computers 50 years ago were so sophisticated, but today, we walk around with more power in our smartphones, in our pockets, speaking to how much space contributed to our daily lives >> amazing story, amazing anniversary, amazing shot. great work, morgan have a great weekend, everybody. big week next week let's get to melissa and "the half." >> welcome to "the halftime report." i'm me his is alee in for scott wapner are investors still not being aggressive enough on stocks? >> people are underinvested in equity >> even at record levels, the world's biggest money manager says you're not invested enough. is blackrock's larry fink right? are stocks going even higher widely followed regular nancy davis takes the other side, saying the bond market is screaming right now, the end is near "the halftime investment committee is ready to debate plus microsoft's run, led by the cloud team

we're talking about other cloud plays on the horizon "the halftime report" starts right now. >> great to be with you on this friday, your investment committee, joer er ijoe, john,y young, senior portfolio manager with young and associates at morgan still is larry fink right? are investors not being aggressive enough right here, serrat with markets on the precipice of a fed rate cut? >> i think right now it's fair to say we are properly valued. i don't think you want to be more aggressive going to the markets. earnings are coming down we have a lot of uncertainty stocks have had a great run, plus 20% there are opportunities. i like a barbell approach on investing, where there's growth and value but going full force into the market is a little scary. >> theoretically if rates come down, doesn't that make valuations more attractive, more

acceptable to have higher valuations >> you're factually correct and discounted cash flows. >> i sense a "but" coming. >> but -- >> but b-- >> not a but, a distinguished perspective. from a fundamental perspective, one looks at things, earnings expectations keep coming down and the looming issue of china which, if not resolved, could make earnings come down further. here is the but, melissa sentiment is what matters right now. i know we'll discuss the negatives of the fundamentals a little further but the sentiment is decidedly positive right now. a lot of that has to do with the fed cutting, when they really don't have to. it's this insurance cut that i frankly have never heard of before but fine, the market wants that cut, the market likes that cut furthermore, on china, which to me is the big deal, nobody in the market is expecting anything until after summer is over all we need to hear is that some progress is being made, phone calls are being made, and they're being accepted on the other end. as i said earlier, earnings expectations have been lowered enough that it's a very low bar to clear finally

these subtle, i call them subtle new highs that we've been making in the markets recently, those have the tendency to draw investors in we've watched equity etf and mutual fund flows be negative for year after year but as you keep setting highs, it draws people in. i think sentiment is what matters here, even in the face of fundamentals that aren't that great. >> joe >> people are underinvested in equities, simple they are >> why >> why because there's been a defensive mind-set throughout 2019 you see that by the bond proxies leading the market higher. when you look at other asset classes, they've all moved higher year to date. high yield, useds as an equity replacement, investment grade is moving higher, mlps, reads, all the asset classes are higher we tend to measure equity sentiment by the large cap names, by the fangs. the fangs are still below their 2018 highs, so if we're reflective on the fangs and we're using them as a proxy for the risk that investors are

taking in the equities market, then yes, they are still holding a very defensive mind-set towards equities >> sheryl, do you think things are getting a little expensive >> i do. >> on what measures in particular >> you have to be careful. the broad s&p is trading a little bit high, i wouldn't say hugely high but high relative to 15-year averages sector by sector there's a lot of disparity i agree, i think technology has an interesting place, software has a lot of room to still grow but i would be very defensive and for me if i was buying anything in this market i'd pair it with a put. >> unfortunately, doc, volatility is still low. >> which is great in terms of buying that protection that cheryl's talking about mr. fink's been right all year, mel, and that's not surprising he manages more money than any human has ever managed, so in april on our air he said people were underinvested he said it again here now. i've been at big family office conferences in the last two

months and universally, people that are running 1 million billion to $1 billion in family offices are grossly underinvested given the percentages that you'd normally see, mel, in other words, they've been waiting for a significant correction like they got in december last year, but they didn't pull the trigger so it's easy to say i'm waiting for the washout to buy >> you think if there's a second 20% decline came to the markets do you think people would say i'm going to buy this time around >> no. then they'd say -- >> scared silly. >> well it's a nine-inning game and we're obviously done with the ninth inning that's what they do and that's what they were saying in december, too. >> right >> now we're saying we don't know how long the game goes. it's in extra innings, could keep going like the giants last night. >> so i know we're going to discuss the negative picture here i don't want to set that up for us >> go ahead. >> by using the word, you know, this bull market that is ten plus years old has always been

