CNBCfix - Fast Money Review

[CNBCfix Fast Money/Halftime Report Review Archive — Nov. 2023]

3 is generally more than 2

In the 4th minute of Thursday's (11/30) Halftime Report, Judge reported that the DIS-Peltz ... um ... battle ... has gotten "quite spicy" (snicker) in that Judge was told "from a source familiar" that Peltz will push for 2, maybe 3 seats on the board, including one for himself and is "very unhappy" with DIS' share price performance this year. (Maybe it should do what GM did.)

Jenny Harrington claimed the DIS story has "echoes" to Brad Gerstner and META last year. Jenny asserted that Nelson's already had an "impact," because of disclosures and a 25-page (snicker) explanation on earnings, history and strategy. Jenny said we may look back on this as a "pivotal time."

Jenny said she noticed Josh Brown was "twitching" as she spoke. Josh questioned whether DIS' problems are about "expenses" (like META). Jenny said, "To some degree they are."

Judge said Peltz previously wanted cost-cutting and "got it ... now maybe he wants something to happen with the people who are doing the cost-cutting."

Jenny said Iger "screwed up the succession plan before, and that's why he's back." (Actually, he didn't screw it up; he wanted someone else as the frontman for the streaming exercise.)

Jim Lebenthal said "the end game here is pretty obvious, that he gets his seats on the board," and Jim wishes we "didn't have to go through the movie"; he wishes this was a "trailer" and not a "2-hour movie."

Judge said, "This is the sequel!" And we'll see if the sequel is "better than the original." (Well, hmmmm ... Godfather, yes. Rocky? Maybe, tough call. ... All others? ...)

Josh Brown wondered if Iger has a "chess move" involving ESPN, perhaps selling "a big stake" of it to AMZN or AAPL.

Kevin Simpson said reinstating the dividend would put DIS back in his shop's "queue," and they'd buy it.

Judge concluded the DIS discussion by reemphasizing his scoop on Peltz's board push. "Could be, um, more than 2. It could be 3."

Brad (sorta) vs. John Rogers (though John didn’t get a chance to respond)

Judge on Thursday's (11/30) Halftime Report revealed that a day ago, he was at CNBC's CFO Council in D.C. (and thus not hosting Halftime), and he played a clip of John Rogers saying at that event, as John always does, that "the top of growth stocks is coming again" and small cap value will play catch-up.

Rogers even predicted growth having a "very difficult time" heading into next year.

That clip came just before Brad Gerstner joined the show at the 13th minute and first joked that Nelson should recruit Elon for the DIS board. Judge started to recap Musk-Iger from the Dealbook conference a day ago, only to have Brad cut in, "Let's talk about John Rogers."

"On this issue, he's dead wrong," Brad said. Brad pointed out 10-year averages for tech (the proxy for growth, apparently) compounding at 16% and non-tech at 6%. Brad said 2023's tech gains are a mean reversion from the "parabolic" rate rise in 2022 that stung growth, and now, "We're just back on the trend line," so it's not like 2023 will be a giveback, according to Brad.

Brad said 20 years ago, tech was 5½% of global GDP. He said today it's 15%. He asked the panel, in 10 years, "will tech be more than 15% of global GDP."

Josh Brown asked Brad about Alphabet (this writer is long GOOGL), noting Josh liked it early in the year and Brad didn't. Brad said his "fundamental position" is this: "Search is going to be replaced by agent-led information discovery. I see it every day." Brad continued that "all I'm saying" is that even if Google remains the leader in finding info, "they will not have as much share of the pool of profits as they have in search."

Judge asked Brad about SNOW (Zzzzzzz). Brad said there was a "pull-forward of a massive amount of demand in 2021."

(Judge didn't ask Brad about The Board Challenge, not a surprise, given that this site was the only one keeping tabs on the subject long after Brad announced its lofty goals and Judge lost interest.)

Jenny Harrington asked Brad about one of her recent favorite subjects, how the run in UBER has to be over because its ... P.E. ratio has gotten higher. (This writer is long UBER.) Jenny of course mentioned buying UBER at 22. "Congrats on buying it at 22 bucks," Brad started, suggesting the best way to play a good investment is to do nothing. But Brad said he can't blame Jenny for trimming "because it's not gonna double over the course of the next year."

Jenny not impressed by quality of AVGO annual report

Judge opened Thursday's (11/30) Halftime Report talking about PMI and suggested how it's "got people talking about Goldilocks again."

Josh Brown rattled off numerous stats and said it's "Goldilocks-esque" before trumpeting the great year of CRM.

Jim Lebenthal said it hasn't been a great year for a lot of stocks but now we're seeing a "broadening of the rally." Jim said he doesn't see 4 rate cuts next year, "maybe 2."

Meanwhile, Kevin Simpson bought more AVGO because his shop's AAPL position got called away. He also bought AEM. Judge said he doesn't think the show ever talks about AVGO having a dividend.

Jenny Harrington complained of AVGO, "I've never read an annual report that is that light." (We're thinking that comment is probably not literally true.)

Josh cut off Jenny in the 52nd minute to read Judge's intro to the commercial. Jim had a quiet show; his Final Trade was GM. (And if any viewers ask Jim why the stock is below its 2010 IPO, Jim will say, WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY????????)

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman opined, "I just don't know that the market is gonna care about anything but rates."

Karen also said the P.E. of ULTA is lower than it's been in a "very long time." She thinks the selloff had been "way, way overdone."

Missy Lee suggested the TSLA Cybertruck seems like it "has sort of a Cormac McCarthy, sort of 'The Road,' apocalyptic nature to it."

Given the buyback and dividend, sounds like UAW got hosed (a/k/a cheering ‘financial engineering’)

Right after the A Block on Wednesday's (11/29) Halftime Report, for the 2nd day in a row, GM was the topic, and guest host Frank Holland even remotely brought in Jim Lebenthal, who wasn't on the day's panel.

Jim said he "kinda earned" the chance to be on "after the beatdown from Scott and Josh yesterday" (actually it was more Stephanie than Josh) and wondered, "By the way, why isn't Scott calling in, I feel like he should after yesterday, but I'll take that up with the Judge separately."

Jim said there was "really good news" from GM, which has an "awful lot of cash flow generation" and is able to buy back 25% of the shares at current price. Jim said GM is "stepping back" on EVs and the Cruise rollout. He said management isn't "giving up" on those divisions but recognizing the "big money drain" from them.

Addressing Adam Jonas' R&D spending concerns (see yesterday), Jim said GM's average net income for the last decade was "6 and a half million (sic meant billion) (we think)" and for the last 3 years, "those numbers are now well over 9 billion. So the R&D spending is paying off."

"And look at that price to earnings ratio! Below 5? You gotta be kidding me," Jim said. Neither Frank Holland nor Joe Terranova bothered to ask Jim to demonstrate why that P.E. ratio is an appealing thing.

Frank pointed out GM is boosting the dividend. Jim said the strike resolution was "positive for everybody." (Jim didn't address whether Joe Biden was trumpeting buybacks during the afternoon he spent on the picket line.)

Joe bluntly told Jim, "I call this financial engineering. And it's great. It, it got the stock to move higher." But, Joe wondered, "what comes next for the company; what's the next catalyst," because Joe had been hearing for years about the "pivot" to EVs, but demand seems to be "waning" (or never actually there, unless we're talking Tesla).

Jim said that's a "good question" and that the "pivot" is back to where the money's coming from, which is internal combustion.

Jim said "we've been trained" to regard "financial engineering" as a "pejorative," though he doesn't think Joe is using it that way and Jim sees it as "necessary"; "this stock is just too cheap."

Karen: ‘Optics’ of GM’s buyback/dividend announcement are questionable

Karen Finerman on Wednesday's (11/29) 5 p.m. Fast Money mentioned GM having just experienced this "big labor thing," and now, the fact GM is saying "it's not that big of a deal" and will be made up "in cost cuts" was "sort of surprising" to Karen, "as a matter of optics."

Host Missy Lee noted GM said the labor issue is adding $500 to the price of new cars and said it's like, "This whole thing was no big deal."

Karen noted Mary Barra's tenure and said "it's been a rough 10 years," not just for Mary but for F.

But Karen acknowledged it's "very, very accretive" to buy so much stock back.

Steve Grasso suggested the buyback is what the UAW is "totally against." Steve said it's a "terrible setup, framing for the company."

But Tim Seymour cheered the move, calling it a "great message" and stating "investors love the clarity."

Guy Adami called the GM moves a "giant slap in the face for the UAW." Guy said the gain in the stock only brings it back to where it was "a month or so ago." But he thinks there's a "floor" in the shares now.

Back on Halftime, Sarat Sethi, like Jim Lebenthal a GM long, made some interesting comments on GM, saying the company is "pushing off what some of the high capex is gonna be" and there's "legroom" for 4 years "because you've got wages under control" (we're sure Shawn will like that).

Sarat said owning GM will be more like a 1- or 2-year investment, not a 5-year investment. Sarat also said "at the end of the day."

Sarat made GM his Final Trade, claiming there's a "catalyst" without specifying.

And if only, if only, people on CBNC talked about GM's products about 1/10th as much as they talk about its P.E. ratio.

Peter King says David Tepper’s Panthers are the NFL’s ‘clown show’

"Yields are the story," Joe Terranova declared at the top of Wednesday's (11/29) Halftime Report. "However," Joe added, Wednesday's market seems "a little bit overbought and a little bit tired" and "we need to broaden out the rally beyond just the Magnificent 7" if December is going to be like November.

Steve Liesman said Tom Barkin in a CNBC exclusive threw "some cold water" on the "optimistic outlook" for rate cuts. Steve said the market is giving a 44% chance of a cut in March.

Guest host Frank Holland said Bill Ackman is now touting a cut in Q1.

Steve Weiss said the Fed will never announce in advance when the rate cuts are coming; "They're always gonna say 'We're data-dependent.'"

Weiss said Ackman on rates "called the top just about perfectly." But, "I think he'll be early in a first-quarter rate cut."

"There's a race going on," Weiss said, explaining it's about whether the economy can "stay at the level it's at before rates really start to hit them." (snicker) (That's the whole lag effect argument again.)

Frank said Jamie Dimon sees higher odds of a recession than other people do.

Joe said if it looks like there's another hike coming, or even a cut, then the markets need a "communication meeting" from the Fed, which shouldn't lay a "surprise" on the markets.

Weiss shrugged that the market has "ignored" Fed messaging about how rates could be "higher for longer."

"There's inconsistency in the messaging!" Joe responded. "There always is," Weiss shrugged. Sarat Sethi said Joe's point is "spot-on."

Judge was off and Frank, like Judge and Weiss, said nothing about David Tepper's stewardship of the Carolina Panthers; NFL writer Peter King made his feelings known Tuesday on Power Lunch.

Joe invokes Charlie Munger for justifying paying the CRWD multiple (a/k/a who is that ‘somebody else’ Sarat knows)

Dom Chu on Wednesday's (11/29) Halftime reported on CI and HUM talks. Steve Weiss said he sold part of his HUM "trading position" while Chu spoke; "Dom just made my day."

Kari Firestone said "we own United Health" and admitted it's been "underperforming" because of diet-drug concerns, though that's a "very small part of their business, obviously."

Kari said the CI-HUM report is not "great" for UNH but that there are "multiple players" in the market already and that a CI-HUM merger would not cut costs but "probably price higher."

Weiss told guest host Frank Holland he's been traveling for a week and a half, and "I only came back because I knew you were hosting the show instead of Scott," a good line. In any case, Weiss bought QQQ. "It's not a big position," Weiss said.

Joe Terranova said CRWD had an "absolutely fantastic response" to the quarter. Joe said there was a chance to buy it in the low 100s, "obviously a great entry point." (A great trade for anyone with a ... time machine.) (Talk about momentum.)

Frank asked Joe about the 79-times-forward-earnings valuation for CRWD. Joe told Frank, "I think you know me well enough to know that I never look at valuation as the North Star in terms of where I believe price is ultimately going."

Joe said people can say CRWD is "richly valued," but it's a "really good business," and citing Charlie Munger, Joe said, "You wanna pay a premium for a really good business."

Sarat Sethi said "I respect what Joe's doing" with a momentum strategy.

Sarat said, "Joe will tell you when he's wrong, too, so it's not like he's sitting there saying 'I'm right all the time,' unlike somebody else we know."

Joe said he won't speak as "glowingly" about INTU as CRWD.

Weiss isn’t saying anything about MRNA, which was a 2023 Stock Summit pick and a name he was touting in 2021 when it was in the $400s

Guest host Frank Holland on Wednesday's (11/29) Halftime Report brought up Piper's overweight of SCHW.

Kari Firestone's argument for SCHW started with "The stock is cheap," though it's had a "terrible year." Kari said "cash sorting" may be coming to an end if rates are falling, and she said there are "synergies" with the Ameritrade deal from a while back.

Frank said the note touted cash inflows in recent Decembers and a May rate cut; Kari cautioned that it'll be tough to beat November.

Joe Terranova blurted, "They said the premise is that there has to be a cut in May?!?" Frank said it's a "key part of the thesis."

Joe said there's a "tremendous amount of cash sitting on the sidelines." Frank wondered why Joe was "incredulous" about a May cut forecast given that Ackman sees a cut in Q1. Joe questioned a recommendation to buy an "individual equity name based on what the Federal Reserve might do in May."

Meanwhile, Joe said when Paul Singer steps into a name as he's doing with PSX, you have to pay attention.

Steve Weiss bought FCX, saying he expects copper to "catch a bid." Sarat Sethi said copper demand increases every year and supply is "nonexistent."

Joe bought GLD and again said there's "confusion" among investors who believe inflationary times are best for gold based on "the '70s," but actually gold is best in a "disinflation trend."

Joe said what's "important" to watch for regarding FCX is the "aid" China is providing for the property sector. Weiss said that was his original rationale for buying but it didn't work; China has "major major issues."

Weiss bought more GS and said it's good riddance to Goldman's Apple deal.

Weiss isn't saying anything about MRNA these days; remember how in 2020 and 2021 he trumpeted the stock almost on every show? That was a fantastic call for the times — what wasn't so fantastic were Weiss' assertions in 2021 and even at the beginning of the year about how great the company is long term; according to this site's archive, on Aug. 9, 2021, Judge noted that Weiss "continued to recommend it" as the stock was in the $400s.

Guy Adami says Charlie and Warren would probably ‘wince’ if watching Fast Money (a/k/a Julia can’t pronounce Muir/Moore/Moyer)

We heard Julia Boorstin on Tuesday's (11/28) Halftime Report mention that David Muir was helming some sort of DIS event with Bob Iger. Now that's an interesting topic; this page should consider doing reviews of "World News Tonight" (don't get any ideas), which could include that reporters who are speaking to the whole TV audience have obviously been told "Say the word 'David' as often as possible," as in, "The hurricane David is going to hit landfall in 3 days David and expected to be Category 4, David. Back to you, David."

And then there's the constant thanking of reporters by the anchor, apparently just for doing their jobs. "Aaron Katersky, THANK YOU for standing in front of the building and telling us in 2 sentences what happened in the last 3 hours."

Meanwhile, Judge asked Josh Brown, "Why'd you buy PayPal."

Brown said it's "funny" that PYPL is "definitely" not a growth stock and "definitely" not a value stock either, rather, it reminds him of SHOP about a couple months ago, and SHOP has "literally (sic) launched into outer space."

Josh said SHOP indicates, "This is the buy now, pay later Christmas." Josh said Friday was "one of the great ecommerce days of all time."

Judge asked Josh for the "methodology" (snicker) about selling CHPT. "Tax loss," Brown said.

Shannon Saccocia sees "very few hurdles" over the remaining weeks of the year.

Jim Lebenthal said Shannon is "too cautious" but told her she's not "out of your mind" and stated, "Bulls like me generally acknowledge what the bearish case is," which Jim said are the "lag effects" (snicker) of Fed hiking.

Jim added, "For the bulls' thesis to work out, the Fed has to be done."

Steve Liesman said of the recent Fed commentary, "Waller said the quiet part out loud."

Stephanie Link talked about how AVGO and LRCX deserve their P.E. ratios.

Josh Brown once again went through the bull case for ZM, apparently because Aswath Damodaran blessed the stock on Judge's other show Monday.

Bill Baruch bought DPZ; there was a time, about a decade ago, when that stock went gangbusters, an early success at cellphone ordering. Hasn't been mentioned on Halftime in a long time.

At 5 p.m., during a Charlie Munger tribute, Guy Adami conceded that the TV show "Fast Money" probably "flew in the face of everything they believed in" and that Charlie and Warren, if watching it, would probably "wince." Dan Nathan says there are "investment styles for all sorts of people" and that he always learned something from comments from Buffett and Munger.

Jim unable to explain why GM is $5 below its IPO price from 13 years ago

Right after the A Block on Tuesday's (11/28) Halftime Report, Judge brought up Adam Jonas' call/musings on U.S. automaker relevance, which led to a little much-anticipated pressure on forever GM bull Jim Lebenthal.

Adam, according to Judge, says the "average" S&P 500 company spends the equivalent of its market cap in capex over 50 years, while GM and F spend it in 1.9 and 2.6 years, respectively.

"This cannot continue," Jonas asserts, according to Judge.

Jim said he agrees "with the premise" of the note, that it's a "make or break" year for GM and F. Going slightly off-topic, Jim said we have to see how the labor costs will "eat into" the "ton" (snicker) of profit at these companies, though he thinks it'll be "very simple" to raise car prices 1-2% to cover those costs.

Getting back to what Jonas was saying, Jim said management R&D decisions shouldn't be based on market cap, a fair point, except it doesn't actually address the issue Jonas flagged.

Stephanie Link outdid Judge here, bluntly asking Jim for a "catalyst" to get people to buy the stocks, noting Jim has made a "compelling argument" for the past year while the stocks just go down. Jim admitted that there's "nothin' in the next month" that will be a catalyst for GM shares but he mentioned GM analyst day (Zzzzzzzzz) in a couple weeks.

Judge then asked Jim an emailed question from a "loyal viewer ... who emails me a lot" (note: It's not this site) and wonders Jim's thoughts on GM being $5 below the 2010 IPO price of $33.

"My comment is, That sucks," Jim said, for some reason wondering, "What comment do you want me to make to that?," as if it's not a relevant statistic.

Judge said the question "underscores" the notion that Jim's "bullish fundamental outlook" hasn't worked, and thus is it "suspect."

Jim insisted GM is "very compelling value."

Josh Brown curiously wondered how GM will do after another recession, even if not until 2025, because U.S. automakers historically always "emerge weaker" after every recession.

The fellow on ETF Edge who talked about how people who are great at some things are actually bad at other things might’ve been talking about Tepper Wall Street/Tepper pro football (a/k/a Stuff That Judge Doesn’t Think is News)

Joe Terranova on Monday's (11/27) Halftime Report said Monday's trading was keeping up with the "overall trend" of November, and it seems like the July high of 4,607 is the stock market "target."

And that was the most useful bit of commentary to surface during the program.

Jason Snipe said he thinks there's "quite a bit left" in the market rally, though it's "slightly overbought in the very-very near term."

Brian Belski said it's "The Jackie Moon Market" and advised, "own everything" and "equal weight everything."

Belski said that he said "14 months ago" that "October of 2022 is the start of the bull market." Judge countered that it's been a market that "did next to nothing other than 7 stocks!" Belski reponded by mentioning housing and airlines for some reason and said "there are other names" besides the Magnificent 7.

Joe said "tax loss harvesting" about 15 times (actually not quite that many) when arguing that we might see in January the "same pattern" as this past January.

Joe said he thinks the valuation argument on ODFL is "completely wrong" and that it should have a premium. Stephanie Link insisted that 36 times forward is "pretty rich."

Jason Snipe said NVDA is up 240% year to date, which means "some retracement" is possible. Joe joked that it'll pause "maybe for a couple of days."

Discussing Shein on the 5 p.m. Fast Money, guest host Sara Eisen said, "I think that consumers like $5 skirts."

Chris Harvey said he doesn't see how the market gets to 5,000.

Dan Nathan told Sara about the Formula One production (see our home page), "Killer, killer doc that you did."

Guy Adami mentioned Kensho. That was a good one. Remember Kensho?

Reports on Monday said that David Tepper will address reporters about the state of the Carolina Panthers football team on Tuesday; we'll see if Judge bothers to cover it on Halftime.

The metrics that get Jim rankled

CNBC's Chipster Kristina Partsinevelos, the star guest of Wednesday's (11/22) Halftime Report guest-hosted by Frank Holland, said NVDA had a "big beat" but "muted stock reaction."

Kristina explained that Nvidia's CFO said the company doesn't have "good visibility" about the "magnitude" of China headwinds. Kristina also said analysts question the "sustainability of demand" once the backlog is reduced but that Jensen Huang "wouldn't have any of it" on the call and cited a "host of new products ramping up."

Joe Terranova parsed about owning NVDA equally weighted or market cap weighted before saying it should be a "core holding" for the "better part of the next several years." Jim Lebenthal shrugged that NVDA was dipping Wednesday only because "people got a little exhausted."

Rob Sechan tried to tell Jim that NVDA is "trading at 14 times next year's sales," sparking a curious exchange.

"Don't give me sales!" Jim cut in.

Rob insisted that, "Few companies have reached that. Tesla was one of them. And after they reached that point, they had a 70% drawdown the following year."

"Because it had price to earnings of 75!" Jim bellowed, adding, "And I love you. But anytime anybody says price to sales to me, like my, half of my head goes into orbit around Venus."

Frank noted that NVDA seemed to be down not on earnings but something we "already knew" going in, the China restrictions. Kristina suggested "we didn't know the severity of it." Kristina went on to say, "It's not often you see a stock where it hits an all-time high and the P.E. ratio actually comes down."

Joe said the "variable" with China is going to be there for a while for NVDA.

Perhaps they could do roasts on days other than right before Thanksgiving

Joe Terranova on Wednesday's (11/22) Halftime Report pronounced this a "good week" in the stock market driven by technicals. Joe said 4,600 seems like the "destination."

Rob Sechan said there's "4 things (this page can't handle more than 3) that are gonna drive the market, at least through year-end."

Jim Lebenthal stated that he's apparently getting pressure from bears, telling guest host Frank Holland, "a lot of people I talk to want me to get worried about the situation." But Jim's "done" talking about the yield curve. Jim asserted that any slowdown "is likely to be short and sweet."

Joe made a good joke about trying to "stay awake" while Jim was talking after Jim suggested Joe was getting excited. Frank joked that "it's not a Comedy Central roast the day before Thanksgiving."

Frank said Tom Lee is "out with a note" predicting a year-end rally, possibly starting next week. (If it doesn't start next week, there's not a whole lot of time for it to get going, unless it already started Nov. 1.)

Shannon’s already got the Christmas tree decked out before Thanksgiving

Jim Lebenthal on Wednesday's (11/22) Halftime Report said DE's share price has "stunk" and that the earnings brought a "guidance reduction."

Nevertheless, Jim said it's a "classic case of rip the Band-aid off" and advised that if you don't own it, "you're supposed to buy it here."

Discussing the oil market, guest host Frank Holland said "repooting," correcting to "reporting." Joe Terranova noted that energy stocks are down less than the spot price of crude. Jim said the SPR is "very, very low."

Rob Sechan suggested "I think there's a lot of support going into year-end for gold." Joe asserted that "gold actually works best in a deflationary environment," at least "post-1980." (Honestly, there's a ton of debate over that kind of assertion, but Frank never pursued and given that it's right before a holiday, maybe that's fine.)

Frank said ADSK got a Piper Sandler downgrade. Joe said it had "putrid" guidance. Frank said Joe owns it; Joe said "we'll see" in January. The stock doesn't appear by Joe's name on the Halftime Report Investment Committee Disclosures page, so apparently Joe doesn't own it personally, but in the JOET, which of course will do the ever-popular rebalancing in January. (Frank should make that clear.)

Joe said CRWD is one of his "favorite positions."

Rob's Final Trade was AVGO, which he said "trades cheap." And Joe said nothing about whether the P.E. ratio indicates the direction that AVGO shares will move.

Amy Raskin brings up the ‘b’ word

On Tuesday's (11/21) Halftime Report, most of which involved Josh Brown touting megacap tech, Jim Lebenthal said he bought NVDA over the summer in 2 tranches paying "about a $440 average price target."

Jim touted NVDA's forward multiple going from 60 in May to 29. And we figured, Ah, here's where Judge asks Jim if higher multiples actually predict stronger stock performance. Ah, Judge never asked. (Neither did supposed P.E. skeptic Joe, who wasn't on the panel but beamed in later to talk about Burlington Coat Factory for some reason from his pandemic-looking home office room.)

In the day's most stark commentary, regarding these tech giants, Amy Raskin stated that we're in the "early stages or if not mid-stages of a bubble," but she does think it "can continue to go."

Joe Terranova, from home pandemic-era office, said BURL was experiencing a "relief rally." Joe said that if you're "trading the name," short interest is high, and Joe sees "further upside ahead."

Stephanie Link suggested KSS belongs in a "run-down department store-almost kinda concept."

Stephanie Link bragged about how much better PWR has been vs. DE in the last week and a half.

Josh Brown said he's staying with ZM and "didn't understand the early morning selling."

Judge wished a Happy Thanksgiving to Al Michaels. Jim spoke about how NFL helps streamers, including Jim's favorite, PARA.

More people apparently are going to switch to search that puts dot-dot-dot on the screen instead of giving you the answer immediately (a/k/a Josh got a buzz)

The developments in the AI space on Monday (11/20) were, quite frankly, putting people to sleep at CNBCfix HQ ... until Josh Brown and Jenny Harrington tangled in an interesting little donnybrook on the Halftime Report.

First, Judge brought up "all this drama at OpenAI" and wondered "what's it worth now" given all the "chaos" and "turmoil."

