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Halftime Report
Alphabet Crosses the $3 Trillion Mark 9/15/25
00:43:54
Courtney Reagan and the Investment Committee debate the critical week for your money as more key data and the next Fed decision loom large. Plus, Alphabet crosses a $3 trillion market cap, the desk discuss their big tech strategy. And later, the committee talk about Elon Musk’s $1 billion buy of Tesla stock and what it means for the company. Investment Committee Disclosures
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Janice Henderson
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Joe Terranova
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.
- [01:17]
Courtney Reagan
Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Courtney Reagan in today for Scott Waffner. Front and center this hour, a critical week for your money as more key data and the next Fed rate decision. Loose large. The investment committee is standing by to break it all down. Joe Terranova, Shannon Sokotia, Steve Weiss and Bryn Tockington are your traders today. Here is a quick check in on the markets. We have relatively sanguine market here. The Dow Jones Industrial average just about flat, maybe a tick to the downside. S and P500 higher by about a half a percent. The NASDAQ composite again leading the way higher by 9, 10 of a percent. And we will get to the setup for this week. But first we're watching Alphabet crossing above the $3 trillion market cap for the first time ever. You can see by more than 3% here today. This is a really big move. I can't believe it's been 10 years since the creation of Alphabet as the holding company because I always still want to call it Google. But we know it has many, many businesses. Joe, I want to start with you just because you're sitting right here. I mean we talk about these market cap milestones. Does it mean anything to you other than it's so widely held, it's so important to the broad scheme of the market. But hitting a certain number, does that suggest something?
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Joe Terranova
I just think it's evidence. Look, if you go back over the last 15, the staggering return for the Nasda, what's it attributable to? It's really the remarkable earnings growth that you're seeing from these massive corporations. While I was speaking in the control room, if you could show the xlg, that's the ETF for some of the largest market cap companies, you could see the powerful breakout that's occurring because what we're witnessing here with names like Nvidia, like names like Alphabet, like names like Apple. So in the case of Alphabet, they had a very clear clearing event with the antitrust ruling, just several, that lifted sentiment dramatically, that brought a lot of people in from on the sidelines. And I always like to look at when you're thinking about sentiment, where is the analyst community? So you could take the Magnificent seven and you could look at the analyst community and say, okay, in the analyst community, where am I? On greater than 90% of the analyst community having buys, you'll find four names there, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, a tick below that would be alphabetical at 82% and that's lifted up from the 70s, not surprisingly. At the bottom would be Apple at 55% and Tesla at 44%. So it's a sentiment lift more than anything else on the premise that, look, they've got this cleared clearing event that's affecting and acting as a catalyst.
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Courtney Reagan
Shannon, what do you make of this? I mean, we're also getting a reiterated buy at Citi today to 280 from 225. We're sitting at 248. So right about in the middle, I.
- [03:58]
Shannon Sokotia
Think it's a combination of both this inflection point or clearing event, as Joe said, but also the multiple, if you look at how Alphabet is trading versus the other mag seven, you know, it's only just only met as cheaper in terms of its forward multiple. And so I think there's also this continued strengthening or acknowledgement that this trade has some continued transmission likely over the course of the next couple of quarters. So we came into this year, Courtney, many analysts thought that we'd start to see a pretty meaningful deceleration in year over year earnings growth for these companies. And really we haven't seen that. And so not only has that managed to create continued enthusiasm about the amount of capex that's going to be spent, you're also starting to lap that point in time where we anticipate that other companies outside of the technology sector are also going to want to get into the game in terms of making their own investments. And so, you know, there was anticipation that perhaps we'd see a bit of a slowdown in AI spend for these hyperscalers and then we'd have to wait for the rest of these industries to catch up now we're, you know, with this sort of longer tail for a spend that's benefiting the hyperscalers and their continued earnings growth. It's really lifting both sides of that narrative and I think that that's really where you're seeing some enthusiasm here.
- [05:15]
Courtney Reagan
Yeah, I mean it looks like Alphabet is going to spend around $85 billion in total capex this year. Weiss, you own this name, you're in Alphabet. We often also talk about maybe some of the smaller assets but perhaps very valuable in the social media world like YouTube. I mean are you getting YouTube for free with an Alphabet valuation?
- [05:33]
Steve Weiss
Always difficult to say because you don't know where analysts and where, you know, investors are placing the value. So it could be getting part of way more free. Who knows? Yeah, sure, but, but the point is I think is that what's driving this is that, is that I think some investors think they've discovered to your point, the undervalued Mag 7 and it was, you know, and they're buying momentum which Joe based his strategy on. So take a look. With its stock bottomed in the recent moves in this, it's not only this like UnitedHealth Care, I think it's more defining for the market than it is for Alphabet. So to me that's, that's just the trend in the market. The market just goes higher. Earnings don't mean much. I mean they've executed well and the controversy over what they have, AI or not, seems to have subsided at all and now they're executing. And by the way, the lack of AI doesn't impact how Apple's traded. So these are purely momentum trades in a momentum market. Now I actually, actually think that relatively speaking Alphabet is cheap. It is inexpensive. So cheap, relatively inexpensive. So that's why I'm there. If we're a normal market, I still say you know, what deserves slight premium to the market and I could see it going higher. But some of the others I think like in Apple, way overpriced for their growth.
