CNBCfix - Fast Money Review

[CNBCfix Fast Money Review Archive — January-December 2020-2019]

Ginni: ‘Perfectly lovely,’
but ‘horrendous leader’

On Friday's (1/31) Halftime Report, a lot of the discussion was about IBM, and Steve Weiss brought up a very important element of the story that so far isn't getting much attention.

"One of my daughters is in private equity, actually at Goldman, and they treat, you know, everybody equal," Weiss said. "My other daughter was in entertainment, and that- they don't do it there."

No question, probably all of us, male or female, can vouch for both situations described by Weiss.

Sometimes there are legitimate gray areas; other times it's behavior/culture that can only be described as disturbing.

As it pertains to IBM, there are 2 obvious questions: 1) Did Ginni Rometty get a fair shake as CEO, and 2) Were there any powerful factions within IBM that sought to thwart her agenda because she's a woman.

Given that she got 8 years as CEO but presided over revenue declines and poor stock performance, it seems she got more than a fair chance to succeed. As for No. 2, only IBM insiders would know for sure, but there is evidence of little things, for example, Augusta National typically installing IBM CEOs as members but not doing so for Rometty until she had been on the job for a couple of years.

On Friday's Halftime Report, Josh Brown bluntly called Rometty a "horrendous leader of this company" despite being a "perfectly lovely person."

"The board should be fired," asserted Jim Lebenthal, who thinks that "what you need to have happen is cost-cutting."

Also, Jim thinks IBM should "spin out the financing business." Toni Sacconaghi, not discussing AAPL numbers this time, suggested IBM's buybacks didn't work. "Much of the money that was returned to shareholders in hindsight should have been redirected, um, in other areas," Sacconaghi said.

As for Arvind Krishna's prospects and the opportunity to work with Jim Whitehurst, Sacconaghi said it stands to reason that eventually, Whitehurst would like to be a CEO, but who knows when that will happen. "On paper, the skills are complementary," Toni said of the two.

‘Green Monday’ possible

Tyler Matheson got the guest-host call for Friday's (1/31) Halftime Report and opened with what had to be not one of the better jokes in his arsenal: "It may be a Judge-free edition, but that doesn't mean we will not be rendering judgments on things." (Hopefully he's not planning on asking Joe about whether the S&P 500 needs tech to outperform (or however the conversation went).)

Jim Lebenthal opined that there's "noise" that may affect markets, such as a possible Bernie Sanders win in Iowa, in which case the stock market probably "throws up."

Jim said he's looking forward to these "little downdrafts" because he's got "dry powder" on the sidelines.

Josh Brown a couple times trumpeted Waymo, a business operation whose mission/existence has to be deemed questionable, stating young people have "no interest in owning cars." (We've already got something for those people. It's called a "bus.")

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Steve Grasso suggested that everyone was dumping stocks on Friday because they didn't want to be caught fully invested on Monday if Asian stocks collapse Sunday night. "I think you could see a green Monday actually," Grasso said.

Tim Seymour said it's "almost 2 years to the day" that we had the Jan. 26, 2018, blowoff top, then he said this year's selloff didn't start Friday but "I think it might've been the 26th," even though the 26th was Sunday.

In the lead-in to the 5 p.m. Fast Money on Friday, Sara Eisen said, "Go Niners."

Judge should start talking about the Super Bowl, putting together some quality analysis

The star guest of Wednesday's (1/29) Halftime Report was Toni Sacconaghi, who approaches his TV analysis of AAPL with the same enthusiasm most people have for dentistry.

Toni didn't disappoint, suggesting the muted reaction of AAPL is based on underwhelming numbers for wearables.

Frustrated, Judge faulted the theory that wearables and services weren't enough given that iPhones were strong. "I don't get it," Judge carped.

But in the show's most eye-opening commentary, Steve Weiss offered yet another Momentum Trade on BA, pivoting dramatically from his scorching remarks (see below) of a week ago.

"When I sold the position, what I said was, 'When the news flow starts to turn positive, I'll get back in'," Weiss said. "And you had the FAA for the first time Friday ... I went in and I actually put back a full position at that point, uh, and I added a little bit, on, uh, on Monday."

Well, the funny thing about that is that last week, Weiss was trashing the company's "arrogance" in its statement on the Max's "return" and complaining that David Calhoun is just part of the old management, "so they further lost credibility."

Evidently, Calhoun has regained all that "lost credibility" in 7 days, and the "news flow" is supposedly permanently postive now simply because Donald Trump ordered someone in the FAA to say nice things about Boeing. (Note: That is this page's opinion, not an established fact.)

Weiss said the Max will be "the safest plane in the airways at all."

But Judge, of all people, said Boeing is "kidding themselves" if they think people will come right back on the plane without hesitation.

That's actually not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that absolutely no one at the FAA or international regulatory agencies wants to recertify this plane and then have another incident in the next 3 years. #talkaboutnoupside,100%downside

Meanwhile, Amy Raskin said MCD's great run is "shocking," but "we missed it." Joe Terranova, who had a crisp show, said, "I wouldn't buy it here," in part because the conference call was "terrible."

Pete Najarian predicted a "very promising delivery" from FB earnings. (Oops.) (This review was posted overnight Wednesday-Thursday.)

In terms of stocks, Joe said, "I'd be more concerned about AAPL than I would Facebook." (Oops.)

Judge and Wilf Frost spoke about GS. Apparently discovering something this page has been talking about for literally years, Joe opined, "This is not the Goldman Sachs of the past. It's never going back there. I thought potentially it would be."

Hmmmmm. He thought "potentially" it would start chucking the "fortress balance sheet" that Mike Mayo claims is such a positive for banks and "potentially" start taking risk and leverage in trading?

"Goldman Sachs is gonna have checking accounts," Joe added.

Weiss claimed that CEOs wondering why their stocks aren't higher will be going to Goldman Sachs. (Where they will be told to launch a streaming service.) "For that reason alone, the stock's goin' up," Weiss claimed.

Not mentioned on the show is Stephanie’s I’d-buy-WYNN-right-now call on Jan. 21

Judge on Tuesday's (1/28) Halftime Report tried to pit panelists on either side of Jim Cramer (who supposedly said not to trust the day's bounce) and Steve Weiss (who said you can buy).

Joe Terranova tried to explain his own interpretation of those calls, only to get ramrodded by Judge into making a binary call. Joe eventually said there's "tactical risk" in stocks at this time, but if you buy, you won't get burned 6 months from now.

"This market is about who's out there buying," explained Kari Firestone.

Shannon Saccocia declared that if you're looking at emerging markets, it's "a good time to buy there."

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Karen Finerman said "I'm surprised the market did this well" on Tuesday after a dicey economic report in the morning. Karen said that for the market to accelerate higher, it'll take names such as the FAANGs to participate.

Sully said a Wells Fargo analyst recently called EBAY a "melting ice cube."

Stephanie’s ‘buy WYNN’ call on Jan. 21 looks like an instant bust

Just about everyone on CNBC who has been asked to comment on the China virus insists it will fade and only have a short-lived effect on the financial markets.

It seems some of those comments might've been overly optimistic.

It was a week ago on the Jan. 21 Halftime Report when Stephanie Link got our attention, stating, "I would buy WYNN today."

That day, WYNN traded north of $140. It was $123.89 as of the close of Monday's (1/27) trading.

Curiously, the shares had been rocketing higher since mid-December, only to turn on a dime. So there's no reason to think it can't recover in a short time.

Of course, we want people on the show to assess stock markets in real time and make trading calls.

This one appears to be a bit early.

Guy Adami suggests 737 Max getting recertified by mid-year is like himself being drafted by the New York Giants

Friday's (1/24) Halftime Report started off once again with 1999 comparisons, and Josh Brown apparently had had enough.

Brown told Judge, "All those 1999 comparisons, I don't want to embarrass anyone, but a really quick Google search and you will find some of the same people making some of the same statements in 2013."

That's just a start. In the last 10 years, we've heard all the biggies — 1937/1987/1998/1999/2000/2008/2011 — more times than we can count. (Not to mention Carl Icahn's famous "Day of Reckoning," which Judge took as if handed down like the Ten Commandments.)

Things got testy between Brown and Jim Lebenthal after Joe Terranova said he thinks the Fed may "address" asset inflation and Brown agreed. Jim kept saying he agrees with Brown that the Fed may act if stocks go down, but the Fed won't take a robust market and "knock it down."

Meanwhile, Jim said if China trade is to pick up, then Caterpillar must be "on the balls (snicker) of its feet" as far as guidance.

The 5 p.m. Fast Money crew on Friday took a crack at Boeing's reversal on the curiously positive FAA comments, which prompted Steve Grasso to suggest a "conspiracy" involving a "phone call" from Donald Trump to the FAA from Davos.

It's "a little too early to jump back into Boeing right now," Grasso opined.

Guy Adami joked about his own "potential" for being selected in the NFL Draft.

Tim Seymour said Boeing recently has been making "exceedingly penditent- (sic) penitent" statements, which flies in the face of what BA seller Steve Weiss has been saying all week.

Seymour actually said, "I think Boeing has done everything that they can do since this crisis turned into a change of- of- of- C-suite."

Karen Finerman offered, "The best thing that can happen for Boeing is certainty."

Finerman said China-related stocks that are selling off over the coronavirus, such as Yum China, are oversold and represent opportunity. "I really think this will blow over very quickly. I don't think this will turn into a worldwide contagion at all," Finerman said.

