The Committee Debates the State of Stocks 4/21/25
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Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner, front and center. This hour, the shaky markets with rates, the dollar earnings, all closely watched by investors yet again today. We will debate the current state of stocks with the investment committee. Joining me for the hour, Joe Terranova, Stephen Weiss, Amy Raskin, and Brian Belsky. We'll go to the markets. I mean, Dow's down 1,100 points at this moment in what is shaping up to be a pretty rocky day. Joe, rates are up

The dollar's down. What some have called the sell America trade is back in full effect. You have the president blasting the Fed chair yet again. Refer to him as a loser today. You mix it all up. It's just making the markets uneasy. I was reading this Wall Street Journal piece where they quoted Stephen Blitz, who's the chief economist at Global Data, T.S. Lombard, who says, quote, the idea that you can break trade and not break the capital flow side is a fantasy and

And maybe we're witnessing the reality to some degree of all that. Scott, we do our best, all of us collectively, to try and guide the viewers in the direction of where we could protect their money and ultimately grow their money. And it's very difficult. I've used two words in the last 10 days to describe the environment. First is treacherous. Treacherous remains today. And then mercurial. And certainly the policy is so mercurial and it's impacting markets.

reintroducing the concept that based on cause or whatever the reasoning behind it might be. I know in the Federal Reserve Act in Section 10, you've got that line that says you could remove the Fed chairman based on cause. I don't even know what cause means. But even reintroducing that as we did on Friday is very discouraging. I think it's very discouraging to all

to all investors because I thought we had moved past the potential of that happening. So you go back, you look inside the market, you try and identify, is there an opportunity? And I'm sorry, sometimes the best trade is no trade in terms of long-term investing. Yes, we'll be fine in the long run. I understand that. But if you're looking for something in the moment based on a trade, you're hoping you get a tweet.

I mean, Goldman's Tony Pasquarello, Amy, welcome back. It's good to see you, is still on the capital preservation being the primary objective. To Joe's point, preserve your capital here because the environment is so uncertain. And even though he suggests we may have peaked in terms of volatility, we haven't peaked in terms of uncertainty.

I think that's right. The environment's very uncertain. Look, I think we came into the year with the setup that we needed a perfect environment to justify valuations. And so far, it's anything but perfect, obviously, but we're only down like 10 percent from

the start of the year. So I still think at this point it's been an underreaction to the news, which has been so jarring. And investors have been anchored with their forecasts and they're begrudgingly moving them sort of slowly, even though it feels like we've had a lot

to take in already we probably still have more to come so i agree with that i think um i think we're still anchored into the six thousands of where we are the number of people who have come on this network saying you know buy it now you're getting you're getting a steal like it's you know and i understand looking at technicals we're oversold in a lot of things and we could get a snapback

But fundamentals have changed dramatically, and I think that has not been factored into earnings yet. Part of the fundamentals, Weiss, is this idea that the economist Blitz puts forward of the capital flight out of the U.S. from the places you would normally have money flowing to. Like the dollar would be a place to come. You know, bonds wouldn't be reacting the way they are. And yet we've had a complete change in the dynamic of that.

And no real idea, I think, from anybody

of when it's going to cease. That's part of the uncertainty too. Yes, I agree. So here's what I'd say. I'd say that foreign investors and domestic investors, including myself, are analyzing this like we would a company. And when we see the CEO... How do you do that? You can't do that. Well, here's how you can do it. You can do it from the top line. I can take a look at a CEO that I wouldn't hire for any of my companies because he bankrupted five others.

I take a look at who are the CEOs of the biggest parts of the government in terms of budget, which is HHS, and it also goes in Medicare, goes into finance, and defense that have budgets that are much larger than all but a few sovereigns. I see them having no experience. So when you take a look at that, you say,

Can I reasonably invest in this when I never would have hired those people and I would short those companies? So that's the first part. Then you take, and I don't think it's unrelated, you take the news this weekend about Hegseth coming out with the second signal chat and you say there's more chaos. This guy really doesn't know what he's doing by putting those people in positions that are critically important to this country.

So when I look at it, I agree with Tony. I've agreed with Tony for a long time. I think I was here before Tony, basically since the inauguration day. You can't invest and your return is ultimately defined by your point of entry. And I still believe 4,000 to 4,500 is where we go. CEOs are frozen. And there's one more thing, Scott.

