Debate: The Path for Stocks 6/16/25
44:19 Share

What does it mean to live a rich life? It means brave first leaves, tearful goodbyes, and everything in between. With over 100 years experience navigating the ups and downs of the market and of life, your Edward Jones Financial Advisor will be there to help you move ahead with confidence.

Because with all you've done to find your rich, we'll do all we can to help you keep enjoying it. Edward Jones, member SIPC. Substance use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And so as a Black woman in recovery, hope must be loud.

It grows louder when you ask for help and you're vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay. When we learn the power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out how at startwithhope.com. Brought to you by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, Shatterproof, and the Ad Council.

I'm Scott Wapner, and you're listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast, the most profitable hour of the trading day. We record this live weekdays at 12 Eastern. Listen in.

Carl, thank you very much. Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner, front and center this hour. Rising stocks to start a busy week for your money. We, of course, are watching Iran and Israel developments there. Fed meeting coming in a couple of days. At least the decision and the G7 ongoing, as you saw earlier, that bilateral between President Trump and Canada's Carney. All our eyes on everything today. Joe Terranova, Kerry Firestone, Jim Laventhal with me at the desk.

So, Joe, we have Iran signaling, according to The Wall Street Journal, that they want to negotiate. The president all but corroborating that in the little spray they had with reporters at the G7 Fed decision. Oppenheimer says downward pressure on stocks is unlikely to be a protracted

Is that how you feel as well? That's how I feel, and that's what the market is telling us. We have the NASDAQ 100 and the comp both above Thursday's close. The S&P 6045 was the close on Thursday. We're about four or five handles below that right now. So we've made this dramatic recovery, 16.5%.

52-week highs for S&P 500 companies. You've got IBM, Microsoft, Palantir, Darden, Dash, some names that I've mentioned frequently. And yes, we continue to show the resiliency in this market. And what's interesting to me is not even the geopolitical aspect of it, is the inability with the geopolitical events to see relief in Treasury yields. We didn't get the buyback

buying in Treasury yields. Maybe the markets were pricing in some inflationary outcome from oil. I'm not sure. I don't think anyone ultimately really knows. There are like five different hypotheses on why yields were doing what they were doing on Friday.

uh... and almost got a different answer for five different people that i interviewed on either program on friday at a half-time closing dot seems like i got a different i i i agree with you the reality is you have a ten-year sitting at four point four oh and that was supposed to be a challenge in a problem for markets but here we are the s_ and p_ sixty forty pushing towards a new all-time high and i still believe that's where we're going carry feels like uh... when that headline crossed that iran was signaling that it wanted to negotiate with israel mark a little bit of a pickup

off of that week cut pretty much held it were off a little bit from where we were uh... but do you agree with oppenheimer today that whatever downward pressure comes to stocks because of geopolitical events or otherwise are unlikely to be a protracted overhang now i don't think i agree with that uh... i think they're trying to broad brush say that the market is going up regardless of what happened to agree with that i think the market has certain constraints that are

built in and we've seen it this year already several times. The market gets to the 22 times forward earnings and it seems to be pushing up against the ceiling. I know that the markets can trade to 20 through 24 times

But this market seems to have trouble pushing through that. And I blame that on concern about earnings growth. And it could be earnings growth or less than expected earnings growth that's a result of tariffs or any kind of events or inflation or just the employment situation. We haven't had a bad situation. It's all positive. But that's what the market begins to worry about.

So I think we're still in that range that's bound by valuation to some extent, rather than by what's going on from either Trump's conversations or what's happening in terms of who's bombing who. Krinsky at BTIG is looking at a choppy summer ahead. The S&P is into formidable resistance at 60-50 to 61-50.

Pay attention to where we are now. We're at 6036. That you have initial support at 5970.

I know we're throwing these numbers out, but that's what the technicians sort of do for a living. Major support at 5,800. So as long as that holds, the bulls maintain the upper hand. And we can expect new highs later on in the summer. Make sense, Jim? I think pretty soon, frankly. You know, look, we're 1.5% away from an all-time high. And we know what happens regardless, Kerry, of the analytical skills, which you just displayed, which I love as well. You know, once you get to that all-time high, FOMO hits in.

It's going to happen. It has nothing to do with numbers or forward multiples. It has to do with people looking at what's going on and saying, I want in. I think that's what's going to happen. I think it's going to happen soon. And actually, I actually think the numbers support it from this perspective. If you look at earnings estimates for next year, and I know this is a long way away, $300 a share. Kerry, 22 times $300 a share, $6,600.

