[CNBCfix Fast Money Review Archive — July 2019]
That must mean 2,700 is ‘fully undervalued’
Judge finally returned, and on Tuesday's (7/30) Halftime Report, he was tasked with refereeing the merry-go-round that was Chris Hyzy's stock-market commentary.
Chris suggested 2,900 is "fair value" and 3,100 is "fully valued." (That sounds a little like the Morgan Stanley guy's (not exact quote) "it's either gonna be 2,400, 2,750 or 3,000.")
"Fair value is just a point in time," Hyzy explained.
Of the Fed, Hyzy declared, "These are insurance cuts. It appears that they're insurance cuts for the what-if. And the what-if is some of the data, which is on the right side of the economy, which is manufacturing, and on the left side is the consumer."
Judge asked if that's bullish for stocks if the cuts are for "insurance" and not because things are bad.
"Exactly," Hyzy said.
But fast-forward a few minutes, when Hyzy said those who think the Fed is doing "insurance cuts" to save the market are wrong.
Judge noted that Hyzy earlier in the show used the term "insurance cut."
Hyzy clarified that it's an "insurance cut on the yield curve." (Good thing it's really not an insurance cut on the "what-if.")
At the 22-minute mark, Judge was still questioning Hyzy about the Fed being at the market's "back."
Meanwhile, Joe Terranova claimed, "it's obvious after the president's tweets this morning that the tensions with the Chinese will be with us through 2020." That's curious that someone knows how Donald Trump is going to behave for the next 18 months.
Of those reporting in this earnings season, "33% of these companies are talking about tariffs," Joe said, wondering what Tim Cook will say about the effects of tariffs.
But Judge and Stephanie cut Joe off, with Judge stating, "That doesn't sound to me like stock-moving information, right."
Stephanie Link said she's "inclined to buy more" UAA and sort of gloated that it was up 54% before the earnings.
Jim Lebenthal at one point said, "This is an opportunity to buy GM." There's been "opportunity" to buy GM basically for 50-60 years, unless you count the bankrupt time when Barack Obama fired Rick Wagoner.
Mario Gabelli, who peppered Judge with stock picks for the hour, was as always a good guest with a host of names to think about. But the thing is, nothing sounded like a table-pounding buy, for example, when Judge asked about the best media stock(s), instead of just blurting out a top pick, Gabelli backpedaled and said there's "a lot of moving parts here" in the sector.
On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Karen Finerman said that for AAPL to put out this kind of optimistic guidance, they must be "very secure" about the outlook.
Karen didn't think the UAA quarter was as bad as the market seemed to.
Government basically
has nothing to do
Friday brought the merciful end of Government Regulation Week on Wall Street.
Next week might return to "squad" themes.
Or maybe it'll be back to building the "wall."
Or maybe another partial shutdown and delayed State of the Union.
Or maybe it'll be a renewed push for documents that could boost the impeachment push ...
On Friday's (7/26) Halftime, Joe Terranova explained how he put in an order for AMZN before the open, "got filled at 1,929," and was delighted.
Addressing the "regulatory risk" (snicker) of AMZN (is there anyone in the federal government doing anything BESIDES regulating the banks/big tech/drug companies/phone company mergers?), Joe mentioned Jim Stewart's point about margins.
Honestly, does anyone care in the slightest about Prime Day?
TWTR: The YHOO of this decade
This week isn't just Government Regulation Week. It's also omigod-Tech-Paradigm-Shifting Week, a/k/a Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook issue their run-of-the-mill quarterly reports.
Remember a couple years ago when "World Cup" and "Olympics" and "presidential election" were all supposedly "catalysts" for TWTR?
The routine came up again on Friday's (7/26) Halftime, guest hosted this time by Tyler Mathisen (yep, no Judge again, and Mel had the day off too). After Josh Brown gushed about the stock, Tyler impressively asked specifically what TWTR did right this quarter. Brown said "I think they got video right."
So 4 years after ditching Dick Costolo, they've apparently finally figured out video. In just 1 quarter.
Brown then went on to tout the traditional TWTR bull case, citing Women's World Cup soccer, the election, etc.
