CNBCfix - Fast Money Review

[CNBCfix Fast Money Review Archive — April 2018]
[Monday, April 30, 2018]

‘The iPhone X clearly
has been a bust’

Jon Najarian on Monday's Halftime Report said he's "very confident" of AAPL and thinks it'll hit the "higher end of the lower expectations."

Joe Terranova said AAPL has lost momentum, but he won't take the other side "because of the ability to distribute the cash, and, and I think this is going to be a cash story."

However, Joe predicted that 3-5 years from now, AAPL will regret "they did not make some form" of a big acquisition. Later in the show, Joe suggested music. He said he likes the fact JPMorgan believes SPOT to be "the Netflix of music." Joe said "Apple missed a tremendous opportunity years ago to buy Netflix," so why not spend $35 billion on Spotify?

Jim Lebenthal said, "The iPhone X clearly has been a bust" and suggested a price cut could be "a negative for the whole sector."

Jim said the market would really like "something other than iPhones to drive the earnings of this, of this company."

Later in the show, Jim said the long-term fundamentals are strong, but the only thing that would worry him is if they "talk about lowering the price on the iPhone X." Jim said he'd like to see a "transformative acquisition" and even mentioned, "They have an interest in autonomous vehicles" (snicker).

Doc, who about 6 months ago said repeatedly that the price of an iPhone X was only a few extra dollars a month that people wouldn't care about, said if AAPL doesn't beat the lowered bar, "then that's gonna be a problem." Jim indicated that there's some AAPL analysis fatigue: "It feels like every quarter we're doing this."

Not sure where UAA was taken in the CNBC Stock Draft

Judge's Call of the Day on Monday's Halftime was Camilo Lyon of Canaccord Genuity handing UAA a "sell" with a $9 target.

"We see nothing in the product pipeline that would suggest that there's a turn in the business unfolding anytime within the next 12-18 months," Lyon said. "Frankly there's really no justification for the valuation at its current, current level if there is no product to back that up."

He said sentiment flipped from the stock at 12 to "too much optimism."

Jim Lebenthal asked if, demonstrated by Nike and adidas, "the overall pie is growing," which should help UAA. Lyon said North America was down 6% for NKE in the last quarter, so he's not sure there's a growing pie.

Joe Terranova said he's long Under Armour "more of a trade and a momentum theory than anything else" and suggested Columbia's 12% revenue jump reported last week might be a strong parallel. Lyon said he doesn't think so because Columbia's boost was highly "cold-weather driven."

Lyon didn't sound as optimistic as Doc about direct-to-consumer sales by UAA.

This sucko market could actually be ‘healthy,’ according to Jim

Judge opened Monday's Halftime asking the panel why the tape sucks stocks can't get out of their own way the stock market has been so soft despite great earnings.

Erin Browne agreed with Judge that earnings (and revenue) have been great, but the sticking point may be the 10-year at 3%, "that has caused some concern."

Joe Terranova said "the story for the month of April" is the velocity of the 10-year move.

Jon Najarian pointed to Personal Consumption and Expenditures (snicker) at a "17-month high."

Jim Lebenthal said the guidance raises have been "pretty prolific," but "people are taking profits" without re-investing into new names.

"This can be healthy as long as it doesn't last too long," Jim said, explaining "there may not be a catalyst" for the market but a "slow bubbling higher that starts to take place."

Joe said it'll take FAANG to drive the market but cautioned about elevated oil prices.

Jim says that every quarter, seems like they’re predicting AAPL’s report, also says every quarter, seems like they’re talking about PFE’s report ...

Judge on Monday's Halftime asked Pete Najarian for an NFL Draft report card.

Pete said, "The Giants absolutely crushed it ... they got the best running back I've seen since Adrian Peterson."

The Giants got a good player, but let's face it, overall, this was a terrible draft full of busts.

Meanwhile, Judge said "10 companies made up 2/3 of all the capex increases that, that we've seen."

Joe Terranova said he got into MCD a couple weeks ago on a "re-igniting of momentum." But at 165, "it might be fairly valued."

Joe said the space is difficult; "again it goes back to oil prices," although we're not at all sure that it does.

Jon Najarian said MCD is saying delivery made a "meaningful" contributions to earnings.

Doc said June 19 calls in FDC were popular while someone was caught on open mike giggling about something or other.

Doc also said someone bought 7,000 MSFT 96 calls expiring May 25.

Pete said the XOP 41.50 May calls were getting bought.

Doc said SAVE has "the youngest fleet in the air."

Erin Browne said she thinks energy will continue to do well.

Jim Lebenthal said he's "not so convinced" that Sprint and T-Mobile will get it done and that the market was saying Monday that they'll spend a lot "and not get this done ... I just don't see it getting done."

Meg Tirrell previewed some big pharma earnings. Jim said people are always talking about PFE buying something; "I feel like every quarter we have this same discussion," but he doubts this quarter will be any different.

Jim said AGN results were good, but "that has turned into a value trap for a number of people."

Erin Browne is "neutral" on pharma. Doc said he likes MRK; he doesn't own it but Pete does.

Doc's final trade was ABBV. Erin Browne said a pairs trade, long XLE and short XLU. Jim said RDSb. Joe spoke of lifting of regulation but didn't squeeze in a trade.

[Friday, April 27, 2018]

The 5 p.m. crew got to the point that the Halftime gang missed: This tape simply sucks

A quiet Halftime Report on Friday, partially interrupted by Oval Office commentary, centered on mighty AMZN.

Stephanie Link said AMZN posted a "pretty flawless" quarter.

JJ Kinahan said "a lot of retail investors use options" to trade AMZN because of the nominal price. JJ said "Prime is stickiness."

Josh Brown said if you want to be long AMZN, "you got a gift," because it popped and retreated, which seems to be common among the tech biggies this quarter.

Ben Schachter, who put a $2,100 on AMZN, dialed in and said "the margins here are really what the story's gonna be going forward." He said he sees nothing on the horizon "outside of potential government interference" that would "derail the story."

Jon Najarian asked Schachter an interesting question about the motivation for Amazon buying Ring. Schachter said it was probably a move to keep Ring away from other suitors.

Josh Brown asked a lengthy, clumsy, confusing question apparently about Amazon being able to avoid friction in D.C. Schachter reiterated that he doesn't really see government interference on the horizon, though it seems to be the only big risk.

Paul Meeks said tech is so good, "You have to buy the stocks on a down day." He said he has bought FB and GOOGL recently, and he's also "partial" to MU, NXPI, AMAT and LRCX. (This writer is long FB and GOOGL.)

Stephanie Link said GOOGL has had 2 quarters in a row that "quite frankly were a little disappointing."

Stacy Rasgon dialed in and explained why he upgraded INTC after admittedly having been wrong. Rasgon said there are still "structural issues," but with the expectations of double-digit growth, he can't recommend a short. Mel said Rasgon did "a fair amount of self-flagellation" for being wrong.

Josh Brown said INTC is still in an uptrend despite Friday's dip. But Mel noted it was a big tumble from Thursday night's afterhours.

In other matters, Josh Brown sounded amazed that anyone would be long MAT in a digital age.

Stephanie Link called the CHTR space "really challenged" and not changing anytime soon.

JJ Kinahan said he likes the UAA pop but is a little concerned about expectations and resistance.

Doc said EXPE had a "fantastic report." He also said August 45 calls in AAL were popular.

Doc said AT&T needs a deal to avoid further sliding.

Doc said he has "no interest" in SBUX. JJ Kinahan suggested waiting for the "55-ish" level.

Stephanie Link said she'd look at BA under 310. But she owns TXT.

Josh Brown's final trade was long INTC. Stephanie Link said ZBH. Doc said SLCA, and JJ said SQ. In the transition to Power Lunch, Sara Eisen questioned if AMZN is "unstoppital" (sic).

[Thursday, April 26, 2018]

Weak field, exciting draft

Need to get this out of the way.

NFL Draft day, celebrated by CNBC with its own "Stock Draft," is one of our favorite days of the year.

That's despite the fact it represents 2 awful practices.

We know. Inconsistent. #sorry

Not only does the draft artificially, and strangely in a salary-cap era, restrict a young person's ability to choose where he wants to work and who he wants to work for ... it somehow rewards the worst operations with the crown jewels. (That's basically called "extreme socialism.")

Think of it as Boeing being required to allocate a bunch of its patents, contracts, workforce and cash pile to GE.

That's the National Football League.

The Draft shouldn't exist.

But it's still great to watch.

Enjoy Thursday night.

Another long chat about AAPL, and again no mention of Jana/CALSTRS/Psychic Tax Prof’s concern that iPhones aren’t healthy enough for kids

The star guest of Thursday's Halftime was Toni Sacconaghi discussing declining AAPL numbers (and Weiss was just saying days ago that Katy Huberty was behind the curve).

Toni said there's been a lot of data points out of Asia showing "iPhone is weak," including the numbers "particularly for the iPhone X." (Boy, we don't know much about this iPhone X, but it sure sounds like a bust.)

"Numbers are likely gonna have to come down for Apple," Toni explained.

Judge said Toni's note mentions the potential of a "buyback bazooka." Toni said the company could boost buybacks by $50 billion a year over 2 years, but that offsetting weaker iPhone numbers would still make estimates more likely to go down than up.

Judge asked what it would take for an "unthinkable" sell rating. Toni said it would take a "structural elongation (snicker) in the iPhone replacement cycle."

"Over multiple years, that replacement cycle is likely to lengthen, which means that iPhone earnings over time will go down," Toni explained.

Toni told Joe Terranova that it seems like most of AAPL's cash is coming back in the form of buybacks and dividends, because the company made a statement of going toward a "cash neutral" position, and if it was planning to buy stuff, that type of statement wouldn't be a good "negotiating stance."

Pete Najarian asked Toni if Toni is underestimating services and wearables. Toni said "those are real numbers," but the iPhone is 60-65% of profit. Toni said services growth should decelerate because the installed-base growth linked to phone sales is decelerating.

Judge mentioned CNBC's stock draft and said he can "almost guarantee" someone will make AAPL "that pick." We don't know what Judge means by "that pick." The first overall pick?

Joe said he bought AAPL "somewhere around 156" and said either he or Doc (it wasn't clear) sold half at 174 and half at 165. Joe said he doesn't know if he has enough confidence on the product side "to stay in it." Joe said he'd like to see M&A from AAPL.

As for the mystery of whether Joe or Doc or both is still in the name, Doc offered, "Other than a few boards that I sit on, the only stock that I own is Apple. Now that should tell you something." It doesn't tell us whether it was Joe or Doc who sold half at 174 and half at 165.

Pete asserted that Apple wearables alone "would be a Fortune 300 company."

"And Toni didn't answer that side of it," Pete grumbled. (But that tells us that Toni doesn't think it's a big deal.)

Joe questioned if AAPL will regret "a couple of years from now" giving cash back to shareholders "instead of going out and doing something transformational."

Doc said when artificial intelligence and augmented reality "starts to hit," a new AAPL cycle will kick in.

Wednesday’s story on data-selling ads or whatever sure was an important headline (a/k/a here comes all the regulation)

Jon Najarian on Thursday's Halftime said FB is a "steal" in the 170s and gloated that "I pounded the table for it." (This writer is long FB.)

Judge said Divya Narendra last night used the term "sticky" to describe the FB platform.

Pete Najarian said it's not just FB, it's Messenger, it's WhatsApp, it's Instagram.

Judge aired a clip of Jim Cramer calling FB possibly the "cheapest stock in the S&P 500."

Judge asked the panel if FB is going to re-ignite the FAANGs. Joe Terranova said he bought PANW, and, "I just bought the Q's."

Remember when the jingle was ‘Take him seriously but not literally?’

Judge's Call of the Day on Thursday's Halftime was Soc Gen's upgrade of BA.

"I think it's a tough call," said Kari Firestone, who obviously hasn't been listening to Kevin O'Leary recently. "It's still a cyclical stock."

Jon Najarian said he likes BA at 320. Judge said that Jim Cramer said, "This president is more about trying to beat China than he is about trying to get the Dow higher."

Joe Terranova said BA execs "don't appear to be as concerned as maybe some of the rhetoric would suggest."

Pete Najaran said BA's CEO should get a "standing ovation every time he walks around."

Stocks had a good day, so someone mentions 1999

Whitney Tilson, who hasn't shown up on the Halftime Report (and possibly not the 5 p.m. show) in ages, on Thursday's Halftime candidly stated that the 9-year bull market has effectively put a lot of short sellers out of business.

But Tilson said "what better time for a conference on short selling," given that we're 9 years into a bull market and there are "bubbles appearing, uh, everywhere, the largest being cryptocurrency in my opinion."

"There are a lot of short sellers either going out of business or just exiting shorting, uh, that to me smells like 1999, for example," Tilson said.

Tilson revealed that TSLA was "my worst short ever," at 35. (Have to admit, that couldn't have been a great short.)

Judge said CNBC is the "exclusive broadcast partner" of Tilson's conference, on May 3.

‘Doug’ wasn’t really that funny, but whatever

Speaking of TSLA, Judge also on Thursday's Halftime asked panelists what it would take for them to buy the stock.

Joe Terranova said "that's a great question," explaining it would be "seeing more free cash flow and less of a debt structure."

Judge aired a clip of Jim Chanos talking about "kabuki theater" saying in the morning that Elon Musk will leave as TSLA CEO to focus on SpaceX.

"When he's not there, it becomes a car company, I mean, to be crass," said Kari Firestone. "And autos don't command this multiple."

Joe said he added Thursday to ABBV. Pete Najarian said he prefers MRK, but "Abbvie's another great company." Kari Firestone said GILD owned the market in Hep C, "then they lost the market," and she thinks it continues to lose market share.

Jon Najarian said JBLU September 18 calls were popular. Pete said ARNC May 22 calls were bought "in one single print."

Jeff Kilburg told Jackie DeAngelis there are 3 reasons why crude's uptrend is intact. Jim Iuorio said if it fails Thursday, which he said means closing below 67.75, then it's trading back down to 63.

For a final trade, Joe said what SBUX is doing in terms of PR is "very positive." Kari Firestone said BSX. Doc called Judge "Doug" amid chuckles and said IPG. Pete said you can win with WYNN.

Joe offered TWLO for the Stock Drafters.

[Wednesday, April 25, 2018]

Doc’s exactly right — once the tariff b.s. blows over, stocks are catching fire

Ian Winer, who was a bit grandpa-esque but still delivered an excellent performance on Wednesday's Halftime, told Kevin O'Leary that the 10-year "for sure" is a competitor now with equities.

Jim Lebenthal said he's "really happy" that we're not having the 2-year-vs.-10-year discussion and predicted the markets will become accustomed to whatever the 10-year settles at.

Winer asked Jim if it concerns him that companies have sold off after great earnings. Kevin O'Leary muscled in and said Winer was "bringing up a good point" about financials. O'Leary said the loan book looks "really bad," and so we need the "follow-through" to deregulation (snicker). (He could also say we need to go back to 1985 and get excited about Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" and not recognize that all the talent and money are going to Silicon Valley, which is in the process of reinventing financials' business models, which basically means cratering fees for customers.)

Mike Santoli opined that Thanksgiving through January was "the moment of maximum ease" for investors. We would add that mid-September 2008 through mid-October 2008 was the moment of "maximum pain" for investors.

Jon Najarian, in the show's greatest and most relevant comment in days if not weeks, said all the market needs now is for Donald Trump to make a "significant pullback" from his trade-war comments. "Would we be up 800 points if that happened? Would Boeing be up $40 that day? Yes is my answer to both," Doc said.

Still waiting to hear about the new regulation on Equifax (cont’d) (or did that kind of end with outrage over the execs’ stock sales?)

Wednesday's 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin took up a concept we didn't expect — FB surging. (This writer is long FB.)

Sure enough, Great-grandpa Dan Nathan couldn't resist saying that if you think Facebook's government troubles are done, "you're crazy," likening FB to MSFT with the Justice Department.

(We've been through this one before, but whatever. There is no comparison, not even remotely close, to the popularity of Facebook 2018 and Microsoft 1999, the latter being one of the most hated companies in the world if admired for its acumen. What exactly is the Justice Department going to break up or "regulate" regarding FB? Clearing all posts with Liz Warren?)

Nathan and Guy Adami both suggested FB is stuck in a range.

Pete Najarian, who got a 2nd show on Wednesday after a quiet Halftime performance, told Nathan that in the '90s, MSFT "just sat there," whereas, "Zuckerberg either buys it or builds it."

Nathan scoffed, "With the government's scrutiny right now, they're not going to be able to buy anything." (Yeah. Sure. We'll take the other side of that. What exactly, at this moment, is the government "scrutinizing" about Facebook?)

Pete curiously said "now is the time" for FB to start monetizing some of its assets. (Apparently it doesn't make enough money to satisfy Pete already.) Dan insisted regulation is "coming" and actually said with a straight face, "I'd rather buy like a Twitter and a Snapchat" (snicker) that he doesn't think will have the "same issues" in terms of regulation.

David Seaburg scoffed that TWTR's revenue growth was "garbage quality."

It’s less likely that they find more than less ... or something like that ...

Foxy CNBCer Morgan Brennan, who's enjoying a recent promotion, reported during Wednesday's Halftime from outside the GE (snicker) meeting.

(Semi-regular disclaimer: We enjoy commentary on GE because it's usually funny to hear stocks get trashed, often in clever ways (especially after putting up with 2 decades of how awesome Jeff Immelt is with his ecomagination/whatever focus), but if you're long the shares, Godspeed, nobody here is rooting against anyone doing well in stocks.)

Kevin O'Leary grumbled that "this is a very expensive stock," even a "nosebleed P.E."

"This stock is going to somewhere between 8 and 10 dollars and even there, it will still be expensive," O'Leary said.

But Ian Winer offered an interesting counterpoint, stating, "From a pure fund-flow perspective, nobody owns this anymore, right ... so all you need is anything to go right, anything, and it's back to the high teens."

Jim Lebenthal opined, "It's less likely that they find more value than it is that they find less value in what they- in what they sell." Jim added that it's "crazy" that KPMG is still GE's auditor after messing up "big time" on the balance sheet.

That last reference somehow prompted Winer to suggest talking about "the U.S. consumer's balance sheet. What about the American government's balance sheet."

"It's a different discussion. We're talkin' about GE," Jim explained.

"Then we should also have the same concerns-" Winer said.

"No we shouldn't," Jim said.

Judge said the conversation felt like "watching the Army-Navy game," which brought a healthy round of chuckles.

Doc sounds personally offended that anyone would think ‘high-water mark’ equals ‘peak’

Semantics were on a rampage on Wednesday's Halftime Report.

Kevin O'Leary opened stating cash flow is what matters now; he thinks the 10-year will remain over 3%, but he doesn't think that matters much.

Jim Lebenthal said investors are "scared," but there's no sign of a near-term recession, and stocks are "a heckuva lot cheaper than they were 2 months ago."

Pete Najarian said the 10-year hitting 3.0% triggered algos and had at least as much impact as the CAT CEO's comments.

At that point, Jon Najarian challenged Judge as to the difference between "high-water mark" and "peak."

The former, according to Doc, "is not the same as saying, 'This is as good as it gets.' It's just saying this is high as the water's risen to this point."

Hmmmm. OK. Except the CAT CFO said "for the year" after the word "mark," which, call us crazy, sounds a bit like the CFO's not just reciting the past but predicting the future. Doc went a little overboard, but we're gonna applaud the passion.

Judge seemed flummoxed that anyone was even arguing this. Kevin O'Leary said the CAT comment was "definitely misconstrued" by the market. "I agree," Doc said. O'Leary suggested CAT would "unwind" the comment if it could. Pete Najarian said, "Or define."

Ian Winer said the market doesn't like the capex talk from CAT and GOOGL. "They want buybacks," Winer said, adding that the difference between the S&P 500 earnings yield and the 10-year yield is the smallest since 2008 and that to say it doesn't matter is "not being intellectually (sic redundant) honest."

