CNBCfix - Fast Money Review

[CNBCfix Fast Money Review Archive — March 2021]

New accusation against the Fed: creating laziness

We've heard a lot of complaints about the Federal Reserve, but Wednesday's (3/31) 5 p.m. Fast Money entered new territory.

Guy Adami stated, "I'd also say that companies have gotten lazy over the last 12 years because they haven't had to focus on their businesses because money's been so cheap, and all they have to do is buy back stock and watch the stocks go higher."

He added, "Again, I just think that Fed policy over the last 12 years has made people lazy, lazy in so much to be able to buy back stock (sic grammar)."

We couldn't help but wonder, who at these companies is "lazy"?

Specifically, we wondered about who's being "lazy" at AAPL, which in February sold $14 billion in bonds and will spend some of that on buybacks, according to Barron's.

We also noticed, via Internet search, that other announcements for big 2021 buybacks include WMT, SHW, DG, EBAY, even CBOE.

Who at these companies is "lazy"?

Melissa Lee mentioned the "gravy train of the tax cuts." Perhaps we should make the corporate tax rate 50%? Please explain.

NFL coaching staff member wants Judge to make a market call

In a special episode of Mad Money on Wednesday (3/31), Judge said it's "No b.s.," but, "I had somebody who's on an NFL coaching staff yesterday, who's on his way down to one of the pro days, um, ask me via text where I think the Nasdaq is going and those Cathie Wood-type stocks because they're invested in those names."

(We're guessing it might be Dave Ragone, whom Judge has mentioned before ... but we don't know.)

Judge rattled off TDOC, ROKU, ZM, SPOT, SHOP, ZS, DOCU, CRWD as among those names. "I would be a buyer of most of those names," said Jon Najarian. (This writer is long ZM and DOCU.)

Jim Cramer called LULU a "super buy." (This writer is long LULU.) Doc said the company mentioned "same-day delivery" in some markets; he thinks it's a "nice buy." Doc said he's a "fan" of PTON though he said he doesn't need one in his basement "acting as a clotheshanger." He said Stephanie Link "probably" has one and uses it every day.

Judge actually made a reference to Michigan's loss in the NCAA Tournament. (But if it were sponsored by Comcast instead of AT&T, we'd be hearing all about it and interviewing Jim Nantz and Charles Barkley, etc.)

Jon Najarian mentioned "they" were buying SNAP calls ahead of earnings. Jon and Pete Najarian have announced heavy SNAP call buying for basically the last 4 years before every SNAP earnings call, which would mean, more than 15 times or so. (This page can say from experience, those call buyers aren't always right.)

Guy’s probably gonna sneer, ‘They can’t beat Gonzaga’ (a/k/a ‘Those crowds get really traded’)

Whew.

It's a good thing the Halftime Report isn't competing in the same time slots as the NCAA Tournament, because, um, one of those entities has been lacking in drama lately.

Guest host Missy Lee on Tuesday (3/30) opened by asking Pete Najarian about the impact of rising rates ... (yes) ... on the stock market.

Pete told Mel that it's all about the ... yes ... "pace" of the increase. (Remember on Monday when it was about "trajectory" vs. "pace"?) Jenny Harrington on Tuesday said not only is Pete right, but "it's also about the reasons." And Jenny said rates are indeed "going up for the right reason."

(At that point, we have to say, either, "Good stuff" or "Oh by the way" or "Gotta leave it there.")

Moments later, making a point about Big Tech, Jenny actually said, "Those crowds (sic) get really traded (sic)." (Pete Najarian later spoke of the "aerospoce" (sic) sector.)

In fairness, Mel had what might be the comment of the week, after Josh Brown questioned Jenny's suggestion we should be "hyper aware" (snicker) of the "regulatory" overhang on FAANG; Mel said "regulation, schmegulation" and "it's probably not a cloud whatsoever."

Jenny has become quite the chatterbox, to the point others had trouble at times getting a word in edgewise.

The Leadoff Man of the 5 p.m. Fast Money came up with a "by the way," but without the "Oh." Grandpa Guy finally got to talk about his favorite subject at the 5-minute mark.

The Berkshire-type market
was in September 2008

Monday's (3/29) Halftime Report struggled, like Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose, to get off the ground and achieve any loft.

Consider that Steve Weiss was actually telling viewers to take a stock break for a couple of weeks, or even months. "I think this is a particularly rough week, one of the roughest weeks we'll see, because who's gonna go into the weekend with the markets closed on Friday and the payrolls then bec- the payrolls number coming out Friday. How are you gonna know which way the market's gonna go?"

Well, we'd guess that the market will be like it is most weeks, in terms of people not knowing which way it's going.

In a sleepy opening, Josh Brown said he doesn't look at the market like growth vs. value, rather, "I look at it as reopening vs. not reopening."

Things got testy around the 19-minute mark when Josh Brown said the 10-year in 1995 was at 7½%. Guest host Melissa Lee followed by asking, "May I ask you Josh, in your historical example, where did rates come from, before they rose to 7 per- and I don't know this answer, I'm- I'm asking because I remember a year ago, when rates were a third of where they are right now."

"Yeah. You wanna be careful quoting things that are already in percentage terms, in percentage terms," Brown said, adding "rates have tripled," but "even in 2019, uh, 2018, you had a 3% 10-year. We're halfway back there."

Eventually, after clashing with Brown over whether tech giants have been hurt by rising rates, Mel responded, "By the way, you'll NEVER catch me saying that rates have risen by a certain percent except to underscore the fact that the trajectory of the rise that we've seen is probably very different from what we've seen in the past."

"The pace, not the trajectory. You're right about that," Brown said.

On another matter, Brown opined, "I think this is a Berkshire Hathaway-type of market environment right now."

Mel reminded Brown and viewers she's from Great Neck — hometown of George Segal, who died last week.

On the 5 p.m. show, Guy Adami came through with another "Oh by the way," while someone else insisted the market makes no sense. Karen Finerman came through with a stock trading down in "integers" (VIAC); that term goes back to about 2007.

Weiss: VUZI bankers’ bungle is buying opportunity; Grasso warns of the ‘tap on the shoulder’

So much for that "broadening shakeout of stocks."

On Friday (3/26), the S&P 500 closed at an all-time high, even though Judge just a day earlier was asking every panelist under the sun whether the recent selloff in some high-multiple tech names was going to spread through the rest of the market.

Steve Weiss professed at the outset that the market is all about rates and the rate of change of rates; however, he was also paying keen attention to some bankers' performance.

Weiss said he "doubled my position this morning" in VUZI after its secondary was priced the previous night "in probably one of the worst jobs I've ever seen an investment banking firm do." Weiss said the proof is "because of the volume, which is more than 2 times the average daily volume, and we're halfway through the day. So this is where you buy. This is an opportunity."

Jim Lebenthal revealed he has bought CSCO (Zzzzzzz) again. Jim said it's a "value stock," though it's "almost an insult" to call it that. (Trust us, CSCO shouldn't be insulted to be called anything.)

Weiss and Jim had a mini-debate over QCOM (Zzzzzzzzzzz).

Jim said of NKE, "The next probably 4, 5 months, this is sideways."

Jim said not to sell ORBC.

Kari Firestone said her shop has been doing research on PTON and found it to be a "real business." Kari said, "We think this is a good price for it."

Kari called LDOS "attractive right here."

Addressing the state of relations between China and the United States, Kari generously offered, "It's not clear how well things are going." (Um, we think it's fairly clear. Not going particularly well.)

Judge had a chat about the state of the world and investing with NFL tackle Kelvin Beachum. The CNBC graphic said Beachum, now of the Cardinals, previously played for the Jaguars and Jets. For whatever reason, it didn't mention he also played for the Steelers, who first decided Mike Adams was somehow a better left tackle (how has that one worked out) and then, just after Beachum got good, let Beachum go in favor of a decrepit line that couldn't block Garo Yepremian.

Weiss tried to sell Beachum on ... yes ... 5G ... "I would suggest that you look at." (Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.)

Later, Brian Sullivan, guest host of 5 p.m. Fast Money, asked Steve Grasso what was going to happen on Wall Street on Monday. Grasso said there could be margin calls and then invoked a term we used to hear all the time in 2008 and only sporadically since: "a lot of people could be tapped on the shoulder."

Kayla Tausche reported on the developing issue of the White House possibly removing the intellectual property shield for COVID vaccines and said there's been "fierce debate on either side of this discussion." The last 6 words are redundant, because if the fierce debate was all on the same side, it wouldn't be a debate, would it?

A fresh ‘Oh by the way’ just 1 minute into Fast Money; Jim indicates on Halftime he’ll watch several more variations of ‘Star Trek’

Judge was visibly frustrated at the top of Thursday's (3/25) Halftime Report when Pete Najarian's audio didn't work; "two days in a row, uh, that's really great."

So Judge had to turn to Josh Brown, who joked that Judge didn't seem particularly happy about calling on him. Nevertheless, after opening remarks, Brown observed, "The deal quality is falling off a cliff."

Judge began asking panelists if bad contagion was spreading through the market, "a broadening shakeout of stocks." By the 11-minute mark, Judge admitted, "Yes, it's true, with everything that I said, all of these issues in certain parts of the market, the S&P is only 3% or so away from its recent highs."

(Translation: Yes, warning about corrections helps drive audiences.)

At one point, Judge asked Jim Lebenthal about getting out of VIAC. Jim said he thinks the gain from 55 to 100 was "was the GameStop/Reddit phenomenon." He said if it comes back even more, he might get back in, because Paramount+ has "legs."

That word "legs" prompted Josh Brown to ask Jim to explain how it can "play with, um, HBO Max, Disney+ and Netflix," because Brown sees a lineup of "Beavis & Butt-head" and "18 more versions of 'Star Trek.'"

Jim responded, "This is gonna be one of those things where taste matters, and you and I don't have the same tastes, which is fine. I happen to like 'Star Trek.' I could (sic meant "couldn't") care less about 'Beavis & Butt-head.'"

Jim insisted 3 or 4 times that he'd buy VIAC around 50 despite Brown's skepticism.

Meanwhile, Tiffany McGhee said she did "Google searches" on NKE's position on forced labor in China and said she's "really hoping" the company is telling the truth about not sourcing these products. Pete Najarian said NKE feels "pretty stretched."

