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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, thanks so much. Welcome to Halftime Report. Front and center this hour, markets on edge today. As you know, we're following the fallout of Israel's attacks on Iran, the impact on stocks and other asset classes today. There are many. Joining me for the hour, Steve Weiss, Shannon Sikosha, Surat Sethi, and Rob Seachin. You know the...
the thing we're playing with today, the backdrop. Oil highest since January. You know, yields are up maybe on the oil surge, an inflationary move there. The dollar's higher on the safety trade. The gold is highest level since April. And then you have UBS saying, try to look past what's happening here, that the impact on the market should fade fairly quickly. That's what they suggested. How do you see it?
Look, I've been in the business almost 35 years. We've seen a number of flare-ups in the Middle East. Every single one of them has been buying opportunity. Now, there's talk that this time will be different because it's going to go on for possibly two weeks. But at the end of the day, the result's the same. And I think you see it in the recovery of the indices today, particularly in NASDAQ, that that's the case. I'm not concerned about oil. You know, if I were a trader in oil, I would have sold the pop. I'd probably still sell it.
And it was clear, and Trump admitted it recently, that the US knew about this. - Well, oil was trading over the last at least week as if the market quote unquote knew something was gonna happen. 'Cause you had a bid and a bid and a bid and a bid
And now you get the spike on the actual news. Right. And despite that, it's a great point, despite the Saudis continuing to say they're going to pump and pump and pump. So, look, I wouldn't be surprised if they were saying that to calm the markets in advance. But here we are, the Saudis, who are also not friends of Iran, will do what they need to to take oil prices down. But even if they don't,
the Fed is not going to look at oil prices and say that that's going to derail us from whatever they were going to do. It's going to be a non-factor, it's transitory, as they like to say. So it was a good opportunity to at least trade this morning. And I sent that note to you and the others at CNBC. And I think it's business as usual. Surat, a destabilizing move is never easy for the market to initially digest. It's sort of knee-jerk.
and then dust settles, so to speak, and then you kind of figure out what the longer-term implications of everything are. How do you process the news in your thinking about where we are? Again, we came into today 2%, and even with this move, we were less than 2%. Now we're just barely above 2% away from a new high.
- Yeah, look, I mean, in terms of oil and gas too, it's a great diversifier in your portfolio. So we have about 5% of our portfolio in there. It's there for a reason with high quality oil and gas companies. So if you're a trader, yes, but this is also why as a long-term investor, I have those stocks in my portfolio and as well as gold. But I think Steve's right, you look through this
So you believe UBS. Market impact should fade fairly quickly. I think you do. And you're going to get a reaction at some point in the Middle East, and it'll go back and forth. I don't see oil kind of going back to that 45-50 range in the short term just because of this overhang. I mean, you know, if it's straight of where Moose is open now, but if there's a move there and that closes, you know, people that we talk to,
say, well, you're looking at $100 again. Yeah. I mean, it could pop, at least in the short term. So why do we have certain things in our portfolio? When you have a diversified portfolio, you keep these things in there and you buy them high-quality companies. Shan, impact should fade fairly quickly. Is that how we should think about this? Our viewers, our trading public should think about this? Again, 2% from all-time highs on the S&P?
Well, I think, you know, you talk about that level and is there some vulnerability just based on where we're at? There's a lot of factors to think about here. Scott, one thing that I don't think has been mentioned yet, at least in this conversation, is that, yes, I agree with Steve, kind of the temporary impact is likely to be faded. And, you know, certainly in oil prices, there's likely to be some
excess capacity that can come on and offset some of the price increases. But I think more importantly, you think about sort of the arms length players in this conflict, the U.S., Russia and China. And there's some other very important negotiations that are going on between U.S. and China right now that I think have significantly more implications, significantly greater implications for the global economy. And so, you know, if there was, you know,
where there becomes additional combatants get pulled into this conflict, and particularly around the U.S. and China. Russia has a conflict of its own that it's grappling with right now and is probably a bit too busy to get heavily involved here. I think that any implications around the potential for this to derail or delay further negotiations with the Chinese, I do think that that would be something that
could potentially make this a longer tail than what we've seen historically. Rob, as a market participant, what are your thoughts on the market today? Not overreacting in the price action would tell you that. If you look at the S&P, for example, not even down one half of 1% at the time. It seems like it's trying to focus on the broader theme of what UBS is suggesting. Don't do anything rash in the market that...
that this is soon going to pass and just be another one of those major flare-ups in the Middle East that over the longer period of time doesn't necessarily impact all but a few or a couple even asset classes in our markets. And even that is only for a reasonably short and fenced-in period of time.