Joe Terranova claimed there's an "allocation angle" (snicker) to TWTR. That being, it's only the size of a mid-cap, so compared with the other stuff they talk about, "tiny."
Brown claimed advertisers have "always wanted" another option besides FB and GOOGL and said, "Twitter's got a shot to be that 3rd platform." Where is the proof that advertisers want more than one option; they want targeted audiences, not fragmented ones.
Stephanie Link volunteered that TWTR has "really upgraded their management team too." Remember when they got Anthony Noto and that was supposed to be the greatest hire of all time? And then remember when execs were exiting in droves?
TWTR traded at $36 when Dick Costolo was forced out 4 years ago. What a tremendous gain since forcing him out.
AMZN at that time was 434. FB was $85. GS was $208. (GS, to its credit, has paid a dividend.)
If Tyler thinks 25 minutes is a long A block, he hasn’t seen many of Judge’s commercial-lite productions
On Friday's (7/26) Halftime Report, Ron "25th Amendment" Insana said he was hoping for a 1 and done from the Fed, but Mike Santoli said that as far as getting short-term Treasury yields down from their "conspicuous" perch above the rest of the world, one 25-point cut "doesn't quite fully make that adjustment for you."
But Josh Brown questioned how a U.S. rate cut could "perk up" German auto manufacturing and give Paris a "better startup scene" and wondered, "What on Earth is any of this about? I have no idea."
Insana carped about Larry Kudlow complaining about "severe tightening," as opposed to hawkish sentiments expressed years ago on shows like Larry's. (Note to Ron: Larry works for Donald Trump now.)
Stephanie Link suggested that banks are a play on having a 1 and done rate cut.
Guest host Tyler Mathisen said it seems like everyone should have DIS as a core holding. Josh Brown made an elongated case for the same.
At the 25-minute mark, Tyler Mathisen said, "We need to wrap up the longest A block in the history of Halftime Report."
Despite having 5 people on the panel, the show needed an Acorns insert and brought in Josh Brown's colleague Bill Sweet to talk about long-term investing; basically the two of them said it's OK to buy stocks at highs despite Tyler's skepticism.
Judge gone again
Well, where to start ...
How about with the fact that, after a recent couple weeks off, Judge was off again for Thursday's (7/25) Halftime Report.
At the end of the program, guest host Missy Lee (who hopefully collected a few dollars of OT) chuckled, "Scott hopefully will be back tomorrow."
Unfortunately most of the first half-hour was taken up with dart-throwing predictions about which FAANG or near-FAANG stocks are going to come out of this week the best. (That continued with the 5 p.m. Fast Money, see below.)
Mel seemed really interested in the Chemours spinoff, the most we've heard on that subject on CNBC probably ... ever.
Joe Terranova seemed to stumble through a discussion of the video game space while trying to make a point about "dissipating" (snicker).
Steve Weiss said not to buy TSLA; it has "a long way to go."
Viewers learned that David Einhorn believes rating agencies are "complacent."
Joe's final trade was NFLX, suggesting a 314 stop. Jon Najarian suggested UA.
On Thursday's 5 p.m. Fast Money, Guy Adami and Karen Finerman opened by talking about how "cheap" GOOGL is in the wake of the earnings; Finerman called the $25 billion buyback "fantastic" and about 3 times mentioned the stock all of a sudden being out of the "penalty box." (Imagine that. One earnings report, and it's terrible; another earnings report, and it's awesome. #dartsataboard) Guy and Gene Munster claimed the stock is "cheaper" after the earnings report up $100 than it was before the report.
Other than buybacks, no catalyst for the stock was mentioned.
Ruth Porat was praised for bringing "clarity" to the company's financials, but all we can figure out is that she gets paid to host 4 conference calls a year.
Dan Nathan said GOOGL should buy WORK. Remember a couple years ago when everyone was saying GOOGL should buy Twitter to get a foothold in "real-time search"?
Karen Finerman suggested that at 96, SBUX figures to go to 100, "gravitational pull."
A day earlier, on the (7/24) Halftime Report, Joe said there's going to be a "management concern" for FB investors looking forward.
