Debate: The Best Trades Right Now 7/2/25
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All right, thanks very much. Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner. Front and center this hour, the best way to play the markets at new highs. We will debate that with the Investment Committee. Joining me today, Joe Terranova, Steve Weiss, Kevin Simpson, and Bryn Talkington. We're green across the board. We did have ADP, which was a miss. The dollar's up. Well, Dow is back red, but it's hugging the flat line here. The president says he has a deal with Vietnam.

RBC's Lori Calvacina says the rebound brand is starting to feel full from a few different vantage points. What about your vantage point? How does this market feel to you?

I feel the growthy growth stocks, the Robinhoods, the Palantirs, Spotify's, etc. I feel like those are, those need to stop going higher. I feel like there's been so much ebullition there. You want to see the value names be able to move up more than just one day yesterday, because those are the have-nots. And so I think after this bill gets passed, we're going to hear a lot of rhetoric from the President, Besant, and the Senate, the House saying how

how pro-growth this is gonna be, how stimulative this is gonna be while not causing inflation. So maybe those value names can kind of catch a bit and do a little bit of catch up. But right now the growth trade really is leading the charge and seems to be overdone. - Joe, we really don't have much follow through at all on what was happening yesterday, where it was, you know, NASDAQ down, Dow up big, winners were losers, losers were winners.

We thought maybe that was a one-day phenomenon, and maybe it's going to prove to be. And only time is going to tell. But when Lori Calfazzina says, "Okay, the rebound feels a little full at this point because we've rebounded a lot,"

Do you tend to agree or disagree with that? I don't like that we have lost the momentum factor. I often say that the momentum factor is one of the better factors in providing the evidence that we are in the midst of a very strong bull market. Listen, I also don't like the fact that yields are higher today.

I think it's a little bit more going on here than surrounding the bill in Washington, D.C. If you look globally, you've got some challenges. Certainly in the U.K. right now, you have yields there in the long end up 20 basis points. So we might be entering a phase here over the next 90 days where the bond market takes control.

We get in this contentious debate on when the Fed is going to cut. I still think September 17th they will be cutting. But I think the third quarter, if the bond market takes control, then we could be susceptible to a sideways to lower quarter. Yeah. I did mention that we didn't have all that much on the rotation continuation.

Except Apple is leading the Dow. It's up near 2% and it did get upgraded today. It's from Jefferies. We haven't said Apple and upgrade in the same sentence very many times over the last several months, but it did today. Now it's to hold. It wasn't underperform, which was a significant call in and of itself. But we have been discussing over the last few days

Kevin, as to whether we were going to have a turning point for shares of one of America's most loved stocks and one of America's most owned stocks and one of the Mag7's worst stocks year to date.

We're going to have a better second half for Apple? Well, I sure hope so. And I think the move yesterday that was sparking the recovery in the stock had a lot to do with their AI plans. And if they give up the internal ability to create Apple intelligence and they tack it on to a scale AI, a perplexity, in this case, I think they're talking about anthropic and open AI more as a dominant player. I think that would be fantastic for the stock because you've got 2.3 billion active users

And if all of us collectively could actually turn Siri on and expect it to work occasionally, I think that would be a great step up. So I'm optimistic on the stock for the second half. I like the upgrade and I think you can buy it here. Apple's up 5% twice this week.

And maybe sentiment is starting to turn that, you know, OK, if they make a decision that rather than in-house, they go to a third party for a significant portion of their AI, you know, their aspirations around Siri. So what? It's a significant move and it's the right move. And if you get AI right, better late than never.

Yeah, I agree with that. And they're always late because they don't innovate. So they wait for somebody else to innovate and then they copy it. However, they got caught with their pants down here because this is not where you can copy somebody else's features. You need the actual brains and underpinning of it so they can lease it. And I think that would be a great move for them because you've delayed, you know, AI for Siri, et cetera, for a long time now. Remember, it was promised, you know, almost a year ago at this point. So I think that would be positive. I also think part of it

And I agree with Kevin, that's part of what's driving. I also think what's driving is you've seen such massive performance from the bottom on the other MAG7 stocks that people are looking to find so-called bargains, and this is a catch-up trade as well. So you got those two things working for it. I still think that the others will outperform, but we've seen the bottom in Apple.