Now, the question here is, are we actually going to hit those estimates? Well, that all depends on trade deals coming through, the tax bill getting through. And I actually think those are going to happen and that you'll get a clear runway. So, Scott, when you were talking about Krinsky and the chop, that chop to me is what happens in the summer.

as people shift from looking at 2025 earnings to looking at the year ahead earnings. And it's not a perfect transition. It's choppy as it happens. But if you get some trade deals, if you get the reciprocal tariffs down to a reasonable level and the budget bill in place, this market goes higher on FOMO. So what I it's it's maybe it is FOMO. Joe, I thought that

Note today from Goldman Sachs sets the table for so many different layers of this conversation that households allocation to equities hits a record high. Forty nine percent of their total financial assets are in equities, the highest level on record.

and slightly above the previous peak of 48% in the year 2000. That suggests to them that if you continue to get high allocations to equities, you obviously have support for where the market is

and you support the valuations that some have here questioned. Yeah, I think what's interesting is that households really never moved to the sidelines when we had to sell off in April. It was institutions that were moving to the sidelines. I respect your argument about 22 times being a little bit rich. Jonathan Krinsky saying the markets could chop.

I don't know if that's a reason to sell, though, because I think all that means potentially is you soften somewhat over the third quarter and you pull back maybe to 5,500 and 5,700. And from there, where do we go in the fourth quarter? So I don't.

use that as a reason to sell. But I wouldn't sell. I just don't think you have to. Right, I think more it's set the expectation. Okay, maybe you are not breaking out above the all-time highs that Jimmy and I see coming. Maybe you get up there and it's a little bit of a short-term trap. But I think over the next six months, there's continued support in the form of strong corporate earnings and potentially in the form of some regulatory relief. When I see the Goldman note today, I'm like, well, okay, Robinhood?

Interactive, Schwab, you can throw them all up. Ice 52 and kind. One after another because it's part of the obvious place to look. Carrie, you have Schwab. Yeah. Was reiterated by today at Truist. The price target, $100. You see Robinhood was up. There's Interactive Brokers up 4%. We can take that before we get to the next layer of the conversation. Yeah, I think one of the factors that's really helping those stocks is not just the hope and the belief that there'll be deregulation, but

We've seen that interest rates are not giving you more of what people who say, oh, look over here, you can have 5%, maybe 5.5% on your money. You don't have to speculate in the stock market. Well, that really hasn't happened. People are still employed. We're at the low unemployment level that we've been at for years. They've got money to invest. And

the place to invest it has been markets and not in bonds. Yeah. It's like, well, where are they trading if they're, you know, have such a high allocation to equities? You look at the obvious places that we just did, among others, then what are they buying? Technology is the leading sector off of the April lows, as I don't think is going to surprise anybody, along with comm services.

Big Tech's furious rally forces options pros to line up hedges. That's according to Bloomberg today. And you have a number, Jim, of names within the tech complex that continue to rise. And of all stripes, frankly. So I'll start with NVIDIA, which is everybody's favorite, right? I mean, what is it, about 6% from an all-time high? Much like the market, I think it's just going to get sucked up there. And once it hits that all-time high, again, Gary FOMO, it happens.

But if you want to look-- and basically, whether it's the market or the technology sector, this is a stock picker's market. So if you're somebody like me, you're looking at stocks that are value tech but which are doing phenomenally well. You can look at a Cisco Systems. You can look at a Qualcomm. You can look at a Google, which we've-- excuse me, Alphabet, which we've been talking about a lot in the past few weeks.

as a value tech stock, but stocks that are starting to work. So you don't have to just kind of hold your nose and buy the most expensive technology stocks out there. As I said, all stripes of technology stocks are working, and for the very good reason that that's where earnings growth is. It's been remarkable, the breakout that we have seen in Microsoft. And I think it's AI-related. And look, I'm not just saying this. I watched

It's Apple. I watched Thursday's show. Brad Gerstner was phenomenal in just simplistically describing the universe that we're living in here surrounding this innovation. Record high today for Microsoft. Record high. Continues to break out. Meta trading remarkably strong as well. Nvidia trading well. And yes, to your point, it's Apple throwing up your hands.

as a shareholder and saying, okay, what am I getting from you in the near term that's going to revive the growth and give me confidence that the AI strategy is ultimately coming? Do you have any confidence in Apple? Because I'm just kind of like, I'm so law on it right now. I disagree with that. Absolutely.

- Apple will deliver when? - Is there any reason for me to add to it right now? I just can't come up with a convincing reason to add right now. - You have a reasonable alternative in Microsoft. You have a reasonable alternative in others. And oh, by the way, at some point, OpenAI is coming. - Well, you just said an interesting question. The stock has obviously not performed great relative to the other Mag7s. Is there any reason for me to add to Apple now? When do you want to add to it? When it's 250?

That's my point. Aren't you supposed to add to stocks like that when they go through what this one has? That's an incredibly valid question. And you know that that's what I like to do. We're going to talk about a technology stock a little later where I'm doing the exact same thing. With Apple, it has been just stuck in the mud for so long. And it seems to me to be dependent on this super upgrade cycle that just isn't happening. I agree, Joe. It is going to happen. Scott, I think your question implies that you think it's going to happen. And I do think it's going to happen.

