Halftime Report Celebrates 15 Years 10/7/26

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1:19You guys are the best. Sarah, thank you so much. Carl, you as well. Well, surreal this morning, I have to tell you. Welcome to the Halftime Report. I'm Scott Wapner. Front and center this hour, yes, 15 years and stocks right around record highs. We do have a special program ahead as we mark that milestone. We'll hear from most of the committee today as well as we discuss and debate these incredibly resilient markets. Joining me for the hour today, Josh Brown, Stephanie Link, Joe Terranova, Steve Weiss. But you'll see many more committee members throughout the next 60 minutes. There's the market picture today.

1:49Yeah, we're down for the obvious reasons. Take a look at the 10-year, 531. You're the highest since April of 2002 today. So it's been a minute since we've seen these levels. Global yields are ripping again. That's very much part of the story. I get that the market is down today, but that's not really the story. The story is that it is a resilient, record-setting market in the face of all of that. Wouldn't you say? I mean, we had our first close, Josh, above 7 ,800 on the S &P yesterday. You have thrown a lot at this market. Rate hike, backed up yields, global yields backing up, oil prices are elevated, and yet we're having a conversation like we are today.

2:31Why? So I was talking to my partner, Michael Batnick, about this, and I thought he had the most insightful take about 2026. We always think about this paradigm of fear versus greed, but sometimes it's not quite that. Sometimes it's skepticism versus greed. And I think this market has no fear in it whatsoever. You're sitting with a 15 VIX. We're at war on multiple continents. A 15 VIX is unbelievable, given all of the things that you just mentioned, Judge. But in the meantime, we have multiple contraction. So that's the skepticism. So you have this absence of fear in the market, which could show up at any time, but it's just not here right now.

3:14But a ton of doubt. That's how you have S &P 500 companies printing record quarter after record quarter and multiple contraction the entire way. And the better the company's earnings, the more the multiple contracts when it refuses to move. And I think like NVIDIA is a perfect example, but there's 50 semiconductor stocks I could cite. So I wouldn't say that we're complacent. I understand we're at record highs, but I wouldn't say that, well, there's no fear. Therefore, everyone is like, you know, whistling past the graveyard in its place in the place of fear. We got tons of doubt. Can this continue?

3:52Is it too good to be true? It can't last like this is the way people feel, but they're not selling. It's a really interesting tape. You know why, Steph? You know, we're going to spend some time obviously talking about the prior 15 as we look ahead. And as you guys, for the most part, take the pretty long-term view of markets, why it's important to do that and why most of you urge our viewers to do that, save for some tactical moves here and there. On this day 15 years ago, do you know what the S &P was at? It was at 1165. 1 ,165. Dow 11 ,000. You have to sort of do a double take on that and say, wow, we've come that far in 15 years.

4:33A lot's happened, obviously, in 15 years. The S &P's returned 583.5 % over that period of time. It just shows you through periods of turbulence, pick whichever one you think was going to be that moment. It doesn't wreck the long-term story of being invested. No. I mean, definitely not. The long-term total return for the S &P 500 over the last 50 years is 7.7%. In the last 10, it's been 10 % because technology has contributed more. And I always like to invest best in breed on sale. You know I look at number one or number two company in any given industry. And if it falls with the bigger picture on the scares of the macro, those are when you look for opportunities, especially with companies with number one market share, but good management teams and good balance sheets.

5:25And you have to stay calm. We like to say buy low and sell high. Most people say they do. Most people don't. They buy high and they sell low. It's really hard to buy low. But that's why if you can get the number one company on sale, it's really important. Now, as to this year, what has been so surprising has been the growth. It's much stronger than expected. I was thinking we were going to grow something like 3 percent this year. We're growing somewhere like 4 or 5 percent. That translates into much better than expected earnings when we know stocks follow profits. And so profits have been going higher, and I think they're going to continue.

5:57What's interesting is so far the yield curve is steepening because financial conditions are actually not as tight as people think it is. And so far at a 5, 3, 10 year, it's not hurting the economy yet. I think if we got to something like 6%, we'd have to talk about it. But the move in yields is real yields, not inflation concerns. The 5 and 10 break evens are at 2.4%, very, very tight. So it's not an inflation scare. I know we have inflation, but we also have better growth. And that's the reason why yields are going higher. And to Josh's point, why we've had multiples coming down, making stocks much more attractive for the long term.

6:32Joe, you're the perfect person to have on here, right? It's buy low, sell high. Yes, it's hard to pick, you know, perfect moments. You wrote a book quite literally on buy high, sell higher. You know, we're in one of those moments. We're at record highs. And we're still trying, we as you, are still trying to give investors your best ideas, actionable ideas within this market. What are the kinds of things that you're looking for? I mean, when I tell you that we've got a 10-year, the highest since 2002, 24 years, we haven't been at these levels on the 10-year. Globally, people are worried about what's happening in bond markets throughout the world.

