Stocks and the Fed 6/18/25
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Carl, thanks very much. Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner. Front and center this hour, the outlook for stocks on this very important Fed day. We'll discuss what investors would most like to hear from Chair Powell this afternoon. Joining me for the hour today, Joe Terranova, Bill Baruch, Kevin Simpson, Steve Weiss, and also with us from Washington as he gets ready for the big Fed meeting today and the news conference is Steve Leisman. There he is. He's ready.

He's ready, trust me. Let's check the markets here. We're green across the board as we look here, Joe. BTIG's Jonathan Krinsky says the potential for a pullback is elevated. Tom Lee says stocks are going to rally post-FOMC. What do you think? So I think as we move towards the end of the second quarter and mid-year, you have this looming battle between resiliency and complacency. Do we have a resilient market or is there too much complacency in the market? It could be both. Wait.

We do have a resilient market. You could still have complacency. Well, but think about from the perspective of positioning. If you're in the resilient, I don't think you could be in both camps in terms of positioning. I'm in the resiliency camp. I think this is a resilient market and we continue to march higher towards the all-time highs. The problem and the challenge as I see it when I do the analysis for myself is now we're heading into a moment in the calendar where you lose the buybacks. You know that the 90-day extension

on the tariffs that's coming to ultimately an end and then you have this FOMC meeting this afternoon and I think that everyone is really treating this meeting with the degree of oh okay it's just going to be a boring meeting nothing's really going to happen if chairman Powell really has a hawkish position and I

And I can't see why he would move towards a dovish position. If he remains hawkish, I just don't see that being good for markets. I don't even know. I don't know why he would remain hawkish, Bill. You know, you get jobless claims are elevated. You've had some data points that are weak. Retail sales biggest drop since March 23. Now you could say, well, that's all pull forward. And maybe it is. We get it. Home builder sentiment is bad. It remains such, even as rates have...

started to come down a little bit. What do you want to hear today? I think he has a reason to go dovish. I think the city surprise index has continued to come down low since 2023. But more importantly for me is the Michigan consumer one-year inflation expectations. Now, it is a politically divided survey, and it was leading with the Democrats. It was very high, elevated to 7.3%.

And I called that a cycle high. I've been calling that a cycle high for a bit. That May number was revised down to 6.6. The June number just came in at 5.3. And this is important because the Fed believes inflation, consumer inflation expectations are a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I think they do believe that amidst tariffs, that inflation could become unhinged because of those expectations. And it's coming down now. Yeah, I don't see how he... Now, maybe he does. I don't know. But...

The economic surprise index, the most negative so far this year. I mentioned the data points. Inflation readings of late have been pretty good. So why do you think he would be hawkish in the face of all of that? Because we still have looming tariffs and now we have a conflict in the Middle East in which we don't know the result.

We don't know where oil price is ultimately going to go. So he has that uncertainty in front of him. I'm not sure his disposition can move towards being dovish. I think that the eco data is suggesting that he should make that pivot.

towards being dovish. I see that we have an economy that is beginning to slow from a higher level. But I think there is too much uncertainty in terms of the policy in front of him for him to move in that direction. I don't even know if uncertainty equates to being hawkish. It just is what it is. What do you think?

I mean, I can make a case that we're already too restrictive and that we should be cutting this week. Now, that's not going to happen. And I in no way, shape or form am expecting that because of the tariffs, because of the bump in oil. But if not for that, you look at this market and you can make a great case that we should at least be having the conversation about rate cuts. We also get a dot plot this week, which will be super exciting for those of you who are

at home that pay attention. And if that's only one cut in the dot plot, I think the market's going to be very, very negative. If it's two, I doubt it would be a positive catalyst. I think that's already priced in. Yeah, well, we are going to get the outlook. So that's going to be key. Steve Weiss joining us today from the hole in Alcatraz, obviously. Nice backdrop. What did you do to get put in there, Weiss?

You know, I'm actually sitting in the office of one of our portfolio companies, Nibble Robotics. That's fully automated warehouse. Do they make bricks? They don't make bricks, but they have very austere, which we like to see from companies, not building monuments, but working out of austere surroundings. So what you don't see is 100 engineers working here. All right, we'll take your word for it.