NFLX was up again Friday, for those wondering about Doc's "big" short.

Doc apparently got manhandled
on ‘big’ Netflix short

A day earlier on the Halftime Report, Jon Najarian trumpeted his "big" short of NFLX, only to get tripped up by fellow panelists after citing a curious rationale (it was either blowout numbers and weak stock reaction, or bad numbers in India and weak stock reaction, we're note sure).

On Thursday (1/23), that "big" short had to be gasping for air as NFLX took off to the tune of 7% higher.

The thing is, Judge on Thursday never even brought it up. (But as Doc says, the one thing Judge does is hold everyone to account.)

Sully on the 5 p.m. Fast Money asked Dan Nathan what Nathan thought of NFLX. Nathan said Thursday's gain was "a little bit of a short squeeze."

Karen Finerman suggested NFLX might've gained on the Comcast report. Sully seemed to endorse that notion, but Nathan didn't.

Back to the Halftime Report. Steve Weiss keeps talking about how he trimmed ADBE because "the position got way too big for me." (Handy note for viewers: Stocks don't care how large your position size is relative to the rest of your portfolio.)

Judge griped that Joe Terranova gave a "long-winded answer" to whether LULU is a buy.

Jon Najarian referred to Anastasia Amoroso as (first name) "Amorosa (sic ending in "a")." Later, Judge referred to "Sarah in Houston, Texan (sic)."

Joe: NFLX no longer
belongs in FA(A)NG

There must've been something in the air Wednesday (1/22), because both the Halftime Report and Fast Money delivered some of their best programming in months.

The Halftime Report led off with another go-round on whether this is 1999, a subject quickly getting stale, but things eventually kicked into overdrive when Jon Najarian trumpeted having a "big" short of NFLX, and basically ended up getting tripped up by his colleagues' savvy knowledge of the numbers.

Doc said the "alternative data that we cite all the time now" indicated "it was gonna be a bad quarter for Netflix."

But, Doc said, "They blew out the numbers. This earnings report and the reaction to it tells you everything you need to know."

He said he's short NFLX "big" and even revealed that he called the show's producer about it a day earlier.

He insisted NFLX could break $300 on this latest earnings report.

Najarian told Steve Weiss that the data showed "international in particular was going down," but Weiss said "it went up."

Najarian said India was supposed to be big but wasn't. Weiss said various international markets can be up and down at the same time, and overall, "Foreign blew it out."

Judge apparently had one of his producers summon Mark Cuban, a known NFLX bull, and Cuban was available to talk around the 33-minute mark. Cuban said he's not selling a share and cited several reasons, including "They always offer weak guidance" and that the $145 billion market cap is "legitimate" for the world's 2nd-best media company, also, being "global," and that "all the trends are going in their favor moreso than their competitors," including being able to dub international programs rather than subtitling them, also that Netflix is an "ubiquitous" option on all new TVs and even in gym equipment.

Definitely, we're not seeing a pressing short case as Najarian suggests. Could the stock slide for 6 months? Sure. Did Cuban identify any kind of catalyst? No. But a disaster doesn't seem in the cards right now.

The best criticism of the stock came not from Najarian but Weiss, who correctly pointed out that the content deals NFLX is handing out are "nuts." (Even this site is thinking of asking Reed Hastings for money ...)

After Cuban's call ended, Weiss said to Doc, "I don't know why you're relying on your data when your data was wrong this quarter."

"It wasn't wrong! It wasn't wrong!," Doc insisted. "I said India in particular Steve, and I published it."

Doc insisted the report was "blowout numbers," but Judge said "the subs missed by almost 200K."

"The blowout is the bottom-line numbers," Doc said, then he mentioned how people share passwords to spread NFLX around their friends and families, something that's been going on for a decade.

Joe Terranova, meanwhile, offered a middle-ground approach and some eloquent commentary, stating both NFLX shorts and longs will be disappointed with the stock. He said it's "no longer that hypergrowth stock that it was in years prior," adding it "doesn't belong" in the FAANG group anymore.

Judge asked Cuban if he has an opinion on ROKU. Cuban said he thought about buying it late last year, but "I kicked myself" for not doing so. Cuban said the key for ROKU is figuring out what happens beyond hardware given that today's TVs include the types of features that are accessed on ROKU boxes. (This writer is long ROKU.)

Joe on 10/9 correctly called market a ‘coiled spring’ (though backed off a bit later); Tom Lee was right about ‘fireworks’ on Nov. 1

In the "Space: 1999" part of Wednesday's (1/22) Halftime, Judge again kept hinting that this is 1999, but nobody was really buying it.

Joe Terranova offered, "I'm thinking to myself (and now everyone else), the biggest risk possibly is not that it's '99, that maybe it's '18. Maybe it's 2018. And maybe next week, the Federal Reserve looks at all of this and sees that the only inflation out there is in asset prices. That's the only pure inflation that you can find. And what do they message to the market at that point. If they're messaging something that's going to signal a little bit of a different shift, then I think you'll look at a softening in asset prices."

"Yeah. We'll see. I don't know. I don't know if we'll go that far," Judge said, basically dismissing a valid and relevant observation.

Judge brought in Liz Ann Sonders, who said "I think we are seeing some similarities to what we saw in the beginning of 2018," and when she and Jim Cramer said it, Judge apparently thought that was just ducky.

"I think sentiment has clearly gotten stretched here," Sonders said.

Joe could've been a bit more specific. If the market swoons, these are the likely reasons: 1) Unexpected developments in the impeachment trial and/or a second impeachment; 2) Donald Trump rants on Twitter about levying new tariffs on China; 3) Donald Trump rants on Twitter about levying new tariffs on Europe; 4) Jerome Powell gives a lengthy interview to someone somewhere; 5) Bernie Sanders or Liz Warren leads the polls.

Basically, the market seems stretched, but it's not like when $300 Internet stocks were going up $55 in a day in 1999, and whatever bloating happens in the future, they won't ever do that 1999 thing again, because all those people who got burned are never going to overpay for these stocks again, etc. etc. etc.

Steve Weiss said BA can go to 250 as easily as 350. (That's fine, but that's not what he thought in December; see below.)

Karen: Boeing will ‘have to change the name’ of 737 Max

Wednesday's (1/22) 5 p.m. Fast Money, guest-hosted by Sully (who said "unfortunately" he's been doing this for 20 years and clarified he meant "unfortunately" in that he's getting older), delivered several crisp observations about the Boeing Crisis, even if Tim Seymour once again was allowed to speak on this subject with no apparent end.

Basically, our inference from the conversation is that Boeing is uninvestable.

Karen Finerman stated, "I don't know, I mean, you have to make some bet on when do you think this 737 Max will actually be flying, and then how quickly do they ramp up, and how damaged is the brand, right, and how much do they have to discount the planes going forward. I don't know. I don't know the answers to any of that, and I think that Boeing doesn't know the answers to any of that yet. ... So I don't know. Still the valuation's kinda rich."

"I think you have more pain to come," offered Steve Grasso.

Sully said "the next level of the story" is air travelers booking flights and looking up which planes are available and choosing 9 a.m. A320 flights instead of 7 a.m. 737 Max flights.

Sully was heard to say "when and if the plane goes back into service."

Karen Finerman brought up the branding problem. "They have to change the name, right," Karen said.

Grasso said, "That'll be a whole another PR nightmare."

Weiss says beginning of BA statement indicates company’s arrogance

While we took in Tuesday's (1/21) Halftime Report (see below), perhaps the most cutting commentary of the day came from Steve Weiss, about Boeing, a couple hours later on Wilfred Frost's Closing Bell.

"Here's the statement from the company," Weiss said. "I'll just read you the first few words. 'As we have emphasized, the FAA and other global reg- regulators will determine when the 730 Sac- 737 Max returns to service.' That's an I-told-you-so statement, as we have emphasized. They're in no position to be that arrogant. Now you've got a new CEO there, who I maintain is part of the old CEO group, 'cause he was on the board for 10 years and he sat next to, uh, to the old CEO, right, to Dennis, when he went on the apology tour and said we're gonna get approval in December. So they further lost credibility."

Well, first of all, we don't disagree with Weiss' take at all. See, this is Boeing's strategy: Keep implying the plane is safe and should be approved already, and maybe regulators — who have no idea if this is a software glitch or some fundamental design flaw — will take them up on it.

But secondly, given Weiss' complaint that management hasn't changed, it's odd that on Dec. 20 (see below), he was heard making this bull case on the Halftime Report: "What I come back to, is, that, the Max will be back in the air. And we know that it'll be back in the air next year, or, there's good reason to believe that, but the decks have been cleared. So it's been kitchen-sinked. ... It's a clean, clean slate."

The only "clean slate" would be either 1) the stock is priced as if no 737 Maxes ever fly passengers again or 2) the 737 Maxes have been flying passengers again for the last 5 years.

Anything in between those extremes is not even close to "kitchen-sinked."

It’s Favorite Year Time again

Judge on Tuesday's (1/21) Halftime Report sounded obsessed with 1999.

He opened up airing clips of Paul Tudor Jones at Davos drawing comparisons of the current stock market to "early '99."

But Josh Brown said, "You just don't see that form of euphoria out there in the market."

Jim "CapEx" Lebenthal said comparisons to late 1999 or 2000 are "off the mark." Judge at one point noted that Jones never said "late" 1999.

Jim again talked about business investment. Judge skeptically questioned if "you're gonna bank on that" this late in the cycle. "You better get it," Jim insisted.