7:14And yet this stock market, albeit today, take it out of the picture, 7 ,800, we closed above that on the S &P yesterday. That says that this is just collectively a resilient stock market. It sure is. And let me give you the reasoning behind why I think that's the case. And it's ironic that we're celebrating 15 years because the last 15 years, the definition of it has actually been buy high, sell higher. The essence of the last 15 years has been the evolution and growth of technology. 15 years ago, we were talking about companies where there really wasn't a single equity name that had a market capitalization greater than$500 billion.

7:58Now, every one in the top 10 is greater than$1.25 billion. Trillion. Trillion. Trillion. You know what's nuts? I can't even believe I'm reading this. Over the last 15 years, I mean, the Nasdaq's returned 1 ,000%. I don't know what the Nasdaq was trading at 15 years ago, But when you're at 27 ,500. It was 2479 today. Think about that. Yeah. It's a 10x on an index. It's unbelievable. 1 ,000 % return. So let me just finish the thought because today the resiliency that you're speaking towards is portfolio managers have the flexibility and the ease of transaction to say, okay, I have all these challenges in front of me.

8:43I have wars on multiple fronts. I have a 50 basis point rise in the last 30 days in yields. I have seasonality. I'm in a buyback blackout window. I need to get defensive. OK, this is the perfect market for it, because what do you do? You reach out and you grab for a handful of stocks, and it gives you the defensive exposure that you need. It's one of the reasons why the quality factor is underperforming, because the quality factor used to go buy a large basket of stocks that you try and identify as quality. Now it's OK. Offense, defense, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Apple, and they work perfectly in this environment.

9:22You know, Weiss, there's a note out today from Citi that says, all told, we still see a path higher into year end, but it remains contingent, implying incremental caution is both valuations and sentiment risk getting stretched. Josh made the point earlier, are valuations really stretched? I mean, the multiple of the market today is 19.3 times. A year ago, it was at 23 times. And we were questioning whether the market was worthy of trading at 23 times. Was that overstretched at that point? Well, what's happened since then? You've had earnings growth, the likes of which you haven't seen in decades.

9:59And that's what's carried this market. And probably the reason that people remain as bullish as they do. As long as the earnings and AI story remain resilient, durable, and robust, why should forecasts change? Well, that's no more evident than it is over the last month. Because if you look over the last month, every sector, except technology, is actually down. And energy is basically flat. So that's what's been driving it. So Joe's point, what's been the offensive stocks to own and now the defensive stocks to own, which are the technology stocks. Look, we're in a very interesting period. We're coming out of, since 2008, a couple of decades where the cohort that invests in the markets changed.

10:48So we've got more into the indices, and they're not going to sell it because it's compounding form now tax-free. And they're used to these V-shaped recoveries. So nobody gets shaken up anymore if you have a downdraft in the market. They just don't last that long, right? In 2002, it lasted for a decade. Right, or 2000, it lasts for a decade. So everybody's seen. I hold on to your point you start out with, and I get rewarded. What am I going to try to do, time the market? Now, you know, when you take a look at what's happened in technology, if you look at the Goldman Hedge Fund report, for example, The weighting is significantly higher than it's been over the last number of years, because they're not going to be impacted by change in government midterms, elections, as much as others.

11:37Because we see they're absorbing a lot of shots. But if you take a look at some sectors, and this is why, in my view, the multiple is lower, it's because, take a look at the defense sector. I was going through the stocks last night. They're trading at lows. You can go through sector by sector. You sure can. So that's where the average comes in. But the multiple in tech stocks, some of them like an AMD, I mean, come on. That's not a reasonable multiple. No, it's a good point you raise. Let's add in Jenny, Jim, Bryn, and Shannon, too, because they're here for our A Block today. It's good to have you guys here.

12:08That was special today. And it has been special having you part of our program for the last handfuls of years at this point. So Bryn, Weiss brings up a good point. Yes, there's reasons to be bullish, but less than half of the S &P closed above its 200-day moving average yesterday. It shows you what's happened beneath the surface, so to speak. I'm going to show you a chart before you answer of the equal weight over the last 30 days versus the Nasdaq. And you are going to see just how great the disparity has gotten between what these have traded at. It just underscores how concentrated, how top heavy this record move has been.

12:52I think we're going to show that up. Guys, let's try and get that. There we go. So, Bryn, you're looking at it now. Our viewers are, too. Again, RSP, equal weight versus the move in tech and the NASDAQ has been so profound. What's your market thought here? I mean, we own RSP, right? And so we feel this. And RSP, just six weeks ago, was like breaking out to all-time highs. And I do think underneath the technology surface, there is interest rate sensitivity. So everyone can say, oh, yeah, we saw this in 2000. But no time prior in the 90s did we have zero rates. And so as rates have gone from a decade of zero, now they've, quote, normalized.