And if you look at any history, it would tell you exactly the same. But this time, Scott, I think it's all about oil prices. And if oil prices are contained, markets will move on and they'll focus on whatever the next event is. And that might be short-lived, too. But this could throw a wrench in both the economies and markets. Higher oil prices have a lot of implications because they're inelastic. It's a tax on consumers. And
and it crowds out spending in other areas. It could make headline CPI re-accelerate. Remember, oil prices have been a source of disinflation over the last three years, and obviously the opposite direction would not be welcome. And higher energy prices can strain the Fed. There's two cuts priced in, and this oil prices being much higher
makes Waller's good news cuts rather unlikely. There's obviously a lot of uncertainty of whether they'll sustain higher because there's a lot of latent supply. It's still abundant, but it definitely has the possibility to slow demand.
I think the one interesting thing that no one talked about is how when something like this happens, we have often seen a positive reaction in treasuries. And we have not seen that this time, despite seeing it in the dollar and despite seeing it in gold.
uh... so what that what does that mean for markets is the era of uh... u_s_ exceptionalism really over is international going to continue to do well i think it's the derivative of facts of this that we should be paying attention to unless it's unless it's just reacting to the move in oil as an inflationary
byproduct of the move there. Your point's well taken, but it's just too hard to know. If there are moves to be made today directly related to this outside of just straight equity decisions, Bill Baruch seems to have found some. He joins us now on the phone because he does run a commodities fund, and he is making some moves in both gold and oil. Can you tell us what you're doing today?
Yeah, the moves really sort of started permeating through the week. Early on in the week, news that the U.S. may evacuate embassies in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, with not a whole lot of context around it. So gold started to react. Crude oil began reacting very quickly. Look at some of that starting to happen. And the fact we didn't get context around it I think is very important. And then, lo and behold, we started to get these moves. Volatility overnight expanded rapidly.
option prices in gold and crude oil. So what we were looking at is being positioned in those, really capitalizing on it, exiting call spreads in crude oil, exiting call spreads in gold, looking at monetizing this move ahead of the weekend because I think the news flow is going to continue to evolve. And on one hand, I do think there is potential to see continued talks.
President Trump took the social earlier in the day, talking about today being day number 61. He doesn't want to see those high oil prices. So I think these conversations will continue to go. Coming out of the weekend, we could see a little bit of a different situation. So if you're trading this, I think it's important to capitalize on these moves. If you're a trader right now and you've been long crude oil or you've been long energy and some exposures,
It's important to capitalize on it and look to move on, but also be ready to see what next week brings. What about gold? I love gold overall. I think this move is building up for $5,000. I mean, it's a very nice consolidation. We could get a record high settlement in gold today. What I really love seeing as well is you're starting to see silver, platinum, and some of the others wake up.
But gold, as it's moved very well through the middle part of this week, it's important here, too. We're looking at monetizing it ahead of the weekend because some of these weekend moves, it's almost like the week loses a bit of memory from week to week, and you want to be prepared for that news to evolve. So, again, if you're long gold,
and you're trading it, capitalize on it here, I think is very important. Now, in our portfolios, in our diversified portfolios, we have exposure to gold, miners, midstream energy, commodities, and about 10% of the portfolio for the exact reason that you hit on and Rob hit on, that the treasury market
If you have a fixed income portfolio, it's not reacting properly here right now. There are some good options this week, and still we fell out after this news on inflationary fears. So we couple our fixed income with this real asset basket. As an investor, we're not touching that today. We want to see that continue to work for us. There's cash flow from a lot of those assets, too. So it just depends. What hat are you wearing? Are you wearing a trader's hat or are you wearing an investor's hat?
