Navigating a Week of Volatility 04/11/25
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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.

All right. Thanks so much. Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner. Front and center this hour, another volatile session for stocks, which given Wednesday's historic move, are on pace to end higher this week. We will debate the markets with the Investment Committee. Joining me for the hour today, Steve Weiss, Jim Labenthal, Brenda Vangelo, Kevin Simpson. We'll check the markets. I'm almost hesitant to tell you what we're doing at the very moment because it's been that volatile again. What is green now could be red in 30 seconds. But that's the kind of session and that's the kind of world we're living in.

right now. Rather than sort of go through all of the stuff that you and everybody else already knows, bond yields are elevated, the dollar, et cetera, et cetera. We're going to get to some of that.

I like to think on this show, you guys, all of you, are charged with trying to give investors ideas on what to do in volatile times like these, in a volatile market like this. Whether you're supposed to, as some say, buy the dip. Many people come on the network and say, if you're a long-term investor, buy this dip. Others say volatile times.

environment's going to remain, sell the RIPs, move into other asset classes, which has been harder because there's been almost no place to hide in any of this. Traditional things where some of our viewers like munis, obviously bonds, the dollar, even gold at times has not been the kind of safe haven play that some people view it to be.

All that is a lead up to you, Kevin, because you have been buying many blue chip names in this weakness. Just give me the philosophy first before we talk specifics of what you saw in this market that said now's the time to get my list of the best companies in the world and buy them now.

Yeah, we've been doing a lot of buying, that's for sure. And the difference between active management and being in an index is that going into this, if you're in an index, your allocation was set, you still have that allocation today. Active managers can be a little bit more nimble. We're not quite as handcuffed. So ending March, we had about a 12% cash position. A couple of weeks ago, we talked about potential for weakness in the market. We were almost joking, like, could it go down 20%? And

It did. So we thought at that point a 20% drawdown gives us opportunity to put money to work. And not getting into the specifics, but just generally speaking, 12% cash, we put six of it to work on the pullback. We still have six or seven percent cash because by no means do we think that we're out of the woods completely. But the combination of being nimble, able to add, what we need to do is be able to provide less downsides.

help investors navigate the downside, the volatility. And generally speaking, I feel like the upside always takes care of itself over time. From perspective, 12% cash, where does that stand in the spectrum? I was thinking the same thing. And being cash and when you have been in cash in periods of dislocation. Because that sounds high to me. And I think that's leading Steve to sort of allude to that as well in his question. 12% cash for an actual...

manager to me sounds high. Because you're not the asset allocator, right? You're not saying I can go into currencies, I can go into bonds, you're in equities. Fully invested equity manager. And we define that by 90% investor. Right, so when people invest with you, they're allocating to equities. So you have a limited ability to really take that down. They're not the cash allocators. They're not allocating to you for cash management, right? So back to my original question. In a perfect world, I'd like to have 5% cash. That's where we want to run the portfolio, historically speaking.

Every time we seem to get to 10%, 11%, bring it back down to that 5%, which is exactly what we did last week. Cash builds up again because we're collecting dividends. And in this type of volatility, we're just writing option premium like crazy. So I mentioned, I'm going to get to the names now.

You're not looking like way out on the risk curve for some of these names. You're not buying what you think are super high beta names. I mean, McDonald's, American Express, Caterpillar, Meta, Apple. Well, you could say Apple, maybe. Well, yeah, lately for sure. But you know what I mean. Generally, generally speaking, you're looking at some of the best companies in the world.

blue chip stocks that you believe are maybe somewhat of ports in this crazy market storm. Well, with the exception of McDonald's, each one of those names was down 30% in about a month.

So even more than the broader markets. Now, can they go down further? Absolutely. We don't call bottoms. I'm not here to predict anything that's going to happen over the short term. But a 30 percent drawdown on Meta, 30 percent drawdown on Caterpillar. What we're seeing with McDonald's, a little bit different story, but maybe a trade down for the consumer. Caterpillar obviously is going to be subject to global issues. And I think we can get to Apple separately. Let's get to Apple now. I mean,

I mean, because that's one of the hotly, most hotly debated stocks within this market. It's down 26% off of its 52-week high. And let me set the stage as well, because literally right when I sat down on this desk moments before our program, our senior producer sent me a note that Jim Cramer has just put out.

that says, quote, "I'm wavering on quote unquote own don't trade Apple, that it's now harder to defend Apple stock in the trade war."

That's significant coming from somebody like Jim, who has made the case for literally as long as I can remember, and I have these words in my head: "Own, don't trade Apple," because he says it so often. But this is different. The game's different. The goalposts have moved. Should your thinking move like Jim's?