- [06:56]
Courtney Reagan
If you look at that three month chart, I mean look at that momentum, it just follows sort of even starting in May, just straight up. And Bren, I know you're nodding your head there, I want to get you in on the conversation.
- [07:06]
Bryn Tockington
Yeah, I mean I think this is more than just momentum with Google specifically if you go into the Apple App Store, Gemini is the number one downloaded app, free app, above chat GPT. And so I think where a year ago, at least I was and a lot of investors were, we're like, well Chat GPT has taken all of their Open air, taking all the oxygen out of the air. Well now, you know, Gemini is really finding its point and finding its place. And you think of Google has access to all of our YouTube, all of our search and all of our Gmail. And if you put that together and you put it with a partnership inside of Apple and you have this secure, secure data set within your own information, really Google via Gemini could be pretty slick. And so I think that people are starting to realize that. And Last week the CEO of DeepMind, I think his name is Demis Asabas, was speaking at the all in Summit and he really walked through all of the big metrics that Gemini is succeeding in. So I think people are starting to realize that, you know, Gemini is going to be a real contributor. I think if anything, you know, the private market of private market valuation of open air is the one that's overvalued. And I think Gemini via Alphabet will continue to gain a ton of traction.
- [08:24]
Courtney Reagan
Go ahead.
- [08:24]
Steve Weiss
Yeah, just want to add one point. Brin points out Gmail. And Gmail just has only started recently to increase pricing. And when you're going through the antitrust litigation issues, you're not going to do that. So think of it more like Netflix where they use their power and about 40% of email users around the world use Gmail. Just think of what they can do to increase pricing, the levers they can use and that'll drive more profitability at Alphabet, which again they couldn't do while they're under antitrust scrutiny.
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Joe Terranova
So I think that's another one, the antitrust ruling. Look, I think the visibility that Alphabet has been afforded since the anti trust ruling is Britain's talking about positive fundamentals. Yes, we understand that the effect of Gemini, the broad diversified business model that they have, YouTube, but you don't get to see optically those strong fundamentals. If you don't get the antitrust ruling. Sure, that that is a massive clearing event. And that clearing event is the reason behind Steve talks about, about this being a momentum market. That's what it is. And when you get that lifting of sentiment, that's when you get the price discovery and you see all of these quantitative funds compiling into the market and pushing a particular equity name like Alphabet in one direction.
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Steve Weiss
You had nice moves before that though, in fairness. I mean, stock bottom one six traded.
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Joe Terranova
200 stocks up 31% year to date. Right. 18% of that move has been since the clearing event, since early September.
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Courtney Reagan
You can see that move in the chart. Go Ahead, Shannon.
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Shannon Sokotia
And I guess my, my concern or my consideration for where we are today is that we see another yet a fourth company reach that 3 trillion market cap and we talk about this momentum.
- [10:11]
Courtney Reagan
So Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple and Alphabet here.
- [10:14]
Shannon Sokotia
So you know, at some point that is potentially a concern for those of us, including myself, who are looking for this rotation right in the market down mid capsule small cap outside of the US when you have such large companies that are essentially, you know, multifaceted conglomerates that make up such a big part of the market. And so, you know, you wonder how much that this will perhaps hinder as more and more assets are concentrated in these very large companies that are doing quite well from an earnings perspective. How much will that hinder this potential rotation in search for value? And I think the momentum factor only compounds that.
- [10:50]
Courtney Reagan
Got it. I do want to go back to Brent's point and I agree with what you're saying. Well, let's talk about these other big companies. Brent, you were talking about OpenAI, deep seek Microsoft. Microsoft's another big name. It's still up. It is the worst big tech name though over the last three months. And there's an interesting report from the information saying that OpenAI is set to gain $50 billion from cutting revenue share with Microsoft. So the difference between these two things could be 50 billion billion again according to the information. I mean what do you make of that report and the opportunity that could be available for OpenAI?
- [11:25]
Bryn Tockington
Well, I mean OpenAI is making lots of promises that need to be funded by private investors since they're, they have revenues but they're losing just billions of dollars on top of that. I mean I think that would, let's just say let's take it at face value. Obviously Microsoft and OpenAI signed an agreement which we don't really know the details of that agreement except that Microsoft is going to, you know, let them pass. We'll say to go to go public. And I think over time if those revenues continue to build, it would make sense that Microsoft wouldn't get that, that current amount they have today. But I still think that Microsoft instead of paying half a trillion dollars for secondary shares and open I think Microsoft with tons of free cash flow, multiple levers is a better way to play it than buy an open air on a secondary market at half a trillion dollars.
- [12:14]
Courtney Reagan
Got it. Joe, what do you make of this? When you've owned Microsoft in the joti, we're closer to $4 trillion than 3 trillion for Microsoft.