You know, normally, if it weren't Apple or another company, you'd be trading a lot lower in valuation, but because they have been slow revenue growth, slow earnings growth over the last number of years. But at this point, I would still rather be in the other MAG7 stocks for enduring performance. On Bryn, the innovation aspect of this, DigiTimes is reporting that Apple's begun prototyping a foldable iPhone and they eye a 2026 launch.

What do you make of that news in the total story of whether you think Apple has the ability to have a really sizable rebound over the next six months? Because the year to date, it's down 16 percent. And that's after a nice move yesterday.

So, I mean, I guess to Steve's point, so they're just going to copy Samsung? I mean, we already have a foldable phone. So it's like this is where that's not innovative. That's just copying what Samsung already has. And so I don't – I find that as nothing. But how many times do you hear people talk about the Samsung phones? I mean, so what? Never. Why does that ever matter? It's just like a feature. So why is it going to matter now? It's just a feature. It's – so if you think about Apple –

The vast majority of their revenues come from the hardware of people buying iPhones.

And so the thesis a year and a half ago, which I disagreed with, I think Steve disagreed with it too, is that the iPhone 16 was not going to be exponential. It was going to be incremental. So now we're at the iPhone 17. And so how are you going to get us to speed up? Like I have an iPhone 14. I'm very happy with it. How are you going to get the globe to speed up that cycle? It's not going to be with a foldable phone. And so I think...

With Apple, this is a great company. They buy back their stocks. We all use their devices. But I think they are in that somewhat of a quandary of this is a late stage company that really needs to innovate. And they have very big revenue numbers, but they're not growing. And so I think a foldable phone is a nothing burger. I think buying back shares is still overdone. And how do you innovate? How does a hardware company innovate when all of the innovation is coming from software?

And I think that's the big question with the stock. I still own the stock. I sold half in December. But I just think investors do need to understand we've seen this playbook before. Eastman, Kodak, Polaroid, IBM, Cisco. You know, they really need to do something they haven't been comfortable doing in the past, which is to buy a company because they have to buy that innovation because they're not doing it internally. You'll let us know when you sell the other half. It sounds like you have one foot out the door on.

on the second half of your holding. Certainly doesn't make a big case behind it. No, it doesn't. Look, I think we're always searching for some fundamental catalyst. I think Steve really nailed it. A lot of this, the story so far in 2025, when you're looking at these mega cap companies, it's all about meta. It's all about

Nvidia, it's all about Microsoft. There's a clear delineation. Then on the other side, there's concerns surrounding Alphabet. We know the concerns with Apple, and they haven't performed. Well, sentiment and positioning right now probably for Apple are as poor as it has been in many, many years.

And for a trade, I do think, I said it yesterday, I think you could buy this for a trade. I think it probably goes 220, 225 easily. Doesn't mean six months from now it's the leader. But you're going to kind of get a little bit of a better feeling surrounding that sentiment because you got some clarity yesterday that maybe they have a roadmap in front of them as it relates to the AI strategy. We don't have to approve it.

We don't have to agree with it. But at least you know the direction ultimately. Do you not agree with it? Well, I would have liked to have seen them innovate on their own, not have to go to a third party. What difference is it? I don't understand what difference it makes. It doesn't make a difference. I don't think it makes a difference to the business model. I think it makes a difference to revenue. I think...

What we had wanted over the last six months is for them to be competitive with the other mega cap technology companies in an AI strategy. And just because we were unsatisfied in that regard, to your point, it probably doesn't make a difference for the share price. Here's why it makes a difference. It doesn't make a difference today, but it makes a difference going forward. Because as AI continues to improve and as open AI improves,

and at Thrapp continued to innovate and Meta and the others on AI.

Apple's not going to be innovating on it because they don't have those people internally. So you see the major- Yeah, but if they're doing the deals with the innovators, what difference does that make? Because they'll be further back in the queue- Why? For those upgrades. I'm just, because they're going to use them themselves first. So OpenAI is going to deploy those first. Microsoft also has a call on what they're doing as a large shareholder in the company. So it's always the innovators who get first dibs

And then the ones that are buying from them, depending upon the check, they'll have to spend their way. Apple's not going to do a deal with one of these companies and then watch whatever terms they pay, watch the innovations go to somebody else. Well, they're going to have to get there with, well, I don't think that's true. They are not in the premier negotiating position right now, unless they want to write a significantly larger check. And then you could ask, why not buy Perplexity, which is phenomenal AI in search.

Well, that seems to be where everybody's talking about. What if they did do that?

