Time to Buy the Tech Wreck? 2/28/25
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I'm Scott Wapner, and you're listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast, the most profitable hour of the trading day. We record this live weekdays at 12 Eastern. Listen in.

Okay, Carl, thanks so much. Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner. Front and center this hour, the tech wreck, whether today's price action suggests it's now actually the time to buy some of the biggest decliners. We'll ask the investment committee so much to talk about today. And joining us for the hour, Stephanie Link, Jim Labenthal, Jenny Harrington, and Kevin Simpson.

today. It has been a volatile week, as you know. PCE did come in as expected. That certainly helped. However, the S&P is still pacing for its worst month since April. NASDAQ's worst month since September of 23. So I said, Steph, we've got a lot to get to. There is the tech wreck. There's been some really interesting price action this morning as what was red is now in large part green.

Sarah was just talking about the Atlanta Fed GDP going negative, negative for Q1.

Personal spending was a surprise contraction today. There have already been concerns about a growth slowdown, which is why, in part, you have had the volatility that we've had in the market. Yeah, and I think we are seeing a growth slowdown, Scott, from about 3% to probably about 2%. The Atlanta Fed tracker came in at negative 1.5%. All of that was net exports down 3.7%, excluding that.

You're running at 2.2%. We are definitely slowing. Is it slower than 2.2? Is it in the ones? Maybe, but I don't think it's a disaster. Certainly not a recession. I think that the consumption numbers have been okay. January, not so good, right? In retail sales, you even hear it from some of the companies, but you had weather, you had fires, you have a

pull in in December because of the holidays. I think the consumer is still fine as long as there are jobs. And oh, by the way, personal income today, upside surprised, 0.9 percent month over month. That's running at about a 5 percent level. And savings went from 4.6 percent to 5.5 percent. So at least they've got cushion if we do see a slowdown. But they also have

the potential to spend as they feel better. They don't feel good now because inflation remains sticky. They don't feel good now because of tariff unknowns. But we're going to know on Tuesday what's going on with the tariffs. No, we're not going to know. We're not going to know what their impact is.

If you did 25-25-10, Mexico, Canada, China, you do 25-25-20, China, that's about 8% earnings. We just did 16% in earnings growth. Not to say we're going to continue to do 16% earnings growth, but I think in a 2% GDP world, you could do 7-10% in earnings. And I think that's the important part. We're not going to negative earnings. We're not in a recession. Not even with initial claims at 242 today or yesterday. It's

the average is about 225 now. During a recession, that number gets to 350 to 375,000 weekly initial claims. So we're not in a recession. We're slowing down. And one last thing, Scott, I think the bond market is easing for us. With the 10-year now at 422, that's actually pretty good news. I know they're coming down because growth is coming down, but lower interest rates will solve a lot of problems. I think the

bond market in some respects, if you pull up the two-year, is anticipating a Fed cut more than maybe they were expecting a couple of months ago. Because that's what that chart seems to be telling me, that the Fed is going to have to

cut more than they potentially thought because the economy is slowing more than they may be expected. Wouldn't be a bad thing. Well, that's why you got the numbers you did today. Atlanta Fed goes negative one and a half and the market's up. I think it's all tied together. I think you're right. I think it's all tied together. I think you're right. But there are some one-offs to the Atlanta Fed and the Atlanta Fed is not actually

accurate. It's a real it's a moment in time. It's a direction. Sure. And we've said that numerous times, many times. By the way, the last time the Atlanta Fed had a negative GDP was July of 2022. So it's been a minute. Yeah. The question we pose at the very top of the program and we looked at the price action today, what was red, including NVIDIA yet again is now green. We can pull up some of these tech names.

especially that and some of the other mega cap names because they have gone green which raises the question as to whether now is the time to buy some of the beaten down tech names whether the biggest or a little bit down the market cap scale jim labenthal nvidia falling below three trillion in market cap it's down double digit percentage points this week you bought more you've answered my question i i did

I did. So I bought more, 27 times forward earnings, a company that looks easily like it will grow earnings per share 50% this year. Look, we all know at some point that earnings growth rate is going to continue to drop off. But for right now, you put those two numbers together, it tells me it's a

I can't really explain why it was down 8%. If somebody's gonna say it's the gross margin projections, fine. But that's something that I think is absolutely trivial when you've got a triple beat and a company that still is the leader in the semiconductor for AI space. So I am happily adding to it. I do wanna make a qualification here. I hate making a qualification, but I've got to.

The market is heavy, notwithstanding today's green tape. I mean, we can just look at the market action. It's been about two weeks, maybe a little less than that since we topped out. Maybe we're in a correction. I doubt we're going to get a full correction. But I think if we do, it's going to be like last August, which was over in a month. We've gotten a correction and more in the NASDAQ and, well, in the mega cap names. I mean, NVIDIA is off 21% from its record high of January the 7th.

Alphabet's down 18% from its record high of February 4th. Microsoft down 16% from its high last July. Amazon Meta and Apple are all down significantly.

from their own record highs. You made a move too, Kev, in NVIDIA today. Tell me more. Well, yesterday at the close, Scott, we covered a quarter of the position just in case the things got a little bit more dicey today. And there was a lot of premium, as you can imagine, with the volatility. So we wrote a short-term one-week call. It's a $123 option. We generated almost $5 of premium. So if I get taken out, I'm out at $128, and that would be great. Jim just bought it.

and we still have the other 75% of the shares uncovered. But Scott, I'd be a buyer of any of these down here. Maybe not back the truck up and go all in, but if you're dollar cost averaging into positions that you really like, 10 to 20% pullbacks are the times you want to be buying. Unless you think that the pullbacks are going to get potentially greater, Jenny. I mean, if you have a prolonged period of...

if nothing else, concerns about a growth slowdown, right? Some of these stocks may have a hard time. That's why the NASDAQ may continue to have a hard time. NASDAQ's down almost 5% on the week. Over a month, it's down almost 6%. Reflective, I think, of, in part, a growth slowdown.

