CNBCfix - Fast Money Review

[CNBCfix Fast Money Review Archive — March-February 2020]

Weiss: Bottom in on March 23, ‘got a great grip’ on the market

The markets were kind of quiet, national and world news was somehow kind of quiet (relatively speaking, of course, given the last few weeks), and Monday's (3/30) Halftime Report was also quiet.

Judge wasn't present, which in these times gave us (and evidently others) pause; Judge stated on Twitter that "I am fine" and "Back tomorrow." So, a sigh of relief.

On the actual program, where panelists had been tripping over each other last Thursday and Friday to declare a retest and sinking market ahead, Joe Terranova on Monday admitted it's a "very surprising tape today."

But Joe opened the Dom Chu-led show by insisting the gains were merely a "trading bounce" that's "largely predicated on the rebalancing effort that we're gonna see at the end of the quarter." (Funny we didn't hear about that rebalancing from anyone on Friday.)

Jon Najarian said JNJ and ABT were giving the market hope.

The I-called-the-market claim came from Steve Weiss, who told Chu, "I believe the bottom was put in uh when we, when we traded down on last Monday, and I started positioning on Monday, actually the Friday before."

Weiss said he's not interested in suddenly trendy stocks such as Zoom, which he called "this year's Beyond Meats (sic plural), it's this year's Tilrays (sic plural)."

Weiss explained that he "can't help what happened" in the last couple months, though he can analyze it, and "I think I've got a great grip on it."

Mike Farr claimed, "There's gonna be some sort of inflation (snicker) at some point."

Judge calls airlines ‘garbage’ stocks, buffaloes Jim into dialing down his buy call

Well, that was awkward.

Jim Lebenthal on Friday's (3/27) Halftime Report said at the outset of his remarks that he expects the stock market to retest the lows as soon as next week, "so yes, have your shopping list ready."

Jim spoke of taking a barbell approach and initially listed airlines as stocks that would be considered "speculative" but now can be considered "opportunistic."

Jim added, "I own Alaska Airlines, so obviously that's one I recommend."

That sounds fine to us. Jim likes Alaska Airlines but thinks markets will be lower next week.

But Judge had other ideas. "'I own Alaska Airlines, so obviously that's one I recommend.' Look, just because you own it, are you sure you're recommending it to our viewers to buy it just because you own it," Judge demanded. "You telling somebody to buy Alaska Airlines today (note that last word and the ambiguity of that word — does he mean Jim is recommending this stock during today's show or does he mean Jim is recommending putting in an order on Friday)."

"Well, I- Yes, Scott, it's a fair question," Jim said, unfortunately without clarifying.

Then Judge interrupted Jim, wrongly stating Jim was claiming airlines have a "strong balance sheet." Jim again explained that he's using a "barbell" approach in which the airlines are on the speculative side, opposite of the "strong balance sheet" names. Judge then scoffed that the airlines are the "garbage" (that's correct, that's the term Judge used) portion of Jim's portfolio. Jim said that terminology is "too strong."

Hyping up the melodrama like "The Way We Were," Judge said, "This is a critical conversation that I- I wanna have."

Judge continued to press Jim that "any airline name" is up 30% this week, "and you're telling people that you can go buy it, that it's safe to buy, today. That sounds, that sounds awfully dangerous to me, Jim."

OK. So Judge is now a short-term stock picker. Ron Insana tried that.

Judge then relaunched his favorite speech of the week, that the new economy post-virus will be a "long-term dimmer," questioning whether we'll see any "packed planes" this fall.

Judge added, "If you had told me 30% ago, I think Alaska's good for all the reasons that you said, I wouldn't have taken issue with it whatsoever." Now, he wonders if viewers will make a "gigantic mistake" following Jim's advice.

(Oh sure. As if Judge was calling airlines a buy 30% ago, before the government bailout was finalized.)

Deferring too much to the host, Jim said he appreciated the opportunity to clarify and explained, "I'm not saying buy anything today," even though that's kinda what he said earlier.

Judge snapped, "I understand, but I asked you if you would recommend to our viewers to buy Alaska Airlines today, and you said yes. Now you're telling me not to do it, that you wait for the market to retest lows."

"I'm sorry if I misspoke," Jim said. "Wait till next week ... Alaska Airlines is one that I think when we retest the lows, you can buy."

Well, OK. If the latest version of this call is the correct one, then that's pretty weak. He really likes the stock, but only if it plunges back to the bottom.

Honestly, we agreed with Jim's first call. We have no idea if ALK will be lower on Monday or Tuesday, but these stocks have a government put. (This writer is long UAL.)

Perhaps Judge should've dismissed Steve Weiss' "Boeing's my largest position" and "the 737 Max is gonna be recertified in a few months" calls of several times this year with the same ferocity, or at least questioned Weiss for saying Friday "Don't worry about the bottom," when Weiss has been saying for weeks that making money on Wall Street is all about the price at which you buy (which is basically bottom-picking advice).

The funny thing is, just a day ago, Judge was lambasting Joe Terranova for talking about "trading" the market while Judge seemed to think John Rogers' view of the current market being a "once-in-a-lifetime buy" was the correct one.

But now Judge thinks airlines are going to sink and wants Jim to know that.

"I'm glad we, we figured that out," Judge told Jim.

Judge strangely harangues Joe over non-essential semantical tripe

It was a conversation that left us scratching our heads.

Judge on Thursday's (3/26) Halftime Report asked Joe Terranova about the possibility of the "switch on the economy" getting turned back on, but only on a "dimmer."

Joe started off saying that "risk assets have discounted a lot of the negative news." Then Joe pointed to the market having "an outside-up reversal week" and mentioned the "trading community" and "trading event" and said experts such as Liz Ann Sonders and Paul Tudor Jones and Jim Cramer know what he's talking about.

For some bizarre reason, Judge took issue with those "trading" terms, telling Joe "you said it 4 times" and then insisting, "The investor community, in- in- in some cases believes that we have bottomed." To bolster that, Judge played a clip of John Rogers talking about a "maybe a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy stocks at bargain prices."

How that has anything to do with Joe's chart reversal observation, we have no clue.

But Judge demanded Joe respond and said, as though it were dubious, "It sure sounds like you're talking about in-out traders vs. long-term investors."

"No! No! I'm not talking about in-out traders," Joe bellowed. (Instead, Joe explained, he was talking about In-N-Out Burgers.)

Sigh. It's amusing when even well-versed market watchers take pointless semantics so literally. Here's what Judge should've said: If stocks are going lower, no one — not the "investors" nor the "traders" — should be buying them. If stocks are going higher, then A) "traders" should definitely be buying; and B) "investors" who plan to hold for a long time probably should buy UNLESS they have reason to think there will be a near-term downturn or retest of the lows. (Note: Getting that latter opinion correct is about as easy as threading a needle, so people in general, even Wall Street whizzes, shouldn't bother trying.)

Judge explained his protest this way: "OK. I just wanna be clear, because some people hear 'trading community,' and that sounds different than addressing the longer-term investor."

OK. What sort of came across is that Judge sounds like he thinks this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and is offended that Joe would suggest that this is only a trading bounce.

Standing with New York City

It's not clear whether the stock market has bottomed. (Is it ever?) After some reassuring gains this week, it seems, at least temporarily, there is light in this tunnel, that the financial markets, with considerable assistance, will find a way to recover from this humanitarian disaster.

The world has been grieving the devastation in Wuhan, northern Italy, Spain. Anywhere this virus happens — which is basically everywhere — is a tragedy. This week, there will be enormous attention on New York City and its health care system.

Unfortunately, most of the world will only be able to judge the situation in New York City by 2 daily numbers. Even less meaningful, in this particular instance, are the numbers of the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq. There are many people fighting for their lives, many people trying to save those lives, and the rest of us most certainly stand beside you.

Judge thinks Josh is about to say you shouldn’t trust yourself with your own investment decisions

Hard to believe a day in which the Dow Jones Industrial Average rises, on a percentage basis, the most since 1933 (that's correct, 1933) could produce such an uninteresting Halftime Report.

But it did.

That's the type of market we're in.

Judge's star guest Tuesday (3/24) was Brad Gerstner, who was no more authoritative than David Tepper a day earlier.

Like everyone on CNBC these days, Gerstner expressed knowledge of medical science, stating that if we all go into isolation for 14 days, we'll be "below a growth factor of 1."

Josh Brown suggested he could believe a Dow-15,000 thesis right now just as easily as a Dow-25,000 thesis. Brown said, "You know who you really have to be afraid of right now? The No. 1 person that you need to just run away from and rip your money away from. The person-"

"Yourself?" Judge chuckled, guessing.

"The person that tells you exactly what's- what's about to happen," Brown said. "That's who you need to be terrified of."

Duly noted.

We don't know exactly what's about to happen. But we do know that the market wants to see people returning to work, which the market is tethering to the infection/death rate, and the first sign of that will probably be the beginning or continuation of the stampede back into equities.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Bill Nygren called stocks "really cheap."

Guest host Sully brought in the Permabear Dude who suddenly has a new theory, that despite September through January, this is a "2-year bear market."

David Tepper seems not too impressed with whatever Mary Barra isn’t doing

If Monday's (3/23) day of trading and television are any indication, the stock market is somehow getting boring fast.

As everyone waits for Congress to do something, Judge's star Halftime guest, David Tepper, said little more than he'd like to see medical equipment rolling off GM assembly lines into hospitals.

And oh, Tepper says you can "nibble" right now, a point seconded by Jim Lebenthal and Joe Terranova and basically everyone on the show for days.

Joe's highlight was positioning his camera to show a whiteboard listing basically ... the stocks of the Nasdaq 100, which apparently Joe is tracking.

Judge shows us what the Malibu crowd thinks about not being allowed to go out to work for a month

Friday's (3/20) Halftime Report was patched together with Scotch tape; somehow, it proved one of the most entertaining episodes in recent months, largely because Judge decided to show us how the Malibu 1% are handling a 1-month work shutdown.

Judge opened by asking his remote panelists, some on video and others just on a phone line, to "keep your, your, your answers somewhat concise."

That didn't apply to tennis great Brad Gilbert, who was Judge's star guest and didn't exactly appear to be suffering, offering a detailed analysis of his "Chuck Schwab" account from beautiful Malibu.

Gilbert bemoaned that as of Feb. 20, he was already up 17% year to date, "I was on fire," but now he's down 7%.

Gilbert said that to cope with this plunge, he's doing "6, 7, 800 pushups a day." He said he realized in the last 2 weeks that "we're in massive trouble here" and he's now in 77% cash.

Gilbert predicted Dow 12,500 or perhaps even 10,000. Like all the other biologists on the program these days, he claimed to know which televised medical opinions are the most valid, stating that Dr. Fauci "knows exactly what he's talking about."