I think he's not going to change or move like Jim's, but it's nice to see that there's some more opportunities to trade it. In the past 13 years, I've sold out of Apple in its entirety 11 times. I trade Apple. I don't own Apple. Most recently in December, we sold it at $247.50.

Coming in back on Tuesday at 177, that's attractive for us. On Wednesday on the pop, I wrote a 215 call. Sure, it's going to expire the first week of May. Brought in $1.30 on it. We trade Apple like crazy. And I think Jim's point is completely spot on. This game has changed. What's happening with tariffs could be devastating. And I'll give you a worst case scenario because we modeled it. What if Apple earns $5 a share? Because that's a real possibility. And what if you bring the multiple down to 25?

$125 stock for Apple. We're paying $177 for it. It's probably trading in the $190s right now. We're not buying the whole position. We'll buy it on the way down, but...

But just recognizing that it could go lower, you have to be careful in these markets and you can't get too tricky. If we had room at the desk, I would say, Jim Cramer, come down here right now and talk about this. And if he wants to stand at the end of the desk and have a conversation with us, he's still more than welcome to show up at our table. But I'll leave that to him. You bought more Apple today. Yeah, actually yesterday. But, you know, it doesn't matter. It's in the context of this.

Most long-term, great long-term investors will tell you that most of the time you're trying to buy great companies at okay prices, good prices. And that is, I mean, that's a Warren Buffettism, that's a Howard Marxism, and I think it's a Kevin Simpsonism, and probably Brenda and myself as well. But you now have this opportunity to buy great companies, and I submit to you that Apple is still great, at very good prices. I'm not going to say great prices. I mean, it's still mid-20s. I get it.

But this is an opportunity in the downturn that we've seen to upgrade your portfolio because everything's got smeistered here. So why not trade out of the some of the more speculative things into the companies that are likely to thrive on the other side of any downturn that happens? And we can discuss whether Apple will thrive on the other side of this, given that it's in the crosshairs of the China trade war. My opinion is, yes, it will.

I don't know how the trade war is going to end and like Kevin, I'm not calling a bottom either. This thing could obviously go lower. But I look at the prices compared to where they were just four or five months ago for one of the best companies in the world and I am absolutely buying. It's not the only thing I'm buying, by the way, because a lot of times when we talk about great prices or great companies, we talk about tech.

I've been buying Citigroup, as you know, Scott. Also bought Wabtec today, a great industrial in my opinion. Bought some AstraZeneca. And I think this is interesting because pharmaceutical tariffs are on the come. There is still some bad news to come. And yet I look at companies like AstraZeneca or AbbVie or Vertex and I say, wait a second, these are companies that are doing great things and they've been repriced for maybe not all, but a lot of the danger in the market right now. Brenda, you own Apple. You own a lot of these tech names that...

are substantially off their 52-week highs. Are you in the mindset like both Kevin and Jim that now's the time to actually put some of this money to work?

I think it makes sense to add a little bit. And as we talked about a little bit yesterday, our strategy is not to add all at once, but to add incrementally during environments like this. Because we don't know where the bottom's going to be, but we can look out from a longer-term perspective and say, is this an attractive entry point for a one-year time horizon or more? And I would say, yes, there's still a lot of uncertainty.

But I do think that now is the moment where you can add. Weiss, you've been among, I think, if not the most more recently cautious person on this program. I'm wondering how you're now viewing. The market's down a lot. We had a couple of really rough days. We had a historic day. And then we had another rollover yesterday. None of it in normal-sized moves that you generally see.

What's your take, man? You've been through a lot of markets like this. So on Wednesday, as bearish and as concerned as I am, not about just the near term, but the longer term, as we seed our spot, and I firmly believe this, as the preferred trading partner, the preferred capital partner to Europe and to China. As a matter of fact, they're getting together to hash out.

policy. I did say on Wednesday that the pain trade and the most likely move will be higher, and that was the case Wednesday afternoon, a much quicker timeframe than I envisioned, only to get back about half those gains on Thursday, yesterday. So the way I look at it is that that's still the case. As a matter of fact, if Trump does, as he said at his Cabinet meeting,

he said he can settle all trade issues with all 70 countries in one day. If he goes out and does that in one day, then the market's off to the race. Don't you think, as we said yesterday, don't you think, I mean, I've been talking to a lot of people, you know, a lot of people on the floor here, and I think to a person, everybody says the risk...

is to the upside. Yeah. Because all it takes is a thing from the White House that says the president and president-in-chief scheduled a call or top representatives are going to speak. And I believe that. And you think this market's going to be red? And,

And I, no, no. And I'm not saying that. No, I know. I'm saying it like a rhetorical question. I agree with you and I agree with them. And look, this is going to be over the next 90 days, a series of small wins that are headline wins, but have no substance. Because as you know, it takes years to negotiate a trading agreement and it takes months to even put together a term sheet for acquisitions that we make of substantially less value. Those term sheets can take six months to do. So, so, but...