Judge said Dan Ives called it a "World Series of Poker move for the ages." Joe Terranova questioned if there's a "derivative effect on Alphabet." Judge said he's seen "suggestions" that the "turmoil at OpenAI" gives GOOGL and META and others a chance to "catch up."

Jenny Harrington asserted that "competition is heating up" in AI software, which prompted audible disagreement from Josh Brown, who wasn't at Post 9.

"Everybody wants a piece of it," Jenny insisted, adding, "No one's making any money besides Nvidia, no one's making any money off of AI right now" and that Dan Ives only raised his MSFT target to 425, "13% upside from here."

Given a chance, Josh said that what Jenny was saying was just "like backing into a justification for not owning Nvidia."

"No it wasn't!" Jenny protested.

"Yes it was," Brown continued, as Jenny scoffed. (We picked the photo above not because it's an unusual expression by Jenny but only to show that Jenny rolled her eyes at Josh's comment on TV.) "And by the way, that argument, that competition is coming, has- has been the same argument for a thousand percentage points in Nvidia."

Josh said "Microsoft did the right thing by its shareholders" to keep Sam Altman "in house." He said "there's room" for others such as GOOGL and AMZN, "a little bit of something for everyone," while "The losers are the 4 board members at OpenAI."

Jenny said she would make "one correction on what Josh said," which was, "No, Josh, it's not an excuse on why I don't like- own Nvidia. The reason I do that is because it's a disciplined portfolio that has a 5% or better free cash flow yield mandate. So, I'd love to own it, but I can't."

Jenny stressed that AI is "just not profitable right now" and suggested the spending might be like the "Metaverse" and "nobody knows how much money can actually be made off of it."

Josh asserted, "But the pie is growing."

"Maybe, Josh," Jenny said.

"What do you mean, 'maybe,'" Josh said.

"Maybe. The pie's growing, but we don't know how much needs to be spent ... there's too much ambiguity for anyone to say, 'OK, Microsoft's gonna make $100 billion off of this, therefore the share price should be X amount more.'"

Joe said it's a situation "where all can be winners" (snicker).

Josh drew a contrast between posing a question in Google and getting a "bread crumb trail" (sic, not to be confused with "breadth thrust") to an answer and how ChatGPT-enabled Bing "just gives us the answer. No links." Josh said GPT intentionally gives some kind of delay pause as though it's thinking about the answer it could already provide in a "nanosecond."

Jenny offered that "I think that tech is going to be the story" but not necessarily the "highest returns."

Karen Finerman on Fast Money said the Microsoft hire seems "kind of a big deal" and questioned how OpenAI has a 4-person board.

Dan Nathan on Fast Money said "at some point, next year," MSFT market cap will overtake AAPL, "and they'll never look back."

At the top of the show, Josh said that with the Nasdaq up 40-some-odd% this year, it's "career risk if you're not part of this." Liz "Generally Gloomy" Young actually said that with the pressures of August-October lifting in the last couple weeks, "it makes sense that there's a run here" and "still room" for the rally to go.

Surprised Joe didn’t question Jenny’s implication that P.E. ratio will guide UBER stock direction

Josh Brown on Monday's (11/20) Halftime Report said UBER is still his favorite stock and predicted S&P 500 inclusion. (This writer is long UBER.)

Judge asked Jenny Harrington if she made a "mistake" trimming UBER in September. "No I don't think so," Jenny said (even though it obviously was), first rattling off its free cash flow growth only to declare, "The problem is, the stock's up 143% since we bought it. Which means that the free cash flow yield is now down to 4.1%" Jenny said you have to account for the valuation, and also, the S&P inclusion may already be priced in.

Josh conceded that UBER has gotten "more expensive" but said it's gotten a "re-rating" for its "gigantic platform"; Josh also cited "by the way" UBER's "compound revenue growth rate" of over 30%. Jenny questioned if the re-rating already occurred.

Joe Terranova said COST has been in the JOET since inception.

Joe said he will "candidly admit" he's found it hard to trade ULTA.

Josh stressed ZM (snicker) trading at "14 times" (twice) and said there's "almost no believers in this name," so it could rise on an earnings beat. Jenny predicted an "OK quarter" from KSS.

Judge ‘confused’ about JOET criteria; Joe’s answer was a little wobbly (as he seems to maybe be backpedaling on his dismissal of P.E. ratio)

One of the subjects on Friday's (11/17) Halftime Report was the WDC purchase by Bill Baruch, who was part of the Post 9 panel Friday.

Apparently wondering why this name isn't in the JOET, Judge told Joe Terranova that "the momentum is obviously there," saying the stock is up "almost 48% year to date."

Joe said that if you go back to 2021, WDC has been "literally cut in half." (Actually more than halved if you're talking June 2021 to May 2023, but it depends on precisely when you're measuring.)

Judge asked the difference between WDC and AMAT. Joe mentioned a "subpoena" revealed by AMAT and said "the earnings were fine."

So Judge said to Joe, "Explain to me once again, because I'm, I find myself confused and if I'm confused I just wonder if maybe I'm not the only one. Um, by what metric do you define something as being 'of quality.'"

(And we thought for a second, uh oh, Joe might claim this is proprietary information.)

"Return on equity. Debt to equity. And, 36-month annualized sales growth," Joe said, which sounds ... OK. "And then within the 36 months you could measure the last 4 quarters and then you could measure the last 8 quarters." Hmmmm. Sounds like strings attached.

Then things got even more interesting. Joe made a comment about "more of a reasonable valuation" before reaffirming something he told Steve Weiss recently, "Valuation is not a predictor of where a stock price is gonna go."

But then Joe watered down that argument by explaining that "quality" would mean "more of a reasonable valuation that reflects a better balance sheet."

So valuation doesn't predict stock direction ... but indicates something about a balance sheet.

Hmmmmm.

Judge says current Fed-speak doesn’t mean ‘anything’

As panelists on Friday's (11/17) Halftime Report assessed how well the stock market will do by year-end, Judge was suggesting people tune out the noise from central bank voices.

"I don't think any of this Fed-speak, with all due respect to all of the speakers ... I don't think it means anything," Judge stated.

Joe Terranova said "I think markets are in consolidation range right now" and that it's a "very quiet market" on Friday, "and generally, uh, history will tell me you don't sell a quiet market," as there's "more room to the upside."

Joe said the chase in stocks seems to be led by the Russell playing catch-up.

Judge showed his Wednesday Closing Bell clip of Jeremy Siegel (who hasn't been on Halftime in ages) (Krinsky hasn't really been either) saying that into year-end, we could get "maybe even 10%" from here.

Judge declared that "no one" on the Fed is going to declare "we're done," but that "to a person," they are saying the same thing about being patient.

Joe said he didn't want to sound "disrespectful" (snicker) to the Fed because "they should be applauded for their public service," but "I'm going to watch the bond market" and it doesn't seem like there's any "urgency" that the "dovish narrative is, is incorrect."

"The bearish argument is you never get the cuts," Joe told Judge. Judge said, "I thought you were gonna say the bearish argument is they have to cut when, when the market expects them to because the economy is gonna go into the tank," when Judge might suggest that the "craziest scenario" is that the Fed simply cuts "because it can," because inflation falls.

Judge said Michael Hartnett is saying, "Fade above 4,550." Bill Baruch said, "At the end of the day (twice he said that), I do think the data continues to slow. The real question is the consumer. ... Right now, I'm not seeing anything that says we're gonna have a pullback."

Joe said it's "simple," if the S&P holds 4,470, there's a "very strong probability" of challenging the July highs.

Bill rationalizes being long oil stocks, getting out of CRM

Judge on Friday's (11/17) Halftime was suddenly more excited about NVDA's recent run than the Russell 2000 gain on Tuesday, pointing out NVDA's gain since Oct. 31. Bill Baruch said the risk in NVDA could be to the upside.

Joe Terranova though said "there's a lot of complexity" about the chip space and that even if NVDA has another "blowout" earnings, the stock may not go higher.

Judge asked Joe and Bill about oil's slump. Referring to the JOET, Judge told Joe, "You've got a lot of exposure here," as Joe had predicted a "make it or break it" quarter.

Joe said at the end of January, the JOET will make "some difficult, uh, decisions." Bill said he loaded up on on oil names in May, "and a lot of this stuff has done really well since May." Bill predicted oil names will do "fairly well." Joe mentioned refilling the SPR.

Bill said energy stocks are being marked to $50 crude.

Meanwhile, ADI got an upgrade; it's in the JOET. "You have to believe in the trough for analog," Joe said.

Bill Baruch said he sold CRM at the end of last year in a "tax-loss harvesting move" and that the cash went into NVDA and AAPL "and things like that" and that CRM in the last 6 months is only up about 6%.

Joe said recent bariatric concerns for ISRG have some "validity." Joe trumpeted EXPE not having a lot of Middle East exposure.

Joe said there's "strong momentum" in off-price retail and that ROST had a "very strong report." Shannon Saccocia said, "This is really an example of that trade down." Bill said he's been "very negative on the consumer" and avoided the consumer "like the plague" this year, but he's "kinda waking up" to the space with his recent buy of TGT, which he hung another $200 target on.

Joe said ROST has raised the bar for BURL, which will need a "whopper" of a report to have a big stock gain from here.

Joe said DE has been "challenging" and that only Steve Weiss (who wasn't on Friday's show) has done well in it; "he's traded that spectacularly" (snicker). Joe said DE is in a "perilous position." Bill Baruch said ag prices are "significantly lower" than in 2022 and said he likes CAT better and mentioned CAT and DE having a similar multiple "around a 12."

Joe said BBY is the "most fascinating" stock that Judge didn't mention and wondered if it gets a "Target reaction" or do we conclude it "got Amazoned."

"Thank you for bringing that up," Judge said.

Jim’s not going to believe for a moment that the CSCO selloff is justified

Jim Lebenthal wasn't on Thursday's (11/16) Halftime Report panel.

At least, he apparently wasn't scheduled to be. But Judge brought in Jim remotely to assess CSCO's stumble.

Before Jim started speaking ... yes, before he spoke, we hit pause ... we decided he was going to say 1) the CSCO report really wasn't that bad and 2) the market's getting it wrong and 3) if you have a long-term outlook, you'll do fine in this name.

So "All-in Jim" actually said "the guidance was reduced" for EPS "by about 4%" while the stock's down "11%-plus" (that's #2).

In a curious assessment of the selloff, Jim said that means the market either thinks the slowdown is greater than the company thinks, or it's just a "long slide down" for CSCO similar to INTC of 5 years ago.

But Jim thinks CSCO is "way too diversified" to be another INTC of 5 years ago. "I think this drawdown today is way overblown" (that's #2 again), Jim said, citing the last double-digit decline a year and a half ago and how much the stock rallied afterwards; "this is a buying opportunity (that's #3)."

"The Intel comparison, I don't know, that feels a little specious to me," Judge said, stating it seems more like macro concerns about CSCO. Jim said Judge made the point better than Jim did. But Jim brings up INTC because it was a "darling" prior to 2018. (Um, not sure about the darling pre-2018 part. Pre-2000, yes.)

Judge asked Josh Brown about the down day for PANW; Josh said "this is a tough business," some deals don't close right away, and "you've got a lot of immaturity amongst short-term traders," but the stock is "fine." Judge observed, "This has been like everybody's favorite stock."

Weiss calls market ‘OK’ for rest of year, if day-ta dependent

"There are never absolute decisions," Josh Brown philosophized at the top of Thursday's (11/17) Halftime Report; "it's always buy stocks or buy something else."

A lot of people like cash, but Brown said if we've had peak rates or are about to, then 5% money market funds could melt to 4½ or 4 or 3½, etc.

Steve Weiss said not everyone goes to bonds for better returns; some go there to "hide" including Weiss. Weiss said the market is "OK" through year-end, though it's "data-dependent" (he pronounced it "day-ta").

Bryn Talkington said "the Fed can be done" but what's not priced in is "higher for longer." Bryn said Jay Powell has been "crystal clear" that he wanted the door open a couple weeks ago when the protesters interrupted the speech wants 2% inflation. Bryn thinks money market funds will be "a little bit stickier than people think."

Judge said James Gorman finds 3% inflation "acceptable," and Judge asked Bill Baruch if we've got the all-clear. Bill said he thinks we're "close enough."

Josh shrugged off Judge's emphasis on all the Fed commentary, stating the market now isn't "parsing every speech given by every Fed-head," rather, it's a "classic chase for performance."

Josh said you can "stop" talking about the Magnificent 7 as there are "82 stocks" in the S&P up more than 20%.

Josh said he heard Lisa Cook's name "for the first time today."

Weiss mentioned sluggishness in CAT and DE as signs the market isn't "convinced" the economy's that great.

Weiss is still pointing to the "lagging effect of the tightening cycle" (snicker) (Zzzzzzzzzz) as a possible roadblock.

‘I do think they’re not going to invade Taiwan’

Judge asked Steve Weiss on Thursday's (11/16) Halftime Report about buying TSM.

Weiss mentioned Xi's visit and conceded though "you can't believe what he says" about hot war/cold war, "I do think they're not going to invade Taiwan."

Apparently as a trade on the smiles from San Francisco, Weiss said TSM has a lot of "very meaningful manufacturing facilities in China" and is "very cheap" and "somewhat derisked."

Bill Baruch bought more UBER, citing its "network" of 130 million users and that it's a "profitable company now," and he even mentioned NFLX in that conversation. Weiss said he added to UBER also. Josh Brown said UBER is his biggest single position, personally. (This writer is long UBER.)

Bill Baruch bought TGT and said it's had "finally a turn" and has potential to hit $200. But Bill sold MCD. Josh stated that it's "not gonna be an easy year" for SHAK or the other fast-food chains. Bryn Talkington said we're in a "new landscape" in which the consumer can get "really stretched" if there's any "hiccup" in unemployment.

Bryn said a bullish call on XBI "makes all the sense in the world."

Bill said we're in Year 2 of a bull market, or heading into it.

Weiss of course couldn't endorse biotech given his view of the economy (Zzzzzzzzz), "there are better places where you can put your money."

Josh said you can buy either the XBI or IBB; "they're great bounce candidates."

Bryn said RBLX has been in a rigid range of 30-40 and she sells calls "when it gets up to, close to 40." Josh Brown said the RBLX customer base is "very loyal" but it's "not a very well-run company."

Jim still thinks that the streaming business is anything but a quagmire (cont’d) (a/k/a Josh wanted to buy DIS in the ‘low 70s,’ not ‘below 70’)

Judge on Wednesday's (11/15) Halftime reported that ValueAct is reportedly taking a DIS stake, boosting the stock.

Jim Lebenthal asserted, "The name of the game here is streaming profitability" (snicker). Jim said he wouldn't even be surprised if that profitability is "a little accelerated."

Jim admitted, "We don't know what the long-term profitability of streaming is going to be," but then he added, "it's going to be positive."

(We wonder if Jim could share his forecasts of streaming businesses at CNBC.com and show what the subscription prices are going to be and what the ad revenues are going to be and what the costs are going to be.)

Jenny Harrington, who elsewhere in the program was actually knocking companies that had been cost-cutting their way to higher share prices, said "I agree with Jim" and said "the entire company" is basically trading on "just the parks." (That's a much different argument than claiming the streaming division is going to be a great success.)

Joe Terranova claimed Josh Brown (who wasn't on Wednesday's show) mentioned wanting to buy DIS "below 70," and according to Joe, that's not happening.

"The technicals look really good," Joe said. "You're not buyin' this in the 70s."

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman said ValueAct is a "very very long-term" investor that sees itself as a "partner" who doesn't want to get into "high-profile fights." Which makes ValueAct a "much better partner" than Peltz for Iger, who could "solve the problem" of disgruntled shareholders by telling them, "See I did put somebody new on the board." (So that's the problem Iger can solve, not the one about throwing gobs of money for years at the streaming division before it's sold to one of the Magnificent 7.)

Judge took note of Berkshire hanging onto its PARA stake and concluded "obviously," it's because they think it's a "takeout." Jim claimed the Berkshire people are seeing "there's a lot more value in the company" than the share price indicates, "and (of course) I agree." Jim said he's "never known" Berkshire to make an investment based on a takeout, so this would be a "rare case."

Judge later said a viewer said that Buffett played ActiVision for the arb opportunity. "I take comfort from that point of view," Jim said.

Goldman training sounds real difficult

Judge on Wednesday's (11/15) Halftime Report asked Jim Lebenthal about Berkshire selling GM. Jim suggested Warren Buffett saw the labor negotiations and decided he "doesn't want any part of it." But Jim said GM is "printing money." (Of course, GM always prints money, PARA is always undervalued, the economy is always underestimated ...)

Joe Terranova said Buffett is "probably a little regretful" that he sold CE.

Judge pointed out that they don't know if it's "he" or "they" making these sales at Berkshire.

Jenny Harrington said CSCO vs. SYY was "Goldman Training 101" to make sure people got the right trades. Jim said if "you're a 10-year investor," CSCO will pay off.

Joe spoke for a moment about one of his longtime favorites, "Palo Alto." Joe wants it to "steadily appreciate" and said he's concerned about too much enthusiasm for it. "I just don't want this stock going parabolic," Joe said.

Jim vs. the ‘dourness’ (a/k/a no Bread Crust today)

Judge on Wednesday's (11/15) Halftime Report tossed cold water on Stephanie Link's hyper bull case for TGT that by the way included every possible financial metric (including the actual metric and the expectations metric) and also included the dividend you get "While. You. Wait."

Judge questioned TGT's "pricing power" amid "deal-hungry shoppers."

Judge then turned to Jim Lebenthal and stated that TGT is up because of what the company's done, not because of the consumer, consumer strength is "not at all" what TGT is saying.

Jim said he's not in the stock and that Brian Cornell says the consumer is "cautious," but Jim said Cornell said they're only "delaying purchases but still following through."

"They're waiting for deals," Judge insisted.

Jim insisted, "Goods deflation has been occurring for quite some time."

Joe Terranova said TJX and ROST are more expensive than TGT and should be. Joe said TJX's Q4 guidance was weak, but, "I think you buy the weakness."

At one point, Judge challenged Jim, "The consumer is obviously slowing down," which Jim said he doesn't agree with, arguing the "dourness" associated with consumers is "misplaced." Jenny Harrington said the "dourness" was simply "disproportionate" in, of all things, her favorite stocks such as WHR, SWK and VFC.

Jenny agrees with Mike

Jim Lebenthal on Wednesday's (11/15) Halftime Report noted that NVDA is down for the "first time in 11 days" and touted all the "493 stocks" that he says are going to start catching up with a market that isn't going to see a recession.

Joe Terranova said Tuesday was a "phenomenal day" but cautioned, "Never get too low; never get too high." Joe touted "what I said on Monday," about predicting a "powerful recovery rally" in the Russell 2000.

Kari Firestone said "It feels to us that we're in a bull market."

Judge said Grandpa Jamie Dimon is warning about inflation maybe not being gone yet.

Jenny Harrington said it's "way too early to call an all-clear." Jenny cited META, UBER, XPO and TGT stocks being up for cost-cutting, which means they've gone up "not for the right reasons."

Jenny said she agreed with Mike Wilson a couple weeks ago and that she said to fade if we get to 4,400 or 4,500. Judge said Mike's year-end is 3,900 and asked if Jenny agrees with that. "No not necessarily that low," Jenny conceded.

Jenny, who loves to compute earnings and multiples and dividend yields (and sorta predict what those earnings are going to be well before they actually happen), doesn't see getting to consensus earnings of $250 and says we're "stuck in this big range."

Jenny said she was wondering a day ago, "Am I being a pig?" for not unloading some stocks during the "insane" rally, but she expects to have done some trimming by next week.

Joe contended we're "at a moment where the Russell looks like it has reached its trough," arguing the Fed can no longer be "adversarial to markets." Judge cracked, "The Russell ran so hard yesterday it might've pulled a hamstring."

Joe’s great challenge to Weiss about valuation is lost on many others

Kari Firestone on Wednesday's (11/15) Halftime Report said she bought more CHTR and SCHW, citing the "low multiple" of the latter. (But how come NVDA's multiple both went up and went down while the stock surged, Judge never asked.)

Kari owns AXP, which she called "a very cheap stock ... at this price, you can't go wrong." (That's interesting; a certain multiple evidently guarantees it won't go lower.) Joe Terranova questioned the "deterioration in price since July." Jenny Harrington said AXP's P.E. ratio is 12.8, and "growth exceeds the multiple." (So must be a slam dunk.)

Jim Lebenthal admitted BMY has been a "dog" and noted the forward multiple has gone from 10 to 7 in a year. "The reason is the Inflation Reduction Act from last year, and the introduction of drug pricing from the Centers for Medicare Services," Jim said.

Jim said "people are getting older in the world" (that sounds like a statement made by many philosophers) and need these life-saving drugs. Jenny said BMY yields 4.6% and that analysts are saying sell now when they wanted to buy it 30% ago, so "we're probably at a bottom here."

Mike Santoli said the 10-year yield is "leaking higher again."

Judge again for some reason marveled at the Russell's move a day earlier (as if it's that big of a surprise), "unbelievable to watch."

For Final Trade, Jim said long NXPI as he goes against the Burry semi short.

Jim’s ‘taken a lot of crap,’ suggests dinner at Rao’s

Jim Lebenthal launched into Tuesday's (11/14) Halftime Report declaring, "Let me just make this point, and let me make it loudly, OK: Everybody who for the last year and a half has been calling an end to this economic cycle is flat-out wrong. OK. And it's time to admit that. The Fed's done."

"I'm trying to do this with humility, but I've taken a lot of crap over the last year and a half," Jim explained.

"OK, um, I think that's fair. I think it's fair," Judge said, explaining that "what Jim said" is simply that the bear case is "dead."

Jim's victory lap aside, Grandpa Rob Sechan cautioned, "This story may not be complete," and, "We're gonna be as data-dependent as the Fed." (Rob pronounced "data" as "day-ta.")

Stephanie Link said she expects a "very diverse rally" into year-end.

Later in the show, Judge said it sounds like "All-in Jim." Jim suggested "Jimmy the Bull" and mentioned "go to Rao's tonight" (Gasparino used to talk about that place).

Rob cautioned about declaring a soft landing; Rob said he thinks Jim is "too all-in."

Mike Santoli still thinks this is a "show-me situation for this economy."

At the end of the show, Judge said a viewer has already snatched up the domain name allinjim.com. Jim "can use it anytime," Judge said the viewer said.

‘Breadth thrust’ sounds like
‘bread crust’

Judge on Tuesday's (11/14) Halftime Report was in disbelief that the Russell was up "5. Percent." during the show.

Josh Brown, who wasn't at Post 9, remotely said the "only way" the Russell climbs that much in a day is when it's "way off the highs."

Then we learned a new one. Brown said the day's gains are so big and broad, there's a "breadth thrust" going on and no way anyone can conclude "it's just another normal day."

Rather, "Very rarely do these things melt away and we go back to a downtrend," Brown asserted, which sounds a bit like the all-clear sign, if not Katie bar the door.

Nevertheless, Stephanie Link sold DE on Friday because of what seems like a "trade-down to more private label" in agriculture, and she doesn't see DE's multiple expanding "given the concerns about the cycle." Jim Lebenthal said he "comfortably" owns DE and disagrees.

Grandpa Rob Sechan touted HD; Jim said he used his HD stake to buy NKE instead.

Rob asked Jim, "Isn't the market offsides from the Fed?," citing an expectation of a 100-basis-point-cut next year while the Fed says 50, and what if this is just a "temporary pause."

Stephanie wondered if Rob is saying that CPI is going back up to 9. "I didn't say it's goin' back up to 9," Rob said, insisting he's wondering if the market is "disconnected from the Fed." Judge cut in, "There are times when the Fed has been disconnected from reality."

Judge asserted, "The Fed tried to lead the data. Now the data's gonna lead the Fed," before asking Rob, "There's no reason for the Fed to hike again, is there." (Judge pronounced "data" as "datta" literally 5 times.)

"It depends on the data!" Rob said, pronouncing "data" as "day-ta" again and noting the 10-year "just a few weeks ago" was around 5%. Rob said, "I think the Fed has faded to the background." But he doesn't think the "lag effects" (snicker) (there's that term again) are "completely baked in to the economic cake."

Josh noted that "lag effects wouldn't argue for higher rates though."

Back to Arthur Burns (cont’d)

Judge and Steve Liesman on Tuesday's (11/14) Halftime reported that Austan Goolsbee is touting how much inflation has dropped without an unemployment surge.

Steve, who usually says the market isn't absorbing the central bank's stern warnings, offered, "I don't know that the market is offsides on a hundred basis points of cuts there, Scott, I think it's worth thinking about."

Steve said that "theoretically, the Fed got tighter today" because inflation came down while rates stayed the same. But Steve shrugged off the 275-basis-point-cut call by UBS, saying Powell is not going to be ... drum roll ... Arthur Burns.

Everything’s not exactly going up for the Carolina Panthers

In the 19th minute of Tuesday's (11/14) Halftime Report, Judge mentioned "David Tepper" (potential football alert), but Judge was only talking about Tepper's comments in 2009 about everything going up, not on who's going to be the Carolina Panthers' head coach and starting quarterback next year.

(Just wait, until we get to January, and then Judge has to promote Peacock's commandeering of an NFL wild-card game for streaming customers only, to justify NBCUni's $110 million purchase of something they hope will artificially boost subs for one weekend and give CMCSA a huge multiple while most fans miss the game, then Judge will be talking about football all the time.)

Grandpa Rob Sechan touted the 52-week high in ADBE.

Judge for whatever reason decided to ask panelists about owning utilities (Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz). Stephanie Link bought PWR, calling it an onshoring play, an EV-penetration play and a modernizing-grid play.

Jim Lebenthal said he likes PCG as a "specific name" and after its wildfire troubles, it's "very well run." He said he's not excited about utilities because it's a "classic defensive sector."

