
Scott Wapner and the Investment Committee debate the continued run in stocks as more street strategists raise their S&P targets. Plus, the desk share their latest portfolio moves. And later, Uber hits a new record high as Tesla faces pressure, the Committee break down the trade. Investment Committee Disclosures
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Meditation Guide
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Jenny Harrington
Of whatever you're carrying today.
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Meditation Guide
And breathe.
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Meditation Guide
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Scott Wapner
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. Carl, thank you very much. Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner. Front and center this hour, the state of the rally as more street strategists raise their S and P targets. Today, we'll debate the road ahead and tell you about some new committee moves. Joining me for the hour, Joe Terranova, Jenny Harrington, Shannon Sokotia, and BMO's Brian Belsky with us for the hour today, we'll take you to the markets. We are mixed. Dow is lower. Everything else is in the green. We're reacting, of course, to those new tariffs. The president says they're not going to change and there won't be any extensions either. I don't think Wall street necessarily believes that because the S and P still in positive territory. So to my point, here come the strategists. David Cost in Goldman Sachs raises his S and P valuation and return forecast for 3, 6 in the next 12 months. 3%. 6,400 or 6 months. 6,600 and 6,900 is at the top end there. So that's what you get from David Costin. Savita Subramanian raises her target to 6300. It was at 56. Brian Belsky, you raised your target to 67 a couple of weeks ago. Is that the proper thing to do? Never mind the tariffs at this point.
Jenny Harrington
Well, thank you. Good afternoon.
Scott Wapner
Great to have you.
Jenny Harrington
Hey, thanks so much for Having us. Congratulations to my former colleague Savita for raising your target. Congratulations to David as well. We love both of their work. Welcome to the rally. I would say this, that from a longer term basis, I think they're right. I think, you know, they both have different constituencies who they talk with in terms of their different firms and things like that. But I think it's par for the course right now, especially given the fact that many of their clients on the institutional side have missed this rally, quite frankly. And so they probably beginning to receive a lot of pressure to change that and be like everyone else. But at the end of the day, I think the bull market is very much alive and it's par for the course to be raising after the market's already up.
Scott Wapner
Okay, Jenny, you agree with that? Bull market is here and. Well, because you've been kind of a doubter at times of that.
Shannon Sokotia
Yeah, you know, it's tough. So here in. Well, yes, and I think it hasn't.
Scott Wapner
Been that tough for most. I'm saying, like, what's tough about it?
Shannon Sokotia
Do you want my answer?
Scott Wapner
Yeah, go ahead.
Shannon Sokotia
Okay. So what's tough about it?
Scott Wapner
I'm trying to figure out what's so tough about it.
Shannon Sokotia
What's tough about it for me is tough to doubt.
Jenny Harrington
It's tough to be a doubter.
Scott Wapner
That's what I meant.
Jenny Harrington
That's what he meant.
Scott Wapner
That's what I meant.
Shannon Sokotia
But not really because as we've established many, many times over, just because I'm skeptical of the bull market doesn't mean that I'm not fully invested. You know, the market commentary is the market commentary and then how I manage the portfolio is different. So when you say it's tough and I'm like, is it? I'm enjoying making money just like everybody else in a bull market.
Meditation Guide
But, but I know, but why are.
Scott Wapner
You on a wire? What prevents you from being a bigger believer at this point?
Shannon Sokotia
Because how can you be a big believer when you see that earnings estimate, estimated earnings growth is declining, there's massive uncertainty out there. Tariffs aren't. The tariff situation isn't great and there's still a lot of ambiguity. We know that supply chains are going to be messed up from that, but we don't know how, we don't know how inflation is going to be impacted yet. None of these things we know. And by the way, the market's still pricing in a 22 times multiple, which suggests clear sailing imperfection. So I think where we stand on the market right now is, is that it's pulled forward A lot of growth. And it's, and it's assuming a really wonderful scenario. So my apprehension on the bull market is that people are expecting more than they're going to get. And when people's expectations become misaligned with what really happens, they behave badly. So if you can sit in my shoes and say, like, hey, great, we have a lovely gift of the market being up six and a half percent and I'm being realistic about what's going forward, maybe you behave well, but if you're sitting here thinking, hey, I deserve to make 20% a year because that's what I deserve the last couple years and that's what a bull market means to me, then your expectations get messed up and then you start behaving badly. And that's when there's wealth destruction and problems ahead. So I'd rather. Okay, I've actually worked on an analogy which I'll probably screw up because it's the first time I'm trying it.
Scott Wapner
Well, if you worked on it, I hope you don't screw it up.
Shannon Sokotia
Well, we'll try because you know me, I don't really know sports, but I was thinking about it over the past couple weeks since we talked.
Scott Wapner
Okay.
Shannon Sokotia
And you know, you know how you were, you were giving me a hard time about, about being so negative on things and considering all the negatives, I think it's like a football coach who puts it, who comes up with a great play and they say if everything goes well, this play should work well, they don't. Then only look at all the things that should work well. They look at all the things with that play that could come, that could go wrong. And they say if this goes wrong, we'll do this. If that goes wrong, we'll do that. That's how I am with the market.
Scott Wapner
Yeah, but they still run the play. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
Shannon Sokotia
A fully invested portfolio, which is what we have at Gilman Hill, is still running the play. But you consider all the things that go wrong. And that's why I'm always kind of coming with a negative with a negative.
Scott Wapner
Understand? So I guess the problem, I can't.
Shannon Sokotia
Get, I can't get excited. I cannot get excited with net earnings growth, lack of clarity from tariffs, the Fed chair getting the daylights beaten out of him on a regular basis, interest rates that even if they cut the fed funds rate, longer term rates might not go down. Valuations that are kind of stretched. Like to me, nothing about that is exciting or compelling. Still fully invested because the smart thing to do makes sense. Ride the market up makes sense.
Brian Belsky
I think we all like my analogy. We all have different strategies.
Scott Wapner
It was well thought we all worked on. I hope we didn't spend too much time working on it. But nonetheless you delivered it well. Delivered it well.
Brian Belsky
We all have different strategies on the desk. Maybe the frustration that you're expressing is that your particular strategy in the first half of the year didn't work. Doesn't mean actually it did well.
Shannon Sokotia
But go ahead, go ahead.
Brian Belsky
In the second half of the year, I think the question becomes Joe just stepped in it.
