[CNBCfix Fast Money Review Archive — September 2018]
[Friday, Sept. 28, 2018]
Marty Balin dies at 76
It was reported Friday evening that Marty Balin, a co-founder and quite often the voice of Jefferson Airplane/Starship, died Thursday, September 27, 2018.
Balin apparently died en route to a hospital; details weren't known.
Normally, this type of headline would be draped over the home page of this site. However, we're showcasing the beautiful moment shared by CNBC's David Faber, his family and colleagues at Post 9 on Thursday, so Balin won't be added to the home page until Sunday or Monday. (Sometimes, websites feature an unusual mix of news.)
Age-wise, most of the people on "Halftime Report" or "Fast Money" are right in the sweet spot of the Airplane or more likely, Jefferson Starship. The band's timeline bears some similarities to Fleetwood Mac. Each evolved with significant membership changes and somehow kept finding a spectacular groove, though while Mac just amazingly keeps going, Jefferson Starship/Starship began to flame out in the 1980s.
Obituaries note the rivalry between Balin, a sensational singer, and Grace Slick, also a sensational singer and on the all-time short list of World's Most Beautiful Woman. (1. Every woman is beautiful. 2. A woman who can sing is especially beautiful. 3. A woman who sings like that at age 25 is off-the-charts beautiful.) The photo above shows Balin and Slick in 1967.
Balin, an absolute professional, left the Airplane in 1971 in apparent disdain for band members' cocaine-fueled lifestyles. He cited the death of Janis Joplin. A Jefferson Starship publicist says in the obituary, "When the rest of the band was going wild and partying, Marty was just writing songs, singing songs and going home. He was different than everybody else." There's a quote somewhere from promoter Bill Graham about how Airplane members only wanted to work until there was enough money for drugs. How artists choose to live is up to them. The pressure and temptations are undeniably enormous. There are healthy ways to deal with that and enjoy an incredible, stupendous life. Sadly, many succumbed, for absolutely no good reason. What happened to Jerry Garcia never should have happened.
Balin was from The Queen City, the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. He is briefly featured tangling with Hells Angels in support of a fan at Altamont in the landmark Maysles brothers' documentary "Gimme Shelter," which would've been a run-of-the-mill rock-and-roll film except for the powerfully tragic conclusion demonstrating that the peace-and-love scene is, sadly, not utopia.
Balin returned to the Airplane "splinter" Jefferson Starship for a few years and elevated it to massive success. If you've read this site more than once, 1) you're not only part of the greatest audience on the Web, 2) you know you've often paired up "Miracles" and "Runaway" on your iPod/iPhone/device of your choice.
You can listen to "Miracles" on YouTube right here, and then click on "Runaway." The latter is not written by Balin (the credited writer is Nicholas Q. Dewey, who is, as far as we know, a real person who quietly crafted this megahit) but is sung by him. Note listener comments for "Runaway," posted about 10 years ago, on YouTube: "This was posted 5-6 years ago and still getting comments almost everyday" ... "I love this song but I'm getting teary eyed reading these comments. Love lasts forever. The ones who left us are still with us in spirit and their love never dies ..."
Balin, like so many other talented artists in a gigantic world, will never know what his work meant to so many.
Honestly, would’ve been more interesting to show Christine Blasey Ford
A couple of sleepy days, fine.
Judge presided over a low-key Halftime Report both Wednesday (9/26) and Thursday (9/27).
On Thursday, the top story was the Senate Judiciary Committee testimony that the whole world aside from CNBC was watching Scott Devitt explaining his $2,525 target on AMZN.
Pete Najarian made cogent comments about the profitability of Amazon's various divisions and threats of competition.
Addressing the Wayfair upgrade, Jon Najarian said AMZN "made them better."
Pete and Doc gushed about FB options. Judge questioned whether FB was out of the "penalty box" (Joe's original term); all Pete could say was that the stock's been on fire since Tuesday morning. (Like we always say; buy FAANG whenever you can, laugh later.) (This writer is long FB.)
Pete said he keeps rolling up calls in AMD, but "I would not be in the stock right now."
Taking a page from Jim Lebenthal's script, Pete said of INTC, "It's exactly the setup as Microsoft."
The 5 p.m. Fast Money was all-Elon, all the time.
We don't know how this is going to end. But if Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, it will be attributed to this tweet by President Donald Trump, something neither Bush, nor Obama, nor Clinton nor Reagan likely could've pulled off.