All right. I appreciate you calling in. These are actionable and interesting moves to what we're all seeing take place in some asset classes within these markets. Bill Baruch, thank you for that. You get past this, Weiss, and then you sort of focus back on the big picture.
of why Altimeter's Brad Gershner, who was with us yesterday, reminded all of us as to why he's turned so bullish on these markets. I want you to listen to what he said in total. Why has he increased his exposure so dramatically and taken whatever sort of hedges that he had off? Here's why.
We have the AI super cycle. We've seen a reacceleration in both the top line and the earnings. You know, Oracle reported last night blockbuster numbers. 80% of the S&P that reported all beat. The Mag 7 all.
all be an accelerated. And so I think that, you know, so long as the government does these things that I describe, I think the economy is ready to cook. We have these rate cuts coming in the back half of the year. So I think that's the potential trifecta for this economy, an incredible pro growth administration that is landing the plane on tariffs that is landing the plane on the reconciliation bill. And we have rate cuts ahead that caused us to get a lot more bullish at the beginning of May. Uh,
We remain so today. All right. So that's Brad Gerster. Now, obviously, the tariff issue lingers. The trade, the tax issues linger. We don't have any rate cuts yet, but that's this. That's the bullish scenario. Are there cracks in it or is he right to be focusing on the big prizes at the end of the rainbow here? Well, I'm saying I'm fully invested now and have been for a little while.
Look, you know, it depends what happens. As optimistic as Brad is about the market, I can tell you that the CEOs that I talk to often, the bankers I talk to often, private equity funds, large ones I talk to often, are not as optimistic on the economy, number one. Number two, there's nothing that has happened. As a matter of fact, it's only gotten worse in terms of keeping CEOs from deploying meaningful capital in capbacks. You think it's gotten worse? I
I'm not sure I agree with that. Well, okay. Let me say it this way then. It's not gotten better, right? Taking China down from 145% to 55%. And what I mean is it got worse is that there's been no off-ramp in terms of Trump's continuing to talk about tariffs, how they'll be penalized, how Europe doesn't become stable, and yada, yada, yada. Now, the market's been desensitized to it.
and tacos alive and well in the minds of investors. So from that standpoint, it's gotten better. But even from a CapEx standpoint, in speaking, well, let me just say this. I mean, I know you speak to a lot of CEOs in the business that you're in.
But I spoke to the CEO of now I know it's a specialized area of the AI super cycle, but I did speak to the CEO of AWS this week. They just committed $25 billion in a matter, a handful of days on top of the billions more that they continue to dole out for this big build out of data center and the chips that they're making and everything else just representative of no slowdown in
in that perspective or procurement? There's been acceleration actually in AI. Doesn't that make any point? To Brad's point? Well, it's making the point is that as you started, it's a very unique area, right? And AI, which is why my positions, my top positions are Meta, you know, they're Microsoft and others that play in that and have remained my top positions. So that's unique and that will filter down to others like we own part of an electrical contractor company
that really primarily their work is in data centers. So we expect to see that continue. But in terms of the industrial companies, even though I bought the XLI, which I talked about earlier in the week, and I bought CAT, to me, they're the ones that are not deploying capital. - Maybe those aren't the stocks to be in. That's part of the psychology
of the market right now. - Right. - You once again have to find yourselves in the right stocks. - Right, and I've never wavered, not at all, even when people are talking about the temporary rotations, industrials, even though they've done quite well recently, I've never wavered from saying that the fortress balance sheet tech companies will be the ones that continue to thrive and that they may be momentary sent backs
but that's all they'll be because they've got growth that will survive regardless of what happens with the economy. So I continue to like those, but CEUs just aren't deploying CapEx aside from in AI and AI-related companies, just not doing it.
So you had Truist yesterday, a big call from Keith Lerner on this topic really overall of looking at growth versus some of these other areas. He upgraded growth yesterday to attractive. It was at neutral. I think there was a belief that you would get a broadening out. Tech sort of over the last month has said, well, maybe not.
because a lot of the dollars that have been out there for investible dollars have been going back towards this tried and true trade. It makes sense too, because if you think about where you go down the supply chain and you think of the FAB7 spending money on data centers, spending money on chips. So all those are seeing growth in there. And then when you look at each of the businesses within them, they're also growing. So that's where capital is going to go.