Josh Brown said his utility exposure amounts to the one owned by Berkshire Hathaway.

Josh said "it's not a bad time for fishing" in dividend-paying stocks.

Rob's shop has VST, which he said is a "very small weighting."

Judge reported that Michael Burry has closed his S&P 500 and Nasdaq short positions.

Judge later said a 13-F confirmed that Burry closed out his S&P 500 and Nasdaq short positions.

‘Transitory’ back in play

"Let's ignore technicals," said Steve Weiss at the top of Monday's (11/13) Halftime Report, arguing that CPI and PPI could upend any technical pattern in the stock market.

Anastasia Amoroso says you should "tactically" remain bullish.

"Price action within the market is very bullish," offered Joe Terranova, who observed, "The dips are mini-dips at best."

Judge said Mike Wilson is at 3,900 (snicker) for year-end and "just bumped up his 2024 target to 4,500."

But Judge said Morgan Stanley's "economic team" is "much more sanguine" than Mike Wilson is.

Judge said Ed Yardeni predicts 4,600 this year and 5,400 "by mid-'24." Judge qualified it by stating, "Now he's obviously one of the more bullish people around."

"Most stocks are still going down," Weiss contended.

Karen Finerman on Fast Money asked, "Wouldn't it be funny if inflation were transitory, after all."

Judge seems to think laggards may roar in ’24

Judge on Monday's (11/13) Halftime Report said Dan Ives believes "the new tech bull market has now begun."

Judge asked Joe Terranova, if people believe Ives, will they put any money elsewhere. Joe said they will if they see the "dispersion," but "I don't see it yet."

Joe said he's not seeing "compelling evidence" for regional banks, or for that matter the Russell or biotech, which prompted a challenge of sorts from Judge.

Judge told Joe, "You and a lot of other people didn't see the evidence at the end of last year that we were gonna have the kind of market we've had this year ... what if we're set up for the same kind of counterintuitive market next year like we had this year." (Honestly, it wasn't really that counterintuitive, it's just that people in December 2022 weren't sure that the rate shellacking was over.)

Joe said "If you wanna survive in this business, what you need to do is quickly change, you need to quickly pivot." Joe said he's "very comfortable" that while he didn't see it last December, "at the end of April, I did." He said he's got NVDA "on the books" at 275.

Steve Weiss said he didn't see it "for sure," but "those same people stayed bullish all throughout '22, when I was bearish. So who won then."

"Dan Ives follows technology. Dan Ives is not having a broad view of the market," Weiss added. But Weiss said he does agree with Ives. Weiss said there's "no bid" in regional banks.

Remember when Hillary was (sorta) moving markets?

On Monday's (11/13) Halftime Report, Joe Terranova said the XBI and IBB have "punished" investors, "so Lilly and Novo are actually trading like a biotech company." (Maybe those biotech investors are still reeling from Hillary's "price gouging" tweet in 2015.)

Judge asked Sarat Sethi why he doesn't own LLY or NVO; "Why. Not."

Sarat said "they're momentum stocks" (that's why the JOET exists) and are "priced to, to the moon."

Sarat also said we "don't really know" where GLP is going to go. "17% of people who take these drugs have diarrhea or, or can't handle it," Sarat said. (Ugh.)

Steve Weiss said if the weight-loss drugs prevent heart disease or get diabetes more under control, they are going to be "good for UNH," his favorite stock of the last couple months.

Judge said ORCL got an upgrade from Edward Jones. Sarat owns the stock and touted the "high teens multiple" and said it's "fairly priced." (Judge didn't ask what direction for the stock is being signaled by that multiple.)

Weiss told Judge, "I'm not perhaps like everybody else here, that, I tend to be more concentrated in my portfolio. As Buffett says, diversification is the enemy of performance."

Weiss said "it takes 20 times as much energy for example for an AI search as a Google search."

Judge asked Joe Terranova about ABNB, which is a top pick at Bernstein despite getting a target cut from 168 to 163. (This writer is long ABNB.) Joe said that relative to EXPE and BKNG, "there's been price underperformance in the near term," which he largely attributed to "management messaging." Sarat Sethi said UBER is in a "sweet spot." (This writer is long UBER.)

Joe said he gets more excited about PANW than CSCO and noted PANW isn't reporting on a Friday afternoon.

For Final Trade, Weiss said if inflation data comes in soft and rates fall, DE will "explode higher."

Back to back in black: Karen, Mel color coordinate jackets day after black outfits

Part of Friday's (11/10) Fast Money took up Moody's new outlook on U.S. credit. "This has been happening in slow motion for quite a while," said Karen Finerman.

Mel called out the White House statement on the Moody's U.S. credit outlook change, saying the White House claimed that Moody's faulted House Republicans, and "I read the press release; they did not mention Republicans or Democrats."

Meanwhile, Guy Adami said LYFT is "probably close" to beginning to close the outsized stock gap with UBER that Guy traced to June 2022; Guy said "it's not that wide a chasm I don't think in terms of what the stocks are reflecting." (This writer is long UBER.) Karen wonders if UBER's revenue gains are "a good reflection on the economy."

Karen said PFE has been an "ATM" for those more interested in buying LLY and NVO. (No one said anything about longtime Weiss favorite MRNA, which Steve finally ditched in July.) (That was a good sale; look where the stock was at then.)

Guy complained that Berkshire has been in OXY for 2 years, but OXY has been stuck at $62 throughout that time, "it doesn't move," a quality observation.

‘David Solomon is doing a tremendous job’

Steve Weiss, sporting that great gray jacket, explained on Friday's (11/10) Halftime Report that he prefers GS to SCHW.

In a robust endorsement, Weiss declared, "I think David Solomon is doing a tremendous job," not something you hear every day; Weiss said GS is "spring-loaded" for when the pipeline starts to move.

Jenny Harrington quibbled with Weiss over Weiss' preference for GS over SCHW. Weiss said SCHW is selling ETFs and "trading," while GS is selling IPOs and merger advice, "high, high commission." Jenny said SCHW has much more "consistency" and "predictability."

Judge, who during the program seemed oblivious to last night's football game, said SCHW and GS are like "apples and oranges."

If there’s such a thing as right valuation and wrong valuation, how come WFC’s and NVDA’s valuation was going down as the stock was going up (cont’d)

Late in Friday's (11/10) Halftime Report, Judge pointed to the S&P 500 and actually said, "What a difference a day makes."

Steve Weiss agreed at the top of the show that the market's been correlated with rates but warned there's "plenty of more supply to come." He said the market next week will trade on CPI and PPI.

Jenny Harrington said Jay Powell is "trying to buy time."

Jenny said the market is at 18 times, and that's a "pretty rich valuation."

Judge said rate-hike expectations haven't moved up much but took up the notion of Powell being more hawkish on Thursday.

Josh Brown said you can't bank on Fed statements for market direction; at the end of 2018, the Fed announced it was "nowhere near" stopping rate hikes, then within 30 days was beginning rate cuts to start 2019, Brown said.

Judge asked Josh and Jenny about the Russell and market internals and whether the market needs to "improve" on that or will only go "so far."

Josh chuckled that he used to believe that, but it's been "7 years since it's been true."

Jenny credited Josh for making a point Thursday (that this page didn't even note) with "all this history" about how small caps tend to do well after years such as this. Jenny said for fundamentals, small caps look "amazing" or "beautiful."

Judge bluntly stated to Weiss, "There is no proof at this point that we in fact are late- as late-cycle as some have suggested we are."

Weiss said if you take the 2020 "blip" out, "the cycle has gone for very, very long time, an impressive long time, so just on age alone, common sense says you're late cycle."

Judge says common sense doesn't include zero rates "forever" and "boatloads" of money from the sky. Eventually, Weiss told Judge he doesn't think small caps have bottomed. Weiss also said he wouldn't be in the S&P equal weight but companies with "momentum" in earnings and fundamentals.

Jenny said she thinks "there was breadth underneath the surface this quarter," especially "really really specifically in my portfolio" and that Weiss is using "such a broad brush." Weiss said he was asked a broad-brush question; "I wasn't asked about your portfolio."

Josh challenged Weiss (and apparently Jenny) on whether it's just the biggest tech that's earning high multiples, stating there are lots of tech stocks with "outperforming" fundamentals. Jenny insisted there are some stocks at the "right valuation" and others at the "wrong valuation."

It’s already Christmas card season, apparently

Friday's (11/10) Halftime Report couldn't escape a mention of DIS.

Jenny Harrington said the "big win" (snicker) for DIS was telling shareholders "with granularity" what the plan is.

Then Jenny (again) (again) stated that DIS is trading as though the valuation is simply theme parks and everything else has "no value." And Jenny (again) compared DIS in late 2023 to META in late 2022. (We'll see if DIS has the type of 2024 that META had in 2023.)

Jenny said XPO is up "143%" but free cash flow is only 3%, so it's more likely to be a "source of funds" than an add. Steve Weiss admitted, "I made a mistake selling XPO," praising management. But he added to GXO, which he said had a "phenomenal quarter."

Jenny said she's sending Christmas cards with the message, "And may 2024 be easier to navigate," because this year has been "really emotionally distressing to people." Weiss said he bought more bitcoin, which is likely his best trade of the year. He confirmed to Judge that he's just riding momentum toward an ETF.

‘Thursday Night Football’ camera catches Tepper shaking his head

Looks like Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit scooped Judge on Thursday.

People who watched the Panthers-Bears game all the way to the end (snicker) got a glimpse in the final moments of CNBC Name/Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper in the visiting owner's box at Soldier Field as the final seconds ticked away.

We thought Al might actually tell viewers something like, "I'm on the Halftime Report several times a year and I'm long the FAS (this writer is long FAS); I don't know why Scott never talks about Tepper's football team."

But no.

The Panthers, who seemed to have loads of trouble gaining more than 8 yards on the first 3 plays of any series, lost 16-13 to a lousy team to fall to 1-8, tied for the worst record in the NFL.

Head coach Frank Reich was so desperate for a miracle (then again, it was Al Michaels in the booth), he actually attempted a 59-yard field goal with the game on the line.

"What's real is, they've got. To. Get. Better," said Herbstreit in the final moments.

The camera caught Tepper apparently noticing on a TV set somewhere that he was being shown on TV; he shook his head.

Al was prompted to speak about this camera shot and offered up the At-Least-He-Cares defense, stating, "Now David Tepper's the owner of the team and of course he's as frustrated as anybody under the circumstances. But he's owned the team for 5 years, and he's a guy who- you know, he's tryin'- he's, at all costs, he's trying to win."

That's an interesting word — not "win," but "costs." If he's trying "at all costs" to win, what does it say when — in 5 years — he's never had a winning record or a playoff game. And what exactly did Tepper spend to determine that Bryce Young — who seemed determined to absolutely NOT make a play on Thursday and was utterly outplayed by a bad team's backup quarterback from Nowhereville — was a better choice than the other 3 prized quarterback prospects taken shortly after? Or what exactly has Tepper spent to improve his team in free agency aside from 33-year-old Adam Thielen?

Skeptics may think this page is only talking about the Panthers in hopes of getting CNBC superfox Karen Finerman to talk about football. We honestly hadn't thought about that angle. But we're very happy to point out that Karen and Missy color-coordinated stunning black outfits (below) for Thursday's (11/9) edition of Fast Money.

During a discussion about the Capri-Tapestry deal, Mel even quipped to Karen, "Maybe your Kate Spade purse, which apparently needs to be innovated, according to Oliver Chen over at TD ..."

Karen suggested that if the deal falls through, Capri could theoretically fall below even 35. "At some point though, the arb in me will end up buying Capri," Karen said.

Dan Ives predicted that TSLA has a 3-handle in "6-9 months."

Josh, unlike Judge, actually tries to get Stephanie to answer Judge’s question

Josh Brown opened Thursday's (11/9) Halftime Report telling Judge, "Mainly what's improved is sentiment."

Stephanie Link, though, told Judge that "a lot of it is fundamentals."

Josh asked Stephanie if the economy "meaningfully improved" since October, "because that's what Scott's asking." Stephanie said "No," but, without really explaining her answer, insisted, "The economy's much better than OK."

Josh cited a huge jump in call activity in the first week of November, and to him, "that's a sentiment measure, has nothing to do with fundamentals."

Steve Grasso: Streaming services are ‘hitting a wall on pricing’

DIS reported this week, and you know what means on CNBC; yes, Julia Boorstin, plus more people talking about ESPN than what happens at a typical sports bar these days.

Judge on Thursday's (11/9) Halftime Report said that Stephanie Link sold DIS a while ago after getting tired of it. "A lot higher, by the way," Stephanie said, because her sales are always higher, always at a big gain.

Stephanie said DIS is a "cost-cutting story," and she's going to "let the dust settle a little bit."

Judge noted that Josh had said recently he'd be interested in DIS with a "7-handle," and now it's moved in the other direction.

"Oh well," Josh said.

Josh said DIS is "playing offense" (snicker) now. But he said it's a cost-cutting story "in an entertainment arms race."

Indeed. We looked up some independent news coverage of the Disney earnings event. "Streaming losses narrowed to $387 million" after "the company raised prices for the second time this year," according to Yahoo Finance, and "Disney expects to spend $25 billion on content next year versus the $27 billion spent in full-year 2023."

So, that's the plan: Keep hiking prices and spending less on content. (Or put another way, Charge more to watch "Dumbo" and "Hannah Montana.")

That's interesting, because Steve Grasso a day earlier on Fast Money stated, "Now, all my streaming products cost me more than my linear TV. Cost me more than what the cable companies were charging me. So, they're hitting a wall on pricing." Steve also said DIS says it's going to "crack down" on password-sharing.

Steve didn't mention whether all of these supposed subscribers for DIS, PARA, Max or whatever it's called are looking up these services on the internet and paying the listed price ... or getting free 6-month subscriptions for buying something else, eligible to cancel at any time.

Back on Thursday's Halftime, Josh said the chances of ESPN being as successful as a stand-alone app as it has been on cable TV is "very slim."

Rob Sechan said his group is digging into the question, "Is Disney the Meta for '24." (We don't think it is, but it is an interesting question.)

So Rob is trumpeting a stock for valuation when that valuation dropped as the stock went higher

On Thursday's (11/9) Halftime, Judge reported that David Einhorn is up 28% through September, net of fees, with "just pure bottom's-up stock picking." (Wouldn't it have been easier to just buy the Magnificent 7?)

But Judge said Einhorn says he's now in a "buyer's strike" (snicker).

Rob Sechan added to WFC. "Quality business, with great earnings consistency; valuation is reasonable at 9 times," Rob said, adding that he trimmed it in March and it's up 10% since, but "valuation is 15% cheaper."

Judge asked Josh Brown about TOST (Zzzzzzzzz). Josh said annual recurring revenue was up 40%. However, the Q4 guidance wasn't good. "I personally think selling it at 14 is a mistake," Brown said, adding he bought a little more on Wednesday.

"When are they gonna earn something," Stephanie Link asked. "Next year," Brown said.

Rob actually suggests possibility of a ‘death spiral’

Judge on Thursday's (11/9) Halftime Report told Rob Sechan, beaming in remotely, that the 10-year yield seems to be "all the market really cares about."

Rob, though, said he's not sure the market "did get Powell right" and that it's a "mistake to assume that he and the Fed are completely done."

"There is definitely a, a disconnecting between the, the Fed and the markets," Rob asserted.

Rob even said, "This slowdown could be a self-fulfilling prophecy and move into the death spiral."

And Rob said he thinks the year's winners will keep on winning and said that going into year-end, people will hang onto those Magnificent 7 names, actually explaining, "it's hard for us to do anything with those names because of the tax implications there."

Ah. OK. It's not enough for the stock to go up; you just can't ever sell it because you owe taxes on it.

"Not everybody is in all those stocks," Judge said, adding that Rob is being "a little selective" in suggesting the market got Powell wrong, because Judge doesn't think it's about rate cuts, rather, Powell had "numerous occasions" to "push back" against the done-raising view and didn't.

Stephanie Link observed, "It's very hard to own all of the 7."

Viewers and Judge heard Judge's question to Rob reverberating somewhere; Judge thought Rob might have had his TV on, and Rob looked over his shoulder but seemed to indicate it wasn't on as his mike was muted. And we didn't hear it the rest of the show.

This movie is not really about the person it’s named for

Around here, it's considered a priority to appreciate the arts a little bit (even during pro football seasion), so we try to get to the movie theaters occasionally and perhaps share a thought or two.

We happened to take in the Sofia Coppola film "Priscilla"; you should probably know who that's about without any explanation.

It's an interesting backstory, and the production values are impressive.

Judgments will be cast as to whether the title character is a tragic figure. Aside from that, it's a relentless depiction of a man who never grew up.

Jim doesn’t get that streaming is a hopeless quagmire (regardless of what the P.E. ratio is) and they’re all gonna be fire-saled to the Magnificent 7 (cont’d)

Wednesday (11/8) brought another episode of the Halftime Report, and wouldn't you know it, but Jim Lebenthal is bullish on streaming.

Jim said PARA just had "fabulous" earnings and is past "peak losses" (OK), and Jim claimed that "streaming is now on a much more accelerated track towards profitability (snicker)."

Judge said Jim had been arguing that one reason to own PARA is for the "strategic option," and asked Jim about an analyst's more skeptical view of that.

Jim said he still thinks "the company should be sold." But after Thursday's earnings, "it's worth a heckuva lot more, not less, a lot more (snicker), because the free cash flow is positive now."

Jim said PARA doesn't have to refinance debt until 2027. Judge wondered "what kind of premium" will this company get with "such a dramatically declining stock price." Jim said that's a "good point" but that the stock is higher than before earnings, and Jim said combining Showtime with Paramount+ was the key to keeping subscribers.

Jim's enthusiasm wasn't just limited to Paramount streaming; he wondered if, "just for today," when talking about DIS, they don't focus on ESPN or Hulu but "the health of the streaming business when the results come out." (Many people have focused on the "health" of that business division countless times, so we're not sure why he's implying it doesn't happen.)

Jim said of WBD, "There's something going on at Warner Bros. that doesn't seem to be- being replicated at Paramount."

Joe Terranova wondered how much of a Buffett premium is in PARA. Jim said he'd expect to see in the next 13-F that Berkshire has downsized its PARA holding.

Stephanie Link suggested Hugh Johnston might be the next DIS CEO. Stephanie said she doesn't know if Johnston has the "creative juices" but at least he's not Bob Chapek.

Jim: Nation ‘stupid’ not to be refilling the SPR

In a fairly quiet Halftime Report on Wednesday (11/8), Joe Terranova raised eyebrows with a 9-letter word beginning with "p."

"The concentrated performance year to date for megacap will go parabolic by the end of the year," Joe asserted.

Jim Lebenthal agreed: "For the next 6 weeks, it is likely to be a performance chase for those concentrated names," Jim said.

Joe was heard to say, "I think in 2024 we're talking about rate cuts."

"First and foremost, I think that rates have peaked," offered Stephanie Link.

After Angelica Peebles' report on LLY, Judge rehashed Joe's recent debate on the stock with Steve Weiss, who wasn't on Wednesday's show. Joe said it's going higher. "It's almost trading as if, uh, it's a biotech stock," Joe said.

Stephanie Link said of CVX, "The M&A is distracting them, quite frankly."

Jim noted they haven't talked about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in "several weeks," adding, "We as a nation have done something stupid ... it's really, really too low, we need to refill it."

Jim said XOM and CVX are no longer "twins" and he's happy to be in XOM.

Bill Baruch took a small position in JPM.

Judge has been talking about Druckenmiller and Griffin ... but not Tepper

This page honestly has no idea what kind of year David Tepper is having on Wall Street.

But we do know what kind of year he's having in the NFC South standings.

Tepper is the hands-on owner of the Carolina Panthers. He bought the team in 2018. It hasn't had a winning season under his ownership. It hasn't had a playoff game. Under Tepper's ownership, the Panthers have gone 7-9, 5-11, 5-11, 5-12 and 7-10.

This year, though, is a new low.

In January, he hired a respected but lackluster coach best known for coughing up a playoff berth the previous season with a Week 18 loss to the league's worst team.

Heading into April's NFL Draft, the Panthers had earned the right to select 9th. But this was viewed as a historially strong quarterback draft, with 4 prospects possibly going in the top 5 picks, and Tepper aggressively traded up with the Chicago Bears for the No. 1 choice, giving up the team's top wide receiver and the team's 2024 No. 1 pick and a couple 2nd-rounders.

3 of those 4 quarterbacks do appear to be stars; one of them quite possibly already on his way to Canton.

Tepper picked someone else.

Now, at 1-7, the Panthers are in a horse race for the No. 1 overall pick in next year's draft, where a couple more apparent franchise quarterbacks await.

Except the Panthers' pick is going to the Chicago Bears as a result of last spring's trade.

Honestly, if anyone had a formula for NFL success, it would be a best seller. Many prominent and well-heeled franchises have struggled with mediocrity (or worse) for literally decades. The Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins, New York Jets/Giants, Washington franchise. Drafting a good quarterback, by insight or luck, is a big step. Hiring a good coach is important too. But even that's hard to figure. Bill Belichick was mediocre at best before and after Brady. Joe Gibbs was legendary for about a dozen years and utterly forgettable in his 2nd go-round. Jimmy Johnson put together one juggernaut and barely topped .500 with another team. Nick Saban couldn't win.

But here's what you need to know: The NFL, unlike Wall Street, is designed to be cyclical, so that the worst teams get the opportunities for the best prospects, so that no one is terrible forever. And in this egalitarian (that's the kind word) environment, Tepper is historically bad.

Don't take it from this page; take it from the Guardian. "Under his ownership, the Panthers have yet to record a winning season, gave a seven-year, fully guaranteed $62m contract to head coach Matt Rhule then fired him a few years later and gave up possibly too much draft capital for Young. Tepper's expertise, and the source of the wealth that got him the Panthers, are in finance. And should any members of the club's front office need advice on market dynamics, Tepper would no doubt be of great use. On football matters, Tepper's team would be better served if he invested more passively."

The problem with that "passive" argument is it assumes that Tepper will be more successful at appointing the person to appoint the players and coaches than he was at appointing the players and coaches himself.

Tepper's from Pittsburgh and used to be seen as a potential owner of the Steelers should the Rooney family ever have to sell. He did own 5% of that team before relinquishing it in buying the Panthers.

No one here is cheering the Panthers' or Tepper's struggles. We wish him (and his Halftime Report friends) well. Rather, it's just remarkable that people who are hailed almost daily on TV for their business acumen could struggle this much at what's basically a simple game.

For all those at home in armchairs pointing at the TV and saying "I could do better than that" ... they probably can.

Weiss says Ken Griffin is speaking to a hometown crowd

Tuesday's (11/7) Halftime Report unfortunately didn't come up with too many interesting topics, as panelists dug in to their well-dug positions.

Liz Young opened the show saying the market in the last week and a half has just gotten a "bit of a relief."

Liz added, "I don't think that a ferocious rally like this is durable."

But Judge said the market has "defied some sense of logic for a while." Liz said maybe it's defied "timing maybe more than logic."

Steve Weiss said he would agree with Liz, "It hasn't defied logic; it's defied timing," and quite frankly none of these comments about defying logic or timing makes much sense.

Jim Lebenthal agreed "there is a timing question here," about the "lag effects" of tightening. But Jim said for almost 2 years, "these non-tech companies have been outearning."

Jim said that what's being overlooked is how balance sheets are being "really, really cleaned up."

Jason Snipe said data and yields have been weaker, and "seasonality is obviously in play."

Jason bought NOW, citing enterprise spending in the cloud space.

In a lengthy explanation about why he has bought MSFT and GOOGL instead of CAT and DE, Weiss boasted, "I don't manage to a benchmark. So I manage for absolute performance."

Judge said a survey of 18-34-year-olds found that Amazon and Apple are their favorite companies. Weiss said it's like back in the day when the Peter Lynch style of investing worked. Weiss tried to argue that younger folks are "uninformed" about how this time it's gonna be different about the Fed rescuing/not rescuing the markets. Jim argued that there are times when "value outperforms growth." Judge pointed out that Berkshire's biggest position is AAPL.

Judge said that Ken Griffin says "you have to invest in China." Weiss said, "He's sitting in Hong Kong while he's making that statement, so I think it's pretty clear why he's saying it. ... I'm not saying he lacks integrity; he certainly doesn't, but I think that colored some of what he said."

Judge asked Jim about Evercore's 124 target on NKE. Jim said China demand and margins are both getting better. We were waiting for Jim to make the P.E. ratio argument, but he didn't. Weiss said "it's a consumer brand" and now's not the time for consumer stocks.

Jason Snipe said he likes LOW over HD because of opportunity in the pro segment. Jim sold HD and called those stocks "dead money."

Weiss said he's "surprised at the turnaround" in UBER stock but said there was "pretty good" volume growth on the number of rides. He did "shave a little" of his stake because "it has gotten more expensive." (This writer is long UBER.)

Weiss bought more HUM on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. He touted that stock again with UNH.

Jason Snipe said CVX has an "ugly chart" though he does like the HES purchase. Weiss said his problem with oil is that the speculation "always overcomes fundamentals."

What better place to advertise a golf league than a ... ballpark

In the 2nd half of Monday's (11/6) Halftime Report, Judge introduced golf great Rory McIlroy and Tom Werner live at Fenway Park to discuss the new TGL golf league co-founded by Tiger Woods and Rory that involves team play in an indoor setting.

(And after listening to this interview, we honestly have no clue what this league does or is ... but whatever.)

(Also, it seems like Judge is more interested in the actual PGA Tour than in this side venture.)

Rory explained that it's not "simulated" golf and will be "like an NBA game, hopefully." (For some reason, a chap was raking the infield at Fenway Park, even though it's November and the Red Sox can't possibly have a game scheduled.)