missing the euphoric phase it's been missing the melt-up phase. we might have had it january of 2018 but i don't think that was it i think the next two months the summer rally could lead us into the melt up phase and that is a setup for the future discussion we should have right now what the bond market is telling us. >> i don't want to have that discussion yet, jim. sorry, i appreciate the setup but we're not going there yet. what i want to go to now is given the investment committee's views, wherever their views are, they've still got ideas for all of you out there we want to go through some of the best picks joe? >> citigroup, clearly financials have been a sector of underperformance michael corbett has paired off a lot of assets globally which was incredibly important, the consumer division in the last earnings report what they were able to show to the street was fantastic. so citi, the analyst community is finally coming around to it, price targets raised above 80 and i think citi will eventually

get there. two other names, copart, cprt, everyone knows i've been long in it the auto industry is basically ri writing off cars quicker copart does a fantastic job s salvaging the cars, turning around the cars and a profit this has been an industrial name on a steady march higher and walmart, to me the consumer play the american consumer is the strength of all of the economy, of global assets at walmart, gets you that exposure to the consum consumer >> what is the thesis behind copart as auto sales taper off and a less robust annual vehicle number, that cars get cheaper and it may be easier to buy a new car than to refurbish your old. >> it's a little bit of a different industry in the sense of the insurance companies are writing off cars that are in accidents or have been damaged, so they're much quicker to walk in and say okay, that car, which

previously we would repair we're not going to write that off. get rid of that car, coparts says okay we'll take the car, salvage it, turn it around, a profit on redistributing the parts of the cars. >> you like the financial as well, jim. >> i do. i'm glad to hear joe lead with citigroup, that's one of the names i own, but my preference there is goldman sachs for all the reasons the financials have been beaten down, they're trading at close to book value, a margin of safety for me but the special thing about goldman sachs is that we're really over a year since the 1mdb scandal hit and i think that's what held the stock back so much in 2018 i think the market has digested that we understand there's going to be big fines that come out of that, that's why it traded at such a discount and as i think i may have mentioned to you, yesterday, melissa, we have a golden cross setup, the 50-day moving average crossed above the 200-day moving average to the upsit. whether it's fundamentals or technicals there's a lot of

reasons to like fwagoldman sach. another name i like, energy is a space where you can find value i don't want to make a bullish call on oil because i see u.s. shale production continuing to tick higher but marathon petroleum is a refiner they'ring agnostic to the price of royal they rely on crack spreads of turning oil into diesel and dpas lean, et cetera. the crack spreads are hanging in nicely this stock has come back off of its lows but has quite a bit to go, good dividend yield here, excellent management and the last one is my quiet work horse, cisco systems. for many years it was just a hardware provider of switches and routers. that's still a good business particularly going into the 5g wave but as you look at the companies like microsoft that have done so fabulously well in software space, you know who has been very successful in getting into that is cisco systems so now they're this hybrid of hardware and software and the software business is doing great for them they are just a workhorse. i'm going to stick with cisco systems. >> sarat, you like one that's

been bonkers, financial, bx. >> i do. i like blackstone. we've liked it for a long time the catalyst there was going to a c corps from an s corp. but i like it's almost $500 billion under management it has a 5% dividend yield given the yield can move around, but if you look at their investments and you look at all the talk we hear, most people are moving into alternative investments, liquid investments. blackstone is the leader in that area, smart management team. so that's one i think you can hold for a longer time the other one is interactive corp., owns match, tinder, home advisor and now viveo. they own great assets sum of the parts is greater than the whole. zimmer is the merger with biomed, that's orthopedics, an area even if you have insurance pressure, people still have to repair shoulders, knees, hips and i think the opportunity there is the stock hasn't moved a lot and i think if it comes back to rerates to its normal

