Narrator/Commercial Voice (4:18)

Mr. President,

Moderator/Interjector (4:21)

last minute.

Scott Wapner (4:21)

Mr. President, you said.

Donald Trump (4:22)

Thank you, Mr. President. The treasury secretary this morning said there

Eamon Javers (4:24)

were defections among Iranian leadership.

Scott Wapner (4:26)

Are you aware of that and is

Eamon Javers (4:27)

there anybody the US can work with

Scott Wapner (4:29)

as a leader going forward?

Donald Trump (4:30)

Well, we have a man named the treasury secretary here, so maybe he wants to discuss it. Does anybody know, do you know who he is? Central casting, Ed.

Mike Santoli (4:43)

We are seeing the defections at all levels as they're starting to sense what's going on with the regime. It doesn't get reported here in the US Very well, but we are trouncing them from the air and the regime will probably collapse within itself. At treasury, we've seen where they wire

Scott Wapner (5:01)

their money out of the country. We're coming for that.

Mike Santoli (5:03)

We're going to get it back to the Iranian people.

Donald Trump (5:06)

Mr. Defections. Israel, there's a lot of military defections also. You have a lot of military defections in Iran. I don't, hey, I don't blame them. Thank you, Mr. President.

Scott Wapner (5:17)

You talked to Prime Minister Netanyahu about attacking the oil and gas fields?

Donald Trump (5:21)

Yeah, I did. I did. I told him don't do that. And he won't do that. We didn't discuss. You know, we do. We're independent. We get along great. It's coordinated. But on occasion he'll do something and if I don't like it, and so we're not doing that anymore. And the last one, if I could.

Scott Wapner (5:39)

The Fed chairman told me yesterday that

Eamon Javers (5:41)

he plans to stay until a new Fed chairman is confirmed.

Scott Wapner (5:45)

And he also plans to stay on

Eamon Javers (5:47)

the board until the investigation is done.

Donald Trump (5:49)

Well, he's under investigation because he's building a building for hundreds of billions of dollars more than it's supposed to. Cause the building you see over there is under budget and ahead of schedule. That's the ballroom. The ballroom is a much bigger building. It's a much more complex building than what he's doing, and it's at a fraction of the cost. Something is going on, whether it's contractors. That's what I do best in the world. I build. I build great buildings. I've always done it. And I build them under budget and ahead of schedule. They could have $4 billion. This is a renovation job for $4 billion. And if you look at the building, it's not even. I don't know if Kevin Wash is ever going to be able to move into it. It's been under construction for years. It's the most expensive building ever built. Now, I know it's gross incompetent because I happen to think he's grossly incompetent today. Certainly you should be lowering interest rates. All right? Certainly. Who would not lower them? But he's stubborn and he's got Trump derangement syndrome. But a lot of people have that. You know, it's not a curable disease. But. But he's also building. He should be lowering rates immediately, but he won't do that because he's. He's a stubborn, incompetent person. And that's a bad thing. You know, when you're stubborn and incompetent, I think it's the worst combination. And he's also not a smart person. But he's building a complex over there that's under his jurisdiction. He started it, and it's out of control. It's billions of dollars for a little building. I could have done that building and made it beautiful for $25 million. 25 million, and it would have been beautiful. Look what I've done at the White House, fixing it up. And I mean, the place was in bad shape. You see the floors and everything. It was in Bad shape. I could have. I could have made that building beautiful for $25 million. They're spending $4 billion. All right, so it's. There is criminality. Maybe it's with the contractor, but. Because I know more about contractors than any human being maybe that's ever lived. But that contractor is a very rich man. Whoever the contractor is that we know, but whoever the contractor is, is an extremely rich man. He's going to make. I mean, he could make billions of dollars. I don't. I'm hearing numbers from 3 to 4 billion dollars that would make it the most expensive building on a square foot basis ever built in history. And you're not even building a building. It's a renovation. The exterior skin is staying. The steel is staying the structure. So all I want to do is bring out to the public that this guy is an incompetent. He's a very incompetent guy. And he may be a dishonest guy, but somebody is dishonest because there's no way that building could be three to four billion dollars.

Narrator/Commercial Voice (8:53)

Mr. President, on the straight afford. On the straight of four minutes.

Donald Trump (8:57)

Thank you, please.

Moderator/Interjector (8:59)

Mr. President, you just mentioned Japan.

Donald Trump (9:01)

This looks like one of your papers right here. Thank you. Is he good or bad? Is he a good reporter or bad? You know, so.

Eamon Javers (9:09)

So.

