn't like the VIX (that's not exactly new either).

Judge practically kills us with long commercial-free stretch; let’s hope that only happens Thursday over cake and ice cream (picture above is from 2015, but it’s all the same people)

Jim Iuorio on Tuesday's Halftime predicted crude will "bounce from here."

Jon Najarian said someone bought M March 25 calls, "probably hitting for a single here." Pete Najarian admitted he owns UPS shares at a "much higher level" (yep, that was a massive bust, although so was Josh Brown's ALB but Brown hardly mentions it) (this writer is long ALB) but said a bunch of February calls, especially the 108s, were getting bought.

Josh Brown said he agrees with the KBW upgrade on JPM, even hanging a 150 on it. Doc reiterated that he told Joe that JPM is the stock that will drive the market.

Pete's final trade was DLTR. Doc said DIS. Josh Brown said TWTR. Stephanie said PRU. Joe said RF as the show ended in a Laffalympics.

Most provocative commentary during Monday’s show wasn’t even on the actual show

It's kind of like Martin Scorsese putting together a 3-hour movie but leaving the best scenes on the cutting-room floor.

Taking up UAA on Tuesday's Halftime, Judge revealed that Joe Terranova a day earlier asked someone on the panel if UAA had bottomed ... but that the question apparently occurred during a commercial break.

We can understand why it didn't come up in the actual televised version, given that the limited airtime needed to be used to give everyone a chance to say the market has potentially put in a short-term bottom.

Anyway, Joe said Tuesday that (whoever he asked; that wasn't revealed), "The answer that I got was no that it hadn't," but that the person said "you could see a short squeeze. ... For a trade, I could see this easily pushing to 20."

"The shorts clearly are unwinding here," Joe said.

Stephanie Link and Josh Brown remained massively skeptical of UAA. "They bought the sales," Link said, adding, "I think this is absolutely a short squeeze" and advising getting out if it goes to 20.

Brown noted how far UAA has fallen over the last year or two. Judge noted it was recently at 11 and challenged Brown; "you don't think it bottomed at 11?"

Brown said, "You're making my point for me," and added, "We don't know yet if this is a short-term bottom or the bottom."

Brown scoffed that the stock has had a lot of 10%, 1-day rallies over 3 years. Stephanie Link said "It's not even close to cheap." Judge said, "It's never been cheap."

Jon Najarian said there were UAA call buyers on Tuesday who "weren't as prescient as Joe was."

Joe stumbled over a wardrobe-like mispronunciation of "the shorts" as "the shirts" (sic).

There's a lot of good stuff in the category of semantics from Tuesday's Halftime; we can't wait to delve into that later.

[Monday, Feb. 12, 2018]

If stocks plunge after Powell speaks, Powell is getting fired

Mentioning a stat we hadn't paid attention to, Judge on Monday's Halftime said Jim Keenan of BlackRock was giving his first interview in 9 months.

Keenan said, "We are entering a new phase of the cycle."

He added, "We're still in a healthy economic environment" and that people aren't debating whether there's a recession, but "the level of economic growth."

Keenan initially said "there is risk" if the 10-year gaps to 3.25%. "That being said, I would too look at that as a buying opportunity."

Moments later, he said if it "gaps" to 3.25%, "I wouldn't say it ends the bull market, but you would see a much more volatile market, uh, similar to you saw last week."

Jim Lebenthal asked Keenan for a range of time for a possible recession. "I'm gonna say it's 2019, and '20, '21" that those conditions might happen, Keenan said. (Tom Lee called a peak though in 2029.)

Keenan stressed that wage inflation would be "healthy" if it drives higher consumption.

Joe Terranova said "the next trouble point" is at the end of the month when Powell speaks. (We'll tell you right now what's he going to say ... nice and dovey for the foreseeable future.)

Somehow we think we went a day without "euphoria." We didn't hear a word at all about leveraged VIX ETF products driving stock through Jan. 26, but we sure heard a lot about them in the last 2 weeks.

Jeff off the hook (and Flannery is learning something new ‘every couple of weeks’)

It was another exceptional accounting lesson in GE finances.

But honestly, we're not sure what it means for buying or selling the stock.

Judge on Monday's Halftime brought in ace industrial analyst Stephen Tusa, who has cut his GE target to 14 (still below Kevin O'Leary's 13).

Judge asked if Tusa has "seen something" in the last couple of weeks that caused the price-target drop. Tusa said there was still "a lot of uncertainty" when they last spoke, but earnings have been worse than expected.

Eventually, Tusa said, "Ultimately (we) believe that any real sustainable moves here will be dilutive to shareholder value." He said the sum of the parts is "about $13 with some downside."

Tusa credited Judge for a "great question" as to whether it's riskier to try staying the course and fixing what's there or "tearing the structure apart."

The dividend, which always hover over these conversations (remember how Doc used to gloat that the stock would go up when the cut was announced before Nov. 8 or whatever date it was?), surfaced again, and not in a good way. Tusa said "an equity raise may be necessary," though when a company raises equity, "your dividend burden goes up." Given that, "If they do raise equity, they will have to cut the dividend at the same time, because it's already too high of a burden and you're adding to that burden by issuing equity."

Tusa noted that Baker Hughes has less of a pension problem than other GE units, so if GE sells Baker Hughes, in terms of pensions, "their leverage has to go up."

In a curious personnel assessment, Tusa said John Flannery has "done, uh, everything," whatever that means, and is "learning, uh, something new, um, you know, not every day but every couple of weeks."

"I do not think his credibility is on the line yet," Tusa said.

Steve Weiss questioned how this company can turn around with the same board. Tusa insisted, "They are absolutely in the hunt, uh, uh, for new board members."

Tusa said he's not picking on the board. "I've never, you know, uh, picked at Jeff Immelt either," calling it a "tough situation for everybody."

The difference between ‘equity’ and ‘portfolio’ is ... something or other

Everybody on Monday's Halftime Report tried to sound optimistic while asserting the 2018 stock market might still retest the bottom. (That's called taking both sides of the argument.)

Joe Terranova said signs for the market "look good," and as for Friday's low, "potentially (sic redundant) that could be the bottom." (Well, that's going out on a limb.)

Joe said it's important that AAPL was up 3%. Joe then invoked semantics, stressing that "it's just an equity correction" and not a "portfolio correction" and thus not a risk to global growth.

Jim Lebenthal said the market has come down to a "reasonable multiple" before he, too, invoked semantics. Jim asserted that bottoming is a "process" and "not a point in time" and "not a particular price level." (Hmmm. We always thought the "bottom" was the lowest price over a given range. Oh well.)

Jim also said, "I think we'll take 1 to 2 weeks longer to really form this bottom."

Steve Weiss curiously contended that "it's a great time to rebalance a portfolio" before settling for perhaps the worst cliche in the business: "Now it is what people have been saying for years — a stock-picker's market."

Jon Najarian's opinion is that the worst is over, "but that doesn't mean that we don't retest it." (Sigh. Do those 2 statements really coexist?)

Sarat Sethi was the lone panelist knocking it out of the park, stating he's adding to FRC, JPM, BAC, PRU, SCHW, MS, CELG, BMY, GM across the board.

Sarat said GOOGL has a lot going for it, Youtube and a cash pile, and advised thinking about buying on another pullback or nibbling now. (This writer is long GOOGL.)

Doc said something we definitely agree with, that he'll be "really surprised" if volatility can even remain in the low 30s. Karen Finerman was all over this last week.

Weiss said he sold FB and would love to get into GOOGL. (This writer is long both FB and GOOGL.) On the heels of the stock-picker's market, Weiss invoked one of the most dreadful cliches of the 2010s, that Facebook is "losing the younger, um, uh, you know, faithful that go on Facebook," about the 17th time we've heard that concern since about 2014 (although the first 16 concluded by about 2015). Weiss said he added to C and BAC.

Jim said he's adding to EA Monday after adding to GBX Friday.

Doc said to no one in particular, "You got a gift on Friday when Apple slammed down to 150." (All those great trades that can't be done now without a time machine.)