Scott Wapner
He doesn't fully realize. Please proceed before you get.
Brian Belsky
But you're focused more on a dividend strategy, correct?
Shannon Sokotia
Correct.
Brian Belsky
And overall maybe you outperform the dividend strategy, but dividend strategies in the first half of the year, we're not in favor.
Shannon Sokotia
Fair enough.
Brian Belsky
I think the important thing that I'm seeing the early days of July and where the market is today is thinking about where the market will reward the investor in the second half of the year. Because so far the first couple of days of July have been somewhat frustrating. You're seeing it again today. The momentum names are selling off. The market is moving away from leaders. The market is gravitating more towards laggards. And the laggards are where the sentiment and the positioning doesn't really reflect the bullishness that we're talking about here at the beginning of the show. Health care higher today, biotech higher today. I know myself personally, all I really have that's participating in that is McKesson because that's been the one name that has the momentum and is trading to a 52 week high. So the market in the early days of the second half is seeing something. Maybe it's seeing what's going on in the bond market. I asked the producers back in New Jersey if they could show this chart. If you look month to date, what a 10 year treasury has done, we've seen about a 25 basis point spike in five trading days. That's a lot for the 10 year to move that quickly. You had overnight Japanese bonds, you have German bonds, the long end backing up. So maybe the market's getting uncomfortable with the bond market once again, I don't know. But there is something in the early days that's kind of frustrating the investor who in the first half of the year was rewarded for being in the right place because it doesn't feel like that today.
Scott Wapner
Scott, you said the bonds on why like the the treasury secretary would, would say and I think he did say as much when he was on the network in the last handful of days. Maybe it was before the holiday where they're not that concerned. Maybe the treasury market is just reflecting the better growth that they're banking on from the bill getting passed. Not a result of any bond market anxiety over the level of the deficit. That would be their response because I think it was.
Brian Belsky
But it's not specific to the US we're seeing a backup in yields around the world and you're not seeing the type of growth that you're getting here in the United States in some of those areas where you're getting the backup.
Scott Wapner
So maybe, maybe Shannon, Jenny's correct. I mean earnings estimates have come down a lot. Right. Q2, 5.8% estimate. It was 10.2 on April 1st. First before the big board of the big numbers came out at the White House and scared everybody in the market. You do have fewer stocks hitting new highs outside of the s and P500. That's being talked about today in some of the newspapers and some of the reporting. Lower quality names are the ones that have really ripped like the meme stocks, the FOMO stocks. The Ark Innovation fund hits a new 52 week high today, plays into that story. What about that? What about that? Maybe people are too complacent to the risks that Jenny gave you on the list that she read off. Despite the fact that we're at new highs and you have strategists raising their targets.
Joe Terranova
I think that there's a fear of complacency. But I think the other thing to think about is that if you were looking for catalysts in the second half of the year, I think that there are clearly two that you can point to. One, a lot has been made of the big beautiful bill and the impact on personal taxes, no tax on tips. The pro business portions of that bill can actually be pretty transformative. And Scott, I would point to the fact that, you know, capital expenditure and an acceleration of that really speaks to our view that we're going to see a global inflection, inflection higher in global growth from an industrial perspective.
Scott Wapner
Okay, so you're bullish.
Joe Terranova
So I would say we're, we're, we're, we're constructive on equities. Yeah. I mean right now we're overweight global equities. We're, we're neutral large cap. So just to be clear, we're neutral large cap because we think that there is still some vulnerability in some of the tech names.
Scott Wapner
Hang on a second. How long have you been neutral? Large cap?
Jenny Harrington
The whole.
Joe Terranova
The whole time. So the last number of quarters, we.
Scott Wapner
Did the whole thing then. No, no, it's been a large cap rally.
Joe Terranova
No, we were fully invested in large cap. We weren't overweight in large cap. So we're fully invested in large cap. And we went overweight and international. So we benefited from that.
Scott Wapner
Okay, fair enough.
Joe Terranova
And we've been overweight and small cap, which is detracted, which we still remain overweight and small cap.
Scott Wapner
A large cap rally. Financials industrials like the biggest names within. It goes to the point of what I read earlier where fewer stocks outside of the S and P away from the s and P500 are hitting new highs. This has been a big stock rally.
Jenny Harrington
Yeah, we've talked a lot about that. When people are under duress, when investors are under duress and you go back through market history, they seek liquidity. You can go back to the 90s, the nifty 50 and the irrational exuberant speech that came out from Alan Greenspan was actually about the consumer staples stocks because they were chasing these names that are 40, 50, 60 times earnings. It wasn't about tech. They were the largest stocks in the market. Because people didn't feel great coming out of the 94 malaise, just like now. They didn't feel great. They wanted to have liquidity and that's why the tech and the big companies have done so well. If I look at the money that we have the great fortune to run, my best performing in relative in absolute performance in terms of our products were our smid cap in the second quarter. And the reason is from a fundamental perspective, we're talking about cash flow and balance sheets and things like that in financial spot. Small cap financials I think are really do really, really well. So it's set up for exactly what Shannon's talking about.
Scott Wapner
So you have had.
Joe Terranova
Thank you for letting me tell you my story there.
Jenny Harrington
Fantastic.
Scott Wapner
That's why you're here, to tell your story. You have had some calls of late that, you know, maybe are froth related calls if that's what the analysts are thinking. Netflix and Crowdstrike yesterday, right. Downgraded both to neutral. They've had massive runs Datadog today to sell at Guggenheim. The stock's up 67% in three months. So. And you are starting to see some sellers emerge at the institutional level. B of A today according to their client flows said they saw the biggest week of selling in almost a year. Last week clients sold stocks across all 11 sectors for the first time since early November of 2022. Where were the outflows? The largest, you ask Comm Services, tech and industrials. The areas that saw some of the biggest inflows in the first half of this year and the areas that saw among the largest gains, as we're showing you on your screen right now over the past few three months, Tech, industrials.
Brian Belsky
And comm services, Joe Leaders going to laggards. That is the story of the first few days of the second half of the year. It's Spotify, it's Axon, it's Netflix, it's Crowdstrike, it's all the popular names, Qantas Services, Hellmet, all the popular names that we were talking about in the first half of the year. It's the momentum strategy, which did really, really well in the first half of the year. You try and understand what's the message and what's the signal from it. I don't think that five days of trading is enough evidence that anyone can sit here with a strong degree of confidence and say, okay, this is what the market sees and this is what of course, second half of the year the setup is.