Judge, panel hit home run
with Michael Ovitz
Scott Wapner's interview with Michael Ovitz on Tuesday's (9/25) Halftime Report got off to a bit of a slow start (the first question about how people view him was a clunker) but quickly found a groove and proved one of the show's best moments of 2018.
Not only did Wapner engineer a crisp, candid discussion, but the Halftime panelists asked a series of excellent questions after Ovitz took a seat at the desk.
The conversations could've continued for hours; the only beef is that the 22-minute time allotment, while generous for daytime news standards, wasn't nearly enough for all the things that could be talked about.
Ovitz curiously made this statement to the panel: "I don't know what power is. I think power is a strange term. I've never quite understood what it means. I think people that have power don't use it."
Moments later, he said, "I think Ted Sarandos is more powerful than almost anybody in history."
Mike Ovitz constantly refers to ‘up north’ but doesn’t go far enough, doesn’t note that this is where 1,590 SATs who used to go to Wall Street are heading
Michael Ovitz on Tuesday's (9/25) Halftime explained what he sees as Netflix's technological advantage: "They know what everybody likes, and they can manufacture programming around the data."
That type of comment should make anyone feel a bit squishy; imagine the same thing being said about the next Picasso.
As to the future of distribution, Ovitz basically punted. "Everything's on demand" except sports, he said. It would be a good question to ask this gentleman whether 50 years from now, what we know as "TV" and "film" will have morphed into the same thing.
Ovitz said Hollywood has had a #MeToo problem "since its inception."
"The term 'casting couch' wasn't invented yesterday," Ovitz told Wapner.
Much of Wapner's discussion with Ovitz concerned Disney. Ovitz told Wapner that he was told by Michael Eisner to fire Bob Iger and refused, just one anecdote of the friction Ovitz and Eisner shared.
If you thought you ever had a bad experience in Eisner's house, consider this.
"He's not a bad guy," Ovitz said. "I just will never forget the evening at his house when I walked in allegedly to be the president and chief operating officer. And the 2 guys underneath us, the chief legal officer and the chief financial officer, refused to report to me and instead of supporting me, which would've been an easy sentence from him, he decided to support them. Um, left a, a taste in my mouth that I'm not gonna forget."
Aside from the time constraints, the only suggestion we'd give for CNBC's next Ovitz interview is to invite Karen Finerman, who we know is at least somewhat plugged into the Hollywood world, her sister being an Oscar winner.
Wapner also could've asked a good question for celebrities: 1) Do you ever read your Wikipedia page, and 2) is any of it true?
Maybe Ovitz's most important comment was relayed during final trades by Joe Terranova, who said Ovitz believes the art market to be quite strong.
Stephanie snaps at Jim
really for no reason
Jim Lebenthal on Tuesday's (9/25) Halftime tried to downplay the Raymond James downgrade of INTC.
Jim insisted there's nothing new, then said the analyst sees "a short-term cyclical slowdown," then Judge said Jim is stating the analyst's argument, there's nothing new.
Honestly, we have no issue with Jim defending a slumping stock — all of us have those — but we can't figure why he's so defensive about this one. So it sucks. So what.
Jim insisted Tuesday that INTC's 1.1 PEG ratio is "the right price to buy for a long-term stock."
Stephanie Link told Jim that INTC missed on data centers. Jim twice said "they did not miss." Stephanie said, "DATA CENTER IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. DATA CENTER. NOT EARNINGS. NOT REVENUE."
Jim not worried about 3.25%
Meanwhile on Tuesday's (9/25) Halftime, Josh Brown wondered if he's living an "alternate reality" in which he's the only one who remembers "the last 5 years." Brown's point was that rising energy is better than sinking energy for S&P earnings, an interesting point.
Joe Terranova touted increasing energy exposure. Brown touted the HES chart. (Historical note: Usually Joe likes to say Hess is "tethered to the price of oil," but he didn't say that Tuesday.)
In a desperate search for fear-mongering, Judge quoted Jeffrey Gundlach as stating that a couple closes over 3.25, and "it's a game-changer."
"I'm not gonna worry at 3 and a quarter," Jim Lebenthal told Judge.
Josh Brown argued to Judge that emerging markets, with much lower multiple, present a "higher margin of safety" than U.S. stocks.
Joe actually said, "Sideways is the new up." (No, he's not talking about the 2004 film and the 2009 film. He's reaching back for one of his historical quotes.)
