← Halftime Report
Halftime Report
Buy the Bounce? 3/4/26
00:43:41
Scott Wapner and the Investment Committee discuss the state of the markets following three days of selling. The experts detail their latest portfolio moves. Calls of the Day include Tesla, Caterpillar, PulteGroup, and Corning. Mo Assomull, Morgan Stanley Global Co-Head of Investment Banking, joins in a Halftime exclusive. CNBC Senior Markets Commentator and Overtime Co-Anchor Michael Santoli gives his Midday Word.
Loading summary
Transcript166 lines
- [00:00]
A
What does it mean to live a rich life? It means brave first leaps, tearful goodbyes, and everything in between. With over 100 years experience navigating the ups and downs of the market and of life, your Edward Jones financial advisor will be there to help you move ahead with confidence. Because with all you've done to find your rich, we'll do all we can to help you keep enjoying it.
- [00:28]
B
Edward Jones, Member SIPC not every sale happens at the register. Before AT&T business Wireless, checking out customers on our mobile POS systems took too long. Basically a staring contest where everyone loses. It's crazy what people will say during an awkward silence. Now transactions are done before the silence takes hold. That means I can focus on the task at hand and make an extra sale or two. Sometimes I do miss the bonding time. Sometimes.
- [00:55]
C
AT&T business Wireless Connecting changes everything. I'm Scott Wapner, and you're. I hope you'll join me. Three o' clock Eastern today. We'll see what this market does over the final hour with Liz Ann Saunders and Adam Parker. And the NHL commish Gary Bettman is going to join me on the gold medal bounce that the National Hockey League is seeing. Look forward to you joining me. Then. Let's do some finals. Liz Thomas, your first.
- [01:23]
B
I'm going to cover my eyes for this one, but it I'm doing IGV again. I hope I don't have to apologize for it again. I think we bottomed and I don't think the entire space gets displaced.
- [01:32]
C
All right, so we have had a nice little bounce. We'll see if it holds. Stephen Weiss.
- [01:36]
D
I'll tell you what. I'm getting my butt kicked by Baba, but I think it's getting to a level I'm going to add to it. I'm just waiting for it to flat line a little bit.
- [01:44]
C
A lot of the Chinese tech names have gotten hammered.
- [01:46]
D
Yeah, this is. This is extremely cheap. So. So I'm going to add to it. It's not a full position.
- [01:52]
E
LNG Cheniere gets paid on volume. US Natural gas. You look at guitar. L shut down. European prices skyrocketing, Sitting pretty, maybe a breakout.
- [02:00]
C
Your guy Pascarella puts a note out during the show. You pick Goldman Sachs. I know how you roll. I'll see you three. We'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. All right, guys, thanks so much. Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner. Front and center this hour. Stocks looking to bounce back today following three days of selling. We're trading markets, keeping our eyes on developments of course in the Middle East. And joining me for the hour today, Joe Terranova, Liz Thomas, Bill Baruch and Steve Weiss. I'll show you what we're doing here. 12 noon in the east. We do have a pretty good bounce back on the tape today. In fact, NASDAQ week to date positive. The Russell is now positive. The S and P barely negative, as is the Dow. So ADP Joe was better than expected. You've got a bounce in some of the private credit names that is definitely helping sentiment. Oil's lower yields continue to move up, but only modestly. You do have Goldman today suggesting that equities are still vulnerable to a correction, not a bear market, however. And Deutsche thinks that equities are close to the trough. Do you agree with those?
- [03:10]
F
I agree with Goldman. I like that. I think we are vulnerable to a correction, not to a bear market. I think a lot of people are looking for this to be the bottom this week. In fact, if it is the bottom, what do you need to see? That first of all, you have extreme volat. You have an outside standard deviation move that actually conforms to the needed ingredients for a bottoming process. Why? Because in that type of environment, what you will see is that leverage comes down and position sizing comes down. And you need to have that if in fact ultimately you are going to be bottoming. So I think you could be encouraged by that. I think you take the bear market scenario completely off the table. I don't think that's unfolding. I think we saw the places where you wanted to see the safe haven element present itself, like the seven. I think that was valuable. You're seeing cryptos bouncing. I think it's up about 6% today. So you have the buildings of a bottoming process. Let's see where we go from here.
- [04:08]
C
Yeah, you got a lot of stuff that's in the green. So Liz, you know, Wolf is, is looking at some of the technical, you know, points within the market, pressure points, 6780 support level as they talk about the bulls defending that. And Joe said, well, you know, what might we we need to see happen to declare that we have trough that we have hit a bottom. I mean they talk about, you know, they're wondering whether we need to go lower than 6,500 to sort of reset everything. Yeah, I don't know what you don't have to opine necessarily on the technicals. But it just show you, shows you from the Goldman note, from the Deutsche note, that people are looking at what's happened here. And it does speak to the word that Sarah Eisen used at the end of the last hour, and that's resiliency of this market.
- [04:52]
B
So every technician that I follow has said something in that 6500ish range is where the next level of really big support lies. And that's why we continue to hear of about it. We may need to get there. The other word that people talk about a lot is capitulation. Have we seen true capitulation? And there are a lot of different ways to measure that. Here's how I would measure it. If you just take a rule of thumb, what you want to see, to really say, all right, the flush has happened, we've washed it all out, is that things like volatility have risen. And it's also risen along with correlation. We saw yesterday, yesterday the open right in the beginning of the day, the first half of the day, we saw correlations rise. And what I mean by that is all the stuff went out. You couldn't hide anywhere. Everybody was selling everything, including the good stuff, including defensives. So we've seen at least a brief period of correlations and volatility rising. Perhaps that was the washout. We do need to see de escalation in the tension in the Middle east in order to really feel like it's done. I'm not convinced that it's done yet, but I agree we don't need to get to a bear market. And if we're talking about bear market, that's obviously beyond 20% drawdown. Drawdowns absent a recession typically fall somewhere in the 15 to 25% range. Drawdowns with a recession are usually beyond 25%. We are nowhere near any of that. So I say that to say we couldn't, we could be in a position where maybe we're not quite done with the pullback yet. But I don't think this is headed for anything disaster.