Donald Trump (9:12)

All right. Looks like it. Go ahead. Mr. President, you just mentioned Japan is stepping up. What kind of this happens do you expect from Japan in the future? Look, I expect Japan to step up because, you know, we have that kind of relationship and we step up at Japan. We have 45,000 soldiers in Japan. We have. We spend a lot of money on Japan. So. And we've had that kind of relationship. So I expect. I'm not surprised that they would step up. We don't need much. We don't need anything. I mean, honestly, we don't need anything from Japan or from anyone else. But I think it's appropriate that people step up. In the case of Japan, I hear they get more than 90% of their oil through the. The Strait. So that's a big reason to step up. I mean, we've. We've demolished. That country is close to demolished. The only thing is the strait. It's very hard. You could take two people and they could drop little bombs in the water and they're holding things up. We don't want that to happen. But honestly, Japan, China, Europe, parts of Europe get a lot of their oil through the Strait. We get none of them practically. We're less. We're less than 1%. We don't have to be any percent. We don't even. I think we do it just to be nice. But we think of it, we don't use the straight. We're defending the straight for everybody else. And then in the case of NATO, they don't want to help us defend the strait and they're the ones that need it. But now they're getting much nicer because they're seeing my attitude. They're getting much nicer, but it's as far as I'm concerned, it's too late. You know, UK wants to send aircraft carriers now. And I said I want the aircraft carriers before the war. I don't want them after the war is won. They want to send me aircraft carriers after the war. There's practically nobody to shoot at them. You know, their missile count is down. Maybe you could discuss it by about 90 something percent. The drones are way down and the factories are being demolished. Maybe, sir, our missile missiles being shot

Eamon Javers (11:25)

are down over 90% since the beginning. One way attack drones down 90% since the beginning, which is a reflection of overwhelming firepower. But you mentioned the Most important part, Mr. President. Their defense industrial base. If you can't make more of it in the future, then you have a limited supply. And so we're going after all of their defense contractors that make all of their exquisite weapons, ensuring that, that even if they wanted to rebuild more launchers or more missiles, they couldn't in the future. And that's a level of devastation for their military that they've never seen before.

Donald Trump (11:55)

So we have. In literally two weeks, we've demolished their navy, their air force. All technology is gone, all communication is gone, and all of the leaders are gone. Other than that, they're doing quite well. Okay, how about one more question for the Prime Minister. For the Prime Minister. Let me pick a beautiful looking person from a beautiful person from Japan. A question for the Prime Minister. Go ahead. Me? Yeah. Oh, he doesn't believe he's beautiful. He's just. Of course. No, Japan and us are very good friends. But one question. Why didn't you tell us allies in Europe and Asia, like Japan, about the

Scott Wapner (12:44)

war before attacking Iran?

Donald Trump (12:45)

So we are very confused about we Japanese citizens. Well, one thing, you don't want to signal too much. You know, when we go in, we went in very hard and we didn't tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Okay. Why didn't you tell me about Pearl Harbor? Okay, right. He's asking me. Don't you believe in surprise, I think much more so than us. And we had a surprise and we did. And because of that surprise, we knocked out the first two days. We probably knocked out 50% of what we and much more than we anticipated doing. So if I go and tell everybody about it, there's no longer a surprise. Right? Okay, one more, One more. One more. One more. For the Prime Minister.

Moderator/Interjector (13:36)

Mr. President.

Eamon Javers (13:37)

For the prime Minister.

Donald Trump (13:38)

Are you going to. For the prime Minister. Yes, go ahead.

Scott Wapner (13:40)

For the prime Minister.

Moderator/Interjector (13:41)

Thank you very much. Japan's GJ Press Japan's biggest concern is China. Now they have given us export control and, you know, very harsh terms to criticize us. So could you.

Scott Wapner (13:57)

That's the president alongside the Japanese prime minister in the Oval Office, as you can clearly see, giving an update on the war, which he continues to call, as you heard numerous times, an excursion, a little excursion, said he knew oil was going to go up, said he thought it would be worse. He obviously continued his criticism of NATO. As for the war, I think it's going to be over pretty soon, said the president, that we are substantially, as he said, ahead of schedule. And then a familiar refrain in terms of the criticism of not only the Fed chair himself, but the building renovations, which are still the subject of that federal investigation. We'll bring in Eamon Javors now, who joins us live from our Washington newsroom. So what do you make of what the president had to say, Eamon?

Eamon Javers (alternate segment) (14:38)

Well, Scott, I was actually focused really on what Prime Minister Takeichi had to say here because the question is, you know, what is the Japanese and international commitment going to be to this coalition that might put together a naval force in the Persian Gulf? She had a couple of stark things to say at the top. She said that the global economy is about to experience a hit because of a huge hit, she said, because of this development that is the Iran war. And she says that she's brought specifically proposals to calm global energy markets. She didn't detail what those proposals were. So I think on the back end of this meeting, what we're going to be looking for is one, what are those specific proposals to calm global energy markets that the Japanese want to implement here? And then two, what is the Japanese military commitment going to be? I mean, the Japanese have been very reluctant ever since World War II to send their military around the world in any kind of offensive capability because of the signal that that would set and the memory of imper imperial Japan. This, though, because of the enormous reliance on oil from the strait for the Japanese, might be A situation where they feel they have to get involved. So watching the body language, the signaling here, a very warm hug from Prime Minister Takechi to President Trump at the beginning of this meeting out on the South Lawn. And then we'll see where we go from here throughout the afternoon.