Scott Wapner
But it asked, it raises an awareness, makes you ask the question, is it time to do what some of these analysts have done and sort of temper your expectations of where these high flying stocks can go from here. We're talking about high quality names like a Netflix or a crowd strike. You can put Datadog in whatever basket you want to put it in. Maybe it's not thought of in the same regard as a Netflix or a crowd.
Brian Belsky
I'm not going to disagree with any analyst who's looking at a Stock that's up 67% and lowering the expectations on it by moving it from overweight to market weight. I will not dispute that at all. That is reasonable. And I think all of these stocks, I said this to you yesterday, you could see a correction in all of these stocks. The problem that I have for the long term investor is how do you return to ownership of those names Once again, you could make the statement, well, you just go buy it again, okay? There's tax consequences in that. For some people that are watching the show and are long term investors, I think there's enough fundamentally in each one of the names. I think there's a thesis surrounding each one of those names. Netflix, Spotify Streaming, the advantage that they have, their CrowdStrike, Fortinet, cybersecurity. There's a fundamental strong tailwind that exists in each one of those places. So while yes I agree you could have a correction and I think the third quarter is the most moment in the 2025 calendar that you're going to have it. But I'm concerned about getting back in on the other side because I really think there's sustainability. And Brian was talking about large caps and liquidity. It's also earnings. That's where the earnings has had been. The earnings have been in these large cap names. The earnings have been in these mid cap names. We're waiting for the earnings and the profit margin expansion to show up up in the small cap names.
Scott Wapner
So I mentioned institutional level selling by way of that B of a note, the committee level. There's selling here on this desk. Brian Belsky sold Nike, prologis and Restaurant Brands. Those are large cap stocks. Why did you do that?
Jenny Harrington
Well, Restaurant Brands was a name that we own in a lot of Canadian portfolios. So it didn't make sense to own in our US Valley much. It didn't really work the way that we wanted it to work. We had a nice bounce in it, but we didn't see it. Nike had the big bounce. We talked about it when we were here the last time. We knew that it was up for selling but we obviously couldn't talk about that until we published that we replaced it with lululemon because we think Lulu from an opportunistic standpoint makes a lot more sense. And we sold prologis because we want to get a little bit bigger. Scott, in the OG utility names like Southern and Nextera because we think those are better plays than REITs right here. So that's why we that sold what we saw.
Scott Wapner
So as it relates to Nike and Lulu. So you think that the bounce back in in Nike shares, which has been pretty dramatic.
Jenny Harrington
Yep.
Scott Wapner
There's still a long way to go. Obviously, as you know, you debate whether the turnaround is going to take shape or not. There you can see at the very end of your screen there the move I'm talking about. So you think that's kind of done and then if you show Lulu maybe year to date, you think the worst is in.
Jenny Harrington
I do.
Scott Wapner
We don't need an intraday on that.
Jenny Harrington
Yeah, look at that. I mean if you look at that chart in the turn here from the bottom at 15 times earnings and a growth stock that's a broken growth stock. You want to try to find broken growth names. And I value.
Scott Wapner
I got to go to the White House. The president's been holding his cabinet meeting, is now taking some questions from reporters.
Shannon Sokotia
Let's listen In Russia, if there's anything that you signal about your displeasure with them.
Meditation Guide
Well, I'm just, look, I'm very unhappy with them. There's no reason for this. It's turned out to be tougher, but it's only tougher. And I will say the Ukrainians were brave, but we gave them the best equipment ever made. We gave them the anti tank busters that knocked out tanks. I mean, you just aim them in the direction of the tank and the tank is gone. We gave them missiles, the latest and the greatest. They were able to shoot down a lot of things that would have normally wiped out, you know, probably would have been a very quick war. It would have been a war that lasted three, four days. But they had the benefit of unbelievable equipment and Europe gave them to. We gave them far more because Biden shouldn't have done that. He should have equalized. We should have given him the same. Or we should have given actually less than Europe. It affects Europe much more than us. But we're in there for over $300 billion. Europe's in there for over 100 billion, but still Europe gave a lot. And I will say this, the Ukrainians, whether you think it's unfair that we gave all that money or not, they were very brave because somebody had to operate that stuff and a lot of people I know wouldn't be operating it. They wouldn't have the courage to do it. So they fought very bravely, but we gave them the best equipment in the world. We make the best military equipment by far. There's nobody close. You look at other equipment from other countries, it's not even close. That's why everybody wants to buy our equipment and that's why we're going to step up these contractors now that make it and they're brilliant, but they make it too slowly and we have to step them up, Pete, and let them make it at a much higher rate. Unfortunately, we have to do that. But if you look at our patriots, if you look at our Tomahawks, if you look at our. Well, what we do with tanks is you wouldn't want to be driving a tank. You would feel nice and secure. But they are Javelins, they're called, and I gave them the Javelins. Remember they said Trump gave the Javelins and Obama gave them sheets, right? They called Obama at that time, Barack Hussein Obama, if you haven't heard, did a terrible job. But that was a war that, that was a war that should have never happened. And a lot of people are dying and it should end. And I don't know. We get. We get. We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin for. You want to know the truth? He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless. Do you want to sanction him? Lindsey Graham has a sanctions bill on Russia. Do you. I'm looking at it. Yeah. No, I'm looking. The Senate is passing and passed a very, very tough sanctions. But, yeah, I'm looking at it. Can you sign that? It's an optional bill. It's totally at my option. They pass it totally at my option. And to terminate. Totally at my option. And I'm looking at it very strongly.
Scott Wapner
Yesterday you said, go ahead, please.
Jenny Harrington
The Council of Economic Advisers released a new report saying that imported goods have actually decreased in price from December.
Meditation Guide
I know it's not.
Jenny Harrington
Well, my question is. Well, the Fed chairman keeps saying that tariffs are going to cause price increases. Are the prices just not.
Meditation Guide
Chairman of the Fed. Yes, exactly. You do a better job than him.
Jenny Harrington
Other prices just not pass through yet.