Judge asked Werner how much these TGL teams cost. "I don't really want to get into the financials," Werner said.

Judge said NBC Sports "will be a founding partner of the Boston Common team." (That's why this interview was happening.)

Judge asked Werner if Fenway Sports "made a large bid to invest in the PGA Tour," as had recently been reported. "Well we don't really like to talk about things that are, uh, in discussion," Werner said. Judge persisted, asking Werner to confirm the bid report. Werner chuckled, "We confirm that we've had conversations."

Judge pressed Rory, a "player-director," for comment on PGA Tour bids. Rory simply said golf has never been in a "stronger shape" or "in a healthier place."

Judge persisted that Rory is "the most outspoken of, of your colleagues" on the "future of the Tour" and pressed whether Rory would be OK with "the status quo being LIV against the PGA Tour." Rory said he would prefer "if everyone sorta got back into the same boat" rather than a "fractured competitive landscape."

Joe says Judge likes to ‘emphasize’ the ‘negative things’

Late on Monday's (11/6) Halftime Report, Joe Terranova asked Judge, "You appreciate that I'm candid about the positions that I own, right?"

"Yes," Judge said, wondering if Joe appreciates how Judge remembers what Joe says.

"Especially all the negative things too," Joe chuckled. "You like to emphasize those."

Bryn Talkington said that oil giants, with the price of a barrel running 75-90, have "tremendous free cash flow yield" and that "better times are ahead."

Joe said the JOET is at 12.8% in energy. Joe said, "My intuitive sense says that there needs to be a shakeout in positioning, in energy, in oil, in the ownership of the sector before we see what everyone sees, which is the expected rebound and outperformance."

Bill Baruch bought more CAT; he sees "a number of tailwinds" to lift it after the earnings reaction. He also bought WAB, in part for its recurring revenues and "strong momentum." But he sold RTX, which has "really underperformed."

Bryn asserted that it's "too early" to buy regional banks. Judge asked Steve Weiss, if you're going to buy regionals, when are you going to buy them if not now.

"Not now," Weiss stated, mentioning commercial real estate.

Joe agreed with Weiss' assessment of banks but said when he is ready to buy, he'll look at MS.

Weiss said he added to MSFT last week and has a "very sizable position."

Bryn said NVDA's move to 444 last Friday was a "good opportunity" to sell 500 calls.

Joe touted EXPE over BKNG, which he said has "more concern surrounding the horrific events of the Middle East."

Weiss said he expects a "good quarter" from UBER. (This writer is long UBER.) Bryn said "the market's kinda fickle" on RBLX because it "doesn't have earnings," but she likes it long term. That got a "good stuff" from Judge.

Bryn's Final Trade was FCX based on EV sales in China. Weiss trumpeted HUM again and Joe said LLY.

Judge says bears ‘have been singing the same look-forward tune for the last year’

Joe Terranova at the top of Monday's (11/6) Halftime Report contended, "The equity market Scott went from being deeply oversold to now being deeply overbought." But Joe said there doesn't seem to be a "sense of urgency" to sell.

Judge asked Steve Weiss about the Russell's giveback. Judge said Mike Wilson says the recent gains look like a "bear market rally." Weiss admitted, "I've been mostly in his camp," but "we don't know."

"Last week was an easy week" to be bullish, Weiss shrugged.

Weiss said markets just had the "perfect storm" to rally. He insisted, "The bears are looking forward."

Judge said "The bears have been singing the same look-forward tune for the last year. 'Recession's comin', recession's here, recession's next week,'" which is a pretty accurate summation.

"Granted," Weiss said, but the bears haven't been "entirely wrong."

Bryn Talkington, who wasn't on the set, agreed with Judge's suggestion that the market's in "uncharted waters," and that stocks just went from only 10% above their 10-day moving average to 90% being above. "If you missed last week, you missed a really nice move, really across asset classes," Bryn said.

Joe said the market has begun forecasting a rate cut by June 2024 but cautioned, "the market can very easily Scott begin to price out those rate cuts in 2024."

Joe actually claims people might be ‘quickly’ rushing to catch the DIS train pulling out of the station

DIS came up on Friday's (11/3) Halftime Report, as Judge asked Brian Belski about owning the shares.

"We made a mistake," Belski said, adding he likes NFLX, GOOGL and T "way better."

Jenny Harrington also owns DIS and stressed it's down 1% this year and again made the argument it's only trading on theme park valuation so you're getting the whole streaming quagmire for "free". Judge said it's "significantly down from its 52-week high."

"The narrative here is all over the place," said Shannon Saccocia about DIS.

Joe Terranova said DIS is just a couple dollars from being a "technical buy." (Forget the streaming quagmire.) Joe referenced Josh Brown's interest in buying DIS in the 70s and offered, with a straight face somehow, "next thing you know it's in the 90s" and you start thinking "Wait a second, the train potentially is pulling out of the station, I better get- run quickly to get on it."

Jenny claims this week’s market is ‘as high as we can get’

Early on Friday's (11/3) Halftime Report, Judge referred to Mike "I Refuse To Throw In The Towel" Wilson (that's what Judge called him) apparently saying not to count on a year-end rally, explaining a new one for viewers, "breadth typically leads price."

"I agree with Mike," said Jenny Harrington, based on "simple math" (snicker).

Jenny said "Mike's comment is based on The Market, which is The S&P 500." Judge said the S&P is up 6% in a week.

"And I think that's as high as we can get," Jenny asserted, based on 2024 "consensus earnings" (snicker) (as though those are a guarantee).

Judge was skeptical, contending, "I'm sure you would've said that last week; there's no room for upside from here."

"Oh no no no no no," Jenny protested, "Actually last week, I kinda had the same math out there," at 4,150. "I think we're stuck. I've been thinking that we're stuck for a very long time," Jenny said.

Judge said the bears have been saying "the price is wrong," and that Mike has said it "repeatedly." Judge said bears have been holding onto "deficit" (snicker) and "recession odds growing" (double snicker) (we've been hearing that for several years).

Judge even suggested, "The Fed's done, more than likely."

‘3½ for 4’ (sounds like a movie review)

Judge opened Friday's (11/3) Halftime Report with a declaration, "Let's make this real simple: Yields way down. Stocks way up."

"I'd say the bulls went 3½ for 4 this week," Judge added.

Brian Belski said people had been "massively negative" and he's now "uber-bullish" because bears are "doubling down" on a "changing" narrative.

Judge said Michael Hartnett says the path is clear for a rally.

Going too far to find supporting evidence, Joe Terranova first said "You are only as strong as your weakest link," then went on to identify the 3 weakest links in the market: the Russell, regional banks and real estate. Joe said those sectors being up "provides stability."

Joe yet again referred to Treasury refunding and stated, "That's what got all of this going." Then Joe added, with some degree of amazement, "The market is literally cheering the fact we are slowing down." Judge said "the definition of a soft landing" is slowing down and not crashing.

Jenny Harrington again made her recent argument about time frames and whether you should buy bonds.

Joe said "as I said the other day" (sigh), "If you wanna have ownership of cash, then you believe we have stagflation ahead of us." (Or, maybe they just believe bonds and stocks aren't good buys at the moment.)

Bad timing when a stock in a momentum fund falls 16% 2 days after rebalancing

Judge on Friday's (11/3) Halftime Report brought up FTNT as the "Chart of the Day." Judge said it's in the JOET. Joe Terranova said he wanted IT to be the Chart of the Day.

Joe said FTNT's day is "idiosyncratic" and based on "sales execution."

"It looks ugly right now," Joe admitted, stressing it's not a "referendum" on the cybersecurity space. As for the JOET, "It'll be dealt with at the end of January," Joe asserted.

Jenny Harrington agreed with "idiosyncratic" and explained why her shop has "always" owned PANW over FTNT, because PANW is "more resilient."

But Judge noted EXPE is also in the JOET. Joe said EXPE had "very low" expectations going into earnings and is more domestically oriented than BKNG and has an "aggressive" buyback going on.

Joe and Jenny assessed the performance of SWKS (Zzzzzzzz).

Bill Baruch dialed in to report that he added to both AMD and NVDA. Bill said AMD had a "great report" and said he also decided he didn't have to find the "next NVDA" when the first one is right in front of him.

Judge noted the JOET shed AMD. Joe shrugged that it's "the rules."

‘Nervous’ about a stock upgrade (a/k/a Sully says student loan pause led to car, home purchases)

On Friday's (11/3) Halftime Report, Judge said UBER got a "big upgrade" from KeyBanc with a 60 price target. (This writer is long UBER.)

"Frankly it makes us nervous," said Jenny Harrington, calling that price target "aggressive." (But not nervous about that 7% yield in VFC.)

Joe Terranova said UBER belongs in the S&P 500 and predicted it goes "well into the 60s." Brian Belski said it'll join the S&P 500 next year and be classified as an "industrial."

Belski said "we made a mistake" on LKQ and sold it after a month. He also sold HOG and LPLA. But he touted buying more SFB. Judge mentioned that IBKR is in the JOET. "I'd buy the dip," Joe said.

Jenny bought more AMBP and said it has an 11% yield "and they are going to pay that come hell or high water."

Shannon Saccocia actually made utilities her Final Trade.

On Closing Bell, guest host Sully observed, "According to Equifax, or TransUnion, one of the two, half the people who had student loan debt deferred for 3 years bought a home or a car or both. So they weren't paying any student loans, so they just bought something else, and that's great for them except I'm now worried they're gonna have both those payments, or triple payments."

Sully revealed, "I'm a huge Montreal Alouettes fan." Later he said, "By the way, I'm a Chargers fan. I should say, I am THE Chargers fan."

That’s quite an inference — ‘the Nvidia software moat has eroded’

Josh Brown on Thursday's (11/2) Halftime Report said for Berkshire Hathaway, there are negatives, including "a huge part of the business is utilities," but there are also positives, including that the consumer businesses are holding up and "half the stock portfolio is Apple."

Josh recommended listening to Charlie Munger on the Acquired podcast.

Bill Baruch, who briefly joined the show via video, bought more MSFT and ORCL.

Bill is keeping an eye on AMD and said Josh made a "great buy" in the stock. "Right now, the Nvidia software moat has eroded," Bill contended, and he thinks AMD "can really take off here."

Josh, though, said, "Important to note, the Nvidia software advantage is very much alive and well," but that AMD's own ROCM platform could maybe capture 10-20% of the market with chips for "inference."

Jim Lebenthal said he's sorry that QCOM isn't as high as he thought it would be. "I do think it's gonna get there," he said. "It looks like the smartphone cycle has bottomed."

Jim concedes ‘big loss’ in PARA stake (but nevertheless still thinks streaming is a decent business)

In a stark revelation on Thursday's (11/2) Halftime Report, Jim Lebenthal admitted "I'm in a big loss" in PARA.

"They've gotta control costs," Jim said of the pending quarter. Looks like they did OK, based on afterhours stock performance. (This review was posted overnight Thurs-Fri.)

Referring to streaming distribution of "Mission: Impossible," Josh Brown told Jim, "They blew up their own movie at the box office this summer; that was supposed to lead to increased subs."

Jim said the PARA subscriber projections on "Apptopia" (snicker) look good. Brown said his own weight-loss projection looks good and told Jim, "You've got a content problem" at PARA. (That's part of it; the bigger part is relentlessly chasing all those subscribers month after month and year after year and constantly needing new hit programs to ... maybe break even.)

Jim indicated he doesn't agree. Jim said price hikes are "sticking without much churn."

Jim again insisted that streaming services are "not like Gannett and the newspapers in the '90s." That's kind of an interesting statement. If newspapers had AAPL's or DIS' money behind them, they'd be printing until 2123.

Kari Firestone said, "It's a tough space."

Josh Brown said there's no issue with demand for LYV but there's a government overhang, though it looks "benign" right now.

A few days ago it was all about rates; now it was all about mutual fund selling

Josh Brown opened Thursday's (11/2) Halftime Report explaining that mutual funds end their year on Oct. 31, leading to "exacerbated" losses in slumping stocks that funds are selling to claim losses.

Brown said "TLCs" (tax loss candidates) tend to outperform from November through January.

Josh said it's been a "particularly difficult year for active managers ... so you know there's chasing."

Josh joked that this is the "Mariah Carey season" and not the time to sell; "it's Druckenmiller vs. Mariah. I'm goin' Mariah."

Judge said Stan is "not negative in the very near-term," it's about "what comes next." Josh said Stan was making the "riskiest-time-I've-ever-seen" argument in 2010.

Josh said "the best piece of investment advice offered by anyone on this network this week (that's a high bar) is Stan Druckenmiller getting extremely romantic about the 2-year."

Judge said Bill Gross thinks regional banks have "hit bottom."

Jim Lebenthal affirmed he thinks there's a "rally coming from here to year-end," but he didn't say "face-ripping rally" this time.

Kari Firestone said it's "asking a lot" for the stock market to recoup its 11% selloff (presumably by year-end, as it wouldn't be asking a lot to hope for that by 2025).

Kari said we could get "another 5%" on the S&P, "certainly."

Judge replayed the clip of Jeffrey Gundlach stating the S&P 500 is sitting around its trend line, and, in sort of a backhanded bullish call on stocks, suggested this is a "poor trade location to be a seller."

Jim wondered what Jeffrey would say about the day's "gangbusters" productivity number.

‘The market can still go up without Apple having a good quarter’

CNBC's Steve Kovach ushered in the AAPL conversation on Thursday's (11/2) Halftime Report saying AAPL is looking at better comps.

Kari Firestone said she doesn't think the AAPL report will be as bad as some fear (the stock wasn't great afterhours) (this review was posted overnight Thurs-Fri), and then stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest in stating, "I don't think Apple is as important to this market that we're experiencing (sic last 3 words redundant) than it has been as important to past markets."

"I'm not sure I agree with you, but why do you think that," Judge asked.

"Because what's driving this market is not Apple right now. Apple is- is really not been a factor in this- in this rally this week," Kari said.

"Nasdaq's up 5% in a week," Judge countered.

"Look at the movers today," Kari said.

Josh Brown weighed in, "You're not getting 800 Dow points without Apple being up-"

"Right, but I think the market can still go up without Apple having a good quarter, is what I'm saying," Kari insisted.

"Ooh I don't know, do we agree with that? Do we agree with that? Those are fightin' words," Judge said.

"Could it- Could it trend higher? Yeah; it's not gonna rally without Apple and Microsoft. Mathematically, it can't," Josh said.

Kari said the AAPL number will be "acceptable."

Judge declared Kari was making a "controversial (snicker) statement." Jim Lebenthal said he does agree with Kari. Jim said the advice for AAPL is "Just don't mess it up," which means, "don't come out of the blue with something that nobody's expecting."

Josh pointed to AAPL's declining margins over a couple years and said "there's gotta be a bottom in sight."

Jim said there's a "good comp" coming up for AAPL.

Based on what the Fast Money crew said, as AAPL shares barely dipped little afterhours, the earnings were kind of a mixed bag; Guy Adami said "it's gonna be interesting to see how we trade tomorrow."

Rich Saperstein said high is in for the year for stocks; that would be 4,607.07

Judge on Thursday's (11/2) Halftime asked Kari Firestone about PYPL, a stock that many panelists used to tout but now pretty much only has Kari left in its corner.

Kari said PYPL finally had a quarter that was "reasonably good." She said the new CEO "talked about the right things" (which seems like a low bar for CEO performance) and "he has to keep doing this and the stock eventually is gonna respond."

Josh Brown, who has previously mentioned competitors to PayPal as a serious headwind, said growth managers might remain "disappointed" with PYPL but it's possible to have "a whole new cohort of value investors looking at PayPal." Brown suggested changing the company name to Venmo.

Josh said "the big picture" for SHAK is that the licensing business is "absolutely on fire."

Josh called SBUX underrated and one of the best at executing strategies. Judge actually remembered that Josh sold SBUX in January 2022. (That's impressive recall, assuming it's correct).

Kari predicted a good number from BKNG. "The stock's cheap; I mean this is not an expensive stock at all," Kari said, reminding us of Joe's P.E. ratio question a day ago (see below). (Judge didn't bother to ask Kari the same question Joe asked Weiss.)

Kari sold ALGN and INMD in part because she said consumer spending on some goods has weakened.

Joe challenges Weiss to explain how valuation moves stock prices; Weiss can’t

It was Joe Terranova Day on Wednesday's (11/1) Halftime Report all because it was the first show after the JOET rebalancing.

Yet, Joe proved to be the unsung hero by asking a sensational question that Judge hasn't had the brass to ask.

It happened when Joe mentioned that the JOET re-added LLY and explained the "process" of owning it, originally buying April 2022 at 290 and selling July 2023 at 453.

Joe asked if anyone in that situation should "lament" that you got out of LLY, or just follow the rules of the JOET and go back in, which is what Joe did.

And then Joe asked Steve Weiss to opine on that strategy. Weiss chuckled, "In this market, I'm not goin' back in."

Weiss asserted that "it's all downside momentum" in LLY and claimed "the stock's down 10%," then suggested it could maybe fall another 10%.

Joe referred to the gap up in August and ... this was his shining moment ... noted LLY trades at 78 times; "momentum doesn't take that into account."

"Fortunately we can," Weiss said.

Joe was just getting heated up — and you should jot this one down for its massive truth: "We talk about valuation all the time on this show, right. Is valuation really the catalyst for where future returns are gonna be and where you wanna be," Joe asked Weiss, the ultimate money question.

"It's not momentum either, it's fundamentals," Weiss sidestepped.

"I didn't ask that question," Joe said, brimming with confidence throughout this exchange. "I said, is valuation."

"Yes, it's one part of it, absolutely, it's one part of it," Weiss insisted (which it's not, but whatever ... if it is, why doesn't he tell us which part), admitting he looks at charts "a little bit" but "basically fundamentals are gonna control what I do."

"OK. It does not work in all cases from my opinion when you look at valuation. You have stocks trading at single P.E.s for a decade and the stock goes nowhere," Joe correctly argued.

"As I said, fundamentals also," Weiss protested.

Note: The LLY trading sounds a little ... dicey. This page is not endorsing or knocking that particular trade or the JOET's "momentum-quality" formula. (This writer has no position in LLY or JOET.) It's Joe's recognizance (which many of his panelists don't share) of the head fake/pump fake that is P.E. ratios that we'll count as a grand slam for this exchange.

Joe says JOET is ‘correlating right now to the Russell’

The reverberations of Joe Terranova's revelation last week that he expects the JOET to underperform the S&P 500 were still echoing on Wednesday's (11/1) Halftime Report.

Judge asked Joe, "You're not benchmarked though against the S&P, right, you're- you're- aren't you benchmarked against the factor of momentum."

"Look, I have the privilege to sit in this seat, so the viewers are going to benchmark me vs. the S&P," Joe conceded.

"Well, there's no question that they're going to do that," Judge agreed.

"I understand that," Joe said, "but the benchmark is against momentum itself, and just so- to be clear, momentum investing is real."

Joe again stressed the JOET being "equally weighted." Joe said the S&P 500 median market is $183 billion, and in the JOET it's $44 billion. "So when you're equally weighted, and you don't own the megacaps, guess what you trade like. You trade like a small cap. And basically, we are correlating right now to the Russell. That's what our correlation is currently."

Joe remembers ‘Trivariate’ but not ‘Parker’

Early on Wednesday's (11/1) Halftime Report, Joe Terranova confirmed the JOET is holding NVDA, MSFT and META, AAPL and GOOGL. But it did sell AMD.

Joe couldn't even remember Adam Parker's last name, which prompted a joke from Judge, "such a good friend we can't remember his name." Joe said "I was gonna call him Adam- Adam Sandler by the way."

Joe said he heard Josh Brown a day earlier and thinks AMD will be "fine," but that there's a "deterioration in revenue."

The JOET sold ANSS, KEYS and TXN. But old favorite "Palo Alto" was one of the buys, and Joe said he owns it personally, a "very strong momentum winner." Other buys were ADSK, CHKP, CTSH and IT. But then Joe got a little tripped up by the JOET's factor of "quality" (which is kind of ... um ... debatable) as well as "momentum."

"I think it's the quality more than the momentum factor," Joe said.

"I thought they had to have both," Judge said.

Joe said, "They can have both, but one could be more of the contributing factor into why it is added into the portfolio than the other."

Bryn doesn’t opine at all on where TSLA is going, instead just brags about past trades

Judge on Wednesday's (11/2) Halftime Report asked Bryn Talkington, who was actually at Post 9, about the JOET's TSLA move.

Bryn, who did look dynamite, didn't opine in the slightest on whether this was a good move but boasted "I think I traded Tesla really well" (or better than the JOET did), saying she bought TSLA at 115, 150 and 170, then sold calls, "2 of my positions got called away at 220 and 190."

The JOET added OXY and PXD; "we really maintain the energy overweight exposure," but this is a "prove-it quarter" for the sector, Joe said.

Bryn said she favors the RSPG so her portfolio isn't overweighted by XOM or CVX.

‘Stocks have probably seen their high for the year’

"Stocks have probably seen their high for the year," contended Rich Saperstein on Wednesday's (11/1) Halftime Report, saying the bond market is "where the action is."

Steve "Recession" Weiss didn't quite say that but said it's "unrealistic" to think Jay Powell will give the doves anything. Repeating his newfound favorite line of the last couple weeks, regarding how rates are stuck on high, Weiss asserted, "That die is cast (snicker)."

Later, Weiss invoked another one of his old saws, stating, "Your returns are defined your- by your point of entry. This is not the time to go into the market." (Note to viewers: Returns are also defined by where you sell.)

At the top of the show, Joe Terranova announced, "We learned what $2 billion is worth to the market. It's worth 15 basis points lower."

Joe said the TBAC (Zzzzzz) (not an acronym heard on the show every day) is "recognizing" that on the long end, "demand is beginning to wane."

"The mutual fund selling is over," asserted Bryn Talkington, pointing to Oct. 31, and now there's "seasonality kicking in."

But Bryn predicted a "lid" on stocks because of the endless federal stimulus from the "American (sic probably meant 'Inflation') Recovery Act."

Did Tepper tell Judge how to hire a coach and draft a No. 1 pick and win NFL games?

Judge on Wednesday's (11/1) Halftime Report aired Dubravko Lakos' clip from a day earlier about how "cash is king"; Judge asked Joe Terranova about cash vs. bonds.

Joe said, "For the answer to be cash, you have to believe that the environment over the next several years is stagflation. I don't see it that way," and that over 12 months, "the better opportunity, absolutely is in the bond market."

Bryn Talkington said she'll "take cash and some munis all day long on the short end, and then equities longer term are the best hedge against inflation in the public markets."

Rich Saperstein said the risk of cash and short-duration bonds is "simply reinvestment risk."

Judge aired Stan Druckenmiller's clip from early in the morning. Judge said it "smacks" of what Tepper told Judge a couple weeks ago, "different environment, different multiple."

On Wednesday's Closing Bell, Judge brought in Jeffrey Gundlach for post-Fed commentary and asked about Dubravko's cash assertion. "I don't think you wanna be in cash," said Gundlach, explaining that "your interest rate, which is very attractive presently, may decline quite substantially next year." He'd rather be "in something that's about 2-3 years."

Final Trade: Jethro Tull

In the 17th minute of Wednesday's (11/1) Halftime Report, Judge really got into the JOET rebalancing.

The JOET sold TSLA; "a breakdown in momentum," Joe Terranova said, reaffirming, "This is a momentum-based product with a defensive layer being added upon it, which is the quality factor."

Joe said he and the JOET got in to MRK at 74.50 and got out at 102; he said "the momentum has broken down." The JOET also bought LLY, VEEV and ZTS.

Joe cited the "slowdown in Asia" for the JOET's sale of NKE. "We entered the trade at a poor price," Joe admitted, "somewhere around 124."

Joe said ULTA is "quality" and "trades at a reasonable valuation" but "the strategy doesn't like turning winners into losers."

Bryn Talkington stated, "The market's saying, Nike and Ulta are sells right now."

Steve Weiss said HUM to him is a buy but in this market, you've "sorta got to wait around." Judge said HUM has been a "tread-water trade" this year. Weiss said it hasn't been for him; "Your point of entry defines your return," and he got in that trade at a "pretty good spot."

Weiss said HD is a "permanent compounder," yet another of his favorite slogans.

The Final Trade was a Laff-a-Lympics as something really hilarious was going on during the commercial break. We did hear Rich Saperstein say "Aqualung."

On Closing Bell's post-Fed edition, Jeffrey Gundlach, as he's prone to do, launched into his take on Jerome Powell before Judge could even ask a question. "I think the market likes 'carefully,'" Jeffrey said, noting "the yield curve is completely flat."

Jeffrey said he's seeing "almost on a day-to-day basis now that people are realizing that this interest expense problem is starting to come home very quickly." Jeffrey says we're at "Defcon 3 ... about to go to Defcon 2" in terms of debt.

Icebergs, not cubes: Jim still thinks streamers are good businesses when they’re all (except NFLX) massive money-losing quagmires (a/k/a ‘disagreeing’ here is the same as ‘dismissing’)

Love it or merely like it, DIS is generally an interesting company to discuss.

Especially on Tuesday's (10/31) Halftime Report, when Josh Brown and Jim Lebenthal clashed over someone's downgrade.

Josh said he really wants to buy DIS; "I think we're close," but he thinks he can get it "low 70s." (The only problem with that theory, which Judge didn't mention, is that Brown wants to buy it now in the low 70s; if it does get there, it'll be because of some kind of news that'll make people hold their noses about it including Brown.)

"The problem with Disney is that the news keeps getting worse ... you have melting-iceberg businesses," Brown said. "ESPN is going to be a problem," and while Nelson Peltz is a "positive development ... I also don't think he has the answer, uh, to what should be done."

Jim first stated that people made the case for the melting iceberg/ice cube (Brown said "iceberg," but Jim seemed to think he said "Ice cube") about newspapers in the '90s, and "that was right."