Scott Wapner (16:00)

Still trying to sell this. It sounds amen as a short term by calling it numerous times a little excursion certainly implies that saying directly this is going to be over pretty soon, I think substantially ahead of schedule. And the idea that there are not going to put troops anywhere, even as you have the issue of the Strait of Hormuz still in question.

Eamon Javers (alternate segment) (16:24)

Yeah, the president said he's not going to put troops on the ground, but he wouldn't telegraph it if he was going to. I think the key thing to focus on is the money. You know, there are these reports that the Pentagon is asking for $200 billion in Iran war funding. The president was asked about that here, didn't dispute that number. He just said it's a small price to pay to make sure that we stay tippy top, that is in terms of military supplies and capability. So the president here, you know, seeming to endorse a large number for Iran war spending that signals, I think, you know, a more extended commitment than maybe some of his rhetoric might suggest.

Scott Wapner (17:01)

Okay, appreciate that from you. Eamon Jabbers down in Washington for us. We'll check the markets here. Welcome to the halftime report, of course. I'm Scott Wapner. We do have the investment committee with us today as well. Josh Brown, Shannon Sokotia, Malcolm Etheridge are all here at post 9. Let's check the market for you though. See where we are trading. We've been in this range for a bit now. Dow down almost 400 points. It's less than 1%. NASDAQ and the S and P are both lower as well as crude oil makes a move here. You almost, Josh, have a 20 point pronged problem for the market. Not only the move in oil. WTI probably doesn't best represent the jitters in the market just because, you know, Brent today topped 119. And then you have the Fed chair who is more hawkish than not and said inflation's not coming down as much as they, quote, hoped. The odds of a Fed rate hike by June are now higher than the chances for a rate cut. That's a backdrop. That's what you need to know. A hawkish Fed and oil that continues to go up and stocks as a result are uneasy.

Eamon Javers (17:59)

I don't often question the wisdom of the market. But I think in this case that's crazy. The Fed knows damn well there's nothing it could do with interest rates that would change the price of gasoline at the pump. It's, it's almost, it's almost an absurd proposition. So I don't believe that to be the case. I understand why the market believes that just looking at what oil is doing to the inflation numbers, what high gasoline prices are doing. But the knock on effect to the consumer is actually disinflationary, more so than it is inflationary. It is absolutely causing people to think twice about spending. And I think we're seeing that sentiment everywhere we look. So I don't believe it. The bigger issue for me is the state of the financials. They look absolutely horrible. The two year is up the most on the curve right now.

Scott Wapner (18:44)

Sure, 385 was what it hit earlier today. We can look at it as Josh is talking, I mean interrupt. But just to give context to that. Yields are definitely up, especially on the short end on the back of, of what Powell had to say yesterday and where the Fed seems to be positioning.

Eamon Javers (18:59)

Yeah, no judge, it's the right interruption because that's really the most important thing. This is the highest we've seen the two year since August of 2025. And in the meanwhile it almost feels like there's nowhere to, nowhere to hide. The last couple of days gold just broke down below its 50 day moving average. Metals and mining on the whole are. The stocks themselves are negative. The materials are down 2%. We've lost the homebuilders because mortgage rates are not coming down at the rate that we had hoped earlier this year. And now you've got 26% of the S&P 500 below the 50 day which is the lowest reading since Liberation Day almost a year ago. That is a two standard deviation below the mean and it's problematic. 52 week lows on the NYSE are now at 5%. That's the highest since November. So it's a risk off tape and we've lost a lot of the areas that we were using as sort of like all right, here's a little bit of a hedge or here's a little bit of a non correlated asset. People are just right now looking at a lot of these developments, looking at the bond market, looking at oil and just saying, you know what? I don't need to figure out the next thing I want to invest in right away. Let me move some cash to the sidelines.

Scott Wapner (20:06)

Jan, it's, you know, the stats Continue along the lines of what Josh was talking about. This was as of Yesterday, less than 30% of the S&P stocks are above their 50 day. It's the lowest since April of 25. So go back to Liberation Day to when the market really got upset and you had a number of stocks below their 50 day. So we're, you know, we're not looking great under the surface metals. Gold is worst week since 83. And Jonathan Krinsky of BTIG says buckle up that the 200 day moving average of the S&P 500, which is 66.15 looks unlikely to hold. We're below it now. Okay, so it's unlikely to hold. He thinks a move towards 6,000 has a decent probability that barring a close back above 6900, so that's a few hundred points higher from here that the bears maintain the upper hand.