you can make some money there. >> doc, what do you say? >> mel, i'm going to give you two china picks more or less even though i think it doesn't play out until the fourth quarter. i think there will be outsized gains, there have been outsized sell yourselves in kweb, the crane shares of china etf, this one is down 27%. >> primarily internet stocks >> yes, exactly, and i think they will benefit from a deal being struck, just as i think caterpill caterpillar, u.s. based company, down 2% over the past year, but it's had a lot of volatility in particular with china, and i think that volatility will go away as they strike a deal lastly paypal. pypl been one of my core holdings love it, it's up i think 35%, 37% year to date if you don't want to pick the others up as fallen angels you can jump on the momentum here. i think they'll continue to perform. >> we'll talk more about paypal

later on cheryl, do you have picks? do you choose to be the investment committee's chairwoman today and critique these guys' picks? what do you like or not like >> i am not a big fan of financial stocks but i live in silicon valley so i tend to gravitate toward technology stocks, my picks in that area. the growth outsized in that area over finance and for me, finance is just a little bit too boring. i work for a financial company so i have to be careful there. i love microsoft they just announced yesterday they had a great earnings. they have a 69% margin on their azure business and a lot of growth ahead and quietly crept up to the number one market cap in the world satya has led the company since 2014 to just all-time highs and has changed from a hardware company to a cloud computing company and i think there's still a lot of upside growth from microsoft i still love that name you might think the p ratio is high at 30 but the 55.1 average they're relatively valued.

so i like microsoft. if i was to pick a financial i do like blackrock, they are the largest money manager in the world so if i had to go on the financial side i'd stick with blackrock and their dividend over 2.5%, it's better than the 30-year treasury so i'd rather own blackrock if i want to have a boring name in my portfolio, i'd rather own something with a great dividend like that that i think is stable and i like cyber security we look at the spinning in that space, really doubling in the next five years. there's more growth in that space than probably any other space when we think about technology >> those projections have been in place for a long time and the stocks haven't necessarily followed >> the stocks in general are expensive. there's not a lot of cheap stocks out there in that space i own pelalo alto networks is expensive. dxe technolo dxc technologies is one i've been watching for a while.

it's trading half where it was a year ago and at a ratios less than ten >> roku is the last one. >> yes i bought roku at 20, bought more at 40. i sold puts so i got assigned the puts over december >> nice. >> i was sweating. super happy at 108, 109. that worked out really well. i would be okay if i sold roku i have calls sold at 120 but i think they're an acquisition target and roku is not considered a competition to companies like netflix they're considered a partner, and advertising space has room to grow, the company has room to grow and i think they'll get picked up. >> sarat you're the only one approval from the investment chair. dom chu? >> session highs for the maker of diesel engines, cummins up about 3.5% on heavier value after reports from reuters

citing sources that cummins made an offer to buy volkswagen's large energy business, that's man energy solutions man energy solutions makes very large engines for things like marine vessels, also heavy industrial equipment and oil and gas applications but it could be a different line of business cummins gets into. a source reporting from reuters pushing shares of cummins up 3.5% we should point out cummins is up about 27% on a year-to-date basis. back over to you guys. >> dom, thanks dom chu i'm sure stephanie link is smiling now. she owns cmi it's time for the conversation, jim, it is time for that conversation. >> i was so excited for it, melissa. i was so excited for it. >> chomping at the bit >> have you ever had as good a setup as that? >> no, i didn't. it was a little early, but nancy davis, chief investment officer at quadratic capital, says the bond market is screaming, warning investors about market risk great to have you with us. how loud is the scream right

now? >> it's pretty loud. what we look at in the bond market is specifically the rates market and if you look at rates, the t bill and the ten-year treasury are exactly the same yield so the bond market is screaming, it's not optimistic on the economy and that's even with the july 25 basis point cut in and 450 0% probability if you look at the rates the market is not saying things are good so it's a question >> how much do you discount this argument that well the long end of the yield curve is being hold hostage by what's going on with the ecb, so this sort of either evening or inversion doesn't really, is not as indicative as it is or would have been in the past >> yes i personally think the flatness of the yield curve is really from 2011 when we were at zero rates already in the u.s we were having a european crisis, and the fed implemented

