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Halftime Report
Reaction to the DOJ Probe of Fed Chair Powell 1/12/26
00:44:15
Scott Wapner and the Investment Committee react to the DOJ opening an investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell. CNBC’s Eamon Javers joins us with the latest out of Washington. Plus, the desk shares their latest portfolio moves. And later, we hit the latest Calls of the Day. Investment Committee Disclosures
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Narrator/Commercial Voice
What does it mean to live a rich life? It means brave first leaps, tearful goodbyes and everything in between. With over 100 years experience navigating the ups and downs of the market and of life, your Edward Jones financial advisor will be there to help you move ahead with confidence. Because with all you've done to find your rich, we'll do all we can to help you keep enjoying it. Edward Jones Member SIPC not every sale happens at the register. Before AT&T business Wireless checking out customers on our mobile POS systems took too long. Basically a staring contest where everyone loses.
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Bryn Talkington
It's crazy what people will say during an awkward silence.
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Narrator/Commercial Voice
Now transactions are done before the silence takes hold.
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Bryn Talkington
That means I can focus on the task at hand and make an extra sale or two. Sometimes I do miss the bonding time.
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Narrator/Commercial Voice
Sometimes.
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Scott Wapner
AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything. I'm Scott Wapner and you're listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast the most profitable hour of the trading day. We record this live weekdays at 12 Eastern. Listen in. Carl, thank you very much. Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner. Front and center this hour the Fed chair under attack, what it means to this record setting rally. We will of course discuss all of this with the investment committee. And joining me for the hour today, Joe Terranova, Amy Raskin, Steve Weiss and Bryn Talkington. We will go right to the markets, give you a look at how we look on Wall Street. 12 noon in the east and we'll turn around a bit. Obviously Joe, we opened negative probably related to this DOJ probe of the Fed chair and we'll get into all of that in a minute. But the markets come back a bit and we are positive in almost all areas. But the, but the Dow, you know we've been at record highs.
- [01:56]
Dom Chu
We have.
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Scott Wapner
You want to me how you're thinking about this news as it relates to the market which right now just appears to be attempting to look past it.
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Joe Terranova
I think it was a derivative trade. Last evening if you were trading futures, you went short the nasdaq but you had to cover them by the time this morning opened because that's when the real vital signs of the market you were able to check in on them. The bond market has remained calm. Overseas markets have remained calm. We're seeing again this morning that the buying is showing up in the Russell which is approaching another all time high. Semi equipment names whether it's Lam Research, Applied Material, KLA Corp. They are approaching new 52 week highs. So I don't See anything within the market that is reversing what has been the trend early so far in 2026 and really the trend coming into 2026 from 4Q25.
- [02:53]
Scott Wapner
Amy, you know the streets weighing in on, on the events of last evening. Raymond James says we do not anticipate a prolonged market impact. Wolf agrees. It's not clear. This really changes the picture. TD Cowan suggests that this probe could hurt housing and slow bank deregulation. But the market seems to be voting with those first comments that I made. That just doesn't really do much to change the picture. How do you see it?
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Amy Raskin
Kind of like everything else hasn't done anything to change the picture. Venezuela, you know, we keep getting these headlines about political actions and you know, people are weighing in, but for the most part the market has been just looking through them. And I think that continues because who knows what's really going to happen? Is anything going to come of this? I doubt it, honestly. So I think that's where the market's going.
- [03:44]
Scott Wapner
How do you think about it?
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Steve Weiss
I think that this way that the market has looked at all these points that have come up, the geopolitical risk that we keep seeing the US being much more aggressive and looking at them individually, discounting them individually. So I question when's the time going to come that they're going to look at him as a whole and say, hey, we've potentially got some problems here now in terms of Powell specifically, he's going to fight and he should, and he's going to stay there till his term expires in May. However, what it does at that point forward is perhaps troubling. Now this is a market that's waiting until the event actually happens. It's unwilling to take a stand on negative events and it's very optimistic, optimistic, optimistic on all events. To me that's a cautionary sign. That's not a positive.
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Scott Wapner
I mean, there is a belief obviously in the market, you hear it from executives privately, you see it from the stock performance that the so called good pushing stocks higher just outweighs any of this type of stuff. Whether it's, you know, telling defense companies you can't buy back shares or telling private industry you can't own houses or you know, this thing with the Fed chair or any number of other things that have happened. The good that's out there, the deregulation, the animal spirit stuff, the effects of the big beautiful bill filtering through what's going to happen with corporate earnings is just far more powerful than any of this. Other stuff. How troubling to some.
- [05:18]
Steve Weiss
It may be for today, that's correct. But it goes back there. They're basically the bears are coming to a gunfight with a knife.
- [05:28]
Dom Chu
Right.
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Steve Weiss
And they're looking at each individual thing so we can get by that this thing would travel with, with Powell. That's never going to happen. The Fed's always going to be independent. So right now it's a glass half full market. I'm not saying that's going to change anytime soon. But it's a glass half full and I don't think it's, I think it's maybe even half full, half empty.