What if they did do that? Gene Munster was on Closing Bell with us yesterday, said they should buy Perplexity. Alex Kantrowicz was at WWDC with us, said they should buy Perplexity. If they buy Perplexity, are you going to be happy with that? Yeah, I would be. There'd be some dilution because of the price tag. But yes, I would be happy with it. They've got to use their cash for something. If you recall, I wanted to buy Netflix when it was a $50 billion market cap. Think of what that would have done for them. How many more eyeballs? Look, it's...

It's got great products. Once you're in it, you're locked in. But believe me, the foldable phone, as Bryn says, is not the key. I've seen foldable phones from Samsung. I'm sure we all have. They're unwieldy. The form factor, unless they make it equivalent to this and this is going to go lighter, then people aren't going to want it. It's a gimmick. Bryn, I saw you raising your hand over there. Yeah.

So it's like, I want to be balanced here. So why do you buy Apple today? Why do I still hold it? Because I still believe that Siri is the Trojan horse of all of this because we're all still using our Apple devices. So I have the Meta Ray Bans, but you still have to use them through your Apple phone. And where Apple dominates everybody else is security.

And so if you think about this AI assistant, ultimately, once again, you have Alexa, but you have the app on your phone. And so people trust Apple. And so if they can get Siri, whether it's an acquisition, what have you, buying talent, you know, buying talent like Meta is doing, where we can have control and security over our data inside of there to be able to make plane reservations, to look in our emails, because I don't think

I do think that's where ultimately this company can execute, but it's a timing perspective. And so I think that you do need to think that Tim Cook is gonna pull it off because I do think from a security perspective, no one else does it like Apple. - Yeah. - Let me sum it up this way. I need a reason to upgrade from my 14 to a 17. They didn't give it to me for this 15. They didn't give it to me for the 16. I'm still waiting. I'm happy to hold this through the 20 as long as it still works.

but i think that's the point the ecosystem retention is remarkable for this company but you need to sit but we'll sit there and we will wait and they will pay you to wait because they'll buy back their stuff so tesla is another stock i want to look at today it's looking to snap a six-day losing streak it is back above a trillion dollars in market cap speaking of mega caps that have not performed well down more than 20 year-to-date kev what's your take here their deliveries missed

Dan Ives said they're way better than feared, which maybe matters more than anything else, and why the stock is reacting today the way it is.

Seems kind of pathetic that we're getting excited because they were way better than Fiat. So if you're looking at this as an automobile company. When Fiat was pretty bad, when Actual was pretty bad. 13% is pretty lousy. Luckily, we have only a 2.5% position in this. It's underweight to various indices. I think that this is always a reminder to me, like when you're sitting in high school and you think of like the smartest kid in the room, it may have been you. But they don't always have the same street smart. I love the props. The only one who hasn't given me props today is you, Scott.

much like you showed up in that sport jacket that's probably the reason why continue to try to learn how to read the room can we go on less please i don't want to just tell me i'm speaking specifically about elon musk whenever he's fighting with donald trump that's bad for the stock so if you're a ceo take care of your shareholders and focus on that so this is a company that we love for robotics self-driving and all the other things that come along with the robotics but for right now if you're looking at it and on today's news

It's not a buy by any means. Bryn, what do you think? You've been the most high profile shareholder of Tesla on this program.

Yeah, I mean, I think 250 to 260 to 360 is the range. And so you buy it down there, let it run and sell calls. I think that I've said this before, you currently have with the current business model, deterring fundamentals. And so I think that you have to believe that, you know, robotics, that they do some combination with XAI and Dojo.

on their dojo with all of the GPUs that he's building. But I do think that investors are going to give him the benefit of the doubt. But from a trader, once again, $260 to $350. You can drive a truck through that, and that's why the call premium is so high. And so I would assume Kevin, like myself, likes to sell calls on this when it gets above like $340, $350, because I think that's going to be a peak until we start getting some new revenue stream clarity.