Jim Lebenthal called GBX a "steal." Joe said it trades 42% below peers and wondered if there's a "management issue." Jim said it's "in line" with peers.
Kourtney Gibson pounded the table (figuratively) for UBER. "Coke is to soda what Uber is to ride-hailing," Gibson stated.
Instead of just saying, "Slack needs more customers," Joe gave a long-winded spiel about needing to hear from management about growing the number of high-paying clients.
No reason 16 times can’t be
18 times — or 14 times
A bungle heightened by a stumble.
Monday's (7/22) 5 p.m. Fast Money opened with a feature on upcoming earnings called "The Good, The Bad, The Ugly." (Yes, you hear such a theme, complete with music, on CNBC about once a month, or more often during earnings season; it's of course been that way since about 1998).
Guy Adami suggested the FB earnings report as the Good, AMZN's earnings as the Bad and GOOGL as the Ugly. (This writer is long FB.)
That prompted Missy Lee to ask Karen Finerman, "Do you think Facebook could be the Ugly?"
Finerman, apparently like us believing Lee had meant to say "Google" instead of "Facebook," agreed that "I think it could be the 'meh.'"
As the CNBC graphics crew showed a FB chart over Finerman's shoulder, Finerman went on to describe what sounds like her position in GOOG/GOOGL, not FB:
"To me it's a much bigger story than 1 or 2 quarters," Finerman said. "I don't like that last quarter. At all. There was a lot to not like about it. And, I don't know that it'll turn around right away. I'm not wildly optimistic about it. However, the valuation at this level is so compelling to me, I feel like I can wait a while and just see how- I mean this is an extraordinary business trading, if you- if you back out the cash, at 16 times earnings. 16 times. For this kind of business. That's extraordinary. So, I'm gonna hang onto that. I'm nervous about it for sure. Facebook, I'm in Guy's camp; I'm more optimistic about that."
(Sigh) As always, no one on the show will ever challenge Finerman's dubious logic here, so this page will once again do so.
Every time Finerman talks about GOOG/GOOGL, which is basically every other appearance (actually it's every night now given her current scheduling — NOT that we're complaining), here's what she's really saying:
(Note: These are not Finerman's actual words, just an interpretation of her position in this name from (yes) years of hearing about it on TV.)
GOOG/GOOGL is a FAANG stock, someday it might someday get a P.E. like AMZN or NFLX, but because the P.E. is so low, it's not going to slide as much as NFLX or AMZN during a rough patch.
Except 1) P.E. ratio is not a catalyst for stock moves in either direction, and 2) Finerman never mentions any new product or development that would goose the stock.
It's nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sometime, GOOGL indeed might take off, and Finerman and many others would be big winners. That'd be fine. But based on what she has described for years, that type of outcome would not be a strategic call but random luck.
No question, Alphabet is an enormously impressive company with an overload of smart people. Nevertheless, as a training exercise, Finerman should offer to make the GOOGL bear case and see how much of it she might believe. For example, whether a company that makes a search engine should also be making the ultimate red herring, driverless cars. (If you think Congress is interested in regulating social media posts, imagine how many congressional hearings will be ordered up after a driverless truck rolls off an onramp.) Or whether Google's Calico is actually conquering any age-related diseases.
Now, did Finerman look dynamite in blue? Yes, Finerman looked dynamite in blue, particularly with new hairstyle.
Joe: ‘People are underinvested in equities’
It seems like Karen Finerman is on Fast Money all the time these days.
In fact, last week, she was.
Not that we're complaining.
We will, however, complain about Finerman's loopy ongoing assessment of the stock market, "scared" of the market as though it's September 2008 (note: she never said it's 2008; we're saying her recent commentary is virtually like what some people were saying in September 2008).
On Friday, Finerman volunteered, "I'm afraid of uncertainty in the economy." But Finerman admitted, "The consumer is still going gangbusters."
Finerman also endorsed FB, stating she's long the name, "not that I'm not nervous," but it seems like being in the crosshairs "is over."
Later, GOOGL came up, and you knew exactly what she was going to say (sigh): Great P.E. ratio, not doing enough with capital allocation. This time, Finerman actually claimed she's "glad" that GOOGL isn't at an all-time high and actually went down Friday.