But Jim said he doesn't think DIS will go down newspapers' path and made his usual case for Hulu (Zzzzzzzzzzzz) and predicted DIS will "monetize ESPN."

Jim said, "The linear business, it's wrong to call it a melting ice cube (Brown didn't call it a cube, but whatever). It's being transformed into a different substance, namely streaming (snicker)."

Stephanie Link said DIS has "a lot of debt."

Brown stressed profits that now come from ESPN. Jim told Josh, "I get your point; it's very well made."

'But you do dismiss his point though," Judge correctly said.

"I'm not dismissing it. I'm not dismissing it. I'm disagreeing with it; that's a big difference, OK," Jim said.

"Streaming profits from Hulu will never offset" what DIS is losing from linear ESPN, Brown correctly contended.

Jim said the analyst suggestion of possible negative operating income from ESPN is "too draconian."

As time ran short, Brown did do a kick-butt transition to the commercial and Santoli teaser.

For a Final Trade, Jim was touting CLF. (Not PARA.)

Viewer tip: Everybody on TV who owns a stock that gets hammered on earnings calls it an overreaction

Judge on Tuesday's (10/31) Halftime Report brought in Kevin Simpson remotely to talk about CAT, which was the only the first stock of the day recently touted on the show that had problems.

Kevin said "the real thesis was to hold off and wait for earnings." He said the selloff was "a little bit of an overreaction" but that he's got a "trade teed up" to add, after they "let some of the sellers get out of the way."

Stephanie Link prefers DE to CAT, saying "I happen to like the ag cycle. They're sold out in terms of equipment for 2023. Farmer income is actually off the charts; inflation is coming down," which is interesting, given that DE announced "indefinite" layoffs in September.

Jim Lebenthal assured that the Boeing-Spirit problem will "get worked out" and, invoking his regular steps forward/steps back analysis of BA, said the last couple months have been "one big step back."

On Fast Money, CNBC superfox Karen Finerman said she "sadly" owns Z on a day like Tuesday; she thinks knee-jerk reactions such as this are "overdone" but that it's "far from over."

On May 31, Jenny seemed to complain about having to talk about a bad trade on TV; on Tuesday she eagerly calls in

Late in Tuesday's (10/31) Halftime Report, Judge brought in Jenny Harrington to discuss the VFC report that Jenny touted just a few days ago.

Judge showed a 5-year chart, and Jenny protested, "We only added this a couple months ago," around 19.

Jenny said after this kind of report, you go through the "stages of grief." Jenny conceded the income strategy with the stock is "ruined" because the dividend was cut 70%. But she said the capital appreciation thesis is "mostly intact" and the "turnaround" thesis is "totally intact."

Judge said Cramer is saying the VFC turnaround won't happen "overnight" and will be a "long-term thing," and it "sounds to me" like Jenny's thesis "has quickly fallen apart."

"Not really," Jenny insisted, other than the dividend. (On Friday, Jenny touted VFC's 7% yield.)

Dubravko’s outlook is all based on rear-view mirror stuff

Judge announced Dubravko Lakos, the star guest of Tuesday's (10/31) Halftime Report, as a new Hall of Famer (it's the Institutional Investor All-America Research Hall of Fame), which of course merits congrats.

But Dubravko doesn't seem to think this is a Hall of Fame-caliber stock market.

And, interestingly, the day's 3 panelists at Post 9 seemed to gang up against Lakos' view.

Dubravko conceded, "I am one of the doubters" of outlooks such as Jim Lebenthal's rosy view, citing a "big headwind" of macro.

"Liquidity is getting sucked out of the system," Lakos contended.

Lakos said fundamentals are slowing, not collapsing, with "increasing bifurcation."

Jim says companies have "outearned" the rate-hike lag time and have "cleaned up their balance sheet."

But Dubravko suggested that companies are not growing organically "but just through price."

Jim asked why companies aren't laying people off. Dubravko said "that's the lag effect."

Josh Brown asserted that "small caps are in a bear market already though" and asked Lakos if what he's saying is already priced in. "I think things are definitely getting priced in, but to me that's a worrying sign," Lakos responded, adding "all the returns this year are coming from basically 7 stocks."

Stephanie Link mentioned the strength of the consumer. Dubravko said "the lower 50% is getting squeezed."

Judge noted Dubravko's year-end price target is 4,200. "What if the Fed is done," Judge asked, wondering if the next move is actually a cut. Dubravko said "the Fed may be done" but the back end of the curve "keeps hiking for the Fed."

Stephanie asked Dubravko about a 2024 earnings prediction. He offered "230, with a downside risk."

Dubravko eventually admitted he doesn't necessarily have "high conviction" that the market's going lower, but as for 2024, "I just don't like the picture."

AMD, Zzzzzzzzzz

For those looking for optimism in this stock market, "November's the best month of the year traditionally, December second," Judge declared at the top of Tuesday's (10/31) Halftime Report before asking Josh Brown about Brown's buy of AMD.

Josh said AMD has been on his radar for "a long time," and he's waiting to see what Lisa Su says about AI. He conceded NVDA's lead but thinks AMD has the "best shot" to capture 25-30% of this market over 5 years.

Josh went on to explain how AMD is trying to capture AI share in "inference."

(The Fast Money crew spent the opening minutes of their program talking about AMD.)

Stephanie Link on Halftime said she "absolutely" thinks we'll have a year-end rally.

Jim Lebenthal said ... you've never heard this before ... the economy is better than it's getting credit for; he's looking forward to that Friday labor report. (At least nobody like Joe was getting buffaloed out of the QQQ by a buncha Fed bureaucrats.)

Joe predicts ‘the strategy’ of the JOET will continue to underperform

Well, here's a real vote of confidence.

Asked on Monday's (10/30) Halftime Report about his namesake ETF the JOET, Joe Terranova stated, "Long-only strategies are going to go through periods of underperformance" (which seems a bit of a cop-out), and Joe said that's what's happening to the JOET.

Joe said one reason is because the JOET is equally weighted (which sounds like another cop-out). But it was refreshing that Joe candidly suggested the "conditions" for outperforming "are not in place right now," so he actually thinks "the strategy" will "continue" to underperform.

Jim Lebenthal suggested the labor cost to GM might be $7 billion over 4 years but that GM's combustible engine business has "enormous" profitability.

Jim attributed GM's woeful stock to "slowing EV demand in America." Another way to put it would be, do they have any new products that people are excited about. Jim conceded he's getting impatient with the stock but said he's not selling.

Steve Weiss said the problem with intensive capex companies like GM is that "the margin's very var- very variable."

Jim sold HD because he sees "pressure" on the sector from rates.

Jim actually said with a straight face, "Cisco is the ultimate long-term hold." (Other times during the show, he talked about skating where the puck is going, not where it's been.)

Rick Rieder told Bob Pisani in the sponsored ETF Edge portion of the show that he thinks the Fed is "largely done," and while the long end could creep higher "I don't think we're goin' very far from these yield levels."

Joe a couple times stressed how importance it is that Fidelity Magellan doesn't own TSLA. Weiss didn't seem to think that angle was very important. Judge said "it does say something to me that their top 5 holdings are all megacap tech." Jim said that back in the day, Magellan was big enough where it could even be "defining" where the puck is going.

Weiss said he owns TSLA puts; "that stock's going to 150."

Tepper finally got a win; Judge and Weiss didn’t even mention it

Judge opened Monday's (10/30) Halftime Report asking Joe Terranova about the next rebalancing of the JOET what's the "most important" reason for the day's rally.

"Treasury refunding," Joe said.

Steve Weiss, who cranks up a new slogan about every 2 months, again stated "The die is pretty much cast" for a lower market.

Jim Lebenthal suggested the monthly stock market decline is a "delayed reaction to the debt-ceiling negotiation. I think this is the 4th quarter of 2011, again," Jim asserted.

Judge made some reference to Jim not bringing up air travel for a change. Jim said, "The TSA statistics are through the roof!"

Jim said he's sticking by his year-end 4,450 call.

Joe said he finds the stock market "kinda like the Jet-Giant game." Judge wondered if that means "we'll get more punts than anything else." Neither Joe nor Judge nor Weiss mentioned why Dave Tepper seems to be having so much trouble picking football coaches and picking No. 1 draft picks and winning football games.

Weiss claimed "consumers have depleted their savings" and is back with the old saw about how the "extended lag" between the time of rate hikes and their impact on the economy is taking effect (after he stopped talking about that angle during the summer rally).

Jim said he hasn't been "jabby" with Weiss recently because Weiss hasn't been saying "things that are wrong."

Jim suggested Weiss thinks the Fed will move past normalization, but Jim doesn't think they'll "shoot past normalization."

Jim called Weiss his "frenemy."

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman, like Joe, mentioned the refunding announcement and said it was "fine" this time and that "fine is good" and that the recent selloff just seemed "so overdone" and that the rally "only takes us back to Thursday at 11 a.m."

Your P.E. ratio is not a cause (cont’d)

We found it interesting on Thursday (10/26) when Brad Gerstner sounded so interested in stock multiples favorably compared P.E. ratios of META and NVDA with those of WMT and NKE.

Did he make it sound like these P.E. ratios are some kind of accomplishment? Or catalyst?

It seems like he was trying for the latter. But it's probably more like the former. There had been previously high expectations for NVDA, and those have been realized.

That's rear-view mirror.

We've implored the Halftime Report/Fast Money in the past to tell us what P.E. ratios mean. NOT how they're calculated. Even this page can figure that out.

Tell us why a panelist can tout one stock with a 25 multiple (such as NKE) and another with a 4 multiple (such as GM).

All we've been able to determine ... after decades, frankly, of high-intensity (snicker) research ... is that P.E. ratios are just an effect of something that's already happened, not a cause of something that might happen.

So there you go.

Karen looking to buy next week (a/k/a getting ‘exhausted’ looking at account statements)

Steve Weiss early on Friday's (10/27) Halftime Report said "The die is cast; the economy is going towards recession ... The risks outweigh the rewards."

Jenny Harrington curiously said that on the "human side" of owning tech stocks, "there's exhaustion" and "emotional exhaustion" and that "people are just exhausted owning these."

Kevin Simpson said "our call-writing has picked up actively over the past month."

Bryn Talkington said to expect this kind of rocky market "until bonds settle down."

Weiss called AAPL "overvalued." Kevin said he's been writing AAPL calls "left and right" for a few months.

Meanwhile, Judge said Barron's recommends "stop crying" about bonds and buy them instead.

Jenny first knocked the idea of anyone with a "very long time frame" buying bonds because "all you're getting is 4.9%," minus the inflation. But she said if you're "nervous about the market and it makes you really sick," then you "absolutely wanna buy bonds here." But she doesn't like the "blanket idea" of everyone buying bonds.

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman said, as she always does, "I'm always, always long," so a week like this is "terrible." But, "I'm gonna be looking to buy things next week. Not sell."

Steve Grasso said, "QT is really tightening the market behind the scenes."

Selling LEH seems like it was probably a good idea (at any time)

Bryn Talkington and Kevin Simpson on Friday's (10/27) Halftime Report expressed amazement that Jamie Dimon hasn't previously sold JPM shares. Addressing the newly reported sale, Bryn said we don't know "what's behind it" but that Jamie always seems "glass half-empty" about "geopolitical risks."

Karen Finerman on Fast Money said Dimon "could have begun selling stock already" and "I don't love to see it," but "I wouldn't read that much into it."

Steve Weiss recounted when he was at Lehman telling employees when their stock vested to "sell it" because they're "overextended in Lehman." Then he quickly added, "So, and forget the thing went belly-up."

In perhaps the show's most provocative call, Jenny Harrington claimed that there's "opportunity" in some regional banks that have "really decent earnings."

But Weiss said "there's a cliff coming on in the refi" for mortgages owned by regional banks.

Jenny shrugged that if you "parse through" the regional bank pile, even good ones are getting sold off and that "the kinda cliché is to say oh office debt" but a lot of them don't have much exposure.

"It's not a cliché. It's fact," Weiss said, as Jenny continued to say certain regionals don't have much exposure.

When a trade is both a win and a loss (but not at the same time)

Jenny Harrington on Friday's (10/27) Halftime Report revisited her buys of WHR and SWK, which she announced way back on May 18 to heckling from Josh Brown.

WHR was 133 then, 102 now after hovering around 158 in July; SWK has gone from 83 to 82 but did break through 100 in early August before pulling back.

As for WHR, "I actually added to it," Jenny told Judge.

Judge asked Jenny if INTC has "seen the worst." Jenny, practically beaming, said yes and that she's "finally confident" about taking credit for this trade.

Judge asked Kevin Simpson if there's "doubt" about CVX's deal for HES going through. Kevin said he doesn't think it's so much doubt but "skepticism in how much that transaction will affect the bottom line," a point basically echoed by Bryn Talkington.

No surprise, MRK long Kevin Simpson agrees with the BMO upgrade. Jenny disagrees with BMY being downgraded. Bryn said RBLX would go to 37 "if rates just would settle down." Jenny made VFC her Final Trade and said it reports Monday; that oughta be interesting. Judge said Steve Weiss is "the only person rooting for both the Jets and the Giants this Sunday."

On Fast Money, Steve Grasso brought in the obesity drugs to his argument favoring KO over PEP.

Judge highlights the important parts of Brad’s letter to META in blue

Moments into Thursday's (10/26) Halftime Report, which was curiously held at the Englewood Cliffs site typically manned by Kelly Evans and Tyler Mathisen, Judge said they had "just scored an interview with Brad Gerstner."

It took a little time for that interview to come to fruition.

Once it did, Judge introduced Brad by referring to Brad's letter to META last year. Gerstner said, "I can't believe that was only 12 months ago."

Brad said Zuck and Musk "stand atop the heap of efficiency."

Brad also praised the "outstanding job" by Susan Li in her first year as CFO.

Brad said his letter last year was "one of several calls" to get META to stop the stupid spending make the company "fit."

Brad said META is trading at 15 times and compared it with WMT (23) and NKE (25); "that doesn't make any sense."

Brad wants the Fed to get the message of "enough is enough." He opined, "I think we're at the end of the rate-hiking cycle, though the market has yet to price that in."

Brad said NVDA is trading at the "same multiple" as WMT and NKE.

Brad pointed out that tech giants have seen "multiple compression" this year, not expansion.

Brad said GOOGL has a valuation that makes it "very interesting" and "very compelling," though he doesn't own it. But he said the risk is that other companies' AI competes for those search users. (This writer is long GOOGL.) Bill Baruch made GOOGL his Final Trade and mentioned 120 as the "line in the sand."

‘This is a heavy tape’

Early on the Englewood Cliffs version of the Halftime Report Thursday (10/26), Judge mentioned Joe Terranova (who wasn't on Thursday's show) referring to the "Magnificent 5" on Wednesday.

"Now it's the Magnificent 4 after Meta has a really good report," Judge cracked, stressing he was just talking "about the stock."

Jim Lebenthal said, "All stocks really are performing badly right now. This is a heavy tape. Folks, the sentiment out there stinks. ... It's interest rates."

He's right, it's a heavy tape. Our favorite seasonal theory, expressed by Larry Altman on the program in 2014, is that markets "usually" (not always, but usually) bottom around the 1st or 2nd week in October and March. This year, the October low appeared to be on the 3rd, at 4,216.45, but on the 23rd, we slumped to 4,189.22 and on Thursday hit 4,127.90. This year, March came through; October has been a challenge.

Jim, who always seems to have a rosy economic outlook, said CEOs can't be "ebullient" amid headlines about Middle East turmoil and Ukraine war and the "circus in the House of Representatives," but those headlines aren't more than a "temporary" pressure on markets, rather, what's happening in the stock market is "square on interest rates." (Actually, if Jim is referring to the "circus" of ousting a House speaker, we get that; if he's referring to the replacement process, it's actually not much different than the 2020 Democratic presidential primary scene.)

"It sounds like you're a little dismissive of the macro," Judge said. Jim referred to "real-time data like TSA travel account, I mean it's extraordinary (sic) high."

"That's not going to dictate what this economy as a whole does, because people are on airplanes," Judge countered. "You can't constantly go back to TSA numbers."

"I don't disagree with you ... I'm telling you, the labor market is the most important thing," Jim said.

Bill Baruch curiously suggested "I think the Fed is about to get a gift."

Noting Thursday's GDP, Bill said, "We're expecting 2% in Quarter 4," adding this observation that doesn't sound all that scientific: "Culturally, we've seen an evolution of how money is being spent," including "people going out to happy hours," but now we'll see "people hunker down for the holidays."

Wall Street investors have different goals than attorneys general who like financial settlements

On Thursday's (10/26) Halftime Report, Josh Brown said AWS is the "make or break stat" for Amazon.

"It's up a lot year to date," Brown pointed out.

He's right, although it's made that climb quietly, as no one on the show has talked much about it this year.

Judge and Jim Lebenthal tangled for minutes over whether Amazon's results from Web Services or Amazon's take on the consumer would be more important.

Karen Finerman on Fast Money Thursday said she's long AMZN though "it's not cheap, for sure."

Stephanie Link said, "I think all the FANG stocks are crowded."

Josh impressively summarized the business of LYV and said it "belongs at a hundred or higher" and called the current price "very cheap." (This writer has no position in LYV.)

Josh said AOS made a good quarter out of a tough housing market and said the stock should be on people's "radar."

On Wednesday's (10/25) Halftime, a quiet endeavor that for whatever reason featured Judge in Philadelphia at the Schwab RIA conference while panelists beamed in from pandemic-era home "studios," Jenny Harrington again bragged about owning META a year ago at 90.

Jenny did make a good point, that META is being sued by attorneys general supposedly because it's too "addictive" to young people, while a year ago, people were saying "Hey nobody wants it; nobody uses it."

It was a 1-for-8, not an 8-for-1

Just before Judge and Jim got into it on GM on Tuesday's (10/24) Halftime Report, Stephanie Link said GE is "humming."

Judge and Stephanie traded guesses about what the GE "split" was; Judge suggested "10 to 1" and Stephanie suggested "8 to 1" and then Judge said "something big to 1."

Stephanie was (sorta) right.

Meanwhile, Judge noted GM is down, "what else is new," directed at Jim Lebenthal.

Jim touted GM cash flow and asserted, "The stock's down because the UAW strike." Jim said GM was trading 4½ or 5 times before the strike; Jim said it was trading "more like 5½ to 6 times" and sometimes 7 a while back.

Jim knocked "people who are gonna say, like, oh, hey, you know, this has done nothing for a long time,'" and then invited Josh Brown to ask a question about it, then warned, "Everybody has a stock in their portfolio that has languished despite great, excellent reports. ... Just be careful about throwing stones."

Josh wondered, "Why would these P.E. ratios ever change?" and that if it's all about the UAW, why were these stocks "selling at 10 or 11 times earnings 10 years ago."

Jim said this reminds him of fall 2021 when people said "the same thing about energy."

Karen Finerman on Fast Money announced she has sold her GM stake. "Fatigue is probably the main thing," Karen explained, before offering her own take on the multiple.

"The only way they'll get a multiple for earnings is if they earn- they miss those earnings. Then they'll get a big multiple, however much the miss is." Karen also said GM's EV rollout seems to be "perennially pushed off."

Josh and Stephanie tangle over whether American Express or Discover is more relevant gauge of health of consumers

Stephanie Link tried touting AXP's loan growth gains on Tuesday's (10/24) Halftime, but Josh Brown wasn't letting it go, at least as a supposed window into the economy.

"That's the wrong people to look at though," Brown said. "It doesn't start with the wealthiest people that have platinum cards."

Stephanie said AXP is no longer "super duper high end."

Stephanie tossed in an "oh by the way" on manufacturing PMIs.

Josh said Discover clientele are in "worst shape overall than typically an AmEx user would be."

Judge cited Band of America data showing inflows into ETFs and used a funny voice to say, "For all of those who say, 'Well there's all these opportunities (that would be Jenny Harrington, who wasn't on Tuesday's show), you know it's a stock-picker's market and, under the surface, there's stocks and things you can do,' single stock investments suffered their biggest outflows since August. And I'm guessing the buying of the ETFs probably had something to do with the Q's."

"It's been a lousy investment environment," Jim Lebenthal opined. But he said the economy and profits are doing "a lot better than people have expected for most of the last 18 months."

Stephanie said the states' case against META doesn't change the "narrative."

Stephanie's not sure the 7% MMM dividend yield is "secure."

Despite an opening, no one takes up the subject of whether AMZN’s CEO is hearing footsteps

Josh Brown at the top of Tuesday's (10/24) Halftime Report said the S&P forward P.E. is 17.7, below the 5-year average of 18.7 and "pretty much in line" with the 10-year average.

Josh said earnings misses are being punished more heavily than earnings beats are being rewarded.

In one of the show's most interesting comments, Josh said AMZN has made a "marginal gain" from "not trying to get the packages delivered to you in 15 seconds anymore." And he said the AMZN CEO is "up against the wall."

Stephanie Link predicted a "chase" into stocks into year-end.

But Judge said Jamie Dimon and Ray Dalio are "half a world away" in Saudi Arabia and see "increasing" (snicker) deficits and "elevated rates" and that Dimon is "cautious" about next year.

Josh said the 7- and 10-year Treasury is "extremely attractive."

Surprised Jim didn’t get in a bullish take on PARA

Judge on Tuesday's (10/24) Halftime Report asked Jim Lebenthal about CLF just as Jim knocked his own mike off. Jim gushed about free cash flow and said that it's "the green producer of steel."

Judge asked why CLF is down ytd.

Mike Mayo showed up to talk about what he always talks about, how the big banks are great stocks. (This writer is long FAS.) He said downward earnings revisions may be in the "8th inning."

Jim admitted BA is "tremendously disappointing over the last 2 months." Jim said it's trading like it was 3 years ago and stock sentiment is "absolutely terrible."

Joe suggests Judge is ‘carelessly’ making trading predictions

On Monday's (10/23) Halftime Report, amid a discussion of AAPL-China, Joe Terranova stated, "I'm a big believer that momentum within the market does matter."

"It does until it doesn't," Judge stressed, and we couldn't agree more with that statement.

That describes momentum trading perfectly.

Anyway, Judge stated, "Tesla's down 15% in a week." Joe said he acknowledges that but "I don't think that's a case for each and every stock."

Judge insisted "fundamentals can trump technicals" and noted AAPL being down 7 straight days; "if it's a good report, who cares about the fact that the technicals haven't looked great and there's been downside momentum in this stock. Because you know exactly what's gonna happen on the other side of that earnings report, if it's a positive report."

"You never know exactly what's gonna happen No. 1, so, don't- don't- don't carelessly make that statement when it comes to trading," Joe said.

"You know exactly what I mean," Judge said.

"You said it!" Joe said.

"You know exactly what I mean," Judge repeated.

Joe said AAPL is "trading in my opinion based off of technicals." Joe suggested that the report can be "the determination factor on where the next move is for those technicals," which is a clever way of saying that yes, maybe fundamentals are more important.

Judge asked about the "bad" non-momentum of Big Tech entering 2023, and then "what happened when the AI stuff came- happened. What happened."

Joe said you had to "quickly acknowledge that momentum had reversed." Joe said the new momentum "did stay in place for the better part of 7 months."

Joe at one point chuckled to Judge, "I guess you're in Jimmy Lebenthal's camp last week where we (sic) basically said we don't look at charts."

Judge at one point mentioned something Dave Tepper told him "on the record, you know, a few weeks back"; apparently David hasn't told Judge when the Panthers/Frank Reich are going to win their first game. (We're thinking, this weekend.)

Joe, Weiss disagree on whether NFLX earnings report is representative of market reax

Judge on Monday's (10/23) Halftime Report couldn't help but ask Joe Terranova yet again about unloading the QQQ. (It's called "trying to time the market" or "being buffaloed by the Fed.")

Joe first observed, "And that's quality," for those who weren't aware.

Joe suggested he might've been "early" on that trade and went on to say, "the potential is there for this quarter to be a good quarter."

"When you're early, trading, you're wrong. I mean that's, that's just what it is," Joe continued, suggesting he might be "right about the overall direction."

Judge noted how TSLA is doing. Steve Weiss said his biggest regret about that is that he got stopped out of his TSLA short. "I still think that's overvalued by at least a double," Weiss said, before bringing up his "permanent compounders" thing again.

Soon after, Joe and Weiss got tangled up in a little donnybrook over tech earnings.

Joe contended, "You are not getting rewarded for good earnings." Weiss countered, "Netflix has held their pop, right."

Joe said, "That's 1 stock in isolation of the 25% of the S&P that's reporting."

Weiss said, "How many have reported? Of the big-cap techs? 1."

Joe insisted "the negative impact of Tesla" is a bigger deal than Netflix's report.

Joe also stated, "Let's be careful with this Foxconn news" because, Joe said, the founder has entered the Taiwan presidential election. Weiss brought up one of his favorite themes, whether China would say "I'm gonna invade Taiwan at some point" and how all kinds of entities have operations in China.

Weiss’ bitcoin trade gaining enough steam that it might join Call of the Year race

Right after the A Block on Monday's (10/23) Halftime Report, Judge demanded Joe Terranova explain why he sold EQT. Joe said "there's 2 reasons" (Zzzzzz), one is that nat gas volatility increases during this season (translation: it's probably going lower) and also he wanted to "offset" his unhappy feeling (snicker) from bailing on the QQQ by ringing the register.

Both CVX and HES are in the JOET. Joe said the move is reflective of the "dominance" of American oil giants. (We were surprised that Joe didn't actually say that "Hess is tethered to the spot price of oil.")

Addressing the downgrades of RF, Liz "Take a Stand" Young said these reports won't "shock" anyone, however, as far as regional bank stress goes, "this isn't over."

Joe said if you're interested in getting into regional banks (snicker), don't buy an individual bank, rather "your first move" is into the ETF.