Steve Grasso gets happy feet over Rod Rosenstein embarrassment
Karen Finerman on Monday's (9/24) 5 p.m. Fast Money said that if the Republicans lose the Senate, "That's really bad for this market."
Steve Grasso also stressed concern about November and specifically, the unfolding Rod Rosenstein situation. "I think you have to be a seller of the market; you have to lighten up," Grasso said.
But earlier on the Halftime Report, Steve Weiss said a Rosenstein firing would be a "momentary sell the market, but the market keeps going."
(We agree with Weiss. Selling the market based on loopiness in the White House is a bad idea.)
"Actually gridlock would be phenomenal," Josh Brown said.
Judge told Eamon Javers the "optics" of the Rod Rosenstein situation are "live and real."
Jim Lebenthal, who struggled to make a point, drew skepticism when he told Judge the market has priced in the "worst" of tariffs.
Joe Terranova asserted, "What is priced in right now is a favorable outcome at some point."
Dubravko Lakos said tariffs are "partially priced in."
Joe said he's adding to his energy exposure.
Steve Weiss complained that there's not a lot of "original thinking" (snicker) regarding $40 Wall Street price targets on AMD. "How is it that everybody has the same price target?" Weiss asked.
Jim said he doesn't think INTC will be in the "penalty box" for much longer. (But he didn't say that it's only in Year 2 of the MSFT recovery.)
Wonder if Princeton students correctly figured out prof’s course titled ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Trump?’ (a/k/a it’s time for CNBC to play Earth, Wind & Fire’s ‘September’ and take a break from Pink Floyd’s ‘Money’)
Often it's a (valid) criticism on this page that Josh Brown talks too much, but on Friday's (9/21) Halftime Report, Brown utterly dominated with a series of questions far better than anything Judge came up with.
At one point, Scott Wapner asked Mario Gabelli about VIAB. Gabelli recommends owning that stock and CBS.
It was Brown who impressively asked Gabelli, "Don't you think there's too much content?"
Gabelli curiously answered, "Never. Never enough content."
Brown said there's "9 zillion TV shows."
In another excellent question, Brown also asked Gabelli which Viacom property was going to recover. Gabelli said Paramount, but he didn't say it very convincingly.
Brown also asked Gabelli a great question about whether ESPN has stabilized. "I can't answer that daily," was Gabelli's curious answer.
Jim Lebenthal stumbled through explaining why content mergers have succeeded, mentioning AT&T-Time Warner, Disney-Fox and Comcast-NBC; "these are things that have worked and are working."
Jim conceded Disney-Fox is still too early to tell. He didn't concede that AT&T-Time Warner is also still too early to tell and in fact the government is still fighting it. So 1 out of 3 might be a great success. Brown scoffed that Verizon's purchases haven't been great successes.
Stephanie Link was clearly miffed when Judge cut her off in the middle of her UAA commentary. (Apparently, Stephanie had planned a speech that included several references to new management, as if Kevin Plank had retired.) As for Sam Poser's opinion, "I ignore it," Link said twice, claiming the company is "clearing the decks" to get the bad news out this year.
Josh Brown correctly pointed out to Link that cost-cutting isn't as important as diminished public enthusiasm for Under Armour products.
Meanwhile, Jon Najarian said he thinks stocks will experience a chase for performance into year-end. Josh Brown said that statistically, a market in this place in September usually goes higher into year-end. (So much for Mike Wilson/Dwayne'TheRock'Johnson and the fear that "these stocks in the U.S. are gonna have to be sold to buy the things overseas."
Jim Lebenthal appeared to wave a white flag as far as expressing caution about this market. "I am 97% invested in stocks and 3% in a volatility hedge. I took that 3% off uh yesterday and put it in Caterpillar. And this is simply respecting what the market is telling me," Jim said.
Jim endorsed ADBE after expressing caution.
Mario Gabelli at one point mentioned National Amusements (Zzzzzzz) (Snicker).
If you need a break from Scott Wapner's stock-picking programs, check out our take on E!'s "Model Squad." (We only watched it because we thought the models might talk about their stock holdings and whether they think Nike is overvalued.) If nothing else, it justifies the photo at the top of this item. One thing we learned: Supermodels say the word "like" quite a bit.
Gabelli bungled the "Hotel California" lyrics, stating, "When you check in, you can't check out."
If the dividend is keeping the stock 25% higher, then shouldn’t the company keep paying the dividend?