In terms of industrials and consumer staples, you know, Steve's right. These companies are not spending money. So why would you actually accelerate investments in there right now? Most of them are fairly valued until we get more clarity as to tariffs, et cetera. Now, let me ask you this. If you're trying to have a whole of market view, right, if you're sitting out there as an investor and you're like, whose perspective am I going to listen to?
for mattering more to my investment philosophy right now. A caterpillar, I'm just picking them out of the sky, okay? A caterpillar, an industrial stock, which maybe looks at the tariffs differently than an Amazon, or a $15 billion meta investment that they just made in scale AI. Whose perspective is going to drive you and your investable dollars today, that or caterpillar?
So I think it's the former because that's where the expected return is going to be higher. However, in a diversified portfolio, you have to be careful that 60, 70% of your portfolio doesn't fall into 10 stocks. Well, just don't be too, well, but you also have to be careful that you're not too diversified just for diversification's sake.
100%. I'm not saying... Everybody comes on, oh, you'd be diversified, diversified, diversified. No, no, no. Diversified, diversification is the enemy of performance. Well, it depends on what... Okay, so Bill was talking about you want to be in some commodities. You want to be in a copper company or a gold company. You can have those. Also, you just don't have to be all in one or two sectors. You can actually diversify it so when days like this happen, you feel much better owning a gold stock or an energy stock. Rob, B of A today says there's more upside opportunity for risk.
Barclays, Animal Spirits could fuel the chase for additional upside. Chris Harvey, Wells Fargo, has maintained and continues to his view that tariff concerns may be overstated. He has, in the face of everything, stuck to his—now, I don't know how realistic he really thinks we're going to get there—7,007 remains his target. He's one of the only, if not the only strategists who hasn't done anything.
He just sat back, he observed, and he said, "You know what? I think the second half is going to be much better. We're going to clear some of these issues. We're going to focus on the Gershner Prizes, and we're going to have a better second half of the year than we did the first." The S&P, what did we have, 2% year to date?
It's easy to buy into that view, but I focus on one thing, Scott, that has served us really, really well, and that's institutional positioning. And it still remains underweight risk. So I agree. They talk about this pain trade. They talk about markets climbing walls of worry. And we all know there's
There's plenty to worry about, but the pain trade is higher. Institutions will get drawn in as there's resolution of these various things. And as long as there's not some seismic shift in one of them, which is why I mentioned energy prices at the beginning of the show, as long as there's not seismic positioning shift there,
Investors will get drawn into markets. What causes assets to go higher is fund flows. You will see that. And so there are some gating issues. The gating issue is valuation. But valuation is a terrible, terrible timing tool. So I think we can definitely see that play out. And who knows, if it comes with resolution at the end of it to a lot of these worries, we're going to be at a vastly different level.
valuation level on the S&P than we are today, and I think it will be higher. Obviously, you can't ignore those other things, so you're paying attention to them. One other thing that I would say is earnings, right? We're seeing earnings re-rate positively, estimates going up on the growth side of things, and estimates getting trimmed in value small-mid. So it's no surprise to us either that we've started to see that outperformance
you know a little bit of its narrative a little bit of its it's because that's where investors want to be where the super cycle is but a lot of it is just these companies are doing better at the margin there is enormous operational leverage though on clarity
for these businesses that will leverage AI and ultimately if you don't own them, you will miss the opportunity. Because there are great companies that are trading at significant discounts to our most popular friends. You and Weiss are right. I mean, many big names and big name institutions
are negative. I mean, sentiment is not universally bullish. Even as we're 2% away from a high, the people who follow it, talk to, and keep a close eye on all of those cohorts suggest the same thing, whether it's Weiss talking to CEOs, Adam Parker talking to institutional investors, Bank of America's flow show today. How about this? Biggest outflow in U.S. equities in 11 weeks.
You don't have everybody on the same side of the boat here, folks, even though some of the commentary in recent weeks may have you believe that. You still don't. The contrarian view of that, of course, Shannon, is that that's where the money is going to come from for the next leg of the market to not only get you to these new highs, but get you further than that. Does that make sense?
