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Halftime Report
How to Navigate the Market Rebound 4/14/26
00:44:15
Scott Wapner and the Investment Committee debate whether the market can hit new highs despite geopolitical uncertainty and how you should trade it. Plus, the desk share their latest portfolio moves. And later, the Committee discuss leaning into the tech momentum. Investment Committee Disclosures
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- [00:00]
Jennifer Garner
A rich life isn't a straight line
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Edward Jones Narrator
to a destination on the horizon. Sometimes it takes an unexpected turn with detours, new possibilities, and even another passenger or three.
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Jennifer Garner
And with 100 years of navigating ups
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Edward Jones Narrator
and downs, you can count on Edward Jones to help guide you through it all. Because life is a winding path made rich by the people you walk it with. Let's find your rich together.
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Jennifer Garner
EDWARD Jones Member, SIPC hi, I'm Jennifer Garner. Being a business owner takes hard work and a whole lot of miles. So once upon a farm needed a serious business card. We chose the Capital One Venture X business card with unlimited double miles on every purchase. We earn rewards on all the things we need to grow our business. Venturex business gives us big purchasing power so we can spend more and earn more. We redeemed miles to travel the country and partner with new stores. Capital One, what's in your wallet?
- [00:59]
Capital One Announcer
Terms of lie. See capital1.com for details.
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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. All right, Michael, thank you very much. Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner. Front and center this hour, this rebound in stocks as, yes, the S and P moves closer to new highs. We debate, we discuss with the investment committee. Joining me for the hour today, Joe Terranova, Jim Laventhal, Brian Belsky, Josh Brown. Let's check the markets. Got a good thing going today. We're green across the board. NASDAQ's up 1.5%. Man, the Russell. The Russell is up 9% year to date. Small caps have been playing ball big time. S and P now wipes out all the losses since the war began. Nasdaq's coming off its ninth straight positive session or 10. We're going 10 now. Longest since December of 23. The S&P is less than 1% from new highs. I can't believe you're saying that, Joe, after what we've been through recently. But the tide has turned.
- [02:08]
Joe Terranova
It has and we are rebuilding. The growth trade, that is what is going on in the moment, has been going on for the month of April. Today you have S and p growth up 1.7%. S&P value is up 15 basis points for the month of April. You have S and P growth up about nine and a half percent. You have S&P value up two and a half percent. I understand. I respect the narrative. Coming into the year that we were going to get a broadening out that the S and P equal weight was going to take charge. In fact, that did happen. But right now in front of us, why you have to gain confidence is you needed to see the rebuild of the growth trade to restore the risk on sentiment. It's not just growth itself. It's internally, it's gold, it's silver, it's biotech, which is at its highest level in the last five years. The momentum factor is up 11% month to date. Semis are up 16% month to date. Even some of the private equity publicly traded names like Blackstone, like Evercore, like kkr, they are up double digits month to date. This is the formula that you needed growth to make its return.
- [03:17]
Scott Wapner
So Brian, the tides turned, sentiments turned right. Citi upgrades US equities to overweight. Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson, he was with me the other day on closing bell. He was on Squawk this morning in which he said the lows are in for the year. The technicals are now your friend again, Wolf, talking about that weekly trend work turning bullish for the S and P. Tony Pascarello, Goldman Sachs head of hedge fund client coverage, says, I spent much of the past six weeks trying to work out why the S and P was so resilient in that search. A few things came up again and again. One, the market never lost confidence in the underlying durability of the economy. In turn, earnings expectations trended higher. That's the story. That's why people tried to look through the war and look through the spike in oil because they believe that the economy and earnings were going to remain resilient. And that's why as we said, you're about 1%, you're less than 1% now. You're like 2/3 of 1% on the S and P away from a new all time high.
- [04:16]
Brian Belsky
Yeah, I think the earnings and the fundamental situation help people stay in the market. Now they're going to get paid for staying in the market and paid for that earnings and macro backdrop. And I do think the momentum obviously when you have the snack back call plays on some of these stocks that are up double digits that were down a lot. Scott But I still think that you're going to see look at how small caps have done, look at all values done. I do, I think from a longer term perspective into 2027, we are still going to see better areas work. It's not just going to be all about tech, but we'll take it where it is. We like the tech stocks. When they go up. We're fully invested in tech and communication services. And so we've enjoyed this rally. All right.
- [04:58]
Scott Wapner
From Jimmy jitters to Jimmy Jubilant because his tide has in fact turned as well, hasn't it? Mr. Leventhal, the good farmer on our desk today.
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Jim Laventhal
I think sometimes you need to listen to the markets. I mean I can sit here and I can rationalize. The four of us can rationalize with Josh 5, where oil prices are, what's going on with the Strait of Hormuz, you know, consumer sentiment. We can put all these things together, but sometimes the market just tells you what to do. And you've referred to it twice already, Scott, we're within a hair's breadth of an all time high on the s and P500. You've got a lot of stocks that under the current events conditions should be doing terribly. Look at the airlines and how well they're doing. Look at a lot of consumer discretionary stocks doing well. Look at a lot of financial stocks, not all of them, but look at a lot of financial stocks that are shrugging off the worries about private credit.