Jim, Weiss fail to clash

Mark Fisher dialed in to Monday's Halftime to say "there's a lot of short-term opportunities" for trading volatility.

"I don't know if we put in the low," Fish said, suggesting the market "probably" would test it.

"I think volatility's here for a while," Fish asserted; we don't want to trade against Fish but we'll take the other side of that. Fish added that people aren't focusing enough on the Israel-Syria news of the weekend.

Jon Najarian said THC February 17 calls expiring at the end of the week got his attention; the short-term trade is "already workin' out." Doc said March 21 COTY calls were popular.

Jim Lebenthal said GM is "an easy long here."

Joe Terranova said he bought back into NOC and said AAPL and AMZN will tell where the market's going. (We think the S&P 500 does an equally good if not better job of that.) Steve Weiss's final trade was GOOGL. Sarat Sethi said PRU. Doc said FXI. Jim said ALXN. The 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin is being preempted by Olympics coverage for a couple of weeks.

Notable birthday coming up
this Thursday

For the last few years, this page has consistently been asleep at the switch taken by surprise by an important mid-February CNBC birthday.

Not this time.

Hopefully we'll see some cake and candles on Thursday and some kind of presentation at Englewood Cliffs or Post 9. Redskins fan, chef, golfer, general sports enthusiast, shouldn't be too hard to come up big, in and of itself. (He's already got a great suit collection, however, so think beyond clothes.)

[Friday, Feb. 9, 2018]

2017-18 playoff picks spotty

There's been so much drama in the stock market this week, we haven't had time to address a very important subject — the playoff football bracket.

It's one of the toughest prognostication challenges in sports because it involves picking ALL of the games before all the matchups have been set; we're happy to give it a shot every year. (See our early January report.)

We got 7 of the 11 winners correct. Thankfully, our only wild-card miss did not affect the seedings, though we did predict the Patriots being the Chiefs and Steelers rather than Titans and Jaguars. Unfortunately, we failed to score a perfect conference, nor did we pick the Super Bowl champion. That all adds up to a C- grade.

We had the NFC correct up until the Championship Game. Had we re-picked after the divisional round, we would've bet against the Vikings, whose win over the Saints looked like at best a gift.

We had the Patriots in the Super Bowl. That's fine, but we had Kansas City and Pittsburgh each winning one playoff game, which neither did.

And the Patriots didn't win the Super Bowl even though that was predicted here.

So ... no perfect conference, and wrong on the Super Bowl champion. Not our greatest effort.

We'll try to do better next year.

Ross Levinsohn reinstated after corporate investigation (a/k/a a newspaper’s digital chief has no Twitter account)

Back on Jan. 18 (hit PgDn a few times), this page reported that we probably won't be seeing Ross Levinsohn on the Halftime Report for a few years, after a "detailed report by National Public Radio" suggesting Levinsohn has a history of "frat-boy" behavior in workplace settings.

Barely 3 weeks later, Levinsohn's corporate bosses chose to "reinstate him" and hand him a different title — Chief Executive Officer of Tribune Interactive, LLC.

This is a remarkably speedy timeframe for a legal investigation, which coincidentally wrapped up the same day that Levinsohn's unit — the Los Angeles Times — was sold. (So much for tapping into SoCal culture, doing more video and raising share price from 2 times EBITDA to 10 times EBITDA.)

The Los Angeles Times article said Levinsohn was "cleared of wrongdoing." The company's own press release does not use the term "clear" or "cleared" but says the investigation and report found "no wrongdoing on the part of Mr. Levinsohn." It does not say how many people were interviewed. The NPR story that prompted the investigation claimed "fresh interviews with 26 former colleagues and associates."

It's journalistic obligation, as well as fairness, to promote the news Levinsohn has been reinstated after reporting he was on leave. It's equally significant that Levinsohn is a rare (apparent) survivor of the current landscape. The chief complaints in the NPR report — (pick your order of gravity) maintaining a "frat-boy" environment, keeping a "hotness" list of women who worked under him and using a 3-letter word beginning with "f" — may be different than the physicality offenses alleged against Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, Kevin Spacey and others, though this page does not know anything about the details of these cases and will not speculate. Yet even Steve Wynn, who's got a LOT more money and power than Levinsohn, had to step down from a couple of important posts.

Here's the CNBC wrinkle: Before taking the L.A. Times job in August 2017, Levinsohn was a CNBC contributor and announced as such on an episode of the Halftime Report. This presumably provided him additional income. At the time, he worked for a "boutique strategic advisory firm" called Whisper Advisors. Levinsohn is no longer on CNBC's online list of contributors and presumably left that list upon taking the L.A. Times post (though we don't know that for a fact).

We can report that, in the wake of the Tronc investigation, Levinsohn 1) has not made any public statement about this investigation that we can find and 2) does not even appear to have a Twitter account. Levinsohn is going to lead the Tribune Interactive division, "which will operate the digital functions of the company," according to his company, Tronc ... but he apparently doesn't need a Twitter account.

Nobody said in 2017, ‘Man, thank goodness these levered ETFs and passive investors are carrying stocks higher’

It's sort of a waste of time.

Nobody on the Halftime Report wants to buy anything.

Then again, nobody's telling viewers to sell.

So what's the point?

Jim Lebenthal said his clients are "more sanguine" about this correction than any other he has seen. Rob Sechan though says the move has "paralyzed the dip buyers."

Jeff Kilburg suggested selling out of the money puts on JNJ and mentioned Sechan's "paralyzation" (sic). But Pete Najarian seemed to think that's not such easy money, stating, "People have to understand, when you sell puts, what that really means."

Sechan seemed to suggest the week's bogeyman, ETFs, while mentioning "the notion of renting the market."

Jim mentioned the CNBC special report Thursday night (which appeared thrown together at the last minute and heavily Cramer-centric) in which all the man on the street interviewees shrugged that it's just a correction.

Pete Najarian did actually say he was dipping in to VMW, not because he's sure it's the bottom but it's taken a deep discount recently and is in a good space.

Jim said "why not" buy UTX, HON or EMR, only to clarify that you should only "nibble ... but don't load the boat here." Pete said things are working for those companies, but you have to be "very very selective" in terms of price.

Judge grumbled that he was getting "no takers" on those stocks after/amid a correction.

Josh Brown shrugged at the concept of shifting sectors so one's portfolio can lose only 9% instead of 11%.

Judge mentioned "euphoria" at the 28-minute mark.

Pete noted "some huge roll-downs" in May 148 QQQ puts (from someone who'd been in the 155s). (Quite possibly, someone was loading up big-time on QQQ calls on Jan. 26.)

Pete said V June 120 calls were getting bought.

Bob Iaccino predicted a "pause" in crude's slide, pointing to traditional strength in seasonality. Jim Iuorio said the risk is to the upside.

U.S. hockey legend Rob McClanahan told Judge the market selloff is "overdue." He said several analysts at his firm see this as a "great opportunity" to buy some stocks, such as CY.

Judge told McClanahan that Al Michaels was on the show a week ago. Judge didn't tell McClanahan or any panelists that Michaels touted leveraged ETFs.

Josh Brown said he would guess TWTR can't hold its gains in this kind of a tape, no fault of the company.

Josh Brown told a good, albeit long, story about putting in absurdly low limit buy orders for great tech stocks and sometimes being rewarded.

Pete mentions the
‘tap on the shoulder’

Rob Sechan on Friday's Halftime said, "I think we've gone from an overdue correction to an overdone correction."

But, as everyone equivocated during the program, Sechan said the move has "paralyzed the dip buyers" who are "completely, completely scared about this."

Actually, we'd say just the opposite, that nobody really seems scared or is even talking about this at cocktail parties. In fact, Jim Lebenthal said his clients are "more sanguine" during this pullback than he's ever seen.

Jim said didn't want to pretend that he knows what's going to happen "today or tomorrow," but Judge asked, so he thinks "this is just gonna be like a typical correction where we bounce along the bottom here for the next couple of weeks."