Guy Adami said Iran wouldn't be seizing ships on its own; "they've got the backing of somebody out there."
Steve Grasso declared, "Iran wants a nuclear deal."
On the Halftime Report, Sarat Sethi said Friday that "going full force into the market right now is a little scary."
Cheryl Young said she'd be "very defensive" in this market.
But Joe Terranova said it's "simple": "People are underinvested in equities."
Jon Najarian echoed Joe's observation, stating that Larry Fink has been right all year and that family offices are "grossly underinvested" based on past percentages. Doc and guest host Mel agreed that if there were another 20% drop, people still wouldn't be rushing in.
Jim Lebenthal contended that this 10-year bull market hasn't had a "euphoric phase." But he thinks that could happen over the rest of the summer.
Panelists made a round of picks. Joe suggested CPRT. Jim trumpeted GS and how financials are "close to book value" (snicker). Sarat gushed about BX. Doc offered 2 China picks, KWEB and CAT, though he doesn't expect a deal until Q4; he also touted PYPL. Cheryl Young actually touted ROKU but she admitted she has sold 120 calls and "would be happy" to get called away.
Joe's ambiguous final trade was to pull up PAGS "on your screen."
"I'm not telling you to buy this stock; I'm not telling you to sell this stock," Joe explained. "I'm telling you to pull it up on your screen."
Well, we figure he wouldn't be saying that unless he was interested in buying it.
On Thursday's (7/18) Halftime, Mel said Joe was long NFLX calls. We were about to congratulate Joe for putting on such an interesting contra-trade, only to hear Joe correct Mel to say he's not long those calls, it's Doc. Doc said he likes NFLX around 317.
Chris Whalen on Thursday's Halftime actually claimed the Fed won't cut for a while (snicker). Joe said that's a "Miracle on Ice" call because basically there's a 100% chance according to the markets.
Sully measures U.S. economy on statements made by one friend
On Wednesday's (7/17) Halftime Report, guest host Sully made the mistake of debating the significance of the CSX results (Zzzzzzz).
Jim Lebenthal volunteered, "The U.S. economy has clearly slowed down. There's no question about that. That's a factual statement."
Moments later, Sully cited a friend who's a Landstar broker in Wisconsin who apparently is hiring people left and right. "I don't agree with your statement that the economy is slowing down," Sully told Jim.
Jim responded, "I think it's factual. I mean if you look at things like the Atlanta Fed GDP (snicker) for the second quarter-"
"That's facts?" demanded Sully, who admitted that his own "facts" are based on "one guy."
You know how the show develops its own cliches, for example, in the early years, you were always supposed to buy fertilizer stocks because "people gotta eat" and "once people in Asia start getting meat in their diets, they don't wanna go back." Steve Weiss revisited another one of those slogans, endorsing UAL because, according to Weiss, people aren't buying things so much as they are "spending on experiences."
On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Gene Munster contended, "The best days of Netflix are behind it."
Karen Finerman recommended SPY puts, stating, "I'm a little nervous about the U.S. economy."
Sully: ‘This is the wealthiest audience in television’
Much of the meager fireworks (snicker) of Tuesday's (7/16) Halftime Report consisted of Kevin O'Leary trashing financials against some mild pushback from Pete Najarian and Jeff Kilburg.
Pete had a fair point, that Citi is up big year to date. Still seems to us like O'Leary's comments, about banks never being the same as pre-2008, is more relevant.
Curiously, guest host Sully, who also helmed the 5 p.m. Fast Money and put together a yeoman effort for the day, described the day's Halftime panelists as an "investment committee."
Karen Finerman on the 5 p.m. show said that viewing transports as a "proxy" for the market "doesn't make sense." Finerman returned to her favorite topic, "What I'm afraid of (snicker) with the trade situation," which in a word or two is "the uncertainty." Finerman cited railroad earnings (snicker) as being "disappointing."
Finerman mentioned "afraid" for a second time later in the show in regard to Donald Trump's trade war.
Karen said playing QCOM is "too complicated."