On Thursday's (9/20) Halftime Report, Steve Weiss said of GE, "This is not a company that should be in my view paying a dividend. ... The only reason they're doing it is because the stock would be in the single digits if they did cut it."
Hmmmm ... the only reason they're doing it is to keep the stock price higher?
Isn't that a good reason for basically anything management does?
There were no takers in the stock among the panelists. Jon Najarian said he was scratching his head over JPMorgan's description of GE as the "top underweight."
Josh Lipton's report on GOOGL gave Weiss another chance to point out the amount of data Google oversees via gmail.
Doc was asked to explain his TLRY transaction history in 30 seconds. "I got in the stock at 48. ... Got out of it over 200 yesterday," was the nuts and bolts of the conversation.
The question is, why didn't he just "measure his risk" with options?
In the Power Lunch promo, Judge welcomed back Contessa Brewer from storm reporting. In one of the most startling comments on the show in weeks, Brewer stated, "This is what I look like after a shower and a blow dry."
We can be kind of dense on these things, but it seems as if Brewer was trying to downplay her appearance; we have no idea why and have NO complaint ... zero ... with how Brewer looked on this program (or any other).
By getting Steve Grasso and others to mention Nike on TV, isn’t the Colin Kaepernick ad campaign a success?
On Thursday's (9/20) 5 p.m. Fast Money, Sara Eisen beamed in to discuss NKE.
Pete Najarian said the Colin Kaepernick ad "was a risk that they wanted to take." Seems like it paid off, given that Pete was talking about it. #anypublicityisgoodpublicity. Karen Finerman, who returned to the 5 p.m. show in stunning jacket, said she's still in FL. Pete defended MU, but Karen said "I'm a little afraid of when a cyclical industry turns." (This writer is long MU.)
Karen noted that when someone loses the "Fast Pitch," they play "All By Myself." True, but they don't play the Eric Carmen version that is vintage '70s soft rock.
Joe on July 3 suggested inverted yield curve in 2nd half of year
Joe Terranova got tripped up a couple times on Thursday's (9/20) Halftime, first after grumbling that "if you didn't have the political dysfunction that we see in Washington, the S&P would be well above 3,000. Easily."
But Pete Najarian said just the opposite: "I don't think it'd have gotten here if we didn't have that. To be honest with you."
And even Judge asserted political dysfunction "has had no bearing on the stock market."
But Joe insisted, "It's held back further upside potential."
Later, Joe questioned what constitutes Judge's choice of a top story on the show.
"The second half of 2018," Joe said. "That's when you see the free cash flow generation from these corporations that are benefitting from the tax cut. Do you ever lead with that, in the news headlines? Or do we lead with, '10%, Chinese tariffs, what does it mean for the market. Ooh, the market's gonna go down.'"
"We do want people to watch the program. We don't lead with free cash flow," Judge explained to chuckles.
Judge brought in Jeremy Siegel, who said he actually titled his Princeton class on Thursday "Who's afraid of the big bad Trump?" (This is what Princeton parents are paying 75 grand a year to learn.)
Steve Weiss said he disagrees with Siegel: "If Republicans lose the Senate, it's not gonna matter," Weiss contended.
When have you seen a ‘worst-case scenario’ actually happen in this market at any time in the last 10 years?
On Wednesday's (9/19) Halftime Report, Doc, guest host Sully and Anastasia discussed the "worst-case scenario" (snicker) regarding Chinese tariffs.
Further issues with terminology surfaced when mega-charming (not just because of the way she looks) Petra Nemcova stressed the urgency of recovery cash for disaster zones. Nemcova said about 70% of relief funds come in the first few weeks, but "only 5% goes to rebuilding."
Sully rightly wondered, "Where does the rest go?"
Howard Sherman, CEO of Good360, said it goes to the "early stages" of recovery.
OK, we're not even close to experts on this subject, but we're not really sure about the distinction between "recovery" and "rebuilding." Presumably, "rebuilding" should be mostly funded by insurance dollars, not people watching telethons on cable TV. If we're talking road-construction contracts, that seems like a complicated subject for raising disaster dollars.
Anyway. Jon Najarian likes DIS more than NFLX. Sarat Sethi said he agrees.
Sarat called AAPL "a safe stock to own." Sully noted, "Hardly a wild endorsement."
Doc had a little bit of mike trouble while touting ETFC calls.
