The Tariff Trade 3/5/25
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Welcome to the Halftime Report I'm Scott Wapner front and center this hour the tariff trade and the impact on stocks we are trading the markets today with the investment committee as always joining me for the hour Joe Terranova Kerry Firestone Steve Weiss we'll show you the markets here where the Dow is higher everything else is the

Well, going positive as well. So, interesting move here as we sort of assess what's happening here. We could get some more tariff headlines throughout the day. We will watch for those. Let's deal with what we know. How about that? Tariffs are on. The economic data continues to weaken a bit. ADP missed badly. We've had a bear steepening in the yield curve. The front end falling on rate cut expectations. The long end is rising. The S&P down about 3% this week.

When will this market stabilize? What has to happen here? Well, if you're looking at domestic equities, you're hoping to find leadership somewhere. And I've said

Over the last week that I do not believe the market is close to finding that leadership, the momentum names that everyone keeps identifying. They are not going to have a V-shaped recovery. Capital right now is flowing out of the U.S. very clearly. It's flowing into Europe. Germany is incredibly strong right now. They're experiencing some economic growth. You're seeing strong flows of capital going into the taxable fixed income market.

Let's remember something we came into twenty twenty five with very bearish positioning as it relates to treasuries all the trend following funds were basically caught offside expecting a five percent ten year treasury that is being unwound as we speak now and I also think that's affecting what's going on in the market.

looking at equities themselves thinking about the mag seven thinking about quality thinking about bond proxies where can you find that next leadership that's what we are trying to determine and we also have this technical orientation where the two hundred day moving average is very close to current price was there yesterday we bounced we had a sharp bounce off the two hundred day it looks as though we want a second test to see what the reactions going to be to buy is get incentivized at that point all right so

Kerry, I mentioned we are going to be headline driven. There's a headline I'm looking at now that says the U.S. is weighing a one month delay of Canada and Mexico tariffs on autos. I don't know if that's why the market looks like that, where there was a bit of a move higher. But we're going to be pushed and pulled by a lot of the headlines that could come out of D.C. So how

Are our viewers supposed to navigate all of that when Wolf Research today says the rally is poised to make a stand? We're oversold, but still more pain could be ahead because we didn't really have a big flush. We didn't have a big panic in the market. We've just had a tariff driven and growth scare driven slowdown.

Right. So what a surprise. We might delay the tariffs. This is what we should expect. And investors should understand that what is said is different from what is going to be implemented. Therefore, you have to just judge.

how serious you want to take these moves. What we saw with tariffs... Like this right here, right? General Motors, obviously moving on the headline. Correct. Ford is, you could pull Stellantis. You know, the obvious places. If you're talking specifically about autos, you're going to get the movements there. But to your point, and it's well made...

We're going to be driven all over the place, right? What is today might not be tomorrow. What is today might not be the same in 10 minutes. So if you look at what industries can persist and sustain their growth, regardless of what the headlines say every day, and I think that's an important determination of where to look to invest.

We know, we have heard, and we believe it, that the spending on chips and on AI development is going to continue this year and next year.

companies have made that very clear. And these big buyers, the biggest companies in the world, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Google, are spending the money, Amazon. So you can believe that these are going to continue. And if you want to place bets on a group that has fallen, that's a place to put some money. If you want to just trade

oh, it's better for financials today than it was yesterday. It's better for consumer today or tomorrow. I think that's a mistake because there are there's weakness, there's uncertainty, there's deal postponement. And we understand that's going to continue. There seems to be, Weiss, an expectation, too, that no matter how, you know, you get driven by one headline and then driven by the next, that

As long as the president and his team are talking about, you know, April reciprocal tariffs. Remember that report on reciprocal tariffs is supposed to be coming due April 1st or the 2nd or whatever it is. JP Morgan's trading desk says that we're only at the beginning of trade war 2.0. And with that study coming, you could see blanket tariffs. It's all they say.

We expect this portion of the trade war to last until at least mid-April. My question then to you is, does that mean that we just remain unsettled until at least mid-April? The answer is in a word, yes, at least April. And I think longer than that.