- [05:48]
Scott Wapner
Why did you get so worked up? Negative. You were worried. You said as much sitting in Bell's chair last week.
- [05:55]
Jim Laventhal
Well, I think about that and you know, where was the locus of that? It was when I sold on holdings and that also had that management change at the and the terrible price action. And I think just to stay consistent, Scott, that I was listening to the market on, on holdings at that exact moment. I mean that slide just on a seemingly fairly innocuous management change told me something might be afoot, that I wasn't paying attention.
- [06:17]
Scott Wapner
Literally.
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Brian Belsky
Literally.
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Jim Laventhal
I actually didn't mean that.
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Scott Wapner
And I added to holdings was giving you a broader market signal, Jimmy.
- [06:24]
Jim Laventhal
Well, I added to it with Nike which had reported earnings. There were some rumblings. But look, look, my tone has changed. I'm listening to what the market is telling us yesterday and I said this when the market rallies on what was bad news, that's telling you to get in. And if we set a new high today, tomorrow, whenever I think people are going to now pay more attention and get more into the markets, they're just going to have to get invested. So I'm not playing around, I'm in.
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Brian Belsky
Can he play on his Farmer Jim
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Scott Wapner
thing a little bit though?
- [06:52]
Brian Belsky
I mean if I when I think about you and you think about the Farmer Jim and you think about how your affinity and longer term outlook for the industrial stocks.
- [07:01]
Jim Laventhal
Yeah.
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Brian Belsky
And you love industrial stocks. You've owned Industrial stocks for a long time did the shakeout or potential shakeout with respect to macro and the cyclicality of these areas that that kind of worry you and cost them.
- [07:11]
Jim Laventhal
Let me, let me push back on the Jimmy jitters. It's fun and I like it and it's cute and everything, but let's face it.
- [07:17]
Scott Wapner
But go ahead.
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Jim Laventhal
But, but look, I mean what do I hold and what have I been adding to like Wynn holdings, the Disney's like holding a Delta Airlines? If I was really worried about the macro.
- [07:26]
Brian Belsky
Yeah.
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Jim Laventhal
To your question.
- [07:27]
Brian Belsky
Yeah.
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Jim Laventhal
I'm not holding Delta no matter how good its balance sheet is. And by the way, the earnings report from Delta last week kind of said maybe you shouldn't be so worried, Jimmy. So look, I. Listen, you're right. I was a little worried. I said that. I'm not anymore.
- [07:40]
Bill Ford
Okay.
- [07:41]
Scott Wapner
Josh Brown has his NHL playoff beard coming in just at the right time, about to go to the postseason. And this market is ready to figure out where this puck is going to. And it seems like people think it's going into the right place.
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Josh Brown
Yeah. Before I get to that, I have to tell you one of my favorite things about being on this show for as long as I have is getting to watch this, this character turn this evolution in. Jimmy Leventhal. When I first met him, he was this dyed in the wool value investor. The market is wrong, the stock is cheap. And now I'm hearing all the right things. I'm hearing. Listen to what the market is telling me. Watch what the market is saying. And I absolutely love it. It's like I met him as young Anakin and he is full on Darth Vader. And I'm so, I'm just so thrilled that we, that we got him there. Jimmy.
- [08:39]
Jim Laventhal
What? Josh?
- [08:42]
Josh Brown
Yeah, yeah. Listen, Joe, Joe said the most important thing, that momentum as a factor like relative to let's say low volatility or dividend or dividend growth or book to market or whatever. This is a momentum market. This is my market. Hence the playoff beard. I'm having a lot of fun this year and I'm just like looking at some of the best stocks, just the ones that I've trotted out in the last few months. Sienna, plus 128% since December 1st. It's insane. Lam research, Newmont. Think about the names we talked about. I put intel up on January 26, up 40% since then. Valero, Exxon. It's just the list is endless. And what's so cool about this market is none of all of those Names defy the sort of traditional characterization people. Is it growth or is it value? Is it cyclical or is it defense? It doesn't make a difference. The buyers are overwhelming the sellers in these, in these charts. So when you, when you say, take what the market's giving you or listen what the market said, the market is telling you that there are so many ways to win. None of those companies I mentioned are in the same sectors or in the same industry groups. And you've got winners all over the tape. And so that's what the message of the market has been. And by the way, the street is now looking for 17.9% earnings growth in 2026. That number is up 3 full percentage points since January 1st. We have relearned this year that we are significantly less sensitive to oil prices in the S and P earnings than we were in the 70s and 80s. And as the mood lifts here, people are out hunting for new opportunities, and they're finding them in a lot of the best stocks in the market. They're pushing on winners. So. So it's nice to get the snapback in IGV names. We get one once a week. I don't know if anyone's paying attention. It fades pretty quickly. So if you're, if you're in those names and you've been wanting to sell, this is your chance.
- [10:47]
Scott Wapner
Well, look, speaking of what you just said, they're, they're, they're looking for the best stocks in the market. You've had a name on your own best stocks in the market list that now has made it into your own portfolio. To underscore this, it's when, when you highlight these names, you don't own all of them. You're just looking at things that tell you that they deserve to be on the list. You can't add everything until the time is right. Nasdaq's up ten days in a row. It's up more than two and a quarter percent since the war started. You pluck a name off your list into your portfolio, which is ebay, which Jim bought last month. So why do you buy it? Why'd you buy it now?