Gilbert said "like 27 different times," he was close to hitting the "sell all" button on his "Chuck Schwab" account, but didn't.

Despite his stark Dow prediction, Gilbert admitted a couple times, with a smile, that he's buying SCHW and GDDY and AMZN.

Judge concluded his chat with Gilbert stating, "I look forward to seeing you on a, on the sideline of a tennis court."

And we're sure that if Brad Gilbert and Bill Ackman worked at a restaurant or hotel, they'd be delighted to see a 30-day lockdown and no hope of earning any income.

Before getting Gilbert on the air, Judge at one point interrupted himself to say, "These, these are interesting times, with sort of this un- uninterrupted live- live television ... This is ridiculous. But, let me tell- my executive producer, check your email. And you'll know what I'm talking about. There's no other way I can do it."

Meanwhile, in the sorta-non-1% portion of the show, it was Ricky Sandler again in the middle of the scrum. Sandler doubled down on his recent generational-buy call and predicted MGM will triple from where it's at Friday.

Sandler at one point asserted that once this crisis passes, "Vegas is gonna be raging." Josh Brown was heard to say "Oh my God," and a woman chuckled.

Brown then actually cited Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which doesn't seem to have anything to do with the conversation.

Grandpa Steve Weiss chimed in to say he agrees with Sandler except for the timeline, asserting it'll take 3-6 months because of "the impact on state and local governments."

Sandler insisted to Weiss and Brown that "we may get very quickly back to where we were before," calling this "the deepest, the, the shortest and the most telegraphed downturn and recession ever known to man."

Judge had to order Brown to "turn the volume down a little bit, all right, I wanna be able to hear ya."

Weiss at one point said the number of bankruptcies are "incalculable." Rounding out our 12th-grade psychology textbook, Weiss said Sandler's analysis is "more Pavlovian" than anything else. (How come nobody brought up Carl Jung?)

Sandler said Bill Ackman's commentary on Judge's show the other day was "a little bit hyperbole."

Brown scoffed that of MGM and other gainers Friday, "To me they all look like short covering." Jim Lebenthal asserted, "We probably haven't hit the bottom yet."

But Rob Sechan struck a Sandler-like tone of optimism, explaining that a source told him, "China is damn near completely back to normal."

Grandpa Weiss complained to Sechan that the sentiments expressed on CNBC, including Bill Ackman, have been far more positive than negative. "More people have said ignore it than, than, hey, be worried about it."

Judge noted that Bill "Apocalypse Now" Ackman was hardly positive. Weiss said Ackman revealed he's buying stocks, so, "I don't care what his words were. He's not a pessimist. He's an optimist."

Days into this crisis, nobody's saying the obvious things, which is that government is controlling when we work, so government isn't going to let this tragedy — and it is a massive tragedy, especially for anyone in a nursing home who is vulnerable — destroy everyone's future. And yes, within weeks, you're going to see global euphoria once this starts to lift and the umpire says "Play ball" at Fenway or Wrigley or Yankee Stadium.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, in a perfect statement with total sensitivity, Brian Sullivan correctly pointed out that people are wondering about protecting people's future. Sully said, "I'm hearing from a lot of people saying, 'When do we balance out the economic considerations of this.'"

Pretty soon, politicians will be dialing back to Plan A, which is the no-more-than-500-people-in-one-place thing, which they started saying and then, after getting their mugshots on TV, changing it 6 hours later to 150 people, then 50 people, then 10 people, then omg we've got tons of restaurant and hotel and other workers unable to put food on the table and pay the rent.

Maybe Judge will think about giving some of those folks airtime next week.

The counter-Ackman trade: Global euphoria within weeks

Judge and CNBC put on a Halftime Report program Thursday (3/19), but around here, our ears were still reverberating from Bill Ackman's Apocalypse Now dissertation of Wednesday.

Judge even admitted Thursday, "I did hear from others yesterday too that thought maybe that moment was peak fear. That some looked at that dire warning from Bill Ackman as a counterplay."

(Hands going up around here.)

Here's one thing Bill overlooked: Within weeks, baseball and basketball are going to begin or restart their seasons. The NBA will put LeBron James on against a good team somewhere. The guess here is that MLB will open with one game, either at Fenway, Wrigley or Yankee Stadium, and save the rest for Day 2. The buzz around that first pitch will be off the charts. You'll see endless standing ovations, people simply applauding everyday life that we all realize we'd kind of taken for granted.

There's more. As the virus lifts, world leaders will celebrate in unison. Nations will declare a "fresh start" in relations. Government leaders who have ordered restrictions (and mugged for the cameras) will go from scorned to cheered as everyone charges back into beloved normalcy.

Ackman can get in front of that if he wants. We won't.

Weiss is trying to find the ‘right point’ to buy (that’s called picking the bottom)

Once again, Halftime Report panelists on Thursday (3/19) waffled as to whether you should buy or sell this market, always suggesting there are merely places to nibble.

Jim Lebenthal even invoked an original Fast Money cliché popularized by Jeff Macke: "I don't think you need to be a hero right now."

Steve Weiss remains convinced of his loopy logic, stating again, "You make money by buying at the right point."

Basically you make money by selling higher than you buy, and/or from dividends. Weiss is trying to claim it's all about picking a bottom, even though he insisted Thursday, "Now you can't pick bottoms."

Judge sounded aghast when Mike Wilson suggested this could be a "garden-variety" recession after just saying it'll be "deep and sharp" like all other recessions.

Phil LeBeau said Doug Parker is talking about how this is the worst air crisis he's ever seen. Well, we don't doubt that, but, does anyone expect that Parker, while seeking a bailout in Washington, would be incentivized to say, "Hey even if we don't get much cash, we'll get through this"?

Judge's chat with Chamath Palihapitiya was utterly useless, as Palihapitiya complained about U.S. virus science and then knocked hedge funds that have gotten "massively levered" since 2008. Jeff Currie was brought in at the end to predict lower oil.

Around here, there's no doubt that as soon as it becomes clear this virus is fading, the euphoria begins, restaurateurs and bar owners will start secretly opening despite local bans, nobody will try to stop them, and stocks will likely have bottomed before this happens, and some big gains are ahead in a short period of time.

However, it's a fair question as to whether more people have been permanently chased out of the stock market forever. People who saw all-time highs a month ago and then, out of the blue, saw portfolios fall 30% in just weeks and will say "No more, I'll just do Treasurys."

Bill Ackman claims that until weeks ago, he never had more than $200 in his wallet

In pop culture, they call it "Jumping the shark." On Wall Street, depending on whether the market's up or down, they call it either a "top" or "bottom." Those looking for a signature moment in the coronavirus crisis might do well to stash away a recording of Bill Ackman's "50%" and "18-month" conversation with Judge on Wednesday's (3/18) Halftime Report.

Or, they might want to introduce Bill to Ricky Sandler (see below).

The conversation started off with Ackman claiming a great call. "Beginning in, I don't know, late January, I was getting increasingly bearish, and I woke up with a nightmare. And my nightmare was, you had this virus, that replicates ... you know, each person infects 2 and a half people." (He probably should've called Judge at that point and helped us all out, but whatever. Why not wait until the S&P 500 is down 35% and you're "aggressively buying stocks," as Bill later said he's now doing.)

Bill claimed "as many as a million Americans are gonna die."

He directed much of his outrage at people on the "beaches in Ft. Lauderdale."

"We gotta save everyone's life," Ackman said, before adding, "The other way we save lives is by saving the economy," which would seem to run contrary to a 30-day lockdown. He argues that a 30-day lockdown wouldn't hurt because "almost every business, big business, can survive a month without revenue." That claim would only be true if those same "big" businesses reverted right back to old revenue levels immediately after those 30 days are over. How would that happen if people aren't getting checks or aren't paying their rents?

Ackman, who to our knowledge is not a medical doctor, said two of his employees "are likely to have the coronavirus," though neither, according to him, has a confirmed test.

"Assume it's gonna kill your child, OK," Ackman advised.

Apparently, Ackman wants everyone at home, not going out at all, for 30 days, although he allowed that food centers would need to be kept open. (And of course, someone has to take out the trash, someone has to treat the sick, someone has to arrest the bad guys, someone has to be cleaning all these floors and surfaces that are supposed to be getting hyper cleaned, so not everyone is going to be sitting in a room for 30 straight days uninterrupted.)

Bill said that what needs to happen is, "Every country in the world at the same time says, 'For the next 30 days, it's basically, spend time with your family." But that's who a lot of people are getting the virus from — their families.

Bill didn't explain, and Judge didn't ask, how the government would enforce a curfew and whether National Guard troops would want to be part of the next Kent State when Granny insists on going for a walk.

Ackman peppered his conversation with stark predictions (basically of $0 stocks) for the airline, hotel and restaurant industries. "Every hotel is gonna be shut down in the country. Every one," Bill said. He kept using the term "revenue," as in, these businesses will go 18 months without revenue. But it's the bailouts, currently in progress, that will provide at least some of the "revenue."

Yes, there are many devastating tragedies taking place, particularly in nursing homes. There is also a devastating economic impact unfolding across the country.

There's also something called "hysteria" that's generally not recommended.

If you were wondering, as were we, whether Judge should've asked Bill (with all due politeness), "Are you feeling OK?," surely you got the feeling things were being laid on thick when Bill actually claimed, "I did stuff I've never done before. I've never had more than like 200 bucks in my wallet, OK. I went to the bank, and I took out a large amount of money in cash, because of this concern ... more than a month ago."

If we're headed toward a massive lockdown, why in the world would Bill need a "large amount" of cash? Is he afraid Chipotle (which may not be open anyway) will reject his credit card? Apparently it's now the coronavirus, and not Herbalife, that's the greatest threat to civilization. (But Herbalife got a special Ira Sohn presentation.)

Bill kept trying to draw parallels to real wartime and "storm the beaches" and "shared sacrifice" and complaining how American governments aren't doing that or ordering that. If 18-year-olds in 1942 complained about coronavirus symptoms, they likely ended up at Midway or Omaha Beach.

Bill used the term "s---show" on live TV.

Bill was cavalier about the flu, calling it "not nearly as scary" because, according to Dr. Bill, "When people get sick, they stay home. And by staying home, they don't pass it on to people." Well, according to the CDC just a week ago, 36 million people got it during this season, 370,000 got hospitalized, and 22,000 have died (good thing they all went home when they got sick and never spread it).

How did Bill arrive at his public-health analysis? He said, "This was a feeling like I've never had. Like there's a tsunami coming."

On Tuesday (3/17), S&P 500 hit low of 2367.04 during corona crash

Tuesday's (3/17) Halftime Report was completely preempted by a White House press conference. The 5 p.m. Fast Money included a late chat with Karen Finerman, who said there are several stocks she'd like to buy, including DIS, but she thinks it's still going lower. Futures indicate Wednesday will produce new lows during the coronavirus crisis. (This entry was posted overnight Tuesday/Wednesday.)