So, you know, to Carrie's point, there are headlines coming out. Which way do you go? Which headline do you buy into? Some people say just ignore the noise. But here's why you can't ignore the noise, because the noise is so loud.

and things are moving so quickly and there's no strategy behind the noise that it's very destabilizing for corporate America. Now, take it one step further. I can tell you that of a number of people we talk to, you know, boards that I sit on across industries, not just defense, not just healthcare, but other industries as well, that everybody in government has their resume out. And again, it reminds me of when I took over Lehman. Those, the top performers that could leave,

did leave when it was a mess, when it was 500 million revenue, losing money hand over fist. So you had to restaff.

except at Lehman, we had the balance sheet from, thank God, fixed income to do that. There is no balance sheet here for the federal government because the pay grades are the same. So you will lose the top people. What does that mean when you drill down? It means the relationships that corporate sales teams had with the procurement officers up and down the government, they may be lost.

So you may have to rebuild those. So not knowing if your critical counterpart in government is going to be there, not knowing what the tariffs are going to be, you pretty much grind spending to a halt. Well, because, you know, I understand the uncertainty of CEOs in corporate America. The stagflation word's been introduced. You know, Leisman's been talking about that.

others another article about it today should be a yard any mentions that it could have a stack place in a consequence and by the way he's about as foolish as a as they bet on the children at least act relation and a lot of writing it's the word of the moment uh... because people just don't know what what's gonna happen back america talks about the tariffs and says a realistic bad cases a ten percent hit to earnings

- They just don't know. - They don't know. - They don't know. No one knows. - Right, right. But to me, I think it's pretty obvious that the direction in earnings is gonna be lower. But it's not just CEOs. It's also individuals. You saw it in the job state. Who's gonna hire, number one? Number two, who's gonna spend not knowing if you're gonna lose your job? So the amount of uncertainty created by this

and then for the stagflation so that takes care of the slowing for the inflationary sure the the uh the situation with open borders had to be taken care of had to be but that's inflationary

So you lose that, you lose those people, right? And you'll have to pay up the scarcity of people that are here that can work, number one. Number two, tariffs are going to raise prices. So you can take a look at the headline in Ford, and I don't think it's a positive thing he goes back and forth. That just means it's more uncertainty. So I'm still negative on the market. I do think the market is oversold for right now and could pop.

But overall, I'm not putting cash to work. What would make us bullish again, asks JP Morgan today, if we found a bottom in the MAG-7? That's what they suggest. I think the MAG-7 is the place to be. Well, I mean, if you look at the amount that they're off of their record highs, you know, NVIDIA at this point is 24% off of its record high. Alphabet's 18%. Microsoft's 16%. Amazon 15%. Tesla 45% off the highs. Is that a...

a statement you would agree with that if the mag seven stops going down that the market itself's going to stop going down i mean obviously it's going to help at the index level yeah well it's important to follow the mag seven because they really uh allow the viewers an opportunity to get a glimpse inside what does positioning look like and how does this process of reducing allocation towards overweight bullish areas of the market unfold

clearly when you look at the back seven you're talking about pretty much universally that people are carrying the market weight or even in a extreme it overweight so we're in that deal leveraging process as it relates to the max and that's why you want to look at them a look at the max seven right now i see better

Amazon as the three names. Who technically still are in a pretty good formation. Above the two hundred day moving average Microsoft looks absolutely horrible. Tesla if you're looking at that Tesla has basically retraced. The entirety of a hundred forty plus percent gain since November fifth the day before the election I think it's up now about three or four percent it's closing that price gap that it had. From the election so I would focus on Amazon better and Apple

And to be real specific, the one name that I'm actually looking to buy would be Amazon, personally. I mean, Adam Parker is going to be on with me on Closing Bell today at 3 o'clock. And he just took his ratings down on tech to slightly, and I'm slightly underscored, underweight. Apple is interesting. It's down 1.5%.

today and we've suggested that it's really the one to watch in all of this because it has such a large exposure to China for revenues, almost 20%. And supply chain. Well, that's another aspect of it. Supply chain, chips, you're going to have restrictions on chips, you're going to have tariffs on chips. Theoretically, that's going to hit Apple more than anybody else in that group. Down 4% is that stock this week.