Jim Lebenthal was touting CAT's valuation while Winer asserted, "Cyclicals always look cheap at the top, and they always look expensive at the bottom."

"There is nothing like Boeing in the market today," said BA long Kevin O'Leary. "This is a screaming buy ... it's beyond screaming."

Doc pointed to NSC surging as a sign of ... something.

Google guys brilliantly got YouTube, but Zuck topped them with Instagram; it’s a beautiful contest as to who makes the next great move vs. who’s the next Tim Cook

In the Call of the Day, Judge on Wednesday's Halftime brought in Scott Devitt to explain Devitt's GOOGL upgrade to Buy. (This writer is long GOOGL.)

Devitt articulated something about, "We're getting closer to the bottom of the reset."

Devitt said it "feels more to us like a bottom you know then it does a peak."

Sounding skeptical, Judge said it sounds like Devitt is calling GOOGL cheap, but people have called it cheap for a long time, and why did Devitt have a hold while "most others" with a buy were making the same argument "months and months ago."

Devitt said "the one main difference" is the lowering of EPS estimates. (Zzzzzzzz.)

Judge was right. GOOGL is one of those names that just feels like you have to nibble when it stumbles, so we think Devitt is technically correct, but there's no doubt this call was flat as a pancake.

Jim Lebenthal asked a very good question, whether (these weren't Jim's exact words) for monetization purposes GOOGL will ever be more than a fantastic search engine. Devitt didn't have a good answer but acknowledged that growth investors see the search business as such an overwhelming part of the story that "there's only bad news ahead" because margins will eventually go down.

Kevin O'Leary bluntly said everything else at GOOGL "is pale" to the search business "and everything else in some cases is a waste of money." (We half agree. YouTube was no waste of money. The car thing though doesn't make much sense, but whatever.)

O'Leary said the dividend is "what's missing in this story" and asked Devitt if others complain of the same thing. "Absolutely, and it's a great point," Devitt said, adding it's "highly debatable" whether the company does a dividend even though Devitt thinks they should. Of course, that was Karen Finerman's complaint this week. Honestly, we don't get why there's no dividend, special or regular. They don't need to hoard cash, they need to buy or develop the next big thing.

Jon Najarian said despite big numbers, GOOGL's cost per click was down 18%, which is why "a lot of folks hit that sell button pretty hard."

Last time someone said ‘liquidated,’ Joe got unfairly harangued

Sue Herera on Wednesday's Halftime provided some World War I history in the CNBC News Update.

Pete Najarian said May 70 calls in C were popular, though people were selling "some of the upside." (See, that gives everyone a chance to say "Just added to Citi/Bought some more Citi/Citi's still trading below book/Citi has the most catch-up ahead...")

Jon Najarian said CZR May 12 calls were getting bought. And of course, someone was buying upside SNAP calls ahead of earnings, a trade that the Najarii tout every quarter; "I like it to pop here," Doc said.

Pete said he owns WYNN and loves the name but that legal issues are dogging it.

Judge read the news of the NYSE halt and inadvertently revealed he didn't know Priceline is now called "Booking Holdings (he pronounced the second word as just 'Holding')."

Jim Lebenthal said he's not sure COST goes much higher.

Ian Winer said TXN, which happens to be a common mention of Joe Terranova (who wasn't on the show), is "probably going higher."

Kevin O'Leary said he likes ANTM's sector, but the stock doesn't have top-line growth.

Doc said he "liquidated" his TWTR stake at 33, but — in one of those comments that can be a little annoying — indicated displeasure at not getting 34. He noted as he spoke that it was 29, "so at least I got out." Doc said daily and monthly active users caused people to hit the exits.

Kevin O'Leary said TWTR isn't a good advertising tool because you can't "geolock" with it.

Jeff Kilburg said gold should've been pummeled recently for 3 reasons, but it hasn't been pummeled, so he thinks it'll go higher. Scott Nations said gold hasn't gotten past 1,360; he thinks it's "only a matter of time" before it breaches 1,300.

Jim's final trade was AAPL. Winer said WEN, O'Leary said BA, Doc said F, and Pete said XOM. (Nobody said Judge's book, for a change.)

[Tuesday, April 24, 2018]

Wolves Bite conversation omits Carl’s biggest discovery, that the opinion from Sullivan & Cromwell wasn’t as relevant or devastating as Bill claimed

Not only did he host the Halftime Report, Judge turned up on the 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin to discuss ... something he's familiar with, the relationship between Bill Ackman and Carl Icahn.

That show was actually guest-hosted by Michelle (that's correct, "Michelle" this time), who 1) looked great in green and 2) read a passage from When The Wolves Bite (which is more than we got as Judge evidently didn't bother to ship advance copies to the media, forcing shoestring operations to empty their pockets).

Judge said the passage shows that Bill is a "relentless person."

As for Bill's peak, Judge said "it's a little unfair to say that Herbalife marked the top ... Valeant was a much bigger bet." Judge curiously stated that Carl's presence "moved the goalposts" in Bill's HLF trade.

Michelle said she remembered "so clearly" when Carl declared he had "no view on the company" but saw HLF as appealing because Bill had made such a big show of his position.

"Carl doesn't do things just out of sheer revenge," Judge asserted. "I don't believe that," Michelle said.

Judge at one point said "at the end of the day" and threw in a variation of "in and of itself."

Karen Finerman, in stunning new black ensemble, sounded flabbergasted at the market's "flipped-out" reaction to CAT, stating, "I don't understand at all what's changed." Steve Grasso said he'd be a buyer of CAT, but "ya gotta give it a couple of days."

‘I need a barber’ — Josh apparently uses Google
to find haircuts

Joe Terranova, sharp in a blue suit a day after topping his colleagues with The Best Suit at Sohn (unofficial category, unlike the "Best Idea"), on Tuesday's Halftime said "the visibility is still not there" for FB in the wake of the stolen ID report. (This writer is long FB.)

Jon Najarian, who has touted FB in recent days, bemoaned, "When you have 2½ billion people on your platform, Judge, how are you gonna police every single thing." Rather, it's about "how quickly does Facebook address 'em."

Joe said, "I agree with some of the comments that Jeffrey made," which was basically that FB is going to be swarmed by regulation. (What kind of regulation has been ensuring that we don't have another Equifax?)

Josh Brown said FB has broken its 200-day, and Gundlach is probably picking up on that.

Joe added, "Google has just as much information." Jim Lebenthal said, "Absolutely." (This writer is long GOOGL.)

Brown explained, "The difference is in the content. The way that information is being used by Facebook in the context of political and social stuff is, ads being- with your own opinion being reflected back out at you, but with the decibel levels raised tenfold. Google is not in that business. Google is in the business, I need a barber, and they're serving you up barbers in the area, and the ones who pay them go up the highest. Facebook is literally taking your own opinions and showing you distorted versions of them, and that is the thing that people seem to have more of a problem with."

We'll translate that: FB got mentioned in the same sentence as "Donald Trump."

Sarat Sethi, who's long FB, said the stock might fall to 150, but he sounded enthusiastic about cash flows for the next 3 years.

Steve Weiss said if consumers leave the platform, advertisers will leave. Sarat said that despite everyone's speculation, we have to hear from the company.

Weiss said Sarat can "take comfort" that WFC hasn't "cratered" even though it has "the same trust issues" as FB. (Really. "The same trust issues." Opening gobs of accounts that customers didn't request vs. being linked to a company that deals with someone who likes Donald Trump.)

Joe noted the FB analyst community "hasn't budged," there are still 42 buys, 2 holds and 2 sells. Weiss said, "If the stock drops to 140, those will all turn to sells."

Grasping for derivatives, Josh Brown claimed it's "very notable" that FB put out its privacy policy on Twitter and that "this entire conversation about people's privacy is taking place on Twitter."

If Weiss had just said ‘don’t’ instead of ‘can’t’

Josh Brown on Tuesday's Halftime shrugged off whatever landmark move was supposedly being made by the 10-year Treasury bond, stating rising rates are great because bond investors can cash out into higher-yielding securities and that bond yields are no longer "dead money."

Once again stressing that higher rates don't have to be a problem for stocks, Brown pointed to rates rising in the 1950s and 1990s along with equities.

"I get it, I get it," Judge said, nevertheless asking Steve Weiss if the bull case "gets harder" amid rising rates.

Brown protested that he "conclusively" proved that it doesn't. Judge scoffed, "Giving past history doesn't mean a damn thing to me."

"There's evidence that stocks and rates can go up together," Brown insisted.

"OK, and there's evidence that- that they can't," Weiss said, and oh, did that last word cause a heap o' trouble.

"No there isn't. They can," Brown claimed.

Weiss asserted, "There's no playbook for what's going on" regarding this kind of global monetary accommodation previously. He said Brown was "conclusively wrong" and cited 4 years where "both equities were down and rates were up. The 10-year was down."

Weiss then accused Brown of saying "rates conclusively do not affect stocks," a slight exaggeration of what Brown said.

"No I never said that. You say that up," Brown said. "I said rates can go up at the same time as stocks ... the idea that it cannot work out that way is ahistorical and conclusively wrong."

"Nobody said that it cannot work out that way," Weiss said, although, he kinda said that.

"OK good," Brown said.

Joe unleashes impressive amount of research during rising-rate discussion

Joe Terranova on Tuesday's Halftime said he read a report about 30 days ago stating that for every "25-basis-point-rise (sic) in a U.S. 10-year in either direction (sic), it tends to impede the path of the S&P 500 in the opposite direction. ... Yes in fact, that is the case."

Joe pointed out that April 2 was 2.71, and look at what stocks have done since.

Joe also told Judge that "I got the calendar right today, you happy about that?"

Judge was praised by Jim and Joe for asking if the bull market is looking for more reasons to continue or more reasons to end.

Jim said, "It's looking for more reasons to end." But, "I don't think it's going to end," because earnings are growing.

Steve Weiss pointed out that the market isn't rallying on great earnings news. Sarat Sethi said financials are "leading the pack" on Tuesday.

Joe said if tech gets going, the market will go higher. Jon Najarian said the market would, "if we could get past Facebook." (This writer is long FB.)

Jon Najarian said "homebuilders are up today," so if 3% "is such a line in the sand ... why are those stocks up."

Josh Brown said everyone remembers the 2013 taper tantrum. Weiss stormed in, "This is not 2013," pointing out the ECB was leveraging its balance sheet back then to $4 billion, and that's not happening now.

Brown insisted you can have a "rate scare" and still a healthy market.

Rick Santelli said he's both "happy and nervous" to see the 10-year hovering around 3%.

Judge said, "Pity the Fed."

Steve Liesman said, "Like Jim Morrison said, 'The future's uncertain. The end is always near.'"

Liesman speculated that 3 or 3.5% may be the top for this cycle. Santelli suggested 3.37% and 3.49% as key levels.

Judge said he has a "hard time believing" that stocks will do well with rates over 3%. Jim Lebenthal said, "It's far more about the change than the actual level."

Judge said Jeffrey Gundlach emailed him at that moment that 3% matters only if there's a close above that level.

"The other part we're not talking about is credit spreads," said Sarat Sethi, calling them "great leading indicators."

Judge unable to get Jim & Weiss going on some sort of debate

Judge on Tuesday's Halftime brought in this year's Ira Sohn champ, Andrew Walker, whose idea was long LQ on spinoff potential. (Whew. He didn't say anything about "Embedded in that is that PayPal is a short.") (This writer is long PYPL.)

Josh Brown questioned if LQ has to spend a lot of money to renovate properties. Walker said that money will be "behind them by the time of the spin." But Walker acknowledged "there's absolutely downside" if there's a recession. He said based on 2009, the stock held up OK and thinks it would be OK in "even a garden-variety recession."

Steve Weiss questioned the value of REITs in a rising-rate environment. Walker said "that's a great point," but he said the spinoff valuation justifies the trade.

Sarat more than adequately prepared for LOW skeptics

Judge on Tuesday's Halftime said the Call of the Day was Wells Fargo initiating HD and LOW with an outperform.

Sarat Sethi said he started buying LOW 2 years ago and admitted, "We've lost money with this." But he likes the tailwinds of both stocks.

Jim Lebenthal questioned the headwinds of higher mortgage rates on home-improvement spending. Sarat said people may be dissuaded from buying and instead pay for upgrades to their homes. Sarat also volunteered that despite the presence of Amazon, "at the end of the day, people are still gonna go to these stores" because they want to look at the appliances. He also said both companies are "spending money to grow again."

Leslie Picker recapped the Ira Sohn picks (which we've been hearing for nearly 24 hours straight in merry-go-round-like fashion on CNBC). Referring to Einhorn, Steve Weiss said he'd be surprised if the whole world didn't already know about about AGO's Puerto Rican exposure. "It's not a new story; you're not- you're not Inspector Clouseau uncovering it, maybe you are, I don't know," Weiss said.

"Ohhh, you are a hater," Judge quietly told Weiss.

"I'm not a hater, I'm just pointing it out," Weiss said.

Anthony Grisanti said there's a double top for bitcoin at 9,450, but once it gets through that, 10,000 is possible. (We thought that crap was relegated only to the 5 p.m. show, but apparently Halftime has to dabble in it too.)

[Monday, April 23, 2018]

We’d prefer the Halftime Report call it the ‘Business market’ or ‘Companies’ because ‘stock market’ makes the hair on people’s neck stand up

Ushering in Monday's Halftime with the chimes of Ira Sohn, Judge said the 10-year was "the story of the day," and Joe Terranova agreed, stating this is the year of volatility and 95 mph pitches not 75 mph pitches "inevitably" we'll see 3%.

Steve Weiss said, "The betting is that earnings overcome the move above 3% yields. I'm in that camp. However, all bets are off if we see velocity continue to be behind it."

Weiss said 3% has been resistance, and it "may in fact become support, and then you're in a different world."

Josh Brown noted that a couple years ago, we were worried about deflation; "now all of a sudden, the biggest risk is a screaming interest-rate-to-the-upside (snicker) problem."

Brown said it's possible that stock multiples have peaked for this cycle, but on the plus side, maybe the silver lining is, "We're not gonna blow a bubble of massive proportions."

Hmmm, has he talked to Dan Nathan lately? Because Nathan on Feb. 8 declared, "When the thing finally blows up, it's gonna make 2000 and 2008 look like a walk in the park."

Weiss said rates "kill" the markets historically when exceeding 5%, but now it's not gonna be the 5% level but "faster moves."

Judge asked Steve Liesman about a possible Fed "policy mistake" (snicker). Liesman said he likes Weiss' point about the importance of the speed of rising rates. Liesman pointed to the 2-year and 10-year spread and 35% anticipation of a December hike and said the concern will be over whether the growth is there.

Rick Rieder said the panel's discussion on rates was "unbelievably good" and contended, "I don't think the Fed's the story anymore," rather, it's "the front end of the yield curve," which Rieder says is now an alternative to stocks and other investments.

Rieder suggested 3¼ this year on the 10-year, "but nominal GDP is gonna be- could hit 5 this year."

Funny how when people talk about the headwinds of AAPL, no one mentions making products harmful to kids as Jana and CALSTRS and Psychic Tax Prof seem to think

Bill Gurley told Judge on Monday's Halftime that IPOs are cool again in Silicon Valley; Judge asked if it's cool to like Uber again.

At that point, Bill turned the tables on Judge, asking, "Do you think Uber's in a better position now than it was 12 months ago?"

Judge responded, "Well, that's for you to answer, not me."

Gurley said we in the U.S. "have probably the most, you know, highest-lawsuit-prevalent, you know, society (sic grammar) of all the G-20," which will be a negative factor in how fast the U.S. adopts self-driving technology.

Judge asked Gurley what he'd tell Zuck if Gurley was on the Facebook board. "I'm not on the Facebook board," Gurley protested, before suggesting FB needs to realize "you gotta get to trust first." But Gurley said, "I don't perceive incremental regulatory pressure to be the thing that undoes Facebook right here." (This writer is long FB and GOOGL.)

Gurley said FB's data involved a political element, which provokes a "very emotional response," which Google hasn't been associated with yet. We'll put it a lot more bluntly: FB unfortunately got lumped into the same sentence as "Donald Trump," which knocked $90 billion off the market cap for utterly no reason (unless you count the regulatory worrywarts on CNBC who were regurgitating this theme all day Monday).

Steve Weiss asked Gurley what he thinks of AAPL's "innovation level" (snicker).

Telling Weiss what he wanted to hear, Gurley said, "I think the pressure's probably on for them to come forward with a product that proves that they can still innovate."

Weiss brought up the AirPods again. Gurley seemed to think Weiss was complaining about the AirPods when Weiss was actually complaining about the lack of supply of AirPods.

In the whopper of the program, Gurley said with a straight face that the thesis of bitcoin "as a store of value vs. a bunch of countries that are overinflating, um, is an interesting concept and has a lot of strategic, um, heft to that ar- to that singular argument."

At the end of the show, Judge said Jeffrey Gundlach at Sohn suggested long XOP, short FB.

Joe Terranova admitted "I'm a little confused" by Gundlach's FB short.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin, Mel aired a clip of Jeffrey saying he found Zuck's testimony "terrible" and "dismissive" and "insincere" and "very semantic" as opposed to "fulsome." Gundlach also said regulation tends to take 2 forms, either none at all or too much. (We'll bank on the former in this instance.)

OK. So we should get used to Elizabeth Warren keeping tabs on Web searches? Whatever did happen to Ed Snowden by the way?

Doc was just saying March 16 that UAA could break out like TWTR

Judge's Call of the Day on Monday's Halftime was UAA upgraded by Deutsche Bank from sell to hold.

Joe Terranova said one way to look at it is that "the worst is over," that's why he's in the stock.

Nevertheless, "Candidly, I'm a little disappointed in terms of the performance that we're seeing so far," Joe admitted.

Judge questioned that with the stock up 16% for the year. Joe started to explain that there was "a big move here at the end of May (sic) into early April."

Judge cut Joe off, mocking, "March, into April ... need a calendar on the way out?"

Joe impressively said, "I'm excited for the, the weather and your book to come out, which it'll do in May," except that comment also proved a bungle.

"Actually tomorrow, but that's OK," Judge assured.

Back to UAA. "For me, they have to improve the footwear business," Joe said.

Steve Weiss dismissed UAA as still "vastly overvalued" and being "essentially in a commodity business."

Josh Brown said fashion stocks such as UAA are basically just trades that require understanding momentum. "Under Armour has no momentum right now," Brown said.

Joe gives up on AAPL (at least halfway) because it doesn’t have enough momentum

Joe Terranova on Monday's Halftime at Ira Sohn said buyback authorizations are up 48% year to date. Joe also cautioned about the propsect of a rising dollar.

Josh Brown said GOOGL has made an accounting change in which it will report "directly on the valuations of the Google Venture holdings," one of which is Uber.

Pete Najarian's hot options trade (from Minnesota; Pete wasn't at Sohn) was BAC 31.50 May calls (Zzzzzzzzz). Oh joy, let's buy a 1968-business-model bank stock instead of the FAANGs. (Bet someone is also adding to Citi/buying more Citi/reloading on Citi.) Pete also said someone was taking stock losses in AMD "I think for tax reasons" but buying January 13 calls (2019) because they "still believe in what's going on at the company." (Gee whiz, that's a lot of information. Do people in Congress know that this information is being collected?)

Judge apologized to Pete for a prompter mishap in which Judge indicated they were going to commercial when they actually weren't.

Joe Terranova revealed he sold half his AAPL position last week. "It lost the momentum, it lost it very quickly," Joe said, stating the stock is "a little bit of a trading story more than anything else."

Leslie Picker, stunning at Sohn, said John Khoury of Long Pond capital suggests long DHI and that Li Ran of Half Sky pitched GRUB.

Josh Brown said he thinks Ran's target is 160, and "I think it's cool to hear that kind of thing."

As for DHI, Brown asserted "the demographics are good for the homebuilders," citing an abundance of 26-year-olds.

Joe said the problem with Khoury's DHI call is "50% higher." Joe said let's see it get above 53.