- [06:20]
C
You may still have a bit of a chaotic aftermath in and around Iran. But you know, as the days progress, if not even by the hour, you know, its ability to strike back at certain targets is being decimated sort of piece by piece. So you have to, I think, keep that into perspective as you, as you listen to officials in Washington give the updates on what's actually happening over there. Wondering where you think we are. Are we in the Goldman camp that we're still vulnerable to a correction? I guess you could Always say we are, but we're not going to have a bear market. And as Deutsche suggests, we are close to a trough.
- [06:58]
E
Yeah, I agree. We're in the trough and I think there's less chance of a, of a more correction than there was last week. I think there's, this is a very good scenario. Keying off with Joe and Liz said we, we saw a washout, we saw, we saw leveraging come down and you're able to really kind of rally out of that. The way we did yesterday I think is positive. Today's positive. You know, talking about Iran, oil prices are coming off a little bit now. The thing that I really like within all of this is you're seeing a rotation. I mean your staples are down again for what, the third or fourth day in a row. You're seeing tech come out of that. We're seeing to me that those are risk on thrusts here that I think are very, very well in pointing us that direction higher. So if we continue to get the flows that I expect and we could be really on our path to see all time highs now we do have to get through this area where we're trading right now. This is where we closed on Monday in the S&P 500. And we have to clear that gap. Today's close really going to be paramount in setting the tone for the back half of the week.
- [07:56]
G
Let's.
- [07:56]
C
I'm glad you mentioned all time highs. Some hear those words and think to themselves that sounds ludicrous until you look at the fact that you're literally 11 3/4% only off of the 52 week high, the all time high for the S&P 500. Okay, so that's good perspective to have. Weiss. If you look at where the money's going, where the flows are showing out of small caps into large caps, that's been the story. Wolf suggests it's going to continue to play out. Bank of America's client flows do as well. Net buyers, they say of US equities were their clients driven by single stock inflows driven by institutions. The biggest inflows since late November, that followed two weeks of selling large caps were the only size segment to see inflows. When in doubt, go big or go home. Right.
- [08:47]
D
Agree with that. And that's what's been happening. That's why I haven't changed my position. But I just want to address what everybody said and the notes. You really have to take a step back now. We saw some scary things in the headlines this week, of course, but when you take a look at the indices, the broad indices, they barely moved. You're down a couple of percent. There was no correction, there's no panic. There's no place to capitulate.
- [09:10]
C
Well, because you haven't been down in fairness yet yesterday morning, you know, they, Santoli had cited it felt a lot like that because it was messy, it felt terrible. And people were wondering how low it may go on that first open after the war had begun. And we just didn't get it.
- [09:28]
D
You're absolutely right. The intraday, particularly the overnight trading, that was panic trading. But once the market opens, then you saw the market recover nicely and we're basically no, no more volatility, what we've seen over the last year. So I think we're in pretty good shape here in terms of the war. Look, you always make case for why this is different, but the Marx market's actually very smart about it. If you go back during my career, your career, to anybody in this desk, you'd recall there's always panic when the Middle east flare about and then two days later you'd say, what was that about? It was a buying opportunity. Geopolitical risk is always buying out.
- [10:07]
C
That's why Jonathan Krinsky puts a note out in the last 48 hours. You know, when the missiles fly. These are his words, not mine. When the missiles fly, it's time to buy.
- [10:16]
D
Exactly. But, but if you take a look at one sector, one sector that actually corrected was financials and that was part what's happening in the Middle east and part, as you point out, private credit. So I don't think the private credit issues have gone away, but nor do I think there is significant, as the headline stated. So you're always looking for opportunities to buy. For me, I look those as opportunities buy, but you know, I'm buying more of what I own. And we'll get to it later.
- [10:44]
C
Well, we can get to it now because it speaks to exactly what I said about, you know, money coming out of small caps and going into the biggest stocks within the market. If you, and if you look at the way that the mega caps, you know, have traded, yeah, it's right back to that safe haven, dare I say, status that many of them had before you started to get all the massive spending on AI and then some of the fears. Both of you guys sitting next to each other is a perfect place to be because you both bought more Microsoft. Yeah, speaking to exactly what I'm doing, it's up 3% this week. I told you that the NASDAQ week to date is now positive. The S and P though is still negative. Microsoft is good for 3% this week. Let's hear from you first and then you.
- [11:30]
D
Yeah, so. So to me, look, I do think there'll be permanent damage to software companies, some of them in particular and we can guess those could be a salesforce I think. Yes but in terms of Microsoft, they've been in front of this, they were early investors in OpenAI. Could you see some, some damage? Yes, but and I backtrack from them being the biggest beneficiary of AI to them being I think neutral to slightly positive and that means the stock is extraordinarily cheap at these levels. I think that there is a lot of panic in it. So I added to it. I never, I didn't sell during the software panic. I did sell a year ago but it was still a small core position. Now it's back to being a full size corporation.
- [12:13]
C
They're getting a pop. By the way, Satya Nadella, the CEO is speaking within the next five minutes out at the Morgan Stanley TMT conference, San Francisco. So anything comes out of that we certainly will let you know but the stock's getting a bit of. I didn't mean to cut you off, I just wanted to. No, no, no, no.