The knock, which I've repeated, which others would certainly say, is that it is still trading at a premium PE without premium fundamentals.

It's over 30 times forward. 31, I think. But isn't it singing to the same beat of the White House right now? Isn't it investing here in the United States? Aren't we supposed to make the assumption that that will allow them a degree of flexibility in

in terms of being able to go to the president and say, OK, some of the onerous measures that are being suggested, maybe that is going to be extremely detrimental to us. And there would be a willingness to listen to that. Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing? Well, that's why the stock has traded better than the others. Because I think there's a belief that Tim Cook's effort to build a better relationship or let's just say a closer relationship

I'm not suggesting that it was bad. It had to be fixed. A closer relationship with the administration would theoretically give them a bit of an out on the tariffs. Now, we don't know. We don't know. But that's why the stock had traded better than the others in that space. So you fix the cost side. You still got the revenue issues with 20 percent or so of their revenues gone.

from china and that already started the pushback against apple last year under biden's administration when they prohibited government employees from using apple devices and by the way you've got devices that are more feature rich than an apple iphone that are being sold in china by chinese men yeah but there's still a lot of demand for apple products

all around the world. It's not a question of demand. It's not a question of demand. It's a defensive stock, Steve. It's a stock that people want to own. I don't think any stock with a 30 multiple with flat revenues and flat earnings can be defensive. It may have been in the past. It's got a yield. It's got a huge amount of cash. It's got the balance sheet to support it. And this is the kind of stock in this country.

Monster buyback. So why wouldn't you want to own? Say that's true, okay? And who knows, right? You have conviction on it. I don't really have much conviction. But what I do have conviction is what I do. Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. I do have conviction in meta. I do have conviction in Amazon. Stop banging him on. I do have conviction in Alphabet. Sorry.

So high conviction knows they are recession resistant. The spending in AI, as Carrie pointed out, isn't going to stop. It may slow down a little bit, but there's still enough there. And for the consumers, sure, it's an ad model, so you may see a hit to the ad budgets, but I think those come out of others, not those companies. Meta reiterated outperform today at Wedbush. They like the setup coming out of earnings. Alphabet's urging the Department of Justice to reverse course in breaking up that company.

Yeah. Good luck. You want to...

I think that... You want to go back some more? Well, I would say on that, it's interesting that this is a piece of headline news. Google asked the Justice Department to sort of put a hold on... They've got a lot of stuff they're doing. I'm not sure that breaking up Alphabet is at the top of the list. I mean, I thought that was an interesting piece of... Some of those parts could be worth more than the whole, though. Yeah, correct. I think overall these tech companies are in a better position with the current administration than they were with the previous administration. I agree. And I don't think you could dismiss the fact...

that Apple has expressed the willingness and also has indicated that they're actually going to be doing it to moving a lot of production here to the United States. And that seems to be the words that need to be spoken, a willingness to move the production here to the United States. And I agree. I think that is why Apple is performing, having that relative outperforming. I'm not saying it's not a positive. No, I know. It clearly is. No, I

I agree with that, but look, I agree with you. I think at some point we're gonna come in and we're gonna say, there we go, mag seven, once again, leading the market higher. There's your leadership. - And if you take a look, 'cause we've done a lot of work on this, on the trend in reshoring, it started before Trump. It was coming here, what started it was COVID.

So nobody wants to be caught in that situation again. Will Trump accelerate? Yes. But in terms of the spending, whether it's Taiwan Semi or whether it's Apple, that was already spending that was going to go on. It's not any new incremental spending. So he can grab the headlines.

But that's what it is. I mean, it's also it's positive. It's also more complicated. I mean, you know, weren't there agreements in Trump 1.0? Yes. On certain things. And a shovel never went into the ground. Nope. So, you know, you just and we're all talking about years away projects for most of it. Apple can say, well, we're investing X billions of dollars in the United States to build such and such products here.