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Scott Wapner
Well, Brin, you look at the market activity since the start of the year, it's clearly a vote that it is a glass half full or the market wouldn't look like it does. And the, the broadness that we've seen wouldn't look like it does either if the market didn't fully believe that.
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Bryn Talkington
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that, you know, you see it mostly acutely in small caps, as Joe had mentioned, and as we have a continued steepening of a yield curve, maybe we get a five handle on GDP next year. The consumer in aggregate is fine, whether the makeup isn't so fine, but the consumer in aggregate is fine. And then earnings are going to be what, 12 to 14% are the estimates, you know, really across that. So I think, you know, the majority of those earnings estimates once again are coming from tech. But I think this catch up, catch up trade, you know, has legs. We have rsp, which is, which has done well this year. And I think that what, to me, what's been so important is like this morning the NASDAQ was down in the futures almost 2%, 80 basis points and now it's up about 30 basis points. It shows you the strength of the market to be able to shrug off, shrug off this. And if you think about it, not just Venezuela, clearly, you know, Powell and the DOJ is, is disturbing and probably a big waste of taxpayer dollars. But also you have Iran and that that is clearly boiling up and that the market continues globally to go higher tells you that people are looking past these real events. They're not just headlines. These are real events that are occurring that we've been able to be very strong, not only in tech, but to your point, much more broader, not only in the US but overseas as well.
- [07:36]
Scott Wapner
Not to mention Joe, you know, Fed independence has always been viewed as, as so sacrosanct that you know, some would suggest that this fully makes the ship has sailed on that issue.
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Joe Terranova
Okay.
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Scott Wapner
But the other side of that too is that the market expects rate cuts. And you know, whether this impacts that in any significant way. Some are suggesting that it actually hurts the cause of the administration if they want rate cuts. Otherwise others would say where you're going to get rate cuts nonetheless, which is another reason why the S and P looks the way it does rather than falling off of a cliff on this news and notion that what has been so sacrosanct for so many decades is fully gone.
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Joe Terranova
I last sat with you on Wednesday. Since Wednesday, monetary policy has gotten easier. Why? Because the President went out and announced, Fannie and Freddie, I want you to go buy $200 billion worth of mortgage bonds. That's unprecedented. That's monetary policy getting easier. I think you have to look at all of this collectively and Steve makes some really good points on a reckoning moment at some point in the future. But when you're managing the portfolio, you're always saying to yourself, where does the risk kind of fall apart? And Scott, right now you have the ability, with very low volatility, you have.
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Scott Wapner
The ability to hedge.
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Joe Terranova
The hedge really right now is in the precious metals market. If you're troubled about all of this, you're out there. You're buying gold, you're buying silver, which is up another 8% today. And guess what, you're able to hedge and get paid on it. So you're comfortable sitting in your portfolio positioning, awaiting what Steve anticipates at some point in the, who knows future, the reckoning.
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Scott Wapner
Why does Steve buy. Wasn't it the gold the other day? Yeah, I mean, hello. Why do you think gold is up the way it is? Why has it continued to go up today? Why is, let's put it back up. Why did some say, you know, you're heading towards, I don't know, 5,000? I think you're events like this that are deemed to be destabilizing, pushing the precious metal of gold in that direction.
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Steve Weiss
Yeah, look, I think there is protection being taken out. I also think gold is because some of the people that were hanging onto the dream of bitcoin and others being inflation hedges or stores of value, have seen lie pockets put to that, to that narrative. So you've had those go into gold as well. Look, you know, as I said right now, it's steady, steady as she goes. But at some point I do believe that there will be reckoning. And you know, it's interesting, Amy and I were talking about for the show, if, if people haven't read 1929. I'm only a third of the way through it. But I'll tell you there there are definitely, definitely similarities between them, which is high was a highly, highly speculative investing environment that led to the crash.
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Scott Wapner
Right.
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Steve Weiss
And we're seeing that kind of speculation.
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Scott Wapner
Let's let's go to Eamon Jabbers. He's at the White House with the very latest. By now, we all know, of course, about the probe. We've seen this unprecedented response from the Fed chair on video last night. What is the latest as you stand on the North Lawn?
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Eamon Javers
EAMON well, Scott, what we saw this morning is a powerful group of former Federal Reserve chairs and treasury secretaries, including Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen and Robert Rubin. They all released a striking joint statement this morning in defense of Federal Reserve independence and in opposition to the Department of Justice's criminal investigation of current chair Jay Powell. In it, they write, this is how monetary policy is made in emerging markets with weak institutions with highly negative consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more broadly. It has no place in the United States, whose greatest strength is the rule of law, which is at the foundation of our economic success. And a source familiar with the DOJ investigation confirmed to CNBC last night that it is being run out of the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia, which is run by U.S. attorney Jeanine Pirro, a longtime political ally of President Trump. Now, the president, for his part, told NBC News yesterday that he doesn't know anything about this DOJ investigation. SCOTT so that's where we stand as of this morning. I've asked the White House for a reaction to that statement from the former chairs. We haven't got a response from the White House just yet.