So I knew that you were going to come to me with like the other side of it, the negative. And I wouldn't be buying any of these here. When I look at it, here's what I see. I see, yes, they're off those big numbers from their highs, but they're really not that off that much year to date. Amazon's down 5% year to date. Apple's down 5% year to date. So they just had that huge kind of spiky euphoric peak.

But they're still up 30%, 50%, 60% over the last 52 weeks. And they're almost all of those top 10 MAG7, almost all are trading at over 30 times earnings. And this goes back to growth slowing. They still have, and this is true for the S&P overall also, they still have extremely great growth ahead. S&P is still expected to grow by 13%. But the growth rate is slowing.

And that's what's important because when the growth rate is flowing, maybe you don't want to pay 30 times. And I think in the backdrop of all this, when we think about what's really happened to the market,

All these earnings have come out. They're supporting 13%. The economy's still strong. We think the yields are likely to come down. Interest rates are likely to come down. So what's underpinning that? Sentiments starting to fade. And we saw that last Friday with the Michigan Confidence Report, Consumer Confidence Report, where then the market tanked a percent and a half. We saw on Tuesday the...

Or was it the conference? The Conference Bureau put out their their consumer confidence. And it was the lowest reading since August of 2021. When people don't feel confident, they do not want to pay 30 times for a stock. They do not want to pay 21 times for the market. There's a difference between the consumers who are feeling less confident and the investors who are buying those stocks you're talking about.

It's not all the same cohort of people necessarily. No, it's not at all. But they're derivatives of each other. So what do investors do? They try to look out and say, are people likely to spend at the same rate they spent last year? Are people likely to want to buy stocks at the same rate they wanted to buy stocks last year? And when people are feeling bad,

They just don't spend as much. They don't spend with as much frivolity. I think it's been an interesting week where we saw the extremes, the crypto area, really start to take it on the chin. And to me, that's always the canary in the coal mine. And then it trickles over. So when you see Bitcoin trade down from $100,000 to $80,000, and you see MicroStrategy trade down from $400 and change to, what's it at? $260, $250-ish now.

that ends up trickling over. And so if something was trading at 30 times before, which is more reasonable, maybe people only want to pay 25 times in the future. So I would not be buying any of these yet. Hopefully at some point we do. The only one of the Mag7 that we like and are starting to get interested in is Google. Alphabet, whatever we call it now, is trading at 18 times, has decent growth ahead. But I still think there's room to go.

So I partially agree with you. I'm not as negative on the economy or the markets. That's fine. But I do think I do. Well, no, it's a long way to go. But I do think to what you just said, you have to be selective on these stocks. Obviously, I wouldn't touch Tesla with a 10 foot pole. OK, it's not just the valuation. It's the chart.

where the valuation is a little more forgiving, but the chart is just disastrous, is Microsoft. I have a small position. I'd like to add to it. I thought about it this morning, but I look at that chart and that thing is heavy. That's actually negative over a one-year period, if you can believe that. Obviously, I've made my bet with NVIDIA. I'm adding to it. I totally agree with you on Alphabet. I

I don't think, though, just painting a broad brushstroke of 30 times earnings or more is always accurate. Because I've got to look at Amazon, right? You know, if they turned off their R&D spend, if they turned off their expansion efforts, they'd be below 30. And that's a very attractive stock to me. I own a full position in Amazon and Alphabet. I'm underweight Apple and Microsoft. And now I'm bigger in NVIDIA. The underperformance of Microsoft is stark. And it's why when I read to all of you and all of you,

When it had last hit its record high, you have to go back to July. It sat out the awakening, if you will, of mega cap tech to somewhat start this year. Again, these other more recent highs, we're talking January and mostly February. I think Apple's case, December. But Microsoft, you've got to go all the way back to July 5th, the last time it was trading at its high. Now, you sold a covered call on Microsoft.

Tell me more. Yeah, I just think when you have volatile markets like we're seeing here, writing covered calls is an amazing way to buffer the downside, bring in premium. We had a call expire last Friday on Microsoft. We're on another one this week. It's got a 420 strike price. So if you look at the chart and this thing goes to 420 before the mid-March, we'll happily let it go, Scott, because to your point, this hasn't been part of the massive run-up that we've seen.

But our thesis is always longer term. We like to add to the positions when they're down. And certainly when you see a VIX at 20, we can write covered calls and generate massive. Why aren't you adding to Tesla then, which you own, which is down 40% from its high? Yeah.

Yeah, I have to own Tesla. You just walked right into that one. I have to own Tesla in this growth strategy because of some of the index names that we need to include. We have a 3% position. Like Jim, I would not add to it here. There's so much that goes on to this name from a cult perspective. I think long term, if free self-driving comes to fruition, that everything that everyone's dreamed about this company can happen.