Joe Terranova indicated he doesn't want to be last one out. "I am trimming equity exposure for the better part of the last month," Joe said, asserting that such a move signifies "you know what, this isn't '99."

Judge though said it signals Joe might be getting nervous about where the market has come, which apparently goes back to the 1999 thing (see the chicken-and-egg problem here?).

Jim tried to point to SLB (snicker) as an example of where money is going or not going.

"I would buy WYNN today," said Stephanie Link.

Bill Nygren, a famed investor and always a quality guest, said AAPL used to be a bargain last year but now trades at a "pretty significant premium," which is why he's trimming.

Judge noted David Einhorn's increased short (snicker) position in NFLX. Josh Brown said he thinks Einhorn is right. "There's no scarcity," Brown said. "There is just an infinite supply of things that people can pay attention to now."

Of course, longer term, Brown is correct, but we're skeptical NFLX is a short at this time. It needs either a crashing market or a Qwikster debacle, something like that.

In a bit of hyperbole, Joe Terranova said this quarter is the most important for NFLX "in the last several years."

Judge looks to viewer tweets for guidance on how to run program (except during Donald’s White House remarks)

Well, there's something about real-time feedback.

Judge on Friday's (1/17) Halftime Report basically admitted that he referees the program based on what he's watching on Twitter feeds.

Once again on Friday, Josh Brown was in the middle of it, trying to prevent Jim Lebenthal and possibly Steve Weiss from airing any point he might disagree with on the strength of the stock market.

After everyone started talking about AAPL at the same time, Judge said, "Hang on a second. Hold on, OK. Hold on just one second. I'm gonna say this, and I'm gonna say this for the last time today, OK. Our viewers on Twitter are telling me what I tell you all the time: Just make your points individually, OK. If you argue with each other, over each other, no one can understand anything, including me. OK? Please."

Well, here's the funny thing about that. Judge apparently paid no attention to the Twittersphere while committing what will surely be his Programming Bungle of the Year on Wednesday — airing 25 minutes of Donald Trump introducing everyone he knows at the China trade deal signing.

Aside from how ridiculous it was hearing this spree of introductions on national television, at one point, the president of the United States was trying to find someone (Ken Griffin) who obviously wasn't even there. Heard on CNBC, and reported in this account, Donald Trump said Griffin was "trying to hide some of his money," accounting for his absence. "Where are you, Ken? Where the hell is he? He's trying to hide some of his money. Look he doesn't want to stand up. Where the hell is Ken? ... He's very quiet about it. He's in here someplace, he just doesn't want to stand."

A Citadel spokeswoman "said only that Griffin didn't attend the event."

The only commentary in the show about the presentation of Trump's remarks came from Richard Fisher, who opined, "He's introduced everybody in America. Absolutely remarkable." Panelists chuckled, and that was it.

IF he was determined to air it, Judge should've pointed out this ghastly, indulgent, embarrassing speech is the government we've got, and he could've asked Joe Terranova, "Is this the fellow we're supposed to take seriously but not literally?"

Instead, Joe "Seriously but not Literally" Terranova said he found Donald Trump's comments on Kevin Warsh "very interesting."

No one's asking the show to take political potshots. (There are lots of issues — tons actually — with leading Democrats.) The issue is, this event has been viewed as very significant by the financial markets, thus, shouldn't someone on the Halftime Report have wondered aloud, "If this is supposedly a seminal, 'momentous' event in American business/economic history, and there's a lot more work to be done, why does the president have an hour or more to josh around with his friends about how bad the impeachment process is?"

Meanwhile, on Friday, Josh Brown protested that this isn't a typical momentum market but rather "one of the slowest-moving markets" with remarkably low volatility that we've seen in a long time. (Well, at current pace, the Dow will finish 2020 up about 90%; so much for "slowest-moving.")

Once again, for the umpteenth day in a row, the panel pointed out that AAPL has benefitted from multiple expansion. "Tim Cook got paid down last year 'cause he missed his targets," said Steve Weiss.

Weiss revealed he sold "most of" his BA stake, citing as his first reason, "It uses too much capital (snicker)." This is weeks/months after this page pointed out, long before anyone on the show would mention it (that would be Karen Finerman late last year), that's it's within the realm of possibility that the 737 Max is not recertified. Shannon Saccocia and Jim Lebenthal nevertheless defended the stock. "I'm fatigued too," Jim admitted. So what happens to the stock if all the 737 Maxes in existence do not fly again. There's your bottom. (As always, this page hopes the plane is recertified but is also dealing with trading reality.)

Judge said of the Tennessee Titans, "I wouldn't bet against 'em."

We would.

On Thursday's (1/16) Halftime, Jenny Harrington called the TSLA bull case "cuckoo."

"Here's my prediction on Tesla. In 10 or 15 years, this ends up being a Harvard Business School case study on group think and lemming mentality that drove it up. Because there is nothing but fumes behind that," Harrington said. "This is just cuckoo."

Have a peaceful holiday weekend.

Pete Najarian might be candidate for Pro Football Hall of Fame

Much of Wednesday's (1/15) Halftime Report was eaten up by Donald Trump's introductions (admit it, even though he had sheets of paper in front of him, he outperformed in saying nice things about so many people) and concluded with Judge chiding Pete Najarian for sloughing off Target's rocky holiday season as no big deal.

Guy Adami on the 5 p.m. Fast Money said that, given TGT's meteoric rise, Wednesday's setback seems mild.

Karen Finerman (Mr. Karen was on Closing Bell earlier) was "definitely disappointed" in TGT's report and said she'll buy more stock later. She said the Street overreacted on Wednesday "a little bit," but she wants to see it "settle in a little bit."

Karen also pointed out that AMZN is a long ways from her wanting to buy it, in terms of P.E., of course.

Karen also straightened out guest-host Sully on what he means by "money flowing in" to ETFs.

Given that the Pro Football Hall of Fame has opened the floodgates in this 100th league year, and that some people seem to be gaining entry because of their post-playing performance on television, we gotta wonder when Pete Najarian will get the call.

Does anyone honestly care whether this administration labels China a ‘currency manipulator’?

Given that the "e" word is starting to creep into this market, we weren't the least bit surprised on Monday's (1/13) Halftime Report when a certain year came up.

Rob Sechan offered, "What's interesting about the discussion around tech is it reminds me of something 20 years ago, in March of 2000. There is almost nothing that can derail the positive energy and the complacency that's been built around this sector."

Hmmmm. That sounds like sorta calling a significant top.

"There's no comparison to 2000," insisted Josh Brown, who noted the billions being made by tech giants now, but Sechan pointed out that CSCO was making gobs of money in 2000.

"When a sector breaks down, a sector breaks down," Sechan said. Nevertheless, "I'm not calling for that," he added.

Judge noticed that Sechan apparently — for reasons we can't fathom — wanted viewers to know that his shop isn't exactly aboard the Silicon Valley gravy train.

"Our firm is officially underweight tech because of valuation," Sechan admitted, apparently since December.

That's fine, except Rob had us scratching our heads when he noted the ongoing tech rally and explained, "We have not been able to participate in that and have chosen not to participate in that because of the enormous gains that our clients have in some of those positions."

We were trying to figure out how that works. If you already have "enormous gains," then you'd be achieving even more enormous gains, unless you sold, in which case "clients have" should be "clients had," and according to the timing of that call, they would've unloaded in December and taken the tax hit now.

It kind of reminds us of one of Karen Finerman's favorite quotes, that stocks don't care what your basis is.

Summoned to opine from the NYSE, Mike Santoli was also in the mood to invoke a year, stating the market is at "peak happiness," or the same type of deal as late January 2018.

But he too, like Sechan, thinks the good times might not be over.

"What's different is the cadence" of 2020 vs. 2018, Santoli said.

Joe Terranova said HES has a "high correlation to the price of oil." (Historically, he likes to say it's "tethered" to the price of oil.)

Dan Nathan said on the 5 p.m. Fast Money, guest-hosted by Sully, "This feels so much like January in 2018."

‘Corporate income inequality’

Judge's star guest for Wednesday's (1/8) Halftime Report was the Rolling Bear Market dude who no longer sees a Rolling Bear Market.

He sees EVERY kind of market and has price targets to match. (See chart below.)

All 3 of Judge's panelists, Steve Weiss, Jim Lebenthal and Kari Firestone, scratched their heads in wonderment at what exactly this fellow's market call is.

At one point, this fellow insisted that year-end price targets don't really mean anything and that he's interested in the near-term. Weiss wondered why then is he talking about 2021.

Kari summed it up better than anyone, telling this dude, "But it sounds like you want to be both bullish and bearish."

"A 3,000 number is bearish, however you cut it, and it's hard for individuals to time that," Kari added.

"We're not asking people to time it," this fellow said.

OK.

He also claimed there's something in the world called "corporate income inequality" (snicker).

And when he said the phrase "potential harbinger of multiple contraction," he pronounced the 2nd word with a hard "g."

Elsewhere on the program, Judge badgered Toni Sacconaghi with "catch-up" taunting. Toni eventually stated, "Nothing goes to the moon forever."

Judge got really excited about the spike in GRUB.

Grandpa Guy Adami on the 5 p.m. Fast Money was grumbling again about the Fed's balance sheet.

‘Barron’s Roundtable’
boasts a pair of Jacks

For the first time in a long time, this site is adding a new feature: A review of the Barron's Roundtable weekend TV show.