Josh Brown noted we're back to where we were on Thanksgiving. "If you didn't sell last week, you might be a little bit late to sell," Brown said.

Brown rattled off some single-stock bear market stats reminiscent of September 2015 and January 2016 and said if you sold at those times, you sold at the bottom.

Jeff Kilburg, who in a treat was on the desk instead of just doing Futures Now, claimed "we haven't seen that panic selling," but Judge disagreed.

Invoking one of our favorite cliches (but when are we gonna get "Don't try to be a hero"?), Pete Najarian said it's been a market of air pockets, and the way things trade at the end of the day, "That looks exactly like a margin call ... they used to do it in person, they tap on your shoulder." Pete said they're still seeing put-buying, so "I don't think we've hit the bottom just yet."

Much more from Friday's Halftime later.

[Thursday, Feb. 8, 2018]

Karen: 1,000-point down days most likely to happen near another 1,000-point down day

After Thursday's market shellacking, we wanted to hear from the most reliable voice of Fast Money, Karen Finerman.

Karen didn't disappoint.

"I think this VIX change is clearly, it's very very dramatic, but I really do think it's gonna be somewhat short-lived," Karen said. "We've seen over the last 20 years probably, spikes in the volatility like this, they come down. They go up super quickly and they come down very quickly as well. ... I think you're much more likely to have a 1,000- down-1,000 day near the time you have another down-1,000 day. That those 2 things are more likely to happen together than they are to happen separately."

What a fabulous point. That elevated volatility isn't very sustainable, for whatever reason. If you look up history's biggest Dow drops (which we just did), you see clusters of them in early autumn 2008 and August 2011 and the past week. One of those involved the fall of Lehman Brothers. The other involved ... an S&P downgrade.

Karen told guest host Sully her advice "absolutely" is to "stay the course."

Great-Grandpa Dan Nathan did his usual the-stock-market's-like-a-scene-from-"Sátántangó" routine, stating, "When the thing finally blows up, it's gonna make 2000 and 2008 look like a walk in the park. And don't forget this: Is that the- the- the bear market that we lived in in '00 didn't end until March 2003."

OK. We won't forget. Is stock-buying all about identifying what happened 20 years ago? If so, isn't that what algos are for, and isn't that an endorsement of algo/passive investing?

Guy Adami, who a handful of times in the last 10 years has expressed suspicions that someone somewhere probably has some shaky derivative book, contended, "Stocks have become collateral damage to volatility. This will be over in my opinion when you see headlines about a hedge fund and/or some bank's derivative book blowing up. I have not seen that yet."

Tim Seymour as usual talked a lot without saying a thing.

Joe admits public skewering over controversial passive-investing-bubble claim

He buried the lede.

Joe Terranova late on Thursday's Halftime Report revealed, "The other day, I said, 'I believe the bubble in passive investing is bursting.' OK. A lot of people, you know, came back with a lot of negative comments surrounding that. Complacency is certainly by far coming out of the marketplace right now."

Judge interrupted to say he remembers Jeffrey Gundlach mentioning that at the Sohn conference. (So that's the time frame: Every time Jeffrey Gundlach mentions a bubble, wait 8 months before it finally hits ... but make sure you buy-buy-buy right up until the moment of the burst because the market is going to surge to record highs right up until the day before.)

Returning to his point, Joe doubled down: "The complacency that comes along with passive investing, and the negative feedback that I've gotten about those comments, tells me that this isn't over."

Hmmm. OK. While admittedly, we don't know anything about anything, we can't figure out exactly what a "passive investing bubble" is, let alone whether it's "bursting."

When a hundred shares of AAPL are bought by a "passive" investor and another hundred are bought by an "active" investor, do the shares care who their owners are?

Joe further said he was talking to Fish the previous night about the market growing accustomed to "quick price corrections," when in fact, "Normal markets correct over the course of a hundred to 150 trading days!"

So we're just as likely to have a 1,000-point Dow drop in April as we are in the next 5 days? #thankyou,Karen

What Joe (or others) should be saying is that 1) "This selloff is like a Buffalo snowstorm, sucks for 2 weeks, then it melts away" or 2) "The general public is not caring, everybody is shrugging this off, and a big reason is probably because people think the pending recovery might well be an absolute moonshot that will relegate VIX jockeys into face-ripped-off-land carried out feet first on the stretchers."

"This is what a correction feels like," said Jim Lebenthal. Can't argue with that.

Great Moments in Fast Money history: Eric Bolling calls short-term bottom in August 2007

The last week of stock market activity brings back actually some fond memories.

One of those was August 2007, when "Fast Money" was a fairly new CNBC program, even saddled with a prime time slot but nevertheless a must-record for those interested in regularly hearing from pro stock-pickers on CNBC.

The anchorman of that unit was not Judge (that came later) but Dylan Ratigan, the 35-year-old (or something like that) from Union College who looked like he was 55 and then skipped the business entirely out of disdain for the "banksters." The frontman was Eric Bolling, The Admiral (or The Raging Boll or RBI or whatever the nicknames were), before he got scooped up by Murdoch.

Karen Finerman and the Najarii were part of a deep bench.

Anyway. S&P 500 had reached 1,555 in mid-July 2007, then started trickling down before several notable drops in early August, one of them 44 points. On Aug. 16, it hit 1,370 before revving back to close at 1,411, 5 points above the previous day. The classic intra-day reversal.

Bolling said that night on Fast Money, "I think we've bottomed!" We know Karen Finerman agreed, though it might not have been the same night. (We don't have that clip anymore.)

By early October, the July high of 1,555 was surpassed.

Yes, we know that starting Nov. 1 of that year, everything went to pot. The point is, it's a trading show, and few things are as sweet as the joy of the realization/confirmation that the bottom's in.

Doc twice mentions ‘the exchequer over there’ (snicker)

In a nod to what's an early great call of 2018, Judge on Thursday's Halftime noted Jim Lebenthal a day earlier called another 3% drop in the S&P.

Jim said that was "just based on history." (There we go again. "History." Why not write an algo to identify all kinds of historical trends and play the past as the present and make oceans of money?)

Jim added, "We're back to normal. Corrections are normal. ... This is going to be a great buying opportunity."

Joe Terranova suggested Fed questions hover over stocks, stating, "The market right now has this paradigm shift ... We're going back to the normal." Joe said we need "certainty" from Powell and that "we don't even know what he's really fighting."

"The volatility genie's out of the bottle. And it's not gonna be put back," offered Stephen Weiss. (Really. So the April VIX will be just as high as the early February VIX?)

The really amusing thing is that Weiss has spent the last couple months talking about "This bears no relation to other times" and "Nobody has seen this kind of environment." (Yes those are exact quotes.)

This was all before Weiss got tangled up talking about algos.

Struggling for answers, Jon Najarian rattled off doings of European banking authorities and then asked himself, "Are we close? Yes."

Here’s the ‘bubble’: Al Michaels on the Halftime Report touts owning leveraged ETFs for a decade days before CNBCers blame those products for sinking stocks

Judge on Thursday's Halftime for whatever reason decided to put in a call to Vinnie Viola to discuss ... "the nature of Virtu." (Seriously. Vinnie actually said that.)

OK, Judge asked Viola a few questions about the stock market's troubles. "The market structure performed perfectly," Vinnie said, of course kind of talking his book there. Ultimately, Viola said, "When we look back at this episode, we will see a relatively expected, what I would call interim, correction in a long-term secular bull market."

Joe Terranova asked Viola if there's a passive bubble the last couple weeks changes "behavior" as far as shorting the VIX. Vinnie noted that people tend to do Pavlovian-style (he didn't use that term) what has been working.

Judge also brought in Rick Santelli. "I just don't find that 2.85 is earth-shattering," Rick said. "The key here is access to capital and redefining risk." (Honestly, that doesn't sound like much of a concern.)

"Central banks have to mop up this mess," Rick continued. "They cannot cave to the market here, otherwise, the balance sheets will be around forever."

The Fed can't "cave" to stocks? Seriously??