Meditation Guide
No, I think what's happening is everything's evening out, you know, when we charge. See, what people don't understand, the other countries have been charged. Almost every country charges U.S. tariffs. We had deficits with everybody for years, for decades. And we were like this big monolith that made bad deals with everybody. You know, we rebuilt South Korea. We stayed there. It's okay. We rebuilt it, and we stayed there. And they pay us very little for the military. I got them to pay billions of dollars, and Biden then canceled it. When he came in, you know, I sent to South Korea as an example, you know, we give you free military, essentially, very little, and I think you should pay us $10 billion a year. And they went crazy. But they agreed to three. So I got three with a phone call, and I was satisfied. I said, but next year, we have to talk. And then we had a rigged election, and we never got to talk. And you know what Biden did? He. They probably went to him and they said, listen, Trump treated us terribly and we shouldn't be paying anything. And he cut it down to nothing. So that's what happens. It's ridiculous. That's the other thing. We're talking to countries about contributing to the military, not only just paying more in NATO, but contributing. You know, we have 45,000 soldiers in South Korea. We have 45,000 soldiers in Germany, 52,000, actually. And, you know, that's a huge economic development for them. That's tremendous amount. That's like having a city. It's tremendous money for them and it's a tremendous loss for us. So we're talking in a very nice way. We're talking to them about it. It's very unfair. We supply the military. It's the many very successful countries. I mean, South Korea is making a lot of money and they're very good. They're very good. But, you know, they should be paying for their own military.
Jenny Harrington
President Trump, can I ask you a question about Dr. Jerome Powell as well?
Meditation Guide
And then the question to the attorney general.
Jenny Harrington
What Jerome Powell? And then I have a question for the attorney general, Jerome Powell, who you've been pressuring to lower interest rates. He's facing accusations of lying to Congress, which is a potential crime about the.
Meditation Guide
I think he should resign immediately. We should get somebody in there that's going to lower interest rates.
Jenny Harrington
Do you want Congressional Republicans.
Meditation Guide
Why don't you call for his resignation?
Jenny Harrington
Do you want Congressional Republicans to investigate and presume.
Meditation Guide
Don't stay with me. I think he's terrible. I think, look, we're paying. I call him too late. T o o too late. Like Too Tall Jones for the Dallas Cowboys. Right? Too late. He's always late. But he wasn't late with Biden before the election. He was cutting him like crazy. It didn't help too much, did it? But he was cutting him like crazy before the election with Kamala and Biden. He was trying to get them in, I guess. I don't know. He was recommended by somebody that worked for me. I like you better if I could ask the attorney general a question, too. Sure.
Jenny Harrington
Your memo and release yesterday on Jeffrey Epstein, it left some lingering mysteries. One of the biggest ones is whether he ever worked for an American or foreign intelligence agency. The former labor secretary who was Miami U.S. attorney Alex Kosvaki allegedly said that he did worked for an intelligence agency. So could you resolve whether or not he did? And also could you say why there was a minute missing from the jailhouse.
Meditation Guide
Tape on the minute?
Attorney General
Yeah, sure.
Meditation Guide
If I could I just interrupt a little second? Sure. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. You're asking. We have Texas, we have this. We have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy this creepy? That is unbelievable. Do you want to waste the time and do you feel like answering?
Attorney General
I don't mind answering.
Meditation Guide
I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this where we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration. But you go ahead. Sure, sure.
Attorney General
First to back up on that, in February, I did an interview on Fox and it's been getting a lot of attention because I said I was asked a question about the client list and my response was it's sitting on my desk to be reviewed, meaning the file along with the jfk, MLK files as well. That's what I meant by that. Also to the tens of thousands of video, they turned out to be child porn downloaded by that disgusting Jeffrey Epstein. Child porn is what? They were never going to be released, never going to see the light of day. To him being an agent, I have no knowledge about that. We can get back to you on that. And the minute missing from the video? We released the video showing definitively the video was not conclusive, but the evidence prior to it was showing he committed suicide. And what was on that? There was a minute that was off the counter. And what we learned from Bureau of Prisons was every year, every night they redo that video. It's old from like 1999. So every night the video is reset and every night should have the same minute missing. So we're looking for that video to release that as well, showing that a minute is missing every night. And that's it. On EPSTEIN.
Jenny Harrington
And on August 1st, you said is the deadline. What incentives do countries have to negotiate?
Meditation Guide
It seems that deadline keeps moving.
Jenny Harrington
April 2nd.
Meditation Guide
Now we didn't move. No, no. It's always been August 1st. That's when we're paying. A statement was put out today and I put it out just to make it clear it wasn't a change. It was August 1st. We don't change very much. You know, every time we put out a statement, they say he made a change. I didn't make a change. Clarification, maybe. No. August 1st, they pay and everybody pays. Everybody has to pay. And the incentive is that they have the right to deal in the United States. If they don't want to, they don't have to pay, they don't have to deal here. But if they want to buy and make a lot of money and sell in the United States, they have to do that. You know, if you go back and look at some of the good presidents, our country was the wealthiest, proportionately the wealthiest, from 1870 to 1913. It was an all tariff country. We didn't have income tax that came due in, that came in in 1913. We had tariffs and we had so much money we didn't know what to do with it. We had, I mean, we had a couple of presidents that were very, very strong. McKinley, I guess, more than anybody, but he was the tariff king. But he was very, very strong. And it's sort of sad. He made a fortune for this country, became very rich. And then Teddy Roosevelt went out and vice president, and he spent the money. And they said Roosevelt was a great president. And let's say he was a great president, but the money was paid by McKinley with tariffs. Tariffs are charged by other countries at levels that are ridiculous. And, you know, I call those other countries, and every one of them is willing to give us everything. Now, by the way, just, just so you know, sir, we'll charge you no tariffs, nothing. We'll give you everything. We'll give you access to our markets. We'll give you everything. Is that a correct statement, Scott? Yes, sir. Howard, would you say that's a correct statement? Exactly correct. It's like they just don't. Because they're very spoiled because for years they ripped us off. And we didn't have a president that understood it or secretary of treasury or secretary of. A lot of different secretaries are involved, but certainly Commerce secretary was, you know, not doing their job. I don't know about Kelly. She's small business. We'll keep it that way. Okay. Her small business is bigger than almost all big business is, when you put it all up. But no, they are very respectful of our country. But the incentive is that they have the right to do business with us. Without that, they don't have the right to do business, and that will be okay, too.