- [12:30]
D
I'd like to hear from Bill Note
- [12:31]
C
Nadella on the, on the stage in a little bit and you tell us more now.
- [12:35]
E
Yeah, we've been underweight Microsoft. I mean even after this ad gets us just almost a 4% weighting and the late great Charlie Munger. I mean you wait until things test the 200 weak moving average, it's going to prove to be a long term buying opportunity. That's what Microsoft did. But it's also two standard deviations below its long run P E and you know we see this a big support and I think it's time to start thinking about getting Microsoft to wait or near weight in your portfolio. You're starting to see it right now. We didn't talk about capitulation. Capitulation has happened in the software space and that's driving Microsoft maybe you know from, from multiple lenses. Not only just people selling Microsoft itself but the flows that are coming out of software not to come back here.
- [13:16]
C
You want to see a stock that's done a lot of nothing lesson with this.
- [13:20]
E
This is Microsoft Alphabet of spring of last year moment. Everybody hates it.
- [13:25]
C
Straight line from you know, 370. What is that 373. Can't even see it. Three seven, whatever that 370 number is draw it straight across the thing because that's where you've been in the zip over 500.
- [13:35]
D
I mean, at one point it was moving and then gave that up fairly quick.
- [13:38]
E
We saw, we trimmed it ahead of its earnings report when software had that little pop up. So we feel very comfortable adding to it here. But again, I mean, I think this could be last spring where everybody hated Alphabet. This is that moment for Microsoft.
- [13:51]
F
It's a proxy for Open air, just like SoftBank is. If you believe there's stability in the software names, this is the safest play. If software is going to have a recovery rebound, Microsoft is going higher. The challenges beyond software for Microsoft related to maybe a little bit of a slowdown in the Azure growth. Do you really believe that's sustainable over the course of time?
- [14:10]
D
I don't think you'll see slowness at all.
- [14:13]
F
I agree. So I don't think, I don't think you're going to see that. I think it's a safe way to play it. If you want to play the recovery rebound in software in a high beta capacity, just go by the private equity names.
- [14:25]
C
Okay, well that takes, you know, at least the way they've traded lately. So some guts for certain. What do you think about the mega caps though? And this idea that, you know, when the, the times are tough despite. It's not like the questions about spending and the durability of the trade have gone away, but these are places to hide out in times like this.
- [14:44]
B
No, absolutely. Well, and I think it's a good sign that investors are hiding out in equities. So let's not focus too much on the fact that we rotated from small cap back into large cap. Let's focus on the fact that during a period of intense fear, investors still stayed in equities and rotated along.
- [15:01]
C
Right. Yields going up. Right. Not the other direction as people were
- [15:03]
B
buying within Treasuries assets. And also remember that before this, I mean it hasn't even been a week before this, the market was in decent shape. Earnings were still very solid. Surprising to the upside. A capex was very much surprising to the upside. Those mega cap companies have really good balance sheets. They are in good fundamental position. So things were okay, if not pretty good before a lot of this erupted. And in the software space, the market was a little rattled by everything that had happened in software. And full disclosure, I mentioned this the last time I was on the show. My final trade was IGV on January 20th. Poorly timed at that time. However, IGV was down 18% from its highs. So it seemed like a decent entry point. Of course I did not anticipate a bunch of these announcements by Anthropic that would send it down another 20%. But looking at just that big drawdown in such a short period of time, I think we got to the bottom.
- [15:57]
C
I was going to go right there. I'm glad you did because if you tick off the things that are driving the market higher, oil, lower private credit, feeling better today. And the IGV it's now up 4% this week. The software ETF. So maybe you have, as Jonathan Krinsky suggested to us yesterday, been fully washed out. You look at crowdstrike today coming off the back of the earnings. Cyber hasn't traded well. It's obviously in focus in relation to the war and the threat of cyber attacks. But this stock off the back of earnings is up one and a half percent. I come back to you Bill Baruch because their guide was pretty good. And you bought more of that? Tell me more.
- [16:34]
E
Yeah, we bought more on Monday. I mean this is ahead of earnings. We were confident that the pessimism was at a peak and we wanted to get work money to work in software. This is a great report. Record profitability, solid margins, attractive new product suite, secular tailwinds and security and defense spending. I think this is a name that you have to have in portfolios at this level right now and I expect it to perform.
- [16:55]
F
Are you disappointed it's not up more today?
- [16:57]
E
I am but on the week Was it up 5% on the week or so?
- [16:59]
C
I think a little more even. Yeah, maybe up like more than 6% on the week. So maybe some of the move I
- [17:04]
E
think I would already been anticipated. People buy.
- [17:07]
C
Morgan Stanley takes the target to 487. That's down from 537. Little optimism coming out but there it is. Week to date, almost. Almost a 7% move. George Kurtz, the CEO on Mad Money. Jim Cramer tonight, 6 o' clock Eastern. It's an exclusive and you don't want to miss that. What do you make of the cyber trade lately?
- [17:25]
F
So the cyber trade is obviously something I do not have any exposure to currently other than through the EIS checkpoint. And then obviously Palo Alto bought some cyber Arc but it's still listed on the Tel Aviv exchange. I think you want to have some exposure there. That's why one of the reasons why I gave consideration and purchased the eis I said yesterday Check Point Software is a name that individually I might buy at some point. Crowdstrike obviously, I think it pulled forward a lot of what we're seeing in terms of the earnings released today. Palo Alto, another name you could ultimately own. I'm sure the strategy will go back into it at some point, but for now we're sitting on the sidelines.