In a good line that is probably just as inaccurate/imprecise/irrelevant as Carl's, Santelli concluded, "This is the stretching exercise before the big workout video."

Sarat: ‘For me, this is
a buying opportunity’

Steve Weiss, who had a shaky show, on Thursday's Halftime got tripped up talking about algorithms, stating, "I'm not blaming them for the decline, no more than I'm pattin' 'em on the back for the increase."

Weiss said it's a "buying opportunity" for C.

Joe Terranova pointed out that nobody blames the algos when the stock market soars. (As Wade Garrett says in "Road House," Exxxxxxxxxactly. Where were all the oil-speculator-investigations when crude was in the 30s?)

Judge prevented Weiss from revisiting that topic.

We were hoping for another classic photo of Weiss and Jim Lebenthal haggling with each other, but the CNBC cameraman didn't get close enough for a quality shot.

In an absolutely cogent point, Sarat Sethi said that in talking to companies, "We really haven't heard anyone say that earnings are slowing down. ... For me, this is a buying opportunity."

Judge actually questioned with a straight face how the market might be affected by "real fears about what's happening in the deficit." Jon Najarian said nothing should be written off as a reason for people to sell.

Joe Terranova pointed out the buybacks are still in the blackout window.

"The credit markets are still OK," Joe said.

Judge reverted to the week's bogeyman (sigh), asking the panel about the impact "under the surface" in "leveraged products" that we haven't seen "rear their ugly head yet." (Really. And barely a week ago it was "too much euphoria" (that's an exact quote).)

Doc said "Are one of those gonna blow up? It's really a 1-day event if they do."

Jim Lebenthal said he sold NKE and will look for something "a lot cheaper." He's eyeing RDSa. He said he trimmed QRVO and quibbled about not getting to talk about it in previous shows. "This is a correction. This is not a bear market." He touted his half-positions in EA and GBX.

Sarat Sethi said he's looking at financials and mentioned GM, MAS, DAL, GOOGL, ORCL. (This writer is long GOOGL.) Sarat also mentioned CELG, MRK, BMY.

Joe touted ABBV as a "great opportunity" regardless of what the market's doing.

In the show's only real discussion of a single stock, Anthony DiClemente said he gives TWTR credit "for improving engagement" and for "phenomenal" 4th-quarter ad revenue. However, he said, "I don't know if I'm chasing this stock here at 31."

Joe said the "challenge" is determining whether TWTR's M&A premium is gone because the rise in market cap makes it "less likely to get bought out." (Actually, we thought it was already up for sale a while back, and everyone including CRM said no thanks.)

Doc said June 120 V calls were "actively bought." Pete said April 142 puts in the IWM were being "aggressively bought."

Anthony Grisanti said he thinks crude's on its way to 58.30. Scott Nations acknowledged, "There's plenty of supply."

Joe said markets take the "escalator up" over years "and the elevator down." (Guy Adami likes to say "stairs up.")

CNBC put together another "Special Report" at 7 p.m. Eastern about the market crash, a production that looked thrown together at the last minute and seemed an extension of Mad Money. Jim Lebenthal (as well as Tim Seymour and Guy Adami) was summoned for duty and said there are "obvious reasons for what's going on." Seriously? Obvious? We haven't heard anyone explain why this is happening now.

Jim indicated it's "higher interest rates," but we didn't hear anyone predicting 2 weeks ago that "if the 10-year hits 2.80, you're gonna seee a couple down-1,000 days in the Dow." And if it's all about rates, then isn't calling a recovery soon the same as calling falling rates?

[Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2018]

What if Democrats get
trampled in November?

On Wednesday's Halftime Report, Judge told Lee Cooperman, "History would suggest that, that when you have a, a, a midterm election turnover, uh, the market doesn't like that."

That perked the ears up, because right around Jan. 25, Jim Lebenthal warned about the risk of the summer election cycle.

Here's the deal. Our takeaway from the State of the Union was that the applause (basically from the GOP) was so robust, there's no way this presidency is going to get derailed by a Russia investigation.

Meanwhile, stocks are (somewhat) near record highs, unemployment is at record low, and most everyone's about to start getting a debt-financed tax cut.

Does that sound like a formula for throwing the bums out?

If anything — and admittedly, we know nothing about the current electoral map — we'd wager that Republicans pick up seats in November. There is no rival to Donald Trump in either party on the horizon for 2020. The current Democratic Party has no focus, no argument, no point. The party (and its 2016 nominee) are still trying to decide whether we need to go back to the good old days of the previous president or whether we need to be "change agents" from the previous president.

Lee Cooperman on Wednesday's Halftime said Donald Trump's economic ideas are "good" though "his deportment is somewhat different than I would like."

Tim loses battle with Karen over whether heightened volatility makes stocks riskier

Tim Seymour on Wednesday's 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin thought he was spouting wisdom. Then he ran into Karen Finerman.

Seymour said, "A market with a lot more volatility is a riskier market. Which is a less safe market. So let's be clear."

"I don't agree. I don't agree, actually," Karen said. "Because just think about it. The volatility index spikes, let's call it the fear index, it spikes when the market is down. So those same stocks that have had no fundamental difference, right, they've reported great earnings, we do have a tax bill, right, those things are exactly the same. And yet, it's cheaper. Feels bad, it's scary. But the price is actually cheaper. This is the same stock 3 days ago-"

"That's great if you do nothing, Karen," Tim cut in. "But a lot of people don't sit around and do nothing. And by the way, by definition ... when a stock moves like this, all over the place, it's a riskier stock."

Actually, it seems to us it's riskier when it's only moving straight down.

The bungle came when Tim said, "And volatility is portending maybe a higher move in volatility." Really? So volatility just goes to infinity?

"I think volatility is gonna come down, over the coming weeks, not up," Karen said. "I think a month from now, we're gonna see something significantly lower."

Guy Adami predicted volatility will be around for an "extended period of time," such as March or April (snicker).

Karen, who couldn't have been more chic in black/white combo, noted that gold hasn't surged in all of this volatility.

Why people like following
the stock market

In a rather impromptu moment on Wednesday's Halftime Report, Lee Cooperman said all that really needed to be said.

"What gets me up in the morning and keeps me working at age 74 is finding the Time Inc.s of the world. Or the AMC Medias of the world," Lee said.

Right on. You go, Lee. That's what the stock market is for. Yes, many of us use it as a long-term, wealth-building tool, and hopefully for most of us, on that level, it works out. It's also the home office of American aspiration, a place for discretionary income, a chance ... however difficult ... of quick wealth, a place to match wits with the richest in some kind of hybrid science-arts competition.

Hopefully Lee and all the rest of us will still be doing the same thing at 94.

Jim predicts another
3% down in S&P 500

It's been very rocky times for the stock market.

But Lee Cooperman on Wednesday's Halftime revealed he was already erasing his 2018 downside range from -15% to something less, like 10%. "I don't think the market has the 15% downside that I thought it had when it came into the year," Lee said.

"The bubble is the bond market," Lee asserted.

Lee said he's willing to buy UAL, touting the 8 multiple and COO's interest in his "entire pay package" being in stock, and also Warren Buffett's interest.

Steve Weiss referred to Oscar "Munez" (sic pronunciation) getting "zeroed on his bonus" and questioned why not go with "better management" at DAL, which has a refinery (ding ding ding). Lee said he owned DAL previously but likes the margin-expansion potential at UAL better.

Lee said he "would expect" UAL to be a double in 2-3 years.

He got chuckles when he said United Airlines "punched out a client."

Lee also touted AMCX because of cord-cutting concerns and "Walking Dead" maybe being "over the top and being a little bit less popular." He also touted FDC, which he said has fears of balance sheet leverage; he finds the multiple too low.

Lee also said he added to PE, NBR, WPX and HES.

Jon Najarian asked a clumsy question with a clumsy intro about how people could've bought AAPL at 155 and flipped it in less than a day at 163.

Lee spent key early minutes grumbling about lack of regulation of "crazy instruments" that are "destroying the best capital market in the world."