Jenny Harrington
And with the next laureate deal in the next 24 hours, will we hear a flurry of deals?
Meditation Guide
Yeah, we have a lot of them going out, but the deals are mostly my deal to them. We're picking a number that's low. We don't want to hurt them. And fair. We're picking a number that's lower than, in most cases, lower than what they charged us. But it's amazing when you've paid all this money for years and they get one president that's a little bit different and a little tougher on this subject, and they're willing to drop everything they've been charging us for years and years. I mean, we have countries going. We will have no, you don't have to pay any tariff to come in and do business. They're giving us total access to their countries. They gave us no access to the country. They say, well, you cannot go into our. Okay, good. Now it's we will give you total access and you don't have to pay any tariffs, but please don't charge us tariffs. And we don't like that deal. So the letters I send out are we have made some deals. We can make a lot more deals. It's just too time consuming. It just makes it more complicated. And we can do things over the years too. You know, we're going to. We're not going to. We're not hardline. But it's about time the United States of America started collecting money from countries that were ripping us off. Ripping us off and laughing behind our back at how stupid we were. Okay, thank you, Mr. President.
Shannon Sokotia
On the tariff issue, so you talked about India coming, but then a couple days ago you issued a new tariff threat to members of the BRICS countries for if they aligned with anti American policies.
Meditation Guide
10%. Georgia.
Shannon Sokotia
That would be India, British, Brazil.
Meditation Guide
That's right. They have to pay 10% if they're in Brics because Brics was set up to hurt us. BRICS was set up to degenerate our dollar and take our dollar as the standard. Take it off as the standard. And that's okay if they want to play that game, but I can play that game too. So anybody that's in BRICS is getting a 10% charge.
Shannon Sokotia
Is that immediate, sir, or.
Meditation Guide
Yeah.
Shannon Sokotia
Pretty soon they engage in some behavior.
Meditation Guide
Well, if they're a member of BRICS, they're going to have to pay 10% to tariff just for that one thing. And they won't be a member long. I thought BRICS was, you know, I said this about a year ago and it largely broke up. But you know, there are a couple that hang around. But I thought it largely broke up. BRICS is not, in my opinion, not a serious threat. But what they're trying to do is destroy the dollar so that another country can take over and be the standard. And we're not going to lose the standard at any time. If you have a smart president, you will never lose the standard. If you have a stupid president like the last one, you would lose the standard. You wouldn't have the dollars here. And if we lost the world standard dollar, that would be like losing a war, a major world war. We would not be the same country any longer. We're not going to let that happen. The dollar. You ever hear the expression dollar is king? The dollar is king. We're going to keep it that way. Okay? I'm just saying if people want to challenge it, they can, but they're going to have to pay a big price. And I don't think any of them are willing to pay that price. Thank you, Mr. President. Are you optimistic about reaching the tariff deal with the European Union soon? Well, the European Union has been speaking to us, Ursula, and the whole group, and they've been very nice. They treated us very badly until recently. Now they're treating us very nicely. It's like a different world, actually. They've treated us very badly. They were among the toughest to deal with, actually, in many respects, they were much worse than China. Look at what they do to our companies. They sue Apple, they sue Google. 17 billion they got from Apple on a lawsuit that they didn't have a case. They have, you know, judges that are European Union judges and they ruled. They take so much money away from our country in terms of that, in terms of other things that they do, they're very tough. But now they're being very nice to us and we'll see what happens. We're probably two days off from sending them a letter. We are talking to them. I just want you to know a letter means a deal. You know, a lot of people said, we got 200 countries. We can't meet with 200 countries. We have a few trusted people that know what they're doing, that are doing a good job, but you can't do it. You have to do it in a more general way. But it's a very good way. It's a better way, It's a more powerful way. And we sent him a letter. You read the letter. I think it was well crafted. And mostly it's just a little number in there. You'll pay 25%, 35%. We have some at 60, 70. Those are ones with massive, you know, where we have. Have massive trade deficits because they've treated us very badly. But I would say in every case, I'm treating them better than they treated us over the years. Don't you agree with it? I do. I could have done much. I could have been much harsher. I don't want to do that. We want to have relationships, but in every case, they treated us far worse than I'm treating them. I'm treating them very good. I could go higher with the tariffs, but I don't want to hurt them. That's why when you just read, you come up with the number. It's so incredible that prices are actually going down. Just so you know, when I got in, everyone said, oh, eggs, eggs are going through the roof. That was the first. I was in for about four days and they started screaming at me. About eggs, I said, that's Biden's problem. I didn't know about eggs, but eggs went up about five times. You did a fantastic job. And we ended up shortly getting, in fact, for Easter, they said, go out and buy plastic eggs. You can't use real eggs. Well, we bought 200,000 eggs for the White House, for the Easter egg hunt that we have at the White House, and there were eggs. We had the price down, and now the price is lower than it was before. We did a good job with eggs, but we did a good job with groceries. Prices are down in this country. A big part of it is oil. The oil you have. You had a couple of places last week, you had $1.99 for oil, for gasoline. Nobody thought they'd see that. I want to get it lower if I can, but we've done a good job. You've done a very good job. Do you want to say a couple of words about that, you and Chris, about what's happening with energy?
Jenny Harrington
Well, absolutely. But I would say, on the. On the pricing side, President Trump, the fact that you've endorsed and supported a policy of energy dominance, that sends a signal to the market that we're going to have more supply. You talked during the campaign about inflation being a country buster. You've broken the back of inflation in six months, among all the other things you've accomplished.
Meditation Guide
We have no inflation, and we've got.
Jenny Harrington
Heading into the 4th of July, these were the lowest gas prices at the pump in four years. And again, for Americans, this is like hundreds of billions of dollars that stay in their pockets because we lowered the.
Brian Belsky
Price of gas to pump.
Jenny Harrington
But when we lower the price of energy, it lowers the price of food, it lowers the price of the clothes you wear.
Meditation Guide
It's the biggest thing.
Jenny Harrington
It's the biggest thing.