Mostly a preview of the Barron's print publication, it's about 21 minutes of programming that airs multiple times on Fox Business over weekends.

How are they doing? Click here.

Judge heard ‘good stuff’ 4 times, including twice in the final minute

It's not Jan. 2, but Monday (1/6) is basically the beginning of the new trading year, when stock pros fully return from vacation and assess the investing climate, and on the Halftime Report, it was actually Steve Weiss who was leading the market's cheers.

Weiss said Iran tension won't derail the market; "We've seen it so many times before."

Jim Lebenthal kept warning about this situation or that situation and is still clinging to his theory of "capex expansion" guiding the market and indicated he wants to see that companies are on "the balls (snicker) of their feet."

But Weiss said the first quarter is a "gimme" or "throwaway."

Jim said, "I've got like 7% cash."

Eventually, Judge scoffed at Jim's "hypotheticals" in favor of discussing new ratings on bank stocks (Zzzzzzz).

Weiss said he added to UAL; he found that when booking airfare, "The prices are outta sight."

Joe Terranova claimed that NVDA was outperforming other semis on Monday "because the money wasn't in Nvidia." Weiss said NVDA has had a "monstrous" move higher.

Joe also said lousy IPOs from last year were doing well on Monday; "the market is, is reallocating," he said.

Judge said Mike Wilson "wouldn't be surprised to see a modest correction in the S&P." Now that's a real call with conviction: A Wall Street analyst who wouldn't be surprised by a "modest correction."

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Grandpa Guy Adami wondered, as he basically always does, if the stock market is "whistling past the graveyard."

Karen Finerman said it's "astounding" and "amazing" that the market only had one down day, and one day of an oil spike, over the Gen. Soleimani bombing.

The CNBCfix playoff forecast:
A rematch of Super Bowl I

It's back.

It's the toughest contest in pro football prognosticating, and you'll only find it here.*

(*OK, you can probably find it in other places too.)

This page for much of the decade has attempted to pick the NFL playoff picture, from beginning to end, with all the picks including the Super Bowl made before the wild-card weekend starts.

Why is that so difficult? Because if we miss on the wild-card games, it can really screw up the brackets.

Last year, during a frenetic holiday season, to our regret, we simply ran out of time for this important procedure. This year, we've been champin' at the bit since the end of that SF-Seattle game last Sunday.

With no further ado ... (This was posted early morning Friday, Jan. 3, 2020) ...

Buffalo beats Houston: The Texans are not to be taken seriously at this level of football.
New England beats Tennessee: A close game, but this won't end the Brady era.
Minnesota beats New Orleans: The Vikings are the team nobody wants to play.
Seattle beats Philadelphia: The Eagles can barely tie their own shoes.

Minnesota beats San Francisco: First NO, then SF — just like 1987.
Baltimore beats Buffalo: This one is beyond the Bills' reach.
Kansas City beats New England: "Have you played your last game?"
Green Bay beats Seattle: For whatever reason, it's Rodgers' year.

Kansas City beats Baltimore: They are so over last year's AFCC loss.
Green Bay beats Minnesota: Vikes can do a lot of damage, but not this much.

Green Bay beats Kansas City: Even without Max McGee.

As always around here: Happy New Year, and HAPPY TRADING!

We got ‘Good stuff’ at least twice from Judge on 1st trading day of the year

On Thursday's (1/2) Halftime Report ... hours before the trading day ended in a way that gets people thinking about the "e" word ... which was hours before Donald Trump's latest Middle East decision probably will spur half of CNBC's Friday morning pundits to use the term "geopolitical" (this review was posted overnight Thursday/Friday) ... Jon Najarian indicated it's a good time to sell.

"I did take a lot of profits today in a lot of stocks," Doc told Judge. "Because the calendar turned over!"

Doc singled out LVS and WYNN and then some other Chinese tech names.

Doc also pointed out that selling on Thursday means no tax gains to report until April 2021, as opposed to April 2020.

The show had barely taken flight when Josh Brown gushed, "Emerging markets is up double what the S&P is up on the day."

Opting not to restate to Judge his views on technology and the S&P 500, Joe "Seriously but not literally (except when tweeting about Argentina steel tariffs)" Terranova brought up the fact he and Judge recently tangled over whether Charlie Scharf has been visible enough (snicker) in the investment community. Judge a couple times pointed out that Baird sees "an extended timetable" for Scharf to turn around WFC. Everyone seemed to agree that WFC is wallowing in its political problems.

With the practically parabolic move in stocks on Thursday afternoon, Thursday's 5 p.m. Fast Money crew was a bit sharper to the point.

Steve Grasso, who in the past week has suggested stocks might be short-term toppy, said Thursday was just like the last couple months but, "Beware of a selloff Q1."

Karen Finerman said AAPL was up on "no news," and "that's scary to me ... I hate when the market moves like this."

Karen also shrugged about the China trade deal. "We may never know what's in it," Karen said.

The story of 2019: ‘Good stuff’
vs. ‘Gotta leave it there’

On Tuesday's (12/31) year-ending Halftime Report, a program that could've been subtitled "Josh gets to talk as long as he wants," Judge announced some "big news" — that Josh Brown is selling TWTR.

Judge said to Brown, "You have more than a million followers."

Honestly ... this isn't meant as a slam ... we find that a little hard to believe ... does anyone think there are actually 1.09 million people out there who are reading Josh Brown's Twitter feed every day?

Judge suggested FB is the only social media stock you can own. Jim Lebenthal actually mentioned "LinkedIn," first time we've heard that $26 billion argument — though it was hardly an argument — for MSFT in months if not years.

You'd think a Dec. 31 program would be a happy, breezy program, but Judge and Joe Terranova had other ideas when the subject of the impact of technology on the S&P 500 came up.

Joe asserted that 2019 "is about technology." Judge countered that "technology is not the only thing that worked, though."

Joe questioned, "What outperformed the S&P besides technology?"

Judge then asked Joe if he's "only" buying technology in 2020. Joe said no.

After Josh Brown spoke, Joe told Judge, "You're misunderstanding. I am saying, that if technology does not perform, the S&P is not going higher. That's what I'm saying."

"OK, well you didn't say that," Judge snapped. "You didn't say that. Say it clearly now."

"I said it before," Joe insisted, before continuing on with energy's "potential," actually claiming there's "tremendous excitement" in the sector in the last 30 days.

Hate to say it, but that's a reach; Steve Weiss (who wasn't on the show Tuesday) is the only one pointing this out, basically we'd add that energy sucks, this is a disaster of a sector, and if the only "bottom" is from its appearance on decade's-worst lists, then that's not a bottom.

(At least Joe didn't say "geographly.")

Josh Brown talked about getting interested in energy because of its laughable 10-year return. The only problem is, you could've said the same thing a year ago.

Josh Brown said you don't need a recovery in energy for the stocks to work, you need a recovery in "sentiment." (Actually, you need to know that crude doesn't tumble below $40 anytime soon, something we're not exactly confident about and something Judge won't discuss.)

Jim Lebenthal claimed he told Jim Cramer a month ago that energy (snicker) was going to do what financials did 6 months ago.

As far as chips, Jim said he's "playin' it safe" with INTC because it's lower beta (snicker) than others

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Karen Finerman, devastating in black, said energy is "somewhat of a disaster," and so are parts of retail, which she finds somewhat interesting.

As for 2020, Karen said, "To me, the biggest question mark is, who ends up being president."

Karen and Guy Adami congratulated Missy Lee on the biggest CNBC story of 2019: Mel gave birth to healthy twins! (See our home page.)

Jim’s curious ROKU advice

On Monday's (12/30) Halftime Report, Joe Terranova said it makes sense that we'd get a correction in the next couple of months, there's "validity in that assertion (snicker) (just the general formality of the phrase)."

Then Joe said that it's important "having diversification geographly-wise (sic) in the emerging markets, in Europe."

"Geographically. I'm helpin' ya out there," Judge said.

That was the entertainment portion of the show. The head-scratcher came a bit later, when Jim Lebenthal was asked to explain his sale of ROKU. (This writer is long ROKU.)

"The momentum has been lost in this name," Jim said, explaining that while he made money in this stock, he had gotten out of his "lane" in trading it.

"I'm not gonna trade ROKU anymore," Jim concluded.

See, that's interesting, because nearly 2 weeks ago (Dec. 17, to be precise), on a day ROKU closed at $135.28, Jim decided that "the next 5% determines what we do."

Jim said that if ROKU falls by 5%, sell the stock, and "if it goes up, it's clear sailing from here."

Well, a 5% gain from that day would be $142, and in fact, ROKU not only crossed $142 on Dec. 24 and Dec. 26 ... it even reached $149.

But it's been down for 2 straight days, so it's not "clear sailing," and Jim doesn't want it.

So it's a Momentum Trade ... like basically all of the advice on the program, unfortunately.

Basically, these calls are just like someone watching the NFL Network's RedZone and rooting for whichever team is about to score the touchdown.

Meanwhile, Jenny Harrington offered rarely heard praise for Mark Zuckerberg on privacy/data concerns, asserting that Facebook's CEO "did a really good job just taking the bull by the horns, addressing it ... People are gonna beat me up for this, but like, I think he was pretty genuine, and pretty, pretty earnest and forthright."

"I'm sorry, but you can make- you can make an argument- that's a little bit much I think," groused Grandpa Judge.

Grandpa Jim Lebenthal said he takes "the other side" of the notion that FB regulatory issues don't matter now.