13:32That normalization is just starting to happen because you're seeing that in private loans, et cetera, that they're stressed. because these new normal yields have not been normal the past 15 years. And so I think we are still in this digestion period of how high will rates go and where do they stabilize and what's the impact. And so I do think that there is a comfort around the top companies and the Qs and the NASDAQ, I mean, the S &P, because in 2026, Micron and NVIDIA will be a third of all our S &P earnings growth. In 2027, those two companies will be 40 percent of all earnings growth in the S &P.

14:12And so owning underneath that gets kind of dicey when you don't really understand what's going to happen with rates. And so I do think this bifurcation is going to continue until rates settle in, which is not going to happen overnight. Shan, do we think that this underscores any special level of risk for the market itself? that, again, you've gotten top heavy again, but that the underperformance, it's not so much that you've gotten top heavy. It's just the underperformance of almost everything else relative to those stocks that have gotten us to the top heavy point is so dramatic. It's somewhat startling to look at.

14:50Well, I think the challenge is that this breadth or broadening that we've talked about and that, you know, I think investors have benefited from investing into over the last several months. The challenge is that that's at risk at this point. But perhaps it makes sense that it is at risk. Those are, to Brent's point, more interest rate sensitive. There has been a view that the AI trade would continue to broaden out whether that capital expenditure moves to other industries and sectors outside of technology. And yet, we're not seeing necessarily a general sentiment for investors that they feel comfortable with that.

15:27The other thing is that you pointed out what companies are doing well. Just think about when you're looking for the potential for a safety trade, and I'm going to use that in quotation marks, despite the fact that there has been greater debt issuance and despite the fact that they're cannibalizing their free cash flow, that free cash flow means very strong for the mega cap tech companies. And so, again, it's not dissimilar to where we've seen investors go back to that that safety trade. I also think that just with rates continuing to rise and potentially becoming unanchored at the long end, that interest rate sensitivity that is existent in some of the broadening trade, both in large cap and in small cap.

16:04And also, Scott, looking outside of the United States, there's been a significant amount of yield volatility there, a lot of questions about sustainability. And so I think what you're seeing is investors come home a little bit, especially ahead of earnings season, where we might get more color in terms of the opportunities to this AI trade to bring them out. This really, Jim, hits home for you and sort of the way that you invest, the kinds of stocks that you own, what you're overweight to, if you will, more cyclically natured names, industrial type names, et cetera. Yes, you have exposure to tech, obviously, but it's not where you've put the bulk of your trading ideas.

16:46And you feel pain like this, don't you? I mean, that's what, look, let me say this too. I really do feel like that's one of the special points of our program. And what I think we've all tried to do over the last 15 years is say, yeah, I got this right, but fall on the sword a little bit when you didn't. Yeah. Well, look, I will. Scott, you know that I do run a diversified portfolio, and that means many sectors that are overrepresented in an equal weight S &P 500 are not doing that well. And it really has been about a four to six week period of underperformance there that ties into interest rates.

17:26I really think that Bryn kind of is on the right track here, that this is a multiple reset that goes back to when people like me started in this business in the late 1990s, seeing industrials at low teens multiples was appropriate. You know, for much of the last couple of decades, we've seen things like industrials in the high teens, low 20s. And that's been really a reflection of a zero interest rate policy that is no more. There is a saving grace, I think, here that will stabilize things where they are outside of technology, which is that the growth rate of earnings may mean that we don't have to go back to those historical multiples that I and others on the committee grew up with.

18:05That's really what you're counting on in the broadening of the rally, which is which is where my my portfolio exists. Things like industrials, materials, financials, just as an example. You are looking at all the spending that's going on in artificial intelligence flowing through to those other sectors. But it has been painful the last month and a half, unquestionably. The other thing, Jenny, which I love about all of you is that the adaptability that you have in the way that, you know, you have your own disciplines, but, you know, you're not sort of naive to things that are happening within the market.

18:39just in the last day, you told us about this new position in Alphabet convertible preferreds. Somebody who's not really that exposed to tech hasn't been able to take part in so many of the conversations about this whole AI build out, not in a way that others have because your exposure hasn't been that great, right? Yes, you've been with Meta, but this was obviously a moment that you saw deserved your attention and caused you to lean in to this trade, maybe more so than you have more recently. Right. Well, you know, I feel like I've been able to participate in the conversation, but not in the investment process.

19:18And that's been really frustrating. But the reason I was able to jump on on the Alphabet convertible preferreds is because I take this bigger look. Right. And I think that's something that we all do. And and when you step back with a long term lens, you can say, hey, you know, Alphabet's only up 10 % on the year. By the way, the equal weight index is also only up 10%. It's pretty good. It's not as good as the broader market. But we need to take bigger, wider, longer lenses. And when you do that, and when you zoom out and out and out, then you can really see where opportunities are. Whereas if, for example, I was just like a small cap real estate investor, you know, and only focus there, I wouldn't be able to see the bigger picture.