It's misplaced to think that 25 or 100 basis point cut will matter. There's plenty or there was plenty of liquidity out there. That's not what's going to matter. What's going to matter is knowing that there is a road. Forget about the rules of the road, knowing there is a road where that road leads. And right now, no CEO is going to make major capital. That's true. But the market's pulled back a lot. Your opinion is but one person's.

Brian Belsky, UBS, comes out today and takes everything into consideration and into account and says we're upgrading U.S. equities.

They're now attractive to us. They were neutral, but now they're attractive. And they say, while downside risks do remain, we believe the risk of a more severe economic downturn is now more limited. We see U.S. equities as attractive and note that periods of market stress have historically offered long-term rewards for diversified investors who look through near-term volatility. That sounds like something you could have written in your own note.

because I feel like you've been making that case as well. What do you think about that call? Well, thanks, Scott. You know, first off, we spent most of last week in Europe seeing our institutional accounts from BMO.

And I guess the theme there is Rome is burning, meaning the U.S. is burning. And remember, most European institutional accounts have been very reluctant buyers of U.S. stocks for 10 years. I guess the number one concern from where they have been, quite frankly, in terms of adding to European exposure is whether or not the fantastic price performance of Europe stocks actually match

or the earnings and the GDP growth going forward can actually match up with the price performance. So they're kind of caught between a rock and a hard place because they certainly do not, will not come back to the U.S.

anytime soon. In terms of investing, that's what we are, investors. And we can't pick when this thing is going to be done. But what we do know is that earnings typically bottom nine months after this type of activity. And so multiples will probably go up.

My team and I are scathing through all 500 stocks in the S&P 500. We're going to come out with a report later this week talking about where earnings are going. But be that as it may, we are aligned with what UBS is saying in terms of looking forward when we have these types of events.

- Scott Martin: Do not be confused. What we have right now are exogenous statements that are causing these ripples, quite frankly, which I'll steal something that Joe said, and I stole it two weeks ago. This is treacherous. So now is the time to be more of an investor and avoid trying to pick the bottom or the top.

You know, that's the difference. I don't see this as an event. I see this as long-term and events with Brexit, events with financial crisis, events with 2015 when oil went below cash costs. So are you 100% in cash? I'm almost completely hedged. Yeah. I have very, very little exposure. But to Amy's point, so you don't believe that...

A social media post literally could cause a reversal in this market faster than you can say I'm hedged. I do, but I don't believe it will be sustainable because the road is already going towards recession. That's the road I see and going towards stagflation. You take comments that are so misplaced. Now's the time you want to instill confidence in the Fed. You don't want to call somebody a loser.

who's running the Fed, who's responsible for economic policy, not just here, but in the world by association. So that does you no good. So I do believe that we'll see, in principle, we agree to trade, trade agreement in principle, with Japan.

But the details will be murky. It's the same type of headline that I'm going to settle the war. I'm going to settle the war in Ukraine. I guess I'm trying to get to the point. Does that mean if you see it as a long term thing, as long as as President Trump's the president, you're not going to buy stocks in the U.S. equity market? Well, is that what you're saying? It may ultimately get to a point.

where I do that. No, here's what could happen. He could take Hegseth out, put somebody that knows what they're doing in. He could take Kennedy out, put somebody that knows what they're doing in. He could take Gabbard out, and he could show that it's not just an echo chamber of sycophants, but people that are willing to challenge him on policies so that he can get to a better place. Right now, it's just an echo chamber. But I go back to my original question then, because

That doesn't seem today as we sit here likely. The headlines will pop the market. It won't be sustainable. Eventually those headlines will get tiresome. The market will be immune to them because you're going to have the guidance from companies and the actual earnings coming out after the last quarter.

that are going to be in a further downtrend. And there's no reason why somebody, maybe it's Brian, should tell me why the market shouldn't trade at the long-term multiple of the last 25 years, which is 16.5, 16.75. Okay, Brian, tell them why. Tell them why. You don't have anything that's keeping you at a premium valuation? Tell them why. Well, first off, you know, I love you, Steve, but coming on air and telling everybody we're going to go into a financial crisis,

I don't think that's the right message for anyone, especially given the fact that, oh, by the way, the United States of America is still the world's largest GDP. Oh, by the way, we still have the best company, Steve. And oh, by the way, as I said in my in my previous comments, when we have a recession, multiples go up. And so looking at average multiples and this, that and the other thing actually doesn't work, nor does Steve. Hold on. Hold on. Let me talk. Let me speak, Steve.