Stocks are trading like it’s World War III (Tip: It’s not, as Weiss insists on trying to pick the bottom)

Shortly into Monday's (3/17) Halftime Report (the remote version, with panelists dialing in from home), we couldn't help but shake our heads at Steve Weiss' assessment of the coronavirus crisis.

"To me this is worse than '08," said Weiss, because now, "there's no demand out there."

Um, has Weiss visited a grocery store? There's just as much demand as there was a month ago. Government won't let people patronize businesses. Sports teams won't play games. That's a supply problem, not a demand problem.

So we found ourselves mostly nodding at Judge's subsequent conversation with Ricky Sandler, who asserted, "I couldn't disagree more with Mr. Weiss about everything he just said."

"We are actually gonna contain this much better than the early fears," Sandler claimed, arguing the death-toll predictions will be "greatly exaggerated."

OK, we're not really sure about that. But Sandler went on to say that if GDP declines a whopping 10% in Q2, "that's $500 billion of lost GDP," while we've already lost $10 trillion of market cap.

"It is so far out of proportion," Sandler claimed, pointing to "pent-up demand" and "massive fiscal stimulus."

Here, we can't disagree at all. We don't know when this market will turn around — we keep thinking, it'll turn around as soon as newspapers get tired of putting this story on Page 1 — but as soon as it does, you will see a global stampede back into stocks, with basically no headwinds, talk about Katie bar the door.

Sandler said, "My message to your viewers is refinance your mortgage and take the money and buy some stocks." That's probably not bad advice, although this site isn't going to advise anyone on refinancing.

Sandler kept touting "business interruption insurance," which is basically the government paying businesses who don't lay off workers. It sounds good on the surface, but we're not sure how this type of thing could be administrated or enforced.

Judge brought Weiss back for a rebuttal. "I'm not a seller of much down here at all," Weiss conceded, but then Weiss returned to his recent refrain, which is kind of goofy: "As Ricky knows, your return is judged when you buy."

So why was Weiss buying anything in the last 6 months with stocks at all-time highs?

Joe Terranova at one point stated, "I don't know that the return to economic activity should be a stampede. It has to be a very slow process over time." Joe's wrong. This isn't "The Day After." The economic process won't be that slow, and the stock-buying process is indeed going to be a stampede.

Judge took issue with Sandler claiming you can't get coronavirus twice. "I just wanna be a little careful what we're puttin' out, over the airwaves," Judge said.

Marc Lasry said the short term is dicey but longer-term, he agrees with Sandler that this is a "massive buying opportunity."

Dick Costolo said "trying to predict a bottom ... is just a silly way to go about it." But Weiss says "your return is judged when you buy."

"What's the signal gonna be that maybe we have bottomed in stocks," Judge asked, wondering if it's a "peak in U.S. cases." (It'll be when newspapers stop plastering this story on Page 1.)

Judge actually knocked the "Rise Above" buttons that CNBCers were forced to wear during the fiscal-cliff crisis (snicker).

On the 5 p.m. show, Steve Grasso said the bottom might be much lower but that the speed of the "whiplash" recovery back to old highs will surprise a lot of people. Karen Finerman said she doesn't think the bottom is in yet. Guy Adami bemoaned the movement in bond yields.

Halftime Report/Fast Money overachieving, even if the financial markets aren’t

To those about to trade, or talk about trading, we salute you.

It took a global health crisis, unfortunately, to get this page's viewership mildly spiking; it's not near the level when this page started revving the engines in mid- to late 2008, but it's a boost.

We've long attributed this page's gradual downward Comscore (snicker) slide to viewer fatigue with a daily TV show that's in its 13th-plus year, on a cable channel that, evidenced by its frustration years ago with Nielsen ratings, is part of the systemwide declines in viewership, not because of any problem with the product, but because there's simply so much out there, Internet and streaming included, for consumers to digest.

Nevertheless. We're happy to report, in times such as these, that the gold standard is alive and well. When you see Sue Herera, Bill Griffeth, Jim Cramer, Tyler Mathisen, David Faber, Becky Quick, Joe Kernen, Steve Liesman, Phil LeBeau and many others at the controls, you know that we've been through these things before, and we'll get through them again.

Around CNBCfix HQ, some of us remember Sue and Bill reporting on FNN in October 1987, a time when an emeritus member of the CNBCfix board stated, "It's just gonna go back up!!"

Scott Wapner and his deep bench of extremely well-informed panelists and guests continue to put together a stellar operation on the Halftime Report, while Brian Sullivan has stepped in with a typical yeoman effort on the 5 p.m. Fast Money on behalf of Missy Lee, who undoubtedly is rarin' to go again.

A lot of viewers/readers don't realize the pressure on media in situations such as this. News breaks constantly, special programming is ginned up, and CNBCers have to be ready to deliver updates on a moment's notice or perhaps travel to hotspots. (Yes, they do a good job at Fox and Bloomberg too.) A lot of this is extra work on "OT" (translation: likely not compensated), and with it comes additional stress from nervous execs who want to make sure they aren't getting beat on big stories. That kind of effort is not unnoticed here.

This page, from day one, has always offered an honest critique of Fast Money/Halftime Report. Occasionally, that critique includes jabs. Sometimes, folks disagree. That's fine. It goes with the territory. We're not sure of many things in this market, but we're definitely sure that when you get Karen Finerman, the Najarians, Guy Adami, Weiss-vs.-Lebenthal, and when you get Joe Terranova parked again in that corner chair as he is now, you are getting the best in real-time commentary on the financial markets, and your portfolio is unquestionably better off.

That extends to the many other panelists and some of our favorite guests, such as Jeffrey Gundlach, Lee Cooperman, Carl Icahn, Tony Dwyer, Tom Lee, Ed Yardeni and too many others to mention.

We're glad that when global financial markets and people's accounts are in turmoil, viewers can turn to these faces again and again and know that they "get it" and feel or know the pain and have plenty of constructive thoughts on overcoming it.

We say to them, keep doin' what you're doin'.

Jenny Harrington:
Bottom is ‘pretty close’

The big fireworks in Friday's (3/13) stock market came very late in the trading session, well after the Halftime Report aired with a too-long conversation with Carl Icahn about corporate leverage.

Joe Terranova said that if you can handle another potential 15% lower, you can "slowly buy into this market."

Jenny Harrington said we've "gotta be pretty close" to a bottom.

Josh Brown said the headlines will only get worse but that the country needs more people to be tested so we can fully grasp the scale of the problem.

Keith Banks predicted a recovery that's more "U-shaped" than "V-shaped."

Josh Brown and Keith Banks agreed people shouldn't be trying to time this market. (That's in the wake of Jon Najarian gushing earlier last week about how he's selling the big days up and buying the big days down.)

Carl Icahn talked about selling insurance policies in 2008 on bonds in "grave danger" that's like selling life insurance to guys heading for the electric chair. Carl said "we're really going down a toboggan slide" with CMBSes and that "nobody listened" to him in 2008. Carl also complained about "the same damn board" at Occidental.

Guy Adami on the 5 p.m. Fast Money said it was "a great day for the stock market," but his concern is the "unprecedented volatility in the bond market."

Weiss actually claims Buffett might buy BA

That didn't take long.

On Thursday's (3/12) Halftime Report, Steve Weiss was already changing his tune (again) on owning BA, which he had just scoffed at a day earlier (see below).

Weiss said at the end of the program Thursday that, because of the Fed announcement, he was covering "some of my index shorts" that he had mentioned earlier in the program. (#momentumtradingtotheextreme)

Not only that, Weiss admitted he already is rebuying BA, because of 1) the Fed move and 2) because "I also think Boeing is a great acquisition candidate for Warren Buffett."

Under the pretense of asking a question to Mark Cuban, Weiss delivered a speech, until Mark cut him off and started in on his own speech.

Weiss said Feb. 10 that BA (closed $342) is ‘now my largest position’

On Wednesday's (3/11) Halftime Report, Steve Weiss, who recently had been trumpeting being long BA, discussed the stock's bad day.

"It's one of the biggest mistakes I've made in modern times," said Weiss, a refreshing bit of candor.

He explained, "I was very disappointed naming Calhoun the CEO. ... He presided over this what we've seen is one of the biggest corporate meltdowns in history for a company that's still solvent," and that was fine, because Weiss did indeed knock the new management when it was announced at the end of last year.

The only problem is, Weiss didn't explain Wednesday that on Jan. 29, after complaining about the Calhoun hire, he started gushing about the stock, claiming the "news flow" for the company had turned positive. (So much for that new management being a problem. But wait. There's more.)

Instead, on Wednesday, Weiss jumped ahead to the latest "news flow" on the company and CEO. "When I started thinking about selling it, like really considering it, is when he did that article last week. And he trashed his company, he trashed the former CEO, so you wanted somebody that's got a steady hand on the wheel, that's got judgment, not somebody who's complicit in the company meltdown. So, because of that, I sold it. ... I didn't sell the whole thing because I still think that the plane will be launched by midyear."

Ah. Now we're getting somewhere. He thinks management's weak, but he's still predicting a 3-month recertification of the 737 Max.

Jim Lebenthal chimed in, "I screwed this trade up big time." However, at 206 (as BA was priced during the show), Jim told Weiss he would disagree with him, stating, "I'm not gonna sell it here," despite the fact Weiss wasn't saying sell at current price.

Weiss protested, "I didn't sell it today. I sold it yesterday, when it popped."

Jim said BA is trading like automakers in 2008, and there's "no way" BA is the same type of company.

Meanwhile, as for the broader market, Jim said it's OK to buy, but "pace it out over the coming days." (Translation: We're going lower.)

Weiss insisted stocks are still going "30%" lower than their recent highs.

"I think it's too early to buy ... This point of entry is not good," Weiss said, even faulting Donald Trump for his "CEO" behavior regarding the virus.

Kari Firestone curiously suggested the possibility of an announcement next week of a working cocktail of drugs against the coronavirus. Judge scoffed that "we wouldn't even have any sort of vaccine, cocktail or otherwise, for a year to a year and a half, and that is according to health experts." Kari emphasized she's not talking about a "vaccine."

Sarat Sethi revealed he's been nibbling in DIS, LOW, ZBH, JPM, MS, CVS and ILMN.

Jon Najarian stated, "No. 1, Scott, never turn a trade into an investment," and Doc went on to congratulate himself for how he was in New Orleans selling on the up days and buying on the down days. But he assured he doesn't time the market right all the time.

Judge quoted Dr. Anthony Fauci as saying there could be "perhaps many millions" of U.S. coronavirus cases; later Judge suggested maybe 150 million, citing someone else.