But for now, I think if you own it, you want to write calls against it and you probably want to wait for it to go down a little bit more before you add to this one. You know, the other big, big story of the last couple of weeks is momentum. I don't need to tell you how much we've been focusing on it because I feel like it's been the key driver of this market. The momentum ETF is set for its first back to back negative weeks since December.

You could go down the list of the app-lovings and palantirs, and we talked about MicroStrategy, but Constellation and Vistra and Robinhood and ANET, in some respects CrowdStrike. GE Vernova had a pretty big upset as well.

And you've trimmed that, which is interesting to me. Why did you do that? Well, just simply because I'm up 160% since it spun out last year. And it's fairly rich. And I kind of think that there's other opportunities in the same theme, data center, grid, power, all of that, in other names like Quanta Services and like Eaton. So you bought more of those too, by the way, right? I did. And I have been, Scott. I have been for a couple years.

of weeks. Just to reiterate, so you trimmed G.E. Vranova, a pretty good chunk of it, and you took the proceeds and you bought more of Eaton and bought more of Qantas. The good news is that they both just reported earnings and they both blew it away. And the Qantas services, EBITDA up 40%, backlog up 14%, electrical up 38%, Eaton data center up 45%, orders up 75%,

Pipeline up 65 percent and their and their backlog is three fold normalized levels. And these stocks also have pulled back along with the other momentum names. But I just think the valuations, along with the growth, along with the beating expectations and raising expectations, that's what I care about. So I've made these much bigger.

And GE Vernova, guess what? If it pulls back, I would buy it again. I would buy it back. But it's just, it's up so much, I think it's prudent to take games. Dell Technologies is getting slammed today. It's down 15% on the week. If you just look at some of these other names.

Robinhood is down 19%. That is from the 18th of February when really the momentum sell-off started to pick up some steam. Do you have that? We bought more this week, Scott. I mean, we love this name. I think I talk more about Robinhood and the network than Vlad does.

We had a great conversation on Friday on the closing bell about the covered call that we wrote. It was a one-year leap. We sold it for $13 last week, on Friday. We bought it back this week for $6, so we netted a $7 profit selling a call on Robinhood. We added to the position this week, and we actually wrote a call yesterday again bringing in another dollar for a March expiration. So a lot of volatility on this name. We believe in the thesis long-term.

But we're printing money writing calls against Robinhood. Crowd strikes down 16% since the 18th of February. Price target today goes to $4.50 from $4.18 at JPM. You trimmed this name? I did. Well, we talked about this a couple weeks ago. So I was trimming it when it was not down as much. But I was up $9.

up 95% from the August lows. Great company, fabulous growth, believe in cybersecurity. - Great turnaround. - Really good turnaround. I mean, up 95% since the kind of the issues that they had, the outages, that's when I bought it. But it's had a really good run back.

And I think it was, I thought it was vulnerable for a pullback. I put the money into Palo Alto a couple of weeks ago. And then this week, last week, I've been adding to Palo Alto, just building the position. It's a volatile stock too, but it has lagged, right? It's only up 22% in the past year. It's actually flat the last three months of this year and last year.

And that's relative to the group that was up 40 to 50 percent last year. And so I think this is a company that is a great platform strategy, great products, great solution set, the most comprehensive solutions that nobody has at all. But they have a very, very good platinum platform story and strategy.

And I think the free cash flow is growing as well. And it's going to be about 4.5 percent, 4.5 billion by the end of this year. Gives them a lot of flexibility to continue to invest in the business and to grow. And I think eventually as they execute, the stock will rebound. So they're going to speaking of executing, they're going to report their earnings next week. So you're going to get a real time look at exactly how they continue to execute and rebound from the issue.

of many months ago that they had. So let's talk software for a moment because the IGV is having its worst, that's the software ETF, is having its worst month since April, right? We're on the last trading day, obviously, of the month. You bought more Salesforce at 295 bucks.

Why so? It's a relatively new position for us, Scott. We own it in both the dividend strategy and the growth strategy. We like the AI play here. I thought that the market sold off because they didn't like the guidance they were getting. It seems like they discount the guidance quite frequently with this position.

The agent force is really what we like behind it. The margins are increasing. They're expanding up to 34%. They have 3000 paying users for agent force. They just rolled this out. And if you are a customer of Salesforce, you love it and you're embedded in the technology and the infrastructure. It's hard to leave a very profitable business. I think it's a buy down here. So you bought it 295 city likes it at three 50. They they're neutral on it. They reiterated that.

Actually, they cut it to $335. I'm sorry. They cut the price target from $350 to $335. Truist has reiterated the buy rating that they had. We didn't talk to you on Snowflake because you were traveling, but what's your take now on that quarter as we stay in software for a minute? What a difference a year makes. And the CEO is now in his role for four quarters.

and he's got a sea legs more than his sea legs he's growing better than expected total revenues grew 27 product revenue growth 28 the real piece here is the guidance because i was thinking they were going to guide for the full year like product revenue growth about 2021 they they guided for 24 they also guided for eight percent margins i think that's going to be the story going forward the margin expansion story as they gain momentum market share and have pricing power so

This company has, it's been a, it's been a, certainly a volatile one over the last couple of, last couple of quarters, but I do think they are positioned quite well in 2025. And oh, by the way, they announced a deal with Microsoft, a partnership with Microsoft on another AI initiative that should be

viewed positively. - Okay, so software not that great at all. Nvidia obviously putting the focus on the chips, which haven't been good this week. It's the worst week for the SMH since last September. It's down almost 9% week to date, taking advantage of part of the slippage there.

