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Halftime Report
Is a Greater Rotation Coming? 11/13/25
00:44:04
Scott Wapner and the Investment Committee debate whether a greater rotation is coming and if a December rate cut is on the table. Plus, the Committee share their latest portfolio moves. And later, Josh Brown spotlights Exxon in his 'Best Stocks in the Market.' Investment Committee Disclosures
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- [00:00]
Scott Wapner
Introducing Fidelity Trader Plus.
- [00:02]
Josh Brown
With customizable tools and charts you can access across all your devices, try our most powerful trading platform yet@fidelity.com TraderPlus investing.
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Scott Wapner
Involves risk, including risk of loss.
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Josh Brown
Fidelity Brokerage Services, llc Member nyse, SIPC.
- [00:15]
Scott Wapner
To realize the future America needs, we understand what's needed from us to face each threat head on. We've earned our place in the fight for our nation's future. We are Marines. We were made for this. 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, falling tech. That sector is struggling yet again. Today. We will ask the committee whether an even greater rotation is coming now. Joining us for the hour, Josh Brown, Kerry Firestone, Bill Baruch, Jenny Harrington. We'll check the markets where the big story is the fact that we are down across the board. And if we throw up what the interest rate complex looks like, that could very well be a culprit today. No doubt about that as we've got rates that are moving higher. Some of the Fed speak lately has been undeniably hawkish. So you have to believe that December is 5050. But as they were just saying at the end of the program prior to this one, maybe we even dipped a little bit below that in terms of expectations for what the the market is going to get from the Fed in December. That's that seems to be the story today. No.
- [01:37]
Josh Brown
Yeah, I think it's actually part of a bigger story. And I was talking to a portfolio manager about this a couple of days ago, and he was saying welcome to the ABC market or anything but chips. The AI Capex story is not quite unraveling, but there are more questions surrounding it than ever before. And in the absence of any actual fundamental news, because we're already through earnings season other than Nvidia, people are just saying, you know what, I've made a lot of money in this trade. These stocks have gone up a lot this year, at least most of them have. And there are other things that I want to do in my portfolio that aren't directly tied to this trade. So the ABC market is in effect on a day like today where you see a weird thing like at an index level, the market down, but actually pretty decent internals. And that's because other stocks that are not as important to the averages are Actually gaining money while money comes out of that that trade. Energy is a great example and we're going to talk about a new energy name on my best stocks in the market list later in the show. But energy is now leading all sectors on a short term basis. 100% of the sector components are above their 20 day moving average. Financials number two 80%. Health care number three 74%. That's where people are making money at the moment. Tech is second worst. Only 32% of tech stocks are above a 20 day moving average. Not the end of the world but a definitive change from what we would have talked about even three weeks ago.
- [03:08]
Scott Wapner
Kerry, I feel like you're going to have a pretty good battle trying to pick my word battle in the room in the FOMC of what's going to happen in December. So if we take it at what the market is placing its bet on now and say it's less than 5050 and if we don't get a cut in December what happens to the market and the idea of an everything rally into year end which some have been banking on and we may have had the earliest glimpses of in the last couple of sessions we've been hearing for.
- [03:42]
Kerry Firestone
Weeks now there's a split at the Fed and every single day I feel the Fed leaks information are the members.
- [03:49]
Scott Wapner
They don't leak it. They talk about not being putting out.
- [03:53]
Kerry Firestone
Themselves know they want people to know that there is less and less of a chance it's daily that there'll be a rate cut. I think the market has absorbed that pretty well and has begun to look at other things in order to grasp on to what is positive for the market and for shareholders. So earnings were good and earnings have to stay good whether tech matters or not. Of course it's huge. Energy is a tiny, tiny percent of the S and P. What's the weight in the s and P?
- [04:21]
Scott Wapner
3 or 3% whatever. It's a little bit bigger than that.
- [04:24]
Kerry Firestone
But it's like a stock, you know, it's just like half of, you know, Microsoft or less. So I feel that the movement of the rest of the market is, is less important than what happens within within Video's earnings whether we start to see moving into the end of December. We don't have to have these stocks all rally now. They've had huge runs so far this year. I think it's perfectly natural for them to take a pause. I think it's great that the rest of the market is British.
- [04:51]
Scott Wapner
I know but what about my Question. I don't feel like I'm getting. You're getting in my question. If there's no rate cut in December, what, what happen? Market.
- [04:57]
Kerry Firestone
I don't think the market is going to care that much. I think the market can go down 5% and then it would be sort of comfortable with where we are. Yeah, well, that's that if we don't.
- [05:08]
Scott Wapner
Get a rate cut. If we don't get a rate cut in December, we might go down 5%.
- [05:13]
Kerry Firestone
Yeah. On that day we might have a 5% or 4%, 5% decline. We might have a couple more percent.
- [05:18]
Josh Brown
Flip the question with the question. How many people, huge. How many people would say that they're buying stocks right now for a rate cut?
- [05:25]
Scott Wapner
I don't know any. Well, let's put into perspective because that's a nuanced question. If you say that in and of itself, are you buying stocks because of a rate cut? People are going to say no because there's all these other stories like the ones that Kerry said earnings are good AI everything that everybody already knows. However, it's one of the things that got put into the stew pot for the bullish case.
- [05:49]
Josh Brown
We got two rate cuts.