Steve, let me speak. If you go back to the last 12 months of earnings, we're right now tracking $200. Are you saying that we're going to see another 20% to 30% downgrade in earnings? I'm telling you that is not going to happen, Steve. It hasn't happened in history, so why would it happen now? And oh, by the way, too, I think you're probably, just me saying, you're probably lending your political views and your personal views

Cloud what's happening in terms of what you're doing and investing? I if I was an investor which I am I'm gonna be adding to stocks now because I want to be in the in the market for the next two years and I think two years from now the market is significantly higher Let me respond first of all, there are a couple of statements there. I didn't say is the financial crisis that there's market crisis number one number two

Everybody can disagree. You used financial crisis. Brian, you spoke. I'm going to speak now. Everybody that you speak to that you have a negative view of what Trump's doing, it's your political bias. Why can't it just be analysis? I'm not a liberal. I'm not a registered Democrat. I'm an independent. Before that, I was actually a registered Republican.

So why don't we put that aside? Why don't we leave the death threats out on Twitter, which I'm not on, and all the other stuff. And let's just spoke about, speak about the facts. The facts are, sure, we're the largest economy, but we're also telling our trading partners, former trading partners, they can't rely on us. And Brian, I apologize for not coming on and being a cheerleader like you. I prefer to state the facts.

Now, in terms of being the largest economy, true. Will it be that way forever? Who the hell knows? The point is, is that the stage is set for continuing decline. He did not answer your very specific question, Scott, which is justify why we should have a premium multiple

on the S&P to what the historic multiple is 16 and a half times. We have premium multiple when you have an accommodative policy, monetary policy. We have premium multiple when you have clear rules of the road where you know what policies are, not when they change every day by tweet. It's also, it's not just, you know, the perspective, I guess, that Weiss brings that is so far an outlier

in the current environment. The CNBC All America survey reveals that Americans are the most pessimistic about the stock market outlook than they've been since 2023. 53% say it's a bad time to invest, with just 38% saying it is a good time. So it's obviously a sharp turnaround in the optimism that existed from most corners, maybe not Weiss's, but most.

on January the 20th. You know, the other issue is it's not just a Wall Street issue, a Wall Street person issue, a large investor, wealthy person issue anymore, which goes back to what Amy's saying that, well, does a social media post that's positive or deemed positive by the market just change everything?

I thought there was an interesting headline in the Columbus Dispatch over the weekend where they point out, and we'll show you the headline here, that Ohio's public pension system is down $4 billion amid the tariff war. What's the point? Real people are getting hurt. Real people, their investments are getting hurt. There's a wealth effect.

I would tell you that's not true. They just have Trump derangement syndrome. But there's a wealth effect from the destruction that you've seen in the stock market, which goes back to the issue was, even if you get a headline here that's positive or headline there, that there's been damage done, which is why some, like Torsten Slocke, suggest you could have a recession 90% if these policies don't change. Those are his words, not mine.

Right. And remember, this is coming after a huge run. In the past two years, the market has been up over 20%. So we've retraced a little bit of that, but we're still, a lot of people are still sitting on gains. They just don't feel as good right now. And I think that can continue. It's not that...

We were down at rock bottom prices or anywhere close to that. We're still, as Steve said, relatively high multiples. The rest of the world is still at relatively low multiples. So if you just get some movement on the margin, that can make a big, big impact. It can. I mean, this emotionally bearish sentiment that is pervasive at this point, at least for some, hasn't resulted in mass selling. No.