- [18:01]
C
We got an important earnings report in overtime tonight, don't we Broadcom?
- [18:05]
F
Sure do.
- [18:06]
C
We obsess over Nvidia and everything that it does. Broadcom hasn't had a big seat at the table of the conversation lately. It should pull the stock out. I mean you get a look at what the stock's done, you know, a year, few years, whatever you want to do. What do you think? You own this, right?
- [18:25]
E
We own it. I wasn't going to step ahead of it. It's still a very large holding in our portfolios. We've been overweight. We maintain that. Overweight though it's come in a little bit just naturally. It's at the 200, 200 day moving average. And so I think there's a lot of support down here for multiple is 27 and a half. I think that multiple can even really come down if this stock doesn't really rally out of the earnings. I think I expect a very solid earnings report from them.
- [18:47]
F
Again, big report tonight. Look for revenue growth up about 29%. Adjusted earnings up 23%. They have to give more color on what the trouble was in December related to looking forward over the next six quarters. The backlog of 73 billion. That was a little below consensus expectations. They also have to defend against the software story. Jim Cramer has done a great job talking about this. Remember, 42% of their revenue is attributable to software. It's VMware. So they have to defend against that a little bit. They've got a great story to tell as they relates to the tensor processing units and the relationship that they have there with Alphabet. A little bit more expensive than where in video right now is. But look, it's been a core holding for us. We've owned this stock since October of 2021.
- [19:31]
C
Are we still all, you know, tensed up about Nvidia or can we feel better about the way that, that that stocks traded? So it's up 5% over the last month. It might not feel like it because in those days after the earnings report it traded so poorly. Yeah, but then we've had the turnaround.
- [19:47]
E
It's our, it's our largest holding, about a 6%. We've added to it on, on when it was down earlier in the year. I think it is time to kind of put it past right now. And I think we're to see a risk on rally broadly. I think the software is coming out of it. The one thing that we're really looking at, as you know at our portfolio is the Capex AI spending. Now some of the multiples we're seeing with Broadcom and Nvidia come down significantly. And you know, the spending, the borrowing has been so loose. I mean if somebody wanted $1 million, you know, you don't ask for a million, you ask for 2 million. And I mean you're getting loans. The no covenant loans lacks collateral. They're very competitive rates. So that's what we've seen really washed out within this sell off in software. And I think that leads way here. You know why that they were trading at such lower multiples. And I think we'll see them trade at higher multiples going forward.
- [20:39]
C
Okay, so chips watching chips. I want to come to you and I want to get to a lot more before we get out of here for a break. You trimmed Taiwan Semi?
- [20:46]
D
Yeah.
- [20:46]
C
Can you give me some details on that?
- [20:48]
D
Sure. I mean I started buying Taiwan 70 when it was in the 70s. It became just about twice the size of my largest core position. So I was actually late in trimming it. But it's still by far my largest position just from risk. In a portfolio management standpoint, I had to take some off the table. So that's the only reason. It's nothing about the fundamentals. I said still by far by leaps and bounds my largest position and everything. You're saying positive about Broadcom and in video, you know, they make the chips for everybody, period. Except for Intel's got their own fabs. So as you see growth there, you'll continue to see it at Taiwan Semi. Now, of course the risk always is what happens with China. And I think that's a real risk, particularly as we deplete our munitions over in Iraq and elsewhere. You can see it. I don't think it stays worry but at some point it becomes a worry. If I really worried about it today or over the next year, I wouldn't be in it.
- [21:48]
C
All right, let's switch gears completely and just talk about oil for a moment. I'm going to lead into a move so you'll understand why I've made this turn. So oil. Oil now is positive, barely, but it's off the burner at least for. For the day or for the hour maybe. I don't know, who knows? You know, we've Seen a lot of that based on headline driven stuff straight up or moves, etc. The administration is doing its best, whether it's the President, the Treasury Secretary or whomever else to relieve any sense that oil is going to stop flowing. Okay, that's probably why you're seeing the move that you have in wti. You sold slb. Why'd you do that?
- [22:27]
E
We came in Monday more than just over a 10% weighting in energy, which is about three times the S&P 500. And energy has done really well for us this year. We wanted to or needed to, we felt the need to monetize something out of that move. Now SLB has been sort of trading sideways for the last maybe a couple of weeks. It did not accelerate higher coming out of Monday. We thought it'd be time just to take that thing off, monetize the energy space. We, we have a nice couple other names between kmi, Exxon, LNG that are in there that we really like. So reducing that energy thing to remember crude oil responded in its higher. It's not, not above 80 bucks WTI and remember Iranian oil was already off the market. Now you know, other than really not affecting anybody but China and I mean China is, has a great, a great surplus right now. So there's oil is very tame. And so we want to make sure we monetize the energy out of that. Now if they keep hitting infrastructure around the Middle east that could start to change things. But if that starts to walk back like we heard the news overnight that they, that they're looking for, you know, some, some step forward in negotiations here Iran is and that's why the market's reacting like this and that's why energy is not accelerating higher. But I think right now for us at a large weight in energy, we want to reduce that here. And that's what I also think that
- [23:44]
D
China probably has had to talk to Iran and said stay away from bombing out the infrastructure in Saudi everywhere else as close as they are because otherwise that's where I would have gone after if I were them. So I think that has something to do with and that's the biggest risk to me that they take out the oil infrastructure. But as you point out top the show, they're losing those capabilities.