Yeah, here's a data point that hasn't come through. Nimble's cost for aluminum, which they used to source from China, went up 50%. So they now source completely from the U.S.,

what they're able to do is save a little bit. So their costs are still up on aluminum, forgetting about all the other ones, which are 35% year over year. Now this is just one company. So I would go back to what Joe said, and there's another category, and the other categories which I'm in is resilient but very nervous.

because of where we are, we're elevated valuations on the market. I don't think that inflation, I think the market's been very sanguine about inflation based on the last two reports, but I think that's coming to an end and quickly because inventories that were not tariffed

are petering out and now you have to pay the higher prices going forward. And you're right, Scott, there's no basis for Powell to be hawkish in this report. And they do have a very, very tough situation. Not going to predict war. So I don't think they're going to talk about war in terms of what it would do to oil prices.

would just spike them up. Nor will oil prices rising be a demand factor, so it won't be indicative of a stronger economy. So I think basically it's status quo. I think the dot plots don't really change. And I think if the market sells off because of

of one dot instead of two instead of two cuts that you'll see is snapback rally this is a market that just has pure momentum it's got momentum in basically every sector we're seeing the appetite for ipos and i think remains strong until we get to second quarter earnings report and i think that's going to be the tell on the market we'll continue to be resilient

or is going to give back some of the gains. I'm sort of in the latter camp, but then again, with the companies I own, I'm not really positioning differently because they're permanent compounders for the most part. On the edges, I may make some changes, but otherwise I'm staying where I am. The status quo comment implies that we could hear uncertainty and patience a lot today, as Steve Leisman sitting in the room later listening to Chair Powell.

Powell. So what is the over under you think on the number of times we're going to hear uncertainty or patient today Steve. I think it was nine in the last one but I just love this conversation you just got just engineered a perfect stagflationary conversation which is almost precisely what's probably going on around the table at the Fed right now. You guys like you Wapner who said hey

Look at the claims number. Look at the housing number. How can we not be cutting? And then other people come back and say, yeah, but you have the inflation problem, the tariff issue coming potentially down the road. Which should we address? Interesting to go back and look at both the number and the change in the March forecast, Scott. And that was that initial stab or step towards inflation.

STAGFLATION. LOOK AT THAT. THE CORE PCE WENT UP BY 0.3. REAL GDP WENT DOWN BY 0.4. AND WHAT DID THEY DO WITH THE FUNDS RATE? WELL, THEY KEPT IT UNCHANGED, 3.9%. ONE OTHER THING THAT I'M GOING TO BE LOOKING AT TODAY, SCOTT, WE DON'T TALK A LOT ABOUT THIS. WE TALKED ABOUT THIS A LITTLE BIT YESTERDAY.

How certain or confident is the Fed? If you look at their own measure of what they say they don't know or their own measure of confidence in their, for example, their core PCE number, take a look here. The number is 0.89. That's their uncertainty, where one is maximum uncertainty. One means that every official is more uncertain than usual. Where are they? They're just a tick below they were with the pandemic.

They're a tick above where they were during the great financial crisis. When do you think the Fed's going to cut? Well, watch when that number comes down, when the Fed gets more clear about the outlook. So I would say if the president wants the Fed chair to cut,

maybe call him stupid less and create more clarity in the tariff outlook and the regime more. Well, just that what you showed, that chart just underscores why some think that the dot plot in and of itself or even right now is comical because it virtually means nothing.

like what difference does it make that you have the median fed person saying well we have two cuts coming this year well at the same time you've got pal saying four thousand times uncertainty uncertainty patience patience patience how can you have how can both coexist well i think you what you want to know scott and that's why we are able to do interviews with fed officials why they talk publicly is what underlies that outlook when they say two rate cuts is it

Is it expecting that the tariff inflation will pass through the economy, be a one-time event? Is it an expectation that the job market will weaken? Is it an expectation that they need to get back to neutral? Or will there be something more that they need to do here? And that's why I think what's been interesting is to watch the job market, which did have a decent number the last time around. But you had those big downward revisions. You've had claims tick up.

240 250 that's a higher number but it's not an especially worrisome number when i look back at the history scott 300 000 seems to be a number that is more concerning and indicative of the employment market about to roll over yeah all right steve we'll see in a bit in the room where it all happens and we'll talk afterwards of course as we always do is gunlock's going to join us on fed day as usual now um the economy yes concerns sure

But it has been resilient. The market's been resilient. The economy's been resilient. Consumers have been resilient. One of the reasons why industrials, by the way, are the best sector year to date. We talk about the tech resurgence and how it's carried the market within 2% of a new all-time high. Look no further than industrials, though. I do that because Kevin bought more Caterpillar, which I want to hear about why now for an industrial name like this.