Remember when it was the PIIGS, and omigod, Greece, They’re never gonna accept austerity!!!!!

Tuesday's (3/10) Halftime Report — taking place while the day's monstrous stock rally was taking a pause — produced a healthy continuation of what's become a slow-developing debate on energy stocks between Steve Weiss (no) and Jim Lebenthal (yes).

"I just think that it's a zombie industry," Weiss said.

Jim conceded that "wide swaths" of the energy space, specifically offshore drillers, are "untouchable." But he also contended, "Now we're getting great companies at great prices."

That word "great" got Weiss' attention.

"I don't understand what your definition of a 'great company' is," Weiss said. "They may be great companies, but they're terrible stocks."

Jim singled out MPC and said the stock is not based on the price of oil but crack spreads. Weiss responded, "Marathon's lower than it's- than where it was in 2014."

"That's a factual statement that bears nothing on where it's going from here," Jim protested, the first 4 words being irrelevant.

Weiss is right and will continue to win this argument until Jim can point to some kind of catalyst besides increasingly lower nominal stock prices. This sector is a disaster.

Later, Jim mentioned some energy names trading below book. "Book is a moving target," said Weiss, who insisted you have 6-12 months to buy energy.

Karen hates days like Tuesday,
feels like ‘sucker’s rally’

As for Tuesday's (3/10) stock market ride, the Halftime crew might've been opining a bit too soon.

Steve Weiss stated, "I think you continue to sell rallies." He said, "My baseline case is, we're down 30% from the highs."

Jim Lebenthal noted stocks rallied Tuesday morning, but by the time of the Halftime show, "It really gave up those gains. That's a, that's a bad sign." (Except it wasn't so bad at the end of the day.)

Weiss, sounding a bit like the Anti-Fed Grandpa Goons® who populate the 5 p.m. show, called the recent 50-basis cut "completely unnecessary." (Yep. Fed funds rate should be 5%, or else WE'RE ALL A BUNCH OF WEAKLINGS.)

Bryn Talkington, beaming in from Texas, told Judge, "Definitely, markets are oversold." But she said the world's in a health crisis.

Jeff Currie said he doesn't want to call Russia-Saudi oil scheming a "price war" but rather a "market-share strategy (snicker)." Currie kept talking about how an oil washout/reset has been needed for a couple of years.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Karen Finerman said she's been short the HYG for a while, but she just tried to short more of it, "and I couldn't get a borrow anymore," which tells her it's getting crowded.

(Well, like this page has been saying, as soon as there's evidence these cases are fading, as is already happening in China, you'll start seeing a stampede back into equities. But omigod if you don't catch the very bottom, you're a TERRIBLE trader!!!!!!)

Karen said days like Tuesday feel like a "sort of sucker's rally."

Karen hasn't been revisiting some of her outstanding advice from Feb. 8, 2018, in which she pointed out that enormous VIX spikes are typically over with in a hurry: "I think this VIX change is clearly, it's very very dramatic, but I really do think it's gonna be somewhat short-lived. We've seen over the last 20 years probably, spikes in the volatility like this, they come down. They go up super quickly and they come down very quickly as well. ... I think you're much more likely to have a 1,000- down-1,000 day near the time you have another down-1,000 day. That those 2 things are more likely to happen together than they are to happen separately."

Grasso: ‘Seems a little overdone’

For whatever it's worth, Monday's (3/10) Halftime Report and 5 p.m. Fast Money were a lot more sanguine than the markets people were opining on.

On Fast Money, it was Steve Grasso who seemed the least convinced. "We're starting to see shades of panic," said Grasso, before adding, "It seems a little overdone to me."

Grasso offered, "Countries are trying to outdo each other with what they're shutting down. ... And if you don't shut down, you seem like you're being cavalier."

Asked about the banks, Karen Finerman said, "I don't think it was oil, I think it was more this idea of rates, of course ... (and) this idea of a recession and credit quality."

Tony Dwyer, on the phone, told guest host Sully that markets are "really close" to at least "a bottom."

Nobody mentioned the most likely turnaround for the markets will be when either the number of new cases begins to fade significantly or newspapers get tired of putting the story on Page 1.

We gotta think, once that happens, it's coiled-spring time, as the market realizes there's nothing in front of low rates and stimulus, not even a Marine LePen candidacy or a fiscal cliff (remember those?).

Grandpa Guy Adami did the usual routine of Grandpas during selloffs, questioning whether stocks aren't really MORE expensive after dropping 19% because, omg, earnings are definitely gonna be SO awful.

On the Halftime Report, Judge quoted Lloyd Blankfein as predicting a "quick recovery" once the markets stabilize. Josh Brown said, "I think it's reasonable to assume" that Blankfein will be right.

Judge took a call from Fish, whom Judge should've had on months ago for an in-depth discussion of energy (as this site has long lobbied) but hasn't, and asked how bad it can get in oil. Fish called it a "short-term situation" and something the markets "can fix."

Fish said he wouldn't be surprised if, 2 months from now, Monday's oil prices may be "ridiculous."

Jeffrey Gundlach: Joe Biden
‘is completely unelectable’

The star guest of Thursday's (3/5) Halftime Report was Jeffrey Gundlach. Jeffrey told Judge he does believe the Fed was right to cut rates, but Gundlach's fireworks came in his political assessment.

Gundlach said that Democratic chieftains stacked the deck for Joe Biden by pushing out Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar and that Republicans could've done the same thing for Jeb Bush in 2016 but didn't.

Regardless, "I think Joe Biden is completely unelectable," Gundlach asserted.

As for Bernie Sanders, "It looks to me like he's pretty much done."

Judge hears run-of-the-mill market assessment from some bigwig, pretends it’s a state secret

They say it had something to do with Joe Biden, but probably nothing could make the stock market gush like the re-appearance of Joe Terranova on the Halftime Report Wednesday (3/4). (Welcome back, Joe (he tweeted that he's "feeling great"). Picture above is not from Wednesday. #file)

Opening the show, Joe assured Judge that a market bottom is "absolutely a process that's going to take more time."

Grandpa Steve Weiss asserted that coronavirus numbers will pick up, and, "In my view, they're gonna be stark." (That was priced in last week, and TV and newspapers are getting tired of leading with the story, but whatever.) Weiss even agreed with the note from Lori Calvasina (who wasn't on the show) that the Fed somehow "spooked the market (snicker)."

However, unlike Weiss, Jon Najarian and Jenny Harrington, as well as CNBC Fed watcher Steve Liesman, were already seeing the light.

"It is time to add some in here," Doc said.

Harrington at one point predicted the contraction will be "shorter than we all expect it to be."

Liesman said, "The Fed may have put a bottom on the market for the given information and forecasts we have in hand right now."

Judge, disclosing this bit of information as though he had found the secret to the atom bomb, said he ran into "the CEO of one of the world's largest investment firms last night, by happenstance, um, at dinner." This person apparently told Judge the 10-year could reach 75 basis points and that stocks could fall another "single digit percentage."

Stop the presses.

"I wish I could tell you who it is, but I just can't do that," Judge explained.

The star guests of Wednesday's Halftime were Tony Dwyer and Brian Belski, who also are seeing the light, although neither one explained that the simplest reason stocks are going to recover with a bang is because people have been dying to buy this market for years and they're basically getting a gift this week or last.

Dwyer contended that "last Friday should be at least a temporary low in the market." He argued that in 2011 and 2016, the bottom in bond yields did not trigger a new low in stocks.

Judge shrugged, "I just disagree- I just think the- the 10-year keeps falling, Tony, people aren't gonna have a big appetite to buy stocks."

Judge then introduced Belski as having a 3,400 year-end target. "I don't know how the heck you could possibly be sticking with that today," Judge grumbled. (OK, try shorting the market then.)

"I think stocks are higher at the end of the year," Belski answered, stressing bottoms and structural changes to markets "do not happen in 1 day."

Evidently liking what he was hearing from Belski, Dwyer chimed in, "I think Brian is too conservative. If anything, I'm looking to raise my target. I'm at 3,440," Tony said. "When you know that the Fed is not gonna raise rates for years, you don't put a low multiple on that."

"I'm waiting for that test of the low," Dwyer said, before he wants to back up the truck.

Judge grumbled that "I think both of you guys are too complacent about the virus." (Armageddon got priced in last week, Judge; the complacency was in late January.) (Judge still doesn't realize he's going to be spending the next 5 years referring to the "Corona Crash" of February 2020 the same way he still talks about the Flash Crash.)

Later in the day, One of the Anti-Fed Grandpa Goons® on the 5 p.m. Fast Money revealed, "I was watching the Halftime Report today and there was 2 strategists tripping on- over each other to kinda one-up the other's 3,400 target in the S&P 500," including math suggestions (by Belski) of how you can get to +4 by adding 3 and 1, or 6 and negative 2, etc.

"I just don't see it," Grandpa said. (Fine. Short the market.)

Back on Halftime, Jenny Harrington stressed that equities are more attractive than bonds, a point she also made in this week's Barron's. (She was quoted in 2 separate articles, on Page 28 and Page 30; "Honestly, there's no point in owning bonds.")

Joe Terranova said the problem with the show's dialogue is that this isn't a "Main Street" conversation but a "Wall Street" conversation.

Steve Liesman wondered if the stock market is prepared for "the closing of the New York City school system." (Do markets have to prepare for schools when kids are snowed out?)

Judge wondered if the supposed refi boom is a "fallacy." Jenny said she thinks it's for real.

Steve Weiss touted BA on the strength of Larry Culp predicting "mid-year" for the 737 Max. (Remember in December when the Halftime Report projection was 1-3 months?)

Joe said the "small trading range" on Wednesday is a "good signal" for nearing a bottom.

Fast Money Grandpas basically think the Fed funds rate should be 5%

How'd you like to be on the Federal Reserve?

When you let businesses run their course, you get people on CNBC screaming in endlessly played clips, "THEY KNOW NOTHING!!!!"

When you proactively intervene to prevent big problems, you get mocked for your "crazy" reaction to a viral outbreak.

One of the long-term mysteries of watching CNBC is this strange testosterone opposition to the Fed. Presumably, it's because the Federal Reserve primarily protects Main Street and thus (mildly) interferes with the perceived free-market opportunity of chest-pounding dudes to make or lose a whole beachhouse in Wildwood, New Jersey, in one afternoon.

Then the dudes overdo it, and omigod, where was the Fed to rein in Dick Fuld, and by the way, Goldman Sachs would sure be interested in an AIG bailout.

"Downturns are a natural part of the cycle. You need them to happen. You have to allow it to happen," sneered Grandpa Guy Adami on Tuesday's (3/3) 5 p.m. Fast Money.