Steve Weiss' Final Trade again was bitcoin; he's on a hot streak there.

Boy, Bill really moved the market

Liz Young, who generally speaks only in sectors (Zzzzzz), said on Monday's (10/23) Halftime Report that the stock market is in a "whipsaw environment" in which the market's debating if we're "OK with the 10-year going down, or OK with the 10-year going up."

Judge said people he spoke to were saying that "Bill Ackman moved the market (snicker) today."

Joe Terranova stated, "I think it's a great trade by Bill."

Steve Weiss opined that "what you're seeing are algos drive (sic not 'driving') the market up," and "no fundamental investors" are going to buy stocks here.

Weiss said if he did a "read-through" of Bill's statement, he thinks Bill is saying "Don't put money into equities." (Yeah, we're sure Bill would agree that that's what he really was saying.)

Judge said we can "move away from Ackman, you know, the person for a moment and just talk about the idea."

Weiss claimed, "With free money being around 15 years, people just aren't paying attention."

Fed speakers buffaloed Joe out of the QQQ

Friday's (10/20) Halftime Report included panelists at Post 9, but it was Joe Terranova, summoned from his pandemic-era home office, who made the early headlines.

Judge said he was "so surprised" to learn Joe sold the QQQ. Judge told Joe, "You must have turned bearish on the- on the overall market then between now and the end of the year. ... Explain."

"No I wouldn't- I wouldn't say that I've turned bullish on the remainder of the year-" Joe started to say.

"Bearish. Bearish. Bearish," Judge corrected.

"Bearish, rather, bearish. It's- Scott it's one of those days," Joe said. "Um, so I wouldn't say that I- I've turned bearish on the remainder of the year. Um, I- I still believe that if in fact we're gonna see a 4th-quarter rally, it's gonna come from technology and communication services."

Joe explained that he was in QQQ "around 368, but here's where I ran into a problem ... I tried to defend that position" ... and now we've got a "new dynamic from the Federal Reserve which seems as though they don't want to quit."

Judge wondered if Joe and others were doing a "misread of sorts of Powell." Judge said Jay wasn't "overly hawkish" but "he just wasn't as explicitly dovish as some had portrayed the prior speakers leading into Powell."

Then Judge, using a funny voice in the first portion of this quote, indicated those Fed folks were saying, "'Well, the bond market's done all the work for us so we don't have to do anything, we can just sit tight,' that was pretty much what the other speakers have said."

"This is probably the bottom" for the QQQ, Joe lamented, because he "liquidated."

Meanwhile, "The big thing is rates," said Josh Brown.

Kevin Simpson offered, "I think we're talking about a year at least where we're gonna have rates higher."

Shannon Saccocia seems to think we're "putting Fedspeak behind us."

Weiss: Traders have to be ‘crazy’ to be long going into this weekend

Judge and Steve Weiss tangled over the significance of Silicon Valley Bank during Friday's (10/20) Halftime Report.

Judge stated that the problem for the Fed is, "There's too much demand." But, "They can't afford to have a credit event."

Weiss contended that SVB's situation was "blown way out of proportion in terms of its relevance to the financial system. We're not gonna have a credit event in the financial system," though there could be something "isolated."

Judge countered that "SVB was but a small snowball which started to roll downhill, which became a giant snowball because it spread to the-"

"That's where we disagree," Weiss said.

"What about- what happened to First Republic. Where's that?" Judge said.

"First Republic was in the same trade as SVB," Weiss said.

"If the Fed didn't step in, you think everything would've just been, been just fine?" Judge demanded.

"I don't think it would've been a major credit event. Absolutely not. We're gonna have to disagree on that," Weiss said.

Maybe the final tape on Friday indicates he was right; Weiss stated, "If you're a trader, how crazy do you have to be, you know, how ignorant of risk management do you have to be to go into this weekend long with what's happening in the Middle East."

Weiss would ‘buy more’ bitcoin

Kevin Simpson, who hasn't been on the Halftime Report for a bit, said Friday (10/20) at Post 9 that he likes SLB and calls the selloff "certainly an opportunity."

Steve Weiss asked Kevin how this is an "opportunity" in a market that's "tenuous at best, at very best."

"I like stocks to go higher," Simpson explained.

Kevin also bought CAT; he'd been looking for a pullback. He's got DE too. And he bought "oversold" KO and made a reference to the recent "obesity completely cured" mindset. He sold LMT because of "horrible" price action.

Judge asked Josh Brown if he owned SLB "not that long ago." Josh said, "Like 5 years ago."

Josh and Weiss both touted the UBER upgrade; Brown said "it's mispriced and going higher." (This writer is long UBER.)

Rather than own individual fast food players, Brown prefers TOST.

Kevin Simpson touted V; Weiss said it's a great company but hasn't been a great stock. Simpson said it's up 12% this year; Weiss said "the market's up 20."

Simpson and Weiss agreed on UPS being a good stock, though Simpson said he loves it while Weiss merely said it's "OK."

"I don't believe in the use case for bitcoin," Weiss reaffirmed at the end of the show. But "I would buy more," because he thinks it keeps going higher in wake of the court ruling.

Brown said Morgan Stanley surveyed 2,000 people with student loans and that "34% told Morgan Stanley, they can't make any payment at all."

Yeah, but Bob Weir doesn’t go to Nick Timiraos to auction guitars (a/k/a We might raise, we might not raise, etc.)

Thursday's (10/19) Halftime Report was supposed to open with Steve Liesman reading the embargoed prepared remarks of Jay Powell (it did) and then, shortly after Steve was done presenting those remarks, cut away to Powell's appearance at the New York Economic Club for a live broadcast of the Q&A.

But protesters disrupted Powell's speech, so Steve, plus guest host Frank Holland's Post 9 Halftime crew, had to fill about 20 minutes opining on Powell's comments and the Federal Reserve in general before the Q&A could begin and continue through the end of the show. (The odd thing was, the Q&A ended honestly at a more perfect show transition point to The Exchange around 1 p.m. that even most CNBC hosts can't pull off.)

Frank asked Steve whether Powell's remarks lean dovish or hawkish. Steve got out of that jam by stating the speech "leans very neutral."

Joe Terranova said when Steve was speaking, Joe was only focusing on the 10-year yield. Joe said market speculation is "overwhelmingly short Treasurys."

Jenny Harrington thinks the "neutralness" is "where we are."

Jim Lebenthal bluntly stated that Powell's remarks were "kind of a muddle."

Jim said he's "sorry to bring up a competing news outlet" and that "Steve does a fantastic job," but "when the Fed wants to make sure there are no surprises, it will go to Nick Timiraos."

Steve deadpanned, "I'm not insulted by what Jim said, much, no problem with that ... no worries Jim, I'll- we'll talk later." Steve explained that he reads the remarks as indicating the economy hasn't weakened enough to keep the Fed at bay.

On Fast Money, Steve Grasso said "QT is the elephant in the room" and that "Powell never speaks about QT."

Karen: NFLX is ‘pulling away from the streaming pack’ (for those who might’ve thought otherwise)

Wednesday's (10/18) afterhours earnings reports and subsequent CNBC commentary pretty much verified the point made often on this page that NFLX is a giant and all other streamers are basically ... worthless. (This writer has no position in NFLX.)

Karen Finerman on Fast Money said NFLX is "just really pulling away from the streaming pack." Guy Adami agreed and said if DIS bounces on this report, "it's probably somewhat misguided."

Netflix ace Rich Greenfield said it feels like NFLX is "running away from the pack" and that "everybody else is literally (sic) running for cover."

Asked about who could be runner-up in the streaming world, Rich offered DIS (snicker). Our question for Rich is, wouldn't DIS be better off folding this quagmire of a business division and simply licensing the content to NFLX or AAPL. No one asked Rich that question, but he did pose a question himself ("What exactly is Disney trying to create?") while basically hinting that Iger will overpay for (who cares) Hulu.

Weiss is bearish; Jim is defending airlines (sounds like all of 2022 or beginning of 2023)

"Today's an ugly reversal. Today is not a day for the bulls," Joe Terranova said at the top of Wednesday's (10/18) Halftime Report, which featured Judge back at Post 9 after his trip to Beverly Hills.

Joe called the 10-year yield a "challenge" and "problem" for the stock market.

Jim Lebenthal suggested markets were "on edge" because of "the Middle East." But Judge said "rate creep" will weigh on sentiment.

Steve Liesman mentioned Waller's remarks and indicated the Fed will remain patient, just what everyone wants to hear.

Judge didn’t bring back a whole lot of scoops from his Beverly Hills trip

In a discussion of (often) hot tech stocks on Wednesday's (10/18) Halftime Report, Bryn Talkington suggested TSLA and its margins can be volatile in the near term; she wants to see what the company is "doing on the AI front (snicker)."

Joe Terranova opined that TSLA "is more about price momentum" than the fundamentals.

Steve Weiss said of TSLA, "I just wouldn't own it here, plain and simple." Judge and Weiss quibbled over Tesla's charging network, as Weiss mentioned Volkswagen's and Judge scoffed, "Who's talkin' about that?"

Judge told Bryn "there's literally (sic) (snicker) no margin for error" with NVDA. Bryn noted that the 200-day for NVDA is "all the way down at 340." Bryn predicted people who got into NVDA later this year will be "shaken out."

NVDA long Jim Lebenthal protested, "If you want these sorts of returns, you have to put up with volatility."

Joe said he's been advocating for AVGO as a "reasonable valuation alternative" to NVDA. (Yes, because P.E. ratio determines whether a stock is going up or down, right Joe?)

Airlines might indeed be a great trade/investment, but Jim hasn’t identified when/why

On Wednesday's (10/18) rerun of a Halftime Report episode, Jim Lebenthal said airlines are "very profitable companies" and the stock slides this week are because of Middle East news reports. (This writer has no position in airline stocks.)

Judge countered that "Maybe it's false hope," citing airlines' stock performance over the last 3 months.

Judge added that Bryn Talkington calls airlines "destroyers of wealth."

Jim said he's "not a big fan" of evaluating stocks on their prior returns, as Bryn was doing. Judge said "I was gonna agree with you" about the past-performance-is-not-indicative thing, but then Judge said, when it comes to airlines, "it actually is! indicative of future returns."

Jim said tech "darlings" were "dogs" last year, now look at them. Steve Weiss told Jim that he should look for "permanent compounders" such as UNH. "You're lookin' in a rear-view mirror," Jim shrugged. Weiss said airlines should trade at mid-single-digit multiples. Jim said airlines have been paying down debt. Weiss insisted "past is prologue."

Later in the show, Judge said Jim was "very excited" about Bryn having to defend RBLX. Bryn praised RBLX's back-to-office edict and said "they continue to do better and better" but admitted "there's no e" in the P.E. ratio.

Weiss actually says to buy bitcoin

Judge on Wednesday's (10/18) Halftime Report read comments from James Gorman saying M&A and underwriting will "explode" as soon as the Fed indicates it has stopped hiking.

Steve Weiss shrugged off the comment because he said a bank CEO has to be an "optimist."

Jim Lebenthal said he had to disagree with Weiss on the impact of rates staying higher; "I think the Fed's close to done." Jim said James Gorman is "spot on."

Bryn Talkington sold GS, saying she doesn't see a "catalyst" to drive the stock but rather "a lot of headwinds in general."

Weiss sees "nothing but headwinds" for big banks and no "tailwinds." He said MS is on his "radar" but he's got "time to get in."

Joe Terranova said JB Hunt earnings were "worse than awful."

Asked about UBER on Grade My Trade (Judge admitted "we haven't done this in a while"), Weiss said it's fine for the long term but "not a great stock for this environment." (This writer is long UBER.) Bryn gave herself and a viewer an F for owning DVN.

Weiss' Final Trade curiously was bitcoin; he said "there never will be a use case," but there's a "scarcity" with ETFs looming.

Brian Moynihan apparently said something profound

Just as this page predicted (see below), West Coast Judge wasn't available to host Tuesday's (10/17) Halftime Report, so it was Courtney Reagan who got the nod (in fairness, this page did predict it would be Frank or Dom). (Courtney had to zip over to the Nasdaq to guest-helm Fast Money later.)

Amy Raskin said there are signs NVDA is "weakening" and having owned it for 10 years (of course, the stock doesn't care how long someone has owned it), she's been trimming. Amy suggested it could have a "peak multiple" on "peak earnings."

NVDA long Jim Lebenthal explained, "My thesis was not- on Nvidia was not predicated on sales to China." Jim asserted that the news of NVDA having a "potential" China problem is 6-9 months old.

Brenda Vingiello would be more likely to add to NVDA than be trimming.

Joe Terranova, back at Post 9 instead of at his pandemic-era "office," said he owns chip names through an equal-weight strategy. Joe said the "real story" is the "remarkable resiliency" in the overall market on the heels of this semiconductor news.

Kristina Partsinevelos, who got significant air time at the top of the show, said Joe's right about how there's not a "blanket restriction" on chips and China. "The U.S. is being pretty vague right now," Kristina explained.

Kristina said VMW was down on rumors that the AVGO takeover could be derailed by "Chinese regulators." Kristina said that could be "retaliation" from China, or just a "rumor."

Steve Liesman said basically no one thinks the Fed will hike in November, but some think they may hike in December or even January.

Jim revealed, "I am still bullish." But, "I do worry about the regional bank system." Steve said it's fine for regional banks to "slow down" lending a bit; "it's not fine if there's a blowup."

Amy Raskin said Brian Moynihan's comments "were very profound and very important, saying spending is slowing."

Brenda Vingiello said JNJ will have a "talc overhang ... for a few more quarters."

Amy Raskin has a "core position" in NKE despite trimming early in the year. Amy said NKE is "well-positioned" to go DTC.

Courtney Reagan asked Joe about the JOET's ownership of UAL. Like he always says, Joe said that a determination on the stock will be made at the end of the month.

Joe urged Jim to "talk about" his airline stocks. Jim chuckled to Joe, "You have a future in politics." (Hmmm, well, MCC challenged AOC, so maybe Joe ...) Jim said "this cycle is far from over," and he was referring to airline booking strength, not the stocks.

Brenda Vingiello mentioned Ozempic (which almost went the entire show without a mention) in offering MDLZ as a Final Trade.

Jim actually mentioned Grade My Trade. It seems like that feature has been quietly dwindling away.

Karen Finerman on Fast Money said Wyndham is basically saying about the Choice offer, "Pay us more, and we'll do it."

Many anchors travel to global
hot spots; Judge goes to ...
Beverly Hills

Judge opened Monday's (10/16) Halftime Report in Beverly Hills at the CAIS Alternative Investment Summit (which didn't look like it was as much fun as Future Proof), one of what must be about a half-dozen West Coast trips this year (so much for Weiss' and others' contention during the pandemic that there wasn't going to be any more business travel and that everyone will just use Zoom), which often knock Judge out of the action for at least a day to return, so expect Frank Holland or Dom Chu on Tuesday.

Anyway, Judge opened demanding Rob Sechan explain whether we're "set up" for a Q4 rally or not.

"I think It's possible," Sechan said, really going out on a limb. (#answerthequestion,Rob)

Rob said if stocks do rally to July's levels, then valuation becomes a concern.

Rob said that over the last 2 years, "Markets haven't gone anywhere," nor have they gone anywhere since June. So you have to be "a lot more selective."

Josh Brown said he didn't intend to start off disagreeing with Rob, but Brown doesn't see valuations as a "problem." Rather, Brown said the potential market problems would be a "rate spike" or "commodity spike."

Brown said a VIX of 17 in this environment is "absolutely remarkable."

One of the casualties of Judge's trip is the fact no one's at Post 9, which means panelists such as Joe Terranova were back in their stale pandemic-era home TV fixtures.

Referring to stock market giants, "It's rare that leadership would change this late in the year," Joe offered, from his pandemic-era office.

Joe said he likes the "entire dynamic of how we're set up here today."

In his best question of the day, Judge asked Rob Sechan, "Why does money keep going in, into the megacap names."

"Because they're delivering on earnings- the earnings growth!" Rob chuckled. But Judge said "The prevailing thought in many corners is, don't make it harder than it has to be."

Judge said Jonathan Krinsky, unlike some with rosy outlooks, is saying it's "just a matter of time until winners succumb (snicker)."

Rob eventually said "we're set up for a modest run" that will only get "maybe back to the July highs."

Shannon Saccocia opened by mentioning the "oscillation" (snicker).

Cathie Wood: ‘It does seem like the consumer is starting to give way here’

The much-anticipated Cathie Wood interview on Monday's (10/16) Halftime Report was initially conducted by Bob Pisani during ETF Edge; Bob's mike wasn't working for his opening sentence, creating a brief Shields & Yarnell routine.

Cathie, an extremely elegant Wall Street figure who looked striking on Monday, said "hopes are rising" for a bitcoin ETF approval because SEC communications have indicated a "change of behavior."

Bob said ARKK is up 20% and has been "outperforming the S&P" despite having outflows. Cathie said "there are a couple of things going on."

Cathie said in late '20/early '21, "the flows were enormous into our funds" and "I was uncomfortable at the time, uh, uh, because we thought there was a lot of momentum, uh, chasing going on. ... This is sort of the flip side of that. Uh, we're feeling much more comfortable right now."

Cathie predicted bonds will rally "at some point."

Bob actually called Judge "Scott Cohn" (he's semi-retired now) (except for the state ranking thing) and didn't correct himself. Judge asked if Cathie doesn't believe in a higher-for-longer rate outlook. "I don't," Cathie said. "It does seem like the consumer is starting to give way here."

Judge asked Cathie "do you regret" selling NVDA. Judge said Cathie called it "really expensive" but Judge said the forward P.E. is "literally half" that of TSLA.

"This is portfolio management," Cathie said (it's really not, but whatever), asserting that "upside surprises" for TSLA over 5 years are going to be "substantially more" than for NVDA.

Cathie observed, "ChatGPT could be the best thing that ever happened to Google ... or it could be the worst thing."

Joe links LULU to GLP-1

CAIS honcho Matt Brown told Judge in Beverly Hills during Monday's (10/16) Halftime Report that instead of 60/40 portfolios, we're seeing a "rise" in the "3-dimensional portfolio" that goes 50/30/20 in which the 20 of course is alternative investments.

(Judge said they're talking about "hedge funds ... private credit ... private equity" when he should've just said "1952 Mickey Mantle cards.") (We think those are taxed at 28%, which probably frightens a lot of people away, even though they seem to go up about a hundred percent a year, but whatever.)

Giving Matt Brown a chance to talk about the services that CAIS provides, Rob Sechan said CAIS deals with a lot of "boutique-y" RIA shops and that there's "huge selection risk in the, in the alts space."

Michael Nathanson, also in Beverly Hills, said he'd be "hesitant" to say 60/40 is "dead" but that it's "certainly evolving."

Joe Terranova said viewers need to think about LULU in a "nuanced way" (no, not about being a "footwear company") in that it's "benefiting from the GLP-1 weight loss drugs," yet another new angle in the weight-loss-drug story.

Weiss exits JUST,
blasts Martin Whittaker

Judge on Friday's (10/13) Halftime ran into confusion about Steve Weiss' positioning in Goldman Sachs.

Judge initially said he had on his sheet that Weiss owned BAC and GS. "But then something else I have says you sold Goldman Sachs."

"No I cut it back," Weiss explained.

Moments later, Judge admitted, "I read my sheet wrong. You- Goldman- The thing you sold relative to Goldman was the Goldman Sachs JUST U.S. large equity ETF. The JUST. Tell our viewers about that."

"I sat on the advisory board," Weiss said, explaining that JUST was created by Paul Tudor Jones "to drive equality in the workplace and, and, adjust the capitalist environment." Weiss said he "stepped off" the investment advisory board of JUST on Friday "because of what's happened in the Middle East. This is a point you have to take a stand. And, Just Capital in my view has become politicized by supporting, uh, Black Lives Matter, which supports the PLO. So they've strayed from their mission in my view. So I'm no longer supportive of it. They've been completely silent. I exchanged emails with, with Martin Whittaker, one of the founders with Paul Tudor Jones, today, and he said, his exact words were, 'Uh, I don't think that we could drive the dialogue by saying anything.' Are you out of your mind? Are you kidding me? Now's the time where you say something. ... This is a time to take a stand. And, he is not taking a stand, and their mission has become blurred and sidetracked. So, I resigned from the advisory board today, and I sold the shares. Period."

"OK. All right. Um, well thank you for updating that," Judge said.

Jim has ‘faith’ in David Calhoun

Jim Lebenthal and Steve Weiss argued over BA on Friday's (10/13) Halftime, with Jim making the same argument he always does, which goes basically like, 2 steps forward and 1 step back, but the maintenance problem is going to be solved and just wait till they start raining cash with deliveries.

"Over the last year and a half, I have learned to trust this management," Jim actually said with a straight face, adding he has "faith" in David Calhoun.

Weiss wondered, "When do you say no más ... Don't forget, he was visible on the board when the whole debacle happened."

Jim then claimed, as though he believes it, that "industry insiders" tell him "this is a culture problem that goes back to the acquisition of McDonnell Douglas in 1999. ... It takes years to turn it around ... He is turning it around."

Weiss correctly said that argument "doesn't hold water" because the stock did "tremendously well" until the Max tragedies.

Joe Terranova noted the stock's in the same place as a year ago. Jim insisted BA is "delivering planes." Judge then took up Joe's comment and made a statement: "Who cares if they're delivering planes in and of itself if the stock price isn't delivering for you." Judge lumped in automakers and airlines. Jim invoked the "long-term investor" defense and concluded with "cash flows."

Judge quickly grows weary of Weiss and Jim’s hectoring

Friday's (10/13) Halftime Report brought together Jim Lebenthal and Steve Weiss for a few debates, starting at the top of the show.

"Inflation is indeed a little stickier than expected," Jim said, but he doesn't think it's "fatal" for stocks.

Jim noted that next year is an "election year"; Jim asserted that Fed officials will be "hard-pressed" to create a recession that would be "necessary" to get inflation to 2%.

Weiss said, "Even if rates come down a little bit, it doesn't matter: The economy is going into recession."

Well, Jim has a better point there. But if there is a recession next year and Joe Biden is campaigning against ... hoo boy ...

Weiss was going to badger Jim a little bit at that point, but Judge told Weiss, "Dude, just frickin' go, man ... stop with the stupid comments and jokes, just make your point. C'mon man, seriously." It must've worked, because Weiss and Jim cut the b.s. to such an extent they were practically having a formal argument over BA.

Weiss suggested there are "risks" from the Middle East that could send oil to 150.

But Weiss said "I understand being bullish. I'm not advocating selling everything."

Joe eventually backs in to a market call

Early on Friday's (10/13) Halftime Report, after Jim Lebenthal (bullish) and Steve Weiss (bearish) had expressed market views, Joe Terranova embarked on a speech, offering, "Positioning is coalescing around Steve's bias."

But then Joe said, "I think, the 4th quarter's gonna be a strong one."

Then, we got the ol' rate-hikes-are-just-beginning-to-be-felt argument as Joe stated, "The lag effect of what the Federal Reserve has done in my opinion is already beginning to take hold within the market."

But then Judge said he didn't want it to get "buried" that Joe said the 4th quarter will be strong. Joe cited "historic highs in terms of short positioning" in S&P futures as why Q4 figures to be strong.

Bryn Talkington first said the "ingredients" aren't there to get an all-time high this year as Joe interjected that "we're not goin' to an all-time high." But Bryn said "quite a few" are calling for that. (We haven't heard anyone on the show say it.)

Bryn conceded "you definitely have the seasonality." She does think it's a "lower probability" we go into recession, citing fiscal stimulus.

Bryn said the Fed might be done raising rates, but the market may not be done, a point Judge harped on.

Jim said the 10-year being at either 4.85% or 5.25% isn't a "systemic fatal flaw" that will short-circuit a stock rally. Bryn said, "The issue is the last 13 years at zero."

Bill suggests PXD deal could ‘sort of’ fall apart

Bill Baruch, appearing remotely on Friday's (10/13) Halftime Report, bought SHEL and sold PXD. Bill said the latter could have a "10 or 15% drop you know just because the deal sort of falls apart."

Bill also got back into AMD as part of the "AI catch-up trade."

Jim Lebenthal said "at some point" the UAW strike will be settled.

Judge launched into a (sleepy) debate in which he said Joe Terranova is long DHI and LEN and Steve Weiss is short ITB. Joe argued that the "overall macro environment" hurt the stocks. Weiss said he's also short the XHB, which he noted is "really a retail index." Weiss said he agrees with the supply problem but that mortgage applications have taken a "nosedive" and that homebuilder stocks are basically just proxies for rates.

Weiss brought up Ozempic in the UNH discussion. Weiss said UNH is a "permanent compounder." His Final Trade was HUM, which he said has many of the same tailwinds.

Jim said VRTX has "a lot of shots on goals- goal coming up, and some of them are gonna hit the net."

Joe said ISRG has "a tremendous amount of tailwinds behind it." But Joe said biotech has been awful this year, and that's an issue.

Judge promised Cathie Wood on Monday.

Joe talks with Larry Altman, notes the ARKK fund is ‘unfortunately’ down

The most important comment in the Halftime/Closing Bell/Fast Money sphere in a few weeks came in the form of a revelation on Thursday's (10/12) Closing Bell from Joe Terranova.

Joe told Judge, "I had a conversation with Larry Altman, who you know Scott," about the Treasury auction and when they could ever remember "that type of a catalyst from a (sic) auction on the equity market overall."

Yes, Judge indeed knows Larry; for some reason, Judge never brings up that in 2014, Larry told Halftime viewers when markets typically bottom, a sensational blueprint that appears to be deadly accurate twice this year, as it tends to be in most years.

Joe continued on Closing Bell, "It sets up November 1st to be arguably the most important business day of 2023," which seems like a bit of hyperbole.