Wake me up when the production lines are going. It just takes time. Let's do our chart of the day. Crowd strike. We talked about it on the way up. We're going to talk about it on the way down. Falls on disappointing earnings. Their forecast. What do you think, Joe? There are some who look at the slide today and say, like Mizuho does, fantastic setup. That's what this pullback does.

The stock's had an incredible rebound from the issues of what, six months ago? What do you think? You own the stock. So I wouldn't use the word fantastic, but I would say you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. You have to trust that the subscription revenue growth in the second half of the year is going to be there. Keep in mind that one-time discounts are now ending. They're rolling off. And I think that's one of the reasons why

you've seen in the third quarterly report since the misstep of last summer that you the guidance here was not so strong so it's still above technically you're still about the two hundred a moving average i think it's a three thirty three not breaking down but fundamentally they get the benefit of the doubt in my opinion and i do think of the back half of the year that's why you're buying it today because that's subscription revenue growth will be there palance you're got up today by the way uh... william blair had it is underperform

I don't know how long they had it there. Presumably that didn't work well. They upgraded it to market perform though. Joe, what's your take here on this stock, which has been really at the forefront of the momentum unwind? Yeah, and you had this nine day period from February 18th to February 28th, where it fell from 125 down to an intraday low of 78.58. What's the bounce look like? Not really a V, more of a U. I said

couple weeks ago I want to buy this stock if you don't own it around 84 85 well guess what it's right there kinda sitting there the market generally after you have that type a free fall it doesn't give you the opportunity to buy it over a prolonged period at an express price if you say I want to buy it 85

Usually it goes down to 85. It's there for a moment. You look in the afternoon, you say, oh, you traded 85 and I missed it. Next thing you know, you're paying 89. Right now you're paying 86. So if you missed it at 85, it was $1 making a huge difference. Let me ask you this. I still don't think it's a strong enough bounce. So you own it in the ETF? Yes. And the momentum is still, believe it or not, the momentum, if you're measuring momentum on a 12-month basis, it's still positive. Okay. So why don't you buy it personally then?

Because I own it in the ETF. I own a lot of momentum names that have lost leadership. And I am not ready to basically double down on a factor of momentum, which is clearly in a correction process. Can I ask you two questions? Please. You can. So we all know that and we've seen it countless times that in a slowing economy, enterprise spending is

which is CrowdStrike, is the first to be put on pause. Deals get pushed out. That's one thing. And the direction of what we're seeing in economic data, including jobs today, would say that the economy is slowing. Second thing is, if you want to cut costs in the government, why wouldn't you say? We know that Doge is not sensitive to the security of data by sending people without clearance into Treasury and all that thing. So

So why wouldn't you say, why are we double paying for cyber? Why can't just Microsoft's very good cyber protection, you know, do enough for us? So with crowd strikes exposure to the government, the others exposure to the government, why isn't that an added risk? Both of which should really hit the multiple and maybe down 8% today is enough for going forward. Yeah, I think, again, we look at markets strategically different. Right.

that's something that is is taking a fair minded theoretical look at the optionality of what's ahead in the future right and it and it's a reasonable expectation that you present I'm not dismissing it but it's not ultimately what I do got it it's it's it's not how I'm looking at things and saying theoretically in the future this may unfold yeah it's obvious to me if that happens Steve you're 100 right that's damaging towards revenue and EPS growth but I

i just can't sit there and speculate this might happen might not happen a net upgraded today to a buy uh the target 115 at ubs you own that stock what do you think about that one well you do as well this this should should be working a little bit better than it than it has recently uh it's been a little bit on the decline you would think that the networking here related to ai

and the data center connectivity would have a little bit of a more of a positive benefit. I do agree this is the right spot, technically, if you want to make the play on it. And if there's going to be an overall recovery in technology, this will be one of the clear leaders because it is identified as an AI leader. App Lovin's down another 4% today.