Jenny, who was striking at Post 9, was heard saying "Debbie Downer" when Judge abruptly returned from a commercial.

Boeing almost surely has been doing a full-court lobbying offensive on Congress, FAA, White House since March 2019/October 2018; FAA apparently has had enough

Well, whaddaya know ... this page on Friday 12/20 (hit PgDn a couple times) stated that before there's a 737 Max recertification, there will have to be management change ... and then on Monday 12/23, we have management change. (No, we didn't know it would happen that fast.)

Phil LeBeau said on Monday's Halftime that the "final straw" in Dennis Muilenburg's tenure was the "deterioration of the relationship between Boeing and the FAA."

We have absolutely no inside information on this subject, but Boeing is a conservative company, and there's little doubt here that a massive lobbying operation has surely been under way since March 2019 or even October 2018, targeting members of Congress, the FAA and the White House, reminding them all that this is a crown jewel American company with 150,000 jobs ... and then there was also a public pressure campaign, to keep declaring a short-term window for recertification as if the FAA would say, "Gee, airlines and the public are expecting this by year-end, we better certify it" ... but the problem is that nobody wants to be the person to say the Max is OK to fly and then have to deal with the possibility of another accident, and after gentle hints, the FAA finally got sick of it and said so in an email two weeks ago.

Phil said David Calhoun has even been calling airlines, something Dennis Muilenburg somehow hadn't been doing. (Which makes one wonder, what HAS he been doing.)

"This is a change in tenor that is long overdue at Boeing," Phil explained.

Judge sort of shrugged, "In some respects, it's a- it's a cosmetic move at least in the near-term, obviously."

Moments later, Jim got a chance. "This is not a cosmetic change. I've just gotta stress that," Jim said.

Judge protested that he only used that term in regard to the "next few days."

"What he does change is investor relations," Jim asserted.

Jim called the Muilenburg ousting "a little bit consequential," and "I've decided to buy some for clients who are underinvested there."

Despite the reporting by Phil and the opining by Judge and Jim, no one is addressing a simple conundrum: 1) If the plane is safe, why isn't it flying now; 2) if it's not safe, then don't we have a huge problem here; and 3) if we don't know if the plane is safe, then see No. 2.

Jim & Weiss don’t get it — if the plane is safe now, why isn’t it back in the air? (a/k/a the slate won’t even be partly clean or ‘kitchen-sinked’ until there’s management change)

We had no idea that Gen. Chuck Yeager had joined the panel of Friday's (12/20) Halftime Report.

Rather than just picking momentum stocks, Steve Weiss and Jim Lebenthal tried to demonstrate expertise in another field — aviation regulation.

Weiss told Judge at the top of the show, "What I come back to, is, that, the Max will be back in the air. And we know that it'll be back in the air next year, or, there's good reason to believe that, but the decks have been cleared. So it's been kitchen-sinked. ... It's a clean, clean slate."

We noticed in particular that Weiss said "we know" and "there's good reason to believe" ... and we wondered, how do "we know" anything about this subject, and how is there "good reason" to draw any kind of investment conclusions?

Jim, apparently also with an inside track to the FAA, stated, "We don't know when it's coming back into service. But I think we can say with some degree of confidence, it will come back into service, right. The FAA is movin' along on this. If I had to guess, this is an early March time frame that we start flyin' this thing again."

Judge, who has been out to lunch on this subject like Robert Redford in "3 Days of the Condor," at least pointed out to Jim that even United Airlines is saying June, not "early March."

Jim responded by stating that, "It's not like the first flight is United going from, you know, Miami to New York."

Judge stated, "I'm talkin' about flights."

Jim continued that the June time frame is "probably right" (how he knows that, who knows ... weren't people saying last summer that year-end 2019 was probably right?) and added, "There's another aspect to this that is a reason why this thing can't go on much longer which is that Boeing is a very critical part of the U.S. economy."

Finally, Jim suggested the FAA maybe needs to get off its duff. "Eventually, the FAA has to realize, OK, we're slow-walking this for safety reasons. That's good. But don't slow-walk it forever. Get it back in there. If it's safe," Jim said.

Weiss actually implied the 737 Max hasn't been recertified because of "other priorities" at the FAA. (Gee, guess there were a lot of other bigger developments in U.S. aviation last year than just the 737 Max.)

Weiss stated, "With Trump's call, you've taken the slack out of the system. So any delays that were gonna be there because the FDA- FAA had other priorities, those are gone. So right now, it's more of a move, 'OK what do we have to do?' They're not gonna slow walk where they don't have to. So I continue to like it."

Weiss asked the question, "OK what do we have to do?" This page has already told Weiss and the Halftime crew and our loyal readers what the FAA has to do. What it has to do is find a CYA. These FAA (and foreign) folks are not going to certify this plane until they are sure that they won't feel morally or legally responsible if another accident happens.

As this page has said numerous times, the country and world need this plane safely back in the air.

We wish it were simple. It's not. Not even close. It's a psychological disaster.

You have a company, throughout these tragedies, sort of insisting A) there was nothing really wrong with these planes and B) we've fixed anything that's wrong on these planes.

How does the FAA know that the 737 Max will not crash again? Well, Boeing keeps saying it won't. Boeing's statement on the Lion Air crash said "the 737 MAX is as safe as any airplane that has ever flown the skies" and also suggests a possible pilot mistake: "Unlike as is stated with respect to the prior flight, the report does not state whether the pilots performed the runaway stabilizer procedure or cut out the stabilizer trim switches." A statement after the Ethiopian Airlines crash says, "The United States Federal Aviation Administration is not mandating any further action at this time, and based on the information currently available, we do not have any basis to issue new guidance to operators."

Just a commonsense observation ... It's very, very hard to believe the FAA recertifies this plane as long as the BA management of October 2018 is still in place.

Think of it like General Motors getting its bailout after Rick Wagoner was fired.

So we'd have to disagree strongly with Weiss and Jim ... the "slow walk" may be getting a LOT slower.

Gen. Chuck Yeager, by the way, is 96.

Joe: Wells Fargo CEO should be dealing with ‘regulatory issues’ rather than speaking to the investment public

In a sleepy edition of the Halftime Report on Thursday (12/19) that couldn't get much sleepier, Judge started things off asking about the growth vs. value thing (Zzzzzzzzz).

"The market is technology," explained Joe Terranova. "It has been for the last decade, it is going to contins-, uh, continue to do so for the coming decade."

Joe suggested Wall Street might be "kind of confusing" a recovery in "value" with a recovery in "laggards."

But there were, in fact, two mildly interesting little debates.

Jim Lebenthal said he disagrees with Joe on energy being "laggards," citing "fundamental support" (snicker).

"I disagree with you on the fundamentals of energy," Joe said, before pointing to the recent attack on the Saudi facility. "Nothing has changed about the fundamentals of oil."

"Everything's changed!" Jim disagreed.

Pete Najarian did the usual (not exact quote) "Oh gee whiz there's gobs of paper in the energy space but IT'S ALL SHORT TERM!!" spiel about how people are buying options in energy. Pete pointed out that there is movement in high beta recently. "There is some reason I think that energy makes a lot of sense," Pete said.

Basically, energy is a disaster, a long-running disaster, and there's no apparent catalysts on the horizon for a turnaround.

Meanwhile, there was WFC, one of the most useless stocks in recent memory that somehow often gets mentioned (though not that much in 2019) on the Halftime Report/Fast Money.

Basically, if you're interested in this name, just buy the SPY instead.

But regardless, Judge reported that Dick Bove apparently cut "directionless" WFC to sell.

Joe said he disagrees, stating financials are working well and WFC's new CEO "Charlie" is a good choice.

Joe mentioned how the Wells CFO spoke at a Goldman Sachs conference. Judge said Bove wants to hear from the CEO, not CFO.

"OK. That's ..." Joe said.

Pete told Judge, "I'm agreein' with you, he should be out there front and center." Nevertheless, Pete agrees with Joe that the stock is a buy.

But Pete pushed back against Joe's protests that Scharf is dealing with "regulatory issues" that somehow preclude him from making public appearances.

"I don't have a problem with him sending the CFO. I think that's an adequate representation from management," Joe insisted.

Judge clarified that no one's saying the CFO doesn't have the "chops" to make public appearances.

Joe called the Zoom Video ticker symbol "SM" (sic). He said he bought it recently and also likes LEVI. Pete said LK can keep going.

Steve Grasso: Impeachment just
a ‘Hail Mary’ from desperate Democrats

On Wednesday's (12/18) 5 p.m. Fast Money, Steve Grasso explained his interpretation of the day's vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.

"This seems to be the Democrats' solution to not a worthy candidate thus far," Grasso said. "I think they're going for this as a Hail Mary. The market sees it that way, the market loves the policies and doesn't think a Democrat can beat him at this point."

Karen Finerman, who was stopping traffic in maroon, described the market's reaction to impeachment this way: "I think people just view it as a very partisan, kind of, I don't know, kind of, just a, partisan effort that really won't end up in anything real."

Under pressure from guest host Sully to entertain the notion of a presidential removal, Grasso stated, "Even with President Pence, I think that equities slide drastically. But you're not gonna get 20 votes" unless there's something "new" added to the "calculus."

Stephanie actually thinks the 737 Max might get recertified within a month

They still don't get it.

Tuesday's (12/17) Halftime Report crew actually spoke as though they believe the 737 Max will be carrying passengers by February.