- [11:29]
Josh Brown
So I don't, I don't do waiting rooms, okay? I don't. I don't like to sit in the lobby. Let's put up a chart. Here you have a stock that's 11% above its 50 day. You've got a name that has made two separate. I need longer than 10 minutes, guys. You've got a name that you can see here has made two separate attempts above $100 a share failed twice. We are now back above 100. Give me like a one year foot, for the love of God. But this was a stock that was in a 21% drawdown through February. It's exploded higher off of its low forward P E of 15 times earnings, expecting 9% earnings per share growth this year, 10% next year. Not a lot of expectations embedded in the stock. But when you look at rsi, you look at trend, it's stronger today than the last two attempts it made at 100. And so, like, why now? Why not a month ago? Why not two weeks ago? Why not at 85? Why not at 92? Because I don't want to sit here if I'm wrong and have capital committed to ebay. Literally. Think about it. Ebay in 2026. But I want the breakout. So what will happen here as the Stock continues through 100? I'm in it at 98 as of this morning. I'll roll up my stop and I'll stay for as long as the ride continues. And what I'm trying to do is own it as it breaks out, not be like a lifer in a. In a 9% earnings grower.
- [12:57]
Scott Wapner
So let's kick it. You, you own it. Yep. Right.
- [13:00]
Joe Terranova
We bought it in October for the ETF at $81 for a lot of the reasons that Josh is citing. Very strong revenue growth. There's a lot of distrust about the ability for this company to sustain a breakout. As Josh pointed out, in August it was up at 101. Look at the analyst community. Only 32% of analysts have a buy rating on this stock. The 12 month price target sits right here at $100. So we have not built in the confidence yet that this can take its place as a momentum name that it could carry forward beyond 101. From a fundamental perspective, the one thing that Josh didn't mention that I think is important is the partnership that it established recently with meta. So now if you are a Facebook marketplace seller, you're able to add your inventory directly from ebay itself onto that Facebook platform. So I see exactly what Josh is seeing in front of him. I want to get the breakout. I think the breakout is ultimately going to happen. They report earnings on April 30 and the expectation would be that that would be the point. You'll get the breakout.
- [14:06]
Josh Brown
Hey, they are buying, they are using a hunt. They are using 100% of their cash flow, 80 to 100% of their free cash flow to shrink the Float to buy back stock. There are not a lot of fundamentals in the market.
- [14:19]
Jim Laventhal
I'm sorry, Josh. A little more on the fundamentals. You guys give a good talk on the technicals. The momentum talked a little bit about the fundamentals. What are the drivers here? There's two, and these are things we may not be thinking so much about. Collectibles. Ebay is becoming a marketplace for collectibles. That's a really big growth driver for the company. Also, in an environment of higher gas prices, tighter purse strings, this is a place for secondhand goods, for thrifting. That's another growth driver here. These are strong fundamental reasons that the revenue should continue to grow and the earnings with it.
- [14:50]
Scott Wapner
For ebay, this was also, if I recall, and I don't remember what the deal was, but this was a stock you recommended to Al Michaels, wasn't it, in real time, in which he bought it live on the podcast program. Did take me through that again. Did you. Did you own it then? And then you sold out of it? What's the deal there?
- [15:12]
Josh Brown
I have traded. I've traded the stock a lot over the last, you know, 15, 20 years. But this is, again, that's one of those failed attempts above 100. So it ran up, but it didn't quite, you know, break through. And then a second time, as Joe mentioned, it failed. This is the third attempt, and in my experience, there are no such thing as every technician. Actually, bring them all on. Bring on Krinsky, bring on Sut Meyer, bring on Re Wall, whoever you want to talk to. There are no such thing as triple tops. So, you know, there obviously are. But, like, technicians look at the third attempt, and the RSI is better than during the prior two. And I think you got to say the bulls are taking control here.
- [15:53]
Scott Wapner
Yeah, I was in and he was. Al got out, too. Maybe he wants to take another look. I don't know. He's watching in real time, too. What's up, Al? Always good to have Al in the. In the stable. No question about that. Hey, there's another name that you wanted to highlight, too. Flex. Break Flex. Because you mentioned it, and it's ripped since, hasn't it?
- [16:14]
Josh Brown
Let's.
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Scott Wapner
Let's look at that. I don't remember when you mentioned it, but talk about that for a minute. We wanted to highlight
- [16:21]
Josh Brown
was Thursday morning. So we wrote it up that morning. 73 stock is trading about 80 right now. It's so emblematic of what's going on in this tape. We bought it as it broke out. Like, that's what I'm, that's what I'm trying to do. They don't all work and they certainly don't all work this quickly. But I did want to mention to people that took that trade with us on Thursday, what you're doing here now is you're rolling up your stop, you're playing with the house's money. So the way that I would think about this, we said 73 was the breakout, took that level out. There's a gap in the chart. I would take the top of that gap, which is, let's call it, let's call it 68. I'd roll the stop up to 68 if I were a longer term investor. Your shorter term swing trader. What you're actually looking for is, is, you know, a 10 day moving average or something. I'm not really playing that game. But again, there are so many of these that just pop off as they break out. And Flex is like to me, the prototypical stock that's keeping people engaged in this market because there are just so many of them.