Also, as it relates to the momentum is Broadcom, which you bought more of. It's been painful too, just like Nvidia, right? They kind of trade together. Good for you for leaning in. It's down 20% from its highs. I'm not crazy about the valuation, so I only bought a little bit and I will continue to buy if it continues to fall. But I just like the diversification in terms of the revenue mix. It's not just data center and AI.

and cloud. It's also software. 41% of their business is software. VMware is humming at this company, and they have legacy businesses that haven't recovered yet that I think is going to be the 2025 story. So I like this management team a lot. I think they're going to do more M&A as well. And I just thought down 20%, I have to start adding it someplace. And that seemed like a good place. Okay. And then there is Bitcoin, which we had talked about for just a minute.

On pace for its biggest weekly drop since the collapse of FTX. That was November of 2022. You've had record outflows as well from crypto. Also, interesting price action in the Bitcoin ETFs, which Taneya McKeel is following that money for us today. And that goes right to the heart of retail, doesn't it?

Yeah, Scott, Bitcoin turning higher here at the end of an otherwise painful week. Like you said, heading for its worst week since the 2022 FTX collapse, worst month since June 2022. And Bitcoin ETFs, record outflows this week, about $2.7 billion in outflows. As of yesterday's close, we'll get today's numbers later in the afternoon. And the theme this week, Scott, has really been macro headwinds overshadowing these really strong regulatory tailwinds.

absent a crypto specific catalyst and investors I talked to say that they expect more of the same heading into March. So you know the market seems to like the PCE. If you want another silver lining bitcoins RSI that's its relative strength index. It's now under 30 which suggests

which suggests oversold conditions. So that is giving some investors hope that we find a bottom here soon. But again, Scott, Bitcoin likely to be defenseless against the macro uncertainty could even pull back to as low as 70K. I know Jenny just said, you know, she could see a little bit more pullback as well. That wouldn't undermine the positive outlook. According to the people I'm talking to, this administration really is moving as swiftly as it said it was going to and creating more favorable regulatory conditions. Scott.

Taneya, thank you for that. Taneya McKeel giving us the real-time view of what's happening there. You sold MicroStrategy, which is obviously so connected more than anything else.

to crypto and to Bitcoin. You sold it at the open today. We essentially got stopped out of it when Bitcoin got down to 80,000. This is a leverage play on Bitcoin. Again, we had an amazing conversation on Friday talking about a leap that I wrote on this thing that netted $126 a share, literally $126 a share. So our cost basis on it's like 150. Getting out at 240 is fine. When you think about all the

covered calls that we had written against it. That's the volatile play that you can really have a lot of fun with. So if Bitcoin goes to 70,000, I think we'll buy Mr. again. I do think of it as a barometer of sorts on where the retail investor's head is right now. If you look at the unwind in the high interest retail names,

the Palantirs, the Robin Hoods, the Applovens, the Bitcoins. It makes you think about why in some respects, Steph, discretionary has been so weak. Also, we're worried about consumers. We talked about this contraction in spending. Discretionary is one of the worst this week in terms of sectors. It is the worst this month.

You look at some of the stocks today, cruise lines, builders, target reports next week. You have that. Lowe's and Home Depot, I was looking at those stocks today as well. Some of the larger decliners over the month, those are all on there. Pulte, Lenar, Horton, Deckers, Lulu, Shaq, Chipotle.

What do we think? Well, housing shouldn't be a surprise, right, because interest rates are still so high. But I think with interest rates coming down, it's going to fix itself. And in the meantime, the home builders are doing a really good job as best they can in terms of pricing. They are giving discounts, but they're obviously also focused on cost. And so I actually added to D.R. Horton this past week because it's gotten so cheap. It's at nine times forward estimates. And I think housing is going to rebound.

In fact, Home Depot saw the first positive comp in eight quarters, two years. And so did Lowe's, by the way. And I think, and also TJX, 5% at home goods in terms of same store sales. I think housing is about to turn. And I think that that's

That's a place, at least on the valuation front. And from the sentiment point of view, everybody is negative. On the consumer as a whole, I think they're choosy, Scott. We still see ISM services and expansion. Goods have been miserable. But companies that are focused on goods are trying to do the very best they can. And I think you're going to see a solid report next week from Target. I'm still an owner and a buyer on any weakness. OK, we will take a break. I think you've got the message. We have a lot of moves today. Not just the many from Steph that we went through or Kevin. We do have more.

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All right, well, it is Kevin Simpson who has another move that we need to discuss. It does play into the discretionary space. You sold a covered call on TJX. Talk to me more. We did this right before the earnings. We thought the earnings would be good, but there was a lot of inherent volatility surrounding the name right before the earnings report. So we sold a 125 call. We brought in a couple bucks on it. We love the report. I mean, they crushed it. So this was only on half the position. It's

Stephanie mentioned 5% same scale, which is amazing. Their international business is growing. They increased their dividend by 13%. They've got $2.5 billion of share buybacks, all the things that we look for in a stock. So why did you write a covered call against it? Well, sometimes, you know, the market goes down. It doesn't always go straight up. And with the volatility being over 20, call writing right now has been something we've been extremely active in. All right. Still in the retail space, GAAP was reiterated today. Market Perform, Telsey does that. You own GAAP.