Karen conceded to Sully that "I hate" the politicized "environment" around FB and GOOGL and the "show" that goes on. "I gotta say, I'm very troubled by Peter- Peter Thiel coming out and saying Google may have engaged in seemingly treasonous behavior. He's a big supporter of the president, big supporter of a competitor to Google. And, the president saying, 'Yes, let's take that up and take a look at it. That's troubling, that he can do that."
Pete Najarian shrugged and said the more regulation that comes down, "the better the moat is for Facebook."
Near the end of the 5 p.m. Fast Money, talking with Tom Rogers, Sully observed that CNBC is the "wealthiest audience in television." That may very well be true and definitely should be considered a compliment. To this site, what has always been more relevant is that CNBC is the most informed audience — that the people appearing on the channel and the people watching the channel certainly don't agree on everything but that both constituencies totally get it, whether it's business, finance, politics, educational matters or pop culture, and in this tiny corner of cyberland, we can rap. That's an acknowledgment this page has never taken for granted and never underestimated.
‘Money is really blips
on a computer screen’
Scott Minerd was Mr. Excitement — OK, maybe that's overstating it a bit — on Monday's (7/15) Halftime Report.
"Everything's going up," Minerd said, citing global "liquidity."
Early into the show, guest host Sully decided to shake things up with a rather interesting question that you don't hear every day on Judge's program.
Sully acknowledged that everything is going up and asked, "Where is the money coming from?"
"That's almost like a metaphysical conversation," responded Josh Brown. "Because money is really blips on a, on a computer screen. So, it doesn't have to come from anywhere."
So there you go.
"Metaphysical conversation."
Joe Terranova asked about momentum "rebalancing" (snicker). Though the equity rally, according to Minerd, is "long in the tooth," he said he'd still advise that if you've done well in bonds, "for the moment, you rebalance."
Minerd said he likes emerging markets and precious metals.
Anastasia Amoroso questioned whether Minerd's next 15% higher is based on overshooting valuations or because the economy responds to easing. Minerd said, "Given the level of interest rates, we could easily support a multiple, you know, in the low to mid-20s." Then he added, "People are essentially, you know, afraid to miss out, so they, they continue to chase stocks and drive 'em higher."
Then, seemingly undercutting his own forecast, Minerd wondered, "Do you really wanna step in as an investor today to try to catch the last 15% of a move when we're already up 300%."
Josh Brown said people made that "easy money's been made" argument in 2013 and 2017.
Sully asked Minerd if he's been asked to join the Federal Reserve. Minerd said he has not "officially" been asked, but, "There have been discussions."
Nobody asked why Karen Finerman is so "afraid" of this market.
Karen ‘afraid’; sounds like
Scott Minerd is not
Thursday's (7/11) Halftime Report was partially preempted by Jerome Powell's testimony; then, everyone looked in awe upon the bull market.
Judge frankly stated that maybe the blueprint is, "Don't. Fight. The. Fed."
Jon Najarian pointed out that "our buddy" Scott Minerd (snicker) (that would be Scott "The key is to know when to get out" Minerd) has "flipped completely" from being "bearish as heck," adding he thought he heard "3,500" from Minerd.
Steve Weiss said we've got a "pretty good baseline U.S. economy" and that he sees no reason the market can't get to a 22 or 24 multiple.
Joe Terranova, who just this week took a jab at show "critics" who seem to have identified a pack-of-momentum-traders format of the Halftime Report (see below) and who's been publicly assessing this market like Buster Keaton on the train in "The General," got tripped up by Judge as Joe initially tried to give a speech about how it's not the panelists' job to predict what the Fed should do and Judge said to deal with it.
Nevertheless, Joe very solemnly added, "I think the market is recognizing that we might be on the precipice of a rate-cutting cycle."
Pete Najarian said he's getting a little ginchy about the MSFT and COST multiples.
Lindsey Bell was dynamite in new glasses.
On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Karen Finerman looked dynamite but made a less-than-explosive point about GOOGL and FB (sigh ... the P.E. ratio is attractive ...) (P.E. ratios are not stock catalysts), then admitted what we haven't been able to figure out for months, "I'm long but I'm afraid of this market."