What about that one? So, Applovin, I think you asked me on Monday if I thought it was up at around 350, 355, if you thought that was it, if the bottom was in. And again, no, it's just a classic example of it looks like a U. It doesn't look like a V. And you need a V. You need that V type of bounce to really gain confidence that you've ultimately reached the bottom. You know what's interesting?

is yeah everyone's kind of looking at where we are technically and saying we're riding slightly above the two hundred day moving average we're trying to find support we're hoping that we come out and that there's going to be a a relaxation in the tariffs really the other side of that is if you want to get to a tradable bottom it's probably let's get the bad news out of the way let's flush below the two hundred day moving average let's basically get

all those non-discretionary funds stopped out and then ultimately you'll find your bottom and get the v-shaped recovery but an app loving you don't have that okay bitcoin is slightly higher still volatile obviously weiss you're done

um all crypto positions now kaput for you yeah look i'm sure there's gonna be a bounce here because i believe the moment it's gonna bounce so it's a risk asset but keep in mind that from the moment i went into it what i said as soon as the momentum dies i'm gone because that's all in my view that's all it had for it because i don't see any intrinsic value i don't see any use case for it uh and i'm also skeptical that uh not that it would matter frankly

that Trump gets in his reserve currency because it's the opposite of reserve currency. All right. Let's talk about some other areas before we take our first break that we focused on very heavily yesterday, either shaken up by the tariffs or growth slowdown or both, for that matter. Banks. So we've had a nice turn in some of these names. At least we did as we came on the air today as I'm having a look.

We can see the big banks. Yeah, some of them are higher. It's still mixed. JPM and Citi are down. Bank of America is down. Goldman's up. Morgan Stanley is up.

Chubb got upgraded the insurance space today to buy from hold target to 323. That's at HSBC. You also have a lot of exposure, Joe Goldman and JPM. So what about the banks here? Look, I think the banks, in particular, the money center banks, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, you could get Morgan Stanley on a little bit more of a sell off. I think that's an opportunity.

uh... that that's what i would focus on you you mentioned child the insurance industry is right now the leadership in the financial sector and it's been that way now for the better part of the last eighteen months

Yes, that's an insurance company that we own and a company that I like. The favorite name right now in the insurance names is Progressive Corp. That's the one to me that is showing really strong earnings, momentum growth and price momentum growth as well. All right. Travel. Airlines have been bouncing a little bit. Casinos have been bouncing a bit. Cruises.

Trip, travel related names, booking holdings. What about this space here? Well, I would say on airlines and to some extent cruises, the fact that oil prices are down is very helpful. So that's been a boost.

For some of the travel names, in terms of just travel and booking and how much are people traveling, they are still traveling. There was an article today or yesterday about how even in middle class and below, people are traveling more than one would expect. They continue to see experiences as something they're spending money on rather than goods.

We see that in some of the retail numbers and the numbers for all of these travel companies have continued to remain positive.

Retail gap, brutal again today, down almost another 7%. Abercrombie, maybe it's moving on that. Their guidance was below. Target was down again. Walmart and Costco favored at Evercore over Target. You've got both of those. TJX called a high conviction buy today at UBS. You own that one too. You have three names to own clearly. Walmart, Costco, TJX. TJX.

off price clearly benefiting i wouldn't touch target right now i know everyone continues to come on air and talk about the valuation and talk about the opportunity uh... to me it looks like a particularly troubled stock overall as you look at consumer discretionary recovery in europe for recovery in asia

That's going to benefit names like Expedia and like Royal Caribbean, the apparel names that you mentioned, Gap, Ivocron, BFitch. No touch. No, thank you. We're going to take a quick break. We come back with more committee moves. Joe has two trades in the best performing sector this year. It is health care, as you probably know by now. Halftime's back right after this. How will you shape the future of consumer products in retail with confidence? Behind every favorite product or seamless checkout, there's a series of strategic decisions to make.

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Restrictions apply. See full terms at fanduel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Let's get to these moves that I mentioned. We do have, it's healthcare best performing group of the year. So you are completely out of the XBI.

I'd like you to do me a favor. Next time I mention that I've gotten into the XBI, would you just look at me and say, please get out? Because every time I buy the XBI, it has not worked over the last three years. I have tried on multiple occasions, and it seems as though we continue to have this conversation over and over again where you say, oh, you got out of the XBI. Yep, I got out of the XBI, and the reason I got out of the XBI is because it's been lousy. It hasn't worked. It should have worked, and I

I rotated into another large cap biotech name.

