CNBCfix - Fast Money Review

[CNBCfix Fast Money Review Archive — January 2018]
[Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018]

Erin Browne says stock market has already made half the year’s gain

Steve Weiss on Wednesday's Halftime Report contended that stocks are in a "small consolidation period," but that as we get into the heart of earnings season, "We'll probably take off again."

Weiss said, "The snapback's not all that convincing because it's losing steam."

He said he bought more BABA on Tuesday and "tried to buy some other things."

Joe Terranova suggested getting into GS. Joe actually said, "Howard Marks was excellent yesterday in highlighting the fact that it's not a time to add risk if you're long, stay long, there's no need to get aggressive." See, that's having it both ways, avoiding a "sell" call while professing caution. What's that line from Karen Finerman, if you go home long a stock, it's the equivalent of buying it at the day's close?

Joe said a correction would be "welcomed" but that the market is now "Apple-dependent."

Erin Browne said she thinks the market has "probably marked about half the gains this year, year to date thus far," but there's still "room to run" in stocks.

Kari Firestone said she wrote a piece for CNBC.com about the "absence of cynicism," so she is "very pleased" to see signs of cynicism this week.

Josh Brown reiterated that there's no better time for a correction.

Erin Browne said more and more money goes into low-vol funds, which "exacerbates the problem" when volatility picks up.

Josh Brown pointed out that stocks typically don't run in overdrive forever, asking, "Why should Apple add $50 billion a quarter? That's what it's been doing. It's up 200 billion in market cap over the last 24 months." (Psst: We barely know 2+2, but it sounds like 200 billion in 24 months would be $25 billion a quarter.)

Joe Terranova said the market is "building in the disappointment on the product side" for Apple.

Judge mentioned "euphoria" at the 3-minute mark.

Steve Weiss twice suggests Kevin O’Leary, or someone, is maybe kidding themselves

Kevin O'Leary on Wednesday's Halftime Report trumpeted BA and reiterated it's a "subscription" business now.

Kari Firestone said it's hard to commit new money to a stock such as BA with big recent returns.

O'Leary said he's not trimming because he's been studying balance sheets of companies he owns. Steve Weiss said, "Let's not kid ourselves though, I mean, Boeing is at a valuation that hasn't been seen, and part of that is from the market."

Weiss said the company has been executing, but "This is also a product of the bull market. ... Let's not kid ourselves. This isn't trading on its balance sheet. It's trading on a bull market with good execution."

O'Leary rebutted, "It's trading on my favorite term: cash flow. And that's why I own it. ... I don't see any reason to sell it."

Weiss questioned a Trump crackdown on defense spending largesse. O'Leary said "That's not what (sic) happening," stating Wilbur Ross is going around the world telling people, "You buy these planes from us."

3.0 is market’s scariest number,
unless ...

On the heels of the BA discussion on Wednesday's Halftime, Judge abruptly brought in Rick Rieder, who downplayed the notion of this week being a turning point of some kind in rates, stating they'll "keep trending higher."

Rieder said high yield could trade down a bit, but there's still demand for yield. Rieder shrugged off the possibility of 3.0% but said mid-3s might be a slowing issue.

Steve Weiss said that how the stock market looks at 3.0% depends on ... you know what it's gonna be ... how fast the yield gets to 3.0%. (At least he didn't say "whether it's rising for the right reasons.") Weiss said he's short the 10-year and the longer end.

Judge doesn’t bring up the experts’ campaign against Messenger Kids

Josh Brown on Wednesday's Halftime Report said FB is great at managing expectations but this could be time to "reset the table so to speak" in the wake of the announcement of the news feed changes. (This writer is long FB.)

In a curious line of questioning, Judge questioned how loyal Mark Zuckerberg is to shareholders. Brown said Zuck basically cares about everyone. Judge suggested "shareholders have dropped further down that ladder."

Kari Firestone said re-evaluating the news feed is "absolutely the smart thing" for Facebook to do.

Judge persisted with his theme, stating, "The guy's got half the money in the world. Maybe he doesn't care about shareholders as much as he did a few weeks ago." That's an odd one. Zuck's concern for shareholders has dropped precipitously in 3 weeks?

Joe Terranova grumbled that "Nobody talks about Microsoft," even though the Najarians (who weren't on Wednesday's program) do it all the time. Joe predicted MSFT goes "well north" of $100.

‘Zero interest’ in FL

Judge on Wednesday's Halftime announced that Oppenheimer is hanging a $70 on FL (snicker).

Kari Firestone wasn't impressed given the recent gains; Josh Brown credited FL's recent spike on "massive short interest ... every retailer's up 30%." Joe Terranova said he has "zero interest."

Joe said LLY had a great report, but "there's too much contention" in the space; he likes devices instead.

Judge said EA hit a "new all-time high" (sic first word redundant). Kari Firestone said she's been buying.

Josh Brown said he doesn't like JNPR and that "Cisco is better." (This writer is long CSCO.)

Steve Weiss said you've got time to buy BIIB.

Erin Browne said she's underweight utilities.

Jeff Kilburg said the 14-day forecast is "just crushing nat gas." Jim Iuorio pegged it to 2.80 in the short term and ultimately 2.50.

Erin Browne's final trade was emerging markets. Kari Firestone said SHW. Firestone said she bought SMG before it became a "pot play," and some of the growers have lost court cases that have affected the stock. Steve Weiss said FCEa. Josh Brown said GOOGL, predicting it has a shot to overtake AAPL in market cap. Joe Terranova said WMT.

[Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018]

Psychic-Tax prof is
targeting Facebook too

In early January, Judge conducted a lengthy Halftime Report interview with folks from Jana and CALSTRS about the curiously benevolent campaign to get Apple Inc. to revise the parental controls on the iPhone. (You can thank this page for keeping tabs on this subject given that Judge has utterly dismissed it since the interview dubbed by the Jana guy as "ridiculous" because Judge was relaying comments from Jim Cramer.)

We noted that one of Jana/CALSTRS' 2 academic expert partners, Jean M. Twenge, believes in a "Psychic Tax" that is levied on kids using the Internet NOT when a kid gets bad news about likes and followers but as that kid "anxiously awaits the affirmation of comments and likes." (See below; there's plenty there.)

According to the Associated Press on Tuesday, Twenge is one of numerous "child development experts and advocates" who has signed a letter "urging Facebook Inc. to pull the plug on its new messaging app aimed at kids," called Messenger Kids.

We took a look at the letter. It is addressed, "Dear Mr. Zuckerberg." It includes the assertion, "Social media use by teens is linked to significantly higher rates of depression." (We assume that study does not have cause confused with effect.)

So ... here's the deal.

It may be that social media use harms people.

Honestly, it's entirely possible. A lot of harmful activities have taken decades or centuries for society to figure out.

We don't know. We don't understand the infield fly rule, to say nothing of scientific theory.

The experts writing and signing these papers seem to think social media is fine for adults. But not kids.

Charles Penner of Jana told Judge this month, "As you get older the negative impacts that we're seeing with social media actually start to phase out, are gone by the time you're 30."

That puts social media in an unusual health category. Can you imagine someone saying smoking/soda pop/football is OK at age 30 and beyond?

Penner also said, "The research suggests actually limited levels of use actually ... probably beneficial; kids who use their phone about an hour a day actually have more positive mental health outcomes than, uh, kids who don't use it at all."

Those are interesting assessments. Can you imagine Dr. Spock stating that if a kid plays a little bit of football/smokes a little bit, he feels better than a kid who plays no football or doesn't smoke, and that by age 30, people who play football/smoke have equal mental health as those who don't; the losers are the ones who overdid it at age 16?

So here's what we had to wonder: If social media is driving children to depression, isn't this a dangerous product?

And if that's the case, instead of writing letters to Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg, shouldn't the signees be demanding congressional hearings?

We did Google searches for Professor Twenge and "Congress" or "House" and "Senate" and, after several pages listing media interviews, saw no hits indicating any testimony to Congress or any demands that Congress investigate these companies.

Among the signees of the letter to Facebook is the ACLU of Massachusetts (it's not clear to us how this is a legal-freedom issue) and the "Badass Teachers Association, Inc."

Still not sure why no one talks about Carl’s ‘Day of Reckoning’

And you thought eliciting an opinion from Mario Gabelli was like pulling teeth.

Judge welcomed Howard Marks to Tuesday's Halftime Report with a question about why the market is tumbling this week, and Marks answered, "You know, I've always been mystified by where people go to find out what made the market do what it did on a given day."

Well ... if you're asking questions about the stock market, isn't the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as good a place as any to start?

Whatever.

Josh Brown mentioned Marks' memo that floated the idea of a market so good, "that in and of itself, it causes a recession," and basically endorsed the concept.

Marks said, "I think you've hit on something."

Marks addressed the year-to-date gains. "I wouldn't call it euphoria," Marks said. "What you're seeing is complacency," he added citing the VIX.

Judge said he was leading a panel conversation Monday night and asked whether people are too bullish or not bullish enough. "And the feeling I got (was) ... we may not be bullish enough," Judge revealed.

Marks said, "The tax bill will put a lot of money in a lot of corporations' hands. ... But how are prices for stocks relative to that reality?"

Marks referred to the president as "Donald."

Marks said, "The market multiple is the 3rd-highest in history."

Then he mentioned 1929 (ding ding ding) and 2000 (ding ding ding). (See? Told ya it happens all the time!) (We basically count 1999/2000 as interchangeable.)

Marks pointed to P.E. ratios in the 20s and said he likes P.E. ratios of 6 or 9.

Marks said he only shorted a bond once, "and that was a trading error."

Joe Terranova asked Marks about the lower dollar. Marks said, "I'm not a guy who spends a lot of time thinking about currencies." (It was that kind of day.)

"I don't even think about commodities as an investment vehicle," Marks said.

Jim Lebenthal had to give up his seat to Marks, which means there couldn't be a debate about "sell point."

We'd have to say the Republican applause was robust enough for "Donald's" speech Tuesday that it's probably safe to put a cork in the "President Mike Pence" talk; they can talk about firing Mueller, liking Russia, etc., doesn't matter.

What happened to ‘too much euphoria?’ (a/k/a now it’s called ‘pent-up selling’)

Joe Terranova claimed at the top of Tuesday's sleepy Halftime Report that the new health care alliance was "clearly having an impact" on the stock market.

Stephanie Link said "It's about maybe just getting overbought."

Jim Lebenthal said it will be "healthy" if the 10-year gets to 3.0, 3.1 in the "context" of 2% inflation and sub-4% unemployment.

"I would love for us to have the correction now Scott, if we're gonna have it," said Josh Brown. "Let's get that conversation out of the way; I'm tired of it."

Josh Brown said the XLV, including Tuesday, is up 8.7% on the month.

Judge suggested there's "pent-up selling."

Jim touted CSCO, INTC and IBM. (This writer is long CSCO.)

Jim looked straight into the camera and said you should buy AAPL "if you don't own it."

Joe cautioned against "bond-like proxies."

Stephanie Link drew a contrast between UNH's scale of 46 million members vs. the Amazon-Berkshire-JPMorgan coalition of maybe 1 million. "I think a lot of this is overdone," Link said. "I actually added to United Healthcare today."

Joe said PBMs "have a problem here going forward." He planned to buy TMO and BSX "on the close."

Addressing the Jamie Baker UAL call, Jim Lebenthal said there's going to be more demand for airline capacity; Judge still sounded confused and felt compelled to ask, "But is this call a good call."

"Yes it is," Jim said, "as a trade." Stephanie Link said to watch for oil prices. Link said it's hard for her to see multiple expansion in the airline space.

Judge said he didn't want to be a "flamethrower in any way," but he asked if Oscar Munoz is "in it for the long haul." Joe said, "Unfortunately, maybe he will be."

Jim said if Munoz isn't there, UAL has "plenty of lieutenants" to take his place.

Brian Stutland tied oil to the dollar's performance. Anthony Grisanti predicted a "62 print" before 69 or 70.

Jim's final trade was QCOM. Stephanie Link said GS. Josh Brown said JPM. Joe said "defense stocks."

[Monday, Jan. 29, 2018]

Jim covering his eyes after Weiss’ latest AAPL-non-innovation argument

Jim Lebenthal early on Monday's Halftime Report said "Apple's down, could be a buying opportunity."

To determine whether it actually is, Judge brought in Toni Sacconaghi (whatever happened to Tavis McCourt?) and proceeded to get even fewer answers ... than he was getting from Mario Gabelli.

Toni said the December quarter will be "fine." But that's not the issue. "Clearly, folks are bracing for tough numbers going in," Toni said, while waffling like l'eggo my egg'o as to whether guidance will be worse than expected.

Jim Lebenthal stated, "They reached in the average selling price with the iPhone X."

Jim said he's "not that worried" because those average selling prices aren't going down, and consumers will get used to a 4-digit price for their phone (snicker).

Steve Weiss butted in, "I don't see that; I don't agree with it." Weiss said the iPhone X last year was "ubiquitous."

Seizing the opportunity for another grand statement, Weiss called AAPL a company in "transition" and declared, "This company needs new management. Period." (Maybe he can join forces with Jana/CALSTRS and the Psychic-Tax prof and wage an activist campaign.)

Joe Terranova said AAPL has been a "product story," but if the stock appreciates in 2018, "it's a cash story."

Weiss pinned down Judge for a debate on whether AAPL is expensive; Judge expressed disbelief. Joe pinned down Jim as to whether AAPL does a good job "managing the cash." Jim admitted, "That's not my favorite compliment of Tim Cook." Weiss said, "The answer's no."

Weiss said holding huge amounts of cash is a "penalty" for AAPL. "They could've bought Netflix at 50 billion. They've done nothing," Weiss said, adding, "I've got a CEO who's been late with every product loss- uh, launch. Has not innovated at all since he's been there and has been a terrible steward of the cash."

"It does not need new management," Jim concluded.

Jim: 60% of every digital advertising dollar goes to 2 companies

Judge on Monday's Halftime yielded to Joe Terranova to outline the Citigroup 1,600 AMZN call. Joe gave a nice summary and concluded, "I'm not fighting the momentum."

Jim Lebenthal said the advertising angle to the AMZN call is interesting. "But something like 60% of every digital advertising dollar goes to 2 companies. Facebook and Google. I might have the exact number 60% wrong, but I'm in the ballpark," Jim said, explaining that AMZN entering the space is "gonna drive down price."

Kevin O'Leary said, "I think this call falls into the category of how can I just call a higher number and get lots of exposure on my call." As Joe predicted, O'Leary grumbled about AMZN lack of cash flow and dividend. O'Leary hailed how JKHY and OLN were getting a big tax benefit.

Steve Weiss said O'Leary's right, the analyst just wanted to "find a way to stay involved" after the stock hit his target.

Jane Wells summoned for 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin, expertly explains the WYNN/Steve/Elaine situation

Whew. Talk about a runaround.

Mario Gabelli on Monday's Halftime said he owns 300,000 shares of WYNN; he also owns MGM and recommends that one.

That much was fine. Then Mario started talking about how Massachusetts is the "question mark" for WYNN. Judge and Joe Terranova tried to get Gabelli to opine on whether WYNN is ownable without Steve Wynn. Gabelli never answered, simply repeating that there's no problem with WYNN in Vegas or Macau but there's a "suitability" (he said that about 3-4 times) problem in Massachusetts.

So there you go.

Judge on Twitter is entertaining debate on greatest jocks in individual sports

On Monday's Halftime, Leslie Picker tried to decipher the meaning of the Pershing Square leverage. Picker concluded they're "abandoning this kind of asset-gathering idea."

Steve Weiss said it's "so tough to turn the tide when you've had 3 down years." Joe Terranova asked Weiss if Ackman is not "at least doing the right things that you want to see" regarding fees, etc. Weiss said, "He doesn't have any choice."

Mario Gabelli called Bill's ADP venture a "mistake."

We got a ‘euphoria’ and ‘1999,’ but no ‘1987’ or ‘in and of itself’

Mario Gabelli, the special guest of Monday's Halftime, spoke of all the "cross-currents" in the stock market but said he's still "very optimistic" for 6-9 months.

Gabelli said it's not like 1999, but the animal spirits have really been "stoked."

Gabelli actually mentioned the elimination of the Uptick Rule. (And when is the government going to crack down on those oil speculators who are driving the price up?)

Joe Terranova said, "The year so far is playing out as scripted."

Steve Weiss noted how guidance was hitting CAT.

Weiss predicted "3% by mid-year" on the 10-year.

Jim Lebenthal said the 60 basis points between the 2-year and 10-year is "troubling."

Nevertheless, "Where else is money gonna go still," Weiss said.

Gabelli said he's interested in companies that make jets for private aviation.

Gabelli: Buying GE at 16

Pete Najarian on Monday's Halftime said options paper in energy has finally been getting it right, for a month or so. He said OIH July 32 calls were popular. Pete actually claimed he'd ride the trade "all the way up to and through that July expiration."

Mario Gabelli said he likes energy now and touted TWIN, prompting Judge to gush that this lightly traded stock was moving during the conversation.

Gabelli said he's a buyer of GE at 16. "Because I think they have a wonderful management in the engine business," he said, predicting in 2 years, the stock will be in the "low 20s."

Kevin O'Leary said he likes GE at 13, predicting it gets there on "more misery, more accounting stories."

Gabelli touted TXT and BATRK and MSG.

Steve Weiss' final trade was KBR and GVA. Jim Lebenthal said WGO, "a great buy right here." Joe Terranova said LMT, with defense stocks having "tremendous momentum."

Gabelli suggested FIZZ would be next for a beverage buyout.

Weiss: Friday ‘as close to euphoria as you could possibly get’

Steve Weiss on Monday's Halftime recapped the remarkable previous day of trading.