- [05:50]
Scott Wapner
Yeah, well, the market was 100% for December. Now it's less than 50. It's just part of the story that's been out there. You have good earnings, you have big capex, you have the deregulatory environment, you have M and A, blah, blah, blah. And you have expectations of the Fed being your friend. Well, if the Fed sticks its hand out and then you go to shake and it says, you know, pulls it away, does it. How much does it matter?
- [06:14]
Josh Brown
Why did they pull it away? Because the labor market has. Because the labor market hasn't deteriorated further.
- [06:20]
Scott Wapner
Well, because inflation is a little bit stickier than probably they would like it to be. What do you think?
- [06:24]
Bill Baruch
Well, they don't. They haven't had any economic data with the government shutdown. I wouldn't say the Fed reluctantly cut two times. But, but he was getting. Powell was getting a lot of heat from President Trump and this gave an opportunity without economic data to really go into a pause. And the Fed doesn't want you to just touch just to know that there's a rate cut coming. I mean, they need to balance the opinion and that's what they've done. I think that you're starting to see a little bit of pause in the tech because of that. There may have been a catalyst. There's other catalysts out there with the open Air conversation, obviously other things out there that have been headwinds, the capex conversation and that, that right here, I don't think we really need, you know, the market is pricing in a rate cup now to a coin flip. I don't think it's a necessary thing. However, I do in pretty feel pretty confident you're going to get a rate.
- [07:12]
Scott Wapner
Cut from, I mean, maybe it's necessary, if you want to use that word, for certain parts of the market, Jenny. Maybe it's necessary for the small cap trade to work because I'll tell you what, it's not working today.
- [07:23]
Jenny Harrington
No.
- [07:23]
Scott Wapner
Down one and three quarters percent because it's so sensitive to the rate cut question. Maybe other cyclical areas of the market need a rate cut. Ones that would participate in an everything rally if we were to get one into the end of the year. Does do people think you need a rate cut for stocks to do okay? I don't think so. But if I, if I pulled the rug out from under you on that idea, it may have a little bit of an upset because it could push rates higher, even further from where they are now and that would change the calculus, even if it's incrementally. So.
- [07:56]
Jenny Harrington
So I don't think the actual rate cut matters at all. You know, whether they cut 25 or 50 or whatever, that's not what matters. What matters is why, you know, why would we not get a rate cut in December? And if the reason that we don't get one is because the economy is doing perfectly well and we don't need one and things are maybe a little stronger, then that's great. And I think that might actually be why we're seeing this rotation today. And from my seat, we are in a serious rotation right now. So when I look at my screen, which you all know are dividend stocks with super low valuations, a lot of tech. Sorry, a lot of energy. No tech. A lot of energy. A lot of real estate, a lot of consumer staples, a of lot, lot of pharma. My screen's bright green today, which is shocking. And so what I'm thinking is this is a much bigger, bigger story. Why is tech down? And my partner Greg, he always says no one rings the bell at the top, right? So there was no bell rung. But at some point in the past couple of weeks, suddenly people started caring about profitability. And suddenly people started caring about valuations. And then you look at my portfolio and I'm like, okay, what do I, what's the one thing I've got going for me, they're all profitable, they all have low valuations. So I see this rotation happening and I do think it's interesting that small cap is down so much because I don't know that that's telling. I really don't think the rate cut matters in and of itself. It's the why behind the rate cut.
- [09:12]
Scott Wapner
Sure. But it matters to like the Russell as you say. By the way, the Dow, which again closed above 48,000 for the very first time ever yesterday, it's a bit below that with the 400 point decline today. As, as Mike Santoli was pointing out earlier today, the Dow is, is ahead of the NASDAQ 100 on a three month basis and we had a chart to show you ever so slightly has the Dow done that. But I'm not sure how many people you know had forecast that. But that's a pretty good thing if you were looking for the broadening out sectors month to date. Health care is up six and a half percent, materials are up three. Energy, Josh was talking about that. Up three. Financials are up two Staples are up one and a half and tech's down.
- [09:55]
Josh Brown
Well, that's the ABC trade brought to life. And look, the Dow is beating the s and P500 over the last month and over the last three months. And if you think about why that that should be the case or whether or not that has legs going forward, the Dow has more exposure to Goldman Sachs and Caterpillar than it does to the entire mag 7 combined and most of it.
- [10:21]
Scott Wapner
And some health care too. And, and because of the price weighting.
- [10:25]
Josh Brown
Yes.
- [10:25]
Scott Wapner
Of the Dow, you're, you're going to have that sort of impact.
- [10:28]
Josh Brown
So cat is a 10 and a half percent holding in the Dow right now and Microsoft is 7. Apple and Amazon are only 3% holdings. Meanwhile Goldman Sachs is is 7 and a half. So the, I hate the term old economy because both of those companies are using a lot of AI. The, the companies that are not directly tied to the ups and downs of the narrative around open AI are just doing way better. The profitability question does matter. These guys won't stop doing podcasts and letting stupid things slip out of their mouths. Guys and gals. People don't want to hear that story anymore for the time being. They don't want to hear that Anthropic won't be profitable until 2028. They don't want to hear that Open Air won't be profitable until 2030 and they don't want to continue to overload their portfolio on the vendors to those companies. And that's why that rotation is so important for investors to understand. And the most fascinating part about the rotation, it won't show up when you actually look at the index level. What did the S&P 500 do today? Because it's all happening beneath the surface. To Carry's point, these are segments of the market that have shrunk in terms of their proportion as the MAG7 trade has grown. And so now you can have like stocks that look at Berkshire today, 2 trillion dollar mark, almost a trillion dollar market cap to gig. It's a gigantic financial, it's just not 5 trillion. And so you can see stuff like this go on, on your screen and say, well I would guess that the market's up. JP Morgan had a new high two days ago. Berkshire's rallying, Exxon's rally. That's not what drives the market these days. And it's a little bit disorienting for people who just glance at an app on their phone and think they have a handle away what's happening.