operation twist that took the yield curve from 250 basis points down quickly 100 basis points and now we're completely flat, and so i really think a reverse twist would normalize, and he talks about that, inflation expectations are what drive actual inflation, so i think the fed is kind of gearing us up to do a reverse twist and that will normalize the yield curve. >> so the obvious question here is, yes, the yield curve is in places inverted but all of the data on the u.s. economy seems good i better qualify that. some of the fed regional surveys were bad two months ago but seem to have picked up president philly fed empire seems to do well unemployment is low, you have low inflation. if you get a china deal, companies can spend again on productivity i understand about the yield curve but i see so many things that are positive related to the bond market. >> yes, i would definitely echo, you know, john's pick on china and investing and having growth in the market, because the fed

has got kind of two aspects. they're either they see something that the rest of the market doesn't, and things are going to be, we're in on the cusp of the next recession or things are great, and they're going to really jump-start this economy and we'll have inflation and things will be super risk on, so having growth in your portfolio makes a lot of sense i just think the bond market is definitely saying we're at a point where it could go either way right now. >> so nancy, what if the government bond market is telling us about to melissa's point, the growth, the global slowdown in growth, but yet the taxable fixed income market, where spreads are incredibly tight, high yield investment grade, are telling us that asset pricing is still okay. >> yeah, i think that's a challenge for investors portfolio. most people own equities, and then they have credit. and credit spreads in equities when equities sell off, credit spreads tend to widen as well. having diversity in your

portfolio and moving away from credit because credit spreads are so incredibly tight to more growthy equities or having more government bonds especially given the fed doing so dovish is the way i like to position it. so growth stocks and long government bonds i don't think you're being paid to own credit personally >> nancy, do you think the fed is reacting to the same things that you're talking about, when you say the market is screaming this i said that a couple months ago as well and do you think the market is -- the fed is listening to that, that the market is telling them, you've got to do something, because this is a warning sign, and that's why they're talking about making at least a 25 basis point cut, maybe even 50 >> i completely agree with your point. the rates market is the biggest market in the world. the otc rates market is about $600 trillion, that's 30 times the size of the u.s. equity market cap around 23 trillion, 25 trillion, so i think the fed is looking at what the rates

market is implying, and the rates market is saying you need to cut, and that was actually earlier than when the dovish talk came. really the dovish talk started at the december meeting, and that's when the fed -- back remember in december, we had three hikes actually priced in, and now it's had almost a 200 basis point swing on really no actual monetary policy, just commentary so i think it's definitely at a very precarious time for investors, with credit spreads at all-time tights, equities at all-time highs and i personally like positioning a portfolio more with growth and i agree with your call on kweb, growth stocks on one side and having government bonds on the other side because i don't think you're getting paid to own credit at these tight levels >> so you mentioned that the two different scenarios could go either way, so that's why you have this sort of i don't want to call it strange, but almost seems counter intuitive to be invested in treasuries and very growthy stocks at the same time.

at what point do you start thinking oh, i'm getting enough data to believe that one allocation we should move towards equities for instance and away from treasuries or vice versa. >> yes, so i really like having options in the portfolio, because it's such unknown probabilities. it's incredibly cheap so what we like is if you believe the fed, if you're one of those people who says don't fight the fed, listen to what they're saying, they are saying they want to normalize inflation expectations, so if you believe them, you would think the yield curve should steepen, because having a flat yield curve means the market's actually pricing in disinflation for the next decade, where cpi is 1.8 i like having positions where you can have if the fed is going to be successful with their mandate, or on the alternative, if we have another recession and the fed is really seeing something that we're not seeing

in the data, because if you just look at unemployment, the data looks great, having something that will do well in a recession, too, and to me, that's the yield curve, because when you have in a recession the fed will cut rates and volatility will increase >> how do you see if the fed does cut rates, and normalizes the yield curve, and then the china deal comes through, and then all of a sudden growth is back do you see the fed then moving quickly again? it's putting them in a pretty tough position >> yes, typically the fed doesn't cut just one time. most of the time they cut 75 basis points, but we could have an absolute rip in the economy because the fed is saying we want inflation we don't want to become japan. we want to stimulate the economy. so you could have a super, you know, bull market environment, where growth stocks are doing very well. when we get a china deal, and could you have inflation expectations normalized. so i think we actually launched an etf around this theme