Meditation Guide
It's like a big tax cut. When you get energy down, every 50 cents is like a massive tax cut. And we've gotten it down much below that. You know, we had great energy, great low prices. Everything else when the election turned over, I'm being, I'm trying to be nice about turned over, shockingly. But nevertheless, it happened. Energy started going up, and it went up really bad. And then he went back to the Trump policy. The problem was they didn't know how to do that. And he lost it. He lost that sucker. That big sucker was out of control, and his energy prices went way up, and that's what caused it. But it was also stupid spending. They spent money, like they used to use the term, drunken sailors. But I won't use that term, although it is very descriptive, I won't use that term. I refuse to use it. But they spent money at levels that nobody had ever seen before and trillions and trillions of dollars wasted on the green news scam, greatest scam in the history of our country other than maybe Russia, Russia, Russia that might have been. But the Green news scam was the single greatest scam in the history of, of our country and continues to be. But it's weakened badly, it's hobbling along because people are finally, they're finally getting it. But they spent trillions of dollars on the green news scam, getting nothing for it. Devised by a couple of young people that weren't even good college students, you know, not even good students. Check out their marks. Mr. Jobs report not for CNN. Not for CNN. Go ahead.
Jenny Harrington
The last jobs report. In the Last jobs report, Mr. President, in jobs report, the manufacturing jobs actually lost 7,000 jobs. When will the investments that you've been talking about have an effect on that?
Meditation Guide
Well, they're building the plants now. About seven have started. We're going to have hundreds started within a short period of time. Lee Zeldin, who may be the most important man in this room, I'm sorry, but he's the one that gets the permits. Where is Lee? He's the one that has to get the permits for the plants and the factories and permits that used to take five years. He's getting in record setting times. I, we're leading China a lot in AI, and if we go with this, you know, I'm allowing the plants to build their own electric. I'm allowing them to become a, an electric utility so they can produce their own electricity. Because we need double the electric to be successful with AI, which is the biggest thing now. We need double the electricity that we have, which is hard to believe. We need even more than that. And they're building plants with their own electricity substations. They don't have to use the grid and anything they build extra they're putting into the grid. So we're supplying the grid with brand new electric sources. And you know, it's funny, when they came to see me, they never even asked for that. I told them about it. The reason they didn't, they thought that was an impossibility. You're not allowed to build your own electricity. These are massive investments that are being made in building electricity for their plants. And they're going to have, I think dug a lot of electricity left over. And that electricity is going to be passed into the grid and give us no more. You know, like you look at California, they have blackouts and brownouts every week. They're totally out of control. They have a really incompetent governor. Where's Chris? Is he here? You want to speak to the. Yeah.
Chris
I think a huge thing in the one big beautiful bill, Mr. President, because of your leadership, is the ending of these subsidies, as you call them, the green new scam that saves our country a half a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. But American taxpayers were paying twice, they were paying that money, half a trillion dollars in the subsidies and they were paying more expensive electricity price. If you subsidize something, you should at least lower the cost of it. But in this case, we were subsidizing something and paying more for it. So one big beautiful bill had two huge things ending wasteful spending. Wind, solar and batteries combined are 3% of US total primary energy, 3% for a trillion dollars. Another half a trillion dollars coming. That's just not a good investment. Hurting our businesses, hurting our consumers. And that one big beautiful bill also, also unshackled oil, gas and coal development in the United States, onshore and offshore. Secretary Burgum has been working tirelessly on how by getting the government out of the way, private businesses will develop more resources in the United States, lowering cost for American consumers and making much better leverage for the United States to help our allies abroad and reduce the power of our adversaries. So just a huge win in the energy front all around, and I thank you for your leadership.
Meditation Guide
We're setting records on energy, and there will be nothing compared to what they'll be in about a year from now. But we're setting records. And wind is a very expensive form of energy. It's very bad for your beautiful surroundings, the plains and the valleys and the birds dying all over the place. You know, the whole thing is a disaster. There are almost exclusively made in China. Not that I have anything against China because I don't have a great relationship with President Xi. But I asked him, how many wind farms do you have? He makes them, but they don't have a lot of wind farms, I'll tell you. Very, very few. And wind is tremendously expensive and is very ugly. And if you own a house that's inside of a windmill, your house is worth less than half. And people. And you hear noises. And interestingly, in New England, you probably read where for 50 years they had two wells washed up. 50 years. And last summer they had 14 washed up. Now, I'm not saying that's the wind farm that was built, but maybe it is, right? Probably is. It's tremendously expensive and it can only be done with subsidy. You know, I know a man that's in the that business and one of the biggest in the world, actually runs a company that builds these stupid windmills. And he said, I hate the business because it's the only energy where you need subsidy. He said energy shouldn't need subsidy. You should make money with energy.
Scott Wapner
So when we're going to continue to monitor the Q and A there in the Cabinet meeting that the president has made some headlines in, and I'll recap for you. Obviously at the very top you heard some questions about Russia, Ukraine, about Jeffrey Epstein and the controversy around that, but specifically on tariffs, he did once again criticize the Fed chair, calling Jay Powell terrible that he's always late. He was asked about the moving deadlines around tariffs to which the President says that they don't move. Maybe he clarifies them. That's the word that he used. He said that probably two days off from sending a letter to the EU regarding what their tariffs rates are going to be. And then you also heard him renew his threats on tariffs against the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and what has now become a host of other nations there. And he, in the context of those comments, did make remarks regarding the dollar, saying that that was set up, the brics were to try and destroy the dollar. President saying we'll never lose the dollar as the world's reserve currency. And see, the dollar is king and we're going to keep it that way. And we have been watching obviously the movement in the dollar since the beginning of the year, which has been stark and it has been down. It has been one of the worst starts to a year for the strength of the dollar. There it is shown very clearly on the screen here. In many decades, the dollar index down against many currencies around the world. So we'll follow all that and again monitor what's happening in the Cabinet room there and bring any other headlines that you do need to know about. We're going to do this now. You want to go to the moves? Yeah. Yes. Do more of this now. Oh, we're going to take a break. We'll take a break. We'll come back and we'll get to committee moves. Coming up on the other side.
Meditation Guide
As.
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Jenny Harrington
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Edward Jones
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Meditation Guide
And breathe.
Edward Jones
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Meditation Guide
1-800-Contacts. Which American states are driving business surviving and thriving?
Brian Belsky
America's top states for business is back.
Meditation Guide
Which state will take the honors this year? The list revealed July 10th and streaming on CNBC.
Scott Wapner
All right, we're back. When we went to the cabinet meeting, Brian Belsky was finishing his thoughts about the moves that he had made recently, including selling Nike pro life lodges and restaurant brands. And he bought Lululemon, to which I think I was asking you about. So you were thinking that the move in Nike was done and that the move in Lulu could be just ahead, that the worst maybe was over there.