Pete said it's always "Christmas in springtime" for HD. He said he'd been waiting for a pullback, but it's "just not happening."

As for TGT, "I don't even think they're CLOSE to peak earnings," Pete said.

Jim Lebenthal predicted BA goes "much higher" than 265.

In a curious comment related to VIAC, Jim said, "You sell a stock, you of course look at it." That's interesting, because Pete said just a month ago (2/24, hit PgDn a bunch of times) that "I tend not to look at stocks after I've sold them."

Oh by the way, could we stick a fork in some of these clichés?

There will always be "At the end of the day," "Gotta leave it there" and "Let's bring in ..."

And of course, the current reigning champ, "Good stuff."

But lately we've been noticing a surge on CNBC of "Oh by the way," typically when Halftime/Fast Money panelists are trying to tell you that you're a knucklehead if you haven't bought this stock that they're recommending (but might not even own). On Wednesday's (3/24) Halftime, Guy Adami did the honors in about the first 8 minutes (Yes, it was in the same spiel in which Guy basically says (not an exact quote) "THE FED SHOULD RAISE RATES TO 12%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!").

Picking up the baton a few minutes later was guest Dan Suzuki, who managed a "by the way" without the "oh."

Sounds like he's been practicing.

Boy, that sure was an exciting Q&A with Yellen & Powell

Well, that was a clunker.

Ricky Sandler, who knocked one out of the park just over a year ago by urging Judge's viewers to buy stocks while the market was in a tailspin, on Tuesday's (3/23) Halftime Report played the market as conservative as a Kyle Shanahan Super Bowl offense.

"From a high level, we're still constructive on the markets. Uh, clearly not as bullish as we were a year ago," Sandler revealed.

Sandler touted BERY, which made us think of Frankenberry or Boo-Berry. Sandler also endorsed AN and said he likes the sector.

Ricky said 25-26% for a corporate tax rate would be "modest enough," but he'd get "more concerned" if it goes higher than that.

Basically, Sandler March 2020 vs. Sandler March 2021 was like watching the Chiefs in Super Bowl 54 ... and then watching the Chiefs in Super Bowl 55.

Pete Najarian revealed, "I took off an enormous amount of positions from last Friday into today."

Look out for those high-multiple tech stocks (except the ones we own) (cont’d)

As he does about 3 times every episode, Judge on Monday's (3/22) Halftime Report asked Jon Najarian about whether rising rates can sink stocks.

"I'm only worried about it if it happens FAST," explained Doc.

First time we've ever heard that.

In a show that, to its credit, was chock-full of stock picks, Joe Terranova was making many notable calls.

Joe said he felt "the time was now" to buy FAANG stocks and curiously told Judge, "The loss of momentum became the fundamental."

That's the first time we've heard of loss of momentum described as a stock "fundamental."

Joe said he's "adding a lot of Facebook calls throughout the day." (We thought, according to others on the program in recent weeks, it could get deep-sixed by all the ESG plays.) (This writer is long FB.)

Joe said he got out of financials because there's not going to be another 55-basis-point-move higher in yields in the next 25 days, though he added MSCI.

Later, Joe said he got stopped out of PDD, it was "risk management."

Finally, Joe claimed, "In general, I don't like these technology names that have these high valuations towards triple digits." (You know what's coming next.) But "I like the Pinterest story," Joe explained, adding it's "kinda like LinkedIn, a couple of years ago."

Speaking of those high valuations, Jon Najarian said SNAP is a stock you want to "buy on dips for sure." He said "millennials are NOT on Facebook." (And then there was Toni Sacconaghi on Power Lunch saying that some tech names are more highly valued than in 2000, and he listed SNAP as one of those that didn't actually make money last year.)

Joe and Doc each trumpeted NKE; Doc predicted over 140 in "coming weeks."

Jason Snipe touted MAS. Bryn Talkington touted RBLX. "Definitely not a rental," Bryn said.

Judge insisted to Rob Sechan that if there starts to be "serious conversations" about changing tax rates, the market won't just "blow it off." Rob said he doesn't think the administration wants to harm the economy, but it's about the "magnitude" (he said that at least 3 times), so as long as any tax changes are "within the realm of reason," stocks are a buy on the dip.

Jason Snipe bought more DG. Doc said he's long DKNG calls and trumpeted the bullish call by Loop Capital. (This writer is long DKNG.)

Judge grumbled about the options activity in BOX, wondering about the timing of call-buying "a day or so" before a report about the company thinking about putting itself up for sale and how people could take that at "face value."

Bryn Talkington said M has "room to run." Bryn also made ROKU her Final Trade, even though it's one of those (omigod) high P.E. ratio names.

Strategist hearing panelists discuss his call on TV evidently thinks they’re getting it wrong

You know good material was in short supply when Judge spent Friday's (3/19) Halftime Report preempting the hours-later star guest of the 5 p.m. Fast Money (which Judge was going to guest-host), Tony Dwyer, by fully covering Dwyer's latest note at lunchtime.

"Tony Dwyer has downgraded the financials," Judge said, asking Pete Najarian about buying the XLF Friday. (This writer is long FAS.)

"I actually do expect some pauses, some pullbacks," Pete said. But Pete said "They" were buying May and September XLF calls (so of course, he had to do the same).

Steve Weiss said "there may be a pause," but he expects banks to continue trading in "lockstep" with rates.

Weiss said, "Does anybody doubt that rates are gonna go to 2% and over time possibly 3%?" (Well, um, maybe. Probably to 2%, yes, but we'll take the other side of 3%.)

Judge offered, "They may get to 2% by the end of the year, but there's a long road between now and the end of the year."

Amy Raskin said she wishes Dwyer was right, but "I think rates are gonna continue to go up," saying she didn't know until she read Tony's report that it's been the "fastest 10-week rate of change in history."

Weiss complained about "the Zooms and the Teladocs" (sigh) (here we go again) (this writer is long ZM), vowing the market will "distinguish" between those names and others with "consistent, high earnings growth," where the "true value" is.

Evidently, Dwyer was watching and was concerned about what he was hearing, because shortly into the program, Pete informed Judge, "Tony just hit me up, and he said, 'Hey look, I'll tell you something, you need to let these guys know. I did not call for a big drawdown. I'm just saying it's a pause.'"

"No of course not," Judge said. "But he- he's also trying to make a contrarian call here, uh, that, you know, if the 10-year has peaked in the near term, you know, maybe those stocks are gonna stop going up, which is why he did a relative downgrade."

"Tell Dwyer, we're gonna get it on at 5 o'clock," Judge ordered Pete.

At the 23-minute mark, Judge told Pete, "Now Dwyer, Pete's, bein' all nice to me on email. 'You're the best, you rock.' Whatever, Tony. 5 o'clock, it's on. It's on. Big time."

Judge said at the end of the show that Dwyer was "totally ghosting me."

So, what happened in this epic 5 p.m. Fast Money ... Tony basically said the rate rise has been unprecedented and that financials and industrials have been the best sectors since last May, and that "you want to buy weakness" now with all the money sloshing around.

Tony said that "everybody on the planet" thinks rates are going higher, and that's "already to some degree discounted" in financial stocks.

Steve Grasso disagreed that financials are topping out. "We're going to see a boom of an economy that we have never seen before," Grasso said, and this page will disagree with that. There will be a boom, but the opposite of a year ago when a lot of people were saying S&P 1,600 or even tennis great Brad Gilbert's 10,000 Dow.

Judge told Dwyer that he didn't know if people are ready to "stop buying growth stocks." Tony apologized for leaving his phone on during the interview.

Meanwhile ... on Halftime ... Degas Wright made the case for EOG, saying executive compensation bonuses are tied to reducing emissions.

Steve Weiss touted FDX, "It's gonna keep going." But he said he'd sell DE and CAT because the multiples, historically, are "much too high." Weiss is suddenly a fan of airlines based on "momentum." (This writer is long AAL, UAL and SAVE.)

Amy Raskin said NKE is "expensive" but "all good."

Weiss talked up POAHY for a host of reasons, "one of my top positions now." Judge threw a little water on it, saying he thought he heard the CEO saying the 911 wasn't going electric. "They have others that have gone electric," Weiss said.

Pete was buying stocks or calls of so many names, we lost track.

Judge refers to Doc Brown as a ‘mad scientist’

Thursday's (3/18) Halftime Report got derailed from a strange misunderstanding by Josh Brown over what Kari Firestone actually said.

Jim Lebenthal opened things up, saying that if you're refusing to buy tech while rates keep rising, you have to ask, "How much more legs does that story have. I don't think it has much more."

Judge then said he was speaking with a hedge fund source, whom he couldn't identify, and this person insisted, "I don't need Emmitt Doc Brown running the Fed" and that the central bank is just attempting "one big giant science experiment."

As far as the smartness of the bond market, Josh Brown said he can't ever think of a time when the bond market trusted the Fed, and Josh contended the stock market figured out the past 12 months' economy a lot faster than the bond market did.

Brown noted the recent steep rise in bank stocks and advised, "Don't be the last person that throws out your, uh, you know, throws out your Amazon to buy Goldman."

Judge said this investor he spoke with is starting to sell tech stocks. Kari Firestone said if that person is just now starting to sell the stocks trading at 20 times sales, "It's a little late ... They have plenty of air left beneath them."

Then Kari said, "On the question of whether Facebook, Apple, Google are attractive now. ... Airlines are selling for 2019 prices ... the charts look parabolic ... We think that there's more value right now in some of the large technology companies, they're selling at multiples like Deere and Caterpillar." (This writer is long FB.)

Perfectly fine point. Kari is saying that FB, AAPL and GOOGL are more attractive than some hot cyclicals.

But Brown apparently somehow heard differently.

"I'm sorry, can we- can we pull up Google and Facebook. What tech wreck, what are you talk- like, what are we talking about. These stocks are at all-time record highs," Josh said. "Let's be very specific about where the carnage is. It's in Russell 1000 stocks that are not even in the S&P 500. It's in electric vehicle stocks that recently came public via SPAC. ... These stocks have no market cap, who cares. ... We talk about Zoom and Peloton, et cetera et cetera. THOSE have market cap. But they're not in the index."