recently called ivol which really captures these themes whether we have a recession and we go back into the fed having to cut rates back to zero or if they are successful in normalizing inflation expectations, then you have that pickup so it's a really exciting time for investors in the market, but it's also challenging with equities at all-time highs, credit spreads at all-time tights, and government bonds around the world still being very expensive >> cheryl? >> yes, i have a couple questions for you, nancy, but first of all, my position is i don't think the china deal will happen any time soon i think trump is stringing us along to try to make us feel like he's making progress but i don't think it's in his interests whatsoever to have a deal with china so i personally think this is a ways off and why the fed is looking at cutting rates. i hate bonds i own very little bonds, the only reason i have any bonds in my portfolio is because i've gotten called out of positions

and i have bonds until i feel there's better entry points, but china is trading at a level where their debt is three times that of their gdp output they also own the lowest number of u.s. government bonds in the last ten years, and it's been almost quiet in the news how they've been selling off their bonds, and if something happens with china, realize a lot of their bonds are state owned, how does that ripple effect affect the u.s. and the bond markets across the globe >> yes, that should definitely if the sovereign, you know, whether it's china or anyone else starts selling their sovereign holdings, most of it is in the long end of the curve. it's not t bills it's long dated bonds, and so if they sell bonds, that should make prices lower, yields much higher, so that's one way that we could have a very, you know, in our etf ivol would profit off that because we do higher in the back end or cuts in the front end. i completely agree it's not clear what's going to happen i think it's at that point for investors where you have so much

asymmetry because if a deal is done, the market's going to rip, and if a deal is not done, we could have a real, you know, going back into the next, and maybe that is what the fed is worried about. but i think it's challenging for investors to figure out how to position for kind of either of those outcomes, and that's why we're so excited to be giving this access etf ivol to the market to have a play for either way. if we're in a recession or if the fed is successful, to really express those views. >> great to see you. thanks for your time nancy davis quadratic capital. where do you fall on this recession or great times ahead sort of binary scenario, sarat >> i'm in the middle slow growth for longer i didn't pick the financials but we love citi, love a lot of the banks and i know they're boring, but they're really, there's value there. >> you like your blackrock >> but as a whole, if you look

at them, there's so much opportunity there and if you get any of this movement with any curve moving that sector is going to move really well, given balance sheets, valuation, cash flow >> mel, i'm feeling good vibrations summer rally, okay i think i'm being clear on that. >> i am. >> what's the fire under that rally? >> sentiment we can talk about china and -- >> the invested part >> absolutely and the new highs in the market draw people off the sidelines. so i happen to think you're right. i don't think we're going to get a deal, certainly not in the next two months but i don't think the market expects a deal. the china deal is what puts fundamentals underneath the rally that right now is sentiment driven, but you can't ignore the sentiment it's real, and the fed is a large part of it that's real, too >> we got more fed speak this afternoon. eric rosengren will be on 4:30 p.m. eastern otime on "the closing bell." the fed's quiet period start

this afternoon after rosengren this is the last fed official you'll hear speaking the cloud is raining profits. microsoft hit it out of the park last quarter we're debating other cloud pure plays next plus, jon najarian's unusual options activity his last pick just doubled in price. see what he sees now before the break, what happens after boeing jumps 3.5% or more in a day our data partners at kensho show the stock keeps going, up 81% of the time in the next month by an average of 5.5%. for more, go to cn.c/kshbcomeno. "the halftime report" is back in two minutes. in stores everywher. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