- [17:33]
Scott Wapner
All right, you have new names too, which, which are on this list, which are focused in the chip space, Correct? Like the chip equipment names. Are those the new ones you wanted to add?
- [17:44]
Josh Brown
We wrote up KLA and lam. So these were two names that we wrote up prior the lesson here, Scott. This is one of the most important things that, that I can tell people about these stocks. We wrote up KLA and Lam on the first trading day of 2026. A lot of people were mad about it. People said, Dude, KLA was up 94% in the year 2025. And now you want to get bullish on it. It's not that now I want to get bullish. By the way, it's up 40% since then. It's not that now I want to get bullish on it. It's a setup. It's a trade setup. Lamb Research, same thing. It was up 100% year. We wrote it up on January 2nd and brought it to the show. It's up 46% year to date. The lesson is just because you weren't in a stock at the very start of the rally or just because you watched it go by multiple times, it doesn't mean there's no opportunity left. And when a company is growing earnings as rapidly as these two are and you've got a breakout setup, you kind of have to go like this and do a Men in Black and not get hung up on this thing that you're anchoring to. I should have bought. I should have bought it at 60. I should have bought it at 70. Forget it. It's not helping you. And it has nothing to do. Jimmy talks about this all the time. It has nothing to do with what's going to happen in the future.
- [19:09]
Scott Wapner
Yeah, Joey. Joe owns both of these names. Let's talk about a couple of things too. Because the semis hit a record high today, they've had the best week since November of 22. The Sox is on pace for its longest rally since October of 2017. It's up 15 and a half percent over the last month. Belsky?
- [19:33]
Brian Belsky
Yep.
- [19:33]
Scott Wapner
You sold Texas Instruments?
- [19:35]
Brian Belsky
I did.
- [19:37]
Scott Wapner
Joe owns it. Why did you sell it?
- [19:39]
Brian Belsky
Texas Instruments is one of four names that were casualties from our dividend growth portfolio that we sold. Reason being is that we see stronger dividend growth in other areas, including utilities. But in the case of Texas Instruments, one of our key metrics when we build a dividend growth port portfolios, cash flow yields above the dividend yield. And given the poor performance of the stock over the last few years, dividend yield obviously has gone up and the spread between dividend yield and cash flow yield has gone down. So there's other areas to buy, especially dividend growth areas. And that's why we sold it out of dividend growth.
- [20:10]
Scott Wapner
You know, we're also looking at software today, which remains a pretty, pretty good story. Let's look at igv. There it is. There's your run over the last couple of days. Not, you know, it's not definitive of, of anything yet, but remember, 77 bucks, it's approaching 80. 77 was the Krinsky line in the sand that once it got over that level, it was, at least to him, confirmation that maybe the bottom was in. And others have gotten on that bandwagon as well. The IGV is up 5% this week. Best day in a year. 52 week low on Friday. Josh got stopped out of it last week. Oracle is coming off its best day since mid September. It was backing that up today, too. Let's look at that. Look at that week to date. 19%. Kidding me. You trimmed it because of the move that it's had or you got other reasons?
- [21:06]
Brian Belsky
No, we trimmed it again. That was another casualty from dividend growth. But we remain fully invested with respect to our U.S. focus portfolio and our value portfolio portfolio. The names that we are quite sizable in. Oracle. And that's really what we talk about in terms of tactically, over the next 12 to 18 months, on a fundamental basis, we have not sold Our Oracle. We've maintained our positions and we believe in the company.
- [21:25]
Scott Wapner
So one out of the 33 portfolios that you have, you one of the
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Brian Belsky
four US entry portfolios? Yes.
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Scott Wapner
Okay. Okay. But you still have it in the other portfolios? Yes.
- [21:34]
Brian Belsky
Those are our biggest positions in our US Focus and our US Value.
- [21:38]
Scott Wapner
Okay, I got you.
- [21:40]
Brian Belsky
You got me?
- [21:41]
Scott Wapner
Yeah. All right, we'll take a break. Coming up, we have a halftime exclusive. Our Leslie Picker is live with General Atlantic CEO Bill Ford. It's their annual investor summit. Speak to him next.
- [21:56]
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Jennifer Garner
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Dr. Guy Winch
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- [23:40]
Scott Wapner
Welcome back to the Half General Atlantic's Investor Summit, happening this hour here in New York City. Few firms have as much insight into the current investing landscape, from AI and software to private credit and far beyond. Our Leslie Picker joins us now for an exclusive interview with that firm's chairman and CEO. He is Bill Ford. Leslie Picker, take it away.
- [23:59]
Leslie Picker
Thank you, Scott. And thank you, Bill, for having us here. What a time to have an investor summit. And you all are really at the center of everything that we're talking about. Daily on CNBC from AI disintermediation to private credit to geopolitical strife. Maybe we start with software and AI. And I'm just curious because you're also an investor in Anthropic, you have some software exposure as well. How are you thinking about the risks, the most results, especially as this type of technology is iterating and innovating so quickly.