Yeah, I think that that's not necessarily a contrarian view. I just think it's the reality. It's all about the timing of that, Scott. And so I think that what institutional investors are looking through is that they're not as perhaps...
complacent about the pull through of inflation on margin and you know to the point about why people why investors are rotating back to growth in this in this shorter term period is because there is a perception that tariffs and higher prices are are more likely to affect the more cyclical industries we also are seeing evidence that economic growth is going to be slower this year than we thought it was going to be coming into the year and so that also has that
cyclical overhang. But I think the important thing is, you know, Rob said that valuation isn't a great barometer or prognosticator of performance, but earnings growth sure is. And so if you're looking at where am I going to derive earnings growth, of course those estimates are coming down in those more cyclical parts of the market because the uncertainty from policy is more likely to impact those in the short term, particularly from a margin perspective.
But if I look out over the next 6, 9, 12, 16, 18 months, if I look at something like the AI megatrend, boy, I better be able to monetize that in earnings and margin in particular outside of those big companies because otherwise those big companies aren't going to be able to continue to produce that earnings growth either.
And so I think that if we're looking at the here and now over the next three to four months, sure, there's opportunities to play that trend in growth. But I think we're looking at it in terms of the industrial sector, a lot of talk about that today. But that's a great place where you can find the implementation of automation and AI that could be potentially transformational in terms of margin as you go into 26 and 27.
The other story, Weiss, to focus on this week, IPOs are coming back. They are. Chime yesterday, we could show all these charts. They've been successful. As I talk about these. Voyager closed up 82%, but there's Chime. We need to look at Chime more than just intraday. Guys, please, can we look at this week and see what Chime did? Not today. Voyager was big. Circle was big. eToro was big.
and the pipeline looks pretty rich. - Very robust, which is why I traded a little Goldman.
It's a core position, but I was down nine bucks. There's an opportunity. Look, the IPO market is coming back. That is actually one of the risks that when you see so much supply coming to the market, what happens to other stocks? So the weak sisters, the weak holdings, they will get rid of those and try to make it in the IPO market. But Scott, there's one thing we haven't talked about, which is the consumer.
We're going to do that later. We'll do that later. Good tease. I'm glad you read the doc before the show rather than during it. Anyway, please, go ahead. But back to the IPO market. That is always a risk. We see it acutely in biotech where you have big biotech issuance cycles.
and it kills the indices. I think it'll be more measured here because of the number of stocks that we've taken out of the indices over the last 10 years. So there's room, but clearly, clearly you're going to see major beneficiaries in Goldman Sachs primarily because of how narrow their business is, Morgan Stanley, et cetera.
So let's take a break. We are going to talk about the consumer. As Weiss said, we did get consumer sentiment, a good number today. So we'll kick that around. We have our calls of the day coming up as well. A number of bullish calls on several committee stocks. We are back in just two minutes. Are you looking to invest in municipal bonds? For extra protection, buy bonds insured by Assured Guarantee. It guarantees that 100% of your principal and interest will be paid when due.
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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.
Upfront payment of $45 for a three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. New customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes if network's busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com. Calls of the day. Maybe the best stock in this market. I know Josh has his list, but I think I'm going to have mine. Netflix. 1425 is the target. Was 1200. Oppenheimer. You could just add them, Weiss, to the list of companies that have chased this stock on the up and up. Let's take a look at a year to date, please. Weiss. Weiss.
Look, I mean, stock, I want to say it weakened a little, but it's still on a percentage basis really trading at size. But it weakened a little when the Hulu news started coming out. And that made no sense. So to me, this is a perma hold. It's a permanent compounder. They still own this space. They're number one in it. And as the economy gets tougher, and we'll talk about the consumer later, I believe, Scott.
But as the consumer, you know, as it gets tougher, they're going to decide, where do I want to spend? They've got their ad-supported streaming service. I just think that this one is, you know, is one that looks great. Yeah. It's been offense and defense. Yeah. And there aren't that many stocks in this market that have been able to accomplish both. Given all of the news flow and the headlines, it's just managed to stay above the fray. Even if you're concerned about the economy, now that you have other tiers, like an ad tier, okay, you don't want to spend the full freight.
go add tier and you're still getting the subs. It's recession resistant. You still have cord cutting. I mean, we're beyond the bulk of it, but it just has so many tailwinds. NRG outperform Raymond James 326, not 325 Rob Seachin, but 326. I don't think it's a typo. 326 is the price target here. What's your take?