Moderator/Interjector (20:56)

Well, I think one of the reasons that we saw this broadening out, particularly since August of last year, was this expectation of exceeding accelerating economic momentum. Part of that explanation was a continued accommodative monetary environment, not just here, but also outside of the United States as well. Josh already pointed to disinflationary trends and then there was also this expectation of improving margins due to the implementation of AI at this point. Several layers of that value proposition, if you will, in terms of the momentum of the equity market have been up since said we're, you know, we're not looking at potentially as much accommodation, we're actually looking at potentially more restrictive. We're already seeing some tightening financial conditions not just from yield, Scott, but from some of the carryover from what's happening in the private credit market. And then you look at the state of where to hide. I mean, with energy being the only sector that's positive this month, most investors are underexposed to the energy market based on its percentage in the S&P 500. And so where do you hide in this environment? You're still have this bit of this hangover from the AI disintermediation obsolescence argument. Now you get potential challenges in the Middle east. And if you're sitting in cash, you know, cash yields look kind of attractive right now, especially if they're not going to be moving lower. And so if you're, you're wanting to put money into a market that perhaps is reflecting more attractive valuations, you're feeling like maybe you have a little bit of time to do that given where

Scott Wapner (22:25)

yields are, you got a choice of, you know, Malcolm, wherever you want to Go. Because we've covered sort of everything that, that's, that's moving around. Dubrovco lacos over at JP Morgan's cut his S&P target to 7200 from 75 just to, you know, represent where sort of the risk factors are now and where sentiment seems to be and that the market in his mind is continuing to price in short, a short term, a quick end to what's happening in the Middle East. And he's not so sure, nor are other investors too. How do you see it?

Malcolm Etheridge (23:00)

I think those two things run together. I think you made a really good point about the 50 day moving average when you hearken back to Liberation day. But the 200 day moving average, which we've now fallen below, we haven't seen us breach that level since May of 2025, which was sort of the back swing from Liberation Day. And so I think that's meaningful here too because it shows just how much pessimism has just kind of come into the markets all of a sudden. I think it's also a little bit disappointing to the point that Shan's making about where we are because earnings were actually really strong in the first quarter. We, we blew out expectations by a wide margin for the majority of stocks that reported. And I think that's disappointing. Moving into a market that now is being uprooted by oil shock concerns. We're being uprooted by now, private credit concerns that already existed. Now there's even conversation, real conversation happening whether Josh likes it or not, about interest rate moves upward instead of downward. Like that's all meaningful for a market that was coming into the year celebrating how strong things look from a fundamental perspective.

Scott Wapner (24:01)

I mean, the kind of market we're in right now, look at Micron. Need you a better example than Micron today, which had a blowout quarter. There's no other way to say it. Now the chart's been a blowout for the last several months. So maybe that has more to do with this than anything else. But they had a blowout quarter and the stock is down. So in this kind of tape, similar

Eamon Javers (24:20)

to, similar to Nvidia couple of weeks

Scott Wapner (24:22)

back, and this is in a huge high flyer and the stock's down 5% on what I said was a blowout quarter by any, any estimation.

Eamon Javers (24:29)

Yeah. So I look, I alluded to the financials for a reason. I think that structurally they were extremely important to the bull market that we experienced in 2025. And I think from a sentiment standpoint, we can't afford to lose Them to the extent that we are, they're not as big as tech, they're not as big as consumer discretionary. But when traders, when investors think about the lack of follow through from the financials, it just makes them second guess all of the other rallies that we had been seeing and now that lagging performance has actually turned into detracting performance, these stocks are very important. Capital One Financial is down 26% year to date. That very rarely happens outside a much bigger disturbance in the financial system. Wells Fargo is in a 20% bear market. Prudential not far behind. The breadth of poor performance in the financials is 100% creating a psychology problem. Amongst the bulls, out of 70 financial stocks that are in the S&P 500, literally only five of them are up this year. Only five. And they're not necessarily the five that you want to see. CME and CBOE, which are two companies that thrive on market volatility. Interactive Brokers up 5%. Then you've got CB and Travelers and that's it. All of the other financials are in the red and many of them substantially so.

Scott Wapner (25:50)

The last.

Eamon Javers (25:50)

How do we get a bull market going with, with these companies so deep in the hole?

Scott Wapner (25:54)

We've discussed this so many times that until you get the big banks to stabilize, in some respects the market is going to be on shaky footing. Over the last month, all of the big banks, Citi, JPM, Citi and JPM down 6 and 7% respectively. I go down the list and the losses are even greater than that. B of A Goldman and Wells 12, 13 and 14% respectively there. Jonathan Krinsky again Malcolm opining on this says there's little evidence that the downtrend is over. So what do I do with that?

Malcolm Etheridge (26:26)

I don't, I don't disagree with that. But I do think we're in an environment now where net interest margin matters less for the big three. Goldman, J.P. morgan and Morgan Stanley. I think that we're in an environment that is ripe for IPO activity. We've got three blockbuster IPOs set to happen at some point this year, presumably between Space X Anthropic and OpenAI. I think all of those will be additive to the overall and I think regardless of how interest rates move throughout this year, those three are going to participate in just about every single big M and A transaction that we see this year. So there's still opportunity for them to finish the year strong even if the entire sector doesn't actually go in that.