I know the markets, we've normalized an 1100 point decline, but like Bank of America's Michael Hartnett today, who watches the flows and we point them out all the time, points out that people are emotionally bearish, but not extremely physically bearish, i.e. institutional and private clients haven't sold hard yet because maybe they're holding on, Joe, to the idea that there are just too many negatives. There are too many people are on Weiss's side of the boat

and

the market is primed for something positive to happen. No, I think behaviors have changed. I think behaviors have changed over the last several decades to where we have a clear understanding of being in it for the long-term means that you have to endure the elevated volatility of the moment. So I see that as the nature of really not seeing the aggressive selling. You look at the marketplace and you try to identify where is the low-hanging fruit. It's obvious that it's been in the precious metals. I've

I've totally missed that one. It's been in staples a little bit, too. Staples. It's been in real estate. Defensives. Real estate, utilities, staples. If you go over the last five days, you have consumer discretionary down 5%. You have technology down 5%. Then you have utilities, staples, REITs, and energy all higher. So I think collectively, OK, the sentiment that we are describing, the behaviors that I truly believe are going to unfold as a result of the wealth effect,

is going to lead to a contraction in consumer and corporate spending. And that's why I keep emphasizing, I think the best place to be is looking for lower yields and owning bonds, whatever bonds you want to own, whether it's corporate bonds or treasuries. I just see that we are going to be pushing on economic. And the question ultimately becomes, what's the effect on earnings? And I think that's what we're all trying to figure out. Brian, you know,

Goldman Sachs puts out a note just a few minutes ago from their desk, a little intraday color that our production team passed along to me. And they say, bottom line, we're witnessing a buyer strike in a fragile tape. From a technical perspective, not healthy that the S&P's 50-day moving average of 56.85 is currently entrenched below its 200-day moving average. I mean,

We just have had a lot of technical damage done. And what breaks, I guess my question to you is what breaks that buyer strike? Well, that buyer strike actually is quite consistent with what we're hearing from our institutional clients, both in North America and Europe, that no one wants to buy anything they're sitting on their hands. And the last couple of weeks they have been building cash. What's interesting about a lot of these comments, and especially from my former colleague, Michael Hartnett,

from my old days back there, is on the private wealth side. Private wealth side actually took a lot of profits at the beginning of the year, Scott, and they're sitting on cash and waiting to buy here. And we know too from the majority of our Canadian-centric clients, Scott, they sold all their U.S. stocks about three weeks ago. So it's been a good call for them to be more overweight Canada, which has been outperforming, but

I do think, I still think that, again, unfortunately, really since 2020, Scott, we've been in this non-investing type behavior where we are going to react to a tweet, we are going to react to a data point. And I think whether or not it's short term or not, I think that what helps bring some confidence, especially if everybody's really bearish,

And everybody thinks that this deal is never going to get done, or we're going to go past 90 days. If everyone's positioned that way, you actually can be contrarian and actually think more like an investor. And, oh, by the way, have this all be toward a longer-term shock to be more normalized anyway, which you get to Weiss' more normalized P/E ratio on higher earnings as the multiple, as price does not go up as much, but earnings go up a lot more.

There's a lot of not doing much in this market. Amy does have a new buy. It's related to gold, which that move in and of itself has been eye-popping for obvious reasons. This continued record-setting move that we've seen in gold. You bought more Franco Nevada to capitalize on that? Yeah, so we've owned this for a while. It's been one of the best trades in our portfolios. That and Santander are both up almost 50%.

We really like this. We think that it has a near-term catalyst with Cobre Panama potentially getting resolved. We also do own gold. So it's a more defensive play. I had to put some cash to work. So we like Franco. It was one of my final trades, I think, a couple months ago. You see this current move in gold being sustained?

i do because that in and of itself probably suggests where you see the overall market going right now look we can get a little bit of a pullback certainly it's looks extended but it's not overbought by any stretch of the imagination um and i think that's where you're going to get excess reserves going from central banks around the world well she made the point so many times on this show that stocks go up like 80 of the time right over the long term right so

why isn't Brian right? Like, okay, this is a moment in time. And yes, maybe the game's different and the goalposts have changed and now it's a little rocky and murky and cloudy and foggy and no one knows really what's going to happen. But I can tell you, I'm not saying this like me telling you, but I can say that

you know, a handful of years from now when we're told to invest over the long term, that what you've always told our viewers is going to be true, that stocks go up over the long term, whatever the number of percentage time that is. So deal with the volatility, take advantage of a 15 percent pullback that we've had larger than that in the Nasdaq and buy stocks.