Let's play this game. What is going to be the best performing mega cap name over the next six months? Microsoft's target today goes to 600 at DA Davidson. Amazon's target goes to 250 at Truist. Meta's target goes to 740 at Baird. NVIDIA's closing in on $4 trillion in market cap. Joe Terranova, you're answering the question first. NVIDIA. Over the next six months. NVIDIA.

it's up 16 year-to-date it trails i don't care what your answer is okay nvidia okay meta why because i think while they're all overvalued um based on the investments they're based upon pe trailing p well i know you're talking about the pe but i mean what what's the nvidia's overvalued

Yeah, I think it's overvalued. Meta's overvalued? I believe it is, yeah. Alphabet's overvalued? I'm fine with that. Alphabet's not, but there's a fundamental issue with Alphabet, which is search. And that, I think, is going to keep living the stock. But Meta is just making investment after investment in AI, and I think that's going to continue to pay dividends. I know, but these companies are all buying NVIDIA's product. Yeah.

They are, but Meta's also making their own chips. Amazon's making their own chips. Google's making their own chips eventually. And the idea of making their own chips is to dig into the dominant market share that NVIDIA has. So eventually that will start to hit NVIDIA. And they've already been producing chips for their own uses. And maybe they'll produce enough to sell and compete with NVIDIA.

What's your answer? My answer is Amazon, but I don't think either of these two stocks are overvalued. I think you can buy Nvidia. I think you can buy Meta. And certainly you can buy Amazon down here. This one's relatively underperformed its peer group. You've got AWS, which is incredible. You've got Prime. You've got advertising. They're getting into robotics, satellite. It's just a very diversified company, certainly led by AWS at the moment. Bryn, what would your answer be?

Oh, Nvidia. Nvidia has been basing out that broke through that 145, 150. All roads lead to Nvidia. Meta is spending money. They're all spending money. They may be buying chips.

making their own chips, but Nvidia is not making chips. They're making 70 pound to one ton tech stacks that people are using for data centers. And so I think this breakout you can get if the market continues to rally, Nvidia goes to 200. So I'll go with Joe with Nvidia, $200 price target. We'll watch the $4 trillion level on market cap. Watching the banks too. Bank stocks are at a three-year high.

The biggest banks are raising their dividends. They're announcing buybacks. That's after the stress tests went by with flying colors Goldman's dividend goes to four bucks from three and and every bank on this list is raised I don't need to tell you the levels because they don't really mean anything to you if I do that But what about the bank stocks here? I'm maintaining the positioning that I have certainly in Goldman Sachs JP Morgan Morgan Stanley

is a name that I owned previously in the last several years. Unfortunately, I stepped away from it. I'm looking to get back into that once again. I think all of these money center banks are in the sweet spot. I think the regulatory reform is real, the clarity surrounding what taxes are going to be looking like. And I do think you're going to see an uptick in M&A. The one thing about the banks is I would watch the regional banks very closely because if you're looking for the indicator that what we saw yesterday

is going to be something that's more than a 24-hour event. It's going to be represented in the regional banks first and foremost. -City raises targets on a bunch today. Citizens Financial to 57 from 51, Huntington to 20 from 19, Regions to 27 from 26,

U.S. Bancorp to 59 from 55, and you own all those. I own all of these, and they have not worked in the last quarter. The momentum has been waning significantly, and we need something to act as a catalyst. Maybe that will be a series of rate cuts in the fall.

Maybe it's going to be regulatory relief. I'm not necessarily sure where the specific catalyst is going to come from, but I am telling you it will be a leading indicator that the rotation is going to be something a little bit more durable over the course of the year. Kevin, the other day you made the argument that in this kind of market, you let your horses run. Those were your exact words. Now you're trimming Goldman Sachs, which has been a thoroughbred. Okay. Why are you doing that?

Well, one thing I want to point out with Goldman Sachs on the plus side is that they raised their dividend by 33%. They took it from $3 to $4. That's very powerful. We have a 5% maximum position, so my horses can run only so far. We have a rules-based strategy. It got to be a 6.5%, 7% weighting. I love the name. We have a full position in Goldman, a full position in J.P. Morgan.

active management when you have a stock that's up like that and you run your process you've got to follow it so it's not different this time we love the name i've got some free cash i'll sell into strength any day of the week weiss goldman's target to 775 at b of a it was 700 715 at evercore it was 630.

There's a lot of momentum as Joe was starting to show off around these stocks. Yeah, I mean, I think everybody knows where I stand in gold. And I'm not in plus by upgrade price targets because they just want to stay on board. I don't blame them. But the story is the same as it was when their target was 700. Look, this is all

all happening without the capital markets really opening up, particularly on the public side, and with rates being where they are, limiting M&A activity. So think of the momentum and fundamentals, forget about the stock price, when that kicks in with all of them.