So 10 years ago, we had the Uptick Rule concerns; now we're concerned about people buying too much leveraged ETFs. "These machines basically like the market more at 21, even more at 22 and even more at 23," Lee explained.

Judge and Lee tangled over complacency, with Lee noting the steep cost of puts.

Jeff Kilburg noted the "1-2 punch" of the dollar and rising production on crude. Jim Iuorio suggested 58 on a pullback.

Jim Lebenthal asked Lee, if Feb. 5 was the low point for stocks, "Is that the shortest correction you've ever seen? Because it is the shortest correction I've ever seen." (That's Jim's way of saying stocks are going lower.)

Lee said it's the "sharpest correction" and that we're in a world of "machines."

Jim's final trade was "S&P's going down 3%." Steve Weiss said JEC. Doc said CHRW. Pete Najarian said EEM. Kari Firestone said MIDD.

Lee Cooperman basically gives market ‘all-clear signal’

Lee Cooperman, star guest of Wednesday's Halftime Report, was asked by Judge if the selloff has run its course.

Lee said there could be a "minor new low," and back-and-fill, but, "I think that, uh, one would blow the all-clear- would blow the all-clear signal."

Much more from Lee's appearance and the rest of Wednesday's Halftime later.

[Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2018]

What if this week or next is an outside reversal to the upside?

Here's our beef with the market's meltdown:

It's not funny enough.

We are getting some of the grim, stone-faced commentary that sounds like the People's Army of Red China and totally cracks us up, but we need the cliches to start piling up, starting with the "tap on the shoulder" (we got one of those Monday) and "don't try to be a hero" (haven't heard that one yet, that probably marks the bottom) and morphing into the shorts entering "face-ripped-off land" and chuckleheads who buy VIX ETFs at the highs "being carried out on a stretcher feet first."

Carl calls stock market ‘a casino on steroids,’ 4 times mentions 1929, 2 times mentions 2008

Carl Icahn, the star guest of Tuesday's Halftime Report, tried to take a victory lap on warning of danger ... while refusing to call the market a sell. (This review was posted near the close of trading Tuesday.)

"I think that, I've said it before you know," Carl said. "I think I put it out about danger ahead a couple years ago. I, I think that you have way too many derivatives. The market is not really a place for the average person to be playin' around with derivatives. In '08, the problem really was the CDS, derivatives, the mortgage-backed securities. And, assume- And I think this is just the beginnings of a rumbling, an earthquake."

He continued, "Today you have these triple-leveraged ETFs that are crazy. I mean, you- you have these indexed funds with leveraged ETFs against them where I don't see any difference between that and 1929. So eventually, this is just a little rumbling, a little fault line. I think this market'll bounce back probably. I think, you know, eventually, it gets rid of this little panic thing. But one day, this thing is just gonna implode because you have too much leverage with too many people buyin' these things.

"The market is a casino on steroids. However, I wanna be clear, that I don't think this is the one time- is the, is the explosive time. ... I don't think this is gonna blow up ..."

Carl knocked the "crazy, leverage products" in the market and asserted, "it's no different than '29, when you can buy a 90 or 80% margin. (Funny how we heard none of these "casino" complaints a week ago.)

Judge said Carl was on the show in November 2017 stating that the market had reached a "euphoric state." Judge noted "the Dow went up 9 1/2% after you told me that" and is this a case of running too far too fast.

Carl responded, "It just proves what I've been saying (never wrong including the Day of Reckoning) ... nobody including myself have any idea on the near term what the market's gonna do."

But he insisted there's going to be a "major, major, major correction. And I've been saying that for a few years."

Carl gloated about having "the best year I ever had" in 2017 in the IEP. That's impressive in the face of a "casino on steroids."

Judge asked if Carl was talking about a "passive investing bubble." After mentioning 1929, Carl said, "I don't remember seein' a market with this kind of volatility in 2 weeks."

Carl first started to say of bitcoin that he personally doesn't understand it, then said, "I do understand it slightly. I think it's ridiculous."

He said of the leveraged ETF scene, "Basically it's a little bit like '08."

Joe Terranova asked Carl about Howard Marks and whether this is "a paradigm monumental shift in rates." Carl noted rates "have been very low, forcing the investor to go into these uh leveraged products." Carl never answered but told Joe he agreed with the passive-investing-bubble argument. (It's supposedly bursting right now, see below.)

Carl said in the 1960s, his uncles would buy stocks "and put 'em in- just under the mattress, literally."

Judge asked Carl if we're "close" to a near-term bottom. Carl said "Yeah but" he doesn't think anyone really knows.

Pete Najarian (did he get an entire show's pay for 3 minutes of appearance?) said Carl "talked very macro" but implied "this isn't it." Pete twice said what Carl said was "interesting."

Joe said Carl's statement about not seeing this kind of volatility "is a statement in itself" (sort of tried to say "in and of itself" as Judge just did) and that it "indicates that it's probably not over."

Kevin O'Leary bluntly stated that Carl "gives ETFs a bad rap." Judge protested that Carl is "far from the only person who's, who's suggested that there's a bubble in passive investing." (Well, other than Joe ...) O'Leary said there are actively managed ETFs that choose the "quality" names of the S&P 500.

Honestly we have no idea what a ‘passive investing bubble’ actually is (a/k/a Weiss misquotes Erin Browne)

If there really is, as Joe Terranova and Carl Icahn indicate, a "passive investing bubble" that has already begun to burst, this market is going to smithereens in a jiffy.

Sell if you like.

Judge on Tuesday's Halftime turned to Jon Najarian first. "It was just ugly, Judge. There's no 2 ways about it," Doc said, calling the selloff "crazy" and faulting interest in the "crazy volatility products."

People who played these names and were "trying to get ahead of the market ... paid a very heavy price," Doc explained.

Kevin O'Leary said he awoke at 3 a.m. and "started looking at British names" and started buying Glaxo Smithkline and British American Tobacco. O'Leary declared American stocks pricier. "We need another 8% down to get the same metric. We're expensive compared to the Brits," he said.

Judge asked if there were any "buyers" or "waiters" on the panel. He didn't ask if anyone is urging "sell," and nobody did say "sell this," either Monday or Tuesday, so what does that tell you.

Joe Terranova told Judge that people are "patiently sitting on the sidelines and correctly observing what's going on in the marketplace right now. And I think if there is one thing that is abundantly clear about the market so far in 2018, it is that we have created over the last 5 years a bubble and it's called passive investing. And that bubble is in the process of bursting."

People on the sidelines are "correctly observing" what's happening. They're not mistaking the red arrows for green. We predict the Dow falls 1,175 on Monday.

Judge rightly (but without enough emphasis) demanded to know if Joe was buying stocks. Joe pointed out he bought AAPL a day ago because "I believe in the cash story that I heard the other day."

Joe also reiterated his view of AAPL as a "proxy" for the market. And Tuesday, AAPL is up. Rather big.

Joe said he was waiting to buy ABBV, and Tuesday it opened at 101. He also bought EOG Tuesday morning. But, Grandpa Joe said, "I don't think the selling pressure in the markets is over."

Joe also cautioned about a "time correction" as opposed to a "price correction."

Stephanie Link said, "I think inflation is under control." Link said the cyclicals have been leading during the wreckage of the last few days.

JJ Kinahan contended, "I feel like the worst of the selling is over, Scott. I do think that these type of events usually take 2-3 weeks to work through the system."

Stephen Weiss called in and revealed, "I did buy today," specifically C (snicker). "Rates have moved up significantly," Weiss said, explaining that if the market is going to sell off because of higher yields, "it's gonna benefit the banks."

"I also added to DATA, which is Tableau," Weiss said, though he's "not looking so good on that one," but he's in that for the "long term."

Weiss said he got out of "a lot of" his BABA stake from Thursday to Monday, because in this type of market, it's one of those momentum names that is among "generally the first ones to go" in this type of market because of the "weak hands," a term that may indeed characterize part or all of Weiss' own position.

Weiss recalled August 2015, "we had essentially the same occurrence," there was a VIX spike and trade down, "and then you ended the month higher than where you began." (We're actually wondering if that happens this week.)