"What we saw on Friday was as close to euphoria as you could possibly get," Weiss said.

However, not everyone's aboard. Judge said Howard Marks will be at Post 9 on Tuesday and is going to say "the easy money's been made," which is basically what he was saying in August.

Much more from Monday's Halftime, including Weiss' call for new management at AAPL, later.

[Friday, Jan. 26, 2018]

Judge wonders if there’s
‘too much euphoria’

Opening Friday's Halftime Report, the crew struggled to find anything that's NOT working.

Josh Brown pointed to huge gains in NFLX and elsewhere and said "the sore thumb" this week is AAPL.

Judge keeps saying "new record" (first word redundant). It was only in the 2nd minute when he said Bank of America sees "nonstop euphoria."

Kate Moore said, "I think there's been a bit of a catch-up."

Judge asked Weiss if there's "too much euphoria."

Weiss reiterated, "This bears no relation to other times."

Erin Browne expects "incremental add" from retail investors as well as a "huge bid from the corporate side."

Jim Lebenthal recalled the "horsemen" of 2000, MSFT, INTC, CSCO, ORCL, and noted MSFT has tripled in 5 years and insisted INTC and CSCO are "just starting" to play catch-up. (This writer is long CSCO.)

Nothing against those names, but we're not sure INTC and CSCO are going to do what MSFT just did just because they were all megapopular 18 years ago.

Weiss asserted that analysts are just making calls based on the "best relative buy" among their group. But Weiss said "the market is discriminating," pointing to airlines recently and AAPL since the beginning of the year.

Weiss said of Toni Sacconaghi, "Frankly, he's late," and Katy Huberty "was late too."

Vinik: Probably 7th-8th inning

Judge on Friday's Halftime brought in Jeff Vinik, a prominent investor who unfortunately wasn't as great with Magellan as Peter Lynch was, who observed that stock markets have "looked good almost every day this year."

"There's a good amount of euphoria out there," Vinik said, mentioning Judge's newfound favorite word, but he didn't opine on whether there's "too much."

Vinik said it's probably the "7th or 8th inning" or "3rd period of this bull market."

Judge kept trying to get Vinik to make market calls, but Vinik mostly wanted to talk about how great Tampa Bay (the metro area, not the Buccaneers) is.

Judge cleverly tried to ask "what would be in" a Vinik fund.

"I don't know. I don't do that for a living anymore," Vinik said, adding, "I'm generally an advocate for index funds."

All Vinik would say about not sending NHL players to the Olympics is that it's a "complicated issue."

Judge said, "Sounds like you're shorting my questions."

Nothing more on Jim’s prediction that within 5 years, Amazon will be broken up like Standard Oil

Leslie Picker, back to talk about Bill Ackman on the Halftime Report, said Friday that taking a stake in NKE is "not necessarily out of the ordinary" for Bill.

Picker said the information on the NKE position came from someone who was at an investor dinner Bill held Thursday night. (That sounds good; we could've used a hot meal, the problem is, it probably takes at least a million dollars to get an invite to this one.)

"His traditional activist strategy has not necessarily been working that well over the last 3 years since he's posted losses in each of those," Picker added.

Jim Lebenthal said 51 or 52 was the "right price" to buy NKE (for those with a time machine).

"I'm holding it, OK," Jim said, adding, "I think it's overpriced right now."

Josh Brown identified a "substantial breakout" of NKE at 66. Steve Weiss pointed out UAA has "had no lift" and is "still very vulnerable to going lower." Weiss said he would sell UAA and wouldn't buy NKE at 68. But he bought BABA in the morning.

Jim argued that UAA is "getting to takeout value." Josh Brown pointed out the separate ownership class of shares. Weiss insisted, "The valuation's still egregious."

Jim persisted, "All you need, OK, is some international marketer to take the brand and say, 'We're gonna get this distribution thing in China done.'"

"You know what? They could package it with JCPenney," Weiss said.

"So seriously, if you're bringing that up, then you know I have a good argument," Jim said.

First time we’ve heard Joel Osteen mentioned on the Halftime Report

Judge on Friday's Halftime noted Goldman Sachs removed SBUX from its conviction buy list but kept the buy.

Steve Weiss said "this is a serial-missing candidate" that has made "terrible" acquisitions. That's a good point; we never could figure out why they wanted Teavana.

Weiss said Jim Cramer's idea of a separate company for Starbucks China is "a good idea."

Josh Brown said to focus on breakouts and breakdowns with a flat stock such as SBUX. Jim Lebenthal said that's "absolutely right," but, "It's reminding me of Nike."

Weiss said, "This is why it's not Nike. I can give you 4 coffee places, name brand I'd rather go to in New York than Starbucks. ... Starbucks is not a fresh concept anymore, it was. Not only that, they're on every corner."

But Jim persisted, stating, "Brand recognition is so similar for the two of these," a comment Judge wasn't buying.

"It's almost like you're making a negative case when you're trying to make a positive one," Judge explained. "Brand recognition is as strong as Nike, and yet, they're having a problem. What does that tell you."

Jim said it goes back to "pattern recognition." Weiss said, "You're coming off like Joel Osteen in this stock."

Andrew Left says TWTR is a buy over other social media names because he’d rather see Bill Gates tweets than pictures of Mark Zuckerberg’s barbecue

Judge on Friday's Halftime brought in Andrew Left via phone to talk about Left's new long, TWTR.

Steve Weiss wasn't impressed; frankly, we too had no clue why Left is suddenly calling this a buy.

Left said it's a "compelling platform for where it's trading," which doesn't really mean anything, and then he added, "I wouldn't be surprised if Tencent decided to go ahead and buy Twitter this year." (Didn't they put themselves up for sale a while back and found no takers?)

Left kept trying to insist it's a long because he'd "buy it lower."

Left actually said, "My favorite person to follow on Twitter is let's say Bill Gates" (a fellow who happens to be one of the business world's most boring individuals) and then, in a really strange argument for backing TWTR, said, "I really don't wanna see Mark Zuckerberg's dog or pictures of his barbecue." (This writer is long FB.)

He twice called TWTR a "much better platform" than Snapchat (snicker).

Steve Weiss was shrugging that Left is a "smart guy," then described this position as, "Let me pick a stock that I can buy, then go and tweet, that's ready to move and I'm gonna take advantage of that, and by the way, I'm not gonna tell ya how long I'm gonna be in there."

Yep. Judge got bamboozled into putting together this interview.

Seems like AAPL has slumped ever since Jana-CALSTRS and ‘psychic tax’ prof demanded better parental controls

Judge barely spent more than a soundbite on Friday's Halftime on the news about Steve Wynn, which if nothing else makes Ross Levinsohn's "hotness" list look like smaller potatoes.

Josh Brown said WYNN would be "a totally different story to investors" without Steve Wynn. "This could spell trouble," agreed Erin Browne.

Will Rhind, who has founded a new ETF firm, predicted 2018 will be a "good year" for commodities.

Josh Brown credited Rhind for eliminating "all the negatives of the existing commodity ETF marketplace," which are K-1s and contango issues. Rhind said his goal was to solve the problem of "high management fees" and "sub-optimal structures."

Erin Browne's final trade was European stocks. Kate Moore said older tech. Jim Lebenthal said IBM; "this stock has turned around, period." Steve Weiss said BABA and JD. Josh Brown said TWTR.

Sue Herera and MCC experienced a bit of dead air when Michelle joked about Nutella being delicious.

Mel introduced Friday's 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which seems kind of a flip way of characterizing dozens of sex misconduct allegations over a decade.

[Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018]

Ackman, Icahn are a scratch for Judge’s commemoration of 5-year phone-call battle

We figured that because Judge was commemorating the 5-year anniversary of the Ackman-Icahn phone confrontation on Thursday's Halftime Report, he'd bring both parties on the program.

Instead, Judge brought Leslie Picker and former CNBCer Kate Kelly to reveal scorecards over the last 5 years (Zzzzzzzz) and express amazement over how the phone standoff happened. (Zzzzzzzzzz)

Finally, Judge got to the lede, revealing he actually wrote a book about this feud; "a look inside that war ... some of the stories have never been told before."

The book is available for pre-orders.

Of course, he should've asked us to edit it, but not everyone sets their sights that high. We're thinking this one's going to get a review, so Judge better have his ducks in a row. (If we find a typo ... or an "in and of itself" ... anywhere ... can't say they weren't warned.)

The description of the book on Amazon.com includes this line about Ackman-Icahn: "But what happens when they run into the one thing in business they can't control: each other?"

Really? The "one thing" Ackman and Icahn can't control is "each other"?

On Thursday, Judge brought in former CNBC hand Kate Kelly, who sort of switched places with Picker in going from CNBC to the Times and said the Ackman-Icahn showdown was "just surreal" but that she "had an inkling that day" that something explosive would happen.

Kelly suggested Bill's HLF venture was "probably a bit heartbreaking."

Kelly and Picker looked great. Hopefully both are thriving in current posts.

We heard from multiple sources 5 years ago that a huge amount of credit went to (and was deserved by) CNBC producer Max Meyers, who put the separate phone calls together.

Does anyone ask Terry Lundgren if he buys stuff at Amazon.com?

Lessee ... is it easier to predict a stock being acquired, or facing an antitrust investigation?

Judge on Thursday's Halftime Report said D.A. Davidson has given AMZN an $1,800 target.

Joe Terranova said it "could happen."

Really. A FANG stock could actually rise 33%.

Who knew.

Joe said he'll never question AMZN again on its ability "to finally show profit margin expansion."

But Pete Najarian said one thing to keep in mind is AMZN gets its margins from the cloud space, and "everybody wants that piece."

Jim Lebenthal said he can't buy AMZN as a value investor when its 100 multiple could go to 80 while it remains the same company.

Fair enough, but then Jim uncorked a drastically-overthinking-it-type-of-analysis, stating, "There comes a point in time where regulators will look at this within the next 5 years, regulators will look at this and say, 'Wait a second, this is exactly what Standard Oil was. This is exactly what AT&T was."

Seriously? Jim thinks regulators are going to declare AMZN the Standard Oil of 2023??

Did we hear Jim correctly?

Rather than offer the best argument — that this company unlike those others is enormously popular, possibly ... possibly ... the most popular company of all time ... and thus has nothing to fear on the regulatory front — Joe Terranova suggested that antitrust reviews are at the discretion of Donald Trump.

"I disagree with that," Joe said of Jim's prediction. "Why would they do that; it's driving the economy. Why would- this is a president that wants the economy and the stock market to thrive."

"I'm not talking about the president. I'm talking about the FTC or a similar regulatory agency," Jim explained.

"All I know is, I see those green Amazon Fresh boxes all over my neighborhood," Joe said.

"Yeah, yeah yours and everybody else's," Judge confirmed.

About every 3 days, Jim warns viewers against buying stock in Sears Holdings

Jim Lebenthal on Thursday's Halftime Report said the only names to avoid that he can think of are "some of the more desperate retail."

Judge pointed to what KSS has done. Jim said "this might not be the right time" to buy KSS.

Jim mentioned 2 possible roadblocks to the stock market, saying of the first, "I'm not scared of inflation," and then there's this summer's election cycle, but that's "5 months from now."

Grandpa Rob Sechan said it would be interesting if student loan debt could be rolled into mortgages he wanted to add that there's a "risk that expectations have ratcheted up."

Joe Terranova said "Caterpillar is the poster child for synchronized global growth."

Joe said GS might have had "the kitchen sink for FICC" and trumpeted being overweight financials.

Joe said $70 oil is not a headwind, pointing to nat gas climbing from 2.60 to 3.60 "in a matter of 3 weeks." Rob Sechan said rising crude brings more supply on the market.

Joe said currency competitiveness could be a "little bit of an inherent (sic redundant) risk" to the stock market.

Nobody said 1999 or 1987

Joe Terranova on Thursday's Halftime said SNAP will continue to go lower; it has "tremendous difficulties."

Pete Najarian didn't say "single digits" (we Fast-Fired him on that in our year-end review because Judge didn't have the brass to do it) but did say it's "not a good spot" for SNAP between FB and TWTR.

Pete said June 60 EEM calls were getting bought. Pete said PBR calls took off and he scaled down the position he was supposedly going to hold for a couple of weeks.

Reid Walker was the Portfolios With Purpose representative and noted that it's kind of an all-or-nothing tournament.

In a snoozer of a Futures Now, Jeff Kilburg said we're expecting other central bankers to react to the lower dollar. Jim Iuorio said if the dollar "closed below 88.20 or so ... it would suggest a lot lower."

Joe's final trade was "Texas banks." Jim Lebenthal said GM. Pete said T. Rob Sechan said IEMG.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin, Guy Adami said it's a "dangerous game" for the president and Treasury secretary to opine on the dollar.

Karen Finerman, in sizzling new aqua top, said she bought MTW.

Jim: ‘Don’t be early
selling this rally’

A day earlier, it was "euphoria."

On Thursday's Halftime, it was, "Go big or go home."

Judge said earnings season is "littered" with great reports, prompting Joe Terranova to opine, "2018 is all about the strength and the momentum."

Jim Lebenthal topped Joe's glee, shrugging that the markets and VIX being up at the same time is a "total decoy" and adding, "The bottom line here ... it's momentum."

"Don't be early selling this rally," Jim advised, a day after Scott Minerd said the key is knowing when to get out.

Rob Sechan was the lone Grandpa, stating, "The recipe for market success is strong fundamentals and skepticism. I'm gonna tell you what's not out there right now. There is not a lot of skepticisim. We are all on the one side of the boat. We all agree that this is gonna be a great year." (Except Jeremy Siegel and Mike Wilson agreed just recently that it won't nearly be anything like 2017.)

Jim admitted skepticism is "really hard to find."

Sechan concluded, "If you're putting money to work, you wanna be patient about how you do that, and you wanna do that over time."

More from Thursday's Halftime later.

[Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2018]

The key is to get out before the collapse (a/k/a Judge and Richard Fisher no longer combative)

This page noted Tuesday that we hadn't heard "euphoria" on the Halftime Report this week.

Judge made sure we did Wednesday, introducing the show with "euphoria" as the first word, pointing to "more record closes in a January than we ever have before."

The centerpiece of that argument apparently stems from none other than Scott Minerd's comments in Davos about how he's "troubled by the euphoria undergirding (snicker) the gathering."

Minerd also said, "The key is to know when to get out."

That prompted chuckling from ... yes, hard to believe but true ... Richard Fisher, CNBC's buttoned-down Fed watcher who in his most recent Halftime appearance accused Judge of handing him his most combative interview ever on CNBC.

Fisher noted Minerd's theory, "the key is to get out at the right time. Duh. I mean, we were, we were just laughing about that."

Moments later, he mocked it again.

Meanwhile, Kevin O'Leary said companies have never been "gifted" by the president so much free cash flow. "It's not euphoria," O'Leary insisted.

Pete Najarian carped about people saying tax overhaul was priced in. (Zzzzzzz. Last time we're posting a comment on that subject. #fairwarning)

Steve Weiss said we haven't had this kind of easy-money environment but doesn't think it's infinite. "People I speak to, whether it's Dave Tepper, whoever, look for an end or a cooling in 6 months, 3 to 6 months," Weiss revealed.

Judge even quoted Howard Marks; "I don't see a reason to be aggressive" (snicker).

Almost seems like Halftime guests get paid to say ‘1929,’ ‘1987,’ ‘1999’ or ‘2007’ (that must be how Bob Shiller really cashes in)

Richard Fisher on Wednesday's Halftime Report called the tax package "a huge boost." Not gullible to the euphoria, Fisher said, "I do think we oughta be cautious here."

Fisher, whose jokes about Scott Minerd's comment were as much a surprise as if Mohamed El-Erian shipped us his Top 10 Movies of 2017 List, predicted 4 rate hikes in 2018.

Fisher said he doesn't think Steve Mnuchin has the "same finesse" as Jim Baker.

Steve Weiss said he bought BABA calls.

Kevin O'Leary again trumpeted how Boeing is in the "services business" and asserted, "I'm buying cash flow."

Fisher sounded reasonable until he uncorked one of those years that has no relevance to anything, stating, "This lack of volatility and this seemingly uniform bullishness reminds me of portfolio insurance in 1987. ... That's when I made my money."

Congrats.

Judge doesn’t ask Toni about the Jana/CALSTRS prof who thinks kids using Internet pay a ‘Psychic Tax’

Judge on Wednesday's Halftime Report brought in Toni Sacconaghi for another ... not particularly specific assessment of the next AAPL quarter.

Toni said he did a "pretty detailed analysis" of AAPL's supply chain and thinks there's a "very real risk that numbers are gonna come in meaningfully below consensus."

That doesn't sound good.

But wait. There's more.

"Revenues probably end up being a bit lighter than we had envisioned before, but EPS, with tax rates being lower, could be higher," Toni explained, adding "it's difficult to know how, how folks might react to that scenario."

Toni said the iPhone X price was a "dramatic increase."

Judge never asked Toni about the Jana/CALSTRS campaign to get Apple to save kids by improving parental controls on iPhones, a sign of the traction (or lack thereof) of that initiative. Judge merely told Toni the stock will "suffer" if it guides "well below consensus for their bread and butter product."

Toni said "the challenge is that Apple never guides to iPhone units let alone to any type of unit."

So, we really don't know much of anything, including the iPad subscription plan that Toni was touting a year or two ago that Judge never challenged.

Pete Najarian didn't say "Katy Huberty is better than Toni Sacconaghi" but did gush about "absolutely astronomical" Apple services growth. Sarat Sethi said the danger is "you could get an investor base that changes." Kevin O'Leary shrugged that "there's a floor on the stock."

O’Leary could’ve asked Jim Lebenthal (whenver they’re on the show together) why Jim thought BA was overextended in the mid-200s

Stephen Weiss, who recently lambasted UAL management, said on Wednesday's Halftime, "Munoz has to go."