- [12:20]
Joe Terranova
I think Brin is spot on this this is a way to get in the public markets the exposure to open air. There has been a little bit of a deceleration in the rate of appreciation for the stock year to date. Let's remember at the beginning of the year, Microsoft is one of the clear winners in the Mag 7. It was the name that you wanted to own. It had the strength and cloud we heard last week from Oracle. Are we witnessing a moment where maybe Oracle is capturing some of that cloud market share from Microsoft and others? I think we'll learn about that in coming quarters. But I'm not particularly troubled about what appears to be over the last month or so a relative under performance from Microsoft to its peers. Like an Apple, like a Tesla, like an Alphabet. I just think that's more of an internal rotation position squaring more than anything else. I think collectively when you look at the universe of max 7, there is going to be a ceiling at some point on these earnings. There is. There's going to be a moment where the market is going to correct as a consequence of that ceiling. But I just don't think it's in front of us here in 2025. I think it's probably when the calendar turns into 26 voice Microsoft.
- [13:30]
Steve Weiss
Yeah, look, I own it. It's a permanent compounder. It goes through periods of time where it lags or where it's down and you just have to fight through them. You've got Windows 11 coming out. You'll see a lot of upgrades. You'll see increased subscription pricing in terms of OpenAI cutting 50 billion. I'm not sure that's correct. I'm sure, you know, to me what it means is they're not going to give as much revenue revenue to them. But you still see a percentage of revenue, but you'll still see the revenue grow. So in the meantime, you know, Microsoft has also hedged their bets, not only relying on OpenAI and we're seeing open air as, as major funding concerns going forward. So. So I still like Microsoft. I see no reason to get rid of it.
- [14:16]
Courtney Reagan
Okay, I want to shift gears a little bit to Nvidia recovering from earlier losses. But A report on CNBC.com, china says that Nvidia violated anti monopoly law after a preliminary probe. It's almost impossible to talk about AI without talking about Nvidia. I can't believe we've made it 13 minutes in without talking about it. But Brent, I'm going to toss this ball up to you. I know you're an owner there any concern about what's going on between these headlines again? More headlines about the US and China's relationship and policy, rules, regulations. Does this scare you at all or is this you just, you sit and you. Hold on. Nvidia.
- [14:50]
Bryn Tockington
No, I mean, I think the timing is suspect. Obviously they're having very big conversations around tick tock and other trade agreements. And so I think that this is a way for China to, in a very subtle way just to say, hey, wait a minute, we're a big market. And so I would just totally dismiss it. I am totally dismissing it.
- [15:07]
Joe Terranova
Yeah, it's. This is surrounding the mellanox acquisition in 2020. And what's unclear here is what's happening. The recourse. Okay, we feel as though there was a potential antitrust violation, but what is the recourse going to be? So I think Britain is correct in kind of identifying this probably more than anything else is a negotiating tactic as the President is set to meet with President Xi later in the week.
- [15:31]
Steve Weiss
That's all it is. It's just a negotiation in video right now.
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Courtney Reagan
No real risk.
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Steve Weiss
Not to this. No, not to this. Nor to the semis where they say, the other semis where they say, oh, they're dumping. It's just, it's nothing. Just move on. Nothing to see.
- [15:46]
Courtney Reagan
Okay, so the headlines, we shouldn't get scared by the headlines. Shannon, you agree?
- [15:49]
Shannon Sokotia
I mean, I don't think these specific headlines, but I think that what investors and the watchers of the show should understand is that semis are going to be in the narrative between China and the US for the foreseeable future.
- [16:00]
Courtney Reagan
But a negotiating chip, pun intended.
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Joe Terranova
Yes, absolutely.
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Shannon Sokotia
And I think that, you know, there is a lot of concern about national security, our access to, to our sharing of that technology. And so I think this is part of really what is likely to continue to be an arms race between China and the U.S. and so despite the fact that I don't think these headlines are necessarily disruptive, if you own any of these companies, it's something that you should be braced for, particularly as you're looking at semis versus software and some of the negotiations that are going to come out of the talks between China and the US over the next several.
- [16:33]
Courtney Reagan
Months before we move on from chips. Joe, you own Broadcom and it was initiated outperform $420 price target at Macquarie. And the firm is talking about expecting surging demand for the ASIC to outpace GPU growth. Do you like this call? I assume you do. If you're bullish on the name Absolutely.