Stephanie Link, who's long the name and demonstrated Wishful Thinking to the Extreme on Tuesday, first said that the fact Boeing isn't furloughing or firing any Max workers suggests we're looking at "maybe a month or 2 kind of delay."

Phil LeBeau correctly offered, "I would say it's probably longer than a month or 2."

Link insisted workers would be "furloughed" if Boeing thought "it was gonna be more than 3 months."

Moments later, Link claimed, "If you get recertification in the next 2-3 months, 1-2-3 months, then this stock flies."

"I don't think it takes much for this stock to rebound," Link said. (No, not much. Just a recertification of a polarizing aircraft.)

"They just need to get this thing in the air," Stephanie shrugged, as if it's the equivalent of fixing a flat tire.

Joe Terranova offered a different concern: "They need people to get on the plane once it gets in the air." Link insisted that will be no problem.

So, what exactly is Stephanie not including in her argument? She didn't name any FAA or foreign officials who are eager to put their careers on the line by approving this jet. She didn't note that just a week ago, the FAA basically told Boeing to fuhgeddaboutit (at least anytime soon).

Quite simply, what's necessary to get this jet in the air is something called CYA — the people making this decision have to believe that if something goes wrong, no one will hold them morally or legally accountable.

We're not sure how BA provides that. For one thing, Boeing kinda indicated after the crashes that it maybe was pilot or maintenance error. What exactly have they improved? If the sensors are no longer so strong, does that mean they might fail to correct a real stall?

We wish there was a satisfactory resolution to this. This jet was involved in a pair of massive tragedies. This country, and this world, need this plane back in the air. There are very powerful sentiments indicating it won't be, at least not anytime soon.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Karen Finerman expressed disbelief at the suggestion that the 737 Max production halt could take 0.6% off of U.S. GDP; Finerman said that's an "enormous" number and one that "seems too high for me."

Finerman also suggested maybe BA has stopped "going down on bad news." That's quite an analysis of one day's tape.

On Halftime, to his credit, Phil LeBeau said he sees an "overestimate" of how soon BA can regain some free cash flow; however LeBeau still does not report that the Max might be sidelined for a very long time.

Meanwhile, Joe "Seriously But Not Literally" Terranova took up medical devices as a way to play against recession, low growth, and the "political narrative."

Jim Lebenthal addressed ROKU and came up with a curious theory that "the next 5% determines what we do." (From what we can figure, that's only a $6-$7 move.) Jim explained that, if it goes down by that amount, sell the stock, and "if it goes up, it's clear sailing from here." (This writer is long ROKU.)

Karen Finerman stuns in new sweater, finally mentions what this page has been saying (that’s OK, we know we don’t get any credit) ... but still no one is talking about the biggest BA problem

Big BA news broke just before Monday's (12/16) 5 p.m. Fast Money.

Phil LeBeau led things off by stating, completely seriously, that "most believe" the FAA will recertify in "early February" or "mid-February." Moments later, LeBeau actually said the time could be longer, or "it could be shorter."

Um, we'll take the "longer" odds on that one.

Tim Seymour and Guy Adami offered typical technical analysis of the stock. Finally, it was Karen Finerman who spoke about what's really at risk here ... and she said it so quietly and reluctantly, she couldn't even finish the thought ...

"Maybe it opens just a tiny crack, I know Phil said nobody's talking about, but a tiny crack, what if the 737 ..." Finerman offered.

"Gets scuttled," concluded Tim Seymour.

"Yes," Finerman said.

See — and of course keeping in mind, this is a massive human tragedy — this page is way ahead of Fast Money and Halftime Report on this subject (hit PgDn a few times to see our report from 11/27).

If you're a Boeing investor, you have to be thinking, what if this plane never comes back.

Why is that possible? This is why: Imagine being the FAA or European chief who recertifies the plane, and then there's another accident, maybe even 5 years later.

The guess here is that there is already extreme reluctance to be the FAA honcho who recertifies this plane no matter how many regular fliers insist they'll be happy to ride in one.

What will Boeing have to do to convince authorities that, bluntly speaking, the regulators have CYA on this matter?

We don't know. No idea actually. Boeing could probably fly the FAA chief around the world a dozen times on a 737 Max, and that person is going to think, "OK, my flights were great, but what about when inexperienced pilots are at the controls ..."

Probably the plane's best chance is to put it to use in the military for a couple years and see if the stigma fades.

On Monday's Halftime Report, Barron's writer Andrew Bary touted the upside of VIAC, stating, "I think ultimately, it might be even acquired." Judge noted that Bary thinks it might even be bought by AAPL. Bary again said "ultimately" that might happen and said AAPL may be interested for its ... yep, you guessed it ... STREAMING (translation: money-losing initiatives that traders love subscribing to and stating on CNBC how they're going to order whatever the newest service is) potential and that AAPL might be interested in the VIAC's "great content factory" and 25 billion market cap.

Jane Wells stuns in Vegas at
cannabis business conference

The prevailing consensus seems to be no trade "deal" (snicker) until the election. But on Wednesday's (12/11) Fast Money, Mark Tepper tried to squelch that notion, claiming, "Something has to get done, because President Trump's approval rating is directly correlated to any progress on the trade front. ... I think he's gotta get a deal done."

Guest host Sully, for whatever reason, tried to get Tepper to make a political call on the state of Ohio. Tepper described the Birthplace of Aviation (the "First in Flight" state quibbled with that labeling, which was enacted in 2008) as a state of blue-collar hard workers who are "trying to save as much money as they can" and are "very happy" that their portfolios are up but are "very very skeptical of what next year brings ahead for us."

Hmmmmm. We gotta think, if this is at all true, that if voters in a huge swing state are "very very skeptical" of next year, that doesn't bode well for Donald Trump.

But then again, earlier in the day, Jeffrey Gundlach told Judge on Halftime that "I've been consistently stating that there will be no trade deal until the 2020 election" and that the "base case" is that Donald Trump wins.

Like they say, it takes 2 to make a trade.

CNBC standout Jane Wells, looking better than ever, reported from MJBizCon, billed as the world's largest marijuana business conference. You can read Jane's report here.

Guy Adami, Mr. Debby Downer

On Wednesday's (12/11) Fast Money, Guy Adami, apparently claiming that the Federal Reserve hasn't noticed all the real inflation out there, was harping on an 11-year refrain of his, indicating the central bank lost "any remaining semblance of credibility" the same week Paul Volcker died, which Guy called "somewhat interesting."

Guy again predicted new tariffs on Saturday night.

Marko Kolanovic, who has a 3,400 target for 2020 and made a very cogent and reasonable case for decent ongoing gains (he could've just stated the obvious, which is that people are dying to buy this market, but whatever), pointed out the current stock market is "up maybe 5% since January 2018," thus he doesn't think the market is already stealing gains from next year.

Guest host Sully thanked Steve Liesman; "it's been a long day for you, buddy, we appreciate it, thank you very much." Is there something about reporting on scheduled events on one's beat that constitutes a "long day"? (Note: We're not knocking Liesman; we'd be thrilled to see him hosting the nationally syndicated coverage of "Fare Thee Well (continued)" if it should ever happen ...)

Imagine, though, having Liesman's job, where you have to actually monitor where these Fed members supposedly stand in terms of interest rates; it's like sportswriters having to take note each week, "Shurmur now looks more dovish on the passing game; he was decidedly hawkish a couple weeks ago ..."

Karen Finerman had a quiet show but was dynamite in blue.

In a great moment of pop culture, Guy Adami asked which movie won best picture for 1991.

Pete Buttigieg got 8,515 votes in his last election

The star guest of Wednesday's (12/11) Halftime Report was Jeffrey Gundlach, who sat down with Judge in L.A. and bluntly declared "the odds are against a recession occurring before the end of 2020."

The best comments involved politics, but Gundlach seemed most interested in launching a warning about ... the corporate bond market.

"I think the time to be exiting the corporate bond market is presently," Gundlach said, calling it "misrated."

He explained that the size of it has grown considerably since pre-2008 crisis ($11 trillion vs. $5 trillion) and that it's been fueled by "naked buying" by "yield-starved" foreign investors.

The catch, he said, is that they can't actually hedge, or they lose money. We didn't quite understand why that's the case, but this is far above our pay (snicker) grade, and we have no reason to dispute it.

Anyway, eventually the lack of hedging will come home to roost, Gundlach said.

After Judge let him talk at length on this subject (as well as others), Gundlach did concede that maybe this cratering occurs on a 6-8-year timeline, or maybe 2021, 2022, but not in the next 12 months.

Gundlach (and later Guy Adami on Fast Money) each claimed there's gotta be something disastrous going on with the overnight repo market.

On trade, Gundlach told Judge, "I've been consistently stating that there will be no trade deal until the 2020 election."

Then he uncorked a jaw-dropper, stating, "I think the Phase 1 trade deal day, that press conference was the low point in Trump's presidency, explaining that it's more like "Phase point-1."

Jeffrey said the "base case" is that Donald Trump wins in 2020 because "the Democratic Party is kind of in disarray."

He said that when he heard the mayor of South Bend was running for president, "I literally laughed out loud." But after listening to Pete Buttigieg, Gundlach decided, "He's probably the best on his feet of any politician since Ronald Reagan. He is so good."

Nevertheless, Gundlach said that Buttigieg's "20,000" or "15,000" votes received in South Bend isn't exactly a national springboard. Turns out, Jeffrey was being generous (see headline).

Gundlach also stated, "I don't think mayor of New York City is a great credential for running for the (sic) president."