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Scott Wapner
He may he may claim to know nothing about it, but Eamon, what we've seen is that he expects this Department of Justice to operate in many different ways than traditionally it has in other administrations. Is that fair?
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Eamon Javers
Yeah. I mean, you talk about Fed independence. DOJ independence has been a long standing sort of rule of thumb or norm in Washington. The president does not operate that way. We've seen him give orders to Pam Bondi, the attorney general, over social media in the past. This president expects the DOJ to do what he wants it to do. And in this case, the president says he's not familiar with this investigation, but certainly a lot of his political allies are right. FHFA head Bill Pulte pushing for this argument as far back as last summer that Jay Powell had lied in his testimony up on Capitol Hill. Lying to Congress about course is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison if you're tried and convicted. And we see Jeanine Pirro now leading this investigation inside the Department of Justice. These are people very close to the president who are making the case or carrying out the investigation that something deeply untoward happened here. And overall you're looking at an effort that would end up putting the Fed chair in jail if it's successful.
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Scott Wapner
All right, Amy. And you'll keep us up on any other headlines that move. I know you will throughout this day. Thank you very much. It's Eamon Javors on the North Lawn. There is news too to report that according to a report, the president will interview Blackrock's Rick Reeder for the position of Fed chair this coming Thursday. So remember, he was part of that so called now Final Four. And Rick Reeder is going to be on Closing Bell with me this afternoon to which we will discuss that and everything else about these markets and the Fed and what he thinks about what is happening related to that institution. We should also get to this idea of what I believe I mentioned the credit card cap, right, Trying to cap interest rates for a year at 10%, something to which the president said the companies that don't do that will, quote, be in violation of the law. If they don't, there's no law to be in violation of mention that the credit card names are all down. However, as you see American Express being on this list, the worst of those performers down four and a half percent. The target today though was raised to 425 from 390. You own Amex. There's ownership here of MasterCard, Visa and Amex. You own both of those. You own Visa. What do we make of this?
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Joe Terranova
Well, Synchrony Financial is the one that's really troubling for us. It's a position in the Jyoti ETF and that's down about 8% today. What I think about this, as we look towards where the direction of this conversation is going to go, I think it's a, it's a warranted conversation for consumers. We need to have an educational process on the usage of credit. And when you're utilizing credit at 20%, the other side of that is credit availability. If you cap it at 10%, we all understand is going to be troubling. I think where the outcome on this actually lands. The president has said there's a January 20th deadline. I think you're going to hear that that January 20th deadline will be extended three to six months while the executives in the financial services industry work with the President on some type of reform. So when I look at American Express, I look at Visa, I look at MasterCard, I look at Synchrony, Finance, Financial, the positions that we're holding, I'm not highly motivated to say right now, okay, we need to neutralize those positions. I'd rather hear what happens with earnings in the next 10 days.
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Amy Raskin
So you think, I mean this raises a conversation that wasn't raised before. So I do think it causes some confusion and you know, people will look at the rates again and look at how high they are and ask questions. The networks, banks actually don't have lending exposure. So Visa, MasterCard are less exposed than an Amex or Synchrony or some of the other ones that are actually extending the credit. That said, this is all governed by state law. So there's, I not sure that this could actually be put into place. So but it does raise the, raise the stakes. And I would just say though also just back to our conversation about the markets in general. We're at 6970. We were at 6950 last October. So it, you know, we are making new highs and we are sort of moving up. But it hasn't been a rip roaring market really for the last few months. And I think that does say something especially when you have GDP growing really nicely, productivity very strong. So just, just something to think about.
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Scott Wapner
I think I was, you know, a little bit surprised, Brin, to hear the other day when Rich Saperstein was on with me on closing Bell that you know, he is factoring in this, you know, if you want to use the word interference or whatever from the administration in corporate affairs and how he's thinking about investing in certain types of stocks and certain sectors. I, you know, I always ask about energy. I'll bring that up too. It's this threat of punishing Exxon because Darren woods said Venezuela was uninvestable during this meeting in the White House on Friday, this public meeting to which the President said, quote, I didn't like Exxon's response. You know, we have so many that want it. I'd probably be inclined to keep Exxon out. This is what the President said aboard Air Force One on Sunday. They're playing too cute. So, you know, you threaten to keep them from doing business with because they don't agree with whatever strategy you would like them to do. And I really want to know as either money managers strategists or whatever, how much you're thinking about these types of issues when you're picking stocks. And what I've been told from all of you is a stock pickers market this year.
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Bryn Talkington
I think that's a really fair assessment that he made that. I mean, look at intel and you could say that the intel news is actually positive because why should we just give these companies money and not get anything in return? So I think you have to think those through. Absolutely. I mean, we had this with Biden and Tesla, right. Tesla wasn't even invited and just like kicked out of the meeting. I think this is a much more amplified version of that. Obviously President Trump tells us what he's feeling and how he's thinking. We get like play by plays on True Social. And so I do think in certain areas. And we saw this with the tariffs.
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Amy Raskin
Right.