- [24:03]
C
Sure. I mean obviously military militarily though the might of the United States and the arsenal that we have as the Defense Secretary, the Secretary of War was, was speaking about earlier, it's, it's not like that's going to remain an ability of the Iran regime Which whatever is still existing of it as the, the hours and the days progress. So I just think the overall tone of all of that has, has helped crude get off the heater now. Even the estimates that are coming out. Goldman, okay, they take crude higher. UBS takes crude higher. We're not talking about huge jumps. Goldman to 71 from 62. Brent to 76 from 66, UBS 72 from 62. It's not 115. No, they had 125. That you start talking about that, you're going to have a different picture. In the equity market.
- [25:02]
F
All that does is reverse the bearish sentiment that has been in place for crude oil for the better part of the last two years. And coming into 2026, the bearish positioning. Iran does not control the price of oil. The United States controls the price of oil as does Saudi Arabia. You're absolutely spot on with this, Scott. I like Bill's move with Schlumberger. Over the next several days I will get out of the OI which is been a fantastic trade for me. We still maintain exposure to Schlumberger and Baker Hughes and Jyoti. Do not get out of the refiners. The refiners are a very important energy holding, I believe. As you move through the summer, maintain positioning. In Valero, Marathon and Philips 6.
- [25:39]
D
These contract spikes in oil have always been short and reset much lower. So everybody thinks they're getting in early. They're all getting in late. So the same thing as the equity.
- [25:51]
E
Two things. Crack, crack spreads surging out of this 60 heating oil diesel this week is just surging. And then as a commodity trader, Sunday night markets open. I look at Sunday night when you get news over the weekend. A lot of the time you get a high in oil in that open. A lot of time you get maybe a high five high in gold at the open. And I clean my commodity portfolio straight. I got out of my crude oil call spreads, got out of gold longs, got out of everything. And then finally on slb, earnings are trending the wrong way. They're trending, they're trending down. So for us it was just let's move away for a little bit.
- [26:20]
C
Let's move away for a little bit ourselves for a couple minutes. We'll take a break, we'll come back, we'll do the calls of the day. Plus I've saved a move that Steve Weiss has made that we will tell you about right after the break.
- [26:35]
E
Guys, it's no use putting it off.
- [26:37]
D
The best time for an underwear refresh
- [26:38]
E
is now Tommy Don Underwear is designed
- [26:41]
C
for a perfect fit that stays put all day.
- [26:43]
E
There's zero chafe, thanks to four times
- [26:45]
D
more stretch than competing brands.
- [26:47]
E
And their innovative horizontal quick draw fly is a game changer. With over 30 million pairs sold, there are thousands of men out there more comfortable than you. Don't settle for less. Go to tommyjohn.com today for 25% off
- [26:57]
D
your first order with code comfort.
- [26:59]
E
That's tommyjohn.com comfort Tommy John comfort Perfected.
- [27:05]
B
Not every sale happens at the register. Before AT&T business Wireless, checking out customers on our mobile POS systems took too long. Basically a staring contest where everyone loses. It's crazy what people say during an awkward silence. Now transactions are done before the silence takes hold. That means I can focus on the task at hand and make an extra sail or two. Sometimes I do miss the bonding time. Sometimes.
- [27:29]
C
AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything.
- [27:35]
A
What do the steam engine, electricity and
- [27:37]
B
AI have in common?
- [27:38]
A
These technologies not only change how we work, they can transform entire economies.
- [27:43]
B
I'm Stephanie Huang, host of where the
- [27:45]
A
Internet Lives, a podcast from Google and Latitude Studios about the unseen world of data centers. Explore how data centers are unlocking growth
- [27:53]
B
in every sector of the economy. From agriculture to medicine to manufacturing, data centers are powering a new era of AI innovation.
- [28:01]
A
Listen to where the Internet lives wherever you get your podcasts.
- [28:06]
C
Welcome back. All's well with you and Netflix now, right?
- [28:10]
D
Yeah.
- [28:10]
C
Bought more.
- [28:11]
D
I did buy more. And that. That is also a core position.
- [28:14]
C
Okay.
- [28:15]
D
So if you recall, I got out because I just thought it was going to be dead.
- [28:18]
C
Yeah. Yeah. You and a lot of other people.
- [28:19]
D
Yeah. And at this point, and part of the reason, this is an important part of my reason by Microsoft as well. I'm looking at stocks. I've already been through the fires. I've already been through the battles. And that's Netflix. And that was also Microsoft to a certain.
- [28:32]
C
Some of the first ins become the first outs.
- [28:35]
D
Yeah.
- [28:35]
C
You know how much the stock's up over the last month And a lot of it's more recently. I didn't catch 23%.
- [28:40]
D
Yeah. I didn't catch a bottom the 70s. But look, what I like about it is that Paramount believes they're much stronger with Warner. I think they're much weaker. I mean, what they've spent with the leverage, more than seven terms of leverage, you know, that's obscene amount of leverage that prevents you from building out your business because all you focus now on is paying down the debt. The debt service Whereas Netflix they saved 90 billion in making this that can devote, they can devote to, to growing their business and content. So I'm super pumped up about it. I think it's going to be a top performer this year.
- [29:13]
C
Well, well I mean it's, it was before the downturn that it took and that was well before the news obviously of the bid. Tesla reinstated a buy today. Bank of America for 60 is the price target. They did have it on a hold so they are back positive on that name Bill.
- [29:32]
E
Yeah, I think it's held so far where it really needs to. Right around 400 bucks. There's a lot of support there down to 370. The 20 moving averages in there. The breakout from September, you know they're having success with, with self driving I think, I mean you're seeing some, some news coming out of South Korea, positive sentiment there and so I think this is where if you, if you like Tesla and you feel it needs to be in your portfolio which I do this is where you may want to think about adding to it if not buying it for the first buying to get it in there.