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i'm frank holland with your update at this hour. the u.s. is placing sanctions on a senior hezbollah operative, who coordinated the 1994 bombing of a jewish community center in buenos aires that killed 85

people mike pompeo making the announcement in buenos aires >> the state department's rewards for justice program is offering up to $7 million for information leading to his identification or his arrest and the united states department of treasury is also designating salman as a specialcally decision nated global terrorist which denies him access to the united states financial system >> reporter: angela merkel reiterating the eu's long held stance it will not renegotiate the brexit agreement it struck with theresa may it could be redefined but indicated no readiness to budge on the basic divorce deal. nissan is recalling nearly 91,000 titan pickup trucks electrical issues could cause the engine to stall. model years 2017 through 2019. that's the cnbc news update at this hour. melissa, back over to you. >> frank, thank you, frank holland. microsoft hitting a new all-time high after quarterly results topped analyst

estimates. the tech giant reporting its ninth straight quarter of double digit annualized revenue growth. i'll look at my notes carefully. >> please do >> all of you own microsoft? >> yes >> you know why? >> true believers. >> like cheryl said, it's not boring >> it's not boring >> it's not boring >> a couple years ago it was boring >> at this pe, does it get concerning >> no. because the growth on the cloud side is present. the leadership in this company has been absolutely fantastic. they are consistent in what they're delivering they're meeting expectations, and i think that it will continue to be a source of investment opportunity i'd welcome a pullback i wish we would have one >> i was shaking my head no when you were asking if we all own it mistake on my part, i do not own microsoft. as i said earlier, cisco kind of makes up for it, but look, this stock microsoft is just

continually knocking the cover off the ball you asked about the multiple all i would say on that is they continue to put up double-digit revenue growth those are the growth numbers that defend the 30 times multiple i think the multiple could be higher maybe i should own it but right now i'll stick with cisco. anybody who is in it should the be selling >> cheryl, you mentioned microsoft 30 times or so and peers and software 55 times? >> 55. >> where should that trade >> i think microsoft is going to go to 150 this year. i think it's got a lot of upside, and look, it's one of the few tech names that has a solid dividend, so if you are looking at a ten-year treasury versus owning microsoft, i've got some growth in soft, i don't see a lot of downside to microsoft and i don't for so many reasons >> it's also a large cap technology name that doesn't have the perceived regulatory risk if you are a large cap growth technology investor and you're concerned about regulatory risk, well, there's microsoft with its

fantastic cloud growth and its consistent earnings and oh, no worries about the regulatory risk >> sarat >> i own it, i love it but i'm not adding to it if i have new money coming to accounts, it's not the first one. >> at one point do you think you should trim? >> it's all about risk there are clients who have portfolios if it goes over 4%, 5% it's the normal thing to take risk but i'm not adding it to some new accounts because i think like jim the opportunity is going to be there for any hiccup >> let me ask you this when you're trimming microsoft, where are you putting that money? >> i see blackstone, all those areas, the banks i think the banks are such a great opportunity. >> boring. >> they're boring but 4% dividends i'll stick to that any day. >> i'll go to the other cloud named stock, cisco, alphabet, oracle where do you go? >> i don't have those. i'm stacked in microsoft very heavy.

i've got some crm but microsoft, operating margins 36.5% versus 34 year over year. that's crushing it also, they talked about china and the impact the only impact from china was positive to them and the reason they said that, folks, was because it might have caused folks to buy it top grade quicker to get ahead of the tariffs they thought might be coming so they bought more pcs, and obviously operating systems on pcs are microsoft so i mean, i don't know why you'd look anymore but this one. it has the diversification you want and it's in the tech space. >> we own oracle and for two years i get yelled at the desk, it's up 30%. i still think there's opportunity there. it's that inflection point once you get your 50% of your growth coming from the cloud, you start rerating, and your multiple starts getting better and better and other businesses get smaller. >> i want to get to courtney reagan, news alert on walmart. court? >> we have obtained a memo just

sent by walmart ceo doug m macmillan, announcing some sort of new organizational leadership restructuring, and basically the headline is it's bringing together a lot of the leaders from stores and midge dadigitala continuation of the strategy to bring customers a seamless experience so in big additions or executives that are leaving but a number of reshufflings, particularly in supply chain in the u.s., bringing the digital and physical operations together, as well as finance one area that's going to remain separate though for the time being is u.s. merchandising, that is going to stay separate at this point. just a continuation of walmart strategy to be an omni channel retailer and to really bring the organization to a place where the consumers are already looking at it as back over to you >> court, thank you, courtney reagan at the nyse joe, walmart was one of your top