Josh Brown's final trade was JPM. Joe told Judge his final trade was "your book." Weiss suggested the book includes "phenomenal reading." Wish we knew the answer to that, but Judge evidently didn't feel compelled to ship out advance copies to members of the media.

On Monday's 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin, Karen Finerman, who very much likes GOOGL, said "my single biggest complaint" is the company's cash pile; she said if they don't want to commit to a regular dividend, they can do a special dividend.

Mel said she got 1 grade of B in her life, organic chemistry at Harvard.

[Friday, April 20, 2018]

Weiss: AAPL would do ‘better with a better CEO’

Tim Cook is a fine ambassador for Silicon Valley and a gentleman.

He's not in the same league as Bezos, Zuckerberg, Page and a few others. The question is whether he can be a Nadella.

Friday's Halftime Report took up that subject in what quite honestly was an exceptional discussion about a very important company and stock.

Guest host Melissa Lee said Katy Huberty is trimming AAPL estimates for March and June quarters but said to buy any post-earnings dip.

Steve Weiss wasn't impressed with the timing, stating, "SHe should've been worried about it before. ... She put out a huge report in November about China, how that's the opportunity. And guess what. China's not working out, as she pointed out. So here's the story in Apple. ... The iPhone X has not worked out for them. Tim Cook is not an innovator, we know that. But he's supposed to be a supply-chain guy. Yet, their AirPods, which I think are great product, they didn't have enough in stock for Christmas. They still don't have enough in stock. ... So I personally think they do better with a better CEO."

Josh Brown said iPhone X demand "just didn't materialize" and explained that "China is a very difficult market." Brown said AAPL's rhetoric has pivoted, "'Oh now India's the next big opportunity.' Well let me tell you, there's even less money there, uh, per capita."

Then, Brown declared, "They're really gonna need to figure out someone else to play visionary. Um, because, it may be Mel that, within 5 years, uh, the phone is not gonna be the main product for any of these companies. And it's going to be talking and interacting with the Internet everywhere you are, and the speaker's gonna be critical."

Sarat Sethi suggested AAPL is "slowly getting revalued into a consumer-staples-type company," but in the meantime, there are tax cuts and a rising dividend.

Mel said Katy Huberty "said she expects a $150 billion lift to the capital return," but Weiss cut in, "So does everybody. So does everybody, come on ... they expect the dividend, they expect the buyback."

Jon Najarian said he owns AAPL and overwrote it with calls that covered him only "for half of this $12 drop however, so I'm not a happy camper Mel." Doc said the only positive in Huberty's report is capital return, which could be "that invisible hand" right around Friday's level.

Josh Brown said he's not selling because the company has bounced back from stumbles before; "I can cite 5 examples in the last (unhearable) years."

Weiss cut in, "I wanna hear more than 1. Which is before Jobs came back."

"What do you mean," Brown said.

"Give me, give me the 5 examples in, in, in the last decade where they didn't have their act together, where they didn't have products ... give me those examples, they don't exist," Weiss said.

"Many. Many," Brown said. "There were disappointments with iPads, there were disappointments with previous phones, many ... you're saying this is the worst period of time for Apple?"

"Absolutely. Without a doubt," Weiss said.

Brown noted AAPL's market cap when Steve Jobs died was $300 billion, now it's $900 billion, so, "Actually Tim Cook has created more value for shareholders, if you wanna look at things that way, than Jobs."

But Brown admitted to Weiss, "I'm starting to come around to your way of thinking, which is that, they're going to need uh more than just Jony Ive and a handful of people."

"Tell me what Tim Cook has done in his entire legacy. This is the runoff of Jobs' legacy. This has nothing to do with Tim Cook," Weiss insisted.

"That's fine," Brown said, but, "We don't get paid based on that."

"In my view, it would've quadrupled with another CEO," Weiss said.

One thing they didn't get into was the notion of people paying more and more money for smartphones when it's actually probably going to be the reverse.

How many times did Marissa have to testify 2 days before Congress about YHOO’s 3 billion account breach?

Mel on Friday's Halftime said one of the Calls of the Day was MKM's upgrade of TWTR to a 40 target.

Longtime TWTR fan Josh Brown said there's a realization that TWTR isn't going away and is "starting to grow again."

Brown said TWTR's basically everywhere for news and sports events. "Can you imagine watching an NBA game and staring at your Facebook page? There's nothing going on there," Brown said.

Mel said the MKM analyst was really focusing on user growth. Weiss said, "It's all about the quarter."

Meanwhile, Steve Weiss said he's looking at Alphabet and MSFT earnings next week; he wants to know if GOOGL has seen any impact from FB's issues "spill over" into its own business. (This writer is long GOOGL and FB.)

Weiss said GOOGL is a "great buy." He wants to see MSFT break out.

Josh Brown said he's long Alphabet also. Weiss said nobody talks about Google's access to data via gmail and whatever that means regarding the FB controversy. "I've been worried about that personally," Weiss said.

Jon Najarian said to buy INTC on dips. Sarat said there's an overhang "hitting all these stocks right now."

Andy Chase thinks ‘stock market’ is a toxic term, prefers to say ‘business market’

Andy Chase (for performance) (that's our nickname, it's a compliment, not a dis) joined Friday's Halftime and said "there's some catching up to do" for stocks, which are flat for a quarter, "but at the end of the day, I call myself a relative bull I guess."

Chase curiously stated, "I've actually come to talking about the stock market saying 'business market' or 'companies' because you say 'the stock market' and people's hair on their neck stands up."

"It feels to me a little over, uh, anxietied (sic), if that's a word, overangst, whatever," because "mathematically the market is flat-out cheaper than the other areas by quite a bit actually," Chase said.

Chase wouldn't reveal specific names but mentioned the Chinese Internet sector, stating China likes its monopolies and doesn't "beat 'em up like we do."

Chase said he likes financials. "The dirty little secret on that is Wall Street and banks make all their money on float. And now that Fed funds are tickin' up, the float game is gettin' better." (So they are interest-rate plays and still get by on a 1970-esque business model while fees are rapidly decompressing and the sector's getting reinvented by smart people in Silicon Valley.)

Steve Weiss said, "I do like financials," but, "Keep in mind that if rates move too high, it stunts loan growth. Libor is still a source of concern for me. It's at a high, and there's really no reason for it to be."

But Weiss isn't too high on Chinese web stocks; "Those people can disappear pretty quickly and very rapidly."

Jon Najarian knocked what he said was Andy's contention that we'll see volatility down before the election. "We're gonna see it up," Doc asserted. Which actually means Doc is predicting either there will be few buyers in the fall or increased sellers or both.

Doc botch: Claims GE was $31 in December but presumably meant December 2016

Friday's Halftime crew took up the notion of the GE dividend.

Josh Brown said it needs to be cut — "to zero" — and that it's an "absurdity" to be debating it.

Steve Weiss agreed "it's irresponsible not to" cut the dividend.

Guest host Missy Lee said if the GE dividend is eliminated, the stock "gets booted from a lot of the dividend mutual funds." At that point, Weiss clairifed, "I don't think zero is the right way to go."

But Brown insisted, "Incrementalism is a mistake."

Sarat Sethi said he doesn't disagree on axing the dividend but thinks "that ship's already sailed."

As far as the stock's big day, Weiss said momentum and consensus opinion on GE was "so negative" that "up was the only way you can go." But Weiss cautioned, "In a turnaround, particularly of this size, the easy stuff always gets done first." He concluded, "I'm not getting involved."

Mel said GE is still in an "existential moment."

Jon Najarian said Stephen Tusa "remained adamant about his sell rating."

Doc said, "I made the mistake of touching it when it was 19 bucks, lost 2 bucks so fast, I mean, you know, at least in Vegas they buy you drinks, I always say."

In a curious bungle that went uncorrected, Doc claimed, "Mel, the stock lost half its value since December. I mean, it was 31.60 in December." But he bought it last fall at 19 and presumably knows it wasn't at 31.60 since about December 2016.

Weiss asks if analyst is simply ‘taking a guess here’

The other Call of the Day on Friday's Halftime was Sam Poser's "another shoe to drop" at NKE amid the personnel shuffle.

"We just don't think that, um, you know, you can plug and play as easily as people realize (sic), and that's why we put the note together," Poser said.

"We're not making a call on the product. We're making a call on the way they need to manage it," Poser said.

Steve Weiss asked Poser, "Are you taking a guess here? Or do you- or through your research, do you know that they're going to overproduce and inventory's going to cost them this year."

Poser said it's a "big problem" to lose this much talent and "there's always a hiccup."

Poser said SKX guidance wasn't "as good as it needed to be" and the company overspent on SG&A, but the fundamental business is good.

Even Sue calls Melissa ‘Michelle’

Dom Chu on Friday's Halftime said LUV has been doling out $5,000 checks, letters and vouchers to passengers on the tragic flight this week.

Sarat Sethi didn't seem to think the gesture was significant for the stock; "It's just Southwest getting ahead of this."

Jon Najarian said BHGE May 40 calls were getting bought, then corrected it to say 37s.

Ionis President Dr. Stanley Crooke hailed the continuation of the BIIB partnership and said he's "very excited about the future." Crooke acknowledged to Mel that there had been discussions of a full Biogen takeout. Meg Tirrell said there's pressure on Biogen to do some kind of a deal. Steve Weiss said "there can be a lot of winners" in the Ionis space.

Doc said he likes CVX, stating he bought around the 114 level. He's still long FB.

Doc said people trying to play SHPG bidding are only taking "a small amount of risk." Weiss said, "I bet ultimately, the company gets sold."

Doc said he likes WFC on the pop.

Sarat said GM's earnings report will be important for several reasons, including pickup sales.

Sarat said HON is a hold for the next couple years.

As panelists mocked Andy Chase's lack of specific stocks, Weiss said he's got a small position in BABA; "They're buying everything," though he's puzzled by JD.

Josh Brown said he's not a fan of MAC, which he said rejected a $16 billion offer from Simon 3 years ago, now it's worth $8 billion.

Sarat Sethi's final trade was HON. Doc said DVN, with 40 calls popular. Josh Brown called STOR the "right way" to play retail. Weiss' final trade was BAC.

Sue Herera mistakenly called Melissa, stunning in white and new hairstyle, "Michelle," then blamed the prompter for saying "Scott."

"You look nothing like Scott," Sue explained.

"Thank you. He's a fine-looking gentleman, but I don't want to look like a gentleman," Mel said.

[Thursday, April 19, 2018]

Judge apparently thinks 6-person panel will deliver crisp commentary

(Chuckle) It's just some of the easiest pickin's you'll hear on business television.

For whatever bizarre reason, the Halftime Report gang talks daily as though bank stocks are the market's salvation, you know, (not the exact quotes), "I bought some Citi/I added to my Citi/Bought a little more Citi/Trimmed some of my Citi/Used the opportunity to add to Citi/Boosted my Citi stake/I was adding Citi/Lightened up a bit on Citi/Citi's below book/Bought some more Citi/Took another look at Citi/Bought Citi into earnings/The way to play it is by being long Citi/Citi's got the most catch-up ahead of it" etc.

Not only are they 1) trumpeting a 1970-esque business model, they 2) would have gobs more money if they'd simply been buying FAANG all of those times.

In the opening conversation of Thursday's obviously overbooked Halftime Report, in which Judge wondered about the impact of rates (again), Pete Najarian touted GS and MS having "phenomenal" earnings and curiously mocked, "You know, I've heard other people come on the network and say, 'Well, you know, they're not doin' buybacks at Goldman Sachs. That concerns me.' It's like, Are you crazy? I mean if that's the biggest negative (sic) they pull away from the Goldman Sachs report, that's ludicrous, and this stock deserves to be a lot higher."

Let's unwind that grammar a bit. It seems Pete flipped the literal logic about 180 degrees and that he didn't actually mean that there are bigger negatives than lack of buybacks, rather, instead of the word "negative," he actually meant something like "thing."

But Steve Liesman offered, "Scott, how many times have we- how many times have we been here saying, 'This is the moment,' interest rates break out, it's time to pile into the banks, and then we get disappointed-"

"I hear ya," Judge admitted.

But, "The banks are just consolidating," Joe Terranova protested, a point backed by Pete Najarian.

Pete said he'd push back that financials, "They go up, and they pause. They go up, and they pause." (Sure. And the FAANGs go up a lot more and pause a lot less.) (This writer is long FB and GOOGL.)

Liesman added that the spread between the 2-year and 10-year is "out there on the table ... that the Fed is about to turn this economy over in '19 or maybe '20 because it's gonna go too far." Wow. That is one important concern.

Joe said he thinks the 10-year "is gonna reach 3%."

Josh Brown questioned if multiple expansion can happen with rates climbing.

Liesman said there's a "big wave" of supply of Treasurys coming aboard.

Judge even brought up lumber prices at the 9-minute mark.

Jon Najarian focused on single stocks, defending PG as "overdone," stating there was "nothing" in the report that was bad.

Venturing into territory previously claimed by Sully, who insisted all the savings went to convenience store cigarettes, Joe Terranova questioned, "Where did we actually see a consumer spending benefit because oil prices for 3 years stayed at a very low level."

Josh Brown said, "They paid off credit card debt, but there was no uptick for the economy."

Doc said AXP's gain is a "very positive sign about where consumers are."

Deirdre didn’t have much new info, but she’s stunning, so here ya go

Deirdre Bosa on Thursday's Halftime brought up the Amazon Prime revelation of Wednesday night, stating, "Prime customers, they shop more often, and they spend more," perhaps even 5 times as much. (But she didn't say what's the chicken and what's the egg in that analysis.)

Joe Terranova, who predicted AAPL would be the first to a trillion, said the AMZN price action "is reflecting the expectation that they're going to beat."

Pete Najarian again questioned if "decelerating" AWS can hold its own against MSFT.

Josh Brown said there's a "possibility" that the "rules" and "environment" that FB is operating out of "may materially change (snicker) starting in May in Europe and maybe later this year here." (Yep. Congress will make that a priority, along with replacing Obamacare.)

Jon Najarian said AMZN's music numbers are up and said to watch SPOT, "because the higher Prime goes, the higher these numbers go."

In case you missed it: David Faber said 3 times that AGN will not follow through with a bid for SHPG

Judge's Call of the Day on Thursday's Halftime was WMT being raised by Argus (we don't think Judge ever mentioned the shop) to buy and $100 target.

Pete Najarian said "it makes some sense to me." But Pete said you get more "oomph" from TGT.

Joe Terranova said he bought WMT a while back, mid-90s, it got over 100, he heard "my friends over here" talk about unusual activity (snicker) in the name, Joe bought more, "got burned on the stock."

Judge noted WMT is in a "bear market."

Josh Brown said even if WMT's online revenue keeps growing for 5 years, the company is so big that it won't really make a difference. Jon Najarian said WMT has raised the dividend "every year" since 1974.

Josh wore the suit that always brings out the guffaws

Jon Najarian on Thursday's Halftime said PM "beat on the bottom line; top line was a little light." Doc said Piper was defending the stock "4 minutes ago" and admitted, "I gotta like it down around here Judge."

Doc said MAS calls (after squinting at the screen, we think they were 40 strike) were popular.

Pete Najarian said a bunch of October 62.50 KHC calls were getting bought.

Joe Terranova said the "most relevant thing" about GE is that 7 of the last 8 quarters, the stock has fallen on the earnings report.

Josh Brown seemed in disbelief that he was asked to comment on SNBR; "Why is this a public company?" He said it's trading at 2011 levels. He has "no interest."

Pete said there's an "overreaction" to AAPL and TSM.

Scott Nations said gasoline demand is "at its highest level ever." Anthony Grisanti said there's "beautiful trend channel forming" to the upside for crude.

Joe's final trade was again the Texas banks, IBTX, TCBI. Josh Brown said INTC. Doc said SLCA (similar ticker but not the Symbionese Liberation whatever). Pete said AA. Mike Farr said CVX.

Josh Brown congratulated Judge and Sue Herera on "good banter," which set Pete howlin'. Judge, flustered, introduced Sara Eisen as "Sue Herera."

Pete apparently didn't get enough fulfillment on Halftime, turning up at the Nasdaq for the 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin with others including Karen Finerman, who cautioned against buying stocks for dividend reasons, pointing to GE yielding about 3½% when trading around 26 and now still yielding 3½% at 14. Karen made a pitch for LOW, "they need to have more associates on the floor helping people," but that's "easy" to address.

[Wednesday, April 18, 2018]

Land of the lost: Panelists infatuated with bank stocks while talent, dollars, innovation, business models all go West

Judge opened Wednesday's Halftime immediately delving into dinosaur-land ... not NYT, not VIAB, but GS.

(Nobody on this show seems to get it, but whatever.)

Judge congratulated Wilfred Frost for how Wilf earlier in the day "phrased the question" to Lloyd Blankfein about Lloyd's tenure.

Wilf said Lloyd expects David Solomon to succeed him.

Wilf told Judge "it's really tough to say" if Lloyd might stay longer than people think.

Judge marveled that Lloyd was "cheeky" when Wilf asked about succession. (If things are so great, why is Lloyd planning an exit ... does he have a better gig lined up somewhere else?)

Wilf said that on the earnings call, the Goldman Sachs CFO "failed to fully explain" that the canceled buyback was for "positive reasons."

Wilf told Judge that MS had an "outstanding" report.

Jim Lebenthal said bank sluggishness will "continue probably for another month." Jim said he owns GS and C.

Judge said bank stocks have been "not very exciting on where people thought these- this trade was gonna be."

Joe Terranova said bank stocks having "muted performance" is "indicative of 2018."

"You can't dismiss the importance of volatility in these markets and for financial institutions," Joe said, even though this page does just that about every day.

Not sure what happened to the outrage about Ginni not being a member of Augusta

The hot topic on Wednesday's Halftime was ... somehow ... some still don't believe us when we keep talking about dinosaurs ... IBM.

Jim Lebenthal, who has touted the name, said IBM's problem was "the margins."

"Management needs to come in; they need to cut costs," Jim explained. "How do you do that? I'm sorry but you lay off people and you cut compensation."

Looking to the board for help (how'd that work at GE), Jim said IBM has former CEOs of DWDP, EMR, CAT and AXP on its board, and they "know what to do" in this situation.

"It's no longer a revenue problem," Jim insisted, getting in a good "Hang on a second" jab at Weiss.

Steve Weiss cut in, "It was a revenue problem. It wasn't a top-line revenue problem, it was a revenue problem in the business that is supposed to grow."

Judge, in rare form after a stodgy start to his week a day ago (see below), elicited chuckles when stating IBM missed on revenue "for like 60 years in a row."

Joe Terranova complained that IBM is "a complicated story ... what does IBM do really well in one area." Judge said, "Buy back stock." Joe said, "Exactly."

Jim offered "artificial intelligence" to Judge's question. No one asked who's the best artificial intelligence play: GOOGL, FB, AAPL, AMZN, MSFT ... or IBM?

Judge finally told Jim with slight disbelief, "You're tellin' people who are in the stock today to stick with it."

Jim asked, "Are you gonna sell it here? ... Fine, go ahead, but there isn't even that much of a tax loss (snicker)."

In a bit of a whopper, Rob Sechan said not to "underestimate the ability of big companies" because they have "infinite time and infinite resources; you couldn't build what they have. All they have to do is redirect it. And if they're able to redirect it, success will happen."

Weiss said, "Sure it does. And let me say, Eastman Kodak."

"How about Apple Computer?" Sechan said.

Pete Najarian finally got a word in, admitting he owns IBM. "I have said that the top end, the very top, of management needs to probably change," Pete said.

Weiss said IBM beat on top-line revenue, "but that was from hardware. That's not what the Street wanted to see." Jim said, "That's factually (sic redundant) false. That's factually (sic redundant) false."

Jim insisted IBM did the first thing it needed to do; "they've turned revenue into growth," whatever that means.

Jim says IBM now needs to "fix the margin problem."

Jim told Weiss it's "irresponsible" to mention EK.