I just don't think it's going to happen in the next few months. I don't know whether it's going to happen or not, or under what time frame is it going to happen.

But it's interesting to hear a value investor look at a stock here and say, would I really add to it here? It's 26 times forward. But I want to answer your question and for the viewers more specifically. When do you add to it? Let it develop an uptrend. It just shows no sign of light. I mean, none. People would say it's not like it's floating out there cheap, waving its hand in the air and saying, hey, look at me.

I'm under 20 times. In fact, they're like 26 to 27 times. I think 21 is the 10-year average. So no, it's a little bit rich in the near term. I don't know. You can't bet against it. I'm not sure you want to. I'm not selling it. You can't bet against two things, the ecosystem and the ability where they continue to buy back their shares. So you can't bet against that.

Buying it right here, look, you have alternatives. And there's competition when you think about the Mag 7. I could go to other places. I could buy a Meta. I could have bought Microsoft a couple of months ago. How about Amazon? Amazon's investing nearly $13 billion in data centers in Australia. This is after AWS invested $20 billion in Pennsylvania data centers last week. They invested $10 billion.

billions more in North Carolina. So they're going all in into where they think that they can get to. Everybody owns that stock. Personally, I own that. I think I'm sorry. I think that shows my conviction because the JOTI ETF does not own it. And I said to myself, I want it because of what you're citing.

related to the cloud, I want to be there and Amazon own it personally. So here's an interesting thought about Amazon. And it's a stock we own and we're very overweighted and we bought more fairly recently. But no one has thought about this angle.

We all know that people want delivery and they want it quickly and it's very convenient. But there are so many cases now in cities around the United States where the stores that people were buying goods, whether it's Target or CVS or Walgreens, are either closing or shrinking their inventory because of

a shrinkage because of theft because they can't support they can't find workers for their retail locations that amazon becomes the only option that people had on the retail side aws keeps growing of course because of ai but i think that the retail business that amazon has taken is getting another lift up right now i don't know aws as we asked the ceo last week in the exclusive interview that we had

on the network from out on the West Coast, they're really trying to build, take the example of their marketplace and turn AWS into the marketplace for AI.

That's the trajectory that they feel like they're on. And, you know, AWS is a meaningful, I think it's over 50% carry of their profits. So, I mean, that's really where the growth is. You made a compelling case about why people are not going to buy at CVS. Fine. And there's also the tailwind developing of China becoming less of a headwind, the tariffs there becoming less of a headwind. But really, this is now a pure play tech, not pure play, but it's almost a pure play technology stock and investment.

I would submit to you it's not expensive, roughly 35 times forward earnings. But we always want to adjust that for the amount of R&D spend that they're doing, the amount of new businesses that they're developing. I think it's cheap, frankly. Meta got a price target bump here, $7.75 from $6.65. That's at Oppenheimer. Stock's at $700, more or less, as we talk about it here.

You still own that? Amazing. Yes. Still own it. Haven't sold any stock. It's been a phenomenal performer. I think that the market liked what it heard from Meta on the advertising front. What they can do for clients to create their own ad program, their own design with the tools that Meta is applying for them. I mean, that was an amazing, I think, game changer for their biggest business. So that...

also is going to be a generator of revenue for them that no one had really factored into their models to the extent that they're going to. Not everybody, by the way, has been a runaway winner in this AI race. No. You got sick and tired of holding Adobe. Yes, true. As some have said, they're just not in the same league with some of these other

stocks that have done remarkably well relative to the performance here. Adobe's coming off its worst week since June 4th. That's after earnings. That was last week.

You sold it. Before earnings. Why? Right. Well, we sold it because, unfortunately, they're having trouble delivering. They're having trouble in their major business, Photoshop, where people use Adobe tools to create content that they couldn't do otherwise. Well, now you can do otherwise. And now they can. That's sort of my point. And yes.

And unfortunately, this news from Meta and it's Google and it's going to be other places that people advertise, such as Amazon. The clients are going to be able to make their own content. And Adobe has not moved fast enough with their own tools to keep their business. So Carrie sold it to you. She did.

She did. You bought more. Yeah, I did. Now, this is a position I've been adding to over the years. I'm cautious in saying this, but I disagree with you quite strongly when you say they haven't delivered. Because, at least as the earnings go, they beat on the top line, they beat on the bottom line, they raise guidance. And you and I were speaking about this before the show. Have they delivered? Can we show that chart again, please? Can I do it to myself instead of you doing it? I'm just going to have the chart up there so when you talk about them delivering,

delivering, I want you to see what they've delivered to you, the shareholder. I was going to do it to myself. Can we not do the intraday, please? Let's go to, I don't know, a year, one year. Down 23%. Year to date, one year. Joe.