It's going to trade on the headlines. And it's because there are lots of people sitting in a lot of cash, lots of people that are positioned adversely to a market run that's going to work. But here's what I'd say. I'd say that earnings will also be the test. Now, we've been fortunate. We've had bank earnings, which have been good.

And, you know, as you would expect, the Jamie Diamonds of the world, they look at it, they can see the downside, but neither are they doomsayers. So they're not there to rattle investors or rattle the market. They're there to give just really a perfectly spoken word and comment about,

Here are the risks we see, but here's what we've done, and we are well positioned to handle any adverse environment. So I do think that the pain trade still is to the upside, particularly on the weekend when there's no news coming out. I won't go into the reason for it, but it's typically an always. Even so, there are plenty who are suggesting that the game has changed, that a lot of damage has been done.

And even if there is a positive development that you've left a lot of rubble in your wake here. I'm still reverting closer to the 25-year average multiple, which is 16 times, which could put you below 4,500. I wanted you to listen to what Larry Fink said on the network earlier. He says he thinks we're still, you know, we're already in a recession. He did talk about rates, too, which I thought was interesting. But he made a comment about...

the larger ramifications of what's happened because of the policy from the White House and what the bigger picture looks like around trade and tariffs. We have that, guys? United States post-World War II was a global stabilizer. We are the global destabilizer. And that's a very, you know, that's a very hard thing to say.

I thought the commentary was interesting. I thought the way that he said it, how he paused for a moment to acknowledge that it's a difficult statement to make.

But certain ways that things in the market are trading, dollar, bonds, etc., may represent that perspective, which you also heard from Mohamed El-Erian on social media today, that the moves that you see there could represent an erosion of confidence in the U.S. Bank of America's flow show, you know what the title was today from Michael Hartnett and the crew over there? U.S. exceptionalism ending, U.S. repudiation starting.

that you essentially have a buyer's strike of U.S. assets. I don't see who the... The points are well made, and damage has been done, both to the economy and to the United States standing in the global economy. The problem that I see on the other side of that is I don't see any other leader emerging. Maybe they will, but I don't see it now. And I want to embrace the fact that damage has been done to the economy, unquestionably. But

But there's another side to this. The context in which we're operating was an economy that was very strong as we went into this, whatever you want to call it. And it's not just that GDP was growing. It's that profit margins were high. It gives companies some cushion before they lay people off. Now, that won't last forever. And we've got to stop this and we've got to get back on a forward footing in terms of growing the economy.

But the banking system has been strong. You haven't seen somebody blow up and get taken out. You know, there's all this worry about the Treasury spiking and whether some hedge fund was going to blow up. You know, the Fed thinks that it's still restrictive, which means that they want to cut. They're getting a little bit of leeway on that with the inflation numbers. My point on this is to acknowledge damage has been done economically and to the United States standing. However, it's not a fait accompli yet. Key word yet.

that this is irretrievably lost. No, but there is a perspective too, guys, that like Larry Fink also said in this chair earlier, that he can easily see a 5% 10-year because of embedded inflation from the trade war. And he made the point that a week ago today, he was shocked...

He said by the move lower last Thursday and Friday in the 10 year, we're all reacting to the rate of change in the level we are now relative to last Friday. It's not the absolute level of where we are today. That's unnerving. It's the rate of change from just a week ago in which he said he was shocked at that. Not this, that this feels more normal if we're in a more normal situation.

higher inflation environment, then all of you have to think about the other kinds of moves that you might make in this market. No? 100 percent, because tariffs are inflationary, whether that's transitory or not. The 10-year was at 3.9. Last Friday, 3.9. That's what he's saying. He was shocked at that. The move is incredible. Just look at the dollar, 3 percent, like 3.9.

It's unbelievable. So the problems exist, and to Jim's point... Which is there evidence, there is evidence, Jim, in terms of rates, in terms of the dollar, that the New York is not, that the U.S. is not the default economy. We're seeing it. Who's taking over, Steve?

Well, I think there are plenty to take over. I think that while China has been very patient in terms of what they've done, they've moved to areas that we've ignored, such as Africa and South America. They are now doing that in terms of meeting with Europe, and they will forge those relationships because there's no secret where China stands. You know what they are. You know what they do.