- [16:48]
Joe Terranova
Staggering quarter last week, I'm sorry, staggering quarter several weeks ago from, from Broadcom. The real staggering quarter last week was from Oracle. But they are proving themselves selves now. Look, if you're going to focus on valuation, valuations getting stretched in Broadcom. Steve, I know you've spoken about that at length, but if you're also talking about the dominance of market share, then you identify Nvidia and you identify Broadcom as the two names that are so critically vital right now in this infrastructure. Build out the delivery of chips, the ability to stack chips. That's where to connect the chips together. That's where Broadcom is valuable. So again, look, we're beginning the first 15 minutes of the show talking about all the Mag 7 names, talking about all the AI names and we're sitting there saying to ourselves, and I think this is really the big conflict rather for viewers and for investors. It's almost as if coming into this month the market was saying, which direction do you want to go? Do you want to go in the direction where you stay with at the Mag 7, the infrastructure build out, or do you want to make a pivot? We'll talk a little bit about what the Fed's going to ultimately do. Do you want to make a pivot in the direction of the 493, the rest of the market? I showed, I asked the control room to show XLG before. Well, how about we show rsp, which is equal weighted and see what equal weight is doing today, which is basically unchanged on the day. So you have this conflict. Which direction do you ultimately want to go? And it seems like one day to the next we're trying to figure it out. But I will say this, the Magic seven and these large companies, they are delivering on the earnings and it's up to the 493 to have a similar type of earnings delivery.
- [18:33]
Courtney Reagan
So I'll pull some of this together before we get to the Fed. We've already talked about China and the headlines there and we're talking about chips. Let's talk about Apple. Obviously we, we've got these pre orders for the Apple iPhone. Some reports trickling out saying that they're breaking records amid strong demand in the South China Morning Post. Of course, we take all that media with a grain of salt, but we know that China was about 16% of Apple's revenue in the most recent quarter. And it's a, it's a very important from over 20. Right, right, exactly. So they've got some ground to make up and it's still A very important market for them. Of course. Even if it's falling. What do you make of the headlines on the pre orders? I mean analyst takes starting to trickle.
- [19:07]
Steve Weiss
Into pre orders mean nothing. Okay, that, that's, that's just the initial demand. The first adopters that want, ones that want to go wait a line in the store, they mean.
- [19:16]
Courtney Reagan
So it's not indicative of broader demand, Broader sell through?
- [19:20]
Steve Weiss
No, no. And I'd say that again, they. Well, I wouldn't say disappointed because now the expectations on of Apple from Apple on new product release are always muted. Sure. Right. So they still don't have an answer for AI. They still don't have. I mean they've improved Siri somewhat, but basically they still aren't innovating to any degree. And that dialogue which I've been, that narrative which I've been talking about for years and was, was always, you know, disagreed with is now the main narrative. Even to the extent is Tim Cook going to survive this cycle or then you bring somebody. In the meantime they continue to lose creative people and, and I think the shares are overvalued for, for a company that's slow growing on both the top line and bottom.
- [20:09]
Joe Terranova
So what do you attribute what's happened since last week's announcement? Because look, I sold some, I show, I sold half my Apple position. I came on the position, I sold half my position. I said where's the beef going back to the Wendy's commercial from, from the 80s. I didn't think you got anything of what you really needed with AI but the response since last week has been good for the individual stock of Apple. The stock is actually rallying. So is that the, is that the index effect or is it attributable to, specifically to Apple? I don't know the answer.
- [20:38]
Courtney Reagan
What do you think? You're an owner. Bren, can you hear us?
- [20:45]
Bryn Tockington
Oh, yeah, sorry, I didn't know you were talking to me.
- [20:47]
Courtney Reagan
That's okay. What do you think? Is it the index effect, the move in Apple shares?
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Bryn Tockington
I don't, I don't, I don't have an opinion on that, but I do have an opinion on Apple is a hardware company. And the Apple 17 Air is the first new redesign that we've had in years and many, many years. And so I think you're going to see a lot of demand for that 17 air, much more than is anticipated because it is so thin and like the whole CPU, or however you want to call it is in that upper part of the phone. I think it's very cool. I think you're going to get people buying the AirPods. So much innovation there. The Apple Watch got hypertension FDA approval. So they actually do continue to innovate because they are a product company. The software will come next. And I do think that the Trojan horse has always been Siri and they need to execute. So I've been in Steve's camp. I mean I've traded around the stock that when you just look at pure fundamentals, revenues and earnings are, are adequate. But I think that the negativity around the stock, I do think people are going to be surprised and I do think the 17 air specifically is going to get much more traction than people, than people are expecting today.
- [21:57]
Steve Weiss
I was excited about the air but given the fact they've stayed in place on the camera whereas the others, that's really all they ever do. They improve the camera and this camera is deficient relative to the other mileage other models. So I'd rather wait until the next air because who doesn't want a lighter, thinner phone?
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Joe Terranova
Brent, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm trying to understand. So you feel the news last week was actually positive and the subsequent price reaction in Apple is warranted given that news?
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Bryn Tockington
I do. I think the anticipation of right, they roll the phones. I don't think the phone, the release of new products in years have put an upside on the stock. But I think that the preorders actually do somewhat matter. To give you insight, last week, remember we were talking about China was totally offline because there were some issues. Well, now it's back online and so China is a massive market. Apple continues to be in mainland China. I think like multiple phones are like the number two and number four selling phones. And I do think once again as a hardware company, people are going to like the thin iPhone which is so important for people to upgrade. So I think it definitely has a lot to do with it, not just the S and P going higher.
- [23:09]
Joe Terranova
Make sure I don't sell my other half.