19:58But by looking back 10 years, back 15 years, forward 15 years, it really lets you get in on opportunities when they fall in your lap. You know, one of the things that we do all the time is we run a weekly screen and we just say, hey, show me everything with above a three and a half percent yield. And by doing that, you're constantly staying on top of the whole universe that's out there and seeing what's available in each of our own disciplines. Yeah. It's been really great having all of you part of the committee. Thanks for being here today. Thanks for jumping on here. And we will see you back on the desk soon, I'm sure of that.

20:31I got the feeling from you, Josh, by the way you've answered questions or described the markets of late, that it doesn't really concern you that much. The fact that we are as concentrated as we are under the surface, you do have all these stocks that are below their 200-day moving averages. It's sort of like just the way it is, and for a good reason. Am I correct? Well, for the last 15 years, and I was on the pilot episode of the show, I've been the person that told you things are great or things are not so great, but so what. It's been the right call. You shared some superlatives, the NASDAQ up 1 ,000%, the S &P up almost 600%.

21:10I would also point out the size of the ETF market since our first show. It was$954 billion. It's$16.3 trillion. The size of the U.S. economy, it was$15 trillion then. Today, it's$32 trillion. The size of the U.S. stock market,$11.9 trillion. Today,$32.6 trillion. We've really been in this very long period of time where periodically there have been chills and spills and thrills. And we've all been on the air and we've all, I think, done a pretty good job helping people navigate through them. If you're going to tell me right now the bear case is that it feels too good to be true, earnings are amazing.

21:55and 40 % of the stock market is below the 200-day, that just says to me, like, okay, great, there are things I can buy that aren't at all-time highs. I like that setup. I mean, it's hard for me to get upset about that setup. Now, if you tell me, actually, we just had three unemployment reports in a row that disappointed to the downside, and the Fed is tightening because of the price of oil, and earnings estimates are being revised negative, I'm glad to change my tune. But that's just not the tape we have. We have to make the most of the opportunity that exists today. The opportunity that exists today looks pretty good.

22:31You know this better than most, you know, by virtue of how you invest, too. You've got to be really selective right now. As you come out and, you know, repeatedly say you think that it's good, the broadening story is going to resume itself, and all these areas that have underperformed are going to wake back up, I know that you're not talking about, you know, a whole sector's rebounding that have that have gone down. You're on the on the hunt for selective names. Right. I mean, give our viewers a little more sense of of how you view that, that you can be bullish on broadening. But that's far different than saying, well, I'm looking for the entire discretionary sector, like almost the entire tech sector has gone up.

23:13You don't think that that's going to happen. I know that. No, you have to be stock specific. And I'm a stock picker because I run a portfolio. I don't run a portfolio with ETFs. So I look for the things that I talked about earlier, best in breed, good management teams, etc. But I also think very big picture about themes. Themes are really important because you can think about, like, I'm talking long-term themes. We all know about AI and the food chain, the data center grid power. We're all there, right? But that is decades long in my mind. Cyber security is going to be bigger than AI. That, too, is going to be decades long.

23:49Automation, robotics, we're in the very early innings there. So what I try to do, those are just a few themes. Animal health, women's health, I have a whole bunch. But then I go and I look at company specifics and where there are opportunities. And guess what? That brought me to NVIDIA in July when the stock was at$200 and everyone thought it was left for dead. And I thought, wow, you know what? You can get this stock at 18 times forward estimates. And it's the number one company in the industry with a huge product set story. The same thing I did just a couple of weeks ago with Meta. So that kind of thing.

24:23There's opportunities within these big themes that are going to last for a long time. How about you, man? I mean, you now manage an ETF. Yeah. Would you have ever thought, you know, 15 years ago when you, you know, you started on this program and you'd be doing that? I mean, it just it does show what Josh was talking about, too. The way that markets have changed and the way that ETFs have grown. Now it feels like there's like an ETF for everything. You know what I'm saying? Yes. But the ability to be able to do that. Yeah, I mean, look, every day over the last 15 years, I'm pinching myself and wondering when I'm going to wake up from the dream that I'm living.

25:01It's a blessing to have this platform. It's a blessing to have an ETF. There's also stuff that comes with it on the other side. I'm thinking of that. That's what I'm thinking of. So the incredible responsibility that you must feel. It's one thing to sit here on television and talk about. You want to share something raw as we're sitting here right now. Someone's betting against Jyoti. Someone just sold a huge block of the Jyoti ETF. As we're sitting here on the show, I watched the print go up. OK, a huge block selling Jyoti. So that's the rawness. That's the realness. Now, I take the other side of that, obviously.

25:35Look, I also think the last 15 years, I think the last 15 years correlates with what has been a recreation of the American economy. We've had a front row seat to watch it. The American economy in the last 15 years, as we've done this show, has moved from a tangible asset economy to a technology oriented and tangible asset economy. That has been the story without question. And it is literally the heartbeat of what the economy is today. Tech. And that's why I go back to where we began the show. The resiliency that you have in the market is attributable to technology from time to time. Are you able to expand out and look towards cyclical areas of the market?