Surely Grandpa Guy, like federal banking officials, has been on the receiving end of queries from congressmen of low-income districts who wonder why their constituents have such a hard time getting loans. Or from small-business associations who want to make sure they have some slack if the president launches a tariff war that hikes the price of their primary input 15%. And surely Grandpa Guy tells these people, "Hey, sorry if your constituents lose their jobs, but we've gotta let our 'natural' disruptions take place." And then the chest-pounders can go back to trading gold or measuring their options risk and picking up another beachhouse in Wildwood, New Jersey.

Guest host Sully actually fired back at Guy, "Is there anything 'natural' about thousand-point moves up or down 4 out of the last 5 days or whatever it's been."

Guy's response: "It's just as ridiculous on the way up as it is on the way down, and we talk about it all the time. Markets go down faster."

OK. A market rally from September through January, based largely on the end of a ridiculously executed trade war, is "ridiculous."

Listening to the carping on CNBC about the Fed is like sitting next to the dude in the stands who could easily call far more successful plays than the offensive coordinator.

As is the case with many theories, chest-pounding dudes mistake effect for cause. The Fed doesn't cause chest-pounding dudes to have less glorious markets. The Fed doesn't force Western peoples from producing far fewer children than 50 or 100 years ago, and the Fed doesn't lower the amount of baby boomers and women entering the workforce that provided the chest-pounding dudes with glorious financial playgrounds of the 1980s.

The Fed doesn't set the 10-year rate, and it doesn't determine how many people in Greece work vs. how many retire.

Karen Finerman, sensationally chic in blue/black, started to say "I feel badly for Jerome Powell, right" before adding, "I don't agree with what he did."

People on CNBC disgruntled that Jerome Powell didn’t cure the coronavirus Tuesday morning (a/k/a Jim can time the market better than the Fed)

Listening to Tuesday's (3/3) Halftime Report, the market-timers/Grandpas didn't sound very impressed by the rate cut (um, the markets had already slashed long-term rates; blame the markets) and were resigned to a "double dip" and "retest" (that would be Jim Lebenthal). Jim chided the Fed for an "ill-timed" move when it should wait for the "highly likely" double dip. #MarketTimers #PackofMomentumTraders

Al Michaels probably isn’t going to like Tim Seymour’s latest advice (though Al’s favorite show is the Halftime Report)

It was Old-Timer's Day on Monday's (3/2) 5 p.m. Fast Money, that being, Grandpa Guy Adami got another platform for trashing the Federal Reserve and anything to do with a happy day on Wall Street.

Grandpa Guy admitted twice that he didn't see Monday's historic rally coming at all but pointed to his chart assessment from Friday's show and suggested that the recovery trend will briefly continue.

"A 50% correction puts you at 3,125," Guy said. "So 1% from where we closed. I think it's reasonable to think that we'll rally tomorrow towards those levels and then fade on the back of what should be continued selling." (Note the last 4 words. #Grandpa)

Guy referred to his Friday comments and insisted, "We flagged those levels." But he also grumbled on Friday that stocks on that day might even be "more expensive" than they were a week earlier because of earnings estimate cuts.

Another fellow on that Friday show, Steve Grasso, whom we'd normally not call Grandpa Steve but in this case it applies, complained about "how we faded after Powell today (snicker)."

On Monday, guest host Sully noted that some people might've already become afraid that they've missed the bottom. Sully asked the panel, "Was there an element of panic buying today?"

"There was a lot of panic buying. There was a lot of panic selling," said Tim Seymour.

As always, we hoped to hear a voice of reason from Karen Finerman. But Karen sadly didn't move the needle on Monday. "I hate days like today," she said. "This is not healthy, right. ... I'm not a buyer on a day like today."

Tim Seymour called the triple-levered ETFs "very dangerous" if played "for any meaningful period of time." Tim should touch base with Al Michaels, who likes to tell Judge's Halftime crew that he's made 1,700% on the FAS by holding it the last 8 years.

Sully is far from convinced the worst is over. "A little bit of skepticism right now is a very healthy thing," Sully said.

Tom Lee deserves victory lap, calls for 3,600 by year-end

Obviously not anticipating what was to come late Monday (3/2) afternoon, Judge in the Halftime Report's intro was calling this an "all hands on deck market (snicker)."

Tom Lee was actually on the show and should've taken a victory lap (see Friday's report below) but was too modest to do so. Nevertheless, Lee rightly told Judge that markets are, or will be, past this in a hurry. "We're looking at potentially 3,600 by the end of the year for the S&P," Lee said.

Borderline-Grandpa Steve Weiss predicted the bounce would be only "short-term" and said he expects "more major outbreaks in the U.S." What he didn't say was that the stock market last week priced in a viral chokehold on the U.S. economy that in fact clearly isn't going to happen to that particular extent; yes, travel stocks are not in a great place right now, and correctly so.

Weiss said it's "ridiculous" for the Fed to cut 50 or 75 basis points "because the market's fallen out of bed a little bit, as it does every other year since 1950."

That's a Grandpa-type of comment, and we'll point out why he's wrong: It would be irresponsible of the Federal Reserve to stand by and let the stock market cause a recession when there's basically little risk (i.e. inflation, or are panelists going to start predicting that again now) of a cut.

Mike Santoli told Judge, "Friday morning's lows look like they could be, at least on a tactical basis, the low for a little while."

Judge read a note from his favorite stock market soothsayer; we wondered if the dude was calling this a "rolling bear market (snicker)" again. Not quite; Judge said he's now calling last September's rally a "false breakout" and sees "big overhead resistance (snicker) at 3,100."

(See, some of these people have no clue how much many people are dying to buy this market.)

Weiss had the line of the day actually, stating, "I don't think Mike can rewrite history from when he was neutral to bearish the whole year."

Judge brought in Stephen Tusa, who was upgrading GE and admitted recently being wrong in the name. After a lengthy interview with Tusa, Weiss said, "There's nothing that he said there that leads me to believe that he should've upgraded to neutral," citing the $8 target. "There's nothing he had to say positive about it."

Steve Liesman believes 35-year-olds can’t manage risk (Dick Fuld was 62 when Lehman collapsed)

No need to beat around the bush.

Judge on Friday's (2/28) Halftime Report said Tom Lee is predicting, at some point in the near future, a "V-shaped bounce."

Frankly, Lee's right.

All of those people who missed part or most of the rally since September have been handed a gift, and once the all-clear is given, there'll be a stampede back into stocks.

Now, what is that "all-clear"? It could be central banks, as governments are going to rain money over their populace that's most affected by this. Or it could be a vaccine. Or it could be, perhaps most likely, a dwindling of new cases in China and South Korea, a more "natural" if slow remedy to this horrible tragedy.

Whatever the good news, it'll ignite the stock market.

Within a few weeks, folks on CNBC will be calling this the Corona Crash, just like they do the Flash Crash.

Anyway. On the Halftime Report, Steve Liesman was given the floor to say he gets the feeling that everyone is saying, "Somehow, this all goes back to normal." (Because it basically does.)

Then he drew a curious analogy to a 75-year-old money manager "that's been running a portfolio like a 35-year-old because they've been allowed to for the lack of risk that's been out there" and now finding his portfolio is "misshapen."

(It's funny when people on CNBC always assume young people are the reason markets crash, that if every investor were George Burns, Lehman Brothers would still be around ...)

Liesman said maybe this will be such a "Humpty Dumpty" moment.

Moments later, Jon Najarian pointed out that under the traditional advice of putting the percentage of bonds in your portfolio matching your age, those 75-year-olds would be having a great year.

Liesman also said the Fed is looking for "creative responses" to virus fears. Judge asked if Powell might make a statement Friday afternoon. "I don't think so," Liesman said, because Kevin Warsh indicated "they wanna get to the weekend."

Rob Sechan offered, "I actually think there's some risk of action too early when it's not supported by the economic data."

Liesman got the most pushback, from Dan Greenhaus, when Liesman claimed "there has not been disruption" in this "orderly" selloff.

"I take total issue with the idea that this has been orderly," Greenhaus said. "The only word that you can use for this, I would argue, is 'crash.'"

In an interesting exchange, Greenhaus asked Judge, "Serious question. Has anyone come on your show and said over the next 12 months we think bonds will outperform stocks."

Judge's answer wasn't completely intelligible as people talked over each other, but he was heard to say "Never."

Doc and Sechan both were heard to say that it happens. That's definitely correct. However, it's a question that is almost never asked on the program. It's basically the same question as "Are you bearish?"

Greenhaus kept trying to pretend that he doesn't necessarily believe the markets see Bernie Sanders as less favorable than Donald Trump, but if the markets do in fact believe that, well, then here's the timeline for the Democratic nominating process (no need to list it here). (What they really need are a few more candidates.)

"You don't have to qualify it like 10 more times. We get it," Judge said.

Rob Sechan got tripped up trying to argue that the markets can recover without tech leading the way, curiously explaining that financials didn't lead us out of the 2008 meltdown. As an alternative to tech, Sechan suggested "communication services (snicker)."

"You're trying to be too cute," Judge said.

Doc made an interesting and quite possibly accurate suggestion, that Walgreens Boots might get a surge of foot traffic amid virus concerns. The panel basically laughed him off.

Because he doesn't appear on CNBC enough, Jim Cramer burst onto the set in the final 12 minutes. Jim fumbled with microphones and circled the desk for about half of the show's remaining time. "We love when spontaneous stuff like that happens," Judge said. (Yep, it was just like getting Ackman and Carl on the same conference call.)

On the 5 p.m. show, Grandpa Guy Adami once again warned everyone in grave-sounding voice about how it just doesn't look good. Another Grandpa on the show griped loudly about "cheerleaders" who cheer all the way up and all the way down, "and that's not particularly useful." Gee, those cheerleaders have had a dramatic effect, causing the market to have such a good week.

Should people be listening to the anti-cheerleaders, such as Nouriel Roubini and Marc Faber, for advice on when to short?

"So presumably you're all short this weekend?" is the question Sully didn't bother to ask his panel.

Weiss predicts 737 Max recertification within 3-6 months

On Wednesday's (2/26) Halftime Report, which was dominated by Jim Cramer (who's got his own show, but that and Squawk Box are not enough), Steve Weiss revealed, "Yesterday, I put some money back into the market towards the close."

Nevertheless, Pete Najarian, who offered a smorgasbord of thoughts, said "it's too early still right now."

Pete talked about how the VIX between 20 and 25 is "no man's land," but over 25, that's when you can look for a "whoosh."

Ed Yardeni basically said things are going to get better.

Weiss concluded the show saying he'd "rather be in cash" right now but offered a "final" trade for the next 3-6 months, which is BA, stating that the FAA, "they're gonna say, it's approved to fly." (Remember in December when according to Weiss and Jim and Stephanie, the time frame was 1-3 months?)