Sully said DBX's chart "looks like the Steelers." Doc agreed, adding, "They need Le'Veon Bell." No, they don't need Le'Veon Bell. Sorry Doc, but if you follow this team quite a bit, you know what this fellow really does add ... or doesn't add ... to a ballclub.
On Tuesday's Halftime, Najarian again suggested that in the trade tiff with China, "I think they blink."
Joe Terranova said he thinks the market was up Tuesday because of the prospect of a deal with Canada. Joe said WMT has a lot going for it, but he doesn't like the "inconsistency in the quarterly earnings."
Judge evidently a glutton
for bear-market buffoonery
We wondered how long it would take Scott Wapner to bring back Mike Wilson for another go-round on the "rolling bear market" or "financial shock" or "liquidity" pressure facing the stock market, and we got our answer when Wilson turned up on Monday's (9/17) 5 p.m. Fast Money with still more mumbo jumbo.
This time, he's got a new word: "De-rate."
Scott didn't have the brass to toss this fellow's garbage out on Times Square, instead leaving it to the dazzling Karen Finerman to ask Wilson, "What is de-rating ... what does that mean."
"De-rating just means the valuation's coming down," Wilson explained.
Which sounds to us like "correction."
That's what he talked about Aug. 14, when he claimed then that the real problem will be "some sort of a financial shock. And it'll be over quickly, but it could, it could be quick. ... And this is the time of year this happens. So just be aware of that. ... The catalyst I'm really worried about in the near-term is liquidity. OK. We're seeing- liquidity has been the problem all year that we've been talking about."
Pete Najarian so fell for that hook, line and sinker that Pete bragged about having 25-30% cash "powder" available to take advantage of the shock.
On Monday, Wilson actually said this with a straight face: "People are cramming into defensives and growth stocks. Because they're the safe havens; in a world of lower growth, that's what you wanna own."
Growth stocks are the safe haven in ... "a world of lower growth"? ... Is that correct? (Nice follow-up question, Scott.)
Wapner tried to express some skepticism, asking Wilson about his S&P 500 target. First Wilson admitted he has a 2,750 S&P target, saying "correct" when Wapner brought it up, then claimed it's really a "range" of 2,400 to 3,000.
It's kinda like saying, "I think 28 points will win this football game, but actually, it could be anywhere from 17 to 41."
Wilson also said he expects a "consolidation" that "could last 24 months." That's different from the last visit, when he warned of the shock that "could be quick."
"This is an area where you should be lightening up on some of your beta names," Wilson asserted. Wonder if he's actually doing that.
Wapner suggested a trade deal would be further momentum for stocks. That prompted Wilson to claim with a straight face, "These stocks in the U.S. are gonna have to be sold to buy the things overseas."
Judge asked nothing about Wilson's supposed "rolling bear market" or "some sort of a financial shock" but feebly noted that Wilson's notion of a reversion of the U.S. outpacing foreign markets is a "contrarian view" and that some people see EM and Europe as a "falling knife." ("Hey Edna, let's dump some of that Square stock so we can buy Petrobras.") To his credit, in one of the most useful things he has said on the show, even Tim Seymour said of Wilson's call, "I just don't see it."
In closing, Judge told Wilson, "Always appreciate your point of view." (Translation: We're desperate for bearish-sounding scare-mongers to put on TV and they're hard to find, so thanks for walking the plank for us.)
There's zero catalyst to anything Wilson says. You can get better advice from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
Perhaps we’re in the 8th inning of banks insisting they didn’t need TARP
(Sigh) Are we past the Lehman anniversary yet?
Erin Browne on Friday's (9/14) Halftime Report actually brought up "dry powder." But nobody brought up Pete weeks ago going to 25-30% "powder" so he could take advantage of the "opportunity" from Mike Wilson's imminent correction.
Recapping Dave Tepper's comments, Erin Browne suggested it's "probably 6th or 7th inning" for the bull market.
See, we're just the amateurs around here ... it seems that a lot of folks, even investing legends, are missing the big picture, the enormous precedent that was set by TARP and QE, that markets don't have to function the old ways (yeah, we know, the 4 stages by John Templeton or whoever that end in "euphoria"), that maybe unlike October 2008, people will buy the dip immediately expecting ZIRP or QE relief, etc., and the fact no one seems to anticipate that is why some of today's best stocks are ridiculously priced and nowhere near March 2000-land and never going to get there, which only keeps a steadily rising market going higher.