What's wrong with that? I mean, you can either be trite and say, you know, what George Santa says, which is, you know, that if you don't know history, you're doomed to repeat it. Or you can do analysis. And I'm doing the analysis. And the market's still overvalued. People forget. And they're drunk. It's still overvalued now. Still overvalued now. Even if we don't have a recession. Well, I believe we're going to. So you have to have a viewpoint where the economy is going to have.

you know, to think what I think. I think we're going to recession. I'm concerned whether we'll have stagflation also. If we replace the chair of the Fed with somebody who puts zero interest rates in or takes them really down, then you're going to have uber inflation. But here's how I'd look at it. People are drunk since 2008 and highly dependent on the Fed coming to the rescue. Every recovery has been a V-shaped recovery. What I remind them

is that from 2000, you could say, oh, that was a bubble, but there again, okay, so you can pick and choose, but I can't. 2000 took NASDAQ 15 years to recover those losses. It didn't reach the old tie 15 years. S&P didn't reach it. I understand that, but if you want to take 2000, that was driven by...

a lot of companies whose stock prices went to the moon with no earnings whatsoever. This is not the same environment that that was. In retrospect, it wasn't. But if you were then, took S&P by the way, just finished thought, six years to recover. Same time, I distinctly remember, okay, that

People say, "Oh, it's cut by 50%, you gotta buy it. "Oh, it's down by 20%, you gotta buy it." Same things now. Now, I don't agree you have the bubble conditions, you don't have those in a number of stocks where everybody just put a .com after your name and the multiple went up to 100 times revenue. You don't have that, but the point is,

The Fed is not riding to the rescue at this point because they can't. And even if you cut rates by 25, 50, 100 base points, you're not going to move CEOs to invest in their business because they have cash. They have more cash balance sheet than they've ever had. So what's wrong? What's wrong is policy. What if you get trade deals, you know, irrespective of the...

THE EFFICACY OF WHAT YOU THINK THE DEAL IS. I FULLY EXPECT TRADE HEADLINES. THAT'S FINE. SO IF WE GET POSITIVE TRADE NEWS AND THE FED CUTS RATES, WHICH THEY STILL ARE GOING TO -- THEY STILL HAVE A BIAS TO CUT RATES, THAT'S NEGATIVE FOR THE MARKET? NO, I'M NOT SAYING CUTTING RATES IS EVER NEGATIVE FOR THE MARKET UNLESS YOU ALREADY HAVE INFLATION. BUT THEY'RE GOING TO CUT RATES. THEY'RE NOT GOING TO CUT PROBABLY ON PRESIDENT TRUMP'S SCHEDULE. BUT THE QUESTION IS BETWEEN NOW AND THEN. AND SO FAR I'VE BEEN DEAD RIGHT ON THE MARKET.

Every sale I've made has been a good sale. I just think that's going to be the case. I'm surprised we didn't get a headline, "We agree in principle with Japan," because it means nothing. There are no details. It takes years to work out a trade agreement. Years. And so to think you could put it together in a heartbeat makes no sense. Nonetheless, markets like this, where they've been straight down pretty much, always look for a reason to bounce. The question is, will the bounce be sustainable? Sure, you take tariffs off, but the die is already set.

for a declining economy and for earnings coming down. So my view that the multiple is still stretched right now. As you bring earnings down, I think the market goes down. All right. Let's do this. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, Tesla, Alphabet, they report this week.

That's big, you think? We will trade all of that ahead. What's going on with NVIDIA today as well. We do have a number of analyst calls to get to. We have more moves from Amy Raskin that you want to know about because they're Dow stocks that she is selling. We'll be back after this. Let's say your small business has a problem. Like maybe...

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going on. The stock's down 29% off of its 52-week high, reliant on the advertising market in this uncertain economy. So what's your view?

Well, I'm the wrong way, Brian, on this one, but not ashamed to be that way. Again, because we think and we see inherent value in Alphabet, and that's why we added it to our value portfolio in the U.S. We doubled down on it. It's our largest relative overweight in the Mag 7, which we're net underweight.

the Mag 7 and I know that there's a lot of fears with respect to regulations. I got a lot of questions with respect to that in Europe obviously last week. But we own the stock even if it's a they break apart the company some of the parts we still think the stock is significantly higher number one. And number two as we've said on air before we really think the property that is going to be the cash cow going forward is going to be YouTube TV. So we believe in the name. We think it's a value name and we're going to continue to be a long term investor there. Amy.