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, guest host Sully said Scott Minerd called in to Closing Bell and predicted stocks could see another 15-20% drop "if we see more headlines." Karen Finerman, in stunning butterscotch, said, "That sounds extreme to me, actually. ... I do think a thousand-kind of-point flush would be enough to bring people into the markets."

Karen said most companies will get a "free pass" in earnings because of coronavirus.

Big ‘whooshes,’ and those
taps on the shoulder

With stocks on Monday (2/24) taking their biggest hit in 2 years, it's hard to believe Judge couldn't do any better than an achingly dull Halftime Report consisting of an endless A block and not much more afterward.

Star guest Howard Marks did have the quote of the day, or perhaps the quote of the last 6 months, stating, "I'm afraid to be in the market today. I'm also afraid to be out."

Later, Marks conceded, "I'm more afraid to be in the market," but it's a "close call."

The market cratering that we saw on Monday reminded us of one of Eric Bolling's favorite cliches in the inaugural year or two of Fast Money, which is that on days like these, guys on trading desks would be getting the "tap on the shoulder," which was said to be their boss signaling to them that they have to start unloading their losing positions. (Chances are, even then, they'd be getting an email or instant message rather than a tap, but whatever.)

(Carter Worth on the 5 p.m. show did say of corrections, "There's something about 5%, the stop-loss kicks in or the risk manager walks over (snicker).")

Steve Weiss twice said he's not buying anything Monday or selling anything Monday. (Translation: He thinks the market is going a tiny bit lower, but not too much lower.)

Josh Brown suggested a "tactic" of putting in some "obscene" limit orders for favorite stocks well below current prices; this way, you end up cheering if the market really does sink.

Judge's first question to Howard Marks included the term "tipping point" (snicker).

By the end of the trading day, on Fast Money, Karen Finerman said the magic words that nobody managed to say on the Halftime Report: Karen wants a "big whoosh down" early Tuesday and then would gladly start buying.

Judge sounded like he gets paid for every time he says ‘tipping point’

On a day when Judge spent half an hour trying to pressure panelists into declaring a stock-market crash, Friday's (2/21) Halftime Report featured an interesting debate over the definition of "bubble."

Josh Brown got it going when he claimed that investor desire for U.S. Treasurys is "actually the opposite" of a "speculative bubble" because it's people living on savings, "afraid to take any more risk."

Steve Weiss contended that bonds — including U.S. government bonds — are in a "bubble."

"I can say it's a bubble because more money's going into it driving rates to levels that they have not been historically, that's what defines a bubble," Weiss asserted, before drawing a strange analogy to the tulip bubble in which people knew the bulbs would eventually die.

That's an odd assertion, because it sort of implies that anything at an all-time high price is in a "bubble."

Brown scoffed and retorted, "It's a bubble if people are like, 'There's not enough risk to justify missing out, and I think I'm gonna have astronomical returns.' There are some of those in the market right now. Bonds is different. Treasury bonds is different."

"I still think bonds are a bubble," Weiss said moments later. "When you're putting money into half the world's sovereign and saying, 'I'm willing to take less than what I'm giving you in 10 years,' I don't know what else is a bubble, I'm sorry Josh."

Brown said, "No, I agree actually. Negative-yielding bonds has a lot of characteristics of a bubble. It's just not the bubble that we're accustomed to. ... I think it's a fear bubble almost."

"I implore you to expand your definition of a bubble," Weiss said.

We gave this some thought around CNBCfix HQ (when we weren't just trying to secure a hot meal) and decided this is really a great question.

For one thing — and Einstein or Euclid probably aren't going to like this suggestion — it seems that something can't be deemed a "bubble" until after it has crashed.

The term, as used on Wall Street, implies a level of buying that won't be sustained. Everyone agrees that (most) money-losing Internet stocks in 2000 were in a "bubble." But what about the price of oil over $100? It sharply declined, briefly, in 2008, rose sharply, but never again to mid-2008 levels; it's been a series of lower highs ever since and presently trades near one-third of the peak. Look at what farmers were getting in the 1930s. Does that mean 1920s agriculture was in a "bubble"?

It seems the answer to the question of whether Treasurys are, or can be, in a "bubble" depends on whether you believe Treasurys drive behavior or reflect it. (That's the tricky cause-and-effect thing that this page likes to bring up.) If it's the latter, no "bubble."

Meanwhile, Brown was given all day to speak about SHAK and claimed at one point that building too many restaurants close by each other doesn't "cannibalize" the restaurants, rather, "the more likely it is that new people will walk in and try it because they will just be bombarded with seeing it everywhere they go. That's actually what happens with McDonald's, with Dunkin, with all the great brands."

Well, let's tackle that one ... it seems here that McDonald's and Dunkin and certain others such as Starbucks are often crowded with customers, which justifies multiple locations. (See, there's that tricky cause-effect dilemma again.) We can speak from experience about one SHAK in particular that isn't very busy; second, what Brown is suggesting sounds like it could be accomplished much more cheaply and effectively by simply advertising.

Judge used the market's selloff on Friday to sound alarms straight out of "The China Syndrome," pointing to the 2020 boogeyman, coronavirus, but panelists across the board refused to take the bait.

Weiss tried to claim his newfound favorite stock, MU, should've been up this week because its facilities are in the U.S. while its rivals' sites are in virus-land.

Josh Brown asked Dubravko Lakos what Lakos would tell people who are wondering whether to put cash in stocks now. Lakos said he would tell them to "sit tight," though he would "highlight" that they could, right now, allocate money to value because the downside for value is "quite limited." He could've substituted "potential" for "downside."

Judge puts together excellent discussion on E-Trade, whose average account balance is said to be $69,230

It was only about 8 minutes. But the E-Trade conversation on Thursday's (2/20) Halftime Report spearheaded one of Judge's best shows in months.

Josh Brown took the reins of this dialogue and did speak perhaps a bit too much, but even so, Brown and others packed more punch about the brokerage/wealth management industry into 8 minutes than viewers typically get in a full day on CNBC.

Brown indicated the cost of this deal for MS might be bloated. "They might've been bidding against themselves," Brown said.

Brown outlined the various business arms of E-Trade and praised James Gorman but offered, "In this case, they are probably buying something that they, they, they think it's way more than it is."

Brown said E-Trade is a "gigantic iceberg" that's "floating on its way into 60-degree waters."

Indeed. Other than praising James Gorman for his stewardship in general, nobody on either the Halftime Report or 5 p.m. Fast Money could or would explain why MS needs this acquisition and/or why MS didn't make a move to buy it years ago when commissions still existed.

On the other side, Brown said it's "very smart" for E-Trade to do this. "3 years from now, they'd be selling for much less," he said.

With trading commissions being cut to zero just about everywhere, a lot of people have wondered how much potential the online brokers really have from hosting retail accounts. Brown said that in unmanaged accounts industrywide, "the average cash balance is something like 11%," and he suggested the "arbitrage" of the account custodians isn't much of a business.

Panelists repeatedly mentioned the impact of Robinhood on the sector. We wondered what the average account size is at E-Trade. According to this TechCrunch article, it's $69,230, which is higher than we thought. The article says the average Morgan Stanley account is $900,000, but "a survey found most of Robinhood's held $1,000 to $5,000."

"There isn't any cachet associated with E-Trade beyond people that opened their first account in 1999," Brown said, and this is exactly right. Brown and others didn't mention that online brokerages, unfortunately and kind of unfairly, are always going to have the stigma of being the vehicles of the late '90s where everyone was buying AMZN for $300 and selling a day later at $350 and then months (or a year or more) later having just $700 in the account left.

A lot of those balances undoubtedly will not move the needle for MS, and that has been and needs to be noted and can be poked fun at, but there's nothing wrong and everything right about non-wealthy people saving as much as they can and creating a long-term nest egg through online investing.

But back to MS. Judge said Mike Mayo, who wasn't on the show, bluntly calls the deal "value destroying."

Steve Weiss stated, "I don't really see the rationale for the deal because it's, it's a culture clash, even though they'll be kept separate. It's gonna be dilutive."

Nevertheless, Weiss said Gorman has done the right things for MS, and, "If I were a Morgan Stanley shareholder, I'd defer to him," Weiss said.

To Weiss' point, someone probably should've mentioned that E-Trade is basically a technology/app play, a much different skill than that of Morgan Stanley's human advisors. Panelists could've mentioned that a day ago, Fidelity suffered an embarrassing and disturbing outage in which a lot of account holders (unclear how many) logged in to find they had balances of $0 and/or no account. Had E-Trade not been sold, its competitive advantage/disadvantage would rest on how easy and reliable its site is for users.

Jon Najarian said the rumors about Goldman Sachs being interested in E-Trade have been around for years. Doc said MS is still getting a "very big critical mass to compete for investor dollars."

Brown said that if MS is seeking the "mass affluent," which is an interesting term that probably merits a definition (those with financial accounts worth $100,000? Or just $10,000?), then, "This was probably better than trying to build it from scratch, but then why not LPL, why not Raymond James."

Weiss explained why MS didn't buy Raymond James or LPL. "There you have humans that are brokers ... They left the Morgan Stanleys and the Merrills 'cause they didn't want to labor under their forced product sales, No. 1, they wanted an open platform ... This is no bodies here."

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Karen Finerman said it's "not surprising" that ETFC did a sale, but it's a "little" surprising that the buyer is MS. "It's not quite their customer, right," Finerman said. But, "I think ya gotta give, uh, Gorman the benefit of the doubt."

Back on Halftime, Judge asked what happens with (CNBC advertiser) Interactive Brokers, which is Thomas Peterffy territory. Kari Firestone said it's "out in the cold, unless the land grab continues," and Brown said it's "tiny." Weiss said "the founder's been selling stock also." Brown wondered, "What do you get with it." Apparently Peterffy will be on the Closing Bell on Friday afternoon.

Oddly enough, that discussion ended the show's A block, and the break featured a commercial from Interactive Brokers.

Another highlight of the show was an interview with Miracle on Ice player Rob McClanahan and a look back at the 1980 Olympics. Al Michaels called in and explained how none of ABC's broadcasting elite had ever called a hockey game, which is why Michaels got the nod for the Olympics.

Michaels said he's been long the FAS for 8 years, "and it's only up about 1,700%." He mentions that name in every appearance, and we couldn't really believe that gain is accurate, but according to the chart, it looks about right. Hard to believe, and odd that no one on the show ever mentions it. (Except when stocks go down, then all the "triple-levered ETFs" get blamed for causing the selling.)

Josh Brown and Phil LeBeau had an interesting exchange as to the financial worth of the Consumer Reports rankings of Tesla. LeBeau conceded that Land Rover always ranks low in reliability, yet people keep buying them, a point LeBeau made on Closing Bell later in the day.

Kari Firestone said energy is "somewhat toxic."