So Judge stepped in, without resolving the misunderstanding. "Who cares??? Who cares what index they're in???" Judge cut in.

"The tech wreck is very specific Judge. That's the point I'm trying to make," Josh explained.

"Josh I SAID we're not talking about the FAANGs," Judge said. "Early on, I said we're not talking about those stocks. We're talking about the other high-growth stocks, the ones that a lot of people bought during the pandemic ... The bond market activity today is suggesting that maybe we need to rethink that whole thing."

Brown responded, "I got you ... I don't remember a lot of people coming on and saying they're buying Teladoc, uh, they're buying Peloton, maybe I wasn't on the show that day."

But there's something in between TDOC and GOOGL. Judge raised the question of whether Jim Lebenthal would buy PYPL. Jim said he wouldn't, but he'd buy AAPL. Josh insisted PYPL is "not a fluke," it's going to "take over large portions of the U.S. banking business, the global banking business from incumbents like Citigroup."

After all that ended, Sonal Desai contended, "This is the bond market thinking the Fed is going to remain on hold, but we are going to get more inflation than we think."

Kayla Tausche reported on the White House preparing to relax some flight restrictions. Judge asked a few panelists about airlines. (This writer is long AAL, UAL and SAVE.) Jon Najarian said he's long JETS and cited unusual activity in JETS, ALK and UAL. Jim Lebenthal said, "You're gonna have a very profitable airline industry when you annualize the 2nd half of this year." Josh Brown said he likes EXPE and TRIP more than airlines, but he predicted "serious pricing power" for airlines this fall. Judge added, "Yeah I don't think there's any doubt about that."

Josh Brown touted SPG for several reasons, including "the suburbanization of America."

Doc said a big buyer bought April 1st 133 puts in TLT.

Jim said of CSCO, "This is not the tech darling of 20 years ago." Actually, 20 years ago, CSCO was no longer a "darling."

Pete Najarian flagged unusual options activity in CCJ. We hadn’t heard that one since the Eric Bolling days of 2007

Jim Lebenthal contended at the top of Wednesday's (3/17) Halftime Report that while rates have been the talk for weeks, "at some point, it wears off" and is "likely to lose its punch."

We'll agree with that. It'll especially "lose its punch" when rates are lower in 18 months than they are now.

Judge said "everybody" or "a lot of people" insist that rates are "going up for the right reason." But Judge added, "I say, what does it matter if they're going up for the right reason or not, the mere fact that they're going up is an issue that the market has to readjust to."

Next was Momentum Man Joe Terranova, who contended, "Where momentum resides right now Scott is actually in Treasury yields."

But then Joe started making Fed predictions. "Markets expect Chairman Powell to address the taper timeline. To push back against inflation. There should be concern that he doesn't," Joe asserted.

Judge was practically aghast, stating, "You think that that's where the pressure line is for TODAY? He needs to come out TODAY and do that? He's not gonna give you a timeline with dates and all of that."

Joe offered this cryptic response: "You communicate today by not saying something, that that's actually going to be coming."

Meanwhile, Pete Najarian said he hears about "all these different (sic redundant) stocks" that have a high P.E. or no P.E. and how "now is the time" to buy. Pete doesn't agree; he likes energy or financials or industrials and others that "still have room to run."

Jim Lebenthal said he's not going to own NKE at a 37 forward multiple, but he can own SBUX at an even higher multiple that it's "easily gonna grow into."

Judge said he was "having a hard time understanding" how Jim's OK with the SBUX multiple and not the NKE multiple.

"My goodness, what a cynic you are today Scott," Jim said.

Former NFL star Damien Woody told Judge, "I'm in a little bit of everything." He added, "Tesla's doing really good for me."

The day before, Tuesday's (3/16) Halftime featured a spirited argument in which neither side was correct. Pointing to the 1990s, Josh Brown wondered "who cares" if the S&P has a 20% correction before tripling. Jon Najarian took issue, stating, "If you see a 20% correction Josh, people will be bangin' on that door." Najarian added, "Investors are gonna be pullin' money like crazy if what you describe happens."

Well, the reality is, people will be concerned, but they're not gonna be "pullin' money like crazy," rather, they're gonna be thinking about March 23, 2020, and how they're not going to get snookered by algos into selling at the bottom again.

Jenny Harrington said investors have proved that they are "tolerant."

Kevin O’Leary’s competitors are going to fly staff to meet clients, eat Kevin’s businesses’ lunch while he’s offering money to buffoons on Shark Tank

On Monday's (3/15) Halftime Report, Great-Grandpa Kevin O'Leary, who is short JETS (um, not a great day for that), somehow stuck to his tiresome, monthslong refrain about how airlines should file bankruptcy and cited the "deterioration" of airline balance sheets and said (this is the most tiresome part) that the tickets everyone wants now are the $89 vacation trips. (This writer is long AAL, UAL, SAVE.)

But pay attention to this throwaway comment from O'Leary: "I'm betting now, no one's gonna bail these guys out any more from government money. They've got all they possibly could."

Really??? He thinks that after being saved for a year, that airlines are gonna be allowed to crumble and forced to file bankruptcy under President Joe Biden?

That's quite an investment thesis.

O'Leary insisted business travel isn't coming back: "I'm aggressively slashing business entertainment and business travel in all my private portfolios. And I'm proud to say, in some cases, we've been able to get away with 50% reductions. The last thing I want someone to do now is get on a tube and fly somewhere and spend money when I know with certainty, they don't have to. ... Those are trips we used to make all the way over to Dubai, or Germany, or Geneva. We haven't done one of those, and we're doing just as much business as we ever have."

Well, that implies that it's not just airlines that are the shorts, but conventions. Why in the world would doctors go to ASCO, for example, when they can just do it all on Zoom?

Nevertheless, some panelists were somehow convinced.

"I think Kevin really nailed it," Meghan Shue said. "Um, so I don't think business travel is going away completely, but maybe instead of going to see that existing client every month or every 2 months, you really prioritize those new relationships where an in-person interaction is really beneficial."

OK. And we look forward to Meghan spurning the next investment strategists convention in Miami and watching it via Zoom instead.

More of the same was heard on Monday's 5 p.m. Fast Money, when Karen Finerman vowed she is "absolutely not going to jump in right here" on the airline trade.

To this page, it seems a simple, patently obvious reopening trade backstopped by the government. But apparently not to everyone.

"I don't get why the- I mean, why there's more to run. I don't really get that," Finerman said.

Meanwhile, back on Halftime, as for the rest of the market, "The easiest part of the cyclical trade has been done," said Steve Weiss.

Weiss called JMIA a "mini-Amazon" and said it could even break into 3 companies. He said it'll be profitable "long before any other online seller you've ever seen reach profitability."

Joe Terranova said he likes banks but not energy and that there's a "solid foundation" to reach S&P 4,000 (snicker) (it's practically there already).

A viewer asked Joe about TER. Joe first protested that it's "very difficult" to give a recommendation, then he gave a speech about needing to hear from management before deciding what to do, as if that helps the viewer.

Bob Pisani revealed there's a FOMO (snicker) ETF on the way.

Brian Stutland actually said he'd buy bitcoin at 55,500.

Tom Lee: Tech bottomed last week for the 1st half, maybe whole year

The star guest of Friday's (3/12) Halftime Report was Tom Lee, who's thinking S&P 4,300 before July.

Lee said the VIX is "giving us a pretty decent signal" and that "the average American is ready to resume their analog life."

Lee sounded unfazed about tech's trouble with interest rates. "I think it made its low for the first half or maybe for the year. Last week," Lee said.

For whatever reason (perhaps just to kill time), Judge asked the other panelists if they'd buy BA today instead of MSFT or AAPL. Steve Weiss and Jim Lebenthal beat around the bush. "That's a little unfair, that question," Weiss said. Jim said the answer is "Apple and Qualcomm" even though Qualcomm wasn't part of Judge's question.

Joe Terranova asserted that "there's far more upside for Boeing in the near term."

Jim Lebenthal compared TSLA's valuation with other automakers (sigh) and insisted, "It doesn't make sense folks."

Doc is long calls in 94 stocks, according to disclosures on Halftime Report

The market seems less scared about interest rates, but some are still entrenched in "value" (snicker) plays.

Judge cut off Jim Lebenthal at the top of Thursday's (3/11) Halftime Report just as Jim was about to say don't buy the tech high fliers. Jim, of course, likes "value" stocks and GARPy stocks.

Kari Firestone referred to "8 periods in the last 50 years where we had ...," and we immediately lost interest (#historydoesn'trepeatorrhyme), but anyway, Kari concluded that the S&P and Nasdaq basically always go up months after we get a GDP breakout like everyone's expecting. (Another tip, from this site: Stocks go up basically 80% of the time regardless.)

Josh Brown said he ran a technical screen of all the Dow stocks and found "almost all look great."

Jim predicted BA at 300 "in a matter of months."

At the 19-minute mark, Jim got the chance to finish his point about not liking tech high fliers. Josh Brown then gave a speech about 21st-century business models and how names such as FB have always been trading at high sales multiples.

Jon Najarian and Rob Sechan both gushed about the prospects for homebuilders, with low rates and no inventory.

We couldn't help but notice page after page of disclosures of Jon Najarian's long call positions. That's a lot of risk-measuring.

In one of his finest moments, Judge pressures Brad Gerstner about the Board Challenge

The star guest of Wednesday's (3/10) Halftime Report was Brad Gerstner, who mostly wanted to gush about Roblox and even compare it to NFLX. Judge told Brad, "I wonder if we're heading towards an IP-Over — if you will — period." (Tip to Judge: You don't have to ask if we "will.")

Things suddenly got serious when Judge told Gerstner, "I don't see this company having any persons of color in the boardroom."

That's significant, because back on Sept. 9, Judge devoted an entire show to Gerstner's Board Challenge, which pushes for companies to have at least one African American board member.

Since then, Gerstner has made several appearances without being asked about The Board Challenge.

On Wednesday, it got an extended dialogue. "Every company we invest in, I have a conversation with about The Board Challenge," Gerstner responded. "And we have a conversation about diversity in the company. ... They're gonna bring diversity to every aspect of that business."