Yeah, we own it as well. We're underweight. We're underweight the whole MAG7. We're also underweight Alphabet. But with respect to the MAG7, I do think this is probably one of the better ones. Again, being underweight the group, it's not that expensive. It has multiple shops on goal. Waymo is there, too. And I think they can cut their spending and increase their cash flow if they want to. They still have that lever. What happens if it comes out on the wrong side of this antitrust case?

You thinking about that at all in terms of your position? Well, first of all, as it relates to the position that we have, I would expect that at the end of the month, not just myself, but momentum funds, hedge funds, when we hear 13Fs being reported, you're going to see a lot of people that move to the sidelines with the MAG-7. And arguably, that might be the right move to make. Now, in the case of Alphabet, just fundamentally,

Are we potentially talking about the possibility that they're going to be having to spin off various aspects of the business like Android or other areas? I think the risk for Alphabet is clearly on the ad spend. I think that's obvious to all of us. What's the direction that that's ultimately going to take? I think the bigger concern and probably the more important earnings report this week is Tesla.

I think Tesla, because Tesla speaks directly towards the tariffs and

Down 7% today. There is clearly a punitive effect as it relates to, just think about graphite. How important is graphite to Tesla's business and to batteries itself? And here we are on the other side. That's a direct dispute that we're having as it relates to tariffs. So is there ultimately an exemption that's put into place for Tesla? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I mean, it's the tariffs plus...

Musk's role in politics, Brian, that everybody's talking about. Dan Ives, Wedbush, one of the absolute most staunch and longtime defenders of Tesla, calls it now a, quote, code red situation if Musk stays doing his work at Doge. And he talks about the brand damage that has already been done and has had an undeniable impact on sales around the world. You can look at the numbers. They tell that story.

Wells downgrades it. They reiterate they're underweight on it today. 130 is the price target. How do you see this stock here? You own it. - Scott Martin: Well, I'm very fortunate to have a good relationship with Dan. He's helped me kind of counsel to stay in the name. But we're underweight. It's a relatively newer position for us. Unfortunately, the stock is in the consumer discretionary sector, so it's really skewed that sector's performance.

quite frankly, but at the end of the day, again, we think this stock is higher two years from now. Are we early? We're absolutely early. Is there still a lot of volatility in the name? Absolutely. And earnings are probably going to be marked lower. But at the end of the day, this is from a technology perspective. And I really think that Tesla is to right now what Apple was in 2003, 2004. You buy Tesla for the operating system and the technology, and that's the longer-term play.

I got to move to Naples, man. They're putting something in the water there that's unbelievable. Look, here's what I'd say. It's not just the brand damage, but what we're not talking about with Tesla and with the others, frankly, is that the Chinese put a complete moratorium until they...

until they set regulatory policy on exporting of rare earth. They have 90% share in rare earth. They've got more than that in terms of the refining of it. So there's not anything coming out of there that's going to help make semi chips. All semi chips have some sort of refined rare earth. Australia's got a little production.

You'll also be online with a small mind, it's already dedicated, GM, et cetera, at the end of the year. In terms of Google, and the brand damage is unmistakable, so I think it goes low. Never understood the valuation. I still don't understand it, even more so now. Now, in terms of Google... Which you got rid of. Which I got rid of. Completely. Completely. Sold some on April 4th, sold the rest on April 10th. So, it should have sold earlier, but...

You can't time the market, as Brian says. But here's the issue with that, is that don't forget we just resumed growth in cloud spend just a quarter ago, two quarters ago. And that was with a really great economy.

The first thing to go is that companies put a hold on further enterprise spending. That's going to affect cloud at Google and at Amazon and IBM and Microsoft. So I haven't sold any more Microsoft. So the $75 billion spend is unrealistic. You sold Amazon. Well, no, I'm not talking about the CapEx. I'm talking about the revenues from cloud.

You sold Amazon. I sold Amazon. Out of Amazon. Because of that. Because, you know, retail's minor profitability sometimes, depending on what leverage they want to pull. So I think cloud is just going to hit all those stocks. All right. Let me get the headlines with Silvana now. Hi, Silvana. Hey, Scott. Good afternoon. Well, as Kathy

As Catholics around the world mourn the death of Pope Francis, the Vatican will hold the recitation of the Holy Rosary in St. Peter's Square this afternoon. And that follows the death of the 88-year-old pontiff early this morning. In writings prior to his death, Pope Francis insisted that his passing be met with simplicity and not great ceremony.