Weiss said United's report indicates "the old way of looking at the airlines is the right way to look at 'em, which is you rent them, and they always screw it up, they add too much capacity."

Kevin O'Leary asked why "airline guys" such as Weiss "continue to get abused this way" when they can own BA. Weiss said he's "made some great money in the airlines," claiming he had "a 5- or 6-bagger in American."

Judge said Oscar Munoz in the Tuesday conference call predicted Wednesday's stock slam and calls it a buying opportunity.

Judge said Jim Cramer said the United earnings report "was like the biggest joke of a call he's, he's ever heard."

Sarat Sethi said he's keeping UAL, though it could go "a bit lower." He said you can "drive a truck" through UAL's wide earnings guidance.

‘Euphoria’ is mentioned,
and so is GE

Seema Mody on Wednesday's Halftime reported on RCL's bonus plans.

Pete Najarian said February 12.50 calls in PBR got bought.

Pete backed the Nomura buy call on MSFT. He calls the 102 target "very conservative quite honestly"; he sees it going "far higher" than that level.

Kevin O'Leary said Satya has delivered on "100%" of his promises.

Brian Stutland hung a 69 on crude, if not higher by year end. Anthony Grisanti said he attributes the rise to a weak dollar and said 65.55 is next resistance. Pete said he took half of his XOM position off. Pete mentioned the DAL refinery.

Sarat Sethi is still selling GE; he just doesn't wanna be there. Steve Weiss said just because a stock collapses doesn't make it cheaper. Kevin O'Leary said the price to buy it is $12-$13 but said it's "almost a good short here."

O'Leary added, "Take it behind the barn and shoot."

Weiss' final trade was DAL, saying it shouldn't be thrown out with the bathwater. Pete said KR. Sarat said NVS. Kevin O'Leary said Asian and Europe stocks.

[Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018]

Stocks on ‘staircase’ to heaven

Joe Terranova on Tuesday's Halftime Report admitted he and "many people" were talking at year-end about "potential for a 2016-style selloff that you had in January of that year."

It's wonderful that Joe is honest; we never understood what prompted "many people" to deem this strange possibility worth talking about.

Because it hasn't happened, Joe said, it looks more like another 2017, "where you don't really do anything other than climb the staircase higher."

Joe noted "emerging markets are still doing incredibly well."

Josh Brown said he thinks the Street is "in shock." He noted last year at this time, chief strategists were expecting a strong dollar and favoring U.S. over international stocks. Brown said the Nikkei is at a level not seen since 1991. He noted the dollar's at almost a 4-year low.

DoubleLine's Jeffrey Sherman told Judge that Friday's 10-year yield close of 2.65% was above the 2017 high. He said the one holdout is the 30-year, but it's at "criticial junctures," so he expects rates to push higher.

Sherman said the global growth story "is very accretive for commodities."

Karen Finerman, in exceptional new hairstyle on the 5 p.m. Fast Money, admitted she has felt "chumpish" at times but said that historically, "it's always been OK to buy at a record high, because here we are."

Another day without ‘euphoria’

Addressing the NFLX train on Tuesday's Halftime, Jim Lebenthal stated, "There's nothing stopping this" and that a couple billion more in debt would be a "drop in the bucket."

Jim said someone told him you might want to fade NFLX over 250. He and Josh Brown agreed it wouldn't be a huge pullback.

Brown said NFLX didn't really have an earnings beat, but a "subscriber beat."

"The subs are growing because of the spend," Brown explained.

Brown said if NFLX in 2007 had focused on profitability, it would look like Pandora now.

Stephanie Link called NFLX a "secular grower" that's "first to market."

Scott Devitt, who has a 283 target, stressed NFLX's pricing power and pending incremental leverage from its "global TV platform."

How come Jana/CALSTRS and their prof who detected the ‘Psychic Tax’ aren’t clamoring for more parental controls for TWTR users?

Scott Devitt, who dialed in to Tuesday's Halftime Report to cheer NFLX, said Anthony Noto's departure (Zzzzzzzz) is a "pretty painful loss" for TWTR.

Joe Terranova said he noted last week that the TWTR price action was concerning, so there was "some advance knowledge of this probably." (Usually they only say that when they notice the "options paper.")

Joe called Noto's exit "not a good thing" and said the quants have left the stock.

Judge speculated whether Noto would leave just before a quarterly beat. Somehow we doubt that the shape and timing of the current quarter would have anything to do with whether to take a better job.

Josh Brown noted that previously "indispensible" people such as Adam Bain have left the company. (Remember when Bob Peck was on the show once a week to predict Dick Costolo would get ousted and then that the company would succeed because of its "cadence" of new products?)

Joe said Noto's move will make him think twice about SQ and whether Jack Dorsey will need to spend more time on TWTR. That seems like a little bit of overthinking things.

Tom Lee’s calling a 2029 peak

Stephanie Link on Tuesday's Halftime marveled about how she's often expecting EL to pause only to see it keep going; "the trends are definitely there for beauty," and she's going to hang on to it.

Joe Terranova called ABBV the "clear winner in the space."

Stephanie Link grumbled that JNJ's margins were below expectations. She said she added AGN a week and a half ago.

Jim said Link's buy in AGN "caught my eye." Jim predicted T will be "distracted" this year by the TWX situation.

‘Look out below for copper’

After speaking with DoubleLine's Jeffrey Sherman, Judge on Tuesday's Halftime curiously made an abrupt left turn to industrial stocks.

Stephanie Link said she owns EMR and SWK. Josh Brown said the 3 best charts in the space are FTV, ROK and SPXC. Joe Terranova suggested HON.

In the latter half-hour, Judge turned things over to David Faber for an interview with Lowell McAdam; Faber asked what VZ will do with tax-overhaul cash, and McAdam indicated they're spreading it out over a bunch of things and that employees will get some restricted stock.

It wasn't exactly the most exciting interview of all time.

Pete Najarian said the EEM April 51 calls got bought. He also said FXI March 53 calls were popular.

Bob Iaccino said copper is in "probably a short-lived selloff." Scott Nations contended, "It's look out below for copper."

Stephanie Link said she was buying FB "on the news" recently when it was "10, 15 points below where it is now." (This writer is long FB.)

Joe's final trade was VZ. Stephanie Link said AAPL. Jim Lebenthal said NKE. Josh Brown didn't mention the Barking Dog of the Last 3 Months, ALB. (This writer is long ALB.)

Karen Finerman on the 5 p.m. Fast Money gushed about how much safer the big tech stocks are vs. the big biotechs and said Alphabet is her biggest position.

[Monday, Jan. 22, 2018]

CNBC not interested in Rise Above campaign this time

In a thin episode of the Halftime Report on Monday occasionally interrupted by D.C. news, Judge said "the market seems unfazed" by all the shutdown activity.

Josh Brown said markets tend to be flat during shutdowns. Brown noted an all-time high in the XBI.

Brown said risk appetite is at "incredibly high levels."

He referred to the 87 level in the 14-month RSI in the S&P 500 and said Ari Wald says markets typically top a year after those RSI gains.

Joe Terranova cautioned about the "debt limit issue" if this gets pushed to mid-February and said the deadline for the debt limit "is a little bit uncomfortably close."

Judge and Jim Lebenthal said it's a "kick the can down the road" situation.

Ian Winer said fear of Democrats taking Congress "is going to be an issue as we get later in the year."

John Harwood at one point said, "I think the crisis is going to lift in the next few minutes, but it's not going to go away." Harwood predicted "well over 60 votes."

Harwood said Donald Trump "is very, very unpopular."

In another tiresome chapter in Judge's endless parlor game, Mike Santoli suggested rates aren't going as high as people think, but as for whether they hurt the stock market, "obviously it depends how high they go."

Judge delivered the signature cliché: "I think most would be fine with rates rising for the right reason."

Josh doesn’t think Anthony Noto is nearly as important as Anthony DiClemente thinks he is

Judge on Monday's Halftime brought in Anthony DiClemente via phone to discuss rumblings of a key TWTR departure.

DiClemente said it would be "really difficult" for TWTR to replace someone of Anthony Noto's "caliber" and even said it'd be a "pretty terrible outcome" for TWTR investors.

DiClemente called Noto "an architect of Thursday Night Football."

Josh Brown questioned what kind of "track record" the stock has under Noto and asserted that the stock has actually rallied since Jack Dorsey came back. DiClemente said "cost controls" have improved EBITDA and can be credited to Noto, as well as "sustained improvement over key audience metrics."

Judge asked if TWTR has had a "punk move" in 3 months.

A show without GE
— or ‘euphoria’

Waffling like l'eggo my egg'o on Monday's Halftime, Joe Terranova said to "get a coin" on NFLX earnings.

Jim Lebenthal said he thinks the stock goes higher on earnings.

Bernstein's buy on LOW was the Call of the Day. Jim Lebenthal said "there may still be room to run" because even though it's up 30% in 3 months, it's only up 50% over 3 years; he suggested that "you nibble a little bit."

Joe Terranova said he doesn't see a reason to sell LOW as long as there's momentum. But Ian Winer said he's not so sure it's a buy at 106. Josh Brown agreed with Winer and questioned buying at an 89 RSI while it's up 14% in 2 weeks. But Brown agreed with Joe that it's not a sell.

Pete Najarian, via satellite, said February 24 calls in HBI were getting bought. Pete also said someone's buying this Friday's January 60 calls in DAL.

Pete (who predicted a home game Super Bowl for the Vikings) said there was incredible activity on Dec. 20 in JUNO calls. We don't have any record of that coming up on the Halftime Report that day; Doc on Dec. 20 mentioned CBS, FCX and THC.

Judge brought in Kari Firestone via satellite. Firestone's apparently a Patriots fan. (Gee, isn't that exciting cheering for 5-yard passes all day.)

Firestone likes EA, which she said is trading at a discount, a 23 multiple vs. historic 28. Jim Lebenthal said it's not a "1-trick pony" because it's got Madden and FIFA as well as "Star Wars" something or other.

Joe Terranova called JNJ and ABBV strong names. Jim Lebenthal finds VZ interesting. Judge promised Lowell McAdam on Tuesday.

Ian Winer's final trade was AOBC. Josh Brown finally brought up ALB, a disaster for several months, stating he's still long. (This writer is long ALB.) Jim said MET. Joe said he's long MAR but will sell "a little."

[Friday, Jan. 19, 2018]

Could Dave Tepper save
the Pittsburgh Steelers?

In the wake of one of the most embarrassing playoff games in NFL history (for one of the 2 teams), Mike Florio at profootballtalk.nbcsports.com reported that "a small group" of limited partners of the Pittsburgh Steelers want to see a coaching change.

We don't know which of the limited partners are calling for change.

We do know that David Tepper is one of the limited partners.

And if he's not calling for a coaching change, he should be.

Mr. Dan Rooney ... God bless that gentleman ... one of the finest figures in sports as was his dad ... his dad didn't care about winning, but Dan did, and when Dan was given the reins of the franchise in the late 1960s, he looked up the top coaching candidate in the NFL, Chuck Noll, and convinced him that things were going to be different in Pittsburgh. Noll signed on, shored up the roster, ushered in a succession of some of the most staggering drafts in history with a great deal of credit to scout Bill Nunn, and produced perhaps, given the stature of pro football, the most spectacular glory in American sports.

Many years later, Dan realized that Noll's time had passed and made the difficult but necessary decision to nudge Null into retirement. The result was the hiring of Bill Cowher, quite possibly the greatest coach in NFL history (and even once a guest on Fast Money). (Seriously.)

Dan has passed on, and the franchise is helmed by his son, Art Rooney II, a modest gentleman and presumably capable businessman. Unfortunately, he is presiding over a disaster, a God-awful team that embarrasses itself virtually every week, the phoniest 13-3 in NFL history.

At the ground level, which means the product on the field, the Steelers are one of the worst-run outfits in the league. There are talented athletes here for sure, but some of them often don't seem that interested in playing, and some would never be welcome on a Noll or Cowher or Belichick roster.

It would take way too long to list all the problems. (Cutting a legend, still one of the team's best players, so he can join the New England Patriots at the end of the season has to be near the top of the list.) Laughably, replacing the offensive coordinator with the quarterbacks coach only adds to them.

We know the coaches try. We don't know honestly why it's so bad. But it is. This team doesn't know what it's doing.

Here's why that all matters now. The greatest gift in sports is an elite NFL quarterback, one of those half-dozen individuals in the entire world who are difference-makers in the NFL Playoffs. Most franchises go decades without one. When you don't have one, you can generally forget about the Super Bowl. When you do have one, you have to maximize every moment you've got with him.

The Steelers still have one. He is going to be 36 entering next season. He has a bizarre moodiness that is sometimes part of the team's problem. He's also one of the greatest competitors in NFL history. As long as he's standing, they've got a chance.

Once he's gone, don't expect the team to find the next Aaron Rodgers. It'll probably be more like the next Tommy Maddox.

The team doesn't need the next Don Shula. It only needs a fresh start with a credible boss who can hang it up after a couple years. We've got a few names, if anyone needs some names.

It's one thing if a fan feels emotionally brutalized by this monstrosity. It's another to be a paying stakeholder.

Someone please tell Mr. Rooney.

Mike Wilson has heard the chatter from all 4 million clients (apparently) (while Tom Lee makes a 2029 market call)

Judge started off Friday's Halftime with Mike Wilson, telling Wilson, "You're throwin' around the euphoria word."

That proved to be a curious and elusive term.

Judge questioned why we're not in "reality" rather than "euphoria." Wilson curiously faulted the "quality" of earnings growth.

"There's no doubt that the quality of the earnings growth we're gonna get this year is lower than it was the last 2 years," Wilson said.

Really? "No doubt?" And what does that actually mean?

Steve Weiss asked Wilson for his "indicators" of "euphoria." Wilson said, "I got a list of 'em."

Wilson said his top 5 indicators include "AAII bull-bear spread." Weiss questioned if that's "relevant." Wilson said it is, for sentiment.

Wilson also said he's got 16,000 advisors, and 4 million clients, and, "Yeah, the chatter is pretty euphoric, I mean people are really reaching now for that, for that kind of activity."

People are "reaching" for euphoric "activity."

Wilson also declared that volatility is starting to pick up this week; "the VIX is quietly kind of creeping up."

Then he said, "You can't hold as much risk if volatility goes up."

Weiss quibbled with Wilson over exposure, with Weiss finally stating, "Just because you moved higher in your exposure, right, doesn't mean you're at euphoria yet."

"It's all subjective, I agree with you Steve," Wilson said.

Jim Lebenthal said that if this is euphoria, "We're early in euphoria. And you know what, you're supposed to enjoy that. As soon as it starts, you don't just head for the exits," an undeniably accurate point.

Judge asked, "Can you truly be in euphoria with a 10-year at 2.63?"

Wilson also curiously said he's got 2 targets.

One of them is a 2,750 "base-case, year-end" target. He's also got a 3,000 "bull case" and thinks "we think we could actually hit that in the first half."

So it sounds like, if stocks go up, "I was saying 3,000 all along," and if they don't, "I had 2,750 all the way."

"This is not a better risk/reward than last year ... because this is the end of the cycle," Wilson said.

Tom Lee was also on the panel, quietly. Lee, who's got a 3,025 target, said, "I think that it's important for investors to think long term" and cautioned against "misallocation of capital."

Most importantly, Lee told Judge we're in something like the 4th or 5th inning of the bull market; he thinks it's "more like 2029 is the peak of this equity market cycle."

Wilson said he agrees with that from a "secular bull case" but not from a "cyclical bull case."

Josh Brown asked for the "right answer" about stock and bond allocations. Tom Lee pointed to negative interest rates in some bonds, "Even in equities, you can buy things that have better yields than bonds anyways."

Wilson said, "I think that stocks are gonna beat bonds handily, particularly on a real basis, over the next 7-10 years."

Brown countered, "There are no 10-year periods historically where you've had a cyclically adjusted P.E. ratio anywhere near where it is, and stocks have done better than bonds. None."

Oddly enough, Weiss seemed to agree with Wilson's timing even if not the term euphoria. Weiss told Wilson that "people see ... a finite end to this next move in the market, generally picking, like you are, and like I agree with, the 2nd quarter of the year is when you know the music really stops."

The more Wilson talked, the more curious his market call sounded.

"This is a secular bull market, OK," Wilson said. "And this is the first half of the secular bull market. You're not gonna get 1998-99 euphoria in the first half of the bull market. That comes later. Maybe many years from now."

So apparently we're having a little euphoria, but not the really big euphoria. That may be years away.

"The QE era is over," Wilson continued, and we'd like to get that in writing. "OK. And the QE era favored large-cap companies. And, over-regulation, OK, favored large-cap companies," Wilson said, predicting operating leverage in small caps will "shine through this year more than large caps."

Josh Brown noted "dramatic moves" in utilities and real estate yield plays. Wilson spoke of how he made the shift at the beginning of the year from U.S. to international stocks and "sold the rest of our high yield." (See, he's never made a wrong move.)

Wilson asserted, "We think the credit markets ... have much worse risk/reward than stocks here." He argued, "Rates are going up in the short term ... but at some point in the back half of the year, rates are likely to come down again."

Judge also asked Wilson if the market would sell off 5% in a shutdown. Wilson said "it could get there because things are so extended."

So let's see if we've got this straight ... we're in "euphoria," and that will continue up to July, except volatility is picking up, and you can't "hold as much risk" if volatility is rising, even, apparently, if we're in "euphoria" ... and then there may be a shutdown, in which "euphoria" would take a 5% haircut before re-establishing itself. Then starting in July, rates and stocks will both fall. But the big "euphoria" is still to come, perhaps years away.