Weiss even incorrectly invoked Erin Browne's comment the other day, saying "as we'd said and Erin Browne said on the show, that most of your gains will be in the first half. Well it looks like now they're in the first month."

Actually, Browne said (just see below) on Jan. 31 that the market has "probably marked about half the gains this year, year to date thus far."

Joe said, "Understand the credit markets are totally fine." Joe also mentioned the "blackout window" for companies to do buybacks, suggesting taking note of those companies "on a piece of paper" (as opposed to an Excel spreadsheet) for revisiting a couple weeks from now.

Stephanie Link said, "I think people were worried a little bit about Friday's number. I wasn't worried; I was actually excited." Link touted wage growth as a "good thing."

"There's no competition for stock," said Kevin O'Leary. "I really like the market here, getting very more interesting (sic grammar) at a 16 and change P.E."

Reflecting the fact (as this page keeps noting) that nobody has a clue as to why this selloff has occurred, Doc said that during Friday's meltdown, they couldn't believe it was based on "better than expected jobs numbers" and decided, "There's something else behind it." But then he blamed it all on a bogeyman (at least that's better than "the machines"). "And yesterday we saw what that something else was — a lot of people were caught with their pants down and had those leveraged positions in those ETFs," Doc asserted.

Actually that group includes Al Michaels, based on his Friday interview.

But Kevin O'Leary said the UVXY "ended up being phenomenal insurance through Thursday, Friday, and then again Monday. Today it's up another 20%. I unfortunately sold it to early. ... It's unfair to criticize it."

JJ Kinahan told O'Leary, "You really understand it. For most people, that's a big risk."

"But if you don't understand what you own, you deserve to go to zero," O'Leary said.

Kinahan insisted it was "mostly held by professionals. ... People have to be very careful."

Joe said "the credit markets are fine," so that's a degree of "solid footing" for investment decisions.

Judge started to say, "If the credit markets were stressed," this would look something like playing in a "sandbox," but we didn't understand the entire comment.

Josh Lipton reported that Sen. John Thune is getting on AAPL's case. But it's not about ruining kids' lives as Jana/CALSTRS and Psychic Tax prof are claiming. And if Thune asks his constituents where AAPL should rank among the companies they think he should crack down on ...

Judge promised Bob Shiller,
never delivered

Doug Cifu, squeezed into Tuesday's Halftime before Carl Icahn, said the rush of volatility this week and last "felt like August 2015," but the market "behaved very well."

Judge asked about the SVXY. Cifu said the SVXY "kinda did what it was intended to do." Cifu said "all these risks are outlined" in the 200-page prospectus. ("Hey Edna, should I read The Grapes of Wrath tonight or the SVXY prospectus?")

"At the end of the day, uh, you know, this really has nothing to do with robots or HFT or other things that people wanna, you know, you know, I think they're just punching at a ghost. At the end of the day, there are fundamentals in the market that are driving this correction," Cifu said.

Jon Najarian said he saw "block after block after block" of SPY shares and then realized "it's all from dark pools."

Doc pointed out that circuit breakers didn't react Monday because the drop, percentage-wise, wasn't enough.

Stephanie Link's final trade was ZBH. Joe said AMZN. Doc said ADI. Pete said PG. Kevin O'Leary said Nestle. JJ Kinahan said large banks, "trading is great right now."

[Monday, Feb. 5, 2018]

Karen: ‘I kinda think it’s close to the buying opportunity that I wanted’

The first person we wanted to hear from after Monday's carnage was Karen Finerman, who coincidentally was smashing in new black ensemble and hairstyle on the 5 p.m. Fast Money.

Here's what Karen said:

"I kinda think it's close to the buying opportunity that I wanted. I mean I think tomorrow, I would not be the least bit surprised to see it trade down a lot on the heels of the rest of the world trading down overnight. That could absolutely happen. If it does, and we see things getting sold in integers ... that very often is an opportunity to buy. So I know what I want to buy. I would like to buy some Intel, I would like to buy some Google." (This writer is long GOOGL.)

Steve Grasso observed, "We had a Flash Crash moment today," then spent a fairly clumsy couple of minutes talking about how a "fat finger" works.

Guy Adami said the fact the market didn't close higher after the morning rebound somehow represents a "fundamental change." Guy said the level of complacency has reached highs not seen in maybe 10 years.

After a lot of early chatter, Tim Seymour admitted, "After this kind of a big move, getting a bit of a bounce tomorrow would not be a huge surprise."

What we took from the CNBC commentary is that 1) nobody seemed the slightest bit alarmed and 2) nobody could explain in the slightest why this was happening right now, which, unlike mid-September 2008, makes us think everything will be in high gear again before too long.

Oddly enough, in the biggest trading day since the 2016 day-after-Election-Day, both the Halftime Report and 5 p.m. Fast Money featured guest hosts. Sully at 5 p.m. was obsessed over the 800-point fall in 20 minutes.

Just 7 trading days prior, Judge questioned if there’s ‘too much euphoria’

Making a prediction that played out in spades just hours later (this review was posted after Monday's markets were closed), Joe Terranova on Monday's Halftime said of the selloff, "I don't think it is over," calling it an "active trader's type of environment."

Joe used flowery terminology to say he bought AAPL, which might've been a bit early.

Joe contended that the "blackout window" for buybacks is a "large component" of the elevated volatility and complained that it's been "frustrating" over the last 48 hours that people say they want a decline but are nervous.

Protesting that the previous year's low volatility was an incredible aberration, Josh Brown said "the max decline" of Monday's high to low was 4.86%, so calling it a "correction" is "hilarious." (Um, he might've rephrased that by the end of the day.)

Guest host Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, who was stunning, pointed out that if people are waiting for a 10% correction, we've got a ways to go. (As of 3:30 Monday afternoon, we were quite a bit closer.)

Stephanie Link said investors are "uneasy" because of concern about "velocity" of rate moves. Link questioned why you wouldn't want to buy some of these great companies that are selling off.

Link said some names recently are down a lot worse than the market and to look at UNH, CI, AAPL and SLB.

Jon Najarian said rates are going up but are "still extremely low."

Doc noted the 10-year seemed to stop at 2.85%. Doc even mentioned people being "tapped on the shoulder," the once-famous cliche of Eric Bolling.

Joe reiterated that we've gone from a passive environment to an "environment that might be a little bit more active."

Mike Santoli said this dip is "unlikely" to be "the big one."

Link said the "biggest question" to ask is whether we're going to recession. Link said, "We're not," and that the yield curve is even steepening.

GE hits $14.91

Financials, which took a beating Monday, surfaced during Monday's Halftime Report.

Guest host Michelle Caruso-Cabrera questioned Joe Terranova over whether he'd try to be a hero with WFC. Joe said, "Why would I go after Wells Fargo where it sits right now when there are other things that fundamentally-"

Joe eventually mentioned CME and ICE, V and MA, and "some of the life insurance companies."

Stephanie Link said she's been adding to GS. Link said she likes PRU and AIG and suggested buying regional banks such as STI at a better valuation than WFC.

Joe touted LNC, though "it has nothing to do with the Eagles."

Josh Brown said the LOW upgrade report is "hilarious" because it questions why LOW can't be more like HD. Link said LOW has underperformed HD "huge" and she finds the valuation "rich." She said she owns SWK but is even trimming that. Joe Terranova offered that we're "finally seeing that catchup process happen" for LOW vs. HD.

Jon Najarian said February 21 HBI calls were popular as part of a "call-vertical spread." Doc said May 70 APC calls were getting bought, "and they sold puts in here."

Sue Herera called the Super Bowl "a great game." (She evidently didn't watch the defense.)

Michelle said, "I don't often watch football, and I loved it. There were hardly any penalties, it moved very fast."

‘We certainly could be
bottoming today’

Jonathan Krinsky on Monday's Halftime said "the key takeaway" from the market's disaster is that long-term breadth and trend momentum "remain very favorable," so he's looking for oversold conditions.