And you can look at any of the large bank charts. They pretty much all look the same, with the exception of the spike in Citi that we've recently seen. So I don't think you have to be an expert bank analyst to just pick one in this sector. And I continue to have Goldman as my preferred play. All right, other winners I want to talk about. Robinhood, Brin, hits a new all-time high yet again. Mizuho puts it on its top picks list. $99 is the price target, so they're going to need to raise that.

obviously, because the stock has hit a hundred bucks today. - Right, I think it's up 20% in two days, right? Vlad was in Cannes talking about tokenizing SpaceX and I think OpenAI opening up crypto in Europe. And so I do agree with this note. The company has caught the zeitgeist

of these, of finance. And so the stock, the chart looks parabolic, but it is what it is, like a Palantir at 130, it's bizarre that it's there, but this is where we are. And so I think this company continues to eat all the custodians lunch as their innovation. It's an exciting company. And so I think it's, you know, continues to go higher regardless of where the valuation is stretched or not stretched.

Just real quick, Scott, you know we love this name also. Juniper is going to be out of the S&P 500 because of the Hewlett Packard acquisition, and there's a high probability that Robinhood may get into the S&P 500, and that could happen in the next couple days. So I think that's another catalyst for the move today. Netflix target to $15.25 from $13.80. Canaccord. Weiss, you want to take on that? Yeah, so they've got, they're talking about more leverage to pull, which are more music,

reality, live reality shows. It just continues to be, particularly if you get into a really tough economy, it's going to be them. And I also include Disney now in that vertical where they're the two streaming companies that will do quite well and survive. If you want the purest play, of course, that's Netflix. UNH is under pressure. A lot of the managed care names are because Centene pulled their guidance. What about this name?

Yeah, so... You keep trying on this UNH. Yeah, UNH has actually worked since I went back in. It was working better yesterday than today. But, look, these are the issues, and the issues aren't over. And the reason I own UNH... And, by the way, it's the same issue, which is too much usage from...

from their membership and not enough members signing up for the plans. So they've got revenues coming down and costs going up, which is its own form of stagnation. However, a stagflation. But what I would say is that

The thought here is that Steve Hemsley, who came back as CEO but stayed as chairman, is going to kitchen sink quarter, clear it all out, and then put in, as he did when he was CEO, he didn't need kitchen sink quarters, and then climb on from there.

But there's still uncertainties. You're still working through new government regulations that have required recoding, which has cost them. And then you don't know where it looks like Medicare Advantage is okay, but Medicaid is an issue for everybody in healthcare. So it's still a treacherous sector to invest in, whether you're a drug company.

this device company, whatever. It's better hands-off. A couple quick moves before we take a break. You sold Spotify covered calls. You sold Howmet covered calls. Yeah, just real quick. These both expire next Friday, so they were 11-day options. We did these on Monday. There was tremendous premium heading into the turn of the month, second half of the

year and, Bryn, you would love these options. I wish we had more time, but basically we brought in $5 for HowMet, $18 for Spotify. We could buy both of those back for a couple bucks and lock in those profits today if we wanted to. You own both of these, right? Everyone has a different strategy. I respect what Kevin's doing here, but the momentum strategy, we let the horses run and there is no end to our track. HowMet was down 4% yesterday and Spotify was down 6%. Okay.

I'm going to let it run. Okay. We'll do our calls of the day next. We'll debate bullish takes on a group of committee stocks. We're back after this. Comcast Business helps turn today's small businesses into engines of modern business. It's how restaurants become reliably up and running neighborhood favorites. How retailers become seamlessly restocking, cyber securing, must visit shops.

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EY, shape the future with confidence. Calls of the day, we leave with Walmart. Mizuho says top pick. It's on the list. 115 is the price target. Nice little increase from there. A decade of investment spent has finally reached a tipping point in our view, where delivery, convenience are on par with anyone in consumer. Those are big words, Joe T. You own that name. Where's the mention about tariff, Scott?

Is there anywhere in that report a word tariff? Because that's the problem. That's the reason why since February this stock has been under decline. Stock makes an all-time high in February. Subsequent to that, earnings come out. We go down. We've heard the news surrounding the president and Walmart CEO going back and forth with tariffs. But they have a challenge in tariffs. They have a challenge.

because they don't want to pass through the cost to you and I. They want to eat the cost, and that is going to eat into margins. So until we get the clarity related to tariffs, the stock is going to continue to move sideways. And we own it. We own it. The stock's up 9% in three months. The stock has been phenomenal.