- [24:32]
Bill Ford
We've been a software investor for a long time, but we've been focusing on AI in a major way for the last four or five years. And one of the things that I think we can say today and we're talking about at our meeting is that I truly is a technological revolution. It actually goes all the way back to the railroads, electricity, PC and the Internet as one of the major technological revolutions of the last couple of centuries. And we think it'll be that big. And just think about the fact that Anthropic last quarter added over $20 billion of air. So the demand is there, the growth is there, we're seeing significant opportunities and I think it'll be the major source of capital allocation for investors over the next decade. And we're super excited about it because it fits our growth equity program but also our infrastructure program. What we're doing with data centers and digital infrastructure and energy transition because energy is such a critical component to AI. Compute and energy are really the ingredients to create intelligence on demand.
- [25:34]
Leslie Picker
Yeah, you have exposure across the supply chain. What do you think it means for some of the more legacy tech, some of the more traditional software SaaS companies, you have exposure to those as well? Is it zero sum game?
- [25:47]
Bill Ford
Yeah. No, I don't think so. I think they're going to be winners and losers and I think unfortunately the market took the view that everybody's guilty, they're proven innocent. But I think a number of companies are going to be able to harness AI capability to actually extend their businesses and some will be more challenged. But all they're going to have to go through a very important change which is a move from user based pricing to you should, space pricing. It's all going to be about how much use they have in the future that will drive their revenue model. So they'll have to go through that transition. But some applications over companies I believe will be able to harness AI to actually extend their applications and add more value to their customers.
- [26:24]
Leslie Picker
How do you, how do you define usage based price? How does that, that transformation work?
- [26:31]
Bill Ford
Well, we know a lot about how, you know, companies are using this software. One measure of AI usage is token use and token usage and AI has grown from 1 trillion per week a year ago, over 7 trillion today. So that measure of usage could be applied to software as well. To say how much usage is taking place at a customer site. And if we can shift pricing towards that, I think we're going to find a way for companies to still capture the value they're delivering the customers.
- [27:03]
Leslie Picker
Interesting. Less about subscription perhaps, and more about time spent.
- [27:06]
Bill Ford
Absolutely.
- [27:07]
Leslie Picker
I want to ask you about private credit as well as it fits into the whole software conversation. You have about 10 billion in private credit, relatively small exposure compared with many of your peers. One of the big headline risks though in private credit has of course been software and, and whether or not it's being valued appropriately. I'm curious what you make of this market right now. Is there stress or potential for future stress? Is it something you're concerned about?
- [27:31]
Bill Ford
Well, we're not seeing it now. I mean, if you look at our private credit, our companies are performing well. We're not seeing any significant credit issues in our portfolio now. You're right, Leslie. It's a small part of our business, but still we're really not seeing it. And all of our capital is long term. It's in traditional locked up vehicles. So we don't have any stress coming at us in terms of redemptions. But, but we're, we're still quite bullish on our credit business and, and it's performing.
- [27:58]
Leslie Picker
Yeah. You mentioned the long term nature, the institutional nature of your investor base. You haven't embraced retail structures as many of your peers have. And I'm curious if the recent events dissuade you from ultimately doing so or making you kind of stick with that institutional fabric.
- [28:13]
Bill Ford
Well, the core of our capital base has always been institutions in family capital. And that goes back to the beginning of our 46 years in 1980. And that's still at the cornerstone. But private wealth is going to become a more important component of our business. It's about 15% of our capital today comes from the private wealth channel. And that channel is shifting towards evergreen vehicles from traditional fund vehicles. And, and we'll have to keep pace with that trend. And we're considering that for the second half of the year. But, but I think institutions and families will always be at the core of generally its capital base.
- [28:47]
Leslie Picker
What's the need to keep pace with that trend? I'm just curious, given all the headline risk around it and what at least seems to be a more, you know, a less sticky investor class, as we've seen with the redemption figures over the past.
- [29:02]
Jim Laventhal
Well, I think.
- [29:03]
Bill Ford
I think it's clear to us that private wealth investors want access to private markets. I don't think that's going to change whether it's private credit or in our case, private equity. And we're thinking about it for our private equity fund, but I think they want access and they want to access in a vehicle that's convenient for them. And up till now it's been in traditional fund structures. It seems to be moving towards these evergreen vehicles, and we'll keep pace with it, but I don't think more than 20% of our capital base.
- [29:31]
Leslie Picker
Right. I want to ask you about the geopolitical environment because you are one of the most global investors based here in the US More than half of the capital that you've deployed over the past 46 years has been outside of the U.S. how are you thinking about deploying capital right now in places like the Gulf and China, which have been big growth markets and big target markets for General Atlantic?
- [29:54]
Bill Ford
Well, one of the ways we think about it, Leslie, is that in a world of elevated volatility and elevated geopolitical risk, one of your best risk management tools is diversification. And we're strong believers in global diversification. As you said, half of our investment activities outside the U.S. europe, India, China, Southeast Asia, Latin America, so even well diversified outside the US but we see strong growth in these markets. You know, India is having. Having its digital decade and growing very, very rapidly. We're seeing good growth in Latin America, and China remains a strong innovation economy. And so we want our investors to have access to this secular growth that's taking place. And half the world's unicorns are outside the US unicorns being companies valued over $1 billion in the private market. And so we want to access those opportunities and deliver that growth to our investors.