Sorry, Joe, you’re reacting
to the momentum
We mostly yawned through Tuesday's (7/9) pre-Fed Halftime Report, but about 45 minutes in, Joe Terranova caught our attention in a big way when the subject of the Barclays Facebook call came up. (This writer is long FB.)
Joe started out by refreshingly admitting he's been "clearly wrong" in not being in FB and adding that it's moving not so much because of the Barclays call but because of "flows coming in." Kari Firestone and Stephanie Link both trumpeted appealing fundamentals. Josh Brown said the stock is a "huge teachable moment" because of all the bad headlines of months ago; "the market is so much smarter than any individual person who stumbles upon a headline." (Stumbles upon? You mean the headlines trumpeted on CNBC several times an hour for the last year and a half?)
It seems a greater teachable moment would've been telling viewers to buy the stock at 140.
Actually, Brown on Nov. 16 claimed the problem with the stock is not politicians but the "engagement issue" of people "losing interest." (Apparently, with the stock around $200, there's no longer an "engagement issue.")
On Dec. 31, Brown said FB has "maxed out ad load," and Jon Najarian questioned why developers would trust Facebook anymore. (Evidently, at $200, they trust it.)
But back to Tuesday's show. Perhaps sensing that some folks' Business-TV-Momentum-Trade Spider Sense might be tingling here, Joe sought to preempt any controversy.
"Pete brings up a great point," Joe stated. "Why, why at 198, we're not sitting here and reacting- we're not sitting here and reacting favorably, and I'm not pontificating, and saying, 'OK, you need to go own Facebook right now because of the momentum.' And critics will say, we're reacting to the momentum. No. I'm observing and explaining the environment ... All I'm explaining to you right now is let's acknowledge the elephant in the room. You've got quants that are driving the tape on a daily basis. And they are coming, and they are buying Facebook right now because of price. That's it. It's just an explanation."
From what we can tell, Joe 1) said the stock is going higher, 2) for no other reason than a bunch of other people are buying it.
That pretty much sounds like a "momentum trade," not at all unusual on a purported stock-picking program that is instead dominated by packs of momentum traders whose calls tend to be greatly influenced by the headlines/tickers of the prior 24 hours.
Pete Najarian, who gets it, acknowledged the company's strengths but questioned the timing of the Barclays call. "I just find it interesting that ... now is the time ... the idea that suddenly there's a bullishness now at 198 when there wasn't ..." Pete said.
As they say in "Road House," Exxxxxxxxxxxxactly.
Jim thinks trade nonsense can be over in 2 months; Joe says it’ll take at least 16
Judge on Monday's (7/8) Halftime Report announced that Morgan Stanley (snicker) (you know who that means) is downgrading global equities (shocker) (target is 2,400-3,000).
Josh Brown noted JPMorgan "at least" has a 12-month call on buying stocks and ripped Morgan Stanley for its "madness" of believing it can make a "90-day call."
Judge actually admitted to Brown that Morgan Stanley being "sort of more negative" on stocks for a long time has gone "not well."
Joe Terranova told Judge, "I disagree with the call." Guest Adam Parker said, "I disagree with the call also."
Parker said earnings expectations are always too high; he only cares if next year's earnings are higher than this year's.
Parker even bluntly noted that he worked at Morgan Stanley for a long time, and, when it comes to putting a number on stock-market calls, "Fortunately I don't have to do that anymore."
"You don't wanna play the valuation game," Parker advised.
Shannon Saccocia said you don't have to make a "binary call" with rates this low.
Jim Lebenthal, rather than spar with Rick Santelli over the "transmission mechanism" (snicker), claimed he got the "George Costanza" routine from other panelists when he warned in April about trade complacency.
"I think we're getting right back into that mode right now," Jim asserted, noting he was the first on the show to bring up China on Monday. Jim said he expects a deal ultimately, hopefully in 2 months. Joe shrugged, "The trade dispute is going to stay with us until the election in 2020."
Joe offered SNPS as his final trade, adding, "We don't talk about it much." Judge asked why he's bringing it up now. Joe responded, "Good strong momentum, nice fundamentals." (So now it's momentum; a month ago, it was "quality over high beta.")