That's fine ... but then what's the point of The Board Challenge. It's not a matter of signing the pledge; it's merely a matter of having a "conversation" with Brad Gerstner.

Judge pushed back, "I just wonder how you think about taking a stand on the issue, like you, you publicly have, where you say, 'You know what, I'm not going to come along for the final part of the ride with you, until you follow through with- with- with what I think is critically important for the future of our companies, new and old."

"I mean Scott, it's a fair question," Gerstner acknowledged. "The answer is, what best achieves our objectives. We've gotten over 70 companies, right, from Starbucks to Salesforce, to take the pledge. ... I don't think giving companies ultimatums, having guns to their head, making it a quid pro quo is the best way to go. ... I- I can't tell you how much momentum, you know, there is in this movement today."

OK. "Momentum." Actually, there seems to be no momentum. Try various Google searches for The Board Challenge. The most recent articles we could retrieve on the subject are from last October.

Furthermore, if the momentum is so great, how come Gerstner hasn't brought it up in his appearances since September?

This page thinks Gerstner seems to be a great guy. This page is NOT suggesting he get a grilling from Judge. This page is only saying ... exactly what Judge said during this interview.

"You're gonna have to face these kinds of questions when a board of directors doesn't have any people of color," Judge told Gerstner with a slight chuckle.

"I welcome the question," Gerstner said. "And all I ask is for you and everybody else at CNBC to ask that same question of all the CEOs you have on and all the board members you have on who don't have a Black director on their board, who don't have diversity on the board."

(The big difference is that "all the CEOs" are not creating a Board Challenge and then investing in companies that don't appear to be adhering to it.)

"Fair enough," Judge told Gerstner.

Judge calls Weiss ‘Dude’

Judge opened Wednesday's (3/10) Halftime Report stating Steve Weiss continues to bet "against good parts of tech."

Weiss protested that "I wouldn't say it's a bet against it; I'd say that I'm cutting my exposure."

"Aw, let's not parse words. Let's not parse words, Dude," Judge said.

"I'm getting more negative on the market, not more negative on the fundamental stories," Weiss explained.

"Everything depends on rates," Weiss added.

Joe Terranova gushed about getting long GOOGL and PINS, saying the latter is the social media platform "that has that positive vibe."

Buy the ones that ‘are gonna be the big winners’ and ‘avoid the ones that aren’t’

On Tuesday's (3/9) Halftime Report, Judge asked the Morgan Stanley strategist, who predicted the correction on 2/1 and then said on 2/8 that the correction was over, about having an S&P target of 3,900 while talking about a "bull market" ahead for stocks.

"Yeah, but what's wrong with that? That's- that-, you still have a bull market in stocks, and you can still be in a very good environment for investing. It's just not, once again, it's just not at the index level," the strategist said.

Well, that's interesting. The index will go nowhere, but a bunch of stocks are going gangbusters. Good luck with that.

He asserted that growth is moving "slowly out of favor" and value (snicker) is "taking its place."

Josh Brown asked what to do about some of these prominent stocks that are down 50% from their 12-month highs, and this was the strategist's advice: "Let's find the ones that are gonna be the big winners and then try to avoid the ones that aren't."

Meanwhile, Judge asked Brown if this is the beginning of a "big tech bounce-back." Brown said that as of Tuesday, it's already happening and not just beginning, and some of the high fliers of the past year will return to old highs. "Most don't, but some will," Brown said.

After the panel did another tiresome round robin of warning against all the "priced to sales" high-P.E.-ratio stocks (but Gee, PayPal and its 68 P.E. ratio sure is undervalued), Judge said a "very select group of companies" will grow into their lofty multiples.

Sarat Sethi touted NVDA, QCOM, PYPL and AMT for the long term. He said he's got a "barbell" approach with financials too. Among a bunch of options-related buys, Pete Najarian said he thinks energy has more room to run.

Pete thundered about the big buy in TSLA 685 calls.

See, as long as there's call-buying, it turns out it doesn't matter what the P.E. ratio is. Even Judge caught on this time, telling Pete, "You're critical of- of those kinds of stocks that have gone up a lot, but yet you're willing to play ball when you see unusual activity in them, so how does that square?"

(Um, has Judge been watching his own show ... at all ... in the last 10 years?)

"You will not see me own some of these stocks ... I'll rent them for a little while," Pete responded.

The previous day (3/8), Judge welcomed an all-female panel on International Women's Day. Kourtney Gibson made essentially the point that Tiffany McGhee (who was not on Monday's panel) made weeks ago, beautifully. McGhee said then that the market is all about the "digitization of everything." Kourtney on Monday affirmed, "We are in a digitization economy. Our world continues to move towards digitization and technology."

A quirky, only in 2020/21 moment occurred when a dog started barking and drowning out Rahel Solomon's report on several Wall Street upgrades. Solomon referred to "my dog," but Judge indicated he didn't know the source: "I don't think that was just me hearing that." Moments later, during Solomon's News Update, she reiterated, "My dog apparently making an appearance." Judge affirmed he found the source.

Fine to mock DOCU, but if now’s not the time to be risk-on, then ... ?

Fairly early into Friday's (3/5) Halftime Report, Judge offered this revelation about his texts/emails/tweets/general conversations:

"I'm getting a lot of inquiries from, you know, friends and otherwise, people who are just interested in the market currently (sic redundant), on whether, you know, whether we think there's gonna be more carnage ahead in a lot of these names." (The "and otherwise" is worth a snicker.)

Well, no one was actually bold enough to predict it, but Jenny Harrington came closest.

Jenny said she believed a couple months ago and still does "there's lots of pockets of euphoria in the market." Jenny added that recent high-flying tech names "were coasting on fumes."

OK. So Zoom and Tesla aren't accomplishing anything. It's just pets.com all over again. (This writer is long ZM.)

Later in the program, Jenny, while bashing the show's favorite pets.com name of the week, DOCU (this writer is long DOCU), explained that she has owned CIEN since 2000 to serve as a warning. Jenny said she added CIEN in 2000 "when it was way off its high," and now it trades around $45 after being around $1,200 then. She keeps it as a reminder that "stocks can permanently lose value."

(OK. So NEVER buy a stock that's "way off its high," because 20 years later, it'll be worth a lot less.)

(We've got even better 20-year rear-view mirror advice: NEVER buy an Internet-plumbing/fiber-optic stock in 2000.)

"Don't look at just what they're off their highs on or you will get burnt the way I did coming out of 2000," Jenny concluded.

(OK, again. Repeating. NEVER buy a stock that's "way off its high," because you'll get burned.) (Wonder if JOET's algorithm can weed out any stocks that are "way off their highs.")

Steve Weiss opened the show by touting MRNA, though the audio from his and Judge's conversation briefly went out. Weiss went on to say, "I didn't really participate" in the "irrational" part of the market.

Pete Najarian said LULU was "probably stretched" but is basically better than TDOC, DOCU (yep, again ... but if someone rolled up the April 225 calls, it'd be a great opportunity to measure your risk) "and all of those types of names" where the fundamentals don't match the price. (See, all those high P.E. ratio stocks suck ... except the ones we own. And never buy ones that are way off their highs because 20 years later you'll still be burned.)

Pete thundered about the big fallen tech names; "They have either no multiple, or triple or quadruple digits." (Has DIS had a P.E. ratio in the past 12 months?) Pete said he loves PYPL but that it got extended. (See, they all suck ... except the ones we own.)

Judge dabbled for a 2nd day in the "CNBC Pro" chat with John Rogers (if it's going to be the talk of TV for 2 days, why do you need CNBC Pro?) and questioned whether the long-awaited, long-predicted, long-sought shift to value is happening. Weiss said Rogers is right "to a certain extent" but that Rogers' point needs to be "parsed," that "what he's really saying is, stay away from technology, you can own the other parts of the S&P, but not technology." (Actually, Rogers has made clear since year-end that he's mostly doubtful of the "six" (his term) biggest stocks, which are all tech giants, maintaining such a large chunk of the S&P, that it reminds him of the Nifty 50, than the "pendulum" has swung too far in favor of those stocks and not that he's against technology.)

Weiss bemoaned the semiconductor stocks actually sliding during a shortage. Later in the show, Weiss said, "I actually covered my shorts and started to go long the semis."

Guest Christopher Toomey opined that, "We're actually basically due for a pullback given how far we've come." Yes. Because tech stocks were up about 10% YTD by early February, and stocks don't go up 10% EVERY month, and contrary to what Judge and most of his panelists think, just because a stock/sector doesn't go up 10% every month doesn't mean it's March 2000.

Honestly, we can't help but wonder, if you've got rates with a 1 handle, an economy coming out of a shutdown and the Fed and governments shoveling money at the general public like there's no tomorrow, and you STILL can't own a risk-on stock, then ... shouldn't you be in an index fund or bank CD?

"I don't think I'm gonna see the 10-year at 5%," said Jenny Harrington.

Judge cross-promotes CNBC Pro

It's funny how the stock markets invent back-and-fill stories.

During Thursday's (3/4) Halftime Report, stocks sank after Jerome Powell's remarks were reported.

Steve Liesman broke in to the program to say Powell calls the speed of the rate rise "notable." (OMIGOD!!!! SELLLLLLLL!!!!!!)

At one point, during some choppy transitions, Judge said to Liesman, "Maybe the market is saying, 'Well, we're not exactly sure if you're gonna be able to get a grip on inflation if it starts to rise and maybe gets out of control."

Actually, what the market is saying is that "this is a pullback month" and "here's another reason." When in fact, if Powell were making the same comment in early January, the reaction would be, "NO RATE HIKES FOREVER!!!!! BUYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!"

So basically, by saying ANYTHING, Powell was pushing the market a few more points toward where it was going anyway.

Anyway. Judge opened by relaying John Rogers' call a day earlier on avoiding the S&P 500.

"By the way, that's the kind of stuff you get on CNBC Pro," Judge said.

(Sure. But if you're going to tell us all about it on regular TV ... why do we need CNBC Pro?)

Judge said Rogers told him, "This does remind me of what happened when the Internet bubble burst." Ah. So we've got a 2000 call in the works.

Judge told panelist Tiffany McGhee that he knew when talking to Rogers that Tiffany wouldn't like Rogers' call. Tiffany offered a 3-point plan to consider navigating this market, including "have a plan" and that it's about "perspective" and "positioning."