- [23:11]
Courtney Reagan
I know, I was going to say, gosh, I guess you want to hold on to the other one in the movie you've seen since you sold the half. We're going to move on real quickly to Christina parts and evolve. She does have a newsletter for us on Nvidia.
- [23:20]
Bryn Tockington
Christina, you had China accusing Nvidia of not complying with antitrust rules over there. And so they did issue a statement. Now this is coming from an Nvidia spokesperson saying, quote, we comply with the law in all respects. We will continue to cooperate with all relevant government agencies as they evaluate the impact of export controls on competition in the commercial markets. I know you guys are talking about it and overall saying that, you know, it's just pure posturing and an opportunity for China to use Nvidia as a bargaining chick. I'd like to also remind everyone too that just in this past quarter in Q2, they did say that they did not have any H20 sales to China during the quarter because of all of the drama going on between both countries. So perhaps that's why you're not seeing as much of a stock reaction today because it's not really impacting any actual revenue dollars.
- [24:08]
Courtney Reagan
Guys, great context. Christina, thank you so much. Always keeping us honest on those chip names and all the particulars within. We're going to leave it here for now. Coming up though, more stocks on the move. Tesla is popping after Elon Musk said he bought $1 billion worth of shares on Friday. The committee's take is next. Halftime is back in two minutes. Our state has changed a lot in the last 140 years.
- [24:37]
Janice Henderson
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Joe Terranova
With leading networking and connectivity, advanced cybersecurity and expert partnership, Comcast business.
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Steve Weiss
Helps turn today's enterprises into engines of modern business. Powering the engine of modern business powering possibilities.
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Joe Terranova
Restrictions apply.
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Janice Henderson
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- [26:03]
Bryn Tockington
Welcome back.
- [26:04]
Courtney Reagan
We're going to get some of the committee stocks on the move. Tesla is up after Elon Musk disclosed buying almost $1 billion in shares. Brandon Joe, you both own it. Joe, I'm going to start with you because this was actually your final trade last week.
- [26:17]
Joe Terranova
On Thursday I mentioned this is a final trade and I said it is a trade. And I kind of want to walk through for the viewers what we were seeing. Steve is going to cringe during this. If you focus on fundamentals, if you are Analyzing companies. You are going to cringe when you hear what I'm about to say. But listen, I respect your strategy. I respect how you look at markets for a moment. Respect the way I look at it because I'm explaining for a moment, I am defining for you how trend following systems right now are implementing in the market. And they're real, they're a powerful effect. So if you look at Tesla stock I mentioned before, analyst community only had 44% of the analysts which had a buy rating on it on September 4th. The stock gaps above 340. The stock gaps above 340. And that's your trigger signal at that point. Why? Because concurrent with that, at the same time you have the moving averages turning up for the very first time. The 50, the 100. Britain understands what I'm talking about. The 50, the 100. It turns above the 200 day. So simultaneously this happens. Okay? Now for the remainder of the week after September 4th and 5th, the stock never goes back to 340. What do you have sitting above? You have the May 29th high at 367. Everyone that respects price sees that and is now pushing towards that level for the breakout. And that's exactly what happened. This is a classic momentum move. I'm sorry to the viewers that want some fundamental explanation. And guess what? Elon Musk bought his stock on Friday after all of this actually unfolded. So, so it's a classic example of a powerful combination of technical forces coming into play. And when you look at the Mag 7, this had 3% short interest. That's greater than any other of the Mag 7 names.
- [28:10]
Courtney Reagan
Okay, Weiss, then I'm going to let you respond.
- [28:12]
Steve Weiss
Look, there's no, you know, Brin's been great in the stock. You know, we disagreed, I think around 200 and change. 180 now. 180, okay, 180. But you can't disagree with the fundamentals. The fundamentals have been atrophying. But it's a cold stock and I've not been short. I shorted periodically here and there. But valuation makes zero, zero sense. Robotics, robots, humanoids, it's a crowded space already, but you've got a company, another company, private company, literally has no revenues, that's now trying to raise capital at the $38 billion. You know, and so it's bizarre. And that's what people looking for the next great thing. Tesla. Tesla's sales have, have atrophied also. So robotaxis, that's crowded before they even launch them. So what do you own here.
- [29:08]
Courtney Reagan
I don't know. If you're not owning Tesla, maybe you're owning something bigger than that. Right. You're owning Elon Musk, you're owning the future, you're owning.
- [29:14]
Steve Weiss
The last thing I want to own is Elon Musk. Right. All right, so.
- [29:20]
Courtney Reagan
Brian, go ahead.