Joe on Closing Bell cited everything that was down, including unprofitable tech, DOCU, TOST and "unfortunately Cathie Wood's ARKK fund."

Judge unable to get Stephanie to declare boycotts a big problem for TGT

Stephanie Link on Thursday's (10/12) Halftime Report said TGT has made progress on "inventory issues."

Stephanie shrugged offf Judge's suggestion of a "boycott" impact on TGT, which Judge actually suggested the company maybe "doesn't recover" from, "period. End of story."

Stephanie said boycotts have "died down a bit" and she's more concerned about theft.

Judge persisted that if you have a "cohort" of people who won't shop there, "there's very little you can do to reverse that," and he's not sure that story has "fully played out."

Judge first mentioned Brian "Moynihan," then corrected to "Cornell." Stephanie said traffic and transactions "can improve" and said the company can "right-size the inventory." But Stephanie said maybe it doesn't get back to previous multiple.

It’s basically a Fast Fire, but whatever

Judge on Thursday's (10/12) Halftime launched an intriguing feature to correspond with "1 year since the market bottom," asking panelists to defend positions in some bad stocks.

Judge started asking Jim Lebenthal about a rather obscure name (to the point we don't recall ever hearing it on the show), MP.

Jim said "I didn't buy it a year ago" but conceded it's down since he bought it.

Even so, "you hang onto this," Jim declared, calling it a "3-year story."

It's an interesting stock. (This writer has no position in MP.) Seems like it may be nearing a multi-year low but like any commodity stock, is always capable of taking off.

Meanwhile, Jim called PARA "a mangy, flea-ridden dog" and admitted to Judge his thesis on the stock was "blown out of the water."

Still ... as always ... Jim insisted PARA is trading "way below what a 3rd-party company would, would pay for it in a private market transaction." (First, the thesis was all these subs; then it became buyout target because everyone wants to overpay like Iger did for Fox.) Jim said consolidation is necessary in this industry and PARA is an "obvious choice" but consolidation hasn't happened because of the strikes.

"This is not the right price to sell it," Jim concluded.

Moving on, Judge said MMM is down 18% in the past 12 months. Stephanie Link lukewarmly said she still likes MMM but that it requires "patience."

Judge also said CVS is down 19% from the year-ago bottom. Jason Snipe said it's actually down 23% ytd. But he said it's slightly up in the last 3 months. Jason says he's still holding and thinks the market has "mispriced" the stock this year.

Judge's chart showed the big winners since the October 2022 low as NVDA up 311%, RIG up 170%, META up 157% and GE up 123%.

Judge thinks Jim maybe is ‘too quick’ to declare Goldilocks

Judge opened Thursday's (10/12) Halftime Report telling Shannon Saccocia it seems like a "push-pull" in the stock market.

Shannon said "there's an oscillation" (snicker).

Jason Snipe offered that "We're heading into a new normal" of interest rates. He's leaning "slightly bullish" for this quarter.

Judge suggested to Jim Lebenthal that maybe "normal for longer" is the right market description.

Jim, who said nothing about a "face-ripping" Q4 rally in this program, pointed out that only tech was lifting the S&P and that small caps were having "not a good day" because of a "bad CPI report." But Jim stressed that "the consumer is employed" going into the holiday season and income is going up.

Jim concluded, "In a tie, the bulls win."

Judge wondered if Jim is "too quick to try and latch onto a Goldilocks narrative," because inflation "may be too sticky for the Fed."

Jim conceded he felt better last Friday than he did on this Thursday, but the CPI "doesn't upset my bullish sentiment." In fact, Jim said PPI is "so much more below where CPI is." Jim also said "Atlanta Fled (sic, corrected)" at one point.

Stephanie Link, appearing remotely (living room/pandemic era), said, "We can handle the rates, uh, and that's where the bears were wrong."

Stephanie Link mentioned "all of the onshoring."

Jason Snipe sold BAC. Jim said "Don't be scared" by the amount of banks' loan-loss reserves because they're tied to recession concerns.

Judge pointed out that "one of the biggest sales pitches" for banks is "always" that they're "trading below book value."

Jim said DAL is trading on the "presumption" of a recession and that Ed Bastian says "Demand is pretty darn good."

Judge said "Stock's down 26% in 3 months." Jim conceded "it's very frustrating." Jim said international travel is above pre-pandemic levels. Jim indicated he would start thinking he's wrong on airlines if the recession risk ramped up.

Judge asked Jason Snipe about slow subs for NFLX's ad tier. Jason asserted there's "so much upside potential there" in the ad tier, as well as the password-sharing crackdown.

Judge said Jefferies made a "big cut" in its NFLX target from 520 to 445. Jason said a lot of headwinds are priced in. Jason still likes UNH and called it a "mainstay" for his portfolio.

Fast Money spends 20 minutes on Ozempic et al without offering any trades (unless you count Guy Adami saying MDT ‘swung way too far’ or Karen saying LLY is ‘a bit frothy’)

In the category of missed opportunities/called 3rd strikes, Wednesday's (10/11) Halftime Report waited until the end to take up Ozempic and the shock waves in pharma stocks, and the 5 p.m. Fast Money crew was more interested in NVDA than any pharma stocks.

Joe Terranova on Halftime said the presence of Ozempic is causing medical-device stocks to "implode." Stephanie Link at least said she'd buy ZBH on weakness.

In other matters, Joe did mention the "Roaring '20 (sic "20" not "20s") mentality," the first time we've heard Roaring '20s (or something close) in months, maybe all year.

As for the economy, Stephanie Link said, "Some of the Fed members are a little bit more dovish, right."

"I don't know if they're dovish. Maybe they're less hawkish," Judge chuckled.

Joe said of the Fed, "I think they pause."

Joe said he agrees with Barclays that a "satisfactory" earnings season is good enough. But Joe's concerned about being "front-loaded (snicker) with earnings."

Joe complained that momentum is "overwhelmingly red" for the "awful" airlines.

Liz Young, in stunning new hairstyle, said consumers have "tapped out" their travel budgets and the bull case for airlines has "completely played out."

Joe said he's "a little puzzled" why PDX is trading below the buyout price, which maybe suggests the market thinks it doesn't get done.

Joe said it's "somewhat surprising" that Birkenstock demand was "below the range."

Stephanie added to MS, which Joe sold about a week ago with BAC (for those keeping score; we weren't, for those particular stocks).

Joe said he likes Stephanie's buy of MCD better than Morgan Stanley's upgrade of CAVA; "I would be waiting here a little bit longer before stepping in" on CAVA."

Stephanie bought PH. Joe said it's a "great-looking chart."

Stephanie sold SCHW. (Of course, it was at a gain; she said she "made about 12%").

Joe's looking for a breakout in ADBE.

CNBC's gorjus Kate Rooney reported on the juicy details from the Sam Bankman-Fried trial. Judge called it "just incredible testimony."

The Sidd Finch of pro football

It started during the flawless preseason, only to be completely upended by the Week 1 manhandling by the San Francisco 49ers. And now it's ... barely ... back:

Optimism around here that T.J. Watt could somehow carry the Pittsburgh Steelers into the Super Bowl much like Ray Lewis did for the Baltimore Ravens in 2000.

After entertaining that notion for a few moments this week, reality hit in a big way:

No one can beat the Kansas City Chiefs. Not for the next 5-10 years.

They've somehow got the all-time perfect QB. It's a skill set no one's ever had in pro football and, over the course of a game, it's indefensible by the current entire rest of the league. It's like a baseball team having a pitcher who throws 168 mph and can pitch every other day.

This does NOT mean the Chiefs are going to win EVERY game this year and for the next 5-10 years. There will be some L's. There's only one way to "beat" them. Hope they have a bad day. A couple of those happen each season. That's the only way they lose. That's the gift that Cincinnati got in the 2021 AFC Championship. It's like being a 75 golfer and playing a guy who's a 66 golfer and hoping you can shoot 72 during the one round he shoots 73. It's possible one of those lapses happens in a playoff game and they would eliminate themselves from the Lombardi Trophy competition. Fans of other teams can always hope.

That's what we'll do. What choice do we got?

Jim starts up an argument with Josh, only their 2nd of the day

Sarat Sethi on Tuesday's (10/10) Halftime made the case for PEP, but it was 2 other panelists who took up the bulk of the conversation.

Josh Brown concurred with Sarat and said he doesn't believe that diet drugs will wipe out snack-food craving, though there could be "some behavioral changes at the margin."

But Jim Lebenthal said "Bah!" on KO and PEP; "I hate these 2 stocks," though "I don't think you're gonna lose money on it."

Josh argued that PEP has long had a premium valuation to the market but has "significantly less of a premium valuation now" than in the last 3-5 years.

Jim said if you buy the shares now, in a year, it'll be "like watching paint dry."

Josh asked Jim if GM is "exciting."

Jim said, "Yes it is exciting" (snicker).

Josh said, "It's the same price for 13 years."

Jim said, "That has no bearing on where the price is going. (snicker) ... I didn't mean to turn this personal (snicker)."

"It's not personal; I was gonna bring it up," Judge cut in.

"I'm being serious," Josh continued, adding that GM has been range-bound at 30-40 for 13 years.

"That has no bearing on where it's going next," Jim said.

Sarat said he owns staples, conceding they're "boring" but a good "fit" for a diversified portfolio.

Josh redirected the conversation to Jim, concluding, "20-year average annual returns of 9% on Pepsi. I don't understand how that's boring. It makes absolutely no sense to me."

Jim said, "Well then why don't you buy some shares?"

"I may," Brown said.

Josh and Jim’s first argument only took a couple minutes to get underway

Josh Brown barely took 2 minutes at the top of Tuesday's (10/10) Halftime Report to find an argument with Jim Lebenthal, as Brown began the show citing "yields" and the "steepening in the bond market" as the catalysts for Tuesday's rally.

Judge introduced Jim as "Jimmy Goldilocks." Jim first said the markets have rallied this week "primarily" because yields have come down and that they've come down this week because of the "exogenous issue in the Middle East."

Jim said that if CPI on Thursday comes in "softer than expectations," then the market will "put to bed the idea that the Fed's raising rates anymore."

Brown, who had tried to cut in and disagree during Jim's remarks, cited Jefferson's and Logan's rate comments and said he disagrees that geopolitical reasons are the "sole reasons" that rates have dipped. As Judge pointed out, Jim didn't say "sole," though Judge didn't mention that Jim did kind of imply it.

Sarat Sethi said if we get "softening" inflation data, we "could be off to the races, at least for the short term." (Or, we could've just waited for the calendar to hit 1st/2nd week of October and wait for the big whoosh down (that was Friday) and call the short-term bottom that way; see below.)

Jim at one point claimed that "at the beginning of this year" there were "how many" people saying there was "100% chance of recession." (Actually, we don't remember anyone saying "100%"; that would be an obvious front-runner for Bust of the Year.)

Karen Finerman on Fast Money Tuesday reiterated her "surprise" at how much the stock market has moved recently and cautioned "it could all go away with a bad number" in CPI.

‘There always has been and there always will be’ antitrust shadows over tech giants (a/k/a Jim and Josh seem to agree on PYPL but still nearly argued about Venmo)

Judge asked Josh Brown on Tuesday's (10/10) Halftime Report about GOOGL or META having a "reasonable price."

Brown said "they don't really have huge problems hanging over their head, yes, there's like an antitrust thing out there, um, but there always has been and there always will be."

Kari Firestone pointed out how Google searching already gives users suggested questions/answers. "You can type, 'What is Scott Wapner's', and then 'birthday' it will give you, and then you're gonna get the birthday, right?"

Indeed. And other birthdays too. Check out the image above.

Sarat Sethi said GOOGL should trade at 30 times, but it's lower because of "potential government intervention" and "competition" and "cyclical exposure."

Sarat bought FCX, a name Steve Weiss was in and out of this year (it was Weiss' name for saying "See even though I'm bearish I still own stocks and look for opportunities"), citing a better balance sheet than previous years and demand for copper. Sarat suggested this could be a "3-year hold."

Judge struggled to get an opinion from Kari on FCX (apparently, the gag was that Kari didn't recognize the ticker symbol) to the point he spun around in his chair.

Josh Brown said he has "no" interest in FCX.

Kari said ORLY is "definitely best in class" despite underperforming the S&P this year. Kari agrees with the Cowen outperform call and said it "has more to go" and the UAW strike could be a "positive" for the stock.

Judge asked Kari about PYPL, which got a reiterated buy from Mizuho and somehow a 92 target. Kari said 92 would be "great" and pointed out the stock was once $400; Judge shrugged that "Netflix was 700 ... come on." Kari insisted there's "plenty of room" for PYPL gains.

Jim Lebenthal said he sold PYPL a couple years ago and right now sees "no moat to competition." Jim said Zelle is "easier" than Venmo.

Judge said to chuckles that Jim says Venmo is "too difficult." Jim protested that he said it's "annoying," though he hadn't actually said "annoying." Judge said "it's really easy."

"This is not for me," said Josh Brown of PYPL.

For Final Trades, Josh put a 150 on GOOGL. (This writer is long GOOGL.) Sarat's Final Trade was UBER (this writer is long UBER), which included a curious rationale of "back to the office." Jim's Final Trade was NKE and Kari offered CRM.

DIS has a streaming quagmire that Iger should fold, license the content to highest bidder (cont’d) (a/k/a ‘how should I know how much capital Nelson Peltz has’ other than ... looking it up) (a/k/a Iger’s gonna be there 15 more years)

We thought the DIS discussion on Monday's (10/9) Halftime Report would center around Nelson Peltz, but Jenny Harrington was more interested in ... (Zzzzzzzz) ... valuation.

Jenny told Judge, "We think Disney's found its bottom," which is basically what Jenny's been saying for months. The rationale this time was not betting against New York City, "The entire share price is trading at 15 times just the parks. That's not counting streaming, that's not counting ESPN. There is value to those, however you cut it."

Well, there's no reason to count streaming, it's basically the equivalent of Google's driverless cars or space program that can't make a dime but feels like "something we should do" and in Disney's case only happened because Wall Street knuckleheads demanded it and a buncha CNBC hosts kept saying on air (not the exact quote), "Oh, when they do streaming, I'd pay a HUNDRED dollars for it with my kids," which is fine except most people aren't CNBC hosts.

Judge questioned Jenny bringing up DIS's ytd return with those of NKE, MCD, HD and SBUX. "You're really comparing it to those companies in terms of thinking where the stock is gonna go?" Judge asked.

"The fact that it's not down as much as those ... I would've thought it'd be down more," Jenny explained.

Jenny's comments about DIS basically had nothing to do with Nelson Peltz, although Jenny said she looked up Peltz's record in the last 10 years and said his activism hasn't really "juiced" returns.

Joe Terranova said he's "not taking a position" but until DIS restores the dividend or sells ABC or finds a "strategic partner" for ESPN, curiously, Joe said there is still a "Peltz Put in Disney" that is "absolutely gonna be there."

"What is the Peltz Put?" asked Steve Weiss. "How much capital do you think he has?"

"Call him and ask him," Joe advised.

"I thought you knew because you said there's a Peltz Put," Weiss said.

"You're the one asking that question ... how should I know how much capital Nelson Peltz has ... he's active in the market at a certain valuation," Joe protested.

"OK, but you can see how much capital he has, No. 1, it's not unlimited capital," Weiss countered.

Then Weiss cut to the chase, which he alone on the show has stressed recently: "I don't know how much value to assign to streaming. It's losing money with no road to profitability in sight," Weiss said.

Weiss offered this strategy moments later: "What if he spins off the streaming business with embedded contracts with their production. And make it a good-bad- good bank/bad bank type of situation."

The "embedded contracts" sounds too complicated. It's more simple. Fold Disney+ and offer the library (and future programs) to the highest bidder, which will be either Netflix or Apple and let them spend the gobs of money on customer acquisition and retention. (Check that — if it's AAPL, let the wireless carriers cover that cost.)

"They still have a lot of debt," Weiss said of DIS.

Judge made Jenny's earlier point that DIS is only valued on its theme parks. Weiss said he'd like to buy the stock, but "I'm not so sure the downside is done."

As for Peltz, Weiss said "it's great to have a fresh set of eyes" at DIS. "Let's not forget that, that, that Iger came in and just criticized Chapek. Guess who put Chapek in there. Guess who groomed him. Guess who went into streaming. Guess who cut the deal with Fox."

"We know. Bob Iger," Jenny said.

Josh Brown said he's "with Team Weiss" on DIS; "I don't think we've had the washout yet" and there's "a little bit of amnesia here," because Peltz already fought a proxy battle with DIS and the stock fell 25% "after Peltz backed down." Brown said Peltz backed down because Iger laid out a $5.5 billion cost-cutting plan, which nevertheless has been "mission accomplished."

Brown said Peltz can't push board nominees until January. "Nothing is happening here from a proxy standpoint," Brown said.

Judge claimed with a straight face, "They need to figure out who's gonna take over for Iger." Brown said, "They're already there," explaining that Iger bought out the consulting firm of the "2 heirs apparent."

Josh pronounced "either" as "eye-ther" during the DIS discussion.

On Fast Money, Tim Seymour said exactly what Jenny Harrington said hours earlier, stating that given the value of Disney's parks, "you're getting the entire rest of the company for free."

Karen Finerman said, as to the question of whether Peltz is the answer, "I don't know, but he's not the problem." Karen said Peltz has a "decent shot" of winning at least 1 board seat, and another voice on the board may be "beneficial."

"He's certainly not the problem," Guy Adami agreed with Karen.

Judge tripped up on AAPL, clumsily makes Weiss’ point for him

Steve Weiss on Monday's (10/9) Halftime Report sold NVDA basically because of his "cautious view on the market." Weiss somehow with a straight face wondered "who the marginal buyer is for a trade."

Weiss boasted to Judge about how he doesn't have to own all the megacap techs. "I don't think I have to own Apple," Weiss said. (But maybe he should; maybe it has the "Peltz Put.").

"You should own Apple; it's up every day since it got downgraded last week," Judge said.

"OK thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna hire you as my deputy portfolio manager since you have so much spare time," Weiss told Judge, which is a twist since months ago when Weiss suggested Judge could be a bank examiner.

"Nobody can analyze Apple. They don't- management doesn't talk to you," Weiss stated.

"It's not like some black hole," Judge protested.

"Apple exists, OK, at the pleasure of the telcos," Weiss said, "because they subsidize the buying of it," a point he's made over the past ... oh ... 15 years.

Judge pointed out those "same issues" have been present with AAPL over the years, and Weiss has owned it "many many times."

"I'm not an index manager. I'm not gonna own indexes," Weiss said.

"I didn't say you had to own indexes. We're talking about Apple," Judge said.

"You basically said, 'Why don't you own Apple?'" Weiss said.

"I didn't say 'Why don't you own Apple,' I said- you're saying I don't own Apple because it remains at the, the, the mercy of the telcos. ... It's always existed then."

"It's overvalued," Weiss bluntly declared.

"See, we finally got to the point. It's overvalued," Judge said.

"I've made that point multiple times. I'm sorry you don't recall," Weiss said.

Then Judge, after badgering Weiss on this subject, somehow decided to make his argument for him: "You owned Apple when the valuation was half of what it is now. Now it's overvalued, but then it wasn't? C'mon Weiss."

C'mon what? That makes perfect sense.

"Let me just repeat that," Weiss said, saying those statements by Judge were correct and now it's "overvalued."

Still paying attention to the calendar and those 1st- or 2nd-week of October bottoms

Karen Finerman on Monday's (10/9) Fast Money raised eyebrows when she noted we've had a "pretty big reversal" since Friday morning, and "This mini-bounce I think is near the end."

We were thinking just the opposite, given Larry Altman's analysis of market bottoms (see below) and how that theory once again seems to be occurring right in the calendar sweet spot.

At the top of Monday's (10/9) Halftime Report, Joe Terranova curiously said the "safe haven trade" is "clearly in place" and he sees a "disinflationry trend" and "slower economic growth."

But Joe said there are "strong tailwinds" in the Magnificent 7 and "the defense stocks." Joe bought the ITA.

Joe told Judge he views this as similar to (his longtime favorite) "Palo Alto" and CRWD as a "longer-term trade."

Jenny Harrington said consumer sentiment "feels horrible," and when that's the case, people won't pay previous valuations.

Steve Weiss, in the first of his tangling with the host Monday, questioned Judge's statement that there's a "low bar" for earnings expectations. Weiss said expectations are going to be up for the first time in a year; "how is that muted?"

Judge said "Right but they haven't turned hard" and are just "barely a tick higher." Weiss said he doesn't believe the earnings recession is over and the market is "wildly complacent."

Weiss said Jay Powell is "targeting the jobs market" and "he's not having success there." Judge said Powell is having success from the standpoint of wages. Weiss said "wages will follow" and said the jobs report was a "blowout number" and "this number should not have been a blowout number."

Weiss kept saying, "We don't know" what'll happen in the Middle East.

Josh Brown, however, pointed out there's been a "whole range of market reactions to these types of events over the years."

Brown said 1973 was different because of the oil embargo; in 2014, the markets recovered quickly because "this is of course not to be callous at all," but "it's tough to shock investors with the same news over and over again."

Josh said he doesn't see "any complacency" in bank stocks.

"There's a lot of damage and destruction all over this market. It's just being masked by a couple of megacap names that have held up really well," Josh explained.

Joe Terranova suggested earnings disappointments are the biggest risk to the market, but last week, "We got a little bit of an indication that potentially, maybe, the Federal Reserve was beginning to pivot in their thought process."

Uh oh. Someone's already talking about a "pivot."

Judge told Joe "you call it a pivot," while Mary Daly said the recent spike in rates is like a hike.

Jenny predicted possibly some bond buying on Tuesday. Joe said bond futures already indicate as much.

The Morgan Stanley guy found a new way to get mentioned, issuing a report recommending dividend-paying stocks. Jenny said Mike took the Russell 1000 back to 2000 and found dividend-paying stocks rose 1,200% while non-dividend-paying stocks were up 500%. "I think that surprises people," said Jenny, who said some people may be surprised by the volatility in some seemingly sleepy dividend stocks. If those people can "kinda ride out" the rough patches, "they're going to get a really nice return," Jenny said.

It sounded like Jenny was trumpeting dividend payors including partnerships and REITs, for those who find even the ridiculous "qualified dividend" machinations on their tax form irritating.

On Fast Money, Karen Finerman lamented not buying WW when Oprah boosted it to $11 years ago, not realizing it was headed to $100.

Joe (and Santoli) pronounces it ‘eye-ther,’ while Judge pronounces it ‘ee-ther’

A mini-donnybrook got started on Friday's (10/06) Halftime Report after Joe Terranova stated that there's a "yellow light" in the oil market.

"We're kind of in a neutral state where it could go either way," Joe said.

Josh Brown then offered the downward stats in oil while painting a rosy outlook. "Crude oil peaked on September 27th at $93 a barrel. Oil is down 12% since then," he said, adding that "only 9%" of the XLE components are above their 50-day. But Josh said these are still some of the cheapest companies in the market and that the IEO companies collectively are at a single-digit P.E.

"These stocks are gonna work so long as there's no major breakdown in the price of crude ... I don't see any reason why there would be," Brown said.

Judge then asked Joe if he disagreed and said he "must," as Judge told Joe; "You think the momentum's done."

"No, I did not say- I never said those words. I didn't say 'the momentum is done,'" Joe said. "I've told- I said the momentum that has been in place since April of 2022 has been neutralized. We're in a position right now where we could go either way. ... We can go in either direction right now."

"Well I mean, we could do this, we could do that-" Judge started to say, looking up at the NYSE ceiling.

"It's not a light switch. It's not on or off. That's how markets work," Joe explained.

"... The rain could stop. The sun might come out," Judge continued.

"You're wrong. You're wrong," Joe insisted.

"Well what do you mean, you're the one saying-" Judge said.

"That's not how markets work! Markets don't always go bull to bear," Joe asserted.

Josh cut in, saying "Joe is exactly right" about oil stocks' momentum; Josh said he's not "countering" that; Josh just happens to think these are going to be good stocks.

Then Judge declared, "My point is that Joe manages an ETF, OK, based in large part on momentum, OK. (Actually, no, Judge's point, a correct one, is that Joe is simply dodging making a call on oil.) If he deems the momentum to have broken down, right, he's gonna have to make a decision on Halloween as to whether when he rebalances that ETF whether he takes those energy stocks in the ETF and kicks 'em to the curb. ... It's a dicey decision because as Joe clarified to me, that means that he could still go either way ... he might not have the luxury" of waiting till next year, which Josh predicts will be good.

"Great explanation. Great explanation. You're a hundred percent accurate," Joe praised Judge.

"I agree with that, but the thing is, it's not a 'dicey decision,' because Joe is running a rules-based portfolio," Josh said.

"No, but the last thing he wants to do is get rid of energy stocks and then see them run, run af- right after he gets rid of 'em!" Judge said.

Judge added, "It can be painful. THAT'S my point." (Actually, his point was that Joe was bailing on making a call on crude and basically providing zero trading advice.)

"Absolutely, and I wear that," Joe chuckled. "I'm just telling you, crude oil is in a critical place where it can go in either direction right now." (In other words, Joe is still bailing on making a call on crude.)

Is Friday the bottom?

While this page continues to keep an eye on Larry Altman's 2014 comment about when markets typically bottom (hint: we're basically there, or very close), Joe Terranova opened Friday's (10/6) Halftime saying, "Maybe we're not gonna wait until October 13th for the 1-year anniversary of the 2022 low to bottom, and we're just gonna do it today," a suggestion Judge did not pursue nearly vigorously enough.

Joe stated that "this is very strong price action" that suggests we're "certainly building a base in which we can rally through Q4."

Joe said "the real story here" is about whether next Thursday's CPI report can "incentivize buyers to come in and absorb the tremendous amount of supply that we're seeing to fund the deficit." (Ah. OK. And we just thought that as of Friday, everyone has stopped talking about the deficit.)