Josh Brown said the S&P 500 is "highly diversified" and pointed out, "John's a value investor. It's always a value renaissance about to happen, um, for value investors." (Exactly. Rogers' wrote a wsj.com op-ed at the start of the year predicting this is the big turnaround for value.)

Jim Lebenthal said "John is right" about these "hypergrowth stocks," except Judge clarified a couple of times that Rogers is talking about FAANG but not everyone's favorite bash, the HIGH. P.E. RATIO. STOCKS. (except the ones they own).

"I added to Apple today," said Jim, citing "more than enough of a drawdown."

Jon Najarian said he lightened up in tech and had "simulated positions in the options," but now he's buying back into tech stocks. "I think that John Rogers is wrong about that," Najarian said.

Doc bought SNOW at 240, Judge said at the top of the show.

Josh Brown addressed another current market topic later in the program:

"I had this conversation with Terranova (sic no first name) on the phone the other night, where the whole day on CNBC, everyone was talking about how low-quality stocks are leading," Brown said. "And Joe was just like, 'Josh, just thinking out loud, can you think of any investor who's ever succeeded by building a portfolio with deliberately low-quality stocks and having that be a long-term strategy?' And obviously, the answer is no, that of course does not work."

Brown added, "People are saying, 'I see oil prices going, I wanna own oil.' They're not buying oil stocks because they're value stocks. They just happen to be cheap." (No, they're buying oil because oil stocks are going up.)

Why doesn’t Joe just look at his holdings in 2016 and buy all the same things

Maybe the hottest trade of the day on Wednesday's (3/3) Halftime Report came during Rahel Solomon's News Update, when Rahel said bidding on a Tom Brady rookie card is over $580,000.

Judge confirmed, "Trading cards are just outrageous right now. Uh, that market is on fire."

Indeed. We'd never heard of this card (so much for the old Topps/Bowman/Fleer/Donruss/Kellogg's), but apparently another one from the same batch sold for $556,000 in January. If the January buyer is flipping, looks like a successful trade. (But it might come down to the card's P.E. ratio and whether it's an outsized position in the portfolio.)

Meanwhile, a flustered Joe Terranova tried to sum up the market of stocks.

"What clearly is working is everything, uh, that my strategies and my tactical moves don't align with," Joe said, adding, "The only thing that I dislike more than losing money is losing money." (Apparently he should put Tom Brady rookie cards into JOET.)

Joe AGAIN brought up his 2016 comparison.

"Louisiana Pacific, Under Armour and Darden. Right now, that's what the market wants," Joe declared.

Joe also contended, "The market right now is reflecting confirmation of 7% GDP growth."

"Reflecting." "Confirmation."

We're not sure anything's been confirmed about this rip-roaring 7% yet.

(Note: We're all for a roaring economy. We're just guessing that predictions of stratospheric GDP and interest rates are probably going to overshoot the real mark.)

One panelist again said of selling FB, "I made money, and I took some gains." So basically stocks go up or down based on what one's basis is.

Kevin O’Leary sounds hell-bent on buying high and selling low

Kevin O'Leary, who turns up on the Halftime Report about every 6 weeks or so, on Monday (3/1) basically said bitcoin got high enough for him to buy it he's a typical momentum trader the pandemic economy is sort of the new normal.

O'Leary lambasted airlines, saying they should go back to bankruptcy court and do some more mergers because business travel is never coming back. (This writer is long AAL, SAVE and UAL.)

(It reminds us of all those people on CNBC claiming they want to buy a pullback, then the pullback happens, and they're sure it's permanently over.)

Meanwhile, O'Leary hailed the prospects for sales growth at ZM. (This writer is long ZM.) He said he owned ZM before it was known by the public, and it "quickly became a (sic not "an") over-5% weighting, and we had to cut it back." (There we go again — selling a stock because of the size of other positions in the index/portfolio.)

O'Leary then invented a reason to chase bitcoin, stating he wouldn't previously touch it because of lack of regulatory approval (snicker), but that's "changing very, very quickly." (Fine. How about telling us whether it's a computer program, computer software, or an app.)

"I'm taking a lot of abuse on social media," O'Leary admitted. "Facts changed. Facts changed."

But Steve Weiss, who a while back was making similar anti-airline arguments as O'Leary but now has long positions in the sector, asserted there'll be an "amazing bump in business travel as COVID dissipates."

Explaining why he bought ALK, Joe Terranova complained about airline finances but offered that "sometimes the technicals actually become the fundamentals." (Translation: How to be right either way.)

Weiss said he's getting the "best performance" from names that are "under the radar" and have "some controversy," which he said are QRVO, QCOM and SWKS.

Joe gave a speech at the top of the show and said, "Oil to me is the critical indicator."

Joe seemed to think Congress is just going to spend like a drunken sailor and that an infrastructure bill of $1.5-$2 trillion is "not priced into the market," which prompted a hilarious chuckle from guest host Joe Kernen, who nevertheless was compelled to move on.

Kevin O'Leary was getting a little carried away with some kind of economic indicators or whatever. "We may even overshoot 7% GDP ... it is like the 1950s, it's on fire," O'Leary said, and that's his mistake, projecting a surging GDP. But who wouldn't agree with his comment that "We do not need $1.9 trillion" (rammed through on a 50/50 split) to save the economy.

It's always disappointing when Judge has the day off, but Joe did a fine job and mostly just let the panelists talk.

We were interested in what Karen Finerman would've said about Monday's rally on the 5 p.m. Fast Money, but we're not about to devote any of our day to hear Great-Great-Grandpa Guy Adami complain about inflation.

A new one: Judge suggests inflation alone isn’t good enough, has to be on Fed’s ‘terms’

At the end of a week in which Judge harped on basically nothing but interest rates, Josh Brown on Friday's (2/26) Halftime Report hammered those predicting doom from the 10-year yield.

"There is no curve inversion. This is a steepening," Brown stressed. "What do you want?"

Brown said he's "very embarrassed" for the "adults who know better" that are "scaring people unnecessarily."

Judge questioned whether Brown should be "worried" (though Judge said that term may be "too strong") about inflation.

"I thought we wanted inflation!" Brown said.

"They want it on their terms," Judge said of the Fed.

Brown pointed out that stocks went up in the late '50s and 1970s despite 10-year yields rising or even going "vertical."

Despite all that, Jon Najarian said that while the 40-point move in the 10-year probably has been priced in, if we get a "60 or 70-basis point move, then that's Katie bar the door; we're gonna go down to a full 20% correction."

Judge back to chuckling about Peloton again

Amy Raskin on Friday's (2/26) Halftime Report said she's been anticipating the growth selloff for "a little while," and she apparently sold TDOC, perhaps because Steve Weiss was trashing that stock a day earlier. (But Steve is only long puts in QCOM.)

As panelists often do, Raskin justified selling TDOC and FVRR partly because they've been "very big winners" (#costbasisdetermineswherestocksaregoing)

Bryn Talkington said she's "had enough" of BABA.

Jon Najarian touted TWTR, saying it's "something to watch" with its acquisitions.

Judge chuckled while mocking the term "TAM" in a conversation with Josh Brown about PTON.

Judge said there's "Not. A. Chance" he would attempt a golf putt with a gator lurking behind him.

Joe Terranova made a special appearance on Closing Bell and repeated his "2016" script theory in which "the underweights are now becoming the heavyweights." Joe likened the financial markets to a hockey game and said it's getting to be "a lot harder to score goals" because we've gone from 5 on 3 to 5 on 4 and nearing 5 on 5.

On June 15, Weiss said airlines are ‘insolvent’ and it’s ‘pure folly’ to believe they have any equity

Thursday's (2/25) Halftime Report was marked mostly by Steve Weiss using every soundbite alloted to him to bash ZM. (This writer is long ZM.)

Grandpa Weiss insisted ZM and TDOC aren't cheap. "Momentum cuts both ways," Weiss said. (He should know #ultimatemomentumtrader)

"The valuations are ludicrous," Weiss added, insisting Zoom is a "commodity product" and one of the "relics of the recent past." (Already a "relic." Wow. #pets.comsoundslike)

Weiss further insisted the stocks are "not going" to recover because "you can't justify those valuations, even if you go out 5 years." (We're not sure what he means by "recover" because ZM is up 8% YTD.)

Tiffany McGhee said she "respectfully" disagrees with "some" of what Weiss is saying. McGhee said she still believes in ZM.

Tiffany further made a comment that got Judge's attention, stating, "Valuations are totally out of whack across the board and have been, for, for quite some time."

"That's not true," Weiss tried to insist, before Judge oversaw a comedy of errors in trying to get people to comment without talking over each other.

Later on, Weiss wondered why he'd own ZM when he can own QRVO, QCOM, SWKS.

He reiterated, "The Zooms, the Teladocs are gonna be problems going forward." Weiss then noted ZM has gone "from 600 to almost 300, so, people should've listened, they should continue to listen." (So why isn't he short the stock?) (He's not even long the puts, according to the CNBC disclosures that appear on screen for a fraction of a second; he's actually long QCOM puts.) (By the way, what's the status of the March puts in GME that Weiss said he bought a couple weeks ago?)

Tiffany bought more FTCH ahead of earnings later Thursday.

Then there was this curious development: Weiss said he bought UAL and is looking to buy more. (This writer is long UAL.) "I think that the COVID vaccine is going to drive a return to flying a lot quicker than the 3-year estimates. ... There's so much pent-up demand for consumers to travel, to do everything, and the vaccine is just a game-changer."

He’s had 12 months to deal with it; Judge needs to get a handle on people talking over each other on these video connections

The star guest of Friday's (2/25) Halftime Report was Rick Rieder, who pointed out how low that rates recently were. "I'm not that worried about equities," said Rieder.

Rick pointed out that Fed officials say they're "not that worried," and Rieder asserted, "Inflation is not gonna move that much higher. Mid-2's? Totally get. But not that much higher."

Judge said "I KNOW what they said, uh, the question is, are they to be believed?" (Well, if Judge ever watched Fast Money, he'd know there are people making a second career out of showing up to bash the Federal Reserve at 5 p.m. every day while getting virtually no pushback from their moderator.)