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Bryn Talkington
I mean, I played Restoration Hardware when they announced the tariffs because I thought it had been overdone. And so I think you can look at it both ways. I think that when the Supreme Court comes out with their ruling on ipa, if they roll back some of those tariffs, which it seems the markets, the probability markets would say you will, you can actually profit off that if those companies like a Restoration Hardware and on, or Nike, which constantly talk about those tariffs, if that goes away. So I think there's both sides from a, from a long and a short side or just like to stay away side that you can think of as you're investing in these individual names. But you cannot ignore that. That would be remiss to completely ignore what the President of the United States is saying.
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Scott Wapner
Yeah. Hey, oh, by the way, JP Morgan report sports tomorrow. You're like 18 minutes in the show. You don't even get to the news, the big news of the week, because you're, you're dealing with all these other noisy issues that, you know, the market's trying to assess whether this thing matters, whether this thing's going to happen or whether this isn't and then how the market may react to it. You're in J.P. morgan. The large banks for the most part have had a pretty good start to the year. Not so much JPM like the others have. This stock's only up a half percent year to date. You know, Goldman's up six and a half. And that's the one we, we focused on a lot for the obvious reasons. But how should we be thinking about bank earnings in what is the beginning of what is expected to be a very strong earnings season, which is one of the principal Reasons why investors are as bullish as they are.
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Joe Terranova
High expectations in the money center banks for sure. Trading revenue to be very strong. Strong once again as it was in last quarter. The assessment on where we are in terms of the consumer and the economy I think is going to be important as well. But I think there really needs to be something particularly negative universally across the board for the money center banks, for me to look at the banks and say, okay, it's time for me to reconsider my positioning there. I think the positioning that I have in the banks is the right positioning and I would expect I'll carry that positioning through most of 2026.
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Scott Wapner
How you feeling about it? I mean your Goldman looks darn good. Obviously you're in JPM too. But as I said, Goldman has the one that's the real standout here.
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Amy Raskin
We trimmed these at the end of last year, which I think I talked about on the show. They've had a great, great run. Expectations were high. I didn't like how they traded after last quarter when they all beat by a lot and the stocks didn't react to it. Where actually we own more ex US banks than we do US Banks at this point and Santander. But those stocks have been phenomenal.
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Dom Chu
They have.
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Scott Wapner
But, but let me ask you this then because international markets have done have outperformed the US by the widest margin in an awfully long time last year. And that trade, that trade in many respects is representative of that. You do expect that to.
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Amy Raskin
I do expect that to continue. Stocks are still much cheaper and there's still more growth. I mean you started from a very low base, so you had a great year last year. I still don't think positioning has shifted. And last year really was the year to be outside the US as much as everyone talks about the trade, it was the ex US trade that really moved the needle last year really helped us from a performance perspective, I think that continues. Stocks are still much cheaper than in the US Credit still great and has room to grow. I mean we have room to grow in credit. And that's what I think the government's trying to do to try to get the consumer to take out more credit. Consumer seems very reluctant in the US it's happening more overseas.
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Scott Wapner
This other big story today, which gets pushed down for obvious reasons, but it's Apple picking Gemini to run its AI powered Siri coming this year, maybe not surprising to many. We'll ask Steve Kovac who joins us now of course covers this space and Apple so closely. What do we make of this announcement.
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Dom Chu
Yes, Scott Boyd is Gemini have all the the momentum behind it right now. So let me tell you what's going on here with this agreement with Apple, which by the way, pushed Google above a $4 trillion market cap for the very first time. So those Apple AI foundational models, those are now going to be based on Google's Gemini product. So Gemini is effectively going to be powering Apple intelligence and that new AI Siri update we're expecting to launch this spring. Now, to be clear here, this is not going to be running on Google Cloud like when you use the Gemini app. Instead, it's going to be running either on the Apple device itself, the one you're holding in your hand, or in Apple's private cloud compute. That means it's not using Nvidia chips, those private cloud servers, those use Apple's M chips. Those are the same ones that are in your MacBook. And this is also, by the way, a big hit to OpenAI and ChatGPT, which Apple previously said was the best AI model. Now, ChatGPT integration with Siri has not turned out very well, although that is expected to continue. It's still going to have that integration moving forward. But Gemini, like I said, it has all the momentum now after leapfrogging open air and performance last fall with that Gemini 3 launch. And look, there are high stakes here for Apple as well. It failed to get that Siri update out a year ago and really has to nail it this year. Not only that, it has to be extremely good and good enough to drive hardware upgrades so people can actually use this Apple intelligent system. But of course, the big question here is what's behind this deal? Which way is the money going? Is Apple paying Google to license Gemini or is Google paying Apple based on Gemini usage? Kind of like in their search agreement? Neither company commenting on how that's going to really play out. But you got to think that's going to be material here for investors over who's actually going to be benefiting monetarily from this whole agreement. Scott?