26:19Yeah, you are. But you need to have alongside that better oil pricing. You need to have a relaxation in yields. You need that macro story more than you needed to invest in my knowledge. When we first started doing this show, we were talking about bond yields in Belgium. We used to talk about our debt crisis. Hold on. Remember, earnings season would start and Alcoa reported first because it starts with an A. We used to talk about the bellwether Alcoa and Dr. Copper, like all of that stuff that was so important in the moment. To your point, the transformation of this economy, there are a thousand tickers that if they went down 90 percent a day, nobody would even notice because of how much more technology has impacted everything that we do and how much greater the earning story is there than in so many other components of the market.

27:11You know, it's pretty simple. Real quick, we've got to take a break. It's a pretty simple business when you think about it. If you pick the quality companies and just stay there, you don't trade them. And I do trade because, like Stephanie, you know, meta comes down big, you buy some more and use that as a trading position. But there's no secret to it. That's it. The question is, what are the permanent compounders? What are the enduring companies? That's where it comes in. Or you buy the indices, right, because most managers underperform the indices anyway, 75 % each year. So it can be simple from that standpoint.

27:44We'll take a break. We are just getting started on this special 15th anniversary edition of the Halftime Report. Still ahead, we'll look back at some key moments that define this show over the past 15 years. Plus, we will debate our top calls of the day. And later, more committee members join us as well with some fresh trades for you, too. Back after this.

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30:00Ackman does pump and dumps. He's got one of the worst reputations on Wall Street. And I'm going to tell you this Herbalife is a classic example of what he does. And I'm telling you, he's like the crybaby in the schoolyard. Carl Icahn thought, you know what, this guy's roadkill on the hedge fund highway. I'm never going to have to worry about this kid again. He's not going to even have the resources to sue me. This is not an honest guy, and this is not a guy who keeps his word, and this is a guy who takes advantage of little people. I mean, I wouldn't have an investment with Ackman if you paid me to do it, if Ackman paid me to do it.

30:29He's not used to someone standing up to him. I told Carl after the whole thing, he called me up, and he literally said, you know, Bill, we can be friends now. And I simply said to him, I said, look, Carl, you are no friend of mine. And that was it. I never said that I want to be friends with you, Bill. I wouldn't be friends with you. And you said to me, you'd like to be friends so that we could invest together. Carl, I have no interest. Do you think I want to invest with you? Okay, let's move on. I wouldn't invest with you if you were the last man on earth. Well, that was January 25th of 2013.

31:02Somehow found myself in the middle of that. Shout out to Max Myers, by the way, for just being a fast thinking producer on the move to help that all come together. And the rest is kind of history. But, you know, that happened right here, by the way. And like volume in the New York Stock Exchange is that was unfolding for I think it was 22 minutes straight. No commercials was down like 20 percent or something like that. It was just kind of one of those things. It was on the last Friday of Davos, too. And I heard from so many people who had never seen anything really like that unfold on Wall Street.

31:37And you know what that really did? I think it put the show, in some respects, on the map. And it introduced people to us and what we're trying to do. Real money, real debate. I said that this morning as we had this great fortune of ringing the bell. this morning. Real money, real debate. Now, maybe not to that scale, but the point is that you guys are putting real money on the line and you're unafraid about having a debate about it. And you let me hold you accountable. You let me push you. Sometimes you don't like it. You let me probe. Sometimes you don't like it. You argue with each other sometimes about ideas.

32:15But that's the whole point, because I think the viewer wins no matter what. The viewer wins based on all that. I was was so unbelievable about that moment and why people still talk about it. I see people that ask me about it. Oh, you're on the halftime report. Remember that time. It's because all of us have seen that sort of thing behind the scenes because it's money, it's prestige, it's reputation. We all feel like we're in this unending brawl. It's very rare that that slips out behind the curtain. You've been in this business a long time, man. I mean, to see something like that just sort of spill out on live television.

32:56I wonder what you're thinking. Well, I was here that day on the show when it happened. But I'll tell you, you know, I've worked at SAC Capital. Now it's.72 with Steve Cohen. And you would see debates like that internally. And there's not one person sitting here that is not engaged. Maybe not with that kind of tone. but we all want debate. We all want to check ourselves. We all look at the other side of the story. If I'm shorting stock, and I don't short many now, or I'm going long, I seek out somebody who's got the different opinion because I want to know where I may be wrong. So I want somebody who's got conviction in the sale if I'm on the buy, and that's incredibly important.

33:43And that's one of the best things this show offers the viewer because they see it happening. It's happening with every professional manager in their conference rooms at their investment committees all the time. You know, it's funny. I think we have some video, too. You know that so that unfolds. And then we do our delivering alpha event, which we still do annually. And we brought Carl and Bill back together for, you know, I could call that a reconciliation, at least to some degree. Their willingness to participate in that was special, too. We gave him T-shirts, Bill and Carl reunited. And it was one of those moments of one of those battles that I don't know that you'd ever see stuff like that again.