- [12:11]
Scott Wapner
So let's go a little deeper here on, on what's been winning and you know, because we've been talking about it a lot lately of this health care trade. Biotech has been rallying. After a couple of years of underperformance, it has come to life and in a big way. As I said, month to date, six and a half percent for that space. New 52 week high for health care. The SBI is coming off a fresh high for this year. Bill, you bought more Amgen which hit a 52 week high today. Carrie owns it in her charitable trust Telstra.
- [12:39]
Jenny Harrington
More.
- [12:40]
Bill Baruch
I think we're in a bull market, a secular bull market and there's these ebbs and flows. Obviously there's an ebb down in April so things mature very fast in year two of a bull market. You know, this rotation, it's health care and financials that typically lead, you know, so I wouldn't say we're a year too. But that's, that's the narrative around it. I think that you know, you got to lean into what's working right now and health care is working. Amgen had a tremendous earnings report. 564 earnings versus 497. And this cardiovascular drug Repatha was a very positive surprise. And so there's a lot about them right now tied to Mary tied their GLP drug. And there's a lot of questions and a lot of that was sort of, it's still unanswered and it was sort of being able to push aside and you were able to focus on the, the pipeline that they have this year. That's, I think is really important right now. We'll hear more about Mary Tide later this year. But for now, this stock is in breakout. Technicals are very strong and we want to lean into that right now.
- [13:33]
Scott Wapner
I mean, That's a breakout 17% in a month. What do you think?
- [13:36]
Kerry Firestone
Yeah, well, we talked about it recently and there are four reasons why the health care and biotech stocks are going up. One is oversold. They've been oversold for years. But finally people are paying attention because they're starting to realize that the overbought part of the market is potentially too overbought. As we just discussed, it's a place to go. UNH has been a catalyst even though it's not drug and biotech. It has been one of the benchmarks for health care and it's up 45% since its bottom. It shows that you can sort of work through your problems. So that I think has raised people's awareness. Three is if you can make a deal such as Lilly and Novo did with the government to make things work in a drug that they're going to have price down, price pressure down 60% but still make it better for your profitability, why not do it? And it increases concentration in the end in this world. And so I think that's great for the industry and their earnings have been decent. So you've got a lot of things working for you. Why not buy low multiple stocks?
- [14:41]
Scott Wapner
So Scotia is initiating a number of names in the Biotech universe today. AbbVie outperform to 80 is the price target there. We can, let's try and cycle through these as I, as I mentioned, so we can get an idea. So it's 238. They say it's going to 280. Bristol sector perform is 45. Let's look at the charts, please. Bristol again, sector perform 45. I mean the stock is at 49. So that's why they have a performer. They don't love it. Regeneron also performs 650, little bit lower than where it is now. And Jenny, you own Bristol and Regeneron, so weigh in please.
- [15:18]
Jenny Harrington
Right. So I think they've got the wrong price targets but the right idea. And you look at these stocks and they're just, they're the theme that's working today, which is super cheap, high free cash flow and a definite earnings growth story ahead. So Bristol trades For example, at 7 times earnings with a 5% dividend yield, it's up 7% in the last three months. Regeneron trades at 14 times 6% free cash flow yield is up 23% in the last three months. And for Regeneron particularly, they have one of the biggest drops, drug pipelines in the whole pharma and biotech industry. Like that's where I want to be right now. I have a further out theme on these two which is who are going to be some of the true AI beneficiaries, where you know they're making money, where you know the use of AI is going to drop straight to the bottom line. It's the pharma companies, they're going to be able to do better research, use fewer scientists, take up less lab space. They're going to be completely revolutionized by, by AI. And I do wonder if a little bit, bit of that thought is just, just starting to trickle in to these kinds of stocks.
- [16:16]
Scott Wapner
I think you're right. I think you're right. I mean if you, I'm sure there are any number of names that would look like a Regeneron chart where you see the breakout in one month. This one happens to be 27%. We told you what AbbVie for example is doing.
- [16:32]
Josh Brown
Yeah, I was just. I have six biotech names on my best stocks in the market list and we've talked about some of these throughout the course of this year. Gilead is one that we've brought up repeatedly. Take a look at this chart. AbbVie looks incredible. Alder Lam, Alan, why we did a segment on that Ins Med, Netara which I don't know very well. But like these are stocks that are moving up and to the right in a sector that had sat out most of the last three years since the market bottom at the end of 2022. Some of them even have dividends, believe it or not. And I think that list is going to expand. It's nice that Amgen is on it and Gilead because people know those names. But I may be coming back to you in a week or two weeks and telling you I now have 10, 11 or 12 biotech or related companies in that segment. And many of these are names that growth investors just don't know because the market hasn't given them a reason to learn.
- [17:29]
Scott Wapner
Let's talk about financials too because it's a, it's becoming a bigger story. Goldman all time high today. Jpm, Morgan Stanley hit all time highs yesterday. Bank of America's Highest level since 2006 yesterday Bill, you own Goldman, you own JPM. But, but this Goldman breakout, more M and a M and A activity, better market environment, bull market in the, you know, bull run into the end of the year. Tell me more.