Judge told Rick Rieder that Bill Ackman is quoted "in the Telegraph" (how come the Telegraph gets interviews with Bill and Judge can't) predicting a "spike in inflation (snicker) as early as the middle of the year."

Rieder said "Real rates are still negative ... we're still in pretty incredible times."

Meanwhile, "We remain pretty bullish ... you shouldn't run from tech," said Rob Sechan.

"We've even picked up some bitcoin," Sechan said.

DPZ CEO Ritch Allison, who was interviewed by CNBC's gorgeous Kate Rogers during the show, told Rogers, "There's about 2½ times as many carryout transactions in the QSR pizza industry as there are delivery transactions."

Jon Najarian, who had connection problems during the hour and whose appearance was basically a bust, said there were $200 GME calls expiring this week trading Thursday for $46; "a lot of amateur trading."

Stephanie Link on Closing Bell said, "I kind of prepared for it, this sort of rotation, not this extreme."

Pete says ‘I tend not to look at stocks after I’ve sold them’; maybe that would be good advice for Joe

Judge ran an hourlong commercial for Mad Money on Wednesday's (2/24) Halftime Report in which the Cathie Wood snarking took a bit of a break (that's what happens on a big up day for the markets).

Jim Lebenthal offered, "There's actually a 3rd bucket between the Cathie Wood stocks and the reopening stocks, and that's the GARPy tech stocks."

Jim said he's "building a position" in HD. But he said he doesn't want to buy ALK because it's "up 125% from the lows of March."

That rear-view-mirror trading was evident throughout the show. Someone mentioned trimming FB, with a note that it's "up 30% in the last year," as we let our gains dictate whether a stock is going higher or lower.

Joe Terranova got skewered because his "program" sold AMD. In what seems a bit of an extreme reaction, Joe said he wanted to "vomit" when the stock popped, but he reasons that he had to sell it because he was following his "risk management process" (Translation: The size of other positions in your portfolio supposedly determines whether a stock goes up or down.)

"A lot of people trade that way," assured Judge.

Joe said he's already been overweight in semis, and then he mentioned riding TER from below $100 to nearly $150 #rearviewmirrortrading

Joe detected a new trend. "Momentum is now in commodities. Momentum is now in Treasurys. There is a significant short Treasury trade that is now underway. So this is 2016 all over again," Joe contended.

Everybody not in the Cathie Wood stocks is racing to declare victory (a/k/a folks making money in bitcoin aren’t ‘in control of their faculties’)

Tuesday's (2/23) Halftime Report included some serious shots of schadenfreude.

Judge tried to steer the "Committee" into a (figurative) beatdown of Cathie Wood, asking Grandpa Pete Najarian about the "Cathie Wood stocks" and noting how much Cathie's funds are down for the past week.

Pete said "it's OK" to own some of those stocks, but the ones with "no valuation, or extremely high valuations," are ones that people need to "self-examine" whether they want "that much risk." (However, it's OK if you want to gamble on DIS calls that expire in 3 days, according to later testimony in the program.)

Pete said he got ABNB in the IPO, but he just said "adios." (This writer is long ABNB.) Pete actually claimed with a straight face, "I tend not to look at stocks after I've sold them."

Judge said Pete has sold an "astounding" number of calls in his latest disclosure. Judge even trumpeted that Bob Pisani has a new Trader Talk posted, "Is this the start of the Cathie Wood selloff?"

Grandpa Josh Brown, in a truncated show, was allowed to give a speech about people who apparently never think rates will rise but believe TAM is the only metric that matters.

Then Brown, in another speech during this truncated show, actually said, "You just have people who have made obscene amounts of money, who are fairly inexperienced and not really in control of, um, their- their faculties at this point." Brown rattled off the amounts of apparent bitcoin millionaires (100,000 people) and said, "That's where a lot of this money's coming from."

Jim Lebenthal opined that FAANG stocks are "attractively priced," but he wondered, "What if we go shooting through (snicker) 1½% and head to 2%?" (Sure, we're heading right back to the "normal" Greenspan rates, inflation, GDP and multiples.)

Meghan Shue said there's a lot of pent-up demand in the economy, but, "Last year's stock market run was not a healthy market." (Translation: She wasn't in enough of the Cathie Wood stocks.) Shue sees a "broadening" of leadership in 2021.

As for the reason the show was truncated, Steve Liesman said Jerome Powell is "not concerned" about rising rates. Judge said the Powell comment that struck him the most was the part about keeping the bond buying program going "at least" at the current pace.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Steve Grasso suggested buy the dip may be soon over: "I think people are gonna get beat over the head buying growth one too many times. Value (snicker) looks to be the outperform." Karen Finerman grumbled about "the casino-like feel of the market right now," though Karen said the expected selloff "won't be a big deal."

These rising rates are the most temporary thing of all time

On Monday's (2/22) Halftime Report, Jenny Harrington actually said a rotation into value could last "years."

(Sure, because there's always mean reversion in the stock market; rates have to go back to Greenspan levels and multiples have to do the same, etc.)

Joe Terranova said his view on that is "meaningless" because it's too hard to predict markets several years from now, but he thinks this year could be a "replay" of 2016 (snicker) in which the S&P outperforms the Nasdaq.

(What's this 2016 stuff; it's supposed to be either 1987, 1999 or 2008.)

We found Dubravko Lakos far more convincing; Lakos stated, "The next few months, you really wanna be stepping on the pedal, uh, and sort of putting risk to work."

Of course. It's the "Stadium Put," which basically means stocks are not sinking until AFTER (perhaps long after) the first ballpark is filled, presumably this year but maybe not until next year.

Steve Weiss, ever the momentum trader, said he went to 30% cash, trimming some tech positions.

Weiss spoke of SWKS not in terms of where it's going from here, but the fact it has "more than doubled for me."

Weiss gushed about ATKR, which he said is "exceedingly cheap." He also touted CLF. (But he's 30% cash.)

Joe said he got out of CNX and went into SU, citing an XLE breakout: "It's got a long way to go."

All of that (or most of that) got a "good stuff" from Judge.

The star guest was KSS (snicker) agitator Jonathan Duskin. Judge told Duskin that the stock is up 100% in 3 months. Duskin insisted that if you go "kinda pre-pandemic" and off the COVID lows, "it actually has materially underperformed."

Judge noted that Duskin put out a "big letter" that is "25 pages or so." (At least, unlike Jana and CALSTRS, he didn't complain that iPhones are unsafe for kids and quote a prof who believes in a "Psychic Tax" on kids and leave a number for Tim Cook to call them. Remember that, Judge?)

Duskin made a quality point, asserting, "They don't have one single retail CEO on their board."

Judge pointed out that smart guys such as Eddie Lampert and Bill Ackman couldn't save Sears or JCPenney. Duskin pointed to Best Buy, Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond, and concluded, "We really do think that, um, retailers can be fixed."

OK. Judge should've noted this (but didn't), but Sears and JCPenney, like Kohl's, are/were heavily dependent on clothing, whereas the turnarounds cited by Duskin do not.

Steve Weiss said what's happened in JMIA is "just the beginning," and he won't sell but will buy more on dips.

Gotta agree with Judge on the ‘technology nonsense’ (a/k/a Pete sets a record for at-home trading)

With hot topics in the stock market suddenly lacking, Judge on Friday's (2/19) Halftime Report once again led off with ... interest rates.

"I welcome the rise in rates," said Liz Young, adding it's "more about the speed" (cliche alert) of how fast they rise than where they go.

Joe Terranova assured a "return to normalcy" and predicted "competition for equities" at 1.50% yield.

Judge said the Nasdaq has looked "a little wobbly" this week. #omg,sellnow

Pete Najarian gushed about the prospects for BA. Joe said, "It's actually time to think about owning some of the airlines," which he said is a "radically different" idea than he would've had 3-6 months ago. (Hasn't he heard Steve Weiss say a dozen times in the past year that they're all underwater and have collateralized all their assets?) Joe ranked ALK, UAL and DAL as his top 3. (This writer is long UAL, plus other airlines.)

Pete Najarian touted LVS, saying there's "still plenty of room to the upside." (This writer is long LVS.)

Pete also observed, "I don't think that I've ever traded as much in the last week and a half or 2 weeks, ever, outside of being on the trading floor."

Liz Young said residential real estate has "already seen a pretty big heyday" and she doesn't like the space so much now.

At one point, Joe Terranova's video feed froze, then after he returned, Judge said, "I can't wait till we just throw this technology nonsense out the window. We're all around the same table again. Boy that's gonna be, uh, one heckuva day, I can't wait for that."

"I'll have the suit on that day when we do make that return," Joe said. (Indeed. Note file photo above.)

Even Judge seems to question why they’re talking about the Berkshire 13F

Josh Brown on Friday's (2/19) Halftime Report said, "I never thought I would say this, but I think, uh, the Berkshire 13F is probably less worth paying attention to than maybe ever before in my lifetime. I think it's absolute incoherence from the outside looking in."

Judge said that interpreting the 13F is "all conjecture and speculation."

Brown pointed to Warren Buffett lending money to GS and GE a decade ago and said, "The Fed just took his job away" with its easing policies. Brown pointed out that "nobody even wanted the money" from the Fed's Main Street lending program, which Brown said despite its name was actually geared toward larger businesses.

Judge asked Brown about selling U. Brown said he owned it pre-IPO, "and when the holding period ends, I sell." For those wondering how to trade it now, Brown said it's "gone up like a huge amount from the original purchase," which is typically why panelists on this program sell, not because it might be heading up or down.

Brown suggested gold would be "closer to 3,000" than 1,500 if there were no bitcoin.

Thursday's (2/18) Halftime was largely preempted by the GameStop hearing, but Judge put together a panel anyway.

Cathie Wood: The
Peter Lynch of 2020

The star guest of Wednesday's (2/17) Halftime Report was the "It" investor of 2020, Cathie Wood.

Bob Pisani got first crack (that's the ETF Edge thing), followed by Judge. Cathie told Bob that "we have been adding to Tesla," saying her confidence has grown based on "ride-sharing" and AI (yes, AI).

It was the "ride-sharing" commentary that got our attention. We wondered, Are these guys intending to compete with Uber now? (This writer is long UBER.) Apparently yes, and not only competing with Uber and Lyft, but GEICO, Allstate, State Farm, Farmers, Liberty Mutual, etc. (Yes, apparently Tesla is angling toward the insurance market.)