Scott Wapner (27:04)

So you, you bought Goldman?

Eamon Javers (27:06)

I did.

Scott Wapner (27:06)

Is That a new buy?

Malcolm Etheridge (27:07)

Yeah, it's a brand new buy for me. I'd been wanting to complete that trifecta I just mentioned for some time, but Goldman was the strongest one among the three and the price really wouldn't come down from the nines.

Scott Wapner (27:16)

Well, it did.

Malcolm Etheridge (27:17)

And so finally around 785, I got an opportunity and decided to start, start buying.

Eamon Javers (27:21)

I like the move I could because I don't think things are falling apart. And if they don't, capital markets and investment banking, M and A, all the things that Goldman does literally better than anyone else should continue to shine. I'll show you the anti Goldman. Give me a chart of Robinhood. Right now the stock is literally sitting on a breakdown level. You got to give me longer than that. Guys. This is in a 50% drawdown. You want to talk about an indicator of investor sentiment and I know there's a lot of crypto in here. Look at this level of support that Robinhood is been sitting on top of basically since the beginning of February. You don't want to see what happens if this breaks down. You could be looking at a $50 stock relatively quickly. That's concerning because I think that stock more than most others speaks to the risk appetite of the regular investor. The other name that.

Scott Wapner (28:13)

Hold on real quick. Let me just. I don't want you to get off that yet because this plays perfectly off of what you're just talking about. According to JP Morgan, retail money invested is down about 15% week over week and in total 43% retail money invested down 43% more or less since the start of the conference.

Eamon Javers (28:33)

It turns out people really love instant gratification when they put money to work and when they don't get it, the trend weakens or goes in reverse. I think that's what we're seeing here. We've had a very long run of people getting that instant gratification. I put $10,000 into the market, it's worth 11,000 a week later. Look what a genius I am. When that goes into reverse and 10 becomes 8, obviously you start to see that enthusiasm slow a little bit. I don't want to get, I want

Scott Wapner (29:02)

to get off the banks. Just, I want to give Shannon a chance to comment on it because you're. The same day that you get a big win for the banks, the new regulatory recommendations, you know, the requirements under so called Basel 3 are a huge win for the industry. You're, you're going to have much more lenient capital requirements. Presumably you can lend more, you can Give more money back to your shareholders. It's undoubtedly a huge win on something that the industry has been lobbying heavily for for a long, long time. How do you see that, that this

Moderator/Interjector (29:37)

last year this is all we Talked about was Basel 3 end game and the fact that, that we were moving away from that. And Scott, to your point and to Josh's point, you know, you get a reversal here in terms of the rate outlook and you go from even, you know, expectations of flat to a hike for the Fed and you go, you price back in one interest rate hike or interest rate cut, excuse me. You also start to see Freudian slip

Scott Wapner (30:01)

40 and you watch that, you watched that news conference a little too closely yesterday.

Moderator/Interjector (30:08)

I the other thing that I really think that, that Malcolm just mentioned is that there's a significant amount of capital market activity that's going to come in the second half of this year. We're already seeing a pickup in M and a transaction deal flow. Those haven't closed yet, Scott, but that is not going to last forever. And so these catalysts for the financials, I don't think we can put them to the side for this year. And I think that this could be an excellent, excellent opportunity if you're underweight in this sector to start dollar cost averaging into positioning based on the fact that there are some of these things that I think will become head or tailwinds once again. Coming from headwinds right now, what do you think?

Malcolm Etheridge (30:45)

I think that it also makes sense that we have to consider how many refinancings are going to come into the market very soon. If we do see a move in

Scott Wapner (30:52)

rates, you get a better, get a big move down in rates. And real quick.

Malcolm Etheridge (30:56)

Well, I don't mean residential real estate. I mean more from the commercial perspective. I think the banks are taking back some of these loans we've been asking questions about from the private credit market over the last year. I think that's probably going to pick up because a lot of investors are moving away from that space and so the capital available for it is going away too. So we're going to see more traditional lending pick up too. I think in the larger business segment if we do see interest rates become more.

Scott Wapner (31:24)

All right, let's, let's squeeze in a break. We've had some breaking news obviously off the top. We're 30 minutes in. Dow's down a little more than 300 still and we have a gutsy call today. For our call today, it's from Morgan Stanley and it is in one name that has been beaten down since this war started. We'll discuss that more. Josh Brown's Best stocks in the market too. Just ahead,

Donald Trump (31:53)

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Scott Wapner (32:48)

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Scott Wapner (33:40)

All right, welcome back. A30. Thought we would highlight what I think can be described as a call of the day. Even with no direct ownership on the desk, it's nonetheless feels like a gutsy call today for Morgan Stanley on Carnival Corp. The cruise line. They upgraded it today to overweight. It was equal weight. You know what's happened? Let's back that up a little longer. Let's go a little bit. You can see what's happened, I think to cruise lines like the airlines and other travel related names since the war started. A little further back than that, please. They say historically the best time to invest in travel stocks has been following demand shocks. So we'll work working on the chart. But yeah, okay, Demand shock stock goes down 20 down 20% year to date. Obviously the slide has been a little more dramatic since the war started. So buy it. What do you think?