"The strongest Democratic candidate would be Hillary Clinton," Gundlach asserted. "She's the strongest candidate the Democrats have. That doesn't mean that she's a great candidate."

Summoning a stocked Englewood Cliffs panel for 2 minutes of commentary (we don't know why they do that, but whatever), Judge turned to Joe Terranova to ask Gundlach a question about the mortgage market. Joe wondered about mortgages in 2020 because of a "significant overweight." Jeffrey tripped up Joe's question, stating, "I'm not really sure that I agree with that" and opining that mortgages actually are "relatively cheap."

Jeffrey made a weird comparison of Princess Diana's gown selling for $280,000 and the $120,000 banana art that got eaten. Judge seemed to think it was funny; we didn't get it.

Even TWTR’s former CEO doesn’t ‘fully understand’ the primary metric the company is using

Judge spent 2 days in San Francisco, and mostly what we learned was that Dick Costolo hasn't been adequately trained on the basics of TV camera success.

As far as we understand it (snicker) (which isn't very far), typically, people on TV look at the person they are talking to. If the person speaking is a host or panelist or is making some kind of statement, he or she would look straight into the camera (think Fast Money).

On Tuesday's (12/10) Halftime Report, Costolo, apparently trying to be as inconspicuous as Mike Fox whenever the boss was around in "The Secret of My Success," kept looking down at the table, straight ahead and slightly right, barely made eye contact with Judge, and we started wondering, "Who is he really speaking to?"

(If we'd been out there, we likely would've been looking at CNBC's gorjus Dee Bosa.)

OK. That aside, the obvious headline from this interview (which included Adam Bain and a few others) surfaced around the 21st minute, when Judge said TWTR is a "dramatic underperformer" (he didn't mention that the shares are lower than when Costolo was forced out as CEO) and asked Costolo why that is the case.

Costolo responded, "Interestingly on the last earnings call, um, user growth was up, um, up, based on their new metric, Monetizable, um, uh, DAU, which admittedly I don't fully understand the definition of, although I could guess at- at- at- at what it is, um, user growth was up tremendously according to that metric ..."

Hmmmmm ... a prominent company is touting the results of some kind of statistic, and its recent CEO doesn't even know what it's talking about?

Handy investing tip: If a TV host has to ask whether a 13-year-old company is "monetizable," that means it's not.

Fast Money’s Greatest Hits:
The difference between today’s market and the 2006-07 scene

As the stock market caught fire on Friday (12/6), perhaps clinching a blockbuster ending to a great year (who knows, people might freak out again over tariff tweets), we took a look back at how the market has done since the original heyday of Fast Money in 2006-07, when "The Admiral" Eric Bolling held court with Guy Adami, Jeff Macke and Tim Strazzini, and the Najarii and Karen Finerman had roles as long relievers.

Here's the easy conclusion: Today's market is far better than that one. Remember what those shows were like? Traders tripping over basically 3 sectors: fertilizer (snicker), coal (snicker), and oil services (snicker). (If you want to add a 4th, consider the financial exchanges, but that's a small group.)

There was no more signature moment to that market than Bolling almost literally pounding his desk and looking into the camera and saying (not the exact quote but close), "Do you like money??? Do you want to make more money??? Buy these refiners!!!!"

He was referring to Valero and Tesoro and a handful of others that have hardly been mentioned on the program(s) in the last 5 years.

Fertilizer was a buy every day because "people gotta eat." Remember how the ones with nitrogen were just, you know, unbelievable; there was Potash, Mosaic, Agrium, CF, etc.

Then there were the drillers. Diamond Offshore and TransOcean, omigod.

There were the miners. BHP Billiton, can't get enough of that.

And of course, that incredibly hot commodity, coal. Alpha Natural Resources, Cleveland Cliffs, Peabody, Arch, look at 'em go.

But here's something else about that market: Somehow, tech basically sucked. Amazon and Microsoft and Intel and Cisco spent the mid-2000s in the doghouse. Netflix was a yawner, dismissed as a Redbox-like novelty. The stench of Yahoo and AOL hung over the internet space. FB wasn't public. GOOG arrived in 2004 and quietly marched steadily up.

The shining star of the 2000s market was AAPL, just in the early innings of a stampede that continues today. For a few years, there was also RIMM (snicker), or as Pete Najarian liked to gush, "The gadget makers."

Somewhat quiet but effective around that time was MA, plus later V. Eric Bolling in one famous episode of Fast Money mocked "Mastercard" and then had to admit over ensuing weeks that it defied his expectations.

We don't know what percentage of the S&P 500 in the mid-2000s was composed of technology; it's supposedly around 26% now and is surely on pace to 50% in a decade or two; that seems a far more realistic and satisfying outcome for investors than pounding the table for fertilizer.

TWTR down 15.8% since Dick Costolo got fired 4 years ago

Addressing what became the Quote of the Week, which included the term "therefore" and constituted something about tying tariffs to currency valuations, Joe "Seriously but not Literally" Terranova on Friday's (12/6) Halftime Report curiously claimed there had been some kind of "misdirection" from the White House and that "I kinda fell a little bit for it on Monday."

We're not sure what "misdirection" Joe is referring to other than the general politicking-by-Twitter that takes place every day.

Basically, Joe said Friday that with the consumer this strong, trade tweets are a "complete sideshow," and he advised "don't even pay attention to it."

Judge bluntly wondered if the stock-buyer's approach to trade headlines should be "Call me when there's a deal."

Josh Brown indicated that what's been occasionally holding the market back is some people's emphasis on government stats that aren't as relevant as they were in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

"This is not what market tops look like," Brown said.

Liz Young curiously claimed we're in a "psychological recovery here."

Joe said "today was so overwhelmingly positive relating to the consumer."

Meanwhile, Judge decided to spotlight the MKM bull call on COP (snicker). Joe said he agreed with the move. Judge asked, "Do you own the stock?" Joe said no. "Guess he wasn't that convincing," Judge said.

Josh Brown said, "Broadly speaking, I think a lot of these energy names have bottomed (snicker)." We'll take the other side of that one.

Steve Weiss was the voice of reason. "Energy is, uh, uh, for traders only, and most of 'em don't do particularly well at it," Weiss said. "I don't think I have to own 'em."

Joe admitted he got "crushed" in ULTA earlier in the year, refreshing candor. He called the current report "a step in the right direction" but said he's not motivated to get back in. He said "there seems to be a lessening demand for cosmetics."

Joe also touted medical devices. "This is a secular play on an aging population," Joe said, adding he's got PKI and ABT.

Weiss said he's staying with ADBE after a recent trim/buying-it-back and suggested its revenue model can be more like MSFT's.

Margaret Reid fielded a question on DIS and said the stock "will continue to get validation around the success of Disney+ and how that's ultimately gonna be changing their model uh to one that's more, uh, subscription-based ... taking advantage of their full library."

Um, let's talk about that for a moment.

Reid said "23 million downloads as of last week" exceeds the "current guidance" for Disney+.

Well, of course. They weren't going to OVERestimate the first month's worth of subscribers (some of whom are no doubt getting it free).

What Reid and others didn't mention is that realistically, streaming, like Uber rides and fast-food delivery, is a terrible business, and Disney is only doing it because the stock market wants it to do it and the stock market only wants it to do it because stock pros have been subscribing to Netflix and Amazon Prime for years and think it's awesome. It's true that people want streaming, car rides and McDonald's deliveries, but only at a certain price, and there are endless pricing pressures on these models that up to this time have been financed not by the end users who won't actually pay it but the Silicon Valley early investors who are hoping to clean up in the next IPO.

We're guessing by "validation," Reid really means "higher multiple." Doubt it.

Wish Judge would bring back Marc Lasry, can talk about distressed debt or mezzanine financing gems at the end of the day (but can’t give out specific names)

Judge on Thursday's (12/5) Halftime Report decided to give things a jolt by asking for ... small-cap picks.

(Honestly, we've been trying for months to get him to do an entire show on energy; instead, this is the best he can do.)

As panelists unveiled half-hearted small-cap picks while insisting they don't evaluate stocks based on market-cap size, Joe Terranova said the Russell 2000's problem is merely that small-caps are overrepresented in banks and underrepresented in tech.

Pete Najarian credited his daughter for pointing out CASY.

Steve Weiss warned — as people on this show so often helpfully do — that apparently, you shouldn't be throwing darts at a board.

"You have to be selective in small-caps, you just can't go out and buy them all," Weiss said.

Jon Najarian mentioned the "series of missteps" at Alphabet recently and suggested the stock may be due to outperform. Indeed, Doc and Jim Cramer both noted a day earlier that the Alphabet management changeover may be related to the amount of bad publicity in the past 12 months over handling of corporate-wide misconduct claims. What nobody said but should've been mentioned is that the Google founders are as shy as any big-business moguls in a generation, and the fact they're stepping further into the background is no surprise.

Remember a couple years ago when Joe said Donald Trump should be taken ‘seriously, not literally’?

Shrugging off recent presidential commentary, Josh Brown on Tuesday's (12/3) Halftime Report said there's "obviously" going to be a tariff delay.

Brown chalked up Tuesday's selloff as no big deal. "Markets sometimes just need an excuse to come down," Brown said.

Brown questioned taking seriously the "offhanded comments" of the president.

Judge persisted and actually said with a straight face, "I hear you. But- but the fact of the matter is, you know, we- you don't know whether he really cares about the stock market."