- [29:58]
C
What about Ross stores? Traffic up, picking up. Sales are up in the, in the quarter they reported.
- [30:04]
F
Look, they're telling a story we already knew. With TJX Comp sales up 9% the consensus was up was calling for 4%. Ross store is up 7% today. They've already expressed that it's a strong start to the spring season and right now consumers are looking for the discount whether it is low middle income consumers or whoever it might be and it's clearly represented by tjx. Ross thoughts? You'll hear from Burlington soon enough. I don't like Burlington as much as I like TJX and ross.
- [30:34]
C
What about cat? Target goes to 860. Overweight. JP Morgan though it's 739 goes to 860. Weiss.
- [30:42]
D
Yeah, I mean that's been a wild ride. I mean take a look at this. I don't know which is more of a wild ride in my portfolio. This a Goldman Sachs because they'll trade down 3, 4% at a, a pot. But I like it. They're still extremely well positioned.
- [30:55]
C
Look at that move.
- [30:56]
D
Yeah, still extremely well positioned, still overvalued but there's nothing to reset the value as long as the capex spend keeps happening.
- [31:04]
C
How much of that is attributable? I was going to go there to data center dig up I think a lot of it.
- [31:09]
D
I think a lot of it, you know disproportionate majority of the move is
- [31:13]
C
like a big on steroids, right?
- [31:15]
D
Yeah, except I don't see that change
- [31:18]
C
PulteGroup by 170 at Truist.
- [31:20]
F
We think basically the Truist note speaks about the homebuilders and the fact that probably 2026 has priced in the overall gloomy outlook for housing, residential housing. They're focusing on 2027, seeing a much improved environment and that's why they suggest Pulte here. I think Pulte benefits relative to the other homebuilders just from a stronger average selling price.
- [31:45]
C
Corning overweight jpm. They reiterate that view. What do you think about that one?
- [31:49]
F
Listen, this has been phenomenal for me. I bought the stock at 109 at the beginning of February. They have the $6 billion relationship with Matter through 2030 and it's all about fiber optics and their market share there. They're participating in the build out after Nvidia reported. You saw the analyst community increase some of the earnings as well. It relates to Corning and then, oh, they have the Gorilla Glass rather and very strong market share as it relates to that.
- [32:16]
C
Okay. Angelica Peebles has the headlines for us. Hi there.
- [32:19]
B
Hey, Scott. Republican Representative Nancy Mace made a motion today to subpoena Attorney General Pam Bondi in the House Oversight Committee's Jeffrey Epstein probe. Mace is calling on Bonnie to appear for a deposition regarding Justice Department's handling of the investigation into the late sex offender and the department's compliance with the law requiring it to release all documents related to Epstein. Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz appeared for a hearing today on fraud in his state saying he wants to work with Congress to address the issue. It comes as the House Oversight Committee released a report earlier today claiming that he knew about the widespread fraud for years and didn't do anything about it. Walz, who dropped his gubernatorial reelection bid earlier this year, has denied wrongdoing. And a new state study published today in the journal Nature finds that the world's sea levels are higher than calculated. Researchers looked at hundreds of scientific studies and assessments and concluded that baseline coastal water heights were underestimated by an average of one foot. Scott Back over to you, Angelica.
- [33:19]
C
Thank you, Angelica Peebles. Up next, a halftime exclusive interview. Our own Deirdre Bosa is at that Morgan Stanley TMT conference. She's got the co head of investment banking live next.
- [33:31]
A
Need to restock inventory, cover seasonal dips or manage payroll. Ondeck's small business line of credit provides immediate access to funds up to $200,000 exactly when your business needs it.
- [33:42]
B
With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and full control over repayment, you can tackle unexpected
- [33:48]
A
expenses without missing a beat. Apply today@ondeck.com and funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by Ondeck or Celtic Bank.
- [33:58]
B
Ondeck does not lend in North Dakota.
- [33:59]
A
All loans and amounts subject to lender
- [34:01]
C
approval have I asked my electrician I found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster? I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires, I knew I could trust him to bury my sweet nibbles after his untimely end.
- [34:10]
D
This is very strange, Angie. The one you trust to find the ones you trust Find pros for all your home projects@angie.com Imagine relying on a
- [34:17]
C
dozen different software programs to run your business, none of which are connected, and each one more expensive and more complicated than the last. It can be pretty stressful. Now imagine Odoo. Odoo has all the programs you'll ever need and are all connected on one plus platform.
- [34:34]
E
Doesn't Odoo sound amazing?
- [34:36]
C
Let Odoo harmonize your business with simple, efficient software that can handle everything for a fraction of the price.
- [34:43]
E
Sign up today@odoo.com that's o d o o.com
- [34:50]
C
well we do have a nice bounce back. We're trying for one today. About 300 on the Dow. You've had certainly some relief in the price of oil. You've had some of the private credit names respond. The mega caps continue to draw interest as well. It is a perfect time to be visiting with the co head of Investment Banking of Morgan Stanley. He is at their TMT conference out in San Francisco alongside our Deirdre Bosa D Take it away.
- [35:17]
A
It is the perfect timing and Satya Nadella is on stage behind us. Interview with his interview at the Morgan Stanley TMT Conference Mo Asimal thank you so much for being here. Global Co Head of Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley As Scott said, markets have bounced back today, but certainly volatility has been the major theme this year, especially in technology. As you've been here over the last few days, we're hearing from some of the biggest, brightest thought leaders in technology. What's the consensus so far?