There's a lot of secret in terms of where the U.S. stands now because Trump doesn't know where he stands. That tariff plan was finalized right before he went to talk about it. I know, but I don't want to— I'm not getting into that. I just don't want to relitigate it. No, I'm not relitigating it. My point is that there's no stability, so there's no—

tendency in terms of who your trading partners whereas china believe not you get that too i did i disagree with you and i think i usually do i'm not saying they are saying there's enough sounded like you said that you're looking for sure you are going to be set up and i'm saying that they are in a better position i think it was going to take over leadership you said china don't backtrack it thirty seconds later i will tell you i disagree with that assessment if you meant to say something else incorrect it now

I'm going to say what I said before, which is that they are in a better position to do it now than the U.S. I didn't say they're taking it over. I said they're in a better position. You told me that the United States has ceded its leadership. I asked you who was going to take over. It has ceded its leadership. Then who's taking it over? Nobody's taking it over yet. Okay. Okay. Good. Then we agree on that. Well, yeah, we agree in a moment time. You continue to look backwards. I'll continue to look forwards. You continue to look forwards by making conjecture. You have no idea. Nor do I.

Of course, nor do I. But I'm willing to take the risk. But you say that you know...

And I would submit to you that the right words are, you believe this is going to happen. You certainly don't know because nobody knows. And I will tell you, in a condition where nobody knows, I will fall back on historical patterns, which is U.S. leadership, even as it's been damaged, leadership economically particularly. And if you want to change that, someday it will change. I don't think it's now. Okay, if you're done preaching, let me just finish what I was going to say. Jim, let me talk. I have to appeal to the judge. Am I preaching or is he preaching? Jim, let me finish, okay?

You talk forever. Just say it succinctly. Just finish quickly because I want to get to something else. I'm taking half the show. Look, the U.S. has seeded it. Okay? Seeded leadership. Nobody's picked the crown up yet. Things don't happen in a day. But...

There's not a country out there that trusts us as a trading partner versus before Trump they did. So it's that destabilization that is going to force them to find other partners. That's just natural. So we'll see that. And those will continue to impact our capital markets, will continue to impact our dollar, will continue to impact rates as they have been. That's just what's happening. I understand that there is a lot of emotion on this.

all sides of this. It's been a tumultuous week. Investors are unnerved. That's part of the fallout from all of this that is going to reverberate for a while. People are emotional.

I have another move from you which felt emotional to me anyway, but you can explain it better than me since it's your move. You sold small caps, a case that you have consistently made on this program to own for months. Okay? You sold it on Tuesday, if not at the low, darn close to it. Why? Well...

It's minor detail, but I sold it Tuesday in the morning when the market was rallying. But to the point, and I made this earlier of why I sold it, it's an upgrade to the portfolio. I have plenty of stocks in the portfolio that are, I don't want to use the word speculative, but do require the economy to come through this okay. And you know what they are, Scott. And I mean, I can list them if it's a delta, if it's a win. You know, there's- I know, I know, but you sold this down a lot. Okay, because everything's down a lot.

I mean, everything's down a lot. But you just made the case that you still think this is the place to be and invest. And that's why I am fully invested overall. And you also said you don't see a recession. That's okay. And that's why I'm not selling Delta. And that's why I'm not selling Wynn Resorts. And that's why I stepped into Citigroup. I mean, this is not something where I'm going to all utilities and staples. I mean, in my portfolio, I am underweight utilities and staples. I don't know. David Koston today says maybe you should.

Stay defensive. I mean, that's the argument that Steve and I, at least in part, are having about where the economy goes from here. But let me be clear. With everything being sold off, this is an opportunity, as I said earlier, to buy great companies at what I think are very good prices. So make no mistake. I am clearly looking for the economy, even if it goes through a recession, to be a short

recession and one that we recover on the other side. If this is going to be something like the great financial crisis or COVID, then you certainly don't own Delta going into that. But this is not some chicken little move. It's not. OK, I've got plenty of high beta in this portfolio. I didn't say it. And I'm paraphrasing. Small caps lead you out. So I wonder why, if your view is so opposite of what's happening in the market, you would sell the asset class that is going to do

best in recovery. Because I haven't sold the asset class. I mean, look at things like Casey. Calm down, Steve. Casey's. I mean, what have you bought? If you keep coming at me like that, you know it's not going to end well for you. So stick to the facts. You're way too sensitive. And I understand it's an emotional time. I'm not too sensitive. You're too worked up.

Now, look, look at the things that I own. Look at a Casey's. Look at a Vertex. I mean, as I already said, look at a Delta. Look at a Wynn Resort. If I've taken a little bit out of small cap, I'm not out of small caps entirely. Not at all. So that line's wrong. You didn't sell small caps.