Judge a couple times referred to Stan Druckenmiller 4 years ago at Delivering Alpha complaining about IBM as a buyback story.

Weiss said IBM needs to make the Hewlett decision. Pete said "we've watched Microsoft do it." Does anyone think IBM is as relevant as MSFT?

Stock movements drive the VIX, not the other way around (cont’d)

Pete Najarian on Wednesday's Halftime opined, "The VIX is telling you something, and it has pulled back significantly ... earnings is calming people back down."

Actually, the VIX is telling you what stocks have already told you.

Rob Sechan curiously cautioned that in terms of risks going wrong, "some of the safety net has been taken away ... and the VIX is telling you that those probabilities have increased."

Actually the VIX is telling you, after the fact, that stocks stumbled in February and March and aren't stumbling as much in April.

Sechan said that if you believe in the economic momentum, "People are gonna start to believe in the financials, and that's why we're overweight."

Judge said it'll take "a more sustainable rise in rates" and belief in higher economic growth for that sector to gain.

Joe Terranova rekindled yesterday's curious observation, protesting, "The economic growth is there," citing lumber prices and even mentioning Pete's unusual activity in MAS. (Um, we'd never thought of the Najarians' detection of unusual call-buying on HeatSeeker as an economic indicator; guess there's more to this gig that we need to learn.)

Judge told Joe that rising lumber is "not a plus for housing."

Joe insisted it's "indicative though of the economic strength."

Judge said, "Is it, or is it simply a reflection of the trade."

Joe insisted it's a reflection of "pure demand for the commodity."

"I don't know," Judge said.

Steve Weiss said it's actually "part of NAFTA."

Weiss said Wall Street trading revenue has "never been sustainable" and that bank hopes are based on the yield curve. Jim Lebenthal said the tax overhaul "has some lasting implications here."

Day after 10% gain, ROKU proves instant embarrassment

Dom Chu on Wednesday's Halftime reported something about Amazon and Best Buy teaming up to sell TVs with Amazon's system and not Roku's system. (This writer is long ROKU.)

Judge said, "Poor Jim."

Jim Lebenthal pointed out that ROKU was up 10% a day ago, "and what I said yesterday during the blitz was, this is not the time to buy it, OK. The time to buy it is when the earnings come out in a month."

But actually, he said in February the time to buy it was at 42 because it's going right back up to 50.

Noting the surge Tuesday and plunge Wednesday, Jim said, "All of that is noise and it cancels out, frankly over the last 2 days it's positive." Actually, by the time the program ended, it was a "negative."

Joe Terranova noted BBY is "surging."

Call of the Day is JNPR ... oh boy

Judge's Call of the Day on Wednesday's Halftime was Goldman Sachs' sell on JNPR.

Joe Terranova said, "What took them so long?" Joe said everything about JNPR is going in the "wrong direction."

"Juniper should call up IBM and compare notes," Joe asserted.

"Oh I don't think they should compare notes," Pete Najarian chuckled.

Steve Weiss said JNPR is not a growth stock but a commodity stock.

"Cisco is cleaning up on these guys right now," Pete said, trumpeting Piper's raising CSCO's price target from 48 all the way to 49.

Like Joe, Jim Lebenthal said his only problem with the Goldman call on JNPR is, "Where were you 4 months ago."

PYPL up on same day as EBAY double upgrade based on payments (even though Ira Sohn champ says embedded in that EBAY long is that PYPL is a short)

Steve Weiss on Wednesday's Halftime said you really have to respect an analyst when he goes from sell to buy, such as Morgan Stanley on EBAY. But Weiss said he wouldn't regard payments as one of the anchors of the EBAY story. (This writer is long PYPL.)

Joe Terranova said he likes TER better than LRCX, and the concern is a possible NAND oversupply.

Amid UAL's earnings report, Jim Lebenthal said people with concerns about the airline space "really should discard them" because it's a cheap sector.

Pete Najarian said he wouldn't sell steel names, citing potential of infrastructure.

Rob Sechan said European economic data is "starting to roll over."

Pete said someone bought May 96.50 calls in MSFT. "It's part of a spread," Pete said.

Pete said someone with July 35 calls in DVN is selling those "and buying the upside" of July 38s. Joe trumpeted FANG (the stock, not the tech mini-sector).

Pete said BHGE May 34 calls have really risen in price. (Wow. Baker Hughes.) He took some of his stake off.

Kari rebuying BMY

Kari Firestone, beaming in from Boston on Wednesday's Halftime, congratulated Judge on his "upcoming book launch."

Judge said Kari was making a "bold" decision to add to her BMY stake.

Kari admitted BMY has been "a tough stock" and said the recent issue is the outperformance of MRK's lung cancer drug.

Firestone asserted that BMY will "eventually get this approved" and gain 10% of the $15-$20 billion market.

Have we actually gone 3 days without talking about THE FACEBOOK PRIVACY BREACH?!!??!?

Jeff Kilburg on Wednesday's Halftime Report told Jackie DeAngelis there's more room to run in crude, explaining that Syria and Russia are the "undercurrents."

Jim Iuorio said he thinks crude is stuck in a "trend channel." He's looking for a topping pattern "and a place to sell it," and he'd like to buy around 63.

Pointing to energy, Rob Sechan predicted a rotation from growth to value (snicker). Judge, in what quietly proved one of his best performances in weeks, correctly wondered if it's all "short-lived" and that interest in FAANG "is gonna simply go back to the way it was in short order." (This writer is long FB and GOOGL.)

Sechan insisted "Volatility has brought back security selection" and insisted on "a movement into the momentum names within value (snicker)."

Judge asked if the panel buys that. After a pause, Joe, soft-pedaling things, said, if we're gonna see a transition out of some of those tech names, "you will see volatility continue to remain elevated." Actually, volatility doesn't bring back security selection. Volatility is the effect of a rocky market, not the cause of anything. (Sorry, we apparently need to keep pointing this out.)

Sechan said he's "thinking about" writing a book.

Rob's final trade was KRE. Pete Najarian said BABA. Steve Weiss said AAL. Jim Lebenthal said INTC. Joe Terranova said TWLO. Everyone had a chuckle over someone's stumble off-camera.

[Tuesday, April 17, 2018]

Bull case for energy;
bear case for spelling

We were excited to see, despite the yeoman effort by Sully (noted below), the return of Judge on Tuesday to the Halftime helm after a long weekend break.

Problem was, Judge sounded like he'd been working 9 days straight, warning his (overbooked) panel of consequences for ... interrupting each other.

"Let's not have 50 people talk over each other, OK!" Judge bellowed minutes into the show. (Well, when you pack the seats with 5 people ...)

Moments later, Stephanie Link said UNH was up 4% on the day, but not because of buybacks. Jim Lebenthal made the mistake of butting in, "We've gotta stop being absolutes here."

Judge snapped, "You know what we gotta do? I'm not gonna say it again. All right. We gotta stop talkin' over people. All right. She's makin' a point. Let her make the point."

"That's a good point," Josh Brown said.

Note: GS has an $85 head start*

Tuesday's Halftime Report delivered the typical fawning over those certified economic dinosaurs, the Bulge Bracket banks, the utility-like former greats clinging to rapidly eroding talent pools, fee structures and business models who look less like Steve Carlton circa 1972 and more like Steve Carlton circa 1987 (but are places where nearly everyone on CNBC has worked at or with at some point and thus engender media nostalgia).

(Then again, the panelists could be spending a whole hour telling you about various forms of crypto-garbage that they themselves won't touch.)

Joe Terranova stated that GS had "non-compensation expenches (sic pronunciation) up 14% year on year, they've gotta explain why those expenses are higher."

Stephanie Link said that in the banking space, "Quite frankly, I don't know if the earnings were really that good ... They didn't blow me away. ... And by the way, the regional banks were actually downright disappointing."

Nevertheless, Josh Brown said, "I bought JPMorgan this morning."

Jim Lebenthal said GS had a "blowout" in trading and explained the stock's reaction this way: "This is not about Goldman Sachs having done anything wrong. This is simply about the financial sector being unloved right now. ... Frankly I think you're crazy if you're selling financials here."

At one point, Joe said he has bought recently into MS' selloff, blaming the 6-point pullback on the sector.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin, Karen Finerman addressed the banks. "I'm really surprised that they haven't been able to participate more," Finerman said, stating she'd look to buy more.

So, here's our prediction: FB reaches 300 before GS does. Even money. (*Prediction invalid if GS is taken over at a premium by deep-pocketed tech giant.)

Joe Terranova trumpeted the exchanges again; "I would focus on that component of the financials."

Scott Minerd said he was ‘troubled by the euphoria undergirding the gathering’ in Davos, said the key is to know when to get out (of stocks, not Davos)

In a curious contention early into Tuesday's Halftime, Josh Brown said he disagrees with "the narrative that earnings are, are buoying the market."

Well, no one else had specifically said that, but it seems basically true.

"Buyback activity has absolutely exploded," Brown asserted, noting banks reported great earnings and sold off while tech was roaring.

Stephanie Link correctly protested, "Josh, Josh, Netflix is not about buybacks."

"It's one stock," Brown said twice. "So you have Netflix, I have Goldman (snicker)."

"It's not just about buybacks," Link insisted, but "great" earnings.

Judge and Joe Terranova noted Michael Pachter raised his NFLX target.

Judge said Joe has been talking "for weeks" about buybacks. Joe said, "2018 is gonna be a blockbuster year for buybacks."

Jim Lebenthal again said "you can be sector specific" and noted XLE is doing better than the XLF, which makes this a "great time" to get into the latter.

Judge started to pin down Josh Brown about how Josh hasn't been "universally positive" on stocks for months despite supposedly knowing "the buyback train was gonna roar through the station."

Brown said, "I just think it's important to be honest with, with ourselves about, um, where valuations are."

‘Clearly, that’s clear’

Judge's Call of the Day on Tuesday's Halftime was Goldman Sachs issuing a sell on PEP.

Stephanie Link, long KO, said she's underweight staples and said there's "a lot of pressure" on Frito Lay to carry PEP earnings. She said KO is a "special situation with a new CEO."

Josh Brown said "the sector has been atrocious this year." Brown said he's "not a buyer."

Jim Lebenthal said PEP was part of the TINA story from a while back. Jim said he respects the Goldman call and respects Link having a "stance to take on Coca-Cola."

Pete Najarian, from Minnesota, said he owns PEP and KO. Pete acknowledged underperformance, "Clearly, that's clear." But he likes both for the "long haul," including the move "away from carbonation."

"These are holds in my opinion," not trades, said Pete.

Joe Terranova said MNST has declined with PEP and KO even though "energy drinks are clearly in a positive trend" and that MNST "seems like the logical play." Pete said he likes MNST a lot and agrees with Joe.

Pete makes sure everyone knows he’s not a ‘gold bug’

Jim Lebenthal on Tuesday's Halftime got a bit of redemption on his "half-position" in ROKU, noting the big gains Tuesday and stating, "The question is, when do I add to it ... You need to see if these things are equating to more users."

Jim said he'll add if the next earnings report in May is a good one. (This writer is long ROKU.)

The thing is, in February, Jim crowed about how the stock tumbled from 50 to 42 and would be going right back up to 50; since then, there has been zero (that's correct) news other than Monday's positive news, and yet, he's no longer sure it's a good stock. #soundslikemomentumtradingbyvalueinvestor

Josh Brown said Morgan Stanley made only an equal weight, 29 price target call on TWTR, "so it's not even a bullish call, but you see how much demand there is." Brown said what's most appealing is "The scarcity value (snicker) of the asset" and its 350 million users.

Later, Brown suggested being long TWTR with a stop at 27.

Stephanie Link said IBM's earnings will be "sort of interesting" but that "nobody owns this thing. ... The setup is actually quite good."

Jim, who has spoken favorably of the stock, said if revenues don't grow, everyone's thesis on the stock changes.

Pete Najarian said MAS May 42 calls were popular. Pete also said May 131 GLD calls were aggressively bought. "I'm not a gold bug," Pete insisted, but there's "big" paper in the name.

Stephanie Link said flu didn't hurt UNH, and it had a beat and raise.

Erin: Buy FAANG

Dabbling in an unusual sector on Tuesday's Halftime, Joe Terranova said lumber futures are at an all-time high.

Then Joe touted an old favorite, LPX, and revealed how he once bought at 15 and sold at 18; he thinks it moves higher from 30.

Erin Browne said she's getting longer energy for the first time in a while.

Joe Terranova said to focus on oil over natural gas and energy names such as PXD and FANG (the stock, not tech mini-sector).

Joe said he likes DG over DLTR.

Brian Stutland said there's been a lot of short covering in silver and some "catching up" going on. Jim Iuorio said if it clears 16.90, then he thinks 17.75 will be in play.

Stephanie Link said she added to CAT.

Erin Browne said, "I'd be buying the tech sector and specifically the FAANG stocks." (This writer is long FB and GOOGL.)

Browne said we won't get an infrastructure bill before elections.

Jim Lebenthal repeated that INTC "looks a lot like Microsoft 3 years ago."

Karen Finerman on the 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin said she thinks "there's a little more room to run" in tech.

Jim’s chair takes a dive

Tuesday's Halftime produced smiles early after an equipment malfunction had Jim Lebenthal suddenly sitting virtually on the floor.

That provided some levity during a fairly bizarre debate over whether buybacks are driving the stock market, as Judge twice snapped that he wasn't going to allow any talkin' over people as occurred frequently in the early moments of the program.

Again confusing effect with cause, Joe Terranova opened the show by re-repeating his call that volatility is the "story so far of 2018." Do stocks go up because volatility goes down, or does volatility go down because stocks are up?

Speaking of repeats, Jim mentioned that INTC is like MSFT of 3 years ago.

Full report from Tuesday's Halftime later.

[Monday, April 16, 2018]

Jim tripped up by nonchalance toward recent NFLX price action

Joe Terranova on Monday's Halftime predicted NFLX's stock reaction would "come down to the subs," which he thinks will be stronger than expected. He said "I wouldn't be surprised" if it moves higher after hours. (It did. This review was posted overnight Mon-Tues.)

That prompted a head-scratcher from Jim Lebenthal, who claimed that NFLX seems like "one of the very few stocks that hasn't been corrected in the last couple of months."

Well, obviously, Jim hasn't been noticing NFLX on the CNBC ticker recently.

Steve Weiss pointed out, "It corrected more than 10%."

Josh Brown bluntly stated, "Jim, it went down 50 points ... it was traumatic if you owned it."

Meanwhile, Kevin O'Leary said the risk to NFLX is being priced as a "typical studio" (snicker). (Translation: Viacom = Goldman Sachs = a host of others, unfortunately ...)

Steve Weiss explained, "Here's the risk," which was nothing more than analysts recently perhaps getting over their skis on sub growth projections. Weiss said if you own it, "Ignore the quarter."

NFLX's greatest moment on Fast Money occurred in the very early days, the days when 1) Eric Bolling was The Admiral and 2) Reed Hastings was actually willing to call into stock-picking shows.

One time, after Hastings hung up, Bolling pronounced NFLX "a dog" and chuckled.

News flash: TRNC sold the
L.A. Times 2 months ago

Dom Chu on Monday's Halftime reported on Axios' report of Softbank's interest in TRNC.

Demonstrating some of his formidable skill as host (there are a few things he also could improve on), Sully, guesting for Judge, wouldn't let the story go and prompted the panelists into a spirited, informative, impromptu conversation on print media.

Josh Brown started by calling Tronc "the stupidest name I've ever heard" but then added, "I think we're at a point right now where the only reason to own a newspaper is for some ancillary benefit to the owner, like the ability to sway political outcomes, um, or to promote other things that that person owns."

Fair enough. But several of the world's weathiest/smartest people — Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos and Carlos Slim — own them.

So what does that tell you?

Sully capably questioned if the government would allow this transaction. Josh Brown, referring to Softbank's chief, said, "Son did the right thing," meaning he "checked in with- with the prez."

Kevin O'Leary asked Brown, "Which paper in the Tronc portfolio could influence anything?"

Brown unfortunately said, "L.A. Times, potentially."

"When's the last time you read the L.A. Times," O'Leary asked. Sully said, "I read it today."

Joe Terranova seemed incredulous. "This is a small deal. ... This is nothing," Joe said.

Kevin O'Leary pointed to Jeff Bezos getting flak for owning the Washington Post as a reason for business people to stay out of this space. Again, why not mention that to Warren Buffett.

Steve Weiss said if there's an antitrust case over TRNC, "circulation may be down to zero by the time the judge decides."

Friday’s much-anticipated bank reports appear to have disappointed

In an opening statement chock-full of pizzazz, Joe Terranova on Monday's Halftime said the VIX traded to 16.75, a level not seen since March 21, and "that is something to be encouraged about."

Indeed.

Steve Weiss suggested volatility has "shaken some out of the market."

Introducing perhaps the most interesting line of thinking on the show, Weiss actually said he's "second-guessing" his "pretty high allocation to the banks."

Jim Lebenthal contended that financials are just a "macro picture" and that gains can be found in "actual sector selections" such as XLE. He again touted IBM, INTC and CSCO.

Kevin O'Leary said BAC has a "jaundiced loan book, in other words, it's not growing."

O'Leary said he sold down his financials to 9.8% of his portfolio; "I took that money, and I bought gold." As for financials, "Maybe we never got the deregulation we were promised."

Weiss articulated O'Leary's gold strategy on Kevin's behalf, pointing out that O'Leary finds the principal risk of gold is less than the "deflationary risk" of being in cash.

Despite the grimacing about financials, Jim Lebenthal, clearly not on board (yet) with this page's pronouncement that hopping aboard the financial-services industry in 2018 is about like hopping aboard the Kennedy family in 1985, made GS his final trade, conceding "it's a little dangerous" making a call in front of earnings. Joe Terranova gave a speech about trading volumes and finally said NDAQ.

Kevin O’Leary: James Comey unleashed ‘damn near the most boring hour of stuff I’ve ever heard’

Kevin O'Leary on Monday's Halftime Report staked his claim to best line of the week, and it'll be tough to beat.

O'Leary said people were actually expecting legit news from James Comey's interview, but, "It turns out to be one of the worst book promotions I've ever listened to. That was damn near the most boring hour of stuff I've ever heard," and Kevin's right.

Steve Weiss told guest host Brian Sullivan, "Comey is not a risk. I mean, he's pushing a book, right. And I don't think he's a very well-liked guy anyway."

Weiss added that we've sort of gotten "immune" to Donald Trump's tweets.

Josh Brown said it's "too hard to say" as to the direction of the next 10% of the S&P.

O'Leary contended that when launching missiles doesn't rock the market, it's because of earnings. Jim Lebenthal countered with a point we didn't fully get, that earnings are priced in, and he shrugged that "these risks have been there all along; we shot missiles into Syria a year ago." (Apparently they were highly effective.)

Joe Terranova was shaking his head, stating, "We're using 2017's playbook ... it's not that environment in '18."

Doc and Pete weren’t at the table, thus no critiquing the complicated menu (which actually they’re right about)

Guest host Sully on Monday's Halftime said MCD got downgraded by Stephens to equal weight based on "too much optimism" being built in.

Joe Terranova shrugged and said he bought "a couple of weeks ago" and said the research note is already old news and baked into the stock and that 150 was your opportunity.

Kevin O'Leary said he owns MCD also.

Sully also said WMT was reiterated outperform at Telsey, based on the argument that ecommerce should drive it higher.

"That's news from 2 years ago," O'Leary scoffed.

Jim Lebenthal said WMT's sector rallied in the 4th quarter, "and for most of this year, it's done nothing. ... This is a sector that is ripe for another upturn. The question is, where do you play?" He said WMT is "not a bad place to be."

O'Leary stated that WMT's website experience now vs. 18 months ago is "a geometric increase better."

Josh Brown floated the idea of 70 million Prime subscribers "already locked in" and being accustomed to getting things from Amazon.

Joe Terranova grumbled that WMT has sat between 85 and 90 "for the last 6 weeks."