ideas. >> it is, and that should not be perceived as negative news >> it seems like it's a step toward finding efficiencies between its footprint, its physical footprint and online presence >> absolutely. i think they're at a point in the plan that was developed years ago with the purchase of geot.com and the momentum forward. i don't view that as negative. i view it as positive. >> cheryl young, you have to leave us, thank you so much for joining us today we appreciate it >> thank you for having me >> option bulls betting on a stock that's up 30% per month. do not miss jon's new trade and more trades in the blitz, american express, boeing, state street first your s&p 500 sector check as we head to break. "the halftime report" will be right back

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jon najarian has an update on a trade up 900%, but first, options traders are betting on more gains jon is up with unusual activity here jon? >> indeed, mel, and a lot of

folks were saying when micron was down around there, they were saying you know what time to get out of these chips they're done, over, put a fork in 'em not so, mel. you look at the move it's made just coming off from basically 33 bucks or thereabouts, all the way up today to almost 46. that's a very nice run, and people are betting that it continues, and look at the volume they're trading today, mel. august 49 calls. they've traded almost 30,000 already. early on, it was a block of 10,000, and then more came in, and then more came in. in other words, mel, they drained four phasers and still came at them they couldn't get enough of the stock and they're still buying, they're pushing it further out, so i'm in these calls, mel i love the stock, and i'll probably be in here anywhere from two weeks to two years, because i just love the stock. got a quick update for you, mel, on a couple stocks also. take a look at skechers. talked about it on tuesday

look the the move he's made, great earnings overnight stocks up almost 13% right now that's a nice return for a stock investor but i believe the calls we traded are up 433%, mel. that's why you trade options take a look at this one, gdx, even better, that's the one you mentioned, 900%, that's right, because when we talked about the calls, june 5th, these calls were trading for like 35 or 40 cents and now the stock up to 28 bucks, they were an in the money call they went to $4 and then some, mel. bang lastly, take a look at what's going on with ally financial it's only up 100%, ally, nice trade from july 11 so that's a quick update for you, mel >> doc, thank you. trader blitz, first up, american express reporting beat on the top line and bottom line but the

stock is on pace for its worst day since january. joe, you own this one. >> i do and i'm an investor and will stay with this one. you look at the earnings report, basically the street is selling amex off on customer spending which came in at 5%, that's a little bit lighter than the expectations and also customer engagement costs were higher than they anticipated. but this is a leader in the space. stay with this name even on the pullback >> boeing is setting aside $5 billion to compensate 737 max customers. jim, you own it. >> last week, mel, you weren't on the show but my final trade with boeing because it keeps shrugging off bad news now the charge here is much bigger than people expected. it shrugs that off because there's another piece of good news in there, they think the 737 max is going to fly again by the end of the year. if that's the case this is a screaming buy. it remains to be seen whether the regulator also let that happen here is the key like i said last week, it shrugs off bad news

the stock trades very well >> state street topping earnings, on pace with the best day of the year. sarat? >> stock is down 30% over the last 12 months it was better than expected. i think this is short covering expenses were much better than they expected but this is the boring financial that i don't really want to own because there's really no catalyst going forward. i think if you own it, take money off the table. >> free port-mcmoran jon has a call >> i have calls on this one. love it. love the move. it was up like 1.5% early on, pushing higher still now up almost 3.5% i think the people that are buying this one are smart, these guys are helping out, the likes of u.s. steel and some of those steel stocks that are back in focus again. >> all right, up next, jim's favorite part of the show, "the desk" is answering your questions on amc and oil reach out to us at 'rba aerhiets.ime or twe u wee ckft ts.