- [35:45]
G
So thanks Deirdre for having us and great to have you at our conference. The simple answer I think is there's no consensus, but I will juxtapose what I heard a month ago where we hosted about 30 CEOs at a much smaller event, all mostly software CEOs where there was a little more panic, a little more confusion around what I was doing today. This week at our conference, we're hearing really great, really interesting things. It's not all panic. Clearly, there are going to be some winners, they're going to be some laggards, they're going to be those that will thrive alongside AI, and then, I agree, those that need to adapt or they will be disrupted. So I think the mood is actually interesting, positive, a ton of innovation. You've seen some of the companies that we're presenting today and it's actually quite an interesting time to be here.
- [36:28]
A
Right. And I've heard the questions are tough. I mean, a year ago, right, I was here, you were here, and it was, look at all of these things that I can do. And now it's, how are you going to survive the disruption? So what separates a company that has reason to be more optimistic?
- [36:42]
G
So I think what we're thinking about is this is a reset in many cases, right? And it's not just software. I know software is sort of in the eye of the storm right now, but it's going to sweep other industries. We've seen it a little bit in insurance, in real estate, other, in health care. And there's more to come. That's something that Dario hit on last night, that you're going to see more disruption across almost every industry. And so I think what you have to do as a CEO, as a board, as major shareholders, understand what does this mean for our business? How do we adapt? If we cannot adapt, we're probably in trouble. And even then, there's a question, should we think about M and A? Should we think about scale? Sometimes scale is the answer. Sometimes a different pivot to innovation is the answer. And we're trying, amongst all the noise, we're trying to find the right signals to understand how can we help companies, particularly on the back of what is, we think, a very interesting time to do M and A to be in the capital markets. We're seeing numbers this time, from this time last year up across the board, across the street for the banking businesses, and it's a great time to be able to advise companies.
- [37:41]
A
At the same time, the backdrop for deals should be terrible. We talked about volatility, there's geopolitics, there's this massive disruption and threat in some cases. So how does that impact what you're telling clients, particularly in the software space? Are they acquisition targets or are they dead companies walking?
- [37:57]
G
Acquisition targets, some of them, if they don't act, I think what we're telling clients are become but have a plan. That's really, really important. I think if you don't have a plan, be prepared for disruption, maybe even collapse. But what we're thinking about right now is you've got really interesting companies that can act. And on the, in the backdrop of, you know, obviously we're dealing with some geopolitics right now, but the markets are pretty stable. Cash balances are very strong. Earnings in this country in particular, very, very strong. So you've got a strong corporate backdrop, strong macro conditions. Now is the right time to do M and A if it's the right thing for your business.
- [38:32]
A
That's M and A. What about the IPO landscape? This is the year, you know, people are anticipating the big blockbuster, open air, potentially anthropic space X. How has the landscape shifted? Does it still look good for those companies?
- [38:47]
G
Well, as you know, we had an IPO drought for a couple of years post Covid 22, 23 really quiet years, a little bit of a rebound last year. And this year we're going to continue to see more and more companies decide to move from being a private company into the public markets and we're going to hopefully see some larger deals over the next 12 to 18 months. And I think the question on many people's minds are, can, can this market handle potentially large, larger deals than we've ever seen before? And my answer is yes. You've seen a lot of institutional investors being able to participate in the private markets, but the public markets is where many of these companies, companies will eventually land up and there'll be plenty of capacity to get these deals done.
- [39:24]
A
I want to get into some of the specifics. I know you probably can't say which company can or won't, but for example, in Anthropic, which was just designated a supply chain risk by the White House, how do you go public under that?
- [39:37]
G
Look, there are going to be some good and bad news events around all these companies and I think it's just part of their evolution. I think you're seeing the numbers are getting bigger and bigger. The usage is getting stronger, stronger and stronger. And I think the, the uptake in the public markets will be very strong for all these companies. I won't talk about specifics, obviously, but we're going to see, I think, some very interesting access to the capital markets this year and next.
- [39:59]
A
Well, Mo, thank you so much for being with us first time on cnbc. So thank you and look forward to the rest of the keynotes today.
- [40:04]
G
Good to see you, Scott.
- [40:05]
A
I'll toss it back to you at the New York Stock Exchange.
- [40:07]
C
Good stuff.
- [40:07]
D
Yep.
- [40:07]
C
Dave, thanks so much. Mo. Of course to you as well. Coming up, we'll talk some global markets because one just had its worst day ever. There are implications for the stocks you might own. We will find out how the committee's playing all that next. All right, welcome back. We want to go international for a moment. There is the Korean Stock Exchange, worst day ever. It's down, you see 12%. You know, in a week in which you've had multiple shops come out and suggest that their highest conviction overweight calls are emerging markets. Liz, I'd love your thoughts thought on that call if you have a broader thought on what that chart and just how you're thinking about all this right now.
- [40:46]
B
So first of all, Asian markets tend to exhibit a lot bigger swings than US Markets obviously and just developed markets in general, particularly Europe and so on. So a big swing like this I shouldn't say to be expected, certainly the biggest one in history for South Korea. But the market was up 160% since the beginning of 2025. So what happened in this peak fear moment in the last few days is that the stuff that was exhibiting really strong momentum took it on the chin a lot harder. And I think that's what happened here. South Korea is Now down about 19% from its highs, I would imagine. And I mentioned this earlier in the show, absent a recession, we probably stop right before that bear territory or right around bear territory in South Korea. I am bullish on emerging markets. I talked about this on closing Bell last week with you, Scott. One of my calls for the year was China. I'd love to expand that into emerging markets broadly and say that I think they are insulated from a lot of this geopolitics volatility that goes on because of the emerging market to emerging market business that they have. I do believe that the dollar stays weak after some of this de escalates and I think M is a good spot to be.