Down 23%, one year. I know, and I've been adding to it, building to it over the year. Now, look, I want to, Carrie and I discussed this, and we have different investing styles. She is a growth investor. She is not going to look at a stock like this and say, yeah, I want in. She's going to say, I want out. I am much more of a value-oriented guy. Again, when I was talking about delivering, I was talking about the operational results. Absolutely. The share price has been terrible. I understand why you got out, and it seems to, for whatever reason, stink the most when it beats on earnings. Well,

All that said, earnings estimates are starting to go up. They bought back shares to the tune of 5% of share count decline over a year. So it's not just me. They believe in what they're doing. The competitive threat that is out there, they are meeting it. That's why earnings estimates are going up. Now, Scott, Scott.

You and I talk about this a lot. What does that mean? They're meeting it. You see it in the fact that they beat on the top line. They beat on the bottom line. They raised guidance and earnings estimates are starting to go up. So the rub against this stock has been there's competitive threats out there. Well, they are delivering on the operational results, not

On the share price, they can't control the share price. The share price, though, is a matter of time. You can only outperform, and they've outperformed consistently quarter after quarter. The share price inevitably follows, and if it doesn't, they keep buying back shares, shrinking the share count. It may take a little time, but

Look, I've built it over the last year. I'm going to stick with it. You know this is how I invest. And this doesn't matter whether it's Cisco. It doesn't matter whether it's Citi. I build the position and then let it run when the market finally realizes. They are at risk in fiscal year 25. Single-digit revenue growth. The last time they had single-digit revenue growth was 2014. They have to somehow revive that revenue growth. I've had concerns. You and I talked.

about this about nine months ago. We had gotten out of Adobe. We felt that there were challenges related to AI, what it would do to the product. Look,

There's a massive earthquake coming in the technology sector, and it's coming from open AI. And I don't know. I don't know ultimately when open AI, IPOs, if there's going to be enough room for capital to be loved in all the places that it's being loved right now. I actually think it'll be detrimental to some of the MAG-7 and to some of the names we're talking about here. Capital's going away from there. Not sure which ones in the MAG-7 are going to be...

feeling that challenge, but they will feel the challenge. Let's talk about some other areas of the market that need to be discussed. They're making news today. Crude is lower after spiking on Friday. Plays into some of the moves that Joe has made. You bought the iShares Israel ETF. Yes. That's one move. But Enbridge and Suncor, how does that play into the whole...

the totality of the story. - Okay, first of all, with the Israeli ETF, I've talked over the last several months about wanting to own it. It is near an all time high, which it made on June 9th. Israel is the second leading exporter of technology. When we are talking about this innovation surrounding artificial intelligence,

advancing degenerative AI, Israel is right there alongside the United States, whether it's Check Point or CyberArk. So on Friday, you had the significant pullback. I

I believe that geopolitical pullback was an opportunity. You're getting exposure, 34% technology, 30% financial sector, another one of my favorite sectors. I wanted to step in there. As it relates to energy, everyone is trying to predict the price of oil. There's very few people that I know that can do it successfully. You had one gentleman on Closing Bell who you and I both know very well, Mark Fisher. And even he's having a tough time. And he's having a tough time doing it. Okay, so I'm going to defer to Mark.

What I'm going to tell you is the opportunity surrounding investing is thinking about where supply will shift

if it ultimately has to shift. And so far, year to date, it's interesting because the Canadian ENPs are actually outproducing all of its developed international ENPs, whether it's Europe, whether it's the United States, whether it's Australia. So I bought two names. I bought Suncor and I bought Enbridge. Enbridge is the pipeline that is delivering the crude oil down to the United States. Suncor, obviously, is the EP.

There's this insatiable need on the part of U.S. refiners for Canadian oil. And you have a 10% tariff on Canadian oil. Well, guess what? The Canadian oil companies are not eating the tariff. It is the U.S. refiner that actually is eating the tariff. And you're seeing the margin compression there.

If you want to manage your risk surrounding this, you could potentially buy some puts in some of the refiners because I think an oil price in the mid-70s is challenging for the refiners. But the shift in supply, if it has to happen, Canada is the actual place where you'll be able to deliver the excess crude oil if the market needs it.

And the performance so far there is year to date. And the earnings estimates in '25, in the US, collectively, energy companies have an earnings estimate in which they contract nearly 12%. The earnings estimate on Canadian oil companies, they only contract 20 basis points. So I think it's a great opportunity to think about, OK,

I'm getting exposure to two names in Canada that have outperformance relative to its geographic energy peers and also could be a source of excess supply. Okay. We have retail sales tomorrow. Something to note, especially ahead of the Fed decision. You sold Casey's General. I did. Listen, I have to give a hat tip to Ralph Coutant in our office. He's the analyst who brought this to me. The stock has been beyond a home run.