I think that's right. Listen, this is a company that we had in January of this year. It's up 69% since second best performing stock to Palantir. Uh,
You know, when we look at it, natural gas will be the key to solving the bottleneck in data center power consumption. And NRG is incredibly well positioned for that. Its valuation is no longer cheap. It's still at 18 times. There's a multi-year story it's benefiting from.
both increased loan growth and consumer data center power consumption. So we like this and it's a little cheaper than Vistra, which we also own and sold to buy this, a little bit of it to buy this. Air Products, Surat, initiated outperform 355 at RBC. They're bullish on one, the return to the core industrial gas model. Two, the turnaround plan. Three,
re-rating to 25 to 30 times PE multiple. What do you think? So, one and two is really important to the story. You've got a new management team in there that is now focused on the core business. They got rid of all their other
businesses outside the U.S. that were not cash flow producing. The other part that was not mentioned is an industrial gas company like Air Products has long-term contracts. When you have long-term contracts, you secure the future revenue and you also have inflation hedges against them.
So that's why a company like that deserves a premium multiple there. Comp is Lindy, which trades at over 30 times earnings. If they can even get close to that, you're going to see a good pop in the stock and you get paid 2.5% dividend yield while holding. Rob, Wells Fargo says AbbVie is a signature pick. They say it again, they reiterate it. $240 is the price target. Thoughts?
It's up a good bit here today, up 10%, really outperforming the market. Peas 15 times. It's a high-quality pharmaceutical company with consistent top-line growth off of Sky Rizzy.
They're in Vogue, they're also focused on Botox, arthritis. It's a high quality business. I think this is one you can own. The total dividend yield is 3.5%. - That chart looks pretty good, I'll tell you all that. - Of AbbVie? - Yeah. - That seems to be the most favored biotech.
slash healthcare related name on the desk. Yeah, without a doubt. I may be the only one who hasn't owned it over the last five years. You bought back UNH, is that true? I did buy it back. And as you recall, when I sold it, I wanted to see if there were any other skeletons in the closet, so to speak. They got through their analyst day, their investor day. Some had thought that they'd pre-announce and give guidance, but that'll be in the second quarter. Again, I know Steve Hemsley, CEO, I know John Rex,
who's the present CFO.
Very steady hands on the wheel. And look, they made a mistake in underwriting the amount of business they took. And V28 is largely behind them at this point. But it's going to be a kitchen sink quarter. And the guidance you can count on. So that will be the relief rally. And you'll see it continue to move up. I actually bought some more today. You got any other cliches? Kitchen sink quarter? No, but there are some names I want to drop. Skeletons in the closet. Clean bill of health? You didn't use that one. You gave them that. Well, I thought it was two.
too close to home with the health care company. Okay. All right. Good stuff. Let's get to headlines now with Courtney Reagan. Hey, Court. Hi there, Scott. Good afternoon. Well, about 200 Marines have moved into Los Angeles amid protests against President Trump's immigration crackdown. The commander in charge of the deployment said today that those Marines will protect federal property and personnel. It comes a day after a federal appeals court ruled the administration can, for now, maintain control of the National Guard members in California.
A federal appeals court will not take up President Trump's bid to reconsider a $5 million verdict he lost to E. Jean Carroll. In 2023, a jury found he sexually abused and defamed the former columnist in the 1990s. Separately, the president is asking the appeals court to throw out an $83.3 million jury verdict for defaming Carroll when he first denied her rape claim.
And earlier this morning at Sean Diddy Combs sex trafficking trial in New York, Kanye West, also known as Ye, made a surprise courthouse appearance. He told reporters he was there to show his support for the music mogul who is facing five criminal counts. West spent about 40 minutes at the courthouse, but never made it into the courtroom. Scott, back over you. All right, Court. Thank you. That's Courtney Reagan coming up next. Committee stocks on the move, winning and losing streaks to discuss. And we will do that after this break.
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All right, we are back. Let's talk streaking stocks both up and down. IBM snapping its nine-day win streak. That's a record high yesterday. That stock, Rob Seachin, has just been on a tear. A tear.
We added a year ago, Scott, it's up 71%. It's more fully valued today at 25 times. Still a great business. They're seeing modest revenue growth, margin expansion, and valuation. But they're a beneficiary of this effective transition from a consulting-led business to a software-led, AI-led business, and emerging as a leading quantum computing play as well. A name we continue to believe in.