I do. I like what Richard Dixon is doing. He's been there for about a year and a half. He's the CEO. He was at Mattel and fixed Barbie. They're bullish on the leadership. He's one of the best in the industry. And he has hired a head of Old Navy, a new CEO of Athleta. Last quarter, Athleta saw 5% same-store sales growth. They're gaining market share. The overall company is gaining market share for seven quarters in a row. Inventory is coming down eight quarters in a row.

I'm not playing this off Scott for the quarter. We know that the consumer, as I just said, they're choosy, but I do think what they're doing is the right thing and they will get customers back in that store as they get the product right. Hey Jenny, Stanley Black & Decker, top pick and outperform at Mizuho today. They love the valuation, less of an impact from tariffs than they originally thought.

might happen. What do you think? So this is just an interesting company to talk about right now. And the upgrade is perfect because of less impact from tariffs. So if you look at the chart of this, you'll see that it was 107 pre-election and it dropped to below 80 as tariff talk amped up and up. Meanwhile, they announced earnings three weeks ago. And in that call, they reiterated what they expected earnings to be and said, look, we'll manage to these. We're still seeing huge strength from our DeWalt

business, from our aerospace fastenings business. So where you are today is you've got a stock with 20-plus percent earnings growth ahead for the next two to three years, trading at 18 times this year, 16 and a half times next year, just shy of 4% dividend yield. It's a dividend aristocrat.

It's paid and raised the dividend for 57 years, paid a dividend for over 100 years. It's a great company. And to see it trade from 107 to under 80 just because of tariffs, tariff fears, and just because of the uncertainty that they brought, that's what I love about the market that we're in. Opportunities created. Okay. Another move from Steph. You bought more diamond back, which was reiterated today. A buy at Truist. Price target to 238 bucks.

quote, takes the right athletes to run the stack. That's for sure. Yeah, it's been a very busy week for me. Diamondback is a great company, E&P company, and with great management, with real discipline. I like the M&A strategy that they have employed

In the last several years, that's going to be very accretive to their earnings, no matter what happens in terms of oil prices. They've done a good job in terms of cost controls as well. The free cash flow is expanding. They're going to see about $5.9 billion in this year. The former Amerisource Bergen, now called Sancora, price targets at $2.80 from $2.70. On strong earnings results from February the 5th, Kevin, you own that stock.

Yeah, I like the call a lot. 11% year-over-year revenue growth. This isn't just a distributor anymore. It's an infrastructure global play for medical. They pay a nice dividend. They buy shares back. They've reduced their float by 7% for the past three years. Great call. We're getting some headlines now from President Trump's bilateral with Ukrainian President Zelensky. Eamon Javers is at the White House with those details, which I hear have gotten a little bit spicy, Eamon.

Scott, that's right, an extraordinarily tense moment here in the White House, in the Oval Office, as Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is meeting with Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance at this moment. Wire reporters inside the room are filing dispatches right now, suggesting that the session has gotten extraordinarily tense.

With J.D. Vance, President Trump arguing with Volodymyr Zelensky about whether he's been grateful enough for U.S. aid, whether he has agreed to a deal with the United States over mineral rights, whether or not he's being disrespectful. Trump telling Zelensky his comments were very disrespectful. Trump telling Zelensky, you either make a deal or we are out. Trump at one point interrupting Zelensky and telling him you've talked too much.

J.D. Vance asking, telling Zelensky, have you said thank you even once? Trump butting in an exchange with Zelensky and Vance saying, you don't tell us what we're going to feel. You're not in a good position. You are gambling with World War III. Now, we'll have to watch for the body language as this tape plays out, Scott. We'll see that in a couple of minutes because a lot of this can be nuanced in terms of

how those lines are delivered, how it's all said, what the tone of the meeting is. But from these wire flashes, it seems like this is a relationship on the precipice of a breakdown at this moment. And that calls into question this idea of a minerals deal with the Ukrainians that the White House has been touting throughout the week, saying that that deal is done. Scott Besson, the Treasury secretary, said yesterday the deal was done.

from the tone of these headlines right now does not feel like that deal is done. Does not feel like the future of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship is in a very good position. But we'll watch for those body language, the tone, all the details in a couple of minutes when we get this tape. The two men are then scheduled to go and do a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House here shortly after that. We'll see, Scott.

given the tension in the room, whether that press conference goes forward. It's a very dynamic and fluid situation here at the White House right now. Extraordinary details that you just brought us in, and thank you very much for that on the North Law. Scott, can I give you one more detail here, too? The other significant thing that happened here in this Oval Office meeting is that the White House allowed the pool reporters to go into the meeting. One of the reporters who went into the Oval Office was the White House bureau chief for TAS.

That's the Russian state news agency. His name is Dmitry Kriznyov. Kriznyov went into the Oval Office. Now, TASS is a state media organization throughout the Cold War and since. A lot of folks in Washington have just assumed that TASS officials

are Russian intelligence officers. We don't have any information about this particular individual, of course, but Tass is viewed askance in Washington, to say the least. He went into the Oval Office, was approached during Trump's remarks by a Secret Service agent who motioned to him that he needed to leave the Oval Office during the remarks. The press office then escorted him out of the Oval Office,

of the West Wing entirely, and he has now left the complex. So a dramatic moment there. There'll be some questions as to why a TASS reporter was in the Oval Office during a session between President Trump and President Zelensky. So some brinksmanship there in terms of the media and who has access to the Oval Office, who has access to Vladimir Zelensky personally as well. Let me just ask you another question about that now that you're bringing it to us. And if you don't know the answer, my apologies.