- [30:44]
Leslie Picker
But you're not concerned about the war or the globalization that's taking place, obviously.
- [30:50]
Bill Ford
Well, I think all investors, investors, you know, are concerned and they know we're in a world of elevated geopolitical risk and they worry about it. And, you know, we're going to. Those are issues we're going to have to navigate. But they also believe in diversification and they also believe in secular growth. And we're strong believers that secular growth is your port in the storm because, you know, more complicated challenge world. If you can be in a sector like technology or health care or financial services, you can capitalize on. On secular growth to drive investment returns.
- [31:20]
Leslie Picker
You mentioned the unicorns being outside the US there's some Pretty big ones here, too. You're invested in anthropic. You're invested in ByteDance. This was supposed to be the year that the IPO market saw its big unlock and these, these companies went to market. Given the volatility we've seen recently, do you think that's still a possibility?
- [31:37]
Bill Ford
Yeah, I think we saw a really nice rebound in the IPO market in 2025. IPO activity was up almost 50% last year, and we came into the, into 2026 with, with a nice pipeline of companies preparing to go public. I still think we're optimistic that we'll have an IPO market this year and some very important companies, maybe even Space X, will get public and that will create some real momentum for the IPO market. Clearly, right now it's a little bit more challenged because of what's happening geopolitically. But when I talk to company CEOs, they're still thinking seriously about access in the private markets, even in a more challenging environment.
- [32:12]
Leslie Picker
Fascinating. Well, Bill Ford, thank you so much for being here. Talking software disintermediation, private credit, and of course, the geopolitical environment. We appreciate you letting us attend your investor summit today.
- [32:23]
Scott Wapner
Great.
- [32:23]
Bill Ford
Thanks for being here, Leslie.
- [32:24]
Leslie Picker
Thank you, Scott. I'll send it back to you.
- [32:26]
Scott Wapner
All right, Les, thanks. Always good to hear from Bill, especially on days like these. So thank you very much for bringing that to us. That's Leslie Picker. Coming up next, I got to tell you about two really important stocks. They're not that far away from new highs in their own right. Tell you what they are, you probably own them. When we come back,
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Pippa Stevens
We're back on Halftime report. I'm Pippa Stevens with your CNBC news update. A federal appeals court ordered a judge to end the contempt investigation into the Trump administration over deportation flights. Federal Judge James Boasberg said last year that the government was in criminal contempt for defying his orders to temporarily halt the deportation flights. The federal appeals court says Bose Berg's decision was an abuse of power. Super Typhoon Sin Laku is traveling through several remote US Islands in the Pacific. It is the strongest tropical typhoon on earth so far this year. Winds reached 173 mph Monday and the storm is expected to cross the Northern Mariana Islands this evening as a Category 4 or 5 typhoon. And a $1 million painting by Pablo Picasso was raffled for less than $120. The Alzheimer's Research foundation in France sold tickets for €100 to raise money for research and a chance to win the prized painting Picasso painted head of a woman in 1941. Sounds like a pretty good deal, Scott.
- [35:37]
Scott Wapner
I'd say so. Thank you. Stevens, take a look at shares of Amazon. We need to highlight those because first of all, they're acquiring global stars and expanding Amazon LEO satellite network. So that, that's sort of news of the day. But this stock has been on a run. It's up another 4%. It's not that far away from new highs, right? It is not, Josh. That far away from new highs. In fact, I've got a three and a half percent.
- [36:05]
Josh Brown
Yeah, this is one of my bigger positions personally. And we have an island reversal in the chart. I was emailing with my friend Stephanie Link this morning about it. I can't show you that on screen here because we don't have candlesticks. But suffice to say, you have a big gap down and then you have this kind of consolidation period between 200 and 215, give or take, you have another gap up on, on the, on the other side. And what ends up happening is the sellers get trapped on that, on that island, so to speak, metaphorically Metaphorically speaking. And you never want to fade. An island reversal, a bullish island reversal. And that's exactly what's taken place here over the last year. Now you have a company that seems to have made all the right moves on in the side. They're also getting more credit for what they're doing on chips. They're involved in anthropic, they're involved in Mythos. They're talking about selling chips to third parties to alleviate some of the constraint for GPUs. And while they're at it, they've kept costs down in some of their core businesses and maintained a fairly high growth rate for us. I really don't know what's not to like. Out of all the Mag Sevens, this is my number one favorite chart of the moment.
- [37:24]
Scott Wapner
So you see the move 20 plus percent over the last month. Alphabet in its own right is less than 6% away from its own all time high.
- [37:35]
Joe Terranova
Yeah, and it's each Alphabet and Amazon that are driving the performance for Mega Cap so far. Year to date. I'm with Josh on Amazon. I think that Amazon will exceed an all time intraday high.
- [37:50]
Scott Wapner
You don't know. Be clear, you don't not own Amazon.