Moderator/Interjector (34:30)

Well, there's, there's two sides to this argument. Number one, you know, we have seen periods where we anticipated, for instance, the sharp rise in interest rates to essentially Disarm the consumer entirely. And we didn't see that and we really didn't see a change in experience spending coming out of those interest rate hikes. The other side of this is that there is going to be an impact on non discretionary spending from at least even a short term period of higher energy prices. But Scott, this is, we haven't seen seen demand deterioration and travel despite compounded higher prices over the last couple of years.

Scott Wapner (35:04)

Yeah, but I mean you start to game it out, right? You're down 23% month to date on Carnival because obviously if fuel prices are going up, not to mention the psychological impact of traveling when you're having you know, a conflict like, like we are. But then the added input cost of rising fuel prices doesn't help these stocks.

Moderator/Interjector (35:22)

But there's a lot more, I mean if we're talking just about cruise lines, there's a lot of transportation transparency about forward bookings here too. So you know, I think that there is probably more so than what the airlines can estimate, you know, three, four, six months ahead of time. Cruise lines are benefit from that future booking scenario. I do think that the call is gutsy but if you look at consumer discretionary and you look at the pressure that it's been under, there is going to start to be some more interest in buying up some of these stocks that have, have proven to be where higher middle income and high income spenders have continued to track.

Scott Wapner (35:53)

Well, we'll see. You have, you have to see to, to what level oil prices get up to if they stay. I mean the commentary seems to suggest right here. Okay, deal. We can deal with that for, for a little bit. You start to get up to like 130 and even higher than that then you're going to start to have some demand destruction on the price of oil just going higher and higher. But I want to move on to Jefferies call today. They downgrade Kinsale Kids capital to a sell. It's underperform the target to 312 from 392. So back that up a little bit longer guys too if we can see the stock more meaningfully. Yeah, thank you. Down 15% year to date. You own it.

Eamon Javers (36:32)

Yeah. So this is a very niche business within the insurance industry. I've been in it for a little while. I've been adding to it on dips. This year has provided a lot of opportunities to add to it on diploma dips because it's been nothing but dips. I think this is mostly in line with the overall insurance Sector. These stocks had a really good couple of years. This is not their year. There are obviously technological concerns about some of these companies possibly seeing competitive threats from AI. I really don't believe it. In the case of Kinsale, not worried about it. And I think the valuation here is fine. So I would not heed this call. I am not planning to sell any of my stuff.

Scott Wapner (37:10)

Take a look at both Uber and Rivian, guys, if we could, because Uber is going to invest up to one and a quarter billion dollars in Rivian in a deal to launch 50,000 robo taxis. It's an interesting one. Josh, you. You own the name. We can take a look at the. I want to look at the reaction of both stocks, though, before you. Can we show that today? Is that a today?

Eamon Javers (37:31)

No, it's here today.

Scott Wapner (37:32)

Can we show it today, guys, on both of those names? That's what I'm trying to get out, please. So Uber's down. Uber's down, Rivian's up. There you go. Thank you very much on that. It's interesting too. Let me, let me just mention this because Megan Reader, one of our producers who follows the auto space with Phil Lebeau, points out that buried in Rivian's 8K today is the fact that the company says, quote, in addition, the company no longer expects to be adjusted EBITDA positive in 2027 due to an expected increase in R and D spend associated with the acceleration of its autonomy roadmap. There's an important point that Megan wanted to make sure that was mentioned. So we are. So thanks for flagging that for us too. What do you think?

Eamon Javers (38:16)

Yeah, there's a couple of things going on here. Rivian is investing in the autonomous future because literally what choice do they have? By 2030, most of the cars rolling off the factory floor all over the world are going to be autonomous ready. Part of that is because many of them will be working with the Nvidia's of the world. And there are other providers with the software, the chips that enable autonomy, and part of that's going to be consumer demand. Why do we still live in a world where there's the possibility of getting hit by a drunk driver? It makes absolutely no sense. All of these cars should have at least the capability to drive themselves. In the case of Uber and Rivian, Uber has said publicly it is not interested in owning fleets of autonomous vehicles as part of its strategy. That's what sets it in distinction from Tesla and Waymo. However, they are willing to use their balance sheet to kickstart an ecosystem where there are other providers beyond Waymo and Tesla. In the best interest of an Uber shareholder is for there to be a thousand companies providing autonomous vehicles into the marketplace. Uber benefits because they, they become the network that connects all of those fleets with the user. And I think this is just one more step in that direction. They stated a similar deal with Lucid a month ago, did a similar deal two days ago with Nissan. They are working with everybody to make sure that the autonomous future belongs on the Uber app.