Is it surprising in the first place that somebody from TASS would even have a media credential for access to the complex itself? It's not. TASS has had access to the complex for a while. You know, we in the media are very constrained here in terms of where we can go, what we can see. You know, we have a nice view, but we're basically on the outside looking in. And so that has not been seen as a security threat in recent years, and TASS has been at a lot of briefings

and things over the years to get into the oval office though is a different order of magnitude and part of what's going on here is the white house has changed the rules for who is in the quote-unquote pool that that limited group of maybe call it a dozen reporters who go into the oval office to actually be you know ten feet from the president united states ten feet or closer to vladimir zelinski as well uh... that

all dynamics now changed and it may be that this reporter applied to be a part of the expanded pool under this new process and was simply allowed in it may be that he was not allowed in the White House has put out a statement saying that he was not authorized to be in the Oval Office and therefore that's why they kicked him out but it's clearly a potential security concern if you have a Russian state media person you know within several feet of Vladimir Zelensky

No doubt. And also, you know, I find it hard to imagine another episode where there was this much tension in that room, the Oval, between two world leaders, certainly in your career of covering the White House. Can you think of one that might have gotten nearly as tense as this one has?

I can't think of a situation normally, even when there are hostile relations between the countries, the matters to be discussed have been gone over to a fairly well by the diplomats of both countries beforehand. These things are typically enormously carefully orchestrated to avoid just this kind of diplomatic blow up and sort of mano a mano insults back and forth between the principals. You just never want to see that as a White House.

And so even when it's an adversarial nation, you tend not to see that. In this case, though, this is an extraordinarily personally difficult relationship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky that dates back to Trump's first impeachment. And let's look at this playback that we're getting now, Eamon.

and say hi vladimir how are we doing on the deal that doesn't work that way i'm not aligned with putin i'm not aligned with anybody i'm aligned with the united states of america and for the good of the world i'm aligned with the world and i want to get this thing over with you see the hatred he's got for putin it's very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of he's got tremendous hatred and i understand that but i can tell you the other side isn't exactly in love with you know him either

So it's not a question of alignment. I'm aligned with the world. I want to get the thing set. I'm aligned with Europe. I want to see if we can get this thing done. You want me to be tough? I could be tougher than any human being you've ever seen. I'd be so tough. But you're never going to get a deal that way. So that's the way it goes. All right, one more question. I would respond to this. So look,

For four years in the United States of America, we had a president who stood up at press conferences and talked tough about Vladimir Putin, and then Putin invaded Ukraine and destroyed a significant chunk of the country. The path to peace and the path to prosperity is maybe engaging in diplomacy. We tried the pathway of Joe Biden of thumping our chest and pretending

that the President of the United States' words mattered more than the President of the United States' actions. What makes America a good country is America engaging in diplomacy. That's what President Trump is doing. Can I ask you? Sure. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. So he occupied our parts, big parts of Ukraine, parts of East and Crimea. So he occupied it on 2014. So...

2015

2014. 2014. I was not here. That's exactly right. Yes, but during 2014 until 2022,

The situation was the same. People were dying on the contact line. Nobody stopped him. We had conversations with him. A lot of conversations. My bilateral conversation. And we signed with him, me, like a new president in 2019. I signed with him the deal. I signed with him, Macron and Merkel, we signed ceasefire.

Ceasefire. All of them told me that he will never go. We signed him with gas contract. Gas contract. Yes, but after that he broken the ceasefire. He killed our people and he didn't exchange prisoners. We signed the exchange of prisoners, but he didn't do it.

What kind of diplomacy, J.D., you are speaking about? What do you mean? I'm talking about the kind of diplomacy that's going to end the destruction of your country. Yes, but if you are not strong... Mr. President, with respect, I think it's disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around...

and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring it into this conflict. Have you ever been to Ukraine that you say what problems we have? I have been to... Come once. I've actually watched and seen the stories, and I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President. Do you disagree that you've had problems?

bringing people into your military? And do you think that it's respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country? A lot of questions. Let's start from the beginning. First of all, during the war,

Everybody has problems, even you, but you have nice ocean and don't feel now, but you will feel it in the future. God bless, God bless, God bless, you will not have the war. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. I'm not telling you. Because you're in no position to dictate that. You're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel.

You're going to feel very good. You will feel influenced. We're going to feel very good and very strong. You will feel influenced. You're right now not in a very good position.

You've allowed yourself to be in a very bad position and it happens to be right about you. You're not in a good position. You don't have the cards right now. With us you start having cards. Right now you don't have the cards. You're playing cards. You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War III. You're gambling with World War III.

And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country, that's backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have. Have you said thank you once? A lot of times. No, in this entire meeting, have you said thank you? You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October, offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who's trying to save your country. Please, you think that...

If you will speak very loudly about the war, you can... He's not speaking loudly. He's not speaking loudly. Your country is in big trouble. Can I ask? No, no. You've done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble. I know. You're not winning. You're not winning this. You have a damn good chance of coming out okay...

because of us. - Mr. President, we are staying in our country, staying strong from the very beginning of the war. We've been alone and we are thankful. I said thanks in this cabinet. - You haven't been alone. We gave you, through this stupid president, $350 billion. We gave you military equipment and you met a brave, but they had to use our military equipment. If you didn't have our military equipment, if you didn't have our military equipment, this war would have been over

In two weeks. In three days. I heard it from Putin. In three days. This is something new. Maybe less. In two weeks. Of course, yes. It's going to be a very hard thing to do business like this. I tell you. Just say thank you. I said it a lot of times. Except that there are disagreements. And let's go litigate those disagreements rather than trying to fight it out in the American media when you're wrong.