The stock has been phenomenal over the last 18 months, but it has stalled out in February and it's specifically because of tariffs. Look at a chart of Costco. They're in the same situation right now. You could talk about others in the retail space. The tariff challenge is real for these companies. And most of these companies, in particular the hyperscalers, they don't

want to pass through the cost to the consumer. They want to be able to eat it. Well, that's a problem because it is going to eat up that market. Hey, befitting my cheery deposition. Disposition. Disposition. I'll help you out again. Disposition. Befitting that. Here's what's good that's going on, and you're not going to hear it. We saw part of that news in Microsoft today, and I'm equating it to Walmart for the following reason. The headcount reductions, I believe, are because of AI, because they're getting more product

out of AI. Now, when you go to Walmart, they spoke about dark stores. We're going to see dark stores proliferate. We're going to see it with all retailers. What that means is that you will not need any people in that. The technology exists. Take a look at a private company, Nimble Robotics, where it's fully automated. So you'll have these smaller footprints

where you basically call up, make an order, or better yet, you do it on your phone, and that is ready for you as you drive through. It cuts down on theft, which is big for some of these companies. It affects 25% of their profits. So you'll get away, you'll reduce theft, you'll reduce labor costs, and that's the upside to Walmart.

and pick the others. Walgreens, just go down. Agreed, but that's the technological investment that they've made over the last several years. One of the reasons why we initiated the position in it, I think the question was, what was it, 115 is your price target there? 115. Okay, how does it get to 115? You have to get away from the headwinds. It's almost at 100. That's not that big of a move from here. It was at 105 in February, and it's been, look at what has happened to the stock since February. I agree, tariffs are an issue. Tariffs, to get to all...

But they said they would raise prices. You want to get to 115? Let's get some clarity and resolution on the margin challenge they have related to tariffs. We own the stock. I love the stock. Technology is phenomenal. Everything you're citing, I agree with. Let me ask you this question now. Is there any company that is better positioned to extract cost concessions from their suppliers than Walmart? Amazon.

Better positioned? Yes. Well, I don't think so, because I think they're equally well positioned. I don't think I've picked one or the other. Let's go to Ross Storrs, because I started to talk about that, and I just want to get that out. Upgraded today to buy from hold, 150 to 135. You own that name, too. And again, you can continue to mention tariffs for all of them.

all of these retail names but in particular for Ross store the challenge that they have in front of them and what potentially could be a cow so Stephanie said yes they she thinks that there's a potential building recovery in home products well 25 percent all the sales for this company are related to home goods so if in fact you begin to see that that is something that the reignites the momentum which was present for this company that's kind of

similar to Walmart moving sideways. Why waste time with raw stores when you can go to home goods? TJ Maxx does not have a tariff issue. This is an off-rack retailer that is very customer friendly. Oh, they own home goods. Yeah, that was my...

Just make sure everybody knows that. TJ Maxx owns HomeGoods. And Marmax as well. And that's your best play? I think within the space, we own Home Depot and TJ Maxx. I love TJ Maxx. The dividend, the dividend growth, the share buybacks. If you go to this store, you can't find a parking spot. You won't want to wait in line. And this is not a tariff issue. You buy everything here domestically. Eye on cue, Bryn. Overweight at Canterford Sterile. They initiate coverage there. $45.00.

is the price target. This stock went up huge when you first were talking about it. Then I think you sold some, if not all. I can't remember. You bring us up to date in our viewers, but 45 they say it's going back to. What's the story here?

Yeah, well, so I bought it at 33. And then shortly after, Barron's actually had an article about it, which I think is why the stock ran up. And so I sold half the position. Listen, I like owning some high growth, longer term names. I will say this, the company is about $11 billion market cap, the stock, they're

their revenues for the August quarter should be at 50%, but those revenues were coming at 17 million. So these are early days. And I think with the quantum computing, what they're looking to do and what this, they're the biggest in the space.

What they've been able to do with their stocks since they're publicly traded is they have been gobbling up, I would say these small companies, but really like a group of really super smart scientists with LightSync. They did one in New Mexico that works with DARPA and Top Secret. And so I think as computing continues, they are at the intersection of cybersecurity. They are at the intersection of super fast computing. And they also have quantum computers like

little quantum computers. So I think it's early days. The stock could be at 20 and I wouldn't be surprised or 60. So I continue will build a position trade around it. But I just think there's so few quantum pure play quantum stocks. And I do believe this is the best one out there. I wanted to have an initial position to have in the portfolio. All right.