- [24:11]
Scott Wapner
Yeah, those are good points. I would suspect that we would learn the answers to that and those questions sooner rather than later, but we'll have to see. Steve, thank you. That Steve Kobach. Maybe you can make the argument, Steve, that this is more of an Alphabet story than an Apple story. It just continues to lend credibility to Gemini 3 and what this company has managed to do for a stock chart that looks like that. By the way, you know you already had Alpha Alphabet topping Apple in terms of market cap last week whether this pushes it above 4 trillion, I believe it did. Do we have that? Can we get the up to date on that for me please, just so we can see it? While I mentioned it, everybody on the desk owns Alphabet, so it's relevant to that conversation.
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Steve Weiss
Yeah. And so Alphabet and Apple have had a preexisting relationship and but Apple could have gone anywhere that, anywhere they wanted to power Siri just briefly pushed it.
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Scott Wapner
Over OR four, but it's right there.
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Steve Weiss
On the doorstep and they chose to go with Alphabet. So I'm actually surprised in this kind of market momentum market Alphabet's not up more. I'm also surprised a lot. No, no. I mean on this news. On this news it's had a great run and I'm surprised that Apple's not up more because it seems like they've finally come to grips with their AI strategy and said we're really going to outsource it. So I think the partnership may actually be deeper than what they announced.
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Scott Wapner
Well, because it's. Kobach said. Right. We, we, we need the details.
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Steve Weiss
Right.
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Scott Wapner
We, we need the financial details.
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Steve Weiss
Absolutely, absolutely. And Apple though has come down quite a bit from the highs. So that's why I'm surprised in particular that it's not not up more than this.
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Scott Wapner
Let's do this. Let's take a quick break. We're going to come back. Bill Baruch is going to join us because he has a number of moves, new ones that we want to document for you. We'll do that next.
- [25:59]
Steve Weiss
Foreign.
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Narrator/Commercial Voice
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- [26:32]
Eamon Javers
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- [27:27]
Scott Wapner
AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything.
- [27:45]
John Van Eck
All right, welcome back.
- [27:46]
Scott Wapner
I told you Bill Baruch's been making a number of moves, which is why he joins us now on the telephone. Thank you for joining us again. I'm going to start with this trimming more small cap etf, the ijr, which you made the point last week when you first told us about the move, that it had underperformed the iwm. Right. Small caps had done great. IWM had better reflected that than the ijr. So you were lightening up your position there and now you're doing it more. Just give us more information on that.
- [28:17]
Bill Baruch
Yes, we leaned into IJR and I think the small caps have had that risk on thrust. But the IJR underperformed, so we were very overweight. We're trimming this back to get back and wait for where our model traditionally is. So the other thing that really stood out Friday is the jobs report was not as bad as feared. And we're starting to see, you know, some idea here that's pushing back the rate cuts. And if we're not going to get the rate cuts front loaded in the first half of the year, then small caps cases is quite a bit weaker than it was say a month ago.
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Scott Wapner
I mean, are you painting this as more portfolio management or fundamental changes that make the story not as good as it was? Because it sounds like I'm hearing a little bit of both.
- [29:01]
Bill Baruch
I think this is, this is definitely more portfolio management. I think the small caps still have a case, but I think the money is better allocated elsewhere rather than being overweight. Small caps right here, right now.
- [29:14]
Scott Wapner
Like where then?
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Bill Baruch
So we bought I YM and talk about a big beautiful breakout. This is the materials etf and I like what we're seeing here. Now on the show last week as well, I talked about rebalancing our gold miners as well as our cef, the gold and silver physical etf. And there are miners in this etf, but you also have other things in the material space. You have chemicals, you have freeport. Macaron is also a top holding in there. So this is, this chart looks absolutely phenomenal right now. So we're dipping our toes in here. We got about a 75 basis point allocation and I want to increase, I want to be surprised to see a little bit of a backtest of this breakout and I want to continue to lean into this. I think this is going to be a great story for 2026.
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Scott Wapner
Okay, you bought Tesla. Tell us about that one.
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Bill Baruch
Yes, yes. So we did sell Tesla November 21st. I'll call myself out. You know it maybe wasn't the most opportune time to sell Tesla but we put the cash elsewhere like Micron and things like that. Now what Tesla's done since I exited, it was basically straight up and it shows. This is one of the greatest momentum stocks there are and there is some momentum behind it now. It pulled back last week after the CES conference when Nvidia unveiled their their open source autonomous platform. And now Tesla I think has a knee jerk reaction down and it tested a great level of support. A trend line going back about a half a year from to those lows. And what I really really like here is I think we're in a risk on environment. I think you need to own names that are going to help help stoke this breakout in the S&P 500 and I think Tesla, Tesla looks phenomenal for doing that right now.
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Scott Wapner
You just made a mistake selling it when you did that. That's the bottom.
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Bill Baruch
I did, I did. I called myself out about it but I had reasons to believe we repurposed the capital and things like Micron that are up 50, 60% since buying it. So I'll take it.
- [31:14]
Scott Wapner
Okay, that's fair. You sold McDonald's and you sold Workday. So we have a lot of conversation on this desk about software obviously. But give me the McDonald's, McDonald's one first. Why are you selling that?