34:27Joe, the markets are different, too, by the way, that you had, you know, masters of the universe is what we were calling them back then, who are willing to come on TV, talk about their ideas. I think activism itself was a little bit different then versus now. Yeah. And look, this this is a contact sport and it has always been a contact sport. If you go back prior decades to where this trading for was heavily populated or if you went over by the Hudson River where the commodities exchanges were, there was a lot of physicality involved in daily transactions to the point of almost unfortunately reaching fistfights.

35:06So that's about managing human emotions. And I think what that moment did for the viewer, Scott, and you kind of orchestrated and navigated it, is you had a firsthand glimpse into seeing the raw emotion surrounding investing. Because you can't do this and not believe that you're not going to feel an emotional engagement to whatever the position ultimately may be. The difficulty and the discipline that's required is to manage the emotion. I think both of those gentlemen on the other side of it evolved and became better investors for that moment. I think they managed the moment. I think they changed their style for sure.

35:44I think they became better for it. You know, it's funny. We've got to run. But before we went to a commercial break, before that unfolded the way it did, you know, Twitter was, I think, relatively new then. And I was looking at Twitter as I'm like, OK, we're going to come back and we're going to get this thing on. And one of our colleagues at CNBC tweeted, this is going to be good. And I was like, OK, OK, we'll take a break. We'll come back. We'll take a break. We will come back. We'll have more calls. We'll have more committee members. And we'll join you after this break. Happy birthday to Halftime Report.

36:19It's been an honor to be part of it. You guys seem a little older than 15 years, but it's an incredible honor to have been part of it, be a part of your show. It's incredible. The whole market, everybody watches it. And it's a reason. It's really good quality content. And it's impressive. I mean, it's always good. So anyway, I've been honored to be part of it. And I wish you guys nothing but the best. Open for another great 15 to 30 more years. This message comes from Wise Business, the only account your business needs to scale globally. You're building a business with global ambitions, but hidden fees are eating into your margins.

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38:14We're going to do some calls of the day. I think we've been doing them for 15 years. Might as well do them today. Spotify reiterated a buy. 680 B of A. Tuning out the noise is what they say. Right, Lou? No, I'm trying to do the same thing. I really don't understand why this stock's been treated the way that it has because there's been nothing negative fundamentally every time they report. It's good news, better news, even better news. I just think this thing has been caught up in a vortex with other media stocks, And that's the only real reason I could come up with for why it was in this downtrend.

38:49Now it seems to be stabilizing. We'll see if we can get a breakout here. Morgan Stanley, 92 bucks on service tight. And we remain firmly overweight, this emerging AI beneficiary is what they say today. Yeah, well, I remain firmly overweight as well, not for service tight.

39:06I don't know. This stock is so annoying. It's another company with nothing but great news. they are pushing users onto their AI platform. The users on the AI platform are stickier and having great results. That's been like a short-term earnings hiccup because it almost doesn't matter. This stock has been thrown out with the software bathwater. But I do think underneath it all, it's a very powerful concept. And I think the stock should work. You want me to downgrade you to underweight? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you got a you got a nose epic shot. I mean, there are ways to do that. All right. All right.

39:43Coinbase. I'm doing OK. I'm doing my best. You are. You're doing great. You're doing great. Coinbase 149 Barclays was 95. Still keeping the sell rating, though. What do you think? Well, I want to have crypto exposure. It's small, though, and I want to keep it small because it's so volatile. I have no idea what the day to day price action is going to be for crypto or Bitcoin. But I do like the exchanges because you need a buyer and a seller. And the price of Bitcoin is actually up quite nicely from the lows. And I like what they're doing in terms of not just being transaction oriented, which is 50 percent of the revenues, but they're doing more subscriptions and services, which is higher margin business.

40:17So they want to be the everything exchange. I think they're on their way. All right. We'll take a break. We do have fresh committee moves today as well. Another hallmark of what we try and do, what the committee tries to do. Surat Sati, Kevin Simpson, Bill Baruch, they're up next. Happy 15th anniversary from probably your favorite guest, which I totally understand. You've done a great job. It's really hard to accomplish what you have. So I just want to wish you the best and say I'm your biggest fan.

40:51All right, we're back. Kevin Simpson, Surat Sethi, Bill Baruch, they join us now. Surat, you've been part of the team for a while. Kevin and Bill, two of our newest members. value adds. It's great having you guys part of our mix. And thank you for being with us today as we mark this special day. Kevin, I'll go to you first on that note. You bought more SpaceX. Tell me more because, I mean, look, the stock's gotten a couple of nice calls the last couple days. And last I saw, at least yesterday, was trading at its highest level since June. Yeah, which is something that we were a little bit reserved about because we initially picked up, Scott, I think around 120, 121.