Jim Lebenthal argued that CSCO and INTC are among "plenty of stocks" that are "well below the market multiple." (This writer is long INTC.) Weiss said those names are "always below the market-." Jim said, "Not by a 20% discount."

Josh Brown said, "You think a low multiple is gonna protect investors if we go to the other side of euphoria?" Jim said, "We're not anywhere near the other side of euphoria."

Weiss said he would "love to see" a 5% correction.

Weiss: Flannery is no more qualified to run GE than I am

Judge on Friday's Halftime noted GE, everyone's favorite disaster stock, fell to 16.02 before bouncing.

"Why would you wanna own it," said Steve Weiss. "I think you just avoid it, and you come back to it maybe in 6 months when it's closer to 10 or 12."

Judge re-aired Bill Nygren's GE comments from a day ago. "In what universe should this company be at a market multiple," Weiss asked.

Josh Brown questioned buying a falling knife such as GE "in a market where 9 out of 10 stocks are going up."

Jim Lebenthal made it unanimous, stating, "There is clearly more bad news coming," adding, "The day when bad news comes out and the stock rallies, that's when you buy it."

Josh Brown suggested maybe you could buy "the day Warren Buffett makes a loan to them for preferred stock."

Weiss said Flannery's been there "22 years or so ... and apparently he's surprised about what he saw. ... He shouldn't be running this company any more than I should."

Important note: We like to dump on this stock, too, because it's kinda fun, but we're not taking any pleasure in anyone taking losses on this stock or any other; we've had our share of bungles, and they're never any fun.

Weiss: KSS, TGT are ‘euphoria’

Judge on Friday's Halftime noted KSS got a $100 target (snicker) from Jefferies.

Steve Weiss said "he had to go out to 2020," the "he" meaning the analyst, but Weiss said the call is "reasonable" even though Weiss is "skeptical."

Jim Lebenthal said the problem is, "We know there are store closings coming this year."

Josh Brown said KSS is up 100% in 6 weeks and has an RSI of 84.

Tom Lee said Chuck Grom thinks KSS will "maybe partner with a grocery company" (snicker).

Weiss said KSS and TGT are "just so extended. That's euphoria right now."

Brown asked Weiss, "Did you buy that coat at Kohl's." Weiss said "No, I don't think Kohl's sells real (something unintelligible)."

We thought it's a great jacket.

Judge says ADT’s IPO is ‘touché’ to the euphorians

Seema Mody on Friday's Halftime explained ADT's IPO slide.

Judge said, "That's a bit of a disaster," which seems a bit of an overstatement.

Stephen Weiss said the company was "challenged" before it was taken private, and it was a "pretty quick turnaround for the IPO." Judge told Mike Wilson, "Touché to your euphoria."

Eamon Javers reported that Chuck Schumer would visit the White House on Friday.

Pete Najarian, via satellite, said February 22.50 calls in DSW were getting bought.

Pete said FCX February 22 calls were getting bought, "all in one print."

Josh Brown said to stay long SQ.

Mike Wilson said AXP's spending is "really good for the long-term growth but probably not so great this year."

Jim Lebenthal said to stick with NKE and avoid the "value trap" of FL.

Weiss explained why Jefferies initiated WYNN at "buy."

Pete said he likes IBM and will sell calls against it next week. Jim said he agrees; "margins are fixable."

Pete said "it's gonna be fun" watching the Vikings play in Philly this Sunday.

Jim predicted INTC will "move to new highs" after earnings next week.

Weiss said he'd love to see NFLX miss on sub growth, which would be "the time to buy."

Weiss said "CAT would be in my top 5 of indications of euphoria ... the stock should not be where it is."

[Thursday, Jan. 18, 2018]

Judge’s next interview with Ross Levinsohn is probably ... at least a few years away

Back on Aug. 22, former CNBC contributor and newly installed Los Angeles Times publisher Ross Levinsohn spoke to Judge on the Halftime Report with starry-eyed visions of reporting in video or "shorts" and thinking about California "culture" and turning 2 times EBITDA into 10 times EBITDA.

Nowhere did we hear an emphasis on "damage control."

Less than 6 months into these endeavors, Levinsohn is already under investigation by his parent company after an NPR report about his alleged "frat-boy" behavior in previous work environments.

One thing we sorta realized in August is that Levinsohn — who has been an eloquent CNBC guest and appears to be a talented person, though that has no bearing on the current issues — seems to have worked for gobs of media companies. The biography that remains posted at latimes.com dubs him a digital media "pioneer," but it seems as though "stopgap" might be a more relevant term.

We're guessing we probably won't see Ross on CNBC for a while.

Panel unanimous in not understanding why Bill Nygren continues to own GE

Bill Nygren, whose GE bull call last year was obviously a bungle, impressively owned up to it on Thursday's Halftime, telling Judge, "It was clearly a swing and a miss."

Unfortunately, it sounded a bit like Bill's still in denial.

He said "typically" he'd sell that kind of disaster, but the company has had "tremendous change in people," and the problems are "largely contained in the power division."

"We like the new people," Nygren said (which is curious because Flannery is sort of a GE lifer), asserting the assets should get high multiples in sales.

Judge asked Bill if he's buying more GE on the dip. Bill curiously said, "We've been buying and selling ... we are rotating through adding shares, subtracting shares." Finally, he said, he has "more shares, smaller percent of the portfolio."

Nygren said he puts a higher multiple on GE's jet and health care businesses than others (probably Stephen Tusa) do.

On other stocks, Nygren said he exited MSFT because he sees "better long-term opportunities." He mentioned AAL and CVS and PCLN as new buys.

Judge told the panel that "Bill has a great track record" and was "very contrite" about getting GE wrong.

Kevin O'Leary said that a year ago, the company was guiding to about $1.97. "And then, I don't know how this happened, but all of a sudden within a matter of 6 months, it was a dollar gone. Evaporated. ... How is it that they don't have a class-action suit on that dollar that evaporated. And Bill made a point that there's been a lot of change in management. I don't think so. The new guy came out of the business. He was part of that board. ... I think the stock is worth 13 bucks."

Stephen Weiss bluntly stated, "I think the stock's more of a short. I wouldn't buy here. I agree they should've brought new blood in. Flannery was complicit in the decline of this company."

Judge hailed Jim Cramer for "carrying the flag for shareholders" of GE. Weiss chipped in another observation, that "health care grew organically 4%," which isn't huge, and noted Nygren's claim of high multiples. "When you're a fire-sale seller, how do you get more for your assets?" Weiss wondered.

Jon Najarian stated, "I'm not second-guessing Nygren. Brilliant guy. But I am saying that I like Microsoft a hundred times over General Electric. Not- a hundred out of a hundred times, I'll take Microsoft and jettison, which I made a bad buy on, I bought J- GE at 20.50. Um, you know, luckily got out with most of my backside intact at 18 bucks a share. Um, it's, it's a horrible slide in that company."

Pete Najarian said there's more competition for GE in aviation "than Nygren actually is thinking there is."

Judge said, "If it goes from here down to 13, I know you guys are gonna tell me, 'Don't do it.'"

Pete said it depends on whether the company has "done something."

Regarding other Nygren picks, Doc said people don't focus on PCLN being a lender.

Still wondering why CNBC isn’t doing a ‘Rise Above’ campaign this time

Steve Liesman on Thursday's Halftime predicted this market is "not gonna be spooked" by rate hikes.

Mike Santoli said "sentiment is very stretched" but said "all the news is good."

Pete Najarian said the week's volatility is "significant" and "huge."

But Judge noted the VIX was hardly moving.

Jon Najarian said there's been a "binary bet" on whether there's a shutdown.

But Steve Weiss said generally the market trades down an average of 0.6% during shutdowns; "that's nothing to worry about."

Kevin O'Leary said of the recent roller-coaster ride and climbing VIX, "I think this is great." But Doc said if the government kicks the can to February, "Then watch how fast this goes right back to 10."

Weiss said "rates have typically ended rallies when they've risen quickly." But, he said, "Real rates are still ridiculously low."

Everyone kind of agreed that tax reform isn't fully priced in yet.

Judge actually said "buyback" is "like a dirty word around here."

In a couple of admittedly good laughs, Doc called Steve Liesman "ratings gold." Partly related, Weiss said, "The makeup room ran out of makeup when I got there after these 4 guys."

Whew — no one told to ‘Piss off’

Brian Stutland on Thursday's Halftime said bitcoin has had "significant selloffs" over the last 3 years from mid-December to mid-January.

Anthony Grisanti said, "I would sell any rallies."

Meanwhile, every quarter, Doc reports heavy call-buying in SNAP; this time it's the February 15s. Judge said, "This sounds like a dice roll, Doc." Doc said it's a "really cheap shot."

Doc said April 25 calls in ON were getting bought.

Pete Najarian said July 210 calls in AAPL had "pretty big buying."

Pete said March 105 LOW calls were popular.

Kevin O'Leary said IBM's business may be "more of the same." Pete said he's been long "for a little while" and he sells IBM calls "almost every month."

Pete said he prefers TGT to WMT. Kevin O'Leary said TGT has got "really smart young people" and is going to do "amazing things online."

Steve Weiss' final trade was to sell WDC. Doc said MSFT. Pete said AAL. Judge mistakenly referred to Pete's voice as "Bobby Brady" before being corrected that it's "Peter Brady."

[Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018]

Dan Nathan tells Rich Ross
to ‘piss off, seriously’

Wednesday's 5 p.m. Fast Money apparently produced a spontaneous personal argument between chart expert Rich Ross and options watcher Dan Nathan.

Ross had delivered a presentation on bitcoin and ethereum technical levels; frankly we didn't really know what he was trying to say.

Ross then took a seat at the desk. This is somehow a daily highlight for this program, cheering the guest walking over from a TV screen to the desk (that's when they're not taking the 5-minute break at the 24-minute mark) ... except maybe things aren't as chummy between panelists and guests as they might typically have you believe.

Ross took up Melissa Lee's question about "weak hands" and said he likes stocks a whole lot more than cryptocurrency, a much more concise point than what he was trying to say with the telestrator.

Nathan called Ross "Chris" (then corrected himself) and argued that a lot of "smart people" think cryptocurrency is the next big thing.

"I just think it's a little glib to come on here and say, you know, say things like-" Nathan said.

The "g" word didn't go over well with Ross. "You guys like it when we fight, so let's fight for a little bit," Ross said, asserting, "Smart people can go broke too."

"But the charts are gonna save 'em, right. The charts are gonna save 'em?" Nathan said.

"What's gonna save 'em," Ross said. "You've been bearish for 2 years, and the stock market's gone up 100%. So where are you? You're not helping people make money. I mean, let's call it what it is. You haven't liked Trump, the market's soared, and the politics aside, you've been wrong, so don't say that I'm glib. It's right or wrong. It's not about glib or serious."

Guy Adami tried to cut in on behalf of Nathan, "Well now that's, that's not true ... I think Dan's done a good-"

Nathan told Adami and viewers, "We're good. We got, we got, you know, we got the chartist here, he's got his stick, and it's, and it's fantastic, pal." Then tone suddenly changing before Ross could respond, Nathan bellowed, "Don't come on here and tell me I haven't made- you don't know what I've done, you don't know what my, my call is, OK, so go piss off, seriously."

"OK. Well tell me, what's the call now?" Ross demanded.

"Dude. Seriously," was Nathan's call.

"OK. A tough moment here on Fast Money," Ross concluded.

Then someone — guess who — announced, "We're gonna leave it there." (As opposed to "gotta.")

Had there been any reason for this particular discussion other than to talk about bitcoin as much as possible, we might've gotten all jazzed about it.

But there wasn't.

Joe suggests stock market is going from Tim Wakefield to Aroldis Chapman

Assessing the 2018 stock market, Joe Terranova on Wednesday's Halftime invoked a curious baseball analogy.

Joe said that investors last year were "stepping to the plate in 2017 and using what's relatively a light bat against a 75 mph pitcher. OK, now the 95 mph pitcher is there. And you're going to use a lighter bat in 2018."

Jim Lebenthal stressed that individual stocks will continue to be "far more volatile" than the broad averages.

Jon Najarian opted to revisit his comment a day earlier (when Jim wasn't on the show) about how Jim was talking about how the market could fall in January (even though others talked about it just as often, see below).

Wednesday at Post 9, Doc addressed Jim and said, "Yesterday Jim I was talking about you on the show. Not in a bad way."

"It may have been bad, but he turned it good," Judge said.

Doc attempted to clarify (or "amplify" as Senator Geary says in Part II), explaining that "smart men ... and women" were "pointing out things that might happen in the new year." (Lessee ... stocks could go up ... stocks could go down ... stocks could be flat ... such wise commentary ...)

Sarat Sethi told Judge the Tuesday pullback is already a "distant memory."

Dan Nathan on the 5 p.m. Bitcoin Money said he saw "a lot of panic buying" on Wednesday.

Doc suggests Goldman Sachs traders need a pep talk

Uncorking sports analogies right and left, Joe Terranova on Wednesday's Halftime said GS' performance in commodity trading is equivalent to "the New England Patriots going 2-14 next season."

"I don't understand what's wrong, because Morgan Stanley was fine," Joe said.

Jon Najarian was equally perplexed and called for some cage-rattling. "You'd like to have a guy like Nick Saban go after these guys," Doc suggested, before questioning, "How did you guys screw this up so bad?"

Doc even suggested "Lloyd needs to get down there on the trading floor ... to get these men and women's heads right."

Joe opined, "I do think they miss Gary Cohn."

Meanwhile, Judge said Bank of America upgraded AAPL to 220 while Longbow downgraded it to neutral. Jim said they have "identical estimates" for this year's earnings, so the question is the multiple. Jim said he doesn't think 15 1/2 is too much.

Joe said he doesn't see why anyone would sell AAPL here.

Jim said he'd like to add to his IBM half-position and is looking for confirmation from this week's report, declaring that if the revenues are growing again, this stock "is going to be heroic."

Jon Najarian said the Barclays analyst made a "really brave call" to upgrade IBM because he/she raised the target by 59 bucks.

Joe mentioned SAP and CRM and suggested ADBE too. He suggested IBM at 190 would put AAPL at 210, 215.

Judge said Stephen Tusa "maintains his, his sell" on GE with a 16 target. Joe reiterated seeing opportunity in UNM and CNO in GE's slump.

Jim buys ROKU

Jim Lebenthal on Wednesday's Halftime said his new buy is ROKU, "not a typical value stock," but he likes it for recurring services revenue.

Judge said it's down 21% in a month and suggested it "could be a little dangerous" getting into it ahead of the lockup. (Actually SNAP recovered nicely after the lockup occurred.)

Scott Nations said stock investors shouldn't "pooh-pooh" the idea of bitcoin contagion to stocks. Anthony Grisanti said he'd be a seller of bitcoin and even hung an 8,000 on it.

Pete Najarian likes the MRK SunTrust upgrade, stressing the pipeline. Jim said he likes PFE; Pete said he likes both. Pete predicted "more and more" in the pharma M&A space. Judge said MRK made "kind of a lame move for an upgrade." Jon Najarian explained that it made the move a day earlier.

Doc said MRO July 20 calls were getting bought. Doc said the EFA (for developed markets) February 75 calls were getting scooped up. Doc said HAWK got taken out at 45 while he reported Jan. 4 the calls getting scooped up at 35.

Pete Najarian said February 7 calls in AKS were getting bought on top of others previously bought.

Judge said special guest Sarat Sethi's fund made 26% last year, outpacing the S&P.

Sarat said FRC has been oversold. He also touted CELG as an opportunity. He even mentioned Hudson's Bay (which trades in Canada).

Sarat also touted DAL, and he thinks "there's more room to run" in UAL.

Pete's final trade was UPS. Doc said CORT. Jim Lebenthal said INTC though he admitted that when it comes to the chip flaw problem, "I don't know if they fixed it or not." (This writer is long INTC.) Joe said TXN and lamented selling it at 81.

[Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018]

Unfortunately for GE, Rex Tillerson is not available to buy stuff for XOM

David Faber, at Post 9, spoke on Tuesday's Halftime about his report on a possible GE breakup.

Judge said it "almost feels" like Flannery (in his highly scripted news release) was "buryin' the lede." (Except CEOs will try to "bury the lede" on purpose, whereas when reporters do it, it's a bungle.)

Faber agreed he had to go "deep into the transcript" to dig up the big news.

Judge hailed a conversation "2 weeks ago today" with Jim Cramer in the morning when Cramer "so smartly as usual" said it's still not time to get in the stock. Actually, it closed that day at 17.98 and has exceeded 19 since, so it was a great call for anyone who doesn't like quick 5% returns.

Joe Terranova noted UNM and CNO were both selling off with GE; "today's pullback is an opportunity for both."

Stephanie Link complained that GE not only has power-unit problems but "tax dyssynergies" (if that's the right way to spell it).

Judge said people are "waiting for Stephen Tusa, um, to come out and say it's OK to buy."

"His sum of the parts is 15," Steph said.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on euphoria even though no one can really describe what it is

On Tuesday's Halftime Report, Jon Najarian hung Jim Lebenthal (who wasn't on the show) out to dry, stating Jim's a great guy and all, but, "Jim Lebenthal right here was saying, 'Well you know, we could see a lot of folks coming into the new year selling,' and so forth."

Actually, we don't know who was most fixated on that idea, but Josh Brown and Joe Terranova were heard to suggest in December that people were talking about this.

Regardless, Joe said Tuesday, "Stay long. Don't buy more here. I think that's the message."

Judge said, "People are throwin' out the 'euphoria' word."

Joe asserted, "The market clearly has gone parabolic." He said you can "buy in" to the momentum or "sit back" and stay long.

Joe noted, "The VIX is up 11% today."

Josh Brown admitted that some of his assessment of euphoria in the market is "anecdotal." He said BA put in a "textbook topping candle" and that it's a chart people are paying attention to.