Krinsky said, "We certainly could be bottoming today," but the "big picture" is that when markets make all-time highs in January, the year tends to turn out good.

He also said the VIX curve inverted Friday by the largest spread since the 2016 election.

Josh Brown said Krinsky made a couple points in his report, which will be "good armor for you emotionally."

Brown mentioned "euphoria" in the 39th minute and stated this is what "cools that off."

COH changed names in October; what’s stopping ‘Dress Barn’?

Stephanie Link on Monday's Halftime Report pointed out that CVX and XOM have been "horrendous" lately.

Jon Najarian said there's a "fair amount" of bearish put-buying in BP.

Stephanie and Josh Brown and guest host MCC got all tripped up over REITs and rates in a utilities conversation.

Scott Nations said Chinese demand for copper is greater than expected. Jim Iuorio said a settlement over 3.25 "green lights" a move to 3.40 "relatively quickly, in a week or so."

Stephanie Link touted TXT, a defense stock that she likes for the "business jet potential recovery."

Link said TXT has a chance at $4 a share earnings. MCC said it's presently at $1.13, "so that'd be a big increase."

Joe Terranova said Mario Gabelli owns around 2 million shares of TXT. (Mario also owns those sports teams, omg, gonna be worth so much money with the sum of the parts etc.)

Steph Link said BMY "changed the goal posts a little bit" during some of those PAT attempts in the Super Bowl over a drug trial end-market population. But she still likes the takeover possibility.

Joe said he's "not sure" on CHD and admitted "I'm not a big fan." Josh Brown said the increase in rates "changes the math" for stocks like CHD.

Doc noted the price action on AVGO and QCOM and cautioned that Intel chips might get picked over Qualcomm by "the iPhone manufacturer."

Josh Brown said CHTR is already up 15% this year and is equivalent to "Comcast minus the fear that they're gonna buy somebody big."

Josh Brown questioned why Coach changed its name to Tapestry. Stephanie said it happened "a couple of months ago."

Joe mocked SNAP's earnings. Josh Brown said expectations may be "zero" in this name.

Doc's final trade was NVDA. Josh Brown said SCHW. Stephanie Link said EBAY. Joe said CME. Actually, they all should've said the VIX, but whatever.

Morning’s ‘bad decisions’
look like genius at 3:30

On Monday's Halftime Report, Jon Najarian chortled about people who made "bad decisions" early in the morning regarding selling WFC and buying the VIX at 19-21 and selling the market down 320.

Around 3:20 Eastern time, the VIX was over 30 and the Dow was down 1,500. (Admittedly, WFC was probably still up over the early morning.)

Summoned for Closing Bell, Najarian said, "There was obviously automated, uh, cancellations of orders on the bid side, and perhaps, somebody being liquidated that was being front-run, that's what it looked like to us on our side, looking at our data, it looked like a very large order was being front-run."

He said it was "just a slam, from 800 down to 1,500 down, that 700 points came out of nowhere."

We'll have much more on Monday's Halftime and the Dow's megaslide just as soon as we catch our breath.

[Friday, Feb. 2, 2018]

Judge claims Pete played in the ‘World Football League’

The superstar guest of Friday's Halftime was Al Michaels, a gentleman of a legendary sportscaster who hopefully is not planning to retire anytime soon.

Michaels, gracious as ever, called appearing on Judge's show "the highlight of my week."

Judge said the Super Bowl "has the makings of a great game." Al said Nick Foles is "probably the X factor" and that "if Philadelphia plays anywhere near the way they played against Minnesota, why can't they win."

Al said Bob Kraft "has put together a heckuvan organization. ... They do things the right way." (Well, there was the time when they were videotaping the other teams' signals ... but whatever ...)

Also, it's even more heckuvan organization when rival teams (David Tepper's) cut their best players to join your squad for the playoffs.

Al impressively waded into the stock market, asking Judge's crew, "Should I buy the ETFs on steroids, which I'm doing right now," mentioning the FAS.

The panel interestingly advised against it, "not ever."

Josh Brown said, "The longer you hold the double and triple ETFs, the more they work against you because of negative compounding."

Pete Najarian said, "If it's extremely short term, you're fine."

Then Al said he's had the FAS "for like 9 years. ... Look at the chart." Indeed. It wouldn't be our top pick, but it's hard to argue with that one.

Al said he's got IBM, MSFT and AMZN, also "a lot of bonds."

He indicated his trading account isn't a big part of his portfolio, but, "I like to have some fun ... I love that tape going by every day."

Al actually recalled Dan Dorfman (on FNN, not CNBC), in what has to be the first time Dorfman's name has been heard on the channel in 10 years, calling Commodore International a "screaming buy." Al said he bought it, and "who was screaming a month later: ME!"

Al brought up WYNN. Josh Brown said if Steve Wynn steps away, "I'm a buyer," there will be a "negative headline at first."

Judge aired clips of Pete Najarian in the World League of American Football and bungled the title.

Not clear if Joe’s argument that market would follow AAPL is correct

Friday's Halftime Report (and 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin) put to the test Joe Terranova's oft-stated theory this week about AAPL leading the market.

On location at the Super Bowl, Judge indeed started off talking about that stock, but Pete Najarian quickly noted "the velocity of this move that we're seeing in the 10-year right now" and contending that has "really been pressuring" the markets.

Jon Najarian kind of ID'd the AAPL trade as both cause and effect; "obviously high-end phones were selling very well ... and then, the 2nd part, the 2nd shoe ... that obviously has a big pull on the Dow and the S&P. But it was far beyond that, it was focused on what the president just described releasing this memo as well as the interest rates that we discussed at the top of the show. So all that's a little bit of a witches' brew today. ... I think these Apple numble- numbers were phenomenal."

Josh Brown bluntly stated, "Let's not say that this is going to be an anchor that pulls down the Dow," pointing to AAPL being roughly flat in 2013 while the markets soared.

Steve Grasso on the 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin, said, "I do believe that Apple got drawn in with the overall market."

Whatever. Basically, everyone with the mild exception of Guy Adami was shrugging off this selloff like the Eagles' 4th-quarter pass rush on Sunday.

"It's not a negative; it's a growing pain," said Josh Brown. "Right now, we are not accustomed to 4% GDP prints, and that's showing."

Doc said markets are reacting very negatively to the rate moves because "it's all about time frame," and that if it those moves are "much slower," the markets will react positively.

Jim Cramer, in Minneapolis, said, "We're due." (So's Philadelphia.)

On the 5 p.m. show, Guy Adami said, "I don't think you have to put in a bottom on a Friday" and predicted "more pain early next week."

But Grasso said, "It's probably as good a day as any to put in a bottom on a Friday, because people wanna de-risk."

Guy Adami credited Brian Sullivan for saying this week, "The market likes to test new Fed chairs." Then why did the S&P shoot up 30 points days after Powell was confirmed?

Judge reminds Toni of what Toni told producers

Engaging in hyperbole, Judge on Friday's Halftime actually said regarding AAPL, "Sort of the worst fears of many analysts ... seem to be realized."

Judge brought in No. 1 Whatsoever Toni Sacconaghi, who said his AAPL estimates fell 8% for 2018 and 10% for 2019, and it would've been worse if not for tax help.

"When your earnings fall, our price target falls," Toni explained.

"We are a little bit nervous about the fact that Apple built, uh, quite a bit of channel inventory on a sequential basis this quarter. It was the highest build ever," Toni said, calling risk/reward in the stock "pretty neutral."

Toni said he could see the stock in limbo "near to medium-term," meaning 3-9 months.

He said people should have "kind of a market weight in Apple."

Judge though pushed back, citing pre-show conversations: "You do frankly say though, as part of the notes that you spoke with our producers (sic grammar) that you think this, the buyback that they could do, uh, a big one, if it bolsters earnings for the next several years, you say, you wonder if it's already in the stock. So you are looking out longer than near- or medium term for the impact of, of that sort of thing."

"I am," Toni said, explaining that bullish investors may be looking for a big buyback announcement in May, but actually, "They kind of already told us that last night."