And this is just one of those cases. I said it's a stock picker's market. You have to be willing to sell high if you're going to buy low. If you're going to buy some Adobe, you know, you've got to find it. You've got to fund it somewhere. But it's just been a heroic stock. Now trades at a nice multiple. It probably goes higher. I'm not saying this is a terrible stock. Not saying that at all. I just needed funds for Adobe. Discretionary, speaking of, has really felt like it's reversed whatever momentum that it's had.

It's down 6% year to date, the worst performing sector. You do have casinos bouncing today. MGM had a good guide, BetMGM did. Wins up, airlines up, Delta, cruise lines up. You have a comment on those? Yeah, these stocks are bouncing around day by day by day. I mean, whether it's Delta, I think it's up 4%. Wasn't it down 4% on Friday? And on the obvious news, right, when you've got missiles flying over the Middle East,

What happens is you start canceling flights that are moneymakers from the U.S. to Tel Aviv and elsewhere. So, look, it's going to be volatile. But when you look at these stocks, much like many of the other stocks we're talking about, there is good operational performance. And to the extent that the stocks get cheap, companies buy back shares, whether it's Wynn, whether it's Delta. So as long as the cash flows are positive, and they are, these are stocks you can own. You want to take note, too, Joe, of Goldman today and some of these other stocks?

bank stocks that are up care if you have any thoughts here to i mean the i_p_o_'s that have

recently hit market have been pretty successful, to say the least. 88 have priced year-to-date. That's almost 40% higher than last year. Nine have doubled year-to-date among those CoreWeave and Circle. Chime surged, as you know, and certainly some of the other names did as well. This seems to be good for the banks. So we had an interesting conversation about this topic a few months ago, where I think I said that

What you needed for the banking, the investment banking business to do well is for there to be a rush in which they all work. That it wasn't about, oh, yeah, we're having a moderate amount and they're doing OK. That wasn't going to be it. You had to have a bunch that worked and worked really well. It may be that we're getting that. And this is just all about, you know, market excitement about whether it's, you know,

crypto stocks or ai related there are these categories that seem to ignite public interest institutional interest and that's going to be fantastic for the banks if it can continue capital market activity is very strong in particular in public markets we've seen

that there's been this little paradigm shift over the last three months where there's interest in the public markets over the private markets. And that works through the benefits of the JP Morgans, Morgan Stanleys and Goldman Sachs and the names that we've all been discussing, still maintaining an overweight exposure to the financial sector. We're back after this. We have our calls of the day coming up. A big upgrade for one of Jim's tech names. It is nearing a 52-week high. We're back on the half after this.

Hey guys, finding the perfect gift for the food lover in your life is easy. Thanks to GoldBelly. GoldBelly ships America's most iconic foods straight from world-famous restaurants right to your door.

So if you want to treat someone to Joe's Stone Crab from Miami, Franklin Barbecue from Texas, or desserts from famous foodies like Ina Garten or Martha Stewart, GoldBelly has you covered with free shipping anywhere in the country. Just go to GoldBelly.com and for a limited time, get 20% off your first order with promo code GIFT. That's promo code GIFT.

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile, unlimited premium wireless. You better get 30, 30, you better get 30, you better get 20, 20, 20, you better get 20, 20, you better get 15, 15, 15, 15, just 15 bucks a month. Sold! Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.

Substance use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And so as a black woman in recovery, hope must be loud.

It grows louder when you ask for help and you're vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay. When we learn the power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out how at startwithhope.com. Brought to you by the National Council for Mental Well-Being, Shatterproof, and the Ad Council. Welcome back. Calls of the Day today begins with Cisco. Mentioned it earlier. Jim did. Part of this cohort of...

old tech that has done really well. This one, IBM, you name some others. So it was upgraded today to buy. 73 bucks, Deutsche Bank. They think there's improved visibility towards a durable mid-single-digit growth.

number in the years ahead? And Tailwind's from AI. Yeah, I think probably high single digits beyond mid single digits. But I understand the analyst community is taking their time and they want to make sure that they get this right. But I think where we are with Cisco is where we were with Oracle three years ago. If you remember back then, it was still the database company. They were just building out the Oracle Cloud infrastructure. But once they did that, they got the multiple to go from the mid-teens to now the low 20s. I think the same thing's going to happen here with Cisco. I think it's already happening.

Roughly 16 times forward earnings, 3% dividend yields. Buyback shares like crazy. I mean, they've shrunk share count 20% over the last eight years or so. And it is on the back of AI tailwinds. It's also on the back of security. Thank you, Joe. We always talk about...

Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, CrowdStrike, I get it. But there's also a really vibrant security business here, enhanced by the acquisition of Splunk. And on the last earnings call, Cisco was very clear that what they're seeing from their big, big customers, whether it's hyperscalers, whether it's enterprises, they want it all in one. They want the hardware, the software, and the security. Cisco's delivering it. All right. Yes, they are. Year-to-date of 11%. Insulate.

Initiated by 365 is the target at Truist, Joe. Someone has to ignore the valuation here. It's in the mid-50s, a little bit rich. Stock's up 16% year-to-date. It delivers you the 20% revenue growth, but they have a degree of revolutionary growth

type of medical device here with the Omnipad 5. That's the insulin patch we're talking about dealing with diabetes here, not having to have that shot anymore. So new CEO recently just stepped in, Ashley McAvoy. Company is in the sweet spot. We've owned it for some time now. Kara Abbott initiated market perform today at Lyric. 143 is the target.

Well Abbott's one of these names that's defensive. It's not quite in the crosshairs of pharmaceutical companies that are getting bashed on all sides. Abbott's in the testing business, in the diagnostic business, and that business has been strong and steady. They come through with the numbers and it's exactly the kind of healthcare name that can outperform. Insight upgraded to a buy at Stiefel.

Positive results from a rare blood disease trial. You own that stock, too. We do, but I could tell you that the momentum is broken down here significantly. You might know this name well. It's BioPharma Oncology. Really, the last five years, it's been a struggle. A little bit of a high valuation. We stepped into the name on a rebound in the stock. We saw some momentum that was developing. Even with this upgrade today, I don't see a green light ahead. What about Boston Scientific?

Outperform 118 at Lear Inc. Medical device is one of the favorite names. Again, valuation is a little bit rich here. A lot of these healthcare names, you're seeing valuations that are somewhat stretched, but we're staying with this name. So far, year-to-date's had strong performance. The earnings growth is there, and as long as that's visible, I think the position will be maintained. All right. We'll get the headlines now with Contessa Brewer.

Hi, Contessa. Hey there, Scott. Prosecutors will seek first-degree murder charges against the man accused of killing a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband and injuring another lawmaker and his wife. Those charges include two counts of second-degree murder and another two counts of second-degree attempted intentional murder. The Hennepin County Attorney's Office also said today suspect Vance Bolter went to a total of four homes looking to kill lawmakers, but some weren't home.

The U.N.'s nuclear agency is warning there could be contamination inside Iran's main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz after Israel strikes. The agency head said right now radiation levels outside the facility are normal, but anyone inside has to wear special filters to protect against radiation risk.

And in Paris, the Louvre is at a standstill. The museum staff today spontaneously went on strike during what was supposed to be a routine internal meeting. They're protesting unmanageable crowds and chronic understaffing. I mean, the way it looks here is that it's empty, right? But no, that's more like what I remember from March, Scott. Last year, Louvre welcomed nearly 9 million visitors, nearly double what the building is supposed to accommodate. And when I was there, by the way, there were massive crowds and our guide said,

You don't know how lucky you are today. There is nobody here. This never happens. Crazy. Yeah, we'll follow that. Contessa, thanks. Contessa Brewer, straight ahead. Today's ETF Edge. Dom Chiu standing by with Star Tech analyst Dan Ives. He has a new ETF. The theme is AI. We'll discuss next.

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium Wireless. I bet you get 30, 30, I bet you get 30, I bet you get 20, 20, 20, I bet you get 20, 20, I bet you get 15, 15, 15, 15, just 15 bucks a month. Sold! Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. I'm

Substance use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And so as a black woman in recovery, hope must be loud.

It grows louder when you ask for help and you're vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay. When we learn the power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out how at startwithhope.com. Brought to you by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, Shatterproof, and the Ad Council.

Back with Senator Dom Chiu now with today's ETF Edge. Hey, Dom. All right. So, Judge, we all know that AI has been the hot trade, but is it starting to show too many signs of getting maybe too hot? How do you separate some of the hype from the high quality? Joining me now is Dan Ives, the global head of tech research at Wedbush Securities, who recently launched an ETF with his name as the ticker literally on the line.

IVES is the ETF name, and it's basically your concentrated picks within artificial intelligence. What is the common denominator or the differentiating factors that make these the top picks amongst your AI plays? It's who I view as really the winners. I mean, in terms of this disruptive technology theme, look, I think it's a fourth industrial revolution. So it's not just about chips. It's about who do you play in hyperscale software, names like Palantir.

consumer names like Meta, Autonomous, you can name it like Tesla, of course, names like Aqua from a nuclear perspective. So our whole view is this is really what I view as the winners and the second, third, fourth derivatives of the $2 trillion that's going to be spent in the next three years. Now, when you talk about the mechanics of an ETF, you're kind of managing, advising, sub-advising on the portfolio.