- [17:55]
Jenny Harrington
More?
- [17:55]
Bill Baruch
Yeah, I mean like I just said, financials and health care as, as things mature out of April, that's where the rotation is taking place. Now I would have put max 7 for debt but. But right now you have to lean into what's working. Goldman with that record high was up, it was up big yesterday. It was a record record income from that EA deal and IB fees. Really another breakout here. JP Morgan moving great. I think these are the names that you see. The activity, the trading, the trading revenues are going to be good in this environment I think too. And it's a maturing trade where everybody's talking about AI. The financials are really going to be benefiting from AI here as, as this goes into next year.
- [18:31]
Scott Wapner
You want to give me some on jpm?
- [18:34]
Josh Brown
I mean JPM has had an outstanding run. I would point out the best performing stock in The S&P 500 this year is Robinhood. They could triple this year. Probably most people are not aware of that. They're thinking it's got to be an AI stock and it turns out it's not. It is sort of indirectly in a stock though because a lot of the trading activity on that platform is involved in people wanting to play the tech bull market. I'd also say Goldman is the second best performer in the Dow this year. How many people would have said in January that that would be the case? How many people are even aware of that right now? Not that many.
- [19:06]
Scott Wapner
43% for Goldman. Speaking of AI and speaking of tech, Oracle is on pace for its 11th down day in the last 14. That's just an interesting move to keep an eye. Market cap, it's down another second bleeding market cap, it's down another three and a half percent. So if you back it out even further and you can see from the big announcement that they had like I think it was in September, stock shoots way up. It's round tripped. It is even lower now than it was you know then. So it's round trip it and then some. UBS says we're not in a bubble. So we're going to get Nvidia in like seven days, six days next week. So that's going to be a good tell. There was a really interesting story today again related to Michael Burry of Big Short fame. He thinks we're In a bubble. I mean, I think he's made that pretty clear from his postings on social media, something that he's done with his fund. Leslie Picker. Following that money, following him, the money, everything else. What's the news here?
- [20:06]
Leslie Picker
Yes, got really interesting timing here. Michael Burry has. As you mentioned, he's been ramping up his criticism of hyperscalers in recent weeks. And now we've learned that Burry has deregistered his hedge fund, Scion asset management. The SEC's Investment Advisor database showing that Scions registration was terminated as of November 10th. As of March, it had about $155 million in assets. Burry's bets against the US housing market during the financial crisis anointing him as a key character in the big short. And over his holdings and commentary have been closely followed for signs of potential bubbles and froth. In a post on X, Burry said he's quote, on to much better things November 25th without divulging much more about what he's doing. Earlier this week though, he posted about how he believes the hyperscalers are understating depreciation by $176 billion over the next three years. Burry argues that they're extending the useful lives of assets in a way that artificially boosts earnings. 26.9% for Oracle, 20.8% for Metta by 2028, he alleges. And then he said it, quote, gets worse. Teasing again. More detail coming November 25th. So I guess we'll have to just mark our calendars for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
- [21:25]
Scott Wapner
We are already. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Leslie, thank you. That's Leslie Picker.
- [21:30]
Josh Brown
Family office, Active etf.
- [21:33]
Scott Wapner
I don't know.
- [21:34]
Josh Brown
Place your bets.
- [21:35]
Scott Wapner
I don't know. Let's talk about Nvidia, which by the way is down 8% this month. Target raised today at Oppy 265. It was 225. Target raised at Susquehanna 220 was 210. Reiterated buy at Citi. The target is. Is 220 there? Retail continues to like it if you look at a robust retail buying activity. Of course, Nvidia was on the list. Positive by a billion, along with the other names like Tesla, Meta, amd, Oracle and Apple. Core Weave, obviously a favorite name there too. Cisco, 52 week high on its own earnings beat. Jenny Harrington owns that name. Tell me more.
- [22:17]
Jenny Harrington
All right, so Cisco, our thesis here has basically been any version of technology that expands needs to use Cisco's products. So you've got You've got a stock that's relatively cheap compared to the rest of their peers. Free cash flow generating decent earnings growth ahead. It's not, you know, it's never going to be one of the triples or the quintuples but it's what we want in our discipline growth strategy that just focuses on free cash flow. Nothing too exciting.
- [22:43]
Scott Wapner
Well, it's a 52 week high. Yeah, they gave it, they gave a strong guide. Why aren't you more excited? Because not the reaction I was, was expecting from you. Maybe I shouldn't even have had you talk about it like what's up?
- [22:54]
Jenny Harrington
No, I think it's just that we've had it for so long, right. And it's had a very, a very steady long term growth profile on it and no one was excited about it for a super long time. Everyone was just like, oh you know, Cisco's dead, Cisco's old school. The numbers aren't extraordinary. You've got, they're great but they're not extraordinary. You've got like 8% revenue growth, 10% EPS growth. That's great but it's not, it's not 150%. It also trades at a totally reasonable 18 times valuation. 6% free cash flow yield. That's what I want to own. But it's not the kind of thing that makes you jump up and down. And so I think it's all about managing expectations. And one of the problems that we've seen and the reason that we see Nvidia down 8% and we see Oracle off its top is because people got hooked on the story in a really irrational way and lost sight of what do they really do, what do the numbers really mean and what should this, you know, what should the performance be. So if you can keep your kind of wits about you and stay rational and expectations, then you get a nice return. So that's why I'm not super pumped.