Ride-sharing, Cathie asserted, is "a much more profitable business than electric vehicles."

So now ride-sharing apparently has gone from "no path to profitability" to the meal ticket of the world's 2nd-richest guy.

Neither Bob nor Judge addressed this subject at all.

Referring to bitcoin, Wood said "David (sic) Gensler" is going to run the SEC.

Wood also gushed about TDOC and ZM (this writer is long ZM), the latter specifically for its place in the "Tech Stack."

Judge jumped in and said "the gains have just been tremendous" in Wood's portfolio, but what about when regular life resumes. Cathie pointed out how last year, they could buy their highest-conviction names at steep discounts weeks into the pandemic. She pointed out how much they're up since then. In a lengthy series of remarks, Cathie didn't really answer Judge's question but said "the coronavirus has accelerated the shift towards these new ways of doing things." (So basically, she thinks a bunch of 2020 high-fliers will keep flying.)

Judge actually asked Cathie if she could "envision" owning ZM in "2-3 years." So now guests have to outline their 2024 portfolios, apparently.

Cathie even opined on interest rates. "We actually think normalized, uh, GDP growth is probably closer to 3. And that's where long-term interest rates should stabilize," Wood said.

Well, Wood has been undeniably white-hot. Best wishes to her and ARK's clients. We'd say her best move is not detecting some great stocks, but repeatedly reaffirming them in the last couple years as the parabolic returns kicked in while many folks on CNBC (including on the Halftime Report and Fast Money) just roll their eyes and say "Omigod ... that VALUATION. IS. SO HIGH." The former means having a good year; the latter means a transformative investment cycle. It won't work forever. You know what Hal Holbrook said: Enjoy it while it lasts.

Why not just pay employees in AAPL; can open Schwab accounts with fractional shares

Prior to chatting up Cathie Wood, Judge had little to talk about on Wednesday's (2/17) Halftime Report other than interest rates. (Actually, that was his first question for Cathie too.)

Joe Terranova gave a lengthy speech on the state of rates and multiples, he said, based on a couple qualifiers or something or other, we "easily could see a correction" and that the 50-day is 3% lower and the 200-day is 13% lower.

Joe said investors are "not positioned for the economic optimism and this reflation trade that's happening much faster than we expected."

Um ... let's hold our horses a bit.

If we had to guess, we'd say that the end of the pandemic may be a lot more gradual than people hoped or expected.

It's probably not going to all of a sudden be one day in June when ballgames and concerts and airports are packed.

Furthermore, we've gotta think that the stimulus train has to dwindle at some point, even if Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer want to put another $7.3 trillion on the nation's credit card.

And if we were forced to make a call, we'd guess that after a short-term blip, interest rates may well resume their long downward trend.

Anyway. Steve Weiss said there's a "sector of the market" that's "very vulnerable." (Translation: The high-P.E. tech stocks.)

Jon Najarian noted Warren Buffett "lightening up" in AAPL. Doc actually said with a straight face that because of learning of that positioning, "I'm gonna roll down my calls." Judge was practically in disbelief that "You did that because of Buffett??"

"Oh yeah!" Doc insisted.

Doc again harped on the speed of rate increases, "Depending on how fast we get to 130, 140, 150 on that 10-year, I think we top out and have to head back down, otherwise I think the market has some real issues," Najarian said.

Joe said it's "incredibly difficult" and "incredibly challenging" to make trades based on 10-year yield forecasts.

Judge wondered if the panel can "surmise" (snicker) anything from 13F revelations.

Joe questioned Warren Buffett "exiting" bank holdings; "I disagree with that strongly."

A day ago, this page noted that Jeff Kilburg has been talking to Chicago business owners who want to pay salaries in bitcoin. On Wednesday, the mayor of Miami (that's a tricky one, because there's also something like Miami-Dade which has its own mayor), Francis Suarez, appeared on The Exchange and said he wants municipal employees paid in bitcoin. Suarez said "I look prophetic" because he started saying this when bitcoin was in the $30,000s; "it makes me look good certainly with my council." He didn't seem to agree with Jon Fortt's suggestion that bitcoin could go from $50,000 on a Thursday to $25,000 on a Friday. "I don't think there's ever going to be a 50% swing in value like that way," Suarez said. (So maybe not 50% ... How about getting $2,000 in bitcoin and realizing hours later it's only $1,800?)

Jeff Kilburg claims Chicago business owners ‘wanna pay their employees in bitcoin’

One thing we gotta say — is it remotely possible to do a 30-second soundbite with Jeff Kilburg that does NOT include a reference to Notre Dame football?

(Yeah, so he played there. It was Bob Davie. Who cares. Pete Najarian played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Minnesota Golden Gophers including that 80-point game vs. Nebraska.)

Anyway, Kilburg was half of the Futures Now team on Tuesday's (2/16) Halftime Report, predicting bitcoin goes "higher" because of "supply and demand."

Kilburg must've been eyeing lunch at Burger King, because then came this Whopper: "I'm actually talking to business owners. Here in Chicago, they wanna pay their employees in bitcoin."

Hmmmm ... The first thing we wondered is, which "business owners" has Kilburg been talking to.

If he's referring to the gents at the end of La Salle Street, OK, they know the drill (but we're still not buying it).

We were trying to fathom why a business (OR its employees) would want to do this, and one of the answers we came up with is that if the company has international employees, then using bitcoin would theoretically remove currency red tape.

Or maybe it's actually a big short play. If a high producer signs a contract to be paid one bitcoin a month for 24 months, and price drops from $50,000 to $5,000, the company is getting elite work at 10% of its value.

Of course, if the price soars to $100,000, the company will start getting those GameStop-esque taps on the shoulder.

Wonder if anyone will ever tweet a question to Judge's crew asking exactly what a bitcoin is.

Didn't think so.

Anyway, Scott Nations contended that "there's no support" for bitcoin upside and it's "only barely overbought," and past history shows corrections at overbought times.

Judge mentioned that "Notre Dame got rolled by Bama." (Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.)

On the 5 p.m. Fast Money, Guy Adami insisted inflation is "right in front of us." (That makes 12 years running.) Guy is offended that Fed comments seem to indicate that the central bank thinks it can "control" inflation, "and they absolutely can't control it." (See, if you go on CNBC for a dozen years or more and make the same dire warning, eventually it might happen, then you can book several years worth of speaking engagements as "Dr. Doom.")

A political statement while not making a political statement

Judge got the day off, and Melissa Lee took charge of Friday's (2/12) Halftime Report.

"This looks like a good year for energy, Mel," asserted Jim Lebenthal.

Jim said he didn't want to start a "political discussion," but, "Clearly the policies of this administration are designed to create bottlenecks in the supply of oil."

Pete Najarian predicted AMD will top $100 "in the not-too-distant future."

Pete said he bought the stock of Sundial Growers (SNDL), partly because it's about the same nominal price as the options. "This is a truly a trade," Pete said. Isn't everything?

Jenny Harrington curiously touted LUMN, which was a big Keith Meister play in 2017 (but apparently not anymore). (This writer is long LUMN.) "You do not own a moonshot here. Do not buy this for a trading vehicle," Jenny advised. But she said it's improving margins and paying down debt and, essentially, "It's a big dividend yielder with almost no growth."

Weiss seems to indicate what he thinks about Keith Meister’s new SPAC (the picture comes into play a couple items below)

Steve Weiss on Thursday's (2/11) Halftime Report sort of provided a backdoor assessment of Keith Meister's "life-sciences" fest a day earlier.

"The SPACs are a ridiculous space, and I'm being generous here, or conservative. 80% of them will fail, OK, or they will do nothing as stocks," Weiss asserted.

Weiss said the notion that SPACs are "transparent" is "crap," and a lot have "egregious valuations." Then he said, "We had one on yesterday" (that would be Meister's gambit, years after CenturyLink).

"Where do you get the 80% number will fail," Judge demanded.

"Uh, just an estimate, just a guess, purely a guess from years of experience," Weiss said.

We can’t figure out why someone who wants to pick the stocks doesn’t just open an E-Trade account

Tiffany McGhee raised some eyebrows on Thursday's (2/11) Halftime Report when she said that being long NIO was "purely client-driven."

"I exist in the real world, where we have to have conversations with clients," Tiffany explained.

She said the valuation doesn't "make any sense" to her and stressed again that being in the name "was client-driven."

"What do you mean, what do you mean, what do you mean, client- what do you mean client-driven (sic 4 "what do you means")," Judge asked. "Clients called you up and says, 'What are we doin' in this stock, it's gone up so much, let's get the heck outta here.'"

"No, client says, 'We really wanna be in this stock.' And we say, 'Well, we're not so sure that's a good idea.' And so we have a conversation. Pivotal Advisors is not a dictatorship."

Tiffany added, "They hire us to, yes, sometimes make decisions for them, but also to be partners with them and have conversations."

Well, that's an interesting definition of the investment advisor role ... hired to have "conversations"? ("Say, I gotta talk to you guys about this unusual activity on HeatSeeker!!!!!!!")

Sarat Sethi said that names such as TSLA, Z, NIO are "satellite positions" in portfolios.

Depends on the definition of ‘end’

Josh Brown opened Thursday's (2/11) Halftime Report with quite frankly a great dig at the permabears.

Brown stated that if you're a bear on this market, it's because you're thinking, "This will end badly."

Brown told Judge that, "If you know your 'Cocktail' ... this is what Tom Cruise has to explain. Of course it will end badly. Because if it didn't, otherwise it wouldn't end."

Have to say, that's pretty good logic (and not just because we'll watch "Cocktail" whenever it's on cable).

There are a lot of perma-skeptics on Fast Money and the Halftime Report who seem to operate (for 14 years running now) under the notion that all stock valuations revert to a mean at some point in the near future and then ... presumably stick to that mean forever.

Steve Weiss also expressed doubt about the "end badly" refrain and pointed out there are half as many stocks as 10, 15 years ago, an argument he's made frequently.

Judge said Tiffany McGhee bought Zillow, a stock that has "absolutely flied (sic pronunciation)."