41:28And it's had incredible momentum. But we used a slight pullback today. We just wanted to have a little bit bigger position in it. There was some news about them raising money to buy more Nvidia chips, which we also own in the portfolio. But we thought that if this stock does continue to run and we're sitting here 30 years from now or 15 years for the 30th anniversary, I think this will be one of the core holdings and a big winner for us. Yeah, I was thinking about that of stocks that you might like for the next 15. And this maybe is one of the few. Well, I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't even say that, that, you know, anybody who bought this at the beginning said on that day, including Steph, by the way, just set it and forget it.

42:08Put it away. Buy it. And that's it. Well, imagine this, Scott, if you look at the combination of Tesla and SpaceX. Fast forward, we're 15 years in the future. With Tesla, you get AI, robo-taxis, an optimist robot in every home. With SpaceX, you get Starlink, you get reusable rockets, you get a colony on Mars. I mean, this is something that I'm super excited about. If you look at Tesla plus SpaceX, you know, who knows? Someday maybe that plus sign goes away. Surat, you've got a couple of moves to tell us about, too. You bought more Ferrari and you bought more Disney. Yeah, I did. And, you know, to your point, 15 years from now, Ferrari's not going away.

42:47I mean, you can't produce enough Ferraris. The supply is just not there. And this is a company you want to set it in and buy it really when, you know, they had the EV issue just a few months ago. So we really like this high margins, very limited supply. And then a global brand like Disney. I mean, Disney is trading at 12 times earnings. It's got great products, new management, balance sheets much better. And I think this is one that I want to own for the, you know, at least the next few years. All right. Appreciate you on that. Bill Baruch, you trimmed Berkshire to buy Morgan Stanley. Wow, that's really interesting.

43:20Tell me about that. Yeah, we added to Berkshire in June. We got excited with some of the, they were getting cash back to work, the investment with Alphabet, with Google. This was sub 500. We did like the secular factors and whatnot, but it did jump through early August. Just no follow through. It's a low beta name at the end of the day. The stock market is breaking out. The S &P set a new fresh high yesterday. We want something with a little more punch in it. So we cut Berkshire in half. We use that capital by Morgan Stanley as a new position. There's some headwinds to investment banking and IPO delays for sure.

43:53But the wealth management division is growing 25 % on AUM last quarter. The asset management division growing with alternative solutions grew 87 % on their AUM last quarter. It's trading at 14 times and it's down 20 % from its high. So I think this is a great entry point. Guys, it's been great having you part of our program. I can't thank you enough for being part of this special day. We'll see you back on the desk soon. I know that. You're a Berkshire guy. Yeah. What do you make of sort of trimming Berkshire? But also the fact that they've been loading up, what is it, 12 % now, Lennar? They're making a bet.

44:26That's a big one on housing. Yeah. I don't have feelings specifically on Lennar. I haven't really looked at it in a very long time. But if you look at pretty much any stock that's levered to housing, mortgage rates, they all look the same. They've all been thrown in the garbage. So maybe Berkshire knows something the rest of the market doesn't. Wouldn't be the first time. As far as trimming Berkshire, look, the stock has been a stalwart. It is the type of stock where they told you a million reasons why it wouldn't work for the last 10 or 15 years. I've never sold it. And so, like, I just feel like it's so well diversified, so well run.

45:05All the individual components of it contribute so much. I just kind of looked at it as like an ETF or a mutual fund, and I'm not selling them. We'll take a break. We'll come back with a video I don't think you want to miss. And the happiest of anniversaries, 15 years, my man, Judge Wapner, halftime report. It's my favorite show on television. Keep on going, gang. I love you.

45:35All right, we're back as we celebrate our 15th anniversary. A look back now at some of the biggest moments throughout the years.

45:52Welcome to the Halftime Show. I'm Scott Walker. We're watching the markets as we always do here. Front and center this hour. Our top trade this hour. Front and center this hour is your money, as always.

46:07Good luck on your new show. Thank you. I appreciate it. And it's great, too. What better way to kick it off, certainly, than with you, sir? Stocks under some serious selling pressure yet again. Another tough day in what is already the worst week for investors since the financial crisis. The big story of the day on Wall Street, that, of course, is the Brexit vote. You know about stocks by now. Getting crushed again as the coronavirus crisis changes the way we're all going to live for the near future. Front and center this hour, surging stocks on the tariff pause with China. Welcome again to the SALT Conference out in Las Vegas.

46:39We're live in Huntington Beach, California. We are live in Detroit, Michigan. It's not just the valuation reset. It's the valuation reset relative to the future earnings growth that the street is looking at. One of the most important conditions in the market to watch for, Scott, is the positive correlations between oil, yields, the U.S. dollar and equities. We're not out of the woods, but there's room for catch up as that sentiment does change. The volatility genie is out of the bottle and it's not going to be put back. My inclination is to hold through this, particularly after the damage that's gone on in the last couple of hours.