- [29:21]
Bryn Tockington
So I think it's. Yeah, I think it's important. Like, I think Joe did a great job walking through exactly what happened from the momentum perspective. And I couldn't agree more. Let me share some catalyst. Right. And so last week Elon spoke at the all in Summit as well. And so I think this is important. So the Geo fencing with the Robotaxi is in. I think they have about 150, 50 robotaxis between Austin and San Francisco. The Geofence continues to get bigger. He is saying by year end there will no longer be supervised drivers in there. So that's a positive catalyst. Also right now, inside of Tesla's you have the AI4 chip. They are finalizing the AI5 chip, which he said is 40 times, like not 40%, but 40 times faster with eight times the compute. And he said by year end you're going to get a version 14 update to the Tesla, which will be two to three times as safe as a human driver. And so from a catalyst perspective, and on top of that, I think you're going to have a big pull Forward in the Q3 numbers because the EV credits are going to go away. And so I think they're going to have a big beat on Q3 EV sales, which probably will mean revert in Q4 because I do think it's a pull forward. So there are definitely clear things that happened last week to help continue Joe's momentum push. And then you know, top it off today with, you know, Elon announcing he bought almost $1 billion. I do think that 440 is like rarefied air. I'm not adding to the position here. I think that you will see a settling in after, you know, in the next couple of months because we're approaching that December 2024 high of around 4, I think 448.
- [30:59]
Courtney Reagan
Yes. It looks like Elon bought his at an average share of $389.28. We're sitting at 419 now, up about.
- [31:07]
Joe Terranova
6, 20% since we talked about it Thursday on the show. That's a powerful trade and that's what it is. It's a trade, nothing more.
- [31:16]
Courtney Reagan
Okay, one man's opinion. Right? Thank you very much. Let's get the headlines with Bertha Coons.
- [31:22]
Bryn Tockington
President Trump this morning threatened to federalize Washington, D.C. police again if the department does not cooperate with ICE operations. The President's 30 day emergency takeover ended last week. During the month of August, Mayor Muriel Bowser said that the declaration compelled the police to provide services to the federal government, but said when that ended the department wouldn't be involved in immigration enforcement. Texas Republican Michael McCall is leaving Congress. The former chair of the House Homes, Home and Security and Foreign affairs committee called his 11 terms in Capitol Hill the honor of a lifetime and says he's looking for a new challenge in the national security and foreign policy realm. He's the third Texas Republican to bow out of the 2026 midterms. And Penske Media, which owns Rolling Stone, Billboard and Variety, is suing Google. Penske suing Google rather, Penske accusing Google of using its journalism without consent in AI Summaries. Penske alleges that also reduces traffic to its website. In a statement, Google wrote that AI overviews create content to be discovered and said the lawsuit is meritless. Not sure if that response was written.
- [32:48]
Courtney Reagan
By AI but thank you, Bertha. Yes, of course. Continues the conversation in part that we had earlier today. Well, up next, Mike Santoli joins us for his MIDDAY Word. We are back right after this.
- [33:11]
Janice Henderson
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- [33:27]
Joe Terranova
Monday Sidekick, the AI agent that knows you and your business thinks ahead and takes action. Ask it anything seriously. Monday Sidekick, AI you'll love to use start a free trial today on Monday.
- [33:57]
Courtney Reagan
We're back on halftime. Senior markets commentator Mike Santoli joins us with his MIDDAY word. Mike, I'd love to get your take on President Trump's post on Truth Social, basically saying companies and corporations should no longer be forced to report on a quarterly basis, but rather report on a six month basis. We know this discussion has been brought up before, not necessarily by the president, but Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffett. They wrote a Wall Street Journal op ed in 2018. What do you think about this? Do you think there's any possibility this could happen in the US Seems like.
- [34:26]
Steve Weiss
A little bit of a long road.
- [34:27]
Joe Terranova
It's unclear if there'll be sustained policy energy directed at actually implementing something like this. But, you know, I think that there's a line between, you know, giving less information to investors in the market, which is what this would mean and trying to encourage the principles of companies operating.
- [34:46]
Steve Weiss
For the longer term.
- [34:47]
Joe Terranova
I think Jamie Dimon, Warren Buffett were more talking about corporate guidance and not really offering three month forward guidance in any detailed way. Warren Buffett's been against that for some time and I think there's a decent argument to be made there. I think the markets would adapt. I think there's a good question as to whether it would make stocks more volatile and perhaps compress valuation. But you know, it's an interesting one. It doesn't seem to me like it's one that the world's clamoring for. It's more a gesture of let's try to ease the burden on, on big companies in some way. That seems like it might get a little bit onerous at times.
- [35:23]
Courtney Reagan
I see. I can understand Shannon sort of wanting to make this easier and let companies actually run the business as opposed to trying to run the numbers all the time. But as a person who trades on information, I would hate this.
- [35:36]
Shannon Sokotia
Yeah, I mean I think that the reality is, is that the expectations of both the asset managers and perhaps more importantly on the sell side in order to have this continued continued transparency. And it's sort of the opposite of what we've seen elsewhere. Right. We've seen the Fed increase their transparency. We've been clamoring for greater transparency, transparency and economic data, more frequent updating. So I think it would be an adjustment if we were to move in this direction. Also, countries who have adopted this type of schedule, they haven't necessarily been rewarded for that in their stock performance. So maybe transparency is helpful.