Steve, what I sold was the ETF, which was one position out of 25 in the portfolio. It was approximately a 4% position in my portfolio. How big is your largest position? Hang on. I've taken that 4% and I've recycled it into Apple, into Wabtec, which is a mid-cap stock. I mean, it's going to perform pretty much similarly the way. Okay.

Okay, but in the same ballpark, AstraZeneca. Just for context, what's your typical large position? It depends. Just average large position. I'll make it easy. So I have a 25 to 30 stock portfolio, which means on average things are going to be 3% to 4%. They will be bigger in the case of an Apple where you look at the benchmark and it's roughly 6.5%. I'm now at 6%. You asked a question, and after this we are going to take a break.

What are you buying? You did buy more Goldman Sachs on when it was red. Today? Yeah, I did buy when it was red today. This morning? Yes, this morning. Tell our viewers why. I was encouraged, first of all, by the earnings from J.P. Morgan. And as I've said repeatedly, David Solomon, to me, is one of the best CEOs in not only corporate America, but around the world. And guess what? They've also navigated similarly

tough times. And what happens in these, having been on that side of the fence, not being in David's position, of course, what you do is you go out and you talk to your accounts and you hold their hands to this and you advise them. But the job's actually easier from that standpoint because they reach out to the most knowledgeable, reliable partners. So I can tell you that Goldman's phone is likely ringing off the hook and that they will really strengthen the bonds that they have as well as pick up

new relationships. So again, I like it. It's very high quality. It was already a core position. I just took the opportunity knowing full well with my view that this could go lower. The executive producer just got a phone call. Did you hear it ring? I was wondering if that's like cleanup on aisle four.

after you guys. We need a cut. We'll take a break. We'll get out the we'll get out the bounty and the band-aids and whatever. We'll come back after this. We're going to talk about our calls of the day. We're also going to be joined in a little bit by legendary energy trader Mark Fisher because he is laying out what he thinks could be the best risk reward trade right now in the commodity space. We're back in two.

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All right. Welcome back. One key question through all of this uncertainty and volatility is how the retail investor is faring. Kate Rooney is following that money for us and joins us now with what you found. So,

So, Scott, individual investors, as we're seeing, have been leaning right into that volatility you've been talking about and continue to buy the dip. The buying remains what Vanda Research calls robust, even after retail investor activity broke records last week. As JP Morgan put it this week in a note, investors have been willing to place confidence on the market upside despite radical policy uncertainty. That did pay off at least on Wednesday with some of the

Tariff and market relief, also the post by President Trump that quote, "This is a great time to buy." At the close of that day, the average retail portfolio was up 17%. That was according to JP Morgan as well, although markets did then reverse. On Wednesday at the close, we did see some retail investors start to sell single stocks and then lock in some of those gains.

The dip buying really started to move more to ETFs at that point, which Vanda Research says suggests some longer-term broad bets on equities. Vanguard's S&P ETF is among the top trades. That's one signal of that.

if you look at single stocks it's still really only nvidia mostly nvidia at least consistently the most actively traded name if you look at sort of the top names to put in context we had one day this week where there were 3.5 billion dollars that went into single stocks for a day 3 billion of that went into nvidia alone other retail favorites like tesla have seen a little bit more of a mix

Mixed sentiment. There's been a little bit of hedging with some of the tech inverse ETFs, the SQQQ. And then the YOLO crowd, as we talked about yesterday. Scott is alive and well. Risky leverage Tesla ETF is popping up as one of the top picks. And then one with double exposure to the NASDAQ 100. Those are still among the most actively traded names, at least on Fidelity today. Back to you. All right, Kate, thank you very much for that rundown. Appreciate that. It's Kate Rooney. What do we think about this, folks?

What do you think? Retail, I mean, it's one of the key questions here, certainly, is how are they feeling? Are they actually what talked to you about at the top of the show? Yeah. Right. Are you buying the dip? Are you are you selling out? You know, these are everybody's thinking the same things and asking their advisors the same questions. Right. What do I do?

What do we do? I'm glad to hear that retail investors are buying rather than selling because I think selling right now is a bad idea, personally, if you have a long-term outlook. Unless you have a short-term cash need, I don't think that now is the time to sell. But I do think now is the time to buy selectively and to do it in a more incremental way.

Using the inverse ETFs, I don't agree with using leveraged ETFs. That is a dangerous game and it usually ends badly. So I'm sad to hear that that's a place that retail investors have gravitated towards. But nevertheless, I do think it's wise to add selectively given this volatility. All right.

Let's get the headlines with Silvana Henao. Hi, Silvana. Hey, Scott. Good afternoon to you. A federal judge has denied the Justice Department's bid to postpone today's hearing on the case of a Maryland man who the Trump administration said was mistakenly sent to El Salvador. The government claimed it needed more time to review the Supreme Court's decision last night that stated the administration facilitates the return to the U.S. of Gilmar Abrego-Garcia.