Jenny Harrington
It looks to us like Nike's got a little bit more work to do. We're very glad that we were able to take that bounce in Nike. But I think when you're looking at running value money and you see a broken growth name like Lulu that we think from an operational perspective can get back to where they need to be faster than where Nike is right now. That's why we made the Switch.
Scott Wapner
Okay, now moving to Jenny. You sold Organon, which I think you had sort of led us to believe you might. I was crystal clear in the near future because the stock has just not worked, certainly not year to date.
Shannon Sokotia
Right.
Scott Wapner
And you bought, is it Vici Property. Okay, Vici Properties. So just take me through the trade.
Shannon Sokotia
Sure. So a couple months ago, we know, Oregon on cut the dividend, the stock plunged. It was around 8. You guys were asking me why I wasn't selling it, and I said, look, you know, the numbers were fine, but they just cut the dividend to repurpose it. So they've ostracized their entire dividend shareholder base. Now you need to see that changeover. But because I'm not an algo robotic trading program, I don't need to do that. Today stock was trading at about 8. I sold it closer to 10. So, you know, you always look at here and now today know I didn't want to keep holding it, but I knew the shares were oversold. So I waited patiently and got a pushing 25% bounce out of that. So that was a sell. And then separately we added a company called Vici Properties, which is really cool. It is a triple net lease REIT where they own gaming and casino properties. They have 93 properties, 54 casinos. So they own things that we all know like the Venetian and the Mandalay MGN Grand. They also own 39 experiential properties that are like boleros and golf courses. I will tell you, this is one of the best management teams that I've met with. Just professional, thoughtful, sober, serious. They're incredible. They also have a 5.3% dividend yield. They have 3% FFO growth ahead. They have rent escalators that are tied to cpi. So as inflation picks up, maybe that's positive for them because they're triple net lease reit, which means the tenants pay everything, right? All the improvements, taxes, the tenants. And because of the type of tenants they have, who are companies like MGN and Caesars, they have 100% occupancy. They had 100% occupancy. At the worst of the pandemic, they had 100% rent payment collection at the worst of the pandemic. So as we go into, as you all know, an environment that I think is kind of sketchy, I look at this and I can say I'm getting 5.3% from the dividend. I should get 3, 4% percent FFO growth. You combine those together, I should have a 9, 10% annualized return. That works for me. I first looked at this company two years ago, kind of the same metrics ahead. It was pretty flat. But in that environment where I thought there was a lot more growth left out there, it wasn't compelling. Now in what I think is a lower growth environment, it becomes much more compelling for the portfolio.
Scott Wapner
All right. And there's the stock and we will follow it from here forward. Thank you very much for that. Brian, you bought Fifth Third, which you made a remark I think earlier on that you thought some of the smaller, smaller mid smid cap banks were compelling. Yep. And this falls obviously into that basket.
Jenny Harrington
It doesn't.
Scott Wapner
Right.
Jenny Harrington
And I'm glad you used the term basket because we own a number of.
Scott Wapner
Thank you.
Jenny Harrington
You're welcome. Well done, Scott.
Scott Wapner
Amazing, Brian. I'm humbled and honored that you would say that.
Jenny Harrington
Thank you. I'm excited.
Scott Wapner
In my 30 years of experience, nobody's.
Jenny Harrington
Ever said that I'm excessively by the love.
Scott Wapner
Go ahead.
Meditation Guide
Thank you.
Jenny Harrington
So I think the best approach is. It's really weird. I think the best approach to looking at these banks, Scott, is to buy a basket of these regional mid sized banks because I do believe as deregulation unfolds, I really believe that's going to be a major trend. I think we see consolidation. I'm not buying 5th 3rd because it's getting bought out because I. You need to own a bunch of these in terms of the momentum from a fundamental perspective.
Scott Wapner
I want to ask you too because I didn't get your view and you own Tesla. Ok. I want your take on what's been going on. Okay. With Musk forming the new party and this battle with President Trump obviously not going away anytime soon and the fact that Dan Ives, who's been, I don't know, without question, I think the biggest booster of Tesla and Musk himself on the street says he believes we're at a tipping point now and that the board must act. That was sort of the headline of his note. I'm wondering what you think as well as your shareholder.
Jenny Harrington
Yeah, we're 100% aligned with Dan. We're worried. We don't like when we see these types of events. We're underweight the stock. You know, Dan still is a proponent of the stock and loves it and is overweight. But you know, we were underweight. The stock we own own it for more sectoral reasons. But we're going to hang with it for now.
Scott Wapner
Good. I mean Adam Jonas and Morgan Stanley has also by the way, reiterated his overweight rating. He has a $410 target. But does say that the political priorities, that's the wording that he uses, may add further near term pressure to Tesla shares. Thus, you know, I guess why you would feel the way you do on the other side of that. Uber. Uber's target was raised yet again and it hit another high yet again today. Jenny, you want to give me a thought on what's been happening with Uber? Because it's an easy segue from Tesla to that.
Shannon Sokotia
Yeah, it's an easy segue. So, you know, we've owned this since $22, and we've trimmed it and trimmed it and trimmed it and it's, it's getting a little uncomfortable. But here's the bottom line for us. It still has a 4.8% free cash flow yield. And so for our disciplined growth strategy that it's in there is to get into that portfolio, it needs a minimum 5%. And so it's still kind of compelling. Even trading at 30 times earnings, even up 58% year to date. It's a great story. It's a great company. And so we're continuing to hold it. But I'll tell you, like, it does make me uncomfortable.
Scott Wapner
Well, I mean, look at the chart since April.
Shannon Sokotia
Yeah.
Scott Wapner
Has been remarkable. What more can you say? Year to date up better than 60%. So follow that, too.
Shannon Sokotia
There is one thing on that that's interesting, which is when we were talking about the big mega caps before, when you see these stocks up this much, they take up a lot of room in people's portfolios and they start to get uncomfortable. So I was talking to a client yesterday who said he has huge capital gains this year outside of us, obviously, because he's been trimming his Nvidia. It just makes people uncomfortable to have those weightings. So you might see trimming because of that.
Scott Wapner
Okay, we'll take a break. We'll do finals on the other side.