Which would be? Amgen. Amgen. And the reason I did that is because I want to simplify the story. I want to have exposure, but let's simplify the story. Let's go with what's working. And I truly believe that Amgen is advancing and ultimately delivering an obesity drug that potentially could challenge Eli Lilly. Price target went up today at Bank of America. What do you think about Amgen? I like Amgen. I think it's a really good trade. I do. It's a low multiple stock. The tech...

You look at the chart, it looks like it's breaking out. It has a yield. It has a staple of good drugs. And Meritide, which is the GLP-1 drug, is once a month, they believe. They're going to have phase three data soon. They've got drugs in inflammation. There are some cardiovascular drugs that are in phase three. It's got a nice staple of products that are going to increase...

over the next five to ten years which has been a problem for them to because he put in a new pitch in some of their regional drugs you know i can not a lot of growth so this fight that is a good time now has stopped showing off with knowing all the names and i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i

I think they're all doing well. If you look at the charts, they all look like they're moving higher here. That's true of a number of the drugstores, not all of them. Bristol's got a number that are quite a few in phase three that, again, are going to replace the drugs coming off. And I don't have to say what they all are, but it's up to you. You're right.

And, you know, the same is true Abbott, which has had problems because of some lawsuits. That's getting settled. We're moving forward with devices and technology on the health care side that I think is positive. Thermo, you're talking about, right? Abbott.

Abbott and Thermo. Abbott and Thermo. So Thermo has not behaved well, and that's in part because of the vaccine worries. Because if you look at where they get their business, it's much from universities and from clinical trials. And these are all places that are under siege, perhaps, but the stock's cheap. Why don't you own Lilly?

I'm just curious. So Lilly is a name that we have for the last two years looked at and said, we want to buy it at this price. And then it didn't get to that price. Well, you just never got your price. Yeah, I mean, it's a great stock. I mean, it's something that Lilly or Novo would love to own. But, you know, maybe there's a chance right here with Novo. You do own, you and Weiss own UnitedHealth.

What do you think of this here? I like UnitedHealth. Look, we know there's going to be or likely to be some hits to Medicaid, but they more than make it up with the Medicare Advantage, which the administration likes and goes through the whole value-based care VBC phenomenon that the government's pushing everybody to, which means the docs take on more risk. So I think it's very cheap here. I do think that it's a safe port in a storm in the market and very defensive. Now, that's really defensive, Kerry.

One more, ResMed. I bring it up because it got upgraded today to a buy. The price target goes to 44 from 41. That coming at Citi today, they say the valuation is reasonable. They like the EPS growth, the free cash flow.

They like the fact that they say there'll be no debt by the end of the fiscal year. You own this name. They're a leader in sleep deprivation, talking about literally 40 percent of what they don't need in sleep deprivation. They lead in CPAC. They don't get people to sleep less. I understand that. But they're the leader in the space. The stock is underperformed. Right now, to me, Boston Scientific, Eli Lilly, Sincora, those are the three names in health care that you want to own.

All right, let's get the headlines now with Silvana Henao. Hi, Silvana. Hey, Scott. Good afternoon. The Trump administration has been holding secret talks with Hamas over U.S. hostages held in Gaza. Sources tell Axios the meetings also included talks of a broader deal to release all of the remaining hostages and to end the war. This would be the first time the U.S. has directly engaged with Hamas, which was named a terrorist organization in 1997. The White House has yet to comment. Good afternoon.

Congressman Sylvester Turner died last night, just two months after taking office. House Democratic lawmakers told NBC News the first term member from Texas suffered a medical emergency, but his cause of death is still unclear. The former mayor of Houston was elected to Congress in November, filling the seat left vacant by longtime representative Sheila Jackson Lee, who died of cancer last year. Turner was 70 years old.

And just a day after the Trump administration posted a list of 443 federal properties up for potential sale, it changed course today. The General Services Administration took down the list, which included some of the government's most iconic properties.