It's surprising that you see industrials perform as well as they have this year, surpassing my expectations, certainly. But I look at Caterpillar as almost like a stealthy play within the data center space because you need the industrials, Caterpillar specifically, to do this type of heavy construction. It's trading at only a 17 PE, 25% discount to John Deere, which is pretty historically reputable.

wide for those two names, 2% dividend and lots and lots of free cash flow. I think this is a name that's going to perform really well for the next few years. You own it too. Yeah, we like it. I think industrials broadly, you know, if you look at Caterpillar itself, that's right in the mix of when the largest names in space, but it's been very secular across the space to

Defense, energy production, energy grid storage, data center build-outs, potential reshoring. There's a lot of tailwinds within here. And not only that, it's all happening in industrials with manufacturing PMIs in contraction territory. So this is maybe a bigger, longer-term bottom here in industrials that could see larger tailwinds as things build. Kev, Honeywell today, price target, speaking of industrials, $258,000.

From 243, overweight at Barclays. Do you own that stock too? Yeah, I like the price hike. I think the sum of the parts is going to be far greater when they break this company up. Now, you have some time to get into it. This isn't imminent. It's not going to happen tomorrow. I think this is like one of Steve Weiss's perpetual compounders, and I think it's a name you can own long term. Yeah, Rollins by at Argus, 68 bucks, Joe, is the price target, which you own that name too. Pest Control, great example of a mid-cap company that right now is in the sweet spot with

as are some of these other industrial names. The industrial sector itself, look, you've got Uber in there, we always talk about that. You have Axon, those are to Steve's point, clear momentum winners, and there's also earning strength visible as it relates to Uber. But there's names we don't talk about a lot

that are performing remarkably well we talk about how the ita the aerospace and defense etf is doing well well it's not so much the defense names that are doing well it's the aerospace names it is halmet which is doing well it's heiko it's republic services it's rollins it's cintas so i think the industrial sector so far is capturing a lot of capital that

over the last several years has found this sector unappealing. Now that you have the earnings growth visibility, there's a lot of room to rebuild positioning in a multitude of these names, and it's represented in the performance. - What do you do, Weiss, if you think like you do that maybe we're gonna still have that slowdown in the economy as a result of the tariffs and some other issues with, I mean, you own Caterpillar as well, with the industrial space.

Yeah, so I own Caterpillar. I also own the XLI, which gives me the exposure, as Joe mentioned, to aerospace and to defense. So to me, that's a great holding. Now, I did it in case I'm wrong, frankly. If I'm right on the economy, and I agree with Steve, even though he didn't make the prediction, he pointed out that stagflation is the conversation. I've been saying that for a couple of months now.

Then I'll be wrong, Caterpillar, and I'll be wrong in the XLI, candidly. But if I'm wrong on what the economy is doing and I'm wrong on how investors regard the economy and this resilience has no end to it, then I want to participate through Caterpillar. And my preference was Deere. But to Kevin's point, Deere was trading at too high a level and disparity and the width

of the discount from catapult to deer, drone meets caterpillar. I also believe that you buy the tool belt, which is another reason, so I agree with Kevin on that, in terms of data centers. Data centers themselves, the cap rates are too low, and I think there's gonna be some overcrowding in the data center bill, but that'll be good for cat. So that's why I own it. Fundamentally, I think it's working well.

We pay attention to today to what interest rates are going to do and then see what growth stocks do. NASDAQ's been great, as you know. It's green today.

It's up 10% over the last 12 months. Year to date, one and two thirds percent, but it's really carried stocks back. I bring it up because we have moves. Jabil, Kevin Simpson, your newest move. That's a fresh buy. It is, Scott. We made this our final trade on Thursday, bought it on Friday. It's up $20 since then. If you complete that, and this is in our growth portfolio, we bought in four earnings.

Earnings were great. They beat on the top line, they beat on the bottom line, 16% year-over-year revenue jump. But what I liked most about the earnings report was that management increased the year-over-year

top line, bottom line. They're not taking away earnings. They're not downplaying them. They're increasing them. That's a stock you probably want to own. It's up a lot, so be careful. Yeah, but a lot of people on the street like it. So price target raises, four of them in front of me. Ray J to 230, Barclays to 223, Goldman to 215, and JP Morgan at 214. So what looks like a pretty good chart, they think is going to look even better. You sold a covered call on Apple.

the worst performing Mag7 stock year to date.

Yeah, Steve, what you do if you go into a range-bound market, and we believe fervently in hedging positions that aren't doing a whole heck of a lot, Apple being a great example. About 11 days ago, we sold a covered call, brought a few dollars in, bought that back yesterday basically for nothing, wrote another call expiring out another week and a half. When you total it all up, if we collect all the premium, which I think we will, we'd effectively be out at $206.10 if we get called away. And if not, we brought in $5 of premium literally in three weeks.