When it comes to what goes in or out, how often do you rebalance? If one name falls out of favor, how do you find the replacements? What's the thought process there? Yeah, these are all based on our Ives AI30. So these are reports. So as we put them out, you know, 3 million air miles the last 25 years. I mean, we do that online.

on the ground trying to understand who the winners are. Those come in out of the report. So if we focus on new winners, they come in. If someone I believe is now maybe like from a technology perspective, engineers showing, companies showing that they're not performing, then they come out. So ultimately, it's really this is dynamic every quarter. And look, investors around the world have relied on us in terms of tech.

But when I view the AI revolution as trying to identify the theme and the winners and the ways to play, what I view is probably the biggest theme we've seen in the last 40, 50 years. So if this is that fourth industrial revolution, and you mentioned kind of around the world and global, most of that is the U.S. There's no doubt about it. It's maybe quantitatively so.

It's not just, though, in the U.S. There's international plays in AI as well. What's the thinking there? Yeah, I mean, Baidu, Alibaba. I mean, because our view is that you have to have China exposure when it comes to AI. Look, there could be more international, you know, over the coming months, over the coming years.

But Dom, this is, as I talked about, I mean, this is second inning of a nine inning game. And when we look at the AI revolution, we're now just starting to see it go from Godfather of AI, Jensen and Vidya to software, to the use cases. And I think that's why what makes me so excited is that this is something that's going to be going on for the next five, 10 years of the theme. And before we let you go, one more quick follow-up before we let you go. What do you think among those industry groups is the biggest driver of the AI trade going

going forward? I mean, to me, it's software. Because when you look at names like massive AI Palantir, you look what we're seeing across hyperscalers in terms of software, Microsoft, one of our top picks, the use case phase is now just starting to play out. And that's why I think that's something, that's why I think you're going to see tech new all-time highs going to the rest of the year. It's AI driving it. And I continue to believe in this AI party. It's only 10 p.m. and the party goes to 4 a.m.

All right. 10 p.m., 4 a.m. Scott, my thanks to Dan over here. We're going to continue this entire conversation over at ETFedge.cnbc.com. Dan will be joined by Todd Rosenbluth, the head of research over at Vetify. So a lot of stocks to pick in those names, Scott. I'll send things back over to you guys. All right, Tom. Thanks so much. Appreciate that. Up next, time for the halftime mid-year report cards. Uh-oh. We're going to break down the biggest winners and losers in the committee's portfolios just after this break.

All right. Report card time. Biggest winners, biggest losers year to date. I say year to date, not necessarily when the specific committee member got into the name. So keep that in mind. I'll try and point some things out to you to give you more on that. Eurofins, your best up 38 percent. What is it?

It's a European testing company. So in Europe, there's lots of regulatory requirements on testing of food, drugs, everything from makeup to agricultural products. And Eurofin does that. Its biggest single country is the United States, but it's a European company. It's a Luxembourg company. It's an ETF.

It's up 38 percent and we bought it after it came down following COVID. So we've owned it for a few years and it's been a very good stock this year. OK. Among your winners, Joe, CrowdStrike, Uber and Netflix all have had tremendous years. I said what I did at the top because Amazon's the perfect example of this. Amazon's down 3 percent year to date.

You hold that stock. I do. You bought it at $191. When? I bought it in February in the sell-off. I actually bought it at $194. $194. I remember saying at the time the ETF didn't hold a position, and I wanted to be in Amazon because we sided before with AWS. You bought it at $194. Today it's at $215. Yes. Year-to-date, not good. For you, good.

Staying with the position. Other two names that I have, DocuSign and Zoom, both those names are in the ETF. I feel uncomfortable getting out of those positions personally when the ETF maintains it. I'll tell you this, though. Last earnings report for each of these companies were a complete mess. All right. Jimmy, year-to-date winners. You know what? Let's just skip the losers. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

MP Materials up 96%, Oracle up 29%, Visa up 14%. Well, MP is one I don't talk about too much, and I put this on about a year and a half ago. Why?

I'm sorry with you. Stock's a double. Yeah, I don't control the curriculum here, Your Honor. I respond to the questions. Raise your hands. I'd like to talk about this name. It's crushing it. Okay, okay, okay. MP, let's talk about it. All right, let's do it. Look, the reason that I bought this 18 months ago was for the strategic reason that is showing up right now. It's a rare earth element miner and refiner, and it's now starting to build magnets for end users like General Motors that are having problems.

getting the same from China. It is being referred to as Western champion, and I think that's absolutely right. It's being reflected in the share price. What else do you want to talk about? Well, we said Oracle as part of you. You already talked about that. We did Visa, which is up 14% year-to-date. Carrie, UnitedHealth is down 38.5% year-to-date. I think people are pretty familiar with the story at this point. Why are you still holding it?