Clever product placement,
from Kevin O’Leary

Well after the WMT conversation on Monday's Halftime, guest host Sully said the Call of the Day was Wells Fargo's upgrade of COST.

Kevin O'Leary said he was impressed touting his wine across Middle America at COST stores. "The management team are incredible in these stores," O'Leary said.

But Jim Lebenthal shrugged at COST's multiple, pointing out WMT and TGT are ownable at "a much lower price."

Joe Terranova asked O'Leary if COST can be "cannibalized" by AMZN. O'Leary said "I don't think so," because you can't get fresh sushi on a platter at 3 p.m. from Amazon to serve at 6 p.m.

"It has a halo that is not deserved," Jim insisted.

"Man, the line for gas at my Costco," said Sully.

Back to euphoria — guest suggests 25% earnings growth in Q2

Gene Todd joined Monday's Halftime Report to say "most" of earnings are priced into the market, but he sees "a good chance" of earnings outperformance.

Todd even told Brian Sullivan that earnings growth could be "probably close to 25%" in Q2.

Sully said, partly in disbelief, "That'd be the greatest in decades."

Todd suggested 9-10% gains for stocks in 2018.

Aside from Bolling-on-NFLX, other great moments of early Fast Money (cont’d)

Joe Terranova on Monday's Halftime said "the story of commodities" is that there wasn't "paper asset demand" for it in the last couple years; now there is.

Boy, we haven't heard that terminology "paper asset demand" very often in about the last 9 years ... but in 2007 and 2008, you couldn't even gain admittance to Fast Money without pronouncing oil, potash, coal and whatever Alpha Natural Resources dabbled in as the greatest stocks of all time.

The thing is, nobody seemed that excited on Monday's Halftime to talk up energy. Kevin O'Leary said he doesn't know if energy will lead, but the dividends are great.

Pete Najarian, from Minnesota, said April 26 calls in WMB expiring a week from Friday were getting bought.

Tony Dwyer: GOP loss of House already priced in

Joe Terranova on Monday's Halftime called TPX a "falling knife."

Pete Najarian from snowy Minnesota said May 77.50 calls in VFC were getting bought in a "very complex spread."

Guest host Sully said Vans is the hot brand among N.J. kids, but Pete said "North Face is the brand!" (This writer owns a North Face jacket.)

Josh Brown said JBHT has rallied back to overhead resistance; he'd wait until it takes out new highs.

Jim Lebenthal said ULTA is a "good idea" but not necessarily the "best idea" as touted by Guggenheim.

Steve Weiss said Dubai "could work" for CZR.

Kevin O'Leary called FDX "a great name to own" for a global-growth play.

Joe Terranova asserted that AAPL is a "capital-allocation story right now."

Sully suggested people with 3- or 4-year phone leases aren't going to upgrade as much.

Kevin O'Leary's final trade was BA. Brown said ALB again (this writer is long ALB). Weiss said TBF; "I think rates go back up."

Tony Dwyer said on Monday's 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin that Republicans losing the U.S. House is "already assumed" by the stock market.

[Friday, April 13, 2018]

See ‘Chappaquiddick’

Mark Zuckerberg this week testified to Congress for 2 days over a Facebook privacy lapse.

Set that thought aside for a moment.

The Kennedy family's service to this country is enormous and highly respected here.

There were majestic moments. And devastating setbacks.

One of the latter occurred July 18-19 (realistically, it was just the 19th), 1969, at Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts.

This event is profound for a pair of reasons, 1) It is the biggest damage-control operation likely in history, and 2) Despite the damage control, it marked the end of whatever remained of the nation's only real presidential dynasty (though only one member was president).

Those concepts are well-documented in the movie "Chappaquiddick," which depicts its protagonist as incompetent, assigned to a place in history he didn't want, bungling his way into a catastrophic problem, saved only by the privilege achieved by, and afforded to, his family.

Inadvertently, the movie illustrates, or suggests, another concept that's even more fascinating — that the public isn't nearly as interested in judging as in just knowing what actually happened.

We don't know when the car went in the water. Nobody has any idea why the woman was in the car, why she was clothed the way she was, why her purse and hotel key were back at the party house, or where the car was going. Some people aren't even certain who was driving. Did she drown or suffocate? Was alcohol involved? How did he get out of the car (assuming he was in it)? How did someone really get across a 500-foot channel at 2 in the morning?

The mystery is the same reason Robert Wagner, 88, was hung out to dry this year by L.A. police. There's utterly no new evidence that he caused the tragic, strange death of a national treasure, Natalie Wood, a heavily investigated event. But he's the only person alive (with the very remote possibility of Christopher Walken) who might be able to inform us in greater detail of what really happened, and we just want to know. Note this terminology from L.A. police in February: "We're not pressing charges on anyone. We're still trying to figure out what happened."

"Chappaquiddick" is an excellent movie, not perfect, but excellent, one of the best in years, and should be appreciated by anyone based on cinematic merit. It will likely enjoy a sustained audience from those on the political right or those simply skeptical of the Kennedy family, although the polarization of the protagonist weakened considerably since about 1980 and has virtually disappeared since his 2009 death.

In 1969, a week after the incident and the day of the resolution of legal consequences, the senator delivered a famous, televised statement (pictured above) lasting about 11 minutes — quite possibly the first time this type of televised statement was ever delivered by an individual. It didn't take him long to make perhaps literally a dozen or more assertions that are almost surely false, starting with the 19th word of the first sentence, "Friday," and still in that first paragraph, he said "proper" when it was supposed to be "improper" (though it would not have been "improper" at all; he actually meant "legally risky"), then in the 2nd paragraph we heard "Only reasons of health prevented my wife from accompanying me," and, well, about midway through, "My conduct and conversations during the next several hours, to the extent that I can remember them, make no sense to me at all."

About a person who died in his car, he sensitively stated, "I know of nothing in Mary Jo's conduct on that or any other occasion — and the same is true of the other girls (sic, a term used 3 times in the speech) at that party — that would lend any substance to such ugly speculation about their character."

And he actually wondered "whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys."

Despite massive scorn at this statement, the senator was re-elected a year later with 62% of the vote, down from 74% in 1964.

There were no media questions, no police questions, not after this speech and not when he was on Martha's Vineyard.

A decade later, he ran for president. Roger Mudd asked him if he actually thinks people believe his story. He told Mudd at least 3 times that his story is "the way it was."

Contrast that with developments this week in Washington: A self-made business giant was hauled before the federal government for 2 days of extensive questioning. Nobody has died, that we know of, but some firm connected to Donald Trump accessed not credit cards but voluntarily posted data maintained by this individual's company. And so it has been speculated that this person's empire and potential might never be the same.

It's curious, the things for which the government demands testimony and the things for which it doesn't.

"Chappaquiddick" is one of the most fascinating films in years.

You should see it.

When’s the last time Nouriel called a crash?

With earnings out Friday, we were waiting for the Halftime crew to talk up the big banks as though this was 1985.

Actually, the crew was rather realistic this time.

Jim Lebenthal told Wilfred Frost, "I don't really care that much about the big banks right now," and while Jim thinks earnings indeed will bring back the bull market, he doesn't think "macro events like what the banks are reporting is what's gonna do it."

Steve Weiss for some reason said he disagrees, stating JPM was "very company-specific" and that while they're affected by interest rates, there are things about them that make for individual stories ... and we're not at all sure how that equates to disagreeing with Jim.

Josh Brown said JPM had great news that was already "priced in."

Frost suggested "things have just got a tiny bit harder for Goldman Sachs," pointing to FICC indications.

Weiss started to dig into what's really going on in this space. "You're seeing major compression in investment banking fees," Weiss said. Jim actually agreed, stating, "You're right, fees are compressing." But Jim added, "If the volume picks up as expected, investment banking could be a positive."

Jeff Kilburg said, "No one's talking about Libor" and that JPM is "hitting on all cylinders." Guest host Sully said, "You know why we don't talk about it? Because it's Li-boring." Josh Brown said "Terranova's been all over this Libor."

Jeff Kilburg said "banks represent 15% of the S&P 500." We'll take the under on that if we can make a longer-term bet.

Jon Najarian brought up WFC — a stock he's been fascinated with for some reason ever since it's become a regulatory volleyball with the fake accounts, as if it's going to have a Netflix-like post-Qwikster recovery — and said it looks "very attractive" at 51, down from 66.

Weiss shrugged, "I don't know why you buy it. ... There could be another billion-dollar fine as there was last week."

"These banks can throw out a billion-dollar fine like nothing," Doc protested.

Wilf Frost said the WFC fine "could be a one-off," but "The issue is, their expenses are ticking up."

"I don't know why anybody would own Wells Fargo over Citi," said Jim.

We don't know why anyone would be talking about any of them. Big banks' stature is like that of a single-letter ticker symbol. The prestige/premium of this space was shattered, permanently, in 2008, and the risk-constrained business model is gradually eroding as the big dollars and (even more important) big talent migrate West to tech companies to easily reinvent America's financial system with far lower fees and better services without "whale" gamblers mucking things up, and banks, like Viacom and other old-economy dinosaurs, look more and more like easy, obvious takeout or takeunder targets for the likes of V, MA, PYPL (this writer is long PYPL) or even the (really) biggies who already have $100 billion in the bank.

Don't say we didn't warn ya!

Whatever happened to FarmVille?

Guest host Sully opened Friday's Halftime referring to the Goldman Sachs note about tech stocks to buy on the FB selloff. (This writer is long FB.)

Jeff Kilburg, in a rare visit to Englewood Cliffs, said he likes CSCO and EA.

"It is a stock-picker's market," Kilburg assured.

Steve Weiss said he's reading "a bunch" of studies now about how ETFs are affecting individual stocks. But Weiss clarified, "It just wasn't a Facebook-related selloff. It was a broader selloff. And there were lots of other opportunities in tech and the general market." He mentioned buying GOOGL. (This writer is long GOOGL.)

Josh Brown sided with that assessment, stating, "I disagree with the whole premise of the note. Um, I don't think it has anything to do with Facebook at all. Stock correlations always rise when volatility rises." Then he repeated that with slightly different words.

Jon Najarian said SNAP and TWTR were both hit during FB's troubles and fell "fairly dramatically," but Doc thought those selloffs were buys.

Jim Lebenthal said he agrees with Josh. "The Facebook part of this is totally irrelevant," Jim said, but what he likes about the note is, "This is a stock-picker's market in my opinion."

Jim touted QCOM (Zzzzzzzz), a stock only he cares about. He also touted CSCO and QRVO.

Jeffrey Gundlach is most prominent person on Halftime Report to link bitcoin price to S&P 500

Checking in with Friday's Halftime, Tom Lee contended from the NYSE, "Historically, this is a great time to be long equities."

Lee said it would surprise a lot of people how much of the growth is coming from energy.

Josh Brown said, "There are some people who have suggested that cryptocurrency prices have some sort of a read-through to the stock market," and he mentioned that biotechs have also had a big week, and he asked Lee if either of those indicators are relevant to the broader stock market.

Lee said "it's hard to know," and "I'm not sure about the bitcoin and S&P correlation."

"I don't like it either; I was curious what you thought about it," Brown said, even though Lee didn't say he didn't like it, only that he's not sure about any correlation.

Steve Weiss bluntly offered on the bitcoin-leading-S&P theory, "I see coincidence that bitcoin came down when the market uh ... I think it's patently false. It's such a small market."

"That's Mike Wilson though, that's Morgan Stanley," said Brown. But we're not aware of Wilson saying that; we're only aware of Jeffrey Gundlach saying that.

Jeff Kilburg asked Lee for an S&P target. Lee said double digits and 3,000.

Did C- work, but actually got a B+, or something like that ...

On Friday's Halftime, guest host Sully said DBX was initiated by Nomura at "sell" with a 21 target.

Sully brought in the analyst, Chris Eberle, and told Eberle it seems like the company is great at getting people to use the free stuff with Dropbox but not so great at getting people to pay.

"Yeah that's correct," Eberle said, prompting a half-moment of dead air.

Eberle said there are 500 million users and only 11 million paying customers, and the potential of closing that gap is part of the bull case, but he finds "the conversion rate from a free customer to a paying customer just isn't taking place."

He said it would take significant spending to expand in the enterprise space.

Jon Najarian said, "I love the service, but I don't like the stock price," because of the competition.

Jeff Kilburg said he's a "big believer" in Dropbox and even pays for the service (Doc doesn't), but the price discovery is still new. "If it goes down to 21, I think they're a takeover target, right," Kilburg said.

Steve Weiss said of Eberle, "I think he makes a lot of sense" with "excellent" analysis, but Weiss isn't sure analysis for this kind of stock matters. Jim Lebenthal, in the closest Jim and Weiss came to a showdown Friday, insisted, "It will."

Josh Brown said he'd rather focus on cloud plays that "make a ton of money," such as CRM or WDAY.

Jim Lebenthal said he'd "make this really simple for investors." Weiss asked why Jim was "insulting" investors. "No I'm not insulting anyone, hang on a second," Jim said, explaining that you might want DBX if you're playing user growth but not if you're into fundamentals. Weiss and Brown agreed there's "no moat" in DBX.

Weiss bought the USO; there are definitely better ways of playing the price of crude

Jackie DeAngelis actually sat in with Friday's Halftime panel at Englewood Cliffs to discuss oil.

Jeff Kilburg said there's "more room to run" in crude.

Steve Weiss said oil storage is coming down; he bought USO a few days ago, though he conceded that geopolitical issues are typically a reason to sell oil. (We recall owning USO once and ending up in K-1 land, oh joy.)

"There's still no sign of life in the North American rig count," said Jim Lebenthal.

Sully said Venezuelan production could go to zero in a few years.

Josh Brown said that in energy, "The equities should be doing better." Sully noted big oil has done well in the past month.

Sully doesn’t ask Jim if Jim thinks next 10% is still higher

Speaking of partnerships, Josh Brown on Friday's Halftime noted BX has "done nothing" since it came public 11 years ago (in that endlessly ballyhooed Steve Schwarzman coverage on CNBC), and it's because of the "structure." Brown said if it goes corporate, the company's tax rate would go up, but it would be eligible for indexes.

Jon Najarian said CNQ May 37 calls were popular. Doc even mentioned August 55 calls in BHP getting scooped up. (This writer is long BHP, a name not heard on the show in ages although you used to hear about it every 15 minutes in the brief Eric Bolling era.)

Doc noted that BMO has missed LLY's run.

Steve Weiss and Brian Sullivan noted ZG is embarking on a different model.

Jim Lebenthal said ALK is "particularly a good opportunity" in airlines because of its Virgin America merger.

Jeff Kilburg said AVGO's buyback is "super exciting," and he'd get more excited if it gets above the 200-day.

Steve Weiss actually claimed he doesn't "really care" if BABA has put in a double top.

Weiss explained that he bought back MU early in the week under 50 because management was on a tour talking it up. He predicted he won't be in it "that much longer."

Sully at the top of the show referred to Josh Brown as "Albemarle." (This writer is (sadly) long ALB.) Josh reaffirmed he's in ALB and thinks there's a "misperception about new capacity coming online." He said he thinks "the stock's gonna work." It was even his final trade, as he claimed there is "hyperbolistic performance possible."

Jim's final trade was RDSb. Weiss said XLF. Doc said GRPN. Kilburg said WDAY.

[Thursday, April 12, 2018]

One for the ages: Mark Zuckerberg dominated in D.C., demonstrated extraordinary brain, courteously waltzed through people who could never do what he’s done

Bill Nygren on Thursday's Halftime Report said he bought FB in Q1, some before and some after Cambridge Analytica. (This writer is long FB.)

In a provocative, actually kind of unsolicited analysis, Nygren said it wouldn't surprise him if at some point consumers can choose to pay for Facebook without getting ads. But, "At the end of the day, I think most people would rather have a free product with targeted ads that actually are relevant to them," Nygren said.

Jon Najarian said the FB add by Nygren "makes a ton of sense." Doc said he still likes the stock and still thinks it's cheap and "didn't hear anything from Congress that implied to me that anything's changing about their business model."

Neither did we. We'd be surprised if anyone even remembers this in October. (When was the last time you logged in to Equifax's site to see if your SSN and credit cards were compromised?)

Judge said it "feels like" Zuck and the company "weathered the storm."

That's putting it mildly. (Note again: This writer is long FB.) First, admittedly, we can't believe this incident merited such a "storm" to begin with, but then again, this fellow, like all of us at one point or another, probably needed a little bit of comeuppance, which he hasn't really had since about 2013, a fairly gentle nudge that can keep him from 1) ending up in a Justice Department case like MSFT late '90s or 2) flailing for a whole decade like AAPL 1990s, and so this will be healthy, especially given the remarkably polite way he shrugged off the ridiculous flurry of "Yes or No!!!!" demands for questions without yes-or-no answers from people who don't know the difference between Marc Andreessen and Marc Anthony and are mad simply because they took Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota for granted the name "Donald Trump" suddenly surfaced in the same sentence as "Facebook" (as if the Facebook CEO is a big supporter of this politician).

Yes, we know Tim Cook wouldn't have ever been in this position. What risks has Tim Cook taken? Tim Cook would be buying Beats and authorizing a new iPad. We're not Zuck's agent. We just know the facts. He went from about zero net worth to $63 billion in about a dozen years. He bought Instagram for $1 billion. Practically the whole world uses his product. The standards for grilling this particular person — however regrettable his typical choice of attire — should be a whole lot higher than the revelations of the last month.

"He did a fantastic job, just deflecting," stated Jon Najarian.

Sarat Sethi said he's been adding to FB, producing a pat on the back from Doc.

Later, Judge said a Halftime Twitter poll finds 59-41% saying now's not the time to buy FB. Josh Brown cracked, "There's a 59% chance he threw that suit in the garbage."

What would GE shares do if Mark Zuckerberg were named CEO?

Judge on Thursday's Halftime brought in Bill Nygren, a longtime reliable guest who unfortunately stumbled into a GE long last October that has to be described as "grim death" (that's the term Guy Adami used for the stock Thursday).

On Thursday, sounding undaunted, Bill said consensus numbers are about $1.10 of EPS + amortization, and after health care and aviation, you're basically getting "all these other businesses" for free. (Judge didn't mention that JJ Kinahan is willing to unload at $9.99.)

Nygren said he likes Flannery because he likes the "process" with which Flannery is approaching the restructuring of GE.

If Kevin O'Leary had been around (he wasn't), he would've spoken to private equity's lack of interest in this name at $13 a share.

Meanwhile, Bill refused to take a stand on Larry Fink's "extra innings" vs. Byron Wien's "complacency."

"Our opinion is that we're not late in the cycle," Nygren told Judge, stating it's an "easy call" that stocks are more attractive than bonds.

Nygren said he likes the financial sector and sees cheaper options than JPM, such as C and BAC. Judge tried to generate some controversy off of Nygren's JPM nonchalance, but other than Josh Brown's explanation, nobody was that interested in arguing.

Brown: On what planet is
this market ‘complacent’?

Judge got Thursday's Halftime panelists fired up a bit (relatively speaking) by airing a clip of Byron Wien stating in the morning that "there's too much complacency" and to expect a February retest, but "the year's gonna be good."

Josh Brown scoffed, "Been hearing this complacency stuff for 9 years. And from Byron and from everyone else. I don't buy it. I don't think people are complacent at all. I think we're very, very panicky on every headline."

Judge said that sounds like the point Wien is making.

Brown responded, "When you have a 1%-plus move in 18 out of the last 22 days intraday, on what planet could that possibly be considered 'complacent'?"

Joe Terranova piled on, stating, "OK, so you're a good S&P trader. If you think the market's gonna break the February lows, have fun, try and sell some S&Ps. What are you supposed to do with that information. I'm not necessarily sure I understand that."

Joe pointed out that "no one's talking about Amazon today; it's a hundred dollars higher" than when the president tweeted it down a few notches.

Judge told Joe, "2 weeks and an hour ago, you were a little worried about the market. Weren't you?"