- [31:25]
Bill Baruch
I like the name, I like the franchise model. I just think right now is not the time to own it in the portfolio. And I was trying to get cash from somewhere to buy Tesla. It was towards the bottom of our portfolio and a different environment maybe towards the middle of the year. I see me owning this again. I like the name but you know what? It had an attempted to break out and it failed. It's very lukewarm chart as for what Workday software's done fairly decent and I thought maybe we saw some tax lot harvesting in December for software see a bounce back. Even the mid caps and the small cap software names have done all right but Workday has not done what we've expected. Is actually really, really on the lows. Of over the past year, year and a half. And I'm fearful that it's going to break new lows. But also again, the capital is better put somewhere else and that's what we use to buy Tesla.
- [32:14]
Scott Wapner
All right, Bill, thank you. Appreciate that very much. That's Bill Baruch joining us to document the trades. I mean, it's a challenge with software, man.
- [32:20]
Joe Terranova
Software looks pretty lousy right now workday. Him selling out of it near a 52 week low is clearly understandable.
- [32:27]
Steve Weiss
Microsoft can't catch a bed. I mean it's just, it's just dead.
- [32:31]
Scott Wapner
I mean you have some select calls in the group that continue to like the Snowflakes and, and names like that. But I just can't get out of my head what Brad Gerstner told us, you know, a week or so ago. He looks at the list of the names that are down a lot and he said 90% of the ones that are down deserve to be down. That's a shocking statement when you, when you look at the declines in some very popular names and maybe at least in that investor's mind, they deserve to be there.
- [33:00]
Joe Terranova
The one that's interesting today, it's up two and a half percent. Is Oracle trying to make a little bit of movement above $200. Follow that one.
- [33:07]
Scott Wapner
All right, so we'll take a break. Come and come back next with your energy ETF playbook. Talk about the recent volatility in the oil market. ETF Edge. Well, that is next.
- [33:20]
Narrator/Commercial Voice
It's a new year, yet somehow our video calls still look like it's 2021. Same webcam, same flat energy, same missed opportunity. This year, upgrade your video with Airtime. Airtime camera gives you ultimate control over how you show up on video. Touch up your appearance, add some aesthetic pop or drop in quick visual gif reactions right in the moment. Make Airtime your default camera for zoom. Meet teams wherever you're on video and start standing out the moment you turn your camera on. Get it for Mac and windows@airtime.com that's.
- [33:49]
Joe Terranova
Airtime.Com before we had AT&T business Wireless coverage.
- [33:53]
Eamon Javers
Our delivery GPS wasn't the most reliable. Once our driver had to do a 14 point turn to get back on route.
- [34:00]
Bill Baruch
A 14 point turn.
- [34:02]
Eamon Javers
An influencer even livestreamed the whole thing. Not good for business. Now with AT&T business wireless routes are updating on the fly and deliveries are on time. And the influencer did get us 53 new followers though.
- [34:15]
Scott Wapner
AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything.
- [34:23]
Amy Raskin
We're back on halftime. Here's your CNBC news update. Police in Los Angeles said today they.
- [34:27]
Bryn Talkington
Are considering possible assault with a deadly.
- [34:30]
Amy Raskin
Weapon charges for a man accused of driving a U haul truck into a crowd of people demonstrating in support of the Iranian people this weekend. Authorities say he is in custody today and in the process of being booked. One man was treated at the scene for minor injuries. In a reversal from last week, a federal judge ordered an evidentiary hearing today.
- [34:49]
Bryn Talkington
To determine whether Luigi Mangione's backpack was.
- [34:52]
Amy Raskin
Lawfully searched during his arrest in December 2024.
- [34:55]
Bryn Talkington
She previously said such a hearing was.
- [34:57]
Amy Raskin
Unnecessary for the 27 year old accused of shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangioni's lawyers claimed the search, which found.
- [35:05]
Bryn Talkington
The gun allegedly used in the murder.
- [35:07]
Amy Raskin
Should be excluded because police had not yet obtained a warrant. And three time heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad.
- [35:13]
Bryn Talkington
Ali is being honored with a forever.
- [35:15]
Amy Raskin
Stamp for the first time ever. The postal service says the stamp will celebrate his athleticism, the activism outside the ring that made him a global, global cultural icon. The stamp will be available for sale on Thursday.
- [35:27]
Dom Chu
Scott?
- [35:28]
Scott Wapner
All right, Seema, thank you very much for that. Sima Modi. Now to today's ETF edge how to play the recent volatility in the energy trade. Let's get to Dom Chu as more for us today. Hey, Dom.
- [35:37]
Dom Chu
Good afternoon, Scott. So from Venezuela to Iran, energy prices have kind of boxed around some of these headlines. So how should energy ETF investors and the broader investing community respond? Joining me now is John Van Eck, the CEO of Vaneck Funds, which is maintains the OIH VanEck Oil Services ETF amongst others. Jan, this is a very interesting topic because a lot of folks out there are using these headlines to try to figure out how to invest or how to possibly capitalize on what's going on in energy vis a vis Venezuela, Iran, elsewhere. How exactly are people doing it?