The Easter ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia is over as Russian forces resume strikes on Ukraine after the surprise 30-hour truce, according to a new statement. But both sides accused each other of violating the 30-hour ceasefire, while President Trump says he remains hopeful that Russia and Ukraine can come to a deal to end the war later this week.

And the FAA reports a Delta Airbus A330 suffered an engine fire on the tarmac in Orlando this morning, forcing passengers and crew to use emergency slides to evacuate. The flight, which was originally headed for Atlanta, had more than 200 passengers and crew on board. All passengers were evacuated safely and an investigation is underway, Scott. OK, Silvana, thanks for that. Silvana, now a quick break.

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Got a Bob Pizzani with today's ETF Edge. Hey, Bob. Good to see you, Scott. For the first time, actively managed ETFs have reached $1 trillion in assets. Now it's 10% of all ETF assets. Let's talk to the head of ETFs, one of the biggest active managers out there. Tim Coyne is head of ETFs for T. Rowe Price. You're one of the biggest guys out there in active management. Can active management actually make a difference in this market turbulence?

Yeah, thanks for having me, Bob. I think so. And we've seen a lot of flows coming into active management recently. I think there's two big drivers there. Number one, there's the change in market conditions where there's increased level of volatility, greater uncertainty across equity markets, fixed income markets.

I think there's some questions outstanding around interest rates, et cetera. So that actually does lead, I think, to true benefits of actively managed products, including active ETFs. So big inflows. I've been watching this, your capital appreciation ETF, this fund, big believer in big cap.

tech, you hold Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, Apple, also smaller names like Becton Dickinson and Roper. What's the idea behind this fund, Capital Appreciation? What's the philosophy? Yeah, the Capital Appreciation Fund, or TCAAF, is managed by David Drew and team. Actually, David is two-time manager of the year for Morningstar. A lot of experience, a lot of investment prowess across that team.

TCAF actually is designed to outperform the S&P 500 and deliver less volatility as well as greater tax efficiency through the ETF structure. And a lot of interest, and I want to move quickly here, of interest in dividend payers, too. I see inflows into your dividend growth ETF. It's got names with it.

track record of dividend increases. I see Apple here, I see Visa, JP Morgan, I see Chubb, I see GE. And this has actually been doing very well this year, dividend payers. Yes, it has. It has. Income is a macro theme. Actually, the dividend growth ETF was one of the first ETFs that we launched back in 2020 with the knowledge. And basically, this fund is based off of an existing mutual fund strategy, longstanding strategy. We've got to let you go, but actively managed bond ETFs.

Big as well, like your bond ETF, wide variety of treasuries, corporate bonds. Just 10 seconds on that quickly. Oh, yeah. TAG is the ticker, and that fund is really designed to outperform the Bloomberg ETFs

uh... u_s_ index bond market yet all sorts of bob on holdings we talk a lot more about that we've got more coming up on t rose price in their actively managed portfolios they have a bunch of them coming up he kept at one ten p_m_ eastern time to be joined by todd stone from strategic ctf edge

dot CNBC dot com. Scott, back to you. All right, Bob. Thanks so much. We come back after this break. We're going to trade NVIDIA. We're going to trade some chips. We're going to tell you about those Amy moves in the Dow. And we're also going to touch Bitcoin. We're back after this.

All right, welcome back. Exciting day at CNBC. We want to introduce you to our newest subscription streaming product, CNBC+. You can stream Halftime Report and all of your favorite CNBC shows anytime, anywhere, also on demand. You can see the data stream on your screen now. Perfect, I'd say, for this crowd and those of you who are trading these markets.

All right, let's get some more moves, as I said. So, Nvidia, I mentioned, the stock's getting hammered again today. You trimmed it again last week. More interesting to me, though, is that you bought ASML, which got hit pretty good. It got hit really good after its earnings. It brought down its bookings number. And so we think that there's enough bad news sort of priced into this one. They said that they're going to pass on all the tariff increase if there is any.