Joe admitted he's brought up the bursting passive-investing bubble a few times, "OK, so, I said the market, when we were approaching the lows, I said the bulls are on the defensive. That was the obvious statement at the time. The market held."

Sarat Sethi insisted his clients are "not complacent."

Brown: Constitutional crisis possibility is cloud over market

In a fairly tepid opening to Thursday's Halftime, Josh Brown disagreed with Jon Najarian that Syria and North Korea are "weighing" on stocks.

But Brown said, "The threat of a constitutional crisis does hang over the market."

Pete Najarian said tech was "absolutely destroying it" on Thursday.

Joe Terranova said to focus on technology, energy and financials. Joe even mentioned rising Libor rates.

Doc said he agrees with Dubravko Lakos that earnings should be big support for equities. Doc said the issue for the market is "the speed at which things happen."

Sarat Sethi cautioned that stocks that don't deliver the earnings are "really gonna get smoked."

Josh Brown conceded that "every breakdown has been bought" but said he worries that if the market revisits the low for the 3rd time, "will it hold."

Doc aces homework, notes where BA closed 2017

Judge on Thursday's Halftime Report explained that Citi thinks BA can reach 500 in the "not too distance (sic)- distant future."

Joe Terranova said the stock's "been a monster" and that Kevin O'Leary has done "a great job" talking about it.

"It basically is the S&P, right," said Pete Najarian.

Jon Najarian noted the stock is up for the year after all the "gyrations." So he doesn't see any "big stumbling block" ahead.

Sarat Sethi, though, contended the good news for BA is already "baked in."

Josh Brown said you can be long BA with a stop at the 100-day.

omg ... Greece will NEVER accept austerity!!!!

Jeff Kilburg on Thursday's Halftime Report said bitcoin "went over 8,000" (Zzzzzzz) and called it a "long overdue relief rally."

But Scott Nations told Jackie DeAngelis, "It can go to zero. ... It doesn't have any value."

Sarat Sethi said he added to LOW, FBHS, FRC and ORCL.

Sarat said in financials, he wants high quality and also "real value opportunity" because "you don't want spot- stock-specific risk to blow you up here."

Jon Najarian said PENN May 29 calls were appealing to someone. Doc said May 35 MGM calls were also appealing to a "smart player."

Pete Najarian said someone was rolling up April 31 BHGE calls into May 34 calls.

Pete said Goldman Sachs has been right on CLR, on which it's now neutral.

Josh Brown said DE is down 30 from its high, and he'd be very interested here.

Joe Terranova said it's "too soon" to buy INCY; he'd buy ABBV.

Doc said he's long MYL and is holding onto it.

Sarat said he'd buy DAL if it goes back down.

Doc admitted he "foolishly grabbed some upside calls into earnings yesterday" in BBBY.

Pete's final trade was JPM. Doc said EA; he bought it Thursday. Sarat said DAL. Josh Brown said don't be fooled by BBBY. Joe said IBKR.

Eamon Javers talked about how the president might want to get back into TPP.

[Wednesday, April 11, 2018]

Halftime virtually preempted by Zuck’s testimony; 5 p.m. show struggles to get off the ground, mired in Fed cliches

It was a break, so we'll take it.

Nearly all of Wednesday's Halftime was devoted to Mark Zuckerberg's testimony. Judge cut in very briefly to ask some questions of Divya Narendra, who called Zuck's performance "a pretty impressive display of preparedness."

Narendra said the tone of the questioning seems to be "somewhat hostile to collaborative." He also pointed out that any kind of regulation would probably help Facebook further distance itself from rivals, a point Doc made a day earlier.

Honestly, we're beyond tired of this subject and can't believe it ever got this far. ... (omg ... HE LEFT HIS NOTES OPEN!!!!!!!!) ... You can read all about it on recode.net, you can read all about it on Techcrunch, you can read all about it on Politico.com, you can read all about it ... virtually anywhere. Enjoy.

[Tuesday, April 10, 2018]

Joe makes fair point about MS, but it’s the broader story that matters

Judge on Tuesday's Halftime said the Call of the Day was Bernstein's 300 outperform on GS.

Pete Najarian said he thinks it's a "great call." Pete brought up price to book (Zzzzzz) and said 1.5 times seems "reasonable."

Jim Lebenthal said he's long GS and agrees with Pete. Jim acknowledged, "The last 3 quarters, trading has been pretty much a disaster for Goldman Sachs."

Nevertheless, Jim contended, "When they report this next quarter, particularly with the volatility across all financial markets, the trading is going to be a standout this quarter." (And when has anyone ever NOT predicted a great quarter just around the corner for Goldman Sachs.) (And how come everyone always presumes the banks do great trading in rocky markets?)

Joe Terranova agreed, "The trading revenue will be strong for them, so I like the call." But Joe quibbled with Bernstein's not so optimistic call on MS.

Jon Najarian said GS has to show him a breakout over 260.

Josh Brown said he's long JPM and wouldn't switch that for GS. Brown said unlike Joe, he agrees with Bernstein on MS and then unleashed the most provocative comment of a great show: "I do not think that they are set up for what's to come in wealth management."

Brown said SCHW is "way better positioned" because the future is independent, "the future is not, uh, captive, uh, brokers and advisors out of wirehouse. That is over."

Joe suggested Brown is biased because he "gets up in the morning, and what he does for a living is directly opposite of Morgan Stanley."

Brown said, "5 years ago, in 2013, the share of the wealth-management business that the wirehouses held fell below 50% for the first time in history. And I'm gonna tell you something: It ain't never going back."

"And my argument would be that we heard that 3, 4 years ago," Joe said, "and Morgan Stanley has continued to produce and accelerate the revenue, and you're seeing that in the stock performance, and I don't think they're going away anytime soon."

Stephanie Link said MS has outperformed GS "by a huge margin" and insisted GS and MS are apples and oranges.

OK. As far as Joe and Josh, Joe might well be right. We don't doubt that MS probably has many good quarters ahead.

The problem is that Wall Street is in permanent decline. It's never going to be like 2006 again. Part of it's because of the 2008 financial crisis. The other part is because of the massive wealth concentrated on the West Coast among a few select technology companies.

Consider someone with a 1,600 SAT score about to graduate college in 2006. That person could go work for Google (still pretty new, might be another Yahoo), Apple (iPods are great, but the phone space is notoriously cutthroat), Microsoft (going nowhere for half a decade), Amazon (permanent dot-com joke) or Netflix (the next Blockbuster).

Against those options, Goldman Sachs is a very formidable option.

But we know what's happened. Several of those tech names can not only do whatever Goldman Sachs is doing, they can easily buy Goldman Sachs. And those 1,600 SAT scorers are going to be less inclined to wear suits on Wall Street while trying to come up with the next mortgage-bundling avenue to wealth than wear shorts and develop apps for companies that can delve into groceries, automobiles, aviation, even soda pop if they feel like it.

Millennials aren't watching "Wall Street" and dreaming about the future, they watch "The Social Network."

It seems that, to invade/disrupt the banking space, all Apple would have to do is start offering checking accounts/CDs that pay higher than what commercial banks do. Or open a wealth-management office with lower fees than Goldman Sachs. Customers get discounts on gadgets. Yes, there's regulation. No biggie. They're not trading silver or issuing mortgages.

Anyway, MS might well have legs, as Joe suggests. Eventually, it seems MS, GS and even Brown's favorite, SCHW, are bound to feel some kind of pressure from the weight of dollars on the left coast.

Jeff Sonnenfeld gets an A in pop culture (even if he implies people actually think singers are singing personal truths)

Judge on Tuesday's Halftime Report brought in Grandpa Scott Devitt and Uncle Jeff Sonnenfeld to preview Zuck's remarks. (This writer is long FB.)

Sonnenfeld is hung up on the apology angle but stressed that Zuck wouldn't look like John Stumpf, Jac Nasser, Ken Lewis or Tony Hayward. "He's been coached, he's smarter than those guys, and they don't have enough time to get him. ... So he'll get away with it. But no, Scott, it is not authentic contrition. Apology is not contrition. It's not- it's not authentic." (This review was posted after Mark Zuckerberg's remarks Tuesday.)

In rare form, Sonnenfeld even brought up Maxine Waters and uncorked the line of the week: "This is like uh, like uh, Brenda Lee since she was, you know, 16 years old, has been singing 'I'm sorry,' you know, she's been doing it, she's now 75 years old. No one believes she's really sorry; it's just an act."

Devitt had started things with a dour outlook on social media; "we're entering a new territory, and you're gonna see regulations in the U.S. just as you've begun to see in Europe, coming in the next 6-12 months."

Yeah, sure. How many regulations have been enacted since Equifax enabled everyone's SSN and credit card numbers on the dark web. Didn't think so.

Sonnenfeld curiously said he agrees with Devitt even more than Devitt agrees with himself; "I would cube what he's saying."

For Zuck, Sonnenfeld predicted "a C- performance, but he's going to get a grade of B+," because "the atmospherics are going to work in his favor."

In another good line, Sonnenfeld said FB hasn't done things it has promised, "geez, even Equifax ultimately did better."

Sonnenfeld brought up a list of FB's previous privacy issues, including a very dubious one about Facebook owning the account if a person wishes to close it and even having the ability to sell it to a 3rd party.

No question, those are some important considerations. Although, if Facebook hadn't had the misfortune of being mentioned in the same sentence a month ago as Donald Trump, we doubt anyone would be talking about that now.

Devitt cited "fatigue with the service" (heard that one before) as well as the current regulatory concerns as making him not want to buy the dip.

Devitt predicted FB stays "range-bound" from 145-165, which it actually exceeded later Tuesday afternoon.

Stephanie Link told Judge she's long FB, and if it pulls back, "I am inclined to buy it, because the stock has already de-rated."

Link said Facebook and Instagram won't lose their dominance "at all." We've gotta agree with that. 6 months from now, nobody's even gonna remember people were talking about this.

Josh Brown said, "Zuck'll be fine. This is theater." Brown pointed out that when banks got grilled by Congress, it was time to buy.

Brown nearly matched Jeff Sonnenfeld for humor, stating of Sonnenfeld's call for contrition, "This is CNBC. It's not the Hallmark Channel."

Pete Najarian said FB is at a "reasonable level" now. Jon Najarian said that with all this regulation talk, the moat around FB is only higher. "That's why I bought it, that's why I think this thing's got a lot more upside," Doc said. Fair enough, but we don't think the moat was at risk 2 months ago.

We were hoping Zuck would be asked about 1) Bill Ackman's comportment and 2) what constitutes an NFL reception, but it didn't happen.

Judge was so eager to introduce Tuesday's Halftime, he actually said "Facebook founder Muck" (sic immediately corrected).

CEO sets record for most sentences begun in 1 day with the word ‘Senator’

If we were to golf 18 holes with Mark Zuckerberg, we're not certain it would be the greatest 18 holes of all time. (This writer is long FB.)

He's obviously a brilliant guy who has already led a staggering life.

Whether he's much fun to hang out with, we don't know. (Admittedly, there was a movie called "The Social Network" addressing this subject.) (No one in Congress thought to ask him Tuesday what he thinks about this film.)

Ex-(and future) CNBCer Larry Kudlow this week scoffed to the TV cameras at Zuckerberg's choice of attire and, implied, maturity.

We get what Larry's talking about. We too think someone in Zuckerberg's position should dress a bit more seriously given his occasional appearances in the public spotlight.

But here's what Larry's missing.

This fellow, in terms of value creation, is an absolute giant of humankind.

At a very young age, he conquered the nation's Internet market virtually singlehandedly.

Hardly content to stop there, he made one of the probably dozen greatest business deals in American history, buying Instagram for $1 billion, before age 30.

This story is so incredible, basically, no other human being can compare. Bill Gates, maybe, in terms of wealth, but Microsoft's products weren't nearly as ubiquitous in the 1980s as Facebook pages were by 2010.

A big difference between Facebook (and Google and Apple) and 1990s dot-com stocks with even better charts is the actual cash on the balance sheets. These are not upstarts rewarded for fantasy potential, but the greatest businesses in the world today.

Point being, when you do what this fellow has done, you can wear whatever you want.

Jim: VIX won’t hang around 20 for long

Josh Brown on Tuesday's Halftime Report said the U.S. headlines are that Xi's comments were "more conciliatory."

But Brown said that's "actually not true," and that the "body" of the translation comes down to "foreign automakers, there might be a lowered import duty if in fact the country they were based in was not engaging in a trade war."

Well, that sounds "more conciliatory" to us.

Judge told Brown "I hear ya" but that the market wasn't "engulfed" by that Tuesday.

Moments later, Jon Najarian said, "What Xi Jinping didn't mention was countermeasures," which is exactly correct and sounds more conciliatory to us.

Anyway, Brown astutely noted, "The problems have not been the opens, recently, it's been the closes." Pete Najarian chuckled, "That's a great call."

"Earnings can't come soon enough in my opinion," said Stephanie Link, who was pointing to ... NFIB (snicker) as the "most important number" to her Tuesday.

Then again, Jim Lebenthal conceded the raid on Trump's lawyer reversed stocks Monday but actually told Josh Brown with a straight face, "What mattered to me far more was the deficit numbers (snicker) that the CBO pointed out."

Jim said the VIX is around 21, a level it generally "does not hang out at." Either it'll get a lot worse, which Jim doubts because it has been higher for a couple months, or earnings will calm things down. That's a fine point, but it sounds to us like the tail wagging the dog, or, as we like to put it, effect mistaken as cause. What Jim is really saying is that stocks have lacked buyers for a couple months, and it's presumably due to change.

Joe Terranova noted the crude range last year was 42-60, this year it's 59-66. "Today, it looks like it is breaking out," Joe said.

Joe observed, "Markets spend a high degree of time sitting in consolidation ranges."

Josh Brown said, "Joe makes such a great point," noting last year was unusual with so many days at record highs, but over 80 years, the stock market "has only spent 7% of its time on a daily basis at a new high. The other 93% of the time you are in a consolidation."

Judge said he's "doubtful" that the broad market can thrive without FAANG. Pete said he disagrees, mentioning some tech greats. But Judge is right. FAANG stalls, and this market's going nowhere.

$70 ‘in the cards’ for crude

Jon Najarian on Tuesday's Halftime said April 75 HLT calls were popular; Doc bought some and sold the 80s.

Pete Najarian said April 28 XLF calls were aggressively bought; Pete said the graphic was different than he was expecting.

Jim Lebenthal said he hopes AAL's report Thursday will give momentum to airlines.

Jon Najarian said he likes the ULTA buy call by Piper but he isn't long the name.

Josh Brown wouldn't buy HSY.

Stephanie Link said ETSY is "fairly priced" and "not my cup of tea."

Joe Terranova outlined a bunch of reasons (too many for "The Blitz") as to why he expects a MCD breakout over 165.

Pete likes the XOM rating from Bank of America and said he'll be in the name "for a long time."

Anthony Grisanti told Jackie DeAngelis he thinks crude breaks 66.66 and that $70 "is in the cards." Jim Iuorio said 62 "held like a champ," and he sees 67 as an "upward target."

Judge made a good crack about on-again/off-again TMUS/S dealings.

Pete's final trade was STX. Doc said MYL, suggesting the possibility of "rumors" and said "we don't comment on those." Josh Brown said NVDA for AI reasons, not cryptocurrency reasons. Jim said GM, calling it an "easy own." Stephanie Link said ULTA. Joe said he rolled out of V into MA.

Tuesday's show, chock full of interesting commentary, was one of the best in months. Judge closed with, "Great conversation today," and he was right.

[Monday, April 9, 2018]

Cramer says Zuck should be like Vikram; Pete ‘didn’t listen at all’ to show while on vacation (but made a great point Monday)

Pete Najarian on Monday's Halftime Report said that he's sure that while he was out last week, "and I didn't listen at all," nobody on the show mentioned the lack of volume when the market was down.

Pete's right. It's an excellent observation; to this point, it's not panic selling, it's lack of buyers.

Nobody on the Halftime/5 p.m. Bitcoin has indicated any kind of fear, unless you count Karen Finerman's most-nervous-I've-been-in-a-while a few weeks ago. (Karen said Monday at 5 p.m., "I'm a little bit nervous. ... We don't know what policy is; there's no certainty anymore.")

On Halftime, Jim Cramer agreed with Judge that we're getting a bit "numb" to some of the tariff "noise."

Judge told Carl Quintanilla that Larry Kudlow's job seems to be "market soother in chief."

Judge and Cramer said they disagree with Larry that this trade stuff hasn't damaged the market. "The rettiker (sic pronunciation), the- the rhetoric is hurting the market, is it not?" asked Judge. "At least on a short-term basis."

Pete Najarian, who initially sounded like he was in a cavern because his mike was a bit suspect, said last week was "emotional and political."

Judge said he heard Joe Terranova telling producers Monday that he bought a bunch of stocks. Joe said the market "held" last week after being on the defensive, including the "incredibly impressive" reversal midweek.

Joe again trumpeted how much of a range we've already traced out this year vs 2017.

Joe also mentioned one of his favorite subjects, the "blackout window" on corporate buybacks last week.

Stephanie Link said the problem with this market is the "intense" volatility in certain stocks.

But Link said, "I actually do think your next leg is up."

Link and Jim Cramer agreed UNH's recent slide is "absurd," although really, all it did was slip to December levels.

Jim Cramer suggested Mark Zuckerberg "be a Vikram Pandit" in front of Congress. "Boredom on this stock is a good thing," said Stephanie Link. (This writer is long FB.)

‘Peakish auto sales’

Judge on Monday's Halftime welcomed Adam "Transfer of wealth from insurers to Houston car owners" Jonas to discuss Jonas' GM upgrade to overweight.

Though Jonas is eloquent, the entire conversation was discombobulated, as Jonas and panelists sounded like they were discussing apples and oranges, and we don't mean AAPL and HD.

The dialogue started off curiously when Judge asked Adam if he was surprised by "those recent numbers from General Motors; I mean the whole sector was, was like blast off."

Jonas responded, "Which numbers are you referring to, Scott?"

"The auto sales numbers. The most recent numbers," Judge said.

Jonas didn't seem that impressed, stating weekends can cause volatility in auto sales, and "I wouldn't read too much into it."

Jim Cramer actually suggested to Jonas that GM has "superior technology" in autonomous driving compared with Tesla.

"It's too soon to tell," Jonas said.

Joe Terranova said Goldman Sachs had a 31 sell on GM, citing Waymo's entry in ride-hailing. (This writer is long GOOGL.) Joe questioned how Jonas' note could be so different.

Jonas explained, "This is an Auto 1.0 call. This is a call on, you know, back to basics," and that only $1 of the price target is the "autonomous piece."

Jonas added, "I don't disagree with the Goldman piece. We're just makin' a different call."

Say what?

Jonas did tell Jim Cramer that if Bill Ford just "got out of every bad market," the stock would be "talkin' about a double," close to 30.

Jonas said he thinks Elon Musk still has "a few more rabbits to pull out of the hat." (Yeah, but we know what happened when Bullwinkle did that too many times.)

Jonas mentioned the need for GM and Ford vehicles for infrastructure. Stephanie Link said some of Jim Lebenthal's (who wasn't on the show) 3 least favorite words, "peakish auto sales," and said if you want infrastructure, "buy infrastructure," such as URI, EMR and CAT.

Pete Najarian said he owns GM and thinks it can move up "fairly rapidly."

Judge has gone a couple weeks without stating GS is at or near an all-time high

For some reason, everyone on Monday's Halftime was chuckling when Judge read a perfectly good question from a tweeter about whether someone should own GE for a decade.

Finally, Jim Cramer said, "I think you can."

Pete Najarian said MRK has had "a lot of different bumps in the road" but finally is having some good news.

Joe Terranova said he likes LUK.

Stephanie Link said DB's move is going to take time, and she prefers ING.

Jim Cramer gushed about KSS and said it's "not done."

Pete said COP April 57.50 calls were popular. Jim Cramer said he thinks XOM is "putting in a bottom."

Stephanie Link said she bought CVX Friday, and she likes APC.