The GSA has yet to comment on the change. Scott, I'll send it back to you. OK. All right, Silvana. Thank you so much. Silvana, now up next, we'll do our calls of the day. One firm says now is the time to buy this struggling sector and still to come. We'll tell you about some stocks that one firm says offer a safe port in this tear up storm. We're back after this.

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All right, welcome back as we welcome in our senior markets commentator, Mike Santoli, here at Post 9. So what do you make of this market? We knew that we are and we're going to still be headline driven. CNN reporting that the president and Canada's Trudeau spoke today. That was a report that just moved a few moments ago. The market's moving a little bit higher. What should we do with all this? I mean, the market is in this kind of

wide, loose range at this point. It can kind of swim around it wherever it wants. Forty-eight hours ago, the S&P was at 59.50. Yesterday's high was 58.50. We made a low near 5,700. Today, we're at 58 right on the button pretty much. And it just sort of shows you that lack of conviction and headline fatigue, I think. It's kind of like the overstimulated toddler situation. I

I do think, though, what you can read in the action is the market craves reassurance about the macro picture. That's why ISM services got you a little bit of a bid and only a couple hours before, a little bit of a weak ADP payrolls actually had us backing off. So I don't think we have resolution. Everyone knows we're oversold enough to rally.

It doesn't always mean it happens on time. It doesn't mean you just have to kind of kiss the oversold levels. You have to maybe whip around there a little bit. But I do think that, you know, a month delay in the auto piece of this, I don't know what it really buys you because you're still sitting there on the hook. And as much as the administration wants to preserve leverage, it means preserving that kind of limbo state for the market. Well, maybe the market just assumes, OK, you push off the autos and then you push off something else.

So that's why I think people feel like it's difficult to get too negative. Right. Or at least not put a lot of money behind an outright negative view. Because again, you're oversold. You went down 6.5% in eight trading sessions.

In theory, if not that much has changed about the macro, you should be fine. But the market really sees the whole tariff thing as kind of beside the point and yet a potential risk. Nobody's going to change earnings estimates yet for it. You have to just wait. Yeah, and ADP obviously was pretty ugly. But we'll get the real number on Friday. All right, I'll see you at 3. That's Mike Santoli. Coming up, taking tariff cover. Six committee stocks that could be safe hideouts, according to one firm. We'll tell you what those names are next.

All right, welcome back as we welcome in our senior markets commentator, Mike Santoli here at Post9. So what do you make of this market? We knew that we are and we're going to still be headline driven. CNN reporting that the president and Canada's Trudeau spoke today. That was a report that just moved a few moments ago. The market's moving a little bit higher. What should we do with all this? I mean, the market is in this kind of

wide, loose range at this point. It can kind of swim around it wherever it wants. Forty-eight hours ago, the S&P was at 59.50. Yesterday's high was 58.50. We made a low near 5,700. Today, we're 58 right on the button pretty much. And it just sort of shows you that lack of conviction and headline fatigue, I think. It's kind of like the overstimulated toddler situation. I

I do think though what you can read in the action is the market craves reassurance about the macro picture. That's why ISM services got you a little bit of a bid and only a couple hours before a little bit of a weak ADP payrolls actually had us backing off. So I don't think we have resolution. Everyone knows we're oversold enough to rally.

Doesn't always mean it happens on time. It doesn't mean you just have to kind of kiss the oversold levels. You have to maybe whip around there a little bit. But I do think that, you know, a month delay in the auto piece of this, I don't know what it really buys you because you're still sitting there on the hook. And as much as the administration wants to preserve leverage, it means preserving that kind of limbo state for the market. Well, maybe the market just assumes, OK, you push off the autos and then you push off something else.

So that's why I think people feel like it's difficult to get too negative. - Right, or at least not put a lot of money behind an outright negative view because again, you're oversold, you went down 6.5% in eight trading sessions.

In theory, if not that much has changed about the macro, you should be fine. But the market really sees the whole tariff thing as kind of beside the point and yet a potential risk. Nobody's going to change earnings estimates yet for it. You have to just wait. Yeah, and ADP obviously was pretty ugly. But we'll get the real number on Friday. All right, I'll see you at 3. That's Mike Santoli. Coming up, taking tariff cover. Six committee stocks that could be safe hideouts, according to one firm. We'll tell you what those names are next.