Joe Terranova wasn't on the show but submitted a question about ZM. Josh Brown told Joe he's "not selling" the stock.

Judge didn’t ask anyone on Wednesday if Wall Street needs to be ‘reined in’ (which indicates he doesn’t really think so)

On Wednesday's (2/19) tepid and forgettable Halftime Report, Jim Lebenthal curiously claimed energy is "investable" but not "tradeable." (Translation: It's going lower.)

Steve Weiss, who has been right about this disaster of a sector, said energy stocks are uninvestable because "they're unanalyzable."

(Note: This site doesn't take pleasure in anyone taking a hit in this or any other sector. We do note that talking about disastrous stocks, such as GE when it was $6, is generally amusing (witness people doing it on CNBC), but no one here is chuckling about anyone losing money.)

(Note II: If we have to read another article in Barron's about ESG, well, then ...)

Pete Najarian said he disagrees with Jim, he thinks you can trade energy names with options. Pete was given about 5 minutes to make his point, which really wasn't much of a point but a general Najarian Options Manifesto.

Meanwhile, as far as the general state of the stock market, Weiss opined, "I don't see euphoria- I don't see knockin' on the door of euphoria in any real sectors." (Well, that's partly because Weiss is head over heels about semiconductors for some reason and can't stop talking them up.)

Weiss talked about QRVO. Jim said, "The Qorvos, the Skyworks of the world, those guys are gonna get squeezed like heck by Apple and Samsung." Jim said the pricing power is with QCOM. Weiss said QCOM has just as much chance of getting "squeezed," explaining, "Everybody I talk to hates doing business with Qualcomm." Jim protested that that's been true for 25 years; Weiss agreed.

Weiss used the Acorn appearance by Akbar Gbajabiamila to tout Weiss' own book, which was published years ago.

Jim actually said with a straight face that Disney+ is "the creme de la creme in the streaming space." (Sure, if all you want to do is watch Marvel Comics films.)

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Karen Finerman, who has basically been worried about this stock market every day for at least the last 5 years, said she was surprised the VIX didn't fall further on Wednesday; "I would've thought would've come in a lot more ... I'm feeling like this is getting somewhat frothy."

Lee Cooperman calls Bernie Sanders a ‘communist,’ says stocks are just in the ‘early stages’ of euphoria

One of Judge's techniques for overseeing the Halftime Report is to basically ask, at any sign of stock-market trouble, whether the big plunge is just around the corner.

Obviously, we're not the only ones who've noticed, given Lee Cooperman's remarks on Tuesday's (2/18) edition.

Lee said the conditions in the market aren't present for a big drop and that the market is telling us what to expect economically from coronavirus.

Judge asked why the market is right about that.

"You've been asking that question for 3 years," Lee said. "Every time the market goes down, you ask that question."

Most trade-worthy from Lee's comments were a statement at the top of the show, that we're in "early stages" of euphoria but not all the way there yet. (And as Scott Minerd said a couple years ago in Davos, the key is knowing when to get out.)

At the risk of sounding like this page is celebrating euphoria (it's not), the idea of "early stage" euphoria sounds to us like the market's a buy.

Lee called energy "extremely cheap." Hate to say it, but despite Lee's optimism, there's no reason at all to get into the sector. Someday there will be, but it isn't now.

Cooperman told Judge that Bernie Sanders is a bigger threat to the world of finance than coronavirus is. Which means thankfully, Lee has stopped giving pointless free publicity to Elizabeth Warren, who has proved an utterly lousy candidate even to Democrats.

Judge noticed this too. "You've moved on to Bernie," Judge told Lee.

Lee sought to define Sanders. "He is not a socialist. But he's rather a communist," Lee said. "And there's a difference between a socialist and a communist. Socialists advocate a redistribution of wealth. Communists advocate nationalizing the means of production and tearing down the house that wealth has built."

Lee told Judge that Wall Street got "reined in" during the 2008 crisis; now the problem is government spending. "The place that's gotta get reined in is public policy," Lee said.

Despite Lee's concerns about the deficit, "The fact of the matter is, uh, the president deserves very high marks for the performance of the economy," Cooperman added.

Lee credited the president for opening a "long overdue dialogue" on China. But Lee said the problem with Donald Trump is "deportment," which is apparently why Lee supports Michael Bloomberg; Judge desperately tried to get Lee to opine on Bloomberg's Wall Street platform but to little avail.

Josh Brown griped about what he seems to think are dysfunctional states, stating Meredith Whitney (snicker) might've been "a generation early" and that he wouldn't be surprised if in the next recession, there are "4 or 5 states that are literally insolvent, Illinois being front of mind."

Brown asked Lee Cooperman what Lee thinks about state finances being "totally out of control vs. corporate America." Lee essentially agreed with Brown.

Meanwhile, Brown said he bought MDB, calling it a "momentum stock (ding ding ding)" and saying he's "playing it as a trade for the breakout."

Stephanie Link actually said, "Costco keeps me up at night (snicker) at 37 times forward estimates."

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Karen Finerman said much of the AAPL story has been 5G, and "I dont think the coronavirus really changes 5G at all."

Karen said it would've been "shocking" if AAPL had affirmed its guidance.

Karen said there's a "giant disconnect" between M's dividend and its stock price/debt outlook.

Sully stresses comment heard by Richard Fisher in England might not be true

It's taken a bit of time, but Richard Fisher has gradually emerged as one of our favorite CNBC guests; on Thursday's (2/13) Halftime, Fisher speculated on the coronavirus.

Fisher said he was in England recently and had dinner with a "senior member of the central committee" in China (or "senior political figure"), and that person said to "add two zeroes to the numbers they're reporting" of coronavirus victims.

Fisher didn't say when that conversation took place, but at this point, he'd add another zero.

Guest host Sully (or a producer in Sully's ear) became alarmed, stating he wants to be "very careful" about what Fisher is talking about and assured viewers "this is just somebody's sort of offhand comment, whether or not (sic last 2 words redundant) it's true or not."

Sully revealed at the 30-minute mark of the show that he was tracking viewer tweets about Michael Farr's fears of virus-induced recession.

Steve Weiss said he bought more MU and, noting a new upgrade, said, "I don't know where these analysts have been." (This writer has no position in MU but was long the stock recently.)

Weiss talked up 5G (Zzzzzzzzzzz) again.

Weiss said "the only mistake" of TSLA's $2 billion offer is that it should've done $4-$5 billion.

Guy Adami, on the 5 p.m. Fast Money, said he still likes ROKU. As usual, people on CNBC this week were telling viewers to play the ROKU earnings with options (at least they were on Fast Money; not sure about the Halftime Report), but while the options market predicted a $20 move, the stock only moved $8 afterhours. (This writer is long ROKU.)

Laura Kane, who is cute (if it's OK to say that), made her first appearance on Fast Money.

Sully, like Judge, enjoys the term "good stuff."

Jim tacks on another 2-3 years to the rally as Judge scoffs at ‘regulatory stuff’

It was the 52nd minute of Wednesday's (2/12) Halftime Report when Judge mentioned Nasdaq 10,000.

Now, we're getting somewhere.

Much earlier, Jim Lebenthal offered, "We are not anywhere near the euphoric levels that would make somebody get nervous."

Joe Terranova stated that Donald Trump's MAGA trade will "stay with us for the next 8 months during this campaign."

Joe opined that rather than "complacency," there's a lot of "pressure" on money managers.

Rob Sechan suggested this is a "late cycle" rally. Jim though said "I don't think we're late cycle ... I think we got at least 2 and probably 3 more years of this."

Trying not to get too carried away, Jim tried to claim either the DOJ or FTC was vowing to investigate every acquisition made by tech giants. Judge said they are investigating only the "small" acquisitions and told Jim, "The market clearly believes that the regulatory stuff is noise."

Jon Najarian, rather quiet on this day, got to deliver a speech about his favorite recent trades, but Judge never asked about that "big" NFLX short of a couple weeks ago (snicker).

Kari Firestone said the question for WYNN and LVS is whether investors will "forgive" the next round of results with no one in the casinos. (This writer is long LVS.)

Jim called Harley Davidson a "dying lifestyle" and sounded like he expected to get some blowback.

In the show's most curious moment, Jim fielded a tweeted question about whether BA could break 300.

Jim told Judge, "If one of those planes goes down again, either on certification or after certification, it's Katie bar the door."

As Jim spoke, Joe Terranova was heard to say, "You didn't just say that."

Jim wondered why the panelists were "overreacting" to his assessment. Rob Sechan said that what Jim said was fine.

Well, we get that making assessments on live TV is different than posting opinions on a website (especially tiny little websites), but we don't see anything inflammatory about identifying obvious risks to an aerospace company. The problem with Jim's stark evaluation is that he ignored maybe the most likely scenario, which is that folks are toasting Happy New Year 2021 and the Max is still grounded.

Judge asked Jim about ROKU's earnings due Thursday night. Jim offered, "I just don't see it breaking out to the upside." (This writer is long ROKU.)

Karen Finerman on the 5 p.m. show said she's long, as always, which is good, but, "I'm nervous- I don't understand the whole premise here in that, you know, the Fed has your back. And so we don't want good economic data because the Fed will then no longer have your back. So we're much better off with weak or middling economic data. That doesn't make sense to me."

"Welcome to the last decade," said Tim Seymour.

Halftime Report completely shut out during Powell testimony

Tuesday's (2/11) Halftime Report was preempted — completely — by Jerome Powell's congressional testimony in which at least one lawmaker brought up Jim Cramer's TV show. (Normally on these days, Judge overstocks a panel of 5-6 people and then cuts in at the 30-minute mark for a couple soundbites.)

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, viewers got a treat when panelists suddenly launched into a word game with ABBA song titles. Guest host Sully had the best, with a "Waterloo" reference. Karen Finerman earned a high-five from Sully when suggesting "The Winner Takes It All," which we have to admit was a new one to us.

Given that particular sweater, we were definitely going to run a photo of Karen anyway, and there is no one who'd be greater to discuss ABBA songs with, we are confident of that. (Note: Time for the occasional disclaimer, this page is only offering a polite compliment here, much the same way as Karen enjoys complimenting Jamie Dimon.)

Karen called BBBY a "falling knife."

Sully brought up the now-tired meme of breaking up FB. Finerman said it'd be hard to "unscramble some of the eggs" of tech deals that were done a decade ago. Tim Seymour, who apparently somehow believes these breakups might happen, wanted everyone to remember that a breakup would be bullish for the stock price.

Dan Nathan took it a step further, saying of FB, "If they get 2020 election wrong the way they did it in '16, there's gonna be people with pitchforks at the Menlo Park, um, you know, headquarters there." (Didn't know it was up to Facebook to get the election "right"; also didn't realize people still believe that a select group of only Wisconsin-Michigan-Pennsylvania voters (but not those in California or New York) were brainwashed into voting for Donald Trump by Manchurian candidate types operating with reckless permission from Facebook.) (And also wonder why Chinese hackers, if they were so good at getting into Equifax, didn't rig the election for Hillary given that Donald complained about China throughout the campaign?)