Jim Cramer made JPM his top bank stock into earnings.

Joe's final trade was MS and IBKR. Joe refused to choose between MS and JPM. "Don't know," Joe said.

Stephanie Link said WYNN, stating "Macau numbers are off the charts."

Jumping onto other people's suggestions, Pete Najarian said WYNN is probably one of his favorite names and then said he'd take GS over MS.

Joe pointed out Judge's question was MS vs. JPM. "Sometimes there's validity in saying 'I don't know,'" Joe protested.

Pete's real final trade apparently was PII. Jim Cramer said PFPT.

[Friday, April 6, 2018]

Potentially fascinating Cold War-esque conversation never gets off the ground

Kevin O'Leary on Friday's Halftime made the show's most interesting comment well into the introductory Trump conversation.

O'Leary said, "At the end of the day, in 6 months, if there's a really raging trade war on, I think the biggest loser's China."

That was only briefly addressed the other day by Steve Liesman (no) and Jon Najarian (yes).

If one believed that this trade "war" was legit and based on something that's been brewing for a while rather than a bored president who's somehow allowed to set trading policy all by himself and is apparently tired of fixing Obamacare, one might get interested about the demonstration of American might that could be occurring here.

If it seems as though China simply can't live without U.S. food and certain exports, the U.S. could conceivably leverage Beijing into a more Western-style government that essentially dumps communism forever, long a major preoccupation of the '70s and '80s.

If on the other hand China is happy to kick out KFC and Taco Bell and iPhones and send troops to Pyongyang, then it'll be a U.S. embarrassment and revert the world's geopolitical situation to about 1981.

We have to think neither side is really that serious about this, so we doubt it settles anything.

Jim’s sticking with next-10%-is-up call, doubling down on Democratic landslide in November

Taking up Friday's market shellacking on the Halftime Report, Steve Weiss said, "You can trace it to one thing: The comments by President Dennison. I mean President Trump. I mean to use the alias."

Rich Saperstein said investors need to follow earnings, not the tweets. "Tax reform is way more powerful than tariffs," Saperstein asserted.

Weiss said he agrees with that on one level, but the constant trade retaliation "creates an uncertainty about an unstable White House that shakes markets."

Kevin O'Leary was unfazed. "I think 85% of market participants think this is just the beginning of a series of negotiations," he said. "It's just rhetoric at this point," O'Leary added, but he suggested looking to the Russell 2000 (Zzzzzzz) for domestic-oriented companies.

Josh Brown said it's pretty clear in hindsight that late January was the "short-term peak." He said at best this looks like consolidation, and at worst, we're heading to a bear market, which Brown said wouldn't be the end of the world.

Asked about his next-10%-is-up pronouncement from a day earlier, Jim Lebenthal tentatively said, "I'm sticking with that call."

Jim said that at 20, the VIX is either going higher or lower, and to go higher, the market needs a "new risk." Josh Brown said "the new risk is the old risk."

Jim then delved into political predictions again, stating, "You know what's gonna happen in, in November. This guy's gonna get neutered." We'll take the other side of that and whatever points Jim is giving.

"The 10-year Treasury is not at all signaling that the bull market is over," said Rich Saperstein.

It was clear from early chatter that anticipation was high for another Jim-Weiss showdown (after this site pointed out previous seating chart failures), but on Friday, they found too much to agree on.

Weiss: White House not only ‘dysfunctional’ but ‘dishonest’

In the greatest revelation of Friday's Halftime Report, Judge told Eamon Javers that Larry Kudlow didn't know about the new $100 billion tariffs on China "until he saw it in the press last night."

Judge said the announcement created a feeling of "a haphazard nature of policymaking."

Javers agreed it seemed like "this came sort of out of nowhere."

"He likes to surprise people. He likes to keep people guessing. There's sort of that reality-TV star impulse here, uh, that the president enjoys," Javers explained.

Josh Brown asked Kevin O'Leary, a good question, that if you run things like Donald Trump, "What is even the point of having advice and advisers?"

"Trump is not going to change. Get over it!" O'Leary responded.

Steve Weiss said it's "not only a dysfunctional White House, but a dishonest White House. So that eventually erodes confidence. And that's the issue."

Kevin O'Leary correctly targeted the Halftime Report's strange interest in local election calls 6 months away. "People have been talking about Republican losses for a long time. And trying to predict outcomes of elections on a state and federal level. They've just been wrong over and over again," O'Leary said.

Weiss said, "They were wrong with Trump. They weren't wrong over and over and over again. Wrong with Trump, they were wrong with Brexit, that's it. When were they wrong. They weren't wrong with Obama's second term."

Well, that's an interesting rebuttal. Weiss is right, there are only 2 recent elections that have been wrongly predicted. But those were pretty big ones. And how many other notable elections have there been? The experts got France right last year.

In 2002, George Bush was supposed to lose a bunch of seats; didn't happen.

O'Leary said you make investment decisions on what you can control; "The rest is noise."

Judge said, "China retaliation is, is a helluva lot more than, than noise."

Usually someone is supposed to say, ‘Look at what they got for paying $3 billion for Jet, and look at what Apple got for buying Beats!’

Judge's Call of the Day on Friday's Halftime was Loop Capital's hold on WMT.

Jim Lebenthal said about 4 times while getting interrupted, "I'm gonna move it along" and said WMT is still "brick and mortar." (That made us think he's not interested in buying the stock.)

Josh Brown said WMT has a 27 multiple and suggested a lot of people don't want to pay that much for the growth that's here.

Steve Weiss said WMT is starting a capex cycle with Jet; he'd rather buy at the end of those cycles. Rich Saperstein contended, "It's a decaying industry if you're not Amazon or Costco."

Jim said that if you look at WMT's 5-year chart, 2017 was phenomenal, but the other 4 years are a "dog."

Mel in chic white jacket

Anthony Grisanti on Friday's Halftime claimed "we're in a war right now" and said he's buying gold, looking for 1,345 to 1,350. He said 1,323 to 1,328 is the downside.

Jim Lebenthal said EA has had a nice quarter, but it's a long-term investment.

Josh Brown said he added TWTR around 26.

Stephen Weiss said he finds himself using Netflix "more and more and more, and everybody I talk to as well. ... I will get back in. I just need to see a better price."

Weiss got Fast Fired for his January call on DAL. He said he still owns it and thinks it's "OK."

Jim finally got called to account for ROKU. Jim said it "hurts" and he has to admit a mistake; he said it had a "great earnings report" but that there's been "some insider selling" after the lockup expiration. He said he's got a "small position" and will wait for the next earnings report and may add to it. (This writer is long ROKU.)

Josh Brown brought up Albemarle again said INCY reflects single-stock risk in biotech. Jim said VRX has some positives, but the negative that keeps him "trepidatious" is that the balance sheet is "ugly."

Weiss said he'd stay away from CAT. Rich Saperstein said to buy ITA.

Josh Brown said he'd love to buy more GOOGL in the 800s, but he's long anyway, so if it doesn't get there, that's OK.

Rich Saperstein said that without FAANG, "it'll become a stock-picker's market." Saperstein's final trade was APTV. "Autonomous vehicles are not going away," he said.

Jim's final trade was GBX. Weiss said MCK.

[Thursday, April 5, 2018]

Judge hasn’t kept us updated on how Jana/CALSTRS/Psychic-Tax Prof/uncredited-asst.-‘Kagemusha’-director are making AAPL phones safer for kids

Seema Mody, in glasses and hunter green, reported on Thursday's Halftime that CALSTRS CIO Christopher Ailman has deleted his Facebook account. (This writer is long FB.)

Joe Terranova predicted a "very, very tough, uh, experience" for Mark Zuckerberg; "they're gonna come at him incredibly hard."

Jon Najarian said again that FB didn't have a V shape but "flattened twice" around 150 and repeated that he bought it and bought AAPL.

Tony Dwyer said there were "multiple -20% immediate drops in Facebook" over the last 4 years.

Later, for the 3rd time in 2 days, Jon Najarian reiterated that "I'm still trading Facebook." He said he "sold a ton of calls" against his stock, and "I will buy back those calls if we trade down."

Weiss and Jim manage to clash even while one of them has the day off; Joe thinks it’s about as much fun as a trip to the dentist

Stephen Weiss on Thursday's Halftime Report said the week's reversal is significant, but this is "a momentum market."

That comment was heard by Jim Lebenthal, who wasn't on the program but apparently was watching live and tweeted to Judge, "Steve, how can you say this is a momentum market. It is a pattern on Charlie Brown's shirt chart. So take a stand. Next 10% higher or lower. I'm all in on the next 10% being higher."

"Why didn't he call in," questioned Joe Terranova.

Weiss responded, "Jim's mentality is because of his business, he's long all the time. He can't keep cash. People don't give him money to invest in cash. They give him money to invest in the market. ... I don't have to be in the markets, OK. I can be in cash. I'm still in cash. I took the opportunity when the market traded down to buy uh ABC AmeriSource, McKesson ... and I bought Google back. ... I think calling the direction of the market is a sucker's game," even though 70% cash is basically doing that. (This writer is long GOOGL.)

As a matter of fact, Jim dialed in and told Weiss, "It's a day off, and I get to tangle with you ... Just so you know, all right, for information's sake, I can definitely hold cash ... In February, I was at 20% cash. So I'm now at 5% cash ... I'm probably gonna put the rest of it to work."

Jim said if you're in 70% cash or 20% cash, "you're making a statement that this market is going meaningfully lower."

"That's not the statement I'm making at all," Weiss rebutted. "The statement I'm making is that I can't call tops, I can't call bottoms."

"But you are," Jim insisted.

Weiss said he'll speak "more eloquently" than Jim, and what he's saying is, "There are opportunities that will be presented as they have been continually because I, I agree with Gundlach, that this is gonna be the year of volatility."

"I don't think that any of us really are good at market timing. I don't think anyone is," Jim concluded.

"This isn't a V recovery, it isn't a W recovery, it is Charlie Brown's shirt," Jim said.

Weiss held up an image of Charlie Brown on an iPad. Jim said the back of Charlie Brown's shirt "goes from the bottom left to the upper right."

Joe, not the least bit entertained by Charlie Brown imagery, grimaced and said "there's something bothersome about this conversation, I'm sorry guys." Joe said last year's S&P has already traced 75% of last year's range, and he asserted, "If you are predicting which 10% the market's gonna move, boy, you are gonna get chopped around like crazy making that determination."

Tony Dwyer: ‘I think we’re goin’ up 20% from here’

In a case of burying the lede on Thursday's Halftime, Tony Dwyer told Judge, "I think we're goin' up 20% from here."

Now see, if Jim and Weiss had been paying attention, they would've skewered Tony because what Tony said is a "sucker's game" and something nobody is "really good" at doing.

This is borderline hilarious, because 1) just a few breaths earlier, Jim was declaring "all in" on the stock market's next 10% being up, and Weiss was just saying on Monday that he's going to "wait for prices to come down" in this environment "reminiscent of '87," and 2) everyone sounds happy to make November election calls on Democrats and Congress in April.

Actually, that's what they should be talking about.

If they're uncomfortable "calling the direction" or "making a statement" ... then what're y'all doin' here??

We can get Courtney Reagan and Dom Chu to tell us which stocks went up and down and who got an upgrade/downgrade/clowngrade.

Based on commentary this week, Jim, quite frankly, seems to think it's fine to make market-direction calls as long as they're up. Joe? Joe unfortunately has been getting tripped up practically weekly in the cross-currents of his own stark market-defining pronouncements; Thursday, it was "volatility remains the story of 2018" and we may be in a "temporary trading range for the year," and he said that in Wednesday's markets, "Technically, that was just a very impressive reversal," even though on Monday he warned of an "acceleration" of sell signals for those selling either to exit or get short (not sure there's any other motivation for selling than those 2) and that 2,532 was in "jeopardy."

On Thursday, Joe didn't answer Judge's question as to how much earnings are baked into stocks but said it's almost as if the market wants rates to "stay in the range."

Judge said Jamie Dimon is even floating a potential 4% on the 10-year. Tony Dwyer pointed out that rising short-term rates is "a disinflationary long-term move."

So far, Weiss winning the MU bull-bear battle

Steve Weiss on Thursday's Halftime said the "groan" they were hearing was Pete Najarian from Hawaii while they discussed the MU initiate sell to 35 from UBS.

Weiss said "I did pretty well" in the stock and affirmed he's out of it. Weiss said when you start thinking these are growth stocks with low multiples, which is sort of what Pete argued recently, "That's when you wanna sell it. ... The end of the cycle is nigh. ... It's a commodity, like anything else."

Jon Najarian pointed out the $100 MU targets that were all en vogue a few weeks ago. As for the UBS sell, "I don't like the call," Doc said. "I would use this as an opportunity to get in on this one."

Weiss said he originally bought MU at 28 and sold last week. Joe Terranova said he agrees with Doc and said it's almost like the analyst is taking the "anti-trend" opinion and ... uh oh ... called TXN a "sell," and "I don't get that."

Joe noted the analyst likes INTC and MRVL. Weiss said, "at the end of the day, it's a commodity" and added, "Management's not been great with guidance ... they've led you to the graveyard."

Joe tries to defend dubious assertion about control of TSLA shares

Phil LeBeau on Thursday's Halftime noted TSLA was crossing $300. Jon Najarian said some of TSLA's recovery is because of softening trade war talk.

Judge brought up Joe Terranova's recent contention that "the shorts were in control" of TSLA. Joe claimed, "I want you to go there."

Joe insisted TSLA is at 300 "because the shorts are covering right now."

"I don't know if the shorts were ever in control of, of it," offered Stephen Weiss.

"In the last 6 weeks, the shorts have been in control, they're now covering. I stand by that," Joe said of his March 29 comments in which he also invited people to criticize him on Twitter for declaring "goodbye to passive investing."

Jon Najarian said there's 23% short interest in TSLA.

Judge bluntly declared, "The bulls have been in control of this stock FOREVER!"

Hmmm, didn’t hear anything about the Wisconsin Supreme Court election

David Benoit, who wrote about the "wave of redemptions" at Pershing Square, joined Thursday's Halftime to assess the state of Bill's franchise.

Benoit said, "essentially 2/3 of what can be redeemed is being pulled, and that's an unsustainable rate for anyone."

"A big portion of this money appears to be the big institutions," Benoit explained.

In terms of Bill's billions under management, "He's right around 8 right now," Benoit said.

Judge actually told Benoit with a straight face, "He's focused on returns and not being a superstar on television all the time."

But Steve Weiss said the reason Ackman might have trouble raising money is because "everybody feels that they know him because he's been so far out there in terms of the press and everything."

Judge added that Bill wants people to see the potential that he might "morph into something of a, a, an icon or a Buffett-like money manager who no longer- no longer focuses on this- this hedge fund model."

Weiss said big institutions "can't justify" to investors why they're still in Pershing Square.

Judge said he reached out to Pershing. "They do have no comment," Judge said.

Joe’s TWLO call a gargantuan success

Jon Najarian on Thursday's Halftime said BYD May 35 calls were being bought in a spread with higher strikes being sold. He said NCLH May 57.50 calls were getting bought.

In the Halftime Quarterly Report on Thursday, Judge aired some recent calls.

Jon Najarian still likes ADI.

Joe Terranova was congratulated for touting TWLO and revealed, "candidly I didn't buy enough at 25." Indeed, that was a great one, unfortunately it kind of flew under the radar around here and didn't get its due, unlike, say, Jim's ghastly call on ROKU at 42. (This writer is long ROKU.)

Doc admitted a bungle in BUD, "but I'm back in there now."

Joe got Fast Fired on ABBV, down 18% since Feb. 16. Joe said there were "missteps" with Humira. "I've recently got back into the stock," Joe said.

Jim Iuorio said 2.95 "is a level of great significance" for copper, and if it takes out 3.10, he sees 3.30 or 3.33.

Joe said to "not lose sight of the dollar" and made financials/MS his final trade. Steve Weiss said ABC and MCK. Doc said CVX, stating he bought during the show."

[Wednesday, April 4, 2018]

Liesman to Santelli: ‘You just look stupid, Rick’ (but nobody brings up Chauncey Gardner/Gardiner this time)

Given a large chunk of time on Wednesday's Halftime from Chicago, Rick Santelli questioned if anybody believes we can solve trading issues with China by not rocking the boat.

Steve Liesman, in Englewood Cliffs, responded, "There's a lot of reason to think it ends up in a bad place." Then Steve — in the 3rd time we've heard this reference this year — questioned if this is "the sort of Peter Sellers 'Being There,' uh, presidency."

Liesman explained, "The president keeps doing these things that appear to be more impulsive than anything else, and we keep calling 'em negotiating tactics."

He said previous presidential administrations have concluded "we don't get any progress by slapping them publicly in the face."

As far as embarking on a trade war with Beijing, Liesman asserted this provocative observation: "My guess is, America has a lot less tolerance for economic pain for its middle class than China does."

Someone, presumably Santelli, was heard on open mike saying "Oh, come on" while Jon Najarian cut in.

"But it might not be the middle class Steve," said Najarian. "You cut protein off from China … that's a lot of folks starving."

Liesman clarified, "My point is, we have a much more sensitive American government toward its people than the Chinese do."

Hmmmmmm. Do we? Perhaps, because Chinese are probably easily convinced by the argument that America is sticking it to them, whereas not as many Americans are convinced we should be doing this right now.

Santelli said Donald Trump is doing things he talked about before becoming president. Santelli questioned what Liesman's "time frame for impulsive is." Then Santelli re-asserted that if we gain something from this trade showdown, "We could've never gotten it in a more calm sort of way."

That pushed Steve over the edge. "What do you mean, a 'calm sort of way,' Rick," Liesman said, asking "what's happened to the market since this happened" and pointing to Boeing and automobiles. Santelli cut him off to keep saying Trump is "playing with the dealer's money."

Liesman scolded, "That's the way you argue, Rick. That's the way you argue, and you think you win, but you don't win. You just look stupid, Rick," Liesman said.

"We'll see who looks stupid after the way this turns out and see where Boeing is a year from now," Santelli vowed.

Liesman said "it's totally hypocritical" and "not funny" for Santelli to criticize one president for picking on Wall Street "but not the other."

Moments later, not done, Liesman said Republicans and business don't support Donald Trump on tariffs. "I guess Rick Santelli and Peter Navarro support him, but, if those are the only 2, I'll take the other side," Liesman said.

"I didn't say I supported him Steve, I just said it's very shallow to view this in the context you are given the information that you have," Santelli said.

The policies with
respect to policy ...

Joe Terranova on Wednesday's Halftime said the morning's stock recovery was "very encouraging price action."

Jon Najarian said he agrees and that he added to FB and AAPL, the former because of the "volatility jump" even though the controversy "ain't over."

Jim Lebenthal agreed with Joe and Doc that the market action by noon was positive; Jim projected that the next 10% move "is to the upside."

Erin Browne unleashed what could be an all-time classic: "I think for the big picture, we're still seeing the impact yet to come for the policies that we've seen with respect to tax policy."

Why doesn’t Donald Trump go back to trying to replace Obamacare?

On Wednesday's Halftime Report, Erin Browne suggested, and Jon Najarian insisted, the market was down because of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election and "fear of a blue sweep."

We didn't quite get that, partly because it wouldn't be clear then why the recovery happened in the morning.

Judge seemed to think the stock market was moving on tariff news, stating Larry Kudlow "came out and walked it back a bit."

Amid Doc's assertions, Judge scoffed, "If you're tellin' me that we were down more than 500 points early on because of a Supreme Court election in the middle of the country, I'm sorry, you're wrong."

"So the Peterson Institute's wrong too then," Doc said.

Jim Lebenthal said the "blue sweep" fear is "old news."

Jeffrey Gundlach delivers greatest-hits version of recent interviews

Star guest of Wednesday's Halftime Jeffrey Gundlach told Judge that bond yields "do make sense here."