Yeah, I mean, Arvind Krista is probably the tech CEO not talked about nearly enough. All the focus centers around the MAG-7, and he's done a great job. There's no other—the chart tells the story, right? The chart don't lie. Other stocks on a streak. Six-day win streak for Suncor, Seach. That's you, along with Eli Lilly's on a five-day win streak.
Both those names continue to do well in the portfolio. Suncor is really cheap. Overall, it's a little harder to get too excited about the energy space. Obviously doing great today. There's still a lot of reasonable valuations there. High single digit yields as we've seen.
Lilly, you know, we trimmed a little. It's down from its peak at 50 times, trading at 33 times today. Still a great business. They are the frontrunner in the GLP-1s, and we still think that's an enormous secular opportunity. They have a 60% market share there.
Surat, Bristol, CVS, Danaher, Thermo Fisher, five-day win streaks. You have all of those. Yeah, but if you look at Thermo and Danaher, they're both down 20%. The whole NIH overhang on them. So still very high-quality companies. I like those. They are growth companies longer term, but they're kind of in the doghouse now. CES and Bristol, single-digit multiples. They've been out of favor, too. CVS, as we know, got hammered last year. It's come back a bit this year. It's up about 10%. And Bristol, you're just playing a bet on the pipeline.
Rob Ping Insurance, a four-day win streak.
Hang on, you kind of poked me on this one when I added it on the show. Scott, if you remember, they're very diversified insurance company in China. China's obviously a market that's done really well this year. The story here is a six times P and 50% free cash flow margins for one of the largest companies, insurance companies in the world. So...
Exciting to see that it's up 40% since we added it. What was my pinging about? Do you remember?
I don't remember. I think because you've never heard of it, you were just jabbing at me a little bit. Okay, that's fair. Fair. I mean, it's all fair. Any opportunity, Rob. That's right. Four-day losing streak, Amex. Stock's up 30% for the year. You've got some profit taking. Company's done really well, firing in all cylinders. They're in the right part. So I think it's just some money coming off the table. We'll take a quick break. We'll come back. Santoli joins us with his midday word next.
Senior markets commentator Mike Santoli sitting down here with us at Post 9 for his midday word. What's on your mind today as you watch these markets react to geopolitical events and try and think about the big picture? Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty decent test of the market's resolve. Obviously, it sort of moved quickly to kind of underreact in a way.
But you had the makings there of something that could have gotten a little bit disorderly under the right conditions if we really were fragile. You had the VIX pop back above 20. Even the sell-offs in Visa and MasterCard, because even if it's news-driven, whether it makes sense or not, those are
are kind of crowded beloved stocks in the momentum basket that could have actually destabilized the tape. It didn't happen, at least not till now. I understand why. Oil's popping, but up to a very benign level. And you can kind of keep that in stride. This sort of tenacious dip buying instinct has remained in place. All that said, you can kind of pull back
and say market's kind of slowing down and hesitating as it gets closer to the old highs. It is, you know, maybe a little bit narrower than you'd prefer it to be. So it's not as if you've sort of convinced anybody that we're up and away from here. You're going to throw a lot of fresh new money at these leaders.
But it's really probably an upside surprise in terms of how it's reacting. Is the move that we're watching in the Treasury market peculiar to you, the way that yields are reacting inversely to what you would think would be your typical risk-off? If the dollar is catching a bid,
And gold's catching a bid. You'd think treasuries would be catching a bid. You would. I mean, obviously, that's the textbook. A couple of things I would note. One is there was a pretty good two-day rally in treasuries off the soft inflation numbers, right? Two days ago, you're at 4.5 on the 10-year, right? You open today, 4.35 or something like that. So it was pre-bought in a sense. But, yeah, I think you have to notice it. You have to be aware that treasuries, you know, and this has been the case for a few months, that they're just, you know, people are kind of slow to buy, quick to sell.
And I think, you know, maybe that's the dynamic for a while. That said, the absolute level of yields, it's just range bound. It's not really causing alarms. But the behavior, you know, maybe we have seen some kind of a shift there. All right. I'll see you on Closing Bell. That's Mike Santoli joining us here. Up next, the segment that Weiss could not wait to get to. We're trading the consumer. Sentiment beat. Retail sales are next week. Santoli just talked about Visa, MasterCard. McDonald's got downgraded again. We'll do it all next.