- [36:09]
John Van Eck
Yeah, I think you have to look for the ETFs that have that are leveraged into the electricity trade, so meaning they are supplying electricity to the hyperscalers and they're therefore part of the trade. So we have an active ETF called Node, which is about half of its portfolios and Bitcoin miners that are leaning into that conversion, if you will, or using their their electricity capability. And then also people like Vistra and Chevron that are leaning into again, nuclear and electricity power.
- [36:41]
Dom Chu
Just how much are some of these major energy producers, whether they be electricity, oil and gas, how exactly are they trying to adapt or maybe evolve themselves to be better positioned for what's going to happen in the coming decades with regard to power needs?
- [36:56]
John Van Eck
Yeah, well, the bitcoin miners had weak financials, so they're selling their bitcoin and they're trying to partner up with hyperscalers for the money basically to upgrade for reliability purposes and extend the life of their electricity contracts. The other companies like Chevron are very interesting and they're just trying to add to, you know, the quantity of electricity supply.
- [37:19]
Dom Chu
And do you think that those oil majors are well positioned to do that, evolve into that kind of a role?
- [37:23]
John Van Eck
You know, I don't think it's really priced into the Chevron stock yet, per se. They, they say they're going to announce a big 2 1/2 to 5 gigawatt deal in the first quarter. So I think the stock market there is a little bit of wait and see. Just the last thing I'd add. What people are missing on the Venezuela situation is their neighboring country, Guyana, is getting offshore oil that's supposed to peak at 1.7 million barrels a day and Venezuela is only producing 1 million. So they're kind of missing. Wait a minute, their neighbor is actually on track to produce more. Same company, though, Chevron.
- [37:59]
Dom Chu
It's a lot more to this conversation. We're going to continue it, by the way, over at ETF. ETFedge.cnbc.com Jan is going to be joined by Jennifer Grancio, the global head of distribution for TCW and former CEO of engine number one. Scott, it's a great conversation. I'll send things back over to you guys.
- [38:17]
Scott Wapner
Okay, Dom, thank you very much for that. That's Dom Chu. Coming up next, calls of the day. One firm more than doubling its price target on one of Brin's biggest winners. Well, big winners. Anyway, we'll debate that move next. All right, we'll do calls of the day. Let's talk about Albemarle. Got upgraded today at Scotiabank. Brand, you own the stock? Well, the analyst had an 85 on it as the price target and they, they raised it today to 200. The only problem with that, of course, is that the Stock is at 167 and 70. Well, 168 now. Okay, what do you do with that?
- [39:17]
Bryn Talkington
Well, I mean, he's a little late to that party. So this goes into the camp of narrative.
- [39:23]
Scott Wapner
There's nothing left in the punch bowl. All right? The party's so over, it's like people are sleeping on the couch. Okay, I'm not saying the stock can't go up, but if you're late to the party, you know what I mean?
- [39:34]
Bryn Talkington
Yeah, so, so I've owned this for a long time. We've, I mean talked about a couple of years ago. I'm still down on the position and so just for commodity investors understand these are very cyclical and it's always different and there's always these long term macro viewpoints. But I think that I would, I would not be putting a new position on this. I'm still in it. We'll see where it goes. But I think that the lithium market was in a huge glut. We have a supply demand more balanced right here. So sure it could go to 200 but I don't think you're going to get another 70 plus percent year. And just remember the cyclicality of some of these, some of these like lithium are just incredibly, incredibly volatile.
- [40:21]
Scott Wapner
Yeah, I mean there is the move obviously from October 1st until today. So it's a catch up move quite obviously. Newmont, the target to 123 and 90 cents. Not 124, not 124. 123.90 and that's at Goldman Sachs.
- [40:38]
Steve Weiss
For the record I modeled it at 124 92.
- [40:41]
Scott Wapner
Well it was at 99.9, not 100 either. So you know we'd like to be precise at Goldman Sachs 123 90.
- [40:49]
Joe Terranova
Value of the US dollar continues to move lower.
- [40:52]
Scott Wapner
Silver.
- [40:52]
Joe Terranova
I think we're in agreement given the news that we, we've heard overnight that only adds to the significant downturn. I think it's about the commodity trade. I think it's about Newmont, I think it's about the SLV which is a silver etf. Silver really making a parabolic move. It's about Brin's Albemarle. It's about going other places like maybe Bungay, ticker symbol, big freeport, McMoRan. That's at a one year high.
- [41:16]
Scott Wapner
That target got raised to 67 from 48.
- [41:18]
Joe Terranova
At Citi reiterated from 48 67. Well that probably needs to go up a little bit more because I think twice that's a reasonable call but I.
- [41:27]
Scott Wapner
Would actually say it's going to 67.
- [41:29]
Joe Terranova
I actually think that's actually going to need to be raised into the upper 70s close to 80 because I think 2026 is going to be a year about commodities and a year about a lot of these commodity names.
- [41:39]
Scott Wapner
Do you think we should ask Bryn what she thinks about this?
- [41:42]
Joe Terranova
Absolutely, I think she, I think she's going to agree.
- [41:44]
Scott Wapner
Are you trying to steal.