Let's check out shares of Meta today as well. That's an interesting story. I'm sure most of you have seen these headlines already. The stock's up a third of a percent. It's not a huge mover. It's having a decent week, though. Sam Altman says Meta offered OpenAI staff $100 million bonuses to move. Our Steve Kovach joins us now with an extraordinary attempt at poaching.

Yeah, if you believe these numbers, Scott. So Altman went on his brother's podcast this week and he was claiming Meta is trying to poach his top talent at OpenAI with bonuses worth up to $100 million. Now, this comes after Meta invested last week $14 billion in that startup Scale AI and poached away its CEO. On top of that,

OpenAI, Google, and likely others are now canceling their business with Scale AI. And our Deirdre Bosa has been reporting today some skepticism. Altman is telling the full story here about this poaching effort from Meta. He said this on his brother's podcast, after all. Meta, for its part, they're not commenting on Altman's claims. Here's what we do know, though, Scott. All of these companies continue to spend like crazy to achieve artificial general intelligence. That's, of course, the AI that can match humans. Bloomberg this week

For example, Elon Musk's XAI is trying to raise more money as it burns through a billion dollars per month. Plus all the CapEx spending on data centers from the hyperscalers that we talk about all the time. Apple though, the only one in the big tech space not spending those enormous amounts of cash on AI or those splashy hires. Still no clue when any of this is gonna pay off though, Scott. Just spend, spend, spend and see what happens. - The poaching headline was interesting enough

This next item is arguably much more important than any of that. And that is, according to the information, that OpenAI has started selling ChatGPT at a discount, which is hurting Microsoft because of the relationship that they have.

Yeah, there are two ways to look at this, Scott. So on the one hand, yes, OpenAI is getting more competitive on pricing. We talked to OpenAI about this this morning. Some of that is credits to use towards their APIs, not necessarily a full discount. And then on the Microsoft side, I spoke to them today, and they're telling me they are competitive on pricing, and where appropriate, they might actually match OpenAI or other competitors. At the same time, the second thing to consider, though, Scott, is

any benefit to open AI is still a benefit to Microsoft. Microsoft provides the Azure cloud service for open AI. Yes, they're no longer the exclusive provider. We got that Google cloud deal last week, for example, so that could chip away. But most of Microsoft's AI revenue is coming from open AI. And don't forget, Scott,

Microsoft owns 49% of that company. So any benefit there is still going to benefit Microsoft. At the same time, we're still expecting these companies, the relationship to get further and further apart as they start competing more and more, Scott. Yeah, no doubt. Steve, thanks for that reporting for us. Everybody owns Microsoft. Weiss, you have a thought here on what you think this means in the big picture?

Yeah, so I am in San Francisco right now, and the talk at dinner last night was how expensive AI engineers are. Everybody knows where Alcatraz is. You don't need to tell them again. I didn't even know you were out there, but now it's even more obvious. So just continue. You don't need to tell everybody the location. You don't see the bars around the room. They don't have bars in the hall. It's the hospital.

It costs a fortune to get engineers. You can't bring them on for less than a million bucks, which is about four times what it was just a couple of years ago. The environment of AI products is ballooning.

I was with one large VC fund yesterday, and they're just investing. All they're investing is in AI. And companies are getting valuations without even having more than an idea that are ridiculous. So at some point, it all comes home to roost. Microsoft, yes, you do have to see where they're going to make money on it. But they already are. And they're still, in my view, the best position to capitalize on the AI trends.

and the last thing is i sincerely doubt that there are a lot of there's a lot of talent that meta is paying 100 million dollars for maybe want to come and run a business but otherwise it makes no economic sense whatsoever i don't know i mean these companies have never been shy about paying massive amounts of money for the best engineers that they could find the engineers the

I mean, they're the lifeblood of any one of these organizations in many respects. So they're writing the software. Meta, target to 807 from Cantor. And I did send my resume over to Meta, and they sent it back and said $50,000 over a 10-year period. Yeah. They said, who are you? Price target to $790 at Argus. Everybody owns this. What do you think about that? Meta.

Nvidia, Microsoft, and coming up behind them is Amazon. That's where the clear momentum is right now. What's interesting is I think there's a message in what is going on with these companies, and it plays into the resiliency camp for the market. These companies don't care this afternoon whether the dot plot show one cut or two cuts. These companies are going to do what they're going to do, which is continue to spend on the innovation. And I think the other side of the conversation about...

potentially poaching $100 million talent is I think you're going to see significant headcount reduction at these companies over the coming years because I think this innovation is a massive deflationary force that is going to be emanating for years to come. We do have a news alert out in San Francisco. Our dear Jabosa has it. It's pretty interesting stuff too, D.