Anyway. Mike Mayo was brought in (sigh) to assess the condition of Wall Street banks (double sigh). "It's night and day vs. a decade ago," Mayo said. (Really.) (For those asleep for the last 10 years.)
Steve Weiss explained what happened to Lehman Brothers. "They just didn't know the risk they actually had," Weiss articulated.
Scott Wapner read from Jamie Dimon's letter to employees, which of course according to Wapner said, "They didn't want TARP. They didn't need TARP. But they did it for the benefit of the country." (P.S. They did it because they were TOLD to do it by the federal government.)
AMD bandwagon grows
Steve Weiss on Friday's (9/14) Halftime Report said the consumer's strong, but he's not sure what COST's online strategy is. Pete Najarian said the stock is "priced for perfection."
Weiss is long AMD for apparently the same reason Josh Brown got long around 20; a bunch of other people had previously been buying it. Weiss said Friday, "The fundamentals have changed." Pete Najarian bellowed, "They're buyin' October 50s today!!"
Weiss said Brown was right about AMD but that TWTR and SHAK haven't been so great.
A couple people (Weiss and Pete) recommended C.
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Say, Congress: What have you been doing to cure cancer?
On Thursday's (9/13) Fast Money, Karen Finerman 1) looked dynamite in new cut; photo below and 2) was given the floor for much of the show's crucial opening 15 minutes to opine on GOOGL and FB and question whether people at a business are allowed to have an opinion. (This writer is long FB.)
Karen, as she often does, touted the valuation of GOOGL and FB and suggested they're simply caught up in politics.
Here's something she said that caught our ear:
"We're in sort of a vacuum of news for Facebook except negative news. You know, this sort of, you know, this, the testimony on the Hill and that kind of thing, that's, hasn't been good for them at all."
OK, fair enough.
But has it been good for the country?
Of course not. This has been a ludicrous, phony issue, a borderline dereliction of duty for people who aren't the least bit interested in America's (and the world's) real problem — people hearing from their doctors, "You've got cancer."
3 of the 5 FAANGs are so absurdly low-priced, it's still shocking that after 11 years of these programs, people aren't by now just saying "Buy FAANG whenever you get some extra dollars."
It's basically impossible to construct a more perfect business than AAPL, FB and GOOGL. Enormously popular companies and platforms. Extraordinary amounts of cash, not just on paper but in the actual bank account. Headquartered in some of the most desirable places on earth. So much money, zero chance of ever being a Sears or a GE or a U.S. Steel.
Selling these stocks is like selling the '27 Yankees.
If the market wants to trade them at 12 multiples, fine.
We can't make multiples go up.
But we can point out that they're stoooopid.
Instead of warning retail investors about all the bad vibes from Washington toward social media, as the Halftime/Fast Money panelists generally do, they should instead question aloud what their congressmen are gaining from these frivolous hearings.
As an example of FB's muscle, Karen said to look at SNAP's user base (snicker). "It's going to Instagram," Finerman said.
Great-Grandpa Tim Seymour claimed that FB said on the last earnings call "we don't even know howta- howta manage" ... something or other. (OK buy Mobile Telesystems and VimpelComm instead.)
Judge says Nik ‘is going to be greatly missed,’ which is fine, but what is Nik’s No. 1 accomplishment at CNBC? (a/k/a a tandem Pledge of Allegiance)
Thursday's (9/13) Halftime Report was conducted in Pittsburgh, where Scott Wapner examined the decrepit Pittsburgh Steelers and how they're going to get drilled by the Chiefs Dave Tepper was willing to talk while dedicating a building at Carnegie Mellon.
Grasping for quality questions early, Scott Wapner pointed out that Tepper's name is on the building and wondered, "What's that feel like."
"It doesn't feel bad. It's pretty frickin' cool," was Tepper's in-depth reply.
Someone brought up the number of "innings" of the bull market. Tepper said it's "sort of a late-inning sort of game here" but noted some games go into extra innings.
(See, the problem with the silly "innings" analogy is that after a game is over, one team is really happy. After a bull market is over, nobody is happy.)
Robert Citrone didn't seem impressed by emerging markets, with the tiny exception of India. Steve Weiss said Citrone is the guy for emerging markets, so there you go.
Joe Terranova predicted "more pain" for emerging markets. Joe also said it'd be "really prudent" to examine how high-beta and volatile your stocks are. (As opposed to all those other times, when you're recklessly oblivious to the beta and volatility of your portfolio.)