Karen: Companies might get a ‘free pass’ for 2 quarters because of coronavirus

Joe Terranova at the top of Monday's (2/10) Halftime Report said AMZN is "playing catch-up now."

Joe was so giddy about this stock, he talked it up even more about 10 minutes later.

Sarat Sethi kept talking about a "rotation"; Joe said the question about whether value or other sectors/strategies starts outperforming comes down to "timing." (Pretty much everyone's return in the market comes down to timing.)

Judge wondered if panelists were being "too complacent" about the coronavirus.

Steve Weiss, who has been momentum-trading like nobody's business in BA recently, said the stock is "now my largest position." He didn't explain, nor did Judge ask, what the market is pricing in regarding a 737 Max timeline. (Remember in December that, according to the Halftime folks, the timeline was 1-3 months.)

Mike Santoli talked about all the virtues of MSFT and wondered, "Is it almost too good to be true."

Joe Terranova called MSFT "the Christian McCaffrey of technology." Judge felt compelled moments later to explain to viewers what that means. (Translation: #momentumtrading)

Steve Weiss said FDX only has a 12 P.E., but he might not be in the stock by the time it reports in March. "Even though it's a decent-sized position, it's a trade," Weiss explained.

Judge said Jim Lebenthal is "on the slopes."

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Karen Finerman discussed AAPL and the broader ramifications of coronavirus. "My general view on coronavirus is that most investors will look through and a lot of companies will get a free pass on a weak first quarter and maybe even a weak second quarter," Karen said.

Guest-host Courtney Reagan said WORK clarified a Business Insider report on IBM supposedly shifting its "entire workforce" to Slack. Karen said, "It's interesting they put out an 8-K, which they probably didn't need to do. They don't need to comment on a Business Insider story. I kind of appreciate that they did because it was one that moved the market. However, now, does it create the precedence for them," Karen said.

Karen admitted she was a longtime FDX holder who already "threw in the towel."

If not for Jim’s curious comments on BBY, would’ve been a pretty sleepy show

One of the more interesting comments in recent memory on the Halftime Report was heard Friday (2/7) when Judge asked Josh Brown about TWTR.

Judge pointed out that Brown announced a while back he had unloaded his longtime TWTR stake for good.

"Now what," Judge asked, as if people are supposed to rebuy stocks they've sold whenever the stock gets lucky and goes up.

Unlike Judge, Brown was actually unimpressed with TWTR's performance this week. "It's already given it all up. It's not- it's not a good company," Brown said.

But then came the comment from Brown that's quite interesting, on the money he made from owning TWTR for years: "If I had just bought the Nasdaq, I would've made 5 times the amount of money," Brown said.

Basically, that would've been the best strategy of any trade on the show since the show's inception. (But, it's a lot more fun to momentum-trade.)

Meanwhile. Judge brought up Best Buy, and Joe Terranova sounded like a buyer, stating the story will play out in the "back half of the year."

Jim Lebenthal, though, was having none of it, grumbling about how BBY is a brick-and-mortar retailer, and the only reason you'd "conceivably" buy it is because of the chart; "i.e., you're a momentum trader or investor." (Earth to Jim: The show is basically momentum trading (see above).)

Judge was scratching his head at Jim's comments. "I'm gonna take issue with that. I don't- I don't understand that logic," Judge said.

Judge suggested BBY can "thrive" in the Amazon world; Jim took issue with that word in quotes but said he's OK with "survive."

Citing P.E. and dividend, Josh Brown said that if you buy BBY, "You're not taking a ton of risk."

As the conversation continued, Jim asserted, "The consumer is fine, but not great." Joe Terranova questioned those last 2 words.

Judge stated, "A name like Best Buy doesn't strike me as a momentum stock."

"Statistically it's a momentum stock, but it's not, like, really," said Brown.

Changing an equity overweight from 7% to 5% is Judge’s top story (unless you count a note from Tobias Levkovich on buying the dip)

On Thursday's (2/6) Halftime Report, Judge, as he always does, wondered if the stock market is ahead of itself.

"I don't have that sense of euphoria from anyone," said Jenny Harrington, who met with clients last week in Florida. "I mean, I didn't have a euphoric conversation."

Judge, who suggested several times that coronavirus might really be bad, kept talking about JPMorgan recommending reducing your overweight-equity level from 7% to 5%. Jenny said that kind of distinction is "kinda meaningless."

Steve Weiss said that, when it comes to terminology and multiples such as energy, it's more about "are you executing" than whether a stock qualifies as "value."

Judge even mentioned JDS Uniphase (snicker).

Joe Terranova suggested coronavirus, "as long as it remains isolated and outside of the United States, is acting as a catalyst for equities." Joe even mentioned the 10-year, prompting a rebuttal from Judge, and each accused the other of knowing what the other means.

Steve Weiss, who apparently trades BA based on daily headlines (which really are daily headlines), said he added to BA Thursday and Wednesday. (Remember when Steve, Jim and Stephanie in December were all assuring that the 737 Max would be reinstated within 1-3 months?)

Stephanie Link dialed in, and Judge congratulated her for a bullish TWTR call and said, "I'm hearing from people too who want me to tell you congratulations and thank you, um, that's partly what this program tries to be, right, giving, giving people sound investment advice. Some people took yours and bought Twitter."

That's fine, but other people might've taken Stephanie's advice to buy WYNN at 140 on Jan. 21, and Judge never said a word about them.

Pete Najarian on Thursday said there was a "dramatic drop" that day in TSLA options volume.

Weiss gave a long spiel about liking MU (he wasn't terribly enthusiastic) but cautioned against trading it based on P.E. ratio (snicker). (This writer is long MU.)

Judge said at the top of the show that the S&P 500 and Dow hit "new (sic redundant) record highs again."

Judge was heard to say "good stuff" at least 3 or 4 times.

Now it’s $7,000, maybe $15,000 ...

The obvious star guest of Wednesday's (2/5) Halftime Report/Fast Money was TSLA champ Cathie Wood, who sat in with Tyler Mathisen's 5 p.m. show and will surely give Judge more fodder at Halftime given his fascination with Cathie's recent $6,000 suggestion.

Wood on Wednesday said her "base case" for TSLA is a 5-year march to $7,000.

She said she has a "very high" confidence level.

Karen Finerman asked what kind of "valuation" does a $7,000 price involve. Cathie said, "So, in 5 years, again, we- we don't really operate like that, we're just trying to figure out the cash flows and then do- discount them ..."

Nobody asked why, if the company is such a disruptor on 3 levels, that shares were in the $200s not too long ago.

Finerman said of TSLA, "I think it's so dangerous on either side."

On the Halftime Report, Steve Weiss took a jab at the mighty, unbelievably anticipated by CNBC parents who evidently buy their kids everything, Disney+, stating, "Disney has a great offering if you're a kid or if you dress up in a 'Star Trek' uniform and go to, go to, you know, get autograph conventions. Other than that, I've been on it ... there's really not a lot of content I want to watch there."

Judge called Jim Lebenthal "more cautious than most." Jim said that label makes him "bristle" a bit.

Joe Terranova said you have to have long positions with this kind of market liquidity.

Joe said he was "thumping my chest" that he bought AMZN a day ago, and now he's crestfallen that value is suddenly leading (snicker).

Ricky Sandler was given endless time by Judge to discuss his battle with UBS (Zzzzzzzzz) and called the U.S. stock market "bifurcated."

Steve Weiss congratulated Bill Ackman (who wasn't on the show) for getting "refocused" and having "stayed out of the media," though Weiss questioned how much upside is left in CMG.

Tyler Mathisen offered a "gotta leave it there" on Fast Money, and Judge came through with "good stuff" to close out Halftime.

Jim thinks you can look at energy (but isn’t on Snapchat)

On a day (Tuesday, 2/4) when tech stocks were flying through the roof, Jim Lebenthal had a contra-idea for Halftime Report viewers.

"I mean, I'll hold my nose and I'll say you can look at energy (snicker)," Jim said.

Well, whatever floats your boat, but energy's a disaster. Don't just take it from this page; check the 52-week low list.

Meanwhile, Joe Terranova affirmed to Judge that "liquidity" is beating the virus right now in terms of the stock market's scorecard.

Jim contended that "there will be some repercussions" from the virus, mentioning that he flew recently, and, "I thought the airports and airplanes were really empty."

Expressing skepticism over the torrid start to the week, Jim told Judge he wants to see a "3rd day" on Wednesday to confirm the rally.

Judge spent some time on TSLA, noting the parabolic move and recent comments from Cathie Wood talking up a $6,000 target. "Maybe the joke's on me," Judge shrugged.

In maybe the best commentary of the day, Joe pointed out that TSLA is not in the S&P 500. Mike Santoli pointed out that not being in the S&P 500 is a big draw for people who are trying to outperform the index, and that's "a small part" of the scorching gains of late.

Santoli stated there's a "massive retail froth" in TSLA.

But he doesn't see it as symptomatic of a market problem. "It's not as if you could come up with a dozen stocks doing this," Santoli told Judge.

Jim Lebenthal bluntly called TSLA a "mania."

Jim ruffled feathers during a SNAP discussion when he asked Joe if Joe is on Snapchat.

"That's not the point," Joe said, in a non-answer. Jim said he'd bet none of the people on the panel use it and that "it's a teenager engagement." Joe protested that just because people on the panel aren't using it doesn't mean it can't be a good stock.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money on Tuesday, which was a great show actually, slightly interrupted for breaking (snicker) Iowa caucus results, Steve Grasso curiously argued that for DIS, "the growth comes through streaming, comes through Internet ... that's where you get multiple expansion, not from parks."

"Disney is about streaming, not about parks," Grasso concluded.

Well, we gotta disagree with that. This page has long been suspicious that streaming might not make any money at all for anyone and that Disney was correct to resist it as long as possible. But if Grasso were to argue that the mere existence of a streaming service will drive the stock for the short term, we wouldn't disagree with that.

Karen Finerman said the NFLX model is based on "spending, spending, spending" and joked that so far, the answer to when a company must make money on that is "Never."

Steve Grasso said, speaking only for himself, that ICE is probably interested in EBAY for the crypto potential. Karen Finerman suggested that the news was leaked perhaps by ICE or someone familiar with ICE's plans to "put pressure on the board" of eBay.

In the show's most interesting report, Mike Khouw identified some very recent blockbuster options trades in TSLA. Basically, if you had bought TSLA $900 calls a few weeks ago, you'd never have to work again.

Back to CNBCfix home