- [36:11]
Steve Weiss
Yeah, I wouldn't be against it, you know, frankly, you know, some, you know, semiannual reporting. We have precedent for it. We, which is in the eu, which they did that, you know, more than a decade ago now. I don't think China, as the president points out should be the model for anything we do. Their capital markets just aren't trustworthy. So what it will do is it will hurt certain things like Robinhood a just an increased trading volume. Greatly increased trading volume happens to two days before earnings and in the aftermath of earnings. So that would pressure I believe earnings at some of the brokers and it was also make analysts do work. So, so that's, that's an issue as well because they've gotten used to companies telling them we're going to want $5 and, and they come out say no, no, you're going to, you're going to earn $5.02. And that's what they get paid a lot of money for. So I'd like to see him work for that.
- [37:13]
Joe Terranova
I think we should be open to the conversation of exploring what's the right time frame. I think too much information actually diminishes the effect of the actual information itself. You can make an argument that the transparency that the Federal Reserve is working under has actually diminished some of the messaging because they're giving us too much information. Maybe we're going back to the world that we lived in, Steve, in the 90s with Alan Greenspan. Maybe that was a better environment. So I don't know. I think you have to be open.
- [37:40]
Steve Weiss
I agree with that.
- [37:41]
Joe Terranova
I think you have to be open to the conversation and kind of understand, okay, where are we on what actually is the right time frame? Who said that three months is the actual perfect time frame? Maybe it is six months, maybe it's somewhere in between. But I think we should.
- [37:55]
Steve Weiss
Yeah, I've been, I agree. I've been advocating for the Fed to say less. You don't need destabilizing, I think, for the market and I do think, you know, if you go to semiannual that you'll have more long term thinking. And I don't think it'll pressure valuations at all. I really don't.
- [38:12]
Courtney Reagan
Well, I don't think this is the last time we're going to talk about it either. But for now, I think this year.
- [38:16]
Steve Weiss
They have to just do by executive order. You know, the FCC reports to Trump and it's done.
- [38:22]
Courtney Reagan
Oh, there's another idea.
- [38:23]
Bryn Tockington
Yeah.
- [38:24]
Joe Terranova
There you go.
- [38:24]
Courtney Reagan
Thank you, Mike. Thanks for hanging with us through that. Well, up next, looking ahead to the big Fed rate decision this week, speaking of transparency in the Fed, architects of Brewer standing by with strategy ahead of the meeting and today's ETF Edge halftime. We'll be right back. We're back on Halftime and counting down to the big Fed rate decision on Wednesday. Our Contessa Brewer is standing by with a look at how investors are positioning ahead of of the meeting and today's ETF Edge Contessa, take it away.
- [38:57]
Bryn Tockington
Thank you, Courtney. Well, with the Fed top of mind this week, investors are looking more closely at alternative fixed income strategies. With me now, Nick Turney, head of innovation at Janus Henderson. It's good to see you. So given that we're all waiting to see what happens on this front, are there certain kinds of fixed income funds that investors are most interested in?
- [39:18]
Joe Terranova
Yeah, I mean, look, obviously what's going on with the Fed is top of everybody's mind and if you look kind of at the big picture, what's going on in the ETF space, there's a huge proliferation of products. You have almost 4,500 in the US right now. And so there's a lot to choose from. Right. But it's actually very top heavy. Right. Almost 65% of assets are in the top 100 ETFs, and very few of those have been launched in the last five years. Only one of those is a fixed income product. That's J aaa. And the reason that product has seen the success that it has is, is because people are very, very focused on high quality yield. And as you think about the potential for declining rates, that excess yield becomes.
- [39:57]
Steve Weiss
More and more important.
- [39:58]
Joe Terranova
Right. So triple A close as an asset class has been really a huge winner. And that's all about picking up 100 to 200 basis points of excess yield.
- [40:06]
Bryn Tockington
You're also looking at tokenization at Janus. Give us the elevator pitch. We'll get more into it in the online show.
- [40:13]
Joe Terranova
Yeah, sure. I mean, tokenization from our perspective is potentially the most transformative technology to affect financial services over the next decade. And really it's all about a couple of simple things. It's democratizing access for investors. It's simplifying that those, those products and ultimately around really bringing cost reduction through the efficiency of using blockchain systems. So we really think blockchain is sort of the next evolution beyond ETFs in terms of transforming the way that we develop and deliver financial products to clients.
- [40:42]
Bryn Tockington
All right, Nick, thank you very much. As I mentioned, we're going to continue the conversation@etfedge.cnbc.com in just a little while. And Nick is going to be joined by Nicholas Frase, product manager at Van Neck, who will also dive into the new wave of the semiconductor phase. So you won't want to miss that, Courtney, because we're going to get into a lot of the new opportunities here.
- [41:05]
Courtney Reagan
Good stuff. Contestant Brewer, thank you so much. Well, coming up next, more committee stocks on the move. Halftime. We'll be right back. We are back with some more stocks on the move. We've got some new reports. Bank of America shaping up its shaking up, I should say its leadership ranks. Weiss, you own B of A. What do you make about this? We got new co presidents, are reporting to Moynihan directly.