Judge read breaking news about Nik Deogun's exit.
"He is going to be greatly missed," Wapner said.
That's great — but we'd like to hear some specifics. Not doubting he did a fine job. We want to hear a CNBCer state his or her own impressions of Deogun's accomplishments. (Because ... just pointing out reality here ... CNBC is a TV channel. TV channels are typically evaluated by ratings. Ratings haven't exactly been a soaring success during Deogun's lengthy tenure. If it's about the quality of interviews, quality of reporting, newsroom morale, that's fine. Just tell us. We're under the impression he did not buy Instagram for $1 billion.)
Later in the day on Power Lunch, Wapner noted that Tepper asked him to recite the Pledge. "I was proud of myself, because David Tepper put me on the spot on live television," Wapner said.
Proud of himself ... for getting through a partial Pledge of Allegiance with David Tepper's help.
OK.
Judge actually asked Tepper, How did Pittsburgh "shape who you are"?
Until CNBC lands interviews with Dick Fuld, Chuck Prince, Stan O’Neal, Ken Lewis, John Thain, no need to hear from anyone else
Anyone interested in watching Tuesday's (9/11) edition of the Halftime Report might've been better served taking a pass, though Jon Najarian did do a fine impersonation of Warren Buffett stating he wants to buy more AAPL stock.
Jim Lebenthal said the key to AAPL is the "average selling price" of the iPhone.
Joe Terranova once again trumpeted an old favorite, DK.
Of course, someone said he/she couldn't get long TSLA because of ... drum roll ... yep ... valuation. (That would be Stephanie Link.)
Seema Mody reported on the 5 p.m. show that Jeffrey Gundlach, whose much-ballyhooed (by Scott Wapner) call last December of 2018 being the year of commodities was basically a snooze, wouldn't put new money into the S&P 500 or ecommerce stocks. But he said investors should be overweight international and emerging markets. That ought to mesh with Pete Najarian recently timing the Mike Wilson imminent correction and keeping some 25-30% cash "powder" to take advantage of the "opportunity."
Jim apparently still long ROKU despite major bungle 8/30 stating it’s time to get out of the stock (a/k/a Sully can’t buy single stocks and hopefully wouldn’t have to call a broker) (a/k/a Joe likens bank leverage to a ‘religious belief’)
Sully, normally a sharp guest host, took the reins of Monday's (9/10) Halftime Report but produced little more than a mid-afternoon nap, right from the get-go in fact as his questions about tech stocks were quickly rephrased by panelists.
Josh Brown claimed again that autonomous driving is really going to be awesome, except we don't see 1) how it works on any economic level or 2) how the public will stand for it when a child is struck by a car with no human in it.
Basically, we already have the type of autonomous-driving world that Brown extols. It's called a bus.
Mario Gabelli dialed in to discuss CBS (and not so much VIAB this time).
Gabelli bluntly got to the point: "Brian, I'm recommending that you pick up the phone and call your broker and buy CBS today," Gabelli said, perhaps oblivious to the rule that CNBCers can't buy individual stocks as well as oblivious to the common sense that no individual looking to buy some CBS should have to call a human broker rather than just enter an online order #2018not1989.
Gabelli recommended Paramount and Sony merging; Josh Brown astutely pointed out that it's merely doubling up the same tired business model.
Joe Terranova at least spoke of the idea of "marrying" the company (we think he was talking about CBS and not VIAB) with a tech company. Gabelli agreed that "content and connectivity, uh, you know, give the consumer what they want and how they want it ... makes a lot of sense."
But what neither Joe nor Mario nor anyone else stated was the obvious, that basically there are 4 companies (AAPL, AMZN, GOOGL and FB; you can toss in NFLX if you like but the pockets aren't so deep) that are eventually going to own much of what we know now as movie/TV content (it's possible the distinction between the two could disappear in coming decades) and already do in certain ways and the only reason one of them hasn't bought several Hollywood studios in one fell swoop is because they don't want possible Justice Department wrath like Microsoft got in 1999. (This writer is long FB.)
Instead of Steve Weiss, who wasn't on the show, it was Joe Terranova who tangled Monday with Jim Lebenthal, as each claimed the right to interrupt the other over Wall Street leverage.
Jim insisted that the leverage among Wall Street banks is much lower than in 2008. Joe sounded skeptical, curiously stating, "Leverage is, it's almost like a social, political or religious belief," claiming you "don't know" the leverage "until the crisis is upon you."