Just it has a nice mode redundancy in the semi supply chain will help them. I've been teasing all show these down moves you made. You sold Disney and you sold Amex. Yeah. Why so? So Amex had a relatively good quarter. We sold it after the quarter. But we think there's a lot of risk there. The aspirational consumer is in trouble. We think LVMH results show that they're trading down. I think they're going to trade down on their credit cards as well. So we just think the wealth effect is going to hurt Amex.

and disney the anti-american sentiment out there uh... just a really exposed to that i'm you've already seen a seventy percent decline in canadian

scheduled visits, we think that numbers are too high and they have to come down. So you're shaking your head on the Amex move? No, look, I like the move that Amy made here. I thought they were a little ambitious. Selling Amex? Yeah, I do. So they reiterated their revenue guidance for 2025 of 8% to 10%. And it's kind of like with a question mark. We got the question mark just in case the economy kind of contracts. Hey, how about this big call? Salesforce downgraded to underperform today at D.A. Davidson.

We believe Salesforce is neglecting its core business in an effort to pursue a premature AI opportunity. I mean, this is a pretty strong call. What does that mean, premature AI opportunity? No, I disagree with that. They've diversified the business really well. They've made some acquisitions that have been questionable in the last couple of years, but they're actually now accretive to the business, and they're really exhibiting strong cost expense acquisitions.

I don't know that I agree. It's on pace for its third straight month of losses. A lot of that's the market. Also, software is clearly not in a good position right now. All right. We'll be right back after this. We'll get to the White House now. Megan Kosella has breaking news for us. Megan.

Hey, Scott, I just learned from a White House official that top officials from Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart and Target are set to meet with President Trump later this afternoon. Now, no topic being confirmed to me about what that meeting will be about, but I was told that it's been in the works to be scheduled for weeks now, meaning that the meeting itself

predates the tariffs that were put in place on April 2nd. But of course, tariffs being top of mind for all four of these companies. We do expect there to be a readout after this meeting takes place. Some of these officials are expected to be CEOs of the companies. Some might be other top representatives. For now, what we know, Scott, is that four top officials, Home Depot, Lowe's, Walmart and Target, all of them will be at the White House today. Later this afternoon, meeting with the president. Scott.

T's next. Megan, thank you. That's Megan Kinsella at the White House. Up next, we have more of the day's biggest movers right after this. All right, welcome back. Not a lot of green on the screen today, as you know. However, you probably didn't look at Bitcoin. Tanae McKeel did, and she's here. It's up 3%.

What do you make of the way that this has been trading? It's decoupled, obviously, from the Nasdaq, which was a trend for a while. How do you see it? Something that people were looking for all month, because if you go back to earlier this month, it really was trading in line with stocks. It just was not seeing the big pops and drops that, one, we're used to seeing out of Bitcoin, and two, it is outperforming the S&P. It has not really caught up with gold, the leading safe haven. But I think you are seeing evidence not just

I think that the obvious and easy narrative would be that we're talking about Fed independence today. So Bitcoin is kind of acting as that hedge against

you know, political uncertainty. But I also think that it's not just enthusiasm. It's also exhaustion. You're seeing people, investors wanting to, you know, get back into risk, but just maybe not the type of risk that's tied to earnings or Fed policy. You got a quick thought? I do. Look, you've got a president who's very interested and his family is very interested in Bitcoin doing well, crypto doing well. And I think you're close to regulation or some positive announcements on policy. And that's what's driving it.

It's evidence, Bitcoin's supportive nature is evidence that we have not had a deleveraging event. Because you have a deleveraging event, everything's going down. Well, it has underperformed the S&P and NASDAQ overall since the peak. Recently, though, to your point, it is trading pretty well up from 82 just a week and a half or two weeks ago. Real quick, last thought?

I think one of the hardest things for investors is to wrap their heads around the fact that day to day it does trade like a risk asset, but medium long term it trades like a safe haven. If you look at gold's outperformance, that kind of can act as an indicator of where Bitcoin heads when the dust kind of settles. Appreciate the update. Thank you. Tanae McKeel. Thank you. Belsky, what's your final trade?

Take two. I'm going to play Weiss in Grand Theft Auto. All right, Amy. Franco. I spoke about it earlier. Weiss. Short, Belsky, long the tenure. All right.

Joe T. Amgen. You guys will make up later. That's how this always goes. I'll see you at 3 o'clock, obviously. No, Belsky's done with you, Weiss. I've seen how that goes, too. Adam Parker, Roger Altman, Malcolm Etheridge, Abby Yoder, all going to join me at 3 o'clock. We'll see what this market does. Dow's still down 1,000 points. We're negative across the board and hard.

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

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