The FAA and NTSB are investigating a small plane crash near the Boca Raton Airport in Florida. Officials said the plane was carrying three people when it crashed earlier this morning on its way to Tallahassee. NBC South Florida reports multiple people are feared dead.

And Euphoria actor Eric Dane has been diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. In a statement to People magazine, the Grey's Anatomy alum said he will return to the set of Euphoria next week. Currently, there is no cure or treatment to slow the disease, according to the ALS Association. The disease causes people to lose the ability to speak, eat, move and breathe. Halftime. We'll be right back.

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All right, welcome back. Lots of attention on the commodities markets this week with crude oil hitting a four-year low on fears of dropping demand. Meantime, gold surging to a new high lately as investors look for somewhere to hide in all of this market turbulence. For more on where the best risk-reward is right now in the commodities complex, Mark Fisher is going to tell us. He is the CEO of MBF Trading. What a time to talk to you. I can't even imagine how your trading desks must be at the moment. Give us a sense.

It's been, to put it lightly, Scott, pretty chaotic. But organized chaos is the best way I like to describe it. I mean, moves that you would normally expect to happen in three weeks or three months are happening sometimes in like three minutes.

Even less than three minutes. But yeah, exactly. So give me your view. Let's just start with oil. I tease this out as, you know, you wanted to give our viewers what you think right now is the best risk reward in the commodity space. And it's not oil. But just give me your view on where you think actually crude is going, because it's at a four year low, as we said.

Well, there's nobody there's really nobody left long. Everyone's worried about a recession. The wild card is obviously Iran and what happens in these talks between the United States and Iran. Because obviously all bets would be off if you go ahead and get some kind of nuclear strike there. But currently, you know, with demand forecasts being what they're being with, you know,

uh... the market the all that's not really exciting to me other than the fact that all bets are off if something happens you know when straight-out moves if something happens in the middle east that no one can really predict but it's all it's in the papers now more and more every single day what do you what do you think's next fifty bucks or seventy bucks for example for w_t_i_ uh... seventy and the reason i say that is because everyone's short the sentiment index out there is i don't know anyone that's long so you know if everyone's short

who's left to sell? I mean, you have all the Mexican hedges that have been put on already by all the producer countries that drove the price down. You have all the fears of

the economy imploding. So to me, that's just purely a sentiment call, nothing else. But that, I mean, I get it, but that's sometimes how you have to trade things. So many different factors go into crude, for example. So you yourself, I mean, you're long crude, thinking it's going to that. But we don't have, we don't have, we don't have, we're long out of the money calls, but we really have, and we, obviously we trade every day, but we don't really have a strong conviction right now in energy, in crude oil, just because of, you know, there's too many

That's not the best place to put your ways right now. Yeah, I hear you. One of the best places you do think is ags, grains, right? Yes. Which we hardly ever talk about. But why now?

well that's probably one of the reasons why it's going to go up right because no one talks about it right if you think about it right all the commodity indexes first of all increase the weighted allocation to grains the beginning of the year so now you've got all this passive money that no matter what happens to the price of grains can't get out secondly um after last year when you had oversupply of crops you had you know you had grain prices corn wheat soybean you know collapsed 20 25 30 percent

This year, it's a whole different dynamic in terms of the strength of the cash markets and fronts. And more importantly, think about the tariffs, the trade wars. If I'm going to go ahead and have to import from the United States, what's the easiest thing to import? Consumable food, right? Corn, wheat, soybeans, right? I don't need to go ahead and build all the infrastructure for that. I can import that stuff, hopefully use it against my commitment to the United States. And

everyone needs food and unlike OPEC where you know you can say drill baby drill there's no such thing in farming as you know you know grow baby grow grow baby grow that it doesn't work like that right so on top of that you add all the dynamics of you know you know what's going to happen this summer in terms of the crops I mean to me that's the most exciting and probably the best opportunities you know the risk reward is definitely you know three to one four to one can it work

I hope it does. But again, Scott, if someone gives you an investment where it's one down, four up with a probability ratio, you have to make that bet in the markets every day. Does it matter which wheat, corn? I mean, do you look at that granularly? You know, I talk to people, some people like soybeans, soybean meal oil. To me, it's just easy to trade, you know, soybeans.

corn because it's you know for me it's just the most liquid i know it the best but again corn's following the grains i think are gonna end up following the same dynamic of gold what's happened now is that in gold if the marketing goes down to gold a hundred dollars no one's getting out right all the central banks are not getting out no one no one cares and the fact that now you have this passive long money that's just you know buy and hold which is what the stock market used to be which now it's now because of all the anxiety two-way market i think there's buy and hold mentality if it takes place in the in in the grains

should really make these markets move pretty significantly. - Are you in part saying that you think

that it's a plausible scenario in the trade war with China, for example, that part of making incremental deals towards maybe a larger, more significant outcome is striking a deal where China, for example, would agree to buy more of our grain and more of our ag products. And then that would be certainly a stimulant for a trade to work like this, not to mention with inflation expectations moving where they are.