All right, welcome back. Wolf Research today did a stock screen on what they call double beat stocks to offer a safe port in this tariff storm. Now, they focus on companies with solid fundamentals and improving earnings outlook. Companies beating on the top and the bottom lines over the past two quarters with positive relative price action around their EPS reports. On our list, Netflix, Steve Weiss.

Look, it's a great story. You know, we know that Disney+ is picking up some steam, holding up subscribers longer. That's really it. It's a two-horse race. So I still like Netflix. I like the way it acts. Sure, it's given up its highs, but still, it's just a phenomenal story in scarcity in terms of both the company and the stock. Carrie, your final trade yesterday was Charter Communications. It is on that list. Yeah.

Go Wolf. So it's a stock that has underperformed. It's starting now to outperform. It's like a utility. It's a cable company. It's U.S.-based. No foreign exposure there. No tariff problem. And we think the cash flows are beginning to improve nicely. They've been buying shares back and it's a cheap stock. Garmin, Joe, is on that list.

So on that list, I'm not necessarily sure that this is one of the names that should be on the list. I agree with most of the other names. Very strong earnings. The reaction to earnings was particularly poor. They got a little bit overvalued and it needs to work off some of that overvaluation. Okay. Visa, Kerry?

Well, people continue to spend. Visa continues to take market share. They're the best in the business. It's been a fantastic stock. It's come down a little bit. This is an opportunity to buy. Charles Schwab's on that list. You own that, too. Yeah, also. Where interest rates are now, I think, is a comfortable place for them. There was a lot of cash sorting where people wanted more interest. They got it. Now this company is poised to accelerate its earnings growth over the next few years. Okay. It's gone green. CME.

Joe, on the list. All of the exchanges right now are in a sweet spot given the elevated volatility that we're seeing, the increased volumes that are going through as it relates to trading risk assets. So whether it's the CME, TradeWeb, Interactive Brokers, all of these names really should work in this environment. Okay, quick break. Come back with today's top movers next.

Let's give you a snapshot of this market because we continue to move a little bit higher here. Dow up better than 300 points right now. NASDAQ's up almost 1% as you get a bit of a rebound. Canada is now confirming that President Trump and Trudeau did speak today. So that may be giving a little bit of a lift to stocks. Along with that earlier report, you could get a push off of...

of the tariffs on the automakers as well. So we'll keep tuned up for any headlines that we continue to get, but the market is obviously reacting in real time to everything today. EOG today, another mover. Joe, what do you think? Price target lowered by several firms today. I think that's a smart move on their part.

Earnings did little to jumpstart this stock. It's near a 52-week low. The momentum is pretty red. Okay. Other ones that you should keep an eye on today. Box.

Throw up that stock if you would. Campbell's talking a lot about different levels of the consumer spectrum today. Thor Industries was a move lower today on their margin guide. AeroVironment was down today on a big miss as well. Just want to keep you up to date on a bunch of stocks that are on the move. We're back with finals after this.

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, there's the market down. Still good for 300. Uh,

We try and build a little bit on some of those headlines out of Washington today about that conversation that has been now confirmed between Presidents Trump and Trudeau. So we'll see where all of this develops. Three o'clock, closing bell. Tom Lee, Adam Parker, Rich Saperstein, Mark Okada. So we got an all-star lineup to take you through that final stretch. Let's do some final trades. Mr. Weiss. I'm carrying over my final trade for Monday, which is Taiwan Semi. It's cheap here.

uh okay carrie firestone s p global i think there'll be a lot of refinancing the stocks haven't heard what the financials but it's attractive you want to make a big market call today like you did yesterday you're almost right it looked good i was ready to give it total credit i tried to but then we had that massive reversal it moved two percent and then faded what are we gonna finish today don't do it that then then we'll go higher

80 basis points. All right, all right, good stuff. Joe T. Baba. I think it reaches an all-time high. All right, I hope you'll join me on Closing Bell. We'll see if Kerry's right. Exchanges now. You've been listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast. You can always catch us live weekdays at 12 Eastern, only on CNBC.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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