We know that you're wrong. But you see, I think it's good for the American people to see what's going on. I think it's very important. That's why I kept this going so long. You have to be thankful. You don't have the cards. You're buried there. People are dying. You're running low on soldiers. Listen, you're running low on soldiers. It would be a damn good thing. Then you tell us, I don't want to cease fire. I don't want to cease fire. I want to go and I wanted this. Look,

If you could get a ceasefire right now, I tell you, you take it so the bullets stop flying and your men stop getting killed. Of course we want to stop the war. But you're saying you don't want a ceasefire. But I said to you, with guarantees. I want a ceasefire because you'll get a ceasefire faster than an agreement. Ask our people about ceasefire, what they think.

That wasn't with me. That wasn't with me. That was with a guy named Biden who was not a smart person. That was with Obama. Excuse me. That was with Obama who gave you sheets and I gave you javelins. I gave you the javelins to take out all those tanks. Obama gave you sheets. In fact, the statement is Obama gave sheets and Trump gave javelins. You got to be more thankful.

Because let me tell you, you don't have the cards. With us, you have the cards. But without us, you don't have any cards. One more question to Mr. Vice President. It's going to be a tough deal to make because the attitudes have to change. What if Russia breaks this deal?

What do you say? She's asking what if Russia breaks the ceasefire? What if anything? What if a bomb drops on your head right now? Okay? What if they broke it? I don't know. They broke it with Biden because Biden, they didn't respect him. They didn't respect Obama. They respect me.

Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia. You ever hear of that deal? That was a phony. That was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden scam. Hillary Clinton, shifty Adam Schiff. It was a Democrat scam. And he had to go through that. And he did go through it. We didn't end up in a war.

and he went through it he was accused of all that stuff he had nothing to do with it came out of hunter biden's bathroom it came out of hunter biden's bedroom it was disgusting and then they said oh oh the laptop from hell was made by russia the 51 agents the whole thing was a scam and he had to put up with that he was being accused of all that stuff

All I can say is this. He might have broken deals with Obama and Bush, and he might have broken them with Biden. He did, maybe. Maybe he didn't. I don't know what happened. But he didn't break them with me. He wants to make a deal. I don't know if he can make a deal. The problem is, I've empowered you to be a tough guy. And I don't think you'd be a tough guy without the United States. And your people are very brave. But you're either going to make a deal or we're out. And if we're out...

You'll fight it out. I don't think it's going to be pretty, but you'll fight it out. But you don't have the cards. But once we sign that deal, you're in a much better position. But you're not acting at all thankful. And that's not a nice thing. I'll be honest. That's not a nice thing.

All right, I think we've seen enough. What do you think? This is going to be great television, I will say that. We'll see what we can do about putting it together.

We'll take it back. Just an extraordinary piece of tape from inside the Oval Office in that tense interaction between the Ukraine president, President Trump, Vice President Vance as well. Eamon Javers has been standing by this time. Eamon, I have to say, it's one thing to hear you recap what happened in that room, quite another thing to see it for ourselves.

Scott, I've never seen anything like that. You've never seen anything like that. Nobody in the United States has ever seen a situation like that in the Oval Office before on live television playing out as leaders of two countries effectively shouting at each other, talking over each other, bitter disagreements, anger, emotion on display there. What that was...

was a diplomatic meltdown of relations between the United States and Ukraine. Now, you could say this has been coming. We've seen some indication of that. The president taking to social media to call Vladimir Zelensky a dictator in recent weeks. The question about whether or not there would be a mineral deal. Zelensky

rejecting that deal initially. Some question about whether there will be a deal today. All of that percolating in the background leading up to this extraordinary break in relations between the United States and Ukraine in that room today. You wonder just how this relationship can be repaired after that sort of mano a mano

argument uh... in front of global television cameras that we just saw us a truly remarkable and historic moment there in the oval office this president is adamant that as lindsay owes a debt of thanks to the american taxpayer more respects to him personally more respect to the united states in general and needs to sign that mineral deal zelinski uh... not backing down at all

on the history of the war what his people have gone through what he intends and his view of the lack of reliability of any deal that vladimir putin would sign the two men are simply at odds and you saw that playing out in the oval office and extraordinary things so i playing out the stock market to him and thank you for that and by the way as far as you know we are still expecting that joint news conference at some point in the afternoon correct

The schedule is for a news conference to happen in the East Room just behind me here. Reporters are already lining up for that. The question is whether these two men can simmer down and bring themselves to stand side by side and take questions from media, questions which will be intense. There's a lot of foreign media here for this. Obviously, the domestic media are here. There will be questions about this relationship, questions about what we just saw on the Oval.

They may not want to answer those questions at this point. You can imagine there's an enormous scramble going on inside the West Wing right now to bring tensions down, to take the simmer down on this stove and try to put this thing back together for the rest of the afternoon. We'll see if they can do it.