And with the dollar being, you know, with the dollar-based commodities, you know, just the dollar being there. But I don't know if it's China so much as other countries because we've had that deal with China in the past. And to some degree, they reneged on their commitment. But I look at the EU, if you look at, you know, Italy, if you look at other countries, Vietnam, it's an easy way for them to go ahead and,

match what they need to do in terms of the import-export formula without having to go even to China. I mean, obviously, China is the largest consumer, but that breadbasket mentality can be done by any foreign, you know, any of the foreign nations.

Let me just end since you mentioned gold. Obviously, people have been watching it run up. I think 3200 is where it is now. We can pull it up now. But it's obviously been at record highs. There were a couple of moments this week where it didn't work either, but certainly has. There's no question about that. Where where's that? I mean, are there shorts there? I mean, where is that going?

To me, think about what's happened. This is a marketplace that's now a buy-at-home mentality. Anyone who's invested in gold, if it goes down $100 a million, they're not getting out. So if you have these permanent longs in the market, like we used to have in the stock market, and people get short, if the market rallies, which I think it will,

and if you're short, who does the short get out to if the longs aren't going to ring the register? Right? Usually, typically, as the market goes up, shorts cover and longs will liquidate. If the longs aren't getting out and the shorts want to liquidate, the only person the short can get out to is a new short. And the only way you get a new short in the market is by

driving the price even higher so you know i'm probably saying the top right now in gold short term so as we're talking there's a sentiment i'm saying okay this will be the short-term top for the next week because that's just the way things happen but in the long run the anxiety barometer the vix of the world is gold right and so for that purpose alone and for the fact that the etfs are less committed to go than they were before right

you know, even with, we had a bigger open interest in the ETF in GLD three years ago than we have now. There's no reason why gold can't keep going up. You know, it's up 30% this year. Why can't it be up 50%? Who knows? How high is high? I have no idea. Like the panelists said, how low is low? They don't know. With gold, it's how high is high? No, but the mentality has changed where gold is now becoming an asset that if it's down $100, people aren't panicking. People are going to hold it. And because of that,

That philosophy changes the way people trade. I can't thank you enough. Really great insight for our viewers on a topic, frankly, that we just don't get to all that often on this program. Mark, thanks so much. Mark Fisher is the CEO of MBF. I should let you know, too, that I'm going to go to Eamon Javits here at the White House with a news alert. Mark, it is, I think, around the highs of the session here. Eamon, is something you have from the White House telling us maybe why?

Yes, Scott, I don't know if this is moving markets or not, but we just heard from the president of the United States on his social media platform saying that he has forced five of the nation's top law firms to offer up more than a half a billion dollars worth of law services to

to causes that he supports. Those firms, according to his social media post just now, are Kirkland and Ellis, Allen, Overy, Sherman, Sterling, Simpson, Thatcher and Bartlett, Latham and Watkins, and then also separately in a separate settlement announced in a different post, Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft.

All of those firms, the president says, have agreed to post at least $500 million in pro bono and other free legal services during the Trump administration and beyond to support causes that the Trump administration and the firms agree to both support, including things like veteran services and others.

And also these firms have agreed to abandon their DEI programs, which the Trump administration calls discrimination. Some of these firms have been sent letters from the EEOC, Scott, suggesting that they were discriminating in their hiring practices. And some firms have seen executive orders targeting them for those practices. This is an effort by those firms

to get ahead of it. And Scott, it amounts to sort of a semi-nationalization of big law here in terms of taking over enormous amounts of legal talent and deploying it in a way that the president wants for his political reasons.

And he's doing it because these are firms that have hired or worked with his political enemies. Yeah. Eamon, thanks for that update. Eamon Javers at the White House. I don't think that's why the market's moving, but nonetheless, it is moving. If he can take those services and expand his ability to negotiate tariffs with other countries, because these are great negotiators, then that could be one reason. It's...

It's shaky. You're really getting out there. It goes to what we said before. Any headline will get the market going. I know. Well, that's the risk in everything. That's why we're on headline alert. When we see the market moving and you're told Eamon Javers has news, you're like, oh, okay, what could this be? But we're grateful for that, obviously, from Eamon. Mike Santoli, he's next.