"John Mack singlehandedly saved Morgan Stanley," Joe asserted. (No one seemed to agree or disagree.)
Jim grumbled that this is the time of year when retail trades work. But he doesn't like FL, and we don't blame him. "Investments here, you end up in tears," Jim said. "These guys are still in malls."
Interestingly, Sully never asked Jim why ROKU, which according to Jim is in the process of being crushed by Jeff Bezos using an Emperor Palpatine over-the-shoulder voice, rose $3 to a new high on Monday. (This writer is long ROKU.)
Gee, senators, thanks for spending your time curing cancer
It's the phoniest, dumbest, sorriest, biggest waste-of-time controversy in recent years.
Yet Scott Wapner devoted most of his partly abbreviated episode of the Halftime Report Wednesday to assessing the damage to FB from the latest round of wasted government time.
The loudest and longest speechmaker was Jason Calacanis, who actually called for FB to "show us what they're fact-checking (Zzzzzzzz)" and "let us have a debate about that (snicker)."
Sure. Let's do that. Analyze what Facebook is fact-checking. Then look up your prom date whom you haven't seen for 20 years. Enjoy.
Calacanis also faulted Instagram for accepting $1 billion from Mark Zuckerberg, a sum considered astronomical at the time.
"Instagram only got a billion dollars from Facebook," Calacanis complained. "That as an independent company would be worth a hundred billion today, a hundred fifty billion today." Sure. It would be worth exactly as much as a stand-alone as the value added that Facebook has provided it.
Calacanis also predicted an executive exit, insisting Sheryl Sandberg is "clearly gonna be running for office probably in the next 3-4-5 years. So she'll be out of Facebook in 2-3 years."
Joe was practically shut out of the conversation. Pete Najarian on the 5 p.m. show said he "honestly" thinks 30% of Twitter accounts could be fake. Gene Munster predicted Sheryl Sandberg will run for California governor in 2026. Karen Finerman, dazzling in black-white ensemble, said Sheryl Sandberg was "very stunning" and deserves an "A-, A."
Jim’s decision Thursday to get out of ROKU because of AMZN getting into the space with Emperor Palpatine’s voice over the shoulder looks like instant bust
(This writer is long ROKU.)
As soon as Stephanie Link and Josh Brown took their seats, Tuesday's Halftime Report was a contest of Who Gets To Talk The Most; Scott quickly got run over and Joe Terranova and Jim Lebenthal were practically shut out.
Pete Najarian wasn't on the panel; that's presumably because Pete's in the process of timing Mike Wilson's imminent correction with all the "powder" he's got saved up by being 25-30% in cash. Pete did beam in with some unbelievably incredible options activity.
Scott Wapner decided for the umpteenth time to have Stephanie Link tell viewers why she bought AMZN shares despite being a "value" investor. Later, panelists (mostly) piled on FB, with the exception of Link; Josh Brown even blamed Myanmar's genocide on Facebook and actually suggested Waymo (snicker) as a reason to buy GOOGL. Everyone missed the forest through the trees, which is that you buy the FAANGs whenever you can but especially when they're in the doghouse and laugh later. (This writer is long FB.)
Josh and Joe basically both admitted that they've only been buying AMD and AMZN because a lot of other people have done so recently.
Just like Friday's show, the panel (basically Joe Terranova on Tuesday) was compelled to profess that they're not euphoric and that there really are SO many risks to this market, including the fact everyone's calendar now says SEPTEMBER at the top; the 5 p.m. show brought in Bob Pisani to talk about how risky the market is. (That'll be great when it corrects, because Pete has been preparing the powder at 25-30% cash to take advantage of the "opportunity.")
Jim on Thursday was chuckling about how his 40% gain in ROKU is enough because now AMZN is going to crush the space with Emperor Palpatine throwing a voice over his shoulder; on Tuesday, Jim was shown to be speaking about WDC just as ROKU's 5% gain was rolling across the ticker.
Sounding like 1998, Grandpa Tim Seymour said on the 5 p.m. show that Amazon can face antitrust issues. Karen Finerman astutely questioned whether the recent AMZN run is because of analysts tripping over each other to raise price targets or the consumer simply being on fire. Karen pointed out that the spread in AMZN's bid/ask is bigger than SHLD's market cap. Joe Terranova pointed out that AMZN basically sells other companies' stuff, but Joe forgot that Amazon sells Prime.