Thank you. The headlines now with Christina Partsenevalos. Hi, Christina. Hi, Scott. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the elimination of Hamas in his first public remarks after President Trump announced a proposal for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza. Hamas says it's studying the proposal, which Israel agreed to on Tuesday. All of this comes just days ahead of Netanyahu's planned visit to meet with President Trump on this upcoming Monday.

The Dalai Lama said the ancient Tibetan Buddhist institute that he leads will continue on after his death. The exiled spiritual leader today added only the organization that he founded can recognize the future reincarnation. At one point, he had hinted that he might forego established succession practices in a bid to throw off the Chinese government and avoid a leadership vacuum.

And the third and final season of Squid Games is breaking Netflix records. In its first three days, the hit Korean series has racked up more than 60 million views, a new high for the streaming service with more than 368 million hours viewed. While this is the final season, director David Fincher has been rumored, just a rumor so far, to be developing an English-language remake for Netflix. Scott, are you a fan? All right.

Sure. Yeah. The fam is big time fans. Thank you. We'll see you later. Christina Parson, out with us. Straight ahead, Goldman Sachs is out with a new list of stocks they say maybe you should sell. I have some more calls that I didn't get to that I do want to, and we'll do all that straight ahead.

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All right. We have some more calls that I want to get to. Jabil was resumed at Stiefel by 245. Kevin Simpson is the price target. What do you think? Record high today for that name.

Honestly, Scott, I think this target's too low. Their pivot into AI has been unbelievable. They spent about $500 million to get involved in this space. They've made 33% revenue growth after the past quarter. I don't have a covered call on it. I'm letting this horse run. I think it's moving higher. Okay. Let's see if Joe's with us. S&P Global, the target to 592. Oppenheimer,

You own that stock. I do. I am here, my friend. All right. Go ahead. Let's go. Engagement. That's the word of the day. Engagement. I want engagement. Let's go. Financial services industry. Think about it. The financial services industry, if there's one thing that's going to happen in the second half of the year, whether you're bullish or bearish, it's engagement. Because we had...

such a volatile first half of the year and there will prove to be tremendous opportunity in markets. People will be engaged. Pull up a chart of Schwab. Could we do that? Let's see where Schwab is. I think it's at an all-time high today. Interactive brokers near an all-time high today. Same case for S&P Global. This has been on a tear as well. These stocks...

asset managers are going to perform well in the second half of the year because they have the engagement robin hood coinbase they're all participate okay sent us you have that to two fifty seven is the new target a goldman sachs you like that thank you for reminding me of that it needs honestly it needs further corrective behavior because of the momentum unwind we're seeing that today's sound sarcastically no it's not reminding me that it's down three and a half percent well i know you like to needle me it's down three and a half percent i think that's the biggest

move lower than it's had in the last two and a half months. It's part of the momentum unwind. It's not like the reported earnings last night, and that's the reason that it's falling. It's because the strategy is unwinding, and we'll see where it goes. It could go down further, which obviously is going to annoy me and irritate me, similar to what you're doing right now. I vote for it to go down further, by the way. You're a shareholder of Joe T. Why would you want that? It's more worthwhile for me to see you annoyed and irritated. Caterpillar target to 445 at Baird, Weiss.

Look, you know, it's been working out well, I think continues to. You know, the tax bill is going to drive more capital spending. You have to get through the uncertainty of tariffs. But if you're willing to get through that, and I think we'll get through it at some point, they're right in the sweet spot. Plus, the onshoring, which has been an amazing trend even before Trump will continue. So I like it. And again,

my portfolio is so biased to the mag seven and to big cap tech that this is a nice balance to it. - Okay, let's, speaking of balance, let's lift Joe back up. - Sure, let's do that. - Let's have happy Joe, okay? Royal Caribbean, show the stock.

record high today winner 360 was 290. outperform see what i did remarkable by the way back to engagement financial services i left one name out state street 52 week high today they're participating as well royal caribbean's been a balance sheet turnaround yeah the balance sheet for this company has remarkably coming out of where they were in the pandemic they've navigated

They've changed the course and direction in the open seas. I see what you did there. And they've been rewarded in the corporate debt market. They're being rewarded in the equity market. And there's also very strong engagement from travelers from Asia. Okay. Thank you very much. It was well done. Appreciate it. Mike Santoli is next with his midday word.