Doc said "euphoria" usually occurs when volume spikes to 150% or 200% of daily averages. Stephanie Link protested to Josh that earnings are good and "maybe you get a pullback," but then you can buy the ones posting good numbers.

Despite that, "We are now at the highest, uh, at the highest level vs. the 10-month moving average in the S&P than we've at- been at in 5 years," Brown said.

Doc said, "There are some people a little worried" but that an 11 VIX is "cheap."

Stephanie Link pointed to UNH as an example that earnings are coming up big.

Joe cautioned against a "tip" in the balance of world currency too far in one direction.

Josh Brown said "this tendency that we all have as human beings" to overrate recent performance and forget things that happened in the past.

Judge said there hasn't been a "full capitulation" of bond bulls.

Josh Brown said people have been "freaking out" about a bond meltdown for "most of the last 8 years."

Mike Santoli was brought in and noted the market was in "overshoot" for a long time, from 1997 to 2000, but "those gains didn't survive the next bear market."

Judge noted that stocks went up for 3 1/2 years after Greenspan's "irrational exuberance."

"It would take nothing at all to spark some kind of a pullback," Santoli asserted.

Judge promised Grandpa Mike Wilson (he didn't say "Grandpa") later in the week. (Funny how often he’s on these programs.)

Steve Grasso warned on the 5 p.m. Bitcoin Money that the market could sink if Steve Bannon starts talking.

Wonder if any Nobelists will sign on to Jana/CALSTRS’ iPhone initiative headed by prof who detects a ‘psychic tax’

Dom Chu on Tuesday's Halftime noted Greenlight was shorting CAT, AMZN and NFLX in its "bubble basket" (snicker).

Jon Najarian said February 47 calls in TER were hoppin'.

Nili Gilbert said the S&P 500 has had a positive total return for 14 straight months, a first.

Gilbert actually spoke about Nobel winners' analysis of "herd behavior." She also mentioned "recency," which Josh Brown had curiously mentioned previously in the program. (So if there really is a "recency" bias, how come so many people come on this program and talk about A) 1999 B) 2007 and C) The first 2 weeks of January 2016 and D) 1987 rather than the last 2 quarters?)

Joe Terranova's final trade was MCK. Stephanie Link said AGN. Doc said GPK. Josh Brown said "calm down."

Evidently the CEO-of-2-companies thing actually works

Judge on Tuesday's Halftime Report noted David Einhorn's "small position" in TWTR and suggested Einhorn thinks "the tide seems to have turned here."

Josh Brown said he hopes that's the case and thinks the company needs to break the cycle of a good report followed by a bomb.

Joe Terranova said TWTR is a "momentum trade" in the hands of "quantitative players" but called Tuesday's price action "disappointing."

Jon Najarian faulted the upgrade from Aegis Capital, stating, "the guy went from sell to buy," meaning he was "dead wrong."

Judge said "some are also suggesting" a boost for TWTR from the new FB policy (snicker). (This writer is long FB.) Stephanie Link said that's "apples and oranges" because "Facebook has announced this kind of thing 3 different times."

Cabbage Patch Kids slide

Scott Nations on Tuesday's Halftime Report noted bitcoin was down 18%.

Nations asserted that "bitcoin has no inherent value," so the bull case is that it's "extranational," but "if that's not the case, I don't see any value at all in it."

Jim Iuorio said as long as bitcoin is below 12,200, "it looks weak."

More from Tuesday's Halftime later.

[Friday, Jan. 12, 2018]

Tom Hanks, 61, should retire

Steven Spielberg has never made a great film. There have been some good ones (most recent was 1993); the rest maintain an emperor-has-no-clothes quality undetected by the masses who see 1 or 2 films a year and tend to seek him out for reliable ... something or other.

The latest is "The Post," which is supposed to be a late-in-life coming-of-age story of a woman asserting (according to this film's depiction) wishy-washy control of a business enterprise by determining which male's advice is most important.

It could conceivably work as a tribute to newspaper reporting (a valid goal), if not for the as-expected ghastly spree of Spielberg-trademark jokes and self-deprecating humor expressed by his A-list stars who have zero edge. It's the same old glossy photography from Janusz Kaminski, who in a few places jerks around a hand-held camera to give you that sense of that pressure and uncertainty. Nearly all the scenes look like the one above, as Hollywood is unfortunately fascinated with soft gray tones and window glare (including in "All the Money in the World," an entertaining film shot by someone else).

The script pretends to find drama in an IPO pricing at $24.50 instead of $27 because of "soft" demand (the term "roadshow" is even heard; not sure if that was common in 1971) and stacks and stacks of sheets of paper that have already been disseminated by another media entity. Oh, and there's everyone's beloved Washington dinner parties, all these cool people talking about ... maybe something mildly fascinating. (Or maybe not.) (Remember when Larry Kudlow attended the Obama meal at George Will's house?)

No scene is more saccharine than the sight of an anti-Vietnam War protest that looks like it was put together by Better Homes & Gardens.

Tom Hanks is hideous as Ben Bradlee. He has nothing to do in this picture. He should've hung it up after "The Terminal" (yep, that's Steven Spielberg), a candidate for the century's worst. Instead, he's like Steve Carlton making a go of it with the Minnesota Twins. Meryl Streep surely doesn't need the money either.

Spielberg is hailed by those who frankly haven't seen many other movies and don't want to be aware of what else is out there. The greats don't have to be obscure. Do yourself a favor and try "All the President's Men" instead.

Remember when Barack Obama in January 2009 decried Wall Street bonuses, then in March 2009 mentioned AIG bonuses, then didn’t seem to care anymore?

Mike Mayo joined the set of Friday's Halftime, gimmick in hand as usual, to argue it's "Act 2 for the banks" after 25 years of Act 1 (though we're not sure what occurred before that).

Judge told Mayo, "I'm gonna start callin' you Marty from now on. As in Scorsese."

Mayo said the tax overhaul is "great for the banking industry." And now isn't that interesting.

About 9 years ago, nothing was more hated than the bank industry. Wrecked the economy. Greed. Jail (or not). The president of the United States faulted the sector for its compensation format.

Now, the government is doing things that are "great for the banking industry." (So much for outrage.)

Judge asked Mayo why Citi is underperforming. Mayo said it's "half-U.S.," so there's less of a tax benefit, and there's "some issues with their credit-card portfolio."

In the day's most provocative discussion of what we have to admit was a robust, excellent show, Josh Brown asked Mayo, what if AMZN and FB decide to enter the banking business.

Mayo answered, "There's absolutely a long-term fintech thread to the banking and financial industry," which is Mike's way of suggesting that Brian Moynihan is as Internet savvy as Jeff Bezos.

Brown asked if banks should be reinvesting "in the future of payments" and lending rather than paying big dividends and doing large buybacks. Mayo responded with a question. "Who are some of the biggest fintech players? The largest banks."

Steve Weiss jumped in on Brown's side, stating "that doesn't eradicate the threat" because of the "name value" of AMZN and FB if they chose to enter financial services.

Nevertheless, Weiss said he doesn't think it happens with Amazon because "the regulatory scrutiny that it would bring to these companies would be just mind-boggling."

See, that's where Weiss and this program are once again underestimating the FANGs ... These companies are quite possibly the most popular American corporations that have ever existed. Politicians do not want to mess with them. These are not Microsoft of 1999. They can do practically ... whatever they want.

1,000% wrong: Weiss is just about to make the most important comment of the show, then is cut off

Uh oh.

Someone on Friday's Halftime Report not named Weiss had the audacity to identify David Tepper's strategy.

Judge had noted how several prominent investors recently had endorsed this market.

Josh Brown seemed to question the relevance of those calls, stating, "David Tepper's strategy is not, um, to be, to be out of the market, um, even in a downturn."

"Hold on, hold on, hold on," Steve Weiss cut in. "You're a thousand percent wrong on David Tepper. You are a thousand percent wrong on David Tepper. I'm intimately familiar with his strategy. Dave could be net short the market," Weiss said.

Wow.

1,000%.

That's really, really being wrong.

Brown persisted, "Warren Buffett has over a hundred billion of cash. It's the biggest stockpile he's ever had. Is that a raging bull."

"But Warren Buffett has come out and said when the market's overvalued," Weiss said, apparently implying that Buffett indeed is not shy about calling markets overvalued when the urge strikes.

A moment later, Weiss was about to deliver what would've been the most important revelation of the program: "I spoke to Dave last night, he says this goes for another ..."

But he was talked over/cut off, and after multiple listens, we still don't know what goes after "another."

"Another" WHAT???

Meanwhile, Erin Browne opined, "Firstly (sic), I think that the Fed is not gonna respond to a level on the S&P 500 (snicker). ... It has nothing to do with the level of the S&P 500."

Judge asked Browne if she would put "fresh money" in the market. Yes, said Browne; "we were long, we're getting longer."

"I'm not selling anything until I see that turn," said Jim Lebenthal.

Weiss actually brought up Howard Marks (snicker).

Literally, they don’t, but he’s got a point

Judge opened Friday's Halftime mentioning "new records" (sic first of those 2 words redundant).

Steve Weiss said the market is "incredible" but "a little scary."

But Weiss said it's "OK" to buy on Friday. He said he added to DAL and even "bought back United" (which he recently called the worst-run consumer company he's ever seen) because of the "momentum" in transports being "so strong."

Weiss said he also bought KBR, and he "tried to buy" EME, "but the volume's so light."

Josh Brown suggested considering the RSI when looking over stock charts and cautioned about buying those over 70. Brown said the RSI of the S&P 500 is "over 80."

"Historically, from a shorter-term basis, you are not rewarded for buying 80 relative strengths in these names," Brown said.

Jim Lebenthal suggested there's attractive pricing in the "chip sector" and cyclicals including GBX.

Jim suggested no rate worries until we get to 3-plus. Brown said it's not good to focus on a number, but "it's the conditions that surround whatever number."

Judge asked, "What is euphoria gonna look like?"

Jim said, "A parabolic move," contending, "This is not a parabolic move."

"With all due respect, yes it is," Brown said. "Yes it is. Geometrically, it's parabolic."

"You're looking at a linear scale, not a logarithimic scale," Jim explained.

"Literally, charts look like the Em- charts look like the Empire State Building right now," Brown said.

Actually, they don't, but whatever.

Erin Browne asserted that "the retail community's been behind the curve, missed this rally." She added, "I'll be convinced that we're at peak euphoria when the retail community is involved in this (and) invested in this market."

Josh Brown said the AAII survey this week is "at a level we have not seen in a decade."

Weiss called that a "useless survey," explaining, "It's such a small sampling of investors who don't even invest," namely retirees.

Weiss said the P.E. on the S&P 500 is "nowhere near euphoric levels" and said "you can make the argument that the market hasn't caught up with the economic conditions globally."

Judge hears 2 humdrum non-opinions on FB but can’t reveal his sources

Anthony DiClemente on Friday's Halftime Report took up the new Facebook news-feed approach and said when FB has a dip, "it's typically a good time to buy the stock." (This writer is long FB.)

DiClemente said "the real loser here are publishers, so public pages."

Ross Gerber said FB's move is "great news" and that Facebook is being "very smart" because we want "social media, not fighting media."

Apparently seeking more drama from his guests, Judge said he's "trying to figure out how this is not a game-changer" for FB because "the top line is definitely gonna take a hit."

DiClemente said "the impact to revenue is unclear" but that the ROI for marketers placing paid ads "is still quite high." DiClemente suggested users will like the changes; "I mean, look, Facebook's become annoying to a lot of people."

Gerber said, for no real reason, "I heard a rumor Sheryl Sandberg was bragging the other day that she thinks Facebook's gonna be bigger than Apple."

Judge told the panel "this is a pretty good debate" because he "talked to a couple of very big names in the world of technology, um, neither of whom I can say who they were, however, their views are, are opposite."

Jim Lebenthal said, "This in my opinion is great leadership." (He was referring to Mark Zuckerberg, not Judge.)

Steve Weiss said, "Here's how I look at it, they've got a quarter coming up. ... If I'm Zuckerberg, I'm gonna come out with this announcement that's gonna be controversial, perceived as negative obviously by the market, and I'm gonna blow away expectations when I report the quarter ... He doesn't want to dilute the good will that'll come out of the quarter ... otherwise why not hold it for 2 weeks."

Josh Brown said, "We're talkin' about the wrong stock. ... Twitter is the stock right now." Indeed, Gerber said, "This is great news for Twitter" (snicker).

Elsewhere, DiClemente has a 1,350 target on AMZN. "The voice search business, as driven by Alexa home assistants, I think is gonna be much bigger than people are, are expecting," he told Judge.

Judge gives Jim a hard time about JCP, never brings up great call in WGO

Taking up those parabolic/not parabolic charts in the retail sector on Friday's Halftime, Stephen Weiss declared, "I don't think it can last."

Josh Brown said he agrees and noted retail pays the highest tax rate of any sector and there's been "pitch-black sentiment," so the bounce makes sense, but "none of the real challenges ... have been alleviated."

Jim Lebenthal decided, "We're not gonna talk about JCPenney." Judge said Jim "opened the door" to talking about it; Judge noted it's at $4. Jim said in retail in general, "You still have too many stores."

Weiss noted Matt Boss had a 51 target on KSS, so he either had to "get off the train" or "find a reason to upgrade."

Josh Brown questioned why retailers would be talking about returning capital to shareholders; Jim said some of them need to pay the debt holders "if they're going to survive."

Just wondering if AMZN is causing as much trouble for pre-age-30 Internet users as it is for major retailers (anyone ask Jana about that?) (a/k/a Judge wears a different tie every day (cont’d))

Pete Najarian, remotely, claimed on Friday's Halftime that people were saying oh, the tax cut's already in the market KR and TGT were going to "go out of business" because of AMZN, and now look at how they've recovered.

So he doesn't think AMZN eliminates the banks, "they just make the banks that much better."

Honestly, we haven't heard a soul say KR and TGT were going out of business, because of AMZN or anything else. (And if Amazon makes everyone so much better, explain SHLD and JCP.)

Pete said OXY February 77.50 calls were getting bought after the 74.50s were getting bought. (What if Amazon gets into deepwater exploration and ...)

Jon Najarian said May 24 MRVL calls were popular. He also said February 17 THC calls were getting bought.

Everybody chuckled about Pete pressuring Mayo to upgrade WFC.

For final trades, Josh Brown said he thinks TWTR "works short term and long term." Erin Browne said the XLI. Jim Lebenthal said C. Weiss said JEC.

[Thursday, Jan. 11, 2018]

VRX touches 24

Leslie Picker on Thursday's Halftime reported on Pershing Square slashing fees by "about 15%" after 3 years of negative returns.

But Picker said the fee reduction has more to do with a "rebate" to Allergan investors.

Stephen Weiss, who thinks Tepper would never be caught with such numbers, said, "Most firms can't survive 3 years of down numbers, particularly given what the market's done." He's right.

Meanwhile, Eamon Javers on the 5 p.m. Fast Money said a word you don't hear on CNBC every day.

Cabbage Patch Kids might be at risk of slipping below 5 figures

Thankfully, the Halftime Report, to Judge's credit, mostly ignores bitcoin and leaves that nonsense for Mel's gang, which unfortunately is only too happy to oblige.

Nevertheless, it got our attention on Thursday's Halftime when Anthony Grisanti said 11,300 is "the next spot" of support for (snicker) bitcoin. "There's a lot of other cryptocurrencies that investors are goin' into," Grisanti explained.

Jim Iuorio said "technically it looks fairly weak," and he might short it if it gets to 14,280.

Remember, Doc’s only
expecting 7-8% this year

In perhaps the only skeptical comment of Thursday's Halftime Report, Stephen Weiss said "some of the valuations that we see are ludicrous," pointing to CAT.

Tom Lee sat in with the group; he raised his S&P target to 3,025. Lee said it reflects earnings growth of 13% and "some P.E. expansion."

Then he invoked the "base case" mumbo jumbo that allows strategists to hide behind multiple forecasts. "I think 3,000's a good base case," Lee said.

Lee tried to bring up his "CRAP" trade.

Josh Brown said energy has had "an incredible start to the year."

Brown noted the wave of dollars into ETFs. Rob Sechan agreed with that and said people today invest in ETFs, "they invest by renting beta."

Everyone talked about how great banks are; Weiss seized the chance to tout the IUSG again.

Sarat Sethi said SCHW and MS have had a nice tailwind; "these stocks have moved, but they haven't moved like they really could."

Grandpa Mike Wilson showed up not on Judge's show but Mel's 5 p.m. edition and grumbled that tax cuts are already priced in. Wilson now says the market will "overshoot" in the first half of the year.

Karen back on 5 p.m. Fast Money, makes extensive case for DAL

Thursday's Halftime Report spent some time on the "psychic tax" that's plaguing teens who post photos on iPhones and don't get as many likes as anticipated thus prompting Jana/CALSTRS to step in airlines and oil.

"I did buy Delta. I sold United," said Stephen Weiss, cautioning about oil but noting Delta bought a refinery a while back. (That used to be Pete Najarian's favorite thing to say on the program, now it's, "How about how everyone said, 'Oh, the tax cut's already priced in.' Well, it's NOT priced in.")

Sarat Sethi said he gets the oil concern for airlines, but "capacity is so full right now," and he sees business spending.

Judge noted the tax benefits for airlines who get most of their revenue domestically. Jon Najarian spoke of how the tailwinds for the sector, including taxes and business spending, might be greater than thought.

CNBC superfox Karen Finerman, in her first appearance on the 5 p.m. Fast Money in seemingly weeks, touted DAL and said "there's so many good things that happened on the conference call; I loved how excited they were."