- [41:45]
Joe Terranova
She's going to agree with me.
- [41:46]
Scott Wapner
Joe tried to take it but Brian, we're going to give it to you since you own it.
- [41:51]
Bryn Talkington
Yep. You know what, I've been in the stock for a few years and I've been very successful at selling calls that at 45 strike price because the stock could not get above that. It is clearly broken out. So as of the middle of February, I'm quite sure this will be called away. I do think the copper has so many use cases and after this long term base of not being able to break out above 45, very long term base, I think that, you know, maybe we get some digestion but I think this probably goes higher.
- [42:22]
Dom Chu
All right.
- [42:23]
Scott Wapner
Natera reiterated by 285 Canaccord Genuity. Amy, you own the stock?
- [42:28]
Bryn Talkington
Yep.
- [42:29]
Amy Raskin
It's been a great stock. It was $70 two years ago. It's now $230. So it absolutely owns the diagnostic MRD space preannounced this morning. Revenue up 40% year over year. Great long term play, cash flow positive. It A lot of good news is baked in but I still think it works from here.
- [42:50]
Scott Wapner
Okay, we'll step away real quick. We'll come back. Santoli's on the other side with his midday work. Mike Santoli's midday word is now our senior markets commentator joining us from back at hq. So I think it's pretty obvious to this point, Mike, that a re acceleration in growth or at least the prospects of in the hopes for along with a run it hot scenario as you talk about today in your notes, matters a lot more than attack the Fed, attack the credit card companies, threaten to punish Exxon and anybody else. It's just the market's just not going to deal with that until something related to it makes it have to.
- [43:35]
Joe Terranova
Yeah, I think that's generally the case, Scott. It definitely explains the general resilience of the market. This new year's bid that's in there, it's basically all about growth that's expected. It's not really about what's happening in the moment. We are going to get most likely another outperforming performing earnings season right ahead. Now look, the credit card stuff is hitting those stocks, right? So it's definitely the localized reaction to something that seems like it might be this ongoing job boning campaign or whatever else. My take on the Powell stuff and the hypotheticals about Fed independence is if the bond market was not going to get alarmed by this and have yields break out of their range, then the stock market wasn't going to rush to a point where it felt like it had to panic. I'd also point out that it seems as if there's a perception after the immediate reflex headlines that the guardrails are going up. Right. You get some resistance in the Senate. The president doesn't even claim he knew about this investigation. So I don't know that the market perceives the stakes in terms of the immediate path of rates or even the next Fed chair are particularly high or at least not in a way they can quantify right now. So I do agree with that. It is still mostly about resilience based on cyclical enthusiasm. We'll see. We're coming up against these round numbers. You've Talked about that 7,000, 50,000 and all the rest. So there could be any excuse to cool off. But right now we're not getting a big one.
- [44:56]
Eamon Javers
All right.
- [44:56]
Scott Wapner
We'll see at three. Closing bell. Michael, thank you. Mike's in Toli finals. We'll do them after this break.
- [45:26]
Joe Terranova
Are you following the Halftime Report podcast? What are you waiting for? Look for us in your favorite podcasting app. Follow the Halftime podcast now.
- [45:42]
Scott Wapner
All right, Blackrock's Rick Reeder, he joins me today, 3:00 Eastern Time. It said that he's going to have his interview for Fed chair this week, which means we'll talk to him about that. We'll talk to him about the attack on the Federal Reserve. We'll talk to him about what's happening in the market, markets. We'll also talk to Richard Fisher, the former Dallas Fed president, because he is going to join me, too. We're excited to have him. Adam Parker, Anastasia Amoroso, Glenn Kacher is going to tell us what he thinks about this tech trade, which is not off to a great start. He obviously is pretty heavy in that area of investing and he will join me and I hope all of you will as well. Bryn, talking to your final trade is what?
- [46:23]
Bryn Talkington
Capital One, I think it's over, overdone, low probability. Anything gets done. Richard Fairbank, founder, CEO, Complete Rock Star. 50 and 30% revenue and earnings growth this month when they report earnings.
- [46:34]
Scott Wapner
Okay. Thank you very much for that.
- [46:36]
Steve Weiss
Stephen Weiss, UnitedHealth is down on news coming out of the Senate. They are aggressively in charging. It's old news and I think it's an opportunity to buy it.
- [46:44]
Dom Chu
Okay.
- [46:45]
Amy Raskin
Ames General also down on JP Morgan News, but I like it long term and and it's in the middle of a nice recovery.
- [46:52]
Scott Wapner
Gee, Joe, I wonder why you're picking Ali.
- [46:54]
Joe Terranova
Bob at some 10% yeah, it's September. See you figured that out. Up 10% use a 148 stop on it.
- [46:58]
Scott Wapner
Alright, 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.
- [47:12]
Narrator/Commercial Voice
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 halftimereportdisclaimer USAA knows dynamic.
- [47:47]
John Van Eck
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- [47:50]
Dom Chu
And Sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With usaa, you can bundle your auto.
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Scott Wapner
And home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and.
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John Van Eck
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