Well, Scott Waymo is coming for New York City next month at first with a manual driver to collect data and test. But they have applied for a permit to operate autonomously. And if granted, that could get them closer to operating in one of America's largest and most complex cities. Now, they tested in New York back in 2021. But what is different now is that Waymo is operating in four

major cities, including here in San Francisco, with a fifth to come this summer. Now, advances in technology and vehicles, 71 million miles of safety drivers, safety data, excuse me, and more than 10 million paid robo-taxi rides. Now, the expansion, of course, has been aggressive. It's only going to get more aggressive. And New York testing comes just days before Tesla's robo-taxi launch next week in Austin at a much smaller scale. Last thing I want to leave you with, Scott, is this Wells Fargo note this morning that says that the

by 2030, Waymo will have expanded its addressable U.S. footprint to 57 percent from less than 10 percent and taken 10 percent of the rideshare market. And so that certainly helps explain why Uber and Lyft took a leg lower on the news. Yeah, no doubt. I'm glad you mentioned that. I was just looking at Uber and it's let's look at the intraday because Uber is at the lows of the session. It's not a huge decline. But if you think of the major players, Dee, as I know you do,

Tesla, Uber, Waymo. I mean, we're talking about the players who have the biggest aspirations in all of this. And it's not just them. Zoox from Amazon is coming online. I mean, Tesla has been seen as sort of the bigger threat, providing this existential question for Uber and Lyft. But Waymo has just been quietly expanding and expanding. And to think that they could take up

60% of the total addressable market by 2030. That really puts it in perspective. And just speaking from experience here in San Francisco, I no longer take Ubers. I take Waymos. People are willing to spend more for them also because the experience is better. So if you see that in a place like New York City and even internationally where they're going, that could be a very big deal.

Yeah. And as they do this mapping and data collect, it's certainly worth noting that human drivers are going to be operating the cars here in New York City. Just a first step. Which I imagine would be critical in a city like this with the traffic that it has. Dee, thanks. That's George Bosa. You want to comment on Uber here?

Well, look, the competition is coming. It's clear Waymo already has a presence in Austin and Phoenix, and they will be moving into areas like Miami and into Washington. I do think the regulatory climate in New York is somewhat challenging. This is a unique environment to navigate through. So I wonder exactly the commercial aspect of it, how viable and how quickly they will be able to bring that to market. All right. Up next, we have more committee moves to get to. We have our top calls of the day as well. We're back in just two minutes with all of that.

I served in the Army for 17 years and fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, we face new threats from China, Russia, and Iran, working together against our way of life. U.S. international assistance helps avoid costly wars, prevents terrorism, and keeps our troops out of harm's way. We must strengthen international assistance to stop threats before they reach our shores. But cutting international assistance puts our national security at risk.

Let's keep America safe.

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For your small business insurance needs, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Let's get some moves in here. Bill, you bought T-Mobile, T-M-U-S-Y. It's falling out now. So earlier this year, we sold it. And I look back after the kind of run it took place throughout the year, I was regretting it. Now, I think this is an opportunity back to nearly unchanged on the year before.

They have a lot, you know, the high-speed internet business is accelerating. The telecom space has done really well this year. I think it bounces back from here. But really the customer growth, they're leading in that space with the customer growth, the T satellite. I think their niche business within telecom is going to continue to accelerate. And we really like, you know, the free cash flow growth, 167%. Six days down out of seven, we've got, we're on pace for four negative months in a row. That sounds different from the story you're painting for me.

I mean, it took off to start the year. So it's unchanged on the year at this level. I see a lot of support in where we're buying it. We're starting with it, about a 1.5% position. We have some cash to get to work. We own AT&T in the space as well. And that's been underperforming recently. We haven't touched that in a long time. It's number 10 holding of ours. That's coming off five down days in a row, by the way. That's the worst streak since mid-January. And what I would tie some of this to here is we're leaning heavily into communications, owning Microsoft, Alphabet.

Alphabet, Netflix, as well as these telecoms. And we think the space continues to outperform. We look at the flows that are going to come into this space, I think, as the year develops. But with you seeing the telecoms underperforming relative to some of the others, the larger names, those tech-driven names,

I think that's telling you the risk appetite that's taking place in the market right now too. And so we want to hold these names, the T-Mobile and the AT&T, if that risk appetite sort of curls up a bit at some point over the summer. Okay. Kevin, you sold a covered call on T-Mobile.