Neither Judge nor Pete clued in viewers as to what Shipt is #lapse

Joining Friday's Halftime crew on location at the Super Bowl was TGT chief Brian Cornell, who expertly spoke in cliches and avoided anything controversial.

Cornell said the 4th quarter is "our Super Bowl" and that Target remodeled "over 110 stores" last year and that reaction to the downtown Twin-Cities store is "sensational."

Cornell also mentioned delivering products within a couple hours via Shipt.

Pete trumpeted how he knew the company wasn't getting killed "a couple of quarters ago" just because of sluggish grocery progress. Judge credited Pete for calling TGT a buy then but didn't mention Pete (and Doc) several times this month trumpeting UPS around or north of 130.

Guest likens NFL (positively) to company that went bankrupt, needed bailout

Judge on Friday's Halftime brought in Marc Ganis, who Judge said has been called the NFL's "33rd owner." We'd never heard that one before.

Ganis said the state of the NFL is "excellent with challenges." That's really going out on a limb.

Judge said he was "stunned" to see a survey finding the NFL "the 6th-most polarizing brand in America." Ganis said that came out months ago "in the middle of the National Anthem controversy."

Ganis actually said the NFL "was always considered one of the premier brands that we had in the United States. Right up there with General Motors and many of the others."

General Motors?

Jim Cramer called the NFL product "stronger than ever."

But Cramer said "of course" the concussion narrative is "terrible."

Ganis predicted a "fairly quick deal" for the Carolina Panthers, adding the price will "start with a 2" and probably be in the "mid-2s" and "shatter every prior (sic redundant word) record."

Curiously, Joe Theismann implies the Eagles will play better than the Falcons (who barely lost in overtime) but still likes New England

Judge on Friday's Halftime managed to squeeze in Joe Theismann at the end and brought up Super Bowl XVII.

Joe chuckled, "We can forget about 18; 17 lives in my memory."

Joe sought to draw a contrast between last year's Super Bowl losers and the team he expects will lose this year. "I felt like they ran out of gas late in the game, the front four in particular. That's not gonna happen with Philadelphia," Joe said.

Nevertheless, "I'm taking the Patriots," Joe verified.

Joe said he still likes financials and still sees "opportunity" in energy.

Doc's final trade was DB. Josh Brown said GOOGL. (This writer is long GOOGL.) Brown never mentioned ALB, which he used to talk about all the time but since November is utter disaster. (This writer is long ALB.) Pete said V. And Pete picked the Patriots.

[Thursday, Feb. 1, 2018]

Judge tripped up by Weiss over Ackman’s ability/capacity to pick CEOs

Judge announced on Thursday's Halftime Report that the Call of the Day is UBS' takedown of CMG.

Joe Terranova noted the price target is 290 while the stock is only at 310. "So I disagree that there's a sell call on this," Joe said, adding with a few too many backstory details that confused matters, "the biggest concern for this company" is that it raised prices a couple times recently, and that stifled traffic while the P.E. contracted.

Mike Farr said CMG has had a "cult following" but lost some of the cult. But Farr said "every one" of a group of students from Miami (Ohio) he met recently said he/she had been to Chipotle 3 times in a week. Farr said, "I wouldn't be short this stock." However, Farr said CMG has "too many headwinds right now."

Steve Weiss said what's interesting about the UBS report is that the analyst raised his numbers but to below consensus; Weiss argued it doesn't deserve this kind of multiple.

Judge tried to push the notion of CMG getting a boost from a new CEO as Bill Ackman weighs in.

"True. Ron Johnson is available," Weiss said.

"C'mon stop it," Judge chided. "They're not gonna whiff on- they're gonna get somebody that makes you say, 'OK. OK.'"

Weiss demanded they look at Ackman's record of CEOs. "I'm talking Valeant, too," Weiss said.

"He didn't put Mike Pearson at Valeant," Judge said.

"He bet on him," Weiss insisted.

"He didn't put him there," Judge said.

"He bet on him. That's as good as putting him there," Weiss said.

"Man, they got a search firm involved," Judge said. "I mean I just think that the, the, the risk on that is to the upside. Because he knows how important a, a new CEO uh, matters."

"I think he's a smart guy, I'm just saying, picking CEOs is not his forte," Weiss said.

"He's not picking 'em individually," Judge said.

"He's involved," Weiss insisted.

Joe Terranova cut in, stating, "It's gotta be Patrick Doyle."

Joe said CMG would "surge" if Doyle was named CEO, but Joe nevertheless questioned why CMG is raising prices while competitors are cutting prices.

Not done yet, Weiss and Judge revisited Ackman's CEO history. "I'm just looking at his track record at his prior company," Weiss said.

"OK. Ron Johnson's Ron Johnson! I mean, OK," Judge bellowed. "And he (that's referring to Ackman) would be the first one to admit that was a mistake. We'll see who he picks this time."

"Oh, so he's gonna pick 'em-" Weiss pointed out.

"He's not picking," Judge backpedaled. "We'll see who they pick."

The fight might've picked up at the very end, but Judge cut the last 10 minutes for Donald Trump's remarks.

Weiss suggests IBM, Kodak and Polaroid once had the kind of dominance that Apple does

Mike Farr on Thursday's Halftime said if the AAPL report is "not awful," then the stock "might hold in." (That's quite an endorsement.)

Stephen Weiss said the AAPL supply chain cuts that people are hearing about are "so astounding," and then he even mentioned IBM, Eastman Kodak and Polaroid, prompting apparently a look of scorn from Judge.

"I'm surprised, I never pegged you for a, for an Apple sycophant, but I guess you are," Weiss told Judge.

"That's a sycophant? I mean, how about a reality check," Judge said. "I mean you're talking about IBM, Kodak and Polaroid."

Farr said he can't buy AMZN because of "discipline" regarding valuation that has "saved me over years."

Joe Terranova said among AAPL, AMZN and GOOGL, if all 3 declined, AAPL would be the one people least want to buy.

Weiss said he'd buy GOOGL on a dip. Farr said he owns it and will continue owning it.

Joe actually floats the possibility of a 6-month correction

Suni Harford, guest panelist for a bit of Thursday's Halftime, said the rally is experiencing "growing pains," but she feels "pretty good" about it.

Mike Farr, taking a seat with the panel for the duration, said he's "lookin' at rates."

Stephen Weiss said, "Volatility's here to stay." But, "I don't think we're anywhere near recession."

Joe Terranova, repeating his provocative theory that we just don't think is particularly accurate, stated, "In the near term, where the equities market goes from here largely depends on what we hear this afternoon from Apple."

Farr said there's a "whole phalanx" of traders who have "never seen a bear market." (But every guest on the Halftime Report is familiar with 1929, 1999, 1987 and 2007.)

Joe said once there's a correction, you want to be "incredibly patient" in buying it; "it could be a lot deeper than people think." Joe even suggested a correction could last 6 months, and people would be "churning themself (sic) in a negative capacity." (And remember how people in December were hearing that some people were talking about January 2018 being like January 2016?)

Joe disagrees with Alan Greenspan's (snicker) contention of a "bubble" in stocks and bonds. (Judge never brought up Carl's Day of Reckoning however.)

Weiss said of Greenspan, "I don't blame him for feeling that way," because he's "married to what's happened in the past," but "that's not now." Judge impressively noted nobody is saying there's a bubble in emerging markets and that bubble is used "singularly" about the U.S.

Weiss said that Wednesday afternoon, he was "half-working" and "half-listening" to the FB call, and he saw the stock down $8 afterhours, "so I bought it, turned it around for a quick 11-point profit. Uh, that's the type of volatility that gets bought." (This writer is long FB.)

Really. Stocks that go up actually got "bought."

Joe touted MSFT and talked about Satya "talking about technology companies and trust." Suni Harford said tech momentum names are stocks that "you're not gonna short in any way, shape or form."

Joe said he doesn't like the refiners with oil at 65.

Harford likes emerging markets and said MSCI adds China A shares in June, something to keep an eye on. Harford still likes dollar weakness.

Back to CNBCfix home