Pete Najarian, with an equally straight face, said, "I think the part that you've gotta worry about is, is how serious is the president."

Joe Terranova opted to revisit his loopy assessment of the Argentina-Brazil steel tariffs, then said, "I don't know in the construct of a portfolio it changes anything that has not been in place for 2019."

Well, that's a bit of a U-turn from Monday's "something has certainly changed" based on Donald Trump's use of "therefore" in a tweet (snicker).

Actually, it reminds us of a couple years ago, either pre- or post-election, when Joe offered a slogan on the Halftime Report that Donald Trump should be "taken seriously but not literally."

Evidently, the momentum on that theory has changed. (That's OK; it'll probably change back in a day or two.)

The reason the president said that a China deal might take a year is because, whatever the merits of his China-crackdown campaign, he has 1) no plan, 2) no strategy and 3) no end game for this endeavor, and the subject is nothing more than Twitter fodder.

Anyway, Joe also made the case for a U.S.-centric portfolio.

Josh Brown shrugged that the steel tariffs stemmed from Donald Trump hearing over the weekend that China is buying agriculture products from Brazil.

Brown and Stephanie Link argued emerging markets are attractive.

Judge actually isn’t sure if Donald Trump cares about the stock market

Star guest Savita Subramanian on Tuesday's (12/3) Halftime Report said there's a trade "overhang" on the S&P 500, "which I think is a good thing, because it's keeping the S&P from getting too far ahead of itself."

Hmmmm. That's an interesting theory. Let's have a guy rant and rave about tariffs so the stock market doesn't get euphoric.

The other way to look at that is that the global economy would be a lot better if not for the trade "skirmishes" and thus legitimately push the markets higher.

Subramanian is looking for 8% earnings growth next year and 7-8% gains in stocks.

Savita said she would "totally agree" with Josh Brown about a U.S.-centric portfolio, but that's actually what Joe Terranova said and Brown quibbled with.

"We're seeing a bottom in manufacturing right now," Savita added.

Judge's pointless conversation about TSLA repeated years-old slogans about how it's not a valuation play. Pete Najarian asserted that it's a "trading stock."

Judge also conducted a half-hearted go-round on the FANGs in which every typical cliche (think "regulation") got mentioned.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, GOOGL long Karen Finerman (stunning in gray turtleneck) took up the company's management shuffle. "I, well, I think, it shouldn't be a huge change. I mean this is a very big- my largest position actually. I am not really concerned about this. I do think, due to talk about (sic phrase) maybe more financial, uh, discipline. Um, I think we started to see this when they brought in Ruth Porat."

Hmmmm, and we always thought that Ruth Porat was offered gobs of money to run 4 conference calls a year.

Dee Bosa, stunning in sleeveless green, essentially pointed out that "Google" makes gobs of money while "Alphabet" fritters it all away.

Joe claims ‘something has certainly changed’; Judge wonders what it is

There were so many good little debates and not enough airtime to do them justice.

Joe Terranova opened Monday's (12/2) Halftime Report with quite a reach, then spent the rest of the show trying to dodge the critics as adeptly as Tony Curtis in "Don't Make Waves."

Joe asserted that Donald Trump's use of "therefore" (snicker) in his tweet about steel tariffs (snicker) is "troubling."

Jim Lebenthal said presidential pronouncements on trade are "like Charlie Brown with the football."

Jim said the S&P is at "about 19 times earnings." Acting like this was Dean Kamen's announcement of the Segway (CNBC fell for that one), Judge said Oppenheimer has 3,500 on the S&P for next year. Rob Sechan called that "certainly possible" (well, we hope so, it's a 12% gain over the next 13 months) and added, "There's a tremendous amount of cash on the sidelines."

Then Joe insisted "we're getting way ahead in the calendar," somehow claiming "something has certainly changed" as of Monday.

"I don't know about that," Judge interrupted. "What's changed? A tweet about tariffs doesn't mean everything's changed, I mean, let's see, you know, by the time the president lands in, in, the United Kingdom, you could have a whole different-"

Joe insisted, "You've never before tied tariffs to currency devaluation. Ever. And now we're introducing that."

Steve Weiss cut in, "I don't think that's true, Joe."

Judge agreed with Weiss; "The president from Day 1 has, has been talking about currency devaluation and Chinese, and part of the reason for the Fed ..."

Judge added that such talk is "in the current environment all the time."

Joe responded, "He has talked about it. He has never instituted a tariff on a nation specifically because of currency devaluation. That's a fact (snicker)."

Jim started to agree with Joe, stating, "The market is saying, 'Wait, the president has not learned that tariffs are a blunt-force instrument that should not be wielded as frequently as he's been wielding them.'"

Judge correctly cut in, "The market's not saying anything. The S&P's down 20 points."

Then the controversy really branched out. Weiss told Jim, "You keep getting too worked up over 1 day. The first day of the month." Then Weiss told Joe, "I think you're assuming something that's occurring in President Trump's thinking that takes it a leap too far."

Weiss said if Donald Trump is "gettin' ready to drop the hammer" on China, "then it's look out below in the market."

Then Weiss tried to renew his argument with Jenny Harrington (that one's below) over expectations of strong earnings next year.

Jim then accused Weiss, "Why are you disagreeing with me. I- I'm totally in agreement ... You said that I was wrong about reading too much into what's going on in the markets, then you said the exact same thing that I said."

Weiss said, "I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm talking to Jenny. You've got a persecution complex; we've gotta fix that."

Weiss then claimed this year's gain is "entirely" on multiple expansion. Jenny insisted, "That was coming off of an abnormally low base also."

"That's actually not an abnormally low base," Weiss said, stating the "average" is 14½ times.

"No, average market multiple is 16½ times," Jenny said.

Sechan said "context matters" and that both can be right.

Sechan then returned to his earlier point about people not being fully into the market and playing catch-up.

Joe said he came into December with "zero cash." Sechan said the "average is 20% cash right now. That's humongous."

"Rob that's statistically (sic redundant) incorrect. That is statistically (sic redundant) incorrect," Joe insisted.

Sechan said he was citing "a recent study that we just (sic redundant) did."

"Investors are still offsides, broadly," said Sechan, adding pros are "playing catch-up."

OK. Quick timeout. Lot of good debates here. 1) Sechan is right that people are still offsides and on the sidelines. We're not sure it's a "humongous" amount; we just know, as this page started saying months ago, people are dying to buy this market while being afraid of boneheads who keep coming on CNBC stating "omg this market's 10 years old so the crash is imminent."

2) Weiss has a good point about earnings that Jenny still hasn't adequately addressed. 3) Weiss and Judge correctly noted that one day in December doesn't say anything about the stock market. 4) The average market multiple is whatever anyone wants it to be.

But back to Joe's loopy assessment of Donald Trump's mindset.

At one point in the show, Joe told Judge, "All I did was sell my semi exposure. That's all I did today."

OK. So the stuff about "therefore" and links to currency devaluation are nothing more than mumbo jumbo about lightening up in semis.

Then Joe revealed he sold LRCX and TER based on the "high correlation" of risk to a "misstep" with the China situation.

So those stocks were based on China news, and not the Argentina/Brazilian tweets.

So on this day where something significant supposedly changed, Joe actually took no related action in his portfolio.

Whatever.

Karen Finerman on the 5 p.m. show said Monday's stock market "didn't do badly" and that given the steel tariffs could've been "more destabilizing than it was" and that the day's pullback isn't "actually a big deal at all."

Nevertheless, as far as China trade, Finerman stated, "I think that we're gonna see something bad coming out."

Could Donald Trump deem the 737 Max a ‘national security issue,’ order wings up?

In the understatement of the month if not quarter on CNBC, Phil LeBeau on Monday's (12/2) Halftime Report said that for the 737 Max to get certified this month, "a lot of things have to happen."

Jim Lebenthal said the 737 Max problem is "fixed" and that we're just in a "waiting game," and he "wouldn't put it past" Donald Trump to issue a tweet urging a speeding up of the recertification. (Wooo boy. That'll really light a fire under 'em.)

Steve Weiss, possibly angling for a PR gig, said Dennis Muilenburg's statement predicting recertification by year-end was "poorly phrased" and that Muilenburg should've said the company is "reasonably optimistic" instead of "essentially guaranteeing it."

Joe Terranova said "momentum" is the reason he's long BA. (That's the reason Joe buys every stock.) Just recently (see below), this page noted what people on the show have not, that there are 3 risks to being long BA. Jim Lebenthal, who by his comments above apparently doesn't agree with our risk No. 2 (the Max is never recertified) (that doesn't seem likely, but it has to be considered), on Monday happened to mention No. 3, that there are apparently issues with a different Boeing product, the 777X.

Jenny Harrington indicated WFC is simply taking up space in her portfolio until she finds something better.

Jim was asked about the ROKU clowngrade. (This writer is long ROKU.) (Nobody on the show used the term "clowngrade," that's ours alone.)

"I'm sticking with the position," Jim said. Jim talks about revenue growth of the company. It's simpler than that; the word is "streaming." (You know, as in, "OMIGOD DISNEY IS STREAMING!!!!!!")

Weiss first claimed that the ROKU selloff is "symptomatic of something bigger," then proceeded to make zero sense in explaining why that is: "People are actually more worried than they're letting on to be worried, because they're willing to sell the stock down 15% and there's no lift to it." He added, "I may buy this in the next day or two." Then after Jim made it his final trade, Weiss said he bought ROKU during the break.

Back to CNBCfix home