Jenny Harrington
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Scott Wapner
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Brian Belsky
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Meditation Guide
Which American states are driving business Surviving and thriving.
Brian Belsky
America's top states for business is back.
Meditation Guide
Which state will take the honors this year? The list revealed July 10th and streaming on CNBC Plus.
Scott Wapner
All right, closing bell today. Tom Lee is going to join us and tell us what he thinks this market's going to do in the months ahead. Lauren Goodwin, Rick Heitzman, Kevin Gordon, and American Century CEO Jonathan Thomas. As well, and I hope you'll join me there, Mr. Belsky. What's the trade? Sir. Good having you.
Jenny Harrington
Hey, thanks a lot for having us. Yes. Synovus Financial, Snow v. 10 times earnings, 12 times free cash flow.
Scott Wapner
Okay.
Joe Terranova
Shan Financials deregulation is going to be a very significant tailwind for the sector.
Scott Wapner
Okay. You're welcome for us having you, too. I mean, since Brian set the precedent. I mean, I feel like it's.
Meditation Guide
Thank you.
Scott Wapner
You're very welcome. You're very welcome. Jenny.
Shannon Sokotia
Are you thankful to have me? Thank you.
Scott Wapner
Go ahead. Go ahead.
Meditation Guide
Next.
Shannon Sokotia
Tara Preferred R. It's a convertible preferred of Trump's. Right. And we're going to build out ARM AI and we need more power generation. Nextera is making it. It's got an 8.4% yield.
Scott Wapner
So.
Brian Belsky
Strong move in health care. Beginning to look at some names there. Gilead is one of them.
Scott Wapner
All right. Good stuff. I'll see on the Bell exchanges now. You've been listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast. You can always catch us live, weekdays at 12 Eastern only on CNBC.
Edward Jones
All opinions expressed by the Halftime Report participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of cnbc, NBC Universal, 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.com halftimereportdisclaimer.
Meditation Guide
Which American states are driving business surviving and thriving?
Brian Belsky
America's top States for business is back.
Meditation Guide
Which state will take the honors this year? The list revealed July 10 and streaming on CNBC.
Halftime Report: Debate – The State of the Rally (July 8, 2025)
Release Date: July 8, 2025
Introduction
On the July 8, 2025 episode of CNBC's Halftime Report, host Scott Wapner engages with top investors and strategists to dissect the current market rally, evaluate strategic stock moves, and discuss the impact of geopolitical factors such as tariffs and energy policies. The panel includes Joe Terranova, Jenny Harrington, Shannon Sokotia, and Brian Belsky from BMO, each bringing unique insights to the table.
Market Overview
Scott Wapner opens the discussion by outlining the mixed market performance: while the Dow Jones is trading lower, other indices remain in the green, reflecting investor reactions to newly announced tariffs. He highlights that despite presidential assurances that tariffs will remain unchanged without extensions, Wall Street appears skeptical, maintaining positive sentiment in the S&P 500.
Key Insights:
Notable Quote:
Jenny Harrington (04:02): "Bull market is very much alive and it's par for the course to be raising after the market's already up."
Expert Opinions on the Bull Market
Jenny Harrington supports the bullish outlook, attributing the target hikes to pressure from institutional clients who may have missed earlier rallies. She emphasizes that the current bull market remains robust despite rising targets. Shannon Sokotia, however, provides a more cautious perspective, highlighting declining earnings estimates, tariff-induced supply chain disruptions, and stretched valuations as potential headwinds.
Notable Quotes:
Shannon Sokotia (04:06): "My apprehension on the bull market is that people are expecting more than they're going to get."
Jenny Harrington (03:20): "Bull market is here and... because you've been kind of a doubter at times of that."
Strategic Stock Movements
The panel discusses recent strategic trades, including the selling of large-cap stocks like Nike, Prologis, and Restaurant Brands in favor of growth opportunities such as Lululemon and Vici Properties. Brian Belsky notes the sector rotation from momentum-driven leaders to more stable laggards, reflecting investor caution in the second half of the year.
Notable Quote:
Brian Belsky (07:02): "We're going to have no more... waiting for that turn in earnings and profit margin expansion to show up in the small cap names."
Tariffs and Geopolitical Impact
A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the President's stance on tariffs, particularly targeting BRICS nations. The President emphasizes maintaining the U.S. dollar's dominance and counters efforts by BRICS to destabilize it. The panel debates the implications of these policies on global trade and market stability.
Notable Quotes:
President (31:35): "We're not going to lose the standard... The dollar is king."
Shannon Sokotia (31:35): "BRICS was set up to degenerate our dollar and take our dollar as the standard."
Energy Policies and Inflation
The conversation shifts to energy policies, where President Trump touts the accomplishments of the "One Big Beautiful Bill" aimed at energy dominance. He praises the reduction in gas prices and criticizes green energy subsidies, advocating for increased oil, gas, and coal development to lower costs and support economic growth.
Notable Quotes:
President (36:14): "We have no inflation, and we've got the lowest gas prices in four years."
Jenny Harrington (36:36): "Heading into the 4th of July, these were the lowest gas prices at the pump in four years."
Sector-Specific Discussions
The panel delves into specific sectors, highlighting the performance and strategic positioning of stocks like Tesla and Uber. Jenny Harrington aligns with Morgan Stanley's positive outlook on Tesla but remains underweight due to political uncertainties surrounding Elon Musk's new party formation. Shannon Sokotia discusses Uber's impressive year-to-date performance despite reservations about its valuation.
Notable Quotes:
Jenny Harrington (51:41): "We're 100% aligned with Dan... we're underweight the stock."
Shannon Sokotia (52:30): "It's a great story. And so we're continuing to hold it. But I'll tell you, like, it does make me uncomfortable."
Conclusion
As the episode concludes, Scott Wapner reiterates the complex interplay between market optimism and underlying risks such as geopolitical tensions and tariff policies. The panel underscores the importance of strategic asset allocation and vigilance in navigating the evolving economic landscape. They anticipate potential corrections in high-flying stocks while emphasizing the resilience of the bull market.
Final Notable Quote:
Brian Belsky (55:04): "We're setting records on energy, and there will be nothing compared to what they'll be in about a year from now."
Takeaways
For those interested in gaining further insights, tuning into future episodes of Halftime Report is recommended as the panel continues to analyze market trends and strategic investments.