We hold it and we actually bought some more right at the bottom because we think that these are structural changes that are not going to last, that they are fixable, that they're going to have better Medicare reimbursement, better Medicaid reimbursement, and that the company is going to recover. What, you mean you bought some more at the bottom? The stock looks like it's at the bottom. No, I'm serious. We just showed the chart. So...

You're right. In the past couple of weeks, when the stock had these big jump downs after they reported earnings, we added a small position. It's only a 1.5% position at the time. I get it, but don't try to put me in the spin zone. Correct. You're right. You're right. We believe that it's fixable and that they're on their way to making things better at United Helmke. All right.

Good stuff. What do you say? I think this is a valuable exercise for all of the viewers to be doing. And the reason that you want to do that is you identify what your winners are and your losers. And in 2025, momentum is one of the strongest factors. When momentum is a strong factor, that generally means you have a healthy market.

Think about 21. Momentum rolled over and the market followed along. This is a good exercise. Everyone should be doing it. Stay with winners. Shed the losers. All right. Up next, Santoli. Speaking of winners, he's with us for his midday word next. Senior markets commentator Mike Santoli at Post 9 right now with what you call the rise and grind market.

That's what it had been, or maybe it's grind and rise because that's the manner in which it's been going higher. And the question was really, did Friday knock it off course and destabilize that calm? Mentioned on Friday that even the initial pullback, you didn't even violate like the 20-day moving average. That's a short-term uptrend. You didn't really cross any significant tripwires that said the market was now outstripped.

out of gear. Now, we've gone back to last week's highs almost exactly, and we stalled there and kind of hanging out. So I guess it sort of brings us back to where we were, which is the market's had a great run. It's priced in some good things. It's probably going to need a little more to get past to the old highs, which is only not even 2% up from here.

But it shows you that it's able to shrug off some of the geopolitical noise if, in fact, it doesn't come through punishing oil prices. You know, Fed meeting is going to be critical in terms of what to listen for more than what they're going to do. Yes. Maybe they give you, the chair does, an idea of what could lie ahead when the next time we're going to hear from him is in Jackson Hole. Well, late July. Oh, late July. So the very end of July will be the last meeting before Jackson Hole. But nonetheless, six or seven weeks from now.

And I think that, you know, there's a chance for a wider divergence in terms of the dot plot. You know, I think you've seen some decent inflation prints. Maybe it enables some dovishness to make its way in there. But I guess, you know, people, they're still going to try to wait and see. And I don't think anything that's happened since the last meeting has moved them off that idea that they have the luxury of waiting. You know, at some point, maybe it becomes less persuasive when they say policy is in a good place. But I think he's going to say it again. Yeah.

I'd be curious. I assume he's going to be asked about the moves in the bond market and his thoughts on the way rates have traded, why they have. And that'll be key to listen for as well. It will. Usually he's not too alarmist about it, I think, because the functioning of the bond market has been fine and haven't had real trouble with auctions. Also, 10-year, as much as it has sort of gotten people's attention, it's kind of in the two-year range and hasn't really bumped above that. All right. Thanks, Michael. See you in a little bit. We'll do finals next.

Are you following the Halftime Report podcast? What are you waiting for? Look for us in your favorite podcasting app. Follow the Halftime Podcast now. See you on Closing Bell, 3 o'clock Eastern time today. Adam Parker, Muhammad Al-Aryan, Brian Levitt, Samir Samada, and Jeremy Cotter is with us, too, as we continue to talk about the AI arms race. He's a pre-IPO Facebook employee, and he has a lot of thoughts on where all of this is going. So we'll do that at 3. I hope you'll join me then.

Farmer Jim. Disney. Joe, here's some numbers for you. Up 7% year-to-date, up 20% over the last 12 months. I mean, don't look now. The stock is actually breaking out. It's 1% from a 52-week high, which it set last week. Don't look now. It's breaking out. It's called momentum.

Keri Firestone. Applied Materials, AMET, is also a stock that is breaking out like Jim's. And we think that the runway is long for these companies with the AI business booming. Joe T. Vistra Energy, utilities, similar to Constellation Energy. I think these stocks continue to press higher. Okay. Stocks are hanging in there. Dow's up 350. NASDAQ 280. That's up 1.5%. We'll watch all of this, of course, and take you through that final stretch. We'll

We'll keep our eyes on what's happening in Canada today with the G7 trade, obviously high on the docket for conversation. And we'll follow all that. And I'll see you in a few hours. You've been listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast. You can always catch us live weekdays at 12 Eastern, only on CNBC.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Substance use disorder and addiction is so isolating. And so as a black woman in recovery, hope must be loud.

It grows louder when you ask for help and you're vulnerable. It is the thread that lets you know that no matter what happens, you will be okay. When we learn the power of hope, recovery is possible. Find out how at startwithhope.com. Brought to you by the National Council for Mental Well-Being, Shatterproof, and the Ad Council.