- [41:45]
Steve Weiss
Yeah, so I know Jim, Jim demar is co president, ran banking and he's, he's extremely strong, very strong candidate. We have not had had these succession questions before for Moynihan We've had it with other banks, but not for them. So I'm glad they're addressing it.
- [42:04]
Courtney Reagan
Moynihan, CEO for 15 years, hasn't really addressed succession.
- [42:08]
Joe Terranova
Yeah.
- [42:08]
Steve Weiss
And he's been under the radar relative to CEOs of other companies. Definitely relative. Jamie Dimon, you know, relative to David Solomon, but. But no less capable than any of them. He just keeps low profile. So I'm in favor of it. I think it helps the stock eventually.
- [42:27]
Courtney Reagan
And you like it because it is back to our previous conversation. Maybe a little bit of transparency about what the planning could look like.
- [42:33]
Steve Weiss
Yeah. And every company should have transparency in that. You know, we Buffett, we saw it a little bit, but not quite right until he's ready to make the move.
- [42:40]
Courtney Reagan
Okay.
- [42:41]
Steve Weiss
I just think it's important for investor confidence.
- [42:43]
Bryn Tockington
Okay.
- [42:44]
Courtney Reagan
Well, Robinhood announcing a venture fund to give exposure to private companies. Bryn, this is one of your names. What do you make about this headline?
- [42:52]
Bryn Tockington
Yeah, it makes sense. You know, they already offer on the Robinhood platform, you can sign up to get, you know, IPOs. So they did Gemini with a Winklevoss. They did Klarna. Think they did Sigma. And so it seems like a natural, natural extension to actually have a formalized vehicle versus their, you know, random allocation method right now. So I just think this is company continues to innovate, obviously to be part of the S and P right now. So, you know, kudos to the team, and I'm sure they'll be successful because they have a strong drive for execution.
- [43:23]
Courtney Reagan
We also want to get to Netflix because that one topping the ranks at last night's Emmy Awards, unfortunately, at least a couple of minutes of it. But I've seen some of the shows. Joe, what do you make of what's going on here in Netflix? Obviously there's a business, but the content is everything.
- [43:36]
Joe Terranova
The content is everything. But I think that's been known to. To investors, certainly in the first half, rather of 2025. Netflix is one of the more favored stocks. Since June 30th. It's been in a little bit of a corrective type of behavior. I don't think you want to take the other side of that. It's kind of moving sideways. Pull up a chart of Spotify. You're going to see the same type of price behavior there as well. So it's a pause. It's about measuring how long the pause stays in effect. Effect on the other side. I do think you get the refresh and it resumes the prevailing bull trend.
- [44:09]
Courtney Reagan
Why do you Have a thought here on Netflix. They're also getting a reiteration over at Outperform, I should say at Bernstein.
- [44:15]
Steve Weiss
Yeah, look, I mean, Netflix sold off on the Paramount news and I just think this is another one. And I like the term permanent compounder. So they're the leaders. I can't tell you where stocks can be in a year, two years or five years. I just think it can keep going. Management is excellent excellence. I'd like to see the succession plan for management here too. So eventually that could be an issue. We know, we know the founders sort of moved aside to an executive chairman role and has two people that are. That are co running it. So that's a succession plan. But eventually just may have to be clarity there.
- [44:49]
Courtney Reagan
All right, well, stick with us. Final trades are coming up. We're back with final trades. Brand, you get to kick us off.
- [45:04]
Bryn Tockington
Right? Apollo. It's about 15% off year to date, and they're looking to grow earnings and revenue about almost 20% in 2026.
- [45:13]
Courtney Reagan
Weiss, you're up next.
- [45:14]
Steve Weiss
FTAI it's had a great run, but as rates come down their spreads, because they do, they are lending, financing should increase. So I think this goes above 200.
- [45:26]
Courtney Reagan
Okay.
- [45:27]
Bryn Tockington
Shannon Materials.
- [45:29]
Shannon Sokotia
With lower rates, a cyclical impulse, and continued heightened geopolitical tensions, we think there might be an opportunity, particularly for areas that are tied to precious metals.
- [45:41]
Joe Terranova
And Joe, there's a soft affirmation of gold too, as well. Uber new all time high today. Approaching 100 bucks. It's going to get there.
- [45:49]
Courtney Reagan
Okay, well, that does it for the Halftime Report. The exchange starts right now.
- [45:54]
Joe Terranova
You've been listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast. You can always catch us live weekdays at 12 Eastern only on CNBC.
- [46:06]
Janice Henderson
All opinions expressed by the Halftime Report participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBCUniversal, their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, Internet, or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of an opinion. Such opinions are based upon information the Halftime Report participants consider reliable. But neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Halftime Report disclaimer, please visit cnbc.comhalftimereportdisclaimer. is it time to reimagine your future? The right business skills may make a difference in your career at Capella University. We offer a relevant education that's designed to focus on what you need to know in the business world. We'll teach professional skills to help you pursue your goals like business management, strategic planning, and effective communication, and you can apply these skills right away. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more@capella.edu.