All right, it's the moment that Weiss has been waiting for. Consumer sentiment above 60, right? Retail sales next week. I think there's a good amount of concern over how long the consumer can hang in. You got the Visa MasterCard stories today on Amazon and Walmart and others apparently considering issuing their own stable coins. McDonald's downgraded again, which doesn't happen that often. It's the fourth downgrade of the past week. Restoration is surging today after they reiterated their sales guidance.
What do you think about the consumer here, Weiss? Actually, Scott, I'm over consumer. Can we move on to another topic? Okay, go ahead. What do you think of it? Don't filibuster me, Weiss. Go ahead. As you take a look at some of the results that have come from the retail companies, they've been very, very mixed. And the downside of a number of these stocks, whether it's Dick's or Lulu or others, Gap Stores, has been pretty significant.
And keep in mind that the consumer is still the driver of the economy, two-thirds of the economy, and they're worried. You hear reports of consumers putting more and more groceries on their credit card bills. So I think it's worth watching out for, and particularly with elevated rates on those credit card bills. I think that could really chill spending by the consumer. You have Visa and MasterCard. Is this a justified move in the stock?
Is it even because of that story about the stablecoin? It is. I mean, because PayPal is down, too. They're all down 4% to 5%. And look, stablecoins have been around. PayPal actually has its own. If you think about how long it's going to take regulatory-wise for Walmart and Amazon to get into this business, think about the consumer who uses credit cards because they like to rack up points and they can get credit.
It is a long way off. This is an opportunity for Aviza, MasterCard, if you haven't bought those two. I think high, super high quality companies that have the rails, they control it, to get an opportunity to put at least a position in there. You agree with that, Rob? I think you're incredibly...
We own them both. We've owned them for a long time. They're both trading near all-time highs, Scott. So they were more susceptible to this type of headline risk. They're incredibly hard to dislodge. So I agree. But I don't know if this is the entry point right here from a price perspective. This is as expensive as they get from a multiple perspective. So I think I'd wait a little bit. All right. Final trades coming up 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. Do a check-in on Adobe today. Didn't get to it earlier, but it is a mover. It's down near 6%. Rob Seachin on the back of earnings. What's up with this stock? It certainly hasn't gotten the performance that anything else related to AI, almost anything else, I should probably better say, has gotten. They want a piece of the pie. Can they get it?
You know, it's all about monetizing AI, Scott, and I still think the investment community challenges their ability to monetize AI. Is there something that can be bought when you can essentially get it for free? They've delivered on numbers. They continue to deliver every time they report, and yet the stock does not perform well. We are going to continue to be patient because we think this is a stock to own.
All right. It was a big week for software names. Oracle had a big week, as you know. What's your final trade, Rob, while I have you? Alphabet. It's been the best performer in the Mag 7 over the past month. It's the cheapest as well. And we think they're trying to quiet the bear case around search disruption. I think it's the one to buy. Shan?
Energy, it was my final trade on Wednesday. I'm not clairvoyant, but on the long-term basis, if OPEC Plus has to put some more supply on the market, that actually eases some of the supply considerations for next year. Gerard. Slumber J. I mean, I still think you want to own the stocks really cheap. Weiss. UNH, I think it's a good trade from here. Not a big position, but I think you make money. All right, good stuff. You guys have a good weekend. I'll see you at 3 o'clock. We have Dan Greenhouse today, Warren Pies, Cameron Dawson, Kevin Simpson, and Jeremy Cotter, pre-IPO Facebook employee.
Can't wait to talk to him about who's going to win the AI race. He has some strong views on that, and he'll share them with you at 3 o'clock. We'll exchange this 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.
Thank you.
Are you looking to invest in municipal bonds?
For extra protection, buy bonds insured by Assured Guarantee. It guarantees that 100% of your principal and interest will be paid when due. Assured Guarantee has demonstrated reliability and financial strength for nearly four decades. That's why the bonds they back are one of the safest investments you can make. Visit AssuredGuarantee.com. Assured Guarantee. A stronger bond.