- [37:53]
Joe Terranova
We sold Amazon at the end of January, February at 239.
- [37:56]
Scott Wapner
30. Right. So that's what that thought.
- [37:58]
Joe Terranova
And on a 12 month basis, Amazon was flat at that point. I would imagine we'll see at the end of the quarter what happens. But based on what Josh is saying,
- [38:06]
Scott Wapner
buy things so higher things go, things
- [38:08]
Joe Terranova
look really good right now. Alphabet is the other name that I love. Alphabet looks phenomenal whether it's the YouTube business or really more importantly, it's the tensor processing units that have, they've been, they've worked on them for the last, last 12 years, but now they're, they've got prominence in the headlines. So I think both Alphabet and Amazon, those are the two Mega Cap names that are going to make all time highs relatively soon.
- [38:30]
Jim Laventhal
Jimmy, you know, I'll just go to where you started this on the global star acquisition. Josh and Joe, you've already covered, you know, the big fundamentals. This is a company, Amazon, that has a history of making these acquisitions that seem a little bit afield from what they normally do, but they make a lot of money from it. Think about Whole Foods, think about mgm. I was in the movie theater this Saturday. I watched Project Hail Mary and that is an Amazon movie. Go back 10, 15 years ago. Amazon was not in the movie production business. They have this habit. They have a History of building new businesses and I think the Global Star acquisition, along with their existing satellite and rocket business is going to be.
- [39:06]
Scott Wapner
What about Alphabet?
- [39:08]
Jim Laventhal
Big Gosling, love Alphabet. Alphabet as we know, had a great 2020, 2025. I actually came into this year and I said it on air that I think Amazon will do this year what Alphabet did last year.
- [39:19]
Scott Wapner
Let's go one month on, on Alphabet because it's been on a similar trajectory. Not as obviously strong, but we'll go 10% in a month.
- [39:30]
Brian Belsky
Yep.
- [39:30]
Jim Laventhal
And I think actually if you take it back to the start of the year that what you saw at the start of the year was a lot of profit taking. I did a little trimming at the beginning of the of the year. It just grew to be too big. But now the fundamentals are there and for a lot of the things that Josh was talking about, it's not just the Google services, it's the chips that they're making as well. In addition to their bread and butter. Businesses of YouTube, of Waymo, of search, etc.
- [39:54]
Joe Terranova
That is coming on strong as well. Met is up 16% for the month. So right now it looks like it's in video, it's Alphabet, it's Amazon and
- [40:02]
Scott Wapner
it's Meta that I think is off its best week in like two years. All right, so we'll take a break. Belsky's got some new buys, right? New buys.
- [40:09]
Brian Belsky
New buys. Brand new buys.
- [40:10]
Scott Wapner
Brand new buys.
- [40:11]
Brian Belsky
Brand new buys.
- [40:11]
Scott Wapner
All right, so we're not talking like, not confusing trims, portfolio A versus F versus G, H and Z. Like straight new buys. Fresh. All right, good. Thankfully. And Jimmy has a new buy too. Well, it's buying more of something that he really likes. We'll tell you that next. Welcome back. I told you about the committee moves. We have Brian Belsky has several new buys, one of which it's always kind of awkward when it's our parent company, Versant Media. We're happy to have you as a shareholder. I'll just so excited to say that, but I don't need you.
- [40:46]
Brian Belsky
Yeah, they're like, why?
- [40:48]
Scott Wapner
Yeah, well, because we got it going on. I don't know. Tell me about the other ones. Okay, tell me about the other ones. It feels like self serving to have you do that.
- [40:57]
Brian Belsky
No, I mean, let's just say I love the communication services sector. I think cash content and consolidation and Versant fits all those themes. So let's move on.
- [41:07]
Scott Wapner
So Versant Media was on the list. Mobileye Revolve Group. What is that? And Cognex And Gates Industrial, mobileye's autonomous vehicles. I know what mobileye is. What's Revolve Group?
- [41:18]
Brian Belsky
Revolve is an online retail where the Gen Z's are buying stuff and I think that's going to be a big thing for them. Cognex and Gates Industrial are two industrial companies that really focus on robotics. And we're adding all of these names to our small mid cap portfolio because as you mentioned at the top of the show, small cap stocks have been ripping. We think you need to own more names overall. So we're going to continue to add more names as we go on and three or four names, new names a month.
- [41:47]
Scott Wapner
Okay, Appreciate that. There's, there's the rise in Mobileye. Jimmy bought more win. I did, right.
- [41:54]
Jim Laventhal
I did. You know, I took a chunk out of the portfolio. Chunk of win out back In August at 126, stock went up to 130. It's now down in the low one hundreds. And why is that? Because estimates have come down understandably with everything going on in the world, I think the estimates are too low for Las Vegas in particular, where Wynn really is the top end resort. And they, you know, look, as much as we talk about traffic going down to Las Vegas, Wynn keeps its traffic up. And then they do have this Abu Dhabi resort which is a main reason that the stock has come down over the last month, month and a half. It's being built, it's going to open next year and by then I think the hostilities will have died down. It should be a moneymaker.