- [41:58]
E
We think I agree with her. I mean the em, the ticker EEM is a great spot to look at and you know, I think we own, we own Micron of portfolios and that's followed a lot of the memory trade that South Korea is really hinged on here. But if you own an owner ETF like eem, you're diversifying. Now you got, you got Samsung and you got SK Hynix is like the 2 and 5 holding in there, but you're surrounding with Taiwan semiconductors sector, Tencent, Alibaba, other names. So it's a great spot and I think we're going to see really good momentum kind of once this all settles. I just wonder.
- [42:28]
C
Okay, so like since you mentioned that, like look at, look at Hynix for example. If you, if you look at a chart, I'm guessing that it's sharply up and to the right. Yeah, right.
- [42:37]
E
Yes.
- [42:37]
C
Like all of the other memory related names. So if the weighting of that stock in that index is that large and you've hit hit peak memory as some are suggesting and you have any kind of rollover, are you not buying this at what might be perceived as a top?
- [42:56]
E
No, that's not exactly what I'm saying because we've corrected a little bit, we pulled back. I like the memory trade in general but if you buy em you're Getting Samsung at 4.7, you're getting, you're getting a Hynix at 3o on as a weighting within that and you're getting other names around China that are included in EEM. The thing about it is you see all the 13 Fs that come out in the past couple of weeks. Everybody's talking about all these big hedge funds that own EW Y which is, which is just South Korea and people money could be chasing into that. I think you're chasing in just to South Korea itself. You're going to be maybe on the wrong side or you're taking a lot more risk than you really need.
- [43:33]
F
Big Liz said really one of the more important elements of all of this is where does the dollar go? And I do believe the dollar continues to move lower. That supports the emerging market story. Inflation is coming down and when you think about the emerging markets you want to think about who is actually exporting oil and that is Mexico and Brazil. Eww ew z those two ETFs hold enough assets that I'm comfortable with it. You could also make an argument for Norway and Malaysia. I'm not sure how you get at the exposure there in some ETF wrapper
- [44:08]
E
that has enough a the other ILF South, South America and you get valet in there. It's pulled back sharply too. So we own ILF and em.
- [44:16]
C
Okay, Santoli on the other side of this break. All right, senior markets commentator overtime co anchor Mike Santoli joining us now. What are your thoughts as you see this market rally today?
- [44:27]
H
Yeah Scott, I mean the geopolitical shock and the threat of the oil shock I think has been experienced by investors by Collectively, the stock market as a repositioning shock. So it was an occasion for a real chase liquidation. Out of the globally crowded areas of the market, bringing together some of the most extended relationships we've talked about at semis versus software, global versus us, emerging versus us and gotten some relief to some of the most beat up areas. Some of the things have fallen into place. You have a nice Spike on the Vix chart you from 28 intraday down to 20 or so. That often means the fever has broken. I do think you still have to recognize though that we've now priced in a relatively benign scenario of a contained outcome in the Middle East. Something that seems like the market can look through for a while. Obviously oil's got to behave. Energy stocks not having a bid yesterday. Yesterday was a pretty good tell of that sort of culminating in the near term. So I still want to see the S and p get above 6950, which is last week's high. To say that we're kind of out of the out of the lower end of this range.
- [45:32]
C
You get a little private credit help. You know those names. It's just that the boil everywhere Mike just seems to have been relieved at least a little bit in the interim.
- [45:43]
H
No, there's no doubt it has. It certainly would have reached reset sentiment a little bit. It chased people out of areas they thought they were too comfortable in. The question is whether all this internal volatility can just sort of people can just brush themselves off, pick up and resume an uptrend or if it's just kind of we're still stuck in this mode of, you know, kind of internal tension in the market.
- [46:04]
C
All right, we shall see. And I'll see in a couple of hours that spikes in totally at the nasdaq. As you see, finals are next. I hope you'll join me 3 o' clock Eastern today. We'll see what this market does over the final hour with Liz Ann Saunders and Adam Parker and the NHL commish Gary Bettman is going to join me on the gold medal bounce that the National Hockey League is seeing. Look forward to you joining me then. Let's do some finals. Liz Thomas, your first.
- [46:31]
B
I'm going to cover my eyes for this one, but I'm doing IGV again. I hope I don't have to apologize for it again. I think we bottomed and I don't think the entire space gets displaced.
- [46:40]
C
All right, so we have had a nice little bounce. We'll see about it. Holds Stephen Weiss.
- [46:44]
D
I'll tell you what I've been getting my butt kicked by Baba. But I think it's getting to a level I'm going to add to it. I'm just waiting for it to flatline a little bit.
- [46:52]
C
A lot of the Chinese tech names have gotten hammered.
- [46:54]
D
Yeah, this is, this is extremely cheap. So. So I'm going to add to it. It's not a full position.
- [47:00]
E
LNG Cheniere gets paid on volume. US Natural gas. You look at Qatar, LNG shut down, European prices skyrocketing, sitting pretty, maybe a breakout.
- [47:08]
C
Your guy Pascarello puts a note out during the show. You pick Goldman Sachs. I know how you roll. I'll see you at 3. You've been listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast you can always catch us live. Weekdays at 12 Eastern, only on CNBC.
- [47:29]
D
Olivia loves a challenge. It's why she lifts heavy weights and likes complicated recipes. But for booking her trip to Paris, Olivia chose the EAS easy way with Expedia. She bundled her flight with a hotel to save more. Of course, she still climbed all 674 steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower. You were made to take the easy route. We were made to easily package your trip. Expedia made to travel flight Inclusive packages
- [47:58]
C
are at all protected.