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welcome back to requesting the halftime report. are we lost now is the name.

here is your tweet incredible run but is it time to ring the register? what do you tell beyond lost now? >> that's a question that you are always monitoring your risk but the right question is how could you protect your position. you go to jon and pete's area of the world, which is options and i think you utilize that as a way to protect i don't think you flat out sell because you believe it's the time to ring the register. they report earnings july 29th, it's important you want to listen to what goes on in the call and you need toed a social phenomenon surrounding plant-based meats and only going to build further >> jim, this is your favorite part of the show, jim. shane tweets, asking why cvs lost all of last week's gains. you own cvs. >> i've been waiting all day for this segment of the show i think this is shane my buddy from twitter sorry i couldn't answer your question on stwiter. i like cvs we're having a consolidation of last week's gains after some of the regulatory threats were

removed. there is still a little and i think it's a little issue with judge leon who may issue some post-merger conditions for the aetna/cvs transaction. this is a long-term investment let these guys pay down debt as they do that, the multiple will creep up. i'm not worried about the last week's action. >> doc, joseph in lakeville, massachusetts, wants to know if amc is set to head up going into the blockbuster season what do you say? >> silver, mel that was from yesterday. okay >> i told you to listen. >> i am listening up amc. i love the new tom cruise top gun maverick and a bunch of other great movies coming out which is why he's focused on amc. i like it, credit suisse likes it they set an $18 target on it just today so i like the upside. it's $10 stock, 18 is a nice target >> nelson has a question for sarat. oil is getting hammered.

will that continue >> i think oil is aany downturn and it will keep on going. so much oil shale production, so much cut before you get a base copper is breaking out above a two-month hig huaw let's start with you. >> yeah. i think it does. i think it continues to play we've seep silver and gold on the move that low interest rate environment, we're hearing some. potentially is it happening. so we get in this low-interest rate environment there will be a rotation out of fiat currencies i think into the metals

that's why i like copper, i like silver, maybe gold's the best. but copper is certainly coming if there's any kind of global growth going on, copper could continue higher. >> all right, scott, how factor technicals into this discussion? >> i think the chart is really interesting. you know, copper really got going in the upside. once it was above the resistance and then above, and you can see this in the start, above the 275 high that it made in july. now it pulled back a little bit today. it's sitting right at that 275 level so we know that that's an important level. that's always really important to the polls the shrink index right now is 60 so there's potentially more room to go to the upside. but between the 275 level and the $3 level, we're pretty much in no man's land >> for more on t mkehearts and all the latest, check out cnbc.com "halftime report" is back with

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there's still another 15% upside reiterating rating raising the market price to 140. it is the call of the day here >> in fact did the exact same thing, put the target up to 140 yesterday. this one's just on fire, mel we know about payments, and so forth and how paypal has dominated the space. they've got competition from libra eventually not right now but it's got people focused on, they're doing extremely well >> the focus of the wedbush report today was the mon monetization can transfer money to you yourself i believe you can do that with bank of america and others why do we need venmo

>> because we don't all bank in the same place >> only because the bad market is enough. because at one point in time - >> the answer is connectivity. >> the answer also is that you look at the usage of venmo is coming from millennials who don't have all the accounts at these big banks. and as they graduate and go to college and keep moving on, venmo installs a base that is trustworthy. there's no value for venmo in paypal today, but that's kind of what the call is to say if you can even make a little bit of money. but at this valuation, i think it's pretty built in already at this price >> all right final trades ahead on "halftime report."

>> final trade time. joe? >> so we were just talking about digital payment solutions. i'm not telling you to buy or sell this stock. i'm telling you to pull it up on your screen. pags pag saggoro >> $15 billion market cap up 145% year-to-date. jim lebenthal? >> i got to speak fast because i don't have enough time to praise cleveland cliffs properly. they beat on earnings, they beat on revenue, they bought back 8% of cap in their market shares. which is scheduled to be online in less than a year.

i don't have enough time keep going >> beat on earnings, cut expenses like the stock that really focused on the mexican trade. i think that's going to be a winner >> john. >> fti this is tech nip it's basically an oil place like it great one. >> by the way, cleveland on the closing bell today "the exchange" starts right now. melissa, thank you very much we'll see you in an hour so here is what ahead. it is the politics versus the data versus the market which one will the fed listen to most as the president and investors ramp up the pressure to cut interest rates? maybe by a full half point it is not just affordability and lack of homes that is becoming the issue vacant properties, abandoned properties can soon take a big toll on the market as well new plus