Yeah, I believe in Bill's thesis. We own the stock in our growth portfolio. We sold a call literally like a week ago and brought in $3, $4 a share. We saw what happened with SoftBank's sale, drove the stock down. I think you're entering it at a good play. We bought that back for basically zero, run another covered call for about a week and a half. If it does get called away from us, we're essentially $11 above this price point. Exact same trade that we did with Apple. Can do this all summer long in range-bound positions. Joe T. Zoetis today downgraded a hold.

at stifle 160 is the price target not a massive decline obviously a pullback but they feel like it's almost out of gas here 157. well look we added this at the end of april we saw something in the revenue growth that we thought looked good i'll tell you looking at it today it doesn't look like that's going to be anything more than a swing and a miss we will find out obviously at the end of july

I like capital rather moving towards McKesson instead of Zoetis. Zoetis right now has been unable to reverse what's been a very punishing downtrend since September. OK, Roblox target to 125 from 80. That's a nice bump. Let's take a look at the chart, see where it is today. There it is. Well, it's at 102. So there you go, 125.

They reiterate outperform at Oppie. 52-week high today, up 77%. Kevin Simpson in just three months. Yeah, a little late on the upgrade, but I agree with the price target. This isn't just a gaming stock. It's an infrastructure play to own eyeballs. The advertising that they can do with the young people down the road, the way they can control that infrastructure. We love this stock similarly to the same way that we do with Robinhood. Vistra, Joe, we could have had this around data center. We do it here. Either way, the...

Target goes to 186 from 178. Reiterated overweight at Morgan Stanley. I mean, a lot of these firms, and not singling out this one by any stretch, but a lot of these stocks have gone up. You've been forced, if nothing else, to chase everything. But again, the price targets that are going up on many of these names, as you've noticed, aren't that much higher than where the stock is currently trading.

No, because I think everyone's skeptical when you're looking at whether it's Vistra or Constellation Energy or all of these utility names that really are rising on strong momentum. Who doesn't know that already? Right. And also the fact of this fundamental tailwind from artificial intelligence.

I think the skepticism comes from just the bias of where utilities have been in portfolios for several years now. And people look at it and say, OK, you've got this cyclical tailwind. It's nothing more than that. I'm going to push against that. I think this is a secular tailwind. I think this is a moment where if you are an investor, you have to think about capturing more exposure to the utility sector than you have in prior years. I think utilities today are

are important to portfolios like energy was important to portfolios 15, 20 years ago. You got a comment on Norwegian Cruise Line downgraded today at Argus as well? You got that in the tea. Royal Caribbean is the one that you want to own. Royal Caribbean has had... That's what you own. Yeah. Royal Caribbean has had a remarkable turnaround in reducing their debt obligations.

All right, the headlines with Silvana Hanel. Hi, Silvana. Hey, Scott. Good afternoon. Israel has moved some troops from the Gaza Strip to the country's borders with Lebanon and Jordan as the country increasingly focuses on its conflict with Iran. The Israeli military said troops from

One of the main divisions operating in Gaza were pulled out after Israel started a series of strikes against Iran on Friday. Though troops from four other divisions will remain in the Palestinian territory.

A federal judge has upheld the FDA's decision to remove Novo Nordisk's blockbuster weight loss and diabetes drugs Ozempic and Wegovy from the shortage list. The judge's ruling today rejected a challenge from compounding pharmacies that were looking to continue making cheaper copies of the drugs.

And a National Academy of Sciences report found the FAA hired just two thirds of the air traffic controllers. Its staffing models recommended from 2013 to 2023. The report added controllers logged two point two million hours of overtime last year, which cost the FAA two hundred million dollars because of, quote, inefficient scheduling. Scott, I'll send it back to you. Right. So, Ivana, thank you very much for that. So, Ivana, and now coming up next.

Committee stocks on a hot streak. There are many. We'll debate our big list when we come back. You probably own some of these, so you don't want to miss that.

I served in the army for 17 years and fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, we face new threats from China, Russia, and Iran working together against our way of life. U.S. international assistance helps avoid costly wars, prevents terrorism, and keeps our troops out of harm's way. We must strengthen international assistance to stop threats before they reach our shores. But cutting international assistance puts our national security at risk.

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so your little double can keep moving like you. Huggies, we got you, baby. We got some hot streaks to talk about. Cameco, 60% gain in three months, 35% year-to-date. Why is the stock up so much in the last three months? It's a new clear renaissance. I mean...