- [23:51]
Scott Wapner
If you're down on, I got it. If you're down on, on Cisco, I can only imagine how you feel about Disney.
- [23:57]
Jenny Harrington
I'm not down on Cisco. I'm like hey, that's great. Disney I think is a stupid reaction. Disney, Disney here, you've got 19% EPS growth year over year. You've got a stock that's trading at 17 times a huge discount to the market. And you know me, I'm super long term focused. So when I heard that earnings call, the thing that I heard primarily is we will have double digit earnings growth next year, 2026 and 2027. That sounds great to me. I think. I don't really know why this is such a negative response. I bet.
- [24:27]
Scott Wapner
Well, their revenues missed and you got nothing on succession either. Maybe people are just getting tired of waiting.
- [24:32]
Jenny Harrington
Okay, but they also. So raise the dividend. They announced a $7 billion buyback. The fundamentals and the numbers of the company are terrific. Streaming was 8, up 8%. Streaming revenue was up 8%. So I thought it was a really good quarter. I'm going to bet you if the market weren't so ugly today, it would probably be down like 2%.
- [24:48]
Josh Brown
Hey, Jenny. They're getting manhandled by Alphabet. And that is unfortunately setting a precedent where people are looking at these media and content rich assets and the companies that own them as being susceptible to MAG7 platform risk. Because if they, if they can't get their, their properties back up on YouTube TV, which is only 10 million users, it doesn't augur well as a sign for the future of what that program and content is really even worth.
- [25:19]
Jenny Harrington
Okay. I mean that's a much bigger conversation, Josh and I've been looking at Comcast for the division end portfolio. You know, and so you really need to think about what is, what is content worth in the future broadly, you know, how ubiquitous will it be? How much is it going to be taken over by AI? This is a little bit of a non sequitur, but one of my friends posted the craziest thing on Facebook. She made an anniversary video of her and her husband using Sora. It's extraordinary. It's hilarious. It cost her nothing to make and took 10 seconds. So content overall, that's a bigger conversation. But the numbers for Disney me today don't justify a down 10% move or 9%.
- [25:55]
Scott Wapner
We feel richer for hearing about the non sequitur ideal.
- [25:59]
Jenny Harrington
If I could get a blessing, I.
- [26:00]
Josh Brown
Would post Follow Jenny on Facebook.
- [26:03]
Scott Wapner
By the way, I mean the vote to put Nelson Peltz on the board, put try in on the board of Disney was, was back in April and they, they bounced at 119. I wonder if you have any regrets as a shareholder that he's not on the board.
- [26:20]
Jenny Harrington
Maybe. You know, Scott, I never have regrets. No, just kidding.
- [26:23]
Scott Wapner
No, you have a non sequitur that would play into that question that I asked you.
- [26:27]
Jenny Harrington
Probably, but it's going to take me too long to come up with it. Give me, give me like 15 minutes.
- [26:30]
Scott Wapner
I'm serious about the question though.
- [26:33]
Jenny Harrington
I don't know. I don't know. If Nelson had been on the board, would they have had a speedier and more serious succession plan in place. I'm not sure. I think this is really tough. And I was just, I was just talking to Gary Stern actually, who was on the show before, and I was saying, you know, when you get to that very high level of CEO, the air gets really thin and there's not that many people available for the jobs and there aren't that many jobs available, you know, to the people who want them. So I think this is a particularly difficult succession situation. I don't know how we get through it. I don't know that Nelson really could.
- [27:02]
Kerry Firestone
They said it would be this first quarter of next year.
- [27:06]
Scott Wapner
Yeah, no, but I know, but I don't think there's, as Jim Stewart told me yesterday on the on, on closing bell, there just doesn't seem to be any insight into who it might be that nobody from the outside seems to be, you know, talked about. Could they go to a co CEO situation? He raised that point, not me. Could Iger under that scenario stay on as chairman? He raised that, not me because I said it's internal.
- [27:32]
Kerry Firestone
They said it's internal. So they must know who the people are.
- [27:36]
Scott Wapner
Well, anyway, the stock's down 9%. Up next, our calls of the day. Josh Brown is back later with his best stocks in the market list as well. We're back after this break.
- [27:51]
Josh Brown
CNBC Sport on the Record, your front row seat to sports and business. From commissioners and owners to media executives and top athletes.
- [27:59]
Scott Wapner
These are Rembrandts.
- [28:00]
Mike Santoli
I'm telling you, these franchises on the.
- [28:03]
Josh Brown
Record, all new Saturdays, three Eastern.
- [28:20]
Scott Wapner
All right, welcome back. 12:30 in the East. Dow is down 400 points today. We're down across the board. Let's do our calls of the day. We're going to start with Booking Holdings. It was upgraded today to outperform itself. Wedbush, they maintain their price target of some $6,000. Carrie, you own the stock.
- [28:37]
Kerry Firestone
I'd love to see $6,000.
- [28:38]
Scott Wapner
That you would. 5,100.
- [28:41]
Kerry Firestone
Yeah, it's been a great stock. In fact, we sold a little bit of it. I talked about it a month ago because, you know, the travel business has been fantastic since we came out of COVID Do people have enough money to keep spending at the pace that they have? That's debatable. We still like it. We still own it. Love to see 6,000.
- [29:00]
Scott Wapner
Do you have any anecdotal things you want to talk about of anybody?
- [29:03]
Josh Brown
I do.