Meanwhile, Doc touted CVX's exposure to the Permian. Josh Brown pointed out the oil stocks haven't done as well as oil has. Brown recalled when panelists were talking not that long ago about whether Chevron's and other dividends are safe, and now CVX might churn out $7 billion in cash flow after the dividend.

Pete Najarian trumpeted how oil is working and said, "We don't want to have FANG leading the markets." Sarat Sethi said "the one downside" to crude is "we know shale comes back at these prices." Doc also mentioned "Russian elections in March." Judge said, "The other part of this is the dollar."

Doc said KMI January 19.50 calls were popular. He said April 140 UPS calls were getting bought.

Pete: DLTR may ‘plateau’

Pete Najarian on Thursday's Halftime said he got into DLTR at 93 back in November, but he wonders if it's about to "plateau."

(Pete also apparently bought COP a long time ago on a dividend cut selloff. He's just never wrong.)

Pete said March calls in BAC were getting bought.

Sarat Sethi said XPO could "potentially be in play."

Stephen Weiss said homebuilders should "continue to go."

Jon Najarian said he likes EXPE and called the upgrade a "great move."

Rob Sechan said he thinks transports can keep rollin'.

Josh Brown's final trade was MA. Weiss said JEC. Doc said NRG. Sarat said DAL. Rob Sechan said KRE and MLPA.

[Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2018]

Jana’s Apple-letter science partner links child’s use of computer to child’s use of a power saw (and by the way, what’s a ‘psychic tax’?)

On Wednesday's Halftime Report, Judge didn't have anything about thinkdifferentlyaboutkids.com.

(Then again, he didn't really have anything about it on Tuesday's show either, which is why this page (see below) had to take on the chore of assessing the "research" that supposedly alarmed the folks at Jana Partners and CALSTRS into realizing there's a massive children-iPhone problem that no one else in the world save for people who write pop-culture books and make speaking engagements notices.)

The Jana/CALSTRS letter to Apple trumpets a "partnership" with 2 experts. Here's the description: "In partnership with experts including Dr. Michael Rich, founding director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School Teaching Hospital and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and Professor Jean M. Twenge, psychologist at San Diego State University and author of the book iGen."

Rich, with a Harvard pedigree, is clearly the big get here. Rich's bio notes he's a "media aficionado."

His bio says he had a "12-year career as a filmmaker (including serving as assistant director to Akira Kurosawa on Kagemusha)." "Kagemusha" is an impressive credential, for those unaware. Just to verify, we checked out the credits at the Internet Movie Database, the silver standard for this type of film information (there are mistakes, but it's comprehensive, and elite critics cite it). Rich's name is the very last one, listed as "uncredited," which means IMDB has valid information to this effect ... but that the credit does not appear in the film itself.

Take that for what you will.

Rich's bio states, "His current areas of health research and clinical work bring together his experience and expertise in medicine and media." That's a curious mix of specialties, medicine and media. What kind of medicine does one take for a media problem?

The Wall Street Journal quoted Rich as stating the question is, "How can we apply the same kind of public-health science to this that we do to, say, nutrition? We aren't going to tell you never go to Mickey D's, but we are going to tell you what a Big Mac will do and what broccoli will do."

That sounds like he hasn't yet identified a problem but is fishing.

Rich told the Huffington Post that smartphones and other devices are "dramatically changing the way we behave, the way we relate to each other and the way our society really works."

"Dramatically changing the way we behave?" In roughly 28 years of watching CNBC, we've never heard anyone say people behave differently once they get a smartphone or other gadget.

Rich also told the HuffPost that Apple "can be part of the solution and thus improve their product, and thus improve their customer satisfaction and loyalty."

Solution ... to what?

Then there was this: "It's not the tools themselves that are the problem — it is actually what we do with them. You wouldn't give a power saw to an infant or a toddler, but you would introduce it to a child who is old enough to handle it effectively and do good things with it."

Seriously? You'd let a child handle a power saw?

We took a look at Rich's curriculum vitae. It is 54 pages long. Under the category "Formal Teaching of Peers," the first entry is "1995 Media Effects on Adolescent Health Risk Behaviors, Harvard Medical School Lecture."

So before there were smartphones, before Google existed, when most people didn't have a computer and the hot new thing in computing was Windows 95, Rich was presumably detecting danger for kids. One can only guess about the target of this lecture ... rap lyrics? Playboy magazine? Sega Genesis?

It appears Rich's specialty in the late 1990s was asthma.

What about Jana-CALSTRS' other expert, Professor Jean M. Twenge?

Twenge coined the term "iGen." It's the title of one of her books. Twenge's own website describes her in this order: "Author Speaker Professor Consultant." Note the clever illustrative photo.

In an article last year (it's a book preview) in The Atlantic, which seems to be Jana/CALSTRS' research vehicle of choice (information from this article is in the letter), Twenge wrote, "It's not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades." What decades-ago mental health crisis are we referencing that is bigger than what the iGen mental health crisis might be?

The article doesn't say.

Twenge also wrote of a "psychic tax," which apparently is not what you pay for calling Dionne Warwick. Twenge wrote: "Social media levy a psychic tax on the teen doing the posting as well, as she anxiously awaits the affirmation of comments and likes. When Athena posts pictures to Instagram, she told me, 'I'm nervous about what people think and are going to say. It sometimes bugs me when I don't get a certain amount of likes on a picture.'"

OK. So it "sometimes bugs" Athena when picture likes fail to meet guidance. Perhaps Apple needs to ban the uploading of pictures on its devices?

While Donald Trump cuts our corporate taxes, Apple and Facebook are raising our psychic levy.

In the Jana-CALSTRS letter, the first recommendation is that Apple convene an "expert committtee" that of course includes Twenge and Rich "to help study this issue." We thought they already had.

The second recommendation in the letter is "research." Apparently there is already plenty to draw conclusions — according to the rest of the letter.

Most interesting is that Jana-CALSTRS suggests Apple "expand" iPhone "age-appropriate setup options based on the best available research including limiting screen time, restricting use to certain hours, reducing the available number of social media sites, setting up parental monitoring."

So they prefer "limiting screen time," even though the letter (and Charles Penner on Tuesday's program) touts the research of Alexandra Samuel, who finds that parents who limit screen time produce worse outcomes than parents who "guide" kids' screen time.

Restricting use to certain hours sounds great ... except what if your kid has an emergency between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.

Then there's "reducing the available number of social media sites" ... so a kid spends 4 hours on Facebook and 0 on Snapchat rather than 2 and 2.

And "parental monitoring" ... watch your kids text and receive texts on their iPhone. Just what every parent wants to do.

Jana, the letter notes, is launching a "new impact investing fund."

Judge is not accused of asking Cramer’s questions and not having questions of his own

Jim Lebenthal on Wednesday's Halftime said the flat-yield-curve conversation "frankly was getting a little bit annoying."

Jim said, "Nobody is selling here. There is no reason to sell."

Judge spent much of the early portion of the program rattling off all the bullish calls from famous investors in the last couple of days. (Wonder why they didn't issue those calls in late December.)

Kevin O'Leary said the "most interesting" comment from Warren Buffett was that under the tax legislation, 14-15% is going back to American companies from the government.

Kari Firestone said the notion of stocks going up 30% is "a lot" but asserted that "the market feels like it wants to go up."

Josh Brown shrugged at all the starry-eyed claims of big returns from investing bigwigs. Brown noted utilities lagging while regional banks are breaking out; "things change very fast."

Judge said, "They're already, um, buying back a whole lot of stock."

Jon Najarian stated, "We're all fairly bullish here," though he's only looking for "7, 8% this year."

O’Leary’s mostly right, except it’s more like the 17th time in 6 years

Judge on Wednesday's Halftime said Bill Gross believes there was "a bond bear market confirmed today" and that Jeffrey Gundlach on a webcast said if the 10-year goes beyond 2.63, "it will accelerate higher."

Kevin O'Leary cut in, "It'll be the 5th time in 6 years we've heard that call."

Josh Brown said, "Yes."

Kari Firestone asserted that rates are low because "there isn't demand for borrowing."

Joe Terranova said, "I'm long bond futures because I think you're gonna take out 2.63. Does that mean that it presents trouble for the bond market? No, it doesn't."

Joe said he thinks we go to 3% but that it's the "velocity" of the move that matters.

Jim Lebenthal, after his 2007/7 years ago bungle (see below), sorta made amends by correcting Josh Brown for saying "10%" on the 10-year instead of "3%."

Jim said he will "dare" to say the yield curve is in a "Goldilocks shape."

In a quality point, Kevin O'Leary grumbled that gold has been one of the most "boring" investments even as some warn about inflation.

Eamon Javers reported, "The president's talking about the stock market again."

Not sure what the status is of Chanos’ CAT short (or kabuki theater references)

Addressing the DE upgrade on Wednesday's Halftime, Josh Brown said the stock is "not exactly a bargain" but that there's no reason why it can't keep rising.

"I'm in it from the 70s," Brown said, and while we normally scoff, correctly, at Brag Trades, this has been a great one on Brown's part that probably hasn't gotten enough kudos on this page.

Kevin O'Leary said he doesn't completely agree. "The only reason this stock has moved is the market's moved underneath it," O'Leary said. "It's a boat in a rising tide."

O'Leary even had a curious description of John Deere's businesses. "This is kind of a weirdo mix of stuff," O'Leary said, questioning why buy more now.

Brown said he disagrees and pointed out DE did "nothing" from 2011 to 2016 while the S&P went "straight up."

O'Leary insisted, "This is not a cheap stock." Brown questioned, "cheap on what metric."

Jon Najarian pointed out DE's Germany Wirtgen acquisition that gives the company a toehold in infrastructure.

Kari Firestone said it's a "positive" that farmers are getting a tax cut. Firestone said other plays include VMC and URI.

O'Leary said to "forget the past" about DE, he's looking at it now, and the German deal didn't make it a "pure play on infrastructure." Judge confirmed that O'Leary would prefer CAT. O'Leary said he's never heard an analyst say that if the wheat-combine market rolls over, he'd short CAT. Brown pointed out that "CAT rolled over because of, because of mining." Kari said "China."

MU always goes up, according to the options paper

"It's pretty ugly in the semi space," said Jim Lebenthal on Wednesday's Halftime, pointing to costly security issues beyond just INTC. (This writer is long INTC.)

Josh Brown asserted, "It's probably gonna be a while before people feel comfortable with these names again, maybe till the next time they start reporting." Jim said, "That's exactly right."

Brown said 116 or 117 is resistance for WDAY, but he's not chasing.

Judge said recent UA slammer Steve Weiss (who wasn't on the show) emailed him that UA was making a "b.s. move" on Wednesday. (Translation: Just made a bad call.) Kevin O'Leary said to buy BA instead of an airline.

Jon Najarian said ISRG just "took off" on guidance at the JPMorgan conference.

Joe Terranova said he'd buy "Chipulte" (sic pronunciation) (he's had trouble with that one basically forever) on the news of Patrick Doyle's exit from DPZ on the chance Doyle goes to CMG.

"I don't know that he goes, but I'll take the chance on Chipulte (sic)," Joe said.

Kari Firestone said she doesn't own HSY but called it a "medium house" in the neighborhood. She'd prefer MDLZ in the snack space.

Doc said February 20 calls in HST were popular. He said UNP calls up to 155, "mainly Februarys," were getting scooped up.

Brian Stutland said crude is probably due for a little pullback before moving toward 70 by year-end. Scott Nations said it'll take "something geopolitical" to get above the channel top of 64.

Pandora chief Roger Lynch talked with Julia Boorstin and said he's focused on "setting targets that are achievable for the company." Sounds like a great turnaround plan.

Joe's final trade was LNC; "it's goin' a lot higher." Jim Lebenthal said to get out of ... snicker ... SHLD. Josh Brown said to keep an eye on commodities indices. Doc said FOLD. Kari Firestone said HAS. Kevin O'Leary said STE.

Judge actually claimed with a straight face that "there wasn't a dry eye in the house" when the Benjilock creator turned up on Halftime a couple months ago. Kevin O'Leary said, "I didn't realize people are watching this live in Saudi Arabia, in Geneva, in Zurich, in South America. Who knew?" Judge later said, "You know we're first in business worldwide, right?"

Jim out to lunch while Josh makes quality point on buybacks

Wednesday's Halftime Report, a flat, overstaffed program, stumbled early over a listening bungle by Jim Lebenthal.

It happened after Josh Brown stated that "just 11 years ago, the buybacks of '07" were "ballooning" but proved to be "some of the most atrocious uses of corporate capital in world history."

Jim cut in, "Wait. Why do you say that," continuing, "Stock prices were way lower 7 years ago. I'd much rather Boeing buying back its stock at $100 than $300. I don't hear what you're saying."

"I'll help you," Brown chuckled. "2 years later, we were looking at massive losses on these balance sheets."

"I thought you said 7 years ago," Jim said. "You were saying 2007?"

"Yeah," Brown said.

Sigh.

Much more from Wednesday's Halftime later.

[Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018]

Check out the extensive ‘research’ Jana and CALSTRS did for their letter to Apple (as guest rips Judge for asking Cramer questions)

Oh my.

It took 22 minutes into Tuesday's Halftime Report to establish the reason Jana Partners wrote a letter to Apple.

See, Charles Penner noted "this is a new fund for us," but they didn't want to "sit on the Apple idea" because it's "incredibly timely."

Sure. Timely for creating publicity about a new fund.

Judge stumbled initially, failing to adequately set up this interview with Penner and Jana frontman Barry Rosenstein, stating Jana and CALSTRS were "targeting" Apple with a letter but not explaining what these investors are seeking. But we'll forgive him, even though the interview about this silly initiative happened to wipe out our evening. (We'll also forgive the CNBC sound man for Judge's mike not working in the opening seconds.)

Barry Rosenstein seemed surprised or caught off guard by Judge's first question, "Why Apple," pausing, then repeating it. He said "there's no question that we need to be more responsive to children's needs and children's activities."

What really got our attention was hearing Rosenstein and Penner mention the term "research" at least a half-dozen times; the Spider Sense started tingling.

First, we tried to look up the Jana/CALSTRS letter to Apple. Several news articles contained a link to the letter. Clicking on those links, we were greeted with a 1,722-word (we added it up in Microsoft Word) disclaimer requiring acceptance of Jana's terms.

We refused to click "I agree - I have read and agree to these terms" because we didn't read them. (Nor did anyone who clicked on them.) (If your goal is to dispense wisdom and information to save humanity, shouldn't it be readable without a catch?)

Penner said on the program that people could go to thinkdifferentlyaboutkids.com for the letter and/or information. Doing that, you get the same Terms of Acceptance window.

By fluke, the article on one Silicon Valley website contained a link to the letter that delivered the letter without a Terms of Acceptance window.

So we read the letter.

Take a look at this passage near the end that we highlighted in blue:

It curiously declares there is a "growing societal unease" about people "getting too much of a good thing" in the way of technology.

We wondered how they measure this "unease" and what exactly is "too much of a good thing." So we went to the footnote, which you can see magnified below:

Interesting. Pay attention to the first part of this footnote. It implies that someone named Laurent Hrybyk wrote an article at wired.com. (Note it doesn't give the article's URL; just the site's.) The quote referenced in the footnote about 2008 bankers and 2017 techies doesn't seem to have anything to do with kids using iPhones.

So we looked up this article. It's not written by Laurent Hrybyk. It's written by Erin Griffith. Hrybyk, we learned, does illustrations for Wired. Apparently Jana and CALSTRS are citing Hrybyk's cartoon as evidence of "growing societal unease" over technology. Here's what the article looks like; note Griffith's byline at the top and Hrybyk's credit under the graphic:

This article is about recent bad headlines in the tech industry, much of it having to do with sexism. "Apple" and "iPhone" and "children" do not appear in it.

Obviously, no one at Jana or CALSTRS actually read it.

(Honestly, no offense to the writer, we can't fathom why anyone would read all 1,890 words of this article.)

Yet it's somehow evidence of "growing societal unease."

Note the date it was posted: Dec. 16, which was probably right around the time Jana and CALSTRS were finishing the Apple letter, and someone would've been looking for any home page headline to buttress the "argument."

OK, there's more ... Penner said during Tuesday's interview, "There's research out there from a researcher, uh, named Alexandra Samuel who actually shows that parents who just focus on restricting screen time as opposed to guiding it, their kids actually have worse outcomes in terms of engaging in inappropriate behavior like you know, finding obscene material online and pretending to be other people online, than parents who actually guide their usage."

Well, that sure sounds interesting. We found that Samuel has a Ph.D. from Harvard but doesn't work there, rather she's a "digital explorer" who apparently makes a living with free-lance/consulting-type income and likes to be booked for speaking engagements (the link is right near the top of her website).

The "research" cited by Penner on the Halftime Report (and in the Jana letter) is from this article by Samuel in The Atlantic in 2015. Samuel wrote, "I've spent the past two years conducting a series of surveys on how families manage technology, gathering data from more than 10,000 North American parents."

There's no indication how Samuel surveyed 10,000 parents. Did she stand in front of grocery stores with checklists? Was this an online survey? Phone calls? How did she know all 10,000-plus respondents are parents? How long did it take to fill this survey out? Were respondents paid to participate?

The Atlantic is not a scientific, peer-reviewed journal.

It's a culture magazine.

Note that in mentioning Samuel's work, Penner said there is research "out there" (Hmmmmm ... anything posted on this page is "out there"), but the curious term he used is "outcomes."

Samuel does not use the term "outcomes" or "outcome" in the article. (Try doing a search.) We wonder whether these "outcomes" were determined after studying these subjects for years. (Um, probably not.)