President Trump did sign some executive orders about a month, two months ago, encouraging a new clear. They've been well positioned. And this isn't a new trend. The stock has done well. If you look back out three years, it's been a trend. I think this can continue. I think we'll see new highs this year. I'm not going to go through every name because some of them are obvious and we talk about them a lot. But Amphenol.

45% in three months. Remarkable name. We've owned this name now for the better part of five years. Since inception, benefiting from the tailwind of AI, 20 plus percent revenue growth. Quanta Services, 34%. I think we know the story there, but is there something else beyond the power?

Powering of data center and everything else? Again, when you have the ability to grow your revenue at rates that are exceeding what your average is over the last five to 10 years and positioning in that sector is underserved, you're going to see a lot of capital flow into that. And that's exactly what we're seeing here. The momentum remains remarkably strong. Amersports, 27% bill in three months. Why?

A couple tailwinds, China in September, really, you're starting to see that movement of consumption. Retail sales in China this week just was a blowout number, but their diversification of revenue streams, everything from Louisville Slugger to Arc'teryx to Salomon to Paddle Sports, I mean, they got it going on. DoorDash up 15%. Kevin? First quarter revenue jumped 21% to a record $3 billion, with total orders up 18%. How about IBM?

Old, so-called old tech. Well, all that's old is new again with this one. I mean, how many years did we sit there and watch it languish and do nothing? I think there's a quantum play here where the young generation is getting involved with it. We've got the Watson AI, which is legitimate. And finally, Red Hat is something that is not only monetizing, but making them a leader in AI. Joe, EQT, 14% over the past three months. So there's two names that we've read off so far that score remarkably high. And it was surprising to me.

One of the names actually is IBM to see such strength, exceeding Palantir, exceeding Afenol and CrowdStrike. But the other name is EQT. EQT has remarkable strength right now. And a lot of it is because there appears to be this awakening in natural gas. Now, remember, you had relative outperformance in EQT versus the spot price of natural gas. Natural gas was sliding towards $3, and EQT was moving from the upper 40s into the low 50s.

Now it's approaching $60, and it's benefiting from this additional tail when natural gas prices are going to $4. I would say stay with the position because the momentum here looks really strong. So what about natural gas? I'm buying natural gas. I bought some call spreads out to October today. I've also bought some August call spreads in natural gas. It's back above the 54-day moving average on a daily chart. It's breaking out. I think there's some tailwinds here. All right. Good stuff. Thanks for that. We'll take a break. We come back to Santoli. He's waiting. His midday word is next, just ahead of the Fed decision.

One hour, 19 minutes, and just shy of 30 seconds. All right, we're back, our friends at Golf Channel. Following the PGA Tours next stop this week, it's at the Travelers Championship. Golf Channel reporter George Savarikis joins us live from Cromwell, Connecticut, with what to expect. You have some big news on the corporate side of all this and some big names on the golf course this week.

Yeah, very much so, Scott. The big announcement, the PGA Tour naming new CEO Brian Rolop. Rolop was just introduced earlier this week at the Travelers Championship. The PGA Tour search committee started with 50 names before really honing in their focus on Rolop, who most recently served as the NFL Chief Athletic

media and business officer for the past couple decades. He was the de facto number two to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. He'll begin later this summer in talking with an NFL team executive. They told me Roloff is a dynamic thinker who's very well respected. This is a quote, great hire for the PGA Tour. He was on hand at TPC River Highlands meeting some of the players in the field.

This is the final PGA Tour signature event, headlined of course by world number one, Scottie Scheffler, defending champion. Already has three wins this season. He's tied for the most wins on the year with world number two, Rory McIlroy. McIlroy's fallen a bit flat since winning the Masters. His victory lap has seemed exhausting at times. McIlroy told me earlier today that he's finally feeling excited

to return to the golf course. So we'll see if that's the case this week, Scott. Yeah, George, we'll be looking forward to the coverage. Watching, of course, we will. It's George Savarikas at the Travelers. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you. By the way, be sure to follow Golf Channel's coverage of the Travelers Championship. It begins tomorrow, round one, three o'clock Eastern time. And looking forward to that great event. Plus, check out the new CNBC Sport videocast. It also has a golf angle to it. Alex Sherman speaking with UCF.