- [29:04]
Scott Wapner
Booking their dream train, taking the train.
- [29:05]
Kerry Firestone
Back to Boston later.
- [29:07]
Josh Brown
Yeah, I do. This, this and every this and Every other travel stop now has the same chart which is a rounding top. And this is now below both its 200 day and it's 50 day. And it looks like a lot of hotel chains and a lot of airlines. And I think the travel comps going going into next year pretty much impossible for any of these companies to be putting big year over year numbers up. So I'd be really careful buying, buying into these downtrends for the time being.
- [29:33]
Scott Wapner
Your reaction to that?
- [29:35]
Kerry Firestone
He's got a point, right, Josh? Always his point. But as I said, we, we sold some of our position. We still believe in the stock longer term. If it has a tougher year next year, I don't think it's the end of it.
- [29:46]
Josh Brown
Up high, Firestone.
- [29:47]
Kerry Firestone
Yeah.
- [29:49]
Scott Wapner
All right. Rocket Companies initiated Outperformed 25 bucks at Oppenheimer today. They say it represents the best way to invest in residential real estate as rates fall and drive refinance demand. Josh Brown owns that name.
- [30:02]
Josh Brown
People don't understand it's going to hit them over the head like a hammer the minute we start to see a lot of the enthusiasm of the stock market all of a sudden transfer to the real estate and housing sector as rates come down. Depending on pace of rates coming down is painfully slow. And mortgages don't trade off of fed funds rate overnight money. Mortgages trade on the 10 year that's coming down even slower. So that's what's holding up this moment where all of a sudden homes become sellable again and that market redevelops. But when it does, it will become apparent the acquisitions that Rocket has made, the mousetrap that they have built represent the first ever version of a soup to nuts full funnel housing market purchase experience on one app. And I think they take, I think they run away with it. So that's the bet that I'm making here in Rocket. I'm not trading and I'm investing.
- [30:55]
Scott Wapner
All right, I want to see what Jenny's got for me on Verizon. The target set at 49 bucks. It's a buy at Argus. There's announcement today or the Wall Street Journal anyway is reporting that they're going to cut around 15,000 jobs. You own the stock. You know a lot of people make phone calls. They probably have Verizon as their service on their phone. What do you got about this stock?
- [31:15]
Jenny Harrington
Okay, so first the numbers are compelling like we've been talking about all day. It trades at about 9 times earnings, has a 7% dividend yield. So that alone works for me. They Bought Frontier, which helps them move into the suburban areas in a really like strong competitive way with respect to the job cuts. It reminds me of what happened at UPS last month where UPS cut 48,000 jobs. And it's one of those things where as a human versus a portfolio manager, you have a conflicting thought, which is as a portfolio manager, fantastic. That drops to the bottom line. I think there's been a lot of over hiring, over capacity over the past four years and so we're seeing that. I don't think this is really AI related in any way from a human perspective. When you keep seeing these job cuts and you think about 15,000 people who are going to need to figure out about paycheck in the next few, few weeks, months, 48,000 ups, it gets a lot harder. That might not be so economically great on the broader picture. So when we think about consumer names, then I trickle into that and start to worry that people are losing their jobs and it's tough quickly. As a portfolio manager, super compelling.
- [32:16]
Josh Brown
Stock's been $41 per share since 1998. When I was listening to again, Tonic.
- [32:22]
Jenny Harrington
Here we go.
- [32:23]
Josh Brown
I'm just saying what breaks it out of this paradigm.
- [32:26]
Jenny Harrington
We've talked about this so many times. Your starting point, pull the 30 year chart. Okay, but here's the thing.
- [32:31]
Kerry Firestone
Has a 30 year chart.
- [32:32]
Scott Wapner
We have a 30 year chart, but.
- [32:33]
Jenny Harrington
Did you buy it?
- [32:34]
Scott Wapner
Guys, we have a 30 year chart.
- [32:35]
Jenny Harrington
Did you buy it 30 years ago?
- [32:36]
Josh Brown
If I did, if I did, I would have underperformed the checking account.
- [32:39]
Jenny Harrington
Okay, how about this? How about simple compounding? Even if the shares stayed at 71, at $41, which they will, and you got 7%, you're doubling your money every 10 years with a tax favorable advantage to the income.
- [32:51]
Josh Brown
Does anything, does anything break this out of that paradigm and make this a stock worth owning?
- [32:56]
Jenny Harrington
I mean, I've said this all along in my dividend portfolio. I look at it as better than a bond and as a stabilizing, hey, it's going to be there through everything. I don't know, it's tough. You know, maybe if we continue to see this rotation and people start to say for something that has single digit earnings growth trades at eight times, it deserves more than an eight or nine times multiple. It deserves a 10 or 11 that breaks it out. But I don't think there's any huge, huge growth profile.
- [33:19]
Scott Wapner
Was your, was the bam. Were you channeling Emerald or was that your version of a mic drop?
- [33:24]
Jenny Harrington
I don't know.
- [33:25]
Scott Wapner
You know Emerald.
- [33:25]
Jenny Harrington
You know, I know I know. Bam.
- [33:29]
Josh Brown
That's not working for me.
- [33:30]
Scott Wapner
All right, let's get the headlines with Sima Modi. Hi, Sima Scott.