Monday's 5 p.m. Fast Money enjoyed a welcome return by Karen Finerman, who 1) teamed with host Missy Lee to stun in orange ensemble and 2) had been off for a couple weeks but picked right up where she left off. "I'm more pessimistic on earnings than I have been in a long time. ... I guess they'll- it'll trade up if they cut 25 basis points. ... I'm concerned about the market ... the uncertainty of the tariff situation has created a pullback in spending ..."
Karen told Mark Yusko she's "somewhat bearish."
At the end of the show, Karen said she thinks BA has "bottomed out."
Rick Santelli suggests replaying Fast Money panelists’ bad calls from last year
13 minutes into Friday's (7/5) Halftime Report, Tyler Mathisen — a surprise guest host, but then again, it was a holiday week — brought in Rick Santelli to ask, "What's the market telling you?"
Rick suggested the market's "having a bit of a hissy fit" in terms of asking for something it really doesn't need.
Then Tyler asked for Rick's "takeaway" from his interview with Judy Shelton. From the soundbite played, about markets not being wrong in "questioning the yield curve," we had no idea what Shelton was talking about. Rick though called it a "wonderful point to make."
Josh Brown said Rick did a "good job" with the interview but told Santelli that Shelton's opinions sounded "miles away" from before she was "pulled into the president's orbit."
Rick responded with a stiff-arm, stating "we should play some soundbites from all the analysts and even 'Fast Money' from August and September of last year and talk about the tightenings."
But Rick really started shouting and pointing after Brown brought up the price of gold. "We keep talkin' about what's wrong. Why don't we talk about how we can FIX it!!" Santelli said.
Jim Lebenthal briefly got into the act, and he and Rick tangled over ... yes, this really happened ... "transmission mechanism" (snicker).
Rick said "at the end of the day" (that was last decade's favorite CNBC term) at least twice.
If you had all the money in the world ...
Before we get into Tuesday's Halftime Report (see below; there's no Halftime on Wednesday because of the shortened trading day), indulge us for a moment on a couple of philosophical matters.
Suppose that a relative or acquaintance asks you for $1,000.
You'd probably want some facts: What is the money for, is it possible or advisable to get it from other sources, is the recipient intending to pay it back and when, etc.
You might grant the request. Or you might decline.
That scenario, for whatever reason, is often troubling. Am I being taken? Am I enabling someone? Am I being unfair to others who might deserve it more but haven't asked?
Now, suppose instead that no one has asked you for $1,000, but you announced to your relatives and acquaintances that you've been fortunate, and you're going to give away $1,000 to a good cause.
The problem with that scenario is that the urgency is, by definition, less than in the first scenario, because no one is actually asking you for money, implying that the effectiveness of such a donation will be less than in the first scenario.
Think of the first scenario as someone splashing in a lake begging for a life preserver and the second scenario as a wealthy boater sailing around the lake looking for someone who could possibly stand some improvement.
News that Warren Buffett is donating $3.6 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to 5 charities (80% of it will go to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the rest to Buffett family charities) caught our attention Monday, the same day the New York Post reported that Gloria Vanderbilt is basically leaving "almost all" of her estate to Anderson Cooper.
Buffett's donation is the latest in an annual series of contributions that exceeds $34.5 billion since he announced in 2006 he was giving his money away.
It's a wonderful and magnanimous gesture.
Most of the money goes to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. What Buffett is hoping to achieve with these donations is not clear. The Gates Foundation website indicates a wide range of philanthropic activity, from improving low-yield crops in Africa to graduation rates in Los Angeles. Other initiatives listed on the site include polio eradication, gender equality, tobacco control and global libraries. Those endeavors would seem to require extremely different skill sets.
Even the most noble philanthropic endeavors can raise a bit of an intellectual quandary.
If there is a broken water purification system in a poor area of the world, hardly anyone would complain about a foundation sending money and expertise.
But if folks from other countries flew in to Flint and said "Obviously you guys are having trouble here; we'll fix it," it might rub some people the wrong way.