US Open champion JJ Spahn. What a thrilling win that was. I hope everybody saw that because that was an incredible ending. Now you can hear from JJ. I think he's in the field at the Travelers as well. Click on the QR code or go to cnbc.com slash sport for more there. Up next, Santoli with his midday word. Our senior markets commentator, Mike Santoli, here at the desk. So how are you thinking about

this afternoon's event? What do you think investors, what do you think would make them just feel just fine where we are? Yeah, I was trying to think just how high the stakes are for how it breaks down in terms of the outlook, what the dots look like. I think if it's purely exactly the same as what we got last meeting, it's going to read to investors as net hawkish because I think people are more sensitized to a little bit of the softness in the inflation and growth picture since then.

So I think Powell is going to have to acknowledge the downside risk to the economy. I don't know if that means an outright change in their bias or anything like that. Look, we're talking about, you know, kind of nuances in

in a wait and see Fed. Well, you know how the market, I mean, that's exactly why the initial move is not necessarily the right one because it's all nuanced. And you know what I was saying a couple of days ago, the market always wants to get into a neutral spot, which is 6,000, give or take. It's 6,001 right now. 6,005 is the 10-day average of the S&P 500. I mean, we're just sitting right there ready to pivot either direction. So yeah, I do think you might have the first move, false move thing. But also, yeah,

You know, the bond market has started to get a little bit of a bit into it. And the 10-year is right at that threshold level of maybe it's going to be a breakdown, maybe it's going to stay within the range, 435. So I guess it could be consequential based on how the market decides to read it. I just don't know if it's going to really give us a roadmap to say, you know, the late July meeting is live for a move or not.

Yeah, I mean, it's too much uncertainty to get a full roadmap. Obviously, you may get one from one exit or two exits forward. It really is an eye of the beholder economy, right? Because you could say it's been very resilient. We haven't had much of a change. Or you could say, you know, you're seeing obvious signs of deceleration. Yeah, all right. Good stuff. I'll see you in a bit. That's Mike Santoli. Up next, a big win for the crypto industry. We'll get the committee's take coming up.

Stablecoin issuer Circle surging again today as the Senate passes its stablecoin bill. The stock up more than 400% from its IPO just two weeks ago. Bitcoin itself not seeing much of a lift. It's basically flat month to date, but we're keeping an eye on everything as is Bill Baruch, correct? Absolutely. It's sideways. I mean, consolidating as the stock market's consolidated. I do expect it to get out above 110%.

I do have it in portfolios about three quarters of a percent exposure there, some diversification. I do have some calls on in the commodity fund, but it hasn't done anything for us. You know, one thing to keep in mind is we've been talking about this in the office is Bitcoin's use case really as fungibility. And I mean, the reality is,

It has underperformed if bombs are being dropped or invasions are taking place going back to Ukraine. So if this war heats up, I don't necessarily expect Bitcoin to perform well. And that's coming down to power usage and the fungibility of being able to access it. Weiss, what about you? You own the ETF as well, the iBit.

I do. And there are a few factors. First of all, corporations are going to more and more are raising money to buy Bitcoin. I think just past week, $800 million was raised by a few public corporations to buy it. But with the Genius Bill, which is may pass the House, may not,

Some are taking the view that stable coins, which don't have the volatility of Bitcoin because they're tethered to the dollar or other currency, will hurt Bitcoin for its use case. Others are saying this provides a

a pathway to using bitcoin for the same purposes such as buying of things etc you know i i'm i'm in it for the momentum i think the momentum re-accelerates as we get to specific legislation based on bitcoin and we show an appetite for that so i'm staying there for now but it's clearly a risk asset all right 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. All right, well, you know what's on tap today. Fed decision, Powell News Conference, gun lock, exclusive, 3 o'clock, right after that. Great time to catch up with him once again. I hope to join us for that during closing bell. Weiss, what do you got?

I got Goldman Sachs as my final trade. Look, if the Fed is status quo, I believe the stocks can do well. But with the IPO window open at this point, they benefit from a major standpoint. All right. Safe travels back east.

Kevin Simpson. I feel like we've forgotten about NVIDIA lately. They're not just chips anymore. They're CUDA, they're software, they're networking. They think it's time for the AIOG to make a new high. All right. Bill Baruch. Mazda industrial name, their power delivery up 58% year over year. Joe T. J.P. Morgan up 35% from its April low. It's going to make a run at the February all-time high and a trillion dollars in the coming year. All righty. We'll see you on Closing Bell.

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I served in the army for 17 years and fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, we face new threats from China, Russia, and Iran working together against our way of life. U.S. international assistance helps avoid costly wars, prevents terrorism, and keeps our troops out of harm's way. We must strengthen international assistance to stop threats before they reach our shores. But cutting international assistance puts our national security at risk.

Let's keep America safe.