Honestly, it makes a lot of sense to us that kids of parents Samuel calls "limiters" are more likely to "engage in problematic behavior" (which includes "rude or hostile comments" ... what criteria did Samuel use to determine rudeness in her survey of 10,000 parents ... did she read every one of their kids' posts ...) because they are probably being limited because of their anticipated behavior. (That's called effect mistaken as cause.)

The article mentions "iPhone" once but does not include "Apple."

The point of the article is not that Apple needs new buttons, but that parents should give kids Internet guidance ("Sonny, don't look up adult sites or make fun of people online") and not just shut it down.

Penner also said, "The research suggests actually limited levels of use actually ... probably beneficial; kids who use their phone about an hour a day actually have more positive mental health outcomes than, uh, kids who don't use it at all."

And are these "outcomes" determined when these subjects were 40 years old?

Penner also said, "Young adults who go to more than 3 social media sites a day have worse mental-health outcomes. ... As you get older the negative impacts that we're seeing with social media actually start to phase out, are gone by the time you're 30."

So people who grow up tend to make fewer hostile or rude comments online.

So Jana's protecting kids from a problem they'll outgrow anyway?

OK. Back to the program.

Rosenstein said "there's lots of research" showing that "excessive usage of smartphones is damaging to kids." He never explained how damaging.

Judge said sources told him Apple was "blindsided" by this letter.

Penner, who sounded uncomfortable the whole time and constantly insisted everyone thinks this initiative is a great thing and that it just happens to be the only great initiative of theirs at the moment, said AAPL has a "great policy" on global warming even though it's not responsible for global warming.

Judge said Jim Cramer calls the Jana/CALSTRS letter "duplicitous" and thinks it makes it sound like Apple's doing nothing. "It's clear he hasn't read our letter," Rosenstein said.

Judge asked why not target video game makers and social media platforms. Penner's answer was his loopiest comment of the program: "Well, for the same reason you wore one tie today and you'll wear another one tomorrow. We can go after one company today and we can focus on others in the future."

(Don't they know Judge wears the same tie 3 days a week?)

(That's only a joke.)

(We're blaming our experience with "limiter" Internet parents.)

Judge said he's been in "small gatherings with Tim Cook," and it sounds like Cook is already concerned about these things.

Anne Sheehan of CALSTRS said it was a "natural" to complain to Apple rather than a host of companies who make junk food that kids like. Sure. Giving kids a different button on the iPhone screen will do a lot more for them than cutting out the junk food in their diet.

Judge was getting nowhere in this series of interviews, but things actually got testy when Judge said Cramer just emailed that he did read the Jana letter and claims he didn't insult Penner and Rosenstein and wondered why Jana didn't stand up against Walgreens selling tobacco.

Rosenstein said they had a "standstill agreement" with Walgreen and that he had no ability to speak publicly but did raise the issue privately. (Obviously, whomever he spoke privately with didn't agree.)

Penner said, "I don't know, I just find this line of questioning with all due respect kind of ridiculous."

Judge said, "But Charlie, these are the kinds of questions that people are asking-"

"Questions that one person, Jim Cramer, is asking. I'm not on Jim Cramer's show, I'm on your show," Penner said. "What questions do you have?"

"I've asked you all- all the questions that are the relevant questions," Judge said.

Judge continued moments later, "You question as to why I'm asking you questions of the likes of which, which I am."

"OK. I feel like we've answered the question. I don't know what else I can say about it," Penner said.

Neither do we. Our suggestion is for Judge to bring in Lee Cooperman, who's getting more outspoken in each appearance and who might've watched this and presuambly will tell it like it is.

Soc Gen’s negative call on banks gets expected scoffing

When Tuesday's Halftime wasn't tackling AAPL activism with Cramer questions, Judge was welcoming Sam Poser to the table to explain his sell-UAA call. Poser spent several soundbites basically saying the company bungled mightily by going into Kohl's and DSW and Famous Footwear.

Pete Najarian said the valuation of UAA is "still scary." Poser grumbled that Under Armour shoes are geared to "performance" rather than "general lifestyle" and noted that at last year's Grammys, nobody was wearing Under Armour.

Meanwhile, Stephanie Link said the yield curve was steepening Tuesday and financials were getting a bid.

Joe Terranova said he bought some bond futures playing for 2.62.

Judge said Soc Gen warned about a "euphoric" market in bank stocks. Joe said he's still long BAC and hung a 35 on it. Stephanie Link said the analyst has had a sell on GS and C "all the way up." Pete said that's "the most important part."

Pete said May 90 calls in GILD were getting bought. Pete said someone was rolling up a KKR trade from March 22 calls to March 24s.

Joe struggled to rattle off facts about EOG; he said the growth will be there.

Stephanie Link backed EOG and tossed in CVX, APC and SLB.

Jeff Kilburg said he doesn't think crude momentum will "wane" until there's a stock-market "breather." Scott Nations said it looks like the Saudis' efforts to "set the table for the Aramco IPO" are paying off.

Pete gushed about TGT. He predicted 75 "in a hurry." We're not excited about the stock, but we're happy to see Target (and any other retailer frankly) doing well.

Joe's final trade was LNC. Stephanie said DWDP. Pete said the XLF.

[Monday, Jan. 8, 2017]

Judge for the first time addresses occasional commercial drought on his program (#lostrevenue)

We've been saying it forever, and someone finally is catching on.

Jim Cramer on Monday's Halftime Report actually said it's "amazing" that Judge can do a program "without commercials."

In his first public statement on the matter, Judge responded, "I like to let it roll."

He likes to ... let it roll.

The thing is, not only do we want CNBC (and other TV/radio/print media) to collect as much advertising dollars as possible, but for those who are keeping tabs on this program and even monitoring what's said (snicker) (You're serious? That actually is happening?), sometimes a break isn't the end of the world particularly when the material runs flat.

Joe: Stock market ‘feels’ expensive even if it’s not

Judge on Monday's Halftime brought in Jim Cramer to open the show. Cramer and Steph Link talked about ... industrials ... Zzzzzz.

Link said you might be able to view CAT as a 16 multiple. Link touted FDX and EMR and DWDP.

Jim Cramer said it's a "mistake" to chase CAT; he'd rather buy EMR.

Pete Najarian trumpeted UPS.

Joe Terranova said he doesn't think infrastructure is priced in, "it's all about the dollar," and he said GE for years has been the "portfolio favorite" of industrials, but now the money is being spread around.

Pete for about the 17th show in a row grumbled about people who said tax reform is priced in.

Cramer said he's a "big believer" in what Tepper told Judge last week.

Joe said the market "feels" expensive even though it may not be.

Joe said the end-of-year "consensus" recommendations of the rotation trade have been "totally wrong."

Link said energy is still "very unloved."

Stephanie finds TROW’s huge half-year a head-scratcher; Joe’s target for GPRO is ‘oblivion’

Pete Najarian on Monday's Halftime made a big announcement, that TSLA is a "tech company" and not a car company and even accused Judge ("You're one of those guys") of calling it a "car company."

Joe Terranova pointed to the amount of Tesla miles being driven and declared, "They're a software company."

Pete said March 47 calls in GM were popular. Jim Cramer said GM is a cheap stock with momentum.

Meanwhile, Leslie Picker said Jana is known as an "activist investor" but is "delving into social activism," targeting the "increased risks of depression" for children who use Apple products.

Jim Cramer said SNAP is "the equivalent of Captain Morgan for kids." Later, Cramer said of SNAP, "What the heck is going on there. It feels very much like Peterman is running the show." (Judge had to point out that was a football reference.)

Meg Tirrell, doing health care conference interviews all day, sat down during the Halftime Report with Celgene chief Mark Alles. Alles refused to opine on whether Bob Hugin is running for Senate. (That falls under the category of news you didn't know that you really had no interest in knowing.) (But it wasn't a bad question to ask, because on the very limited chance she got an answer, Tirrell would have a D.C. scoop.)

Stephanie Link said CELG has a "huge" patent cliff.

Judge said TROW got an upgrade from Bank of America and 125 target. Jim Cramer suggested, "Maybe stock-picking's back." But Jim said "it's a tough space." Stephanie Link said it was a "moonshot" last year, and "I kinda just scratch my head."

Pete said February 62 KRE calls were hopping.

Pete questioned if you can really "trade around" STX.

Stephanie Link said she's adding to NKE.

Joe Terranova said of GPRO, "I never liked this stock ... it probably goes to oblivion."

Jim Cramer said he's "not against" ALB right now. (This writer is long ALB.)

Joe's final trade was MAS and VMC. Steph Link said LEA. Pete Najarian said MU.

Joe: FB is the landline phone of yesteryear

Joe Terranova on Monday's Halftime declared, "Facebook is the modern-day landline telephone."

Hmmmm. Kinda makes sense, but then again, no one has to rent the device every month.

Stephanie Link said of FB, "I actually doubled my position last week."

Pete Najarian said the "extreme growth" in FB will come from video.

Jim Cramer said that the "N" in FANG or FAANG should be changed. "It really has to be Nvidia," Jim said.

Much more from Monday's Halftime later.

[Friday, Jan. 5, 2018]

NFL playoffs: Why the Steelers
aren’t going anywhere

It's a tradition that this page take a crack every January at the NFL Playoff bracket — the toughest assignment in football-watching, as it involves projecting winners of ALL the games before any of the wild-card play-in games have occurred. (This review is posted in the early morning hours of Jan. 6.)

We're doing it again this year, even though last year was an outright bungle. Typically, we've been able to get one conference exactly right, but that didn't happen last year. We had the AFC correct until the Championship Game, wrongly picking Pittsburgh over New England. In the NFC (gulp), we made a ghastly call on the Giants reaching the Super Bowl.

It's time to make amends.

The first thing to do is write off the Pittsburgh Steelers. The league's preeminent underachievers, this is one of the most bogus 13-3 records in recent memory. We're hard-pressed to declare them any better than the previous season, when they went 11-5 and got embarrassed in the AFC Championship Game.

The general public isn't aware of the softness of this team. It's a poorly run squad in which the 3rd-best defender was somehow released so that the archrival Patriots could pick him up. The biggest stars on the roster tend to be head cases. The assistant coaches embarrass the team every year (including right now). Despite supposedly great offensive talent, this team has massive trouble scoring. The defense is a shambles against the run and regularly gets burned on deep routes.

Second, the Buffalo Bills are possibly the sorriest, most inept unit to ever qualify for the NFL playoffs; the players probably were disheartened to learn of Baltimore's collapse last week and realize they had to play another game this season.

The enigma in the NFC is whether Case Keenum can actually win playoff games. The gut here is that the defense, while not at the level of Tampa 02 or Baltimore 00, is too much for everything left in the NFC.

So here we go ...

Kansas City beats Tennessee: The Chiefs might have more oomph than people think.
Atlanta beats Los Angeles Rams: The Falcons have one good game in them.
Jacksonville beats Buffalo: The Jags wouldn't be a sure thing any game but this.
New Orleans beats Carolina: Have no idea how the Panthers won 11 games.

Philadelphia beats Atlanta: It'll be shaky but doable.
New England beats Kansas City: A lot different than the first time.
Pittsburgh beats Jacksonville: Blake Bortles can't win 2 playoff games.
Minnesota beats New Orleans: It's the next round for the Vikings that's trouble.

New England beats Pittsburgh: Surprised if it's any different than last year.
Minnesota beats Philadelphia: Without Wentz, forget it.

New England beats Minnesota: A massive disappointment for the home crowd, who will nevertheless applaud the overachievement of a Case Keenum-led club.

Ross Levinsohn’s 1st accomplishment at L.A. Times may be causing formation of a union

Back on Aug. 22, Judge welcomed Ross Levinsohn back to the Halftime Report to talk about Levinsohn's new gig as publisher of the Los Angeles Times.

Levinsohn stated that he took the job because of his "incredible passion for news and information," as well as "emotional and personal" reasons and his "value perspective."

Apparently, he's fairly emotional about the prospects of L.A. Times workers forming a union, as "many" in the newsroom, according to the New York Times, believe Ross and other execs "have been unduly aggressive in the attempt to thwart the union effort."

Ross — one of our favorite CNBC guests, by the way, and a great guest — told Judge back in August that he wanted to turn 2 times EBITDA into 10 times EBITDA and (this was murky at best) apparently plans to do this by focusing on the "core" of reporting, including video and "shorts" and thinking about California culture "at its core" and being the "bible" of the entertainment industry (um, looks like the big scoops on Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey and Charlie Rose have originated elsewhere) and how we shouldn't use the term "newspaper" anymore.

Looking for updates on these initiatives in the Jan. 4 New York Times story and not finding any, it seems like Levinsohn's sole accomplishment thus far is presiding over the LAT journalists' first union vote in the newspaper’s 136-year history.

Judge hasn't offered an update, so we figured we probably should.

Ed Yardeni actually says the biggest risk to stocks is that they reach 3,100 too fast; Judge asks spectacular question

Ed Yardeni dialed in to Friday's Halftime and hung a 3,100 (that's Tony Dwyer's number, we think, except Tony just calls it "marketing b.s.") on the S&P for the year and said one of his concerns is a "melt-up" that carries us to 3,100 "a lot sooner" than he's anticipating.

Yardeni called it a "FOMO" market, or Fear Of Missing Out.

The jobs data was good for easing Fed concerns, he said. "I didn't see wage inflation picking up ... It's a nirvana scenario," Yardeni said.

Josh Brown said baby boomers are getting replaced by cheaper younger workers, and he tried to insist wage inflation is "definitely" becoming a cost. Yardeni said, "I'm 68 and I'm still working for a living ... I haven't had a pay increase in about 10 years."

Eventually, Yardeni said, "I guess if we're gonna have a problem, it's gonna be like 1987 ... kind of a portfolio-insurance problem, which would be ETFs experiencing a flash crash."

Well, Tom Lee around September said it seemed like September of 1987.

In an absolutely perfect question that should've occurred at the top of the program, Judge rightly asked the panel, "Can you go from what people said is like the most hated rally ever to euphoria overnight?" Steve Weiss said there are always "naysayers" but pointed to Yardeni's mention of 1987, "I often think of '87 in relation to this." Jim Lebenthal said, "I do too."

Judge jabs at Josh’s inflation suggestions at year-end

Stephen Weiss at the top of Friday's Halftime took up the roaring bull market.

"It's a tough time to start getting in ... but I do think it goes higher," Weiss said.

Jim Lebenthal assured we're not in "bubble territory" even if the market's not cheap.

Josh Brown observed, "This is clearly a mega-risk-on week to, to start the year off with."

Weiss reiterated, "Nobody has seen this kind of environment. I said that the other day." Yes. And the day prior to that.

Brown stressed that machines are doing much of the trading, even in so-called "value" strategies, and it's a "huge amount of money."

In an impressive potential Fast Fire, Judge asked Josh Brown, "I wonder if you started worrying about inflation a little too early." Brown said, "I would say it's more of an investment than a trade."

9 years ago or so, Guy Adami started complaining how the Fed has ‘lost control of the bond market’

Rick Rieder on Friday's Halftime might not have been as euphoric as Ed Yardeni but still appeared copacetic on the stock market.

Rieder asserted, "There's this incredible need for assets. ... I think you're gonna hit a 3% 10-year this year, but boy it's not that dramatic."

He said whoever said previously (Brown) in the show that "wages are accelerating" was "exactly right."

But Rieder said he's "not that worried" about inflation because the Fed has "so many tools to break inflation."

Panel seems to think FL 22% upgrade is a joke

Julia Boorstin on Friday's Halftime Report noted NFLX's gain on the announcement of the Letterman (Zzzzzz) series.

Jon Najarian, who had a quiet show, said "getting any big name" is "big" for NFLX. Steve Weiss said he subscribes to Hulu and Amazon Prime, and "you're always going back to Netflix because the content's so robust."

But Weiss added, "I just don't see this company getting acquired," because of the $90 billion market cap.

The panel seemed to agree that part of the bull case is that a takeout couldn't happen without a big selloff, so if Netflix has a couple bad quarters, it might be a candidate for a buyout.

Judge said FL got upgraded by Buckingham Research, which apparently sees another 22% (snicker).

Jim Lebenthal said, "I'm not too thrilled about this," pointing out the stock is "perennially cheap." Judge stumbled over asking Jim about why FL needs a "competitive moat" (snicker).

Doc said he "can't get excited" about the FL upgrade, noting retail was the weakest part of the jobs report. Weiss said "it's a low-risk trade for the analyst" who's hoping to "catch some tailwind."

Doc said there was "big activity" in TXT calls, and he also likes it as a tax play. Pete Najarian said there was "very heavy buying" of AAPL calls expiring next week.

For some reason, Judge has been critiquing panelist calls made last fall. Jim Lebenthal likened CSCO to where MSFT was years ago. Weiss shrugged that CAVM has "been a great story." Josh Brown said an "inflection point" happened in WMT's price months ago corresponding with a change in sentiment.

Jim got Fast Fired on recommending against VIAB in November. He said it's "intriguing" right now. Weiss said he's made money on WDC by "loading up" after it got "crushed" by Morgan Stanley.

Doc had to address his STZ options trade, saying he "flushed it" on Friday's news of bad wine sales. "This was a loser," he said, but he still likes it. (So much for those January 240s getting scooped up.)

Josh Brown said if you want in to LOW, he wouldn't chase but would wait for a "light pullback."

Weiss said it "makes sense" that there's "minimal downside" to CVS, but he'd worry about AmerisourceBergen.

Jim Lebenthal said he really likes EA and believes it's poised to break out.

Meg Tirrell previewed the JPMorgan health care conference. Weiss predicted the "biggest moves" will center around talk of drug pipelines. Weiss asserted, "Pricing is an issue, and the drug companies still haven't reined it in."

Jim said he sold TRN. Weiss said he bought JEC, which is "geared to infrastructure."

Doc's final trade was ZAYO. Brown and Jim said GOOGL. Weiss again said IUSG.