Then there's the matter of whether many problems actually need money; for example, how does spending money cause a student to get better grades?
And there can be issues as to whether foundations are paying for things that should be funded by something else. A Ph.D. at Columbia University "will receive $671,970 over two years from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for 'Nipping Drug Resistance in the Bud: Implementing Plasmodium falciparum Genetic Crosses in Humanized Mice to Define and Counter Antimalarial Resistance Emerging in South America.'" Columbia, according to Google, has a $10.9 billion endowment. What is the endowment for?
Some might also argue whether Gates and Buffett should keep their money largely within their own countries, or even within their own cities (Seattle has homeless problems), or whether the biggest beneficiaries should be people who made them rich, i.e., buyers of Windows or (among other products) GEICO insurance.
One extremely generous gentleman just recently announced at a college graduation that he would pay off the graduates' debt, which made some wonder if that's fair to the underclassmen or last year's graduates or to families who sacrificed so they wouldn't need as much in loans.
There's an occasional guest on the Halftime Report who has noted several times that he has taken the Giving Pledge.
This site cheers philanthropy and regularly touts those on Wall Street and elsewhere who have generously paid it forward.
But usually, as is the case this week, the news is the donation, and whatever happens to it rarely if ever gets reported, and it would be refreshing if Warren Buffett's charitable discoveries were as inspired as his business moves.
Giving money away, apparently, according to various amounts of evidence, is more complicated than it seems, and the act of giving doesn't have to be the end of the conversation ... does it?
Number of AAPL employees that typical business TV viewers can name drops from 2 to 1
Well, Tuesday's (7/2) Halftime Report sure got off to a "big" start.
Jon Najarian 3 times (that's correct, 3) said it's "huge" that AAPL has a billion handhelds and offers cloud-storage services.
Joe Terranova, however, wondered not when AAPL will surge to a new high but when it will reach its May 1 high of 215.
Steve Weiss said of AAPL, "I wanna be short it into the earnings." But he is long the name and is doing the short play through puts.
"I don't agree with you," Kari Firestone told Weiss, asserting AAPL "looks technically as if it's poised to go higher."
Rich Saperstein said he really likes the money-center banks (Zzzzzzz) (#heardthisonebefore), citing "regulatory relief" (snicker) and "more importantly, the return of capital to shareholders is just incredible right now." Doc said he's in SQ; "I think the rest of 'em struggle."
Joe suggested taking a look at SBNY.
Leslie Picker reported that Bill Ackman is bouncing back in a big way in 2019, and panelists enjoyed a chance to recap Bill's history with the program. (But no one said, "If you're going to talk about JCPenney and Herbalife, you have to talk about Canadian Pacific too.")
Steve Weiss observed, "It's the public stuff that's a distraction. He also had some personal distractions to be fair, right. Went through a divorce, got remarried. So now he's happy in life, and he's happy at work, so, he came back."
Joe said when Bill was on the show, panelists "challenged" him over how he would "spend the mental capital" and not get a return on investment, and now he's getting those returns.
Judge suggested Joe was going to have a meal Tuesday night at the Hunt & Fish Club. Joe didn't confirm or deny.
Steve Grasso: ‘The tariff story can only get better from here’
Stocks surged Monday (7/1) to an all-time high.
That was a little too high for some on the Halftime Report.
Jon Najarian declared, "I believe it's a trading market. I've liquidated more than 50% of my portfolio today. Again, that's not a buy and hold portfolio, that's trading."
But Steve Weiss said that there's "global synchronized easing" going on, and so, as for the market's 17 P.E. ratio, "There's no reason it can't be 20 or more."
Josh Brown grumbled that we're going to get an "emergency insurance rate cut." Doc disagreed with that terminology, stating, "It's certainly not been an emergency or they would've done it in June."
Najarian said the reason for the cut is "because of the inversion ... they're gonna deal with the inverted yield curve. That is why they're gonna do it."
Weiss said he agrees with Brown in that a cut "does nothing for the economy."
Steve Grasso on the 5 p.m. Fast Money said, "The tariff story can only get better from here ... we've factored in the negativity on the tariff headlines. We've- we've already seen those at worst."