Malcolm Etheridge (39:39)

I would just add to that really quickly that Rivian is also on already set to be helped out by the R2 rolling off the line. Right. It's going to be the lower cost option that gets to compete against like the Ford Explorer, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, things like that. So at a time when oil is spiking and there's probably going to be renewed interest in EVs, it's probably already a stock that's going to be on the move.

Scott Wapner (39:58)

Let's go to Pippa Stevens now with a CNBC news update. Hi there.

Pippa Stevens (40:02)

Hey, Scott. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said that the United States has high confidence that it knows where Iran is storing highly enriched uranium. Gabbard testified publicly in front of the House Intel Committee this morning before moving to a closed door session. The testimony comes as Iranian attacks on energy infrastructure continue in retaliation to Israeli strikes. Wednesday, Eli Lilly said its next generation obesity drug has cleared its first late stage trial on type 2 diabetes patients. The injectable drug helped patients lower a key measure of blood sugar levels across different doses at 40 weeks compared with the placebo. And it appeared to be more effective than other popular diabetes drugs and helping type 2 diabetes patients lose weight. And the 2026 John F. Kennedy Profile Encourage award will be presented to Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The John F. Kennedy center said Powell will receive the award for protecting the independence of the Federal Reserve. The people of the Twin Cities, Minnesota will also be honored this year. Scott, back to you.

Scott Wapner (41:02)

All right, Pippa, thank you. That's Pippa Stevens. Coming up, Josh Brown's best stocks in the market. He is focused today on an under the radar way to play the rise in gas prices. We'll reveal it coming up.

Eamon Javers (alternate segment) (41:15)

Before we had ATT business wireless coverage, our delivery GPS wasn't the most reliable.

Scott Wapner (41:21)

Once our driver had to do a

Malcolm Etheridge (41:22)

14 point turn to get back on route.

Moderator/Interjector (41:25)

A 14 point turn, an influencer, even

Eamon Javers (alternate segment) (41:28)

livestream the whole thing not good for business. Now with AT&T business wireless routes are

Scott Wapner (41:34)

updating on the fly.

Eamon Javers (alternate segment) (41:35)

And deliveries are on time. And the Influencer did get us 53 new followers, though.

Scott Wapner (41:40)

AT&T business wireless connecting changes everything.

Moderator/Interjector (41:45)

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Scott Wapner (42:16)

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Eamon Javers (43:07)

Well, we're going to talk about a store that I have never set foot in in my life. It's called Casey's General Store. Shannon is from New England. You've never been to a Casey's, have you? Probably not, Malcolm. Mid Atlantic region. You've never said. Okay, me either. Not important. This is a convenience store with a gas station. Bottom line is when gasoline prices go from $3 to $4, that is a 33% de facto uptick in revenue for the gasoline sales at Casey's. And this is a growth company even beyond that more recent catalyst that I think has been driving some accumulation into the stock. They're going to open 80 new stores this year on a net basis. They say they'll grow 8 to 10% in terms of cash flow this year as well. And I'm looking at this. Technically, guys, give me something a little bit. Yeah. So this is very simple. I think 600 bucks is a pretty decent line in the sand from a risk Reward standpoint for investors. That's where I would set my initial stop and then I would trail it. I would check back every Friday for the closing weekly price. So long as she stays above. I think this thing has potential to continue on this beautiful, almost pristine uptrend. You see how well it's obeyed that 200 day in the, in the recent past. No reason to think that that won't continue. And so long as we see these higher prices at the pump and I'm not hoping that they'll last long. This will be one of the names that I think remains in favor. There are a few others but this is a niche type of situation. Not many companies in the market beyond the energy sector actually benefit from from higher prices, but this one does.

Scott Wapner (44:45)

You actually have your eyes on another consumer facing name which hit a 52 week high just this Tuesday. And it is QSR which is Restaurant brands.

Eamon Javers (44:56)

So I haven't had a chance to write this one up but I probably will at some point. I want to give the viewers a little bit of a sneak preview on why it's on our radar. This name joined the best stocks in the markets list over the last couple of days. This one I've done a ton of due diligence on. It's Burger King Firehouse subscribers. Tim Horton. Stop laughing Shannon. Tim Horton. Which is, which is the coffee. Yeah. And it's also got Popeyes just in case anybody still had strong, strong buy

Scott Wapner (45:24)

at Josh Brown Capital Management.