We are back on the Halftime Report. Our senior markets commentator, Mike Santoli, joins us now with his midday word. What are your thoughts as we wind down this week? I mean, this moment in the last 10 minutes was interesting, right? Now, I don't know. Now we have the TV light indicator.

It's like people see that the reporters are coming to the TV, like the briefcase indicator with Greenspan, the TV light goes on and people bid the market up thinking news is coming. Which tells you essentially how twisted up markets are in general. And all I would observe is that treasury yields have been bid since the European close.

The dollar bounced off of support. And it shows you that the equity market is already so agitated and kind of in this high twitch mode that yesterday's range was 6.5% on the S&P. The day before that was 10%. And so all we're doing is sloshing around inside the ranges of the day before. The market can do whatever it wants in that range. So it doesn't have to be a headline that moves it. I was saying this morning I would have been shocked if we didn't get at least a 2% to 3% range in the S&P today.

because we have a 45 VIX. You have, you know, kind of middlemen cleared out. Everybody's got a very low risk budget because volatility has been so high. So it's going to move. And I think we are still working off of the mega super oversold conditions that set up Friday into Monday.

All else being equal, if the bond market is not going to put a stop to it and if the dollar is not going to break down further, then maybe there's just some clearance to stabilize. And I would say that's all it is. You're just hoping that the market can get a little bit of a reprieve, some room to operate, maybe make some use of the oversold conditions, even if nobody can conceivably see an all clear. Yeah. I mean, guys, just throw up a 10 year yield intraday.

because that tells the story as much as anything else, to Mike's point. You put that next to the S&P 500 intraday, and you're going to see a correlation. Obviously, rates are moving off the boil, like by 10 basis points or so, and the S&P moves up in the magnitude, Mike, in which it does. We're fixated on the bond market and currencies. Yes. I mean, we're basically the new—

The new correlations have been established. Everybody's got this, again, high-torque positioning around this stuff. Look, who knows? Somebody might have gotten tipped of a headline that's coming. We know that can happen. But I'm not saying that is. I think the market is ready to see if there could be a de-escalation move from here on the trade war. But more to the point is trying to kind of figure out whether that recent floor that was reached on Friday can be trusted. That's 7% or 8% down from here. The Jabbers indicator, it's going to be a thing now.

We'll see. Mike, I'll see you on Closing Bell. That's Mike Zantoli. Setups next. All right. More earnings next week, which is why we have the setup. Brenda, we go to you first for J&J. Talk about some health care name.

Yeah, so I think so far this earnings season, we've only heard from financials. So we haven't heard about what the real impact from tariffs could be on businesses, just on the broader economy. But I do think with the J&J, that is going to be what everyone's going to be focusing on. And unfortunately, there's not a lot of clarity there. But I think if we take off the tariff uncertainty, the underlying trends for the company should still be fairly decent, looking for around 5% earnings or revenue growth.

But I think it's going to be very muddied up by tariff comments and uncertainty. Kev, UNH, next week, next Thursday morning. Who wants to wait that long? Wish we didn't have this weekend coming up. All right, game it out for people then.

UNH is going to have great numbers. It's going to be fantastic. It's the cornerstone of the healthcare space. We trimmed it a little bit with the DOJ news. Glad we didn't sell it out. It's been one of our best performers. The problem with all these earnings, though, next week, it's backward-looking and it doesn't affect anything having to do with tariffs. To Brenda's point, we'll listen for guidance. We won't get it. So this might be like the best earnings season we ever have that nobody cares about. The most interesting thing about UNH, of course, is that right now it appears they're targeting Medicaid.

cuts, which could impact their business. But with Medicare Advantage, I have a way to negotiate around it. It's funny. Netflix is trading like a staple, like a staple, like a real port. Like people are like, oh, I'm never getting rid of my Netflix. I don't care what happens with the tariffs and the economy. It reports next week real quick. Yeah, I think it's going to be a great quarter. I mean, you never know on the subscription, you know, but overall, this is when you hold. All right. We'll do finals next.

Hope you'll join me closing bell today for the final stretch of a crazy week. Tom Lee is going to be with us. So is the tech investor, Glenn Kacher. And I hope you'll join me then. Let's do some final trades. Kevin Simpson, you're first. TJ Maxx. It's a standout name in a tough retail environment. Solid earnings, free cash flow, great balance sheet. Bren, safe travels back west. Nice having you here. Thank you. Happy to be here. Meta, I think it's going to be a winner in the overall advertising space. All right. AbbVie.

Taiwan semi exempted from China chips. I think he'll do the same thing in the U.S. All right. Good stuff. I'll see you on the bell. 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.

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