Tiffany said we're in an acceleration of the "digitization of basically everything," though she admitted having all kinds of trouble pronouncing "digitization" the rest of the program.

McGhee also said she's "really really bullish on Peloton."

Jon Najarian said he wished he had listened to McGhee about Z. Najarian said it is "not possible" that some recently surging stocks can keep it going forever. But, "It doesn't mean it ends."

"I don't think anything ends unless we think the world ends, Scott," Doc asserted.

"I think you're being a little extreme," Judge countered, saying Jim Cramer (yep) is only talking about "certain pockets" of the market.

Weiss said he owns bitcoin through Robinhood, though "the execution was horrendous by the way."

Sarat Sethi said he bought UBER a couple weeks ago. (This writer is long UBER.) Sarat said the stock has "a lot of upside" once the economy gets past the pandemic. Judge asked regular UBER bull Josh Brown if Josh is concerned about UBER's losses. Brown said UBER might be cash-flow positive this year if not for the pandemic. Sarat and Tiffany McGhee wanted to add more to the conversation, but Judge cut them off for commercials that don't seem to matter during the A block.

Jim on Jan. 29 declared ‘I don’t like this market,’ apparently likes it now (a/k/a Keith’s 2017 bungle)

Judge opened Wednesday's (2/10) Halftime Report asking panelists about ... small caps (Zzzzzzzzz).

Joe Terranova, who got to go first, said the strength in small caps "equates to economic optimism."

Kari Firestone made a lengthy argument for small caps, often citing how the whole sector's market cap stacks up as less than half that of AAPL.

Jim Lebenthal said that even though CLF is up huge in the last 12 months, it's only up 43% from 2 years ago, and he sees "nothing but blue skies ahead" with "50% more" upside this year.

Jim likes this stock so much, he mentioned it at least 3 times during the program.

Jim said the day's pullback in GM is "just some profit-taking." Judge noted GM's 6-month run, saying "it's a stunner." Jim said the multiple "really should go towards double digits."

Steve Weiss again said ESG is the "fastest-growing asset class I can recall seeing."

Weiss and Jim both talked about renewable energy. What they didn't say is that these names always go up when regular energy goes up. So, a solar play or Transocean, generally the same thing. And so Weiss' claim that "the fossil-fuel move is short-lived" might as well be "if the move in fossil fuels is short-lived, expect solar plays to sink."

Regardless, "It truly is a stock-picker's market," asserted Weiss.

"Be a stock-picker," Jim advised.

Keith Meister, whose CM Life Sciences SPAC is taking over SEMA4, spoke about this company while mentioning AI a bunch of times (which always gets our Spider Sense tingling) and sounding like those folks talking about Human Genome Sciences in 2000. (That one was going to cure cancer, lupus, Parkinson's, etc.)

On May 8, 2017, Meister told Judge during the Ira Sohn conference that he had just taken a big stake in CenturyLink. CenturyLink is now known as Lumen Technologies (LUMN) and trades about half the price as when Meister announced his stake. (This writer is long LUMN and was long LUMN at the time of Meister's appearance.)

So, nearly 4 years, take a 50% haircut.

That's quite an investment.

In other words, Keith isn't infallible.

Judge told Keith on Wednesday, "I think the man on the street knows- knows about a SPAC at this point."

Instead of ‘I was wrong,’ it’s ‘over’

Judge opened Monday's (2/8) Halftime Report with the pronouncement that the Morgan Stanley guy admits the "correction" that he predicted 7 days earlier is already "over."

"That was quick," Judge told Pete Najarian.

"That is quick," Pete agreed, adding "I listen to his work all the time," but Pete curiously said he doesn't "necessarily agree" with whatever this is being over. (Earth to Pete: There IS no correction.)

Bryn Talkington, citing Peter Lynch, pointed out, "More money has been lost anticipating the correction than actually the corrections themselves." Bryn said it's a "tough job" to call a correction.

Judge didn’t ask Jim about predicting a 10% correction just a week ago, saying ‘I don’t like this market right here’ on Jan. 29

Friday's (2/5) Halftime Report, a sleepy excursion in which Judge opened by talking about "the record amount of money flowing into the tech sector (Zzzzzzzzz)" while completely ignoring the big football game this weekend (see, it's not on NBC, so no interview with Al Michaels), did produce an interesting comment about the options market.

Jim Lebenthal had touted QCOM as being "close to 200" by year-end.

Judge got Jim to clarify that he bought QCOM calls and stock a day earlier. Then Jim made this interesting comment: "If you're buying calls, you gotta be ready to lose all of your premium."

Normally, if you're listening to the Options Action guys or the Najarians, you won't hear what Jim just said above, rather, losing "all of your premium" is translated to "measuring your risk."

Or, our personal favorite, you might hear how owning the QCOM options means "less risk" into an earnings call than owning the stock because the total outlay for just the options in most names is far lower nominal price than what 100 shares of stock would cost (i.e., the kind of math where losing all $5,000 of an options play is somehow preferable to having a stock decline from $100,000 to $94,000).

Meanwhile, Jim said it doesn't have to be "binary" as to being in tech or out of tech. But he doesn't think megacap tech will be the market leader this year, rather it will be "cyclical/value."

Jim gushed about Slack, "a great defensive and offensive play" (seems hard to be both, but whatever).

Jon Najarian gushed about ZM, saying it's "become the name" of how people communicate just like brands such as Xerox and Kleenex. (This writer is long ZM.)

Judge asked Joe Terranova, "What's Veeva Systems," a name that "frankly I don't think we've ever talked about on this show." Joe said it's in his "quality-momentum index," saying it's taken ESG "a step further."

Doc touted TDC and PANW. Jim was gushing about GM, including even the internal-combustion portion, when Judge cut to what proved to be rather long-winded remarks by President Joe Biden.

Futures Now was a prerecorded message about gold from Scott Nations.

To get in the Dow, AMZN probably needs to go 20-for-1

The highlight of Wednesday's (2/3) Halftime Report was Judge introducing "the idea of an Amazon stock split."

When Judge, who went to great pains to assure viewers he's NOT saying that Jeff Bezos is not shareholder-friendly, asked Joe Terranova to be the first to opine on this subject, Joe looked as though Judge had 3 heads.

Joe claimed retail investors can already buy fractional shares.

"It's not the same thing," Judge protested.

"It's not the same exact thing but it serves the same purpose," Joe countered.

As for a split, "I'm not necessarily sure that that's needed," Joe said.

But Judge wondered, "Why wouldn't you?" Joe cited Warren Buffett "always" talking about not splitting and that some companies like having the "high price point."

Shannon Saccocia and Mike Farr shrugged at the split idea. Judge said he's surprised to have "literally" no one on the show who thinks it's a "decent" idea.

"I didn't say it was a bad idea!" Joe protested.

"You did dismiss it," Judge said. Then Judge actually said, "If you're buying a fractional share, what votes do you really have as a shareholder." (Um, anyone who owns 2-3 shares of AMZN, does anyone actually think they've got voting clout?)

But Judge hadn't circled the entire "Investment Committee." Pete Najarian, when finally getting a chance, said he does "disagree" with the other panelists, pointing to AAPL's successful splits and noting the difficulty of AMZN's high nominal price on options activity.

Nevertheless, Rich Saperstein said that even when splitting a stock, "It's still the same pizza pie."

Judge said "sure," conceding it's the "same pizza, just cut up a different way," but he said it allows "more people to have a piece of the pizza."

Joe said that if Andy Jassy's goal is to get into the Dow, "then I would tell him, you need to split your stock." Judge agreed, "Yes of course, it's the only way they could get in, is by doing that."

But Judge curiously added, "It's the ultimate Main Street company. ... It literally is the ultimate everybody company."

We're not so sure about that. Walmart is today's "ultimate Main Street"; the average Amazon shopper has a slightly higher household wealth, according to at least one report.

Judge referred to the next AMZN CEO as "Jaffe" (sic) (snicker) before correcting himself.

Not done with Joe by any means, Judge inquired several times about the progress of JOET. Joe revealed that JOET, 77 days since its introduction of linking "quality" and "momentum" stocks, is "slightly underperforming" the S&P, but "outperforming" since Jan. 11. Judge said he wasn't sure if he was reading his notes correctly and wondered if INTC was in JOET. Joe explained why it's not. Judge then made a statement in the form of a question about including INTC as Joe sat silently, creating dead air.

Correction alert: Judge seems to have gotten Jedi Mind-Tricked yet again

There are few things Judge likes more than a pullback call.

On Monday (2/1), he practically breathlessly reported at the top of the Halftime Report that this Morgan Stanley fellow has decreed, "The correction has arrived ... likely to get worse and feel bad in the short term."

So, how bad is it feeling? The S&P 500 is up 116 points just through the first 3 days of this week.

Still, Judge has a tendency to spend months if not years proclaiming that this fellow is always right, whether stocks go up or down, he's always right, so we're guessing that any retraction (which has probably already been made) won't make airtime.

On Wednesday (2/3), Mike Farr offered, "One of the biggest sins I think an investor can commit is Malthusian thinking, uh, just sort of finding some sort of straight-line projection from today's business model." We looked up the definition of Malthusian and didn't really see the connection, but OK.

We’re tired of hearing about Robinhood

Judge opened Monday's (2/1) Halftime Report by publicizing the Morgan Stanley guy's latest short-term market call (lessee ... probably something about the range being 3,200 to 4,000), which is that the "correction" is here, but the "Investment Committee" was not impressed.

Kourtney Gibson said there's a "number of factors" that may prevent the "correction" from lasting beyond Friday.

"We're in a pause that refreshes," shrugged Kevin O'Leary, as the S&P 500 was up 60 points.

Pete Najarian said he has trimmed "almost nothing" in the way of equities.

Steve Weiss advised avoiding the noise and contended the econmy is poised to "explode" once we're through the pandemic.

Judge again used the term "cohort" (snicker) to describe GME buyers.

Kourtney Gibson gushed about Venmo and said she "picked up tons" of PYPL recently and asserted it goes "well above 300."

Judge brought in Kyle Zasky of SenaHill partners to discuss retail traders, but we're quickly growing tired of that subject. "I love this conversation," Judge concluded.

Judge urged everyone to "shovel safely," at least if you're in the snow zone.

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