Eamon Javers (45:26)

So. So this is a $25 billion market cap. Scott, I'll always remember what you just said. And you talk about 10 billion in revenue. They drop about a billion and change to the bottom line. But this stock is under accumulated institutional accumulation if you follow the 13F. It's not hard to understand why this is the type of stock that hasn't gotten that much attention in recent years. But it has been part of that rotation. Pershing Square is in here. Seth Klarman is in here. A lot of big names in the hedge fund world own the name. And the reality is that look, this is a QSR business. The ticker symbol is literally qsr. It's the type of stock that, that people are seeking refuge in so long as it's in this uptrend. And that's how it hit the best stocks in the market list. I'm going to do some work on this. We'll probably end up writing it. Last thing I want to say, there's a 3.5% dividend yield here. This is a company that is paying out probably around three quarters of its cash flow to feed that dividend, which is very high. And I think that's part of the appeal of a name like this right now.

Scott Wapner (46:29)

Okay, let's get back to to Pippa Stevens. She has a news alert for us. Hi, Pippa.

Pippa Stevens (46:33)

Hey, Scott. So an administration official confirming just now that oil and gas export restrictions are not under consideration. No word on whether products is also included in that. But of course, as the administration works through the toolbox, they have at their disposal to try and lower the inflationary impact of these higher oil prices. Export controls had been something that had been talked about, but the White House saying that that is not under consideration at this time. First reported by Politico, we did see WTI briefly get up about above the $100 level, but now up about 2% here at $98.

Scott Wapner (47:06)

Scott okay, appreciate that update from you, Pippa. Thank you, Pippa Stevens. Mike Santoli is next. Our senior markets commentator overtime co anchor Michael Santoli is here at the desk. What's your take? We're reacting to obviously oil and now the hawkish Fed chair.

Mike Santoli (47:39)

We are reacting to all of it. So, you know, market keeps turning in every direction, looking to see if there's going to be relief coming one way or another. And I think the Fed basically said, you know, look away, it's not us. We can't, we can't save the situation. On the other hand, you know, the market continues to kind of absorb the pressure in an orderly way. And I think the debate right now is would you like to see it get a little messier, a little more extreme, get one of those situations where it's kind of like you don't even have to know. But the headlines are you just close your eyes and buy. Because it's gotten so washed out, we're short of that type of thing. But it's still things are lining up in that direction. A couple of things I would observe. I mean, you talk about the weakness in gold and silver. That's a kind of would be haven that's basically getting liquidated on some level here now. It got memed. It was sort of telling you a different story. It was a risk on asset on the way up and it's behaving that way now. But I think it's part of the process. So you can step back and say, you know, we're down 2 and a half, 3s and P E multiple points in a few months. We're down to at the bottom end of the range if earnings hold Up. Maybe you can make a case right here. I just think, you know, you have to break this downtrend. You have to show that we're not just going to sell this down every day. Even when we, quote, should be rallying.

Scott Wapner (48:53)

Well, to Josh's point at the beginning of the program and one that we've been talking about quite often, the banks.

Eamon Javers (48:58)

Yeah, for sure.

Scott Wapner (48:59)

The bank stop going down or trading in the, you know, lousy way that they have, for lack of a better description, the market is not going to be able to stabilize itself.

Mike Santoli (49:09)

No. Because you could never answer the. The like what, what's going on there question. What are we worried about?

Donald Trump (49:14)

The credit.

Eamon Javers (49:15)

The credit card stocks that got destroyed. That is the worst part of the bank sell off. I'm not worried about the alternative asset managers. They'll take care of themselves.

Mike Santoli (49:24)

And yesterday that was pretty dramatic. And actually in the early going, I mean, first of all, when Visa mascara get caught up in that, it's silly. They don't have lending. But they did, they got, they got pounded yesterday. They were leading on the upside today. So I agree that that's where to look. Big banks are not really underperforming that much today, but they still can't quite muster any.

Scott Wapner (49:44)

Well, even with really favorable Basel 3.

Mike Santoli (49:47)

Yeah.

Scott Wapner (49:47)

Headlines that would in any other time probably move these things higher. Yeah, not so much.

Mike Santoli (49:53)

No. I mean the curve is flattening and all the rest, so. But no, that's. That's one of the things you want to have on the checklist.

Scott Wapner (49:59)

I'll see you later this afternoon. That's Mike Santoli. We'll do finals after this break. All right, let's do some final trades. Mr. Etheridge, you're first.

Malcolm Etheridge (50:19)

I'm going Octa. In a world run by AI agents, identity security is even more important.

Scott Wapner (50:24)

All right, we are green there about 2%.

Moderator/Interjector (50:26)

Shannon Sokosha Healthcare sold off pretty significantly this month and there's some upcoming catalysts with MA reimbursement.

Eamon Javers (50:34)

Just an update on PSX if you're still long. This from the best stocks list. This is where you roll your stop up. Get tighter.

Scott Wapner (50:40)

Okay, I will see you this afternoon. Just a couple hours on the closing bell at 3. You've been listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast. You can always catch us live weekdays at 12 Eastern only on CNBC.

Narrator/Commercial Voice (50:57)

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Malcolm Etheridge (51:33)

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