Gundlach, who mostly recapped the same things he's been expressing for a while as he seemed fidgety in his chair, gloated about calling bitcoin a short in his December interview with Judge in California. Gundlach said there's a bit of a connection between bitcoin and the "social mood."

Eventually, he bluntly added, "Bitcoin very clearly leads risk assets."

Gundlach stated, "We're in a new regime of volatility."

Gundlach said for stocks to regain their footing, the 10-year needs to fall below 2.63%.

He referred to Death Valley and Mount Whitney again. (Zzzzzzzzzz.) (#norelevancetostockmarket)

Meanwhile, Judge said the Call of the Day was Morgan Stanley cutting its FB target to 200.

Jon Najarian reiterated he bought FB because of the volatility and the amount already trimmed from the price.

Jim Lebenthal said FB earnings estimates "are down less than 1% from where they were a month ago."

Jim said he doesn't think it's going "meaningfully lower" but that it might be "fairly priced."

Anthony Grisanti said he doesn't see China stopping to import our soybeans. Jim Iuorio said soybeans are "probably" oversold.

Doc said UAA May 19 calls were popular. Doc also said KSU May 115 and other higher calls were getting bought.

Joe Terranova's final trade was BBY. Jim said RDSa (or "b," we're not sure). Erin Browne said tech. Doc said TS.

[Tuesday, April 3, 2018]

Things That Happen When People in Washington Have Nothing To Do (cont’d)

The star guest of Tuesday's Halftime, Vanity Fair correspondent Gabe Sherman, told Judge there are "active discussions" in the White House about "how to turn the president's, uh, frustration and anger towards Amazon into actual policy."

Judge said it sounds like Larry Kudlow "is more in agreement with the president than, say, Gary Cohn was." Sherman acknowledged that and said Cohn had "privately implored him not to push the post office issue" because AMZN "is one of the main things keeping, uh, the U.S. Postal Service afloat."

"Yesterday was Kudlow's first day on the job," Sherman said. Judge said, "We're attempting to reach out to Larry, obviously a friend of many here." Would it really be that hard for CNBCers to get Larry Kudlow on the line?

Judge asked Sherman if the Amazon tirade is a way for Judge to get at Jeff Bezos, presumably over the Washington Post. Sherman said "everything with Donald Trump is personal. ... Donald Trump has nothing but contempt for the Washington Post."

Sherman said if this develops into something, "This will be a very fascinating test case ... to how much popularity the president has vis-à-vis Amazon Prime members."

"I think the president is playing with fire here," Sherman concluded.

Sherman suggested Jeff Bezos has been silent because "he doesn't wanna give this any oxygen."

Panelist Ron Insana said Trump's complaining has "not a lot of merit on its business case." Insana curiously without elaborating (or being asked by Judge to elaborate) said Amazon is "in some ways, monopolistic, however, it still has a very small percentage of overall retail sales."

We're not sure about the monopoly. Is it impossible to buy a book or light bulb somewhere else?

Insana said, as far as Post Office fees, why should Amazon pay more than other users; "Who charges more to your largest customer."

Insana also noted previous big-box and national retailers that were accused of putting mom-and-pop stores out of business and said AMZN is just part of the "evolution and revolution that goes on in business all the time."

Stephanie Link said Amazon could "easily" give more business to UPS and FedEx. Judge asked Link how concerned she is as an AMZN shareholder. Link said "it's headline risk" and "kind of like multiple-contraction risk for sure."

Jon Najarian said there hasn't been a buy signal yet for AMZN and FB and TWTR and GOOGL because "it's still in front of us." (This writer is long FB and GOOGL.)

Judge told Eamon Javers that Gabe Sherman reported that Larry Kudlow agrees with the president that Amazon is a "problem." Javers said "I can't confirm what Larry Kudlow's stance is right now on Amazon" but that Gary Cohn didn't share the president's issues with Amazon.

Later, Judge aired Donald Trump's fresh remarks on the subject. Eamon Javers said it was "the president's protectionist impulse on full display." Joe Terranova said AMZN's response could be that its Post Office business "goes entirely somewhere else." Ron Insana said Amazon is "the largest single customer" for the Post Office, "and it's the one thing that's keeping it afloat."

Insana said this "a president who is creating a problem where none exists."

Judge said this "looks to be a, a (sic grammar) escalating war."

"The headlines are gonna be crappy," concluded Stephanie Link.

Judge airs entire program without a commercial #lostrevenue

Reverting to one of his favorite subjects, Joe Terranova on Tuesday's Halftime brought up "the price correction vs. the time correction," suggesting this might be the latter, "and we are not conditioned for that."

Joe also repeated Monday's refrain, stating, "The market is in a vulnerable place. Doesn't mean I'm short the market, but I just don't like where the market is right now."

Jon Najarian said there's a "flattening" in tech rather than a V-shaped bottom. He said "any kind of stabilization" is a positive.

Stephanie Link predicted "amazing quarters" from "all of them," but there's still going to be an "overhang." Link said she bought INTC on Monday and bought CSCO and MSFT last week and trimmed GOOGL a couple weeks ago.

Ron Insana claimed he predicted at the end of last year "that active management would outperform passive quite a bit this year."

Jim Lebenthal said he'd love for individual investors to put money back in the market with active stock pickers, "but I think it's more likely that they go right back into those ETFs that are overweighted to technology."

Stephanie Link contended expectations for earnings aren't that high given the market gyrations.

Doc pointed out, "Twitter's been hit harder than Facebook ... because they're all gonna be called before Congress."

Steve Liesman: Wall Street views Donald Trump as ‘increasingly unhinged’

Judge on Tuesday's Halftime aired a clip of Peter Navarro being "puzzled" about the Fed's projected 3 hikes this year because there's no inflation.

For that, Judge brought in Steve Liesman to the panel; Liesman stated, "Peter's in a tough spot. I mean I think it's pretty obvious to most people that the policies that he's recommended led directly to a 700-point selloff yesterday, and to quite a bit more actually.

"In some ways, Scott, this is the least conservative administration we've had since I don't know," Liesman said, defining conservatism as a "certain reverence for the past" and interest in "slow change" and pointing to the White House's "Putin-esque oligarchy" of criticizing Amazon and individuals.

Liesman said Trump is changing from "friend" of the market to perhaps "foe" of the market "and to many on Wall Street looks increasingly unhinged given his weekend tweets." (Actually, we don't see any evidence this is any more "unhinged" than usual.)

Judge said he was surprised that an official at the level of Peter Navarro was openly questioning 3 rate hikes, apparently ignoring the fact Navarro is/was a CNBC pundit, and that's typically what CNBC pundits do (but Judge says Navarro is wearing a "different hat" now). Ron Insana said most conservatives over 9 years have accused the Fed of being too easy, now here's this, so "there's some cognitive dissonance" (those words are too big for us to understand).

Liesman said despite all the bluster, "there's no sign" that the White House has interfered with the Fed's "independence."

Backs of people’s heads at NYSE sure makes for exciting television

In tiresome, draining breaking news coverage on Tuesday's Halftime that precluded commercials and frankly wore us out, Bob Pisani at the NYSE said it's "all gamesmanship" among the Spotify open/listing/whatever crowd.

"This is how the sausages really do get made," Pisani cracked during yet another dull moment of dead air.

Ron Insana said SPOT is a "good business," but buying the stock is a "tough call."

Eventually, Pisani declared the stock an "open." NYSE President Tom Farley told Bob that the process was "incredibly smooth." Bob pointed out that Spotify management will get the first ticket.

Jon Najarian explained, "It's not an IPO. It's a direct listing. They didn't raise money ... I'm not critical of it. I think they did a great job."

Judge said the panel seems to think it's a "one-off" for the IPO/listing market. Joe Terranova agreed it's a "one-off" and questioned how SPOT is worth $30 billion while P is worth $1 billion. "There's not that much of a difference between the companies," Joe said. But Stephanie Link said SPOT has "size and scale" in this space.

Jim Lebenthal, who had a quiet show on the heels of Judge's Monday bashing about "fully invested," finally mentioned ROKU, his massive bust from February that he touted at 42 saying it was going back to 50 when he should've said it was going to 30. (This writer is long ROKU.)

Jim said there's "nothing good" for stocks in the jobs number this week.

Judge promised Jeffrey Gundlach on Wednesday.

[Monday, April 2, 2018]

Jim concedes he and Weiss ‘like to tangle it up’ (a/k/a Jim should’ve asked Weiss how that 50% cash as of Aug. 29 worked out)

Thankfully, CNBC producers seated Lebenthal & Weiss next to each other on Monday's Halftime, and all it took to produce a few fireworks was a comparison of percentage fully invested.

Jim reaffirmed, "I am fully invested," even though Judge said he's "sorry" that Jim is fully invested. "The economy looks good right now," Jim asserted.

Weiss boasted to Judge he's in 70% cash. That prompted Jim to say, "I think we gotta remember that we've got people who are viewing here. And you and I like to tangle it up; that's not why I'm doing this. To say that you're 70% cash, implicit what you're saying is that you're timing this market. ... You guys are being so short-term."

"Why would you say that?" Weiss said. He added, "I have the option, the prerogative, of saying, 'You know what, it's been a great run, let me take some off the table, wait for prices to come down, I'll get back in. Doesn't mean I've sold the banks, doesn't mean I've sold Apple."

Joe Terranova took issue with Jim's characterization of "short-term." Joe explained, "We said, it's gonna feel different in 2018. It's not a 75 mile per hour pitch anymore where everyone that writes a blog and thinks they're an investor can make money. Now the pitches come in at 95 miles per hour. If I were to pare back my holdings in equities from a hundred percent to 70, that doesn't make me short-term in my nature."

Jim's right. If Weiss is truly in 70% cash (A. Did he do all his selling Jan. 27; B. he could've been selling just before the show aired), it's just a short-term timing call ... and what Jim didn't say is that Weiss' revelation would've sounded a lot more convincing on Thursday than on Monday.

Judge tripped up by chicken-egg argument initiated by himself

In a curious line of questioning, Judge on Monday's Halftime asked which stock "matters most" to the direction of tech. (Yeah, we don't know what he's talking about either ... when the market goes up, most of them go up, and when the market goes down, most of them go down, etc.)

Jim Lebenthal responded with AAPL, for size reasons.

Judge said, "They're all of scale."

Jim grumbled that Judge asked him to pick one, and "I'm picking one, Apple, because it is the biggest."

Joe Terranova tried to bail Judge out by cogently stating, "I just think you have to see the QQQ find its bottom."

Judge said "you're being too cute on me," suggesting that will happen based on the performance of the giant stocks.

Weiss mentions ‘psycho president’ while Joe seems to think people typically urge buying on days the Dow is down 500

Taking up AMZN's renewed beating from the president of the United States, Kevin O'Leary on Monday's Halftime called the Washington Post "a left-wing newspaper."

Steve Weiss mentioned a "psycho president."

"How can we possibly put any credence to his tweets at this point in time," said Jim Lebenthal.

Judge said the sector was "already teetering."

O'Leary said, for the market, great earnings and "amazing cash flows" are just around the corner. Weiss suggested everyone including panelists says that, but "is it gonna be a sell on the news or yawn on the news."

JJ Kinahan actually claimed, "You're seeing yields actually a little bit higher."

Judge said "Higher? We're at 2.74. 2.74 on the 10-year, man."

JJ said, "But you're not seeing ... people coming in and buying bonds in a big way."

Taking up the flavor of the month/week/day in terms of stock market rationale, Joe Terranova suggested it might be "more likely" now that Republicans lose the House. (We'll take the other side of that with however many points Joe is giving.)

Jim Lebenthal said, "Totally."

Joe complained, "It would be disingenuous to come on this show every day and say, 'The fundamentals are great.' We know that. ... To come on and say every day, 'OK, it's down 500, just keep buying' ... I can't do that. ... I'm not short anything. I'm short nothing." (And if Joe isn't short anything in this particular market, what does that tell us ...)

"Absolutely right," Weiss said.

"Libor is looking a little interesting," said Kevin O'Leary, for no reason we can think of except to demonstrate (not an actual quote), "See how well-versed I am in the global financial scene!!!!"

Joe trumpeted emerging market debt.

Weiss and O'Leary tangled over the definition of "real company," which O'Leary seems to think means paying a dividend and thus would exclude names such as GOOGL.

Weiss says stock market
‘reminiscent of ’87’

"The pressure is clearly on the bulls," Joe Terranova declared at the top of Monday's Halftime.

Joe said he's been hanging around with quant strategists in recent days "where I get a lot of my trading decisions from," and there's an "acceleration" of signals to sell either to exit or get short; Joe said he's not one to sell to short, but he's selling to exit.

Joe contended that the Feb. 9 low of 2,532 is "in jeopardy."

Steve Weiss said, "We've only seen upside momentum for the last 10 years. ... It generally goes down quicker than it goes up."

Weiss actually said it's "reminiscent of '87." (Whew. It's been a few days since we've heard parallels to 1929/1987/2000/2008.)

Jim Lebenthal said he too is looking at energy "for a long time."

Judge said energy is "poised to close in correction territory."

Jim said, "Energy? Not the XLE. I don't think that's, that's right." Jim said he just bought RDSb (or RDSa, we don't know, the graphic said RDSb) on Friday.

Moments later, Judge said the S&P energy sector, from its Jan. 22 high, "is down almost 16%."

Jim said, "I feel good that I just bought on Friday then. I feel good about that. Thank you, I wasn't aware that it was that bad."

Judge said, "That's what I'm here for."

Kevin O'Leary also said he's eyeing energy. O'Leary gloated about the selling in Tesla and how it appears to be trading like a car company now. (He made the same point a couple hours later on Closing Bell; must've taken an Uber to Post 9.)

Judge thinks ‘Jalopnik’ might actually be called ‘Jalopy’

Philippe Houchois dialed in to Monday's Halftime to defend his TSLA upgrade to a mere hold.

Houchois said he'd been "underperform since September" and apparently thinks (we didn't really get his point) that the recent crumbling was based on already known factors and that there's going to be some kind of reset of guidance and funding.

JJ Kinahan countered that "it's almost like the CEO wasn't taking some of these things seriously," which he thinks will take momentum out of the stock "at least for the next 6 months."

In a rare Halftime hit, CNBC's Phil LeBeau (who purchased his first automobile for Four. Hundred. Dollars. And. A. Case. Of. Beer.) said Jalopnik has received a Musk memo suggesting 2,000 Model 3's per week, giving the shares a boost as expectations were around 1,500.

Judge explained how that memo likely surfaced. "Somebody leaks an internal email, about production numbers to uh Jalopnik, Jalopy, whatever it's called, uh, and then the stock comes off of its lows," Judge said.

JJ Kinahan said to Tesla, "Let's see if you can do it longer term."

Jim Lebenthal said TSLA's market cap of $43 billion is almost "on par" with F and GM, which requires huge faith in the quality of what Tesla is making given the low comparative production volume.

Kevin O'Leary questioned if going from sell to hold is an upgrade.

Joe Terranova said maybe he's "old school," but does it bother anyone that the CEO puts out a joke email.

Selling at the bottom: JJ Kinahan says he’d dump GE under $10

Taking up one of our favorite punching bags, Kevin O'Leary on Monday's Halftime said "GE is not investable right now" and made his 13-times-P.E.-no-way argument again.

But JJ Kinahan admitted "I have held it for a little while" and even revealed, "I believe in the new (sic) management team."

Kinahan curiously said, "What I will say, is, if they don't come out and figure it out soon, it's time to get rid of it. ... It's not a short-term play by any stretch."

So, we would say he's got it exactly backward. If they don't figure it out soon, there'll be new management, and that will be the time to get long, not sell. If it's not a short-term play by any stretch, then JJ should be out of it now.

Steve Weiss Kinahan asked if there isn't another stock you can own besides GE with a "clearer" path to recovery.

JJ said he's still a "believer" and that his time frame is "another year, or under $10."

Judge and panel fail to credit Tony Dwyer for predicting retest of 2018 low

Kevin O'Leary on Monday's Halftime REport said he likes INTC, stating it hasn't been drained by the correction.

O'Leary said "it was a dog for 11 years."

Jim Lebenthal, who has pounded the table on INTC for a while, said INTC is only "2 years into that 5-year pattern" of MSFT.

Joe Terranova congratulated O'Leary for dismissing regional banks months ago. But Joe said he's long BAC and V and likes the exchanges.

O'Leary's final trade was emerging markets. JJ Kinahan said WBA. Jim Lebenthal said RDSb (or maybe it was RDSa; the graphic said RDSb). Stephen Weiss said TBF. Joe said MCD, which actually was up Monday.

On the 5 p.m. Fast Bitcoin, featuring Karen Finerman for the first time in a while (stunning & smiling), Guy Adami opened by complimenting Karen's recent observation about this is the most concerned she's been in a while. Karen on Monday said, "I'm concerned, but there are things that are starting to get enticingly cheap to me."

Karen suggested it's time to "lighten protection" and then said the amount of bad news in GM shares is "extraordinary. ... I just think this is getting overdone. I don't love the uncertainty around. But, ya gotta buy when there's blood on the streets, even if it's your own."

Later, Karen said it wouldn't be a big surprise if AAPL in the next 6 months had a situation not "wildly dissimilar" from what FB is experiencing now. (This writer is long FB.)

Founding a company and buying Instagram for $1 billion vs. inheriting a company and buying Beats for $3 billion (cont’d)

Judge on Monday's Halftime aired Zuck's reax to Tim Cook's monetizing-customers comment, which Zuck called "extremely glib ... and not at all aligned with the truth." (This writer is long FB.)

The panel seemed unanimous on a voice vote that they side with Zuckerberg.

Kevin O'Leary said it was an "unfair shot" from Tim Cook.

Steve Weiss said, "It was such a disingenuous, and I would say dishonest commentary. ... Guess what — Facebook doesn't charge a thousand bucks for an iPhone OK when everybody else is charging a lot less."

Judge said he thinks Tim Cook was saying, "We treat our customers better." Weiss said, "Sure they do. That's why they build in- built in obsolescence in the battery so that you'd have to go out and get a new phone."

Jim Lebenthal suggested Tim Cook is irked that he's getting lumped in with the hit to tech stocks on privacy, and "I don't particularly like the way he's doing it."

Weiss grumbled Apple gets a "free ride on everything." Judge said AAPL got called out on the battery, "and he came out and apologized."

Joe Terranova seemed to think the FB-AAPL sniping is healthy, contending that tech should be regulating itself and that FB and AAPL are having a "constructive conversation" and that FB and AAPL are trading "relatively well" in a tough tape. JJ Kinahan threw water on that, stating regulation was forced on them.

Jim said that Apple may sell hardware such as phones, but "They actually collect a lot of data through these things."

Nobody drew a comparison between the career arcs of Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook, but then again, no one pointed out that Apple actually has to pay people to create its product while Facebook coasts on free labor by its billion-plus users, either.

Much more from Monday's Halftime, including the latest showdown between Jim and Weiss (properly seated in the middle this time), later.

Today’s mediocre NCAA Tournament team would win the 1969 NBA title

As March Madness draws to a close, it's worth taking note of how far basketball has come.

If you went back in time and hauled the 1969 Celtics courtside to San Antonio this weekend, they'd certainly think they were at some kind of pro all-star game.

Virtually all sports are much more competitively played than 50 years ago, but basketball is the most vivid example. Small forwards often go 6-8. Big men drain 20-footers. Guards jump out of the gym, and — with the benefit of lax traveling enforcement — can take the ball from coast to coast in about 5 dribbles.

Yes, there were great athletes in 1969, too. But look at the bodies. The physicality is so much different now. Lifting weights, once frowned upon in many sports as minimizing a player's natural skill, is common even in basketball. Elite prospects are well-trained from a very early age and play the game year-round. Today's college player can hardly make a roster if he doesn't have a semi-reliable 3-pointer.

The greatest, such as Chamberlain, Russell, Abdul-Jabbar and Jerry West, would be great in any era. But if you inserted them into this NCAA Tournament, they'd be flabbergasted at what these college kids are able to do, and unable to beat them.

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