47:31We're joined now by Treasury Secretary Scott Bestin. Nice to catch up with you ahead of tomorrow. 15-time NBA All-Star Dr. Shaquille O 'Neal. Jensen Wang. Thanks. It's great to be here. Welcome to Senator Clara. Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO David Solomon. Brad Gerstner. Mark Lasry. Gary Cohn. Scott, it's good to be with you. Good to see you again. It's been a while. Thank you. Nice to be here. The name of the company is eBay. Ticker symbol, believe it or not, eBay. Not only am I going to buy it, I am quick on the trigger. I already bought a thousand shares. And investors seem to be questioning where your growth is going.

48:06You said to me you'd like to be friends so that we could invest together. Carl, I have no interest. Do you think I want to invest with you? OK, let's move on. I would invest with you. Let's move on. Let's move on. Let me finish. I'm simply asking whether you support it. Let me finish. Judge, you know this is my favorite show. You have some of my favorite panelists there. Nobody watches more CNBC than I do. Now you're on the Wapner train. I'm always on the Wapner train. Thanks so much. I love you, man. Congratulations. Thank you. You never heard I love you on CNBC from a man. Some bro love right there.

48:36I got to push back on you, Scott. I can't. You still my father? Are you still my father? Are you still my judge? Of course. Well, you're the best in the business.

48:50I'm reminded watching that that there are several committee members who couldn't be here today due to scheduling issues or what have you. Thank you to all of you, too. You're all part of the family, obviously. And as I said this morning, this show is about you guys and really what you what you do every day. Let me also say this. It's a day also to celebrate and say thank you to the people you don't see who truly make the show go. Yeah, sure. This show is nothing without our incredible production staff. We have a shot, I think, of them. Many were here this morning as well. Y 'all get in early. You work so hard.

49:29You have such a tough job of trying to anticipate what we're going to want to talk, what these committee members are going to want to talk about every day. You help shape the conversations. You go through all the notes from Wall Street firms, the strategists, the upgrades, the downgrades. You are relentless in your pursuit of excellence on this program. Kevin Flynn is our executive producer. Thank you. Todd Bonin, our super EP. Thank you for all the incredible support that you've given not only Kevin but our whole team and everybody up here and just supporting what we do. I'm super grateful for everybody that's had a role in this show.

50:07We do want to talk about some final trades and what have you before we get out of here. We have a couple minutes to go. What's on your mind in the market now? So I'm going to stick with Service Titan. I have a bunch of stocks that are 20 or more percent off their highs. In some cases, it happens slowly. In some cases, it happens quickly. I just want it to happen quickly, but I'm going to stay long. I also want to apologize to the viewers for all of the different hairstyles over the years. Just looking at that montage, it's like almost dizzying. I think I figured it out finally with what I'm doing right now, but you never know.

50:41Do you have a mirror? Yes. Okay. I think it looks good. I think I got my flow back. I'm good. You do. I mean, you know, it's nice to see you in a shirt and tie, too. Yes, it is. Steph? Meta. So I recently re-bought the stock. I had made a lot of money in it, but I thought it was a one-dimensional company just dependent on advertising. I think that Muse is a game changer, and they're going to leverage their 4 billion users. Total addressable markets are in the trillions in my mind, and they have set up relationships with a lot of vendors already, and they're the number one app store right now on Apple.

51:17Let me push back just for a moment on that. Muse is a game changer because the questions about Muse are everybody else is coming out with their own agents, whether it's OpenAI, Anthropic, or everybody, right? is it truly the game changer that you thought it would be when it first came out sort of blew everybody away stock takes off as a result yeah and by the way the stock is flat in the past year so i think there's a lot of catch-up they had five million downloads in the first 22 days chat chpt took them 56 days grok 103 days and claude 492 days all right joe t airbnb this is a great spot to buy it i want to also just quickly thank the viewers the viewers that come up to us in the street to come up to me at Yankee Stadium were nothing without you.

51:59Yeah, appreciate that. Mr. Weiss. Yes, yes, sir. You haven't changed that much, by the way, from those videos. You know, Scott, there's no reason for me to change. And I never colored my hair like some other people. You're such an enduring character all these 15 years, Mr. Weiss. Everybody has a brand and role to play. That's true. SK Hynex, I don't own it. I've been looking at it. It's a little, you know, displaced relative to what we've seen in Micron. And I think it's got some more legs. All right. Cheers to everybody. Thanks for watching this program. Thank you, Scott. I'll see you later this afternoon.

52:33You've been listening to CNBC's Halftime Report, the podcast. You can always catch us live weekdays at 12 Eastern, only on CNBC. 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.

53:13To view the full Halftime Report disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com forward slash Halftime Report disclaimer. Who's ready for a bike ride? Peppa Pig is learning to ride her bike. First, pop on her helmet. Safety first. Then, attach the push stick and give her bike a push. And watch Peppa paddle. Her legs go round and round as the wheels turn. With more than 75 sounds and phrases, every ride is a big adventure. Peppa Pig Ready Paddle Go. Available at all major retailers now.