All right, we're back on the Halftime Report. Our friends at Golf Channel following the PGA TOUR stop this week. It's the John Deere Classic. Golf Channel reporter Haley Hunter joins us on site in Illinois with what to expect in this final run-up, Haley, to the Open Championship, which is not all that far away.

That's right. Thanks so much, Scott. Well, one of the best parts about this tournament every year is all of the birdies that we're likely anticipating to see because there's always so many low rounds out here. In fact, last year, the John Deere Classic saw more birdies, 2,055, than any other event on the

PGA Tour. So players, when they come out here to TPC Deer Run, they know they're going to have to produce some low rounds out here. And that's what we've seen in 12 of the last 15 years now, where the final winning total was at least 20 under par, including, of course, the defending champion in Davis Thompson, who set the new horse scoring record at 28 under here last year.

last year and with that a big reason why he was able to find so much success out here was because of his wedges from about 150 yards and in that's likely about half of the approach shots that we're going to see players have this week putting will also be a big part of having success out here this week and we take a look at some of the best wedge players on tour right now from that 50 to 125 yard range you'll see players

such as Jackson Suber who was ranked second right now from that distance. He's coming off a nice tied for sixth finish last week at the Rocket Classic in Detroit as well as players like Paul Peterson who ranks third, Duncan Max McGreevy and Emiliano Grillo. Meanwhile some of the best putters out

here this week are names such as Sam Ryder, Brant Snedeker, Nico Echevarria and Denny McCarthy who ranks ninth on tour in strokes gained putting right now. And while Denny is certainly hoping that that putter can play in his favor out here this week as one of the better players in the field, he's also hoping

hoping that the place he's staying at just a few miles down the road from here can possibly help him out as well. The last three straight years now, and Airbnb has produced the winner out here. And so with him finishing top seven his last three straight years here and having been a runner up a couple of times on the PGA Tour, he's hoping that Airbnb will help him get that first PGA Tour win. Scott. All right. Haley, thank you. Haley Hunter.

at the John Deere. Be sure to follow Golf Channel's coverage of that tournament. It begins tomorrow, round one, 4 p.m. Eastern time. Up next, Santoli with his midday word. Mike Santoli is with us, our senior markets commentator.

Oh, man, we're having a day. We're having a day. What kind of day are you having? I mean, look, quiet strength in the market, I think, from the open, which is probably the biggest pattern, up a third of a percent. So you're extending a little bit. I think it's interesting the market decided not to do much in terms of taking the weak ADP employment number to heart, at least in terms of pricing and big implications for tomorrow. You do have some steepening of the yield curve again. Short-term yields are pretty suppressed.

And then this rotation, you know, it's still there. It's not as stark as it was yesterday, but you have the Russell up almost 1%. And that seems to be the market, of course, just repositioning because, you know, crowded into neglected trades and just a new quarter and having a reload of strategies. But also, it's sort of what you would expect to see if the market thought you were getting either an uptick in the economy or and or a rate cut. And I think that's

kind of where we are in terms of the odds. Maybe more and than or. I mean, that seems to be where we're kind of getting to, right? I think you have to pile up the positives to really justify more upside from here. And that probably includes July 9th not being some kind of a rug pull on the tariff deals and everything else. All right. I'll see you in a little bit. Mike Santelli will be back with us on Closing Bell. We'll do finals next.

We'll see you at 3 o'clock today on Closing Bell with Dan Greenhouse, Lowe Tony, Michael Bappas, Stephanie Link, and Brian Levitt. I hope you'll join me. Bryn, what's your final trade?

Freeport FCX. It's been basing out, had resistance at 43 to 45 since 2021. Looks like it's breaking above that. Thank you very much. Kevin Simpson. Honeywell, the breakup value will unlock shareholder value. Okay, thank you. Steve Weiss. Caterpillar, their engagement with their customers is going to increase sales. All right. Joe T. Amgen, series of higher lows breaking out above the 200-day moving average. Nice move there. I'll see you in a couple hours. The exchange begins right now.

You've been listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast. You can always catch us live weekdays at 12 Eastern, only on CNBC. All opinions expressed by the Halftime Report participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBCUniversal, their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, internet, or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular opinion.

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