- Eamon, we'll let you get inside. Thanks so much for that. That's Eamon Javers, as we said, North Lawn of the White House, just recapping those extraordinary events today inside the Oval Office. I mentioned what the market's reaction was. S&P dropped about 20 points or so as all of that was unfolding. NASDAQ's negative. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is negative too. I'll just get a comment from you, Jim. The market has already been skittish, in part because of what had deemed to be

the potential breaking of long-standing alliances around the globe between the United States and some of the nations that have been our allies for decades and those who have been deemed to be our adversaries for decades. I'm disturbed by what I just saw. I'm disturbed by what you just said. Not that you said it, but that we have to have this conversation.

I have been saying to clients and will say right now, we have to strip out politics from policies. Okay, I am just going to focus on the policies here.

If the policies in foreign affairs is now to empower Russia and Vladimir Putin, I don't think that's good for the stock market. I don't think that's good for the global economy. I find it hard to make a case otherwise. And I'm not going to elaborate further than that. I think it stands as I just said it. All right. We'll leave that the last word for that. Let's do this. Let's take a quick break. I do want to get to a few more things within the stock market. And we'll watch that very closely, too. We'll be back in two minutes.

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Bit of a different market picture as we follow what has been a fairly volatile session. Stocks were green across the board. You really had some nice price action coming into this hour. However, the market did turn lower as all of us were watching those extraordinary events inside the Oval Office. A shouting match, really.

between the president of the United States and the president of Ukraine, Vice President Vance, in there as well. We are still expecting a joint news conference sometime this afternoon. Until we hear otherwise, we'll assume that that event is still going. But there is your market picture. Just adding to what has already been a rather uncertain backdrop for stocks,

talking about a potential growth slowdown in the United States. Atlanta GDP today, negative 1.5. Haven't seen that in a while. Yields have been falling as a result of the uncertainty around the economy and growth, and we'll follow all of it. I do want to get to a couple more things of note, however, before we go today, and it is UnitedHealth. It's another move. Kevin Simpson has trimmed that name. Stephanie Link has bought more. Kevin, you first.

Well, it's like a Tom Clancy novel where politics can play on a sector and a company specifically. We've owned this stock for over 13 years. It's been a full position. We've simply reduced it to a 3 percent because we're a little bit concerned that maybe where there's smoke, there could be fire.

I don't disagree with Stephanie adding to it. She'll give you the bulk case on it. We understand the math and believe in all of it. We still own the name, but she had issues back in November when we were talking about pricing problems. You had a Wall Street Journal article in December. You had a senseless murder of an executive.

and now you have a DOJ that's going after them for billing issues at Medicare. I know it's a long way off. We still own the name, but we're just taking a little risk off the table here, and I think it is an appropriate day to do that. Okay. Steph? It's down 25% since November, so I think all of the issues that you're concerned with, I am too, have been, and I haven't been involved in the name, but I do think down 25%, trading at...

6.5 times EBITDA when the historical average is at 12 for the number one managed care company in the world with a good management team, with a good bench, with $20 billion in free cash flow and a new buyback program. And we don't even know if the latest DOJ is investigation, is actually an investigation. So there's a lot of unknowns, but I think...

the stock price and the valuation is reflecting it. You know, if you look at some of the winners and losers for this month, again, this is the final trading day of the month of February. Jim, your best winner this month has been AbbVie, as healthcare has really sort of picked up to get this year going. Hasn't done that great over the last month, the space, but that is your best winner. It's up 12% in

in this period of time? I really think it's a well-managed company. What do I mean when I say that? This is a company that was facing a huge patent cliff with Humira. They've excellently replaced that with SkyRizzy and Renvoke. They've made some key acquisitions to bolster their pipeline, and it's all coming together for a stock that has a mid-teens multiple and a 3.2% dividend yield, which means to me it's a buy right here. Steph, Lilly tops yours. Speaking of, again, a nice move in healthcare. Lilly's up 11% within the month of February.

Yeah, when you have total revenues growing 40%, that's unheard of in pharmaceutical land. And I think you've got the greatest management team. You've got a phenomenal pipeline, good balance sheet. So I'm just starting with this position. I'm going to grow it on weakness over time. What's going on with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon? Because all three have performed quite well. Jenny?

AT&T is your best, up 14.5% in February. Right. So I'm actually using that as a source of cash. But I think the reality here is there's nothing company-specific. It's just that overall rotation. And on these stocks, you have things trading at 10 times earnings.

AT&T's got a yield of four and change. T-Mobile doesn't pay a big dividend. Verizon, six and change. So you've just got to flight to safety. And as we've seen that rotation out of the juicy stuff from last year and into health care, into these communication stocks that are cheap, that's all it is. It's nothing unique that's happening at them. Kev, T-Mobile is up 14. You recently bought it.

Yeah, I almost misspoke on the dividend recently. I thought it was a rounding error, and it is over 1%. So we put this in the growth strategy. We love Verizon. We love AT&T, T-Mobile. We'll never get a chance to talk about it again like this. All right. Well, we are going to follow this market, obviously, into the close. I'll see you on Closing Bell with Jeremy Siegel of the Wharton School. We'll see what transpires in the news conference this afternoon at the White House as well. But let's do final trades. Kev, what have you got? Salesforce.

Jenny? TripAdvisor from our growth portfolio. Okay. Good name out of the consumer space. Farmer Jim? Disney. Respect the strength in a wobbly market here. And Stephanie Link? Diamondback Energy down 14%, trading at nine times earnings. Okay. Just a last quick check on the markets. We are still negative on the Dow, the S&P, and the Nasdaq. The Russell is just barely positive, but I have a feeling it's going to be a very interesting afternoon. I'll see you at 3 o'clock when closing bell. The exchange begins 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.

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