Judge said the jobs report is "exactly" what Jim Lebenthal had been talking about. Jim wasn't actually on the panel. Moments later, Jim called in and credited Josh Brown for suggesting a day ago that algos could take over early trading Friday before humans got control. Jim said these are "good inflation numbers" and, with a little productivity, "this inflation problem can go away pretty darn quickly."

"I'm very bullish right now," Jim said.

Josh Brown pointed to TGT as to whether consumer headwinds have been priced in; the stock has "literally has lost almost half its market cap since January."

But Brown said, "It turns out, U.S. companies are extremely good at passing on higher costs themselves to the consumer. They really have not had any problem doing that."

Judge and Shannon Saccocia parsed over differences between "megacap" and "larger cap."

Mike Santoli said "The morning was really interesting" in terms of trading; he said "you definitely could spin it either way," which sounds no different than Joe's waffling like l'eggo my egg'o on the direction of crude.

Nothing this time about the Fed’s ‘stupid messaging’ (or Atlanta GDP)

Steve Liesman got some extended time on Friday's (10/6) Halftime Report; Judge asked Steve, "Is this Goldilocks for Jay Powell?"

"Um, I don't think he would say Goldilocks," Steve started to say, but Judge said, "I know he wouldn't ... that's why you're here."

"I think the job numbers are still stronger than he wants them to be," Steve opined, but, "so long as we're doing these kind of numbers and not driving up the wages, then I think he'll abide (snicker) it."

Steve said the 10-year "really round-tripped. ... I don't know what happened around 11 o'clock." Steve said the "odds-on bet" remains no hike.

Josh Brown said he doesn't think payrolls is "the thing," rather, it's "average hourly earnings," which Brown said "came in exactly where we needed it to come in quite frankly ... trending in the right direction."

Moments later, Judge suggested Powell might be "feeling rather victorious at the moment." Steve Liesman countered, "I think he's a little more nervous than that."

In a bit of a speech about the things the Fed and economists care about, Steve said, "You are asking him ... to abandon this supposed relationship between job growth and inflation." Steve said if any Fed chair would do that, "this is the guy" and "I think he's open to it," so "this may be a moment that he lets it run to see how it comes out."

Nevertheless, Steve concluded that in order to feel victorious as Judge suggested, Powell's "gotta let something go" and it's "gotta be something like Wile E. Coyote when he gets to the end of the mesa and he steps off and there's nothing underneath him. He's gotta believe there's something underneath him now, and I think that's a tough thing to do."

Hmmm, OK ... if we had to translate what Steve was saying, we think he means that indeed, some people may think it's mission accomplished for the Fed, and it's even possible Jay Powell is one of those people. However, the establishment probably does NOT think it's mission accomplished, so if Powell were to argue "we don't have to care about such and such as much anymore because of ... ," he would only make that argument if he thought there was some kind of establishment support beneath it.

(And what that has to do with Saturday morning cartoons, we're not sure.)

Later, Steve said he wanted to "maybe throw a little cold water on the euphoria here," pointing out that "rates are still higher," which is "almost worse than a Fed rate hike."

"I don't think that there is much disagreement from the Fed on the front end," Steve concluded. "Where there is disagreement is next year."

No updates on the ‘governmental balance sheet recession’

Judge on Friday's (10/6) Halftime stated that Bernstein initiated DIS outperform with a 103 and that Seaport says buy, 93, and no one on the program even asked why this company continues to run a quagmire streaming service.

Judge asked Josh if DIS is "in the process of bottoming."

"I just don't think it's over yet," Brown said, adding we need "actual answers to these big strategic decisions that Bob Iger has to make."

Even so, "All of that negativity's in the stock," Brown said, though he noted that it was only up "a buck and a half" on 2 upgrades. "It's just a heavy, heavy stock," Brown said, mentioning 75 and a future "washout moment."

Joe Terranova said (it can go eye-ther way) if you buy DIS, you're buying it on "value," not "growth." Joe added, "I don't think that Disney's past the worst."

Judge asked Joe about Bank of America reiterating buy at LLY, which the JOET sold at the end of July, which Joe said was "obviously regrettable." Joe said LLY's obesity drug potential is "obviously" going to be a Q4 catalyst, and "certainly there's a green light when you're looking at momentum."

Rattling off the big day in cybersecurity names, Joe said spending in that sector is "almost as if it's a necessity." Joe said to make sure you "size the position accordingly" in those stocks to handle the volatility.

Josh said the PEP chart looks "obscenely overdone."

‘Playtime’ is a famous movie by Jacques Tati

Given a speech at the top of Thursday's (10/5) Halftime Report, Josh Brown said the Fed is "miscalculating" with its "higher for longer" mantra.

"It's really stupid messaging," Brown said, suggesting they can "calm it down a little bit."

Josh opined, "If we get a hot jobs report that contradicts the little bit of relief that we got from ADP in the middle of this week, uh, I think that you- you're, you're gonna make new year lows, uh, in all the major indices ... I wish it weren't so."

But, "We might be helped out by the auto strikes," Brown added.

"The consumer's not hanging in there. The wealthy consumer is hanging in there," Brown said. adding that "all of the strength, ergo, in the economy, is in leisure, is in playtime."

"There is good news out there," said Jim Lebenthal, and that's what he always says, stressing this time, "It can't all be leisure if the Atlanta Fed's at 4.9% real GDP."

Kari Firestone suggested the jobs number could be in a "comfortable" range for the market.

Josh: Same people who screamed about inverted yield curve are screaming about the de-inversion

On Thursday's (10/5) Halftime Report, Josh Brown was pointing out some apparent inconsistency among loud stock market voices.

Brown said, "All of the people who are screaming about long-term, uh, Treasury yields ... were the same people who were screaming about the inverted yield curve a year ago. It's the same people!"

But, if you "hated the inversion, you should really like what's gone on the last 8 weeks," Brown explained.

Steve Liesman said Fed officials' rhetoric has been "neutral" about the rise in rates, but, as Judge stressed that the Fed better be hearing what the markets are saying, Steve indicated that Jay Powell could send yields down with a comment about financial conditions being "too tight."

Josh said every S&P sector is below its 50-day and added that either Petco or PetSmart "went from selling bonds at 3% to 9%."

Josh said all the rate hikes we've had are "biting" based on August-September.

Kari Firestone stressed "we were at 4,588 on August 1st."

Judge promises to divulge his schedule, so panelists can plan their trades around it

Judge interrupted Thursday's (10/5) Halftime Report fairly early with news about the WSJ's report on GM airbags.

Judge then told Jim Lebenthal that the UAW strike "really has no end in sight."

Jim, who's long GM, said he has to "read the article" and needs "more data" before making a "cohesive statement on it." But Jim said this isn't the first time we've had airbag defects, and "usually" the airbag manufacturers bear the "fiscal responsibility."

Meanwhile, Judge said KeyBanc thinks you can buy utilities. Judge asked Kari Firestone about NEE. Kari said she bought when it was "down considerably" (presumably a while ago and not Thursday).

"We think it's oversold here," Kari said, nevertheless promising an "answer" on what to do about the stock in a few days. But as of now, "we think it's overdone."

Josh Brown said KeyBanc upgraded the sector but removed its NEE price target and "cut their rating on that stock in particular."

Jim said NEE is a "fabulous frickin' company."

As for general portfolio, management, Jim told Judge that "I think you were on vacation when I did lighten up a little bit." Judge said, "I'll send my schedule over, later on."

Jim said "it's time to put that money back to work," and he's choosing DE and ORCL.

Josh said "Oracle has some support in the high 90s," and he thinks it'll "kiss that level before turning around."

Jim conceded that even though Raymond James cut its airline price targets, "Those targets are way above where the share prices are right now."

Judge said he wants to tell "the whole story" and that Goldman and RayJa are still "reiterating" a buy on select airlines; this is just "maybe having a bit of a reality check on what the price targets should be."

Why The Eagles ‘Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)’ didn’t get a vote as greatest greatest hits album (below)

A day ago, this page leaped into a comment from Josh Brown about this being a "Greatest Hits Market," briefly speculating as to what actually are the greatest greatest hits albums ever.

Some people wondered about our 2 finalists. OK, nobody actually asked about it, but there was some conversation about it here. First of all, any album collection is a great collection. Second, there have to be hundreds of great greatest hits albums, many of which can probably be heard at CNBCfix HQ.

But a couple big contenders come to mind. The Stones' "Hot Rocks," Al Green, Lightfoot. Simon & Garfunkel. Fleetwood Mac. Of course, The Beatles 1962-1966 and The Beatles 1967-1970. (Notice these collections are all decades old; selections from the era of Napster/iTunes/streaming are too late.)

And the famously massive-selling and famously David Geffen-inspired "Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)."

Eagles members later said they weren't consulted about the greatest hits album and weren't sold on the idea of a greatest hits compilation after just 4 albums. Don Henley objected to the inclusion of a couple songs that were taken out of their thematic concepts from the previous albums. Apparently there was suspicion that David Geffen and/or the label wanted to manufacture an album of low-hanging fruit while the band worked on its next effort, which was going to be "Hotel California." Whatever the motivation, the formula worked; one critic is quoted on the Wiki page as saying "Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)" is so smooth, it makes the original albums "redundant."

But that's the problem. Sure, "Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)" has great songs. But so do those original albums, which to many people, were made irrelevant. The bottom line is that "Their Greatest Hits" encompasses only about 3-4 years of work, includes no concert versions or unreleased material and has no band input. (And when you see the reported sales figures for this album and realize that these sales figures are compiled by private industry groups, you might wonder exactly how these sales are authenticated.)

Jenny doesn’t make a strong enough case to convince Bryn about 52-week lows

Some dueling theories were discussed on Wednesday's (10/4) Halftime Report.

Bryn Talkington said she has a rule, never buy stocks at 52-week lows or short stocks at 52-week highs, but NKE is "something to watch" because it bounced off 90.

Jenny Harrington, on the other hand, said she's a different type of investor than Bryn and thus starts to "perk up" at stocks at 52-week lows.

Jenny said she owns VFC and KSS and cited dividends and new management. Bryn said the dividends in those names allow investors to "be patient," but the stocks need a "catalyst."

Late in the show, CNBC reporter Phil LeBeau asked GM CFO Paul Jacobson, "shouldn't there be a little more urgency" in UAW negotiations. Jacobson said it's been a different "strategy" and a "very different negotiation for, uh, all 3 of the major manufacturers."

Bryn: ‘We are all living still in the past 13 years’

On Wednesday's (10/4) Halftime Report, Judge seemed to indicate that maybe interest rates have had a "hot sizzle" that isn't sustainable.

"We can't watch, Jenny, the yield on the 10-year go up every day," Judge told Jenny Harrington.

Jenny chuckled, "It's funny ... in my old, old office, so probably about 8 years ago, I made a very obnoxious and bold statement, which was, in my career, I don't think I'll see a 5-year Treasury again."

But while that may seem, at the moment, like a bad prediction, Jenny isn't so sure.

"I actually don't see the path to get there," Jenny explained, asserting that the Fed is "essentially done."

Judge then told Joe Terranova that maybe expectations of rising rates are too high; it feels like "too many people have gotten on that, that side of the boat," sort of "potentially overstating the fact that the buyers just aren't gonna be there."

But Joe countered, "Right now, there is aggressive selling, hedge funds we know are sellers of Treasurys. Who's on the other side? Who's the marginal buyer of Treasurys?"

Bryn Talkington basically said to get used to it. "I think that we are all living still in the past 13 years, and everyone's expecting the Fed to start cutting rates," Bryn said. "And all of a sudden, the 10-year goes from 4.70 down to 3%, and we should lock in these 10-year yields. I think that you need to settle in that, the bull market in bonds that we're in for 30 years is over," we're in a new era of "structurally higher rates" and inflation.

Bryn doesn't find a 4.7% 10-year "even remotely interesting."

‘Early stages of a governmental balance sheet recession’

"Right now, it's rates, rates, rates," said Bryn Talkington at the top of Wednesday's (10/4) Halftime Report, but one panelist had a more nuanced way of putting it.

Joe Terranova said, "It is very clear to me that we are at the early stages of a governmental balance sheet recession" and that we could "actually be in that recession right now."

Honestly, we don't think we've ever lived through a "governmental balance sheet recession" before. (Or if we have, thankfully, no one's ever given us a pop quiz about it.)

Citing "25-year low" gasoline demand, Joe said, "The impact of rising rates is affecting the real economy right now."

Joe said the renewable energy trade is "literally imploding." (Um, not exactly "literally.")

Bryn said 4.25% in the 10-year is "now the floor."

Judge read Jeffrey Gundlach's X tweet noting the yield curve is "de-inverting very rapidly" and trumpeting a "recession warning."

Judge said we're "transfixed" by the bond market.

But Judge also noted that Clarida said "the Fed might be done."

Jason Snipe said "I think about seasonality" (uh oh, you know what Weiss says (see below), if all people need is a calendar, then ...), and Jason found that "over the last 40 years, the S&P is up 4.6%, you know, during the 4th quarter." Jason also said, "81% of the time, the S&P is up."

‘Panic selling’ in tech

Judge noted on Wednesday's (10/4) Halftime Report that JPMorgan reiterated its overweight of META despite dropping the price target from 425 to 400.

Jenny Harrington said $400 "sounds aggressive" and her shop has been trimming and "I felt like (her shop was) the only ones who liked it last year."

Judge asked Joe Terranova for the "signal" to start buying AAPL. Joe said "a lot of the problem" is thinking of "positioning" as a "light switch." Bryn Talkington suggested selling calls against an AAPL position.

Joe said he funded his recent QQQ trade by selling BAC and "the biotech ETF."

Judge remotely brought in Bill Baruch, who added to GOOGL. Bill said he thinks we're in the "panic selling" phase and rates are at "peaking level," so he wants to own Big Tech, and he said GOOGL has "relative outperformance" this year against the QQQ.

Joe said he sold MS after owning it for 6 years. Joe said it was about "managing the risk around a portfolio" and also "macro conditions." Joe said he questions how banks are going to grow "organically." Joe suggested that buying the debt of MS is "probably more favorable" than owning the stock.

Bryn said BAC is "trading like a regional bank" and she only owns GS among financials, "that's it."

Bryn sold XBI, "it's really broken down," but she used the funds on the POCT, which uses some kind of call spread to provide some S&P protection that frankly 1) either has no downside based on what Bryn was describing or 2) sounds too good to be true.

Judge says they’ll sort out why he was told Jenny owns SHW

Judge asked Joe Terranova on Wednesday's (10/4) Halftime Report what to do with homebuilders with rates this high. Joe said homebuilders are "moderating gains"; Judge was having none of it and stated that "Lennar's down 10 and a half percent in a month; D.R.'s down 14, is that moderating? What's that?"

Joe said Judge is talking about "price action." Judge said, "Melting." Even Joe laughed.

Joe said the "fundamentals" are good, homebuilders have the advantage of a "very tight residential inventory of homes in the United States." However, Joe conceded, "Have they seen their best moment? Yes they have."

Jason Snipe said LOW is still gaining share in the "pro segment" from HD.

Judge asked Jenny Harrington about Sherwin Williams but probably should've spoken with his producer first. "How you feelin' about that one," Judge asked Jenny.

Jenny revealed, "We sold Sherwin a couple years ago." Jenny speculated that someone made a "typo" in the list of holdings given to Judge because her shop owns SCHW. "We can dissect that whole thing later," Judge said.

Stephanie’s focus is about as helpful as hoping your favorite team wins this week (a/k/a Josh’s eyes indicate disbelief)

On Tuesday's (10/3) Halftime Report, Judge mentioned Jim Lebenthal's standing call of a face-ripping rally in Q4 and how Jim "has gotten more invested in some of those Magnificent 7 names," and so Judge asked Stephanie Link, who like Jim was at Post 9, if that is "the thing that saves the day. Is it chase?"

"No, profits save the day. Earnings save the day," Link said. "Over the long term, stocks follow profits ... that's why it's so important to follow the economy and follow all the data points."

OK. Let's stop right there. It's "so important to follow the economy" ... so that you can buy better stocks than all the other people following the economy?

Anyway. Josh Brown cut in. "In 2022, that didn't help you at all. The Nasdaq fell 35% while we added — added — jobs every month of the year," Brown told Link.

"But earnings fell big time," Link protested.

"No this year! This year! Not last year," Brown said.

"You said 2022!" Link said.

"It- That's my- that's my point. You said 'I focus on earnings,' I focus on jobs.' In 2022, earnings were fine and actually we added jobs, the stock market got demolished. I really- I wish it were that simple," Brown said.

"Earnings- It is that simple, over the long term, Josh. Earnings fell," Link said.

"He asked you about into year-end," Brown said.

"I'm saying, into year-end, into next year, if I think profits are going higher, I think ultimately the market goes higher. That was my point," Link said.

Brown continued to spar with Jim, before the Link argument resumed.

"You're buying stocks based on earnings. That's- at the end of the day, that's what we're pointing out," Link said.

"They don't necessarily move in the same direction," Brown said.

"Yes they do. Yes they do. Over the long term, they absolutely do," Link insisted, before Judge cut to a break.

Well ... as best we can tell, Stephanie is basically saying that teams with the biggest point differential are probably going to have the best records. But how do we know which teams are going to have the biggest point differentials?

What’s the Greatest Greatest Hits Album of all time? We might nominate Allman Brothers or Neil Young, which have ‘Decade’ in the title

Judge on Tuesday's (10/3) Halftime Report said Jim Lebenthal raised his year-end S&P target to 4,450 (Zzzzzz) despite a "relentless" rise in rates.

Jim, who was at Post 9, said he agrees with Brian Belski (Zzzzzzzz) from a day earlier. "What rates are actually saying right now Scott is that economic growth is a lot better than people expected," Jim explained.

Josh Brown said, "The competition from bonds cannot be overstated," and then offered, "Nothing that you see going on right now has anything to do with, 'Is the economy good or not?' 100% has to do with this push and pull over what bond yields are."

Judge asked Brown about NEE, which Judge had mentioned a day ago. Brown called it "a horrible performer in a sector of horrible performers." Brown said it's a "double trouble situation" in which utilities aren't paying enough given today's rates, and also, "they've gotta roll debt," precisely the same observation made hours later by Mike Khouw on Fast Money.

Brown said in the last few weeks, he's been "getting rid of a lot of things that, uh, are non-core." Brown called this a "Greatest Hits Market Environment."

Karen Finerman on Fast Money wished husband Lawrence Golub a happy birthday.

There they go again: When the market stumbles, Judge starts hectoring Jim for his it’s-better-than-people-think forecast

Judge on Tuesday's (10/3) Halftime Report brought up Marko Kolanovic, who according to Judge thinks rates are "deeply restrictive." (A day earlier, Dan Nathan on Fast Money scooped Judge, saying Marko is highlighting the "same things that were being talked about in '07," such as "resilient consumer" and "good jobs setup.") (And the thing is, part of 2016 was probably like 2007 too, and then if you sold on Election Day, you were a gigantic knucklehead.)

Jim Lebenthal countered that a lot of companies have had "meaningful" upward earnings revisions, including ALK. Judge countered that ALK has been "bludgeoned" by rising oil and that "maybe the estimates are delusional. Because the oil price is real."

Jim said "you triggered me, right, because the delusional comment is one that we've been talking about for a year and a half."

"Well I didn't say you're delusional. I said the earnings estimates ... and you know what, earnings estimates for the most part have proven to be delusional. Because they've had to come down."

"Come on, come on, come on," Jim said, explaining that "when we first started talking about 'delusional' estimates like last summer (sic presumably meant 2022 and not 2023), we were talkin' about a major dropoff in estimates this year."

Jim said that people like him who didn't think it would be that bad "were labeled as 'delusional.'"

"It's a word that has often been used when there's a disagreement," Jim added.

Stephanie Link asserted that "energy stocks are not priced to perfection." Stephanie also brought up "the onshoring (sigh) that we're talking about," which (sigh) got Judge going again. "It's not a near-term tailwind by any stretch," Judge said, also saying "neel-term" (sic) (snicker) by mistake.

Jim insisted the ISM "clearly" looks like it's bottoming.

Judge again brought up David Tepper's "from QE to QT" comments last week; "I don't mean to beat it like a dead horse." (If he's looking for fresh Tepper material, perhaps Judge should start questioning the panel about why the Carolina Panthers hired Matt Rhule (check out that record at Nebraska) Frank Reich or traded up to draft Bryce Young and why they're 0-4 and why people who think they can run a football team better than Tepper may actually be correct.)

Josh Brown said it's "worth pointing out" that "things were as uncertain" a year ago at this time as now, "and the stock market bottomed. And most of the big Nasdaq names doubled off those lows."

No one this time suggests LULU is a ‘footwear company’

Jim Lebenthal explained why he bought NKE during the rather argumentative episode of the Halftime Report on Tuesday (10/3). (We thought he was going to say, "Like Stephanie says, the earnings went up over time.") First he said, "Buy great companies." Then he compared NKE with DIS and said the 3-year charts are "almost identical," however, NKE is not going through an "industry transformation."

"I'm getting it at a good price," Jim added. Judge said, "How do you know that?" Jim said he's invested in the company over 30 years, and "historically getting it at 24 times forward earnings, which is roughly where it is right now, has been a win for me."

"I have it as closer to 27 forward P.E., 26.8," Judge said.

"24. 24," said Stephanie Link.

A few moments later, Judge said, "See here's the forward P.E. right there, near 27, I don't know."

"Lookin' at Factset," Jim reiterated.

Josh Brown was asked to weigh in on NKE.

"It's the same chart as Disney," Josh said, adding he agrees with Jim that "it's not the same situation," but he still thinks it gets to 80 before 100. "It just feels so heavy to me."

Josh sold RIG and said there's risk "down to the mid-7s." But he said the company is "doing the right thing." Jim Lebenthal, who has touted RIG for a while, said the company "is doing well."

Jim said airline stocks have an overhang of "how much of a slowdown." However ... stop if you've heard this before ... "I'm not sure Scott that it does slow down."

Judge a couple times kept asking Jim about airlines, if not now, when will they move, given that we've had the "biggest air-travel boom in our lifetimes." (But he didn't say "golden age" this time.)

Judge says Tepper is not ‘overwhelmingly bearish,’ must be referring to stocks and not the 0-4 Carolina Panthers

Judge opened Monday's (10/2) Halftime Report saying it's "not that complicated," rates are up and stocks are down.

Joe Terranova sees no "fundamental catalyst" for falling yields.

Joe pointed out there wasn't really a "safe haven" except for the megacaps.

Judge recalled his Tepper conversation from Friday; Tepper said "It's not that complicated," according to Judge; it's the "QT Era" and "It can't be the same multiple as before."

(Judge apparently didn't feel compelled to ask people whether Dave Tepper's football decisions ... um, that would be hiring head coaches and making No. 1 draft picks ... are as good as his financial decisions, and if not, then why not.)

Steve Weiss said this is a "restrictive monetary environment" and we've got "a lot" more supply from the Fed coming on.

Shannon Saccocia suggested, "This 4th quarter could be a setup for complacency."

Joe said, if this really is "peak yields," then the "real opportunity" is in the corporate bond market.

Karen Finerman on Fast Money said Ford's layoffs in Chicago seem "very political" and are "trying to foment dissent among the rank and file" and "it doesn't bode for a quick resolution, I don't think. Just ratchets up the pressure."

Weiss slams Belski’s reasoning: ‘If we just relied on the calendar, you’d be out of a job’

On Monday's (10/2) Halftime Report, Brian Belski said he's "very comfortable" with 4,550 (Zzzzzzzz) and cited stats about how Q4 in years like these is almost always good.

But Steve Weiss took issue with Belski's Q4 forecast. "If we just relied on the calendar, you'd be out of a job," Weiss asserted.

"Rates are too damn high. Pure and simple," Weiss said.

Along those lines, Weiss also hectored Belski over Belski's new buy of KBH.

Belski said he thinks "KB is very well-positioned" in areas of growing population. Judge pointed out the "overhang" of higher rates on homebuilder stocks.

"You wanna think contrarian," Belski, undaunted, responded.

Weiss, though, advised Belski, "Wait — there's no rush to buy KB Home in a rising-rate environment." Weiss suggested Belski play KBH against a short of the homebuilders ETF, an interesting trade that Weiss said can negate the "economic issues" for a sector.

Weiss says Andy Jassy is a ‘much better financial steward’ of AMZN than Jeff Bezos (a/k/a Joe would buy X at 32)

Something of a 1-man quote machine on Monday's (10/2) Halftime Report, Steve Weiss shrugged that ARKK is "just a binary fund ... I'm not gonna say it's bad or good."

Judge said it's "still up like 20-some-odd percent year to date."

Weiss said to look on a "2-year basis."

Weiss predicted NVDA will be "extremely volatile" and "bounce around."

But then Weiss observed of AMZN, "Andy Jassy's been much more financh- much better financial steward of it than Bezos. Bezos, legendary CEO."

Brian Belski bought more ORCL, citing an "overreaction" to its recent revenue number and then, rather curiously, stated that "it does help us bring the multiple down in our tech holdings." (As if having the lowest multiple in tech makes the stocks go the highest.)

Addressing the Morgan Stanley X upgrade (that's a stock upgrade of U.S. Steel, not a software update of the platform formerly known as Twitter), Joe Terranova said "I'm comfortable buying some of these steel names," including X at 32, citing a resolution to the UAW strike, whenever that happens.

"I would not own the steel stocks here," Weiss countered, citing used-car prices and "incentives on new-car prices."

Weiss said Morgan Stanley is "purely" just making an "arb call" on X and that Lina Khan is a "socialist."

Josh Brown, who wasn't on the show, sold NEE, according to Judge. Brown has touted NEE during the year. Joe made a distinction between NEE and NEP and said "this is the unwind of the renewable trade."

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