- [42:32]
Scott Wapner
I didn't, I didn't get to one of Brian. So you sold Warner Brothers Discovery. Was this a, a swap? One for one Versant, one for one switch. Warner Brothers.
- [42:41]
Brian Belsky
Warner Brothers out.
- [42:43]
Scott Wapner
Because the event has happened.
- [42:46]
Brian Belsky
The event has happened. We think it's going to go through at the end of the day. We kind of like the turn. We like this Versant company in terms of where it's going and where the content is.
- [42:55]
Scott Wapner
Okay, okay. We do too. Just throwing it out there. We're happy to have you Be all right. Mike Santoli's next. Senior markets commentator and overtime co anchor Michael Santoli is here for his midday word. This market just wants to go up. What else can you say?
- [43:32]
Mike Santoli
Well, that's for sure. I mean, I think it sort of gains confidence that we're in the post crisis re risking phase at this point. Certainly on a short term basis something's looking like it's running pretty hot, but that's kind of what you want to see. You Want to see the market able to get overbought on a tactical basis. And that probably means maybe the turn has. Has come.
- [43:51]
Scott Wapner
That's one of the notes that was out today is like the, the. The biggest risk right now is overheating in the stock market.
- [43:57]
Mike Santoli
In the very short term. Yes. I mean, I don't think. I think you did get much more of a cleanup in positioning that It's a while before people are genuinely back. Back over their skis. The thing is, and I guess we'll have to deal with this down the road at some point is as much as you want to map last year's experience onto what we're doing in terms of the tariff panic and the comeback, you just didn't reach the same kind of depths. Therefore, probably, probably just means you're not going up 40% in six months, which is exactly what happened from the lows last year. The other piece of it I know, you know, Joe was talking about, the growth theme is really dominating right now. It's absolutely true. And it's also re narrowing. Okay. Even though breadth in terms of the number of stocks going up versus down has been very strong on this comeback, it's really what's driving the indexes are the few and the dominant. Everybody was so happy about the broadening going into to the peak. And 60% of all stocks are beating the S and P. You know what it is in the last month, 29% and people feel better about it. And the Vix is down to 18 because that's how it works.
- [44:55]
Scott Wapner
Software, I mean, people feel better in part, I think about the makeup of the market because look at what software has done this week. Palantir is up 6%, Salesforce is up 5%. Snowflake's up almost 13. IBM is up a bunch. We showed the IGV a lot of the names. We within that universe have had a nice little comeback. It's not confirmation of anything yet. However, it's what you would really like to see.
- [45:19]
Mike Santoli
Well, sure, because what it is confirmation of is you absolutely in this re risking process, you're just penalizing shorts of all sorts and people have to just liquidate on that side. You're still at 80 on the IGV. I mean the lows are like 75, 76. And so it needs to prove a lot more.
- [45:36]
Scott Wapner
More. Oh, for sure. But you got over the 77 we were talking about like Krinsky was highlighting. Yeah, 77 was an important line in the same.
- [45:43]
Mike Santoli
So there's so, I mean, we spent enough time maybe digesting the problem parts of the market again. We're still at these really familiar levels. Let's remember 6900, 7000. We spent months there going into the downturn.
- [45:55]
Scott Wapner
Good stuff. I'll see on the bell. That's Mike Santoli. Finals coming up after this. Welcome back. Want to call your attention to CNBC's next big event. I will be in Singapore next week at Converge Live. We'll be speaking with some of the world's brightest minds shaping the future of business, sports and entertainment. And for more details you can go to convergelive.com we'll do finals next. All right, we'll see you on the closing bell at 3 o' clock Eastern Time. Richard Saperstein, Bryn Talkington, Warm pies Rich Clarita, Bill Miller the fourth and Alexander Wilson Elizondo of Goldman Sachs can have an interesting market to talk about too, as the S and P is less than 3/4 of 1% away from a new all time high which was 7002.28. Josh Brown, Final Trade
- [46:49]
Josh Brown
Uber hiding in plain sight. 30% growth next year, 15 times earnings.
- [46:54]
Scott Wapner
Who's got Wells?
- [46:55]
Brian Belsky
I do. Wells Fargo. I believe in the turnaround, especially within capital markets and wealth management.
- [47:00]
Scott Wapner
Okay, Jovial Jim. Jittery Jim's left.
- [47:04]
Jim Laventhal
Happy Jim.
- [47:05]
Scott Wapner
Happy Jim.
- [47:05]
Jim Laventhal
Jovial.
- [47:06]
Scott Wapner
Jumping Jim's fine.
- [47:08]
Jim Laventhal
Listen, if we're seeing the IGV come back, that would imply that maybe private credit isn't so bad. Look at Apollo Global.
- [47:15]
Joe Terranova
Okay, Jimmy told us to listen to the message of the market on the first day of the conference. I bought CF Industries and I bought the Israeli etf. Israeli etf all time high today. What's the message in that market? Jimmy? Okay, go long.
- [47:29]
Scott Wapner
Good stuff. I'll see you on the bell. You've been listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast you can always catch us live weekdays at 12 Eastern only on CNBC.
- [47:43]
Edward Jones Narrator
All opinions expressed by the Halftime Report participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC or its 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 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 halftime reportdisclaimer this is
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