- [33:33]
Sima Modi
Here's a news update at this hour. Senior military officials reportedly briefing President Trump yesterday with the updated options for potential operations in Venezuela, including strikes on land. CBS News now reports reporting that the president has given military options for the coming days, but that no final decision has been made. Earlier this week, the USS Gerald Ford carrier strike group arrived in the region. The Trump administration just withdrew its application with the Supreme Court to block a lower court order that full snap benefits be paid. The court had originally extended a temporary ruling that allow the withholding of benefits while Congress worked to end the shutdown. According to the Agriculture Department apartment full benefits would be ready to be distributed today. And Robinhood reportedly teaming up with food and drink delivery app Gopuff so customers can withdraw cash from their Robinhood accounts and have it delivered to their door. That's according to the Wall Street Journal, which says it will cost $6.99 for the service or $2.99 if customers have more than $100,000 in assets. With Robinhood very.
- [34:35]
Scott Wapner
No cash delivery.
- [34:38]
Sima Modi
Yeah, well, you want it right away, seaman?
- [34:41]
Scott Wapner
Thanks. Well, you got, you got, you got to have something with that. You gotta have something with that.
- [34:46]
Kerry Firestone
I hope. No pennies.
- [34:47]
Scott Wapner
Gotta have something with that.
- [34:49]
Josh Brown
No, I, I, I'm gonna, I'm lay off. I'm gonna lay off. All right.
- [34:53]
Scott Wapner
You'll do your best. Stocks in the market. When we come back, the heaviest metal credit card of all time, rumored to be one of only 18 in existence, plated with the very same tungsten that forged the international space station and wielded at business dinners like a samurai sword. It's a classic corporate power move. But the real power move, having end to end visibility on your most critical shipments. FedEx. The new power move.
- [35:29]
Podcast Disclaimer/Announcer
CNBC's Changemakers 2026 list spotlighting women who innovate, lead boldly and are transforming business. Do you know someone who is rewriting the future? Nominate them now@cnbc.com changemakers.
- [35:58]
Josh Brown
All right.
- [35:58]
Scott Wapner
Josh Brown's best stocks in the market spotlight is shining brightly today. Let's do it on.
- [36:03]
Josh Brown
Well, we talked about energy in the A block. I think we did a pretty good job of covering the fact that those stocks were going up. And I want to show you one. This is ExxonMobil. Most of you have heard of this name. Here's what's, here's what's happening. There are some stocks that move very quickly back and forth. They're in an uptrend, they're in a downtrend. And then there are like oil tanker stocks that it really takes a lot for them to change direction, but once they do, they could run in that direction direction for a long time. And you want to be on the right side of that trade. ExxonMobil has been consolidating since 2022 around these levels and is now hitting the upper end of that range. $125 per share would be the real trigger. I'm actually making the case that investors can anticipate that breakout getting long here. I think you're buffered to the downside by two things. Number one, the dividend yield, but number two, very low end expectations. This is a really interesting scenario judge where the fundamentals for Exxon are now bottoming will be improving in 2026 based on what management said on Halloween when they reported earnings. And the technicals are lining up at the same time. So this is a company that returns a ton of capital to shareholders. They've gotten very efficient with oil prices down here where they are for an extended period. God forbid they get a little bit of of help from the commodity price side now that they've got their costs as low as they are. This could be an upside surprise after upside surprise situation going into 26, I think it will break out and I think this is one of the best stocks in the market for that reason.
- [37:36]
Bill Baruch
I would add that even though crude oil fell out pretty hard below 60 bucks, refining margins are improving drastically and diesel margins back to 2024 highs. Those are really great for names like Exxon. Also also into names like Marathon Petroleum.
- [37:51]
Scott Wapner
So Exxon is the one that you choose out of the group?
- [37:54]
Bill Baruch
Yes, we own Exxon. It's a core holding of ours right outside the top 10. I would. It's starting to wake up a bit. I see myself potentially leaning into this into the end of the year.
- [38:02]
Josh Brown
They also have a growth catalyst here with the Golden Pass LNG business, which they're partnered with the Qataris on. But this is export lng, which is obviously a growth of your business than just refining or exploration. But there's like a lot of things happening here that have been overlooked by the market because nobody wanted to talk about energy stocks and be in them. As I mentioned, the sector is starting to outperform. And as that process takes place, people will look at the blue chip names within the group like Exxon and maybe even do a double take on how low the expectations are going forward.
- [38:37]
Bill Baruch
Even SLBs off the lows.
- [38:39]
Jenny Harrington
So I, I want to say in our portfolio in the equity income strategy, I've got a 21% exposure right now to energy and part of that because.
- [38:47]
Josh Brown
That'S where I can find big dividends.
- [38:48]
Jenny Harrington
Yeah. And, but I also have it in there much more strategically and the strategic play is as there's data center build. This is an area that I know for sure will benefit. And so Josh, when you're saying 2026, I think the story for energy will be far longer than that. You know, maybe the next decade or so. There's a great book by Dan Juergen called the New Map and one of the things he says is as we enter the next decades, we need every bit of energy however it's generated. We need every bit of solar, we need every bit of wind, we need every bit of oil, gas, everything. The pipelines and the energy companies are going to produce it and bring it to those. This is one place you're going to make money.
- [39:24]
Bill Baruch
One more name in there.
- [39:25]
Scott Wapner
Very quick.
- [39:26]
Bill Baruch
Kendra Morgan to write off what she says. Yeah, we're about 7% energy. I love that name. They 40% of the natural gas that's consumed in the US goes through their, their, their pipelines.
- [39:36]
Jenny Harrington
They've got 79,000 miles of.