[Thursday, Jan. 4, 2018]

Grandpa Jeremy Siegel plays the bear, desperate to prop up his late-2017 guess that 2018 will definitely be worse

Judge opened Thursday's Halftime with a scoop — reporting his chat "exclusively" with David Tepper (who apparently talked stocks instead of Weiss' facial hair).

Judge said Tepper said, "With earnings forecasts going up and interest rates where they are, how is this market expensive? ... It looks almost as cheap as coming into last year."

Josh Brown said, "I guess it depends on your definition of expensive. So by the most popular measures, the market absolutely is expensive." Brown mentioned CAPE ratio. But Brown said that's not a "judgment" on where the market goes. He also tossed in an "in and of itself."

Steve Weiss dialed in. "I agree with Dave," Weiss said (a big surprise), stating there are no "historical parameters" for this market. "There is no playbook for this," Weiss said, adding there's "tremendous momentum."

"Going forward, I see much more positives than negatives, there's no doubt," Pete Najarian said.

Brown cautioned that everyone seems to agree the outlook is great and that some of that may be built into prices.

Keith Parker of UBS hiked his S&P target to 3,150, eclipsing Tony Dwyer's 3,100. Just like in "The Price is Right," that landed Parker an interview on Thursday's Halftime. (Perhaps Barry Bannister will rev up a 3,300.) Parker said that in the wake of the tax cut, he upped his S&P earnings to 157. Judge said, "You've essentially made the same case" as David Tepper, and Parker agreed.

Doc asked Parker about "migration of capital from Europe over here because of the tax reform" not being priced in. Parker agreed the "marginal buyer" continues to be the retail and foreign buyer.

But then Judge brought in Jeremy Siegel, who chuckled that it's "amazing" that Siegel's one of the "least bullish" people on Judge's program, but he said he doesn't even see $150 earnings on the S&P.

Siegel said GAAP earnings "are going down" because of "the hit" from foreign earnings. Siegel, who heard Brown mention the CAPE ratio, also said he's argued for many many years that the CAPE ratio has given "false signals." (But he's still among the least bullish on Judge's show.)

As for Parker's earnings call, Siegel suggested maybe 140 instead. Judge said, "Wow, 140. You're like the low on the Street." Siegel said "maybe 145" and added that he has seen "huge fades" from January to December in previous years.

What's really getting interesting (and that no one on the show has mentioned yet) is that, with such a gangbusters start to the year, the issue will quickly be whether the S&P ever gets flat on year in 2018, a key technical benchmark.

Bob Pisani said on Closing Bell, "I smell a little euphoria now for the first time."

Wolff’s book paints Donald Trump as ‘buffoon’ who ‘doesn’t read’

On a day a lot of panelists couldn't make it to Englewood Cliffs, Eamon Javers on Thursday's Halftime aired a clip of Donald Trump chortling about Dow 25,000. "So I guess our new number is 30,000," the president said.

Jeremy Siegel said, "Very honestly, I can't picture Obama making statements, uh, like that." (Well, um, we really can't picture it either. So ...)

Josh Brown wondered if "we'are all forgetting" that Donald Trump during the campaign called the stock market a "bubble" and asserted all of the Obama-era gain was "fake" or "fraudulent" or "manipulated" by the Fed.

Brown cautioned that in a robust economic environment, people expect wage gains. "You're goin' on the inflation thing again," Judge concluded.

Siegel pointed to the jobs report and asserted "there isn't enough population growth to give us 200,000," which means the unemployment number goes lower, so at some point that wage pressure will "eat into profits" and figure into Fed policy.

Siegel also said, "Very honestly, I don't think any infrastructure is really gonna get done."

Meanwhile, Pete Najarian said financials have gone through cycles of pausing and then rising.

Pete said WDC is still "very inexpensive" despite the BMO downgrade, and "At this point in time, I disagree with this call, and I think there's more upside than downside."

But Josh Brown said he's "not a fan" because you have to "really look hard" to find a tech stock that topped out in the fall and didn't participate in the last 5 or 6 weeks. (Actually that includes INTC and PYPL, which both got robust bull calls on the show this week.) (This writer is long INTC and PYPL.)

Pete said there's opportunity in WDC, but Brown said there's an "opportunity cost" of being in falling stocks in a rising market. Pete said "if they've gone friendly now with Toshiba," he thinks the stock goes higher.

But let's get back to INTC and these tech stocks that haven't participated for weeks. Pete said heard about lack of "material financial impact" regarding the INTC flap, so the selloff "creates an opportunity." Brown said, "I'm with Pete, I'm long Intel, I think he's right." Brown said the stock has held the gap since it broke out late last year, "and I am not a seller."

We'd say that buying stocks that take hits on Internet security issues is a great idea (think EFX 91 when Karen Finerman was gloating about shorting it because of existential issues), the only problem is, sometimes the fallout lingers for a while.

Jon Najarian said someone sold January 270 SPY calls to roll up into 275s that expire in 3 weeks. He also said DWDP call buyers were rolling up into February 75s.

Pete said someone is selling January 30 BAC calls and someone's buying March 32 calls. Josh Brown said Pete has been "dead right" on big banks and noted some "bank experts" who have analyzed banks for 20-30 years (um, that would presumably be Dick Bove) have been "so pessimistic."

Jeff Kilburg said bitcoin futures are still in "price-discovery mode." He said the Merrill Lynch note about possible regulation "may push us a little bit lower." Jim Iuorio said bitcoin has been in a "remarkably tight channel" since Dec. 27 and that if it breaches "1,300" (sic corrected to 13,000), afterwards would be the "next big move to the downside." Jackie DeAngelis said "it's my lucky day" because both Iuorio and Kilburg would be joining her on Futures Now.

Doc's final trade was HAWK. Josh Brown said JPM and Pete said KO.

[Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2018]

Joe: Correction clock has 6 weeks; if not, expect another 2017

Continuing what will probably be the trend for the whole week, Halftime Report panelists on Wednesday offered renewed predictions for 2018 in stocks.

Jon Najarian said he's not calling for a 25% return in the Dow this year, but he'd be "very happy with 10 or 11."

Pete Najarian said, "We will see more volatility I would expect at least this year," and he said he agrees with Byron Wien that "we're gonna see some pullbacks too."

Doc said the president will use the "bully pulpit" to "hammer" at companies to repatriate cash.

Joe Terranova said "the opportunity for a correction is in the first 6 weeks of the year. And if you don't get it in the first 6 weeks of the year, again, you're gonna look at something very similar to 2017 where you really don't get it."

Joe also sounded incredulous about 4.0% calls on the 10-year.

Joe said "the opportunity might be" in energy if analysts start upgrading estimates.

Stephanie Link noted the meteoric recent rise of miners.

Tim Seymour on the 5 p.m. Fast Money mentioned "Ripple" by the Grateful Dead.

Joe says if IBM gets to 180, you’re gonna want to be in something else

Tackling Dow stocks on Wednesday's Halftime Report, Stephanie Link invoked a "Dogs of the Dow" strategy and mentioned CVX and INTC (despite the latter's awful day) (this writer is long INTC).

Later in the program, Link said INTC has a new CFO and is a cheap stock, so she was buying the dip.

Pete Najarian grumbled that in the Rosenblatt note on DIS, "There was almost nothing to it." Judge said the narrative is "not all about ESPN."

Pete said, "IBM, you still have to struggle to find growth." Stephanie Link questioned if IBM can re-accelerate in data analytics.

Jon Najarian noted that Warren Buffett is "jettising (sic)" IBM shares, which figures to be a "pretty big overhang." Joe Terranova said IBM at 180 means AAPL and FB well over 200 and big gains in GOOGL and AMZN.

Bringing up one of his favorite stock-market news events of the last 5 years, Judge said AXP is "way beyond the Costco fiasco."

Stephanie Link said "if you believe in consumer spending, particularly on the high end, if you think that international is gonna continue to grow," then there's opportunty for AXP. (But the thing is, those things will happen or not happen whether you believe it or not.)

Pete Najarian said AXP is half the valuation of V and MA and maybe now you want the financial exposure that you don't get with V and MA.

Stephanie Link said of UNH, "I own it small," and she's not selling, but "I own Cigna in a bigger way."

Pete trumpeted international growth for NKE (Zzzzzzzz), which got some kind of endorsement from a shop called MainFirst. Joe was the one who finally made the obligatory adidas reference. Doc said it's a "real upgrade" and not a "clowngrade."

Judge suggests companies are giving bonuses as ‘cover’ for buybacks

ORCL surfaced on Wednesday's Halftime, and Judge saw an opening to pounce on possible corporate PR shenanigans.

Stephanie Link said ORCL has been a "very frustrating" stock, but the valuation is "pretty attractive."

Judge said, "The stock performed in line with the market last year." Link said it has "absolutely lagged" relative to its peers.

Judge then suggested buybacks could be a big story and pointed to the news reports about companies handing out $1,000 bonuses. "In some respects, maybe that's a little cover. For when they buy back their shares and they don't get all that criticism because they took care of their people first," Judge said.

Pete Najarian said ORCL has been "lagging" and trumpeted MSFT, like he always does.

At least Judge didn’t have to elicit an energy-stock pick from Billy Gibbons

Pete Najarian on Wednesday's Halftime said March 75 calls in XLE were on fire.

Joe Terranova said Jeffrey Gundlach was "spot-on" with his call when Judge was in L.A. a couple weeks ago.

Jon Najarian said there's a "perfect storm for energy right now." Joe said there's also "paper asset demand."

Jeff Kilburg said oil bulls are smiling, but he sees "a little bit of a ceiling" because of ramped-up output. Scott Nations set a top at 63.30.

Judge told Kilburg, "I gotta give you props" about Notre Dame football (Zzzzzzzz).

Doc said TXN January 105 calls were getting bought. Doc said BB made an announcement with BIDU on driverless cars. Judge noted the calls were getting bought just before a big announcement. "Um, wow," Judge said.

Judge suggested an update on stock picks from early October. Doc said PAYX "continues to be a hold." Stephanie Link still owns and likes COF. Joe said he'll stay with MAR but with a "tight stop." Pete said he thinks it's time to take something off of LULU. Judge noted it's up 27% in 3 months.

Stehpanie Link said she's sticking with BMY and suggested there's "a very good chance" that PFE buys it. Doc predicted 112-115 for EA. Pete said he's "OK" holding onto KMX.

Joe noted the big day of NVDA but said the Russell hasn't opened the year as hot as big tech. Pete noted AAPL has bounced back after that battery controversy. Doc noted AMD's climb.

Pete said to give Jim Lebenthal (who wasn't on the show) a few props for GM. (Zzzzzzzz)

Joe said he disagrees with the Wells Fargo DKS upgrade, "I think there is still a lot of pressure coming from Kohl's ... This is not the next Best Buy," Joe said, predicting the stock will be range-bound from 30-35.

Doc suggested HOG could see 48.

Doc said he bought CELG during the show. Stephanie Link said she's long IBB and owns ALXN. Joe said he'll buy PYPL "at some point this afternoon. ... I'll buy it on the close ... I think this stock can go to 100." (This writer is long PYPL.)

Doc made CMCSA his final trade. Pete said V.

Pete said LEN and DHI are "still inexpensive."

[Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2017]

Brown: Stock market on
‘precipice’ of euphoria

Fresh into 2018, Tuesday's Halftime Report wasted no time in delving into semantics.

Josh Brown tackled the word "euphoria," pointing out it's "so overused" and that people were actually talking about it in 2013.

But Brown said we haven't seen it "societally" or "culturally," though he thinks "we're on the precipice of that."

Brown said if it happens, we could see "something insane" like a Dow 30,000 run this year.

Joe Terranova said in his 30 years of doing this, euphoria is measured in terms of "leverage," and he wonders where that high leverage is. Brown said, "You don't need high leverage when there is so much cash coming from every central bank in the world."

Apparently passing along a warning, Brown said a "very bright man" in Japan from Softbank is getting investor cash including from large banks and Saudi Arabia for vowing to charge the highest fees and invest in the "highest-valuation sectors."

Stephen Weiss acknowledged some "overvalued" stocks but questioned where you put money besides stocks.

Jon Najarian gushed about people with big tech holdings selling out-of-the-money calls and puts ($10 higher and lower) out in July and making "a ton of money on that trade." (Well, let's see, if they just sold those options Tuesday morning, it's kind of hard to see them NOT making money in the first few hours of the year because chances are, those underlying instruments aren't going to move $10 up or down in one half session.)

Joe said if we don't get in January or February "the long-awaited correction," then this year could be like 2017. Joe mentioned Paul Richards' assessment early last year that proved to be the Call of the Year (according to this page) for 2017 (see below; hit PgDn a few times).

Weiss makes a good point about why AMZN may not want TGT, but Judge nevertheless apparently expects a hefty premium

Stephen Weiss on Tuesday's Halftime might've bungled the beard-Tepper joke, but he did have some impressive commentary on the idea of AMZN buying TGT.

Weiss said Gene Munster's prediction is "not farfetched." But Weiss pointed out that AMZN "falls short" of having unique, premium products of its own.

"I don't know that Target gets them there for that," Weiss said.

Joe Terranova said AMZN is going to be invoked as the solution for the "real estate problem" of retailers.

Joe questioned why TGT would want to sell to AMZN anyway. Judge said "nice price." But nobody said that WFM didn't exactly break the bank on its Amazon deal.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Steve Grasso tried to make the case for AMZN buying JCP (yep, he actually said that) (snicker) on the grounds that it's a "totally different demographic" than what AMZN already has. But he admitted TGT is the "most logical way to do it." Tim Seymour said he doesn't know why AMZN needs TGT.

Weiss: United Airlines is ‘probably the worst-run consumer business I’ve ever seen’

2018 opened for trading Tuesday, and with nearly everything trading up, it seemed like a day for smiles.

Except in regard to a certain airline.

Stephen Weiss said he "waited for the year to turn" and then sold UAL, "probably the worst-run consumer business I've ever seen in my entire career (sic last 4 words redundant unless he saw worse businesses before launching a career)."

Weiss predicted a "tough time" for airlines with crude up. Later in the program, he took up the sector again, stating airlines look cheap but like the automakers could be "perennially cheap" and complained "they've added capacity when they shouldn't."

Weiss starts the year off buying ... ETFs

Kicking off 2018, Judge and the panel of Tuesday's Halftime took a look forward and a look back.

Joe Terranova started things off chuckling about all the folks who thought that because January 2016 opened horribly we just might well do that again.

Joe suggested watching the dollar.

Judge said the "setup" for 2018 appears to be "pretty darn good."

Josh Brown said "it's not uncommon" to get a double-digit S&P return the year after a big return.

Steve Weiss said there's still no "playbook" for this investment climate. He said he bought some ETFs in the mid-cap and small-cap space. (Zzzzzzzzz.)

Jon Najarian said materials have been "scorching" and noted FCX is up "another 3% today."

Doc also touted WTW as a seasonal play.

Weiss cut in to tell everyone David Tepper is texting him during the show.

Josh Brown said Barron's made a cover story of inflation, though there's not much sign of it yet.

Doc said "everybody" (basically true) predicted higher volatility in 2018, but those who bought protection at the end of the year were getting "slaughtered" on Tuesday.

Weiss said to short the 10-year. Weiss also suggested exposure to domestic infrastructure/materials stocks in the event Congress passes a bill.

Doc insists he’s not comparing MCD burgers to SHAK

Steve Weiss on Tuesday's Halftime said MCD is a story of what a CEO can do. Weiss said the company's in a "good space."

Joe Terranova said he's "concerned" about lower MCD prices (the menu, not the stock) having an effect on DNKN.

Judge mentioned the possibility of a MCD split. Jon Najarian said that would be "huge" and said MCD cleverly is now getting "2 for 3" rather than the dollar menu. (Actually we're not sure "2 for 3" is the right analysis; it sounded more like it's just 50% more, but whatever.)

Doc said MCD is "competing" against SHAK, though "I'm not saying McDonald's burger is gonna be the same Josh as a Shake Shack burger."

Josh Brown said valuation has been the argument against MCD but a losing one. He called it a "very easy hold" and would "focus only on weekly charts with this one."

It’s 2018 now

Addressing an interesting stock, Stephen Weiss on Tuesday's Halftime said LULU stores are still crowded and it still has an "unassailable" brand.

The only thing is, it looks like from the chart that 80 might be a double top, so we're not sure that one's a buy right now.

Joe Terranova said ABT will perform "in 2008" (sic). Joe said he sold SYK "just the other day," and he'd buy ABT over SYK.

Jon Najarian said BB (snicker) March 13 calls were popular. Doc said someone sold 95 MSFT July calls and sold 75 puts and "took in about $5.2 million in premium." (That's the great option trade that people were cleaning up on because clearly there won't be any volatility by July.)

Doc said WM upside calls were getting bought in the last 30 minutes; he said he still likes STZ. Josh Brown hilariously said he was waiting for Doc to do "the 5-day forecast."

Leslie Picker offered an update on Stevie Cohen. Weiss admitted, "I worked for Steve."

Doc predicted "more activity" in the DIS-NFLX space. Josh Brown said it seems Macquarie is more bullish on NFLX than DIS. Weiss said he thinks cord-cutting isn't over.

Josh Brown said 50 has twice been resistance for JWN, and "it's not a bet that I wanna take."

Brian Stutland said "there's some inflation going on," which is good for gold. Anthony Grisanti said 1,334 is the big number and said if the dollar goes lower, "gold is goin' higher."

Doc's final trade was WFC. Weiss said IUSG. Brown said SCHW and Joe said TWLO in a "small trade" going long.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Tim Seymour zinged Steve Grasso about Grasso's use of the term "elephant" during the Weight Watchers discussion, a word that figures in the early scenes of "Wall Street."

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