- [39:38]
Josh Brown
We're going to have to leave it there.
- [39:39]
Jenny Harrington
Thank you.
- [39:40]
Scott Wapner
I thought we made that obvious, but maybe not. We'll take a quick break. We'll stay in the commodity complex next because Bill Baruch has 1, 2, 3, 4 new moves to tell you about. We'll do next. All right, welcome back. Gold is nearing a new all time high yet again. So it was below 4,000. Now it's above 4,200. We have moves from Bill Baruch. You're buying. These are all new. No, not new. Core Mining's new gold. Royalty is new. Agnico Eagle is an ad and Kinross is ad as well. So why the new. Tell me about the new one. Core first.
- [40:27]
Bill Baruch
Core is new in our main portfolio and it is in addition to a 17 and a half percent now holding in our concentrated mining. Mining portfolio. Now they acquired new gold. New gold. This is why the stock sold off. And their combined free cash flow in 2026 is now going to be increased to $2 billion.
- [40:46]
Scott Wapner
New gold was a company.
- [40:49]
Bill Baruch
New gold was a company that they acquired.
- [40:51]
Scott Wapner
We said new gold. I mean I got new shoes. I mean, you know, so, so when.
- [40:56]
Bill Baruch
The efficiency that they're going to have as, as one company now is going to increase the margins, increase productivity and going to put them in that name of best in breed like an AEM or a Barrick. And so that's, we really like leaning into core here and what they're going to benefit from. Gold royalty company, it's, it's not a huge company but these royalty companies are undervalued right now. The valuation, look at that could, could really go up one and a half from one times to these things can go up 150% easily from here. And they own the mining 150%.
- [41:25]
Scott Wapner
Are you talking about the stock?
- [41:26]
Bill Baruch
The stock, yeah.
- [41:28]
Scott Wapner
After a 200% gain year to date, another 150.
- [41:31]
Bill Baruch
I think if these things come to life, the value, they're really being benchmarked to 30, 300 gold, $35 silver right now. And so if you start to see these levels because they, they own a lot of the assets and if you start to see these levels hold in the mine in the metal space, these things can go up quite a bit more. But yeah, we're, we're have a mining portfolio. What we're doing is getting cash to work as this pullback has happened. We think that this is a longer trend here.
- [41:56]
Scott Wapner
All right, well the market's listening to you. We'll see what happens. Bill Baruch, thank you very much. Santol is next. We are back on the have Senior markets commentator Mike Santoli joins us with his midday word. I'm not going to go out as far as to say the market is solely reliant on rate cuts, but if I tell you it's not happening in December, it's going to have an impact on certain parts of the market. I feel like that's in play today.
- [42:35]
Mike Santoli
It's part of it. Scott, I think that there is narrative static across a bunch of fronts. So one of them is, you know, we were kind of baking in a December rate cut and kind of with an economy that was holding up and that was going to be nothing but net bullish. And then of course you have an ongoing rethink of, you know, the trade and ROI and all those things, it's become a little bit less clean, at least in terms of perception right now. And I even think on the policy front, I mean we're sort of caught in between Queen, are we going to get a tariff ruling from the Supreme Court? What might that mean? So I think that that causes a lot of the hesitation now. It's netting out mostly today still as a, you know, beta and momentum sell off. That's mostly what's pressuring the big cap indexes. But you know that I'm not a believer that the market can just sort of seamlessly broaden and rotate and hold the indexes harmless over a long period of time. I think you kind of see that today. I mean, consumers outperforming industrials are okay. The equal weighted S And P is up 1% this week still. And yet you still see the damage on the. On the market cap weighted index level.
- [43:41]
Scott Wapner
All right, good stuff, Mike. Thank you. We'll see at 3. It's Mike Sentoli. Finals are next. All right, let's do some final trades. Jenny Harrington, you're up first.
- [43:56]
Jenny Harrington
Okay. Kimberly. Still oversold after the Canva announcement. 15 times earnings, 5% yield.
- [44:01]
Scott Wapner
All righty. Thank you very much. Thermo Fisher. Who's that?
- [44:04]
Bill Baruch
It's me. TMO is driving this health care move here. I think it keeps on going, gets out above 600 and could really get breakout territory.
- [44:13]
Kerry Firestone
Wabtech's mine infrastructure Play rails Rapid transit sells below market multiple.
- [44:21]
Scott Wapner
Thank you, Berkshire Hathaway.
- [44:24]
Josh Brown
That's me back on the upswing after a whole slew of Wall street commentary. This name is trading higher in a red tape, and I like it.
- [44:32]
Scott Wapner
Okay, this looks like it's shaping up to be one of those days. A lot of red on the board right now with a few hours of trade obviously still to go. The Dow Jones industrial average is down about 500 points. The 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.
- [44:56]
Podcast Disclaimer/Announcer
All opinions expressed by the Halftime Report participants are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBCUniversal, their parent company or affiliates, and may have been previously disseminated by them on television, radio, Internet, or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or 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 halftime reportdisclaimer.
- [45:35]
Josh Brown
CNBC Sport on the Record, your front row seat to sports and business. From commissioners and owners to media executives and top athletes. Athletes.
- [45:43]
Jenny Harrington
These are Rembrandts.
- [45:45]
Scott Wapner
I'm telling you.
- [45:45]
Mike Santoli
These franchises on the record.
- [45:48]
Josh Brown
All new Saturdays, three Eastern.